Geniza Lab

Legal document. Dated April/May 1141 CE (Iyyar 1453 Seleucid). Drawn up in Fustat. Regarding the sale of a house in Minyat Zifta costing 9 dinars. Between Farajiyya bt. Ṣedaqa and Ṣedaqa b. Yūsuf. 6 1/3 dinars had been paid, and a balance of 1 2/3 dinars were to be paid in Tishrei (Sept/Oct). Witnesses: Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen b. Eli ha-Kohen and Yakhin b. She'erit. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter from Faraḥ b. Yosef, in Alexandria, to Yehuda b. Menashshe, in Fustat. Dating: May 12, 1069. Regarding shipments of gold and exchange of dinars for dirhams. Mentions the ships that sailed from Alexandria to the west, probably the first ones after the winter. The writer asks the addressee to drop a debt of 40 dinars that he borrowed from Abu Naser Thibt b. Sadan al-Bagdadi, a person who came to Alexandria in order to travel to the Maghreb, but missed the ship and returned to Fustat. Also Mentions details about the situation in Sicily and the battles there. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #520) VMR

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: [1]494 [Seleucid], which is 1182/83 CE. Signed by ʿEli b. Netanel ha-Levi. Needs examination for content.

Letter or letter draft from Yeshuʿa b. Yefet ha-Kohen addressed to two people. Introduction in Hebrew and body in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions 10 dinars and various business matters. Someone with a different hand than the scribe has copied out many of the words in the spaces between the lines.

Letter from Barhūn b. Ṣāliḥ al-Tahirti, in Alexandria, to Mūsā b. Yaḥyā al-Majānī. Dating: ca. 1045 CE. Barhun deals with buying and selling goods in Būṣīr and Alexandria. The addressee is probably the grandson of Mūsā b. Yaḥyā who is mentioned in another letter from the beginning of the 11th century. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #334) VMR

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions someone named al-Shaṭranjī (=the chess player). Needs examination for content.

Letter from Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm addressed to someone close to the Nagid. In Judaeo-Arabic. He is asking a favor and repeatedly refers to the "nawba" (public lesson? serving as a representative?) of Malīj. Mentions people such as Abū l-Ḥasan the Talmid; the cantor Ṣadaqa ha-Levi; the cantor Ibn Nufayʿ. Needs examination.

Letter from Natan b. Mevorakh ha-Kohen, in Ashqelon, to ʿUlla ha-Levi ha-Parnas b. Yosef, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 1110 CE per Gil. Mentions a letter containing instructions from Eliyyahu b. Evyatar ha-Kohen and the flax of Abū l-Barakāt al-Jaʿfarī. (Information from Gil.)

Letter from Barhūn b. Ṣāliḥ al-Tahirti, in Barqa to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1045 CE. Barhūn writes at length and in detail about his disagreement with a person who was his business partner for trading textiles. It seems that after his stay in Alexandria, Barhūn traveled to Barqa. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #329) VMR

Marriage contract (ketubba). Dating: Unknown. Location: Jerusalem. Groom: Avraham b. Gershom. Bride: ʿAzīza bt. Mevorakh, a divorcee. See Goitein's index card for further information.

India Book 4 (Hebrew description below; English to come)

Letter from Maymūn b. Efrayim (Alexandria) to Yosef b. Yaʿaqov b. ʿAwkal (Fustat). Contains information about the movement of wares via Alexandria and about financial matters. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 551.)

Probably a letter. In Hebrew, in flowery style. The portion preserved consists entirely of blessings.

Letter from an unidentified man in the Rīf to someone important in Fustat. Dating: 1112–ca. 1126, as it mentions the Nagid Moshe b. Mevorakh. In Judaeo-Arabic with a large amount of Hebrew mixed in. The sender complains at length about his poor state in this "exile" and his poverty. Also mentions Shela b. Moshe ha-Levi. On verso there are formulae of rhymed opening lines of letters addressed to notables (e.g. Rosh Yeshivat Gaon Yaʿaqov).

Letter from the ḥaver Yehoshuaʿ b. ʿEli al-Lādhiqī(?), in Jerusalem, to Abū l-ʿIzz(?) b. ʿEli Abū Manṣūr, in New Cairo. The letter consists of a Hebrew poetic panegyric, apparently to accompany the tzitzit (fringes) which the addressee had ordered from the sender (along with prayers on his behalf in Jerusalem). Written on 1 Tammuz. There are good wishes for recovery from illness (maybe the occasion for the order of tzitzit and prayers). On verso there are many other Arabic jottings.

Letter from Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq, in Aden, to Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi. Dating: October/November 1140 CE. In Judaeo-Arabic. Concerning the plunder of Aden (involving a person called al-Dughaym and the struggle between "the two Sultans" (=ʿAlī b. Abū l-Ghārāt and Sabaʾ b. Abū Suʿūd)), losses at sea, and the sender's failure in purchasing a household male slave (waṣīf) from a ship from East Africa (Bilād al-Zanj) containing newly enslaved individuals (raqīq). (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book II-48.)

Late business/family letter in Hebrew from Shelomo Binyamin to his brother-in-law, also named Shelomo. He reports that ships from Messina and Ancona have arrived, but not yet the ship from Venice. He mentions several names: Avraham Palma, Yizhaq Fijo (? פיגֿו), Avraham Iskandarani, the writer's son Shem Tov, Yizhaq Castro (so this is probaby 17th century), the Hakham ha-Shalem and his son Shemuel, among others. This letter is mentioned several times in the publications of Abraham David. ASE.

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Written in the hand of court clerk Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Yefet b. Avraham and a party whose name is not preserved agree to a yearlong partnership, with accounts sent to Yefet every four months. There also may have been a distribution of partnership profits after six months. Yefet does not demand that the account be notarized. The soundness of mind clauses hint at a release; the unpreserved section of this document may have terminated an existing partnership, which was renewed in the preserved portion. Each partner may have been responsible for part of the active trading. Profits and losses are to be split evenly between the two partners. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 249)

Letter from Mawhūb b. Aharon the ḥazzan to Nahray b. Nissim.

Letter from Manṣūr to either his son or his father Abū ʿImrān. (Both are referred to as ואלד, but this is sometimes the spelling for ולד in this period.) In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 13th–16th century. Mentions numerous business matters. Commodities include textiles and vessels. Names include: Yosef; Saʿdūn b. [..]āʾil; Makīn the son of the sister of al-M[...]; Dāʾūd the boy of the shaykh; Umm Maryam; ʿAbdallāh; al-Shaykh al-Thiqa Kātib al-Jawālī ('secretary of the capitation taxes'); al-shaykh al-ṣafiyy; al-shaykh al-shammas. Mentions the term jāmikiyya (v6). Needs further examination.