Ratl

A ratl (رطل ) 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).[1]

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[1] and 13th century Andalusia.[2] 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.[3]

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)[3] on up to the Sa (Islamic measure).

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.