A ratl (ñ÷à) is a medieval Middle Eastern unit of measurement found in several historic recipes. The term was used to measure both liquid and weight (around a pound and a pint in 10th century Baghdad, but anywhere from 8 ounces to 8 pounds depending on the time period and region).
While there were a variety of names for different shapes of cups and mugs in use at the time, the ratl seems to have had a position roughly equivalent to a British pint in that the name of the drinking-vessel also implied a standardized measurement as opposed to merely the object's shape, in both 10th century Baghdad and 13th century Andalusia. However, those standardized measures varied both by region and by purpose: the spice-measuring ratl, the flax-measuring ratl, the oil-measuring ratl, and the quicksilver-measuring ratl all differed from each other.
The ratl was a part of a sequence of measurements ranging from a grain of barley through the dirham (used as a common point of reference in both medieval European and Middle Eastern regions) on up to the Sa (Islamic measure).
1 Mudd = 8/6 ratl
1 Sá = 4 mudd = 5+1/3 ratl.
1 Ratl = 128+4/7 dirham or 128 dirham or 130 dirham.
1 Uqiyyah = 40 dirham.
1 Nashsh = 20 dirham.
7 mithqal = 10 dirham.
1 mithqal = 72 grains of average barely both edges cut.
1 mithqal = 20 qirat ÃÂÃÂÃÂñç÷ of makkah = 21+3/7 qirat of Damascus.
1 Dirham = 0.7 mithqal =14 qirat of makkah = 15 qirat of Damascus.
1 wasq = 60 sá.
In al-Warraq's tenth-century cookbook, different regions used some of the same terms to mean different units of measurement and the relationships between them. Some of those relationships are described below.