The anonymous copper fals of the early Umayyad period predates Abd al-Malik's sweeping monetary reform of 696–698 AD, which abolished the transitional Arabo-Byzantine and Arabo-Sasanian types in favor of a purely epigraphic coinage. Before that reform, provincial mints across Syria, Iraq, and Egypt operated with considerable autonomy, producing copper fractions of wildly inconsistent weight and type. Attribution of specific anonymous pieces to individual mints remains contentious — many lack mint signatures entirely, leaving provenance as the primary evidence.
The anonymous copper fals of the early Umayyad period predates Abd al-Malik's sweeping monetary reform of 696–698 AD, which abolished the transitional Arabo-Byzantine and Arabo-Sasanian types in favor of a purely epigraphic coinage. Before that reform, provincial mints across Syria, Iraq, and Egypt operated with considerable autonomy, producing copper fractions of wildly inconsistent weight and type. Attribution of specific anonymous pieces to individual mints remains contentious — many lack mint signatures entirely, leaving provenance as the primary evidence.