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OT: 100 things you SHOULD know about Africa
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by alTakruri: [QB] OK, now what was I up to before being sidetracked by sycophantic stupidity and animosity. Looking at the 100 and picking out something relevant to me. I once asked either here or on TNV about that fantastic sum cheque but there was no followup. Now thanks to Sundiata I have the source and even found an 11 page report by [b]Levtzion[/b], [i]Ibn-Hawqal, the Cheque, and Awdaghost [/i] and what's even better you can cop it free at http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8537 (1968)9%3A2%3C223%3AITCAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2 Levtzion put his spin on it claiming to know more about it than ibn~Hawqal himself wrote going so far as to correct the location from Awdaghust to Sijilmasa. A little about the financial system allowing for checking 1100 years ago: [QUOTE][i]Suftajah[/i] is the Arabicized form of the Persian word [i]saftah[/i] meaning paper money or letter of credit. This letter of credit, or draft as we now call it, was issued by a money-changer on receiving a certain amount as deposit instructing his agent in a distant town or country where the traveler or merchant wanted delivery of the sum to make payment on receipt of this letter. This was, in short, a pay order from one man on another for the payment of a specified sum by a certain date. References to such payments are there in the contemporary literature of the Muslim countries. Commercial, government and private transactions were made through some international money-changers like the companies of Joseph ben Phineas and Aaron ben Amran of Baghdad and the Sahl Brothers of Cairo24 already mentioned above. A housewife received 200 dinars through a [i]suftajah[/i] from her husband. In the year 313 H/925 A.D. The caliph of Baghdad namely al-Muqtadir (296-320/908-32 A.D.) received a [i]suftajah[/i] of 147,000 dinars sent by {he Governor of Egypt and Syria through a Jewish banker of Egypt. The public treasury in Baghdad contained [i]amwal safdtij[/i] sent from Paris, Isfahan and other eastern provinces and the bearer of these [i]safdtij[/i] was a special messenger called [i]fij[/i]. A certain traveller from the East on his journey to Spain carried with him a letter of exchange and 5,000 dirhams in cash for his travelling and other expenses and to make certain purchases on the way.25 This was encashed most probably. Generally [i]suftajah[/i] became payable forty days after its drawal. The owner of the [i]suftajah[/i] was entitled to receive the entire amount if it was cashed in due time or by instalments if he so pleased. A certain deduction was made if it was cashed before the stipulated time26. In 301 H/913 A.D. one 'Ali bin 'Isa paid in the East one and a half [i]daniq[/i] (one [i]dirham[/i]=6 [i]daniq[/i]) or one-sixtieth [i]dinar[/i] per [i]diitir[/i], because he cashed his draft before the fixed time. By the 4th/10th century merchants of Basrah had become so much commercial and bank minded that they always kept their accounts in the banks and used cheques [i]-- khatt-i-saraf --[/i] even in the local transactions. [URL=http://www.]A man of Sijilmasah drew a cheque of 42,000 dinars on another man of the same city[/URL], ratified officially27 [i]Suftajah[/i] and [i]Khatt-i-saraf[/i] were also used commonly in Fairs, weekly or monthly, national or international. [/QUOTE] [/QB][/QUOTE]
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