Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Sassanian
Most recents (2)
1/ Here’s a unique coin I love to show my students @UniofOxford. A fascinating window into the early history of #Islam in #Iran. Minted in Sistan, ca. 691-2. One side portrays the #Sasanian king of kings; the other has the Islamic profession of faith (the shahada) but in Pahlavi! 
2/ Pahlavi (otherwise known as #Zoroastrian Middle #Persian) was the language of the #Sassanian kings and the #Zoroastrian clergy. It remained a prestige language in #Iran even after the Islamic conquest
3/ What makes the coin so unique is that it translates the shahada into an essentially #Zoroastrian idiom: “yazd-ēw bē ōy any yazd nēst mahmat paygāmbar ī yazd” (There is one God, without any other, #Muhammad is the #Prophet of God)
1/ Fun fact from today’s Islamic History lecture @UniofOxford: the Khazars, a nomadic people from the S. Russian steppe, converted to #Judaism in ca. 9th. Here, a Khazar coin based on an Islamic model swaps “#Muhammad is the Messenger of God” for “#Moses is the Messenger of God”!
2/ Specifically, the Khazar king and his court are said to have converted. This model of top-down religious change happened all over the late antique and medieval worlds, but is most commonly associated with #Christianity and #Islam (not #Judaism!)
3/ The other great example of state conversion to #Judaism is the kingdom of Himyar in S. Arabia. The conversion was so thorough that after 380, pagan inscriptions disappear, replaced by inscriptions with Hebrew/Aramaic words (shalom, amen, kanisat) & names (Isaac, Judah, Joseph)
