Geniza Lab

Letter from a father, unknown location, to his son Abū l-Barakāt Shemuel, in Fustat. The father rebukes the son for failing to write and informs him that his mother has an eye disease. They are suffering from poverty and lack of clothing. The father wonders if business would be going better if he were in Fustat and helping manage the shop. He complains about the addressee's brother Abū Naṣr who came up with a scheme to renovate his maternal aunt's house for 2 or 3 dinars. Now, he has spent about 30 dinars, the walls are reduced to rubble, the site has had to be closed, and he is still working on it. The father asks the son to send money to his mother and to respond right away. "Do not make an excuse that the road is closed: people come and go every day by land from your location." The letter and the money should be sent to the shop of the Mumḥe or to the shop of Abū Naṣr al-ʿAfaṣī. ASE

Letter. Quite faded. In Judaeo-Arabic and some Hebrew. Addressed to a dignitary. The sender complains about his poverty and illness. Mentions people who have helped in the past. Mentions food and the synagogue. The text in the margin (the part of the letter best preserved) mentions "a staff, a table, a chair and a lamp" (2 Kings 4:10) in the context of hospitality towards needy foreigners. The sender then mentions a poor and pious relative on his father's side who comes from Ṣaffūriyya (Sepphoris) who ate only chicken (perhaps again an allusion to the generosity of a host). The continuation on verso is difficult to read. Mentions a man titled "al-Meʿutad" and a letter from him. Mentions the community of Damīra and a quarter-dinar. Also mentions Damietta and Tyre. (AA, OZ, ASE)

List of items that the writer is asking his commercial ascossiate to buy for him. one of the items mentions Musa b. Ghulayb, who is a known figure. On teh back there is a not saying that if teh recipent cannot do any of these things, he should not ask someone else to do it but to wait to the arrival of Farah b. al-Jasus. The back also contains an Arabic script address which is hard to read and only the name Yahya b. Tu.. can be made out.

Agreement of the Maghribi congregation written in a late Sephardi hand. The heads of the coomunity agreed that no Jew will enter the synagogue during prayer time while being drunk and that no Jew will beat another Jew in the synagogue during prayer. When it comes to the sanction the document stops and was left incomplete. The page was later used for writing trials on both sides.

List of charity recipients, with names and sums, probably distribution rather than collection. The list starts with names of the communal functionaries titled me'ulle, Rav Yishaq, Nezer and then other names. One entry is "for the house/wife of Ibn al-Jazafini/Ghazfini," a name that appears on other charity lists around 1107: see Zinger, "Women, gender and Law", p. 365.

Letter from Farah b. Isma’il from Alexandria, to his father Isma’il, Fustat. October 22, 1050. Short letter about the money that Farah sent to his father and a request that Isma’il will sell the goods that Farah already sent him, and send him back the money as soon as possible. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #499) VMR (Alt: ENA L43)

Upper part of a letter by Berakhot b. Shemuel mentioning his being cut off from the recipent on account of his illnesses, including ophthalmia at the present time. The word in the penultimate line that looks like "sultan" (Muslim government) is כלט אן, referring to an acute attack of a humor. On the back is a query about litigants in a dispute involving Muslim courts.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic in a late hand - containing what looks like commercial content.

Letter, in Arabic script. Begins with a basmala and ends with a ḥamdala. The contents of the letter are not immediately clear but the writer in l9 asks that he replace the addressee for a certain task "iʿlamanī bihā li-anuba ʿanka". Needs examination.

Letter dealing with commercial matters. Mentioning several names, the most complete are Isma'il b. Sedaqa and Sedaqa b. Malhub.

Letter from a man, in Damietta, to his brother Abū l-Majd, in Damīra. (The sender's name may be legible in the Arabic address.) In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. The sender had sent an invitation with Hiba al-Kohen for the addressee to come celebrate the holidays in Damietta, and he is sad that he did not come. The sender mentions a house and his cousin (the daughter of his maternal aunt). He orders an item from Damīra that should be "blue, veiled with white," and price is no obstacle.

Letter from Eli Ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, Jerusalem, to Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, Fustat. [NB volume number in shelfmark is roman numeral I, not Arabic numeral 1]

Letter. Faded. Addressed to Abū l-Majd. It may be from Yehuda b. Aharon b. al-ʿAmmānī, in Alexandria, to Abū l-Majd Meir b. Yakhin, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender reports that he met with Ibn Bū l-Zakkār; mentions Sayyidnā al-Rayyis; and reports that Hilāl (perhaps Meir's brother of the same name) honored him with his son Maʿānī (perhaps by hiring him as a teacher). At the bottom of recto there is a cryptic passage about someone who said, "You are one of us. We will not reveal our secret to anyone except you. Then when I saw that the matter was going to end badly, I wrote it...." The text in the margin is difficult to read but ends with the sender's distress over "the state of [your] sister." He elaborates on verso, "she is wretched, like a phantom on the bed (cf. ENA 4020.49). . . and the old woman (presumably her mother) is there with her and in even greater distress on account of the sorrow and the poverty, may God look upon them [and have mercy]." These may be the same women who are very sick in T-S 8J22.31. The continuation mentions a funduq and Abū l-Rabiʿ Sulaymān. ASE

Letter in Arabic script with some of the lines marked (erased?) in red ink. On the other side is a Hebrew piyyut

Letter from Yehuda b. Moshe b. Sughmār, in Alexandria, to Abū Bishr Azhar b. Manṣūr (aka Avraham), in Fustat, ca. 1075. Mentions a shipment of silk to Fustat that got wet. The writer cannot come to Fustat, and he asks the addressee to handle some business and money matters for him. The reason for this is that he has numerous illnesses (amrāḍ shattā), the least of which is the jarab (probably trachoma, but the word can also refer to skin diseases), and so he cannot sit or ride. Furthermore, factoring in travel expenses, he does not think the gains will outweigh the losses in his money and his health. But if the addressee thinks it is absolutely necessary, he will bear the 'fasting and difficulty' and make the trip. Meanwhile, a rumor spread in Fustat about Yehuda b. Moshe b. Sughmār, somehow involving Abū l-Faraj Dā'ūd b. Shaʿyā and the ruler Sayf al-Islam (=Badr al-Jamālī?). However, the person who was said to have been the source of the rumour publicly denied it in the synagogue, swearing truthfulness on pain of excommunication. A court decision denying the rumour was also issued. (Information from Gil.) ASE.

Letter from Ismaʿīl b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī (Mahdiya) to his nephew Barhūn b. Ṣāliḥ. Describes a dispute between the sender and another merchant, Abū Yaʿqūb. Mentions that the family house of the Tāhirtis in Qayrawān(?) requires repairs. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 336.)

Letter, apperently by Perahya b. Yosef to Saadya. the glory of the merchants, Abu al-Fakhr b. Ibrahim known as Ibn al-Amshati. The letter starts with Hebrew rhymed blessings and then switches to arabic and mentions Passover and Pentecost (shavu'ot).

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions a ḍamān, a ruqʿa, a letter sent with the son of the Qāḍī of Qalyūb (probably), excuses bad manners by appealing to the constraints of time, reports that al-Rayyis Abū l-Bayān is in excellent health, reports that someone has had a child that would make someone want children even if they had never wanted children before, and mentions ṣāḥib al-khammār (perhaps the friend of the vintner).

Legal testimony (maḥḍar) from al-Maḥalla regarding animal slaughtering. It seems that Shemarya ha-Kohen was granted the right to be sole slaughterer and another man entered into a legal agreement and swore an oath that he would not slaughter — but now he has been witnessed violating that oath. The fact that there is a legal document on the back as well, may suggest this was a page from a court notebook.

Letter from a certain Yiṣḥaq to Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender had asked for a piece (qiṭʿa) of something, but it didn't arrive in time, and now the need has passed. He now asks for malāff(?) ẓāhiriyya(?) from Dār al-Bayḍ ("Casablanca"), perhaps a type of garment. Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbdallāh al-Baghdādī should send it to him with the muleteer (ḥammār).