ISIS announced it is to introduce a new coin-based currency in the territories it controls across Iraq and Syria.
The treasury department of the so-called “Islamic State” said it is to start minting gold, silver and copper to produce new money named Dinar.
Details of the new currency were circulated online, alongside images showing the planned design of the future coins.
The announcement came as ISIS is enhancing its effort to be perceived as a proper state rather than a militia group.
The Al Qaeda splinter group said the Dinar will help rid Muslims of the “satanic usury-based global economic system”.
The new currency will remove the self-professed Caliphate “from the tyrannical monetary system that was imposed on the Muslims and was a reason for their enslavement and impoverishment,” the group claimed in a message, translated by SITE Intelligence Group.
ISIS Dinars will come only in three cuts of round-shaped coins: solid gold, silver and copper. No banknotes will be issued, according to the group.
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Gold Dinars were the currency used during the historic Caliphate of the Rightly Guided Rashidun in the 7th century AD.
Islamic economic system
Islamist groups like Al Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir also oppose the Fiat monetary system and the global Capitalist economy.
Hizb ut-Tahrir which was founded by Palestinian judge, Sheikh Taqiuddin An-Nabhani in 1953, stated in its manifesto and proposed constitution that it would introduce an interest-free gold and silver based currency.
Al Qaeda who rivals ISIS for the international jihadist leadership, urged its followers to avoid using banks and the financial markets as they were the expression of the “Crusaders’ globalisation”.
In its English-language online magazine, Resurgence, Al Qaeda said Islamist militants should resort to classical transaction methods, reinstating gold and silver as “standard mediums of exchange”.
Meanwhile, ISIS has released an audio message supposedly from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, calling on Muslims to carry out attacks against Shia militias and Western armies.
There were unconfirmed reports that US air strikes in Mosul had killed al-Baghdadi but yesterday’s audio message has cast doubts on these claims.
