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Rāmisht of Sīrāf, a Merchant Millionaire of the Twelfth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

S. M. Stern
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Extract

The geographer Ibn Ḥawqal, who wrote his invaluable description of the Muslim world in the 10th century, devotes a paragraph to Sīrāf, the great port of the Persian Gulf. In the 12th century an anonymous author made an epitome of Ibn Ḥawqal's book, adding, however, a number of remarks concerning his own period. In the description of Sīrāf he interpolated the following passage:

Its inhabitants are very rich. I was told that one of them, feeling ill, made his testament; the third part of his fortune, which he had in cash, amounted to a million dīnārs, not counting the capital which he laid out to people who undertook to trade with it on commenda basis. Then there is Rāmisht, whose son Mūsā I have met in Aden, in the year 539; he told me that the silver plate used by him was, when weighed, found to be 1,200 manns. Mūsā is the youngest of his sons and has the least merchandise; Rāmisht has four servants, each of whom is said to be richer than his son Mūsā. I have met 'Alī al-Nīlī from the countryside of al-Ḥilla, Rāmisht's clerk, and he told me that when he came back from China twenty years before, his merchandise was worth half a million dīnārs; if that is the wealth of his clerk, what will he himself be worth! It was Rāmisht who removed the silver water-spout of the Ka'ba and replaced it with a golden one, and also covered the Ka'ba with Chinese cloth, the value of which cannot be estimated. In short, I have heard of no merchant in our time who has equalled Rāmisht in wealth or prestige.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 99 , Issue 1 , January 1967 , pp. 10 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1967

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References

1 ed. Kramers, p. 282.

2 According to Islamic law, a third of one's fortune can be disposed of by testament, whereas the rest is divided among the legitimate heirs. The rich man of Sīrāf had as the disposable third a million dīnārs in cash plus an unspecified capital which he had with muḍāribūn, people receiving capital in order to trade with it on commenda basis. Muḍāraba is synonymous with qirāḍ, a contract by which an investor entrusts capital to a merchant for investment in trade in order to receive a share in the profit. See Sanzillana, D., Istituzioni di diritto musulmano malichita, II, 323–34Google Scholar; the references given by me in Oriens, 1962,181; and Udovitch, A. L., “At the origins of the Western Commenda: Islam, Israel, Byzantium?”, Speculum, 1962, 198 ff.Google Scholar

3 Vocalized Rāmasht in the edition, no doubt following a MS; in al-Fāsi's chronicle to be quoted below the editions have Rāmusht. Rāmisht is a dialectal form of rāmish, “joy” (cf. Grundriβ der Iranischen Philologie, I, 2, 182Google Scholar). Rāmish was the name of a Jew in the 8th century, see BSOAS, 1957, 340. Justi's Iranisches Namenbuch has an entry Rāmisht, but only as the name of our merchant (for whom Ibn al-Athīr's passage reproduced below is quoted).

4 The value of the mann varied; in Shīrāz in the 10th century it was 260 dirhams = 833 grams (Hinz, W., Islamische Maβe und Gewichte, 17Google Scholar). Thus the silver plate weighed about a ton.

5 In 'Irāq; al-Nīl is a place not far from al-Ḥilla.

6 For kharaja “travel homewards”, see Goitein, S. D., Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, Leiden, 1966, 354Google Scholar, note 4.

7 Shifā'al-Gharām fi Akhbār al-Balad al-Ḥaram, Cairo, 1956, I, 103Google Scholar.

8 Thus when the abridger of Ibn Ḥawqal met Rāmisht's son in 539, Rāmisht was no longer alive. This is not made clear in the text, although on reflection it can be seen that there is really nothing in the text which necessarily implies that Rāmisht was alive.

9 cf. Brockelmann, II, 222.

10 I find no account of this “dissension” in Ibn al-Athīr, or in other chronicles.

11 The Egyptian (i.e. Fātimid) dīnār was a favourite currency because of the purity of its standard.

12 Al-Fāsī, , Shi/a' al-Gharām, I, 124Google Scholar; Ẓuhayra, Ibn, al-Jāmi' al-Latīf fī Faḍl Makka wa-Ahlihā wa-Binā' al-Bayt al-Sharīf, Cairo, 1922, 107Google Scholar. M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes mentions the replacement of the cover by Rāmisht, in his article “Le Voile de la Ka'ba”, Studia Islamica, I, 15Google Scholar, quoting this passage of Ibn Ẓuhayra.

13 cf. Serjeant, R. B., “Materials for a history of Islamic textiles up to the Mongol conquest”, Ars Islamica, X1II–XIV, 1948, 76 ff.Google Scholar Yemenite cloth was often used for the cover of the Ka'ba. For an example of the import of Chinese cloth to Aden in 703/1303–4 see al-Khazrajī, IV, 350 (Serjeant, pp. 83–4).

14 Ibn Hishām, p. 227; al-Wāqidī, tr. Wellhausen, p. 348; al-Azraqī, in Wüstenfeld, , Chroniken, p. 69Google Scholar. On 282 al-Azraqī gives a definition of the sanctuary as “from al-Ḥazwara to the Course [between al-Marwa and al-Ṣafā]”, and on pp. 497–8 discusses the topographical questions connected with al-Ḥazwara (which was localized by some authorities in different parts of Mecca), cf. also the discussion by al-Fāsī, , Shafā' al-Gharām, I, 75–6Google Scholar.

15 Al-Tirmidhī, , Manāqib, 68Google Scholar; Ibn Ḥanbal, IV, 305; Ibn Māja, no. 3108; al-Wāqidī, tr. Wellhausen, p. 349; al-Azraqī, p. 498. Al-Fāsī, , Shafā' al-Gharām, I, 74–6Google Scholar, gives ample material about the various forms of this tradition, which is also quoted by Yāqūt, s.v.

16 For the gate and its transformations see Ibn Jubayr, p. 105; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, M., Le pèlerinage à la Mecque, p. 144Google Scholar (read Ḥazwara).

17 Al-Fāsī, I, 75, 238, whence al-Nahrawālī, in Wüstenfeld, , Chroniken, III, 107Google Scholar, and Ibn Ẓuhayra, p. 153.

18 I am not sure which are these “two communities”—perhaps the Shī'ites and Sunnites. Was Rāmisht by any chance a Shī'ite, but destined his benefaction for both Shī'ite and Sunnite Ṣūfīs?

19 There are some doubts about this passage. In the Répertoire one word was left in suspense: with a question mark. This is obviously , and in fact al-Nahrawālī renders the word thus, while al-Fāsī gives the synonymous al-ruq'a. The sentence reads therefore: . This cannot becorrect, and indeed al-Fāsī has min sā'ir al-'Irāq. Reading so makes sense, although one does not see why Rāmisht gave preference to people of 'Irāq rather than e.g. his own countrymen of Fārs. I pondered the reading al-'urrāf, “those who have reached knowledge of God”, but this seems difficult (1) because the expected form would be al-'ārifīn and (2) wa-min would have to be emended into min. If one is willing to allow these difficulties one could translate: “all Ṣūfīs … who wear the patched garment and all others who have reached the knowledge of God, whether pilgrims or permanent habitants of Mecca”.

20 Shifā' al-Gharām, I, 232 = Wüstenfeld, , Chroniken, II, 109–10Google Scholar.

21 Aṣḥāb al-ruq'a min sā'ir al-Irāq.

22 In Wüstenfeld, , Chroniken, III, 19Google Scholar. Al-Nahrawālī says a few words about the hospice, also following the inscription, from which he reproduces the words aṣḥāb al-muraqqa'āt.

23 p. 103.

24 Goitein, , “Two eyewitness reports on an expedition of the king of Kish (Qais) against Aden”, BSOAS, XVI, 1954, 247 ff., see p. 253Google Scholar. Goitein read the name “Rāmshat” and thought that its bearer was an Indian; the identification of the man allows us to correct this, in itself natural, supposition. In fact I see that Goitein himself must later have made the identification of the shipowner of the Geniza letters with the man whose funeral inscription is preserved, since in his Studies in Islamic History and Institutions, p. 338, he writes that Rāmisht (sic) was buried in Mecca in April, 1140 (more accurately: died in 1140 and was later buried in Mecca).