Stop Shariah Finance
November 10, 2008
http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/
http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=5344
[..] In the run-up to an emergency summit outgoing President George Bush has called to address the now-global financial crisis, the oil-rich Islamists of the Persian Gulf led by Saudi Arabia have not only established that their petrodollars are indispensable to any solution. They also seem to have secured the Bush Administration’s acquiescence to the sinister strings attached to any bail-out of the West in which they might participate.
Specifically, the Saudis and their friends want the United States to join those, particularly in Europe, who have accommodated themselves to Shariah. No, we are assured, they aren’t taking about the brutal theo-political-legal code that features such barbaric practices as beheadings, floggings, stonings, amputations, female genital mutilation and mysogeny more generally.
All they want, those in the know insist, is for Washington to encourage Wall Street - more and more of which is owned by the U.S. government - to embrace Shariah-Compliant Finance (SCF). A Treasury Department seminar convened last week depicted SCF as nothing more than a kind of socially responsible investing vehicle that respects Muslim religious beliefs by eschewing interest-bearing transactions and those involving pork and “sin” stocks. So, what’s the big deal?
What makes the Shariah-Compliant Finance gambit both a big and troublesome “deal” is that, unlike these other religious traditions, Shariah’s adherents are pursuing a global theocracy. They believe they must impose their agenda on everybody else, religious and secular alike, using violence if necessary. And SCF is explicitly described by leading practitioners as a complement to violent holy war: “financial jihad” and “jihad with money.”
In other words, there is no such thing as free-standing Shariah-Compliant Finance. According to all of the recognized authorities and institutions of Islam, Shariah is a unified, indivisible program to which all faithful Muslims must adhere comprehensively.
Not surprisingly, therefore, the Saudis & Co. are not simply seeking to insinuate Shariah-Compliant Finance into our capital markets. They are also advancing the creation of a parallel Shariah-governed society through various other means.
One of these techniques will be in evidence when the Saudi monarch himself convenes a meeting in New York City in the hope of imposing Shariah blasphemy laws worldwide. In light of the stated, and seemingly benign, purpose of the so-called “Culture of Peace” event hosted by King Abdullah at the United Nations - namely, promoting interfaith understanding and tolerance, numerous world leaders, including President Bush, will be present. Never mind that Saudi Arabia is arguably the most intolerant nation on earth, a fact even some in the Bush administration have acknowledged.
The real reason attendance at the King’s séance is going to be impressive, of course, has more to do with the hope that petro-largesse will flow to those who ingratiate themselves to the House of Saud. Abdullah appears confidently to have signaled that, if the West plays ball on the “Culture of Peace” agenda, the Saudis and their fellow Islamists will be constructive at what might be called the subsequent “Culture of Money” meeting in Washington.
What will the answer be when the Islamists insist that free speech must not allow the slander, libel or defamation of Shariah, or other aspects of their faith? If the European Union and the United Nations Human Rights Council have already accommodated themselves to this demand, why should we object? So what if, by so doing, we would effectively thereby be precluded from talking about - or even understanding - the Islamist threat we face, to say nothing of eviscerating the First Amendment? As the Treasury Department can attest, we need the money.
Unfortunately, this is no time for us to be diminishing awareness throughout the Free World of the various, grave dangers we face from adherents to Shariah’s seditious program. London’s Sunday Telegraph reported this weekend that a classified British government assessment has concluded that there are “some thousands of extremists in the U.K. committed to supporting Jihadi activities, either in the U.K. or abroad.”
Such extremists are said to be engaged in attack planning in the United Kingdom “either under the direction of al-Qaeda, or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology of global Jihad” (read, Shariah). They may inflict “mass casualties” and constitute a “severe” threat to the Government Security Zone (including the Houses of Parliament and key executive offices) in the heart of London.
At such a moment, a federal judge in Oregon has held the law criminalizing material support for terror is unconstitutionally “vague.” Taken together with the other manifestations of our capitulation, is it any wonder the champions of Shariah are convinced that “yes, they can” have their way with us? Who will disabuse them of this terrifying notion? We can, but will President-elect Obama lead the way?
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy and a founding member of the Coalition to Stop Shariah (USAStopShariah.org).
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One of the features of Shariah-Compliant Finance is that financial institutions who participate in it may well be helping to finance terrorism through monies contributed to Islamic charities. As the article below reveals, some of these so-called “legitimate” charities have been funding and continue to fund terrorism.
Charities and Terrorism
by Phil Leggiere Thursday, 06 November 2008
http://www.hstoday.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5956&Itemid=128
New paper examines how Al Qaeda uses moderate Muslims to ‘microfinance” terror.
Terrorist networks and organizations have many “underground” means of financing themselves, from drug smuggling to cybercrime. As challenging as these clandestine methods are to globally eradicate, an equally vexing problem is how to shut-off jihadist funding siphoned off from so-called “legitimate” charities.
Addressing that problem, according to Tolga Koker Department of Economics and Carlos Yordan Department of Political Science Drew University, means addressing the question of why tens of thousands of Muslims who are not terrorists and often opposed themselves to terrorism nonetheless support the work of charities that support jihadist operations. Their new paper, titled Microfinancing Terrorism: A Study in Al Qaeda Financing Strategy, published Tuesday by the Social Science Research Network, tries to do just that.
Although new banking and financial regulations may have made it difficult for terrorist groups to move funds around the world, the authors argue, these groups have be quite resourceful in finding ways to adapt to the new regulatory environment and to undermine it.
“For terrorist networks,” they write, “especially those informed by jihadist ideologies, one source of finance is Muslims’ religious donations to Islamic charities. Although Al Qaeda and its affiliates have employed other funding mechanisms, individual donations are a key source of financing because it is a steady flow of funds.
Charities, according to the report, have been a fundamental part of Al Qaeda’s financial Infrastructure, not only helping Al Qaeda raise funds, but allowing it to move funds across national boundaries and hide the transfers from financial regulators.
Though some charities, according to the authors knowingly and actively supported Al Qaeda’s efforts, “most were not aware that al Qaeda operatives working for these charities or that they were siphoning off thousands of dollars to fund terrorist activities and to build Al Qaeda’s global network, which supported jihadist struggles in Chechnya, the Balkans, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.”
"Given that Al Qaeda and other groups fund most of their activities through donations, collected by Islamic charities, why would Muslims provide funds to these organizations," the authors ask.
The answer, the authors conclude, is that "social pressure forces moderate Muslims to publicly support the work of charities that may provide assistance to Al Qaeda or groups inspired by a jihadist worldview."
As they explain it, an individual will comply with social pressures and donate funds to a charity that may supports jihadi causes if he perceives it as critical to his reputation and public recognition as a “practicing” Muslim. Given the primacy of charitable donations in the culture and status system of Muslim communities the need to maintain reputation in this sphere is a powerful force, one that Al Qaeda has been able to tap.
“Microfinancing jihadi charities has a snowballing effect,” they write. “A Muslim who previously refrained from donating to Islamic charities is likely to find himself in a position to provide some funds to religious organizations if he constantly observes his fellow acquaintances’ donations. As a bigger portion of Muslims are yielding to social pressures to contribute extra monies to jihadi charities, al Qaeda and other groups informed by jihadi goals will secure more funds to run their violent operations.”
The reputational model of charitable behavior, the authors believe, has strong implications for policy and counter-terror strategy.
“The model implies,” they say, “that identifying first and then publicly exposing such charities may help pious Muslims, especially those with high expressive drive to sincerely voice their concern among their communities. Encouraging individual donors with high threshold to voice their opinion against violence may create a snowballing effect deterring others from contributing to possible jihadi charities.”
“More importantly,” they conclude, “finding ways to decrease reputational benefits is crucial in curbing the financial resources flowing terrorist networks. However, this is not an easy task. It needs the involvement of secular charities to provide several basic services that were considerably diminished with the neo-liberal polices since the 1980s in Muslim countries and elsewhere. Strictly regulated foreign aid to secular charities may help in this regard.”
The ultimate goal of this campaign of cultural outreach will be “making contribution to jihadi charities unpopular, and hence, changing the direction of social pressure from donating monies to such charities to avoiding such organization will have a paramount effect in the fight against terrorism. This is a long-term goal which is not feasible in the very short run since it asks for major revisions in world politics of which the jihadi charities are by-products.”
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