Between 10, mints expand~ ed rapidly into practically every important town under Almoravid rule. Their first Andalusian mint was in Cordoba, followed shortly after by one in Seville. From the plentiful and well-struck series of dinars from that time, we gather that the Almoravid reign must have been a period of great prosperity for both Morocco and al-Andalus. Silver Nasrid Dirham of Muhammed I, Granada.Īlmoravid (1088-1145) coins saw an unexpected flowering. These were mostly fractions of a dinar of low quality gold, which indicates the deteriorating economic and political conditions of the time.įigure 1. Later on, some of the more powerful dynasties of the Taifa Kings (1030-1086), such as the Abbadids in Seville, placed their own names and titles on the coins. Many of them copied those of the Umayyads, including the names of former caliphs. After 1010, during the years of Umayyad decline, various local rulers began to mint their own coins. The names of subordinate officials in the government appeared below the obverse and reverse fields. The weight of the Andalusian Umayyad coin was less accurate than that of the classical eastern Umayyad dinar, and the dies were rather careless. In addition to the dinar, Abd al-Rahman III minted quarter-dinars following Aghlabid and Fatimid models. From then until the end of the Umayyad period in Spain, each caliph placed his name and titles on the reverse field along with the name of the mint and the year. The first new Umayyad gold coin appeared during the reign of Abd al-Rahman III in 929, after his break from Abbasid authority. No gold coins have reached us from the time of Abd al-Rahman I, most probably because he continued to use the same coins minted earlier. Those coins, which were issued regularly until 728, and the ones that followed until 732 are extremely rare. They were a copy of the half-dinar minted in Damascus in 719 and included the name of the mint in al- Andalus. The style and wording of the legends were copied from the North African Arab dinars struck the year before. In 720, the first purely Arab gold coins appeared. A new, handsome, bilingual dinar was struck in 716 bearing an Arabic legend on the obverse that read “Muhammad is the Apostle of God,” and in the margin around it, “This dinar was struck in al-Andalus in the year eight and ninety” its reverse bore a Latin legend.

A large star in the centre of the obverse field distinguished the Islamic Spanish coin from the Arab-Latin one. Their inscriptions are in Latin and, like the ones from North Africa they translate Muslim religious formulas, often in blundered adaptations of the shehada, and give the name of the mint and the date. The new coins were modelled in size and design after the Arab-Byzantine coins of North Africa struck by the Muslims shortly after the second conquest of Carthage in 699, and were similar to those already in use by the Byzantines. In contrast to earlier Arab conquests, where coins from previous regimes continued to be used, the Muslims minted their first gold coins when they entered Spain in 711. This is a short extract from the full article by Wijdan Ali PhD available here as a PDF file

The new coins were modelled in size and design after the Arab-Byzantine but their inscriptions were in Latin. Muslims minted their first gold coins when they entered Spain in 711CE.

Spanish copper coins