State document: ENA 3974.3
State document ENA 3974.3Tags
Description
Petition to the Fatimid ruler Sitt al-Mulk. Dating (Rustow): 411–14/1021–24. In which the otherwise unknown Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥasan complains that a local amīr has confiscated his grain. He asks that it be intercepted via a decree (tawqīʿ) before it reaches the port of Giza. On verso is a series of Hebrew biblical verses (Zach. 3:5–4:9) with the Aramaic translation (targum) added after each verse. The scribe who copied the biblical passages has glued this petition to another petition to Sitt al-Mulk, Bodl. MS Heb. 18/23 (PGPID 39034), to form a single rotulus. This fact suggests that the two petitions may have survived together in an archive (Rustow). A small triangle of the Bodleian petition has remained attached to the JTS petition. (Information from Marina Rustow's analysis and edition.)
Edition: Rustow, Marina
Translation: Rustow, Marina (in English)
ENA 3974.3 1
Transcription
Marina Rustow, "The Fatimid Petition," Jewish History 32 (n.p.: Springer Nature, 2019), 351-372.Recto
- عبدها يحيى بن الحسن من ناحية < >
- بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
- اعلم مولاتنا السيدة خلد الله ملكَها وثبت عزها ببقا مولانا وسيدنا
- الامام الظاهر لاعزاز دين الله امير المؤمنين صلوات الله عليه وعلى ابائه
- الطاهرين[vacat] اني تحت ضر وفاقة من قلة القوت وعلف الحمار واني
- احتاج في كل يوم خبز وعلف للدابة بثلثين درهما كل ليلة فلما
- طال عليّ ذلك حملت ولدي على العـون ودفعت له ماية دينار
- وانفذته الى مدينة الفيوم يشتري بها قمح او شعير ناكله
- فجااني الخبر بانه قد ابتاع بها سبعين تليس قمح ونسبها
- لمولاي الامير ابي محمد الـحسن بن ثقة الدولة ادام الله عزه وانا
- اسل مولاتنا خلد الله ملكها وثبت عزها التوجيه للقائد
- خصي باخذ توقيع منه باطلاقها ساعة وصولها للجيزة
- فان تاخر ذلك عني ذهب تعبـ{ـة} عبدها ولدي ورجعت الى
- عيلة مولاتنا فان عندنا ⟦ما⟧ من العيال ما لو ابصرتهم
- لرحمتهم ولولا اظاقة البأس لما تثقلت على مولاتنا
- في شي وان كان لا يثقل علىّ كرمها شي لانها موصـوفة
- بالكرم والاحسان الجـزيل والمعروف الـبين
- ولمولاتنا الكريمة عالي الراي في اجابة عبدها فيما سال
- [الحمد لله وحده وصلواته على سيدنا محمد وسلم تسـ]ـلـ[ـيمـ]ـا
Translation
Marina Rustow, "The Fatimid Petition," Jewish History 32 (n.p.: Springer Nature, 2019), 351-372.Recto
- Her slave Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥasan from the district of <scribe has omitted place name>:
- In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.
- I inform our mistress, the lady—may God make her dominion eternal and strengthen her loftiness in the permanence of our master and lord
- the imam al-Ẓāhir li-iʿzāz dīn Allāh, Commander of the Faithful, the prayers of God be upon him and his pure
- fathers—that I am in distress and need due to shortage of food and fodder for the donkey, and that
- each day I require bread and fodder for my riding animal in the amount of thirty dirhams per night. And when
- I had endured this (shortage) for (too) long, I convinced my son to help.
- I gave him one hundred dīnārs and sent him to Madīnat al-Fayyūm to buy wheat or barley there for us to eat.
- Then the news reached me that he had bought with them (the hundred dīnārs) seventy sacks of wheat and given them over
- to my lord the amīr Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Thiqat al-Dawla, may God prolong his power. I
- am asking our lady—may God make her dominion eternal and strengthen her power—to send a eunuch
- to the district governor to take a decree from him releasing them (the sacks of wheat) as soon as they reach Giza.
- If he holds it up from me (the permission to release the sacks of wheat), the toil of her servant my son will be in vain, and I will return to
- the support of our lady, since our household has so many dependents that were she to see them,
- she would have compassion toward them (and relieve their suffering). Were it not for the oppression of misery, I would not have imposed upon our lady
- in any way, even though her magnanimity does not weigh heavily on me at all, since she is characterized
- by magnanimity and abundant benefaction and manifest kindness.
- And to our gracious mistress belongs the lofty resolution in answering her servant in what he has requested.
- [Praise be to God, the only, and his prayers and pe]a[c]e [upon our lord Muḥ ammad.]