Geniza Lab

Letter of recommendation from the office of Yehoshua Maimonides for the bearer who is named Moshe. See Moss. II,177 for another version of the letter, this one for Shelomo.

Legal document. Court record. Dating: Iyyar 1410 (May 1099). Signed by Nissim b. Nahray, the judge Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi and Hillel b. ʿEli. The recto and the beginning of the first column of the verso concern a partnership between Yaḥyā ha-Levi and Abū ʿAli Yefet b. Avraham involving trading goods and supplying metal to the mint. Profits between the partners are to be divided evenly. Column 2 of the recto describes a dispute between the two partners, the testimony of which is notarized by the judges in Verso, column 1. Verso, column 2, concerns a separate lawsuit, in which Yefet b. Avraham is a litigant and the matter is minting. Here, ʿAmram b. ʿEzra, identified elsewhere as “a banker”, sues Yefet for ten dinars. The two had a number of business ventures in common, including some which were defined as partnerships (mu‘āmalāt). ʿAmram disagrees with the reckoning performed by Yefet. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 268)

Informal note from an unknown writer, to Yiṣḥaq ha-Sar ha-Rofe. The addressee is called "father." The writer explains that there has been a setback in the matter of the qamāqim (misspelled as קאמקם—is this why the writer started over?). They had asked Ṭāhir to make them, but he didn't. ASE.

Letter from a certain Yiṣḥaq to Yosef b. Shabbetay al-Rūmī, Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Very deferential, filled with language of patroange (e.g. li-l-mawlā ʿuluww al-ra'y fī dhālik).The writer has sent the copy of the book and excuses the delay by saying that he fell ill in the winter and it delayed him until now. He asks Yosef to send him the copy of Bereshit, it seems because he is ready to make a copy of it and send it back to him right away. The address is in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic. ASE.

Letter segment, apparently to the Nagid.

Note from Ibn al-Rayyis: Abū l-Ḥasan is to pay 26 dirhams to the bearer.

Account of the Qodesh: revenue from rent, ca. 1040. A very damaged leaf, in the handwriting of Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya. The revenue from several apartments and shops is listed, as collected monthly, during Rabi' al-awwal, Rabi' al-akhir, and Jumada'l-awwal. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 182 #15)

Minute fragment in Hebrew characters.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic, involving silk and mercury. Alexandria and Fustat are named and [...] b. Hārūn.

Slip of paper with expenditure for one week. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 462, App. B 81 [dated 1200-1240])

Legal record. Dated Friday, 3 Av or July 4, 1231. Scribal notes for a draft of a partnership contract. The notes state that Abū Sa‘d has 83 dinars (minus two qirāṭs) together with Manṣūr b. the great-grandson, Suleymān b. ‘Imrān and Futūḥ b. Abū al-‘Izz, with the profit to be split in two halves, half for Futūḥ b. Abū al-‘Izz (less a twenty-fourth) and half for Abū Sa‘d, with Suleymān given 19 as a commenda. The full details of these notes are delineated in the contract itself (see TS 8 J 6.9, verso). (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 182-183)

Agreement between a nephew and his uncle in which the nephew acknowledges having received 500 dinars from his uncle on Hanukkah and that the remaining 500 would be paid next Hanukkah. Dated December 29, 1066. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 254)

Court records and notes in the hand of the judge Natan b. Shemuel. Dating: Ca. 1143 CE. Entries include the estate inventory of Abū l-Barakāt Ibn al-Sharābī (including a huge library containing 200 bound codices), payment of a debt, an instruction to charge the community fund with 75 dirhams, and the sale of a house. (Information from CUDL.) Gil edited one of the entries; this is the transcription below. Record of a payment to an Amir, ca. 1143. Two payments in wheat, due the army commander (amir) Hiṣn al-Dawla, are effected through the qodesh; the account is briefly recorded among other records of the court. The date corresponding to 1143 appears on the reverse side of the document, written in the same hand. A previous PGP description erroneously called this "Rough draft of an agreement between spouses, in the hand of Hillel b. Eli."

Letter from Ashkelon to Bilbays about the ransom of a captive.

Draft of a letter to the 'the Rav' in Mahdiyya, in which the sender writes that he bought quires of books from the inheritance of Berekhya and asks the recipient to have copied or purchased for him additional quires to complete his collection. (Information from Gil)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dating: 1126–29 CE. Containing a statement about Salāma and Ibn Siman Ṭov, Jewish aides/accomplices to the rapacious Coptic finance minister known as "the monk" (al-rāhib), Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ. The background is summarized by Mark Cohen as follows: "In October 1125, the vizier al-Maʾmun, implicated in a plot against the caliph al-Āmir, was deposed and imprisoned along with five brothers, and later executed (in 1128). The caliph, then twenty-nine years old and tired of being cloistered in the shadows of highhanded dictators, attempted after 1125 to rule by himself. Unfortunately, however, he entrusted financial affairs to a rapacious Coptic bureaucrat, Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ, known as "the Monk" (al-rāhib), who, from the autumn of 1126 until his execution in 1129, managed to terrorize all segments of the populace, including the Jews, with his promiscuous confiscations and arrogant demeanor" (Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, p. 284). This document consists of two manuscripts; the right half is T-S NS J272 and the left half is T-S NS 12.91 (the transcription here includes both documents beginning at line 16). (Information from Goitein's index cards; Mediterranean Society, II, p. 281; and Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, pp. 284–85.)

Summary of a power of attorney. Levi b. Ibrāhīm appointed Abū ʿAlī b. Barukh to obtain for him the implements of a silk weaving workshop in the Egyptian village Dahshūr from Maʿālī b. al-Ruqūqī. See Bodl. MS heb. a 2/9, where Levi b. Avraham signs the will of the silkweaver Abū l-Faḍl who leaves silk weaving equipment (l. 12) to his eldest son. Same expressions apear in this document in l. 3.(Information from Goitein's index cards)

Recto: Letter addressed to Nahray b. Nissim. Verso: Draft of a letter from Nahray b. Nissim to a person in the Maghreb. Dating: ca. 1046 CE. Seems like the letter is addressed to someone in the Tāhirtī family. Mentions relatives and ships. Also mentions a visit of Nahray to Alexandria, the status of selling silk, and the arrival of Ibn Basak (Maṣliaḥ b. Eliyya, the judge of Sicily). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #246.) VMR

Fragment of a letter from Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yosef to Nahray b. Nissim. Around 1070. The writer answers Nahray’s request to check the option of buying bonnets. Mentions that their production decreased and therefor their prices are higher. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #843) VMR