136 Dr. Hoernle— Bare Hindu and Muhammadan Goins. [No. 3, 
in the crudity of their formation, show a curious resemblance to the 
coinage of the time of Timur’s raid. Mahmud Shah, the son of Muham¬ 
mad Shall and grandson of Firuz Shah, was the ruler of Delhi at that 
time. He reigned from 795-815 H. The crude form of r in Muham - 
mad on the obverse is especially noticeable, and is very much like that 
on Mahmud’s coins. 
There are some other curiosities and inaccuracies in the spelling. 
Thus, j r of the first rasiil in the obverse legend is written across the ^ s , 
with the medial stroke of which it partially coincides. On the obverse 
the name of Timur is mis-spelled Timur without the intermediate . 
It is true that in Turk! the vowels may be short or long, but, in actual 
use, I have never met with Timur spelled Timur. 5 The title Kurkan is 
spelled Kuban , the intermediate ) r being omitted. On the margin of the 
reverse the imperial titles are given in the inverse order al-A l zam 
as-Sultdn instead of as-Sultan al-A l zam. The preceding title, of which 
only traces of the concluding letters ( far ?) remain, may have been Abul 
Muzaffar : if so, the inversion of the order of the titles is complete. 
Perhaps most curious of all is the fact that the proper name Timur 
appears to be constructed with the article al , but see footnote 5. 
Similar inaccuracies, however, though not in such an accumulation, 
occur on undoubted coins of Timur. See, e. g ., the spelling of Alif Jj*»j 
on coins Nos. 12, 19, 29, etc., in the British Museum Catalogue. 
The accumulation of titles is a very unusual feature on Timur’s 
genuine coins, on which he never applies the imperial titles to him¬ 
self. It is just possible, of course, that the missing portion of the 
reverse marginal legend may have contained the name of the nominal 
Sultan, Mahmud Khan, though the rule of the latter is usually said to 
have terminated in 800H. The title al-Malik appears to be found 
occasionally on Timur’s genuine coins, seeBr. Mus. Cat., Nos. 34 and 35. 
Al-khaqan is not found on any of .them. It occurs apparently for the 
first time, on coins of the Timuride Abdullah (854 H.). The title 
Sahib Qirdn , also, is not found on any of Timur’s known genuine coins; 
but it is well-known that that title was given to Timur on his accession 
to the Amirship in 771 H. 
A further difficulty is that Timur, on all his known genuine coins, 
professes himself an orthodox Sunni Muhammadan : they bear the 
Sunni form of the creed and only the names of the four orthodox 
6 It is just possible that the alif in al-timur may belong to al-amir above, the alif 
of which is not very clear, and that the apparent l of al-timur may be intended for 
t. This would produce the ordinary spelling Timur without aDy article. Observe 
a similar elongated form of t on the coins Nos. 27 and 30 in the British Museum 
Catalogue. 
