Ganjifa

The game became popular at the Mughal court, and lavish sets were made, from materials such as precious stone-inlaid ivory or tortoise shell (darbar kalam).

The game later spread to the general public, whereupon cheaper sets (bazâr kalam) would be made from materials such as wood, palm leaf, stiffened cloth or pasteboard.

Different types exist, and the designs, number of suits, and physical size of the cards can vary considerably.

These remain unproven theories, but the 18th century, traveler Carsten Niebuhr claimed to have seen Arabian merchants in Bombay playing with Chinese cards.

[8] An exhibition in the British museum in 2013 noted "Playing cards are known in Egypt from the twelfth century AD.

For example, the word 'kanjifah' ( كنجفة ) is written in the top right corner of the king of swords, on the Mamluk Egyptian deck witnessed by L.A. Mayer in the Topkapı Palace museum.

In his history of Egypt he mentions how the Sultan Al-Malik Al-Mu'ayyad played kanjafah for money when he was an emir.

[17] The Austrian National Library possess eight Safavid lacquer paintings from the 16th-century that mimic ganjifeh cards.

[18] Shah Abbas II (r 1642-66) banned ganjifeh and the game decline precipitously with no known rules surviving into the present.

The second viceroy rank found in the kanjifa pack is not based on any historical title and may be a Mamluk invention.

In 1294, Gaykhatu began printing an imitation of Yuan banknotes in Iran although these were withdrawn quickly after merchants rejected them.

[24] The earliest playing cards used in India were known as Patrakrida; they predated Ganjifa by several centuries, though no manuals exist today as to how they were used.

[2] Rudolf von Leyden suggested that the Ganjifa cards may have been brought by the first Mughals from their ancestral homeland in Inner Asia.

In his work the Baburnama, Babur notes in the year 933H (1527) that he had a pack of Ganjifa cards sent to Shah Hassan.

This took place in the month of Ramzan, on the night he left Agra to travel to nearby Fatehpur Sikri (Uttar Pradesh, India).

By the 21st-century, the only place with a significant community of ganjifa makers and players is Odisha in the east of India, Mysore in Karnataka, Nirmal in Telangana, Sawantwadi in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Kashmir, Bishnupur in West Bengal and Sheopur in Madhya Pradesh.

In Naqsh the 'Mir' (or King) is given a value of 12 points, and the second court card, the 'Ghodi' (or Vizir, Cavalier or Queen) is worth 11.

Variations can be played where 21 is a target total (but only if made with a King and a 9, or a Vizier and a ten), or where different winning combinations are accepted such as pairs, triples and so on.