Geniza Lab

Elegy for the Tustari brothers Ḥesed b. Yashar (Abū Naṣr b. Sahl) and Avraham b. Yashar (Abū Saʿd b. Sahl). Dating: ca. 1050 CE. There is a brief introduction which specifies the meter as mafāʿīlun mafāʿilun. Both brothers were assassinated (Abū Saʿd in October 1047 on the orders of his rival, the vizier Yūsuf al-Fallāḥī, whom the caliph’s mother then had killed in June 1048; and Abū Naṣr in 1049 or 1050). (Information from Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 322.) See also Mann, Jews in Egypt and in Palestine, 1:82 and Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, sec. 371. Transcription available here: https://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx?mishibbur=819004&mm15=000000001001%2010.

Elegies: all appear to be by the same author, including an elegy for a Gaʾon, צפע רוש הלעיטני, and for a woman. ‘Nathan b. Shemuʾel חזק’ is spelled in acrostic. (Information from CUDL)

Arabic poem, transcribed into Hebrew script. At least some of the originally Islamic elements were kept ("fa-wa-lladhī anzala furqānahu ʿalā l-nabiyyi l-muṣṭafā l-muntajab"). There are two bifolia here, so 8 pages. The order is somewhat difficult to reconstruct, but it appears to narrate the love between a woman named Jamal(?) and a man named Ghamr(?) and the poetic letters they exchange. Ghamr dies, and she elegizes him, and a man named Qutayba then starts to court her. Al-Ḥajjāj (the king?) appears as well. There are several joins (see T-S Ar.37.15, T-S AS 161.95, and FGP Joins Suggestions). Merits further examination.