This is understood to mean that he passed off the clipped coins together with full-weight ones, making it deceptive fraud. Thus, Abān was correct in imposing this degree of discretionary punishment. Moreover, since this involves diminishing property, it is wasteful folly when done without need.

Some scholars discussed the report forbidding the breaking of coins. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh al-Anṣārī, the judge of Basra, interpreted it as forbidding the breaking of coins to turn them into bullion, so that they would remain as they were, reserved for expenditure. Others interpreted the prohibition as referring to breaking them in order to make vessels and ornamental objects from them.

Others interpreted the prohibition as applying to one who clipped off their edges with shears. In the early days of Islam, coins were transacted by count, so removing their edges amounted to shortchanging and cheating. As for measuring by volume, if the arrangement was muqāsama (crop-sharing), then whichever qafīz (a measure of grain) was used, the shares would be adjusted accordingly.

Imam Aḥmad gave differing statements regarding muqāsama. In the narration of al-ʿAbbās ibn Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khallāl, he was asked about a person who held land in the Sawād (the agricultural region of Iraq): “May he consume some of what it produces in crops or dates if the ruler assesses their land tax by area, or has left the land in their hands under a crop-sharing arrangement of one-half or one-quarter?” He replied, “He may consume from it, unless he fears the ruler.” The apparent implication is that he permitted crop-sharing in the land tax.

In the narration of al-Ḥammāl, he said, “All of the Sawād is land subject to land tax.” When crop-sharing was mentioned, he said, “Crop-sharing did not exist; it is something newly introduced.” The apparent implication is that he did not approve of it, although he did not explicitly declare it prohibited; rather, he stated that it had not existed during the time of ʿUmar.

If the land tax was assessed by the qafīz used in ʿUmar’s time, al-Qāsim related that the qafīz imposed by ʿUthmān ibn Ḥunayf on the land of the Sawād, and approved by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, was a measure known to them as the Shābarqān. It is said that its weight was eight ratls.

Aḥmad alluded to this in the narration of Bakr ibn Muḥammad from his father. When he was asked about the qafīz, he said, “It should be a small qafīz.” He also said, “The qafīz of al-Ḥajjāj is ʿUmar’s sāʿ; it should be eight ratls.”