Note 17 — Chapter III

Note 17. Literally, "two nuṣfs." "Nuṣf," vulgarly pronounced by the Egyptians "nuṣṣ," and signifying "half," is the name of a small Egyptian coin made of a mixture of silver and copper, and now equivalent to something less than a quarter of a farthing; but this name was originally given to the half-dirhems which were struck in the reign of the Sulṭán El-Mu-eiyad, in the early part of the ninth century of the Flight, or of the fifteenth of our era. In the Calcutta edition of the first two hundred nights, and in the edition of Breslau, we read here "two dirhems," instead of "two nuṣfs." [The coin here mentioned still bears the name "Mu-eiyadee," or, vulgarly, "Meiyadee." In the latest coinage, copper has been substituted for the mixed metal. Ed.]