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A Pahlavi Forerunner of the Umayyad Reformed Coinage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Malek Iradj Mochiri
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Extract

The purpose of this note is to make known a remarkable, and hitherto unrecorded, drachma of Arab-Sasanian form, issued in the year 72/691–2 by the Governor of Sīstān 'Abd al-'Azīz b. 'Abdallāh b. 'Āmīr.

The momentous coinage reform of the Umayyad Caliph 'Abd al-Malik, begun in 77/696–7, was directed at removing all symbolism associated with the former Byzantine and Sasanian rule, and its replacement with a purely inscriptional coin-type, giving in Arabic the Muslim confession of faith, and various Qur'anic verses. These innovations were accompanied by the replacement of Greek in the western Muslim chanceries by the Arabic script and language. Similarly in the eastern provinces, Pahlavi was replaced by Arabic under the viceroyalty in Iraq of al-Ḥajjāj, appointed in 75/694–5. So far as the eastern coinages were concerned the change meant the disappearance of the Sasanian royal portrait from the obverse of the silver coinage; and of the fire altar ' symbol of Zoroastrianism ' from the reverse. The coin illustrated here (Pl. I, a, b - Foroughi Colin.) was struck several years before the commencement of the reform at Damascus, and anticipates it, so far as its reverse type is concerned, though still employing the Pahlavi script of the older tradition. As usual in dealing with a Pahlavi text, we give first facsimile, then transliteration, transcription and translation.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 113 , Issue 2 , April 1981 , pp. 168 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1981

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References

1 See Mochiri, M. I., Etudes de numismatique iranienne sous les Sassanides et Arabe-Sassanides, II, Tehran and London 1977, ch. XIV, 419–26.Google ScholarBosworth, C. E., Sistan and the Arabs (ISMEO Reports and Memoirs, X), Roma, 1967, 51;Google ScholarTārīkh-i Sīstān, Tehran, 1314/1935, 106.Google Scholar

2 Walker, John, A catalogue of the Arab-Sassanian coins, London, 1941 (reprinted 1967), 96–7.Google Scholar

3 Bosworth, , 51 (citing Ya'qūbī as the sole source for 'Abdullāh b. 'Adī's appointment).Google Scholar

4 Walker, , 81–2.Google Scholar

5 Miles, G. C., “The earliest Arab gold coinage”, American Numismatic Society Museum Notes, XIII, 1967, 227.Google Scholar

6 Other experimental types assignable to this period include the Standing Caliph dinar (74–7 A.H.), the undated miḥrāb-and-'anaza (spear in niche) drachm, and the “Caliph orans” drachm of 73–5 A.H. All these issues show the kalima in the form lā ilāha illā Allāh, Muḥammad rasūl Allāh, without lā sharīk lah (Miles, G. C., “Miḥrāb and 'Anazah: a study of early Muslim iconography” in Miles, G. C. (ed.), Archaeologica orientalia in memoriam Ernst Herzfeld, Locust Valley, N.Y., 1952, 156–71;Google ScholarWalker, John, op. cit., 24;Google Scholaridem, “Some new Arab-Sasanian coins”, Numismatic Chronicle, 1952, 106–10;Google ScholarMiles, G. C., “The iconography of Umayyad coinage, Ars Orientalis, III, 1959, 207–13;Google Scholaridem, Museum Notes, XIII, 1967, 205–29).Google Scholar Between 76 and 79 A.H. the kalima is retained in its pre-reform version on the issues of al-Ḥajjāj, cf. Walker, , Catalogue, 118–9.Google Scholar

7 Walker, , Catalogue, 97, no. Sch. 5; 108, no. 213.Google Scholar