Legal document: MS 8254, fol. 15

Description

Legal document. Dated: Av 4959 AM, which is 1199 CE. Location: Probably Alexandria, where legal documents in this period tend to be dated according to the anno mundi calendar as opposed to the Seleucid calendar used in Fustat and the other towns of Egypt. Concerns Sitt al-Gharb bt. Yehuda, the divorcee of Abū Naṣr Elʿazar ha-Kohen b. Shelomo al-Ṣayrafī al-Miṣrī. Friedman has synthesized her story based on (a) T-S 8.239 + Bodl. MS heb. a 3/36 (her ketubba, drawn up in Qūṣ); (b) T-S NS J455 (a court record from Aleppo, 1189 CE, in which Abū Naṣr agrees to send her a bill of divorce with the agent Avraham ha-Talmid b. Ḥananel); (c) Moss. VII,75 (that very bill of divorce, which reached its destination); and (d) MS 8254, fol. 15, the present document. Sitt al-Gharb has remarried. Her new husband, Abū l-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm, wishes to do business with the half-house that belongs to Sitt al-Gharb. Apparently she was not in agreement. This document certifies that the husband should be prohibited from doing anything with her property until an order arrives from Maimonides. Maimonides is titled "Rayyis" in this document, as he had returned to the post of the Head of the Jews by this date (though 'rayyis' is also sometimes used for any respected physician or dignitary). Information from Friedman's 1988 article, pp. 181–85.