Gulf Banks, Investors Plan $3 Billion Islamic Bank

by John Irish (Reuters)

Gulf banks and individual investors are planning to set up a $3 billion Islamic investment bank and an Islamic stock exchange in Bahrain by 2009, the chief executive of Albaraka Banking Group BARKA.BH said.

"It will be the largest bank in the region for the issuance of sukuk and will create a secondary market for sukuk," Adnan Yousif told Reuters on Wednesday. Sukuk are bonds that comply with Islam’s ban on interest.

Posted on: 03/28/08

Saudi King Proposes Inter-Faith Talks with Christians, Jews

by Mariam Al Hakeem (Gulf News)

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz has proposed inter-faith talks between Muslims, Christians and Jews in a bid to achieve peaceful coexistence as well as to contain a potential threat of family disintegration.

"We have lost sincerity, morals, fidelity and attachment to our religions and to humanity," the Saudi Press Agency quoted the king as saying. He deplored "the disintegration of the family and the rise of atheism in the world - a frightening phenomenon that all religions must confront and vanquish."

Posted on: 03/28/08

Arabs Agree to Relaunch Middle East Peace Plan

by Gulf Times

Arab foreign ministers yesterday agreed to relaunch the Arab peace initiative in its current form, despite earlier suggestions by the Syrian minister that the initiative could be rethought.

“We agreed on maintaining the Arab peace initiative and there is no intention on the ministers’ part to amend it,” Mohamed Sobeih, Arab League assistant secretary general for Palestinian affairs, told reporters. “It was also agreed that the initiative will be relaunched to the international community in order to stress Arab concern for finding a solution to the Arab Israeli conflict,” Sobeih said.

Posted on: 03/28/08

Saudis Train Imams in Centrism, Moderation

by United Press International

The Saudi government is launching a program to retrain 40,000 Islamic clerics in a "culture of dialogue … centrism and moderation," reports as-Sharq al-Awsat.

The re-training is the latest element of a plan by Saudi authorities, under pressure from the United States and other Western allies, to rein in religious extremism and intolerance in the desert kingdom, especially in the nation’s mosques, which have been accused of aiding in the recruitment of young men for terrorist violence.

Posted on: 03/28/08

Opening the Door to Change

“Abdullah is indeed using the notion of ‘common values’ to advance a very particular agenda: He calls it ‘respect among the religions.’ … the uninformed reader might think that sounds wonderful. But we have already seen on many occasions that Islamic law is reciprocity-impaired when it comes to respect. It is not ‘respect’ in the general sense; rather, Islam is to be respected, and will deal with other faiths according to what it believes is the divinely-ordained order of things.”
–Jihad Watch, March 25, 2008

VS.

"I don’t care who you put in the room—the fact they’re having the conversation can only help. It’s a courageous thing for the king to do. One should not expect Utopia, but it’s a start to have an open and free dialogue in a country with a reputation for religious oppression.”
–Michael Cromartie, chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; adviser, Christianity Today, March 25, 2008