A significant debate is brewing in Pakistan regarding the legal status of digital assets under Islamic law. The Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), Bilal bin Saqib, has put forward an initiative that could fundamentally change the country's approach to cryptocurrencies.
Saqib insists that digital assets should not be treated as a single, monolithic class. Instead, in his view, each crypto asset should undergo an individual assessment for compliance with Sharia norms. This approach implies that, for example, Bitcoin and stablecoins such as USDT could have completely different legal statuses from the perspective of Islamic finance.
This statement comes in the wake of a recent fatwa issued by one of Pakistan's most authoritative Islamic jurists, Mufti Taqi Usmani. He ruled that purchases using cryptocurrency, including USDT, are impermissible (haram), as he did not recognize digital assets as property in the classical Islamic sense. There are currently no official reports of this fatwa being revised following the meeting with PVARA representatives.
PVARA's position signals an attempt to find a more flexible and technologically adapted compromise between strict religious norms and the growing popularity of digital finance in a country with over 220 million Muslims.
Expert opinion: PVARA's initiative is a pragmatic and necessary step. The crypto asset market is too diverse to apply blanket prohibitions. A token-by-token differentiation will allow separating speculative and potentially dubious projects from technologies that could form the basis of Islamic fintech, such as tokenized real-world assets or transparent donation (zakat) systems. If Pakistan can develop clear Sharia criteria for individual crypto assets, it will set a precedent for the entire Islamic world.