20 Rials Islamic Banking Week

Islamic Banking Week commemoratives were struck annually by Bank Markazi beginning in the mid-1980s to mark Iran's formal abolition of interest-based finance — a project enshrined in the 1983 Law for Usury-Free Banking, which mandated the conversion of the entire national banking system to profit-and-loss sharing contracts within three years. The 1988 issue appeared as Iran was still absorbing the economic strain of the war with Iraq, a conflict that had severely depleted foreign reserves and forced the government to lean harder on ideological framing of its financial institutions.

Circulation was limited, and most examples reached the public through bank branches during the commemorative week itself rather than through ordinary channels.