Dubai, U.A.E. — Halal NFT marketplace SouqNFT now hosts the world’s first NFT-based halal compliance certifications. The NFT certificates, minted and issued by Shariah Experts Ltd., are powered by ethical decentralized finance (DeFi) platform MRHB.Network.
These NFTs are the first completely immutable halal compliance certifications that have been recorded on a blockchain, providing newfound transparency to the halal certification sector. The NFTs will allow companies to publicly verify that their business practices and products are certified halal, which means they are ethical according to Islamic jurisprudence principles.
“The trustless nature of NFT-based halal compliance certifications fills a pressing need in the halal economy sector, where certificate forgeries are common or difficult to validate, especially in the halal food industry. NFTs are unique and neither replaceable nor interchangeable — this makes them a perfect technology for immutable certificates,” said MRHB DeFi CEO Naquib Mohammed. “The complete transparency of blockchain also means that anybody can easily cross-check a certificate with Shariah Expert’s public key to verify beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was this specific Shariah advisory firm that minted the NFT and issued the certificate. By default, NFTs incorporate proof of ownership.”
Shariah Experts, the issuer of the NFT certificates, is a London-based advisory firm founded in 2020 with the mission of guiding Web3 projects alongside Islamic principles. Shariah Experts’ fatwas (legal rulings) include Islamic banking and finance, gold and silver, zakat almsgiving for financial institutions and investors, and waqf charitable endowments. The company is headed by world renowned Shariah scholars Dr. Farrukh Habib and Mufti Billal Omarjee. Singapore-based gold crypto platform Cache.Gold is the first receiver of the halal certification in the form of NFT minted on SouqNFT marketplace.
“Shariah Experts believe that tokenization of certificates in the form of NFTs can help avoid cumbersome authentication methods and slow verification processes,” Dr Habib – Co-founder, Shariah Experts – said. “Other methods are prone to multiple points of failure along the way, such as loss or destruction of a paper or digital certificate. NFTs are a more streamlined and permanent solution.”
The SouqNFT marketplace was launched in December 2021, and was MRHB DeFi’s first launched product along with their $MRHB token. Notably, SouqNFT is also the world’s first NFT marketplace to list halal-certified NFTs, guaranteeing users will never stumble upon inappropriate content on the site. The Shariah Governance Board (SGB) keeps an eye on all NFTs submitted to the market, and are further aided by NSFW and NLP machine learning algorithms.
Bringing Together an Ethical Web3 Ecosystem
MRHB DeFi Network was founded to create a platform ecosystem of halal DeFi products and services made specifically for people concerned about making only ethical financial decisions. This includes the Islamic Finance sector, a market representing over 1 billion people and US$3 trillion in value. In order to be considered halal for Islamic Finance, businesses must adhere to strict ethical and financing principles, including avoidance of social exploitation, interest or usury and support of transparency, sustainability, asset or utility-backed financing and equitable risk-reward sharing — all principles that have a universal appeal beyond the Muslim community.
“It is our sincere hope that the NFT certificates we host on SouqNFT will inspire others to join MRHB DeFi Network in our mission to build a Web3 ecosystem focused on ethical business practices,” Naquib said. “The cryptocurrency industry has been unregulated for far too long, and this has brought many bad actors and immoral situations. A safe, trustworthy space needs to be built in the cryptoverse for people with strong convictions of what is right and wrong, and we think that blockchain can be the perfect tool to make this happen.”
MRHB DeFi Network recently launched their flagship product, Sahal Wallet, which is a self-custodial multichain cryptocurrency wallet built specifically to be compatible with only tokens certified halal. The wallet is also a portal to the rest of the MRHB DeFi ecosystem — including linking directly to SouqNFT — making it easy for anybody to use the MRHB DeFi Network platform as a trusted gatekeeper to the halal cryptoverse, Five more products are also being built for this ecosystem, including interest-free crypto financing, a cross-chain DEX aggregator and a liquidity harvester, along with an entrepreneur launchpad and decentralized philanthropy (DePhi) aimed at creating better opportunities for underprivileged communities.
MRHB DeFi Network’s vision is supported by a number of partners and investors, including Polygon Technology, Sheesha Finance, Australian Gulf Capital, NewTribe Capital, Blockchain Australia, Mozaic, Contango Digital Assets, ZKSync, Acreditus Partners, EMGS Group, Sinofy Group, Sukhavati Protocol and MKD Capital, amongst others.
About MRHB DeFi Network
MRHB DeFi Network is a halal, decentralized finance platform built to embody the true spirit of “Ethical and Inclusive DeFi” by following faith-based financial and business principles where all excluded communities can benefit from the full empowerment potential of DeFi.
The diverse team comprises researchers, technocrats, influencers, Islamic fintech experts, business entrepreneurs and industry professionals, who have all come together to ensure that MRHB DeFi prevails in a manner that will impact society as a whole, essentially bridging the gap between faith-conscious communities and the blockchain world.
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