Letter: T-S NS 288.179

Description

Recto: A private petition/letter in Arabic script from ʿAbdallāh b. Ṣāʿid to the son of al-Shaykh al-Thiqa, in Minyat Ziftā Jawād. Most of the addressee's honorifics (al-ḥaḍra al-sāmiya al-ajalliyya al-ʿāliya al-shaykhiyya al-sadīda al-saʿdiyya) are fairly routine; al-saʿdiyya is less common and may indicate that his name is Abū Saʿd or something like that. Both sender and addressee are probably Jewish, as the sender included a Hebrew-script זל (may his memory be for a blessing) after his father's name in the tarjama. Dating: probably 12th or 13th century (the date 570 AH = 1174/75 CE is mentioned in one of the jottings on the back, but it's hard to interpret this). Very little of the letter is preserved beyond the introduction. For some of the formulary, cf. T-S G1.26 (in Judaeo-Arabic). Verso: Underneath the address, there are jottings consisting of the drawing of an elephant, a scale of justice, and a quotation from an Arabic poem of al-Zawzanī (d. 1039) transcribed into Hebrew letters, followed by a quotation from the Mishnah.