Geniza Lab

Recto and verso: Poetry in Judaeo-Arabic in the hand of Nāṣir al-Adīb al-ʿIbrī. Apparently on the subject of the eye diseases induced by love, but it is quite faded, so this awaits confirmation. This is one of the fragments that he signs (אנא אלאדיב אלעברי אלדי אסמי נאצר פי כל אלאשגאל לי כלאם גיד נאדר....)

Right column: Judaeo-Arabic love poetry. A blazon of the beloved, mentioning, among many other things, his "gaze of Babylonian enchantment." Left column: Written in larger letters but probably the same hand. At first glance it reads like a draft of the opening of a standard Judaeo-Arabic letter. But it is heavier on the lovesickness than usual, and this is poetry, not prose, which is given away by the rhyme and the long vowels of qalaqī and taḥtariqī. Further, the speaker is not addressing the recipient but rather the bearer (not necessarily human) of the love letter: "Deliver my letter to my master and in{f}orm him that great is my longing and distress. / I am deprived of all joys and pleasures of the world because of his absence, my heart blazes in the fire." ASE