Geniza Lab

Letter from Saadya b. Avraham in Hebron to Yeshu'a b. Yakhin in Fustat, approximately 1080.

Letter from Alexandria to Abū l-Maʿānī. Business letter fragment concerning various transactions, some of which are taking place in Alexandria, and mentioning the purchase of poppy seed and rice and a codex apparently used as surety. Some text on the verso seems to belong to the same letter. The rest of the verso is a different (but potentially related) document in Arabic script. (Information from Goitein's index cards and CUDL)

Letter from the cantor Elazar ha-Hazzan b. Avraham to Mevorakh b. Saadya, before he became Nagid (thus, before 1078). Informing that three pieces of copper, a lamp, and one other item belonging to the sister of Abu 'Ali Husayn b. Yosef have been delivered in the presence of witnesses, and sends wishes for the holidays. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter to Avraham son of Gedol ha-Gola Nethanel. Opens with biblical quotations (line 1, Micah 5:8; line 2, Prov. 3:26). The sender starts in Hebrew (1-14) and continues with the actual letter in Arabic. He writes that he received a letter delivered by a third person and also mentions his mother, ending the letter with greetings to the family members of a woman. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from Yeshayahu b. Ishaq to Abu Avraham Ismail b. Avraham with an urgent request to hand over six loads of textiles to the 'Dar al-Kattan.' The sender also writes that he has paid a messenger four dirhams per day to travel from Alexandria to Cairo and back, which took him seven days in total. The 28 dirhams which the messenger received equaled at this time one gold piece, as is stated in the letter. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 167, 290, 440, 472, and Goitein's index cards)

Letter consisting entirely of blessings for a distinguished addressee. The beginning and the ending are in elegant Arabic script. In between, there are blessings in Hebrew (including Isaiah 43:2) and blessings in Judaeo-Arabic. The sender repeatedly emphasizes his and the community's prayers on behalf of the addressee. (Information in part from CUDL)

Letter fragment to [...] b. Ḥayyīm. In this note, the writer states that he had previously sent with the letter-bearer two books, one containing Talmud Rosh ha-Shana and Taanit and the second, a work by Hayya Gaon to be sold. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from 'Amram b. Moshe al-Barqi, sent via Alexandria, to Mevorakh b. Saadya (1094-1111) asking for assistance, which the recipient had already granted in the past to the writer's uncle and father, and congratulating him on the birth of a son (late in Mevorakh's life). (Information from Cohen, Jewish Self Government, pp. 151-152, and Goitein's index cards)

Letter in Judaeo--Arabic. Dating: Probably late 11th or early 12th century. The sender congratulates the addressee(s) on the holidays and reminds them of a promise they had made. Mentions people such as Abū Isḥāq b. Abū Bishr al-Bazzāz (the cloth trader; the father Abū Bishr is mentioned in T-S Misc.8.63) and Abū Sahl Mukhtār (also mentioned in T-S NS 320.11, T-S 10J28.11, and T-S 12.296). On verso there is a draft of a Hebrew letter (to Abūn?). (Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Letter from the cantor Ḥalfon b. David (aka Khalaf al-Lādhiqī), in Jerusalem, to the elders (sādatī wa-mawālayya jamāʿat al-shuyūkh al-miṣriyyīn), in Fusṭāṭ. In Judaeo-Arabic, in a beautiful scribal hand. Very faded. Dating: Likely 11th century. This may be a letter of appeal for charity, since Ḥalfon/Khalaf leads by identifying himself as an elderly man with dependents (rajul kabīr tāʿin fī l-sinn wa-ʿalā ʿāʾila). He refers to praying, the Torah, and 'al-qiyām fī l-jibāya wa-l-kitābāt.' On verso there is the address of the letter and an explanation of calendar reckoning in a different, crude hand. (Information in part from CUDL.) Merits further examination. ASE

Letter from Shemuel b. Ibrahīm, in Fustat, to his father Abū Isḥāq Ibrahīm b. Shabbetay (aka Shubbāṭ), in Palermo. Fragment: upper part of the letter only. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic. Dating: Early 11th century, by Gil's estimate. He suggests that this family may be connected to Benei Sunbāṭ, the family of Sahlān b. Avraham. Contents: Shemuel conveys everyone's worry on account of the addressee, as they have received no news ever since the father's departure from Alexandria. Shemuel then conveys the news of his sister al-Turfa, who is very ill. "She came down with a terrible illness (wajaʿ) at the beginning of Marḥeshvan, which lasted two months, and the illness culminated in a stomach abscess (? dubayla 'alā ra's fu'ādhā). There was not a doctor in Fustat that we did not bring to see her or a single medicine or syrup that we did not give her to drink. After this, terrible fainting fits (ghashw, probably = ghashwa) came over her. We asked her, having despaired of her, saying, "What do you want? What do you desire?" And she said, crying, "By God, there is no desire (shahwa) in my heart and no........ [the fragment ends here]." Gil suggests that her statement should be connected to the writer's expression of longing for the father, something like, "there is no desire in my heart except to see you." (Information in part from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 304, 476; III, pp. 241, 479,and Goitein's index cards.) The significance of 'dubayla' is ambiguous not only here but also in the medieval Islamic medical literature: see the thorough discussion in Alvarez-Millan, “Disease in Tenth-Century Iran and Irak according to al-Razi’s Casebook”, Suhayl 14 (2015), pp. 69f. Also ambiguous is whether 'ra's al-fu'ād' refers to the stomach or rather to the skin overlying the heart (as it does in al-Razi's casebook). See CUL Or.1080 J24 for another account of a woman with a prolonged illness who developed fainting fits (ghashawāt). ASE.

Letter from Ismail b. Barhun Taherti in Mahdiyya to his brother, Abu al-Surur Ishaq b. Barhun, reporting what Tahir and his partner, who were the proprietors of a boat called Ibn al-Iskandar, did for him. At the end the sender conveys his greetings to family members. Dated to the 11th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 309, 478, and Goitein's index cards)

Letter in Hebrew. The writer of the letter sends his apology and emphasizes he did not intend to offend the addressee. The writer ends (lines 18-22) with conveying his greetings to different people in Judaeo-Arabic. (Information from Goitein's index cards). Verso: Liturgy (seliḥot for 10th Ṭevet). (Information from CUDL)

Letter from a penniless woman, the widow of Abū Surrī, to Mevorakh b. Saadya (1094–1111). She begs him to come to her rescue in a litigation brought against her by the relatives of her deceased son-in-law for a modest amount. Her daughter was married to Yosef b. Asad b. Qirqas who left her to travel three and a half years ago. That was prior to al-Afḍal's siege of Alexandria in 1094. The daughter was then ill two years while the mother used her dowry (רחלהא) for nursing her in her illness and for the burial when she died. It has recently become known that Yosef was killed in Nastaro (an island between Damietta and Alexandria), and his cousin claimed his estate—which was non-existent. (Information from Goitein's note card and from M. R. Cohen, Jewish Self Government, pp. 221-260.) For a detailed discussion of the geographical situation of Nastaro, see Khan, "A Copy of a Decree from the Archives of the Fāṭimid Chancery in Egypt," BSOAS, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1986, p. 444.

Account of the Qodesh: building expenditures, ca. 1037-38. The parnasim Husayn (Yefet) b. Da'ud (David) b. Shekhanya and Yaʿaqov b. Bishr al-Arjawani list the expenditures made by them during A.H. 429. The building operations refer to the synagogue and to the "new compound," which is most probably Dar Qutayt. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 164 #10)

Letter from Abraham Ṣiqillī to Ḥalfon b. Natanʾel. (Information from CUDL)

In the long Hebrew preface to his letter, in which he also included quotations in Aramaic from the Jerusalem Talmud, the writer, Avraham Ṣiqillī (a man from Sicily) b. Moshe, praised Ḥalfon for his wisdom and virtues. The style is not smooth and the decoding and translation (of the Arabic) is not certain in many places. The writer has already sent a letter to Ḥalfon from Syria/Palestine (al-Sham). He tells Ḥalfon to send him pepper instead of the pepper that was delayed in Tilimsān. It turns out that Ṣiqillī wrote the letter from somewhere in Spain. Ḥalfon must have stayed in Almeria, and the writer requests that he speak with Ibn Baruch about the delay in raising funds for the redemption of a captive, which Ṣiqillī was supposed to send to him, and also find out from him if he heard anything about ordering the book 'Aruch', the Talmudic dictionary of Rabbi Natan b. Yeḥiʾel, a Roman, that you ordered also discussed in certificate ח34. The letter was written on 'Yom Isru Chag', which may allude to one of the days of the Sukkot festival of 1138. At the end of the letter, the writer sent a holiday greeting to Ḥalfon and b. Barukh and his children. Greetings were also sent to Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen al-Ishbīlī (אלאִשְׁבִּילִי).

Letter opening in the handwriting of Avraham, son of the Gaon, to Yiṣḥaq Ha-Kohen b. Furat in Fustat, 11th century.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to an unidentified personality in Fustat, expressing gratitude for funds sent to the community in Jerusalem, and requesting the intervention of the recipient to persuade a lady to leave Egypt and join her husband in Jerusalem. Approximately 1030. (Information from CUDL)

See join for description and transcription