Politician opens eyes, sees zakat unfairness

Malaysians pay income tax.  Muslim Malaysian taxpayers receive a zakat “rebate” for being Muslim.  Non-Muslims receive no such rebate.  This is in accordance with Islamic law which forbids non-Muslims from receiving zakat.  This concept is so deeply ingrained within Islamic thought that when a politician simply observes that it is unfair to give Muslim Malaysians a rebate that non-Muslims do not receive, that observation makes the news.  From Malaysia Kini on Mar. 4:

The current tax policy is unfair as proceeds from zakat, an Islamic tax, is used exclusively for the development of Muslims through the building of mosques and other amenities, said senator S Ramakrishnan.

The senator, who is also an accounting lecturer, called on the government to be fair to all Malaysians by giving non-Muslims a similar tax rebate like zakat.

Ramakrishnan urged the government to amend the tax legislation so that Malaysians of all religions are treated fairly in the spirit of ‘1Malaysia’ when computing their income tax…

Malaysia is also well-known for its jizya-inspired discriminatory bumiputra tax system.

Young French Muslim revivalists push zakat

Union des jeunes musulmans (UJM), or the Union of Muslim Youth, is a French organization created by second generation Muslims who didn’t care so much about the cultural traditions of their parents’ home countries (or of France’s traditions for that matter) as they cared about a renewed Islamic religiosity.  UJM was created with the blessing of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF).  UJM has also supported Hamas donor Tariq Ramadan’s presence in France (see here).

Now the UJM is busy at work creating a new generation of zakat-givers, which is certainly only for benign humanitarian purposes, no?  From Ahlul Bayt News Agency on Mar. 1:

An educational workshop on the concept of Zakat (alms giving) for Muslim children has been underway since February 28 at Tawheed Islamic Center in Lyon, France.

According to the website of the union, it has been organized by the Union of Muslim Youth (UJM).

Children’s questions on Zakat will be answered during the educational sessions which will continue until March 5.

The union was established in 1987 in Lyon by a group of French Muslim youth and Muslim citizens to introduce the true image of Islam and defend religious identity of the Muslims of the country.

Most of the activities of the union include religious, social and cultural programs such as holding courses on Arabic language and Islamic teachings as well as make up classes for Muslim students, organizing programs on various religious occasions, and holding Islamic forums.

Remember, the Koran 9:60 mandates that the mujahideen, the holy warriors of Islam, are eligible recipients of zakat.

Muslim Aid in foreign politics

The news and analysis website E-Bangladesh has uncovered more duplicity by Muslim Aid, a Union of Good (pro-Hamas) charity based in Britain.  While Muslim Aid tries to tell the public that it is a humanitarian relief organization, it is really sending zakat dollars to support a major Islamist political party in Pakistan.  E-Bangladesh rightly calls on the U.K.’s feckless Charity Commission for a renewed investigation into Muslim Aid.

E-Bangladesh, Feb. 20, 2011–Muslim Aid is charity based in the UK. It has sister organisations around the world. These include the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and Muslim Aid Australia. They are all affiliated to the Jamaat-i-Islami movement and give donations to the Al-Khidmat Foundation in Pakistan.

In February 2011, the British Deputy High Commissioner to Pakistan, Dr. Peter Tibber, visited Liaquat Baloch, the Secretary General of Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan. Baloch also acts as the Chairman of the Al-Khidmat Foundation. Tibber told Baloch that he praised Jamaat for its social work through the Al-Khidmat Foundation…

Muslim Aid and its sister organisations do provide vital support to people in poor countries and conflict afflicted areas. That can not [sic] be disputed. However, Muslim Aid(s) support for Al-Khidmat is designed to increase the political influence of the Jamaat-i-Islami. It is also trying to undermine the Pakistani government.

The Jamaat-i-Islami movement was founded by Maulana al-Mawdudi. He envisioned a quasi religious/political/social party which would try to emulate the spirit of fascist and communist revolutionaries. The movement would then build a core ideology around Mawdudi’s interpretation of Islam. He believed Jihad and armed struggle was essential to give energy to his revolutionary programme which looked to overthrow secular society and replace it with an Islamic theocracy.

Ernst & Young: zakat makes stable economy

Zakat taxation within the context of vast Saudi wealth is able to exist without yet destroying the fabric of Arab society.  The Saudi economy functions in spite of the zakat it has mandated.  But remove zakat from the petro-wealth context, and the abject misery, chaos, and violence that zakat creates is quickly evident. 

All one must do is look to Pakistan, whose adoption of an Islamic tax system has exacerbated local poverty, has induced wide-scale zakat corruption, has resulted in one of the most hated and impotent tax systems in the world, and inspired the Taliban’s interest in traditional Islamic tax collection measures (to include the ushr on opium and the jizya against Sikhs).  In many ways, we have Pakistan’s adoption of an Islamic financial system to thank for the rise of the Taliban and the type of funding that led to 9/11.

Nevertheless, Ernst & Young recently claimed of Saudi Arabia that, “Tax and Zakat are basic components of the country’s fiscal and economic development. It is a discipline that offers fiscal stability and ensures financial prudence.”  Ernst & Young, would you still advocate for Koran-based revenue measures if your employees were kidnapped and held for fida’ (Islamic ransom)?  Would you still champion the cause when your employees cannot worship safely at Christian churches without fear of jizya when they work in the Middle East?  Would you still extol the benefits of zakat when it is redirected into jihadist accounts for the next terrorist attack against the West?

From the Saudi Gazette on Feb. 24:

JEDDAH: Ernst & Young (E&Y) recently hosted the 8th Annual Tax Seminar on the updates in Saudi Arabia’s new Corporate Income Tax Law, its by-laws and Zakat, as well as clarifications issued by the Department of Zakat and Income Tax (DZIT). Recent appeal decisions, tax treatment of complex tax issues and proposed amendments to Saudi companies [sic] regulations were also discussed.

Ahmed Reda, office managing partner, Ernst & Young Jeddah, said: “Tax and Zakat are basic components of the country’s fiscal and economic development. It is a discipline that offers fiscal stability and ensures financial prudence. The main objective of the seminar was to update and enhance the knowledge and understanding of the New Saudi Income Tax Law (NITL), Zakat regulations and double tax avoidance treaties recently signed by Saudi Arabia.”

The seminar is an annual event organized by Ernst & Young to ensure that its clients are kept abreast with latest developments in Tax and Zakat matters as well as other relevant business regulations…

PA offer to use U.S. funds to pay Hamas

We’ve known that the Palestinian Authority, whose budget is largely dependent on U.S. and European aid, all too often transfers money to Gaza that ends up in the pockets of Hamas brownshirts.  (See here, here, and here.)  Now the PA itself, not Hamas, has put an offer on the table to expand that funding.  From World Net Daily (h/t GoV) on Mar. 18:

TEL AVIV – The Palestinian Authority has quietly offered to place tens of thousands of Hamas security forces on its payroll if Hamas joins in a unity government, according to information obtained by WND.

The PA is funded in large part by the U.S. and Europe.

Earlier this month, WND reported the PA has been engaged in an intense effort to convince the Hamas terrorist organization to join it in a new unity government.

According to a senior PA official, the PA has been sending mediators to Hamas in an effort to persuade it into a unity deal.

Now, WND has learned the PA has engaged in intense marathon talks with Hamas the past three days. As part of its latest list of incentives, the PA has offered to place between 15,000 and 20,000 of Hamas’ forces in Gaza on official PA salary if Hamas joins in a unity government.

The technical explanation being given by PA sources is that the Palestinian leadership feels it better to maintain one major financial apparatus to pay all security forces, instead of having a separate governmental system in Gaza run by Hamas.

Monthly salaries of Hamas security officers in Gaza typically range from between 800 and 1,500 shekel, or between $244 and $421…

Read the rest at WND here.

Kuwait’s Muslim Brotherhood to raise funds for Libyan rebels

A Kuwaiti charity with Muslim Brotherhood “ideological roots” wants the government’s permission to collect money to give to Libyan Islamists.  No word yet whether Kuwait will allow it.  From the National on Mar. 13 (h/t TGMBDR):

KUWAIT CITY // A Kuwaiti group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood is trying to overcome government controls to raise money for Libya’s opposition, a leading figure in the movement has said.

“We are waiting for the government to tell us we can collect,” said Abdullah al Ateeqi, the secretary general of the Social Reform Society (SRC), on Wednesday. The society is a Kuwaiti charity linked to the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), a political group with ideological roots in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

“In the future we will raise money,” Mr al Ateeqi said.

He said the SRC advertised in local newspapers last week to encourage Kuwaitis to support the Libyan opposition “in any way they can”, but his organisation was not accepting donations yet.

Nasser al Ammar, the director of the ministry of social affairs and labour’s charity and donation organisations department, said no Kuwait charities have received permission to raise money for the Libyan crisis.

“They can’t do anything now,” Mr al Ammar said. “We need time to study [the proposal] with the ministry of foreign affairs.”

Charity collections in Kuwait have been tightly controlled since foreign governments accused some charities of having links with terrorists. In 2008, the United States designated the local Salafi charity, the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, as an organisation that supports al Qa’eda. The society denies the charge.

Money Jihad on hiatus

Takin’ a break.

Poor waiting for zakat since 2009

The Express Tribune reveals that thousands of Punjabi families have been waiting on the local zakat committee for over a year to distribute funds to widows, students, and the poor.  It’s another reminder that even when zakat is theoretically used for legitimate purposes, the corruption, lackluster accounting, cronyism, and ineffectiveness of zakat systems as a poverty-fighting model are remarkable.

More zakat, more poverty.  Read it all:

LAHORE: Over 200,000 families in Punjab have been waiting to receive financial help in the form of Zakat for the past one year, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The delay has been caused due to political disharmony between the coalition partners over the formation of district Zakat councils. The Punjab Ombudsman also wrote letter to the Punjab chief minister after it received thousands of complaints and directed the provincial government to constitute the District Zakat and Ushr Committee (DZUC) as early as possible for smooth and timely disbursement of Zakat.

District committees were last constituted in November 2007 and completed their tenure in October 2010 but disbursement of Zakat has been pending since 2009.

Terror donations followed laws of Allah

The court defense of two terrorist financiers in Indonesia show that they are true believers in the rewards of the money jihad.

Donors behind Abu Bakar Bashir’s funding operation for a terrorist training camp say that they were making their donations in order to obtain “rewards from Allah.”

Their actions were perfectly legal, even required, within the context of sharia law.  Remember what the profiteer Muhammad said, “The warrior gets his reward, and the one who equips him gets his own reward and that of the warrior” (Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 14 No. 2520).  The jihadist financier is doubly blessed, and these two defendants believe it to their core.

From the Jakarta Globe on Mar. 9 (h/t RoP):

Two men accused of channeling funds to firebrand cleric Abu Bakar Bashir to set up a paramilitary camp in Aceh firmly maintained their innocence in two separate hearings at the South Jakarta District Court on Tuesday.

Defendant Abdul Haris, aka Haris Amir Falah, the leader of the Jakarta branch of Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid, an Islamic organization founded by Bashir, and Dr. Syarif Usman, who joined JAT last year, said they had simply made donations to a good cause.

Abdul told the court that he found himself faced with a dilemma. “If I move forward and follow the orders of Allah, I will be charged under the Anti-Terror Law. But if I turn back on His orders, then I have to face His wrath.”

He is facing nine years in jail for allegedly collecting money from donors and channeling it to Bashir.

“When we have to choose between the regulations and laws of Allah, and those that are man-made, any good Muslim will choose the laws as written out by Allah,” he said.

At a separate hearing, Syarif, whom prosecutors have accused of providing Rp 200 million ($22,740) for the Aceh camp, also presented his defense, insisting that his donation was based on Shariah law, and therefore, criminal charges should not be laid upon him.

“Who owns the land of Indonesia? We acknowledge that Allah has created the sky, the earth and all its contents,” said Syarif, who is also facing a nine-year sentence.

“As for this trial, it can deliver any verdict it wants, because my donation is meant to seek rewards from Allah.”

In their handwritten defense, containing mainly verses from the Koran, neither of the men mentioned Bashir.

Asludin Hatjani, a lawyer representing both defendants, said the terrorism charges were groundless because the prosecution failed to prove that the money had been channeled to the Aceh camp, which was raided by police in February last year.

In the indictment prepared by prosecutors, the two are accused of collecting the funds after Bashir allegedly told them: “We are launching a program of major jihadi activities. If you have extra money, you can donate to us and the biggest returns will come from God.”

The panel of judges on the case have said they will deliver their verdict on Friday.

A third suspect, Hariadi Usman, is also on trial in South Jakarta on similar charges .

Pakistan’s counterfeiting jihad against India

It’s not just a figment of the collective imaginations of India’s newspapers and Internet forums.  The U.S. State Department has released a report implicating Pakistan in the organized counterfeiting warfare operation against India and its economy.  The counterfeiting racket also helps fund terrorism.  From the Economic Times on Mar. 4:

WASHINGTON: India faces an increasing inflow of counterfeit currency, produced primarily in Pakistan, and terrorist and criminal networks use this money to finance their activities in the country, an official US report has said.

“India faces an increasing inflow of high-quality counterfeit currency, which is produced primarily in Pakistan but smuggled to India through multiple international routes,” said the 2011 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report of the State Department.

“Criminal networks exchange counterfeit currency for genuine notes, which not only facilitates money laundering, but also represents a threat to the Indian economy,” it said.

Tax avoidance and the proceeds of economic crimes (including fraud, cyber crime and identity theft) are still the mainstay of money launderers in India, but laundered funds are also derived from human and narcotics trafficking, transnational organised crime, illegal trade, particularly in endangered wildlife and illegal gems (principally diamonds), and corruption, the report said.

Noting that India is a significant target for terrorist groups, both external and domestic, the report said most terrorist activities are conducted by international terrorist groups and entities linked to the global jihad, with the support of both state and non-state external actors.

In addition, several domestic separatist and insurgent groups are active.

Terrorist groups often use counterfeit currency and hawaladars, as well as physical cross-border currency smuggling, to move funds from external sources to finance their activities in India, it said…

The rest of the article describes the State Department’s recommendations for the Indian government which you can read here.

Screw the sanctions, and the people

Short post today.  Economic sanctions aren’t exactly getting in the way of Iran’s nuclear procurement if recent press accounts are to be believed.

Despite international sanctions, Zimbabwe says it will sell uranium to fellow pariah Iran.  Read about it at Jihad Watch. 

Iran says it is, in fact, proud to be under sanctions by the West.  Meanwhile, suffering Iranians are telling their leaders, “We are hungry.”  Check it out at the Ground Report.