While most people are still ignorant of the tremendous growth of Sharia Banking in the West, a recent report by International Financial Services London reveals that Britain's Islamic banking sector is now bigger than that of Pakistan.
What is important to grasp is that Islam recognises no authority superior to Sharia law. When trillions of pounds and dollars are locked into them, Sharia banks will not recognize the superior authority of the law of the land.
One thing possibly many of the Westerners are yet to realize is, by simply opening an account with any of the Sharia compliance banks, they in other words are giving endorsement to -- and enabling -- the advance of Sharia law, which endorses, among other tenets, stoning for adultery; hanging for homosexuality, and an offically inferior status for non-believers and women.
Equally troubling is the potential cover provided by Sharia finance for the financing of terrorism. Sharia requires Muslims to tithe a percentage of their money to charity, called "Zakat." But charity in Islam is more like a solidarity, so some of this money donated to Islamic charities finds its way to organizations promoting jihad and supporting suicide bombing, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, and Islamist madrassas in places like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Egypt, among others.
The UK now has five fully "Sharia-compliant" banks which prohibit interest payments, and investment in alcohol or gambling firms in accordance with Islamic Sharia law – while another 17 leading institutions, including Barclays, RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, have set up special branches or subsidiary firms for Muslim clients.
The $18 billion [£12bn] in assets of Britain's Islamic banks are said to dwarf those of Muslim states such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and Egypt. There are also 55 colleges and professional institutions offering education in Islamic finance in Britain – more than anywhere else worldwide. Whether they know it or not, Western institutions that endorses Sharia-compliant banking therefore effectively endorse the extremist ideology behind it of conquering the West for Islam.
There are thought to be about 1.8 million Muslims in the United Kingdom, or 3% of the population, half in the London area; about half a million regular Muslim visitors to the UK, and approximately 12 million Muslims living in the EU, principally in France and Germany. Islamic financial products are available in the UK from a number of High Street banks, which offer current accounts and mortgages tailored for Muslims.
The UK is home to the first wholly Sharia compliant retail bank in the West, Islamic Bank of Britain, which was authorized by the Financial Service Authority [FSA] in 2004. The FSA has also authorized the European Islamic Investment Bank, the first such investment bank. In addition, London has become an important financial center with major international firms and the Middle East's biggest traditional banks offering Islamic products. The main centers for Islamic banking still tend to be concentrated in the Middle East and Gulf region. Assets controlled by Islamic banks at the global level are estimated to be $200-500bn and are growing at a pace of 10-15% per year.
Islamic Sharia banking has been entering the United States and other Western nations, thanks to global banks such as Citigroup, HSBC, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. Why do Western banks seek to participate in Sharia banking? It gives them a chance to enter the Islamic banking industry which has over $1.5 trillion available today and is growing at a steady and explosive rate of over 10-15% per year. The implications for the West, and especially for the United States, are staggeringly destructive. Islamic banking, working through global banks, is doing for Islam what it could never do on its own: giving legitimacy to Sharia law and infiltrating it into the fabric of Western society. To insure compliance and to become "Sharia banking" compliant, banks must hire Sharia experts to review and approve each product and practice of the bank, to make sure that whatever transactions occur there are "Halal," or in compliance with Sharia law. As there is a shortage of such Sharia experts, there is competition among banks to find such experts to sit on their boards of directors.
Having an "expert" involved, now made at the director level rather than the management level in banking decisions, provides legitimacy to each banking decision. Most of these Sharia experts," however, are from the radical Wahhabi school of Islam in Saudi Arabia, and hold views diametrically opposed to the basic values of Western civilization. Even a cursory look at the names, affiliations and views of popular Sharia scholars, such as Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, Sheikh Muhammad Taqi Usmani, Sheikh Mohamed Ali Elgari, Faysal Mawlawi, Sheikh Nizam Yaquby, Suleyman al-Maniya and others, many of whom sit on the Sharia advisory boards of dozens of Islamic banks and get paid princely sums from each, would make it clear that most are hardline Islamists and, in at least some instances, open supporters of terrorism. Here are two examples of those Sharia experts hired by Western and US banks for operating Sharia banking:
- Yousuf Quaradawi,prominent in the Muslim Brotherhood, owns two banks himself and has issued statements in support of Palestinian attacks on Israeli citizens and has issued rulings supporting Hamas and Hezbollah jihad attacks against Israel.
- Muhammad Yaqui Usami, a radical Deobandi cleric and Sharia court judge in Pakistan, and on the board of organizations that train thousands of Taliban and jihad foot soldiers, is not only complicit in the murder and suffering of countless innocent Ahmadiya Muslims as "apostates" because they disagreed with his Islamic mandates, but on record preaching that Muslims living in the West "must live in peace until strong enough to wage Jihad' against their fellow-citizens in order "to establish the supremacy of Islam."
These are the kinds of people advising U.S. banks on how to conduct their business. For those unfamiliar with it, Sharia law is the legal and judicial system of Islam that is brutally imposed on many Islamic countries in the Middle East. It is the embodiment of the totalitarian ideology practiced by the Taliban, Iranian Mullahs, and Saudi Wahhabis. Sharia law is perpetuated by claiming to have its roots in the Koran, but it is actually for the most part based on rulings and dictates made by Islamic scholars and caliphs over several centuries.
Islam and Sharia law demands total and unquestioned submission. Its followers are told that Sharia law is given by Allah and that whatever befalls them [good or bad] is "Allah's will." To question a judgment under Sharia [right or wrong] is to question Islam itself and will only bring harsh punishment. Curiously, by Islamic thinking, if persons receive harsh punishment for something they didn't do, it is nonetheless acceptable - the rationale being that Allah could and would have prevented it if that had been his will. This fatalistic approach, which is contrary to what all other societies believe, allows Islamic rulers to get away with virtually anything they choose to do. International bankers have long ago proven themselves to be completely amoral when it comes to money. They financed the Bolshevik Revolution in 1918 just as readily as they financially supported Hitler in the 1930's. Now they are doing the same for the Islamists that want to destroy western civilization just as the communists and Nazis tried unsuccessfully to do before.
As Britain wants to become the hub of Sharia banking, it is not only in a 'win-win' for Sharia banking there.in the Unitred Kindom. Even the Vatican, in 2009, approved Sharia banking, and Western governments are supporting it. It has already entered United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, France and other major European Capitals.
According to reports published in media, some of the Sharia banks in the West have stopped serving alcoholic beverage during after hour parties. They also are discouraging hosting Christmas parties as well encouraging Muslim female staffs to offer prayers in the office and use Islamic veils. With the tremendous growth of Sharia compliance banking system in the West, it is well understood that the hidden agenda of imposing Sharia law in the West is gradually getting implemented. By now, at least, Sharia already applied in a significant proportion of Western economy through these banks.
