Geniza Lab

Four pages of accounts. Dated: July 1150 CE. Concerning the sale of cheese, wax, wine, and silk, and the collecting of contributors for the community. Mentions Damsīs. Signed Yiṣḥaq b. Moshe. Same script and arrangement, it seems, as Westminster Arab I 160. Dinar:dirham exchange rate is 1:42. Information from Goitein's notes.

Recto: Petition or letter. In Arabic script. Dating: late 11th century. Excerpts: "...the Jews, in accordance with that which is known of him and is famous of his... vulgar people (aqwām min al-ʿāmma) [met] with your excellence... their place with him, and from those who help... against them from him, obstruction of joining the noble procession (? al-taʿarruḍ li-liqāʾ al-mawkib al-saʿīd) and raising up petitions (rafʿ riqāʿ)... Daniel b. ʿAzarya al-Dāʾūdī... and the sect of the Qaraites (ṭāʾifat al-qaraʾiyyīn)... headship (bi-l-riyāsa)...." Needs further examination.

Verso: List of names in Judaeo-Arabic. Several crossed out. Accounts of some kind. Some of the names: Naṭīra b. Yosef al-Nāṭūr (the watchman); Naḥum b. Khalaf; [...] b. Baqāʾ b. Zuhayr; Nissin b. Sahlān; [...] b. Isḥāq ʿAkkāwī; Wahbān b. [...]; Wahb b. Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī.

Genealogical list. In Judaeo-Arabic. Abū ʿAlī died, leaving three children: Mūsā, Abū Saʿd, and Sitt al-Kull. Abū Saʿd died, leaving one son: Yaḥyā. Mūsā is still alive and has three children: Abū ʿAlī, Yosef, and Ṣedaqa. Sitt al-Kull is also still alive and has two daughters: Sitt al-Niʿam and Nasab.

Letter. "Discussion or record concerning the case of a man, Sulaymān, who is suspected of being an informer (מוסר). His testimony is given verbatim, ‘in the Arabic language’ (בלשון ערב). It cites Maimonides, Mišne Tora, Ḥovel u-Mazziq 8:9–10, and refers to the Nagid. Verso is written upside-down in relation to recto. Probably 13th century." Information from GRU via FGP.

Genealogical list. Details about the family of Salīm al-Ghazūlī the Levi. Perhaps for the purpose of dividing an inheritance. The wife of Salīm's son Yūsuf is the daughter of Ṭāhir the Deaf, the beadle of Dammūh. Information in part from Goitein's note card.

drafts of poems and a draft of a letter. Attributed to Judah Halevi by Allony. This identification is questioned by Friedman in IB IV/A p. 10-11, n. 37.

List of daily building operations/expenditures, ca. probably 1092. Three days are accounted for, in one week of Elul, from Monday the 11th, to Friday the 15th. The parnas who recorded the list probably advanced money of his own, or even resorted to loans, since he lists the sum collected each day and the deficit, which is called salaf (also dawn). 52 dirhams are due on the first, 21 on the second, and 21 on the third day. Then the total weekly deficit of 94 dir. is listed. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 224 #37)

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic.

Accounts in Arabic script and Judaeo-Arabic.

List of payments made by tenants of the Qodesh, ca. 1059. Revenue from rent written in the awkward hand of the parnas Eli ha-Kohen b. Yahya-Hayim. A hajj, i.e. a Muslim who has performed the pilgrimmage to Mecca, is among the tenants. The document is a double sheet taken from a notebook, written only on recto. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 222 #36)

Legal query addressed to Shemuel b. ʿEli (active ca. 1164–97; identification based on handwriting of the responsum on verso) concerning a man whose son becomes engaged to a woman but calls off the wedding. Can they recoup the early marriage payment that was already paid? On verso is the full responsum in the hand of Shemuel b. ʿEli, answering that whatever was already paid is like a deposit and does not belong to the bride until the wedding, so she must return it. It seems that precisely because of this eventuality, many engagement contracts stipulate that the bride would receive the muqaddam in full or in part if the groom should renege on the promise to marry (and he would get it back if she reneges). Information from Ashur dissertation and FGP description. See also Goitein's note card.

List of recipients of charity (bread) in the same hand, headed 'Friday the 4th (week of the liturgical year), 550 Pounds,' specifying about 140 households receiving approximately 600 loaves of bread. Most of the names in the list T-S NS J41 (= Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages, no. 58) recur in this one, as well as in App. B 19-24 (= Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages, nos. 60-65), but from which group it is separated by many different names.' Ca. 1100. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 442, App. B 18)

Recto: Legal query sent to Maimonides along with his autograph responsum. This was published by Goitein as well as Blau, Maimonides Responsa, no. 283. Verso: Draft of a long dirge in Hebrew, in the hand of Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, upon the death of three prominent members of the Jewish community: the rabbis Shemuel, Shelomo and Yiṣḥaq. These three figures were identified by M. A. Friedman as the judges in Maimonides’ court, see Friedman, India Book IVA, pp. 36–37. Shemuel is Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi, who died in 1203. (Information in part from Amir Ashur's Fragments of the Month, April 2011, November 2016.)

Legal queries addressed to Avraham Maimonides. One involves a man who confesses to adultery with the wife of another man. Another involves a complex inheritance case.

Responsum draft. On the question whether a dead man continues to acquire merit and reject evil. (This is less whimsical than it sounds, e.g., if he has endowed a charitable waqf, does he continue to acquire merit from all the people it helps in the future?) The answer is no, he is rewarded on the basis of the intention that he had when he did the good deed in his lifetime, not on the basis of events that occur after his death. The text has corrections and deletions. Two lines at the bottom of the leaf are in a different hand. (Information in part from GRU catalogue via FGP.)

6 bifolia. These all appear to be literary except for the left folio of P5, which is a legal document. Dated: Tishrei 1437 Seleucid, which is 1125 CE. Concerning a house. Naming people such as Abū l-Fakhr; Abū l-Surūr al-Nassāl(?); ʿOvadya ha-Levi b. Efrayim; Elʿazar ha-Kohen; and Abū ʿAlī. Needs examination.

Recto: Letter/petition in Arabic script. The sender is reminding the addressee to do some favor which was previously agreed upon. Needs examination.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic, also on remaining space of the recto.

Legal document. In Hebrew. Location: Fustat. Dated: 5453 AM, which is 1692/93 CE. Only the last two lines of the legal document are preserved. There is a frame, suggesting that it was a monumental document like a ketubba. There are perhaps 100 signatures, including one in Latin script (Abraham something).