President Maithripala Sirisena has called for explanation from the Secretary of the Ministry of National Policy and Economic Affairs M. I. M. Rafeek as to whether the Sharia banking practice is been introduced to the country by following the respective laws and regulations of Sri Lanka.
Sirisena’s Additional Secretary, S. T. Kodikara, in a letter addressed to Rafeek has called for explanation within two weeks on the matter. Incidentally, the National Policy and Economic Affairs portfolio is held by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The letter to Rafeek comes, amidst reports that the government is looking at introducing a new regulation to facilitate Sharia banking practices in the country, so it could obtain finance from Saudi Arabia to get out of the current debt ridden situation.
The letter to Rafeek was sent after the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Chief Executive Officer Dilanthe Withanage wrote to Sirisena claiming that the Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran had gone against an earlier assurance and was going to introduce the Sharia banking practice in the country, which, according to Withanage would bring in social and religious disparity among communities living in Sri Lanka.
Withanage in his letter said, “Due to the failure of the leaders, and specially for a country where the majority is not Muslims, to enforce the Islamic Sharia Law in secret is cause for concern. Further, the Parliament’s silence on this matter is also a dangerous precedent. Therefore, I call on you take look into this matter.”
In a separate letter to Mahendran, Withanage said that this move was completely unacceptable with catastrophic consequences which will cause an irreparable damage to social cohesion and integration of different communities into mainstream society.
Withanage added that Sri Lanka must not sell its national identity to Saudi Arabia for US$ 1 Billion. ( By Munza Mushtaq © Colombo Telegraph )
Barus / March 8, 2016
Dear President,
There are NO Sharia compliant banks in Sri Lanka. The so-called Sharia banks in this country are fleecing the naive muslim community by playing with the terminology.
INTEREST in Conventional banking is called as PROFIT in SRI-LANKAN style Sharia Banks.
If true Sharia Banking were to be introduced in this country, most of the economic problems in this country could be sorted out.
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SJ / March 8, 2016
May I know how many countries have solved their economic problems through introducing “true Sharia Banking”.
Like the Catholic Church at the dawn of capitalist banking, Islamic purists (I will not call them fundamentalists) are hostile to loan with interest.
The catholic church eventually yielded. Islamic banking seems a way to circumvent the issue.
The only way to honourably resolve the problem is to put an end to capitalism– possible, but not easy.
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Marwan / March 8, 2016
Halal form of food for Muslims was attacked and bloated profits were flaunted, which were even claimed to be used to fund terrorist outfits throughout the Muslim world. This became the platform on which these bigots swarmed to gallantly ‘expose’ their so called scoop. But it fell flat since Halal still exists and we Muslims only need to verify any label or any item through the internet, or just a phone call away, whilst their struggle to completely do away with ‘Halal’ products has failed.
Now these jobless BBS bigots are intently monitoring everything happening out there in connection with Islam and Muslims, with a view to exposing their habits, lifestyles or activities as being harmful and detrimental to the well being of our country. It is within along those lines that this loan to be given by S.Arabia. It is based on Sharia financing, and this is what is being brought into question. They don’t want Sharia approved money to be circulating around and getting mixed into the country’s economy. You be the judge.
What they would rather have is illegal money earned from sale gold and personal jewellery confiscated from the poor people of the North, money earned from sale of drugs, illegal ships and weaponry, money earned as taxes from sale of liquor and cigarettes which destroys peoples lives, money laundering converting black money into white, interest earned, taxes on gambling, foreign employment taxes earned from migrant female workers, I can go on and on. I mean how can the country prosper when the money being pulled into the economy comes from ill-gotten means? And they are trying to block a truly legitimate source of income, money earned from naturally occurring oil production.
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openmind / March 8, 2016
Illegal drugs….weaponry …..cigarettes….bogus documents …bribery…we know who are behind these.they (this ignorant mad set) are a menace to this whole world
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Shantha / March 8, 2016
It will be surprising if these saffron robed goons even knew what Sharia law is. They are just mouthing words and following the instructions of anti Muslim elements, like mindless robots. It is a shame MS is taking this up so publicly, and making a fuss about it. If he himself is ignorant of this system, and wanted to investigate, he should have privately done so. This is yet another negative action putting Muslims in a bad light and it is another effort by BBS to spread rumors against the minority.
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arjuna / March 8, 2016
and your Prophet said , charge interest from non Muslims an give it to Muslims , breed like rats and take over the country, produce and deal drugs to non Muslims, marry 4 wives and breed , lie to non Muslims to get the benefits for Muslims , on and on..
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MOHAMED MARZOOK / March 8, 2016
Oh Arjuna! What a crack. Should even ignorance or idiocracy have limits. Cannot there be some sensible contribution to make the discussion useful.
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Marwan / March 8, 2016
Arjuna, you have an incurable phobia stemming from Islam. People like you are a dying breed and very soon will become extinct. It is not about Muslims breeding like rats, but it is people like you going virile, and your women becoming infertile. See the PEW report link below. So take care, you and your clan may me on your last legs.
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
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Seema / March 9, 2016
It must be a sad world living in ignorance about a religion, and spewing hatred for a people.
If you are capable of opening your mind, you will see Christians dropping bombs over Muslim nations killing thousands, Jews occupying territories, stealing lands, and killing civilians, and Buddhists in Myanmar killing innocent minorities.
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Arthur / March 12, 2016
Why not add…………”Buddhists killing Hindus in Srilanka….”.You conveniently forgot about that.More than 120,000 Tamils were massacred by Sinhala Buddhist security forces.This far exceeds any number killed anywhere in the world in recent history.
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Plato. / March 8, 2016
Native.
I saw your query just now.
National Identity,in the context that the BBS has used the term,envelopes those who bear similarities to your pseudonym.
After all,the BBS is holding a brief for the ancient as well as the Modern.
For once they have been generous!
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janaka / March 8, 2016
Evidence of a civilized muslim country in the last 2000 years?
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Web / March 8, 2016
Islam is less than 1500 years buddy
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Rubert / March 8, 2016
OK, 1500 then..
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Goraka / March 8, 2016
Evidence? – you are NOT wearing amudae and women not walking naked!
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sekara / March 8, 2016
In fairness, it was the Islamic world that dragged Europe into the modern age.
On the other hand, I do not think that any religion civilizes a people. A religion is the product of a degree of civilization and sums up the emergent moral and ethical values of an age.
Much is done in the name of religion. But religion has only been a facade for both good and evil.
The Orientals achieved much without giving credit to religion.
They relied more on human wisdom through the ages than divine revelation of any kind.
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take / March 10, 2016
“In fairness, it was the Islamic world that dragged Europe into the modern age.”
it’s buccaneering not racketeering that placed humanity in todays world. religion is all about emotions; morals of cultures.
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Marwan / March 8, 2016
The Islamic calendar itself starts only 1436 years ago after the Prophet’s 1st Hijra, (immigration) from Mecca to Medina in Saudi Arabia. Civilized Muslim country in the world? Hm… Well, you can take your pick. Islam is the dominant religion in the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and some parts of Asia. Large communities of Muslims are also found in China, the Balkans, India, and Russia. Other parts of the world host large Muslim migrant communities; in Western Europe, for instance, Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity, where it represents 6% of the total world population.
According to the Pew Research Center in 2010, there were 50 Muslim-majority countries. Around 62% of the world’s Muslims live in South and Southeast Asia, with over 1 billion adherents. The largest Muslim population in one single country is in Indonesia, a nation home to 12.7% of the world’s Muslims, followed by Pakistan (11.0%), India (10.9%), and Bangladesh (9.2%). About 20% of Muslims live in Arab countries. In the Middle East, the non-Arab countries of Turkey and Iran are the largest Muslim-majority countries; in Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have the most populous Muslim communities. The study also found more Muslims in the United Kingdom than in Lebanon, and more in China than in Syria.
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openmind / March 8, 2016
amude when they work in the field. SL Women were never naked. Learn history.Covering top to bottom does not say they are not loosening it when the time comes. Pl be vigilant.
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Isreal Lover / March 9, 2016
Also muslims have the lowest IQ. I have hard time thinking, what has the muzlims invented or helped society in anyway? If there any, they are tiny minority 0.01% and the so called muzlim scientific age were stolen from the persians/parsi. Everywhere you go muzlims are always causing troubles. In europe, they have the highest crime rate and rape rate also. In America, you have the california shootings. Etc. I dont hate muzlims, i have a lot of muzlims friends, they are wonderful people and they all agree with me. Not all muzlims are terroirst but all terrorist are muzlims. Dont deny it.
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Marwan / March 9, 2016
To openmind, Isreal lover, Rubert and Web. There is a lot that can be deduced by your writing. Unstable mentality, prejudged and prejudiced mind, unfair and unwarranted bias against Muslims, not for any genuine concern about their under achievements but purely as contempt for who they are as Muslims. I will attempt to put the record straight by highlighting their achievements, but you have already prejudged it by mentioning that most have been stolen from others, thus leaving your backdoor open to escape when cornered. We understand the games people play, we have seen it happen before.
Muslims have actually made enormous contributions to civilization, perhaps due to the heavy emphasis that Islam places on gaining knowledge. People who forget or blatantly ignore major trends or events in world history can be said to suffer from “historical amnesia”. The idea that Muslims are backward and that their religion, Islam, is not conducive to change or progress is only but a myth. To keep it short, I refer you to one (out of many available online) website from which you can glean a general understanding of what Muslims have achieved and gifted to society over the centuries, and I would like to challenge what your community has achieved in comparison.
http://www.islamweb.net/en/article/134284/
California shooting was nothing but a set up to frame Muslims as bad people. But it backfired since it didn’t create the desired impact which was to rile against Muslims living in the US. They were only 2 individuals (husband and wife) caught up in a criminal offense, which had nothing to do with the religion of Islam, except they happened to be Muslims acting on their own accord.
The refugee crisis in Europe was caused by many Christian countries bombing the hell out of those Muslim countries Syria, Iraq and Libya. First it was NATO, then Britain, France, Germany, US, Brazil and Russia all routinely dropped bombs on their heads trying to destroy the Muslim population, and are totally responsible for the crisis that they themselves created. Don’t blame the refugees. They are only innocent victims of those machinations.
There are more Muslims living in the world today than Communists living during their times. So invariable every crime would have to been committed by a Muslim. Earlier it used to be the commies who were taken to the cleaners. When a crime is committed by a Cristian or a Jew, it hardly gets the desired attention by the zionist controlled western Media. But if it is committed by a Muslim, it is prejudged and even his name is published. This happens even in our own country. This is common knowledge now. This is why you hear of so much crimes committed by Muslims.
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xlntgson / March 8, 2016
Theocracy apart the kingdom’s loan is a soft loan if defaulted more such loans won’t come what happened to Greece won’t happen here initially $1 bn which is a unit to petro $ if this concept is successful within the nation the cycle is: mortgage defaulted unredeemed auction, the debt couldn’t be recovered, under value, depreciation, even after reshedule bank take over, court, case, liquidity, foreclosure etc. a mere cycle, people die loanees, banks open branches all over. To whom hypothecate?
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Atheist / March 9, 2016
So the Caliphate is going to make it to sri lanka? it has already started in europe.
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Wera / March 9, 2016
Saudi Arabia is the sickest cruelest nation on earth. Their money is also fast drying up. The royal family is so big that they gobble up a large chunk of the wealth of the nation. Wahabi islam is equivalent to the Nazi ideology in its hatred toward non adherants. Therefore please do not go begging to these people. One would think that the manderins of the finance ministry would have more common sense than this.
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Gobba / March 9, 2016
Yeah dont go begging to them, but send your women and men to earn their Petro dollars !!!!!!
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Marwan / March 9, 2016
Wera, as Arabs and members of the Royal household, they have every right to govern their land the way they please. No one can dictate terms to them. It is we who need their money to shore up our debt crisis, then it is we who must fall in line and comply with their requirements. If we don’t, then we need to move on, and go find someone else to finance us. Criticizing them for who they are and how they govern their country is simply vulgar, to say the least. Although they are Arabs, they are of one Ummath, our brothers-in-Islam from the land of our Prophet, and we need to maintain that cordiality, friendship and respect between our two peoples and nations. They have helped SL many times in times of crisis, without the usual pomp and fan-fare and media blitz that usually follow, expecting nothing in return. Even in Rizana Nafeek’s case, the King himself offered the ‘blood’ money (to save her from the chopping block) to the victim’s parents Saudi citizens, but when they refused to accept it, there was nothing even he could do to change the Court’s verdict.
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Wera / March 10, 2016
You cannot respect a country that is explicitly funding ISIS, bombing Yemen into the stone age, Carrying out an all out assault on their own Shia moslems while funding fundamentalism that breeds terror and violence all over the world. We should not be sending our women to work in this wretched place either. If I am vulgar for calling these fellows out then you have no hope.
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Rajash / March 9, 2016
interest rates in Europe, Japan are set at negatives USA and other countries will follow suit.
Sharia Rates, so there is Sharia banking through the back door
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Shogun / March 10, 2016
Dear Wera
Islam is a backward and antiquated idiology – it is not a religion. It is based on the worship of a morally corrupt misogynistic pedeophile who endorses the rape of children and woman of other faiths. Your laws are backwards and you condone the stoning of innocent woman and children, your religion cannot tolerate criticism.
There are a vast majority of people within islam who are inbred – marrying second cousins
But yet we we are being ridiculed, screamed at and called racists, islamaphobes and bigots for trying to defend equal rights and freedom from percussion for women (regardless of race or religion).
Dear Wera where do you stand on womans rights
I would like to challenge you my dear Were – please answer the following questions
s Mohamed the supreme example of a human being?
2. Does the Qur’an command muslims to ‘obey Allah and the messenger?’
3. Do you follow the example of Mohamed?
4. Are you a true muslim if you reject the example of Mohamed and disobey the Qur’an?
5. Was Mohamed right to sexually abuse children, remember he married a 6 year old and consummated it when she was just 9!? Please don’t insult our intelligence by saying it was culturally appropriate. Was the prophet right or wrong?
6. Do you reject the example of the prophet or condone/excuse it?
7. Let’s compare Jesus and Mohamed. Jesus was peaceful, Mohamed became increasingly violent.
7a Jesus is mentioned more times than Mohamed in the Qu’ran this must make Jesus more powerful
8. Let’s discuss how the violence in the Bible was descriptive, it was limited to a time and place, describing historic events. Whereas the violence in the Qur’an is prescriptive – open commands to all muslims, not limited to time or place. Does this make you, or ISIS, true muslims?
9. Was Mohamed correct about gays being stoned, thrown off buildings or beheaded – or was he wrong?
10. Do you reject the verses in the Qur’an that explicitly call for muslims to strike at the necks of unbelievers and cut off their fingertips? Did Allah get that wrong?
11. Is a true muslim meant to take the Qur’an literally? Are they able to pick and choose the bits they like? Can a muslim actually determine what Allah or Mohamed got right or wrong?
12. Is Allah ever wrong?
13. Was Mohamed ever wrong?
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Shogun / March 10, 2016
Dear Mr Marwan
Islam is a backward and antiquated idiology – it is not a religion. It is based on the worship of a morally corrupt misogynistic pedeophile who endorses the rape of children and woman of other faiths. Your laws are backwards and you condone the stoning of innocent woman and children, your religion cannot tolerate criticism.
There are a vast majority of people within islam who are inbred – marrying second cousins
But yet we we are being ridiculed, screamed at and called racists, islamaphobes and bigots for trying to defend equal rights and freedom from percussion for women (regardless of race or religion).
Dear Wera where do you stand on womans rights
I would like to challenge you my dear Were – please answer the following questions
s Mohamed the supreme example of a human being?
2. Does the Qur’an command muslims to ‘obey Allah and the messenger?’
3. Do you follow the example of Mohamed?
4. Are you a true muslim if you reject the example of Mohamed and disobey the Qur’an?
5. Was Mohamed right to sexually abuse children, remember he married a 6 year old and consummated it when she was just 9!? Please don’t insult our intelligence by saying it was culturally appropriate. Was the prophet right or wrong?
6. Do you reject the example of the prophet or condone/excuse it?
7. Let’s compare Jesus and Mohamed. Jesus was peaceful, Mohamed became increasingly violent.
7a Jesus is mentioned more times than Mohamed in the Qu’ran this must make Jesus more powerful
8. Let’s discuss how the violence in the Bible was descriptive, it was limited to a time and place, describing historic events. Whereas the violence in the Qur’an is prescriptive – open commands to all muslims, not limited to time or place. Does this make you, or ISIS, true muslims?
9. Was Mohamed correct about gays being stoned, thrown off buildings or beheaded – or was he wrong?
10. Do you reject the verses in the Qur’an that explicitly call for muslims to strike at the necks of unbelievers and cut off their fingertips? Did Allah get that wrong?
11. Is a true muslim meant to take the Qur’an literally? Are they able to pick and choose the bits they like? Can a muslim actually determine what Allah or Mohamed got right or wrong?
12. Is Allah ever wrong?
13. Was Mohamed ever wrong?
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Shogun / March 10, 2016
Dear ALL Muslims
Islam is a backward and antiquated idiology – it is not a religion. It is based on the worship of a morally corrupt misogynistic pedeophile who endorses the rape of children and woman of other faiths. Your laws are backwards and you condone the stoning of innocent woman and children, your religion cannot tolerate criticism.
There are a vast majority of people within islam who are inbred – marrying second cousins
But yet we we are being ridiculed, screamed at and called racists, islamaphobes and bigots for trying to defend equal rights and freedom from percussion for women (regardless of race or religion).
Dear Wera where do you stand on womans rights
I would like to challenge you my dear Were – please answer the following questions
s Mohamed the supreme example of a human being?
2. Does the Qur’an command muslims to ‘obey Allah and the messenger?’
3. Do you follow the example of Mohamed?
4. Are you a true muslim if you reject the example of Mohamed and disobey the Qur’an?
5. Was Mohamed right to sexually abuse children, remember he married a 6 year old and consummated it when she was just 9!? Please don’t insult our intelligence by saying it was culturally appropriate. Was the prophet right or wrong?
6. Do you reject the example of the prophet or condone/excuse it?
7. Let’s compare Jesus and Mohamed. Jesus was peaceful, Mohamed became increasingly violent.
7a Jesus is mentioned more times than Mohamed in the Qu’ran this must make Jesus more powerful
8. Let’s discuss how the violence in the Bible was descriptive, it was limited to a time and place, describing historic events. Whereas the violence in the Qur’an is prescriptive – open commands to all muslims, not limited to time or place. Does this make you, or ISIS, true muslims?
9. Was Mohamed correct about gays being stoned, thrown off buildings or beheaded – or was he wrong?
10. Do you reject the verses in the Qur’an that explicitly call for muslims to strike at the necks of unbelievers and cut off their fingertips? Did Allah get that wrong?
11. Is a true muslim meant to take the Qur’an literally? Are they able to pick and choose the bits they like? Can a muslim actually determine what Allah or Mohamed got right or wrong?
12. Is Allah ever wrong?
13. Was Mohamed ever wrong?
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