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The spread of Islam
When the Prophet Muhammad founded the Islamic religion, he united the quarreling Arabic tribes into a people of world conquerors. In Damascus the dynasty of the Umayyads formed the first Islamic caliphate. They extended the Islamic empire to Turkistan, North Africa, Spain and into the Punjab region. In 750, the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad caliphate. The Umayyads relocated to Al-Andalus, where they erected a realm that led to a blossoming of Arab culture in Spain. In Damascus the Umayyads developed the first typical Islamic-Arabic coins that were used as models by the following Islamic dynasties and rulers: nonpictorial golden dinars and silver dirhams that bore suras from the Koran and were dated after the Hijrah*. The dinars had the same weight as the Byzantine solidi, yet their name derived from the Roman denarius. One golden dinar equaled 10 silver dirhams. Finds from Scandinavia and the Baltic and Slavic countries prove that the dirham was the major Arab trade coin for more than 300 years. *Hijrah is the Islamic calculation of time, starting with the migration of the Prophet from Mecca to the city of Medina in 622 (Common Era). It is abbreviated AH (anno hegirae).
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