Geniza Lab

Letter in Arabic script. Written on particularly thin paper. "In which the widow of Mubārak b. Mundhir b. Sābā asks a ḥaver in the name of her orphaned children to pronounce a ban. It should be directed against anyone falsifying documents affecting her late husband and submitting them to a Muslim court. She accused a definite person, of course, but asked for the proclamation of a ban in general terms, and on the little fast (the Ninth of Av), when everyone attended the service.... The writer emphasizes twice that the pronouncement of the ban was a matter of public concern and not only for the benefit of the orphans." Connected with T-S 18J1.1, since one of the witnesses there signed this document also. Dating: ca. 1000 CE. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Med Soc II, 602, n. 40.)

Court record, or deposition of witnesses. Written on cloth by Avraham ben Yiju. Location: India, perhaps Mangalore. Dating: 1132–39 or 1145–49 CE, based on ben Yiju's years in India. The record itself is almost completely effaced. It notes that a trader presented a court record/ruling (maʿase) which had been drawn up in Bharuch (Broach), the well-known port city in northwest India. On verso there are two medical prescriptions in Arabic script. (Information from Goitein and Friedman.)

Legal document, dated A.H. 409 (= 1018-19 C.E.) - needs examination. (FGP)

Long letter from one government official to another. In Arabic script. The name Abū l-Ṭāhir appears in the address (likely the addressee). It seems that the sender is not happy in his current position (...ḥattā annahu ashghala nafsahu fī khidma lam yaʿlam mā hiya qabla yakhdum fīhā fa-lammā kashafahā wajadahā lā shayʾ...) and he is requesting intercession to change positions. Needs further examination.

Qurʾan. Last pages of the Qurʾan. See T-S Ar.38.8. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Legal document, dated 5 Jumädä I, A.H. 556 (= 2 May, 1161 C.E.). - needs examination. (FGP)

Business letter in Arabic script to a certain Abū l-Munā.

Letter in Arabic script from Naṣrallāh (he begins the letter "mamlūkuhu akhūhu Naṣrallāh," line 2) to his brother Sharaf al-Dīn (line 3). The writer seems to be a provincial official of some sort. He reports awaiting the arrival of al-Qāḍī al-Ẓahīr (?) (named in lines r5, r10, and rm1). When the judge arrived, it seems that he started hearing the suits (? jihāt) of the locals. As the local tax assayer (mushārif) was new, he knew nothing of these (wa-dhālika anna l-mushārif jadīd lā yaʿrif jihat aḥad). The writer therefore prepared a register that the judge approved of (ʿamiltu lahum jarīda istaḥsanahā l-Qāḍī al-Ẓahīr). In the margin he is pleased to report that the Qāḍī plans to continue employing him and to promote his interests and to speak well of him to the governor (. . . yaqṣad an yastakhdimanī ʿindahu . . . wa-l-ẓāhir annahu yastakhdimunī fīhā wa-yaqṣad fī ḥaqqī wa-yashkurunī ʿind al-wālī). On verso he seems to describe a waterwheel on the Nile, for some reason of interest to his brother, that he found broken (. . . sāqīya ʿalā -baḥr fa-innī wajadtuhu kharāb bi-bāb. . .). He asks his brother to keep him informed about "the story of the Ra'īs." He sends regards to ʿAlā al-Dīn b. [...] and to their mother, among others. ASE.

Legal document, 'iqrar, dated A.H. 529 (= 1134-35 C.E.). - needs examination. (FGP)

Deed of sale for the sale of half a house in Fusṭāṭ, in the ‘Fortress of the Greeks’. The house abuts the house of ʿUbayd b. Yasir. The deed also mentions Abū l-Ḥusayn the drinks-seller. Dated 497 AH (= 1103-1104 CE). (Information from CUDL)

Document of rent/hire. No decipherable date. - needs examination. (FGP)

Recto: Letter from ʿAlī b. [...] addressed to Sharaf al-Dīn apparently requesting clarification of a decree. Full address (unclear where Baker/Polliack got this from): al-malik al-muʿaẓẓam Sharaf al-Dīn, Ayyubid Sultan of Damascus (1218-27?). - needs examination. Verso: Hebrew pen trials, citing Mishna Berakhot 4:7. Also citing Isaac Kinzi's poem יום באתם לחלות (see Davidson, Otzar ha-piyyut, X, no, 1633). Written by Nadiv b. Yiṣḥaq, who signed his name. In the left margin, accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals, probably unrelated to recto. (FGP and AA)

Quittance granted by [...] bt. ʿAbdallāh al-[...] to Abū l-Faraj Sulaymān(?) b. Hārūn al-Khaybarī(?) known as Ibn al-Sulūkī(?) and who was somehow associated with the treasury (bayt al-māl al-maʿmūr). (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) "In a few surviving quittance documents from the Fatimid period the early opening formula is attached to the beginning of the iqrār, e.g. T-S Ar. 41.99: hādhā kitāb barā'a li-fulān ibn fulān... katabathu lahu fulāna ibnat fulān wa-aqarrat lahu bi-mā fīhi wa-ashhadat lahu ʿalā dhālika shuhūd hādhā l-kitāb... annahu lā ḥaqq lahā qibal fulān ibn fulān...." This is a document of quittance for so-and-so son of so-and-so... which so-and-so daughter of so and-so wrote for him and she acknowledged to him what is contained herein and called the witnesses of this document to bear testimony to it for him... that she has no claim on so-and-so son of so-and-so...". The witnesses of the document attached autograph witnesses clauses with the formula: shahida fulān ibn fulān ʿalā iqrār al-mubri'a bi-mā fīhi fī tārīkhihi..." "So-and-so son of so-and-so bore witness to the acknowledged of what is contained herein by the woman granting the quittance on its date." Geoffrey Khan, "An Arabic Legal Document from the Umayyad Period," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 4, no. 3 (1994), p. 368. On verso there are Hebrew writing exercises.

End of legal document, dated 13 Dhu al-Hijja, A.H. 596 (= 25 September, 1200 C.E.). - needs examination. (FGP)

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Fragment (upper half only). The addressee is greeted as ḥaḍrat mawlāya al-raʾīs al-jalīl. The sender reports that Abū l-Ḥusayn told him that he and his son took the ruqʿa (petition?) to the Kurds 'who opposed them' but did not reach them. The addressee and ʿUddat al-Dawla are asked to help in some way. Verso: Letter in Arabic script. Asking for a loan of 20 dinars "for an important matter." The margins are filled with undeciphered jottings in Arabic script in a smaller hand. AA. ASE.

Legal document. In Arabic script. Dating: Ottoman-era, likely 16th or 17th century. Concerning the estate of the late Shemuel b. Dan, a Portuguese Jew. His brother Avraham (اورهم), living in Alexandria, attests to having received a sum of 50 gold dinars from Aḥmad(?) Amarillo b. Yosef the Jew, the agent of the daughter of the deceased, and he releases her and the agent from any further claims. ASE

End of legal contract. In Arabic script. Mentions a sum of 9 dinars. - needs examination.

Legal document. In difficult Arabic script. Possibly a contract of sale or lease. - needs examination.

Deed of acknowledgment (iqrār). In Arabic script. Dated: 962 AH, which is 1554/55 CE. (Or possibly just 960 AH.) Involves ʿAbd al-Karīm Namir(?) b. ʿAlī b. ʿAlī and Mūsā b. Dāwūd b. Ibrāhīm the Rabbanite Jew. It seems that the former owes money to the latter, at least 70 dinars. Needs further examination. (This is cited as a medical recipe by Lev & Amar, Practical Materia Medica, p. 107, but they probably meant to write T-S Ar.42.110.) AA. ASE.

Report or petition. In Arabic script. In a chancery hand, wide space between the lines. Two lines are preserved, it seems praising the grace and mightiness of the addressee, a vizier. On verso there is Arabic poetry (about injustice?).