Afrighids (Khwarazmshahs of Kath)

The Afrighids were the local dynasty of ancient Khwarazm. Shohruxmirzo Ismoilov reports from al-Biruni that it was founded by a man named Afrigh in 305 CE, that 22 of its rulers bore the title "Khwarazmshah", and that Afrigh built a palace at Kath and made it his capital. ^{1 3 4} Little of its political and cultural history survives, which makes its coins a principal source. ¹

After the Arabs took Khwarazm, Islam spread; the author describes this phase as one in which much of the old monuments, books, language and religion were lost, and in which the last rulers of the house became fully Muslim. ¹ The Khwarazmshah on the throne when the Arabs arrived, Chaghan, is named Abd Allah in some sources, and al-Biruni's list names Azkajuvar-Abd Allah as the ruler who accepted Islam. ^{2 5} Arabic script appeared on Khwarazmian coins more than eighty years after the conquest, first as the names of the caliphate's governors of Khurasan beside the Khwarezmian and Sogdian legends, and elements of the old Khwarazmian coinage survived until about 893. ⁶

The author says that minting in Khwarazm stopped for more than fifty years after it entered the Samanid state; Isma'il the Samanid took the whole of it in 896, and no coin bore the name of its rulers until 959, from which he infers that the Samanids did not allow them to strike. ⁶ He sees revolts against the Samanids in the tenth century, led by Ahmad ibn Muhammad before 943 and in 959 and by Abd Allah ibn Ashkam in the 950s, while the dependence continued. ⁶ Ahmad ibn Muhammad's silver of 348 AH was the first Islamic-type dirham of a Khwarazmshah; after it came copper fulus, struck without a break until 995. ^{2 6}

In 385/995 Ma'mun ibn Muhammad, the Samanid-dependent emir of Jurjaniyya, attacked Kath, captured Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad, the last Afrighid, had him killed in Jurjaniyya and took the title Khwarazmshah himself. ⁷ Eduard Sachau, following al-Biruni, counts Abu Abd Allah as the twenty-second ruler of the house. ⁸

The author counts 38 Afrighid coin types and four cities where they were struck. ^{9 10} Their early coins show the king on the obverse and a horseman on the reverse; Kufic legends replaced the images gradually, over several decades. ¹