Geniza Lab

Letter written by a poor physician who had not bought “one thread” of a new suit for two years and his children were going hungry. The writer further notes that “By chance I befriended a man from Damascus who introduced me to the family of Sayf al-Islam. I entered their house and treated them, whereupon they fixed for me a payment of one dinar every month.” (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:256, 579, 580) EMS

Recto: short letter or note to Yosef ha-Sar the doctor. The writer had tried to visit Yosef several times but didn’t find him in and hasn’t heard from him. He has heard that Joseph is due to go traveling (spelled ללך). If he intends to travel to Shoresh (near Jerusalem), then the writer would like to go with him. Verso: three names are written, in the same hand: Yishay(?) Nostimos (? נושטימוש); Ḥananel Eliyya(?)ha-Kohen; and Yehuda S[…]n the elder. (Information in part from CUDL)

Deathbed will of a physician (it seems, for he notes the book of medicine (kitāb al-ṭibb) in his own hand), mentioning a one-eighth share of a house held by him in partnership with a Muslim named Ahmad, as well as something worth 180 dinars which should not be taken away from him after his death. He makes arrangements for his wife after his death. (Information from CUDL)

Note in which a physician is requested to pay for some items including a sign above his store that publicizes his practice. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 253, 578 and from Goitein's index cards)

Note in which a physician is asked to help a captive woman, imprisoned probably due to debt. The addressee responds with a brief note on verso stating that he will fulfill the request. He crosses out the sender's self-abasement from the original letter and replaces it with "rather, I am your slave." Cf. Bodl. MS heb. f 101/43 and T-S 6J5.18 for the same phenomenon.

Recto: Court record in Arabic script. Regarding a surgical operation by a physician. Nāṣir b. Jibrīl asks the Jewish physician Makārim b. Isḥāq to perform surgery on the eye of his daughter, Sutayt, which is affected by pus behind the cornea. If the operation is successful, the payment is set at 2 dirhams; if the operation is a failure, the payment will be negotiated. The document is witnessed and signed by ʿAbd al-Qawī b. ʿAbd al-Muʾṭī b. Hilāl al-Anṣārī. Dating: ca. 1250 CE. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document from a qāḍī court. Dated: 15 Dhū l-Ḥijja 870 AH (Sunday 29 July 1466 CE). The raʾīs al-yahūd, Yūsuf b. Khalīfa, and his deputy, Shemuʾel b. Naṣr, promise not to prevent the physician Manṣūr b. Ibrahīm b. al-Abraṣ (son of the leper, or possibly the redhead) from entering the synagogue in Zuwayla, the Jewish neighborhood in Cairo. The trigger for the conflict was a motion to renovate the synagogue, a fraught issue during the Mamluk period: in 859 AH (1454–55), under the relatively permissive Sultan Īnāl, a court authorized the repair of the old Rabbanite synagogue in Zuwayla and two Rabbanite synagogues in Fusṭāṭ, as well as the Qaraite synagogues in Cairo and Fusṭāṭ (a copy of this permit, from 18 January 1456, survived in the Qaraite archive in Cairo); under Qāʾitbāy, there was apparently a request to repair some synagogues, but the community objected, fearing that Muslims would destroy them, as they had threatened or sought to do in other cases. The judge is Shams al-Dīn al-Sulamī. Goitein discovered T-S Ar.38.131 and discussed it briefly in Med. Soc.; Rustow found the join with T-S Ar. 42.212 in 2014 using the joins suggestions in FGP; meanwhile Dotan Arad discovered a Judaeo-Arabic court document referring to the same case, BL Or. 4856.2. Arad published both documents in an article that was forthcoming as of June 2021. MR

Petition to an Ayyubid sultan by a Jewish physician. "The slave Makārim b. Isḥāq, the doctor. In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate. (The slave) kisses the ground and reports that he is a trained and able practitioner in the profession of medicine. The two doctors of our master the sultan, al-Rashīd al-Dimashqī and al-Rashīd Abū Ḥulayqa, attest to the excellence of the slave's knowledge in this profession. He makes a request before our lord the sultan, may God make great his victory, of the gift of the remainder of the salary of al-Asʿad, the doctor in the hospital of Cairo, that is three dinars every month, (paid) to the salve for him to practise the treatment of the sick and let the prayer (of the slave) [for] our lord the sultan be answered. The resolution (of the sultan) is exalted. Praise be to God alone and his blessings [be upon our lord] Muḥammad and his family and save them." Translation by Geoffrey Khan. See tag for additional documents involving Makārim b. Isḥāq.

Letter fragment to an unidentified physician. In Judaeo-Arabic. The format is notable: written in a narrow column, with the width of the margin almost equal to the width of the text. The writer mentions that he has heard that the addressee will be coming into Fustat 'for the treatment of a patient.' Needs further examination.

Letter mentioning a doctor. (Information from CUDL)

State document, Mamluk period, 1442. Draft of a petition from the Jewish community of Fustat to the Mamluk government concerning the malpractices of ‘Abd al-Latif the physician, head of the Jews, who is reported to have sold portions of pious foundation properties and leased others below their value, imposed high fiscal penalties, and confiscated property of the Jews, among a litany of other harmful acts. The document requests his removal from office. (Mark Cohen, "Jews in the Mamlūk Environment: The Crisis of 1442 (A Geniza Study)," BSOAS, 1984, 431-4) EMS

Letter in which a patient reports to his physician, describing his illness and asking for a prescription. Full translation by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, V, 105. "I[n Your name, O] M[erciful]. My lord, the chief physician Abu Rida. May your Excellency take notice that cold and heat have shaken me from Sunday until this hour. I cannot taste anything edible. Yesterday I rolled bread crumbs into two little balls, but after having eaten about a quarter ounce of bread, I hiccupped until midnight, and believed the hiccup would never stop. Then my soul desired a bit of fried cheese, but.... For three days more [the call of] nature has not come to me. Fever, headache, weakness, and shaking do not leave me all day long. Moreover, I cannot taste anything, not even lemon with sugar. I am also unable to give myself an enema. So, what do you prescribe for me? I drink very much water. May your well-being increase and never decrease. And Peace."

Multiple documents sharing one bifolium. (1) There is a draft of a legal attestation that al-Shaykh al-Ḥakīm al-Muhadhdhab Abī Saʿīd b. Shela ha-Sar betrothed a woman who is both a virgin and a divorcee. Al-Muhadhdhab Abū Saʿīd is also named in T-S NS J494. (2) An entry in Arabic containing several words in Judaeo-Arabic: the document of the dowry belonging to the daughter of Yūsuf b. Nufayʿ. Someone of the same name appears in T-S NS J357 (mid-13th-century). (3) and (4): Other entries, it seems also marriage-related, in a mix of Arabic and Hebrew.

Letter from a man, probably in Damietta, to his mother, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. To be sent to the Muṣāṣa neighborhood, to the shop of [...] al-[...] al-Yahūdī. Dating: Probably 12th or 13th century. The sender reports that he has opened a shop with "the physician" (al-ḥakīm), where they will work together for a period of 1 year, from Sukkot to Sukkot. There seems to be a dispute between the physician and an in-law of the sender (יקום יצארב הו ויה ויקול לה איש לך פי דא). The sender makes inquiries about a fancy robe (khilʿa) and big turban (biqyār) and asks his mother to go to the judge (al-Dayyān) and have him send a letter to the physician in Damietta, to be read to the heads of the community. There is also some issue involving a silk girdle (zunnār ḥarīr) and an oath. Regards to the mother's entire family. ASE

Informal note from Bū Naṣr. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions something that happened yesterday at the clinic (dukkān al-ḥakīm); the sender may be expressing remorse for what happened; and he wants to meet with the addressee or perhaps somebody else immediately.

Letter, fragmentary and calligraphic, regarding business. Mentionins dealings in corals, storax, and zaituni (silk), and merchants of the second half of the eleventh century (Joseph b. Farah Qabisi). On verso is a medical prescription in Arabic letters. Most likely the receiver of the business letter was a physician. Information from Goitein's note card. Possibly the same scribe as T-S NS J194.

Letter in which a man who calls himself the father of the cantor who is "sick, poor, and naked" asks a prominent physician to arrange for him a collection, pesiqat sedaqa, in his private synagogue—and first to give himself. See further details on Goitein's note card and Med Soc II, Appendix C, #90 (p. 500).