204 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal [July, 1909. 
charge thereof. ’Ali, an army Inspector of Kadr, put we 
to death and made himself master of Lakhnauti. War w 
between Fakhru-d-din Mubarak Shah and ’ Alau-d-din Alt Shak 
(to give their full titles) for several years.' Ibn Batitah visited 
East Bengal about 745 H. (1345 A.D.) and left the following 
contemporaneous account :— 
‘* He [the emperor] appointed governor of this country one 
of his brothers-in-law whom the troops massacred. ’Aly Shah, 
who was then in the country of Lakhnauti, took possession of the 
royalty of Bengal. When Fakhreddin saw that the royal power 
had gone out of the family of Sultan Nasireddin, of which he 
was a slave, he revolted at Sodcawan (? Sunargaon) in Bengal, 
and declared himself independent. A violent enmity took place 
between him and ’Aly Shah. When arrived the time of winter 
and the seasons of wind, Fakhreddin made an incursion into 
the country of Lakhnauti by means of river on which he was 
owerful, But when came back the days in which it did not 
ai, > Aly Shah pounced ape Bengal by land-route, by reason 
of the power he had on this 
According to the histories, Haji Ily4s, a nobleman of the 
of ’Al 
to Pause Rater Ds to the confusion. His revolt is im- 
ortant in one respect. It enables us to 
fix approximately the time of the transfer of the capital. The 
latest coin with the mint Lakhnauti is a rupee of Muhammad- 
i-Tughlak, dated 733 1 H. (1332—3 A.D.) ; but already in a bronze 
coin of his forced currency the mint has been denoted by Iqlim 
poieni the clime of Lakhnauti and not the city.’ After 
this comes a gap; and then follows a rupee of Shamgu-d-din 
llyas ‘Shah, dated 740 H., and a rupee of ’Ali Shah dated 
742 H., oth with the mint Firozabad, the Musalman name o 
Pandua.* Apparently the transfer to Firozabad took place 
on the death of Kadr Khan about 739H. The causes of this 
transfer are nowhere stated; but it was obviously connected 
with the changes in the river-courses, making Lakhnauti 
unhealthy and uninhabitable. The various civil wars with 
repeated plunderings of the city might have hastened the trans- 
the hang nd sey rulers would have felt little scruples in making 
e chan 
1 Barni, Elliot, tis | 2423: Badkoas, % i., 308-9; Ibn Batiitah, 12 
212. 
® French translation, iv., 212. Ibn Batitah arrived at Zafar 
Yemen in Maharram 748 H., which began on 13th April 1347 A.D. (p. 
224) ; and calculating the number of days travelled (as mentioned) and 
adding oe for those omitted, Ibn Bat titah would have visited Bengal 
about two years : fore, or say 745 a t. 
For the coins of 733 H., J.R.AS., ii., 200, J.A.S.B., 1904, P- 373. 
LM.C., ii., 54, S72 See the: boone sold of 921 H., I.M.C., ii., 59, 
No. rig jABB I 1883. p: 62. 
* For 740H., J.R.A.S., ii,, 206; and for 742 H., dbid., ii., 202. 
