A Coin Of One Of The Great Islamic Empires

I finally acquired a type I've long sought after, the early Islamic Standing Caliph coin. Not that these are particularly rare (I'd say more like scarce), I had been holding out for one that I would be satisfied with. Even with its edge issues, it is better than most I've seen offered (it has a clear caliph), and a lot cheaper than the ones that were more preserved than my coin. The Byzantine influences are very apparent in these very early Islamic types, but Christian symbols had to be done away with, of course (The standing Caliph type was struck before the coinage reform enacted by Caliph Abd al-Malik in the 690s that banned any iconographic representation on Islamic coins.

Under Abd al-Malik, Umayyad Caliphate
AE fals
Obv: Arabic legends, Caliph standing facing with hand on pommel of sword in sheath
Rev: Arabic legends, transformed cross on steps
Mint: Halab (Aleppo; struck 693-697 AD)
Ref: Album 112; SICA I 615-24
(not sure what the legends say but its definitely something I will be researching)



History:

The longest and most destructive of the Roman-Persian Wars had just concluded in 628. The final war between these two superpowers had seen both on the verge of collapse at the hands of the other. But peace was achieved with the status quo maintained, and the two empires were left to clean-up and rebuild. The True Cross had just been returned to its home in Jerusalem. It was hoped that normalcy would return to the regions devastated by the fighting.

During the war, a merchant in Arabia had been opened to the revelations of God, and rapidly gained followers among the primarily pagan Arabs. Muhammad became the first person to unite the Arabs in Arabia, under the new religion of Islam. His death resulted in the Ridda Wars, the civil war between those who steadfastly adhered to Islam, and those Arabs that had converted back to their old beliefs.

With all of Arabia back under the rule of Islam, the Arabs mobilized, and in the late 620s and early 630s began their invasions of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanian Persian Empire, both still weakened from the recent conflict. Lack of resources and the need to keep the Muslims united against enemies were the primary reasons for the invasions. The Romans quickly lost Syria, Palestine, and Egypt; regions that had been under their control for over six centuries and which they would never again recover. The Sassanians fared even worse, also quickly losing territory after territory, until their empire was completely conquered.

The Muslims now had their own empire, the Rashidun Caliphate, which was lead by the original, close companions of the Prophet. Soon, in 661, this was supplanted by the Umayyad Caliphate, which proved to be unpopular for its elitist Arab-centric policies that marginalized recent non-Arab converts to Islam, and the Umayyads' rule over the caliphate offended those Muslims that believed the Ummah (the Islamic community) should be led by members of the Prophet Muhammad's family. By the time of the Abbasid Revolution, which toppled the Umayyads in 750, the Islamic caliphate stretched from Spain in the west to the borders with China and India in the east.