Posted on 12/05/2007 10:05:36 AM PST by 3AngelaD
Suddenly, a new national debate is beginning about the national security, economic and other implications of Persian Gulf potentates using their petrodollars to buy up strategic American assets.... Almost completely unremarked thus far has been a parallel – and in many ways far more insidious – effort to penetrate, influence and dominate America’s capital markets: so-called “Shariah finance.” Shariah is, of course, the term used by adherents to the totalitarian ideology practiced by the Saudi Wahhabis...While it is often depicted by its promoters as Koranic in character, in fact, it is largely man-made, the product of dictates and rulings by caliphs and scholars over many centuries....
As a recent paper by Alex Alexiev, points out, however, Shariah finance is a relatively contemporary innovation. It was not until mid-20th Century that Islamofascist ideologues ...introduced the notion that faithful Muslims must invest their wealth only in vehicles that comply with Shariah’s putative prohibition on interest. In the decades that followed, relatively few in the Muslim world followed this admonition..Until now. In recent years, the windfall revenues flowing to the oil-exporting nations of the Persian Gulf have translated into an opportunity for the Islamists who dominate their societies to enlist the West’s leading financial institutions as partners in promoting Shariah finance. In overseas capital markets and increasingly on Wall Street, “Shariah advisors” are being hired at great cost to bless investment instruments as compliant with this religious code. As a result, three ominous things are occurring:
Shariah finance creates a mechanism for systematically legitimating the underlying, repressive theo-political regimen – and, thereby, advancing its adherents’ bid to govern all Muslims and, in due course, the entire world.
The trouble is that, having embraced one aspect of Shariah, it will be vastly more difficult, if not as a practical matter impossible, to deny Islamist activists their demands to accommodate other aspects...Like Shariah finance, each of these is but a beachhead in the Islamofascists’ patient, determined and ultimately seditious campaign to subvert and supplant Western free societies....under the direction of Shariah advisors, at least 2.5% of the proceeds of the investments they control are donated to Zakat funds. Some of these “charities” have been known to contribute to organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah, the families of suicide bombers in Palestinian communities and Islamist madrassas in places like Pakistan. As investment advisors start promoting Shariah finance vehicles and Islamic indexes like Standard & Poors and Dow Jones, non-Muslim Americans will find themselves tithing to these dubious causes, as well.
Before the Trojan horse of Shariah finance is fully wheeled inside the gates of the American capital markets, federal regulators, corporate boards of directors and U.S. shareholders need to understand whether such investing conforms with the good governance and accountability required under Sarbanes-Oxley, the transparency depositors are entitled to under our banking laws and legislation barring material support to terrorism. To do otherwise is to invite the introduction of the instrument of our undoing into our capitalist system and the freedom-loving society it underpins.
Burn the Horse!
Limit the horse, and the Muslims, to Muslim countries.
What, exactly, is Sharia finance? The author never really gets there.
As I understand it, so-called “Islamic finance” is based on Islam’s prohibition of making money with money (that is, interest), and really is just a way of structuring investments so that money is “technically” made on actual trade, rather than mere investment in financial interests.
I agree that we ought to fight against Sharia in all forms, but I think the article could have done a better job explaining exactly what we’re talking about here.
I don't get it. Do Shariah funds not pay interest? If not, how do you make money by investing in them? And if you don't make money, isn't that kind of a difficult investment product to market?
Maybe the "no interest" thing is gotten around by some goofy loophole. Sort of like the admonitions against lying and murder.
What is brainiac trying to say here? That muslims shouldn't use credit? Article is rather short on specifics and gives no actual examples.
Home mortgages are handled by having a Sharia bank buy the relevant house and then sell it back, on a monthly payment schedule, to the mortgagee plus a rental fee on the use of the house -- identical to a mortgage. A savings account in a Sharia bank is one where the deposited money is invested in only Sharia investments. The returns are dividends and capital gains which are put in a fund that pays out the regular market savings account interest rate. Again, this is not really very different than a standard bank savings account except for the way the funds are invested (definitely not as secure as a bank savings account and certainly not insured by any government.)
The Sharia prohibition on interest was appropriate at the time of Mohammed, as Christianity took the same position. (Jews in both Moslem and Christian societies were relegated to banking.)We now see interest as a rental on money composed of a mix of risk, market pricing and the supply of funds.
Speaking of islamofascist beach-heads:
Right here in Texas, at the University of North Texas, they are planning to establish a department of islamic studies.
Yes, this is the same UNT that not so long ago got rid of their Bible Studies because it was too much like “religion,” doncha know.
See number 7. Also see transcripts of Senate Banking Committee hearings on money laundering.
Is anyone raising hell about that? State Legislature weighed in yet?
Citigroup is one of the biggest promoters of this new sharia financing in the world.
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