Geniza Lab

11th century letter from Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq near Tripoli to his son Mevorakh b. Avraham Ibn Sabra. See Oded Zinger’s dissertation, which mentions this letter several times and gives a partial translation on p. 305. “Avrahamʼs daughter had been divorced from her husband and her son returned her home to her fatherʼs place in Fustat. It seems that at least two children remained with the husband. The daughter was deeply depressed and longed to return to her abusive husband.” She had been in bed for three months, abstaining from baths and festivities, and saying that she will be grief-stricken until she dies and that she will never marry again so that her ex-husband will be punished for her sins. Remarkably, Avraham returns to this story in the last phrase of the letter: "It is a problem with the mind, to ask after someone who does not ask after you." He also conveys family news, including his delight that Mevorakh's wife has given him a daughter in his "old age." Abu Sa'd, whose "life is renewed" after surviving a serious illness, is on his way to Mevorakh's location from Tripoli. Oded Zinger, “Women, Gender, and Law: Marital Disputes According to Documents from the Cairo Genizah,” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2014, p. 305.

Letter from Nissim b. Ḥalfon b. Benaya to Nahray b. Nissim.

Letter/petition in Judaeo-Arabic. The sender wishes to redeem two ruins which belonged to two women, Umm Banīn and Umm ʿIzziyya (?), and were taken away from them while they had been minor orphans. One was converted into a stable for government horses, and one was taken by a wicked man named Ibn al-Sandabīsī. Information from Goitein's note card. NB: In Goitein's notes, DK 239.1 is referred to as DK XXVI. Join by Oded Zinger.

Letter. David ha-Ḥazzan b. ʿEli asks the notable Ḥujayj to help a relative of the bearer of the letter, Seʿadya b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen, named Faraj b. Abū ʿAmr, to marry a poor and lonely orphan girl related to him. Information from Goitein's note card (#6238).

Accounts of a grain merchant, probably. In Judaeo-Arabic. Customers include ʿAbdallāh, al-Mujāhid, Muhannā, and the Muʿallaqa (presumably the church). The grain is sold by the wayba, irdabb, tillīs, and baṭṭa. It is referred to once as ground (maṭḥūn) and once as flour (daqīq). There seems to be a variety called כשכאר.

Business letter to Yiṣḥaq Ashkenazi (Avraham David does not think it is Luria).

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from a government official to a certain Yehuda b. Elʿazar ha-Kohen, giving a great deal of information about other government officials at the time of Saladin. Beginning missing; verso is blank. People mentioned: ʿAfīf al-Dīn, Ibn al-Lamṭī, Nāṣir al-Dīn (al-ṣāḥib al-makhdūm), בן שכר (mushārif al-balad), Ibn ʿUthmān (al-qāḍī al-saʿīd), Saniyy al-Dawla, Abū l-Walīd (al-rayyis), and Saʿd al-Mulk.

Letter from Faraj, the “freed” of Barhun (ha-Tahirti?) from the Maghreb, to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal and his sons, Fustat; ca. 1015. Regards a purchase of pearls. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #167) VMR.

Letter or petition. In Arabic script.

Tax receipt from the archive of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb (see Khan, ALAD, pp. 140–59). He pays a half dinar for the year 404 AH.

Debt contract. In Judaeo-Arabic. Location: Minyat Ghamr. Dated: middle third of Shevat 1543 Seleucid, which is January 1232 CE. Nuṣayr b. Bāqī al-Kohen owes 140 dirhams to Moshe the judge. If he does not repay the debt by Shavuʿot, it seems that the debt will be acquired by the qodesh of the synagogue of Minyat Ghamr. Witnesses: Yehoshuaʿ b. Seʿadya ha-Levi; Shelomo b. Yishmaʿel ha-Kohen; Elʿazar b. Berakhot.

Table/diagram comprised of Greek/Coptic numerals and a single phrase in Arabic script.

Accounts in Arabic script. 2 bifolia. Needs examination.

Letter of appeal for charity. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender complains that Sayyidnā al-Rayyis and Abū Man[ṣūr?] al-ʿAfīf have cut off the payments with which they used to support the family in the lifetime of the sender's father al-Shaykh al-Faḍā'il. (The latter used to give 1/2 dirham per head.) The addressee is asked to approach them and ask them to restart the payments. On verso there is Hebrew alphabet practice.

Epistolary introduction to a medical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic. "Your letter arrived, O brother, inquiring after the books of Galen... and the Alexandrians..."

Literary work entitled Ṣifat al-Mulūk. In Arabic script. It gives a census of the tribes of the jinn (72 tribes in all, including Muslims, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Samaritans, Sudanese and Persian, etc.) and descriptions of the kings of the jinn.

State document: report to a high bureaucrat (with taqbīl clause), written under the Fatimid caliph al-‘Āmir, 509/1115; in the Hebrew on verso, the date is 517/1123. Coptic and other pen trials on the back. Verso: a minute in Judaeo-Arabic noting the date of the corresponding ḥujja, Muḥarram 517.

Letter from Yosef ha-Kohen b. Ḥalfon, al-Maḥalla, to Binyamin b. Yaʿaqov (who has a son named Yaʿaqov as well), Cairo. The writer reports that he spent only a couple days in al-Muʿizziyya (Cairo) and regrets not being able to pay his respects in person before he had to travel. The letter mainly consists of blessings, with a request at the end to forward the writer's question (legal query?) to Abū l-Maʿālī.

Letter from Yeshaʿyahu ha-Kohen b. Khalaf and his son Yaʿaqov (Qifṭ) to Nahray b. Nissim (Fustat), ca. 1070. Describes the hardships of ship travel from Fustat to Qifṭ. The ship was attacked by pirates near Dahrūṭ and many passengers, including Yeshaʿyahu ha-Kohen and his son Yaʿaqov, were stabbed. The attackers were driven away and the ship reached Qifṭ. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 423. See also Goitein notes linked below.)

The first document is a fragment of a letter from the Qaraite community of Fustat to the Qaraite community of Alexandria. On recto, only the flowery Hebrew beginning seems to be preserved, and a few fragmentary lines in Judaeo-Arabic in the margin. On verso, there is the address in calligraphic Hebrew and four lines of text in Judaeo-Arabic in a different hand, mainly blessings for the addressees but perhaps also encouraging them to give charity. Following the letter are two leaves of piyyutim. ASE.