Letter: T-S 12.84

Description

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Arranged in an unusual format with breaks between paragraphs. The teacher ʿIwaḍ tried to sell the Masoret but couldn't find a buyer. As for the physician al-Ḥakīm al-Naṣīr(?), the sender told him about Sayyidnā's request concerning Kitāb al-Taṣrīf fī Istiʿmāl al-Adwiya (perhaps a volume of al-Zahrāwī's magnum opus?). The physician was abashed and said that he has had a most pressing need for it lately so has been unable to fulfill the request. The next paragraph is extremely vague: "as for the person who had the matter, he sent me a messenger concerning doing the thing. . . ." The portion of the letter on verso mentions the mizmorim and a scene that took place when the sender walked in on somebody in the majlis where he prays, as he was wearing a ṭallit and praying. That man's son appeared and seems to have rebuked the sender. The letter then mentions 'the house where the Torah scroll is.' And another person mentions Ben Sarjado/Sargado and the numbers 8 and 4. The document needs further examination to make sense of all this. ASE