KITTIC COINS is the name of the earliest Mohammedan coins, inscribed with the Kufic or ancient Arabic character (see the following article). According to Makrizi, the first were struck in the 18th year of the Hedjrali (63S under caliph Omar, who, ing to make Islam entirely independent of foreign, chiefly Byzantine and Persian, influ ence, even in the province of money, caused "Mohammedan" coins to be struck, in the shape of those Persian and Byzantine ones which had been circulating among his sub jects till then, and he caused them to be inscribed with koranie passages. According to other Arabic writers, however (Al-Makin, Sovuti, Ibn Kotciha, etc.), the earliest Kufic money dates from the time of caliph Abd Al-Yralek (76 H.=695 A.D.), a period much more probable, considering that no Kutic coins have hitherto been discovered anterior to 77 H. They were first of gold and silver, the former being dinars (corrupted from denarius—a name, moreover. wrongly applied), of the value of about 10s. 8d.; the latter, dirhems (drachma), worth about 5141. Not before 116 rr. were copper coins, fell (collis? ()bolus?), introduced, and the material for them was taken by the order of caliph \Valid from a colos sal bronze stit,Aie of an idol. Figures, human or otherwise, are rarely met with on these
coins. The legend generally. runs either around the margin, or is inclosed by a ring. The oldest dinar—of 77 H.—is preserved in the Milan museum (formerly Cay.
collection). Next comes the Stockholm academy, with a divar of 79 H. The oldest dirhem found as yet, dated 82 H., is likewise in Milan, in the mu-seo di Stefano di Mainoni. One of the richest collections of Kntic coins is in the Stockholm academy: owing chiefly to the great numbers found on the shores of the Baltic, brought thither probably by Mohammedan trailers in the middle ages. Not before the 7th c. H. were the Kutic characters superseded by the modern Neshki, upon coins; while for books, etc., they had long fallen into disuse. The best authorities on this subject are .Makrizi, Adler, the Tychsens, Reiske, De Sacy, Castilioui, Cataneo, Friflin, Lindberg, Pietra szewaki,