Shariah in the White House | Obama, Muslims are Hand in Hand
White House welcomes Shariah finance specialist, Obama selects Muslim expert in Islamic transactions as fellow
By Chelsea Schilling|WorldNetDaily
The Obama administration has announced its appointment of 13 White House fellows – and the first person featured on its short list is a Muslim attorney who specializes in Shariah-compliant transactions.
“This year’s White House fellows are comprised of some of the best and brightest leaders in our country,” Michelle Obama said in the June 22 announcement. “I applaud their unyielding commitment to public service and dedication to serving their community.”
White House fellows spend a year as full-time, paid assistants to senior White House staff, the vice president, Cabinet secretaries and senior administration officials.
Samar Ali of Waverly, Tenn., is the first name appearing on the White House list. She is an associate with the law firm Hogan Lovells – a firm that claims to have advised on more than 200 Islamic finance transactions with an aggregate deal value in excess of $40 billion.
Samar Ali
According to Ali’s biography posted on the White House website, “She is responsible for counseling clients on mergers & acquisitions, cross-border transactions, Shari’a compliant transactions, project finance, and international business matters. During her time with Hogan Lovells, she has been a founding member of the firm’s Abu Dhabi office.”
Hogan Lovells lists Ali’s experience “advising a Middle Eastern university in the potential establishment of a Foreign Aid Conventional and Shari’ah Compliant Student Loan Program and advising a Middle Eastern client in relation to a U.S. government subcontract matter.”
“Our team members are at the forefront of developments in the Islamic finance industry,” Hogan Lovells boasts. “We help set standards for the sector. We have also advised on numerous first-of-their-kind transactions, such as the first convertible Sukuk, the first equity-linked Sukuk, the first Sharia-compliant securitization, the first international Sukuk al-mudaraba and Sukuk al-musharaka, the first Sukuk buy-back, and the first Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) guaranteed Islamic project financing.”
Ali also clerked for Judge Gilbert S. Merritt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and Judge Edwin Cameron, now of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
Promoting Islam and Shariah
The White House notes that Ali also led the YMCA Israeli-Palestinian Modern Voices for Progress Program and is a founding member of the first U.S. Delegation to the World Islamic Economic Forum. Ali was listed as a member of the British delegation to the World Islamic Economic Forum in 2009 and as a U.S. delegate in 2010.
Shariah Finance Watch blog noted, “[I]t was at the World Islamic Economic Forum where key leaders declared Shariah finance to be “dawa” (missionary) activity to promote Islam and Shariah.”
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