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Dirham - Anonymous al-Furat
| Issuer | Umayyad Caliphate |
|---|---|
| Year | 698-750 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
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| Obverse description | Central field bears the Islamic shahada in three lines of bold Kufic Arabic script, reading 'There is no god but Allah alone, He has no associate.' The central inscription is enclosed within a single-line inner circle. A circular marginal legend in Kufic script surrounds the field, containing a Quranic verse (Surah Al-Ikhlas or similar), separated from the inner circle by a dotted or beaded border. The overall design is purely epigraphic with no figural or symbolic imagery, consistent with the fully reformed coinage introduced under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 77 AH (696–697 CE). |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Central field displays a three-line Kufic inscription proclaiming the prophethood of Muhammad, reading 'Allah is One, Allah is the Eternal Refuge, He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent.' The text is contained within a single inner circle. The outer marginal legend, separated by a beaded border, carries the mint and date formula in Kufic script, recording the year of issue and, on certain specimens, the mint name. The reverse, like the obverse, is entirely epigraphic, reflecting the aniconic numismatic reform of the Umayyad Caliphate. |
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| Additional information |
The "Anonymous al-Furat" designation points to dirhams struck in the Jazira region — the upper Mesopotamian river country between the Tigris and Euphrates — where mint attribution remains contested among specialists. Abd al-Malik's monetary reform of 77–79 AH (696–699 CE) abolished the Sasanian-derived drachm types entirely and imposed a purely epigraphic silver coinage across the caliphate, making these among the earliest products of that standardization. The reform was as much an assertion of Arab-Islamic political identity against Byzantine and Sasanian numismatic traditions as it was a practical currency measure.
The al-Furat mint group is not fully resolved in the standard references, and attributions between Nahr al-Furat issues and neighboring provincial mints have shifted across successive scholarship.