Geniza Lab

Official document or letter in Arabic script. Dating: Likely Mamluk-era, based on handwriting and format. The bottom 11 lines of the document are preserved. Moderately wide space between the lines. Needs examination. On verso there is Hebrew liturgy and other jottings.

Recto: deed of sale for part of a house. One of the parties is Abū Naṣr Manṣūr Ibn al-ʿAynzarbī, "one of the entourage of al-Ḥāfiẓ" (the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥāfiẓ who reigned 1131–49 CE). This is a famous physician: see https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/reader/urn:cts:arabicLit:0668IbnAbiUsaibia.Tabaqatalatibba.lhom-tr-eng1:14.29. (See also T-S NS 264.22, which mentions a volume in the handwriting of Ibn al-ʿAynzarbī. It's possible that fragments in his handwriting have been preserved in the Geniza—Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa emphasizes that Ibn al-ʿAynzarbī was an excellent and prolific scribe.) This document also mentions Karīm al-Dawla ʿAytham, "one of the great amirs of al-Ḥāfiẓ." The verso document also concerns the purchase of the property on the recto, and mentions the Amīr Athīr al-Mulk Sharaf al-Dawla wa-Fārisuhā, Abū Saʿd b. Abū ʿImrān ‘the Jewish moneychanger’, Sitt al-Jamāl bt. Abū Saʿd b. Abū ʿImrān, Abū l-Faḍāʾil Muḥammad Ibn al-Qāḍī, and Maḥmūd, and was witnessed by ʿAbd al-Salām. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Part of a document of sale of a house Verso: Part of an `iqrar on vellum. Recto l. 5, in the description of a property, refers to 'a roof without surmounting structures' (Data from Khan, ALAD, p. 163). AA

Acknowledgement (`iqrar) in Arabic (needs examination)

End of a document of sale of a house on vellum.

Verso (original use): Two distinct Arabic-script documents glued together as a substrate for Hebrew biblical verses (the secondary use). The upper fragment is a piece of an (official?) account or receipt. The lower, much larger fragment is a letter of appeal for charity addressed to a dignitary (al-rayyis al-jalīl). After a long, rhymed introduction, the sender complains of poverty and nakedness. AA. ASE.

Account in Arabic script.

Probably a petition, but possibly a legal document. In Arabic script. On parchment. About 6 lines are preserved. Includes phrases such as "as your [excellency] sees fit" (...ʿalā mā tarāhu...) and a reference to getting angry or being merciful (يغضب ولا يرحم). Needs further examination.

Recto: Document of sale of a house. Verso: Legal document. Both recto and verso in Arabic script ((needs examination)

Legal document from a qāḍī court. Dated: 15 Dhū l-Ḥijja 870 AH (Sunday 29 July 1466 CE). The raʾīs al-yahūd, Yūsuf b. Khalīfa, and his deputy, Shemuʾel b. Naṣr, promise not to prevent the physician Manṣūr b. Ibrahīm b. al-Abraṣ (son of the leper, or possibly the redhead) from entering the synagogue in Zuwayla, the Jewish neighborhood in Cairo. The trigger for the conflict was a motion to renovate the synagogue, a fraught issue during the Mamluk period: in 859 AH (1454–55), under the relatively permissive Sultan Īnāl, a court authorized the repair of the old Rabbanite synagogue in Zuwayla and two Rabbanite synagogues in Fusṭāṭ, as well as the Qaraite synagogues in Cairo and Fusṭāṭ (a copy of this permit, from 18 January 1456, survived in the Qaraite archive in Cairo); under Qāʾitbāy, there was apparently a request to repair some synagogues, but the community objected, fearing that Muslims would destroy them, as they had threatened or sought to do in other cases. The judge is Shams al-Dīn al-Sulamī. Goitein discovered T-S Ar.38.131 and discussed it briefly in Med. Soc.; Rustow found the join with T-S Ar. 42.212 in 2014 using the joins suggestions in FGP; meanwhile Dotan Arad discovered a Judaeo-Arabic court document referring to the same case, BL Or. 4856.2. Arad published both documents in an article that was forthcoming as of June 2021. MR

Document of sale of a house (intaqala...), dated 28 Muḥarram 587 AH, which is 25 February 1191 CE. (Though note that Khan at one time read the date as 787 AH, see ALAD p. 45 n. 143.) (Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.)

Legal document (iqrār). In Arabic script, in beautiful handwriting. Dated: Ramaḍān 568 AH, which is 1173 CE. A few lines earlier, Rabīʿ I of the same year is mentioned. The case seems to involve three men (including Abū l-Faḍā'il and Abū ʿAbdallāh) and a woman. (Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalog.)

Deed of sale of a house. In Arabic script. (Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.)

A block printed amulet, including الاسماء الحسنى. Information from Gideon Bohak via FGP.

Report of a provincial official, Ibn لفش(?) al-Shihābī. In Arabic script. It seems that he received an order to present himself, together with the qāḍī and the ʿāmil (and the kātib?) (ll.5–6). He reports that a well/cistern overflowed and posed a danger to all the land underneath and had to be fixed (ll.10–12). He complains about a Christian named Abū l-Fakhr who made a complaint; "do not ask about the trouble he caused me and the tax farmers (ḍummān)" (ll.14–16). Needs further examination.

Large list in two columns, covering both recto and verso. In Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Giving names of houses, their owners or tenants, numbers, and the word ṣaḥḥa/ṣuḥḥa next to each entry. List of houses and their owners or tenants, On verso there is al the note nusikha fī dīwān al-majlis. Verso contains the very beginnings of four lines of majuscule—this is a reused chancery petition. Cited in Rabie, Financial System of Egypt 144, 198.

Report to the chancery of the caliph Al-Āmir bi-Aḥkām Allāh regarding the arrival of some Byzantine (Rūmī) merchants named Sergius the son of Constantine, Grasso the son of Leo the Amalfitan, and Bon Senyon the Genovese, who brought timber to trade. Dating: ca. 495–524 AH, which is 1101–30 CE. (Information from CUDL)

Pen trials in chancery script consisting of poetry and an address formulary to al-Āmir. (Information from Baker-Pollack catalog.)

Letter from an unknown writer, in Damascus, to Abū l-Ḥasan, in Aleppo. In Arabic script. The writer reports that his brother Ismāʿīl arrived in Acre, and they traveled together to Damascus, where they spent the holidays in the house of Hilāl. If they hear good news from Aleppo, they will travel to Aleppo, but until now the news from Aleppo has been bad (lines 7 and 13), and they are thriving in Damascus. The distance between Damascus and Aleppo is 20 days' travel. Mentions Ibn Mufaḍḍal. The next three lines have to do with the honey that the writer had deposited with Abū l-Ḥasan. It is not clear what he wants. He indicates that he wants to collect either the honey or its price (fa-innī muṭālibuka bihi). He also writes that he intended for the addressee to hide it (an tastatira bihi), and if the addressee was unable to do so (wa-inna min ḥaythu an lā waqaʿa satruhu), the writer will not grant him a credit for it (mā aḥtasibu laka minhu). He urges the addressee to look after the boy until the writer and Hilāl can come and get him or until they can send somebody to get him. They have been delayed on account of "the fear of the water"—of the rainy season? Hilāl sends regards to his father and paternal aunt and her sons. A postscript was then added stating that the Rūmī (Byzantine) died. (Information from Ṣabīḥ ʿAodeh, "Eleventh Century Arabic Letters of Jewish Merchants from the Cairo Geniza" (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 1992.) ASE.

Recto: two documents. The first is an order for delivery of dues to the office of land tax (dīwān al-kharāj) written by the accountant Abū Musabbiḥī Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn, in which it is stated that Abū l-Ḥasan Mājid b. Yaʿqūb shall deliver to the land-tax office the dues that he received from Wasly b. Maymūn and that went through the hands of Abū Qalā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān […], Zakariyā b. Mukhtār, ʿAlūn b. Ḥanūn (the clerk), Ṣayfī b. Rashīd and Qolte b. al-Sarrī (surveyors). Dated: 423 AH, which is 1031/32 CE. The second document is a receipt issued by a tax officer testifying that he has received the total payment by the aforementioned Abū l-Ḥasan Mājid b. Yaʿqūb. This receipt is written in the form of a declaration: yaqūl ʿabd mawlānā.... On verso and on the left margin of recto, there is a homily in Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew. (Information from CUDL and Khan.)