646–705 CE · Fifth Umayyad Caliph
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (26–86 AH / 646–705 CE) reunified the caliphate after the Second Fitna and initiated reforms that gave the early Islamic state a distinct visual and epigraphic identity independent of Byzantine and Sasanian models. He replaced figural coin imagery with Qur'anic inscriptions and commissioned the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, completed in 72 AH / 691–692 CE.
Content referencing this person
- Research Paper
The Dome of the Rock Inscriptions and Early Islamic Identity
What the 72 AH Dome of the Rock inscriptions can and cannot tell historians about the state of the Qur'anic text and Islamic religious identity at the end of the first Islamic century.
- Evidence Library
The Standing Caliph Dinar
A transitional gold coin type issued under Abd al-Malik depicting the caliph before the 77 AH reform replaced all figural imagery with epigraphy.
- Evidence Library
The Dome of the Rock Inscriptions (72 AH / 691–692 CE)
A monumental Kufic inscription band, roughly 240 meters long, running around the interior and exterior arcades of the Dome of the Rock: the earliest securely dated substantial body of Qur'anic-related text.