In such a world that is spiralling into chaos, the Mohammadan recognises that his mission is not easy; that whoever owns the future is the one most attached to his divine purpose of being God's vicegerent on earth."
quoting
naddr1qv…2dc4{ ٱلَّذِینَ یَأۡكُلُونَ ٱلرِّبَوٰا۟ لَا یَقُومُونَ إِلَّا كَمَا یَقُومُ ٱلَّذِی یَتَخَبَّطُهُ ٱلشَّیۡطَـٰنُ مِنَ ٱلۡمَسِّۚ ذَ ٰلِكَ بِأَنَّهُمۡ قَالُوۤا۟ إِنَّمَا ٱلۡبَیۡعُ مِثۡلُ ٱلرِّبَوٰا۟ۗ وَأَحَلَّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلۡبَیۡعَ وَحَرَّمَ ٱلرِّبَوٰا۟ۚ فَمَن جَاۤءَهُۥ مَوۡعِظَةࣱ مِّن رَّبِّهِۦ فَٱنتَهَىٰ فَلَهُۥ مَا سَلَفَ وَأَمۡرُهُۥۤ إِلَى ٱللَّهِۖ وَمَنۡ عَادَ فَأُو۟لَـٰۤىكَ أَصۡحَـٰبُ ٱلنَّارِۖ هُمۡ فِیهَا خَـٰلِدُونَ } [Surah Al-Baqarah: 275]
"Those who consume interest cannot stand [on the Day of Resurrection] except as one stands who is being beaten by Satan into insanity. That is because they say, "Trade is [just] like interest." But Allah has permitted trade and has forbidden interest. So whoever has received an admonition from his Lord and desists may have what is past, and his affair rests with Allah. But whoever returns to [dealing in interest or usury] - those are the companions of the Fire; they will abide eternally therein."
Ibn Kathir points out that Allah strategically places this verse right after discussing the righteous believers who give charity (Sadaqah), pay Zakah, and spend on those in need. He explains that while the charitable person sacrifices their own wealth to aid others, the usurer does the exact opposite—they illegally acquire people's money, leveraging wicked methods and exploitation. The compounding of evil, it is the one vehicle that has accelerated humanity's moral impulse to delirium.
The bustling strip of Brick Lane on a Saturday evening surprisingly provided an introspective reflection of the Muslim Bitcoin Summit. Tucker's explaination of bitcoin as a currency that codifies contracts was memorable. Is Bitcoin a currency to be used or an investment vehicle? A question that kept being raises among the less informed of the group. This issue with how Bitcoin is perceived speaks to a deeper issue: the question of monetary value. In an age where everything is tied to the mighty dollar, what we have lost is the ability to value things based on core principles. We wait for the latest tech craze not because we value these things but we are addicted to the dopamine cycle, the type of behaviour that is instilled within us from an early age to prepare us for the conveyor belt of capitalism that they call life. Its in this context that its not surprising that a decision was made to initiate the casinofication of Bitcoin to counteract its intended purpose. This battle of characterisation within the public sphere has a cultural dimension. This is observed whenever we see a new technology rising in the West, initiating to serve a certain purpose that contradicts the empire's will. Its purpose and meaning transforms through venture capital as it achieves regional virality, this is when its ready to be packaged with whatever meaning that anchors it to the levers and interests of empire and is exported to the third world. A normie in Egypt talking about Bitcoin could not tell you who invented it, why it was invented and the cyberpunk movement in the 70s that influenced its inception, the normie could only testify to its price rise volatility. The biggest trick instutions have sold is valuing Bitcoin against the fiat, that the connection between Bitcoin and Fiat is necessary for Bitcoin to flourish. Similar to gold, for the average man to make money Bitcoin has to be tied to Uncle Sam see Blackrock Bitcoin ETFs. Thinking about these two definitions of Bitcoin invites one to think about how the 20th century state ingrained a standard of value within its citizens and one man came to mind: Joseph Stalin.
The Plucked Chicken Parable Stalin once called a meeting of his closest advisors and henchmen. To demonstrate how to effectively control a population, he requested a live chicken. He began to demonstrate control through two acts:
- The Act of Cruelty By picking up the chicken and plucking each feather, he leaves it bare, bleeding and in pain. The equalivalent to this in a capatlist system is the stripping of rights and most implrtantly the military industrial complex that funds endless conflict, the stock market, the cold machine that is powered by war. The allocation of capital towards martial expansion as million suffer of homlessness and poverty.
-The Act of Depedance Stalin then proceeded to walk a short distance away from the chicken, to give it a false sense of space and freedom. He then took a handful of grain or bread crumbs from his pocket, and dropped them on the floor. Despite the severe trauma and pain Stalin had just inflicted upon it, the freezing, featherless chicken desperately limped back to him to eat from his hand. Wherever Stalin walked around the room, the chicken followed him. This is the riba system we live under, the false illusion that we own, riba is the bread that is used to direct us.
As I sat during the summit I realised that muslims in STEM are in a unique position to direct the wider Ummah towards an original techno definition: redefining Bitcoin as a practical technology that serves as the contractual layer that organises society. Safdar Allame made an important point that to assess how Bitcoin can be used, it must be integrated within a finanical architecture. An architecture where constraint is not a sign of limitation but differentiation and self regulation. Exploring what this architecture should look like is beyond the scope of this article. Ghazalian/Khaldunian Economics Hearing experts such as Irfan and Alam talk, inspires a read on Imam Al Ghazali and his description of how money is neutral; a medium of exchange that is a standard of measuring value within a society, if the epistemological truths of such society are based on morality and ethics then the medium of exchange must be designed to protect such truth. Ghazali sees the economy as a protector of the basic components that make up the son of Adam: -Religion (Din) -Life (Nafs) -Intellect (Aql) -Lineage (Nasl) -Wealth (Mal)
Feature Al-Ghazali (Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din) Khaldunian socioeconomics
Primary Lens Al Ghazali: Ethical, spiritual, and normative
Ibn Khaldun: Sociological, empirical, and structural
View of Wealth Al Ghazali: A means to an end (sustaining spiritual and physical life) rather than an accumulative goal.
Ibn Khaldun: A product of human labor, social cooperation, and civilisation (‘umran).
Market & Prices Al Ghazali: Acknowledged supply and demand, but heavily emphasized fairness, honesty, and the prohibition of hoarding, exploitation, and price gouging.
Ibn Khaldun: Framed prices as a rational outcome of supply and demand, labor value, and market scale (treating the ruling dynasty/state as the ultimate market).
Role of Money Al Ghazali: Viewed money strictly as a medium of exchange; condemned hoarding and currency debasement as moral corruption and theft.
Ibn Khaldun: Analysed the circulation of money between rulers and subjects, warning that state hoarding or heavy extraction shrinks the economy.
Role of the State Al Ghazali: Responsible for enforcing divine justice (Sharia), protecting public welfare (maṣlaḥa), and keeping markets honest.
Ibn Khaldun: Responsible for public spending as a fiscal stimulus, keeping taxes low to encourage productivity, and maintaining infrastructure
Whilst both differ on how to view economy, both do believe in the idea of the free market. It is important to note that both are products of their time. With Ghazali have lived during a period of decentralisation of power with multiple spheres of influences within the state. Whilst Ibn Khaldun served in the chancellory of multiple centralised states. This likely shaped Ibn Khaldun's top down approach to the economy; that the state must have control. Ghazali on the other hand relegated the state's role to a mechanism that is put in place to correct injustice, only when certain conditions are met the state can intervene.
It is perhaps in our time that we must reflect on how we can learn from these two visions and combine them into a coherent financial architecture that regulates economic behaviours in a way that ensures the core tenets of the din are upheld.
Accelerated Fintech in an Anti Global world
Ulema were once self sufficient examples of decentralised networks of knowledge production that are now buried. Of course the majority of ulema will not comprehend this. The same ulema encourage 'Islamic banking", "Islamic investing", HSBC's sharia-compliant fund invested over $100 million on Israeli military linked firms. Most British 'Halal' pension funds that your local imam loves to talk about are invested in HSBC's Islamic Global Equity Index Fund, which also purchased $38 million worth of Palantir shares.
Top down topology that both Tee and Alam elluded too for increased bitcoin adoption, this would need a high level of state mapping, identifying spheres of influences across the globe not just Islamicate, the Mohammadan is seeking a jihad against riba everywhere not just within 'Islamic countries', his mission is to infiltrate and infect. Upholding divine law in a world that is godless. Government structures, regional dynamics, elite psychologies need to be assessed to build a strategy for state penetration. See Venezuala. On the private sector front, bitcoin can be used to undermine the traditional idea of a corporation, where capital and profit is centered around a few. It is through bitcoin that we can organise our own organisation of enterprise, a mudaraba that is enforced in code and financially managed through Btc.
Splintered Technologies
Not to be confused with the splinternet. Splinter tech focuses on open source, secure decentralised applications with multi party workflows, with splinter circuits providing peer to peer communication channels. Similar to Nostr, the foundations of ecommerce bitcoin based platforms will be built using these concepts. If we adopt Hui's premise of technology being a form of colonial homogenisation and epistemic imposition, then we need to build it into software,: a splintered technology must be anti colonial in its essence and it must be its very definition. Renewable energy, bitcoin, bluetooth all these are examples of splintered technologies. Technologies when combine provide a total process cycle that is independent and enhance sovereignty.
The gathering of the Muslim Bitcoin Summit is not about figuring out immediate solutions, but about something more, a gathering of minds. Representing a crack in cyberspace and reaching out into the physical realm to initiate a riba free culture that later forms into civilisation. Paradoxically, all major movements during the Enlightenment infected society this way, through the meeting of like minded minds that existed at the fringes of the dominant culture in secret societies and closed clubs who later changed the course of modernity itself. In such a world that is spiralling into chaos, the Mohammadan recognises that his mission is not easy; that whoever owns the future is the one most attached to his divine purpose of being God's vicegerent on earth.
As always Allah knows best.