flee to Soghdiana helpless and displeased with his son. Truly has it been
said: "Many struggle for those who live in comfort."
Pause
As monarchs and rulers often undertake journeys at their will or for
obligatory purposes, they have to keep their treasure with them so that
the servitors and equipage may bear them and they may not be put to
any inconvenience for the expenses incurred during the journeys. Silver
is light in weight but heavy in so far as payment of commodities is concerned. But they required something costlier. They, therefore, decided
upon gold as it is ten times costlier than silver. In ancient times its value
was fixed ten times higher than that of silver in the payment of blood
money and zakat. This value did not persist in the later periods, sometimes because of its rarity and at others, because of the excess or decrease in the world than silver, and silver rarer than copper. Again, silver
is less in mass and fetches greater returns and is heavier than copper.
It is rather surprising that all these three metals are mined from
Zaruban, but the ratio is the same: the weight of gold is ten diritarns,
that of silver, fifty dirhams and of copper fifteen seers.
It was easier to keep silver with oneself. Kings and nobles, therefore,
made it their companion during journeys. They also observed that at
times when they came across unforeseen troubles, their redemption lay
in a thing that was less in weight and quantity. They, therefore, banked
upon jewels as their bulk is less than that of gold in much the same way
as the bulk of gold is less than that of silver and that of gold and silver
less than that of the commodities purchased by these metals. They,
therefore, began to collect them and wear them on their bodies. And,
whenever they had to be hidden, they belie their presence to the enemy,
as happened with the people of the Cave. 30 The coins which they had
with them were old, and therefore, people thought them to be the
finders of ancient treasure. In reality, jewels are associated with the
goods of kings and nobles, if jewels are found upon the person of
someone who is neighter a king nor a noble, people become suspicious
about him, believing the jewellery to have been purloined and everyone
is keen to arrest a thief. Or they might be led to believe that such a
person is in reality rich and the real possessor of the jewellery but that
he has disguised himself. People are in search of such a person as well.
Some rulers also kept jewels in mosques and distributed them among
the guards of the mosques or placed them in the custody of the frontier
guards for safety and preservation.
The pious Caliphs or those Caliphs that followed their practice, such
as 'Umar bin Abd al-'Aziz, several Marwanid Caliphs and a few
'Abbasid Caliphs also did the same thing, as they thought the Caliphate
