Abd al-Malik's Coinage Reform

توحيد النقود في عهد عبد الملك

Heraclius's dinars and the Persian Baghliyya dirhams reached Jahiliya Mecca and traded only as bullion: their mithqal twenty-two qirats less a fraction, ten dirhams seven mithqals, the ratl twelve uqiyyas of forty dirhams — weights the Prophet ﷺ confirmed, and Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, and Mu'awiya after him. Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr struck a few dirhams under Ibn al-Zubayr, later broken; then Abd al-Malik asked and tested, wrote al-Hajjaj to strike dirhams at fifteen qirats of the dinar-qirats, and struck the Damascene dinars — which came to Medina with Companions and Followers there and none objected. Al-Hasan ibn Salih: the Ajam dirhams ran great and small — twenty, twelve, ten qirats — and when Islam needed the mean for zakah they summed forty-two and struck the third, fourteen qirats, so ten Arab dirhams weigh seven mithqals. Quraysh's weights: the dirham for silver, the dinar for gold, ten dirham-weights to seven dinar-weights, the sha'ira a sixtieth of a dirham, the uqiyya forty dirhams, the nashsh twenty, the nawa five — all confirmed when the Prophet entered Mecca. And Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab, asked who first struck engraved dinars, said 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan — dinars came Byzantine, dirhams Kisrawi and few Himyari'.

Overview

al-Baladhuri and al-Suyuti describe how money in Mecca and Medina moved from Byzantine dinars and Persian dirhams to the coinage of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. ¹ ²

Before Abd al-Malik

In pre-Islamic times the dinars of Heraclius and the Persian dirhams used to reach the people of Mecca. They traded with them by weight as bullion, and their mithqal was of known weight. The account says that the Prophet approved this, and Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali approved it too, then Mu'awiya. Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr struck a few dirhams in the days of Ibn al-Zubayr. ¹

Striking dirhams and dinars

When Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan became caliph he asked about the matter of the dirhams and dinars, and he wrote to al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf that dirhams should be struck at fifteen qirats. He himself struck Damascene dinars. When they reached Medina, where a number of Companions and Successors were, they raised no objection. ¹

Other accounts

Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab was asked who first struck dinars with inscriptions, and he said it was Abd al-Malik. al-Suyuti adds that Abd al-Malik was the first to write, at the head of official registers, the Sura al-Ikhlas together with the mention of the Prophet and the date. The Byzantine king objected and threatened to put on his own dinars what they would dislike. ²

Needs an additional source: page numbers and dates. See also Mu'awiya.

al-Hajjaj's Mint and Coinage

Al-Hajjaj struck dirhams at the end of 75h and ordered them struck in all regions in 76h. 'Awana ibn al-Hakam: he asked how the Persians struck dirhams, took a mint-house, gathered the minters, struck the sultan's money from bullion and the purifications of zuyuf, sattuqa and bahraja, then licensed merchants' sheets for a fee and sealed the minters' hands. He struck 'ali dirhams marked 'bismillah, al-Hajjaj', then 'God is one, God the eternal' — the jurists disliked them and they were called makruha, or so the Ajam called them for their short weight; the Sumayriyya were named for their first striker. Mus'ab had struck dirhams by Ibn al-Zubayr's order in 70h on the Kisra-type marked 'baraka wa-'afiya' — al-Hajjaj altered them — and, per Ibn al-Kalbi, dinars too; al-Harith ibn Abdallah ibn Abi Rabi'a struck wazn-sab'a in Ibn al-Zubayr's days. Abd al-Malik first struck gold after the Year of Union, 74h (some dinars in 72, then 75). Then Umar ibn Hubayra refined the silver beyond his predecessors and bore hard on the changers; Khalid al-Qasri harder; Yusuf ibn Umar hardest — cut hands and flogged backs — so the Hubayriyya, Khalidiyya and Yusufiyya were the best Umayyad coin, the only Umayyad dirhams al-Mansur accepted for kharaj, whence the first dirhams were called makruha.

Abd al-Malik's Coinage Reform

At a glance

Overview

Before Abd al-Malik

Striking dirhams and dinars

Other accounts

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

Time

al-Hajjaj's Mint and Coinage