Geniza Lab

Accounts for house rents and repairs, mentioning the year טפתק, which is 589 AH, which is 1193/94 CE. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

List of collaterals. Headed: "collaterals (rihān) of ʿImād and Munā and Amīn and Tamīm." 6 columns. With prices. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Legal document in Arabic script. "Aqarra Yūsuf b. [...] b. Yūsuf Yahūdī bi-Dār al-Ṣarf ʿurrifa(?) bi-l-Qudsī iqrāran...." Later in the document there appears Yūsuf Khādim al-Kanīs as well as a Yaʿqūb ... al-ʿAṭṭār known as the brother-in-law of the Sicilian. There are two witness signatures. Dated: 3 Rajab 876 AH, which is December 1471 CE. Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalog via FGP.

Accounts of a wine dealer (or at least somebody who sells liquid by the jarra) in Judaeo-Arabic. Customers include Makārim al-Ṣayrafī, Barakāt al-Azraq, Maḥāsin b. al-[...]; the son of Simḥa; Abū ʿAlī b. al-Sukkarī; Bū Manṣūr b. al-Dhahabī; al-Shaykh al-Makīn and his brother Abū l-Baqā'.

Chancery document in Arabic script. Mentions two different bureaus: dīwan al-[...] al-miṣrī (line 2) and dīwān al-ḥubūs al-miṣriyya (line 7). The number '500' appears in the last line, perhaps part of a date (5[..] AH?).

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Addressed to Huṣām al-Dawla. Possibly a letter of recommendation for the bearer (hādha l-insān in line 6), but needs further examination. Verso: Jottings in Judaeo-Arabic and of the Hebrew alphabet. Perhaps accounts (various fractions are mentioned and the number 100), perhaps calendrical, perhaps mathematical calculations.

Business letter in Arabic script from Efrayim b. Shemarya to Yehuda b. Yosef ha-Kohen. This hand looks very different from the other hands Rustow has identified as belonging to Efrayim (see The Lost Archive, 498n49, which identifies Halper 354, T-S NS 320.45, Bodl. MS heb. d 66/83, CUL Or. 1080 J7, T-S10J6.6, T-S13J36.14, and T-SAS152.236 + T-SAS 152.269 as all being in Efrayim b. Shemarya's Arabic hand).

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Possibly a draft, as it is covered with subsequent jottings. Addressed to 'the brother' Abū l-ʿAlā' (this is not completely clear; line 4). Only in line 10 does the body of the letter begain (wa-ghayra dhālika). The writer reports that he lay sick in the house for a whole month(?), but then God had mercy and delivered him from his illness (وغير ذلك اعلم الاخ اني مرضت وقمت في البيت شهر(?) ايام ولطف الله سبحانه... المملوك وخلصه من الالم الذي كان...). There are greetings to various people in the margin, including to the writer's maternal aunt Hanā(?) and her son Nuṣayr and to Nadd and Ṣafā l-ʿAyn(?). Verso: Letter drafts? Covered with Arabic script (and the Hebrew phrase שובה ישראל), but less organized than recto and more difficult to decipher. Needs further examination.

Chancery document in Arabic script. Dated: 675 AH, which is 1276/77 CE. Contains various annotations by clerks and is endorsed by both thin and thick pen. It is probably concerned with wager (=wages?) (indecipherable). Information from Baker/Polliack catalog via FGP.

Legal documents in Arabic script. One each on recto and on verso. Needs examination.

Petition, draft. in Arabic script. Arranged in four columns on a bifolium, with text at 90 degrees in the space between columns. Needs further examination. On verso there is Hebrew literary text.

Business letter in Arabic script, before 1141, from ʿUmar b. ʿAwaḍ in Qalyūb to the Dār al-Wakāla, to be sent by the Qāḍī Ṣadr al-Dīn the notary (?) discussing a shipment of green dates from Qalyūb and their transport on the Nile. English translation in Goitein, LMJT, 270–71.

Accounts in Arabic script. Containing information on the dirham/dinar exchange rate. Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.

Recto: receipt relating to the tax farm of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb written by Mīkhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, the cashier, and registered by the Office of Accounts on behalf of the Office of Supervision: Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb has paid the sum of a third and an eighth (dirhams?) for the estates in Al-Fayyūm, under the supervision of the judge Ṯiqat al-Mulk Makīn al-Dawla wa-Amīnuhā, of the protégé of the commander of the faithful Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Bahār, and the accountant Abū l-Sarī Theodor b. Yuḥannis. Dated: 8 Rabīʿ II 404 AH, which is October 1013 CE. Verso: Arabic document regarding the proceedings in the office of inspection in the province of Al-Fayyūm. (Information from CUDL)

Possibly a letter - needs examination.

Fol. 1: receipt relating to the tax farm of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb written by Mīkhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, the cashier, and registered by the Office of Accounts on behalf of the Office of Supervision: the tax-farmer Ḏāt al-Ṣafā has paid two and a half (dirhams?), under the supervision of the judge Ṯiqat al-Mulk Makīn al-Dawla wa-Amīnuhā, of the protégé of the commander of the faithful Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Bahār, the deputy judge Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan b. Yaḥyā b. Bahār and the elder accountant Sadīd al-Dawla Abū l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Masīḥ b. Qūrīl. Dated 8 Ramaḍān 402 AH, which is 3 April 1012 CE. (Information from CUDL)

Fol. 2: receipt for the amount of 2 and a quarter (dirhams?) relating to the tax farm of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb written by Mīkhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, the cashier, and registered by the Office of Accounts, under the supervision of the judge Ṯiqat al-Mulk Makīn al-Dawla wa-Amīnuhā, of the protégé of the commander of the faithful Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Bahār, the deputy judge Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan b. Yaḥyā b. Bahār and the elder accountant Sadīd al-Dawla Abū l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Masīḥ b. Qūrīl. Dated: 17 Dhū l-Qaʿda 402 AH, which is June 1012 CE. (Information from CUDL)

Tax farming lease from the administration of al-Mustanṣir, dated 479 "kharājiyya" (1086/7 CE). Mūsā b. ʿĪsā takes upon himself a monthly payment of 8 dinars against the right to collect "the two zakāts" in the village of Qabīl (situated in the Buḥayra province in the western part of the Nile delta), under the supervision of Abū Isḥāq b. Namir (or Timur?) b. Munajjā (perhaps the finance director of the district). The taxes will be directed to the Imām al-Mustanṣir billāh and to his Amīr al-Juyūsh (Badr al-Jamālī). The salve of Badr, Ḥātim b. Faraj, is also saluted. The conclusion states that three copies were made, "identical in their wording and sense." The scribe is Zayd b. Jābir al-Sarūjī. "The two zakāts which form the object of the contract probably were the taxes on animals and on certain agricultural products. Information from Goitein's attached transcription and notes.

Possibly an account - needs examination.

Petition to an Ayyubid sultan by a Jewish physician. "The slave Makārim b. Isḥāq, the doctor. In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate. (The slave) kisses the ground and reports that he is a trained and able practitioner in the profession of medicine. The two doctors of our master the sultan, al-Rashīd al-Dimashqī and al-Rashīd Abū Ḥulayqa, attest to the excellence of the slave's knowledge in this profession. He makes a request before our lord the sultan, may God make great his victory, of the gift of the remainder of the salary of al-Asʿad, the doctor in the hospital of Cairo, that is three dinars every month, (paid) to the salve for him to practise the treatment of the sick and let the prayer (of the slave) [for] our lord the sultan be answered. The resolution (of the sultan) is exalted. Praise be to God alone and his blessings [be upon our lord] Muḥammad and his family and save them." Translation by Geoffrey Khan. See tag for additional documents involving Makārim b. Isḥāq.