Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (28.7mm, 2.65 g, 7h). Tukharistan mint. Dated AH 80 (AD 699/700). VF, tiny edge crimp at 5h on obverse.

Islamic Auction 15 – Session One
Lot: 16.
Closing Date: Oct 28 2026 11:00 GMT

Post-Reform Umayyad, Silver

Estimate: $ 20 000

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Umayyad Caliphate, Silver coinage. AR Dirham (28.7mm, 2.65 g, 7h). Tukharistan mint. Dated AH 80 (AD 699/700). Obverse margin: bism Allah duriba hadha al-dirham bi-Tukharistan fi sanat thamanin / Reverse field: wa at the beginning of third line.
Five small annulets in margins on both sides . Klat –; al-‘Ajlan p. 103, no. 33 = CNG Triton XXI (9 January 2018), lot 947 (same dies); Mosanef, F. and M.T. Saffar, ‘An Umayyad dirham of Tokharistan,’ JONS 217 (Autumn 2013), p. 8. VF, tiny edge crimp at 5h on obverse. Excessively rare.

The date on the specimen published by Mosanef and Saffar was written defectively as ‘8’, but is clearly engraved as ‘80’ on the present coin, which is of considerably finer style.

The district of Tukharistan lay to the east of Balkh, bordering the southern bank of the Oxus river as far as the mountains of Badakhshan, and extending south as far as the mountain ranges north of Banjhir and Bamiyan.

During the caliphate of ‘Uthman (AH 23-35) ‘Abdallah b. ‘Amir, the famous governor of Khurasan, sent an army eastwards into Tukharistan. Marw was soon taken, and after defeating a large Sasanian army the victorious Muslims proceeded to capture several more towns before finally occupying Balkh itself. A peace treaty was signed thereafter, which was broken in AH 47 when Firuz, son of the last Sasanian king Yazdigerd III, launched an unsuccessful bid to re-establish Sasanian rule in Tukharistan. Firuz was defeated and fled to China, after which Tukharistan seems to have remained relatively peaceful for the next thirty years.

The dirham offered here dates from the next phase of Umayyad expansion eastwards. This began in AH 78, when al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf appointed Muhallab b. Abi Sufra to the governorship of Khurasan. Muhallab spent two years in Tukharistan, while his son campaigned further east as far as Bukhara. Another decade of eastern conquests under Qutayba b. Muslim Bahili was to follow. A dirham mint may therefore have been opened briefly in Tukharistan to pay Muhallab’s troops, or possibly to remit tribute or other revenues back to the caliph in Damascus.

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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