The first Sharia-compliant financial institution in the U.S. No doubt the first of many more to come. From the Bahrain Tribune, with thanks to Twostellas:
The President and Chairman of Ann Arbor's University Bank, Stephen Lange Ranzini, has announced the formation of the first US Shari'ah-compliant subsidiary called University Islamic Financial Corporation (UIFC).UIFC is capitalised with $15.5 million in shareholder equity and assets and is the first-ever US Islamic banking subsidiary to be formed....
Ranzini said: "This transaction represents a major milestone in the bank's Islamic activities and gives us the resources to put us on an accelerated growth curve."...
I simply can't see US banks doing this for, say, traditional Catholics.
Whenever orthodox Christians protest the prevailing culture they are met with mocking, derision, and outright hatred. Can you imagine the response if they were to demand their own bank!!! Look at the media hell that Ave Maria Law School had to go through (still goes through).
Sad to say, but Christians are becoming 3rd class citizens in our own lands. In time Muslim populations will have the whip hand over Western man. Unless, that is, we take up the sword against invaders and tyrants.
By the way, non-Islamic banks should do their Muslim customers a favor. Rather than expose them to the temptation of receiving interest, which is forbidden, they should instead simply not credit that interest to accounts held by Muslims. The money should either be kept by the bank, or credited to the accounts of non-Muslims who are not offended by the idea of interest, or possibly contributed to a non-denominational charity, such as the United Way or the Red Cross (non-denominational, despite its name).
Then everyone -- Muslim and non-Muslim -- should be happy.
Does this Islamic bank do business ONLY with Muslims?
This is creeping Sharia.
You're right, Stuka, look what Ave Maria Law School has to go through.
I know that this can't happen, but in a real world it would:
The USDOJ and U.S. Civil Rights Commission must immediately launch independent investigations into what Sharia-compliance entails.
If federal laws are violated, the new bank must be decertified for operations in the States, and its officers prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Since we are considered ‘invaders’ and ‘illegal occupiers’ overseas in Iraq (not to mention Israeli citizens who have lived their entire lives in Israel and considered the same) can’t we consider anything that’s Sharia-compliant the same towards us? Is it too unbelievable to consider this banking operation as ‘invaders’ and ‘illegal occupiers’?
Not to condone violence, but since violence is all that is understood by these miscreants, when will someone blow this banking institution up? C’mon, people –where’s your anger? Where’s your backbone? For that matter, I can’t say that I’d really shed too many tears if mosques around the country started exploding like Jiffy Pop popcorn kernels!
Does it take some underground movement of vigilante ‘anti-Islamic extremists’ (Infidel jihadists?!?) to take up the noble fight for our culture’s survival? It might, considering anyone and everyone these days seems hell-bent on giving up our freedoms and selling us out to pompous bigots who demand (and get) our money in order to turn around and fund even more bigotry and hatred towards our way of life. Seriously, what has to happen? If we were being invaded by another country, there would be entire armies of good ol’ boys packing up their 4-wheelers with enough firepower to bring down King Kong, so what has to happen? Enemy paratroopers falling out of the sky? Guess what …it’s happening right now! We’re being invaded even as we speak!
The government won’t do anything but make matters worse. The Muslims won’t do anything to reform Islam and just sit back smugly saying nothing, so there’s often no telling where they stand on the matter. Apparently, due to the significant amount of blasé that’s running amok in this country, there’s nobody willing to do anything. It sucks, but it’s eventually going to come down to someone taking matters into their own hands, blowing up a few establishments on their own, quite possibly getting caught and going away to prison for a long, long time and being labeled a nutjob as he’s being interviewed by Barbara Walters on his way to prison as he’s dragged away yelling and screaming about the corruption in the government and the horrors of Islam encroaching upon our shores and painting an awful picture of America’s future if we continue down this dark path we’ve unintentionally placed ourselves on.
Sure, more and more seem to be waking up to the horrors being committed around the world thanks to Mo’s lineage (1300 plus years …we here in the West must be AWFULLY sleepy!) but it’s not enough and by the time we all fully realize what’s going on, it may be too late.
No, I don’t condone violence, but if something were to happen to this banking institution or to CAIR’s headquarters or the many, many mosques around the country …I just might have to dance in the streets and pass out candy to children, as unbelievable as that may sound.
It may be the first, but it likely won't be the last...
They did it wrong by opening a bank, but they will probably be able to keep it open.
What they should have done is created a credit union. The credit union is open for banking to a specific defined member group i.e. muslims, or arab immigrants, or members of CAIR, unions, employees of a certain group.
In this way, there are no violations because it fulfills credit union guidelines.
illustr8rg8r,
Surely you can think of more creative ways to make life miserable for certain over-sensitive people in our ranks, can't you? Inspired by Hugh from last night's "new French resistance" post, I'm thinking along the lines of gonzo-graffiti-cartooning. Imagine: dead of night, all you have is a box of pastels and a tiny pin light to hold in your mouth while you draw those terribly offensive cartoons all over town.
The local paper picks it up - people start talking...could be the start of something big.
I wonder how the bank will manage to pay its salaires to its employees...
After all
You cant charge interest - unislamic
You cant recieve interest from any unislamic funds
You cant have non muslim customers
You cant associate with non muslims.. so much for inter banking initiatives..
What do you have left?
I dont see how they will even survive without a massive influx of money from the saudis...
Islamic banks charge interest, they merely disguise it by frontloading it for large purchases (homes, cars, planes). Frontloaded interest means that the interest is part of the loan, and the borrower is stuck paying off unearned interest, even if he pays off the loan early. Kind of like those 0% interest car loans uses to promote car sales. The interest is actually included in the sale price..as the loan is then sold (at discount) by the dealer to the likes of Chase or Citicorps.
For credit cards and unsecured loans the Islamic Banks charge interest but they call it "profit rate".
They have to, otherwise there is no incentive to loan money as it is too risky, and without interest (profit) there is no incentive to loan.
I wonder if depositors receive "profit" on their deposits..without any profit (interest) incentive there is no incentive to deposit or save.
Thanks, Nariz, for explaining how it's done. I was just pondering how they could possibly afford to run a bank without charging or paying interest, but as you have outlined, it's all smoke and mirrors.
"Profit rate"/"Interest Rate", what's the diff? Why would they be in such denial over what it is? Silly superstitions and anal laws seem to rule a Muslim's life to a fanatical degree. But it's part of that whole "separateness" that they so desire. Now, with Islamic banks, they have another place where they don't have to be around us filthy kafir.
And we have silly governments wondering what they can do to help Muslims integrate. LOL! They don't want to integrate! They want to keep as far away from us as possible until they can overwhelm us by their numbers and simply kill us off.