A very intriguing and very rare coin of the Crusades. Silver dirham. Acre (Akka) mint. AD1251. Unlike other Islamic coins, this coin is inscribed not the Islamic kalimah and calendar but rather purely Christian inscriptions in Arabic. Also a prominent Cross is in the middle of the obverse. For type, this is a choice specimen with largely legible well struck characters within flan. Minted only in 1 year, they come also in cross-less and circled cross variants. It is not only a relic of the crusades but also a very rare instance where Arabic was used on such a strong Christian context in coinage. The inscriptions are: Obverse from top to bottom: “Allah Wahid Huwa” - One God He Is “al-Imam wahid" - One Faith "al-ma'mudiyya wahida" - One Baptism Reverse from top to bottom: “al-Ab wa'-Ibn” - The Father and the Son "wa'l-Ruh al-Qudus” -And the Holy Spirit "ilah Wahid” - One Divinity Given the Crusaders are trying to claim the holy land exclusively for Christian's, most crusade coins are usually inscribed in Latin except for the Bezant for trading purposes. Hence the use of Arabic which was deemed the language of Saracens the enemy of the Christians were very unusual and possibly due to an early attempt to proselytize the religion amongst the Arab speaking population in Acre. Special thanks to my friend Rafae L Suud for his kind inscription of the characters into clearer Arabic for readers.
Thanks.. it is quiet interesting to see something so Christian on a Islamic coin. The cross cultural and religious undertones of this coin is truly interesting to me
Fantastic coin!! I won one of these in the Christmas Leu sale a year ago. It was one of the coins stolen from their office.
There are other examples of Arabic script (or imitation of Arabic script) on Christian coins (medieval Sicily, Portugal, Hungary and of course Russia in the late 14th and 15th centuries). The reason is very profane and goes back to a famous adage in economics "anybody can create money, the problem is to get it accepted". People were used to certain designs on coins. They knew these coins and they trusted them, even if they could not read the legends. Diverting from the trusted design was commercially risky. Hence, the crusaders continued Arabic script out of economic necessity (and somtimes against the protest of the clergy). There are also examples of Latin on Islamic coins. Hence, the early Muslim dynasties copied Latin Byzantine coins and even the Muslim conquerers of Spain put Latin text on their first gold coinage issued in AD 711.
It make sense.. same as the Byzantine bezants that used corrupted Arabic to make it acceptable to trade. Arabic was also used for Christian kingdoms like Georgia and Hulagu khanates but that was because their overlords were Muslims and hence the need for Arabic texts. The crusader states on the other hand was the reigning overlords hence they have very right to impose Latin. But practical reasons dictate otherwise albeit still a need for strong Christian messages despite the practical use of scripts..
A Medieval coin for use in the Holy Land with Arabic writing but with a Christion inscription is not at all bizarre. Recall that much of this region still had an indigenous Christian Arabic speaking population. Even today there are regions of Palestine and Lebanon, even Syria, which have a significant indigenous Christian population. For the Medieval Arabic speaking Christian population these coins may not have been so much an attempt to proselytize Muslims as an attempt to get that local Christian population to see the Franks as coreligionist liberators.
Wouldn't it be better to call it a thoroughly Arab Christian coin? There were Arab Christians in the Eastern Levant during the crusades and at the end of the Crusader States many were living in or around the metropolis of Acre or Tripoli. There were even Bedouin allies to the crusaders in the 13th century.
We could but the design and style bears closer resemblance to existing Islamic styled dirhams than the other way round.
Would we call the early Islamic copies after the Byzantine follii "Islamic Christian" coins? Or the Danishmendid coinage with Greek legends "Islamic Christian" coins? There is no identity between script and religion (and even less of an identity between ethnicity and religion) in the Levant area up until at least the Ottoman times. Arab script does not predetermine Islam as Greek script does not predetermine Christianity. At least not in this era.
Very cool OP coin! I always enjoy seeing coins that fuse 2 seemingly distinct cultures. No culture exists in a vacuum, and often the most interesting stuff happens where cultures are forced to interact with each other on a daily basis. Side note: Another example of such fusion is the "Arab-Sasanian" coinage of the earliest Islamic rulers of Persia, which copies Sasanian designs and often features inscriptions in both Arabic and in Pahlavi (Middle Persian) script. Of course, Arabic and Pahlavi look very similar (at least until you try to actually read them), so the fusion isn't as obvious on first glance.
