sharia investment funds support jihad

A National Review Online article explains how sharia compliant investments support terrorism. Simply, muslims are called to fight jihad against the non-believers. If a physical engagement is not possible, the faithful can financially fund the cause. That’s where these halal investments come in. The profits are given away to charity and I’m sure the Salvation Army is not on the list.

Nefarious individuals are appointed to be advisors, collecting salaries and directing the profits.

Consider the board chairman of the Dow Jones Islamic Index (IMANX), one Mufti Taqi Usmani. Mr. Usmani is widely reputed to be one of the world’s top experts on sharia finance. Whatever his stockpicking abilities may be, they are dwarfed by his jihadist credentials. A key executive of Pakistan’s prominent Deobandi jihadist factory, the madrassa Darul Karoom Karachi (currently headed by his brother, Rafi Usmani), Taqi Usmani has openly advocated jihad by Muslims in the West, and just last month again publicly endorsed suicide bombing and the Taliban.

IMANX itself is owned and operated by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an organization listed as an un-indicted co-conspirator by the Department of Justice in a recent terrorism-finance trial, and the proprietor of hundreds of radical mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S., including some that have been closed down by the government as criminal enterprises.

The chairman of both NAIT and IMANX, Bassam Osman, has been the top executive of terrorist-funding organizations like the Quranic Literacy Institute (suspected financiers of Hamas whose assets were seized by the U.S. in 1998) and the Islamic Academy of Florida (founded by Sami al-Arian, a convicted financier of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist criminal enterprise), and is a board member of other un-indicted co-conspirators like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

The IMANX and NAIT are two such funds. If this issue isn't brought under the watchful eye of the treasury department and SEC, according to Alexev, this sharia fund boom could make the current sub-prime mortage quandary look like a Sunday school picnic.