Top Pakistani scholar says cryptocurrency transactions impermissible in Islam
Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani says cryptocurrency does not qualify as wealth under Shariah and rules that purchases made using crypto tokens, including USDT, are not permissible
KARACHI, Pakistan (MNTV) — One of the Muslim world’s most influential jurists has ruled that cryptocurrency cannot be treated as wealth under Islamic law, declaring transactions made with digital tokens impermissible.
Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, president of Wifaq-ul-Madaris Al-Arabia Pakistan — the country’s largest federation of Deobandi religious seminaries — and head of Darul Uloom Karachi, issued the fatwa in response to a question from a member of the public.
His son, Hassan Usmani, confirmed to Pakistani media the authenticity of the ruling, which had been circulating on social media.
Usmani’s opinion carries weight well beyond Pakistan. A former judge on the Shariah Appellate Bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, he chairs the Shariah board of the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI), whose standards shape Islamic banking practice across the Gulf, South and Southeast Asia.
A fatwa is a scholarly legal opinion rather than a binding law, but rulings from Usmani are widely followed by observant Muslims and by financial institutions seeking Shariah compliance.
The ruling turns on whether cryptocurrency qualifies as maal — wealth or property in the Islamic legal sense, a category that traditionally requires an asset to have tangible existence and recognized value.
Drawing on available research and expert consultation, Usmani concluded that digital assets amount to nothing more than numerical entries in electronic accounts and do not meet that threshold.
Because crypto is not maal, he ruled, it cannot serve as valid payment.
That applies regardless of the token used, he said, including stablecoins such as Tether (USDT), which are pegged to the U.S. dollar and are the most widely used instrument for everyday crypto payments.
The question put to Usmani came from a man who said he had bought two books from an online seller, paying for one with a crypto token and the other with USDT, and wanted to know whether the purchases were religiously valid. The fatwa instructed him to return the books.
The same query asked about an online educational course the man had bought with cryptocurrency from a seller who was not authorized to distribute it.
According to the question, the course’s owner had barred buyers from copying, retaining or reselling the material, but the seller had kept a copy and was passing it on — adding purchasers to an online group after payment, then sharing the files.
Usmani ruled that acquiring the course was impermissible on two grounds: it breached Islamic principles and it broke the law. He instructed the questioner to take no benefit from the material and to delete it permanently.
Islamic scholars remain divided on cryptocurrency.
Egypt’s Grand Mufti and Turkiye’s Directorate of Religious Affairs have both issued opinions against it, citing speculation and the absence of state backing.
Others, including scholars in Southeast Asia, have argued that a widely accepted medium of exchange can qualify as maal through customary use, and Malaysia’s Securities Commission has permitted Shariah-compliant digital asset trading under certain conditions.
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