Umayyad, dinar, Ma‘din Amir al-Mu’minin 92h, obv., in field: la ilaha illa | Allah wahdahu | la sharik lahu | Ma‘din Amir | al-Mu’minin; rev., standard Umayyad type with date legend in margin, point below b of duriba, 4.25g (SICA 10, 487, same obverse die; Bernardi 47), minor marks in reverse field but generally good very fine, historically important and extremely rare. Enigmatic, historically intriguing, and of the highest rarity, Umayyad dinars from the ‘Mine of the Commander of the Faithful’ have fascinated numismatists for more than a century. The circumstances under which they were issued are still the subject of scholarly debate, although recent research and newly published coins have advanced our knowledge considerably in recent years. Examples dated 89h, 92h and 105h have been sold in these rooms previously (the unique coin of 89h on 23 April 2012 and the other two dates on 4 April 2011). The phrase ‘Ma‘din Amir al-Mu’minin’ is found on two groups of gold coins. The earlier group, known for the years 89h, 91h and 92h and to which this coin belongs, carries these words in the obverse field below the normal inscriptions. On the later coins, known only for the year 105h, the phrase is expanded to read ‘Ma‘din Amir al-Mu’minin bi’l-Hijaz,’ ‘Mine of the Commander of the Faithful in the Hejaz,’ and is placed in the lower part of the reverse field. The significance of the Ma‘din inscription is still debated but, as has previously been argued, there is much to be said for the simplest explanation: that it refers to a mine belonging to the caliph. While the word ‘mine’ can be used metaphorically in Arabic, all other legends found on post-Reform Umayyad gold and silver coins are either religious (verses from the Qur’an) or factual (stating where and when the coin was struck). That being said, it seems difficult to treat it as a normal mint-name, which one would expect to find in the margin with the date, and for which there would certainly have been space to include there. It has also been observed that the mints on the Umayyad silver coinage were set up in cities, or perhaps at places where the army halted on campaign, but are not otherwise known to have been set up at a mine itself. There are several with the title Madinat, city,’ but none with Ma‘din, ‘mine.’ It seems more plausible that this inscription denotes to the source of the gold, indicating that it had been extracted from a mine owned by the caliph himself. It has been plausibly suggested that ‘Mine of the Commander of the Faithful’ dinars may have been struck at a travelling mint which accompanied the caliph. If this was staffed by workers from the Damascus mint using their usual tools and equipment, one would expect the coins they produced to look identical, whether struck in the capital or on the road. But coins of all three dates known for this issue – 89h, 91h and 92h, and indeed of the related coins dated 105h, all share dated reverse dies with standard mintless Umayyad dinars which are generally accepted as having been struck in or near Damascus. These reverse dies also bear the date, which means that they can only (or should only) have been used for the one year engraved on them. It therefore follows that if these reverse dies did indeed leave Damascus with a travelling mint they can only have been away from the capital for more than a few months at most. On the other hand we know that an obverse die with the Ma‘din Amir al-Mu’minin legend was shared between coins struck over a period of at least four years. Clearly this special die was not considered redundant at the year’s end but was kept for future use. For a single die to survive for four years also suggests that these ‘Mine of the Commander of the Faithful’ dinars can only have been produced in very small numbers, which is consistent with their great rarity today. Where might the caliph’s mines have been located? The legend Ma‘din Amir al-Mu’minin bi’l-Hijaz found on dinars of 105h, together with the fact that the Umayyad caliph ‘Umar is recorded as having purchased a plot of land containing a gold mine in the Hejaz area (Miles, op. cit., p. 266), has led scholars to propose that the gold used to strike these earlier dinars also came from the Hejaz. It has also been suggested that the caliph might have visited mines in this area while travelling to the Holy Places. In his catalogue of the Turath Collection, Ilisch hypothesized that ‘a travelling “court mint”, dependent on the main mint and Damascus and working for the caliphal private treasury...was in operation on several occasions: in connection with the construction work for the great mosque in Medina (built...in 88-91 A.H.) [and] during the visit of the caliph al-Walid to Medina in 91/92 A.H., when he led the Hajj.’ This in turn raises several interesting questions: Did gold from the caliph’s personal mines have a different status from gold obtained from other sources? Was this gold somehow treated differently from gold brought to the mint through tax revenues or by private individuals? Might it reflect an early distinction between state funds and the privy purse? Or might they even have been personal gifts from the caliph himself? For further discussion of this coinage and a specialist bibliography, please see Morton and Eden auction 48, 4 April 2011 where two other ‘Mine of the Commander of the Faithful’ dinars were sold, dated 92h (sold for £648,000) and 105h (sold for £3,720,000).
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