Geniza Lab

Account of the qodesh, ca. 1165. A double leaf from a notebook. The draft of an accoutning occupies only one half of the leaf, and the remaining parts are covered with Coptic numerals. The majority of the items seem to represent expenditures, except for the last part, where apparently some revenue from rent is listed. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 306 #69)

Legal testimony. In Judaeo-Arabic. Location: Mazara, Sicily. Dated: Sunday, 10 Sivan 4898 AM, which is 1138 CE. Signed: Yosef Shemuel ha-Sofer and Moshe b. Yaʿbeṣ(?). Seʿadya b. Mevorakh Jazā'irī appeared before the court bearing a power of attorney from Berakha b. Yosef Ibn al-Sartī(?). The power of attorney may have guaranteed the goods (ʿilab?) of Ḥayyim b. Reuven for 40 rubāʿīs. Someone's daughter is mentioned. The document is long and very well-preserved, and there is a large bibliography on FGP.

Account for Tammuz and Av 1494 sel. ca. 1183. Only the revenue part of this account is presevred. It contains the sums from 22 apartments and compouns, the total being 374 dirhams, to which 15 dirhams are added, from the account of the preceding month, all of which is to be handed over by the parnas. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 342 #86) Written by Shemuel b. Saadya. AA

Account for Siwan 1494 sel. ca. 1183. This very orderly written list of revenues and expenditures covers the revenue from 18 apartments and compounds, the total being 205 dirhams. The expenditure section lists several ordinary items, but in the main gives details of sums spent on repairs in Dar al-Nagid. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 339 #85)

Colophon of a codex, probably a Bible. Yosef b. Ya'aqov b. Yosef (ha-dayan ha-mumheh) b. Shemaryah (bayt din) b. Menahem buys a muṣḥaf on 16 Marheshvan 1136 (Wednesday 14 October) the day on which the prisoners arrived (from?) Jerba. Cf. 10J15.16. See also MJ II 339(7). Information from Goitein's note card. There is further writing that is difficult to read at the bottom of the page at an angle to the main text.

Account of the compound of the Jerusalemites ca. 1191-93. Personal notes of the panason, in which they recorded rent payments by six tenants of Dar al-maqadisa. Several payments are in dinars and some of them seem to be advance payments. The accounting is written on a double leaf from a notebook, in two different scripts, one of them quite awkward, and the other obviously the work of a skilled writer. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 369 #97)

Letter addressed to Yehuda Nasi b. Josiah from an Egyptian community leader, replying to a letter where the leader expressed his intention to visit the congregation. 12th century. (Information from CUDL)

Part of a booklet, with section beginning, like a title page, 'List of the Poor of Fustat--may God in his mercy make them rich and help them in his grace and kindness' (in K 15.5). Date is preserved here, on fol. 39, as, 11th of Marheshvan, October 30, 1107 (in App. B 21 Goitein wrote Tuesday, Marheshvan 18 [Nov. 5], but dated is correctly in Mediterranean Society, I, p. 56). The date is written in such a way that it could be tyt or tnt, 1107 or 1147, but the reading 1107 is made sure not only by the handwriting of the clerk [=Hillel ben Eli] but also by the names of various people listed, who are known from other Geniza papers. see ibid, I, p. 405 note 89. '490 pounds, amounting to 539 (loaves of bread), from the baker Ma'ali. Ten (pounds) were added, making a total of 500, namely ten loaves of old bread.' Other leaves from this notebook = fols. 5, 15, and 50. Notice the conspicuous presence of the Rum, Jews probably from Byzantium. In several places the names of the baker Ma'ali and that of another baker, Sadaqa, appear, interrupting the list of names of beneficiaries. The handwriting is that of Avraham b. Aharon, who also wrote App. B 23, 24. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 443, App. B 21, and from Cohen).

Declaration of a father and husband, testifying that he had not married anyone before the mother of his first-born and that he had not sired a child before this one. Written by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (ca. 1100-1138). (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 279)

List of the houses owned by the Qodesh ca. 1160. (SH [1-29-87]) The beadle Maḥfūẓ presents a list of houses belonging to the qodesh which he is responsible for collecting the rent of. The list is written in Arabic characters and contains 26 items. Four of the compounds have the added notation that the sums owed by their tenants have been paid. The houses are said to be aḥbās, i.e. waqf dedications, of the Jews for their masākīn (poor). The list may have been compiled for the purpose of showing the sum due for ground rent (ḥikr). (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 295 #65)

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: Middle decade of Ḥeshvan 1478 Seleucid, which is October 1166 CE, under the authority of the Gaon Netanel b. Moshe ha-Levi. (This is the latest known document to invoke the authority of Netanel, though he was still alive in 1169 CE, as we learn from Bodl. MS heb. a 3/6.) The merchant-banker Yehuda receives from the merchant-banker Tamīm b. Mevorakh a loan of 9 1/2 dinars. It is specified that 5 dinars are to be paid back and then the rest in monthly installments. Written by Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 239 and from Goitein's index card.)

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dating: 1108. Location: Fustat. Written in the hand of the court clerk Hillel b. ʿEli. An agreement between Abū al-Faḍl Mevorakh b. Abraham Ibn Sabrī and Abū ‘Imrān Moshe b. Mordecai ha-Kohen for a yearlong partnership in a shop selling olives and food commodities. Mevorakh and Moshe invested 80 and 50 dinars, respectively. Moshe seems to be in charge of the shop, garnering two-thirds of the profit and being responsible for two-thirds of the losses. He must prepare a reckoning at the end of the year, without required notarization. However, if the partnership has decreased in value, there is to be a judgment between the partners. The partners are not allowed to quit the partnership before the end of the one-year period, after which they may either renew or terminate it. However, if they decide to terminate, Moshe has two months to return Mevorakh’s investment. Mevorakh, a Parnas, must have been involved in social welfare tasks. Moshe has much autonomy in the shop, taking on “trust in Heaven” that he will not defraud his partner in absentia. (Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 257)

Distribution of collection (tafriqah) to officials. Among those mentioned: Salim the Parnas, Abu l-Ḥasan the Ḥaver, Khalil the cantor and his cousin, al-Ahuv, al-Rayyis Abu l-Najm, Mahfuḍ al-Khadim, Ibn al-'Anbari. Circa 1175. Interwoven with Arabic script running from bottom to top. Information from Goitein's note card.

Contract between Abu al-Ḥasan and Abu al-Ma'ali regarding tax-farming in the town of Bush and its environs. Dated Elul 1460/ August-September 1149. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 607)

Court records and notes in the hand of the judge Natan b. Shemuel. Dating: Ca. 1143 CE. Entries include the estate inventory of Abū l-Barakāt Ibn al-Sharābī (including a huge library containing 200 bound codices), payment of a debt, an instruction to charge the community fund with 75 dirhams, and the sale of a house. (Information from CUDL.) Gil edited one of the entries; this is the transcription below. Record of a payment to an Amir, ca. 1143. Two payments in wheat, due the army commander (amir) Hiṣn al-Dawla, are effected through the qodesh; the account is briefly recorded among other records of the court. The date corresponding to 1143 appears on the reverse side of the document, written in the same hand. A previous PGP description erroneously called this "Rough draft of an agreement between spouses, in the hand of Hillel b. Eli."

Petition from Cairo to Gaon Sar Shalom (ca. 1177-1195) in which the wife of Abu al-Ḥasan, the miller, requests that the latter not be permitted to tell his wife to go and do embroidery in other people's houses and bring him her earned money, instead she should be permitted to retain her wages if she chose to work. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 133)

Left upper corner, of list of persons receiving emoluments from the community, headed by judges and including 2 scholars, 3 parnasim, the beadles of the 2 synagogues, a woman teacher, and 5 unspecified others. The Rayyis Abu al-Mufaddal was judge in the capital of Egypt but also a merchant who traveled as far as Qus. He appears also in contributor lists App. C 18, 19, 119. Written by the clerk Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ibn al-Qata'if, dated documents 1100-1138. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 442, App. B 16)

Verso: Account of the qodesh. Dating: Ca. 1119–20 CE. Accounting written on the verso of a letter addressed to Judge Avraham b. Natan. The accounting is obviously a draft, since revenue from rent and expenditures, mainly payments to officials, are mingled indiscriminately. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 240 #42). A previous PGP description listed this fragment as containing a "Responsum of the Gaon Shelomo b. Yehuda," but this appears to be erroneous.

Account of repairs of a house, written by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (ca. 1127–39 CE). (F. Niessen and A. Shivtiel, ed., Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, 600) EMS

Account of the qodesh, ca. 1120. Revenue from different people is listed, mostly without specifications. The sums seem to represent money of the qodesh deposited with different parnasim. Sums of rent from the compound of al-Masasa, apparently "the compound of the Jerusalemites," are explicitly mentioned, and also from "the compound of the orphan girl," mentioned in T-S NS J292 verso. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 242 #43)