Abu Yusuf Ya’qub al-Mansur was the third ruler of the Almohads, and a successful military commander. To maintain and extend their empire the first four Almohad rulers waged virtually continuous wars in North Africa, Spain and the Balearic Islands.

The fighting qualities of their troops was bolstered by their faith in the teachings of the founder of the Almohad sect, Muhammad Ibn Tumart, whom they called al-Mahdi (the Messiah) and by the invincibility of Abu Yusuf Ya’qub, the current Commander of the Faithful. But their reach over-extended their grasp and the demands they imposed on their subjects soon brought about defeats in Spain and the emergence of separatist movements in Ifriqiya.

Their coinage, however, concentrated on the achievements of the Almohad dynasty, with the addition of al-Mahdi’s name, as well as those of ‘Abd al-Mu’min and his successors.

So prolific are the names, titles, epithets and genealogies crowded onto the coins that very little space is left for other inscriptions. The conscientious precision with which the rulers set out their genealogies makes it very difficult to sort out who was actually ruling amongst the sheer welter of names and titles.

The confusion was greatly compounded by the omission of dates, which are such a great help in attributing a coin elsewhere in the Muslim world. The legends are written in a cursive Naskh script, rather than the traditional Kufic, with the field inscriptions on both obverse and reverse placed in a square surrounded by four lunette-shaped segments.

Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub was the first to strike a splendid series of dinars which bore the names of his father, Abu Ya‘qub Yusuf, and grandfather, Abd al-Mu’min, in the reverse field, with his own in the segments.

This style of Almohad coinage was followed by all the subsequent rulers of North Africa until the beginning of the sixteenth century AD.