Geniza Lab

Fiscal document(s) in Arabic script. Bifolio. One entry on each page of recto. Might have to do with sugar. Apart from format and handwriting, we know it is state-related from terms such as al-maʿmūra, al-sulṭāniyya, and iṭlāq. Verso is almost blank apart from a few signatures on top of the lefthand page. Needs examination.

Legal document (Baker and Polliack call it an 'Ottoman mustarad'). Location: Cairo. Dated 12 Rajab 1023 AH, which is 1614 CE. 4 witness signatures. May concern the estate of a dead man (al-marḥūm). Various names are mentioned, including ʿĪsā Bey the nāẓir and [...] b. Yahūdā b. Mūsā. Needs examination.

Business account in Arabic script.

Petition addressed to a noble woman. In Arabic script. Written in two columns. The petitioner mentions bringing something to the treasury or a government warehouse (al-khizāna al-maʿmūra bi-dāʾim al-ʿizz) and asks for charity or at least a charitable act (al-ṣadaqa). On verso there is a very faded text in Hebrew (a prayer?).

Petition to a Fatimid dignitary concerning (or from?) a certain Abū l-Faraj apparently regarding various properties in a neighborhood (and perhaps their commandeering?). Subsidiary to the main request: "...to my lord the glorious shaykh, may God make his exaltation endure, belongs the lofty resolution concerning the use of the servant’s provisions, if what they contain should be of help to him..." (wa-li-mawlāya al-shaykh al-jalīl adāma allāh ʿuluwwahu ʿālī al-raʾy fī ightinām maʾūnat ʿabdihi in kāna mā yataḥaṣṣa fīhā ʿāyidan ʿalā ʿawnihi). (Khan, ALAD, p.316n46; also mentioned in "Historical Development," p.19.) There are also two lines at the bottom from a unrelated, unidentified document in Arabic script—perhaps a letter. The two documents were glued together by a Jewish scribe, who reused verso for Hebrew liturgy.

Letter from a man to his father (yā wālidī). In Arabic script. This seems to be the end of a long letter, as what remains mainly consists of greetings to perhaps dozens of people. Many of the names seem to be prefaced with the honorific "al-ḥājib." The people include: Sahl; Abū l-Khayr ʿUmar b. Khamīs(?); al-ṣabiyya wa-dhātihā wa-bint dhātihā wa-zawj bint dhātihā; Thābit b. Nizār al-Bazzāz; Ibn Abū Saʿīd. He asks his father to look after the ṣabiyya (wa-lā taqṭaʿūnahā min birrikum wa-min al-masʾala ʿanhā fa-mā baqiya lī ʿindakum ghayruhā wa-law kānat ṭalaʿat al-maʿīsha...). Mentions Abū l-Thanāʾ al-Tājir al-Baghdādī, and many more people on verso. Needs further examination.

According to Polliack & Baker catalogue this is a petition. It seems to have address on verso- needs examination. (AA.) Dating: looks late, probably Mamluk-era.

Recto: Legal document in Arabic script. Deed of acknowledgment (iqrār). Unsigned. Involves the sale of one or more goods (possibly a donkey). Needs examination. Verso: Rhymed strophes of a Hebrew liturgical poem (FGP)

Personal letter. In Arabic script. After complaining about the lack of responses, the substance of the letter begins around line 10. Al-Shaykh Ibrāhīm sent something for Purim (ʿalā l-Fūr). The next few lines mention some sort of valuable good ([...] aswad... qaḍīb(?) dhahab). The sender is anxious that he (or she) will not receive what they need before the holiday (5 lines from the bottom). Needs further examination.

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Mentioning sugar and names such as Abū ʿImrān and Abū l-Majd. This is a reuse of a literary manuscript in Arabic script, written on a bifolio, containing an anecdote (khabar) about the Umayyad-era singer Maʿbad b. Wahb (d. 743/44). A nearly identical version may be found in Quṭb al-Surūr fī Awṣāf al-Khumūr by al-Raqīq al-Qayrawānī (d. 1034), citing Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, citing Yūnus al-Kātib (http://islamport.com/w/adb/Web/672/37.htm). It describes how Maʿbad acquired a new patron in the Iraqi man who had previously purchased Maʿbad's student Ẓabiyya (a female slave). They meet on a boat in Ahwāz, and the female slaves whom Ẓabiyya had tutored before her death recognize in Maʿbad the greatest singer of the age and persuade their owner to keep him around. ASE

Official report (or just a letter). Probably a draft. Written in 4 columns on a bifolio, with many lines crossed out and some of the margins filled in. Mentions Constantinople and the faqīh Abū Ṭālib on the left page of recto, line 2. The individual sections begin with the word "wa-yunhī" and end with "anhā al-mamlūk dhālika" (e.g. left page of recto, line 8). Needs examination.

Probably a literary work (poetry?). In beautiful Arabic script. Bifolio.

Account of items sold and expenditure incurred. (FGP)

Letter from a father to his son. In Arabic script. The father's name appears in the right margin: looks something like كىى بن للسول. He had heard that his son was in Aswan but was very agitated when he came to Aswan and did not find his son there. As soon as the son receives this letter, he should come together with his brother. Mentions something the wife of Ibrāhīm has said (or "if she says..."). The father gives further instructions. On verso there are a few lines of accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and Greek/Coptic numerals.

See T-S Ar.39.342.

Letter from Maḥmūd(?) to his cousins (awlād al-ʿamm). In Arabic script. Dated: beginning of Rabīʿ I 648 AH, which is June 1250 CE. The letter contains greetings and wishes for good health. Mentions the arrival of a letter sent from Sayyidnā al-Nāsī to Petaḥya reporting on the death of the addressees' uncle ʿAbd al-Kāfī at the beginning of Shawwāl 647 AH (January 1250 CE). The sender reports that al-Shams (or al-Shammas?) and Makīn are healthy. (Information in part from Baker-Polliack catalogue.)

Petition from a group of people to al-ʿĀḍid (cf. formulae in T-S Ar.51.107). Mentions iqṭāʿāt and muqṭaʿīn, several place names, the ṣāḥib al-ḥarb in al-Maḥalla and how the Maghribīs sought the expulsion of the petitioners from their iqṭāʿāt (fa-lammā uqṭiʿat al-mamālīk rāmū l-maghāriba ikhrājhum). On verso there is a Hebrew liturgical poem; strophes interspersed with reference to a refrain. Needs further examination. (Information in part from FGP)

Letter from Abū ʿImrān b. Ghulayb to Abū l-Bayān Ibn al-Ahuv (probably Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi (d. 1212 CE)). In Arabic script. (Aodeh misread the sender's name as Abū ʿImrān b. Khalīla and therefore dated the letter to ca. 1061 CE.) Contains copious instructions for business dealings, including the making of syrup/molasses (rubb). Mentions people such as Mawhūb, Abū Sahl b. Ayyūb, the sender's sister's son Abū Naṣr, Abū ʿImrān b. Mardūkh, al-Rayyis Abū Zikrī, and Surūr al-Ṣabbāgh (the dyer), and Abū l-Majd the dairyman (reading "al-labbān," though there is a missing lām). There is no Sahl al-Tūnisī in l. 21 (this actually says sharāʾ al-thawb). ASE

Letter in Arabic script. Addressed to a high dignitary. Sent from Alexandria to Fustat/Cairo. The sender reports that he arrived safely in Alexandria on Thursday after an easy journey. He has sent letters with Abū Saʿd to Ibn Hilāl, but the latter has not yet made time to see him. Ibn Ṭāhir already set sail before the sender’s arrival. Two ships arrived from Constantinople but already departed before the sender’s arrival. Another ship arrived from Constantinople but will not travel again until the fall. Another two ships were out of service but are now ready to set sail for al-Shām, one for al-Lādhiqiyya (Latakia) and one for ʿAkkā (Acre). The sender plans to travel with whichever one of these is most convenient and to return to Alexandria in time to board the ship for Constantinople in the fall. He has met with Jamāl al-Dīn. The bottom of the letter is torn off here. It is not immediately clear if the text on verso (the ending of a letter in Arabic script, with one name written in Hebrew) belongs to the same letter or a different one. If it is the ending of the letter on recto, it would mean that both sender and addressee are Jews.

Legal document, dated 24 Rabï' I, A.H. 797 (= 17 January, 1395 C.E.). Mention is made of Ibn Musu al-Yahudi and of Ibn Yüsuf al-Yahûdî and his sister and mother. (Data from Baker & Polliack cayalogue)