Sassanian money in the time of Mohammed (pics)

spoon

I asked around once upon a time what kind of coins circulated in west Arabia during the life of Mohammed. The answer is uncertain. Though I've found a few scholarly articles on the area's economy at the time (through work on other things), I have yet to find any mention of any specific coins that circulated. I'm probably not asking in the right places, I surely can't say I've researched this. But the best wild guess is that Sassanian coins did make their way into trade in west Arabia.

So, using that as a tag line, here's a Sassanian coin minted in the year of the Hajj, AH1/AD622. The king is Khusru II. He's the guy who brought the Sassanid Persian Empire back to Palestine in the West and fought Heraclius in the North. He's really the last Sassanid king worth notice before the coming of Islam and collapse of the zoroastrian Empire decades later. The reverse of the coin shows a stylized Zoroastrian fire altar, with two attendants. Earlier coinage showed the altar in a more realistic form, but this style is often imitated in turkic tribal coinage to the north of the Empire.



While my intro paragraph pushes the Mohammedan angle, it is unlikely this coin made it that far during his life. This one was minted in Darabgird, which is roughly parallel with Madina on the persian side of the gulf. Any sassanian coins that made it to west Arabia likely came from the mints in or around trade centers in Iraq.

If anyone is interested in snagging a coin like this, I have to say they are surprisingly cheap. A good piece from this king can be had for around 30 bucks. There are several on VCoins at any given time. The coin I show is actually a bit worse than average (the crack) as I only wanted it for the date.

Probably the best single site out there for info and pics of Sassanian stuff is here: http://www.grifterrec.com/coins/sasania/sasanian.html

AuldFartte

Fascinating information, and the coin is quite unusual looking to me.
Thanks for sharing it !!!

rhound1977

<< <i>Fascinating information, and the coin is quite unusual looking to me.
Thanks for sharing it !!! >>





I like it, what a peice of history for less than night at the movies....

newsman

Interesting and thought-provoking.

The only thing I would add is my guess that Byzantine coins were also widely used in Arabia in Muhammad's time, since Arabia was nominally under Byzantine control and the major trade routes moved in that direction as well.

Another possibility are the coins of the Axumite empire, which at the time controlled Ethiopia and parts of what is now Yemen.

Weiss

Really cool!

lordmarcovan

<< <i>Another possibility are the coins of the Axumite empire, which at the time controlled Ethiopia and parts of what is now Yemen. >>



I thought about that. I believe they struck gold coins, too?

Funny, before now, I never really stopped to think about what sort of coins would've been in circulation around the time and place of Mohammed's life.

spoon

Yep, the Byzantine and Axumite ones are definite possibilities too. Anyone know of a good museum or specialist we can ask??

I've been getting into Islamic coinage lately, so I'll probably soon be posting a few more items (however vaguely) tied into history. Kinda stinks that I still don't have any references other than the net, tho.

spoon

Badabing! found it!

From the first issue of as-Sikka, Journal of The Islamic Coins Group:

At the advent of Islam, Arabia for the most part had a very limited numismatic history of its own. The past local coinage seems to be limited to that of the Sabaeans, the Himyarites, the Nabataens, and Rome's Provencia Arabia. However, by Muhammad's birth, these were already centuries old.

It is generally agreed that in the 7th century CE, Arabia was mostly still a trade-barter society. What little need the local populace had of coinage was sufficiently fulfilled by the then current coinage of the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires.

Even after establishing the first Islamic state in CE 622, the Muslims did not institute a coinage of their own. This remained true for Arabia through the end of the Orthodox Caliphate and the early part of the Umayyad rule.

...

The conquered lands of the Byzantine and Sassanian realms had a rich numismatic history, however, and the use of officially minted coinage had an important place in commerce. To maintain the economic viability, the Arabs continued the previously existing minting operations there - issuing coins from captured Byzantine and Sassanian dies, and then slowly adding new elements to the replacement dies. The first changes were subtle; adding "tayyib" (good) in the recently evolved Kufic script on Byzantine style copper coinage, or short and simple religious statements such as "Bismillah" (with the Name of Allah) on the margins of Sassanian coinage.

...
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The rest of the article is at the link under The Birth of Islamic Coinage.

1jester

Great info, Spoon, and interesting coin! Thanks for sharing.

harasha

Poor group photo of some of mine.

wybrit

Great thread. Thank you spoon.

ColinCMR

That's a cool site, thanks for the link

lordmarcovan

<< <i>Poor group photo of some of mine. >>





Harasha: poor picture or not, that's a handsome group!