Alack and alas for the eighth month

In these excerpts from the first of two kinot (laments) written in reaction to the assassination of the wealthy Karaite Abū Naṣr Faḍl al-Tustarī, who had risen to a high rank in the Fātimid administration of the caliph, al-Mustanṣir (1036–1094), Eli ben ‘Amram expresses his great sense of loss. Beginning in the 1020s, Abū Naṣr had played a role in internal Jewish political affairs, such as in the appointment of the Palestinian gaon, and eventually rose to be a confidant of the Fātimid caliph. Most of the sources for Abū Naṣr’s murder appear in Muslim texts and date to a later period, but the Cairo Geniza preserved Eli’s two Hebrew laments. That he composed these poems at all highlights the close connections between Rabbanites and Karaites in medieval Fustāt. The unbracketed ellipsis indicates a lacuna in the manuscript.