838 AH, 17/08
On Friday the 17th it was announced that the people were prohibited from conducting transactions with the fulūs, and that the people were only to use the fulūs struck by the sultan. When the fulūs had been struck new in 759, each fals was made to weigh a mithqāl, with the silver dirham used according to tale, at 24 fals. The weight of a quffa of fulūs was 118 raṭl, or 500 silver Ẓāhirīya dirhams, used in Egypt and Syria.

The gold harja mithqāl struck with the sikka of Islam was worth 20 of these dirhams, sometimes 1/8 of a dirham more than 20 dirhams, sometimes 1/4 more than that. Then at the end of the period of al-Ẓāhir Barqūq, the value of the dinar steadily increased, until it reached around 25 dirhams. It was the money used widely in Egypt and Syria, this silver, being composed of 1/3 copper and 2/3 silver. Then this silver surpassed Islamic gold coins in transactions, and no other dinar was known.

The fulūs had originally been used for small purchases, which amounted to less than a dirham. In the days of al-Ẓāhir Barqūq, al-ʾamīr Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. ʿAlī b. ʾIṣfarr ʿAynihi the ʾustādār rose to manage the finances. He increased the minting of this new fulūs, to the point that it became the money widespread in Egypt, and the dirham became scarce.

During the reign of al-Nāṣir Faraj b. Barqūq, matters of money in Egypt became abominable. The silver dirham, which was described above, almost disappeared, and became unimportant, just another commodity, for every 100 dirhams of it amounted to 360 dirhams fulūs, every dirham of which was reckoned at 24 fals.

The price of gold increased, and the ʾifrantī dinar, struck by the Faranj, became widespread, to the point that the gold harja dinar with the sikka of Islam disappeared. The ʾifrantī dinar reached 260 dirhams fulūs.

This fulūs became corrupted, for every Egyptian qinṭār, i.e. 100 Egyptian raṭls, made 600 dirhams. In Egypt the people began transacting with it by weight, and not by number, for every raṭl of it was calculated at 6 dirhams.

The value of all labor and sales, great and small, the rent of houses and gardens, the registers of all land, women’s dowries, and the rest of the blessings of the sultan, however, were calculated in fulūs. The two currencies, gold and silver, were fixed to the fulūs, and every dinar was said to be this many or that many fulūs. Every silver dirham, if one could be found, and they almost could not be found, was so many fulūs, and the people in Egypt did not have any money left other than the fulūs. Then after the fulūs, the ʾifrantī gold, or sālimī gold, or nāṣirī gold were all fixed to the fulūs. Gold thus became a commodity. These included the harja, which was very rare, the ʾifrantī, which was the gold coin in wide circulation, and the sālimī, which were dinars al-ʾamīr Yalbughā al-Sālimī the ʾustādār had struck with each dinar weighing a mithqāl, and the nāṣirī, which were dinars al-Malik al-Nāṣir Faraj b. Barqūq had struck.

In the days of al-Muʾayyad Shaykh, dirhams known as al-Muʾayyadīya were struck. The people used them according to number in his period. They were good for the people, and the money in Egypt became the fulūs, gold in its different forms, and the Muʾayyadī silver. Of those, the money most widespread was the fulūs. The value of labor and sales were fixed to it, as has been described above.

In the days of al-ʾAshraf Barsbāy, the dirhams went back to weight, and transactions according to number were abolished, for corrupted fragments of them increased, and the people did not want to accept them. Transactions in dirhams by weight continued. ʾAshrafī dirhams were also struck, each dirham equal in weight to 20 dirhams fulūs. Then the price of the fulūs steadily increased until each qinṭār of them came to 1,800, and the people used them reckoning each raṭl to be 18 dirhams fulūs. It continued to be scarce, due to the large amounts of it brought by the merchants to India and elsewhere, and what was struck in Cairo from copper implements using containers such as kettles, in which they were cooked and such. Whoever was responsible for striking the fulūs came to have containers as insurance, settled in the dīwān al-khāṣṣ, 15,000 dirhams every month. Then the amount of the insurance increased from that, so the view of the sultan required, after great opposition and turmoil for a period of days, to strike fulūs, counted at 8 fulūs for every dirham of gold, provided that the ʾAshrafī dinar was 285 dirhams, and the ʾifrantī dinar was 280. Every raṭl of this ʾAshrafī fulūs would be 27 dirhams. In every ʾAshrafī dinar was taken 2,280 fals. When the fulūs was struck according to this order, it was announced that the people would conduct transactions using it, and that they would not use any old fulūs they may have had, but rather they should take them to the dār al-ḍarb, at a rate of 18 per raṭl. How good this would have been had it continued.