Qur'anic Inscriptions on the Coins of the ahl al-bayt from the Second to...

Qur’anic Inscriptions on the Coins of theahl al-bayt from the Second to Fourth

Century AH

Luke Treadwell

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

Introduction

The epigraphic coinage introduced in the late 70s/690s by the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd

al-Malik b. Marwān (r. 65–86/685–705) was an innovation of startling originality. By

abandoning imagery in favour of inscriptions the caliph overturned centuries of Late

Antique numismatic tradition and created a form of coinage that endured with only

minor changes until the Mongol invasion of the seventh/thirteenth century. While

the numismatic evidence is clear enough, the written sources for ʿAbd al-Malik’s

reign do not provide us with much information about the form or content of the

reformed coinage. They give us various dates for the introduction of the new

coinage – 77/696–7 for gold and 79/698–9 for the silver are the correct dates – and

mention the people who were responsible for striking them; they supply complicated

(and mostly erroneous) data about coin weights; and they give us a speculative

account of the causes of the reform which is explained as the consequence of a quarrel

between ʿAbd al-Malik and the Byzantine emperor over the official titulature that the

caliph had introduced onto the papyri produced by his workshops in Egypt. Some

texts mention that al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf struck coins with qul huwa’llāhu aḥad (Q. 112:2)

on them.1

But the coins themselves, which have survived in large numbers, bear unequivocal

testimony to the fact that ʿAbd al-Malik introduced some key Qur’anic passages onto

his new coins and that these same Qur’anic passages remained as the standard

numismatic formulae for precious metal caliphal coins for centuries to come.2 The

only major exception to this rule is provided by the coinage of some of the rebels who

challenged Umayyad authority in the late 120s/730s (ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya and

Abū Muslim) and those who continued to assert their claim to the caliphate against

Journal of Qur’anic Studies 14.2 (2012): 47–71Edinburgh University PressDOI: 10.3366/jqs.2012.0055# Centre of Islamic Studies, SOASwww.eupjournals.com/jqs

the ʿAbbāsids well into the fourth/tenth century (the partisans of Muḥammad al-Nafs

al-Zakiyya, as well as the Idrīsids of North Africa and the Zaydiyya of the Caspian

region). These opponents of the Umayyads and the ʿAbbāsids considered themselves

legitimate claimants of the caliphate, on the basis of their membership of the Prophet’s

family (ahl al-bayt).3 They placed other, non-standard Qur’anic excerpts on their

coins, which differed from the canonical inscriptions that had been introduced by

ʿAbd al-Malik. This paper will investigate the use of such Qur’anic passages and will

try to explain why these particular verses were chosen, and what they might reveal

about the use of Qur’anic texts in public documents like coinage.4

Unlike texts in stone, mosaic, wood and other materials, the extent of numismatic

texts was constrained by limitations of space: the small size of the coin flan meant that

they had to be brief and few in number. Until now, analysis of these inscriptions has

been confined to the explicit text as cited on the coin and no attention has been paid to

the verses which precede and follow the cited verse in the Qur’an itself. This approach

ignores the Qur’anic context in which these verses were located and fails to take

account of the fact that the Qur’an was principally a recited, rather than a read, text in

the early period.5 Furthermore, it is usually assumed that during the first Islamic

centuries many of the caliph’s subjects would have been unable to read Arabic. Yet

coinage inscriptions did not have to be read in order to become widely known within

the community. For most Muslims, the holy script was a memorised text, which was

given voice (literally) in many situations, including prayer, sermons, reading classes

and legal discussions, acts of divination, magic and healing, the swearing of oaths, as

well as pious expressions which were used in everyday speech and graffiti. The

mnemonic quality of the Qur’anic text meant that short passages like those which

appear on coins were not understood only for what they stated directly, but acted as

triggers to a broader set of significations associated with the text within which they

were embedded.

This is an important consideration when we try to understand both the intentions of

those who selected the text for inclusion on coins and the reactions of those who came

into contact with these texts as coin users. Numismatic legends required neither sharp

eyesight nor a high level of literacy to be understood. They were a familiar part of

everyday life. Indeed it was probably the familiarity which some Qur’anic passages

had gained within the community that made them the texts of choice for inclusion on

the coinage.

We begin by reviewing the use of the Qur’an on caliphal coinage, starting with the

pre-reform coins of the early period (up to 77/696–7); this is followed by an analysis

of the standard verses employed on the reformed coinage (from 77/696–7 onwards)

and a brief assessment of the objections raised by pious scholars against the use of the

Qur’an on coins. The second part of the paper assembles the evidence for Qur’anic

48 Journal of Qur’anic Studies

usage on the coins of the ahl al-bayt and examines these texts against the background

of the political circumstances in which the coins were struck.

Qur’anic Phrases on Coins Before ʿAbd al-Malik’s Reforms

With the exception of the basmala and shahāda (bi’smi’llāh lā ilāha

illā’llāh waḥdahu Muḥammad rasūl Allāh), which occurs on all Umayyad precious

metal coins of Damascus, as well as some other mints, from 73/692–3 onwards,

very few direct citations of the Qur’an appear on the pre-77/696–7 coinage. Some

short phrases, such as ‘al-ʿizza li’llāh’, which appear in the Qur’an, do occur on

the coinage, but they are brief and found in several different Qur’anic verses.6

They are used as pious ejaculations rather than references to specific Qur’anic

passages. In other words, these short texts would not have automatically reminded

the coin-user of a particular Qur’anic verse. The only exception to this is the

phrase ‘lā ḥukma illā li’llāh’, which occurs on the coins of the Khārijī leader Qaṭarī

b. al-Fujāʾa between 75–7/694–7, in both Arabic, and in a unique case, in Middle

Persian.7 The phrase is clearly reminiscent of the Qur’anic phrase ini’l-ḥukmu illā

li’llāh.8

One exceptional instance of early Qur’anic citation should be mentioned here

before we proceed to the formulae employed on the post-reform coinage. This is a

copper fals of the mint Arrajān (mint name given as Veh-az-Āmid-Kavād) dated to

the year 83/702–3.9 For two decades after ʿAbd al-Malik had introduced his first

epigraphic coinage in Greater Syria, the copper coinage of Iran displayed a varied

repertoire of images derived from Sasanian and Byzantine numismatic and

sigillographic traditions as well as Persian inscriptions.10 The Arrajān fals is one

such coin. It bears a Janus-faced bust on the obverse, and a fire altar with attendants

on the reverse. The obverse marginal inscription contains an adapted citation from

Q. 48:29, which reads Muḥammadun rasūlu’llāhi wa’lladhīna yatlūna maʿahu

ashiddāʾu ʿalā’l-kuffāri ruḥamāʾu baynahum (Muḥammad is the Messenger of God,

those who recite with him are severe [in their dealings] with the unbelievers,

compassionate among themselves). The coin is doubly unique: first, in that copper

coins of this period do not bear Qur’anic inscriptions, and second, because this verse

from Sūrat al-Fatḥ has an extra word in it (yatlūna, ‘they recite’) which does not

appear in the canonical text of the Qur’an. I have suggested elsewhere that this

coin was struck during Ibn al-Ashʿath’s rebellion against the viceroy of Iraq, al-Ḥajjāj

b. Yūsuf.11 As noted in al-Sijistānī’s book on the variant readings of the Qur’an,

al-Ḥajjāj himself is said to have made several alterations to the text of the Holy

Book, which occasionally involved the substitution of one word by another.12 This

inscription, with its interpolated verb (yatlūna), would merit further study as an

example of textual emendation, made at a time when the Qur’anic text still remained

fluid and open to change.13

Qur’anic Inscriptions on the Coins of the ahl al-bayt 49

Qur’anic Verses Which Appear on Early Post-reform Islamic Coins

The following is a list of the Qur’anic passages that are found on the post-reform

coinage introduced by ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān.14 I have given each inscription a

name tag for ease of reference. These designations refer to a key point or word in the

inscription and should not be taken to be a complete summary of the content of the

verse. It is important to bear in mind that early Islamic coin inscriptions also included

non-Qur’anic phrases, titles, and commissioning statements, especially from the late

second/early ninth century.15

1. ‘The (first part of the) shahāda’ (a conflation of several Qur’anic texts): lā ilāha

illa’llāh waḥdahu lā sharīka lahu (‘There is no god but God alone, He has no

equal’).

2. ‘Prophetic Mission’ (Q. 9:33 and Q. 61:9, both slightly adapted: see also Q. 48:28):

[Muḥammadun rasūlu’llāhi] arsalahu bi’l-hudā wa-dīni’l-ḥaqqi li-yuzhirahu

ʿalā’l-dīni kullihi wa-law kariha’l-mushrikūn ([Muḥammad is the Prophet of

God], who sent him with guidance and the religion of truth so that he may uplift it

above every religion, though the unbelievers be averse).

3. ‘Unicity (of God)’ (Q. 112:1–4, slightly adapted): Allāhu aḥadun Allāhu

al-ṣamadu lam yalid wa-lam yūlad wa-lam yakun lahu kufuwan aḥad ([He is]

God, One, the Everlasting Refuge, who has not begotten, and has not been

begotten, and equal to Him is not any one).

4. ‘Victory’ (Q. 30:4–5): li’llāhi’l-amru min qablu wa-min baʿdu wa-yawmaʾidhin

yafraḥu’l-muʾminūna bi-naṣri’llāh (To God belongs the Command before and

after, and on that day the believers shall rejoice in God’s help) – this verse

was introduced not by ʿAbd al-Malik, but by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Maʾmūn

(r. 198–218/813–34): it is first seen on a dirham of Merv, dated 198/813.

Inscriptions on ʿAbd al-Malik’s Reformed Coins: Explicit Statements andImplicit Messages

The first epigraphic coins struck by ʿAbd al-Malik expanded upon some of the key

themes embodied in the figural coinage that had been struck by the same caliph in the

mint of Damascus between 72–7/691–7, but did so in an entirely novel form,

eschewing imagery in favour of inscriptions alone. The shahāda verse extended the

credal statement that had appeared on earlier coins by adding the phrase lā sharīka

lahu after lā ilāha illā’llāh waḥdahu. The new phrase is found repeated several times

in the inscriptional programme of the Dome of the Rock, which was most likely

complete at the time of the building’s inauguration in 72/691–2. The shahāda was

complemented on the reverse of the coin by the Unicity verse (also found on the


Dome of the Rock) which declares in forthright terms the oneness and eternity of God

and directly challenges the Christian claim that God appeared on earth in human form

in the person of Jesus Christ. In the margin appeared the Prophetic Mission verse,

which asserts that God sent Muḥammad as His Prophet, with the true religion in the

form of God’s word as revealed in the Qur’an, and that Muḥammad made this religion

prevail in spite of the unbelievers’ resistance.16

When looked at together, these three verses summarise the nature of the Muslims’

God (one and all-powerful and without issue) and strike a triumphal note in

announcing Muḥammad’s successful propagation of the new religion. They continue

the themes of the ‘Standing Caliph’ coinage that preceded them. The shahāda verse

reinforces the credal statement found on the latter, while the Unicity verse can be seen

as a verbal equivalent to the mutilated cross (or ‘Pole on Steps’) which had adorned

the reverse of the Standing Caliph type. The new coins are also notable for what they

do not say. There is no mention of the caliph, who had been represented in verbal and

figured forms on earlier coins, of his office, or of his titles. The absence of a caliphal

presence announces a new coinage, in which God’s word prevails to the exclusion of

earthly voices.

In addition to this overt message, when considered in its Qur’anic context, the

Prophetic Mission verse can also be seen to carry an implicit message about the

Umayyads’ moral stance towards the use of money. In both the main Qur’anic suras in

which it occurs, the cited text is preceded by a passage that is strongly critical of Jews

and Christians. Q. 61:5–7 tells us that they rejected the words of truth brought to

them by their prophets Moses and Jesus, while Q. 9:30–1 states that each community

falsely ascribed divine status to two prophets (ʿUzayr and Jesus). Both suras accuse

these communities of seeking to extinguish God’s Light with their mouths (Q. 9:32),

in other words of corrupting God’s revelation with abominable innovations. In

response God retorts that He will perfect His Light by sending His Prophet

Muḥammad with the religion of Truth, which will prevail over all (false) religions. In

the verse following the Prophetic Mission verse (Q. 9:34), God states that rabbis and

monks devour the wealth (amwāl) of men and hinder them from God’s Way and

admonishes humankind: wa’lladhīna yaknizūna’l-dhahaba wa’l-fiḍḍata wa-lā

yunfiqūnahā fī sabīli’llāhi fa-bashshirhum bi-ʿadhābin alīm (Those who treasure

up gold and silver and do not expend them in the way of God – give them the good

tidings of a painful chastisement).17 The moral imperative conveyed by the verse is

that the coin-user should spend wealth wisely in the cause of Islam rather than amass

personal gain and the warning given to those who ignore the moral imperative is

explicit.18 In this way, a radical innovation in the administration of the state – the

provision of a style of coinage which, unlike earlier Umayyad coins, would circulate

throughout the entire state19 – is linked to the moral issue of approved conduct.

Although invisible to the naked eye, there can be little doubt that many Muslims who


handled this coinage would have made this association for the reasons given above.

Early Islamic coins and weights often bore short phrases which reminded their users

of the necessity to employ them fairly and avoid the temptation of fraud. In one case,

dating to the early ʿAbbāsid period, an excerpt from a Qur’anic verse was placed on

glass weights issued on the authority of the caliph that were used to check the weights

of precious metal coins and other measures of value. The inscription, which was taken

from Q. 26:181 (awfū’l-kayla wa-lā takūnū min al-mukhsirīn; Fill up the measure and

be not cheaters), prescribed good practice and warned of the dire consequences which

infringement would entail.20

The standard Qur’anic texts remained on the coinage throughout the Umayyad

period. Some changes did occur when the ʿAbbāsids assumed power. They removed

the Unicity verse from the reverse of the precious metal coins and substituted for it

the phrase ‘Muḥammad rasūl Allāh’. One other important change was undertaken by

the caliph al-Maʾmūn in the late second/early ninth century. He introduced an extra

verse (the Victory verse), around the obverse margin of his dinars and dirhams after

seizing the caliphate from his brother, al-Amīn (r. 193–8/809–13). The new verse,

which first appeared on a dirham of Merv dated 198/813, became a standard feature of

caliphal coinage within a decade and remained so until the Mongol conquest of the

seventh/thirteenth century.21

Scholarly Reaction to the Numismatic Use of Qur’anic Passages

The early ḥadīth collections provide evidence that the placement of Qur’anic passages

on the reformed coinage aroused anxiety among jurisconsults and legal specialists

who feared that the sacred text would be defiled by coming into contact with persons

who were ritually unclean. The question of the appropriate treatment of the Qur’an as

the Word of God, in whatever form it appeared, was one which exercised the minds

of pious persons in the early period and generated a great deal of discussion. While

access to physical copies of the text could be carefully regulated, the new coins

presented a particularly thorny problem, since they were so plentiful and played a

central role in the economic life of the community. Coins could not be as easily

controlled as the muṣḥaf itself because by their nature they were bound to come into

contact with non-Muslims, as well as Muslims who were ritually unclean. Although

the problem is not summarised by sources contemporary with the Umayyads, a later

source, Maqrīzī’s (d. 845/1441–2) Ighātha, gives us an idea of the extent of the

adverse reaction to the new coinage and the caliph’s response to it.22 Although the

numismatic record shows that acceptance of the new coinage was not impeded by

such views, the fear that these Qur’anic texts might be defiled lived on for centuries.

As late as the tenth/sixteenth century, we hear of a ruler, the Safavid shah Ismāʿīl II

(r. 984–5/1576–8), who claimed to have replaced the numismatic shahāda with a

Persian couplet because he wished to protect the sacred text from defilement.23


One very early ḥadīth collection, the famous Muṣannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī

(d. 211/826–7) contains a short section entitled Bāb mass al-muṣḥaf wa’l-darāhim

allatī fīhā al-Qurʾān (‘Section on Touching the Holy Book and Dirhams Which

Contain [Passages From] the Qur’an’), which is of relevance to this question. The

persons who are cited in this section were all highly regarded legal scholars of

the Umayyad period. One of them, Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, held important posts in the

Umayyad administration, while others were considered the most important ḥadīth

specialists of their regions and cities. The passage is presented below in transliteration

and translation:24

No. 1335: ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿan Ibn Jurayj25 ʿan ʿAṭāʾ26 qāla uḥibbu

an lā tumassa al-darāhim wa’l-danānīr illā ʿalā wuḍūʾ walākin

lā budda li’l-nās min massihā jubilū ʿalā dhālika. Qāla Ibn Jurayj

wa-kariha ʿAṭāʾ an tamassa al-ḥāʾiḍ wa’l-junub al-danānīr

wa’l-darāhim; ‘… ʿAṭaʾ said: I prefer that dirhams and dinars

should not be touched except [by one who has performed] the ablution

[wuḍūʾ, ‘cleansing or minor ablution’, as before performance of

prayer]. But people cannot avoid touching them: it is natural they

should do that. Ibn Jurayj said: ʿAṭāʾ disapproved of menstruating

women and ritually polluted persons touching dinars and dirhams.’

No. 1336: ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿan Maʿmar27 ʿan al-Zuhrī28 qāla lā

tumassu al-darāhim allatī fīhā al-Qurʾān illā ʿalā wuḍūʾ wa-qāla

Maʿmar wa-kāna al-Ḥasan wa-Qatāda29 lā yarayān bihi baʾsan

yaqūlūna jubilū ʿalā dhālika; ‘… al-Zuhrī said that dirhams bearing

Qur’anic passages should only be touched by one who had performed

ablution. Maʿmar said that al-Ḥasan and Qatāda saw no objection

[to handling coins with Qur’anic passages] saying that it was natural

for people to do that’.

No. 1337: ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿan Hishām ʿan Ḥassan qāla arsalanī Ibn

Sīrīn30 asʾal al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad31 ʿan al-darāhim allatī fīhā

dhikr Allāh ayabtāʿu bihā al-nās wa-fīhā al-kitāb? Wa-saʾaltuhu

fa-qāla lā baʾs bi’l-kitāb yatabāyaʿūna innamā yatabāyaʿūna

bi’l-dhahab wa’l-fiḍḍa law dhahabta bi’l-kitāb mā aʿṭawka shayʾan

walākin lā tumassu al-darāhim allatī fīhā dhikr Allāh illā ʿalā wuḍūʾ;

‘Ibn Sīrīn sent me to ask al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad about dirhams on

which God was mentioned. ‘Should people buy [goods with them]

even though they bear [passages from] the Book?’ I asked him and he

said: ‘There is no objection to people trading with [coins bearing

passages from] the Book, for they are trading with gold and silver. If

you were to go [to the market] with [a passage from] the Book [written

on some other material] they would give you nothing. But dirhams


bearing the mention of God should only be touched by [one who has

performed] ablution’.

No. 1338: ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿan al-Thawrī32 ʿan Ḥammād33 ʿan

Ibrāhīm34 qāla lā yamassu al-darāhim allatī fīhā dhikr Allāh illā ʿalā

wuḍūʾ …; ‘Ibrāhīm said that he should not touch dirhams on which

there was mention of God except after he had performed ablution’.

No. 1339: ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿan al-Thawrī ʿan Ḥammād ʿan Ibrāhīm

qāla lā yamassu al-darāhim ghayr al-mutawaḍḍiʾ …; ‘Ibrāhīm said

that only a person who had performed ablution should touch dirhams’.

No. 1340: ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿan al-Thawrī ʿan Manṣūr ʿan Ibrāhīm

mithla dhālika illā annahu qāla min warāʾ al-thawb …; ‘Ibrāhīm [said

this] except that he added: ‘through [lit. behind] cloth’.

No. 1341: ʿAbd al-Razzāq ʿan al-Thawrī ʿan Mughīra ʿan Ibrāhīm

annahu suʾila ʿan al-himyān fīhi al-darāhim fa-yaʾtī al-khalāʾ qāla lā

budda li’l-nās min nafaqātihim …; ‘Ibrāhīm [al-Nakhaʿī] was asked

about a purse in which there were dirhams [belonging to a person who]

went to relieve himself. He said: ‘People have to [keep their] money

[lit. ‘expenses’] with them’.

The Muṣannaf raises two interesting points about the use of coins bearing Qur’anic

inscriptions. The first is the definition of persons whom all parties agreed should not

be allowed to touch these coins: this includes menstruating women (ḥāʾiḍ) and

persons who were considered impure (junub) by reason of not having made a major

ablution (ghusl or tayammum) after sexual intercourse or menstruation. There is no

mention of defilement through contact with non-Muslims, a theme that is raised in

other sources.

Second, the conditions under which non-polluted persons could touch coins are

said to consist of the performance of minor ablution (wuḍūʾ). However, scholars

who recommended this course of action also conceded that people were compelled

to handle coins in the course of their daily lives: the unspoken implication is that

handling coins without performing wuḍūʾ, while not recommended, was not

considered to be a grave transgression.35 Passage no. 1340 states that Ibrāhīm

al-Nakhaʿī believed that persons who had performed wuḍūʾ should not handle coins

directly, but should use a cloth. This tradition is related on the authority of a certain

al-Manṣūr who claimed to have it directly from Ibrāhīm. But two other rulings of

Ibrāhīm’s related by Ḥammād (b. Abī Sulaymān) (nos 1338–9) mention only his

recommendation of the wuḍūʾ and make no mention of the need for a physical barrier

to be placed between coin and hand. It seems that, while they recommended ablution

before contact with the Qur’an in a numismatic context, some early scholars were

prepared to concede that coins represented a special case, since they were an

unavoidable feature of daily life. Finally, Ibrāhīm is said to have stated that there was


no necessity to remove coins from one’s person when one was engaged in the act of

relieving oneself, since coins had to be kept on one’s person, the implication being

that otherwise they might be stolen.36 This ruling should be considered in the light of

the majority opinion that the text of the Qur’an (muṣḥaf) should not be defiled by

placing it in proximity to a latrine.

Whatever objections were raised against the epigraphic coinage by the scholars, the

coins themselves were never withdrawn, but on the contrary, became prolific and

widespread. ʿAbd al-Malik’s successors kept the same Qur’anic inscriptions on their

coins throughout the Umayyad period. No changes occurred until the advent of the

members of the ahl al-bayt who challenged the Umayyads and their ʿAbbāsid

successors. They began by inserting Qur’anic phrases on their coinage which

underlined their superior claim to the caliphate by virtue of their close relationship to

the Prophet’s family.

Qur’anic Verses Used on Early Coins of the ahl al-bayt

The following verses occur on coins struck by ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya, the great-

grandson of Jaʿfar, brother of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, who revolted against the Umayyads in

127/744 and was killed by Abū Muslim in 129/746–7;37 Abū Muslim al-Khurāsānī,

the ʿAbbāsid chief dāʿī; the first ʿAbbāsid caliph Abū’l-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ (r. 132–6/

749–54); Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh, brother of the Ḥasanid ʿAlid Muḥammad, known as

al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, who revolted against the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr in 145/762;38

Idrīs b. ʿAbd Allāh, the brother of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, who founded a state in present-

day Morocco in 172/788;39 al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq, probably to be identified with Yaḥyā b.

ʿAbd Allāh, brother of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, who raised a revolt in the Caspian region in

176/792;40 Abū’l-Sarāyā, a military adventurer who opposed the caliph al-Maʾmūn

and adopted ʿAlid figureheads for his cause;41 Ibrāhīm b. Mūsā al-Jazzār, the brother

of ʿAlī al-Riḍā, heir apparent of the caliph al-Maʾmūn;42 several Imāms of the Zaydī

dynasty of the Caspian region (third–fourth/ninth–tenth centuries);43 and Imāms of the

Rassid dynasty of the Yemen.44

1. ‘Kindred’ (Q. 42:23): qul lā asʾalukum ʿalayhi ajran illā’l-mawaddata fī’l-qurbā

(occasionally extended with the addition of the final part of the verse, wa-man

yaqtarif ḥasanatan nazid lahu fīhā ḥusnan) (Say: I do not ask of you a wage for

this, except love for the kinsfolk (Whosoever gains a good deed, We shall give him

increase of good in respect of it)). On the coins of ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya; Abū

Muslim; al-Saffāḥ, the first ʿAbbāsid caliph; al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq; the Zaydī Imāms

of the Caspian region.

2. ‘Truth’ (Q. 17:81): wa-qul jāʾa’l-ḥaqqu wa-zahaqa’l-bāṭilu inna’l-bāṭila kāna

zahūqan (occasionally extended with the addition of the first part of Q. 17:82;

wa-nunazzilu mina’l-Qurʾāni mā huwa shifāʾun wa-raḥma) (And say: the truth


has come, and falsehood has vanished away; surely falsehood is ever certain to

vanish. We send down the Qur’an as healing and mercy to those who believe). On

the coins of Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh, brother of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya; the Idrīsids;

al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq; Ibrāhīm b. Mūsā al-Jazzār [jāʾa al-ḥaqq only]; the Rassid

dynasty; the Ziyādid dynasty.

3. ‘Fighting’ (Q. 61:4): inna’llāha yuḥibbu alladhīna yuqātilūna fī sabīlihi ṣaffan

ka-annahum bunyānun marṣūṣ (God loves those who fight in His way in ranks, as

though they were a building well-compacted). On the coins of Abū’l-Sarāyā.

4. ‘Permission’ (Q. 22:39): udhina li’lladhīna yuqātilūna bi-annahum zulimū

wa-inna’llāha ʿalā naṣrihim la-qadīr (Leave is given to those who were fought

against because they were wronged – surely God is able to help them). On the

coins of the Zaydī Imāms of the Caspian.

5. ‘Purity’ (Q. 33:33): innamā yurīdu’llāhu li-yudhhiba ʿankumu’l-rijsa ahla’l-bayti

wa-yuṭahhirakum taṭhīran (People of the House, God only desires to put away

from you abomination and to cleanse you). On the coins of the Zaydī Imāms of the

Caspian.

6. ‘Ordering Good’ (Q. 22:41): alladhīna in makkannāhum fī’l-arḍi aqāmū’l-ṣalāta

wa-ātawu’l-zakāta wa-amarū bi’l-maʿrūf ([Those] who, if We establish them in the

land, perform the prayer, and pay the alms and command the good). On the coins

of the Zaydī Imāms of the Caspian region; the Rassid dynasty.

7. ‘Friend of God’ (Q. 5:55): innamā waliyyukumu’llāhu wa-rasūluhu wa’lladhīna

āmanū’lladhīna yuqīmūna’l-ṣalāta wa-yuʾtūna’l-zakāta wa-hum rākiʿūn (Your

friend is only God, and His Messenger, and the believers who perform the prayer

and pay the alms, and bow down). On the coins of the Zaydī pretender to the

Imāmate, Jaʿfar b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī.

8. ‘Guide to Truth’ (Q. 10:35): a-fa-man yahdī ilā’l-ḥaqqi aḥaqqu an yuttabaʿa

amman lā yahdī illā an yuhdā fa-mā lakum kayfa taḥkumūn (Which is worthier to

be followed – he who guides to the truth, or he who guides not unless he is

guided? What then ails you, how do you judge?). On the coins of the Caspian

Zaydī general, Līlī b. Nuʿmān.

The earliest examples of dirhams bearing non-standard verses of the Qur’an were

struck by the anti-Umayyad rebel, ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya in 127–9/744–6/7 and by

the ʿAbbāsid missionary Abū Muslim al-Khurāsānī from 130–2/747–9.45 These

dirhams bore the Kindred verse, which conveys God’s entreaty that the Muslims

should repay His bounty by demonstrating their love for the qurbā (‘kindred’). Given

the pro-Hāshimid nature of Ibn Muʿāwiya’s revolt, the term as used on his coinage

was surely intended as a rallying cry to Muslims to right the wrongs done to the

members of the Prophet’s family by the Umayyads and to overthrow the Umayyad


house in favour of a Hāshimī caliph.46 The verse was used on much of Abū Muslim’s

silver coinage and in the ʿAbbāsid period it recurred on the coinage of the enigmatic

al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq, and the Caspian Zaydī rulers al-Ḥasan b. Zayd and al-Ḥasan

b. al-Qāsim (see below).

As Bernheimer has already noted, the Kindred verse also occurs in al-Ṭabarī’s record

of Madāʾinī’s account of the accession speech made by the first ʿAbbāsid caliph,

Abū’l-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ, in Kufa in 132/150.47 In that speech, the caliph cites the verse

and notes that God has informed people of the merits of the ʿAbbāsid family and ‘has

made our rights and affection for us incumbent upon them’ (‘awjaba ʿalayhim

ḥaqqanā wa-mawaddatanā’). The inference is that the ʿAbbāsids deserved the

affection of their subjects because of their membership of the qurbā, or family (of

the Prophet).48 The context would suggest that al-Saffāḥ was making reference to the

earlier use of the verse on the coins struck between 127–32/744–50 by Abū Muslim,

in order to remind his audience that the victorious ʿAbbāsids were also members of

the Prophet’s family, even though they were not directly descended from the Prophet

himself.

Al-Ṭabarī’s account would appear to show that the Kindred verse played a major role

in the propaganda of the dynasty both before their victory and after it. Also of interest

is the fact that in the same account, al-Ṭabarī refers to the Qur’anic passages that were

allegedly cited by the ʿAbbāsid caliph and his uncle on the occasion of his accession.

The numismatic evidence shows that some of these Qur’anic citations appeared many

years afterwards on coins that were struck by ʿAlid rebels against the ʿAbbāsids in the

second and third/eighth and ninth centuries. In light of the importance of the accession

speech, it is worth making a short digression to consider it more fully before we

analyse the numismatic evidence.

The Accession Speech of Abū’l-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ

Al-Ṭabarī tells us that the caliph made reference to five Qur’anic verses in total, all

of which concerned the primacy of the Prophet’s family.49 One of these verses

(the Purity verse) occurs more than once on the coins of the Caspian Zaydīs.

Furthermore, we are told that when the new caliph had finished speaking, his uncle

Abū Dāʾūd addressed the Kufan audience. In his speech Abū Dāʾūd made a clear

though implicit reference to the Truth verse, which was widely used on later ʿAlid

coins.50

The references made to these two Qur’anic verses (Kindred and Purity) by al-Saffāḥ

and the implied reference to a third (the Truth verse) by his uncle are worthy of note.

In al-Ṭabarī’s text, all five Qur’anic verses occur in the form of a simple list, divorced

from the direct speech of the spoken dialogue which surrounds them. The isolated

citation of the verses raises the suspicion that they may have been interpolated into


al-Ṭabarī’s account of al-Saffāḥ’s speech, at some time during the second/eighth

century, in an attempt to show that the ʿAbbāsids had made these claims before they

were taken up by their ʿAlid opponents. Moreover, modern commentators have

questioned whether al-Saffāḥ really made an accession speech at all, and even if he

did, in what form the speech appeared – the whole speech may be nothing more than

a tradition invented in later years to bolster the ʿAbbāsid claim to the caliphate against

that of their emergent ʿAlid rivals.51 The ʿAbbāsid dāʿī, Abū Muslim, did certainly

place the Kindred verse on his coins, as the numismatic evidence shows. It is quite

possible that Abū Muslim’s ʿAbbāsid masters cited other Qur’anic verses when they

came to power in 132/750, which also served to underline the legitimacy of their claim

to the caliphate. If this were so, it would be logical to assume that it was the ʿAbbāsid

initiative that prompted the later use of the same verses by their ʿAlid opponents. But

the question cannot be definitely resolved until the historicity of al-ʿAbbās’ accession

speech has been established.

The Revolt of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya

Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. al-Ḥasan (al-Nafs al-Zakiyya) was a senior and

much respected (Ḥasanid) ʿAlid who claimed to have received the allegiance of the

anti-Umayyad rebels, including members of the ʿAbbāsid house, during the last years

of Umayyad rule. After the ʿAbbāsids seized power, Muḥammad maintained that he

had been usurped of his right to the caliphate and finally raised a revolt in Medina in

145/762–3 against the caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/754–75).52 His brother, Ibrāhīm

b. ʿAbd Allāh, rebelled in Basra and struck coins in the city in the same year.53 In

place of the normal inscription found on the reverse of ʿAbbāsid coins ‘Muḥammad

rasūl Allāh’ these dirhams bore the phrase ‘Allāhu aḥad aḥad’. This phrase had been

the battle cry of the Muslims at the battle of Badr, and as a contemporary source

informs us, it was adopted by the partisans of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya as their shiʿār

(‘slogan’, ‘rallying call’).54 In the reverse margin of Ibrāhīm’s dirhams was the Truth

verse which declared that the Truth had arrived and Falsehood had been banished. In

this context, the Truth must refer to the legitimate ʿAlid claim to the caliphate as

represented by the rebel leader and Falsehood, the illegitimate claim of the ʿAbbāsids,

whom the rebels intend to overcome.

Here the Qur’an was used in an unmistakeably political context. The word ḥaqq

has several connotations that would have been familiar to all Muslims at the time. It

referred to the true religion of Islam (cf. dīn al-ḥaqq in the Prophetic Mission verse);

it encapsulated the reality of salvation (offered by al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, who referred

to his partisans as aṣḥāb al-ḥaqq in his correspondence with al-Manṣūr); and it was

also one of the names of God (made manifest in his ʿAlid representative). ‘Bāṭil’ was

its direct opposite. The Truth verse was later used by al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq, the early

Idrīsids, and some of the ʿAlids of the Yemen.55 In the Yemen, however, the verse


appears to have lost its partisan significance fairly quickly as it also appeared on

the coinage of pro-ʿAbbāsid rulers, e.g. the Ziyādids in the fourth/tenth century and

the Najāḥids in the following century.56

One other very curious copper coin of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya’s time which bears the Truth

verse was struck by the amīr Muḥammad b. Yazīd al-Ḍubaʿī, in his home town of

Abīward/Bāvard, probably shortly after 145/762–3.57 The coin bears an extraordinary

phrase in its margin which combines the familiar Khārijī slogan with the Truth verse:

‘lā ḥukma illā li’llāh jāʾa al-ḥaqq wa-zahaqa al-bāṭil inna’l-bāṭil kāna zahūqan’. We

know nothing more about the amīr Muḥammad b. Yazīd than that he was a general of

the caliph al-Manṣūr’s who was sent by the caliph to suppress Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh’s

rebellion in Basra, but was taken prisoner by the rebels.58 One possible explanation

for the coin is that having been taken prisoner, Muḥammad renounced his allegiance

to the ʿAbbāsids, joined the rebels and returned to his home town of Abīward, where

he struck this coin as a sign of his support for Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh. At any rate, the

combination of phrases is unprecedented and requires explanation.

Later ʿAlid Issues (Idrīsid and al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq)

Idrīs b. ʿAbd Allāh, the brother of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, fled to North Africa after the

failure of the revolt of Ṣāḥib al-Fakhkh in 169/786 and established an ʿAlid state in

the region of present-day Morocco in 172/789. The dirhams of Idrīs I and some early

issues of his successor Idrīs II, bore the Truth verse (from 173–95/789–810).59 The

same verse occurs on the enigmatic ‘al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq’ coinage published by Miles.60

These coins are datable to the late second/early third, late eighth/early ninth century by

their style and were provisionally assigned to an unnamed ʿAlid rebel by Miles.61

Two further features of the coins, which were unknown to Miles, suggest that they

may have been struck by partisans of Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh, another brother of al-Nafs

al-Zakiyya, who raised a revolt in the region of Daylamān in 176/792. The first is

that their weight standard (of roughly 1.7 g) is closer to that of the Ṭabaristānī

drachms struck by the ʿAbbāsid governors of the region in the 160s/770s and

170s/780s (1.76–2.19g)62 than it is to the weight of conventional ʿAbbāsid dirhams

(2.97g). Second, Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh was known as the Mahdī by his Daylamī

followers.63 If these coins were struck by Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh, this would mean that

the Truth verse was used by all three brothers in the second half of the second/eighth

century.64 This would suggest that the phrase jāʾa al-ḥaqq became a motto of al-Nafs

al-Zakiyya’s family, before being taken up other ʿAlids in the Yemen.

Abū’l-Sarāyā

Abū’l-Sarāyā al-Sarī b. Manṣūr al-Shaybānī was a military adventurer who took

advantage of the turmoil unleashed by the murder of the caliph al-Amīn (d. 198/813)


to foment a revolt in Iraq.65 He adopted two ʿAlid figureheads during the course of his

revolt and struck coins in Kufa in 199/814–15 which bore the Fighting verse.

Although the ʿAlid identity of the revolt was signalled by the word fāṭimī which

appears at the top of the obverse field, the verse itself has no ostensible connection to

the ʿAlid cause Abū’l-Sarāyā had opportunistically espoused, but concentrates instead

on the need for discipline and courage on the battle field. Al-Ṭabarī implies that the

coins were struck after Abū’l-Sarāyā had soundly defeated two ʿAbbāsid armies that

had been sent against him and after the death of his first ʿAlid figurehead (Muḥammad

b. Muḥammad b. Ṭabāṭabā) and the appointment of his young replacement

(Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Zayd).66 The verse may best be interpreted as a

triumphal statement of military superiority. However the Qur’anic context suggests

that Abū’l-Sarāyā may also have selected the verse with a view to countering local

reluctance to join his cause. The verses immediately preceding the cited text censure

those who ‘say what they do not do’.67 The verses following the text speak of the

rejection faced by Moses and Jesus when they revealed their prophethood to their

people and the great sin committed by those who invent falsehoods against God when

they are called to Islam. The section ends with the Prophetic Mission verse which had

been introduced by ʿAbd al-Malik in 77/696–7 and remained on all ʿAbbāsid precious

metal coins. The context suggests that Abū’l-Sarāyā chose the verse not only for its

stirring call to arms, but also because it formed part of a Qur’anic narrative which

warned of the folly of rejecting persons designated by God. In this case, there would

have been no mistaking the young ʿAlid to whom he had paid allegiance after the

death of Ibn Ṭabāṭabā.

Caspian Zaydīs

The coins of the Caspian Zaydīs (250s–340s/860s–950s) bear a number of Qur’anic

verses, including the Kindred, Purity, Permission, Guide to Truth, Friend of God and

Ordering Good verses. Among these, the Permission verse was the most commonly

used in the first half century of Zaydī coinage, beginning with the first Zaydī issue,

struck in Āmul in 253/867. During this period, when the first three Zaydī Imāms

to strike coins were in power (Ḥasan b. Zayd d. 270/883; Muḥammad b. Zayd d.

287/900; and Ḥasan b. Qāsim d. 316/928)68 the numismatic use of Qur’anic verses

was quite consistent. Zaydī dirhams bore the Permission and Kindred verses while the

dinars bore the Permission and Purity verses.69 Thus it seems that the Zaydī Imāms

followed a policy of replacing the standard verses used on contemporary ʿAbbāsid

issues with verses that bore a particular relevance to the Zaydī experience and created

an alternative set of numismatic formulae by which their coinage could be

distinguished from those of their caliphal rivals. For a brief period during the reign

of Ḥasan b. Qāsim, towards the end of the regular Zaydī coinage of the Caspian

region, the fixed combination of two verses was abandoned on some coins of Āmul,


which appear to have been special donative issues. These coins bear an exceptional

obverse marginal inscription which declares that the coin in question was struck

during the caliphate of Ḥasan b. Qāsim.70 In the following years, Zaydī coinage

became much more rare. A dinar of Ḥasan b. Qāsim, struck in al-Muḥammadiyya and

dated 316/928–9, retained the combination of Permission and Purity verses. But later

issues, from the mint of Hawsam dated 341/952–3, have single verses.71

All three verses had a particular relevance to the Zaydīs of the Caspian region. The

Kindred verse, used on the first dirham struck by a Zaydī Imām (in 253/867) was also

the first Qur’anic verse ever to be used on a coin struck by a member of the ahl al-bayt

(see Muʿāwiya b. ʿAbd Allāh, above) and carries an obvious message about the

primacy of the ahl al-bayt. The Purity verse (which al-Ṭabarī records in the accession

speech of al-Saffāḥ) emphasises the exceptional character of the ahl al-bayt and

reminds us of God’s special favour towards them. The Permission verse (Q. 22:39), on

the other hand, appears to derive its force from the Qur’anic context. It is followed by

Q. 22:40 which begins with the phrase alladhīna ukhrijū min diyārihim bi-ghayri

ḥaqqin illā an yaqūlū rabbunā’llāh (Those who were expelled from their habitations

without right except that they say ‘Our Lord is God’), which underlines the exilic

status of the Zaydīs and the injustice of their expulsion from the central Islamic lands

to the mountainous fringes of the Caspian Sea. The following verse (Q. 22:41) is the

Ordering Good verse, which is found on a dirham of the Zaydī Imām al-Mahdī struck

in Hawsam in 341/952–3, towards the close of the period of Zaydī domination of the

Caspian region.72 The numismatic occurrence of these verses at either end of the one-

hundred-year-long series of Caspian Zaydī coinage suggests that Q. 22:39–41 was a

particularly important text for the Zaydīs, encapsulating as it does several themes,

including the permissibility of fighting in a just cause, the injustice of their exile, and

the bestowal of divine favour upon the community as reward for their ‘enjoining the

right’ (al-amr bi’l-maʿrūf).73 All in all, there is little doubt that the inscriptional

content of the Zaydī coinage was programmatic in nature and made particularly

frequent use of the Permission verse, which might be singled out as the Zaydī

equivalent to the Truth verse employed by the partisans of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya.

Two different Qur’anic passages (the Guide to Truth and the Friend of God) occur on

Zaydī coins in 309/921–2 and 311/923–4, neither of which was produced by an

incumbent Zaydī Imām. The first was struck by a military commander of the Imām

Ḥasan b. Qāsim, and the second by a caliphal usurper who managed to temporarily

oust the same caliph from Āmul. The Guide to Truth verse is found on a dirham struck

in Nīshāpūr in 309/921–2 by the commander Līlī b. Nuʿmān, who conquered the city

from the Sāmānids in 308/921 and occupied it for a short period before being killed in

battle against a Sāmānid army.74 This is another verse which, like the Purity verse,

was used to project a message that is derived directly from the words of the passage

themselves and ignores the Qur’anic context in which they are situated. In the Qur’an,


the phrase a-fa-man yahdī ilā’l-ḥaqq is immediately preceded by the words qul Allāhu

yahdī li’l-ḥaqq (God gives guidance towards the truth): the word man must therefore

refer to God. On Līlī’s coin, by contrast, the phrase is addressed to the population of

Nīshāpūr who are asked to consider whether they would choose ‘one who leads to the

truth’ or ‘one who finds not guidance unless he is guided.’ Here the opposition

is between the Zaydī Imām, whose title, as seen on the coins, was al-dāʿī ilā’l-ḥaqq

(‘he who calls to the Truth’),75 and his Sāmānid opponent, who as a mere king,

required a spiritual guide to lead him to the Truth. The Qur’anic passage, in which the

distinction is made between God and his false ‘partners’ (shurakāʾ) is certainly

relevant to the numismatic use of the verse, since it points up the serious nature of

the choice which the Nīshāpūrīs faced, between Zaydī Islam and shirk (‘unbelief’).

But the ‘guide’ to whom the coin makes reference must be the Zaydī Imām, rather

than God.

Līlī’s inscription represents a bold new departure in numismatic epigraphy. From the

very beginning, those responsible for choosing the inscriptions on Islamic coins had

made minor adjustments to the Qur’anic texts they selected so that they made sense

when cited without the context of the surrounding verses. We have noted one such

example in the case of the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid use of the Prophetic Mission verse,

which in its numismatic version is prefaced with the words Muḥammad rasūl Allāh,

that do not occur in the Qur’an.76 We have also noted a case (Purity verse, above) in

which a key term, ahl al-bayt, refers to the Prophet’s family as a whole, rather than to

just his wives, as in the Qur’an. But in Līlī’s coins, the change of person appears to be

particularly striking. The choice of text was perhaps prompted by the excitement of

Līlī’s momentous conquest of Nīshāpūr, a territorial advance that in one stroke

brought Zaydī authority from the far periphery to the political heart of Khurasan.

Finally, the Friend of God verse was used by Abū Qāsim Jaʿfar, the son of the

Zaydī Imām al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Uṭrūsh (d. 304/917), on a dinar struck in Āmul in

311/923–4. In that same year Jaʿfar had seized Āmul from the reigning Zaydī Imām

al-Ḥasan b. Qāsim in alliance with his brother, Aḥmad b. ʿAlī. After his brother’s

death in the month of Rajab, Jaʿfar claimed the caliphate for himself and adopted his

father’s title al-nāṣir li’l-ḥaqq, to which he added the epithet walī Allāh, as we can see

from the inscriptions on this coin.77 The Qur’anic verse, which is also found on a

dirham of Jalālābād struck in 343/954–5 by the Langarid (or Sallārid or Musāfirid)

ruler of Shamirān, Wahsūdān b. Muḥammad,78 highlights the importance of the

concept of the walī, in this case of God’s role as the walī (‘friend’) of the true believer.

The institution of the walāya is seen as a reciprocal exchange between God and the

true believer: those who recognise God as their walī and extend the bond of friendship

to his Prophet and the true believers are, like Jaʿfar himself, entitled to adopt the

epithet walī Allāh. As a claimant to the leadership of the Zaydiyya who was in direct

conflict with the reigning Imām, Jaʿfar needed to distinguish his followers clearly


from the supporters of Ḥasan b. Qāsim. The designation of those who recognise God

to be their walī as the Party of God (ḥizb Allāh) in Q. 5:56 may have provided just

such an identity for Jaʿfar’s partisans.

Conclusions

The case has been made in this paper for an inclusive reading of the Qur’anic

verses which are found on coins and the need to take account of the political context

in which these verses occur. However the limitations which surround such a reading

are important and should be clearly stated. Although I suggested in the introduction

that a low level of Arabic literacy should not be considered a barrier to the

transmission of messages which were embedded in the Qur’anic context of cited

verses, it must be conceded that not all ḥuffāzal-Qurʾān would have understood the

meaning of the verses which they committed to memory. The ability to recite the Holy

Book did not necessarily entail comprehension of the Holy Text. Indeed the coin

issuers would not have expected those who handled their coins to pore over these tiny

inscriptions. The point is that these inscriptions were placed on coins in order to mark

them out as different to caliphal issues and provide a concise, but resonant, form of

words, which would impart religious credibility to the issuer, and say something

important about the issuer’s claim to legitimacy. The inscriptions were probably

reproduced in other non-numismatic media by the issuer of the coins and perhaps in

some cases like the phrase jāʾa al-ḥaqq, even adopted as slogans by his faction. Our

attention should be focused on these inscriptions as statements of intent on the part of

the coin issuer, rather than as messages received and discussed by coins users.

This paper has also suggested that Qur’anic passages were flexible texts. They could

be read within the context of the Qur’anic verse in which they occurred or,

alternatively, they could deliver a message that was partly decontextualised. In any

event, such varied usage of Qur’anic texts seems to have been a particular feature of

the early rebels against the caliphate, both ʿAlids and other persons claiming

membership of the ahl al-bayt. The polemical use of such texts began in the anti-

Umayyad revolution and continued into the fourth/tenth century. Its persistence on the

early coinage of the ahl al-bayt was in part due to the effective use made of the two

most commonly cited verses, Kindred and Truth, in the early period. These two short

passages were succinct and evocative and could be used as rallying cries of the

dispossessed. The half dozen verses favoured by the Zaydīs, of which the Permission

verse was the commonest, were well suited to their needs. They stressed themes of

exile, just warfare, ethical probity, closeness to God, the purity of the Prophet’s

family, and the Imām’s ability to guide the faithful to truth. Some of these Qur’anic

themes may have first been used by the ʿAbbāsids themselves, and only later taken

over by their ʿAlid opponents.79 The relatively consistent use of Qur’anic material on

these coins seems to have sprung from the ʿAlids’ status as members of the Prophet’s


family, since by citing the Prophet’s revelation, they underlined their own close

relationship to him. The use of non-standard Qur’anic passages by rebels against the

established authority was not confined to the early ʿAlids, but was never used as

regularly and frequently by other coin issuers. This is a reflection of the longevity of

the ʿAlid struggle against the ʿAbbāsids: no other opponents of the ʿAbbāsids

maintained a state, with stable frontiers and mints, for so long.

Fāṭimid coins, by contrast, made very light use of non-standard Qur’anic citations.

Most of their new numismatic inscriptions were devoted to the praise of ʿAlī as a way

of highlighting the dynasty’s claim to direct descent from the Prophet via ʿAlī’s wife,

Fāṭima. These Fāṭimid statements were easily comprehended by the coin user, because

they were mostly short and repetitive. It could be argued that they provided a more

effective means of communication, albeit of a much shorter message, than the longer

and more allusive Qur’anic passages used by the ahl al-bayt in earlier times. It was not

until the medieval North African dynasties started using non-standard Qur’anic

material on their coins from the fifth/eleventh century onwards, that the fashion for

numismatic citation of non-standard passages from the Holy Book was reinstated.80

NOTES

1 For a recent analysis of the story of the quarrel between ʿAbd al-Malik and Justinian II, seeW.L. Treadwell, ‘Byzantium and Islam in the late 7th century AD: a “Numismatic War ofImages”?’ in A. Goodwin (ed.), Papers from the Seventh Century Syrian Numismatic RoundTable (forthcoming, 2012). For a reference to the appearance of Q. 112:2–4 on the coins ofal-Ḥajjāj, see Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’l-taʾrīkh, ed. Carl J. Tornberg (repr. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir,1965–7), year 76/695–6.

2 O. Grabar, art. ‘Art and architecture’ in the Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān. Grabar notes that itis ‘remarkable how rarely alternate passages were used. It was very rare to have full citations,many were just pious statements.’

3 This paper focuses on the coinage of the ahl al-bayt in the Maghrib, the central Islamic landsand the Caspian region. Reference is made to coins of the Zaydīs of the Yemen, but anexhaustive summary of Yemeni coinage with these inscriptions has not been attempted, eventhough some of the inscriptions found on the Yemeni coinage date to the third century AH(see, for example, the coinage of the Rassid Imām Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (284–98/897–911) inS. Album, Arabia and East Africa, Sylloge of Islamic Coins in the Ashmolean, vol. 10,(Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1999), nos 188–97.

4 For one third/ninth-century coin which bore a non-standard Qur’anic passage, yet was notstruck by a member of the ahl al-bayt, see ʿAbd Allāh al-Khujustānī’s dirhams of Nīshāpūr(260s/870s), which bore Q. 9:123 and Q. 3:26 (D.G. Tor, ‘A Numismatic History of the FirstSaffarid Dynasty (AH 247–300/AD 861–911)’, Numismatic Chronicle 162 (2002), at p. 302).See also the dinar of the leader of the Zanj, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, struck in al-Madīnatal-Mukhtāra in 261/874–5: although he claimed ʿAlid descent, Ibn Muḥammad placed twoverses on this coin (Q. 9:112 and excerpts from Q. 5:48–51) which were Khārijī in inspiration(J. Walker, ‘A Rare Coin of the Zanj’, The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britainand Ireland 2 (1933), pp. 651–50).


5 For the Qur’an as a recited text, see William A. Graham, art. ‘Orality’ in Encyclopaedia ofthe Qurʾān.

6 Al-ʿizzatu li’llāh (jamīʿan) occurs in Q. 4:139, Q. 10:65 and Q. 35:10: li’llāh al-ʿizza is foundin Q. 63:8.

7 For Qaṭarī’s coin with the Persian inscription, see Heinz Gaube, ArabosasanidischeNumismatik (Braunschweig: Klinkhardt und Biermann, cop., 1973), pp. 78–9. The coin isanonymous but was struck in Ardashīr Khurra in 75/694–5, the year in which Qaṭarī struckcoins in that mint.

8 This phrase occurs twice in Sūrat Yūsuf (Q. 12:40 and 67) and once in Sūrat al-Anʿām(Q. 6:57). Moreover, the phrase li’llāh al-ḥukm occurs several times in the Qur’an. Thenumismatic text lā ḥukma illā li’llāh was used again by Khārijī rebels in the coinage which theystruck in the last years of the Umayyad caliphate (Carl Wurtzel, ‘The Coinage of theRevolutionaries in the Late Umayyad Period’, American Numismatic Society Museum Notes 23(1978), pp. 176–8), as well as on coins of the early ʿAbbāsid period.

9 Rika Gyselen, Arab-Sasanian Copper Coinage (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie derWissenschaften, 2000), p. 153, no. 49.

10 For a recent discussion of the Umayyad coppers of Iran, see W.L Treadwell, ‘The CopperCoinage of Umayyad Iran’, Numismatic Chronicle 168 (2008), pp. 331–81.

11 For a discussion of this matter, see Treadwell, ‘The Copper Coinage of Umayyad Iran’,pp. 356–7.

12 See Arthur Jeffrey, Materials for the History of the Text of the Qur’ān: The Old Codices(Leiden: Brill, 1937), pp. 49–50 of the Arabic text: Bāb mā kataba al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuffī’l-muṣḥaf, and pp. 117–18: Bāb mā ghayyara al-Ḥajjāj fī muṣḥaf ʿUthmān.

13 A search for records of variant readings of this verse in A.M. ʿUmar, Muʿjam al-qirāʾātal-Qurʾāniyya (8 vols. Kuwait: Uswa Publications, 1991–2), has yielded nothing that matchesthe numismatic inscription.

14 Translations of Qur’anic passages have been taken from Arberry’s version, with someminor modifications. For a useful catalogue which lists and analyses Qur’anic material incoin inscriptions, see Faraj Allāh Aḥmad Yūsuf, al-Āyāt al-Qurʾāniyya ʿalā’l-maskūkātal-Islāmiyya: dirāsa muqārana (Riyadh: Markaz al-Malik Fayṣal li’l-Buḥūth wa’l-Dirāsātal-Islāmiyya, 2003).

15 For a good general description of inscriptions on coins, see Michael L. Bates, art.‘Numismatics’ in Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān.

16 The Prophetic Mission verse appears on the obverse margin of the dinar and the reversemargin of the dirham from 79/698–9 onwards.

17 A condensed version of the same idea is expressed in Q. 61:10–11, although here referenceto rabbis and monks is missing: That you believe in God and His Prophet and that you strive inGod’s Way with your wealth and persons (amwālikum wa-anfusikum): this would be best foryou if you but knew.

18 See A. Zysow, art. ‘Zakāt’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, for references to Q. 9:34having been read by some exegetes as a proof text for the permissibility of raising zakāt on goldand silver. Q. 9:34 also occurs on later Islamic coins, dated to the fourth/tenth century, in twoareas: Northern Afghanistan and the mints of the Byzantine frontier. For the former, includingthe mints of Ṭāyaqān and Andarāba (372–8/982–9), see Florian Schwarz, Balḫ und dieLandschaften am oberen Oxus, Sylloge numorum arabicorum Tübingen, 14:3 (Tübingen:Wasmuth, 2002), nos 1234–5 (Ṭāyaqān) and no. 200, pp. 203–5 (Andarāba): these coins areearly issues of Sāmānid oversize (or multiple) dirhams, a fact which needs to be taken intoaccount when considering why the verse was used on them. For the dating of Sāmānid oversize


dirhams, see N.M. Lowick, ‘On the Dating of Samanid Outsize Dirhams’, The NumismaticCircular 85 (1977), pp. 204–7. For the Hamdānid mints of the Byzantine frontier region,including the mints of al-Thughūr (al-Thughr?) al-Shāmiyya, Maṣṣīṣa, al-Khizāna al-Shāmiyyamin Ḥalab and Ḥimṣ (dated between 351–3/962–4), see U.S.L. Welin, ‘Sayf al-Dawlah’sReign in Syria and Diyārbekr in the Light of the Numismatic Evidence’, Commentationesde nummis saeculorum IX–XI in Suecia repertis, 1 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1961),pp. 77–90 and pp. 92–4. Lutz Ilisch (oral communication in Dec 2009) suggests a new readingof the Aleppan mint as al-khizāna al-sayfiyya min ḥalab (in other words, the private treasury ofSayf al-Dawla). If these coins were struck from bullion which originated in the Hamdānidruler’s own treasury, one might read the accompanying verse as a statement of pious intent onhis part.

19 See W.L. Treadwell, ‘ʿAbd al-Malik’s Reforms: The Case of the Damascus Mint’, Revuenumismatique 165 (2009), pp. 357–82, for the argument that the epigraphic coinage wasintroduced because earlier forms of Islamic coinage were restricted in their areas of circulation.

20 All these weights date to the reign of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/753–75).For the two main sources, see George C. Miles, Early Arabic Glass Weights and Stamps: With aStudy of the Manufacture of Eighth-century Egyptian Glass Weights and Stamps, by FrederickR. Matson, Numismatic Notes and Monographs, 111 (New York: American NumismaticSociety), 1948, nos 53 (1/2 ratl), 54 (1/4 ratl), 55 (1/2 qisṭ), 57 (1/3? qisṭ), 60 (1/2 dinar);and A.H. Morton, A Catalogue of Early Islamic Glass Stamps in the British Museum(London: British Museum Publications, 1985), no. 192 (1/3 dinar), no. 199 (ratl), nos 200–4(1/4 qisṭ), no. 205 (qisṭ). For the appearance of the same verse on a late Umayyad lead seal,see N. Amitai-Preiss, ‘An Umayyad Lead Seal with the Name of the Caliph Marwānb. Muḥammad’, al-Qanṭara 18 (1997), pp. 233–41 (+ plate).

21 See T. El-Hibri, ‘Coinage reform under the ʿAbbāsid Caliph al-Ma’mūn’, Journal of theEconomic and Social History of the Orient 36:1 (1993), pp. 64–5.

22 Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Maqrīzī states in his Ighātha (tr. Adel Allouche, Mamluk Economics:A Study and Translation of Al-Maqrizi’s Ighathah) (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,1999), p. 62): ‘ʿAbd al-Malik was told: “These white dirhams contain excerpts from the Qur’ānand are handled by Jews, Christians, impure (persons), and menstruating women. It will beadvisable for you to erase (the inscription).” He answered: “Do you wish (other) nations toallege against us that we have erased our (belief in the unity) of God and the name of theProphet?”’

23 See Iskandar Munshī’s Tārīkh-i Ālamārā-yi ʿAbbāsī, ed. Iraj Afshar (2 vols. Tehran:Muʾassasah-i Maṭbūʿātī-i ʿAlī-i Amīr Kabīr, 1334–5), vol. 1, p. 217: English translationby R. Savoury, History of Shah ʿAbbas the Great (2 vols. Colorado: Westview Press, 1978),p. 324.

24 ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī, al-Muṣannaf, ed. Ḥabīb al-Raḥmān al-Aʿzamī (11 vols.

Johannesburg: al-Majlis al-ʿIlmī, 1390–2/1970–2), vol. 1, pp. 343–4. See H. Motzki, art.‘al-Ṣanʿānī’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, for ʿAbd al-Razzāq b. Ḥammām Abū Bakral-Ṣanʿānī al-Ḥimyarī.

25 Ibn Jurayj, ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (d. 150/767) was a Meccan traditionist whocollected legal traditions and whose lectures were attended by ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī(see C. Pellat, art. ‘Ibn Djuraydj’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn (Supplement)).

26 ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ (d. c. 114/732) was a respected Meccan ḥadīth authority (seeJ. Schacht, art. ‘ʿAṭāʾ’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn: Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb(12 vols. Hyderabad: Maṭbaʿat Majlis Dāʾirāt al-Maʿārif, 1325–7 AH), vol. 7, p. 199,no. 1336).

27 Maʿmar b. Rāshid (d. 153/770) was a teacher of ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī.


28 Al-Zuhrī (d. 124/742) was Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī, who served the Umayyads in variouscapacities including qāḍī, tax collector and ṣāḥib shurṭa (see M. Lecker, art. ‘al-Zuhrī’ inEncyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn).

29 ‘Ḥasan’ is the famous pious figure, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. Qatāda (b. Diʿāma) (d. 117/735?)was also a Basran (see C. Pellat, art. ‘Ḳatāda b. Diʿāma’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn).In his biography of the Prophet’s Companions, al-Ṭabarī states: ‘According to … Mughīra b.Miqsam: the best expert on prayer, legal alms, and lawful and unlawful practices was Ibrāhīmal-Nakhaʿī. The best expert in matters of rites (manāsik) was ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ. The bestexpert in matters of trade and money was Ibn Sīrīn … but al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī was master of themall’ (al-Ṭabarī, The History of al-Ṭabarī (taʾrīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk), Volume XXXIX:Biographies of the Prophet’s Companions and their Successors, tr. and annot. E. Landau-Tasseron (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 223).

30 Ibn Sīrīn, Abū Bakr Muḥammad (d. 110/728), was a Basran who had a keen interest inorthopraxy, as well as trade (see below): see his opinions on rafʿ al-yadayn fī’l-ṣalāt (‘raisingof the hands in prayer’), to which reference is made in W.L. Treadwell, ‘The Orans drachms ofBishr b. Marwān’ in J. Johns (ed.), Bayt al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam, Oxford Studiesin Islamic Art, 9:2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 223–60.

31 For al-Qāsim b. Muḥammad (d. c. 106/724), grandson of Abū Bakr and one of the sevenlegal specialists of Medina who played an important role in the formation of fiqh, see C. Pellat,art. ‘Fuḳahāʾ al-Madīna al-Sabʿa’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

32 See H.P. Raddatz, art. ‘Sufyān al-Thawrī’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, for Sufyān b.Saʿīd (d. 161/778) a prominent legal scholar who drew heavily on the ḥadīth and belonged tothe circle of jurists around Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān (d. 120/737).

33 Ḥammād b. Abī Sulaymān (d. 120/737) was a Successor who studied with Ibrāhīmal-Nakhaʿī and taught Abū Ḥanīfa (see S.A. Spectorsky, art. ‘Tābiʿūn’ in Encyclopaedia ofIslam, 2nd edn).

34 Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī al-Kūfī (d. c. 96/717) was a prolific transmitter of ḥadīth (seeG. Lecomte, art. ‘al-Nakhaʿī’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn).

35 For example, ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ expresses a preference for the performance of wuḍūʾ butdoes not insist on it (no. 1335).

36 For some contrary views on this matter, see Ibn Abī Shayba (d. 235/849), al-Muṣannaf, ed.Ḥamd al-Jumʿa and Muḥammad al-Luḥaydān (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 2004), Kitābal-ṭahāra: (Bāb fī) al-rajul yadkhulu al-khalāʾ wa-maʿahu al-darāhim, nos 1216–18.

37 K.V. Zettersteen, art. ‘ʿAbd Allāh b. Muʿāwiya’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

38 F. Buhl, art. ‘Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan al-Muthannā b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. AbīṬālib, called al-Nafs al-Zakiyya’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

39 D. Eustache, art. ‘Idrīs I’ and ‘Idrīsids’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

40 W. Madelung, art. ‘Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

41 H.A.R. Gibb, art. ‘Abū ’l-Sarāyā al-Sarī b. Manṣūr al-Shaybānī’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam,2nd edn.

42 See S. Shamma, The Time of al-Ma’mūn in the Light of Numismatic Evidence (Irbid:Yarmouk University, 1995), pp. 169–71.

43 W. Madelung, art. ‘Zaydiyya’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

44 G.R. Smith, art. ‘Rassids’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

45 Dirhams minted by Abū Muslim in the mint of Merv dropped the Kindred verse from131/748–9 onwards (Wurtzel, ‘The Coinage of the Revolutionaries’, p. 176). A unique coppercoin of Tawwaj dated 132/750, with the name of the first ʿAbbāsid caliph also bears the


Kindred verse (Wurtzel, ‘The Coinage of the Revolutionaries’, p. 194, no. 42). For latercopper coins of AbūMuslim and his followers which bore this verse (up to 136/753–4), see alsoM.L. Bates, ‘Khurāsānī Revolutionaries and al-Mahdī’s Title’ in F. Daftary and J.W. Meri(eds), Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam: Essays in Honour of Wilferd Madelung,(London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003), table 14.2 and pp. 279–317.

46 W. Madelung (The Succession to Muḥammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 13), points out that the exegetes, including al-Ṭabarī,interpreted qurbā to mean several different things, including ‘relatives in general’, rather thanrelatives of the Prophet. Miles understood the word to mean the latter when he described theverse as a ‘battle cry’ (see George C. Miles, ‘Al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq, amīr al-mu’minīn’, Revuenumismatique 6:7 (1965), pp. 329–41).

47 For the speech, see al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk, ed. M.J. de Goeje (3 vols.Leiden: Brill, 1879–1901), vol. 3, p. 29. See Teresa Bernheimer, ‘The Revolt ofʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya, 127(744/745)–130(747/748)’ (Oxford: unpublished MPhil thesis,2002), pp. 57–9.

48 Bernheimer makes this point, while also noting that the Qur’anic exegetes gave severaldifferent interpretations of the meaning of qurbā in this verse (Bernheimer, ‘The Revolt ofʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya’, p. 60).

49 Q. 33:33, Q. 42:23, Q. 26:214, Q. 59:7 and Q. 8:41.

50 Al-Ṭabarī conveys Abū Dāʾūd’s statement in the following words: ‘azhara binā al-ḥaqq

wa-adḥaḍa binā al-bāṭil’ (al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, vol. 3, p. 30). Cf. also Q. 18:56, wa-yujādilualladhīna kafarū bi’l-bāṭili li-yudḥiḍū bihi al-ḥaqq, and Q. 40:5, wa-jādalū bi’l-bāṭilili-yudḥiḍū bihi’l-ḥaqq. For the ʿAlid use of the Truth verse in a numismatic context, see below,section on the revolt of al-Nafs al-Zakiyya.

51 In his ‘Struggle for Legitimacy’ (forthcoming), p. 78, A. Elad points out that there are manyvariants of this speech and suggests that Abū’l-ʿAbbās may never have given it (see also,A. Elad, ‘The Ethnic Composition of the ʿAbbāsid Revolution: A Reevaluation of Some RecentResearch’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 24 (2000), pp. 246–326).

52 See F. Buhl, art. ‘Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh’ in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn.

53 See S. Shamma, ‘Arbaʿa darāhim lahā taʾrīkh’, Yarmouk Numismatics 4 (1992),pp. 13–22 + plates.

54 Shamma, ‘Arbaʿa darāhim’, pp. 17–18, for the reference to Iṣfahānī’s Maqātil al-ṭālibiyyīnin which Umm Hārūn b. Mūsā al-Gharawī stated: ‘samiʿtu shiʿār aṣḥāb Muḥammad b. ʿAbdAllāh layla kharaja bi’l-Madīna; aḥad aḥad Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh’. Another informant ofal-Iṣfahānī’s noted that the same shiʿār was used by his brother Ibrāhīm. See Ibn Hishām,al-Sīra al-nabawiyya, ed. T. ʿAbd al-Raʿūf (6 vols. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1411 AH), vol. 3, p. 182,for the information that Muslim forces had made this their battle cry at Badr.

55 For Idrīsids, and al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq, see below. The short phrase jāʾa al-ḥaqq also occurs onthe silver coinage of Ibrāhīm b. Mūsā, struck in Ṣanʿāʾ in 200/815–6 (see Shamma, The Time ofal-Maʾmūn, pp. 169–171; and Album, Arabia and East Africa, no. 218; see also below, note65). For Rassid (Zaydī) dirhams of Ṣanʿāʾ (dated 288/900–1) and Ṣaʿda (dated 298/910–1) withthis verse in its extended form (i.e. with the addition of the first part of Q. 17:82), see Album,Arabia and East Africa, no. 247 and nos 188–203.

56 See the ʿAbbāsid dinars of the mint of Baysh dated 331–43/942–55 in Album, Arabia andEast Africa, nos 1–44; and N.M. Lowick, ‘Coins of the Najāḥids of Yemen: A PreliminaryInvestigation’, Actes du 8ème Congrès internationale de Numismatique, New York–Washington,Septembre 1973 (Paris: Association internationale des Numismates professionnels, 1976),pp. 543–51.


57 For the coin which bears the legend ‘bi’smi’llāh ḍuriba hādhā al-fals bi bāvard …’, seehttp://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=8195&sort=1&cat=500&page=1. The coin wasbrought to my attention by Lutz Ilisch who identified the issuer as Muḥammad b. Yazīd.I am grateful to him for passing on this information.

58 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, vol. 3, pp. 292–3, p. 299. In this passage al-Ṭabarī gives Muḥammadb. Yazīd the nisba al-Ḍubaʿī, and identifies him as ‘min ahl Abīward’.

59 See D. Eustache, Corpus des dirhams idrīsites et contemporains (Rabat: Banque du Maroc,1970–1), p. 63.

60 Miles, ‘al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq’, pp. 329–41.

61 Miles, ‘al-Mahdī al-Ḥaqq’, p. 340: ‘These [three] coins [including no. 1 which bearsthe Kindred and Truth verses] were probably struck an ʿAlid rebel during the caliphate of Hārūnal-Rashīd, or early in the 3rd century’. For a more recent specimen of the third type identified byMiles, see Baldwins and Arabian Coins and Medals, Auction no. 5, London, October 2002, lotno. 411.

62 See H.M. Malek, The Dābūyid Ispahbads and Early ʿAbbāsid Governors of Ṭabaristān:History and Numismatics (London: Royal Numismatic Society, 2004), p. 68.

63 Both points are taken from an unpublished paper by Lutz Ilisch presented in Tübingen in1993, in which he argued for a Ṭabarī origin and suggested that the issuer may have been Yaḥyāb. ʿAbd Allāh. Yaḥyā arrived in Daylam in 175/791–2 and proclaimed his revolt in thefollowing year. He died in 187/802–3, but his Caspian uprising had probably ended by 180/796–7. His Daylamī followers called themselves anṣār al-mahdī (see Madelung, art. ‘Yaḥyā b.ʿAbd Allāh’). I am grateful to Lutz Ilisch for allowing me to cite his unpublished material.

64 The unusual double title adopted by the Ṭabarī mahdī (al-mahdī al-ḥaqq or ‘the Mahdī, theTruth’ / ‘the true Mahdi’) rather than the title one might have expected, al-mahdī li’l-ḥaqq(‘He who guides to the Truth’: cf. al-dāʿī ilā’l-ḥaqq in note 75, below), suggests that heidentified himself as the human embodiment of the truth which was claimed by the holy family.

65 See Gibb, art. ‘Abū ’l-Sarāyā’. For the Kufan coins struck in 199/814–15, see G.C. Miles,Rare Islamic Coins, Numismatic Notes and Monographs, 118 (New York: AmericanNumismatic Society), 1950, no. 253. In 200/815–6 Abū’l-Sarāyā’s revolt spread briefly tothe Yemen, where he appointed Ibrāhīm b. Mūsā b. Jaʿfar, the brother of ʿAlī al-Riḍā (who wasappointed as al-Maʾmūn’s heir apparent in 201/816) as governor. For Ibrāhīm’s silver coinswith jāʾa al-ḥaqq, see above, note 55.

66 Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, vol. 3, pp. 976–9.

67 Q. 61:2 asks yā-ayyuhā alladhīna āmanū limā taqūlūna mā lā tafʿalūna (O you whobelieve, why do you say what you do not do?).

68 No coins of Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Uṭrūsh are known.

69 References to dirhams with Permission and Kindred verses are as follows: for the dirhamsof Ḥasan b. Zayd struck in Āmul, 253–4/867–8, see S.M. Stern, ‘The Coins of Āmul’,Numismatic Chronicle, 7:7 (1967), no. 2 and no. 3; for the dirham of Nīshāpūr 262/875–6, seePeus sale no. 378 (28/4/2004), no. 1,318 (but note that the mint name may have been recut fromSāriya [?]); for Jurjān, see J. �strup, Catalogue des monnaies arabes et turques du cabinetroyal des médailles du museé national de Copenhague (Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard,1938), nos 765–7 (Jurjān 267/880–1 and 268/881–2 with the extended version of the Kindredverse); see Tornberg, Symbolae ad rem numariam Muhammedanorum ex Museo regioHolmiensie (4 vols. Stockholm: Stockholm Statens Hist. Mus., 1846), vol. 4, pp. 153–4, fordates 267–70/880–4 with the same verses; for the dirham struck by Ḥasan b. Qāsim in Āmul in306/918–9, see Stern, ‘Āmul’, no. 8. A few Zaydī dirhams bore the standard ʿAbbāsid verses:see for example the dirham of Qazwīn 252/866–7 struck by Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad, a relative of the


Imām Ḥasan b. Zayd (CNS, 1.2, no. 2,368). See also the dirham of the amīr al-Mahdī struck inHawsam in 335/946–7 (Stern, ‘Āmul’, p. 271, coin a). As for dinars bearing the Permission andPurity verses; for the dinar of Nīshāpūr 262/875–6, see Baldwin’s and Arabian Coins andMedals, Auction no. 2 (April 2000), no. 524; for Āmul 274/887–8 see Stern, ‘Āmul’, no. 4; forĀmul 306/918–9, see Stern, ‘Āmul’, no. 7; for al-Muḥammadiyya 316/928–9 see Peus coinsale, no. 378 (28/4/2004), no. 1,320.

70 The obverse marginal phrase, which was used on dinars and dirhams of Āmul between 306/918–19 and 308/920–1 (Stern, ‘Āmul’, nos 9–11), is as follows: ‘ḍuriba hādhā’l-dīnār/al-dirham fī khilāfat Abī Muḥammad bi-Āmul’. These coins appear to have been specialpresentation issues. Note the excellent quality of the 308/920–1 dinar and the use of Q. 112(used by the Umayyads but abandoned by the ʿAbbāsids) on the reverse (Stern, ‘Āmul’, plate17/3). The 306/918–19 dirham and the 307/919–20 dinar bear the Permission verse, while the308/920–1 dinar bears the Purity verse.

71 For the dinār of 316 AH, see www.zeno.ru, no. 23849. For the issues of Hawsam, see Stern,‘Āmul’ pp. 271–2, c. (Ordering the Good) and d. (Kindred).

72 See Stern, ‘Āmul’ pp. 271–2, c. See also the use of this verse on a dirham of the RassidImām Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn (284–298/897–911) struck in Ṣaʿda (Album, Arabia and East Africa,no. 195a).

73 Ḥasan b. Zayd (d. 270/884) did not use the verse on his coinage, but did include theinjunction to ‘command the right’ in the text of the pledge of allegiance which was sworn tohim by Caspian noblemen at the very beginning of his mission. Ibn Isfandiyār (Tārīkh-iṬabaristān, ed. ʿAbbās Iqbāl, 2nd edn (2 vols. Tehran: Muḥammad Ramaḍanī, 1344 AH),vol. 1, p. 229) states: ‘bayʿat kardand va iqāmat-i kitāb-i Allāh va sunnat-i rasūl Allāh ʿalayhial-salām va amr-i maʿrūf va nahi-yi munkar’ (‘they paid allegiance, promising to uphold theBook of God, the sunna of His Prophet and to command the Right and forbid the Wrong’).

74 First published in Tornberg, Symbolae, vol. 4, p. 39. For a fine specimen of this rare coin,see Sotheby’s catalogue of 29 September 1988, no. 194.

75 See Stern, ‘Āmul’, nos 10 and 11, for coins of Ḥasan b. Qāsim, dated 307/919–20 and308/920–1, with the Imām’s title al-dāʿī ilā’l-ḥaqq. Note however that in the Yemen, a ZaydīImām, Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, had already adopted the title al-hādī ilā’l-ḥaqq in the late third/ninth century (Album, Arabia and East Africa, nos 188–97).

76 ʿAbd al-Malik also made minor changes to the Qur’anic text in media other than coinage.See the adjustments made to Q. 2:136 and Q. 2:84 in the inscriptions on the bronze plaqueoriginally located in the north portal of the Dome of the Rock (E. Whelan, ‘Forgotten Witness:Evidence for the Early Codification of the Qur’ān’, Journal of the American Oriental Society,118 (1998), p. 7, n. 30).

77 The dinar was first published in Sotheby’s coin auction, 20th May, 1986, no. 508.The phrase ‘walī Allāh … al-nāṣir li’l-ḥaqq’ is found above and below the obverse field. Theobverse margin contains the inscription: ‘ḍuriba hādhā’l-dīnār fī khilāfat Abī’l-Qāsim bi-Āmulsanata iḥdā ʿashra wa-thalathmiʾa’ (cf. the dinar of Ḥasan b. Qāsim, cited above, note 75).The Friend of God verse (Q. 5:55) appears in the reverse margin. Hilāl al-Ṣābī states in hisKitāb al-tājī fī akhbār al-dawla al-Daylamiyya (partial edition in W.F. Madelung, Arabic TextsConcerning the History of the Zaydī Imams (Beirut: al-Maʿhad al-Almānī li’l-Abḥāthal-Sharqiyya fī Bayrūt, 1987), p. 34), that the Daylamī supporters of Uṭrūsh used the epithetal-nāṣir to refer to his two sons, Jaʿfar and Aḥmad.

78 See coin no. 92-2-25 in the collection of the Forschungsstelle für islamische Numismatik,Tübingen University. This dirham was one of a number of issues from the same mint in theperiod 341–3/952–5 which bear the names of the seven Imāms recognised by the Ismāʿīlīs.

79 See above, section on the accession speech of the first ʿAbbāsid caliph, al-Saffāḥ.


80 Non-standard Qur’anic verses were occasionally used on early Islamic coins other thanthose types discussed in this paper: these included presentation (donative) issues and thecoinage of non-ʿAlid rebels (see above, note 4 and Yusuf, Āyāt Qurʾāniyya). For Qur’anicverses used on Fāṭimid coins, see N. Douglas Nicol, A Corpus of Fāṭimid Coins (Trieste:G. Bernardi, 2006), pp. xiii–xiv. For later North African examples, see H. Hazard, TheNumismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa, American Numismatic Society NumismaticStudies, vol. 8 (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1952). The Zīrids of Tunisia werethe first North African dynasty to begin using non-standard Qur’anic passages in the laterperiod. These appeared on their gold coins in the mid-fifth/eleventh century after the Zīrid rulerhad rejected Fāṭimid authority. For a list of the verses cited on North African coins from thefifth/eleventh century onwards, see Hazard, Numismatic History, pp. 36–40: and for verses usedby individual dynasties, see Yusuf, Āyāt Qurʾāniyya, tables on pp. 289–321.


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Qur'anic Inscriptions on the Coins of the ahl al-bayt from the Second to...

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