Methodology in Islamic Numismatics

Michael L. Bates Curator of Islamic Coins American Numismatic Society New York

Signore signori, ladies and gentle- A talk given at a meeting in Sicily, 1989: men, hence certain allusions. The original title Given the topic "Coins," with the was “On the classification of Islamic coins.” focus "The Present State of Studies," and thirty minutes to speak, it was not so easy to specialized subdiscipline of Islamic history. decide what the content of my lecture should be. Certainly in the time allotted, I can't under- Almost as soon as coinage was take a general survey of Islamic coinage. I invented, rulers and cities realized the utility would hardly dare to give you a dry survey of of coins not merely as a means of exchange current work in progress, for fear of facing a but as bearers of messages. Coins circulate room full of nodding heads, if indeed I would outside the boundaries of the state that issues not see a room that gradually emptied as I them; they continue to circulate or at least to spoke. A third alternative is to speak about exist long after their making; and as such, how Islamic numismatics should be done, although they are small objects, they are an how it should be approached, what are the ideal medium for saying something about new ways of studying and understanding those who issue them: who they were, what coinage in the Islamic world, and especially they believed, and where and when they held how non-specialists should approach and power. In the ancient world before Islam the utilize numismatic evidence in their work. nature of the messages on coins evolved steadily. They began with simple inscriptions But because any such discussion naming the people or ruler who authorized must necessarily reflect the speaker's own their issue, coupled with symbols that in some opinions, and since I have strong and contro- sense served the same function of identifica- versial opinions on the subject, there is an- tion. In the Roman imperial period, the mes- other danger here, that of egotism or the sages expanded to comprise complicated perception of egotism. Those who know me visual scenes referring to events or policies, will perhaps not be surprised that I have se- images that have often been called "propa- lected this third alternative nevertheless. My ganda" though it is not at all certain who the lecture will reflect a purely personal point of intended audience was or what they could view, but I hope at least it will be an interest- make of it. By the end of the classical era, that ing one, and one which has its importance not is, by the time Islam arrived on the scene, it just for the study of Islamic coins but also for was normal for the messages to include the the study and understanding of any body of name of the ruler, his honorific titles, an Islamic artifacts and of Islamic history as a idealized portrait, religious symbols and whole. I will take for granted, before this inscriptions, the monetary unit represented by audience, the importance of numismatics as a the coin, and the date and place of minting.

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 1 Islam's response to this established tradition, general. The absence of images left more when it came time for Muslims to think seri- room for longer and more explicit inscrip- ously about what kind of coinage the new tions. As a result of these practices, every religious community should have, was, after a Islamic coin is a miniature document, telling brief period of experimentation, to reject not us who ruled at a given place and time, what only the images which had till then been so he called himself, and something of his be- important a component of coin design, but liefs. also the issuance of coin in the name of an Having recognized the importance individual ruler. Instead, the earliest truly of coins as message bearers, I think it is neces- Islamic coins had nothing but religious in- sary to caution against taking these intended scriptions, indicating that they were issued not messages too seriously. One often finds the under human authority but that of God and the notion in Islamic numismatic and historical community of believers. In less than a century, writing that coins were made exclusively for however, the tradition reasserted itself that a the purpose of bearing messages, as if the coin should bear the name of the individual large trucks on our highways travel from place responsible for its value—or, put another way, to place only to display advertising for the that coins were a good way of proclaiming companies that own them. I would lay down royal power. Although the religious inscrip- as a maxim that coins were manufactured for tions were preserved, it became customary for one reason only: because someone had bullion Islamic coins to bear also the name of the ruler or non-legal-tender coins and wanted to trans- and of his overlords if any. God continued to form this raw material into money. The idea appear on the coin in the shahada la ilah illah that a ruler might issue coins solely to pro- Allah, but as the supreme overlord (by this claim his authority or commemorate some reasoning we can assert that the side of the event is to me a misguided one. Such motives coin with the shahada, when it exists, is to be might explain a change in coin design or regarded as the face of the coin, regardless of inscriptions, but it is essential to remember which side of the coin was impressed by that the coins themselves were made only which die). The appearance of the ruler's name because someone needed money and could get on coins became so normal that it was consid- it more cheaply by bringing bullion to the mint ered one of the two indications of sovereignty than in any other way. The someone who in a territory, along with the call for blessings needed money was, often, the ruler or the on the ruler in the Friday prayer service. government, taking bullion from the public or Before Islam, coins were dated private treasury, but this is only a special case most commonly with the years of rule of an of a general phenomenon and it is not to be emperor. Along with the abandonment at the assumed that the government was the domi- beginning of the ruler's name and portrait, nant or even the largest customer of the mint. Islam also replaced regnal dating by a chronol- The misconception that coins ogy based on the years of existence of the might have been issued for political or ego- community, that is, the Hijra year, resulting in centric reasons, or that rulers took care to the first use of a continuous universal calendar insure an adequate supply of coinage to their for dating coins. The practice of putting the subjects, is related to a general error that I will name of the city of minting on coins was discuss again later, that of the "top-down" continued from pre-Islamic times and made

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 2 approach to Islamic numismatics. Ancient the search for unique novelties which is so coins in collections today are essentially the much a part of traditional numismatics, a field relics of an economic system, surviving exam- which is dominated, more than any of the ples of money, and in seeking reasons for their others we have dealt with in this conference, evolution we ought always to keep economic by the enthusiastic amateur collector. Most, motives in first place. Economic factors were almost all, of the work done today and in the not the only forces resulting in changes in past on Islamic numismatics is produced by coins, but they must always have been amateurs (as opposed to academically trained pre-eminent. scholars). This is a blessing and a curse; a blessing, because there is far more work to do The evidence coins provide for than the handful of curators and professors in monetary history in the form of their weight the field can ever hope to accomplish, but a and alloy is only part of what we might call curse because the valuations of amateurs the unintended messages borne by coins determine too much what work is done and which are often more interesting than the how. Unique coins are not really very interest- messages that were intentionally impressed ing; they are by definition freaks, and are of upon them. Technology, administration little use as evidence until they can be inte- (mints, geographical centers, centralization vs. grated into the overall pattern of minting in a decentralization), epigraphical style, artistic given region and era. Or, to put it another way, quality, semiotics of inscriptions and design, facts are useless without a theory to explain are among the features of coins that tell us them. For the collector or dealer, unique or something about the people, societies, and rare coins are not only exciting but usually governments that produced them. Such unin- profitable, but there is no profit in knowledge tentional messages also have the virtue of from concentrating on rarities while ignoring authenticity: rulers may exaggerate, conceal, the broad mass of coinage and the pattern of or lie in the inscriptions they order on coins, its issue and circulation. but the coins themselves and their manufac- ture reflect a reality often beyond the control For me, the key to thinking rightly of any cognizant intelligence. about Islamic coins and to understanding their evolution and their importance as evidence for One important maxim for the other aspects of Islamic history lies in the extraction of evidence from coins is that a recognition that coins were not issued by single coin tells us little by itself. Just as dynasties nor struck by rulers; they were students are warned in any numismatic course produced by small groups of skilled craftsmen not to try to extrapolate the weight standard or who were paid by their customers according to fineness of an issue from one coin, we cannot the volume of their production, working under interpret the evidence of a single coin without the supervision of mint officials who also, looking at the entire issue of which it was a according to all the evidence we have, were part, and at what other coins were being issued recompensed by a charge on the volume of and used in the same region, and at the coin- production of the mint. In sum, a mint was a age of that regions neighbors, and at the coin- business, operated collectively by craftsmen age of preceding and subsequent times. It is and specialized officers who shared in the for this reason that scholars must defend profits of the enterprise. It enjoyed a govern- themselves against seduction by the thrill of ment monopoly and for that reason was sub-

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 3 ject to a social interest in limiting profits and of direct royal control of the coinage. They do guaranteeing quality; because this was the not say that there was any bureaucracy that ruler's responsibility according to medieval connected provincial mints directly to an theorists, medieval as well as modern writers authority in the capital; on the other hand they say metaphorically that a ruler struck coins or do not say that there was no such bureaucracy. that the coinage was his. Another aspect of the They normally speak of "the mint" in the royal connection to coinage was the ruler's singular, implying either that they are writing share in the profits, which underlies the insis- about only the royal mint, the mint in the tence on royal or state monopoly of minting ruler's capital where he would have his own and the concept of legal tender. Legal tender, bullion minted when needed and where he at its minimum enforceable level, means that would presumably have direct control of the taxes had to be paid in officially sanctioned officials who supervised the mint; or that they currency; in this way, the ruler can force the have in mind an abstract mint and an abstract populace to use his monopolistic mints and ruler, who might be a local governor instead pay his mint charges. Nevertheless, in our of the sovereign. Better evidence is provided modern world one can name a number of by the coins, which often reflect, within the countries that have one legal tender, but where coinage of a single ruler or dynasty, consider- many transactions take place in another cur- able diversity from province to province and rency, usually dollars. In earlier times this city to city. To cut a long argument short, it "universal" currency was the British gold seems safe to assume, in the absence of con- sovereign, and still earlier it was even more trary evidence for any Islamic dynasty, or for difficult for the state to force people to use its any state before the industrial age, the absence currency as "legal tender for all debts, public of any bureaucracy specialized for the purpose and private," as U.S. currency states. Because of controlling all the mints in a realm. On the people could not be prevented from using contrary, local mints, it should be presumed, foreign or old coins in their private transac- were responsible to local governors. Royal tions, rulers had a selfish interest in maintain- orders about minting were transmitted through ing the standard of their currency, apart from the chain of territorial authorities, from the any concern they may have had for the public caliph or sultan through regional or provincial welfare. governors to the governors of cities and dis- tricts. Indeed, it seems to have been taken for We may ask, however, how di- granted that different realms under the author- rectly, and continually, this royal interest was ity of the same sovereign would have different exercised. These two aspects, the directness of money, to a greater or lesser degree. control geographically from the center to the provinces, and the continuity of interest over For specific examples, let us look time, are the two aspects of the discussion in first at the Umayyad caliphate. Each of the which I hope to show that dynasties and reigns five main regions of the caliphate had a differ- are not valid units of description and study for ent system of minting and different currency. Islamic numismatics. Syria, the metropolitan province, had abun- dant gold, silver, and copper coinage, with the The sources, that is the theoretical first two metals struck only in Damascus and or practical descriptions of the ruler's relation- the latter at numerous mints scattered through- ship to the mint, are ambiguous on the point out the province and issuing quite diverse

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 4 types. The northern provinces, Jazira, Adhar- alloy from region to region. The dinars of bayjan, Armenia and the lands to the north, Damascus weighed 4.25 grams; judging by the had copper coinage more or less like that of very precise glass weights of Egypt by which Syria in the areas of the Jazira adjacent to payments in foreign dinars were measured, the Syria, and a single mint for silver dirhams that standard there was 4.23 grams; and in North moved from place to place with the governor Africa and Spain the standard appears to have of the region. The East, Iraq and Iran, had been 4.29 grams. These minor, but real, varia- quite varying minting systems in the different tions were paralleled by greater variations in provinces in the period before the introduction the standard weight of silver dirhams. In of the standard reformed Arabic dirham, while Egypt, the standard weight for the dirham was in the era of the reformed dirham fluctuated two-thirds the weight of the Egyptian dinar, or from periods when minting of dirhams was 2.85 grams, as explicitly attested by glass extremely decentralized at as many as forty weights. In Damascus, the weight standard for locations to periods when all minting was dirhams was a little over 2.90 grams; we do concentrated at the capital Wasit. Egypt had not know what the intended relationship to the no gold or silver coinage of its own but used dinar weight was. In the East, the usual rela- imported gold dinars in abundance; locally tionship was seven-tenths of the weight of the minted coins were limited to coppers with a mithqal, but the mithqal of the East was not special thick dumpy fabric and heavy weight the weight of the gold dinar as in Syria and quite different from anywhere else. North Egypt; it was the weight of the standard dir- Africa, followed closely by Spain, issued ham inherited from the Sasanians, about four distinctive thick dinars with Latin inscriptions grams, and there is concrete evidence that the twenty years after Damascus began striking weight of this mithqal varied from place to Arabic dinars; even when Arabic was adopted place, resulting in dirhams of 2.7 to 2.9 grams, for dinars, the inscriptions were different from mostly about 2.8. those of Damascus for another decade. North Dirhams varied also in alloy. The Africa and Spain also had dirhams, but only normal alloy in the East until the year 100 was after about 720, and copper coins also differ- about 96%, but in that year it was conspicu- ent from other provinces. ously and suddenly raised to as close to 100% Since this is an art historical as the technology of the time would permit, crowd, I will speak mainly of differences in and maintained at that standard until the end the appearance of coins. Take for example the of the dynasty. At Damascus, the alloy also reformed Arabic dirham, a coinage that was increased with time, but gradually beginning completely uniform in its inscriptions and also about 100 H. In North Africa and Spain, general design from Spain to Khurasan. Nev- the alloy of 96% was maintained to the end. ertheless, looking at this series of dirhams, This brief sketch, completely one can see obvious differences in inscription- ignoring the many provincial and district al style and perhaps, even on the slides, in the variations within the large regions, shows relative proportions of the different elements clearly that there was no general mint bureau- of the design. cracy in the Umayyad caliphate extending What may be more surprising was directly from Damascus to local mints. Each the wide variation in weight standards and region, each province, and one may even say,

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 5 each city (with its district), had its own mone- was not adopted in North Africa until four tary system. We cannot speak of Umayyad years after it was introduced in Egypt, was coinage, but rather Umayyad coinages, or changed in North Africa but not in Egypt two better still, of the coinage of the various coun- years later, and continued until the year after tries of the Islamic world in the seventh and al-Hakim's death. The North African mints the first half of the eighth century. We will see then adopted the first standard type of the next later to what extent one is justified in speaking caliph, al-Zahir, and kept it until two years of an Umayyad era at all in a chronological after his death, ignoring two major changes in sense. type in Egypt. These variations evidently reflect the increasing autonomy of Ifriqiyya For another example, let us con- under the Zirid governors, who ultimately sider the coinage of the Fatimid caliphate. asserted their independence with coinage in Coins with the name of the Fatimid caliph their own name, but they show that uniformity were issued at mints here in Sicily, in North in coinage, such as existed between Egypt and Africa, in Egypt, and in Syria. Some authors Syria during the same period, depended upon have described the Fatimid gold dinar as the the loyalty that caliphs and sultans could merit "dollar of the Middle Ages," a currency abso- or command from their provincial governors, lutely uniform throughout their realm and not on a separate bureaucracy that controlled their timespan, and indeed, once the Fatimid the mints bypassing the political hierarchy. I coinage system came fully into action, it is should speak here also of our host island, difficult to distinguish the products of any Sicily, which, unlike the rest of the caliphate, mint from those of another at the same point never issued dinars but only quarter-dinars. in time without actually reading the mint name. Nevertheless, there were differences. A As a final example, I will mention contemporary document from the Geniza the great Mediterranean Muslim empire of speaks in the mid-eleventh century of Egyp- modern times, the Ottomans, without going tian and Syrian dinars as two different curren- into detail because every specialist is aware cies, with a value for the Syrian dinars slightly that the monetary systems of the different less than for the Egyptian. Another indicator countries under Ottoman rule varied greatly. of the absence of any central bureaucracy Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, controlling these wide-spread mints is the time the provinces in the Caucasus taken from the lag in North Africa and Sicily for the adoption Persians, and the core regions, Anatolia and of the frequent changes in design that were the Balkans, all had their own distinctive ordered in Egypt. As the tenth century passed coinages. Generally, after their conquest these to the eleventh, there were frequently varia- regions maintained the system of the predeces- tions in North Africa from the standard types sor states for some time, then were brought of the Egyptian mint. The first standard type more or less, but never fully, into conformity of the caliph al-Hakim was adopted in North with Constantinople, and then diverged more Africa with a minor variation at first, and and more in the eighteenth and nineteenth brought into conformity with Egypt only six centuries. This will come as no surprise to years later; it was then continued until 408, those who know that the empire itself was during which time Egypt had adopted two disintegrating in those latter centuries and its successive new designs. Al-Hakim's third constituent parts falling under the control of design, with the name of his designated heir, local warlords or European powers, but this

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 6 historical development is completely obscured another, the historical development of the by the numismatic practice of cataloging coinage is completely obscured and its utility Ottoman coins sultan by sultan, arranging the as evidence for other disciplines is vitiated. mints in alphabetical order under each of the None of these dynasties, even the Buyids, had three coinage metals as if the Ottoman sultan- a distinctive coinage of its own; and as for ate were a unitary centralized bureaucracy that royal control, we can imagine that the mint for some reason chose to issue quite different officials went to each new warlord in turn to coins at each of the mints it controlled. verify the spelling of his name and then pro- ceeded about their business. There may have Having dwelt upon the diversity of been substantive changes in the coinage in this coinage within the territories of a single dy- era, and substantive differences between nasty, for which I could multiply examples provinces, but they will not be recognized indefinitely, I should also speak of examples until the coinage is studied in a more historical of uniformity extending beyond the bound- fashion. aries of a dynasty's authority. One such is western Iran and Iraq in the tenth century, the Yet another example of uniformity era of the Buyids. Though the evolution of the beyond dynastic frontiers is found in Syria in coinage of this period has not been well stud- the thirteenth century, when the standard dir- ied, one can say that in appearance,the coinage ham of the period—introduced, it is true, by of all the mints in the area and of each mint Salah al-Din—was issued at mints under the varied little, using a standard design and control of Ayyubids, Artuqids, Rum Seljuqs, inscriptions continued from the time of undi- marauding Khwarizmis, and the Crusaders. vided caliphal authority and differing only in There was more diversity of design within the the names of the caliphs and the local rulers in Ayyubid principalities than there was between each place. These names changed rapidly, as these and their neighbors under different various members of the Buyid family and sovereignties. other dynasts such as the Sajids, the Sa)luqids, Having made the argument that the Ziyarids, the Bawendids, the Sallarids, the geographical diversity within the body of Justanids, and Hasanwayhids, and the coins of a single ruler or dynasty is an indica- Kakwayhids won and lost power in each city. tion of absence of direct bureaucratic control The present numismatic treatment of this of provincial mints from the center, the objec- period is so chaotic that no general conclu- tion may be raised that there are many in- sions can be drawn about any aspect of the stances of broad changes in the coinage taking coinage, because the coins with the names of place almost simultaneously across wide each of these dynasts are catalogued sepa- extents of territory, crossing provincial bound- rately. The coins of a single city in the same aries. This is certainly true; one cannot neglect year may be found in as many as three sepa- the important role of royal intervention in the rate places in a single catalogue as the city evolution of coinage. This point brings us to changed hands, and yet these are essentially consideration of the other aspect of my argu- the same coins, with the same inscriptions ment, that of continuity of royal interest over (except for the names), the same design, the time; because the notable feature of all the same style (at any one place), the same weight major coinage reforms in Islam that estab- standard and alloy. By isolating the various lished the coin types that we think of as dis- issues of a single time and place from one

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 7 tinctive for various dynasties is that these One can multiply such examples. changes never coincide with the foundation of The sum of the matter seems to be that new dynasties but rather postdate the foundations rulers, new dynasties, new dominant peoples by decades or generations. at the beginning of their rule have more im- portant things to think about than coinage. One can cite many examples. The Their power may be contested, the structures major changes under the Umayyad caliph )Abd of power and administration may have to be al-Malik, changes that created Islamic coinage revised, and probably more important, con- as a distinct series, began thirty-one years after querors and revolutionaries are perhaps not the beginning of the Umayyad caliphate with the sort of people to take much interest in Mu)awiya and seven years after the start of mundane monetary problems. Indeed, one may )Abd al-Malik's reign. The advent of the pose the question whether medieval rulers in )Abbasid caliphate, it is true, brought an im- general, exception made of the great reform- mediate change in the reverse inscription on ers, took much interest in the coinage as long dinars and dirhams that clearly marks off their as the system operated without critical prob- coins from Umayyad issues, but the changes lems. One may say axiomatically that few that created the classic )Abbasid type did not rulers, and hardly anybody else, takes coinage occur until seventy-five years later in the reign with anything like the same importance that of al-Ma'mun. The Fatimid conquest of Ifri- numismatists do. qiyya was marked by conspicuous changes in the subsidiary inscriptions of the coins, at first I have tried to show, through comprising revolutionary religious slogans argument and example, that the geographical and then the distinctive titles and honorifics of and chronological limits of dynastic power are the imams, but the coinage emphasizing con- not appropriate divisions for the study and centricity that we think of as characteristically understanding of Islamic coinage. Instead of Fatimid was not introduced until the begin- studying Islamic numismatics from the "top ning of the reign of al-Mu)izz, forty-five years down," we need to study the coins from the after the establishment of Fatimid political "bottom up." The natural geographic unit for authority. Here in Sicily we can observe the the study of coins is the mint, for that is where Christian Normans continuing Islamic gold they were made and introduced into circula- quarter-dinar coinage for at least a century tion; the natural chronological unit is the after their conquest of the island, changing lifespan of coin series, from one great mone- only the names at first and then gradually tary reform to another. Once we trace the introducing other features such as crosses and development of each mint (although this pro- Latin inscriptions. The coinage of the early cess should not take place in isolation for each Mamluks, until the second year of Baybars' mint, because comparison of one mint to reign, is identical to the previous coinage of another nearby yields useful clues for the the Ayyubids except for the names. Distinc- understanding of both), we can then see what tive and uniform Ilkhan coinage, replacing a changes in coinage were general or wide- plethora of local monetary systems, is not spread and what was the system of official and begun until the time of Ghazan and his wazir unofficial rules within which the mints oper- Rashid al-Din, forty years after the capture of ated. If, on the contrary, we classify coins Baghdad. primarily according to the rulers named on them, relegating their mint-places to second-

Draft 30 Nov 1989--not for publication or citation 8 ary importance or even ignoring them, we will Aside from the methodological in fact not be able to recognize the interven- benefit of beginning with the concrete and tion of the very rulers on whom we focus. specific and building from there to broad generalities, or in other words, of studying The principles I propose for the Islamic coins, art objects, and history from the study of coinage and monetary history have bottom up, there is also a moral or ethical their implications for other fields of inquiry dimension to this question. By remembering into Islamic history, and accord with the who made the objects we study, by shaping direction of thinking in recent years of many our theories and speculations around real peo- scholars in those fields. Just as there was no ple in real places doing real things, we restore Umayyad mint bureaucracy and no Umayyad to these people, our predecessors and for many coinage, there was apparently no universal of us our ancestors, something of their essen- Umayyad military organization and no general tial humanity, and thereby broaden our own. Umayyad taxation system; these aspects of administration must be studied province by province and even district by district where the sources allow, and we should hold back from generalization until a body of compara- tive material has been built up sufficient to show general trends in contrast to local condi- tions. Similarly for the specialist in the history of other kinds of objects, that is for art historians. It seems to me as an outsider, and on the basis of my own experience in my field, that art historians speak much too much of Timurid minatures, Fatimid textiles, Seljuq architecture, Atabeg metalwork, and the like. It is useful to step back a bit and remind one- self that the Timurids painted no miniatures, the Fatimids wove no textiles, the Seljuqs laid no bricks and the Atabegs shaped no vessels. These objects were designed and constructed by craftsmen, by the people of eastern Iran, of Egypt, of Anatolia, of Mesopotamia, or rather by people living in the cities of these countries at particular times in history. It would perhaps be a good idea to say more concretely what one means: not Fatimid textiles, but Egyptian textiles of the eleventh century, or better still, Alexandrian textiles of the first quarter of the eleventh century, or the like.

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