Geniza Lab

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1541 Seleucid, which is 1229/30 CE, under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. Al-Shaykh al-Muhadhdhab Abū l-Thanā' b. Netanel b. Berakhot known as Ibn ʿAmmār al-Sukkarī makes a declaration concerning al-Shaykh al-Thiqa Hiba b. Natan b. David. The continuation is lost.

Legal document, fragment. Involves [...] b. Shelomo ha-Levi and Avraham. Signed: Seʿadya b. Yehuda.

Letter from an unknown writer, in Fustat, to Yūsuf al-Ḥazzān(?), in Alexandria. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. There is a rumor going around that Abū ʿImrān got married, and the writer wants to know if this is true or not. The bearer of the letter had been in Qūṣ and he has news that might interest the addressee. The addressee's elder sister and Hibatallāh send their regards.

Fragment of a court record. Location: Cairo. Dating: Second half of the 13th century.

Note from Eli Ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel to Avraham Ha-Kohen b. Yiṣḥaq b. Furat.

Records of book sales, in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. Dated: Monday, 16 Tammuz 1540 Seleucid, which is 1229 CE. "To increase their meager income teachers got involved in book selling. In this sales contract the teacher Shelomo b. Eliyyahu the judge (dayyan) sells books."

Records of sales of books. Written by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, who was the broker in two of the sales and the buyer in one of them. The seller is a certain Abū l-Bayān in all three sales. (1) Abū l-Bayān sold The Small Art [of Medicine, by Galen] to Faḍl Allāh b. Abī l-Faraj the teacher. The price was 11 dirhams, of which Shelomo got 1 dirham as commission. (2) Abū l-Bayān sold Shelomo a copy of Bava Qamma for 7 dirhams. (3) Abū l-Bayān sold a copy of the Guide [for the Perplexed] to al-Mawlā al-Raṣuy for 32 dirhams, of which Shelomo got 2 dirhams as commission. The last sale is dated: Monday, 17 Tammuz 1540 Seleucid, which is 1229 CE. The first two sales happened earlier in Tammuz. ASE

Letter from Avraham ha-Ḥaver b. Amram from Jerusalem to an Andalusian merchant staying in Ramla. Ca. 1050.

Copy of a deed relating to the settlement of the property of Khalaf b. Iṣḥaq, deceased, who left one daughter only. Dated Monday, 21 January 1028 CE, at Fustat. (Information from the Bodleian Genizah website.)

Copy of a legal case that was inserted into a 'legal file' that was kept in the court, December 1027. Documents describing unique or interesting legal cases were occasionally copied in order to serve the clerks of the court as reference (Goitein also suggests that the document might have been copied to serve as an accompaniment to a legal discussion. However, Ashur disagrees as the copy was made eight years after the actual case and there is no evidence to support Goitein's claim; see Goitein, Med. Soc. 3:88 and 3:444, no. 69). We can tell that this is a copy of the original document as the names of the litigants are not mentioned and the document is not signed. On the other hand, the detailed description of the entire process, the dates, the exact monetary sums, the number of rings and their type, all testify that this was a real case. Goitein suggests that the document represent an agreement made by a poor couple. This is the only document known to Ashur in which the word 'betrothals' (Shiddukhim) means both 'marriage gift' and 'consecration money' ('matnat nissu'in' and 'kesef qiddushin'). The body of the document contains two dates. The first, in the beginning of the document, refers to the date in which the groom proclaimed, in front of witnesses, his desire to marry the bride and gave them the three rings. The second date, 17 days later, is probably the date in which the engagement contract was delivered to the bride's representative (Assaf presented a different view, “ the second date is the date in which the matter was put on paper while the first date signify the time of the engagement which took place on a single day. However, Ashur objects as it was customary to clearly mention the fact that a document was signed at a later date). The Muslim year is mentioned in the beginning of the document (year 428 is equivalent to 1036 C.E) eight years after the events described in the document. Assaf, who was the first to publish the document, claimed that the date and the title 'what took place' do not belong to the rest of the document. However, Ashur claims that this date is the date in which the document was copied to the legal documents file in court and in the same occasion the title was written, since the recto also has the year recorded at the header (Assaf missed the word 'year' in the header of the recto. The process of preparing the betrothal is described in great detail which is unmatched by other Geniza documents. The groom addresses the witnesses, who act as arrangers of the betrothal and were probably sent by the court, and declares his desire to 'engage and betroth' the bride. After this declaration, he hands over three betrothals (shiddukhim') “ rings that are supposed to later serve as betrothal objects. The witnesses ask him about the sum of the marriage gift (mahr/mohar). The groom responds that when he will have the means to do so, he will hand it over to the bride or to her representative personally. From checking dozens of engagement agreements, it is clear that the sum of the marriage gift was one of the first things agreed upon by the bride and groom. It appears that the witnesses wanted to know the sum of the Mohar so they can report it to the bride or her representative, and obtain her approval to the betrothal. In the next stage, the witnesses arrive to the bride and make s ure she appointed her representative. Then they handed over the rings to the bride's representative as an act of betrothal.

Legal doucment. Business agreement involving Aharon b. ʿEzra and Moshe Dammūhī and a sum of 55 peraḥim. Dating: Second half of the 16th century.

Letter from Salmān b. Dawud al-Barqi, probably from Tripoli, Libya, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Mentions beads and ships, but most of the letter is not clear. Around mid-eleventh century. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 4, pp. 517-519, #769). VMR

Letter fragment. Wide space between the lines. Only a few words of blessings and honorifics are preserved, including the name Yosef ha-Levi ha-Ḥaver.

Legal document. The body is almost entirely missing. The phrase "wa-hādhā rasm al-sheṭar/al-qiyyum" appears above the two sections at the bottom respectively. The main document is signed by Yosef Kohen b. Binyamin and Yefet ha-M[elammed b. Yosef ha-Melammed]. The qiyyum is signed by Yeshuʿa ha-Melammed b. Avraham and Yiṣḥaq b. [...]. There are a few words on verso (...qinyan min...)

Legal query addressed to Avraham Maimonides. Reuven b. Yaʿaqov married a widow. He sickened and died, when she was 6 months pregnant. He left behind household goods such as earthenware and copper pots (birām). His father Yaʿqūb demanded the household goods. Reuven's widow refused to hand them over, arguing that she had to pawn them to raise money to pay for syrups and chickens for Reuven in his illness and also to repay his debts. Yaʿqūb continues to demand the goods, and she continues to refuse. What should be done?

Letter from Nissim b. Shela to the teacher Yiṣḥaq b. Ḥayyim Nafūsī. In Judaeo-Arabic. Contains detailed information about the sending and selling of books. People mentioned include the shammash Thābit, the Ḥaver, someone's father-in-law (ḥammūhu) Abū l-Ḥusayn; and Abū Isḥāq al-Ṣayrafī—this last is the person with whom Nissim sent his previous letter along with the medicinal electuary (maʿjūn). He is eager to learn whether taking the electuary has made any difference in Yiṣḥaq's illness. He signs off with the phrase עתרת שלום ואמת.

State document, probably a letter of official correspondence, in Arabic script. Addressed to or sent by an official with the title ʿĀzim al-Dawla. An order from al-Ḥaḍra al-Majīdiyya (probably al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Majīd) granted the sender an exemption (?) from customs tax (maks) for the goods arriving on a royal vessel "al-ʿUshārī al-Malik" on government business (shāʾn al-dawāwīn). The addressee didn't honor the order and hence the sender rebukes him the rebuke of friends "fʿātab ʿatab al-aṣdiqā". The last two lines are difficult to contextualize but an attempted interpretation could be - with the command of the overseer of his business/accounts, someone wrote from the dīwān regarding what is obligatory on the different types of taxes. Reused for Arabo-Hebrew jottings of the Hebrew Psalms, the Ezra (1:9) more specifically. (For more on transcribing Hebrew Bible into Arabic script, see Geoffrey Khan, Karaite Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah: Cambridge University Press, 1990). YU. Verso: text in Hebrew with (Masoretic?) "traditions and mnemonics" (מוסרות וסימנות) written by Shemuel b. Sahl the teacher for Saʿadya b. Shelomo. Multiple different hands (likely of both teacher and student).

Accounts in Arabic script. (Information from Goitein's note card)

Note by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to a scribe, also named Shelomo, in an urgent tone, to finish the copying of certain books including the targum of Kings and the targum of the haftarot.

List of books, with prices. Dating: Likely 11th century, as almost all of the texts listed predate the 11th century. One of the items listed is a piece of parchment with the handwriting of Rabbenu Nissim (ZL) (=Nissim b. Yaʿaqov of Qayrawān). There are also books of Perso-Arabic astrology: al-Hīlāj ('the birth') and al-Kadkohdā ('the master of the house'). (Information from Allony, Ben-Shammai, and Frenkel.)