In this article
Written by Sameer
Reviewed on
Moh-e-Najaf is rutilated quartz: clear or smoky quartz with fine needles of the mineral rutile running through it. The needles are usually golden, sometimes reddish or black. In Pakistan the fake you are most likely to be offered is glass with fibres set into it, and those fibres give themselves away almost immediately. Here is how to read them before you hand over any money.
Look at the needles first, colour second
Rutile grows wherever the crystal allowed it to. So in a real stone the needles cross each other, spread out in fans, bend a little, change thickness and sit at different depths. Tilt the stone and some look sharp while others look hazy. Fibres pushed into glass usually run in tidy parallel lines at one depth, with the same thickness from end to end. If the pattern looks like it has been combed, be careful.
Three more quick checks
- Bubbles: look past the needles into the clear part. Round gas bubbles mean glass. Quartz can have tiny crystals or feathery fluid inclusions, but never perfect spheres.
- Temperature: quartz stays cool on your skin a little longer. Glass warms up in your palm almost straight away.
- Edges: quartz is 7 on the Mohs scale and keeps sharp facet edges and a firm polish. Glass is softer and soon shows rounded, scuffed edges.
If it looks too perfect
A Moh-e-Najaf that is completely clear, full of perfectly even golden needles and still cheap deserves a closer look. Nature rarely hands you all three together. Ask the seller to write on the bill that the stone is natural quartz and whether it has been treated in any way. Someone selling glass will usually find a reason not to.
What decides the price of a real one
Once you are sure the stone is genuine, its price comes down to how good the needles look: their colour, how fully and evenly they fill the stone, how clear the quartz around them is, and how well the cut shows them off. Size matters less than any of these. We price each stone on its own merits.
Three things to confirm before paying
- The stone is natural quartz, not glass and not synthetic.
- Any treatment is disclosed in writing.
- The weight given is the weight of the finished, cut stone.
We check every stone against these points and photograph each one separately, so the stone in the listing is the stone that arrives. See the Moh-e-Najaf stones we have now, or compare purple sapphire and white topaz if you are still deciding. If a seller uses a name you do not recognise, our Urdu and English gem names list will help. We send orders by Cash on Delivery, starting from Karachi and reaching Lahore and every other city, and you can open the parcel and check the stone before you pay.
References
