Ashrafi - al-Ashraf Qansuh II al-Ghuri

Al-Ghuri inherited a sultanate already hemorrhaging revenue, and his gold coinage reflects it directly. The debased fineness of these ashrafi issues — a sharp decline from earlier Mamluk standards — was a fiscal response to the Ottoman commercial pressure strangling Levantine trade routes and, more critically, the Portuguese disruption of Red Sea spice traffic after 1498. Al-Ghuri reportedly attempted to rebuild an Egyptian fleet to contest Portuguese control of the Indian Ocean lanes, funded in part by currency debasement.

He died at Marj Dabiq in August 1516, killed — or more likely felled by a stroke mid-battle — as the Ottoman guns of Selim I shattered the Mamluk cavalry.