4 Rial - Abdulaziz and Muhammad III

Tunisia's bimetallic monetary system in the 1870s reflected an awkward political reality: the Husainid beys maintained nominal Ottoman suzerainty while operating under increasingly suffocating French financial pressure. This coin bears the names of both the reigning bey, Muhammad III ibn Husayn, and the Ottoman sultan Abdulaziz — a pairing that became complicated when Abdulaziz was deposed and died in 1876, the same year this type ceased production.

The French Protectorate was still a decade away, but Tunisian finances were already in crisis by 1869, when the government declared bankruptcy and an international financial commission effectively seized control of the treasury.