330 On the Coins of the Independent [No. 173. 



Shahzada, and reigned about eight months. He was, in his turn, 

 assassinated by an Abyssinian, named Mulk Andiel, who setting aside 

 the legitimate heir, a son of Fatteh Shah, assumed the royal authority 

 with the title of Feroz Shah. We must not be surprised if there remain 

 but few coins or other monuments of those barbarous and unsettled 

 times, when, as the Persian historian naively remarks, " to have killed 

 the murderer of the king was deemed in Bengal a sufficient title to the 

 vacant throne."* Of Sultan Shahzada there are no coins extant : 

 perhaps none were ever struck ; but Marsden has preserved one of 

 Feroz Shah, of which, to continue the series, I here give a copy — 



Obverse. 



Reverse. 



* * * * ^LjJJj *4*3t ^ILJLJ! 



Date on the margin of the obverse — A^V> 897. 



At the death of Feroz Shah, he was succeeded on the throne by Mah- 

 mud Shah, staled by Ferishteh to have been his son. Of this prince 

 I have met with no coins ; at least with none that can be, with certainty, 

 ascribed to him. His reign was a very short one, and specimens of his 

 coinage are not likely therefore to be numerous. Amongst the coins 

 figured by Marsden, as those of the Patan dynasty of Hindoostan, is one 

 of Mahmood Shah, so palpably that of a Bengal king, that it is difficult 

 to imagine how it could be ascribed to any other. There is no date 

 upon it to enable us to fix it with certainty upon the son of Feroz Shah ; 

 but the execution of the coin and the locale of coinage, ^Ljts.^ 

 of which several letters are legible, leave no doubt of the class to which 

 it belongs : and as there is no other Mahmud with whom he can be 

 confounded, unless it be the apocryphal father of Barbek (for the coins 

 of Mahmud, the son of Husein, are very distinct from this), I have little 

 doubt that this is the appropriate place for it — 



\j *j.± Ji L» **4>i£i »&j£> *£ ±y> *)lxJo a»*bj ^.jI »>*:=» ^Jl*. * 

 Feristeh. c^J& ,j^s S j{ $ o^ *& ^i CL\*aj9 ^«XAJJ ^ &J5i£j 



