Shari’ah Law Rips Pork From U.S. Fast-Food Menu

Here’s a claim that warrants closer scrutiny in light of recent events related to a Church’s Chicken franchisee in Baltimore: The demand for Islamic financial products has surged in recent years due largely to their transparent nature.

That claim stands as the lead paragraph of a news release issued out of Hong Kong (via PRWeb) by Zetland Financial Group today. It’s followed in the next paragraph by this one:

Islamic securities — known as “sukuk,” the Arabic name for a financial certificate — have gained universal acceptance as a feasible alternative to conventional financial products, and have the potential to develop as one of the most significant mechanisms to raise finance, Zetland reports on its website. (To read the rest of the Zetland news release, click here.)

What remains unexplained is how those behind the claim reconcile the claimed transparency of Islamic financial products with a recent real-world account of its application described in Todd Huston’s article that appeared in Shariah Finance Watch:

The Daily Record in Baltimore, Maryland, recently published a story by Brendan Kearney that oddly seems to present a conflict between a bank employing Islamic Shari’ah law with its American investments and some black American borrowers and painting it as a racist issue. Sadly, the real story, that of Islamic law being imposed on American investors, is sidelined in order to pursue the race card. (Full story reprinted at BlackEnterprise.com.)

As The Record reports, a black couple in Baltimore — I identify their race because it is pivotal to how The Record reports the story — had contracted with the Church’s Chicken restaurant chain to open a new outlet in Baltimore. Unfortunately for the entrepreneurial couple, as they were investing in their chicken outlet, Church’s Chicken was purchased by Crescent Capital Investments Inc., the US affiliate of the Bahrain-based First Islamic Investment Bank BSC. And, upon the restaurant chain’s purchase, these new Islamic corporate owners decided to institute Shari’ah laws upon their investments.

This caught the Beasleys new restaurant in a tough spot because pork products were on the morning breakfast menu for the Church’s Chicken chain. Because Shari’ah law principles had been imposed on the Beasleys’ new restaurant, they would be barred from serving their breakfast menu items, their corporate owners informed them. This barring from being able to serve their breakfast items, the couple maintains, contributed to the restaurant’s failure and their eventual bankruptcy. (Click here to read the rest of the article.

Brace yourself, folks. More news like this is sure to follow if Shari’ah law principles are allowed to be implemented alongside Islamic investments in the United States. The impact would be truly disastrous.

-- Bob McCarty Writes