Geniza Lab

Letter from Saʿīd b. Marḥab on behalf of the court, in Aden, to the druggist Hillel b. Naḥman (aka Sayyid al-Kull), in Fustat. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Adar I [1]467 Seleucid, which is January 25–February 23, 1156 CE. The letter gives a uniquely detailed report on a shipwreck, as the addressee's son-in-law Hiba b. Abū Saʿd was on board, and the addressee had requested verification of his death and details about the retrieval of his possessions. The sender devotes the entire letter to the former and adds only one brief sentence in the margin of verso, about the possessions, which were confiscated by the sultan. The ship belonged to the Nagid Ḥalfon b. Maḍmūn b. Ḥasan. Most of the cargo on the ship belonged to him, though every Jewish trader in Aden had some cargo on it. There were only four Jews on board. It was called the Kūlamī ship as it set out for Kūlam aka Kollam aka Quilon on the Malabar Coast. The court of Aden here presents all of the available evidence for the shipwreck: eyewitness accounts, secondhand reports, and legal pronouncements. The main source of the information that the ship sank came from the Barībatanī ship which sailed together with it, i.e., the ship for Valapattanam aka Valarapattanam aka Balyapattanam, a port five miles from Cannanore aka Kannur, which is north of Kollam. During the rest of that year and the following year, travelers arrived in Aden coming from all over India, from East Africa ("the land of the Zanj"), from Somalia ("the inland region of Berbera"), from Abyssinia and its provinces, and from the south Arabian regions of Ashḥār and Qamar, and the accounts of all travelers were consistent with the Kūlamī ship having been wrecked. The court in Aden had ruled that the evidence was sufficient to free Sitt al-Ahl, the daughter of Hillel b. Naḥman, from being an ʿaguna, but they defer to the authorities in Egypt, as this was a lenient and tenuous ruling. The sender of this letter, Saʿīd b. Marḥab, is incidentally the earliest known Yemeni Jewish poet. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Traders; see analysis and translation there for further details.)

Legal document. Left lower corner. Dated: 4717 AM, which is 956/57 CE (this is Goitein's reading; the century word is extremely faded and difficult to confirm). Involves Baqā' b. Hillel. There are no other details (14 lines of legal phrases). There are many signatures, including ʿEli b. Moshe and Yiṣḥaq b. Yehuda. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Letter from a European Jew whose ship sank en route on his way to fulfill a vow to visit Jerusalem, and lost all his belongings by jettisoning. The writer’s appeal to the congregation, written in Hebrew on a piece of vellum, describes his multi-faceted journeys: first to Alexandria, where the Muslims tried to collect the capitation tax from him, and secondly, to (likely) Fustat after being rescued by a Jew and where he was currently hiding out after being harassed by the tax collector and fearing imprisonment. (Mark Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt, 120; and S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:323, 483) EMS

Ketubba, Aleppo, 1026/1027/1028. The document omits the divorce clause, and the groom notably refers to himself and his bride as the "Jew" and the "Jewess." (Friedman, Jewish Marriage, vol. 2, 88-95) EMS

A list of about 40 contributions. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Marriage contract, fragment. Location: Cairo. Dating: 1310–55 CE, based on the reshut clause naming the Nagid Yehoshuaʿ (b. Avraham II Maimonides). See Goitein's note card for further details.

Placard in large beautiful letters including Jeremiah 17:7 and other verses. Information from Goitein's index card.

Dowry deed from Fustat, 1171 CE. It was customary to bring together all the objects of the dowry and to record them publicly in a trousseau list, as can be seen, for example, in document T-S Ar.54.78. Each object was recorded with its value in a special list and such lists were called taqwīm. The deed at hand is not a taqwīm, but rather a 'dowry deed'. Such deeds were composed at times of political unrest, when the two sides were cautious of making financial commitmants in public. This is why one often finds in such deeds the expression 'due to the time (ʿawāqib al-zamān)' seen here in lines 3 and 20. The deed, scribed by Mevorakh b. Natan (1150-1181), contains the trousseau list and the testimony of the groom that he accepts the dowry and its stated value. The manuscript is cut in the shape of a circle and is missing some of the text in the sides. There are a few lines in Arabic script on verso.

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dating: 1120-1150 CE, based on the mention of Yakhin b. Netan'el Rosh ha-Qehillot. This range may be narrowed to 1120–38 if Ḥalfon b. Menashshe is the scribe. The document is a release for a certain India merchant [...] b. Rajā ha-Zaqen from any potential claim against him from the orphans of his deceased traveling companion, and from having to give any further testimony or make any vow. The document explains that the merchant acted with great valor hiding his companion's merchandise from the rulers of Dahlak who would have confiscated it—and would have killed the merchant himself if they had found out what he had done. This merchant also made haste to go to the court and declare all the goods belonging to his companion (and therefore his orphans) as soon as he returned to Fustat (l. 10), and even mentioned "several things that were not in the account ledger (daftar al-ḥisāb)." Information in part from Goitein's attached discussion, transcription, and translation. ASE.

Deathbed will. in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe and Natan ha-Kohen b. Shelomo. Location: Fustat. Dated: First third of Av 1448 Seleucid, which is July/August 1137 CE, under the reshut of Maṣliaḥ Gaon. (The signing was deferred to the middle third of Av.) Testator: Abū l-Ḥasan Yehoshuaʿ b. Abū l-Riḍā Shemuel ha-Meshorer. The dying man appoints his mother-in-law Mubāraka bt. Ḥifāẓ (and not his wife Sitt al-Dār bt. Yefet) as the executor of his will and guardian of his three children. He leaves his silver cup and other items to his son Hiba and the jewelry to be divided amongst his daughters Sitt al-Fakhr and Sitt al-Banāt. He makes arrangements for his business partnerships in rose water and safflower with Mufaḍḍal b. Hiba al-Ḥarīrī and with Abū l-Ḥasan the Qaraite. His wife Sitt al-Dār will live with her children for as long as she remains unmarried. He gives 6 dinars to his father and 4 dinars to his mother. Along with jewelry and household items, the ornate head garment used on the celebratory occasion of the first cutting of a boy’s hair is also mentioned. (S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 5:152, 565; 4:148-9, 210-11, 394, 423-4) EMS. ASE.

Bill of sale for a female slave. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe as well as Elʿazar ha-Kohen b. Shelomo ha-Rosh b. Yehosef Gaon. Location: Fustat. Dated: first third of Sivan 1437 Seleucid, which is 1126 CE. Contents: Shelomo ha-Shammash b. Natan sells to his wife Labwa a minor Nubian female slave (waṣīfa)

Marriage contract (ketubba) from Damsis, Egypt, 1083.

Prayer: a version of El Male Rahamim.

Legal document(s). This fragment contains the bottom two lines of one document and the entirety of a second document (though a vertical strip from the right side is missing). Location: Unidentified. Dated: [..]18 Seleucid. The first document is signed by Shelomo b. Fashshāṭ and Yiftaḥ ha-Kohen b. Ṭoviyya. The second document is signed by the same two men with the addition of Seʿadya b. Avraham. The second document concerns Yaḥyā b. Suwayd, his wife, and his father-in-law (perhaps [...] b. Moshe b. Ṭarsūn). It seems that the father-in-law has accused Yaḥyā of making off with the deed to the house. Yaḥyā declares that he has neither given nor appropriated the house whose deed disappeared. A ḥerem stam will be pronounced on anyone who possesses the deed and does not bring it to the court, after which the house will be registered in her name before a Jewish court. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Bill of release. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Karīma, known as al-Wuḥsha al-Dallāla (l. 18), releases Sitt al-Ḥusn (l. 21) from any responsibility for a gift (l. 26) that she has granted her, and from any obligation resulting from previous connections between them. Karīma's son Abū Saʿd and her other heirs likewise release Sitt al-Ḥusn and her heirs. It is also stated that Karima, the grantor, is entitled to repossess the gift, and 1s allowed to sell it, in time of need, and therefore the term māḍiya (1. 26), complete, is intentionally omitted. No details of the gift and the release have been preserved. Witnesses: Menashshe ha-Kohen b. Yaʿaqov; Moshe b. ʿUlla; Yeshuʿa ha-Levi b. Ṣedaqa (who appears in T-S 20.87 as a builder and as a scholar, ll. 16–21); and Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. The qiyyum (validation) is signed by Avraham b. Shemaʿya; Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi; and Ḥalfon b. Ghālib ha-Ḥazzan. The name of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe appears in the body of the validation (as one of the witnesses of the original document), and his validation marks (| חלפון הלוי ביר מנשה נע |) on both sides of his name appear too (1. 37). Goitein commented that he had never seen a scribe's identification marks in a validation, when the name is recorded and not signed. Thus, this phenomenon should be regarded as an innovation by Ḥalfon and perhaps he was the only one to do it. (Information from Gershon Weiss's edition.)

Letter. One of the small handful of Judaeo-Arabic papyri. Labeled "papyrus I" in the classification of Blau and Hopkins. Dating: Probably 9th century or earlier. Unlikely to have come from the Cairo Geniza; it is possible that most or all of these documents derive from a commercial circle in Ushmūn. This is a letter from Ḥusayn b. Suwayd to his business partner Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq b. Ṣadaqa. (Same sender and addressee as Judaeo-Arabic papyrus XIII.) It deals entirely with shipments of garments and payments. (Information from Blau and Hopkins, and from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 282.)

Recto and verso: Letter. One of the small handful of Judaeo-Arabic papyri. Labeled "papyrus II" in the classification of Blau and Hopkins. Dating: Probably 9th century or earlier. Unlikely to have come from the Cairo Geniza; it is possible that most or all of these documents derive from a commercial circle in Ushmūn. This document is by far the most extensive and well-preserved Judaeo-Arabic papyrus known (at least this was true in 1987). It is also the first to have been discussed in print (in 1886/87). This is a letter from Yaʿaqov b. Yosef possibly to somebody named Yom Ṭov and/or to [Yose]f b. Menaḥem Shuqayr in the Jews' Market (Sūq al-Yahūd), possibly in Ḥawz Shuqayr ("the precinct of Shuqayr"). The addressee may be the father of the sender. The letter discusses numerous shipments of textiles and money. (Information in part from Blau and Hopkins and from Gil.)

Verso: Document(s) occupying the verso of one of the small handful of Judaeo-Arabic papyri. Labeled "papyrus III" in the classification of Blau and Hopkins. Dating: Probably 9th century or earlier. Unlikely to have come from the Cairo Geniza; it is possible that most or all of these documents derive from a commercial circle in Ushmūn. There are 5 distinct sections in addition to the address of the letter from recto. It seems that these sections are epistolary experiments, at least in part relating to the complete letter on recto. Some of them may be drafts of a response from the addressee of the letter on recto. (Information from Blau and Hopkins.)

Two very small fragments with minimal text surviving. Goitein's notes below mention Avaraham b. Perahya/Ibrahim b. Farah perhaps as the potential scribe?

Legal document. In Hebrew. Location: Pitom (=Fayyūm). Dated: Thursday, 20 Iyar 4758 or 4768 AM (4738 can be ruled out, as 20 Iyar was not a Thursday). This is an agreement outlining conditions under which a wife, Salma bt. Natan, is taken back by her husband, Ibrāhīm b. Salām, after a period of separation. The conditions reflect a downward change in social stratum. This document was published by Assaf in the Marx Jubilee Volume and translated nearly in full by Goitein in Med Soc III, p. 215. Witnesses: Moshe b. Yosef ha-Kohen; Sar Shalom ha-Levi b. Nissin; Salma b. Shaʿya, Yosef b. Seʿadel, Shubayyib b. Shekhanya, al-Giddem ("the amputee"), and Ṭayyib b. Avishay. The witness Yosef b. Seʿadel also signs T-S 12.496, T-S 12.198, and Bodl MS heb. b 12/7; the latter two were validated by Shemarya b. Elḥanan (ca. 980–1010). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)