1 Pound King Faisal

Issued to commemorate King Faisal of Saudi Arabia following his assassination in March 1975, when he was shot by a nephew during a royal audience in Riyadh. Egypt under Sadat had cultivated close ties with Faisal, who had lifted the 1973 oil embargo and bankrolled much of the Arab world's post-war reconstruction. The commemorative was struck the following year as a formal mark of that relationship.

The .875 fine gold standard used here follows the older Egyptian khedival coinage tradition rather than the .900 fine specification more common in contemporary Middle Eastern issues.