The hadith states: “A dinar for a dinar . . .” Is the intended meaning here the gold dinar or something else?

The questioner : I read in Sahih al-Jami' al-Saghir several hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and yesterday I read hadith number 3422, which says: So, does the dinar referred to here mean the gold dinar, or another type of dinar? I hope you will clarify this, may Allah reward you.

The Shaykh : Without a doubt, the dinar intended in the hadith is the gold dinar. And now, unfortunately, one of the corruptions in the systems established in some countries is that they have replaced the gold currency with paper currency. If only they had replaced the gold currency with paper currency, and not with paper money. This brings our discussion back to what was mentioned earlier: these paper currencies have no intrinsic value. However, some currencies are called dinars, some are called riyals, and others are called liras, and so on. These are conventional terms. It appears that when the dinar was named a dinar, the intention behind this name was that it equaled a gold dinar. But circumstances and economic conditions have developed until the dinar came to be worth much less than its true value. Therefore, the dinar mentioned in the hadith must always be evaluated by looking at the decrease or increase in the value of the paper dinar. We used to know, just a few years ago, that with about thirty Jordanian dinars, one could buy a gold lira.

Another questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : A gold lira, as they used to say in the past. This has become unknown to the youth today. A Rashadi gold lira or an English gold lira. These currencies are now lost. If you wanted to buy one of these gold liras today, you might need fifty or sixty dinars, or more. I do not know, because always, how much?

Another questioner : Fifty-seven.

The Shaykh : Fifty-seven. So, fifty-seven dinars now equals one gold dinar. From this, the nisab for zakah differs. When the gold dinar is cheap, if a person owns, roughly in those days, four hundred Jordanian dinars, he owns the nisab, meaning about ten Rashadi gold pounds. Now, you need to own several times that amount to own the nisab. Why? Because the value of the paper currency has dropped. In summary, the dinar in the hadith is the gold dinar, and it is recommended to compare the gold dinar with the paper currency, going up and down. Please.