The Sword of Ambition. 'Uthman ibn Ibrahim al-Nabulusi

and their effrontery. They even dare to commit acts for which their hands ought to be severed.²³ They sanction the falsification of arithmetic itself, which God established for the sake of truth. Far from seeking truth, they employ their devious pens to make arithmetic serve their own goals and devices.” Al-Ḥajjāj gave him the support that he had requested and he changed the records to Arabic, dismissed the Christians, and engraved the dies for striking gold and silver coins in Arabic. The gold coins had previously been engraved in Greek, and the silver coins in Persian.²⁴

      1.7.2

      If I undertook to enumerate the faults of these people, a lifetime would not suffice to convey even a portion of them. The hole would be too wide for the mender to patch.²⁵ How can one even begin to compare the base and wicked refuse discussed in this chapter to our lordly forebears among the viziers and secretaries? Yet if I undertook to describe the merits of these latter men, devoting but a word to each one of them, the book would depart from its purpose and I would have squandered the whole year, and the next one as well.

THE EIGHTH SECTION: THE EXAMPLE OF ʿUMAR IBN ʿABD AL-ʿAZīZ, GOD BE PLEASED WITH HIM

      1.8.1