The article linked below has to be taken with a large grain of salt since it comes from the Saudi Gazette. There is nothing even resembling a free, independent press in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royals have a huge vested interest in promoting Shariah-Compliant Finance both in the kingdom and globally.
Not surprisingly, this article on sukuk (aka Islamic bonds) reads like a promotional advertisement more than a news article.
The basic premise of the article is in fact fraudulent. The Saudi Gazette claims that “Sukuk (are) resilient in (the) middle of financial crisis.”
I guess the Saudi Gazette figures that people have very short memories. It was only a couple of years ago that a rash of defaults plagued the market for sukuk, especially in the Persian Gulf region. The infamous Nakheel default out of Dubai left creditors, many of them Western, holding the bag for over a year.
There is simply no evidence that Shariah-compliance provides any degree of security against economic and market forces, yet the financial jihadists repeat these lies over and over and nobody challenges them on it.
Besides the specious claim of Sukuk resilience, the Saudi Gazette article mentions some disturbing trends:
Islamic finance is gaining prominence in non-Islamic countries.
In the UK, the government has set an objective to make London the hub for Islamic finance and there are plans to issue sovereign sukuk and amend tax laws on Islamic finance.
France, Germany, Japan, Singapore and South Korea are other countries where the governments are taking active steps to promote Islamic banking and finance, while Hong Kong aims to become the Islamic finance gateway to China.Islamic finance continues to grow even in non-Islamic countries as reflected by the fact that there are over 300 Islamic financial institutions worldwide across 75 countries.
Much work remains to be done to defend the West and free enterprise from this modern-day Trojan Horse.
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=20111006110039
