Geniza Lab

Recto/verso: recto

Petition addressed to four brothers (?), the elders Abu al-Baqa, Abu al-Baha, Abu al-Faraj and Abu al-Karam, requesting charity. The supplicant, Harun, writes that he has not tasted bread in days and is emboldened to make his appeal because of the upcoming Jewish holiday. The name of one of the addressees, the shaykh Abu al-Karam, is written on the verso. The cipher at the top, in the small letters, probably is the abbreviation \'b-m\' for bism allah al-rahman al-rahim, found in other Geniza documents and in the Arabic fragments from Quseir al-Qadim published by Li Guo, Commerce, Culture and Community in a Red Sea Port in the Thirteenth Century: The Arabic Documents from Quseir; cf. M. Cohen, 'On the interplay of Arabic and Hebrew in Cairo Geniza Letters, in the R. P. Scheindlin Festschrift, note 19. Undated.