One of the things that needs stressing about the case of illegally-imprisoned U.S. Special Forces soldier Jack Idema is his complete innocence. When this is pointed out, week after week, it’s important that readers don’t conclude this is simply a matter of those campaigning for Jack’s release claiming he’s an innocent man. No, Jack’s innocence is a matter of fact, and has been for the past two years:

All members of TASK FORCE SABER 7 were declared innocent of all charges by the Afghan Second Court, which granted a trial de novo (a new trial) in November 2004. In closed hearings which took place between December 2004 and March 2005, Idema and his men were ordered released by the Appeals Court based on new evidence and the decision was consequently endorsed by the Supreme Court of Afghanistan.
Idema, Bennett, and Caraballo were found innocent of all charges and Appeals Court Acting Chief Judge Saheb Noor along with Appeals Court Judges Abdul Latif (011-93-70287222 [speaks English]) and Chief Religious Judge Mawlawi Azizullah stated on the record during the closed hearing that there had been absolutely no evidence of torture and that the original two bomb suspects that gave statements against the team were in fact terrorists and had committed perjury in the first court hearing in July 2004.

So the highest court in Afghanistan found Idema and Brent NOT GUILTY. Then, question: Why is Jack Idema languishing in prison almost two, full years later?

The answer to this one came last October in the form of a sworn witness-statement by one, Tawous Noorzai, who was the Deputy Block Commander of Jack’s wing at Pulacharke Prison:

I have known the three men mentioned above for 26 months. I have escorted them to court on many occasions, and I have attended their court hearings and the secret trial that was conducted in the Second Court [Court of Appeals]. I was present during the decision of the Court of Appeals (February 2005 Christian calendar), where all three men were declared innocent by a panel of three Chief Judges and three visiting judges, including the two Religious Judges who called their arrest a terrible crime against justice in Afghanistan. I personally was present in February or March 2005 (Christian calendar), when the Chief Judge, who had just returned from a vacation in America paid for by the American Embassy, said that although they were innocent, he needed to get permission from the US Consul before signing their release order. It was supposed to be done the next day and the judges were to call a press conference and announce their verdict and issue an apology from the Supreme Court. Several days later, I heard the Chief Judge, Ismail Abed, tell Mr. Jack that he could not release them because the American Embassy had “worked behind the curtain” and ordered the Court to stop their release.

Since it’s a stone, cold fact that Jack was found not-guilty on appeal, and, further, that he remains stuck in prison to this day, we have little reason to doubt Tawous Noorzai’s account here — If the intervention didn’t come from the U.S. Embassy, then who? Few (if any) others have enough political muscle to effectively overrule a decision by Afghanistan’s Supreme Court.

If that’s the ‘who’ behind Idema’s illegal detention, the next question is ‘why’? What does the U.S. State Department possibly have to gain from keeping Idema behind bars?

One answer might be that, when the (false) accusations against Idema first surfaced only months after events Abu Ghraib made headline news, it struck the State Department as politically expedient to deny all knowledge of Idema and allow the Afghans to do as they pleased with him. Certainly, this cold-blooded approach helped them avert another damaging scandal, but only if Jack either died in a Taliban ‘riot’ at Pulacharke or served his sentence as a ‘guilty’ man. As things turned, Jack did neither

… Which created a problem for the State Department — What might Idema have to say about their behaviour as a proven-innocent, freed man? Is this why the State Department continue to imprison Idema? Because, having dug themselves into a hole, they cannot extricate themselves from it without suffering political embarrassment?

Certainly, this is speculation on our part. But. Consider the following, from Tawous Noorzai, writing about events leading up to Captain Brent Bennett’s removal from Afghanistan earlier this year:

Cmdr Jack was offered amnesty if he confessed and also signed papers against United Front officials. He refused. I was present during these meetings and when these things occurred. I thought he should sign and go home, but he always said that it was his honor that he would trade for freedom if he signed.

Leaving aside the jaw-dropping chutzpah of asking a man to admit to a crime he’s already been found not-guilty of committing, this type of manoeuvre adds weight to the supposition that the State Department keep Idema imprisoned in order to avoid having to answer questions about their conduct. After all, what better way to wipe away that inconvenient not-guilty verdict than a signed admission of guilt from Idema himself?

That Jack refuses to sign the papers is certainly a testament to his honour. That such principles are lost on the State Department is hardly surprising — As the Idema case proves, they have none.

One of the things that needs stressing about the case of illegally-imprisoned U.S. Special Forces soldier Jack Idema is his complete innocence. When this is pointed out, week after week, it’s important that readers don’t conclude this is simply a matter of those campaigning for Jack’s release claiming he’s an innocent man. No, Jack’s innocence is a matter of fact, and has been for the past two years:

All members of TASK FORCE SABER 7 were declared innocent of all charges by the Afghan Second Court, which granted a trial de novo (a new trial) in November 2004. In closed hearings which took place between December 2004 and March 2005, Idema and his men were ordered released by the Appeals Court based on new evidence and the decision was consequently endorsed by the Supreme Court of Afghanistan.
Idema, Bennett, and Caraballo were found innocent of all charges and Appeals Court Acting Chief Judge Saheb Noor along with Appeals Court Judges Abdul Latif (011-93-70287222 [speaks English]) and Chief Religious Judge Mawlawi Azizullah stated on the record during the closed hearing that there had been absolutely no evidence of torture and that the original two bomb suspects that gave statements against the team were in fact terrorists and had committed perjury in the first court hearing in July 2004.

So the highest court in Afghanistan found Idema and Brent NOT GUILTY. Then, question: Why is Jack Idema languishing in prison almost two, full years later?

The answer to this one came last October in the form of a sworn witness-statement by one, Tawous Noorzai, who was the Deputy Block Commander of Jack’s wing at Pulacharke Prison:

I have known the three men mentioned above for 26 months. I have escorted them to court on many occasions, and I have attended their court hearings and the secret trial that was conducted in the Second Court [Court of Appeals]. I was present during the decision of the Court of Appeals (February 2005 Christian calendar), where all three men were declared innocent by a panel of three Chief Judges and three visiting judges, including the two Religious Judges who called their arrest a terrible crime against justice in Afghanistan. I personally was present in February or March 2005 (Christian calendar), when the Chief Judge, who had just returned from a vacation in America paid for by the American Embassy, said that although they were innocent, he needed to get permission from the US Consul before signing their release order. It was supposed to be done the next day and the judges were to call a press conference and announce their verdict and issue an apology from the Supreme Court. Several days later, I heard the Chief Judge, Ismail Abed, tell Mr. Jack that he could not release them because the American Embassy had “worked behind the curtain” and ordered the Court to stop their release.

Since it’s a stone, cold fact that Jack was found not-guilty on appeal, and, further, that he remains stuck in prison to this day, we have little reason to doubt Tawous Noorzai’s account here — If the intervention didn’t come from the U.S. Embassy, then who? Few (if any) others have enough political muscle to effectively overrule a decision by Afghanistan’s Supreme Court.

If that’s the ‘who’ behind Idema’s illegal detention, the next question is ‘why’? What does the U.S. State Department possibly have to gain from keeping Idema behind bars?

One answer might be that, when the (false) accusations against Idema first surfaced only months after events Abu Ghraib made headline news, it struck the State Department as politically expedient to deny all knowledge of Idema and allow the Afghans to do as they pleased with him. Certainly, this cold-blooded approach helped them avert another damaging scandal, but only if Jack either died in a Taliban ‘riot’ at Pulacharke or served his sentence as a ‘guilty’ man. As things turned, Jack did neither

… Which created a problem for the State Department — What might Idema have to say about their behaviour as a proven-innocent, freed man? Is this why the State Department continue to imprison Idema? Because, having dug themselves into a hole, they cannot extricate themselves from it without suffering political embarrassment?

Certainly, this is speculation on our part. But. Consider the following, from Tawous Noorzai, writing about events leading up to Captain Brent Bennett’s removal from Afghanistan earlier this year:

Cmdr Jack was offered amnesty if he confessed and also signed papers against United Front officials. He refused. I was present during these meetings and when these things occurred. I thought he should sign and go home, but he always said that it was his honor that he would trade for freedom if he signed.

Leaving aside the jaw-dropping chutzpah of asking a man to admit to a crime he’s already been found not-guilty of committing, this type of manoeuvre adds weight to the supposition that the State Department keep Idema imprisoned in order to avoid having to answer questions about their conduct. After all, what better way to wipe away that inconvenient not-guilty verdict than a signed admission of guilt from Idema himself?

That Jack refuses to sign the papers is certainly a testament to his honour. That such principles are lost on the State Department is hardly surprising — As the Idema case proves, they have none.

So what can we do? Well, anyone reading this with their own blog can sign up for the weekly Free Jack Idema Blogburst by emailing Cao or Rottweiler Puppy for details. I’d urge everyone to do this, as we’re still terribly short on takers. If you want to know more about the story, Cao’s Blog has a large section devoted to Jack Idema. There’s also a timeline here, and, of course, a huge amount of information is available over at SuperPatriots, without whose work none of us would have learned about Jack’s story.

You should also contact the following people and make your feelings known,
especially to write letters of complaint about this despicable situation:

Secret US EMBASSY Fax: - 301-560-5729
(Local US Fax: Goes RIGHT TO Ambassador)
c/o US Ambassador Ronald Neuman
US Embassy- Afghanistan
6180 Kabul Place
Dulles, VA 20189-6180

US Consul Russell Brown - 011-93-70201908 (Fired)
US Consul Addie Harchik- 011-93-70201908
(denied them water and mail at Thanksgiving- Gone)
US Consul Edward Birsner- number yet unknown
US Embassy Translator Wahid - 011-93-70201902
US Embassy Asst Consul Bashir Momman- 011-93-70201923
US Consul (friend) Dawn Schrepel- 011-93-70201908 (Fired)

Ambassador Massoud Khalili
(wounded with Massoud)
(Great and Kind man)
Islamic State of Afghanistan
Embassy of Afghanistan
Ankara, Turkey

H.E. Said Tayeb JAWAD (Afghan Ambassador- powerful in US)
(Northern Alliance Good Guy Fired- New Pro Taliban Ambassador)
Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington
2341 Wyoming Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel: (202) 483-6414
Fax: (202) 483-9523

Mr. Jahed Hamrah, Consul General (pro-Taliban)
CONSULATE GENERAL OF
AFGHANISTAN IN NEW YORK
360 Lexington Avenue,
11th Floor New York,
New, York, NY 10017
Tel.: (212) 972-2276 or 972-2277
Fax: (212) 972-9046

Chairman Peter Hoekstra
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
H-405, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20515-6415;
Office: 202-225-4121 / Fax: 202-225-1991
Toll Free: (877) 858-9040

M. Cherif BASSIOUNI
Independent Expert of the Commission on Human Rights
On the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
UNOG-OHCHR
CH-1211 Geneva 10
Ph: +41(0)22 917 97 27 Fax: +41(0)22 917 90 18

Senator Steven Saland (Jack’s Rep and Neighbor)
9 Jonathan Lane
Poughkeepsie, NY 12603

Senator Elizabeth Dole (Jack’s Rep)
United States Senate
555 Dirksen Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Ph: 202-224.6342
Fax: 202-224.1100

Senator Richard Burr (Interested)
United States Senate
217 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3154 / Fax: 202-228-2981

Senator Bill Nelson (in the fight on Jack’s Side)
United States Senate
Hart Senate Office Building
Room 716
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-5274 / Fax: 202-228-2183
FL Fax 407-872-7165

Senator Dianne Feinstein (Bennett’s Representative)
United States Senate
Hart Office Building, Room 331
Washington, D.C. 20510
202-224-3841

Representative Mike McIntyre (Jack’s Representative)
United States Congress
2437 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-2731 / Fax 202-225-5773

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
(Reference Captain Bennett- CA citizen)
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841 / Fax: 916-445-4633

Finally, PLEASE NOTE: The SuperPatriots and Jack images on this site are used with WRITTEN COPYRIGHT PERMISSION and any use by any third party is subject to legal action by SuperPatriots.US

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'O you who believe, fight those of the unbelievers near you and let them see how harsh you can be. Know that Allah is with the righteous.'

(Koran 9:123. For a further list of Koranic verses commanding holy war against non-Muslims, see this page: http://answering-islam.org.uk/Quran/Themes/jihad_passages.html)

The British National Party's Anti-Jihad Bulletin is dedicated to exposing the truth about the Muslim holy war against Britain and the entire non-Muslim world.

1. ISLAMIST THREAT WORSE THAN IRA - POLICE CHIEF

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1978077,00.html

Britain faces a threat of ‘unparalleled nature’ from Islamist terrorism which is greater than the dangers ever posed by the IRA, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, said yesterday.

There was no specific evidence of any immediate threat, he said, playing down a recent suggestion from the home secretary, John Reid, that an attack was highly likely before Christmas.

But officers and the intelligence services lacked the resources to follow all plots and had yet to penetrate terrorist networks effectively. He also warned that the government needed to establish greater control of its borders.

‘The level of threat is of an unparalleled nature and growing,’ he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. ‘In terms of civilians - you would have to go back to probably either the second world war or cold war for that threat.

‘The IRA, with very few exceptions, did not want to carry out mass atrocities, they didn't want to die, they gave warnings and they were heavily penetrated by the intelligence services. None of those apply with al-Qaida and its affiliates.’

Sir Ian suggested the threat raised questions about the need to extend further the detention period for suspects. ‘With the IRA police were able to get behind an active unit and follow it pretty closely to the point where it was ready to cause an explosion. Here we have to move in so much more quickly - you end up with a lot of people and information,’ he said.

He was ‘quite confident’ that he will face no charges over the death of Jean-Charles de Menezes, shot dead by police in Stockwell tube station last year, after the Independent Police Complaints Commission reports in the new year.

He also denied that the Forest Gate raid, in which one man was shot and from which no charges resulted, was a mistake. ‘I call it a cliff edge choice: if you fall one way you knock your head on the wall; fall the other way and you drop 200ft into the sea.’

Responding to claims MI5 had made mistakes in the run up to the 7/7 bombings, he said: ‘There are people the service knows about and can't have the resources to follow. The security services and police are choosing which plot to follow, because there are many.’

Sir Ian believed the government must get greater control of the UK's borders and said he didn't ‘understand how we can continue’ to let veiled women through passport controls, but agreed checks should be carried out in an appropriate manner. His remarks followed claims a suspect in the murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky fled the country in a niqab.

Sir Ian called for a reduction in the form-filling for small scale offences, saying an officer could carry out only one arrest in an eight-hour shift. ‘We need to pull all that back so I can have my cops back on the street.’

2. BLAIR ABANDONS ATTEMPT TO OUTLAW ISLAMIST GROUPS

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1978533,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11

The Prime Minister has been forced to shelve a central plank of his 'war on terror' strategy after opposition from senior police officers and the Home Office.

Plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, the radical Islamic group, have been dropped in the past few days following intense discussions between Number 10 and legal advisers. Counter-terrorism sources said Tony Blair had been warned that banning the group, which campaigns for Britain to become a caliphate - a country subject to Islamic law - would serve only as a recruiting agent if the group appealed against the move.

The decision is a significant personal blow to Blair, who announced his intention to outlaw it shortly after the London bombings on 7 July, 2005, as part of a 12-point strategy to counter Islamic extremism.
On a trip to Pakistan last month, he is understood to have given personal assurances to President Pervez Musharraf that the ban would go ahead. Musharraf made clear to him that outlawing the group - banned in Pakistan since 2003 - must be a priority for Britain.

In the past couple of weeks Blair has held high-level discussions with police and counter-terrorism experts with a view to reviving plans to proscribe the group. But The Observer understands he has been persuaded it is impossible based on evidence collected so far.

The debate over Hizb ut-Tahrir's right to operate in Britain comes as its influence is growing. The group has a presence in 40 countries. But it is banned in Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Sudan and in almost every Arab country.

Last month a BBC investigation claimed to expose its methods to radicalise young British Muslims. It reported that in Croydon, south London, Hizb ut-Tahrir encouraged an undercover researcher posing as a recruit to commit crimes to 'prove his loyalty'. Hizb ut-Tahrir has denied this and said it intends to sue the BBC.

The group's British wing has distanced itself from the more radical views of international sister organisations such as those expressed on leaflets handed out by Hizb ut-Tahrir supporters in Copenhagen which claimed suicide bombings in Israel were 'legitimate' acts of 'martyrdom'.

The British wing has also distanced itself from its former leader, Omar Bakri Muhammad, who left the group to set up the more extreme al-Muhajiroun organisation in 1996 and is in exile in Lebanon after being caught on tape praising the London bombers as the 'fantastic four'.

Despite public concerns about Hizb ut-Tahrir's perceived extremism, Home Office lawyers, the Foreign Office and representatives of the Association of Chief Police Officers have quietly lobbied against outlawing the group and have, for now, won the argument.

'If there was evidence for proscribing Hizb ut-Tahrir, we would support a move to proscribe it,' said Rob Beckley, Acpo lead for communities and counter-terrorism. 'But we think such a move would be counter-productive and not in the spirit of the government's [anti-terrorism] legislation. It is not an offence to hold extreme views.'

The news comes as the Conservatives expressed fresh concerns that Britons determined to martyr themselves in the name of jihad are being released into the community because police lack powers to prosecute them.

Up to a dozen people suspected of being en route to join the fight against British forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, or to become suicide bombers overseas, have been detained by one major police force alone in the past year. But because evidence gained by covertly intercepting conversations by phone or email is not admissible in British courts, they could not be charged with any serious offence. Patrick Mercer, the Conservative homeland security spokesman, said he was told by Greater Manchester police there was now a persistent pattern of such suspects causing serious concern.

'They were graphically described to me as men who have come to terms with death, who are then going back into the community,' Mercer told The Observer. 'The police are convinced that these are the sort of people who will pull an incident, probably in Manchester but maybe in London or Birmingham or elsewhere.'

3. IRISH JIHADI CELLS EXPOSED

http://safra-vesaifa.blogspot.com/2006/12/irish-jihadi-cells-exposed.html

On Monday evening, Dec 18, 2006, the Irish State-owned RTE 1 TV, on its flagship current affairs investigative program, ‘Prime Time’, after the main 9-9.30 PM evening news, broadcast a 1-hour report on the Jihadi risk within Ireland. It quoted from intelligence reports, both police [Garda ] and military [G-2] sources, and interviewed on-air recently retired US experts, such as John Brennan, 2004-05 chief of their National Counter-Terrorism Center, and Dan Coleman, ex-FBI OBL Unit, as well as many Muslim figures in Ireland. The program research seemed very thorough, balanced and comprehensive in range, and led substantial weight to the extremely disturbing conclusions which emerged.

Prime Time established five central and troubling issues:

Firstly, there is a Jihadi propaganda operation active in Ireland.

Secondly, there is, within the Muslim community in Ireland, high-level sympathy for Jihad.

Thirdly, there is a small [15%-19%] element in this community, which supports such terror.

Fourthly, several active Jihadi terrorists have been identified with Irish links.

Fifthly, a significant Al-Qaida figure is based in Dublin for some 25 years, and has acquired Irish citizenship.

Re 1, a British-born Pakistani Iman, Ismail Kotwal, here for 9 years, runs a Madrasa in Aungier Street, Dublin 2, in the South Inner City, and also a Mosque in the Black Pitts area of that quarter. He regards the Taliban ‘as a model’, and holds OBL [Osama Bun Ladin] as ‘a good and god-fearing man’, who also resembles the Prophet. Kotwal, as a Deobandi, refuses to be photographed, and is one of the recently-formed 14-strong Council of Imans, which although it includes one Shia, is Sunni-dominated. The main bastion of Sunni presence is the ‘Islamic Cultural Centre’ at the South Dublin suburb of Clonskeagh, which has enjoyed significznt Gulf funding. This Centre acts as the secretariat for Qaradawi's European Fatwa Council - he notoriously supports suicide-bombing, has been embraced by London's hard-left Mayor Ken Livingstone, and is a Gulf-based Egyptian and a major Muslim Brotherhood figure.

The encouraging aspect is that two young students walked out of a religion class given by Kotwal, in response to his pro-OBL propaganda, and their fathers, on-air, fully supported their sons. But the [Roman Catholic Church-affiliated] De La Salle School in Churchtown, Dublin, took no action. The record in Germany from 1932 of Church resistance to the Nazis is notoriously patchy - to put it very mildly. A few brave martyrs, some collaborators, but most silent.

Re 2, this Centre's Dawa [faith propaganda] is directed by the very fluent Ali Selim, who, on-air, said he ‘did not know OBL’, and so could neither respect nor disrespect him. And I also never met the late Herr Hitler, or the late Comrade Marshal Stalin, or the late Chairman Mao, or OBL, or Pol Pot, but I have no problem in reaching, and stating, a clear answer to the direct question of whether I respect such mass, serial murderers. We in Ireland are far too well used to such insulting equivocation from our native apologists for terror since 1970, to fall for that trick in 2006.

Re 3, an opinion poll showed that 15% overall, but 19% of those 15-26 years, sympathised with OBL. Details will be published in the daily ‘Irish Independent’. This level is broadly similar to several UK surveys, and suggest a pro-terror base of at least 8,000 in Ireland, quite enough to generate scores of active terrorists, and hundreds of active auxiliaries.

Re 4, one Jihadi terrorist killed in Iraq with Irish links, was Abu Hafs al-Libi, closely linked to Zarqawi himself. Irish passports have also been found in Jihadi circles abroad - the Shia Iman suggested maybe 11 - although some may not belong to Irish citizens, but have been stolen or forged. Three other major Jihadi terrorists were named. One, who lived in Lucan, 10 miles West of the City Centre, is now serving 6 years in prison in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Another, an Algerian, Hamid H, has left Ireland, while a third, who lived in Enfield, County Meath, a town in the Greater Dublin commuter belt, is now in jail in Tunisia. These four Sunni men were linked to the Clonskeagh Mosque, and to the next character.

Re 5, a naturalised Irish citizen with 5 children, here for some 25 years, Ibrahim Buisir, balding, neatly- bearded, and bespectacled, fluent in English, was identified as a major player. He has worked here as a slaughter-house operative and as a journalist. He heads an NGO with some 40 offices, ‘Islamic-African Relief Agency’, one in Dublin, and linked to ‘Mercy International’, and to the ‘MK’ [Maktab has had its US assets frozen]. He has contacts with Jihadi figures across Europe, such as Spain, Italy, Germany, as well as [since 1994-5] with East African Jihadi elements, including OBL's private secretary, Wadi el-Haj. 224 were murdered in the Embassy bombings by Al-Qaida elements.
Jack Cloonan, ex-FBI [1976-2002] came to Dublin to confer with his Irish colleagues on the common Jihadi threat. Buisir was quoted as using 15 Bank Accounts for his operations. Our Garda [police] questioned Buisir for 3 days in their South Inner City ‘A’ District HQ in Kevin Street, but he has not been charged. He is said to be under physical and electronic surveillance by our Garda Special Branch.

Interestingly, both a moderate Sunni, Sheikh Dr, Satardien, and the Shia Iman from Milltown, Dublin Mosque, both stated on-air, that there was a Jihadi presence, and influence, in Ireland.

I will return to this serious topic - this TV program may prove to be a watershed in ending the denial and toleration in Ireland regarding sinister conspirators in our midst, or their apologists.
We have all seen what happens when this kind of threat is ignored. Decent Muslims and all democrats, must stand together to expose, confront and rout the common Jihadi threat, be it their logistical and financial tools, or their explosives stores, or their ideology and propaganda.

4. ISLAMIC ECONOMICS AND SHARIA LAW: A PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION

http://www.americandaily.com/article/16883

My goal today is to put you into the mind of an Islamist—to think like an Islamist. It is only possible to understand the events occurring by understanding their thinking and what it would mean to live under Shariah law. There is a well-worn Cliché ‘It’s the economy stupid’ that appears around election times. So it is with Islamic Economics and the Clash of Ideologies we are witnessing today. See also: Islamic Economics and the Final Jihad: The Muslim Brotherhood to the Leftist/Marxist - Islamist Alliance

It should be realized that the goal of the Islamists, following in the footsteps of Muhammad, is not so much to conquer the land but to Islamise the populations. In so doing they seek to have the lands come under Shariah law and that the lands become dar al-Islam—the land of Islam and that all non-Muslims accept the status of Dhimmis—subservient to Muslim rule. The Plan involves the incremental acceptance of basic tenants of Shariah law as applied to all aspects of life—the Islamic ‘Way of Life’. This implies the desire to incrementally change the laws and ultimately the Constitution of the U.S. This requires the population to accept the new laws as equally valid and acceptable. Initially this will result in parallel legal systems and progressing from there with laws that may be applied locally and ultimately nationally. Jihad can be with the pen and the tongue, just as it can be the sword and the spear as Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood has said. Knowledge combined with economic control can be wielded with the precision of a sharp sword to effect any desired social/political change necessary for the fulfillment of Islam’s goal.

· What is the vision of the Islamists?
· The Genesis of Islamic Economics
· The Goal: Establishment of a Separate Muslim Society
· The Movement - Experiments in Islamic Economics
· HAMAS: Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine
· What is Islamic Finance?
· Understanding of the Role Of Islamic Economics
· Transnational Movements and the Creation of One World under Islam
· White Collar Jihad Defined
· The Role of Jihad—Not to Conquer Lands But Islamization of Populations
· Islamic Economics: Not an Exotic Addition to the English Country Garden
· The Call to Economic Jihad
· The Question: What Is Islamic Ideology?
· The Importance of Islamic (Shariah) Law
· The Goals of Implementing Shariah Law
· The Four Principles of the Islamic Economic System
· Islamic Economics -- The Third Economic System
· The Role of Propaganda
· Fundamental Differences between Islamic Economics and Capitalism/Socialism/Communism
· The Islamic Concept of Property Ownership
· Distribution not Production is the Islamist’s Solution
· Islamism Limits the Way Wealth Is Acquired
· Islamism Seeks to Regulate Company Organization
· Control of Currency Potentially Leading to the Destruction of the Hegemony of the Dollar
· Redistribution through Tax on Assets – Zakat
· Interest (Riba) under the Shariah
· The Impact of Islamic Economics and Shariah Law on Social Conditions
· The Strategy for World Domination
· The Expansion of the Oil Cabal
· The Change of Laws to Accommodate Shariah Principles
· How Is Economic Jihad Being Used?
· Significance of Foreign Control of Dollar Assets
· Dow Jones-Citigroup Islamic Index

What is the vision of the Islamists?

To me based on reading the Qur’an, listening to pronouncements of the leaders, the scholars and reading their writings, it is to establish the ‘Islamic kingdom of God on earth.’

If this is true, then we have to look at what actions or events need to occur for the vision to come to pass. It is pretty easy to see what needs to be done and the current status. Then you need to identify the skills needed to complete the task. Then you identify the players for execution and figure out the cost to get them on board. If you read the newspapers and watch the TV, you will notice that the process is underway.

The Plan involves the incremental acceptance of basic tenants of Shariah law as applied to all aspects of life—the Islamic ‘Way of Life’. This implies the desire to incrementally change the laws and ultimately the Constitution of the U.S. Suggested reading from the Middle East Quarterly – Spring 2006 CAIR: Islamists Fooling the Establishment.

There is no question that many Muslims whether they are Summi or Shiite decry terrorism and are loyal Americans; however, most Muslims subscribe to the Muslim total ‘way of life’ and desire to have the whole world under Islamic rule and the will of Allah. Combining a ‘way of life’ into an economic system is proving to be more powerful than any other in having a global impact and spreading Islam on a global basis.

Jihad is considered a required religious duty for Muslims. Jihad is Islam’s normal path to expansion.

Islamic Economics is the stealth sword of Islam. It is more powerful than the Weapons of Mass Destruction and terrorism. It is immune to negotiation. The stealth sword is being applied for the Islamization of the West and the whole world. The goal is to create the ‘Islamic kingdom of God on earth.’ The implementation of Shariah law would have a dramatic affect on your life and that of the entire Western Civilization. Understand the nature of the evil and do not be blindsided.

As UPI Editor at Large Arnaud De Borchgrave wrote on December 12, 2006 in the article Commentary: Watching America: ‘In much of the world, friends and foes alike are challenging America's preeminence. The country that wishes to supplant America must possess a huge population, abundant resources, a universal ideology and the political will to succeed. The most obvious candidate is the Muslim world under the Caliphate, which Bush has often spoken about.’ See also: 21st American century is about to end by Abid Mustafa in the Frontier Post, Pakistan, December 5, 2006.

The strategy from the time of Muhammad fourteen centuries ago was to create the ‘Islamic kingdom of God on earth’; this remains throughout the Islamic world today. Islam is not just another religion, but a total ‘way of life’ that brings religion into the economic and political sphere. Integrating Shariah (Islamic law) into economics and finance is a powerful tool for Islamization and ultimately world domination.

Islamists do not seek integration and assimilation into Western society and culture; they seek to destroy Western governments and to establish nations under Shariah, in which all are subservient to Muslim rule. They seek ‘justice,’ not democracy, as the West knows it--government by the people and for the people. Justice to Islamists means all peoples under Islamic rule.

Islamic economics has an impact on your life, whether you are a banker, investing in the stock market, selling a home, buying a car, purchasing food, buying a suit or a dress, or just trying to make sense of the current events. Islamic economics and Islamic banking are primary Islamist strategies to condition the West to accept Shariah law as a basis for all life in all nations.

The Islamic movement is an idea movement; at the present time the leader(s) has not been identified. Many, if not most, of the participants in Islamic Financing may not even be aware that they may be supporting the Islamist agenda.

Our goal is to understand, the genesis of Islamic Economics, what it is, how it is taking place, and how it would affect our lives.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’’ Mt. 4:8-10

The Genesis of Islamic Economics

The twentieth century has witnessed the emergence of an economic doctrine that calls itself Islamic economics. The doctrine is significant because it advances the sprawling and headline-grabbing movement known as political Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, or simply Islamism.

The movement is having a profound impact. The Islamic windows of major banks that incorporate the principles of Islamic economics represent the fastest growing sector. The banks, based on the principles of Islamic economics, raise billions of dollars in the form of Islamic bonds (sukuk) annually. Banking laws in Islamic and Western countries are changing to accommodate Islamic economic rules. The Dow Jones Islamic Stock Index and in April 2006, Dow Jones and Citigroup announced the launch of the first Islamic Bond Index. The Dow Jones Citigroup Sukuk Index, the first index that seeks to measure the performance of global bonds complying with Islamic (Shariah compliant) investment guidelines.

For a more complete discussion of the implications of financing with Sukuk bonds see my paper Structural Changes–Destruction Of The U.S. Dollar.

The Role of the Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) was the main motivator behind setting up experiments in Islamic financing on a nationally and internationally workable scale. The theory and practical requirements needed to set up an Islamic banking system came from among the ranks of the Ikhwan.

‘Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.’—Muslim Brotherhood

Islamic Economics and the Teachings of Islam

Almost no research exists on the origins of Islamic economics. Part of the reason, no doubt, lies in the rhetoric of the doctrine: Islamic economics claims to reflect the fixed, transparent, and eternal teachings of Islam, thus making questions about its origins seem equivalent to investigating the origins of Islam itself. By this account, Islamic economics has existed since the dawn of Islam, and the role of the modern Islamic economist has simply been to rediscover forgotten teachings. Whatever the exact connection between the substance of Islamic economics and the precepts of Islam--this view is fallacious.

Some of the economic ideas and practices that are now characterized as inherently Islamic are new creations; others, while not new, acquired religious significance only recently. Moreover, even the concept of Islamic economics is a product of the twentieth century. So it is unclear why the doctrine exists, to say nothing of why it has generated Islamic norms, banks, and redistribution systems.

Compounding the puzzle about the existence of Islamic economics is the Islamic world’s generally low level of economic development, at least relative to Europe and North America. Given the prevailing pattern, it is not clear why Muslims, however devout, would look to Islam for solutions to their economic problems. True, the heritage of Islam offers principles, policies, and practices of relevance to modern economic problems, and in the religions early centuries, Muslim-ruled lands made remarkable economic progress. But if these scarcely disputed facts justify and explain Islamic economics, why did the doctrine not emerge earlier? If the answer is that the Islamic world’s persistent underdevelopment has led to a search for alternative economic programs, there is the point that the Islamic world passed its economic prime almost a millennium ago. The need for economic reforms has been present for many centuries; yet Islamic economics is barely a few decades old.

Declared Purpose of Islamic Economics

‘The declared purpose of Islamic economics is to identify and establish an economic order that conforms to Islamic scripture and traditions. According to the Islamic economic system, the economy, like all other aspects of the Islamic ‘way of life,’ should be managed in a way that allows it to contribute richly to the achievement of the major socio-economic goals of Islam, i.e., creating the ‘Islamic kingdom of God on earth.’ The system should also continue to perform the usual functions that relate to its own special field and which other economic systems perform.’

Mawlana Sayyid al Abdul-Ala al-Mawdudi - Islamic ‘Way of Life’

(Mawlana) Sayyid Abul A'la Al-Mawdudi (1903-1979), one of the chief architects of contemporary Islamic resurgence, was one of the most outstanding Islamic thinkers and writers of his time. Mawdudi is credited with bringing economics within the purview of religion in the mid-twentieth century. He had a broader goal of defining a self-contained Islamic order.

He sought to turn Islam into a complete ‘way of life.’ In his voluminous writing, Mawdudi exhorted that Islam is much more than a set of rituals. It encompasses, he argued, all domains of human existence, including education, medicine, art, law, politics and economics. To support this assertion, he laid the foundations of several Islamic disciplines, among them Islamic economics. Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), an Egyptian, Muhammad Baquir al-Sadr (Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr) (1931-80), an Iraqi, and Professor Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian, also made seminal contributions to Islamic economics.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki who belongs to the Shi'ite Dawa party, is close to the most important religious leader in Iraq, Ali Sistani, and therefore has widespread religious support beyond the political backing of his fellow party members. As a member of the militant party founded in the 1950s by Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, who was killed by Saddam in the '90s, al-Maliki also has the support of al-Sadr's son-in-law, Muqtada al-Sadr. Reference: Spinning on an axis of evil by Zvi Bar'el published by Haaretz.com December 7, 2006.

Al-Mahdi Army / Active Religious Seminary / Al-Sadr's Group According to the Global Security.org organization, ‘Hujjat al-Islam Muqtada al-Sadr says that the Mahdi would soon return, in Iraq. Sadr’s preachers are spreading this rumor, touching the core of Shi’i faith and eschatology. In the Shia tradition, the Mahdi is the 12th Imam, who is in occultation. Muktada al-Sadr says the Americans were aware of the impending reappearance, and that the Americans invaded Iraq to seize and kill the Mahdi. His supporters chant Sadr's name at rallies to imply that he is the ‘son of the Mahdi.’ Sadr has stated that the army ‘belongs to the Mahdi’ as an explanation of why he cannot disband it, as has been required of other private militias. Although the reappearance of the Mahdi central to Shia thought, it is unusual to raise claims of the imminence of this event, and other Shiite clerics have avoided the messianic ecstasy that such claims can induce.’

According to David S. Cloud and Michael R. Gordon, New York Times in the article Bleak assessment in Pentagon study ‘There were an average of 959 insurgent and sectarian attacks against American and Iraqi targets every week in Iraq over the last three months, the highest level ever recorded, according to a Pentagon report on security trends in Iraq issued Monday.’

‘The report also says armed militiamen affiliated with radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr pose the gravest danger to the security and stability of Iraq, surpassing Sunni Arab insurgents and even al Qaeda terrorists. The finding is the military's strongest declaration of the danger posed by al-Sadr.’

According to the article in the Financial Times of December 16: Doubts precede Baghdad reconciliation conference ‘Sunni for their part complain that six months of national reconciliation pledges do not seem to have reduced the activities of Shia death squads, most of whom are believed to be affiliated to militias loyal to the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr - a key ally of the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.’

This then directly links with Ahmadinejad’s beliefs and preaching about the return of 12th Imam.

In his book, Islamic Way of Life, Mawdudi wrote: ‘The chief characteristic of the Islamic Concept of Life is that it does not admit a conflict, nay, not even a significant separation between life-spiritual and life-mundane. It does not confine itself merely in purifying the spiritual and the moral life of man in the limited sense of the word. Its domain extends to the entire gamut of life. It wants to mould individual life as well as the social order in healthy patterns, so that the Islamic kingdom of God may really be established on earth and so that peace, contentment and well-being may fill the world as waters fill the oceans. The Islamic ‘way of life’ is based on this unique approach to life and a peculiar concept of man’s place in the universe. That is why it is necessary that before we proceed to discuss the moral, social, political and economic systems of Islam, we should have a clear idea of the Islamic Concept of Life.’

One of the most important contributions of Mawdudi in twentieth century Islam has been his presentation of Islam as a system of life, a complete code of conduct that governs all aspects of human existence. The basic proposition in Mawdudi’s theory is God’s exclusive sovereignty. According to him:

‘God’s sovereignty covers all aspects of political and legal sovereignty, also, and in these two no one other than God has any share. No monarch, no royal family, no elite class, no leader of any religious group, no democracy vested in the sovereignty of the people can participate in God’s sovereignty. Whosoever claims such a position is a rebel. Similarly, any institution or individual attempting to assume political and legal sovereignty and seeking thereby to restrict the jurisdiction of God to spheres of personal law or religious duties is a usurper and a rebel. The truth is that no one can claim to be a lawgiver, save under the dispensation of God. No one can challenge the supreme authority of God Almighty in any sphere.’

Mawdudi’s concepts of an Islamic state reject any Western model. In his view, everything about Western civilization was wrong and harmful because it was not God-given but elaborated by political leaders on the basis of false beliefs. To him and his followers, the West had long ago denied the sovereignty of God. Therefore, all things its people have constructed are unacceptable.

The works of Mawdudi were translated into Arabic and other languages as early as 1940. They exerted a profound influence on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in other Muslim countries. They helped shape contemporary militant fundamentalist movements.

The Islamic Fundamentalist Movement Does Not Represent Backward-Looking Traditionalists

The religious and political ideas of Mawlana Mawdudi and Sayyid Qutb (Qutb wrote the famous book Milestones which was and still is a leading text for Islamic fundamentalism.) constitute the intellectual basis of many modern revivalist (fundamentalist) movements within the Islamic world. They were certainly more critical and disapproving than the Islamic modernists’ idea of bringing together specific Islamic and Western ideas and modernizing Islamic civilization along the lines those Western societies had previously experienced. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to claim that Mawdudi, Qutb, and those people who followed in their footsteps were backward-looking, reactionary traditionalists. This is not only because they admired specific aspects of Western civilization, such as Western science and technology, but also because the kind of Islamic society that they aspired to create was a modern one. The way they defined the nature of an ideal relationship between an Islamic government and its citizens, the manner in which they formulated the rights, duties and privileges of individual Muslims in such an ideal society, and their reinterpretation of the basic principles of Islam to construct a modern ideology prove this observation.

The New Socialism and Islamist Economists

The people in the West who are trying to construct a new socialism, a de-Marxified alternative to the politics of pure individualism, share the views of Islamist economists. These Westerners also accept the market as the essential driving-force of any economy, but they too wish to set it within a man-made moral framework that will ensure support for the weak through the compassion and self-discipline of the strong. What communism tried and failed to achieve through the state, one Islamic economist has written, ‘is to be established through the agency of man himself.’ It would be a good slogan for the possible new socialism of the twenty-first century. As we will see, these principles are being promoted broadly in the West. This merging of ideologies is a powerful force in today’s political environment. This merging is taking the form of a Marxist/Leftist - Islamist Alliance.

The Role of Yusuf al-Qaradawi

More recently, credit needs to be given to Professor Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi for his important book, The Lawful And The Prohibited In Islam.

Islamic law on commerce is known as fiqh al-mu`amalat. Much of the laws, rules and interpretations of Shariah takes into consideration issues of social justice, equitability, and fairness, as well as practicality of financial transactions. In general, the Shariah legal maxim in relation to commercial transactions and contracts states: ‘They are permissible unless there is a clear prohibition.’ In a nutshell, prohibited elements of a commercial transaction must first be removed for it to be Shariah-compliant. The major prohibited elements under Shariah are riba (interest), gharar (uncertainty), maisir (gambling), non-halal (prohibited) food and drinks and immoral activities.

The principles laid out by al-Qaradawi are having profound influence on all daily and commercial activities, not only in the finance sector, but also in the energy, transportation (ports and terminals), construction, and food and drink sector. The goal is to bring all commercial activity into Shariah compliance.

The Goal: Establishment of a Separate Muslim Society

Mawdudi had as his goal the establishment of a separate Muslim society, not integration and/or assimilation into Western culture. The existence of such Muslim dominated ghettos as Clichy-sous-Bois and Bagneux outside Paris and Leicester in the U.K. are examples of lack of Muslim integration. These concepts also pervade the Islamic banking sector of the Major Money Center Banks, with the fact that the accounts from the Islamic windows may not be co-mingled with those of non-Muslims. For his part, Mawdudi appealed to the old notion of the universal Muslim community, the Ummah, which operates according to traditional principles of Islamic solidarity. Essentially undifferentiated except by gender, the Ummah is supposed to transcend tribal, national, regional, and local ties. Having its own laws, values, and convictions, it is to be the individual Muslim’s principal source of identity and the focus of his loyalty.

The teaching of Mawdudi on no integration and/or assimilation into Western culture has far-reaching impact today on many of the issues being addressed in Europe. When immigrants came to America in its formative years, their goal was integration into a unified culture; this is what made America the strong nation it is. In Canada, the Muslim population has sought and has already achieved the separation by the creation of separate civil courts for Muslims. The goal of Islamists is the incremental Islamization of all countries and peoples.

Ummah is an Arabic word that means ‘community’ or ‘nation.’ In the context of Islam, the word ummah is used in foreign languages as well as in Arabic to mean the ‘nation of the believers’ (ummatu l-muminin), and thus the whole Muslim world. The phrase al-ummatun wahid in the Qur’an (the ‘One Community’) refers to the entire Muslim world unified. Some modern Islamists use the term Islamic Ummah or Muslim Ummah to refer to all the people in the lands and countries where predominantly Muslims reside, and which were once under the control of the Islamic caliphate.

Whatever one thinks of his agenda, he was onto something real: with technological progress, economics was indeed becoming increasingly important to daily life everywhere. In a technologically primitive and static world, where family background determines one’s career, where one plants and sells crops in the ways of one’s grandparents, where one has little to spend on non-subsistence goods, and where markets offer little variety, economics may be vital to physical survival, but economic decision-making does not absorb much attention. By contrast, in a technologically advanced world, where job choices must be made, where women pursue and interrupt careers outside the home, where investment choices require monitoring, and where markets offer abundant choice, economic decision-making absorbs considerable time. It follows that if economic choice is considered a secular activity, economic advances will make Muslim existence look increasingly secular. But if economic activity is considered a religious activity, then economic development need not reduce Islam’s perceived role in the lives of Muslims.

Traditional Muslim Values vs. Contemporary Muslim Values

We profoundly misunderstand contemporary Islamist ideology when we see it as an assertion of traditional Muslim values or culture. In a traditional Muslim country, your religious identity is not a matter of choice; you receive it, along with your social status, customs and habits, and even your future marriage partner from your social environment.

In such a society, there is no confusion as to who you are, since your identity is given to you and is sanctioned by all of the society's institutions, from the family to the mosque to the state.

The Spread of Islamic Economics

The declared purpose of Islamic economics is to establish a new world economic order that conforms to Islamic scripture--the Qur’an--and Muslim tradition. (1) Its core positions took shape in the 1940s, and three decades later, efforts to implement them were under way in dozens of countries. (2) In Pakistan, Malaysia, and elsewhere, governments are now running centralized Islamic redistribution systems known as zakat.

More than sixty countries have Islamic banks that claim to offer an interest-free alternative to conventional banking. Invoking religious principles, several countries, among them Pakistan and Iran, have gone so far as to outlaw every form of interest; they are forcing all banks, including foreign subsidiaries, to adopt, at least formally, ostensibly Islamic methods of deposit taking and loan making. Attempts are also under way to disseminate religious norms of price setting, bargaining, and wage determination. And for every such initiative, others are on the drawing board.

From these developments one might infer that Islamic economics arose to advance an economic agenda. In fact, the doctrine emerged in late-colonial India as an instrument of identity creation and protection; at least initially, the economics of Islamic economics was merely incidental to its Islamic character.
Islamists Seek to Legitimize Religion by its Social Roles
Islamic banking and Islamic economics present themselves as alternatives to the dominant systems, but they are no more sacred than neo-liberal economic policies.

Islamists, who claim that Islam prescribes coherent systems of economic, political and social organization, implicitly seek the legitimatization of religion by its social roles. By contrast, in traditional Islamic society, their sacred dimension legitimated social arrangements.

It is important to understand the role of contemporary Islam vs. traditional Islamic society. This shift in the Muslim society is a significant contributing factor to the Clash of Ideologies.

The Movement - Experiments in Islamic Economics

The Muslim Brotherhood Movement (Ikhwan) began in 1928 as a youth organization formed in Egypt by Sheikh Hasan al-Banna and five like-minded followers. It was formed immediately following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and in consideration of the 1924 abolition of the caliphate by Turkish reformer Kemal Ataturk and after much contemplation of the sickness that had reduced the Ummah to its present state.

Beginning in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s and to the present day, the Ikhwan contributed to establishing a firm basis for Islamic communities in Europe and North America. This was done mainly through fostering the establishment of local community organizations, Islamic schools, national associations, and special interest organizations, e.g., medical, scientific, cultural.

From the earliest years, establishing an Islamic economic system was a priority for the Ikhwan. Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Yusuf al-Qaradawi and many other scholars laid down some of the groundwork for practical theories of Islamic finance. Later, specialized writers provided the practical basis for Islamic financial institutions, a number of which were developed in Muslim countries.

The Wahhabi ideology of the Saudi state, for example, and the religious doctrines of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and a host of voluntary religious organizations around the Islamic world are all Salafi . These diverse movements share the belief that Muslims have deviated from God’s plan and that matters can be returned to their proper state by emulating Muhammad.

HAMAS: Islamic Resistance Movement in Palestine

The acronym HAMAS, taken from the Arabic Harakat al- Muqawama al-Islamiya--Islamic Resistance Movement--literally denotes ‘zeal’ or ‘enthusiasm.’ The Hamas Covenant, however, interprets its name to mean ‘strength and bravery.’

Hamas officially came into being in August of 1988. Founded as an alternative to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas offers its activists the total rejection of Israel, together with absolute salvation.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement. Like the Brotherhood, Hamas completely rejects Western values and communism and calls for the establishment of a pan-Islamic state—the Ummah founded on the basis of Shariah.

It is in part the concept of forming a pan-Islamic state that conflicts with the creation of the Palestine state. While some seek to create the Palestine state initially, others seek to create the broader pan-Islamic Ummah. As long as this conflict exists, it will be difficult to reach agreement on the Israel-Palestine peace agreement. Iran seeks to incorporate Palestine into the Shiite Crescent, which of course would impact Saudi Arabian desires for a Sunni Caliphate.

To attain the objective of an Ummah, it promoted the concept of an ideal Muslim state to be ruled by a caliph, the title bestowed upon the successors of the Prophet Muhammad at the beginning of the Islamic empire.

It is important to recognize that there are conflicts for control of Hamas between the Shia—Iran support and the Sunni—Saudi/Egypt support factions.

In October of 1992, the Iranian government agreed to a request by Hamas to open an ‘embassy’ for the organization in Tehran. This Hamas ‘embassy’ continues to maintain the contacts and coordination with the Lebanese Hizballah (Hezbollah) organization, also located in Tehran. Additionally, the Iranian government promised to provide training for three thousand Hamas terrorists.

With Iran’s relations with both HAMAS and the Lebanese Hizballah organizations, one could conclude that Iran had reached the Mediterranean. See my article: ‘Iran Reaches the Mediterranean’

Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah (Ruhallah) Khomeini was the first Muslim cleric in modern times to create an Islamic government based solely on his personal conception of what such a government should entail. Along with Mawdudi and Qutb, Khomeini became an architect of late twentieth century Islamic revolutionary thinking.

Few doubt that previously unorganized, grassroots religious groups played a key role in Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s successful election campaign for president of Iran in 2005. ‘He rode a wave, using mosque-based organizations and even maddahs [religious singers] to gain support,’ says Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, cleric and former reformist vice-president. ‘But these songs aren’t political; they're not praising the Islamic Republic, only the Twelfth Imam.’

For political leaders to seek backing from popular religion, mystics or even millennialists is hardly new in Iran. The Safavid Dynasty (1501-1722), which converted the country to Shi’ism, sprang from a small Sunni sect whose followers believed its leader was divine. The Shah of Iran; often seen as a secular modernizer, allowed mobs to attack Baha’is, a sect seen as heretics by conservative Shia.

Three months after Ahmadinejad became president, whispers about his view of the Twelfth Imam are growing. According to one rumor, as mayor of Tehran, he drew up a new city plan for the imam’s return.

The culture ministry has denied the government had dropped a letter pledging loyalty into the Jamkaran well. But an early cabinet decision allocated the equivalent of $17 million for Jamkaran. And Ahmadinejad’s promises to eliminate injustice, corruption and unemployment have more sense of ‘heaven on earth’ than mundane government targets.

At the mosque of Jamkaran, 110 kilometers south of Tehran and just east of the holy city of Qom, tens of thousands gather on Tuesdays to pray and drop messages for the ‘missing’ imam into a well.

Abul-Qassem Mohammed, the Twelfth Imam, whom Shia Muslims regard as a successor to the Prophet Muhammad, entered ‘occultation’ in 941 and will one day return to rule justly before Judgment Day.

What is Islamic Finance?

As seen from an Islamist perspective, Islamic finance provides financial services in accordance with Islamic law or Shariah. Islamists emphasize that Islamic financial services represent the ethical, social, and religious dimension of financial transactions to enhance equity and fairness for the general good of society. These services are not limited to commercial banking and extend into capital markets, insurance and other channels of non-bank financial intermediation. Adoption of the principles of Islamic Finance by the western institutions is a critical step in the Islamization of the West and the acceptance of Shariah law. It is one step forward in making dar al-harb into dar a-Islam and non-Muslims becoming al-Dhimmis and subservient to Islamic rule.

Just as the proponents of ‘organic’ foods and the Green lobby have promoted their ideologies with catch phrases, the Islamists have promoted the their ideology of ‘Islamic-Safe’ and ‘socially responsible investment’ as preferred words for Islamist investing and finance, signifying that the investment products are in compliance with Shariah Law.

Understanding of the Role Of Islamic Economics

The lack of understanding the role of Islamic Economics and its impact on world events, including the solution to the Middle East crisis results in complete failure. No amount of political negotiation skill or military action or a war on terror will reduce or eliminate the conflicts. The economic issues must be addressed; they are core and kernel to the solution. The goal of the Islamist movements, whether they be Shiite or Sunni, is the same—Islamization of the West, bring the entire world under Shariah Law and to create the ‘Islamic kingdom of God on Earth’. Samuel Huntington spoke of the conflict between civilizations, this war is against the world and if necessary they believe that that the world may have to be destroyed in order to bring about Armageddon—and they are prepared to do it. This is not a war to save Western Civilization but a war to save civilization. We must realize who the enemy is, what their goal is, what their strategy is and we must win.

In his short story, ‘The Metamorphosis,’ Franz Kafka described the transformation of a human into a vermin. He could also have written the plot for the mutation of the Christian nations into the coming new caliphate--one world under Islam--a world without borders. After all, Gregor Samsa found himself transformed into an insect one morning. Thus, Samsa lies in a room, examines his new physical state, and considers how he will be able to explain being late for work. Samsa does not waste any time thinking about why he has become an insect and how to escape the situation. Instead, there is only apathy, quiet resignation--the man accepts the undeniability of the surreal situation. He lies quietly with shallow breath--thinking, feeling, and acting as if he were unchanged.

There is not that much of a difference between the metamorphosis of a person into an insect and that of a group of states into a caliphate.

A similar fate is befalling the West--European countries and North America. They question nothing, they do nothing, and they observe their metamorphosis with little discernible recognition, much less appropriate agitation. Once the smoke clears from the stage and the new caliphate shows its true colors, they will catch sight of an ugly creature--and that creature will be themselves.

History clearly indicates that Islamic barbarism against Jews and Christians dates back to the seventh century.

With the Moral-Trade-Deficit of the West exhibited by the growth of the Radical-Center-Movement departing from the worldview of our Judeo-Christian heritage, a vacuum has been created for the creation of the caliphate. And so it is that the West is morphing from dar-al-Harb (The domain of war.) to dar-al-Islam (The domain of Islam.) A caliphate may be coming soon to a country near you.

Transnational Movements and the Creation of One World under Islam

Islam’s ultimate goal is the creation of the Ummah--’one world without borders under Islamic rule,’ a totalitarian economic political theocracy based on Islamic law--Shariah law. The Islamic empire will not be limited to just the Spain-to-Indonesia region, for Islamists have a global vision that requires control over non-Muslim countries, also, and specifically the United States. Their universal ambitions certainly can be stopped, but first they must be understood and resisted. Only when the West, particularly the United States, realizes that the Islamists intend to replace the U.S. Constitution with the Qur’an--Shariah law--will it enter the final era of this war--the Final Jihad.

The issue being addressed: has there been or when will there be a penetration of the Western cultures and civilization that easily make takeover a fait accompli. The thesis is that the process is under way. What we need to fear is the dog that does not bark at night.

White Collar Jihad Defined

We are familiar with the horrific actions of terrorist organizations. Most of us are familiar with the term, ‘white collar crime.’ We have seen the results of it in the rise and fall of major name corporations from Enron, Worldcom, and others. Few consider that while we are waging an all-out war against terrorism, Islamists seek to spread their ideologies through the control of the media, educational institutions including the textbooks, financial institutions and the control of natural resources. I refer to the leaders and workers performing these activities as performing ‘white collar jihad.’ These workers are the ‘stealth’ army of Islamic jihad. They are the ‘stealth sword of Islam.’

Just as the Islamist’s from Morocco to Malaysia are introducing Islamic banking, the major ‘money center’ banks from New York to London are also introducing Islamic banking throughout the West. And they--the Western banks--are getting the banking laws of the countries changed to accommodate Shariah-compliant financial products.

Sheikh Yusuf-Qaradawi (Yousef al-Qaradhawi) along with Tariq Ramadan are the leading ideologists of contemporary Islamic thought. Sheikh Yusaf-Qaradawi is a spiritual leader of Muslim Brotherhood Movement, and hosts an Al-Jazeera’s weekly religious program. He has published some fifty books, including The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam and Islam: The Future Civilization.

We quote Sheikh Yusuf-Qaradawi: ‘I maintain that the conquest this time will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology…’

The Role of Jihad—Not to Conquer Lands But Islamization of Populations

An intrinsic part of the Islamic faith is jihad. While modern Islamic scholars have endeavored to redefine jihad, claiming that it is primarily a struggle with self, history proves otherwise.

A major, twofold fact transforms the jihad into something quite different from traditional wars, waged for ambition and self-interest, with limited objectives, where the ‘normal’ situation is peace between peoples. War in itself constitutes a dramatic event, which must end in a return to peace. Jihad does not end. The twofold factor is first the religious nature, then the fact that war has become an institution and no longer an ‘event’. Jihad is a continuing religious duty.

It is important to note that it is not the duty of Muslims primarily to conquer lands through Jihad but to Islamize the population.

In Islam jihad is a religious obligation. It forms part of the duties that the believer must fulfill. It is Islam’s normal path to expansion.

Hence, the second important specific characteristic is that the jihad is an institution—a process, and not an event; that is to say, it is part of the normal functioning of the Muslim world.

The conquered populations change status (they become shimmies), and the Shariah tends to be put into effect integrally, overthrowing the former law of the country. The conquered territories do not simply change ‘owners.’ Rather, they are brought into a binding collective (religious) ideology--with the exception of the dhimmi condition--and are controlled by highly perfected administrative machinery.

Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi writes: ‘Jihad can be with the pen and the tongue, just as it can be with the sword and the spear. Islamic Jihad is not limited to military efforts only; it extends beyond this, including several means that Muslims need to utilize now more than ever.’

Economic jihad is a long-term incremental program being waged to Islamize the world. The Medina Charter of 622, the conquests of Muhammad and the early caliphs gave birth for all time (within the Muslim world) of an institution that places the native populations into a permanently handicapped status. The imposition of Shariah law in Iraq and Afghanistan and changing and/or implementing Shariah-compliant laws in the West all contribute to accomplishing the goal of Islamization, as called for by Muhammad.

Islamic Economics: Not an Exotic Addition to the English Country Garden

Once there are Islamic financial institutions, how long will it be before Muslims insist that the state and business direct all their monetary dealings with Muslims through these institutions, for example, boycotting businesses with Jewish connections en route? How long before Muslims, extending the logic of their concentration in places like Bradford and Leicester, seek to establish their own law within these areas, the germ of a state within a state? And how diverse would such a state be? Are we not seeing cities and even states setting up their own laws, although not Islamic, the principles are being established.

As David Kennedy Houck wrote in the Middle East Quartely for Spring 2006, The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution, ‘First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have petitioned to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when it comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner associations, and other groups enforce Islamic law?’

‘Such questions are no longer theoretical. While Muslim organizations first established enclaves in Europe, the trend is now crossing the Atlantic. Some Islamist community leaders in the United States are challenging the principles of assimilation and equality once central to the civil rights movement, seeking instead to live according to a separate but equal philosophy. The Gwynnoaks Muslim Residential Development group, for example, has established an informal enclave in Baltimore because, according to John Yahya Cason, director of the Islamic Education and Community Development Initiative, a Baltimore-based Muslim advocacy group, ‘there was no community in the U.S. that showed the totality of the essential components of Muslim social, economic, and political structure.’ ‘

‘Baltimore is not alone. In August 2004, a local planning commission in Little Rock, Arkansas, granted The Islamic Center for Human Excellence authorization to build an internal Islamic enclave to include a mosque, a school, and twenty-two homes. While the imam, Aquil Hamidullah, says his goal is to create ‘a clean community, free of alcohol, drugs, and free of gangs,’ the implications for U.S. jurisprudence of this and other internal enclaves are greater: while the Little Rock enclave might prevent the sale of alcohol, can it punish possession and in what manner? Can it force all women, be they residents or visitors, to don Islamic hijab (headscarf)? Such enclaves raise the fundamental questions of when, how, and to what extent religious practice may supersede the U.S. Constitution.’

According to the article in the Guardian of November 30, 2006, British Muslims want Islamic law and prayers at work: ‘Muslims in Britain want greater recognition of their faith with the introduction of Islamic law for civil cases and time off for prayers during the working day, but are equally committed to greater participation in British life.

A special Guardian/ICM poll based on a survey of 500 British Muslims found that a clear majority wants Islamic law introduced into this country in civil cases relating to their own community. Some 61% wanted Islamic courts - operating on Shariah principles - ‘so long as the penalties did not contravene British law’.

Many civil cases in this country deal with family disputes such as divorce, custody and inheritance.

The poll also found a high level of religious observance with just over half saying they pray five times a day, every day - although women are shown to be more devout than men. The poll reveals that 88% want to see schools and workplaces in Britain accommodating Muslim prayer times as part of their normal working day.’

The Call to Economic Jihad

Western leaders believe that they can maintain the Western democratic way of life and economic system through military might, fighting terrorism, and appeasement. The leaders of the Islamic movement know that they will not be able to create the global Islamic state through the sword--guns, bombs and violence. This will be jihad fought only in the battlefield of the mind with a weapon far more powerful than any sword or bomb. The weapon in this jihad must include knowledge, but they do not believe that this can be accomplished solely as an ‘education jihad.’ However, utilizing ‘economic jihad’ for control of the world’s economic system provides the ultimate answer. Knowledge combined with economic control can be wielded with the precision of a sharp sword to effect any desired social/political change necessary for the fulfillment of Islam’s goal.

As shown above, the West has not comprehended the true nature and goals of Islam. It has also perhaps underestimated that the 1.2 to 1.4 billion Muslims of the world are not as poorly equipped as the West might like to believe for winning this war based on economic control, demographics, control of natural resources including energy and knowledge.

Lack of Understanding the Arab Mind

First, few Westerners understand what Raphael Patai calls ‘the Arab mind,’ in his book by that title. The Middle Eastern culture is so different from ours in the United States that we consistently misunderstand the rhetoric and actions emanating from that part of the world. Second, few have made the effort to understand Islam and its history. In our misguided efforts to be inclusive and tolerant, we have glossed over the basics of Islam, attempting unwittingly to see this religion through the glasses of a culture still steeped in Judeo-Christian assumptions. There is no question that many Arabs and Muslims decry terrorism and are loyal Americans; however, most Muslims subscribe to the Muslim total ‘way of life’ and desire to have the whole world under Islamic rule and the will of Allah.

The Role of Propaganda—Saying What the Listener Want to Hear

We must realize that within the Middle Eastern culture, saying what your listener wants to hear is more important than telling the truth. For a Middle Easterner, words are more important than ideas, and ideas are more important than facts. It is this trait that has caused many Americans to wonder how such outlandish statements can be made that are patently false. For example, when Saddam Hussein said that the battle of the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) would be the ‘mother of all battles’ and claimed victory before anything started, it was the words and ideas that were embraced by his followers. The facts were not important. Predominantly Muslim nations with state-controlled media--virtually all of them--exhibit this mentality most powerfully.

The Question: What Is Islamic Ideology?

Ideology is a philosophical term meaning ‘the science of ideas.’ Again, idea is a subtle and very comprehensive term. For our present purpose, it is unnecessary to go into the details of the term. Suffice it to say that idea means ‘a basic concept,’ and that the basic concepts on which any system is built constitutes its ideology. Since ideology presupposes the existence of a system, the question arises: Is Islam a system?

Yes, Islam is a system. But unlike what most people in the West believe, Islam is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the word. Religion is the English equivalent for the Arabic word Mazhah, which does not occur even once in the whole of the Holy Qur’an. Instead, the Qur’an has used the word Addeen for Islam, which means ‘a particular way of life.’

Islam is an ideology that claims divine authority in all religious, economic and political affairs of life. So naturally, it follows that Islam would be in direct conflict with democracy, capitalism, liberalism, socialism, and all the other non-Islamic systems of government, jurisprudence, and economics.

‘As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.’ Abraham Lincoln

The Importance of Islamic (Shariah) Law

Shariah law is the key to understanding Islamic ideology, government, economics, and social institutions. It is the basis for Islamic fundamentalism’s disagreement with Western thought, and it encapsulates the ideology of Islam that is found in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Shariah brings Islamic theology down to a person’s everyday life. The objective of Islamic ideology is to have everyone in the world governed by Shariah law. Muslims believe this law expresses the universal will of Allah for humankind. They think they have a holy obligation to impose it upon all the nations of the world.

As noted earlier, Islam is much more than a religion. Muslims themselves describe their faith by saying that Islam is a complete ‘way of life.’ This is certainly a more apt description, because Islam is a religious, social, economic, educational, health, political, and philosophic way of life. In fact, Islam is an all-embracing socio-politico-religious utopian ideology that encompasses every field of human endeavor.

The Western View--Religion Stands beside Government Institutions

The Western view of religion is that a religion is a narrow aspect of life. It does not encompass all human affairs. Religion stands beside culture, economic, politics, and other human institutions. Westerners may differ on matters of religious faith, but they can work together in social, state, and economic affairs. The reason for this is that their respective religions do not claim divine authority over the institutions of governance and economics. Their faiths may differ regarding the salvation of the soul, life after death, and religious rituals, but they don’t claim to have divine insight into the institutions of human government and its particular laws. As good citizens, they strive to have a just and equitable society.

Islam Engulfs All Aspects of Life

Islam is different from other religions in that it is not limited to the spiritual aspects of life. It engulfs all aspects of life from the cradle to the grave. Islam claims to have a divine mandate over everyone, and this includes non-Muslims, too. While non-Muslims may not be required to observe the religious rituals of Islam, they must recognize the supremacy of Islamic rule over them. Living in dar al-Islam requires non-Muslims to be Dhimmi—subservient it Islamic rule. As an ideology, Islam promises an economic, political, social, and religious Utopia, when the world finally submits to Allah and the rule of Shariah law. The Islamic objective is to have all aspects of a nation’s culture and institutions undergo gradual Islamization to yield an Islamic state patterned after Shariah law.

In Islam there is no King but Allah

According to Islamic Jurisprudence (Usul al Fiqh) --from an Islamic legal perspective, there is no king but Allah, and he is the supreme ruler and legislator of the world. This is significant, because since Allah is king, no earthly ruler has sufficient authority to legislate law. The reason for this is that sovereign authority belongs to Allah and his laws; those laws were revealed to Muhammad in the seventh century. Muslims believe that the Qur’an and the Sunnah are Allah’s final legislation for the world. Hence, according to true Islam, Shariah law is the only law with divine approval and authority for the nations of the world.

The Qur’an itself states that Allah is the sovereign ‘King of Mankind.’

Therefore exalted be Allah, the King, the Reality: there is no god but He, the Lord of the Throne of Honor! Qur’an 23:116 (Yusuf Ali’s translation)
The Muslim Caliph Enforces the Law of Allah

Under the kingship of Allah, a Muslim caliph or vicegerent enforces the law of Allah on the earth. The caliph is not like a king who has authority to create laws, because the laws of an Islamic state pre-exist in the Qur’an and the Sunnah. As a result, Islamic rulers are not at liberty to create any law that would conflict with the principles of the Qur’an or the Sunnah. The subordinate role of the caliph (amir or viceroy) is to serve under the authority of Allah as revealed by Muhammad.

Impact on Iraq

Thus, the Provisional Constitution for Iraq (adopted in October 2005) includes the provisions that no law shall conflict with Islamic beliefs.

There are two reasons to view the interim constitution as a signal victory for militant Islam. First, the compromise suggests that while all of the Shariah may not be put into place, every law must conform to it. As one pro-Shariah source put it, ‘We got what we wanted, which is that there should be no laws that are against Islam.’ The new Iraq may not be Saudi Arabia or Iran, but it will include substantial portions of Islamic law. Second, the interim constitution appears to be only a way station. Islamists will surely try to gut its liberal provisions, thereby making Shariah effectively the source of Iraqi law.

The Qur’an and the Sunnah are the Exclusive Foundations of Shariah Law for an Islamic State

The Qur’an disposes of all jurisprudence outside the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The days of ignorance (jahiliya) refer to the times before Muhammad. Some Muslims argued that the verse in the Qur’an 5:50 negates all laws that were legislated on the basis of non-Islamic principles. The result is that no one may appeal to judicial precedence outside of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. From a Muslim’s perspective, Allah revealed his divine law in the Qur’an and in the life of Muhammad. As a result of this divine revelation, the so-called human laws of the nations have been abrogated by Muhammad’s revelation. In fact, it is rebellion against Allah’s supremacy to submit to a human law after Allah has issued afresh the divine code of conduct for humankind.

Do they then seek after a judgment of (the days of) ignorance? But who, for a people whose faith is assured, can give better judgment than Allah? Qur'an 5:50 (Yusuf Ali’s translation)

In addition, the Qur’an asserts that those who say they believe in the revelations that came before Muhammad wish to resort to the judgments of the Evil One (Satan), who seeks to lead humankind astray. The important revelations that came before Muhammad were the Old and New Testaments, and those who believed in these revelations were the Jews and Christians. Now notice Muhammad’s next move. Essentially, Muhammad said that religious hypocrites appeal to the Evil One when they seek the judgments of prior revelations.

Hast thou not turned Thy vision to those who declare that they believe in the revelations that have come to thee and to those before thee? Their (real) wish is to resort together for judgment (in their disputes) to the Evil One, though they were ordered to reject him. But Satan’s wish is to lead them astray far away (from the right). Qur’an 4:60 (Yusuf Ali’s translation)

Hence, Muhammad abrogated all the prior prophets of Allah. And the Qur'an teaches that resorting to the judgments of prior revelations was resorting to Satan’s judgments and wishes. Muslims believe that the only divine message that is valid is what Muhammad gave centuries ago. Thus, they believe the choice is between the rule of Allah and the rule of Satan. And it is turning to Satan to appeal to revelations that came before the Qur’an. The Qur’an and the Sunnah must be the exclusive foundation of law.

Islamic ideology asserts that Muslims are the most highly evolved specimens of humanity. Their advanced evolutionary state places them on a higher plane than everyone else, and it burdens them with the special duty of enjoining humanity to attain a divine standard of morality.

The ‘People of the Book’ – Jews and Christians are Perverted Transgressors

For Muslims engaged in imposing Islam upon the world, the ‘People of the Book’ (Jews and Christians) will be the people who make their task most difficult, because most Jews and Christians, according to the Qur’an, are perverted transgressors. So while Muslims seek to promote the right and forbid the wrong, Muhammad believed that the People of the Book would confront the Islamic message with perversions and falsehoods. He felt that Jews and Christians would be the ones who would prove to be the most opposed to an Islamic government with its Qur’anic constitution and Shariah legal system.

Ye are the best of peoples, evolved for mankind, enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong, and believing in Allah. If only the People of the Book had faith, it were best for them; among them are some who have faith, but most of them are perverted transgressors. Qur’an 3:111 (Yusuf Ali’s translation)

Essentially, Muslims believe that a democratic system of government is an evil legal system, because its fundamental principle is that man is sovereign over his affairs. This principle conflicts with the principle that Allah is sovereign ‘King of the Worlds.’ Orthodox Muslims argue that only Islam recognizes Allah’s divine right to rule.

If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good). Qur’an 3:85 (Yusuf Ali’s translation)

The Goals of Implementing Shariah Law

The goals of Islamists in establishing an economic system based on Islamic law (the Shariah) are:

· To establish credibility for Islam as a ‘way of life’ equal to all other economic and religious doctrines

· To establish an economic system that allows control of the financial, natural resources and intellectual properties by a totalitarian, non-elected hierarchy justified on the basis of religious law--the Qur’an

· To bring together the global economic resources of Islamic Ummah to influence the world opinion and provide the funding for proselytizing (Da’wa) of non-believers

· To establish an economic system not based on scientific principles but on religious beliefs

The Four Principles of the Islamic Economic System

I. All Wealth Belongs to Allah

And let those who do not find the means to marry keep chaste until Allah makes them free from want out of His grace. And (as for) those who ask for a writing from among those whom your right hands possess, give them the writing if you know any good in them, and give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you; and do not compel your slave girls to prostitution, when they desire to keep chaste, in order to seek the frail good of this world’s life; and whoever compels them, then surely after their compulsion Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. Qur’an 24:33

The starting point of the Islamic economic system is the ‘sovereignty of Allah.’ This contrasts with Western democratic capitalist systems, where there is separation of church and state, and the systems are ‘people-based.’ In the Islamic system, all economic decisions must be based on the Qur’an. The laws governing the economic system are therefore based on Shariah and rulings by Muslim clerics (fatwas). This limits the scope of economic theory. Therefore, the major effort of Islamic economists is directed toward devising strategies to accomplish Western principles of economics to be consistent with Islam.

There is a general consensus among Islamic scholars and Muslim laymen that Islam places sovereignty in Allah. The Qur’an explicitly describes Allah as al-Malik, meaning ‘sovereign,’ and al-Malik-ul-Mulk, meaning ‘the eternal possessor of sovereignty.’ These two adjectives are also among the ninety-nine names of Allah. The Qur’an also makes it clear beyond any doubt that all power lies in Allah, who is al-Muqtadir, ‘possessor of all power.
‘
For Allah is He Who gives (all) Sustenance, Lord of Power, Steadfast (forever). Qur’an 51:58

II. The Community (Ummah) Is the Trustee of the Wealth

Believe in Allah and His messenger, and spend (in charity) out of the (substance) whereof He has made you heirs. For, those of you who believe and spend (in charity), for them is a great Reward. (Yusuf Ali) Qur’an 57:7

III. Hoarding of Wealth Is Prohibited

O ye who believe! Lo! Many of the (Jewish) rabbis and the (Christian) monks devour the wealth of mankind wantonly and debar (men) from the way of Allah. They who hoard up gold and silver and spend it not in the way of Allah, unto them give tidings (O Muhammad) of a painful doom. (Pickthal) Qur’an 9:34

IV. Circulation of Wealth Is a Duty

What Allah has bestowed on His Messenger (and taken away) from the people of the townships belongs to Allah, to His Messenger and to kindred and orphans, the needy and the wayfarer; In order that it may not (merely) make a circuit between the wealthy among you. So take what the Messenger assigns to you, and deny yourselves that which he withholds from you. And fear Allah; for Allah is strict in Punishment. (Yusuf Ali) Qur’an 57:7

Islamic Economics -- The Third Economic System

Islamic economics covers the broad ideologies, which require individuals and countries to operate, finance and invest in accordance with the principles of Shariah Law.

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1. ONE IMMIGRANT A MINUTE ARRIVING IN BRITAIN

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23379537-details/'One%20immigrant%20a%20minute%20arriving%20in%20Britain'/article.do

1,500 foreigners arrived in Britain each day in 2005, intending to settle for at least a year

Foreign immigrants are arriving in Britain at the rate of one every minute, a startling new report reveals.

At the same time the number of UK citizens emigrating to live abroad equates to one every five minutes.

The figures emerged less than a week before Romania and Bulgaria are due join the European Union on January 1 - giving 30 million more people the right to enter and work in Britain.

The latest EU expansion is expected to unleash another huge wave of immigration similar to that seen in 2004 when eight former communist states joined the Union.

The analysis of official Government immigration statistics by the MigrationWatch think tank found that 1,500 foreigners arrived in Britain each day in 2005, intending to settle for at least a year - just over one for every minute of the day.

Today's report claims those figures are probably a dramatic under-estimate, as counting methods focus on three main airports, largely ignoring coach services and budget flights to regional airports favoured by eastern Europeans.

Officially only 65,000 eastern Europeans were classified as immigrants but the study suggests the real figure could be twice as high.

The net outflow of British citizens leaving to live abroad rose to 107,000 last year - equivalent to one Briton quitting the country every five minutes, or almost 300 per day.

The UK also experienced a net inflow of 800 foreign immigrants each day - the total of newcomers arriving to settle here, minus the number of foreigners leaving Britain after living here for a period.

Taken together those figures provide a striking illustration of the pace of change imposed on British society by population movements, with net immigration trebling in scale over the past ten years.

Despite the focus on the numbers of immigrants arriving from eastern Europe in recent years, the MigrationWatch study shows that this inflow accounts for only a fifth of total immigration, most of which comes from Africa and Asia.

The largest group of migrants were people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, who accounted for two-thirds of net immigration.

According to the Office for National Statistics Britain's population rose by 500 people per day last year, or 185,000 over the year.

That figure is slightly down on the previous year's figure of more than 220,000, but was still the second highest in Britain's history.

MigrationWatch called for tougher measures to reduce immigration from outside the EU to 'manageable and realistic levels', and to impose tougher controls on countries hoping to join the EU in future.

Chairman Sir Andrew Green said: 'The tripling of net foreign immigration in the past 10 years has largely resulted from what the Government likes to call 'managed migration' routes, such as principally work-related migration and family reunion.

'Firm action is long overdue to limit immigration from non-EU countries which are the main source of this immigration. '

Sir Andrew claimed the Government had not thought through the consequences of record immigration levels, and the true costs were only now becoming apparent.

'They have been trying their best to obscure what is really happening by pretending that this mass immigration is a success, even though it is the result of Government miscalculation and neglect.

'But the strains in terms of schools, health and housing refuse to go away - not to mention the impact on the employment prospects of British people as the unemployment numbers steadily increase.'

Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, said: 'We have warned the Government time and again that immigration can be a real benefit to this country only if it is properly managed, taking into account its effect on the economy, public service infrastructure and social cohesion.

'So far the Government's estimates have been absolutely woeful.'

Ministers are refusing even to guess how many people will flock to Britain once Romania and Bulgaria join the EU next Monday.

In 2004 they predicted that some 13,000 a year would arrive from the eight new member states, but since then an estimated 600,000 have arrived.

Home Secretary John Reid has announced measures which he claimed will control numbers, but critics point out that Romanians and Bulgarians will enjoy free movement in and out of Britain, with no limits on those coming as self-employed workers or as working students.

2. SANGATTE'S CRIMINAL GANGS NOW HOLD KEY TO REACHING BRITAIN

Sangatte's criminal gangs now hold the key to reaching Britain

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1978408,00.html

Tomorrow, in the bitter cold of early morning, the men will leave the culverts, the thin sleeping bags under plastic sheets stretched over drains, the makeshift camp in woods and, before the police arrive to round them up, walk into the centre of the city.

They will pass the morning hunched around burning wooden freight pallets on waste ground between a canal and railway tracks. At noon a charity will hand out cold pasta, bread and bananas. The afternoon will drag by until, on a dockside near the lighthouse with the waves of the Channel slapping freezingly against the concrete seawall, a second meal will be handed out by a second charity. The men will eat a few hundred yards from the ferries that will eventually bring many of them, illegally, dangerously and expensively, to the UK and then will disperse for another frigid night.

'This is not a life,' sniffed Noor, a 17-year-old Afghan. 'This is just survival. But I've come so far I cannot stop now.' Noor, who arrived in Calais last Thursday after a journey that started
in Pakistan six months ago, knows that many of those wrapping their cheap jackets around them and stamping their feet in the chill will be gone in 24 hours. The thought is both comforting and frightening. A score or so of his companions will have been arrested, a couple taken to hospital with hypothermia, some may eventually be deported by French authorities - but a dozen or so will have made it across the Channel:

'I don't know how long I will be here. I am sick of this life, but I have nowhere else to go.'

No one knows exactly how many of the shifting population of migrants reaching Calais achieve the 'promised land' of the UK, but interviews last week with NGO workers, administrators and law enforcement officials revealed that, despite the battery of security measures now in place, somewhere between 200 and 350 slip through each month.

'Around 70 or 80 migrants cross the Channel each week,' said Jean-Claude Lenoir, of the Association Salam. 'One hundred crossed in a single night in early November.'

Four years ago, a Red Cross-run centre at the village of Sangatte on the outskirts of Calais was closed by the hardline French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy at Britain's behest. At its busiest, it housed more than 1,000 migrants waiting to cross the Channel. An estimated 65,000 stayed there on their way to Britain. The centre has disappeared, as have the lurid headlines its existence provoked, but the problem has not.

'The situation is now as bad as before, but is just less visible,' said Jacky Verhaegon, of the French charity Catholic Help, who has been working with migrants in Calais for six years, 'The centre was shut down, and that led to a dip in numbers, but now they are as high as ever. Yet there are no facilities for the migrants. They just hang around in the streets, sleeping where they can, washing when they get the chance.'

Verhaegon was talking in his charity's Calais office, where around 50 destitute, homeless young migrants can shower and shave each day. Almost all are young Afghans, plus a few migrants from north and east Africa. 'We come from everywhere and are all going to one place:
England, inshallah,' said Mohammed Beg, 18, from Kabul, whose father, a surveyor, works for a foreign NGO in the city.

The composition of the migrants has changed with world politics, according to observers. The old Sangatte centre saw large numbers of Kurds and Kosovans. Now, along with the Afghans, increasing numbers of east Africans are arriving as wars grip Sudan, Somalia and, intermittently, Eritrea.

The influx from Africa has meant more women. Monique Delannoy, a nurse with Medecins du Monde, says that few female migrants risk the police sweeps in Calais, remaining instead scattered in isolated woods or on beaches around the town. Between April and September, doctors working for the NGO in Calais saw 96 women, seven of whom were pregnant, and 80
children. Local government statistics reveal that a fifth of the 500 migrant juveniles logged this year in the city come from sub-Saharan or east Africa and almost half are girls.

'There at least a hundred women living in appalling conditions out in the countryside around Calais, hiding out from the police, surviving on virtually nothing,' Delannoy said. 'There were three families living in a hut they had built on a dock, but it was bulldozed a week or so ago
and now we don't know where they have gone.'

According to Delannoy, most women are waiting while husbands or brothers negotiate with the agents to get them across the Channel: 'Some will no doubt be left behind if the price is too high.'

Crossing the Channel is a highly organised, highly lucrative criminal business. Gang wars have broken out - leading to a death in September - between groups running the racket. According to security officials, the days of mass rushes to board lorries travelling in the right direction are over. Now migrants are unlikely to try to board a lorry, train or boat themselves, waiting instead for agents, to whom they or their families pay large sums, to get them across.

Sitting with a dozen boys round the fires on the Quai de Moselle was Dani, 26, from Eritrea. She had travelled from her home town of Asmara to Sudan before flying to Holland. 'I had religious problems and there was fighting in my homeland,' she said. She was vague about her route
to Calais, unable to name cities she had been ferried through. Now she was waiting for an agent to arrange transport to the UK. She wanted to go to Britain because English was the only language she spoke, she said haltingly.

For Afghans such as Noor, the journey across two continents is frightening, dangerous and insecure. He grew up in a refugee camp outside the Pakistani frontier city of Peshawar but, having lost everything in the continued fighting in his homeland, his family was unable to return to Afghanistan. As an Afghan with only refugee status in Pakistan, Noor was unable to go to a local university to fulfil his ambition to study to be an accountant. After several attempts to obtain a UK visa at the embassy in Islamabad, he persuaded his father to sell the family shop to pay $10,000 to a people trafficker.

'The trafficker told me he could get me to Turkey legally,' said Noor. 'In fact, he left us in Iran. I spent weeks crammed into a tiny room with 20 other clandestine migrants. Another agent took us across the mountains, but we were attacked by guards with dogs and scattered. I spent a week with no food in the hills on the frontier before crossing, then five months living rough on the streets of Istanbul. But always I dreamed of England. I just want to study. ' Like Dani, Noor stressed that, as he spoke only English, he needed to get to the UK to fulfil his dreams of education and a good job: 'In France, I would be lost.'

Arrested by Bulgarian border guards after an abortive attempt to leave Turkey on foot, badly beaten by soldiers during a month in a Turkish prison, Noor reached Greece in an overcrowded speedboat on a dangerous midnight crossing. It took three weeks of attempts, living in a
makeshift camp by the coast, to smuggle himself on to a ferry into Italy. In Paris he met someone he had known in Pakistan who had been deported from the UK a few months before, but had made his way back to France to try again.

'I am determined, ' Noor said, his voice cracking. 'How can I go back and face my family if I fail? My father gave everything for me to get to England.'

A wall on the Quai de Moselle is covered in graffiti in curling Urdu, Arabic and Pashto script. One key question for Shawfiq Khan Niazi, Jamal Shah 'from Islamabad', Ahmad Ahmadzai Afghan, Raza Ghanyaz and all the others who have scrawled their names across its face is, why
not just remain in France? Why such determination to get to the UK?

One answer lies in colonial history - the linguistic and familial links are the legacy from Britain's south-west Asian imperial adventure - but another lies in the degree to which Britain has become mythologised as a sort of attainable US-style liberal economic and social paradise. For
one group of Eritreans, the UK was attractive because 'it is easier to work on the black market there and you earn more money than in France'.

Others were convinced, erroneously, that education and housing were more accessible than in Europe and asylum easier to obtain. In fact, France accepted 18 per cent of asylum seekers between 2000 and 2005 whereas the UK accepted 17 per cent. 'Look at how the French treat us here,' said Waqa, a 15-year-old Afghan. 'The police arrest us and throw tear gas bombs in our tents and there is no help from the government at all. Britain must be better than here.' In fact, says Verhaegon the aid worker, Eritreans stand a very good chance of getting asylum in France if they apply. South-west Asians are less likely to be successful.

Local authorities blame the UK for the problem. The communist mayor of Calais no longer comments on the issue - 'Everything has already been said a thousand times,' said a spokesman - but his chief adviser, Bernard Baron, told Le Monde that the real culprit was the 'outlaw social policy of the British'.

Such rows make little different to the few hundred global transients semi-stranded on the docksides of a grim, grey, northern European port. By five o'clock in the evening, the thin light of a winter's days is dimming and the migrants huddle closer round their fires. The Eritreans
have found some cans of strong lager and are shouting and singing raucously. The younger, quieter Afghans pull closer together around their own bonfire. Noor indicates his tattered clothes and the dead rats and rubbish on the ground: 'Look what I have become, look how I
live. This is not what I dreamed of.'

A short history

· The Red Cross refugee centre in a Sangatte hangar opened in 1999 and housed 67,000 migrants over three years.

· In December 2002, Home Secretary David Blunkett and French counterpart Nicholas Sarkozy made a deal to close it.

· As part of the deal, Britain agreed to take 1,023 people from the camp whether they were refugees or not.

3. RECORD ILLEGAL IMMIGANT LANDING IN ITALY

http://www.workpermit.com/news/2006_12_26/italy/record_illegal_immigrants_sicily.htm

Nearly 650 illegal immigrants crammed in a 25-meter, old and leaky fishing boat, reaching the Italian island of Sicily on 19 December and sparking criticisms of the center-left government's immigration policies.

The 648 immigrants, 21 of whom were women and seven children, declared themselves as Egyptian nationals. They were taken to migrant processing centers on Sicily to determine their identities.

Their boat, first spotted by Italian fishermen about 42 kilometers south of the Italian island on the afternoon the day before, was towed into the port of Licata shortly after midnight by the Italian Coast Guard. Italian authorities had dispatched a dozen ships to intercept it.

A number of the illegal immigrants jumped into the water when they saw the rescuers approaching, risking the capsizing of the boat, officials said.

Thousands of would-be immigrants reach Italy illegally each year after crossing the Mediterranean Sea on, often unseaworthy boats. The southern Italian island of Lampedusa, just over 200 kilometers to the southeast, received more than 10,000 illegal migrants in the first six months of this year, according to authorities

But Tuesday's was one of the biggest single landings in recent history and prompted criticisms from Italy's centre-right opposition parties.

‘Safety has gone bankrupt: the umpteenth landing of 600 illegal immigrants proves that the messages of compliancy issued by our government encourage smuggling,’ Maurizio Gasparri of the right-wing National Alliance party said.

‘The government's immigration policies are irresponsible, ‘ Roberto Cota of the anti-immigration Northern League party said. ‘It is doing everything possible to encourage illegal immigrants to come here, including imprudent ministerial announcements and vote chasing.’

Compared to the previous centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi, Prodi's centre-left administration has taken a softer stance towards immigration in the belief that foreign workers are needed to take up jobs that Italians no longer want.

This summer, for instance, the government approved the arrival in Italy of an extra 350,000 non-EU workers. The government is also considering shortening the time it takes foreign residents to be granted Italian citizenship.

The European Union has recently agreed on several plans to cooperate with African nations to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. During the summer, a marine border patrol called Frontex was established, which is likely now to receive a larger, more permanent mission along with
increased funding and more equipment. Job centers will be established in African nations to attempt to allow a larger volume of legal immigration, and several aid packages have been developed to assist local economies.

Speaking on 18 December, the United Nations' International Migrants Day, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said Italy should favor integration but should also stop immigrants from reaching the country illegally.

Spain and France, both targets for illegal entry into Europe, have been working with Italy for over a year now to increase participation by the entire Euopean Union and the European Economic Area to to cooperate in creating comprehensive solutions to these problems.

4. WILL IMMIGRATION BLEED BULGARIA OF ITS PEOPLE?

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2287183,00.html

Bulgarian towns are shrinking, and the birth rate is falling rapidly. Now Bulgarians are worried that even more of their young people will leave after the country joins the EU on Jan 1.

The young have left town and most factories are closed but many Bulgarians in places like Belogradchik wonder whether membership of the European Union will be any help.

Most of the people who fled the northwestern town after the fall of communism in 1989 went to the EU, a bloc which Bulgaria and neighboring Romania will join on January 1.

In the past 17 years Belogradchik' s population has fallen from 11,000 to 6,500, according to deputy mayor Angel Dzhuninski.

Many streets are nearly deserted and fields lay fallow.

The town's biggest employer, a manufacturer of phones for the Russian market, now employs only 100 people compared to 2,600 in communist times.

‘It will be a problem to bring home the young people who are now working in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Spain, Austria and the Czech Republic,’ said Dzhuninski.

Many went to Western Europe on three-month tourist visas and stayed on to work clandestinely in farming, hotel and construction business or as home nurses.

The owner of a small inn, Parvoletka Mladenova, said most of the migrants are doing the dirty and low-qualified jobs that wealthy Europeans do not want.

‘Friends, a couple who were a doctor and a nurse, went to care for elderly people in Greece,’ she said.

The Bulgarian Academy of Science estimates that more than one million people have sought work abroad since 1989, when the country's population was nine million. The mass emigration of young women has aggravated a demographic crisis.

Between 1990 and 2004 the population slumped by 1.2 million to 7.76 million people, according to official census data.

Bulgaria has one of the world's lowest birth rates with a ratio of 1.2 children per mother in child-bearing age. Its child mortality rate is 12.3 per thousand, compared to the European average of 4.5 per thousand.

Parliament approved this year a plan to encourage births. It offers longer and better-paid maternity leave and improved childcare, allowing young mothers to get back to work soon after giving birth.

At Mezdra, another small northwestern Bulgarian town, half of the 30,000 population has gone in the past 15 years, Mayor Ivan Asparuhov said.

But unemployment has been halved to 11 percent thanks to restructuring in the textile, brewing and quarrying industries and the arrival of tourism.

More babies are being born and ‘we are opening new kindergartens’ but some 400-500 young people are leaving the region every year to seek better jobs, Asparuhov said.

Last Wednesday, Germany became the latest EU nation to restrict the number of Bulgarian and Romanian workers that will be allowed for two years after January 1.

Sweden and Finland are the only members of the pre-2004 EU to openly say they will not restrict Bulgarian workers.

5. BRITAIN SHOULD BAR DOCTORS WITH POOR ENGLISH - CORONER

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23379092-details/Britain%20should%20bar%20doctors%20with%20poor%20English,%20says%20coroner/article.do

Britain should ban European doctors with poor English from practising in Britain, a coroner said Thursday.

Dr. Paul Knapman, coroner of Westminster in London, recorded a verdict of misadventure on a man who died as his French doctor struggled to make himself understood to an ambulance operator.

‘The telephone call between the doctor and the London Ambulance Service took rather longer than would be expected, mostly due to the linguistic difficulties of the doctor being understood,’ Knapman said.’I say that this is a case of misadventure.’

Knapman said he would write to the Health Secretary, the government's senior health official, asking her to review legislation that allows any doctor from European Union member countries to work in Britain, regardless of their English.

Many other European countries insist that doctors speak their languages adequately before they can practise.

In 1981, the then Conservative government abolished a language test for doctors from elsewhere in Europe and doctors have not had to prove an ability in English since then.

But doctors from outside Europe still have to take a test.

‘Any doctor from any (European Union) state such as France, Latvia or Lithuania can enter the United Kingdom and practise medicine privately,’ Knapman said.

‘He has to show no ability to speak English to a standard acceptable to ambulance personnel, to referring hospital doctors, or to referring cases.’ ‘He may practise in anesthetics in a private hospital or do private cosmetic operations.’

6. EAST EUROPEANS DRIVING ASIANS OUT OF WORK

http://www.dailyindia.com/show/95115.php/East-Europeans-driving-UK-Asians-out-of-work

Asian labourers in Britain have recently been claiming that the increasing number of workers from Eastern Europe, and especially those from Poland, are driving them out of business.

In fact, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) has already called for better ‘integration systems’ to be put in place.

A spokesman for the Institute of Race Relations, Arun Kundnani, told the British newspaper Eastern Eye that: ‘We are aware of the phenomenon. It would be too simplistic to blame the government's immigration policy, but there is an inherent bias that encourages entry (to Britain) of certain groups. ‘At the moment, the system is in favour of East Europeans’.

And that fact is, of course, the key to the whole problem, because the European Union theoretically promises free movement to the people who live within the Union to go anywhere within the Union and look for work.

Since the European Union has recently expanded, workers from the new member states, not unreasonably, want to move to where the work is and where the wages are higher. That, in reality, usually means Britain.

The problem is exacerbated, however, by the fact that the new immigrants are often willing to work for around half the local going rates and, with the market economy now prevalent throughout Europe, that means the cheapest wins.

As Arun Kundnani went on to say: ‘The realities of our voracious labour market are such that it encourages us to pursue the lowest wages and forces everyone to compete with each other. The only solution would be to bring a certain sense of collective campaigning by workers of all communities to challenge this system’.

Perhaps Mr. Kundnani is unaware that such a system already exists. It's called unionisation, and it seems that the very reasons that brought unions into being in the nineteenth century, rampant capitalism and the concomitant exploitation of workers, are, sadly, as widespread today as they were then.

But it is not just the cheapness of Polish and other East European workers that is causing concern to the Asian community, as Jas Karan Singh, president of the West London Asian Society explained: ‘People used to come to Southall to experience its unique culture and atmosphere. But these Polish people are changing all that. I was forced to move house because of their drunken fights in the middle of the night.’

Unfortunately, these problems are unlikely to be solved any time soon, and they could get even worse in the coming years as even more countries, like Bulgaria and Romania, join the European Union. What happens if and when Turkey also joins is anyone's guess. (ANI)

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