(Umm Yūsuf) Sitt al-Dār bt. Avraham Ben Yijū

Description / Bio

Daughter of the freedwoman Ashū and the India trader Avraham Ben Yijū; born in India. After the deaths of her brothers, she (or rather, her future husband) inherited all her father's assets and business ventures. Even before she was to be his heir, Sitt al-Dār's marriage was an issue of import for her father. Soon after Avraham, Sitt al-Dār, and her brother Peraḥyā arrived in Aden (c. 1149), Avraham wrote to his brothers, requesting that they find out which of his siblings' sons would be the best groom. This letter reached only his brother Mevassēr, who was known to be irresponsible and did not answer or pass it on to the relevant siblings. Instead, Avraham betrothed Sitt al-Dār to the son of Adenese merchant Khalaf b. Bundār, who was the nephew of Avraham's trading partner Maḍmūn b. Ḥasan. While Avraham traveled to the Yemenite interior for some three years, Sitt al-Dār lived in the home of her future father-in-law in Aden, and the match seemed quite secure. But when Peraḥyā, Sitt al-Dār's oldest and only remaining brother, died, Avraham wished to keep his inheritance in the family, and he set out swiftly with Sitt al-Dār for Egypt. On the way, in ʿAydhāb, Avraham drafted a letter in which he wrote that his daughter "cries night and day over [Khalaf's son's] separation from her" and implied that they would return. Instead, he broke her betrothal to Khalaf's son--a great breach of trust--and renewed his efforts to reconnect with his brothers. Eventually Sitt al-Dār was betrothed to her cousin, the Torah scholar and future judge Peraḥyā b. Yosef, in Fustat. Their engagement was extended, likely by Avraham's disappointment with his nephew's lack of business sense, or, in Peraḥyā's words, lack of "hollow pomp and little pushiness". Sitt al-Dār did marry Peraḥyā, but only after her father had died. She had four children. (Information from Goitein & Friedman, India Book, pg. 78-82)