Tag: Islamic finance

Al Hilal Bank,  a progressive Islamic Bank headquartered in Abu Dhabi has announced the successful completion of an Islamic Sukuk transaction via distributed ledger technology, making it the first Islamic bank to achieve such a feat, according to a local news source, Abu Dhabi City Guide on November 26, 2018. Sukuk on the Blockchain Per sources close to the development,…

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X8 AG, a Swiss financial technology firm has successfully obtained Islamic scholars certification for its fiat and gold-backed cryptocurrency from Shariyah Review Bureau (SRB), an Islamic advisory firm licensed by the central bank of Bahrain, Reuters reports, November 12, 2018. Plans to Expand into the Middle East Seeing the burgeoning fintech environment in the region, some regulatory bodies and financial…

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Benjamin Strick, a specialist in open-source investigations in international crime, terrorism, and human rights abuses, recently discovered a crowdsourced mujahideen platform that allows anyone in the world to fund Jihadist projects anonymously. Any funds on the Sadaqa Platform can be donated via a variety of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Monero, and Ethereum. While media organization Foreign Affairs believes that cryptocurrency technologies…

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While Islam frowns at high-interest rate lending, currencies not backed by commodities or assets, and Ponzi schemes, the Shacklewell Lane mosque in London has caught the bitcoin bug and has made it possible for Muslims in the area to give alms and make donations to the mosque with cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin for Zakat and Sadaqah In what seems like a forward-thinking…

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Amongst the neverending chaos surrounding it, one question that stands out is bitcoin’s compliance with the religious ‘Shariah’ law. To answer that, Blossom Finance, a microfinance firm based in Indonesia, published a detailed 22-page paper this week which inferred “Bitcoin qualifies as Islamic money, except where it is banned by a local government.” Is Bitcoin ‘Halal’? Since bitcoin has gained momentum…

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While the world argues over bitcoin’s legality and blockchain use-cases, another type of conundrum is brewing in Islamic countries – their religion essentially prohibits speculative investments. Yet, Dubai and other cities seem to have found a way around this, such that their citizens can invest in cryptocurrencies keeping in mind both its financial and religious risks. In the rulebook of…

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As global bitcoin adoption is rising and bitcoin usage is expanding into markets such as the Middle East, Indonesia, Malaysia and other predominantly Muslim regions, the question of whether the cryptocurrency is compliant with the pillars of Islamic finance becomes more and more topical. Sharia-compliant Finance Sharia law requires a currency to have intrinsic value. What that means is that…

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