Geniza Lab

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Mentioning sugar and names such as Abū ʿImrān and Abū l-Majd. This is a reuse of a literary manuscript in Arabic script, written on a bifolio, containing an anecdote (khabar) about the Umayyad-era singer Maʿbad b. Wahb (d. 743/44). A nearly identical version may be found in Quṭb al-Surūr fī Awṣāf al-Khumūr by al-Raqīq al-Qayrawānī (d. 1034), citing Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, citing Yūnus al-Kātib (http://islamport.com/w/adb/Web/672/37.htm). It describes how Maʿbad acquired a new patron in the Iraqi man who had previously purchased Maʿbad's student Ẓabiyya (a female slave). They meet on a boat in Ahwāz, and the female slaves whom Ẓabiyya had tutored before her death recognize in Maʿbad the greatest singer of the age and persuade their owner to keep him around. ASE

Multifragment. Fol. 2: Mercantile accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. On parchment. Dating: Probably 11th century. A vast sum of 2,033 dinars is cashed in Qayrawān for consignments of indigo, sugar, and silver (vessels or disused coins). Also mentions al-Mahdiyya. (Information from Goitein's index card and Med Soc I, 216n31.) Both fragments are written on parchment.

Accounts, mentioning names such as Ibn al-Ḡanī (?) and Joseph b. Judah al-Levi. Lists a number of dates, weights, numbers and commodities, such as honey, wine and sugar. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: commercial letter in Judaeo-Arabic. "That man... to you, you said to me several times... I don't know what he needs, and if he asks you about the equipment for the sugar (ʿuddat al-sukkar) tell him... the refining (al-ṭabīkh), 30 batches (ḥaml) were refined... if the [...] sets sail...." Mentions Maʿānī several times. Also mentions the technical terms tarnīq (meaning unclear, but does appear in treatises on sugar manufacture) and quṭāra (sugar cane molasses).

Recto: very damaged text of a makhzuma (ledger of receipts). Verso: makhzūma (ledger of receipts) submitted in Rajab 495 AH (= April-May 1102 CE) by Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, representative of a sugar cane extraction factory and a honey factory, to the office of supervision (dīwān al-ishrāf). The makhzūma is witnessed and signed by ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī. The accounts are for the kharājī years 490 and 491, corresponding respectively to 493/94 AH and 494/95 AH. The makhzūma was so named apparently owing to the fact that it was sealed or strung together with other leaves by 'piercing' (khazama). (Information from CUDL and Khan.)

Fragment of a legal deed regarding a sugar factory involving Yeshu'a b. Yiftah. Written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi (Dating: 1100-1138). AA