Geniza Lab

Legal formulary of Saadya Gaon (Kitāb al-Shahāda wa-l-Wathā'iq). Information from FGP.

Late letter addressed to Merkado Karo and Shim'on Frances. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 1807 CE. Information from Wagner, Linguistic Variety of Judaeo-Arabic, 24.

Letter from Moshe Bibas. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Late 18th or early 19th century. Needs examination for content.

Legal formulary of Saadya Gaon (Kitāb al-Shahāda wa-l-Wathā'iq). Information from FGP.

Responsum. In Judaeo-Arabic (mainly). Written on a bifolium. Regarding the leasing of a synagogue to a certain Abū l-Munā. The legal authority who wrote this response discusses the general halakhic background to this issue (and cites BT Megilla 4:1, 26a-b), and provides a formulary for the appropriate legal document. Information from FGP. Written by Nathan b. Shmuel ha-Haver (AA)

Literary work. In Hebrew. Identification is difficult, but it does not seem to be a letter as catalogued.

Legal formulary of Saadya Gaon (Kitāb al-Shahāda wa-l-Wathā'iq). Information from FGP.

See PGPID 1260 (Gil's transcription) for description. The transcription uploaded here is Goitein's.

Letter fragment. Sent from Jerusalem, presumably to Fustat. In Hebrew. Dating: Ca. 1048/49 CE. Damaged and faded. Mentions a scholar who escaped from trouble with the government, apparently in the Maghrib; his sister and a guardianship; that the community honored him when he came to Jerusalem "three years ago [in] the year 4806," which is 1045/46 CE. Also mentions Natan Av Bet Din. Goitein speculated that this might be a description of Daniel b. ʿAzarya, in part based on seeing a dispute over kosher slaughter in l. 21 and connecting this letter to T-S 20.19. Gil disagreed and understood this letter to be saying that the scholar is now dead.

Legal fragment. Dated: 1358 Seleucid, which is 1046/47 CE. Involves [...] b. Avraham b. Mukhtār; possibly his wife; and a girl under 11 years of age. On verso the name "Ibn Mukhtār" appears in Arabic script. Needs examination.

Letter of appeal. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentioning a pledge-drive (pesiqa) at holiday time.

Recto: Legal document. Dated: Monday, 3 Tishrei 1526 Seleucid, which is 1214 CE. Under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. Involves Abū Saʿīd b. Abū Manṣūr al-Nushādirī trying to claim a debt of 20 dinars from Manṣūr b. Ibrāhīm and the subsequent compromise—it seems that Manṣūr will pay 5 dinars by Adar of the same year, and Abū Saʿīd will release him from the rest. Needs deeper examination. On verso there is a literary text, a Judaeo-Arabic commentary on Psalms 90.

Legal formulary. For a loan contract.

Letter fragment to an unidentified physician. In Judaeo-Arabic. The format is notable: written in a narrow column, with the width of the margin almost equal to the width of the text. The writer mentions that he has heard that the addressee will be coming into Fustat 'for the treatment of a patient.' Needs further examination.

Legal fragment. Filling both sides of the folio. Location: Cairo. Dated: 26 Tevet, 1546 or 1547 Seleucid, which is 1234-1236 CE. Involves Yeshuʿa ha-Levi ha-Sar b. Hayya(?) ha-Levi ha-Sar and Efrayim ha-Levi ha-Sar. Has to do with someone's house (record of a deed of sale?). Needs examination

Legal formulary of Saadya Gaon (Kitāb al-Shahāda wa-l-Wathā'iq). Information from FGP.

Recto: Letter fragment, addressed to a certain Nasi. Very little remains. On verso there is rabbinic material (literary).

Recto: Letter fragment in Arabic script. Parts of five lines are preserved along with some of the margin and some mirror-text imprinted by the lines that used to be below. On verso there is a Talmudic discussion of usury. Needs examination.

ʿAydhab; End of the summer or fall of 1131 Halfon wrote from ʿAydhab, the Sudanese port city on the coast of the Red Sea, to his older brother Eli the Judge, who was living in Cairo. In a letter of account and a brief account of Ḥalfon’s unsuccessful journey to Yemen and India and especially the difficult dispute that arose in Yemen, which revolved around the confrontation between the Jewish authorities in Egypt and Baghdad in general and the mention of the authority of the Gaʾon Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen, the head of the Jews in Egypt, in the prayer. Ḥalfon fought the war of Maṣliaḥ, but he and his fellow foreign merchants suffered severe insults from the Persian Jew, the cousin of the head of the exile, who ordered Maṣliaḥ‘s permission to be revoked, and from the dignitaries of Eden. His letter was run by Ḥalfon to Cairo by the North African merchant Avraham b. Muʿṭī, who, together with his fellow traveler Yosef b. Ezra, cooperated with him in the quarrel and defended the rights of a successful man. Ḥalfon advised Ali to bring Avraham before the Gaon, so that he would tell him about the events in Yemen in detail and so that the Gaon could prepare a suitable response to those who insulted his honor. It is possible that Certificate ח10 is the last document written about the affair, which has survived, even though it summarizes it from the beginning, and the first document is Certificate ח5. The background to the dispute and its events are discussed in the introduction, including the considerations for determining the estimated time of writing the ח10 certificate. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV)

Letter from Ḥalfon b. Netanel from ‘Aydhab to his brother Ali b. Netanel, 1132. Ḥalfon is on his way back to Egypt after an unsuccessful journey to India. He writes to his brother, a judge in Fustat, concerning his business and his disappointment that it did not go as expected. He also describes in details an event that happened in Yemen when he was a part of an argument between members of the Jewish community there, about the Gaon's authority (Masliah Gaon from the yeshiva of Palestine), which led to Ḥalfon's humiliation. He writes how hurt he is and asks his brother, that is very close to the Gaon, to talk with him about it. (Information from Gil and Fleischer "Yehuda Ha-Levi and his circle", pp: 348-354). VMR