Yesterday the US attorney’s office in Manhattan moved to seize assets of a non-profit foundation tied to Iran. Among those assets are four mosques in New York, California, Maryland and Texas, 100 acres of land in Virginia and a 36-story building at 650 5th Avenue in Manhattan.
Much of this activity centers around the ties of the foundation, the Alavi Foundation, to Bank Melli.
We have written extensively on Bank Melli here on SFW. It has been, for the past three years in a row, the largest Shariah-Compliant financial institution in the world, according to the UK periodical “The Banker” magazine. It is also under sanctions by the US, the European Union and Australia for its role in funding terrorism and proliferation activities.
This is one reason why claims in Islamic circles that Shariah finance is “ethical” investing are simply complete nonsense.
Here are two previous SFW entries related to this development:
There are many aspects to this story and many articles online about it. We’ve provided links to two which we believe do a good job of providing decent background and ample detail:
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=87079
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9068423
The NEFA Foundation, as always, has provided an excellent archive of various legal actions in this affair as well:
http://www.nefafoundation.org/documents-civil.html#assa
Finally, we thought it important to share with you what the other side is saying about all this. The link below is from IslamOnline. IslamOnline is a US-based Islamist web site founded by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. We have also written extensively about Qaradawi.
Even though Qaradawi founded this US-based web portal, he has been banned from traveling to the USA due to his ties to Jihadist terrorist organizations and his public endorsement of Jihadist attacks against US troops liberating Iraq, among other horrific fatwas.
Not surprisingly, IslamOnline seeks to focus on the fact that Muslims were “shocked” by this action. They quote CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper expressing unhappiness with the developments.
I have no doubt that CAIR is upset. The Iranian diplomatic interest section buys a table at their big fundraising dinner each year…
