Sale: CNG 81, Lot: 1284. Estimate $150.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2009.  Sold For $150. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

INDIA, Mughal Empire. Nasir al-Din Muhammad Humayun. AH 937-947, 962-963 / AD 1530-1540, 1555-1556. AR Mitqal (4.74 g, 9h). Agra mint. Kalima in circular linear border, with names of the four Companions around / "Muhammad Humayan Ghazi" in angled hexalobe; mint in margin. Wright -; Hull 1173; BMC -; KM -. Good VF.

Humayun's father, Zahir-al-Din Babar, was descended from Timur on his father's side, and Chingiz Khan on his mother's (hence the reference to Mongol, which was transformed into Mughal). Babar's clan held a fief in Turkmen Ferghana as part of the Timurid Persian empire, but Babar's ambitions extended further. He attacked and captured Kabul in 1504, and then made plans to take on the Delhi sultans who dominated northern India. In 1526 he defeated the Lodi sultan Ibrahim at Panipat, the bloody battleground where many contests for control of India were decided, and declared himself sultan. Babar had overextended his resources, however, and within a few years of his death in 1530 Humayun had been forced to retreat back to the homeland of his clan. By the 1550's Humayun had rebuilt the Mughal fortunes to the point where he felt strong enough to go on the offensive again, but in a freak accident in 1556 he fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck. It would remain for his young son Akbar to take the weapon Humayun had forged and hurl it at India. Most of Humayun's coinage is either struck at Lahore or is without mint name; this rare silver mitqal was struck at Agra before that city was lost to him.