1/2 Dirham - al-Musta'sim

Al-Musta'sim was the last Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, and coins struck in his name carry a finality that no contemporary minter could have anticipated. In February 1258, Hulagu Khan's Mongol forces sacked Baghdad, ending over five centuries of Abbasid rule. Al-Musta'sim was executed — rolled in a carpet and trampled by horses, according to sources that sought to avoid spilling royal blood on the ground.

Any piece from his sixteen-year reign may postdate the mint's final productive years before the Mongol siege reduced the city's infrastructure to rubble.