Geniza Lab

Letter in Arabic addressed to Muhammad Ḥasan al-ʿAttar in Fustat/Cairo, from a certain Hajj Muhammad ʿAthari (?) al-Attar. Appears to be dated 5 April 1809 (19 Safar 1224). The subject matter is business transactions the pair are conducting with Shimʿon Frances (well known from numerous Judaeo-Arabic letters, many involving his business partnership with Merkado Karo).

Recto: Letter in Arabic from Isrā'īl al-Ṣayrafī to Yaʿqūb al-Ṭawīl, appears to be dated 6 February 1797 (8 Sha'ban 1211). Verso: There is the remnant of the address of the letter on recto. There are also, in Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic numerals, accounts listing names and corresponding sums of money.

Image 1: The end of an account in Arabic, along with what might be a fragment of a legal document discussing buildings in ḥārat al-yahūd. Image 2: Blank except for some sums. Image 3: A column of nearly 40 names in Judaeo-Arabic (several from the Yuʿbaṣ family) along with a column of Arabic names, most or all of which are the equivalents of the names on right. Image 4: More of a legal-looking Arabic document discussing buildings.

Arabic writing exercises including "lillahi waḥdahu" three times.

Legal document in Arabic script. Only the witness signatures are preserved, e.g., ʿAlī b. ʿAbdallāh and Bū Bakr [...] b. ʿAbdallāh. Verso: love poetry also in Arabic script, ending with the rhyme ʿaīn(rawī).

Letter in Arabic script. Dating: Uncertain, maybe late Mamlūk/early Ottoman. The name Abū Ḥamza (?) can be read in the place of the tarjama. Mentions al-Rayyis Yūsuf, a vessel (markab), and the condition of young boys/children. "I inform you, do not ask me what the boys/children are going through everyday....for their sustenance..very little, a piece of bread in the morning and another (in the evening?)." Seems like a plea for the children for not getting enough to eat. On verso there are accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Needs further examination

State document. Dated: 26 Ramaḍān 524 AH = 2 September 1130 CE. A makhzūma (a type of official account) concerning the construction of a new or renovated belvedere (manẓara) across from either the Rawḍa island or a specific government garden (muqābil al-rawḍa al-saʿīda). Begins with the header "makhzūma," followed by, "bi-mablagh al-munfaq fī ʿimārat al-manẓara al-mustajadda al-maʾmūr bi-inshāʾihā." The project is overseen by officials with titles such as "majd al-khilāfa wa fakhruha" and "ṣanīʿat al-khilāfa." One may be named al-Qāḍī [...] al-ʿUmr (?) ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (?). They are both described as "mutawallī al-maʿūna bi-Miṣr." Al-Maqrīzī mentions this position during the Fatimid Caliph al-ʿĀmir's time in 515 H (See Ittiʿāẓ, III, p. 69). The date on the document is 524 H which fits with al-Maqrīzī's chronology, hence, it is plausible that the person referred to in the chronicle could be one of the officials mentioned in the document. Goitein translates 'maʿūna' as "a police building, although containing gruesome prisons, was called maʿūna, 'help' while the security forces themselves were divided into a number of specialized groups. The head of the police was called wālī, literally, 'governor'" (Goitein, Mediterranean Society, II:368). There are also copious other jottings in Arabic, most of them poetry and some pen trials. Needs further examination.

A leaf from a work on sexual medicine & aphrodisiacs in Arabic.

A damaged page from a diwan, probably, of Arabic poetry

Legal document. In Arabic script. Dating: The year is effaced, but it looks Ottoman-era. There is a faded filing note in Judaeo-Arabic on verso. Involves a Muslim named Saʿīd and Jews named Yaʿqūb and Dāʾūd. Needs examination for content.

Recto: The first few lines of an Ottoman-era legal document, bearing two seals and an annotation in a different hand, opening with an invocation of the Porte (bi-l-bāb al-ʿālī aʿlāhu) and pertaining to a certain Hanbali judge named Aḥmad b. Aḥmad Ḥijāzī al-Ajhūrī. Verso: In Hebrew script, the name of a syangogue or congregation (קק סקאלבין?).

Disorganized writings in Hebrew, Arabic, and Judaeo-Arabic, in all different directions. There are two lines from an official-looking calligraphic Arabic document. Needs further examination.

14 pages of a Persian treatise on poetic meters and general eloquence. The text of the treatise may be found on pages 3–4 and 7–18. There are only a few, faded lines on page 4. There is a single word on page 6. The table of contents is on page 8. There are many lines of Persian poetry cited, starting on page 9. There is a doodle of a tree on page 17. There are a few words in Latin script (French?) on page 19.

A leaf from Avicenna's Qanun, including the chapter on fattening any organ, such as arm, leg, nose, lips, or penis.

Letter in early Judaeo-Persian. Dating: ca. 790. Matters discussed include the local ruler and his daughter, a trade deal or gift exchange with them involving sheep, Sogdians, slaves, capers, musk, silk, sugar, and news of Kashgar, including the capture or killing of Tibetans in battle. The dating is based on political events in western China to which the letter seems to be alluding. The variant of New Persian in which the letter is written is, according to Zhan Zhang, very early, containing grammatical and/or lexical elements from Middle Persian, Sogdian, Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese. The letter surfaced in China in 2004 and is now housed at the National Library of China. Zhang published an edition and Chinese translation in 2009: “Yijian xinfaxian Youtaibosiyu xinzha de duandai yu shidu ⼀ 件新发现犹太波斯 信札的断代与 [Dating and interpretation of a newly-discovered Judaeo-Persian letter]," Dunhuang tulufan yanjiu 敦煌吐番研究 11 (2008) [2009], 77–99. An English translation of Zhang's Chinese translation appears in Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History with Documents (2012). Zhang is working on a new edition and a new English translation as of 2021.

Fragment of a letter by Natan b. Avraham. 1354/1042.

Copy in Judaeo-Arabic of a decree (sijill) renewing the appointment of a Jewish physician "to the headship of all the Israelite denominations: the Rabbanites, Qaraites, and Samaritans." States that the order to write this document was issued by the caliph to the chancery (kharaja amr amīr al-muʾminīn ilā dīwān al-inshāʾ bi-katb hādha al-sijill bi-tajdīd mā kāna anʿama bihī ʿalayka min al-riyāsa ʿalā jamīʿ ṭawāʾif al-isrāʾīliyya min al-rabbānīn wa-l-qaraʾiyyīn wa-l-samara).

Late, formal, communal letter, likely from the community of Jerusalem, mentioning their shaliaḥ R. Ḥananya b. Barhūn (l.6), to a group of people including R. Moshe [the rest of his name is cut off]. The opening words of each line disappear into the crevice where this fragment is bound to the preceding one, so the original has to be examined. The writers strenuously contradict a claim of the recipients in a previous communication (l.7-8). The gist of the matter seems to be that the recipients used to send almonds and pomegranates to Jerusalem as charity for the sick and poor, in expectation of receiving certain blessings in return. Possibly they have ceased doing this, claiming that the blessings are not in order. The writers insist that they are not ungrateful, the blessings are in order, and they plead for the charity to resume. Signed by Yisrael Binyamin (perhaps Yisrael Binyamin Zeevi who died in 1688?) and three others whose signatures are stylized and somewhat difficult to read. Yiṣḥaq Ṣabāḥ adds a postscript reiterating the main points of the letter, also mentioning the merit of sending lulavim in this time. ASE.

Various chronological calculations ("from Adam to the flood... from the flood to the birth of Isaac... from the creation of the world to the receiving of the Torah... etc."), mentioning also that Jesus died at age 33. Opens with a citation from the work Kad ha-Qemaḥ by Baḥyā ben Asher (1255-1340) to the effect that Lamekh the father of Noah met Adam and that Avraham met Noah. The last two lines seem to give the date the fragment was written, albeit obscurely.

Letter fragment (lower right corner of recto). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dealing with business matters. Full of expressions of urgency (wallāh allāh al-surʿa. . . min kull bud). Mentions two waybas of something and various other commodities. Also mentions the oculist al-Kaḥḥāl al-Maghribī; either that name or the handwriting may allow eventual identification.