State document: ENA 3974.3

State document ENA 3974.3

Metadata

Shelfmark
ENA 3974.3
Editor
Marina Rustow, "The Fatimid Petition," Jewish History 32 (2019).
Inferred Date
Primary Languages
Arabic
Aramaic
Hebrew

Tags

Additional metadata

Historical shelfmarks
ENA 3974, fol. 3; ENA 3974, f. 3
Input date
In PGP since 2017

Description

Petition to the Fatimid ruler Sitt al-Mulk. Dating (Rustow): 411–14/1021–24. In which the otherwise unknown Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥasan complains that a local amīr has confiscated his grain. He asks that it be intercepted via a decree (tawqīʿ) before it reaches the port of Giza. On verso is a series of Hebrew biblical verses (Zach. 3:5–4:9) with the Aramaic translation (targum) added after each verse. The scribe who copied the biblical passages has glued this petition to another petition to Sitt al-Mulk, Bodl. MS Heb. 18/23 (PGPID 39034), to form a single rotulus. This fact suggests that the two petitions may have survived together in an archive (Rustow). A small triangle of the Bodleian petition has remained attached to the JTS petition. (Information from Marina Rustow's analysis and edition.)

ENA 3974.3 1

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Transcription

Marina Rustow, "The Fatimid Petition," Jewish History 32 (n.p.: Springer Nature, 2019), 351-372.

Recto

  1. عبدها يحيى بن الحسن من ناحية  < >  
  2. بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
  3. اعلم مولاتنا السيدة خلد الله ملكَها وثبت عزها ببقا مولانا وسيدنا 
  4. الامام الظاهر لاعزاز دين الله امير المؤمنين صلوات الله عليه وعلى ابائه 
  5. الطاهرين[vacat]  اني تحت ضر وفاقة من قلة القوت وعلف الحمار واني
  6. احتاج في كل يوم خبز وعلف للدابة بثلثين درهما كل ليلة فلما
  7. طال عليّ ذلك حملت ولدي على العـون ودفعت له ماية دينار
  8. وانفذته الى مدينة الفيوم يشتري بها قمح او شعير ناكله
  9. فجااني الخبر بانه قد ابتاع بها سبعين تليس قمح ونسبها
  10. لمولاي الامير ابي محمد الـحسن بن ثقة الدولة ادام الله عزه وانا
  11. اسل مولاتنا خلد الله ملكها وثبت عزها التوجيه للقائد 
  12. خصي باخذ توقيع منه باطلاقها ساعة وصولها للجيزة
  13. فان تاخر ذلك عني ذهب تعبـ{ـة} عبدها ولدي ورجعت الى
  14. عيلة مولاتنا فان عندنا ⟦ما⟧ من العيال ما لو ابصرتهم
  15. لرحمتهم ولولا اظاقة البأس لما تثقلت على مولاتنا
  16. في شي وان كان لا يثقل علىّ كرمها شي لانها موصـوفة
  17. بالكرم والاحسان الجـزيل والمعروف الـبين
  18. ولمولاتنا الكريمة عالي الراي في اجابة عبدها فيما سال
  19. [الحمد لله وحده وصلواته على سيدنا محمد وسلم تسـ]ـلـ[ـيمـ]ـا

Translation

Marina Rustow, "The Fatimid Petition," Jewish History 32 (n.p.: Springer Nature, 2019), 351-372.

Recto

  1. Her slave Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥasan from the district of <scribe has omitted place name>:
  2. In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate.
  3. I inform our mistress, the lady—may God make her dominion eternal and strengthen her loftiness in the permanence of our master and lord
  4. the imam al-Ẓāhir li-iʿzāz dīn Allāh, Commander of the Faithful, the prayers of God be upon him and his pure
  5. fathers—that I am in distress and need due to shortage of food and fodder for the donkey, and that
  6. each day I require bread and fodder for my riding animal in the amount of thirty dirhams per night. And when
  7. I had endured this (shortage) for (too) long, I convinced my son to help.
  8. I gave him one hundred dīnārs and sent him to Madīnat al-Fayyūm to buy wheat or barley there for us to eat.
  9. Then the news reached me that he had bought with them (the hundred dīnārs) seventy sacks of wheat and given them over
  10. to my lord the amīr Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Thiqat al-Dawla, may God prolong his power. I
  11. am asking our lady—may God make her dominion eternal and strengthen her power—to send a eunuch
  12. to the district governor to take a decree from him releasing them (the sacks of wheat) as soon as they reach Giza.
  13. If he holds it up from me (the permission to release the sacks of wheat), the toil of her servant my son will be in vain, and I will return to
  14. the support of our lady, since our household has so many dependents that were she to see them,
  15. she would have compassion toward them (and relieve their suffering). Were it not for the oppression of misery, I would not have imposed upon our lady
  16. in any way, even though her magnanimity does not weigh heavily on me at all, since she is characterized
  17. by magnanimity and abundant benefaction and manifest kindness.
  18. And to our gracious mistress belongs the lofty resolution in answering her servant in what he has requested.
  19. [Praise be to God, the only, and his prayers and pe]a[c]e [upon our lord Muḥ ammad.]

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    • ENA 3974.3: Images provided by the Jewish Theological Seminary Library (JTSL) CC-Zero / Public Domain
    https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/19304/