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We are all accustomed to using weights, measures and monetary systems in our daily lives. We take them for granted. For instance we rely on the stall holder's weights and scales to give us a fair kilogram of fruit or that the supermarket checkout weighing goods to the nearest 5 grams with the price rounded up to the nearest five fils. The international spread of the metric system means that purchases can be made in London, Hong Kong or Al Ain based on the same weight system and also with a decimal currency. It was not always so, pounds, katis and muns would have been typical weight measurements in these three cities in the past combined with complex monetary values.
Weights, measures and money are the foundation of commerce and also of taxation. In the past there was often a direct link between weights and coinage, for instance in Baghdad in the fourteenth century the dirhem was both a coin and a weight equal to about 3.2 grams. Maintaining weight and coinage standards has always been a role for the government to sustain public confidence. As a result some weights have an ancient origin, effectively never having gone out of use. One result is the durable etymology of words in a long sequence of languages through millennia.
The Islamic dirhem was derived from the ancient Greek drachmi. The exact value of the weight seems to have varied over the centuries being 4.25 grams in ancient Greece, 3.25 grams to the Sassanids, 3.15 grams to the Selcuk Turks and eventually becoming the standard 3.2 grams to the Ottoman Turks. Debased values as low as 2.8 grams are known, economic stress no doubt. There is however no doubt about its ancient lineage and the very strong relationship between coin and weight.
The ancient pound weight, litron in Greek, liber in Latin and ratl in medieval Arabic was rated at 128 dirhems, about 410 grams compared to the Imperial pound of 454 grams. There were 12 ounces (Latin uncia, Arabic uqiya) to the pound, making each ounce about 34 grams, the modern ounce is 28.35 grams.
Mensuration systems were often based on the weights of specific seeds. For instance the dirhem was defined in medieval Egypt as the weight of 60 average sized barley seeds without the husk. Similarly the miskal, another Islamic weight was reckoned as the weight of 6,000 mustard seeds. The kirat was 1/16 of a dirhem, also considered to be 4 barley grains and which is now the carat measure for precious gems, standardised at 200 milligrams which corresponds to the 3.2 grams of the dirhem.
The medieval gold dinar coin was the same weight as the miskal (also known as the mithqal). It also had a long lineage and was adopted as the modern currency of several Arabic states.
In the past in Al Ain, and the Gulf generally, there were various weight and measure systems in use. The principal weight used was the mun, mund or maund. This was equivalent to 4 kilograms or about 9 lb. It is still in occasional use in the market, for instance the weights of large fish specimens are quoted in mund, particularly if the potential purchasor is an elderly national.
In Oman the maund was divided into 24 kiyas, each kiya being a little short of 6 ounces or the weight of 6 Maria Theresa thalers (dollars in common parlance) in Muscat. This was a usefull reference as the weight could be checked against thalers which were in common circulation . This weight corresponds very closely to four kilograms. There seems to have been some doubt that these weights were applicable both in Muscat and the Oman interior . There was a bulk weight called the bahhar which equalled 200 Muscat maunds. It did however vary with the commodity being weighed, one bahhar of salt or firewood weighed 400 Muscati maunds.
Dried dates were a key commodity which had to be assessed, either for zakat, the tax for charitable distribution under Islamic tradition or for tax due to the ruling family. There was a threshold for the latter tax when it was applied to the date crop. This seems to have corresponded to a sufficient quantity of produce for sustenance of a family through the year.
In the Emirates date production was quantified by a number of measure sizes which were based on very practical, locally fabricated, containers. The containers were usually made from woven date palm leaves. They can still be found in the local markets, either for sale as empty containers or as sticky sack or basket of pressed dates on sale. These dates are for consumption either by humans or livestock, depending on the quality of the dates. The containers also used to be an integral part of the production of dibs, the date syrup which was extracted from the fresh date crop during the initial storage process. It seems that artisanal production of dibs is on the decline in favour of purchase from a commercial factory. The weaving of traditional palm leaf sacks is also under threat, the convenience of using recycled woven plastic flour and seed sacks is overwhelming, most date sacks in the suq are now from this source. Also these days galvanised steel cans are popular for storing premium varieties of pressed dates such as khalas or barhi. A typical size holds 12 Kg., three mun, the name of the date variety being written in marker pen on the lid for identification.
The standard in the emirates was the yeerab, jirab or 'airab. This was a rectangular sack made from date palm leaflets, plaited into strips about 10 centimetres wide and then sewn into a rectangular sack form about 70 - 90 cm. long and 40 - 60 cm wide. This held 10 mun or about 40 Kg. of dates. This seems to have been the dried, pressed weight. The fresh, ripe, rutab dates were packed into these sacks and they were stacked up, about 15 high in the madbasa, the date press. About four to five percent of the date mass is collected as date syrup, dibs. The process helps to protect the dates from insect infestation. The dates will last for extended periods, in excess of a year if necessary, due to the increase in sugar concentration which will typically reach 73-85%.
This standard measure of weight was in use throughout the lower Gulf from Bahrain to the UAE. Another measure was the yilla which was two airab or 20 mun. The northern Gulf including Kuwait and Basrah used the galla, equivalent to 8 mun or 32 Kg.
There are also local measures. In Al Ain the gosah was a measure that was interchangeable with the jirab but may have been larger. Dharfa was an even larger measure. The galla in the Northern Emirates was a standard round basket of dates somewhat smaller than a jirab. These baskets are still in common use in the Emirates and can be seen for instance at the fodder stalls near camel racing tracks where dates are sold for racing camel feed. In some areas the galla could be a round or square basket.
Twenty mun (80 Kg.) of wheat was considered to be the subsistence quantity to sustain a family of 5-6 people from the wheat harvest until the date crop started in June in Ras al Khaimah, a period of four to six months. Twelve jirab of dates (480 Kg.) were also considered to be the minimum annual requirements of a five member family.
Steelyards, quban, were used for weighing large quantities of goods, Al Ain Museum has examples and they are illustrated in heritage records.
Pearl trading required more delicate weights than the mun. The methkal was one of the weights used, it may well correspond to the Islamic miskal mentioned above but its precise weight is not known. Other pearl weights are recorded as the yeka and the rthi, the latter possibly corresponding to the Indian rati weight. This could be expected as much of the pearl trade was with India.
Other references to local weights include al shawka and al seer, both looking quite substantial, again without any modern values being identified. Again the seer etymology would indicate an Indian connection.
Volume measures are not recorded as well as weight measures and seem to have been more variable. The medieval Arabic measure qadah was roughly equivalent to an American or English quart and also the litre.
The cheeas was a local wooden measure used in the suq for dry goods, again there are examples in the Al Ain Museum. A large example in turned wood (possibly acacia) has a volume to the rim 1.6 litres, somewhat short of half a mun but probably half a mun if heaped. It has a very thick base, almost half the total height, which is interesting sales psychology, making the volume look more. It has simple decoration in the turning and is shaped like an inverted frustum of a cone. Wheat grains were embedded in an external crack in the wood indicating what it had been measuring. A smaller measure with the same characteristics purchased in Nizwa suq has a volume of just short of 200 cc. or about 150 gm dry measure. This seems to indicate that a set of measures would have had a binary basis in common with other Islamic measure and weight systems.
Measures/containers/weights in use in the Emirates: