رسالة: DK 374

الوصف

Letter/petition. Draft. From Abū ʿAlī b. Abū l-ʿIzz to Avraham Maimonides, who bears the title "Nagid" (post-1213 CE). On recto there are two efforts at the same letter. One can see the writer working out the best way to phrase things. The prose is elaborate and often rhymed ('the reason for [some lapse] was the debts (al-duyūn) and not madness (al-junūn)'). In line 13, the writer gets to the point: he asks for forgiveness for something and asks for 'the strengthening of his heart' (ijbār qalb al-mamlūk) and something that will 'console' the writer (yaslūh) given what he has lost—typical phrases in the context of grief and letters of condolence, but plausibly also just asking for money. On verso there is the draft of a letter in Arabic script to 'my brother'—so not the same letter. Only the formulaic beginning is preserved. On verso there is also a list of names in Judaeo-Arabic: Ibn al-ʿŪdī Abū l-Ḥasan and his brothers Abū l-Faḍl and Abū l-ʿIzz, and his grandfather Abū l-Riḍā. Also Abū l-Majd b. Hibatallāh.