Geniza Lab

Judaeo-Arabic, too faded to identify (FGP). Yemeni hand.

Literary work in Judaeo-Persian. Perhaps related to the stories of Genesis?

Letter in Judaeo-Persian. Needs examination.

Accounts. In Hebrew script. Partially in Judaeo-Arabic (אלחאל חסאב פרוצהם), but maybe also with some Judaeo-Persian. The names would have unusual spellings if this were from Egypt (בראהים; צוליימון).

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. The goods listed include several garments, some of silk. Values are given in terms of the currency "ḥarf." This term for a currency is known from Yemen from at least the 16th century onward: see R. B. Serjeant, The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast (London, 1963), pp. 145f. There is some ambiguity as the ḥarf aḥmar or ḥarf dhahab aḥmar was a gold coin, presumed to be a name for the ashrafī and sometimes the sequin, whereas plain "ḥarf" was a name for a copper coin of low value. The goods listed in this account seem more likely to have been sold for gold ḥurūf instead of copper ones. But merits further attention. ASE.

Letter in Judaeo-Persian. Needs examination.

Qur'an 64-65 (FGP)

Qur'an 64-65 (FGP)

Pen trial consisting of the formula wa-mā tawfīqī ʾillā bi-llāh

State document, fragment of a longer text, dismembered at the collesis. What has remained is wa-mā tawfīqī illā bi-l-lāh. Possibly Ayyubid (tawfīqī billāh was an Ayyubid ʿalāma).

Five lines remaining of an official report mentioning two messengers sent from the caliph (al-ḥaḍra al-ṭāhira) to Damascus and also mentioning the Banū Hilāl. The document was reused to make a kind of frame or possibly to plan an inscription.

Accounts in beautiful Arabic script and eastern Arabic numerals. Late. VMR. ASE.

List of expenses (alladhī kharaja min waqt wuṣūlī), probably of a merchant. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions pepper and brazilwood.

Letter addressed to R. Natan ha-Kohen. Extremely faded.

Colophon to a medical or pharmacological treatise. In Judaeo-Arabic. No name or date.

Text in Ottoman Turkish.

Letter from Binyamin Castro to a business partner. In Hebrew. Dating: 16th century. Informing the addressee about the death of Moshe b. Shoshan (ll. 2–3), a merchant of Alexandria who had dealings with Venetian merchants and consuls (ll. 4–5). Moshe also owed the writer some money (ll. 3–4). He asks the addressee to assist him in taking possession of merchandise belonging to the late Moshe and thereby getting his debt repaid (ll. 11–12, 14–15). "For now the partnership between us is annulled" (ll. 15–16). But he is prepared to renew the partnership with the apotropos Yaʿaqov ha-Levi. There is further discussion of business in khiyār (purging cassia?) (ll. 16–18, 23–25) in partnership with Yehuda al-Ashqar. Mentions financial trouble with the çavuş and the basha and the defterdar and asks for the addressee's help. Information from A. David's edition on FGP.

Letter from an unknown man to his niece (bint al-akh). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably 13th century. He opens, "How long will you remain a widow?" The writer has found her a promising suitor who recently visited Bilbays, a learned man who works as a teacher, the son of the sister of the teacher Bū l-Ḥasan Hillel al-Shanshāwī. The writer urges the addressee to send the suitor a letter (? תדפעי לה מן ענדך) and go along with this plan. He continues to urge her to cease wasting her youth in spinsterhood ("for I am a man and I was older(?) than you and I did not sit (i.e. as a widower)."). Cairo is also mentioned. The letter ends very abruptly with none of the formulaic regards, so this was probably a draft.

Report or petition to a Fatimid caliph or vizier, opening blessings only. Dating: ca. 1100–71. Cuts off after the taqbīl clause. Addressee may be al-Afḍal b. Badr al-Jamālī (cf. Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, p. 284). Cf. also CUL Or.1080.15.77 (Khan, no. 84).

Responsum about court proceedings, clean copy. 17th century?