0021-1818_islam_98-1-2-i-259

Early Versions of the shahāda 67
Figure 2: Arab-Byzantine solidi of Heraclius, Heraclius Constantine and Heraclonas attributed
to Damascus, 72 H. Sylloge of the Islamic Coins in the Ashmolean Museum 1, 607. Reproduced
with the permission of the Visitors of the Ashmolean Museum.
Constantinople across the bottom. The caliph removed some symbols such as the
cross but retained the general layout so that the coins would be accepted in the
market. For our purposes, the marginal inscription written in Arabic on the reverse
in a clockwise direction is important. It reads bismi llahi la ilaha illa llahu
wahdahu muhammadun rasulu llah, “In the name of God, There is no deity except
God, He alone, Muhammad is the Messenger of God.
It differs from the other two contemporary versions of the “affirmation of
faith” in a few ways. The opening phrase has been reduced to bismi llahi, “In the
name of God”. This may reflect a simple continuation of the same phrase which
first appeared on the earliest Arab-Sasanian silver coinage or the lack of space on
a coin to write the full basmala. The more important difference is that in contrast
to the Syrian and Egyptian versions, the Eastern text does not include the phrase
la sharika lahu, “He has no partner”. To put it another way, while all three versions
emphasize God’s unity and Muhammad’s mission, there is nothing specifically
anti-Trinitarian about the Eastern “affirmation of faith.” This is not surprising
since Christians were only one of a number of religious populations within
Muslim lands east of Greater Syria such as Iraq and there was no reason for anyone
ruling the eastern lands to single them out on the coinage. 17
17 Malek Iradj Mochiri, “A Pahlavi Forerunner of the Umayyad Reformed Coinage,” Journal of
the Royal Asiatic Society (1981), 168–72.