ANCIENT - NumisChallenge - Why this ?

Ha yes you got it man well done!

 

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I thought it was quite an interesting piece considering the use of the name Jesus. Yes Alex is one of my favorite sellers, he really is an expert in this area of coinage.

 

Lol we posted translation in same minute...

 

"The coins of the Indian Sultanates"#AS24; Rajgor -.
Very rare, the rarest of all Sindi silver qanhari dirhams according to "the coins of the Indian Sultanates". "Isa" is the arabic form of the name "Jesus".
Sind was the first part of India to come under muslim rule. The earliest Amirs issued small silver coins (1/4 dirhams) - all carrying the name of the Amir, but without any dates, so they are very difficult to date exactly, especially since the Amirs of Sind are virtually unknown from other sources. These coins are generally not rare, but are difficult to find in high quality, like this coin.


The sellers info

 

=> man, that coin sucks!!

(oh, no he didn't??!!))





... just kiddin' ... good one, eh?

Cheers, my friend

 

I just got to the thread but would never have got it. I admit about the only islamic type coins i know are arab-sassanid and arab-byzantine, and a few early arabic from persia. I have tried to get into them, but just cannot for some reason.

 

This, also, was over my head. Can you point out which characters are Isa? I have only one small silver of Sind which I have never IDed beyond that point.

 

Doug I was curious myself, as I cant read Arabic,, so I showed my boss at work who is from Pakistan he I believe he pointed to the bottom most figure on the right of the left image, 3 lines down on the right image.

 

I believe he pointed to this figure...sometimes he's hard to understand.

 

I have the book The Coins of the Indian Sultanates. And not to be a party pooper but just for accuracy"s sake, in case anyone has misunderstood, the Jesus/ Isa mentioned on this coin does not refer to the Christian Jesus. The Isa mentioned was an early Muslim Amir of Sind. He ruled sometime between AH 257-421 / AD 870-1030. The exact ruling period of rulers at this time are hard to date.

Just wanted to make that clear in case someone after reading this thread misunderstood and went in search of this coin for the wrong reason.

But a very cool and rare coin.

 

Yes the rare "use" of the name. The name almost certainly refers to the proper name of the Amir.

Thanks for the addition and clarification!

 

Very nice coin. It's good to see someone on Cointalk venturing into this area. I myself have a passing interest in the early Islamic issues of East Africa, but a tight budget and the coins' great rarity has limited me greatly.

 

In fact, after I read this thread I thought, "Cool. A coin that mentions Jesus. I gotta get me one!" But then I read up on it. It's still a cool and a rare coin. Probably the first coin ever with the name of Jesus.

Islamic coins are an overlooked area of collecting for Westerners. Although I collect mainly ancient Greek, I also collect certain medieval areas of Islamic coins. But it's a hard road. Unlike for example ancient Greek or Roman coins where you can make out coin inscriptions without having to learn a new language. With Islamic coins a Westerner is starting from knowing nothing. It helps to learn a basic understanding of Arabic. At least it's easy to memorize the names and phrases and numbers for dates used on the coins in the period of time you are collecting. It isn't easy to self teach oneself Arabic. But for those who like to research it is an enjoyable challenge. You can also rely on a reputable seller's translations. But I prefer to be able to read the coins myself. But I'm still working on that with a very long way to go.

And Westerners usually don't get much history of Islamic countries in school. So there's no interest generated there. And I'm sure the present world tensions don't help to make Islamic coins popular.

But there's a lot of interesting history and numismatics associated with Islamic coins. I would suggest to other collectors they at least take a look. You might like it.

 

Anoob,, very interesting, you sure can fine these cool coins, good job...:thumb:

tenacious this is not the only coin with Jesus, also to have a coin with his image, check out my avatar. Jesus on the ob. holding the 4 Gospels, also on the Rev. says in Greek Jesus Christ King of Kings , this coin was struck around 1000 or so AD..:smile

 

Interesting pickup Anoob! :thumb:

 

i'm lost...but interested....story of my life.

 

In a nut shell the coin is a really rare and interesting Islamic coin from Sindh. I has the name of one of the Amirs on it and his name is Isa which is Jesus. You knw Jesus on an ancient Islamic coin is cool. right?

 

Let's see, for Jesus specifically, the Byzantines started naming him and portraying him in the 8th century. I don't think this is the first. The romans of course had coins showing the hand of god, a Chi-Ro, and later a cross as predominant reverses. Of course the Axumites were the first coins with Christian symbols on them, though.

I thought it was cool an Islamic coin would have someone named Jesus, but it makes sense. Muslims consider Jesus to be a great prophet, along with Moses and Mohammed. Since the crusades had not yet happened, I bet there wasn't nearly the religious animosity seen later at this time.

 

Interesting background and comparison. I read somewhere that the Muslims and Christians co existed in the whole land largely without incident up until the crusades in the 1100's.