Required reading on the 2nd December

• Bad History – an addiction for the miserabilists
• The Billion Dollar Gram by David McCandless (H/T Modernity Blog)
• John Cleese explains PR. From the 1980s, still awesome and still correct.
• We Wee Where We Want - Now with correct Links!
• Tory hypocrisy and the reality of NHS care. Please also notice the New Though Cowards Flinch layout. Very nice boys, very nice!

Filed under: Politics

Hypocrites

Welcome to Faisal Private Bank, the first Swiss bank exclusively dedicated to innovative wealth and asset management in accordance with the principles of Islamic finance.

With Faisal Private Bank you will benefit from a banking model that is highly personalised, global and competitive; the result of our deep experience in the Swiss private banking sector and our unique ethical heritage.

GOOD Islamic Practise.

The SVP used the [referendum on banning the minaret ] as an assault on what it depicts as the inroads of political Islam in Switzerland, including Sharia practices and oppression of women. “We just want to stop further Islamisation in Switzerland,” Walter Wobmann, head of a committee backing the initiative, said after the vote.

BAD Islamic Practise.

It appears the Swiss are only keen on banning some “Islamisation.” You know the stuff you can ban to keep migrants and minorities in their place but which doesn’t lose you any money.

Switzerland has decided to send a message and message is loud and clear! No Islamification, except where it is profitable!

The principles of Islamic finance are somewhat differnt to the finance which we are used to.

In Islamic banking the payment of interest fees is forbid, as it  investing in businesses that provide goods or services considered contrary to its principles. There are lots of other rules, but you can research those yourself.

For example you cannot provide a loan of £10,000 payable at 10% interest per annum  over a 30 year period to a Sausage maker. However, you can offer to buy someone a house for £200,000 and have them pay you back £300,000 over 30 years instead of charging interest.

The arguments against the building of Minarets all tend to fall down once a careful look is taken.

The referendum cannot have been about disturbance caused by the call to prayer issued form Minarets, as that is already covered by noise pollution legislation.

Nor, could it be about the imposition of Minarets of the rural idylls of Switzerland as local planning laws could stop unwanted Minarets.

Neither in the light of the presence of Islamic finance is it a backlash against some phantom “Islamisation.”

Unfortunately Switzerland has reached a point where building a Minaret is the height of imposition. However, running a bank based on Sharia principles is not.

The only place where Sharia law is practised in Switzerland it appears to have been welcomed. However, a small number of minarets built by law abiding citizens and residents appears to be a step to far for the Swiss.

Filed under: Politics, Democracy, Economics, Islam, Minarets