Geniza Lab

Legal document in Arabic script. Late. Needs examination.

Legal document in Arabic script. Late. Needs examination.

Legal (or state?) document in Arabic script. Probably late. Needs examination.

Legal document in Arabic script. Dated: 20 Shawwāl 864 AH, which is 1460 CE. Involves Yūsuf [...] and Samawʾal b. Yaʿqūb b. Mūsā (=Shemuel b. Yaʿaqov b. Moshe) the druggist, the Rabbanite Jew. A sum (perhaps a debt or loan) of 5 dinars is mentioned. A new section begins around line 7 or 8, which involves Nūr al-Dīn b. Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl known as Ibn al-[...] and someone titled Sirāj al-Dīn Sharaf al-ʿUlamāʾ Muslim Abū Jaʿfar [...]. Needs further examination.

Legal fragment. In Aramaic. Mentions the brother(?) of the Rayyis and Abū l-Barakāt.

Tiny fragment in Aramaic. Legal?

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Plausibly medieval. Notable for the use of red ink.

Letter to Nahray b. Nissim. Written in Judaeo-Arabic. Almost complete. Mentions flax; Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf al-Kohen; "the beads of al-Tustari"; Av[raham] b. Sughmār and Abū Zikrī b. Sughmār. Needs examination.

Story (ספר חסות) from Yemen about the relationships between the Jewish community and the Muslims. Describes the protection that the Jews received from Muhammad, concerning observing the Shabbat and other traditions. (Information from Goitein, The Yemenites, pp. 288-294). VMR. NB: The current shelfmark is unknown.

Business letter in Arabic script from Mūsā b. Dāwūd al-Levi al-Miṣrī to Mubārak/Mevorakh bar Avraham b. Sabrā about the shipment of various commodities, including gold.

Business letter in Arabic and Hebrew script from Avraham b. Ṣadaqa to Abū Saʿīd Netanʾel b. Ṣadaqa in Fustat.

Account and/or receipt in Arabic and Hebrew script of Mevorakh b. Avraham and Jaʿfar b. Rajā al-Jūdarī, dated 478 AH, which is 1086 CE. Mentioning quantities in qirats and dinars, written on the back of a business letter (see separate entry).

Letter draft from Barakāt b. Abū l-Faraj al-Dayyān (=Shelomo b. Eliyyahu) to al-Shaykh al-Rashīd Abū l-Ḥasan. In Arabic script. The writer asks for a loan of forty dirhams against a turban as collateral. He also conveys condolences on the death of the addressee's brother. Information in part from Werner Diem's edition via the Arabic Papyrology Database. The identification is based on the exact match of the name Barakāt b. Abū l-Faraj al-Dayyān. The word Dayyān is an uncommon Arabic word and a very common Judaeo-Arabic word for 'judge'. Moreover, the opening formula (yuqabbilu l-arḍa ṭā'iʿan lillāhi. . .) appears in exactly one document in the APD database and in two documents in the PGP database, one of which is T-S 10J8.2, a letter by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. The identification is all but clinched by ENA 3927.1, which is a letter from Barakāt/Shelomo addressed to Abū l-Ḥasan (presumably the same as in P. Heid. Arab. III 42, but written at a different point in time), asking for a loan of 20 dirhams against his turban as collateral in order to pay the capitation tax for himself and his father. Note that P.Heid.Arab. III 43 (a request for 20 dirhams from Abū l-Najā) and P.Heid.Arab. III 44 (sympathy for a sick woman, addressed to Abū l-Maḥāsin) are also by Barakāt/Shelomo. ASE.

Letter from ? Rosh Ha-Gola b. David to Yehuda Rosh Ha-Seder b. Avraham, February 1021. There is also a lot of writing in Arabic script.

Memorandum from Khalaf b. Isḥāq al-Yamanī. In Arabic script, with additional notes in Judaeo-Arabic. Ordering pharmaceuticals from Egypt. There is an entire short book devoted to this document (Albert Dietrich, Zum Drogenhandel im islamischen Ägypten, 1954). This document is summarized in Goitein and Friedman, India Book 2, ב50, but Goitein and Friedman did not edit it. NB: The images of this document may be accessed on FGP under the shelfmark p. Heid. Hebr. 12. However, it is more often cited as p. Heid. Arab. 912.

Accounts in the hand of Nahray b. Nissim, ca. 1053, listing flax purchases. Nahray organized the list by his partners who ordered flax and noted down for each partner how much he paid individual flax growers out of that partner’s money. Among flax growers are the judge and the preacher of a village and some Christians (Copts). The list testifies to a cooperation between Muslims and Copts in an Egyptian village. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 912.)

Draft of bills in the handwriting of Nahray b. Nissim.

Letter in calligraphic Arabic script, with some Hebrew mixed in. Writer and addressee are unknown. The writer chastises the addressee at length, quoting Quran 12:51 along the way. He is pained by what happened with Abū Saʿīd. Mentions ha-Rav (هراب) Moshe in the margin. On verso, somebody has copied out love poetry by Yehuda ha-Levi. There is an edition and detailed discussion by Werner Diem.

A few words in Hebrew script. On papyrus.

The recto is a letter in Hebrew characters from Barakāt b. Abu al-Faraj al-Zayyāt to "the Friend [of the Academy al-rāsūy]" (probably the parnas, Ulla ha-Levi), asking for a loan of thirty dirhams using a turban as collateral. The verso is a letter from the same Barakāt, written in Arabic characters, to Abu al-Hassan asking for a loan of forty dirhams using a turban as collateral. The writer references that the addressee's deceased brother (the addressee from the recto) used to grant him this deal. He writes that the brother had returned the turban, although he had yet to repay the loan in full. (Information from Goitein’s index card.) NB: Goitein's description above is outdated. This document is now known as P. Heid. Arab. III 42, and it has been edited by Diem. See PGPID 31584.