Legends on Turoman figural bronze coins

Legends consist of
1)  names and 2)  titles
and sometimes the 
3)  date and 4)  mint.

Names of rulers.  John Bagot Glubb, in his book, The Lost Centuries, about this time period, writes about names, "Many Muslim princes assumed two titles in front of their personal names. The first, which I have called the throne name, was taken by a new sultan when he mounted the throne. It took the form of "King" with accompanied by an adjective--The Victorious King, The Just King, and so on. The second title was a religious one and embodied the word deen [din], which means religion. Such names were Sword of the Religion, Glory of the Religion, Defender of the Religion. Thus the names and titles of a sultan might be "The Victorious King, Sword of the Religion, Muhammad the son of Hamdan": Al Malik al Nasir Saif al Deen Muhammad. The confusion is increased because one writer might refer to this individual as The Victorious--al Nasir--another might call him Saif al Deen, and a third might refer to him as Sultan Muhammud."

Spelling. Many words and names are spelled more than one way in English. e.g. "deen" is often "din". "al-Din" may be "ad-Din." Any word with "q" in it might be spelled with a "k" instead, such as "Saltuk" for "Saltuq". Many letters have additional marks to modify their sound, such as "al-'Adil" (instead of "al-Adil").  When you search the web a variant spelling might make the list of hits much different. 

Titles and names.

"adil"  means "just"  (as in "the just one")
"alim" means "wise"
"al-Din" means "of the faith/religion" as in "Sword of the Faith". Sometimes spelled "ed-Din"
"amir" means "commander" (as in "commander of the faithful")
"b." = "bin" or "ibn" mean "son of"
"fakhr" means "pride"
"ghazi" means "one who fights against infidels"
"kamil" means "perfect" 
"malik" is a title meaning "king" or "prince".  A rank below "sultan." 
"muzaffar"  means "victorious"
"Mu’azzam" means "August" or "Mighty"
"nasir" means "defender" 
"qutb" means "pole", so "stands up for" as in "Qutb al-Din Il-Ghazi II" ["Stands up for the faith/religion, one who fights against infidels"]
"saif" or "sayf" means "sword" (of the Faith).
"salih" or "salah" means "good" in a moral sense

Dates of rulers.  Many of these coins have on them legends with explict dates (AH, of course). So, we can often give the exact year of the coin. But dates of the rulers are much more complex. Often, the power of a local ruler had a small radius, maybe only one city. Many legends include the mint name, the local ruler's name, and his relationship to his overlord(s) who are also named on the coin. It can be complicated. For example, Saladin had 17 sons in addition to brothers and their sons. Several began by being in charge of a city or small region and put their own names on coins (not at all like Roman imperial coins where the name on the coin was that of the emperor who was ruler of the entire empire). Eventually a brother of Saladin, Al-'Adil I, rose to the top. How do we date his reign?  Is it when he first began in one city, or when he climbed far enough to be regionally important, or when he took the title Sultan? Different authors use different dates. I have chosen to use those of Album.  

Dates:  Many Turkoman (and other Islamic) coins have the dates on them explicitly, e.g. year 562. Of course, these are AH dates from the Islamic era. Those years do not correspond exactly with AD years, but this table gives the AD year with the most overlap. So, year 562 falls mostly in AD 1167.

For equivalents of AH dates to the nearest day, see Mitcher's World of Islam, p. 43ff. 
 

Go to the page on types that are not in Spengler and Sayles.

Go to the page on types that are in Spengler and Sayles.