Libyan Muslim leaders urge military to stop shooting protesters
The bloody crackdown on protesters in Libya has prompted about 50 Libyan Muslim religious leaders to issue an appeal to the security forces as Muslims to stop the killing or face the wrath of God.
Dozens of protesters were killed in clashes with Libyan security forces in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday, an eyewitness told Reuters, in the worst unrest in Muammar Gaddafi’s four decades in power. Snipers fired at protesters from a compound to which they had withdrawn, said the resident, who did not want to be named.
“Dozens were killed … not 15, dozens. We are in the midst of a massacre here,” the eyewitness resident in Benghazi said. Human Rights Watch said earlier that 84 people had been killed over the past three days in a fierce security crackdown mounted in response to anti-government protests that sought to emulate uprisings in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia.
The Libyan Muslim leaders, who could not give their names for security reasons, sent an appeal to Reuters through a reliable source. “This is an urgent appeal from religious scholars (faqihs and Sufi sheikhs), intellectuals, and clan elders from Tripoli, Bani Walid, Zintan, Jadu, Msalata, Misrata, Zawiah, and other towns and villages of the western area of our beloved Libya to all of humanity, to all men and women of good will,” said the appeal. “The Libyan regime has been firing live ammunition at peaceful demonstrators who have been simply asking for their divinely endowed and internationally recognised human rights.“
The appeal said security forces were firing automatic weapons on large crowds of protesters near the central barracks and security headquarters in Benghazi, and then added:
“We appeal to every Muslim, within the regime or assisting it in anyway, to recognize that the killing of innocent human beings is forbidden by our Creator and by His beloved Prophet of Compassion (peace be upon him), and that whoever commits such crimes-against-humanity, or assists in committing them in any way, shall subject himself to condemnation to God’s wrath and eternal damnation. Human life is sanctified by God Himself, and is protected by Divine Shariah and International Law. Do NOT kill your brothers and sisters. STOP the massacre NOW!”
“We appeal to the faithful and brave Libyan people to help each other in all ways possible and to remain united.”
Top Islamic finance scholars oppose bid to improve corporate governance
Two of the Gulf’s top Islamic finance scholars spoke out against efforts to reduce the number of boards they and their peers are allowed to sit on, challenging industry attempts to improve corporate governance. Bankers in the emerging $1 trillion Islamic finance industry say the concentration of hundreds of board positions in the hands of a few sharia scholars leads to conflicts of interest and hampers appropriate supervision.
Bahrain-based industry body AAOIFI is drafting rules to regulate scholars’ shareholdings and the number of sharia supervisory boards a single scholar can sit on. “There is no need to limit the number of boards,” Sheikh Nizam Yaquby, one of the most revered Islamic finance scholars in the Gulf Arab region, told a conference in Manama. He sits on several dozen sharia supervisory boards.
He said there was no similar criticism of other groups such as lawyers or accounting firms working for several banks: “Why should (sharia scholars) not be treated like other professionals in the field?”
Bankers say reforms launched by AAOIFI will likely fall short of expectations as scholars governing themselves are unlikely to cut into their own source of income, unless central banks force them to do so.
Islamic finance outsources scholars’ supervision to grow
Bankers in Islamic finance are increasingly outsourcing sharia supervision due to a lack of scholars in the industry, but critics say this is making the sector even less transparent and slowing its development.
The $1 trillion industry rode a five-year oil boom until the 2008 property crash in the Gulf Arab region raised complaints that many of its investment instruments can be seen as mere copy-cats of conventional banking products, threatening the sector’s future growth.
Critics say growth and product innovation is being further stifled by the limited number of top scholars available to join the sharia boards of Islamic banks, some sitting on up to 80 boards.
“In banking you can lose a deal in one day,” said John Sandwick, a Geneva-based Islamic wealth and asset manager. “If the scholars are not responsive, and we know it is literally impossible for one man to provide so much work, then everyone suffers,” he said.
Instead of maintaining their own costly sharia boards with prominent scholars, bankers are increasingly using consultancy firms that directly deal with the scholars.
Short of talent, Islamic finance taps women scholars
When Malaysian Aida Othman signed up for the new law programme at the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, she did not expect to become one the few women with their hands on the levers of the world’s $1 trillion Islamic finance sector.
Rising global demand for scholars who can advise firms on compliance with Islamic legal principles called sharia is behind the quiet and almost accidental way in which women are growing into a small but powerful force in a male-dominated business.
“There are not many women involved my job,” Aida, who manages the sharia advisory practice at Malaysia’s biggest law firm, told Reuters. “I’m glad to be able to show to young graduates and young scholars in my field if you’re interested enough there is a way into sharia advisory,” the 41-year-old, who went on to study at Cambridge and Harvard, said.
As Islamic finance expands 15-20 percent a year and enters new markets from Australia to South Africa, so the need has grown for more sharia advisers who can structure financial transactions according to Islamic rules that crucially include a ban on interest. A small circle of men dominates the boards of Islamic banks but there are now about 10 women sharia advisers in Malaysia, home to the world’s largest market for sukuk, or Islamic bonds.
Read the full story by Liau Y-Sing here. See also:
Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet
Scholars and anyone with an Internet connection will be able to take a new look into the Biblical past through an online archive of high-resolution images of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls.
Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the custodian of the scrolls that shed light on the life of Jews and early Christians at the time of Jesus, said on Tuesday it was collaborating with Google’s research and development center in Israel to upload digitized images of the entire collection.
Advanced imaging technology will be installed in the IAA’s laboratories early next year and high-resolution images of each of the scrolls’ 30,000 fragments will be freely accessible on the Internet. The IAA conducted a pilot imaging project in 2008.
“The images will be equal in quality to the actual physical viewing of the scrolls, thus eliminating the need for re-exposure of the Scrolls and allowing their preservation for future generations,” the Authority said in a statement.
It said that the new technology would help to expose writing that has faded over the centuries and promote further research into one of the most important archaeological finds of the 20th century.
The scrolls, most of them on parchment, are the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible and include secular text dating from the third century BC to the first century AD. For many years after Bedouin shepherds first came upon the scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea in 1947, only a small number of scholars were allowed to view the fragments. But access has since been widened and they were published in their entirety nine years ago. A few large pieces of scroll are on permanent display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
Islamic finance relies on too few of its scholars
The Islamic finance industry is not short of qualified sharia scholars to meet growing demand, but it relies too heavily on a handful of them, limiting growth potential and raising regulatory concerns, experts say.
Islamic finance experts have previously said the nearly $1 trillion industry is struggling to find scholars with the business acumen, technology and language skills necessary to help the sector evolve.
But consultancy Funds@Work found that more than 300 scholars sit on the sharia boards of Islamic institutions. However, it said that just 20 of these scholars appear on 54 percent of such boards.
Volker Nienhaus, consultant to the Malaysia-based regulatory body Islamic Financial Services Board, said “There are problems with conflict of interest, there may be confidentiality problems, and the top scholars are overburdened so lack of time is a problem…Islamic finance standards right now are not up to the standard of European regulators.”
Islamic finance seems overwhelmed by tighter supervision of sharia advisers
Islamic finance is toughening supervision of its powerful religious advisers as shareholders worldwide demand increasing accountability from directors, but key reforms may do little to boost independence and transparency.
Key to these challenges is the small number of scholars advising a growing number of banks on increasingly complex financing structures, raising issues such as transparency of rulings, independence of advisers and how to groom new scholars.
But varying sharia standards, different regulatory approaches and vast disparities in development across markets stand in the way of reforms to streamline and boost supervision, which are critical to growth.
“Investors want to see the same degree of responsibility and professionalism going into sharia compliance as they expect from Moody’s for credit ratings and S&P for market information,” said John Sandwick, a Geneva-based Islamic asset and wealth manager.
Sharia advisers control the reins of the $1 trillion industry through their rulings on whether financial products satisfy Islamic law. Their role has been in focus following a recent attempt by Kuwait’s Investment Dar (TIDK.KW) to challenge its sharia board’s decision.
Some say regulating the issuance of fatwa would stifle ijtihad, or scholars’ reasoned judgment, and could stunt the growth of an industry which is still trying to come to terms with established conventional banking concepts like derivatives.
Islamic banking being a new concept is quiet complex, which Shariya standard will they adopt, the one convenient to them?
Saudi royal order says only appointed clerics can issue public fatwas
Saudi King Abdullah has ordered that public religious edicts, or public fatwas, be issued only by clerics he appoints, in the boldest measure the ageing monarch has taken to organise the religious field.
Timid efforts by the absolute monarchy to modernise the deeply conservative country have led to a profusion in fatwas from scholars and mosque imams in the country, who use the Internet to publicise them as they fight what they perceive as the westernisation of the country.
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah gestures during his meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the Royal Palace in Amman July 30, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Ali Jarekji/Files
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah gestures during his meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the Royal Palace in Amman July 30, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Ali Jarekji/Files
This abundance depicted growing divisions among pro-reformist clerics and more conservative clerics, a trend which diplomats say was bound to worry Saudi authorities seeking to fight militancy and the ideology that breeds it.
Islamic finance seeks young scholars to lead growth, improve products
With Islamic finance a $1 trillion industry globally and expected by ratings agency Moody’s to reach $5 trillion in time, students of sharia have more opportunities than ever before to take their skills beyond the mosque doors and into the boardroom.
Reflecting the change in times, many current scholars now prefer to call themselves sharia advisors or technicians to suggest that their duties are more professional rather than simply clerical.
Professionally, it can be a lucrative endeavor. Scholars working on Islamic finance deals are paid consulting fees, depending not only on the services provided but also the seniority and fame of the scholar.
Every Islamic finance company has a sharia board that monitors compliance, and ad hoc boards often set up for individual deals. While there is no benchmark for fees, a renowned chairman of a sharia board, for instance, could earn $50,000 to $100,000 per board as a result of retainer fees, fees for issuing edicts, audit fees and documentation fees. Junior scholars make significantly less.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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One fires and kills protesters because the leader must have committed some crime in the past so they must find a way to hold on to power. I think there must be corruption involved. Lots of money involved and where is the money now? The first shot means the end of this dictator. What is the difference between him and the previous King?