Geniza Lab

Verso (original use): Petition in Arabic script. Somewhat rudimentary hand. Possibly to the caliph himself (al-ḥaḍra al-ṭāhira). The sender desires to be sent to Syria to fight (raghiba al-jihād) with the victorious army (...wa-yatajarrad ilā al-Shām fī jumlat al-ʿaskar al-manṣūr wa-yabdhul majhūdahu fī al-khidma al-sharīfa...). The addressee is asked to issue an order to the Kātib al-Jaysh ordering his deployment (tajrīd). Recto (secondary use): Informal note in Arabic script confirming the granting of a gift without any conditions.

State document. Petition to the caliph al-Mustanṣir regarding a murder on a boat. The son of the petitioner was traveling with a young merchant from Sirsinā to Fuwwa and then Alexandria on a boat carrying 500 dinars in cash and 200 dinars in goods, when the captain of the boat and the sailors robbed and murdered the two merchants. The petition asks that the caliph issue an edict to the lieutenants of the amīr Sinān Al-Dawla to place the captain and the sailors under arrest. Dating: ca. 427-487 AH (= 1036-1094 CE). (Information from CUDL)

State document. Petition to a Fatimid ruler in which the writer asks to be exempted from the payment of his capitation tax (of 1 + 1/3 + 1/4 dinars and a dirham), since lost his sight as a consequence of an eye illness and is now unable to perform his job, while the tax collectors are increasingly pressing. The writer also states that in the past he had been able to pay his capitation tax only thanks to the charitable intervention of the community. Dating: 12th century. On verso there is Hebrew text, possibly liturgical. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Petition to a Fatimid dignitary concerning (or from?) a certain Abū l-Faraj apparently regarding various properties in a neighborhood (and perhaps their commandeering?). Subsidiary to the main request: "...to my lord the glorious shaykh, may God make his exaltation endure, belongs the lofty resolution concerning the use of the servant’s provisions, if what they contain should be of help to him..." (wa-li-mawlāya al-shaykh al-jalīl adāma allāh ʿuluwwahu ʿālī al-raʾy fī ightinām maʾūnat ʿabdihi in kāna mā yataḥaṣṣa fīhā ʿāyidan ʿalā ʿawnihi). (Khan, ALAD, p.316n46; also mentioned in "Historical Development," p.19.) There are also two lines at the bottom from a unrelated, unidentified document in Arabic script—perhaps a letter. The two documents were glued together by a Jewish scribe, who reused verso for Hebrew liturgy.

According to Polliack & Baker catalogue this is a petition. It seems to have address on verso- needs examination. (AA.) Dating: looks late, probably Mamluk-era.

Tadhkira (memorandum) from a Fatimid official to another Fatimid official. Tax receipt on verso.

State document. Dating: ca. beginning of the 13th century (Ayyubid period). Petition from Khuyalāʾ b. Ḥasan and Abū l-Jaysh to the caliph al-ʿĀdil regarding an iqṭāʿ in the district of Minyat Khalaf. The land for the iqṭāʿ formerly belonged to the amīr Muʾnis ʿAlī b. Jawl al-Mihrānī and, after he decamped, to Sayf al-Islām. Khuyalāʾ is asking for a decree that would allow him and Abū l-Jaysh to enter these lands. On verso is a Hebrew liturgical text. (Information from CUDL)

State document. Petition to a Fatimid official titled ʿAmīd al-Dawla requesting that the state seize the petitioner's properties in Palestine because they are not producing revenue and are essentially abandoned, and the petitioner doesn’t want to incur further liability on them. This probably dates to just before the reassignment of iqṭāʿ properties in 1107-1108 CE, when state revenues had dwindled and government officials were harassing the owners of iqṭāʿāt for revenue. On verso there is Hebrew liturgical poetry. (Information from CUDL)

State document, Fatimid period. Petition to a vizier of Al-ʿĀḍid li-Dīn Allāh from a baker in Fusṭāṭ concerning a debt that he had incurred with a certain ʿAbd al-Bāqī b. Wardar and is not able to repay. He is asking for a decree allowing him to pay his debt in instalments. On verso are two versions of the same reply to the petition, in which the judge Kāmal al-Dīn is entrusted with clarifying the status of the petitioner and working out a solution for him. Dating: 556–59 AH, which is 1161–64 CE. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Recto, with address on verso: Petition from Muslim b. ʿAlī b. Muslim to Abū l-Faraj b. [...] b. Yūḥannā. Phrases that jump out are "wa-laysa fī hādhihi l-nawāḥī mā...." (l. 11) and "qad ʿalimat ḥaḍratuhu annī rajulun mastūr" (l. 12). Needs further examination. On verso there is also the end of a Judaeo-Arabic letter: "I greet you and all the friends, and may R. Natan and Rabbenu and his son be in perfect well-being." In the same hand, there are also liturgical compositions for Shabbat.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely Tammuz 1232 CE, and almost definitely 1232–37 CE. See below for explanation. Writer and addressee are unidentified. The writer dictated the letter to his son. They were evidently affluent merchants and suppliers to the army. The letter is mainly about the controversy over the prayer reforms of the Nagid Avraham Maimonides. The sons of the Sixth (the family members of the previous dynasty of Nagids) submitted a petition against Avraham to the Sultan al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, to which Avraham responded with a counter-petition signed by almost 200 people from the community, testifying that he had not forced his prayer reforms on anybody. The writer maintains that all those who signed in favor of Avraham testified falsely and deserve to be punished by the shaving of their beards, for he claims that Avraham certainly did force his prayer reforms on the community in their synagogues. The writer goes on to report on recent deaths, including that of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu (who predeceased his father) and Yūsuf b. al-Kharrāz (who ate dinner and went to sleep and died; in the morning, his face was "black as ink"). There is a section on the prices of various commodities, a section on relations with the military officer Kātib al-ʿArab, and greetings. As for the justification for the dating: Avraham Maimonides died in 1237. There were two sultans named al-Malik al-ʿĀdil. The first was the brother of Saladin and reigned 1200–18. The second was the grandson of the first (the son of al-Malik al-Kāmil) and reigned 1238–40, after the death of Avraham Maimonides. However, during the years 1232–38 when al-Malik al-Kāmil lived in Syria, al-Malik al-ʿĀdil the Younger sometimes represented his father in Egypt. Goitein determined that the reference must be to al-Malik al-ʿĀdil the First, which would date the document to 1204–18. But the plot thickens, because Shelomo b. Eliyyhau—whose death is reported in this document—was still alive in the month of Av in 1231 CE (Med Soc II, 575 n. 60) and Heshvan 1231 CE (Freer F 1908.44H). The present letter is dated Sunday 5 Tammuz. This narrows the window to 1232–37 CE. The trouble is that the 5th of Tammuz can never fall on a Sunday.... so either the scribe was off by a day or meant to write 15th of Tammuz. The latter option is supported by the phrase "may its sadness be turned to joy," which might refer to the upcoming 17th of Tammuz fast. (Information mainly from Friedman's article on this document; see also Mediterranean Society, I, p. 141; II, p. 485).

Recto: Letter of appeal for charity addressed to al-Rayyis Yūsuf. In Arabic script, calligraphic with large letters. Asking him to bestow two garments (thawbayn) on the sender, since his family is almost dying from the cold. Verso: Letter from a certain Yūsuf who is ill. In Judaeo-Arabic, with erratic handwriting and spelling, difficult to read. He explains why he couldn't come. He says that he even loaded up his donkey and set out, but then was overtaken by sukūna (a medical term that appears in other documents but whose meaning is not entirely clear) and an attack of colic (qawlanjiyya). He feared that he wouldn't make it through the night. Unclear if or how the two letters are related to each other. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) ASE

Business letter in Arabic script, top only; continues on verso. Reused for a Judaeo-Arabic text on recto and verso, according to Baker and Polliack about Alexander the Great; mentions China (al-Ṣīn) several times.

Fatimid-era petition. Dating: 422–23 AH, which is 1031–32 CE. End of a petition to the caliph al-Ẓāhir requesting the return of a church to the Christian community and the payment of a sum of 24 dinars in yearly installments of 6 dinars. On verso there are biblical verses with a Hebrew commentary relating the verses to recent historical events. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Petition fragment. Contains part of a raʾy clause and a reference to Dīwān al-Shām al-Maʿmūr, and then perhaps "the response of the slave with what he performed (wa-ijābat al-ʿabd bi-mā tamaththaltuhū), although the pronouns here are tricky. Reused for Hebrew piyyuṭ. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Letter to the judge Eliyyahu b. Zekharya requesting he intervene with the Nagid on behalf of the bearer of the letter, who had spent six months in prison and was ill. The bearer is named Abu l-[Faraj?] al-Sayrafi. Goitein deduces that the bearer was sick even before his time in prison from the language in lines 14-18: "You knew him in his prosperous and happy state and how he was at that time and what he suffered. His suffering has only increased due to his degradation and his staying in prison close to six months, sick among the gentiles. He is in the meanest state among them due to his illness." (Information from Goitein's index cards. See also card #27109.) EMS. ASE.

Communal petition. Petition from a man claiming to be without shelter and saying he was living in a donkey's stable without anything to eat. He asks the recipient to extricate from another man the 13 5/8 dinars he owes him and apologizes for being unable to attend public prayer service because of his present state. "For one month, thirty days, I have been living in a donkey's stable, alone, starving, and ill; most of the time I do not eat or drink. Meat, fish, or rich food do not come into my mouth. My strength fails because of my sinfullness" (Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 90, 91).

State document, Fatimid period, 1130–49. Opening lines of a petition with a blessing on al-Hāfiẓ. On verso there is additional Arabic text in a different hand, possibly a response to the petition. (Information from CUDL)

State document, Mamluk period, 1442. Draft of a petition from the Jewish community of Fustat to the Mamluk government concerning the malpractices of ‘Abd al-Latif the physician, head of the Jews, who is reported to have sold portions of pious foundation properties and leased others below their value, imposed high fiscal penalties, and confiscated property of the Jews, among a litany of other harmful acts. The document requests his removal from office. (Mark Cohen, "Jews in the Mamlūk Environment: The Crisis of 1442 (A Geniza Study)," BSOAS, 1984, 431-4) EMS

Recto: Petition. In Arabic script. Dating: Probably Mamluk-era. Concerning the synagogue at Dammūh and asking for orders/guidance (waṣāh). Perhaps having to do with the synagogue’s exemption from tax status, because the ʿummāl have been harassing them. Reused by Nāṣir al-Adīb al-ʿIbrī (d. after 1298).