The dinar is a gold coin with a weight of 4.25 grams of fine gold. The dirham is a silver coin that weighs 3.0 grams of pure silver.

The word dinar is derived from the word ‘denarius’ the Roman coin that circulated among the Arabs since even before the advent of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. Hence even though the dinar is normally associated with Islam or Arabs, it is indeed Roman in origin.

The dirham on the other hand is derived from the Persian coin ‘drachma’ that also circulated among the Arabs, even before the advent of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.

The Prophet nonetheless accepted both dinar and dirham as the monetary standard for the Islamic shari’ah. Nevertheless, the first Islamic coin was minted only in the year 75H (697AD) by Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (646–705 AD) who was the 5th Umayyad Caliph.The gold dinar and silver dirham minted during the Umayyad Caliphate are shown below.

Imam Ghazali asserted that God created gold and silver as the true measure of value. These two coins were the monetary standard of the Islamic empire for centuries until the Ottoman caliphate collapsed in 1924.

It’s clear that the intentions of the original Muslims were to mint the dinar using as pure gold as possible, as permitted by the refining technology of the time. When the shariah monetary standard was based on gold, it was meant to be pure gold and not gold mixed with some other impurities.

The first Islamic gold dinars minted by caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, more than 1,300 years ago, were made from 97 percent pure gold. There were times in Islamic history when the coins were almost pure gold, for example during the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt. Accordingly it is only appropriate with today’s technology we mint the dinar as pure gold as possible.