11/30/2017 How Does Sharia View Crypto-Currencies?

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How Does Sharia View Crypto-Currencies?

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HOW DOES SHARIA VIEW CRYPTO-CURRENCIES?

Crypto-currencies and Islamic nance

Mufti Abdul Kadir Barkatulla

At a recent workshop of Islamic Finance practitioners and crypto/digital currency developments organized by a newly formed
body, the Islamic Finance and Crypto-Currency, IFCC, leadership summit in London, participants spoke their mind about the topic.
As an Islamic Finance Sharia Scholar, I expressed my feelings.

Firstly, as is the case with media, regulators, bankers, and nancial institutions, current vocabulary fails to properly express an
emerging phenomenon of Blockchain technology and digital/virtual/crypto currencies. Attitudes vary between high hopes and
sceptics. Sharia opinions are no exception. Cursory fatwas, or Sharia opinions, from Malaysia and Qatar are sceptical. Some
declare it outright impermissible, due to its intangibility, volatility, and non-convertibility into goods or services. There is no
shortage of Sharia opinion on the internet.

Many scholars are comfortable treating a crypto-currency as being at par with at currency notes and coins. Those include
Islamweb.net (fatwa # 251170, 231460 and 11074) and Dr Munzir Kahf of Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies. Some enthusiasts
declare it most akin to be compatible with principles of Islamic Sharia law and more suitable to Islamic modes of nance such as
Blossom Finance, a micro nance rm based in Indonesia. Matthew J. Martin is the founder of the entity.

The history of money began well before the advent of Islam and Islamic Civilization. Roman and Byzantine gold, silver
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coinage were common in pre-Islamic Arabia. During 40 years of Caliphs and early 30 years of the Ummayad period these foreign
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best early part of Islamic civilization, means of payment remained neutral to the system of Islamic moral guidance into the realm
of money. Consequently, it is safe to assert that Islamic Sharia Law is more concerned with morality of nancial transactions
rather than its form or modus operandi. Any money or currency is neither halal permissible nor haram impermissible.
Guidance is about its value which it represents. If money is transacted in a lawful manner then it is halal. Values or rights of
people represented by a real/virtual currency or coin should not be violated or undermined. The exchange and transfer of values
with justice and through legitimate means is the main concern of Sharia, not the form or shape of the medium.

The basic Sharia requirement for a means of payment for goods and services to be recognized as an acceptable tender of
settlement is that it should be acceptable to substantial number of counterparties in a given demography or community. As such
crypto-currencies vary in their quali cation for that status. This is why there are con icting views among regulators, merchants,
and Sharia scholars.

Among Islamic activists, there exists the metallist school, which see money as a commodity, a thing with its own inherent value
and one which governments should leave alone as much as possible. They are represented by Gold Dinar promoters in the Far
and Middle East. By contrast, for the chartalist school, money is a complex system of credit relationships, which allows value to
ow within a society. For these people currency is just the token around which the monetary system is arranged. Governments
have a role to play in managing this system and, thus, the economy.

Classic Islamic Jurists contemplated that: Anything that is generally accepted by the public can ful l the role of money. Thus
money is, primarily, a medium of exchange and not a commodity. The price of this money (interest) must be zero.

I argued that a Bitcoin-style crypto currency may constitute an e ective instrument for the further development of Islamic nance.
Islamic nance imposes di erent requirements compared to conventional nancial policies on a monetary instrument concerning
its use as a tool for achieving social and economic justice. Most eminent Sharia scholars are keeping their minds and hearst open
and maintain a close observation on developments in the crypto-currency world.

What we need is not a burst of cursory fatwas and other brief remarks, but the sponsorship of scholarly research papers
on the position of crypto-currencies and Sharia.

The crypto-currency market is still in its infancy and as a whole remains a niche within the global nancial system . A 2015 report
by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Money is no object) on crypto currency concludes:

Clearly, there are challenges for crypto-currency in the near term. With so many of its characteristics falling between a currency, a
nancial asset, and a technology protocol, the pace of growth and adoption may splinter the industry. As a disruptive technology,
it will continue to divide opinion and face scepticism

As regulatory standards are adopted and re ned, creative products enter the market, and the prices of the various crypto
currencies stabilise, we will see greater con dence on the part of all market participants in including Islamic Finance practitioners,
promoters and Sharia Scholars, who are the gate keepers of industry.

Professor Charles W. Evans in his recent research (published in Journal of Islamic Banking and Finance) concludes that Bitcoin or a
similar system might be a more appropriate medium of exchange in Islamic banking and nance than interest-bearing central
bank at currency, especially among the unbanked and in small-scale cross-border trade.

As an optimist onlooker, I am delighted to note Professor Evans assertion that: A group of Islamic Banks could organize a virtual
currency exchange under the principle of musharakah, in order enable those banks customers to buy and sell crypto-currency
e ciently, in order to transfer value amongst themselves and to bypass the ine ciencies of the status quo banking system. If this
exchange maintained a very narrow bid/ask spread and charged no other fees, and restricted access to customers of the member
banks, this could create an incentive for Muslims and non-Muslims alike to bank with member banks.

I wholeheartedly support all such endeavours to advance the scope and reach of new phenomenon, such as virtual/crypto
currencies based on Blockchain in the next wave of innovative Islamic banks.

(Disclaimer: this is personal opinion of Mufti Abdul Kadir Barkatulla. It neither seeks to endorse a particular crypto
currency product nor declares its Sharia compatibility or otherwise.)

WATCH:Cryptocurrency: The Digital Coin (Documentary)

Islam Channel explores the growing phenomenon of digital currencies, whilst meeting some of the people trying to forge an
alliance between cryptocurrency and Islamic nance.

Cryptocurrency: The Digital Coin (DOCUMENTARY)

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Mufti Abdul Kadir Barkatulla is a prominent Islamic Sharia law scholar with a strong background in economics and nance. He
has been trained extensively both in traditional Islamic and modern Western educational traditions in India and UK.

As a director of Islamic Computing Centre, the Mufti published (1986) electronic databases of Quran, Hadith, History and Islamic
Law on CD-ROMs.

As one of Sharia Judges at the Islamic Sharia Council, the Mufti acquired wide experience of dealing with socio-cultural and
economic issues of Muslims living in UK and Europe.

Mufti Barkatulla contributes regularly to ethnic and mainstream print and electronic media.

Mufti is a member of the Sharia supervisory boards for a number of leading international nancial institutions.

Mufti Barkatullah is a lecturer at Ebrahim College on the Dawrah Al-Hadith Programme.

OCTOBER 14, 2016

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2 Responses on
How Does Sharia

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View Crypto-Currencies?"

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I would to react about your article, as I was also at the beginning very enthusiastic about crypto currencies.

I would like rst to ask you from the classical book of qh: 1) Is the rst condition of money to have an intrinsic value? 2) Do
the classical books of qh say that common acceptance is enough (without intrinsic value)?

I believe deeply of one fundamental: if money that people own dont have an intrinsic value (means that the value of money is
within the coin itself and not de ned by outside, like gold for example), then people will get stolen, like at currency.
Therefore, money must have an intrinsic value.
Having an intrinsic value for money is the de nite and rock solid way to protect the wealth of people.

Blockchain is a very interesting technology, its implementation is at the hand of people, who can get corrupted.

Banks succeeded to impose to the states of this world their fake riba based money. I dont see why they cannot manipulate
the cryptos in the same way.

It is not true to think that crypto are completely decentralized, they are centralized by the one who create them. The Bitcoin
Foundation and the big miners control Bitcoin, they act as powerful shareholders. Some of them have a huge amount of
bitcoin, speculation must continue to get it higher and higher.
The Etherium foundation as well control the ETH token, they will change the protocol from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake by
end of 2017. The latter will reward the people who have the most ETH.

More than 30 big banks and corporations are o cially supporting the Etherium development.

Another issue is the generation of bitcoin or etherium out of thin air every minutes. Even though it is not as bad as at
currency riba based, it is still an issue, it is very arbitrary at the hand of people, to control the value of the token.

So as a conclusion, I see as a great wisdom from the book of qh that money must have an intrinsic value. People can get
easily manipulated. The masses still dont understand that at currency is nothing.

Edriss
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About BTC: around 0.02% of BTC users have almost 50% of all the BTC in the market (https://bitcoinprivacy.net/stats/
(https://bitcoinprivacy.net/stats/)).

The cost of the transfer fees for more than 50% BTC users is higher than the BTC that they own. So we create new BTC out of
thin air to pay the miners, it is complete non sense in my point of view.
Cost of electricity of BTC to maintain the blockchain is 1,000,000$ per day and as much as the consumption of Ireland.

As a conclusion: WE MUST BE CAREFUL and the only way to protect people is to have a money with an intrinsic value. End of
the story.

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