Geniza Lab

A certain [...] b. al-Gharbi declares he owes 200 dirhams to Abu al-Ma'ali al-Alawi. November 1193. (Information Goitein's index card). VMR

Note from a bookseller stating that he had kept a volume but the interested future buyer had not paid money, and he could not let the proprietor wait any longer. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS Verso: List (accounts?) in Arabic script. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Barhun b. Salah al-Tahirti, from Fustat, to Nahray b. Nissim, probably in the Delta area. Around 1050. Nahray arranges flax for shipments, flax that he owns as well as the Tahirti family. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #331) VMR

Letter from a brother in Byzantium to his sister in Fustat.

Letter from Farah b. Isma’il from Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim. Around 1056. Regarding shipments of money, and a deal with one of the Emirs, the general of the Fatimid army. Also mentions the ships movement and shipments of goods: pepper, lead, and leather (for book coveres?). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #502) VMR

Letter, fragmentary, to Shemuel ha-Nagid. Request to intervene with Abu Al-Ala Sa'ad. (Information from Goitein's index card). VMR

Letter to Mevorakh b. Se'adya ("Negid haNegidim") from Yeshua b. Mevorakh and Didya b. Elkash, Only opening and address. (information from Goitein's index card). VMR

Letter from ‘Amram b. Natan to Ismā‘īl b. Ibrahim al-Tūnī in Alexandria, ordering him to send two ḥuramdāns with paper, a kerchief, two glass containers, three “al-mutaqalāt al-rukhām” and a bottle with rosewater. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Letter from Yisrael b. Natan, Jerusalem, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat.

Letters of the gaʾon of Baghdad Shemuʾel b. ʿEli. See description under Yevr. III B 1131, and see ENA 4011.74.

Letter from Natan b. Avraham, probably in Damietta, to Natanel b. Ravah, in Fustat. In Hebrew. Dating: Probably Spring 1038 CE. Natan is on his way to Palestine; his next stop will be Tinnīs. He refers to economic and family crises. He underwent bloodletting on Friday and received visitors in the home of his host Ḥusayn b. ʿAllān instead of going to synagogue on Shabbat. On verso there is an unrelated liturgical text (added at a later date). (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Draft of a halakhic discussion in the hand of Ḥananel b. Samuel.

Letter addressed to Abu al-Fakhr al-Saadya from Zechariah b. Hayyim in Palermo (‘al-madina’) concerning commercial matters; dated September 1172. (S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Friedman, India Book, 97, 99) EMS

Letter from the Karaite Natan b. Yiṣḥaq, Jerusalem, to his teacher Shelomo b. David b. al-'Arishi, Fustat, approximately 1050.

Note describing that money for cheese had not arrived, and may be lost on both sides. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. The writer mentions Minyat Zifta; urges the recipient not to delay with something; mentions the wālī, the qāḍī and the mushrif; mentions a letter from the Nagid; says he will arrive in place of his letter as soon as he can; urges the recipient to bring a petition before the wālī of Damietta (רפע תוקיע); and offers congrulations for the holidays. The letter is addressed to Abu Isḥāq Ibrahīm.

Recto: About seventeen Hebrew verses, likely from a superscription of a letter, in the hand of Natan b. Shemuel. Verso: Treatise ending on the patience of the pious ( צבר אלצאלחין ). (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Letter describing the claims of the writer's brother-in-law on the half of a house that was sold by the mother to her daughter, the writer's wife. Join by Oded Zinger. For a detailed edition and analysis, see Zinger (2018), "'One Hour He Is a Christian and the Next He Is a Muslim!' A Family Dispute from the Cairo Geniza." Note that Goitein in at least one place mistakenly cites T-S 8J20.26 as T-S 8J20.16 (Med Soc 2:393, 612). He may also discuss this document (Med Soc 3:179, 464; EMS).

Letter from Marduk b. Musa from Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. In the handwriting of Avraham b. Farah, August 10, 1046. Information about ships that arrive from Mahdiyya. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 3, pp. 764-766, #529). VMR

Letter from Yūsuf b. Faraḥ al-Qābisī, in Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 1050 CE. The writer is about to travel to Fustat and he asks Nahray to secure an apartment for him and to lock it. As long as the apartment is clean, he doesn't care where it is or how much it costs (r8–11). The reason Yūsuf has not yet traveled is that he has been staying in Alexandria with his brother, Ismāʿīl b. Faraḥ, who is sick with fever and chills (v7–8: wajiʿ bi-bard wa-ḥummā, which seems preferable to Gil's reading of wajaʿ kabīr wa-ḥummā). "This has increased my preoccupation on top of what I already had." (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #511.) VMR. ASE.