Letter: T-S Ar.39.55

Description

Letter in Arabic script, with one phrase in Hebrew script. From the medieval India trade. Dating: likely second half of the 12th century (mentions Ibn Daghīsh, who appears ca. 1180 CE in T-S Misc.28.187). The sender is a well-connected Jewish merchant, possibly writing from Yemen. He refers to the arrival of goods from Fanṣūr (=present-day Barus in NW Sumatra); to a trader in Malabar (Malībar), to his own meeting with Abū l-Maʿālī b. Abū ʿAlī Ibn al-Amshāṭī in Shingli (شنجلي) (present-day Kodungallur), and to how Abū l-Maʿālī gave him a power of attorney to collect goods on his behalf in Aden. Other names mentioned are Abū ʿImrān Ibn Nufayʿ (well-known from the published India Book documents, although from the first half of the 12th century - PG), al-Fāsī, possibly Bū Ṣāliḥ Mūsā, and Maḍmūn b. Isḥāq. ASE