Geniza Lab

Legal document from the Muslim (qāḍī) courts. In Arabic script, with a Judaeo-Arabic filing note. Dated: 945 AH, which is 1538 CE. Concerning the estate of a merchant in Damietta. Information kindly provided by Jane Hathaway.

Letter from Abū Manṣūr, unknown location, to Abū Zikrī al-Rayyis b. Eliyyahu, in Fustat or in Qalyūb ('wherever he may be'). In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. Rudimentary and distinctive hand. The writer is certainly a relative of the addressee, perhaps a brother-in-law or paternal cousin (or both), as he asks about the welfare of Abū Zikrī's wife. The letter mentions debts to the tax collectors (ḥushshār, l. 17). The writer complains that the addressee has been absent too long from his wife and mother. The date, added to the last line, is the 30th of the Omer (15 Iyar), but no year is provided.

Letter fragment in Arabic script. Very deferential. Twice mentions "the late Mujāhid." Needs further examination.

Verso (original use): Bottom of a petition to a vizier (ḥaḍrat al-wizāra). In Arabic script, with ḥamdala and ḥasbala at end. Layout: landscape mode, eastern-style. A group of petitioners ask for help against a group of people who are wronging them. None of the specifics of the conflict are preserved.

Recto (secondary use): Lower part of list of male persons, mostly craftsmen or foreigners (Goitein surmises that they are people for whom the capitation tax was [to be] paid). Several names are preceded by sahh, 'paid.' Each name also ends with a line extended to the end of the column, possibly signifying that it has been paid. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 466-467, App. B 106.) Many of the people listed bear surnames indicating their place of origin, including Baghdad, Amid (in Iraq), Aleppo, Damascus, Tiberias, ?Azza, Sicily, or indicating their profession, including porter, packer, night watchman, dyer, soap maker, mosaic craftsman.

List of Ibn Yiju's deposits and expenditures after arriving in the Egyptian capital.

Legal document in Arabic script. The last four lines are preserved as well as the witness statements. Needs examination. Later reused for a complicated set of notes by Avraham Ibn Yiju (see separate record).

Petition, Fatimid(?). In Arabic script. Last 9 lines. With hamdala and hasbala at end. Needs further examination.

Fiscal account beginning with the words waṣala ilā bayt al-māl al-maʿmūr. Mentions several amount in dinars

Letter in Arabic script. Maybe addressed to [...] al-Ḥakīm. The writer twice says "wa-ḥaqq al-Tawrā" ("by the Torah!").

Business accounts in Arabic script.

Original text: State/fiscal document. The years 534 and 535 AH are specified in multiple places, paired with sums of money at the top. Refers to the issuing of a decree (khurūj al-tawqīʿ al-ʿālī) dated (muʾarrakhan) 13 Shaʿbān 534 AH (= 3 April 1140 CE.) concerning the iqṭāʿ of [someone's name?]. The word ʿajam (Persians) may also appear. On verso: A note addressed to Abū l-Ḥasan al-Kātib asking/ordering him to investigate the situation of the Jawājira (= the people from Jūjar?) and to inform the sender what he learns. On recto, at 90 degrees to the original text: A note containing the same word (jawājira), possibly the response conveying the desired information.

Official letter in a Fatimid chancery hand, mentioning Abī l-Bayān Mūsā, may God sustain him, and Abū ʿAlāʾ (?).

Legal document in Arabic script. Agreement between Ḥasan b. Hārūn and his father-in-law Ḥasan b. Isḥāq b. Mūsā concerning Ḥasan's fiancee Maḥfūẓa and her early marriage payment of 20 dinars. The fiance gets the 20 of the muqaddam back, goes on a business trip, must send 21 during the first two months. Another 4 months are stipulated. There is also a sum of 70 dinars involved somehow. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Decree fragment, probably Ghaznavid, containing the order clause and the beginning of the date clause; date cut off. From an 11th-century archive or Geniza of a Jewish land-owning and trading family at Bāmiyān that came to light in the late 20th c in Bāmiyān province, Afghanistan. In Persian and Arabic.

State document, fragmentary, in chancery hand. Mentions the province of Damietta (thagr dimyāṭ) and someone's arrival/appointment to it. Also has an ʿalama in the middle. Needs further examination.

Petition. Report fragment, probably early Ayyubid period (taqbīl clause + paleography + reused by Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, whose documents cluster ca. 1190–1210; see description of verso of this document). Difficult to decipher. Contains a registration mark in faded (iron gall?) ink.

Literary text, probably an Arabic grammar text. Mentions فاعل، مفعول، فعل with a few examples from the Quran in the explanation of these phenomena like the verse in reference to Noah "لا عاصم اليوم".

State document: Official report (fragment) concerning armed insurrection and civil unrest. For verso, see separate entry.

Recto: A few words from a decree: al-mamlūk muqaddam al-juyūsh.