How He Weighed An Iron Gate

Once a dispute arose between some persons who had ordered for an iron gate and the blacksmith who had made it about the weight of the iron used therein. The man who had ordered for it said it was not the weight he had ordered for whereas the blacksmith said that it was. They could not obviously weigh such a huge gate there being no means available then to weigh such big things as there are today When the case was taken to Hazrat Ali (A) for a decision between the two opposite parties, he ordered them to place the gate on a boat and mark the point to which the water of tpe river rose on either side of the boat. The gate was then removed from the boat and some bags full ordates were loaded on the boat allowing the water to rise upto the point of her sides to which it had risen under the weight of the gate. He (A) then ordered them to weigh the bags of the dates in an ordinary scale and find out the weight of the gate thereby, because, he (A) said the weight of the gate would be the same as that of the weight of the total number of bags of the dates. Reference : Judgments of Hazrat Ali (as)