Geniza Lab

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Late. For each day of the week, lists the boats (qārib) belonging to different people (Muḥammad, Shihāb al-Dīn, Naṣr al-Dīn. . .) and commercial goods and numbers associated with them. Needs further examination.

Two bifolia containing several items of interest. First: A glossary of Spanish/Ladino words from Judaeo-Arabic, including a great number of foods, but also numbers, days of the week, colors, and miscellanous terms (malīḥa --> hermosa; sūq --> plaza; saḥab --> nube; ramād --> ceniza). Second: Drafts of beginnings of letters, including one apparently addressed to Shūʿa Levi Abū לייה ha-Levi al-Marḥūm (but this can't be completely correct, because marḥūm generally means "dead"), and another addressed to the apparently nonsensical תומוסל כא ן זֿירה and יאקות ן תלזֿם. Third: Writing exercises. Dating: Probably 18th or 19th century. Needs further examination.

Right column: Judaeo-Arabic love poetry. A blazon of the beloved, mentioning, among many other things, his "gaze of Babylonian enchantment." Left column: Written in larger letters but probably the same hand. At first glance it reads like a draft of the opening of a standard Judaeo-Arabic letter. But it is heavier on the lovesickness than usual, and this is poetry, not prose, which is given away by the rhyme and the long vowels of qalaqī and taḥtariqī. Further, the speaker is not addressing the recipient but rather the bearer (not necessarily human) of the love letter: "Deliver my letter to my master and in{f}orm him that great is my longing and distress. / I am deprived of all joys and pleasures of the world because of his absence, my heart blazes in the fire." ASE

Account register. In Ladino. 3 bifolia. Dated 5450s AM, which is 1690s CE. On the left side of folio 3r there is reference to the sale of a copy of R. Yosef Karo's Shulchan Arukh (line 7). Needs examination.

Letter in Arabic script from Abū ʿAlī(?) Yefet(?) b. Avraham Ibn al-Amshāṭī. Mentions going to Abū ʿAlī b. al-Dimyāṭī (=Yeḥezqel b. Netanel ha-Levi) and borrowing money. Only the beginning is preserved. ASE

Medical prescriptions for "the little one" (al-ṣaghīra) Sitt al-Bayt(?) and for her son. In Arabic script. There is a section at the top for what each of them should use, then separate sections underneath for each one individually. Cf. the one 'bulk' prescription written for multiple people edited by Lev and Amar.

Letter of Abū l-Maḥāsin b. ʿAlī the trader, introduced by citations from Proverbs 3:4, Psalms 37:11 and 119:165. Mentions consingments of medical commodities such as betel palm (fawfal), amomum (qāqulla) and quince (safarjal), a doctor’s visit and names such as Naḥūm the perfumer and Abū Manṣūr Ibn al-Ṣāʾiḡ (goldsmith), cousin of the writer. (Information from CUDL.) The writer excuses the poor appearance of his letter ('my mind is not present') on account of his great preoccupation for his two friends who are sick, Naḥum al-ʿAṭṭār and his cousin (b. ʿammatī) Abū Manṣūr the son of the tax farmer of ברמא. The writer leaves the shop and visits each of them 5 or 6 times a day, because they are 'cut off' from anyone who can go to the physician for them. ASE.

Bifolio from a mysterious ledger. Contains some accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals, but also contains two entries that begin اصفح(?), and one may mention a woman who was killed by her husband.

A story or an historical account mentioning some places in Lebanon and Syria, the sultan and the slaves of the Amir