International Seminar: Dinar-Dirham as The Solution to Monetary Crisis Medan, Indonesia (14th March 2002) Report by Norizan Esa

This seminar was co organised by Dinar-Dirham Foundation, Indonesia and attended by various sections of the international community - diplomats, financiers, business community, academics and religious bodies. The seminar was successful in emphasising the importance of returning to the Islamic bimetallic currency of gold and silver, in place of usurious paper money. Calls congratulating the organisers came pouring in the next day, as well as reports in the national papers. Seven speakers dwelt considerably on the subject. Dr Hakimi expounded on the views of European thinkers like Goethe, Wagner, Ezra Pound and Nietzche, all of whom criticised paper money and its usurious nature. He then mentioned Shaykh Muhammad 'Illish, an expert on fiqh at Al-Azhar University who gave a fatwa that included zakat is not payable for paper money. However, Syeikh Muhammad Abduh made fatwa making halal the interest from postal savings. This signals the start of islamisation of interest and banking. His student, Rashid Redha, continued this thesis in his writings. As a Muslim country, gold coins had been in use in Malaysia, for example the Kijang mas. This is the gold coin from the Kelantan Sultanate during the rule of the Malay queen, Che Siti Wan Kembang in 1850. It is notable that power of the Muslims degenerated with the acceptance of a non gold based economy. For example, the fall of the Othmanli Caliphate in Turkey (1923) was partly due to the removal of gold (Dinar) and silver (Dirham) from circulation. The Caliphate's unfavorable trade balance resulted in an outflow of gold, while European states demanded more favorable trade treaties and were guilty of blatantly abusing them. Dr Hakimi continued with Malaysia's experience since independence. This can be categorised into three phases: beginning with the establishment of a central bank during the period of just developing the country. The second phase saw the process of Islamisation when many financial institutions were "islamised". This included the establishment of Islamic banks and banking, Tabung Haji and Islamic Insurance. However, during this phase the prime minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir announced that the current monetary system based on paper money and cheques is not within the Islamic system. Around the same time, Shaykh Abdulqadir as-Sufi also brought to light the usurious nature of paper money. The third and current phase is the move towards gold based economy, spurred by the 1997 Asia Economic Crisis. Dr Mahathir declared at The Annual Seminar of The World Bank in Hong Kong that currency speculation should be made illegal since paper money in itself has no intrinsic value. As a response to the economic crisis, Malaysia withdrew RM 500 and RM 1000 notes from circulation. The Government then imposed currency control, pegging the ringgit to the US dollar. At the same time, any form of intervention by the IMF was rejected. In 1999, Dr Mahathir reiterated that paper money has no value. The value registered on a piece of paper only has value when it is endorsed by the government. The first exposition of the dinar (gold coin) and dirham (silver coin) was held in Universiti Sains Malaysia in 1998, at the 3rd International Islamic Political Economy Conference (IIPEC), officiated by the then Minister of Finance, Tun Daim Zainuddin. In 2000, e-dinar Ltd. was established as an off-shore facility in Labuan. The e dinar was then launched at the 4th IIPEC, jointly organised by ISNET-USM and officiated by the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. The e-dinar Ltd. team also had a meeting with the Prime Minister. In December 2000, The Royal Mint of Malaysia was awarded the rights to mint Malaysian gold coins, named the Kijang Emas. The issue of the Kijang Emas gold coin was launched by Dr Mahathir early in 2001. At the Al Baraka Symposium in 2001, Dr Mahathir declared that the Islamic Gold Dinar be used as the currency for trade and national reserves among OIC countries. He confirmed that the dinar is not paper but must be in gold. In July 2001 Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, accompanied by the CEO of e-dinar Ltd. Rais Umar Vadillo, paid a courtesy call on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir. In this meeting, Dr Mahathir expressed his intention to hold a seminar to discuss the introduction of the gold dinar as a world currency and determine its usage and the dimension of its applications. Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi was conferred the honorary doctorate of letters by USM in August 2001. As guest speaker of a USM public lecture held two days earlier, Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi spoke on the Restoration of Fiscal Islam, urging for the reinstatement of the gold dinar and silver dirham in the monetary system. In 2002, Rais Umar Vadillo briefed Dr Mahathir on further developments of the Islamic dinar. Dr Hakimi also enlightened the seminar audience on efforts relating to establishing the use of this bimetallic currency outside Malaysia, as well as the views of various experts on this matter. The first gold dinar and silver dirham was minted by Islamic Mint Spain in 1992. In 1996, e-dinar Ltd. established the first web site on gold and silver economy. Indonesia suffered greatly under the Asia Economic crisis. As a result, in 1998 UPP Logam Mulia minted gold coins named Koin Ongkos Naik Haji, with the specific purpose of savings for Hajj. Thus the people can guarantee the value of their savings against massive fluctuations in the Indonesia Rupiah. This was followed by the minting of the gold dinar and silver dirham for Islamic Mint Indonesia. In 1993, Kurtzman wrote in his book The Death of Money that paper money has become a twisted abstraction when President Nixon removed the gold backing to the US dollar. Although paper money is still a promissary note, but there are questions that arise - namely "what is to be paid?" and "who is to receive this payment?". In 1998 Dr Nasir Farid Wasil, Mufti of Egypt urged the reestablishment of Islamic economy based on gold and silver, in place of the US dollar. The next speaker, Dr Zuhaimy presented a paper titled Towards Establishing A Stable Currency in the Region. Dr Zuhaimy explained the usurious nature of paper money - existing as promissary note or as fiat money: that issued by governments. This allows banks to produce money out of nothing, so paper money is actually debt money. The manipulability of the value of paper money makes it a very unstable currency. He then showed that economics is not neutral since its presumptions opposes Allah's injunction. Economics has forbidden trade and permitted riba, but Allah has permitted trade and forbidden riba. There is thus a need to replace speculative economy with trade (real economy). Dr Zuhaimy then talked about the national debt - that it can never be repaid. A nation is forced to borrow to justify taxation - the capital borrowed is used to finance projects, for which taxes are charged to provide the means to repay the debt. The interest imposed on the national debt causes it to grow exponentially, yet payments are made regularly. In this way, payments never catch up with the growing national debt. Nations just continue paying! The speaker continued with a description of the Islamisation process, beginning with the Islamisation of knowledge. Yet knowledge cannot be Islamised. All knowledge belongs to Allah. The final agenda in the Islamisation process is the Islamisation of financial institutions. The methodology of Islamisation involves the abandoning of the original practice based on amal and reverting to text then developing principles and procedures. Having lost the amal, Islamisation of practices (amal) alien to Islam becomes the norm. Thus, for example the Islamisation of financial institutions in effect becomes an attempt at icing the cake, while overlooking to question the basis of such systems. It is by this method that modern Islamic scholars have proposed the creation of Islamic central banks to issue currency or paper money backed by gold. This is effectively the gold standard. However throughout history gold was used as money, then papers represented gold and then later, papers backed by gold were used as money. Today, money is pure paper not backed by any specie of any kind. And now, money is in the form of computer signals. The value of money today can never be guaranteed, and remains unstable. Dr Zuhaimy proposes that the way to a stable currency in the region is by adopting the Islamic Gold Dinar (IGD) and the Islamic Silver Dirham (ISD) and establish real economy. It must be gradual, beginning with co existence of the banking system and the bimetallic currency of gold and silver. The ultimate goal of the IGD is to eliminate usury. The people should be allowed to choose the IGD as an alternative. The IGD and IGD-payment systems should develop in accordance to the general policy of promoting Islamic Trading, thus avoiding usury. The third speaker, Dr Abdalhamid Evans who represented Rais Umar Ibrahim Vadillo presented a paper on The Core Mechanism of real economy. The elements of real economy are markets, qirad, trading, awqaf, guilds and the IGD. In contrast, speculative economy has as its elements - banking, interest, stock exchanges, financial instruments, credit and paper money. In real economy, transactions involve the exchange of goods and money, bound by contracts and conducted in a particular place. The core mechanism of real economy has three components, namely the market network, investment and the payment system. The market network of suqs and e-suqs provides traders with accessible open markets. Rent is not paid and the trader has no exclusive right to a particular location in the market. Investment in trading is by the contract of qirad and e-qirad, which circumvents the conventional banking system. The payment system adopted in this real economy is the dinar and e-dinar, the only universally stable currency. Another speaker and lecturer in law at the Universiti Sumatera Utara, Mr O.K. Saidin talked about the ownership that is attached to money. Ownership does not follow paper money, either in time or distance. On the other hand, such ownership remains with gold and silver. Gold and silver still has value even after being melted down, or transported to another country or kept for hundreds of years. One cannot claim the value attached to paper money once it has turned to ashes, or for an Indonesian Rupiah printed twenty years ago. A Rupiah will not be accepted in Germany, yet a US dollar is accepted in Indonesia. So, the ownership of paper money will follow only if it is from a particular country. This is a form of control, invisible to many. The seminar has gathered experts from various fields and a complete picture of real economy, driven by the bimetallic currency of the Islamic Gold Dinar and Islamic Silver Dirham was presented.