Sunday, March 12, 2017

The golden Dinar and Islamic State

ISIS Coin: 'Islamic State' Steal Gaddafi's Plan to Mint a Gold Dinar

ISIS maniacs are eying plans to mint their own 'ISIS dinar', but these will not be virtual cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or LiteCoin, they want to make a symbolic challenge to 'American infidels' by coining their new money in gold silver and copper.

In a statement issued from the ISIS press office, this move will deliver a blow to “the tyrant's financial system”, and will include seven coins – two gold, three silver and two copper.

The new Islamic State coins will also be, "purely dedicated to God", and according to its creators – designed to liberate Muslims (those who survive the purge anyway) from the "global economic system that is based on satanic usury".

Cryptocoins News explains the monetary and symbolic roots of the Islamic Dinar:
ancient golden Dinar
"The gold dinar is an early Islamic coin that corresponds to and is derived from the denarius auri of the Byzantine era. The gold dinar was in use during a caliphate that was known as the Umayyad. The Umayyad caliphate lasted close to a century. The coin was minted to a carefully controlled standard of 4.25 grams."
Critics point out that ISIS/ISIL would require access to the huge quantities of gold and silver to keep their new mint going. They would also require a secure location for minting and distributing their new money, which does not appear to be the case presently (depending on how desperate the CIA are to roll out the new currency, the New York Federal Reserve Bank might be an option).

Before the NATO blitz which leveled the country, Libya was one of the only remaining nations in the world that still had a 100% state-owned Central Bank, and unlike ISIS, was one of the only nations which actually had the stability, the will, and the means (and the lack of private banking interference inside Libya) to float a currency backed by precious metals.

Before he was murdered by NATO-backed Islamic militants, the late Libyan leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi (1942 – 20th October 2011), tried to enact the very same gold-backed currency project, albeit with much more stable financial backing – overall, a vastly better chance of success.

Many commentators still maintain that it was Gaddafi's pursuit of hard money challenging to US dollar's financial hegemony in the Middle East and Africa – in the form of a Libyan Gold Dinar – that led to the West's decision to attack and destroy Libya in 2011.

ISIS treasury 'administrators' have said they will provide updates and information on their new currency's exchange rate, as well as inform the public where it will be available for exchange.

If only the West had backed Gaddafi – instead of backing ISIS, the world might be a safer place…

By 21st Century Wire

Source: 21st Century Wire


Islamic State accumulating gold, silver and copper to mint its own currency

The Islamic State is not a state and not Islamic, Obama tells us. But it grounds all its actions in explicit statements of the Qur'an and Sunnah, and is busy accumulating all the ordinary features of a state. Does anyone have the will to stop it in its tracks?

An update on this story. "Islamic State reportedly buying silver, gold as it prepares to issue currency," by Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy, November 20, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

The Islamic State is not a state and not Islamic, Obama tells us. But it grounds all its actions in explicit statements of the Qur'an and Sunnah, and is busy accumulating all the ordinary features of a state. Does anyone have the will to stop it in its tracks?

golden Dinar Islamic StateAn update on this story. "Islamic State reportedly buying silver, gold as it prepares to issue currency," by Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy, November 20, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

IRBIL, Iraq – The Islamic State is accumulating gold, silver and copper in markets throughout northern and western Iraq, dealers report, in an apparent effort to stockpile enough precious metal to follow through on a pledge to mint its own currency.

On Nov. 11, the Islamic State's Beit al Mal, an ancient Islamic term akin to "Department of Treasury," announced that the group would reintroduce the dinar currency of the Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled an empire that stretched from modern Iran to Spain for much of the seventh and eighth centuries. The announcement – which included images of three types of coins in gold, copper and silver – drew skepticism from experts, who doubted that the Islamic State could arrange a system to mint and issue a modern currency.

But interviews with dealers in precious metals indicate that the Islamic State has begun the complex process of issuing the currency, a reminder that as the best-financed non-state actor in history – with a revenue stream from oil sales and aggressive taxation – it's been able to install bureaucratic controls over the large swath of territory it's claimed in Iraq and Syria.

Hajj Samir, a gold trader in the city of Fallujah who asked that his full name not be used for security reasons, said that since the announcement, foreign jihadists had been buying all of the gold and silver in the city's markets.

He said he alone had sold more than 15 pounds of gold to foreigners who were members of the Islamic State. "They said it was for gifts for their wives, but now I know why, and all the traders say the same thing," he said. "We've been making trips to Baghdad to get more, and they buy all of it."

Osman Ahmed, a 37-year-old gold trader in Mosul, said he'd been selling large amounts of gold and silver in the city, even though he now spent most of his time in Irbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region.

"We don't ask why they're buying so much," he said. "But even silver in small shops outside the city is sold out."
golden dinar Islamic State
Golden dinar of the Islamic State
The purchases have reached the point that traders like Ahmed have been traveling between Mosul and the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Suleimaniyah to renew their stocks. The Islamic State buys it all, he said.

Zakaria Ahmed, 33, a Mosul resident who's no relation to Osman Ahmed and whose brother is an Islamic State official, said he'd been told that the currency project was encountering difficulties because U.S.-led coalition airstrikes had made moving valuables more difficult. The airstrikes also have added to worries that any minting facility could be destroyed from the air.

But he said his understanding was that planning for the currency was proceeding apace. "It is still in an ongoing process to be released," he said by phone.

The Islamic State's plans also may be behind a new zeal among the group's fighters to salvage copper on the battlefield. Marwan al Obeidi, speaking by phone from the Iraqi city of al Qaim, said the need for copper for coins had led to the looting of the copper wiring used in electric transmission cables.

The gold and silver purchases are strange enough, he said. "But what is striking is how elements of the organization have seized power transmission cables and other copper components," Obeidi said. The fighters are burning the insulation off the cables and harvesting the copper, he said.

Zakaria Ahmed said it was uncertain that residents of Islamic State-controlled areas would embrace the currency. He said residents who were tired of their sons being killed in fighting and already were facing economic uncertainty didn't see much benefit from the reintroduction of a currency that was last in circulation more than 1,000 years ago.

With doubts high among some people that the Islamic State can outlast the international coalition arrayed against it, Ahmed predicted that "no one will use" the new currency, "even if we assume that it enters the market."

Still, the accumulation of so much gold, silver and copper has a benefit, he said. It provides a valuable asset "for use by the Islamic State."

By Robert Spencer

Source: Jihad Watch


Why Islamic State's gold coins won't replace the global banking system

Advocates of the gold standard have long been dismissed by mainstream economists as a club of bow-tie-wearing crackpots. That is no longer quite fair. Joining the gold bugs' ranks is a group of individuals who almost certainly never wear dickie bows: so-called Islamic State. On August 29th, al-Hayat, the organisation's foreign-media arm, published a 55-minute video denouncing the fractional reserve banking system, and advocating "the return of the ultimate measure of wealth for the world": gold.

golden dinar"The Rise of the Khilafah: Return of the Gold Dinar", makes a bizarre sales pitch for Islamic State's new gold currency. Covering a dizzying range of topics, from the importance of gold as a medium of exchange to "the dark rise of bank notes, born out of the satanic conception of banks", it argues America has been able to avoid hyperinflation and maintain its military hegemony largely thanks to the petrodollar system. Islamic State hopes that with the introduction of what it is calling the dinar, all oil will be paid for with gold instead of being priced in dollars, which would "mark the death of this oppressive banknote" and bring America "to her knees". Charts showing the gradual increase of the American money supply and the devaluation of the dollar are provided as evidence of the dangers of printing money. A rotation of gold-loving financial analysts is featured. Even Ron Paul, a former libertarian presidential candidate, makes an appearance denouncing inflation as theft.

There are three rather obvious problems with Islamic State's plan. First, its yellow currency is no different to any other version of the gold standard. The dinar's worth will be determined by the supply and demand for gold, exposing the currency to fluctuations in the price of the yellow stuff. A fall in the gold supply would be like a tightening of monetary policy; it could cause a recession. Second, a coin backed by a terrorist organisation has obvious credibility problems: aside from the fact that its coins cannot be traded legally, few would presumably use this currency to trade oil if it was only available in coin form, or other forms that relied on trusting Islamic State.

Finally, ending the petrodollar system would first require Islamic State to seize a far larger share of oil production in the Middle East and then persuade countries to agree to trade with it. Even if Islamic State were successful in becoming a major oil exporter, the strength of the dollar depends on far more than its use in the oil trade. American capitalism seems safe for a while yet.

By W.Z.

Source: The Economist

gold probe

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