Catastrophe - Dick Morris [118]
The Shariah advisers themselves, who determine whether investments are acceptable under Muslim law, are generally Islamist extremists. They have even coined the phrase “financial jihad” to characterize this new form of economic warfare against the “unbelievers.”447 As Alex Alexiev notes, “dozens of radical Islamists are Shariah advisors and financial institutions pay them royally. Some of them sit on as many as two dozen of these boards and make millions of dollars, at least some of which is then donated to extremist causes.”448
Specifically, Alexiev warns that Shariah-compliance advisory boards are peopled by “radical Islamists trained and indoctrinated in the Wahhabi or Deobandi-controlled Sharia faculties in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and elsewhere.” These men, he notes, “are the intellectual driving force behind the Wahhabi/Salafi ideology of Islamism and the leading theological enablers of extremism and terrorism.”449
* * *
WHO SITS ON SHARIAH COMPLIANCE BOARDS?
Sheikh Muhammad Taqi Usmani. The former justice of the Pakistani Shariah Appellate Court, whom we met earlier in this chapter, was “first retained in 1999 by Dow Jones to serve on its august Shariah board,” Gaffney notes. “In the years since, he has added dozens of other financial institutions, including HSBC, to the list of SCF providers whom he advises.”450
Usmani recently demonstrated his authority over Islamic investments when he declared that certain investments were not Shariah-compliant, causing market turmoil. He sits on the supervisory board of a dozen Islamic banks. Until recently he advised more than twenty-five stock funds on how to comply with Islamic laws.451 Dow Jones terminated its association with Usmani after Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy raised a fuss.
Still on the payroll of leading American banks is Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi of the Muslim Brotherhood. As Alexiev says, Qaradawi “has repeatedly endorsed suicide bombings against innocent civilians.”452
The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which, according to Front Page magazine, “runs a Shariah-compliant mutual fund out of Burr Ridge, Illinois.” Until recently, NAIT managed a $40 million fund for Dow—even allowing it to use the name Dow Jones Islamic Fund under a licensing agreement.453
But Dow had to sever its relationship with NAIT after federal agents disclosed that NAIT was “a Saudi-tied front for the pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood that holds title to some of the most radical mosques in America. The Justice Department last year named NAIT an unindicted co-conspirator in a terror money-laundering scheme to funnel more than $12 million to Hamas suicide bombers and their families under the guise of charity. Dow has since revoked NAIT’s license.”454
* * *
Some estimates suggest that as much as $1 trillion may currently be invested around the world in funds that follow Shariah-compliance rules. As Gaffney notes, “if trends continue…such funds may grow to many times that amount within a few years.”455
Shariah law authorities are now being paid by Dow Jones, Barclays, Standard & Poor’s, HSBC, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, and others “to determine and assure the compliance of these institutions’ products with Shariah,” according to the Center for Security Policy’s Shariah Risk Due Diligence Project.456
The center cites this list of six “key drivers of this Shariah compliance finance market”:
Specialized law firms such as King and Spalding, Patton Boggs, Gibson Dunn, and Gerstyn