Geniza Lab

Letter from David Maimonides, in ʿAydhāb, to his brother Moses Maimonides, in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1170 CE. This is the last letter David wrote before he died at sea en route to India. Maimonides had ordered him to travel as far as ʿAydhāb, the Sudanese port, and not to embark on the pasage to India. But David, who had just successfully completed a daring feat, namely, crossing the desert between the Nile and the Red Sea after being separated from his caravan, accompanied only by a fellow Jew, and who did not find in ʿAydhāb goods worthwhile buying, was bent on traveling to India in order to make his voyage profitable. Information from Goitein.

Business letter in Judaeo-Arabic. The writer may be located in a Red Sea port like ʿAydhāb; he mentions Aden numerous times as well as the difficulties he would face in traveling to Fustat whether by land or water. Needs examination

Letter in what Goitein identifies as the handwriting and style of well-known India trader Abu Nasr Avraham informing recipient about events, apparently taking place in the Red Sea. On the recto, the author alludes to travel to or from Dahlak, mentions an unspecified group of islands (possibly the Dahlak archipelago itself), a sojourn of 18 days in Dahlak, and the arrival of an unnamed individual from Aden, and wishes for favorable winds and safe arrivals. The verso contains greetings to a number of people (legible among them are Ibn Yaḥyā, Shaykh Yaʿqūb and Abū Naṣr al-Ḥalabi) and gives date as the 6th of month of Av. Abū Naṣr al-Ḥalabī appears as al-tājir, the merchant, in the extant document of his wife's deathbed declaration preserved and dated to 26th of Iyyar 1454/April 13 1143. (Information from R.E. Margariti and S. D. Goitein, 'India Book' VI.40/IB.94; Mediterranean Society 5:151-155)

Letter from a novice India trader, ʿAydhāb, to his brother, Libya. Dating: 1103. Complains about the hardships of travel from Fustat to ʿAydhāb. He had run into Makhlūf b. Moshe, known as ʿAyn Sarra (Goitein's rendering of the name, "the son of the man with the gladdening eye(s)," missed the interlinear addition; Elbaum and Rustow render it "Happy Eyes"), who told him about how pleasant life was in India, and at least as the writer represents the situation to his brother-in-law — guiltily, as he had left home without saying goodbye — he somewhat spontaneously decided to travel to India. It would be significant if the barriers to entering the Indian Ocean trade were as low as they seem here. Yet he also complains — with puns — about various locations in the Red Sea (ʿAydhāb/ʿadhāb, Dahlak/muhlik, etc), again presumably in order to reassure his brother-in-law that he wasn't actually enjoying himself. On Happy Eyes, Goitein writes that this man had settled in Alexandria, Egypt, where he possessed a valuable house. He also possessed a house in Barqa, eastern Libya. Cf. T-S NS J241. (Goitein, Med. Soc., x, B, 2, 136) On verso, line 1, there is a phrase from Isaiah (25:1), "emuna omen," “steadfast faith,” which seems to be the equivalent of "burn after reading". It appears on 13 other geniza letters, usually at the end of the address, but it's only in this letter that its meaning becomes totally clear: it seems to have served as a code-word indicating a confidential letter, absolutely not to be shared with others. Its other appearances: Bodl. MS Heb. a 2/16, Bodl. MS Heb. b 11/22, Bodl. MS Heb. c 28/56, CUL Or.1080 J38, T-S 10J10.15, T-S 10J16.7, T-S 10J17.9, T-S 10J25.3, T-S 13J27.11, T-S 8J13.13, T-S 8J17.3, T-S 8J20.14 and T-S 8J23.12.

India Book I, 14: Letter from Yosef Lebdi to Ḥasan b. Bundar, 'the representative of the merchants' in Aden, written in the hand of Hillel b. Eli. There are several indications that the letter was composed in an early stage of the court case between Yosef Lebdi, the India trader, and Yequtiʾel b. Moshe, 'the representative of merchants' in Fustat. An important piece of information in the letter is that on his way back from India, Yosef Lebdi stopped at Mirbat, on the southern coast of Arabia, and from there continued straight to Dahlak, on the western shore of the Red Sea, thereby by-passing Aden (and Ḥasan b. Bundar) completely. Lebdi made arrangements with Bundar that he would forward the money that Lebdi and Yequtiʾel were owed. The fact that Lebdi did not settle his affairs in Aden contributed much to his current conflict with Yequtiʾel. At the time of writing of this letter, the fact that the large shipment of pepper, bought by Lebdi in India, had sunk on the way was unknown to Lebdi and Yequtiʾel in Fustat.

Letter from ʿAllān b. Ḥassūn, in 'Aydhab, to his sons, before embarking again for the east. He reports that he had dismissed his traveling companion and chosen a different one, and that no one, not even in the Kārim flotilla, had arrived in 'Aydhab. He expresses regret at having undertaken the voyage at all, and advises his sons not to be on the road constantly as he is; he advises them that a family partnership would enable them to share the effort of travel. Goitein identified ʿAllān as the author of the letter based on his handwriting. (Information from Goitein, "Portrait of a Medieval India Trader: Three Letters from the Cairo Geniza," BSOAS 50 (1987): 449–64, published posthumously; see also the attached notes, used as a basis for the article and stored in Goitein's files.)