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Pre-reform issues, Arab-Sasanian. Ubaydallah b. Ziyad. AH 54-64 / AD 673-683. AR Drachm (32.6mm, 4.05 g, 2h). DŠT (Dasht Maysan) mint. Dated AH 59 (AD 678/9). Obverse margin: — / li-ayyatan Musa (or li-Allah Musa / — / —. Unpublished. Old ink graffiti in first quadrant of reverse margin. EF. Of the highest rarity, apparently unpublished and believed unique.
Because it is written in unpointed Kufic, the obverse marginal legend on this remarkable coin is ambiguous. It can be read either as ‘for a sign for Moses’ or ‘for the God of Moses,’ and while neither of these exact phrases appears to occur in the Qur’an, it is possible to find very close parallels for both. Ilahu Musa, ‘the God of Moses’, is found inter alia in Qur’an 20:88. Li-ayyatan occurs some twenty times in the Qur’an, often in a phrase along the lines of ‘as a sign for those who believe,’ and the related form occurs in the phrase arsuluna Musa bi-ayyatuna, ‘We sent Moses with Our signs’, in Qur’an 14:5.
The mint-signature on this coin is written DŠT’, with an additional stroke after the T. It is thought that DŠT’, DŠT and DŠ all denote the same place, and all three variants are known for most years of ‘Ubaydallah’s governorship. DŠ is found on coins with dates for the five years between AH 57-61 inclusive, while DŠT and DŠT’ are known for AH 56 and AH 61-64. The present coin appears to be dated AH 59, and it is surprising that it should have the DŠT’ spelling at a time when DŠ appears to have been the preferred version, but the unit is clearly ‘9’ and the decade can hardly be anything other than ‘50’. It is thought that DŠT and its variants denote a place-name beginning with the element Dasht, and Dasht Maysan, which is also an Umayyad post-Reform dirham mint, is regarded as the most likely possibility.
The question of why the phrase ‘for the God of Moses’ or ‘as a sign for Moses’ should have been added to a drachm of ‘Ubaydallah b. Ziyad, issued at Dasht Maysan in the year AH 59, is a puzzling one. The phrase is not otherwise used on the Arab-Sasanian coinage, and there is nothing obvious in the career of ‘Ubaydallah himself or in the history of southern Iraq which might suggest a possible explanation. Nevertheless, comparison with other Arab-Sasanian drachms suggests two possible explanations. Governors might add their own personal identifying phrases to the marginal legends. These can allude directly to the governor’s name, such as the drachms of al-Hakam b. Abi al-‘As with the legend bismillah rabbi al-hukm (this last word echoing the name of al-Hakam), or, like the drachms issued by ‘Atiya b. al-Aswad with bismillah wali al-amr in the margin, be specific to that particular governor but without reference to his personal name. But it seems impossible to interpret li-Allah Musa in this way, given that ‘Ubaydallah b. Ziyad’s other drachms bear the standard bismillah in the margin.
More promising, therefore, is the alternative possibility: that non-standard legends were added for religious reasons. Some later governors adopted the shahada rather than the shorter bismillah (apparently from personal choice rather than to make an explicit religious or political statement), while drachms issued by Qatari b. al-Fuja‘a bear the Kharijite slogan la hukm illa lillah. On the face of it, the phrase ‘For the God of Moses’ seems better understood along these lines, even though it is not possible to suggest why it should have been used at this mint and in this year only. It is tempting, if highly speculative, to wonder whether the reference to Moses might be somehow connected to the building work undertaken in Jerusalem during the caliphate of Mu‘awiya. But while the reasons for its issue remain a fascinating enigma, this coin nevertheless has the distinction of being the earliest Islamic coin to bear the name of Moses, and as such is a piece of the greatest rarity, importance, and historical interest.
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