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Description
UMAYYAD CALIPHATE
Time of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan
AH 65–86 / AD 685–705
Æ Fals
Iliya (Jerusalem) Mint
Standing Caliph Type
Diameter: 19 mm
References: Album 3545; DOCAB 92; Walker 73–75; SICA I 730–731
Obverse:
Standing caliph facing, wearing long robes, with his hand resting upon the hilt or scabbard of his sword. Arabic inscription in the fields:
محمد رسول الله
Muḥammad rasūl Allāh
“Muhammad is the Messenger of God.”
Reverse:
Large cursive m above a horizontal line; Īliyāʾ written upward in the left field and Filasṭīn upward in the right field.
A rare and historically important Arab-Byzantine bronze fals struck at Iliya, the early Islamic name for Jerusalem, during the reign of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik.
The Standing Caliph series represents one of the most important transitional stages in early Islamic coinage. The design retains the standing human figure derived from Byzantine monetary iconography while replacing the traditional imperial legends with distinctly Islamic Arabic inscriptions. Soon afterward, the Umayyad monetary reform would abandon figural imagery in favor of fully epigraphic coinage.
The Jerusalem attribution is explicit on the reverse through the mint inscription Īliyāʾ, accompanied by Filasṭīn in the opposite field. Published examples of this exact type are catalogued as Album 3545 / DOCAB 92 / Walker 73–75.
The present specimen retains the characteristic standing figure, sword, large reverse m, and portions of the mint inscriptions. Irregular ancient flan with circulation wear, roughness and earthen deposits.
Condition: Fine.
Authenticity guaranteed.
X2-202
