al-Hajjaj's Mint and Coinage

دار الضرب وسكك الحجاج

Al-Hajjaj struck dirhams at the end of 75h and ordered them struck in all regions in 76h. 'Awana ibn al-Hakam: he asked how the Persians struck dirhams, took a mint-house, gathered the minters, struck the sultan's money from bullion and the purifications of zuyuf, sattuqa and bahraja, then licensed merchants' sheets for a fee and sealed the minters' hands. He struck 'ali dirhams marked 'bismillah, al-Hajjaj', then 'God is one, God the eternal' — the jurists disliked them and they were called makruha, or so the Ajam called them for their short weight; the Sumayriyya were named for their first striker. Mus'ab had struck dirhams by Ibn al-Zubayr's order in 70h on the Kisra-type marked 'baraka wa-'afiya' — al-Hajjaj altered them — and, per Ibn al-Kalbi, dinars too; al-Harith ibn Abdallah ibn Abi Rabi'a struck wazn-sab'a in Ibn al-Zubayr's days. Abd al-Malik first struck gold after the Year of Union, 74h (some dinars in 72, then 75). Then Umar ibn Hubayra refined the silver beyond his predecessors and bore hard on the changers; Khalid al-Qasri harder; Yusuf ibn Umar hardest — cut hands and flogged backs — so the Hubayriyya, Khalidiyya and Yusufiyya were the best Umayyad coin, the only Umayyad dirhams al-Mansur accepted for kharaj, whence the first dirhams were called makruha.