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Message:: [QUOTE="Ardatirion, post: 1414322, member: 9204"]Doug - your coin is also from the Madinat al-Salaam (Baghdad) mint, dated AH 185 (AD 801/2). Most of the Umayyad and 'Abbasid issues are anonymous and do not name the Caliph (although some do, and some also name the local governor). Yours is from the time of Harun al-Rashid Rexesq, yours is time of the caliph al-Mahdi. On the 'Abbasid issues, the date and mint information is in the marginal inscription on the obverse. These are quite easy to read, as they are always formulaic! The legend above translates to, "In the name of Allah, this dirhem was struck in Baghdad, year 163." The inscriptions are in the Kufic script - more modern Arabic scripts did not appear until the 11th century AD. What rexesq thought were "non-Arabic characters" is actually the beginning of the Shahada. I highly encourage everyone to pick up of Arabic Coins and How to Read Them by Richard Plant. It is not a catalog at all. Rather, it's a workbook to help train you to read enough numismatic Arabic to ID coins. (I can't read Arabic to save my life. But I CAN pick out mints, dates, and sometimes even rulers!)[/QUOTE]