Rukunuddin Barbak Shah's reign over the Bengal Sultanate is notable primarily for his systematic military campaigns into Assam and his reported recruitment of thousands of Habshi — East African enslaved soldiers — into the royal army, a policy that would eventually destabilize the dynasty entirely within two generations. The tankas issued across his fifteen-year reign were struck at Firuzabad, the mint city he maintained on the Ganges plain, and show considerable die variation consistent with a sultanate running multiple simultaneous workshops rather than a centralized operation.
Rukunuddin Barbak Shah's reign over the Bengal Sultanate is notable primarily for his systematic military campaigns into Assam and his reported recruitment of thousands of Habshi — East African enslaved soldiers — into the royal army, a policy that would eventually destabilize the dynasty entirely within two generations. The tankas issued across his fifteen-year reign were struck at Firuzabad, the mint city he maintained on the Ganges plain, and show considerable die variation consistent with a sultanate running multiple simultaneous workshops rather than a centralized operation.