Is a measure of length and a standard gauge. High and low refer to it, and it is the desire of the righteous and the unrighteous. Throughout Hindustan there were three such measures current, viz., long, middling and short. Each was divided into 24 equal parts and each part called Ṭassúj.* A Ṭassúj of the 1st kind was equal to 8 ordinary barley-corns placed together breadthways, and of the other two respectively, to 7 and 6 barley-corns. The long gaz was used for the measurement of cultivated lands, roads, distances, forts, reservoirs and mud walls. The middling was employed to measure buildings of stone and wood, bamboo-built houses, places of worship, wells and gardens, and the short gaz for cloth, arms, beds, seats of state, sedan chairs, palanquins, chairs, carts and the like.

In some other countries, although they reckon the gaz as consisting of 24 Ṭassúj, they make

Others reckon the gaz as 24 fingers, each finger equal to the breadth of 6 barley-corns, and each barley-corn equal in thickness to 6 hairs from the mane of a cob. In some ancient books they make the gaz equal to two spans and twice round the joint (girih) of the thumb, and they divided it into 16 girih and each girih was subdivided into 4 parts which they called 4 pahr, so that a pahr was the sixty-fourth part of a gaz.

In other ancient records the gaz is reckoned of seven kinds. 1st, The Gaz i Sauda (Gaz of traffic) consisting of 24 digits and two-thirds of a digit. Harún úr Rashíd of the House of 'Abbás took this measure from the hand of an Abyssinian slave who was one of his attendants: the Nilometer* of Egypt is on this measure, and houses and cloths are also measured by it. 2nd, Ziráa' i ḳasbah, (Reed-yard) called also A'ámah, and Daur, of 24 digits: this was introduced by Ibn Abi Laila.* 3rd, The Yúsufíyah, used by the provincial governors of Baghdad for the measurement of houses: it consisted of 25 digits. 4th, The short Háshimíyah, of 28 digits and a third. Bilál* the son of Abi Bardah introduced it: according to some it was Abu Músa Ash'ari his grandfather. 5th, The long Háshimíyah of 29 digits and two-thirds which Manṣúr the A'bbaside favoured. It is also called the Maliḳ and Ziyádíyah. Ziyád* was the so-called son of Abú Sufiyán who used it to measure the lands in Arabian I'ráḳ. 6th, The Omaríyah of 31 digits. During his Caliphate, Omar carefully considered the long, short and middling gaz.* He took the three kinds together and to one-third of the aggregate he added the height of the closed fist and the thumb erect. He closed both ends of the measure with tin and sent it to Ḥudaifah* and Otḥmán* -b-Hunaif which they used for the measurement of the villages in Arabian Iráḳ. 7th, The Mámuníyah of 70 digits less a third. Mamún brought it into use, and it was employed for measuring rivers, plains and road distances.

Some in former times reckoned the cloth-measure (gaz) to be seven times the fist, and the fist was equal to four fingers closed; according to others, one finger less. The survey gaz, according to some, was the same seven fists: others made it seven fists together with one finger (thumb?) erect added to the seventh fist. Others again added another finger to that fist; while some made it seven fists with one finger adjoined to each fist.

Sultan Sikander Lodi in Hindustán introduced another gaz of the breadth of 41 Iskandaris and a half. This was a copper coin mixed with silver. Humayún added a half and it was thus completed to 42. Its length was 32 digits. But some authors anterior to his time make mention of a similar measure. Sher Khán and Salím Khán,* under whom Hindustán was released from the custom of dividing the grain and its apportionment, in measuring land used this gaz. Till the thirty first-year of the Divine Era, although the Akbar Sháhi gaz of 46 fingers was used as a cloth-mea­sure, the Iskandari gaz was used for cultivated lands and buildings. His Majesty in his wisdom, seeing that the variety of measures was a source of inconvenience to his subjects, and regarding it as subservient only to the dishonest, abolished them all and brought a medium gaz of 41 digits into general use. He named it the Iláhi gaz and it is employed by the public for all purposes.