Geniza Lab

Verso: Autograph order from Avraham Maimonides. Abū l-Majd is to give the cantor Abū l-Ḥasan (=Yedutun ha-Levi?) 9 dirhams. T-S K25.240 consists of small written orders, partly in Hebrew and partly in Arabic script, for monthly payments, made out of the rent-revenue from the pious foundation (waqf) 'Compound of the Poor' or from the pious foundation made by the physician al-Muhadhdhab. All dated orders are from spring and summer, 1218. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 420-421, App. A 48-92; pp. 449-450, App. B 39b [dated 1210-1225]; Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt, pp. 218-220)

Autograph order from Avraham Maimonides. Abū l-Majd is to give the bearer (also named Abū l-Majd?) two dirhams for baking matza (khabīz faṭīr) for Passover. There is one line in Arabic script at the bottom. T-S K25.240 consists of small written orders, partly in Hebrew and partly in Arabic script, for monthly payments, made out of the rent-revenue from the pious foundation (waqf) 'Compound of the Poor' or from the pious foundation made by the physician al-Muhadhdhab. All dated orders are from spring and summer, 1218. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 420-421, App. A 48-92; pp. 449-450, App. B 39b [dated 1210-1225]; Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt, pp. 218-220)

Verso: Autograph order from Avraham Maimonides to the cantor Abū l-Majd. Abū l-Majd is to convey the remaining 10 dirhams owed to Abū l-Faraj for support (mezonot), from the rent of the compound. Mysteriously, there is a נע (indicating that Abū l-Faraj is dead) over the שצ (indicating that he is alive). T-S K25.240 consists of small written orders, partly in Hebrew and partly in Arabic script, for monthly payments, made out of the rent-revenue from the pious foundation (waqf) 'Compound of the Poor' or from the pious foundation made by the physician al-Muhadhdhab. All dated orders are from spring and summer, 1218 CE. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 420-421, App. A 48-92; pp. 449-450, App. B 39b [dated 1210-1225]; Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt, pp. 218-220)

Recto: Legal fragment in Arabic script. Involves a trader (al-tājir), a miller (al-ṭaḥḥān) named Nuṣayr b. Abī l-Maʿālī b. Ḥasan, Avraham Maimonides (Abū l-[Munā] Ibrāhīm [b. Mūsā] b. Maymūn al-Yahūdī al-Isrāʾīlī), and a mill (al-ṭāḥūn). In Fustat. Needs further examination.

Recto looks like a fragment of a legal document in Arabic script. Verso looks like a very small tax receipt, but complete with registrations/mottos/multiple hands. It is "for the poor Jews (ḍuʿafāʾ al-yahūd) in Fustat. The year 615 AH is mentioned.T-S K25.240 ff.3–6 comprise one cluster (ḥikr receipts?) and T-S K25.240 ff.1, 2, 7, 9, and 10 comprise another cluster (jāliya receipts?). All need examination.

Administrative note in Arabic script. Unclear exactly how it is related to all the Avraham Maimonides material in this folder. Might be his own handwriting (should be checked against all the other examples), the handwriting of another Jewish official, or even a bulk receipt from a jahbadh? Registering an expenditure of 2010 qarārīṭ (=83.75 dinars) for the ground rent (ḥikr) for the poor Jews of Qaṣr al-Shamʿ for Rabīʿ II and Jumādā I (year not specified but likely 615 AH). T-S K25.240 ff.3–6 comprise one cluster (ḥikr receipts?) and T-S K25.240 ff.1, 2, 7, 9, and 10 comprise another cluster (jāliya receipts?). All need examination.

Recto: End of a letter in Arabic script (this text is from the right margin, with some of the beginnings of the lines of the main text preserved). The sender 'kisses the hand of Sayyidnā' (=Avraham Maimonides in this context).

Verso: Autograph order in the hand of Avraham Maimonides. Abū l-Majd is to give 4 dirhams to the bearer (a teacher) for 4 weeks of teaching the children of Ibrāhīm. The money should come from the waqf of al-Muhadhdhab.

Administrative note in Arabic script. Unclear exactly how it is related to all the Avraham Maimonides material in this folder. Might be his own handwriting (should be checked against all the other examples), the handwriting of another Jewish official, or even a bulk receipt from a jahbadh? Registering an expenditure of 2005 qarārīṭ (=83.5 dinars) for the ground rent (ḥikr) for the poor Jews of Qaṣr al-Shamʿ for Dhū l-Qiʿda 614 AH (=January/February 1218 CE). T-S K25.240 ff.3–6 comprise one cluster (ḥikr receipts?) and T-S K25.240 ff.1, 2, 7, 9, and 10 comprise another cluster (jāliya receipts?). All need examination.

Letter from an ardent supporter to Daniel b. ʿAzarya. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Ca. 1055 CE (per Goitein). This is only the first leaf of the letter. The sender puts his money and his friends at Daniel's disposal. The entire letter is also an attack on ʿEli b. ʿAmram, who is never directly named. The sender describes communal strife in Fustat after the death of the gaon Shelomo b. Yehuda (d. 1051) and Abū Kathīr Efrayim b. Shemarya (d. after 1053 CE, probably ca. 1055 CE). The other supporters of Daniel b. ʿAzarya wanted to appoint the Rav (=Yehuda b. Yosef) as the successor of Efrayim b. Shemarya, and they did not want ʿEli b. ʿAmram to assume the position. (The Rav was in the camp of Daniel b. ʿAzarya despite being the cousin of his rivals Yosef and Eliyya, the sons of Shelomo ha-Kohen b. Yehosef who was briefly gaon in 1025 CE.) However, the sender paradoxically thinks that their enemy ʿEli b. ʿAmram should succeed Efrayim, precisely because then he will have to pay obeisance to Daniel, and the two camps will be united. The letter's contents are as follows: (1) Condolences for the death of Daniel's sister (r1–12); (2) Praises and seeking forgiveness for the fight that they had in the house of al-Damsīsī—Goitein understands that this is because the sender had advocated for ʿEli b. ʿAmram, Daniel's enemy (r13–21); (3) ʿEli ("the idiot") didn't understand that the sender has long been a supporter of Daniel b. ʿAzarya, even before the death of Shelomo b. Yehuda; and anything the sender has done for ʿEli is like what David did for Saul—serving him despite the latter's intention to kill him (r23–36); an explanation of how the sender supported ʿEli b. ʿAmram over the Rav, against the objections of the rest of Daniel's contingent, including Abū Isḥāq (Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq Ibn al-Furāt) (v1–12); ʿEli b. ʿAmram's boorish behavior once he assumed leadership, which alienated the other leading figures of the community (including Abū Sahl al-Kohen, a certain Abū l-Surūr, and a certain Elḥanan) to the point that they boycotted the synagogue (v12–28); ʿEli, fearing that he would be deposed in favor of the Rav, recruited his son-in-law Ḥunayn and started spreading malicious rumors about the Rav, including something he supposedly said to Ibn al-Talmid involving the latter's mother. Then, "Ḥunayn went and gathered some potters and quarrelsome people, and hired about fifty of them, and they wrote legal deeds about the Rav, [saying] that he had apostatized (pashaʿa) in al-Shām and [later] arrived in Egypt to re-Judaize (yatahawwada)" (v29–36). (Information from Goitein's edition. Translation of the last section from Moshe Yagur, "Several Documents from the Cairo Geniza Concerning Conversion to Islam," (2020).)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (piece from the right side). Mentions a jahbadh (tax official); al-shaliṭ (another government term, corresponding to Arabic sulṭān?); "this year"; the sender's distress (talāfī); meeting with someone's son. Quite damaged; difficult to understand any more than this.

Declaration of receipt of a quantity of barley. In Arabic script. Hiba b. Buqṭur b. […], companion of the amīr Dhakhīrat al-Dawla Ḥaydara b. Muḥammad b. ʿAdnān (appears also in T-S 13J26.13, twenty years and a promotion later), acknowledges the receipt of 1124 irdabbs of barley from Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Judayd. The barley has been ‘conveyed to the coast with the lighthouse’. Dated: 25 Shawwāl 422 AH, which is 15 October 1031 CE. (A previous description gave 438 AH and 1047 CE). The document was subsequently folded to create a bifolio. On the top of recto and on one page of verso, there is a Judaeo-Arabic formulary for legal documents. On the last page, in a different hand, there is a draft of a legal document in Hebrew. Location: Alexandria. Dated: Thursday, 20 Kislev 4815 AM, which is 1054/55 CE. The name Sahl b. Mevasser appears underneath. (Information in part from CUDL and Khan.)

Verso: draft of a register of shipments of goods by Barhun b. Musa al-Tahirti. Around 1050. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #353) VMR

A notary's draft concerning three houses and two ruins forming the object of a settlement. Among the most detailed description of houses in Cairo. Description of a mansion. Dating: ca. 1190 CE, per Goitein. Partial translation in Med. Soc. 4:79. Complete transcription (into Arabic script) with translation in Goitein, "A Mansion in Fustat" (1977).

Another copy of the same letter as in Bodl. MS heb. b 3/19 + Bodl. MS heb. b 3/20; see PGPID 5595 for details. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Account of the qodesh, ca. 1165. A double leaf from a notebook. The draft of an accoutning occupies only one half of the leaf, and the remaining parts are covered with Coptic numerals. The majority of the items seem to represent expenditures, except for the last part, where apparently some revenue from rent is listed. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 306 #69)

Letter from Hillel b. Hārūn, in Tyre, to [... b.] Khālid(?), in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 11th century. The sender's cousins, the children of his paternal uncle Mūsā, had to come to him in Tyre in great distress, and the sender dressed them in fancy clothing (shayʾan kāna lī atajammal bih). The cousin traveled onward and has not sent any news (and never returned the clothing). Hillel has heard that he is now doing business in Fustat. Hillel seems to be sheepishly asking for the clothes back, or at least asking for some favor in return. Also mentions the addressee's in-law ʿAllūn al-ʿAṭṭār.

Rhymed text in Judaeo-Arabic; maybe a maqāma.

Formal letter in Arabic script. Six lines preserved, wide space between the lines. Might be a draft, since there are words crossed out in l. 4. The portion preserved consists of expressions of loyalty and praise. Rhymed in places. On verso there is Hebrew literary text.

Letter from Yosef b. Musa al-Tahirti, probably from Mahdiyya, to Ya’aqov b. Nahum, Fustat. Around 1045. Regarding a very large amount of goods and deals. Mentions mainly types of silk, different fabrics, and peals. Several things in this letter are mentioned in the letter from Yeshua b. Isma’Il al-Tahirti (see T-S 12.389). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #359) VMR