Is crypto halal? The 2026 map of scholarly positions

Few questions reach us more often than this one, and it deserves better than a one-word reply. The honest picture in October 2026 is that respected scholars and official bodies have reached different conclusions, at different times, for different reasons. This page maps those positions with dates and sources, explains the questions that drive them, and shows you how to take the matter to a scholar you trust. It does not issue a verdict.

The short answer

There is no consensus. The positions on record fall into three broad groups:

• Prohibitive. Crypto is not wealth in the Shariah sense, or dealing in it is impermissible because of speculation, harm and the lack of state oversight. Examples: Türkiye's Diyanet (2017), Egypt's Dar al-Ifta (2018) and the Darul Uloom Karachi fatwa of June 2026.
• Conditional. Some uses are impermissible, others are allowed if specific conditions are met. Examples: Indonesia's MUI (2021) and IslamQA.info (2024).
• Permissive in principle. Crypto is wealth and may be held and traded, with conditions. Examples: the Perlis State Fatwa Committee (2018), the Shariah Advisory Council of the Securities Commission Malaysia (2020 onward) and the UAE Higher Shari'ah Authority (2025, as reported by Fitch).

Even the permissive positions attach conditions. Where any of these positions mention leverage, futures or trading "differences", they exclude them. So the question is never only "which coin?" but also "how, where and why?"

The map: who said what, and when

Dates matter. Many pages still quote rulings from 2017 and 2018 as if nothing has happened since. The table below runs in chronological order. Each entry is a short paraphrase; the sources at the end let you read every position in its own words.

Two further points complete the picture. First, AAOIFI, the body whose Shari'ah standards many Islamic banks follow, has issued no dedicated crypto standard. Fitch noted in September 2026 that the absence of formal guidance from AAOIFI and the IFSB limits harmonisation across jurisdictions. Second, individual scholars outside formal bodies hold the full range of views, from Mufti Muhammad Abu-Bakar's paper concluding that bitcoin is permissible, with a caution about volatility, to the prohibitive reasoning of Sh. Haitham al-Haddad.

The questions underneath every ruling

Strip away the headlines and the same handful of questions decide each position. Understanding them is more useful than memorising verdicts, because they show you why a scholar landed where they did.

1. Is it maal (wealth)?

To be bought, sold, owned or inherited, a thing must count as maal: something with value that people treat as property and that can be possessed. The SC SAC's 2020 resolution says digital currency meets this test because it is valuable, accepted by the public wholly or partly, and can be possessed in one way or another. Darul Uloom Karachi reached the opposite conclusion in 2026. This is the deepest fault line on the map. If crypto is not maal, most other questions fall away: it cannot be validly sold or used as a price. It also becomes hard to see how it could be assessed for zakat as wealth, a tension worth raising with your scholar.

2. Is it money or goods?

Classical fiqh treats gold, silver and, by extension, modern currency as ribawi items. Exchanging them is bai' al-sarf (currency exchange), which must be hand to hand, and in equal amounts when the same kind is exchanged. The SC SAC classifies digital currency without an underlying asset as goods ('urudh), so sarf rules do not apply to it; Perlis said the same in 2018. MUI focused on crypto's use as currency and prohibited that use. If you treat crypto as money, every crypto-to-crypto trade becomes a currency exchange with sarf conditions. If you treat it as goods, the rules of an ordinary sale apply. A stablecoin backed by dollars sits somewhere else again, which we cover in Is USDT halal?

3. Riba (interest)

Bitcoin and most tokens are not loans and pay no interest by themselves. Riba usually enters through what is done with them: lending coins for yield, borrowing to buy (margin and leverage), or funding payments on perpetual contracts. This is why the method often matters more than the asset. Our article on whether staking is halal traces where crypto yield actually comes from.

4. Gharar (excessive uncertainty)

Gharar is uncertainty in the contract itself: not knowing what you are buying, whether it exists, or whether it can be delivered. Diyanet and Egypt's Dar al-Ifta pointed to speculation and opacity, and MUI listed gharar among its reasons. Those who permit crypto argue that on-chain ownership is precise and that price swings alone are not contractual gharar. Both sides would agree that opaque products, such as tokens with hidden minting powers or vague claims, sharpen the problem.

5. Maysir (gambling)

Maysir is putting money on chance, where one side's gain is simply the other's loss. Egypt's Dar al-Ifta likened crypto trading to gambling. Permissive scholars distinguish owning an asset from betting on its price, and the line usually falls at leverage, short-dated derivatives and all-in speculation. Our article on whether day trading is halal looks at how intention and method change the picture.

6. Use-case and underlying

What does the token do, and what does it give you a right to? The SC SAC requires that the money raised by a token is used for Shariah-compliant purposes and that the rights attached to it are Shariah-compliant. MUI asks for a clear underlying and a clear benefit. A token built around lending at interest, gambling or another prohibited activity fails here, whatever your view of the wider debate.

Why sincere scholars reach different answers

Disagreement here is not a sign that someone has been careless. It comes from different starting points applied in good faith.

• What makes something valuable. One view holds that value comes from custom and public acceptance ('urf), so a widely used digital asset can be maal. Ziyaad Mahomed, for example, has argued (as summarised by IFG) that Shariah does not require a currency to have intrinsic value, only social acceptance. The other view asks for something more concrete, such as backing or state recognition; Sh. Haitham al-Haddad and Darul Uloom Karachi reason from this side.
• The role of the state and the public interest. Egypt's Dar al-Ifta, Diyanet and the Federal Territory Mufti all weighed state oversight, monetary stability and crime. Perlis made its permission conditional on the government not banning bitcoin. Where licensing regimes were later built, as in Malaysia and the UAE, some of those concerns changed shape.
• When the ruling was made. A 2017 ruling answered a largely unregulated market. Diyanet spoke of "this time", and Bayan Linnas 153 said its view could change with regulation. A date is part of a ruling's meaning.
• A whole category, or one asset at a time. Darul Uloom Karachi addresses crypto as a category. The SC SAC assesses assets one by one, which is why it publishes a list. Pakistan's regulator PVARA, after meeting Mufti Taqi Usmani in July 2026, argued that stablecoins, tokenised real-world assets and other digital assets should be assessed separately.
• Scope. The SAC's resolution applies only to digital assets regulated by the SC and traded on registered exchanges. It is not a statement about every token in the world.

A ruling is an answer to a question asked at a particular time. Read the question and the date before you read the answer.

Where the positions overlap

Look past the labels and there is more common ground than the headlines suggest:

• No position on this map permits interest-based lending or borrowing on crypto, and where the permissive or conditional positions mention leverage, margin or futures, they exclude them.
• Every permission comes with conditions: understanding the risks (Perlis), immediate exchange (IslamQA), a registered exchange (SC SAC), a clear underlying and benefit (MUI).
• Schemes that promise fixed or large returns are condemned outright by Perlis, and the concerns about fraud raised in Egypt, Türkiye and Karachi point the same way.
• Those who treat crypto as wealth generally expect zakat on it; Perlis spells out the nisab and the rate. See our guide to zakat on crypto and the zakat calculator.

What this means for you, without a verdict

We will not tell you whether crypto is halal for you. That is a question for your scholar, and the answer may depend on the school and the authority you follow. What we can do is help you think clearly about it.

• Know which authority you follow. If you follow the Darul Uloom Karachi position, the question of which coin to choose does not arise, because the fatwa treats crypto as a whole as not maal. If your scholar follows reasoning like that of the SC SAC, Perlis or IslamQA, the work shifts to meeting their conditions.
• Separate the asset from the method. A permissible asset does not make every way of holding it permissible. Spot ownership, an exchange "earn" product, a perpetual contract and a leveraged position are four different contracts.
• Check the date and the scope. Ask when a ruling was made, what question it answered, and whether it covers your asset and your country.
• Screen the specific asset with visible reasoning. Our methodology sets out the five questions we ask, and the screener shows the reasoning asset by asset. For Malaysia's official list and why lists differ, see the halal crypto list. For the most-asked single asset, see Is Bitcoin halal?
• Keep permissibility and prudence apart. A permissible asset can still be a poor fit for you. Prices can fall sharply, and money you cannot afford to lose does not belong in a volatile market. Our markets page offers context, never calls.

How to approach your own scholar

A precise question gets a precise answer. Before you ask, write down:

• The exact asset, by name and ticker, and whether it is a coin, a token or a stablecoin.
• How you hold it: on an exchange or in your own wallet, and where that exchange is regulated.
• What you actually do with it: buy and hold, swap between coins, stake, lend, or trade with leverage or futures.
• Your intention and time horizon, and roughly what share of your savings is involved.
• Which of the positions above you have already read, with their dates, so the scholar knows your starting point.

Then ask questions that reveal the reasoning as well as the result. Do you consider this asset maal? Do you treat it as money or as goods? Which of my activities would change your answer? How should I calculate zakat on it? If you already hold something your scholar considers impermissible, ask what to do with it and with any gains, rather than guessing.

Respect for difference matters too. If your scholar's view differs from a friend's, that is ikhtilaf, legitimate scholarly difference, working as it always has. Follow the scholar you trust with sincerity, and avoid moving between opinions only to reach the answer you hoped for.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Last updated: 12 Oct 2026. Changelog: first published 12 Oct 2026, covering positions up to the Darul Uloom Karachi fatwa (June 2026) and Fitch's September 2026 report.

• Diyanet (Nov 2017): Euronews, 28 Nov 2017
• Dar al-Ifta Egypt (Jan 2018): Ahram Online, 1 Jan 2018
• Perlis State Fatwa Committee (Nov 2018): Jabatan Mufti Negeri Perlis, Fatwa Bitcoin
• Federal Territory Mufti (Nov 2018): Bayan Linnas 153
• SC Malaysia SAC resolutions (2020): Digital Assets from Shariah Perspective (PDF) and FAQ on Digital Assets from Shariah Perspective (PDF)
• SC Malaysia list of tradeable digital assets and Shariah status: sc.com.my/digital-assets; 2020 announcement: The Edge Malaysia
• MUI Ijtima Ulama VII (Nov 2021): detikFinance, 11 Nov 2021; Hukumonline summary
• Darul Iftaa Birmingham (Nov 2021): via IslamQA.org
• Darul Ifta Deoband: via IslamQA.org
• Sh. Haitham al-Haddad, Mufti Muhammad Abu-Bakar, Ziyaad Mahomed: IFG summary, updated 7 Aug 2025
• IslamQA.info (Jul 2024): Answer 504160
• UAE Higher Shari'ah Authority (2025) and AAOIFI/IFSB guidance gap: Fitch, via The Star, 16 Sep 2026
• Darul Uloom Karachi (Jun 2026): Dawn, 10 Jul 2026; PVARA response: The Block, 12 Jul 2026