The postman came to me bringing a letter from your paternal magnificence about a camel and I am very grateful for having been deemed worthy after so long of your honored words…To my master the most magnificent comes Peter, from Theodosius
-Letter 1164, circa 6C CE, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Vol. viii
I wonder what papyrologists might make of the letter I wrote as KhairAllah’s scribe in mid-journey when we crossed paths with a friend who agreed to carry news of a lost camel back to a third party, KhairAllah having instructed me to take dictation, writing in pen on lined paper from the notebook I used as a trail diary. I opened with the greeting, Yā Akhī ‘Adzīm, as KhairAllah addressed the letter’s recipient, O My Magnificent Brother, which I knew to spell correctly, but everything else I wrote was in first year student of Arabic gibberish.