The long reign of Fīroz seems to have established his coinage as a popular medium of exchange; and this probably accounts for the prolonged series of his posthumous billon coins, extending over a period of forty years. Some of these and of the posthumous issues of his son, Muḥammad, and of his grandson, Maḥmūd, were struck by Daulat Ḵẖ̱ān Lodī and Ḵẖ̱iẓr Ḵẖ̱ān, two sultans who refused to assume the insignia of royalty. The coinage of the Lodī family, Bahlol, Sikandar and Ibrāhīm, despite the difference in standard, bears a close resemblance to that of the Sharqī kings of Jaunpūr. The first and the last minted copper and billon, Sikandar and his son, Maḥmūd, a pretender (1529), billon only. Bahlol (1450-1489) issued a large billon coin, the _Bahlolī_, of about 145 grains (Pl. VIII, 13), and also a copper piece of 140 grains, first introduced by Fīroz, with its half and quarter divisions. The mint name, Dehlī, appears on both Bahlol’s and Sikandar’s coins, but it is frequently missing from the latter, as the dies were made larger than the coin discs. The name _Shahr Jaunpūr_, “The City Jaunpūr,” occurs on the later copper of Bahlol after his reduction of the Sharqī kingdom in 1476. On their billon coins all three kings adopt the formula, “_Trusting in the merciful one_,” but on his larger copper pieces Bahlol retained the old, “_Deputy of the commander of the faithful_.” In 1526 Ibrāhīm Lodī was overthrown and killed on the field of Pānīpat by the Mug̱ẖal Bābur; and once again the fortunes of the Indian coinage changed under the auspices of a foreign dynasty. [Illustration: Fig. 8. Akbar’s Ilāhī formula. Cf. Pl. X, 8 (obverse).] VIII THE COINAGES OF THE MUHAMMADANS STATES All the states whose coinages form the subject of this chapter, with the exception of Kashmīr, were once provinces subject to the Dehlī Sultans, and owed their independence to the ambition of powerful viceroys, who took advantage at various times of the weakened control of the central power. The earliest issues of each state were more or less close imitations of the Dehlī currency, but local conditions soon introduced modifications in standard and fabric, and in the course of a century each had generally acquired a well-defined and characteristic coinage of its own. Prosperity was usually short-lived; the inevitable period of decay set in; and the coinage, confined at the close to ill-struck copper pieces, illustrates history in striking fashion. Bengal, however, was able to maintain its silver currency to the last. I. THE COINAGE OF THE GOVERNORS AND SULTANS OF BENGAL