Letter to the Jewish Community of Fustāt

This letter was sent from Sunbāṭ, a small community on the Nile Delta, by an unnamed Jewish woman who had been taken captive, along with her son, by Crusaders. Taking captives for ransom was common in this period, and their redemption had a fixed price of thirty-three and one-third dinars. If someone was not redeemed, they were usually sold into slavery. This woman addressed her letter to the Jewish community of Fustāt (Old Cairo), a practice followed by many female petitioners. Men, on the other hand, tended to direct their formal requests to specific, named individuals, even without knowing them personally. The italics indicate Hebrew, while the rest of the letter is in Judeo-Arabic.