Hat tip to the good folks at Creeping Shariah blog for uncovering and posting this information… http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/shariah-compliant-credit-cards-more-common-as-sharia-spreads/
Federal Judge Upholds Government Funding of Shariah Law
Last week, Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff, a federal district court judge in Michigan, dismissed a constitutional challenge to the U.S. Government’s bailout of AIG, which used over a hundred million dollars in federal tax money to support Islamic religious indoctrination through the funding and promotion of Sharia-compliant financing (SCF). http://nation.foxnews.com/justice/2011/01/20/federal-judge-upholds-government-funding-sharia-law
Proponents of Shariah Banking are pushing for its acceptance in India, where there has been strong opposition to the concept from time to time. Now the financial jihadists are trying to foist Shariah Banking off on Indians by dubbing it “Interest-Free Banking.” You can put lipstick on a pig, but it will still be a […]
The Islamization of American Business
The intrepid Christopher Logan over at Logan’s Warning has brought a new web site to our attention: AmericanMuslimConsumer.com. On October 30th, there will be an American Muslim Consumer Conference which is described as: the only platform for industry professionals to examine this potent market sector, and explore its rich potential.It effectively raises awareness of the […]
Spanish-based Allfunds bank has signed on to the financial jihad with their announcement that it has launched an “Islamic Services Unit.” The bank offers 80 Shariah-compliant funds to investors in Spain, Italy, Chile, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and 17 other countries. Allfunds’ Islamic Services Unit was created with a fatwa issued by a Shariah advisory […]
Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of London-based Barclays Plc, is offering Shariah- compliant repurchase agreements to allow Islamic banks and investors manage their funds. Barclays introduced the product worldwide two weeks ago and is focusing on clients in Malaysia and the Middle East. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-18/barclays-capital-offers-islamic-repos-in-1-trillion-market.html
Here we have a marketing piece by Reuters (whose parent company is thoroughly involved in Shariah Finance) masquerading as a news story. In what other industry or financial sector could a rash of defaults–combined with high fees and conflicts of interest–prompt a wave of faux optimism as expressed in this Reuters fluff piece? Recent sukuk […]
Reliance Capital Asset Management’s subsidiary is set to launch two Shariah-compliant funds in Malaysia by July 2010. http://assetmanagement.banking-business-review.com/news/reliance_capital_to_launch_two_islamic_funds_in_malaysia_100629/?
In the video at the link below, Guy David, partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson, explains the potential for Shariah finance in Canada, including its application to residential mortgages and the capital markets. David admits that there is essentially no inherent demand for Shariah-compliant products in Canada; the market is not demand-driven, it is supply-driven. Muslims in […]
Periodically, we conduct web search engine queries to test how our site appears. Yesterday, we Googled “Shariah Finance Watch” and an advertisement appeared to the right of the results. The advertisement was entitled, “INTEREST FREE HOME FINANCING.” That really caught our eye because Shariah-Compliant Banks around the world often promote their Shariah-Compliant mortgages as “Interest-free.” […]
North Jersey Federal Credit Union has designed a Shariah-Compliant banking division. Through a partnership with New England Financial, North Jersey is also offering Shariah Mutual Funds. Clients of New England Financial may wish to take this into account when making investment decisions in the future. Note that the release linked below claims that there are […]
In a move that certainly cannot be considered surprising, the United Arab Emirates’ central bank has announced the creation of a new certificate of deposit that will comply with Shariah. The move will allow Shariah banks access to liquidity instruments that heretofore have been unavailable because conventional CDs are inherently violative of Shariah prohibitions against […]
GE Capital has announced that it will offer another Islamic bond (sukuk). The sukuk offerings are not eligible for US markets, so obtaining a prospectus for an offering can be difficult. Nevertheless, SFW was able to obtain such a prospectus after GE’s first foray into the world of Shariah and part of the prospectus does […]
Judging by the spate of conferences on “Islamic finance” organized in the Russian Federation and the rest of the former Soviet republics in recent months, interest in Shariah finance is fast developing in the region… http://arabnews.com/economy/islamicfinance/article56957.ece
Derivatives Go Shariah
They said it would never happen. The Shariah scholars said that derivatives were inherently “unislamic” and had no place in Shariah-Compliant Finance. Well, we guess “the truth changed.” Financial Times has an article explaining how derivatives are creeping their way into Shariah Finance. No doubt, greed played a prominent role in this transformation… The release […]
Kenya has been targeted by the financial jihadists for some time now, as we have reported on SFW in the past: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/category/kenya/ Now the government of Kenya has begun to embrace Shariah with the decision to issue Shariah-Compliant bonds, also known as Sukuk. No doubt, the Kenyans bowed to pressure from Muslim money interests to […]
Though The Economist continues to actively ignore many of the fundamental concerns surrounding Shariah-Compliant Finance, the article linked below about the Sukuk market is actually fairly well done, especially when one considers that The Economist has basically been nothing but a shameless cheerleader for Shariah Finance heretofore… The article points out many of the problems […]
Linked below is an article written in a journal of the Wharton school of business at the University of Pennsylvania. It appears to address an issue which is indeed a huge problem in Shariah-Compliant Finance: Lack of Transparency. But appearances can be deceiving. What the Wharton article, which has no author’s name associated with it, […]
Dubai Financial Market set to create Islamic benchmark
The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) is planning to launch an Islamic index in the near future. While the purpose of this index is certainly a nefarious one, the promotion of Shariah Finance, it may also serve a helpful purpose. If the list of Shariah-compliant companies who make up the index are published (and they might […]
All we can say is, you just can’t make this stuff up. And also note that it is March 31st still, not April 1st… http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/online-muslim-sex-shop-conforms-to-sharia-law/story-e6frf7lf-1225847502559
British Life Insurance Firm Looks To Go Shariah
Friends Provident International, the global arm of one of Britain’s biggest life insurers, is looking to offer Shariah-compliant insurance (Takaful) in the Persian Gulf region to expand its regional presence. A slowdown in the domestic insurance market in Great Britain and global growth meant the company’s overseas business last year accounted for more than 50 […]
A Qatar Islamic Bank-led joint venture will sell Shariah-based retail banking products in France. QIB has signed a memorandum of understanding with BPCE, France’s second largest banking group, to establish a joint venture financial institution that will develop and market Shariah-based retail banking products in the European country. “We have big plans for France and […]
An Illiquid Sukuk Market? No Worries, Just Issue Some More
Malaysia may sell longer dated government sukuk to help alleviate a shortage of investments for takaful firms, an Islamic insurer said, which would help address a barrier to the industry’s growth. An illiquid sukuk market and a shortage of Islamic assets, especially long-term paper, have generated an over-reliance on regional equity and real estate markets, […]
Are We Financing Our Own Demise?
Gadi Adelman and the intrepid Joy Brighton have just published an outstanding analysis of Shariah-Compliant Finance over on the Financial Security Matters site. Please take the time to read it and pass it on to your friends and associates: http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5632/pub_detail.asp
In the middle of last year, New Jersey-based Javelin Investment Management announced it would offer an ETF based on the Dow Jones Islamic Market Titans 100. http://www.kippreport.com/2010/02/plus-ca-exchange/
CIMB Islamic eyes Indonesia, Singapore for growth of Shariah-compliant financial products–including derivatives
CIMB Islamic bank of Malaysia, the world’s top sukuk arranger, will offer new sharia products this year to expand its business in Indonesia and Singapore, as the Islamic finance market struggles to recover from the financial crisis. The bank plans to launch products such as Islamic auto financing, structured instruments, derivatives and unit trusts to […]
A delegation of Arab “Islamic finance” experts has gone to India to try to convince that nation to embrace Shariah Finance…and they used their normal level of fraud to attempt to perpetrate this swindle…first comparing “Western capitalism” to “casino capitalism,” inferring, quite fraudulently, that Shariah-Compliant institutions were not impacted by the economic downturn and financial […]
Barclays woos Muslims in Kenya by joining the financial jihad
Barclays Bank has unveiled two new Shariah compliant products offered in Kenya. SFW readers may wish to take Barclays’ Shariah activities into account when making your own financial decisions… http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/InsidePage.php?id=2000002308&cid=14
The Voice of America (VOA) was founded as a radio broadcast service to be beamed around the world to bring news from an American perspective to people in countries which didn’t have access to American news. VOA played a supportive role during the Cold War by providing a counterweight to communist-controlled news organizations behind the […]
The UK Government has proposed new regulations to support Shariah-Compliant Finance and the issuance of corporate sukuk (also known as Islamic bonds). The new regulations, entitled the “Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, Order 2010,” will make the operation of Shariah-Compliant Finance easier in the UK and facilitate the issuance of corporate sukuk. These regulations […]
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