Geniza Lab

Letter from Yosef b. Yehuda b. Simḥa (Alexandria) to Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā b. Nissim (Fustat), ca. 1050. The writer mentions a number of deals in beads and pearls. He is worried about owing money to a number of people including Yaḥyā b. Nissim and, although they do not demand payment, is anxious to settle the issue. He also mentions having heard about diseases (amrāḍ) that have spread in Fustat. The address is written in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. (Information from Gil.)

Letter from Bū Yaʿqūb(?) to ʿAmram (aka Bū ʿImrān) ha-Talmid, c/o al-Shaykh al-Nafīs. The addressee may be the brother-in-law of the writer (the address includes the word صهر). In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. Many names are mentioned, including the officials Mushārif al-Balad and the Amir ʿAlā al-Dīn, and the women Sitt Nadd, Sitt Kāfūr, Sitt Ghuṣn, Sitt Suʿūd, Sitt al-Naṣr, and Sitt Zaynihim.

Business letter addressed to Abū l-Khayr b. Mufaḍḍal al-Yahūdī al-Bilbaysī(?), in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Maghrebi hand. Dating: Likely ca. 13th century. Consists almost entirely of detailed business instructions, mentioning many commodities and their prices.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Tiny fragment: preserves only the opening and part of the Arabic-script address. The hand is almost certainly the same as several other known letters: see tag. This fragment could be part of a non-contiguous join with ENA NS 7.48.

Business letter sent from Tripoli, Lebanon. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably 11th century. Mentions terrible economic depression in the Levant and asks the addressee to send his letters to Tyre. The address is in Arabic script but it looks like it is just the blessings for the addressee, not his name (baqāhu wa-adāma ʿizzahu). Needs preservation; some of the text is hidden underneath folds.

Letter from Labrāṭ b. Moshe b. Sughmār, in Sūsa, to his younger brother Abū Zekharya Yehuda b. Moshe, in Fustat. Dating: August 1056 (Gil). This long letter alludes to dire events that took place in North Africa and Sicily, including the invasion of the Bedouins, the destruction of Qayrawān and the siege of Sūsa. The letter also conveys family news about the Banū Sughmār. Labrāṭ opens saying that death is now preferable to life (r3–6). Their mother had recently died (r9–10); Labrāṭ sends a rebuke to a certain Avraham for failing to send him a letter of condolence (v1–2). "I am at this time exhausted (or muddled, multāth), confused and doubtful. By my father, I don't know what I'm writing because my mind is preoccupied. May the end be good, God willing" (r15–16). Labrāṭ congratulates on his brother on his marriage to a woman from a notable family in Fustat. He asks his brother to convey congratulations to Abū l-Khayr, the new brother-in-law, "because I have no heart and no mind," i.e., Labrāṭ is too depressed to write himself (r30–36). He uses the same excuse for his failure to maintain his correspondence with "al-rav al-ajall," the most exalted teacher (v5). "I write these lines overcome by tears" due to his separation from his brother and lack of close confidants in Sūsa (r36–37). Labrāṭ plans to travel soon, whether to east or to west. If the addressee wishes to travel, he should come to al-Mahdiyya or alternatively go to the Rīf and acquire goods for the two of them. "But in this time I have no sure opinion (ra'y)—the decision is yours" (v15–17). The other parts of the letter consist of business affairs and greetings to people in Egypt. Among the business affairs are reports on shipping, including the following: "You mentioned that you loaded three (loads of freight) onto the qārib of Mufarrij and one onto the qārib of Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ," and the former reached Tripoli (r17–18); later in the letter, he adds: "Just now a letter arrived from my lord Abī l-Faḍl Yūsuf b. Khalfa mentioning that the small (laṭīf) ship of Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ has also reached Tripoli" (v20–21). (Information in part from Gil.) ASE and MR

Letter from an unknown writer, possibly in Abū Qīr, addressed to Fustat, al-ʿAṭṭārīn, the shop of Muslim/Musallam al-Kaʿkī. Written in Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Dating: Possibly 11th or early 12th century, based on the trade emporia named. Deals with business in mats (? anṭāʿ). The writer mentions Abū l-Surūr traveling to al-Mahdiyya, Tripoli (Libya), and Byzantium. He complains about the capitation tax and his poor fortune in business. Needs further examination.

Letter from Yūsuf b. Ibrahīm to Abū ʿImrān Ibn Nufayʿ. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. Long and well-preserved. Concerning numerous business matters, including the goods left by Tamīm upon his death and goods to be sold in ʿAydhāb. Needs further examination.

Letter addressed to Abū Saʿīd Ibn al-ʿAfṣī ("the gallnut merchant") al-ʿAṭṭār, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. The addressee is known from several other letters. The writer calls him "my son." The writer also refers to "my house in Shubrā [=Shubrā Damsīs]." Mentions Khalaf in al-Maḥalla. Needs further examination.

Letter from Yeshuʿa b. Yefet to two brothers, to the dukkān of Bāb al-Futūḥ, which means this was probably sent to Cairo rather than Fustat. In Hebrew (introduction) and Judaeo-Arabic (body) and Arabic script (address). One of the addressees is named Maḥāsin, and the address also contains the name الي אלכהן = Eli[yya?] al-Kohen. Only a couple lines of the body of the letter are preserved.

Letter fragment sent to Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Dating: Liikely 11th century. Little of the content remains. A man named Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan b. al-Tarkash(?) is mentioned.

Letter fragment addressed to [...] al-Maghribī, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. The writer sends good wishes for Shavuʿot; mentions Abū l-Surūr; says that "the sleep flew from my eyes," meaning that he was preoccupied on account of the addressee or somebody else.

Letter fragment from Faraḥ b. Yūsuf al-Qābisī. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. Needs examination for content.

Letter fragment from Mubārak b. Isḥāq (=Mevorakh b. Yiṣḥaq). In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. The hand does not appear to be the same as that of the well-known Mevorakh b. Yiṣḥaq Ibn Sabra (e.g. CUL Or.1080 J264). The opening greetings of this letter contain the phrase "bayn al-saḥr wa-l-naḥr," an idiomatic expression for the chest and presumably also for the heart.

Business letter. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Addressed to someone in Fustat (whose name may be legible). Dating: Probably 11th century. Deals with the shipping of goods; mentions Salmān the ghulām of Ibn [...]; textiles, garments, copper.

Letter fragment, addressed to some dignitary. Recto preserves the flowery introduction of the letter. In Hebrew. There is very faded text in both Hebrew and Arabic script on verso, probably part of the address.

Letter from Yisra'el b. Daniel, in one of the towns of the Rīf, to Salāma b. ʿAllūn al-Ṣayrafī, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th century. The writer refers to himself as Ra's al-Kill (Rosh Kalla), probably since he was among the heads of the Babylonian congregation in his town, or in the Maghrib. The letter deals with business in textiles. It is written on a reused piece of paper containing the beginning of an Arabic-script letter to a Qāḍī that was abandoned. Information mostly from Gil

Letter from Abū Manṣūr, unknown location, to Abū Zikrī al-Rayyis b. Eliyyahu, in Fustat or in Qalyūb ('wherever he may be'). In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. Rudimentary and distinctive hand. The writer is certainly a relative of the addressee, perhaps a brother-in-law or paternal cousin (or both), as he asks about the welfare of Abū Zikrī's wife. The letter mentions debts to the tax collectors (ḥushshār, l. 17). The writer complains that the addressee has been absent too long from his wife and mother. The date, added to the last line, is the 30th of the Omer (15 Iyar), but no year is provided.

Letter from an unknown man, unknown location (not Fustat or Alexandria), to his mother Umm Mufaḍḍal, in Alexandria. Written in Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. He briefly expresses concern for his mother's health, because he heard that she has been ill for one year. He then gets to the purpose of the letter, which is to solicit his mother's help in obtaining the divorce he has been wishing to obtain for a year, for he has been prevented from remarrying (presumably by the local authorities wherever he is, because they learned that he was still married to a woman in Fustat). He sent the bill of divorce with the bearer of the present letter, a man from Iraq. He asks his mother to receive the messenger richly. If the wife is still in Fustat, the messenger should continue on his way to complete the mission. If the wife has come to Alexandria, the mother should deliver the bill of divorce directly. He also asks her to send something to Ibrāhīm and to send her response with Ibn Abū l-Najm, "because we have two capitation taxes (we still have to pay)." Information in part from Zinger's dissertation, 246–47.

Letter addressed to Abū Saʿd b. Abū l-Munajjā, in Fustat. Only the address remains, which is in Arabic script.