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Numismatica Genevensis SA
Auction 11  18 Nov 2019
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Lot 11

Starting price: 15 000 CHF
Price realized: 30 000 CHF
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Zubayda, the most famous queen in the History of Islam.
The Abbasid Caliphate. Zubayda bint Ja'far bin Abi-Ja'far al-Mansur with the name of her vizier Yasir/Bashir. AR Dirham AH 190, Dhawahi al-Ta'if. Umm Jafar / bism Allah duriba/ hadha'l-dirham/Dhawahi al-Ta'if/sanat tisa'in wa mi'a/Yasir or Bashir. 2,93g. Album -.
About extremely fine and previously unpublished

Zubayda was commonly known in Arabic as "Umm Ja'far" (Mother of Ja'far) who was her eldest son and the future Caliph al-Amin. She was married to the great Harun al-Rashid and was arguably the most famous woman in the history of Islam. Most unusually for anyone who was not the ruler, let alone a woman, Zubayda issued her own coins and lived a remarkably independent life. She also appears to have been a great traveller and she possessed a number of different residences from which she issued these very rare coins in her own name. Several of these have been discovered in recent years and have added new mint names to the coinage record. This silver dirham is the first one known bearing the name Dhawahi al-Ta'if, meaning "the vicinity of Ta'if" the well known town which, at that time, lay a two-days' journey from the Holy City of Makka. Yasir or Bashir appears to have been the vizier who was actually responsible for the striking several of Zubayda's coins.
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