Sentencing delayed for U.S. Muslim linked to Hamas charity
Two of the chief concerns surrounding Shariah Compliant Finance are the issues of zakat and purification in which proceeds are donated to Muslim charities selected by Shariah Advisory Boards. With horrible people like Mufti Taqi Usmani (the “grand-daddy” of modern Islamic finance) and Sheikh Yussef al Qaradawi sitting on such boards, it is not hard […]
BBC: Islamic Finance is a Dishonest Business Run by Dishonest People
The BBC has published an article by Mr. John Foster, who used to be editor of “Islamic Business & Finance” magazine. The topic of the article is described by its title: “How Sharia-Compliant is Islamic Banking?” But it is not really the topic which makes the article interesting. It is the details which make it […]
Dubai’s golden sands lose their luster
“Investors trapped by the financial storm in the United Arab Emirates are in unknown legal territory as they try to protect their billions.” (The Times, 10 December 2009) The Dubai default debacle demonstrates in stark detail how the lack of transparency and failure to disclose relevant facts make Shariah Finance risky. Long ago–decades ago–the rest […]
A Shameless, Shallow Advertorial for Shariah Finance from Oxford Analytica and Forbes.com
Malcom Forbes must be spinning in his grave. His namesake publication’s web site has published an article which basically promotes a financial and economic system which by its very nature seeks to replace capitalism and our free enterprise system: http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/10/islamic-finance-after-dubai-business-oxford-analytica-islamic-finance.html?feed=rss_business In fact, the article reads less like journalism and more like a press release from […]
Shariah finance suffers growing pains
The Financial Times actually wrote a fairly balanced story on Shariah finance for a change. In the story linked below, FT’s journalist points out that Shariah-compliant financial institutions have proven just as vulnerable to the economic downturn and financial crisis as conventional counterparts. This, of course, flies right in the face of the propaganda being […]
From a Financial Times Report: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ec1abb4-e2be-11de-b028-00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=aee0503e-e09e-11de-9f58-00144feab49a.html? Islamic finance might have been created by and for devout Muslim bankers and clerics, but big international banks have increasingly become the driving force behind the industry. Final approval is still reserved for the boards of shariah scholars that all Islamic banks require to give them credibility, but services […]
The Banker points out problems with Shariah Finance
The British publication “The Banker” has mostly been a cheerleader for Shariah Finance for several years and they have written an article which, while viewing Shariah Finance in a positive light, also points out some of its serious flaws: • “Greed and selfishness” exist in Shariah Finance just as they do in conventional finance. This […]
IFSB to the Rescue!
The Islamic Financial Services Board is taking action that is being hailed as a positive move to “enhance the stability” of the Shariah Finance industry. We are underwhelmed. Back on November 5th we posted about this so-called respected organization (the IFSB), but it deserves repeating here: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/category/islamic-financial-services-board/ If you like Jihad and terrorism, you’ll LOVE […]
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Sunni Islam world’s most prominent Shariah scholar, who has been banned from traveling to the USA and Great Britain due to his ties to terrorist organizations, sits on the Shariah advisory boards of several state-owned Shariah-compliant financial institutions in the Gulf region. (Regular readers of SFW need no introduction to Qaradawi.) […]
U.S. taxpayers funding terrorism: the ties that blind
What would you think if it was proven beyond doubt your tax money is getting into the hands of terrorists, not altogether accidentally? How would you feel if you discovered that the dollar you paid in income tax had been channeled by the federal government through a bank bailout law to Citigroup which then ‘invested’ in […]
Islamic finance board to set liquidity standards (an admission of trouble)
The Islamic Financial Services Board plans create guidelines for shariah-compliant banks to manage liquidity risks as the industry looks to beef up regulation after the financial crisis. Shariah-compliant banking has been hit by sukuk (Islamic bond) defaults and the now-deflated Dubai real estate bubble, though numerous industry spokesmen have spread the lie that Shariah Finance […]
The International Finance Corp., a wing of the World Bank, said Wednesday it would list its first Islamic bond. The IFC Hilal Sukuk, a greenback-denominated 100 million dollar issue with a five-year maturity, will be listed with the Nasdaq Dubai and Bahrain stock exchanges, the Washington-based corporation said. The IFC is the first non-Islamic financial […]
Diploma in Islamic finance for muftis in India
A madrassa in Hyderabad will offer a diploma course in Islamic finance to muftis, for the first time in India. The diploma in Islamic finance would focus on imparting knowledge to students in economics, investment according to Shariah rules and preparation of the documents for financial products and services. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Diploma-in-Islamic-finance-for-muftis/articleshow/5127143.cms?
Shariah scholar Dr. Mohd Daud Bakar, has called for increased industry focus on nurturing talent and developing cross-border expertise in Islamic Finance. He said there is an urgent need for more Shariah scholars – who are well versed in both Shariah law and modern finance. http://www.ag-ip-news.com/GetArticle.asp?Art_ID=7664
While not specifying all of the questions which need to be asked about Shariah finance, a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank has at least shown some skepticism about it. Christian Noyer of France pointed out that “Islamic banks” pose risks to the financial system, many of them stemming from the […]
QInvest and Fortis Bank Nederland to create first Shariah Compliant “Mezzanine” Shipping Fund.
The Netherlands has now joined the Shariah nightmare as one of that country’s biggest banks, Fortis, is teaming up with QInvest of Qatar to launch a fund to target financing opportunities in the marine transportation industry. This actually gives SFW the opportunity to comment on the wider implications of Shariah Compliant Finance and some of […]
Egyptian Muslim leaders are caught in a storm of controversy after a human rights group confronted them about a fatwa (Islamic edict) that stated the building of a church is “a sin against God.” Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the highest official of religious law in Egypt, and the justice minister have issued an investigation of […]
Moody’s Investors Services has published a report which reveals that Islamic banking, cited as more resistant to the negative consequences of the credit crunch, faces its own set of particular difficulties. Entanglement and displaced commercial risks are considered to be the most serious financial risks Islamic banks face. This is a byproduct of the very […]
Moves to plug the gap in Islamic finance carry risks
The Financial Times has published an article detailing some of the risks involved in Shariah-Compliant Finance. For instance, a new term has been developed for the financial world: “Shariah risk.” Shariah risk is the risk that a product that was previously believed to be shariah-compliant could be declared “un-Islamic” by a prominent shariah scholar. Basically, […]
The article linked below is obviously not directly related to Shariah Finance, but it is an example of Shariah courts operating with authority in a supposedly “secular” nation, with that nation’s courts basically rubber stamping a ruling by Shariah authorities. In this case, the ruling involved burying a man as a Muslim, when his family […]
Promoters of Shariah-Compliant loans and mortgages often misleadingly refer to their products as “interest-free.” This label implies that the lenders do not charge for their loans. This is of course not the case. As we have reported here on SFW several times, Shariah-compliant loans may not charge interest, but they are by no means free. […]
The Middle East North Africa Financial Network has just published a report on Shariah-Compliant Finance. The report (linked below) starts out with a promising title–“Shariah Compliant or Complaint”–but soon resorts to the same misinformation about the performance of Shariah-Compliant assets and vehicles for which the industry is now infamous. http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093254534 The MENAFN report glosses over […]
“For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.” President Barack Hussein Obama We’re still shaking our heads in disgust over Obama’s pledge to ease the […]
Islamic charities continue to fund the Taliban
Regular readers of SFW know that we have devoted a considerable amount of space to covering financial support from Muslim charities for Jihadist organizations: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/category/islamic-charities/ This is of particular relevance to Shariah-Compliant Finance because of the practice of zakat–a form of required tithing in Islam. Shariah-compliant firms donate 1/40, or 2.5%, of their assets through […]
At a meeting of 400 “leaders” of the Shariah-Compliant Finance industry, in his opening address, Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) secretary general Dr Mohammed Nedal Alchaar said that there exists the need to remove “irrational fear from the market investors and counterparties through enhancing disclosure of financial information.” Increased disclosure and transparency […]
Shariah-Compliant Finance is based on Shariah, sometimes referred to as “Islamic law.” This fact alone makes the issue of settling disputes in transactions involving Shariah-Compliant Finance problematic and it is an issue that the industry has not addressed and seems poised to be stalemated over. Note also that in the article linked below that a […]
The Financial Times has a rather interesting article online today about the men who control Shariah-Compliant Finance. It is one of the first and few articles from the financial press to address the issue of the control of the Shariah scholars. Unfortunately, it also misses one of the key points. The article focuses primarily on […]
Reuters has a revealing article this morning which characterizes the spread of Shariah-Compliant Finance through quasi-official bodies headed by tyrannical regimes in Islamic nations. I’ll provide a quote that explains the gist of the article before I embark upon a deconstruction of the organization it came from: “Central banks are increasingly realizing they have to […]
All too frequently, an article will appear in the news media extolling the virtues of “Islamic” finance as a way to protect wealth from the ravages of the current financial crisis. When we first came across a recent article in the Sacramento Bee, we figured that we had another case of this and were prepared […]
Christopher Logan of Islam in Action blog had an interesting exchange with Stephen Lange Ranzini, president of the infamous University Bank in Michigan, a Shariah-Compliant institution. Logan wrote to Ranzini and expressed his offense at University Bank promoting the barbaric doctrine called Shariah here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. […]
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