Geniza Lab

Report from a Fatimid official, probably sent from Tyre. Dating: 1108 or 1109 CE, as it concerns the events in Tripoli following the flight of Fakhr al-Mulk Ibn ʿAmmār (cf. T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177) and around the time of the fall of Tripoli to the Crusaders. The document resembles another report to al-Malik al-Afḍal also preserved in the Geniza, T-S 16.114 + T-S 24.57 + T-S AS 11.383 + T-S AS 146.195, edited by Geoffrey Khan (ALAD doc. 111). Among many other matters, it discusses: a request for a Fatimid fleet to come to the aid of Tripoli; how Ibn ʿAmmār was an enemy of the people and of the notables (muqaddamīn) of Tripoli and of the Fatimid state; how the traitorous al-Sharīf al-ʿArīḍī had been sending Ibn ʿAmmār state secrets (akhbār al-dawla) until Sayf al-Mulk b. ʿAllūn ordered the former to be detained; how a boat containing twenty-two men and women arrived from Crusader-ruled ʿAkkā (Acre) after letting themselves into the city over its walls by rope; how those newcomers report that Muhannad b. Ghawth had returned to Jabal ʿĀmil(a) and Kafr Birʿim, where he now serves the Franks and lived among them; a blood feud between Banū Ḥaddāthā (حداثا in present-day Lebanon) and the neighboring Banū Shabakhtān, a disruption that the authorities in the sender’s location had to manage; and something to do with army regiments (al-muwallada and al-sūd, "the blacks"), taxes, and Franks. Needs further examination. On verso there is a Hebrew prayer (the second baqqasha of Seʿadya Gaon). T-S NS 125.135 is a join for the prayer on verso but not for the report on recto. There are still several fragments missing. Joins: Alan Elbaum. ASE. Description from PGPID 20866: Recto: Hebrew prayer Verso: Arabic document or letter - needs examination.