Geniza Lab

Fragment of right side of a marriage contract

Letter in the hand of Abū Zikrī, physician to the sultan al-Malik al-ʿAzīz (Saladin's son and successor), sent to his father Eliyyahu the Judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1193–98 CE, if all the identifications are correct (this document would then be several years earlier than any other document relating to Abū Zikrī or his father Eliyyahu). This is the second page of what was originally a longer letter. Abū Zikrī describes his overwhelming grief upon hearing the news that his younger brother had died. Members of the court came to express their condolences, including the sultan himself, who said that he considers the deceased as equal to his own younger brother, al-Malik al-Amjad. (Information in part from S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:346-47, 5:175–77.) EMS. ASE.

Power of attorney. Location: Malīj. Dated: Tuesday, 25 Adar I 4807 AM, which is 1047 CE. In which Rayyisa bt. Manṣūr appoints her brother Asad b. Manṣūr, to go to Ṣōʿan, Egypt (i.e., Fusṭāṭ), to obtain her share of the inheritance that her late uncle Yosef b. Asad al-Tabaranī had deposited with Ḥesed b. Yashar (aka Abū Naṣr b. Sahl al-Tustarī). Witnessed by Yaʿaqov b. Yiṣḥaq, Yeshuʿa b. Shemarya, Salmān b. Yaʿqūb ha-Levi, and Yiṣḥaq b. Barukh, with attestation by the Bet Din of Sahlān b. Avraham (here titled Sahlān Segan ha-Yeshiva b. Avraham Beḥir ha-Yeshiva), also signed by Avraham b. Iyov, Moshe b. Yefet, and Shelomo b. ʿEli. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Legal testimony. In the hand of Avraham b. Natan Av. No witness signatures. Location: Cairo. Dated: Thursday, 27 Adar I 1415 Seleucid, which is 1104 CE. The document contains the proceedings before the court regarding the matter of dispute between two members of the community of Malīj, Shelomo b. Avraham (aka Salāma b. Ibrāhīm al-Sayrajī) and Peraḥya ha-Kohen b. Ṭarfon (aka Abū l-Surūr b. Ṭarīf). The story opens with a verbatim copy of another testimony (called a sheṭar/maḥḍar) dated 2.5 months earlier (Saturday night 12 Ṭevet 1415 Seleucid), in which the witnesses Mevorakh b. Yiṣḥaq, Yosef b. Mevorakh, and Elʿazar b. Yosef testify that they entered the house of a Jew named Bashshār and found Salāma b. Ibrāhīm assailing Abū l-Surūr b. Ṭarīf and hanging on to his clothing; the latter was not defending himself. Salāma insisted on taking Abū l-Surūr before the government (sulṭan); Abū l-Surūr insisted on taking Salāma to the Jewish courts (before 'the Rayyis'). Salāma then insulted the Rayyis and said, "I am [King] Baldwin (Bardawīl), and Abū l-Surūr is my prisoner!" Salāma summoned the police (rajjāla) and had Abū l-Surūr and Yūsuf b. Rajā and Yūsuf b. Manṣūr taken before the Muslim courts/government (headed by "the amir"). The amir nearly had the defendants beaten. (End of first document.) Now, Abū l-Surūr has finally succeeded in bringing Salāma before the Jewish court and "sayyidnā" (though the pronouns are not entirely clear in l. 4 and it could also be Salāma suing Abū l-Surūr). The court orders Salāma to justify his behavior. Salāma says to summon the witnesses. The court refuses, saying, And what if they don't obey the order? Abū l-Surūr says that the court should use the ḥerem stam (blanket excommunication) to coerce people into reporting any communication they received from Salāma to antagonize Abū l-Surūr before the Muslim courts. Either Salāma or Abū l-Surūr at this point accuses the other of bearing false witness in the Jewish court ("before Sayyidnā"). The court reads out a letter that Salāma confesses to be his own, in which he accuses a troublemaker (=Abū l-Surūr) who had been exiled from Malīj to Cairo of sending letters to Ibn al-Qāsh the dyer and to the shoṭer and the nadiv to the effect that they aren't rid of him yet, since he will return as soon as Rabbenu dies. The court asks Salāma on what basis he made that claim, and Salāma can only respond that someone (he refuses to say who) told him about Abū l-Surūr's alleged letters. The court believes Abū l-Surūr's side of the story, but also issues a ḥerem stam commanding anyone who did receive a troublemaking letter from Abū l-Surūr to come forward with it. The shoṭer and the nadiv are present, and they deny receiving any such letter from Abū l-Surūr. The document ends abruptly with the line, "The day broke, and the crowd dispersed." ASE

Prenuptial agreement between Ḥalfon b. Yosef ha-Levi and Turfa bt. Elʿazar. Dated: Ḥeshvan 1428 Seleucid, which is 1116 CE. Signed by Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel the Spaniard and Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi, who also wrote the document.

List of 136 households (mostly women with, or without, children, foreigners, disabled and indigent people) receiving approximately 570 loaves of bread. A postscript in Arabic characters (verso, line 9) states that the whole document was written by Efrayim b. Mahfuz (i.e., Shemarya), the well-known leader of the Jewish community of Fustat during most of the first half of the eleventh century. It was witnessed by Isma'il (i.e., Shemuel) b. Talyon (i.e., Avtaliyon), a prominent member of the Palestinian congregation, and two others. Efrayim and Shemuel signed many documents together in the years 1026-1029. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 439, App. B 1, dated 1020-1040)

Letter from Maymūn ha-Kohen b. Adonim b. Yoshiyya, on board the Sultan's ship which was to leave Alexandria for Spain, to Seʿadya b. Elʿazar. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: middle third of Adar 4876 AM, which is May 1116 CE. In the margin, he promises to find a spouse for a friend (al-Rayyis) in Spain and advises that he should not look for one in al-Mahdiyya. Regards to Abū Manṣūr the physician. He has enclosed two further leters, one for Abū l-Riḍā and the other for 'the noble Rav.' (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Letter containing the testimony of Makhlūf, a respectable merchant, who had to flee from Alexandria before an oppressive government official, 'the plundering monk,' Abu Najah, and to hide in the western desert for years. He had arrived in Alexandria in the spring following Abu Najah's death, traveled to Ifrīqiya in the summer of the year 1130, and wrote the letter the following summer, that is, 1131. The writer was appointed as an overseer of the Sultan's ships. It is also an extraordinary document of estrangement between father and son. The son loved music, Italian wine and bad company, and, of course, was always in debt. All attempts of the father to correct him: presenting him to the qadi of Alexandria, taking him on a trip to Ifrīqiya, sending him to the countryside on administrative work, suggesting to him travels to Yemen and to Syria were of no avail. The young man of twenty-two was not a mere good-for-nothing. He was allergic to his father: 'as long as you are alive, I have bad luck. As soon as you are dead, I shall be successful.' (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, 46, 119, 268, 277, 280, 316, 320, 482; II, 588, 359; III, 246, 243, 249.) There is also the beginning of a draft of a letter in Arabic script on verso.

Letter in the hand of Berakhot b. Shemuel. In Judaeo-Arabic (with some Hebrew). After 49 lines of praises, he thankfully acknowledges the receipt of a robe (thawb). However, he is not sure whether it was a loan or a gift. If it is a gift, he cannot accept it, as he made an oath to that effect in a previous letter. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) On verso there is also a poem of Shelomo ha-Qaṭan (=Shelomo Ibn Gabirol), in the same hand. (Information from CUDL.)

Marriage contract (ketubba). Dating: ca. 1337 CE, since the same witnesses appear on T-S 13J2.18 from that year. Groom: ʿOvadya b. Avraham b. Shelomo. Bride: Ẓarīfa bt. Yehoshuaʿ. ("The men bear several pompous titles," per Goitein.) For the dowry there is a long list of jewelry, clothes, and household goods, full of late terms. The dinar is valued as being equivalent to 13 1/3 full silver dirhams, as was usual int he 13th and 14th centuries. The bride is obliged to wash herself in the ritual bath for menstrual purity (following Maimonides' enactment on this issue). The bride is entitled to keep her earnings for herself. Witnessed by Elʿazar b. Moshe ha-Kohen and Elishaʿ b. Ḥananya ha-Levi. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Ketubba fragment. Location: Fustat. Dated: 2 October 1039 CE. Groom: Faraḥ b. Raḥmūn. Bride: Sittūna bt. Naḥum, a virgin. Marriage payments: 10 + 20 = 30. Dowry = 110. Total = 140. (The total marriage gift of the husband is 30 dinars of which 10 were to be given immediately and 20 were delayed. The grand total is 140, of which the dowry is 110.) Unsigned. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, 46; III, 378.)

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Letter from Ḥushiel b. Elḥanan, in Qayrawān, to Shemarya b. Elḥanan, in Fusṭāṭ. In which Ḥushiel praises both the addressee and his son Elḥanan, and describes how he came from Italy to settle in Qayrawān. Mentions Yehuda Resh [Sidra], Yosef b. Berakhya, Nissim, and Avraham b. Natan. Dating: ca. beginning of the 11th century. (Information from CUDL.) This was among the first Geniza documents to be published; see Schechter, "Geniza Specimens: A Letter of Chushiel," JQR Old Series Vol. 11, No. 4 (1899), 643–50.

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Letter from Madmun b. David: Murder of the 'Caliph' and return of Jewish life to normalcy. Aden, 1202.

Mostly a piyyut, but it seems like a poetical letter in Hebrew in praise of a leader, probably a Gaon. It is not complete so the actual nature can מםא be determined. AA

Collection of halakhic rulings, concerning legal deeds and marriage. The scribe is well known from other collections of geʾonic responsa, from the beginning of the 11th century. (Information from CUDL)

Collection of geʾonic responsa. The scribe is well known from other collections of geʾonic responsa, from the beginning of the 11th century. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document. Court proceedings. Yaʿqūb b. Yūsuf claims that Da’ūd and Ṣedaqa, sons of Ṣemaḥ b. Da’ūd al-Raqqī, have withheld profits from a partnership in a store. The brothers were also involved in long distance trading on behalf of the partnership. Yaʿqūb himself seems to have contributed the sum total of the partnership capital, amounting to four thousand dinars, which yielded a one time payment of ten dinars to Yaʿqūb and a single dinar each week, of which Yaʿqūb would receive half and the brothers the other half. Yaʿqūb also received 30 dinars each month to satisfy a debt on the store. After working as partners for a month, Yaʿqūb produces witnesses who notarize a detailed description of responsibilities for the partners (presumably the partners previously had an informal yet specific agreement). The document validates the testimony of Da’ūd and Ṣedaqa that their profits were scanty. Unlike in many other documents, the brothers are called to swear concerning the outcome of their long-distance trading. Their testimony does not preclude the possibility that Ya‘qūb will pursue further legal action against the brothers, but simply confirms that the profits represented the sum total of profits of the partnership. The identity and role of the character “Bishr”, mentioned in line 24, is unclear. It may refer to one of the witnesses, Mubashir b. Fahīd. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 163)

Letter from Josiah Gaʾon (c. 1024 CE) describing the imposition by the Muslim authorities of a special, heavy tax on the Jews of Jerusalem. Mentions Abū Naṣr b. ʿAbdūn (who spoke on his behalf to the governor); Ibn Garmān (possibly a Christian); Joseph the Av; Joseph’s son-in-law Ibn al-ʿAkkī; Abū Naṣr Furqān; and the Karaite elders, the brother of Abū Isḥaq and Abū Faḍl Sahl b. […]. (Information from CUDL)