The Mint

This stamps the dinars and dirhams used in commercial transactions.

• This is done with an iron die with pictures or words engraved in reverse.
• The stamp is pressed on the dinar or the dirham which transfers those engravings onto the coin.

Before this is done:

• the standard of purity of the particular coin, the result of repeated refinings, is taken into consideration.
• the individual dinars and dirhams are given the proper, fixed weight that has been agreed upon.

Then, the number of coins (and not their weight only) can be made use of in transactions.

If the individual pieces have not been given the weight fixed upon, then the weight of the coins must be taken into consideration.

The word sikkah (mint) refers to the stamp, as the piece of iron used for stamping.

• The word was then used to designate the result of (the application of the stamp), that is, the engravings that appear upon dinars and dirhams.
• The word was further used to designate control of (the process of engraving) and supervision of the whole operation, of everything dealing with coinage and all the conditions that govern it. Such (control and supervision) is (exercised by) the office (of the mint).

The word has thus come to designate (that office), and is customarily so used in governmental usage.

It is an office that is necessary to the royal authority, for it enables people to distinguish between goodand bad coins in their transactions. That (the coins) are not bad is guaranteed by the engravings known to have been stamped upon them by the ruler.

The non-Arabs used (coins) and engraved special pictures on them, for example, a picture of the ruler at the time of issue, a fortress, some animal or product, or something else. This remained the practice of the non-Arabs down to the end of their power.

When Islam appeared, the practice was discontinued because of the simplicity of Islam and the Bedouin attitude of the Arabs. In their transactions, they used gold and silver according to weight.

They also had Persian dinars and dirhams. They used them, too, according to weight and employed them as their medium of exchange.

The government paid no attention to the matter.

• As a result, the frauds practiced with dinars and dirhams eventually became very serious.

Sa’id b. al-Musayyab and Abu z-Zinad say that Abd-al-Malik ordered:

• al-Hajjaj to coin dirhams
• distinguish bad coins from good ones.

This took place in 74 [699/94], or, according to al-Mada’ini, in 75 [694/95].

In the year 76 [695/96], Abd-al-Malik ordered that dirhams be coined in all the other regions. The stamp on them was: “God is one, God is the samad.”

Later on, in the days of Yazid b. Abd-al-Malik, Ibn Hubayrah became governor of Iraq and improved the mint.

Then Khalid al-Qasrt, and after him Yusuf b. ‘Umar, made great efforts to improve it.

The first to coin dinars and dirhams (in Islam) was Mus’ab b. az-Zubayr in the year 70 [689/90] in Iraq, upon the order of his brother ‘Abdallah, who was then in charge in the Hijaz.

The legend on his coins was, on the one side, “blessing,” and on the other (there was) the name of God. A year later, al-Hajjaj changed the engraving with: “In the name of God-al-Hajjaj.”

The weight of the dirhams was fixed at what it had been in the days of Umar.

At the beginning of Islam, the weight of the dirham had been 6 danaqs.

The weight of the mithqal was one dirham and three-sevenths of a dirham, so that ten dirhams made seven mithqals. The reason for this was that the weight of the dirham had varied in the days of the Persians. A dirham corresponding to the weight of a mithqal might weigh twenty, or twelve, or ten carats.

When it was necessary to determine the weight (of the dirham) for the charity tax, the average of the three values was taken, that is fourteen carats. Thus, the mithqal (of twenty carats) was one dirham and 3/7 of a dirham of 14 carats.

• the baghli (dirham) had 8 danaqs
• the tabari (dirham) had 4 danaqs
• the maghribi (dirham) had 3 danaqs
• the yaman (dirham) had 1 danaq

Umar gave orders to investigate and determine which dirham was most commonly used in transactions. It turned out to be the baghli" and the tabari (dirhams).

Together, they weighed 12 danaqs.

Thus, the (weight of the) dirham was (fixed at) six danaqs. When three-sevenths of that weight was added, it was a mithqal, and when threetenths of a mithqal were taken away, it was a dirham.

When ‘Abd-al-Malik saw fit to use the mint to protect against fraud the two coins (the gold dinar and the silver dirham) that were current in Muslim transactions, he determined their values as what they had been in the time of ‘Umar. He used the iron stamp, but engraved words on it, rather than pictures, because eloquent words were obviously more congenial to the Arabs. Moreover, the religious law forbids pictures.

After (‘Abd-al-Malik), the coinage remained the same for the whole Muslim period. Both the dinar and the dirham were round. The inscription on them waswritten in concentric circles. On one side, the legend included the names of God with the formulas: “There is no God but God” and “Praised be God,” and the prayer for the Prophet and his family; on the other side, it included the date and the name of the caliph. (Coins were of) this type during the period of the ‘Abbasids, the ‘Ubaydid(-Fatimids), and the (Spanish) Umayyads.

The Sinhajah had no mint except at the end of their rule when al-Mansur, the master of Bougie, used one. This has been mentioned by Ibn Hammad in his History.

For the Almohads, al-Mahdi set the precedent of coining square dirhams and engraving a square on the round dinar. 572 He covered one side of the coins with the formulas: “There is no God but God” and “Praised be God,” and the other with a legend of several lines containing his name, (which was replaced by) his successors with their names. This became the practice of the Almohads. Their coinage has kept that shape down to this time. It has been reported that before al-Mahdi came forth, he was described as “master of the square dirham” by the practitioners of magic who predicted the coming of his dynasty.

The present day inhabitants of the East have no coinage of fixed value.

For their transactions, they use dinars and dirhams by weight, and their value is determined through standard weights corresponding to so-and-so many (dirhams, or dinars). The mint engraves 573 on them the formula “There is no God but God” and the prayer for the Prophet, as well as the ruler’s name, as is also the practice of the Maghribis.