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.

The Book Presents A Comprehensive Account Of The Politico- Economic History Of Bengal From Ad 1205 To 1576. It Makes Extensive Use Of Coins And Epigraphs To Interpret And Substantiate The Historical Narrative Culled Out From The Contemporaneous Chronicles And Travelogues. The Entire Narrative Is Enriched By A Corpus Of Rare Coins Spread Over 32 Plates. Required Reading Not Only For The Serious Schlor But Also The Lay Reader Interested In Medieval Indian History And Numismatics .

The two-volume Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture bridges the gap between monograph and survey text by providing a new level of access and interpretation to Islamic art. The more than 50 newly commissioned essays revisit canonical topics, and include original approaches and scholarship on neglected aspects of the field. This two-volume Companion showcases more than 50 specially commissioned essays and an introduction that survey Islamic art and architecture in all its traditional grandeur Essays are organized according to a new chronological-geographical paradigm that remaps the unprecedented expansion of the field and reflects the nuances of major artistic and political developments during the 1400-year span The Companion represents recent developments in the field, and encourages future horizons by commissioning innovative essays that provide fresh perspectives on canonical subjects, such as early Islamic art, sacred spaces, palaces, urbanism, ornament, arts of the book, and the portable arts while introducing others that have been previously neglected, including unexplored geographies and periods, transregional connectivities, talismans and magic, consumption and networks of portability, museums and collecting, and contemporary art worlds; the essays entail strong comparative and historiographic dimensions The volumes are accompanied by a map, and each subsection is preceded by a brief outline of the main cultural and historical developments during the period in question The volumes include periods and regions typically excluded from survey books including modern and contemporary art-architecture; China, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sicily, the New World (Americas)

The Deccan sultans left a grand architectural and artistic legacy. They commissioned palaces, mosques, gardens and tombs as well as decorative paintings and coins. Of these sultanates, the Nizam Shahs (r. 1490-1636) were particularly significant, being one of the first to emerge from the crumbling edifice of the Bahmani Empire (c. 1347-1527). Yet their rich material record remains largely unstudied in the scholarly literature, obscuring their cultural and historical importance. This book provides the first analysis of the architecture of the Nizam Shahs. Pushkar Sohoni examines the critical relationship between architectural production, courtly practice and royal authority in a period when the aspirations and politics of the kingdom were articulated through architectural expression. Based on new primary research from key sites including the urban settlements of Ahmadnagar, Daulatabad, Aurangabad, Junnar and the port city of Chaul, Sohoni sheds light on broader Islamicate ideas of kingship and shows how this was embodied by material artefacts such as buildings and sites, paintings, gardens, guns and coins. As well as offering a vivid depiction of sixteenth-century South Asia, this book revises understanding of the cultural importance of the Nizam Shahs and their place in the Indian Ocean world. It will be a vital primary resource for scholars researching the history of the medieval and early modern Deccan and relevant for those working in Art History, Islamic Studies, South Asian Studies and Archaeology.

Illuminates the centrality of courtliness in the political and cultural life of the Deccan in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.