Thailand Close to Debut Sukuk Issue
Shariah continues to gain a financial foothold in Thailand…Sukuk to make debut despite shabby global track record… http://www.cibafi.org/newscenter/english/Details.aspx?Id=6489&Cat=0
Dubai Debts Prompt Review of Shariah Finance
SFW has long maintained–and pointed out–that Shariah-Compliant Finance is in now way immune to market and economic forces and thus cannot provide a safe haven in the event of economic or financial crisis. We point this out because so many financial jihadists routinely commit fraud by claiming that Shariah Finance is protected by the principles […]
In the civilized world, this would be referred to as a “default.” But in the world of Shariah, it’s simply called a “standstill.” Creditors have little choice but to go along with the swindle that Dubai has perpetrated on them. Sooner or later, maybe Western financiers will discover that all of the added but often […]
A few years ago, Dubai World floated an Islamic bond (Sukuk) to acquire the British port company P&O. The results of that acquisition and the methodology became part of the subsequent default and bailout of Dubai World’s sukuk portfolio. What the article linked below alludes to without coming right out and saying it, is the […]
Dubai in retrospect: Don’t Blame Shariah!
The Dubai World default on sukuk, also known as “Islamic bonds,” was centered on financial products which were approved by Shariah scholars. Making investments Shariah-Compliant was supposed to protect investors from crisis and calamity. We heard and read such claims from financial jihadists over and over again after the Subprime collapse. But Shariah-Compliance not only […]
Dubai’s golden sands lose their luster
“Investors trapped by the financial storm in the United Arab Emirates are in unknown legal territory as they try to protect their billions.” (The Times, 10 December 2009) The Dubai default debacle demonstrates in stark detail how the lack of transparency and failure to disclose relevant facts make Shariah Finance risky. Long ago–decades ago–the rest […]
A Shameless, Shallow Advertorial for Shariah Finance from Oxford Analytica and Forbes.com
Malcom Forbes must be spinning in his grave. His namesake publication’s web site has published an article which basically promotes a financial and economic system which by its very nature seeks to replace capitalism and our free enterprise system: http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/10/islamic-finance-after-dubai-business-oxford-analytica-islamic-finance.html?feed=rss_business In fact, the article reads less like journalism and more like a press release from […]
Shariah finance suffers growing pains
The Financial Times actually wrote a fairly balanced story on Shariah finance for a change. In the story linked below, FT’s journalist points out that Shariah-compliant financial institutions have proven just as vulnerable to the economic downturn and financial crisis as conventional counterparts. This, of course, flies right in the face of the propaganda being […]
The Contagion Spreads: Qatar Islamic Bank has $15 mln exposure to Dubai World
Qatar Islamic Bank has announced that it faces exposure in the evolving debacle emanating from Dubai. This is particularly bad news for this institution since, back in March, it was in serious enough trouble to have been bailed out by the regime in Qatar: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/2009/03/10/qatar-to-prop-up-its-banking-system/ $15 million doesn’t seem like a great deal of exposure, […]
Dubai Sheikh Calls International Investors A Bunch Of Suckers
After bilking international investors out of billions of dollars, Mohammed al-Maktoum blames the investors for Dubai’s financial troubles! In a way he is right. Many Western investors have been suckered in by Shariah Finance… http://www.businessinsider.com/dubai-sheikh-calls-international-investors-a-suckers-2009-12
Shariah Standing in the Way of Creditors Getting Paid in Dubai
Wealthy investors flocked to the “miracle” of Dubai in recent years. Some invested in Islamic bonds, better known as Sukuk. Sukuk are investments concocted to comply with Shariah law (though there is some debate even about that). Now, the very Shariah law under which Sukuk were designed could end up swindling creditors out of a […]
Dubai in meltdown
The bubble has burst in Dubai and the affliction is spreading to Western financial markets. Yesterday, US markets were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, but other markets were open and shuddered: http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE5AN54C20091126?feedType=nl&feedName=usdai When reading the article linked just above, you may recognize the name “DP World.” This was the company that was scheming to take […]
More on South Korea’s Slide to Shariah-Compliant Finance
Linked below is an article which provides a few more details on a subject we have reported on a few times in recent months: the creeping of Shariah finance into South Korea. Before you read this article, we would like to point out a couple of things: 1. Hyundai’s name being mentioned prominently in this […]
TIMELINE-Defaults: Islamic finance in uncharted territory
The dirty underside of Shariah-Compliant Finance… http://www.reuters.com/article/bankruptcyNews/idUSKLR44503820091105?rpc=401
Dubai, the favored smuggling post for illicit and dangerous goods into Iran, is to raise billions of dollars from the issuance of Islamic bonds. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601013&sid=aGArmouiqNjU
GE Capital plans $1 billon Islamic bond: report
Add General Electric Capital Corporation to the growing list of Western corporations who have stepped up to help the Dawah efforts of to Shariah imperialists. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ge-capital-plans-1-billon-islamic-bond-report-2009-10-25
Increased provisioning for bad loans and a decline in income from investments have led Bahrain Islamic Bank into a quarterly loss. Bahrain’s biggest Islamic retail bank by market value said on Wednesday provisions for impairments in the third quarter increased more than threefold to 2 million Bahraini dinars ($5.31 million) from 600,000 dinars in the […]
The International Finance Corp., a wing of the World Bank, said Wednesday it would list its first Islamic bond. The IFC Hilal Sukuk, a greenback-denominated 100 million dollar issue with a five-year maturity, will be listed with the Nasdaq Dubai and Bahrain stock exchanges, the Washington-based corporation said. The IFC is the first non-Islamic financial […]
HSBC Postpones its First Islamic Bond Fund
HSBC said on Wednesday it has postponed the launch of its first fund investing in sukuk, or Islamic bonds, after investors were put off by a four-year lock-up period. Investors worldwide were caught out by lengthy or sudden lock-ups imposed by investment managers during the credit crisis, which limited access to much-needed cash. The sukuk […]
If there is a Western financial institution that has done more to promote Shariah than HSBC, we don’t know about it. HSBC has embraced Shariah enthusiastically and is involved in its financial arm everywhere from Western Europe to the Persian Gulf to the Orient. If there is a financial institution worthy of a boycott by […]
Moves to plug the gap in Islamic finance carry risks
The Financial Times has published an article detailing some of the risks involved in Shariah-Compliant Finance. For instance, a new term has been developed for the financial world: “Shariah risk.” Shariah risk is the risk that a product that was previously believed to be shariah-compliant could be declared “un-Islamic” by a prominent shariah scholar. Basically, […]
Indonesian government to issue Shariah bonds
The Indonesian government will sell Rp 1 trillion (US$100 million) worth of sharia bonds next month through auction… http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/07/30/govt-sell-rp-1t-worth-sharia-bonds.html-0
From time to time we have reported on Islamic bonds, properly known as “sukuk.” These are convoluted instruments created by the Shariah finance community to get around prohibitions against interest. They are controversial even in Islamic circles, especially since major Shariah authority Mufti Taqi Usmani issued a fatwa declaring most of them “unislamic” over a […]
Institutional Investor has published a celebratory article about “Islamic finance.” The article starts off by telling the truth, namely that the market for Islamic bonds dried up last year as a result of the economic crisis, but it only uses that as a set up for telling a story of how the future for Islamic […]
Islamic Development Bank could raise $500m bond (sukuk)
The Jeddah, Saudi Arabia-based Islamic Development bank will soon issue a $500 million sukuk or Islamic bond issue. This is rather controversial in Shariah Finance circles since Mufti Taqi Usmani issued an opinion last year declaring that most such instruments are in fact NOT Shariah-compliant and are unislamic. That opinion, along with the world economic […]
Shariah-Compliant Finance spreads its tentacles across borders and faiths
We at SFW have said all along that promoters of Shariah-Compliant Finance are ultimately looking to infiltrate our society and culture. Shariah finance is a first step in that process, especially using Shariah rules to govern transactions with non-Muslim entities. Over time, these types of transactions become accepted. Then they become the norm. It is […]
Promoters of Shariah-Compliant Finance have been falsely bragging about their insulation from the global financial crisis. But the truth is slowly starting to leak out. Shariah-Compliant Finance has been hit by the global financial crisis, just like almost all other sectors. Part of this can be explained by the fact that many of the so-called […]
Unfortunately we overlooked an excellent article two weeks ago. Alyssa Lappen is one of the most knowledgeable writers on Shariah and Shariah-Compliant Finance. She wrote an article for FrontPageMag.com. In this article she points out that some sukuk–or Islamic Bonds–are in fact structured in such as way that they simply cannot be classified as anything […]
Shariah-Compliance may create MORE risk
For months now we have been hearing how Shariah-Compliance provides an insulation against the effects of the financial crisis, specifically the subprime mortgage debacle. The argument states that the prohibition against interest and the requirements for asset-based transactions would prevent the securitization of mortgages to begin with and prohibit investments in such instruments. Of course, […]
A hedge against financial crisis? Not at all…
If Shariah-Compliant financial products are a hedge against the financial crisis that has afflicted the world, then why have issues of Shariah-Compliant bonds–known as sukuks–fallen drastically over the course of the developing financial crisis? How can promoters of Shariah-Compliant Finance claim that their products are a protection against the financial crisis on one hand and […]
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