A yellow metallic element, the most precious metal used as a common medium of commercial exchange. Gold (Ar. dhahab) is attested eight times in the Qurʾān (Q 3:14, 91; 9:34; 18:31; 22:23; 35:33; 43:53, 71). Four verses mention gold in the context of the pleasures and luxury the believers will enjoy in paradise (q.v.; Q 18:31; 22:23; 35:33; 43:71; see REWARD AND PUNISHMENT ). These verses are very similar in content. They refer to the economic value of gold and the materialistic wealth (q.v.) symbolized by jewels and clothes. In this context, gold, silver, pearls, brocade and silk (q.v.) simply denote precious materials (see METALS AND MINERALS ). Thus the “bracelets of gold” (Q 18:31) can elsewhere be “bracelets of silver” (Q 76:21).

Gold, silver and silk are often mentioned together in the collections of ḥadīths and fatwās, as well as in the tafsīr literature. Page 334  |  Top of ArticleWearing gold and silk, however, is restricted to women. Abū Dāwūd (d. 275/888) and al-Nasāʾī (d. 303/915) record that ʾAlī b. Abū Ṭālib (q.v.) took silk in his right hand and gold in his left hand and said: “These two are forbidden to the men of my nation (ummatī)” (Ibn Bāz, Fatāwā, iii, 194). Men are only allowed to wear silver (Qurṭubī, Jāmiʿ, xii, 29). Gold and silk belong to a category of things disapproved of in this world, but explicitly allowed in paradise and even emphasized as special delights that the believers will enjoy there (cf. also the prohibition of wine; see INTOXICANTS ; CUPS AND VESSELS ). According to Q 43:71, golden platters in paradise contain “whatever the souls desire.” In this life, however, those who drink from silver and golden vessels will feel the fire (q.v.) of hell (q.v.) in their stomachs (Muslim, Ṣaḥīḥ, vi, 135). Only in Q 43:53 is there an allusion to gold (specifically, bracelets of gold) as being among the insignia of earthly sovereignty and honesty. The fact that Moses (q.v.) lacks these insignia is used by Pharaoh (q.v.) to underscore his contemptibility and insincerity (Qurṭubī, Jāmiʿ, xv, 100).

Gold as well as silver (the two are paired in Q 3:14 and 9:34) play an important symbolic role in religions. Gold symbolizes the incorruptible and imperishable. In some religious contexts, though, it has negative connotations, as evidenced in the Abrahamic traditions (Carpenter, Gold, 68a/b). Q 9:34 points out the dangers of cheating (q.v.), greed (see AVARICE ) and misbehavior caused by treasuring gold and silver for personal use, namely among rabbis and monks (see MONASTICISM AND MONKS ; JEWS AND JUDAISM ; CHRISTIANS AND CHRISTIANITY ). Similarly, and again in the context of contrasting this world with the next, in Q 3:14 “heaped-up heaps of gold and silver” symbolize much wealth (al-māl al-kathīr, Ṭbarī, Tafsīr, vi, 249-50), which people desire, among other things, in their life on earth. Q 3:91 uses gold to delineate the difference between this- and other-worldly values: “Those who disbelieve and die in disbelief (see BELIEF AND UNBELIEF ), the earth full of gold would not be accepted from any one of them were it offered as a ransom. Theirs will be a painful doom and they will have no helpers.”

Despite the ambivalent attitude towards the presence of gold in this world that is found in the Qurʾān and Islamic literature, Muslim societies did find use for the material. In the materia medica, gold has not only been used as a remedy (eyes, heart, respiration), but also as a material for medical instruments (cauterization; cf. Leclerc, Ibn el-Bëithar, ii, no. 1007, 150 f.). See also MATERIAL CULTURE AND THE QURʾĀN .

Hannelore Schönig