Free Republic

After emerging largely unscathed from the financial crisis that hammered North American and European financial institutions, Islamic banking has momentum. Worth $1 trillion in assets, Islamic banking is being lauded by British Prime Minister David Cameron and supported by Canada’s Conservative government, major banks and credit unions, leading business schools and influential Muslims across the country. Islamic banking — which bans interest payments, pure monetary speculation and investing in such things as alcohol, gambling, pornographic media and pork — is being sold as the next big thing in financing for Canada, which is home to just over a million Muslims.

Indian media is reporting that Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi is serving as a key mediator in secret talks between the U.S. and the Taliban. According to an article in The Hindu: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a Doha-based Islamist scholar who once called on his followers to back jihadist groups in Jammu and Kashmir, has emerged as a key mediator in secret talks between the U.S. and the Taliban, government sources have told The Hindu. In 2009, Mr. al-Qaradawi had issued a fatwa, or religious edict, asserting that “the Kashmiris were properly fighting jihad against the Indian army.” The jihad was...

Muslim scholars say the Qur’an prohibits collecting interest on loans. But many banks, both global and local, have found clever ways to meet religious strictures. It’s a system that may be hypocritical, but also profitable. The coverage can be a little bit breathless: “La finance Islamique en plein boom,” Le Figaro reported in September. Yes, Islamic banking, structured along the lines that religion decrees, is in full boom. But is it really banking? And is it really kosher? Islam prohibits the payment of interest on loans, so observant Muslims require specialized alternative arrangements from their banks. Many of the largest...

If “cash is king,” then Middle East coffers are irresistibly enticing. During a recent tour of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt applauded the “growing role” of Arab banks in the U.S. economy. Treasury is seeking buyers for its newly acquired bailout assets because more than $1 trillion in cash is urgently needed to rescue the largest U.S. banks. However, cash from the Arabian Gulf comes with a vital string attached: Islamic banking, erroneously viewed as an ancient practice. In fact, Islamic banking is a newly invented institution: “Neither classical nor medieval Islamic civilization featured...

Information extrapolated and formulated from Blogsphere. The last vestiage of free speech!The subprime predatory lending scheme that engineered the 2008 economic crisisThere are two loan terms in this artcle, one is "micro-finance" and the other is "subprime" loans. Both types of loans are designed to "get rich off the poor" by lending to those who cannot afford them. It has been referred to by some economists as "predatory lending".Though micro-finance loans have been extended to the mortgage industry, subprime loans were already available using the same common "rule-set" for loaning to people with little income and no credit. In...

ANN ARBOR, MI - A federal lawsuit was filed this morning against U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. and the Federal Reserve Board to stop all bailout funds from going to American International Group, Inc. ("AIG"). According to the lawsuit, the U.S. government, through its ownership of AIG, is not only violating the Constitution, but also promoting and financing the destruction of America using American tax dollars. The basis of the lawsuit is that AIG intentionally promotes Shariah-compliant businesses and insurance products, which by necessity must comply with the 1200 year old body of Islamic cannon law based on...

The Japanese government has taken a small but important step toward introducing Islamic finance here amid the global financial crisis triggered by unsustainable subprime loans in the United States. Earlier this month, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) amended financial regulations to let bank subsidiaries handle Islamic finance operations. The Islamic finance market has become increasingly attractive for Japanese, having already grown to about $1 trillion with a potential to reach an estimated $4 trillion. Obviously, "oil money" has been undermined by the global financial crisis. Yet the latest push forward by the FSA strongly suggests that Japan has a growing...

The U.S. Treasury Department is submitting to Shariah --- the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy. As reported in this space last week, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt set the stage with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. His stated purpose was to promote the recycling of petrodollars in the form of foreign investment here. Evidently, the price demanded by his hosts is that the U.S. government get with the Islamist financial program. While in Riyadh, Mr. Kimmitt announced: "The U.S. government is currently studying...

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Radical Islamists not only want to destroy America with bombs and weapons of mass destruction, they also are infiltrating U.S. financial markets and influencing the flow of credit and capital, according to the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a conservative think-tank. CSP President Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration assistant secretary of defense, has launched a national campaign to counter what he calls "an insidious threat" -- shari'a-compliant finance. He says U.S. financial institutions and businesses engaged in shari'a-compliant financing are exposing themselves to civil and criminal liability. That type of investment poses a serious risk not...

Amsterdam: The Dutch government will look into ways to attract Islamic banking to the Netherlands, the finance ministry said in a letter to parliament. "We think there are chances for the Dutch financial sector," said Finance Minister Wouter Bos in a letter on Friday answering questions from lawmakers. "Dubai and London are developing into the international centres for Islamic banking. The Netherlands is fit to also play a role here," Bos added. The finance ministry signalled an increase in the Netherlands in financial products that comply with Islam's ban on interest and the trading of debt. Minister for Integration Ella...

It's time for the United States to limit financial transactions that involve American companies to governance by secular laws. The swelling oil revenues of the Gulf states have created demand from those markets for U.S. investments in banks, real estate and industrial stocks. Most has been invested according to the usual financial guidelines, but the recent surge in revenues has also stimulated the demand to impose Islamic law (sharia) on financial investments.

Banking regulators say they have given permission for the first British-based Islamic bank to start operating. The Islamic Bank of Britain will for the first time give the country's two million Muslims access to banking in accordance with Islam. The bank's headquarters will be in Birmingham, home of one of Britain's biggest Muslim communities. The bank will forbid the paying or charging of interest, which is considered usury and banned under Islam. It has promised not to invest in companies associated with tobacco, alcohol or pornography. British banks have recently started offering products tailored for Muslims but they are all...

Musharraf appeals against Islamic banking Pakistan's military government is desperately trying to stall attempts by the religious right wing to Islamise the country's economy by banning all interest payments, writes Rory McCarthy Friday June 14, 2002 After years of legal wrangles, Pakistan's supreme court last year ordered the government to switch to an Islamic banking system. At the last minute Islamabad convinced the court to delay the decision for another year. Now again a rushed appeal has begun to halt the switch to an interest-free economy due at the start of next month. Hardline clerics, angered by General Pervez Musharraf's...