Geniza Lab

Few words from a letter - needs examination.

Minute fragment - needs examination.

Small fragment of a list - needs examination.

faded and damaged - needs examination.

Small fragment - needs examination.

Fragment from the top of a legal deed, probably a deed of acknowledgment (iqrār). In Arabic script. Only the introductory blessing and part of the muqirr's physical description are preserved.

Minute fragment - needs examination.

Fragment of a deed of sale for 12 out of 24 shares of a house. In Arabic script.

Small fragment with a few words of Arabic script.

Legal note, probably for the drawing up of a proper document. In Arabic script. ʿAllun b. Ḥasan b. [...]ṭā al-Ṣayrafī owes 70 dinars to Mūsā b. Zikrī(?).

Small fragment with a few words in Arabic script.

Cryptic note in Judaeo-Arabic. Maybe the address of a letter (to Fustat/Cairo). Dating: 18th or 19th century.

Love poetry. In Arabic script. To the effect that passion is a terrible disease whose only cure is union. On verso there are 6 unidentified lines in Arabic script in a different hand

State document, probably. In Arabic script. Dated: Looks like 527 AH, which would be 1132/33 CE. (This might also be a kharājī date.) The document has a basmala; a block of text ("... from the area known as ....") that ends with the date; a block that may specify a sum of money (min al-ʿayn...), and then an itemized list in which three entries are preserved, each starting with "receipt: in the name of..." (wuṣul: bism...). On verso there are two more lines, in which the name Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm appears.

Document(s) in Arabic script. Recto has two lines in a chancery hand, slanting upward, wide space between the lines. The other side has two more lines in smaller letters and a sloppier hand. Needs examination.

Accounts in Arabic script. On the back of a treatise on the sciences (also in Arabic script).

Family letter. In Arabic script. Likely from a woman. The sender and "the girl" (al-ṣaghīra) have arrived safely in the Fayyūm (l. 5). They are settling in magnificently, for "the people of the area honor me and serve me and fulfill all my needs." The happiness is spoiled only by homesickness and longing "for all of the noble sisters" (jamāʿat al-sittāt al-khawāt). Greetings to somebody's mother; a woman's son; Abū Manṣūr ("please kiss his hands for me"); Sitt al-Khafar ("please kiss her eyes for me"); the sender's brother Abū l-Surūr ("kiss his hands"); again Abū Manṣūr; the mother of Muḥammad(?); and again Sitt al-Khafar. The last two lines on verso may be an address, but they are tricky to read. ASE

List of something. In Arabic script. On the other wide, "wa-ʿamiltu hādha l-fihrist...." Needs further examination.

Letter draft. Unclear if this is a genuine letter or a formulary/specimen. On verso there are gnomic sentences in Arabic script and in Hebrew.

Letter or official correspondence. Dating: Possibly Ayyubid or Mamluk-era. From "your slave and son" to "al-majlis al-[...] al-[...] al-makhdūmī al-thiqatī al-amīnī muʿtamad al-mulūk wa-l-salāṭīn." The occasion for this "khidma" is that the sender met with somebody (most of the rest of the document is lost).