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Sharia bank transactions not always halal: NU
Bagus BT Saragih and Muhammad Nafik , The Jakarta Post , Makassar
| Fri, 03/26/2010 9:38 AM | National
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) jurists concluded Thursday that not all sharia bank
transactions are halal despite the banks claiming to have adopted what they
call a “sharia system”.
The panel of 300 ruled that transactions were deemed haram when investors or
depositors did not know the calculation mechanism of profit-sharing percentages
when making deals with sharia banks.
“It will also be haram if sharia banks commit fraud with funds,” cleric
Cholil Nafis, who presided over the meeting of jurists during the NU national
leadership congress in Makassar, South Sulawesi .
The meeting to discuss various contemporary religious issues was attended by
sharia experts from all NU branches across Indonesia .
Cholil said the jurists agreed that making transactions with sharia banks in
the country was allowed under Islamic law only when customers are aware of the
profit-sharing calculation mechanism and financial audit outcome from the
banks.
“Transaction results are haram if a sharia bank cheats customers,” added
Cholil, who is a deputy chairman of NU’s contemporary religious issues
division.
The jurists argued that in reality all sharia banks in Indonesia had
not yet fully implemented the halal funds management under sharia law, and that
Islamic institutions lacked the ability to verify funds management by sharia
banks.
“It is still possible that the funds from sharia banks’ investors are
managed or invested in haram ways by banks,” Cholil said.
Depositors usually did not realize about the matter, he added, as the
initial process of the investment usually appeared halal.
“When a depositor first invests funds with a sharia bank, everything might
look fine and halal.
Problems may occur afterward, when the bank invests the funds in various
investment schemes,” he explained.
In Indonesia ,
each sharia bank implements a unique method of profit-sharing calculation,
making it harder for Muslim customers to determine whether their funds are
managed in halal ways.
As the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, Indonesia is,
potentially, sharia banking’s biggest market.
Data from Bank Indonesia
shows that there are currently about 1,500 sharia bank branches across the
country, lending Rp 326 billion (US$35.7 million) in for micro and small-scale
firms as of the end of 2008.
The panel also ruled that electronic trade transactions are haram unless
they are financially beneficial to all parties involved and the commodities
sold or services provided are proven fine.
Beside sharia banking issues, the same meeting also ruled that Islamic
marriages via electronic devices, including teleconference systems, were haram
because they did not meet all sharia requirements.
The NU jurists also deliberated other issues such as phone wiretapping, the
sharing of cemeteries between Muslims and non-Muslims, sea fishing and the
minimum age to marry.
On Thursday the conference also heard the accountability report of chairman
Hasyim Muzadi. All the 33 provincial chapters of NU unanimously accepted the
report.
Significant criticism was voiced by Yogyakarta and South
Sulawesi chapters, who lashed out at Hasyim for, among others,
failing to stay out of practical politics.
Hasyim will end his second five-year term as NU executive body chairman
during the conference and will now contest the top seat of its law-making body
at the same forum.
The congress will elect the new executive body chairman, a position for
which seven candidates are running, Masdar Farid Mas’udi, Salahuddin Wahid,
Said Agil Siradj, Ahmad Bagja, Slamet Effendi Yusuf, Ali Maschan Moesa and Ulil
Abshar-Abdalla.
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