Geniza Lab

(c) Trousseau list. Dated: Sivan 1185 CE. Bride: Nasab bt. Abū l-Khayr al-Zayyāt. Groom: Munajjā Abū Saʿd al-Labbān. 10 + 25. Total value: 90 dinars. (Information from Goitein's index cards.)

(b) Trousseau list. Bride: Sitt al-Furs bt. Abū l-Bayān al-Jābī (cf. Bodl. MS heb. f 56/43). Groom: Al-Munajjā b. Yosef. 10 + 25. Total value: 95 dinars. (Information from Goitein's index cards.)

4 entries in a court register. (a) Record of marriage conditions. Groom: Abū Zikrī al-Kattanānī b. Aharon. Bride: Sitt al-Nās bt. Isḥāq. Delayed marriage payment: 10 dinars. Trousseau: total value 75 dinars (and Goitein checked the math!). (Information in part from Goitein's index cards.)

Court record from Bilbays in which an elder brother accepts the administration of a minor sibling's share in his deceased brother's inheritance and takes it upon himself to maintain the orphan until he reached maturity at thirteen. Dated Adar 1528/ February-March 1217. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 236, 237)

Court record written by Avraham b. Shemaya, concerning a settlement between Abu Surur b. Natan and Moshe b. Moshe. Dated 1099. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 452, and from Goitein's index cards)

Court record containing an agreement between Abu al-Muna and Abu al-Fadl regarding a debt of 55 dinars, 35 of which were to be paid immediately and the remaining 20 at the middle of Kislev. Dated Heshvan 1410/ October 1098. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 512, and from Goitein's index cards)

Court record about a debt. April 12, 1076. A person from the Ibn Awkal, declares that he owes 14 dinars to Yefet ha-Kohen b. Yeshua b. Kasasa, and commit to pay his debt one dinar a month. It seems like he commits not to use a different deed that was approved in a Muslim court. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #844) VMR

Beginning of a court record dated Shevat 1411/ February 1100. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Court record containing a complete list of items of a trousseau (without prices) returned to Sitt al-Hasab on the order of the Nagid. Dated Tishri 1458/ September 1146. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 386)

Court record in the record book of Fustat dealing with the remains of an inheritance in Qayrawan. Dated Adar 1345/March 1034.

Court record containing signatures of three Jewish witnesses in Arabic script, in which a Jewish woman is charged by two Muslims with being intimate with a Christian physician. They reported seeing her loitering by his apothecary practice, and spied on her for 40 days before taking their suspicions to a judge. (Information from CUDL and Mediterranean Society,II, p. 330)

Register, legal: biofolio of a notebook with legal and communal entries. In the first entry Abu al-Faraj al-Saigh b. Abu Ishaq Ibrahaim al-Maghrebi allows his wife to give thier son 10 shares of a house that belonged to her father. Signed are Ḥalfon ha-kohen b. Elazar and Shemuʾel b. Mevasser ha-Melammed. The year 27 is written and going by the script I assume 1527 is meant, i.e. 1216. In the next entry Barakat b. Munajja testifies that she owes Abu al-rida ha-levi 160 dirhams on top of a previous debt of 134 and a half dirhems. The third entry is a sale of a slave by Abu al-Faraj to Banat b. Yaaqov. On the back are accounts of communal collections.

Court record in the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Location: Fustat. Dating: No earlier than late 1097 CE, as it contains a copy of an earlier legal document which was dated Monday, 29 Av 1408 Seleucid. Under the authority of the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saʿadya. Concerns the financial settling between Abū ʿAlī Yefet b. Avraham (Yefet is titled Tifʾeret ha-Qahal) and Abū Yaʿqūb Yequtiʾel b. Moshe ha-Rofe (Yequtiʾel is titled Paqid ha-Soḥarim) after the death of Yefet's brother Yaʾir the judge. ENA NS 48.7 and ENA 4010.17 concern the same case (information from Moshe Yagur).

Court record written by Efrayim b. Shemarya. Sitt al-Dār bt. Ḥusayn, the wife of Khalaf b. Isḥāq, claims from her husband 10 dinars given to him as a loan. Her husband claims that they agreed that she would get the money only in case of a divorce. Bishr b. Efrayim represents Sitt al-Dār in this lawsuit. (Information from E. Bareket, Yehudei misrayim, p. 185)

Court record written by Shemuel b. Avtalion, dealing with a dispute between Yeshua ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb and Yoshiyya b. Maimon. Signed by Avraham b. Mevasser, Hisdai b. Natan and Shabbat b. Nusayr. Dated Av 1339/ August 1028. (Information from E. Bareket Shafrir misrayim, p. 268)

Bifolium from a court notebook. Dating: One entry is dated 1411 Seleucid, which is 1099/1100 CE. The four pages have four different cases recorded in four different hands. The details of each case are hard to make out due to the poor state of preservation. 1. A certain (Abū l-)Ḥasan b. Yaʿaqov al-Āmidī is asked to hand over various Bible codices to Yehuda b. Ḥayyim ha-Melammed. 2. Concerning garments sent from Sicily to Damietta to Yemen. The parties are Shalem, Tiqva, Ṣedaqa al-Dimashqī, Ḥusayn, and Ibn Masʿūd. Signed by Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel and Avraham b. Shemaʿya. 3. Appointment of an agent in a commercial matter. Mentions Abū l-Faḍl, Ṣāliḥ b. Meshullam, and 6 dinars. 4. One entry involves a testimony of [...] the judge b. Natan Av ha-Yeshiva about the delivery of a bill of divorce (get). Involves Elʿazar b. Shelomo. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Court notebook containing several documents. (i) Marriage contract (ketubba), segment discussing the groom's promises to the bride regarding her exemption from oaths. (ii) Record of an adoption in which a man "sells" his newborn daughter, 16 days old, whose mother had just died after childbirth, to a prominent lady for five dinars and promises that he will not interfere with the girl's upbringing. (iii) Legal document dealing with a business partnership between Yefet b. Wadʿa and Abū Zikrī, and also with a man who was married and divorced before consummation in Tyre and remarried in al-Mahalla.

Court record. Dated: Tammuz 1538 Seleucid, which is July 1227 CE. In which the son of one of two sisters whose father, Bū Mansur b. Abū l-Majd, had died stood surety for his mother who, having received her share, would not make any additional claims against any relative, either in a Muslim or a Jewish court. If the mother should claim anything, all losses caused to the other parties would be borne by her son. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 287, 491.) ENA NS 21.18 and T-S 8J6.6 + T-S 10J4.4 are related to the same case.

Legal register from the rabbinical court in Fustat, signed by Efrayim ben Shemarya in uncharacteristically calligraphic Hebrew letters. Recto has two entries from Ḥeshvan 1339 Seleucid, and verso has an entry from Kislev 1339 Seleucid (=1027/28 CE). The entry on verso concerns the same case of levirate marriage as found in T-S NS J51 from several months earlier (Elul 1338 Seleucid). Incidentally, it mentions someone named Ḥayyim Ibn al-Jāsūs.

Court record in which the orphan Avraham b. Shemuel al-Andalusi brings his guardians for the second time to court demanding they deliver a balance. The guardians refused since they had been expressly exempted from this duty by the orphan's father. A committee of three, headed by Shemuel ha-Kohen b. Talyun was to look into the matter, but nothing came out of it. Dated Tevet 1339/ December 1027. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 294, 295.) See also T-S 8J4.3.2 + AIU VII.D.4 + T-S 8J4.3 + T-S 13J5.1 (PGPID 2121).