Strangers In The Dunyā

‎The rise of fiat currencies necessitated two types of disbelief in Allāh: the state and nationalism. The state transfers Allāh’s monopoly over the law and the legitimate use of violence to the creation, and nationalism grants the state an identity to represent so that people belonging to that identity can worship the state alongside Allāh ﷻ. ‎The state having a monopoly over the law and the legitimate use of violence meant that it could forcefully establish a monopoly over the minting of gold and silver coins. By doing this, the state could manipulate the value of money by mixing gold and silver with other materials that are easier to supply. ‎Nationalism was necessary to get the people to accept moving away from a common global currency based on gold and silver and using national currencies like the US dollar and the British pound sterling. ‎Once each nation started using its own currency, it became possible for the state to start the second step in separating national currencies from gold and silver beyond just naming them. This step was the issuance of promissory notes named after national currencies out of “convenience”. ‎These promissory notes were supposed to represent gold and banks were required to exchange their customers’ promissory notes for gold upon demand. However, under a system where banks profit off lending on interest, they started lending out a lot more promissory notes than the amount of gold they had in their reserves. ‎This created a panic where people, upon realising the reality of fraudulent banking practices, started exchanging their promissory notes for gold en masse, creating a banking crisis. ‎The state responded to this by establishing central banks that could manipulate the value of money by increasing/decreasing its supply and demand under the guise that they were necessary to keep promissory notes pegged to gold. When this didn’t work, the state took the next step and relinquished the gold standard altogether, making the promissory notes themselves actual currencies. ‎Relinquishing the state’s monopoly over the law and the legitimate use of violence and destroying nationalism, both of which are necessary for the establishment of an Islāmic order, would result in the collapse of fiat currency. ‎The state having a monopoly over the printing of money and establishing central banks is necessary to prevent hyperinflation in a fiat-based monetary system, because it allows the state to restrict the supply of money by increasing interest rates and reducing the demand for credit. ‎By removing the state’s monopoly over the law and the legitimate use of violence, the state would be unable to maintain its monopoly over the monetary system and control interest rates, leading to hyperinflation. This means people would lose trust in fiat money and turn to alternatives. ‎In the absence of a state that controls the supply of money, using alternatives to fiat money becomes easy. And the absence of a state that has a monopoly over the law and the legitimate use of violence means that there would be no state entity to prevent the collapse of fiat currency by seizing control of banks and industrial enterprises, which would allow them to force people to become dependent on fiat money, determine the supply and demand of credit, goods, and services, and increase interest rates to stop hyperinflation. ‎By destroying nationalism, people would become more open to alternatives to fiat national currencies that are global in character, such as Bitcoin.

The IMF and World Bank “helping” countries like Bangladesh develop industries and increase economic growth doesn’t mean anything, because they’re just helping them develop industries that produce exports at the expense of the production of consumable goods. They use the profits gained from exports to import food from the West. The West subsidises their food industry with billions of dollars so that they can dump food products in these countries’ markets and make the local people dependent on them. Bangladesh is currently the third-largest food-importing country in the world. The liberal international economic order, which the IMF is a key pillar of, promotes the view of economic “development” outlined by Adam Smith. During his time, the various European empires were engaged in a form of capitalism called mercantilism, where they tried to become as self-sufficient as possible and compete with each other to dominate global trade. Adam Smith used the example of a pin factory to demonstrate how specialising in certain commodities is much more productive than autarky. He said that a pin factory where each worker is assigned to multiple tasks and in charge of all the steps of supplying pins to the market is going to be less productive than a pin factory where workers are divided into groups in charge of different steps. According to Adam Smith, countries can export the goods they specialise in producing in exchange for monetary goods, which can then be used to purchase other needed goods. So a country like Bangladesh that specialises in the production and sale of textiles can use the money gained from exporting textiles to purchase food. Islām, like capitalism, believes in a market economy that runs on an incentive to accumulate capital and increase profits. But unlike capitalism, Islām places restrictions on these incentives — they must not lead to capital accumulation and profit-making at the expense of dīn and ethics. The type of economic “development” pursued by Bangladesh and other Muslim-majority countries contradicts dīn and ethics because it leads to a situation where they’re entirely dependent on markets under the control of the liberal international economic order. They need loans, resources, and markets from the liberal international economic order to maintain and expand their industries and imports to feed their population. This allows the kuffār in charge of the liberal international economic order to punish them when they become too rebellious by sanctioning them or manipulating the value of their currencies. It makes implementing sharī`ah, opting out of the liberal international order, and waging jihād very costly. The kuffār dominate the lands of the Muslims in this manner, and anyone who understands this and continues to justify taking loans from the IMF and the World Bank is nothing short of a traitor.

An economy is more successful when people have lower preferences, meaning that they are more willing to sacrifice present consumption and leisure time in exchange for a greater reward in the future (more valuable leisure time, a greater ability to consume, etc.). Capital accumulation improves productivity and brings more wealth to a society, but it also requires sacrificing present consumption and leisure in order to pay for and develop capital. For example, someone who wants to start a delivery business but only has a bicycle would be a lot more productive and would make a lot more money if he had a car. But he has to sacrifice present consumption and leisure in order to save up to buy a car and then prepare it for his delivery business. He’ll also need saved-up money to sustain himself while he’s preparing the car, as that necessitates giving up the profits that could’ve been made from continuing to use the bicycle to do delivery. Although this process temporarily results in less pleasure, the delivery man is willing to go through it anyway because he values the rewards that investing in better capital (the car) would bring in the future. When people have lower time preferences, more capital is accumulated and more wealth is gained from the greater productivity. Overconsumption impedes this economic growth; even if business owners gain more profit from more consumption, how much they’re willing to use that extra profit for capital investment instead of consumption depends on their time preferences. This principle doesn’t just apply on an individual level, it applies on a state level as well. A government can choose to spend an excessive sum of money on providing material benefits to the people, but this comes at the cost of having to go into further debt and creating inflation in even future in order to pay for more vital things. This is one of the problems with democracy; politicians promise the people material benefits they like to hear in order to gain votes, and once in power they start excessively granting the people those benefits at the cost of a worse financial and economic situation in the future. This doesn’t matter to them because their time in power is restricted by term limits, and the future problems that result from their policies would simply be blamed on the other politicians who are in power by then. It’s not possible to sacrifice present benefits in favour of greater future benefits in a democracy because politicians need to secure votes, and the benefits of the sacrifices often won’t manifest themselves before the next election. So it’s political suicide. Government policies affect everyone in a country, so this can have the effect of increasing the time preferences of an entire society in general. Furthermore, the endless cycle of bad policies that bring short-term benefits at the cost of future problems creates a situation where bad governance is normalised, leading people to become increasingly apolitical and just vote for whoever they think is the lesser evil rather than whoever they think would be good for the country. This means politicians would be less accountable to the people for their bad governance, refuting the idea that democracy brings more accountability.

It seems that a lot of “Islāmic economics” theorists misunderstand what hoarding wealth actually is in the sharī`ah; it’s not a prohibition of savings in general but rather a prohibition on hoarding wealth on which zakāt is due. Paying the zakāt purifies your wealth. This misunderstanding is dangerous because saving up is what enables capital investment. You can consume all you want, but without the owners of the businesses you consume the goods and services of being willing to save up to accumulate more capital, it won’t lead to great economic growth. More zakāt is a good thing and zakāt shouldn’t be viewed as something we want to avoid. We want to sustain the livelihoods of our brothers and sisters who are less well off and aid the mujāhidīn with our wealth.

The free market isn’t responsible for monopolisation and the creation of multinational companies; rather, it’s ribā, fiat money, government intervention in the market, and the centralisation of power that create an unprecedented concentration of capital and labour. When ribā is legalised, it allows wealthy people who own enterprises that are doing well to take fat loans from the bank to accumulate an unprecedented amount of capital and labour. Business owners who struggle and don’t have much money can’t afford to take fat loans. We can see how this played out historically; the rise of industrial monopolies was closely accompanied by the rise of banking monopolies. Banks were already loaning out a lot more promissory notes than the amount of gold they had in their reserves, but the abolition of the gold standard made it much easier for them to print credit. Additionally, it allowed governments to simply print money to bail out businesses. Government intervention in the market, particularly through the imposition of the minimum wage, forces smaller businesses that lack advanced capital that can produce large amounts of revenue to either fire workers (which decreases their productivity) or shut down, because many of their workers would be producing less revenue than the minimum wage. This ruins competition in the market and gives larger businesses with more advanced capital an edge over smaller ones. The centralisation of power and the weakening or elimination of localised authorities gave businesses greater access to land, natural resources, labour, and markets in other parts of a country. Conflict and rivalry between different local authorities place barriers on businesses in one region accessing land, natural resources, labour, and markets in other regions. The difficulty of travel is another barrier. The beauty of the Islāmic economic system is that it allows and protects the free market and all the benefits that come with it, while at the same time prohibiting things that are harmful to the free market and the economy at large.

In the 40 years between 1400 AH and 1441 AH, the Earth’s population increased by 75.8%, and many technologies like the internet emerged. Population growth and the development of new technologies are constant and unavoidable as time progresses. The nation-state survives on having a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence and the law, and it needs its people to keep primarily identifying with their nationality. As the population grows and new technologies develop, this becomes more expensive. If the state cannot afford to maintain the centralisation of power and keep people from forming new communities and institutions that can challenge state power and divert people’s identities, the nation-state will disintegrate. This was why every nation-state moved away from the gold standard and adopted fiat national currencies. Unlike hard currencies, fiat currencies can simply be printed into existence. Fiat currency also allows the state to easily manipulate prices by increasing the money supply, which can be used to increase people’s dependence on the state and thus its power and influence. By creating inflation, people become poorer, and poorer people are more dependent on state subsidies and welfare programs. The rise in crime as a result of increased economic hardship also allows the state to justify expanding and strengthening the police and security apparatus. As people become poorer and as the purchasing power of people’s money decreases, the more people have to work (as savings become increasingly less valuable) and the less time and wealth they have to help each other in times of economic hardship. This again increases people’s dependence on state welfare and crime rates, leading to the further expansion of the police and security apparatus. It also allows the state to collect more taxes to strengthen itself. Prior to Switzerland’s abandonment of the gold standard in 1392 AH, there was nearly no unemployment in the country. Immediately after that, unemployment significantly rose (see attached image). Increased inflation means increased unemployment. When workers are poorer due to the decreased purchasing power of their money, they demand higher wages and utilise their leverage over politicians (through elections) to increase the minimum wage. However, employers cannot afford to grant their workers a wage increase, because the costs of maintaining their businesses and providing for themselves also increase. So they have to let workers go in order to afford the wage increases or shut down, leading to unemployment. Unemployed people consume less, leading to lower productivity and more businesses shutting down. This in turn leads to even more unemployment, and the cycle continues. Unemployed people turn to crime and rely more on government benefits, allowing the state to justify increasing taxes to further expand the police/security force and grant more government “benefits” to the people that increase the centralisation of power in the hands of the state. A significant increase in the money supply also leads to increased investments in unsustainable projects, and when credit tightens, unemployment would increase even more. The nation-state is incompatible with Islām for many reasons, and one of them is that fiat money is incompatible with Islām. Fiat currencies cannot avoid unprecedented levels of hyperinflation without ribā, as interest would be the only thing preventing an excessive increase in the supply of money. ‎The collapse of fiat currency would lead to the collapse of the nation-state. So the sooner it happens, the sooner we will be able to reunite the Muslims under the sacred law of Allāh ﷻ.

Fiat currency derives its value from people demanding it to satisfy their needs and wants. Moving away from dependence on fiat currency, even if only partially, can harm the enemies of Allāh and contribute towards the end of the fiat-based global system of enslavement. The more people turn to alternatives like gifting, charity, abstaining from excessive consumption, barter trading, and cryptocurrencies, the less people would want fiat money. The ṭawāghīt need to keep printing and increasing the supply of fiat money because they rely on it to purchase weapons from arms manufacturers to arm their military and security apparatuses and aid their allies like the Zionist entity. They also need it to preserve and expand their control over the people they rule over by building schools, hospitals, and social welfare programs. They won’t go with the flow and use alternatives to fiat money like others because sticking to the fiat monetary system is how they stay in power. US global dominance survives on most of the world’s fiat currencies being pegged to the US dollar and the ṭawāghīt of other countries want to avoid being eliminated or isolated from the “benefits” of having access to markets controlled by the liberal international economic order. By reducing our demand for fiat money, the inflation and currency devaluation resulting from the ṭawāghīt increasing its supply would be higher. This means the fiat prices of goods and services and government expenditures would increase, creating more societal pressure on ṭāghūt governments, making it harder for them to increase their power and grant subsidies to the enemies of Allāh like the Zionist entity, and encouraging more people to turn to alternatives to fiat money.

The ease of printing money in a fiat monetary system leads to ever-increasing inflation. As inflation increases, living costs also increase. When this happens, the masses of workers demand higher wages and pressure politicians to increase the minimum wage, which they will do in a democracy in order to gain votes. Although employers will make more money from the increased prices of goods and services, they will also have to spend more money on rent, electricity and water bills, their personal living expenses, etc. Since they cannot afford to pay the extra wages, they’d have to fire workers or shut down, leading to increased unemployment. Increased unemployment along with the fact that money has less purchasing power as inflation increases means that people will consume less in the market, which leads to even less production and more businesses shutting down, creating more unemployment and less consumption. It’s a vicious cycle.

The feminisation of men is the latest in a long list of historical processes to increase the centralisation of power in the hands of the state. Weak men are less capable of protecting and providing for themselves and their families, and women are naturally weaker than men. This gives the state justification to impose higher taxes to purchase technology to arm the police force and increase the power of and people’s dependence on the police. Additional taxes would also be required to build social welfare programs to provide for men who can’t provide for themselves and families who don’t have men to provide for them. These programs then compete with traditions and institutions that provide for the people independently of the state on an unequal footing, leading people to become more dependent on the state and to the state becoming more powerful and influential. This is why there’s such a great effort in public educational institutions to push for homosexuality and the feminisation of boys and men.