Geniza Lab

Letter from Hārūn b. Sulaymān ha-Ḥaver al-Kohen to [...] b. Ṣadaqa(?) Ibn Shaʿya(?). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 11th century, on paleographic grounds. The writer opens with complaining about his ear illness (if that is what ʿalā aṣli udhnī means; same phrase as in MS Heb. e 45/75). Mentions a jar of rose petal jam (ward murabbā); silk; a mandīl; a Nisapuri thawb; Sulaymān; Ghulayb; and "al-jawhara." Needs further examination.

Bill of divorce (get). Dated: Thursday, 2 Adar I 1437 Seleucid, which is 1126 CE. Location: Fustat. Husband: Avraham b. Shemarya. Wife: Esther bt. Namir. Signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe and Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi. The attestation on verso that she received the get is signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe and Yiṣḥaq ha-Melammed b. Ḥayyim Nafūsī.

Letter from Qayrawan to Efrayim b. Shemarya in Fustat. 23 July 1035.

Elegy for the Tustari brothers Ḥesed b. Yashar (Abū Naṣr b. Sahl) and Avraham b. Yashar (Abū Saʿd b. Sahl). Dating: ca. 1050 CE. There is a brief introduction which specifies the meter as mafāʿīlun mafāʿilun. Both brothers were assassinated (Abū Saʿd in October 1047 on the orders of his rival, the vizier Yūsuf al-Fallāḥī, whom the caliph’s mother then had killed in June 1048; and Abū Naṣr in 1049 or 1050). (Information from Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 322.) See also Mann, Jews in Egypt and in Palestine, 1:82 and Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, sec. 371. Transcription available here: https://maagarim.hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx?mishibbur=819004&mm15=000000001001%2010.

Bill of divorce (get). On vellum. Location: al-Maḥalla al-Kubrā. Dated: Monday, 10 Iyyar 1454 Seleucid, which is 1143 CE. Husband: Abū Naṣr b. Dinar(??). Wife: Sutūt bt. Abū l-Ḥasan. Signed by Zakkay b. Moshe and Tamīm b. Yosef ha-Levi. The same two witnesses also sign the attestation on verso that she received the get.

Panegyric addressed Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. ʿAṭā' (aka Avraham b. Natan), the Nagid of Qayrawān. Of note, this copy was probably made during Ibrāhīm's lifetime (perhaps ca. 1015 CE), as his name is followed by a blessing for longevity. See discussion and translation in Ann Brener, Isaac ibn Khalfun : a wandering Hebrew poet of the eleventh century, pp. 74–78, 116–17.

Fragment of the beginning of a letter to the Nagid. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Legal document. Cut roughly into the shape of an octagon ("perhaps to make a sign or an amulet"). Dated: Ṭevet 1529 Seleucid, which is 1217/18 CE, under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. Yosef Beḥir ha-Misra sells 1/4 of a house to Abū l-Faḍl ha-Sofer ha-Mahir b. Yosef ha-Sar ha-Kohen for 150 dinars ("good gold dinars"). (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Letter from Yosef b. Ya’aqov al-Itrabulusi from Gabes (Ifrīqiya) to Yosef b. Ya’akob b. Awkal, Fustat. The writer traveled to Qabes after visiting Barka, Tripoli (Libya), and Qayrawan (Ifrīqiya). Describes his difficulties managing Ibn Awkal’s merchandise. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #172) VMR

Letter in ornate Hebrew. From Moshe ha-Ḥazzan ha-Zaqen to at least two addressees, including someone addressed as Nagid, R. Shela, and a certain Ḥamishi ba-Ḥavura. One of these people is also the son of Ṭoviyya.

Marriage contract (ketubba). Location: Fustat. Dated: 14 Ḥeshvan 1849 Seleucid, which is 1537 CE. Groom: Shelomo b. Shemuel.

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.