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Letter from Aden (to Egypt) 1153 PER H161/IB.36/II.71, recto
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Taken from: Aden & the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port By Roxani Eleni Margariti p153-154/p282
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.
(Document about Aden�s harbor) 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 and al-Qamr and environs.
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 wa-al-qamr� must refer to the area of the Hadramawt port of Al-Shihr and the adjacent region of al-Qamr mountain near the promontory of Ra�s Fartak in Dhofar, especially since the formulation �abyan wa-al-shihr wa balad al-qamr� in the same letter, verso, line 17, further reinforces the geographical association between the three toponyms.
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