The rivalry between the Umayyad Islamic dinar and the Byzantine one
Islamic civilization's interest in economic conditions was effective and important, and this is due in large part to Islamic teachings related to worldly life affairs. Islamic jurisprudence, with its schools and heritage, essentially consists of two main parts: worship and transactions (public relations).
Worship is related to a person’s relationship with his Lord and how to perform prayers, fasting, and Hajj. Transactions explain the way a person relates to others, especially with regard to common interests such as trade, agriculture, industry, companies, etc., so that the worship of zakat is essentially related to money.
Umayyad era
The Umayyad state appeared after the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, during which the seat of the caliphate moved to Damascus, the ancient historical city in the Levant and adjacent to the Roman Byzantine state. The Umayyad Muslim caliphs abandoned some of the aspects of austerity that characterized the eras of Rashidun (the Rightly Guided Caliphs), and there became a state of pomp and extreme wealth among them. They began to build luxurious palaces and magnificent mosques, such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, in addition to various other projects in different areas of life.
Byzantine dinar
After the transition of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) state to the Christian religion in the fourth century AD, the Byzantine dinar was minted, which is a circular gold piece with two different sides with prominent designs. The first side carries a picture of the Byzantine king (Heraclius) in the middle of his two sons (Constantine and Heracles) and at the head of each one. Among them is a crown surmounted by a cross.
The Reforms of Anastasius I
Anastasius I was famous for his unparalleled interest in administrative efficiency and economic issues. One of the signs of this is that he changed the method of payment in government transactions from bartering goods to hard currency. This practice reduced the possibility of pilferage and the need to transport and store supplies. It also helped facilitate calculations.
Constantinople (formerly Byzantium) became the capital of the eastern Roman Empire in 330. The Byzantine financial system started once Anastasius I (491-518) reformed the old Roman coinage in 498. Coins were now marked with Greek letters (I=10, K=20, M=40) indicating their value in nummi, the smallest monetary unit. The 40-nummus piece was called follis(“purse”) because it had the value of a purse of nummi.
Financial dealings of Muslims before the emergence of the Islamic dinar
When Islam came, the Arabs did not have a special currency. They used either the Byzantine dinar, which was made of gold, or the Persian dirham, which was made of silver. The emerging Arab Islamic state had no choice but to use the circulating money, from Byzantine and Persian, to serve its financial and economic affairs. Out of concern for the interests of the people in general, especially since the primary concern of Muslim Arabs at that stage was the success of the Islamic call, establishing the foundations of the state, and spreading Islam, on the island and beyond.
Therefore, minting a new currency was not an urgent requirement at that time, and the conditions necessary for the success of such a project had not yet been met. However, despite this, some Arab Muslim caliphs and princes, before Abd al-Malik, tried to mint some money, but most of it came in the style of Persian and Byzantine money, and was not officially circulated.
In any case, these attempts constituted initial precursors to the emergence of money, and to obtain a distinctive position in the world, the emerging Islamic empire had to obtain its own currency, because it is known that money is not only a means of trade, but it goes beyond that to mean proving strength in the face of others, so think The Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan developed the Islamic dinar and worked on it very seriously.
That Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan’s minting of Islamic money (the gold dinar and the silver dirham) was one of the most important events in Islamic history due to the extremely important economic and political consequences it had, both local and global. Indeed, it can be said that this achievement was the herald of a radical “revolution” in The financial and economic systems that prevailed in the medieval world.
Abd al-Malik bin Marwan was the first to fully Arabize the Islamic language when he began Arabizing collections, as he found that one of the necessities of political and economic stability was to give an Islamic character to all administrative and financial fields.
Reasons for the Umayyads to mint the Islamic dinar
Immediate cause
It is what was known historically as the “problem of kratis,” that is, papyrus. The bottom line is that papyrus factories in Egypt used to send this paper to Byzantium, and the beginning of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) was written on it in Greek.
This tradition continued after the conquest of Egypt by the Muslims, especially since the owners of these factories were Copts. Abd al-Malik may have noticed this matter, so he asked his worker in Egypt to abolish this tradition, and to write on the papyrus: “Say: He is God, the One.” When the Byzantine Emperor Justinian II learned of this, he became angry and sent to the Caliph more than once asking him to withdraw his decision. When the Emperor realized that Abd al-Malik was determined to take his position, he threatened to issue dinars bearing an insulting inscription to Islam and Muslims.
The Caliph consulted his companions, and in light of that, he made his historic decision to mint the Islamic gold dinar and completely prohibit the circulation of Byzantine dinars. Thus, he extracted from Justinian the card he was threatening him with, and wars broke out between the two groups because of this decision.
Other reasons
Other fundamental reasons were the Caliph’s desire to achieve financial independence from the Byzantine state, and to get rid of the chaos that prevailed in the foreign money circulating in the Arab-Islamic world at that time, dinars and dirhams, as a result of their diversity and different weights and calibres, and the harm that this chaos entailed financial and economic impacts on both the state and subordinates alike. This is in addition to the Caliph’s desire to get rid of the fraud that spread in this money, which consequently led to a decrease in its purchasing value, an increase in prices, and a lack of people’s confidence in it.
the features of the Islamic dinar
The shape of the Islamic gold dinar that was minted by Abdul Malik in the year 777 AH was as follows: On one side it was inscribed: “God is One, God is the Eternal, He neither begot nor was He born,” and it was engraved on the entire side of the same side: “In the name of God, this dinar was minted in the year seventy-seven.” On the other side, it was inscribed: “There is no deity but God alone, with no partner.” And on its circle, it was inscribed: “Muhammad is the Messenger of God. He sent him with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all religions.” The weight of this dinar was 25.4 grams, which is the legal weight of the dinar. The percentage of gold in it was about 96%.
In the other hand, the imitation Byzantine types were basically crude copies of local Byzantine coinage with Arabic writings mostly in the form of the mint name and/or a word to mean that the coin is good for usage (Salih or Tayib). These were replaced with the Standing Caliph type. While this later issue was, in the strictest sense imitative to some degree, it was enough of a departure from the norm to constitute a major change in Islamic coinage. It featured the image of the Caliph grit with his hand on his sword on the obverse and either the Byzantine M or a modified Cross-on-Steps from the Byzantine solidus. The standing Caliph coins were basically an experimental coinage before the real reform. According to Harry bones (3) the issue lasted 3-4 years before the reform.
The success of the Islamic dinar as an international currency
The impact of the minting of the Islamic dinar on Byzantium was extremely harsh, as Justinian lost his mind and declared war on Abd al-Malik, but it ended with a miserable defeat for the Byzantine forces in the Cilicia region of Asia Minor.
The Islamic dinar began to gradually spread, and it became the only gold currency in the Islamic world, from the borders of China in the east to Andalusia in the west. The Arab Islamic State established systems and rules to support and protect it.
But the spread of this dinar was not limited to within the borders of the Islamic world, but rather it spread to the cities and markets of the ancient world.
Although its global spread was compatible, in the beginning, with the increase in the global activity of Islamic trade, its spread soon exceeded the horizons of this trade, and seeped into areas that Muslim traders did not reach, and thus it became a major international currency throughout five centuries of History of the Middle Ages (8th century AD - 13th century AD).
Reasons for success
First, the characteristics that the Islamic dinar had, especially those related to its weight, caliber, and purity, and its adherence to these characteristics over several centuries, created for it a global status, international reputation, trust, and acceptance in the financial and commercial markets of the world at that time. The caliphs and rulers, in the East and West of the Islamic world, preserved the legal weight, caliber, and purity of the dinar. Despite the slight differences in the dinars minted during the reign of this or that caliph, the basic features of this dinar were preserved during those centuries.
Second: The Arab Islamic State’s keenness to protect its currency was an important factor in the dinar’s reaching its global status. The caliphs and rulers all realized that the soundness of the economy, the orderly interests of the people, and the reputation of the state, at home and abroad, are all linked to the soundness of currency, and for this reason they established systems and rules to protect it, and supervised, personally or through their representatives, its implementation. The mints were carefully monitored, and the harshest penalties were imposed on anyone who attempted to mint money outside government mints, and on anyone who attempted to tamper with the weight, caliber, and purity of the dinar. All of this, in turn, contributed to creating confidence in the Islamic dinar, in financial circles, both local and international.
Third: The Islamic dinar would not have been possible to mint and spread without the abundance of gold. The strength of the dinar was dependent on the flow of this metal to the Islamic world. Although, at the beginning of their minting of the dinar, the Muslim Arabs benefited from the spoils of conquests and the huge quantities of gold that were hoarded in the cities of Egypt and the Levant and the palaces of the Sassanians in Iraq and Persia. However, after the expansion of the state’s territory and the stability of the conquests, they relied on gold mines in Asia and Africa. , directly and indirectly, whether located inside or outside their country. For this reason, they benefited, for example, from gold mines in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Armenia, Niger, Senegal, Nubia, and others. But Sudan's gold was the most important source of the Islamic dinar, and it was what made the Muslim Arabs (masters of gold) in the Middle Ages. Gold coming from Byzantium also constituted an important resource, especially since Byzantium relied on the Muslim Arabs, more than it relied on the Persians, to obtain oriental goods and stores, especially those that were related to a luxurious life, such as silk, spices, and precious stones. In return, Byzantium paid huge amounts of gold. To all of this, you can add the treasures that were discovered in the tombs of the Pharaohs in Egypt, which constituted an important tributary to the minting of the Islamic dinar.
Fourth: The strength and prosperity of the Islamic world’s economy were among the most important factors that helped the dinar achieve its global status. In the Middle Ages, all Muslims had economic sovereignty over the East and West. Their wealth, both agricultural and industrial, and the diversity, quality, and high reputation that characterized them in the local and international markets, were an essential support for this dinar. The location of the Islamic world also made Muslim merchants control most of the international trade at that time. The major trade routes, both land and sea, were in their hands or at their mercy. In addition to all of this, the Mediterranean Sea has transformed, since the beginning of the ninth century AD (the third AH), into an Islamic lake. It is known, historically, that whoever owns this sea becomes the “master of the world” economically, politically, and even culturally. Therefore, this economy, with its diverse wealth, formed a solid base on which the dinar relied on its global journey.
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