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1 Dirham - Abu'l Fawaris Bektuz Quz-Kesh

Issuer United Qarakhanid Khaganate
Year 1010
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Currency Dinar (840-1212)
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Obverse description Central field displays multiple horizontal lines of Kufic Arabic script arranged in a rectangular text block, characteristic of early Islamic coinage. The legends are distributed across the field in the traditional Islamic dirham format, with the Shahada and related religious formulae. A circular marginal legend in Arabic script runs along the inner border, enclosed by a beaded or dotted rim. The flan is irregular and slightly cracked, consistent with hammered silver coinage of the Qarakhanid period.
Obverse script Arabic
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The United Qarakhanid Khaganate at this date was already fracturing along the fault line that would formally split it into Eastern and Western branches within a generation. Abu'l Fawaris Bektuz was a subordinate ruler — a malik — operating within the Qarakhanid hierarchy, and his appearance on coinage reflects the dynasty's practice of allowing regional governors to strike in their own names alongside the supreme khagan, a legitimizing gesture that also served as a record of political loyalty.

The A#3303F reference places this within Album's corpus of Qarakhanid silver, a series notoriously difficult to attribute without the mint name — often the sole clue to which branch of an increasingly complicated dynastic tree issued a given piece.

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