The last reason is because it promises us with the financial stability and security. One main component that makes the world in the cycle of financial dooms nowadays is because we are tangled in the web of financial usury or riba. Get rid of the usury and a huge portion of the world’s problem will disappear. Paper money is well known to be subjected to usury (Mohamad, 2009). It is related to the ability to create money out of thin air, creating money on the other hand has to do with the government’s economic decisions. When government need extra cash, they will ask Bank Negara to print out the money, and then it will be put into the banks around the country. Those who borrow it will be charged with interest, the profit surpluses can then be used by the government. However it may seem as the last option by governments to do this, in a bigger spectrum, imagine that government become the big nations, the vetoes, their bank is International Monetary Fund (IMF), and their customers are the third world countries. Indonesia for example who has taken a large sum of fund from International Monetary Fund (IMF), and just imagine how long will it takes to pay all the ever mounting debts and the condition is not getting any better in a short term.
A nation’s decision will affect its system and the system is comprised of the citizens. In the end, the working class people are the one who has to lay labour in order to survive while the value of money keeps dropping. If we are about to think small, then think if we are the one who has to sweat day and night just to make a decent living. Think what if we have gold, a value holder that confirms a good return if we are going to exchange with other goods. What is the good to have one million Rupiahs if it is worth only half the pay for low laymen in Malaysia? How about low laymen in Indonesia? Then the figure of one million Rupiahs could only be dreamt off for them. Just to be exact, one Dinar cost about RM 660, equivalent to IDR 1.9 million, how staggering that would be. So in a country that is flourishing with tranquillity and financial stability, we must take a heap to protect ourselves and our family before the rainy days eventually arrive. Do the right thing now, and the right thing will always seeks its way to you.
Usury is clearly a form of oppression and injustice (Mohamad, 2009). When we hold something that is independent of other things, we will have freedom. Gold has its own value and it does not need government or banks to tell it whether it is useful for exchanges. You will be the owner of yourself and none others.
Investing and saving in Dinar is also an action of protecting our wealth from manipulative threats. We have discussed earlier how money can be printed out of thin air, how it is subjected to usury, how it affect an individual, how the exchange rates makes it difficult and strangely inconvenient, and now we would like to know better how money could be manipulated. The obvious issue is the external manipulation and devaluation of ‘money with no intrinsic value’ by developed countries (Hosein, 2007). We once have a solid economy traded in gold and the system works fine and everybody is happy. But when the ruling European Judeo-Christian alliance start the movement to remove the money with intrinsic value (gold) from the money-system of the world and then replacing it with money that has no intrinsic value like paper, then everything change. Gold has no longer become currency and just acts as a backing to the paper money that has been put into the circulation. Later when the World War II occurred, the countries involved had to print more money so as to fund the war. When the war is over and the treaty was signed, losing countries have to pay back the damages they inflicted and the winning countries nevertheless, had already spent too much. So none of the countries that have rights to the compensation want others’ printed money, thus they claimed for gold from the treasuries. Needless to say, those who have printed too much money had already overwhelmed the amount of gold they could use to back up paper money they’ve printed.
In the end after the World War II, the power has shifted and new world order was formed. The issue of gold-backed-money is very critical and in order to escape the calamity, in 1971 President Nixon of the United States had abolished the Bretton-Wood system (Stephey, 2008) and the world seeing the end of gold backed currency previously used. As the world power, every nation follows their step and now we have what we call fiat money, money that is one hundred percent not backed up by gold or any other commodity. Now the wealth of a country is not limited to the real amount of gold they have, they can always print more and they will always looking forward to trade their money with real valued goods and commodities.
The strategies used are different nowadays. They are focusing on globalization, political intervention and financial control over nations. They manipulate how much their money would worth over others and since they are the big nations, obviously their money will be valued more. They targeted countries that economies have been weakened, which will seek help from International Monetary Fund (IMF) and assume control over them. When money have been devalued so much, it would become more and more expensive for such countries to pay loans which were taken on interest. Eventually these countries were trapped in debt they could never repay and fall under the mercy of those who suspiciously loan them large amount of money (Hosein, 2007). The cost of property, labour, goods and services in the territories of the devalued currency become cheaper and cheaper to those who create the monetary system. Then when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forced privatization upon those whose money had lost value, the bandits could then buy out oil and gas fields, power supply companies, telephone companies, etc., in such countries for a price far less than their true value. It is the neo-colonization and like Mexico which has been funded with billions of dollars by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the standard of living is poor, the cost of property and labour are very cheap, and there are a lot of American’s factories built there to get the utmost profit from the low production cost.
Let us ponder back to the year 1997 which at that time Malaysia was in financial crisis. When Malaysia showed the signs of imminent economic downturn, the currency speculators jump in to profit from the situation (Meera, 2002). These collective speculators were amounted to largely attack our currency and to buy our currency as much as they can. It was becoming very hard for the central bank to match the foreign reserves in order to counter attack. In the end our currency plunged down from RM2.47 per US dollar to a crisis rate of RM4.80 per US dollar. When the value of our money have been dropped to that extent level, they will not only profited from the early speculation they have made, but they will also take advantages from exchanging the money during the disequilibrium between currencies in order to get an arbitrage profit. The country which was already in bad condition due to the economic downturn was worsened by the collective attacks. This situation is an inevitable as the graph of economic growth will always move in a wave like shape, meaning to say that after several years of economic growth the cycle will repeat again. During the economic recession many companies scaled down operation and retrenching workers, individuals and businesses declared bankrupt and citizens have to cut down their expenses extensively especially for private sectors workers. It seems that the only way to survive is to avoid the currency speculation and arbitrage effects by making our self ready with enough savings.
The power to shape our history does not always totally rely on the role of government, apparently in this new millennium the individual influences are becoming more prominent than ever. Even though we are not going to burn ourselves to death just like Muhammad Bouazizi that sparks the revolution in Tunisia and then Egypt, we still have the choice to influence our course of life. We could not escape the system, but we must make sure we can survive under the system. After years of working, we must make sure our salary is invested properly. Those who hold gold would not become poor because even the money was devalued, gold will retain its values. Although gold can fluctuates from time to time, it is still the most feasible way to have financial stability and security. It is portable, high liquidity, stable, highly demanded, universal and secure.
In recent progress, gold have become more acknowledged with deeper understanding of its role in economy rather than just becoming merely jewelleries. Gold is now freely traded by the public and reachable by anyone. One of the most popular products nowadays besides jewellery is gold dinar. It enables individuals, not just women to be unhesitant and have the chance to keep gold in a quantity that they could afford. It will be a long way before gold becomes the backbone of our economy, but it seems to have a good start after all. It is hoped that everyone would turn to gold as their mean of saving and investment so that with the individual effort combined, our country will be as strong and as stable just like gold have. As a conclusion gold dinar is recognized as divine money in Islam, has undeniable potential as precious commodity, and promise financial stability and security and therefore would becoming the best deal in investment.
Bibliography
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Hosein, I. N. (2007). The Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham: Islam and the Future of Money. San Fernando: Masjid Jami'ah.
Kijang Emas Prices. (2011, March 10). Retrieved March 10, 2011, from Bank Negara Malaysia: http://www.bnm.gov.my
Meera, A. K. (2002). The Islamic Gold Dinar. Subang Jaya: Pelanduk Publications.
Mohamad, N. M. (2009). Between Islamic Banking and the Gold Dinar: a Compilation of Paper & Articles. Kuala Lumpur: Saba Islamic Media.
Shah, N. R., Alrazi, B., & Abdul Hamid, H. (2004). The Mechanisms of Gold Dinar. Kuala Lumpur: A.S. Noordeen.
Stephey, M. (2008, October 21). A Brief History of Bretton Woods System. Retrieved March 13, 2011, from TIME: http://www.time.com
Vadillo, R. '. (2002). The Return Of The Islamic Gold Dinar, A study of Money in Islamic Law and The Architecture of the Gold Economy. Cape Town: Madinah Press.
P/S: This is an attempt from writer to publish an academic article and he start with Gold Dinar, this article is not yet validated by any economist etc, but rather submitted to the lecturer of English. Overall this article scores 8/10 in writings.
