Constantine's Lesser Known Second Conversion

Heh... I was the high bidder for three days at $35... I was hopeful, but the coin shot up in the last milliseconds.

What really strikes me as odd is that this ruler was allowed to put a human face on his coins... really all fals of this dynasty sport some sort of human face. I guess it is a good demonstration of how liberal the Abbasids were becoming prior to the Mongol invasion. I was taught in high school history (and blindly accepted) that no Muslim dynasty ever tolerated the depiction of the human form out of fear of "idolatry". Probably one of the most striking examples was the Tabaristan drachm with the ruler's face replaced with a diamond.

While I have never purchased one I have long been intrigued by many of the Hellenistic type Islamic coins. The Islamic conquests were very much about replacing the Byzantines as imperial overlords. The Byzantines could no longer offer their subjects the benefits of 'belonging' to the empire. The new regime not only offered security from enemies but they taxed their subjects at a much more reasonable rate. The success of the Islamic Revolution was based on the premise (as all successful empires) that as long as you behave yourself, pay your taxes and swear allegiance you may do pretty much as you please.
Step out of line and we will burn down the whole city.
Local governments conducted business (and issued coinage) in Greek for over 100 years before Arabic replaced it.
The success of the new faith was also bolstered by one key policy. Christians and Jews were taxed at higher rates than Moslems. Conversion took about 2 minutes and over time (esp tax time) the numbers of converts grew immensely !

Najm al-Din Alpi bin Timurtash of Mardin
Mint: Mardin
Period: April 1152 - June 1177 AD (547 - 572 AH2)
Denomination: AE Dirham





One of these days I need to find one of these
They are after all .......... bronze !!!

Good history there, Sap and Rufus!

At this time, the only human depicting Arabic coins I have (that is more than 300 years old) are a pair of billon and copper "bukhar hudat" type drachms from central Asia, modeled on the Hunnic imitations of Sassanian coins. They are pretty abstract, and I have heard it argued that the design was written off as "extremely stylized writing". Likewise, the "bull and horseman" jitals from India rapidly shift to "writing-like" as soon as the native Hindu dynasties became unable to resist continual invasion campaigns.

That fals does puzzle me, though... I was under the impression that the Greek method of engraving coins was lost during the Roman third century crisis? The artistry certainly never rebounds in Rome, nor does it make a re-emergence in Persia, the Byzantine empire, or anywhere else. Najm must have comissioned a brilliant engraver to copy a Greek coin for that fals... Certainly the Byzantines never attempted to recover that art!

We are not the only ones to look at the coinage of Ancient Greece and marvel at the beauty.
A thousand years ago the reactions were much the same and obviously a few industrious potentates ordered the minions to get to work on it !!

In answer to Finn235 I believe that many of engravers were Nestorian Christians who originated from the city of Nisibin and who had kept the skills of dye engraving alive. The monastery there was renowned as a seat of classical learning.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...vers&f=false