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Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld & Alyssa A. Lappen in Human Events ask: "Why are Western banking and financial officials and regulators playing into bin Laden’s hands?"
"A universal Islamic banking system is a jihad worth pursuing to abolish this slavery [to the West]," former Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamed Mahathir told a banking conference in Kuala Lumpur in November 2002. The conference was convened following the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. “to absorb the 11 September shock and reinforce the stability of Islamic finance.” Representatives of nine Islamic nations gathered to set up an Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) to “act as a global authority for Islamic banking and finance” and to compete with secular U.S. and international banking regulatory agencies.Since 2002, internationally and domestically the Islamic impetus to impose Sharia-governed banking on the West has only increased.
Today, the Lariba American Finance House, based in Pasadena, California, operates its Islamic banking services in 28 states, modeled on the Sharia'aa Foundation guidelines of "His Eminence" Sheikh Yusuf al Qaradawi. The good sheikh endorses suicide bombing, wife-beating—and attacks against America. Lariba also sells Islamic mortgages to Fannie Mae.
In the investment markets, Dow Jones has since February 1999 operated the Dow Jones Islamic Markets indexes, which measure the market activity of "shariaa compliant" stocks. Advising the financial news organization on Sharia is a Board whose members include Syria's Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah, Pakistan's Taqi Usmani and Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo of the United States.
Abu Ghuddah and Taqi Usmani are also on the Shari'a Board of Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation. The victims of 9/11 allege that this bank financed al Qaeda; although charges against the bank were dismissed, the victims contend that the bank, together with Saudi officials and businessmen, facilitated the attacks on America.
DeLorenzo is a member of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA), which according to Investigative Project Director Steven Emerson, harbors many terror-sympathizers.
And was responsible for the recent bogus fatwa condemning terrorism.
Read it all.
Posted by Robert at September 22, 2005 11:37 AM
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Islamic banking, Mecca-Cola, we're probably going to see loads more "Islamic products" come onto the market. That's just the way capitalism works - see need, fill it (or see opportunity, take it).
Islamic banking really does highlight the totalitarian nature of Islam. In the west, we have come to understand religion as a personal relationship between man and God. Islam sees itself as something much more than that. (So does Catholicism - though not to the same extent - but no one takes orders from the Pope anymore anyway, so who cares.) Maybe it's time we started questioning whether Islam deserves the first amendment protection it has as a "religion"? (Applies to countries without first amendments, too, obviously.)
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at September 23, 2005 12:41 AM
Maybe it's time we started questioning whether Islam deserves the first amendment protection it has as a "religion"?
The moment they get protection, sharia is walking in through the door. CAIR is good on this one.
Posted by: leavingtheleft at September 23, 2005 12:50 AM
They will use your democracy against you and supplant it with their fascism.
Posted by: leavingtheleft at September 23, 2005 12:51 AM
But when you look a little further into the question of Islamic banking, you find that it is not, in fact, required by Islam. Al-Azhar University, in Cairo, the main and ancient home of Sunni religious learning, teaches that "riba" means extortionate interest, not any interest at all, and that moderate interest should be permitted. Most Egyptian banks charge and pay interest. Even Muslims who reject this interpretation say that the doctrine of "extreme necessity" permits Muslims in non-Muslim countries to pay interest.
So what is being proposed with Islamic banking is actually a hardening of the religion, not an accommodation of its existing custom. It is rather as if Catholics, arriving in large numbers in a Muslim country, insisted that they must eat fish rather than meat on a Friday, a rule which has been dropped by the Church in modern times. And when you look at HSBC's Sharia Board you find that a couple of its members have links with the Deoband, the long-standing ultra-conservative group whose schools in Pakistan educated many of the Taliban.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/002919.php
Posted by: leavingtheleft at September 23, 2005 8:01 AM
The Islamic business model, calculating the "cost of doing business" and adding in that cost at the beginning amounts to the same thing as charging interest.
Posted by: epg at September 23, 2005 11:08 AM
Lariba American Finance House is about as "American" as arsenic pie with French vanilla ice cream on top of it...
Maybe we should serve up a dish of it to that sheikh (and-- maybe-- Mahathir).
Posted by: pythagoras at September 23, 2005 1:55 PM
"The Islamic business model, calculating the "cost of doing business" and adding in that cost at the beginning amounts to the same thing as charging interest."
Well, yeah, it's the same alright. But banks figure they might as well go through the elaborate ritual of "Islamizing" their banking practices to get some of the Islamic dollars. It's not really a biggie, apart from the symbolism of our banks showing deference to that ghastly religion.
Posted by: spect8or
at September 23, 2005 2:01 PM
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