Letter: T-S 10J14.20 + T-S 10J19.20

Description

Letter from the sister of Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhmūrī, in Tripoli, Libya, to her brother Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhmūrī. In the handwriting of ʿAllūsh the shammash. Dating: ca. 1065. While Yeshuʿa is dealing with the import and export of goods, his sister asks for help because she is in a very bad situation. T-S 10J19.20 is another version of the same letter (differences are noted in curly brackets in this partial translation). "I have been waiting all year for a letter from you to learn your news. The fuyūj came, and I did not see a letter. {This increased the preoccupation of my heart.} I went out to inquire about your news, and they told me you were ill (ḍaʿīf). I went out of my mind. {I fasted and wept and did not change my clothing or enter the bath, neither I nor your sister.} I vowed not to eat during the day, not to change my clothing, and not to enter the bath, neither I nor my daughter, until your letter arrived with your news. The ships arrived, and I went down, with my hand on my heart, to hear your news. The men came down and told us that you were well. I thanked God who made the end good." Goitein, and later Krakowski, used this letter to illustrate the intense affective bonds between brother and sister, as well as the notion of fasting as an intercession for a loved one who is sick (Goitein, Med Soc V, p. 97). Yet it is also the case that their relationship has lapsed—the brother has not contacted the sister in a year, not even sending greetings in his letter to Tammām ("my heart was wounded by this"). In the meantime, she has fallen into terrible financial difficulties. Her vows of self-negation and insistent repetition of "I have nobody except God and you" are also a demonstration of how much the sister has suffered from the brother's behavior, how much she thinks about him despite his neglect, and an attempt to elicit a response from him at last. Regarding the specifics of her financial difficulties, see Krakowski, Coming of Age, p. 150, where the relevant passage is translated: "My brother, I have become embroiled in a quagmire from which I do not think we can be freed—I and a young orphan girl (i.e., her daughter). What occurred was that my son-in-law (i.e., the girl’s fiancé) wintered in Salerno and returned only with the Egyptian ships; then he said to me, “I will take the girl.” I said to him, “What are you thinking? As I was this year, I have nothing.” Then people advised me that I should borrow and incur debt (i.e., for a lavish dowry) and give her to him, because the Rūm (i.e., Normans) have burnt the world. Now . . . if free persons could be sold for dirhams, I would be the first to be sold, for I cannot describe my predicament to you . . . (I swear) by these lines that when Passover came I had not even a farthing’s worth of chard, nor even a dirham; instead I cut a nettle from the ruins and cooked it. . . . My brother, help me with some portion of this debt engulfing me—do not abandon me and do not forsake me." Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhmūrī, incidentally, was prone to illness: see also T-S 16.163 and T-S Misc.25.124 (as noted by Krakowski), and T-S 12.389 and BL OR 5542.20. (Information largely from Goitein, Gil, and Krakowski.) VMR. ASE.