2017-09-11 Mon

When Aurangzeb sat on the Mughal throne in the year 1658 AD, he forbade the use of Kalima on his coins, as he did not want to defile the holy Kalima through its association with the monetary transactions of the infidels.

During the beginning of his reign coins which were issued by Aurangzeb bore his name and title ‘Abul Zafar Muiuddin Muhammad Bahadur Shah Alamgir Aurangzeb Badshah’. Later he introduces a couplet which was composed by Mir Abdul Baqi Shahbai. There are two types of couplets with are found on his coins, ‘Mihir-e-Munir couplet' and ‘Badr-e-Munir couplet'. These couplets came into the use at different dates at different mints. They were used by all mints except Akbarabad; where they were issued very late.

The square areas like Shahjahan’s coins were issued in the early years in the mints like Akbarabad and Junagarh. On the reverse side, Aurangzeb introduced a formula which reads as ‘Sanah Julus Maimanat Manus Zarb’ with the name of the mint.

This extremely rare silver legal dirham which weighs around 3.1g minted in Allahabad was sold for INR 1, 10,000 at Todywalla Auction. The obverse of the coin is inscribed as ‘Dirham Sharai’ with regnal year 23 and reverse of the coin is inscribed as ‘Zarb Allahabad’.