Geniza Lab

Letter from Farajūn b. Hilāl, in a provincial town, to an unidentified addressee, in Fustat. Dating: 11th or 12th century. The sender may be Abū l-Faraj b. Hillel, who is the sender of T-S 13J26.19 (1094–1111 CE). Farajūn b. Hilāl reports that he leased the addressee's shops and house. He further reports on Abū Yaʿqūb and the wine; apparently Abū Yaʿqūb has not gone to Fustat as ordered by Sayyidnā, citing his inability to get a ḍāmin to draw up a capitation tax receipt for him. A certain Khalaf wants to empty the shop and set it up elsewhere, but the sender asked him to delay until he had a chance to write this letter. He talked to the amīr, who agreed to permit either the addressee or his son, but not both, to leave the capital. He urges the addressee (or his son) to come quickly with a letter from the rayyis. Khalaf has sent the addressee 1.5 dinars and wants good-quality lac. The sender then reports in detail about the nagid’s beehives, complaining about all the trouble he has had with them, and asks for instructions. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Recto: Letter fragment. In Judaeo-Arabic with occasional Hebrew. Wide space between the lines. Includes the rather violent lines, "We made them taste their desert of the scalding water of hell (ḥamīm al-istiḥqāq), and we took them with the severest [...], and we left them a degraded nation (ḥerpat ʿam)." Verso: Letter fragment. In Hebrew. Greetings to Moshe and Peraḥya "his brother."

Legal document. In Hebrew. Involving Hillel b. Yiṣḥaq known as Ibn al-ʿAmm(?). Needs examination.

Letter from Ṣadoq (b. Shemuel or b. Yehuda) Ibn al-ʿAmmānī, in Alexandria, to Moshe b. Ḥalfon ha-Kohen Ibn Ghulayb ʿAyn ha-ʿEda Paqid ha-Soḥarim etc., in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 11 Sivan, 159 = 4800 + 159 = 4959 AM, which is 1199 CE. The first part of the letter conveys the information that the "rebels" (המורדין) in the congregation of Alexandria have drawn up and signed a decree (taqqana) stating that they will never accept a muqaddam who is not a native of Egypt. They plan to send the decree to Maimonides ("Rabbenu") and ask him to appoint either the judge Yiṣḥaq b. Sasson or the judge Shemuel ha-Levi b. Seʿadya. The congregation offers a hefty initial payment of 50 dinars. (This decree may well be the same one mentioned in T-S 18J3.15, a letter from Barakāt b. Abū l-Ḥasan to Eliyyahu the Judge ca. 1221 CE upon the death of R. Anatoli.) The second part of the letter conveys Ẓadoq's request for Moshe ha-Kohen to intercede with Maimonides so that the new muqaddam will not deprive Ẓadoq of his profession of wirāqa (i.e., his appointment as a warrāq, a copyist and notary of legal deeds). Ẓadoq wants the present arrangment to continue: half of the wirāqa jobs for Ẓadoq and half for the muqaddam. Ẓadoq complains about his difficult financial straits and that he has to sustain two "households," i.e., his two wives. If Ẓadoq loses his income from wirāqa, he will have no choice but to abandon his family and move to Byzantium. In the end, Maimonides did not heed the taqqana of the community, and instead he appointed. R. Anaṭoli b. Yosef of Marseilles as the muqaddam of Alexandria. Ẓadoq's request, however, was accepted. We hear again of the division of the wirāqa between Ẓadoq and Anaṭoli in the year 1216 CE in the document T-S 10J25.3. Information from M. A. Friedman's article on this and related documents.

Letter fragment addressed to Ṣadaqa ha-Ḥakham. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer conveys his sympathy for the addressee's illness. He mentions that R. Sasson has sent "two sedarim of halakhot," including Seder Neziqin in a blue binding.

Letter fragment from a certain Ṣadoq to an unknown addressee.

Letter from Hārūn b. Bunyām to Abū Zikrī Yehuda b. Yosef ha-Kohen. (Same sender and addressee as T-S AS 153.193.) Little of the content remains. On the second piece of paper under the same shelfmark, some 20th-century scholar has written out 20 lines of a Sanskrit-English glossary (e.g., sattva = nature, existence).

Lefthand fragment: Blessing for the circumcision of a boy. In Hebrew. Gives several names. But it is quite faded.

Letter from Shelomo b. Nissim ha-Levi al-Barqī, in Alexandria, to Mūsā b. Abī l-Ḥayy, in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1080 CE. Shelomo had been asked to come to Fustat with his sister, who is Mūsā's wife. He responds that he is not able to come because of his poor health. "You have already been informed, my lord, of my condition following the illness (ḍuʿf). I go about my business only with the use of a cane (ʿaṣā). If God grants me health, I will be delighted to comply. I beg God for this. Hopefully I will find someone to treat me, for here there is no medicine and no physician and nothing to strengthen my spirit (nafsī—Gil translates it as body)." Mūsā has also been suffering from a prolonged illness. Shelomo conveys his sympathies and explains that he only refrained from writing sooner so as not to increase Mūsā's preoccupations (shughl al-sirr). The letter also mentions the purchase of books. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #646.) VMR. ASE.

Letter from Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel to Abu al-Surur Farah, Fustat, ca. 1060.

Legal document. Three horizontal strips from the same document. Dating: 11th century. A widow appoints her son Yosef b. Aharon to sue Yefet b. [...] for all that her husband had left with him. Mentions "the city of חנס that is called אי כפתור," i.e., Damietta. Information from Goitein's note card.

List of names. Faraj b. Nisun(?), Shelom b. Yisra'el, Binyamin b. Simḥa, etc.

Letter from Shemuel Jaryānī to a certain Maʿtūq. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Late, perhaps 16th or 17th century. Dealing with business. "Nothing sold except for the Sultani natron. . . . Please advance me some money and buy me two straps for tefillin." Regards to Sulaymān.

Letter drafts addressed to a certain Shemuel. In Hebrew. Asking him for more money ("the peraḥ that you sent has already run out"). Dating: Probably late.

Letter from Yeshuʿa to two notables, one of whom is ha-Sar Shemuel. In Judaeo-Arabic. The first 15 lines are formalities. In the bottom 8 lines and margin it emerges that Yeshuʿa suffered misfortunes since (coming?) to Cairo, and then God granted health. He would like to pay his respects before he departs. ASE.

Letter copy in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya addressed to Shemuel Ḥemdat ha-Yeshiva. Written on the back of a Fatimid state document (see PGPID 30846).

Field-guide to taxation. Parts of two paragraphs. Written in a large, calligraphic hand. Collesis joint, suggesting it was once a longer rotulus, but also holes where it may have been bound into an archive, quire or codex. Discussed and translated in Rustow, Lost Archive. On verso is a liturgical text and a letter draft in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya (see PGPID 6698).

Letter fragment in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. The language is very legalistic and it could also be a legal document. It seems to be describing the terms of a reconciliation agreement. It ends with the typical ending of a letter, "ושלומך יגדל ואל ידל." In a different hand in the margin: "This letter is for Shela b. Nissim." The document was subsequently torn up and reused for piyyutim.

There are two different fragments bound together under this shelmark. The top one contains the begining of a legal query regarding a court record written in R. Shnuel's court (probably Shemuel b. Hannanya 1139-1159). The bottom fragment seems to be from the end of a letter mentioning Shlomo Halevi b. Yosef.

Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. Avraham to Shemuel b. Baḥur. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer wanted to travel to Tūnis, but when he arrived in Alexandria, the ships were already setting sail. The writer mentions someone named Bū l-Ḥasan b. ʿAṣīda. Information from Goitein's index card.