Geniza Lab

Last page of a letter from Abū Naṣr b. Avraham, in Alexandria, to a public figure, in Fustat. Identification is based on handwriting and style. The first page of the letter is missing. Dated: 9 Tammuz, apparently of the year 1141 CE (so the 8th of June). The letter contains information on ships that frequented the port of Alexandria. It mentions an attack of Bedouins on the passengers of the Sultan's ship in Tobruk (this note was added from Goitein) as well as general news and instructions of a commercial nature, dealing with spices, perfumes, books, pearls and gold. The letter reports the great distress in which the Jews of Alexandria found themselves. The leaders of the community, among them Abu Nasr himself, were under house arrest due to unpaid debts from previous years. The matter created 'hatred' (Heb. sinʾut) and general anarchy. The recipient is asked to intervene in the matter and petition a few Muslim public figures which might assist. (Information from Frenkel and Goitein's note card.)

In this appeal, typically addressed to the community ('your excellencies, my masters, the illustrious lordly judges, and...the elders of Israel'), a widow and mother of four, weighed down by debt, asks for 'something to conceal myself (astur bihi nafs) and the fo[ur] who are with me. She thus voices the common plaint of the master, the 'concealed,' who strives to maintain him/herself economically without having to 'uncover his/her face, especially by resorting to the public dole. (Information from Goitein's index cards and from Cohen)

al-Nusayr b. al-Hakim, a Muslim, declares before Yosef b. Yefet the teacher (who wrote the document) and Ya'ish Zayn al-Tujjar, that he would transfer to the diwan a document stating that Yefet b. Yehoshuaʿ (alias al-Makin b. Abu al-Majd) owed him around 4160 dirhams, for he owed the diwan 100 dinars. When asked how much Yosef still owed him, he replied that he owed him around 100 dirhams. Dated 1217 (Friday 4th of Av. Year 1528 Seleucid Era. Place: al-Mahalla. (Information from Goitein's index cards; also Mediterranean Society, I, p. 242; II, 402)

Recto: Acknowledgment of debt. Lender: Abū l-ʿAlā al-Ṣabbāgh (the dyer) b. Abū Saʿd. Borrower: Abu ʿImrān ʿAmram ha-Levi ha-Talmid. Verso: Records of completed payments. (Information from CUDL.) VMR Should be dated to early 13th century.

Letter from Abū l-Majd, in Qūṣ, to Abū l-Mufaḍḍal the judge, in Fustat. Mentions Egypt, Abū l-Riḍā, Ibn Ibrahim al-ʿArīf, Abū l-ʿAlā b. Ḥassūn, Abū l-Ḥasan and Abū l-Khayr. Dated: Wednesday, 23 Tammuz (1400+)145 = 1545 Seleucid, which is 21 June 1234 CE. (Information in part from CUDL.)

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)

Letter and a responsum, on either side of the same sheet of paper, detailing the story of a man in distress, particularly because of debt. The letter likely concerns an earlier stage of the case, discussed in yet another responsum. The handwriting looks like Berakhot b. Shemuel. (Mark Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages, Princeton University Press, 2005, 80-2) EMS

Verso: Hebrew formulary of an acknowledgment of a debt. Dated to the 11th century. (Information from Goitein's index cards) Recto: Ketubba portion for Jawhara the widow bat Salma and Isaac b. Hosea dated Thursday 13th Marḥešvan 1[..]2 in Fustat. Names of witnesses not preserved. Ca. 11th century. (Information from CUDL)

Letter, probably from Damascus, in which fifteen elders admonish a community in another country to bring to court a merchant against whom a widow held no fewer then twenty documents of indebtedness. His claims against the orphans of Ibn Saba had to be dealt with separately. Dated 10th century.

An Egyptian Jew traveling to Sicily testifies that he owes money to an Italian Jew called Ser Mishael from Trapani. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 256)

Letter by a Karaite woman to three different family members. The language is opaque in many places. (1) To her mother, she opens with her sadness at her mother's departure. "Your love did not overcome [your desire to leave]." She then lists all the people who have died (mātū yā ummī māt. . .): the elderly Dāwudiyya (female descendant of David); the wife of al-Kāzarūnī who was the paternal aunt of the wife of Yehuda; the son of Ibrahim the Deaf—no one has been able to bury him for two days, "they say he is ḥashrī," probably meaning "without heirs" rather than "verminous" (see Lecker, "Customs Dues at the Time of Muhammad," al-Qantara, XXII, 2001, p. 33). (Unless the concentration of deaths means it was plague time, and some corpses were regarded as hazardous?) As for the writer's own news, she swears by the Sabbath day that she has had financial trouble with her landlord, who seems to have given her a loan and to have come on Friday to demand a payment. She had to pawn her daughter's ring. "Do not ask what trouble I had with Maʿānī yesterday. Tell him (the landlord?), 'He (Maʿānī?) is not hiding. It is just that he has had ophthalmia (ramad) for 20 days. Be patient. He will soon work and repay you in installments just like he took (the loan) in installments.'" The bottom of the letter may be missing. On verso, she addresses (2) Abū Manṣūr, and exhorts him, "Be diligent in your work, and everything will turn out well for you (yajīk kull shay' mustawī)." She makes some cryptic statements, which may mean, "As for what Umm Yehuda said, pay no mind. I have told you that the Rabbanite should pay the debt of the Samaritan on your behalf. This would be good luck and an end to the setbacks." (It is from this line that Goitein deduced that the writer was a Karaite.) She says she is working as hard as she can for the sake of "the dowry" (? al-mahr) and has already paid ʿUbayd a qadaḥ and a half of flour and some honey and two pieces of firewood and a qadaḥ of vetch (julubbān) and lye (? ghāsūl). She mentions an underfilled (? muṭaffafa) clay vessel (burniyya) and asks the addressees to send it back to her properly filled (lā tuṭaffūhā). Finally, she addresses (3) her brother Abū Thābit. "I have no counsel for you except that they are your guests. Do not be heartsick on your brother's account. Do not spurn (? tufqir) my advice, and you will overcome much misfortune (?). Do good deeds. He who digs the hole (al-zūbīya) falls in it. Do not lay a hand on him. . . You will regret it very much and say, 'That old woman (al-qaḥba) my sister was right.'" ASE.

Recto: Letter from Natan, a foreigner from Jerba (the island off the coast of Ifrīqiyya), who claims that he has been unjustly placed under house detention by the Muslim authorities. House arrest was imposed for unpaid debts in general, not just for the capitation tax. Unable to acquit himself of the entire obligation he owed he had been paying interest for nine months as well as the fee for house arrest (payment for the guardsman, called tarsīm), the normal procedure in such cases, a form of 'debtor's prison.' He asks assistance from a notable, a Jewish courtier with connections to the Muslim government. (Information from Cohen.) Join by Oded Zinger.

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: Tuesday, 20 Shevaṭ 1422 Seleucid, which is 1111 CE. Quittance of the debt of Shelomo b. Ḥayyim ha-Sheviʿi made in court. Also mentions Abū l-Munā b. Ḥayyim (possibly identical with Shelomo) and Maṣliaḥ b. Yosef, the one granting the release. Cf. JRL Gaster heb. ms 1760/5 (upper fragment).

Legal document. Court record (draft). This document concerns the settlement of an account between Abū al-Mufaḍḍal Netanel b. Yefet and Abū al-Ḥasan Ṭoviyya b. Avraham ha-Levi. Netanel brought a court-validated document specifying that Ṭoviyya owed him 65 dinars. Ṭoviyya claimed that he sent the amount via the agent Abū al-Faraj to be sold in Tunisia. It is unclear whether the 65 dinars is a partnership account or a debt owed Netanel by Ṭoviyya. However, that the commodities were sent to be sold in Tunisia suggests that Ṭoviyya has a financial interest in the sale. For the full details of this court record and the content of its final form, see T-S 8J4.14, PGPID 2098. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 177).

Legal document. Employment agreement. Dated: June 1127. This document records a qinyan between Abraham ha-Kohen b. Aaron and Isḥaq b. Sa‘īd in which Isḥaq agrees to work for Abraham to repay a debt of an unspecified amount. Isḥaq is to be compensated the fixed wage of 2 dirhams a day, with half a dirham going towards repayment of the loan. If Isḥaq leaves before the debt is fully repaid, his compensation is to be retroactively reduced to 1.5 dirhams a day, and he must still repay the debt; and if Abraham terminates him before the debt is fully repaid, his compensation is to be retroactively raised to 2.5 dirhams a day. As the two work together for a longer period, the incentive for each not to terminate the relationship increases. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 181)

(I) Document concerning claims on trousseau items between Tahir b. Abu Sa'd and his wife Fard bat Abu Isaac. (II) Payment of a debt of five dinars less twelve dirhems in monthly installments. Khalaf al-Mutasawwiq b. Abu al-Surur owes Abu al-Muna b. Barakat; October 3, 1160. (III) Legal document concerning the partnership of a house. (Information from Goitein’s index cards) EMS

Legal transaction made in front of witnesses in which Nethanel b. Shelomo acknowledges to owe Amram b. Nafia three dinars for a sold commodity.

Legal document draft in which Mevorakh b. Shelomo, known as Ibn al-Natira, declares to owe Meshullam b. Mevasser b. Pinhas al-Damiri 120 and one-half dinars. Dated 1409 of the Seleucid Era (Iyyar 1100). (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

List of sums owed to or by a teacher, including 2.5 dirhams per weeks for teaching a son or orphan. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Legal document. In Arabic script. Almost complete (missing a small piece from the right side). Dated: Dhū l-Ḥijja 407 AH, which is May 1017 CE. Acknowledgment of the repayment of a debt in monthly installments over the preceding year. Al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn b. Jaʿfar al-Hāshimī al-Khazīnī and his paternal sister Mubāraka bt. al-Ḥusayn b. Jaʿfar al-Hāshimī al-Khazīnī acknowledge the receipt of the following amounts of money as repayments of a debt from Aḥmad Ibn al-Sayyidī, representative of the head of the Ṭālibīs, Abū l-Qāsim ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Zaydī: 479 dinars for Rabīʿ II, 3.5 dinars for Jumādā I, 2 dinars and 1/8 for Jumādā II, 2.5 dinars for Rajab, 2 and 1/4 dinars for Šaʿbān, 5.5 and 1/8 for Ramaḍān, 3 and 1/4 dinars for Shawwāl, 1.5 dinars for Dhū al-Qaʿda and 3 dinars for Dhū al-Ḥijja of the year 407 Hijrī (1017 CE), for a total of 32 and 3/4 dinars. The document is witnessed by ʿAlī b. Aḥmad, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Sādān and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAlī. (Information from CUDL and Goitein’s index card)