Geniza Lab

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Between judges or communal leaders, dealing with at least two ongoing legal cases. The first concerns a lawsuit between al-ʿAmmānī and his allies (mutaʿaṣṣibīn) versus Ibrāhīm al-Zand(?). There is a concern that al-ʿAmmānī and those on his side are trying to cheat the Qodesh (l. 7). The second case comes up in ll.13–15; apparently, documents have reached the court to the effect that Ibn Mufaḍḍal has been doing bad things. ASE.

Medical prescription in Judaeo-Arabic. Ingredients include: probably 2 oz. grainy concentrated lemon syrup (sharāb laymūn murammal), 1/2 oz. sugar candy (sukkar nabāt), something weighing 3 dirhams, 1/2 dirham white gum of tragacanth (kathīrāʾ bayḍāʾ), something weighing 1/8 dirham. Possibly aphrodisiac: ללגמ[אע?]. (Information in part from Goitein's index cards.)

Recto: Declaration made by the merchant Yosef b. Moshe b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī. Location: Alexandria. Dated: Sunday, 8 days remaining in Iyyar 4807 AM, which is 1047 CE. Stating that a sum of 20 dinars assigned to him as a debt in a document of settlement drawn up a year earlier belonged to the daughter of Menaḥem al-Shaʿālī, the wife of Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Ibn al-Zākī. The woman's deceased brother, Khulayf b. Menaḥem al-Shaʿālī, had been present at the drawing up of the first document. The present declaration is drawn up in the presence of Yehoshuaʿ and Sahlān, the sons of Menaḥem al-Shaʿālī and heirs of Khulayf. Verso: Draft of the same document with the additional information that the earlier document was drawn up in front of a court comprised of Alexandrians and Ifrīqiyans. The woman is described here as the wife of Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Ibn al-Zākī who joins with Yosef b. Moshe (b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī) in making the declaration. Also, it is mentioned that Khalaf/Khulayf died while traveling to Syria. Yosef b. Moshe asks the witnesses to declare he had already given the woman a debt acknowledgement before her brother's death. See AIU VII.E.55v, which is related. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Expenditure given to Abu al-Ḥasan to be delivered to the widow of Abu al-Muna mentioning dirhams and dinars. The entries are separated by horizontal lines. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Settlement agreement between Abu al-Ḥasan and Mansur, his brother-in-law. A document establishing some detail was made out for the sister with the same provisions as her ketubba (probably that she was entitled to part of a house). (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Deed of sale of a house, possibly a draft. Fragment (upper left corner). Hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe? (See Goitein's index card for further information.)

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Poem by Avraham Ibn Yiju praising Madmun b. Ḥasan as a defender of the faith (and as a defender of Avraham Ibn Yiju himself). Aden, ca. 1141.

Dirge on the death of a scholar which also appears in another document (Or 5557 P. f. 56) believed to have been written on the occasion of the demise of Shemarya b. Elhanan (ca. 1011). (Information from J. Mann, Jews, II, pp. 27-28, and Goitein's index cards)

Poems, evidently pages from a collection, beginning with the final section of Avraham ibn Ezra's 'Aha yarad,' the lament over the communities of Spain and North Africa destroyed by the Almohads. This section deals with the communities in North Africa.

Halakhic discussion regarding the proper time for prayer.

Poem written by Abū l-Maḥāsin b. Abū Naṣr al-Ḥasid.

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Poetic letter to Shemuʾel ha-Nagid, with jottings in Hebrew (repeated lines of Esther 1:1) and Arabic (see separate record). (Information from CUDL)

Three lines in Arabic script, perhaps a draft of a letter or petition. From a certain Manṣūr to the amir Saʿd al-Mulk Naṣr al-Dawla(?) Fakhr al-Mulk.

Flowery Hebrew letter addressed to R. Maimonides.

Statement of evidence for the declaration of a son unable to fulfill his father's deathbed wish to provide a dinar for his wife. Dated Monday, 8 Kislev 1463/October 1151.

Legal document. Court record. Location: Fustat. Dated: 17 July 1162. This document is an incomplete record of proceedings of the court of Nathaniel ha-Levi (Gaon b. Moses the sixth) concerning a silk trading partnership between Samuel b. Solomon and (Abū) Manṣūr Eleazar b. Isaac al-Dimashqī. Samuel attests to the existence of a partnership agreement, which stipulated that profits were to be split 1/3 to 2/3, the bulk going to Eleazar. This roughly corresponded with their investment in the partnership capital, Samuel bringing 55 dinars and Eleazar bringing 95. Each of the partners has the right of disposal of partnership assets. The funds are invested with local workers in various towns in the Nile Delta (Sammanūd and al-Maḥalla) as well as in longer-distance investments (such as in Tyre). The record does not discuss any dispute between the partners, but is instead largely concerned with the details of sales, investments, and profits of the partnership. Each attests to transactions and deposits; apparently, the partners did not trust one another "as two proper witnesses", and they required direct testimony of the partnership accounting. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 190)

Fragment from the beginning of a legal record dated 9 Elul 1533/August 1222, in Fustat, in the court under the authority of the Nagid Avraham Maimonides (1205-1237).