In 2001(about 9 years ago), it was then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed who mooted (or tried to reintroduce) the idea of a gold payment system — the Gold Dinar — to settle bilateral and multilateral trade payments among countries and thereby eliminate foreign exchange risk.
He said, gold should be used as a medium of exchange and as a unit of account instead of the national currencies. But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prohibits the use of gold as a medium of payment and as such the proposed gold dinar was a potential violation of the IMF rule.
On Aug 1 2001, Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd (BIMB) in a statement by its senior general manager, Ismail Mahayudin said that the use of Islamic gold dinar as common currency among the Islamic countries could be workable.
He said, "If the Europeans could do it with their Euro currency, then why not us?" at a seminar called "Islamic-Based Financing - What is it?" organised by the bank.
The Malaysian Islamic Economic Development Foundation (YPEIM) director-general Datuk Abdul Malek Awang Kechil also welcomed the statement that Malaysia is capable of pioneering the use of the Islamic currency of dinar.
A day earlier, Shaykh Abdalqadir As-Sufi (leader of the Darqawi-Shadhili-Qadiri Tariqa, founder of the Murabitun World Movement and author of numerous books on Islam) had called on Malaysia to lead the promotion of the Islamic dinar in international trade.
The full report here.
In 2002, Dr. Mahathir had again reiterated his support that Malaysia initiates the Gold Dinar. In response to that the Institute of Islamic Understanding (Ikim) hosted a two-day seminar in Kuala Lumpur on Oct. 22-23, called "The Gold Dinar in Multilateral Trade."
This was the second major conference in Malaysia on this subject involving representatives of members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).
The first conference, "Stable and Just Global Monetary Systems," held in August the same year, announced that the Gold Dinar would be implemented as a bilateral arrangement between Malaysia and certain unspecified partners by the middle of 2003, and extended to multilateral agreements over time.
This was also the gist of Michael O. Billington's article: Gold Dinar:An Economic and Strategic Respons to Chaos
If the past week's news on the Kelantan Government's effort to reintroduce the Gold Dinar is anything to go by -- or taken in an extreme or worst still, Islamophobic way, the Gold Dinar iniative can translate into something like - we are trying to be retrogressive - economically!
But, are we (being retrogressive)?
It is actually the opposite. There is actually so much potential in the Gold Dinar.
In response to the Malaysian Insider news-report: Kelantan Launches Gold Dinar, a reader by the nick of Obama has a good argument to offer. He wrote:
What makes for good money ? Common sense makes the following properties desire-able of good money :
It must be portable, you can carry it in your pocket. Barrels of oil wont do.
It must be relatively easily divisible to get smaller denominations. e.g.. You cannot easily divide diamonds, they won't do.
It must be durable. Iron wont do, it rusts away.
It must be desire-able. Dog turds wont do , nobody wants them.
It must not be counterfeit-able. Paper wont do, you can just print it up.
It must not have overwhelming industrial use so there is enough to save. Platinum wont do, all the platinum is used up by industry.
It must have constant marginal utility. i.e. it must never lose its attraction. water wont do, because after a certain point you don't want anymore water.
It must not be ubiquitous. Salt or beads wont do it is everywhere.
When you take all this into account , then you arrive at gold as the most perfect money out of all substances known to man. This is why gold has been the perfect money for 5000 years and is still not surpassed.
There is only one system that may work where you don't actually have to carry gold in your pocket and that is Real Bills CLEARED for physical gold. But, failing that , physical gold coins are the most superior money that exists, and we would all be better off if we reverted to a physical gold currency.
Islam has it correct, and that is one of the reasons that the western moneychangers want to destroy it. They are a block to the spread of usury and fractional reserve banking, the cancer that has destroyed us.
It must be portable, you can carry it in your pocket. Barrels of oil wont do.
It must be relatively easily divisible to get smaller denominations. e.g.. You cannot easily divide diamonds, they won't do.
It must be durable. Iron wont do, it rusts away.
It must be desire-able. Dog turds wont do , nobody wants them.
It must not be counterfeit-able. Paper wont do, you can just print it up.
It must not have overwhelming industrial use so there is enough to save. Platinum wont do, all the platinum is used up by industry.
It must have constant marginal utility. i.e. it must never lose its attraction. water wont do, because after a certain point you don't want anymore water.
It must not be ubiquitous. Salt or beads wont do it is everywhere.
When you take all this into account , then you arrive at gold as the most perfect money out of all substances known to man. This is why gold has been the perfect money for 5000 years and is still not surpassed.
There is only one system that may work where you don't actually have to carry gold in your pocket and that is Real Bills CLEARED for physical gold. But, failing that , physical gold coins are the most superior money that exists, and we would all be better off if we reverted to a physical gold currency.
Islam has it correct, and that is one of the reasons that the western moneychangers want to destroy it. They are a block to the spread of usury and fractional reserve banking, the cancer that has destroyed us.
Now why hasn't the current Malaysian government or even the previous (Paklah's) started on it? And now the Kelantan Government has got the upper hand against them, in this matter.
Check-out the Kelantan's World Islamic Mint website which has the smallest denomination of the Gold Dinar (1/2 Dinar) at :: RM 292.50 as of today. Yesterday, the smallest denomination of the Gold Dinar (1/2 Dinar) is valued at RM296.
Bernama's yesterday (18.08.2010) report said that the Kelantan folks were queuing by the numbers at Ar Rahn Bank in Kota Bharu to buy the Dinar: Dinar, dirham jadi rebutan rakyat Kelantan
thank you 建枫. will try to be original
ReplyDeleteas of today the 1/2 Dinar :: RM 297. wish i had bought it when it was RM 292 2 weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteI like Dinar.
ReplyDeleteDinar