Letter: T-S 10J12.20

Recto

1. I am writing to you, my lord and master — may God prolong your existence and make eternal your wellbeing, happiness and his protection for you — from 
2. Damsīs on the eve of Sukkot — may God grant you very many years and may you merit the coming of the redeemer, 
3. the building of Ariel and the ingathering of all Israel. I ask God to see you have a male child soon, amen. 
4. My physical health is good, but am beset by worry from all sides. I ask God for salvation
5. and benefactions. Neither my condition nor my clothing (are good), but worst of all is the paucity of means. I ask salvation from God
6. in his compassion, and that he make good what has gone wrong with me, for he has the power to do as he wills. It had been a long time since
7. I have seen a letter from you among the letters that arrive with Salāma. Then there arrived my lord Abū l-Faraj
8. Nissim b. Banāyā, may God be his support, and when I asked him about a letter, he said: He hasn't given me a letter, but he does
9. send you an assignment, and says: "In the name of God repeatedly, don't move, don't travel to Fusṭāṭ, don't trouble yourself, because they've built 
10. an edifice with the witness, and he has been appointed. He will bear false witness against me. This is grave assault. You also mentioned 
11. in your letters that arrived with Ibn Salāma what happened to you with the Christian, may God remember him only for what 
12. he deserves. I was bothered by your trouble with him and your telling him the truth as ʿAllūn used to tell it,
13. since he is a Christian and we are Jews, and he has no power of attorney whatsoever, since he is required to pay what 
14. it was worth and (for?) what his speech was worth. But the truth was cut off from Fustat. What he said
15. to you was that you would ask him to produce an accounting and letters and the testimony of Ibn Shaʿyā. He already
16. wrote to me in his letters that he would demand this. My lord Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Shāmī arrived. 
17. I asked him if he had a letter from you, my lord. He told me: He didn't give me anything, but he did tell him that what
18. my lord Nissim mentioned is (in fact) what happened. This was a month ago today, but
19. he (still) hasn't asked him to produce it. There was no point in speaking to him or in all this talk, because he acted
20. under pressure, doing and undoing, commanding and forbidding, but he had no choice at this time 
21. but to form a partnership with a dhimmī. But out of honesty and valor (murūʾa), he should have kept me in the partnership (ṣuḥba) and 
22. the mixed purse (mukhālaṭa), since his religion requires it. Then you mentioned that the conversation with him turned to you, my lord. 
23. We will not ask about him; he is a Christian and I am a Jew, and he is neither my colleague nor my heir nor 
24. a legal proxy. He has a tongue in his mouth and will say whatever he wants, he will unburden himself and look for someone to testify
25. and say what he believes to be true; but in the face of the truth, he will not be able to speak. As for me, I have a proof that I will bring. 
26. All the same, one must trust in the God of Israel. How much property has passed out of my possession (?)
27. for the West (?), and God protected and shielded (me) (?). The reason for all this was luckless money, but had 
28. I known that he would die, I wouldn't have done any of these things. But there is nothing to be done, 
29. and what is happening to me now is harder for me than anything that happened to me before. I ask God 
30. for redemption in his compassion, and he can say what he wants. I wanted

Recto - right margin

to arrive, not wound around (?). I wanted to arrive with everything I left from al-Mahdiyya with, furniture, clothes, moveables, accounts, letters, legal documents, so that the Christian would see what the situation was, and if his words were worth anything or the words of someone who was more honorable than he. I was left naked without a dinar or a dirham, with neither kit nor kaboodle, and I began to eat bread from my services at the hands of someone else, and all the while, the effort was making me deadly weak from seeing the lowliness of my situation and the state of my household. The only relief for my soul is from prayer and turning toward God.

Recto - top margin

I say: blessed is the Judge of truth, who has decreed this sentence on me, praise be upon him and thanks to him for all that he has decreed upon me. I remember and thank him and praise him for what he has meted out to me, blessed and exalted be his name. Maybe this is my reward and atonement. I ask God that he make it like this but replace it in the hereafter. A person does not have eternity

Verso

1. either in happiness or in adversity, and I am now in adversity. If I were not

2. in adversity, what I sent for my son, clothing and expenses, would have returned to Alexandria and we would have been left

3. with nothing in such a terrible year, with high prices and hunger. How can there can be a hardship

4. worse than this? God will put them in the realm of wellbeing, there is no choice, God will grant me patience because he

5. knows my situation from all sides. God redeems. At first I came with possessions, and then God came with his decree 

6. and left. What they’re suing us for (i.e., our property has fallen into?) destruction and abandonment. My family in the Maghrib, I don’t know how 

7. they’re managing nor what will become of them in such a difficult year, nor what my condition will be during

8. this unhappy time. I am not a murderer (roṣeaḥ), not in this world and not in the world to come (i.e., I’m not contemplating suicide?). I didn’t throw myself into the sea to get rid of

9. all of these (problems), but I say: I deserve it and must atone for wrongdoing. Then I return and begin to remember 

10. what happened to the lords and the happy few, and I console myself. But there is nothing for it. You also said, my lord, that if there are still any pearls in

11. Alexandria, it is better than going up (to Fustat) and sniffing (around for them). My lord, it would be more to stay and return this year, if only because they are not 

12. pierced. If they were pierced, I would not have sent them with my lord and elder Abū l-Faḍl. I would 

13. have sent them on the Byzantine ship and they would have reached them and paid for themselves. But there is nothing to be done. Now, I would like 

14. you, my lord, to instruct me what to do about them. I will not deduce from the cargo: either we will pierce them or we will sell them. 

15. So let me know if there is a market and demand for them. With that, I am waiting for my master Abū l-Faḍl to come down from Būṣīr 

16. so that I can write him about what to do about them. Also, enclosed in this letter of mine is a letter for him. Send it on my behalf to Būṣīr, since I have

17. important goods there, maybe with one of our colleagues or with the Muslim traders who know him. I received

18. a letter from him, I mean from my lord Abū l-Faḍl, from Fustat, in which he mentions to me that he sent me the rent enclosed in his letter to you, but you did not 

19. mention this to me, nor did you send it to me with our colleagues. So let me know if it arrived or not. I hope he

20. found the memorandum and letter from my brother Abū l-Faḍl for me with what he promised he would come back to search for. One more thing on the matter of the rent: if

21. one of our colleagues goes to Damsīs, send them to me with him for his tax, so that he may transfer it to here and to

22. Tinnīs. It bothered me that the matter of the silk (ḥarīr) didn’t get resolved when Salāma was there. Also, let me know what my lord Abū l-

23. Faḍl brought to Būṣīr. He was the one who sent him and informed me of the matter about Nissim Abū l-Hawā al-Iṭrābulusī and where he went

24. and that the letter to him was delayed.

Verso - upside down, right

I sent you with ʿUqbān, may God grant him wellbeing, the volume of three quires of Talmud, and also took ownership (of them) from Sahl, since you are trustworthy to sell the volume, so the customary law will not apply to you in selling it. 

Verso - upside down, left

Me and two others with me: ʿUqbān said to me, I will take him to Būṣīr. So we told him, It’s your responsibility. He said yes. He took ownership from me for it, since ʿUqbān is trustworthy to sell it in Būṣīr so that Qāsim will sell it for him.

Verso - address

To my lord and master Abū Yaḥyā Nahrāy b. Nissim, may his resting place be Eden, may God prolong his existence and make his wellbeing and happiness eternal.

From Mubashshir b. Dāwūd, may his resting place be Eden, b. Mubashshir, may his resting place be Eden. May it arrive in Fustat, God willing.