o4 Notes on Indian Currencies. [no. 1, new series, 



till Sultan Mahommed declared liis 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 mher) 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 point de dinars d'or marques a 

 " leur coin jusqu'en l'an 76 de PHegire (de J. C. 695.) Ce fut 

 " Hegiage, lequel etablit la premiere monnoye sous le Khalifat 

 " d'Abdalmalek. Auparavant toute la monnoye d'or etoit au coin 

 " des Empereurs Grecs, et celle d' argent 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 l'once qui n'est que de huit drach- 

 M 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 V 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 

 " bas alloy : mais les Khalifs Abbasides les mittoient a plus haut 

 " titre." 



" AbulFazl in his ' Ayeen Akberry,' a kind of supplement to his 

 " Akbernameh, has given the following account of Dirhems and 

 u 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." 



