By Paul Sperry
Sheik Muhammad Taqi Usmani has been a rock star of the Islamic finance world, sitting on the sharia supervisory boards of no fewer than a dozen Islamic banks and financial institutions worldwide.
For nearly a decade, the mufti also has advised the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index, which licenses more than 25 stock funds that comply with Islamic laws forbidding certain Western-style investments. The venerable Dow Jones & Co. first retained him in 1999.
Usmani's name is now missing from the Dow Jones website, where it had previously been prominently displayed. His bio and photo suddenly vanished without explanation.
Meanwhile, all references to Dow Jones disappeared from the website of the North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT, which runs a sharia-compliant mutual fund out of Burr Ridge, Ill.
For years the fund had been called the Dow Jones Islamic Fund. Dow had lent NAIT its good name under a licensing agreement.
But recently the trust felt compelled to rename its lead portfolio the "Iman Fund," and amend several pages in its prospectus to remove all references to Dow Jones, as well as Usmani. Again, no explanation was offered.
What's behind the mystery? It's all been very hush-hush, but according to a high-level document I've obtained, along with interviews with company insiders, Dow Jones recently terminated NAIT's license and dumped Usmani to protect its brand. The company, now under new management, no longer wants to be associated with either of them, especially after they received a spate of bad publicity this year. Read more ...
Sheik Muhammad Taqi Usmani has been a rock star of the Islamic finance world, sitting on the sharia supervisory boards of no fewer than a dozen Islamic banks and financial institutions worldwide.
For nearly a decade, the mufti also has advised the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index, which licenses more than 25 stock funds that comply with Islamic laws forbidding certain Western-style investments. The venerable Dow Jones & Co. first retained him in 1999.
Usmani's name is now missing from the Dow Jones website, where it had previously been prominently displayed. His bio and photo suddenly vanished without explanation.
Meanwhile, all references to Dow Jones disappeared from the website of the North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT, which runs a sharia-compliant mutual fund out of Burr Ridge, Ill.
For years the fund had been called the Dow Jones Islamic Fund. Dow had lent NAIT its good name under a licensing agreement.
But recently the trust felt compelled to rename its lead portfolio the "Iman Fund," and amend several pages in its prospectus to remove all references to Dow Jones, as well as Usmani. Again, no explanation was offered.
What's behind the mystery? It's all been very hush-hush, but according to a high-level document I've obtained, along with interviews with company insiders, Dow Jones recently terminated NAIT's license and dumped Usmani to protect its brand. The company, now under new management, no longer wants to be associated with either of them, especially after they received a spate of bad publicity this year. Read more ...
Source: FrontPage Magazine
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