Geniza Lab

Business-family letter showing the concern of the Jews of Egypt for those of Yemen. Dated Thursday, middle of the month Elul. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Business letter sent from Alexandria by Yiṣḥaq b. Simḥa ha-Levi, a wholesale silk-dealer, to Abu al-Sarur Peraḥya b. Nissim ha-Levi in Fustat, dealing with goods and their prices and mentioning the government's prerogative to take possession of commodities against the wish of the merchants carrying them. Dated ca. 1120. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 267, 268, 387)

Letter from Ismail b. Yitzhak ha-Andalusi, Jerusalem, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1065. Blessings for the holiday. The writer asks to pass an attached letter to his mother and brother in Spain. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 3, pp. 285-287, #512) VMR

Business letter from Farah b. Yosef in Alexandria to Yehuda b. Menashshe in Fustat concerning the delivery of goods, namely items of silver, olive oil, cheese, almonds and saffron sent from Ifrīqiya to Sicily. The writer mentions some hardship in Sicily. (Information from Ben-Sasson, Yehudei sitziliya)

Business letter to Abu Yusuf containing information and instructions concerning various items. The letter also mentions a shipment of goods and may refer to trade with Europe. (Information from Gointein's index cards)

Letter from Mūsā b. Iṣḥaq b. Nissim al-ʿĀbid (al-Mahdiya) to Avraham b. Daʾūd al-Raḥbī (Fustat), ca. 1030. The writer supplies goods from the Maghreb, including oil olive, fruit jam, spices, etc. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 683.) Contains a list of prices of local goods: pepper, laque, spices, sugar, precious stones and pearls. Letter written in the evening after the fast of the day of Atonement. (Informations from Goitein index cards linked below).

Letter (tadhkira) from Hasun b. Yitzhak al-Khavlani, probably to Musa b. Yahya al-Majani, probably from Alexandria. Around 1030. The writer lists a list of merchandises and products including a stone that he sent for selling in the Maghreb. The addressee is probably in Mahdiyya and Hasun includes a list of things he asks Musa to do for him when he arrives in Qayrawan. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #219) VMR

Letter from Hillel to Yaʿaqov, delivered by Mansur b. Furayj, concerning the buying of silk and a turban. VMR

Letter from Moshe b. Yaʿaqov, Jerusalem, to his wife's brother Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Dating: June 1053 CE. The letter is mainly about arrangements for the long-deferred pilgrimage of Mūsā b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī to Jerusalem. On verso, amidst family greetings and business matters, Moshe conveys his wife's urgent request for myrobalan for her to drink. There are no details about why she needs it, but presumably it is as medicine for an illness.The block of text containing the order set off from the previous block. At least four letters from Moshe to Nahray survive: see also T-S 13J13.5 (from March), T-S 13J17.18 (from July), and Halper 411 (May 1054 CE).

Business letter in Hebrew and Arabic script to Abū l-Ḥasan Binyamin requesting the dispatch of merchandise to Qalyub, including medical supplies, via a ghulām, and mentioning the broker Banin.

Letter from a certain Yaʿqūb to Abū l-Faḍā'il b. Abū l-Saʿīd known as al-Yatīm. In Judaeo-Arabic. The addressee's mother has been sick. The addressee has been trying to sell her (or his wife's?) house, but he can't find a Jewish buyer and he does not have the proper documentation (tathbīt) to sell it to Muslims. The sender gives him advice about this. EMS. ASE.

Brief letter from Yosef b. Avraham in Aden to Avraham b. Yiju, ca. 1147 or 1148. The letter discusses some business matters and mentions the supposed arrival of Ibn Yiju's brother, Mevasser.

Letter from Nahray b. Nissīm, Fusṭāṭ, to Barhūn b. Ṣāliḥ al-Tāhartī, probably in Egypt, ca. 1045, concerning business between the two. Mentions a shipment of pearls. Nahray sends his blessing to Khalfa, from the Tāhartī family, for his marriage to a woman from the Uqba family. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 2, pp. 711-714, #242). VMR. Nahray anxiously mentions to Barhūn that he has already paid the Amīr's emissary Abū Ishāq 150 dīnārs in Fusṭāṭ and it concerns him that the Amīr is still demanding the same from him in Alexandria. "If, God forbid, he continues to demand payment from you after he knows that it was already collected from me, then you will certainly remind him of his own letter to his emissary Abū Isḥāq, so that he will return to us what he has taken from us." YU.

Letter from Nissim b. Yiṣḥaq al-Tāhartī, in Sūsa, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1052 CE. The letter mentions the connections that Nahray has with the Tāhirtī family as well as business matters with two Muslims, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and his son Abū ʿAbdallāh (Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ,
s s
I. 39 and margin). It mentions also Nissim b. Ya'aqov, who leads a center of learning in Qayrawān. The writer respects Nahray and will try to get him the books that he wants. Nissim opens the letter by conveying his concern for Nahray's eye disease, and his happiness that Nahray's condition is better now than "when the doctors frightened you regarding it" (r4–6). Later, in the context of Nissim's troubles this winter, he conveys the news of a woman (identity unclear) who is very sick (recto, right margin). (Information in part from Gil, Kingdom, 3, pp. 319–24, #389)

Legal document. Court record. Dated: 1083-1084. Location: Fustat. Abū al-‘Alā ‘Ūlla ha-Levi b. Joseph al-Dimashqī and Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā ha-Levi b. Joseph ha-Levi dispute the details of a partnership. The verso records ‘Ūlla’s testimony that Yaḥyā would receive one-third of the profits after expenses, following the commenda model, while Yaḥyā argued that profits were to be split evenly, and the expenses were to come out of the proceeds of the sale. Goitein points out that in addition to the partnership funds trusted to Yaḥyā, ‘Ūlla entrusted a consignment of scammony (a medicinal plant) which was “on commission”, suggesting that “business in general was largely conducted on the basis of mutual trust and friendship”. On the other hand, the dispute at hand concerns specific details of the partnership, including a dispute concerning the possible markets to which Yaḥyā was empowered to travel (Damietta, Alexandria, and the Maghreb); the partnership is terminated prior to Yaḥyā’s journey to the Maghreb. This document may have been a draft, given the many strikeouts, and blank space in the document has been used for some Arabic material whis seems to be unrelated. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 146)

Partly preserved calligraphic letter, reporting about the recipient's sheep, colocasia and other products. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 440)

Letter by Hibat Allah b. Khalaf al-Hamawi to Barakāt b. Khulayf, complaining that he couldn't sell the resin and mentioning a transport by the ship of al-Harbi, apparently a Christian from a Christian land. Dated May 1037. (Information from M. Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 118)

Letter from Awad b. Hananel from Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat, ca. 1060. In the handwriting of Avraham b. Abi al-Hayy and concerning business matters, specifically a shipment of nuts that was send by the writer to Nahray, and a shipment of oil that Nahray sent to the writer. Also mentions several other goods, and an apartment belonging to Nahray in Alexandria, in which the writer lives. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 3, #567) VMR

Letter from Barhun b. Musa, probably from Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Probably 1062. Barhun writes the letter in the name of his brother, Yosef. He does not write the place where the letter is written but it seems like he is in a port city, probably Alexandria. Before that, he was in Safakus and Mahdiyya. Mentions large shipments of dirhams. Several of Nahray’s business partners are mentioned as well. Deals with selling and shipping goods to Mahdiyya, Tripoli, and Sicily and some details about prices. Mentions the Byzantines that want pepper. Also mentions some family matters about Nahray’s aunt (from his mother’ side) who is in a bad financial situation, and his cousin Yisra'el b. Natan who is in mental distress (or is simply engaged in a prolonged dispute with Barhūn; this section begins on verso, line 9). It seems that Barhun wrote the letter soon before his death in 1062, because he mentions the passing of Elhanan b. Isma’il al-Tahirti, who died in 1062. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #348) VMR

Letter from Yaʿaqov b. Ismail al-Andalusi, in Sicily, to Yoshua b. Natan al-Andalusi, in Fustat. Dealing with business matters and listing prices of goods in Sicily. Dated ca. 1050 (Gil's dating). (Information from Ben-Sasson, and from Gil)