Category Archives: Shariah Compliant Finance

Sharia banks that fund terrorism

Posted on by
Reply

sharia-bank-terror-relationship

Money Jihad:

The relationship is simple.  Jihadists know they can trust sharia-compliant banks to maintain their anonymity, not ask too many questions, and facilitate high-dollar transactions on behalf of their terrorist groups.  Some Islamic financial institutions, such as National Commercial Bank and Islami Bank Bangladesh, have taken the relationship a step farther by donating a portion of their bank profits in the form of zakat as an act of corporate “charity” to terrorist organizations, or in the case of Al Rajhi, through private zakat donations of leading bankers.  Saudi Arabia and Iran are key bases for these activities, but this is a global phenomenon.  Here’s Money Jihad’s short list of the worst offenders:

Al Rajhi Bank:  The Saudi financial institution has served as the sharia bank of choice for the world’s jihadists, including East Africa embassy bomber Mamduh Mahmud Salim, Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, and organizations like Indonesian Kompak and Al-Haramain.  Bank co-founder Sulaiman Al-Rajhi appeared on the infamous Golden Chain document of Al Qaeda financiers.  These allegations were reinforced by the recent U.S. Senate investigation into HSBC’s correspondent relationships.

Al Shamal Islamic Bank:  Osama Bin Laden co-founded the Al Shamal in Sudan and invested $50 million there.  During the 1990s and early 2000s, Al Qaeda distributed money to its cells through Al Shamal.  Funds passed through Al Shamal were used in preparation for terrorist attacks.

National Commercial Bank:  Offering conventional and sharia banking services, Saudi Arabia’s self-described first, largest, and most prominent bank is NCB.  Among other misdeeds, a Saudi audit revealed that NCB transferred $74 million in the 1990s as zakat through its charitable front organizations to Al Qaeda (see here, here, and here).  Khalid bin Mahfouz, the head of the bank, exploited libel laws to sue author Rachel Ehrenfeld in an effort to silence accusations about his role in financing terrorism.

Arab Bank:  This conventional bank in Jordan maintains a wholly-owned subsidiary (Islamic International Arab Bank PLC) that offers full-range sharia services.  Arab Bank has transferred money on behalf of Comité de Bienfaisance et de Secours aux Palestiniens (CBSP), a notorious French charity, to a known financial subunit of Hamas.  The Jordanian bank has paid out insurance benefits to families of suicide bombers for the Saudi Committee—another charity that funds Hamas.  Arab Bank has handled transactions for the Holy Land Foundation, whose leaders now sit behind bars for financing terrorism.  It has been the subject of American investigations, but the bank has consistently refused to turn over related documents to the U.S.

Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited:  IBBL, Bangladesh’s biggest sharia bank, has handled Wahhabi accounts to propagate radical Islam since its inception.  In 2011, the Bangladeshi home ministry intelligence revealed that 8 percent of the bank’s profits were diverted as corporate zakat to support jihad in Bangladesh.  One of the men on IBBL’s board of sharia advisors was arrested in connection with a terrorist attack against Bangladeshi police officers.  The U.S. Senate slammed British bank giant HSBC for maintaining relationships with IBBL despite evidence that it served terrorists like Shaikh Abdur Rahman of Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh and terror-funding Islamic charities like IIRO.  The Senate’s report also implicated HSBC for disregarding evidence of terror financing at another Bangladeshi sharia bank with whom it worked:  Social Islami Bank.

Bank Melli:  The Iranian Islamic bank sent “at least $100 million to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard branch that supports Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups, the Quds Force” between 2002-06.

Bank Saderat:  Another major Iranian sharia finance house, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the rocket-funding Bank Saderat, stating that “The bank is used by the Government of Iran to transfer money to terrorist organizations, including Hizballah, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A notable example of this is a Hizballah-controlled organization that has received $50 million directly from Iran through Bank Saderat since 2001.”

Other culprits include Dubai Islamic Bank, which is active in both the U.A.E. and Pakistan, and Tadamon Islamic Bank.

So much for “ethical finance.”  For further developments, please continue reading Money Jihad, Shariah Finance Watch, and @moneyjihad on Twitter.

See also:

What You Should Know About Shariah Compliant Finance (counterjihadreport.com)

Muslim MasterCard: Compass pointing to Mecca embedded in new bank card

Posted on by
Reply

Daily Mail:

A compass pointing the way to Mecca is embedded in a new MasterCard aimed at Muslims.

Gulf state-owned bank Al Hillal in the United Arab Emirates has rolled out the new bank card which complies with Islamic laws banning charging interest on loans in a bid to appeal to the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.

Islamic law or Shariah forbids ‘riba’, the charging of interest on loans, because it enables the rich to exploit the poor, creates social and economic tension and encourages risk, according to scholars.

MasterCard spokesman James Issokson said, according to NBCNEWS.com: ‘We continue to see a growing demand, especially in the Middle East, for Islamic banking in general, and more specifically in our case, for cards that are Shariah-compliant in accordance with the tenets of the Islamic faith.’

As well as the compass which allows the cardholder to orientate themselves towards prayers five times a day, the new MasterCard has other benefits.

Cardholders have access to travel vouchers to pay for the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca, which Muslims are required to do at least once in their lifetime if they have the means.

Mr Issokson said: ‘A percentage of the money spent using the card is donated to local charities.’

Read more

Money Jihad – Seven ways to stop funding terror

Posted on by
2

Money Jihad:

Money Jihad has previously proposed methods to limit zakat and hawala—two major mechanisms for funding terror.  Here’s a more comprehensive set of our recommendations that would reduce terrorist financing overall:

  1. Drill, baby, drill.  The U.S. should expand offshore oil drilling, open federal lands for drilling, ease its permitting process for new refineries, encourage hydraulic fracturing methods that tap previously inaccessible energy sources underground, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline.  Increasing domestic U.S. and Western Hemisphere energy production will reduce reliance on Persian Gulf oil supplies and thereby minimize the profits reaped by hostile, foreign regimes that sponsor terror.
  2. Eliminate foreign aid to Pakistan.  Pakistan uses its ISI spy service to fund the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.  Continuing to waste money on Pakistan is not only wasteful when we can least afford it, but it is suicidal.
  3. Study the true enemy and threat.  Among the most important concepts for the Western public to understand are:

    If we fail to acknowledge Islam as the animating force behind terror finance, we’ll get confused and aim at the wrong targets.  For example, we’ve spent billions of dollars complying with extensive bureaucratic requirements such as currency reports that have yielded minimal results.

  4. Launch a new offensive against Muslim American charities and entities that fund terrorism.  Pick a few of the highest profile ones and make an example of them by prosecuting their leaders and dressing them in orange jumpsuits.  Prosecute Islamic Relief USA under the laws against providing material support for terrorism.  Prosecute the Council on American-Islamic Relations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  Strip the halal food certifier IFANCA and the mosque deed financier North American Islamic Trust of their tax-exempt status.
  5. Tax hawala. Terrorists use the traditional Islamic money transfer system known as hawala to exchange money without being monitored.  Hawala dealers in the U.S. are required to register with FinCEN, a financial regulator, but about 85 percent of hawaladars ignore the requirement.  Imposing a simple one percent tax on hawala remittances would help put hawala under the jurisdiction of tax authorities rather than financial regulators who focus more attention on large banks than on small money services businesses.  A one percent tax would be a mild, positive step in beginning to track the transactions to countries that intend us harm.
  6. Designate ISI and Muslim World League as terrorist entities.  Pakistan funds jihadists through its ISI intelligence agency.  Saudi Arabia funds Hamas, Al Qaeda, and other Wahhabi movements abroad through the Muslim World League (MWL) which is comprised of eight subdivisions including the notorious International Islamic Relief Organization and the World Assembly for Muslim Youth.  The U.S. should declare the ISI and MWL to be foreign terrorist organizations in the same fashion that the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps has been designated.
  7. Stop paying ransoms to jihadists.  Enforce U.N. Resolution 1904 which prohibits paying ransoms to terrorists or broker a new treaty banning the payment by governments or insurance companies of ransoms to specified terrorist groups.  Al Qaeda affiliates, the Taliban, Abu Sayyaf other jihadist organizations have made millions of dollars in the kidnap-for-ransom business.  Discourage recreational travel by Westerners to locations such as Somalia, Yemen, and the southern Philippines.

Any one of these proposals alone could help reduce terrorist revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other analysts have proposed improving and standardizing financial regulations, adopting conditions-based aid rather than open-ended foreign aid through the use of millennium challenge accounts, encouraging divestment and terror-free investing, promoting alternative energy sources, enacting harsher sanctions against Iran, a putting a greater focus on the prosecution of white collar financial crimes.

Ultimately, you have to examine the biggest sources of revenue for jihad, then look at what actions would be likeliest to reduce those revenue streams.

Home Ownership In America, The Sharia Way…

Posted on by
2

By Steve Russo:

Hello America, Are You Sharia Compliant? Yes, New Laws and New Businesses Are! Don’t Be Left Behind, Get On Board! Welcome To The New America and Don’t Complain, or You’ll Be Called An Islamophobe! The White Washing Of Sharia Law In America.

Home Ownership the Sharia Way…
Whether you want to buy a new home or lower your monthly mortgage payments, getting Sharia compliant financing is easier than you think. Apply now and take advantage of our free prequalification consultation today.
http://guidanceresidential.com/islamic-home-finance-sharia-compliant?gclid=CJDpt-f2qrECFQGFnQodp04AHw

When searching for something unrelated last night, I stumbled upon this little gem and had to admit, I was surprise, but not shocked. Yes, like it or not, Sharia has taken root in America. And before one says, “It doesn’t concern me, I’m not Muslim!” Those famous last words will come back to haunt you. For radical Islam doesn’t just move in and take over in one week. It takes a series of baby steps and sits and waits (like cancer) and takes over slowly and uses the laws of it’s host against them. And then…. Boom! Hello Sharia! Ask the UK, France, Italy, Sweden, Demark and a host of other European, African and Asian Countries, How that has worked out for them.

Here’s a few small examples….

“We’re Not in Sweden Anymore” …
A European country goes down the tube while anyone daring to point this out gets slurred as a ‘Nazi’. http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ingrid-carlqvist/taking-sweden-back/

Political Correctness Is Transforming British Education ……
To accommodate Muslim sensibilities, schools in the UK are having to ignore fact and teach fiction. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3170/british-education-political-correctness

Malaysian Prime Minester: Under Sharia, LGBT Community ‘Will Not Be Tolerated’…
http://www.bikyamasr.com/73189/homosexuality-will-not-be-tolerated-in-malaysia-says-pm/

‘Canadian Women Should Cover Up to Protect from Sex Attacks’
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/07/16/muslim-street-cleric-wants-to-protect-canadian-women-from-sex-assault-by-forcing-them-to-cover-up

Pa. Judge’s Ruling Proof of Sharia Law in US Courts?
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/February/Pa-Judges-Ruling-Proof-of-Sharia-Law-in-US-Courts-/

California High Court Judge Has Muslim Brotherhood Link?…
http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/californias-first-muslim-superior-court-judge-led-muslim-brotherhood-founded-student-group/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Many Muslims are loyal to the non-Muslim countries in which they live, of course, but it is in spite of Islamic teaching.  Unlike other faiths, Islam is not just a religion but a political system as well.  The state is intended to be inseparable from religious rule.  Islamic law, or Sharia, is complete and not designed to coexist with or be subordinate to other legal systems.

Muslims are not meant to be ruled by non-Muslims.  The Qur’an is very clear that they are to resist unbelievers by any means until Islam establishes political supremacy.  This doesn’t mean that everyone must be forced to become Muslim, but rather that everyone must submit to Muslim rule.

Qur’an (5:3) – “This day have I perfected your religion for you.”  This verse is often interpreted to mean that any government outside of Sharia is unnecessary at best, and corruptive at worst.

Example: Islam- Questions and Answers: What is the ruling on standing when the national anthem is played, or when the flag is saluted if you are a Muslim?  http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/111877

Islamic Sharia Law is a political system that contravenes American freedoms in numerous ways.  Sharia asserts authority over non-Muslims.  It mandates discrimination, harassment, and second-class status for both non-Muslims and women. It denies free speech … under the guise of ‘hate speech laws.

Islamic law is absolutely incompatible with democracy.  It is a theocratic system with Allah alone at its head.  Allah’s law is interpreted by a ruling body of clerics.  There is no room for a secular political system in which all people are treated as equals.

In fact, concerns about sharia are warranted due to its many provisions that conflict with the standards of American jurisprudence.  For example, it disadvantages women in terms of inheritance, divorce, child custody and other areas of family law.  Sharia already has shaped numerous cases … where one state court decided how assets should be distributed according to Islam.  Islam’s foundational and doctrinal texts simply do not uphold the concept that all men (and women) are created equal under God.  Thus, in any proceeding governed by sharia law, a woman’s testimony is worth only half that of a man’s.  Furthermore, under the sections of sharia law civil code governing marriage and child custody, a marriage contract is between the woman’s father (or other male guardian) and her husband. http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/37647

Islam has the right to move to destroy impediments, whether systems or circumstances, that rob the person of the freedom to choose [Islam]” and that “Muslims should reject [democracy] entirely, for it is filthy.

Islamic law ultimately requires the subjugation of non-Muslims, and ‘freedom of religion’ for Muslims essentially means the freedom to make others unfree.  Other religious denominations (not Hindus or Buddhists for whom no legal status exists) are to be reduced to dhimmi status, as a protected but politically immature minority.

If instead of sharia law, one were to insert Nazism, then Islamic totalitarian political, social, and economic postures become clear.  Yet superficial writing, authorial naïveté, yellow journalism, and outright obfuscation and lies are permitting this insidious system to creep into American society.  Thus, Americans need to continue the long-term project of informing themselves about sharia. … Likewise all politicians must learn to speak more precisely about Islamic law, carefully distinguishing between practices that are protected by the U.S. Constitution and those that are not, thus minimizing the confusion that Islamists exploit.

To quote the 20th century cleric, Sayyid Qutb, “It is Allah and not man who rules.  Allah is the source of all authority, including legitimate political authority.  Virtue, not freedom, is the highest value.  Therefore, Allah’s law, not man’s, should govern the society.”

Islamic law is based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah, which are set and fixed.  There is no need for addition or correction.  Neither is there any room for the law of fallible man (particularly non-Muslims).  Nor should it take the place of Allah’s perfect law, which tells a man everything he needs to know about daily life (down to which hand he should “hold it in” while urinating).

If Allah is not the authority then anything less is a secular dictatorship, including rule by the Muslim people.  As an American-Muslim jurist complained in a recent fatwa, “democracy gives free reign to the authority of the Ummah, and puts no ceiling on it.”

Also, the law of one person, one vote is essential to democracy, but heretical to Islam.  According to the Qur’an, the testimony of a woman is worth only half that of a man, and Jews and Christians are never to have equal standing with Muslims under the law (and certainly never in a position of authority over Muslims).  Atheists are to be killed outright.

Muhammad ruled on Allah’s authority and did not submit his decisions to the will of the people.  Neither is there any tradition of democracy in the 1400 year history of Islam in the Middle East and Persia.  If the entire world became Muslim overnight, it is highly doubtful that democracy would last, since it would be applicable only to the most mundane of matters not already decided by Islamic law.

Keep all of this mind, as you watch America change before your eyes… One creeping step at a time!

As another cleric, Sufi Muhammad, recently put it, “True Islam permits neither elections, nor democracy.” http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/islamists-triumph-in-swat-valley-bowing-down-to-the-taliban-a-609575.html

Whitewashing Religious Law for Youngsters….. http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/whitewashing_religious_law_for_youngsters.html

Shariah Law and American State Courts: An Assessment of State Appellate Court Cases..
http://shariahinamericancourts.com/

The Case for Banning Sharia Law in America
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/the_case_for_banning_sharia_law_in_america.html

No Surprise Here: Useful Idiots at HSBC turned blind eye to terrorist money

Posted on by
1

SFW:

Regular readers of SFW know that we are no fans of HSBC.

After all, HSBC has been at the forefront of the financial jihad to facilitate Shariah-compliant finance on a global scale.

Moreover, HSBC employed the Jihadist monster Mufti Taqi Usmani as the chair of their Shariah Advisory Board. Then, when the heat over that relationship became too hot, they cynically replaced him…with his son. We detailed all of this over the past couple of years:

http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2009/02/27/hsbcs-shariah-man/

http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2010/03/09/mufti-taqi-usmani-no-longer-chief-of-hsbcs-shariah-advisory-board/

Given HSBC’s association with Jihadists like Usmani and their deep involvement with the promotion of Shariah, the fact that they have proven to be lax at compliance with counterterrorism money laundering laws and regulations should come as no surprise. That too is a topic that we have covered here on SFW:

Like the time that they were fined $1 billion for lax money laundering compliance:

http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2011/05/24/hsbc-to-be-fined-1-billion-for-lax-money-laundering-compliance/

In fact, there is no doubt that HSBC is the Western world’s chief enabler of Jihad and Shariah:

http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2012/05/04/hsbc-leading-western-enabler-of-financial-jihad/

On top of all this OLD news, we have fresh reports that HSBC has not learned its lesson at all. In fact, HSBC appears to have been hard at work doing the same things for which they have been fingered in the past. A report released yesterday by the US Senate details HSBC’s deplorable record when it comes to vigilance in the areas of terrorism and other nefarious activities. It almost seems as if HSBC was the bank of choice for evil when you read about their history and couple it with the Senate report.

The worst part and probably the biggest smoking gun that HSBC cannot dismiss these charges as simply a matter of carelessness? How about THOUSANDS of transactions involving the Islamic Republic of Iran in violation of sanctions!

Again, this should come as no surprise. After all, Iran is the world’s most active state sponsor of Jihadist terrorism and also dominates the world of Shariah-compliant finance. Seems like a natural fit for the useful idiots (and perhaps worse) at HSBC:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/16/news/companies/hsbc-money-laundering/index.htm

 

Shariah-Compliant Finance Forecast to Reach $5 trillion by 2016

Posted on by
1

Shariah Finance Watch:

The global Islamic finance and banking sector is pegged at $1 trillion with an estimated growth rate that is four times higher than conventional financial services, according to organizers of the upcoming International Islamic Finance Conference 2012. This will put the value of Shariah-Compliant assets at $5 trillion by 2016…

Source: http://www.ameinfo.com/islamic-finance-set-reach-5-trillion-304950

 

You may be wondering – Does Your Financial Institution Participate in Shariah Compliant Finance?

The most common requests we receive here at SFW are questions as to whether banks or brokerage houses “are Shariah-compliant?”

As a result of these numerous inquiries, for the past several weeks, we have carefully compiled a list of financial institutions active in the USA that have some form of tie to Shariah Compliant Finance.

In some cases, the entire institution is Shariah-compliant. In other cases, the overall institution is not Shariah-compliant but it has a division or subsidiary that is, or it offers a product that is Shariah-compliant. In still more cases, some of the entities listed below do not offer financial products at all, but play key roles in enabling Shariah Compliant Finance in the West.

We went to great lengths to confirm each of the names listed below. However, there may be institutions that we have overlooked. We encourage readers to contact us with questions, comments and criticisms via the Comments section below:

Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions

AIG

Amana Mutual Funds Trust

Ameen Housing Cooperative

Bank of America

Anchor Finance Group

Arcapita

Al-Baraka Bancorp

Barclays

Beam Capital Management

Bloomberg

The BMB Group

BNP Paribas

Calyx Financial

Century 21

J.P. Morgan Chase

CIMB Group

CitiBank

Clearstream

The Coca-Cola Company

Credit Suisse

Deloitte

Deutsche Bank

Devon Bank

Dow Jones

Ernst & Young

Failaka Advisors

The Fairfax Institute

Fiqh Council of North America

Fitch Ratings

GE Capital

Goldman Sachs

Guidance Financial

Guidance Residential

Harvard Law School

HSBC

Idealratings.com

Iman Fund/Allied Asset Advisors

Ijara Loans

International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

International Islamic Financial Market

International Shariah Research Academy for Islamic Finance (ISRA)

Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB)

KPMG

LARIBA

Merrill Lynch & Co.

Moody’s Investor Services

Morgan Stanley

Bank of New York Mellon

NASDAQ

Natwest

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)

Shariah Capital

Standard Chartered Bank

Standard & Poor’s

Thomson Reuters

UBS

UIB Capital

University Islamic Financial Corporation

Virji Investments

Wafra Investment Advisory Group

Wellington Management

Westlaw

Bank of Whittier

Wolters Kluwer Financial Services

World Islamic Economic Forum

Zayan Takaful

Chris Holton: Shariah Compliant Finance and Financial Jihad

Posted on by
Reply

June  6, 2012 by 

CLICK HERE FOR A TRANSCRIPT OF THIS VIDEO [PDF]: http://supportsecurefreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/christopherholtonf…

Christopher Holton is Vice President for Outreach at the Center for Security Policy. He directs the Center’s Divest Terror Initiative and Shariah Risk Due Diligence Program. He has been involved in legislation in 20 states to divest taxpayer-supported pension systems from foreign companies that do business with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Sudan and the Syrian Arab Republic. Since 2008, Holton has been the editor-in-chief of the Shariah Finance Watch blog.

In 2005, Holton was a co-author of War Footing, published by the US Naval Institute Press. Holton’s work has also been published by National Review, Human Events, American Thinker, Family Security Matters, BigPeace, World Tribune, WorldNetDaily, Newsmax and The Hayride.com. Before joining the Center, Holton was President of Blanchard and Company, a $200 million per year investment firm and editor in chief of the Blanchard Economic Research Unit.

Related article:

Holton to Congress:  Currently no disclosure or transparency standards for zakat, sharia products (Money Jihad)

Shariah Finance And Its Radical Ties Demand Close Scrutiny

Posted on by
4

 

By REP. ALLEN B. WEST at IBD:

As a vehicle for legitimizing and promoting Shariah throughout the world, Shariah-compliant finance is a phenomenon that is taking the financial world by storm right under the noses of American investors.

Given the stated mission of Shariah is to bring about the rule of Islam worldwide, anything that promotes the Shariah mission warrants careful scrutiny. American investors deserve to know where their money is being invested, and the fact that their hard-earned dollars could be helping fund the very radical terrorist groups that are seeking to destroy this nation is shocking.

It is vital that we come to grips and recognize not just the kinetic aspects of radical Islam, but also the idea of “stealth jihad,” which can infiltrate our operating systems.

Shariah is an Arabic term used to describe Islamic doctrinal law regarded in the Islamic world as immutable, indivisible and mandatory for all Muslims to follow in all aspects of life.

Shariah mandates as a religious obligation:

•  Violent jihad against non-Muslims to establish Islam’s rule worldwide.

•  The killing of apostates from Islam.

•  The killing of adulterers and homosexuals.

•  Severe discrimination against women, including stoning.

•  Barbaric punishment, such as limb amputations and gouging out of eyes for petty crimes like theft.

•  Severe discrimination against, and the subjugation of, non-Muslims.

•  Last, and most pertinent to this subject, is Shariah mandates that Muslims who cannot engage in physical jihad using force, must support jihad with money.

Shariah is at the heart of the ideology of terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, Hezbollah, Hamas and other jihadist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and those who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on American soil and continue to terrorize and threaten Americans and their way of life.

Many well-known American banking financiers and institutions are involved in Shariah finance for the lure of substantial profits from Middle Eastern petrodollars.

But Shariah finance is not just an innocent form of free-market capitalism. Shariah finance was conceived and is practiced as one of the key instruments of the radical Islamist movement in its struggle against the West.

An astounding $1.5 trillion is currently invested in Shariah finance, and that amount is expected to grow dramatically in the years ahead — thanks largely to the ever-increasing coffers of oil-exporting nations ruled by Shariah, including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Scrutiny, however, is something Shariah-compliant finance has never had to endure from American policymakers. Shariah finance is almost completely alien from the standards of disclosure and transparency customary in the U.S. and other Western financial markets.

A small cadre of Shariah advisers — Muslim authorities on Shariah — determine capital and credit flows with little, if any, of the accountability at the heart of federal and state securities laws. This gives rise to unique risks for Western firms engaging in Shariah-compliant finance, including racketeering, anti-trust, and securities and consumer fraud.

Shariah advisers to the banks are themselves the real problems with Shariah-compliant finance. All too often, they are outright jihadists with ties to terrorism. In fact, the most prominent Shariah scholar in the financial world — a Pakistani named Mufti Taqi Usmani — sits on the Shariah advisory boards of some of America’s best-known banking institutions.

Usmani referred to Americans in Iraq as “stinking atheists” and “the worst-ever butchers and vultures of the world” who are “clawing off the flesh of bodies of innocent Iraqi Muslims.”

Until his hateful, jihadist militant credo was exposed to the public, Usmani headed HSBC’s Shariah advisory board, as well as that of Dow Jones. This shows how unaware and reckless the financial world actually is when it comes to true due diligence on Shariah-compliant finance.

It should be pointed out that when Usmani was removed from HSBC’s Shariah advisory board, he was replaced by his own son. Usmani is still active on the Shariah advisory boards of U.S. and Western firms, including Guidance Financial Group, Swiss RE, Arcapita and UBS-Warburg.

Shariah-compliant finance affords Shariah advisers the opportunity to channel funds skimmed off investments in the form of “zakat” to terrorist charities of their choice. This is exactly what happened in the case of Bank Al Taqwa and Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Sunni Islamic world’s foremost Shariah scholar.

Qaradawi was chairman of the Shariah advisory board of the bank, which was shut down by the U.N. and the U.S. Treasury Department for funneling money to jihadist terrorist organizations, including Ayman al-Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Much of the money came through a Shariah-compliant real estate firm in New Jersey named BMI.

Shariah-compliant finance should be seen by regulators, the financial sector and investors alike as problematic in the extreme. It is inconsistent with America’s constitutional principles, legal codes and financial regulations that require transparency and disclosure of risks that are material to investors, particularly in the post-9/11 world.

The true nature of Shariah must be fully revealed. In the absence of such transparency and disclosure, Americans are in jeopardy of aiding and abetting economic warfare in the form of financial jihad against our own country.

Shariah finance is a grave matter of concern for America as it impacts not only our economic security, but also our national security.

• West, a Republican, represents Florida’s 22nd congressional district. He spent 22 years as an officer in the Army, including multiple tours in the Middle East.

Islam’s Cloud Over America

Posted on by
1

 

Justin O. Smith

by Justin O Smith

President Obama, Governor Haslam and a host of state and local officials fiddle, while the flames of Sharia law and Sharia finance dance across the State of Tennessee and all America; and, it is now evident that Nathan Buttrey was less than forthcoming with the facts when I spoke with him on June 8th. However harmless the ‘Tennessean’, reporter Chas Sisk, Clint Brewer or Nathan Buttrey and the Gov’s office tries to portray Ms Samar Ali’s appointment to the Economic Community Development office, it definitely does warrant greater scrutiny.

As reported in ‘Shariah Finance Watch’ by Frank Gaffney, ‘Washington Times’ columnist and ex-Assistant Deputy Secretary of  Defense, on June 7th and corroborated in the ‘Tennessean’ on June 13th, Ms Ali specialized in “Shariah compliant transactions”, and she has advocated and facilitated Sharia finance deals as an associate for Hogan Lovells in Washington, DC. She structured deals so that they respected Islam’s ban on collecting interest.

Sharia finance is considered “dawa”/missionary activity by the World Islamic Economic Forum, “a trade association for Muslims”. More accurately, Sharia finance is financial “jihad”/holy war and it is a first step towards inserting Sharia law into any nation. Quite often in Muslim transactions, “zakat”, a tithe of sorts is requested to be sent to specific organizations or charities in lieu of interest, and far too often these funds aid fundamental terrorists… enemies of America, just as the case of CAIR’s Holy Land Foundation illustrated perfectly. This is the same financial system that gave rise to the Taliban through “zakat” from Prince Turki al-Faisal, the director of Saudi intelligence.

Regardless of the “spurious” nature Brewer and Gov Haslam’s RHINOs may attach to the contention of many that Ms Ali’s activities in the ECD should be closely monitored and her past Sharia finance deals reviewed, it is specious and base ignorance for Brewer, Buttrey and the Gov’s office to assert that Ms Ali’s duties “have nothing to do with Shariah law-or even finance.” They are asking us to abandon logic, common sense and reason, as they advance a ludicrous and erroneous assumption that as the international director of Tennessee’s trade program she could not possibly be in a position to advance Sharia finance proposals… What better place if not an international trade program to do just that?!?

It truly is well and good that Ms Ali has “encouraged dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian youth” through the YMCA; I am overjoyed that she has worked with Homeland Security, a network rife with Muslim Brotherhood members and Hamas sympathizers… led by Janet Napolitano, who would not know a terrorist from Obama if he were laying beside her in her boudoir; and, it is great that she has a law degree from Vanderbilt which has become a supporter of every anti-American, anti-Christian Left-Muslim agenda imagineable. I hope and pray that she is as patriotic and all-American as described, but I don’t believe anyone who does anything, even in the remotest sense, to promote Sharia finance within the US can really have America’s best interests at heart or truly love America as I do!

Don’t You wonder, “Why is Islam and everything Muslim being advocated so stridently and advanced at all levels of US government over all other religions?… contrary to the U.S. Constitution. And, why does the Left preach “multiculturalism” only for Muslims?… never for the Hindus or the Buddhists or the Christians.

America has steadily witnessed an increased Islamic “cultural exchange”/invasion largely at the behest of the Saudi government. The Saudis state that if America desires them to be more tolerant of the western civilization that America, too, must become more tolerant of Islam: in essence, they ask the US to accept the design of its own destruction by compromising the principles of freedom with the evil and subjugation of Islam.

Obama’s “fundamental transformation” includes making democracy inert and turning the US into a nation where everything can be stated except the Truth, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushes the UN’s 16/18 Resolution down our throats at the behest of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation… a resolution that not only criminalizes criticizing Islam, but it also incorporates every detail of the Cairo Convention: Along with the inalienable right to practice their “religion”/ideology and habits, Muslim immigrants shall have the right to propogate and disseminate Islamic ”religion” and habits… Understand?! The Cairo Convention would force the US to cooperate with Islamic nations and allow Sharia law into US banking/financial, scientific/nuclear, industrial and commercial fields. The US has not ratified this yet, however, Obama has stepped ahead on his own.

Far too many initiatives are taken in favor of the minority Islamic ”religion” at the expense of the minority. Companies like Whirlpool, Dell and Tyson comply with the Islamic request for liturgical accomodations for Muslim employees. The predominantly Polish and Catholic city of Detroit has a noise ordinance that forbids the peal of Christian church bells, while the Muslim minority is allowed to broadcast their noisy prayers from 6am to 10pm. And finally, not too many years ago, America witnessed the phony liberals who like the Talibans took delight as they forced the removal of the Ten Commandments from the Birmingham Courthouse, because Muslims complained that they had been written by “the Jew Moses.” Lest anyone has forgotten, Our American Heritage is Judeo-Christian principles and Western philosophies!

The Left-Muslim alliance proposes to tear America from its Judaic-Christian roots, and during the past twenty years, I am certain it has seemed to many Americans that the Nazi Sigrid Hunke’s ’Allahs Sonne uber dem Abenland’ (The Sun of Allah Shines Over the West) was becoming our societal reality… one where the Islamofascists ”free America from Christianity” and the Jews and infidels are “eliminated in a hurry.” Does anyone besides me feel like you are watching a Wermacht parade in front of the Reichstag?!?

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Upholds Government’s Use of Taxpayer Funds to Support Sharia

Posted on by
2

AFLC: On June 1, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that a federal taxpayer lacks “standing” to challenge the government’s use of taxpayer funds to support sharia-based activities.  The case, which is captioned on appeal as Murray v. United States Department of Treasury, et al., was brought by American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) attorneys David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise, representing the plaintiff, Kevin Murray, a taxpayer and former combat Marine who served in Iraq.  The federal lawsuit alleged that the U.S. government’s takeover and financial bailout of AIG was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Specifically, at the time of the government bailout (beginning in September 2008 and continuing to the present), AIG was (and still is) the world leader in promoting sharia-compliant insurance products.  As the Sixth Circuit acknowledged in its opinion today, “‘Sharia’ refers to Islamic law based on the teachings of the Quran.  It is the Islamic code embodying the way of life for Muslims and is intended to serve as the civic law in Muslim countries.”  Indeed, sharia is the legal doctrine that demands capital punishment for apostasy and blasphemy and provides the legal and political mandates for global jihad followed religiously by the world’s Muslim terrorists.  As argued by AFLC, by propping up AIG with taxpayer funds, the U.S. government is directly and indirectly promoting Islam and, more troubling, sharia.  And as the Sixth Circuit noted in its opinion, Murray objects to his tax money being used to support sharia because it “forms the basis for the global jihadist war against the West and the United States.”

AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel Robert Muise argued the case before the Sixth Circuit.  Muise commented, “This decision by the Sixth Circuit is troubling on many levels.  First, it is contrary to controlling U.S. Supreme Court precedent, which allows a taxpayer to challenge a congressional spending program that violates the Establishment Clause.  And second, this decision permits the federal government to continue its practice of promoting and supporting sharia through the use of taxpayer funds.  We intend to request a rehearing by the full court, and if that does not succeed, we will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.”

After a year of document requests, depositions of current and former government witnesses, and three separate subpoenas issued to AIG and the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Yerushalmi and Muise filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the undisputed facts demonstrate that the government, through its absolute control and ownership of AIG, and with tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, has directly and indirectly promoted and supported sharia as a religious legal doctrine in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Indeed, in its opinion, the Sixth Circuit acknowledged that “AIG subsidiaries ensure the Sharia-compliance of its SCF products by obtaining consultation from ‘Sharia Supervisory Committees.’  The members of these committees are authorities in Sharia law and oversee the implementation of SCF products by reviewing AIG’s operations, supervising the development of SCF products, and evaluating the compliance of these products with Sharia law.”  The court acknowledged that “AIG’s subsidiaries received a significant portion of the funds AIG received from the federal government” and that “[s]ix AIG subsidiaries have marketed and sold SCF products since AIG began receiving capital injections from the federal government.”  And most important, the court acknowledged that “[n]either party disputes that Treasury Department financing supported all of AIG’s businesses, including the subsidiaries that marketed SCF products.”

AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi remarked, “It is one thing that our government felt compelled to bail out AIG after its fortunes were destroyed due to the company’s own recklessness and bad acts.  It is quite another thing to use U.S. taxpayer dollars to promote and support AIG’s sharia businesses ? all of which don’t just sell sharia products to the Muslim world, but actively promote sharia as the best, most ethical way of life.  Indeed, the sharia authorities relied upon by AIG’s Sharia Supervisory Committees actively promote violent jihad.  The fact that the Sixth Circuit acknowledged these facts, but yet found no standing to challenge this impermissible use of taxpayer money under the Constitution is troubling, but this fight is not yet over.”