Aghac (tree, wood, and a measure of distance)

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Aghac is a Turkic word meaning 'tree' and 'wood' in Ottoman Turkish. In eastern Turkic it also named a measure of distance, the parasang, which al-Kashgari gives as the distance at which a man standing between two others can be heard; later writers put its value at between about six and seven kilometres 1.

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Summary

Aghac is a Turkic word for "tree" and "wood". In eastern Turkic it also names a measure of distance, the parasang.

Encyclopaedia of Islam account

In Ottoman Turkish aghac means "tree" and "wood". The eastern Turkic forms yighac and yighač are the more frequent; al-Kashgari records only yighač, which in his usage means "tree", "wood", the male member and the parasang. Radloff also records the forms yighat, aghač, aghatz, aghas and yaghač, with the same meanings of "tree" and "wood" and as a measure of distance. 1

Al-Kashgari describes the parasang as three times the distance at which a man standing between two others can make himself heard by them. Its value was given in different ways: as two cubits (karl) in a verse of Mir 'Ali Shir Nawa'i; as a Spanish league or four Italian miles by Pietro della Valle; as six kilometres by Flandin and Costa; and as between six and seven Russian versts by Radloff. 1

Sources

  1. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 1 p. 269
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islam.museum contributors. “Aghac (tree, wood, and a measure of distance)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/aghac/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-25.

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