رسالة: ENA 4194.3

الوصف

Letter from Maḥrūz b. Yaʿaqov, in Fustat, to his in-law Abū Zikrī Kohen, in Alexandria. Dating: Sunday, 15 Jumāda = 16 Adar, which is probably 3 March 1135 CE. The letter is an urgent warning advising Abū Zikrī to take all his merchandise out of a warehouse in Alexandria. "A business partner of Abu Zikrī's in Fustat was dying, and because of the lawlessness prevailing at that time in Egypt, Abu Zikrī's goods would be confiscated together with those of the dead man (before 1129, it seems). {The dying man, Abū Saʿīd, was related to Abu Zikrī's partner the well-known Alexandrian India trader Abu Naṣr b. Elishaʿ. Evidently, Abu Saʿīd did not have any heirs of the first degree, and the officials of the diwan al-mawārīth (line 5: aṣḥāb mawarif!), the Office of Estates, which took advantage ofsuch situations, were about to confiscate all ofhis belongings held by Abu Naṣr. Not taking any chances, the officials would sequester Abu Naṣr's assets and, moreover, those of Abū Zikrī, since the partners' holdings were stored together. The Head of the Yeshiva, certainly Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen, who in fact was apparently Abū Zikrī's cousin, personally conveyed the warning to Maḥrūz and instructed him to send immediately an urgent message to his brother-in-law Abū Zikrī. For this purpose, Maḥrūz hired a private courier (najjāb) to Alexandria by camel. In his letter, Maḥrūz tells Abū Zikrī to disregard costs and extricate his wares without delay. The warning is repeated in a postscript written after Musallam (see the previous document) informed the writer that the courier would not set out that night. The Head of the Yeshiva's warning is not related to Abu Zikri's urgent request to him in II, 58, since that letter was written several years after II, 59. No. II, 59 is dated Sunday, 15 Jumada. Since Maḥrūz urges Abu Zikri to return to Fustat to be with his family before the approaching holiday, the date can be fixed with a fair degree of certainty as March 2, 1135, when 15 Jumada I came four weeks before Passover. (I do not know why Goitein assumed the letter had been written before 1129.) As already noted, Maḥrūz was not accustomed to writing, and others penned for him most of his letters, which have been preserved, except for this one and V, 20. Because ofthe urgency ofthis letter, he evidently wrote it himself. His untrained hand, poor style and substandard language, replete with vulgar forms and other orthographic irregularities, prove the wisdom of his normal practice.}" Also of note: Maṣliaḥ Gaon is sick with "the stone" (al-ḥaṣā), i.e., a urinary stone (r17). On verso there are six lines of love poetry in Arabic script. Description based on India Book; see attached. ASE.