Recently, there have been an increasing number of publications and conferences on the re-introduction of the Islamic gold dinar, a coin with pure gold content. The phenomenon could even be construed as a campaign. The proponents of this idea, who are known as denarists and are particularly active in Malaysia, advocate that this country, as well as the whole Islamic world, “urgently” return to the Islamic gold dinar. Their call has gained considerable urgency in view of the latest crisis in the West. But what the denarists are doing is proposing an essentially historical system (coinage was the norm throughout history) without having studied how the system they are proposing actually functioned in history. The main purpose of this article is to fill this vacuum.
