was known to them: it was a single measure of uniform capacity, which they made themselves rather than importing it. Thus, when the Lawgiver made the obligation conditional upon possessing five wasqs, He tied it to a fixed quantity that was the same for everyone. This was unlike the five ūqiyyas, which did not constitute a fixed quantity common to everyone; rather, their customary amount was greater among some people than among others. This resembles the terms “mosque,” “house,” “residence,” “city,” and “village”: their customary sizes vary from one people to another, yet the Lawgiver’s wording encompasses them all.

If someone were to say that the sāʿ and the mudd should be determined by people’s customary usage, arguing that ʿUmar’s sāʿ was larger and that he used it to collect the land tax—being eight ratls, as the scholars of Iraq maintain—this could be conceivable where the inhabitants of a locality have two measures, one large and one small. The charity due at the end of Ramadan would then be measured by the larger one, and a wasq would equal sixty of those larger measures. For the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, specified both the zakat threshold for produce measured in wasqs and the amount of that charity in terms of the sāʿ; he did not specify any zakat threshold or obligatory amount in terms of the mudd.

However, I know of no one who held this view. Nor may we advance any position other than what our predecessors stated, for they certainly knew what the Messenger intended. If any of the Companions or Successors held that the sāʿ was not fixed by religious law, then this would become a matter of scholarly judgment. As for the dirham and the dinar, you have already learned of people’s disagreement concerning them and the inconsistency of