Abū l-Afrāḥ ʿArūs b. Yosef

Description / Bio

ʿArūs b. Yosef was one of the first of the Geniza business community to start traveling the route to Yemen in the late eleventh century. A native of al-Mahdiyya, 'he was based from early in his life in Egypt; in most of the documents related to him, he is in Fusṭāṭ, but in some, he is in Alexandria. He was a dyer and seller of purple textiles and exported purple textiles to North Africa and al-Andalus; he ultimately expanded his business into other fine textiles as well as Mediterranean and Indian Ocean goods. He traveled repeatedly to Upper Egypt and the Red Sea coast. ʿArūs had a long-term business partnership with Sibāʿ al-Lādhiqī. Having no sons of his own, he took on his sister's son ʿAllān b. Ḥassūn as a junior business partner, and married ʿAllān b. Ḥassūn to one of his daughters. ʿAllān returned the patronage by calling ʿArūs father and himself his offspring. ʿArūs had another nephew, his brother's son Yosef. ʿArūs was also an inveterate writer of accounts and maker of lists and tables, often on the back of letters he had received. The only documents we have in ʿArūs's hand are accounts; all the other documents in his dossier are letters to him or legal documents mentioning him.