Tabaristan — the mountainous region south of the Caspian Sea — resisted full Arab administrative control long after the initial conquests, and the fractional silver coinage struck there reflects that ambiguity. These anonymous dirhams continued a pre-Islamic Sasanian minting tradition in both fabric and weight standard, the Arab governors apparently content to leave local monetary practice largely undisturbed so long as tribute flowed. The word "anonymous" here is telling: no caliph's name, no governor, no mint official — a deliberate or practical erasure that makes precise attribution to specific years within the Umayyad period genuinely difficult.
The weight is notably below the standard Islamic dirham of roughly 2.97 g, consistent with the regional hemidrachm tradition inherited from late Sasanian provincial issues.
Tabaristan — the mountainous region south of the Caspian Sea — resisted full Arab administrative control long after the initial conquests, and the fractional silver coinage struck there reflects that ambiguity. These anonymous dirhams continued a pre-Islamic Sasanian minting tradition in both fabric and weight standard, the Arab governors apparently content to leave local monetary practice largely undisturbed so long as tribute flowed. The word "anonymous" here is telling: no caliph's name, no governor, no mint official — a deliberate or practical erasure that makes precise attribution to specific years within the Umayyad period genuinely difficult.
The weight is notably below the standard Islamic dirham of roughly 2.97 g, consistent with the regional hemidrachm tradition inherited from late Sasanian provincial issues.