Islamic Ethics and Migrant Labor in Qatar

This chapter explores how it may be possible to understand the structure and treatment of foreign workers in Qatar in terms of Islamic principles, ethics, and culture. Studies in industrial sociology and organizational psychology have conducted studies of the Islamic work ethic with surveys to determine levels of commitment to work, job satisfaction, and the like. These studies have largely looked toward Muslim employees and managers in Western countries such as European countries and the United State of America, finding Muslim work ethics akin to, or higher than, Protestant and Catholic work ethics. The only reference to migrants is that Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Indian workers use the hawala system for fund transfers, a method that relies upon trust but is not specifically Islamic. Islamic moral principles in practice are a challenge to Islamic assumptions of a harmonious unitary structure of production, an ideal that requires practical solutions in the reality of industrial disputation. © Author