رسالة: AIU XII.86

رسالة AIU XII.86

بيانات التعريف

علامة الرف
AIU XII.86
تاريخ الوثيقة
اللغة الأساسية
Arabic

What's in the PGP

  • 1 Transcription
  • 1 Translation

الوصف

Letter in Arabic addressed to Ibrahim ʿAdda/ʿĀdāh in Cairo, from Yūsuf and Fransīs Zakkār. Dated 14 December 1802 (18 Sha'ban 1217). See AIU XII.82, another letter to the same recipient, from five years later. In the introduction to her edition, Jane Hathaway notes: "AIU XII.86 is a business letter, dated Shaʿbān 1217 AH/December 1802 CE, to the Jewish coral merchant Muʿallim Ibrāhīm ʿĀdāh, who appears to be quite a prominent member of Cairo’s Jewish community.... The writers are Yūsuf and Fransīs Zakkār (Zechariah), who could be either Jewish or Christian.... Yūsuf and Fransīs are Ibrāhīm’s business partners, travelling to sell goods. At the time of writing, they are in an unspecified location, trying to sell gum arabic, a gum derived from the sap of acacia trees, that Ibrāhīm has shipped to them from his base in Cairo, packed in baskets.... Ibrāhīm has sent this gum arabic to Yūsuf and Fransīs as compensation for a box of coral (or a coral box) that they had shipped to him earlier." (Hathaway, Ottoman-Era Documents from the Cairo Geniza, 237-240) The surname Zakkār as well as Yūsuf and Fransīs Zakkār, specifically, appear in at least two other geniza business letters from the early nineteenth century. A Se[nyor] Zakkār (זכאר) appears in ll. 25 and 75 of T-S 13J25.24 (Khan 2006, reads instead as Zabad זבאד). Yūsuf and Fransīs Zakkār are mentioned in AIU VII.E.138, l. 18 (left side) with a variety of references to Se[nyor] Zakkar, such as: ll. 9, 15, 26 (left side). An Armenian merchant family with the surname "Zaccar" (Italianate sp.) is known to have maintained business ties between the Adriatic and Egypt by the late eighteenth century. The contemporary scholar Daniele Andreozzi, mentions a certain Teodoro Zaccar who was based in Trieste and Cairo, and the activities of family members Giuseppe (Joseph/Yūsuf) and Abdula Zaccar in Damietta and Alexandria during the 1780s. Based on the points of potential overlap in nomenclature, this could be the same merchant family referenced in geniza letters. MCD. Daniele Andreozzi, "'Non desiderate da'turchi'. Talleri di Maria Teresa, finanzieri e mercanti lungo le rotte del Levante (XVIII secolo)," MAGALLÁNICA 5, no. 9 (2018): 315-316.

Related Places

Destination
Cairo

العلامات

Additional metadata

Collection
Alliance Israélite Universelle
Historical shelfmarks
AIU XII 86
تاريخ الإدخال
In PGP since 2020
صورة
النصوص المفرّغة
الترجمة

AIU XII.86 recto

°
recto
Jane Hathaway, Ottoman-Era Documents from the Cairo Genizah (Open Book Publishers, 2026).

Recto

  1. الى جناب حضرة محبنا العزيز الاكرم المعلم ابراهيم عاداه المكرم حفظه الله تعالى وابقاه
  2. بعد وفور الشوق لحضرتكم بكل خير وعافية قباسة [؟] باس الاوقات وصلنا عزيز مكتوبكم
  3. المحرر في ١٦ الماضي وحمدناه تعالى لتمام صحتكم المرغوبة ولا تواخذونا بعاقة الجواب فهو
  4. من اشتغال البال وتربيط الايدي في وجود التشويش الطاعون الذي تظاهر هنا
  5. شي بغير وقته وراجيين من الله تعالى ارتفاعه بدخول الايام الباردة ولا يمتد
  6. ونرجوا منه تعالى الحماية ونسالكم الدعا وعدم المواخذة بعاقة الجواب وقبول العذر
  7. وقد صار معلومنا وصول كتابنا اليكم واحاطة فهمكم مطلوبنا بالباقي من ثمن
  8. صندوق المرجان صمغ سناري فاخذتوه لنا وعبيتوه اربعة اقفاص وعلم
  9. الوزن والثمن والمصروف وصلنا مع الاربعة اقفاص الصمغ وقيدناهم لمحبتكم
  10. قدامنا كونوا مصاقبة ويشكر الله فضلكم وهمتكم وانما كنا نترجا يكون سعر
  11. الصمغ فرط عنما اخذتوه لانه هنا انباع صمغ سناري طيب سعر ٢٣-٢٥ على ١٠٠ ...
  12. والعيار ٦٠ ط كل قفص واسعاره بالبيكوريا [؟] هبطت بالمره وانباع هناك سعر ٢٠
  13. الله تعالى يعوض على الناس خير وصندوقة المرجان التي حضرت لنا الان هي صغيرة
  14. ومحزمة وعرفنا بسببكم المعلم بخور يخبركم عنها انكان تريدوا توكلوه ياخذها
  15. لكم عرفونا والمادة [؟] قريبة ما تحرز وربنا يجيب بخير واحوال طرفنا على حالها وما
  16. نجد نعرفكم القصد اتصال علوم صحتكم شرفونا بخدمكم اهدوا سلامنا ومزي
  17. شوقنا لمحبنا العزيز الخواجة ابراهيم تلكي[؟] والمعلم مشمشر [؟] والى تابعكم.

Signature

  1. لمحبتكم المحبين
  2. يوسف وفرنسيس
  3. زکار

Right margin, perpendicular

  1. ١٨ في شعبان سنة ١٢١٧

Right margin, upside-down

  1. المعلم شمويل وهنا المحبين يسلمون عليكم
  2. والله تعالى يحفظهم وي...كم والسلام
Jane Hathaway, Ottoman-Era Documents from the Cairo Genizah (Open Book Publishers, 2026).

Recto

 

  1. To his excellency, our dear friend, the most noble Muʿallim Ibrāhīm ʿĀdāh the revered, may God the exalted preserve and keep him.

  2. After [expressing] our copious longing for your excellency, with best wishes and fecund [?] health at all times: we have received your noble letter,

  3. written on the 16th past, and we praise [Go]d the exalted for your complete good health. Don’t blame us for the delay in replying, for

  4. our minds have been preoccupied and our hands have been bound by the disorder: the plague that has appeared here,

  5. an untimely thing, and we ask God the exalted to remove it with the coming of cold days, and that it may not last much longer.

  6. We implore the protection of [Go]d the exalted and ask for your prayers, and that you not blame us for the delay in replying but accept our excuse.

  7. We are apprised of your receipt of our letter informing you of our request for the remainder of the price

  8. of the box of coral [payable in] Sennārī gum arabic. You got it for us and packed [it in] four baskets of known

  9. weight and price and expenditure. We received the gum with the four baskets and registered them to your belovedness.

  10. May we be face-to-face in affinity, and God is thanked [for] your favour and your zeal. We were hoping that the price

  11. for the gum would be more than what you got it for, be- cause here, high-quality Sennārī gum has sold for a price of 23–25 per 100 ... [perhaps a unit of measure].

  12. The standard measure is 60 [qirā]ṭs per basket, and prices have absolutely dropped in al-Bīkūryā [? a place name], whereas there, it is selling for a price of 20,

  13. may God the exalted recompense the people with good. The [vendor’s] box of coral that we have just received is small

  14. and wrapped up, and Muʿallim Bakhūr informed us, regarding you, that he will apprise you of it; if you wish [lit., ‘if you were wishing’] to appoint him [as agent] to acquire it

  15. for you, inform us. The material [?] is nearby; don’t worry, and may our Lord respond with good. Our status is the same.

  16. We can’t stress enough our desire to know that you are in good health.  Honour us with your service. Convey our greetings and our copious

  17. longing for our dear friend Khwāja Ibrāhīm Tilki [?] and Muʿallim Mushamshir [?] and to your client[s].

Signature

  1. From your loving friends,
  2. Yūsuf and Fransīs
  3. Zakkār

Right margin, perpendicular

  1. on 18 Shaʿban 1217 [14 December 1802]

Right margin, upside-down

  1. Muʿallim Samuel and Hanā, the friends, greet you,

  2. May God the exalted preserve you and ... you, and peace.

AIU XII.86 verso

°
verso

Verso: Address

  1. بمشيته تعالى
  2. يصل المحروسة مصر يسلم ليد الاعز محبنا العزيز المعلم ابراهيم عاداه
  3. المراجيني بالخير

Verso: Address

  1. With the will of [Go]d the exalted,

  2. may it arrive in Cairo the well-protected and be delivered soundly to the mighty hand of our dear friend Muʿallim Ibrāhīm ʿĀdāh,

  3. the coral merchant.

Alliance Israélite Universelle, AIU XII.86. Available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/30997/ (accessed June 5, 2026).