מסמך שלטוני: Michaelides (charta) A169

תיאור

Petition to the caliph al-Āmir (1101–30) from a woman attempting to collect a large debt of 241 dinars on the estate of a deceased person. The deceased debtor, the sharīfa Ṭāhira, known as Sitt al-Ḥasab, is the daughter of al-sharīf al-amīr Zaʿīm al-Khilāfa wa-Fakhruhā who, to judge by his titles and by his daughter's name, was very close to the ruling family. The petition notes that the petitioner (called “the slave") "has registered the documents with the amount of the debt in the noble judicial court” (fa-qad athbatat al-mamlūka al-ḥujaj bi-mablagh al-dayn fī majlis al-ḥukm al-sharīf), so this is significant evidence both for judicial archives and possibly for the existence of Ismāʿīlī courts, because a regular judicial institution would probably not be called al-sharīf. (The Fatimids restricted the term sharīf to descendants of Ḥasan and Ḥusayn.) (Information from Marina Rustow and Khan, JRAS)