Abraham Ben Yijū

Born in Tunisia, Abraham ben Peraḥya Ben Yijū was a prominent merchant in the India trade. From many documents preserved in the Cairo Geniza, he is known to have been active from the 1130s to the 1150s. He traveled to Yemen and India, where he purchased an enslaved woman named Ashū, helped her convert to Judaism, and married her. The couple lived and worked in India for seventeen years and had two sons and a daughter. They then moved back to Yemen and eventually to Egypt. Abraham composed poetry and copied the responsa and poems of leading rabbis. He even dabbled in the study of medicine.