Note 249 — KHUDADAD AND HIS BROTHERS.

The Ashrafi (Port. Xerafim) is a gold coin whose value has greatly varied with its date from four shillings upwards. In The (true) Nights we find (passim) that, according to the minting of the VIth Ommiade, ‘Abd al-Malik bin Marwán (A.H. 65–86 = A.D. 685–703), the coinage of Baghdad consisted of three metals. “Ita quoque peregrina suis nummis nomina posuit, aureum Dinar denarium, argentem Dirhen (lege dirham), Drachma, æreum fols (fuls), follem appellans. * * * Nam vera moneta aurea nomine follis signabatur, ut æreorum sub Aarone Raschido cussorum qui hoc nomen servavit.” (O. G. Tychsen, p. 8. Introduct. in Rem numariam Muhammedanorum). For the dinar, daric or miskál see The Nights, vol. i. 32; ix. 294; for the dirham, i. 33, ii. 316, etc.; and for the Fals or Fils = a fish scale, a spangle of metal, vol. i. 321. In the debased currency of the Maroccan Empire the Fals of copper or iron, a substantial coin, is worth 2,160 to the French five-franc piece.