http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/23/local-and-commuity-leaders-across-us-weigh-benefits-sharia-financing-for/#/

FINANCIAL REGULATION
Seattle officials join push for Sharia-compliant mortgages, loans


By Barnini Chakraborty
Published July 23, 2015
FoxNews.com

Seattle debates Sharia law-sanctioned housing

WASHINGTON – A proposal in Seattle meant to increase homeownership among Muslims by offering financing compliant with strict Islamic law -- known as Sharia -- is gaining ground in the latest test for local leaders trying to accommodate diverse religious beliefs.

"We will work to develop new tools for Muslims who are prevented from using conventional mortgage products due to their religious beliefs," Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said during a press conference July 13.

"Sharia," which comes from the Koran and means "the right path," prohibits the payment of interest -- the primary way lenders earn. Many of Seattle's 30,000 practicing Muslims, therefore, are hard-pressed to find Sharia-compliant financing options when buying homes, making large purchases or starting a business.

A Seattle housing committee suggested community and business leaders find a way to help them, a push the mayor endorsed. Seattle is just the latest to explore financing options for devout Muslims -- following in the footsteps of Chicago as well as national financial firms and lenders like Bank of America. But the move to offer Sharia-compliant financial products has drawn fire. Critics have warned that it opens the nation's financial system to Islamic radicals and terror groups, providing a mechanism for money laundering.

In 2008, conservative lawmakers in Congress went after American International Group for offering Sharia-compliant insurance programs.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and then-Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., sent AIG then-Chairman Edward Liddy a strongly worded letter that argued Sharia financing could be manipulated and used by terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and Hamas to launder money.

"You may defend your decision to offer Sharia products and will probably state that they have no real ties to Sharia law, and therefore pose no threat. You are wrong," the lawmakers wrote in the Dec. 18, 2008 letter. "Like Britain, the way to America's legal code is through its wallet, and if Sharia law gains a strong footing in the United States, it will be through Sharia finance and Sharia products."

The Thomas More Law Center, a nonprofit law firm that promotes conservative Christian values, sued then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and the Federal Reserve in 2008 over AIG's actions. The suit argued that it was unconstitutional for AIG to offer Sharia-compliant products because the federal government had bailed out AIG with $170 billion in taxpayer money, and that by promoting Sharia products, it forced Americans to comply with Sharia law. The suit failed.

Some also claim that adjusting existing regulations to benefit one group -- in this case, Muslims -- essentially is reverse discrimination.

Others, however, like Flip Pidot, CEO at American Civics Exchange, believe that loosening financial structures are "a step in the right direction toward a less fettered financial market."

He cautions that if this is a "special carve-out for those who claim Sharia-compliance or if it's in any way subsidized or otherwise made easier for a specific subset ... [the program] becomes more of a problem." But, Pidot told FoxNews.com's "Strategy Room," it's a good idea if this just removes a "barrier" and allows lenders to reach "an unmet section of the would-be homeowners."

A basic building block of Sharia-compliant financing is "murabaha," where "two parties agree to trade at a price equal to the cost plus mark-up or profit," Rice University professor Mahmoud Amin El-Garnal said in a 2014 Council on Foreign Relations report.

Here's how a Sharia-compliant sale might work between a bank and a Muslim homebuyer: The bank agrees to buy and hold clear title to the house, then enters into a contract to sell the house at an agreed-upon mark-up price that includes profit. The buyer agrees to pay the sale price in installments, or one lump sum. The markup rate is calculated to compete with prevailing interest rates, so the buyer's monthly payment is roughly equal to what a traditional lender might charge for a loan that combines principle and interest.

While Seattle leaders want more lenders taking part in the Sharia program, there are some already offering such unconventional financing. Seattle-based Halal Inc. advertises on its website that "instead of starting with a flawed system and trying to 'make a fit,' we took the perfect system ordained by Allah and created a legal framework for it." Multiple calls to Halal Inc. by FoxNews.com for comment were not returned.

The sector has grown to more than $1.6 trillion in assets worldwide over the past three decades. Analysts see the potential for even greater growth as the Muslim population grows in the U.S. and Europe, attracting the attention of other financial heavyweights like HSBC and Goldman Sachs.

"Global Islamic financial assets have soared from less than $600 billion in 2007 to more than $1.3 trillion in 2012, an expansion rooted in the growing pool of financial assets in Muslim-majority countries driven by consumer demand for products that comply with religious codes," according to the 2014 report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/right-wing-outlet-seattle-imposing-sharia-law/

A project of People For the American Way dedicated to monitoring and exposing the activities of the right-wing movement.

People for the American Way

Right-Wing Outlet: Seattle Imposing Sharia Law!

SUBMITTED BY Brian Tashman on Thursday, 7/23/2015 11:35 am

The right-wing outlet WorldNetDaily is under the impression that Seattle, Washington, is now a Sharia law zone.


WND’s article, which includes the warning, “United Nations floods Seattle area with refugees,” skewers the city’s growing Muslim community and a recent proposal from a mayoral committee to aid Muslim homebuyers who believe their religion proscribes paying interest on loans.

As Adam Serwer pointed out during a similar controversy in Minnesota, many U.S. banks are already beginning to offer such plans where the “companies structure the payments in a sort of house-buying layaway plan.”

WND interviews anti-Muslim activists Andrew Bostom and Pamela Geller, who allege that such programs would lead to a broader implementation of Sharia law.

“Such dangerously misguided efforts kowtow to, and abet, Islamic supremacism,” said Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of “Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims” and several other books about the history of Islam.

“Shariah-compliant mortgages, and all aspects of so-called Shariah-compliant finance, should be rejected because they are vehicles for the promulgation of Islamic law, an integrated religio-political system antithetical to our most fundamental Western freedoms,” Bostom said.

Mayor opening the door to Shariah

Pamela Geller, author of “Stop the Islamization of America,” also said most Americans are not aware that Shariah applies to all of life. She said the mayor of Seattle, like other mayors who kowtow to Shariah, are doing long-term damage to their cities and their country.

“Shariah is a unified whole – a guide to every aspect of human behavior. It doesn’t just involve interest and loans,” Geller said. “The teachings of Islam regarding war against and subjugation of unbelievers is part of Shariah as well. The mayor of Seattle is opening the door to Shariah, and because he has already shown himself to be compliant, he will receive more demands for accommodation of Shariah in the future.

“This is a radical, intolerant, violent, misogynistic, antisemitic ideology, and he should not be kowtowing to it.”


http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/right-wing-outlet-seattle-imposing-sharia-law#sthash.EzwHqgAV.dpuf/

looks just like the 30-year fixed rate VA loan i have with my mortgage company...

just substituting the terms "profit" and "markup rate" for the word "interest"

much ado about nothing...just semantics...no big deal, really...

It's a huge deal. It's the Government and banks giving in to a law created by a Pedophile who had delusions and was more then likely mad a multiple personality disorder.

Do you have Muslim roots?

Amen

They call it profit... Not interest.. haha

Sharia Law does not supercede any law nor could it affect non-Muslims at all, no more then Jewish Rabbinical Courts or the Canon Laws of the Catholic church.

^ Once we all start speaking Arabic and making women wear burqas, you won't be saying that.

and how exactly do you plan to do that?

We must be more intelligent than that.
Sharia law is laws for muslims.

There will never be Sharia law in America unless approximately 300 million people convert to islam.

Now how likely is that? People must become more astute and less obtuse.

Are 300 million americans going to speak Arabic?

If the Muslim global agenda to spread Sharia law is not obliterated, everyone in the world may end up speaking it.

Can Muslims be American?

58% of U.S. Muslims say free speech should be illegal.

"A recent poll seems to suggest that Muslims living in the USA want to outlaw free speech and a large number even agree that blasphemers of the Muslim god should be executed… HERE in the USA! It all makes one wonder if it is possible to be both a Muslim and a true American?"

This is disturbing. I say deport them all! If they are incapable of adopting the laws and code of conduct of their adopted country, GTFO! What's worse is that they want to spread their azz backwards primitive, barbaric Sharia law into all Western countries and USURP the law of the land and and its people. I would love for anyone to defend them to me. Let's hear it. Make my day. You will all be speaking Arabic, wearing burqas, having your daughters' cl*ts shaved off so they don't feel sexual pleasure, only pain (supposedly to guarantee female marital fidelity while the men can screw around and have multiple wives and treat them like garbage) and be stoned to death for the most trivial of misdemeanors. Go right ahead and DARE to defend Muslims. Tell me once more how they are such peaceful people when there is a global Muslim campaign to impose their laws on non-Muslims and into Western countries. They and the Arabs have tormented my people for several millennia. I know of what I speak.

Here is another adage they love to throw around: "Smile in the face of your enemy but hate them in your heart", further perpetuating their hypocrisy. They also teach their children to hate anyone who is not Muslim.

Read more here:

http://rightwingnews.com/democrats/can-muslims-be-american-58-of-us-muslims-say-free-speech-should-be-illegal

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/03/ten_key_points_on_islamic_blasphemy_law.html

There's nothing more to this, than standard, every day, run of the mill American Capitalism.

Americans want to make more money off of real estate. Politicians want to get elected, and to get contributions from the rich, so they work hard to help the rich get richer.

One of the things someone recognized, was that if they get a few surface changes in the laws regulating mortgages, that they can sell more stuff to rich Muslims. So they decided to do that.

Call me to panic when money and rich people getting richer ISN'T involved, and I'll be concerned.

WHAT Capitalism?

right, approximately 7 billion people are all going to speak Arabic,

Stop it you're killing me.

I know, the horror.

But lookie what I just found on Sassy's thread. There may still be hope for everyone!!!

stop_islamization
PAM GELLER'S MANUAL ON STOPPING RADICAL ISLAM $4.95 TODAY ONLY!
'How-to' book reveals proven strategies to halt Shariah and jihad in the U.S.