Geniza Lab

Letter sent from al-Mahdiyya by Yosef b. Musa Tahirti to his brother Barhun in Susa. The letter deals with marketing goods, especially pepper, and contains details about the trade with Qayrawan and Sicily, as well as details about ships and some family matters. (Information from M. Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 191)

Letter to a sister, asking her to convince her brother to pay what he owes to the writer. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Fragment of a letter from Isma’il b. Barhun al-Tahirti probably from Mahdiyya, to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal from Fustat. Probably August 3, 1011. The writer expected to receive a confirmation for receiving 150 dinars that he sent to Fustat to b. Awkal, but he did not get it. It seems from the letter that the security situation was not good, especially because of the dangerous of attacks in the sea by Byzantines. The last part of the letter mentions money to the Yeshivas. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #122) VMR

Letter to a hazzan, Ben Sadoq, who is asked to intervene on behalf of the writer, Menashshe nin Shemaiah, before Sar Salom, head of the community of Alexandria. The writer says he’ll be in Alexandria at the New Year, God willing. Ca. 11th century. Menashshe signs his name at the end surrounded by a motto. Verso: small amount of illegible text in a different hand and ink. (Information from CUDL)

Beautiful letter of warm friendship sent by a man from Ifrīqiya to his friend in Egypt. The recipient had ordered a Torah scroll and books, but the writer was reluctant to send them at the end of the seafaring season since they might suffer water damage. He says that he had not neglected the matter, but would have it done at his leisure during the winter. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 282, 283, 585)

Letter by the two guardians appointed by Shemuel b. Avraham, called Yosef b. Binyamin and Yefet b. Ṭoviyya and their supervisor named Mevorakh b. Yosef. The writers inform the addressees and former partners of Shemuel, about his death and ask them to transport the merchandise held by them for the partnership to them or bring its price in cash. Related to T-S 10J30.7. (Information from Bareket)

Recto: two alchemical recipes. The first recipe (ll. 1-8) is aimed at producing ‘the work’ (אלצנעה), a word commonly used for indicating the production of gold, silver or the elixir that would turn base metals into precious ones. Ingredients mentioned are: sublimated arsenic, vinegar, sulphur, dissolved salt, sublimated mercury. The second recipe is composed of two parts. The first part (ll. 8-14) describes a preparation requiring silver, salt, water, mercury, and sal ammoniac that is aimed at obtaining a clear plate of metal. The second part (ll. 14-end) requires the use of quicksilver, horse manure, sal ammoniac, the Khurasani (?) and young boys’ urine. The end of the recipe is lost. Verso: part of a widely-spaced letter sent to a nagid in Fusṭāṭ. (Information from CUDL)

Letter sent to al-Firnas (= the parnas) al-Haruni (= the Kohen) Allun b. Ya'ish (= Eli b. Yahya) in Fustat from Damascus, announcing that Abu 'Ali Hassun b. Musallam b. al-Hirbish had come to Alexandria and asking that he see to it that al-Hirbish fulfills his obligations. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from an Alexandrian judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 1180. Full of interesting details about the tensions in the community during the early years of Saladin's reign and interactions with governmental authorities and various amīrs. The writer's opponent, the president of the congregation, threatened to discontinue the payment of his salary and instead have twenty persons deliver to him their weekly contributions to the quppa. The writer also reports on a legal case (upper margin of verso) involving a man who forced his wife to live in the same house with him and his mother, while he was sick. Before this, the mother-in-law had sworn that her son had no ailment, but now that he has turned out to be sick, the wife is scared that her entire dowry will be lost (spent on medical expenses?). (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 62, 105)

Letter from Khalaf b. Mūsā (=Ḥalfon b. Moshe) al-Ḥaver al-Kohen on behalf of the whole congregation of "Ḥaṣer Adar" (חצר אדר). Saʿadya Gaʾon translates this biblical place name—along with חצור and חצרים—as Rafaḥ, which seems plausible here. Addressed to a dignitary whose genealogy ends with [...] b. Faraḥ b. Shalom(?) ha-Kohen. In Hebrew for the introduction and Judaeo-Arabic for the body. The address is written partially at the bottom of recto in Judaeo-Arabic and also on verso in Arabic script. The letter mentions the city of ʿAsqalān and various names such as Abū ʿImrān, Wuhayb b. Sahl, and Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm. It is large, but it is faded nearly beyond legibility (in some places it is legible only because the ink has completely faded and bleached the paper where it used to be). ASE

Letter possibly sent from Alexandria by a merchant to his relative, including details about accounts and mentioning orders of perfumes and spices. (Information from M. Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4,p. 649)

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to Avraham b. Sahlan, Fustat, probably December 1028. Verso: Address in Arabic script, postscript in Judaeo-Arabic.

Letter containing a complaint about a weak muqaddam (head of a local community). (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from Surūr, in Bilbays, to his widowed mother, in Cairo, who lives with her two other sons Faraj Allāh and Rashīd. The letter deals with a case to be brought before the Nagid Yehoshua Maimonides (1310–55) b. Avraham II (1245–1313) b. David (1222–1300) b. Avraham (1186–1237) b. Moshe (1135–1204), containing circumstantial evidence (amāra) and details sustaining it. The first part of the letter (r1–17) includes lengthy apologies for failing to visit when he heard that his mother was sick. He was unable to come because of the expense of renting an animal, the danger of the journey, and because he was suffering from ophthalmia ('but now, thank God, I am better'). In the next part of the letter (r18–v1), he informs his mother that he remarried four months earlier, to a beautiful virgin who shares all of his mother's good traits and who is the fulfillment of his mother's prayers for him. His wife is distressed on behalf of her mother-in-law's illness and wishes to come to visit. Goitein suggests that the key to why Surūr neglected to tell his mother or ask her permission prior to the marriage lies in his neglect to mention his wife's name or that she comes from a good family. Most likely, she did not come from a good family, and his mother would have disapproved. In the third part of the letter (v1–27), he gets to the main purpose of writing: he had loaned a siddur to a pilgrim to Palestine named Fakhr against a security of 6.5 nuqra dirhams (containing three times as much silver as regular dirhams). Now that Fakhr has returned to Cairo, he has heard that family members already returned the silver, but Fakhr refused to return the siddur. The writer wishes Fakhr to be pressured to return the siddur. He suggests first that his family tell Sulaymān al-ʿAṭṭār, who mediated the original loan/security, "So-and-so [Surūr] says such-and-such to you with the following signs." He then recounts the story of how Sulaymān and Fakhr stayed in the khān in Bilbays with six other pilgrims (al-Shaykh Muwaffaq the cantor, Saʿīd b. al-Kātib, Nāṣir b. Ṭayyib, Yehoshua b. al-Ghāriq, Mūsā b. Mardūk, and Ibn Abū Saʿd al-Khādim), and how they were stranded there over Shabbat when the caravan left. If Sulaymān's intervention doesn't work, Surūr's brother Faraj Allāh should approach the Nagid Yehoshua. He then gives "signs" to remind the Nagid of his case: how, when he visited Bilbays, he spoke with Surūr about the copy of a Bible belonging to Yaʿqūb the brother of the teacher; how the Nagid was involved in Surūr's divorce from his first wife; and how the Nagid went to see the head of police (wālī) of Bilbays, who directed him to the Qadi, who was not available. If this doesn't work, he suggests that his brother go to Yaʿqūb the brother of the teacher and solicit his help. Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 337, 601 and from Goitein's Tarbiz article on Yehoshua Maimonides. ASE.

Letter from a husband, probably a merchant belonging to the elite, to his wife of a second marriage. In Judaeo-Arabic. He expresses his yearning and describes his depressed state in great detail, seeking to refute her assumption that he is remaining away because life is good for him. He alludes to his "many illnesses and sundry pains" but doesn't go into them to spare her. He received her letter about her "sickness of heart which brings the sickness of the body," but chides her for writing about such things, because he is not the kind of man who needs to be aroused to "tenderness and compassion." ASE

Letter from Ṣāliḥ b. Bahlūl, apparently in al-Mahdiyya, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat, August 1062. Includes the news of the death of Barhūn b. Mūsā al-Tāhirtī, and of the destruction of the Maghrib, presumably by the Banī Hilāl (who had sacked Qayrawān three years earlier). Mistakenly cited in Goitein, Med. Soc. 1:410 n. 2 as T-S 16.276. (Gil) Also contains mention of Ṭalḥī paper, named after Talḥa b. Ṭāhir (d. 213/828), an Abbasid amīr of Khūrasān of the Ṭāhirid dynasty (see EI2 s.v. Kāghad). It is remarkable (as Goitein notes) that the paper still retained this designation three centuries later. Ṣāliḥ asks for some of this paper in order to use it to write "to Baghdad and Ereṣ Yisraʾel," by which presumably he means the yeshivot or the communal leaders. This letter is, however, written on parchment. Bottom recto contains the ends of the lines of another document in the same hand, suggesting that Ṣāliḥ may have written more than one letter on the sheet before cutting it (?). (MR)

Copy of an engagement deed dated 1202 in Alexandria, sent to Maimonides with a query over whether the contract was legally binding, and the reply in Maimonides’ handwriting. The query itself did not survive, but Maimonides’ reply makes its subject matter clear. The halakhic validity of this type of contract was in doubt, and Maimonides ruled that engagement deeds were in fact permissible according to halakha. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Safed, Palestine, written by a man from Cairo to his cousin (ibn ʿamm). He had traveled to Safed, mainly, it seems, to settle a family affair. The writer is concerned with the problem of suicide and tries to solve it both by traditional belief and rational proof. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, p. 245.) He mentions his lack of health among the host of reasons, including poverty and distance from loved ones, for why he would kill himself, were it not for his certain belief in the Truth and for the additional sin that he would incur by becoming a topic of gossip all the family members. "I send every letter and read every letter with tears in my eyes." Interesting that this is not stated much more strongly than the usual convention for expressing longing. He urges his sister to come visit from Fusṭāṭ. He is contemplating going to Jerusalem. ASE

Dirge of 38 lines by the judge Natan b. Shemuel on one Moshe. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 574)

Letter from a son to his mother describing the events of his journey from Alexandria to Fustat and mentioning the illness of his uncle. Much damaged. The travelers stayed with Yusuf in Fuwwa Manṣūra, who is infirm and weak of sight ("May God establish his health and illuminate his sight" etc.). Somebody in the party had an earache, but recovered ("entered the bath") in Fuwwa. On the torn portion at the bottom, the writer cryptically mentions walking barefoot and that his "liver was in the red fire... after the shaking and the weariness...." (Information from Goitein's note card) ASE