Dirham - al-Musta'in

Al-Musta'in's reign was not so much a rule as a captivity with a title. Enthroned by the Turkish military commanders at Samarra who had already killed his two predecessors, he was effectively a prisoner of the factions contesting control of the caliphate. When he attempted to escape their grip by fleeing to Baghdad in 865, the Turks simply backed a rival claimant, besieged the city, and forced his abdication. He was executed shortly after.

Dirhams struck in his name during those three years carry the weight of a caliphate already hollowed out from within — the coin's authority nominal, the issuing power largely fiction.