![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Before the implementation of a monetary system based on silver coins (dirhams), an ephemeral multi-metallic coinage was in effect in al-Andalus. The first dinars struck in the Iberian peninsula have been traditionally linked to military progress. Some of the copper coins (fulūs) were minted at the moment of the conquest and should be considered a tool in the jund’s organization. These coins and seals are almost the only traces of the military occupation and of the first deployments of Arab troops in the Iberian peninsula. Consequently, numismatic study is crucial for an understanding of the conquest of al-Andalus.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Sébastien Gasc is doctor in Medieval Studies of the university of Paris IV Sorbonne and a former member of the École des Hautes Études Hispaniques et Ibériques (Casa de Velázquez, Madrid). He is specialist in Andalusi Numismatics. His research focuses on archaeological coins hoards to study the end of Visigothic Kingdom, the Islamic conquest of Iberian Peninsula, the Umayyad’s state construction and affirmation and the coinage under the taifas kingdoms.
Notes
1 Numismatics has been an important part of the study of al-Andalus since the nineteenth century, with the publication of classic references such as Delgado y Hernández’s Estudios de Numismática, Codera y Zaidín’s Tratado de Numismática, and Vives y Escudero’s Monedas de las dinastías. In the middle of the twentieth century, this interest was confirmed by the publication of George C. Miles’s catalogue, Coinage. Some years later, a publication by John Walker was devoted to the transitional and post-reform coinage under the Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus (A Catalogue). Since the 1990s, Andalusi numismatics research has been marked by a new dynamic that is evidenced by the organization of such conferences as the four meetings whose proceedings Jarique published between 1988 and 2001, and a colloquium in Madrid in 2014 dedicated to western Islamic coins during the first centuries of Hegira, of which the proceedings were published in 2015 (ed. Sénac and Gasc, Monnaies du haut Moyen Âge).
2 Manzano Moreno, Conquistadores, 55–70; Chalmeta Gendrón, Invasión, 234–37.
3 García Sanjuán, La conquista islámica, 152–67.
4 The exhibition 711: Arqueología e historia entre dos mundos, organized by the Museo Arqueólogico Regional and the Real Academia de la Historia (December 2011–April 2012), offered a survey of the current state of research on the conquest. Numismatic data was presented in the exhibition catalogue by Alberto Canto García (“Las monedas”). See also Frochoso Sánchez, “Las acuñaciones”; “El símbolo,” on sources related to the Islamic conquests in the West.
5 In addition to the Andalusi numismatic works already mentioned, the transitional gold coinage has been the subject of various publications by Anna María Balaguer Prunes (Las emisiones transicionales; “Nuevos datos”; “Las emisiones”). More recently, new studies have been published about gold coins issued in al-Andalus and Ifrīqiya (Ariza Armada, “Los dinares bilingües”; Jonson, “The Earliest Islamic Copper Coinage”).
6 Bates, “The Coinage of Spain,” 276. According to Balaguer Prunes, gold coinage could have begun under Ṭāriq’s authority (Las emisiones transicionales, 17). However, minting dates coincide with Mūsā’s presence, both in al-Andalus and in Ifrīqiya; the monetary administration likely traveled with him.
7 The monetary reform has been the subject of various studies, including essential works by Grierson (“The Monetary Reform”) and Miles (“The Earliest Arab Gold Coinage”). Dating the beginning of this coinage revision remains difficult because transitional types were struck before the minting of reformed coins. Nevertheless, the first reformed dinar is dated 77H (696–697), the first dirham 79H (698–699). Thus, the reform took place with the politics of Arabization and Islamization of the caliphal government. The new coinage testifies, through the Arabic legends, to the “religious ideology of the new Islamic State” (Micheau, Les débuts de l’Islam, 193).
8 Walker, A Catalogue, XXXIX–XL: “In style, fabric and weight they maintain the standard form of the coinage which was current in the western part of the Byzantine Empire previous to the advent in North Africa of the Muslim forces.” On the evolution of African coinage, see Fenina, “L’arabisation du monnayage.”
9 A recent study has shown that another mention on a seal could be earlier (Sénac and Ibrahim, Los precintos, 30).
10 The most complete catalogue referencing Arab-Byzantine coinage is the work by Walker (A Catalogue).
11 Chronica Muzarabica, 35. Delgado y Hernández, Estudios de numismática, 82: “Llevan, generalmente, figurada una estrella común en todas las monedas de España de este tiempo, que significa Esperus, Lucero de la tarde.” Delgado y Hernández stated that the star was a representation of Esperus, the evening star (Estudios de numismática, 82).
12 El-Khadem, “Dinar of Abdul Malik,” 29–36.
13 Several recent Works examine the iconography of Andalusi dinars, especially this astral symbol: Ariza Armada, “Aniconismo e iconografía”; Gasc, “L’iconographie”; Segovia Sopo, “La numismática”; Frochoso Sánchez, “El símbolo de la estrella.” According to Ariza Armada, the star was not only a geographical mark but also a religious symbol, a representation of heaven (“Los dinars bilingües,” 147–53).
14 The iconography is in all likelihood associated with the province name; the star is indeed depicted on the same face as the province’s name on transitional dinars. In the case of type XVII fulūs, it appears on the field of the reverse, whereas the obverse field is reserved for the mention of “al-Andalus.”
15 For an exhaustive study of Visigothic coins, see Pliego Vázquez, La moneda visigoda.
16 Half and third dinars were indeed minted and characterized by lower weight and diameter.
17 The reformed dinars are registered in al-Andalus for the years 102H–106H, 108H–110H, 114H, 115H, 120H and 127H. The catalogue of dinars has recently been completed by the publications about two issues of 105H (Ibrahim, “an al-Andalus dinar”) and of 109H (Ibrahim, “al-Andalus dinar”).
18 Bates, for example, claims that “Spain is unique among the countries conquered by the Arabs in the first century of Islam in that its coinage owes nothing to the preceding coinage of the territory.” (“The Coinage of Spain,” 271).
19 Mateu y Llopis, La moneda española, 104.
20 “In July of the same year, the emirs and many Arabs gathered and proffered their right hand to Mu‘āwiya. Then an order went out that he should be proclaimed king in all the villages and cities of his dominion and that they should make acclamations and invocations to him. He also minted gold and silver, but it was not accepted, because it had no cross on it” (Palmer, The Seventh Century, 32). In fact, the transitional gold and silver coinage does not end until the reform of ‘Abd al-Malik.
21 Recent discoveries in Catalonia have unearthed a potential silver coinage (Crusafont I Sabater et al., “La sèrie de plata”), integrated in a complex monetary system that also included a local copper coinage (Crusafont I Sabater, El sistema monetario). But these monetary issues were sporadic and limited. It is commonly admitted that the Visigothic kingdom’s coinage was almost exclusively based upon tremissis (gold coins).
22 Doménech Belda refers to “Monedas para la conquista” (Dinares, dirhames y feluses, 103), and Canto García also chose this term in an article on the first coinage in al-Andalus (“Las monedas”).
23 Chalmeta Gendrón, Invasión, 237.
24 Djaït, “L’Afrique árabe,” 602.
25 Balaguer Prunes, Las emisiones transicionales, 26.
26 Before this date, Seville was the province’s capital and some of the first transitional coins were probably struck in this city. See Walker, A Catalogue, LXXII: “In the case of the Arab-Byzantine gold coins of Spain, the mint would probably be either Seville (Ishbīliya) or Toledo (Ṭulaiṭula).”
27 Sauvaire, Matériaux, 117.
28 Some recent works present the fals as a coin adhering to some rules of exchange in the Islamic monetary system. Zarazir, for instance, maintains that “the exchange rate of the fals that dated back to the Umayyad period was officially defined and fixed.” (“The Exchange Rate,” 177).
29 Frochoso Sánchez, “Los feluses del periodo”; Los feluses de al-Andalus.
30 On the bilingual fulūs in Ifrīqiya, see Jonson, “The Earliest Islamic Copper Coins.”
31 Frochoso Sánchez, Los feluses de al-Andalus, 21–23 and 41–43.
32 Frochoso Sánchez, Los feluses de al-Andalus, 45–48 (type XIX-b to type XIX-f).
33 Udovitch, “Fals,” 769. Nevertheless, an evolution is evident from the Byzantine imitations of Arabic issues (Foss, Arab-Byzantine Coins).
34 Despite the difficulty of stratigraphic context analysis in a city where the ground was significantly altered by later reorganization, it could be contended that copper coins were found in archeological layers considered to be “proto-Islamic.” See Gasc, “Les fulūs.”
35 The fulūs are generally categorized by their probable date of issue and assigned to the key periods of Andalusi history. According to Frochoso Sánchez, the fulūs struck under the Umayyad Emirate are finer than the earlier coins and characterized by a more specific epigraphy (Los feluses, 11).
36 Frochoso Sánchez, Los feluses de al-Andalus, 24 and 28–29. The type III fulūs bear the same religious legends as type II ones but are adorned with a hexagram on the obverse and a wavy line on the reverse. The type IX fulūs are characterized by the legend “in the name of God” (bismi Allāh) on the obverse.
37 Frochoso Sánchez, Los feluses de al-Andalus, 52; Walker, A Catalogue, XCV. A new approach proposes to define a weight system applied to the fulūs based on carob seed (Rebière, “Note sur le système”).
38 Walker, A Catalogue, XLIV; Manzano Moreno, “Moneda y articulación”; Conquistadores, emires, 69.
39 Barceló, “Sobre algunos fulus”; Barceló, Colino, and Retamero, “Nueve ejemplares más.”
40 Canto García, “Al-Andalus: Dinero,” 72–3; Casal García, Martín Escudero, and Canto García, “El arrabal de Saqunda,” 853:
En contra de la hipótesis planteada por E. Manzano de que los feluses sirven como pago al ejército, se debe argumentar que nada parecido a un “tesoro” de feluses ha aparecido en Saqunda o en otros lugares de al-Andalus, por lo menos en las magnitudes y el volumen necesario para tener tal consideración. La masa de feluses que deberían estar en circulación, y, por lógica, ocultados (al igual que se hará con la plata en época posterior) y, por lo tanto, recuperados, aunque fuera de forma aleatoria, debería estar en proporción con la tasa de cambio plata/cobre. Así, el rango de ocultamientos de centenares de dírhams equivaldría a miles de feluses al cambio y el testimonio arqueológico no lo corrobora.
41 Spellberg, “The Umayyad North,” 127.
42 See Barceló, “Sobre algunos fulus,” 40–1.
43 At least one of the dinars found in Narbonensis, in Ruscino (Château-Roussillon, Perpignan) was a bilingual dinar struck in Ifrīqiya; the description made at the find suggests that it is an African bilingual coin issued in 97H (715–716 CE) or 99H (717–718 CE) (Rébé, Raynaud, and Sénac, eds., Le premier MoyenÂge, 290). On the same site, five fulūs and forty-three seals mentioning sharing of the spoils in Narbonne have been found (Marichal and Sénac, “Ruscino”; Sénac and Ibrahim, Los precintos, 21–5). Another finding in Narbonensis involves a bilingual coin, at the time considered to be an African fals (Lacam, Les Sarrazins, 71) or, more recently, a golden coin having lost the gold plating (Parvérie, “Corpus des monnaies,” 80).
44 The most complete work about transitional dinars, by Balaguer Prunes, does not propose a global vision of the findings. Recent findings complete the data (). See Regueras Grande, and Rodríguez Casanova, “Triente de Sisebuto”; Gonzalez García and Martínez Chico, “Cuatro hallazgos”.
45 An overview of the findings has been mapped in García Lerga, “La moneda emiral,” 1127.
46 The pact was translated into French and published by Évariste Lévi-Provençal in Histoire, 32–3. Since then, the area has been identified by archaeological data (Gutiérrez Lloret, “La materialidad”). For more information about the coin findings in this region, see Doménech Belda and Gutiérrez Lloret, “Las monedas.”
47 For an overview of the areas subjected to pacts, see Chalmeta Gendrón, Invasión, 205.
48 Cited in María José Viguera Molins, Aragón, 39.
49 Among the findings in Narbonensis, the type XVII fulūs seem to represent proportionately higher numbers than other regions south of the Pyrenees. According to the relative chronology described above, these coins could coincide with the expedition by the wālī al-Samḥ b. Malik.
50 Sénac et al., “Note”; Sénac et al., “Nouveaux vestiges”; Parvérie, “D’Arbûnah.”
51 Sénac et al., “Note,” 230.
52 For more details about the routes and the chronology of campaigns of Tariq and Mūsā, see Chalmeta Gendrón, Invasión, 123–250, especially the map on page 131.
53 Chalmeta Gendrón, “Économie,” 53.
54 Taking into consideration the context of findings and relying on an epigraphic study, the type XIII fulūs have been dated from the end of the governors’ period to the beginning of the Umayyad Emirate. Casal García, Martín Escudero, and Canto García, “El arrabal de Saqunda,” 858–60.
55 The ajnād sent by the caliph were up against Ceuta when the general Balj b. Bishr asked for help. The wālī of al-Andalus allowed him and his army to cross the strait. After their victories against the revolting Berber troops in the Iberian peninsula, the Syrian ajnād remained in the province, contrary to the terms of the deal they had made with the Andalusi governor. The dates of the oriental dirhams hoarded in al-Andalus correspond to the movement of these troops, and these treasuries were arguably buried by them around the decade of the 740s. Martín Escudero, El tesoro de Baena, 75.
56 See Manzano Moreno, “El asentamiento.”
57 According to Barceló, the Umayyad coinage in al-Andalus does not indicate a will to impose it in a central place in a local economy, but rather an increase in minting for fiscal reasons (El sol, 148).
58 Unlike the Visigoths, the Franks chose to begin a silver coinage appearing nearly simultaneously in the name of the king Childéric II (662–675), of the Mayor of the Palace in Neustria, Ebroïn (659–673 and 675–681), and of the Clermont bishop Avitus II (676–691). These denarii became the base of Western coinage; from the middle of the eighth century, silver was almost the only metal to be minted and the solidus was exclusively a theoretical value (Prou, Catalogue, CVI).