INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A mosque in Britain's capital is now accepting donations in cryptocurrencies.London: Looking for a new way to
give money to charity as part of Ramadan A mosque in Britain's capital is willing to receive your donation - in bitcoin.The Shacklewell Lane
Mosque in Dalston, east London, has decided to accept bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in a bid to widen its donor base and cut down on
currency conversion fees, mosque leaders said."For a donor that already has a bitcoin or an ethereum account, the effort of converting
cryptocurrency into say British pounds or dollars can be quite burdensome
The mosque effectively takes the burden on themselves," said blockchain consultant Lukasz Musial, who helped the mosque set up the
technology."For the donor, it's just the click of a button to transfer to an account provided by the charity
From the mosque's perspective, it opens a new stream of donations coming from all over the world," Musial said.Egypt's Grand Mufti, the
nation's top Sunni Muslim official, said this year bitcoin was not permitted according to Islamic law, Egyptian media reported, but
Shacklewell imam Abdalla Adeyemi defended the mosque's decision."Bitcoin is like any other currency
It's accepted by a group of people
We ourselves are not trading
We are not involved we are a charity," Adeyemi told Reuters.The mosque says it is one of a handful to accept cryptocurrencies out of
hundreds in London and its move is yielding results
It says it is on track to double its donations this year to more than £10,000 ($13,300).Muslims with the means are religiously obliged to
give alms, often calculated based on Islamic texts as being 2.5 percent of their wealth, and many do so during the holy month, a time when
Muslim charities are most active.© Thomson Reuters 2018(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent
staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
