Eid Mubarak everyone!

Ibn Khaldun warns that injustice leads to the ruin of civilization. When rulers seize property, overtax, or force labor, people lose the will to work and invest. Economic activity slows, cities decline, and dynasties collapse. He explains: “Attacks on people's property remove the incentive to acquire and gain property... When attacks are extensive, business inactivity, too, becomes general.” A ruler who unjustly confiscates wealth weakens the very foundation of his rule. When people see their wealth arbitrarily taken, they stop working, trade declines, and many flee to other lands. This shrinks tax revenues and further weakens the state. A government that kills economic activity destroys itself. A Persian king learned this the hard way. He seized farmland and gave it to his inner circle, who neglected it. Farmers, overburdened and exploited, abandoned their land. Agriculture collapsed, and so did state revenues. One of the worst injustices, Ibn Khaldun says, is when rulers force people to sell their goods cheaply and then resell them at high prices. “The loss involved in the two transactions affects their capital… business declines and the subjects lose their livelihood" When merchants and craftsmen are squeezed dry, capital disappears. Markets dry up, trade slows, and the dynasty weakens. Most rulers don't realize this decline is happening until it’s too late. Luxury and excess lead rulers to demand more and more revenue. To fund their spending, they invent new taxes, seize more wealth, and further burden the people, accelerating their own downfall. Ibn Khaldun’s overall lesson here is that a ruler who destroys the economy through injustice destroys himself. A just government allows trade, agriculture, and wealth to grow. Without it, civilization crumbles, and the dynasty falls.

New SAIF essay just dropped The Cyber-Cult "In being both a decentralized and intentional agent, the cyber-cult operates as a swarm while affirming a primary symbol of hyperstitional settlement. Its decentralization allows it to respond to the subtle movements within the vectors it seeks to use and undermine. Thus, everything it does is based on function: no diagram predetermines its behavior, only a constant (non)movement between effective points." Read it here:

SAIF - The Cyber-Cult

Society for an Alternative Islamic Futurology - The Cyber-Cult

Gold and cash can be seized. Bitcoin, when held in self-custody, cannot. Palestinians could benefit immensely from having money that cannot be confiscated.

Some thoughts after our ICNA panel this year. What worked, what didn’t, and how we plan to shift our approach to orange-pilling the Ummah going forward. Wrote a short reflection on it: https://bitcoinmajlis.org/orange-pilling-the-ummah-lessons-from-icna-and-the-way-forward/

Talked to these guys at the ICNA conference. I told them about Nostr and they seemed very interested. It seems like their app can plug into nostr nicely. They perked up when I mentioned nostr's decentralized and uncensorable aspects. I gave them my contact info. Hopefully they reach out inshaAllah.

Great website explaining the basics of how CoinJoins work:

Coinjoins.org

Coinjoins - Learn about bitcoin collaborative transactions

Reclaim your privacy with coinjoins. Learn about bitcoin collaborative transactions.

Run Linux and use open source software

The Verge

Microsoft blocks emails that contain ‘Palestine’ after employee protests

Microsoft has made some changes to its email systems

One of the laziest attacks on Bitcoin is that “It’s a cult.” Like that’s supposed to be some mic drop argument. "Oh I was curious about Bitcoin… but the community just seems so cultish" Really? We’ve got a global, neutral, censorship resistant monetary system. Absolute digital scarcity. A fixed monetary policy immune to manipulation. No central authority. A legit shot at dismantling a 300 trillion something dollar debt-fueled usury machine that funds poverty, wars, and genocides But sure, let’s dismiss it because the vibes are "cultish". Grow up. Stop treating serious ideas like a high school popularity contest. Yes, Bitcoiners are passionate. Even zealous. You kind of have to be when you're fighting an entrenched parasitic system that’s bled the world dry for over a century. Deal with it. You want to criticize Bitcoin? Cool. First, learn how it works. Study the tech. Read the whitepaper. Study economics, not just the empericist Keynesian/Samuelsonian stuff. Study money! Actually do the proof of work. Otherwise? Sit this one out brother.

Be humble out there today

Alhamdulilah. Another one! View quoted note →

Alija Izetbegovic on Islam, action, and civilization: "According to the Qur'an ... God created man to be master of the earth. Man could attain supremacy over nature and the world only through knowledge and work, therefore through science and action. With this fact, as with its focus on law and justice, Islam proved that it wanted not only culture but also civilization."

"It's not just X, it's Y—anchored in Y driven paradigms. This isn't about doing X, it's about Y—ensuring a more optimized Y outcome. You're not just being X'ed, you're being Y'ed—strategically, intentionally, and in alignment with next-gen Y methodologies."

Our entire ummah asks for permission every time we interact with our Riba based fiat money system. If Ibrahim (AS) didn't ask for permission to break the idols, you do not need permission to break the idol of Riba based money. Run a node! Reclaim your title as vicegerent and never ask for permission again.

Taking a quick detour to read this View article →

New on the @BitcoinMajlis blog: @The Bitcoin Shepherd explores the deep connections between Islamic metaphysics, Quranic language, and the cryptographic design of Bitcoin. A fascinating reflection on language, code, and divine encoding. Read it here: http://bitcoinmajlis.org/the-cryptic-continuum/

The way I see it, the growing popularity of Bitcoin backed loans signals a high time preference shift in how bitcoiners treat their btc. They don't see it as genuine savings anymore, but as collateral, something that needs to be used right now, not tomorrow. While some might see this as a good thing (since they will ignorantly claim that HODLing is not considering 'using' btc), I worry it reflects a fading HODL culture. We need to bring back this toxic mindset that makes Bitcoin more resilient: Long-term holding and self-custody! View quoted note →

Being cypherpunk becomes ibadah in a world that wants to own your soul. Encrypt out of taqwa. Obfuscate out of love. Digital privacy is the armor of the sincere. View quoted note →

There's this Muslim brother on X that regularly posts bangers like these. Currently trying to get him to make the hijra to Nostr 😈

I'm collaborating with a Bosnian brother on this. We have a rough outline so far for a presentation: Making Digital Hijra 1. Why we're here mention Microsoft’s reported support for Israel and the ethical duty to boycott entities that aid genocide. Big tech companies benefit from the status quo, israel is the status quo, they are a huge market. But boycotts aren’t enough if we just jump from one tech overlord to another. We need independence + sovereignty !!! True support for Palestine starts with removing our dependency on oppressive systems, including digital ones. 2. The Problem: Digital Slavery in a Surveillance Empire Explain how proprietary software (Microsoft, Apple, Google) locks us in and surveils us Microsoft Windows has Introduce the concept of “Digital Occupation”, we don’t own the tools we use; we rent access from corporations. mention how our data, movements, even our prayers (Muslim apps!) are monetized and analyzed. If the Product is free, you are the product. Companies make money by collecting your data, categorizing it and selling it to anyone willing to buy (Advertisers, NSA prism, political campaigns, AI trainers, Foreign actors) They own your devices. They own your data. They own your future. Is that how a Muslim should live? 3. The Philosophy: Digital vicegerency Introduce cypherpunk mindset without label yet Ownership over dependency Transparency over black boxes Decentralization over gatekeeping Don't trust, verify What does it mean to be vicegerent in a digital world? It means running code you can read, control, and share, without requiring permission” 4. Linux & Free Software Live demo: install Linux on an old laptop Show how easy it is: walk through interface, installing apps, customization. Introduce essential FOSS replacements for Microsoft products: LibreOffice (MS Office) GIMP (Photoshop) Firefox or Brave (Edge/Chrome) Thunderbird (Outlook) Signal or simpleX (WhatsApp/Teams) Nextcloud (OneDrive/Google Drive) Maybe show them how to run a VPN like Mullvad 5. The Vision: Muslim Digital Sovereignty Talk about long-term goals like: Owning your data. Running your own servers. Muslim Community NAS storage, store community and personal files on Muslim owned cloud Building open source apps by Muslims, for Muslims, that don’t spy on us. Forming open-source guilds to empower our ummah digitally. Reintroduce the concept of “Digital Hijra”: leaving behind corrupted systems for something dignified, transparent, and sovereign. The bare minimum we could do is use FOSS in support of our brothers and sisters in Palestine! View quoted note →