Thank you so much H Bakkar. And thank you for uploading the picture for me - can I assume it was you?
It was only after I posted the question that I became suspicious that there was something not right when I compared this coin from the dealer with another example of a very similar
type illustrated in a paper by Volker Popp, a
German academic. The
inscription on Popp's example (to the left of the figure on the
obverse) looked very similar to the
inscription on the dealer's coin (at the bottom of the
reverse). Popp's illustration attached below. Popp indeed translates the
inscription as
`Ammān.
The full description given by Popp for
his example is
Obverse of a Syrian coin with the muhammad
motto; on the left of the standing Christian ruler, from top to bottom, is the inscription `Ammān. The muhammad moto is on the
reverse of the coin.
The dealer's coin has the muhammad motto on the
obverse.
