BEST ISLAMIC FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN LEBANON (GLOBAL FINANCE 2008): Arab Finance House

Arab Finance House-Holding Company was foundedin Lebanon in 2003 with a capital of 60 million American dollars and a plan to raise that capital to 100 million American dollars within three years. The Company established two banks in Lebanon: the Arab Finance House commercial bank, and the Arab Finance House investment bank.

Under the decreenumber 9494 of the Central Bank of Lebanon dated26/12/2006, the two banks merged to become the Arab Finance HouseSAL(Islamic Bank) holding the number 125 on the list of Banks (commercial register #1002082).

The Arab Finance House is an Islamic bank, and subsequently all its investments and products are Shari’a compliant while remaining under the realm of Lebanese banking laws.
Arab Finance House operates in accordance to Islamic Shari’a but within Lebanese banking laws, including the “Credit Contracts” Law issued in 1996. The bank plays a prominent role in developing the national economy using the most advanced banking implements. Arab Finance House focuses on acquiring professionals with the highest qualifications.

Our vision stems from our structure as a comprehensive Islamic banking solution incorporated in the Levant, which allows us to; further enhance and advance the Islamic banking industry, contribute to the economies of our hosting countries, and become a leading regional quality institution.

Our mission is to create, under Shari’a principles, a dynamic banking environment characterized by the most advanced technology, innovations, and professionalism. This environment will allow us to maximize, in a balanced manner; the returns to our shareholders; the quality, efficiency, and competitive services to our clients and hosting economies without discrimination; and a sense of security and satisfaction to our employees.
QIB adopts a steady and clear strategy, which takes into consideration the continual modernization of banking and investment services using the latest banking technology. In this regard, the bank has recently completed a pioneering plan to modernize and automate all its branches using a developed computer network, which further satisfies the needs of their clients. QIB has also established Islamic investment funds (like Bader and Rayyan Real Estate Funds) that have been successful in achieving capital appreciation to investors.

Established as an Islamic investment bank in Bahrain in October 1999, Gulf Finance House (GFH) plays an active role in providing Shari’a-compliant products and services to a broad base of clients. The bank’s strong, diversified shareholder base ensures participation in profitable opportunities in selected markets, which is supplemented by opportunities derived through affiliations with reputed financial institutions in other markets. In 2004, GFH increased its capital and opened a retail commercial operation to become one of the leading universal Islamic banking operations in Bahrain. GFH’s primary aim is to move away from an excessive concentration on low-risk, short-term instruments through innovative products with higher risk/return benefits.

The Board of Directors of the Arab Finance House S.A.L. (Islamic Bank) is pleased to bring forward the achievements of the year 2007 and the Bank’s accomplishments, despite the difficult situation that Lebanon has undergone for quite a while now.

Despite the negative political atmosphere, the Bank has been able to achieve Net Profits of around USD 2 Million compared to USD 572.000 in the year 2006 which translates into a Profit Increase of around 250%.

The Total Assets amounted to around USD 203 Million in December 2007 versus USD 121 Million in December 2006, reflecting an increase of 70%.

The Customers’ Deposits have increased by around 90% proving the Bank’s capability of grabbing a bigger share of the Lebanese Banking Market.

The deposits of banks and financial institutions have increased dramatically to reach around USD 66 million in December 2007 compared to USD 22 Million in December 2006.

During the year 2007 the Bank has expanded, and opened, with the help of God, 2 new branches in Sidon and Tripoli. The Ashrafieh Branch was relocated to Solidere area, and we hope that new branches will open whenever the situation permits, in an attempt to meet the growing demand for Islamic Banking services in various Lebanese areas.

Also, the Head Quarter relocated from Achrafieh to the new AFH tower in Mazraa.

The tower has been equipped and prepared to better suit the bank’s needs, to better serve its growing clientele.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that the Bank has placed great emphasis on developing the human element in various departments, especially the productive ones, and has given special attention to proper training of the personnel in Islamic Banking principles, both inside and outside the bank, reflecting the important role the bank is playing and intends to play in Lebanon.

In General, we can say that during the year 2007, the bank has implemented a clear path in the Islamic Banking sector in Lebanon, and we are confident that the Arab Finance House will grow beyond all expectations in the coming few years, God willing.

Paris' Grand Mosque is at center of effort to build a moderate French Islam (2)

By Daniel Strieff
'House of invitation'
The broad concept of "Euro-Islam" does not constitute a "liberal" strain of the religion, Dr. Sara Silvestri said, but rather is influenced by Muslims' countries of origin, each European state's own history and the differences within each individual.

"There is not a monolithic type of Islam in Europe," said Silvestri, a fellow at Cambridge University's Center of International Studies who is writing a book on the challenges Islam and Europe present to each other. "As Muslims engage in European society, they go through a process of adaptation and confrontation to new ideas. They then reevaluate their own vision and the practices of Islam."

Silvestri said some Muslims jurists have begun rethinking the archaic Islamic concept of the world being split into two regions, “dar al-Islam” (“house of Islam”) and “dar al-harb” (“house of war”), to include a third option, “dar al-dawa” (“house of invitation”), denoting that Europe, while not an Islamic land, has become a welcoming environment that allows Muslims to practice their faith freely.
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Cesari, the Harvard professor, currently is working on a comparative analysis of Muslims in Europe and the United States. American Muslims display a more robust self-confidence, Cesari said, one that is not afraid to question traditional practices and take charge in their spiritual communities.

"I don't think we have in Europe yet a very strong generation. This generation is here in America. Here, we're seeing women leading Friday prayers,” she said, referring to Amina Wadud, who first led prayers at a service in New York City last year.

“I have never seen this kind of activity in Europe," said Cesari, who is also the coordinator of Euro-Islam.info.

Staunchly secular republic
The primary classroom at the Paris Grand Mosque’s theological institute is accessed through a side door near the building’s main entrance. During a recent lecture, young men and women sat on separate sides of the long, narrow classroom. The men were neatly dressed, many of them in sports apparel, none in traditional Islamic dress. All of the women were veiled.

Paris institute
Students participate in a class at the Paris Grand Mosque's theological institute.
They sat quietly taking notes and submitting questions about Islamic practice ("Can a man help a woman during childbirth?" "Yes! Of course," Tougui answered with a broad smile.) during Tougui’s class.

"This is something difficult to get from books or something," said one student, Peter Habermehl, a German computer scientist who converted to Islam after moving to France nine years ago to pursue a Ph.D. "The key thing is that really you get an overall good education in Islam and this is what the course is providing."

All of the Muslim students, regardless of sex or age or background, are confronted with the challenge of adapting their practice of Islam in this staunchly secular republic. The teaching helps Muslims adapt to reconciling their faith with life in France but grounding them in the basics of Islam.

"We are here in a non-Muslim country so … it's really a challenge to find times to pray, and to do the practices like that," said another student, Zina, a physician who only wanted her first name used. She came to the institute upon the recommendation of her husband, a French convert.

“(But) our religion is easy to practice. We can find solutions — like our prayers — with some difficulties, but we can find solutions," she said.

That's all part of the goal, Tougui said.

"I regret really that (any) Muslim doesn't know their religion. This is my very big regret," he said.

Exploiting rifts
Daniel Fried, assistant U.S. secretary of state for European affairs, warned this spring of the potential for a "miniscule minority" of Muslims to exploit rifts between Islam and the West to further violent ends.

"A reliable way to counter European Muslims' spiritual alienation may be to anchor them in their own traditions of honor, respect, diversity and tolerance," Fried told a Senate subcommittee.

In Tougui’s course, he tries to impart to his students the value in appreciating Islamic traditions by reconciling them with French values.

"Cultures are like mothers. Your mother is the most beautiful women in the world. Mine as well. And everybody's. So … all cultures around the world are beautiful," Tougui said.

And through his instruction, he aims to protect his students “from the spiritual pollution because this is the best way to make a good, nice, normal Muslim — and human — because a Muslim is not an extraterrestrial. He's just a human."

Source : msnbc

Paris' Grand Mosque is at center of effort to build a moderate French Islam (1)

By Daniel Strieff

PARIS — Mustapha Tougui says he has the Quran in his blood. The Moroccan-born, Saudi-educated lecturer at the Muslim theological institute at the Paris Grand Mosque uses earthy language as he tries to preserve what he calls his students’ “spiritual hygiene.” His enthusiasm is infectious.

"If you eat always your mother's cooking, what a pity. I like other cooking, and Islam invites me (to appreciate) that. Islam shows me that," Tougui said as his students laughed. "The situation is a bit difficult now because (terrorists) give us an image and it's too difficult to clean … this dirt from the image of Islam."

The government hopes that moderates like Tougui at this Algerian government-funded mosque will play a leading role as this country tries to forge a so-called French Islam — one that is not only compatible with Islamic tradition but also palatable to the French government, mainstream society and, not least of all, Muslims themselves.
The mosque is serving as a kind of incubator for a moderate strain of France's second religion, which the government hopes will head off any drift toward radicalism within Europe's largest Muslim minority.

"We are an open Islam," Dr. Djelloul Seddiki, the head of the theological institute at the mosque, said. "But there are other Islams in France," including fundamentalists and radicals, he said.

The Paris Grand Mosque oversees the affairs of around 400 of the 1,800 facilities described as mosques throughout France, which can include simple one-room structures. The head of the mosque, Dr. Dalil Boubakeur, described by the Le Monde newspaper as "the ideal Muslim," is the most prominent Muslim in France and a friend of President Jacques Chirac.

"We prefer that [the radicals] are inside than outside, because it keeps them close," Seddiki said. "The best defense is education."

That's where Tougui comes in.
The 56-year-old's courses are open to all, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The mosque's theological institute also runs courses that it hopes will train a new generation of French-born imams, which is a hot topic in France.

"I hope to bestow the right religion so that they can educate themselves. I want to preserve them from spiritual pollution," Tougui said.

"Unfortunately you have very few teacher-lecturers who know how to lecture. They have gold in their hands, but they don't know how to manage it," he said.

France, along with other countries across Europe, is eager to limit its dependence on foreign imams.

"In the mosque, if the imam is not a French citizen and if he does not speak French, you can not speak about a 'French Islam'," Seddiki said.
Imams expelled
In 2004, at a time when the Interior Ministry estimated that perhaps two-thirds of France's imams were not citizens, the government began expelling foreign clerics judged to be preaching hate.

All students enrolled at the government-sanctioned courses at the Paris mosque who ultimately want to become imams must prove proficiency in French. The mosque is working with secular universities to allow Muslims also to study French history, civics and culture alongside other students, Seddiki said.

"The demand is growing because the new generation, they don't want to be preached by a poorly educated guy coming from Pakistan or Egypt, and who speaks bad French. They are not interested," said Dr. Olivier Roy, professor at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris and the author of "Globalized Islam."

But Roy is skeptical about how wide an impact this effort could have, particularly in the poor suburbs, where experts like him have warned of the possibility that radical strains of Islam could take hold.

"You can have a well-trained and relatively well-paid imam only when you have a huge constituency and, by definition, in the suburbs they have no huge constituency. But you can find some of these large constituencies in Bordeaux, in Lille, in Lyon, in Paris … (there) you have a bourgeoisie, or a growing Muslim middle class. But in the suburbs it's a different story," he said.

The government financed the construction of the mosque in 1926 as a gesture of thanks to Muslims from France's colonies who fought for the then-colonial power in World War I. The complex, just across the street from the Jardin des Plantes in southeast Paris, is the oldest mosque in France.
France's oldest mosque
Built as a hybrid of Islamic styles, the imposing structure features a large, sunken garden, fountains and a 33-meter high minaret. The internal courtyards, lined with Andalusian mosaics, are offset by dark eucalyptus and cedar trim. The mosque's adjoining cafe and restaurant, which serves North African cuisine such as couscous, tajine and sweet mint tea, is popular with tourists and Parisians alike.

In 2003, the government hand picked Boubakeur, the mosque's rector, to head the newly created Council of the Muslim Faith, which was intended to be an official interlocutor between Muslims and the government, although questions have lingered about the Council's effectiveness.

In France, as elsewhere in Europe, traditional Islamic practices are being influenced by conditions specific to the broadly-defined West, helping to forge what some observers have called “Euro-Islam.”

A key issue for Muslim immigrants is how to adjust to the pluralism so deeply ingrained in European society, said Dr. Jocelyn Cesari, a French expert on Islam. "This is the major challenge," she said.

"Muslims adapt to contexts, and the contexts in turn shape the kinds of reactions they may have," Cesari, a professor at Harvard and the author of "When Islam and Democracy Meet."

Source : msnbc

RPT-UK government rules out Islamic debt - Chancellor

LONDON Nov 24 (Reuters) - The UK government has ruled out issuing Islamic compliant debt, or Sukuk, but said it will legislate to help develop Islamic corporate debt.

The pre-budget report delivered on Monday by Chancellor Alistair Darling put an end to the prospect of achieve the issuance. [ID:nLO6260]

The government was expected in Islamic finance circles to eventually approve Britain's first Islamic debt instrument.

The Sukuk market has reached $111.9 billion in the eight years to 2008 and a further $69 billion is expected to be issued in 2008/2009, the International Islamic Financial Market said.

Western countries represent 50 percent of the Sukuk market the IIFM estimated.

Sukuk issuance including sovereign and corporate issues avoids the payment and receipt of interest.

"We have decided that at this time it would not be viable to do it. It would not offer value for money at the present but we will keep the situation under review," a spokesman for the Treasury told Reuters.

So far only the German state of Saxony-Anhalt in Europe has issued a sovereign Sukuk in 2004, launching a 100 million euros ($125.9 million) debt programme.

The UK government had mentioned the possibility of issuing sovereign Sukuk in the pre-budget report 2007, launching a consultation afterwards.

In response to that consultation, it said in June that about 2 billion pounds ($2.98 billion) of Sukuk debt would be achievable over time. It had intimated a preference for Sukuk treasury bills rather than bonds.

The scheme was part of government plans to make London an international Islamic finance centre.

Five Islamic banks and one insurance company have been established with authorisation by the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

While not issuing Sukuks itself, the government will support corporate their issuance in the Finance Act 2009, the Treasury spokesman told Reuters.

"We will legislate to remove stamp duty land tax barriers on Sukuks," the spokesman said.

This move would change the tax structure applied to Sukuk issuance backed by UK properties.

Currently a company issues a Sukuk by selling the building to a special purpose vehicle, leasing the property for the maturity of the bond and buying it back.

Under this structure the company issuing Sukuks is liable to tax when it sells the property and when it buys it back.

Mohammed Amin, partner and Islamic finance head at PricewaterhouseCoopers, called Monday's move "disappointing".

"This decision could make it easier for other western countries to catch up with the UK as centres for Islamic finance, attracting banks that might otherwise have set up in the UK," he said. (Reporting by Cecilia Valente; Editing by Andrew Macdonald)

MICHAEL JACKSON has become a Muslim — and changed his name to MIKAEEL

The skint superstar, 50, donned Islamic garb to pledge allegiance to the Koran in a ceremony at a pal’s mansion in Los Angeles, The Sun can reveal.
Jacko sat on the floor wearing a tiny hat after an Imam was summoned to officiate — days before the singer is due to appear at London’s High Court where he is being sued by an Arab sheik.
A source told last night how Jacko, brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness, decided to convert as he used a studio at the home of his chum to record a new album.
The star — whose hits include The Way You Make Me Feel — was spotted looking “a bit down” by a producer and a songwriter who had both embraced Islam.

Shahada

The source said: “They began talking to him about their beliefs, and how they thought they had become better people after they converted. Michael soon began warming to the idea.
“An Imam was summoned from the mosque and Michael went through the shahada, which is the Muslim declaration of belief.” Mikaeel is the name of one of Allah’s angels.
“Jacko rejected an alternative name, Mustafa — meaning “the chosen one”.
Brit singer Yousef Islam, 60 — who was called Cat Stevens until he famously converted — turned up to help Jacko celebrate.

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It was his pals David Wharnsby — a Canadian songwriter — and producer Phillip Bubal who counselled Jacko.

The pair’s new names are Dawud Wharnsby Ali and Idris Phillips.
Jacko now prays to Mecca after the ceremony at the Hollywood Hills home of Toto keyboard player Steve Porcaro, 51, who composed music on the singer’s Thriller album.
Jacko, who rarely ventures out without a mask, is due to give evidence on Monday in a £4.7million lawsuit brought by Prince Abdulla Al-Khalif of Bahrain.
The sheik claims he bankrolled the singer’s lavish lifestyle in exchange for an exclusive recording contract. The billionaire sent songs for him to record but claims he was blanked.
He told the court yesterday: “Many times he confirmed to me he would pay me back.”

Source : The Sun (UK)

Best Islamic Bank in Europe (Global Finance) : Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank is a leading global investment bank with a strong and profitable private clients franchise. A leader in Germany and Europe, the bank is continuously growing in North America, Asia and key emerging markets. With Euro 1,097 billion in assets and 67,474 employees in 73 countries, Deutsche Bank offers unparalleled financial services throughout the world. The bank competes to be the leading global provider of financial solutions for demanding clients creating exceptional value for its shareholders and people.

Deutsche Bank has today published a White Paper outlining the investment structure that facilitates the issuance of Sharia compliant securities that offer investors access to alternative asset classes.

Deutsche Bank has made public its procedures both in the interests of transparency and in an attempt to help alleviate some of the 'supply side' constraints that exist in Islamic financial markets. These constraints are mainly related to capacity - in respect of the number of qualified bankers involved and their Islamic structuring capabilities. In addressing these issues, the market will be more able to develop in line with customer demand.

By publishing this paper, Deutsche Bank hopes to achieve three objectives which will see the area of Sharia compliant securities growing, but off a solid and uniform base.

* Make Deutsche Bank's investment structure (or the 'Structure') available to other financial institutions and thereby alleviate the current shortage of supply of products.
* Establish the White Paper as a quality benchmark, and encourage the use of academic resources to assist the industry in developing new products - something that has not been a feature of the industry so far.
* Encourage the use of the Structure in its correct context through reference to the White Paper.

Geert Bossuyt, Managing Director, Regional Head of ME Structuring, Deutsche Bank, commented:

"We are confident that the Structure will eventually be viewed as a significant milestone in the development of the Islamic finance industry as it provides Islamic investors with exposure, in a liquid and cost-efficient way, to new asset classes and pay-outs, removing one of the main structuring barriers. The Structure itself is the result of close co-operation between academics, bankers and, of course, scholars. "

"Too often, 'innovation' is achieved by pushing the barriers and/or misusing fatawa by taking them out of their context. Innovation ideally should be the result of a well documented and fundamental discussion on Sharia. Deutsche Bank wishes to encourage the use of academic resources to assist the industry in developing new products as this has not been a feature of the industry to date."

"We believe that those institutions with the vision, creativity, innovation, courage and commitment to develop the Islamic financial markets will be recognised for their hard work and ideas. Sharia itself has inherent flexibility and fewer constraints than is often assumed by the financial services industry. Fundamental research is the key to unlocking this inherent flexibility, thereby allowing this market to grow to its full potential."