Geniza Lab

Legal document. Partnership settlement. Dated: October 1143. Location: Fustat. Written in the hand of Nathan b. Solomon ha-Kohen. The recto records the settlement of a partnership and the verso records subsequent payments. The partners, Khalaf b. Abū al-Ḥasan al-Damsīsī and Joseph b. Ḥassān al-Mahdawī, took purple dye materials to Upper Egypt and sold it there. Conflict ensued, perhaps when the partners divided up profits or losses from the sale of the dye (since the division isn't specified in the document). The mutual release was complete, except for a payment of two dinars to be made from Joseph to Khalaf according to a payment schedule described in the document. If Joseph fails to make full payment, he must make a donation to the poor in the same amount as he owes. Khalaf is to be trusted (presumably, without an oath) concerning Joseph's payments. Despite the aforementioned penalty clause, Joseph apparently took longer than expected to repay the two dinars, since the final release which appears on the verso is dated six months after the end of the loan repayment period, in 1144. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 219)

Recto: autograph responsa by Shemarya b. Elḥanan (active 966–1011 CE) with his signature. Verso: an abridgement of BT Yevamot 65b-72a. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document. Marriage agreement in the hand of Yosef b. Moshe, son and assistant of the provincial judge. The agreement is a tawqīm ("estimate") of the trousseaux for the bride, Sitt al-Suʿada ("Mistress over the Happy Ones"). The groom approved of the evaluation of the tawqīm of the dowry and took on the responsibility of keeping the items safe. The items listed include twelve items of gold and silver jewelry, thirty-four articles of clothing, four pieces of bedding, and thirteen copper items and other household goods, totaling 145 dinars. The verso contains two statements, one by the father of the bride stating that the dowry has been given to the bride as her exclusive irrevocable property, and one by the groom stating he would be responsible for the care of these items as his "iron sheep," i.e. something which he would need to return in full in the event of divorce. The judge had a preference for obtaining explicit acknowledgement of the contents of the document in simple Arabic in order to ensure everyone understood and was in agreement. This was because the official Rabbinate marriage contract, which also listed these details, would be in formulaic Aramaic. This would be further reiterated by T-S 10J21.13, another document which outlines the groom's acceptance of the estimate. (Information Goitein's index card and Mediterranean Society)

Autograph texts by Joseph Rosh ha-Seder b. Jacob. Recto: a draft relating to the copying of the Mishna and the Gemara. On the bottom of the page and written upside down in relation to the other text there is a, presumably draft, colophon stating that Joseph Rosh ha-Seder copied a Siddur of Saʿadya Gaʾon in 1201. Verso: opening lines of the Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaʾon with minor variations in wording. The text is entitled ‘Collected Benedictions of Rabbenu Sherira of blessed memory’ and begins with one line of verse, vocalised and decorated. (Information from CUDL)

Autographed Responsum by Avraham Maimonides regarding the estate of a freed female slave. Written by MOshe b. Perahya, who was the muqaddam of MInyat Ghmar. AA

Legal document. Partnership dissolution. Dated: March 1029. Location: Fustat. This document, emerging from the court of Abraham b. Sahlān, records the dissolution of a partnership between Ibn al-Kashshāsh Isḥaq b. Elijah and Samḥūn b. Tamīm. Isḥaq is to pay six dinars at the end of roughly seven months, at the end of the month of Tishri of the next year, and Samḥūn thereby absolved Isḥaq of any further obligation. Isḥaq also agreed that if he were to travel to the West without Samḥūn, that he would pay the six dinars prior to his departure. Court record dealing with the affairs of two business partners signed by Avraham he-Ḥaver b. Sahlan, Shemuel ha-Kohen and Sadaqa b. Yahya. Dated Tishri 1341/September 1029.

Maimonides’ epitome of Galen’s περὶ τῶν πεπονθότων τόπων (De locis affectis), from the second and third treatises, in Judaeo-Arabic, in Maimonides’ own hand. On the margin of P1 f.2v there is an example of Maimonides’ Arabic handwriting. (Information from CUDL)

Autograph letter from Maimonides to his pupil Ṭoviyya. The letter consists entirely of a detailed prescription of a regimen (tadbīr).

Autograph leaves of Maimonides, Treatise on sexual intercourse. (Information from CUDL)

Letter to Maimonides with autograph response on verso. "T-S Arabic Box 46, fol. 97, is a small sheet of paper the verso of which contains a note with a request for medical advice. It is interesting to note the ethical note introduced into this medical business by the sentence: 'since my entire aim in this matter is to seek the nearness to God'. The writer presumably means that through preserving health it is possible to better devote onself to the service of God. This brings to mind another similar request addressed to Maimonides in a letter published by D. H. Baneth [see the autograph letter published by Baneth, "Me-halifat ha-Mikhtavin shel ha-Rambam", Studies in Memory of Asher Gulak and Samuel Klein, pp. 50 ff.]: 'I desire from your bounty, my lord--since you, together with God, can heal my soul and its organs, so that it can employ itself in the study of the sciences--to prescribe for me what I should eat, since this is necessary, so that I can more easily understand these matters [the philosophical problems described in the first part of the letter]'. That letter has also in common with ours the fact that Maimonides' reply is written on the back of the sheet." - S. M. Stern. There are two blocks of text in Maimonides's hand on verso, at ninety degrees to each other. One is almost entirely illegible, does not appear to relate to the question on recto, and (very speculatively) could be a responsum for a legal question that the writer sent separately (though Stern would differ, as he read "dirham of lemon" where I read "shall be bound by a vow"). The other block is the answer to the dietary questions on recto. ASE.

Recto: Hebrew prayer. Verso: last lines of an autograph responsum by Maimonides, and part of a liturgical text in Hebrew. (Information from CUDL.) See Outhwaite, B. (2007). "Two New Responsa of Moses Maimonides." [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, April 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.34048.

Letter in the hand of Abraham Maimonides. Mentions a certain Elijah - probably Elijah b. Zekharya. AA

Autograph letter from Maimonides to a judge. The addressee is asked to mediate between the bearer Abū l-Fakhr and his legal opponent Abū l-Maḥāsin. If he is unable to do that, he should at least make one of them take an oath that he has no property 'neither here nor anywhere else.' (Information from CUDL and Friedman, Dictionary, 75, 116–17, 141, 165.)

Autograph responsum by Moses Maimonides. (Information from CUDL)

A Maimonides autograph of his commentary on the Mishna (Kelim 8:9). (Information in part from FGP.)

Recto: Maimonides’ autograph draft of a 3-line poem he composed and included at the beginning of his philosophical work ‘Guide for the Perplexed’. Verso: letter in a different hand (not that of Maimonides) to Joseph b. Judah (possibly Ibn ʿAqnin, a student of Maimonides). The letter continues overleaf(?), along with diverse jottings. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: Legal query sent to Maimonides along with his autograph responsum. This was published by Goitein as well as Blau, Maimonides Responsa, no. 283. Verso: Draft of a long dirge in Hebrew, in the hand of Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, upon the death of three prominent members of the Jewish community: the rabbis Shemuel, Shelomo and Yiṣḥaq. These three figures were identified by M. A. Friedman as the judges in Maimonides’ court, see Friedman, India Book IVA, pp. 36–37. Shemuel is Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi, who died in 1203. (Information in part from Amir Ashur's Fragments of the Month, April 2011, November 2016.)