Letter: T-S Ar.40.196

Description

Copy of the beginning of a letter addressed to a religious authority. In Arabic, written in ornate prose. The layout is literary; it may have been part of a codex with the continuation on the next folio. The sender reports that he read and then returned (aʿadtu) to the sender the "answers to the queries" (ajwibat al-masāʾil) — presumably the responsa/fatwās for legal queries — which the sender had previously requested from the addressee. He continues with praise for the wisdom of the addressee, "I saw in [the responsa] his overflowing knowledge, his piercing understanding, the fruit of his thoughts, and the blossoming of his insights, which please the ears with their beauty and surpass the minds in their understanding." The grateful sender has offered prayers on behalf of the addressee and on behalf of Ibn Isḥāq.