IslamicFinance.de

The role and status of cryptocurrencies remains a hotly disputed issue in the Muslim world. While entrepreneurs and Islamic finance startups openly encourage the use of digital currencies, others keep thinking otherwise. The latest escalation in the dispute was a fatwa against all cryptocurrencies issued by the Egyptian Grand Mufti Shawki Allam. He said that since trading of cryptocurrencies was similar to gambling, it was forbidden in Islam. His fatwa came after Bitcoin in mid-December soared to almost $20,000 per token but then lost one third of its value in just 24 hours. In addition, Egypt’s legitimate bodies also do not consider trading a virtual currency to be acceptable. However, nations that play a substantial role in Islamic finance, namely Malaysia, Indonesia, UAE, Turkey and even Saudi Arabia have no problem to accept cryptocurrencies. In Dubai, OneGram was the first company to set up the Shariah-compliant cryptocurrency called OneGramCoin. There are already two real estate developers in Dubai, which accept payments in digital currencies.