State document: JRL Gaster ar. 360

Description

Copy of a petition in Arabic script addressed to al-Malik al-ʿAzīz Sayf al-Islām Ṭughtakīn, the second Ayyubid amir of Yemen (and brother of Saladin), r. 1182–97. Sent from Aden (verso, l3). The addressee's other titles include "sulṭān juyūsh al-muwaḥḥidīn... bahāʾ al-milla, naṣr al-umma, dhū l-faḍāʾil wa-l-manāqib, [...] amīr al-muʾminīn, abū l-fawāris, Ṭughtakīn al-Nāṣirī...." The petition refers to trading houses of 'the west' (or possibly 'of the Arabs') (matājir al-gharb or al-ʿarab); something "to the lands of Yemen" (ilā diyār al-Yaman); a request for justice for a group of people (al-inṣāf ʿalayhim); the arrival in Aden (madīnat ʿAdan) of al-Shaykh Abū ʿImrān b. Abū Saʿīd b. ʿAllūn (or Ghulayb?) the traveling trader (al-tājir al-mutaraddid) together with his Jewish colleagues who come out from Egypt and who come in from India (wa-jamāʿat al-yahūd aṣḥābuh al-ṣādirūn min Miṣr wa-l-wāridīn min al-Hind). These traders have enjoyed protection by the government (al-riʿāya... wa-l-ḥimāya...). (At this point the scribe skips to the next line because there were preexisting accounts jotted on the page.) They have been able to do business and prosper (ṣarf baḍāʾiʿihim wa-amwālihim(?) wa-maʿūnatihim ʿalā mā yatimm aḥwāluhum ʿalā ghāyat al-[...].... yataṣarrafūn bi-baḍāʾiʿihim bi-[...] wa-shirā...). But now there has been some reversal in their fortunes (al-taqallub fī aḥwālihim aʿāqahu...). Mentions a 'marsūm' in the next line, perhaps a request from the addressee to issue a decree/order to aid the Jewish merchants. See Roxani Margariti, Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade, p. 138, for a discussion of Ibn al-Mujāwir's account of Ṭughtakīn's involvement in trade (by instituting or enforcing the service of maritime patrols to protect the merchants from pirates and to charge the merchants a galley tax in exchange). ASE