It is related that when the merchant brought the amir Badr al-Din Bilik to King al-Zahir Baybars so that he might buy him, he said that the young man wrote a beautiful hand. So the sultan ordered him to write, and he took up the pen and wrote:
Were it not for necessities, I would never have parted from you, nor moved from one people to another.
The sultan was so impressed that he had written this particular verse and no other that he increased his price.
He is the amir Badr al-Din ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Khazindar, who later became viceroy of the sultanate and commander of the armies. (Al-Manhal al-Safi, vol. 3, p. 513.)
The panel is in the hand of the humble servant of God.
