Islamic Divorce Denied In Maryland

The information below is an encouraging development that provides some anti-dhimmitudinal satisfaction. Nevertheless, the case may not have larger significance in the greater counter-jihad.

Excerpt from the May 7, 2008 edition of the Baltimore Sun:

Saying "I divorce thee" three times, as men in Muslim countries have been able to do for centuries when leaving their wives, is not enough if you're a resident of Maryland, the state's highest court ruled yesterday.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeals rejected a Pakistani man's argument that his invocation of the Islamic 'talaq', under which a marriage is dissolved simply by the husband's say-so, allowed him to part with his wife of more than 20 years and deny her a share of his $2 million estate.

The justices affirmed a lower court's decision overturning a divorce decree obtained in Pakistan by Irfan Aleem, a World Bank economist who moved from London to Maryland with his wife, Farah Aleem, in 1985. ...

Irfan Aleem had lived for nearly twenty years at the top echelons of the bankings in the West. But when his wife filed for divorce in Montgomery County, Maryland, in 2003, Mr. Aleem decided to pursue a shari'a avenue to limit the cost of the settlement terms:

But before the legal process could be completed - and without telling his wife - Aleem went to the Pakistani Embassy in Washington and invoked the 'talaq', in effect attempting to turn jurisdiction of the case over to a Pakistani court that later granted him a divorce.

The Maryland Court of Appeals nullified his Aleem's plan, although

Muneer Fareed, secretary-general of the Islamic Society of North America, said that if Aleem had traveled to Pakistan and invoked his talaq there, it might have been recognized in a U.S. court under the concept of comity, under which nations accept the premise of a law in another country "whether or not we agree with the law or its spirit."

Read the entire article. Additional information about the case is here and here.

The above small victory for anti-dhimmitude, apparently achieved because Irfan Aleem didn't physically travel to Pakistan to invoke 'talaq', is encouraging. But, at the same time, another form of shari'a law — shari'a banking — continues to gain ground within Western nations.

From this source, an article entitled "The Silent Jihad Against the West" (Hat-tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance):

Islamic Sharia banking is coming to the United States and other western nations, thanks to global banks such as Citigroup, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Great Britain is now pledging to become the Islamic banking center of the world. Clearly the headlong rush by all global banks to enter the world of Islamic banking is well underway. Why do western banks seek to participate in Sharia banking; because it gives them a chance to enter the Islamic banking industry which has over $1.5 trillion available today and is growing at a steady and explosive rate of over 15% per year.

The implications for the west, and especially for the United States, are staggeringly destructive. Islamic banking working through global banks is doing for Islam what it could never do on its own: giving legitimacy to Sharia law and infiltrating it into the fabric of western society.

For those not familiar with Sharia Banking; it is a system which creates and sells services and products that are in strict accordance with Sharia law. Sometimes it is referred to in the Islamic culture as "Sharia finance". It dictates how the practices of banking, investment, bonds, loans, brokerage, etc, are to be conducted.
To insure compliance and to become "Sharia banking" compliant, banks must hire Sharia experts to review and approve each product and practice of the bank....There is a shortage of such Sharia experts so there is competition among banks to find such experts to sit on their boards of directors. By having an "expert" involved in banking decisions, this provides the legitimacy to each banking decision because it is made at the director rather management level. However, most of these Sharia experts" are from the radical Wahhabi school of Islam in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, and they hold views diametrically opposed to the basic values of Western civilization.

Read the entire article.

For current developments in shari'a banking, please visit Shariah Finance Watch.

[Cross-posted to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS and at Always On Watch]