Geniza Lab

List of payments or accounts in which the heading labels the document as a "חסבת" or conceivably a "חסבה/حسبة" if we disconnect the word from its Arabic idafe-construction. The term may indicate a "receipt" or simply a "sum" of money which is likely expressed here in alphanumerical figures. The heading states that this "חסבה/حسبة" is connected to one "Yūsuf ibn Salam[?]/יוסף אבן סלם". MCD.

List (FGP)

Petition or report, Fatimid, fragment from near the beginning containing end of blessings, the taqbīl clause, and part of the qiṣṣa. Dating: 1100–71.

Ladino glosses on Judges 4.

Brief official letter in Arabic script, in a chancery hand. The addressee is to give the bearer Yūsuf and ʿInān(?) 100 silver pieces "for Minyat Ghamr" (the significance of "for"/bi-rasm is not clear here). 100 qinṭārs of bread (about 5 modern tons) should be sold "for it" (bi-rasmihā). (Again the significance is not clear.) The fragment was later reused for Hebrew piyyuṭ (El Melekh).

Responsum that deals with someone who, due to financial troubles, must move to another city to find work despite an explicit prohibition against it in his wife's Ketubba. The identity of the person to whom the question was directed is unknown. Danzig quotes Adler's opinion that the rabbi was Maimonides, however, there is no proof for this. The Responsum asks: May the husband force his wife to join him against her will? If the answer is no, must he divorce her, as he transgressed an explicit condition in her Ketubba? If the answer to both questions is negative, must he give her child support while he is away? Must he only provide for his kids in this period? The answer has not been preservEd. In the rest of the page and in the right-hand margins there is a piyyut that continues on the reverse side (not presented here).

Original use: Verses from Leviticus. Secondary use: The margins are entirely filled with Arabic-script text from documents, mostly or entirely petitions or official-sounding letters. The text in the upper margin on both recto and verso addresses "sayyidnā al-qāḍī al-ajall al-rashīd ʿImād(?)...." Recto, right margin: mentions 'the auspicious seat/council' (al-majlis al-saʿīd) and 'the aforementioned service' (al-khidma al-muqaddama dhikruhā). Recto, lower margin: standard formulae for offering to carry out a service for the addressee, dated 24 Jumādā II 50[1?] AH. ان كانت لحضرتها حاجة عند عبدها فليشرفه بقضاها منعما متفضلا ان شالله وكتب الرابع والعشرين من جمادى اخر سنة [احدى؟] وخمسمائة. Recto, left margin: similar to the upper margins, but addressing "sayyidnā al-rayyis" instead of "sayyidnā al-qāḍī": عبد حضرة سيدنا الريس الاجل اطال الله بقاها وادام ولاها(؟) Verso, upper margin, upside down: the name al-shaykh Abū ʿImrān b. Khallūf. Verso, right margin: refers to al-shaykh Abū Sulaymān Dāʾūd al-Isrāʾīlī al-Mushrif. Verso, lower margin: requesting a disbursement from the revenue(?) of the “dīwān al-abwāb al-mufrad” under the supervision of the amir [...] al-Juyūshī al-Afḍalī: ليطلق ليطلق ذلك من ارتفاع(؟) مال ديوان الابواب المفرد لشهور سنة احدى وخمسمائة بعد مشارفة الامير. . . . . . . الجيوشي الافضلي ان شا الله Verso, left margin: mentions dīwān al-jawālī and the supervision of a qāḍī (the same ʿImād? or Ibn ʿAmmār? or even Ibn al-Zaʿfarānī?): ليذكر ما يدل عليه ويشهد به ديوان الجوالي بمشارفة القاضي . . . .

Marriage document (FGP)Legal formulary. One leaf of paper, from a collection of legal deeds (ספר שטרות). Contains a ketubah for levirate marriage and a deed of division of land. It is not identical with the known books of deeds. The hand is typical 12th century. The same scribe copied Sidur of Rav Saadya Gaon in CUL 1080 13.55. Paper. The page is complete, but the text has some large holes and creases. Hebrew and Aramaic. AA

Draft of the beginning of a letter. Top right corner, three fragmentary lines. Blank verso. Begins with a basmala and then 'katabtu ilaykum...."

Poetry in Judaeo-Arabic. "We ask you, O master of existence (mālik al-wajūd), send us the guide of the Jews (murshid al-yahūd). . . ."

Dirges in Hebrew for the deaths of women, including at least one that the poet composed for his own daughter. It would be interesting to compare these to Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalusi's (d. 1344) dirges for his daughter Nuḍār (see e.g. Homerin, "Reflection on Poetry in the Mamluk Age," where it is stated that "even a single elegy for a daughter is rare in Arabic poetry"). Information in part from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Dirges in Hebrew for the deaths of women, including at least one that the poet composed for his own daughter. It would be interesting to compare these to Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalusi's (d. 1344) dirges for his daughter Nuḍār (see e.g. Homerin, "Reflection on Poetry in the Mamluk Age," where it is stated that "even a single elegy for a daughter is rare in Arabic poetry"). Information in part from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Unidentified document in Arabic script. Accounts? State document? On verso Hebrew poetry.

Recto: Letter fragment to 'my brother.' Written in Judaeo-Arabic, calligraphic, large quadrangular characters. No detailed are preserved. Verso: In Arabic script (and two different inks), "To be delivered to the tax bureau (dīwān al-kharāj) in Cairo, to Yūsuf." Information from Goitein's note card.

Query and responsum of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder.

Awaiting description

Piyyut

Medical recipes and remedies in Ladino and Hebrew. The recto contains two entries and in the second the writer switches from Hebrew completely into Ladino. The first entry mentions the use of "fire/אש" (l.2r, 4r) in the recipe includes the direction to "make a cake/עשה עוגה" (l.3r). Before switching into Ladino, the second entry on the recto mentions the use of "spring water/ מיים מן המעין" (l.10-11r) and there is also mention of "the sun/השמש" which is faintly legible along one of the fragment's lower tears (l.11r). Further down in Ladino there is mention of angels with "אנג׳ילו" and "אנג׳יל" (l.13r). On the verso all recipe entries are in Ladino and the penultimate one refers to an "infant/קירייאטורה" (l.) in the same unique spelling as the join ENA 2713.17. MCD.

List of payments received in Judaeo-Arabic. Accordingly, each entry relies on the phrase "קבץ מן / قبظ من" (l.1r, 4r) and the coinage in use is the gold ashrafi. In terms of dating, mention of ashrafi is helpful because it was not minted until 1425CE and factoring in the script of this fragment it may have been recorded in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries (Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire, 60). The unit "quarter qantār/אל רבע קנטאר" is also in use. MCD.

Trousseau list (taqwīm) for Sitt al-Waqār bt. Bū l-Riḍā b. Tamīm. Gives details of the items with numbers next to them. Dating: The document is dated ambiguously, 19 Elul '28; the handwriting is consistent with 13th century, so the most plausible options are 1528 Seleucid (=1217 CE) or 5028 AM (=1268 CE). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)