Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world today. Countries like Indonesia, which are not Middle Eastern countries, are experiencing unprecedented booms in their Muslim population. It is becoming more and more obvious that money and finance is the battlefield of tomorrow.
To help promote the Islam way of life and undermine Western religious practices, Muslim extremists are using Shariah-compliant financing. These are Muslim banking rules that are employing oil wealth and the economic clout of the key Islamic nations to overthrow our financial institutions, our cultures and our social values. Letting this movement get out of hand could be a disaster for our way of living.
A key player in the Shariah-compliant financing is Sheikh Muhammad Taqi Usmani. He is a well known Islamic scholar and the former justice of the Pakistani Shariah Appellate Court. He has also been an advisor to Dow Jones, HSBC Bank, and other financial institutions who hired him to advise them on where to invest billions of dollars. He recently resigned after ten years at the post.
The sheik is very influential and issues radical and disturbing fatwas. Fatwas are legal opinions regarding personal behavior. These fatwas are based on Islamic law and are binding on all Muslims, regardless of where they live. He has a different take on the oft stated belief that Islam is a peaceful religion. In a story in FrontPageMagazine.com, Sheikh Taqi Usmani promotes the belief "that Muslims living in the West conduct violent Jihad against the infidels at every opportunity."
He is targeting you and me. He wants to eradicate every religion but Islam. In his book, Islam and Modernism, he expounds that in the West, "killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay Jizyah after they are humbled or overpowered." Jizyah is a tax levied and collected from every non-Muslim adult living in a Muslim land. The tax is really just a symbol of subordination to the Islamic state and laws. This powerful and economically connected man seems to be on a mission to kill, tax and subjugate Westerners.
Shariah law is the legal framework based on Islamic laws of jurisprudence that ties in civil and criminal actions as well as moral and individual behavior. He has been an advocate of extending this rule beyond the churches and mosques into our financial institutions and ultimately our checkbooks. So how does that work?
In 1987, Sheikh Taqi Usmani was among those who issued a fatwa outlining the conditions for Muslim investing in publicly traded stocks. This was a new concept simply because of restrictions in Islamic laws. Shariah law is the basis of Islam. It dictates what Muslims can and cannot do. Shariah law prohibits drinking alcohol and eating pork. It says that all followers must pray toward Mecca five times a day. It also forbids the paying or collecting of interest of any kind. Therein lies the rub. Since all Western finance is based primarily on the credit markets where money is loaned and borrowed freely, for Muslims to be investors, then we have to change our rules!
In the late 1990's, the wealthy oil exporting countries were awash with cash and wanted to set up special investment funds. Sheikh Taqi Usmani was the perfect one to start the process since he sat on the advisory board for some of our major financial institutions. The major investment banks (think Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citigroup and many others) began setting up special investment funds to include only those industries that did not engage in activities prohibited by Shariah law. In other words, the investments had to be kosher!
To guide this process of deciding what companies are selected to be included in the Islamic Index of investable companies, the investment banks turned to a group of Shariah scholars who were experienced in the nuances of the Islamic codes. These companies could not be engaged in vice type industries such as pork, alcohol, interest income, gambling, pornography or Western (or Israeli) defense industries. Sorry Halliburton! Getting around the interest ban is tricky but the Houdini's of Finance have all been able, remarkably enough, to implement investments that are interest based but have an appearance to satisfy even the most religious and extremist of Muslims.
|
|
The Shariah advisors oversee the financial statements of companies. If they see a violation such as collecting too much interest or investments in a forbidden company then they have to be purified which means donating money to an approved charity. Also, these Shariah-compliant funds must invest 2.5% of the proceeds in these charities.
Who are these charities? Well, some are thinly veiled fronts for extremist terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah. These charities are also believed to have given money to families of suicide bombers. One writer, Frank Gaffney, a former official in the Reagan defense department, noted that "three of the largest Shariah-favored charities in the U.S. have since 9/11 been shut down by the U.S. government for providing financial support of terrorism and other pro-jihad conduct."
That 2.5% tariff adds up to billions of dollars. As the dollars increase they become a key source of financing for our enemies. Many of the advisors sitting on boards are, in fact, known extremists and have coined the phrase, "financial Jihad." Currently, it is estimated that there is as much as $1 trillion invested around the world in Shariah-compliant investment funds.
Wall Street is jumping in with both feet. Not only are they compromising our financial system, they are compromising our national security. Investor's Business Daily reported that "Citibank and Goldman Sachs, for example, are creating investment vehicles that cater to Muslim investors in order to grab some of the billions in management fees in the offing. These products include Shariah-compliant bonds, mutual funds, mortgages, insurance, hedge funds and soon REITs (real estate investment trusts)."
Shariah laws are all encompassing. They include such things as rules for beheadings, stoning, floggings and amputations for petty crimes in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and other countries. It extends to laws about marriage. A Muslim man may divorce his wife simply by repudiation and has no further obligation to support her or his children. A Muslim woman, on the other hand, may not divorce her husband without his consent and she may not remarry. Abuse cannot be used for grounds for divorce. Women's rights are non-existent under Shariah laws.
Think for a moment about some weird implications. For example, can our government invest in these Shariah-compliant funds? Frank Gaffney points out that this would clearly be a violation of the First Amendment. The federal government will not even allow the Ten Commandments in public places but Islamic investments? The fees paid to the Islamic charities is a violation (there are many others) of the rules dictating the separation of church and state.
Remember AIG and the $180 billion bailout? What about Citigroup and the government's 45% ownership stake? How about all the banks that received TARP funds from the taxpayers? All of these folks are promoting Shariah-compliant investment funds and are scrambling all over themselves to become the world-wide leaders in "helping" Muslims potentially damage our financial system. AIG, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch are involved with these Islamic radicals and are on the government dole. AIG and Citigroup are effectively broke and owned by the government and taxpayers.
This movement is picking up steam even at the state level. Minnesota is sponsoring a Shariah-compliant program to help Muslims buy homes without violating their rules against paying interest. In this program, the state buys the house and resells it to the Muslim buyer. They use some simple voodoo to massage it all so the Muslims are happy and in compliance. Meanwhile, Minnesota has violated the First Amendment. Imagine them helping Orthodox Jews buy a home. Why, the Supreme Court would be on that one like ugly on an ape!
There is a clear movement to infiltrate and hijack the world's financial system by Islamic extremists. In addition, our government is looking the other way and allowing these people to violate our First Amendment rights. With Goldman Sachs having many of their alumni rule our government, it seems unlikely that the trend will change anytime soon. Money is power and power trumps common sense, logic and human decency.
|
|
