Well of course its nice to get mentioned – as I am the Robert Tye cited above – but I am puzzled by three claims made by John Conduit (is that the one who died in 1737?) above, as follows
1) Al-Nasir Jital, recognising Genghis Khan, 1221…...It was struck in 1221 at a military base
I believe this coin was struck on behalf Genghis Khan, the coin does mention the Caliph, but that seems to me merely customary practice – it really has nothing to do with the Caliph. Lutz Ilisch pointed out to me the very odd fact about these coins. They are indeed fairly common – but at the same time, they involve rather few dies. That is to say – a very large part of the issue survived.
My own guess is tied in with the last point. Exceptionally Genghis or his representative struck these coins at Ghazni in connection with a one-off scheme – the inhabitants were apparently given the opportunity to buy back their own lives. So this might be a way to extract silver and gold from the inhabitants, who perhaps had to first buy these coins with their own gold and silver, before using them exclusively to buy safety. If so they were not intended for circulation – and indeed they are never found worn. As it seems the Mongols then reneged on the scheme and killed the population, it would explain why many survived. When the Mongol army moved on they just left them lying on the ground.
Tamerlane did something a bit similar at Damascus
2) “The Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, Al-Nasir, had appealed to Genghis Khan (‘Universal Ruler’) to stop what he saw as the threat of the Khwarazmian Empire along his northern border”
I never saw any record of this. The standard account is that merchants carrying free passes granted by Genghis were looted and murdered by Khwarezmian border officials. Thus Genghis sought revenge. However, a different explanation could be that - later Khans held the belief that they had already been granted the earth by god – so were obliged to defeat anyone who contradicted that view. It seems not unlikely that Ghengis thought that too.
Of course none of this stuff is really certain, but I would be interested to get substantive criticism.
Rob Tye