Is Mayor Bloomberg Finally Starting to Make Cents?
September 7, 2010 – Joy Brighton
It’s all about building bridges and religious freedom. That’s what New Yorkers and Americans have been hearing from Mayor Bloomberg, Hillary Clinton and President Obama.
This despite 145 days of protests by New Yorkers on streets, on TV, on radio and in New York Community Board meetings, asking: “why here”? This despite 71% of Americans voicing their opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque. This despite Imam’s Rauf’s vision of a Shariah Compliant Index to rate countries worldwide on how well they comply with the Shariah Law of Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This despite Imam Rauf and wife Daisy Khan’s refusal to sign the Freedom Pledge which is an oath stating they will no longer terrorize former Muslims who have left the faith of Islam (as required by Shariah Law).
And this despite growing evidence of connections between Imam Rauf and the Muslim Brotherhood whose motto is:
Allah is our objective.
The Prophet is our leader.
Qur’an is our law.
Jihad is our way.
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.
Mayor Bloomberg is committed to building bridges and religious freedom.
Mayor Bloomberg is not making sense. He is not saying, “Lets slow down, New Yorkers are hurting”. He is not saying, “Tolerance and respect goes both ways”. He is not saying “Wait, there are concerns about the affiliations of Imam Rauf, and his source of funding”.
Mayor Bloomberg is not making sense.
Or is he?
Michael Bloomberg the businessman is making sense. Dollars and cents. Millions of dollars and cents. Mayor Bloomberg and Imam Rauf are building Shariah bridges together.
Bloggers have uncovered that on Oct 29, 2009 Bloomberg LLC, the financial software, data gathering and news giant, announced its entry into the Shariah Islamic Finance industry. It would add Dubai as its eighth and specialized Islamic finance hub from which to sell its computer information terminals. Other hubs include: London, Sao Paolo, New York, San Francisco, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney.
The regional head of Bloomberg LLC’s Middle East and South Asia centers, Max Linnington stated in October 2009:
“Particularly since the meltdown of the western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the virtues of Islamic finance. Today, there is no one single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market. So by Bloomberg being here, we are in the process of building out an Islamic finance product. We are very confident that we can build a product that meets the needs of the market right now.”
This Bloomberg LLC description of the value of Islamic Finance sounds an awful lot like the name of aglobal “conference”entitled “The Fall of Capitalism, and Rise of Islam”. conducted by Hizb-ut Tahrir,a terror group banned in over one dozen countries including Saudi Arabia.
The Bloomberg quote also sounds like aquote by Sheik Yusef al-Qawadari one of the pioneers of Islamic Finance and banned from entering the US in 1999 and UK in 2008:
“The collapse of the capitalist system, which is based on usury and securities rather than commodities in markets, shows us that it is undergoing a crisis and that our integrated Islamic philosophy, if properly understood and applied, can replace the Western capitalism.”
And since the Oct 2009 announcement, the Bloomberg LLC bet has paid off, particularly for Mayor Bloomberg who personally owns 85% of Bloomberg LLC.
“The region for us has seen explosive growth. For example, last year in the UAE, we grew our core business by 61 per cent. And already this year, we exceeded what we achieved in all of last year in the UAE. So we are selling a lot of Bloomberg terminals, basically.”
Dubai is the nexus between Eastern and Western markets, and the best location to jump into the fastest growing and most controversial financial market in the world today, known as Shariah Compliant Finance. In this market, investments must comply with the law of Iran and the Taliban: Shariah Islamic law. It seems unimaginable that Dubai banks with offices in western skyscrapers would have anything to do with Iran or the Taliban, until one learns that most of the funding for Sept 11th attacks were funneled through UAE banks, and the UAE is the third largest exporter of goods and services to Iran, behind China and Iraq.
UAE has its foot in both worlds and therefore Bloomberg will have customers in both worlds.
The nuclear aspiring Islamic Republic of Iran, lead by Ayatollah Khomeini and Ahmandinejad is credited with putting “Shariah Compliant Finance” on the map.
In 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah, tossed Secular law and women’s rights out the window and replaced it with Shariah Islamic Law; everywhere INCLUDING the banking system. Before Khomeini, and pre-1978, the whole world including Iran, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Malaysia managed money the traditional western way, as in America. After 1978, Iran outlawed western banking and established the Shariah Banking market, which Bloomberg is catering to today.
Ayatollah Khomeini created a countrywide Shariah Islamic Finance system that required political Mullahs to oversee banks, and collect “zakat” or charity tax directly or indirectly siphon investment cash flows off to “zakat or charity”. Zakat, combined with oil revenues would allow Iran to fund Jihad groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban, and to finance its nuclear program.
The politically incorrect name for Shariah Islamic Banking is therefore Iranian Banking. Iran has been quite successful in Shariah Finance. Iran is the market leader with almost one third of the $1trillion dollars of investments managed globally “the Shariah Way” housed in Iranian banks. And Iran’s top ten banks are meeting their Shariah mission to take over the world, having been designated by our own US TSY as funders of terrorism, with Bank Melli leading the pack.
Financial Markets managed “the Shariah Way” as pioneered by the Islamic Republic of Iran is quite simple. Just ask Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and AIG who have been bailed out by taxpayer dollars, and have gone on to build out their Islamic Shariah Investment divisions. These firms are paying Shariah Mullahs, Imams or Sheiks tens of thousands of shareholder dollars to sit on their bank Shariah Advisory boards, and decide how to tithe certain investments so that money can be used to fund Shariah Cultural Centers (like the Ground Zero Mosque), Shariah Mosques (like the Dar Al Hijrah in VA whose leadership inspired the Times Square Bomber, Christmas Day Bomber, and Ft. Hood shooter), Shariah Islamic political lobby groups (like CAIR who according to our FBI funds Hamas), and Shariah Islamic “charities” (of whom more than 27 have been shut down or designated as sponsors of terror under the U.S. Exec Act 13224).
Funding all these sources would be fine except for the “Shariah” (take over the world) part. Investing in funds that support churches or mosques or Buddhist temples are legal if this fact is disclosed and Jihad is not involved.
And, “Shariah” is the part that Mayor Bloomberg does not understand. Shariah has no tolerance or respect for Freedom of Religion. Nor does Shariah Law respect Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, Equal Rights, Women’s Rights or Human Rights. The goal of Shariah Centers is to build bridges into all neighborhoods (like Ground Zero), and push their Shariah agenda. So Mayor Bloomberg is half-right. It is all about building bridges, but not about Freedom of Religion.
The Oasis Crescent Shariah Mutual Funds disclosed that in 2007, it sent 9.2% of its income (labeled as non-permissible income) to support Shariah Islamic organizations. Do the math. This means that potentially billions of dollars each year are being funneled into Shariah Political Power bases around the globe thanks to “Shariah Finance”.
As this market grows, so too will the amount of money sent to Shariah Political Centers.
As this market grows, Bloomberg LLC will sell more Shariah specialized information terminals.
Is there a connection?
If so, Mayor Bloomberg IS certainly making cents.
Joy Brighton
P.S. Mayor Bloomberg if you disagree with this article, or have a different understanding of Shariah Finance, allow me and my colleagues to respectfully provide you with the hard facts in your office.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributor Joy Brighton is a former Wall Street trader & Columbia MBA. She educates policy, congressional, and activist audiences about the risks of Shariah finance, and violations of U.S. Security Laws by investment firms who are failing to provide full disclosure or transparency about the connections between Shariah Finance and; Iran, Shariah Islamic Law, funding of Shariah Power bases, and risks of Jihad funding.
Freedom and Liberty vs. Islam and Sharia 
Posted on September 9, 2010