How America is Reacting To Lowe’s Pulling Ads From All-American Muslim

Posted by:saadny | Posted on: December 19th, 2011 | 0 Comments

Earlier last week, Lowe’s pulled ads from the eight part TLC “All American Muslim” series after pressure from a right wing group Christian group known as Florida Family Association.

In the aftermath of this incident, consumers are sending social media shock waves through the Market and to the broader nation. Twitter, Facebook and prominent blogs have all erupted with messages constructively criticizing Lowe’s for their recent ads pullout. In a nation where pluralism and religious freedom are considered hallmarks, it is saddening to see corporations give into the bigotry which solely serves to eliminate the democratic ideals of what America was founded upon.

What prominent political leaders and entertainers are saying:

1. Rep. Chris Murphy of Connecticut criticized Lowe’s for “rubber-stamping basic foundational bigotry against a major American religious group” in a House floor speech.
2. “Lowe’s religious discrimination is the equivalent of a company asserting that it is pulling advertising from the Christian Broadcast Network’s 700 Club because the program somehow ‘riskily hides’ the agenda of Christian radicalized groups such as Aryan Nation,” Sen. Ted Lieu of California wrote. “That assertion would, of course, be utter nonsense and religious bigotry.”
3. “U endorse hate. U may be held accountable, we will promote a boycott if they don’t reinstate campaign and apologise,” Russell Simmons tweeted. Mr Simmons actually stepped up even more and decided to buy all the remaining ad spots available on All-American Muslim himself!

In the past few years, major retailers including Whole Foods, Best Buy and WalMart have acknowledged the Muslim market and its potential. This comes to no surprise, as the American Muslim market is confirmed to be highly affluent, educated and serving as productive members of society.

We’ve highlighted some key reasons why the American Muslim market presents a significant opportunity to brands.

3 Reasons Why Lowe’s (and others) Should Market to Muslims:

1. “Two-thirds of Muslim households make more than $50,000 a year and a quarter earn over $100,000. The national average is $42,000.” – The Economist.  With an estimated 7 million US Muslim consumers, an annual spending power of over $170 Billion in the US alone, and a growing population, companies should be vying for their attention, much less alienate and marginalize them.
2. American Muslims are the most racially diverse group surveyed in the United States. Forty percent of Muslims have a college degree, making them the second most highly educated religious group surveyed after Jews (61 percent), compared with 29 percent of Americans overall.” (source)
3. Vast majority of Muslim consumers would be loyal to a brand if it supports Muslim identity through promotions around religious celebrations.  Furthermore, “when faced with a brand that has offended Muslims, almost 99% of consumers said that they would stop using it, 65% doing so even if the available alternatives were not as good.” – (source: Ogilvy Noor)

It is still not too late for Lowe’s to try to win the hearts back of the American Muslim consumer. At the very least, they can issue a sincere apology, which they have yet to do. In the meanwhile, Muslim Ad Network will be deploying a campaign that taps into Muslim Ad Network’s extensive reach to encourage American Muslims to take constructive action to help Lowe’s remedy this PR fallout. Stay tuned for more details about our upcoming campaign.

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Testing a New Market: the Muslim-American Consumer

Posted by:Tabish | Posted on: January 6th, 2011 | 0 Comments

Our friends over at Illume Magazine have produced this great video segment on the Muslim-American Consumer and they highlight how Best Buy wished Happy Eid Al-Adha again last year.

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BestBuy wishes a Happy Eid to American Muslims

Posted by:Azeem | Posted on: November 15th, 2010 | 8 Comments

Click to Enlarge – BestBuy wishes American Muslims a happy Eid-al-Adha.

BestBuy is one of the pioneering corporations that is recognizing the potential of the Muslim Market. Despite drawing Negative attention in previous years BestBuy has remained committed to embracing diversity and including all segments of the greater community including American Muslims.

We are proud of their decision to include Muslims while making it clear that their goal was not to alienate anyone. That’s why this year’s circular also says Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza and Feliz Navidad.

Recently, at the 2010 American Muslim Consumer Conference, Ogilvy Noor, a branch of Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest advertising agencies, stated that most American Muslims are simply looking for brands to recognize them.

What do you think of BestBuy’s decision to run the Happy Eid al-Adha ad? Do you think this is a good way to reach American Muslim consumers? Feel free to leave your comments and thoughts below…

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Advertisers Seek to Speak to Muslim Consumers (New York Times)

Posted by:Serign | Posted on: August 11th, 2010 | 0 Comments

August 11, 2010 (Source)
Advertisers Seek to Speak to Muslim Consumers
By LIZ GOOCH

KUALA LUMPUR — Thick waves of hair cascade over a woman’s shoulder. She gives a flirtatious flick of her locks and tells viewers that they too can get such a luxurious mane — if they buy the shampoo she is holding up to the camera. That is the script for your standard shampoo commercial.

Cut to the television spot for Sunsilk’s Lively Clean & Fresh shampoo. Another young, smiling woman is the star, but there is not a strand of hair in sight. Her tresses are completely covered by a tudung, the head scarf worn by many Muslim women in Malaysia.

The pitch? Lively Clean & Fresh helps remove excess oil from the scalp and hair — a common problem among wearers of tudungs, according to Unilever, the manufacturer. The company says the product is the first shampoo to speak directly to the “lifestyle of a tudung wearer.”

For decades, many Western company failed to appreciate the unique needs of Muslim consumers, marketing experts say. Worse, some companies offended potential customers by not understanding religious sensitivities. But as the Islamic population has grown in size and affluence — there are now 1.57 billion Muslims worldwide — more multinationals are seeking to tap into the market.

Instead of simply importing products and advertising from the West, companies are increasingly developing marketing campaigns — and formulating products themselves — with Muslims firmly in sight.

“Islamic marketing,” some experts say, is the next wave in branding, and now, as the holy month of Ramadan begins, activity is surging.

“For the last few years, it’s been China and India,” said Paul Temporal, an associate fellow at the Said Business School at the University of Oxford. “The next big market is the Muslim market. There’s this huge group of people who have been relatively untapped in terms of what they want and need, and they represent a tremendous opportunity.”

John Goodman, Ogilvy & Mather’s regional director for South and Southeast Asia, is more blunt: “It’s like being in 1990 and telling people that China doesn’t matter. Twenty years ago you might have said that, but now you’re being foolish.”

With Muslim-majority countries spread from Southeast Asia to Africa, and Muslims speaking numerous languages and adhering to varying standards of dress and other customs, approaching the group as consumers can be complex. But as with all marketing exercises, experts say, rule No.1 is to avoid causing offense.

Nike committed a legendary error when it released a pair of athletic shoes in 1996 with a logo on the sole that some Muslims believed resembled the Arabic lettering for Allah. Given that Muslims consider the feet unclean, “producing shoes with the name of God on the soles of the feet is not a good idea,” said Mr. Goodman, who converted to Islam in 1999. “They recalled 800,000 pairs of shoes globally.”

Describing the Nike episode as a “wake-up call” for companies, Mr. Goodman said it had also been a turning point for Muslim advocates, who realized that “if they make a noise, companies would listen and change, that they had economic and social influence.”

Unilever says the Sunsilk Lively Clean & Fresh shampoo, which is sold in Malaysia and Singapore, was created for people who suffer from oily scalps after wearing any head covering, be it a baseball hat or head scarf. After company research showed that many women who wear the tudung complained of oily scalps, it introduced the television commercial aimed at them.

The ad begins with a young woman saying that now she can do what she wants because she no longer has to worry about itchiness, before she goes on to kick a goal in a coed soccer game.

Other companies are taking steps to reassure consumers that all of their products — not just food — are halal, or permissible under Islam, by having them officially certified.

Colgate-Palmolive, for instance, claims to be the first international company to have obtained halal certification in Malaysia for toothpaste and mouthwash products. Some mouthwashes may contain alcohol, which would be forbidden under halal guidelines.

Colgate’s products now bear the halal logo, which also is featured in the company’s television commercials.

The mobile phone industry has also started focusing on Muslim consumers, with the introduction of a number of applications, including religious calendars and Koran downloads.

Nokia made a concerted effort to appeal to Muslims starting in 2007, when it introduced a phone for the Middle East and North Africa markets that came loaded with a number of applications, including an Islamic Organizer with alarms for the five daily prayers, two Islamic e-books and an e-card application that lets people send SMS greeting cards for Ramadan. Starting this year, the company has been giving customers the choice of which applications they want, rather than loading them all on the phone.

Mr. Goodman, whose company recently completed a study of Muslim consumers in Malaysia, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and released an index benchmarking the appeal of certain brands to Muslims, said Nokia was rated favorably by Muslims. One Egyptian respondent said Nokia had “Islamic values” and offered products to suit the Egyptian consumer.

“Nokia is seen as being a very good corporate citizen and very sensitive to the local market,” Mr. Goodman said.

Muslim consumers are increasingly becoming a focus of research for the marketing industry and academics.

An international conference at Oxford in July on Islamic branding and marketing, which organizers said had been the first of its kind, attracted 200 people from Western and Muslim countries, as well as academics.

Mr. Temporal is leading a major research project on the topic at the business school, which has started offering courses for companies wanting to expand in the market.

Ogilvy & Mather recently established a new arm, Ogilvy Noor, which the company describes as “the world’s first bespoke Islamic branding practice.” Ogilvy Noor is led by employees in Muslim markets in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. (Noor means “light” in Arabic.)

The company has also introduced the Noor index, which rates the appeal of brands to Muslim consumers. The index was formulated on the basis of how consumers ranked more than 30 well-known brands for compliance with Shariah, or Islamic law.

Lipton tea, owned by Unilever, topped the list, followed by Nestlé.

Nestlé was one of the first multinationals to pursue the global halal market, worth an estimated $2.1 trillion annually. Eighty-five of the company’s 456 factories worldwide have been certified halal, said Peter Vogt, Nestlé’s managing director for Malaysia.

Surprisingly, respondents to the Ogilvy poll ranked Emirates — the upscale airline based in Dubai and considered one of the most successful brands to have come out of the Middle East — near the bottom of the list, 27th among 35.

Mr. Goodman attributed Emirates’ low standing in the ranking to the fact that the company had tried to position itself as a global, secular brand, through characteristics like a multiethnic work force.

“It also serves alcohol, which almost all airlines do, but this is not seen as being Shariah-compliant,” he said. “It’s a fantastic brand in many ways, but for Muslim consumers, it’s not seen as a particularly Muslim brand.”

Meanwhile, brands that originate in Muslim countries are beginning to use sophisticated marketing to challenge Western multinationals. Some of these home-grown brands are savvy about using religious images in their advertising. Olpers, a Pakistani milk brand introduced in 2006, has been seeking to compete with Nestlé. Its television commercials for Ramadan in 2008 and 2009, developed with JWT, mention the beverage only briefly at the start and end.

Most of the commercials’ time is devoted to showing Muslims in prayer at mosques; Muslims at work in countries including Turkey, Pakistan and Morocco; and Muslims doing good deeds like helping the elderly.

Ogilvy says the commercial aimed to “situate the modern Muslim in the context of the Ummah, or the global Muslim community, reminding them of their larger interconnectedness and giving them an enormous sense of belonging.” The commercial also emphasizes the ideas that “all are equal in the eyes of God” and “brotherhood is a crucial component of success” by equating the work of, say, a craftsman in Brunei and a scientist in Egypt.

The 2009 spot navigates between tradition and modernity by featuring Atif Aslam, a Pakistani pop singer, and Dawud Wharnsby, a Canadian songsmith who converted to Islam. “We have a message of peace for the earth,” they sing.

Such choices reflect research by Ogilvy showing that young Muslim consumers are different from their Western “Generation Y” counterparts in that they believe that by staying true to the core values of their religion, they are more likely to achieve success in the modern world.

Experts say multinational companies will increasingly need such insights as they expand in Muslim countries. With the market growing rapidly and consumers becoming more astute, Mr. Temporal and others say time is of the essence.

“The first-mover advantage is always there,” he said.
(Link to NY Times)

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HHRD and Muslim Ad Network Launch Awareness Campaign for Haiti

Posted by:admin | Posted on: April 12th, 2010 | 0 Comments

HHRD and Muslim Ad Network Launch Awareness Campaign for Haiti

Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD), a global relief organization responding to human sufferings in emergency and disastrous situations all over the world, has joined hands with Muslim Ad Network, the leading online advertising network focusing on Muslims, has launched a joint campaign to provide aid to the victims of the major earthquake that recently took place in Haiti.

HHRD is working with their team of medical professionals, local doctors and volunteers on the Medical Base Camps in Port-au-Prince. They have been treating patients everyday, travelling to remote areas where many have not had access to medical care since the earthquake. Being one of the first relief agencies to arrive in Port-au-Prince, they were able to assess what items would be essential for the Haitians and focused their efforts on gathering medical supplies, shelter arrangements, food and water. As a result, HHRD has launched their “Muslims for Haiti” website www.muslimsforhaiti.org with continuous updates from their representatives on the ground.

Muslim Ad Network, through its website publishers, can reach over 5 million Muslims in North America and their “Haiti Relief Campaign” for HHRD will help raise donations for this relief effort. The U.S. Muslim population is estimated to donate and raise over $20 million dollars through relief organizations such as HHRD, which plays a part in raising awareness, fund-raising, in addition to programs to help those in need. They were one of the first relief organizations on the ground after the disaster and immediately launched a $1.5 million appeal. HHRD has sponsored medical professionals from all around the world and setup a relief camp that is at the forefront of personal relief work in the area.
HHRD President noted that “Launching this humanitarian advertising campaign to preserve the dignity of vulnerable earthquake victims is in all circumstances a required duty for Muslims worldwide. The fact that Muslim Ad Network is supporting this fundamental Islamic tenant by providing discounted advertising for HHRD to raise awareness for Haitian donations is great. This type of support for charitable relief is unique and will help raise funds to heal the wounds of suffering people in Haiti regardless of religion, language or race. We are grateful for the support of American Muslims in one of the most impoverished and disaster ridden countries in the world.”
“Muslims in America feel for the helplessness and suffering of the Haitian earthquake victims and eager to fulfill their Islamic duty of social responsibility. We are pleased to be launching this outreach campaign. We believe it is our duty to provide support to the tragedy in Haiti,” said Ashar Shah, West Coast Regional Coordinator.

ABOUT MUSLIM AD NETWORK:
Muslim Ad Network™, headquartered in Los Angeles, California, helps businesses connect to the Muslim market on the internet and beyond. Muslim Ad Network is the leading digital media company servicing the Muslim community and includes some of the most well respected digital brands for the Muslim consumer. Flagship sites within the Muslim Ad Network™ such as Zabihah.com target the diverse interests within the Muslim culture. The network of sites offers its consumers complete access to fully-integrated, multi-platformed online news and entertainment portals, while offering advertisers the opportunity to directly reach the Muslim consumer. As a market leader in Muslim market advertising solutions, the Muslim Ad Network™ is dedicated to successfully acquire new customers for its clients. Muslim Ad Network™ offers marketing consulting, campaign management and customer education services tailored to bringing the buying power of Muslim American to its clients.

For more info, visit us at www.MuslimAdNetwork.com

ABOUT HHRD:
Helping Hand for Relief And Development is a global humanitarian relief and development organization responding to human sufferings in emergency and disastrous situations anywhere all over the world regardless race, gender, ethnicity, class, location, religion, color, cultural diversity and social background; with special focus in countries where the massive population living below the poverty line like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Kenya, Sudan and many others. We have also partners range from small community support groups to national alliances and international networks seeking education for all, justice and action against poverty, class and gender discrimination and natural calamity. Our work with the co-partners underlines the issues that emerge after any natural upheaval or affect poor and voiceless people.
In addition to our emergency relief efforts under natural or man made disasters areas, we also work on long term relief and development program like Livelihood, Economic Empowerment, Orphan and Widows Support Program and Skill Development Program.

We have a unique vision and direction. We don’t impose solutions, but work with communities over many years to strengthen their own efforts to throw off poverty. We constantly seek new solutions and ask ourselves how we can make the greatest impact with our resources. We make the most of our skills and abilities by working at many levels – local, national, regional and international. We believe in a helping hand, not a handout, to create a condition in which people actively participate in the development process.

To donate, visit www.MuslimsForHaiti.org

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Time Magazine: Halal: Buying Muslim

Posted by:admin | Posted on: May 15th, 2009 | 0 Comments

By CARLA POWER

Time was, buying Muslim meant avoiding pork and alcohol and getting your meat from a halal butcher, who slaughtered in accordance with Islamic principles. But the halal food market has exploded in the past decade and is now worth an estimated $632 billion annually, according to the Halal Journal, a Kuala Lumpur-based magazine. That’s about 16% of the entire global food industry. Throw in the fast-growing Islam-friendly finance sector and the myriad other products and services cosmetics, real estate, hotels, fashion, insurance that comply with Islamic law and the teachings of the Koran, and the sector is worth well over $1 trillion a year.

One reason for the rise of the halal economy is that the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are younger and, in some places at least, richer than ever. Seeking to tap that huge market, non-Muslim multinationals like Tesco, McDonald’s and Nestlé have expanded their Muslim-friendly offerings and now control an estimated 90% of the global halal market.

The burgeoning Islamic finance industry is using the global economic crisis to win new non-Muslim customers. Investors are attracted by Islamic banking’s more conservative approach: Islamic law forbids banks from charging interest (though customers pay fees) and many scholars discourage investment in excessively leveraged companies. Though it currently accounts for just 1% of the global market, the Islamic finance industry’s value is growing at around 15% a year, and could reach $4 trillion in five years, up from $500 billion today, according to a 2008 report from Moody’s Investors Service.

Those who define the halal market in the traditional sense as a matter of meat, and no more see the industry stopping at Islamic food standards. But the movement’s more bullish advocates envisage Muslim cars and halal furniture built in accordance with Muslim finance, labor and ethical principles. Citing the kosher and organic industries as successful examples of doing well by doing good, some entrepreneurs even see halal products moving into the mainstream and appealing to consumers looking for high-quality, ethical products. A few firms that comply with the Shari’a code the religious laws that observant Muslims follow point out that already many of their customers are non-Muslim. At the Jawhara Hotels, an alcohol-free Arabian Gulf chain run by the Islam-compliant Al Lotah conglomerate, 60% of the clientele are non-Muslims, drawn by the hotels’ serenity and family-friendly atmosphere. Dutch-based company Marhaba, which sells cookies and chocolate, says a quarter of its customers are non-Muslims, mostly people concerned not about religious edicts but about food safety. “People are always looking for the next purity thing,” says Mah Hussain-Gambles, founder of Saaf Pure Skincare, which markets halal makeup.

Going Mainstream
Today, though, the big business is in working out how to serve the increasingly sophisticated Muslim consumer. “The question now for companies is: What products and services are you going to provide to help Muslims lead the lifestyle they want to lead?” asks the Halal Journal’s Abdullah. It’s a code worth cracking. A 2007 report from the global ad agency JWT describes the Muslim market thus: “It’s young, it’s big, and it’s getting bigger.” Parts of it are well-educated and wealthy. The buying power of American Muslims alone is estimated at a hefty $170 billion annually. But with few exceptions, American marketers ignore them, says Ann Mack, JWT’s director of trendspotting. “Muslims don’t feel that brands are speaking to them,” she says. “When we did the study, it was very difficult to find mainstream companies that were making significant programs geared toward the Muslim population.”

That’s less of a problem elsewhere. Indeed, the most innovative new halal products and services often come out of Europe and Southeast Asia, places where your average food supplier or bank may know little, if anything, about halal. In Europe the biggest growth region according to the Halal Journal young devout Muslims are hungry for Islamic versions of mainstream pleasures such as fast food. “The second- and third-generation Muslims are fed up with having rice and lentils every day,” observes Darhim Hashim, CEO of the Malaysia-based International Halal Integrity Alliance. “They’re saying, ‘We want pizzas, we want Big Macs.’ ” Domino’s now sources halal pepperoni from a Malaysian company for the pizzas it sells from Kuala Lumpur to Birmingham; KFC is testing halal-only stores in Muslim areas of the U.K., and the Subway sandwich chain has halal franchises across Britain and Ireland. (See pictures: “The Hajj Goes High-Tech”.)

Swiss food giant Nestlé is a pioneer in the field. It set up its halal committee way back in the 1980s, and has long had facilities to keep its halal and non-halal products separated. Turnover in halal products was $3.6 billion last year, and 75 of the company’s 456 factories are geared for halal production.

For non-food companies like South Korea’s LG and Finnish cell-phone giant Nokia, targeting Muslims is also big business. LG offers an application to help users find the direction of Mecca, while Nokia has free downloadable recitations from the Koran and maps showing the locations of major mosques in the Middle East. Such offerings increase brand loyalty, according to market research by the Finland-based Muslim lifestyle portal Muxlim.com. “There’s a lot of room out there for mainstream brands to appeal to Muslims without making changes to their products,” says Muxlim.com’s CEO Mohamed El-Fatatry. “It’s just about their marketing messages, about showing that this brand is interested in them as consumers.”

It’s Not Just Business
The growing Muslim market is a sign of a newly confident Islamic identity one based not on politics but on personal lifestyles. “Muslims will spend their money more readily on halal food and products than on political causes,” says Zahed Amanullah, European managing director of the California-based Zabihah.com, an online guide to the global halal marketplace.

Like many Muslim Americans, Amanullah grew up eating Jewish kosher food in order to conform to Muslim strictures on animal slaughter. But increasingly, there’s no need for Muslims to go kosher. Zabihah offers tens of thousands of reviews of halal restaurants, from fried chicken joints in Dallas to pan-Asian restaurants in Singapore. Says Amanullah: “We can’t keep up.”

Western Muslims, whose minority status sharpens their sense of identity, are also helping refine the notion of a Muslim lifestyle. In Britain, advertisers are increasingly embracing the power of the “green” pound (that’s Islamic green, not environmental green), says Sarah Joseph, editor of Emel, a glossy lifestyle monthly for British Muslims. When Emel launched in 2003, the notion of a Muslim lifestyle barely existed. “People were confused that we could present everything from food, fashion, travel and gardening, all from a Muslim perspective,” says Joseph. But Muslims are the fastest-growing segment of the middle class in Britain; they have big families an average of 3.4 children against the national average of 1.9 so they buy big cars; they spend money on home decoration and twice-yearly vacations “not just going back to Pakistan or Bangladesh, like their [immigrant] parents did,” says Joseph. Bucking the current publishing trend, Emel is hiring extra staff and planning new magazines to cater to Muslim readers. Advertisers include British Airways and banking giant HSBC.

To keep growing, halal firms know they can’t simply rely on religion. “Ideology does not fit within a consumer mindset,” observes Amanullah of Zabihah.com. “At the end of the day, people will not buy halal simply because it’s halal. They’re going to buy quality food. Ideology doesn’t make a better-tasting burger, a better car, or a better computer.” But it sure makes a powerful marketing pitch.

By the numbers …
16% Halal’s share of global food industry
$632 billion Annual halal food market
1.6 billion Worldwide Muslim population

Source:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1898247,00.html
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NY Times: Closing on a Dream

Posted by:admin | Posted on: May 4th, 2009 | 0 Comments

By JAMES ANGELOS

IN 2003, a Bangladeshi Muslim named Zia Hashem took out a loan to buy a condominium apartment in Parkchester, in the Bronx. During the two years he lived there with his wife and young son, he was perpetually uneasy about having borrowed the money.

There was definitely a guilt, Mr. Hashem, a 33-year-old systems engineer, said one recent evening after the sunset prayers at Baitul Islam Masjid, a small mosque in University Heights.

Many Muslims believe that paying or receiving interest violates Shariah, or Islamic law. Thus, for Muslims, buying a home in the United States often means violating religious principles.

The banking system we have here, with the interest, thats something I dont believe, said Mr. Hashem, who that night prayed on the mosques green carpet wearing a blue Hawaiian shirt covered with images of palm trees.

Mr. Hashem is now in the market for another house, but this time he plans to use what is called a Shariah-compliant system of home financing, an increasingly popular approach that uses various financing methods to sidestep practices Muslims object to.

As the nations Muslim population has grown, so has the number of banks and finance companies offering Shariah-compliant home financing options. The practice is less common in New York, due in part to the high cost of housing and the often hefty down payments required. Nevertheless, especially in the boroughs beyond Manhattan, Muslims are increasingly using faith-based financing options to buy houses.

A company called Guidance Residential began to offer these options in New York in 2003 and has served 200 customers in the city. Despite the sluggish housing market, the number of new clients in New York continues to grow, according to Hussam Qutub, a company spokesman.

Advertisements for various Shariah-compliant financing offers can be found in magazines distributed in the citys mosques. One recent ad, touting a cash-out mortgage conversion, featured the image of a smiling couple in a lush green garden, the wife wearing a maroon headscarf.

It was our dream to perform hajj for our anniversary, reads the ad. That dream came true, says the couple, without their having to resort to an interest-based loan to finance their pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.

Muslims are exactly like other Americans, Mr. Mamun said. We have that American dream of owning our own house and practicing our beliefs.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/thecity/03rmort.html
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NY Times: A Hometown Bank Heeds a Call to Serve Its Islamic Clients

Posted by:admin | Posted on: March 7th, 2009 | 0 Comments

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

ANN ARBOR, MICH.

Until a stranger without an appointment showed up one day in late 2001, Stephen L. Ranzini was feeling rather pleased with himself. University Bank here, which he led as president, had just won a national award for community service. The honor attested to Mr. Ranzinis success in working with local black ministers and a nonprofit agency to increase home-ownership in African-American neighborhoods.

Then, disturbing the aura of satisfaction, a well-dressed man arrived and insisted on seeing the president. If your bank is so outstanding for community service, the visitor said, as Mr. Ranzini recently recalled, how come you are not servicing my community?

Mr. Ranzini started to explain that University Bank already had plenty of Muslim customers, hardly a surprise in a college town in the area of southeast Michigan with the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in the United States.

Over the next 10 minutes, Mr. Ranzini, a Roman Catholic executive who had grown up in the vanilla suburbs of New Jersey, started an education that would ultimately transform an otherwise conventional hometown bank into a national leader in the growing specialty of Islamic finance. This year, the bank won an award from the American Bankers Association largely for its service to Muslim clients.

University Bank now has an entire subsidiary devoted to financial products that comply with Muslim religious law, or Shariah. It has done nearly $80 million in Islamically approvable mortgage-alternative financing for residential and commercial real estate in 15 states.

This past week, while the stock market plunged to its lowest point in a dozen years and close-to-home General Motors teetered near bankruptcy, University Bank recorded one of its best periods ever. It completed 11 home sales, more than twice the weekly average, to observant Muslim customers, and pushed four more closings into next week.

I never thought Id be involved in Islamic banking because Id never even heard of it, Mr. Ranzini, 43, said in an interview. And its been a stretch to learn it, succeed at it and make it work. But you feel best about the things that were hardest to do.

To distill and simplify some complicated theological and financial concepts, the basis of Islamic finance is Shariahs forbidding of riba, which can be variously translated as usury or interest. Mortgage alternatives, which are the most popular financial product for Islamic consumers in the United States, essentially add what would have been the monthly interest into the purchase price of a home.

In one variation, the bank actually buys the house at a qualified customers direction, and then sells it to that customer through monthly installments modeled on the payments of a 30-year mortgage. In two other common methods, the customer either acquires the home from the bank on a lease-to-own arrangement or purchases the home in partnership with the bank and gradually buys out the banks share.

University Banks boomlet forms only part of a national trend. Institutions like Devon Bank in Chicago and Guidance Residential in Reston, Va., also offer mortgage alternatives. The Amana Funds, based in Bellingham, Wash., has several mutual funds operating on Islamic principles.

For the past decade, Dow Jones has computed a stock index for Shariah-compliant companies. The law schools at Harvard, Fordham and the University of California, Berkeley, have held academic conferences on Islamic finance.

Its part of this religious revival, this return to roots, you see taking place not only in Islam but in many faiths, said Isam Salah, an expert in Islamic financing at the international law firm King & Spalding. And as people began to see the feasibility of Islamic financing, you had smart bankers saying: There are seven million Muslims in the U.S. Theres a niche market no one is serving, and I can do it.

For customers like Abdul El-Sayed, though, the bank was literally a godsend.

A medical student and Rhodes scholar, Mr. El-Sayed bought a $123,000 condominium in Ann Arbor with a mortgage-alternative arrangement. A generation earlier, Mr. El-Sayeds father had had no choice under Shariah but to save up until he could buy a home with cash.

Ultimately, the question is, Mr. El-Sayed, 24, said in an interview, when I die and I stand before God and go through everything I did in my life, I dont want to say I did it the easy way instead of the Shariah-compliant way. Not because of fear but because of obligation.

The sense of religious and communal obligation has its fiduciary advantages to Mr. Ranzini. Besides carefully vetting prospective home-buyers, and besides having a well-educated, professional clientele among American Muslims, he has customers for whom default would be almost sinful. Indeed, there have been only a handful of failures among University Banks observant Muslim clients.

In my heart, Im doing this because its the command of my creator, said Fariz Huzair, 51, who recently bought a home for his family in Canton, Mich. You have a standard you are supposed to live up to.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/us/07religion.html
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