رسالة: T-S Ar.40.38

الوصف

Notebook of a merchant, containing mainly letter drafts or copies interspersed with poems, anecdotes, accounts, and the opening formulary of a petition to a vizier. In Arabic script with some jotted Hebrew characters in the margins. Cited in passing in Khan, "The Arabic Fragments in the Cambridge Genizah collections," p. 58 n. 17. Joins with T-S Ar.39.11 (PGPID 20768). (Information in part from FGP.) AA/ASE The documentary sections are as follows: P1 recto - right page: mentions previous correspondence with an order for a good. At the bottom refers to "Abū ʿAlī my son." P1 verso - left page: letter to a son, reporting receipt of 75 dinars and 24 pounds of gallnuts with Abū l-Mansūr. In the next section the sender reports having asked God for guidance (استخرت الله كثيرا) and sending the vast sum of 1400 dinars to the addressee, which should be conveyed to the "house" (dār) of the agent (wakīl) Muḥammad b. [...]. P2 verso - right page: account, possibly fiscal. P4 recto - right page: reports that on this blessed holiday the sender has sent with Abū l-Maʿālī 25 dinars for purchasing flour (daqq) from Tinnīs and Damietta. P4 recto - left page: refers to oil, sending goods/money only with a trusted messenger, and having written this note on Tuesday the 26th of Dhū l-Qaʿda. (Together with the date Friday the 26th of Rabīʿ II from T-S Ar.39.11 this may help pinpoint the year.) There follows the beginning of another letter to the amīr Thiqat al-Mulk wa-ʿUmdat al-Aḥkām with holiday blessings and reporting something about Abū Naṣr (or Saʿd?) the wakīl. P4 verso - right page: mentions 94 dinars and again the 1400 dinars, this time describing it as a loss (انكسر عليه). Also refers to a house and Abū l-Faraj. At the bottom there is the beginning of another letter to the son. P4 verso - left page: the beginning of a letter to the son. P5 verso - right page: a narration (قال اخبرني عبد الله بن عبد العزيز) about Baṣra, the king, and the ḥajj. P5 verso - left page: reporting the receipt of an account (thabat) of what the addressee had sent with Abū ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Jashiʿ al-ʿAṭṭār, namely the same 1400 dinars, as well as 20-something sacks of flax, 100 of something else, and 100 qinṭārs of gallnuts. Then mentions a previous order. P6 recto: the opening of a petition to a vizier (al-ḥaḍra al-ʿāliya al-mālikiyya al-manṣūra al-sayyidiyya al-ajalliyya al-afḍaliyya al-juyūshiyya al-sayfiyya etc.), with some rarer blessings. P7 recto: small section of a letter, minimal content. P7 verso: reporting the sending of a sum of money with Abū l-Ḥasan.