The First Islamic Coin AE " Standing Caliph " Fals Of Al Malik Ibn Marwan
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:9937018 |
Umayyad CaliphateAbd Al Malik ibn Marwan 685-705AE "Standing Caliph" fals, minted 690s
Obv: Caliph standing, facing, hand on sheath of saber, Kalima around (There is no god but Allah...)Rev: Cancelled cross on steps (AKA lollipop), kalima around
From a CNG lot. Heavy circulation wear, as normal, but still easily attributable. Nice budget example of a historically important coin!
Al-Malik was the fifth Umayyad caliph, presiding over a period of growing pains and cultural identi...ty crisis for the world's newest and largest superpower. Seven decades after the Hijra and four decades after the fall of the Sassanians, the Muslim economy was still being fueled by Byzantine copper and gold, Sassanian silver, and whatever imitations had been made as the supply ran thin. Although Arabic had already been in use on the imitations, the new empire lacked a cohesive and distinctly Muslim currency. Al-Malik initiated a massive coinage reform that spanned most of the 690s, coordinated between as many as 18 mints, and sought to erase Christian and Zoroastrian symbology from the coinage. Loosely based on Byzantine solidi, these coins replaced the robed Byzantine emperor with the Arab caliph, and erased the Christian cross on the reverse, replacing it with a circle on a pole - the meaning is still hotly contested. Although met with success, the other leaders of the Caliphate still felt the reformed coinage to be blasphemous, and so in 77 AH (696 AD) this type was dropped entirely and replaced by the more familiar post-reform coinage with a purely epigraphic design containing the Islamic professions of faith
Obv: Caliph standing, facing, hand on sheath of saber, Kalima around (There is no god but Allah...)Rev: Cancelled cross on steps (AKA lollipop), kalima around
From a CNG lot. Heavy circulation wear, as normal, but still easily attributable. Nice budget example of a historically important coin!
Al-Malik was the fifth Umayyad caliph, presiding over a period of growing pains and cultural identi...ty crisis for the world's newest and largest superpower. Seven decades after the Hijra and four decades after the fall of the Sassanians, the Muslim economy was still being fueled by Byzantine copper and gold, Sassanian silver, and whatever imitations had been made as the supply ran thin. Although Arabic had already been in use on the imitations, the new empire lacked a cohesive and distinctly Muslim currency. Al-Malik initiated a massive coinage reform that spanned most of the 690s, coordinated between as many as 18 mints, and sought to erase Christian and Zoroastrian symbology from the coinage. Loosely based on Byzantine solidi, these coins replaced the robed Byzantine emperor with the Arab caliph, and erased the Christian cross on the reverse, replacing it with a circle on a pole - the meaning is still hotly contested. Although met with success, the other leaders of the Caliphate still felt the reformed coinage to be blasphemous, and so in 77 AH (696 AD) this type was dropped entirely and replaced by the more familiar post-reform coinage with a purely epigraphic design containing the Islamic professions of faith
