11.j Princely State Janjira Island

CHRONOLOGY OF RULERS OF INDIAN PRINCELY STATES


Of

Janjira Island

Sidi Ibrahim Khan II

1789 - 1792 VF+

Obverse	Reverse

 

Princely State	Janjira Island
Rulers	Habshi Rulers of Janjira
Ruled	AH 1204-06, 19-42/1789-92, 1804-26 AD
Denomination	One Paisa
Metal	Silver
Weight	6.75 gms
Size	16 mm
Obverse	Sidi Muhammad Khan Fidwi
Reverse	Alamgir Badshah Ghazi
Note	Sidi Muhammad, the servant of Emperor Alamgir, the Warrior. Coinage of the Habshi Rulers of Janjira

Origins of the name

The word Janjira is not native to India, and may have originated after the Arabic word Jazeera, which means an island. Murud was once known in Marathi as Habsan, or Abyssinian's land. Some of the people also split the name as "JAL JEERA" meaning fort in the water.
The name of the fort is a concatenation of the Konkani and Arabic words for Island, "morod" and "jazeera".The word "morod" is peculiar to Konkani and is absent in Marathi.Thus, during the rains, the fields get flooded,but the morods never flood.The State of Murud-Janjira was known to the Maratha Empire asHabsan,the land of the Habshis.

History of Janjira Ford

The Janjira fort, built in the mid-16th century, was originally a wooden fortress built by the Murud fishermen to protect their village from pirates. Burankhan, the minister of the ruler of Ahmednagar, Nizamshah, later demolished the fortress and built an impregnable stone fort in its place. Janjira fort had a number of towers and turrets where huge guns and cannons were kept in perpetual readiness to ward off enemies. Shivaji, Sambhaji and the Peshwas tried, in turn, to take over the fort, but the Marathas, British or Portuguese could never capture Janjira.

Murud-Janjira is the local name for a fort situated at the coastal village of Murud, in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, India.[1[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murud-Janjira#cite_note-dale-0|]]] It is famous for being the only fort along India's western coast that remained undefeated despite Maratha, Dutch and English East India Company attacks.

Janjira means the fort surrounded by sea.

It all began one fine chilling night when the Siddi pirates from Abssynia massacred Ram Patil and his me and seized the wooden bastion which he held on that island.They rapidly fortified the island and the inner fort was completed under Burhan Khan ?Thanedar? of Rajpuri in 1571.The outer ramparts were completed by 1728 by Siddi Sural Khan. Janjira was a winner from beginning and soon became an invincible base for the Siddis who marauded trading vessels all along the Malabar coast right upto Bassein. Shivaji sent no less than four offensives against the Janjira while Sambhaji himself led an offensive but were unsuccessful.So did the Peshwas and the Angreys of Alibag only to fail each and everytime.Today the Janjira remains unconquered and as formidable as ever.The sight of its menacing ramparts still sends a chill down the spine.The memory of ite awesome structure and fierce history will enter your mind never to leave.

Palace of Nawab:
This ruler of Janjira moved into a magnificient palace in 1885.He was by then recognized as the Nawab of the princely state by the British empire.The palace is designed with a fusion of Mugal and Gothic architecture is built on a cliff?s edge with a magnificient view of Murud and the Arabian sea.