2018-06-11 Mon

This ‘Mureed Raydhanji’ type silver Kori was issued in the reign of Raydhanji II of Kutch Princely State. It was struck jointly in the name of Jalal al-Din Akbar. The obverse of the coin shown the Persian legend ‘Jalal al-Din Muhammad (Ak)bar Ghazi’ depicted above and ‘reed Raisa’ below in Devanagari.

This coin was published in Numismatic Digest as “An Enigmatic Kutch Kori”. The author contend to reconstruct the Devanagari legend as ‘Mureed Raydha(na)’ and connect it to a historical episode in Raydhanji II’s reign wherein he came under the spell of an Islamic teacher named Syed Muhammad Panah of Delhi and converted to Islam.

However, the reconstruction of the legend is not entirely free from doubt. If this coin were to be attributed to Raydhanji II the reference to Jalaluddin Akbar would be puzzling as there are more than 150 years separating the two. It is therefore likely that this coin is issued by a Gujarati potentate of Akbar acknowledging his suzerainty.

Image Source: Classical Numismatic Gallery