Major Sharia banking firm goes bankrupt. Story goes unnoticed

Please click through for the whole story as only part of it is reproduced here. H/T Shab

From Huffington Post:

Posted: 10/17/11 12:11 PM ET

The leading promoter of Sharia banking in Canada, UM Financial Inc. has gone into receivership without much fanfare. None of the nation’s newspapers have bothered to report the development, despite the fact it could possibly affect hundreds of homeowners. Had it not been for a tweet by an affected Muslim homeowner looking for a lawyer, the story of UM Financial going broke would have escaped even the scant attention the news received on social media.

Tweeting under the username @UM_FinanceBROKE, the tweeter wrote:

“Sorry Toronto Muslim Homeowners, I have bad news. I just learned UM Financial is Bankrupt. I need a good Canadian lawyer”

The troubles at UM Financial did not come overnight. As far back as April 2007, the Toronto Star reported on the company’s liquidity problems. The Star wrote that Omar Kalair, the founder of UM Financial, “is working hard to maintain on-going sources of funding.” Kalair disclosed that the Credit Union Central of Ontario had extended an additional $50 million to the Sharia banking promoter, and “that will keep us going until the summer.” Apparently, this month the money ran out and UM folded tent.

The consequences of this bankruptcy may effect thousands of Muslim homeowners. Leading up to the bankruptcy, there were quiet rumblings of discontent in the community. One indignant Muslim homeowner wrote to the Toronto Star:

“In the name of Shariah-compliant mortgages they charge extra fees… After accepting and approving our application, they refused us financing just a week before the closing of our home, thus putting us into great trouble… This last-minute refusal made us get a mortgage from an alternate source at a higher interest rate and spend an extra $2,500 for moving costs and living in a hotel with the entire family for one week.”

What is Sharia Banking?

Most Canadians are aware how Premier Dalton McGuinty nixed the idea of introducing Sharia law into the Ontario Family Act and the subsequent failed attempt by John Tory’s Conservatives to fund Sharia-based private Islamic schools, but few are aware of how Sharia is being sneaked into our financial system.

While Sharia-style family law was essentially promoted by imams and the mosque establishment, Sharia-based banking is being promoted by well-heeled Muslim bankers and investment lawyers, who are driven not by teachings of the Prophet but the lure of profits.

The Globe and Mail reported in May 2007: “Several Canadian financial institutions are preparing Sharia-compliant mortgages, insurance, taxi licensing and investment funds to help serve the country’s fastest-growing part of the population.”

This push from Muslim banking executives working inside the corporate world has had some success. Most big Canadian institutions are treading carefully, and not all are jumping on board. The Globe reported that while the Royal Bank of Canada “quietly tested a Sharia finance product a few years ago and didn’t find enough market interest,” other Canadian banks, smelling easy pickings, are lining up to wear the Islamic mantle. Sources say Scotiabank and Toronto-Dominion Bank have been quietly considering whether to start offering Sharia-compliant products as part of the big banks’ strategy to reach out to what the newspaper referred to as a growing “immigrant population.”

This was a politically correct way to describe Muslim immigrants as I doubt very much if Hindu, Sikh, and Chinese “immigrant” Canadians are excited at the prospect of Sharia banking.

While Canada’s banks were salivating at the prospect of reaching this supposedly untapped niche market, it was UM (United Muslim) Financial Inc., a Muslim-owned financial institution with strong marketing and social links to many Islamist events in Canada that took the lead and lost.

So what are the origins Sharia banking, and why should Canadians be worried about its intrusion in our financial sector?

Origins of Sharia Banking

Islamic banking traces its roots to the 1920s, but did not start until the late 1970s, and owes much of its foundation to the Islamist doctrine of two people: Abul Ala Maududi of the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and Hassan al-Banna of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. While these two pillars of the Pan-Islamist movement propagated jihad and war against the West, they also recognized the role international financial institutions could play in carrying out their political objectives.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

3 Replies to “Major Sharia banking firm goes bankrupt. Story goes unnoticed”

  1. “Had it not been for a tweet by an affected Muslim homeowner looking for a lawyer,”

    so he doesn’t trust allah to sort it out then?

  2. Look on the bright side: a major sharia banking firm went bankrupt. I’m surprised Obama did not offer a bail-out.

  3. The current economic mess is not just in the West but is worldwide, we must remember this when we start looking at what is going to happen around the world. The video of the conference on the Copts was very thought provoking but before you start making any conclusions from that video remember that Egypt imports most of its food, it is having a drought, Egypt is broke, where is the food going to come from? Who will be blamed for the starvation? Will Saudi and other rich oil nations give them the food or will the west be expected to give it to them?