Geniza Lab

Original document: Petition from a woman (al-mamlūka), probably in Tinnīs (المقيمة بمدينة تنيس حماها الله تعالى) to a dignitary with the title al-Juyūshī. The addressee might be Badr al-Jamālī (d. 1094; the first in Egypt to hold the title Amir al-Juyūsh). But Khan has argued that the taqbīl clause is not found in petitions before the period of al-Āmir (1101–30 CE), so the addressee may be a later vizier (all of them from Badr through Saladin technically held the title Amīr al-Juyūsh as well). None of the content of the petition is preserved. The space between the lines seems to have been filled in with a legal document or draft in Arabic script, in smaller handwriting. The text on verso may be related but is quite faded.

Lists of names in Arabic script. Needs examination.

Tax receipt for the capitation tax of Maʿālī b. [...] in Fustat for the year 525 AH (=1130/31 CE).

Legal documents in Arabic script. Verso is dated: 575 AH, which is 1179/80 CE. There is an elaborate signature at the foot of recto. Needs examination.

Brief note in Arabic script instructing the addressee to help the bearer.

Letter from a sick man to a physician. In Arabic script. The verso is written at 90 degrees to the recto, which is unusual, but appears to be the same handwriting and the same letter. Mentions: "on Sunday... you wrote us a copy/prescription (nuskha)... my mother(?), another time to you, and compound for her... she/I entered the bath after two days... by your religion, prescribe me a medicine that will benefit me... I have / she has perished, we are all prostrated, I have no one to go out and bring me anything, and (your) kindness will not be lost on God the exalted. They said to me that it/he is a piece of flesh (qiṭʿat laḥm = a common phrase for describing a wretched sick person)... obtain(?) for me from the hospital (al-maristān) palm ointment (marham nakhlī, cf. T-S 8J20.26 and Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.22), and if I recover / she recovers... {your} kindness will not be lost on me. I salute/greet you (qaraʾtu ʿalayka al-salām)." ASE

Legal or official document. In Arabic script. Dated: Apparently 15 January (يناير) [18]84 CE. Refers to the railroad (ṭarīq al-sikkat al-ḥadīd). Signed by Shamʿūn b. Yaʿqūb (Shimʿon b. Yaʿaqov). Needs further examination.

Accounts of some sort. In Arabic script. Interesting format: each text block corresponds to an individual who is named in the right column (e.g., Yasīr(?) b. Saʿīd, Yaḥyā b. Abī l-ʿIzz). Underneath the name there are jottings or perhaps sums of money. Might be state-related. Needs further examination.

Tax receipt in the hand of the jahbadh Mīkhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ. The payer is [...] Ibn al-Ṣiqillī. Needs examination.

Possibly a fragment of a petition. The beginnings of 11 lines are preserved. On verso there are accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Needs examination.

Accounts in Arabic script. Might be for a merchant, listing the sums of money received for goods such as sesame (5 dinars); 'the wheat of Damietta' (5 + 1/4 + 1/6 dinars and 52 dirhams); fava beans (180 dirhams). At the top of this page there is also an expenditure listed, related to a press (miʿṣara). On the other side, near the bottom, it mentions a sum of 300 dinars. It's possible that this is a state document rather than the accounts of an individual merchant. Needs further examination.

Recto: Legal document, probably. In Arabic script. Mentions "Abū l-Surūr al-madhkūr." Needs examination. Verso: Legal document in Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 154[.] Seleucid, which is approximately the 1230s CE, under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. It is too faded to read much of the substance, but it mentions people such as Ṭahor, Elʿazar ha-Zaqen, Me'ir and a Rayyis.

Recto: Petition from a certain Jaʿfar to a Fatimid dignitary (qāʾid). In Arabic script. In which Jaʿfar asks that the support (maʿūna) granted to him not be withdrawn. (Information from Khan.)

Verso: Account of payments to a physician (al-Rayyis) by five patients: Bū ʿAlī, Ibn Shahrīn or Shahrayn (a 2-month-old boy?), Muslim, Muḥsin, and Karīm. He visited each of these almost daily, and they paid 1–4 (dirhems?) per visit; only on Friday two patients paid 6, presumably because there usually was no visit on the Sabbath. The payments were made (or listed as not made) at the end of the week. The physician is referred to in the third person. Goitein suggests that the patients were Muslims. (Information from Goitein, Med Soc II, p.579, n.12.) There are some additional names listed at the bottom of the first column under "al-bāqī," e.g., Farajūn, Ibrāhīm, Abū l-Khayr. The scribe uses a version of the ﭏ ligature as a numerical notation (as in T-S Ar.30.284).

Accounts of a slaughterer. In Judaeo-Arabic. He receives 1 dirham for 2 heads (probably of sheep). First week of Elul: 43 heads, 22 dirhams. Second week: 24 dirhams. Third week: 23.75 dirhams. Fourth week: 24.5 dirhams. He then lists numerous goods that he purchased in Cairo (including fruit, and a payment for winemaking). (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Detailed and very neat. Mentions a sum of 45 dinars. Mentions people such as: Abū l-Faraj, al-Faqīh Ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥarīrī, al-Ḥājj Ibrāhīm the partner of Hunayd, Jamāl al-Dīn ʿUmar (of Funduq al-Būrī?), Dā'ūd b. Naba, Yūsuf al-Ṣabbāgh, Nuṣayr b. ʿAlī, and al-Shaykh al-Rashīd. On verso there are further accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals, and Hebrew pen trials.

Trousseau list. Gives the prices of items in Greek/Coptic numerals. The sums are given at the bottom, together with a figure for the delayed marriage payment. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Will of Wuhsha, the broker, detailing various items and sums of money willed to relatives and charitable and religious purposes; appointment and provisions for a son born out of wedlock as heir and what to do if he dies before reaching maturity; funeral expenses; and references to previously-made declarations. The total amount of sums referred to in the will is 689 dinars, a large fortune, and the denoted funeral expenses were lavish for the time. Regarding the father of her only child, Wuhsha notes, “He shall not get a penny.” (S. D. Goitein, “A Jewish Business Woman of the Eleventh Century,” Jewish Quarterly Review, 1967, 229-41) EMS

Formularies of legal documents, mentioning Rav Hayya. (Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.)

Four pages of accounts of income from communal houses and stores and of expenses on administration (30 dirhems for the collection of 493 dirhems), repairs, salaries, fees for the teaching of orphans, ground rent, and so forth. Heading: "Record [taṣqīʿ, as in A 143, 172] for the month of Ḥeshvan." Many items similar to, or identical with, those of A 43, above. Dating: early thirteenth century. (Information from Goitein, Med Soc II, Appendix A, #183.)