4to. 101 pp., of English text, 470 pp., of Arabic & English text, numerous colour plates, cloth in d/w, titles in English & Arabic, minor scratch on dust wrapper, otherwise copy in mint condition, Bank of Beirut, Beirut, 1983.

Synopsis

Splendid photo book cataloguing the vast gold coin collection of William Kazan, who was the Chairman of the Bank of Beirut.
“The Coinage of Islam is a precious source for the history of the Muslim community, Ummat al-Islam. When, in the time of the Caliph Abd al-Malik, the Arabs invented a new coinage for the new religious community, they rejected the imperial and religious Byzantine and Sassanian predecessors in favour of a purely inscriptional coin design. The new inscriptions were primarily phrases from the Holy Qur’an, but within a century it became usual to name the Caliph and his governors, and to give the place and date of minting.” (Preface).