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Message:: [QUOTE="Severus Alexander, post: 2665815, member: 84744"]Unlike Chinese cash, however, it's actually feasible to learn to read the Arabic script, not that I've done so yet.  A fun challenge, though! Here's a very early reform coin under Abd al-Malik (685-705), from AH 79 (698-99), the earliest date that is reasonably obtainable:[ATTACH=full]592373[/ATTACH] This set the standard for much of the Islamic coinage to follow.  I think it's interesting that the religious prohibition on images only made it to the coins some 70 years after Muhammad's death.  I also find the legends interesting:Obv., centre: "There is no God but Allah. He is Alone. No partner to Him." Around: "In the name of Allah this dirhem was minted in Basra in the year nine and seventy."   Rev. centre: "Allah is One. Allah is the Eternal. He did not beget and He was not begotten, and there was not to Him equal a single one."Around: "Mohammed is the messenger of Allah. He sent him with the Guidance and a religion of the truth in order that he might cause it to be bright over the (already existing) religion, all of it, although polytheists disliked (this)." That's a lot of religion on a small piece of metal![/QUOTE]