מכתב: T-S NS J117

תיאור

Letter from an unidentified merchant, in ʿAydhāb. In Judaeo-Arabic. He complains about the difficulties of getting pepper through customs. The qāḍī in Qūṣ apparently issued an unfavorable judgment. The customs farmer (ḍāmin) in ʿAydhāb said "I have not received anything of the customs duties," and he opened up the store-room (makhzan) and sold off an ʿadl of pepper. The letter was abandoned here. Goitein's notes: "The story behind this uncompleted letter obviously was this: the writer, together with others, had bought loads of pepper (and most probably other goods), for which customs had been paid — wherefore the writer was in the possession of a document signed by the tax-farmer of ʿAidhāb. However, the payment was not sufficient and it was not evident for what it had been paid. The persons referred to had received a clearance from the Qāḍī of Qūṣ, as far as they were concerned, wherefore the tax farmer of ʿAidhāb forcibly opened the writer's store-room and sold a load of pepper (ḥiml, which represents a very high sum) in order to cash in the customs. When the writer produced his documents, the tax-farmer shouted at him. Here. the story breaks off. Was there as Qāḍī in a port like ʿAidhāb, that the matter had to be taken up in Qūṣ, or simply the persons complaning addressed themselves to the Qāḍī of Qūṣ because they had to leave ʿAidhāb with a caravan and there was no time to settle the matter in the East African port?"