Geniza Lab

Letter by Yehuda ha-kohen (b. Tuvya according to the distinctive hand) to the two brothers Avraham and Yishaq/Ishaq b. al-hakim (i.e. the physician). The first part of the letter is filled with greetings and blessings. Then yehuda informs the brothers that he had sent with the carried of the letter (a certain Asad) 25 dirhems and asks them to buy him with it yarn (ghazl) "because the small ones are naked". On the back there is an account in Arabic letters mentioning flax, ghazl, mandil and weights and prices?

Letter from Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhmūrī to Nahray b. Nissim, ca. 1045-1096. Contains details regarding flax shipments that were arranged in partnership with Nahray. The author has avoided working with Ibn Qays, seemingly a shipowner, because of his character. Multiple payments are recounted. He passes on the news that Faraj fainted on Thursday in the bathhouse (subita fī l-ḥammām).

Letter from Salāmah b. Ibrahīm (Būṣīr) to Nahray b. Nissim (Fustat). Ca. 1053. The writer is preparing flax to be loaded onto ships for Nahray b. Nissim and his relatives Isaac b. Barhūn al-Taherti and Moses b. Barhūn al-Taherti. The writer also mentions rice, olives, and honey. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #765.)

Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. Yaʿaqov b. Lanjū (al-Mahdiyya) to Nahray b. Nissim (Alexandria). Ca. 1062. Discusses the trade in carnelian, coral, pearls, walnuts, and flax. Mentions Abū Sa‘īd (Joseph b. Mūsā al-Taherti), al-Kohen (Joseph b. ‘Eli ha-Kohen Fasi), and Ibrahīm b. al-Iskandrānī (Avraham b. Farrāḥ). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #737.)

Letter from Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen b. Aharon to Moshe b. Maṣliaḥ. In Judaeo-Arabic. He reports that he has arrived safely after a terrible Nile voyage when the boat sprang a leak and everyone almost drowned. The silk has been selling well, but not the garments. He tells the addressee to look after the children. Abū Isḥāq is doing well. He reminds the addressee to have the craftsman (? spelled both sāniʿ and ṣāniʿ here) do something. He offers to send some flax for this purpose. Regards to Sitt al-Gharb, Sitt al-Banāt, and Sitt al-Nās.

Letter sent from Busir by Musa b. Abu al-Hayy to Abu al-Afrah Arus b. Yosef in Fustat, containing details about flax and other goods. Dated August 1084. (Information from M. Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 556)

Letter from Yeshua b. Ismaʿīl al-Makhmūrī from Alexandria, probably to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1056. In the handwriting of Yeshua b. Isma’il, with an addition in the handwriting of Musa b. Abi al-Hayy Khalila. Information about transferring money, including money that was hidden in a book cover. Also mentions different goods: lead, almonds, cloth, wood, camphor, cheese, Bible codices, flax, and incense. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #311)

See also: ENA NS 8.4. Recto: Fragment of a letter from Yosef b. Musa al-Tahirti, from Alexandria, to an unknown person. Around 1060. The addressee is not Nahray, as Nahray’s name is mentioned in the letter. The letter contains details about shipments of different goods. The letter is written on the other side of a different letter, that Nissim b. Yishaq al-Tahirti wrote around 10 years earlier. Verso: Letter from Nissim b. Yishaq al-Tahirti from Mahdiyya, probably to Nahray b. Nissim. Around 1050. Nahray buys flax in Egypt and is about to travel to the Maghreb. Nissim writes him details about different goods. He is worried because he did not hear from the ship b. Bader, which his goods are on it. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #376) VMR

See also: ENA NS 8.4. Recto: Fragment of a letter from Yosef b. Musa al-Tahirti, from Alexandria, to an unknown person. Around 1060. The addressee is not Nahray, as Nahray’s name is mentioned in the letter. The letter contains details about shipments of different goods. The letter is written on the other side of a different letter, that Nissim b. Yishaq al-Tahirti wrote around 10 years earlier. Verso: Letter from Nissim b. Yishaq al-Tahirti from Mahdiyya, probably to Nahray b. Nissim. Around 1050. Nahray buys flax in Egypt and is about to travel to the Maghreb. Nissim writes him details about different goods. He is worried because he did not hear from the ship b. Bader, which his goods are on it. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #376) VMR

Letter from Barhūn b. Iṣḥaq al-Tahirtī, in al-Mahdiyya, to ʿAyyāsh b. Ṣedaqa, in Fustat. Dating: 21 October 1049. The writer asks ʿAyyāsh to step in for Nahray b. Nissim who is about to travel to Būṣīr to buy flax. Discusses various family matters. The writer mentions his plans to write to Abū Naṣr Ḥesed b. Yashar al-Tustarī, demonstrating that the latter was killed in 1050 rather than 1049. On verso is an addendum in the hand of Nissim b. Iṣḥaq, the writer's brother. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 293-294.)

Letter from a man in Egypt to his brother or brother-in-law, an India trader in Aden. In Judaeo-Arabic. Frenkel identifies the writer's location as Alexandria, the addressee as Ismāʿīl al-Fāṣid, and the date as 1176 CE, but does not seem to explain her reasoning. The letter recounts an interesting family saga. The addressee's maternal uncle passed away while traveling with the addressee to India. The addressee took care of him before his death. The family has taken great pains to conceal the news of the uncle's death until they receive a detailed account of his will. This long letter repeatedly describes everyone's anxiety waiting for news of the addressee's health and the will. His mother, when she heard of the death of her brother and the news of the addressee's difficulties at sea, fell sick and fasted until news came of the addressee's health. His father stays up all night praying for him. "If you knew how much reward (in Heaven) you receive from every letter you write us, you would do nothing but write us letters." The family congratulates the addressee on his purchase of a male slave (ghulām). Finally, the reason for the anxiety about the will comes to light at the end. The uncle knew or thought that his wife was pregnant when he departed, however, they counted 9 months, and there was no baby. They counted another 9 months, and she had a baby boy. The family evidently wishes to ensure that none of the uncle's inheritance ends up with his wife or son. Even the Muslims say, "We have never heard anything like what this Jewish woman has done. She deserves nothing but hellfire." The widow was able to round up some allies from among the Byzantine Jews, and they managed to gather 10 Jews for the circumcision, but with no cantor or judge present. In the midst of sending everyone's regards in the margin of verso, the writer reports sarcastically that the newborn infant also sends his. Information in part from Frenkel and from Goitein's attached notes. ASE.

Letter from Ḥassūn b. Yiṣḥaq al-Safāqusī, probably in Būṣīr, to Abū l-Ḥayy Kalīla (the father of Mūsā), in Alexandria. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1048 CE. Deals with business in flax. Mentions the ʿushāra of al-Qāḍī al-Yāzūrī, who would later become vizier in June 1050. The same writer wrote T-S 8J19.32, to Mardūk b. Mūsā. There are a few lines of accounts on verso. Information from Gil.

Letter from Yehuda b. Sahl, probably in Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat, ca. 1050. Mentions the sale of a house that may have belonged to Nahray. Also mentions flax and the copper trade. Yehuda b. Sahl’s wife (a relative of Nahray?) sends him regards for the holidays and prays all the time for his health. She was sick (tawajjaʿat), then Yehuda became sick, then he got better, then he relapsed, and also their daughter was sick (r14–18). His wife asks Nahray b. Nissim to send them an order of payment (suftaja) for 10 dinars (r22–23). The letter mentions Abū l-Surūr and Abū Iṣḥāq Barhūn. (Information from Gil.) ASE.

Letter from Yaʿaqov b. Salmān al-Ḥarīrī, in Alexandria, to his mother and father, in Qayrawān. Dating: ca. 1050 CE. The address bears the name of the writer's father Salmān b. Ibrāhīm, whom Yaʿaqov addresses at the end of the letter, but he addresses his mother for the bulk of the letter. The writer expresses his disappointment in the Maghrebis in Egypt, who did not assist him as he expected when he was newly arrived in Fustat and very ill for one month. He recovered and is now healthier than ever. When he returned to Abū l-Faraj Ibn ʿAllān who had previously promised to employ him, he found that Abū l-Faraj had lost his mother and his sister, "and was too preoccupied for me" (ishtaghala ʿannī). Yaʿaqov set out on his own and started to trade flaxes. He is planning to travel to the north, perhaps to al-Lādhiqiyya (a plan he carried out: see CUL Or.1080 J17, which he wrote from Tripoli, and T-S 8J19.27, which he wrote from Ramla). But he will wait in Alexandria until he learns what his family thinks of this plan, and he will follow their counsel. The end of the letter has the curious line, "Abū Yaḥyā is well, in complete health, and aṣḥābunā are in complete health, no one died except Abū l-Khayr b. Barukh in Tinnīs" (verso, lines 22–23)—which, along with the illness of Yaʿaqov and the deaths in Abū l-Faraj's family, suggests that there was then an epidemic. Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #661. See also ENA 2738.34, a very similar letter which Yaʿaqov wrote at the same time and addressed to his sister. VMR. ASE.

Letter from Natan b. Nahray, in Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat, mentioning various commodities including flax. Dating: ca. 1064 CE. Also mentions a paper price. “My lord mentioned buying paper from the Segulat (= Mūsā b. Abī l-Ḥayy), or from someone else. I haven't found Andalusī paper in sufficient quantities, since my lord mentioned that he wanted it to copy (a book). The Segulat has only small quantities of Andalusī paper. But he has Shāmī paper, wide and large, for 8 dīnārs per ream; if it pleases my lord, I will acquire some for him.” Information from Gil.

Letter from Salāma b. Mūsā Safāquṣī (Alexandria) to Nahray b. Nissim (Fustat), ca. 1062. Contains information on the movement of ships, and on a significant damage to one of the ships, causing losses to Nahray. Salāma b. Mūsā Safāquṣī hopes to find out from Nahray b. Nissim prices of oil, flax, pepper. He laments the death of Barhūn b. Mūsā al-Tāhirtī. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 450 and Goiteins notes linked below.)

Business letter in Arabic script in which a father reports to his son on events in Alexandria and the arrival of the aṣḥāb, about which he's very excited. Reports as well on acquisition of dyed flax or linen and other textiles, and says there's no need to go to Palermo. (Information from Aodeh)

Letter from Salama b. Nissim b. Ishaq al-Barki, from Busir, to Barhun b. Salih ha-Thirti. Around 1053. The letter contains a list of flax Salama bought, arranged by the names of the growers, quantity, and the price that he paid. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #642) VMR

End of a legal document concerning the sale of flax, signed by Ḥayya b. Isaac and Isaac b. Moses. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Yeshua b. Isma’il al-Makhmuri from Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1065. Regarding silk and flax. Mentions that his brother’ son (his nephew) had great damage. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #313) VMR