Fatimids. al-Mustansir billah, AH 427-487 / AD 1036-1094. Dinar (Gold, 22 mm, 4.09 g, 6 h), first standard dinar with Shiʿite profession of faith, Misr, AH 437 = AD 1045/6. Central field, in five lines, within two concentric circles: ʿAlī / lā ilāha illā Allāh / waḥdahū lā sharīka lahū / Muḥammad rasūl Allāh / walī Allāh (‘ʿAlī / There is no deity but God / He alone, He has no associate / Muḥammad is the Messenger of God / the friend of God’ in Arabic). Margin (Qurʾān 9:33): Muḥammad rasūl Allāh arsalahu bi-l-hudā wa-dīn al-ḥaqq li-yuẓhirahu ʿalā al-dīn kullihi wa-law kariha al-mushrikūn (‘Muḥammad is the Messenger of God, whom He sent with guidance and the religion of truth, to make it prevail over all religion, even though the polytheists may dislike it’ in Arabic). Rev. Central field, in four lines, within two concentric circles: Maʿadd / al-imām Abū / Tamīm al-Mustanṣir / bi-llāh amīr al-muʾminīn (‘Maʿadd, the Imam Abū Tamīm al-Mustanṣir bi-llāh, Commander of the Believers’ in Arabic). Margin: bi-sm Allāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm ḍuriba hādhā al-dīnār bi-Miṣr sana sabʿ wa thalāthīn wa arbaʿ-miʾa (‘In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate, this dinar was struck in Misr in the year four hundred and thirty-seven’ in Arabic). Album 719.1. Nicol 2115. Slightly clipped and some doubling, otherwise, extremely fine.


The inclusion of the formula ʿAlī … walī Allāh within the central field publicly emphasized the Fatimid claim to legitimate leadership through descent from ʿAlī and Fāṭima. Introduced on the standard gold dinars during the reign of al-Mustanṣir, this epigraphic programme became one of the defining visual features of later Fatimid coinage.