Legal document: T-S Ar.41.105

Legal document T-S Ar.41.105

Metadata

Shelfmark
T-S Ar.41.105
Editor
Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (1993).
Primary Language
Arabic

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Input date

In PGP since 2017

Description

Legal query addressed to a Muslim jurisconsult concerning the changes in synagogue ritual introduced by Avraham Maimonides. The senders of the query object to the innovations and hope that the Muslim government will also disapprove. See also AIU XI.258, one of the draft versions of this query. On verso there is a Hebrew liturgical text, possibly in the hand of Yedutun ha-Levi (compare Bodl. MS heb. b 13/41, written in his hand, one of the key documents of the prayer reform controversy). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

T-S Ar.41.105 1r

1r

Transcription

Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Translation

Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

T-S Ar.41.105 1v

1v

Verso

  1. بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم 
  2. ما يقول السادة الفقها ائمة الدين و هداة المسلمين و فقهم الله توفيق العارفين في قوم يهود 
  3. ربابين لهم كبيسة من الدهور المديدة و السنين [الــــ]ـــــعديدة على السيرة و المنهاج الذى بناها بانوها 
  4. عليه و لم تزل على منهاجها و رسومها و سننها و سرتها في قراة ما يقرا قيها و ما يصلا به في السنة
  5. من الايام و السبوتات و الاعياد الى الان ولها مصلى يقيم بامورها خلف سلف و جماعتهم راضون
  6. بذلك فتحزبوا قوم لتغيير منهاجها و ابطال سننها و ابدال صلواتها و مصادرة المصلى
  7. بها و ان يحدث فيها ما لم تجر به عادة و جماعتها و المصلى بها متمسكون بما هم عليه هل
  8. يجوز ان يغير عليهم و يحدث ما لم تجر به عادة و اضرار الرجل المصلى بها لينتقل عما هو
  9. عليه و هل يجوز تغيير و احداث في ايام الاسلام دامها الله و ان تقوا الذين غيروا
  10. ما الذى يلزمهم افتنا يرحمكم الله

Verso

  1. In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate.  
  2. What do our lords, the jurisconsults, the imāms of the religion and guides of the  Muslims, may God grant the success of wise men, say concerning the following. 
  3. A community of Rabbanite Jews have a synagogue of great age that still stands  after many years standing with the structure and form with which its builders built it.   
  4. It still continues the customs, rites and traditional procedures regarding the  readings and prayers throughout the year,  
  5. on weekdays, Sabbaths and festivals. It has a prayer leader administering its affairs who has followed (the customs of) his predecessors and the corrununity is content
  6. with this. People (from among them) have worked in concert to change its  customs, stop its traditions, alter its prayers and coerce the prayer leader,  
  7. so that an unprecedented innovation be made, while the community and the  prayer leader wish to continue the status quo. Is  
  8. it permissible for unprecedented changes to be made to their traditions and for  the prayer leader to be forced to abandon what is customary.  
  9. Is it permissible for change and innovation to be made in the days of Islam, may  God canse them to endure, even if those who effect the change are pious.  
  10. What action should be taken with regard to them. Grant us your opinion, may God have mercy upon you. 
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