Going Back
1 The news … from Ifriqiya: H. Wieruszowski, ‘The Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Crusades’, p. 22.
2 ‘Shaikh Abû Is
âq: T — S 18 J 4, fol. 18, recto, lines 33–5.
3 ‘Concerning the news’: T — S Misc. Box 25, fragm. 103, recto, lines 27–9.
4 ‘My master [Ben Yiju]’: T — S 13 J 7, fol. 27, recto, lines 15–18. Altogether, five of Ben Yiju’s letters, three from Khalaf ibn Ishaq and two from Yusuf ibn Abraham, refer to Mubashshir. These letters appear to have been written over a relatively short period of time. The last in the sequence is probably the letter of MS H.6 (from Khalaf ibn Ishaq) which has been dated by Strauss as having been written in 1148AD. Another letter from Khalaf, (T — S Misc. Box 24, fragm. 103) has been dated to 1147 by S. D. Goitein (cf. S. Shaked, Tentative Bibliography, pp. 147). Since Mubashshir’s stay in Egypt was probably not a very long one, it seems likely that the others were written in the couple of years immediately preceding 1147. The five letters are: T — S 12.235 (from Yusuf ibn Abraham); T — S 13 J 7, fol. 27 (from Yusuf ibn Abraham); T — S 18 J 4, fol. 18, (from Khalaf ibn Ishaq); T — S Misc. Box 25, fragm. 103, (from Khalaf ibn Ishaq); MS H.6, E. Strauss, ‘Documents’, (from Khalaf ibn Ishaq).
5 ‘As for the news’: T — S 13 J 7, fol. 27, recto, lines 18–19;
6 Disease and famine had followed: Cf. H. Wieruszowski, ‘The Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Crusades’, p. 23.
7 In western Europe: Cf. Virginia G. Berry, ‘The Second Crusade’, p. 463–512, in K. M. Setton (Gen. ed.) A History of the Crusades, Vol. I, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1969.
8 ‘Behold the days of reckoning’: The Jews and the Crusaders (The Hebrew Chronicles of the First and Second Crusades), p. 123, (translated and edited by Shlomo Eidelberg, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1977).
9 They were relatively lucky: H, Z. Hirschberg, History of the Jews in North Africa, p. 128, and ‘The Almohade Persecutions and the India Trade’, in Yitzhak F. Baer Jubilee Volume (ed. S. W. Baeon et. al., History Society of Israel, Jerusalem, 1960).
10 The letter … by Abu Zikri’s son: H. Z. Hirschberg, The Almohade Persecutions and the India Trade’. This letter contains an extraordinary usage: the writer uses the Arabic word fata (victory, lit. ‘opening’), which has the sense of ‘liberated’, to describe the Almohad entry into Tlemcen — an event that he clearly regarded as a disaster. It is a striking instance of the ironies that Judæo-Arabic sometimes imposed on its users (line 41, p. 142).
11 Not long before: Cf. S. D. Goitein, Letters, pp. 62–65.
12 On that occasion, Ben Yiju: The nakhuda Mahruz frequently acted as a courier for Ben Yiju and his friends and is mentioned several times in their letters (Cf. T — S 8 J 7, fol. 23, recto, line 3; T — S N.S. J 10, verso, 1st. Account, line 9, 2nd. Account, line 1. See also S. D. Goitein, Letters, pp. 62–5. Goitein notes there that Mahruz’s sister was married to Judah b. Joseph ha-Kohen (Abu Zikri Sijilmasi).
13 ‘I asked [some people]’: Cf. E. Strauss, ‘Documents’, p. 149 (lines 10–14, MS H.6).
14 ‘Every year you speak’: Cf. E. Strauss, ‘Documents’ p. 149 (lines 23–4, MS H.6).
15 ‘I do not know’: The catalogue number of this document is T — S 10 J 10, fol. 15. This letter was first transcribed and published by J. Braslawsky in Zion, (7, pp. 135–139) in 1942. Goitein also published an English translation of it in 1973 (Letters, pp. 201–6). All except one of the following quotations from this document are taken from Goitein’s translation.
16 ‘[Therefore], I ask you’: I have made the word ‘brother’ plural here to preserve the implied sense of the passage.
17 ‘I heard of what happened’: I have translated this passage directly from Braslawsky’s transcription (Cf. Zion, 7, p. 138), (T — S 10 J 10, fol. 15, lines 41–44 [verso 5–8]).
18 ‘I wished to ask’: Bod. Lib. Ox. MS Hebr., d. 66, fol. 139, recto, lines 6–12.
19 Such were the misfortunes: The chronology of this period of Ben Yiju’s life is not easy to establish. The document T — S 12.337 appears to have been written some three years or so after T — S 10 J 10, fol. 15, which Goitein has dated as being written on 11 September 1149 (Letters, p. 201). This plus the sequence of documents and events that follow upon it, suggest that T — S 12.337 was written in 1152–3 or thereabouts.
20 ‘I wrote a letter to you’: T — S 12.337, recto, lines 4–6.)
21 ‘I did all … in my power’: T — S 12.337, recto, lines 6–8.)
22 ‘As for Mubashir’: T — S 12.337, recto margin.
23 .… the joyful name Surûr: ‘Surur’ was of course, the diminutive for Faria (Perayâ), and both names derive from roots that have the connotation of ‘joyfulness’ (cf. Goitein, Letters, p. 327, fn.). Farhia was also Ben Yiju’s father’s name which was why both he and his brother Yusuf named their first-born sons Farhia (Surur). Ben Yiju was in fact sometimes addressed by the tekonym ‘Abû Surûr’ or ‘father of Surur’
24 ‘two children like sprigs’: T — S 12.337, recto, line 13.
25 ‘And the elder’: T — S 12.337, recto, lines 14–16.,
26 Dhû Jibîa: G. R. Smith, Ayyûbids and Early Rasûlids, p. 66.
27 ‘The news reached your … slave: T — S 10 J 13, fol. 6, lines 13–17. The second part of the quotation (lines 14–17) are in Hebrew, and were kindly translated for me by Dr Geoffrey Khan. See also S. Shaked’s Tentative Bibliography, p. 102.
28 Ben Yiju … a Hebrew poem: T — S 8 J 16, fol. 23. Cf. S. Shaked’s Tentative Bibliography, p. 86.
29 Such documentation as there is: Such was his position that one of his correspondents of that time used phrases such as ‘the gracious sage’, ‘the head of the community’ and other such honorifics to address him. Cf. T — S 10 J 13, fol. 6, lines 5 and 7 (I am grateful to Dr Geoffrey Khan for translating these honorifics for me). A document containing parts of three legal opinions written by Ben Yiju, suggest that he had some judicial functions within the community. They are written on the reverse side of a letter that Yusuf ibn Abraham had sent to him in Mangalore (T — S 10 J 9, fol. 24), but Goitein was of the opinion that the drafts were written after Ben Yiju’s departure from India, ‘probably in Yemen’ (S. Shaked, Tentative Bibliography, p. 100).
30 Yet there must … have been anxieties: The letter in question is Bod. Lib. Ox. MS Hebr. d. 66 (Catalogue n. 2878), fol. 61. Lines 10–15 deal with the safety of the roads and were evidently written in answer to a query from Ben Yiju. The Yemen in this period was riven by struggles between the Mahdids and the Najâids (see G. R. Smith, Ayyûbids and Early Rasûlids, p. 58).
31 .… such marriages were commonplace: Khalaf’s relative Madmun for example, was married to the sister of Abu Zikri Sijilmasi, who was, of course, originally from the Maghreb (see S. D. Goitein, Letters, p. 62).