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 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.

Part 1 of a detailed reference work on Islamic coins. This first volume focuses on the coins of the mediaeval period from the beginnings of Islam up to the 10th century AH/16th century AD.

This book is the first to trace the unique monetary history of the Indian Ocean World. Long-distance trade across the region was facilitated by a highly complex multi-currency system undergirded by shared ideas that transcended ethno-linguistic, religious and class divisions. Currencies also occupied key roles in local spiritual, aesthetic and affective practices. Foregrounding these tensions between the global/universalistic and the local/particularistic, the volume shows how this traditional currency system remained in place until the middle of the twentieth century, and how aspects of the system continue to inform monetary practices throughout the region. With case studies covering China, India, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, East Africa, Zanzibar, Madagascar and Mauritius from the thirteenth to the twenty-first centuries, this volume explores the central role currencies played in economic exchange as well as in establishing communal bonds, defining state power and expressing religious sentiments.