Muslim scholars: Seek Islamic spirit, not state

The Islamic state is a controversial issue in the West, as recent news confirms. Last October, an imam was killed and six men arrested by the FBI in Detroit for allegedly conspiring to establish an Islamic state in the United States. In the United Kingdom, government officials worry that extremist groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir have infiltrated Muslim schools to propagate their vision of an Islamic state.

Public opinion in the West reflects the fear that radical Muslims are trying to impose their values on the rest of the world. But the nebulous term "Islamic state" is not merely a concern for the anxious Western world, it is actually a point of discord and contention within the Muslim world itself.

For many Muslim theologians, the Islamic state actually represents an obstacle to Islamic ethics and values. In Iran, pre-eminent scholar Abdulkarim Soroush, also a former political figure, emphasises how difficult it is to sustain civil, political and religious rights in the current Islamic Republic of Iran. Even the new wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt believes that an Islamic state is not feasible in today's world.

Increasingly, Muslim scholars across the world are calling for alternative systems that can foster an Islamic vision of society and simultaneously accommodate our increasingly pluralistic societies. They believe that pluralism and the universal democratisation of human rights are at the heart of the Qur'an. There are diverse opinions about the nature, shape and purpose of an Islamic state, ranging from the conservative to the very progressive. However, Islamic states as we know them today have largely failed in creating political systems that respect such ideas.

As a result, Mohamed Talbi, a Tunisian writer and intellectual, calls on Muslim societies to abandon the Islamic state paradigm and instead strive for a global ummah, a global community that shares the core values of freedom and justice. To him, Islam is embodied in the concept of "differences within unity", namely pluralism. He writes, "I am a Muslim atom within a human molecule. My ummah is humanity, and I do not make any distinction between confessions, opinions, colour or race; all human beings are my brothers and sisters." This time of globalisation represents to him a rare opportunity to work towards this ideal.

Farid Esack is another Muslim scholar, from South Africa, who argues against an Islamic state in today's world: if Islam's message is to fight for oppressed communities, then Islamic states as we currently know them are anything but Islamic. He came to this conclusion as a result of his personal experiences-first, as a student in Pakistan when he witnessed the persecution of poor and marginalised non-Muslim communities and, later, as an activist in South Africa, when he experienced solidarity with people from all faiths against apartheid. A close ally of former South African president Nelson Mandela, Esack also proposes a different form of Islamic influence embodied in a global ummah that does not simply tolerate differences but also unites humankind beyond race and religion for a specific purpose: justice.

Esack believes that the ummah cannot be defined by kinship but by acts of faith: the real ummah is a united inter-religious struggle against oppression in all its forms.

Abdullahi Na'im, a Sudanese Muslim intellectual who had to flee Khartoum for following the open religious doctrine of Mahmoud Taha, a Sudanese theologian and political figure who advocated political and liberal religious reform, is convinced that an Islamic state is doomed to failure and that secularism-rooted in freedom of religion, ethics and morality, and rights and duties-is by far the best system for Muslims throughout the world. This form of secularism would have to be inclusive of different worldviews and could only be built through the dialogue and exchange of a global civil society.

The importance of the ummah over the Islamic state demonstrates a shift from the state-the political apparatus-to individuals and communities who become active agents responsible for implementing Islamic ideals in their pluralistic societies. This interesting proposition, rooted in an Islamic worldview, could be a more fluid and suitable framework for our globalised world.

Islamic Finance in Russia: Issues and Solutions

Islamic finance is the fastest growing market in ethical finance with an annual average growth rate of between 10 percent and 20 percent. Current global Islamic finance assets stand at $800 billion and are predicted by some to rise to $4 trillion by 2015. The credit crunch has provided Islamic finance with a unique opportunity to assert its values of ethically based financing, which could help to shape the global financial industry as a whole.

Islamic finance distinguishes itself from conventional finance in its compliance with the principles of Islamic commercial jurisprudence. Islamic finance techniques seek to promote ethical and socially responsible investment while providing an alternative to interest-based finance. The main tenets of Islamic commercial jurisprudence prohibit interest payments on monetary loans or securities, speculation, uncertainty in certain contractual terms and engaging in anti-social business activities. Some of the main Islamic financing techniques include murabaha (cost-plus financing), sukuk (Islamic bonds), ijara (based on the leasing of an asset), istisna’a (production/construction financing) and musharaka (equity investment).

The recent defaults in the Islamic finance industry have shown that the Gulf has been affected by the same liquidity issues as the West, with central banks actively intervening to encourage interbank lending. However, there are significant differences in the views about long-term prospects expressed by bankers in different states in the Gulf, as well as between bankers situated in Western banks, conventional local banks and Islamic banks, with the latter being the most optimistic, especially if they are based in countries with rich energy resources. The general view among all bankers is that they will monitor market performance in the first two quarters of next year.

As European economies come to terms with the effects of the economic crisis, Islamic finance is attracting greater attention because of the ethical and socially conscious principles that underpin the industry. A number of countries in Europe, such as the United Kingdom, France and Italy are ensuring that their legal systems create a level playing field for Shariah-compliant structures. In Asia, Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong are vying to be the hub for Islamic finance, despite Malaysia’s traditional dominance. There is also increased interest from China, Turkey and India. Meanwhile, the entire financial system in Iran is Shariah-compliant. These are all significant trading partners for Russia.

There is a growing interest in Russia (as well as elsewhere in the CIS) among banking and corporate borrowers as well as potential arrangers in the diversification of sources of financing through access to the Islamic financial markets. However, Islamic finance is very new to Russia and marrying the principles of Islamic finance with the legislative framework in Russia is going to be an iterative process. The London and Moscow offices of Norton Rose LLP have recently been involved in structuring a Russian murabaha trade financing as well as a Russian sukuk. During this process, we identified a number of corporate, commercial and tax issues that should be noted by any parties seeking to engage in similar transactions in the Russian market.

We were able to work within the limits of the existing Russian legislative framework in order to find solutions to the challenges that we faced, but it would be helpful if Russia, like the U.K. and France, for example, considered making certain changes to the existing tax and commercial laws to remove some of the current barriers to Islamic finance in order to create a level playing field with transactions that are structured conventionally.

In the current economic climate, Islamic finance is a real alternative for financiers who face a lack of liquidity in the debt capital markets and are looking for alternative ways of raising finance.

Islamic Cleric issues fatwa against dogs

Unlike many Americans, I view Islam not as some honorable religion, but as a 7th Century Arabic Imperialist Ideology. Wherever Islam goes it destroys the local culture and imposes Arabic morals on the people. In all honesty, Islam is evil and Totalitarian since it is a collectivist ideology that suppresses individualism. Before the rise of the Progressive Ideologies like Communism and Nazism, Islam was responsible for the majority of genocide committed in human history.

In the latest examresponsible ple of the the evil nature of Islam, an Iranian cleric has issued a fatwa against dogs. What most Americans don’t realize is that Islam is anti-dog, since Muslim legends claims they chased the Pedophile genocidal Arab warlord Muhammad and pissed in the first Mosque. Dogs sense evil and obviously they knew the founder of the Islamic Imperialist movement was demonic.

Muslim Brotherhood Objective: Global Islamic State

Groupthink that portrays “dangerous” as “innocuous” has led to censorship by omission. The Muslim Brotherhood, according to the conventional wisdom on the left, is now a responsible Egyptian political organization that will compete in the first free elections Egypt has known since the late 1940s.

Until now, the Muslim Brotherhood has done well under a different name and still managed to pull 20 percent in elections rigged to favor the deposed President Hosni Mubarak’s party. Now the Muslim Brotherhood plans to enter candidates under its own name — and straw polls indicate it may muster up to 40 percent of the vote.
Not to worry, say their liberal admirers in the United States and other Western countries. They have reformed; they are no longer religious extremists. The fact that they burned or trashed some 300 buildings in Cairo on Jan. 26, 1952, was then and this is now.
Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood has camouflaged its strategic objectives in charitable social work, sports clubs, and prayer meetings. Its messages are also tailored to disarm its critics. The Muslim Brotherhood’s disinformation arsenal contains the political equivalent of dental laughing gas, designed to elicit lightheadedness as well as warm and fuzzy feelings.
Conveniently overlooked, in what was described as the Muslim Brotherhood’s Western-style demand for freedom, are these inconvenient facts:
— Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, 84, the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief theoretician, banned in the United States and Britain, advocate of violence against Israel as well as U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, returned to Egypt after a 50-year absence to address a million-plus crowd in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. State TV said it was 2 million. He also reaches tens of millions worldwide on al-Jazeera, the Doha-based Arab network.
— The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
— Mohammed Badie, the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme guide, said upon his elevation last September, that the group’s objectives could only be attained “by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life.”
— In 1989, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamic Action Front won 23 out of 80 seats in Jordan’s Parliament. King Hussein tried to check its influence by changing election laws. But in 1993, they became the largest group in Parliament — and strongly opposed the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty in 1994.
— Despite a rigged vote that gave Mubarak’s followers almost 80 percent of the seats in the Egyptian Parliament dissolved by the new supreme military authority in mid-February, the Muslim Brotherhood still garnered 20 percent.
— the Muslim Brotherhood’s official website says Jihad is Islam’s most important tool in a gradual takeover, beginning with the Muslim nations, moving on to restoring the caliphate over three continents for a conquest of the West, with a global Islamic state as the ultimate objective.
— For the immediate future, the Muslim Brotherhood remains closely linked to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood’s second in command, Rashad al-Bayumi, said in a recent interview that the Muslim Brotherhood’s would join a transitional Egyptian government with one objective: Canceling the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
— The Muslim Brotherhood’s platform says that government rule in Egypt “must be republican, parliamentary, constitutional and democratic in accordance with Islamic Shariah law that ensures liberty for all.”
— The Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide — it has more than one — Mohammed Mahdi Akef said the Muslim Brotherhood opposes American democracy because “it is corrupt, serves the American agenda and wants to destroy the Islamic nation, its faith and tradition.”
— Akef says the United States spends billions of dollars “and endlessly plots to change the Muslim way of life (by waging) war on Muslim leaders, the traditions of its faith and its ideas. They even wage war against female circumcision, a practice current in 36 countries, which has been prevalent since the time of the pharaohs.”
— Jihad has a global strategy beyond self-defense — attack every “infidel rule” to widen the global caliphate until all mankind lives under the Islamic flag.
For Egypt’s new government, whatever it turns out to be, accommodation with the Muslim Brotherhood is bound to be the line of least resistance. Whether 1 million or 2 million were on Cairo’s Tahrir Square to listen to Qaradawi in his first public appearance in Egypt in 50 years is irrelevant. Countless millions the world over listen to his politico-religious sermons.
More important, the hero of Egypt’s latest revolution, Wael Ghonim, the Doha-based head of Google marketing in the Middle East whose Tweets and Facebook postings were credited with laying the groundwork for the popular uprising, was barred from the stage in Tahrir Square. Qaradawi’s bodyguards elbowed the cyber-activist to the exit ladder.
“The Yuppie Revolution in Egypt is Over, the Islamist Revolution Has Begun,” captured the essence of Egypt’s 18-day upheaval. It was what Cornell Law School’s William A. Jacobson’s blog called a “Legal Insurrection.”
The Muslim Brotherhood’s greatest asset: Gullible Westerners on both sides of the Atlantic.
It was the same syndrome that enabled the same segment of Western opinion to applaud Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s moderation as he gave daily news conferences near Paris in 1978 while waiting for his religious revolutionaries and their yuppie helpers to overthrow the shah.
For those with a little more memory, there is also the case of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, described for years as moderate agrarian reformers. No sooner in power than they established the “killing fields.” By their own reckoning, they slaughtered 2 million of their own people.