This coin was struck by the brother and successor of Husam al-Din Yuluq Arslan, Nasir al-Din Artuq Arslan (whose name means “Defender of the Faith, Artuq Lion”). It is the first dirham of the Artuqids of Mardin to bear a mint name since an early type of Timurtash dated 543 H. Now the name of Sayf al-Din al-‘Adil Abu Bakr I, who had become the chief Ayyubid ruler in Cairo, is included below that of the Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah in the reverse field.

Al-‘Adil Abu Bakr was still determined to gain control of Mardin, which he considered to be the key to Diyarbakir and upper Mesopotamia, and in 599 H (1202 AD) he ordered an army, led by his son al-Ashraf Musa, to attack its fortress. Al-Ashraf Musa was unsuccessful, but the diplomatic settlement reached obliged Artuq Arslan to recognize al-‘Adil Abu Bakr as his overlord and to pay him an indemnity of 150,000 gold dinars.

The centaur with a crowned head on the obverse of this coin represents the zodiacal sign of Sagittarius, and the centaur’s tail bears a dragon’s head. As the dragon’s head was considered to be very unlucky, the centaur is seen facing backwards with an arrow aimed at its open jaws rather than at its own tail, which was thought to be lucky. This addition of a dragon’s head on the tail to the symbolism, very rarely found on a coin, may have been a reference to the solar eclipse that took place in 598 (1201).

However, the presence of the mint name, making it plain to al-‘Adil Abu Bakr that Mardin belonged to Artuq Arslan, together with the targeting of the unlucky dragon’s head probably represents Artuq Arslan’s real feelings about his Ayyubid overlord.