Bookwright

The Deconstruction of the World Financial Power System: an Analysis of a Different Kind
In ancient Rome, a one ounce gold coin (which is REAL Money) bought you a fine toga, a handcrafted belt and a pair of sandals. Today, you can walk into any fine men’s store and, with a one ounce gold coin, you can buy a fine suit, a handcrafted belt and a fine pair of shoes.
Dr. Habib Dahinden

FIRSTLY: LET US TAKE THE LONG VIEW.

The first Empire with world hegemony was the British Empire. The British Empire began when Disraeli persuaded Queen Victoria to claim India as Imperatrix. She was declared Empress in 1877. The Empire lasted precisely 70 years.

It came to an ignominious end under Viceroy Lord Mountbatten, whose wife, daughter of the notorious banker Sir Ernest Cassel, during the partition settlement carried on an adulterous affair with the Hindu leader Nehru. The disastrous and illegal partition cost the lives of millions of Muslims. The populace was never consulted by ballot or referendum. It was 1947.
Read the full article at Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi’s website

A talk by Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaquobi on the Compendium of Knowledge and Wisdom, our translation of the Jami’ al-‘ulum wa’l-hikam of Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali, may Allah be merciful to him. This was Ibn Rajab’s collection of fifty hadith, comprising the Forty (actually 42) of Imam an-Nawawi, may Allah be merciful to him, and another eight hadith, with a greatly expanded commentary on them.

Forget about any idea of sub-prime mortgages and other types of toxic waste being the cause of the current meltdown. The real story is the derivatives market, and to understand why, look carefully at the statistics below:

According to the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), on June 30, 2008, U.S. commercial banks held $182.1 trillion in notional value (face value) derivatives.1 And, according to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), which produced a tally six months earlier for the entire world, the global pile-up of derivatives, including institutions in the U.S., Europe and Asia, was more than three times larger – $596 trillion.2

That was ten times the gross domestic product of the entire planet – more than 40 times the total amount of mortgages outstanding in the United States – nearly 60 times greater than the already-huge U.S. national debt.
Citigroup collapses! Banking Shutdown Possible
by Dr. Martin D. Weiss

That is also why there is no simple cure for this collapse other than abandoning the usurious thinking and practice that brought it about.

In 1812 Sultan Mahmut II sent an order from Topkapi that the wahhabis should be removed from the cities of Makkah, Madinah and Jeddah. It must be noted that the period of Mahmut’s rule, 1839-76, known as the Tanzimat, was, according to the confirmed Islamic perspective (differentiated from an Orientalist reading of events) the point of irreversible decline and fall of the Osmani Dawlah, otherwise known as the Ottoman Empire. This period was the one of disastrous ‘reforms’ from which the Muslim world has yet to recover. The modalities of Islamic governance, law and civic practice that had propelled a civilisation previously unequalled in its capacity to protect and assure the prosperity and freedom of its members, were traded in for a corruption-riddled French bureaucracy, and with it the most destructive of all alien innovations, an interest-bearing bank debt now payable in fiat money to the banks in France, and soon afterwards to those of England. On the back of the success of the Napoleonic Wars that saw the Russians defeated at Austerlitz, the Tanzimat government, having entered into ‘compromise’ with the French, found itself thrust into the Russo-Turkish war (1806-1812). The continual loss of territory as well as the rapidly eroding political prestige of the once powerful Muslim world had begun. It would not be until the heroic rise of the last authentic Sultan and Khalif, Sultan Abdulhamid II, that the banner of Islam would be raised again. For a short but glorious thirty-three years the light of the 7th century miracle that had burst out from the city of Madinah on the Arabian Peninsula would shine again. In 1908 Sultan Abdulhamid would be deposed, and with that tragic event began 100 years of immitigable failure.
Read it at Robert Luongo’s blog

So you are a new Muslim, and you may be such even if you have a lineage of Muslim ancestors that stretches back for generations, for each person who genuinely discovers Islam, confirms it and determines to live by it is always new.
You are beginning to find your feet in this strangely topsy-turvey world that is Islam today and that is especially upside-down in our already upside-down world here in the West.

Read it at the Muslims of Norwich website
Read part 1 here.

?Unanimous Fatwa (Ruling) on Islamic Banks by the most Senior Islamic Scholars and Mufti’s from all the four Provinces of Pakistan.  

(This is the English translation of the last page of the fatwa where they conclude with a ruling signed by the Mufti’s as signatories, the full fatwa extends to a detailed judgment of 22 pages and was originally delivered in Urdu on Aug 28, 2008 at a Joint Convention at Jamia Farooquia in Karachi)

Fatwa:

“For the last few years the Sharia compliance Islamic banking has been under our scrutiny to see their accordance to the Muamalaat in Islam as per Quran and Sunnah of the Prophet Sallahu Ellahe Wasalam. We have also been examining the details of the documents, transactions and the contracts of Islamic banks and we have also referred and consulted the fiqh specialists and their works to give this detailed judgment. We have reached to the final conclusion that the Islamic (Ulemas) Scholars eligible to give Fatwa from all the four provinces of Pakistan have a unanimous judgment dated August 28, 2008, which is Thursday, 25^th of Shabaan 1429, in a Joint  Convention presided by the Honorable Shaykh Al Hadith Maulana Saleem Ullah in Jamia Forooquia, Karachi.

This convention which has the most senior mufti’s as part of the panel give a unanimous fatwa against all the banks that associate or call them Islamic, when they in fact in practice have nothing to do with Islam. Any business or Muamalaat done with them thinking them to be Islamic or in accordance with Sharia is haram and not permitted. These Islamic banks are the replica of the riba/usury based system and we have the same judgment of prohibition with them as with the conventional banks.

It is therefore compulsory and mandatory for all the Muslims to avoid haram and stay away from all the practices that are in violation of sharia.”

Signatories:

Shaykh ul Hadith Maulana Saleem Ullah . Jamia Farooquia, Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Ghulam Qadir. Dar Ul Alum Haqania Akora , Khattak. KPK

Hazrat Mufti Hameedullah Jaan . Jamia Ashrafia. Lahore. Punjab

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Hishaam Ullah Aseya Abadi, Jamia Rasheediya, Aseya Abad, Turbat, Makraan, Baluchistan.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Abdul Hameeduddin Puri,  Jamia Alum e Islamia, Banori Town. Karachi

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Saad Uddin. Jamia Haleemia, Laki Murawat, KPK

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Abdullah.  Khair Ul Madaras, Multan, Punjab.

Hazrat Mufti Gul Hasan Bolani. Jamia Raheemia, Sarki road, Quetta, Baluchistan.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Zarr Wali Khan.  Jamia Ahsan ul Alum, Gulshan e Iqbal, Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Saeed Ahmad Jalal Puri. Alam e Majlas e Tahafuz Khatam e Nabuaat, Karachi. Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Hamid Hasan.  Dar ul Alum, Kabirwala, Punjab.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Rozi Khan. Dar ul Iftatah e Rubaniya, Quetta, Baluchistan.

Hazrat Mufti Habibullah Shaykh. Jamia Islamia, Clifton, Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Abdul Qayyum Deen Puri. Dar ul Iftah Majlis e Tahafuz Khatam e Nabuwat. Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Nazir Ahmad Shah. Jamia Farooq e Azam, Faisalabad, Punjab.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Saeed Ullah. Jamia Arbiya Taleem ul  Islam. Quetta, Baluchistan.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Ahmad Mumtaz. Jamia Khulfa e Rashideen, Karachi, Sindh

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Rafiq Ahmad. Jamia Alum e Islamia, Banori Town, Karachi, Sindh

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Shuaib Alam. Jamia Alum e Islamia, Banori Town, Karachi Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Inaam ul Haq. Jamia Alum e Islamia, Banori Town, Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Muhammad Madni.  Mohed ul Khalil ul Islami, Bahadurabad, Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Saleem Ullah. Daar ul Huda, Khairpur, Sindh

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Samiullah, Jamia Farooqia, Karachi, Sindh

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Ahmad Khan.  Jamia Farooqia, Karachi, Sindh

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Abdul Ghaffar. Jamia Ashrafia, Sukkur, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Doctor Manzoor Ahmad Mengal.  Jamia Farooqia, Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Asim Abdullah. Jamia Himadia, Karachi, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Imdad Ullah. Jamia Dahoor u Naru, Sindh

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Ahmad Khan. Jamia Umrkot, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Kaleem Ullah.  Jamia Dahoor u Naru, Sindh.

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Amanullah. Jamia Khulfa Rashideen, Karachi, Sindh.

Important: And the Muftis who could not attend the convention but sent their consent are:  

Hazrat Mufti Dr. Abdul Wahid.  Jamia Madniya, Lahore Punjab.

Hazrat Mufti Muhammad Isa. Muftah ul Alum, Gujranwala, Punjab

Hazrat Maulana Mufti Haji Abdul Ghani. Dar ul Alum Chaman, Baluchistan.

P.S Find the enclosed copy of the original Fatwa by these Islamic Scholars.

Many interpret the string of bank, and now corporation, collapses as if the power elite were suffering, forgetting that banks and corporations are not the same as their shareholders, and their interests are not the same.

If you understand the nature of the ‘corporation’, that it is regarded legally as a ‘person’, meaning that its shareholders and directors are not ordinarily legally liable for losses, then you can see that what affects the banks and the corporations does not necessarily affect their shareholders in the same way. Indeed, it is very likely that a great deal of this crisis is shareholders ditching these entities for various reasons, not the least of which is to sell them short, i.e. to sell while the price is high with the intention of buying back when the price is much cheaper.

Meanwhile, the rest of us will pay very real prices for that, but that is to the extent that we have bought into the same system.

The downside for the hundreds of thousands of people who will lose their jobs and houses, can have, not only the possibility of victory, as Hajj Umar Ibrahim Vadillo showed so eloquently in his talk at the 11th International Fiqh Conference in Cape Town 2008, but also the possibility of a return to sanity for those who do not regard themselves as needy dependants on the banking/industrial system, because the usury driven model of society predicated on growth and development is literally insane. And sanity is a precondition of Islam and of victory.

This is from a page produced by the Majlis of South Africa:
In a recent 14 page article, the venerable Mufti has unambiguously exposed the riba of the ‘Islamic’ banks. Mufti Taqi Uthmaani of Pakistan had spearheaded the ‘Islamic’ bank movement. He was the prime supporter of ‘Islamic’ banks. Just recently, in a lengthy article of 14 pages, he criticized these banks for their riba for passing off their ‘sukuk’ (so-called ‘Islamic’ shares) as ‘Islamic’ products. He states unequivocally that the dealings of these ‘Islamic’ banks are all interest-based. Lamenting the attitude of the ‘Islamic’ banks, Hadhrat Mufti Taqi Uthmaani says:

“It was expected that Islamic banks would progress in time to genuine operations based on the objectives of an Islamic economic system and that they would distance themselves, even step by step from what resembled interest-based enterprises. What is happening at the present time, however, is the opposite. Islamic financial institutions have now begun competing to present themselves with all the same characteristics of the conventional, interest-based marketplace, and to offer new products that march backwards towards interest-based enterprises rather than away from these. Oftentimes these products are rushed to market using ploys that sound minds reject and bring laughter to enemies.
“If these (Shariah) boards continue with their present policies, Islamic banks will stumble on the road, and there is a danger, God forbid, that this virtuous movement will fail. It is time for the Shariah supervisory boards to review their policies, and to moderate the licences they have granted until now…”