I'm not sure I actually agreed that, Vickie...

>>Perciles - we agree on something... that faith based investments are essentially those that 'do not exploit'<<

What I said was that the religious messages boil down to "do not exploit", not that the investments themselves have this characteristic. In fact, I went out of my way to explain that this leaves an awful lot open to the interpretation of the individual.

"Trying to forcibly pack these teachings into a commercial framework is always going to be unsatisfactory, and leave a load of straggly bits left over, that inevitably respond to different interpretations."

Which is why you find in a supposedly Christian society that payday lenders can get away with interest rates far north of 1000%.

>>I am suggesting that this is a false claim. That actually sharia finance may be exploiting the good will of people<<

Maybe so, but you haven't given any examples of where this has occurred, or where it differs from, as you call it, conventional lending.

>>...there are people who fall on hard times and have defaulted on their sharia loan and in the (Muslim) judges opinion - have been exploited by sharia norms. So is this more ethical than conventional finance as claimed? <<

And what is your own judgment on the "conventional" sub-prime mortgage industry? Or payday lending, come to that?

And here you go again:

>>It is the false claim that concerns many and the sanctioning of sharia 'anything' in general because sharia compliance supports many radical agendas.<<

And radical agendas, in your view, are only supported by sharia finance? I thought we'd put that furphy to bed ages ago. The IRA, remember? Fine Catholics, the lot of them.

Perciles - really - the judgment offered by Justice Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail in the High Court of Malaya I quoted earlier and referred to in my last post should suffice as an example of 'exploiting good will'. It appears to me that you support the idea that two wrongs somehow make a right - and if we have some corruption and radical stuff happening in one system we should accommodate a bit more in another. I would rather see honesty across the board and not promote the idea of clean and unclean money based on religion. We don't need to muddy the waters any further.

Vickie, perhaps you might do me the favour of identifying the source of this statement of yours:

>>In a landmark decision in December 2005 by the High Court of Malaya, Justice Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail “actually made the whole concept of Arabic banking unlawful”<<

I have been unable to track it down myself. The only case that came close was this one:

http://shariah-finance.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/bba-abdul-wahab-and-court-of-appeal.html

It involves the same judge, but nowhere can I find the quote you attributed to him.

This might also be relevant, although it seems to fully accept the validity of the system, while examining its detail.

http://www.skrine.com/are-bba-agreements-valid

This is even more detailed, similarly going into the minutiae of the system.

http://198.101.238.229/itreasury/html/download/MLJ%20Article.pdf

Nowhere can I find anything that resembles your quote.

Can you help me out?

Pericles, you may wish to add Dr Zulkifli Hasan's (University of Durham) observations of 17 September 2008 to your list.

http://zulkiflihasan.wordpress.com/2008/09/

You too, of course, Vickie.

Happy to give you that source Pericles: The well known Malaysian author is Syed Akbar Ali in his book 'Malaysia & the Club of Doom, page 204.
I note the first link you provided confirms:'The validity of BBA as a mode of finance is doubted by some scholars, especially those from the Middle East, who believe that this is merely a “hilah” (trickery) to facilitate riba (usury) that is prohibited in Islam.' - and there is mention of 'fictiious purchase agreement'. So my claims are shared by many Muslims and Islamic scholars. Many are concerned that this is just another way of binding up the community in more law and restricting them from participating in conventional products. No doubt you will say they have a 'choice' - but in reality - the theological mandate is understood by many that where there is a sharia compliant option the Muslim must choose that - thus actually removing other options. To quote Elizabeth Kendal from Religious Liberty Monitoring (RLM) ...According to Islam - (theologically) if there is no Sharia - then the Muslim is obliged to (1) obey the law of the land, (2) strive for Sharia. When there IS Sharia - then Muslims are obliged to obey the Sharia. This is not what all Muslims want.

Canadian (Muslim) MP Fatima Houda-Pepin told members of the Assembly that Sharia Law discriminates against women. She
alleged that Muslim women in Canada want to integrate and the drive to introduce Sharia Law in Canada "is part of a strategy to isolate the Muslim community, so it will submit to an archaic vision of Islam. These demands," she continues, "are being pushed by groups in the minority that are using the Charter of Rights to attack the foundation of our democratic institutions. It's a political agenda in the name of Islam."
(RLM 2 June 05)

That would explain it, Vickie.

>>Happy to give you that source Pericles: The well known Malaysian author is Syed Akbar Ali in his book 'Malaysia & the Club of Doom, page 204<<

What you have done is to quote the opinion of Syed Akbar Ali, not the landmark decision by the judge. Which reads a little differently to your original assertion:

>>In a landmark decision in December 2005 by the High Court of Malaya, Justice Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail “actually made the whole concept of Arabic banking unlawful”<<

The interesting part is, of course, that the topic is not sharia banking per se, but a banking product - the "BBA", developed by a Malaysian Bank, that was found to fall foul of the Islamic Banking Act 1983.

So it would appear that the "landmark decision" actually ruled some of the supposedly sharia aspects of the loan product illegal. A bit like someone taking CashTrain to court, and getting the judge to rule that interest rates of over 1000% were illegal.

Which, by the way, I wish they would.

But not quite the impact you were looking for, I suspect.