Geniza Lab

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from Avraham b. ʿAṭā' (=Natan), in Malīj, to Abū Zikrī Yehuda b. Mūsā. The writer is not the same person as the Nagid of Qayrawān with the same name. The letter seems to be a response to Yehuda's request that the writer take good care of a certain Abū Isḥāq (al-qawām bihi). Avraham reports, "Our companions (aṣḥābunā) did not fall short with him even before your letter arrived. When it arrived, I took him into my own house. I will look after him (aqūm bi-ḥālihi) until he recovers. He is doing better than before. Whatever I [have to] spend, he is secure (muthbat) with me until he recovers. [I would do this] even if I did not owe you anything and you asked me to do it." ASE.

Informal note addressed to 'the brother' R. Zekharya. In Judaeo-Arabic. (Is this Shelomo b. Eliyyahu writing to Abū Zikrī?) He asks him not to detain the old woman from coming, but rather to assist her in coming quickly, because the writer's wife ("al-ṣughayyira") is sick and they are perishing of isolation and "there is no one to fill a jug of water for us." ASE

Letter from a man in Egypt to his brother or brother-in-law, an India trader in Aden. In Judaeo-Arabic. Frenkel identifies the writer's location as Alexandria, the addressee as Ismāʿīl al-Fāṣid, and the date as 1176 CE, but does not seem to explain her reasoning. The letter recounts an interesting family saga. The addressee's maternal uncle passed away while traveling with the addressee to India. The addressee took care of him before his death. The family has taken great pains to conceal the news of the uncle's death until they receive a detailed account of his will. This long letter repeatedly describes everyone's anxiety waiting for news of the addressee's health and the will. His mother, when she heard of the death of her brother and the news of the addressee's difficulties at sea, fell sick and fasted until news came of the addressee's health. His father stays up all night praying for him. "If you knew how much reward (in Heaven) you receive from every letter you write us, you would do nothing but write us letters." The family congratulates the addressee on his purchase of a male slave (ghulām). Finally, the reason for the anxiety about the will comes to light at the end. The uncle knew or thought that his wife was pregnant when he departed, however, they counted 9 months, and there was no baby. They counted another 9 months, and she had a baby boy. The family evidently wishes to ensure that none of the uncle's inheritance ends up with his wife or son. Even the Muslims say, "We have never heard anything like what this Jewish woman has done. She deserves nothing but hellfire." The widow was able to round up some allies from among the Byzantine Jews, and they managed to gather 10 Jews for the circumcision, but with no cantor or judge present. In the midst of sending everyone's regards in the margin of verso, the writer reports sarcastically that the newborn infant also sends his. Information in part from Frenkel and from Goitein's attached notes. ASE.

Letter from a penniless woman, the widow of Abū Surrī, to Mevorakh b. Saadya (1094–1111). She begs him to come to her rescue in a litigation brought against her by the relatives of her deceased son-in-law for a modest amount. Her daughter was married to Yosef b. Asad b. Qirqas who left her to travel three and a half years ago. That was prior to al-Afḍal's siege of Alexandria in 1094. The daughter was then ill two years while the mother used her dowry (רחלהא) for nursing her in her illness and for the burial when she died. It has recently become known that Yosef was killed in Nastaro (an island between Damietta and Alexandria), and his cousin claimed his estate—which was non-existent. (Information from Goitein's note card and from M. R. Cohen, Jewish Self Government, pp. 221-260.) For a detailed discussion of the geographical situation of Nastaro, see Khan, "A Copy of a Decree from the Archives of the Fāṭimid Chancery in Egypt," BSOAS, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1986, p. 444.

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe ha-Levi b. al-Qaṭā'if to his brother Peraḥya discussing business matters, the illness and recovery of Abu al-Muna, a forwarded letter, and conveying greetings. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 239, 477, and Goitein's index cards.) The description of Abū l-Munā's illness is particularly vivid. "What he had turned out to be pure pus (? qayḥ kāmil). It ruptured (infajara), and there emerged from it what cannot be mentioned. Great pits (ajwār) developed in his thighs (or hips, awrāk). It flowed so much that his robe was changed two or three times a day. Then God willed. and the flesh began to build up, and he could walk and work again." ASE.

Letter from a son to his father with detailed description of his illness and recovery. Same writer and recipient as T-S 13J21.13 (addressed to Minyat al-Qa'id) and T-S 13J21.14 and Stras. 4110/90 (see tag). His fever finally abated yesterday with the onset of diarrhea (or successful purging?), however a woman in the house is still feverish. He relates the details of the treatment that he received at the hands of Ibn Habib, which, as far as can be determined through the lacunae, involves oxymel mixed with hot water, and timing something for the fifth day and the seventh day but not during the crisis. Khatir has not yet arrived from Alexandria, as he was detained by the wedding of a relative. Join: Alan Elbaum. ASE.

Letter written by a sick man who asks the recipient to buy him a female slave, for "I have no one to give me medicine," and the children are sick (maṭrūḥīn) as well. Someone in the past told him not to buy a female slave, but now this person tells him to buy one. However, he has no way of accessing his money. Abū l-Faḍl has not been helpful in this matter. He urges the recipient (possibly his brother, since he invokes "my master's upbringing" of the recipient) to do his utmost to get hold of the 5 dinars belonging to the writer, and to go to the Rayyis Abū l-Najm and purchase a female slave with the money. At the bottom appears the signaure Shelomo ha-Levi b. Moshe ha-Shishi, but this name is not completely legible and may not belong to the letter. The handwriting of this signature may be consistent with that of Shelomo ha-Levi b. Moshe ha-Sheviʿi, who appears in T-S 16.356, a legal document dated 1120 CE. If the two are the same person (one before and one after his promotion), this letter was composed some time after 1120 CE. Verso contains several of the same phrases from recto. Information in part from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Letter from Shimʿon b. Shaʾul b. Yisraʾel ha-Ṭulayṭulī, in Jerusalem, to his sister Ballūṭa in Toledo. The writer (a Rabbanite) relays two years of news about Qaraites and fellow Andalusians in Jerusalem, as well as family news. He conveys the distress he felt upon hearing of the epidemic (wabā') and unrest (tashwīsh) in the environs of Toledo. One theme of the letter is their father's health. "Our father is in a state that one would wish only for one's enemies. He has become paralyzed (mabṭūl), blind (aʿmā), and feeble-minded (madkhūl al-dhihn), and suffers much (mumtaḥin). The bearers of this letter will tell you about him and about my care for him. He does not lack a thing, for he is well served (makhdūm) and cared for (maḥfūẓ). I do not rely on anyone else to concern themselves with him. My bed adjoins his; I get up several times every night to cover him and to turn him, since he is not able to do any of these things alone (idh lā yamlik min nafsihi shay'). May God, the exalted, reward him for his sufferings." Med Soc III, p. 241. Later in the letter, Shimʿon tells Ballūṭa that she need not concern herself with sending the turban that had been requested, "for, woe is me, he no longer has the wherewithal to leave the door of the house. He used to devote himself (wādhāb should be read as wāẓāb) to the Mount of Olives and to God's Temple for as long as he was able and [the strength] was in him, may God reward him." (Gil's translation diverges significantly from this.) A second theme of the letter is the story of a fellow Toledan, Ibrāhīm b. Fadānj, and his wife, who arrived two years earlier after having been taken captive in Byzantium and redeemed in Ramle. For a detailed analysis of their case—involving multiple changes of allegiance between the Qaraite and Rabbanite communities, and the writer's role in aiding them—see Rustow, "Karaites Real and Imagined" (2007), 43–47.

Letter from Yosef, in Tripoli, Libya, to his mother, probably in Fustat. Although the address reads "from your son Yosef," the letter is written in the voice of an older woman who defends herself against the addressee's blame for not looking after Yosef properly and for not marrying him to her own daughter. The writer describes a form of temporary marriage that Yosef contracted with an orphan girl. “He fell ill (maraḍa), and his illnss intensified (ishtadda wajʿuhu), and he had no one to attend to him. Thus he saw fit to take a young orphan girl to attend to him, and he married her on the condition that if he wished to be free to move back to his country, he would write her a bill of divorce.” The letter further reports that the wife gave birth to a boy who died. The writer adds that she herself was sick during these events (and thus could hardly be blamed for not intervening). See Eve Krakowski, “Female adolescence in the Cairo Geniza documents,” PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2012, 68; and S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:306, 494. EMS. ASE.

Informal note from ʿAbd al-Karīm to R. Yosef . He asks the addressee to urgently send his grandmother ("the mother of Sutayta") for Shabbat, because the boy himself is sick (mā kān ṭayyib) and so is his father. The father had been carried home (maḥmūl) on a bed (?) on Wednesday. (Information from Goitein's index cards.) ASE.

Letter describing two meetings with physicians. At least part of the letter is addressed to the sender's mother. The first meeting was a visit to Maimonides, who discussed medical topics with the writer, who intends to being a course of study in medicine as soon he sorts out an issue with his brother and maternal aunt. The second was with another physician who visited the writer, checked his pulse, examined a flask of his urine, and prescribed barley water (kashk shaʿīr). Mention is made of a trip to Alexandria. The fragment mentions others and their wealth and very large debts: Abū Manṣūr, Abū l-Maḥāsin, Rīḍā al-Dawla, Ibn Hillel. It also mentions several distinguished physicians apart from Maimonides. (Information in part from CUDL)