Geniza Lab

Legal document. Partnership record. Dated: October 1039.Location: Cairo. In April 1039, the parties Tuviyah b. Yefet ha-Levi and ‘Allūn b. Faraj (and perhaps Salāma ha-Kohen b. Nissan) came to the home of Suleymān b. Isḥāq b. Meir in Cairo. Suleymān was involved in a partnership (mufāwaḍa) with Tuviyah and ‘Allūn. The other partner to the agreement is Khalaf b. Ibrāhīm. When Tuviyah and ‘Allūn demand a payout from the partnership, to be distributed by Suleymān (evidently the senior partner), Suleymān disputes this, explaining that Tuviyah and ‘Allūn have received their final settlements, and Khalaf is free from his obligations to them. Suleymān and Khalaf terminate their relationship, and the April document is given to Khalaf as proof. ‘Allūn's attestation that Suleymān and Khalaf had “a joint enterprise (mu‘āmala) and not a qinyan”, complicating the understanding of partnership models in this period; the difference between a mufāwaḍa and a mu‘āmala (or between either of these and a qinyan) is unclear Immediately below, in different handwriting, appears the testimony of Salāma b. Nissan ha-Kohen to Suleymān that he (Salama) has made the same statement in a different location, at the home of an elder. Goitein believed that the Khalaf b. Ibrahīm mentioned in this document was the same one that appeared in T-S 18J1.6 (PGPID 3523); Lieberman disputes this. In yet another handwriting, the document validates the signatures of Tuviyah and ‘Allūn in the permanent court in Fusṭāṭ some months after their initial testimony was recorded in the home of Suleymān in Cairo. The signatories are the three judges Efrayim b. Shemarya, Avraham b. Mevaser, and Yefet ha-Ḥazan b. David. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 281-284)

Account of the Tahirti brothers dealing with the sale of flax worth 800 dinars in the Maghreb and containing details about buying textiles in the Maghreb and shipping them. Dated 1025. Accounts in the same hand and possibly from the same book are also found in T-S J1.54, BL OR5554A.53-54r, Moss. VIII,476.1-2.

Letter draft. In the hand of Berakhot b. Shemuel. Addressed to Abū l-Mufaḍḍal al-Kohen. Consists solely of poetry and poetic praises.

Letter. Letter concerning a girl who had been regarded as being a Muslim and when she appeared before the Qāḍī, declared she was Jewish, whereupon her case was turned over by the latter to a Jewish judge for further investigation. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Goitein, “Slaves and Slavegirls in the Cairo Geniza Records,” Arabica 9 (1962), 14)

Letter from a man from the land of the Persians, who, after the loss of his fortune, had come to Egypt to seek a post as teacher. He asks for help, as he was unable to work owing to an illness of smallpox. He is living in the synagogue (this is written above the line; the scribe first wrote "living with [???]" and then crossed it out). "I came to this city empty-handed, intending to support myself by serving the people, but I fell sick with smallpox. Now I cannot work and I possess nothing." Information from Goitein's index card.

Legal query to Avraham Maimonides regarding a man who takes a 200 dinar loan and appoints his parents as guarantors, providing them with a house on his property equivalent in value to his debt. Over the course of the ten-year period of the loan, the debtor marries a woman in Egypt and then travels to India, leaving her in Egypt. When the ten-year period comes to a close and the debt has not been repaid, the creditors wish to sell the house on the property to recoup their funds. The question facing Avraham Maimonides is whether the wife who remained in Egypt has the authority to prevent the sale. Old IB number: 169. New IB number: VII, 31. (Nathaniel Moses)

Letter sent by the cantor Sheerith to Maimonides, in which the writer excuses himself for being unable to do a certain service for the recipient, since he had to officiate at a circumcision ceremony for a poor man. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 89, 541)

Letter from the office of Avraham Maimonides, in Fustat, to the community of Alexandria. Dating: ca. 1220 CE. He instructs them to help a woman and her little daughter to get to Palestine, where she had another daughter. She was the divorcee of Futūḥ, the cantor in the Yemeni synagogue in Jerusalem. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter from Yosef b. Simha, Alexandria, to the Taharti brothers (Isma'il and Salih b. Barhun), Fustat. The writer is aboard a ship in Alexandria and asks for help selling his musk.

Letter from Barhun b. Musa al-Taharti, probably from Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Dated: June 1, 1054. Mentions shipments and details about ships. Also mentions details about storing goods and some details about coins. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #347) VMR

Letter from Musa b. Abi l-Hayy from Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1055. Mentions details about changing coins and business between the two of them. Also mentions money that was sent to Alexandria to Yisrael b.Natan (Sahlun), Nahray's cousin. On the other side Nahray wrote a comment about a mistake in Musa's calculation. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 3, pp. 480-483, #446). VMR

Letter from Perahya Yiju to his brother Shemuel. Written probably in al-Mahalla around the seventies or eighties of the twelfth century. Perhaya copies questions on religious law and asks his brother to obtain authoritative answers for them in Fustat.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from Ṣedaqa b. Khalaf b. Fuhayd, in Tyre, to Abū Isḥāq Avraham b. al-Sheviʿi. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Late 11th century or early 12th century, based on Goitein's assessment. The letter relates that after the death of the writer's father, his brother Fahd, who worked in the local mint, had been deceived by a newcomer Abū Manṣūr Baghdādī. It further discusses large sums of money (hundreds of dinars) owed or handled by a man who was found dead on the sea shore. Some say he committeed suicide, some say he was murdered. The writer requests a rescript from al-Mālik (al-Afḍal?) to the Qāḍī Thiqat al-Dawla. Information from Goitein's note card for this shelfmark and for BL OR 5566B.5. ASE.

Fragment of a letter from Daniel b. Azarya to Eli b. Amram, Fustat, mentioning the successful visit of Eli ha-Kohen ha-Ḥaver b. Yehezkel in Fustat on behalf of the Yeshiva. Also mentions things about an "aguna" (עגונה - a woman who is "chained" to her marriage because her husband refuses to grant her a divorce or who is missing). (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 692-693, #376) VMR

Petition from the daughter of Hilāl 'Shaykh al-Yahūd' of Ashqelon to Yaḥyā ha-Sar. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (1100–38 CE). Gil identifies the addressee as Ḥiyya b. Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi and dates the letter to ca. 1135 CE, but does not offer any justification for this identification. The addressee is identical with the addressee of T-S 20.120 (also a Yaḥyā ha-Sar with some of the same titles: שר בית ישראל זקן התפארה הוד השררה), which may date closer to 1100 than to 1138, as it mentions a figure close to the governor (wālī) named Ṣārim al-Dawla, a relatively unusual title which was held by a Fatimid ruler in Ashqelon under Badr al-Jamālī and his son al-Afḍal ca. 1100 CE. In any case, the sender of this petition is asking for financial support for herself and her children, because she used to be supported by her two brothers in Ashqelon (one is named Saʿd and serves as 'khādim al-yahūd'), but the two brothers are facing difficulties of their own and have cut her off. (Information in part from Gil.)

Document in Arabic script, probably accounts.

Prescription in Judaeo-Arabic, it seems for hemorrhoids (arwāḥ, see Blau's dictionary, p. 264).

List of names in Judaeo-Arabic (recipients of charity?), including many women. Needs further examination.

Recto, with address on verso: Letter from Saʿdān b. Ḥ[...] to his 'brother' Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā b. Yiṣḥaq(?). The addressee had sent a letter reporting that he had gone to Alexandria and to Tinnīs. His family members are upset at him. "I read [your letter] to Sitt Faraj and she screamed and cried, and she still suffers the remnants of an illness, because she had ophthalmia that caused her to scream, may God protect her. She asked to me to write to you but did not want to inform you about [the illness] except with great anguish (ḍīq sadr)." They rebuke him for going to these places when there was no need, and urge him to come back quickly.

Letter from Musa b Ya'qub, Tyre, to Abu al-'Ala Yusuf b. Daud b. Sha'ya, Fustat. NB shelfmark was incorrect in old PGP (Or. 1082 J42 instead of Or. 1080 J42)