Mahmud Shah Bahmani's reign was largely nominal — real power rested with the regent Qasim Barid and later the competing ministers whose rivalries effectively dismembered the sultanate into the Deccan Successor States before his death. Coins struck under his name span nearly four decades precisely because the factional strongmen found it convenient to maintain the fiction of central authority, continuing to issue currency in his name long after Bidar, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, and Berar had become independent in all but coinage.
The gani denomination traces back to the earlier Tughluq administrative structure that the Bahmani sultans inherited when they broke from Delhi in 1347.
Mahmud Shah Bahmani's reign was largely nominal — real power rested with the regent Qasim Barid and later the competing ministers whose rivalries effectively dismembered the sultanate into the Deccan Successor States before his death. Coins struck under his name span nearly four decades precisely because the factional strongmen found it convenient to maintain the fiction of central authority, continuing to issue currency in his name long after Bidar, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, and Berar had become independent in all but coinage.
The gani denomination traces back to the earlier Tughluq administrative structure that the Bahmani sultans inherited when they broke from Delhi in 1347.