Legal query or responsum: T-S 13G1

Description

Copy of a Gaon’s responsum (might be Rav Hayya Gaon) that includes details about the house of Bustenai and an answer regarding the status of the family’s children. There are two other versions for this answer (one of them is T-S 8 G1). This version is probably the closest to the original. (Information from Gil, Kingdom. Vol. 2, p. 1-3, #1). VMR. "One notable case relates to a legend about the first exilarch (resh galuta) of the Islamic period, Bustanay b. Kafnay (ca. 618–670), and his offspring. It is reported that the Caliph ʿUmar Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (r. 634–644) appointed Bustanay as exilarch after the Muslim conquest of the Sassanid empire. Additionally, ʿUmar gave Bustanay a captive Sassanid princess named Āzādwār as a slave concubine. Bustanay married Āzādwār as a second wife and had three sons by her. These sons were in addition to the two elder sons Bustanay had by his first wife, a Jew. When Bustanay died, the elder sons challenged the cohabitation between a master and his slave woman" (Craig Perry, The Daily Life of Slavery and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969-1250 CE," PhD Diss, p. 119).