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ABBASID REVOLUTION: Anonymous, AR dirham (2.82g), Tanbarak, AH133. VF

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Islamic Coins - Early Post-Reform Start Price:2,600.00 USD Estimated At:3,000.00 - 4,000.00 USD
ABBASID REVOLUTION: Anonymous, AR dirham (2.82g), Tanbarak, AH133. VF
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ABBASID REVOLUTION: Anonymous, AR dirham (2.82g), Tanbarak, AH133, A-207.2, Klat-198, Wurtzel-32, kalima in center, surrounded by mint & date formula within dotted circular double-border; in outer margin, the Kharijite motto la hukm illa lillah ("Judgment belongs to God alone") interspersed with four pellet-in-annulets // Umayyad reverse, with Qu'ran Sura 112 in field and 9:33 in margin, slight crimp near the edge, light hairlines, a coin of great historical significance and rarity, VF, RRR.

The Kharijites (from Arabic al-khawârij, "the Outsiders") were an early Islamic sect that emerged among the ranks of Ali b. Abi Talib after the Battle of Siffin in 658/AH36, in protest against the caliph's decision to arbitrate with Mu'awiya. They saw Ali's concession as a forfeiture of his moral authority and rebelled under the telling motto "Judgment belongs to God alone". Ali himself was killed by a Kharijite assassin in 661/AH40, and this movement would challenge Umayyad and Abbasid authority for the next several centuries, most prominently during the Abbasid Revolution and the Anarchy at Samarra.

It was during the former period that this coin (as well as the previous lot in this sale, a dirham of al-Kufa AH128) was issued, though the specific circumstances surrounding it, including the name of the mint, remain unknown. Album proposes the reading of Tanbarak for this mint, previously published as "Tanbuk" and "Baybird" (for Bayburt in Anatolia). It is probably one of the several Iranian fortresses known as Tabarak in later times, and perhaps for the same locale known in Parthian times as Tambrax, located in Mazandaran (Hyrcania in ancient Greek) and tentatively identified as the modern city of Sari.

Struck from the same dies as Morton & Eden Auction 79, Lot 55 and Baldwin's of St. James's Auction 4, Lot 187.