German ‘Conservatives’ Find Common Ground with Sharia-Compliant Economics
Frank Spengler, a representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, added:
It is notable that both economic systems have deep roots in the respective religions: Islamic economic thought is based on the Sharia, whereas the social market economy builds on Christian social doctrine.
The Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development was represented at the event by its Director General Fahad Saeed Al-Raqbani. According to the summary of the proceedings, Haibach, Spengler, and Al-Raqbani all agreed that such a “value-based economic system” is “not only more sustainable and more suited to human needs, but could alleviate the consequences of future crises or even prevent them altogether.”
The Berlin event featured a presentation by Zaid el-Mogaddedi, the managing director of the Institute for Islamic Banking and Finance in Frankfurt. According to a summary of his presentation, el-Mogaddedi explained that:
The entire activity of a practicing Muslim, including economic activity, is based in his faith. From this there follows a responsibility before God, which is expressed in various principles of action. Financial transactions that are detrimental to human beings, as well as highly speculative risks, are rejected in Islam.
El-Mogaddedi explained further that the “prohibition on financial interest is one of the central pillars of Islamic banking” and that:
Financial investments in certain goods like alcohol or in the armaments industry are not wanted. The compliance of investments with the relevant norms is examined by ethics commissions, so-called Sharia boards, and then they are approved or rejected. If the tenets of Islamic banking had a wider application, the financial crisis could have been prevented….
The latter point is enthusiastically seconded by Rainer Hermann, who notes that a real estate bubble, such as formed on the U.S. housing market, would have been “impossible” in a system of “Islamic banking.” The correspondent of Germany’s leading “conservative” daily concludes that the German and “Islamic” models are:
…more than pure economic models. By virtue of their “social” components, they are also models of society, which are strongly oriented toward solidarity and the social anchoring of property. In both cases, they do not leave everything to the market, but rather intervene when a sense of justice makes this desirable. This is no different in the Islamic economy than in the social market economy of German inspiration.
Yes, its depressing. These people are our “conservatives”.
It should be noted that the current economic system in europe is not what Ludwig Erhard envisioned when he built the german economy in the 50s. His idea was a free market system where the state only helps the poorest, those who are not able to help themselves.
Erhard explicitly warned of socialised health care and of the nanny state, which he predicted would destroy freedom and wealth.
Erhards policies turned a war-destroyed country in which people were starving into an economic powerhouse. Todays policies are doing the opposite.
If you want to create jobs and wealth, look for what worked historically. Erhards free market model with help only for the poorest worked. Socialism failed. States which apply Sharia fail economically, unless they sit on huge oil fields, and sometimes even then.
Socialism only ‘fails’ if you assume Leftists have the same ends in mind that normal people do. They don’t. Socialists want to destroy the private economic sector. If their policies create massive unemployment and business failures, they are successful. This would’ve been plain if the GOP hadn’t taken over both houses of Congress in 1946, with the slogan: “Had enough?” The Dems had retained the rationing and other govt controls from the Depression and WW II, and would have simply re-instituted the Depression, as they did in Britain.
The only reason the nanny state came into existence was the US, through NATO, carrying the main load for Europe’s defense against Soviet aggression. NATO should have been dissolved in 1992 with the demise of the USSR and Warsaw Pact. It was kept going for the benefit of both our military-industrial complex and the nanny states. Abolish NATO, bring the troops home and force Germany and the rest of Europe to pay for its own defense. The end of nannyism will soon follow.
Und Gott drehte sich weg und weinte bitterlich…
Und Gott drehte sich weg und weinte bitterlich…
A (crude) translation based on my university German courses: “And God turned away and wept bitterly.”
So if I understand what you are saying, and what I’ve heard elsewhere about sharia lending law, there’s no point in lending money because you aren’t allowed to make a profit by allowing someone else to use your money? And if there’s no profit to be made by lending, then banks won’t make money and so cannot pay interest on savings (profit)? Then what motive would anyone have in investing in a bank if no money can be made? And if no one invests in banks, where can a person get capital to start a business or grow one that is already there? No, the housing crisis was not caused by getting interest on loans. It was caused by social engineering and liberals refusal to look at reality when they forced banks to lend to people who could never pay back the loans. Sharia law would have prevented these people from getting loans along with everyone else, including those with the capability of actually paying for them. In a free market the loans would never have been made in the first place and the housing “bubble” would not have existed to burst.
I don’t know anywhere near the full details of how Islamic banking works but a Muslim I once worked with said that Islamic banking used service charges where a non-Islamic bank would typically use interest.
The reason why Islamic economies don’t have “bubbles” is because, thanks to Islamic ideology, their economies never get off the ground in the first place. All they have is money from oil, which is extracted, refined, and sold by foreigners.
What’s next, are the Germans going to support stoning women for adultery? After all, that’s part of Sharia law too.
My countrymen surely have lost their mind; I’m glad that I no longer live there!
Inge, I lived In Germany for many years during the 70′s and 80′s and I definitely noticed that Christian values permeated many facets of life there, much like “The Good Ole Days” here in the United States, when many people didn’t even find it necessary to lock the doors at home. In this day and age of the quick buck scam artists and the dog eat dog Wall Street circus, I, and probably many others long for The Good Ole Days.
“Financial transactions that are detrimental to human beings, as well as highly speculative risks, are rejected in Islam.”
This would explain why Islam did not give the world the Industrial Revolution.
“El-Mogaddedi explained further that the “prohibition on financial interest is one of the central pillars of Islamic banking””
This would explain most of the non-muslim world live in nicer houses and drive nicer cars.
The Konrad Adenaur Foundation would spend its time and money better if it revisited the economics of the Hanseatic League, the British Empire, and the United States before Wilson, instead of sucking up to Islam and its screwy dogmas.
‘a real estate bubble, such as formed on the U.S. housing market, would have been “impossible” in a system of “Islamic banking.”’
It would have been impossible in a free market, too (if such a thing had been allowed to exist). No, it took a government trying to engineer social change from the top to cause it…
…when will they ever learn…
If the Sharia law model for economics is so great then why are so many islamic nations poorer than dirt?
Praising that which is not praiseworthy is all the rage these days.
Exactly my point.
“The entire activity of a practicing Muslim, including economic activity, is based in his faith. From this there follows a responsibility before God, which is expressed in various principles of action. Financial transactions that are detrimental to human beings, as well as highly speculative risks, are rejected in Islam.” Sure and Muslims never invest in guns and ammo either. What a load of crap.
So if you are going to follow Islamic law then you will enslave your enemies with an onerous tax instead of interest? Yes. Is the author saying the German economy is Satanic? The God of Islam is not the God of Christians and Jews (Jehovah, The Lord, I AM) but who has been known as the god of this world, Satan. Is it being suggested here that both German and Muslim economies follow satanic rules for finance? Is it being said if we would just follow Satan we wouldn’t be in this mess? Anybody? German and Muslim counterparts also co-operated in World War II regarding the Jews.
Stop the lies Germany before you repeat the dreaded history.
Let’s not forget that an unemployment rate in Germany of 10% is considered normal. They have crazy labor regulations like once hired you can’t be fired. So employers are very careful to hire. And, they have an export driven economy subsidized by the government. I say pull our troops out of Europe and let them experience what a 20% of budget military defense cost would do to their economies.
Yes, take home the troops. There is no purpose for them in Europe. And let our troops come home. Who needs an army now?
“El-Mogaddedi explained further that the “prohibition o financial interest is one of the central pillars of Islamic banking”
Rubbish. The profit is lumped in with the principal.
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20101202-31531.html
Germans less tolerant of Islam than neighbours, study finds
“According to weekly Die Zeit, which reported on an advance version of the study on Thursday, four out of 10 Germans in the former west of the country and 50 percent in the former east feel threatened by foreign cultures.
“Fewer than 5 percent of Germans, compared with more than 20 percent of Danes, French and Dutch consider Islam to be a tolerant religion, according to the study.”
When you import Muslims, sharia will follow and it’s not going to stop at commercial law.
Mir ist schlecht.
Is this suck-up to sharia finance simple ignorance or an attempt to take advantage of petro-wealth? “Islamic values” didn’t prevent the collapse of BCCI, or the financial melt-down in Dubai last year (they had to be rescued by Abu Dhabi). And those same “values” haven’t deterred Muslims from engaging in – and being arrested for – mortgage fraud in the US.
The financial melt-down in the US was not due to the free market, but rather to a speculative free-for-all only made possible by government meddling in the mortgage market, including those government backed securities. Israel has a free market system too, but did not experience such a collapse. Why? Because there was no sub-prime mortgage lending, and little speculation in derivatives.
Let’s never forget that “sharia finance” requires the approval of a religious authority, which brings fundamentalist Islam to the heart of one’s financial transactions.
“Let’s never forget that “sharia finance” requires the approval of a religious authority, which brings fundamentalist Islam to the heart of one’s financial transactions.
That would be the sharia judge – definitely not a job Infidels are allowed to hold.
@Zaza The number of people who cannot help themselves is very small. When govn gets involved in `helping` people that number continues to grow and grow
The idea was that the state steps in to help orphans, disabled people and low paid workers who cannot afford health insurance. Thats it.
Erhardt never was for a state-run single payer health care for 90% of all citizens with no opting out. He warned of state-run social security.
As long as Erhard called the shots in german economic policies, the economy exploded. A war-torn country, universally despised, in 1947 many people were on the edge of starvation, became the economic powerhouse in Europe. Within 5 years.
Mass unemployment and state deficits set in in the late ´60s when the left took over political power.
Right. Economy has always cooperated with the Christian Democrats, how “Christian” they ever may be. And when the tables turn, many companies turn the ecos down low in order to drain out social democratic governments.
I guess the German women better start buying “burkas” and how can a German give up his sausage and pork and sauerkraut? Once you sign with satan “sharia” you have given up your freedom of choice that our Creator has given to all of us freely! Christians be weary, because you will be persecuted and killed for believing in Jesus Christ. Jesus told us that this would happen at the start of sorrows. Ask yourself why are the muslims so afraid of the “GOD” of Israel and “JESUS”! Islam can not mix with any other religion and by sharia it has to rule supreme by an inman not “GOD”!
Muslim food is a lot healthier than pork and sausages. My own experience.
And it is in the Bible not to eat pork!
I read an analysis of a place where Sharia loans were possible, from regular banks who were providing a special service. Much noise about the evils of usury and charging interest (any interest, not excessive rates) from supporters of the idea. But the fees if converted into an interest rate would have been illegal, the borrowers paid more than double over what the loan have the cost if a market interest rate had been charged.