1/5 Rupee - Ali Raja

The Ali Rajas were the hereditary Muslim rulers of Cannanore on the Malabar Coast, operating as much as merchants and naval powers as territorial lords. Their coinage circulated alongside that of the Arakkal Bibi — the ruling matriarch of the same dynasty — in a political arrangement unusual even by the fragmented standards of pre-colonial Kerala. British pressure steadily eroded the kingdom's autonomy through the late eighteenth century, and the Cannanore mint effectively ceased meaningful production well before the dynasty's formal submission to colonial administration.