Umayyad Dinar

Circulating and used on a daily basis, coins are the earliest testimonies of the foundation of Islamic states and the development of trade. Muslim rulers first used Byzantine gold coins (solidus), which was the most common currency still in use in the early years of Islam, but also used them as models to mint new coinage between 60 and 73 AH / 679-692 CE. Between 74 and 77 AH / 693-696 CE, the Umayyad caliph ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (r. 65-86 AH/685-705 CE) established a new currency showing the caliph standing on his own. This dinar is an example of the coins that were produced after he proclaimed a new reform in 77 AH / 696 CE ordering the prohibition of any form of iconography and introducing for the following centuries new conventions with a standardized type of coinage that would include the denomination, the date and sometimes the place of issue, alongside religious inscriptions that spanned from the kalima to the later shahada and Qur’anic verses. This dinar bears on the obverse the first part of the kalima (‘No God but God, unique, He has no associate’) with mentions on the margin of Muhammad being the Messenger of God with words of Q9:33. The reverse carries the denomination, the date and Q112:1-3. Although such coins did not bear a mint location, they are believed to have been struck in Damascus, the capital of the Umayyad empire.