Mahmud Shah's second reign in Herat — running from 1809 until his death in 1829 — was a rump kingship, having lost Kabul to his brother Shuja al-Mulk and then to the Barakzai chiefs who fractured the Durrani empire beyond recovery. The Herat mint continued striking in his name throughout, making it the sole remaining institutional marker of his sovereignty over what had shrunk to a single city.
The 11-gram weight standard reflects the degraded Durrani rupee tradition rather than the heavier Mughal-derived flans of the previous century.
Mahmud Shah's second reign in Herat — running from 1809 until his death in 1829 — was a rump kingship, having lost Kabul to his brother Shuja al-Mulk and then to the Barakzai chiefs who fractured the Durrani empire beyond recovery. The Herat mint continued striking in his name throughout, making it the sole remaining institutional marker of his sovereignty over what had shrunk to a single city.
The 11-gram weight standard reflects the degraded Durrani rupee tradition rather than the heavier Mughal-derived flans of the previous century.