Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (27.9mm, 2.42 g, 10h). Jayy mint. Dated AH 78 (AD 697/8). VF, broken and reassembled from fragments.

Islamic Auction 15 – Session One
Lot: 13.
Closing Date: Oct 28 2026 11:00 GMT

Post-Reform Umayyad, Silver

Estimate: $ 5 000

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Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (27.9mm, 2.42 g, 10h). Jayy mint. Dated AH 78 (AD 697/8). Klat –; al-‘Ajlan p. 89, no. 6 (this piece cited). VF, broken and reassembled from fragments. Excessively rare.

Ex Dr. D. Löer Collection, Leu Web Auction 25 (11 March 2023), lot 3614;
Ex St. James’s Auctions 37 (27 June 2016), lot 206);
Ex Baldwin’s Islamic Coin Auction 16 (20 October 2009), lot 37..

This is the first year in which Umayyad post-Reform dirhams were struck. Examples are now known from five different mints: Adharbayjan, Arminiya, Shaqq al-Taymara, Jayy and al-Kufa, but the total number of recorded specimens from all five of these mints together barely runs into double figures. For all that they were issued at several different mints, post-Reform dirhams dated AH 78 are unquestionably far rarer than their gold counterpart, the celebrated ‘year 77’ dinar.

The first post-Reform dinars were all struck at a single unnamed mint, almost certainly Damascus (the Umayyad capital). It is thus surprising that post-Reform dirhams should have been struck at five different mints in AH 78, but were not issued at Damascus until AH 79. It seems that the coins struck in AH 78 were experimental types, and the arrangement of their legends varied from mint to mint. Coins from Adharbayjan, Arminiya and al-Kufa all have the marginal legends transposed from what was to become the norm, so that the mint/date formula is placed around the four lines of the Sura al-Ikhlas and Qur`an 9:33 surrounds the three lines of the kalima. The present coin, however, carries the familiar arrangement of legends which was to become the universal format adopted for post-Reform dirhams struck throughout the Islamic world.

The final winners of all lots in Session One of CNG Islamic Auction 15 will be determined during the live sale held on 28 October 2026.

Session Two of CNG Islamic Auction 15, a timed online sale, will be held on Thursday, 29 October 2026, beginning at 2:00 PM GMT.



Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and in person at the public auction, 25% for all others.

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