ABBASID, AL-MUTAWAKKIL (232-247h)

Dinar, Jurzan 240h

Obverse: citing the heir al-Mu‘tazz billah

Weight: 4.38g

Minor scuffs, very fine and of the highest rarity, apparently the only known Abbasid gold dinar from the mint of Jurzan                                                                                                                                                                                                 

[The mint-name on this coin was originally read as Jurjan, and appears as such in the printed catalogue.  Since printing, however, Dr Aram Vardanyan has instead identified it as Jurzan, the Arabic name for the Caucasian region of Georgia, and the following footnote has been slightly altered to reflect this revised reading.]

At the time this coin was struck the veteran general Bugha al-Kabir was concluding a punitive expedition into Armenia and Georgia, which took him close to the Western fringes of the Caspian Sea.  This would certainly explain why dinars might have been struck at Dabil, and indeed with the mint-name ‘Arminiya’ in 243, 246 and 247h.  Bugha’s campaigns began when he moved north from Diyar Bakr into southern Armenia in 237h, before moving north-west to Dabil where he remained for a month.  In 238h Bugha departed Dabil and advanced north into Georgia, where he sacked Tiflis and killed its emir, Ishaq b. Isma‘il.  Thereafter, Bugha appears to have moved south-eastwards into Caucasian Albania, which borders the western shores of the Caspian Sea, defeating and capturing several local rulers en route.

Like the very rare Abbasid gold and silver coins struck at Dabil in 240-241h, this dinar was probably struck to affirm Abbasid control in the newly-pacified region of Georgia.  It is interesting that the provincial name, Jurzan, should be used as opposed to the name of the capital Tiflis, which appears as an extremely rare Umayyad dirham mint and is also known from a unique Abbasid dinar dated 248h.  It seems plausible to suggest that the use of the provincial name was intended to emphasise that Bugha’s victories were not confined to defeating the emir of Tiflis alone, but that he had also subjugated a number of other local rulers and princes in the region.