Minting of Islamic Coins According to the Nineteenth-Century Judeo-Arabic Account of Ḥayyim Ḥabshush and a Probable Citation of a Passage on Minting From an Unknown Late Medieval Arabic Work

Abstract

A late nineteenth-century account of the travels in Yemen of Joseph Halévy, written by his local guide Ḥayyim Ḥabshush, contains a short account of minting. The passage is studied here in detail, and it is argued that, despite implications to the contrary, probably it does not reflect personal experience but is a quotation, possibly verbatim, from a late medieval Arabic work, possibly from Egypt.