Letter: F 1908.44Y + F 1908.44W

Description

Two fragments of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: no earlier than 1187 CE, based on the mention of the Nāṣirī dirham. Addressed to a community or group of people. The first few words of ~60 lines are preserved. The left side is missing. Opens with an eloquent Hebrew introduction, greetings to "our rabbis," and then perhaps the beginning of a letter of recommendation for a certain Manṣūr, who was among the important men of a certain city. The dīwān charged him [... and] 17 Nāṣirī dirhams. and now he is penniless and cannot support his children. The letter goes on to mention the physician of the sultan; a price of 100 dirheas; something witnessed by all the elders of Aleppo; bonesetters (raddādīn); al-Nafīs Ibn al-S[...]; Abū l-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-[...]; and Ibn ʿUlayq. Verso: The letter was subsequently torn, and a cantor or some other person used the back to write out in a large cursive hand, as if for posting on the wall, what seems to be the first word or the first two words of certain prayers and pizmonim. (Information in part from Gottheil-Worrell, Fragments from the Cairo Genizah, p. 100.)