14 Abdullah Shukr Al Sarraf Coin Hall

Al Hajj Abdullah Abd Al Rasul Shakir Al Sarraaf was born in the holy city of Najaf on July 7, 1910,

and he learned reading and writing at the hands of the city’s mosque scholars.

He was passionate about collecting ancient coins and dedicated forty years of his life to this passion.

He amassed more than 1,600 gold, silver, and copper pieces of high historical value.

On March 18, 1969, Al Sarraaf donated his precious collection to the Iraqi Museum in appreciation of the national heritage.

In the same year, the hall dedicated to displaying these coins was inaugurated, and the items were placed in eleven display cabinets.

Since then, the hall has been named The Abdullah Shakir Al Sarraaf Hall of Islamic Coins.

The Iraqi Museum’s administration celebrated this valuable gift with a major official ceremony.

The Department of Antiquities also issued a special edition of The Iraq Museum Journal that presented the entire Al Sarraaf coin collection.

Copies of that issue were distributed to museums around the world in recognition of the collection’s importance.

The Al Sarraaf family renovated the hall twice: once in 2016 and again in 2019.

These updates were carried out to preserve display quality and to better organize the historical information associated with the coins.

The hall has remained one of the important spaces within the museum due to its significant cultural and historical value.

The hall contains 1,600 coins arranged chronologically according to states, caliphs, sultans, and kings.

They include coins in the Sasanian and Byzantine styles, as well as various groups from the Abbasid era, along with gold, silver, and copper coins from different states and periods.

Al Sarraaf left Iraq in 1985 for the city of Rabat, then moved to the United States where he lived in the state of Virginia.

He passed away in Washington on October 30, 2000, after a life rich in scholarly and cultural contribution.

His dedicated hall in the Iraqi Museum remains a lasting testament to his passion and legacy.