Posted on 08/17/2009 4:14:27 PM PDT by LSUfan
Earlier today, we posted a link to an article which mentioned that Kuwait Islamic Bank had entered into a joint venture with Colorado-based real estate company UDR.
We were curious as to what, if any, restrictions were to be imposed on the real estate properties in which Kuwait Islamic Bank invested here in the United States, so we made an inquiry via UDR’s “contact us” form on the company’s web site.
The company was quick to reply as, within minutes, we received a phone call from Dave Messenger, CFO of UDR.
I asked Mr. Messenger two questions:
(Excerpt) Read more at shariahfinancewatch.org ...
linky no workie..
I mis-spoke..
Whoah, a Georgia fan and LSU fan in the same thread without arguing.
Site seems slow.
broken
link in URL numbers, if you can. Thanks
I got nothing but respect for the Dawg nation. I especially want them to destroy the Gayturds every year.
That we agree on.
as long as the LSU fan admits their team is inferior, there will be no problems...:)
People are free to invest or not invest according to their preference.
Site seems to be giving trouble. It works off and on:
Last year we were for sure...gonna be tough to beat you all between the hedges this year...
I’m with you there..every year I want us to destroy them, and if not us, then you guys, or tennessee, or vanderbilt..he*l, I don’t care who beats them but it’s a great day when someone does..
Is Galen Hall still available to coach them?
How about summarizing 2-5 key points.
Can’t get to the site successfully after many repeated tries.
Not under Shariah they aren’t.
~~And this is acceptable under our laws ? ... PING!
Here ya go:
I asked Mr. Messenger two questions:
1. What, if any, special restrictions or qualifications relating to Shariah were required in the deal with Kuwait Islamic Bank?
2. Are zakat payments to be made as part of this venture?
Mr. Messenger did not attempt to address question number 2, but referred me to Kuwait Finance House to get an answer to that question.
Mr. Messenger was also quite insistent that UDR’s agreement was in fact with Kuwait Finance House and not with Kuwait Islamic Bank. We regard this as a distinction without a difference, since Kuwait Finance House is an arm of Kuwait Islamic Bank. In all the media being devoted to this new deal, the entity identified is in fact Kuwait Islamic Bank.
Mr. Messenger was able to provide much more information in response to question number 1.
His answer was troubling, right from the outset.
First of all, he mispronounced “shariah.” Shariah is pronounced shu-ree-uh. Messenger pronounced it shu-rye-uh.
It does not inspire a great deal of confidence in terms of due diligence when the CFO of the American entity which entered into the agreement with an Islamic bank cannot even correctly pronounce the name of the underlying doctrine which governs their joint venture partner.
Messenger was not bashful at all about the issue of shariah-compliance.
He declared that the entire agreement was written to be shariah-compliant to make sure that the joint venture properties fit in with their partners’ religion.
When asked about specific provisions which he knew about to establish and maintain shariah compliance, Messenger named two: “cinematography and food served on the property.”
I asked what he meant by cinematography and he explained that some of their properties include movie theaters.
Evidently, Kuwait Finance House/Kuwait Islamic Bank wants to make sure that no offensive movies are shown on properties in which they invest.
In terms of “food served on property” Messenger explained that no pork would be served on the property at functions put on by UDR.
I asked him if any of the properties leased to sandwich shops or delis or such. He said that 8 of their 160 properties did have such tenants.
Again, evidently, those businesses would be prohibited from serving pork to prevent any conflict with shariah or the religion of UDR’s venture partners.
Messenger explained that potential conflicts with shariah were addressed up front with the JV partners and would continue to be addressed up front to prevent conflicts.
What has clearly happened here is that Kuwait Islamic Bank has been able to impose shariah here in the United States by using its financial leverage over UDR.
This is the essence of Shariah-Compliant Finance.
THANKS TONS.
Soberingly, chillingly fascinating.
I am a lawyer and took a seminar not too long ago about Islamic finance. I don’t see Islamic finance as very threatening. It’s more a joke than a threat. First you might think that this a system of finance that was invented by Muhammed in the 7th century. Actually it was invented in the 1990s. The people who did it were primarily trying to distinguish themselves from nonmuslims. They started with two basic principles which hey supposedly got from the Koran. The first was a ban on interest and an aversion of risk. Instead of paying interest they structure every transaction as a sale rather than a loan. If you’re buying a house then the sellr sells it to the bank for say $100,000 and the bank sells it to you over time for $150,000. The bank gets the $50,000 margin instead of interest.
The really funny thing about it though is that its really more of a racket than a useful system because every single transaction no matter how small must be examined and approved as Sharia compliant by a commission of clergymen who charge a fee for the service. When I heard that I jst laughed hysterically.
You know enough about shariah finance to be dangerous if that is what the seminar taught you. It is true that shariah finance did not originate in the 7th century. But it wasn’t thought up in the 1990s either. That is totally wrong.
You have a lot of catching up to do and who ever taught that seminar committed malpractice. Here is a primer just to get you started:
How is sharia related to jihad?
The mu’amalat part of sharia mandates as a religious obligation, conducting violent jihad against non-Muslims to establish Islam’s rule worldwide in a form known as the caliphate.
How does sharia finance relate to sharia itself?
Sharia finance is indistinguishable from sharia itself since its followers consider sharia immutable, indivisible, and mandatory for Muslims to follow in all aspects of life. Muslims are not allowed to pick and choose different aspects of sharia to follow. Anyone that infers that sharia finance is something apart from sharia is simply being dishonest. In fact, the main purpose of sharia finance is to promote sharia.
Where is sharia-compliant finance most prominent?
According to the November 2007 edition of The Banker, Iran dominates the world of sharia-compliant finance. Three of the five largest sharia-compliant financial institutions in the world—including the top two—are Iranian. The amount of sharia-compliant financial assets in institutions in Iran is over twice as large as the amount in financial institutions in the world’s second largest sharia-compliant country, Saudi Arabia.
How does sharia finance threaten Americans?
Sharia finance is a threat to Western values, human rights and US national security. Sharia finance has a political objective: to legitimize sharia in the West. Evidence indicates that sharia-compliant finance provides financial support to extremism and terrorism. Sharia-compliant financial institutions employ sharia scholars, many of whom have been shown to be extremists, even to the point of advocating suicide bombing and jihad against America. Among the decisions these scholars make is the donation of 2.5% or more of annual earnings to Muslim charities. Similar to zakat, earnings from investments that are judged to have been unislamic must be purified through donations to charities as well. Given the extremist tendencies of these scholars and the fact that no fewer than 27 charities have been designated as funding terrorism by the US Treasury Department, this presents a hazard which could obviously threaten US national security.
In sum, sharia finance represents a number of potential threats to the US, including possible financing of terrorism and extremist Islamist organizations and movements, infiltrating our financial markets and legitimizing sharia.
Have sharia-compliant financial institutions been tied to terrorism?
There are a number of well-documented cases in which sharia-compliant financial institutions have participated in the financial support of terrorism. For instance, two sharia-compliant banks registered in the Bahamas, Bank Al-Taqwa and Akida Bank, were, according to the US Treasury Department, shell companies actually run out of Italy and Switzerland, whose only real business was laundering money to terrorists. From 1988 until November 2001 when it was designated a terrorist entity by the US government and the UN, Bank Al-Taqwa transferred tens of millions of dollars to HAMAS, Al Qaeda, the PLO, Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the Taliban, Egyptian Gama’a al Islamiya and the Tunisian An-Nahda.
In another case, prominent members of the Saudi royal family were co-investors with Osama Bin Laden in the Sudanese Shamal Islamic Bank while several designated terrorists maintained accounts there.
How have sharia-compliant financial institutions used charities to fund terrorist groups?
Generally, sharia-compliant financial institutions have provided funds to terrorist and extremist groups through Islamic “charities.” The financial institutions donate the money to the charities which then steer the funds to terrorist groups. For example, both Bank Al-Taqwa and Akida Bank used charities in Europe, the Middle East and the US to funnel money to terrorist groups.
Have sharia-compliant financial institutions in the US been tied to terrorism?
Yes. Bait u Mal al Islami (BMI), a sharia-compliant investment company based in Seacaucus, NJ, which promoted itself as an Islamic alternative to conventional investments and solicited funds for real estate development, was called by US federal prosecutors as the “US banker for the Muslim Brotherhood.” In testimony before a US Senate committee, former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke said that BMI’s financial services were little more than a cover “to conceal terrorist support,” and that its investor list “read like a who’s who of designated terrorists and Islamic extremists.”
BMI worked closely with the Bank Al-Taqwa/Akida Bank network in transferring millions of dollars to terrorist groups through them, while receiving large amounts from well-known donors suspected of funding terrorism. These included the Hamas top leader, Mousa Abu Marzouk, who made a number of investments with BMI. Tellingly, BMI continued to work with Marzouk even after the latter was declared an internationally designated terrorist by the United States government in 1995.
How widespread is the use of Islamic charities to fund terror?
No one in the West knows for sure how widespread the use of Muslim charities for terrorism funding actually is, however, the US Treasury Department has so far designated no fewer than 27 Muslim charities in the US and worldwide as terrorism entities due to their funding of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, HAMAS and others. (We should put a link here to the page with the 27 charities and descriptions that the interns have started for us)
We know that there is state sponsorship of terrorism. Is there state sponsorship of sharia finance?
State sponsorship of sharia finance has been ongoing since its inception with the founding of the first sharia-compliant bank in 1975, Islamic Development Bank (IDB). In Iran, which has more sharia-compliant institutions than any other nations, all of the banks are in fact state-run.
Have sharia-compliant financial institutions been tied to weapons of mass destruction?
Yes. Iran’s largest bank, Bank Melli, which was named in the November 2007 edition of The Banker as the largest sharia-compliant bank in the world, has been put under sanctions by both the US government and the European Union for its role in financing Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
How does sharia finance threaten freedom-loving Muslims in the West?
The effect of legitimizing and promoting sharia in the West can already be seen in Western Europe. Promoting sharia incapsulates Muslim communities from mainstream society and even creates enclaves controlled by sharia. Sharia-compliant finance plays a particular role in this because, a devout Muslim living in a Western country in which there are no sharia-compliant banks are allowed to use conventional “infidel” institutions under the sharia doctrine of “extreme necessity.” However, once sharia-compliant institutions do exist, they are religiously obligated to patronize them exclusively. Thus, by allowing the spread of sharia finance in the West and the US, we are pushing Muslims toward sharia.
What can our government do to protect our markets from sharia finance?
There is much that the government can and should do to regulate sharia finance to ensure that it does not result in the promotion of sharia in the US and the financing of terrorism.
In this country they are free to invest or not invest however they want. How they do business in their own country is their business.
And in this country they dictate terms to weak members of our financial community to impose sharia on us in return for investments. This isn’t about choosing where to invest and where not to invest. It’s about imposing sharia in return for that investment.
The course probably ommitted the fact that 2.5% of the proceeds go for zakat which itself, thru the ‘clergy’, Imams, funds Jihad...here is one link of many to start with to fill in the gaps with. The imposition of Sharia law with ALL its ramifications begins most powerfully thru the institutionalization of Sharia thru banking:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=N2IzMjNkNTdlMjQ1ZDlhZDNiY2QzZjk2NDA1YjhjMTM=
The encroachment of Sharia in the USA is our business. This will just lead to more aspects of Sharia coming into America. Before you know it, we will be in the same boat as the UK. Try thinking past the day that you are in.
The way you describe it I would say the problem is less Sharia law and more Muslims themselves. The guy who gave the seminar was obviously a lawyer and was one of a bunch of them who were responsible for inventing the concept of Sharia finance from scratch basically. He didn’t really get into anything other than the legal aspects which I don’t think lend themselves to terrorost activity any more than conventional finance.
So the zakat going to Islamist organizations is funny to you? Accepting this will just lead to more aspects of Sharia coming into the US. Before you know it, we will end up just like the UK.
Of course you don’t say a word about how the meals were sharia compliant.
Actually it was invented before the 90’s.
The first modern experiment with Islamic banking was undertaken in Egypt under cover without projecting an Islamic image—for fear of being seen as a manifestation of Islamic fundamentalism that was anathema to the political regime. The pioneering effort, led by Ahmad Elnaggar, took the form of a savings bank based on profit-sharing in the Egyptian town of Mit Ghamr in 1963. This experiment lasted until 1967 (Ready 1981), by which time there were nine such banks in the country.[10]
In 1972, the Mit Ghamr Savings project became part of Nasr Social Bank which, till date, is still in business in Egypt. In 1975, the Islamic Development Bank was set-up with the mission to provide funding to projects in the member countries. The first modern commercial Islamic bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, opened its doors in 1975. In the early years, the products offered were basic and strongly founded on conventional banking products, but in the last few years the industry is starting to see strong development in new products and services.
We lost control over our financial future when we borrowed billions from foreign governments. The politicians are selling us out more and more everyday.
“I don’t think lend themselves to terrorost activity any more than conventional finance”.
What other type of finance allocates some of their profits be send to “Islamic charities”?
I would venture that its not the brand of finance that supports terrorism. It’s the people who use it. Anywhere you have muslim extremism you will have this problem, no matter whether the business be sharia finance, conventional finance, or any other business.
“I would venture that its not the brand of finance that supports terrorism”.
Sharia banking just makes it easier for them.
Shariah Approved Islamic Charities found to Fund Terror
So there is no other type of financing that mandates that part of their money goes directly to Islamic charities.
There are many articles on the dangers of Sharia banking funding Islamic Jihad via zakat and Islamic charities..here is another...http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/why-muslim-charities-fund-the-jihad/
Zakat is one of the 5 pillars of Islam. One of the 8 required destinations of zakat is to “those who are fighting for Allah.” Go buy a copy of “Reliance of the Traveler: The Manual of Islamic Sacred Law.”
It’s all in there.
bttt
Not sure about this being against any of our laws, etc. but we can certainly expect more of this kind of thing as Obama destroys our economy and foreign governments buy our debt and invest in our country. Very scary times we live in.
Thanks for the ping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.