Middle Eastern Coins

Middle Eastern Coins

Coins

These coins are estimated to be from Mecca around the 7th century. When Islam emerged around 600 CE, Mecca relied on their neighboring regions for coinage. When Muslim conquests in the 7th century expanded, currency circulation began to occur in the Middle East. The regular cash transactions to the Central Treasury in Medina due to the migration of Muslims from Arabia allowed the economy to continue to grow, giving way for standard monetary units. Coins of this era had Islamic inscriptions on them such as the holy city of "Mecca" and "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah," a core verse in Islam.

Check out the High Library for more information. 

Check out sacred texts that relate to the artifact.

• Hadith 1:804
• Hadith 2:486

Sources:
Munro-Hay S. C. H., author, "The Coinage of Shabwa (Hadhramawt), and Other Ancient South Arabian Coinage in the National Museum, Aden," (1991): accessed June 1, 2018, JSTOR Journals, EBSCOhost 

Elizabethtown College (Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, USA)

Dr. William V. Puffenberger

Elizabethtown College retains all intellectual property rights to this image including, but not limited to, digital rights and any derivative works. For permission for reproduction, please contact the College’s Administrative Assistant for Humanities.

Nine ancient Middle Eastern coins with Arabic writing. Three of the coins are large, three are medium sized, and the last three are small. All of the coins are eroded, making the Arabic impossible to read.

Diameters: 0.75 in (1.9 cm), 0.5 in (1.3 cm), 0.25 in (0.6 cm)

Arabic

Physical Object

Puffenberger #34

Saudi Arabia