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Dirham - Dila'i Interregnum
| Issuer | Morocco |
|---|---|
| Year | 1654-1664 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 0.98 g |
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| Obverse description | Central field occupied by a four-line Maghribi Arabic religious legend arranged within a plain linear border. The script is boldly struck in the hammered style characteristic of Moroccan Dila'i coinage, with letters exhibiting the angular Maghribi calligraphic form. The inscription reads 'Praise be to God. God is sufficient for us.' The flan is irregular and slightly ragged at the edges, as typical of hand-hammered production of this period. No mint name or date appears on this face. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | لله الحمد حسبنا الله (Translation: Praise be to God. God is sufficient for us.) |
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| Additional information |
The Dila'iyya were a Sufi brotherhood — a zawiya centered in the Middle Atlas — who exploited the collapse of Sa'adian authority to govern much of Morocco through the 1640s and 1650s. Their coinage is among the few tangible administrative artifacts of a regime that controlled Fez, held off the Ottomans to the east, and repelled early 'Alawi pressure from the south before finally collapsing in 1668. The brotherhood had no dynastic tradition of minting; producing silver dirhams was an assertion of sovereignty they had not previously claimed.
Album's A582 attribution acknowledges the type's rarity and contested chronology — surviving specimens are few enough that precise die studies remain incomplete.