Pre-reform issues, n/a. Arab-Sasanian. Abu Hadhir b. Hajan. fl. AH 77 / AD 696/7. AR Drachm (25.9mm, 2.66 g, 12h). WYHC (Arrajan) mint. Dated AH 77 (AD 696/7). Near VF, clipped and creased, some light scratches.

Islamic Auction 7 - Session One
Lot: 7.
Closing Date: Oct 24 2024 11:00 GMT

Pre-Reform Issues, Silver

Estimate: $ 7 500

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Pre-reform issues, n/a. Arab-Sasanian. Abu Hadhir b. Hajan. fl. AH 77 / AD 696/7. AR Drachm (25.9mm, 2.66 g, 12h). WYHC (Arrajan) mint. Dated AH 77 (AD 696/7). Obverse margin: — / Abu Hadhir billah (?) / — / —. Cf. Morton & Eden 48, lot 9; Malek, Arab-Sasanian p. 271. Near VF, clipped and creased, some light scratches. Extremely rare.

The name and identity of the governor on this excessively rare coin remains uncertain. Several suggestions have been made, some of which seem more likely than others:

Shams Eshragh published a coin with similar legends dated AH 76 (SCC 1758). He read the Arabic legend in the obverse margin as Abu Hadhir billah, which he interpreted as a personal name. On this basis, he proposed to read the Pahlawi name before the bust as ABW HAJL Y HAJAN, for ‘Abu Hadhir b. Hajan’.

In 2011, a second coin of this governor appeared at auction, dated AH 77. On this specimen, the Arabic marginal legend was tentatively read as ‘Abu Nasr’ (sic), and the Pahlawi interpreted as a version of the name Abu Sa‘id b. Numayla. Because a governor named Numayla b. Malik had struck drachms at the same mint four years previously, it was conjectured that this hypothetical individual might have been his son. But ‘Abu Sa’id’ cannot be the correct reading of the first part of the governor’s name, since the final letter is clearly ‘L’ or ‘R’ (this cannot be ‘Y’, meaning ‘son of’, which appears at the beginning of the following line). Having originally proposed this reading myself, I now have no hesitation in retracting it.

Malek, having cautiously accepted Abu Sa‘id b. Numayla as a ‘possible but uncertain’ reading for the Pahlawi governor’s name, nevertheless preferred Shams Eshragh’s reading of Abu Hadhir billah for the Arabic legend in the margin. ‘Abu Hadhir’ certainly fits the Arabic letter-forms, and as the first line of the Pahlawi name-legend appears to read ABW [...]TR it is not clear why Malek rejected Shams Eshragh’s suggestion that this was the Pahlawi equivalent of Abu Hadhir. There is no reason why the two names should be the same - on another unique drachm struck at Arrajan in this year we find the name of al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf before the bust and that of al-Hakam b. Nahik in the margin (Malek Fig. 9.25.12). But there are plenty of Arab-Sasanian drachms where the Arabic marginal legend does indeed correspond to the Pahlawi governor’s name, and there seems no good reason to exclude the possibility in this case.

In any case, the identity of Abu Hadhir remains mystifying. The governor of Arrajan at this time appears to have been the al-Hakam b. Nahik mentioned earlier, and who is also recorded as having begun building the mosque there in AH 75. Might al-Hakam have been ousted during the Kharijite incursion into Iraq under Shabib al-Shaybani during AH 76, and temporarily replaced by our mysterious Abu Hadhir?

Closing Date and Time: at 14:02:00 ET.

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