This is wonderful and multicultural and all that, and it will have the effect of encouraging Muslim businesses in Minneapolis and the surrounding areas. This, in turn, is likely to increase the Somali Muslim presence in Minneapolis. Recently we learned that the Minneapolis FBI is investigating Muslims traveling from there to wage jihad in Syria, and there have been many Muslims from Minneapolis who traveled to Somalia to wage jihad. Probably Minneapolis officials think that poverty causes terrorism, and that by offering Sharia-compliant loans to local Muslim business owners, they will prevent young Muslims there from turning to jihad. Unfortunately for Minneapolis, however, jihadis are generally wealthier and better educated than their peers.
“The City That Offers Sharia-Compliant Loans to Muslim Business Owners,” by Alexia Campbell, National Journal, June 30, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):
Inside the Karmel Square shopping mall in southwest Minneapolis, women wearing headscarves paint customers’ feet with henna. Others sell beaded caftans in narrow stalls. On the first floor, shopkeepers kneel toward Mecca to pray.
Somali entrepreneurs in the neighborhood have transformed an abandoned machinery warehouse into this bustling indoor bazaar. Karmel Square is one of several commercial districts they’ve revived in recent years with support from an unexpected ally: the city.
Since 2006, Minneapolis has loaned more than $1 million to Muslim business owners through a program that complies with sharia law, which prohibits Muslims from paying or earning interest in a financial transaction. The program, which is operated in partnership with the African Development Center, makes Minneapolis the only city in the country to offer Islamic financing at a time when states are trying to ban sharia from the courts. “Minneapolis is a very welcoming city,” says Kristin Guild, the city’s business development manager. “Because [Somali immigrants] wear headscarves, they are visible as entrepreneurs and people see that they are setting up businesses in our town and creating jobs.”
Minnesota is home to the country’s largest Somali community, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim. An estimated 32,000 people of Somali ancestry live in the state, and about one-third of them live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, according to the latest census figures.
In the past 10 years, North African immigrants have opened teashops, pharmacies, and child-care centers in southwest Minneapolis storefronts that were once boarded up. But many of these entrepreneurs struggled to grow their businesses because Islamic law forbids Muslims from earning or paying interest, known as riba. So they couldn’t take out loans or participate in the city’s low-interest financing program for small businesses.
“We had to be creative to meet the demand,” says Nasibu Sareva, executive director of the nonprofit African Development Center, which brought the idea of creating an Islamic financing program to the city in early 2006. City leaders were unaware of the sharia restriction, but agreed to the plan. Less than a year later, the city’s community and economic development department launched the sharia-compliant Alternative Financing Program.
This is how it works: A barber who needs new chairs for his shop goes to the African Development Center or another nonprofit lender that has partnered with the city. The lending partner buys the chairs, splitting the cost with the city, and then resells the chairs to the barber at a 2 percent profit. The barber pays it off in monthly installments. This is called a Murabaha sale….
Jay Boo says
I like the first three words.
Jay Boo says
They siphon money from the taxpayers via the government yet they wish to boycott the same infidels that gave them the free money in the first place.
Bradamante says
I wonder what Cameron is thinking as he works to make London a center of sharia finance. Maybe he’s thinking it’ll be like the Swiss banks that help Switzerland to stay neutral — he’s hoping the jihadists won’t blow up the place where all their money is. More likely, he’s not thinking at all. And by the looks of it, neither are the officials in Minneapolis.
pdxnag says
The city code generally would most certainly include a provision requiring that contracting partners and recipients of aid must themselves comply with various equal opportunity rules. Do you think the city complies with their own rules?
No Fear says
I feel so culturally enriched at hearing that news.
Zathras says
OOC as an agnostic, let’s say I find I find usury repugnant.
Would it be possible to obtain an interest free loan from these same sources (assuming I lived there) without being a Muslim by claiming that they are discriminating against my belief system if they refuse?
I did try the same with the local Sharia bank but they ignored me until I used a (false) Arabic name when they welcomed me with open arms(unfortunately you need proof of identification to open a bank account : ()
Robert Wagner says
If I should go before the lending board, as a non Muslim, and should I be refused? Do you think I could sue them for discrimination?
Ganesha akbar says
Interesting point, considering sharia law assertion that ALL people are Muslims (just some don’t know it)– thus reversion (vs. conversion).
Q: What are Minneapolis’ loan criteria for determining who has properly reverted?
A: See Minnesota sharia courts.
Oliver says
In reality, NOTHING NEW.
I believe it was in the Bill (My zipper will not go up) Clinton’s Administration, (long before the financial meltdown brought about by Barney Frank & Chris Dodd) ,
FREDDIE MAC was buying (not sure if from any Freddie approved lender, or just some lenders) SHARIA COMPLIANT MORTGAGES. Loan limits were the same.
Not sure how it worked (I was a licensed mortgage broker at the time, and read about it in a trade magazine) . My thought then- probably like a zero interest bond. ( To illustrate–how I THINK it worked- but the bookkeeping must have been a nightmare). Say want to borrow $100,000; 30 years; at 7%; payment (principal and interest) $665.30; over 30 years would have paid (assuming no prepayment and keep the loan for 30 years- both unlikely) would have paid $239,508.00 of which $139,508 would be interest.
So, what I think that Freddie Mac did was use a computer model, and guesstimate that the loan would be paid off in say 10 years- use the 10 year figure, make that the loan amount, and 0 interest, and the $665 payments would be against the principal– but would have only loaned the 100,000.
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But, as i said, that would be a bookkeeping nightmare, and assumptions
Just, why the hell are we/were we bending over backwards for these scum? are often wrong.
I also have no clue how many of these loans were ever made.
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Stu says
I’d love to get a 2%non compounding business loan. guess I’ll need to convert to qualify
sidney penny says
“Since 2006, Minneapolis has loaned more than $1 million to Muslim business owners through a program that complies with sharia law, which prohibits Muslims from paying or earning interest in a financial transaction.”
The interest is built in so it is not correct to say that there is no interest.Just a change of name and method.
dumbledoresarmy says
The Useful Idiot – “Kristin Guild, the city’s business development manager” – needs to be sent a copy of Patrick Sookhdeo’s very illuminating booklet, “Understanding Shari’a Finance”, and then maybe she’d get a clue.
She’s handing her city over to Islam.