In
the beginning the Muslims used gold and silver by weight and the dinar and dirhams
that they used were made by the Persians.
The
first dated coins that can be assigned to the Muslims are copies of silver dirhams
of the Sassanian Yezdigird III, struck during the Khalifate of Uthman, radiy'allahu
anhu. These coins differ from the original ones in that an Arabic inscription
is found in the obverse margins, normally reading "in the Name of Allah". Since
then the writing in Arabic of the Name of Allah and parts of Qur'an on the coins
became a custom in all mintings made by Muslims.
Under
what was known as the coin standard of the Khalif Umar Ibn al-Khattab, the weight
of 10 dirhams was equivalent to 7 dinars (mithqals)
In
the year 75 (695 CE) the Khalifah Abdalmalik ordered Al-Hajjaj to mint the first
dirhams, thus he established officially the standard of Umar Ibn al-Khattab. In
the next year he ordered the dirhams to be minted in all the regions of the Dar
al-Islam. He ordered that the coins be stamped with the sentence: "Allah is Unique,
Allah is Eternal". He ordered the removal of human figures and animals from the
coins and that they be replaced with letters.
This
command was then carried on throughout all the history of Islam. The dinar and
the dirham were both round, and the writing was stamped in concentric circles.
Typically on one side it was written the "tahlil" and the "tahmid", that is, "la
ilaha ill'Allah" and "alhamdulillah"; and on the other side was written the name
of the Amir and the date. Later on it became common to introduce the blessings
on the Prophet, salla'llahu alayhi wa sallam, and sometimes, ayats of the Qur'an.
Gold
and silver coins remained official currency until the fall of the Khalifate. Since
then, dozens of different paper currencies were made in each of the new postcolonial
national states created from the dismemberment of Dar al-Islam.
Allah
says in the Qur'an:
And
amongst the People of the Book there are those who, if you were to entrust them
with a treasure (qintar), he would return it to you. And amongst them is he who,
if you were to entrust him with a dinar would not return it to you, unless you
kept standing over him. Qur'an (3,75)
Qadi
Abu Bakr Ibn al-Arabi, the greatest authority on Qur'anic Law wrote in his famous
"Ahkam al-Qur'an" about this ayat:
"The
benefit that can be taken from this is the prohibition of entrusting the People
of the Book with goods".
Qadi
Abu Bakr said: "The question concerning entrusting property is legislated by the
text of Qur'an." This means that the ayat is a legal judgement of absolute validity
and of the greatest importance to the deen.
Entrusting
wealth to non-Muslims is not allowed, but furthermore, taking a non-Muslim as
a partner outside Dar al-Islam (where we stand over them) is extremely restricted,
because they might cheat or might use our wealth in forbidden transactions.
Since
paper-money is a promise of payment, can it be permitted to trust the issuers
while they hold the payment (our property) outside our jurisdiction? History has
also demonstrated repeatedly that paper money has been a permanent instrument
of default and cheating the Muslims. In addition, Islamic Law does not permit
the use of a promise of payment as a medium of exchange.
