KOTA BAHARU, Aug 18 (Bernama) - Kelantanese from all walks of life crowded the Ar-Rahn Islamic Mortgage Centre here today, the first day the dinar and dirham are sold to the public, to purchase the coins which are introduced as an alternative currency for the people in Kelantan by the state government.

A survey by Bernama found that most of them wanted to buy the dinar and dirham coins to be used as accessories, like lockets, and others simply wanted to keep them as personal collections.

One of them, Zainun Che Aziz, 60, said the dinar was the latest trend for gold items in the market.

"Gold comes in various forms and sizes in the market. The latest is in the form of dinar.

"I have to buy it is unique and I want to use them as lockets for my grand-daughter.

"It will be a loss if I don't get it now. Who knows, suddenly they stop selling the dinar," she told Bernama here.

Meanwhile, the operations manager of the Kota Baharu 2 Ar-Rahn, Siti Azian Ibrahim, said a total of 344 pieces of dirham and 50 pieces of dinar were offered for sale to the public today.

"We did not expect to get good response considering the initial feedback where many were against the use of the dinar in our daily life.

"However, when the currency is opened for sale to the public today, the people are keen to buy the dinar to be used to make jewellery like lockets and bracelets," she added.

Siti Azian said the dinar came in five sizes and sold based on the current market price of gold where the half dinar could be bought for RM296, one dinar (RM592), two dinar (RM1,184), five dinar (RM2,960) and eight dinar (RM4,736).

"The value for the dirham is RM13 for each dirham," she added.

She said the dinar was made from high quality gold normally used for making gold jewellery.

Those keen to buy the dinar or want to know its market price can do so by surfing http://islamicmint.com.my/ or going to any Ar-Rahn centres, she added.

-- BERNAMA
source : http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=522261