Byzantine Influence on Islamic Coins

Byzantine Influence on Islamic Coins​

Although Islamic tradition [hadith] prohibits the depiction of humans or animals, it was not always strictly enforced. One such instance of this was the coinage of the Turkoman dynasties – the Artuqids, Zangids, and Danishmendids, as well as the Ayyubids – which included a variety of human and animal figural types on their bronze dirhems.



Initially nomads, these groups, once they settled in the regions of Mesopotamia [al-Jazira] and Anatolia and established dynasties there, recognized the need to establish political legitimacy over the areas they now ruled. These territories had been governed by a variety of earlier empires [Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Sasanian], and consisted of various Christian and Arabic groups, all of whom had long exposure to coinage as a medium for expressing political legitimacy.



Respecting western culture, these Turkoman rulers also admired and appreciated western art and were open to accepting certain religious tenets and iconography within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which provided models for some of the Byzantine-inspired coin types. Concurrently, a neo-classical revival was under way in the region of the al-Jazira. Greek and Roman coins that existed as parts of then-available collections or individual examples provided the models for other coin types.

These new coin types did not simply copy their ancient prototypes, but through an historical understanding of their motifs, they combine ancient and more contemporary iconography, or in turn classicize contemporary iconography, causing the viewer assume a connection to classical prototype which does not actually exist.



The presence of so many different coin types might suggest a broad logical pattern to their usage, something that often fails when consideration is based on the types themselves. With so many different coin types in the series, it would seem impossible to find a logical pattern, However, when one considers that the origins of these dynasties were on the Central Asian steppes, where the heavens were fundamental for negotiating their day-to-day existence, these coin types demonstrate a marked astroligical influence in their designs, something that makes them unique to their Turkoman issuers.



De-Christianized type imitating the Byzantine emperor Heraclius and his two sons' Byzantine gold solidus, minted by the Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan or Mu'awiya I [Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan] was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate.