[98] Sir Henry Elliot’s History of India, I. 67. [↑]
[99] Sir Henry Elliot’s History of India, I. 77. [↑]
[100] Sir Henry Elliot’s History of India, I. 84. [↑]
[101] Tazjiyat-ul-Amsar in Elliot, III. 32. [↑]
[102] Saâdi’s patron mentioned by him in his Garden of Roses. [↑]
[103] The word dínár is from the Latin denarius (a silver coin worth 10 oz. of brass) through the Greek δηναριον. It is a Kuráanic word, the ancient Arabic equivalent being متقال mithkál. The dínár sequin or ducat varied in value in different times. In Abu Haúfah’s (the greatest of the four Sunni Jurisconsults’) time (a.d. 749) its value ranged from 10 to 12 dirhams. Then from 20 to 25 dirhams or drachmas. As a weight it represented a drachma and a half. Though generally fluctuating, its value may be assessed at 9s. or 10 francs to half a sovereign. For an elaborate article on the Dínár see Yule’s Cathay, II. 439; Burton’s Alf Leilah, I. 32. The word Dirham is used in Arabic in the sense of “silver” (vulg. siller) the Greek δραχμη and the drachuma of Plautus. This silver piece was 9¾d. and as a weight 66½ grains. Sir Henry Elliot does not speak more at length of the dínár and the dirham than to say (History of India, I. 461) that they were introduced in Sindh in the reign of Abdul Malik (a.d. 685) and Elliot, VII. 31) that the dínár was a Rúm and the dirham a Persian coin. The value of the dínár in modern Indian currency may be said to be Rs. 5 and that of the dirham nearly annas 4. [↑]
[104] Wassáf gives the date of this event as a.d. 1298, but the Tárikh-i-Alái of Amír Khusrao places it at a.d. 1300. See Elliot’s History of India, III. 43 and 74. [↑]
[105] Elliot’s History of India, III. 256–57. [↑]