Geniza Lab

Bifolio from a register containing multiple entries recording fiscal payments, including name of the taxpayer and amount paid. Registration marks visible. Could be identified as one of the various types of ledgers (makhzūma, ruznamaj, khatma, and tawālī) described by Fatimid fiscal manuals.

Fiscal register, dated 3 Dhū l-Ḥijja of an unmentioned year, mentions several sums of money (Compare AIU IV.C.453, T-S NS 243.75a, T-S NS 198.61, ENA 2886.1–7, T-S NS 71.64, T-S 8H22.18, Moss. IV,252.1, T-S NS 308.41, and possibly T-S Misc.24.106). Reused for Hebrew liturgical text.

Fiscal document, in Arabic script. Large format with 16 lines preserved, marginal notes, and crossings out. The document is an internal fiscal Fatimid accounting document mentioning military spending from the year 500/1106-7. There are large sums of money and iqṭāʿāt. Mentions an official of al-Afḍal by the name Zahr al-Dawla Bandūd (?) al-Afḍalī. (See al-Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ, III, 34).

Fiscal account or receipt dated Muḥarram 437H (July–August 1045). Closing five lines. (MR)

Chancery or fiscal document, presumably Mamluk period. There are two lines preserved, consisting of a date (the month Rajab is visible) and the ḥamdala. The text was folded down the middle to form a bifolio and reused for notes on the Jewish calendar, a roster for the years starting with 1275/6 until the mid-fourteenth century. But the roster contains errors, such as parts of the sequence that are repeated. There are also jottings, including a biblical quotation. (Marina Rustow, with information on the calendar roster from Sacha Stern)

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.

Fragment of a decree mentioning the funds of a dīwān in exchange for something. Late Fatimid (paleographic dating), same chancery hand as some of the docs from Cambridge. The preserved text reads as "wa-l-īrād ḥāfiẓan lī amwāl al-dīwān bādilan fī ".

Report on fiscal matters, draft.

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).

State document, probably a fiscal order. Mentions rāhin/dāʾin in the first line, slaves (ghilmān), and property (ʿamāʾr). Some of the names mentioned are Abū Jawhar, Sayyid al-Ahl bin Muḥammad and ʿAbd al-Bāqī bin...Day recorded in the margin is Thursday; 'bi tārikh Yawm al-Khamīs'. Also mentions 'sulṭān' and '[...]al-Dawla', probably the title of an official. Verso: Hebrew text; Pizmonist ( Similar hand as ENA 3714.5, T-S Ar.38.119, T-S NS 145.22, T-S Ar.42.186).

Document in Arabic script. Unclear what it is. Perhaps a fiscal account: the word al-mablagh appears on recto, and al-ʿāmil on verso.

Tax receipt from the archive of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb.

Tax receipt in the hand of the jahbadh Mīkhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ for the tax farm of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb. Reused on verso for an account.

Verso: tax receipt from the archive of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb

Tax receipt, Fatimid. One registration mark; 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāh ḥamd al-shākirīn'. Written in the month of Jumād al-Ukhrā of an undeciphered year. Blank verso. Perforated for binding.

Tax receipt, Fatimid. Two registration marks; 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāhi l-muwaffiq li-ḥamdihi' and 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāh ḥamd al-shākirīn'. Blank verso. Perforated for binding.

Tax receipt, Fatimid. One registration mark; 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāh al-wāḥid al-ḥaqq'. Blank verso. Perforated for binding.

Tax receipt, Fatimid. One registration mark; al-ḥamdu lil-lāh ḥamd al-rāʾfa.

Capitation tax receipt for a 1 dinar payment made by Bū l-Thanāʾ b. Bū Saʿd b. Ṭayyib al-Murakkib (the saddle maker) in New Cairo and Fustat for the year 405 AH, which is 1014/15 CE. Dated: 21 Muḥarram. Registration mark: 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāh ʿalā niʿamih', all praise be to God for his benefactions (found twice on recto and once on verso). Verso also has some numbers written out in Judaeo-Arabic (might be a writing exercise). (Information from PGP tax receipt team.)

Fatimid tax receipt possibly from the time of al-Ḥākim bi ʿAmr Allah from the archive of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb. Multiple registrations marks: 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāh ʿalā niʿamih', all praise be to God for his benefactions, 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāh bihi athiq', all praise be to God in him I trust.