Old weights and measures (Arabia)

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The old Arabic system of measurement is based on the Persian , which in turn is based on the Mesopotamian system .

Measure of capacity

The Kufic scholar Abū ʿUbaid al-Qāsim ibn Sallām (d. 838) states in his Kitāb al-Amwāl that he found eight different types of measurements ( makāyīl ) in the traditions about the Prophet, the Sahāba and the subsequent generation of Muslims have, namely the Sāʿ , the Mudd , the Faraq , the Qist , the Mudy, the Machtūm, the Qafīz and the Makkūk . Of these, the Mudd and the Sāʿ are the most important.

Another unit of measurement was the ashir .

Length measurements

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Since the Roman system of measurement , via the ancient Egyptian, is also derived from Mesopotamian measurements, there is an exact ratio of 25:27 to the Roman foot.

  • The scientific arbitrary definition set value of Nippur-Elle is 518.616 mm
    A Roman foot has a length of 4 / 7 Nippur-Ellen
    The Arabic foot has a length of 27 / 25 Roman foot
    Thus a theoretical length of the Arabian foot results of exactly 108 / 175 nippur cubits = 320.06016 mm ≈ 32 cm
assbaa finger ¼ cabda  1 ≈ 2 cm
cabda Hand (palm) ¼ foot  4th ≈ 8 cm
qadima Arabic foot 16 ≈ 32 cm
arsh (small) cubit 1½ feet 16 x 1.5 ≈ 48 cm
arsh (large) cubit 2 feet 16 × 2 ≈ 64 cm
orgye Fathoms 6 feet 16 × 6 ≈ 1.92 m
qasab rod 2 orgye 16 × 6 × 2 ≈ 3.84 m
seir Stadion 50 qasab 16 × 6 × 100 ≈ 192.04 m
ghalva 60 qasab 16 × 6 × 120 ≈ 230.44 m
farasakh Parasang (Farsang) 18,000 feet 16 × 6 × 100 × 30 ≈ 5.7611 km
barid 4 farasakh 16 × 6 × 100 × 120 ≈ 23.044 km
marhala 2 barid 16 × 6 × 100 × 240 ≈ 46.089 km

literature

Arabic sources (chronological)
  • Abū-ʿUbaid al-Qāsim Ibn-Sallām: al-Amwāl . Ed. Muḥammad al-ʿAmmāra. Dār aš-Šurūq, Beirut, 1989. pp. 615–627. Digitized
  • Abū-ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad Ibn-Aḥmad al-Ḫwārizmī: Kitāb Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm . Ed. Gerlof van Vloten. Brill, Leiden, 1895. pp. 14f. Digitized
  • az-Zahrāwī : At-Taṣrīf li-man ʿaǧiza ʿan at-taʾlīf . Facsimile edition after Ms. Bašīr Āġā, Süleymaniye Library Istanbul. Institute for the History of the Arabic-Islamic Sciences, Frankfurt / Main, 1986. Vol. II, pp. 457-460. - English translation by H. Sauvaire under the title "Arab Metrology. V. Ez-Zahrâwy" in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 16 (1884) 495-524. Digitized
  • ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān ibn Naṣr aš-Shaiẓarī: Nihāyat ar-rutba fī ṭalab al-ḥisba . Ed. as-Saiyid al-Bāz al-ʿArīnī. Cairo 1946. pp. 15-20.
  • Rašīd al-Dīn Faḍlallāh : Tārīḫ-i-mubārak-i-Ġāzānī . Ed. Karl Jahn. Luzac, London, 1940. pp. 286-291.
  • Al-Maqrīzī : Kitāb al-Auzān wa-l-akyāl as-šarʿīya . Ed. by OG Tychsen under the title Tractatus de legalibus Arabum Ponderibus et Mensuris . Rostock 1800 ( digitized version ). - Modern text edition Ed. Sulṭān ibn Hulaiyil. Dār al-Bašāʾir al-Islāmīya, Beirut, 2007. Digitized
  • Ḥasan ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ǧabartī: al-ʿIqd aṯ-ṯamīn fīmā yataʿallaq bi-l-mawāzīn . Hs. Library of Congress Digitalisat - Engl. Translation by MH Sauvaire in "Arab Metrology. II. El-Djabarty" in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 10/2 (1878) 253-284. Digitized
  • Muṣṭafā ibn Ḥanafī aḏ-Ḏahabī: Taḥrīr ad-dirham wa-l-miṯqāl wa-r-raṭl wa-l-mikyāl . Ed. Rāšid Ibn-ʿĀmir Ibn-ʿAbdallāh al-Ġufailī. Dār al-Bašāʾir al-Islāmīya, Beirut, 2011. Digitized - English translation by MH Sauvaire in "Arab Metrology. IV. Eḍ-Ḍahaby" in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 14/3 (1882) 264-288.
  • Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn al-Rifʿa: Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ wa-al-tibyān fī maʿrifat al-mikyāl wa-al-mīzān . Ed. Muḥammad Aḥmad Ismāʿīl al-Ḫarūf. Dār al-Fikr, Damascus 1980. Digitized
  • Naǧm ad-Dīn al-Kurdī: al-Maqādīr aš-šarʿīya wa-l-aḥkām al-fiqhīyah al-mutaʿalliqa bi-hā - kail - wizn - miqyās - min ʿahd an-nabī {S} wa-taqwīmu -u- muʿāṣir. 2nd edition Cairo, 2005. Website with download
  • ʿAlī Ǧumʿa : al-Makāyīl wa-l-mawāzīn aš-šarʿīya . Al-Quds, Cairo, 2001. Digitized
Secondary literature
  • Nitzai Amitai Prize: "Islamic Lead Coins, Weights, and Seals in the Israel Museum" in Israel Museum Studies in Archeology 6 (2007) 13-20. Digitized
  • E. Ashtor: "Makāyil and Mawāzīn" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. VI, pp. 117a-121a.
  • Moshe Gil: "Additions to Islamische Masse und Gewichte" in Róbert Dán (Ed.): Occident and Orient: a tribute to the memory of Alexander Scheiber . Akadémiai K. u. a., Budapest u. a., 1988. pp. 167-170. On-line
  • Sami K. Hamarneh: "Unification of Weight and Measure Standards in Islamic Medicine" in Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza 5/3 (1963) 230-248. - Reprinted in SK Hamarneh: Health Sciences in Early Islam . Vol. II. Ed. by Munawar A. Anees. Zahra Publications, Blanco, Texas, 1984. pp. 51-61.
  • Walther Hinz : Islamic measures and weights, converted into the metric system. EJ Brill, Leiden / Cologne 1970.
  • Mahmoud Bey: Le Système métrique actuel d'Égypte, comparé au système français, les Nilomètres tant anciens que modern et les antiques coudées de l'Égypte. FS Muhle, Copenhagen, 1872. Digitized
  • Ulrich Rebstock : "Weights and Measures in Islam" in Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures . Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg New York, 2008. pp. 2255–2267.
  • MH Sauvaire: On a Treatise on Weights and Measures by Elia, archbishop of Nisibin in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 9 (1877) 291-313 digitized and 12 (1880) 110-125 digitized .
  • MH Sauvaire: "Matériaux pour servir à l'histoire de la numismatique et de la métrologie musulmanes" in Journal Asiatique VIII / 3 (1884) 368-445 digitized version , VIII / 4 (1884) 207-321 digitized version , VIII / 5 (1885 ) 498-506 digitized version , VIII / 7 (1886) 394-468 digitized version , VIII / 8 (1886) 113-165 digitized version, 479-536 digitized version .
  • Wolfgang Trapp : Small manual of the dimensions, numbers, weights and the time calculation. 3rd reviewed edition. Reclam, Stuttgart, 1998. pp. 220-229. (Summary by Hinz with incorrect transcription, but useful conversion tables)

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Abū ʿUbaid Ibn-Sallām: al-Amwāl . 1989, p. 615.