"Absence of Evidence isn't evidence of absence"?

Jay had asked for people to respond to his videos on the early Islamic Coins with questions, and he would then respond to them as best he could. An expert on Numismatics (the study of coins), named Damian Salgado wrote 4 brilliant questions last week concerning Jay's premise that the earliest Arab coins weren't Islamic at all, but showed strong allegiance to Christianity and Zoroastrianism, up to the time of Abd al-Malik, in 692 AD and 696 AD. Below are Salgado's 4 questions, followed by responses from Jay: Question No. 1: The "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (quote from Martin Rees). Jay's Response: This is the same as the ‘argument from silence’. It is true that until these coins were discovered and researched, we had very little from the 7th century to go on concerning how Islam really began, and therefore everything we were arguing from was from an argument of silence, which was troubling. But that's not the case anymore, since we now have evidence…these coins! So, now there is no Absence of Evidence, is there? Nor are we now arguing from silence...and this new evidence is absolutely deafening! Question No. 2: The first official Islamic coins were minted only after Muslims took control of MINTS. There were no active mints in the Arabic peninsula in Muhammed's times, that's why there are no Islamic coins for Muhammad's times. Jay's Response: That’s possibly true up to 661 AD, but Mu'awiya by this time controlled land from Tripoli in the West to Afghanistan in the East, and therefore had a number of mints at his disposal, and minted very precise coins with his name on them, and Zoroastrian imagery, but with no Islamic symbols, or references, which suggests that up to 680, when he died, his reign was not Islamic. Question No. 3: Early Islamic coins continued previous Byzantine and Sassanian types, because they were the acceptable, well-known types, a fact that is decisive when producing coinage. There are thousands of instances in NUMISMATICS of type-continuity and imitation, from the Athenian Tetradrachm, which was extensively imitated in all the Eastern Mediterranean, to hundreds of imitations and local versions of medieval coin types, to the US dollar bill, that continued its anticuated type and style for decades. Jay's Response: In every case coins, which employed 'type-continuity', such as the Athenian Tetradrachm, were only used in colonies of the controlling power, in these cases Greek colonies, created by Alexander the Great, as a means of identifying who were the colonizers. Early Islam, however, was no longer a colony of the Byzantines, and certainly not of the Sassanians, as they had already defeated them, and, by 661 AD, ruled from Tripoli (Tunisia) to Afghanistan. Their coinage would thus reflect their new identity, Islam, but they don’t…until 692 AD. Question No. 4: Coinage with full Arabic epigraphy, date, and denomination started with Abd al-Malik's reform, and that was a response to the inclusion of Jesus' portrait in Byzantine solidi, a measure taken by emperor Justinian II. It was a dare move [by Abd al-Malik], because he risked that his coins wouldn't be accepted. But it worked just fine. I am not a Muslim and I have no special sympathy for Islam, but I am a numismatist, and numismatics is a science, so I can tell that here you are making pseudo-science. Jay's Response: As a Numismatist, you probably don’t see the fuller picture, especially what was happening politically with Islam at this period. When you look at the other material from this period, such as the fact that all of the earliest mosques up to 706 AD are facing too far north, towards Petra, in Jordan, rather than Mecca, and that there is no reference to Mecca until 741 AD, or that there is no evidence of any Qur'anic manuscripts until the 8th century, or any references to Muhammad until Abd al-Malik does so on his coins of 692 AD, as well as on his protocols, and on the Dome of the Rock, all in the same year. It is all of this documentary material, coupled with the archaeological and numismatic evidence which points to Abd al-Malik introducing what we now know as Islam. © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2020 (26,640)