Hybrid Judeo-Persian and Arabic Correspondence
Eight Documents from the Cairo Genizah
by Ofir Haim, Andreas Kaplony, Ludwig Paul and Maximilian Kinzler
The more than 300,000 documents discovered in a storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo in the late 19th century, now housed in the collections in St. Petersburg, Cambridge, and Paris, are known as the Cairo Genizah. These documents, which span a wide array of subjects, are invaluable sources for understanding the history of medieval Judaism, as well as for the social and economic landscape of the Mediterranean from the 10th to the 13th centuries. Among them are thousands of private and commercial letters written in Arabic (in both Hebrew and Arabic scripts), alongside some 25 documents in Judeo-Persian-Persian written in Hebrew script. Due to the considerable challenges posed by their interpretation, only a small fraction of these texts has been published thus far. This volume presents editions of eight previously unpublished documents dated to around the turn of the millennium (991-1002 CE) and mentioning key places such as Baghdad and Basra. Included are two pages from a merchant’s notebook, written in both Jewish-Persian and Arabic, along with several letters. Of particular interest are two letters, one in Judeo-Persian and its near-literal Arabic translation, highlighting the fluidity between these two languages. The blending of Judeo-Persian and Arabic in all eight texts offers a compelling reason to publish them together. This linguistic fusion underscores the fact that the authors of these letters were part of a broad network of Jewish merchants, notably including the Tustari and Ibn ?Awkal families.
- By (author) Ofir Haim
- By (author) Andreas Kaplony
- By (author) Maximilian Kinzler
- By (author) Ludwig Paul
Other Titles in this Series
The Biblical Tale of Judah and Tamar in Fourteenth-Century Iran
A Judeo-Persian Versified Account by Shāhīn with Scholarly Edition, Annotated Translation and Persian Transliteration
Volume 94, 951
The ‘River of Fire’ and the ‘River of Molten Metal’
A Historico-Theological Rafting Through the Rapids of the Christian and Mazdean Apokatastatic Falls
Volume 86
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