Sharia Banking in the USA?
November 20, 2009 by Roberto Santiago
Filed under Islam
Sharia Banking in US and Canada
University Islamic Financial Tv Commercial (hat tip trk)
And to the North ……
by Pamela Geller of Atlas Shurgs
Banks are helping sharia make a back-door entrance Globe and Mail (hat tip rut)
In May, 2007, The Globe reported that “Several Canadian financial institutions are preparing sharia-compliant mortgages, insurance, taxi licensing and investment funds to help serve the country’s fastest-growing part of the population.” Recently, the Toronto Star’s business section reported that an unnamed bank may offer sharia loans as early as this summer; Le Journal de Montreal disclosed that Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation(CMHC) was also getting in on the act.
Stephanie Rubec, spokesperson for the CMHC, said the Crown corporation had launched a tender worth $100,000 to study Islamic mortgages for Muslim Canadians. Could she be oblivious to the fact that almost all Muslim Canadians currently have home mortgages through banks and don’t feel they are living in sin? In fact, CMHC has gone a step further: It has quietly entered into a partnership with a Saudi company, AaYaan Holdings, to develop sharia-compliant mortgage-lending systems.
Financing terror.
The origin of Islamic banking has its roots inthe 1920s, but did not start until the late 1970s and owes much of its foundation to the Islamist doctrine of two people — Abul Ala Maudoodi of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and Hassan al-Banna of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The theory was put into practice by Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul-Haq who established sharia banking law in Pakistan.
Proponents of sharia banking rest their case on many verses of the Holy Koran that outlaw usury, not interest.
Verses that address the question of loans and debts include:
Al Baqarah (2:275): God hath permitted trade and forbidden usury;
Al Baqarah (2:276): Allah does not bless usury, and He causes charitable deeds to prosper, and Allah does not love any ungrateful sinner.
Every English-language translation of the Koran has translated the Arabic word riba as usury, not interest. Yet, Islamists have deliberately portrayed bank interest as usury and labelled the current banking system as un-Islamic. Instead, these Islamists have created exotic products with names that are foreign to much of the world’s Muslim population. This is where they mask interest under the niqab of Mudraba, Musharaka, Murabaha, and Ijara. Two authors, both senior Muslim bankers, have written scathing critiques of sharia banking, one labelling the practice as nothing more than “deception,” with the other suggesting the entire exercise was “a convenient pretext for advancing broad Islamic objectives and for lining the pockets of religious officials.” Why Canadian banks would contribute to this masquerade is a question for ordinary Canadians to ask.
There’s more. TMI on Islam.



“Islamists have deliberately portrayed bank interest as usury and labelled the current banking system as un-Islamic.”
Jct: Maybe it’s because they can see the difference between usury on money or gold and interest on cows and grain.
You claim that `almost all Muslim Canadians currently have home mortgages through banks and don’t feel they are living in sin.` That is an outright lie and is contray to the facts on the ground. The majority of Muslims living in Canada do not own their homes because of the usurious banking system. If you do possess statistics, why don`t you publish them?
Second, you claim that there is a difference between `usury`and `interest.` You should have done some basic research to find out that there is absolutely no difference between the two, except that one is a religious term while the other is the modern, secular equivalent, a sort of euphemistic one invented to legitimize ususry.