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devoid of any blemish. The table is as follows:
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There is so much variation and difference of opinion as regards the
weights of pearls that the matter cannot be verified. I have not been able to determine whether this is so from the very beginning or due to the varieties which are not visible. Everything that is possible must undergo vicissitudes and unforeseen accidents. However the larger pearls would be weighed with the ghubari ruby with 100 of it as the standard. It is 65-1/3 and one-fourth, and in shells the standard is 62-3/5. Abu Da'ud al-Ayadi says: The pearl for which the trader made a dive into the sea and which remained with the venerable one on a shadowy day.
The merchant orders the diver to dive. The diver does not give any
command; he is a worker who ekes out two marinas of flour and onefourth manna of dates. It is immaterial whether the shells he has caught contain pearls or not, and nothing comes out except flesh. The poet has equated the diver with the trader, just as we tend to associate farming with the landlord, not with the tiller, although it is the latter who performs the actual work. By "the venerable one", the poet means the chief of a people, a chief who is drawn towards the purchase of pearls, as it is the rich alone who can harbour the desire to buy pearls. If anyone takes the meaning of 'Aziz to be the 'Aziz of Egypt — the title of the Pharoahs — he would be merely transgressing the realm of understanding 107
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