Letter to Her Mother, ‘Azza

In this fragmentary letter, written in Judeo-Arabic, from a woman in al-Maḥalla al-Kubrā (a town in the Nile Delta) to her mother ‘Azza l-‘Iblāniyya (from ‘Ibillīn, a village in western Galilee) in Fustāt (Old Cairo), the daughter asks that her mother save her from her husband. The daughter describes life with her husband as “hell” and complains that he wants to take her, against her will, to his native town of Aleppo. The bottom of the document is torn at an angle.