The radical militant group, which aims to free itself from a world economic system it deems “satanic”, announced back in November 2014 that it was going to start minting its own money.
Abu Bakr-al Baghadi, the IS group leader, said the new money would be uniquely made of precious metals, with pieces in gold, silver and copper.
A website affiliated with the group outlined the currency’s goals in several languages: "to prevent [the] blind and tyrannical monetary system that was imposed on the Muslims and was a reason for their enslavement, impoverishment and the wasting of national wealth, making it easy prey in the hands of the Jews and Christians”. The jihadist group also published images of the blueprint of each coin along with information about its design, weight and value (in dollars).
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Now it appears their currency plans have become reality. In the photos posted on social media on June 22, one image shows a five dinar coin and another shows a one dinar coin.
The five dinar gold coin (photo below) supposedly weighs 21. 25 grammes and is worth 694 dollars. The image on this coin shows an engraving of a world map, a design that illustrates the IS group’s plan for world domination.
The one dinar piece, also minted in gold, is supposedly equal to 139 dollars. The "heads side" of the coin is decorated with seven ears of wheat apparently symbolising “the greatness of spendings to the glory of Allah”.
The photos of the coins were first posted on the Twitter account of an IS militant. The account has since been deleted.
Meanwhile, the images were picked up and shared, notably by the Twitter account of an anti-IS activist based in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the jihadist group in Syria.
"Even if these photos were first shared by a member of the organisation, there is no proof that this money is actually in circulation. In any case, the IS organisation hasn’t made any official statement about it for the time being. It could be that the coins in the photos are just prototypes, " said Wassim Nasr, FRANCE 24's specialist on jihadist groups.
When the announcement about an IS currency was first made, several specialists said that such a project would be very difficult to set up, particularly because of its dependence on precious metals.
“In order to smelt the gold, for example, the IS group would have to buy it on the black market, which gives the US and their allies a new way to track members of this group. Not to mention that the price of these raw materials fluctuate and, in case of a sudden hike in prices, the IS group’s bill could skyrocket,” Pascal de Lima, an expert in monetary economics, told FRANCE 24.
