Completely unpublished! Silver dirham of governor al-Rabbi', Multan, ca. 712-85

Description

Three dots, stylized Brahmi "Sri" above, Brahmi letters "Ta" and "Pa+" in fields, below Lillah al-Rabbi' in arabic / Crude bust facing left within a dotted border. 12mm, 0.65 grams. Unpublished and very rare.
These coins are derived from the earlier "Sri Tapana" pre-Islamic Multan coins like the one we are selling on our site as well. These probably have the destinction of being among the very first Islamic coins struck in India. These early Islamic types were first discovered some 10 years or so ago, and were never properly studied or published. They are often attributed to the Habbarid rulers of Sindh and Multan, but the names on these coins do not correspond to the names of the known Habbarid rulers, and these coins are probably . The identitly of "al-Rabi" is not known - it was probably the name of the Ummayad governor of Multan. I am currently working on an article on these coins which will be hopefully published in this summer's issue of JONS.
On Sep 27, 2022 at 12:09:57 PDT, seller added the following information: