Paper money at the time of the Companions of the cave?

Paper money at the time of the Companions of the cave?

18:19 And similarly, We raised them that they might question among them. Said a speaker among them, "How long have you remained?" They said, "We have remained a day or a part of a day." They said, "Your Lord knows best how long you have remained. So send one of you with this silver coin of yours (biwariqikum) to the city, and let him see which food is purest, and let him bring to you provision from it, and let him be cautious. And let no one be aware about you."

(The root of “wariq” (silver coin) is “Waw-Ra-Qaf”, and some dictionaries say that it literally means something flat, thin and light. This also fits with today’s paper money, and a few translators have wrongly translated it as paper money, but paper money did not even exist in Arabia at the time of the Prophet (seventh century), so if the story in the Qur’an happened in the third century, the Verse could not refer to “paper money” in any case, but, in fact, it refers to “metal coins”, which are also flat, thin and light. The same word came to be used for ‘paper money’ in later generations. Classical Arabic lexicons (like Ibn Faris's Maqayis al-Lughah) explicitly define the root W-R-Q around the core physical semantic of a "thin, broad layer," which originally applied to foliage and struck silver coins, long before paper was introduced to the Arab world in the 8th century CE.) (Modern Arabic dictionaries (like Hans Wehr) list "sheet of paper, card, stamped sheet" because they include modern meanings. You should not use modern dictionary entries to prove 7th-century usage. You should stick strictly to classical lexicons like Lisan al-Arab or Taj al-Arus to prove the historical definition.) (At the time of the Prophet Muhammad and in pre-Islamic Arabia, if an early Arab spoke of “wariq”, they were referring specifically to flattened, leaf-thin silver money (coins) or hammered silver leaf. In pre-Islamic and early Mecca and Medina, the Arabs did not mint their own coins; they relied on imported silver Sasanian (Persian) dirhams and Roman coinage. Because these ancient silver dirhams were thin, flat discs struck from metal, the Arabs called silver coinage (wariq) by analogy to plant leaves.) (And the word used is also correct because it is said that the story in Verse 18:19 refers to the time of Emperor Decius (Emperor from 249 AD to 251 AD). There are surviving silver coins with Decius’s face on them.) (Paper money did not even exist at the time of Muhammad, and the Qur’an is in the language of his people (14:4), so the Qur’an could not have used a word implying “paper money” in the third century anyhow, but that word implies “metal coins”. This conclusion is supported by root dictionaries. And that word originally implied “coins”, but dictionaries/people added it later, as “paper money”, because it is a later invention, and the same word was chosen. Dictionaries didn't "invent" the “shift”; rather, the word naturally evolved via semantic expansion. When paper arrived in the Islamic world, Arabs also used the familiar root for "thin, flat material" to name paper sheets. In the case of Verse 14:4, linguistic clarity requires words to be understood in their 7th-century Hijazi context, where wariq meant silver coins exclusively.) (The meanings of “Waw-Ra-Qaf” have a “thin shape” in common, whether the material is a thin metal or a sheet of paper, etc. According to Hussein’s “My personal Qur’an” (A modern Arabic dictionary), “The root is W-R-Qaf and it means leaf of the trees and so on. The word is also conceptually used for any entity that is flat and thin and therefore can be used for the paper we write on, or any flat thin surface we write on as well as money whether coins or paper money.” While the root conceptually allows for flat/thin items in general, the specific form used in 18:19 was the specific noun for silver money.) (The Qur’an was revealed from 609 to 632 CE (seventh century). Tang Dynasty paper credit notes began appearing around the 7th–8th century in China, but they were entirely unknown in the Mediterranean and Near East. Paper making itself did not reach the Islamic world until after the Battle of Talas in 751 CE (8th century). Therefore, neither paper nor paper money existed anywhere near Arabia during the revelation of the Qur'an. True paper money did not appear until the 11th century, during the Song dynasty.) (Another point is that the Verse says “wariq” (silver coin), while the Verses implying “leaves / leaf” use the word “waraq”, which is distinct from “wariq”, both derived from the same root. The voweling difference: (Waraq - fathah on 'ra'): Used in Surah Al-A'raf (7:22) and Surah Taha (20:121) for "leaves of the Garden". (Wariq - kasrah on 'ra'): Used in Surah Al-Kahf (18:19) specifically for silver currency. This exact vocalization proves that the Qur'an distinguishes between plant leaves and silver money.) (Paper is made from plant fibers (mulberry bark, hemp, wood pulp), and the root W-R-Q (“silver coins”) came to be applied to paper over time because paper sheets resemble leaves in shape and thinness, not because of raw material.) (According to the article “Paper money, a Chinese invention?” by Coralie Boeykens (Museum guide from the “Museum of the National Bank of Belgium”), in regard to “paper” (not paper money), she said, “The first traces of paper date back to the 2nd half of the 1st century BC but then it was not used as writing material. For their traditional calligraphy with brushes they used linen, hemp, bamboo (cane) and bark of the mulberry tree. Important progress has been made between the 2nd and 4th century AD: Thanks to the use of soaked bast of the mulberry the quality of the pulp significantly improved and paper became less heavy”) (Coralie Boeykens, about “paper money”, said that “In the travel accounts of the Venetian traveler Marco Polo the reader becomes familiar with the fascinating world of paper money production. This money has been put into circulation during the Yuan period by the Mongol chief Kublai Khan (1214-1294). Paper money is made there from the sapwood of the mulberry tree.” Marco Polo observed this in the late 13th century (nearly 600–700 years after the revelation of the Qur'an), proving how much later paper currency entered global awareness compared to silver coins (wariq).) (Allah knows best)

See also: Is the Qur'an scientifically correct? (5) (History)

http://aqtthq.blogspot.com.es/2016/09/response-to-jay-smith-can-god-have-son.html

See also: Is the Qur'an scientifically correct? (0) (Index)

https://aqtthq.blogspot.com.es/2017/04/is-quran-scientifically-correct-2.html

See also: “Dirham” in the time of Joseph?

http://aqtthq.blogspot.com.es/2017/03/dirham-in-time-of-joseph.html