By AFK Jilani (1940–2017)
Coins are considered the most perfect, authentic and informative source of history. There is no doubt about the facts a coin reveals, and no one can challenge them as untrue. The value of coins as evidence of history surpasses all other sources. They are, beyond doubt, the primary and most important source for the study of history and culture.
The coins found in Arakan belonging to Wesali are Hindu, and those of Mrauk-U are Muslim. Coinage of the Muslim era is inscriptional in nature. Save for a few exceptions, it contains not a portrait or a figure but the name of the king, his title, the date and his faith. The coin’s artistic merit depends upon its calligraphy, and as anyone who has studied the Persian script as a form of mural decoration will know, this can give a remarkably balanced and vital impression of art.
According to M.S. Collis, Mr Htoon Aung Gyaw, Barrister-at-Law, and certain other private collectors of Akyab have in their possession over a hundred coins found in Arakan. When recently arranged by Mr San Shwe Bu, many of them were seen to be duplicates, but sixteen belonging to the Mrauk-U dynasty (1430 to 1784 A.D.) were distinct specimens, bearing the dates and titles of fifteen different kings of that line. There were also a few coins belonging to the Wesali dynasty (788 to 951 A.D.).
The Burmese invaded Arakan in 1406. Min Saw Mwan, the king of Arakan, fled the country, taking refuge at Gaur, the capital of the Sultan of Bengal. The Arakanese king remained there for twenty-four years. In 1430 the Sultan of Bengal restored him to the throne of Arakan as his tributary. He turned away from what was Buddhist and familiar to what was Muslim. In so doing he moved from the mediaeval to the modern, from the fragile fairyland of the Glass Palace Chronicle to the robust extravagance of the Thousand and One Nights.
Jalaluddin Mohammed Shah restored him in 1430 A.D., and Mrauk-U was built. It is noteworthy that one of Nasiruddin’s coins was recently found near the site of that city — a unique document in the history of Arakan. When the Muslims entered Bengal in 1203, they introduced the inscriptional type of coinage, and it was in that tradition that the coinage of Mrauk-U was subsequently modelled. In this way Arakan became definitively oriented towards the Muslim states. Contact with a modern civilisation brought about a renaissance, and the country’s great age began.
Shin Arahan would have found himself as out of place at the court of Gaur as St. Bernard at the University of Cordova. To avoid such a dislocation and to seize the advantage offered by change, the Arakanese had to set aside a fashion in ideas that had fallen behind the march of the world’s thought, and bring themselves up to date. It took the Arakanese a hundred years to learn that lesson from the Muslims.
In 1531 Minbin Zabauk Shah ascended the throne. With him the Arakanese came of age in their Islamic studies, and the Arakanese Empire was founded. Among Mr Htoon Aung Gyaw’s collection is one of Minbin’s coins. It offers a succinct commentary on Arakan’s sudden rise to importance in the Bay of Bengal: on one side is inscribed the word “Minbin” in Burmese characters, and on the reverse, in Nagari, his Muslim title, Zabauk Shah. Arakan had by then turned into a Sultanate.
For a short period during the reign of Razagri Salim Shah, Arakan extended from Dacca and the Sundarbans to Moulmein — a coastal strip a thousand miles long and varying from 20 to 150 miles in breadth. In imitation of the imperial court of Delhi, its kings adopted the title of Padshah. This was the moment of Arakan’s highest destiny.
The coins of the Sultans were inscribed with precise and elegant Persian lettering. Under Akbar and his successors, the script became a fine art — imperially cursive, whirling under the eye, possessing a living beauty. M.S. Collis and San Shwe Bu possessed a coin of Razagri Salim Shah: on the obverse his title in Burmese, on the reverse in Persian and Nagari. The style is essentially that of the Sultanates, and is further evidence of Arakan’s advancement.
One coin of Sultan Ali Shah (Thatasa, 1525 C.E.), found recently at Mrauk-U, is inscribed in Persian: “There is no God but Allah, Mohammed the Messenger of Allah. May Allah perpetuate his kingdom.” The reverse, also in Persian, reads: “Sultan Ali Shah, father of the victorious. May Allah perpetuate his kingdom.” A coin of Razagri/Salim Shah (1593–1612) is also held in the collection of the Chittagong University Museum. Dr. A. Karim remarks that the coin of Salim Shah is of particular interest, throwing light on Arakan’s relations with Bengal.
Another Muslim coin of Arakan, minted between 1430 and 1530 A.D., bears a mural decoration of a mosque alongside a Persian inscription of fine artistry — invaluable to the cultural history of Arakan and its civilization. Its reverse is inspirational in nature, containing the Kalima (the profession of faith in Islam) and the names of Islam’s four Khalifas — Abu Bakar (R.A.), Umar (R.A.), Osman (R.A.) and Ali (R.A.) — carefully recorded with artistic merit.
Of the last seven kings of Arakan, all have coins except numbers 42 and 46, who each ruled only a few weeks. The coins themselves exhibit little variation, remaining within the Muslim tradition. The Burmese, by contrast, never had a coinage of their own while it flourished in Arakan. It is therefore clear that the Muslims and Rakhine of Arakan were, culturally and economically, and in the governance of the state, considerably more advanced than the Burmese of that era.
After the occupation of Arakan, King Bodaw’s first act was to strike a medallion in the style of the Mrauk-U coinage. Having no tradition of minting coins of his own, he simply copied the Muslim design. The legend reads: “The Kingdom of the Master of Amarapura and of many white elephants.” This is the numismatic record of the fall of Mrauk-U — the last coin struck in Arakan, and the first time in its long history that Arakan had lost a home government of its own.
What is more important is that Manrique, who witnessed the coronation of King Thiri Thudamma Salim Shah II, used only the Muslim name Salim Shah; he did not use the Magh name of the king. There is no doubt, then, that the Arakanese kings took Muslim names deliberately and purposely, and that not only one king but all those who reigned for more than two hundred years used Muslim names and inscribed them on their coins. So A.P. Phayre is wrong when he says that the Arakanese kings made “barbarous imitations” and adopted “fanciful designations.”
As one writer notes: “In striking the coins, the policy of inscribing the Islamic creed (Kalima) and the Muslim names of their kings in Persian characters was followed, and because Muslim ministers were appointed in the court of the Arakanese kings, modern Arakanese Rohingya Muslims believe for certain that those Arakanese kings were Muslims.” Another writer states that the Arakanese kings considered it a point of honour to inscribe Muslim names and the Muslim creed (Kalima) on their coins alongside their Magh names. There is no evidence that they were not Muslims. We can call them Rohingyas, as they were the kings of Rohang.
AFK Jilani was a Rohingya writer, historian and community leader from Maungdaw, and a former Senior Vice President of the Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO). He authored several works on Rohingya history and culture, including The Rohingyas of Arakan: Their Quest for Justice and A Cultural History of Rohingyas. Rohingya Khobor republishes this article in tribute to his legacy.
