Dirham - al-Radi Donative type

Al-Radi, who reigned from 934 to 940, was the last Abbasid caliph to compose poetry read aloud at court and the last to deliver Friday sermons in person — a symbolic endpoint to genuine caliphal authority before the Buyid takeover of 945 reduced the office to a purely ceremonial role. Donative dirhams of this type were struck not for commerce but for ceremonial distribution, most likely at court festivals or as royal gifts, which explains the survival of examples in comparatively clean condition.

The reduced weight against the classical Abbasid standard reflects the fiscal strain of a caliphate that had already lost direct control of most provincial mints.