Dr. Busso Peus Nachf.
Auction 413 29-31 October 2014
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Pro-Fatimid Revolution of Arslan al-Basasiri
Coinage in the name of the caliph al-Mustansir billâh, 427-487 H./1036-1094 AD Dinar 451 H., the citadel (?) in Madînat as-salâm (Baghdâd). On both sides legend within a double circle with four interlaces symmetrical scrolls, obv. lâ ilaha illâ llâh / wahdahu lâ sharîka lahu / muhammad rasûl allâh / 'Alî walîy allâh, rev. Ma'add / 'abd allah wa-walîhi / al-imâm abû tamîm / al-mustansir billâh / amîr al-mu'minîn, obv. margin Qur. IX 33, rev. margin: bismillâh ddurib hâdhâ d-dînâr bi l-qasr (?) bi-Madînat as-salâm sanat ihdâ wa khams wa 'mi'at (sic!). Jafar F.KU 451 (same dies, mint misread as Madîna Kûfa) Kazan 612 Nicol 2090 2.81 g.; Extremely rare Very fine
The history behind the Fatimid coinage of Baghdad in a one year period from the end of 450 to the end of 451 H. was a result of long established relations between Arslân al-Basâsîrî, a general of the last Buyid grand emirs of Baghdad and the Fatimid mission in Cairo. Arslân al-Basâsîrî was a general of the last Buyids in Baghdad, who fled in 447 H./December 1055 AD with his troops from the Saljuks to ar-Rahba on the Euphrates in Northern Syria. Here he received reinforcemnts from the Fatimid caliph of Cairo and from the Bedouin principalities of the Jazira. By 450 H. the Great Saljuk sultan Tughrilbeg, who had been the most successful of the Saljuk brothers, tried to establish his supremacy over the other members of his family and therefore had to leave Iraq to the East. Consequently al-Basâsîrî and his army managed to occupy Baghdad in the name of the Fatimid caliphate in Dhu l-qa'da 450 H./ January 1059 AD. Having taken the seat of the Abbasid caliphate was an enormous success for the Fatimid missionary organization. However as a result of internal turmoil in the Fatimid centre in Cairo further military and financial support for al-Basâsîrî was slow and never arrived in Baghdad. On the other side Tughril Beg was successful against his brother and could return to Baghdad with full force before the end of the year 1059 AD (Dhû l-qa'da 451 H, while al-Basâsîrî fled back to the Jazîra. The inclusion of Baghdâd into the Fatimid caliphate marks the widest expansion of the Isma'iliya in the government of Near East. Its failure was at the same time a turning point in the history of the Jazira and Northern Syria. The only other specimen of this coin type and struck with the same pair of dies in the famous Kazan collection, located now in the National Museum of Qatar, was relatively unclear in the mint name and misread as Madînat Kûfa (withouth the article) and republished as such twice. The present coin shows the mint name of Madînat as-salâm clearly and without doubt. According to Nicol two further specimens of the type with interlaced scrolls with the simple mint name of Madînat as-salâm are known, one in the collection of the Centre of Isma'ili Studies, illustrated by Nicol, the other one auctioned by Sotheby's 20 April 1983 no. 51 and illustrated in the auction catalogue. A die comparison with our specimen shows that these two coins were struck with the same pair of dies while the present coin was struck with a different pair of dies. The two coins in Nicol's catalogue however did not show the uncertain word before the mint name, for which the reading al-qasr has been suggested here. The same design can also be found on a dinar of al-Basâsîrî from Madînat al-Kûfa 451 H. Consequently the type may have been designed to inaugurate a mint network, which included more than one mint in Baghdad. The total number of dinars known from the Fatimid rule in Baghdad today is about one dozen. According to Nicol's careful cataloguing they have to be divided into five or six varieties, of which all but one are known only in one or two specimens, including the present one. One variety however, dated Muharram 451 H. without ornaments between the circles, was known in seven specimens to Nicol. The inventory and sale dates of these seven specimens suggest a common hoard context for most of these before 1971, distributed in the US and also our coin and Nicol 2093 come from collections that were built up at this period and may well have had access to the same group of coins. Still Nicol's catalogue needs some revision in this group of coins. The first coin struck under al-Basâsîrî in Baghdad is not Nicol 2092, a dinar on which Zambaur had read the date as Muharram 450 H, but this was not perfectly supported by the drawing which he published in Numismatische Zeitschrift XLVII, 1914, p. 164 no. 505, although the author was confident to read the date assez clairement to support an at least two months earlier dating of the takeover of Baghdad than the date reported by Ibn al-Athîr. Unfortunately the coins from the first Zambaur collection, looted in 1918, never turned up again and under the conditions of the period it is likely that the gold was smelted. It is noteworthy that both the Zambaur coin (Nicol 2092) and Nicol 2094 and our coin have a very similar shortened end of the date. Neither Zambaur nor Nicol had taken notice of another dinar of 450 H. without indication of a month, which Christian Martin Fraehn had described and discussed already in 1848, a year after this coin had been sent by Fraehn's eldest son, then second secretary to the Russian embassy in Tehran, to the collection of the Asiatic Museum in Saint Petersburg (Bulletin de la Classe Historico-Philologique de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg 1848 col. 248f). While Nicol nos. 2092-2097 being dedicated to various types of al-Basâsîrî's coinage of Baghdad, the actual number of varieties is not as large as might be assumed because already no. 2096 was dismissed before printing and also no. 2097, a dinar in the Tübingen University Collection of Egyptian type on which the date had been read as Muharram 451 H., on careful scrutiny turns out to be a misreading of Madînat ar-rasûl followed by a benediction of the prophet and comes thus not from Baghdad but from the Hijaz.
Coinage in the name of the caliph al-Mustansir billâh, 427-487 H./1036-1094 AD Dinar 451 H., the citadel (?) in Madînat as-salâm (Baghdâd). On both sides legend within a double circle with four interlaces symmetrical scrolls, obv. lâ ilaha illâ llâh / wahdahu lâ sharîka lahu / muhammad rasûl allâh / 'Alî walîy allâh, rev. Ma'add / 'abd allah wa-walîhi / al-imâm abû tamîm / al-mustansir billâh / amîr al-mu'minîn, obv. margin Qur. IX 33, rev. margin: bismillâh ddurib hâdhâ d-dînâr bi l-qasr (?) bi-Madînat as-salâm sanat ihdâ wa khams wa 'mi'at (sic!). Jafar F.KU 451 (same dies, mint misread as Madîna Kûfa) Kazan 612 Nicol 2090 2.81 g.; Extremely rare Very fine
The history behind the Fatimid coinage of Baghdad in a one year period from the end of 450 to the end of 451 H. was a result of long established relations between Arslân al-Basâsîrî, a general of the last Buyid grand emirs of Baghdad and the Fatimid mission in Cairo. Arslân al-Basâsîrî was a general of the last Buyids in Baghdad, who fled in 447 H./December 1055 AD with his troops from the Saljuks to ar-Rahba on the Euphrates in Northern Syria. Here he received reinforcemnts from the Fatimid caliph of Cairo and from the Bedouin principalities of the Jazira. By 450 H. the Great Saljuk sultan Tughrilbeg, who had been the most successful of the Saljuk brothers, tried to establish his supremacy over the other members of his family and therefore had to leave Iraq to the East. Consequently al-Basâsîrî and his army managed to occupy Baghdad in the name of the Fatimid caliphate in Dhu l-qa'da 450 H./ January 1059 AD. Having taken the seat of the Abbasid caliphate was an enormous success for the Fatimid missionary organization. However as a result of internal turmoil in the Fatimid centre in Cairo further military and financial support for al-Basâsîrî was slow and never arrived in Baghdad. On the other side Tughril Beg was successful against his brother and could return to Baghdad with full force before the end of the year 1059 AD (Dhû l-qa'da 451 H, while al-Basâsîrî fled back to the Jazîra. The inclusion of Baghdâd into the Fatimid caliphate marks the widest expansion of the Isma'iliya in the government of Near East. Its failure was at the same time a turning point in the history of the Jazira and Northern Syria. The only other specimen of this coin type and struck with the same pair of dies in the famous Kazan collection, located now in the National Museum of Qatar, was relatively unclear in the mint name and misread as Madînat Kûfa (withouth the article) and republished as such twice. The present coin shows the mint name of Madînat as-salâm clearly and without doubt. According to Nicol two further specimens of the type with interlaced scrolls with the simple mint name of Madînat as-salâm are known, one in the collection of the Centre of Isma'ili Studies, illustrated by Nicol, the other one auctioned by Sotheby's 20 April 1983 no. 51 and illustrated in the auction catalogue. A die comparison with our specimen shows that these two coins were struck with the same pair of dies while the present coin was struck with a different pair of dies. The two coins in Nicol's catalogue however did not show the uncertain word before the mint name, for which the reading al-qasr has been suggested here. The same design can also be found on a dinar of al-Basâsîrî from Madînat al-Kûfa 451 H. Consequently the type may have been designed to inaugurate a mint network, which included more than one mint in Baghdad. The total number of dinars known from the Fatimid rule in Baghdad today is about one dozen. According to Nicol's careful cataloguing they have to be divided into five or six varieties, of which all but one are known only in one or two specimens, including the present one. One variety however, dated Muharram 451 H. without ornaments between the circles, was known in seven specimens to Nicol. The inventory and sale dates of these seven specimens suggest a common hoard context for most of these before 1971, distributed in the US and also our coin and Nicol 2093 come from collections that were built up at this period and may well have had access to the same group of coins. Still Nicol's catalogue needs some revision in this group of coins. The first coin struck under al-Basâsîrî in Baghdad is not Nicol 2092, a dinar on which Zambaur had read the date as Muharram 450 H, but this was not perfectly supported by the drawing which he published in Numismatische Zeitschrift XLVII, 1914, p. 164 no. 505, although the author was confident to read the date assez clairement to support an at least two months earlier dating of the takeover of Baghdad than the date reported by Ibn al-Athîr. Unfortunately the coins from the first Zambaur collection, looted in 1918, never turned up again and under the conditions of the period it is likely that the gold was smelted. It is noteworthy that both the Zambaur coin (Nicol 2092) and Nicol 2094 and our coin have a very similar shortened end of the date. Neither Zambaur nor Nicol had taken notice of another dinar of 450 H. without indication of a month, which Christian Martin Fraehn had described and discussed already in 1848, a year after this coin had been sent by Fraehn's eldest son, then second secretary to the Russian embassy in Tehran, to the collection of the Asiatic Museum in Saint Petersburg (Bulletin de la Classe Historico-Philologique de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences de Saint-Pétersbourg 1848 col. 248f). While Nicol nos. 2092-2097 being dedicated to various types of al-Basâsîrî's coinage of Baghdad, the actual number of varieties is not as large as might be assumed because already no. 2096 was dismissed before printing and also no. 2097, a dinar in the Tübingen University Collection of Egyptian type on which the date had been read as Muharram 451 H., on careful scrutiny turns out to be a misreading of Madînat ar-rasûl followed by a benediction of the prophet and comes thus not from Baghdad but from the Hijaz.