Jaisalmer's coinage under Muhammad Shah was struck in nominal acknowledgment of Mughal suzerainty — the ruler's name appearing on local issues long after Delhi had lost any practical authority over the desert kingdom. By the 1740s, the Mughal emperor was a political fiction sustained largely by the minting conventions of distant princely courts still trading on imperial legitimacy they had no obligation to honor.
The Thar Desert location of Jaisalmer kept it remarkably isolated from the monetary disruptions tearing through northern India during Nadir Shah's 1739 sack of Delhi, which obliterated vast quantities of Mughal silver stock.
Jaisalmer's coinage under Muhammad Shah was struck in nominal acknowledgment of Mughal suzerainty — the ruler's name appearing on local issues long after Delhi had lost any practical authority over the desert kingdom. By the 1740s, the Mughal emperor was a political fiction sustained largely by the minting conventions of distant princely courts still trading on imperial legitimacy they had no obligation to honor.
The Thar Desert location of Jaisalmer kept it remarkably isolated from the monetary disruptions tearing through northern India during Nadir Shah's 1739 sack of Delhi, which obliterated vast quantities of Mughal silver stock.