Every once in a while we come across a story that is really outrageous. Some or outrageous because they are inaccurate. Others are outrageous because they are simply offensive.
Today we bring to you an article from John King, an attorney with one of Ireland’s most prominent law firms, in which he makes the case that the financial crisis that occurred in the West, the US housing market in particular, would never have happened if the US markets were Shariah-compliant.
Though it is not disclosed anywhere, we have no doubt that King and his law firm, Ivor Fitzpatrick, have interests involving Shariah Compliant Finance.
But let’s take a moment to address the assertion King makes in the article linked below, namely that the financial crisis of 2008 could not have occurred had the US markets, banks and borrowers like, had been “constrained” by Shariah.
The Utopia-type scenario that King describes is one that only the most hard-core financial jihadists have put forth. The idea that Shariah is the answer to all that ails the Western financial world is a dangerous concept, especially since the primary purpose of Shariah-Compliant Finance is to promote Shariah, a barbaric, primitive code of life that inherently violates Western standards of liberty, freedom and human rights.
Moreover, the idea that Shariah is some sort of shield against financial crisis is a myth. All one has to do is go back to 2009 when defaults on Islamic bonds (sukuk) seemed to be a new Olympic sport in the Islamic world. And sukuk are the very type of mechanism that King describes so admiringly in his fawning article.
There are a few other things that King fails to mention in his column. While King mentions that Shariah forbids investments in alcohol and pornography, he fails to disclose that the biggest Shariah-compliant financial institutions in the world are Iranian state-owned banks which are under European Union (including Ireland) sanctions for their activities involving terrorism financing and Iran’s nuclear program. Doesn’t sound very ethical does it?
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0521/1224316453157.html
