Dinar Wakala LLC, an alternative bartering solution provider based
out of Austin Texas, has launched its newest medallion, the American
Gold
Dinar
TM, completing its portfolio of precious metals based tokens targeted primarily to the sound money enthusiasts in the Muslim
community, as well as to the broader audience of numismatic collectors and bullion investors.
American Gold Dinar: First ever produced in America
The medallion retains the primary design features of a predecessor in its series, the American Silver Dirham
TM,
featuring an artistic amalgamation of the Middle Eastern symbol of the
Rub-el-Hizb with the stars and stripes from the US flag, a combination
that faithfully depicts the cross-civilizational partnership underlying
the production of the medallion itself. It is the result of
collaboration between the Dallas based American Open Currency Standard
(AOCS), Dinar Wakala LLC and Emir Ismail Bryant, representing the Muslim
communities of North Carolina and Philadelphia.
AOCS is a sound money movement started in the US to establish an
honest value-for-value trading standard. AOCS has worked with
communities and groups around the world to aid in the development of
private trading medallions and guarantee that they conform to a
verifiable standard. The American Silver Dirhams and Gold Dinars are the
latest addition to their catalog which includes designs for the Ludwig
Von Mises institute, Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty and the sovereign
Lakota Nation with whom they co-founded the Free Lakota Bank. Their web
site is www.opencurrency.com.
On the other hand, sound money activists in the Muslim community have
also been active for over a decade,
hailing from both the grassroots, as well as from the Academia, which
comes with its scholarly criticism to the Islamic Banking industry.
The Gold Dinar as a community medium of exchange, in contrast to
traditional Islamic Banking, draws its primary inspiration and religious
sanction from the sacred texts of the Quran and the Sunnah. The Dinar
and the Dirham, being the currencies of the 7th Century Arabia, are
directly mentioned in the Quran and Hadith literature, and figure
prominently in the Fiqh jurisprudence governing charity and Zakat-based
religious taxation. Additionally, the depth of Muslim’s cultural
association with the coin is also obvious by its pervasive historical
presence as the uniform currency in the Muslim world. The Dinar derives
its name from the Roman Denarius struck around 200 BC, and it
subsequently came into use among the Judaic, Christian and Muslim
peoples of the Middle East. The Dinar is based on the historical
weight
measurement of the Mithqal, reputedly consisting of 72 grains of barley
seed. Starting from Islam's first city-state in Madina, the Dinars and
Dirhams were used as currency in the Muslim world, down to the Ayyubid
and more lately, Ottoman empires.
Sound money advocates in the Muslim world thus find history and cultural
tradition at their side when lobbying in
their countries for a return to bullion backed currency.
Packaging of the American Dinars
However, the strongest case for its revival in the modern world runs not
on a cultural, but a legal precept in Islamic Finance: The twin
prohibition of Riba and Gharar. So while the Austrian Economists
criticize central banking from an economical and ethical view point,
Islam lends support to the same conclusions on legal footings. The
prohibition of usury (Riba) forbids the discounted sale of debt by the
Treasury to the Central Bank, and the prohibition of uncertainty
(Gharar) forbids the increase in money supply by way of fractional
reserve banking. Taken together, the two injunctions provide grounds for
Dinar activists to demand monetary and banking reforms along similar
lines to those popularly expressed in their own times by Thomas
Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.
"Long before even starting this initiative”, in the words of Asif
Shiraz, the Pakistani American founder and CEO of Dinar Wakala LLC,
“I realized the strong congruence that existed between what has been
handed down to the Americans by their founding fathers like Jefferson,
and to us, by the Imams of Fiqh. It was one and the same thing, at least
from a strictly economic perspective: A free market economy,
denominated in sound money, with limited government interference. This
was a great Eureka moment! That our civilizations are much closer to
each other in values, than what appears at first glance from the
politically tainted milieu of conflict. From that time on, this
singleness
of purpose, to collaborate on restoring sound money, has brought me
closer to my libertarian friends in America, far more effectively than
any number of interfaith conferences or cultural events."
Another distinctive feature of these medallions is their
certification by the WIM - The World Islamic Mint (www.islamicmint.com),
which serves to verify compliance
with legal standards in accordance with Islamic law during the
manufacture of coins and medallions. Correctly manufactured products
receive
a corresponding license from WIM, which greatly facilitates their
exchange at par value, even if manufactured in different parts of the
world.
The American Gold Dinar
TM will join their existing line up of
the much coveted Kelantan Dinar, issued by the Government of the
Malaysian State of Kelantan, whose launch last year was noted by the
Wall Street Journal as "the forming of Utopia for the world’s gold
bugs".
A Gold Dinar of the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin circa 1193
The specifications of the modern Gold Dinar, in its purity and physical
measurements, were arrived at carefully to mimic as closely as possible
the weight of the historical Arab unit of the Mithqal, which an ideal
Dinar must match per Islamic law. According to Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, the
visionary founder behind the WIM organization, samples of early Islamic
coins from different Museums around the world were taken into
consideration, some from as far back as 7th century A.D. to ascertain
the weight of the Dinar. Islamic law requires the coins to be of the
same weight as they were in use by the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (sm)
ibne Abdullah. Some research teams have even published results based on
measurements taken from barley grains to verify the results. While some
minority opinions differ, the overwhelming consensus to the weight of
these coins is now at 4.25 grams of 22K gold for the Dinar and 2.975
grams of fine silver for the Dirham. The American Gold Dinar conforms to
this WIM standard which makes it exactly similar to the coins produced
by the Government of Kelantan, Wakala Induk Nusantara in Indonesia, and
Emirates Gold DMCC in Dubai, resulting in the medallion’s global
exchangeability. Additional technical contributions into the physical
characteristics of the coin were provided by long-time dinar activist
and strategist Sidi Ahmad Adjie, and the face design was developed by a
Ukrainian artist, Muradin.
A number of Muslim neighborhoods in the US have expressed intention to
use these medallions for dollar-denominated barter trading in their
communities, led most actively by Emir Ismail Bryant in the Carolinas,
Emir Najib Abdul-Haqq in Georgia and Emir Khalil Abdullahi in
Pennsylvania. Some private exporters from Singapore and Malaysia have
also expressed interest in international trade arrangements on such
barter basis. Bartering in bullion has always posed challenges for its
undertakers, in light of an ever tightening regulatory regime from
both a taxation and money-laundering perspective. But the trend is
nevertheless on the rise in Muslim communities, driven not only by the
financial incentive of the metal’s rising price, but also through
ideological support by eminent scholars like Sheikh Imran Hosein from
Central America, and Imam Hamza Yusuf in California, whose website at
Sandala.org makes a point of denouncing fractional reserve banking
in its philosophy section. But by far, the most influential person to
have swayed the opinions of scholars on the matter has been Shaykh
Abdulqadir As-Sufi, formerly Ian Dallas. He is widely recognized as the
founder of the modern Dinar movement, producing the bulk
of the literature on the jurisprudence issues regarding usury and money,
and providing a fresh perspective of Islamic contractual law abreast
with the demands of modern finance.
Set of Gold Dinars and Silver Dirhams
Following the terrible tragedy of 9/11, the Gold Dinar was also caught
in an impulsive surge of suspicion surrounding all things Middle
Eastern, with some analysts misunderstanding its resurgence as being
associated with some extremist philosophy. However, as the temperatures
have cooled off and the demand for sound money, or at least some
prudence in monetary policy, is now a mainstream debate topic, the Gold
Dinar is also regaining its stature in the US as a novel avenue for
bullion investment. According to Craig Smith, Chairman of the Swiss
America Trading Corp. and author of Rediscovering Gold in the 21st
Century, "[the] Dinar is a brilliant approach to a world awash with Fiat
currencies and Muslims who use the dinar for savings and future buying
power will be rewarded."
But doing beyond that, as a medium of exchange rather than just an
investment instrument, the struggle still continues. Despite active
lobbying, the Gold Dinar is not the legal tender of any Muslim country,
although the adoption in Kelantan has caused many rulers of other
dominions in the Far East to open up dialogue with Umar Ibrahim Vadillo.
According to statistics issued by the Kelantan Golden Trade
organization, there are over 3000 shops that accept the Dinar, and coins
worth over 12 million USD have been issued. The former Prime Minister
of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has himself been an avid supporter
of the Gold Dinar even while in office, and considers it an instrument
for ending currency wars if employed for settlement of international
trade.
Whether or not the Gold Dinar is ever able to do that is yet to be seen.
In the mean time, however, it is definitely expected to be a welcome
addition to numismatic collections the world over. The medallion can be
ordered online from the company website at www.dinarwakala.com.
About Dinar Wakala LLC. The company is located in Round Rock, Texas
and is the only US body certified by the World Islamic Mint (WIM) to
produce medallions conforming to their standard. The company aims to
establish an online precious-metal based barter exchange called
GoldMoneyShop.com, and is developing its own medallions to be used as
dollar-denominated barter tokens on the platform.
source :
http://www.dinarwakala.com/Media/Index/2011-12-06_Launch_Of_The_American_Gold_Dinar
