Concept

In this anecdote from Jami's Baharestan, the vizier informs King Hormoz son of Shapur that seafaring merchants have brought valuable jewels, which the court bought for the king for a hundred thousand dinars, and offers to resell them to a certain merchant at a profit. Hormoz refuses, replying that a thousand or a hundred thousand dinars hold little worth in his eyes, and asks pointedly: if the king himself takes up trade, what work is left for the merchants to do?

The concept captures the ethical principle that royal dignity forbids a ruler from lowering his station to buying and selling for personal gain. It is not befitting the office of kings to seek their own livelihood through commerce; the sovereign's role is to govern and to provide, not to compete in the marketplace that sustains his subjects. The accompanying verses reinforce that trading for one's own profit is beneath the rank of a true king, since a monarch who practices the craft of merchants leaves the merc...