Geniza Lab

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals.

Business letter from Mufaḍḍal al-Kohen to Abū l-Banīn. In Arabic script. The sender apologizes for his delay. He has sent camphor candles (shamʿ kāfūrī, also sometimes translated as camphorated wax) with the bearer (Aodeh incorrectly read samgh, gum, rather than shamʿ). The lower part of the letter is missing. On verso there is a medical prescription in Arabic script.

Unidentified document(s) in Arabic script. Might be official.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. The handwriting is similar to some of the Andalusī correspondents of Ḥalfon b. Netanel. The physical letter is almost entirely preserved, but the text will be illegible without multispectral imaging.

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals.

Rent receipt? Mentions someone al-Ḥanafī and someone al-Yahūdī, and rent for a house for Muḥarram and Ṣafar 1057 AH = February/March and March/April 1647 CE. There is a seal imprint in the margin.

Unidentified document(s) in Arabic script. Maybe drafts. The first long line mentions al-Shaykh al-Amīr Fakhr al-Dawla Ibn Ṭāhir [...]. Needs further examination.

Folio from a fiscal accounting ledger. Four different entries, each with its own set of ʿalāʾim. The one on verso is dated [13 Dhū l-Ḥijja?] 509 AH = 1115/16 CE. Compare T-S AS 184.217.

Fiscal accounting ledger recording the monthly ground rent (ḥikr) payments for properties in Qaṣr al-Shamʿ made by Manṣūr b. Musallam/Muslim for the years 503 and 504 AH = 1109/10 CE and 1110/11 CE. Needs further examination.

Account in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Mentions "mā iqtaṭaʿa min X" and lists values corresponding to wheat and barley. The text on verso seems different and is unidentified. Needs further examination.

Recto: Private account in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Verso: At the top, apparently a tongue twister about two roosters with funny names: كان لنا ديكين اسم الواحد الشقحقفي والاخر الشقح قفتقوا(؟) قام الشقحقفي يقف قفح قفا الشقح قفتقوا(؟) شقح قفوا(؟) صاح. Underneath possibly anecdotes or possibly accounts involving birds. Needs further examination.

Letter fragment in Arabic script. Only the basmala from recto and the address from verso are preserved. Apparently from one amir in the service of al-Afḍal (shākiruhā(?) al-afḍalī al-juyūshī) to another, called "al-amīr al-muntajab ʿaẓīm al-umarāʾ.... al-juyūshī." Needs further examination.

Probably a bill of divorce, but possibly a deed of manumission. From the cantor Elʿazar b. Yehuda ha-Kohen. Contains the phrase שבוקין כדת משה וישראל. Almost nothing else is preserved.

Letter or petition in Arabic script. Fragmentary (upper left corner). Addressed to somebody titled [al-shaykh al-ʿālim] al-ʿāmil al-wariʿ al-zāhid [...] ʿAbd al-ʿAliyy Ibn al-Sukkarī. The next two lines refers to a city name (X al-maḥrūsa) and then perhaps to a neighborhood (al-[...] al-qadīma) where the sender lives or used to live. Line 6 then mentions something made out of copper and a lead ring. Needs further examination.

Arabic writing exercises probably.

Printed fragment in Arabic script, perhaps from a newspaper. Mentions a public auction, a telegram (risāla barqiyya), and something Austrian.

A few words in Hebrew script. Yiddish??

A few words in Hebrew script. Yiddish??

Treatise of ḥadīth. Identified by Paul Fenton as al-Qushayrī's epistle on Sufism (he cites T-S NS 297.8, T-S NS 297.188, T-S NS 297.288, and T-S NS 306.132). (Paul Fenton, “Judaeo-Arabic Mystical Writings of the XIIIth-XIVth Centuries,” in Norman Golb, ed., Judaeo-Arabic Studies (Amsterdam, 1997), 92.)

Accounts in Arabic script for the 23rd of a month.