Rafi-ud-Darjat (AH 1131 / 1719 AD), Gwalior Mint, Silver Rupee, Ahad RY (Year 1), “Ba Hazaran Barkat” couplet. Wt: 11.40 grams approx, Dia: 24 mm approx., (KM # 405.7), NGC MS 63, Very Rare

Obv: Persian couplet “Sikka zad ba Hind ba hazaran barkat, Shahanshah-i-bahr-o-barr Rafi-ud-Darjat” “Rafi-ud-Darjat, emperor of sea and land, struck coin in Hindustan with a thousand blessings.” The inscription proclaims the emperor’s sovereignty through an elegant poetic formula.

Rev: Persian legend “Sanah Ahad julus maimanat manus” “The first year of the accession associated with prosperity” with “zarb Gwalior” (“Struck at Gwalior”) below. The regnal designation Ahd records the first and only regnal year of his brief reign. 

A Fleeting Reign 

A grandson of Bahadur Shah I, Rafi-ud-Darjat occupied the Mughal throne for little more than three months, from February to June 1719. Raised to power by the influential Sayyid brothers following Farrukhsiyar’s deposition, his reign belonged to a period in which powerful court nobles increasingly determined the imperial succession. 

This Gwalior rupee preserves the grand language of Mughal kingship during that unsettled moment. Its invocation of “a thousand blessings” and the title “emperor of sea and land” express the enduring ideals of imperial sovereignty, giving the coin historical interest beyond its short period of issue. Very rare in this grade.