AR rupee of Shah Shuja (second reign, 1803-08), 1805, Kabul, Durrani Empire

Name and titles of Shah Shujah // Mint name. Dated to 1220 AH/RY 3 (1805). Kabul mint. 23mm, 11.08 grams. KM 598.

The story of Shah Shujah is fascinating. He was famously crude an was deposed after a brief reign. During his time in exile, Shujah indulged his cruelty by removing the noses, ears, tongues, penises, and testicles of his courtiers and slaves when they displeased him in the slightest. When the American adventurer Dr. Josiah Harlan visited Shujah's court in exile, he noted that all of Shujah's courtiers and slaves were missing some part of their bodies as all had in some way displeased their master at some point along the line — and yet they were all slavishly devoted to him — as Harlan noted that there was an "earless assemblage of mutes and eunuchs in the ex-king's service". When Shujah went out for a picnic with his four wives and the wind blew down his tent, Shujah flew into a rage and, much to Harlan's horror, he had the man responsible for putting up his tent, Khwajah Mika—a slave from East Africa who had already had his ears chopped off—to be castrated on the spot.

The Durrani Empire, also known as the Sadozai Kingdom, was an Afghan empire that was founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747, that spanned parts of Central Asia, the Iranian plateau, and the Indian Subcontinent. At its peak, it ruled over the present-day Afghanistan, much of Pakistan, parts of northeastern and southeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan, and northwestern India. Next to the Ottoman Empire, the Durrani Empire is considered to be among the most significant Islamic Empires of the 18th century.