Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Dirham - al-Ẓāhir Baybars I
| Issuer | Mamluk Sultanate |
|---|---|
| Year | 1260-1277 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Dinar (1250-1517) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Arabic |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Reverse of hammered silver dirham displaying a multi-line Arabic inscription in Naskh script occupying the central field. The legend presents the Islamic declaration of faith (Shahada): 'There is no god but God, Muhammad is the Messenger of God.' The text is arranged in horizontal lines without a formal cartouche or border, in keeping with the aniconic tradition of Mamluk coinage. The flan edges are irregular and the strike is uneven, characteristic of hand-struck issues from the Cairo and Damascus mints during the reign of Baybars I. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Baybars I came to power through assassination — he led the faction that killed his own sultan, Qutuz, in 1260, weeks after the Mamluks had halted the Mongol advance at Ayn Jalut. That victory, and the political murder that followed it, defined his reign. He spent the next seventeen years systematically dismantling the Crusader presence in the Levant, taking Caesarea, Arsuf, Jaffa, and Antioch in succession. Coins struck under his authority circulated across an empire built almost entirely through military campaigns conducted personally by the sultan.
He also installed a puppet Abbasid caliph in Cairo to legitimize Mamluk rule — a fiction both parties understood and maintained.