Selling dollars at more or less than their face amount

Question

While employed in Saudi Arabia, Zayd buys dollars (currency), and in India he sells them wherever he gets a good rate for the dollar. By doing so he makes far more profit on the dollars than at the official rate of the banks. Is it permissible for him to do this, given that the government of India is non-Islamic?

Answer

If the status of the dollar is the same as that of the banknote in India — namely, that originally it was a receipt and a transfer order (hawala) for the amount written on it, by means of which that amount could be collected, but gradually that money itself has almost disappeared and everywhere the note itself is used as money, so that this note too has now become an object of…

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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