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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Pellinore, post: 2312564, member: 74834&quot;]In the first place, the strictest prohibition concerns the depicting of God. After that, Mohammed and other prophets and holy figures (shahs and caliphs) are never to be depicted. And God IS never depicted. Mohammed only in the rarest occasions. I don&#039;t know if Saladin is depicted on this coin, it could well be just a horseman.</p><p><br /></p><p>But about objects and animals currents differ. Especially Sunni believers are not so strict. But there have been waves of stricter and lesser prohibition. Remember, other faiths have comparable taboos. In the Byzantine world, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Christianity" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Christianity" rel="nofollow">iconoclasm was rife</a> in the 8th and 9th century. Protestants demolished Catholic statues in the 16th. Those wars of the mind cost many lives, and they were not fought for nothing. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeldenstorm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeldenstorm" rel="nofollow">Beeldenstorm in the Netherlands (about 1566)</a> was about oppression, and about misappropriation of riches by the Catholic Church, when the poor received nothing.</p><p><br /></p><p>There are many Islamic coins depicting objects, animals or persons. The first Islamic coins were imitations of Byzantine or Sassanid coins with portraits, crosses and fire altars. After the reform of Islamic coinage (end of the 7th century AD) the strictly Arab text-only silver and gold coins were installed. But on the copper coins often animals were depicted. In the periphery of the Islamic countries pictorial imitations were still struck in the 10th century. The percentage of pictorial coins in the early stages of Islam, say, between 700 AD and 1000 AD, was maybe 5 %.</p><p>Meanwhile, a trend of strict banning of pictures won in Islam, as you may <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam" rel="nofollow">study here in Wikipedia</a>, the article called <i>Aniconism</i>.</p><p><br /></p><p>But some peoples like the Turkish overlords of Asia Minor, the Zengids and Artuqids, and also Saladin&#039;s Ayyubids, were not so strict and commissioned large bronze coins of which a part was pictorial, often astrologically influenced. The Seljuqs issued coins with a lion, maybe also with an astrological background. Horsemen are not unusual, and in Afghanistan many different bronze coins with animals were issued.</p><p><br /></p><p>And then there are modern coins, with many, many heads of state depicted.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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