Yale Establishes Shariah Law Center with $10 Million “Donation” From Saudi Shariah Finance Titan
By Christopher Holton Yale has now joined its Ivy League rival Harvard by establishing a center designed to promote Shariah in America. And, just like Harvard, Yale has prostituted itself to do so by taking a $10 million inducement from a wealthy Saudi financier who made his fortune in none other than Shariah-compliant finance. That […]
Here we have more evidence that Shariah-Compliant Finance is the opposite of free enterprise and market capitalism. Banks in the UAE want to create a central Shariah board to govern the entire industry… The United Arab Emirates’ bank industry association has discussed a proposal to create a centralised sharia board that would monitor Islamic banking, […]
By now readers have no doubt heard that Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It is worth pointing out that Qaradawi was a driving force behind the early expansion of Shariah Compliant Finance and sits on the Shariah advisory boards of some of the world’s largest Shariah financial institutions, including the […]
Coming soon? A Shariah-Compliant Megabank?
The Prime Minister of Malaysia backs the creation of a global Islamic megabuck to promote Shariah… Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said yesterday that he backed the idea of creating a large stand-alone Islamic bank, in order to develop a global footprint for Islamic finance and position it as an alternative to conventional banking. […]
Mufti Muhammad Hassaan Kaleem has joined the Shariah advisory board of Dubai Islamic Bank. Kaleem is already a member of Deloitte’s Shariah advisory board and AAOIFI. Given his position with AAOIFI, it is not surprising that Kaleem is a pupil of the hate-filled, Jihadist Mufti Taqi Usmani, who chairs AAOIFI’s Shariah board and was previously […]
This week in Oman, the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) will hold a workshop covering “Standards on Risk Management, Corporate and Shariah Governance for Institutions offering Islamic Financial Services.” This event isn’t particularly noteworthy but it does provide a teaching moment for those who have doubts that Shariah-Compliant Finance’s first and foremost purpose is to […]
Report: Egypt Orders Arrest of Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi
Egypt has reportedly ordered the arrest of Muslim Brotherhood Shariah scholar, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi. SFW readers may recall that Qaradawi has been one of the pioneers of Shariah Finance for a few decades now, serving on the Shariah advisory board of some of the biggest banks and financial institutions in the Islamic world, including Bank […]
Due to the lack of Shariah scholars in the Islamic world–even in Saudi Arabia–Islamic financial institutions are literally “outsourcing” the Shariah advisory function. In Saudi Arabia, one manifestation of that is the “Shariah Review Bureau,” a separate entity that provides Shariah advisory services to a variety of Islamic financial institutions. But already Western observers will […]
America’s First Shariah-Compliant Bankruptcy
In New York, Judge Sean Lane approved Arcapita Bank’s $175 million bankruptcy loan from Goldman Sachs to pull the bankrupt Shariah-compliant entity out of receivership… There is some debate as to whether the arrangement is actually Shariah-compliant, but Arcapita’s Shariah advisory board have declared the arrangement Shariah-compliant so that’s all it takes. (Talk about a […]
The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), which lists the Jihadist Shariah scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani as the chair of its Shariah Advisory Board, will hold its annual conference in Bahrain this year… http://www.ameinfo.com/kfh-bahrain-sponsors-aaoifi-annual-sharia-conference-337986
The Wall Street Journal Weighs In On Al Goreeza: Inconvenient Truths About Al Jazeera…and about Dow Jones too
We’re glad to see that the Wall Street Journal has weighed in on the nefarious aspects of Al Jazeera, echoing what we reported here on SFW last week: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/2013/01/03/al-gore-sells-out-to-qatar-state-owned-al-jazeera-buys-current-tv/ It’s worth pointing out some of the highlights in the Journal’s article: …the network reflects the interests of the government that runs it—making it akin to […]
One of the challenges facing the Shariah Finance industry is a shortage of qualified Shariah scholars to serve as “advisers” to Shariah-compliant financial institutions. Not only is their a shortage of Shariah scholars, but many of the existing Shariah scholars are very old. Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi and Mufti Taqi Usmani are examples of the old […]
South Africa’s First National Bank (FNB) finds itself in urgent need of a whole new set of Shariah scholars to man its Shariah advisory board after its previous board resigned en masse in a dispute with management. Not surprisingly, given the opaque nature of Shariah-Compliant Finance, details about the dispute are sketchy, but they appear […]
First it was HSBC, which was fined $1 billion for knowingly looking the other way on transactions involving Iran. Then it was Standard Chartered, which was fined $340 million. Now it’s Deutsche Bank’s turn. Can we now say that the Shariah Finance promoters COMMONLY do business with terrorist regimes in violation of US sanctions? And […]
An Extremely Important Article on Shariah-Compliant Finance from Congressman Allen West
Investor’s Business Daily and Congressman Allen West have teamed up overnight to publish an extremely important op ed penned by Congressman West on the subject of Shariah-Compliant Finance. In his column, Congressman West points out virtually all of the major concerns surrounding Shariah-Compliant Finance and laments that it has received no critical scrutiny from US […]
The good folks at Money Jihad blog have done it again. They have uncovered a very important news item about a member of the Shariah Advisory Board of Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) who has been arrested for his alleged involvement in an attack on police by the group Jamaat-e-Islami . We have known for years about […]
One of the chief concerns about Shariah-Compliant Finance surrounds the use of Shariah advisors who end up controlling a great deal of money invested in Shariah-compliant instruments and institutions. Some of these advisors, such as Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Mufti Taqi Usmani, have known ties to Jihadist terror groups. But even in the cases where […]
The article linked below is pro-Shariah Finance, but it brings up a good point. It doesn’t get to that point until the second half of the article, but it does eventually get to an interesting point. The article points out that the Shariah Finance industry is overly dependent on a few Shariah scholars, which is […]
A firm called Ethical Asset Management in the UK is launching a Sukuk fund for individual investors. This is fairly unremarkable, but the designation “ethical” is worth commenting on. Ethical is a subjective term. To most Westerners, there is little or nothing ethical about Shariah. On the contrary, many of the tenets of Shariah are […]
Shariah Finance Watch hears from Mr. Oliver Agha, a Shariah Compliant Lawyer
Recently, Shariah Finance Watch received the letter below in response to a posting we published on 31 January. (https://shariahfinancewatch.org/2012/01/31/is-shariah-compliant-finance-a-failure-a-self-serving-answer-from-the-financial-jihadis/) To Whom It May Concern: I write to clarify certain facts and set the record straight in relation to an article published on-line and displayed on the website “Shariah Finance Watch” on January 31, 2012 […]
The intrepid and illustrious Joy Brighton weighs in on Goldman Sachs’ ridiculous foray into the world of Shariah-Compliant Finance. This is an excellent article that regretfully we previously overlooked… Excerpt and LINK: In September 2011, Goldman Sachs announced it would issue a $2 billion Shariah Compliant Islamic Bond derivative known as a “Sukuk” to finance […]
Goldman Sachs Lies Down With Dogs and Gets Fleas
Last September, Goldman Sachs announced that it was going to issue a $2 billion sukuk. The investment banking giant dutifully employed a Shariah advisory firm, Dar Al-Istithmar Limited, and went about the business of putting together the financing arrangement. There was just one problem. Goldman Sachs made one mistake: they trusted the financial jihadis. To make […]
Maybe the only thing worse than getting in bed with the financial jihadists is to get in bed with the financial jihadists, only to find out they don’t want you. That may be the situation Goldman Sachs finds itself in with regard to its Islamic bond (sukuk) program. It seems Goldman got the blessing from […]
Shariah Finance Certification Tied to Jihadist-led Organization
A UAE-based firm named Ethica has become the industry leader “for accredited training and certification in Islamic finance.” Experts say that what probably sets Ethica apart is that their 4-month Certified Islamic Finance Executive™(CIFE™) certification is the only 100% AAOIFI-compliant, 100% online Islamic finance program in the market today. AAOIFI stands for the Accounting and […]
Craziness for Profit: Shariah Scholar/Advisor Mufti Taqi Usmani Blames Commodities Markets for Financial Crisis
At SFW we have covered Mufti Taqi Usmani extensively over the years. He has long been considered one of the most prominent and influential Shariah scholars in the world of Shariah Compliant Finance. According to many observers, critics and market participants alike, Usmani is the Shariah finance […]
Oman central bank rules out Shariah advisory board
The good news is that Oman is not establishing a centralized Shariah advisory board inside its central bank. Such a board could quickly become very powerful–too powerful. The bad news, of course, is that Shariah Compliant Finance has made its way to Oman, an historically modern country not held back by Shariah. http://www.ameinfo.com/277083.html
Nearly two years ago, SFW published an article in which we uncovered that a Kuwaiti real estate investment concern had successfully imposed Shariah on tenants of its facilities in Colorado by refusing to allow certain types of businesses to operate and activities to take place on their property: https://shariahfinancewatch.org/2009/08/17/kuwait-islamic-bank-successfully-imposes-shariah-in-the-usa-courtesy-of-udr/ The article didn’t get any particular […]
Accountants play a vital role in the world of finance. They are supposed to be the unbiased analysts and observers of data who help keep the rest of us from making egregious mistakes either based on emotion or because we simply lack the sophistication to decipher the numbers to fully understand a financial arrangement. Unfortunately, […]
Yours truly was interviewed for the article linked below that was published by the American Banker. The article is disappointing. It wasn’t so much what the article says, but what it does not say that bothers me. I spent a great deal of time on the telephone with the author explaining the concerns over Shariah […]
Gulf states are working towards the creation of a single Sharia board for the region’s Islamic financial institutions, said Hussain Hamed Hassan, head of Dubai Islamic Bank PJSC’s Sharia committee and chairman of the Sharia Coordination Committee of the Islamic Financial Institutions in the UAE. Speaking at the launch of Hawkamah Institute’s policy brief on […]
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