Excerpt:
When a religious leader stood before a hotel roomfull of Muslims four years ago and endorsed investment in a Chicago real-estate developer as complying with Islamic law, businessman Nadeem Sharafi decided to invest.
Little did he know that his efforts to use his money according to Islamic guidelines and avoid earning interest would lead him and his wife to lose more than $115,000, Sharafi said.
The Shariah Board of America's approval of investing in Sunrise Equities led dozens of other Chicago-area Muslims—mostly Indians and some Pakistanis—to invest and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars with the company, which says it developed multiunit residential buildings in Chicago, the investors said.