Historical Mughal Coin

Holding a remnant of a mystical past today

My mum has this coin. It’s rather old.

What is it? Click through to find out.

My parents have had this literally since forever, certainly forever within the span of my own life memories. Thanks to the internet, it’s a lot easier to figure what this mysterious old coin – I guess you could call it family heirloom almost – actually is.

It appears to say ‘La ilaha illallah’ (There is no God buy God) on one side and refers to Shah Jahan on the other.

http://coinindia.com/galleries-shahjahan.html

From a similar coin on the above webpage, it would seem that the coin in our possession is from the time of Mughal Emperor of India, Shah Jahan, is a silver rupee coin, and dates to the early 1600s.

Don’t worry though, there’s no chance of selling it and retiring on the proceeds. It turns out that because he was around for a bit, he minted a fair number of these coins and there’s quite a few about.

Having a gold one might have been worth a short family break somewhere half decent, but the silver one will barely buy a decent dinner.

But you can’t put a value on pulling it out of storage every now and then, holding it between your own fingers and feeling a powerful connection to an exotic past. Clench it and imagine a bustling 17th century market place, a time of warriors and kings, of grandeur and filth and of history and myth.

I think we’ll be keeping this one.