Dirham - Fakhr al-Din Qara Arslan vested bust

Fakhr al-Din Qara Arslan ruled Hisn Kayfa from roughly 1144 to 1167, a period defined by the fragmentation of Zengid authority and persistent pressure from both Crusader states to the west and competing Artuqid branches to the east. The Artuqids of this line were unusual among their contemporaries in issuing large figural copper coins at a moment when aniconic tendencies were strengthening elsewhere in the Islamic world — a choice rooted in the Hellenistic and Byzantine numismatic traditions that survived in the upper Tigris region long after the Arab conquests.

The Zeno catalogue reference 20389 places this among the better-documented specimens of the type, though die alignment and flan preparation vary considerably across known examples.