Geniza Lab

Legal fragment from a marriage document. Needs examination

Document in Arabic script, possibly a letter. Four lines are partially preserved. Reused for Hebrew literary text.

Letter in Arabic script from Mubārak b. ʿAllūn. Reused for Hebrew literary text.

List of names with interspersed Aramaic.

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic addressed to Abū l-Baqā.

Small scrap that is either blank or has very faded Hebrew text.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Late. Mainly for foodstuffs: eggplant, coriander, mulūkhiyya, chickpeas, etc.

Letter from Abu Nasr b. Ibrahim, Alexandria, to his partner Abu Ishaq the nāʾib (deputy). Dating: 11 May 1141. The first page of the letter (which originally contained three pages) is lost. The letter deals with commercial matters, taxes, political issues regarding the raising of taxes and information on the affair between Yehuda ha-Levi and the convert b. Basri.

Circular letter. Fragment of a calligraphic letter addressed to “our master” (Sayydinā) and referring to a letter addressed to 'all the congregations pertaining to the city of the king (=Cairo)... to all the congregations of the land of Israel and Canaan, and all the exiles beyond the river...." Although the writers had been unable to meet some of their obligations, they ask a question concerning a certain al-Makhmūrī who had died. Verso: The answer, in Hebrew. Phrases only. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Letter in which an heir informs his correspondent that no one, the government included, had any claim on his inheritance and adds that his case was unambiguous. Only the question whether the government would take one half or three-eights remained open. Dated ca. 1100. Mentions that the judge is sick. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 397, 607)

Marriage contract (ketubba). On parchment. Long vertical fragment, 21 in. in height; looks like a backbone. Written and signed by the cantor Hillel b. ʿEli. Location: Fustat. Dated: Sivan, 139[.] Seleucid, which is 1068–79 CE. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Accounts. Perhaps in the hand of ʿArūs b. Yūsuf. Many familiar names on the list. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Court deposition. The widow Salāma bt. Furayj b. Abī l-Gharīb appoints the Baghdādī Ḥasan/Yefet b. Ṭoviyya/Ṭayyib as her attorney to claim anything due to her late husband Natan/Hiba b. Ḥakam b. Yosef b. Shumaym ha-Levi, and authorizes the expenditure of money, up to 17 dinars, for the transport of her husband's body to Jerusalem. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Letter from Madmun b. Ḥasan to Avraham Ibn Yiju: safe conduct and assistance for brother. Aden, ca. 1145. (8) [I shall take care of] sending it, if someone departs this [year for] (9) Egypt, since no one arrived last year or [so far this year] (10) from Egypt, because of the [death?] (11) and epidemic prevailing there, for two years in a row.

Mevorakh b. Yiṣḥaq writes from Alexandria to his father in law, Surur b. Hayyim Sabra in Fustat. The sixties of the eleventh century.

Letter from Avraham, son of the Gaon, to the sons of Mevasser, Fustat, perhaps 1025.

Letter from the copyist Shemuel to the notable Yeshuʿa. In Hebrew. Asking for a gift. During the six months in which Shemuel has stayed “here,” he lived on copying. Now he asks the notable to make the little collection needed in order to enable him to move on. (Information from Goitein’s index card.)

Second leaf of a long letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (right side of both recto and verso). Partially concerning a dispute of religious scholars. Continuous reference to the sender's brother. Mentions Abū Sahl (Menashshe) Ibn al-Qaṭāʾif, the father of Halfon b. Menashshe. Dating: second half of the 11th century. On verso refers to Abū Ḥanīfa either sending a legal query or giving a responsum to (yuftī) a certain ʿEli. Almost certainly the same sender (but probably not the same letter) as T-S 12.215, which is also the second leaf of a long letter and also mentions Abū Sahl Menashshe. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) ASE

Letter of appeal from Moshe to R. Yiṣḥaq ha-Sar. In Judaeo-Arabic.

Letter of appeal from a cantor to a certain Moshe ha-Sar who is in government service. The letter also addresses Ṣedaqa ha-Sar. He asks for assistance in the payment of his capitation tax, of five months of rent, and of three months of payment incumbent on him from a promissory note. The writer had led prayers for Moshe's health during the public services in the syngaogue, and the prayer was evidently heard. He now conveys wishes for full recuperation and that the addressee will retain the favor of the sultan and his entourage (Goitein suggests that this refers to a new sultan, possibly Saladin). ASE.