In earlier chapters we have seen how the Greek, the Śaka, the Pahlava and the Kushāṇa invader each in his turn modified the contemporary coinage of Northern India; the conquests of Muḥammad G̱ẖ̱orī wrought a revolution. The earlier Muhammadan rulers, it is true, conceded so much to local sentiment as to reproduce for a time the Bull and Horseman issues of the Rājpūt states, and even to inscribe their names and titles thereon in the Nāgarī script, but there was no real or lasting compromise; the coinage was too closely bound up with the history and traditions of their religion. Their issues in India are the lineal descendants of those of earlier Muhammadan dynasties in Central Asia and elsewhere. The engraving of images was forbidden by the Faith; and accordingly, with some notable exceptions, pictorial devices cease to appear on Indian coins. Both obverse and reverse are henceforth entirely devoted to the inscription, setting forth the king’s name and titles as well as the date, in the Hijrī era,[45] and place of striking or mint, now making their first appearance on Indian money. The inscribing of the sovereign’s name on the coinage was invested with special importance in the eyes of the Muslim world, for this privilege, with the reading of his name in the _khutba_, or public prayer, were actions implying the definite assumption of regal power. Another new feature was the inclusion in the inscription of religious formulæ, that most commonly used being the Kalima or profession of faith. “_There is no god but Allah, and Muḥammad is the prophet of Allah._” This practice, followed by many subsequent Muhammadan rulers in India, owed its origin to the crusading zeal of the early Khalifs of Syria in the eighth century. [45] The first year of the Hijrī era begins on Friday, July 15th-16th, A.D. 622. The fabric of the coinage thus underwent a complete transformation; not all at once, but gradually, as new districts were subjected to Muhammadan conquerors, money of the new type spread over the whole peninsula except the extreme south. Yet owing, no doubt, to its sectarian association, it was not, until the great Mug̱ẖal currency had attained a position of predominating importance, voluntarily imitated by independent communities.