Excerpt from The Coins of the Tùlùni Dynasty

In compiling the following history of the Túlúni dynasty, I have endeavoured to limit myself to the leading facts, and to confine my observations to such as chance to bear either directly or indirectly on the numismatic illustrations of the period.

I have been greatly indebted to the admirable work of M. J. J. Marcol, "Description d'Egypte, " and have also to acknowledge my obligations to M. Sauvaire for his aid in tracing several passages in obscure Arabic works, which I have since verified and taken advantage of. Extracts from Ibn-Khaldun, Ibn-al-Athír, Abu-l-Mahasin and al-Makrizi complete the list of our extant authorities.

The coins here described are 125 in number, comprising 58 varieties and 67 occasional repetitions of some of them. Twenty-six coins are now published for the first time and twenty-four are unique examples.

I have to thank Sir. R. S. Poole and M. H. Lavoix for the facilities they have afforded, in allowing me free access to the National collections under their respective charges in London and Paris, and, in like manner, my thanks are due to M. Wold do Tiesenhausen for a full list of the published coins of this dynasty, which he - as the latest authority on the coins of the Khalífahs - is so competent to supply, I have to express my special acknowledgments to M. Tommasini of Aleppo, - who rises above the mere collector into the scientific numismatist, - for having sent me, at no small risk, two unique dinars from his cabinet, in order that I might examine them in the original, instead of depending upon casts or written descriptions. I have also to thank M. Sauvaire, as well as M. Artin Bey, for so readily placing at my disposal for exhaustive study their respective private collections.

In the transliteration of Arabic words I have endeavoured to adhere strictly to the compromise accepted in Part II. of this work. Many fanciful and some logical schemes of transliteration, varying with the intonations of the leading dialects, could still show claims to consideration, but in a work of this nature, in which the several sections are written by independent authors, variously influenced by local teachings, it becomes imperative that, for the sake of uniformity, each contributor should subordinate his own particular theory to the system proposed by the indefatigable Editor.

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