Geniza Lab

Letter from Abū Is[ḥāq?] to his father Abū l-Ḥasan ʿEli b. Hillel. Written in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, the addressee's brother-in-law. Discusses various business and family matters, including a potential marriage and the writer's anger at the addressee. Someone has ophthalmia (r16) and a certain girl "went mad" when she heard something (r23)—perhaps the prospect of marrying Faḍā'il. The addressee is asked to send wheat urgently (v3, v7). ASE

Letter written to "my brother," apparently from Qus, dealing primarily with family members' medical issues. There are many eccentric spellings. Recto 4-12: The writer has sent several letters before this one asking the recipient for help. Recto 12-15: Yusuf (apparently the writer's son) has been sick for 6 months with tertian fever; his mother (apparently the writer's wife) has been sick for 8 months with ophthalmia, "like a piece of flesh" (the same phrase is used for women in wretched states in CUL Or.1080 J24 and T-S 12.575). The little boy's eyes are even worse than hers: his ophthalmia has progressed to trachoma (reading ואגראבו as a creative spelling of وأجربوا). For the relationship between these terms, see Ali b. Isa's Tadhkirat al-Kaḥḥālīn, translated into English by Casey Wood as Memorandum Book of a Tenth-Century Oculist (1936). Trachoma (jarab), pp. 85-89. Ophthalmia (ramad), pp. 126-135. Progression from ophthalmia to trachoma, p. 133. Recto 16 - Verso 5: The writer tells the recipient to pawn a table for 5 dirhams and to bring the money for a consultation with Abu l-Ma'ruf b. al-Taffal; the writer has also written Abu l-Ma'ruf a letter describing the wife's ophthalmia. The recipient is to obtain the ophthalmic medicines and send them urgently to Qus with a trustworthy messenger, to Abu l-Mansur b. al-Meshorer. Abu l-Ma'ruf should label each ophthalmic with its name, and he should also send dry kohl (antimony) for the wife and for the son. Verso 5-13: The recipient is to go to Abu l-Makarim from the well known Ibn Nufay' family (a man of the same name in Alexandria is mentioned in T-S 13J21.36) and have him expose the leaves of the codices (? מצאחף) to the air and turn them, so that they do not decay. The recipient is to go to Abu l-Surur (b. Al-Kaf?) and give him the same instruction, both for the codices that are with him and the garments, because they contain high-quality silk and must not be allowed to rot even a little bit. Verso 17-19: The writer gives instruction regarding the ground floor or courtyard of his home. ASE.

Upper part of a letter by Berakhot b. Shemuel mentioning his being cut off from the recipent on account of his illnesses, including ophthalmia at the present time. The word in the penultimate line that looks like "sultan" (Muslim government) is כלט אן, referring to an acute attack of a humor. On the back is a query about litigants in a dispute involving Muslim courts.

Legal document in Arabic script. A woman named Jamīla has an eye disease and contracts Hibat Allāh b. Ibrāhīm b. Yaʿqūb al-Yahūdī to treat her. The date is given but difficult to read. Needs examination. ASE.

Letter from Labrāṭ b. Moshe b. Sughmār, the chief judge in al-Mahdiyya, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat. Dating: Ca. 3 August 1057 CE (Gil) or 1061 CE (Goitein). Goitein explains, "Our letter was written after 1057, the date of the ruin of Qayrawān, when R. Nissim (b. Yaʿaqov) and other inhabitants of that city had found refuge in Sūsa, a seaport on the Tunisian coast north of al-Mahdiyya. R. Nissim died in 1062.The reference to the Sicilian city whose male inhabitants were put to sword by the conquering Normans fits the fall of Messina in 1061." Labrāṭ extols the great rabbinical authority R. Nissim b. Yaʿaqov, and his pupil the enigmatic "Rav" of Egypt. At the time of the writing of this letter, R. Nissim lived in Sūsa. There he supervised the copying of his writings, which was done for the Qayrawān scholar, Nahray b. Nissim, who then lived in Egypt. The letter relates how R. Nissim's writings were transferred to Egypt, an important detail, which sheds light on the value of the Geniza fragments of these writings, which have been published by Sheraga Abramson. Labrāṭ reports on the progress of the court case that Nahray b. Natan brought against his brother Yisrael b. Natan (both of them the cousins of Nahray b. Nissim) regarding the inheritance of their father's estate. The letter hails the zeal and progress made in Jewish learning by a son of R. Natan b. Avraham, Av ha-Yeshiva, the sometime Gaon of the Palestinian academy. The letter concludes with a report of the conquests made by the Normans in Sicily. The reference is to their taking of Messina by assault, and the losses suffered by Jews and, in particular, by Muslims. The writer expresses apprehensions with regard to the import of grain from Sicily, since Tunisia itself, a primarily agricultural country, had been laid waste by the invasion of the Arab tribes. Labrāṭ opens the letter with copious well wishes to Nahray because of his eye disease (wajaʿ ʿayn and ḍuʿf ʿayn) and conveys well wishes to Nahray on behalf of R. Nissim (r4–11). Goitein cites this letter as an excellent example of the convention of expressing preoccupation for a sick correspondent and conveying congratulations upon his recovery: "After having read the bad tidings in Nahray's missives, [Labrāṭ] had become disquieted and frightened, and passed his sleepless nights in asking God to accept himself as Nahray's ransom and to heal him. He had also passed the news on to "the Light of the World" (the spiritual leader of the Tunisian Jews), who was also very worried about it; his prayer for Nahray, Labrāṭ is confident, would be accepted. Finally, the merchants arriving from Egypt reported that Nahray was well and his eyes restored, whereupon Labrat praised and thanked God. He would be set at rest, however, only by a personal letter from Nahray confirming this happy turn of events" (Goitein, Med Soc V, p. 111). Labrāṭ goes on to describe the serious illness of R. Nissim himself (r14–18). All had despaired, "but God looked upon us and did not afflict us and blind our eyes." R. Nissim recovered, but the remnants of the illness did not leave him for a long time. Information from Goitein and Gil. There are photostats and an edition in Goitein's notes (to be uploaded). ASE.

Calligraphic letter sent to a notable, possibly the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saadya, asking him to help Natan ha-Kohen, the legal representative of the writer's family, to obtain a favorable settlement in court for a widow and her children. She is owed 10 months' worth of maintenance payments, including for the price of the treatment of her ophthalmia. (Information from Goitein's index cards and from Goitein's hand list)

Letter from a woman to a female family member. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions: Ibn al-Rayyis Abū l-B[arakāt] (=Shelomo b. Eliyyahu); the addressee's sister; "he does not read and does not pray..."; "I am at a loss..."; someone going up to the dīwān by foot; someone wasting his days in idleness; "yā sittī, here I am stuck with him..."; "the inflamed eye, and I have remained..."; "from al-Rayyis Eliyya (=Eliyyahu the Judge) all that we need..."; "my greatest need... for the cough and the syrup..."; expenses; a blanket; "I found that they had purchased wheat..."; regards to everyone in the family. ASE

Letter in which a physician, probably named Abū l-Baqā', writes from somewhere outside of the capital to his son-in-law (?) Abū ʿImrān, probably in Fustat, who shared living quarters with him (?), complaining that a Christian physician is ruining his livelihood, writing: 'he behaves like a charlatan.' The letter also touches on several small business matters. The letter starts with two biblical quotations (line 2, Prov. 3:26, line 3, Dt. 7:15). (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 164, 462, Goitein's index cards, and CUDL.) Further interesting elements: The writer is upset about the lack of letters ("is this anger? why this great hostility?"). He supplies the addressee with a potential excuse by saying that he is very worried on account of his eye illness, and became still more worried when the messenger Raḥmān b. Ḥaydara returned with no news. "He who is absent imagines the worst. . . . If only the lady of the house [my wife] were with you. She is in the most dreadful state, fasting and weeping day and night. After describing the charlatanry of the new Christian physician, he asks the addressee to find out if the head physicians in Fusṭāṭ will do anything about it: "Go to al-Shaykh al-Sadīd al-Ṭabīb. . . so that he will tell our lord ʿAlam al-Dīn, who will not approve of this, for he is against their (charlatans'?) purposes. If you hear anything from our lord ʿAlam al-Dīn, write to me." Apparently moving on to the matter of grain that has yet to be "released" (already mentioned earlier in the letter), "The judge Jalāl al-Dīn, the fiscal adminstrator (ṣāḥib al-dīwān), has arrived and seen the situation for himself. I have explained this matter to him, and al-Faqīh al-Mudarris has also met with him regarding this. He wished to release the grain, but had to travel suddenly. May God make the end good." Umm Sulaymān sends her regards and rebukes. The writer sends regards to Sitt Misk and inquires about her daughter and about R. Menaḥem. Goitein does not explain why he identifies the addressee as the writer's son-in-law or when/where they would have shared living quarters. It also seems possible that this is his actual son, particularly with the description of his wife's heartsickness on account of what they fear about the addressee's illness. ASE.

Letter in which Shelomo b. Eliyyahu asks his teacher, the judge R. Hananel, to inform his father Eliyyahu that he is very ill, suffering from weak eyesight, headache, and general weakness. He wishes to come for the holiday to Fustat rather than stay in the small town (Bilbays?) that resembles Sodom and Gomorrah and is devoid of worthy people. VMR; ASE.

Letter. The sender, a newcomer in Fustat from Yemen, describes himself as 'a pigeon whose wings have been clipped' (line 1), writes to his brother in Alexandria concerning his trouble having to live on a half or a quarter dirham a day, and also relating family news. "As for what you wished to know about Yūsuf. . . he now has many dependents, and his vision has weakened, and he has nothing." A palimpsest. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 478; IV, 443; V, 562)

Letter from a cantor of Mosul. T-S 12.257r is continued in T-S K25.209 and ends in T-S 12.257v. The letter is written in childish script, often omitting letters. The sender cites his eye illness to excuse his bad script. He travelled with a Nasi to Egypt. In Alexandria, he bought something nice for 15 dinars for his wife. Then he had some very dramatic adventures on the way to Cairo including a brush with the army and a companion detained by the (Ayyubid?) military and accused of being a Frankish spy. (Information in part from Goitein's note card and transcription.) In the handwriting of the same scribe: T-S 13J14.22 and T-S 6J5.1. The join with T-S AS 145.278 was identified by Alan Elbaum.

Letter from a Maghribi silversmith named Efrayim b. Ishaq of Ceuta, Morocco, who had fled Almohad persecution in his native country about 35 years earlier. He describes himself as a 'foreigner' in spite of having lived in Egypt for about 15 years. When he lost half his sight from ophthalmia (ramad), he was unable to work as a silversmith and had to resort to teaching. He asks the addressee, also of Maghribi origins, for charity. Ca. 1181. The letter is preceded by a poem (lines 3-8). English translation in Med Soc V, 77. T-S 8J20.24 is a sequel to this letter. On verso: an eulogy in Hebrew.

Letter sent from a village to the capital asking for news and discussing shipments as well as what appear to be seasonal laborers. The writer complains he had to buy one young man clothes at a price far higher than the usual half dinar and states that he would hire him again were he to accept the same terms of employment as other young men of his type. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 98.) The writer sends regards and well wishes to Abū Saʿīd, who has an eye disease (r22 and margin). ASE

Letter on behalf of a Byzantine woman named Rachel, in Alexandria, to Eliyyahu the Judge, in Fustat. The main part of the letter (in Judaeo-Arabic) is scribed by the teacher and court clerk Yehuda b. Aharon Ibn al-ʿAmmānī; there is a postscript (in Hebrew) added by Shemuel (a.k.a. Kalev) b. Yaʿaqov. Dated: 19 Adar 1538 Seleucid, which is 1227 CE. The letter concerns Rachel's husband, Yosef of Barcelona, who is about to marry a local woman, leaving their children orphans in their lifetimes (and "pieces of meat"). Eliyyahu is asked to relay her case to the Nagid Avraham Maimonides (1205–37), to intervene and prevent Yosef from doing this to her. Yehuda switches to writing in his own voice on verso, line 3. He sends various respectful greetings and adds that Rachel's eyes (or those of her mother?) have developed ophthalmia (ramad) from all her weeping. The postscript in the hand of (and signed by) the French rabbi Shemuel b. Yaʿaqov corroborates the story in the body of the letter and blames the husband's mother, who tempted him to do these bad things, and also "his wife, the snake, who married him against his will"—which makes it sound that Yosef has already married the local woman. Shemuel seems to conclude by saying that he has taken on the name "Kalev" (or vice versa?) on account of his illness, evidently an effort to change his fortune by changing his name. ASE

Letter from Jalāl al-Dawla, in Cairo, to Shelomo b. Yishai the Mosul Nasi, in Bilbays. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Ca. 1240 CE. The writer had sent a pair of red woolen children's shoes with Muʿammar al-Dimashqī intended for the addressee's son Yishai. He devotes much of the letter to a vivid description of his illnesses. “As for my state, I inform the masters that I came down with diarrhea, and I endured it. When it increased and multiplied, it became an illness. A physician was treating me, al-Rayyis Sulaymān al-Ḥakīm al-Fāḍil of the family of Rabbenu Menaḥem (ZL). They concocted the medicine in the house of Rabbenu (ZL): every day, roasted seeds and the like, and a pullet, and he visited me frequently. And R. Eliyya the Judge was also generous. When I recovered after some days… [I came down] with what was worse than it… ophthalmia in my eye on the night of Shabbat Shoftim… a painful scream, against my will, all night…. May God afflict my enemies [with what I was afflicted with]. The illness became public. What I suffered cannot be [described].” In the continuation, he sends regards to the judge Peraḥya and praises him as the most learned and powerful judge in the country. He concludes, "As for my eye, fog and darkness were upon it." There is a postscript in the same hand but in the third person (perhaps meaning that a secretary wrote this letter for Jalāl al-Dawla or that somebody later copied it): "After he wrote this letter, he entered the bathhouse (meaning, he was fully recovered) on the 26th of Elul, so be glad of heart." ASE

Letter from ʿAmram b. Yiṣḥaq, in Alexandria, to Ḥalfon b. Netanel, in Fustat. Dating: 24 Elul [1451] Seleucid = 8 September 1140 CE. The writer expresses his worries after he did not hear from Ḥalfon for a long time. He describes his sorrow on account of the death of ʿEli the judge (Ḥalfon's brother), and on account of his wife's severe illness. This is the first of three surviving letters in which ʿAmram provides a detailed description of this illnesses of his wife. In this letter: "As for my state and my illness, and the illness of that wretched woman who dies before my eyes a thousand times a day. She has developed, in addition to her infinite illnesses, an illness in her ear for 20 days now, to the point that we have forgotten all the illnesses that came before..." ʿAmram also complains about his own "swollen" (muntafikh) state and his ophthalmia: "I cannot see where I place my pen." He also informs Ḥalfon that Yehuda ha-Levi is on the ship that has just arrived in Alexandria. (Information in part from Gil and Fleischer "Yehuda Ha-Levi and his circle", pp: 420–26). See also India Book 4 (Hebrew description below). VMR. ASE. Alexandria; Monday, 24 of Elul, 1451; September 8, 1140 Description from PGPID 964: See PGPID 9116. Description from PGPID 9148: See join for description (PGPID 9116).

Letter from Yosef b. ʿEli ha- Kohen al-Fāsī, Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1057. In the handwriting of Salmān b. Hārūn. Yūsuf b. ʿAlī Kohen al-Fāsī writes of his intention to come to Fustat and meet with Abū ʿAbdallah (Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ) to see if he had kept his goods safe for him, and asks to send him his greetings. Contains information about movement of ships and goods. The situation in Alexandria is not good and merchants that were supposed to arrive there did not. Also mentions Nahray’s eye disease. Goitein's note card #27112: "Just as we do, one reacted to the news that a relative or friend was restored to health. One used for the occasion the same phrase 'I congratulate you' as one did with good wishes for holy days or a marriage or a safe return from a journey. T-S 13J17.2 is characteristic in this respect. The copyist of the letter had expressed his good wishes for Nahray's recovery from his serious eye disease. His boss had forgotten to do so but obviously read what the scribe had added. Thus the scribe adds, 'My lord Abu Ya'qub al-Kohen wishes to congratulate you on your recovery.'"

Page from a letter sent by Abū Naṣr b. Avraham from Alexandria to Ḥalfon b. Netanel in Cairo on the 23 of October 1140. The letter includes a report on the social uproar caused by Yehuda ha-Levi’s visit in Alexandria when everybody was eager to invite him. The letter contains a request for Ḥalfon to come to Alexandria to settle the disputes caused by Yehuda ha-Levi’s presence in the city. The letter also refers to business matters arising from the India trade, in which both the addressee and the writer were involved. Abū Naṣr complains about his eye illness: "I only wrote these few letters as I was housebound with a flare of ophthalmia that came over me." At the end of recto and beginning of verso, this proves relevant: "The account is in the shop and I am at home, so I do not have the precise details to inform you." Finally, in the last few lines, "Please extend forgiveness, God knows that I wrote this with the kerchief (khirqa) draped (musabala) over my eyes." The use of a dark kerchief to protect the inflamed eyes from light was part of the standard treatment for ophthalmia (see the tag "khirqa" and the chapter on ramad in Tadhkirat al-Kaḥḥālīn). (Information in part from Frenkel, The Compassionate and Benevolent, p. 523; Goitein, Friedman, India Book 4, p. 417). ASE Alexandria; 10 of Marcheshvan; October 23, 1140

Letter from Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, in Qalyub, to Gaon Sar Shalom ha-Levi, in Fustat. In Hebrew. After a poem in praise in the Gaon and lengthy salutations, Moshe tells the story of a certain Yefet b. Shelomo the physician, known as Ibn al-Ṭaffāl (“son of the fuller”), who arrived in Qalyub bearing a letter from Sar Shalom supposedly appointing him as the exclusive mohel for “all the villages.” Moshe could not find Sar Shalom’s distinctive mark in the letter, so he announced that the letter was counterfeit. The poor man Ma‘ani’s son was circumcised by Yefet ha-Qatzar instead, pro bono. Moshe now gets to the point of the letter: he has heard that Ibn al-Ṭaffāl slandered him to Sar Shalom, claiming that he said things against the Gaon that he never said. Moshe concludes by begging for mercy: he insists that has not done anything wrong, Sar Shalom must not believe anything without witnesses and proofs, and, finally, who is he that Sar Shalom should be angry at him? “After whom is the king of Israel come out? after whom dost thou pursue? after a dead dog, after a flea” (1 Samuel 24:14). On verso, he apologizes for the poor quality of the paper, stating that it was the best he could find, and for the poor quality of his writing. He would have presented himself in person, but it was all he could do to even write a letter. He wrote it lying down, prostrated by illness of his intestines and eyes. See S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:232, 573; 3:503; 4:407. EMS. ASE.

Letter from a tax farmer in the Fayyum, who was cheated of his share by his partners, was unable to pay his debts, and was therefore taken into custody. He has been in prison for four days. He is sick with ophthalmia and his dependents are perishing. He asks help getting released before the Sabbath. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 35, 362 and from Goitein's index cards )