Roma Numismatics Ltd
Auction XXVII 22-23 Mar 2023
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Umayyads, time of Suleiman ibn 'Abd al-Malik AV Solidus. Bilingual type. North African mint, AH 98 = AD 716. Kalima in two lines in Arabic; ƧΛ∂ FRT IN AFRK A XCVIII (mint and date) around / Continuation of kalima in two lines in Arabic; N N I∂ N I N ∂ Ƨ N Ƨ Ƨ I Ƨ N ∂ Ƨ N I Ƨ I (Islamic religious text in Latin) around. Album 121M; Bernardi 34Ca; Walker, Arab-Byzantine, 185 and p. 50. 4.28g, 13mm, 12h.
Good Extremely Fine. Extremely Rare.
From a private European collection.
This bilingual type solidus is the first example of Arabic script on a coin struck in Muslim Spain and North Africa. The Arabic legends are correctly engraved, whereas the Latin inscriptions are abbreviated, clearly indicating that the Arabic script took precedence over the Latin.
The bilingual dinars arose after an evolutionary process that started between the years AH 76-85 / AD 695-704. During this period, the first emissions of North African solidi of Byzantine tradition, in which messages of a political and religious nature were expressed by legends in Latin, pious expressions equivalent to some Arabic formulas. In a second phase, between AH 85-97 under the authority of the governor Musà b. Nuṣayr, Islamic coinage moved away from the Byzantine types, eliminating all figurative representation, becoming purely epigraphic emissions. However, they kept the Latin characters and typologies, using the chronological system of indiction. This was featured on coinage until AH 94/ AD 712-713, when the dating by the Hijra shared a stamp with Byzantine chronology until AH 95 / AD 713-714, when indiction dating definitively disappears. In this same year the mint name AFRK (Africa) was fixed after the many previous variants in the spelling of the place name. Two years later, in AH 97 / AD 716, coinciding with the appointment of Muḥammad b. Yazid al-Qurashí, replacing the governor of Ifriqiya, 'Abd Allah, the minting of the first bilingual dinars took place.
These bilingual specimens display the first examples of legends referring to the prophetic mission of Muhammad in Maghrebi coinage; this represents a substantial change of enormous significance. The monetary text is no longer limited to reaffirming the Oneness of God with the tawḥid, against the trinitarian concept of official Christianity defended by Byzantium, but rather the figure of Muhammad as envoy of God, as role model, compared to Judaism and Christianity that do not recognize him as such.
Good Extremely Fine. Extremely Rare.
From a private European collection.
This bilingual type solidus is the first example of Arabic script on a coin struck in Muslim Spain and North Africa. The Arabic legends are correctly engraved, whereas the Latin inscriptions are abbreviated, clearly indicating that the Arabic script took precedence over the Latin.
The bilingual dinars arose after an evolutionary process that started between the years AH 76-85 / AD 695-704. During this period, the first emissions of North African solidi of Byzantine tradition, in which messages of a political and religious nature were expressed by legends in Latin, pious expressions equivalent to some Arabic formulas. In a second phase, between AH 85-97 under the authority of the governor Musà b. Nuṣayr, Islamic coinage moved away from the Byzantine types, eliminating all figurative representation, becoming purely epigraphic emissions. However, they kept the Latin characters and typologies, using the chronological system of indiction. This was featured on coinage until AH 94/ AD 712-713, when the dating by the Hijra shared a stamp with Byzantine chronology until AH 95 / AD 713-714, when indiction dating definitively disappears. In this same year the mint name AFRK (Africa) was fixed after the many previous variants in the spelling of the place name. Two years later, in AH 97 / AD 716, coinciding with the appointment of Muḥammad b. Yazid al-Qurashí, replacing the governor of Ifriqiya, 'Abd Allah, the minting of the first bilingual dinars took place.
These bilingual specimens display the first examples of legends referring to the prophetic mission of Muhammad in Maghrebi coinage; this represents a substantial change of enormous significance. The monetary text is no longer limited to reaffirming the Oneness of God with the tawḥid, against the trinitarian concept of official Christianity defended by Byzantium, but rather the figure of Muhammad as envoy of God, as role model, compared to Judaism and Christianity that do not recognize him as such.