Fractional/Co-Ownership Gold Investments

After reading through the documents provided, we have come across the following:

1. Many of the services mentioned (such as card services, fractional transfers, and product uploads) have not yet been implemented; therefore, a definitive ruling cannot be provided until they are in place.

2. In the Terms and Conditions, mention is made about only being able to exercise the product option once a Full Fraction Subscription is attained. Making a transaction dependent upon and conditional to the attainment of a Full Fraction Subscription is contra ry to the demands of a Shari’ie transaction and will therefore result in the transaction becoming Faasid (Invalid).

3. On page 3 of FAQS, it is mentioned that free gold & silver insurance will be provided, but in brackets, they go on to say that (insurance) fees may be introduced at a later stage. Islamically, one is not permitted to insure one’s assets in lieu of a fee. Although they say that they will “attempt” to cover the costs as long as possible, there is a very strong indication in this choice of words that in all likelihood, you will be required to insure these assets in the future at your cost. In fact, on

page 20 of the Terms &Conditions, it says clearly that taking delivery and possession of your products may incur (apart from shipping costs), insurance costs a s well.

4. On page 4 of FAQS under verification requirements, the customer is required to provide a selfie of himself for Digital I.D. purposes, whereas such photography of animate objects (albeit a picture of one’s self) is prohibited in Islam. Moreover, this will b e a stepping stone and subtle way of getting more and more people on Digital I.D. platforms. Digital I.D. implementation that many countries are contemplating is a highly contentious issue that is being debated and contested on social media platforms, so much so that protests against this system have taken place in different countries, as it will result in one’s freedom being taken away in that a person’s every move and business transaction will be monitored and come under the microscope. There will be inceased government surveillance of citizens. There are concerns of data privacy, data breaches and identity theft under this system. Peoples’ right of trading with physical currencies will be taken away as all trading will be done on digital platforms, resulting in the exclusion of citizens who have no smartphones or internet access from many benefits of the business world.

5. On the same page, they state that interest will be charged on outstanding fees (which although can be avoided by ensuring that one does not default in submitting fees), clauses of this nature (insurance and interest) indicate that their whole system will utimately revolve somewhere along the line of the capitalistic usury model that is in vogue in the kuffaar business world.

6. As transactions related to the purchasing and selling of your gold and silver will be conducted by ______GOLD as your proxy, there is no guarantee that they will abide by all the Shar’ie requirements pertaining to a valid sale transaction. In many cases, such transactions will not conform to the requirements of Shari’ah. For instance, Shari’ah does not permit the sale of an item before it comes into one’s possession; whereas many “future sales” take place in online transactions where an item is sold to a customer before the seller acquires possession. So, some gold or silver could be sold by ______GOLD on your behalf, before the gold or silver even comes into their possession, based on a speculative potential future sale.

7. On page 7 of FAQS it is stated that _______GOLD account will allow you to also buy and sell DIGITAL Bullion. Although Digital Bullion is supposedly “backed up” by physical gold in some unknown and obscure storage facility or vault, physical possession of th e actual gold does not take place and the gold does not come into one’s hand at all. One only becomes owner of its value in gold, without being able to earmark and pinpoint as to exactly which physical gold bar or coin one actually owns. Such online buying and selling will involve digital and electronic online transactions, which will prove to be problematic in terms of Shari’ie requirements. We could go on pointing out many more discrepancies if we analyze each clause with a fine tooth comb, but time does not permit us to do so. The discrepancies that we have highlighted above are sufficient to deter an Allah-fearing Muslim from this type of investment.

In conclusion, we would advise you to abstain from the investment that you have queried in your email correspondence.