Geniza Lab

Legal document, probably. Fragment (lower portion). In Arabic script. Dated: 1123 AH, which is 1711/12 CE. Needs examination for content.

Upper part of a tax receipt? Multiple hands/endorsements in the upper margin. The main text mentions Yūsuf b. Hiba and a jahbadh. Needs examination. On verso there is a rhymed Hebrew liturgical poem

Receipt for the capitation tax of a Jewish silk worker (qazzāz) in Fustat. Dated: looks like 524 AH = 1129/30 CE. Needs further examination.

Recto (reuse): Official receipt for [...] b. ʿAlī, mentioning the kharāj and a waterwheel (sāqiya). The payment was 1 dinar. The date is written at least once but is difficult to read. Verso (original use): Fragment of a legal document in Arabic script. Needs examination.

Recto: Legal document in Arabic script. Ishāq b. Saʿīd al-Yahūdī al-ʿAṭṭār rents a house from 1 Muḥarram for four dinars, “pays in advance.” Verso: Address of a letter in Arabic script. From Wahb b. Barakāt to the well-known parnas ʿAllūn b. Yaʿīsh in Fustat. Unclear if this is related in any way to recto. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

Legal document in Arabic script. Needs examination.

Recto: Informal note in Arabic script. "These are black ones (سودا) I have sent to my master.... increase or loss...." It is unclear what "black one(s)" refers to—maybe "black" dirhams (see Goitein, Med Soc I, p. 388)? But possibly a garment or another commodity or even a human. Underneath, in a different hand, probably the response: "...to increase... as for the kafiz (a unit of measure)...."

Verso: Hebrew legal document, probably from a draft or formulary. AA

Legal query or queries, or maybe two drafts of the same query. In Arabic script. Begins, "mā yaqūlū al-sāda al-aʾimma...." Concerns a Jewish(?) widow who has minor children and received alimony from the estate of the orphans(?) from a Jewish judge(?). (Information from Goitein’s index card.) Needs further examination.

Account including list of names

Possibly part of a letter (needs examination)

See PGP 20795

Legal document in Arabic script. Fragment (upper half). Involves [...] b. Yehuda and Yaʿqūb b. Ibrāhīm, both Jews. Needs examination for content.

Popular literature in Arabic script, on the theme of a medical prescription for a lovesick man. Similar to T-S NS 264.27 + T-S NS 224.181 + T-S AS 145.360 + T-S 12.537. Merits further examination. ASE.

Order of payment or receipt in Arabic script: li-yatasallam al-muʿallim ʿAlī.... It is not clear what is being paid or handed over. 11 qadaḥs of something? The glyph appears at the top and an elaborate but crude ʿalāma appears in the middle (compare AIU XII.51 for a similar format).

Note from Shemuel to a distinguished addressee. In Arabic script, except for the name Shemuel which is written in Hebrew. Begins with the glyph. The sender very politely and eloquently asks the addressee to take on the bearer as a pupil.

A mercantile ruqʿa / dār receipt for Abū l-Afrāḥ ʿArūs (b. Yūsuf) al-Urjuwānī, with Judaeo-Arabic business accounts in his own hand on verso. The set of similar documents: ENA 3957.5 T-S Ar.35.128 T-S Ar.35.269 T-S Ar.39.187 T-S AS 184.265 ENA 3957.11 (for Nahray b. Nissim; all the rest are for ʿArūs)

Mercantile letter in Arabic script. Dating: Probably 11th or 12th century. The sender mentions requesting the 'marsūm' and something which came out to 700 dirhams; 21 'fingers' of something; the qāḍī Fakhr al-Dīn; how the 'ḥāmila' is delayed; and "if the government..." (law kān al-sulṭān...). On verso there are jottings and pen trials in Hebrew, Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic.

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. The deceased is ʿAlāʾ bt. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ b. Bū Saʿīd (Khan suggests this is the same Bū Saʿīd as in T-S NS 297.1, another report of the death of a Jewish woman). Dated: Thursday, 20 Dhū l-Qaʿda 682 AH, which is 18 February 1284 CE. She left a father and two sons. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.) On verso and the margins of recto, there are business accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and Greek/Coptic numerals.

Bifolium from a fiscal account ledger. One of the four pages is headed "makhzūma." Needs examination.