MELANIE PHILLIPS, WRITING EXCLUSIVELY FOR MAIL ONLINE
Worried that Britain is going bankrupt? Cheer up – we’re about to be bought up by the Islamic world.
A report by International Financial Services London reveals that Britain’s Islamic banking sector is now bigger than that of Pakistan.
The study says that the UK has by far the largest number of banks for Muslims of any western country.
islamic bank of britain
Increasing demand: Growing numbers of non-Muslims are turning to Islamic banking - but at what cost?
The UK now has five fully ‘sharia-compliant’ banks – providing products 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 $18billion (£12bn) in assets of Britain’s Islamic banks are said to dwarf those of Muslim states such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey and Egypt. And there are also 55 colleges and professional institutions offering education in Islamic finance in Britain – more than anywhere else in the world.
This development has been actively pushed by the government. When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown declared that he wanted London to become the global centre of Islamic banking. You can obviously see the attraction, especially in these straightened times. But the only thing our politicians and bankers appear to see is the seductive prospect of trillions of pound and dollar signs dancing before their bedazzled eyes.
What they refuse to acknowledge is the real price that is to be paid for this. They don’t understand that the spread of sharia banking in Britain and America is a significant part of the attempt to Islamise Britain and America. Acceptance of sharia finance furthers the Islamist objective of gradually legitimising Islamic sharia law more generally in the west.
The point which is being missed is that all who use it must conform to the dictates of sharia law. Sharia financial institutions may not be making this clear now – they don’t want to frighten people away – but at some point that IOU of sharia-compliance will be called in. This is how sharia-compliance will be spread to both the Muslim and non-Muslim population.
Any Western institution that endorses sharia-compliant products therefore effectively endorses the extremist ideology behind it of conquering the west for Islam, whether it knows it or not.
The most important point to grasp is that Islam recognises no authority superior to sharia. Sharia banks will therefore not recognise the superior authority of the law of the land. When trillions of pounds and dollars are locked into them, who will argue with them?
Even more 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 solidarity. So some of this money donated to Islamic charities may well find its way to organisations promoting jihad and supporting suicide bombing including Hamas, Hezbollah, the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and Islamist madrassas in places like Pakistan.
Muslim women
Sharia finance: The UK now has five fully 'sharia-compliant' banks
Only certain Islamic authorities are entitled to issue the religious rulings or fatwas that can recognize investments as sharia-compliant. But the people and institutions making the decisions about where this money is sent are themselves often highly questionable.
These include the Fiqh Academy in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, which is associated with the Saudi-dominated Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC); the European Council for Fatwa Research, and the Fatwa Council of North America. All of these are associated with the radical Wahabi and Salafi schools of Islam adhered to by groups such as al Qaeda and Hamas.
Radical cleric Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who says suicide bombings are a religious duty in Israel and Iraq, is recognized as an expert in sharia-compliant investments.
Members of the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions include the central banks of designated terrorist states Iran and Sudan along with finance houses implicated in funding al Qaeda, according to former U.S. counter-terror official Richard Clarke’s testimony to a commission investigating the terror attacks on the US.
And in any event, the very idea that sharia finance is necessary for Muslims living in the west is untrue. Indeed, Islamic countries have used and still use interest. The Ottoman Empire used it; and interest is permitted even in Saudi Arabia. In 1981 Sheikh Tantawi, the prominent Islamic legal authority at al Azhar university, Cairo, issued a fatwa justifying the charging of interest.
What has to be understood is that sharia finance is simply a modern jihadi strategy to help Islamise Britain’s institutions and society. It was devised in the mid-20th century by the ideologues who promoted the radical Islamism that threatens us today.
They advocated sharia finance as element of a separate, self-sustained Islamic order with its own Islamic ideology, Islamic politics and Islamic economics that taken together would guarantee an Islamic way of life and ultimately the Islamic state as the first step toward establishing Muslim rule worldwide.
As Britain’s government and banks congratulate themselves on the stunning growth of sharia banking in the UK, do any of them have the slightest understanding of what they are doing?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1141087/Britains-world-leader-sharia-banking--havent-grasped-sinister-dangerous-implications.html#ixzz1CWuThOcx
www.dailymail.co.uk
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sharia banking grows strong in Indonesia
Iwan Suci Jatmiko, Contributor, Jakarta
It was with good reason that the Indonesian Ulema Council and the government established PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia on Nov. 1, 1991. Such a move was welcomed by the public, which invested Rp 84 billion in shares when the bank was established.
The people of West Java also showed their support by injecting Rp 106 billion into the bank. Although its business was not too bright in its early days, the bank recorded a profit of Rp 372.5 billion in the second quarter of 2009. The achievement of Bank Muamalat is proof of the great potential of sharia banking in Indonesia. Sharia banking is based on Islamic law.
The fact that Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population creates a huge market for sharia banking, and Bank Muamalat became the pioneer that made a breakthrough in the existing concept of banking.
Huge potential for sharia banking still exists in the country. Bank Indonesia data reveals there are currently five sharia banks operating in the country, namely Bank Syariah Mandiri, Bank Muamalat Indonesia, Bank Syariah Mega, Bank Syariah Bukopin and Bank Syariah BRI. Twenty-six other banks have sharia banking units, such as Bank Permata, Bank BNI, Bank CIMB-Niaga, Bank Danamon and BPD DKI.
The country’s Muslims, accounting for 80 percent of the estimated 240 million population, are the target market of sharia banking. This means that 31 sharia banks or bank with sharia units are available to serve about 192 million Muslims.
Major conventional banks are also interested in establishing sharia banking units due to the huge potential in the country. Bank Indonesia predicts that sharia banks will enjoy business growth of between 5 and 5.5 percent this year due to high consumer spending and exports.
“Banks based on Islamic law are predicted to enjoy further growth in 2010,” said Darmin Nasution, acting governor of Bank Indonesia, as quoted by BI deputy governor Budi Mulya at a seminar on sharia banking in Indonesia last month. Darmin added that sharia banks would continue to flourish due to the organic growth within existing banks and the establishment of new sharia banks and units.
Another reason for the growth potential of sharia banks is their ability to attract customers from conventional banks due to the impact of the global financial crisis. The universal principles held by sharia banks also make the growth possible. Hence, more and more customers are turning to sharia banks.
The profit sharing concept offered by sharia banks is attractive to most businesspeople in Indonesia.
This method makes it possible for a customer to benefit from a loan. In conventional banking, a customer must pay interest on a loan regardless of whether the business is successful or not.
However, with the sharia profit sharing concept the customer will not have to bear the burden of paying interest if his or her business fails.
Sharia banking products are also varied and no less attractive than conventional banks’ products.
Bank Syariah Mandiri, for example, makes available various savings products, such as personal, haj, education, time deposit and so forth. Naturally, the bank also offers various types of loans based on the profit sharing sharia concept.
It is predicted that more sharia banks will come into existence soon to compete with the five already established as the public is now more aware of the superior features of sharia banks. Among the banks that have applied to open sharia banks are: Bank BCA Syariah, Bank Jabar-Banten Syariah, Bank BNI, Bank Victoria and Bank Panin Syariah. Some bank authorities are targeting 26 percent growth for sharia banks with the assumption that the growth is based on organic growth.
Mulya Siregar, Bank Indonesia deputy director, said on Dec. 8, 2009 at a seminar on Islamic banking that sharia banks could grow by a maximum of 81 percent for asset ownership, adding that such growth could only be achieved if related government regulations supported the growth.
If government regulations did not fully support it, he said, growth would only be about 43 percent, which was based on the contribution of new players or new banks in this sector.
Bank BRI Syariah president director Ventje Raharjo also has a similar view on regulations, especially on the taxation applied to sharia banks. He said the taxes should be more lenient in this case.
“Sharia banks need to be given certain incentives, such as leniency in taxation and a lower ratio of capital ownership, or there should be a sharia banking development allocation in the state budget,” he said.
The success of sharia banking in Indonesia has also attracted some foreign banks, although currently only HSBC has a sharia unit, called HSBC Amanah. Mulya Siregar, Bank Indonesia’s head of Islamic finance, said there were strong rumors that new banks from Malaysia and Bahrain would establish sharia branches here.
In the midst of waning customer trust in particular conventional banks, sharia banks seem to provide a safer alternative for customers. However, along with the huge potential and many opportunities for sharia banks there are also challenges facing them as they still have to educate customers about the superior features and products of sharia banks that are equal to or better than those of conventional banks.
www.thejakartapost.com
It was with good reason that the Indonesian Ulema Council and the government established PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia on Nov. 1, 1991. Such a move was welcomed by the public, which invested Rp 84 billion in shares when the bank was established.
The people of West Java also showed their support by injecting Rp 106 billion into the bank. Although its business was not too bright in its early days, the bank recorded a profit of Rp 372.5 billion in the second quarter of 2009. The achievement of Bank Muamalat is proof of the great potential of sharia banking in Indonesia. Sharia banking is based on Islamic law.
The fact that Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population creates a huge market for sharia banking, and Bank Muamalat became the pioneer that made a breakthrough in the existing concept of banking.
Huge potential for sharia banking still exists in the country. Bank Indonesia data reveals there are currently five sharia banks operating in the country, namely Bank Syariah Mandiri, Bank Muamalat Indonesia, Bank Syariah Mega, Bank Syariah Bukopin and Bank Syariah BRI. Twenty-six other banks have sharia banking units, such as Bank Permata, Bank BNI, Bank CIMB-Niaga, Bank Danamon and BPD DKI.
The country’s Muslims, accounting for 80 percent of the estimated 240 million population, are the target market of sharia banking. This means that 31 sharia banks or bank with sharia units are available to serve about 192 million Muslims.
Major conventional banks are also interested in establishing sharia banking units due to the huge potential in the country. Bank Indonesia predicts that sharia banks will enjoy business growth of between 5 and 5.5 percent this year due to high consumer spending and exports.
“Banks based on Islamic law are predicted to enjoy further growth in 2010,” said Darmin Nasution, acting governor of Bank Indonesia, as quoted by BI deputy governor Budi Mulya at a seminar on sharia banking in Indonesia last month. Darmin added that sharia banks would continue to flourish due to the organic growth within existing banks and the establishment of new sharia banks and units.
Another reason for the growth potential of sharia banks is their ability to attract customers from conventional banks due to the impact of the global financial crisis. The universal principles held by sharia banks also make the growth possible. Hence, more and more customers are turning to sharia banks.
The profit sharing concept offered by sharia banks is attractive to most businesspeople in Indonesia.
This method makes it possible for a customer to benefit from a loan. In conventional banking, a customer must pay interest on a loan regardless of whether the business is successful or not.
However, with the sharia profit sharing concept the customer will not have to bear the burden of paying interest if his or her business fails.
Sharia banking products are also varied and no less attractive than conventional banks’ products.
Bank Syariah Mandiri, for example, makes available various savings products, such as personal, haj, education, time deposit and so forth. Naturally, the bank also offers various types of loans based on the profit sharing sharia concept.
It is predicted that more sharia banks will come into existence soon to compete with the five already established as the public is now more aware of the superior features of sharia banks. Among the banks that have applied to open sharia banks are: Bank BCA Syariah, Bank Jabar-Banten Syariah, Bank BNI, Bank Victoria and Bank Panin Syariah. Some bank authorities are targeting 26 percent growth for sharia banks with the assumption that the growth is based on organic growth.
Mulya Siregar, Bank Indonesia deputy director, said on Dec. 8, 2009 at a seminar on Islamic banking that sharia banks could grow by a maximum of 81 percent for asset ownership, adding that such growth could only be achieved if related government regulations supported the growth.
If government regulations did not fully support it, he said, growth would only be about 43 percent, which was based on the contribution of new players or new banks in this sector.
Bank BRI Syariah president director Ventje Raharjo also has a similar view on regulations, especially on the taxation applied to sharia banks. He said the taxes should be more lenient in this case.
“Sharia banks need to be given certain incentives, such as leniency in taxation and a lower ratio of capital ownership, or there should be a sharia banking development allocation in the state budget,” he said.
The success of sharia banking in Indonesia has also attracted some foreign banks, although currently only HSBC has a sharia unit, called HSBC Amanah. Mulya Siregar, Bank Indonesia’s head of Islamic finance, said there were strong rumors that new banks from Malaysia and Bahrain would establish sharia branches here.
In the midst of waning customer trust in particular conventional banks, sharia banks seem to provide a safer alternative for customers. However, along with the huge potential and many opportunities for sharia banks there are also challenges facing them as they still have to educate customers about the superior features and products of sharia banks that are equal to or better than those of conventional banks.
www.thejakartapost.com
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