رسالة: AIU XII.87

الوصف

Letter in Arabic addressed to Muhammad Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār in Cairo, from a certain Hajj Muhammad ʿAshrī al-ʿAṭṭār. Dated 16 April 1808 CE (19 Safar 1223 AH). In the introduction to her edition, Jane Hathaway notes: "This Genizah document is somewhat unusual because it is a letter, dated 1223 AH/1808 CE, from one Muslim to another. Moreover, writer and recipient share an occupational laqab: al-ʿAṭṭār, ‘the perfumer’ or ‘the druggist’. The recipient is Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār, who, in addition to being a sayyid, or descendant of the Prophet Muḥammad, is a perfumer or druggist, as his laqab implies.... The writer of our letter is another ʿaṭṭār: al-Ḥājj Muḥammad ʿAshrī al-ʿAṭṭār, who may be related to Sayyid Muḥammad or simply another druggist/perfumer or the descendant of one. He writes regarding repayment of loans to Sayyid Muḥammad. Say- yid Muḥammad had made a loan of 12,000 fiḍḍa, a shorthand reference to the niṣf fiḍḍa, the standard Egyptian silver coin, to the Jewish merchant Muʿallim Shimʿūn Fransīs, an international trader who ran a Cairo-based commercial company with his part- ner, Mercado Karo.... Sayyid Muḥammad had also made a separate loan of 5,800 niṣf fiḍḍa in ‘large silver qurūsh’.... Initially, Muḥammad ʿAshrī had thought that both loans had been to Fransīs and that therefore Sayyid Muḥammad could simply collect the total amount and return Fransīs’ deposit, that is, the collateral that he had given Sayyid Muḥammad to secure the loan. The current letter reveals that Muḥammad ʿAshrī had been mistaken: he himself had negotiated the 5,800-fiḍḍa loan, securing it with a deposit of obsolete coins: 100 Venetian gold ducats, or bunduqīs (recto l. 10)." (Hathaway, Ottoman-Era Documents from the Cairo Genizah, 250-252)