''Al-Yatīma'' ( ar, اليتيمة, meaning 'the orphan', apparently named for its unique size) was a pearl 'considered to be the most celebrated Islamic jewel of the Middle Ages'. How it came into Muslim hands is not clear: it might have come from

Visigothic Spain The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to ...

or the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

during the

Islamic Conquests The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( ar, الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, ), also referred to as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. He estab ...

. During the

Umayyad period The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...

al-Yatīma was displayed in the

Dome of the Rock The Dome of the Rock ( ar, قبة الصخرة, Qubbat aṣ-Ṣakhra) is an Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, a site also known to Muslims as the ''al-Haram al-Sharif'' or the Al-Aqsa Compound. Its initial ...

in Jerusalem; it (or another jewel believed to be it) came into

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...

hands and became part of their royal insignia, mounted on the crown of

al-Mu'tasim Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd ( ar, أبو إسحاق محمد بن هارون الرشيد; October 796 – 5 January 842), better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaṣim biʾllāh (, ), was the eighth Abbasid caliph, ruling f ...

(r. 833-42 CE). From the tenth century onwards, its history is uncertain. The 11th-century '' Book of Gifts and Rarities'' records that the ''Yatīma'' was discovered by divers in the reign of

Harun al-Rashid Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar , أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn ...

and that the Umayyads' pearl was called ''al-ʿAẓīma'' ('enormous one'). It was supposedly given by

al-Mahdi Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Manṣūr ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله المنصور; 744 or 745 – 785), better known by his regnal name Al-Mahdī (, "He who is guided by God"), was the third Abba ...

to a slave girl named Hasana, who had it cut up to make dice. It has been suggested that the German idea of '' der Weise'' ('the orphan'), a precious stone in the crown of the

Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...

, was inspired by Arabic traditions of al-Yatīma.

Avinoam Shalem Avinoam Shalem (born 1959) is the Riggio Professor of the History of the Arts of Islam at Columbia University. He served as director of the American Academy in Rome from 2020 to 2021. Biography Shalem was born in Haifa, Israel in 1959. He receiv ...

,
Jewels and Journeys: The Case of the Medieval Gemstone Called al-Yatima
, ''Muqarnas'', 14 (1997), 42–56.

References

Crown jewels Individual pearls {{Islam-stub