10 Verifiable Ijmaa and Tawaatur

Drawing Islamic Parallels

One way to explain Bitcoin to a Muslim is to show how there are ‘similarities’ in how information is recorded and secured on the network, and how Islam itself was recorded and secured.

Ijmaa’

In the islamic tradition, there is something called ‘Ijmaa’, which translates to be ‘consensus’. This concept came about when someone asked Imam Shaafi’ee for the evidence of Ijmaa’ and he gave an Aayah, of the Qur’aan that talks about it:

وَمَن يُشَاقِقِ الرَّسُولَ مِن بَعْدِ مَا تَبَيَّنَ لَهُ الْهُدَىٰ وَيَتَّبِعْ غَيْرَ سَبِيلِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ نُوَلِّهِ مَا تَوَلَّىٰ وَنُصْلِهِ جَهَنَّمَ ۖ وَسَاءَتْ مَصِيرًا And whoever opposes the Messenger after guidance has become clear to him and follows other than the way of the believers - We will give him what he has taken and drive him into Hell, and evil it is as a destination.

So in this Aayah, it talks about opposing the Messenger of Allaah صلى الله عليه و سلم but also connects opposing the way other than the collective way of the believers as being something that leads to hell fire. So if the Muslims all agree on something, that is taken as being, not only very difficult to achieve, but also an evidence that something is correct and true. So In Islam, there is a special place in its tradition for the collective agreement. In the Bitcoin network, we also have a mechanism of knowing truth, and consensus has an important role to play. The network works and functions based upon consensus, and nothing in the protocols or function of the network can take place without a global consensus. Also, as Bitcoin transactions are based upon mathematics, each block, each transaction are all calculated and balanced upon that base of mathematics. Once that is verified, all the nodes will converge on this database, and come to ‘consensus’. That way, no one person can just tell the others what to think, they all converge around the ‘longest chain’ and they all have ‘ijmaa’ upon that. As oppose to our current system where we have to all accept what the banks tell us we have. If they decide to do things differently, they can, and there is nothing anyone or all of us can do.