| India |
| Gold, Diam. I 6 mm. |
Akbar, I587 AD |
| Collection of the American Numismatic Society, 1917.215.4007 W:10.64 |
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Although his long reign ( 1556-1605 ) was the most successful leader in Indian history, Akbar was regarded with distrust by some orthodox Muslim elements within his state. Apparently determined to create a government transcending religious differences between India's non-Muslim majority and its largely Muslim ruling class, Akbar evinced an impartial interest in many faiths and advanced subordinates according to political, military, and social needs. Midway in his career, he even publicly departed from Islam and instituted a court-centered Din- Illahi ( Divine Faith), a syncretistic blend of religions, strongly colored by liberal sufism and proclaiming Akbar as its contemporary prophet.
This small, square coin reflects the emperor's brilliant foray into religious revelation. The few alertness of the Din-Illahi were supposed to greet each other in a prescribed fashion, one saying "Allahu Akbar" and the other responding "Jalla Jalaluhu." Both phrases had significant double meanings: the first signified either "Allah is Great" or "Akbar is Allah, " while the second, translatable as "Glorious is His Glory, " clearly alluded to Akbar's other name, Jalaluddin. The reverse shows the date and the words "Jalla Jalal[uhu]"; the obverse has the words "Allahu Akbar." |
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| India, Delhi |
Collection of the American Numismatic Society, 1973.56.131 |
| Gold, Diam. 22 mm. |
Firuz Shah, 1383-1384 AD |
W:10.95 |
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Coming to power in northern India in 1320, the Tughluq dynasty reestablished a sound administration and expanded militarily into the Deccan in a brief and, by the middle of the fourteenth century, clearly unsuccessful effort to unite all of India under one rule. The long reign of Firuz Shah III ( 1351-1388) was marked less by military accomplishments than by careful government of northern India, sound economic policies that led to a high level of general prosperity, and a massive building program, not only of palaces and religious edifices but also of utilitarian structures like caravan inns and irrigation dikes. Piously attentive to formal Sunni obligations, the Tughluqs regularly sought investiture from the 'Abbasid caliph' maintained by the Mamluks in distant Cairo. Thus while the obverse simply bears the name of the ruler, written in a clear, strong Thuluth, the reverse identifies him also as the
"Viceroy of the Commander of the Faithful [the Caliph]."
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| India, Shahjahanabad (Delhi) |
| Gold, Diam. 25 mm. |
Aurangzeb, 1659-1660 AD |
| Collection of the American Numismatic Society, 1974.26.2728 W:10.900 |
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The coins of the great Islamic empires of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are among the handsomest ever struck, and this gold coin from the early reign of Aurangzeb (1658-1707) is an elegant example, inscribed in a clear, well-ordered muhaqqaq, on one side giving the Muslim date and the emperor's name and on the other identifying the mint and the regional year three. Having executed his brother Dara Shukoh on a charge of heresy, Aurangzeb dramatically intensified the orthodoxy of the Mughal government; and while he necessarily retained the services of Hindu warriors and officials, he adopted a public policy of formal piety and waged fierce and debilitating wars against Hindu rebels and Shiite kingdoms in the Decant. |
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