The square half-dirham is the denomination that most sharply distinguishes Almohad coinage from everything that preceded it in the Islamic West. The square flan was a deliberate ideological break — the Almohad movement under Ibn Tumart had rejected the Almoravid regime as theologically corrupt, and the new coin format made that rupture visible in daily commerce across Morocco and al-Andalus.
Abu Ya'qub Yusuf I inherited both the caliphate and its ongoing Iberian campaigns, dying at the siege of Santarém in 1184.
The square half-dirham is the denomination that most sharply distinguishes Almohad coinage from everything that preceded it in the Islamic West. The square flan was a deliberate ideological break — the Almohad movement under Ibn Tumart had rejected the Almoravid regime as theologically corrupt, and the new coin format made that rupture visible in daily commerce across Morocco and al-Andalus.
Abu Ya'qub Yusuf I inherited both the caliphate and its ongoing Iberian campaigns, dying at the siege of Santarém in 1184.