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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Parthicus, post: 7666579, member: 81887&quot;][ATTACH=full]1317455[/ATTACH]</p><p>Arab-Sasanian.&nbsp; No mint or date.&nbsp; AE pashiz (12 mm, 0.73 g).&nbsp; Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, Umayyad governor of Iraq (75-95 AH/ 694-713 AD).&nbsp; Obverse: Sassanian-Style bust right, behind bust Pahlavi inscription &quot;xvarrah abzud&quot; (May [his] glory increase), in front Arabic inscription &quot;al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf&quot; , radial Arabic inscription &quot;Bismillah la ilah illa Allah wahdahu Muhammad rasul Allah&quot; (In the Name of God, there is no God but God, Muhammad is His Prophet).&nbsp; Reverse: Standing &quot;Orans&quot; (praying) figure with enlarged hand, Pahlavi inscription behind and in front &quot;peroz bavad hacac&quot; (May he be victorious, al-Hajjaj).&nbsp; Album B37, Gyselen 79.&nbsp; This coin: Stephen Album Auction 39, lot 2013 (January 21-25, 2021).</p><p><br /></p><p>The earliest Islamic coin issues, as I&#039;ve discussed before, copied the coins of their defeated Byzantine and Sasanian foes.&nbsp; In the formerly Sasanian territories, silver drachms were near-identical copies of the Sasanian coins with just the legends changed, but copper coinage was a more locally-managed affair, and there were many different designs used.&nbsp; The reverse of this coins features what is known as an &quot;orans&quot; figure, an artistic style showing a figure praying with hands upraised, often with the hands exaggerated for emphasis.&nbsp; Orans figures are known from early Christian and from Sasanian art, but the use of such a figure in a Muslim context is unusual.&nbsp; Perhaps the issuer (al-Hajjaj) wanted to emphasize his piety, so in addition to the religious inscription he also used this visual shorthand.&nbsp; Also noteworthy in the design, the outer inscription on the obverse is done radially.&nbsp; Here is a silver dirham of al-Hajjaj (photo from Wikipedia) which shows the radial inscription more clearly:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1317473[/ATTACH]</p><p>This is a very unusual way of writing Arabic, and I have been unable to find an explanation for why al-Hajjaj chose it on his coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>Al-Hajjaj was the Umayyad governor of Iraq province from 75 to 95 AH (694-713 AD).&nbsp; At the time, the governorship of Iraq (lower Mesopotamia) also included former Sasanian Persia and further east, so al-Hajjaj&#039;s domain was nearly half of the area of the Caliphate.&nbsp; Al-Hajjaj proved a very loyal and effective agent of the Umayyads.&nbsp; He defeated a major uprising centered around Basra and Kufa, and he founded the city of Wasit, which became the most prolific mint for Umayyad dirhams.&nbsp; During al-Hajjaj&#039;s governorship, he switched from issuing Arab-Sasanian style silver (shown above) to the &quot;post-reform&quot; style featuring only Arabic inscriptions with no figural designs (his last Arab-Sasanian drachms are dated AH 81), though Arab-Sasanian coppers continued in the region until about AH 100, a few years after his death.</p><p><br /></p><p>In addition to its historical interest, this is also quite a rare coin.&nbsp; Album lists its rarity as &quot;RRR&quot; (the highest level in his Handbook), while Gyselen (at least in the 1st edition of 2000) lists only 2 known examples of this type.&nbsp; Even with the face of the Orans figure missing, I was still quite happy to acquire this coin.&nbsp; Please post any coins that may be relevant.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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