Letter: ENA 2558.29

Description

Letter/petition from a certain Yiṣḥaq to the Nagid David I Maimonides. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 10 Sivan [4]999 AM, which is 1239 CE. (Someone, perhaps Elkan Nathan Adler, incorrectly wrote "1339" on the manuscript.) The letter reports on a man who came from Alexandria and said that he had litigation against his wife and that he sued his wife using responsa of rabbi Yosef (?) so that she would be divorced without ketubba compensation. The ruling contained the idea that because she does not have menstrual periods, she is forbidden to her husband and should be divorced without a ketubba. However. Yiṣḥaq, who must have been the local judge, ruled according to the ruling of Maimonides (in Ishut 25:13) that this ruling pertains to a woman who is in this state from the beginning of the marriage, but if it happens after the marriage he must give a ketubba (נסתחפה שדהו) . When the husband heard this ruling he wanted to return to be married to her. However, he was prevented from doing so because of a condition in his ketubba that he will not marry [probably: another woman without] providing her her meʾuḥar even if it is she who wanted to divorce. In the remaining text it seems that an argument is made that there was erroneous qinyan (קניין בטעות).