Geniza Lab

Letter from Abū l-Surūr b. Ṭarīf to the brothers Abū l-Makārim and Abū Yaʿqub ha-Kohen. The writer describes in detail the severe fever and dysentery (zaḥīr) of the addressees' brother Abū l-Riḍā, "as if you were present." There is no expert physician in the town from which he writes, and there are no medical ingredients. He therefore asks the addressees to approach a physician, to procure medication with the four dirhams attached to the letter, and to send it back with the courier. Initially there was a "cold" fever for 50 days, followed by a "hot" fever for 8 days. The patient was then afflicted with terror (wahul) and dysentery. There follows a detailed description of his bowel movements. At first there were 'filings' but no blood, and there were solid BMs along with the filings which had a terrible smell. Then the BMs became soft, without the terrible smell. His tongue is [tied? loosened?] but he is overcome by silence (? al-sukūna) all night long. "This is the description of his illness as if you were present." (Information in part from Med Soc, V, pp. 193, 194, and from Goitein's index cards.) Postscript on verso: "Obtain a prescription for what his diet should be. If he prescribes [...] Levantine sour grapes, obtain them, for we have none here [...] and exchange them for something else." The prescription is written at the bottom of the letter in Arabic script. ASE

Family letter sent from al-Raqqa by the mother of Dosa b. Yehoshuaʿ Ladiqi to her son, expressing her yearnings and asking him to send her letters and buy her something. (Information from Gil)

Letter from Yisrael b. Natan, Jerusalem, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Dating: March 1062 CE. Among other matters, Yisrael reports that he is in bad shape: he was sick with congestion (nazla), a cough (suʿāl), and eye pain (wajaʿ al-ʿaynayn), although now he is feeling somewhat better. He asks Nahray to obtain bitumen (qifār) from Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa, and send it to him, "for this is the most helpful (drug) for me." ASE

Letter from Moshe b. Yaʿaqov, Jerusalem, to his wife's brother Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Dating: June 1053 CE. The letter is mainly about arrangements for the long-deferred pilgrimage of Mūsā b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī to Jerusalem. On verso, amidst family greetings and business matters, Moshe conveys his wife's urgent request for myrobalan for her to drink. There are no details about why she needs it, but presumably it is as medicine for an illness.The block of text containing the order set off from the previous block. At least four letters from Moshe to Nahray survive: see also T-S 13J13.5 (from March), T-S 13J17.18 (from July), and Halper 411 (May 1054 CE).

Letter fragment in the hand of Yiṣḥaq ha-Levi Nisaburi about his cost in an affair concerning Abu Sa‘id Makhlūf al-Nafusi. (Information from Goitein's index cards; and Mediterranean Society, 4:413.) EMS. The writer also wants more bibles sent and warns him of any more business with Makhlūf. He mentions further matters regarding Abu l-Faraj and Abū Tahir, and sends greeting to a number of people, including Abu Sahl, Abu l-Rida and Abū l-ʿAla who are admonished for not writing for a long time. (Information from CUDL.) He also describes a prolonged illness (60 days) this winter and asks Abū l-Munā to try to obtain a drug called Abū Zīdān for him; the physicians tell him there is no alternative. Join: Oded Zinger. ASE.

Letter from Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen, Fustat, to his cousin Toviyya b. Eli ha-Kohen, in a smaller town, in which the writer refers to the health of the recipient’s brother’s eyes, stating “I received a note from your brother in which he complained that his eyes were in a very bad state and asked for medicaments. I went to the oculists [in the plural], informed them about his complaints, and they prescribed ointments and powders which I sent to him. However, the doctors said to me that the medicines would be of no avail, as long as he continued to work in sunlight, which his profession forces him to do.” The letter also references a ‘maker of razors’ (mawwas) and mentions Ibn al-Minqar Abu al-Ma’ali. Twelfth century. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:421; 2:255, 579; and S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Friedman, India Book, 642) EMS

Letter from a woman to her brother in Fustat expressing her loneliness. She gives advice regarding the recipient's relationship with their other brother. "You know that he is like your son, for you raised him and you know his character. [Do not let] people divide the two of you. If he makes an error, you must bear the consequences." The recipient's ʿamma (in general paternal aunt, but Goitein interprets it as mother in this case) wants to see him before she dies. At the end of the letter, either the writer or the aunt/mother asks him to send two (ounces? dirhems?) of Isfahani kohl (antimony), since her eyes are sore and none is available where they are. Information in part from Goitein's index cards. Join: Oded Zinger. ASE.

Letter from Yaʿaqov the physician (known as 'the effective'), in Shamṭūniyya, near Kūfa, Iraq, to his pupil and perhaps son-in-law Yūsuf, in Jūma Mazīdat (unidentified location; Gil suggests that it is also in Iraq, near Sūra). Dating: Probably beginning of the 11th century. Yaʿaqov reports that he arrived safely in Baghdad on the 15th of Tammuz. He looked for Mājid but was told that he had already come and gone before Shavuot, and he looked for Abū l-Riḍā b. al-Ṣadr al-Tājir al-Baghdādī but was told that he had traveled to Hamadān. Yaʿaqov is optimistic that these men will return with the ḥajj caravans. As for the two yeshivot, Yaʿaqov declined to join either one of them so as not to offend the other. He told them that he had made a vow to visit the graves of holy men (Gil suggests specifically the grave of Ezekiel). He then traveled to Shamṭuniyya, where he found everyone sick from an epidemic disease. The writer himself became ill with a swelling, probably an abscess, on his leg, from which he developed a fever and was bedbound for 17 days. His son Abū l-Barakāt then became ill with a very high constant fever ("like a blazing fire"). Yaʿaqov sent to Baghdad for materia medica and mixed the medicinal syrup (sharāb) for his son himself, which he gave him each day together with barley water (mā' al-shaʿīrūn). His son is now feeling better. At first they were staying in the house of Abū Saʿd 'the paqid' b. Khalaf (probably a relative, at least by marriage, see verso lines 4–5), but when he and his family became ill, they 'cut off' their guests, "and you know that the people of Shamṭuniyya, even when they are healthy, do not care for foreigners." The saving grace for Yaʿaqov was that the people of Shamṭuniyya needed his services as a physician. The geography of Shamṭūniyya/Shamṭūnya is also described by Golb as follows: "[T]his locality is now a ruin known as Tell el-Shamṭūnī, located to the south of Baghdad on the western side of the Tigris near Ctesiphon (al-Madāʾin)." Norman Golb, "A Marriage Deed from 'Wardūniā of Baghdad,'" JNES 43 no. 2 (1984), 154. VMR. ASE.

Interesting letter from a sick man to Mevorakh, probably his brother. The language is Judaeo-Arabic with Hebrew vowels (!). The writer revised the letter, probably after completing it, and added in several missing alifs. He has an unspecified illness. He is lying sick in the house of Baqā' b. al-Muṣinn (at least in the daytime), also attended by Ibn al-ʿAṣṣār. "From inactivity (qillat al-qawām) my state has weakened (talif ḥālī). I am now accustomed to bloodletting and purging (sakb al-dam wa-l-ishāl)." He describes his nights and days twice. Ibn al-Muṣinn is also in distress because his little boy is also sick. [The physician] Ibn al-ʿAṣṣār was summoned and asked whether the patient would live or die and said to him something cryptic ('You are either (illam) going to survive or (illam) completely recover' (?)). Upon which, Baqā' said to him, 'For the sake of deliverance, do exactly as he says.' People (nās) concerned themselves (ihtammū) and kindly brought the patient everything he needed (itfaḍḍalū bi-kull mā aḥtāj). In the nights he has rosebuds (? al-zirr al-ward) but these only last him for one third of the night (?), and thus he also needs sugar (?). Purpose of writing: Requesting sugar, and a blanket "from the kitchen." He had previously written regarding the sugar. It resembles a letter of appeal except that it is quite informal, probably disrespectful if the recipient were not his actual brother. The writer states that he has already tried drawing money from other sources so as not to be a burden. Writes once, "you ask me what afflicts me," and then again, "Do not neglect me so as not to [later] ask what afflicts me." Date: Probably early 13th century. Abū l-Baqā' b. al-Muṣinn ("son of the stinkard") appears also in T-S NS J32, but this document is undated. A Kohen b. al-Muṣinn appears in a 1237 document (T-S 12.413), and the daughter of al-Muṣinn appears in a 1243 document (T-S 8J6.15), but these are not necessarily related. Most compellingly: a physician named Ibn al-ʿAṣṣār appears in a 1227 document (T-S 8J32.7). ASE.

Informal note from Abū Naṣr to Menaḥem. In Arabic script. It seems that the sender is urgently ordering medicinal powder for dysentery (safūf al-zaḥīr) and other materia medica "for we need them."

Recto: Lower part of a note from an unknown sender to unknown addressee. In the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu (like verso)? It seems this is a response to a request for medical prescriptions. There is written ויצף לה ("there is prescribed for him") followed by a blank space, but this is followed by "I showed them... to the noble ones, and these are the papers of his prescriptions....," which is followed by blessings for a speedy recovery.

Shelomo b. Eliyyahu asks Abu l-Ḥasan to give the (medicinal) syrup that he kindly cooked to the young boy for delivery. (Information from Goitein's index cards.)

Verso, with the address on recto: Letter from Madhkūr to Bū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf. In Judaeo-Arabic, with a ḥamdala in Arabic script at the end. He sends enclosed 1 1/8 dirhams as payment for a half raṭl of syrup (sharāb). Half should be [...] and half rose. If Abū l-Karam should arrive, he should hire a riding animal from Malīj. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Letter from Yeḥezqel b. Eli ha-Kohen (identification based on comparison with DK 233.2), evidently in Jerusalem, to Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan b. Isḥāq al-Ṣārifī (!), in Fustat. The letter is in Judaeo-Arabic and the address is in Arabic. Dating: second half of the 11th century. Apart from the handwriting comparison, there are at least two other reasons to identify the writer as Yeḥezqel b. Eli: (1) the suftaja (money order) of the rayyis is mentioned in line 17 of this document and line 19 of DK 233.2, and (2) the same bearer is listed underneath the address, ʿUmar b. Yūsuf and his son. Whereas DK 233.2 is dated 21 Adar II, this letter does not bear a date, but mentions a letter from the addressee that arrived on 22 Heshvan. Probably DK 233.2 and T-S Misc.28.171 were not sent together. The writer reports on the epidemic (dever) raging in Jerusalem. The first letter of the word דבר is mostly missing, and it bears the wrong vowel, but the context supports the reading of דבר. It is only Wednesday, and already there have been five funerals this week. The writer mentions children, women, and his paternal uncle "in their number" (the sick? the dead?). He adds, "Many people are ʿalā l-qibla." This phrase does not appear in the Judaeo-Arabic dictionaries. Perhaps it means "praying," or specifically praying in the area of the Temple. The writer touches on various things that he wants the addressee to do for him in Fustat (one of them is reminding the Rayyis Abū l-Ṭayyib about the money order), sends regards to Umm Wahbān, reports that he received the medicine (dawā') sent with ʿAmmār, and reports that he has sent the amulet (? this word looks very much like קמיע but the reading is not certain) of Ibn al-Kohen to the addressee, along with a sealed letter from him. ASE.

Awaiting description - see Goitein notes linked below. This letter may be continued in Bodl. MS heb. d 66/14 (identified by Oded Zinger).