"Sharia-bank bids trigger concerns," by Steven Chase and Tavia Grant for The Globe and Mail:
OTTAWA and TORONTO -- Ottawa has received its first applications to start up Canadian banks operating within the strictures of Islamic religious law - financial institutions that, if approved, would be among the first in the West.
Canada's bank regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, is studying two proposals for banks that offer services in keeping with Islamic laws that forbid speculation and interest but are in favour of transactions where profit and loss is shared.
The applications came to light in government documents obtained by The Globe and Mail under access to information laws, files that show Ottawa believes there are four other possible applicants keen to start banks operating under Islamic religious law, or sharia.
While some banks in the West offer sharia-compliant products, few aside from the Islamic Bank of Britain are standalone institutions set up expressly for this purpose.
See also this article, which appeared on Dhimmi Watch in May, for a stinging critique of Sharia banking in the West by Tarek Fatah.
[...]
Today, however, demand for sharia-compliant products in Canada remains unclear and several Islamic finance companies have folded.
Whether or not various ventures succeed, Sharia advocates are still laying the groundwork for collaboration with, enforcement, and support of Sharia law by Western governments, setting a disturbing precedent.
This MUST be stopped. If this happens then sharia will be coming so quickly it'll make heads spin. This isn't even being hidden under some multicultural BS-it's out in the open and that's what makes it all the more troubling. And just wait if this does happen-eventually ties to terrorism will be found as well.
From an interview with Professor Timur Kuran, who despite holding the "King Faisal Chair" has done his own work on Islam and Economics, and doing so without paying attention to the desires of his funders, quite unlike so many other recipients of the same Saudi or Arab largesse:
AE: One of your recent publications is “Islam and Mammon.” What is it about?
TK: This is a book on the subject that got me into the study of economics and religion. It offers a critique of the modern doctrine of “Islamic economics” and evaluates its practical achievements. Its most visible practical achievement has been the establishment of Islamic banks meant to avoid interest. Islamic economics has also promoted Islamic norms of economic behavior and founded redistribution systems modeled after early Islamic fiscal practices. I argue that the doctrine of Islamic economics is simplistic, incoherent and largely irrelevant to present economic challenges. Few Muslims take it seriously, and its practical applications have had no discernible effects on efficiency, growth or poverty reduction. You might wonder, if this is so, why Islamic economics has enjoyed any appeal at all. The real purpose of Islamic economics has not been economic improvement but cultivation of a distinct Islamic identity to resist cultural globalization. It has served the cause of global Islamism, known also as “Islamic fundamentalism,” by fueling the illusion that Muslim societies have lived, or can live, by distinct economic rules.
___________________________________
Nota Bene:
The real purpose of Islamic economics has not been economic improvement but cultivation of a distinct Islamic identity to resist cultural globalization. It has served the cause of global Islamism, known also as “Islamic fundamentalism,”
“Islamic fundamentalism,”
...is creeping into every aspect of life as we know it....
Ban Muslim Immigration...
It's hard to say no to something that's completely voluntary and may be unprofitable anyways, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Saudis dumped some petrodollars into these things to demonstrate their piety. I'd also watch them like a hawk for money-laundering by Islamic terrorist groups.
Oh now their concerned?
Not when muslims bought barkelys?
Very scarey!
That they believe the Islamo-BS pretense that the (covert) "interest" charged is really some kind of "fee" shows the gullible nature of these regulators.
There is interest charged by "Islamic" banks.
It is merely disguised.
Just like most of Islam's assaults.
A syllogism:
"War is deceit."
"Islam is war."
Thus:
"Islam is deceit."
That sums it all up.
Why is Tarek Fatah still a Muslim? He really goes after them like Robert spencer does, yet he still remains a Muslim?
Leave the sinking ship, man!
The foundation of the Islamic empire's economy at its zenith under the Ottomans was the institution named divan. In the White House the analogy would be the president's chief of staff and his closest advisors. The first divan was actually a register, a book, that caliph 'Umar I (634–644) used to record the names of warriors who were entitled to a share in the booty acquired through jihad conquest.
As the empire expanded the divan evolved into a bureaucracy that combined the functions of imperial treasury, central banking, and executive advisory council. Under the Ottoman sultans the divan was composed of advisors called viziers who were led by the most powerful man in the empire next to the sultan himself, the Grand Vizier.
The now defunct Ottoman divan and all of its economic regulations are the root of "sharia banking" and "Islamic" economics today.
It could be argued that the divan was a fairly successful mechanism for distributing the spoils of war in a scaled-up brigand society. It is at its core however, nothing more than a tribal warrior code that was necessary to prevent the inevitable fratricide that would ensue among the ranks of the thieves without some institutionalized distribution of plunder.
The economics of the Islamic ideology are actually a perfect complement to its piratical politics. It produces nothing of value and relies instead on perpetual war and the plunder of the goods produced by non-Islamic economies and the exploitation of the slave labor within its borders.
"...Canadian Muslims, a group one June government memo calls 'the fastest growing immigrant population.'" -- from the article
I'm seeing it in Toronto. More & more obviously Muslim people (based on their Islamic garb) every time I go anywhere.
Josephine,
I was shocked when I was in Chicago 2 weeks ago how many penquins I saw walking around.
The biggest and most obvious threat to the acceptance of "Islamic Banking" in the West is that it is the thin end of the wedge of acceptance of some of the uglier aspects of Shari'ah, such as "Family Law" (largely polygamy and oppression of women) and Shari'ah punishments (at first for the Muslim community only, and then only on a "voluntary" basis). Later this would spread.
But "Islamic Banking" is troubling all by itself. For one thing, it largely operates in an underhanded manner--just what we need more of in financial transactions.
Tarek Fateh said in the above linked article about "Islamic Banking":
“It’s a complete fraud because what you are doing is you are adding interest upfront and building it into your investments and dishonestly calling it interest-free,” he added.
During the Middle Ages there was a similar Christian ban on "usury" It led in part to the use of Jewish money-lenders to work around the ban. This severly restricted trade and often led to terrible abuse of the money-lenders and merchants, who had few protections.
Modern economies couldn't really begin to develop until this ban was largely ignored (with the rise of great Italian banking houses such as the Medici), and then thrown out entirely by the Protestants of the north, enabling the rise of great merchant cities such as Amsterdam in the 1600s.
Economics is not my field--but there is a clear link between the ability to charge reasonable interest and the spread of trade and wealth. Rennaissance ideas took about two hundred years to spread throughout Europe, largely following the new affluence--Italy, the Germanic countries and the Netherlands, France, Britain, Scandinavia.
One of the reasons--along with "Insh'Allah" fatalism and a cultural disdain for productive labor for the almost complete stagnation of the "Islamic world" has been it's resistance to the use of reasonable interest. As has been noted, without unearned oil profits, the region would be even poorer than it already is.
And then we have economic horrors that receive large sanction in much of the Middle East--such as poor Afghan farmers in arrears to their landlords selling their under-age daughters for debt forgiveness.
Makes the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the West look pretty innocent by contrast. I think there is a great deal of ignorance about where the embrace of "Islamic finance" would lead--financial intitutions are just looking to tap a new market. But if these practices became widespread they would consitute an enormous step backward for the West--just as the adoption of other aspects of Islamic law and culture would.
I'm seeing it in Toronto. More & more obviously Muslim people (based on their Islamic garb) every time I go anywhere."
Within the space of 5 minutes the other day, I saw at lease half a dozen hijabs while driving in a southern suburb where I grew up. This is in Perth, Western Australia, and I'm suddenly confronted with a scene straight out of Kabul. I am furious that they arrogantly shove their wretched culture into our faces this way and I see no point in being tough on terrorists overseas when we're allowing this silent invasion . This really is a bizzare situation if you ask me.
Assalamau Laikum all,
I am so pleased about this...because I predicted this to you 3 years ago. ALL other things I wrote aboutr will also become true.
Your childrens will be wuslims and love shariat lite.
Welcome to dar-al-islam inc
Well we see what a wonderland Pakistan is so why wouldnt we want Islam here?
Moron
Islamic banking is written up in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking
Here is part of it, after a long article on various types of “hidden” fees to get around “interest” on loans, which could lead to an audit nightmare for government and accounting regulations. Why should these banks be allowed to operate “under the radar” of regulations?
“Criticism
Islamabad, Pakistan, June 16, 2004: Members of leading Islamist political party in Pakistan, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) party, staged a protest walkout from the National Assembly of Pakistan against what they termed derogatory remarks by a minority member on interest banking:
Taking part in the budget debate, M.P. Bhindara, a minority MNA [Member of the National Assembly]...referred to a decree by an Al-Azhar University's scholar that bank interest was not un-Islamic. He said without interest the country could not get foreign loans and could not achieve the desired progress. A pandemonium broke out in the house over his remarks as a number of MMA members...rose from their seats in protest and tried to respond to Mr Bhandara's observations. However, they were not allowed to speak on a point of order that led to their walkout.... Later, the opposition members were persuaded by a team of ministers...to return to the house...the government team accepted the right of the MMA to respond to the minority member's remarks.... Sahibzada Fazal Karim said the Council of Islamic ideology had decreed that interest in all its forms was haram in an Islamic society. Hence, he said, no member had the right to negate this settled issue[6].
Many Muslims and non Muslims alike have opposed these Islamic banks, claiming that they do deal in interest but merely conceal it through legal tricks.[citation needed] Indeed, from an economic perspective, Islamic banks do compensate and charge for the time value of money, thus paying and receiving what is known in economics as interest. Such people compare Islamic banking to contractum trinius—a legal trick devised by European bankers and merchants during the Middle Ages, designed to facilitate the borrowing of money at a fixed rate of interest (something that the Church fiercely opposed) through combining three different contractual agreements that in and of themselves were not prohibited by the Church. While Islamic law prohibits the collection of interest, it does allow a seller to resell an item at a higher price than it was bought for, as long as there are clearly two transactions.
These arguments and criticism are exactly the same as those used at the time of Muhammad. The Qur'an addresses this issue in simple terms, Interest is forbidden by Allah, while trade has been permitted by Him:
"Those who devour usury will not stand except as stand one whom the Evil one by his touch Hath driven to madness. That is because they say:
"Trade is like usury," but Allah hath permitted trade and forbidden usury. Those who after receiving direction from their Lord, desist, shall be pardoned for the past; their case is for Allah (to judge); but those who repeat (The offence) are companions of the Fire: They will abide therein (for ever)." (Surah Baqarah 2:275) - http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/002.qmt.html “
How safe are these Islamic banks? Would I put my money on them? How often do they fail for bad management and corrupt practices? Should they be “bailed out” if they fail? Canada, UK, Italy, had better think about these things before it blows up in their faces -- or face "Hell fire" as Islamics love to threaten with in their contorted evil ways.
Also from the G&M.
Why are the local Muslims not denouncing the disgusting practice of blaming and punishing the victim? Why are Canadians supporting this nonsense and thereby denying this woman justice should the perpetrator get caught? What sort of double speak is all this?
Yep, it's the religion stupid.
Yersalami's leakin, Naseen.
Islamic banking 101.
Steal it and hide it.
Should any of this come as a surprise? Of course Islamic banking won't actually WORK. What in Islam does? But it won't stop them from trying. These people have an almost pathological need to fail miserably.
Beyond stupid, Islam is worse than stupidity itself. You have to dedicate yourself to stupidity, build a huge organization over thousands of years as a testament to stupidity, in order to achieve the kind of stupidity Islam is peddling to the world today.
Maybe my old Grandpa sitting on the back porch saying the world is going to hell on a rocket ship was actually right? Because this stuff you couldn't even make up. It's upside down crazy talk with a sort of demoniacal conviction. Double-plus bad bad. Orwell, you son of a gun.
Canada, don't allow any Sh'aria banks or any Sh'aria anything else.
Islam only works financially when the umma is expanding and settling (murdering and pillaging) new lands. It's main product is poverty and illiteracy so it needs the jizya of subject infidels to keep going. So Islamic banking boils down to sivvying up the spoils of war.
The main problem with it is nowadays is that the hordes have nothing like the Apache helo, the Predator drone with HellFire missiles, the A10, and so on. So, not much hope for the success of Sharia banking in Canada, eh?
Come to think of it, is it fair to say that the polygamy allowed by Islam is designed to deprive occupied populations of women, and therefore progeny?
Come to think of it part 2: Why do they hold their hands out like they're holding a book? Why don't they hold an actual Koran? Is it because they can't afford one or tey can't read?
Thanks, gravenimage, for clarifying the way in which the Christian West eventually got around the strictures of interest, allowing trade and its proper financing to flourish. Vestiges of that were still in play when the Christian Antonio was forced to borrow money from the Jew Shylock in, significantly, Venice, itself an early major center of commerce.
Islamic lending's labyrinthine logic is typified not only in the Koran but also in various hadiths. Abu Dawud, for example, notes that
Jabir b. 'Abd Allah said: The Prophet (may peace be upon him) owed me a debt and gave me something extra when he paid it (3341)
Ahmad Hasan commenting explains "This shows that a man can return the loan more than what is due from him. This is not counted as interest for a man gives it with his own consent without any condition."
Subsequent Dawud hadiths relate the meticulous Prophetic conditions under which gold, silver, wheat barley and dates, both fresh and dried, may be exchanged and traded. Likewise animals, swords and jewelled necklaces. No doubt all this was highly pertinent to the seventh century but is probably not going to get you very far in the twenty-first, unless you can taqiyya yourself that there are ways around it.
This is part of the value of Timur Kuran (in addition to the warning noted by Hugh above), as he strips the artifice from these tortuous transactions and justifications. A recent review of his "Islam and Mammon" is at http://www.danielpipes.org/article/4973
While on hadiths, can anyone provide the name of the collection that includes the infamous distinction between the inner and outer jihad? It is much quoted, especially in a Sufi context and to Westerners, but the provenance is never mentioned. Is it perhaps contained in a collection that has little authority?
Speculate (for lack of a better word) all you want Naseem. Once the West wises up to the corruption that is Islam they'll drop the sharia banks like a muslim drops a ham sandwich. If we can't make money off it we'll invest elsewhere. By the way, my kids will be dead before they ever allow themselves to be subjected the evil that is Islam, and my house will burn before it ever goes to a muslim. Have a nice hungry/thirsty day. I hate the lie that is islam to the marrow of my bones, and I will never submit to it. Ever.
Sharia style bank fees are already being considered by the IRS. Naseem seems to rile the visitors to this site, especially because there is a whiff of truth in her posts. The last time, she mocked the Europeans for their low birth rates, and it's true: Europe builds more coffins than cradles.
The IRS allows polygamists to claim one wife as a spouse, and the remaining wives as dependents if the husband provide >50% of their support, and the women do not provide >50% of their own support. Or the wives may claim head of household status and receive the Earned Income Credit (most do), as it's a better deal since the husband can avoid Alternative Minimum Taxes (AMT). It's here citizens. Now, same sex couples (or any unmarried couple)can adopt a child and receive adoption credits, split between them. These credits are about $10,600, not chump change.
Face it, Canada, it's over. America and the west are not far behind. All the liberties desired in this western cultural cesspool--pornography, child killing, the Supreme Court allowing child pornography as long as it's "animated," the military having to provide Wiccan chaplains (it's a religion, too), the right to live off treasuries on welfare, state-sponsored gambling, stealing private property as eminent domain, the dissolution of any societal standards-- all these things have brought us to this point.
Islam is just another one of these "liberties" that has to be tolerated, allowed, catered to, and celebrated. 150 years ago, they'd be driven out of the states to a desert in the territories. But in the everybody's equal, freedom-to-choose- anything culture, it's here to stay. Tolerance, and the stupidity that allows the populace to be morally unmoored will allow every allowable evil, including Islam, to flourish.
"While on hadiths, can anyone provide the name of the collection that includes the infamous distinction between the inner and outer jihad? It is much quoted, especially in a Sufi context and to Westerners, but the provenance is never mentioned. Is it perhaps contained in a collection that has little authority?"
-- from a posting above
Not in Bukhari. Not in Muslim. Write to Robert -- who has written about this somewhere -- and ask for the source. It's a favorite of such apologists as Armstrong.
The ban on usury in the Old Testament is not a ban on interest on loans or investments, it is a ban on charging a premium or interest on loans or defaults when a fellow Hebrew was in dire straits, i.e., interest on charity. See e.g. Exodus 22:25 for a typical example.
In St. Luke 19:23 Jesus told a parable in which a master complained to his servants that they did not invest his money at interest. There is no way in the world that an economy can function without interest. You may as well try to run an apartment complex profitably without charging rent.
How do you make a bank crash?
Having worked for a major Canadian bank for 26 years, I would be very surprised to see sharia banking come to Canada. The "Big Five" Canadian banks are strictly regulated by the government, and we have one of the strongest and most successful banking systems in the world. There has never been a failure of a major Canadian bank.
However, the government has allowed foreign banks to operate in Canada for at least the past decade, something unheard of before regulations were loosened. So who knows?
"Why is Tarek Fatah still a Muslim? He really goes after them like Robert spencer does, yet he still remains a Muslim? Leave the sinking ship, man!" Posted by: wrathofasma
In this comments thread on the Globe and Mail website, Tarek Fatah described himself as a "secular Muslim". Someone asked him to explain, so he provided his definition. Just search on his name to read his posts:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070919.wfaithQA21/CommentStory/ontarioelection2007/home