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1 Falus - Nasir Al-Din Mahmud Shah I
| Issuer | Sultanate of Gujarat |
|---|---|
| Year | 1458-1511 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Diameter | Log in to see details |
| Thickness | 5.54 mm |
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| Obverse description | Hammered copper flan bearing a multi-line Arabic inscription disposed across the field in bold, somewhat crude calligraphy. The legend, rendered in Naskh-influenced script, occupies three or four registers and references the ruler's titles and name. The surfaces show characteristic irregularity of hand-struck medieval Islamic coinage, with the letters boldly raised against a rough, granular field. No border or decorative framing element is present, the design filling the planchet to its edges. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse lettering | محمود شاه |
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| Additional information |
Nasir al-Din Mahmud Shah I ruled Gujarat during a period of remarkable commercial expansion, when Gujarati merchants dominated Indian Ocean trade routes from East Africa to Southeast Asia. The sultanate's copper coinage was the workhorse of that internal economy — silver and gold moved the long-distance trade, but the falus handled the bazaar. His reign of over five decades was the longest of any Gujarat sultan, which partly explains why these pieces turn up with some regularity despite the attrition copper suffers in tropical climates.