These early Umayyad dinars represent the direct outcome of the currency reform ordered by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who in 77 AH (696–697 AD) abolished the Byzantine-derived figurative coinage that had briefly served the caliphate and replaced it with a purely epigraphic design — a radical break driven as much by theological principle as by a desire to assert independent Islamic monetary authority against Constantinople. The reform followed years of tension, including a reported Byzantine threat by Justinian II to stamp blasphemous inscriptions on gold coins being used in Arab-Byzantine trade.
The absence of a mint name on these early issues is deliberate, not an omission. Central production, almost certainly at Damascus, was part of projecting unified caliphal authority.
These early Umayyad dinars represent the direct outcome of the currency reform ordered by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who in 77 AH (696–697 AD) abolished the Byzantine-derived figurative coinage that had briefly served the caliphate and replaced it with a purely epigraphic design — a radical break driven as much by theological principle as by a desire to assert independent Islamic monetary authority against Constantinople. The reform followed years of tension, including a reported Byzantine threat by Justinian II to stamp blasphemous inscriptions on gold coins being used in Arab-Byzantine trade.
The absence of a mint name on these early issues is deliberate, not an omission. Central production, almost certainly at Damascus, was part of projecting unified caliphal authority.