Dinar of Al-Walid

Following the Prophet Muhammad’s example, the Islamic polity, or caliphate, was ruled by a political and religious leader titled the caliph, or “successor” to the Prophet. Muslims eventually developed a monarchic system for controlling the succession of caliphs. The four centuries of the early Islamic era witnessed the establishment—and unraveling—of the universal caliphates of the Umayyad (661–750) and Abbasid (750–1258) dynasties. The range of the objects in this case illustrates the Islamic empire’s rapid expansion and the assimilation of peoples and artistic practices. A hot-worked glass vessel and a green-glazed pottery cup demonstrate continuity with late Roman traditions, while the figural imagery and inscriptions on tenth-century polychrome pottery vessels from eastern Iran underscore the continued vitality of pre-Islamic cultural traditions there. The creation of coinage bearing only inscriptions at the turn of the seventh century signals the unprecedented stature that Arabic calligraphy acquired, as the script itself became a symbol of the faith. Arabic inscriptions decorating ceramics produced in Central Asia proclaim the owner’s literacy and Muslim identity. The Umayyad caliph ʿ Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) declared Arabic the administrative language of the Islamic polity and revolutionized the appearance of Islamic coinage, replacing figural imagery with epigraphy. The text included a variant on the Muslim profession of faith and verses from the Qurʾan to refute the Christian Trinity. The coins reflect the increasing centrality of the Qurʾan as a source of authority and Muslim identity, and the caliph’s imperial ambition of confronting the Christian empire of Byzantium.