Money is from Moneta and moneta is, according to one etymological web-definition:

mid-13c., “coinage, metal currency,” from Old French monoie “money, coin, currency; change” (Modern Frenchmonnaie), from Latin moneta “place for coining money, mint; coined money, money, coinage,” from Moneta, a title or surname of the Roman goddess Juno, in or near whose temple money was coined; perhaps from monere “advise, warn” (see monitor (n.)), with the sense of “admonishing goddess,” which is sensible, but the etymology is difficult.

in other words money is the mint, is the gold and silver, is the authority over it……for would the Latins have accepted anything less?

Interestingly the etymological web-definition continues:

Extended early 19c. to include paper money.It had been justly stated by a British writer that the power to make a small piece of paper, not worth one cent, by the inscribing of a few names, to be worth a thousand dollars, was a power too high to be entrusted to the hands of mortal man. [John C. Calhoun, speech, U.S. Senate, Dec. 29, 1841]

As for the fiqh:

from the mighty Ibn Mandhur, from his Lisaan al-Arab, his dictionary which draws its linguistic authority primarily from the Quran, the Rasoul, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, and the greats among the poets and udabaa’ from the pre-capitalist age:

Entry Meem: MAAL: [money, wealth, …]

“The root meaning of the word MAAL is that which is possessed by someone with respect to gold or silver – and then extended to mean anything of value owned of a tangible reality”.

In other words, it indicates in the first instance possession but also implied gold and silver primarily as this was the possession par excellence.

Lisaan al-Arab, vol 13, from Dar al-Ihraath al-Arab edition, Beirut 1418 AH, p.222.

A Religious Storm

A storm has passed over the German-speaking peoples. A storm is a religious event. A storm however great is an indication of something even greater. It is ‘Allah who sends the winds’ (Qur‘an: The Ramparts: 56) as He reiterates in the Quran. It is He who destroys with ‘a savage howling wind (Qur’an: The Undeniable: 69)’, and Who ‘heaps up the heavy clouds’ (Qur’an: Thunder: 14). ‘Do you not see’, Allah asks us, ‘that Allah propels the clouds then makes them coalesce then heaps them up, and then you see the rain come pouring out of the middle of them?’ (Qur‘an: Light 42). Again it is ‘He Who shows you the lightning, striking fear and bringing hope’. It is He Who ‘discharges the thunderbolts, striking with them anyone He wills’ (Qur‘an: Thunder: 14). It is He Who – speaking of the arrogant – ‘seized each one of them for their wrong actions. Against some We sent a sudden squall of stones; some of them were seized by the Great Blast; some We caused the earth to swallow up; and some We drowned. Allah did not wrong them; rather they wronged themselves (Qur‘an: Spider 40). It is He Who ‘sent down on them floods’ (The Ramparts: 132). The same applies to earthquakes, tornadoes, the eruption of volcanos, drought and every single natural phenomenon: in the Quran all are declared signs of Allah, reminding us of Him, warning us of Him. The Messenger of Allah too, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, saw only Allah in such phenomena, for example, as Aisha, radi allahu anha, relates: ‘The state of the Prophet may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would change when he saw the storm clouds approached ‚he would leave off what he was doing, even if he had been performing (extra rakats of) salat, face the clouds and say: “O Allah! I seek refuge with You from the evil that it contains.” If Allah took it away, he would praise Allah, and if it rained, he would say: “O Allah! Make the rain pour down on us and be of benefit, (Ibn Maja 3889). He saw the fire of this world as the smaller version of the fire of the next saying ‘This fire of yours is a seventieth part of the Fire of Gahannam’. (Muslim, Chapter al-Janna 30).

However it is no longer permitted to see events in this way – that the lightning bolt is from Him and that the person struck may well be struck as a punishment for their wrongdoing (Qur‘an: an-Nisa: 152). Indeed, it is taboo to even talk about any of these matter in such terms, indeed almost forbidden, almost. The reason is clear: we live in an atheist society whose god is science. But that science, although very capable of explaining secondary, tertiary, causes, has missed the point. Just as the stars are in reality there to embellish the sky (Qur‘an: Those in Ranks: 6) and to guide seafarers and travellers during the night (Qur‘an: Livestock: 98) so the force of nature is to remind us of Him, it is a warning of His power. It is a fantasy to think that somehow science, in the future, shall be able to contain earthquakes, stop storms. These ‘natural disasters’ are not only disasters: they also occur for another reason and real knowledge is to recognise this and act accordingly. The church authorities whose Book calls us to see such events in exactly the same manner have become curiously silent.

Storms are a demonstration of tawhid: there is nothing like Him, there is nothing like Allah in creation – but His Oneness encompasses creation and the multiplicity of nature is manifest in His attributes. The storm, for example, is a manifestation of His power. Science, in particular quantum physics, has brought us closer to understanding the molecular interconnectedness of everything; and it has also shown us that everything is not as it seems, that not everything is logical, that not everything is predictable – in short that logic is logos and as such is subject to the meanings transmitted by the language of the logos; or as Ibn Rushd has said in so many words: ‘it depends on what the hearer understands by what he hears’. Goethe looked at the creation with the eye of tawhid; his understanding of the Urpflanze for example was an understanding of the underlying harmony of the plant kingdom – which is today emerging in the global study of the arabidopsis thaliana. This recognition of DNA is after all a recognition of this tawhid.

But storms and the like have ceased to become of religious import, i.e. ceased to point to a higher metaphysic. Instead the religious storm has become a secular, political event. And because political, it has necessarily turned into a media circus. We have just witnessed yet again, how the storm whipped up the waves on the North Sea and brought down trees; the real storm, however, was the hype which brought airports, rail and road services to a halt and demi-paralysed normal life; and of course it afforded people more time for divertissement.

Interestingly the Messenger, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him has indicated that the practice of covering up or denying this truth of the Oneness of everything is itself a single millat or single existential patterning: from religion to politics, to media and inevitably to finance – the real force behind the media event was of course the financial sector and their servants the insurers. Just as war is good for business so is any force majeure. It brings huge profits to television through the increase in advert revenue at peak storm times and to the reinsurers who are consequently given licence to increase the premiums prior to the next storm. This is not a fantasy but rather the accepted credo and practice of the global society in which we live. It is ignorance to ignore such divine signs and insolent to exploit them for material gain. Allah says of them that they are a people ‘who have sold guidance for misguidance. Their trade has brought no profit; they are not guided.’ Then Allah says that their likeness is ‘that of a storm-cloud in the sky, full of darkness, thunder and lightning. They put their fingers in their ears against the thunderclaps, fearful of death.’ The calamities of nature are a foretaste of death. They are a reminder of the transient nature of this world and an invitationto reflect on the Next: ‚Would any of you like to have a garden of dates and grapes, with rivers flowing underneath and containing all kinds of fruits, then to be stricken with old age and have children who are weak, and then for a fierce whirlwind containing fire to come and strike it so that it goes up in flames? In this way Allah makes His Signs clear to you, so that hopefully you will reflect’ (The Cow: 265).

The Quran teaches us using descriptions of what is familiar to us. It instructs us that this world can either be a garden of blessings or one visited upon by calamity and drought just as it warns us that the next World is either the bliss of the Garden or the torment of the Fire. These are not symbols but an exposition of how things are and shall be: the reality of natural phenomena here and the reality of meanings after death. Just as the people in the Garden shall reach out to the fruits there and exclaim that they have already tasted similar in this world before they died, so the events of this world are a mirroring of the earthquakes, winds and terrible noise of the Last Day: we can only really conceive of the ‘Crashing Blow’ (Qur’an: sura 101), the Deafening Blast (Qur’an: He Frowned 33), the ‘Splitting’ (Qur’an: sura 82), the ‘Overwhelming’ (Qur’an: sura 88), the ‘Quaking’ (Qur’an: The Earthquake: 1), the ‘Bursting’ (Qur’an: sura 84)) or this ‘Compacting (of the sun into blackness)’ (Qur’an: sura 81) or the Great Calamity (Quran: The Pluckers: 34) – the names by which the Last Day is known – if we have lived through the force of a tornado or the terror of an earthquake here.