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> The most interesting aspect of Al-Maqrizi's work is that, in his critique of  
> the monetary policy of the Mamluk government in Egypt, he directly linked  
> high inflationary periods with the debasement of currency. Al-Maqrizi  
> delineated something quite similar to the Quantity Theory of Money,  
 
A couple of quick points. I would be careful about the use of the term "inflation," this
is a relatively new term in the history of monetary thought and can be defined in several
different ways, that is, as to its cause or to its effects. In the period literature that
you're using as original source documents, I would imagine there is word which refers to
money losing its value, depreciation, and, in this context, its connotation might refer to
money losing its value in terms of its metallic content rather than its market purchasing
power or value in exchange.  If this is so, my guess is that this is not an early
expression of the quantity theory of money, but rather that of the commodity theory of
money. For development of this latter doctrine, I would refer you to Irving Fisher's
theory for "standardizing" the dollar and Patinkin's discussion of Fisher's concept.  For
example, a King could sweat all coins in circulation for some of their metallic content
and put the extracted metal in his hoard, the commodity school would say the coins have
lost value while the quantity school would say their value remains unchanged unless either
the number of coins or their face value were change by the King.
 
Chas Anderson 
 
 
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