Geniza Lab

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Bifolium with Arabic literary text (on love?) and one page of Hebrew.

Legal document concerning the dissolvement of a partnership at the death of one of the partners.

Bottom of a legal document. Location: Might be Palermo (פלרם), but this word is very faded. Dated: Elul 4904 AM = August 1144 CE. Settlement between [...] bt. ʿIwāḍ and her husband Shelomo b. Mevorakh. No details of the settlement. Witnesses: the parnas Avraham b. Aharon the cantor; Barakāt b. ʿAmram; Moshe b. Sahlān. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Letter from Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq in Aden to Avraham Ibn Yiju in Jurbattan (Srikandapuram), dated August 1147. The letter contains information on their commercial transactions. The hole in lines 40-41 was already there in the time of writing.

Letter. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions acquiring a muʿtaṣimī (a wooden tray with small compartments, named after the Abbasid Caliph al-Muʿtaṣim) from Bū ʿAbdallāh and pawning it with Bū Sahl ʿAṭiyya b. Binyām for thirty dirhams; dealings with a qāḍī; Ibn Sughmār; a letter for Umm Bū ʿAlī that arrived; the writer's anxiety ("I am drunk with cares"); the writer's difficult financial circumstances.

Letter. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated 2 Nisan 1551 Seleucid (1240 CE). The writer seems to be asking the addressee to assist a certain man against his wife (inṣāfuhu min zawjatihi). If the man and his wife cannot reach an agreement, the man should deliver the writer's letter that is in his possession to the military governor (? al-wālī al-ḥarb) of Ashmūm. If they do reach an agreement, that letter should not be delivered.

Letter from an emissary of the Yeshiva, in Fustat to Yosef ha-Kohen Av Bet Din b. Shelomo Gaon, in Jerusalem. Dating: August 1053 CE. The letter contains sundry reports about the Palestinian and Iraqi synagogues and dealings with the notables of Fustat. Among these, Abū ʿAlī, the caretaker of the Palestinian synagogue, has taken ill, so he has neglected his duties, and the synagogue has fallen into disrepair.

Deathbed will in which Sitt al-Dalāl bt. Ḥananel (n’e) endows the enslaved woman who took care of her through illness with freedom (and likely other objects/property in the missing half of this document). Dated: Dated: Thursday, 23 Ḥeshvan 1542 Seleucid = 1230 CE under the authority of Avraham b. Moshe Maimonides. Document produced in the home of her son Abū l-Baqāʾ Elʿazar b. Evyatar, who likely inherits property from his mother in the missing part of the document. In the handwriting of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu? The scribe has reused verso for (1) biblical verses; (2) the beginning of a draft of a letter to the ḥaver Abū l-Bayān; and (3) notes for drawing up a (debt?) contract between Shelomo ha-Levi and Abū Saʿd b. Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh. RR. ASE. For transcription and Hebrew description, see Rivlin, Inheritance and Wills, #60, pp. 395–96.

Legal declaration, or perhaps a legal query, presenting the facts of a business dispute between the jewel merchants Avraham b. Ḥayyim and Yehuda de לויא. In Hebrew. Dating: Late, perhaps 16th century. Mentions Adrianople (Edirne) and Castile. Information from FGP.

Declaration against Qaraite tendencies, according to Goitein's index card. In Hebrew. Unusually large and beautiful script. The name of the ruler who sent the heads of the community approved by the Gaʾon appears in line 8 of verso and is vocalized as if a foreign name. (Goitein: "Spain? Hardly. For in l. 12, seems to say, "They excommunicated him and cursed him and banned him in the days of the holiday [of Sukkot].") (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Letter from ʿEli b. Yeḥezqel ha-Kohen, in Jerusalem, to a ḥaver, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. Dating: Mid-11th century. (Identification of the sender is based on his handwriting and idiosyncratic orthography.) Mentions correspondence with the Gaʾon, Shelomo, Mevorakh, and Abū l-Ḥasan al-Ṭabīb (the physician). ASE

Recto: Legal testimony, possibly a draft. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated Sunday 9 Iyyar 1559 Seleucid (1248 CE). Place: Fustat. Involves Sulaymān al-Ṣayrafī al-Levi b. Abū l-Munā al-Sukkarī, a sum of 140 dinars, the brothers Abū l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān Al-Levi and Abū l-Faraj Zayn al-Tujjār al-Levi the executors (or heirs?) of the late ʿAmram, and monthly payments of 4 dinars to the brothers. Verso: Jottings in Arabic script and the name "Shelomo b. Yishay ha-Nasi" several times.

Letter of condolence in Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, probably upon the death of the father of the addressee. Elegant prose and calligraphic script.

Letter from Shelomo b. Moshe al-Safāquṣī, in Jerusalem, to Nahray b. Nissim.

Letter from Avraham b. David b. Sighmar, Fustat, probably to Daniel b. Azarya, Jerusalem. The beginning of June 1056. After the passing of Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya, there were new problems to do with kosher butchering. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 746-748, #402) VMR

Accounts of rents of communal apartments occupied (with one or possibly two exceptions) by women, including Dār al-Maqāniʿiyya and Dar Ibn al-Kallām. Dating: ca. 1181 CE. See Med Soc II, App. A, #162. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Bill of divorce. Location: Fustat. Dated: Wednesday, 4 Elul 1392 Seleucid, which is 1081 CE. Husband: Ṣedaqa b. Avraham. Wife: Rashīda bt. Yeshuʿa. Witnesses: Mevorakh b. Saʿadya; ʿEli b. Yaḥyā ha-Kohen. No confirmation of receipt on verso.

Letter from Ṣāliḥ b. Dā'ūd, in Tinnīs, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1055 CE. Regarding the debt and goods belonging to the late Abū l-Faraj Yaʿaqov b. Avraham b. ʿAllān. The money and goods belong to Mevasser, the writer’s brother. Also mentions clothes that the writer probably deals with their manufacture. Ṣāliḥ would have liked to come to Fustat and help with finding the will and accounts of the deceased, but he was prevented by the death of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Mawhūb and by his own illnesses. "As to the illnesses that have befallen me and their permanence, I ask God to accept my sufferings as an atonement and to grant me pardon. While writing these lines, I am unable to . . . the doctor comes to see me every day. I ask God to give me good health and to have mercy on me out of regard for the little ones with whom he has blessed me" (r19–22). Information from Goitein, Med Soc, V, p. 345, and Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #783. VMR. ASE.

Letter from Daniel b. Azarya to Eli b. Amram in Fustat.