Euromoney.com is once again giving out awards for compliance to the financial wing of the barbaric, medieval doctrine known as Shariah. They have a whole host of awards to dole out (no fewer than 19 awards in the field of “Islamic” finance), which probably indicates that these awards are a convoluted effort to drum up business for Euromoney in some way shape or form. (Giving someone an award is a nice way to ask them to do business with you.)
Euromoney also lists a few past recipients of their awards. One stood out to us and we think he illustrates the absurdity of Western financial institutions choosing to lick the boots of those who polish them with Shariah shinola every morning: Sheikh Nizam Yaquby (also spelled Yakuby).
Sheikh Yaquby is a leading exponent of the doctrine that Shariah-Compliant Finance is a repudiation of the capitalist system and that it must embrace not only the rejection of interest, but follow strictly the principles of “Islamic social justice” (in which man-made laws are replaced with allah’s law) and the entirety of “the teachings of the Quran and the Sunnah of the prophet” Mohammed.
Therefore, those who claim that embracing Shariah-Compliant Finance is pure capitalism and free enterprise must ignore the fact that Shariah Finance seeks to replace capitalism and free enterprise. This goes back to the earliest days of “Islamic economics” at the time of the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 and has been echoed by the world’s most prominent Sunni Shariah scholar, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, as well as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
What is even more absurd about Sheikh Yaquby’s view on this is the fact that he is employed by some of the titans of capitalism. He is paid to sit on the Shariah advisory boards of the following Western financial institutions:
• HSBC
• Dow Jones
• Citi Islamic Investment Bank
• BNP Paribas
• Lloyds TSB Bank
• Standard Chartered Bank
