The Coins of the Indian Sultanates

Book excerpt: Illustrations: 3013 B/w Coins Illustrations Description: The coinage of the Indian Sultanates is a very important primary source for helping us to understand the political and economic history of much of what is now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh during the period from the beginning of the thirteenth century AD until the seventeenth century when the last of the sultanates, that of Bijapur, was absorbed into the Mughal Empire. The right of sikka, i.e., the fight to strike coins was one of the two juridically recognized expressions of the fight of the ruler to sovereignty, and it was a right that was jealously guarded. It is a happy feature of Islamic coinage that the coins bear information not only about the rulers' names and titles but very often also the place and date of minting. In this way we can follow the progress of their rule as their territories expanded or contracted. We can learn of rulers who are otherwise not known to history, their usually ephemeral reigns not recorded in any literary sources that have come down to us. We can also examine the metals used for the currency, its fineness or debasement, and seek to draw conclusions from that. The present book, however, does not go that far. It is not intended as an economic history of the sultanate period but as an extensive, illustrated catalogue of coin types. More types are included here than in any previously published book on sultanate coins. Many are published for the first time. They come from both public and private collections in India and elsewhere. Brief histories are included for each sultanate as well as comments on the coinage and the coin legends. An extensive bibliography is also provided. This book will serve as an essential reference for students and collectors of Indian sultanate coins and for anyone else interested in this period of South Asian history.