Muhammad ibn Tughluq

Mohammad ibn Tughlaq or Mohammad Bin Tughlaq Sultan of Delhi from 1325 to 1351. He was the eldest son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, the founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. Ghiyasuddin subject the young Muhammad to the Deccan to campaign against king Prataparudra of the Kakatiya dynasty whose capital was at Warangal in 1321 as well as 1323. Muhammad has been remanded as an "inhuman eccentric" with bizarre address by the accounts of visitors during his rule, he is said to draw ordered the massacre of all the inhabitants of the Hindu city of Kannauj. He is also known for wild policy swings. Muhammad ascended to the Delhi throne upon his father's death in 1325. He was interested in medicine and was skilled in several languages — Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Sanskrit. Ibn Battuta, the famous traveler and jurist from Morocco, was a guest at his court and wrote approximately his suzerainty in his book.

Token

Historian Ishwari Prasad writes that different coins of different shapes and sizes were filed by his mints which lacked the artistic perfection of array and finish. In 1330, after his failed expedition to Deogiri, he issued token currency; that is coins of brass and copper were minted whose good was represent to that of gold and silver coins. Historian Ziauddin Barani felt that this step was taken by Tughluq as he wanted to annex all the inhabited areas of the world for which a treasury was requested to pay the army. Barani had also statement that the sultan's treasury had been exhausted by his action of giving rewards and gifts in gold. In the rural areas, officials like the muqaddams paid the revenue in brass and copper coins and also used the same coins to purchase arms and horses. As a result, the utility of coins decreased, and, in the words of Satish Chandra, the coins became "as worthless as stones". This also disrupted trade and commerce. The token currency had inscriptions in Persian and Arabic marking the use of new coins instead of the royal seal and so the citizens could non distinguish between the official and the forged coins. Records show that the use of token currency had stopped by 1333 as Ibn Battuta who came to Delhi in 1334, wrote a journal which presents no character of this currency.