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The Coinage and Genealogy of the Later Jāms of Sind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Simon Digby
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Extract

It is so long since Indo-Muslim numismatics first attracted scholarly attention and there have been so many devoted labourers in this field that it is gratifying to note a new coinage struck by yet another Indo-Muslim dynasty. To the best of the knowledge of the present writer no coinage of the Samma Jāms of Sind (14th–16th century a.d.) has yet been published. This paper records two varieties of their copper coinage, dating from the latest period of their rule.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 104 , Issue 2 , April 1972 , pp. 125 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1972

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References

1 Cf. Wright, H. Nelson, The coinage and metrology of the Sultāns of Dehli, Delhi, 1936, nos. 713a–735.Google Scholar

2 Chronological confusion exists about this as so many other dates in the history of the dynasty. Ma‘ṣūm, the closest in time of local Sindhī historians, indicates in one place that Jām Niām al-dīn/Nindo died in a.h. 923, but elsewhere implies that the event was prior to a.h. 916—see Sayyid Muḥammad Ma‘ṣūm Bakkarī, Ta'rikh-i Sind, ed. M. b.U. Dā'ūdpota, Bombay, 1938, 112, 78–9. For the later date the references to contemporary events given by the historian prevent our reading ‘ashar for ‘ishrayn. The later date is also supported by the statement of the Arabic History of Gujarat that (following the immediate struggle for the succession) Jām Salāḥ al-dīn arrived at the court of the Gujarat Sultan in Champaner in a.h. 924—see al-Makkī, afar al-wālih, ed. E. Denison Ross, 1910–28, I, 137. Ma‘sūm's editor Daudpota supported the date of 924 in the face of contrary evidence in his edition (commentary, p. 303); but he later rejected it in favour of 914—see Daudpota, M. U., “Sind and Multan”, in A comprehensive history of India, V, Delhi, 1970, 1127Google Scholar. The date of 914 is supported by other 17th-century and later chronicles—see Daudpota in Ma‘ṣūm, ed. cit., 303; and the strongest evidence for it appears to be the inscription referring to the deceased Sultan on the tomb of Jām Nizām al-dīn/Nindo. This is read as 915 (not 925) by S. H. Rashdi and appears to be so on his plate of the estampage of the inscription; but this is not so clear as to be quite decisive—see Sayyid Mīr ‘Alīshīr Qāni‘ Tattavī, Makli-nāma, ed. S. H. Rāshidī (= Rashdi), Ḥaydarābād (Sind), 1967, 112, Pl. on p. 787; the very extensive commentary in Sindhī to this edition of a short Persian risāla is a valuable contribution to the history of Thattha.

3 Ma‘ṣūm, ed. cit., 76.

4 ibid., 77–8.

5 See n. 2 above: S. H. Rashdi in Maklī-nāma, p. 114 and genealogical table 2, of which a portion has been adapted in Fig. 3 of this article. Here and elsewhere S. H. Rashdi expresses indebtedness to a paper on the dynastic history of Sind by N. B. K. Baloch, which the present writer has been unable to consult. A communication from Professor Riazul Islam informs me that it was read at a meeting of the Pakistan Historical Records and Archives Commission in 1955; but the Proceedings of this body, if published, are not to be found in any British library.

6 Ma‘ṣūm, 111–12.

7 Ma‘ṣūm, 114, writes a.h. 926: Daudpota in his commentary, p. 312, corrects to 927 on the strength of the chronogram in the Tuḥfat al-kirām.

8 Ma‘sūm, 115–16.

9 afar al-wālih, I, 138, gives a.h. 926 as the date of this invasion.

10 Ma‘ṣūm, 118.

11 ibid.; corrected by Daudpota, commentary, p. 312.

12 Cf. Ma‘ṣūm, 118–19: Mīrzā Shāh Ḥasan set out from Shāl on the 14th Muḥarram. Within 20 days he reached Sīvistān (Sībī). The time taken in marching from there towards Thattha and crossing the Indus, and in preparing for battle, is not mentioned.

13 Ma‘ṣūm, 127.

14 afar al-wālih, 138.

15 ibid.

16 Niām al-din Aḥmad, abaqāt-i Akbarī, Calcutta, 1913–38, II, 35; Ma‘ṣūm, Daudpota's commentary, 315.

17 Rashdi in Maklī-nāma, 112, 787.

18 Ma‘ṣūm, 76: the term used is nabira, which is defined by Steingass as “a grandchild, especially a son's child”; the translation (by Capt. G. Malet revised by Dowson?) in Elliot and Dowson, History of India, I, 234, reads “the son of Sultan Sanjar's daughter”, which presumably depends on reading navāsa for nabira; but Daudpota's edition, which is based on 6 MSS, gives no such variant.

19 Ma‘ṣūm, 73; Sayyid āhir Muḥammad Nisyānī Tattavī, Ta'rīkh-i āhirī, ed. N. B. K. Baloch, Haydarabad (Sind), 1964, 51, which may at this point derive from Ma‘ṣūm's rubric.

20 e.g. Rashdi in Makli-nāma, 110 and genealogical table 2. Possibly the greatest difficulties of modern historians of this dynasty are the problems of identity which arise from the possession by each ruler of an Islamic laqab and a native ‘urf, which are seldom reproduced together by individual sources. The practice dates from the 14th century: for an inscription in which Jām Jūno, brother of the founder of the dynasty, is called Jam ‘Alā’ al-dīn, see Rashdi in Maklī-nāma, 107. In the rubric of Ma‘ṣūm, 73, Jām Niām al-dīn/Nindo is described as b. Bābinīya b. Unar b. Ṣalāḥ al-dīn b. Tamāchī. No explanation is given of the circumstances in which he succeeded Jām Sanjar (Ma'ṣūm, 73–4). In two of the inscriptions on his tomb his ancestry is given. In the first he is described as Sultān Ni ām al-dīn Shāh b. Ṣadr al-dīn Shah b. Ṣalāḥ al-din Shāh b. Sultān Rukn al-din Shāh: this inscription is undated but was set up during the lifetime of the Sultan. In the second, posthumous inscription set up by his son Jām Fīrūz, dating from 915, he is called al-sult ān Ni ām al-dīn Shāh b. al-sul ān Ṣadr al-dīn Shāh b. al-sul ān Ṣalāḥ al-dīn Shāh b. al-sulān Rukn al-dīn b. al-sulān Firūz Shāh: see Rashdi in Maklī-nāma, Pls. on pp. 791, 787, readings on pp. 111, 112. A subsidiary problem which arises in these inscriptions is whether there is any significance in the omission of the title Sul ān before the names of the father and grandfather of Niz̤ām al-dīn/Nindo in the first inscription and its inclusion before these in the second. The most likely answer is that the omission was dictated by the exigencies of the space for the inscription on the lintel of a door (see Maklī-nāma, Pls. on p. 791); because (i) Ma‘ṣūm and the late 16th-century sources which notice the history of the dynasty are agreed that Jām Ṣalāḥ al-dīn (I) was a ruling member of the house and (ii) the evidence discussed below that Jām Ṣalāḥ al-dīn (II, of the coins) and Jām Fīrūz had a common paternal grandfather necessitates the equation Sulān Ṣadr al-dīn = Jām Sanjar. In this case something is wrong with Ma‘ṣūm's rubric, quoted above. Even if we rejected the identification Ṣadr al-dīn = Sanjar, Ma‘ṣūm's rubric still conflicts with the evidence of the inscriptions with regard to the number of generations from Ṣalāh al-dīn (I) to Niz̤ām al-dīn/Nindo. If the omission of the title before the two names in the earlier inscription were of significance, it would probably imply that Jām Fīrūz in 915, in support of his pretensions to the throne, was elevating his grandfather to the posthumous title of sul ān; a parallel for this may be found in the coinage of the 15th-century Sulān of Dehlī, Muḥammad Shāh Sayyid (r. a.h. 837–49), which implies that his father and grandfather were reigning monarchs: see Nelson Wright, op. tit., nos. 897–905.

21 Ma‘ṣūm, 76; abaqāt-i Akbarī, III, 518; Maklī-nāma, 116.

22 afar al-wālih, 137.

23 Ma‘ṣūm, loc. cit.

24 afar al-wālih, loc. cit.

25 Maklī-nāma, genealogical table 2.

26 Abu'l-Faḍl ‘Allāmī, Ā'īn-i Akbarī, Calcutta, 1878, 559: tr. Jarrett and Sarkar, Calcutta, 1949, II, 343; abaqāt-ī Akbarī, III, 513–17; Farishta, Ta'rikh, Bombay/Poona, 1832, II, 415–20; Qāni‘, Tuḥfat alkirām, B.M. Add. 21, 589, ff. 267–9. Our earliest surviving source, Niām al-dīn Aḥmad's abaqāt-i Akbarī, leaves no doubt that this information, which must derive from some kind of regnal list, was transmitted by a lost chronicle to which he frequently refers, calling it the Ta'rikh-i abaqāt-i Bahādurshāhi: which must be identical with Ḥusām Khān's lost composition, for which see n. 34 below. Its author “has written this much, that each person ruled for some/so many years” (hamīn miqdār navishta ki har nafar ī chand sāl bi-amr-i ḥukūmat mashghūl būda, op. cit., III, 512). Elsewhere Niz̤ām al-dīn Aḥmad complains bitterly about the confusion in the same author's account of the dynastic relationships of the neighbouring (and intermarried) dynasty of the Langāhs of Multan (ibid., 534). He also states that there were 15 rulers of the house of the Sammas (read SMGAN for SYMGAN of the printed text, III, 512) and this corresponds to the actual number of rulers noticed by him under separate headings (including Jām Fīrūz II but not Jām Ṣalāḥ al-dīn II). This implies that a separate entry on Jām Rāydino was omitted in the MS of Ḥusām Khān's work which Niz̤ām al-dīn Aḥmad was using, for the consequences of which see n. 32 below.

27 Reckoning backwards from the accepted date of Jam Niz̤ām al-dīn/Nindo's accession (a.h. 866) this yields regnal dates of the 14th-century Jāms which synchronize with the evidence of sources in the Dehlī Sultanate.

28 A comprehensive history of India, V, 1124; the computation with corrupt names in the footnote to Ā'in-i Akbarī, tr., II, 343, for which no reference is given, is taken from J. Prinsep, Useful tables, Calcutta, 1836, pt. II, 149. This computation is based on Colonel Dow's 18th-century translation of Farishta. Ma‘ṣūm (as so often) is evidently in error in assuming that the invasion of Multan and Ucch by Pīr Muḥammad, grandson of Amīr Taymūr, (which took place in a.d. 1396–7) occurred two reigns later: Ma‘ṣūm, 68–70.

29 Ma‘ṣūm, 68.

30 ‘Abd al-Bāqī Nihāvandī, Ma'āthir-i Raḥimī, Calcutta, 1925, II, 271.

31 ibid., 270: remarks regarding Jām Mubārak.

32 Ā'īn-i Akbarī (loc. cit.), which is one of the earliest surviving literary sources regarding the 15th-century Jāms of Sind, has taken Rāydino (Rādhan, etc.), to be merely an alternative name (‘urf)of his successor Jām Sanjar. Ma‘ṣūm is quite clear that Jām Sanjar was a younger ruler who supplanted Jām Rāydino. The modern historians—Daudpota, Baloch, and Rashdi—have preferred the evidence of the Ā'īn-i Akbari to that of Ma‘ṣūm, even though the latter was writing only a decade later. It appears to the present writer that the discrepancy is more likely to have arisen in the following way: Abu'l Faḍl, when he was compiling the Ā'īn-i Akbarī, probably had before him the notices of the abaqāt-i Akbarī (composed a few years earlier at the Mughal court) and another possibly brief lost source. This source did not have the information regarding the length of the reigns of the Jāms which is found in the abaqāt-i Akbarī; but all mention of Jām Rāydino is omitted in the latter work (loc. cit., see n. 26 above). Abu'1-Faḍl, faced with an additional name for which no specific length of reign could be assigned in his otherwise precise table, decided to treat it merely as an ‘urf of his successor. This process appears more probable than the alternative, of a fictitious multiplication of Sanjar (also = Ṣadr al-dīn, see above, n. 20) ‘urf Rāydino into two separate personages in the tradition on which Ma‘ṣūm drew. A further remote possibility may be mentioned, which would depend on the identification which we are rejecting, of Niz̤ām al-dīn = Rāydino. According to Ma‘ṣūm, Jām Niz̤ām al-dīn I had fled in the direction of Gujarat, an event which must have occurred about half a century before the invasion of Raydino. If (in accordance with our first hypothesis above) Ma‘ṣūm was wrong in believing that Jām Niz̤ām al-dīn I died upon the road (Ma'ṣūm, 67: dar athnā'-i rāh sālik-i masālik-i baqā gardīd), Niz̤ām al-dīn I could have been identical with Rāydino, who emerged from Kacch as a contender for power: but apart from the intrinsic improbability of this thesis, Ma‘ṣūm's anecdote about Rāydino's reluctance to assume sovereignty once he was in possession of Thattha is somewhat against it. A possibility exists of close family relationship between Rāydino and Niz̤ām al-dīn I: the former could have been the offspring of one of the “uncles” (‘ammagān) of the latter, whom Ma‘ṣūm (loc. cit.) mentions surviving “in the desert” (dar ṣaḥrā).

33 See above, nn. 21, 22.

34 Ḥusām Khān's Ta'rīkh-i Bahādurshāhī, written at the court of Sultan Bahādur Shāh of Gujarat (r. 932–943/1526–36) has been so extensively used and acknowledged as a source by late 16th-and 17th-century historians that it is curious that no MS is known to have survived: see Z̤afar al-wālih, II, intro., xxvii–xxix, and text passim; Sikandar b. Muḥammad, Mir'āt-i Sikandari, ed. S. C. Misra and M. L. Rahman, Baroda, 1961, intro., 21–6; abaqāt-i Akbarī, I, 3, and III, 512, 534; Farishta, I, 6; Sujān Rā'ē Bhandārī, Khulāṣat al-tawārīkh, ed. M. Zafar Hasan, Dehlī, 1918, 8, which mentions its relevance for the history of Sind—Ta'rikh-i Bahādurshāhī mushtamil bar aḥvāl-i salā īn-i wilāyat-i Gujarāt u Aḥmadābād u wilāyat-i Sind al-mashhūr bi-Thattha; ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq Dehlavī, Ta'rīkh-i Ḥaqqi, Bodleian, Ouseley 60, f. 2A; S. A. I. Tirmizi, “Administrator-historian of the court of Bahadur Shah”, in Some aspects of medieval Gujarat, Delhi, 1968, 55–60.

35 abaqāt-i Akbari, III, 518.

36 Ta'rīkh-i ahirī, 54–6.

37 Maklī-nāma, commentary, 111.

38 ibid., 102: pi. on p. 789.