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Primary language
- Ottoman Turkish
This may be what our two documents describe, although in both cases, the wood is carried by Egyptian, or at least Arab, navigators (Ottoman Turkish singular, reʾīs): in T-S Ar. 39.435, ʿAbdullāh Anṣārī al-Saʿīdī delivers 275 qinṭārs of wood; in T-S NS 306.84, Muḥammad Shāfīʿī Būlāqī, from Cairo’s Nile port of Būlāq, delivers 300. These are enormous quantities: 275 qinṭārs is equivalent to 13,750 kilograms or 30,313 pounds (over fifteen tonnes), 300 to 15,000 kilograms or 33,069 pounds (over sixteen tonnes). […]
If we posit that the firewood was destined for Cairo’s Mevlevī lodge, then the letter’s invocations of ‘my father’ and ‘my brother’ could indicate that the writer was likewise a Mevlevī, perhaps writing from one of the great Melevī lodges in the Otto- man central lands, such as Istanbul’s Yenikapı lodge, the largest in the entire empire." (Hathaway, Ottoman-Era Documents from the Cairo Geniza, 373-375)
Recto, main text
[ ] peder-i ʿazīzim //el-Ḥāc Muḥammed// ḥażretlerinin ḥużūr-i şerīflerine
[ ] selāmlar ve ḫayır dūʿālar olunduḳdan ṣoñra…
Recto, main text
[ ] To my most honoured, esteemed, noble, dear father //al-Ḥājj Muḥammad//,
[ ] ...after offering greetings and sincere pr…
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