Dirham - Anonymous al-Rayy

The anonymous Umayyad dirham from al-Rayy — the mint city near modern Tehran — reflects the currency reform Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan imposed beginning in 696–698 CE, which deliberately stripped all figural imagery from Islamic coinage and replaced it with Quranic text. Al-Rayy was among the most productive eastern mints of the Umayyad period, sitting on major trade routes connecting the Caucasus to Khorasan. The "anonymous" attribution indicates the absence of a caliph's name, a feature of early reformed dirhams before naming conventions fully standardized under later governors.