Measures and Weights in the Islamic World: An English Translation of Walther Hinz's Handbook.

• Author: Varisco, Daniel Martin
• Position: Book review

Measures and Weights in the Islamic World: An English Translation of Walther Hinz's Handbook Islamische Masse und Gewichte. Translated by M. ISMAIL MARCINKOWSKI. Kuala Lumpur: INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ISLAMIC THOUGHT AND CIVILIZATION, 2003. Pp. xxii, 98.

There is a sense in which any translation, if suitably done, may be considered a contribution to knowledge. This is especially true for translation across the barriers of mutually unintelligible languages, such as from Arabic or Persian to English or German. The present volume does not fall into the category of such a contribution. Marcinkowski has provided a serviceable translation into English of a seminal but hardly comprehensive reference work, first published in German by Walter Hinz in 1955, on terminology for weights and measures in Islamic texts.

There are three major problems with the text under review. First, why is it necessary to translate a text accessible to scholars who should either know a little German or could with minimal effort consult the Hinz original with a basic German dictionary? I could see a service in rendering this resource into Arabic, although there are Arabic references available on the topic. Second, of what value is a translation of a very dated reference work without a serious attempt to document more recent studies? Half a century of scholarship has gone by since this work was first published; the 1970 reprint did not include material published since 1955. The translator does not claim to be a metrologist, but, given his publication record noted on the back cover, he surely could have examined the Index Islamicus, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, or at least consulted experts on the subject. Third, I believe that this translation, which makes no attempt to analyze the original or demonstrate how our knowledge of weights and measures has progressed, is dangerous to scholarship. This is not a criticism of Hinz's work; but a resource published in 2003 will inevitably be regarded as somehow up to date. This unnecessary translation is not.

The translation's quality itself is of little concern, given that the original text is basically an encyclopedic listing with no literary pretensions. But the translator feels free to alter the literal sense at will. For example, in footnote 1 (p. 1) Hinz refers to his earlier working of the material in the third person ("Sein erweiterter Wiederabdruck an diese Stelle ..."), but it is rendered in the translation as "I should...