Dirhem - Murad IV Damascus, type 1

Murad IV came to the throne at eleven years old in 1623, and for the first decade of his reign effective power rested with his mother Kösem Sultan and a succession of competing viziers. The Damascus mint was among the more active provincial Ottoman silver-striking facilities during this period, feeding commercial demand in the Levant trade networks. Murad would eventually consolidate personal authority around 1632 and prove one of the most militarily aggressive sultans of the century, but the coins struck in his early regnal years predate that transformation entirely.