Arab-Byzantine and Arab-Sasanian coinage

Before Islam the Arabs knew and used Byzantine and Sasanian coins; after Islam these remained in use, and coins were then struck on their models with Arabic phrases added, until the Arabisation of coinage under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. ¹

Farajallah Ahmad Yusuf notes that Umar ibn al-Khattab struck coins on the Sasanian model with Arabic phrases of tawhid and praise added, and that copper fulus on the Byzantine model were struck in his time bearing words such as tayyib ("good"), ja'iz ("current") and waf ("full weight"), with mint names in Arabic and Greek — Damascus, Hims, Tiberias, Baalbek, Iliya', Qinnasrin. ¹ He adds that Uthman ibn Affan struck coins bearing the takbir. ¹

The first signs of Arabisation came under Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, who struck Sasanian-style coins in 41 AH with Arabic phrases and his name in Pahlavi meaning "Mu'awiya, Commander of the Faithful". ² Under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan an Arab-Byzantine dinar of 74 AH annulled the cross by removing its bar and showed the standing caliph, a half-dirham of 75 AH bore his image and the title "khalifat Allah", and Arab-Byzantine fulus were struck at Hims. ^{2 3}

According to the author, the first dinars kept the image of Heraclius and his two sons with the crosses turned into globes; between 72 and 74 AH came dinars with three standing figures in Arab dress, one in the Qatar National Museum; in 76 AH dinars with Abd al-Malik's image, struck until 77; al-Maqrizi says they reached Medina, where some Companions used them in trade. ^{4 5}

• Henri Lavoix (1887) holds that Umar kept the Sasanian dirham with its type, Pahlavi language and fire altar; that the model copied was Khusraw II's, whose coins still circulated abundantly; that the king's name was gradually replaced by that of the caliph or governor; and that governors struck coins in the towns of their provinces from 25 AH. ⁶
• He notes that al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf went on striking Sasanian-type dirhams in his own name at al-Bayda in Fars until 83 AH, after the reform was in force at Basra, Jayy, Sus and Kufa in 79 AH. ⁷
• Muhammad Abu al-Faraj al-Ush (1972) explains that the dates on Arab-Sasanian dirhams may be Yazdgirdi, "post-Yazdgirdi" or Hijri, and that the mint is usually written in Pahlavi as a signature of one or more letters, such as "BISh" for Bishapur, "MR" for Merv and "DA" for Darabjird. ⁸
• He records Arab-Sasanian dirhams struck at Damascus bearing the city's name and the dates 72, 73 and 74 in Arabic, which preceded the purely Arabic dirham. ⁹