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The justification for replacing capitalism with the Islamic model is based on an intentional corruption of shari’a law, but the banks’ clerics don’t seem to mind undermining their theological philosophy, since the ethical image their misrepresentation has created for Islamic banking has managed to spread Islamic ideology to non-Muslims in Britain. According to Al-Qaradawi, Islam’s ideological infiltration into the West will be the vehicle through which it will establish an Islamic government over the entire globe:
Perhaps the next conquest [of Europe], Allah willing, will be by means of
preaching and ideology. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword […]
Europe will see that it suffers from materialistic culture, and will seek an
alternative […] It will find no lifesaver but the message of Islam […] Allah
willing, Islam will return to Europe and the Europeans will convert to Islam.
Then they themselves will be able to be the ones to disseminate Islam in the
world.
Replacing western institutions with a global Islamic order is, in fact, the goal of Al-Qaradawi’s Muslim Brotherhood. According to its founder, Hassan Al-Bana, the Brotherhood seeks to “[reclaim] Islam’s manifest destiny; an empire, founded in the seventh century, that stretched from Spain to Indonesia,” and its 1982 “secret plan” exhorted its members “to channel thought, education and action in order to establish an Islamic power on the earth.” The Muslim Brotherhood is a central link between Islamic banking and Islamic fundamentalism; the first Islamic bankers were members of the Muslim Brotherhood who wanted to use “the structural power of bank ownership” to advance the fundamentalist movement in the Gulf States in the 1970s. Today, its most powerful progeny, the Kuwait Finance House, covertly finances fundamentalist groups in Kuwait and abroad.
Dr. Ahmad Al-Rabi, a former Kuwaiti official, stated in a 2005 newspaper column that the “beginnings of all of the religious terrorism that we are witnessing today were in the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology.” This is not a casual exaggeration; the Brotherhood’s members founded Al-Qaeda, bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and applauded the 2001 World Trade Center massacre as America’s just desserts.
With the Muslim Brotherhood directly involved in Islamic banking in Europe, Al-Qaradawi’s hope that Islam conquers Europe either by “ideology” or “by the sword” is becoming a palpable possibility. A look at two European Islamic banks is revealing:
Al-Qaradawi is a principal shareholder and past shari’a adviser to Bank Al-Taqwa, part of the Al-Taqwa group based in Lugano, Switzerland. The United States government has designated the Al-Taqwa group a financier of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, and in 1995 Italy’s anti-terrorist agency DIGOS allegedly told Swiss federal prosecutors that Al-Taqwa “comprises the most important financial structure of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic terrorist organizations.” Like the Kuwait Finance House, Bank Al-Taqwa was established with significant backing from the Muslim Brotherhood, and the network is believed to have also financed Hamas, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and similar Islamist groups throughout the Middle East. The list of Al-Taqwa’s shareholders corroborates the assessment made by DIGOS; among the shareholders is Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna, Osama Bin Laden’s sisters Huta and Iman Bin Laden, members of Hamas and figures connected to Al-Qaeda, and Al Taqwa founder and director Ahmed Idriss Nasreddin, who previously worked for the Bin Laden Group.
Bank Al-Taqwa is connected to another Islamic banking entity in Europe suspected of terrorism, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Corporation (which is headquartered in Saudi Arabia and operates an office in London). Suleiman Abdel Aziz Al Rajhi, chairman of Al Rajhi’s board of directors, is believed to have funded Al-Qaeda early on, and US officials allege he transferred over $20 million to Al-Taqwa through his network of fraudulent US-based non-profit organizations. Al Rajhi also worked for Bank Al-Taqwa.
At least three other British shari’a advisors sit on the European Council for Fatwa and Research with Al-Qaradawi and two others possess potential connections to Islamist entities, yet Chancellor Gordon Brown continues to promote the UK as a hub for Islamic banking.
Pertinent Links:
1) Islamic Banking in Britain
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