Middle Eastern Coins

The earliest-known Middle Eastern coins were introduced by the Persian Empire in 6th century B.C. Most 6th-century Persian coins were melted down and replaced during Alexander the Great's conquest. Currency in the Middle East was dominated by first the Greeks, then later the Byzantine Empire. It took until the end of the 7th century A.D. for the Middle East to escape Byzantium's influence, when the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik created his own monetary system.

Abd al-Malik broke with Byzantine currency as a result of iconoclasm: being Muslim, the increasing usage of Christian iconography caused conflict. Many of the clerics of the time felt that the use of religious icons on something mundane like currency went against their religion, so Abd al-Malik opted for coins without images, using only inscriptions. The heavy use of legends with very limited types continues to trend in Middle Eastern coins today.

Modern-era Middle Eastern coins come in a diverse variety of shapes and metals. Some coins, such as the Jordanian half dinar, are bimetallic. Others show an impressive amount of history for one coin, like the British-made Palestinian coins minted after World War I. These coins had to be legible to three different groups of people in the same region while also avoiding offense. The resulting coins have their legends displayed in Arabic, Hebrew, and English and display their date of issue in both Gregorian and Islamic calendar dates.

Quick Facts

• The dinar is a Middle Eastern unit of currency that has survived to the present day. It originated from the denarius, an ancient Roman coin
• An Umayyad gold dinar from the early 8th century A.D. sold at auction for just over $6,000,000 in 2011, the third-highest record sale among all coins
• Many coins minted by the Ottoman Turks display the date of issue in the Islamic calendar and regnal year