Islamic numismatics

Following on from the exhibition "Un trésor en or : Le dinar dans tous ses états" held by the Institut du Monde Arabe, we present an important sale of Islamic numismatics from a private French collection built up over the last fifty years. Currency, as an instrument of transaction, is a tool of power. It legitimizes an authority and asserts an identity over a territory. The Arab-Muslim world, for example, has seen a multitude of mints from the time of the fifth Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik in the 7th century to the present day. He promulgated Arabic as the language of administration and, unlike ancient coins, introduced coins devoid of figurative representations to promote the religion of the book. Since then, emirs, sultans, shahs and emperors have been minting their own coins from the Maghreb to India. In this respect, the use of images was just as important for the affirmation of these territorial entities, which today bear witness to the full diversity of the Islamic world. Dinars are veritable historical treasures, while at the same time displaying an extreme diversity of calligraphic styles, making them objects of the highest artistic value, even to the point of being worn in the richest finery from the Maghreb to Central Asia. Department director and specialist : Anne-Sophie Joncoux Pilorget asjoncoux@millon.com T. + 33 (0)1 47 27 76 71