The Faisal Islamic Bank (FIB) was established in Sudan in 1977 by the Saudi prince Muhammad ibn Faisal Al Saud, and was managed by local Muslim Brotherhood members and their National Islamic Front party. Today FIB has numerous branches bearing the same name across the Islamic world. One Sudanese branch is located in Khartoum, near a former training base of the terrorist group al Qaeda. Other branches are situated in Cyprus, Egypt, Kazakhistan, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey.

According to the U.S. State Department, FIB, which is a subsidiary of Dar al-Maal al-Islami (DMI), has been a key funder of al Qaeda terrorist operations. During the 2001 trial of the defendants suspected of perpetrating al Qaeda’s 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, Ahmed al-Fadl — the onetime al Qaeda finance manager who had recently defected from that organization and become a highly trusted informant for the U.S. government — testified that al Qaeda’s accounts in Khartoum were held at Faisal Islamic Bank.

On August 15, 2002, FIB was named as a defendant in a $100 trillion lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the families of murdered 9/11 victims. The brief filed by the plaintiffs stated that FIB was involved in “al Qaeda financing” along with DMI and the Al Shamal Islamic Bank. Moreover, the plaintiffs alleged that FIB and the other defendants had given money to charities with direct links to al Qaeda.

On September 23, 2004, FIB was named as one of 39 defendants in a separate, $1 trillion lawsuit that families of the 9/11 victims filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, likewise alleging that the named defendants had given money to charities linked directly to al Qaeda.

On the “Introduction to Islamic Economics” page of its website, FIB emphasizes its belief in the prohibition of: “usury in financial transactions”; “giving or taking interest [on] a loan”; “all forms of monopoly and all forms of hoarding”; and “investing financial resources in fields of prohibited activities such as trading in liquor or pork.” Moreover, says FIB, Islamic Economics calls for: “directing financial resources to the channels of economic activities that are useful or beneficial to society”; “realizing social solidarity through the revival of Zakat (legal alms giving)”; and “full transparency in all activities.”