Al-Ghurfah was a short-lived tribal monetary authority operating out of the Hadhramaut region of what is now Yemen, issuing coinage in the 1920s under local mercantile and tribal leadership rather than any recognized state apparatus. The khumsiyyah denomination — literally a "fifth" — was a fractional unit calibrated to local trade needs in a region where Ottoman and later various colonial currencies circulated uneasily alongside indigenous issues. Saleh 'Ubayd bin 'Abdāt's name on the coin identifies the issuing merchant authority, an unusual arrangement even by the standards of Arabian Peninsula private coinage.
Al-Ghurfah was a short-lived tribal monetary authority operating out of the Hadhramaut region of what is now Yemen, issuing coinage in the 1920s under local mercantile and tribal leadership rather than any recognized state apparatus. The khumsiyyah denomination — literally a "fifth" — was a fractional unit calibrated to local trade needs in a region where Ottoman and later various colonial currencies circulated uneasily alongside indigenous issues. Saleh 'Ubayd bin 'Abdāt's name on the coin identifies the issuing merchant authority, an unusual arrangement even by the standards of Arabian Peninsula private coinage.