Letter to His Daughter

Mid-11th Century

About This Entry

In this Judeo-Arabic plea, sent from Jerusalem to Fustāt (Old Cairo), Tuviah ben Moses begs his daughter for information. Tuviah had married a convert from Christianity to Judaism, but after their divorce, his wife took their daughter to Egypt where she returned to the Christian faith. Tuviah inquires after his daughter’s well- being, telling her that his new position would enable him to increase the financial support he could offer her.

I am writing to you, my daughter, from Jerusalem, may God keep it, with three [days] remaining in the month of Rajab. Part of what I have to tell you, my daughter, is what I think about your affairs. A fire [burns] in my heart because of you. God stands between me and the one who harmed you and made you an orphan in my lifetime. You, my daughter, must depend on people’s kindness because of the deeds of your mother. I beseech God, may He be exalted, not to forgive her the sin by which, because of her greed, she destroyed you. God will set you right from her account.

Know, my daughter, that I have sworn a solemn oath not to send you anything as long as I am uncertain about your status and do not know what to do about your situation. God knows that I have no consternation or worry other than for you. Nay, my health and my affairs are well, and my clothes do not hold me for happiness and good fortune.

Had I sought nothing but worldly gain, then I could regard myself today as a great success, for I have become the administrator of the government compounds in Palestine, for an ample salary and a good [income?]. Your maternal aunt has seen me, and her husband has too, and also Abu l-Faḍl. At my disposal are men, commandment and prohibition, and I am powerful. God has made me happier than I had been before. So good fortune has been mine and misfortune your mother’s, God be praised.

And now, my daughter, I do not know with whom you are. I do not know whether you are with the Jews, who are the stock of your father, or the stock of your mother, the non-Jews. But this I wish you to know: even if [the Christians] wanted to sell you to me, my own daughter, I would buy you and rescue you from their hands. What else could I do?

Translated by Marina Rustow.

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Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation.

Credits

Tuviah ben Moses, “Letter to His Daughter,” trans. Marina Rustow, from Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 263. Copyright © 2008 by Cornell University. Used by permission of the publisher, Cornell University Press.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.