2017-11-14 Tue

Out of all the Mughal Emperors, coinage of Akbar is by far the most beautiful, exquisite and varied. Akbar’s coins provide a powerful reflection of his own personality. Today we will discuss coins which bear the mint name ‘Urdu’ (Camp) or ‘Urdu Zafar Qarin’ (camp associated with victory).

It confirms that a mint accompanied Akbar on his campaigns and issued coins on the spot to mark not only military victories but also other significant occasions. Therefore, it appears that all coins issued from non-regular or temporary mints of Akbar can be attributed to this ‘Urdu’ camp mint or ‘Urdu Zafar Qarin’.

The minting of Urdu-Zafar-Qarin coins, however, continued till A.H.989 and also in “Alf” (1000) and Alf-wa-Ahad (A.H.1001).

This silver square rupee showed besides was minted during the reign of Akbar in Alf (1000) AH. The obverse of the coin is inscribed with Persian legend- name of Akbar between two parallel lines ‘Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar Badshah Gazi’ with AH Alf (1000) title ‘Khuldallah Mulkahu’ on top and mint name ‘Zarb Urdu Zafar Qarin’ at the bottom while the reverse of the coin is inscribed with kalima in square created by the last letter of caliph names ‘La Ilaha Ilallaha Muhammadur Rasulullah’ and 4 Caliph names Abu Bakr, Usman, Umar, and Ali in corners from top left clockwise.