Geniza Lab

Letter from Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq, evidently of al-Maḥalla, to Abu Saʿd Hibatallāh (aka Netanʾel b. Yefet Rosh ha-Qahal), in Cairo. The beginning is in Hebrew ("twelve lines of exquisite Hebrew proem"), and the body of the letter is in Arabic script, except for two phrases. (On verso there are also a few lines of accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals.) This is a letter of recommendation for the bearer, one Yakhin ha-Meshorer ("the poet") who had settled in al-Maḥalla but fled from there and abandoned his family,when the superintendent of revenue (ṣāḥib al-Maḥalla) "harassed him" by demanding from him the capitation tax (al-kharāj). The letter presupposes that Yakhin was entitled to tax exemption because he was a Khaybari, a Jew descended from an Arabian clan that asserted it had received special privileges in the time of Muḥammad. The addressee is asked to help Yakhin sort out his documentation. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 386, 611, MR, OZ, NV, ASE.)