Journal of Near Eastern Studies· 2026Q1
The Riddle of Ibn al-Zubayr’s Earliest Coinage, 681–683 CE
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Short summary
This study argues that early coins bearing the name of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr, previously dismissed or accepted without context, genuinely date to 681-683 CE, offering a new perspective on the Second Muslim Civil War.
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Key points
- Early coins bearing ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr's name are critically assessed for their authenticity and dating.
- The study integrates literary evidence and historical context to establish a chronological sequence of coinage from various mints.
- It demonstrates that these coins genuinely date to the years indicated on their legends (681-683 CE).
- The findings offer a fresh appraisal of southern Iran's political history during the early stages of the Second Muslim Civil War.
- The study argues for an earlier start date of the civil war, coinciding with Yazīd's accession in 680 CE.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Coins bearing the name of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr and dating to the reign of the Umayyad caliph Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya (r. 60-64 AH/680-684 CE) have been known for a long time, but scholars have either dismissed them as anachronistic dates resulting from the use of old reverse dies or have readily accepted them as genuine issues from these years, without providing a historical context for their production or studying the corpus in toto. The present study offers a critical assessment of this coinage by taking the literary evidence and historical context into account. Establishing the sequence of coins issued by each mint against the political background of the early stages of the Second Muslim Civil War (60-73 AH/680-692 CE), it demonstrates that these coins do indeed date to the years their date legends exhibit, thereby offering a fresh appraisal of the political history of southern Iran in this period and of the early course of the civil war, whose start it argues ought to be placed at the accession of Yazīd in 60 AH/680 CE rather than his death four years later.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Anthropology
AnthropologySocial Sciences