Fort Walton Beach Council agenda — 03-09-2010 Regular — reading text

charitable contributions made in the name of fulfilling the obligatory tithing of faithful Muslims. While the black box in which the SCF industry operates obscures the full extent of this prac- tice, it seems safe to assume that a significant portion ( i. e., at least 2.5% of proceeds) are being diverted to charities favored by the respective compa- nies' Shariah advisors. Given the latter' s fidelity to Shariah' s purposes and violent methods, the possibility that some of these sums are finding their way into " charitable" organizations with ties to terror is extraordinarily high. This is but one of the myriad examples of civil and criminal exposure inher- ent in Shariah -compliant finance discussed at length. To address these subjects, the present volume drew heavily upon brief- ings and discussion that took place during the Cantigny workshop involving leading experts on Islamism, Shariah, finance, national security and law enforcement. It also benefited from a compelling legal memorandum authored by David Yerulshalmi entitled Shariah's Black Box. Civil Liability and Criminal Exposure Surrounding Shariah- Compliant Finance, to be pub- lished in an abbreviated form in the September 2008 edition of the Utah Law Review. It was also based on analysis of Shariah -compliant finance and other sources that were distributed at the meeting and used by the partici- pants. These additional materials are available at www.StopShariahNow.org. All of these inputs have been tailored with a view to providing one -stop- shopping for the lay investor and legal advisor alike. Ultimately, the utility of this monograph will be measured by the extent to which awareness about these three topics (among others) is raised and ever -more -forceful and deci- sive opposition expressed to the practice of SCF —on Wall Street, in execu- tive branch agencies and in the Congress. We hope that the result of all these efforts will be to halt and then to reverse the Islamists' " creeping" campaign aimed at imposing irreversibly totalitarian Shariah in this country, among many others world -wide.  Chapter 1: What is Shariah ?' hariah is an all- embracing body of Islamic religious, social, politi- cal, and military duties derived by caliphs and Shariah authorities over 1200 years. It is imposed as the law of the land in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan and, until recently, in Afghanistan by the Taliban. Adherents to traditional, authoritative Islam seek to impose the repressive, theocratic program they call Shariah on everyone, Muslims and non -Muslims alike. Shariah -Compliant Finance ( SCF) is a manifestation of that agenda. There is no " Shariah finance" apart from the indivisible system of Shariah law. Without exception, scholars employed as advisors on financial matters are deemed to be authorities on SCF because of their standing with respect to the comprehensive whole of Shariah law. At least a rudimentary understanding of Shariah is required to grasp the implications of Shariah -compliant finance. Per force, this discussion will be elementary, yet true to the understanding of Shariah by contemporary and classical Shariah authorities. Purpose The primary purpose of Shariah is to promote Islam as the only legitimate theo -political system and to accomplish its dominance, through violent Jihad if necessary, worldwide (This is what is meant by the " Islamist" agenda). Shariah rules govern all aspects of life but are most notorious for the mandate they provide for: stoning of adulterers, execution of homo- sexuals, amputations for petty crimes, beheadings of Muslim apostates, institutionalized misogyny and myriad other violations of Western values and international norms. As an example, a popular educational poster from the Islamic region of Nigeria, shows the dire punishments of Shariah in a country torn in two by conflicts over new Shariah courts. In the top row, a woman is shown riding a bike with a man, and next is shown her punishment: being stoned to death. SourceS2 Shariah The authoritative Sunni and Shi' a legal schools of Islam consider Shariah Much of the original scholarship uncovering the danger of Shariah -compliant finance was based upon the early work of Alex Alexiev. See, e. g., Alex Alexiev, Islamic Financing or Financing Islamism, Center for Security Policy, Occasional Paper, http: / w / ww.center orsecuritypolicy.org/ Modules /News Manager/ Center %20publication %20PDFs /Islamic% 20Finance% 20or%20Financing %201siamism. pdf 2 The following analysis draws heavily from David Yerushalmi. " Shariah' s Black Box ": Civil Liability and Criminal Exposure Surrounding Shari' ah -Compliant Finance. Utah Law Review. To be published September 2008. What is Shariah? the " proper way ") to be derived from two canonical sources: The first is the Quran, which is considered the perfect expression of Allah' s will for man. Every word is perfect and unalterable except and unless altered by some subsequent word of Allah. While most of the Quran' s 6, 236 verses are not considered legal text, there are approximately 500 verses consid- ered instructional or sources for normative law. The second source of Allah' s instruction for Shariah is considered to be the Hadith, or stories of Mohammed' s life and behavior, which are also deemed to be legal and binding authority for how a Muslim in any place at any time must live. The Hadith were collected by various authors in the early period after Mohammed' s death. Over time, Islamic legal scholars vetted the authors for trustworthiness and their Hadith for authenticity. There is general consensus across all Sunni schools that there are six canonical Hadith. The legal or instructional portions of the Hadith together make up the Sunna. While the Shariah authorities from the Shi' a Muslim world also accept the Hadith as authoritative, they differ on the selection of the authors accepted as authoritative, based upon mostly theological grounds. For all Shariah authori- ties, however, the Quran is considered the direct revelation of Allah' s will and therefore primary. The Sunna is the indirect expression of that will and sec- ondary. Both sources are considered absolutely infallible and authoritative. In order to divine the detailed laws, norms and customs for a Muslim in all matters of life, the Shariah authorities over time have developed several schools of legal jurisprudence. These schools adhere to certain theological and jurisprudential rules to guide their interpretations of the Quran and Sunna. While there is broad agreement among the schools about the rules, there are important distinctions and these differences do result in different legal interpretations and rulings. These differences are typically of degree, not of principle. The rules of interpretation and their application to finite factual settings are collectively termed al fiqh ( literally " understanding "). Usul al fiqh, or the. sources of the law', is what is normally referred to as jurisprudence. Furu' is the term most often associated with the specific positive law rulings. Technically, Shariah is the overarching divine law and fiqh is the way Shariah authorities interpret that divine law in finite ways. It is important to note, however, that the word Shariah appears only once in the Quran in this context. Shariah authorities have, for more than a millennium, created a cor- pus juris ( "al fiqh") based upon their interpretative understandings of the Quran and Sunna. These authorities have given Shariah the currency it now enjoys in the Islamic world, both institutionally and culturally. For this reason, the word Shariah is used in this monograph to mean all of Islamic jurisprudence, doctrine and legal rulings —much as it is used in the  Shariah, Law and `Financial Jihad': How Should America Respond? vernacular by the typical Shariah- adherent Muslim. According to this sense of the term, Shariah is not predicated upon a personal, pietistic or subjective understanding of what it means to be a Muslim. Neither is it simply an objective, formal law or behavioral code regulating finance and commercial transactions. While some Muslims around the world may conceive of Shariah in such personal, subjective terms, two of the preeminent Western authorities on Islam— Professors Frank Vogel and Samuel Hayes of Harvard University — make clear in their co- authored book Islamic Law and Finance, that the authoritative understanding of Shariah is as an institutionalized legal- politi- cal- normative doctrine and system: Islamic legal rules encompass both ethics and law, this world and the next, church and state. The law does not separate rules enforced by indi- vidual conscience from rules enforced by a judge or by the state. Since scholars alone are capable of knowing the law directly from revelation, lay people are expected to seek an opinion [ fatwa] from a qualified scholar on any point in doubt. If they follow that opinion sincerely, they are blame- less, even if the opinion is in error.' This classical understanding of Shariah has been echoed by a leading professor of finance in Australia and a senior official in the Bahrain Ministry of Finance and National Economy: Since Islamic law reflects the will of God rather than the will of a human lawmaker, it covers all areas of life and not simply those which are of inter- est to a secular state or society. It is not limited to questions of belief and religious practice, but also deals with criminal and constitutional matters, as well as many other fields which in other societies would be regarded as the concern of the secular authorities. In an Islamic context there is no such thing as a separate secular authority and secular law, since religion and state are one. Essentially, the Islamic state as conceived by orthodox 4 Muslims is a religious entity established under divine law. Shariah demands that its law be dominant. It is a fundamental crime under Shariah for a Muslim to adhere to a secular law that does not make clear that Shariah is the " highest law of the land." If a Muslim instead con- s Frank E. Vogel and Samuel L. Hayes III, Islamic Law and finance: Religion, Risk and Return 71 - 87 ( 1998). 4 Mervyn K. Lewis and Latifa M. Algaoud, Islamic Banking 24 ( Edward Elgar ed., 2001), as cited in " Shariah' s Black Box ". What is Shariah? siders a secular constitution to be the " highest law of the land," even if the secular constitution and the laws of the land allow for Shariah adherence, the Muslim is considered a Mushrik or polytheist. He is subject to capital punishment because he has implicitly acknowledged a law giver higher than Allah. Moreover, according to Shariah, a Muslim is a martyr when he dies killing /murdering the infidel in a battle to spread Shariah, as this is an act of obligatory "jihad." The Law of Jihad and Shariah Shariah is the source of the command for faithful Muslims to practice jihad. For peaceable Muslims, this term is usually interpreted to mean a personal, introspective " struggle" against the Muslim' s own sins or temp- tations. The authoritative rendering of Islamic jihad, however, is a " just" war against non -Muslims and Muslims who have gone astray. Shariah - adherent Muslims must engage in jihad to bring about the global Islamic state under a caliph who governs pursuant to Shariah. Sheik Mohammed Taqi Usmani is the leading scholarly authority for Shariah -compliant finance. Usmani is also the leading proponent of the argument that Shariah itself demands aggressive jihad against all non - Muslims and against any