Fatimids. al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah, AH 341-365 / AD 953-975. Dinar (Gold, 21 mm, 4.07 g, 12 h), Mansuriya, AH 362 = AD 972/3. Pellet in center. Central design within concentric circles: lā ilāha illā Allāh Muḥammad rasūl Allāh (‘There is no deity but God; Muhammad is the Messenger of God’ in Arabic). Middle inscription: wa-ʿAlī afḍal al-waṣiyyīn wa-wazīr khayr al-mursalīn (‘And ʿAlī is the most excellent of the legatees and the vizier of the best of the messengers’ in Arabic). Outer inscription: Muḥammad rasūl Allāh arsalahū bi-l-hudā wa-dīn al-ḥaqq li-yuẓhirahū ʿalā al-dīn kullihī wa-law kariha al-mushrikūn (‘Muhammad 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. Pellet in center. Central design within concentric circles: al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh amīr al-muʾminīn (‘al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, Commander of the Believers’ in Arabic). Middle inscription: daʿā al-imām Maʿadd li-tawḥīd al-ilāh al-ṣamad (‘The Imam Maʿadd summons to the affirmation of the oneness of God, the Eternal’ in Arabic). Outer inscription: bi-sm Allāh ḍuriba hādhā al-dīnār bi-l-Manṣūriya sanat ithnatayn wa-sittīn wa-thalāth-miʾa (‘In the name of God, this dinar was struck at al-Manṣūriya in the year three hundred and sixty-two’ in Arabic). Album 697.1. Nicol 423. Rare and historically important. Minor marks and areas of weakness, otherwise, good very fine.



This dinar belongs to the celebrated Fatimid ‘bullseye’ gold series of al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh, with the inscriptions arranged in concentric circular bands around a central pellet. The design is one of the most distinctive formats of medieval Islamic gold coinage and is closely associated with Fatimid Ismaʿili royal ideology.

The coin was struck at al-Manṣūriya, the Fatimid royal city near Qayrawān in present-day Tunisia. The date AH 362 is historically important, coming only a few years after the Fatimid conquest of Egypt in AH 358 / AD 969 and around the time of al-Muʿizz’s transfer of the Fatimid court to Egypt in AD 973. This makes the coin part of the final western phase of al-Muʿizz’s gold coinage, as the dynasty’s political center was shifting from Ifriqiya to Egypt.