Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The nineteenth-century gold 'mithqal' in West and North Africa |
Author: | Johnson, Marion |
Year: | 1968 |
Periodical: | The Journal of African History |
Volume: | 9 |
Issue: | 4 |
Pages: | 547-569 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Maghreb West Africa |
Subjects: | currencies gold history 1800-1899 |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/180144 |
Abstract: | When the first Islamic coinage was issued in Damascus at the end of the seventh century A.D. it was based on the Syrian gold dinar, and the coin became known as a mithqal ('weight' or 'the weight of something'). During the succeeding centuries, the various dynasties of Islam issued a great variety of gold dinars or mithqals. By the nineteenth century both the gold dinar and the name mithqal were obeolete in much of the Islamic world; but in the first quarter of that century some coins lingered on in use in West and North Africa, and the name mithqal for a unit of weight of gold-dust continued in use throughout the century in parts of West and North Africa and in a few places in the Middle East. Attempted is to discover, and to make sense of, the various values of the gold mithqal at different times and placee in West and North Africa during the nineteenth century. Ref. |