Wuhsha al-dallala

Legal document concerning the illegitimate descendance of Abu Saʽd, son of Wusha al-dallala; part of the Cairo Geniza, Cambridge Digital Library

Wuhsha al-dallala (born Karima bint Ammar; fl. 11th century) was a Jewish-Egyptian businesswoman and pawnbroker active in Fustat. Her life is primarily understood through documents preserved in the Cairo Geniza, being the only woman whose biography could be comprehensively reconstructed from these records.

Hailing from a moderately prosperous banking family, Wuhsha was briefly married to Arye ben Judah, a Sicilian immigrant, resulting in the birth of a daughter. Choosing not to remarry after her divorce, Wuhsha later formed a relationship with Hassun of Ashkelon, with whom she had a son, Abu Saʽd. The unconventional birth of Abu Saʽd brought social repercussions, including Wuhsha’s expulsion from her synagogue during Yom Kippur. However, she was not completely ostracised and maintained her career, amassing a fortune of at least 700 dinars.

Her will—penned by her friend, the cantor Hillel ben Eli—provides the most insight into her life, outlining her funeral arrangements in detail, from her burial attire to payments for pallbearers, alongside generous charitable bequests and the distribution of her estate among her son and relatives. Long after her death, court documents would continue to identify individuals as “al-Wuhsha’s relative.” Her expressions of independence and defiance of societal norms, uncharacteristic for the time, have established her among historians as exemplary of female individuality in the Cairo Geniza.

Name and sources

The life of Wuhsha al-dallala is documented solely through the Cairo Geniza, a vast collection of Jewish-Egyptian manuscripts spanning the 6th to 19th centuries. Five primary documents detail her life, with additional references in other texts, making her the only woman from the Geniza whose biography can be substantially reconstructed. Her existence was first noted by German-Jewish historian Shelomo Dov Goitein in 1964, through a document dated April 1098 that criticised her absence in the court despite a summons. Goitein later identified her will, drafted by the renowned clerk Hillel ben Eli.

A record of the rabbinical court in Old Cairo from 1097/8, gives her full name as 'Karima bint Ammar, known as Wuhsha al-dallala'. The honorific Wuhsha al-dallala derives from the Arabic root wḥš and allows two vocalisations: wuḥsha and waḥsha. Goitein interpreted wuḥsha as a term of endearment, translating it as 'one without whom one feels lonely' or 'object of yearning'. Conversely, Mordechai Friedman, scholar of Jewish history, suggested that waḥsha could denote "loneliness," "estrangement," "coldness," or "untamed," favouring the latter as most likely. The title al-dallala signifies her profession as a pawnbroker.

Reconstructed biography

Personal relations

Overview of the ruins of Fustat in 1865, some thirty years before Solomon Schechter's discovery of the Geniza site. Photograph taken by Théodule Devéria, a French Egyptologist.

In a record of charity contributors, Wuhsha is listed immediately before Ammar, the son of Rosh ha-Qahal (Head of the Congregation), who is later identified in a 1093 document as Amram, son of Ezra, the Rosh ha-Qahal. Amram, likely her father, was a prominent banker in Alexandria. His title, "Head of the Congregation," was an honorific and does not necessarily indicate an active leadership role in the synagogue. Amram had five children, three daughters and two sons and the family lived in Fustat, a previous capital of Egypt before the construction of Cairo. He was recorded as deceased by June 1104.

The earliest documentation of Wuhsha al-dallala in the Cairo Geniza is her marriage contract with Arye ben Judah, a destitute Sicilian immigrant. The document lists her dowry at 316 dinars, a figure Goitein deemed inflated upon reviewing the listed items, estimating a more accurate value of 150 dinars. This sum suggests that Wuhsha’s family, responsible for providing for three daughters, maintained a comfortable yet modest financial standing, far from wealth. Arye himself only offered a marriage gift of 10 dinars, with an additional 15 dinars promised in deferred payments. The date of the marriage is unknown, but Jewish historian Renée Levine Melammed suggests it occurred after Wuhsha’s family relocated to Fustat. While the rationale for this union is unclear, Goitein hypothesised that exceptional circumstances, possibly Wuhsha’s reputation for independence, may have influenced the arrangement.

The marriage was short-lived, and within a few years, Wuhsha is described in another document as Arye’s divorcée. Historians Miriam Frenkel, Delia Cortese, and Simonetta Calderini date the official end of the marriage to January 1095. However, Goitein considered the date to pertain to a second failed marriage of Arye. From Arye, Wuhsha had a daughter named Sitt Ghazal (Lady Gazelle), whose name is absent from Wuhsha’s will. Sitt Ghazal appears in a document dated December 1132, which records her acquisition of half a house. In this document, the presiding judge prominently identified her as “Bint al-Wuhsha” (daughter of Wuhsha) in bold script, since this was the name by which she was commonly known.

After separating from Arye, Wuhsha did not remarry. Subsequently after her divorce, she gave birth to a son, Abu Saʽd, whose father was her lover, Hasun, a refugee of Ashkelon. Contemporary records do not mention Hasun’s name, and the birth of Abu Saʽd was described as irregular. As a result of this, the president of the Iraqi synagogue publicly humiliated her by expelling her from the synagogue during Yom Kippur. Concerned that her son might be excluded from the Jewish community, and thereby prevented from contracting a lawful Jewish marriage, Wuhsha arranged circumstances that enabled witnesses to confirm the paternity of Abu Saʽd.

Wuhsha's ruse is described in a Jewish court document, conducted after her death and pertaining to an adult Abu Saʽd’s efforts to affirm that his birth resulted from an irregular but non-incestuous relationship. According to the testimony of Hillel ben Eli, a trusted confidant of Wuhsha and the scribe responsible for drafting both her marriage contract and her will, she disclosed to him that she was pregnant with Hasun’s child. She further confided that, although she and Hasun had formalised their union before a Muslim notary, she was afraid that Hasun might deny paternity. Hillel counselled her to orchestrate a scenario in which witnesses could verify her relationship with Hasun, advising her to 'gather some people, and let them surprise you with him so that your assertion might be confirmed'. Therefore she had two neighbours surprise Hasun while in intimate proximity with her, thus confirming that her future child was conceived from him.

Several documents from the early twelfth century mention relatives of Wuhsha. For instance, in July 1150, a woman identified as “the daughter of the daughter of al-Wuhsha” arranged for repairs to her residence in Cairo. Other cases include documents from 1133 and 1148, wherein individuals are identified by their connection to her as "al-Wuhsha's relative" or "al-Wuhsha's sister's son".

Business endeavours

A court proceeding record for the case of Wuhsha al-dallala versus Joseph al-Lebdi, transcribed by Halfon ben Manasseh, Cairo Geniza, Cambridge Digital Library

Wuhsha’s will indicates that she possessed a minimum of 700 dinars. She participated in significant commercial enterprises, collaborating with her brother, Abu Nasr, an India trader, as well as other merchants, both male and female. Her primary economic pursuit, however, was pawnbroking, providing loans against collateral. Her professional success notably increased following her divorce from Arye. According to Goitein, Wuhsha’s wealth was remarkable for her time, as most female pawnbrokers in her era were impoverished rather than affluent.

In the summer of 1101, Abu Nasr was assassinated at the port of ʽAydhab while returning from a trading venture in India, undertaken in collaboration with two other merchants, Farah—who was also killed—and Joseph al-Lebdi, a trader from Tripoli. A legal proceeding in Fustat, dated 30 June 1104, addressed a dispute between Wuhsha and Lebdi. Represented by Moshe ben Yeshua, Wuhsha claimed her entitlement to approximately 300 dinars, derived from her late brother’s investment in Lebdi’s goods, whether sold or unsold, with the total investment valued at 800 dinars. Lebdi contended that the 300 dinars were unrelated to the partnership in question but expressed willingness to account for them if Wuhsha would similarly include 22 bales of lac, which her representative asserted were part of a distinct transaction and not the partnership involving 800 dinars.

Neither party could substantiate their claims with evidence. The case was overseen by two jurisconsults, known as the Judge and the Rayyis (headman), who held conflicting views, with the Judge favouring Lebdi and the Rayyis supporting Wuhsha. Initially, the Judge ruled in Lebdi’s favor, prompting criticism from the Rayyis. This disagreement escalated into a prolonged literary dispute marked by continuous rebuttals and critiques. Consequently, the case evolved into an extended and complex litigation that engaged the Fustat court for several years.

Wuhsha's will

According to Goitien, Wuhsha’s will stands out as the most detailed source of information regarding her circumstances. Drafted in Arabic by Hillel ben Eli at the close of the eleventh century and, according to Frenkel, shortly after Abu Saʽd's birth, the will meticulously outlines the distribution of her substantial assets. These included 300 dinars “in gold” and kept by her at home, 67 on deposit, and the rest in loan collaterals. Wuhsha allocated significant sums for charitable purposes, including twenty-five dinars for the cemetery, twenty-five dinars for synagogue maintenance (specifically for oil used in lighting), and twenty dinars for the impoverished of Fustat. Among these donations was a sum designated for the same synagogue that expelled her on Yom Kippur—perhaps a sign of having the final say, as it is unlikely that her donation would have been rejected. These generous contributions, notably lavish, were evidently intended as acts of atonement, though Goitein suggests they also served to demonstrate her prominence and virtue to other members of the community. Additionally, Wuhsha carefully specified her funeral arrangements, designating funds for each element of her burial attire—comprising a shroud, cloak, cap, hood, kerchief, veil, cover, and coffin—as well as compensation for the pallbearers, whom she noted would “walk a great distance."

For Abu Saʽd, Wuhsha left her estate along with provisions for his religious education. She appointed a Bible-knowledgeable acquaintance to reside in her estate and instruct Abu Saʽd in the Bible and prayer book, deliberately limiting his education to prevent him from pursuing scholarly ambitions. Among her siblings, Wuhsha allocated 100 dinars to her brother, while her two sisters received 50 and 10 dinars, respectively. Goitein suggests this distribution reflects the influence of the surrounding Muslim culture, where a female’s inheritance was typically half that of a male. Additionally, Wuhsha provided luxurious gifts for her siblings, including funds to support her sisters’ bridal attire and granting her bed to a cousin. Notably, she excluded her daughter, Sitt Ghazal, from the will, possibly due to estrangement following Ghazal’s marriage, which led to her disinheritance. Finally, she wrote of Hassun: "not one penny should be given", but she cancelled his considerable debt of 80 dinars to her, returning two promissory notes to him along with a gift of 10 dinars.

The extensive will concludes with a statement that three documents in Arabic, outlining al-Wuhsha’s assets, liabilities, and the corresponding actions to be taken, were dictated and authorised by her.

Legacy

According to Goitein, Wuhsha’s life stands out as a notable example of female individuality within the Cairo Geniza documents. Despite her flourishing career as a pawnbroker and merchant, Wuhsha remained a marginal figure in the community's social fabric. As a newcomer to the city—and furthermore associating herself with newcomers in marriage and love affairs—she deliberately operated outside the societal ethical norms; for instance, her conscious choice to remain unmarried after her divorce and engaging in an affair that resulted in an heir. She was also assertive in delegating herself as her brother's heir upon his death, challenging the Jewish inheritance law that granted exclusive rights to her surviving brother as the inheritor. Long after her death, individuals in Geniza documents were often described as "al-Wuhsha's relative".

The community’s perception of Wuhsha, as Melammed notes, was complex and multifaceted. Although she faced expulsion from the synagogue, this did not equate to full excommunication or social ostracism. Wuhsha sustained meaningful connections with influential synagogue members, including the cantor, and leaned on these relationships for support during personal trials. The circumstances surrounding her child illuminated the clash between the formal Rabbinite law and societal norms. Medieval Rabbinite rulings held that a child born out of wedlock bore no legal stigma if the mother identified a Jewish father of valid lineage, enabling the child’s full integration into the community. Yet, in Wuhsha’s case, the society was deliberately mindful of her child's legal paternity.

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