خلاصه ماشینی:
As late as the :3/9th century Jews of Provence were designated simply "traders on the sea,"1 who embarked in France with eunuchs, male and female slaves, brocade, skins of beavers· and martens, other furs, · and swords.
2 Jewish trade had a monopoly of the chief Eu- · ropean commodity, slaves; still in the year 356/965 Prague, the chief slave-market of Europe, was frequented by " Muslims, Jews, and Turks from the country of the _.
l? In consequence of this a gold currency prevailed in the pro• vinces of the Caliphate which · had formerly been Greek, whereas the Persian countries reckoned by silver dirhems.
At the commencement of the 8/9th century· all the gifts of the Caliphs are reckoned· in dirhems; at the commencement of the 4/lOth century the gold currency has been introduced into Baghdad, and the central government reckons by dinars.
of coin were· not yet reckoned together; thus the savant Tha'lab, who died in Baghdad in the year ~91/904 "left :n,ooo dirhems, 2,000 dinars, and shops at the Damascus Gate worth a,ooo dinars.
Caliphs saw to it that the greatest possible variety of both sorts was in circulation, and · the tables of exchange-rates kept by the great bankers looked interesting enough, as is suggested by the lists of coins in Muq~ddasi.
In the year 830/942 the Hamdanid Nasir al-daulah coined dinars offull value of 18 dirhems, whereas the old were worth only 10.
Beside Babylonians, Persians, and Jews, Greeks and Indians were the most active traders in the empire.