State document: ENA NS 13.15

Description

Verso (original use): Petition in Arabic script in a chancery hand. Fragment from the middle of the document. Refers to the well-known Jewish leader [Daniel b.] ʿAzarya al-Dāʾūdī (second half of the 11th century) and to the addressee's benefactions in the administration of the Fatimid state: "...wa-bi-sāʾir aʿmāl al-dawla al-Nabawiyya wa-tummimat al-niʿma ʿa[lā ...]... al-ṭāhir...." Then asks for a mighty decree confirming the continued benefaction of registering something (bi-manshūr muʿaẓẓam muqirr bi-dawām niʿmat ithbātih) in the Majlis al-Ḥimāya and at least one other majlis. Rustow has translated ḥimāya in another context as "law enforcement" in Lost Archive p. 209, and Bauden notes that the term can refer to a tax of circulation on the Nile ("Le Transport de Marchandises et de Personnes sur le Nil," p. 125 note 117). See also Claude Cahen, “Notes pour l’histoire de la ḥimāya" (1956) and Jürgen Paul, "Ḥimāya Revisited" (2020) (https://journals.openedition.org/anisl/7518?lang=en). See also T-S Misc.8.67 for a similar-looking Arabic-script document involving Daniel b. ʿAzarya (but not a join). On the other side there is a Judaeo-Arabic letter by the same scribe who wrote T-S K25.244 (and several others), known to have been an ardent supporter of Daniel b. ʿAzarya (so it is probably related).