Mayor warned to stop 'kowtowing' with new Muslim-only rules,
by Leo Hohmann 7/23/15
While
some cities in Texas and other Southern states have been adopting ordinances
that protect their citizenry from creeping Sharia-compliant practices, cities
such as Seattle are taking the opposite approach.
Seattle’s Democrat Mayor Ed Murray was so concerned that
Muslims and other residents weren’t buying enough homes in his city that he had
a committee investigate how that could be rectified.
One of the committee’s recommendations: Banks need to offer
“Sharia-compliant” mortgage loans for Seattle’s growing Muslim community.
Muslims are forbidden by their religious law, Sharia, from
paying interest on loans so they must be offered loans structured in such a way
that interest is not part of the package.
The 28-member committee recommended
the city convene lenders and community leaders to explore options for
increasing access to Sharia-compliant loans, the Puget
Sound Business Journal reported.
“We will work to develop new tools for Muslims who are
prevented from using conventional mortgage products due to their religious
beliefs,” said Murray, at a recent press conference.
“More and more lenders are offering Sharia-compliant
financing, according to a USA Today report,” the Journal reports. “The sector
has grown to more than $1.6 trillion in assets worldwide over the past three
decades, and analysts see potential for continued growth as the number of
Muslims in the United States and Europe grows.”
The Obama administration, with the full support of Congress,
is following an immigration policy that allows at least 100,000 Muslims into
the country every year, according to U.S. Census data.
So financial-service companies see that as a business opportunity.
But those who see Sharia law as anti-Western and
anti-American see the trend differently than banks and corporations.
“Such dangerously misguided efforts
kowtow to, and abet, Islamic supremacism,” said Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of “Legacy
of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims” and several other books about the history of Islam.
In his 1947 book, “The Economic Problem of Man and its
Islamic Solution,” the great 20th century Islamic revivalist thinker Mawdudi
conceived of the notion of Sharia-compliant finance as an innovative way to
enforce the global supremacy of Islam and Islamic law, Bostom said.
“Mawdudi, who died in 1979, affirmed that the entire
economic system had a ‘deep relationship with the political, judicial, legal,
cultural and social system of Islam,’” Bostom said. “He further claimed, ‘all
these are fundamentally based on the moral system of Islam.’”
Sharia thus applies the tenants of Islam to every area of
life, not just religious life.
“Mawdudi concluded with an admonition that demanded Muslim
acceptance, and global application of ‘this creed (Islam), this moral system
and the whole of this code of life, completely as it is,’ because, he added,
‘the economic system of Islam, divorced from its source, cannot be maintained
or administered in its purity for even a single day, nor will any appreciable
advantage accrue from it if you take it out of its wider context and then seek
to apply [it] to your life.’
“Sharia-compliant mortgages, and all aspects of so-called
Sharia-compliant finance, should be rejected because they are vehicles for the
promulgation of Islamic law, an integrated religio-political system
antithetical to our most fundamental Western freedoms,” Bostom said.
Mayor opening the door to Sharia
Pamela Geller, author of “Stop
the Islamization of America,” also said
most Americans are not aware that Sharia applies to all of life. She said the
mayor of Seattle, like other mayors who kowtow to Sharia, are doing long-term
damage to their cities and their country.
“Sharia is a unified whole – a guide to every aspect of
human behavior. It doesn’t just involve interest and loans,” Geller said. “The
teachings of Islam regarding war against and subjugation of unbelievers is part
of Sharia as well. The mayor of Seattle is opening the door to Sharia, and
because he has already shown himself to be compliant, he will receive more
demands for accommodation of Sharia in the future.
“This is a radical, intolerant, violent, misogynistic,
antisemitic ideology, and he should not be kowtowing to it.”
Ed Murray kowtowing to Muslims in Seattle’s housing market
is no different than Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges donning a hijab when she
met with Somali leaders in her city last year, critics said.
No criticism from establishment media
In contrast to Hodges, mayor Beth
Van Duyne of Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, has advocated for a new state
law that would ban courts from meting out decisions based on any foreign legal
system, WND
reported in March.
For her efforts, Van Duyne was roundly criticized and mocked
by the establishment media. Murray and Hodges, on the other hand, have come
under no condemnation in the establishment media for their support of Sharia
law.
It’s not clear how many Muslims in Seattle would benefit
from Murray’s plan, the journal reported. The Washington state chapter of the
Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) estimates more than 30,000 Muslims
live in the greater Seattle area, and chapter Executive Director Arsalan
Bukhari said it’s “fairly common” for some not to seek loans.
Many Muslims work in Seattle’s tech industry, such as the
1,000 Muslims who work for Microsoft and another 500 employed with Amazon. They
often enter the U.S. on the H1-B temporary guest-worker visa for skilled
workers. The H1-B lasts for three years and can be renewed once for a total of
six years, but after that many are eligible for permanent green cards.
They could easily qualify for home loans but opt not to
apply “simply because they don’t want to pay interest,” Bukhari told the
Journal.
Seattle in a sanctuary county
Seattle is in King County, which is one of more than 200
sanctuary cities and counties in the U.S.
The mayor, Murray, said he will send legislation to the
Seattle City Council for consideration. During a press conference, he said he
wants to help Muslims.
“We will work to develop new tools for Muslims who are
prevented from using conventional mortgage products due to their religious
beliefs,” Murray said.
United Nations floods Seattle area with refugees
Another portion of Seattle’s Muslims has been brought into
the nation compliments of the U.S. taxpayer, which foots the bill for the U.S.
State Department’s refugee resettlement program. The program costs more than $1
billion a year, not including the cost of welfare benefits that refugees are
immediately signed up for upon arrival in American cities and towns.
According to State Department data, about 5,500 “refugees”
from Muslim countries have been permanently resettled in the Seattle area since
2002. State Department data prior to 2002 has not been placed online.
More than 95 percent of the refugees sent to the United
States are selected by the United Nations high commissioner for refugees. Many
of them come from countries hostile to the United States, such as Somalia,
Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
About 70,000 refugees enter the U.S. every year, about half
of them from countries where Islam dominates.
Muslims also enter the U.S. through the skilled guest-worker
visa program, the student visa program, the annual visa lottery program, a visa
program for entrepreneurs, and other programs.
Chicago also on board toward Shariah loans
Chicago already offers some options for Sharia-compliant
Muslims, as well as the Bank of America. But the special treatment in Seattle
isn’t sitting well with everyone. Critics say the idea opens the door to
financing for Islamic radicals and even terror-tied groups, via money laundering.
Critics also say the plan, which could extend to small business owners, is
discriminatory against those who aren’t Muslim.
In 2008, some in Congress opposed the American International
Group’s provision of special insurance programs for Sharia-compliant Muslims.
In a letter dated Dec. 18, Rep. Frank Wolf and then-Rep. Sue
Myrick wrote: “You may defend your decision to offer Sharia products and will
probably state that they have no real ties to Sharia law, and therefore pose no
threat. You are wrong, Like Britain, the way to America’s legal code is through
its wallet, and if Sharia law gains a strong footing in the United States, it
will be through Sharia finance and Sharia products.”
Fox News reported Seattle’s plan to help Muslims could lead
to banks outright buying the home and holding the title. The bank would then
contract with the buyer to purchase the home at marked-up price. The buyer
could then pay in a lump sum or in payments over time. Some financers in
Seattle are already offering such options.
Halal Inc. has a website ad that says “instead of starting
with a flawed system and trying to ‘make a fit,’ we took the perfect system
ordained by Allah and created a legal framework for it,” Fox News found.
http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/major-u-s-city-poised-to-implement-islamic-law/
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