In an Antique Land (48 page)

50
In fact … lucrative trade:
Schechter himself was to comment later that the beadles of the Synagogue had ‘some experience' in dealing with the documents. (S. Schechter, ‘The Cairo Geniza', p. 102, in
Solomon Schechter: Selected Writings
).

51
‘I flirted with him':
Bentwich quotes these letters in his biography,
Solomon Schechter
, p. 129.

52
‘For weeks and weeks':
Ibid., p. 128.

53
‘The whole population':
Solomon Schechter: Selected Writings
, pp. 102–3.

54
‘with the spoils':
E. N. Adler, ‘An Eleventh Century Introduction', p. 673.

55
So it happened:
My first explorations of Masr owed a great deal to the enthusiasm of Sudhir Vyas. I would like to thank him, and his colleague at the Indian Embassy Shri A. Gopinathan, for their hospitality. I would
also like to thank Shri K. P. S. Menon and Sm. Lalitha Menon for their interest in, and support of my work during their stay in Egypt. Later Laurent Ham's knowledge of the city was to prove invaluable to me: I am deeply grateful to him for his help and for innumerable kindnesses.

56
Goitein … published in India:
Cf. S. D. Goitein, ‘Letters and Documents on the India Trade in Medieval Times', (
Islamic Culture
, Vol. 37, pp. 188–205, 1963).

57
The complete bibliography:
Robert Attal,
A Bibliography of the Writings of Professor Shelomo Dov Goitein
, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1975 (Supplement 1987).

58
His interest in the Geniza:
See Mark R. Cohen's obituary ‘Shelomo Dov Goitein (3 April 1900–6 February 1985)' in the American Philosophy Society
Year Book
, 1987.

59
His monumental study:
The five volumes of S. D. Goitein's
A Mediterranean Society
were published in the following years, by the University of California Press: Vol. I, 1967; Vol. II, 1971; Vol. III, 1978; Vol. IV, 1983; Vol. V, 1988. The fifth volume appeared posthumously.

60
Scanning Goitein's … oeuvre:
Goitein did however occasionally write biographical sketches. His posthumously published article ‘Portrait of a Medieval India Trader: Three Letters from the Cairo Geniza' (
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
, Vol. 50, part 3, pp. 449–64, 1987), for example, deals with the life of the trader ‘Allân b.
assûn.

61
The India Book
:
The catalogue numbers of the India Book documents were published in Shaul Shaked's
A Tentative Bibliography of Geniza Documents
(Mouton, Paris, 1964), which was published under the joint direction of D. H. Baneth and S. D. Goitein.

62
Judæo-Arabic evolved:
This brief account is based largely upon the ‘Introduction' in Joshua Blau's
Judæo-Arabic
, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1965), the standard work on the subject. Those who wish to learn more about this extraordinary and wonderful language are strongly recommended to consult Blau's excellent study.

63
Mark Cohen's encouragement:
In case my debt to Mark Cohen is not apparent already, I would like to add a line of acknowledgement here. It was Mark Cohen who convinced me that I could indeed learn Judaeo-Arabic, and he has been very generous with constructive criticism as well as advice and encouragement ever since. My debt to him is incalculable.

64
Over the next couple of years:
My Geniza research would not have
been possible without the support of a great many people. To begin with, I would like to thank Dr A. Udovitch of the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton and Dr Stefan C. Reif of the Taylor-Schechter Geniza Research Unit of the Cambridge University Library. To Dr Geoffrey Khan, also of the Taylor-Schechter Geniza Research Unit, Cambridge, I owe a very special debt—for guiding my first faltering steps in the field of Geniza studies, for giving me the benefit of his understanding of the material, and for his patience in answering my innumerable queries. Dr Menahem Ben Sasson also helped me a great deal in the early stages of my research and I would like to thank him for his advice, for many valuable suggestions and for checking several of my transcriptions. I need hardly add that neither he nor anyone else is in any way responsible for any of the views expressed here. Finally a tribute is due to the staff of the Manuscripts Reading Room of the Cambridge University Library for their efficiency and unfailing helpfulness.

1
Since his friends … referred to him as al-Mahdawî:
Khalaf Ibn Ishaq for instance, addresses Ben Yiju as al-Mahdawî in his 1148 letter (National and University Library Jerusalem Geniza MS H.6, in Strauss, ‘Documents').

2
Mahdia … a major centre of Jewish culture:
See H. Z. Hirschberg's
A History of the Jews in North Africa
, Vol. I, pp. 339–41 (E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1974).

3
‘altogether Mahdia offered':
Al-Sharîf al-Idrîsî,
Kitâb tazha al-mushtâq fi i
tirâq al-afâq
, p. 257 (Geographie d'Edrisi, ed. and trans. P. A. Jaubert, Vol. I, Paris, 1836).

4
Of Ben Yiju's immediate family:
S. D. Goitein believed that Ben Yiju may have had another sister, Yumn (cf.
Letters
, pp. 204 fn).

5
He was called Pera
yâ:
The Jewish naming system in the medieval Arabic-speaking world was enormously complex being compounded out of two languages, Arabic and Hebrew. Most people had several names, each context-specific—tekonyms, nicknames, (both individual and collective), tides that were the equivalent of surnames, and so on. To simplify matters I have tried to refer to each individual by a single name throughout this
narrative. As a rule (if a principle founded on indeterminacy can be called a rule) I have tried to use the name that is most commonly used for them in the documents themselves. I have also generally tried to transcribe the names as they occur in the documents, in the expectation that those spellings provide the nearest available approximation to the manner in which the names were actually pronounced, at the time, by the people who used them. But in such instances when those spellings produce results that are meaningless or absurd I have substituted the etymologically appropriate Hebrew equivalents. Thus I have generally used the Arabic ‘Farhîa' instead of the Hebrew ‘Pera
yâ', taking at face value the following statement by Goitein: ‘No such Heb. name (Pera
yâ) exists in the Bible. This is one of the pseudo-biblical names invented during the Geniza period and I suspect that the verb contained in it was understood as Ar. fara
(“Joy in God”) rather than Heb. pera
(“flower”) which makes no sense.' (
Letters
, pp. 327). The relationship between the name and the Arabic root was evidently apparent to those who used it, since Farhia is usually twinned with the diminutive Surûr, which has a similar semantic value in Arabic. I have however used ‘Berâkhâ' rather than ‘Barkha' for example, (which is how the name is spelt by Ben Yiju, in his letter), since it has no Arabic equivalent or referent. I can only beg the indulgence of those who consider this method haphazard, or otherwise objectionable, while pointing out that when a naming system is intended to create multiple levels of identity, any procedure for privileging one name (or even one spelling) is bound to be arbitrary.