In earlier chapters we have seen how the Greek, the Śaka, the Pahlava
and the Kushāṇa invader each in his turn modified the contemporary
coinage of Northern India; the conquests of Muḥammad G̱ẖ̱orī wrought a
revolution. The earlier Muhammadan rulers, it is true, conceded so much
to local sentiment as to reproduce for a time the Bull and Horseman
issues of the Rājpūt states, and even to inscribe their names and
titles thereon in the Nāgarī script, but there was no real or lasting
compromise; the coinage was too closely bound up with the history and
traditions of their religion. Their issues in India are the lineal
descendants of those of earlier Muhammadan dynasties in Central Asia
and elsewhere. The engraving of images was forbidden by the Faith; and
accordingly, with some notable exceptions, pictorial devices cease
to appear on Indian coins. Both obverse and reverse are henceforth
entirely devoted to the inscription, setting forth the king’s name
and titles as well as the date, in the Hijrī era,[45] and place of
striking or mint, now making their first appearance on Indian money.
The inscribing of the sovereign’s name on the coinage was invested
with special importance in the eyes of the Muslim world, for this
privilege, with the reading of his name in the _khutba_, or public
prayer, were actions implying the definite assumption of regal power.
Another new feature was the inclusion in the inscription of religious
formulæ, that most commonly used being the Kalima or profession of
faith. “_There is no god but Allah, and Muḥammad is the prophet of
Allah._” This practice, followed by many subsequent Muhammadan rulers
in India, owed its origin to the crusading zeal of the early Khalifs of
Syria in the eighth century.
[45] The first year of the Hijrī era begins on Friday, July 15th-16th,
A.D. 622.
The fabric of the coinage thus underwent a complete transformation;
not all at once, but gradually, as new districts were subjected to
Muhammadan conquerors, money of the new type spread over the whole
peninsula except the extreme south. Yet owing, no doubt, to its
sectarian association, it was not, until the great Mug̱ẖal currency
had attained a position of predominating importance, voluntarily
imitated by independent communities.
The Muhammadans were also destined to set up a new standard of weight,
but before this was accomplished nearly five centuries were to elapse.
The period under discussion in this chapter is chiefly interesting for
the reappearance of silver in the currency, due to the reopening of
commercial relations with Central Asia, and for the successive attempts
made by various sovereigns to restore order out of the chaos into which
the coinage had fallen during the preceding centuries. The gold and
silver currency was rectified by Altamsh and his successors with little
difficulty; but the employment of billon for their smaller money was
fatal; for the mixture of silver and copper in varying proportions,[46]
so liable to abuse, proved in the end unworkable as a circulating
medium; and not until Sher Shāh substituted pure copper for billon,
and adjusted this to his new standard silver coin, the rupee, was the
currency established on a firm basis.
[46] The variation is due to the fact that silver and copper only
form a homogeneous alloy when mixed in the ratio of 71·89 of the
former to 28·11 of the latter. This fact was certainly unknown at this
period. Cf. _J.A.S.B._, N.S., XXXV, p. 22, “The Currency of the Pathan
Sultans,” by H. R. Nevill.
The earliest Muhammadan kingdom in India was set up by ’Imādu-d-dīn
ibn Qāsim, in Sind, in A.D. 712, but as it exerted little influence on
its neighbours, the insignificant coins issued by its later governors
need not detain us. The gates of the North-West were first opened to
Muslim invaders by the expeditions of the great Sult̤ān Maḥmūd of
G̱ẖ̱aznī between the years A.D. 1001 and 1026. In 1021 the Panjāb was
annexed as a province of his dominions, and after 1051 Lāhor became
the capital of the later princes of his line, driven out of G̱ẖ̱aznī
by the chieftains of G̱ẖ̱or. Here they struck small billon coins with
an Arabic legend in the Cufic[47] script on the reverse, retaining the
Rājpūt bull on the obverse. Maḥmūd himself struck a remarkable silver
_tankah_[48] at Lāhor, called on the coin _Maḥmūdpūr_, with a reverse
inscription in Arabic, and his name and a translation of the Kalima in
Sanskrit on the obverse.
[47] Cufic is the earliest rectilineal form of Arabic script.
[48] Tankah is an Indian name applied to coins of various weights and
metals at different periods. For example, to the large silver and gold
pieces of Nāṣiru-d-dīn Maḥmūd, and later to a special copper issue of
the Mug̱ẖal Akbar.
The last of these G̱ẖ̱aznavid princes of Lāhor, Ḵẖ̱usrū Malik, was
deposed in 1187 by Muḥammad bin Sām of G̱ẖ̱or (Mu’izzu-d-dīn of the
coins), who, after the final defeat of Pṛithvīrāj of Ajmer and his
Hindu allies at the second battle of Thāṇeśar or Tarāin, in 1192,
founded the first Muhammadan dynasty of Hindustān, which nevertheless
actually starts with his successor, Qut̤bu-d-dīn Aibak, the first
Sultan to fix his capital at Dehlī. In dealing with the coins of the
five successive dynasties who ruled in Dehlī from 1206 to 1526, it will
be convenient to recognize three periods: (1) from the accession of
Qut̤bu-d-dīn Aibak in 1206 to the death of G̱ẖ̱iyās̤u-d-dīn Tug̱ẖlaq
in 1324, (2) the reign of Muḥammad bin Tug̱ẖlaq 1324-1351, (3) from
the accession of Fīroz Shāh III, 1351, to the death of Ibrāhīm Lodī,
1526°.