Larin (malawiyat)

The malawiyat, also called larins, were a currency used in trade along the sea route linking the Gulf ports with the west coast of India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. ¹ The Islamic Coins booklet describes them as current between the Gulf, India and Ceylon in the seventeenth century, shaped like a fish-hook and made of silver or copper. ²

• Larins of Sri Lanka and the Maldives were bent into a fish-hook shape, while those of the Gulf and western India were straight; straight pieces that reached Sri Lanka and the Maldives through trade were bent there according to local custom. ¹
• A piece weighed about 4.9 g and was of good silver, but the western Indian larins from Bijapur were of poorer silver and valued lower by merchants. ¹
• Their flans were so small they barely held the legends, so many pieces cannot be identified precisely. ¹

They were common between about 1500 and 1700; the traveller Mandelslo discussed them (1659), and Codrington in more detail (1924). ¹ In the eighteenth century a group of light, low-value larins was made at al-Hufuf, then in the Ottoman province of al-Ahsa. ¹