page 2 note ¹ Stowasser, Barbara, “Time to Reap,” MESA Bulletin 34.1 (Summer 2000): 1–13.Google Scholar

page 2 note ² A recording by the folksinger Theodore Bikel introduced me to the term USAns although he preferred to refer to them as the ‘We’ans,’ whose capital he translated as Pound Laundry. Theodore Bikel, “Digging the We’ans,” recorded on “BRAVO” in 1960.

page 2 note ³ A parallel approach to American coinage is “An Anonymous Gentleman of Distinction,” “American Numismatics Archaeology-Wise,” The Numismatic Reviews (1964): 66–68.

page 2 note ⁴ A sestertius of Trajan struck in 105–107 CE showing a figure in the center of a Corin thian temple would be the type of factual evidence footnoted to ‘prove’ the interpretation in this text. Hill, Philip V., The Monuments of Ancient Rome as Coin Types (London: Seaby, 1989), p. 9.Google Scholar

page 2 note ⁵ For the Great Seal of the United States, see http://www.greatseal.com.

page 3 note ¹ For an introduction to Islamic numismatics, see Bates, Michael, “Methodology in Islamic Numismatics,” a paper presented in Sicily in 1989 and reproduced in the electronic journal on Islamic numismatics, as-Sikka 5 (Winter, 2000). http://islamiccoins-group.50g.com/newslettermethodology.htm (20 December 2000). The website is an excellent site for anyone interested in Islamic numismatics. There are also regular, informative exchanges on islamic_coins@egroups.com.Google Scholar

page 3 note ² The problem of periodization is not unique to the study of Islamic numismatics. Virtually every field finds itself locked into dynastic dates, which often are not appropriate for the material studied. An example of a criticism of relying on a periodization determined by dynasties, but not applicable to the material studied, can be found in Michael Rogers’s review of Feza Gehervari’s “Islamic Pottery: A Comprehensive Study Based on the Barlow Collection” in Bibliotheca Orientalis 33 (1976): 90.

page 3 note ³ A forceful case for this argument is made by Vargyas, Peter, “Money in the Ancient Near East Before and After Coinage,” Albright News: The Newsletter of the W. F W. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research 5 (February 2000): 10–11.Google Scholar

page 3 note ⁴ There are a number of good introductions to the history of numismatics. Among the best is Grierson, Philip, Numismatics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)Google Scholar. A more popular approach, including excellent color plates of coins, is Williams, Jonathan, ed. Money—A History (London: The British Museum Press, 1997), in which Michael Bates contributes a chapter on Islamic coins.Google Scholar

page 3 note ⁵ Martin, Thomas R., “Why did the Greek Polis Originally Need Coins?,” Historia: Zeitschrift für alte Geschichte 45.3 (1996): 257–83.Google Scholar

page 4 note ¹ A volume devoted to the art of Central Asia and India, inadvertently, summed up the situation when the author ended with the advent of Islam, implying that the value of coinage as a source for art historical studies had also ended (“Coin Designs as Evidence of Art History,” Crossroads of Asia, eds. Elizabeth Errington and Joe Cribb with Maggie Claringbull [Cambridge: Ancient India and Iran Trust, 1992], p. 48). With few exceptions Islamic coins are not included or illustrated in books on Islamic calligraphy. For example, Richard Ettinghausen’s classic study does not include a single numismatic reference, as if coinage was any freer of error than inscriptions on buildings and pottery (Richard Ettinghausen, “Arabic Epigraphy: Communication or Symbolic Affirmation,” Near Eastern Numismatics, Iconography, Epigraphy and History: Studies in Honor of George C. Miles, ed. Dickran K. Kouymjian [Beirut: AUB Press, 1974], pp. 297–317). Two exceptions are Volow, Lisa, “Plaited Kufic on Samanid Epigraphic Pottery,” Ars Orientalis 6 (1966)Google Scholar and Welch, Anthony, Calligraphy in the Arts of the Muslim World (Austin: The Asia Society, Inc., 1979).Google Scholar

page 4 note ² Spengler, William F. and Sayles, Wayne G., Turkoman Figurai Bronze Coins and Their Iconography, 2 vols. (Lodi, WI: Clio’s Cabinet, 1993 and 1996)Google Scholar. There are sections on Ayyubid coinage with figures and animals in Balog, Paul, The Coinage of the Ayyubids (London: Royal Numismatic Society, 1980).Google Scholar

page 4 note ³ Sears, “Money,” Encyclopedia of the Qur’an (forthcoming).

page 5 note ¹ The best source for late Sasanian and early Muslim coinage from Iran and Iraq (the so called Arab-Sasanian coinage) is Sears, “A Monetary History of Iraq and Iran, ca. CE 500–750,” (Chicago: University of Chicago, unpublished Ph.D. diss., 1995). A shorter bibliography for Sasanian material can be found in Sears, , “Monetary Revision and Monetization in the Late Sasanian Empire,” Studia Iranica 21 (1999): 164–65.Google Scholar

page 5 note ² Walker, J. A., A Catalogue of the Arab-Sasanian Coins (London: British Museum, 1941), which will be superseded by Sears’s forthcoming study of this coinage. J. A. Walker, A Catalogue of the Muhammadan Coins in the British Museum, Volume II: A Catalogue of the Arab-Byzantine and Post-Reform Umayyad Coins (London: British Museum, 1956). An excellent introduction is Sears, “An Introduction to the Early Muslim Drahms,” as-Sikka 5 (2000). http://islamiccoingroup.50g.com/newsletter5/drahms.htm (8 January 2001).Google Scholar

page 5 note ³ The literature on pre-reformed Islamic coinage is extensive. In addition to the basic volumes by Walker cited above, a number of important articles are the following: Miles, George C., “Mihrab and ‘Anazah: A Study in Early Islamic Iconography,” Archaeologia Orientalia in Memoriam Ernst Herzfeld’(New York, 1952): 156–71Google Scholar; Miles, , “The Earliest Arab Gold Coinage,” American Numismatic Society Museum Notes 13 (1967): 205–39Google Scholar; and Bates, Mi chael L., “History, Geography and Numismatics in the First Century of Islamic Coinage,” Schweizerische Numismatische Rundschau/Revue Suisse de Numismatique 65 (1986): 231–61. Recent examples of the use of numismatic data for art historical studies include Nadia Jamil, “Caliph and Qutb: Poetry as a Source for Interpreting the Transformation of the Byzantine Cross on Steps on Umayyad Coinage,” Bayt al-Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam, ed. Jeremy Johns (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 11–58 and W. Luke Treadwell, “The ‘Orans’ Drachms of Bishr ibn Marwan and the Figural Coinage of the Early Marwanids,” ibid. pp. 223–70.Google Scholar

page 6 note ¹ Walker, 1956.

page 6 note ² An example of the use of numismatic data for art historical purposes, including references to the Qur’anic inscriptions is Grabar, Oleg, The Formation of Islamic Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2nd ed., 1987), especially pp. 58–60 and 89–94. Both the gold and silver coinage and the Dome of the Rock include Sura CXII “Say: He is God, the One; God the Eternal; He has not begotten nor was He begotten; and there is none comparable to Him.” One prominent inscription on the north gate of the Dome of the Rock and on the outer margin of the new style coinage is Sura IX: 33 (or LXI: 9), which is known as the Prophetic mission: “He it is who has sent His messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, so that he may cause it to prevail over all religion, however much the idolaters may hate it.” (Grabar, p. 60).Google Scholar

page 7 note ¹ The most detailed study available is Norman D. Nicol, “Early Abbásid Administration in the Central and Eastern Provinces, 132–218 A.H./750–833 A.D.” (Seattle: University of Washington, unpublished Ph.D. diss., 1979). Elizabeth Savage’s massive study of early Abbasid coin types, based upon the notes of Nicholas Lowick, which is available in manuscript copy at the British Museum and a few other institutions, has much of the raw data needed for such a systematic study of early coinage, Abbasid (Savage, ed. Early ‘Abbasid Coinage: A Type Corpus, 132–218 H/AD 750–833: A Posthumous Work by Nicholas Lowick [London: British Museum, Department of Coins and Medals typescript, 1999]).Google Scholar

page 7 note ² Savage, ed., Early ‘Abbasid Coinage. Two exceptions in terms of Umayyad annulet patterns are the De Shasho and Bates study of Wasit cited below and Marilyn Highbee Walker, “The Silver Coinage of the Independent Emirate of Muslim Spain: Hanging Annu let and Decoration Patterns” (unpublished presentation at the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting, 1997) in which there are no obvious associations of the annulet patterns with specific rulers or events.

page 7 note ³ For a fuller account of al-Mansur’s actions, see Bacharach, , “Al-Mansur and Umayyad Dirhams,” Yarmouk Journal 4 (1992): 7–17.Google Scholar

page 7 note ⁴ Bacharach, Yarmouk Journal, plates III and IV. For details on the method, see Bacharach, and Gordus, Adon A., “Studies on the Fineness of Silver Coins,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 11 (1968): 307–17.Google Scholar

page 8 note ¹ For the annulet pattern at Wasit, see De Shaso, A. S. and Bates, Michael L., “The Umayyad Governors of al-‘Iraq and the Changing Annulet Patterns of Their Dirhams,” The Nusmismatic Chronicle Seventh Series 14 (1974): 110–18. Their table is reproduced in Bacharach, Yarmouk Journal, plate IV.Google Scholar

page 8 note ² El-Hibri, Tayeb, “Coinage Reform under the “Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun,” JESHO 36 (1993): 59–83. I also drew extensively on the unpublished work of Bates who kindly shared with me his work in progress. He has made available his 1996 MESA paper, “The ‘Abbasid Coinage System, 833–946,” at the American Numismatic Society website http://www.amnumsoc.org/collections/abbasid.html (8 January 2001).Google Scholar

page 8 note ³ “God’s is the command first and last. On that day the Believers will rejoice in the victory granted by God.” Qur’an 30: 4–5. El-Hibri, “Coinage Reform,” p. 64.

page 9 note ¹ Miles, , Fatimid Coins in the Collection of the University Museum, Philadelphia and the American Numismatic Society (New York: American Numismatic Society, 1951). Norman D. Nicol’s forthcoming corpus of Fatimid coins will detail eight different coin types minted in the name of ‘Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi (297–322/920–934), the first Fatimid Imam-Caliph. I wish to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Nicol for sharing data with me.Google Scholar

page 9 note ² Bierman, , Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), especially “The Sign of Isma’ilism: Concentric Circles and Coins,” pp. 62–70. Bierman, “Inscribing the City: Fatimid Cairo,’Islamische Textilkunst des Mittelalters: Aktuelle Probleme (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung Riggisberger Berichte 5, 1997): 107.Google Scholar

page 10 note ¹ Messier, Ron, “The Almoravids: West African Gold and the Gold Currency of the Mediterranean Basin,” JESHO 17 (1974): 31–47.Google Scholar

page 11 note ¹ Balog, The Coinage of the Ayyubids is the basic reference for Ayyubid coinage.

page 11 note ² The issue of the purity of Saladin’s coinage and that of his immediate successors is discussed in Ehrenkreutz, Andrew S., “The Crisis of the Dinar in the Egypt of Saladin,” JAOS 76 (1956): 178–84, although it is now believed that those dinars with a lower gold content were Crusader imitations.Google Scholar

page 11 note ³ I place myself among those scholars who believe that the script used carries messages. Tabbaa, Yasser, “The Transformation of Arabic Writing: The Public Text,” Ars Orientalis 24(1994): 119–47.Google Scholar

page 11 note ⁴ For the numismatic evidence from the reign of al-Malik al-Kamil, see Balog, The Coinage of the Ayyubids, pp. 146–78, especially pp. 156–58 on the silver. A study drawing primarily on medieval texts is Rabie, Hassanein, The Financial System of Egypt, AH 564–741/AD 1169–1341 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972): 177–84.Google Scholar

page 11 note ⁵ Ehrenkreutz, , “The Fineness of Gold Coins in Egypt at the Time of the Crusades,” JAOS 74 (1964), pp. 162–66.Google Scholar

page 11 note ⁶ al-Maqrizi, , “Shudhur al-‘uqud fi dhikr al-nuqud” in al-Nuqud al-‘arabiyya wa ‘ilm al-nummiyya, ed. al-Kirmilli, Anastas Mari (Cairo: 1939), p. 60.Google Scholar

page 12 note ¹ Editorial, “Anthony $1 Issue Pattern Fits Historically,” Numismatic News (26 October 1999): 29.

page 13 note ¹ The official statement on the new issue can be found at the US Mint website at http://www.uwmint.gov/dollarcoin/winner.cfm (20 December 2000). Additional discussions can be found at the following: “Mint Offers Opportunity for Comment on Dollar,” Numismatic News (22 December 1998): 39; James C. Benfield, “Arts Panel Picks Two,” Numismatic News (5 January 2000); and David L. Ganz, “Get Rid of the Baby?,” Numismatic News (12 January 2000).

page 13 note ² “Eid: This stamp in the Holiday Celebrations series commemorates the two most important festivals—or eids—in the Islamic calendar. Eid al-Adha (celebrated on 6 March in 2001) marks the end of the hajj, the annual period designated for Muslims to make their pilgrimage to Mecca. Eid al-Fitr (celebrated on 16 December in 2001) celebrates the end of the Ramadan fast. Designed by calligrapher Mohamed Zakariya, the Eid stamp features the Arabic phrase “Eid mubarak’ in gold against a blue background, which is reminiscent of many great works of Islamic calligraphy. Eid mubarak translates as ‘blessed festival,’ and can be paraphrased, “May your religious holiday be blessed’” (http://www.usps.gov/images/stamps/2001/ [20 December 2000]).