Introduction: Shariah Investments

Shariah Banking also known as Islamic banking or Shariah Compliant finance is a powerful economic tool of Political Islam, disguised as a harmless religious method of investing for Muslims.

Western investment firms like Citigroup, HSBC, Dow Jones, UBS, and AIG have created Islamic banks within their corporate structures, hiring Shariah Authorities or Imams to manage this new entity with full discretion. Their ultimate goal is to create a global Islamic nation (umma) wherein both Muslims and non-Muslims are under Islamic sovereignty. These Shariah “scholars” use all forms of Jihad (aggressive and stealth) to further their goal. Shariah Finance is the most insidious and effective form of stealth Jihad.

The growth and momentum of the $1 trillion dollars nascent Islamic banking market, growing at 20% a year is driven by the promise of billions of dollars of annual oil revenues each year from the middle east, looking to be invested, and the billions of dollars of profits it represents.

This market was formally created in the 1970’s by the Muslim Brotherhood to harness new Middle East oil wealth to benefit the vision of radical Islam, more correctly known as Shariah-Islam.

What is missing from this market is a true assessment of the risks of this market and lack of full disclosure; in other words; investments are being sold into the marketplace with only half the facts being told. In legal terms, this is securities fraud. Poor due diligence (no one kicking the tires), weak transparency and incomplete disclosure is the formula for every market meltdown, our global markets have experienced from Enron, to Madoff to the Sub-Prime Mortgage meltdown.

Shariah Islamic Banking market is likely to be the next global and American economic disaster, but with a Jihad, terror financing and human rights abuse twist.

The marketing materials of firms like Citibank, UBS, Barclays, HSBC, AIG, and Blackstone Finance focus on two seemingly harmless details of “Islamic” investing -

... un-Islamic banned “sin” industries of alcohol and gambling. Therefore, investment firms describe Shariah finance as “interest-free,” “ethical,” and “socially responsible” investing. Shariah mutual funds, Shariah bonds, Shariah insurance products and Shariah hedge funds are being created.

Here is are the facts that are missing and not being told to investors, shareholders and American customers of the banks and insurance firms using American dollars to build this new Shariah market:

• The definition of Zakat includes the clothing and feeding of terrorists and other expenses of Jihad;

• The numerous other “un-Islamic Industries” for which Shariah investment is forbidden, including: products or construction that benefits Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Protestantism, or any other non-Islamic religion; any project that promotes equal rights for women or gays; and Western defense industries, books, films, TV, and radio.

• Shariah authorities’ commitment to world dominance and Jihad, even against liberty-minded Muslims;

• Shariah-compliant investments are complicated but legal "derivatives" that re-label "interest income" as "rents" or "profits." The Obama administration has labeled "derivatives" as "toxic assets." These instruments triggered the economic collapse of 2008 and created the need for the taxpayer-funded $3 trillion of bank bailout.

Shariah Finance is being promoted as “ethically responsible,” “culturally respectful” Islamic religious investments. However, Shariah Law is the written doctrine that connects the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Iran and Saudi Arabia. It mandates violent Jihad, stones women, forces girls to marry, and calls for the death of Muslims who leave the faith. And Shariah dollars are spent to create an Islamic economy devoid of western culture, health and welfare services for gays, businesses to empower women, and any religious service, product or real estate project (other than Islam). Is this “ethically responsible”?

There are members of Congress who have expressed concern about this market. So far, the SEC and US TSY is looking the other way, mired in our current economic crisis.

Included in this section are real-time news articles announcing new Shariah Investments being introduced into the marketplace.

See the Fact Sheet for more. Click on the Map to see where Shariah Finance is growing. http://stopshariahnow.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=406&Itemid=154

NYSlimes article - Dec. 2009-Jan. 2010

“We like Imam Feisal, the way he presents the philosophy of the true Islam that I call it,” said one of the congregants, Mohammed Abdullah, an investment banker who traveled from Washington for the service.

[...]The location is not designated a mosque, but rather an overflow prayer space for another mosque, Al Farah at 245 West Broadway in TriBeCa, where Imam Feisal is the spiritual leader.[...]

[...]Kukiko Mitani, whose husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the building at the time, tried to sell it for years, at one time asking $18 million. But when the recession hit, she sold it in July to a real estate investment firm, Soho Properties, for $4.85 million in cash, records show. One of the investors was the Cordoba Initiative, an interfaith group founded by Imam Feisal...]

“It’s really to provide a place of peace, a place of services and solutions for the community which is always looking for interfaith dialogue,” said Sharif El-Gamal, chairman and chief executive of Soho Properties.

The patched-up roof was easily visible on a recent tour of the building, along with evidence of its sudden evacuation: food bags still in a fifth-floor staff refrigerator and, most eerily, a log sheet for the testing of the emergency alarm system that shows a sign-in signature for 9/11 but no sign-out.

Records kept by the city’s Department of Buildings show anonymous complaints for illegal construction and blocked exits at the site. Inspectors tried to check but were unable to gain access, so the complaints, though still open, were listed as “resolved” under city procedures, according to an agency spokeswoman, Carly Sullivan.

But worshipers are legally occupying the building, where retail space is offered for lease, once a week under temporary permits of assembly through December, Ms. Sullivan said.

With 50,000 square feet of air rights, Imam Feisal said, the location, with enough financing, could support an ambitious project of $150 million, akin to the Chautauqua Institution, the 92 Street Y or the Jewish Community Center.

Joy Levitt, executive director of the Jewish Community Center, said the group would be proud to be a model for Imam Feisal at ground zero. “For the J.C.C. to have partners in the Muslim community that share our vision of pluralism and tolerance would be great,” she said.

Mr. El-Gamal agreed. “What happened that day,” he said, “was not Islam.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&ref=nyregion

An investment banker travels from Washington specifically for the service - interesting. Who is this guy and is he the individual who financed it? One wonders if this is really about an el-grande building to house Sharia Banking on Wall Street. What a double victory for Islam that would be...

We’re also told they’re occupying it legally via leasing but one wonders if it is actually legal as it doesn’t appear to be up to city code.

Exclusive: Are We Financing Our Own Demise?

March 2, 2010 - Gadi Adelman, Joy Brighton

[...]Just as Sharia is not about religion, but rather politics and power, Sharia banking is not about banking: it is about politics, economics, and power – which explains why Iran was the first and remains the only one of two countries in the world today (Sudan being the second) that mandates 100 percent Sharia banking. When Khomeini deposed the Shah in 1978, secular law and human rights went out and Sharia law, oppression and zealot mullahs came into every aspect of life, including the banking system. Prior to 1978, the entire world including the Middle East practiced traditional, Western banking. Today, Iran remains the market leader in Sharia Finance and the market leader in terror finance and terror in general.

Would AIG, Citigroup, Dow Jones, HSBC, UBS, Visa and Mastercard have become involved with something called Apartheid Finance? Or Nazi Finance? Of course not. So why are they involved with Sharia Finance? Have these firms stopped reading the newspapers? Don’t they know that Sharia-driven Iran is building nuclear weapons and funding the Sharia-driven Taliban who is killing our own young men and women soldiers? Or that our President is putting economic sanctions on Sharia-driven Iran?[...]

[...]Four of the most sought-after “Sharia authorities” in the industry, listed below, reads like a Who’s Who of Terrorists. They all sit on the board of the AAOIFI (Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions) or the board of IFSB (Islamic Finance Standards Board).

And guess who sits on these boards? IFSB members include the central banks of Iran, Sudan, and Syria (all designated state sponsors of terrorism) and the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA), which is widely documented since its inception to be a funder of terrorism.

Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawiis on the Board of AAOIFI, the Bank Al-Taqwa (shut down in 2001 by the U.S. Treasury for terror funding) and many other Middle East banks. Qaradawi, has been banned from entering the United States of America since 1999 and the United Kingdom since 2008 because of his ties to terrorism. He created a 57-member network of charities called the “Union of Good,” which is designated as a sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. Government.

In July 2003 in Stockholm, at a conference arranged by the Muslim Association of Sweden, he expressed his support for suicide attacks against Israeli civilians which he called a “necessary Jihad.” Perhaps this is why he described Sharia charity dollars as “Jihad with Money” in an interview with the BBC in 2006. During an address to the Journalists Syndicate in Cairo (Associated Press, September 2, 2004) he stated, “Fighting American civilians in Iraq is a duty for all Muslims… Americans in Iraq are all fighters and invaders. There is no difference between a civilian and a military American in Iraq”. Lastly, just to show how ‘charitable’ he really is on July 7, 2004, in an interview with BBC TWO’s Newsnight he said, “Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do.”[...]

[...]Funny how our government seems to be talking about sanctioning Iran while, at the same time, stopping the Taliban (with the blood of our own young people). The SEC is urging stricter regulations to avoid another sub-prime disaster. The U.S. Treasury and 32 central banks are considering stopping business with the shady Iranianbanking system which doesn’t comply with global banking standards of transparency and money-laundering. Yet Sharia Finance, the financial system of Iran, is rolling full speed ahead right into neighborhoodbranches of AIG, Citi, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Prudential and UBS.

As I have said and written many times before; enough is enough, open your eyes, get involved, tell your friends, family and colleagues and your Congressmen and Senators too. Sound the alarm![...]

Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmaniis the Chairman of AAOIFI and is, or has been a paid Sharia Sheik on the Board of HSBC, Dow Jones, Citigroup and Guidance Financial. He is the Founder and Director of Jamia Uloom madrassa, the second largest madrassa in Pakistan, which “boasts close ties to the Taliban” according to International Crisis Human Rights Group. He was the Deobandi Cleric to the Taliban in 2001. According to a comment piece in The Times (UK), September 8, 2007 Usmani “believes that aggressive military jihad should be waged by Muslims ‘to establish the supremacy of Islam’ worldwide.”

Imran Ashraf Usmaniis on the Boards of AAOIFI; AIG, HSBC, Citigroup, Lloyds TSB Bank (UK) and Credit Suisse Bank. Imran is the son of Sheik Taqi Usmani, schooled in the same Jihadist Pakistan madrassa. Banks are replacing Taqi Usmani with his son, Imran, as his father’s Jihadist background is being publicized.

Sheikh Yusef Talal DeLorenzo is on the boards of AAOIFI; IFSB, Barclays Capital, Dow Jones, Guidance International, Sharia Capital and Blackrock. He is an American convert to Islam who dropped out of Cornell and was educated at the same Jihadist Darul Uloom madrassa as the Usmani father and son team.

He was also an advisor to Pakistan President Zia al-Haq 1981–1984 during the creation of the Taliban. He is the past Director of Education for the Islamic Saudi Academy, which has been condemned for its hate curricula by the Congress-appointed U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. DeLorenzo was the secretary of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) which The Investigative Project has linked to Islamist extremism and terrorism. It was Sheikh DeLorenzo who said using the word “ethical” was a better description than “Sharia” for Western bankers to understand.

So what do these sheiks actually do? One of their jobs is to ensure that somehow money from Sharia investments gets sent off to charity. The problem is that their definition of charity and the definition of charity according to most Americans are polar opposites...
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5632/pub_detail.asp

Excellent article in it’s entirety.

January 28, 2008

Today, governments in the Persian Gulf, China and Singapore have snapped up $US37 billion ($42 billion) of stakes in Wall Street, the bedrock of the US financial system.

Politicians and the White House are welcoming the cash and there is hardly a peep from the public.

This is no accident.

The warm reception reflects millions of dollars in lobbying by both overseas governments and their Wall Street targets - aided by Washington veterans from both parties, including big-time Republican fundraiser and lobbyist Wayne Berman.
And the investments have been carefully designed to avoid triggering close US government monitoring.

But by making investment by foreign governments seem routine, Washington may be ushering in a fundamental change to the US economy without assessing the longer-term implications.

Some economists say the stakes could provide autocratic governments an important say in how US companies do business, or give them access to sensitive information or technology. Former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers counsels caution. “There should be a very strong presumption in favour of allowing willing buyers to take non-controlling stakes in companies. However, it’s imaginable that government-related entities (investing in the US) will be motivated to strengthen their national economies, make political points, reward or punish competitors or suppliers, or extract know-how,” Summers says.

Last year the UAE launched a three-year $US15 million Washington lobbying campaign, the US-Emirates Alliance, to polish its reputation.

The alliance, headed by former Hillary Clinton campaign aide Richard Mintz, recruited about two dozen businesses to form a support group. It contributed $US140,000 to a prominent Washington think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, to start a “Gulf Roundtable” discussion series.

A participant says Schumer described the Dubai port controversy as an “anomaly”. Since then, executives from top financial firms have consulted Schumer when foreign firms have sought to buy stakes and regularly won his endorsement.

Schumer says the executives assure him that foreign investors will have “not just virtually no control, but virtually no influence”.

Banks and securities firms are also the largest industry contributors to members of the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee, which can review investments in Wall Street firms. Schumer is a member of the Senate Banking Committee.

Wall Street and the UAE thought they had turned the corner last spring when another Dubai-owned company, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, bought two firms that owned small US airports and maintenance facilities that serviced some navy transport plane engines.

The Dubai firm pledged to submit to government security reviews and submit its employees for security screening.

It also thoroughly briefed lawmakers on the deal. It ran into no obstacles on Capital Hill

The deal that provided a blueprint for the current wave of foreign investments was China’s $US3 billion stake in Blackstone Group’s initial public offering, announced last May.

In helping to gain congressional approval for the deal, lobbyist Berman emerged as a key strategist.

Blackstone asked Berman to help smooth the way in Congress for China to buy a piece of the private equity firm.

A minority stake made sense: Blackstone wanted to boost its presence in China. China, which was setting up China Investment Corp, wanted to show it could become a trusted investor in top US firms. Berman said offering a board seat, or a stake above 10 per cent, would invite government review. The two sides agreed on a stake of up to 9.9 per cent and passive investment.

“Policy considerations didn’t drive the specifics of the deal - they informed the deal,” Berman says.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/us-makes-a-u-turn-on-foreign-buyers/story-e6frg90x-1111115412005

Creeping sharia...and then there’s our greedy politicians and bankers.

History sharia banking in the USA -
Shariah Investment Firms - Shariah Capital
www.shariahfunds.com

Shariah: “Shariah compliant alternatives to conventional Western financial instruments and investment products”

Shariah Advisors:

Sheikh Nizam Yaquby
Shaykh Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo
Dr. Mohd Daud Bakar
Awards:
2007 Master of Islamic Funds
Articles:
http://www.shariahfunds.com/news/images/Master%20of%20Islamic%20Funds%20Award%20%20Press%20Release%2020%20Nov%2007.pdf

Yusaf has boasted that he was the originator of this sharia banking compliance scheme. They can get a 1m or more for a deal. Who is he advising and what deals. Are they using our money...

I found this online - it was in response to one of the articles -

What is the definition of “takaful” -

“A type of Islamic insurance, where members contribute money into a pooling system in order to guarantee each other against loss or damage. Takaful-branded insurance is based on Sharia, Islamic religious law, and explains how it is the responsibility of individuals to cooperate and protect each other.”

This word “pooling” rang a bell in relation to the president’s words during his opening remarks at the 2010 Healthcare Summit. It was used repeatedly by others as well throughout the several hour-long meeting. The transcript (found online) reveals the first mention of it by Obama, as follows:

“The basic concept is that we would set up an exchange, meaning a place where individuals and small businesses could go and get choice and competition for private health care plans, the same way that members of Congress get choice and competition for their health care plans. For people who couldn’t afford it, we would provide them some subsidies. But because people would have some “pooling” power, the costs overall would be lower because they’d be in a stronger position to negotiate.”

This is indeed interesting and scary at the same time because my instinct tells me that healthcare legislation if successfully passed would be not only the largest power grab as we have known on two levels, 1) 1/6th of the economy, and, 2) decision-making power over life and death of Americans, but potentially, it would also be structured on Shariah Law as is the case alleged by Mr. Yerushalmi with regard to AIG.

Just think of the possibilities if this is Obama’s (and others) ultimate goal with respect to the proposed healthcare reform scenario. As this article states, “legal doctrine known as Shariah — which is the Islamic legal doctrine and program that calls for a global hegemony referred to as the Caliphate, the murder of apostates, and jihad against infidels.” We, all, who are not Muslim, are considered “infidels.”

Zakat is the third Pillar of Islam and very important to the Islamists’ among us.

I pulled out my handy Reliance of the Traveler and there are 30 pages of Islamic legal requirements for Zakat/Charity. Adelman is right that Zakat can legally be given to those fighting or supporting Jihadist warfare against Non-Muslims (or the rest of the world)

The big elephant in the room most of you commenting on this article are missing is in Islamic Jurisprudence it is an obligation for Muslim’s to support Jihadist war and terrorism against Non-Muslims all over the world.”

It’s quite astonishing to say the least...

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