Silver Coin in the Quran

"It has been made attractive for people to love the desired things; that is, women, children, hoarded heaps of gold and silver, branded horses, cattle and tillage. That is an enjoyment of the worldly life ..."(QS 3:14)

According to the Quran Sura 3:14, people are "destined" to love gold and silver. That verse above is so true when it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad centuries ago. From thousands of years ago until some decades ago, gold and silver played very important roles in trade. People used gold and silver when they made everyday purchase. No wonder that people used to love gold and silver in the past.

But how about today? Is that verse still relevant today? Do people still love gold and silver? Of course people still love gold today, but how about silver? Do people still love silver today as they used to in the past? I don't think so. For your information, in the days of Prophet Muhammad, the value of gold is around ten times to twelve times of silver. Today, the value of gold is 50 to 70 times of silver. In other words, silver has decreased its value, especially since some decades ago.

Until some decades ago, people used silver, particularly silver coins, to make everyday transactions, like buying food, groceries, etc. But today we use paper money to make such purchases. We no longer use silver coin in our daily life. That's why not many people today love silver. Most people prefer paper money, credit card, paypal, bitcoin etc to silver coin.

Today, people still love gold and they still regard it as something valuable. But that is not the case with silver. Based on my experience in my country, Indonesia, it is easy to sell gold, or to pawn it to a pawnbroker or a pawnshop. By contrast, it is very difficult to sell silver here since not many people attracted to silver anymore. In fact, you cannot pawn silver in a pawnshop in my country. Even if you can pawn your silver here, you're very likely to get extremely low price for your silver compared to the cost of buying it. In short, silver has lost its significance nowadays since people don't love it anymore as much as they did in the past.

However, as a believer, I strongly believe that the verse of the Quran above was very relevant in the past as it is in the future. I believe that people will love gold and silver, once again, as they used to back then. I believe that people will, once again, use silver for trade in the future. If you're a prepper or survivalist, you might be familiar with the acronym like TEOTWAWKI, SHTF, GOOD etc. The survivalists believe that if SHTF happens, that means one thing: it's the end of the world as we know it. It means we lose our modern life, we lose electricity, we lose internet, we lose our beloved smartphone, and we lose our fiat money or paper money. In other words, if SHTF happens, we will go back to the old days where there were no electricity, no internet connections, no modern technology, and also no paper money. Paper money will be no more valuable than a toilet paper. When that time comes, silver will play very important role in trade, once again.

"You may say I'm a dreamer. But I'm not the only one." Ask any prepper or any survivalist you know, he/she is very likely to agree with me that it will happen ... someday. After all, according to some investment experts, there are three main reasons why people invest in silver, and one of the reasons is for survival purposes. Silver is more favorable over gold because gold is too expensive. We won't use gold as a means in our daily purchases. Even one gram of gold bar is too expensive for a loaf of bread and a cup of coffee, for example. It's more likely that we use silver for our everyday purchases like buying food, etc.

If SHTF happens, the survivors are encouraged to leave the city (get the hell out of Dodge/GOOD), and move to a countryside or a rural area. That once happened to the people of the Cave or Ashabul Kahfi, or better known as the Seven Sleepers. What did they bring in their escape? Food, clothes, travel bag, money? I don't know. One thing is for sure, that they brought silver coin(s) with them.

"... Now send one of you with this your silver coin unto the city, and let him see what food is purest there and bring you a supply thereof... " (QS 18:19)

In some english translations of the Quran, the word wariq ( وَرِق ) is translated as silver coin (Sahih International, Pickthall, Muhsin Khan, to name a few). Others like Abdul Haleem and Dr Mustafa Khattab, translated it as silver coins (in plural). Now the question is what is silver coin? Can any silver that has a round shape be silver coin? The short answer is no.

Silver Coin - (n) a silver coin is a round precious metal wafer struck in a coin form by a government mint. Silver coins typically have a legal tender face values within the sovereign nation they are struck (sdbullion.com).

According to that definition, all silver coins are round, but not all silver rounds can be called silver coins. If the coin is not made officially by the government, then it's not silver coin.
Some of the most popular silver coins in the world are American Silver Eagle, Canadian Silver Maple Leaf, Austrian Silver Philharmonic, Chinese Silver Panda, and Mexican Libertad.

If you are a prepper (like me), and you want to invest some of your money in silver for survival purposes, which kind of silver you would buy: silver coins, silver rounds, or silver bars? As for me, I use Sura Al Kahfi 19 as my guidance, that is, I invest my money in silver coins. If silver coin(s) are good enough for the People of the Cave, then they're good enough for me. More spesifically, I invest most of my investment in 2018 Canadian Silver Maple Leaf . (Note: I have nothing to do with RCM, this is purely based on my personal preference).





I consider the 2018 Canadian Silver Maple Leaf as the best silver coin in the world at least for three reasons. First of all, the Canadian Silver Maple Leaf contains 99,99% of pure silver (four 9s), while most other silver coins are "only" 99,9% (three 9s). Secondly, because the Canadian Maple Leaf has security features of micro-engraved privy and radial lines that make it almost impossible to counterfeit the Maple Leaf coin. Thirdly, because since 2018, all coins from RCM (including the Maple Leaf) have MintShield technology that can prevent the milk spots effectively.

Moreover, there is another reason why I choose the Maple Leaf silver coin over other silver coins, and that particular reason is the Quran. As mentioned above, the word for silver coin in Arabic is wariq ( وَرِق ) that contains three Arabic letters, that is wa, ra, and qaf. This three-letter root word (wa-ra-qaf) occurs four times in the Quran. We know that one of them is wariq, which means silver coin. The other three are waraqah (in QS 6:59) and waraqi (in QS 7:22 and 20:121). Those other three mean "leaf" or "leaves".

When I first realized that silver coin in Arabic has the very same root word as leaf, the first thing came to my mind is the Canadian Silver Maple Leaf coin. I'm pretty sure you know why. It's because the Canadian Maple Leaf coin is the only silver coin in the world that has a Leaf (or leaves) for its design. I intentionally write it as a Leaf (or leaves) for a reason. If you look at the Maple Leaf coin, I'm sure you will notice a large Maple Leaf (singular). But if you look more closely, you can see other much smaller leaf (leaves) below the large Leaf. The small one is called privy. It has the two-digit number that shows the year of the production of the coin. You can see the privy better if you use a loupe.




So, how many leaves are there in a Maple Leaf coin? One, two, or three? I think there is no wrong answer since all of the answers above are correct. That's why I kinda have a feeling that wariq in the Quran connotes to the Silver Maple Leaf coin.

http://maple18.blogspot.com

Nice coin!

My husband wears only silver.