I’d like to thank you for taking the time to look into the topic, especially considering you’re not Muslim. Thanks, I really appreciate it.
I was born in london into a Christian family and raised a Christian until my late teens when I became a Muslim convert. I later travelled to Saudi Arabia, learnt Arabic and gained a degree in Islamic law, so I have a perspective from both sides.
I got into Bitcoin around 2016/17 and have been advocating for the Islamic alignment Bitcoin has, and a lot of what you said resonates with what I’ve observed myself. I wrote an Islamic ‘ruling’ (given I am a specialist in Islamic law) so if you wanted to dig a bit deeper you can have a read here: https://www.metamadeenah.com/a-statement-on-21-million/
Just thought I would add a few comments about what you wrote, to give something extra to contemplate.
**Theres no code for interest**
One of the features I absolutely love about Bitcoin is that its framework is not built on the premise of ‘mining coin with interest bearing loans’ which is the case with fiat, as you highlighted. It’s like gold. But you can still borrow it at interest, just like gold. So from that perspective we should still abstain from doing so, but you don’t need it to be coded into it for it to be possible.
**Gharar**
This has been slighting misunderstood in my perspective by many. Gharar means ‘financial ambiguity that hinders one’s ability to effectively evaluate the value of the item up for sale’. So if I wanted to buy a house, but was told I can’t look at it yet until I sign the contract, that’s prohibited in Islam. I need adequate information so that I can evaluate the value of what I want to buy. A small amount of unavoidable Gharar is accepted, like knowing how good the foundation of a building is, or how well a car was looked after from the previous owner, as you can’t get 100% knowledge on everything, but total ambiguity is not allowed. This doesn’t make sense when it comes to Bitcoin, because its value is known, and what you’re getting and giving is known. The supply isn’t really as relevant, much like the supply of iPhones on the market is irrelevant. It might matter to you the supply of a currency, but even if you didn’t (like with fiat, gold and altcoins like ETH) that doesn’t mean there is any ambiguity in the Bitcoin you have in hand right now.
**Wealth preservation**
The intent of wealth preservation in Islam is more about the wealth itself and not the value of it. Meaning, Islam forbids one from destroying wealth, like rolling a car off a cliff because one felt like it, destroying entire cities like what Israel did to Gaza etc, this is forbidden. Even in war, we’re not allowed to destroy the wealth of ppl, even if they are the opposition. So dropping a nuclear bomb into the middle of two cities (for example) would be absolutely forbidden. Not just for the murder of civilians (which is also forbidden in Islam) but also for the destruction of wealth. This is the meaning of destruction of wealth.
Inflation isn’t really that. Inflation is the adjustment of the value of something due to supply and demand. I can have inflation even if the money supply is fixed, due to supply related issues. Nobody calls that ‘destruction of wealth’. If you had a car, and the market got flooded with the same model, therefore the market price of your car drops, your car is still there and still has its functionality. Nothing has been destroyed.
**Scholars view of Bitcoin**
This is a nuanced discussion, but also not an interesting one. Many ppl outside Islam see Islamic scholars differing and think “oh they are divided” but are unaware that “agreement” is rare. Islam doesn’t have a clergy like Catholics and orthodox Christians. Every scholar is free to have their own opinions, and they do. It’s a lot more decentralised than ppl on the outside think. So because of that, scholars differ on almost everything lol 😂. That’s why we, as Muslims, focus on the evidence and reasons for the opinions we take, and not on the individual. A bit like bitcoiners (or how bitcoiners would like to be). We love Satoshi for what he brought, but we can also say that many things about Bitcoin he originally designed was flawed. That’s not controversial. That’s why we had segwit lol 😂.
So to conclude, I personally believe that with Bitcoin, scholars will eventually change their view of Bitcoin once they learn more about it, because their negative view is more built on a misunderstanding of how it works than what it actually is. Here is a video I made to demonstrate that.
But yeah, your article was overall well written and researched. I just wanted to add some nuance to it from a Muslim perspective, especially as Islamic law is my field.
There was a comment someone made about Islam being incompatible with bitcoins idea of ‘liberty’…I’d say, ignore him. He, as he admitted, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, especially as he thinks Israel ‘is pretty chill’ while at the same time it’s the only nation in the region engaging in apartheid and genocide.