Letter: BL OR 5542.33
Letter BL OR 5542.33Description
Letter addressed to Abū ʿAli Ḥasan b. Surūr b. ʿEli a.k.a. Yefet b. Sason. In Judaeo-Arabic with a Hebrew preamble, calligraphically written. The addressee also has a son named Sason. Mentions receiving news of Abū l-Faraj Sibāʿ and his children. The sender confirms that the 9 7/8 dinars (in fact 10 1/4 debased dinars equaling 9 7/8 Mustanṣirī dinars of the mints of Fustat and Alexandria) collected for orphans in the addressee's community had been properly delivered, together with other sums collected by the sender, to Rabbenu Hillel Nezer ha-Nesiʾur Rosh Kalla. Goitein interprets this as a sign that the heavily burdened community of Fustat "was forced to devolve some of its load" in charitable collections to the communities of the Rīf (but he doesn't explain how he extrapolates this). Note that this sender complains about the duty of fundraising for the orphans and how they are never satisfied in his other letter T-S 8J38.6 (PGPID 3840). There are greetings from the sender's son Eliʿezer (an uncommon name in the Geniza) and somebody's mother. The addressee is asked to forward a letter to a dignitary titled חצרה אדונינו ונזר אור סגולה ראש הגולה. (Information in part from Med Soc III, viii, C, 4, n. 142 and Goitein's index card.) Same sender and addressee: T-S 8J38.6 (PGPID 3840) and BL OR 5542.33 (PGPID 6227).