Artuqids Of Mardin Najim Ai-Din Alpi

Good to see you working on this series, Ron. I hope you keep 'em coming. I'll be enjoying the ride since this is one of those areas that I really find appealing - although I remain focused on my narrow collecting areas. So I'll enjoy these vicariously through you.

Did the Spengler/Sayles books arrive yet?

Who doesn't like these figural coins? The Turks were fresh from the steppes of Central Asia and though nominally Muslim, not so devout as to let the Quranic prohibition against graven images get in the way of numismatic art.

Translations:
Obv, top: "There is no god but Allah".
Obv. bottom: "Muhammad is the apostle of Allah".
Obv. r.: al-Mustanjid Billah, the regnal name of the 'Abbasid caliph meaning "He who implores help from Allah".
Obv. l.: "commander of the faithful", traditional title of the caliph.

On the other side are the names and titles of Alpi. Najm al-Din means "Star of the Faith". Malik Diyarbakr is "king of Diyarbakr". The patronymic is "Alpi son of il-Ghazi son of Artuq".

From BMC Oriental III:

Not a nice looking coin ?
I beg to differ !
I believe after having run through the 'chemo' regime for the BD it could use a bit of darkening but overall at the right price I would have chased after it.
Not too long ago I bought from a seller who had a few dozen of these. I tried but failed on a few of the better ones. I regret not having been a bit more aggressive.
I did pick up an interesting early Islamic bronze from Homs which I had promised to post
The days (and nights !) have been busy.
With this one up I will redouble my efforts

Nice coin

Kushanshah;

When you note: "The Turks were fresh from the steppes of Central Asia and though nominally Muslim, not so devout as to let the Quranic prohibition against graven images get in the way of numismatic art.", I am not sure this is the only reason you see graven images. Islam, to me anyway, seems to be quite a patient system when it comes to taking full control of a country, and greater good is recognized in how to approach locals. You notice the Persian silver with the Zoroastrian fire continues well into the Islamic period. So they are just a very practical people perhaps who play the long game always. When they took over Bosnia you got a better deal if you converted and people did over time. Or how they charge a tax to non Muslims so in time you probably practically convert for monetary reasons. When it is in it's full complete form like Saudi Arabia sure strict standards against graven images is always the case. But throughout history they have been patient enough not to change everything quickly and eventually win on all points as the years go by.