Geniza Lab

Recto: Arabic script document containing several sections. The lower part may be a tax receipt for a sum received from Zuhayr b. [...] from the ḍamān of [al-Abwāb?] for the year 1023/24 CE (414 kharājiyya). Needs further examination. Verso: "List of male persons, low occupations, foreigners, in Arabic characters, superscripted with Isaiah 65:23 (in Hebrew). Presumably persons for whom capitation tax has to be paid" (Goitein's note card). In addition to this list, and upside down, is a literary paragraph discussing ʿilm and citing verses by al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī (taʿallama l-ʿilma fa-laysa l-mar'u yūladu ʿāliman. . .") ASE.

Possibly a letter - needs examination.

Recto: Brief letter in Arabic script, very polite, asking the addressee not to delay something. Verso: Apparently a commentary on Daniel 1:4f, in both Arabic and Hebrew (FGP).

Formularies for Arabic legal deeds. Recto is for a bill of (khulʿ) divorce.

Letter from a man in Minyat Ghamr to his brother Maḥfūẓ in Fustat. In Arabic script. The writer has been ill, and people tell him he must go to Fustat to recover. He has sent multiple letters asking the addressee to rent him a room in Fustat; no answer. Information from Goitein's note cards.

Documents: Bill of Declaration- iqrar - needs examination.

Letter of appeal in Arabic script. The writer, Faḍā'il al-ʿŪdī b. Baṣīla (?), had lived for 6 years in Alexandria until he had to come this year ("in which nothing is blessed") to Fustāṭ. He is unemployed there and unable to even enter the market of the druggists due to debts owed to Ibn Ṣ[...] and others. He now perishes of hunger and illness. No one in the family has eaten for three nights. He has three dependents: his wife, his daughter (a widow), and her three-year-old son. He asks for charity especially for the rent of a boat (to travel back to Alexandria?). He concludes with blesings for the addressee, in the midst of which he writes, "If it were not for God and your mercy with regard to this year's jāliya, I would be in prison." Information in part from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Letter on trading matters. Verso contains a few heart-shaped designs with words in minute script written inside them. These are also found on top and in margin of recto. (FGP)

Beginning of letter in ornate prose, probably literary risala - needs examination.

Recto: Possibly letter (illegible) Verso: Account

Bill of Declaration. `Iqrar, dated 793 A.H. Mentions `Abās ibn Ḥusayn ibn `Abās (min ahl binā al-kubrā) and also mentions Mūsā ibn Yūsuf ibn Mūsā al-Yahūdī - needs examination.

Legal document- needs examination.

Legal document in Arabic script, dated Ṣafar 1334 CE (735 Hijri). Sitt al-ʿAdā confirms to have received from [...] b. Samaw'il b. Rashīd b. Abū Saʿd al-Yahūdī al-ʿAṭṭār for the rent of a store in the Sūq al-Maghāriba 28 dirhams for the month of Muḥarram. Information from Goitein's note card.

Draft of a petition from […] Mukhliṣ, in Minyat Ghamr, to an Ayyubid dignitary. In Arabic script. The petitioner complains about the young son of a neighbor who recently moved into the same hostel where the petitioner is living. The child in question has continually harassed the petitioner and his family, including injuring his wife by biting her. Dating: ca. 12th-13th century. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Decree (manshūr) issued by the caliph al-Hafiz on 21 Rajab 528/1133 to stop two cases of malpractice which were adversely affecting the Delta province of al-Nastarawiyya. Merchants from al-Nastarawiyya who traveled to the neighboring coastal regions to buy goods were being mistreated by government officials and their business was being disrupted; and fishermen from al-Gharbiyya province were fishing illegally along the shores of Lake Burullus within the territory of al-Nastarawiyya, causing financial harm to the ḍamān for fisheries held by ḍāmins from al-Nastarawiyya (and thus to the fisc). (Khan, 1986, p. 441) This version of the decree was copied onto a bifolio in the chancery for storage in its archives; for more on this process and the relationship of compact archival decrees to monumental rotuli, see Rustow, The Lost Archive, 326–34.

Fragments of a notebook containing drafts. Drafts are of letters and short notes; poems; anecdote about Hajjāj and opening formulary of a petition. (FGP) See Khan, The Arabic fragments in the Cambridge Genizah collections, Manuscripts of the Middle East, p. 58 and n. 17. (FGP and AA)

Fragments of a notebook containing accounts

Bifolium f. 1: beginning of the ophthalmological treatise Tadkirat al-kaḥḥalīn by ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā with table of contents on f. 1r. F. 1v: colophon. Separate leaf: record of an ordinance dated Ṣafar 537 AH (= September 1142 CE) from Al-Ẓāfir to instruct Al-Hāfiẓ’s book warehouse to issue ‘the epistle of the elder ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā’ (i.e. the ophthalmological treatise Tadkirat al-kaḥḥalīn) to the amir Fakhr al-Dīn Abū Manṣūr ʿIzz al-ʿArab b. Muḥammad. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: Opening formulary of petition and a draft Verso: Arabic jottings of poetry and Judaeo-Arabic jottings describing amounts of commodities probably medical. Abu 'Ala is mentioned. (AA)

Recto: Letter in Arabic script (with the words שער הנשיאות in Hebrew) to a Nasi, by ʿImrān b. Muhājir. According to Goitein's note card, it is an apology for disrespectful remarks about the latter's origin. Gotein likely succeeded in reading an obscure passage of the letter, but on its face it seems more like a straightforward appeal for financial aid invoking the afflictions of fate: "al-mamlūk mustaḥiyy min fiʿl hādha l-zamān alladhī ṣayyaranā [[anā]] lā naqdir al-qiyām bi-mā ʿalaynā min al-maḥqūq al-wājiba idh ḥukimat ʿalaynā al-iqrār. . . . wa-baʿd inna l-kull zamān wa-kull waqt aḥwāl yudabbirhā hādha l-falak bi-mā amar wa-bi-mā rakkab fīhi fa-l-mamlūk mustaḥiyy. . . ." Verso: A note in Judaeo-Arabic about the distribution of bread "from the Talmid, from the day of our arrival." This is followed by a pair of verses in Arabic, which have been transcribed into Judaeo-Arabic, against chess. ASE.