As example: a water-skin as mentioned in the text under.
Geniza document Halper 472 was written by Ben Yiju in 1152, upon his return to Egypt. It contains several lists; some of them register the goods he has brought with him, among them typical Indian products such as gold jewellery, bronze vessels, china wares and perfumes. A kerchief and a pair of shoes were especially brought for Bama. Ben Yiju's biography illustrates the itinerant life style of medieval Jewish traders.
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Abraham Ben Yiju was a Jewish merchant and poet born in Ifriqiya, in Tunisia, around 1100. He is known from surviving correspondence between him and others in the Cairo Geniza fragments. Abraham's father was a rabbi named Peraḥya. 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 (merchants' chief representative), Maḍmun ibn al-Hasan ibn Bundar. It was presumably also here that he met his later Aden correspondents Yusuf Ben Abraham (a trader and judicial functionary) and the merchant Khalaf ibn Isḥaq, along with Maḍmun's brother-in-law Abu-Zikri Judah ha-Kohen Sijilmasi. By 1132, Abraham had moved to the trading port of Mangalore in India (= Malabar).
(1) mihbas: wrapper of robe or pillow.
(2) beryl stone: is a mineral composed of beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate.
(3) Farasila: equals 16 kg
(4) Fulled: after being woven, material was placed in a barrel full of water and fuller’s earth; it was then trampled until the weave had become compact and strong.
(5) futa: garment; untailored long piece of cloth.
(6) Dinars: gold coin of one mithqal (4-5 gr of gold).
(7) Manari: Manarah is the name of a locality in southwest Muslim Spain. These woven goods were named after that district or perhaps brought from there, or an eastern imitation.
(8)(9) Fihya or filvis an Indian coin of either gold or silver and is the coinage of the port of Kilam (Quilon). The fili mithqal seems to have been more or less equivalent to the Egyptian mithqal (dinar), about 4.6gr of gold; it is clear that filiya is the plural of fili.
Ben Yiju: Arrival from India to Aden
TS 10J 10, f. 15 (1149)
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Taken from: India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza 'India ... edited by Shelomo Dov Goitein, Mordechai Friedman p681
I have to reproach you, my brother {add: greatly}, that {because} you got as far as Egypt and did not come to Aden. I sent you to Egypt, with a shipment of {alt. tr.: through the agency of} my master,
Sheikh Madmun (1), about fifty ounces (2) of civet perfume (3) worth 40 dinars (4), carried by the elder Abu Nasr b. Elisha —may he be remembered. with blessings {alt. tr .-.favorably} Afterward, I learned from the elder Abu Zikri, the Kohen al-Sijilmasi (5), the brother-in-law of my master, Sheikh Madmun, that the civet arrived duly {lit., ‘safely’} in Misr (Fustat); however, as they did not find you there, my brother, they forwarded it to you to Sicily with a trustworthy Jew called Samuel, (himself) a Sicilian. I hope it has reached you.
The letter concerned.
(1) Sheikh Madmun: Madmun ibn Hasan-Japheth is referred to as: representative of the merchants and superintendent of the port of Aden, and "Nagid of the Land of Yemen". Or also: 'representative of the merchants of Aden to all rulers of the Land and the Seas.'
(2) Civet ounce: 27.4 gram
(3) Civet according to Goitein was exported from India (coming from Malay) to Aden. However, civet was also produced in Ethiopia and Somalia.
Other works mentioning the civet from Africa are (see my webpage:) Al-Jahiz Al-Fakhar al-Sudan (869); Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr (11th); Joseph ibn Abraham (1137); Yakut al Hamawi (1220); Al-Saghani (1252); Nur al-ma'arif (1295); al-Watwat (1318); Friar Jordanus; (1329); Ibn Battuta and the African Diaspora (1331); Cowar el-aqalim (1347); From the Court of Al-Zahir (1439); Ibn al-Ahdal (1451); Ibn Madjid: As-Sufaliyya (1470); Ibn al-Dayba (1496).
The oldest mention of civet from the Horn of Africa comes from: Ibn Sa’d: Kitab aṭ-Tabaqat al-Kabir: The Book of the Major Classes (d845) (Taken from: Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad By Tamam Kahn.) : The King (of Ethiopia) commanded that his women (the King of Ethiopia had married Umm Habiba to the Prophet Mohammed in absentia) send to you all the scent they have. …… (Umm Habiba explains this gift herself: (Abraha-servant of the King-) brought me aloes, wars scent, amber and much civet. I brought all of that to the Prophet. He did not object when I wore it.
(4) Here Goitein adds that this must be Egyptian Dinars instead of the Maliki Dinars used in Aden.
(5) see also a letter of Mahruz b.Ya’qub 1137-47