Does Islam smile on cryptocurrency?

Does Islam smile on cryptocurrency?

“You know why they call it Bitcoin?” asks Ismail ibn Musa Menk, a Muslim scholar in Zimbabwe whose online videos have a big international viewership. “It bit us all,” he laments. “I got bitten too, you know.” Social-media users began to speculate if he had dabbled in the cryptocurrency.

If he did, some of his peers would tut-tut. Shawki Allam, Egypt’s grand mufti, is a naysayer. In 2018 he endorsed an Egyptian government ban on Bitcoin trading, issuing a fatwa that cryptocurrency is haram (forbidden).

But others are less sure. As well as scouring the relevant passages in Islamic law, scholars say they need to understand the ins and outs of crypto before deciding whether it should be embraced or damned. So far views are mixed.