Geniza Lab

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.)

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 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.