Economic progress is not possible unless our currency is based on Gold or Silver
The recent Rupee temporary appreciation confirmed that by pegging Rupee to Dollar, Pakistan’s economy is at the mercy of global Dollar based loans. By altering the dollar supply in the country through loans, speculator hoarding and other means, Pakistan’s currency rises and falls, which affect the prices of everything in the lives of the people of Pakistan. On 12th March 2014, the Finance Minister, Mr. Ishaq Dar admitted that one of the major reasons in the recent gains in the value of Rupee is yet another Dollar based loan, of 1.5 billion Dollars. Such Dollar loans come with the huge cost and sin of Riba (usury), which constantly cripple Pakistan. Yet, the visionless Raheel-Nawaz government is praising itself for the temporary appreciation in the Rupee against the Dollar, which was inevitable when the Dollar supply is increased, by flooding it into the market. By linking Rupee to Dollar, Pakistan’s economy has been enslaved to the Dollar. In order prevent the volatile and violent bouncing around of the local currency, the currency must be backed on gold and silver as Islam as stipulated. This action will free Pakistan from Dollar domination and cut the root cause of inflation.
Like other currencies, the Dollar, the Pound and the Franc, originally, the Rupee was backed by real tangible wealth in the form of a precious metal. This system stabilized the value of the monetary unit both internally within the country and externally in international trade. Today, there is sufficient gold and silver in the world to support the actual economy, transactions such as buying and selling food, clothing, shelter, luxuries, manufacturing machinery and technology and so on. However, due to capitalist practices such as Riba based loans, the demand for the creation of money outstripped the supply of gold and silver. The states abandoned the precious metal standard, so that currency became backed only by the authority over the state, allowing more and more notes to be printed, without being backed fully by gold and silver, such that each new note has less value than previously. Adding to the difficulties of the people, many nations then linked their local currencies to the Dollar. Thus, the rupee that was once worth over eleven grams of silver before the British occupation, after over two hundred years of the capitalist system is now worth around one nine hundredth’s (1/900th) of a gram of silver. Before America’s war on Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq… 30.97 Rupees were needed to buy a single US Dollar, and then during the Musharraf-Aziz regime on Friday 15 August 2008 it rose to 76.9 Rupees with inflation in Pakistan at its highest ever in 30 years. And now in March 2014, under the Raheel-Nawaz regime around 100 Rupees are required to buy a single US dollar.
Islam obliges us that Muslims must declare Gold or Silver or both as their currency or issue a currency backed by Gold or Silver. But this order cannot be implemented by a dictator or a democratic ruler, rather it can only be implemented by Khilafah state, because the Khilafah state is bound to implement Islam in all the systems of governance including economics.
Shahzad Shaikh,
Deputy to the Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Wilayah of Pakistan
Friday, 13th Jumada I 1435 AH
14/03/2014 CE
No: PR14014