Buqsha – Yemeni Zaidi State

By 1699, the Zaidi Imamate in Yemen, centered in the northern highlands around Sana'a, operated within a complex and fragmented monetary landscape. The state did not have a unified, centralized currency system of its own minting. Instead, circulation was dominated by a mixture of foreign silver coins, reflecting Yemen's deep integration into Indian Ocean trade networks. The most important of these was the Spanish real de a ocho (piece of eight) and its regional derivatives, particularly the Maria Theresa thaler, which would later become the dominant trade coin. These were supplemented by Ottoman qirsh and a variety of other silver coins from the Levant, Egypt, and the wider Islamic world.

Internally, the Imamate's authority over currency was largely limited to the minting of low-denomination copper coins (fulus). These were essential for daily transactions in local markets but were subject to frequent debasement and regional variability, as local governors and powerful tribes often exercised their own minting privileges. The value of these coppers fluctuated against the stable foreign silver coins, leading to periodic inflation and market discontent. This system created a dual monetary reality: international trade and state treasury functions relied on trusted foreign silver, while the local populace dealt in a less stable copper currency.

This monetary fragmentation was a direct reflection of the political and economic condition of the Zaidi state at the close of the 17th century. While the Imams held religious legitimacy, their temporal control was often contested by rival dynasties, autonomous tribes, and the lingering legacy of the Ottoman occupation which had formally ended only decades earlier. The lack of a strong, standardized silver currency issued from Sana'a underscored the Imam's limited fiscal centralization and his inability to fully control the country's economic arteries, which remained tapped into global flows of silver bullion beyond his reach.