The Almohad square coinage was a deliberate theological statement — the dynasty's rejection of figural imagery extended to rejecting the round form conventional across the Islamic world, producing these distinctive square flans as a marker of doctrinal purity. The quarter dirham, the smallest denomination in the series, circulated across al-Andalus and the Maghreb during a period when Almohad control stretched from the Iberian Peninsula deep into North Africa.
At 0.38 g, these pieces were struck on tiny hand-cut flans, and centering is almost never perfect — a known production characteristic rather than a strike flaw.
The Almohad square coinage was a deliberate theological statement — the dynasty's rejection of figural imagery extended to rejecting the round form conventional across the Islamic world, producing these distinctive square flans as a marker of doctrinal purity. The quarter dirham, the smallest denomination in the series, circulated across al-Andalus and the Maghreb during a period when Almohad control stretched from the Iberian Peninsula deep into North Africa.
At 0.38 g, these pieces were struck on tiny hand-cut flans, and centering is almost never perfect — a known production characteristic rather than a strike flaw.