This article is based on letters from the Geniza. The writers were merchants who dealt in imports and exports between Egypt and other countries of the Mediterranean basin. These merchants were part of the Jewish elite and maintained close ties with the Muslim authorities. They enjoyed considerable status with these authorities, who co-operated with the merchants, especially in the transport of goods; some of the high officials were, in fact, ship-owners. The administration of the time took a great interest in imports and exports, and would at times confiscate goods required by the army. The article reviews a series of citations from letters thus examining the relationship between the merchants and the authorities. The second part deals with the evidence of the droughts found in the merchants' letters; it is interesting to compare the details on droughts with the information in the Arabic sources. The third part discusses the information contained in the Geniza documents on the conquest of Jerusalem (638). This is followed by a discussion of two figures who are also known from Arabic sources: Manasseh b. Abraham Ibn al-Qazza¯z, and Barjawa¯n. The letters also reflect the restrictive measures against Jews and Christians in the days of Caliph al-Ha¯kim.

This article deals with a further series of events reflected in the Geniza letters, as listed below. In 1016, Jerusalem was afflicted by a severe earthquake; the letters help to determine the exact date of the event. Between 970 and 1030, Palestine was beset by battles; I have referred to this period as the ‘Sixty Years War’. In the Geniza letters, we find information on these events, beginning in 1021 and continuing to the Fatimid victory at Uqhuwa¯na in 1029. The letters provide information on the heavy taxes imposed on the Jewish population in Jerusalem. Because the liveliest trade took place between Egypt and the Maghrib, a great many letters were sent from the Maghrib, containing information on the incessant struggles there, especially between 1010 and 1027. The letters supply information on the struggle in Spain between the ‘slaves’ and the Berbers. We find an extremely detailed description of the events related to the earthquake of 1033, which is also described by the Persian traveller Na¯sir Khusraw. Also contained in the letters is information on the mutinies in the Maghrib under al-Mu‘izz; the separation of Ifri¯qiya¯ from Fatimid supremacy (1048/49); events during the rule of the vizier al-Ya¯zu¯ri¯; and the destruction of the city of Qayrawa¯n (1059). The article ends with a discussion of the great rebellion which took place in Safa¯qus in 1062/63.

The debate concerning the Head of the Jews (ra'is al-yahud) in the Fatimid kingdom, which has interested researchers since the late nineteenth century, has yet to reach a final conclusion. Today's researchers usually argue that this position was established in Egypt at the end of the eleventh century with the final fall of the Palestinian Yeshiva; prior to this the Head of the Jews was the gaon of Palestine, appointed by the Fatimid Imam. More recently a new argument has emerged, re-embracing the approach of J. Mann, who argued that the position of the Head of the Jews was established at the beginning of Fatimid rule (late tenth century), and the person to hold the position was a Jewish courtier from the field of finance or medicine, appointed by the Imam to be the supreme leader for all Jews in the Fatimid kingdom: Rabbanites, Karaites and Samaritans. This old–new notion is yet to be clearly proven. Such views are mainly supported by circumstantial analysis of logical arguments that arise from the Geniza documents, without real written proof, but the Geniza is known for surprises and it is possible that we will soon find unequivocal proof to show that the Head of the Jews in the Fatimid kingdom was indeed a Jewish courtier appointed by the Imam, since the beginning of the Fatimid rule over Egypt, Palestine and Syria at the end of the tenth century.

This article presents a detailed review of A Dictionary of Samaritan Aramaic (Leiden: Brill, 2000). Samaritan Aramaic (SA) is a Palestinian Aramaic dialect similar to Jewish Aramaic and Christian Aramaic, the two other dialects in use during the first millennium CE in Palestine. Based on the best critical editions of Samaritan texts (for each of them the author initially prepared a comprehensive concordance), it presents the entire vocabulary of SA literature as it is known at present; namely the Samaritan Targum, liturgical poems, midrashic literature and SA material attested in Samaritan texts written in Late Samaritan Hebrew. The article deals with lexicographical issues, such as the method of introducing entries and the scope of the dictionary (e.g. its being a sort of mini-encyclopedia). It focuses mainly on matters relating to SA, such as differences between ancient and late layers of the dialect, lexical loans (from Hebrew, Arabic, Greek and Latin) and influences of Jewish texts (e.g. Onkelos). The scope of the dictionary, its method and, above all, the way its author deals with the vast lexical problems of SA, make it one of the most important contributions to the research into this dialect. It is therefore unsurprising that DSA has already gained an important place on the bookshelves of scholars of other dialects of Aramaic, Hebrew and biblical studies.

This article examines the relationship between the Mughal colonization of the Deccan during the twelfth/eighteenth century and the development of the Sufi traditions of Awrangabad. Concurrent with the defeat of the Deccan sultanates was a process of re-ordering the sacred Muslim landscape of the Deccan into harmony with the cultural and political values of the region's new elites by the importation of Sufi traditions from the north. As a reflection of the wider cultural make-up of the Mughal world, questions of regional, political and ethnic affiliation were articulated by writers whose own remembered homelands lay far from the Deccan. Placing Sufi commemorative texts written in Awrangabad into a wider social and literary context, the article discusses the place of the city's Sufis in the social, political and intellectual life of a short-lived imperial centre. The city's saints are in this way seen as the most semantically rich of all the cultural products of the period.