Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXIV 63

Coins of Arab Sind and Robert Bracey

Abstract The period from Muhammad Qasim 's siege of Deybul (AD 711) to the conquest of Mahmud of Ghazni (before AD 1030) is the first time that Muslim rulers exercised more than temporary authority over a part of the subcontinent. The coinage of this period is particularzv important to its reconstruction but the principle catalogues (Coron & Goenka; Album 2011) are sparsely illustrated which can make the identification of coins difficult. The Fit=william museum i11 Cambridge has it· collection 011line but the holdings are modest and 1101 broadly representative. The museums of Rajastha11 have digitised more than 7000 coins but the database while a powe,ful research tool i not user friendly. The British Museum has recently made its collection available online and this article is a brief introduction to that resource. Previous curators, Nicholas lowick and Joe Cribb, made considerable advances in the study of these coins but much of this material has not previously been published. The digitisation was on(v possible as Joe Cribb hndly providing his unpublished research on the coins of Multan and Si11d.

In AD 71 I an Arab army led by Muhammad Muhammad Qasim was spectacularly Qasim arrived in the kingdom of Sind and laid successful but the results ephemeral. Having siege to the port of Deybul at the mouth of the seized Deybul he met Dahar's army and . The rea ons for this attack and its defeated him. Marching up the Indus he went objectives are unclear. The Arab historian al­ on to capture Brahmanabad, capital of Sind, Baladhuri tells us that pirates operating out of and then pushed fu1ther capturing the city of Deybul had captured ships with Muslim Multan, a kingdom distinct from Sind. passengers and that appeals to the king of Sind, However, in AD 7 I 5 a new Caliph replaced Dahar, by al-Hajjaj, governor of Iraq, had the governor of Iraq and Muhammad Qasim been met with a claim the pirates were beyond was recalled, and imprisoned. Hullishah, the his control. AI-Hajjaj ordered a punitive raid son of Dahar, retook the kingdom of Sind and and after the first two were unsuccessful he the Arab conquests were reduced to the port of sent a third commanded by Muhammad Qasim. Deybul and the lower part of the Indu . The This account has often been taken at face Caliph 'Umar accepted Hulli hah's conversion value but some caution is in order. AI­ to Islam and recognised his kingdom. Baladhuri also describes many previous raids However the new governor soon organised a on Sind, reaching back to the time of the subsequent invasion and conquered Sind prophet, and there are suggestions that Sind completely. had supported both the ailing Sasanian state From the 720s until the early eleventh century and the kingdom of in their wars with the region of Sind would remain under Arab the Arab . The piracy of Deybul may have rnle. At first it was ruled by governors, usually been a pretext rather than the reason for the answering to the governor of Iraq. However, mvas1on. these governors frequently rebelled against Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXIV 64 central authority and the position of Sind at away from central control. However, the Arab the edge of the Arab world made it a desirable geographer's of the tenth century do record place for dissidents. For example, the arab information about the two kingdoms. Masudi, writer al-Tabari gives us an ambiguous picture a very well-travelled geographer visited the of the governor Umar b. Hafs (AH 142 to AH region AH 300/912-3 when Munnabih was 151). When the brothers Muhammad and ruling at Multan (Fig. 2), and Umar, son of Ibrahim fled to Sind fearing Abbassid Abd Allah, was ruling at Mansurah in Sind per ecution he recounts they were forced to (Fig. 3). The coinage of Multan probably leave because they were denounced to Umar. began first and shows the greatest However, later he tells us that Muhammad accommodation to local traditions. One side of dispatched his son Abdallah to Sind and that the coin has two Brahmi characters ta and pa Umar protected him, and was in fact removed either ide of three dots representing the from his governorship for this reason (Vol. 28, flames of an Iranian fire altar. This derives p. 94· Vol. 29, pp. 51-56). from a local coinage which was influenced by Sa anian designs. Beneath the design are The difference between these accounts, one Kufic characters with the name of the amir. suggesting the governor was Joyal to the On the reverse a Brahmi inscription name a Abbassids the other that he sheltered their god, usually Sri Adivaraha. Varaha was the enemies, probably reflects the internal politics boar incarnation of Vishnu and an important of the Abbassid comt at this period. AI­ political symbol for Indian kings. The legend Tabari 's source for the flight of Muhammad of him rescuing the Earth from the primordial and Imbrahim, and thus the suggestion of ocean was equated with the king's duty to re­ loyalty, seems to derive from Umar's brother establish peace and prosperity in dark times. while the lengthy narrative of his aiding Abdallah comes from an Abbassid source - The rule of the Amirs of Sind, descendants of presumably trying to blacken the name of the Habbar b. al-A wad after whom they are often governor. known as the Habbarids, lasted until the early eleventh century. The rulers of Multan were Intrigues like this combined with the obvious deposed by an lsmaili or Qarmatian sect in the advantages of Sind to dissidents would have middle to late part of the tenth century. Where made any governor too well established the rulers of Multan had accommodated the automatically suspect to the central authorities. Hindu population and adopted habits of Indian Umar was in fact, at eight years (AD 760-8), kings, issuing coins with the names of Hindu the second longe t serving governor in the gods and preserving the famous Sun temple in province and this is probably why hi copper the city, the new rulers is ued more coinage is relatively common (Fig. I). traditionally Islamic coins naming the Fatimid In the ninth century both Sind and Multan Caliph (Fig. 4) and Jalam Ibn Shaiban became independent kingdoms ruled by destroyed the temple. The independence of Muslim Amirs. Mansurah's last and successful Multan was brought to an end in AD I 005 act of rebellion occurred in AD 854 and the when Mahmud of Ghazni's armies sacked the amirate of Multan probably became city. Mahmud's chroniclers are silent on the independent earlier. Arab chronicles contain fate of the amir of Sind. less information about the region after it broke Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXIV 65

There is less evidence of religious innovation The collection has 363 objects. Twenty of in Sind than at Multan. Hindu temples and these coins are issues of the Amirs of Multan, Buddhist monasteries survived the invasion - and twelve are coins of Multan issued in the though some were either damaged or name of the Fatimid Caliphs following the destroyed as evidenced by a linga at the po11 lsmaili/Qarmatian seizure of power, of Deybul symbolically incorporated into a previously published by Nicholas Lowick mosque. Buddhi m, principally represented by (1983). Two coins acquired with coins of Sind the Sammatiya ect before the Arab invasion and Multan are Qanhari dirhams of the period had disappeared by the eleventh century, for of Farrukhzad (AD I 053-59) or Ibrahim (AD reasons which are still unclear (for a I 059-99), while seven are copper coins of the discussion see MacClean, 1989). The coinage governor 'Umar ibn Hafs. In addition the of Sind though it shared :he same weight museum has a range of Qanhari dirhams standard a that at Multan was more traditional otherwise acquired, about 45 into total. They in its design, with an Arabic inscription on can be found amongst the coins of the other both sides. It is possible that Sind avoided by searching forthe period/culture direct conquest by Mahmud' forces though 'Ghaznavid dynasty'. The vast majority of the replacement of the Amirs of Sind coins by other coins are issues of the Amirs of Sind, a similar type of Ghaznavid coin, known as a mostly silver but some copper. Of these, 74 Qanhari dirham (Fig. 5) sometime before AD are from the Office Loan Collection I 030, suggests they may have lost their (these have a registration number beginning independence. However, there is some 'IOLC'). The IOLC is a permanent loan from contrary evidence. The coins of Ahmad the British Library of coins that had been continue to be issued with additional received in the nineteenth century and were inscriptions added, initially just the title 'izz probably collected by Charles Masson at the but Album (2011) also reports the inscription site of Begram in the early nineteenth century. al-qa 'im bi-amr Allah on some (Fig. 6) The first coin, a copper of the governor 'Abu suggesting they were issued during the Ja'far 'Umar b. l:{afs was received in 1847. It caliphate of Al-Qa'im (AH 422-67). was purchased by an agent of the museum, The British Museum Collection John Doubleday, amongst other Islamic coins. The first coin which has some provenance, a The British Museum has an ongoing process coin of the amir Ahmad, was received in 1860 of digitising its collection for public access. as part of the collection of William Hay who The collection 1s accessible at had fought in the first Afghan war and www. bri ti hmuseum.org/research.aspx?ref=he collected coins from the site of Bamiyan. The ader. Material relating to this period is museum continued to receive coins as parts of accessible by using the 'Advanced Search' other collections. This included 18 coins of the function and entering 'Arab Sind' under Amirs of Sind received from Jame Burgess 'Cultures/period/dynasties'. Coins can also be the Director-General of the Archaeological searched by the name of the issuer and by the Survey of India. Burgess had collected a reference number as given in Goran & Goenka variety of coins in his tour of Kathiawad and (200 I). Kachh in 1874-5 which were discussed in the second volume of his second volume of the Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXIV 66 Archaeological Survey of Western India by from Sind or Multan. Likely most of them Edward Thomas, these eighteen almost came from Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and certainly were collected then. Other notable northwestern India (Gujurat being strongly sources include two coms from the implicated), and therefore represent not the Government of the Central Provinces sort of coins which circulated in the ten-itories ( covering parts of Madhya Pradesh, themselves but those which were exported. Chattisgarh, and Maharashtra) said to come This seems to be true of all the public from finds in 1906-7, and some received in collections so far used in studies and probably 1912 as part of the collection of Arthur Henry of most coins in trade. The result is a McMahon who served in Baluchistan. There significant distortion of the numismatic was then a ubstantial gap before various evidence which is significantly more complete acquisitions in the 1970s to early 2000s for the Amirs of Sind who ruled between AH including a group of nine coins which had 280 and Mahmud of Ghazni's conquests. The probably formed part of a parcel in trade. A copper coinage, probably very substantial of parcel of qanhari dirhams including one the governors and the amirs is quite rare Mahmud 13 Mas'ud and one Khwarazm Shah precisely because copper coins did not travel coin, was acquired in this period and is far. The silver coinage of Multan and the early numbered '1974, I I 11 '. The coins of the silver of Sind are comparatively rare though Amirs of Multan were largely unknown until there is no reason to think they were originally the late twentieth century. The British issued in small numbers. Museum had two examples, from the collections L. White-King and Alexander Some useful searches for the BM Cunningham, both unattributed. In 1997 it collection acquired 49 coins in trade who e provenance 'Ghaznavid dynasty' in the advanced search was unknown but included three crude period culture field will return all Ghaznavid examples of Ahmad. The bulk of coins either coins in the database including qanhari lack any information about how they were dirhams issued in or imilar to tho e of Sind. acquired or came as a group from the India 'Arab Sind' in the period culture field will Office which had received them from the India return issues of Amirs of Sind, Amirs of Museum. Multan, Fatimid rulers of Multan All of the coms 111 the British Museum The first part of an acquisition code entered collection have been photographed and where into the search box which consists of a year possible a reading of the inscription is and a four digit code eparated by a comma provided. Photographs have been taken with will return all of the coins acquired together. the coins lit from above which tends to Some useful examples of searches like this are: produce the best results but for many of the '1980,0917' the Fatimid rulers of Multan amirs of Sind coins a second photograph is published by Nicholas Lowick. provided with raking light which may aid in the reading of the inscription. '1997,0705' the bulk of the museums Amir of Multan coins acquired in 1997. It is notable that there is no evidence of any of the British Museum coins actually coming Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXIV 67

'1889,0505' coins received from James Burgess, probably fromGujurat. '1996,0609' a parcel received in trade of Amir of Sind. "Robert Bracey 1s Curator of South and Central Asian coins at the British Museum. This work was completed while his post was funded by the Leverhulme Trust's Empires of Faith Project." Ancient Pakistan, Vol. :XXIV 68

Bibliography Album, S. (2011 ). Checklist of Islamic Coins, World (ed. Cribb, J) [published in 1990, Stephen Album Rare Coins, 3rd Edition. the original was published in Numismatic Digest VII]: 62-69. Goron, S. & Goenka J. P. (2001). The Coins of the Indian Sultanates. MacClean, D. N. ( 1989). Religion and Society in Arab Sind, Brill. Lowick, N. ( 1983). Fatimid Coins of Multan. In Islamic Coins and Trade in the Medieval Ancient Pakistan, Vol. XXIV 69

List of Figures

Fig. I. A Copper Coin of the Governor ·umar lbn Hafs (OR.1654)

Fig. 2. Silver coin of Munnabih, Amir of Multan ( 1997 ,0705.64)

Fig. 3. Silver coin of Umar, Amir of Sind (OR.1644) Ancient Pakistan, Vol. .xxrv 70

Fig. 4. Silver coin in the name of the Caliph al-Mu 'izz from Multan ( 1980,0717.2)

Fig. S. Qanhari Dirham of Mahmud (IOC.1413)

Fig. 6. Coin of Ahmad with additional inscription ( 1997,0705.97)