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Islamic Coinage
After the early Muslim conquests brought the nascent caliphate into contact with the numismatic traditions of the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire, whose lands they took over, the Islamic world developed its own, distinctive tradition of coinage. Islamic currency consisted of gold (dinars), silver (dirhams), and copper or bronze (fals) coins, as well as their fractions and multiples. Initially these coins followed pre-Islamic patterns in iconography, but under Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, a distinctive Islamic dinar type was created that eschewed images and carried the Islamic profession of faith. In the eastern parts of the caliphate, silver Arab–Sasanian coinage continued to be minted into the 9th century, before it was also replaced by Islamic patterns. The right to mint coins in one's own name became one of the chief attributes of sovereingty in Islam, and as autonomous and independent dynasties multiplied with the break-up of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 10th cen ...
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Early Muslim Conquests
The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests (), also known as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. He established the first Islamic state in Medina, Arabian Peninsula, Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Muslim rule being established on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) over the next century. According to historian James Buchan: "In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting." At their height, the territory that was conquered by the Arab Muslims stretched from Iberian Peninsula, Iberia (at the Pyrenees) in the west to Indian subcontinent, India (at Sind (caliphal province), Sind) in the east; Muslim control spanned Sicily, most of the Middle East and North Africa, and the Caucasus and Central Asia. Among other drastic changes, the early Muslim conquests brought about ...
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Arab–Sasanian Coinage
Arab–Sasanian coinage is a modern term used to describe Islamic coinage struck in the style of the Sasanian coins, coinage of the Iranian peoples, Iranian Sasanian Empire (224–651) after the Muslim conquest of Persia, on behalf of the Muslim governors of the early Islamic caliphates (7th–8th centuries). These coins, mostly silver dirhams but also copper coins, were struck in the historic Sasanian lands of Iraq and Iran, and continued to show the portrait of a bust of a Sasanian emperor as well as other non-Islamic motifs of Sasanian coins, alongside Arabic inscriptions. See also * Indo-Sasanian coinage * Sasanian coinage of Sindh References Literature

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Arab-Sasanian coinage Rashidun Caliphate Numismatics Government of the Sasanian Empire Coins of the medieval Islamic world Government of the Abbasid Caliphate Government of the Umayyad Caliphate ...
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Currencies Of Africa
A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific environment over time, especially for people in a nation state. Under this definition, the British Pound sterling (£), euros (€), Japanese yen (¥), and U.S. dollars (US$) are examples of (government-issued) fiat currencies. Currencies may act as stores of value and be traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are either chosen by users or decreed by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance; i.e., legal tender laws may require a particular unit of account for payments to government agencies. Other definitions of the term ''currency'' appear in the respective synonymous articles: banknote, coin, and money. This article us ...
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Coins Of The Medieval Islamic World
A coin is a small object, usually round and flat, used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to facilitate trade. They are most often issued by a government. Coins often have images, numerals, or text on them. The faces of coins or medals are sometimes called the ''obverse'' and the ''reverse'', referring to the front and back sides, respectively. The obverse of a coin is commonly called ''heads'', because it often depicts the head of a prominent person, and the reverse is known as ''tails''. The first metal coins – invented in the ancient Greek world and disseminated during the Hellenistic period – were precious metal–based, and were invented in order to simplify and regularize the task of measuring and weighing bullion (bulk metal) carried around for the purpose of transactions. They carried their value within the coins themselves, but the stampings also induced manipulati ...
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Gold Dinar
The gold dinar () is an Islamic medieval gold coin first issued in AH 77 (696–697 CE) by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. The weight of the dinar is 1 mithqal (). The word ''dinar'' comes from the Latin word denarius, which was a silver coin. The name "dinar" is also used for Sasanid, Kushan, and Kidarite gold coins, though it is not known what the contemporary name was. The first dinars were issued by the Umayyad Caliphate. Under the dynasties that followed the use of the dinar spread from Islamic Spain to Central Asia. Background Although there was a dictum that the Byzantine solidus was not to be used outside of the Byzantine empire, some of these coins became involved in distant trade; those then did not get re-minted by the imperial mints, and quickly became worn. Towards the end of the 7th century CE, Arabic copies of solidi – dinars issued by the caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705 CE), who had access to supplies of gold from the upper Nile – ...
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Al-Ma'mun
Abū al-ʿAbbās Abd Allāh ibn Hārūn al-Maʾmūn (; 14 September 786 – 9 August 833), better known by his regnal name al-Ma'mun (), was the seventh Abbasid caliph, who reigned from 813 until his death in 833. His leadership was marked by the power and prosperity of the Abbasid Caliphate, al-Ma'mun promoted the Graeco-Arabic translation movement, the House of Wisdom, flowering of learning and the sciences in Baghdad, and the publishing of al-Khwarizmi's The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, book now known as "Algebra". Making him one of the most important caliphs in the Islamic Golden Age. He is also known as a proponent of the rational Islamic theology of Mu'tazilism. Al-Ma'mun succeeded his half-brother al-Amin after a Fourth Fitna, civil war, much of his reign was spent on peace campaigns. His strong support for Mu'tazilism led him to imprison a Sunni Islam, Sunni Imam, Ahmad ibn Hanbal in an event that became known as ''mihna.'' Al-Ma'mun's for ...
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Abbasid Caliph
The Abbasid caliphs were the holders of the Islamic title of caliph who were members of the Abbasid dynasty, a branch of the Quraysh tribe descended from the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib. The family came to power in the Abbasid Revolution in 748–750, supplanting the Umayyad Caliphate. They were the rulers of the Abbasid Caliphate, as well as the generally recognized ecumenical heads of Islam, until the 10th century, when the Shi'a Fatimid Caliphate (established in 909) and the Caliphate of Córdoba (established in 929) challenged their primacy. The political decline of the Abbasids had begun earlier, during the Anarchy at Samarra (861–870), which accelerated the fragmentation of the Muslim world into autonomous dynasties. The caliphs lost their temporal power in 936–946, first to a series of military strongmen and then to the Shi'a Buyid Emirs that seized control of Baghdad; the Buyids were in turn replaced by the Sunni Seljuk Tur ...
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Fatimid Coinage
Fatimid coinage comes from the Fatimid Caliphate, an Isma'ili Shi'a empire that ruled large parts of North Africa, western Arabia, and the Levant, first from Tunisia (Ifriqiya) and then from Egypt. The coinage was minted after the typical pattern of Islamic coinage. The Fatimids were particularly known for the consistently high quality of their gold dinars, which proved a potent political tool in their Fatimid conquest of Egypt, conquest of Egypt and led to them being widely imitated by the Crusader states in the 12th century. Fatimid silver coinage (dirhams) on the other hand, although widely issued, declined in quality with the weakening of the Fatimid state, and has been mostly ignored in modern times. The Fatimids minted almost no copper coinage. Starting from designs imitating Abbasid coinage, adapted merely with slogans befitting the new regime and the names of the Fatimid caliphs, from the reign of Caliph al-Mu'izz on, Fatimid coinage included overtly Shi'a formulas and achie ...
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Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name. After overthrowing the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE (132  AH), they ruled as caliphs based in modern-day Iraq, with Baghdad being their capital for most of their history. The Abbasid Revolution had its origins and first successes in the easterly region of Khurasan, far from the Levantine center of Umayyad influence. The Abbasid Caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad as the new capital. Baghdad became the center of science, culture, arts, and invention in what became known as the Golden Age of Islam. By housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multiethnic and multi- ...
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Sikka Wa Khutba
In the Islamic world, the term () referred to the two key attributes of sovereignty: minting coins (especially of gold or silver) in one's own name, and being named in the , the sermon that precedes the Friday prayer. The term originally referred to the iron die used to stamp designs on coins, and came to be used for the designs themselves, and eventually the institution of the mint. As the power of the Abbasid Caliphate waned during the late 9th century, the numerous ''de facto'' autonomous rulers who emerged in the Islamic world, such as Ya'qub al-Saffar or Ahmad ibn Tulun, added their own names to the coinage underneath that of the caliph, as the last vestige of Abbasid authority, but also as a token of caliphal recognition, suzerainty, and thus legitimacy for the new dynasties. As the historian R. E. Darley-Doran writes, "whether by usurpation or grant from the caliph, the presence of names on the coinage came to be seen as a right that could be exercised by any serious reb ...
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Shahada
The ''Shahada'' ( ; , 'the testimony'), also transliterated as ''Shahadah'', is an Islamic oath and creed, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam and part of the Adhan. It reads: "I bear witness that there is no Ilah, god but God in Islam, God, and I bear witness that Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad is the Prophets and messengers in Islam, Messenger of God." The Shahada declares belief in the oneness () of God and the acceptance of Muhammad as God's messenger. Some Shia Islam, Shia Muslims also include a statement of belief in the of Ali,''The Later Mughals'' by William Irvine (historian), William Irvine p. 130 but they do not consider it as an obligatory part for Conversion to Islam, converting to Islam. A single honest recitation of the Shahada is all that is required for Conversion to Islam, a person to become a Muslim according to most traditional Schools of Islamic theology, schools. The testimonies The Declaration of faith, declaration reads: The above two stat ...
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Caliphate
A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with Khalifa, the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire Muslim world (''ummah''). Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires. During the medieval period, three major caliphates succeeded each other: the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1517). In the fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire claimed caliphal authority from 1517 until the Ottoman caliphate was Abolition of the Caliphate, formally abolished as part of the Atatürk's reforms, 1924 secularisation of Turkey. An attempt to preserve the title was tried, with the Sharifian Caliphate, but this caliphate fell quickly after its conquest by the Sultanate o ...
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