Geniza Lab

Petition - needs examination.

State document: End of a Fatimid petition or report from the period of al-Ḥākim (996–1021) or earlier.

Petition. In Arabic script. Dating: Perhaps Mamluk-era based on handwriting and format, but that is a guess. The addressee is Shams al-Dīn [...] b. Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Nāṣir al-Dīn [...]. The petitioner is a physician or surgeon, expert in blood-letting, enema-giving, fresh wounds (al-jurḥ al-ṭarīʾ), and yellow-bilious boils (al-damāmil al-ṣafrāʾ). He is asking for a license to practice his trade. He concludes, "Let the [response] be recorded in the noble registers (al-ṣaḥāʾif al-karīma)." There is a rescript in the right margin: "I have granted his request" (adhantu lahū fī dhālika). (Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalogue.) ASE

Probably a petition, but possibly a legal document. In Arabic script. On parchment. About 6 lines are preserved. Includes phrases such as "as your [excellency] sees fit" (...ʿalā mā tarāhu...) and a reference to getting angry or being merciful (يغضب ولا يرحم). Needs further examination.

End of a petition in Arabic script. Asking for permission to enter Egypt on behalf of a group of people. In a different hand, there are several dozen names written in the margins of recto and on verso; these may be the names of the petitioners or alternatively an independent list (e.g., alms distribution list). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Petition to the Fatimid vizier Al-ʿAbbās requesting an allowance in corn to be paid to the petitioner in yearly instalments. Dating: 548–49 AH, which is 1153–54 CE. (Information from CUDL.) The dating is based on the identification of the vizier in question with Abū l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās Ibn Abī l-Futūḥ.

Petition to the caliph al-Mustanṣir from a man who has been detained in the arsenal (khizāna, probably the khizānat al-bunūd, which was also used as a prison). The man’s family, including his mother who is disabled or chronically sick (zamina), have stood ransom. Dating: ca. 427–87 AH (= 1036–94 CE). (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Recto: Petition, probably. In Arabic script, in a Fatimid chancery hand, with huge space between the lines. Portions of two lines are preserved: ...ʿalā yadih mutatā[...]...bi-ʿuluww himmatih wa-yankashif ʿan al-m[...]....

Petition from a certain Manṣūr to an unidentified addressee (though Goitein assumed that "Sayyidnā" meant "the Nagid"). In Arabic script. The sender is a poor man ("ṣuʿlūk") who complains about his dependents and debts. "The knife has reached the bone, and I have come to nobody's gate but God's and Sayyidnā's, and Sayyidnā knows what our/my state was. By God, death is better than this." The lower part of the fragment is torn away. In the margin, he threatens to run away (...wa-anā hārib... wa-illā usāfir...).

Recto: Petition from a certain Jaʿfar to a Fatimid dignitary (qāʾid). In Arabic script. In which Jaʿfar asks that the support (maʿūna) granted to him not be withdrawn. (Information from Khan.)

Petition, draft. in Arabic script. Arranged in four columns on a bifolium, with text at 90 degrees in the space between columns. Needs further examination. On verso there is Hebrew literary text.

Petition to an Ayyubid sultan by a Jewish physician. "The slave Makārim b. Isḥāq, the doctor. In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate. (The slave) kisses the ground and reports that he is a trained and able practitioner in the profession of medicine. The two doctors of our master the sultan, al-Rashīd al-Dimashqī and al-Rashīd Abū Ḥulayqa, attest to the excellence of the slave's knowledge in this profession. He makes a request before our lord the sultan, may God make great his victory, of the gift of the remainder of the salary of al-Asʿad, the doctor in the hospital of Cairo, that is three dinars every month, (paid) to the salve for him to practise the treatment of the sick and let the prayer (of the slave) [for] our lord the sultan be answered. The resolution (of the sultan) is exalted. Praise be to God alone and his blessings [be upon our lord] Muḥammad and his family and save them." Translation by Geoffrey Khan. See tag for additional documents involving Makārim b. Isḥāq.

Draft of a petition from […] Mukhliṣ, in Minyat Ghamr, to an Ayyubid dignitary. In Arabic script. The petitioner complains about the young son of a neighbor who recently moved into the same hostel where the petitioner is living. The child in question has continually harassed the petitioner and his family, including injuring his wife by biting her. Dating: ca. 12th-13th century. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Recto (original use): Bottom of a formal petition in Arabic script, mentioning "al-thaghr" (=Alexandria?) and merchandise and the money of the diwan. يذكر فيه وصول من بيت [المال؟] . . . من المستخدمين شاهده بـ . . . . من البضائع . . . المملوك . . . ليقف عليها الراي العالي . . . . . كتاب بانه يذكر ان المجاهد ابو فضيل . . . الانفصال من اموال الديوان . . . . . . المقام العالي ومن جملة ما كان بالثغر من المستخرج ان شا الله والراي اعلا ان شا الله الحمد لله وحده وصلواته على سيدنا محمد وآله وسلم تسليما حسبي الله ونعم الوكيل

Verso (secondary use): Petition/letter of appeal for charity in Arabic script. From Manṣūr. The sender and his family have perished from illness (maraḍ, awjāʿ), poverty, and nakedness, and their rent is due. The sender reiterates in the final line that he is perishing "from the disease of arwāḥ (hemorrhoids?)."

Petition to the vizier of al-Ẓāfir, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī Ibn al-Salār, regarding a fief worth 5500 dinars and a market worth 1000 faddān that were repossessed by the judge operating in Minyat Ghamr, who did not return them even after the issue of a decree by the vizier. The petition indicates that some of the grounds in discussion are cultivated with sugar cane. Dating: 544–48 AH, which is 1149–53 CE. On verso and between the lines of the petition on recto there are piyyuṭim including a seliḥa and a reshut. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Petition from a group of people to a chief vizier (Sayyid al-Wuzarāʾ) titled "al-Kāmilī." In Arabic script. Fragment (upper half only). The petitioners complain that there is a Jewish man named Sulaymān in Fustat, the son of an Indian female slave (ibn jāriya hindiyya) who spends all his days obstructing business and frightening people in the drug/perfume market (sūq al-ʿaṭṭārīn), just like Ibn al-ʿUṣfūr used to do. (Goitein wonders if there might be a connection to T-S K25.64 and BL OR 5566B.30, which feature a troublemaker nicknamed ʿUṣfūr al-Jinn.) This man Sulaymān apparently raves about nonsense or impossible things (qawl al-muḥāl). When the Jews were resting in their houses on Shabbat, he assaulted them with "raqqāṣīn" (couriers? dancers? journeymen?) and expelled (? akhraja) their women, and frightened "us" (the pronoun slips here from "them" to "us"—an indication that the petitioners are the persecuted Jews themselves?). (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) ASE

Long letter from one government official to another. In Arabic script. The name Abū l-Ṭāhir appears in the address (likely the addressee). It seems that the sender is not happy in his current position (...ḥattā annahu ashghala nafsahu fī khidma lam yaʿlam mā hiya qabla yakhdum fīhā fa-lammā kashafahā wajadahā lā shayʾ...) and he is requesting intercession to change positions. Needs further examination.

Petition from a woman to a high dignitary or perhaps to al-Malik al-ʿĀdil himself (one reigned 1200–18 and another reigned 1238–40). She seems to be appealing for redress against a Christian tax farmer named Abū l-Fakhr and an intricate network of his family members, including his son, his brother Abū Saʿīd, Abū Saʿīd's wife, and possibly also 2 women (slaves?) named Aqrān and ʿAlam. They are behaving in a high-handed way in the hoarding of money, saying things that shouldn't be said, and something involving timber. Concludes with a lengthy curse on anybody who comes into possession of this petition and fails to convey it to al-ʿĀdil and apprise him of its contents. Ed. Tamer el-Leithy, Marina Rustow and Naïm Vanthieghem (December 2016). (Information from TL, MR, NV, AA, and ASE.)

Letter/petition in Arabic script. The tarjama containing the name of the sender at upper left seems to have been deliberately torn away; the remainder of the fragment is perfectly preserved. The sender/petitioner excuses himself from coming in person because of his work in the shop. He asks the addressee to meet with somebody (al-amīr?) about the matter of the sender's brother. "My lord knows that my brother was one of the group (or a porter? or a bearer of a document? the word is either jumla or ḥamala), but the qāḍi heard testimony from some people that he was not one of the jumla/ḥamala." Closes with a raʾy clause, an afterthought ("please meet with him in the alley of Wikālat al-Qand"), then another raʾy clause. On verso there are several lines of accounts in Arabic script.