Geniza Lab

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dated: August 1181. This document preserves the lower part of a partnership agreement between the brothers Abū al-Faraj and Abū al-Mufaḍḍal in a shop selling food. The partners are allocated maintenance from the shop’s stores, as well as one dirham each per day. The two are to eat and live together, though they are given the option of eating separately, in which case Abū al-Mufaḍḍal is to take two dirhams and Abū al-Faraj is to take four dirhams as maintenance. As well, they will divide profits, though the division itself is not specified but is likely an even division, as is explicit in the case of losses. Interestingly, although the two seem to work close at hand, the text includes the provisions for "trust and avoid[ance of] betrayal" that is often seen in long-distance agreements. The recto is signed by Joseph ha-Levi b. Samuel, later a member of the court of Abraham Maimonides; as well as Levi ha-Levi b. Abraham, a scholar and cantor. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Society", 195)

Legal deed, draft, regarding the estate of Avraham ha-Levi the teacher b. Yosef b. ʿAnan, which had been deposited by the Beit Din with ʿEli b. Efrayim b. ʿEli al-Tinnīsī. Mentions Yehuda b. Meshullam b. Zekharya the scribe b. ʿAnan and Jāliyya bt. Zekharya the scribe b. ʿAnan. The traces of writing between the lines and in the margins appear to be additions to the text and, perhaps, traces of an earlier text. On Yosef b. ʿAnan, a scribe whose copy of a codex of ketuvim still survives in Cairo, see Meital in JQR 2020. (Information from Goitein's index cards). Verso contains rhymed Hebrew verses.

Court record of acknowledgment of debt to be paid back in weekly installments. Drawn up in Fustat Tishri 1526/September-October 1214. (Information Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 388, 492)

Letter from Abun b. Sedaqa in Jerusalem to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat. Dating: November 1064 CE. The main subject is the tension between the writer and Nahray's cousin, Yisrael b.Natan. Other subjects include details about the burning of ships in Sicily. Opens with a vivid description of the general grief following the death of Sittāt, the wife of R. Natan, who left a boy of 2 years. "How terrible is our grief! It has destroyed us (haddatnā) and sickened us (amraḍatnā).” A government edict threatened to make a dignified funeral impossible, so the mourners considered simply burying her within the walls. “We contracted from this a terrible convulsion (rajf ʿaẓīm),” Abūn writes, “and we gave a bribe and brought her out at night.” ASE

Recto: legal document, in which eight persons, Levi b. Yaʿaqov ha-Levi, Avraham b. Sahlān, Efrayim b. Shemarya, David b. Aharon ha-Levi, Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq, Shelomo b. Seʿadya, Shelomo b. Ḥakīm and Shelomo b. David undertake to refund Ismaʿīl b. Ṭalyūn (=Shemuel b. Avṭalyon) the sum guaranteed for the ransom of two captives. Dated: 1333 Seleucid, which is 1021 or 1022 CE. Verso: list of contributions in Arabic script. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Letter of business from Isma'il b. Ishaq al-Andalusi, in Tyre, to Nahray b. Nissim. The writer alludes to his great losses at sea while simultaneously thanking God, who has replaced what has been lost many times over. Also includes a quotation from II Shemuel 14:20. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:60, 332, 405, 485; 5:239, 571, 572) EMS

Record of a release involving Nissim b. Ṣedaqa and Bahiyya bt. Ḥalfon. T-S 12.94, T-S 10J5.13, and T-S 13J37.9 are all draft documents related to each other (possibly a join), and they are somehow related to T-S 20.30. All need further examination. (Information in part from Goitein's index cards.)

Court validation written by Yeshua b. Josiah b. Shemaya Gaon. Dated ca. 1140. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 584)

Contract in which a payment of 25 dinars is agreed upon for a copy of sections of the Torah, to be copied after the model of the first section previously made by the scribe for the same customer. Dated to midlle of Sha'ban year 412 (A.H.), which corresponds to late November 1021 C.E.

Court record. Dated: 1408 Seleucid, which is 1096/97 CE. Of a dispute between Abū ʿImrān Moshe b. Moshe Ibn Majjān and Abū l-Faḍl Yosef b. Yoshiyya al-Dhahabi, which arose when the former claimed from the latter a complete bible codex he had bought from him some time before. The resolution is that Abū l-Faḍl gives the codex to Abū Sahl Menashshe to give to Abū ʿImrān (because he had taken a vow that he would never give it himself). (Information in part from Goitein's index cards). Join: Oded Zinger

Legal record of a release. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Dating: End of the 11th century. In which Nissim b. Aharon and his son are released from every responsibility regarding a codex sold in order to provide its owner with protection against cold weather and hunger. The man is described as poor and 'stricken of mind' (maʾūf al-ʿaql).

Record of release granted by Yefet b. Eli al-Tinnisi to his wife Turfa bat Tobias whom he releases from all obligations. Only a fragment of the date is surviving (27 Adar.. ).

Attestation (qiyyum) of a legal document by the Gaʾon Maṣliaḥ b. Shelomo ha-Kohen (1127–39); also signed by Moshe b. Sadoq Av Beit Din (president of the high court) and Yehuda b. Shelomo. The main document (now missing) was signed by the parnas Hillel b. Shabbat ha-Kohen and the cantor Eliyyahu b. ʿEli he-Ḥaver. See NLI 577.3/5 for another attestation of a document by Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon.

Letter from Natan Ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh in Ascalon, to Ulla Ha-Levi Ha-Parnas b. Yosef in Fustat, probably ca. 1110.

Letter from Daniel b. Azarya informing one of his supporters in Cairo that an unnamed prominent person had received a friend of his opponent in Dagun (a suburb of Ramla) and on top of that had not answered his letters. He urges his supporters to have the vizier write to the aforementioned man. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Verso: Court record in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Concerning a purse of 77 dinars bearing the name of Yaʿaqov b. Yaḥyā, and mentioning the parnas Moshe b. Maṣliaḥ, , Barakāt, Elʿazar b. Berakhot and [Yaʿaqo?] b. Ismāʿīl. Related to T-S Misc.29.62a. The question is whether the late judge declared that the purse belonged to Yaʿaqov b. Yaḥyā, or whether he only handed it over to him. On recto there is a fragment of a rhyming letter in Hebrew. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Letter from Yehuda b. Isma’il al-Andalusi, from Sicily, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. August 9, 1062. Regarding shipments of textile, especially silk, to Nahray. Nahray sends pearls and camphor. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #578) VMR

Draft of the end of a letter, with many corrections, sending greetings to Elʿazar ha-Kohen. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Fragment of a letter mentioning the plight of a woman who has a house 'under the administration of the court' but whose requests are not being heard. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 494; IV, p. 171)

Fragment of a document preserving the beginning of an appeal by a plaintiff who feeling himself unjustly treated is exercising his right to interrupt public prayer until his case is heard. Involves Abū ʿAlī b. al-ʿĀbid.(Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 324, 598)