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1 Tanka - al-Ashraf Ahmad
| Issuer | Hisn Kayfa, Emirate of |
|---|---|
| Year | 1424-1432 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | 1 Tanka |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | Central field bearing multi-line Arabic calligraphic inscription arranged in stacked horizontal registers, giving the name and titles of the issuing ruler al-Ashraf Ahmad. The script is executed in a bold, angular style typical of Ayyubid-successor coinage. The legend is enclosed within a circular border, with additional marginal inscriptions running around the periphery of the flan. The coin exhibits the characteristic irregular hammered planchet of medieval Islamic silver coinage. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
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| Edge | Plain. |
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| Additional information |
Hisn Kayfa — the fortress city on a basalt promontory above the Tigris in what is now southeastern Turkey — was an Ayyubid successor state that outlasted most of its peers by sheer geographic stubbornness. Al-Ashraf Ahmad ruled as the penultimate Ayyubid lord of the emirate, which survived well into the fifteenth century largely because the Turkmen confederacies pressing from the north found the citadel more trouble than it was worth. The tanka denomination itself was borrowed from the broader Islamic monetary vocabulary of the period, reflecting the commercial reach of Timurid and post-Mongol trade networks into the upper Tigris region.
The emirate fell in 1524 to the Ottomans under Selim I's successors — one of the last Ayyubid lines extinguished.