Letter: T-S 16.6

Description

Verso: Letter in Arabic script. Dating: possibly late 11th century, based on Frenkel's identification of the addressee. An unidentified sender wrote this letter to a friend in Alexandria, urging him to send him a poem (qaṣīda) the latter composed. The sender, himself a cantor and lover of poetry, copies out half of a comical Hebrew poem of his, written in praise of Abū l-Faraj Hiba of the Ibn Naḥum family. Frenkel identifies the sender as Avraham b. Sahlān (b. Avraham b. Sahlān) the descendant of Sunbāṭ, i.e., the grandson of the Avraham b. Sahlān who was the head of the Babylonian congregation in Fustat until the year 1030. However, the abbreviation נבע appears after Avraham's name, indicating that he is deceased, and this would also be an unusual place for the sender of a letter to sign his name. Goitein suggests that the sender could be Yoshiyya b. Neḥemya b. Avraham b. Sahlān b. Avraham b. Sahlān b. Avraham b. Shelomo b. Shabbat/Sunbāṭ, whose genealogy is given on BL OR 5557A.47–58, at fols. 51r and 57v/58r (cited in Mann, Jews, vol. II, 101–02), but this too seems difficult to prove. (Information in part from Frenkel and Goitein's index card.)