Geniza Lab

Fragmentary business letter sent from Fez in Morocco to Almeria in Spain. It mentions gold, silk, and mercury. Dated to the end of December, 1141. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 210, 486)

Fez, Morocco; End of Tevet; December 20-29, 1141; to Almeria, Spain At the head of this commercial letter is missing, the length of which is unknown, in which the names of the recipient and the addressee were written as usual on the other side of the letter in front of the head. However, the writer clearly mentioned (in line 25) that he was staying in Fez in Morocco, and according to the request to give a message to Rabbi Yiṣḥaq b. Barukh (in line 12), who was one of the people of Almeria, and to take an oath from him, it turns out that the addressee also lived there. Several other people were mentioned by name: Harūn b. al-Bargeloni (= the son of the man from Barcelona), Abu Zikri, Avraham and Avraham (who may be one), Daoud and Barukh. Some of them are probably from the people of Fez, but it is impossible to identify any of them from another source. The main concern of the letter is the news about various goods, including goods sent to Spain. These included alum, indigo, gold, copper, lacquer, scales and weights, ruby wood and paper. Apart from these, the writer ordered a silk robe by special order for the mentioned Abraham who wanted to wear it at his wedding. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV)

Letter sent by a son to his father in a silk shop in Minyat al-Qa'id. He inquires about the eye disease of the addressee and advises him to not remain in the premises occupied by the family. He mentions an ill-famed young carpenter living nearby and asks for a robe (thawb) and an underwear (ghilalah). He tells the recipient to ask the writer's brother Abu l-Ḥasan about the news of the grape pressing. A blue robe was sent with the bearer of the letter. (Information from Goitein index cards)

Letter from a son to a father. Same writer and recipient as T-S 10J7.3 and T-S 13J21.13 (addressed to Minyat al-Qa'id) and Stras. 4110/90 (see tag). The writer congratulates his father on his recovery, perhaps from the ophthalmia mentioned in T-S 13J21.13. The father had received a robe of honor and had embarked upon a trip, spending one night in Qalyub. "Rumor had it that a robe of honor was bestowed on your Excellency, of whom I am the servant, on Wednesday night.... May God let this be true and may He ordain through you for you and for us everything good" (Med Soc, II, 604). In the margin, the writer complains about his wife and his mother-in-law (his paternal aunt), who have a bad influence on his children but against whom he is powerless (Med Soc, III, 30).

Letter, draft, from Shelomo to Avraham ha-Sar, Ner ha-Maʿaravi, in childish script. He is unable to come because his father is ill. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter from Abū Zikrī b. Abū l-Riḍā to Yeshuʿa b. Zekharya (same addressee as T-S AS 161.172). He expresses sorrow that he had neglected his service to the recipient. Note that this scribe frequently writes אל when he means א. (Information in part from Goitein index cards)

Letter from a physician in Silifke (Seleucia) to his sister's husband, presumably in Fustat. Dated 21 July 1137. "The Emperor John II Comnenus was on his way to Antioch—held at that time by Raymond of Poitiers—and a part of his powerful army passed through the town in which this letter was written. The Byzantines arrived before the gates of Antioch on August 29. Our letter, however, reports a rumor that the city had already fallen forty days earlier. The writer, a physician, even expresses the expectation that the Emperor might take Aleppo and Damascus as well and already placed an order for medical books which would be looted there from the homes of his colleagues." The writer had emigrated from Fatimid Egypt to Byzantium. Goitein suggests that he traveled initially with the Fatimid navy, as he lists letters he sent in previous years from the army camp at Jaffa, from Rhodes, and from the island of Chios, which were occupied by the Venetian navy in 1224. The physician also stayed in Constantinople before settling in Seleucia and marring a woman with a Greek name (Korasi). He repeatedly describes how wealthy he is despite having arrived penniless, and urges his in-laws to follow his example and join him, no matter how much they have to leave behind. [Recto 1-8:] He opens with a discussion of the fertility of his sister; she has already borne two girls to the recipient, who is now presumably hoping for a son. She has not been able to become pregnant "due to her emaciated state"; the writer believes he would be able to give her medications to allow her to conceive "even after the emaciation." (Goitein's reads shurb instead of shaḥb, and zawāl instead of huzāl, yielding, "My sister did not become pregnant despite the many medicines. If you were here, I would fix her pregnancy, by my life, even after she had ceased to bear children.") The writer's own wife never conceived except with medication. [Recto 8-9:] The writer was unable to cure Avraham, "the little beggar from Akko," who died and left his son an orphan. [Recto 10-17:] The writer provides a detailed list of the dowry that he gave his son-in-law Shemuel b. Moshe b. Shemuel the Longobardian merchant, worth altogether 200 dinars. [Recto 17-21:] The writer explains that his own letters may have never arrived because he used to send valuable materia medica with them, including mulberry concentrate (rubb tūt), ribes (rībās), barberries (barbārīs), Gentiana (ghāfit) leaves and extract, and absinthe (afsintīn). [Recto 21-27:] He lists the five letters he has sent in past years in exchange for only one from the recipients, including Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā and Abū Naṣr b. Isḥāq. [Recto 27-31:] He offers messianic wishes, citing Daniel 12:11 and a piyyut for Havdala written by the recipient's father. [Recto 31-38:] He writes of his great happiness and wealth, including a house worth 200 dinars and 400 barrels of wine. [Verso 1-4:] If the recipient really does join him, he should bring the medical books that the writer left behind. Regardless, he is hoping to obtain some medical books from the loot of Aleppo and Damascus. [Verso 4-22:] He conveys news of family and friends. [Verso 22-24:] He requests a quarter dirhem of seeds of mallow (mulūkhiyah), mandrake (yabrūḥ), and althaea (khiṭmiyyah), as these are unavailable in his location. Information from Goitein's attached summary and translation. EMS. ASE.

Letter from Ḥalfon b. Menashshe's daughter to her maternal uncle ʿEli b. Hillel, the deputy overseer (nā'ib al-nāẓir) of Bahnasa. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1100–38 CE. The writer urges her uncle to visit herself and her mother. She is in the sixth month of her pregnancy (r5). She asks the addressee to buy for her a black girl about 5 or 6 years of age from the jālib (slave trader), because she has heard that there are many available in Bahnasa (r15–17). The writer is sad to be separated from her daughter (r26–27). She reports in the margin on the sad condition of Sitt Ikhtiyār, who has been bedbound (rāqida lāzima) for three months with hectic illness (ʿillat al-diqq). "There is nothing left in her but that we say, 'right away, right away'"—does this mean they wait on her hand and foot? or that they expect her to die soon? In any event, her condition is a terrible blow to the writer. ASE.

Letter regarding aid to a Maghribi who tried to settle in Jerusalem, before 1035

Letter probably sent from Malīj to Nahray b. Nissim.

Letter from a male family member, probably in Damīra, to a physician, probably in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating unknown. The letter is convoluted and repetitive, giving the impression of having been dictated. The purpose of writing is to urge the addressee to stop trying to obtain a government salary (jāmakiyya) and to apply only for a license (dustūr), for he if persists in seeking the salary, they will refuse him even the license. The writer and those with him have been on tenterhooks regarding the addressee's news, in a state of anxiety (hamm) and fasting (ṣiyām). He writes that it would be better to treat patients for free than to have the government salary, even if it were 100 dinars. It seems that the government salary would also require the physician to return to Damīra and practice there, an outcome the writer is desperate to avoid. "If you return to Damīra, it will be our destruction (dimārnā)." The writer (humorously) insists that here in Damīra there has been no season (faṣl, of illness), and disease (maraḍ) and ophthalmia (ramad) are nowhere to be found; there is no demand for the addressee's services, for everyone is healthy. (Whether intentionally or not, this passage echoes the first chapter of Ibn Buṭlān's Daʿwat al-Aṭṭibā', in which a shifty physician in Mayyāfāriqīn tries to convince a newcomer and potential competitor that all the diseases have disappeared.) The family is not from Damīra originally (the writer calls it bilād al-ghurba); the writer wants to return to their hometown where they own property and do not have to pay 10 dirhams a month for rent. Meanwhile, the family is perishing from the cold, and the children are 'naked.' The writer himself is ill: in a postscript, he writes, "Do not even ask about me: the illness has gotten seriously worse (zāda bī jiddan). Now, pieces of bloody phlegm (qiṭaʿ balgham dam) are coming up, together with the intense pain (al-alam al-shadīd). How often this flares up in me (yathūr bī)!" He does not ask for a prescription or medical advice, but perhaps the request is implied. The letter also contains quite a lot of discussion of wheat. ASE.

Letter to a Nagid mentioning Jewish communities in various towns and villages of Galilee. The first five lines are very faded.

Written to the judge Hananel b. Shemuel, this letter mentions the son of the Nagid (Avraham Maimonides, his son-in-law) and a certain R. Menahem. The judge, accompanied by the young son of the Nagid, had visited a village and summoned complainants to Fustat. The writer (probably a stranger) discusses the maneuvers of 'those people' who had formed a mob and threatened to beat the complainants if they should come to Fustat. (Information from Goitein index cards)

Hebrew letter to a judge in Jerusalem from his servant Shemuel. Probably of late date. (Information from Goitein index cards)

Letter sent to the Nasi Shelomo b. Yishay in Fustat by his assistant in Bilbays, describing his journey from Syria to Egypt and saying that the people of Bilbays have not paid him yet for the pesiqa mentioned in a previous letter. Also reports about the plunder of the bazaars of the wool makers and clothiers, about a tribute levied for the wali (musadara) of 500 silver dirhams. (nuqra) and 200 others shohad li'l-na'ib (a bribe to the local appointed leader), and the capture of a large caravan near al-Arish and of the people of Gaza, so that no travel to Syria was possible. (Information from Gil)

Recto: Letter from Yehuda b. Aharon b. al-ʿAmmānī, in Alexandria, to Abū l-Majd Meir b. Yakhin, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated 23 Shevat, 1208 CE. Yehuda copied for Meir dirges (qinnot) and liturgical poetry (piyyutim). The whole letter deals with the exchange of professional news and information between the two cantors. In particular, R. ʿOvadya the cantor from Damascus was meant to deliver certain piyyutim, but he departed suddenly without warning, which is why Yehuda is sending them with the present letter (r6-12). Yehuda rebukes Meir for sending him vague requests without specifying the opening lines of the piyyutim, which cools Yehuda's ardor for fulfilling his requests (r12-17). He also asks Meir to send back the note about the reading of Deut. 1:44, which Yehuda had seen in the Tāj (the Aleppo Codex) (r17-19). He also wants Meir to send him the fatwa that relates to Yehuda's court case against a judge (r20-22). He asks if ʿOvadya is planning to travel again (r23-24) and concludes with greetings. See Goitein, Med. Soc. II, 548 n. 59, for an explanation of the date in this letter and in T-S 16.287. Yehuda writes 168, with 4800 implied, so the year is 4968. On verso is a draft of a legal query in a different hand. Information in part from Frenkel and from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Legal query draft regarding a man who willed his executor to buy landed property worth 500 dinars, the proceeds of which were to be divided equally between the poor of his town and the family of his paternal uncle. Question: have the great-grandchildren of that paternal uncle rights on the will? It is unclear if this was written before or after the letter from 1208 on recto. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 436, and Goitein's note card.)

Letter sent from Alexandria by Yiṣḥaq Simha to Abu al-'Ala al-Dimashqi of Cairo, instructing him how to provide for the family of Abu al-Faraj during the latter's journey to the Maghreb. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter dated 3 Tevet 1214 from Abu l-Najm Hilal, in Alexandria, to his brother Abu l-Majd (Meir b. Yakhin), in Fustat, describing the horrors of his Nile voyage. He excuses himself for being momentarily unable to send the present promised to the little girl personally, but encloses six combs and six spindles, two of each for Abu l-Majd's elder daughter, and the others presumably for Rivkah and Sitt Mas'ud who are mentioned in the last line. (Information from Goitein's note card and from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 297, 298; V, pp. 37, 515.) See also ENA NS 22.9, a letter dated 8 Tevet (albeit possibly a different year) in which Abu l-Majd regrets not being able to find Hilal at the dock and rebukes him for leaving in such great haste. ASE.

Letter sent from Alexandria by Shemuel b. Aharon to Abu Ishaq Avraham b. Moshe in Fustat, explaining why he could not send the silk which he had dyed with gold, and sending greetings, though without mentioning his own name, probably because his handwriting was known to the recipient. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 241, 573)