Geniza Lab

Legal query to Avraham Maimonides about a trader who travelled to Bilād al-Hind, remained there for fifteen years, and reportedly drowned in Fanṣūr, a Sumatran port famous for exporting camphor (Heyd, Commerce du Levant, ii, 592). The question facing Maimonides was whether or not this woman was allowed to re-marry based on the testimony of the Jewish trader who reported the merchant’s death upon his return from Aden. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, via Nathaniel Moses) Old IB number: 233. New IB number: VII, 33

Fragment of a letter from Shelomo ha-Kohen Gaon b. Yehosef. Spring 1025.

Letter from Farah b. Isma`il b. Farah (Busir/Abusir) to Abu Zikri Yehuda b. Moshe b. Sigmar.

Letter from Jalal al-Dawla in the name of Yishai b. Shelomo to the Nasi (president) Yishai b. Jesse, Fustat. January 10, 1254. The letter regarding a book that was found in Abu al-Fatah’s estate after his passing. Yishai declared that the book belongs to his uncle, the Nasi Yoshiyahu b. Yishai so it cannot be sold, but ha-Kohen Nafis al-Dawla is interested in buying it for his son. They ask the addressee, which is in Damascus, for instructions what to do. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #101) VMR

Letter from the two congregations of Alexandria to David Ha-Levi b. Yiṣḥaq, requesting 33 1/3 dinars for the ransom of a prisoner. 1030-1.

Letter from the two congregations of Alexandria to David Ha-Levi b. Yiṣḥaq, requesting 33 1/3 dinars for the ransom of a prisoner. January 1031.

Letter by Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, in Damascus (חדרך), to Yeshuʿa b. Moshe, in Egypt. In Hebrew. Dating: ca. 1145/46 CE. Regarding the will of Maṣliaḥ Gaon. The addressee is not known from other sources. Ḥalfon is currently in the circle of Avraham b. Mazhir, the head of the Palestinian Yeshiva in Damascus, who was likely an in-law of Maṣliaḥ. Ḥalfon asks the addressee to look for the will of Maṣliaḥ Gaon among the two witnesses who wrote and signed in (R. Natan ha-Dayyan ha-Ḥaver ha-Meʿulle and R. Natan b. Shemuel) or other witnesses. If he cannot find it, he should try to reconstruct its text from the witnesses and to send it by land through the desert to Damascus. This letter itself was sent by land. Ḥalfon has praised Yeshuʿa to the yeshiva in Damascus. (Information from India Book 4; Hebrew description below.)

Recto: Court record. Location: Fustat. Dated: Monday 26 Ḥeshvan 1403 Seleucid, which is 1091 CE, under the authority of the Nasi David b. Daniel. Describing the procedure of the divorce process and the settlement between Yequtiel b. Moshe (the representative of the merchants) and Munā bt. Shemuel b. Naḥum. Probably a draft—messy writing and no signatures.

Verso: Bill of sale for a slave. Incomplete and unsigned. Dated: Monday 26 Ḥeshvan 1403 Seleucid, which is 1091 CE. Seller: Meshullam b. Hiba known as Ibn al-Shuwaykiyya (cf. T-S 20.30 and the cluster of related documents). Buyer: Moshe b. Ghālib ha-Kohen. Slave: a woman named Kitmān, born into slavery (muwallada). Price: 25 dinars.

Letter from Sadoq Ha-Levi b. Levi, Jerusalem, to Efrayim b. Shemarya, Fustat, probably 1030.

Letter from Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to Abū l-Barakāt, the uncle of Sitt Ghazāl. He writes of the terrible sickness that has not relented ever since he married. "I have perished. If you saw me, you wouldn't recognize me. I am thin as a toothpick and a ghost in my clothes." All his money goes to potions and chickens, and all the women who visit him tell him that he is the victim of a spell. He begs Abū l-Barakāt and Sitt Ghazāl's father Abū l-Faraj to intercede with the Gaon (Avraham Maimonides per Goitein) and Avraham b. Simḥa the judge and physician and obtain their agreement for a ban of excommunication against whoever bewitched Shelomo ("man or woman, Jew or Gentile, male or female slave, or whoever ordered them to cast this spell") and who does not reverse it. He hopes that the judge Avraham b. Simḥa will declare the ban of excommunication himself, or, failing that, another God-fearing elder. Greetings are sent by: Shelomo, Sitt Ghazāl, Shelomo's brother (Abū Zikri), his maternal aunt (Umm Abū l-'Izz?), her son (Abū l-'Izz?). Greetings are sent to: Abū l-Barakāt, his wife, his brother Abū l-Faraj (al-mawlā al-makīn), and his father (Abū l-Ḥasan). Information in part from Goitein's note cards. See T-S NS J223 for another note in which a person asks for a ban of excommunication against whoever bewitched him. There does not seem to be any way to determine if these two documents are connected. ASE.

The widow of Hiyya, a well known Fustat judge active 1129-1160s, wrote this expressive Hebrew petition to the Jewish congregation of Fustat. Her father was Shelomo,”the great prince',” i.e. someone with a position in the state administration. She informs the community of her difficult financial circumstances in explicitly gendered language: "(I write to) your honor due to the pressing times and their vicissitudes (even) on the rich who know well in their wisdom how to manage their wealth so that it will not decrease and dwindle. How much more (difficult are these times) on she who is hidden in the belly of the earth and is dependent on all." She also mentions that she has instructed a certain Menahem to speak on her behalf and collect money for her. On the back of the Hebrew petition are some 14 lines in Arabic script. They are directly related to the Hebrew petition as the second Arabic line mentions ”the daughter of the rayyis Salāma” and the fourth line mentions the same Menahem from the Hebrew petition. (Information from Oded Zinger)

(a) Letter to Yakhin ha-kohen b. Nashi (נשי) . The writer fulfilled the order of the recipient and talked to the Nasi (נשיא) about a certain dispute. The writer is Aharon ha-kohen b. Eliyahu. On verso, pen trials and the Arabic script address of the letter

Letter in Hebrew from the widow of the well known mid 12th century Judge Hiyya b. Yishaq. The widow is stressing her powerlessness (היא חבויה בבטן האדמה וצריכה לכל) and asks assitance from the community. On verso is an Arabic-script petition with a few Hebrew words added to it. Are the Hebrew and Arabic petition related in some way?

Legal document. In Hebrew. Location: Fustat. Dated: [12]91 Seleucid, which is 979/80 CE. Settlement of a marital dispute between Shelomo b. Yeshuʿa ha-Levi and Sittāna bt. Ah[aron]. The dispute evidently arose on account of lack of offspring. They went to the court intending to divorce, but they ended up settling. The main outcome has to do with Sittāna's burial expenses should she die before her husband. According to Jewish law, burial expenses are incumbent on the husband if he outlives his wife; in exchange, he inherits her property. (Whereas if he dies first, it is the wife's family who buries her and inherits her property.) In the present document, Shelomo commits to this obligation and, moreover, to bury her in the same quality of clothing that she has been accustomed to wear ("with which I clothed her") in her lifetime. To this end, the document lists the kinds of clothes she wears. Witnesses: the scribe [...] b. Shemuel ha-Kohen; Fashshāṭ b. Shemuel (who also signed T-S 16.49 and T-S 12.496); and Baqāʾ b. Mevasser (who also signed T-S 12.161, ENA 4010.10, and apparently also T-S 16.49). (Information from Friedman, Polygyny.)

Poem, probably as part of a letter to the community of Damietta and the head of the community Perahya

Legal dispute between Abu Nasr b. Efrayim 'known as Kathir the Gazaite' and his brother Abu Ishaq. The object of litigation: some household goods and dirhams inherited from the brothers' mother. Dated Tammuz 1443/ July 1132. Verso: deed of sale of half of a house. Dated 1132/1133. Lines 2&3 of verso are continuation of recto. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 436). On verso another court record titled 'Wuhsha's daughter' concerning the sale of a house in Qasr al-Sham' to Sitt Ghazal b. Siba' b. Yehuda al-Damashqi the wife od Avraham Hakohen b.al-Tuwan. (Written by Halfon b. Menashshe Haelvi. AA)

Legal deed, not completed. In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1155 Seleucid, which is 1143/44 CE, under the authority of Yehoshua (b. Dosa). This is the only example of a reshut formula for this otherwise unknown figure. The deed probably is a deed of gift from a father to his daughter. See M. A. Friedman's article on Zuta, pp. 477–78.

Deed of sale of quarter of a house. Written by Nathan b. Shemuʾel.

Quittance (bottom part only) signed by Eliya b. Zekharya and Elazar b. Avraham