Abraham Ben Yijū was a Jewish merchant and poet born in

Ifriqiya Ifriqiya ( '), also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna ( ar, المغرب الأدنى), was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia and eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania (today's western Libya). It included all of what had previously ...

, in what is now Tunisia, around 1100. He is known from surviving correspondence between him and others in the

Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the '' genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Eg ...

fragments.Amitav Ghosh, 'The Slave of MS. H.6', ''Subaltern Studies'', 7 (1993), 159-220.

Early life

Abraham's father was a rabbi named Peraḥyā. His other known children are the sons Mubashshir and Yūsuf, and a daughter, Berākhā. Since Abraham is sometimes given the epithet ''al-Mahdawī'', it is thought that he was born or raised in

Mahdia Mahdia ( ar, المهدية ') is a Tunisian coastal city with 62,189 inhabitants, south of Monastir and southeast of Sousse. Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax Sfax (; ar, صفاقس, Ṣafāqis ) is a city in Tunisia, located ...

.Amitav Ghosh, ''In an Antique Land'' (Gurgaon: Penguin Random House India, 2009) irst_publ._Ravi_Dayal_1992);_. By_some_time_in_the_1120s,_Abraham_had_moved_to_Aden,_where_he_seems_to_have_gained_the_mentorship_and_later_business_partnership_of_the_''Nagid.html" ;"title="Aden.html" ;"title="irst publ. Ravi Dayal 1992); . By some time in the 1120s, Abraham had moved to Aden">irst publ. Ravi Dayal 1992); . By some time in the 1120s, Abraham had moved to Aden, where he seems to have gained the mentorship and later business partnership of the ''Nagid">nagīd'' (merchants' chief representative), Maḍmūn ibn al-Hasan ibn Bundār. It was presumably also here that he met his later Aden correspondents Yūsuf Ben Abraham (a trader and judicial functionary) and the merchant Khalaf ibn Isḥāq, along with Maḍmūn's brother-in-law Abū-Zikrī Judah ha-Kohen Sijilmāsī and Abū-Zikrī's brother-in-law Maḥrūz.

Career in India

By 1132, Abraham had moved to the trading port of

Mangalore Mangalore (), officially known as Mangaluru, is a major port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bangalore, the state capital, 20 km north of Karnataka–Ker ...

in the region of India then known to Arab traders as

Malabar Malabar may refer to the following: People * Malabars, people originating from the Malabar region of India * Malbars or Malabars, people of Tamil origin in Réunion Places * Malabar Coast, or Malabar, a region of the southwestern shoreline o ...

. A hint in a fragmentary letter from Maḍmūn to Abraham suggests that Abraham had got into difficulties with a king in Aden and that these difficulties had made his move to India expedient. The earliest securely datable records of Abraham's life in India are a deed of

manumission Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

recording that he freed a female slave called Ashu on 17 October 1132, with a second document confirming this. By 1135, Maḍmūn is recorded sending a gift of coral for Abraham's son Surūr, attesting that Abraham had a son by this time.

Shelomo Dov Goitein Shelomo Dov Goitein (April 3, 1900 – February 6, 1985) was a German-Jewish ethnographer, historian and Arabist known for his research on Jewish life in the Islamic Middle Ages, and particularly on the Cairo Geniza. Biography Shelomo Dov (Fritz ...

inferred accordingly that Ashu had become Abraham's wife and was Surūr's mother. At any rate, other correspondence indicates that Abraham had a brother-in-law called Nāīr, which is thought to indicate the membership of Abraham's wife's family in the

Nair The Nair , also known as Nayar, are a group of Indian Hindu castes, described by anthropologist Kathleen Gough as "not a unitary group but a named category of castes". The Nair include several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom histor ...

community of south-west India. At an undated point, Abraham also had a daughter, Sitt al-Dār. Correspondence from Maḍmūn to Abraham indicates that while Abraham lived in Mangalore, he had a slave who acted as his agent on voyages back to Aden. His name is recorded only in the Hebrew characters במת (

bet Black Entertainment Television (acronym BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting African-American audiences. It is owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global via BET Networks and has offices in New York City, Los A ...

, mem,

taw Taw, tav, or taf is the twenty-second and last letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Tāw , Hebrew Tav , Aramaic Taw , Syriac Taw ܬ, and Arabic ت Tāʼ (22nd in abjadi order, 3rd in modern order). In Arabic, it is also gives ri ...

), which

Amitav Ghosh Amitav Ghosh (born 11 July 1956)Ghosh, Amitav
, ''Encyclopædia Britannica''

has interpreted as the

Tulu Tulu may refer to: People *Derartu Tulu (born 1972), Ethiopian long-distance runner *Walid Yacoubou (born 1997), Togolese footballer nicknamed "Tulu" India *Tulu calendar, traditional solar calendar generally used in the regions of southwest Kar ...

name ''Bomma'', guessed to originate as a diminutive of the deity-name Berme. He is recorded as acting on Abraham's behalf in Aden in 1135. Abraham also developed close relationships with other South Asian traders. Goods traded by Abraham to Aden include

cardamom Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are rec ...

, a delivery of which was the subject of some dispute in the surviving correspondence between Abraham and both Yūsuf ibn Abraham and Khalaf ibn Isḥāq,

areca nuts ''Areca'' is a genus of 51 species of palms in the family Arecaceae, found in humid tropical forests from the islands of the Philippines, Malaysia and India, across Southeast Asia to Melanesia. The generic name ''Areca'' is derived from a name u ...

, pepper, and manufactured goods such as locks and brass bowls. His activities in Mangalore took him to the neighbouring towns of Budfattan (possibly Baliapatam), Fandarīna ( Pantalayini Kollam), Dahfattan (

Dharmadam Dharmadom or Dharmadam is a census town in Thalassery taluk of Kannur district in the state of Kerala, India. This town is located in between Anjarakandi River and Ummanchira river, and Palayad town and Arabian sea. It is known for the 100-year ...

) and Jurbattan (

Sreekandapuram Sreekandapuram is a municipality in Kannur district, in the Indian state of Kerala. Location The town is located on the bank of the Valapattanam river which flows into Arabian sea. It is situated northeast of Kannur, east of Taliparamba and ...

). In 1145, Abraham wrote to Abū-Zikrī on behalf of Abū-Zikrī's brother-in-law Maḥrūz to facilitate Abū-Zikrī's escape from Gujarat, where he had been left after being kidnapped by pirates, to Malabar.

Return to the Middle East

The 1140s also saw Abraham seeking to correspond with his brothers Mubashshir (then in

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

, Sicily) and Yūsuf (then in Mazzara, also in Sicily), and a letter to them of 11 September 1149 indicates that he had by then returned to Aden. The letter expresses his desire to reunite his family in Aden, to use his wealth to ameliorate their hardship, and to marry his son to one of his nieces. The letter reached Mubashshir, who did not show it to Yūsuf, but made his was to Aden, where he proceeded to defraud Abraham of, in Abraham's words, 'a thousand dinars'. Around this time, Abraham's son Surūr died and Abraham moved inland to Dhū Jibla, becoming a senior figure in the community there and leaving his daughter Sitt in Aden with Khalaf ibn Isḥāq. After three years, Khalaf asked for Abraham's permission for Sitt to marry one of Khalaf's sons, but Abraham refused, moved with her to Egypt, and instead wrote to his brother Yūsuf requesting that he give one of his sons or a son of their sister Berākhā to Sitt in marriage. It appears that Bomma followed Abraham from India to Cairo, where Abraham recorded that he owed Bomma money in his accounts. Yūsuf's eldest son, Surūr, hastened to Egypt to contract the marriage. Surūr's younger brother Moshe followed soon after; he was kidnapped by pirates and taken to Tyre but was freed and met his brother in Egypt. Surūr married Sitt in

Fustat Fusṭāṭ ( ar, الفُسطاط ''al-Fusṭāṭ''), also Al-Fusṭāṭ and Fosṭāṭ, was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, and the historical centre of modern Cairo. It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by ...

in 1156. The two brothers went on to become judges in the rabbinical courts in Egypt. Nothing is known of the life of Abraham Ben Yijū thereafter.

Works

Abraham's poetry includes an elegy on the death of Maḍmūn ibn al-Hasan ibn Bundār in 1151.

Appearances in modern literature

A major part of ''

In an Antique Land ''In an Antique Land'' is a 1992 book written in First-person narrative, first-person by Indian writer Amitav Ghosh recounting his experiences in two Egyptian villages attempting to retrace accounts of an unknown Indian slave, as well as a recon ...

'' by the Indian writer

Amitav Ghosh Amitav Ghosh (born 11 July 1956)Ghosh, Amitav
, ''Encyclopædia Britannica''

is devoted to Abraham Ben Yiju, and his slaves Ashu and Bomma, a fictional narrative sticking closely to the facts known from the surviving correspondence.

Primary sources

Manuscripts evidencing Abraham's life include: * Jerusalem, National and University Library, MS H.6 * Cambridge,

Cambridge University Library Cambridge University Library is the main research library of the University of Cambridge. It is the largest of the over 100 libraries within the university. The Library is a major scholarly resource for the members of the University of Cambri ...

, Taylor-Schechter 12.235 * T-S 12.337 * T-S 16.288 * T-S 20.130 * T-S 20.137 * T-S N.S. J 1 * T-S N.S. J 5 * T-S N.S. J 10 * T-S K 25.252 * T-S MS Or. 1080 J 95 * T-S MS Or. 1080 J 263 * T-S MS Or. 1081 J 3 * T-S Misc. Box. 25, fragm. 103 * T-S 6 J 4, fol. 14 * T-S 8 J 7, fol. 23 * T-S 8 J 36, fol. 3 * T-S 10 J 9, fol. 24 * T-S 10 J 10, fol 15 * T-S 10 J 12, fol. 5 * T-S 10 J 13, fol. 6 * T-S 13 J 7, fol. 13 * T-S 13 J 7, fol. 27 * T-S 13 J 0, fol. 7 * T-S 13 J 24, fol. 2 * T-S 18 J 2, fol. 7 * T-S 18 J 4, fol. 18 * T-S 18 J 5, fol. 1 * Oxford,

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

, MS Hebr., b. 11, fol. 15 * Bod. Lib. MS Hebr., d. 66, fol. 61 * Bod. Lib. MS Hebr., d. 66, fol. 139