Geniza Lab

Legal record (#52). Disposition of inheritance. Belongs with the previous record. Headed "the text of what should be written," but this is not solely a template for another document, because it has witness siagnatures. The same situation as in #51 is explained in more detail, and there is a list of the items of the mother's dowry that were handed over by the trustee Bū Saʿd to the daughter's agent Avraham. Witnesses: Ḥiyya b. Yiṣḥaq; Efrayim b. Meshullam.

Entry in court notebook (#54). Prescription. Recipe for preparation of an ointment consisting of powdered litharge (martak masḥūq); calf suet (shaḥm kulā ʿijl); aged, fine oil (zayt ṭayyib ʿatīq); and perhaps dragon's blood (reading קטאר as qāṭir). The title is difficult to read; Goitein suggests "marham kulā" (kidney ointment, with the dot over the letter preceding kulā indicating that it should be deleted). Also possible is "marham nakhlī" (date-palm ointment). Contemporary documents and literary sources indicate that a "date-palm ointment" was used for the treatment of wounds; cf. T-S 8J20.26. Although no component of this ointment derives from a date-palm, it is to be stirred while it cooks with a green palm leaf (yuḥarrak bi-jarīd akhḍar), and plausibly the same leaf is somehow incorporated or used to apply the completed ointment on to the desired site. NB: Goitein referred to this document as folio 21 (Firk. II NS 1700.21) in accordance with the foliation written in pen; but the correct folio is 22, as written in pencil (the librarian with the pen gave two folios the number 8). ASE.

Entry in court notebook (#53). List of expenditures. The occasion is not clear; Goitein's notes suggest that it could have been a funeral.

Legal record (#55). Power of attorney. Extremely abbreviated. Belongs with #57 (settlement of the dispute). Abū l-Makārim b. Bū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Kirmānī appoints Bū Manṣūr as his agent against the wife of Bū l-Riḍā Ibn al-Qarṭājī (? this word is very faded) on a claim of 11 dinars. (Information in part from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#56). Bill of sale, outline. Stating that a bill of sale (ʿuhda) shall be written for the sale of the female slave Nadd. Seller: Abū l-Faraj b. Ghilāth. Buyer: Sibāʿ b. Rajā. Price: 17.5 dinars (including market and broker fees). This is the same woman whom Abū l-Faraj b. Ghilāth bought from Abū l-Faḍl Mevorakh b. Shelomo Ibn Qamḥa for 15.5 dinars (not including fees). See #33 (Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.15, verso, b). (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#57). Settlement of dispute, outline. Belongs with #55. Stating that a contract shall be written to the effect that Sitt al-Dār bt. Natan, the wife of al-Shaykh al-Thiqa Bū l-Riḍā Ibn al-Qarṭājī(?), owes 8 dinars to Abū l-Makārim b. Bū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Kirmānī. The repayment will be 1 dinar per month starting in Av 1467 Seleucid. If two months go by without a payment, Abū l-Makārim may sue her in Muslim courts. (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Entry in court notebook (#58). Legal query. Regarding a partnership in which one party has contributed all the capital and in which the ṣāḥib al-māl does not render an account to the other. (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#59). Deathbed will. Dated: Tuesday, 26 Tammuz 1467 Seleucid. Testator: Abū l-Wafā Tamīm al-Kātib Ibn al-ʿAnbariyya. He wills to his younger sister, the widow of Abū ʿAlī al-Tājir ("the merchant in Dār al-Ṣarf") Ibn al-Ṭaziyya, the 1/2 house in which he lives. Address of the house: Fustat, Qaṣr al-Shamʿ, between the two synagogues, across from "the women's bath house, Ḥammām al-Dīk." He also wills her 1/2 of the adjacent ruins. He releases her from all claims. Witnesses: Mevorakh {b. Natan}; Seʿadya {b. Avraham?}. (Information in part from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#60). Deposition in court. Dated: Av 1467 Seleucid. Concerning repairs of a dilapidated wall belonging to two houses. Sitt al-Khāṣṣa and Sitt al-Riḍā, her daughter with al-Rayyis Abū l-Faḍl, agree to bear 1/4 of the costs of the repair to the wall, which Abū l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān al-Kohen will carry out, up to 100 dinars. Sitt al-Khāṣṣa will pay approximately 2/3 (a maximum of 16 dinars) and Sitt al-Riḍā will pay approximately 1/3 (a maximum of 9 dinars). The repayment will be 0.5 dinar per month. Witnesses: Mevorakh b. Natan; Seʿadya b. Avraham; Shelomo ha-Levi b. Shemuel. (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#61). Settlement of debt. Dated: End of Av, 1467 Seleucid. Makārim al-Abzārī b. Avraham owes 112 dirhams of overdue rent for his dwelling to Efrayim ha-Dayyan. He must pay 42 dirhams on 2 Elul. His repayment of the remaining 70 dirhams will be 4 dirhams per month (1 dirham per week, paid at the end of the week). This is in addition to his ongoing rent payments of 4 dirhams per week, meaning that he has to pay 5 dirhams per week. If he misses two weeks of payments, the installments (it seems this refers to the 70-dirham debt but not to the ongoing rent) will become a debt to the qodesh (al-ʿaniyim). Witnesses: Mevorakh b. Natan; Shelomo b. Yehuda ha-Kohen (this is Abū l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. Abū Zikrī Kohen). (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#62). Trousseau list (taqwīm). Groom: Bū l-Makārim al-Ṣā'igh Yosef b. Shemuel. Bride: Sitt al-Riyāsa bt. Shela ha-Levi ("the sister of Sitt al-Ḥasab" - Goitein). Early marriage payment: 50 dinars ('gift'). Delayed marriage payment: 100 dinars. Value of the trousseau: 500 dinars. The bride also brings a female slave named ʿŪd al-Bān worth 20 dinars; a 1/2 house in Cairo, in Ḥārat Zuwayla in 'the alleys of al-Naṣṣār,' which her brother gave her; and a 1/2 house, adjacent to the former, which Amīn al-Dawla gave her. NB: Goitein referred to this document as folio 24–25 (Firk. II NS 1700.24-25) in accordance with the foliation written in pen; but the correct folios are 25 (recto and verso) and 26 (recto), as written in pencil (the librarian with the pen gave two folios the number 8). (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#63). Trousseau list (taqwīm). Groom: Yosef b. Netan'el ha-Kohen. Bride: Sitt al-Kafā'a bt. Bū l-Faḍā'il ʿOvadya b. Shemuel. "Another marriage agreement composed in Fustat thirty years later reads very differently. The agreement does not survive in full, but its contents are summarized above a partial inventory of the bride’s dowry (taqwīm) copied into a court notebook. Here the pledges all extend the other way, strengthening the bride’s legal position rather than eroding it. The groom, Yosef b. Netan’el ha-Kohen, promises his future wife, Sitt al-Kafā’a bt. Abū l-Faḍā’il, that he will trust her financially; that he will neither marry a second wife without her permission nor keep a female slave against her wishes; that if she dies before bearing children, he will claim only half her dowry as inheritance and return the rest to her birth relatives; that she may continue to live in Fustat rather than Cairo; and that he will not object if she sells off any of her dowry items and buys other property with the proceeds" (Krakowski, Coming of Age, p. 241). NB: Goitein and Krakowski referred to this document as folio 25b–26b (Firk. II NS 1700.25b–26b and Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.25b–26b respectively, with the 'b' indicating verso) in accordance with the foliation written in pen; but the correct folios are 26–27, as written in pencil (the librarian with the pen gave two folios the number 8).

Legal record (#64). Trousseau list (taqwīm). Groom: Peraḥya b. Yosef Yiju. Bride: Sitt al-Dār ('Mistress of the House'), the daughter of Peraḥya's paternal uncle, Avraham Yiju. NB: Goitein referred to this document as folio 27 (Firk. II NS 1700.27) in accordance with the foliation written in pen; but the correct folio is 28, as written in pencil (the librarian with the pen gave two folios the number 8).

Legal record (#66). Loan contract. Dated: Sivan 1467 Seleucid. Faḍā'il b. Abū l-Faraj b. Maʿrūf owes 1 dinar and 26.5 dirhams to Sālim al-Ṣayrafī b. Abū Saʿḍ Ibn al-[...]. He will repay it by the middle of Tammuz 1467 Seleucid (i.e., two months). If he does not pay in time, he owes the same sum to the qodesh of Fustat. Witnesses: Yosef b. Yehuda; Nadiv b. Seʿadya. This is the only item in the notebook that is not in the hand of Mevorakh b. Natan. (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#65). Inheritance settlement. Dated: Middle of Iyyar 1467 Seleucid. "One of a series of documents from 1156 about an inheritance dispute between Abū l-Rabī‘ Sulaymān b. and his two half-sisters (see Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.3), notes that Abū l-Rabī‘ will pay the two girls two and a half dinars a month as maintenance, 'in line with what their father willed them at the time of his death'" (Krakowski, Coming of Age, p. 169).

Legal record (#4). Inheritance settlement. Dated: Thursday, 11 Iyyar 1467 Seleucid. "In one of a series of documents resolving an argument over the inheritance of the India merchant Yehuda Abū Zikrī b. Yosef ha-kohen (d. 1156), Yehuda’s son Abū l-Rabī‘ Shelomo agreed to pay 400 dinars from his father’s estate to his two young half-sisters, Sitt al-Ḥasab and Sitt al-Naṣr, on the condition that their mother (Sitt al-Khāṣṣa bt. Abū l-Makārim b. Baqā) stopped prosecuting him in Islamic court on her daughters’ behalf.The deed had originally said that Abū l-Rabī‘ would grant each of them 200 dinars when they married. To resolve the case, however, this clause was then crossed out and replaced with a marginal note indicating that he would give each girl this amount 'at the time of her maturity, according to the time that Islamic law permits her to release her brother from this (obligation) and receive it from him,' apparently so that she might absolve him before a Muslim qādī as well as in Jewish court" (Krakowski, Coming of Age, p. 158). See also Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.5 (recto) and Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.29 (verso). No signatures.

Legal record (#5). Postponement of oath. Dated: Wednesday, 10 [Iyyar 1467 Seleucid]. Abū l-Makārim al-Kohen al-Tājir agrees to the postponement (imhāl) of the oath of his partner Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm in a partnership of 100 dinars until after someone's return from a journey. No signatures. (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#6). Divorce settlement. Dated: Monday, 20 Sivan 1467 Seleucid. Abū Saʿd al-Zayyāt b. Khalīl attests, acting as agent for his sister Sitt al-Fakhr, that he has received her dowry, worth 21.5 dinars, from her soon-to-be ex-husband Hiba, except for the 'bulging' golden bracelet worth 10 dinars (al-ḥadīda al-dhahab al-manfūkh). The delayed marriage payment is 30 dinars; thus Hiba will give her a total value of 51.5 dinars as well as the bill of divorce. Witnesses: Mevorakh b. Natan; Natan b. Moshe. (Information in part from Goitein's notes.)

Legal record (#8). Lease of part of a house. Dated: Monday, 5 Iyyar 1467 Seleucid. Abū l-Faraj b. Barakāt Ibn al-Dayyān leases to Abū l-ʿAlā al-Tājir b. Abū ʿAlī al-Ne'eman his share in the house known by the name of Abū l-Faḍl al-Ṣayrafī for a sum of 70 dirhems each month. Witnesses: Mevorakh b. Natan; Nadiv b. Seʿadya ha-Levi.

Legal record (#7). Alimony received. Dated: End of Iyyar 1456 Seleucid (or shortly thereafter). Concerning the maintenance/alimony (mezonot) that the late Abū Zikrī al-Kohen willed to his two daughters (whom he had with Sitt al-Khāṣṣa bt. Abū l-Makārim b. Baqā), Sitt al-Ḥasab and Sitt al-Naṣr. Also involves a monthly payment of 1/2 dinar by his son Abū l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān al-Kohen. Sitt al-Khāṣṣa testifies that she has received all the money that was due from the date of Abū Zikrī's death through Iyyar 1467 Seleucid. Witnesses: Yaʿaqov b. Avraham; Seʿadya b. Avraham. See also Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.3.