A SILVER DIRHAM OF THE LAST SHAYBANID RULER, ʿABD AL-MU'MIN IBN ABDULLAH KHAN, STRUCK AT BALKH: A NUMISMATIC ANALYSIS

Аннотация

This article offers an in-depth numismatic and historical analysis of a silver dirham struck in the name of ʿAbd al-Mu'min ibn Abdullah Khan II — the last ruler of the Shaybanid (Abu'l-Khayrid) dynasty — at the Balkh mint in 1007 AH (1598-1599 CE). The study first traces the development of the tanga-i Shahrukhi monetary system established under Shahrukh Mirza and Muhammad Shaybani Khan, and then examines the substance of the monetary reform carried out by Abdullah Khan II from 1583 onward. It further considers Abd al-Mu'min's fifteen-year governorship of Balkh, his brief and turbulent six-month reign following his father's death, his violent end, and the dynasty's consequent departure from the historical stage in favor of the Ashtarkhanid dynasty. On the basis of the Arabic-Persian legends on the coin's obverse and reverse, their iconographic features, and its weight and diameter, the article situates this monument within the monetary history of Transoxiana and, more broadly, within the political history of Central Asia at the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The research draws on foreign and local numismatic scholarship, encyclopedic sources, UNESCO's academic history of the civilizations of Central Asia, and international coin catalogues.