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Dec 21, 2011

Islamic Modes Of Finance

Broadly speaking, Islamic modes of finance can be divided into two types: either they provide direct finance as capital funds through partnership (musharakaand mudaraba), or they provide indirect finance through leasing (ijara) and sale contracts (murabahabai ajilsalam, and istisna). All modes are based on the principle of riba (interest) prohibition, and all seek to maintain Islamic business ethics (freedom and leniency of transactions, recognition of and regard for private property, and justice).







Executive Summary

  • Islamic finance modes are based on profit/loss sharing because of riba(interest) prohibition.
  • Murabaha has been responsible since the 1970s for the employment of about 80–90% of Islamic banks’ resources. The bank provides commodities on a “cost plus profit” price formula to customers who pay back their debt in installments.
  • Ijara ranks next in importance after murabaha and implies a promise by the bank (lessor) to gift or sell the leased asset at a nominal price to the lessee by the end of the leasing period.
  • Diminishing musharaka is a new product whereby the bank provides capital to a customer or partner whose share in partnership is increased gradually by repaying the principal in installments, plus a share of therealized profits to the bank.
  • Salam entitles instant cash to a bank customer against its commitment to deliver prescribed commodities at a future date. Parallel salam, on the other hand, is practiced by banks to hedge their salam operations.
  • In istisna the bank finances the manufacturing of a commodity for a customer who pays its price in installments. It is practiced mostly in Gulf countries.
  • Islamic financial institutions, in the form of the limited liability joint stock company, rely totally on “ordinary shares” for raising their capital.
  • Multiple-party mudaraba has enabled Islamic banks to work as partner/investor on a profit/loss basis for large numbers of capital owners whose deposits take the form of investment accounts.
  • Islamic financial institutions have recently extended their activities in capital markets, and sukuk (Islamic bonds) are playing an important role in mobilizing resources.
  • Because of riba prohibition, securitization (for sukuk purposes) should neither include murabahaistisna, and salam assets, which are debt arrangements, nor allow for guaranteed regular payment to sukuk holders. Yet although sukuk experience, has been successful in terms of resources mobilized, it shows deviation from these rules.
  • If sukuk do not maintain strict shariah rules they are bound to be confused with conventional bonds.

    Riba In Quran




    1. First Revelation (Surah al-Rum, verse 39)
    “That which you give as interest to increase the peoples’ wealth increases not with God; but that which you give in charity, seeking the goodwill of God, multiplies manifold.” (30: 39)
    2. Second Revelation (Surah al-Nisa’, verse 161)
    “And for their taking interest even though it was forbidden for them, and their wrongful appropriation of other peoples’ property. We have prepared for those among them who reject faith a grievous punishment (4: 161)”
    3. Third Revelation (Surah Al ‘Imran, verses 130-2)
    “O believers, take not doubled and redoubled interest, and fear God so that you may prosper. Fear the fire which has been prepared for those who reject faith, and obey God and the Prophet so that you may receive mercy.”
    Riba In Hadith
    1. From Jabir : The Prophet, , may cursed the receiver and the payer of interest, the one who records it and the two witnesses to the transaction and said: “They are all alike [in guilt].” (Muslim, Kitab al-Musaqat, Bab la’ni akili al-riba wa mu’kilihi; also in Tirmidhi and Musnad Ahmad)
    2. Jabir ibn ‘Abdallah , giving a report on the Prophet’s Farewell Pilgrimage, said: The Prophet, , addressed the people and said “All of the riba of Jahiliyyah is annulled. The first riba that I annul is our riba, that accruing to ‘Abbas ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib [the Prophet's uncle]; it is being cancelled completely.” (Muslim, Kitab al-Hajj, Bab Hajjati al-Nabi, ; may also in Musnad Ahmad)
    3. From ‘Abdallah ibn Hanzalah : The Prophet, , said: “A dirham of riba which a man receives knowingly is worse than committing adultery thirty-six times” (Mishkat al-Masabih, Kitab al-Buyu’, Bab al-riba, on the authority of Ahmad and Daraqutni). Bayhaqi has also reported the above hadith in Shu’ab al-iman with the addition that “Hell befits him whose flesh has been nourished by the unlawful.”
    4. From Abu Hurayrah : The Prophet, , said: “On the night of Ascension I came upon people whose stomachs were like houses with snakes visible from the outside. I asked Gabriel who they were. He replied that they were people who had received interest.” (Ibn Majah, Kitab al-Tijarat, Bab al-taghlizi fi al-riba; also in Musnad Ahmad)
    Sharia: Islamic law. Islamic finance thus often is also called sharia-compliant finance.

Oct 14, 2011

Death Soul of Capitalism


ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Jack Bogle published "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" four years ago. The battle's over. The sequel should be titled: "Capitalism Died a Lost Soul." Worse, we've lost "America's Soul." And, worldwide, the consequences will be catastrophic.
That's why a man like Hong Kong contrarian economist Marc Faber warns in his Doom, Boom & Gloom Report: "The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today."
No, not just another meltdown, another bear-market recession like the one recently triggered by Wall Street's too-greedy-to-fail banks. Faber is warning that the entire system of capitalism will collapse. Get it? The engine driving the great "American Economic Empire" for 233 years will collapse, a total disaster, a destiny we created.
OK, deny it. But I'll bet you have a nagging feeling that maybe he's right, that the end may be near. I have for a long time: I wrote a column back in 1997: "Battling for the Soul of Wall Street." My interest in "The Soul" -- what Jung called the "collective unconscious" -- dates back to my Ph.D. dissertation, "Modern Man in Search of His Soul," a title borrowed from Jung's 1933 book, "Modern Man in Search of a Soul." This battle has been on my mind since my days at Morgan Stanley 30 years ago, witnessing the decline.
Has capitalism lost its soul? Guys like Bogle and Faber sense it. Read more about the soul in physicist Gary Zukav's "The Seat of the Soul," Thomas Moore's "Care of the Soul" and sacred texts.
But for Wall Street and American capitalism, use your gut. You know something's very wrong: A year ago, too-greedy-to-fail banks were insolvent, in a near-death experience. Now, magically, they're back to business as usual, arrogant, pocketing outrageous bonuses while Main Street sacrifices, and unemployment and foreclosures continue rising as tight credit, inflation and skyrocketing federal debt are killing taxpayers.
Yes, Wall Street has lost its moral compass. It created the mess, but now, like vultures, Wall Streeters are capitalizing on the carcass. They have lost all sense of fiduciary duty, ethical responsibility and public obligation.
Here are the Top 20 reasons American capitalism has lost its soul:

1. Collapse is now inevitable

Capitalism has been the engine driving America and the global economies for over two centuries. Faber predicts its collapse will trigger global "wars, massive government-debt defaults, and the impoverishment of large segments of Western society." Faber knows that capitalism is not working, capitalism has peaked, and the collapse of capitalism is "inevitable."
When? He hesitates: "But what I don't know is whether this final collapse, which is inevitable, will occur tomorrow, or in five or 10 years, and whether it will occur with the Dow at 100,000 and gold at $50,000 per ounce or even confiscated, or with the Dow at 3,000 and gold at $1,000." But the end is inevitable, a historical imperative.

2. Nobody's planning for a 'Black Swan'

While the timing may be uncertain, the trigger is certain. Societies collapse because they fail to plan ahead, cannot act fast enough when a catastrophic crisis hits. Think "Black Swan" and read evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond's "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed."
A crisis hits. We act surprised. Shouldn't. But it's too late: "Civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power."
Warnings are everywhere. Why not prepare? Why sabotage our power, our future? Why set up an entire nation to fail? Diamond says: Unfortunately "one of the choices has depended on the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they reach crisis proportions."
Sound familiar? "This type of decision-making is the opposite of the short-term reactive decision-making that too often characterizes our elected politicians," thus setting up the "inevitable" collapse. Remember, Greenspan, Bernanke, Bush, Paulson all missed the 2007-8 meltdown: It will happen again, in a bigger crisis.

3. Wall Street sacked Washington

Bogle warned of a growing three-part threat -- a "happy conspiracy" -- in "The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism:" "The business and ethical standards of corporate America, of investment America, and of mutual fund America have been gravely compromised."
But since his book, "Wall Street America" went over to the dark side, got mega-greedy and took control of "Washington America." Their spoils of war included bailouts, bankruptcies, stimulus, nationalizations and $23.7 trillion new debt off-loaded to the Treasury, Fed and American people.
Who's in power? Irrelevant. The "happy conspiracy" controls both parties, writes the laws to suit its needs, with absolute control of America's fiscal and monetary policies. Sorry Jack, but the "Battle for the Soul of Capitalism" really was lost.

4. When greed was legalized

Go see Michael Moore's documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story." "Disaster Capitalism" author Naomi Klein recently interviewed Moore in The Nation magazine: "Capitalism is the legalization of this greed. Greed has been with human beings forever. We have a number of things in our species that you would call the dark side, and greed is one of them. If you don't put certain structures in place or restrictions on those parts of our being that come from that dark place, then it gets out of control."

Greed's OK, within limits, like the 10 Commandments. Yes, the soul can thrive around greed, if there are structures and restrictions to keep it from going out of control. But Moore warns: "Capitalism does the opposite of that. It not only doesn't really put any structure or restrictions on it. It encourages it, it rewards" greed, creating bigger, more frequent bubble/bust cycles.
It happens because capitalism is now in "the hands of people whose only concern is their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders or to their own pockets." Yes, greed was legalized in America, with Wall Street running Washington.

5. Triggering the end of our 'life cycle'

Like Diamond, Faber also sees the historical imperative: "Every successful society" grows "out of some kind of challenge." Today, the "life cycle" of capitalism is on the decline.
He asks himself: "How are you so sure about this final collapse?" The answer: "Of all the questions I have about the future, this is the easiest one to answer. Once a society becomes successful it becomes arrogant, righteous, overconfident, corrupt, and decadent ... overspends ... costly wars ... wealth inequity and social tensions increase; and society enters a secular decline." Success makes us our own worst enemy.
Quoting 18th century Scottish historian Alexander Fraser Tytler: "The average life span of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years" progressing from "bondage to spiritual faith ... to great courage ... to liberty ... to abundance ... to selfishness ... to complacency ... to apathy ... to dependence and ... back into bondage!"
Where is America in the cycle? "It is most unlikely that Western societies, and especially the U.S., will be an exception to this typical 'society cycle.' ... The U.S. is somewhere between the phase where it moves 'from complacency to apathy' and 'from apathy to dependence.'"
In short, America is a grumpy old man with hardening of the arteries. Our capitalism is near the tipping point, unprepared for a catastrophe, set up for collapse and rapid decline.

15 more clues capitalism lost its soul ... is a disaster waiting to happen

Much more evidence litters the battlefield:
  1. Wall Street wealth now calls the shots in Congress, the White House
  2. America's top 1% own more than 90% of America's wealth
  3. The average worker's income has declined in three decades while CEO compensation exploded over ten times
  4. The Fed is now the 'fourth branch of government' operating autonomously, secretly printing money at will
  5. Since Goldman and Morgan became bank holding companies, all banks are back gambling with taxpayer bailout money plus retail customer deposits
  6. Bill Gross warns of a "new normal" with slow growth, low earnings and stock prices
  7. While the White House's chief economist retorts with hype of a recovery unimpeded by the "new normal"
  8. Wall Street's high-frequency junkies make billions trading zombie stocks like AIG, FNMA, FMAC that have no fundamental value beyond a Treasury guarantee
  9. 401(k)s have lost 26.7% of their value in the past decade
  10. Oil and energy costs will skyrocket
  11. Foreign nations and sovereign funds have started dumping dollars, signaling the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency
  12. In two years federal debt exploded from $11.2 to $23.7 trillion
  13. New financial reforms will do little to prevent the next meltdown
  14. The "forever war" between Western and Islamic fundamentalists will widen
  15. As will environmental threats and unfunded entitlements
"America Capitalism" is a "Lost Soul" ... we've lost our moral compass ... the coming collapse is the end of an "inevitable" historical cycle stalking all great empires to their graves. Downsize your lifestyle expectations, trust no one, not even media.
Faber is uncertain about timing, we are not. There is a high probability of a crisis and collapse by 2012. The "Great Depression 2" is dead ahead. Unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing you can do to hide from this unfolding reality or prevent the rush of the historical imperative.

Oct 7, 2011

Mumtaz Qadri Awarded Death By ATC Pakistan

RAWALPINDI -An anti-terrorism court (ATC) Saturday awarded death sentence to Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri in the murder case of former Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer, sparking protests in almost all major cities of the county.

ATC No 2 Judge Syed Pervez Ali Shah handed down death penalty to Qadri on two counts for killing Taseer on January 4 this year and creating a scene of terrorism under section 302 of Pakistan Penal Court (PPC) and Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) Section 7 during in-camera trial held at Adyala Jail amid tight security. The court also imposed Rs 200,000 fine on Qadri. Police were deployed at the jail gate to prevent any break-in. After Qadri was sentenced, the judge left through the back door. Mumtaz Qadri, who was on guard duty in Taseer’s Elite Force guards at the time of killing, shot the governor down outside a an upmarket restaurant close to his residence in the leafy capital Islamabad for his views on the blasphemy laws. Mumtaz was arrested on the spot with the weapon. He confessed killing Taseer under oath.
During the in-camera hearing of the Taseer murder case, the ATC said that the murder, being a heinous crime, had no justification to it. The court said that no one could be given the license to kill someone on any condition. Therefore, the killer cannot be pardoned as he has committed a heinous crime by murdering the governor.
Qadri tried to justify the murder by stating that he had killed him for supporting Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman having five children and sentenced to death in November 2010, who Taseer had projected as having been wrongly convicted of committing blasphemy.
According to Qadri’s statement, he had approached Taseer on the evening of January 4 and tried to talk to him about his very public support for Aasia Bibi and his advocacy of reform – not repeal – of the controversial blasphemy laws.
During the trial held on September 24 last, ATC Judge Syed Pervez Ali Shah adjourned the hearing till October 1, 2011 after completion of arguments of defence council. The judge ordered the prosecutor Saiful Malook advocate, who could not appear before the court, to submit his arguments in written with the court in the case on the next date of hearing. A total of 43 witnesses were presented before the court by prosecution, however, the court recorded statement of only 14 witnesses. Legal experts say that the accused has seven days to appeal against the verdict. “The court has awarded my client with death. The court announced the death sentence for him,” Shujaur Rehman, one of Qadri’s lawyers, told the media. He said he will lodge an appeal in a high court against the verdict,” the lawyer said.
Talking to The Nation, Raja Shujahur Rehman termed the verdict as ‘unprecedented’, saying, “during today’s proceeding the court had to listen to the arguments of the prosecution and close the case instead of delivering its verdict.”
He said that in routine the defence counsels are told about the ATC judge’s departure schedule for Adyala Jail to take up the case and after confirmation the defence counsels reached jail before the time. Despite repeated contacts from 08:00 to 10:00am made by Qadri’s lawyers to know the departure schedule of the judge, the staff informed them the judge was in his chamber and did not leave for Adyala Jail, he added.
“The defence counsel was informed by the court only after awarding death sentence to Qadri,” Shujah said, adding that defence counsel was going to file a plea with the court under Section 23 of ATA during trial.
Briefing about details, Shujah informed that it was mentioned in the application that terrorism charges were not proved against Qadri in the case that was why the court could not held the trial. Therefore, it was prayed to shift the case to a Sessions Court, he added. “I wonder why the judge made this unprecedented haste in delivering his verdict in the absence of defence lawyers. What kind of fear he (judge) was feeling that forced him to sentence Qadri to death secretly,” Raja Shujah-ur Rehman stated.
He told this scribe that he and his colleague Tariq Dhamial also met with Qadri at Adyala Jail. He said that Qadri welcomed them with a smiling face in the cell and first recited Sura-e-Kauser and then presented Na’at Sharif.
“I have a complaint with you people why you came to meet me without sweets? Now I request you to go back to your homes and distribute sweets among the people as today Allah Almighty has accepted my sacrifice,” Shujah quoted Qadri as saying during their meeting at Adyala Jail.
The defence counsel informed that father and brothers of Qadri were also present on the occasion in the cell. “The father of Qadri said “Allah-o-Akbar” aloud thrice before hugging his son. On this, Qadri swiftly hugged his father and asked him not to worry as the sentence is not a death sentence rather it is martyrdom,” Shujah quoted Qadri as saying.
Talking to The Nation, Tariq Dhamial, defence counsel for Qadri, told that they would file and appeal against the verdict in the Islamabad High Court within 10 days.
Whether Qadri will hang will remain open even after the appeals process is exhausted. According to Amnesty International, Pakistan has had an informal moratorium on executions in place since late 2008, before which it had hanged at least 36 people that year. No one has ever been sent to the gallows under Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Those sentenced to death have had their sentences overturned or commuted.
Hundreds of charged workers of many religious groups came on roads of Rawalpindi to protest against the verdict while police and other law enforcement agencies did not try to control the enraged protesters. The protesters expressed their outrage by burning tyres on almost all main roads, blocking traffic, hitting windowpanes of public and private transport with sticks and iron rods and ripping portraits of government figures.
In Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh area, where former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, about 1,000 angry Qadri supporters blocked a main road with burning tyres. Shouting slogans against the government and the judge who sentenced Qadri, they forced shops to shut down, while stick-wielding protesters attacked passing vehicles. They also burnt the monument of PPP slain Chairperson Benazir Bhutto at Liaquat Bagh.
They demanded the president grant clemency to him. “By punishing one Mumtaz Qadri, you will produce a thousand Mumtaz Qadris!” a man shouted through a megaphone outside the jail.
Sunni Tehrik and other religious parties rejected the verdict calling it worse judgment than the English court which awarded death sentence to Alamdin Ghazi decades ago. “This decision was made to please the Jewish lobby,” Sahibzada Ataur Rehman, a leader of the Sunni Tehreek, was quoted as saying.
Sunni Tehrik, Tehrik-i-Islam Pakistan, Jamia-e-Rizwiya Ziaul Uloom, Shahab-i-Islami Pakistan, Anjuman Tulba-i-Islam and other religious parties have announced to stage protest against the verdict that they demanded to be revised. Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), while rejecting the ATC verdict, announced to launch a countrywide movement and observe a wheel-jam strike in the country on October 7.


Reference From www.nation.com.pk