Islamic Finance Can Fly Unfettered After Death Of Bin Laden

By Rushdi Siddiqui, Global Head of Islamic Finance, Thomson Reuters

I was watching highlights of the Royal wedding, when I heard the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden. In the last 10 years, most informed people of the world can tell you where they were and what they were doing during three major events: 9/11, Barack Obama being elected President of the United States, and now the death of Bin Laden.

On 9/11, I was running late for work and my subway, E Train’s, final destination was the World Trade Center. When President Obama won the elections, I was arriving in Washington, DC, from Dubai, for the U.S. Treasury’s workshop event on ‘Islamic Finance 101.’ Finally, on May 1st, I was discussing with family the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, which took place two days earlier.

President Obama could not have said clearer when he stated that the, “…U.S. is not, and never will be, at war with Islam… bin Laden was not a Muslim leader, he was a mass-murderer of Muslims.” This was his ‘Audacity of Hope’ moment, and the delivery of his Cairo speech in building bridges to the Muslim world.

Without splitting hairs, a distinction needs to be made between Islam, a religion of 1,400 plus years, and 1.6 billion Muslims, its followers. Almost every religion, mythology, and movement has so called mouthpieces that espouse division over unity, bull-dozing over building bridges, and fear over understanding, and they cannot be said to be representative of the religion or movement. The job of judgement solely belongs to the Almighty, but it may be safely said Bin Laden did not represent Islam, as much as Timothy McVeigh did not represent Christianity and Baruch Goldstein did not Judaism.

Let’s put aside conspiracy theories, political posturing, or delivering justice (he could have been extracted alive), and say he died by the same theories of value on human life that he preached.

Former President Bush was premature with the ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner, and now it can be raised ‘loud and proud.’ Or in election campaigning slogan words of President Obama, ‘Yes, we can … and We did.’

The death of this ‘emperor of darkness without clothes’ may be a renaissance for Islamic finance. One of the stories I heard during 9/11, was the terrorists connected to 9/11 established brokerage accounts and shorted airlines stocks and placed the profits in the safe haven of U.S. Treasuries. Obviously, selling what one does not own and investing in conventional interest bearing bonds are impermissible under Islamic investing principals, much like the terrorist’s hate-filled mandate of death, destruction, and demise.

The third pillar of Islam, Zakat or alms-giving, has been much maligned by a number of mis-informed people and organizations in the west. They have equated Zakat to funnelling financing to terrorist groups, like the now headless Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, it reached an absurd point in the U.S., where many U.S. Muslim were afraid to give Zakat obligations, as they did not want to be on government lists.

In South Korea, the government wanted parliament to pass legislation to level the playing field to issue Sukuk, roughly equivalent to an Islamic bond, but certain religious evangelists have stymied the efforts with accusation of financing terrorism.

This is a new dawn for people of hope, faith and peace, now I believe we can hit the ‘reset’ button of building bridges to better understanding. The same understanding, that will no doubt be tested again, but hopefully Islam will be given the benefit of doubt by non-Muslims.

Bin Laden’s contribution, if one can phrase it as such, to Islam is that he and his followers showcased in crystal clear terms what it’s not!

Finally, like many people who collect memorabilia, I’ve kept some of the newspapers of 9/11 (Never Forget) and Obama victory (Removing the ‘im’ from impossible) and now have the headlines for Osama Bin Laden’s death (Failed in Hijacking Islam).