Order for Payment (Fustāt, Egypt)

Little is known about the life of Abū Zikrī Kohen. He was a leading merchant in Fustāt (Old Cairo), and dozens of extant documents attest to his business transactions, including a group of twenty receipts of payments made in a single month in 1140. These documents reveal that Abū Zikrī was careful with his money, avoiding overdrafts and repaying his banker promptly. He signed his bank notes with emet (truth), an acrostic of the opening words of Psalms 85:12, emet me-erets titsmaḥ (“truth springs out from the earth”).