Also there arrived travellers in ships from the year in which the Kulami sank and the next year as well. Travelers arrived in those two years in ships from every sea; ships from India and its environs, ships from the land of Zanj and environs, ships from Berbera and Habash and environs, ships from al-Ashhar (1) and al-Qamr (2) and environs.

lines 1-4: wasalu al-safr fi hadhayn al-sanatayn fi al-marakib min kull bahr min sa'ir bilad al-hind wa- a'maliha wa-min bilad al-zanj wa-a'maliha wa-min barr barbara wa-al- habash wa-a'maliha wa-min al-ashhar wa-al-qamr wa-a’maliha al-kull.
All the travellers came to Aden in those two years. And no news came to light of the Kulami or whoever was in it. Not even one man, at all, no trace, no report, not anyone, who could tell an eyewitness account from someone who had been in it, not anyone who could tell a report in his name, he or anyone who was in it, except the story of the sailors of the Baribatani, which was sailing with it. Nothing else.

Some say also that the new furnishings of the ship, which were found on the shore of Abyan (3) and Shihr (4), could have been from one of the ships of the land of the Zanj or from some other ship, which was not from the ships of Aden. No one disagrees, rather all concur, that any ship that sinks in the environs of Aden, between the Masabb (5) and Aden, never surfaces, nor does anyone who was in it survive at all, because of the turbulence of the sea and….  

From a different passage of the same letter it becomes clear that these are actual ports of origin of the ships and the distinction is made between Adeni, African, and other ships.

The remarkable designation “ al-ashhar (1) wa-al-qamr (2)” must refer to the area of the Hadramawt (6) port of Al-Shihr (4) and the adjacent region of al-Qamr mountain near the promontory of Ra’s Fartak in Dhofar, especially since the formulation “abyan (3) wa-al-shihr wa balad al-qamr” in the same letter, verso, line 17, further reinforces the geographical association between the three toponyms.

Taken from: Geniza Lab ; Princeton Geniza Project

https://genizaprojects.princeton.edu/pgpsearch/?a=object&id=5445&q=zanj

PER H 161

Letter from Saʿid b. Marḥab on behalf of the court, in Aden, to the druggist Hillel b. Naḥman (aka Sayyid al-Kull), in Fustat (=Cairo). In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Adar I - 467 Seleucid, which is January 25–February 23, 1156 CE. The letter gives a uniquely detailed report on a shipwreck, as the addressee's son-in-law Hiba b. Abu Saʿd was on board, and the addressee had requested verification of his death and details about the retrieval of his possessions. The sender devotes the entire letter to the former and adds only one brief sentence in the margin of verso, about the possessions, which were confiscated by the sultan. The ship belonged to the Nagid Ḥalfon b. Madmun b. Ḥasan. Most of the cargo on the ship belonged to him, though every Jewish trader in Aden had some cargo on it. There were only four Jews on board. It was called the Kulami ship as it set out for Kulam aka Kollam aka Quilon on the Malabar Coast. The court of Aden here presents all of the available evidence for the shipwreck: eyewitness accounts, second-hand reports, and legal pronouncements. The main source of the information that the ship sank came from the Baribatani ship which sailed together with it, i.e., the ship for Valapattanam aka Valarapattanam aka Balyapattanam, a port five miles from Cannanore aka Kannur, which is north of Kollam. During the rest of that year and the following year, travelers arrived in Aden coming from all over India, from East Africa ("the land of the Zanj"), from Somalia ("the inland region of Berbera"), from Abyssinia and its provinces, and from the south Arabian regions of Ashhar and Qamar (=Mountains in Yemen), and the accounts of all travelers were consistent with the Kulami ship having been wrecked. The court in Aden had ruled that the evidence was sufficient to free Sitt al-Ahl, the daughter of Hillel b. Naḥman, from being an ʿaguna (=deserted woman), but they defer to the authorities in Egypt, as this was a lenient and tenuous ruling. The sender of this letter, Saʿid b. Marḥab, is incidentally the earliest known Yemeni Jewish poet. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Traders; see analysis and translation there for further details.)

Under a picture of the document. Encircled is the following text:

Travelers arrived in these two years in ships from every sea from all the lands of Hind and its provinces, from the land of the Zanj and its provinces, from the inland region of Berbera and Abyssinia.

(1) al-Ashhar: most commonly called al-ash Shihr (coastal town in Hadhramaut in eastern Yemen)

(2) al-Qamr: the moon mountains in Yemen are very well known.

(3) Abyan: province of Yemen just east of Aden.

(4) Shihr; coastal town in Hadhramaut in eastern Yemen.

(5) Masabb: area west of Aden.

(6) Hadramawt: eastern part of Yemen.