Dirham - Muhammad II al-Burtuqali

The Wattasids came to power not through conquest but through regency — they had administered Morocco on behalf of the declining Marinids for decades before Muhammad I simply stopped pretending there was anyone left to serve. By Muhammad II al-Burtuqali's reign, the dynasty faced simultaneous Portuguese pressure on the Atlantic coast and the rising Saadian threat from the south. Al-Burtuqali's epithet itself — "the Portuguese" — derives from time he spent as a hostage in Lisbon, a biographical detail that shadowed his entire reign.