| Caribou Coffee Has Ties to Anti-Israel Muslim Cleric | |||
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| Netlore Archive: Email flier alleges that Caribou Coffee is 87.8 percent owned by a group with ties to an anti-Israel Muslim cleric | |||
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As circulated via email, June 2002:
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I checked website and confirmed that Caribou Coffee is owned by this group. DL (Keeping in mind that a Caribou Coffee franchise is opening up at the former Starbucks location on Central in Highland Park, next to Baskin-Robbins) Looks like I will be going to Starbucks from now on. As you will see from the links below, Caribou Coffee is owned 87.8% by the First Islamic Investment Bank which, among other things has the following philosophy: "Above all, ensuring that all activities conform to Islamic Shari'ah" The chairman of their Shari'ah supervisory board is: Dr. Yusuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi Chairman, Seerah & Sunnah Center, Qatar University; Professor, Faculty of Shari'ah, Qatar University. As you will see from the links below he is also on the supervisory board of "Union for Good" which is a charitable organization to support Palestinians. Nothing wrong with a charity to help Palestinians, but here is a quote from the Union for Good web site: "The Al-Aqsa Intifada is the latest of a long line of affliction faced by the people of Palestine. Its ancestry dates back to the massacre of innocent men, women and children in villages such as Deir Yaseen and the illegal occupation of Palestine in 1948." You get the picture. Starbucks here I come!!! http://www.firstislamic.com/sharia.htm
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Comments: While it is true that 87.8 percent of the Minessota-based Caribou Coffee Company is held by the First Islamic Investment Bank of Bahrain, a venture capital firm which at one time retained the militantly anti-Israel Dr. Yusuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi as its principal adviser on Islamic Shari'ah law, said firm has long since severed all ties with the controversial sheikh and disavowed his political pronouncements.
In a statement distributed in June 2002, Caribou Coffee said:
"Any concerns that anyone involved in ownership of Caribou condones terrorism are totally unwarranted. Our ownership has no political agenda and is 100 percent opposed to terrorism of any kind, anywhere — period."
Even so, rumors connecting Caribou Coffee with radical Islamists persist, with news stories published as recently as May 2004 attributing Caribou's slumping sales in particular markets to the rumors' effect on Jewish consumers.
Sources and further reading:
Coffee, Tea and Fundamentalism
Washington Business Forward, October 2002The Other Coffee Boycott
The Muslim News, 30 August 2002Minn. Coffee Chain Battles Rumor of Terrorist Link
Chicago Tribune, 23 May 2004
Last updated: 05/26/04
