Currencies of the Islamic era

Essay by noone May 2005

download word file, 3 pages 3.3

Downloaded 26 times

If we still to this day deal with regular paper currencies or with silver and cooper currencies .... Wither we deal with the Kuwaiti Dinar, or Egyptian pound, or the Saudi riyal, or the Moroccan dirham, or the Syrian lira, and other Arabic currencies. Do you know my little Arabic friend how did the commercial transaction were conducted, like buying and selling at the time of our ancestors? The way it was before Islam or at the time the prophet Mohammad may peace be upon him and the khalifas that followed him or the kings and princes? That's what we are going to find out in the next lines.

The beginning: the exchange of commodities

The ancient man did not know money at all, his transactions with other members of his community were very simple, which allowed the exchange of commodities between people for example; the person who worked in grazing would trade with his neighbor who works in farming, so he would take some rice or barley in exchange for a sheep or a goat.

That system was known in all encyclopedias of economy, commerce and history by the name Swap. But with the advancement of the human culture and the diversity in the activities of work and commerce, the swap method could not meet the demands of people in the way it was before, therefore something new emerged and it was called the middle commodity, at first it was grain and soon it developed , the swap method was done through metals, especially silver, because the circulation of grain among people as a middle commodity was not sufficient because of the difficulty of storage and transport, so swap method was limited to metal because it was easy to store, melt and weigh.

The Arabs before the emergence...