מכתב: ENA NS I.99

תיאור

Letter from a woman to a certain Yosef written in the hand of Shelomo ha-Melammed b. Eliya. The woman calles herself "his mother" but it is possible that she was not his biological mother and this is an attempt by her to show her closeness to him. In the letter the woman declares how much she misses and worries about him and asks him to come join her in Fustat. She promises that she will sell her own clothes to pay for his capitation tax. To show how serious she is, Shelomo ha-Melammed wrote a legal testimony on the back in which he testifies that this woman will pay Yosef's capitation tax (apperently she will pay the Shami rate in Egypt) on the conditions that he will come to Egypt. Another interesting point in the letter is that the woman mentions that Izz al-Din came to Egypt "Because the sultan called al-Kamil sent him" - a clear reference to the Ayyubid Sultan al-Kamil (1218-1238) giving us a dating for the letter. Finally, Shelomo ha-Melammed added a personal message to Yosef at the end of the letter: He asks him to send greetings to Shelomo's cousin (the son of Shelomo's mother's brother) Abu al-Faraj and his two sons Ma'ani abd Abu Majd. These relatives are also mentioned in T-S 10J7.2 and T-S 13J35.15 (OZ).