Letter: T-S Ar.38.109

Description

Letter in Arabic script. Fragment (lower part only). Dating: Maybe Ayyubid-era, based on typical names and titles, but this is a guess. The alifs and lāms and ابيs are especially stylized, with long loops to the the right of the vertical stroke. Where this fragment begins, the sender is greeting two people (ادام الله عزهما). Mentions: "the time of his travel to Damascus" (وقت سيره الى دمشق); someone named Ṣāfī(?); Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā; al-Shaykh Abū l-Faḍl; greetings to Abū l-ʿAlāʾ; to [...]; to Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf; to Abū ʿAlī Ismāʿīl; and to Abū l-Faraj al-Muqaddasī. One of the requests in the letter is for the sender and/or his companion (rafīq) Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā to be allowed to join the addressee or somebody else's traveling group. Needs further examination to understand the substance of the letter. On verso there is an Aramaic targum of Jeremiah 1:17–19. (Information in part from FGP.)