Geniza Lab

Legal note. The first part is in Arabic script: "What remains (owed) to al-Shaykh Abu l-Faraj...." The sum is 25 wariq dirhams. Dated: Shaʿbān 539 AH, which is 1145 CE. (Or possibly 639 AH/1242 CE?) The next part is in Judaeo-Arabic: ṣaḥha dhālika bi-ḥaḍratinā wa-kataba Shelomo b. [...].

Accounts, probably. In Judaeo-Arabic. Listing many names and numbers.

Letter addressed to Yiṣḥaq Yaʿaqov. In Hebrew. Dating: Probably 16th century. Mentions the trade in raisins. Mentions various worries about 'the house' and the need to clean it and keep an eye on it, lest thieves enter. Also mentions some of the sender's debtors who have died, including Matteo "the uncircumcised." On verso there are some cryptic jottings in Hebrew script. (Information from Avraham David via FGP.)

Letter addressed to Simḥa the physician (al-ḥakīm). In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu? Only the conventional expressions of longing at the beginning and the very end of the letter (in the right margin) are preserved. The letter text is surrounded by jottings in Hebrew and Arabic script.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably late. Mentions many names, many of them Muslim (Aḥmad, Muḥammad, etc.). Mentions diverse commodities, including "daḥārīj" and the hide of a water buffalo (jild jāmūs).

Memorial list. On verso calendar for the year 1047

Recto: An account in Judaeo-Arabic. Verso: Disorganized lines in Arabic.

Recto: A document in Arabic script. Most lines end with a word containing a long horizontal line. Poetry? Verso: Hebrew poetry.

Fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic letter. No identifying information remains. "If it were not for the cold weather, I would have already sent it. May God make everything good and prosperous. You write to me again and again but do not tell me what is with her [or it]. I ask my lord. . . My regards to everyone in your care. . . My cousin sends his regards."

Recto: The right half of a neat grid, with boxes numbered 1 through 39, each containing a biblical phrase. Perhaps for the counting of the Omer? Verso: Scattered writing in Arabic.

Fragment of a Hebrew legal document from Fustat/dated 1771/2 CE (5532) certifying that Yaʿaqov Katāḥ (?) b. Avraham and Me'ir Shapurti (?) b. Afidah (?) have completely settled their accounts with each other.

Recto: A theological/philosophical discourse (transcribed by Zachy Ben Hamo on FGP). Verso: Possibly a fragment of a late Hebrew letter.

Small fragment of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic. "I read your [letter] and understood all you mentioned. . . As for what you mentioned about the Qaraite (? al-qara) with you. . . " Nothing more remains.

The main block of writing is a folktale in Judaeo-Arabic about a very poor man ("who worked for two dirhams each day") who came home one day penniless. "The cat came and sat before him, he had nothing to feed it." There is a proverb of some sort on the facing page. In huge Arabic letters overlying the folktale is someone's signature: al-ʿabd al-mamlūk . . . Abū Yūsuf al-[...].

Recto: Fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic letter. Verso: A scrawled record of a property lease dated 23 Nisan 1539 Seleucid = 1228 CE. The renter is Abū Naṣr al-Levi b. Abū l-Maʿānī al-Levi (ZL), and the property owner is Abū Saʿd b. al-Rayyis Mufaḍḍal (ZL).

List of names in Judaeo-Arabic, containing a partial/confusing date. On verso there are names and jottings in Arabic, including parts of the same names on recto.

Recto: Likely the flattering introduction from a Hebrew letter. Verso: List of names including Salāmah Ra's al-Kull, Abū l-Faraj b. al-Qaṭā'if, Yūsuf Ṣayrafī, Isḥāq Sharābī, [...] b. Ukht Shumʿān, among many others.

Two lines in Arabic, the first of which reads: "The number is 11 candles."

Small fragment of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic (upper margin only on recto, address only on verso), from Ḥasan b. ʿAmram to Abū l-Mufaḍḍal Netanel b. al-Ḥaver. The remaining section of the letter is a phiosophical consolation for some sort of suffering, namely that corruption is inherent in the existence of bodies. There is then a magic square with Arabic letters.

Fragment of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic to be delivered to the Square of the Perfumers, probably to R. Elazar ha-Dayyan who is named three lines from the bottom (and again on verso in a crossed-out line). The writer mentions the bearer of the letter, orders commercial goods, and tells the recipient not to delay.