Editing Maimonides (section)

===Death of his brother===
[[File:Ben Maimónides. Córdoba, España-eue.jpg|thumb|200px|Monument in [[Córdoba, Andalusia|Córdoba]]]]
Following this success, the Maimonides family, hoping to increase their wealth, gave their savings to his brother, the youngest son David ben Maimon, a merchant. Maimonides directed his brother to procure goods only at the [[Sudan]]ese port of [[ʿAydhab]]. After a long, arduous trip through the desert, however, David was unimpressed by the goods on offer there. Against his brother's wishes, David boarded a ship for India, since great wealth was to be found in the East.{{efn|The "India Trade" (a term devised by the Arabist S.D. Goitein) was a highly lucrative business venture in which Jewish merchants from Egypt, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East imported and exported goods ranging from pepper to brass from various ports along the [[Malabar Coast]] between the 11th–13th centuries. For more info, see the "India Traders" chapter in Goitein, ''Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders,'' 1973 or Goitein, ''India Traders of the Middle Ages,'' 2008.}} Before he could reach his destination, David drowned at sea sometime between 1169 and 1177. The death of his brother caused Maimonides to become sick with grief.

In a letter discovered in the [[Cairo Geniza]], he wrote:

{{blockquote|The greatest misfortune that has befallen me during my entire life—worse than anything else—was the demise of the saint, may his memory be blessed, who drowned in the Indian sea, carrying much money belonging to me, to him, and to others, and left with me a little daughter and a widow. On the day I received that terrible news I fell ill and remained in bed for about a year, suffering from a sore boil, fever, and [[depression (mood)|depression]], and was almost given up. About eight years have passed, but I am still mourning and unable to accept consolation. And how should I console myself? He grew up on my knees, he was my brother, [and] he was my student.<ref>Goitein, ''Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders'', p. 207</ref>}}