Digital Art and NFT in Islam

Since the beginning of civilization, people have always been attracted to collecting “special” objects to which they attached a certain value. In the past, collectibles could be any items that have a physical form: coins, pieces of art, cars, stamps...

With the formation of a new digital era collectors get a new form of objects and a new type of collectibles – NFT tokens. They do not have a physical embodiment but may represent unique objects of the digital world or digitized versions of objects from the physical world. NFT technology can be used to demonstrate the authenticity and ownership of various assets in the blockchain, where they act as a digital fingerprint.

NFTs differ from interchangeable assets (cryptocurrencies), that is, objects that can be exchanged for others with identical properties. To understand this, let's give a simple example: you can easily exchange a coin of one cryptocurrency for another. This is possible because each coin retains the same value when you exchange it; they are equivalent and have exactly the same parameters. NFT assets cannot be replaced in the same way because they are unique, unrepeatable and have different characteristics.

And, of course, arises the question about which NFTs can be considered permissible for collecting and buying from the Islam and Shariah points of view. We will try to answer this and some other questions in this article.

Does NFTs comply with Shariah Law?

As in the case of cryptocurrencies, there is no direct restrictions on working with any kind of digital assets in Islam. However, it is extremely important for Muslims that the NFT does not violate certain rules that are considered illegal and even forbidden in Islam. We have already told about one of the examples of frank haram in an article about The Bored Ape Yacht Club project.

The vast majority of NFT are visual pieces of art. Taking this in mind, halal NFTs cannot represent/display anything illegal from the Shariah point of view. They also can't depict illegal objects and objects.

Shariah imposes a special restrictions on the creation of NFTs that include images of Allah the Almighty or the Prophets.

Muslims should not buy and sell NFTs in which images of people show areas of the body that Shariah prescribes to cover and hide. An important point concerning NFT is that any action with them, as with real objects, should bring real benefits and not be considered a demonstration of extravagant behavior or unacceptable extravagance. Trading only those assets that have real benefits and utility is one of the basic principles of Shariah, while extravagance, or israf (excessive consumption), is frowned upon in the Holy Quran.

When assessing the legitimacy and accessibility of NFT in the Muslim world, Islamic theorists suggest taking into account some principles which observance can be considered as the basis for creating digital objects in the blockchain environment.

Futura Super App is the great tool for the Halal Crypto community. It works on halal HAQQ blockchain, and allows you to work both with ISLM and HCC (Halal Crypto Community token), create and publish your own NFTs.

NFT in Islamic Art

Gradually, NFTs are coming into Islamic art and culture. At the beginning of 2021, an agency was even created that promotes digital works by talented Muslim artists at auctions around the world.

The spread of Islamic art in the digital environment should be accompanied by Halal certification, similar to how it is done for food. Standards related to cleanliness, safety and quality assurance, confirming that a digital work of art complies with the norms of Islam and Shariah can significantly increase the value of NFT.

IslamicCoin project and the HAQQ blockchain have a Fatwa and everything necessary for NFT certification, but they are also an ideal environment for creating halal NFT marketplaces. We are confident that in the near future developers will be able to implement such a project and do everything necessary so that the Muslim community can create, buy, sell and collect digital art without fear.