Geniza Lab

Legal fragment. Needs examination.

Legal fragment. Needs examination.

Minute fragment of a legal document. Practically the only information preserved is that it was drawn up in Egypt in the year 1444 Seleucid, which is 1132/33 CE.

List of 24 persons to be solicited for contributions, headed by the judge and overseas trader Abu al-Mufaddal and the banker Abu Ishaq b. Tiban. Abu al-Mufaddal might refer to the scholarly merchant Nethanel b. Yefet, a nephew of the Nagids Yehuda and Mevorakh, who bore the same by-name. He was believed to be very influential with the viceroy al-Malik al-Afdal. He signed documents in 1098 and died in or shortly before 1121. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 477-478, App. C 18)

List of sums promised or paid (the entries crossed out), ranging from 1/8 to 6 1/2, mostly in fractions, wherefore in cases in which exactly 1 or 2 dirhams were given the word sawa, 'exactly,' was added. The mother of the writer gives 2 dirhams, and in 3 instances the entries consist in balances owed to the contributors. The list probably represents school fees pledged or donated for needy children. On the reverse, notation of prices obtained for 4 books, e.g. Guide of the Perplexed, 30 dirhams, with 2 dirhams for brokerage (see Goitein, Kiryat Sefer 44 [1969], 125-126). In the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu.

Debt contract, draft. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 11 Ḥeshvan 1587 Seleucid, which is 1275 CE. Abū Saʿd b. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Ṣabbāgh is owed a sum of money by Abū l-Faraj b. Abū l-Riḍā al-Ṣabbāgh. A payment schedule is specified. The document is incomplete, and there are no witness signatures.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th century. Mentions Nahray and Abūn.

Family letter in Judaeo-Arabic. From an unidentified man possibly named Karīm, apparently in Zarnīkh (in Upper Egypt, see recto l. 44 and recto right margin l. 3), to his brother ʿĀzir and his mother (or at least an older female relative) Suʿūd the wife of Nissim al-Kohen, in Fustat/Cairo. He alternates between addressing ʿĀzir directly and addressing Suʿūd directly throughout the letter. In Judaeo-Arabic, with many quite modern dialectal features. The handwriting is reminiscent of some of the late Judaeo-Persian documents. The sender frequently mixes up emphatic and non-emphatic consonants (e.g., ק and כ, or ט and ת) and has unusual orthography throughout (e.g., זכות is spelled סכות); it requires further study to determine if this is the norm for Judaeo-Arabic letters of this period or if it reflects some specific linguistic background of the sender. Dating: Certainly 15th–19th century, but this range can likely be narrowed. There are greetings to several other family members and acquaintances (especially in recto, ll.1–8). The sender describes a great number of harrowing violent events and general destruction from which he narrowly escaped. He was being pursued by 'the rajjāla' (policemen of some sort?) who intended to kill him. He was initially traveling with Turks or "Turkmen" (תרקמאן) by land. He had a document (marsūm) with him concerning a certain Ḥasan the son of the kāshif (district administrator). He parted ways with the Turks, and that very night Ḥasan and every one of the Turks was slaughtered and thrown into the sea (or Nile), which the sender discovered when he arrived in Wādī אלעראקת(?). The sender himself continued to be pursued (including by rajjāla coming down from the mountain from ʿAqaba?) until he reached a place called ריואן or דיואן. (At another point in the letter he mentions a place called Wādī al-ʿUlayqāt and a traveling companion named Ṣāliḥ al-ʿUlayqī.) The same group had come in the night and killed the kāshif, and 15 Turks had fled, "and they plundered all of the documents." The next part of the letter deals with 3 gold coins that the addressees are supposed to collect in Fustat/Cairo, and also various commodities, some of which the sender sent with Muḥammad al-Babarī. He asks for either an account (ḥisāb) or a calendar spanning two years. He mentions someone named al-rayyis/al-amir Samāʿīn. He wants Suʿūd and ʿAbd al-Karīm to come see visit him in Zarnīkh, quickly. He emphasizes his bond with Suʿūd with a medical metaphor: "I am your tested theriac, and you are an old woman, and no one (but me) will come to your side and go before you." He asks her to pray for him. He orders ink, paper, and pens, plus some halloumi cheese and olive oil. He gives the strange instruction not to come to him "naked" but to come dressed (well) for the sake of onlookers. He asks Suʿūd to distribute money to the poor for his sake, and to tell his sister Ghāliya to pray for him in the synagogues. In a first postscript, he asks for news of his niece Siwār who was due to give birth. He gives further news about someone else (a rabbi? הראב) who was going to be killed, but then a group called al-jawābir(?) came and killed over a hundred people, and the sender was forced to flee. In a second postscript, he lists various items that he has sent with Muḥammad al-Babarī, instructing the addressees to sell them for a good price. He asks them to take good care of this Muḥammad, including bringing him to the Qaraite physician in order to have a good medicine prepared for him. On verso, in a different hand, there are jottings of accounts in Judaeo-Arabic, along with two lines containing greetings to 'the mother Ghāliya.' Join by Oded Zinger. ASE.

Dowry list (taqwīm). No names No muqaddam or me'uḥar. Among the goods is a female slave named Balgh al-Munā ('fulfillment of wishes'). (Information in part from Goitein's index card)

Goitein describes this list as: 'Distribution of about 430 loaves of bread, weighing 450 pounds, to 104 households on the Friday before the Fast of Av (which fell on Sunday).' It appears on close inspection that the scribe originally wrote sitta, 'six,' making 6 1/2 qintar, or 650 pounds, then changed the word to the numeral 4 (Hebrew letter dalet), thus making 450. The page is folded down the center, making a bifolium, with holes for the binding string down the center, indicating that this page was originally bound in a scribe's notebook. There may have been at least one intervening page between columns. This would account for the discrepancy between the stated number of pounds (loaves) and the computed total. The names indicate this list comes from around the same time as T-S Misc.8.9 and others catalogued in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, II, Appendixes B 19-23, translated in Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages, nos. 59-64, dated ca. 1107. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 442, App. B 17 and from Cohen)

Court register. Record of a dowry assessment (taqwīm). Groom: Yefet b. Ḥalfon. Bride: Qawāma bt. Shabbat. (See Goitein's index card for further information.)

Letter from an old cantor to the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. He is complaining that his post was taken by someone other than his son. He lived in the synagogue compound and whenever he heard the voice of the other cantor, his illness grew worse. "It is in fitting with our sense of justice that any one should retain his position. If my son is treated like this during my lifetime, what will happen to him after my demise?" He mentions that he has "cast himself down" (fa-qad ramā nafsahu) and that his severe illness costs him at least 5 dirhams every day. (Information in part from Goitein, Med Soc II, pp. 89–90).

Legal document (zikhron ʿedut). Dated: Thursday, 13 Elul 1528 Seleucid, which is 18 August 1217 CE. Settlement of the payment of a mu'akhkhar in installments. A total of 15 dinars is reduced to 10, to be paid from the beginning of Shevat in weekly installments of 3 dirhams. For the divorcee's children, 5 1/4 dirhams are to be paid every week from the beginning of Tishrei for the period of 1 year. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Legal document. Incomplete draft concerning a house, in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. Abū l-Manṣūr b. al-Rayyis Abū l-Faḍl gives to his wife Sitt al-Sāda a small house adjoining his own large house situated at the Khalīj. Since the qinyan (symbolic purchase) was made in the house of Abū l-Manṣūr, presumably this gift was made in a time of illness. Dated 13 Sivan. No year. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Dowry evaluation (taqwīm). Dating: ca. 1200 CE. Lists clothing and jewelry. On verso a note in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Letter from Simḥa ha-Kohen in Bilbays to his father-in-law Eliyyahu the Judge.

Lower part of a list of contributors, with 21 persons to be solicited, each carefully described by his family name or profession or both. With three exceptions (including two names written on the margin), all names are preceded by a stroke, indicating perhaps that the task of soliciting the persons concerned had been assigned. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 485, App. C 34)

See PGP 20645

Legal fragment (lower left corner). Almost no details are preserved. Signed by: [...] b. Moshe; Yosef b. Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen.

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe Ibn al-Qaṭāʾif, in Alexandria, to one of his brothers (Ḥalfon or Peraḥya), in Fustat. Fragment (left side of recto). Dating: first half of the 12th century. The letter describes the general mourning of the community in Alexandria after somebody's death. Mentions a cantor from the Ibn al-Jāzfīnī/Ghāzfīnī family; Abū l-Khayr; and a young woman. (Information from Frenkel.)