Geniza Lab

Letter in Arabic script from Umm Zayn to Umm Isḥāq. The writer seems to want to travel to the addressee's location but has no money. The recurring refrain is "He doesn't give me anything." Needs further examination

Business letter in Arabic script from Mubārak b. Isḥāq to Abū l-Faḍl Sahl b. Yaḥyā al-Baṣrī (or al-Baṣīr), expressing longing for the addressee and sending greetings to Abū l-Faḍāʾil b. Baqāʾ and Abū Saʿd b. Abū l-Baqāʾ.

Family letter from Sālim to Bū Manṣūr b. Sukkarī (or Zikrī?) in Alexandria reporting that the Rūmī cheese had arrived and that the writer had sent the pottery (or clay pipes, fukhkhār) desired. Greetings to Mother and both grandparents. The address is in Arabic script on verso. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter from Yeḥezqel b. Eli ha-Kohen b. Yeḥezqel, in Jerusalem, to Eli ha-Kohen b. Ḥayyim (aka Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllūn b. Yaʿīsh), in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic. Dating: second half of the 11th century. See also T-S Misc.28.171. The writer expresses his relief at the news that the addressee recovered from his illness. He devotes much space to excusing himself for failing to send any letters until now. He asks the addressee to remind 'the Rayyis' (probably identical with al-Rayyis Abū l-Ṭayyib in T-S Misc.28.171) to remind his son to fulfill the money order (suftaja) that had been sent. In a postscript, he conveys the news that the sister of Hiba ('who is with Shimʿon al-Rav') died, who was also the mother-in-law of Abūn b. Ṣedaqa. Information from Gil. ASE. NB: The first Goitein note card (#6240) belongs with DK 228.4 (PGPID 31342).

Recto: A long, interesting letter from a judge to a cantor. The writer is publicizing the ban of excommunication that the late Nagid (אדונינו ראש ישיבתה שלתורה הקדוש זצל) placed on Makārim b. Manṣūr al-Sammāk who encroached on the rights of the tax farmer of al-Maṭariyya—either Heliopolis (Goitein) or the district with the same name in the Delta—who is named Sālim. Goitein: Letter of a dayyān of Cairo to the ḥazzān of al-Maṭariyya, requesting him to intervene with Nāṣir al-Jazzār who had farmed the taxes of the locality from the Amir Malik al-Umārā' and then asked from Sālim 60 instead of 40 dirham nuqra, after Makārim b. Manṣūr al-Sammāk overbade him. See Med Soc II, 606. Verso: Accounts in Arabic script. Needs further examination

Letter from Meʾir b. ʿEli ha-Kohen, in Damascus (חדרך סוריא), to his brother Ṭoviyya b. ʿEli, in Fustat. Dating: beginning of September 1127 CE. The letters deals with financial matters and the purchase of flax and indicates that the Gaon (Maṣliaḥ) was by then in Egypt. "Mutual affection was expressed by kissing the eyes" (Goitein, Med. Soc., viii, C, 2, n. 117). Cf. T-S 10J17.8. Also mentions someone who got very sick (balagha kathīr) but God sent health (recto, 8–10). Mentions the same Yaḥyā b. Najm who appears in T-S 6J2.13.

Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. David b. Sughmār, Fustat, to his partner Makhlūf b. ʿAzarya, Jerusalem. (DK XV, ed. Gil, Palestine, Pt. 3, pp. 178-183.) The market was at a standstill because of an epidemic (amrāḍ). ASE.

Legal document. Dating: probably ca.1185. This is the only known document that refers to the majlis of Maimonides. It is a draft of a statement (tiqrār) to be signed by Maimonides, the Judges and the Elders, to the effect that Avraham b. Yaḥyā ha-Levi, called al-Najīb, should get the payment of his capitation tax (jizya) to the amount of 1 2/3 dinars out of the revenue from the rents of a "block" (rabʿ) which was a pious foundation earmarked for poor people. Thus Avraham's capitation tax will be paid from the revenue of the qodesh, not as charity, but as compensation for fees which he once renounced for supervising repairs in the funduq. The text stresses the great benefit which would accrue from his continued presence at such repairs. This payment was to be in the place of a daily salary of 1/2 dirham to which al-Najīb was entitled for his supervision of the building of the Funduq ('hotel' or caravenserai), erected by Abū ʿImran Beḥir ha-Kohanim, certainly also a public building. The remuneration of 1/2 dirham normally was paid out of a daily emolument of 2 dirhams which the Wakīl or administrator of the building received. The statement is not signed, perhaps because Maimonides objected to such a vague agreement made in respect of the spending of money destined for the poor. (Information from Goitein's notes and from Gil, Documents, pp. 323 #77.) On verso there are 6 lines of verses in Arabic script.

Letter of appeal, begging for charity.

Letter from Saʿīd b. Yūnus, in מנומון (Memnon?), to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat, ca. 1060. The writer works for Nahray in acquiring flax from the villages in the area. He impatiently awaits the arrival of Nahray. Various local Muslims are mentioned who have business relations with Nahray, including "the Sultan," perhaps the local military leader. Information from Gil.

Letter (likely a draft) dictated by the wife and written by the son (Zayn al-Dār) of the India trader ʿAllān b. Ḥassūn, beseeching him to return. She has just weaned the infant, who has been sick. The only other adult male in the family has also been absent. The family is in financial straits and has had to sell household furnishings and lease the upper floor in order to pay the physician and buy medicine and two chickens every day. (Information from Med Soc III, 194, where there is also a translation.) "When a boy writing to his father abroad sends regards from his mother, grandmother, maternal aunts, the widow of a paternal uncle, and the maidservant, and adds, ‘The travel of Grandpa coincided with yours so that we have become like orphans," one gets the impression that all the persons mentioned formed one household.’” (Goitein, Med. Soc., 3:39 at n. 28.) "Adult children showed their reverence toward their parents by kissing their hands, or hands and feet—at least in letters." (Goitein, Med. Soc., viii, C, 2, n. 116; see also T-S 10J17.3, CUL Or.1081 J5, T-S 16.265 and T-S 13J24.22.)

11th century letter from Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq near Tripoli to his son Mevorakh b. Avraham Ibn Sabra. See Oded Zinger’s dissertation, which mentions this letter several times and gives a partial translation on p. 305. “Avrahamʼs daughter had been divorced from her husband and her son returned her home to her fatherʼs place in Fustat. It seems that at least two children remained with the husband. The daughter was deeply depressed and longed to return to her abusive husband.” She had been in bed for three months, abstaining from baths and festivities, and saying that she will be grief-stricken until she dies and that she will never marry again so that her ex-husband will be punished for her sins. Remarkably, Avraham returns to this story in the last phrase of the letter: "It is a problem with the mind, to ask after someone who does not ask after you." He also conveys family news, including his delight that Mevorakh's wife has given him a daughter in his "old age." Abu Sa'd, whose "life is renewed" after surviving a serious illness, is on his way to Mevorakh's location from Tripoli. Oded Zinger, “Women, Gender, and Law: Marital Disputes According to Documents from the Cairo Genizah,” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2014, p. 305.

Letter from Nissim b. Ḥalfon b. Benaya to Nahray b. Nissim.

Letter/petition in Judaeo-Arabic. The sender wishes to redeem two ruins which belonged to two women, Umm Banīn and Umm ʿIzziyya (?), and were taken away from them while they had been minor orphans. One was converted into a stable for government horses, and one was taken by a wicked man named Ibn al-Sandabīsī. Information from Goitein's note card. NB: In Goitein's notes, DK 239.1 is referred to as DK XXVI. Join by Oded Zinger.

Letter. David ha-Ḥazzan b. ʿEli asks the notable Ḥujayj to help a relative of the bearer of the letter, Seʿadya b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen, named Faraj b. Abū ʿAmr, to marry a poor and lonely orphan girl related to him. Information from Goitein's note card (#6238).

Accounts of a grain merchant, probably. In Judaeo-Arabic. Customers include ʿAbdallāh, al-Mujāhid, Muhannā, and the Muʿallaqa (presumably the church). The grain is sold by the wayba, irdabb, tillīs, and baṭṭa. It is referred to once as ground (maṭḥūn) and once as flour (daqīq). There seems to be a variety called כשכאר.

Business letter to Yiṣḥaq Ashkenazi (Avraham David does not think it is Luria).

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from a government official to a certain Yehuda b. Elʿazar ha-Kohen, giving a great deal of information about other government officials at the time of Saladin. Beginning missing; verso is blank. People mentioned: ʿAfīf al-Dīn, Ibn al-Lamṭī, Nāṣir al-Dīn (al-ṣāḥib al-makhdūm), בן שכר (mushārif al-balad), Ibn ʿUthmān (al-qāḍī al-saʿīd), Saniyy al-Dawla, Abū l-Walīd (al-rayyis), and Saʿd al-Mulk.

Letter from Faraj, the “freed” of Barhun (ha-Tahirti?) from the Maghreb, to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal and his sons, Fustat; ca. 1015. Regards a purchase of pearls. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #167) VMR.

Letter or petition. In Arabic script.