Copy of a Caliphal Edict (Egypt)

This Judeo-Arabic copy of an edict from the Fātimid caliphal chancery of al-Ẓāhir (r. 1021–1035) was copied from the original, which would have been written in Arabic script. In it, the Fātimid administration affirmed the rights of both the Rabbanite and Karaite communities to practice their respective forms of Judaism unimpeded. In 1029, a group of Rabbanites had excommunicated some Karaites as “eaters of meat with milk” on the Mount of Olives, and some Rabbanites were imprisoned in the ensuing protests. A series of attempts to free these individuals led to an exchange of letters and, finally, to this attempt to calm the situation. This decree had some precedent; for example, a document from 1024 records that the caliph involved himself in a different internal Jewish disagreement.