http://tinyurl.com/685uds
Jihad Economics and Islamic Banking
July 28, 2008
By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen [From Armed Groups: Studies in
National Security, Counterterrorism, and Counterinsurgency; Edited by Jeff
rey Norwitz; U.S. Naval War College , June 2008, chapter 28.] The United
States and the West cannot win the war against radical Islam merely with the
most sophisticated military strategies. Winning requires understanding the
role of shari’a and the Muslim Brotherhood in developing a global
ideological and political movement supported by a parallel “Islamic”
financial system to exploit and undermine Western economies and markets.
This movement is the foundation and the major funding source for the
political, economic, and military initiatives of the global Islamic
movement.1
Shari’a finance is a new weapon in the arsenal of what might be termed
fifth-generation warfare (5GW).2 The perpetrators include both states and
organizations, advancing a global totalitarian ideology disguised as a
religion. The end goal is to impose that ideology worldwide, making the
Islamic “nation,” or ummah, supreme.3
Rising oil prices and the West’s dependency on Middle East oil, combined
with willful blindness and political correctness, provide a surge of
petrodollars, making financial and economic jihad so much easier to carry
out. Moreover, according to shari’a, Muslims hold all property in trust for
Allah.4 Therefore, under the shari’a, all current and historic Muslim
acquisitions everywhere, including the United States , belong to the ummah,
in trust for Allah.
Shari’a is the crucial source and ultimate authority dictating the actions
of practicing individuals and radical Muslim states and movements alike.
Failing to understand the political use of shari’a hampers the U.S. ability
to mount effective policies, plans, and strategies to successfully counter
this fast-growing totalitarian threat.
This ignorance is illustrated by the statements of Massachusetts
representative Barney Frank and Utah senator Bob Bennett. Responding to
opponents of Bourse Dubai’s then-proposed acquisition of 20 percent of
NASDAQ in September 2007, Frank quipped, “In the ports deal, the concern was
smuggling something or someone dangerous. . . . What are we talking about
here”–smuggling someone onto a stock exchange? 5 Similarly, Bennett said, “
Dubai is making a purchase on the open market of an asset that’s for sale.
What’s wrong with that?”
Although Senator Bennett is correct—buying portions or all of NASDAQ is
legal, and NASDAQ regulations could not be changed without Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) approval—Bourse Dubai’s shari’a influence in the
heart of the U.S. markets and economy should have been of grave concern.
Shari’a is the set of Islamic laws established by Muslim jurists, based on
the Qur’an and deeds of the prophet Muhammad, as recorded beginning more
than 1,200 years ago. Its end goal, for all time, is establishing a world
ruled entirely by Islam and the harsh shari’a laws. These laws govern every
aspect of daily life and prohibit individual, political, and religious
freedoms.
Financial Jihad
Funding the jihad, i.e., financial jihad, or Al Jihad bi-al-Mal, is mandated
by many verses in the Qur’an, such as chapter 61, verses 10.11: “you . . .
should strive for the cause of Allah with your wealth and your lives,” and
chapter 49, verse 15: “The [true] believers are only those who . . . strive
with their wealth and their lives for the cause of Allah.” This has been
reiterated throughout Islamic history and in recent times. “Financial Jihad
[is] . . . more important . . . than self-sacrificing,” according to Saudi
and Muslim Brotherhood (MB) spiritual leader Hamud bin Uqla al-Shuaibi.6
Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of
the most prominent Sunni scholars in the world today, reiterated the legal
justification for “financial jihad [Al-Jihad bi-al-Mal]” in a lecture he
gave on 4 May 2002 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to him,
“collecting money for the mujahideen (jihad fighters . . . ) was not a
donation or a gift but a duty necessitated by the sacrifices they made for
the Muslim nation.” 7
Historical Development
The origins of the modern financial jihad infrastructure, including all
Islamic economic and financial regulatory organizations like the
1991-Bahrain- registered and -based Accounting and Auditing Organization for
Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), date back to the 1920s and were an
invention of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna. He designed
political, economic, and financial foundations to enable Muslims to fulfill
a key form of jihad mandated by the Qur’an—financial jihad.8
He viewed finance as a critical weapon to undermine the infidels—and “work
towards establishing an Islamic rule on earth.” 9 He was first to understand
that to achieve world domination, Muslims needed an independent Islamic
financial system to parallel and later supersede the Western economy.
Al-Banna’s contemporaries and successors (such as the late Sayed Qutb and
current Yusuf al-Qaradawi) set his theories and practices into motion,
developing shari’a-based terminology and mechanisms to advance the financial
jihad— “Islamic economics,” finance, and banking.10
Early 1930s MB attempts to establish Islamic banking in India failed.
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser shut down the second attempt, in 1964,
after only one year, later arresting and expelling the Muslim Brotherhood
for attempts to kill him.11
But Saudi Arabia welcomed this new wave of Egyptian dissidents, as did King
Saud bin Abdel Aziz earlier waves in 1954 and 1961.12 Their ideas so
appealed to him and his clerics that in 1961, Saud funded the MB’s
establishment of the Islamic University in Medina to proselytize its
fundamentalist Islamic ideology, especially to foreign students.13 In 1962,
the MB convinced the king to launch a global financial joint venture, which
became the cornerstone and engine to spread Islam worldwide. This venture
created charitable foundations, which the MB oversees and from which most
Islamic terrorist groups benefit.14
The first were the Muslim World League (MWL) and Rabitta al-Alam al-Islami,
uniting Islamic radicals from 22 nations and spinning a web of many other
charities with hundreds of offices worldwide.15 In 1978, the kingdom backed
another MB initiative, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO),
which, with all these “charities,” is implicated for funding al Qaeda, the
9/11 attacks, Hamas, and others.16 These “charities” are used to advance the
Muslim Brotherhood and Saudi political agenda, namely empowering the ummah
and imposing worldwide shari’a. “I don’t like this word ‘donations’,” .
al-Qaradawi told BBC Panorama on 30 July 2006. “I like to call it Jihad with
money, because God has ordered us to fight enemies with our lives and our
money.”17
In 1969, the Saudis convened Arab and Muslim states to unify the “struggle
for Islam,” and have ever since been the Organization of the Islamic
Conference’s (OIC’s) major sponsor. The 56 OIC members include Iran, Sudan,
and Syria. The Jidda-based, “pending the liberation of Jerusalem,” OIC’s
charter mandates and coordinates “support [of] the struggle of the
Palestinian people, . . . recovering their rights and liberating their
occupied territories.” 18 The OIC charter includes all the MB principles.
Its first international undertaking in 1973 was to establish the Islamic
Development Bank (IDB) “in accordance with the principles of the shariah,”19
as prescribed by the MB—and to launch the fast-growing petrodollar- based
Islamic financing market. The IDB, more a development than commercial bank,
was established largely “to promote Islamic banking worldwide.” 20 “[A]n
Islamic organization must serve God… and ultimately sustain …the growth
and advancement of the Islamic way of life,” writes Nasser M. Suleiman in
“Corporate Governance in Islamic Banking.”21
And the IDB has done just that. Between 1975 to 2005, the IDB approved over
$50 billion in funding to Muslim countries,22 ostensibly to develop their
economic and educational infrastructures, but effected little regional
economic impact. Its educational efforts, however, paid huge yields—via
the rapid and significant spread of radical Islam worldwide. Moreover, in
2001 alone, the IDB transferred $538 million23 raised publicly by Saudi and
Gulf royal telethons to support the Palestinian intifada and families of
Palestinian suicide bombers. The IDB has also channeled UN funds to Hamas,
as documented by bank records discovered in the West Bank and Gaza. Yet, the
IDB received UN observer status in 2007.24
According to a 1991 U.S. Library of Congress report on Sudan, the IDB also
supported Faisal Islamic Bank, established in 1977 under Sudan’s Faisal
Islamic Bank Act by Saudi prince Muhammad ibn Faisal Al Saud and managed by
local Muslim Brotherhood members and their party, the National Islamic
Front. Soon other political groups and parties formed their own Islamic
banks. Together, Sudanese Islamic banks then acquired 20 percent of the
country’s deposits “providing the financial basis to turn Sudan into an
Islamic state in 1983, and promoting the Islamic governmental policies to
date.”25 Sudan Islamized its banking in 1989. However, Pakistan was the
first country to officially Islamize its banking practices, in 1979.
Rising oil revenues encouraged MB leaders to formalize al-Banna’s vision. In
1977 and 1982, they convened in Lugano, Switzerland, to chart a master plan
to co-opt Western economic “foundations, capitalism and democracy” in a
treatise entitled “Towards a Worldwide Strategy for Islamic Policy,” also
known as The Project. MB spiritual leader al-Qaradawi wrote the explicit
document, dated 1 December 1982.26 The 12-point strategy includes diktats to
establish the Islamic state and gradual, parallel work to control local
power centers . . . using institutional work as means to this end. This
requires “special Islamic economic, social and other institutions,” and “the
necessary economic institutions to provide financial support” to spread
fundamentalist Islam.27
Consequently, the IDB founded the AAOIFI in 1990. AAOIFI members include the
Saudi Dallah al Baraka Group, al-Rajhi Banking & Investment Corporation, and
Kuwait Finance House28—all implicated in funding al Qaeda and other MB
offspring, according to Richard Clarke, the former national coordinator for
security, infrastructure protection, and counter-terrorism. 29 The 18 AAOIFI
members also include Iran and Sudan, both on the U.S. Treasury Department’s
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list; Iran is a U.S. State
Department-designat ed terror-sponsoring state, too. UAE banks wired most of
the funding for the 9/11 attacks.30
In addition, the “de facto Islamic Central Bank,” the Islamic Financial
Services Board (IFSB),31 was established in 2002 in Kuala Lumpur “to absorb
the 11 September shock and reinforce the stability of Islamic finance.”
Chairing the organizers’ meeting, then Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamed
Mahathir stated, “A universal Islamic banking system is a jihad worth
pursuing to abolish this slavery [to the West].” 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 terror funder.32
According to Dallah al Baraka Group and Islamic Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (ICCI) president Saleh Kamel,33 more than 400 Islamic financial
institutions34 currently operate in 75 countries.35 They now hold more than
$800 billion in assets 36 growing 15 percent annually. HSBC, UBS, J.P.
Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds TSB, and BNP Paribas are but a few that
offer Islamic banking and shari’a-based products to their Western
clients—and promote them as “ethical investments.”
Billionaire Sheikh Saleh Abdullah Kamel and his family, like other wealthy
Saudis, have built their terror-funding- affiliated $3.5 billion Dallah al
Baraka Group to service the shari’a.37 Its business, finance, and media
sectors incorporate agriculture, communication, health care, real estate,
tourism, trade, transportation, and finance companies— including 10 banks
and many leasing and finance firms, Arab Radio & Television and Arab Digital
Distribution, and the International Information & Trading Service Co.,
producing the Top 1000 Saudi Companies Directory, among other publications.
Rapidly rising oil prices fill the coffers of Islamic banks, fuel the
expansion of shari’a economics and financial jihad—and threaten the United
States and the entire non-Muslim world, in real time. Indeed, shortly after
9/11, Osama bin Laden called on Muslims “to concentrate on hitting the U.S.
economy through all possible means. . . . Look for the key pillars of the
U.S. economy. Strike the key pillars of the enemy again and again and they
will fall as one.” 38
The NASDAQ acquisition, purchases of over 52 percent of the London Stock
Exchange (LSE) and 47.6 percent of OMX (Nordic exchange), and vigorous
expansion of shari’a finance all steadily implement al-Banna.s plan to
spread and ultimately impose shari’a worldwide.
Bourse Dubai in December 2006 loudly proclaimed its new conversion to
“shari’a compliance and accounting practices.”39 Yet, responding to a
specific inquiry on the Islamic nature of Bourse Dubai from the Partnership
for New York City on 22 October 2007, Bourse Dubai denied being an Islamic
exchange.40 Still unaware of the implications of importing shari’a finance,
however, hoards of Westerners eagerly attend such pricey events as the
October 2007 Islamic Finance Summit in New York,41 which focused on the
“innovations in shari’a compliant finance.” According to an eyewitness, when
one participant timidly inquired, “What is shari’a law?” a leading Islamic
scholar responded from the podium: “It’s good for you.”
Lost on the attendees was the inescapable fact that shari’a calls for the
supremacy of Islam, thus negating the U.S. Constitution. 42
Zakat
Zakat, we are told, is to help the needy. But as Janine A. Clark’s excellent
2004 study shows, zakat is used to support the middle class, to strengthen
its loyalty to the rulers, and to back their radical ideology’43
Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi decrees, “Declaring
holy war . . . is an Islamic duty, and fighting . . . is the Way of Allah
for which Zakat must be spent.” In his 1999 publication, Fiqh az-Zakat,
al-Qaradawi adds, “The most important form of jihad today is serious,
purposefully organized work to rebuild Islamic society and state and to
implement the Islamic way of life in the political, cultural and economic
domains. This is certainly most deserving of Zakat.” 44 And as previously
demonstrated time and again, Muslim jihadist-terror organizations are indeed
prominent zakat recipients.
The use of charities to fund jihad, however, is not limited to radical
Sunnis. On Jerusalem Day, 5 October 2007, Al-Manar TV broadcasted Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah’s cantankerous speech giving religious, moral, and
political justification in support of “the armed Palestinian resistance” and
calling for financial support to the Palestinian terrorist organizations.
Nasrallah “gave Khomeini’s fatwa [45] . . . allowing charity funds . . . and
the tax of 1/5 (khums)[46] to be transferred to the Palestinian terrorist
organizations . . . to pay for their campaign.”47
The definition of zakat in The Encyclopedia of Islam includes in “category
7” of eligible recipients “volunteers engaged in jihad,” for whom the zakat
covers “living expenses and the expenses of their military service (animals,
weapons).” 48
Millard Burr and Robert Collins’s compelling study Alms for Jihad documents
that when zakat, which is obligatory to all Muslims, is given “in the path
of Allah,” it is given to fund jihad. There are seven broad categories of
eligible recipients: the poor, converts, wayfarers, those in bondage or in
debt, those committed to Allah for the spread and triumph of Islam,
newcomers whose faith is weak, and new converts to Islam “whose hearts have
been [recently] reconciled [to truth].” Moreover, zakat may be used to
support those who admin ister it.49
In a 2006 federal case, alleged al Qaeda supporters Emadeddin Z. Muntasser
and Muhammed Mubayyid were charged with soliciting and spending “funds to
support and promote the mujahideen and jihad, including the distribution of
pro-jihad publications,” through their now-defunct “charity” and front
organization, Care International. The Boston-based organization published,
among other things, the English version of al Qaeda cofounder and key Muslim
Brotherhood leader Abdullah Azzam’s “Join the Caravan.”
It states, “The individually obligatory nature of jihad remains in effect
until the lands are purified from the pollution of the disbelievers.” 50 They
collected more than $1.3 million in contributions. In their defense,
Muntasser and Mubayyid claimed to merely have exercised their religious
freedom and obligation to give zakat as part of their constitutionally
protected freedoms. Their motion for dismissal (which the court denied)
cited chapter 9, verse 60, of the Qur’an, describing “those entitled to
receive zakat.”
Incredibly, the suspects’ attorneys also argued that such charitable giving,
to support jihad and mujahideen, is rightfully tax exempt under the U.S.
constitutional protection of religious freedom.51 Court records show Care
International deposited checks “with handwritten notes such as ‘for jihad
only,’ ‘Bosnia Jihad fund,’ and ‘Chechen Muslim Fighters’.” The U.S.
Constitution provides protections for religious freedom, but most certainly
was never intended to protect religiously sanctioned or encouraged war in or
against America.
The First Amendment bars Congress from enacting laws “respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
However, the Constitution offers no protection to any group or religion
supporting “holy war” against the United States or its citizens.
State Zakat Agencies
Saudi Arabia
In 2007, Saudi Arabia collected $18 billion in zakat52 —which includes the
20 percent flat corporation tax from foreign companies. The Saudis claim
that the money collected develops their infrastructure. However, two-thirds
of Saudi men are unemployed and the infrastructure is crumbling.53
Illustrating how funds are used, Saudi Arabia’s secretary-general of the
official Muslim World League Koran Memorization Commission stated on Iqra
TV, on 29 August 2005, “The Prophet said: ‘He who equips a fighter…it is
as if he himself fought.’ You lie in your bed, safe in your own home, and
donate money and Allah credits you with the rewards of a fighter. What is
this? A privilege.”54
Since the 1970s, the Saudi government has spent more than $100 billion 55 to
build thousands of mosques, Islamic centers, and Islamic studies programs in
universities worldwide to advance the ummah’s power and undermine Western
economic, political, cultural, educational, and legal structures and replace
them with the shari’a.56 In the last 13 years alone, the Saudis gave at
least $459 million to British universities for Islamic study centers,
according to Professor Anthony Glees, of Brunel University.57
The worldwide Muslim riots following the publication of the Muhammad
cartoons in Denmark’s largest daily, Jyllands-Posten, began only after Saudi
Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark; after Sheikh Osama Khayyat, imam
of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, praised on national Saudi television the Saudi
government for its action; and after Sheikh Ali Al-Hudaify, imam of the
Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, called “upon governments, organizations and
scholars in the Islamic world to extend support for campaigns protesting the
sacrilegious attacks on the Prophet.”58 Saudi-controlled OIC initiated and
coordinated Muslim rioting worldwide after the Danish Muhammad cartoon
publications. 59
Moreover, to wield more control over Muslim communities worldwide, better
orchestrate “spontaneous demonstrations,” and better allocate funds for
them, the Saudi-backed OIC established the clerical International Commission
for Zakat (ICZ) on 30 April 2007. Previously, there were more than 20,000
organizations that collected zakat. Now, however, the Islamic clerics’
centralized “expert committee” based in Malaysia also supervises and
distributes zakat funds globally. The new committee distributed roughly $2
billion collected over Ramadan 2007 to Muslim “charities”. 60
In a show of unity, the Shiite Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah argued, “If
there had been a Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini’s fatwa against the
renegade Salman Rushdie, this rabble who insult our Prophet Mohammed in
Denmark, Norway and France would not have dared to do so.”61
The Saudi role in terror financing is no secret. Yet, the U.S. admin
istration keeps telling us that the Saudis are our allies. On 10 December
2002, criticizing the Joint Inquiry Staff (JIS) report of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence (HPSCI), Senators Jon Kyl and Pat Roberts stated, “The
pervasiveness in Saudi Arabia of Wahhabism, a radical, anti-American variant
of Islam, was well known before 9/11. The JIS should have inquired why the
country of Saudi Arabia was given such preferential treatment by the State
Department and whether the intelligence agencies were complicit in the
policy.”62
In early 2008, however, U.S. government officials publicly noted that the
Saudis continue the financing of radical Islamic groups.63 United Arab
Emirates64 Like every Muslim country, the UAE collects mandatory Islamic
charity (zakat. the Third Pillar of Islam—an annual wealth tax), of 2.5
percent to 20 percent from Muslim institutions and companies. Being
non-Muslims, foreign banks and oil companies theoretically don’t pay zakat.
But foreign banks and oil companies do pay at least 20 percent
of their profits in the form of a mandatory tax rather than zakat. In 2003,
the UAE established an independent federal agency collecting zakat on
government tax revenues from “companies listed on the Dubai Financial Market
and Abu Dhabi Securities Market . . . oil-producing companies and branches
of foreign banks.” In 2007 these revenues were estimated at $13.5 billion.65
Although presenting itself to the West as a moderate. ally, the UAE has
consistently supported the. peaceful. and violent advancement of shari’a and
terrorism worldwide. In 2006, to support suicide bombing, the UAE gave $100
million to the Palestinian Authority to build a new town named Sheikh
Khalifa City, in honor of the UAE president. The city houses families of
“shahids and prisoners” andprisoners. and was built on the ruins of Morag,
one of the evacuated Israeli settlements in Gaza.66
On July 27, 2005, the Palestinian Information Center carried a public HAMAS
statement thanking the UAE for [its] “unstinting support.” The statement
said: “We highly appreciate his highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Bin Sultan
Al-Nahyan (UAE president) in particular and the UAE people and government in
general for their limitless support . . . that contributed more to
consolidating our people’s resoluteness in the face of the Israeli
occupation.”
The HAMAS statement continued: “the sisterly UAE had . . . never hesitated
in providing aid for our Mujahid people pertaining to rebuilding their
houses demolished by the IOF. . . .
The UAE also spared no effort to offer financial and material aids to the
Palestinian charitable societies.”67
Indeed, as documented by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Center for Special Studies (CSS),68 Hamas charitable societies are
known as integral parts of the Hamas infrastructure, and are outlawed by the
United States and Israel.
Hamas also included a special tribute, promising to “never forget the
generous donations of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan [al Nahayan of Abu
Dhabi],”69 the current UAE president’s father. The multibillionaire was an
early PLO patron and, from the 1970s until his 2004 death, contributed
millions of dollars to the PLO’s terror agenda, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.70
Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan was the first Arab ruler to understand the strategic
importance of economic jihad71 against the West. He was first to use oil as
a political weapon after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.72 He was also the major
sponsor of the first international Islamic bank, the Bank of Credit and
Commerce International (BCCI). The bank was created to serve as .the best
bridge to help the world of Islam, and the best way to fight the evil
influence of the Zionists.”73 BCCI, which was shut down in July 1991 by New
York City district attorney Robert Morgenthau, 74 funded and otherwise
facilitated terrorist organizations and states, including the Sandinistas,
Hezbollah, abu Nidal, the PLO, al Qaeda, Syria, Libya, Iran’s Islamic
revolution– -as well as Pakistan’s nuclear program, to create the “Islamic
Bomb.”75
Immediately before the 1991 Gulf War, Sheikh Zayed branded the United States
the Muslims” “number two enemy” after Israel. As of this writing, the UAE
votes against the United States 70 percent of the time in the UN.76
Human Appeal International (HAI), a UAE government-run “charitable”
organization, whose board includes the UAE president,77 continues to fund
Hamas and other Palestinian organizations, .martyrs,. and Palestinian
terrorists in Israeli prisons and their families. The HAI modus operandi
includes transferring funds to the Palestinian Red Crescent, whose West Bank
and Gaza branches Hamas runs. Hamas, in turn, distributes the money to Hamas
“charities.” The Toronto, Canada, Orient Research Center reports that the
UAE compensation. plan for the Palestinian intifada in 2001 included $3,000
for every Palestinian shahid, $2,000 for his family, $1,500 for those
detained by Israel, and $1,200 for each orphan. In addition, the families of
terrorists whose homes Israel demolished each received $10,000. Also in
2001, the UAE held two telethons to support the “martyrs’” families. One
entitled “We Are All Palestinians” raised 135 million dirham, or $36.8
million, and another called “For Your Sake Palestine” raised 350 million
dirham, or $95.3 million.
On 15 February 2005, the Hamas Web site reported on funds transferred from
HAI to two West Bank Hamas front organizations, IQRA and Rifdah, outlawed in
Israel.78 On 22 March 2005, the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam reported that
in 2004 the UAE Red Crescent donated $2 million to Hamas “charities” for
3,158 terrorists. orphans.79
A detailed 25 March 2005 report, in the Palestinian daily Al Hayat
al-Jadeeda, noted that the UAE Friends Society transferred $475,000, through
the UAE Red Crescent, to West Bank “charitable” organizations in Hebron,
Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarem to distribute to families of “martyrs,” orphans,
imprisoned Palestinians, and others.
And in July 2005, Osama Zaki Muhammad Bashiti of Gaza’s Khan Younis was
arrested while returning from the UAE80 for often transferring as much as
$200,000 at a time to the Gaza branch of Hamas.
Continuing UAE support for Hamas follows the agenda of the late Sheikh
Zayed. His Zayed Center for International Coordination and Followup, founded
in 1999 as the official Arab League think tank,81 was shuttered under
international pressure in 2003. It championed Holocaust deniers like Thierry
Meyssan82 and Roger Garaudy83 and provided a platform for anti-Western,
anti-Christian, and anti-Jewish extremists like Saudi economist Dr. Yussuf
Abdallah Al Zamel, who blamed the Iraq war on “radical Zionist and
right-wing Christian” influence.
In October 2000, shortly after the beginning of the last Palestinian
intifada against Israel, Qatar-based Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader
Yusuf al-Qaradawi established the “Union of Good,”84 operated through the
London-based Muslim organization Interpal. The Union of Good is an umbrella
organization composed of 50 Islamic “charities,” including Hamas- and
Hezbollah-affiliate d organizations. It was supposed to raise funds for only
101 days, but its initial success led the founders, mostly Hamas members, to
maintain its operations to date. Millions of dollars generated in Europe and
elsewhere through the Union of Good-participating Muslim “charities” fuel
all Palestinian terror organizations. Interpal was designated as a terrorist
organization by the United States in August 2003, but remains free to
operate in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
Al-Qaradawi, who established and leads the Department of Islamic Law
(shari’a) at the University of Qatar and the Institute for Sunnah Research
there, is also on the board of directors of the Al-Taqwa Bank, designated by
the United States as a terrorist-funding organization in November 2001. In
August 2004, al-Qaradawi issued a fatwa saying, “All the Americans in Iraq
are soldiers, there is no difference between enlisted soldiers and
civilians, and they must be fought because American citizens came to Iraq to
serve the occupation. The kidnapping and killing of Americans in Iraq is a
[Muslim religious] obligation to force them to leave the country
immediately.” 85
UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan stated that the
emirates were and remain a. strong ally of the U.S. in combating terrorism.;
continuing UAE support of Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations
proves otherwise. This raises legitimate concerns for the West about
trusting UAE banks, shari’a finance institutions, or government tax or zakat
collection agencies. Furthermore, it raises alarms about giving the UAE
legal control or influence over Western investment houses, banks, or
markets.86 The same applies to every other Islamic financial institution or
state.
Bourse Dubai began operating as the world’s first fully shari’a-compliant
stock exchange in December 2006.87 shari’a compliance requires companies
traded to also be shari’a-compliant and establishes a special tax on all the
others to. Purify them. The Islamic “purity” (tazkiya) of Bourse Dubai was
approved by the shari’a Board of the AAOIFI.88 The AAOIFI laid the
groundwork for the global Islamic financial network and regulates all
Islamic financial organizations and products, including Bourse Dubai.
How the West Can Win
The adversary’s skill at manipulating media and public opinion cannot be
underestimated. The propaganda offensive is so successful that even Colonel
Thomas X. Hammes’ description of what led to the Second Intifada is a rehash
of the Saudi-sponsored Palestinian fabrication and propaganda. Ham mes
claims that the Palestinian Authority named the new intifada “the al Asa
Intifada” to suggest that the Palestinian violent reaction was a direct
result of then Liked party leader Ariel Sharon’s visit to the al-Asa Mosque.
Moreover, Hammes’ speculation that Sharon knowingly sparked Palestinian
violence using his own fourth-generation warfare strategy suggests a
deliberate disregard for thousands of dead Israelis and Palestinians in the
resulting mayhem.
The fact of the matter is, Sharon never entered the al-Asa Mosque but rather
visited the Jewish holy site of the Temple Mount. Moreover, careful study of
the Palestinian modus operandi makes it clear that naming violent outbreaks
is done in an opportunistic fashion and this one was preplanned. Mad
Al-Hifalutin, then Palestinian Authority communications minister, stated on
several occasions: “The PA had begun to prepare for the outbreak of the
current Intifada since the return from the Camp David negotiations, by
request of President Yasser Arafat.”89
The United States is now drawing new military and defense doctrines to win
the fourth-generation warfare. In addition to improving technologies, the
focus seems to be on the development of lighter and more flexible armies,
and a greater understanding of the individual characteristics of our
enemies. Writing about strategies needed to win the next war, Colonel Thomas
X. Hammes states that the “most powerful [U.S.] message” to the world is
that “we treasure the individual.”90
But a measure of the enemy’s success is our reluctance to identify the
shari’a for what it is. Its adherents value only the ummah, and they enslave
the individual to achieve their goal—global domination. As long as the
enemy—shari’ a—has not been acknowledged and understood, we stand no
chance. Exposing shari’a and all its adherents, be they states,
organizations, or individuals, is crucial to our ability to defend
ourselves. It will also enable us to undermine sharia’s global structure,
turning its adherents against it, the way we did with communism.
