Watch List notes:

Umayyad, dirham, Ifriqiya 134h, 2.74g (cf Lowick 267 [133h]; cf ICA 27, 10 December 2014, lot 178), light flan crack, very fine to good very fine and extremely rare. Although struck two years after the Abbasids defeated the main line of the Umayyads in 132h, this coin follows the standard Umayyad pattern with the Surat al-Ikhlas on the reverse. It was struck by 'Abd al-Rahman b. Habib al-Fihri, who had seized power in North Africa after expelling the Umayyad governor in the chaos caused by the death of the caliph Hisham in 126h. His successor Marwan II had little choice but to confirm 'Abd al-Rahman as the new, officially appointed governor there, and he remained in post until the fall of the Umayyad and death of Marwan II in 132h. Like Marwan II, the new Abbasid caliph, al-Saffah, could do little more at first than confirm 'Abd al-Rahman's position. Soon, however, 'Abd al-Rahman became more and more concerned by increasingly strident Abbasid demands for submission and switched his allegiance to the Umayyad cause, burning the robes of state sent by al-Saffah and inviting the surviving members of the Umayyad family to take refuge in North Africa. Thus it was that the caliph Hisham's grandson, 'Abd al-Rahman b. Mu'awiya b. Hisham, was able to cross from North Africa into Spain in 137h where he established the line of Spanish Umayyads in 138h. Abd al-Rahman b. Habib al-Fihri was murdered in 137h by his brother Ilyas who, allegedly spurred on by his wife, stabbed him in the back - literally, and indeed metaphorically.
(3000-3500 GBP)