Geniza Lab

Legal document, probably in the hand of mevorakh b. Natan. Fustat 1151/2. Abu Ali b. Yefet ha-parnas and Avraham b. Shemarya are the actors. This must be a deed of a sale for a slave called ܺRahj.

Legal document from Minyat Zifta 1178 in which the agent of the widow Nazar bt. Abd Allah recieved 4 dinars from Sa'adya ha-Levi b. Avraham and released him. Signed are Elazar ha-kohen b. yehuda, She'erit b. Masliah the cantor ha-Levi and then there is a qiyyum by Shabtai b. Avraham ha-Dayan he-Ḥaver. | A release for Saadya ha-Levi b. Avraham on 4 dinars he had owed. Dated Iyyar 1489/ May 1178. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Quittance for Saadya ha-Levi b. Avraham on 4 dinars he had owed. Dated Iyyar 1489/ May 1178. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Settlement of a debt to be paid in installments starting marheshvan 1123. The creditor is Yeshua b. Eli . Signed are Avraham b. Shemaya b. Shemayahu gaon , Yishaq b. Shemuʾel ha-Sefaradi and Halfn b. Menashshe who wrote the document.

Power of attorney for a woman appointing an agent. Signed by Sa'adya b. Natan and Elazar b. yeshu'a. On the back is some unclear text

Legal case in which Aziza bt. Elazar the widow of Abu al-khayr Mevorakh b. Meshullam comes to court to collect her ketubba. The court examines her ketubba and does not find in it a trustworthy clause - so she takes an oath. The ketubba is worth over 550 dinars, dower and dowry, and she is thus entitled to some 250 dinars according to the local custom to double the sums in a ketubba. Since her husband did not leave behind anything the court permits Aziza to collect her ketubba from a Muslim to whom her husband mortgaged a piece of real estate. On the back is a Judaeo-Arabic archival note and two lines in Arabic script. (Written by Natan b. Shlomo. AA)

Legal document Aharon ha-levi b. Fuhayd sued Yishaq over some morgaged real estate. The name Yeshu'a b. Shelomo is also mentioned.

Calendar

Piyyutim with a date as if it was a legal document 1117

Calendar list/calculations and a book list

Legal agreement in which Abu al-Husayn al-Halabi the banker agrees to pay Ḥalfon b. Efrayim 8.5 dinars every month on a debt of 15 dinars. Dated Sivan 1411/ May- June 1100. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Legal document according to which Efrayim Abu Kathir b. Masliah owes Yosef b. Shelomo 4 dinars, to be repaid 2 dinars per year. Dated Adar 1411/ February- March 1100. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Legal case from 1100. Shemuel b. Natan he-haver - a well known figure in the Jewish court - now appears as a litigant and sues Sittan bt. Yefet, the widow of Abu Nasr the banker for her daughter, Shemuel's late wife and the mother of his children, left after her death. He also sued his mother-in-law for the share of his late wife in her sister's inheritance, which is half her inheritance. He is also suing for half of the house in which his mother in law lives. The court then asks Sittan and she says that her late husband gave her the house in Muslim courts. She also claims to have dedicated the entire sum inherited from her daughter for the burial and for the wailing (the lamenting of the wailing women). Dated Shevat 1411/ February 1100. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, p. 163, from Goitein's index cards and from OZ. On the back of the document is a continuation of the matter - About 40 dinars her late husband owed Abu Kathir, her in-law (is this Shemuel?)

Legal agreement. Sittān bt. Yefet, widow of Abū Naṣr, pays 40 dinars to Abū Kathīr, which her husband owed him from a business arrangement. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter (copy) from the exilarch Daniel b. Ḥisday (d. probably 1175) of Baghdad to Netanʾel b. Moshe ha-Levi in Fusṭāṭ recognizing his new position in Egypt. Published by Mann in his HUCA Supplement to his Jews volume and later by Assaf in his Letters of Shemuʾel b. Eli (Tarbiz, 1930).

Sermon in Judaeo-Arabic based on a narrative of real events. Dated: shortly after Kislev 1460 Seleucid, which is 1148 CE. The writer may be Mevorakh b. Natan (or may be named Zakkay, as written between lines 1 and 2 of recto). On recto he writes "this is a drash (sermon) that I recorded/composed while in mourning for my son Moshe. I heard this on Friday, 13 Kislev 1460..." There are further details here about the date and the day of the week (he notes in the margin that it is a good sign to die on erev shabbat) and the Torah portion that coincided with the shiva in both Fustat and al-Maḥalla (parashat Vayishlaḥ). The sermon begins on verso. "One Friday, 13 Kislev 1460, I was sitting in al-Maḥalla copying books as is my custom, with the boys studying Torah before me. I heard them talking about an ugly business. I said to them, 'What's this that you're talking about?' They said, "Just what we heard." I said, "Who did you hear it from, and on what authority?" They said, "from the family of the cantor" ['bayt' can also mean wife, but here it is marked as a mixed/masculine plural]. I said, "And where did the family of the cantor hear it from?" They said, 'From their relative Maʿānī in Fustat." I sent for Maʿānī, and as God knows, I was present but absent, estranged, alone, and lonely due to the remnants of an illness and [due to being] surrounded by enemies who await my public downfall..."

Letter from the judge Mevorakh b. Natan ha-Kohen, apparently in or near Ashqelon, to ʿAmram b. Yefet (aka Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAmmār b. Ḥusayn), apparently in Shanshā/Shanashā (شنشا), which is in the Nile Delta north of Minyat Ghamr. In Judaeo-Arabic, with some Hebrew and with the address partially in Arabic script. Written in haste on the road. Dated: 1453 Seleucid, which is 1141/42 CE. The lower part of the letter, together with almost all of the substance, is missing. Mevorakh asks the addressee to obtain or send some gold. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) NB: Golb cites ENA 4011.8 as ENA 4011.7 in "The Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt" (p. 139).

Marriage contract (ketubba). Written on parchment. Location: Alexandria. Dating: 1140–59 CE, under the authority of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Groom: Abū Karam b. [...] ha-Parnas. Bride: Sitt al-Kull bt. Naʿīm, a divorcee. No other details preserved. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Fragment with 4 lines of Arabic script. Quite faded. Needs examination. There is also Hebrew literary text in two different hands.

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Reused for Hebrew literary text. Needs examination.