Fragment of the Month: November 2019

From a lost book of Egyptian proverbs:  T-S Ar.13.13[1]

Mohamed A. H. Ahmed

Medieval and pre-modern Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts hold many works and fragments of popular literature. This includes folk tales and colloquial poetry (Zajal), which constitute a key feature in the Arabic literature preserved in the Cairo Genizah.

Aphorisms and proverbs freely circulated among Jewish communities in the medieval period. Nevertheless, most Genizah books and/or fragments that hold Arabic proverbs are written in Standard/Classical Arabic. From the medieval period comes the famous Judaeo-Arabic work by Rabbi Moshe ibn Ezra (c. 1055–1060) Kitāb al-Muḥāḍara wa al-Muḏākara. Arabic proverbs in the book, which number in their hundreds, reflect the integration of aphorisms as a significant element in the culture and literature at the time.[2] Another important book, Kitāb ad-durr al-manzūm, contains a large number of aphorisms and quotations, the majority derived from Sufi literature, though not written in Egyptian Arabic.[3] Avishur reflects on the unique formulation of proverbs in Iraqi Judaeo-Arabic, in which the aphorisms show a remarkable combination - half-Hebrew and half-Arabic.[4]

Unlike these important works of literature, the fragment under investigation holds a collection of Egyptian Arabic proverbs – some as yet unpublished - written in Hebrew script.[5] The single paper leaf contains a total number of 21 proverbs in Egyptian Arabic arranged in Arabic alphabetical order. The recto contains ten proverbs, in which the first word in each proverb has the initial Arabic letter ʿayn. The verso contains eleven proverbs beginning with ḡayn. Based on the style of the Hebrew script and the nature of the paper, it is likely that the fragment should be dated to the period between the 13th–15th centuries.

The comparison between the proverbs in this fragment and the known Arabic proverb collections and Arabic linguistic works by travellers and scholars reveals exciting results. The proverbs in the Genizah fragment T-S Ar.13.13 are quite similar to the collection found in Burckhardt’s 1875 work on Arabic proverbs.[6] However, the most crucial observation is that the fragment holds eight, or perhaps nine, proverbs that are only extant in our fragment; four of them start with the letter ʿayn, and the other four or five with ḡayn: to give an example:

T-S Ar.13.13 recto, line 1:

עלי אלחרה תכשׁפה ללצרה

على الحرّة تكشفه للصره.

ʿala al-ḥurra tikśifu lel-ṣurra[7]

For a virtuous woman undress (yourself) till the navel.

T-S Ar.13.13 recto                                                                                T-S Ar.13.13 verso

T-S Ar.13.13 recto, line 13–verso, line 1:

גאב אלגנדי וכלא כלפה ענדי

غاب الجندي وخلا خلفه عندي.

ḡāb el-gundī we ḵallā ḵalafu ʿandī

The soldier went away and left his kids with me.

The fragment, although only consisting of a solitary leaf, shows how vital the Cairo Genizah is for the study of Egyptian Arabic and folklore literature. This fragment, and many like it, confirm the shared cultural heritage between Egyptian people at the time regardless of religious background or ethnicity. It is hoped that the study of Arabic literature preserved in the Cairo Genizah will receive the scholarly attention it deserves.   

Footnotes