Can anyone help translate the Arabic script?

This beautifully engraved coin is an Iranian 5000 dinar smoothed and engraved on the obverse in a mixture of Arabic and Roman script. It is 3.5cm in diameter.

The inscription reads KAZEMIAN 1917-18 under an etching of minarets. No.579 MTPC is inscribed around the lower edge.

The reverse is unchanged.
The seller on ebay offered the following description.

Kazemain, also spelled Kazmain, probably refers to modern day Kadhimiya ( al-Kāżimiyyah or al-Kāżimayn ) which is a town located in what is now a northern neighbourhood of Baghdad, Iraq. The inscription may have something to do with the British ‘March on Baghdad’ which began in 1917. The area was also an important center of resistance against the British after World War One. What the letters ‘M T P C’ Stand for is a mystery to us. The ‘PC’ may stand for Prison Camp? Possibly Turkish?

. . . . . . . . . . ..................................................................... . . . . . . .

KAZEMIAN
1917-18
No. 579. MTPC.
. . . . . . . . . . . .................................................................... . . . . . . .

The Research

This piece remains a mystery. The Arabic script may well have been inscribed by a Turk - the Turks used Arabic script until the 1920s when they converted to Roman script. The star and crescent symbol is consistent with Turkish influence.

The search for service number 579 turned up no convincing candidates. There are 262 medal cards for soldiers with the service number 579 in the National Archives. None of these cards were a convincing fit. There is a medal card for Kaka Khan described as ‘Mule Corps 579 Driver. Supply and Transport Corps’ which could almost be No 579 MTPC but most records seem to refer to the Mule Corps rather than the Mule Transport something Corps. 

There were Motor Transport corps in Mesopotamia but no candidates with service number 579.

Comment

In the absence of personal discoveries I bought a reproduction page from a French illustrated newspaper showing the mosque at Kazemian in Baghad in 1917.

The mosque at Kazemian (la mosque de Kasmein, a Bagdad) appears to be the subject of the artwork on the coin.

While this beautifully engraved coin does not reveal the person who etched it, it does point to a time and place in history. It carries forward a story of a tumultuous time behind the minarets of Mesopotamia.

No 579 chose to record the beauty of the minarets rather than the ruined walls around them. The interwoven languages on the coin speak of the possibility of peace. 

Do you have an interesting item you'd like to share?

If you have an artefact with name and number, I'd love to see it - particularly if it's small and personal, like the talismans in this collection.

I'd like to add a visitors' gallery to the Home page, to showcase these treasures.

I can maybe help with the research - for free of course. Or maybe someone else can if we put it in the visitors' gallery.

Send me an image through the Contact page, with the inscription. I'd love to see it.