ABSTRACT
This chapter argues in favour of a changed perspective on Abd al-Maliks monetary reform not only as a reform intending Arabization and Islamicization of gold and silver with side effects on copper, but insofar as it attempted to create a unified system of caliphal gold, silver and copper. One of the major changes in the monetary system between later antiquity and the Islamic middle ages lies in the status of copper coinage. Copper coinage in the Sasanian Empire was similar inasmuch as it was also part of the imperial coinage struck in the same mints as silver coinage and following the types of the silver. The Arabic copper coinage of the caliphate and later states such as the Ayybids, Mamlukes and Early Ottomans is completely different in character. Today the proper reform fuls are among the most abundant of the surviving medieval Islamic copper coin.
