Geniza Lab

Accounts of community of revenue from houses rent, Ca. 1250. Contains, listed in two columns, several current entries of revenue and expenditures. Both Hebrew letters and Coptic numerals are used. In addition, both sides of the leaf have various scribblings, mainly names of Hebrew months, written in another hand. These are unconnected with the document and may be writing exercises. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp.476 #143)

Court case from Fustat, 15 March 1285. The document involves the arrangements for paying the capitation tax (jaliya) in Alexandria and Fustat.

Accounting for five months, ca. 1230. Two leaves, the first of which has writing on both sides. The first part is an estimate of the expected monthly revenue from rent. A comparison of the sum expected for five months with the actual revenue follows. Then there are three columns of details concerning the sums paid and owed by different tenants. The order in which the columns are to be read is not the usual one. The estimated budget is divided into six main sections, according to the location of the apartments: The lane of the synagogue, the funduq, its vicinity, the "great bazaar," the Khabisa lane, and the Tujib quarter. There are 36 tenants in all. The arrearss come to baout 11.5% of the panned revenue (162 as against 1337 dir.). (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 444-445 #134)

Accounting of the qodesh, ca. 1240. A double leaf, torn into two parts, this document contains a main record of current revenues from rent, but some expenditures and other pecuniary operations are also listed. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 460 #138)

Legal document. Commenda. Following the Talmudic isqa method whereby the agents have some responsibility for losses, the active partner or partners (Abū Sa‘d and his son Abū al-Ma‘ānī) collect 2/3 of the profit and bear equal responsibility for losses, while the investor Abū Naṣr collects 1/3. The divison of losses is not clear due to the manuscript's deterioration. While Udovitch (1970, pg. 239) suggests that the fact that the active partner in a qiraḍ bears no liability for loss is ideal for long distance trade, the partners in this agreement seem to plan to travel and still use the Talmudic model rather than the qirāḍ. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 45-47)

Account (draft) of the Qodesh ca. 1222-23. Record of an accounting in which mainly expenditures are preserved. Listed are expenditures made by the beadle Abu'l-Tahir, both on building operations and on oil for the synagogue. There are a few revenues from rent listed as well. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp.429 #128)

Verso: Account of the qodesh. Dating: ca. 1215 CE, according to Gil. This document records sums deposited by several collectors of the qodesh with its central administration. Details about 1,010 dirhams and other sums received from rents and delivered by the writer to various communal officials. The writer is apparently one of the judges of the court in Fustat. The account is written on the verso of a bill of sale for an Indian female slave, which was concluded in 1155 CE (see PGPID 11413). (Information from Gil, Documents, p. 409f, doc. #111, and Goitein, Mediterranean Society II, p. 428, App. A, sec. 138.)

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Location: Bilbays. Dated: January 1209. This document is a partnership agreement in a perfume- and dye-manufacturing shop. The partners, Faḍā’il b. Abū al-Ḥasan and Manṣūr b. Abū Sa‘īd, contribute a total of 700 dirhams (200 and 500 dirhams respectively). The document doesn't use the formal terms shirka or mu‘āmala to describe their relationship, but the parties attest to "having partnered" in the shop. Both partners seem to work in the operation, profits and losses are generally to be split equally, and weekly maintenance is specified for each party. Manṣūr seems to be the senior partner; he brings more assets to the partnership, and the facility itself may belong to him, as he is allocated 4 dirhams of rent for the shop each month. However, income from the sale of scent sachets was allocated to Faḍā’il, who may have produced these alone without Manṣūr's assistance. Written and signed by Yehuda b. Tuvyahu he-Ḥaver ha-Kohen, Meshullam b. Mevorakh and Berakhot b. Elazar ha-Ḥazzan. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 73-74) The verso is a bifolium of a bible.

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dating: Late 13th century CE. Location: Fustat. Moshe ha-Talmid b. Ṭahor partners with Abū Saʿd b. Abū l-ʿAlā al-Ṣabbāgh in an apothecary shop. Moshe is paid 6 dirhams a month agrees to work for a year and a half. His wage is guaranteed by Abū Sa‘d’s father Abū al-‘Alā’ (ll.7-8). Because of the guarantee of Abū al-‘Alā, three qinyanim are performed: Moshe's agreement to work, Abū Saʿd’s agreement to pay, and the guarantee of Abū al-‘Alā’. Although the parties’ relationship is described as a partnership, Moshe's wages being fixed suggests an employment agreement, though likely not an apprenticeship, both because Moshe is not a youth (line 5 alludes to his five sons) and is said to manage or set up the store. The date and signatures are missing from the document in its current state of preservation, though T-S NS J405 (PGPID 26473) reveals Abū Saʿd agreeing to repay a debt of some eight hundred dirhams from November 1275. Perhaps Abū Saʿd had come upon difficult times and needed the guarantee of his father in order to convince Moshe to manage the apothecary shop. Note: Abū al-‘Alā’'s guarantee is for fulfillment of the obligation “to the store”, suggesting a sense of corporate identity ascribed to the store and its creditors. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Society", 100)

Letter from Umm Khalaf, in Sunbāṭ, to Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, probably in Fustat. About small debts owed to her by her cousin. She has not received the kohl that Shelomo sent. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Meir b. al-Hamadani to the judge Eliyyahu, asking that he provide a person the writer had met with certain supplies. Dated to the early 13th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 577, and Goitein's index cards)

Letter from Toviyya to Eliyyahu the judge. Sent to Fustat, to the qāʿa of the faqīh Abū Manṣūr. Toviyya informs Eliyyahu that he found no buyers for lac in al-Mahalla and so he sold it in Damietta. Reused on verso for a poem in Judaeo-Arabic about mortality.

Letter from Manṣūr b. Sālim, in Alexandria, to Eliyyahu the Judge (Abū l-Faraj b. al-Rayyis), in Fustat. Manṣūr asks Eliyyahu to help find his son, who had run away, perhaps to the army, perhaps to Cairo or Damascus. Manṣūr asks Eliyyahu to urge his son to come home, reminding him of his obligations towards his mother, who is very sick on account of her son's actions. The son had taken several objects with him on his flight without the father knowing it(?). The sender requests a quick reply to his letter. See also T-S 10J14.12 and T-S Ar.18(1).137, letters by the same sender concerning the same matter. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 274, 468; II, pp. 379, 479, 610)

Verso: Letter from Hananya b. Yehuda to Yehi'el the judge b. Elyaqim. The writer asks the addressee to come to Jerusalem and decide in a legal matter. Recto: Part of the (draft of) the opening of a badly written letter. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Mansur b. Salim in Alexandria to a friend in Cairo inquiring about his son, who had run away to the army and had perhaps travelled as far as Yemen. See also T-S 10J13.10 and T-S Ar.18(1).137, letters by the same sender concerning the same matter. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 379)

Recto: Letter containing greetings to several people. (Information from Goitein's index cards) Verso: Magical text, Shimmush Tehillim, 13th-century. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Shelomo (Abu l-Barakat) in Alexandria to to his brother, the physician Abu Zikri son of Abu l-Faraj (Eliyyahu the Judge), in Fustat. Only the introduction of the letter has been preserved.

Recto: Letter from Elʿazar b. Abraham b. Elišaʿ to Elijah the judge b. Zechariah, concerning a dispute about rent payments. Mentions Abū l-Faraj the glazier, Hārūn, and Manṣūr b. Abū l-Surūr. Greetings are sent to the Nagid, the judges Ḥananel and Yeḥiʾel, and to Abraham and Joseph. Verso: Legal document (unfinished draft) concerning a financial agreement between Ibrahim b. Abū l-Faḍl and Abū l-Ḥasan b. Abū l-ʿAlā. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from ten elders of the community concerning appointment of David b. Avraham b. Maimonides as Nagid.

Letter. Postscript to a letter addressed to the Nasi Shelomo by the scion of the house of David in Mosul who also wrote Bodl. MS Heb. a 3/24. Mentions that he acquired for his son a permit to practice a profession and travel to Bilbays in Egypt. (Information from Goitein's index cards.) The writer mentions that he intended to travel that week, but his son fell ill; he also mentions that the rayyis is ill and cannot read or write letters, but that the sons of Rabbenu Menaḥem have been helping. Circa 1236 based on Bodl. MS Heb. a 3/24.