S-i Notes on Indian Currencies. [no. 1, new series, 
till Sultan Mahommed declared his independence about A. D. 1,000 
and established the first Mahommedan government at Ghazni, some 
60 miles south of Cabul. A story is told of this prince that he 
promised a dirhem (Mr. Dow in his history of Hindostan says it 
was a raher) to the poet Ferdousi for every verse of a certain his- 
torical poem on Persia, and that although he meant a golden dir- 
hem from covetousness he changed the payment into silver dirhems. 
Dirhems and Dinars were the money of the Caliphs, and are 
thus described by D'Herbelot "in his Bibliotheque Orientale. 
" Les Mussulmans n'eurent goint dinars d'or marques a 
leur coin jusqu'en Tan 76 de I'Hegire (de J. C. 695.) Ce fut 
" Hegiage, lequel etablit la premiere mbnnoye sous le Khalifat 
" d'Abdalmalek. Auparavant tout'e la monnoye d'or etoit au coin 
*' des Empereurs Grecs, et celle d'argenf avoit son inscription 
" en characteres Persiens. Les Khalifes Abbasides Haroun 
*' Raschid, Almamom et Vathek firent battre de la monnoye a plus 
" haut titre que n'avoient fait les Ommiades." 
The house of Ommiades ended in A. D. 750 and the Abbasides 
Caliphs succeeded. 
" Dirhem et direm, le premier mot est Arabe et le second est 
" Persien. Un dirhem et demi pese un methcal ou une drachme, 
de sorte qu'il y'en a douze a I'once qui n'est que de huit drach- 
" mes, ou de huit gros. Le Direm pese aussi douze carats, et 
" se prend souvent pour un fort petite monnoye de cuivre. Ce 
" fut Hegiage Gouverneur de 1' Iraque Arabique qui fit battre le 
" premier des Derahim d' argent avec 1' inscription " Allah Samad" 
" Dieu est inmuable. Sous le Khalifat d'Abdalmalek, ils etoient, de 
" has alloy : mais les Khalifs Abbasides les mittoient a plus haut 
" titre." 
" Abul Fazl in his ' Ayeen Akberry,' a kind of supplement to his 
*' Akbernameh, has given the following account of Dirhems and 
*' Dinars. Dirhem was a silver coin originally of the shape of a date 
stone, Caliph Omar changed it into a round form and some say 
" was the first to stamp an impression on it, others that Hejaj 
" in the time of Abdalmalek Meerwan, others that Mahan Ebn 
" Zobier was the first." 
