In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale

It was probably in the mid-1140s that Ben Yiju considered returning to the Middle East, a move that may have been prompted by news about his brother Mubashshir. Khalaf passed on a message to Ben Yiju which stated that Mubashshir was in Egypt and asking for permission to go to India. A later letter from Khalaf shows that there had been difficulties in arranging travel.

Further letters show that Ben Yiju tried several times to bring his brother to India. Unbeknownst to him, his family, and many of the Jews of Ifriqiya, had been taken to Sicily during the raids of King Roger II of Sicily. At the same time, crusading fervor was stirring up antisemitism in Europe and the Muslim Almohad dynasty was moving towards Ifriqiya from the West, killing Jewish populations in towns that did not convert.

In 1148, Khalaf told Ben Yiju that his brother was now thinking about travelling to Syria instead of India. It may have been this circumstance that finally prompted him to leave India. He seems to have already had Madmun resolve whatever was keeping him out of Aden and so, by 1149, he was in the city again with his two children (though not his wife). He wrote from here to his brothers (both now in Sicily), hoping to reunite with them. He urged them to come to Aden, where he wanted to marry one of his nephews to his daughter.

The letter reached Mubashshir, who did not pass it on to Yusaf (the other brother). Yusaf still heard about the letter and that it contained a proposal. His son Surur set out, trying to find out more, but in the chaos of the time this was not a quick process.

Soon after Ghosh left Abu-‘Ali’s house, he ran into Jabir, whom he thought looked considerably older. Jabir took Ghosh to his house, where they caught up in Jabir’s room. Jabir told Ghosh that he had loved college, showing off many photos of him and his friends. While viewing these photos, Ghosh realized that, more than any physical changes, Jabir seemed aged because he looked more hopeless than he had before. Jabir was desperate to work in Iraq but had not yet been able to land a job. Despite the troubles between Egyptians and Iraqis in Iraq, he felt getting the money from there would be worth it. For the time being, he was working as a bricklayer’s apprentice to save money, but felt that he had wasted time going to college instead of Iraq.

Jabir compared himself to his younger brother Mohammad, who had made money as a carpenter in Jordan and was now considering marriage. A younger brother marrying before the older would have been highly embarrassing for Jabir so he was holding it off, but not for much longer. Ghosh said that as he left, he could tell that Jabir was in tears while claiming he would be in Iraq soon.

Ben Yiju’s return to Aden would not go well and within three years he would move to Egypt. He described his troubles in a letter to Yusaf in Sicily. He begins by stating that Mubashshir had gone to Aden and defrauded Ben Yiju out of a large sum of money. At around the same time, Ben Yiju’s son died. Ben Yiju was reaching out again because he was concerned for the future of his remaining child, a daughter.

Since these events, Ben Yiju had been living in Dhu Jibla, an inland city in the Yemeni highlands, while his daughter stayed with Khalaf. While Ben Yiju was there, Khalaf had tried to arrange a marriage between Ben Yiju’s daughter and his son, a move likely made with Ben Yiju’s daughter’s consent and potentially even at her prompting. Ben Yiju rejected the offer. He did not want his daughter to marry a “foreigner” hailing from Iraq, and still hoped for a marriage of his daughter to Surur, Yusaf’s son.

Turning down Khalaf’s offer of marriage appears to have caused a rift between Ben Yiju and the circle of merchants in Aden. No further letters from his Aden acquaintances appear in the Geniza following this point. This social rupture, and his wish to quickly marry his daughter to Yusaf’s son, likely played a part in his move to Egypt.

When Ghosh was visiting Nashawy, he went to Nabeel’s house. He was greeted by Fawzia, ‘Ali’s wife, who updated him on Nabeel. She said Nabeel had been in the army and unable to return home when both his father and his mother died. This profoundly affected him and, with Isma’il already urging him to go to Iraq, he left in 1986. He had become an assistant in a photographer’s shop, which Fawzia gave Ghosh the number for. Nabeel had also bought them a cassette recorder and would send recordings of himself back. She told him that they had recently received one and would listen to it soon.

Nabeel had sent enough money back for his family to have modern appliances and to begin building a new, larger house, in which Nabeel hoped to get married. Ghosh and Fawzia began talking about the changes to the village and Ghosh notes that these changes did not just entail a physical overhaul of the village or more gadgets. Instead, there had been an overhaul in the relations between the people, with some of the poorest in the village now being wealthy and important. Earlier that day, Ghosh had been talking to Ustaz Sabry, who said that this influx of money would not last and that the people would pay a price for it. Thinking about Jabir being left at home and Nabeel building a house he was not in, Ghosh though that this price was already being paid.

Later, ‘Ali and his younger brother Hussein (to whom Nabeel was clearly a role model) returned. Together, they listened to the tape of Nabeel, who updated them on how he and the others from Nashawy were doing in Iraq. That night, Ghosh was taken to the main road by Hussein and one of Isma’il’s younger brothers, who formed a pair remarkably like that of their older brothers. Ghosh felt that this was like seeing the ghosts of the two cousins he had known.

Ben Yiju’s second letter, unlike his first, did eventually reach Yusaf in Sicily. Surur immediately set off to begin his travels East, accompanied by his brother Moshe for the first leg of the journey. The two went to Messina, where some of Ben Yiju’s friends had agreed to cover Surur’s fare to Egypt. Moshe tried to join but was not given permission by his father. Once Surur had arrived in Egypt, he wrote to Sicily to ask for a legal document, which Moshe seized on as a chance to travel and bring it to him. However, en route he was captured by crusading pirates and taken to the city of Tyre. This worried his family until he sent a letter confirming that he was safe.

By 1156, the brothers were reunited in Egypt and Surur had married Ben Yiju’s daughter. Yusaf invited them to come back to Sicily, but instead appears to have moved to Egypt, where Moshe and Surur had become judges in a rabbinical court.

Nothing is known about what happened to Ashu, though it is likely she remained in India. Ben Yiju himself disappears from the historical record after his daughter’s wedding. Ghosh says that it is possible he returned to India, but more likely that he died in Egypt. As for Bomma, there are no more mentions of him in Ben Yiju’s correspondence with his brother but, Ghosh states, he does appear in the records once more.

Ghosh states that his return to Lataifa and Nashawy had an unexpected ending. His visit coincided with a mowlid for Sidi Abu-Hasira, whose legend claimed that he had been a Jewish man who flew to Egypt on a mat. Here, he became a Muslim and gathered disciples. Now he was celebrated by locals and many Israelis who travelled to visit his tomb. While Ghosh did not have the chance to see the mowlid, he and his taxi driver, Mohsin, decided to visit the tomb just after the event was over.

The next day Ghosh said his goodbyes to everyone and includes updates on what had happened to them. Khamees was now a prosperous landowner, Busaina an established businesswoman, ‘Eid was soon to be married to his childhood love, Zaghloul remained remarkably the same and Taha had begun an egg-selling business.

Ghosh and Mohsin went to the saint’s tomb on the way to the train station, but when they arrived, they realized that it was a much more modern complex than most tombs and it was surrounded by armed guards. Their car was quickly stopped, and Ghosh was questioned on why he was there. The guards did not understand why he would be interested in this tomb and ordered them to drive to another location, following the orders of a man that joined them.

They were sent into a building which seemed like a colonial office, and questioned by an officer. Ghosh realized that he could not explain why he was interested in the multicultural history of Egypt, as nothing now remained in Egypt to verify it. Instead, he was interested in the site because many people in the area had told him about the tomb, to which the officer replied that he should have ignored them. The tomb was just a site of superstition, he said, one that had nothing to do with modern Islamic beliefs. He ordered that Mohsin and the escort that had been assigned to them take Ghosh to the train station, and for Ghosh to take the first train to Cairo.

Back in America, Ghosh says that he reflected on what the man who had interrogated him had said. He realized that he had been right to say that what Ghosh was investigating was not connected to religion. Things like the tomb had become divorced from their religious background long ago and were instead classified as folklore and anthropology. From researching this, he learned that Sidi Abu-Hasira belonged to a famous line of Zeddikim, the Jewish counterparts of Sufi saints. Many of these people had been equally venerated by both religions, across North Africa and Egypt. Ghosh thus realized that a part of the interconnected world that Bomma had lived in had been near where he was staying the entire time.