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(a.), from k̲h̲azana, “to shut up, to preserve, to hoard”. The word is believed to have been first used in North Africa as an official term in the second century a. h. applied to an iron chest in which Ibrāhīm b. al-Ag̲h̲lab, emīr of Ifrīḳiya, kept the sums of money raised by taxation and intended for the ʿAbbāsid caliph of Bag̲h̲dād. At first this term, which in Morocco is now synonymous with the government, was applied more particularly to the financial department, the Treasury. It may be said that the term mak̲h̲zen meaning the Moroccan government and everything more or less connec…