Dinars (gold coins and their legal measure)

A dinar is a piece of gold coin struck to a set weight; for the jurists it is the same as the mithqal. ¹ The legal dinar is the one Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan struck on the weights of the Jahiliyya, weighing twenty-two qirats less a grain; rulings measured in dinars rest on it. ^{2 3}

A dirham is a coin of struck silver; naqd is any struck coin of dirhams, dinars or fulus; fulus are struck from metals other than gold and silver; sikka is the die that strikes the coin. ¹

Al-Baladhuri reports that Heraclius's dinars reached Mecca in the Jahiliyya and were traded only by weight, and that the Prophet ﷺ confirmed the Meccans in this weight. The book notes that the chain of this report is weak. ^{1 2} When Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan wished to strike dinars he asked about the weights of the Jahiliyya, and they agreed that the mithqal is twenty-two qirats less a grain of the Syrian measure; he struck his coins to that weight. ²

For the majority (Malikis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis) the mithqal weighs seventy-two grains of medium barley, and the legal dirham is seven tenths of a dinar. The Hanafis take the mithqal as a hundred barley grains; the book takes the difference to lie in how the qirat is reckoned. ^{2 3} Some researchers, the book notes, put the weight of Abd al-Malik's dinar at about 4.25 grams of gold, and took that as the basis for measuring zakat, diya and other rights; the book cites that estimate from a secondary work without checking it. ³

Zakat: the gold nisab is twenty dinars, on which a quarter of a tenth is due once it is reached; the reports of Umar and Aisha say the Prophet took half a dinar from each twenty and one dinar from forty. Jurists differ on whether the nisab must also be valued in dirhams. ³ Diya: the jurists agree that a gold diya is a thousand mithqals for a free Muslim man, following a letter attributed to the Prophet to the people of Yemen whose chain the book notes as weak. ^{3 4} Theft: the majority set the threshold at a quarter of a dinar or its value; the Hanafis set it at a dinar or ten dirhams. ⁴

The rules on breaking, cutting or using dinars as ornament, on touching them by one in a state of minor impurity when they bear Qur'anic writing, and on carrying them into the lavatory, are the same as those for the dirham and are treated there. The rules on renting, pledging or endowing dinars are in their own chapters. ⁴