Mu'tadid had alluded to the incident of Buhirah. The Caliph had ordered
the construction of a building surrounded by gardens. He had already
spent 60,000 dinars upon it. He lived there with his odalisques. One of
his favourite odalisques was Dhurayrah, and it was about her that Bassam
wrote:
Having left thy subjects destitute and worried, thou hast ensconced
thyself in Buhayrah.
Sitting there, thou playest upon the tambourine with Dhurayrah.
When these verses reached Mu'tadid, he pretended that he had not heard
them. Instead, he ordered the building to be brought down.
We now return to our earlier description of jabal, the celebrated
jewel after which several later ones have been named. It was a beautiful,
red ruby. Ibrahim bin al-Mahdi has said he had bought it from his father
for 300,000 dinars. It was multilayered like a mountain. Mahdi gave it
as a gift to Hadi who in turn donated a ring to Harun al-Rashid. This
ring was known as Isma'ili and had an emerald gem unique in the world.
It had a hole, and a long search was made for something similar to it in
order to plug the hole. At last he got what he wanted. The jewellers designed the ring in his very presence and the material was plugged by
means of gum-mastic.
One day Harun was gazing at the ring, keeping it on his palm, to see
for himself how the original and the plug matched each other. A fly sat
on the ring and flew away after a while. The sawdust clung to its legs.
Harun al-Rashid said: "Verily has God truly said that the seeker and the
sought are both false."
When Hadi became caliph and Harun called upon him, he had the
Isma'ili upon his finger. Hadi became jealous, and wished that the
Isma'ili should pass into his possession, as the Jabal had come to him.
When Harun left the court, Hadi sent Fadl bin Rabi1 together with
Isma'il the Negro to get the ring from Harun. In case he refused to part
with it, he was to be beheaded. Fadl bin Rabi' met Harun and narrated
to him his mission. Harun swore he would present the ring to Hadi with
his own hands. Having said this, he returned with Fadl bin Rabi' till
they both reached the bridge. Harun disengaged the ring from his finger
and, accosting Fadl bin Rabi' asked him: "See for thyself, O Fadl,
whether this is the Isma'ili?" Fadl replied in the affirmative, whereupon
Harun flung it in the Tigris. Hadi did everything within his power to
fish it out, but failed.
When Harun ascended the throne after Hadi's death, and a year had
passed, the memory of Musa al-Hadi's search for the ring began to haunt
him. He commanded Fadl bin Rabi' to search for the ring. Fadl bin
Rabi', however, pointed out that it had been searched for many a time
and by now it had possibly settled under more than four yards of dust.
