Legal document: ENA 3960.9

Description

ENA 3960.6–10 are five distinct but related Mamlūk-era legal documents in Arabic script, all dated 909 H (1503/04 CE), and involving the same people (e.g., Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Khwājā Yūsuf b. al-Ḥājj ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Tājir al-Saffār(?) al-Ḥalabī) and the same witnesses (Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Qādir b. [...] and Ismāʿīl [...]). The document is a deed of sale pertaining to 15 black mayzars and 30 sufras for 14 dinars. The genre of the sale document is an iqrār, i.e., an acknowledgement which is also a sub-genre of with Islamic legal manuals (shurūṭ al-fiqh). It is an iqrār (acknowledgement) of ghubn (defect) and barāʾa, meaning that the buyer acknowledges and accepts any (possible) defects in the object of sale (ghubn) and the seller is ‘innocent’ (hence barāʾa) of any allegation of defect, or effective defect, in the object. (For reference, see Asyuṭī, Jawāhir al-Ūqūd). The style of mentioning the price of the object of sale and its half is a typical fashion of indicating prices in a sale deed to avoid any errors. The document is dated 20th Rabīʿ al-Awwal 909 H/21st September 1503 CE.