纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 046阿卜杜勒马立克金币(5)（在线收听）

But something quite unexpected happened to those coins with Abd al-Malik standing on them. After a few years, they simply vanished. During the Hijra year 77 (697 AD), the Standing Caliph coin was suddenly replaced with a design that could hardly be more different. There's no caliph, there's no figure, only words. This is the defining moment for Islamic public art. From now on no human image would be used in such a public arena for well over a thousand years.

但令人意想不到的是，短短几年，这些带有马利克像的货币竟消失了。希吉拉77年（公元697年>，铸有哈里发站姿的货币被一种截然不同的货币取代。新的货币上没有哈里发，也没有任何图像，只有文字。这是伊斯兰公共艺术的 一个决定性时刻。此后长达千年的时间内，都不再有人像在公共场所出现。

Back in the Coins and Medals department, I'm examining the reformed coin in more detail.It's exactly the same size and weight as the earlier coin, it's also made of solid gold, but it says that it was made in the year 77, so one year later than the previous coin. And now there's nothing to see but text. On the front it reads: "There is no god except God alone, he has no partner; Muhammad is the Messenger of God whom he sent with guidance and the religion of truth that he may make it victorious over every other religion." This is an adaptation of a text from the Qu'ran.

至于硬币部分,我更详细地端详这枚历经改革过后的硬币。第二枚金币的尺寸与重量都与第一枚完全相同，也用纯金制成。它的制作时间只比上一枚晚一年,但上面镑刻的内容只剩下文字。正面是：“万物非主，唯有真主。穆罕默德是真主的使者，真主以正道和真教的使 命委托他的使者，以便他使真教胜过一切宗教。”这段话出自《古兰经》。

And on the back of the coin is another Qu'ranic text: "God is One, God is the Eternal. He begets not, neither is he begotten."

硬币的背面还有另一段《古兰经》文字：“他是真主，是独一的主，真主是万物所仰赖的，他没有生产，也没有被生产。”

The inscriptions on this coin make, I think, two extraordinarily interesting points. Firstly, this is almost the oldest Qu'ranic text to have survived. Before Muhammad, Arabic was barely a written language at all, but now there was of course a vital need to record God's words accurately, and so the first developed Arabic script-the "kufic" script-was created.

金币上的文字引发两点有趣的思考。首先，这是现存最古老的《古兰经》经文。在穆罕默德之前，阿拉伯世界几乎没有任何文字，但精确抄录神的话语的需求促成了最早的阿拉伯文字—库法文诞生。