Collection ID: 0002 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Authors

• Salamah ben Musa ben Yitsḥaḳ

Call number

Alternate identifiers

• https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9934790523503681

Publisher

Language

Origin

Place

Mazara, Sicily

Notes

• The largest known letter in the Genizah; signature and address in Hebrew and Arabic characters; the handwriting is not that of the author (compare Mosseri IV 36; Cambridge T-S 12.270); The writer, Solomon is an established sea merchant who has a high volume of international trade; He is writing to his partner, Judah, in Fustat. His business has suffered through the political instability in his home port of Sfax (), Tunisia, in the conflict (1064)between the Governer of Sfax and the Sultan of al-Maḥdiyeh Tamim ben Muiz. Solomon, is associated with the former, having served as a tax farmer of the olive growers, and the Sultan has blockaded the ports; He was home from Rosh ha-Shanah to Shavuot, but is now writing from Mazara, on the west coast of Sicily. Here to the businiess climate is poor due to political instability and warfare. The Port of Palermo has been raided (by the Normans); Solomon accuses his partner of buying low grade pepper and ginger without consulting him, among the reasons of which he intends to terminate the partnership. The trade of lead, indigo (in al-Maḥdiyeh), lacquer, pitch, flax and olive oil (the chief export of Sfax), are also mentioned. Solomon's agent Abu'l-Faraj Nissim is accompanying this shipment to Fustat, and Judah is asked to look after him; Part of another letter from the same Solomon to Judah, via the same agent Nissim, was sent soon after this one. It is found below, no. 414 (Ben Sassoon no. 13; Gil, ibid. no. 752). Solomon agrees there to continue the partnership.
   
• Condition: damaged, faded.
   

Extent

Support

Layout

Decoration

Black ink

Script

Provenance

• Cairo Genizah Collection (University of Pennsylvania. Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Library).
   
• Cairo Genizah Collection (Dropsie College. Library).
   
• Sulzberger.
   

Subjects topical

• Jews , History , To 1500 , Sicily, Italy

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library, Halper 389: Letter to Judah ben Moses ben Sujmar of Fustat are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

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  URL

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