Talk:Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan

The photo in the coin
Robert Hoyland gives a very convincing argument that the figure in the so-called "Standing Caliph" coin of Abdulmalik represents not Abdulmalik but Muhammad.

The first coin was minted in 74 AH / 693-694 CE and they were in circulation for three years. Afterwards imagery was dropped in coins.

Muhammad died 10 AH, 632 CE and there were still some Companions alive who had seen Muhammad when the coins were minted.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Coins/dinar3.html

R. Hoyland, "Writing The Biography Of The Prophet Muhammad: Problems And Solutions", History Compass, 2007, Volume 5, pp. 13-14.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00395.x/abstract

Postscript: Muhammad or Abd al-Malik? In AH 72/AD 691 -92, having just successfully ended a long-running civil war (66 -72/685 -92) and completed the stunning Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem with its message to Christians to respect God's Oneness and Muhammad as God's Messenger, the caliph vAbd al-Malik decided to Islamicise a little the coins used in his realm, which had up till then been copies/imitations of the Byzantine and Iranian coin types. In particular, he removed the transverse bars of the crosses67 and introduced the Muslim profession of faith: 'There is no god but God alone; Muhammad is the Messenger of God'. The Byzantine emperor Justinian II (685-95, 705-11) responded with an even more startling innovation: he relegated the image of himself to the reverse of the coin and put on the front a human effigy of Jesus Christ, both unprecendented moves (Fig. 1): In retaliation Abd al-Malik placed an image of a standing human bearing a sword in a scabbard68 on the front of his coins, the earliest dated is 74/693-9469 (Fig. 2): This is generally assumed to be a representation of the caliph himself and so the coins are known as the 'standing caliph' coins.70 However, there are a number of reasons to doubt this: Firstly, it ignores the war in visual and verbal propaganda going on between Justinian II and vAbd al-Malik and the wider issue of the use of religious images and slogans that was being hotly debated at this time.71 If, in response to Justinian's demotion of himself to the reverse of Byzantine coins in favour of Christ's effigy on the front, vAbd al-Malik had merely put his own image on the front of Muslim coins, it would have seemed a very feeble reply in the view of Christians; rather, the obvious move for him would have been to put an image that would challenge that of the image of Christ, which could only be that of the Prophet Muhammad himself. The very dramatic nature of these changes, their closeness in time, their evidently polemical overtones and enormous propaganda impact (coins circulate very widely) at a time of great tension (in particular, the Byzantines suffered a major defeat at Sebastopolis in 73/692-93) make it essential for these two innovations to be considered together. Secondly, it ignores the context of the Arab civil war of 685-92 in which religion had played a major role for diverse groups clamouring for greater social justice, and vAbd al-Malik saw the chance to steal their thunder and to heal the divisions among the Muslim community by putting Islam at the heart of the state. Henceforth, the name of the Prophet Muhammad, which had been absent from all state media (i.e. administrative documents, monumental inscriptions, etc.), became de rigeur on every official text and became pretty much standard in epitaphs and graffiti. This makes it unlikely that the image on the front of vAbd al-Malik's new coins was himself, which would have been condemned by Muslims as an imitation of infidel kings, and much more likely that it is a religious personage, again most obviously Muhammad himself. Thirdly, the iconography of the person on vAbd al-Malik's coinage is closer to that of Justinian II's Christ figure than to an emperor figure: both have long, flowing hair and are bearded,72 and both are without headgear (i.e. no turban or crown).73

Fourthly, the standing-figure coins of Jerusalem, Harran and al-Ruha (Edessa) do not, unlike those of other mints, name the Prophet Muhammad and the Caliph vAbd al-Malik, but only mention Muhammad. As Clive Foss has remarked, 'ever since the inception of portrait coinage in the Hellenistic period, the image and superscription had gone together, that is, the inscription names the figure portrayed. . . I know of no coin where the obverse inscription refers to someone different from the figure portrayed'.74 Fifthly, the objection sometimes raised, that Muslim religious authorities would have forbidden the image of the Prophet to be placed on the coins, is not really valid. It is certainly true that around this time, or shortly afterwards, the question of what images were admissible and in what context became a hot topic,75 and indeed the fifteenth-century Egyptian historian al-Maqrizi quotes a report to the effect that when the new coins of Abd al-Malik reached the surviving companions of Muhammad in Medina,'they disapproved of their engraving, for it contained an image, although Said ibn al-Musayyab (a famous lawyer of Medina) bought and sold with them finding no fault with them at all'.76 BernardZ (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:26, 19 February 2015 (UTC)‎


 * According to A Mixed Arab-Sassanian And Arab-Byzantine Coin From The Time Of Caliph ʿAbd Al-Malik, 75 AH / 694-695 CE, has on the Reverse field, In the place of the usual fire-altar and the two attendants, a standing figure of the caliph, bearded and with his right hand resting on his sword-hilt in the attitude of the imām delivering a khutba. Kufic legends on sides running downwards khalfat (sic) Allāh / amīr al-mu'minīn ("khalifa of God, Commander of the Faithful"). This confirms that the person represented is the caliph (successor (of Muhammad)), and Commander of the Faithful (the leader of the believers), hence not Muhammad himself. https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/coins/drachm24.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Taha b. Wasiq b. Hussain (talk • contribs) 12:16, 31 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Your "A Mixed Arab-Sassanian And Arab-Byzantine Coin From The Time Of Caliph ʿAbd Al-Malik" is apparently just a website/blog. Better sources would be needed. On the other hand, Robert Hoyland is a reputable historian publishing in peer-reviewed publications. His published analysis that this is probably an image of Prophet Muhammad can be read online freely: Writing the Biography of Muhammad. Contrary opinions can of course be added, on the condition that they are WP:RS. पाटलिपुत्र Pat   (talk) 13:00, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The conventional view is that the human figure portrayed in these so-called "standing caliph" issues is Caliph Abd al-Malik. Hoyland, who is indeed reputable in the field of Islamic history, is going against the grain, so to speak, by theorizing that this may in fact be a rendering of the prophet Muhammad—and he seems to be the only major Islamic historian to propose this view. The best thing is for a footnote elaborating that historians generally consider this figure to be Abd al-Malik, but that Hoyland argues it may be of Muhammad for this and that reason. I'll work on this during the course of this week or next if no one else does. --Al Ameer (talk) 16:09, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 23 September 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: No consensus. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:38, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan → Abd al-Malik – 'Abd al-Malik' in that particular spelling almost invariably refers to Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. There are certainly other Abd al-Maliks throughout medieval Islamic history (and a handful of articles about living persons with the same name), but none obviously come close to the subject of this article in notability. This would be comparable to our articles on Caesar, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Napoleon. I can't be in the mind of the average reader, but I'm fairly confident—based on pageviews—that most readers who type 'Abd al-Malik' in the search bar overwhelmingly are seeking this article. Moreover, typing Abd al-Malik in any major search engine (Google, Google Books, Bing) will give you page after page of links all of which are about this caliph. I'd move it myself as I don't view this as a controversial step, but thought to open a formal request just in case. Currently 'Abd al-Malik' links to the very long disambiguation page Abdul Malik. I propose renaming this article and leaving a hatnote at the top of the page that reads: ''"Abd al-Malik" redirects here. For other uses, see Abdul Malik"''. Al Ameer (talk) 22:15, 23 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak Oppose. I am sympathetic, I really am. But I am not a fan of single names in titles and Abd al-Malik is far too common a name.  The current spelling is not sufficiently differentiating - Abd al-Malik is often spelled Abdul Malik, Abdul-Malek, Abdelmaleque, etc. depending on the taste of the translator. Yes, yes, Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, et al. are common names too. But at least they were Rashidun Caliphs, for which an exception might be make (not that I agree with it, but it can be argued).  None of the later Caliphs (contested as they are, by different sects) get that special single name treatment.  And once we go down this road, I fear the slide to argue for more exceptions for others.  So, I'd really rather not.  Just for the record, Arabic Wikipedia uses Abd al-Malik Ibn Marwan. Walrasiad (talk) 08:02, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the feedback. I hope you reconsider in view of the following reasons:
 * 1) The spelling of the name is not the main reason, but I wanted to make note that in the vast majority of English-language sources the name of this caliph is usually spelled 'Abd al-Malik' so the move request would not affect the links for 'Abdul Malik' or other variations.
 * 2) The notability of this caliph far outweighs any of the other articles with the same name. They all receive between 5 to 500 pageviews, with only Abd al Malik (rapper) out of the whole lot approaching 1,000 pageviews on a good month. In comparison, this article receives anywhere between ~10,000 to ~15,000 pageviews a month. Therefore, we're making the vast majority of interested readers unnecessarily go through the disambiguation page—which will still be linked to at the top of this page.
 * 3) I flatly disagree about special exceptions for the Rashidun Caliphs Umar, Uthman and Ali. There are tons more articles about people with those three names than Abd al-Malik and many of those other Umars/Omars, Uthmans/Usmans and Alis are quite prominent and boast high pageview counts. Their special status comes mostly from a religious standpoint decided by 9th/10th-century Sunni jurists but that's another discussion. That's why many modern English sources say "say so-called 'rightly-guided' caliphs" when referring to the four.
 * 4) Changing this to a single name would not set a precedent for other caliphs. None of the 54 Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad and Cairo, 14 Fatimid caliphs and only five of the 26 Umayyad caliphs of Damascus and Cordoba use the "ibn blank" formula. The Abbasids and Fatimids all use laqabs (i.e. al-Mansur, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah) while the article names of the Umayyads are given names plus the relevant Roman numeral (i.e. al-Walid I, Yazid III). The five exceptions are this article, two Sulaymans, Ibrahim ibn al-Walid and Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. Obviously, there are exponentially more prominent Sulaymans and Ibrahims than those three short-term Umayyad caliphs and those article names will not be changed, while the single name Hisham already redirects to Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik. Bottom-line: tweaking the name of this article will not impact the others whatsoever.
 * 5) Arabic wikipedia, frankly, is irrelevant to what we do here. They could follow suit if they agree with the above reasons or not. --Al Ameer (talk) 16:22, 24 September 2019 (UTC)


 * , I have to disagree with you this time ;) Comparison with Abu Bakr et al. is not proportionate. Almost everybody has heard these names and knows whom they refer to. Abd al-Malik on the other hand is not that famous, only those having some know-how in Islamic history know him. AhmadLX-(Wikiposta ) 16:33, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Please see the above response to Walrasiad. Abu Bakr may the only one who has a relatively unique name, that's why I omitted him in my response above. As for Ali, Umar and Uthman, these are very common names and many prominent people share them (though of course one can argue those other people are named after them). Even though they'd receive the lion's share of intended searches, readers typing 'Umar' and 'Ali' probably have a higher chance of looking for people besides those two caliphs than someone typing 'Abd al-Malik'. I'm using these caliphs, in addition to non-Arab political figures, as comparables but, as I stated above, this is not the only reason I'm suggesting a move. --Al Ameer (talk) 16:47, 24 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Too many people by this name. He's just not well-known enough in the English-speaking world to be primary. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:34, 25 September 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.