I agree with "looks Arabic," and it also looks like you have the coin pictured right side up, so that's a good start. Good luck!
I'll chime in on the "Arabic" and then disappear without adding one iota of further useful information, I'm afraid. Extremely vague wild guess? I get a Central Asian vibe, like Afghanistan or even India, but, as warned, that is an extremely vague and wild guess.
Oh yeah, and it's old. Like 200 or more years old, is my next wild guess, based on the look. Ancient? Maybe, but I get more of a 1600-1800 AD kinda vibe. We'll see how embarrassed I am when somebody who really knows what it is chimes in. There even appear to be some Arabic numerals, like part of a Hejira calendar date, in the first picture, but I can't make out what it is.
I collect Arabic coins and some Indian coins. I don't know exactly what kindom these are from, but definitely would put money on Indian or Afghan and circa 200 to 400 years old.
Ottoman empire, Mustafa III, Tunis (Tunus)-AH 1170 http://www.worldofcoins.eu/forum/index.php?topic=6872.0
Thanks, Mani! You hit it right on the spot. Not being a reader of Arabic, for me the riddle of such a coin starts with searching for a date. Arabic numbers were used since the 13th century and they are quite easy to spot, being written from left to right and looking a bit like 'our' numerals. You find it on the left picture, bottom: a clear V and an O, and less clear I I before it. I would say 1175 AH = 1762 AD. A zero is written as a dot. But I might be erring. Here's a useful date converter for many calendars. But the months and the days might occasionally get in the way. For Islamic coins use, I downloaded an "AH x AD converter chart (years only)", you find it on google with these exact words.
And yes, it was minted in Tunis: تونس is easy to read above the date. You can compare the lettering in the Wikipedia article.
yes- I=1 and V=7 and o=5 but sometimes in arabic and persian letters we use o rather than 0. but normaly point(.) is right. then the history of your coin is : 1175 AH
Ottoman coins are not rare, but the calligraphy can be quite beautiful. This is a silver zolota (diameter 37 mm), a bit later than your coin.
