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LONDON: The Shacklewell Lane Mosque also known as Masjid Ramadan in Dalston becomes the first mosque in the UK to take Cryptocurrencies for Zakat and Sadaqah donations this Ramadan. Zakat is one of the pillars of of Islam, which is a commandment to all eligible Muslims to donate at least 2.5% of their wealth to charity. Religious advisers declared that Bitcoin is acceptable in the eyes of Allah, if it is “transacted in a lawful manner”. Muslims can use two different cryptocurrencies-Bitcoin and Ethereum for their Ramadan donations, known as zakat, or sadaqah. “Any money or currency is neither halal – permissible – nor haram – impermissible. Guidance is about the value which it represents. If money is transacted in a lawful manner then it is halal,” Zayd al Khair, a religious adviser at the mosque, told ‘The Daily Telegraph’. Erkin Guney, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Masjid Ramadan, Zayd al Khair, an Islamic advisor at the mosque, and Gurmit Singh, found...

The debate ‘whether cryptocurrency Bitcoin is compliant with Shariah or not’ keeps going on as Islamic rulings abstain one from interest or ‘riba’ on loans and dealing with bitcoin involves interest. A Muslim cleric in December last year had declared that owning bitcoin was compatible with Islamic finance and meanwhile, other scholars disagreed and a fatwa against the cryptocurrency was issued by a top Islamic cleric of Egypt. Matthew J. Martin, the founder of Blossom Finance – Indonesia based microfinance startup – which uses cryptocurrency to help Muslims with Islamic financial law; along with internal Shariah advisor Mufti Muhammad Abu Bakar in a study says ‘Bitcoin is compliant with Islamic financial law’. However, the condition is the local government should not forbid its usage in the region. The founder of the financial firm says there is a widespread confusion among Muslims about cryptocurrencies. “Shariah law is not a single set of rules; it’s is a scholarly field sub...