Geniza Lab

End of a legal document certifying a loan.- needs examination.

State document. Petition to the caliph al-Mustanṣir regarding a murder on a boat. The son of the petitioner was traveling with a young merchant from Sirsinā to Fuwwa and then Alexandria on a boat carrying 500 dinars in cash and 200 dinars in goods, when the captain of the boat and the sailors robbed and murdered the two merchants. The petition asks that the caliph issue an edict to the lieutenants of the amīr Sinān Al-Dawla to place the captain and the sailors under arrest. Dating: ca. 427-487 AH (= 1036-1094 CE). (Information from CUDL)

Letter in Arabic script. Doesn't seem to be mercantile; purpose and content unclear. Mentions 'my lord the Rayyis' in the second to last line. On verso there are Hebrew liturgical jottings and a quote from Ecclesiastes 9:11-12. And one line in small Arabic script. Needs further examination.

Deed of acknowledgment (iqrār) in Arabic script. Involves two Jews, a man named [...] b. Ibrāhīm b. [...] b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAllān, and a woman named Qurrat al-ʿAyn bt. ʿAllūn b. Musāfir b. Wahb (her grandfather Musāfir b. Wahb is known from many Geniza documents ca. 1100 CE). There seems to be a mutual release, but needs further examination for further details. On verso there is a Hebrew elegy.

Deed of acknowledgment (iqrār) in Arabic script. Bū l-Faraj b. Yūsuf the Rabbanite Jew makes a declaration for Bū Saʿd b. [...] the Jew, probably that he owes him money. Needs examination for content. The foot of recto was reused for five oval rings enclosing the Hebrew word שיחטש (apparently magical). Verso contains multiple records of receipts of sums of money, probably related to recto. AA. ASE.

Letter in Arabic script. Reused for accounts in Arabic script. The letter seems to mainly deal with business matters. The sender may be named Bū Naṣr. Needs examination.

Legal document, dated A.H. 569 (= 1173-74 C.E.). - needs examination.

Letter from Ibn Abū l-Faraj to al-Shaykh al-Thiqa, in the Muṣāsa area of Fustat. In Arabic script. Needs examination.

Letter in Arabic script from a blind man, Barakāt al-Jiblī, to the man with whom his son Ḥassūn lives, Sābiq al-Kohen b. Maḥfūẓ, dictated to Yaʿqūb, the cousin (ibn ʿamm) of the addressee. The purpose of the letter is to rebuke Sābiq: "I think of you what I think of my son Ḥassūn, namely, that I have written him many letters and not received a single response. All this time he has not thought of me or inquired about my health (iftaqad ḥālī) at all. His mother passed away one year ago with a great fire (or: grief) in her heart on his account. I am an old man, and I have lost my vision and ceased earning a living." In the remainder of the letter he beseeches Sābiq to respond and to urge his son to behave properly and remember his father. Information in part from Goitein's note card and Med Soc, V, p. 124, n. 423. ASE

Note (ruqʿa) reminding recipient to fulfil his promise (of which no details are provided). On verso there is another text block in Arabic script as well as a rhymed Hebrew poem about the buying, stuffing, and marinating in wine of the greatest chicken in all the land. See Khan, Documents, p. 316 (note 48). (Information from Baker/Polliack catalog)

Business letter in Arabic script from Avraham b. Isḥaq, Ascalon, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat.

Legal document, contract of hire/rent. - needs examination.

State fiscal and administrative text from the Ayyubid period. Dated: 4 Rabīʿ II 595 AH, which is 1199 CE. Written in the form of a testimony. The document reports the execution of an order of the amir Qarāqūsh Bahāʾ al-Dīn b. ʿAbdallāh al-Asadī (d. 597/1201) to confiscate or recover a cache of 170 dinars (in gold coins) from a private house in possession of Ghānim b. ʿĪsā, one of the inhabitants of Upper Manūf. The order was carried out by the special commissioner of the amir, Fāris al-Dawla ʿAdī. The coins were placed in a purse and put under a wax seal and handed over to the commissioner. This operation is witnessed by ʿAmmār b. al-Ḥasan b. Ismaʿīl b. ʿAlī and Abū l-Maʿālī Yūsuf b. Muḥammad. At the time of this document, al-Malik al-Manṣūr, the son of al-Malik al-ʿAzīz, was titular sultan, with his uncle al-Malik al-Afḍal serving as regent. This is reflected in the two nisbas of the title al-Manṣūri and al-Afḍalī. On verso is a list of names in Arabic script that has no apparent connection with the document on recto. (Information from Khan and CUDL.)

Recto: Contract of hire/rent.- needs examination. Verso: Hebrew liturgy.

Recto (secondary use): Petition draft in Arabic script. The sender thanks the addressee for employing him in government service (khidma). Mentions "al-dawāwīn al-maʿmūra." Needs further examination. Verso (original use): Letter in Arabic script, in a chancery-esque hand. Opens with expressions of longing. The sender 'reports' that he continually asks after the addressee's news. Then mentions the victory (naṣr) or maybe aid (nuṣra) of al-Malik al-Manṣūr (a vizier?). Most of the continuation is lost. Needs further examination.

Bill of sale of a slave. In Arabic script. Location: Fustat. Dated: first decade of Ramaḍān 438 AH, which is October/November 1090 CE. Seller: Ḥanūn b. ʿAllūn, the Christian clerk (kātib) in the Dār al-Dībāj (‘residence of the viziers’). Buyer: ʿArūs b. Yosef, a wealthy cloth merchant, many of whose accounts and letters are preserved in the Geniza. The sale is for an unnamed Christian woman and for her son Qiwām. Price: 21 dinars. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Document (personal notes?) written in a mixture of Judaeo-Persian and Arabic in Arabic script. The writer mentions members of the Ibn ʿAwkal family, and possibly two of the Tustarīs. The fragment is labeled "L4" in Shaul Shaked's (unpublished) classification of Early Judeo-Persian texts. OH. Alternate description: Letter from Iran to Jacob ibn `Awkal and his son Joseph in Fustat (FGP).

State document. Petition to a Fatimid ruler in which the writer asks to be exempted from the payment of his capitation tax (of 1 + 1/3 + 1/4 dinars and a dirham), since lost his sight as a consequence of an eye illness and is now unable to perform his job, while the tax collectors are increasingly pressing. The writer also states that in the past he had been able to pay his capitation tax only thanks to the charitable intervention of the community. Dating: 12th century. On verso there is Hebrew text, possibly liturgical. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Deed of hire/rent, dated beginning Jumada II, A.H. 636. - needs examination.

Recto: Poem with partial vocalisation; long and short lines alternate; short lines have same rhyme syllable. Verso: Accounts (FGP)