Asiatic Coins

Caliphates.

The early Arabs were unacquainted with the art of coinage which had died out in Arabia with the extinction of the Himyarite kingdom in the south; it was not till the con quering armies of Islam had wrested Syria from the Byzantines in the east and overthrown the Sassanian empire of Persia in the west that they became acquainted with regular currencies and with the sudden accession of wealth found the need of one. At first they issued gold and bronze pieces imitated from contemporary Byzantine coins, modifying the cross on the reverse of the latter somewhat to suit Muslim susceptibilities; the earliest silver coins were copies of late Sassanian coins with the addition of bismillah (in the name of God) on the margin (Pl. V.-12). The need for a purely Arab coinage worthy of the now vast Arab empire was soon felt and towards the end of the 7th century the fifth Omayyad Caliph 'Abd al-Malik (A.D. 685-705) instituted a coinage more in keeping with the principles of Islam. This coinage was of gold, silver and copper and the names dinar (denarius aureus), dirhem (drachm) and falus (follis) were borrowed from the Byzantines, as also the weights of the gold and bronze. It is interesting that the gold and bronze (Pl. V.-i3) kept the thick fabric of the Byzantine originals while the silver retained the thin fabric of the Sassanian drachms ; it was some centuries before this distinction of fabric disappeared. The strict interpretation of some sayings of Mohammed on image-making had removed a vast field of activity from the Muslim mint-engraver by limiting him to legends instead of types. This however gave Arab coins a his torical value which the coinage of no other race possesses. From the earliest times they bear the mint and date and in time the ruler's name and title often with valuable genealogical data and titles of historical interest. Every Muslim claimant to sovereign power took the earliest opportunity of striking coins and we pos sess coins of rulers and pretenders known to have had the briefest reigns and in some cases their coins still testify to the existence of rulers unrecorded by history.

The dirhem of (Abd al-Malik bears on the obverse the Muslim profession of faith. "There is no god but God: he has no asso ciate" and around is the marginal legend. "In the name of God this dinar was struck at in the year ." The reverse area has a quotation from Koran CXII. "God is alone; God is eternal : He begets not and is not begotten nor is there any one like unto Him." Around is Koran IX. 33. "Mohammed Is the Prophet of God sent with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all other religions averse though the idolators may be." This type of coin (PI. V.-14, 15), issued from Spain and Morocco to the borders of China, gave Muslim coinage the character which it held for centuries. In mid 8th century the (Abbasids overthrew the Omayyad Caliphate but at first made little change in the coinage. The long reverse formula was re placed by the simple statement "Mohammed is the Prophet of God" and in time the caliph's name was added and at the provin cial mints that of the local governor and in the 9th century a second marginal inscription was added : "To God belongs the order before and after and in that day believers shall rejoice in the help of God" (Koran XXXI. 3-4). Among the more remark able coins of this series are those of Harun al-Rashid (786-809) which bear the name of his vizier and boon companion the ill-fated Barmecide Ja 'afar (Pl. V.-i5), whose fame, like that of his

master, has been spread by the Arabian Nights. The extensive gold coinage of the tAbbasids became one of the great currencies of the mediaeval world and Offa in his efforts to found an English coinage imitates a dinar of al-Mansur (A.D. 754-775) The 'Abbasid caliphate broke up in the 9th and loth centuries and the succeeding independent governors regularly put their own names on the coins although they retained that of the caliph of Baghdad whose spiritual authority was still recognised. Among such dynasties were the Omayyads of Spain, who issued an exten sive coinage mainly in silver from the middle of the 8th till the end of the Iith century, the Idrisids, Tulfmids, `Aghlabids and Ibh shidids, all short-lived dynasties in North Africa and Egypt, coin ing mainly in gold. In Central Asia we have the extensive coinage of the Samanids of the days when Samarkand and Bukhara were great centres of culture and poured their wealth into north ern Europe to buy costly furs as the great finds of Arab coins around the Baltic show. The 'Abbasid coinage continued down to the 13th century but Baghdad was almost its only mint in its latter days ; its last coins are very handsome large gold pieces. Minor dynasties mainly of Persian origin were the Tahirids, Saffar ids and Buyids whose silver coins are still valuable historical documents. In the loth century the Fatimid caliphate, of Shia origin, arose in western Africa and in time conquered Egypt. Its extensive currency of gold introduced a new type of dinar with legends of the usual type but arranged in three concentric circles (Pl. V.-i6); they held Sicily for a time and the coins struck were imitated by their Norman successors. A little later the Turks arose in the West, swept before them the smaller dynasties and ultimately ruled all western Asia. As the Ghaznawids, they ruled in Afghanistan and part of India ; Mahmud of Ghazna struck coins with inscriptions in Arabic and Sanskrit, the latter for his Indian dominions (P1. VII.-i 1). His regular gold coinage and those of the great Seljuk Tughril Bey are among the last issues of the old type and in the 13th century we have a series of remark able innovations. The descendants of the original Seljuk con querors divided their conquests in western Asia into numerous small states. Their scarce gold coinage follows orthodox lines, while giving a wealth of historical information, but the most re markable of their issues was an extensive series of large copper coins bearing a remarkable number of different types borrowed from all sources, ancient Greek and Roman and Byzantine. They seem to have taken a childish delight in reproducing any coin type or even picture that took their fancy. Such are the coins of Kara Arslan (1168-1174) with reverse the familiar Byzantine type of Christ seated or of Alpi (1152-1176) with the virgin crowning a Byzantine emperor (Pl. V.-17). Their silver coins were directly influenced by the aspers of the Byzantine emperors and more particularly by those of the empire of Trebizond. From the latter comes the type of a horseman with a mace over his shoulder (Pl. V.-3). popular with the Seljuks of Asia Minor.