Dirham - Anonymous al-Kufa

The anonymous Kufic dirham was the direct product of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan's sweeping monetary reform of 696–698 CE, which abolished the Sasanian-derived drachm coinage and its figural imagery in favor of an entirely epigraphic design — a deliberate and politically charged break from Byzantine and Persian numismatic convention. The reform was partly provoked by a dispute with the Byzantine emperor Justinian II over the legends on Arab-Byzantine coins, which had carried Christian inscriptions the Umayyad administration could no longer tolerate on an Islamic coinage.

Al-Kufa served as one of the principal mint cities for this output, its attribution confirmed through die studies rather than any mint name struck on the coin itself.