bin Muslim conquered the fortress of Baykand, which is in the vicinity of
Bukhara, he saw two pearls in the fire-temple there. The priests of the
temple told him that two birds flew atop the roof of the temple in succession and dropped the pearls down. Qutaybah sent both the pearls to
Hayaj with a letter. Hajjaj wrote to him in reply:
I have been able to follow what you have written. But I must express my surprise at the two birds and the two pearls. But beyond all
this wonder is that, O Abu Hafs, you have bestowed these pearls on
us instead of appropriating them. Peace be upon you.
People used to equate the welath of Abu al-Haqiq with treasury, and the
title of this treasure was misk al-jamal (camel skin) also, as the jewels
were kept wrapped in the skin of a kind, covered with an ox skin which
in turn had a camel skin over it. The jewels were held to be worth
10,000 dinars and women used to borrow them from him on the occasion of marriage and other festive occasions.
When the Holy Prophet (sal'am) besieged Khayber, the people of
Khayber requested that their lives be spared and that they should be
allowed to leave. Peace terms were struck on some conditions. Among
the conditions laid down were that they could carry all that could be
loaded upon the beasts of burden, that they would not transport gold
and other precious objects, and that they would not hide anything
precious. Failure to honour these conditions would violate the treaty.
The people of Khayber, however, broke these conditions and transported
stealthily the skin bag having the jewels belonging to Huiy bin Akhtab
which had been brought to Khayber when Banu Nudayr were exiled
from Madinah. The Holy Prophet asked Shu'bah ibn 'Amr about Huiy's
skin. He said that wealth of the skin bag had been spent in the war. The
Holy Prophet said this was impossible, as it was full of jewels only a few
days ago and there was considerable wealth hidden in it. Huiy had been
slain only a few days earlier. The Holy Prophet then ordered Shu'bah to
be handed over to Zubayr so that he might be able to extract a confession out of him. Shu'bah at last confessed that he had seen Huiy hovering round such and such cave. After the skin bag was located, Shu'bah
was arrested, executed and the contents of the skin were distributed.
It is said about Hajjaj bin Yusuf that he asked one of his governors to
send him a quiver which had pearls studded on it. (He used the word,
fabahrij bihi, that is, to walk away the usual path).
Bahraj is an Arabicised version of a Persian word, meaning a rejected
thing. This word is, really speaking, of Hindiya origin. In Hindiya a
good thing is called bliala and a rejected thing nabhala. In Persian Pahla
means good, and for this reason the people of Persia call their languages
Pahlawi, that is, good or superior to all other languages.
Arabs call a counterfeit dirham, nabahrah and use the same word for
