Fals - al-Mahdi Madinat al-Salam

Al-Mahdi, third Abbasid caliph, founded Madinat al-Salam — the formal Arabic name for Baghdad — as an entirely new imperial capital in 762 AD, and the city's mint became one of the most administratively significant in the early Abbasid system. Copper fals of this period occupied the lowest rung of daily commerce, handled by vendors, laborers, and tradespeople in a city that was, by the 780s, arguably the largest in the world outside Tang China.

Lowick's numbering for this type places it within a well-documented but numerically limited series for al-Mahdi's reign, which ended abruptly with his death in 785.