ADMIN'ISTRATIONThe replacement of the Arab-Sasanian coinage with a new Arab-
Islamic coinage was part of the Marwani restoration in Iraq following
the second civil war (Ar. (itna). New dirhams bearing only Arabic
legends, generally without images and at first anonymous, began to
be struck in 695 or 696 (see fig. 2).67 This change signified an increasing
awareness of the importance of numismatic iconography by the Islamic
regime and may have been a reaction to the way the opposition had
made the marginal legends on the Arab-Sasanian coins more and more
Islamic in content during the second (itna. At least the linguistic aspect
of the coinage reform was related to the change in the tax records
from the Persian language to the Arabic under al-I;Iajjaj at about the
same time. All that Baladhuri says, however, is that the Sasanian
dirhams differed in weight, and because Muslims needed a standard
weight in order to pay the alms tax (Ar. zakat), a new Arab dirham
was created with the weight set at seven-tenths of a mithqal.^68 At a
standard mint weight of 2.97 grams, these coins weighed only three-
quarters of a baghlt or Arab-Sasanian dirham, and it took twenty of
them to equal a dinar in value.^69 Like Ziyad before him, al-I;Iajjaj also
required that taxes be paid in the older, heavier Khusrawi dirhams,
and Walker suggested that this was in order to melt them down for
the new coins.70
The Islamic coinage reform provides a remarkable example of con-
tinuity as a result of change. Apart from the bismillah that was put
on the Arab-Sasanian coins from the beginning, the earliest Islamizing
changes coincided with the introduction of Sasanian administrative
institutions under Ziyad, as we shall see, and mark the first real aware-
ness of the significance of numismatic iconography on the part of the
Islamic regime. These changes in the introduction of Hijri dates and
the names of Commanders of the Faithful or governors imply at the
same time the transmission of the reason for putting the name of the
ruler and the use of a meaningful date on coins to Muslim Arabs. As
67 F. Baethgen, "Fragmente syrischer und arabischer Historiker," AKM 8 (1884),35;
Chronicon ad Annum Domini 846 Pertinens, Chronica Minora JI, CSCO, Scr. Syri, 3
(Louvain, 1955),232; Scr. Syri,4 (Louvain, 1955), 176; Dlnawari, Akhbiir at-#wiil,
p. 322; Elias of Nasibin, Opus Chronologicum, I, CSCO, Scr. Syri, 21 (Louvain, 1954),
152-53; Scr. Syri, 23 (Louvain, 1954), 73; Miles, "Dirham," p. 319; idem, "The
Iconography of Umayyad Coinage," Ars Orientalis 3 (1959),212; Tabari, Ta'r'ikh, n,
939; Walker, Arab-Sassanian Coins, p. xxv. Walker, followed by Miles, fixes the date
for the reform of the dirham at A.H. 79/A.D. 698-99.
68 Baladhuri, Futu~, pp. 465-66; Mawardi, A~kiim as-su#iiniyya, p. 77.
69 Miles, "Dirham," p. 319; Walker, Arab-Sassanian Coins, pp. cxlvii-ix.
70 Mawardi, A~kiim as-su#iiniyya, p. 77; Walker Arab-Sassanian Coins, p. cxlix.