Classical Rarities of Islamic Coinage

An Exceptional Group of Umayyad Gold Coins The favourite collecting goal for those interested in Islamic coins is to make up a full set of Umayyad Dinars struck between the years 77h and 132h.

The Umayyad gold Dinar was the currency which powered the expansion of the Islamic community from Central Asia in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The gold for this coinage came from the conquests of the Arabian armies and united the Muslim world into one huge monetary union, much as the British Sovereign was the currency of choice in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The earliest coin in the series is the very rare and sought after Dinar of 77 of the Hijra, the year in which the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik bin Marwan ordered the striking of the first coinage bearing no images and inscribed with legends drawn from the Holy Qur’an. This coin provided the model for all subsequent Umayyad Dinars, and established the general conventions of Islamic coinage for many centuries to come.