Geniza Lab

Possibly a record of a birth. In Arabic script. "In the name of God the most gracious, the most merciful: the blessed ________ was on Wednesday night, in the middle of Shaʿbān(?) 484 (=1091 CE), may God let us know its blessing and make the end good...." For the missing word in the translation, it looks like it says "the blessed mother" (الوالدة المباركة) but "the blessed birth" (الولادة المباركة) seems like it would make more sense. Or perhaps the first verb is "jābat"—she gave birth. ASE

Letter from someone, probably in Barqa, to his (or her?) "father" the judge Mūsā b. ʿImrān al-Ḥibr (=the ḥaver). In Arabic script. The sender reports that he arrived in Barqa safely. He explains why he is unable to return by ship (mā wajadtu ṭarīq fa-masakūnī al-ṣibyān(?)). There may be a siege in the addressee's location (fa-lammā samiʿtu akhbārkum annakum muḥāṣarīn...) There is a woman who is preoccupied (mashghūla). The addressee is to send some goods. On verso there are a few lines of what may be accounts in Arabic script (mentions 10 dinars). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card)

Strip from end of an `iqrar, preserving the date: Jumada al-ula 434 A.H. (1042)

Legal document. In Arabic script. Fragment from the right side of huge and beautiful deed. A father gives to his two sons a house (it seems a big and a small house belonging together), some as common property and some assigned to one of the brothers. Bordered on one side by the property of Ibn Baqāʾ al-Isrāʾīlī. Contains some interesting architectural details. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Document of sale in Arabic.

Letter, possibly state correspondence, in Arabic script. Chancery hand (though not the best), with wide space between the lines, and with white space used to divide sections. The ends of 9 lines are preserved. Mentions that something should only be done in a timely manner (l. 7) and Abū l-Faraj (l. 8) and a desire that someone should do something for Sayyidnā (l. 9). On verso is Hebrew liturgy, including biblical verses from Nehemiah 1:6–11. Needs further examination.

Letter in Arabic script. Fragment (lower part only). Dating: Maybe Ayyubid-era, based on typical names and titles, but this is a guess. The alifs and lāms and ابيs are especially stylized, with long loops to the the right of the vertical stroke. Where this fragment begins, the sender is greeting two people (ادام الله عزهما). Mentions: "the time of his travel to Damascus" (وقت سيره الى دمشق); someone named Ṣāfī(?); Abū Zikrī; al-Shaykh al-Afḍal; greetings to Abū l-ʿAlāʾ; to [...]; to Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf; to Abū ʿAlī Ismāʿīl; and to Abū l-Faraj al-Maqdisī. Needs further examination to understand the substance of the letter. On verso there is an Aramaic targum of Jeremiah 1:17–19. (Information in part from FGP.)

Ketubba fragment. Location: Wardūnya, a suburb of Baghdad (ורדוניא דבגדד), on the Tigris river (דגלת). Dated: 13 Nisan 13[..] Seleucid, which corresponds to the range 889–988 CE. Groom: [...] b. Yosef. Bride: Miriam bt. Yosef. There is an extensive secondary literature on this fragment both on account of its unique location and its early date. Simon Hopkins (‘The Oldest Dated Document in the Geniza?’, pp. 92–93) thought that this ketubba might have predated Halper 331; but Olszowy-Schlanger (‘Les plus anciens documents datés de la Guenizah du Caire’) showed that this was based on a misreading of its date, which is 13th century SE, thus between 889 and 988 CE. On this document, see also N. Golb, ‘A Marriage Deed from ‘Warduniā of Baghdad,’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43.2 (1984), pp. 152–56. (Information from Krakowski and Stern, "The ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’ (Halper 331)," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 31.3 (2021), 617–34.

Recto: Probably a petition. In Arabic script. Large script, chancery hand, wide space between the lines. Only the first 4 lines and a tiny piece of the 5th line are preserved. Conveys praises for the addressee and then offers the sender's services in any kind of craft ("... an yakhduma bi-kulli ʿināyatin marḍiyyahū min kulli ṣināʿati...").

Verso: Compound prescription/recipe (ṣifa murakkab). In Arabic script. Contains the glyph. Ingredients include oak gall, gum, vitriol, Andarānī salt, lapis lazuli, saffron, and camphor. Needs further examination.

Letter in Ottoman Turkish addressed to Maʿallim Salmūn in Alexandria from Sulaymān Bostancı[?] dating from the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. There is some damage to the sender's signature but if this reading of his title is correct, this may be a letter sent from Istanbul by a member of the Imperial Guard / Bostancı corps. This seems plausible given that the letter mentions at least four other members of the Ottoman military– Sinān Ağa, Qāsim Ağa, ʿİssa Ağa, and Meḥmed Aǧa. These state functionaries, are occasionally referenced as such i.e. "Sinān Ağa ṣaḥib-i devlet / protector of the state" (l. 8). One other business partner is mentioned in line four, a certain Maʿallam İsḥāk. Much of the letter's contents are related to payments and other correspondence between those referenced. The verso bears two ink stamps and an address on the upper fold, which suggests that this letter was likely sent and received by the recipient Muʿallim Salmūn. MCD.

Petition. In Arabic script. Dating: Perhaps Mamluk-era based on handwriting and format, but that is a guess. The addressee is Shams al-Dīn [...] b. Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Nāṣir al-Dīn [...]. The petitioner is a physician or surgeon, expert in blood-letting, enema-giving, fresh wounds (al-jurḥ al-ṭarīʾ), and yellow-bilious boils (al-damāmil al-ṣafrāʾ). He is asking for a license to practice his trade. He concludes, "Let the [response] be recorded in the noble registers (al-ṣaḥāʾif al-karīma)." There is a rescript in the right margin: "I have granted his request" (adhantu lahū fī dhālika). (Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalogue.) ASE

Recto: acknowledgment of a debt of 400 dinars contracted by Buṭrus b. Jirjis from Abū l-Faḍāʾil ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Hibatallāh b. Shūʿa the Jew. The debt is to be repaid in 4 monthly installments of 100 dinars each, starting from the year 511 AH (1117 CE) and finishing at the end of the month of Shaʿbān of the same year. The acknowledgment is witnessed by […] b. ʿAlī b. Jābir. Verso: a second acknowledgment for the transfer of part of the amount of the debt contracted on recto. Abū l-Faḍāʾil ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Hibatallāh b. Shūʿa the Jew transfers the last two installments of the 400 dinars that had been owed to him by the same Buṭrus b. Jirjis on recto (this is not entirely clear because of the lacunae — possibly to the elder Abū Mufaḍḍal Hibatallāh b. Ḥasan the Jewish physician, who appears on line 9). The document is signed by the witnesses ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad and Yaḥyā b. Muslim. As is often the case, the subsequent transaction is recorded in a smaller text-block on verso. (Information from CUDL, Khan and Rustow)

Legal document. In Arabic script. Small fragment from the top. Dating: ca. 1135 CE, based on the appearance of Maḥfūẓa bt. Yosef Zayn al-Tujjār. Abū Zikrī b. Yūsuf al-Hārūnī al-Yahūdī rents a house from three individuals: Salāma b. Yūsuf, his wife Maḥfūẓa bt. Yūsuf Zayn al-Tujjār (see T-S NS 225.25j), and a third whose name is not preserved. No further details (date and place not preserved). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

Deeds of sale issued by Ottoman courts in 1519CE, with a possible endorsement on the verso mentioning both 925AH and 926AH (1519CE-1520CE). The ḥujja on the recto was recorded by an unknown qadi court (possibly in Baḥṭīṭ or nearby Bilbeis) in 925AH. The ḥujja on the verso was clearly issued by the chief qadi court in Cairo "al-Bāb al-ʿĀlī" (l. 3v). The properties which are being sold on the recto are in Bilbays (l. 7r, 11r) and purchased by a Jewish dyer from Baḥṭīṭ (l. 2r). There is extensive description of the spatial orientation and perimeters of these properties. This fragment was first cited by Goitein in Med. Soc. III in 1978 and, most recently, by James Baldwin on p.36 of the book Islamic Law and Empire in Ottoman Cairo (2017). For a full overview of relevant citations see the FGP bibliography for this fragment. MCD. (information from Goitein's index cards, Baldwin, and Baker/Polliack catalogue).

Recto: Deed of sale. In Arabic script. Dating: ca. 530 AH (= 1135/36 CE). (However, Goitein read the year 55[.] AH somewhere, which would be 1155–64 CE.) Makārim b. Abū l-Faraj b. Yūsuf purchases 1/3 of a house. There is a lengthy physical description of the seller (whose name is lost): ‘a smooth forehead in which are wrinkles […] widely spaced incisors. On his right cheek there are two moles’. Also mentions the elder Sadīd al-Dawla Abū Saʿd, Abū l-Ḥasan the Samaritan, and Abū l-Ḥasan the financier (quṣṭāl). Verso: undeciphered document in Arabic script, probably relating to the sale detailed on recto. (Information from Goitein’s index card and CUDL.)

Letter in calligraphic Arabic script. The sender's name probably appears at upper left. He is writing from Jerusalem (al-Quds al-Mubārak, 6 lines from the bottom). The addressee is a woman (sittī al-karīma(?)). Possibly a letter of thanks, but might be a petition for further help. Includes a quotation from the Hebrew Bible (including Proverbs 13:19, תאוה נהיה תערב לנפש) transcribed into Arabic script (on which basis Khan identified the sender and addressee as Qaraites). In the margins and between the lines of recto and on verso there are Hebrew pen trials including biblical verses, and a few words in Arabic script copied from the text of the letter. Needs further examination for content. Cited in the literature only in two articles by Khan, where he refers to its existence but does not discuss its content.

Deed of rental. Dated: 531 AH, which is 1136/37 CE. ʿAlī b. Ḥassān b. Maʿālī al-Tarābulusī rents a small garden house on the Nile from the shaykh Abu l-Ḥusayn Saʿīd b. Manṣūr, one of the mutawallīn al-jawāmiʿ wa-l-masājid al-maʿmūra (superintendent of government mosques) for the duration of 4 years, 8 or 8 ¼ dinars per year.

Deed of sale. In Arabic script. On parchment. One of the parties is a Jew (al-Isrāʾīlī). A certain Ibrāhīm b. Salāma is mentioned. There is a further acknowledgment (iqrār) on verso which references the main document on recto.

Legal document in Arabic script. Fragment (bottom part only). The date appears but is very faded. Witness signatures are preserved. Needs examination.