Geniza Lab

Fragment of a letter, possibly. Or literary text? In Judaeo-Arabic. "... and they closed the gates and did not let him leave until the situation was lost. He remained there three days and came out, and the people mourned over him greatly, and the city was depressed." On verso there are drawings of concentric circles.

Document in Arabic script. Possibly a state document. There is a single line, subsequently reused for a Judaeo-Arabic composition.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and Greek/Coptic numerals.

Letter from Yehuda b. Avraham b. al-Faraj, possibly in Ṣahrajt, to ʿEli b. ʿAmram (aka Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllūn b. Muʿammar), in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1060s CE. The letter is in Arabic, with one phrase in Hebrew and with addenda in Hebrew. The purpose of the letter is to enclose the Hebrew poem "Doe of the Woods" (יעלת יערות). The text in Hebrew on the verso of the letter appears to be an elaborate introduction to the poem, with fulsome praises for ʿEli b. ʿAmram. The poem itself is found on ENA 2465.8. Related fragments: T-S 13J13.2 is a letter with the same sender and same addressee, likewise in a mix of Arabic and Hebrew, which is a recommendation on behalf of Seʿadya the teacher; Bodl. MS heb. c 28/5 is a legal document drawn up by the same Yehuda b. Avraham, apparently the muqaddam of the town of Ṣahrajt in 1060 CE.

Decree, fragment, reused for Hebrew piyyut/poetry. The preserved text reads 'and on his brother' - wa ʿalā akhīhi.

Fragment containing extremely faded Hebrew script. Probably Judaeo-Arabic, probably late.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic.

Blank. May belong together with ENA 2481.21 and/or ENA 2481.22.

Blank. May belong together with ENA 2481.21 and/or ENA 2481.22.

Letter fragment. In Hebrew. Containing only praises and blessings for the addressee. On verso there are some verses of Hebrew poetry.

Letter fragment addressed to a dignitary whose son is named Daniel. In Hebrew, often rhyming. What remains is mostly the formulaic content. Possibl a letter of appeal.

Literary. A Shīʿī prayer written in Arabic script. There are some lines in red ink. The literariness of the verses is such that bounties aren't directly sought, rather they are attributed to the creator and sought passively. Ignoring the order of the verses, most of them resemble the verses of Duʿā al-Jawshan (for Saturday) attributed to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib or other verses of supplication attributed to him and quoted in the book Biḥār al-Anwār by Majlesi (d. 1698). The variant in Biḥār al-Anwār is as follows: يا من لا يشغله سمع عن سمع يا من لا يمنعه فعل عن فعل يا من لا يلهيه قول عن قول يا من لا يغلطه سؤال عن سؤال يا من لا يحجبه شئ عن شئ يا من لا يبرمه إلحاح الملحين يا من هو غاية مراد المريدين يا من هو منتهى همم العارفين، يا من هو منتهى طلب الطالبين، يا من لا يخفى عليه ذرة في العالمين.

Legal document, draft. Left side only. No witnesses. Location: Fustat. Dated: Nisan 1542 Seleucid, which is 1231 CE. Features a freed muwallad slave (al-ghulām al-maʿtūq... al-muwallad al-jins) whose name is unfortunately missing. The issue has to do with a payment in installments, but the specifics are difficult to discern.

Book list in the hand of Joseph Rosh ha-Seder. Published in JQR 13 (1901).

Letter of petition to Sa'adya the great prince - probably the father of Mevorakh b. Sa'adya. The writer complains that he and his family are hungry.

"The Tale of the [Jewish] Companions of Muḥammad" also known as "The Tale of Baḥira." Relating how 10 Jewish sages, somehow related to a stylite named Baḥira, made a subterfuge of joining themselves to Muḥammad but actually sought to corrupt the Quran in order to protect the Jewish people. They allegedly included a secret acrostic within the Quran that reads כך יעצו חכמי ישראל לאלם הרשע ("Thus did the wise men of Israel counsel the dumb wicked man," אלם being a reference to Isaiah 56:10.) The fabricated Quranic verses that spell out this phrase are listed on verso. The 10 sages are named, including characters well-known from Islamic literature (e.g., Kaʿb al-Aḥbār and the father of Muḥammad's Jewish concubine Ṣafiyya) and characters that are not otherwise attested and have quite unusual epithets (e.g., al-Munhazim ilā l-Janna). Information in part from Krisztina Szilagyi's description on FGP. See also the (faulty) edition in J. Leveen, "Mohammed and His Jewish Companions," The Jewish Quarterly Review , Apr., 1926, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Apr., 1926), pp. 399- 406. ASE

Page from Massekhet Derekh Eres.

Manuscript of the Book of the Calendar Controversy, about the disagreement between Jewish leaders of Palestine and Babylonia on how to calculate the calendar year in 921/2. This led the Jews of the entire Near East to celebrate Passover and the other festivals on different dates over the course of two years. Four folios of this text are extant, ENA 2555.1, T-S 10K3 (one side only), T-S NS 175.57 (one side only), and ENA 2556.1. Stern concludes that these folios are discontinuous elements of the same manuscript and supposes their sequence from textual parallels in other manuscripts of the Book of the Calendar Controversy. Scribe changes throughout the manuscript appear random and change the style of script (round, square, compact, etc.). The evident involvement of several scribes in the production of this single manuscript suggests a commercial enterprise in which a team of scribes was employed to produce books, and where the books being copied were passed around the team at the convenience of the scribes’ individual work schedules. Its hasty, somewhat sloppy production by a team of scribes suggests that it was intended as a cheap, ‘budget’ copy, for circulation among a broader, private readership. (See Stern pp. 166-170 for discussion regarding the scribal hands.)

Letter in Hebrew narrating the trouble caused by Ben Meir including quoting at length a letter sent by the elders. Entered in Geniza collection as an independent manuscript (in 2017, citing Alder) and as the second folio of the most extensive text witness of the Book of the Calendar Controversy (in 2021, citing Stern).

Account in Hebrew of the Ben Meir controversy. Calendrical discussion