I followed that link to Personnel Today. I loved their "Facts About Islam, especially these two:"
* Consumption of pork, alcohol or any intoxicants and practices of cheating, lying, backbiting, bribery, gambling, prostitution, pornography, paedophilia and homosexuality are strictly forbidden.
* Any act causing harm to oneself, people and their property, state and environment is forbidden and subject to severe punishments decreed through legal processes.
Andy, This is a superior post, and your points are well taken.
Just how much damage is shari'a already doing? A lot, I think, that hasn't come to the fore because the media and others are so wary of offending Moslems.
How much damage is Shari'a already doing? Good question.
I have created a new site that will be nothing but a record of concessions democracies are making to Islam. For the most part, these concessions are a response to the relentless pressure by Muslims.
I'm hoping to be able to use the site as a link in my writing, and to share with my friends when I talk to them about what the danger really is.
They can see terrorism on the news, but so long after 911, the threat seems distant.
They don't realize that a greater danger is the non-violent jihad. Freedoms are being removed slowly, gently, right under our noses. I'm hoping to keep the posts on the new blog very short, so someone will come to the site and be overwhelmed at the accumulation of small concessions. Anyway, the new blog is:
From an article, or rather, a book-review and summary by Daniel Pipes of Professor Timur Kuran's indispensable study, "Islam and Mammon":
"Islamic economics increasingly has become force to contend with due to burgeoning portfolios of oil exporters and multiplying Islamic financial instruments (such as interest-free mortgages and sukuk bonds). But what does it all amount to? Can Shari'a-compliant instruments challenge the existing international financial order? Would an Islamic economic regime, as an enthusiast claims, really imply an end to injustice because of "the State's provision for the well-being of all people"?
To understand this system, the ideal place to start is "Islam and Mammon," a brilliant book by Timur Kuran, written when he was (ironically, given heavy Saudi backing for Islamic economics) King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought and Culture at the University of Southern California.
Now teaching at Duke University, Kuran finds that Islamic economics does not go back to Muhammad but is an "invented tradition" that emerged in the 1940s in India. The notion of an economics discipline "that is distinctly and self-consciously Islamic is very new." Even the most learned Muslims a century ago would have been dumbfounded by the "Islamic economics."
The idea was primarily the brainchild of an Islamist intellectual, Abul-Ala Mawdudi (1903-79), for whom Islamic economics served as a mechanism to achieve many goals: to minimize relations with non-Muslims, strengthen the collective sense of Muslim identity, extend Islam into a new area of human activity, and modernize without Westernizing.
As an academic discipline, Islamic economics took off during the mid-1960s; it acquired institutional heft during the oil boom of the 1970s, when the Saudis and other Muslim oil exporters, for the first time possessing substantial sums of money, provided the project with "vast assistance."
Proponents of Islamic economics make two basic claims: that the prevailing capitalist order has failed and that Islam offers the remedy. To assess the latter assertion, Kuran devotes intense attention to understand the actual functioning of Islamic economics, focusing on its three main claims: that it has abolished interest on money, achieved economic equality, and established a superior business ethic. On all three counts, he finds it a total failure.
1) "Nowhere has interest been purged from economic transactions, and nowhere does economic Islamization enjoy mass support." Exotic and complex profit-loss sharing techniques such as ijara, mudaraba, murabaha, and musharaka all involve thinly disguised payments of interest. Banks claiming to be Islamic in fact "look more like other modern financial institutions than like anything in Islam's heritage." In brief, there is almost nothing Islamic about Islamic banking which goes far to explain how Citibank and other Western majors host far larger Islam-compliant deposits than do the specifically Islamic banks.
2) "Nowhere" has the goal of reducing inequality by imposition of the zakat tax succeeded. Indeed, Kuran finds this tax "does not necessarily transfer resources to the poor; it may transfer resources away from them." Worse, in Malaysia, zakat taxation, supposedly intended to help the poor, instead appears to serve as "a convenient pretext for advancing broad Islamic objectives and for lining the pockets of religious officials."
3) "The renewed emphasis on economic morality has had no appreciable effect on economic behavior." That's because, in common with socialism, "certain elements of the Islamic economic agenda conflict with human nature."
Kuran dismisses the whole concept of Islamic economics. "[T]here is no distinctly Islamic way to build a ship, or defend a territory, or cure an epidemic, or forecast the weather," so why money? He concludes that the significance of Islamic economics lies not in the economy but in identity and religion. The scheme "has promoted the spread of antimodern currents of thought all across the Islamic world. It has also fostered an environment conducive to Islamist militancy."
Indeed, Islamic economics possibly contributes to global economic instability by "hindering institutional social reforms necessary for healthy economic development." In particular, were Muslims truly forbidden not to pay or charge interest, they would be relegated "to the fringes of the international economy."
In short, Islamic economics has trivial economic import but poses a substantial and malign political danger."
There’s a lot happening behind the scenes – but you probably already knew that – to ensure that foreign laws are enshrined into our way of life here in the UK, and no doubt elsewhere in the Western world, just to comply with people’s superstitions.
If you demanded a change in your workplace practices to accommodate the fact that you like to spin round seven times widdershins in a chalked pentagram while wearing a chicken suit and bellowing, “I am the master of the universe, so you can all fuck off!” five times a day from the middle of the reception area, your bosses might raise an eyebrow.
“Ah, but, it’s my religion,” you’d protest.
“Oh, all right, then,” they’d say.
Or not.
But, then, you never know these days in politically correct Britain, which bends over backwards to accommodate the ever-increasing demands of Muslims (others, too, but it’s Muslims who seem to do the most demanding and moaning and for whom most changes are made).
I came across a piece in a journal that doesn’t often come my way, Personnel Today. It examines how changes in the workplace are needed to accommodate Islamic beliefs, even changing bonus schemes and pension plans if they don’t comply with sharia law – instead of simply telling them, “You can take it or leave it.”
In the article, Georgina Fuller talks of a law firm who give seminars on sharia (there’s money in it for them, of course), “as it is an increasing concern for organisations”. It then quotes a representative of the firm, Paul Griffin, as saying, “We’re helping more businesses and advising them on how far they should go in complying with Shariah law in the UK.”
Griffin goes on, “If, for example, you offer a discretionary bonus scheme, you can’t earn or charge interest under Shariah. This can make finance a tricky area for firms to manage. Employers have also got to be aware of loans and share options as Muslim employees can’t be owed something in financial terms.”
How much does it cost the firm to do all the twiddling of financial knobs to be compliant with superstition? Does this affect the amount other employees, who don’t feel they have to comply with some religious mumbo-jumbo, get in their bonuses? No doubt the knob twiddling won’t be done for free.
See more on this article, with a couple of interesting links, here at Pink Triangle, including talk of demands for prayer rooms and time off to pray.
6 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formYou're a good writer, Andy.
I followed that link to Personnel Today. I loved their "Facts About Islam, especially these two:"
* Consumption of pork, alcohol or any intoxicants and practices of cheating, lying, backbiting, bribery, gambling, prostitution, pornography, paedophilia and homosexuality are strictly forbidden.
* Any act causing harm to oneself, people and their property, state and environment is forbidden and subject to severe punishments decreed through legal processes.
Thursday, September 18, 2008 8:03:00 pm
Andy,
This is a superior post, and your points are well taken.
Just how much damage is shari'a already doing? A lot, I think, that hasn't come to the fore because the media and others are so wary of offending Moslems.
Thursday, September 18, 2008 10:54:00 pm
Always -
How much damage is Shari'a already doing? Good question.
I have created a new site that will be nothing but a record of concessions democracies are making to Islam. For the most part, these concessions are a response to the relentless pressure by Muslims.
I'm hoping to be able to use the site as a link in my writing, and to share with my friends when I talk to them about what the danger really is.
They can see terrorism on the news, but so long after 911, the threat seems distant.
They don't realize that a greater danger is the non-violent jihad. Freedoms are being removed slowly, gently, right under our noses. I'm hoping to keep the posts on the new blog very short, so someone will come to the site and be overwhelmed at the accumulation of small concessions. Anyway, the new blog is:
http://concess.blogspot.com/
Thursday, September 18, 2008 11:12:00 pm
Wonderful to see the new site is up. I posted this comment to the sharia finance post:
CW, may I suggest including a link to Timor Kuran's insight to sharia finance?
Hugh Fitzgerald commented on back in February:
From an article, or rather, a book-review and summary by Daniel Pipes of Professor Timur Kuran's indispensable study, "Islam and Mammon":
"Islamic economics increasingly has become force to contend with due to burgeoning portfolios of oil exporters and multiplying Islamic financial instruments (such as interest-free mortgages and sukuk bonds). But what does it all amount to? Can Shari'a-compliant instruments challenge the existing international financial order? Would an Islamic economic regime, as an enthusiast claims, really imply an end to injustice because of "the State's provision for the well-being of all people"?
To understand this system, the ideal place to start is "Islam and Mammon," a brilliant book by Timur Kuran, written when he was (ironically, given heavy Saudi backing for Islamic economics) King Faisal Professor of Islamic Thought and Culture at the University of Southern California.
Now teaching at Duke University, Kuran finds that Islamic economics does not go back to Muhammad but is an "invented tradition" that emerged in the 1940s in India. The notion of an economics discipline "that is distinctly and self-consciously Islamic is very new." Even the most learned Muslims a century ago would have been dumbfounded by the "Islamic economics."
The idea was primarily the brainchild of an Islamist intellectual, Abul-Ala Mawdudi (1903-79), for whom Islamic economics served as a mechanism to achieve many goals: to minimize relations with non-Muslims, strengthen the collective sense of Muslim identity, extend Islam into a new area of human activity, and modernize without Westernizing.
As an academic discipline, Islamic economics took off during the mid-1960s; it acquired institutional heft during the oil boom of the 1970s, when the Saudis and other Muslim oil exporters, for the first time possessing substantial sums of money, provided the project with "vast assistance."
Proponents of Islamic economics make two basic claims: that the prevailing capitalist order has failed and that Islam offers the remedy. To assess the latter assertion, Kuran devotes intense attention to understand the actual functioning of Islamic economics, focusing on its three main claims: that it has abolished interest on money, achieved economic equality, and established a superior business ethic. On all three counts, he finds it a total failure.
1) "Nowhere has interest been purged from economic transactions, and nowhere does economic Islamization enjoy mass support." Exotic and complex profit-loss sharing techniques such as ijara, mudaraba, murabaha, and musharaka all involve thinly disguised payments of interest. Banks claiming to be Islamic in fact "look more like other modern financial institutions than like anything in Islam's heritage." In brief, there is almost nothing Islamic about Islamic banking which goes far to explain how Citibank and other Western majors host far larger Islam-compliant deposits than do the specifically Islamic banks.
2) "Nowhere" has the goal of reducing inequality by imposition of the zakat tax succeeded. Indeed, Kuran finds this tax "does not necessarily transfer resources to the poor; it may transfer resources away from them." Worse, in Malaysia, zakat taxation, supposedly intended to help the poor, instead appears to serve as "a convenient pretext for advancing broad Islamic objectives and for lining the pockets of religious officials."
3) "The renewed emphasis on economic morality has had no appreciable effect on economic behavior." That's because, in common with socialism, "certain elements of the Islamic economic agenda conflict with human nature."
Kuran dismisses the whole concept of Islamic economics. "[T]here is no distinctly Islamic way to build a ship, or defend a territory, or cure an epidemic, or forecast the weather," so why money? He concludes that the significance of Islamic economics lies not in the economy but in identity and religion. The scheme "has promoted the spread of antimodern currents of thought all across the Islamic world. It has also fostered an environment conducive to Islamist militancy."
Indeed, Islamic economics possibly contributes to global economic instability by "hindering institutional social reforms necessary for healthy economic development." In particular, were Muslims truly forbidden not to pay or charge interest, they would be relegated "to the fringes of the international economy."
In short, Islamic economics has trivial economic import but poses a substantial and malign political danger."
Friday, September 19, 2008 2:39:00 am
Thank you very much, Her Royal Whyness! That's good stuff!
Friday, September 19, 2008 2:54:00 am
Should financial terrorism be considered: Short Sellers not from the USA video at Pat Dollard
Friday, September 19, 2008 12:17:00 pm