Bodl. MS heb. c 28/33

תיאור

מכתב מנהריי ב' נסים, פוסטאט, לאבו יצחק ברהון ב' צאלח אל-תאהרתי, בוסיר. מזכיר פלפל ושיירות.

Princeton Geniza Project description: Letter from Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat, to Abu Ishaq Barhūn b. Ṣāliḥ al-Tāharti, Būṣīr. Dated Monday, with six (nights) remaining of Shevaṭ (no year). A rare "hinge" letter connecting the Mediterranean, flax-corridor, and Indian Ocean trades. Nahray opens with concern about Barhūn's illness and an unsettled account that he has repeatedly tried to reconcile and will resolve when Barhūn returns to Fustat. Most of the letter concerns textiles. Nahray reports failing to obtain raw cloth (khām), coarse or fine; gives instructions on minimum sale prices for cloth that is currently unsaleable (kāsid) and falling; and itemizes sales of fine (ṣāfiya) and bleached (maqṣūra) lengths (shiqāq) to named buyers, among them Abū Ṭāhir, Barakāt, Ibn Masarra, and Ibn Maʿṣūm. He notes that he has four raṭls of silk for the addressee, half red and half green, and dyed about eight more, to be sent together within the week; he sourced the silk from a woman named Umm Abū Saʿīd. He also gives prices for oil and pitch and coordinates shipping and expenses at Būṣīr through Salāma, whom he asks Barhūn to look after. On the verso he turns to accounting: coins sealed with the seal of the Dār al-Kattān reckoned to his account, with receipts taken from the dīwān; and a dispute over short-weight flax bales brought before the amīr Jalāl al-Dawla, shortfalls measured against the Dār al-Kattān standard and attributed to loss in transit. Closes with news of a large camel caravan arriving at al-Qulzum with pepper, cinnamon, alum, and sundries, glutting the Fustat market and depressing the price of pepper, and with greetings to several associates (Abū Ibrāhīm ʿAyyāsh b. Ṣadaqa, Abū al-Ḥajjāj, Abū al-Ḥasan). Gil identifies the carrier of the letter, listed in the address, as Abū l-Qāsim ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. MR