Maria Theresa thaler
The Maria Theresa thaler is a silver bullion coin, used in world trade continuously since it was first minted in 1741. It is named after Empress Maria Theresa, who ruled Austria and Bohemia from 1740 to 1780 and is depicted on the coin. In 1741 they used the Reichsthaler standard of 9 thalers to the Vienna mark. In 1750 the thaler was debased to 10 thalers to the Vienna mark; the following year the new standard was adopted across the German-speaking world when it was accepted formally in the Bavarian monetary convention. Because of the date of the Bavarian Monetary convention, many writers erroneously state that the Maria Theresa Thaler was first struck in 1751. Since the death of Maria Theresa in 1780, the coin has always been dated 1780. On 19 September 1857, Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria declared the Maria Theresa thaler to be an official trade coinage. A little over a year on 31 October 1858, it lost its status as currency in Austria; the MTT could be found throughout the Arab world in Saudi Arabia and Muscat and Oman, in Africa in Ethiopia, in India.
During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War II, enough people preferred it to the money issued by the occupying forces that the American Office of Strategic Services created counterfeit MTTs for use by resistance forces. In German-speaking countries, following a spelling reform dated 1901 that took effect two years "Thaler" is written "Taler". Hence 20th-century references to this coin in German and Austrian sources are found under "Maria-Theresien-Taler"; the spelling in English-speaking countries was not affected. The MTT continues to be produced by the Austrian Mint, is available in both proof and uncirculated conditions; the thaler is 39.5–41 mm in diameter and 2.5 mm thick, weighs 28.0668 grams and contains 23.389 grams of fine silver. It has a copper content of.166 of its total millesimal fineness. Note: Rome mint struck MTTs are marginally lighter being produced in finer 835 standard instead of 833 standard silver; the inscription on the obverse of this coin is in Latin: "M. THERESIA D. G. R. IMP.
HU. BO. REG." The Reverse reads "ARCHID. AVST. DUX BURG. CO. TYR. 1780 X". It is an abbreviation of "Maria Theresia, Dei Gratia Romanorum Imperatrix, Hungariae Bohemiaeque Regina, Archidux Austriae, Dux Burgundiae, Comes Tyrolis. 1780 X", which means, "Maria Theresa, by the grace of God, Empress of the Romans, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Burgundy, Countess of Tyrol. 1780". The "X" is a saltire or Burgundian cross, was added in 1750 indicating the new debased standard of the thaler. Around the rim of the coin is the motto of her reign: "Justitia et Clementia", meaning "Justice and Clemency"; the MTT became a standard trade coin and several nations began striking Maria Theresa thalers. The following mints have struck MTTs: Birmingham, Brussels, Paris and Utrecht, in addition to the Habsburg mints in Günzburg, Karlsburg, Milan and Vienna. Between 1751 and 2000, some 389 million were minted; these various mints distinguished their issues by slight differences in the design, with some of these evolving over time.
In 1935 Mussolini gained a 25-year concession over production of the MTT. The Italians blocked non-Italian banks and bullion traders from obtaining the coin and so France and the UK started producing the coin so as to support their economic interests in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and East Coast of Africa. In 1961 the 25-year concession ended and Austria made diplomatic approaches to the relevant governments requesting they cease production of the coin; the UK was the last government to formally agree to the request in February 1962. The MTT came to be used as currency in large parts of Africa until after World War II, it was common from North Africa to Somalia, Ethiopia and down the coast of Tanzania to Mozambique. Its popularity in the Red Sea region was such that merchants would not accept any other type of currency; the Italian government produced a similar designed coin in the hope of replacing the Maria Theresa thaler, but it never gained acceptance. The Maria Theresa thaler was formerly the currency of the Hejaz, the Aden Protectorate as well as Muscat and Oman on the Arabia peninsula.
The coin remains popular in North Africa and the Middle East to this day in its original form: a silver coin with a portrait of the buxom empress on the front and the Habsburg Double Eagle on the back. The MTT is first recorded as circulating in Ethiopia from the reign of Emperor Iyasu II of Ethiopia. According to traveller James Bruce the coin, not debased as other currencies, dominated the areas he visited in 1768. Joseph Kalmer and Ludwig Hyun in the book Abessinien estimate that over 20% of 245 million coins minted until 1931 ended up in Ethiopia. In 1868, the British military expedition to Magdala, the capital of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia, under Field Marshal Robert Napier, took MTTs with them to pay local expenses. In 1890 the Italians introduced the Tallero Eritreo, styled after the MTT, in their new colony Eritrea hoping to impose it on the commerce with Ethiopia, they remained, however unsuccessful. In the early 1900s Menelik II unsuccessfully attempted to mint Menilek thalers locally, with his effigy, but styled following the model of the MTT, force their use.
The newly established Bank of Abyssinia issued banknotes denominated in thalers. Starting in 1935 the Italians minted the MTT at the mint in Rome for use in their conquest of Ethiopia. Then
Pound sterling
The pound sterling known as the pound and less referred to as sterling, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence. A number of nations that do not use sterling have currencies called the pound. Sterling is the third most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar, the euro. Together with those two currencies and the Chinese yuan, it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights. Sterling is the third most-held reserve currency in global reserves; the British Crown dependencies of Guernsey and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling which are considered equivalent to UK sterling in their respective regions. The pound sterling is used in Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Saint Helena and Ascension Island in Saint Helena and Tristan da Cunha; the Bank of England is the central bank for the pound sterling, issuing its own coins and banknotes, regulating issuance of banknotes by private banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Banknotes issued by other jurisdictions are not regulated by the Bank of England. The full official name pound sterling, is used in formal contexts and when it is necessary to distinguish the United Kingdom currency from other currencies with the same name. Otherwise the term pound is used; the currency name is sometimes abbreviated to just sterling in the wholesale financial markets, but not when referring to specific amounts. The abbreviations "ster." and "stg." are sometimes used. The term "British pound" is sometimes incorrectly used in less formal contexts, it is not an official name of the currency; the exchange rate of the pound sterling against the US dollar is referred to as "cable" in the wholesale foreign exchange markets. The origins of this term are attributed to the fact that in the 1800s, the GBP/USD exchange rate was transmitted via transatlantic cable. Forex traders of GBP/USD are sometimes referred to as "cable dealers". GBP/USD is now the only currency pair with its own name in the foreign exchange markets, after IEP/USD, known as "wire" in the forward FX markets, no longer exists after the Irish Pound was replaced by the euro in 1999.
There is apparent convergence of opinion regarding the origin of the term "pound sterling", toward its derivation from the name of a small Norman silver coin, away from its association with Easterlings or other etymologies. Hence, the Oxford English Dictionary state that the "most plausible" etymology is derivation from the Old English steorra for "star" with the added diminutive suffix "-ling", to mean "little star" and to refer to a silver penny of the English Normans; as another established source notes, the compound expression was derived: However, the perceived narrow window of the issuance of this coin, the fact that coin designs changed in the period in question, led Philip Grierson to reject this in favour of a more complex theory. Another argument that the Hanseatic League was the origin for both the origin of its definition and manufacture, in its name is that the German name for the Baltic is "Ost See", or "East Sea", from this the Baltic merchants were called "Osterlings", or "Easterlings".
In 1260, Henry III granted them a charter of protection and land for their Kontor, the Steelyard of London, which by the 1340s was called "Easterlings Hall", or Esterlingeshalle. Because the League's money was not debased like that of England, English traders stipulated to be paid in pounds of the "Easterlings", contracted to "'sterling". For further discussion of the etymology of "sterling", see sterling silver; the currency sign for the pound is £, written with a single cross-bar, though a version with a double cross-bar is sometimes seen. This symbol derives from medieval Latin documents; the ISO 4217 currency code is GBP, formed from "GB", the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for the United Kingdom, the first letter of "pound". It does not stand for "Great Britain Pound" or "Great British Pound"; the abbreviation "UKP" is used but this is non-standard because the ISO 3166 country code for the United Kingdom is GB. The Crown dependencies use their own codes: GGP, JEP and IMP. Stocks are traded in pence, so traders may refer to pence sterling, GBX, when listing stock prices.
A common slang term for the pound sterling or pound is quid, singular and plural, except in the common phrase "quids in!". The term may have come via Italian immigrants from "scudo", the name for a number of coins used in Italy until the 19th century.
Arabic
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that first emerged in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. It is named after the Arabs, a term used to describe peoples living in the area bounded by Mesopotamia in the east and the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, in northwestern Arabia, in the Sinai Peninsula. Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage comprising 30 modern varieties, including its standard form, Modern Standard Arabic, derived from Classical Arabic; as the modern written language, Modern Standard Arabic is taught in schools and universities, is used to varying degrees in workplaces and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, the official language of 26 states, the liturgical language of the religion of Islam, since the Quran and Hadith were written in Arabic. Modern Standard Arabic follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic, uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties, has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties.
Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-classical era in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, construed as a multitude of dialects of this language; these dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are acquired in families, while the latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children; the relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Latin and vernaculars in medieval and early modern Europe. This view though does not take into account the widespread use of Modern Standard Arabic as a medium of audiovisual communication in today's mass media—a function Latin has never performed. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a major vehicle of culture in Europe in science and philosophy.
As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Arabic influence in vocabulary, is seen in European languages Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese, Catalan, owing to both the proximity of Christian European and Muslim Arab civilizations and 800 years of Arabic culture and language in the Iberian Peninsula, referred to in Arabic as al-Andalus. Sicilian has about 500 Arabic words as result of Sicily being progressively conquered by Arabs from North Africa, from the mid-9th to mid-10th centuries. Many of these words relate to related activities; the Balkan languages, including Greek and Bulgarian, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history; some of the most influenced languages are Persian, Spanish, Kashmiri, Bosnian, Bengali, Malay, Indonesian, Punjabi, Assamese, Sindhi and Hausa, some languages in parts of Africa. Conversely, Arabic has borrowed words from other languages, including Greek and Persian in medieval times, contemporary European languages such as English and French in modern times.
Classical Arabic is the liturgical language of 1.8 billion Muslims, Modern Standard Arabic is one of six official languages of the United Nations. All varieties of Arabic combined are spoken by as many as 422 million speakers in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet, an abjad script and is written from right to left, although the spoken varieties are sometimes written in ASCII Latin from left to right with no standardized orthography. Arabic is a Central Semitic language related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, various other Semitic languages of Arabia such as Dadanitic; the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense; the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense.
The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms. The development of an internal passive. There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of the northern Hejaz; these features are evidence of common descent from Proto-Arabic. The following features can be reconstructed with confidence for Proto-Arabic: negative particles m *mā.
Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is the main mosque in the Sultanate of Oman, located in the capital city of Muscat. In 1992 Sultan Qaboos directed. A competition for its design took place in 1993 and after a site was chosen at Bausher construction commenced in December 1994. Building work, undertaken by Carillion Alawi LLC, took six years and seven months; the mosque is built from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone. The main musalla is square with a central dome rising to a height of fifty metres above the floor; the dome and the main minaret and four flanking minarets are the mosque’s chief visual features. The main musalla can hold over 6,500 worshippers, while the women's musalla can accommodate 750 worshipers; the outer paved ground can hold 8,000 worshipers and there is additional space available in the interior courtyard and the passageways, making a total capacity of up to 20,000 worshipers. The mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 m2, the complex extends to cover an area of 40,000 m2.
The newly built Grand Mosque was inaugurated by Sultan of Oman on May 4, 2001 to celebrate 30 years of the his reign. A major feature of the design of the interior is the prayer carpet which covers the floor of the prayer hall, it contains, 1,700,000,000 knots, weighs 21 tonnes and took four years to produce, brings together the classical Persian Tabriz and Isfahan design traditions. 28 colors in varying shades were used, the majority obtained from traditional vegetable dyes. It used to be the largest single-piece carpet in the world, but is now the second, after the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, the UAE; this hand-woven carpet was produced by Iran Carpet Company at the order of the Diwan of the Royal Court of Sultanate. The carpet measures over 70 by 60 metres, covers the 4,343 m2 area of the praying hall; the chandelier above the praying hall is 14 metres tall and was manufactured by the Italian company Faustig. Since the mosque is 90 metres high, the chandler looks proportional, but it used to be the world's largest chandelier, before again being replaced in this respect by the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
It weighs 8.5 tons, includes 600,000 crystals, 1,122 halogen bulbs complete with dimming system, includes a staircase for maintenance within the chandelier. Thirty-four smaller chandeliers of the same design are hung in other parts of the building. List of mosques in Oman Official site from the Ministry of Tourism Video and pictures of the Grand Mosque Biggest Chandelier in the World Official Panoramic virtual tour of the Grand Mosque by the Diwan of Royal Court
Currency
A currency, in the most specific sense is money in any form when in use or circulation as a medium of exchange circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money in common use for people in a nation. Under this definition, US dollars, pounds sterling, Australian dollars, European euros, Russian rubles and Indian Rupees are examples of currency; these various currencies are recognized as stores of value and are traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are defined by governments, each type has limited boundaries of acceptance. Other definitions of the term "currency" are discussed in their respective synonymous articles banknote and money; the latter definition, pertaining to the currency systems of nations, is the topic of this article. Currencies can be classified into two monetary systems: fiat money and commodity money, depending on what guarantees the currency's value.
Some currencies are legal tender in certain political jurisdictions. Others are traded for their economic value. Digital currency has arisen with the popularity of the Internet. Money was a form of receipt, representing grain stored in temple granaries in Sumer in ancient Mesopotamia and in Ancient Egypt. In this first stage of currency, metals were used as symbols to represent value stored in the form of commodities; this formed the basis of trade in the Fertile Crescent for over 1500 years. However, the collapse of the Near Eastern trading system pointed to a flaw: in an era where there was no place, safe to store value, the value of a circulating medium could only be as sound as the forces that defended that store. A trade could only reach as far as the credibility of that military. By the late Bronze Age, however, a series of treaties had established safe passage for merchants around the Eastern Mediterranean, spreading from Minoan Crete and Mycenae in the northwest to Elam and Bahrain in the southeast.
It is not known what was used as a currency for these exchanges, but it is thought that ox-hide shaped ingots of copper, produced in Cyprus, may have functioned as a currency. It is thought that the increase in piracy and raiding associated with the Bronze Age collapse produced by the Peoples of the Sea, brought the trading system of oxhide ingots to an end, it was only the recovery of Phoenician trade in the 10th and 9th centuries BC that led to a return to prosperity, the appearance of real coinage first in Anatolia with Croesus of Lydia and subsequently with the Greeks and Persians. In Africa, many forms of value store have been used, including beads, ivory, various forms of weapons, the manilla currency, ochre and other earth oxides; the manilla rings of West Africa were one of the currencies used from the 15th century onwards to sell slaves. African currency is still notable for its variety, in many places, various forms of barter still apply; these factors led to the metal itself being the store of value: first silver both silver and gold, at one point bronze.
Now we have other non-precious metals as coins. Metals were mined and stamped into coins; this was to assure the individual accepting the coin that he was getting a certain known weight of precious metal. Coins could be counterfeited, but the existence of standard coins created a new unit of account, which helped lead to banking. Archimedes' principle provided the next link: coins could now be tested for their fine weight of metal, thus the value of a coin could be determined if it had been shaved, debased or otherwise tampered with. Most major economies using coinage had several tiers of coins of different values, made of copper and gold. Gold coins were the most valuable and were used for large purchases, payment of the military and backing of state activities. Units of account were defined as the value of a particular type of gold coin. Silver coins were used for midsized transactions, sometimes defined a unit of account, while coins of copper or silver, or some mixture of them, might be used for everyday transactions.
This system had been used in ancient India since the time of the Mahajanapadas. The exact ratios between the values of the three metals varied between different eras and places. However, the rarity of gold made it more valuable than silver, silver was worth more than copper. In premodern China, the need for credit and for a medium of exchange, less physically cumbersome than large numbers of copper coins led to the introduction of paper money, i.e. banknotes. Their introduction was a gradual process which lasted from the late Tang dynasty into the Song dynasty, it began as a means for merchants to exchange heavy coinage for receipts of deposit issued as promissory notes by wholesalers' shops. These notes were valid for temporary use in a small regional territory. In the 10th century, the Song dynasty government began to circulate these notes amongst the traders in its monopolized salt industry; the Song government granted several shops the right to issue banknotes, in the early 12th century the government took over these shops to produce state-issued currency.
Yet the banknotes issued w
Bahraini dinar
The dinar is the currency of Bahrain. It is divided into 1000 fils; the name dinar derives from the Roman denarius. The dinar was introduced in 1965; the Bahraini dinar is abbreviated.د.ب or BD. It is represented with three decimal places denoting the fils. In 1965, coins were introduced in denominations of 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 fils; the 1, 5 and 10 fils were struck with the others in cupro-nickel. The 1 fils coin was not produced after 1966 and no longer circulates. A bimetallic 100 fils coin was introduced in October 1977. In 1992, brass replaced bronze in the 10 fils. A bimetallic 500 fils coin was released in 2000 with the Pearl Monument on the obverse; the coin was discontinued in response to the uprising in Bahrain, which resulted in the demolition of the monument on 18 March 2011, although the Bank stated that minting had ceased some time prior to that. The coin was no longer released back into circulation after reaching banks. For a wider history surrounding currency in the region, see The History of British Currency in the Middle East.
On October 16, 1965, the Bahrain Currency Board introduced notes in denominations of 1⁄4, 1⁄2, 1, 5 and 10 dinars. In 1973, the Bahrain Monetary Agency took over the issuance of paper money, starting in July 1978 with a 20 dinar note, it introduced a new family of notes dated 1973 in Arabic. Denominations of 1⁄2, 1, 5 and 10 dinars were released on 16 December 1979; the 100-fils note of the Bahrain Currency Board was withdrawn in November 1980 and the remainder of the notes were withdrawn on 31 March 1996, remaining exchangeable until one year afterwards. The third issue of notes with the same denominations of 1⁄2 to 20 dinars was released in March 1993; this series was upgraded during 1998 with various modifications to security features. However, a fake order for banknotes had been placed with the Argentinian printer Ciccone Calcografica who did not verify it with the legitimate authorities in Bahrain and obtained genuine banknote paper from Arjo Wiggins to print over 7 million unauthorised replicas of the 20-dinar note, equivalent to US$365 million.
These differed from genuine notes in two respects: different background shading to the Arabic name of the Bahrain Monetary Agency, a large gap between the two Arabic letters in the horizontal serial number. The unauthorised notes were smuggled through various African and European countries by air and presented for exchange in Belgium and the Gulf around June 1998, just as the upgraded 20-dinar note was being released in Bahrain; the large amounts raised suspicions and were soon detected as notes that had not been printed by the authorised printer, De La Rue. The Bahrain Monetary Agency allowed individuals who had mistakenly accepted the unauthorised notes to exchange them for face value at banks between 8-14 June 1998 quickly recalled all 20-dinar notes on 30 July 1998; the unauthorised notes, being replicas of the 1993 design, were without a hologram. Despite this the upgraded notes in purple but with a hologram, released in June 1998 were withdrawn. On 1 August 1998 a new 20-dinar note, of the same design as the upgraded note but in peach colour, was released.
Thus, the genuine June 1998 design was only in circulation for about 7 weeks and is therefore seen by collectors. All other banknotes of the Bahrain Monetary Agency remain exchangeable. On 7 September 2006, the Bahrain Monetary Agency was renamed the Central Bank of Bahrain. On 17 March 2008, the Central Bank of Bahrain introduced its first series of notes reflecting the country's heritage as well as its modern development. On 4 September 2016, the Central Bank of Bahrain introduced upgraded versions of the 10- and 20-dinar notes with enhanced security features and tactile lines added at center right front for the visually impaired. In December 1980, the dinar was pegged to the IMF's special drawing rights. In practice, it is fixed at $1 USD = 0.376 BHD, which translates to 1 BHD = $2.65957 USD and almost 10 Saudi Arabian riyals. This rate was made official in 2001 and Saudi riyals are accepted in Bahrain at any point of sale, with the exception of the Saudi 500 riyal note, only accepted in major supermarkets and electronic shops.
Before Malta's adoption of the euro on 1 January 2008, it was the third-highest-valued currency unit after the Kuwaiti dinar and Maltese lira. After Malta adopted the euro, the dinar became the second highest-valued currency unit. Note: Rates obtained from these websites may contradict with pegged rate mentioned above Gulf rupee Economy of Bahrain Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf Historical and current banknotes of Bahrain
Oman
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