Geniza Lab

Letter, barely legible. (Information from CUDL)

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Formulary for Hebrew letters. One of them is introduced "ṣadr kitāb." Originally from a larger volume, probably. The join was identified by Goitein.

Fragment of a deed of sale for one half of a sugar factory which was held in partnership by the son of the Rav and a Qadi. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 292, 531, 590, and from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from a group (קהלינו הכנסת) to a communal leader. No names are preserved, but the recipient is addressed in a very ebullient manner. The margin on verso contains Judaeo-Arabic text, possibly a sample opening or address of a letter in the same hand. Space is left for the name, so possibly it is a form of letter. (Information from CUDL)

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Fragment from a letter in a 12th-century hand, which continues into the right-hand margin and closes with greetings for the high holiday. (Information from CUDL; see also Goitein's index card.)

Barely legible. Recto: fragment from a letter. Verso: possibly a list of contributors. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: commercial letter. Verso: letter from Abraham b. David b. Suḡmār, ca. 1055 CE. (Information from CUDL)

Short letter from Yahya b. Musa al-Majani to his uncle, Ishaq b. Eli al-Majani, probably from Mahdiyya. Around 1038. Regarding money matters. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #627) VMR

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Letter by a Karaite woman to three different family members. The language is opaque in many places. (1) To her mother, she opens with her sadness at her mother's departure. "Your love did not overcome [your desire to leave]." She then lists all the people who have died (mātū yā ummī māt. . .): the elderly Dāwudiyya (female descendant of David); the wife of al-Kāzarūnī who was the paternal aunt of the wife of Yehuda; the son of Ibrahim the Deaf—no one has been able to bury him for two days, "they say he is ḥashrī," probably meaning "without heirs" rather than "verminous" (see Lecker, "Customs Dues at the Time of Muhammad," al-Qantara, XXII, 2001, p. 33). (Unless the concentration of deaths means it was plague time, and some corpses were regarded as hazardous?) As for the writer's own news, she swears by the Sabbath day that she has had financial trouble with her landlord, who seems to have given her a loan and to have come on Friday to demand a payment. She had to pawn her daughter's ring. "Do not ask what trouble I had with Maʿānī yesterday. Tell him (the landlord?), 'He (Maʿānī?) is not hiding. It is just that he has had ophthalmia (ramad) for 20 days. Be patient. He will soon work and repay you in installments just like he took (the loan) in installments.'" The bottom of the letter may be missing. On verso, she addresses (2) Abū Manṣūr, and exhorts him, "Be diligent in your work, and everything will turn out well for you (yajīk kull shay' mustawī)." She makes some cryptic statements, which may mean, "As for what Umm Yehuda said, pay no mind. I have told you that the Rabbanite should pay the debt of the Samaritan on your behalf. This would be good luck and an end to the setbacks." (It is from this line that Goitein deduced that the writer was a Karaite.) She says she is working as hard as she can for the sake of "the dowry" (? al-mahr) and has already paid ʿUbayd a qadaḥ and a half of flour and some honey and two pieces of firewood and a qadaḥ of vetch (julubbān) and lye (? ghāsūl). She mentions an underfilled (? muṭaffafa) clay vessel (burniyya) and asks the addressees to send it back to her properly filled (lā tuṭaffūhā). Finally, she addresses (3) her brother Abū Thābit. "I have no counsel for you except that they are your guests. Do not be heartsick on your brother's account. Do not spurn (? tufqir) my advice, and you will overcome much misfortune (?). Do good deeds. He who digs the hole (al-zūbīya) falls in it. Do not lay a hand on him. . . You will regret it very much and say, 'That old woman (al-qaḥba) my sister was right.'" ASE.

Recto: Formularies of Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic letters to the great rabbi, the Nagid, the Mordekhay of the age "so-and-so." Verso: Wine poem in the hand of Nāṣir "the Hebrew litterateur." Dating: ca. 1300 CE.

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Recto: letter, with rhymed opening, but no names preserved. The same hand continues on verso, though there are also small additional texts in Hebrew and Arabic script (Information from CUDL)

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Letter from Yūsuf b. Mūsā to a certain Abū Sulaymān. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably 11th century. The addressee has a paternal cousin (ibn ʿamm) named Labrāṭ b. Daʾūd (maybe the Ibn Sughmār by the same name). There are several Geniza letters from Yūsuf b. Mūsā al-Tahertī, but the handwriting doesn't match, so the sender of this letter is probably a different person. In the opening greetings, the sender mentions his father Abū Yūsuf, Abū Zikrī, and Abū ʿUmar. He then reports on the price of wheat and the conditions of the country. The next section is about various business matters: mentions Yiṣḥaq Ibn Qayyūma, the cousin Labrāṭ, Almeria, yarn, and Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Regards to Abū Yaʿqūb Ibn Bazzāz, whose son is well and with his maternal uncle. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Hebrew phrases to be addressed to a judge or Nagid. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Refers multiple times to Sayyidnā al-Muftī. Also deals with business matters and asks if a purchase should be made in New Cairo or Fustat. Mentions the customs (maks). Mentions Abū l-Faḍl. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)