Drachm - Anonymous - Khusraw II type Arabic script - Arab-Sasanian

The Arab-Sasanian coinage tradition began as pure administrative pragmatism — Arab governors struck coins almost indistinguishable from late Sasanian issues because the conquered populations trusted that money and nothing else. The shift came under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, whose sweeping monetary reform of 696 AD replaced figural coinage entirely with epigraphic designs. This particular transitional type, retaining the Khusraw II portrait format while adding Arabic religious phrases, belongs to the tense years just before that reform made it obsolete.

The Bishapur and other Iranian mints produced these hybrid issues under direct Umayyad administrative pressure to Islamicize the coinage without yet abandoning the weight standard and visual familiarity that kept commerce functioning.