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

number of mosques and Islamic centers to which NAIT holds title vary from 300 —or 27% of their total number —to as much as 80% of the estimated 1200 such properties. NAIT also works closely with most of the other Islamist organizations in America, especially the MSA and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). ISNA' s president is an ex officio member of NAIT' s Board of Trustees. Un- indicted Co- conspirator Like ISNA ( on whose board Osman also serves), NAIT has —under Osman' s chairmanship— advocated and implemented policies that advance Shariah and its objectives. These allegedly include financing terrorist organizations in the Middle East. Such activities have earned the organization ( as it has ISNA) a designation by the Department of Justice as an un- indicted co- conspirator in a recent terrorism financing trial in Dallas, Texas ( U. S. v Holy Land Foundation). Financing Terrorism NAIT and Osman have also been implicated in the activities of the Islamic Academy of Florida ( IAF) —a school wholly owned by NAIT, which was indicted by the U. S. government in February of 2003 as a criminal enter- prise for having served effectively as a support base in the funding of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad ( PIJ). PIJ is identified by the State Department as a terrorist organization responsible for the murder of over 100 people in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza. Even before his appointment to NAIT's top job, Bassam Osman had been associated with an incident in terrorism financing. In 1998, a Chicago -based Islamic charity, the Quranic Literacy Institute ( QLI) — of which Ossam was at the time the director —was alleged to have steered large amounts of money to Hamas terrorists. The federal government seized $ 1. 4 million of its assets. The QLI and several other charities were then sued by the parents of American teenager, David Boim, murdered by Hamas in Israel, as complicit in the younger Boim' s murder. In 2004, a federal jury in Chicago found QLI and the other defendants guilty and the presiding judge awarded the Boim estate damages of $ 156 million. QLI went defunct shortly thereafter. The case however was revived on appeal, and at the time of this writing, the Center for Security Policy is preparing an amicus curiae brief authored by the Center' s General Counsel, David Yerushalmi, on the role of Shariah and Shariah authorities in the financing of Jihad -terror worldwide. 39 The Shariah Advisors MANX and Sharjah- Centered Islam Mr. Osman has also been one of the pioneers of Shariah -compliant finance in the United States as the key player behind the Dow Jones Islamic Fund ( IMANX) and the Amana Mutual Funds Trust. In his capaci- ties as the president of IMANX, which is owned by NAIT, and as president and registered agent of Allied Asset Advisors Funds— IMANX' s investment advisor and another NAITowned entity —Osman has complete control of the index fund. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that IMANX relies on the Dow Jones Shariah advisory board which is staffed by Shariah- adherent Islamists, including Mufti Taqi Usmani who is, as noted above, on record advocating violent jihad against non -Muslims in the West and supporting suicide bombing. Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah Abdul Sattar Ghuddah is one of the half -dozen most prominent Shariah and Islamic finance experts in the world. He has carefully avoided making con- troversial political statements, but he too has close ties and affiliations with a number of Shariah- adherent Islamic organizations that reveal, as one would expect, clear Islamist sympathies. He is also a long -time, close associate of the Saudi billionaire, Shariah finance kingpin and suspected terror financier, Sheikh Saleh Kamel. Ghuddah currently sits on the Shariah advisory boards of 35 institutions. Background Ghuddah was born in Haleb, Syria. Haleb is well -known in Syria as one of the bastions of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ghuddah comes from a very devout family with Islamist sympathies. His uncle Abdul Fatah Abu Ghuddah is an admirer of the oft -cited, Shariah medieval scholar Ibn Taymiyya and a prominent Syrian Islamic scholar with a doctorate from AI -Azhar University. Education Ghuddah' s secular education includes a law degree from Damascus University in 1965. His Islamic religious education is extensive, with a B.A. in Islamic theology from Damascus University in 1964, an M. A. in Islamic Theology from Al Azhar University, 1966, an M. A. in prophetic revelations Ilm al- Hadis) from Al Azhar University, 1967, and a Ph. D in Fiqh, special- izing in Islamic finance and banking, from AI -Azhar University, 1975. Ghuddah' s professional experience and affiliations start with Professor of Fiqh at Imam " Da'awa" University, Riyadh, 1966. He worked as a researcher 40 Shariah, Law and `Financial Jihad': How Should America Respond? and expert in Encyclopedia of Fiqh, Kuwait Ministry of Religious Affairs in 1967. He became a Professor for Fiqh and Hadith, Islamic Institute, Kuwait, from 1974 -1976, and1983 -1986. He was a Professor in Islamic sciences, Faculty of Islamic Theology and Law, at Kuwait University in 1983, and a guest -professor at the Saleh Kamel Center for Islamic Economic Science, AI -Azhar University, from 1990 -1991. He is a long- standing member of key Islamist organizations: Member —Islamic Fiqh Academy, Jedda, Saudi Arabia since its establishment in 1981. Expert— Islamic Fiqh Academy of the Muslim World League ( MWL), Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Member —International Shariah Organization of Zakat. Member —Fatwa Board in the Kuwaiti Ministry of Awkaf and Islamic Affairs 1982 -1990. Member —International Union for Muslim Scholars ( of which Sheikh Qaradawi is president). His affiliations in Shariah Finance Sponsoring Organizations are diverse —and numerous: Shariah Advisor —Dallah al- Baraka group ( Saleh Kamel owner), 1991 Director —Department of Financial Instruments and Islamic Research, Dallah al- Baraka Group, 1992 to present. Member —The Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions ( AAOIFI), Bahrain. Member —Shariah Supervisory Board, Dow Jones Islamic Market Index I MANX) Chairman —Shariah Supervisory Committee, Islamic Bank of England. Chairman —Shariah Supervisory Board, Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation ( owned by Saleh Kamel) Chairman —Executive Committee, Unicorn Investment Bank, Chairman —Shariah Supervisory Committee, Islamic Bank of Britain, Chairman —Shariah Supervisory Board, Global Securities House Ltd., Chairman —Shariah board, AI- Tawfiq Company for Investment Funds Ltd., Member —Shariah Board —Union Bank of Switzerland ( USB), Switzerland Member —Shariah Board, Saudi American Bank, Saudi Arabia Member —Shariah Board, Guidance Financial Group, USA Member —Shariah Supervisory Board, First Islamic Investment Bank, Bahrain 41  Shariah Law and `Financial Jihad:' How Should America Respond? Member —Shariah Board, Meezan Bank Member —Shariah Board, Islamic Bank of Asia Shariah Advisor — Standard Chartered Group, Sadeeq Islamic Banking, Member —Shariah Supervisory Board, Venture Capital Bank, Member —Shariah Supervisory Committee, Amiri Capital, Member —Shariah Advisory Board, Calyon Credit Agricole CIB, Member —Shariah Advisory Board, Dar Al Istismar, Member —Shariah Advisory Board, BNP PARIBAS, Member —Shariah Advisory Board, Noor Islamic Bank, Member — Shariah Advisory Board, AI- Tawfeek Gulf Equity Fund, Member —Shariah Advisory Board, MSCI Global Islamic Indices, Member —Advisory Council, Islamic Finance Qualification, Member -- Shariah Advisory Board, ARCAPITA, Shariah Advisor —Gulf Finance House, Shariah Supervisor —Zayan Finance, Member — Shariah Advisory Board, Gulf Clearing Company, Member —Shariah Advisory Board, International Investment Bank, Bahrain Member -- Shariah Board, Investors Bank Publications Abdul Sattar Abu Ghuddah is a prolific writer on the subject of Islamic finance having authored at least 19 monographs and 9 fatwa collections, including: Monographs: 1. Al Khiar (the Option) and its Effects in Contracts —PhD thesis 2. The Fiqh and Accountancy of Zakat 3. Zakat and Taxation 4. Fiqh Rules and Accountancy Principles of Waqf 5. Deferred Payment Sales ( a series of lectures) 6. Fiqh Imam Bukhary and its Theory Fatwa Collections: 1. Fatwas on Banking Services 2. Fatwas on Unified Shariah Institution 3. Fatwas on Mudaraba 4. Fatwas on Murabaha He is also the author of three encyclopedic Shariah studies. 42 Chapter 5: The Criminal and Civil Liabilities Associated with Shariah- Compliant Finance ntil recently, no focused effort has been made to identify and analyze the implications for civil liability and criminal exposure for U. S. financial institutions and other businesses engaged in Shariah -Compliant Finance ( SCF). Instead, the financial industry has heard almost exclusively from interested parties —particularly law firms, accountants and other SCF specialists —who have been uncritical cheerleaders for this new market. All too often, such legal or accounting professionals serve as facilitators — driven by complex legal- or accounting- intensive tasks, and further motivated by exorbitant professional fees and the desire to develop a specialized expertise for yet -further marketing of services —while losing sight of the threshold issues for any new and novel market transaction: Does the transac- tion or business model comply with existing civil and criminal statutory and regulatory frameworks? Does the transaction expose the client to unique and elevated civil liability and criminal exposure or regulatory intervention? The Conference analysis was drawn in large part from a legal analysis by David Yerushalmi that will be published in the Utah Law Review in September, 2008. Selections from this legal analysis were provided to the conference participants and formed the core of discussions on tactics and strategies for opposing Shariah -compliant finance. This chapter draws almost exclusively from that analysis. On close examination, it is clear that Shariah -compliant finance does indeed expose the financial institutions and other businesses involved in this industry to a whole host of disclosure, due diligence, and compliance issues —all of which elevate substantially the civil liability and criminal expo- sure such companies otherwise factor into their business risk profiles. To date, however, very little of this increased civil and criminal exposure has been recognized or analyzed —let alone been guarded against —in any meaningful way. The following are among the factors that give rise to significant and problematic exposure on civil and criminal grounds for those engaged in Shariah -compliant finance: The Shariah " black box" syndrome: U. S. financial institutions and businesses involved in SCF risk grave consequences by willfully disregarding what Shariah is — both in theory and in practice —and its intimate connection to Islamic terror and holy war against the non - Muslim world amounts to corporate recklessness. Putting Shariah in a black box and treating its prohibitions as if they were benign secular and objective " screens" ignores the duty of disclo- 43 The Criminal and Civil Liabilities Associated with Shariah -Compliant Finance sure of the most important elements of Shariah: its purposes and its ultimate methods. Undoubtedly, a reasonable post -9/ 11 investor contemplating an SCF investment