Abbasid dirham

This coin is a silver dirham struck in al-Muhammadiya (161 AH, 778/779 CE), present-day Tehran, Iran, during the Abbasid dynasty. It was struck by Caliph al-Mahdi of the Abbasid dynasty (775–785 CE). After seizing power from its predecessors the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate ruled from the 750s until the mid-13th century. The area ruled by the Abbasids, coming from a Persian background, extended from the Nile in Egypt to the Amu Darya River on the border between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The inscription on the front face of the coin indicates the minting location and year of minting: “In the name of God. This dirham was struck in al-Muhammadiya in the year one and sixty and one hundred.” There is also religious text on the front in the middle and on the back of the coin. Religious texts are used in dirhams instead of pictures. The text on the front reads “there are no gods but God” and “He has no equal.” The back face reads, among other things, “Muhammad is the Messenger of God,” wishes Muhammad prayers and God’s blessing, and indicates who struck the coin (Caliph al-Mahdi).

The coin is part of a Viking Age hoard found in Hammarudda, Jomala, Åland, in 1865, which contained at least 180 coins, 179 of which were Islamic dirhams and one Sasanian drachma. The coins had been hidden sometime after 857.