54 The Initial Coinage of Bengal. [No. 1, 



Obv. Rev. 





%\LxU yi3a+i\ \y\ 





Margin, 



VII.— IKHTrA'RUD-DIN. GHA'Zf SHAH. 



At the period of this king's accession to the sovereignty of Sonar- 

 gaon in a. h. 750 or 751, we lose the aid of our most trustworthy- 

 recorder of the annals of Bengal during his own time. The conclu- 

 sion of Ibn Batutah's narrative leaves Fakhr-ud-din Mubarak still 

 in power, while the native authorities are clearly at fault in their 

 arrangement . of dates and events, and altogether silent as to any 

 change in the succession in Eastern Bengal, except in their allusions 

 to the more than problematical capture of Fakhr-ud-din and his 

 execution by 'Ali Mubarak in 743 a.h., with the final accession of 

 Ilias " one year and five months afterwards."* 



The numismatic testimony would seem to show that Mubarak 

 was succeeded by his own son, as the Ul Sultan bin Ul Sultan may 

 be taken to imply. The immediately consecutive dates, and the 

 absolute identity of the fabric of the coins, as well as the retention 

 of the style of Right-hand of the Khalifat on the reverse, alike 

 connect the two princes ; while the cessation of the issues of Ghazi 

 Shah simultaneously with the acquisition of Sonargaon by Ilias, 

 in a.h. 753, would seem to point to the gradual spread of the power 

 of the latter, which is stated to have been at its zenith just before 

 Firuz III. assailed him in his newly consolidated monarchy in 754.f 



* Stewart, p. 83. 



f Shams-i-Siraj, speaking on hearsay, affirms that Shams-ud-dm Ilias captured 

 and slew Fakhr-ud-din after Firuz III.'s first expedition into Bengal, 

 and that the main object of the latter's second invasion of that province 

 was for the purpose of reasserting the rights of Zafar Khan, the son-in-law 

 of Fakhr-ud-din (who had fled for protection to Dehli), to the kingdom of 

 Eastern Bengal. It is asserted that although Firuz succeeded in obtaining 

 this concession from Sikandar, who, in the interval, had succeeded to his 

 father's throne, Zafar Khan himself was wise enough to decline the dangerous 





