Seljuk Coinage and Money

From the eleventh century into the early fourteenth, Seljuk coinage varied across the lands they ruled. In Iran, gold dinars became prominent as silver dirham coins disappeared from local minting, while the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia followed a different monetary path. A coin’s metal and weight mattered in transactions, while its stamped words identified an issuer and made claims about political authority.

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How a coin was made and read

A mint turned prepared metal into a coin by striking a blank between two engraved stamps, called dies. One die held the blank steady; a hammer blow on the other pressed the design into its two faces. Hand-struck coins could have irregular edges and vary in size. Engravers arranged words and symbols around the limited surface, so mint, date and names might be crowded into small lines or circles.

Arabic inscriptions often combined the shahada, the Muslim profession of faith, with a mint name, a date and the names or titles of rulers. A dinar bearing the name of Nishapur or Balkh, for example, identifies where it was struck, not necessarily where it was later spent. Many Sunni rulers placed their own names on coins while retaining the name of the Abbasid caliph, the recognized head of the Sunni caliphate. The ruler’s name marked his own authority; the caliph’s presence acknowledged a wider religious allegiance. Some Seljuk coins also carry an abstract bow-and-arrow-like sign, interpreted as a family or clan mark.

A local ruler’s name might appear with that of a more powerful overlord as well as the caliph. Such combinations made subordination or shared claims visible in the coin’s design.

Gold dinars and accounting in Iran

In the first decades of the eleventh century, silver dirham minting largely ceased in Persia. Gold dinars remained the main coin issued by the Seljuks and their contemporaries, with Nishapur in northeastern Iran among the most productive mints. One dinar tentatively attributed to the Balkh mint in northern Afghanistan is dated 1121–22 and names Sultan Sanjar and the Abbasid caliph al-Mustarshid. Its mint and date connect a particular gold issue to a place and year; its paired names show how a sultan could assert power while acknowledging the caliph.

The word dinar could mean a gold coin, but it could also name an accounting unit that did not correspond exactly to a single coin. This distinction became practical when the actual pieces varied in weight. Eleventh- and twelfth-century gold dinars could differ substantially even when struck at the same mint in the same year. For a large payment specified in dinars, coins could be weighed together on a balance against standard dinar weights, rather than counted as identical pieces. The amount in an account and the number of physical coins were therefore related through weight, not always through a one-coin-to-one-unit match.

After the early twelfth century, gold coinage in Persia also became scarce. For much of the thirteenth century, Persian coinage remained scarce; by the late 1270s, silver was again being minted across Persia.

Copper and silver in the Sultanate of Rum

In Anatolia, the earliest coins attributed to the Seljuks of Rum were copper issues from the reigns of Sultans Qelej Arslan I and Masud, influenced by Byzantine models. Silver dirhams began under Qelej Arslan II, during the second half of his reign. The contrast with Iran is clear: Rum’s early coinage used copper, and its silver output developed later, while Persia’s established silver dirham production had already contracted.

One silver coin of Kaykhusraw II, dated 1244 (641 in the Islamic Hijri calendar), shows how a regional issue could combine writing and imagery. The Smithsonian’s example names the Anatolian ruler and pairs a lion with the sun. The museum describes the image as probably representing the zodiac constellation Leo, an auspicious sign for the sultan. This coin makes the political name and a striking visual emblem part of one small, portable object.

Changing authority and monetary units

Coinage in the early thirteenth century also reflects the changing political order around the Seljuk lands. About 1238, Mongol authorities introduced a silver dirham in Persia using the same weight standard as the contemporary Anatolian Seljuk dirham, about 2.95 grams. Some Anatolian pieces were used as blanks for the new issues, so existing coins could be remade under a new authority and design.

In 1296, the Ilkhanid ruler Ghazan Khan introduced a monetary reform in Persia. Under that system, the dinar was defined as an accounting unit equal to six silver dirhams, while actual gold coins circulated under the name mithqals and did not have a fixed value against either unit. This later example shows why historical references to “dinars” must be read in context: sometimes they identify a coin, and sometimes they state an amount in a system of reckoning.