The Coalition to Stop Shariah

(Photo by Lee Cohen, Center for Security Policy)

November 6, 2008, Religious Liberty Director Faith McDonnell spoke at a press conference sponsored by the Coalition to Stop Shariah at the National Press Club.  An inter-faith, bi-partisan coalition of public policy organizations, human rights activists, and religious groups, the coalition speaks for people of all faiths and political affiliations who do not want to submit to the jihadist doctrine of Shariah. 

The press conference today was held in response to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s seminar on “Islamic Finance 101” for policy makers within the U.S. government, also being held today. The event was co-sponsored by one of America’s lead proponents of “Islamic Finance,” more correctly known as Shariah-Compliant Finance, the Islamic Finance Project at Harvard Law School.  The coalition is particularly concerned about the possibility that the Treasury Department will use the powers that it has been given to cope with the subprime financial crisis as a means of promoting Shariah-Compliant Finance. It is also concerned that attendees will not be given a full explanation of Shariah and its goals, and how Shariah-Compliant Finance may lead to further insinuations of Shariah into U.S. law and society.

As an organization that champions religious liberty, IRD affirms the religious liberty of U.S. Muslims to conduct their financial affairs according to their religious convictions, within the norms of religiously neutral government regulation. And we affirm the sovereign power of other nations to structure their financial systems according to their peoples’ sense of what is just, within international norms of transparency and accountability. But we oppose any U.S. government complicity in, or promotion of, the extension of Shariah-Compliant Finance. And we believe that the U.S. government has a duty to be vigilant lest any form of Islamic banking be used to finance jihad terrorism—as they have sometimes been used in the past.

Statement Regarding the U.S. Treasury-Sponsored Seminar on Shariah-Compliant Finance
Faith J. H. McDonnell, Director, Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan
November 6, 2008

This afternoon the U.S. Department of Treasury is sponsoring “Islamic Finance 101.”  The forum, in cooperation with the similarly innocuously-named “Islamic Finance Project” of Harvard Law School, invites U.S. government employees involved in policy-making to learn about “Islamic financial
services,” which, the Treasury Department declares, “ are an increasingly important part of the global financial industry.”

The Institute on Religion & Democracy is deeply concerned with this development because “Islamic Finance 101” is nothing less than “Shariah-Compliant Finance 101.”  Using Islamic sources, the Center for Security Policy has defined Shariah as “authoritative Islam’s theo-political-religious program for establishing a global theocracy.”   Such a theocracy does not come about through the use violent jihad alone.  Islamists also use the less obvious forms of jihad, such as the economic jihad of Shariah-Compliant Finance. 

As advocates for religious liberty around the world, the IRD has seen the devastating effects of Shariah on Muslims and non-Muslims alike.  Particularly egregious has been the imposition of Shariah as well as the brutal backlash against those who resist, on Christians in Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia, and elsewhere.   And we have seen the use of stealth jihad in these nations, as well. 

The Islamist government in Sudan was finally forced into a peace agreement in 2005 that stopped its genocidal jihad against the Christians, followers of traditional religions, and Muslims who resisted Shariah.  Immediately they began a financial jihad, backed by the same Arab governments who backed the genocide.  They are currently seducing Southern Sudanese desperate for education, healthcare, employment, and infrastructure with Islamic-financed schools, hospitals, roads, and mosques.  Those who have been paying with their lives to resist the jihad of bombs and bullets are in danger of succumbing to the jihad of money.  
 
And so we fear that Shariah-Compliant Finance is only an entry level course in a much broader program of Shariah, the end goal of which is to supplant modern constitutionalism with archaic and undemocratic Islamic theocracy.

We support the goals of the Coalition to Stop Shariah, and we call upon those responsible within the United States government to examine the evidence that if they submit to Shariah-Compliant Finance at any level, they are putting the United States in far greater danger than an economic crisis.