½ Drachm - 'Umar ibn al-'Ala Abbasid Governors of Tabaristan - Arab-Sasanian

Album's Checklist #57

Umar was originally a butcher from Reyy near modern Tehran, who became an accomplished soldier. He took part in the suppression of Sunbadh's revolt in 137AH and was sent to Tabaristan by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur in 141AH to take part in its conquest with Khazim ibn Khuzayma, after this conquest he appears to have remained in Tabaristan.

¹[The Tabaristan series comprises coins of half the weight of the standard Sasanian drachm, conventionally known as half drachms or hemidrachms (from the Greek), approximately 2.08g. It is most likely that the coins were known as dirhams, not halves, probably as tabari dirhams. There is a text reference to the Tabaristan silver coin as a "dirham weight of five", i.e., 5/10 of a mithqal, just over two grams, a weight corroborated by known specimens.

The ‘Abbasid gubernatorial issues were also usually boldly struck on slightly concave flans, often with some weakness in either the design or the text, mainly on the obverse, due to the slightly scyphate shape of the planchets.

This coin is dated only Post-Yazdigerd Era 125] ¹source: Stephen Album, Checklist of Islamic Coins, 3rd edition, page 29