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sumed by anxiety and jealousy. For this reason, the adage, "silver in
which has been admixed gold," is applicable here, since a touch of admixture is better than a full admixture. In this context a poet has said:
She is white with a yellowish glow. She has both colours — those of
gold and silver.
Tufayl bin Ghanawi says:
She is wholesomely white, with a tinge of yellow. She is a beauty
from jaww, where there is no man.
Yazid bin Tathariyyah says:
Her appearance is sight-deceiving as if ivory colour has been mixed
with olive.
Abu al-Qasim says that the difference between the white and yellow
pearl is the same as that between gold and tin. if his belief is based upon
colour, it is objectionable, since the best kind of gold has a reddish tinge.
Should, therefore, pure silver be placed beside an absolutely white
pearl, its colour would be better than that of the pearl placed side by
side with pure gold, as it would improve its inferior colour. Whatever
else has been written by Abu al-Qasim is baseless.
Besides, the yellowisheness of the pearl at times causes blackness in
it, in which case both yellowishness and blackness are the results of accident, as in the beginning the pearl is free from these blemishes. Yellowishness in the pearl generates a tainted kind of yellow colour which is
caused by many factors, e.g., oil, perspiration, saffron, olives and strong
perfumes.
In the event, it is whiteness together with its appurtenances that is
desirable in a pearl. Yellowness in it is a blemish and hardly desirable.
Abu Mansur Th'alibi, in keeping with the general habit of poets, has
said about the calligraphy of'Ali bin Muqlah:
Whenever anyone's eyes gaze upon the calligraphy of Ibn Muqlah.
his other organs wish they too were eyes. Pearls become yellow with
envy and the rose red with shame.
It is not becoming for a pearl to turn yellow, while it is so with the
rose. In the pearl, yellowness is counted a blemish while red colour becomes a rose. Some have interpreted the verse:
And they (shall) have large-eyed coy houris as if they are concealed eggs. 78
Not to mean eggs but pearls as in the following verse:
There serve them youths of everlasting youth, whom, when
thou seest, thou wouldst take for scattered pearls. 79
And Allah further says:
And there go round, waiting on them, men servants of their
own, as they were hidden pearls. 80
Some exegetes hold that Allah has coined the similitude of the white of
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