1917.] Numismatic Supplement \o. XXVIII. 47 



Prince Muhammad A'azam consummated. The Emperor him- 

 self had bound the chaplet on [to the forehead of the Prince!. 



The Qazi'Ahri-ii.sSa.lsim tmA f)i a mo»; n „ nnn .„: .•„ il. u 



was fixed at fi 



with the practice of His Holiness, the Best of Mankind [i.e.. 

 the Prophet Muhammad], on whom be Blessings and Peace." 



It would appear that in his zeal to re-establish in India 

 the legalistic system of the Early Caliphate, and restore the 

 '•simple life" characteristic of the primitive days of Islam. 

 Aurangzeb made an endeavour to abolish the demand and 

 payment of extravagant sums as dower, which had becom.- 

 customary in his day. "Beware, make not large settle- 

 ments," the Prophet had said, "upon women: because if 

 great settlements were a cause of greatness in the world, and 

 of righteousness before God, surely, it would be most proper 

 for the Prophet of God to make them. ' ' ( MishkdUal-Masabih, 

 Book XIII). " According to Muhammadan Law, the wife is not 

 entitled to a dower of more than ten dirhams in those cases 

 m which a larger sum has not been previously fixed upon." 

 (Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, pp. 91, 314). "The early 

 Hanafi Lawyers," says Mr. Ameer 'AH, "fixed ten dirhams 

 (equal to about fiv* or six francs), as the minimum for dower 

 The Malikis inhabiting a poorer and less populous country than 

 that m which the early Hanafi lawyers flourished, consider 

 three dirhams (one franc and eighty centimes) as the lowest 

 sum which can be given by way of Sadak or Mahr * * * 

 These minima have been abandoned for a long time, and it 

 has become customary in different countries to fix the amount 

 of dower entirely by a consideration of the circumstances of the 

 husband and wife. In India, for example, among that portion 

 of the Musalman community which occupies an analogous 

 position to the upper middle class of English society, the 

 amount of dower ranges from Rs. 4,000 to 40,000. In 

 Behar, the latter is, generally speaking, the customary dower ; 

 in lower Bengal, there is no custom. Among the lower classes, 

 the Mahr varies from Rs. 50 to 400. In princely families the 

 dower consists of several lacs of Rupees." (Muhammadan Law. 

 II, 383). 



In another place, the same authority tell us : " The Prophet 

 did not enunciate any fixed rule as to the amount of dower. He 

 expressly left it to custom and local usages, but as he appears 

 to have settled five hundred dirhams upon M aimuna . the Shiahs 

 consider that amount to be the Mahr-i-Sunnat. The Radd-uh 

 Muhtar says the dower of "our Lady" Fatima was 400 dir- 

 hams.' * (Ibid. , II, 382 note). It is clear that in fixing the dower 

 of the Bijapur princess at five hundred dirhams , Aurangzeb took 

 as his mode] the practice of the Prophet in the case of Maimuna. 

 But not content with cutting down the amount, he appears to 

 have dreamt of introducing along with it a currency, of which 



