A scientific initiative has been launched in Sharjah to document a rare collection of Islamic coins preserved in the Sforza Castle in Milan. The collection comprises 1,103 coins from various eras, led by the oldest Arab-Islamic dinar dated to the 77th Hijri year. Supported by the Sharjah Book Authority and in cooperation with the Arab Cultural Institute at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, the project aims to revive Islamic heritage in Italy and make it available to researchers. This collection is one of the rarest discovered outside the Arab world and has garnered global attention from researchers and historians as a unique reference for the development of the monetary and administrative system of Islamic civilization. It includes coins from diverse Islamic regions across different time periods and is the largest of its kind compared to similar collections in Arab and European museums. The collection features the earliest Arab-Islamic dinar, minted by Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in Damascus, which marked a historical shift in the economic and cultural identity of the Umayyad Caliphate and the Islamic civilization.
