★ Of great importance ★

Abbasid Caliphate. Balad (Iraq). Musa ibn Mus'ab al-Khath'ami AH 155.
Seal PB

33 mm, 25,79 g

Khatim al amir Musa ibn Mus'ab sanat maa w khams o khamsen (date) in fields, Balad district iklim[...]Kura[...] in centre / Latticework design.

good very fine

Crone 1980, p. 193; Yarshater 1985–2007, v. 27: p 170; Forand 1969, pp. 94–95- p. 94; Khalifah ibn Khayyat 1985, pp. 433; Chabot 1895, pp. 91 ff.; Cahen 1954.

A seal of the utmost importanc, excessively rare and highly interesting heavy weight seal. Balad District is a district of the Saladin Governorate, Iraq. The district capital is the city of Balad. Also, Balad, is a city in Saladin Governorate, Iraq, north of the national capital, Baghdad. Located between the towns of Al Dhuluiya, Yathrib and Ishaqi. Musa ibn Mus'ab al-Khath'ami (Musa b. Mus'ab) was a provincial governor for the Abbasid Caliphate, serving at various times over the Jazira, Mosul, and Egypt. Described as a mawla of the tribe of Khath'am, Musa was the son of Mus'ab ibn Rabi', a secretary to the last Umayyad caliph Marwan II, who later submitted to the Abbasids during the Abbasid Revolution. He himself appears to have enjoyed close relations with the Abbasid ruling family, having reportedly been a milk brother to the third caliph al-Mahdi at Humayma. During the reign of al-Mansur (r. 754–775), Musa was appointed on multiple occasions as governor of the Jazira and Mosul. While there he enacted severe taxation policies which led to widespread unrest and earned a lengthy condemnation of his activities in the Chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-Mahre. Al-Mahdi nevertheless returned him to the same post in 783–784, during which he carried out the caliph's plans to construct an enlargement of the Friday mosque in Mosul. In 784 Musa was appointed governor of Egypt with jurisdiction over both its military and taxation affairs, and with the task of quelling the ongoing rebellion of Dihyah ibn Mus'ab in Upper Egypt. In the spring of 785 Musa led his armies out against the Hawfis, but in the resulting encounter he was defeated, abandoned by his men and killed by the rebels. From the Tareq Hani collection.