5 Piastres

Syria's 1944 currency was issued under the Free French administration, which had nominally granted independence in 1941 while retaining effective control — a contradiction the Syrian public was well aware of. Printing in Alexandria rather than Paris or Beirut was a wartime practicality; European printing infrastructure was unavailable, and the Moharrem Press had an established relationship with regional monetary authorities.

The Moharrem Press, founded in 1885, was one of the few facilities in the eastern Mediterranean capable of producing secure currency-grade work at the time. P#55 is among the lower denominations of this transitional issue, which circulated during one of the more volatile periods in Syrian monetary history before the French finally withdrew in 1946.