Tulisan ini diambil dari buku Fikih Zakat, Dr. Yusuf Qardawi (Volume I, hal 129-130) tentang tulisan dirham dan dinar dalam syariah. Tulisan ini paling tidak menjawab pertanyaan kami mengenai dari mana asal usul pengukuran berat 1 Dinar 4,25 gram yang dalam buku ini Dr. Qardawi disebutkan adalah emas murni. Sejauh yang kami tahu tulisan di bawah ini adalah referensi satuan berat yang cukup jelas sumbernya yang bisa kami temukan, walaupun demikian kita lihat Dr. Qardawi tidak melakukan pengujian dan pengukuran langsung mithqal terhadap satuan berat hari ini dalam gram.
Dirham and Dinars in Syariah (hal 129-130)It is essential in order to complete the picture of zakah on gold and silver to find out how much, exactly, is the dirham of silver and the dinar of gold worth today. We can then determine the current equivalent of nisab. Many scholars early and late, have attempted to find out the exact quantity of the dirham and dinar. They include Abu ‘Ubaid in al Amwal, al Baladhari in Futuh al Buldan, al Khattabi in Ma’alim al Sunan, al Mawardi in al Ahkam al Sultaniyah, al Nawawi in al Majmu‘, al Maqrizi in Ancient Islamic Currencies, Ibn Khaldun in the Introduction, and several others.Ibn Khaldun summarizes, “One must realize that it is unanimously agreed upon since the early ages of Islam, the era of the Companions and Followers, that the dirham in Shari’ah is that ten of which equal in weight seven mithqal of gold. Uqiyyah is 30 dirhams. Consequently, the weight of a dirham of silver equals seven-tenths the weight of a dinar of gold. One dinar of pure gold equals 72 grains of rye of average weight; thus, one dirham weighs fifty-five grains. All these measures are affirmed by unanimous agreement.”
The dinar [which is the same as a mithqal] did not change from the era before Islam. However, Muslim currencies, at the above mentioned weights, were used in a wide area, since the time of Ummayad caliph ‘Abd al Malik bin Marwan. At this time, there were different dirhams with different weights, and he unified them, in accordance with the above ratios. Changes were incorporated in later minting of dirhams and dinars after ‘Abd al Malik in several countries, so the above-cited definition by Ibn Khaldun became only theoretical, and people had to find out the proportion between their local currencies and those definitions in determining nisab and other Shari’ah quantities.
The Prophet (p) guides us to a very useful practice, in unifying measures and quantities all over the country. He said, “Weight measures are those used by Makkans, and volume measures are those used by Madinans.” Makkans were people of trade, accustomed circulating dinars and dirhams by weight, and they wore more precise in their weight measurements. Madinans were cultivators of crops and fruits, and they were more accurate in using volume measures, such as al Wasq, al Sa’, and al mudd.
It was hoped that all Muslim countries would unify and standardize their measure of weight and volume, in accordance with those of the Makkans, and Madinans, in order to make the application of quantities mentioned in Shari’ah easier.
Unfortunately, Muslims have not given sufficient attention to that useful directive of the Prophet (p). They have differences in their measures of weight and volume from one country to the other, and we came to see ratl defined differently in Baghdad, Madinah, Egypt, and Syria, the same way the dirham and dinar were given different weights in different countries. All this makes our task of finding the exact equivalent of the dirham and the dinar today even more difficult.Those grains that were used in defining the dirham and the dinar are not themselves precise, which adds yet another difficulty to the problem on hand. Yet we must determine the exact weight of the dirham and the dinar in order to define nisab of gold and silver in our days.
‘Abd al Rahman Fahmy, secretary of the Islamic Art Museum in Cairo, after a thorough examination of the tools used for minting, and many historical coins, comes up with the estimation that a dirham equals 3.104 grams of silver in his book on coin minting in the early ages of Islam. Ibn ‘Abidin, after narrating several views of the Hanafites, comes up with a conclusion that it is very difficult to find an agreement on the exact weights of dirhams and dinars. A more recent researcher, using al Maqrizi’s writings and comparing Greek and Islamic weights for the dirham and dinar, concludes that the dirham should be 3.12 grams of silver, which is close to Fahmy’s figure. But it seems that the latter study does not distinguish between the dirham that used to be a unit of weight and the dirham that was used as a unit of silver currency. Al Maqrizi himself quotes from al Khattabi that there used to be several dirhams, one a weight unit and another a currency unit. Some other studies depend on actually weighing coins that were saved from the early Islamic eras and preserved in museums throughout the world. It seems, however, that the mithqal, which is the same as the dinar, is more constant and stable than the dirham. If we can determine the weight of a mithqal, then the weight of a dirham can easily be derived.