An old unit of dry measure or weight used in the Ottoman Empire and Middle East, varying by region and commodity.
From Arabic or Turkish 'qafiz,' a traditional unit of measurement for grain. Colonial-era merchants adopted it to standardize trade across the Ottoman Empire's diverse regions.
Before kilograms and pounds, traders had to memorize dozens of different 'cafizes'—what weighed one in Cairo might weigh differently in Istanbul, making commerce a puzzle only experts could solve.
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