Letter to the Community of Dhū Jibla

The Jewish Court of Aden

ca. 1135

[ . . . This is] what they said: in accordance with our father’s will, we demand our right, [and indeed they did not] produce a handwritten statement testifying to what was [due] them, nor a document with witnesses, and they did not have a w[ill] proper, as wills should be. And it came to pass, when we saw all that was written in your letter and…

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This document, composed by the Jewish court of Aden in Yemen around 1135, addresses a legal case between an individual named Maḍmūn and three brothers in the community of Dhū Jibla, also in Yemen. Maḍmūn was a communal leader in Aden, and the three brothers had apparently insulted him when they had sued him earlier in the Aden court. The beginning of this letter is missing but apparently recounted the details of the case in Arabic. The text then switches to Hebrew (in italics here) and discusses the talmudic evidence for penalties against the brothers, asking that a steep fine be imposed on them.

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Related Guide

Correspondence in the Early Medieval World

7th to 12th Century

Creator Bio

The Jewish Court of Aden

The Jewish court of Aden represented the Jewish community in that thriving port city in Yemen but had jurisdiction over Jews as far away as Ceylon and India, encompassing twenty port cities. The Aden court itself was under the legal authority of the Jewish court in Fustāt (Old Cairo).

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