Persia (Post-Mongol). Zands. Muhammad Karim Khan, AH 1164-1193 / AD 1751-1779. 1/4 Mohur (Gold, 22 mm, 2.72 g, 7 h), Type C, Kashan, AH 1190 = AD 1776/7. Central field: shud āftāb-u māh zar-u sīm dar jahān / az sikkih-yi imām-i bi-ḥaqq ṣāḥib al-zamān (“The sun and the moon became gold and silver in the world / From the coin of the rightful Imam, the Lord of the Age” in Persian). Rev. Above: [yā Karīm] (“O Karīm” in Arabic). Central field, within dotted circle: zarb-i dār al-muʾminīn-i Kāshān (“Struck in the Abode of the Believers, Kashan” in Persian). Below: 1190. Album 2791. Farahbakhsh 291-8. KM-525.2. SICA 9, 1248. Minor areas of weakness and small deposits, otherwise, extremely fine.



Karīm Khān Zand, founder of the Zand dynasty, ruled most of Iran in the later eighteenth century while deliberately avoiding the royal title of shāh, instead adopting the modest designation Vakīl al-Raʿāyā ('Advocate of the People'). His coinage nevertheless maintained the long Persian tradition of poetic legends, as seen here in the well-known Zand couplet invoking the legitimacy of the coinage through the authority of the Hidden Imam (Ṣāḥib al-Zamān).

Gold issues of the Zand period are notably rarer than the abundant contemporary silver and copper coinage.