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Message:: [QUOTE="OutsiderSubtype, post: 5349510, member: 112457"]I recently bought this silver dirham of Harun al-Rashid. I also got the new edition of Plant's Arabic Coins and How to Read Them to help understand the script. I also have access to the free online PDF of Album's Checklist of Islamic Coins. I thought it might be interesting to others to see how far I got after a few hours with the coin and these books. This is a total newbie reading. I do not speak Arabic at all or have any experience with the language. I just want to be able to identify key parts of the script on my coin. Plant is overall quite encouraging, but he points out that the Kufic script is very hard to read because many of the letters are so similar. I'd appreciate a little help from people with mroe experience with Kufic script. I'd like to confirm a few points and get some help with the reverse area legend. Here is the coin (seller's image - from Pars Coins Vauction 356): It is quite a common type, Album 219.9. al-Rashid's dirhams are a little different from many other Abbasid dirhams because he mostly did not put his own name on them. Instead he named one of his sons. Here is the same image which I have marked up to highlight a few parts of the script. [ATTACH=full]1226637[/ATTACH] The area legend on the obverse is the "Kalima": "There is no God except Allah, He is alone, (There is) no partner to him." The marginal legend on the obverse begins at about one o'clock, just above the top of my orange line. It runs counterclockwise because Arabic is read from right to left. As I understand it, this legend always follows a formula "In the name of Allah this dirham was struck at <mint> in <year>". Mint: I think the mint is named at about six o'clock. I have highlighted part of it in yellow. I think the mint is Medinat es-Salam (= City of Peace = Baghdad). I say this because of the part I have highlighted, which looks like the "es-Salam" part to me. The three short lines are "s" followed by the large and distinctive v-shaped lam-alef (the same letter as the large letters that begin and end the top line of the obverse area legend). So that is "SAL". According to Plant's list of mint names that part is pretty distinctive. Also, per Album, this type was not minted at so many mints; it is probably Medinat es-Salam or al-Muhammadiya. The seller had this listed as al-Muhammadiya but I suspect that was a copy/paste error from another listing. Can anyone confirm my mint identification? Date: On these dirhams, the dates are written out as words rather than numerals. Also the place order is reversed from what I am used to. The seller says the date on this one is AH 183.  So the date should be like "three and eighty and one hundred". I think the part I have underlined in purple is the "three", the part I have underlined in blue is the "eighty", and the part I have underlined in orange is the "one hundred". Can anyone confirm that I am underlining the right part of the script for each number? The other side is the reverse. The reverse margin legend is, as I understand it, always Sura 9 verse 33. That leaves the reverse area legend. This is where I could really use some help. The first line of the reverse area legend: I think the first few letters are MHM. I am having a hard time with the rest of the first line. According to Plant, it should say, "Muhammad rasul Allah" (Muhammad the messenger of Allah) somewhere on this side of the coin. Plant says that was something the Abbasid caliphs added. That would start with MHM I guess, since in Arabic short vowels are not written. Is that what this line is? The second line of the reverse area legend: I think the part I have boxed in green is the name of al-Rashid's son, al-Amin. Is that correct and what is the rest of this line? The third line of the reverse area legend: I think part of this line (everything to the left of the rightmost vertical line) is "ibn amir al-mu’minin" meaning "son of the Commander of the Faithful". Per Album that should be on here somewhere, and this looks the most like that to me. I can't really tell what's going on toward the right, and I'm sure an expert could give a more complete reading of this line. Is that what this is, or am I totally off? Fourth line of the reverse area legend (in red): This is easy, it's just the name "Ja'far", the vizier. Hopefully this has been an interesting read. Thank you very much in advance for any help you can provide! I am sure I have made mistakes so please don't be shy about correcting me.[/QUOTE]

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