Muslim Muftis: Leave Us Alone. Cryptocurrency is Not Haram

If this guy in the video below wants to appeal to those who fear Allah, those who want to be rightly guided, then he needs to do a better job with his commentary on the fatwa (ruling) against cryptocurrency, learn something about how cryptocurrency actually works, and realize every one of his objections can be applied to the stock market which as far as I know is still halal (allowed) for Muslims.

The muftis issuing the fatwa at al-Azhar University need to explain where in the Quran there's anything dealing with ambiguity, how the principle was applied in that time, explain how that principle might apply in a modern situation, and then let the people decide for themselves if this is or isn't something they should get involved in. So what if there's ambiguity and the end result is unknown. Why is that necessarily a bad thing? What needs to be given is why the pundits think it's a bad thing, not just declare that it is.

I'm tired of Islam being reduced to just Muslims seeking a fatwah for every move we make. Islam is supposed to be about submitting to Allah, not to a panel of human judges in Egypt. Allah never intended for us to be dependent on an army of muftis to tell us how to live.

These doctors of Islamic jurisprudence just need to go get a real job and leave us Muslims alone.

Even with what is expressly haram in the Quran like eating pig meat they just need to teach why it was haram in that day (the pig's digestive system doesn't break down poisons like a cow's digestive system does and so pass it on into the meat) and let each of us determine if that still applies today (it doesn't, modern farming methods have made pork just as safe as beef). I have no problem eating a bacon burger because I know if the Prophet were here today he'd order a bacon burger at McDonalds.

If any Islamic scholar really wants to be helpful he should just say, "This is why I don't invest in bitcoin" and not go around issuing rulings (fatwahs) for everyone else to obey. That's the job of Pharisees, and one of our beloved prophets had issues with the job description of the Pharisees.

Here's a small sampling from the video below:

"you don't have anything to hang on to with bitcoin."

Except that you do, it's just stashed away on a bunch of servers as a record of "ownership", represented as fractions of your share in something that you can turn around and sell the next minute for whatever anyone is willing to pay for it. It's no different than using your VISA card to pay for your lunch. Nothing physical is ever given to the restaurant, just a change of numbers in some computer in God knows where which increases their ability to buy more food and pay the staff.

"cryptocurrency can't be used as a successful, long-standing store of value."

It can just as much as fiat money. As long as someone thinks your dollar bill is worth something then it's worth something. Same with a bitcoin.

"The Quran will tell you what money is."

Really? No, everyone has an opinion about what money is based on the words in the Quran. The Quran does not define money.

"The money in the Quran can last for 300 years."

Not if nobody thinks it has any value at the end of that period. During the Great Depression you had to take a suitcase full of dollar bills just to buy a corn dog at the corner kiosk because the $10 you used to get for a day's worth of work only bought 1/1000 of a corn dog.

The best advice the religious scholars can give is to provide us with wisdom, not more rules. They could say to not invest in any more than you can afford to lose, and that would actually be helpful advice. But then it doesn't take a religious scholar to tell us that. We already know that.

By issuing their fatwahs about crypto that all Muslims are supposed to follow they deny Muslims the benefit that long-term investing in crypto can bring to Muslim families. This reminds me of the Pharisees who issued a fatwah that the Jews couldn't heal a person on the Sabbath, as if it were more important to God for the healer to take a weekly break from his "job" than for a blind man to receive his sight. Funny thing is, the Pharisees were "working" on the Sabbath in order to determine that Jesus was breaking their fatwah by working on the Sabbath LOL!

Religion! God spare us from it.

Just do the right thing, love your neighbor as yourself, and Allah will be pleased.