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"In the years that followed the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632, the caliphs were essentially the political and religious leaders of the Muslim community. All Arab Muslims in the first century of Islam, realised that this was a new state-that what went on before wasn't really relevant. These caliphs were not the successors of the Byzantine emperors or of the Sassanian king of kings. They might look to these people for solutions to administrative problems-how you collect money, and indeed what sort of money you make-but they wouldn't see themselves as performing the same sort of role. This was a new dispensation."
公元632年，穆罕默德去世之后，哈里發(fā)成為穆斯林最重要的政治及宗教領(lǐng)袖。在伊斯蘭歷的最初一百年內(nèi),所有的阿拉伯穆斯林都意識(shí)到他們處在一個(gè)全新的國度，之前的一切都不重要。哈里發(fā)不是拜占庭皇帝的繼承人，也不是薩珊王朝萬王之王的繼承人。他們也許會(huì)借鑒這些帝王管理國家的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，比如如何收稅，收哪些稅，但他們并不認(rèn)為自己與前人扮演著同樣的角色。這個(gè)制度是全新的。
One of the administrative solutions that Abd al-Malik borrowed from the Byzantine emperors was how to manage the currency. Up until now, the new Islamic empire had used hand-me-down coins from the pre-conquest era, or imported, and especially Byzantine, gold coins, but Abd al-Malik quickly saw what every chancellor of the exchequer has seen since, namely that there'll be economic instability if a ruler does not control the quantity and the quality of his own money supply. He understood that coins are literally the stamp of authority, asserting the dominant power in the society using them-and that power was now his.
阿卜杜勒馬利克向拜占庭皇帝借鑒的管理手法之一便是貨幣管理。在此之前，新伊斯蘭帝國所使用的貨幣要么是占領(lǐng)區(qū)的前朝傳下來的，要么是從伊斯坦布爾進(jìn)口的金幣。但阿卜杜勒馬利克很快意識(shí)到，如果不去控制貨幣的數(shù)量與質(zhì)量，就會(huì)出現(xiàn)經(jīng)濟(jì)動(dòng)蕩。他也了解到貨幣是權(quán)力的印章，是向它所流通的社會(huì)表明統(tǒng)治權(quán)的手段，而統(tǒng)治權(quán)如今在他手中。
It's worth remembering that in the pre-modern world, coinage was often the only mass-produced item in use, and it was therefore a hugely significant element in the visual culture of a society-money was a billboard for the boss. And so the boss, Abd al-Malik, was stamped on this first overtly Islamic coinage. The Leader of the Faithful had ousted and replaced the emperors of Byzantium.
在前現(xiàn)代社會(huì)，貨幣幾乎是唯一一種在日常生活中被大量制造并流通的物品，因而也是一個(gè)國家視覺文化中最重要的因素。因此，阿卜杜勒馬利克本人的形象出現(xiàn)在了伊斯蘭第一款公開行的貨幣上。拜占庭皇帝被信徒的領(lǐng)路人取而代之。
