Pakistan’s senior-most Islamic scholar, Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, has issued a fatwa declaring the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies haram, ruling that digital assets do not qualify as wealth or property under Islamic jurisprudence, India Today reported.
The ruling was issued by Darul Ifta at Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi and dated June 10, 2026, corresponding to 24 Zilhaj 1447 AH, as per a report by Pakistan Today. Besides Usmani, who heads Wifaq-ul-Madaris Al-Arabia Pakistan and Darul Uloom Karachi, the fatwa carries the signatures of five other scholars. His son, Hassan Usmani, has confirmed the document circulating on social media is authentic.
Crypto is Not Wealth Under Shariah, Fatwa Says
According to the fatwa, cryptocurrency does not qualify as “maal,” the Shariah concept of wealth or property, and is merely a record of notional numbers in an account. On that basis, the scholars concluded that purchasing, selling, or transacting in these assets is not permissible.
The ruling is deliberately broad. It extends beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum to all blockchain-based tokens and stablecoins, with USDT named specifically. The scholars also clarified that labels such as cryptocurrency, virtual currency, token, and stablecoin all describe the same category of digital assets, and that changing an asset’s name does not change its religious status.
The fatwa originated from a practical query. A citizen had asked about the validity of buying two books using crypto, with one payment made in USDT. The scholars ruled the transactions invalid, said ownership of the goods was never established, and advised the buyer to return the books. On a related question about online courses bought with crypto, the fatwa instructed the user to permanently delete the course files rather than benefit from them.
Ruling Exposes Contradictions in Islamabad’s Crypto Push
The fatwa lands at an inconvenient moment for the Pakistani state, and it is difficult to ignore the policy incoherence it lays bare. Only months ago, Pakistan signed the Virtual Assets Act 2026 into law, empowering the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) to license exchanges and token issuers.
The framework was marketed as Shariah-compliant, with licensing rules requiring applicants to clear an Islamic finance committee. That claim now sits uneasily against a ruling from the country’s most authoritative religious voice declaring the underlying assets impermissible altogether.
The contradiction is not new. Pakistan banned crypto outright in 2018, reversed course within a few years, and has since moved at unusual speed, with the Virtual Asset Act clearing a Senate committee in February and receiving presidential assent barely a week later. Critics have argued the legislation carries ambiguous wording and sweeping suspension powers for the regulator, concerns that a compressed legislative timeline did little to address.
Questions have also been raised over the government’s stablecoin dealings. The fatwa arrived days after reports that Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance signed an MoU with SC Financial Technologies, an affiliate of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the venture linked to the family of US President Donald Trump, to explore the USD1 stablecoin for cross-border payments. Pursuing a politically connected foreign stablecoin partner while the country’s own clergy rejects stablecoins outright underlines how far ahead of domestic consensus the government has moved.
PVARA Chairman Bilal Bin Saqib met Usmani after the ruling, arguing that blockchain, digital assets, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets are distinct technologies requiring separate Shariah evaluation. The engagement is a reasonable step, though it also amounts to the regulator seeking religious validation after the framework was already written, rather than before.
How India Compares
For Indian readers, the episode is a useful contrast in regulatory approaches. India has not passed a comprehensive crypto law, instead taxing virtual digital assets at a flat 30% with a 1% Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) on transfers since 2022, while the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has maintained a consistently skeptical position on private cryptocurrencies.
New Delhi’s slower, tax-first stance has drawn criticism from the industry for pushing volumes offshore, but it has also spared India the kind of institutional whiplash now visible in Pakistan, where the state legalized an asset class that its religious establishment has declared impermissible within the same year.
Both countries rank among the world’s largest crypto adopters, with India and Pakistan placed first and third, respectively, in the 2025 Chainalysis Global Crypto Adoption Index. The divergence lies in sequencing. India has waited on global coordination under its G20 framework push before legislating, while Pakistan legislated first and is now negotiating legitimacy afterwards.
What the Ruling Means in Practice
The fatwa is a religious opinion, not law, so regulated crypto activity in Pakistan remains legal. But Usmani’s stature in Islamic finance, including his past role in shaping the AAOIFI Shariah standards followed across the Islamic banking industry, means the ruling could weigh on retail participation in a market where stablecoins are widely used as an inflation hedge.
Scholarly opinion across the Muslim world remains divided. Egypt’s Grand Mufti has previously deemed crypto impermissible, while scholars in South Africa and elsewhere have ruled it permissible as a socially accepted medium of exchange. Usmani himself has earlier indicated his position could evolve if cryptocurrencies come to be used in real trade by real economies, leaving a narrow opening that Pakistan’s regulators will likely continue to work on.
Also Read: The Wall Around Mint Street: How the RBI Spent a Year Shutting Crypto Out of Indian Banking
