1867.] The Initial Coinage of Bengal. 55 



Ikhtidr-ud-din. Ghazi Shah. 



No. 13. 



Sonargaon, a.h. 751-753. 



Silver. Size, vi. Weight, 166 grs. Very rare indeed. Three 



coins, Col. Guthrie. Plate I. fig. 9. 



Obv. Rev. 





vylkJUJl^j a UaJLJ| 

 Margin, 



VII.— SHAMS-IID-DIN. ILTAS SHAH. 



The modern application of old coins divides itself into two branches 

 — the suggestive development of obscure tradition, and the enlarge- 

 ment and critical revision of accepted history. The transition point 

 "between these archaeological functions, in the present series, declares 

 itself in the accession of Ilias Shah, the first recognised and effectively 

 independent Moslem Sultan of Bengal, the annals of whose reign 

 have been so often imperfectly reproduced in prefatory introductions 

 to the relation of the magnificent future his successors were destined 

 to achieve as holders of the interests and the commercial prosperity 

 of the Delta of the Granges, to whose heritage, indeed, England 

 owes its effective ownership of the continent of India at the present 

 day. 



proximity to so powerful a rival monarch, and to return in the suite of the 

 Sultan. The Bengali troops, under Zafar Khan, subsequently distinguished them- 

 selves in an opposite quarter of India, near Tattah, and their commander was 

 eventually left in charge of Guzrat. — Shams-i-Siraj, book ii. cap. 9, etc. — 

 See also Journal Archaeological Society of Dehli (Major Lewis's abstract 

 translation), 1849, p. 15. 



The Tarikh-i-Mubarak Shahi (dedicated to Mubarak II.), the concluding 

 date of which is 838 a.h., also declares that Haji Ilias killed Fakhr-ud-dm in 

 741 a.h. This last date is a manifest error ; as is also, probably, the omission, 

 by both authors, of the words son of before the name of Fakhr>ud-din. 



