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Article
The legal cause of “holding value” and its impact on islamic provisions regarding virtual currencies
Religions
  • Man Baker, Zayed University
  • Muhammed Semai, University of Sharjah
ORCID Identifiers

0000-0002-4880-6666

Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-1-2020
Abstract

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article discusses the Islamic juristic position of virtual currencies. In the classical period, jurists differed on the reason behind Islam’s prohibition of usury when dealing with precious metals and their derivatives, with the majority arguing that this is because they are considered to hold value (thamaniyya). The cause (illa) of “holding value” can therefore be applied through analogy (qiyās) to all things understood by the laity to hold value in any era. In the contemporary period, this cause can also be applied to virtual currencies such as Bitcoin if they fulfill the following ethical conditions: customary acceptance, legal validity, and value stability.

Publisher
MDPI AG
Disciplines
Keywords
  • Bitcoin,
  • Islamic law,
  • Virtual currencies
Scopus ID
85089539657
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
Yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series
Citation Information
Man Baker and Muhammed Semai. "The legal cause of “holding value” and its impact on islamic provisions regarding virtual currencies" Religions Vol. 11 Iss. 7 (2020) p. 1 - 11 ISSN: <a href="https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/issn/2077-1444" target="_blank">2077-1444</a>
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/man-baker/3/