Shariah Finance Watch
 
May 15, 2009
 
Personal Finance: …and a donation to the Muslim Brotherhood
 
This week, CNN and Money magazine ran an article focusing on the role of faith in the personal finances of certain families.  In the article which they published which deals with a Muslim family, we have discovered a whole slew of questions with regard to matters outside of personal finance which, not surprisingly, the lapdogs at CNN and Money totally overlooked, or perhaps ignored.
 
The article is about the Saroya family from Pakistan who have settled in Minneapolis and starts off with  Kashif Saroya facing a dilemma since the Qu’ran forbids “paying or receiving riba, usually understood as interest.” This is an interesting point (no pun intended) because there are actually Muslim scholars who dispute this very point. They claim that the prohibition of riba actually refers to usury and not all interest. It has only been since the rise of Jihadists and the promotion of Shariah that this prohibition has been interpreted widely as forbidding all interest.
 
So, right from the start, the article errs, or at least ignores the fact that there is indeed controversy over this fundamental matter. Once again, our media lapdogs have neglected to conduct proper research and demonstrate a lack of curiosity.
 
The article goes on to describe how the Saroyas took out a Shariah-compliant mortgage and (I must concede this much) it did point out that such a mortgage does cost them $1800 more per year than a conventional mortgage.
 
This revelation is a rarity. Shariah-Compliant mortgages are convoluted constructs designed to conceal the fact that they are in fact patterned after conventional mortgages. In fact–and the article neglects to mention this unfortunately–the Saroyas can take an interest deduction on their Shariah-Compliant mortgage according to the IRS!
 
At any rate, these Shariah-Compliant mortgages, which are often advertised as “interest-free” typically cost more than a standard interest-included mortgage. The fact that they are advertised as “interest-free” is just another example of the lousy disclosure practices of the Shariah-Compliant Finance industry.
 
Now we get into the really disturbing part of the article, which illustrates just how irresponsible CNN and Money magazine were in selecting subjects for their faith-based investment profiles.
 
It seems the Saroyas have put a large sum of money toward establishing a local chapter of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR).
 
Good grief. Many readers of SFW won’t need an introduction to CAIR, but we’ll give it just the same.
 
The Council of American Islamic Relations is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial.
 
CAIR’s chief, Nihad Awad, has declared his support for HAMAS, a Jihadist terrorist organization:
 
http://www.investigativeproject.org/223/cairs-awad-in-support-of-the-hamas-movement
 
Numerous individuals associated in various ways with CAIR have crossed US laws–including terrorism laws–over the years. Complete details can be found at the excellent dossier prepared below:
 
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6176
 
The CNN/Money article goes on to recommend a mutual fund to the family: Amana Growth Fund. Regular readers of SFW may recall that we profiled that fund family not long ago, including their affection for Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who told the BBC in 2006 that Shariah-Compliant Finance was nothing more than “Jihad with money:”
 
http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2009/04/03/baloney-from-the-bee/
 
It is indeed incredible that, of all the Muslims in the United States that they could have selected to do profiles on, CNN and Money magazine chose a family with ties to a horrendous organization such as CAIR…
 
http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/11/pf/religion_muslim_family.moneymag/index.htm
 
http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2009/05/15/personal-finance-and-a-donation-to-the-muslim-brotherhood/

Posted on 5/21/2009 at 4:45 PM PDT