Geniza Lab

Ketubba fragment (upper left corner). Dating: Late 13th century, based on Goitein's assessment. Groom: [...] b. Natan b. Yehuda. Bride: ʿIyāl bt. Shela ha-Rofe b. Avraham ha-Levi. This may be the remarriage of a divorced couple. Marriage payments: 10 + 40 = 50. Verso is blank. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Fragment of a letter from the brothers Yosef and Nissim b. Berekhya from Qayrawan (Ifrīqiya) to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal, Fustat. Around 1017. Yosef, the older brother, writes the letter. Mentions details about the Nagid, Avraham b. Ata, and his activities for the Yeshivas. The money that was collected in Fustat and Qayrawan from Yamen, Spain, and the Maghreb, is sent to Ibn Awkal in Fustat. A small portion of the money is designated to the Erets Israel Yeshiva but most of the money is designated to the Babylonian Yeshivas. Also mentions a military travel by the governor of Qayrawan, and the Nagid Avraham b. Ata accompanied the governor (probably while he was a doctor). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #148) VMR

Legal testimony. Location: Fustat. Dated: 16 Sivan 1394 Seleucid, which is 1082 CE. Shaʿyā b. David b. [...] makes a declaration concerning Mevorakh ha-Parnas (Segulat ha-Parnasim) and Avraham b. Yaʿaqov and something that occurred the previous year.

Fiscal document, top and bottom missing. Refers to kharāj payments for the year 437 kharājī (about five lines up from the bottom of the page); 437AH is 1046 CE, but the kharājī year might be off by two or three from the hijrī year. In addition to numbers, there is also the name Masīḥ(?) b. ʿAbdallāh. Needs further examination. Reused on both recto and verso for Hebrew-script documents.

Legal document. Quittance/release (שטר אביזאריה). Mivḥar b. Ṣedaqa releases Moshe b. Moshe known as Ibn Majjān from all obligations except for an ounce of זבאר(?), a dinar and a half, a cloak (ʿabā'a) and some oil (nafṭ), in partnership with Abū l-Faḍl al-Dhahabī(?). Written around a reused fiscal account, and also reused for another legal document.

Legal document. Dated Thursday 26 Elul 1386 Sel. (September 1075 CE). There is an invocation of the Nagid Yehuda b. Seʿadya at the beginning. Yiṣḥaq b. Musāfir b. Pinḥas b. Zurayq, heir to his maternal uncle Yūsuf b. ʿAbdallāh's estate registers a claim against Avraham b. Naṣīr ha-Levi, with whom his uncle had deposited some of his belongings. In the deposition before the Fusṭāṭ tribunal, Avrahām acknowledged that he had stored the items in his house in Malīj. However, "his house had been plundered (nuhiba) during the pillage which affected Malīj and the whole region" when the entire population was affected by the plunder (nahb). Avraham had managed to secure some of Yūsuf's possessions but he was "intercepted and waylaid by the Lawāta Berbers who robbed him of his clothes and those of Yūsuf that he was carrying" (Cohen, Self-government, pg. 59). The pillage had most likely taken place during the period of lawlessness and famine, 1062–74 CE. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Med Soc V, p.524, n.110.) The document was written around the text of a fiscal account in Arabic relating to the kharāj payments of 437 Kharaji (ca. 1046 CE) (PGPID 34343). YU

Formularies for divorce-related documents. The one on recto is clearly based on a real document and a real case, but gives "peloni" for the month and for some of the names. Location: Fustat. Dated: 5514 AM, which is 1753/54 CE. The husband is Barukh b. Yosef Ḥayyūn. The wife and her family are from Alexandria. Sums of money are given in silver dīwānī muayyadis and gold maḥbūbs. Somehow involved is a pin (in Ladino: אלפיניטי=alfinete) embedded with a precious gem (שקבוע בו אבן טובה). Two witnesses are named in the document but their signatures do not appear at the bottom. See also Bodl. MS heb. d 66/101

Formulary for a שטר מכירת חזקה. Late, probably belongs with Bodl. MS heb. d 66/100 and is therefore c.1750s.

Letter from a certain Yiṣḥaq to Eliyyahu the Judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. He asks for news of the silver. "And how are you doing after the hardship of the journey?" Phonetic spellings: מה עקני לם נגֿי אלי שי אנתעלמו = ما عاقني لم نجئ الا شيءٌ تعلمه.

Letter addressed to an important person (perhaps Eliyyahu ha-Kohen Av Bet Din, who is greeted 3 lines from the bottom). In Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew. Only the right side is preserved, so the story is difficult to figure out, but the letter is a recommendation or request for help for a man with a good reputation and something to do with Alexandria and a marriage.

Legal testimony involving India traders. Fragment: only the left side is preserved. Location: Possibly Alexandria: it appears to be spelled מדינת אכסנדריה, but in the very next line there is someone named אלאסכנדראני with the letters in the correct (Arabic) order. Dated: [..]32 AM, likely 1171/72 CE, but conceivably 1061/62 or 1271/72 (this can likely be resolved with the help of the names). The case involves the city of Abyār, a debt, and two raṭls of (dyed?) silk and someone named David b. Yaʿaqov. There are two rows of circles in between the main document and the qiyyum/validation. At the bottom of the qiyyum are the names (but not signatures) of: Ḥalfon b. Yaʿaqov, Aharon ha-Ḥazzan, Avraham b. Elʿazar, Ḥalfon b. [...], and [...] ha-Ḥazzan b. Aharon ha-Ḥazzan.

Colophon for a Torah. The scribe is Yeshuʿa b. Yiṣḥaq. Dedicated to ʿAmram ha-Kohen b. She'erit ha-Kohen Paqid ha-Soḥarim.

One phrase from the beginning of a letter addressed to Ḥananel ha-Dayyan. Dating: likely 13th century. This is fragment that mainly contains a literary text in Hebrew, reused for some jottings.

Letter from Shemuel b. Avraham al-Majjānī, probably in Aden, to (Abū Zikrī) Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yosef, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer has sent spices to the addressee with Abū Isḥāq b. Siwār al-Muslim. He asks him to sell them and give the proceeds to Abū Naṣr b. Elishaʿ, who should give 2 dinars to the writer's mother and the rest to his wife. He reports on the the aṣḥāb (Nahray and Ibn Nufayʿ and Ibn al-Yatīm and al-Fāsī and a Jew whom the writer did not know) who were traveling with ʿAlī al-Dībājī and speculates that perhaps they were detained in Dahlak, because they haven't caught up with the writer's party. He then crosses out that statement and writes above it, "they caught up with us the night of the mabīt (spending the night on board before sailing) to Aden." The writer wishes to travel on to al-Qaṣṣ (identified by Sebastian Prange as Bhadresvar in the Gulf of Kachh, in Gujarat—see Monsoon Islam, Table 4.1). When his ship had reached Bāb al-Mandab, the ruler (ṣāḥib) of Dahlak attacked the ship and plundered it, but let the merchants go. There is a postscript about smuggling Ibn al-Yatīm's coral through customs. ASE

Leaf from a court ledger. Verso: ʿAzīza bt. Abū Naṣr al-Marsā[nī] receives from ("al-Pe'er") Abū Saʿīd b. Thābit 24.5 dinars. Signed: Seʿadya b. Mevorakh (ZL). See PGPID 2533 for transcription.

Leaf from a court ledger. Recto: Records in the hand of Natan b. Shemuel. Dated: Sivan 1456 Seleucid, which is June 1145 CE. Dealing with the sale of a house in the al-Mamṣūṣa quarter in Fustat for 123 dinars. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, pp. 90, 283, 289)

Legal document. Dated: Tammuz 1456 Seleucid, which is 1145 CE. Yosef al-Ṣā'igh b. Yehuda al-Shomer receives a loan of 30 dirhams from Abū ʿAlī Yefet ha-Parnas ha-Ne'eman b. Shemarya ha-Zaqen. He has to pay back every week 1.5 dirhams (corrected from 2.5), beginning with 1 Av. Only payments listed on back of document are regarded as having been made - but the back is blank. Witnesses: Seʿadya b. Mevorakh; Shelomo b. Nājī ha-Parnas. Qiyyum signed by David ha-Paliṭ b. Yosef and Ḥiyya b. Yiṣḥaq. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Guarantee for a debt. Yūsuf b. Saʿīd agrees to cede 3/4 of a house and half of a ruin situated opposite it, to the orphan Hibat Allāh if he does not manage to pay him six dinars by Sivan 1461 Seleucid, which is April-May 1150 CE. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, 275.) On verso there is a list of copper vessels of a total value of 3 dinars in the possession of an orphan. (Information from Goitein's index card.) The bifolium bearing the shelfmarks Bodl. MS heb. d 66/110 and Bodl. MS heb. d 66/111 looks like it came from a court ledger. It is not immediately clear whether all the text pertains to the same case. ASE

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Two fragments constituting an indirect join. Natan/Hiba b. [...] al-Sīlqūnī (the red lead merchant) agrees to resolve a dispute (or simply settle accounts) with Yiṣḥaq ha-Levi a.k.a. Sayyid al-Kull b. Yeshuʿa, since one of them is sick, and "death and life are in the hand of the Creator." A sum of 85 (dinars?) is mentioned. May be an indirect join with JRL Gaster heb. ms 1760/10 (upper left fragment), which also involves Yiṣḥaq ha-Levi a.k.a. Sayyid al-Kull and a mutual release. Verso of one of the fragments (Bodl. MS heb. d 66/112) was turned into a crudely written Haggada after the legal document was dismembered. Join: Alan Elbaum.

Letter from Ṭahor b. Avraham to Ḥananel b. Shemuel. Dating: First half of the 13th century. Very similar to T-S NS 321.101 (same writer, same addressee). Only the beginning is preserved. Mentions Abū l-Faḍl b. Yehuda. (Information in part from Goitein and Friedman, India Book III, p. 56 n. 122.)