Letter: Bodl. MS heb. d 66/108

Description

Letter from Shemuel b. Avraham al-Majjānī, probably in Aden, to (Abū Zikrī) Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yosef, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer has sent spices to the addressee with Abū Isḥāq b. Siwār al-Muslim. He asks him to sell them and give the proceeds to Abū Naṣr b. Elishaʿ, who should give 2 dinars to the writer's mother and the rest to his wife. He reports on the the aṣḥāb (Nahray and Ibn Nufayʿ and Ibn al-Yatīm and al-Fāsī and a Jew whom the writer did not know) who were traveling with ʿAlī al-Dībājī and speculates that perhaps they were detained in Dahlak, because they haven't caught up with the writer's party. He then crosses out that statement and writes above it, "they caught up with us the night of the mabīt (spending the night on board before sailing) to Aden." The writer wishes to travel on to al-Qaṣṣ (identified by Sebastian Prange as Bhadresvar in the Gulf of Kachh, in Gujarat—see Monsoon Islam, Table 4.1). When his ship had reached Bāb al-Mandab, the ruler (ṣāḥib) of Dahlak attacked the ship and plundered it, but let the merchants go. There is a postscript about smuggling Ibn al-Yatīm's coral through customs. ASE