Buqsha - al-Mahdi 'Abd Allah

Al-Mahdi Abd Allah ruled the Zaidi imamate through a period of persistent Ottoman pressure and internal tribal fragmentation. The billon coinage of this reign reflects genuine monetary stress — the debased alloy was not an aberration but a practical response to chronic silver shortages that had plagued the highland Yemeni economy since the eighteenth century. Zaidi mints of this era operated intermittently, and output was irregular enough that dating individual issues to specific years within the reign remains difficult.