The Daily Mail reports an interesting story,under the headline "Lessons in Jihad as secret terror manual translated by MI5 is made public by America"

The amazing series of events that led to an Al Qaeda terrorist manual becoming freely available on the internet can be revealed today.

Through a combination of the rules of evidence discovery and the US Freedom of Information Act, a "terrorist manual" found in a British operation and subsequently translated into English is now available from the website of the US Department of Justice. I was a bit sceptical when I read this, but if you do a google search for "DOJ Al Qaeda Manual" then it's the top link. Some elements of the manual have been redacted, particularly relating to explosives, but apparently a full version is available via the US website "The Smoking Gun"

Now this is not actually news, in the sense of being, you know, "New". The manual is at least ten years old, was discovered eight years ago and has been online for at least three years. But there is a newsworthy element - last week Khalid Khaliq was jailed for 16 months for possesion of this manual. (arrested in May '07, so with time served and automatic parole at halfway point, he's probably due for release next week)

Judge James Stewart QC, on sentencing, said:

"Our society, unlike many others, allows freedom of expression of religious and political views.

"But you overstepped the boundary, possessing material capable of training those bent on the destruction of the democracy and society whose benefits you have so readily accepted."

I can't comment further on the content of the manual, since I don't have it. According to the Crown Prosecution Service:

possession of the document [is] a serious crime under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act.

but through secondary sources, and reference to official documentation, I have identified an alternate source of much of the same information that is legal to possess.

I do wonder what benefit society has gained from Khaliq's conviction - much of the information in the "manual" is false, or ridiculous and bits are likely cribbed from Tom Clancy technothrillers. Yet simply through its possession, we are now paying around £100 per day for the privilege of imprisoning an unemployed layabout with no history of terrorist activity, unless "being from Leeds" is considered circumstantial evidence.

For comparison, Judge Stewart recently ruled in another case: two people who beat a man to death received six and seven year sentences, and thus will both be out in less than four years.

Consternation in the newspapers today over proposals by the British government to legitimise "Islamic Bonds" or "Sukuk", and more importantly sell a portion of our national debt in such a way that it complies with the dictates of Sharia law. This is not technically "news" in that the Government was talking about it a year ago, and the FT was writing about if four months ago.

I think this is actually quite a good idea. Why? Because when you sell debt you must promise to pay the buyer a regular fee for their service (the coupon). Sharia-compliant bonds by definition offer a lesser return to investors than a regular gilt in return for ideological compliance. So that means we - as a nation - can borrow money for less.

Now as to whether that money would be well spent, or just pissed up the wall - that's another matter entirely. The reason this policy is suddenly important is because the UK Government will need to borrow more money to cover the last ten years of reckless central spending. and Sharia-compliant gilts would be a way of tapping into a deep well of Middle-Eastern money.

I've previously discussed the related subject of Islamic Banking. Christian societies have historically expressed similar concerns over lending money with interest (usury) and developed very similar financial structures such as the Contractum Trinius to balance doctrinal obligations against financial realities. It has been said that the Devil has all the best tunes. The oft-forgotten corollary is that God has all the best accountants.

I attended an interesting event yesterday arranged by the Bristol Interfaith Group.  Amjid Ali, Head of HSBC Amanah UK gave a talk on the subject of Home Financing & Banking in Accordance with Shariah.

As with Judaism and Christianity, Islamic scripture proposes a prohibition on charging interest, which has been enforced with varying degrees of enthusiasm throughout history. The English term Interest is translatable as the Arabic word "Riba", which presumably has the same Semitic root as the Hebrew word "Ribbit".