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Baghdad
units of mass

“At Baghdad two systems of weightment exist side by side which may be called the local and the non-local.”

The local system was based on the Baghdad huqqah, or oke. The non-local was based on the smaller Constantinople huqqah and was used for all imported goods, and a few other commodities.

							taghar
						waznah	20
					mann	4	80
				charak	4	16	320
		huqqah or oke		1½	6	24	480
		waqiyah	2	3	12	48	960
	ruba	4	8	12	48	192	3840
Baghdad values	496.1	1.984	3.96893	5.95	23.81	95.25	1905.09
Constantinople values	157.7 g	0.6308 kg	1.26155 kg	1.8923 kg	7.569 kg	30.277 kg	605.54 kg

The Constantinople value shown for the huqqah is that from the 1915 source cited below. Kelly (1835) reported 1.283 kg as the result of a government comparison of standards in 1821, see Constantinople.

For trade in wood and charcoal the relation between the huqqah and the waznah was different: 50 huqqah = 1 waznah. That made the taghar an even 1000 huqqah, and the Constantinople huqqah was used.

Wheat and barley were traded using a waznah of 78 Constantinople huqqahs, about 98.4 kilograms. For grains, 100 kilograms was treated as equivalent to that waznah, and its huqqah subdivision was a kilogram, under the name “huqqah 'Ashshari” or “decimal huqqah”.

General Staff, India.
Field Notes. Mesopotamia.
Simla: Printed at the Government Monotype Press, 1915.
Page 189.

Baghdad units of mass

Baghdad
units of mass