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FCO Minister and Minister for Faith and Communities Baroness Warsi, made it clear in a public address earlier this month that Islamic Finance was something that for her ?really matters?.[1] It?s about ?increasing options, maximizing the products and services we have to offer? and ?making Britain the preferred choice for the Muslim world?. 
Listening to Warsi, you could be forgiven for thinking this was just about including a new financial product on the market. However, sharia finance is the financial arm of an alternative legal system ? sharia law. ?This is not just a religious law that pertains to personal belief, worship and rituals, but a system of law that dictates human relations and ethics that have proved to produce entirely different social and legal outcomes in society. Many are wondering why Britain is willing to bow to a foreign religiously based law ? essentially joining Muslims as they bow to Mecca? ? in order to be the preferred choice for Muslim investment. And many are wondering what this push for sharia compliance will really mean for what Warsi calls? ?the Muslim world? ? much of it now living within what is tellingly termed the ?free world?.? What will be the impact upon the free world of embedding within it the Muslim world?s legal system?
With increasing calls for sharia compliance in many western nations Australian Religious Liberty Analyst, Elizabeth Kendal, has given this some thought. ?She notes that Australian Muslim families currently have full constitutional rights ? i.e. the doors are open to them to integrate and secularize and even convert. However, Islamic fundamentalists aim to close those doors so they can control the Muslim community. Perhaps what Baroness Warsi is failing to see is that while she is promoting sharia finance under the guise of ?increasing options?, for those within the Muslim community, she may in fact be promoting the reverse; a narrowing of options. Kendal explains that according to Islam, if there is no sharia, then Muslim citizens are obliged to obey the law of the land and also to strive for sharia. However, when there are sharia options, Muslim citizens are obliged to obey the sharia; that?s simply removing free choice for Muslim citizens. Ironically, this is just what Islamists want to achieve ? a narrowing of options for the Muslim community and greater sharia compliance in the broader community.
Baroness Warsi made it clear she wants Britain to capitalize on what she says is a shift of economic power to the east, an appetite for ethical finance and the need to rebalance and diversify the economy. She also suggests that Islamic finance has a degree of protection from speculation, adding to the claim of it being an ethical investment.
From an Islamic perspective there has indeed been a concerted effort to move economic power from west to east. And Islamic finance, as the birth child of the Muslim Brotherhood, was originally touted as a ?financial jihad? in order to do just that. Muslim author Tarek Fatah notes that since 1928, when it was created, the Muslim Brotherhood has placed a high emphasis on the creation of a so-called Islamic economic system, to finance a worldwide organization devoted to spreading an Islamist ideology.[2] Sadly, sharia finance is promoted in these circles as a response to capitalism; an alternative to being engaged in a system that actually offers a return on investment, which is seen as unethical. If there actually were no interest gained in Islamic banks this would of course make for a very poor economic investment. Yet as many sharia finance practitioners affirm, interest is merely rebadged as fees, rental or profit.
In his book ?Islamic Banking ? A $300 Billion Deception? [3]Muhammad Saleem not only dismisses the founding premise of Sharia and Islamic banking, but says, ?Islamic banks do not practice what they preach: they all charge interest, but disguised in Islamic garb. Thus they engage in deceptive and dishonest banking practices.?[4]
Islamic economics, finance and management chairman of Rice University Mahmoud el-Gamal agrees. He notes in the Financial Times ?All Islamic finance today is interest based?. Islamic banking, merely ?shari?a arbitrage ? is ?first and foremost about religious identity?.[5]? ?Warsi appears to confirm the drive to cement Islamic identity with reference to pursuing the potential market base of 2 billion people. But the real questions remain unanswered. Will Islamizing finance, separating the Muslim world from the rest of the world with religious financial barriers, not just embolden Islamists who subscribe to this house of Islam versus house of war philosophy? Won?t this support those set on undermining western economies and even financing terror? While noting the commitment of Egypt?s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to boost the sharia-compliant share of banking assets, Warsi makes no reference to FJP?s connection to the ideological origins of sharia finance as the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood; a once radical fringe idea now moved mainstream. ?However author Timur Kuran does. ?In his book Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism, he writes:
??Sharia banking has promoted the spread of anti-modern currents of thought all across the Islamic world. It has also fostered an environment conducive to Islamist militancy.?[6]
Promoted as ethical finance, this shift from conventional to Islamic banks raises some unique ethical questions. The concept of funds needing to be separated and ?cleansed? from contamination by non sharia-compliant sources hardly seems conducive to promoting social inclusivity. The method of cleansing by giving to Muslim only charities might also be deemed discriminatory. Yet Warsi did not comment on these issues or consider the ramifications of Britain supporting sharia compliant donations to Muslim charities when sharia scholars regulating these may include dawah (Islamic missionary activity) and jihad (fighting for Islam) as legitimate charitable causes.
Sadly, this new method of religious cleansing of funds may have too many similarities to traditional money laundering. While Warsi refers to transparency and strict due diligence, the reality is that an astounding number of Islamic charities in western nations have been designated as terror sponsors. Al Qaeda has infiltrated one-fifth of all Islamic charities. In the jurisdictions of England and Wales and the Netherlands, this represents some 2,000 charities.[7]
However, Warsi was proud to advise of the creation of the UK?s first ever ministerial-led Islamic Finance Task Force, whose first task is to ?overcome the tax and legislative barriers? ? rather than the ideological ones working against British citizens. I assume that means rewriting laws in order to render them sharia compliant; ie favorable towards Islamic ethics and social norms. Secondly, Warsi committed to engage with major stakeholders in infrastructure investment including the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). This bank was established by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), whose charter includes all the Muslim Brotherhood principles. Dr Zuhdi Jasser, Muslim campaigner for freedom and democracy and member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom refers to the OIC as ?thugs?.[8] Yet Warsi is committing to engage with their sharia scholars and the IDB, which is known to have channeled UN funds to Hamas and supported Faisal Islamic Bank, one of bin Laden?s preferred banking options through which he channelled terror funds.
One of the issues with sharia finance is that it relies on determinations from a very small pool of religious scholars who are often from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Malaysia, and known for a more radical theology. A quick search of London?s sharia compliant banks confirms sharia scholars sit on several sharia boards and most have connections to the Bahrain based regulatory board AAOIFI. (Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions). International Chairman of AAOIFI, Mufti Taqi Usmani, is an advocate for spreading sharia law in the west and publicly supports violent jihad against ?infidels? through his legal decrees. Yet despite this, he remains one of the world?s leading sharia finance scholars casting shadows over claims to ethical investment. While Usmani himself has been retired from a few boards for his radical views, his son, Dr Muhammad Imran Ashraf Usmani, now occupies a number of places, including the sharia committee for Lloyd?s TSB.
To conclude her address, Warsi noted that sharia finance is only 50 years old. This is also the timeline for the revival of Islam more generally which has seen a move to stricter dress codes, social codes, food and finance requirements all pushed through the OIC. Unfortunately this has gone hand in hand with calls for increased sharia compliance, persecution of minorities in Muslim majority countries, international terrorism and calls for a revived Caliphate. Dr Jasser sees the OIC, an international organization who refuses to sign the UN Declaration of Human Rights and who created the Cairo Declaration subject to sharia law, as a neo-Caliphate. Indeed I believe the Secretary General of the OIC has publicly stated that it functions as a Caliphate. Promoting sharia finance is obviously in their interests, yet as depositors get no interest on his or her deposit, yet pay 50 points above the market interest rate on their mortgage, perhaps the only benefit to the Muslim world will be lining the pockets of Imams and Banks. Quite frankly, if we unveil Islamic finance, we will see the claim to ?no interest? is a lie and all that remains is an ideology promoting separatism. [9]
[5] Frontpagemag.com Friday 6 June 2008
[7] ?Terrorism, charities and diasporas? Biersteker & Eckert (eds) 2008
Source: http://australianchristians.com.au/warsi-janson-agree-sharia-finance-really-matters/
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