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New Coin Evidence from Sīstān
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The downfall of the Umaiyad and the rise of the ‘Abbāsid Caliphate, the central protagonist in which was the formidable Abū Muslim, is one of the most fascinating periods in Islamic History. Numismatic research is gradually revealing more and more vestiges of these troublous times. Recently in the JRAS. (July, 1932) Mr. Rhuvon Guest published a copper coin of Abū Muslim, now in the ‘Irāḳ Museum, which had been unearthed during irrigation work on the lesser Zāb, and which provided interesting corroborative evidence of the statements of the early Arab chroniclers. In a similar way I propose to draw attention to two copper coins in the British Museum, until now unpublished, which not only throw some light on the family relationship of Abū Muslim and his provincial politics, but moreover preserve for us a variety of coin legend which has hitherto been unrecorded and is perhaps unique in Muslim numismatics (Plate I).
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1935
References
page 116 note 1 Arabics, Sijistān.
page 116 note 2 Al-Birūnī actually terms the ‘Abbāsid Dynasty “Khurāsānī” (Sachau's edition, p. 197). Mr. Rhuvon Guest also draws my attention to Severus (ed. Seybold, pp. 188–207), who gives striking evidence of how the ‘Abbāsid invaders in Egypt appeared as Khurāsānians to the Christian inhabitants.
page 118 note 1 Mr. Rhuvon Guest suggests to me that in all probability there is a lacuna in the text of Ya'ḳūbī at this point.
page 118 note 2 On the two occasions on which he is mentioned by Wellhausen, op. cit., pp. 509, 520, he is merely designated Abū Najm, which indeed was his customary designation according to Ibn al-Athīr, ibid. (
).
page 119 note 1 (
) The name is titular and is also read Zunbīl (
). See Barthold's, Turkestan, p. 216 nGoogle Scholar.
page 119 note 2 
.
page 119 note 3 According to Dīnawarī, (Kitāb al-Akhbār al-Ṭiwāl, ed. , Guirgass, p. 379)Google Scholar, the new Caliph, once he had complete control, sent out his governors to all quarters. I owe this reference to the courtesy of Mr. Rhuvon Guest.
page 120 note 1 As the worn condition of the coins does not permit of satisfactory photographic reproduction of what traces remain of the legends, I have added (in the Plate) drawings of the probable outline of the letters. Professor Vasmer of Leningrad, to whom I submitted casts for his criticism of my interpretation, wrote as follows (letted dated 2nd November, 1933): “The legend of the obverse is quite clear … The legend of the other side is not so clear. I see on the cast distinctly only the first three letters of the second word 
. By the visible traces it seems to be quite probable that your reading of the word as 
is right.” It is very satisfactory to have the corroboration of such a skilled oriental numismatist as Professor Vasmer.