Al Rayan Bank: Clients include ‘terror’ group and Abu Hamza’s former mosque

From the Times, and the Daily Mail 

Britain’s oldest and largest Islamic bank controlled by the Qatari state is reportedly working with organisations linked to Islamists. Al Rayan, which has branches in London’s Knightsbridge opposite Harrod’s, has been found to provide services to a US-banned charity associated with terrorism, and a mosque with links to Hamas, according to The Times.   

The bank’s chief executive, Sultan Choudhury, was also the unpaid director of a religious institute who had alumni and speakers that openly advocated the death penalty for adultery and child marriage, according to the publication. 

The bank’s customers include Peace TV’s funding arm, which said gay people are worse than pigs and magicians should be executed. Based in Dubai, it showed programmes which breached Ofcom regulations on inciting crime, hate speech and abuse and was based on Islamic teachings.

Accounts were also held by Hhugs, which is a notorious group that funds terrorists’ families, including Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, an Islamic State fighter whose father Adel is a convicted terrorist linked to Osama Bin Laden. The stated aim of Helping Households Under Great Stress is to support the families of Muslims accused of terrorism offences.Hhugs’ accounts with HSBC and Lloyds TSB were closed in 2007 and 2012 respectively. HSBC said the “ethical and moral values” of Hhugs did not match its own.

Also INTERPAL – A Palestinian aid charity identified in a 2015 government review as part of the British infrastructure of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. 

Ibrahim Hewitt, its chairman, has argued that adulterers should be stoned to death, that men are by nature the leaders of women and that homosexuality is a perverted and depraved practice that “makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, depriving them of decent taste [and] morals”. Jeremy Corbyn … has described Mr Hewitt as a “very good friend”,

ISLAMIC FORUM TRUST – Charitable arm of the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), a non-violent but radical Islamist organisation, based at the East London Mosque complex, that seeks to change “the very infrastructure of [western] society, its institutions, its culture and its creed … from ignorance to Islam”. IFE’s complaint, after a Channel 4 film described it as extremist and fundamentalist, was rejected by Ofcom, which ruled that those terms were “supported by recorded clips or actual quotes”. Since 2015 IFE has rebranded itself as the Muslim Community Association,

ISLAMIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL – Charity led by Zakir Naik, whose primary function is to fund his personal pulpit, the satellite channel Peace TV. Its broadcasts can be viewed in Britain despite Dr Naik having been banned from the country since 2010.

THE DAWAH PROJECT – Charity whose stated aims include the promotion of dialogue and “understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims in the UK”, but also “to raise finance to fund the running of the Islam Channel”, which claims to have a million daily viewers and is Britain’s most watched Muslim satellite TV channel. A 2010 report by the counterextremism Quilliam Foundation, which monitored the channel’s output over three months, found that it sowed suspicion against non-Muslims and promoted intolerance, sectarianism, extremism, antisemitism and backward attitudes towards women.

Ofcom is investigating whether the channel breached its rules on hate speech and the derogatory treatment of groups or religions.

Al Rayan, Britain’s oldest and largest Islamic bank, has its headquarters in Birmingham and provides Sharia-compliant retail banking services to more than 85,000 customers. IThe bank’s controlling shareholders are institutions of the Qatari state. One of its directors, Adel Mustafawi, is the vice-chairman of the French football club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG).