At Harvard, Elena Kagan introduced Sharia-compliant finance

Most major banks in the U.S. and Europe have established Shariah Compliant Funds, and they had almost $1 trillion under management by 2007 -- and likely more today.

At Harvard, Elena Kagan "proceeded to forge the law school's 'Islamic Finance Project."" It's purpose, according to McCarthy, was "to promote Shariah compliance in the U.S. financial sector."

Indeed, when Harvard President Larry Summers -- now in the Obama administration -- accepted a $20 million donation for the creation of a program of studies of Islam's history and Shariah Law, Kagan raised no objection. The donation came from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a billionaire investor whose contribution of $10 million to the Twin Towers fund was refused by New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani because bin Talal had blamed the 9-11 attack on American foreign policy. Harvard Law School now has three Saudi-funded institutions devoted to the study of Shariah.

Kagan, as a Supreme Court justice, will be required to rule frequently on possible applications of Shariah law in the United States. She has already noted that she welcomes "good ideas wherever they originate" and is open to applications of foreign law to the interpretation of U.S. statutes and common law. In fact, a lawsuit seeking to ban Shariah Compliance Funds in banks that accepted TARP money (as violating the First Amendment separation of church and state) is now making its way up to the Supreme Court. Kagan cannot be trusted to rule dispassionately on this case, nor can we rely on her to exclude Shariah law from American jurisprudence.

For this reason -- if for no other -- senators should vote no on her confirmation.

As dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan accepted money from Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is punishable by death

Capt. Pete Hegseth, who testified during the Kagan hearings today as a witness for the Republicans, told HUMAN EVENTS that Kagan in many ways reminds him of Barack Obama. Hegseth is chairman of the organization Vets for Freedom and is currently in graduate school at Harvard.

“In some sense, she’s very similar to President Obama -- very careful track record in elite institutions where everybody looks at her as credible and smart and a thinker,” Hegseth said. “[She] has been very careful not to talk too much about what she actually thinks things on really contentious [issues].”

Hegseth said it’s almost like she voted “present.”

But one red flag he’s noticed is her decision to keep the military from the Harvard campus recruiting office because the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy violates the school’s one of anti-discrimination. Hegseth said he’s been paying close attention to Kagan’s testimony over the past few days regarding the military recruitment issue and thought she glazed over her actions.

He told HUMAN EVENTS that he didn’t have any more confidence in Kagan as a Supreme Court justice after her testimony.

During his testimony, Hegseth detailed several of Kagan’s actions or non-actions that seem inconsistent with her decision to keep the military out of Harvard’s recruitment office because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He pointed out that Kagan welcomed to Harvard many congressman who voted for the law, and that the law school took money from Saudi Arabia, where being a homosexual is punishable by death.

“Rather than confront the Congressional source of the policy – or take a stand against a country that executes homosexuals – Ms. Kagan zeroed in on military recruiters for a policy they neither authored, nor emphasized,” Hegseth said in his testimony.

While banishing ROTC from Harvard, Kagan welcomed the Harvard Islamic Project in her first year as law school dean

What is not so well-known is Dean Kagan's contemporaneous approval of and promotion of a little-known but richly endowed Harvard Law School program called The Islamic Legal Studies Program. What does all this have to do with Elena Kagan and her principled stand on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell?" It has a lot to do with honesty, integrity, and Harvard's vaunted advocacy for human rights.

The Harvard Islamic Legal Studies Program was made part of Harvard Law School in 1991 with significant funding from distinctly undemocratic sources, mainly from the Gulf States. The program purports to be a research program "that seeks to advance knowledge and understanding of Islamic law." The program works closely with the Harvard Islamic Finance Project, which became an official part of the Law School in 2003, the same year Professor Kagan was awarded the title of Dean.

But is it strictly a "research program"? A few times a year, the directors of the Finance Program take groups of promising Law School and Harvard Business School students to the Middle East on junkets to learn the intricate and arcane practices of Sharia Compliant Finance. Many of these promising students go on to work for such banks and investment firms as the Kuwait Finance House, HSBC Amanah Bank, and the Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank. The intertwined programs, it would seem, go far beyond mere "research" projects. Shariah Finance, it should be noted, is the Islamic approach to investing, mortgage lending, and a host of other money-related practices. Along with its prohibitions on interest accrual and trading in commodities such as pork, alcohol, and gambling is an overarching negative view of homosexuality. Negative, that is, to the point of advocating violence against gays.

Whatever dim views one may hold on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the U.S. Military, the policy pales in comparison to the outright calls to violence enunciated by some of the Islamic world's most prestigious and powerful Shariah advisors.

Case in point: Meet Sheikh Muhammed Taqi Usmani, former appellate court judge in Pakistan, a Deobandi (one of the most extreme Pakistani schools of Islam, associated with the Pakistani Taliban)-trained jurist and chief Shariah advisor to the HSBC Amanah Bank, one of the world's largest and richest banks and one of the sponsors of Harvard's Islamic Finance Project. Among other delightful quotes from Sheikh Usmani:

For a non-Muslim state to have more pomp and glory than a Muslim state itself is an obstacle, therefore to shatter this grandeur is among the greater objectives of jihad (from Islam and Modernism)

Also from Usmani's book: "Killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay jizyah (subjugation tax) after they are humbled or overpowered."

Apparently, these kinds of medieval barbarities did not rise to the level of immorality embodied in the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.