Egyptian commemorative

Here is a recent purchase (today). An 1970-1972 Egyptian 1 pound commemorative silver coin (25.0 g, 72% Ag). About the same size as a Morgan dollar.

The obverse depicts a view of the Al Azhar Mosque in Cairo. The coin celebrates the 1000th anniversary of the mosque's dedication. It is said to be the first example of Fatmid architecture in the city. I've attached a picture of said structure, you can decide if its a faithful rendition.

 

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Brad,that is a very nice .720 fine silver Egyptian 1 Pound coin you have got there.

Aidan.

 

I have this coin , 1 Pound "Gunayh" commemorates

Al-Azhar university. The most important peature of the coin is that it has DATES ERROR : 1 ١ GUNAYH 1970 424 جنيه UNITED ARAB REPUBLIC الجمهورية العربية المتحدة , DATE ERROR: ISLAMIC DATES 1359-1361 ١٣٥٩ ١٣٦١ DO NOT MATCH CHRISTIAN DATES 1970-1972 ١٩٨٠ ١٩٧٢
SOURCE : http://members.tripod.com/~GILAD_ZUCKERMAN/matauang_tanpa_harga.html#EGYPT

 

This coin is not a commemorative but it is one of my favorites.
I picked up around 10 of them in Cairo in 1987.
I like the simplicity of the design.
Egypt 5 piastres dated 1984, brass, about the size of a US nickel.

 

wow. very very beautiful. I am going to buy a similar one if the opportunity presents itself at the cicf

 

Pretty Cool, thanks for sharing.

Ben

 

wow, love them pyramids.. now if they could issue one with the sphinx as the 'heads' lol

 

Here it is, courtesy of worldcoingallery..

 

ha ha they have done that already

 

Here's my only Egyptian coin, it's got your Sphinx...

 

Thanks for that info, the problem is that the dedication was in 972 AD or 361 AH, so 1000 Christian years ends up being about 1031 Islamic calendar years. The Islamic dates should read about 1390-1392.

Universities and religious institutions in the Islamic world historically have been one and the same.

 

I think there is no error in date. Those 4 numbers on the coin are "Information" and not just a date. So, a regular date conversion doesn't fit for these numbers.

Al-Azhar university's foundation was laid on AH 359 and was completed in AH 361. If you convert these two Hijri years, they correspond to AD 970 and AD 972.

So, to celebrate 1000 years of this university, they just added 1000 in original Hijri and Gregorian dates and gave that information on that coin.

So, I think those four numbers makes sense in both Hijri and Gregorian dates.

BTW, nice coin acanthite! I have one of those and I always liked the minarets of this university.

Regards
Ballabh Garg