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at what I have brought." Having said this, he raised up his sleeve and
brought out a gilded ebony box. When the green harir silken cloth was removed, a big spoon carved out of a precious stone with designs of comets shining on it was seen. The spoon was placed in front of Mutawakkil. The Caliph, never having seen such an object, asked where he had got it from. Bakht Yashu' replied that he had received it from kind and beneficent people. And then he added: 'This spoon reached my father through Umm Ja'far Zubaydah. My father had treated her thrice, first for throat disease which could have grown to cynanche. My father suggested blood-letting and as a refrigerant and sedative prescribed harirah. The harirah was brought to the queen in a china dish having a large spoon which upon the command of my father, I took and hid within my robe. The servant tried to snatch it from me. But the queen intervened and asked him not to recover it by force but by persuasion, and to offer me 10,000 dinars. I did not agree. My father at last said: 'Your Exalted Majesty! Never before has my son pilfered anything. Do not disgrace him upon his first theft lest his heart gets shattered'. The Queen at this laughed and the jewel since then has belonged to me.' Although in this story the jewel has not been specifically described, from the description of its rays it would appear to be yaqut-i-ahmar (red ruby).
Mutawakkil then asked about the disease. The queen had complained
to the physician that a lady-in-waiting had told her about halitosis which she had developed, and that she would rather die than suffer from halitosis. Bakht Yashu's father starved her till the evening and then fed her with fish cooked in vinegar followed by the drugs of the date liquor. This was repeated for three days. On the fourth day the Queen was asked to enquire from the person who had pointed to her halitosis to tell her whether her mouth smelled or not.
The third ailment the Queen had was the continuous hiccups
which had reached a dangerous point. Bakht Yashu"s father ordered that large earthen crocks be placed in the courtyard and filled with water. When Bakht Yashu's father clapped all the crocks rolled inwards, and the weird sound created made the queen run through fear, curing her of hiccups.
There was a glut of jewellery towards the end of the Banu Ummayyad and the early days of the 'Abbasides. It has been said that utensils
were made of jewels and precious metals. This is why Imam Shafi'i has written in the Kitab Harmalah: "The use of crystalline and ruby vessels is not permitted, as they are costlier than gold, and there is greater extravagance in them than in gold."
But in the Kitab al-'Umm, Imam Shafi'i says: "Their use is permit-
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