The Shacklewell Lane Mosque collected an incredible 13,983 GBP in digital currency during Ramadan as Sadagah (Donations) after they announced their acceptance of cryptocurrency in early May.
Earlier this summer a Turkish-run mosque in Hackney, East London became very first in the country and one of the few in the world to accept digital currency that is cryptocurrency as a form of donation.
A London based blockchain start-up Combo Innovation, that specializes in Islamic Finance was appointed as a partner by the Mosque. The chairman of the Mosque Erkin Guney worked with CEO Gurmit Singh on matters of cryptocurrency collection, storage, and security.
The Mosque collected almost 14,000 GBP over the 30 days of Ramadan by 24 donations across the globe, which in comparison to cash donations amounted to a mere 3,460 GBP.
Erik Guney in an interview with inews.co.uk Erik Guney went on to state, “initially many people at the mosque were against the acceptance of cryptocurrency as donations, but later when they received donations four times larger in the form of cryptocurrency that’s when people realised how important it is to accept and be open to new digital currency.”
Gurmit Singh hopes that other mosques and charities to follow the lead and take advantage of the opportunities provided by the new revenue stream, after the success of mosque’s cryptocurrency adoption.
However, Islamic leaders all over the world still raise the question asking if cryptocurrency is a permissible practice or not.
Raising concerns over its anonymity factor, the Mufti of Egypt has spoken against it especially highlighting the concern of bitcoin and other currencies for the purpose of buying drugs and other illegal products online.
Likewise, the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs also stated:
Given the obvious fact that the valuation of cryptocurrencies is open to speculation, Purchasing and selling of virtual currencies are not compatible with religion, as they can easily be used for illegal activities such as money laundering and also, they are not under the state’s audit and surveillance.
However, regardless of that many religious organizations continue to adopt the usage of cryptocurrencies.
Earlier in January, A famous church in Zurich, Switzerland began accepting bitcoin as a form of tithing from its parishioners. Nicholas Legler, a spokesperson for the church went on to state, “be it bitcoin or any other state controlled digital currency this technology would be an influence on each and every individual’s regular life, the comparatively young parishioners have been working rigorously to have one foot ahead regarding such innovations.
In order to run various processes of the church and provide financial inclusivity for the unbanked populations, the catholic church has announced their own plans for using the blockchain technology.
