Geniza Lab

Power of attorney to Nahray b. Nissim, ca. 1045-1096.

Draft of deed of attorney written in Tyre, which includes an accounting between partners after the death of one of them, Menashshe b. Yiṣḥaq, and indicates the use of documents drawn in a Muslim court. Dating: Ca. 1041 or slightly later. According to Bareket, this is in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya, it was drawn up in Fustat, and it is related to T-S 10J6.6 and T-S 8J11.1.

Legal document, in which Sitt al-Rūm, a former slave who had been freed by her master Abū ʿ[...] before his death, appears in person before the rabbinical court of Alexandria to appoint an attorney to collect a loan. Mentions Salmān and Haffāẓ b. Ibrāhīm the cook, and signed by witnesses including Shelomo b. Yaʿaqov, Aharon b. Ṣedaqa, ʿAmmār b. Yeshuʿa and Sahl b. Mevasser. Location: Alexandria. Dated: Nisan 4830 AM, which is 1070 CE. (Information from CUDL.) NB: The transcription below is only partial; full document awaiting transcription.

Power of attorney from the court of Daniel b. Azarya (1051-1062) in Ramla, 1368/October 1056.

Writ of agency written in Banias.

Legal deed, appointing a representative to execute a will. Fustat. Adar 1377/February 1066.

Court record from 1015 concerning a woman in Ramla appointing a representative to sue her Damascene husband who had disappeared two years earlier without leaving her anything. She was prepared to renew their common life, or else demand a divorce, with all the payments involved, including the cost of maintenance for two years. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:198-9, 314, 375, 468) EMS

Document describing a Damascene husband who had settled in Jerusalem and went bankrupt in Ramla, and who was being sued by his Egyptian wife. Her attorney, appointed in Fustat, was to extract alimony from him for the year of desertion, twenty dinars as delayed marriage gift, and a bill of divorce. Summer, 1024. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:199, 468) EMS

Legal document. Record f release. Dated: February 1095. Location: Fustat. This document was drawn up following the termination and settlement of a commenda between Solomon b. David al-Dustarī/al-Tustarī and Benaiah b. Moses. As part of the settlement, Solomon was allocated ten dinars and change, five dinars and one qirāṭ to be paid immediately by Benaiah. The balance is to be collected by Solomon, acting as an agent to collect on debts owed by Jacob al-Ḥarīrī and Jacob al-Ṣabbāgh to Benaiah. The debtors will then make monthly payments of the balance to Solomon. Benaiah stands as guarantor for the debts. This document is a final release from Solomon to Benaiah, leaving only the uncollected debts. Goitein writes that "the investor lost almost 50 out of 70 dinars confided to an overseas trader, but was convinced by ‘the elders of the community’ that he had no claim against him." The "convincing" seems to have been the normal settlement procedure required for release; though the document refers to the agreement as a commenda (muḍāraba), its details don't confirm that it totally follows the model of the Islamic muḍāraba – for example, the active partner is left owing funds to the investor, suggesting that simply liquidating the invested assets was insufficient to satisfy his obligations to the latter. However, had the active partner borne no responsibility for loss (as in an Islamic muḍāraba), this would have sufficed. The verso – as yet untranscribed – is a form for a power of attorney, with "John Doe" substituted for parties’ names. This document seems to be unrelated to the recto, despite the allusion to a power of attorney ("wakāla"). (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 215)

Letter to Eli b. Amram from a junior colleague, as court scribe, specifying the fees received for writing documents (marriage contracts, divorce documents, a power of attorney) during Eli's absence; also mentioning a power of attorney made out on behalf of an agunah to a welfare official who was going to Spain, where her husband was located.

Letter from Barhun Levi b. Ishaq concerning a deceased man, a debt, and power of attorney. He informs the addressee, whose name is lost, that he had made a wakila (וכאלה) against Yusuf b. Ibrahim al-Iskandarani, to whom he had sold something and quotes a document. Ibn al-Kuhli, Futuh b. ‘Azun, and the city of Damsis are mentioned. Dated 450 of the Muslim Era (= 1058 CE). Remains of directions on verso. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Writ of agency written in Tyre, approximately 1025.

Power of attorney. Location: Fustat. Dated: first decade of Iyyar 1526 Seleucid, which is April 1215 CE, under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. Moshe b. Berakhot (aka Mūsā b. Abū l-Barakāt) Ibn al-Maqdisi grants his attorney Sulaymān b. Maḥāsin a long list of rights to act as his substitute in his claim over the estate of Dalāl bt. Abū ʿImrān, the daughter of a paternal cousin who died in Alexandria. Witnesses: Ḥalfon b. Elʿazar ha-Kohen; Meir b. Yakhin.

Writ of agency written in Tyre, dated 18 Shevat 4771 (25 January 1011). Ḥalfon b. Moses b. Aaron (Ibn Abī Qīda), the "representative of the merchants" in Tyre, authorizes his father-in-law Solomon b. Rabī' (in Fustat) to collect from Caleb b. Aaron, the "representative of the merchants" in Fustat, what he is owed for 37 mishpālōt (baskets) of glass, which were partly his property and partly held in partnership with Abraham b. Ḥabashī and Aaron b. Jacob (Ibn Abī Rujayf). (Information from Gil, Palestine 1:238)

Legal document. Power of attorney. Sunday, last ten days of Sivan 1461 sel. (either 18th or 25th of June 1150). Also additional court or communal recordings.

Power of attorney. In Judaeo-Arabic. A woman with the strange name of Qirā al-Lawn (קרא אללון), the widow of the late Marwān, appoints Shelomo b. David b. Shimʿon to claim from Ṣemaḥ b. Shemuel what was due to her from the estate of her paternal uncle. She had already received 38 dinars. On verso the name Sittnā bt. Yeshuʿa appears. (Information in part from CUDL.) VMR

Legal document concerning a power of attorney from Zuhra bat Joseph, apparently for Jacob he-haver, regarding the inheritance of hasan b. Faraj al-Amidi. Mentions Joseph b. Isaac and [...] ha-Levi b. Furqan, and towns such as Aleppo and the Lebanese Tripoli. Verso: document, probably a letter, in Arabic script. (Information from the Cambridge Genizah Research Unit via FGP).

Legal document. Power of attorney. Location: Fustat. Dated: February 1084. Power of attorney from Moshe b. Avraham to ʿAmram b. Yosef ha-Ḥasid, to act on his behalf in litigation with Maḥbūb. Moses b. Abraham appoints Amram b. Joseph his unlimited agent to collect debts from Maḥbūb b. Ḥibān in al-Maḥdiya, some of which consist of partnership assets (including semiprecious stones, glass beads, gold, and similar commodities) as a ṣuḥba, in this case meaning a deposit with, with Ḥassūn ha-Levi b. Solomon. The partnership relationship was fairly complex, Moses depositing funds with Ḥassūn who passed them on to Maḥbūb. Maḥbūb may have been a regular partner with Moses or alternatively, an agent serving many traders and remitting funds from active partners who stopped in Tunisia to their investors in Fusṭāṭ and elsewhere. When the funds failed to reach Fusṭāṭ, Moses sent Amram to collect them. The clauses denoting proper state of mind are common to release documents and powers of attorney. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 167)

Legal document concerning power of attorney in which Shelomo b. Hatim appoints Menachem b. Shelomo to pursue his claims against Ḥasan b. Avraham and Shemuel b. Nisin. EMS

Writ of agency, probably written in Acre, probably the first half of the eleventh century.