Geniza Lab

Legal document. Mainly in Judaeo-Arabic. Abū Saʿd Seʿadya b. Shemuel ha-Meshorer relinquishes any claim against Ghāliya, the widow of his late brother Sulaymān, and her daughter X (the name is left blank) arising from business between himself and Sulaymān. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Mercantile letter from an unknown sender, possibly in Sicily, to Abū Zikrī Elḥanan b. Ismāʿīl (al-Andalusī). In Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (vertical piece from the middle). Dating: ca. 1050 CE, per Gil. Concerning consignments of copper, lead, silk (jīzī, lāsīn, and dimunshī/Demona silk). (Information from Gil and from Goitein’s index card.)

Culinary or medical recipe. In Arabic script, Kūfī, seven lines. On parchment. Dating: "Particularly old" per Goitein; likely 10th century or earlier. This was probably torn from a page that originally had more recipes, as the tops of the letters from the next entry are just barely visible. Needs further examination. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Leaves, on vellum, from a medical notebook with notes of names of simples, apparently in no particular order. P3 recto mentions a certain Abū l-Ḵayr al-Ṭabīb.. Arabic, in various handwritings (FGP)

Bifolio, vellum. Multiple text blocks. All in Judaeo-Arabic. (1) Recto, right page: Possibly a colophon (Kitāb...), but possibly something mercantile. There is a date: 1 Ḥeshvan '362. (2) Recto, left page: Bill of lading (maʿrifa mā ʿubbiya fī al-qafaṣ...). There follows a long list of goods together with their quantities. There are several garments and numerous materia medica. (3) Verso, left page: Miscellaneous accounts. Upper section: Amounts of money collected. From Isḥāq: 8 rubāʿīs. From Abū Yūsuf: [...] rubāʿīs and a half. From Abū l-Faḍl: 9 rubāʿīs. Lower section: "The day of my departure from Mazara was Wednesday [...] Elul '770... in the ship of my lord the qāḍi..." The dates are very faded, but it seems that the first one is 1 Ḥeshvan 4762 AM (1001 CE) and the second one is Elul 4770 AM (1010 CE). AA. ASE.

Letter from a blind man in Salonica to his son Ismāʿīl in Egypt. In Judaeo-Arabic. Written on vellum in a scholarly hand. The first page of the letter is lost. Dating: 1088/89 CE, or shortly after, based on Goitein's interpretation of the year "48" as 4848 AM. The letter picks up with the father explaining his happy situation in Salonica and why he cannot possibly return to Egypt, as his son had asked him to do (r1–19). The writer lives in Salonica with his wife (not the addressee's mother) and a daughter with many suitors. He fears that they would be a burden on the family in Egypt. He is blind and weak—"I have nothing left but my tongue and my heart" (i.e., mind)—but he has not perished. On the contrary, he is in a thousand states of well-being and is highly regarded by all who fear God. He overhears the Shabbat services from his dwelling. None of the scholars of Salonica are able to match him in his knowledge of the law. He next sends regards to various family members and congratulates his son on the acquisition of noble in-laws (r20–27). He is worried about his family, because he heard that "in the year 48 the Nile had a low flood, and my heart trembled, and I have no rest, neither by day or by night. For God's sake, write me immediately regarding your well-being" and about each person's livelihood (r27–32). The son should send his response to ʿImrān b. Naḥum in Alexandria who will forward it to Salonica, to the upper synagogue, to the house of Shabbetay b. Moshe Matakla 'the head' (r33–36). He exhorts his son not to neglect the study of Torah or be distracted by his business affairs (r36–v1). He then recapitulates the reasons for his departure from Egypt 26 years earlier and what has happened in the interim (v1–v21). It seems his motives for traveling were both pious (wishing to bury his bones in Jerusalem) and financial. At first he sent all the money he earned back to his family, and had none with which to travel back himself. He traveled from place to place for 30 months. At that time he learned that a business partner of the family perished in a fire, from which point onward, "I never had anything but expenses." The 'Turks' then invaded the Byzantine east, so he fled to the west, ultimately reaching Salonica. His vision weakened, gradually, over the course of five years. In Salonica, he has refrained from granting his daughter to any of her many suitors until he received word from his son and his brother-in-law Abū l-Ḥ̋asan. The writer then returns to the subject of why he cannot possibly travel back to Egypt (v21–v34). Even as his son's letter was read to him, he had no strength to go out his door or leave his house without being supported. He can hardly see or hear. If his son saw him, he would "flee the distance of a month's journey." This is apart from the grave danger of the travel itself and his anxiety on account of his old age and his wife—even though she herself would love to travel. It is not in his nature to save money, and he repeats his fear that he would be a burden on the family. There is then a cryptic passage (v30–34) warning his son against listening to 'a generation that left us' and which had various faults that cannot be written in a letter. He concludes (v34–39) with another exhortation to study Torah diligently. When the son was 13 years old, he used to astound people with his intelligence. Information in part from Goitein and from Joshua Holo, Byzantine Jewry in the Mediterranean Economy, p. 53, 56. ASE.

Large bifolio of accounts. In Judaeo-Arabic. Concerning various goods brought to Tripoli (Libya?). Erratic spelling, and written in a local dialect. Dating: Probably 11th century or earlier. Seems to concern local trade in Tripoli. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Recto: injunction issued by the vizier of al-Fāʾiz (Ṭalāʾīʿ b. Ruzzīk) ordering Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh b. Kāmil b. ʿAbd al-Karīm to execute all of his orders. Verso: end of a legal document dated 13 Ṣafar 554 AH (= March 1159). Written on parchment (like legal documents, and unlike standard chancery documents). (Information in part from Khan and CUDL.)

Recto: deed of sale for part of a house in Fusṭāṭ. The parties are ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭāhir, the moneychanger, and Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir, the carpet dealer. Ca. 11th-12th century. Verso: Arabic note, apparently unrelated to the document on recto. (Information from CUDL)

Adages and ethical exhortations in Judaeo-Arabic. Some of them concern love and marriage. (This is not a letter, as it was described in the Backer & Polliack catalogue.) On verso of fol. 2 there is a name: Saʿīd b. Shelom[o ...] b. Rabīʿ b. [....]. Maybe a colophon. AA. ASE.

Legal document. In Arabic script. Dated: Dhū l-Qaʿda 450 AH, which is 1058/59 CE. Involves Ibrāhīm b. Faraj al-Isrāʾīlī. Only the bottom right corner is preserved.

Instructions to an agent (in Alexandria) of Abi Ya'aqov (Yosef b. 'Awkal), May, 1038.

On a fragment of Leviticus we find a short book list belong to Abu Sa'd ha-Nadiv, see Scheiber, Geniza Studies, p. 321. AA

Fragment from a legal document, probably a deathbed declaration. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. Involves a woman named Sitt al-Dār and the physician Mishaʾel ha-Levi (possibly the same Mishaʾel ha-Levi who appears in ENA 4011.45). OZ. AA.

Deed of sale. In Arabic script. Abū l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā b. ʿAlī b. Aslama b. ʿAbi Zayd (a dealer in dates) buys part of a shop from Aḥmad b. Ibrahim b. Muḥammad al-Muzanī. The shop’s boundaries extend to the property of the heirs of Shuʿayb (dealer in dates) and the heirs of Ilyās b. Kāmil. Dating: ca. 11th-12th century.The price is 165 dinars. The store is located in the Dār al-Tammārin. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

Bill of sale in Arabic script. Dating: late 5th century AH/11th century CE. Abū ʿAlī Ḥassan b. Ibrahīm b. Azhar al-Ṣayrafī buys two ruins near al-Mamṣuṣa, on the east side of Qaṣr al-Shamʿ, and donates them (or a part of them) to Yūsuf b. Daʾūd. Roughly 1100 CE. Contains a note of registration in a court archive. The buyer, Ḥassan ibn 'Ibrāhīm b. Azhar, is also the buyer in T-S Misc. 29.21 (Khan, ALAD, doc. 8), which is dated 480H on verso. There are also documents of partnership referring to him by his Hebrew name, Yefet b. Avraham b. Yaʾir, which also indicate that he worked in the government mint in the second half of the 5th/11th c; cf. Goitein, Med. Soc. I, 362; IV, 354, n. 104. (Information from Goitein’s index card and from Khan)

Legal document. Bill of sale, fragment, in Arabic script. Yosef b. Yaʿaqov, the Jew, known as al-ʿIjla (or al-ʿĀjala?) buys from three Christian women one-fourth of a house in the Rāya district for 70 dinars. The other three-fourths were already in his possession (total value 280 dinars). Verso (in entirely different handwriting): He gives this house to the son of his daughter and makes other gifts. This document is also incomplete. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Recto: Legal document. In Arabic script. Portions of 9 lines are preserved. Involves Mūsā b. ʿĀdī(?). Dating: Mentions the year 42[.] AH, which corresponds to 1029–38 CE (l. 4). (This should be checked.) The last few lines contain numerous release formulae. Needs further examination.

Verso: Short letter from a teacher to a father. In Judaeo-Arabic. "This is to inform you my lord, the elder, may God make your honored position permanent, that Abū l-Ḥasan, after his transfer to my school, showed great zeal for study. His great misfortune was that Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wuhayb broke his board with the knowledge of the other boys. And peace." (Goitein's translation.)

Deed of sale. In Arabic script. Abū l-Bayān b. Barakāt buys for his wife (name not preserved) one-half out of twenty-four shares of a house, from her brother Abū l-Faraj b. Yūsuf, in Khiṭṭat al-Rāya in the district known as Maḥbas Banāna. Most of the text preserved here is a description of the buyer. (Information from Goitein’s index card)