Geniza Lab

Recto: State document. Report to al-Ẓāhir about a tax farmer, beginning only. Dating: 1021–36 CE. (Cited in Khan, BSOAS 53 (1990) 25; Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections 311 n27 with partial transcription.) Indirect join: Oded Zinger.

A Fatimid decree fragment, possibly of an investiture. Recycled by Efrayim b. Shemarya.

Legal document: bill of sale for a slave. See also Perry's annotated edition of T-S18J1.17.

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi, dated 1449 (= 1138 CE). A tax-farmer (ḍāmin), Abū l-Surūr Peraḥya b. ʿUlla (known as Abū l-Munā the perfumer b. Ḥasan), grants Abū Isḥāq Avraham b. Yaʿqūb a license to sell and dye silk for 18 dinars per month in a certain quarter of Fustat for the duration of Abū l-Surūr’s tenure in office. Abū l-Surūr promises not to accept any higher offer or to discontinue the lease (paying a fine of 100 dinars if he does so). Abū Isḥāq may subcontract the labour to others if he wishes and Abū l-Surūr agrees to use his influence with the police if any subcontractors evade payment of their dues. Abū l-Surūr reserves for himself the right to employ female brokers (bayyāʿāt, "saleswomen") in the quarter in question. Signed by [...] Kohen, descendant of Yosef Kohen and Natan b. Shemuʾel, and written under the authority of Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon (1127–1139 CE). On verso are a few lines in Arabic.

Draft of a petition to the caliph al-Ḥākim al-Hakim, with tarjama and opening formulae. Verso contains a Hebrew legal deed (see separate entry). From Hibat Allāh b. Abū Manṣūr al-Yahūdī. It reads: ṣalawāt allāh wa-barakātuhu wa-nawāmī zakawātihi wa-afḍal taḥiyyātihi wa-salāmihi ʿalā mawlānā wa- sayyidinā l-Ḥākim bi-amri llāh amīr al-muʾminīn wa-ʿalā ābāʾihi al-ṭāhirīn wa-abnāʾihi al-akramīn. (Information from Rustow, Lost Archive, p. 468 note 15.) Cf. ENA 2742.4 which contains similar petition-like phrases from [...] b. Bū Manṣūr b. Yehuda.

Fatimid decree. The decree is from the period of al-Hafiz (1131–49) and mentions the congregational mosques of al-Ḥākim (in Cairo) and al-Ḥāfiẓ (it is not clear which the second mosque was). Marina Rustow

State document in Arabic script, an internal memorandum or report containing multiple hands. Containing (on the last fragment) the signature of the vizier Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad (441 AH/1049–50 CE). The dating is discussed in Stern's article and should be considered definite; it is also corroborated by the caliph's name. The Arabic text is written in five different hands, reflecting administrative procedure. NB: This is a continuous join: T-S Ar.18(2).193 + T-S Ar.30.306 + T-S Ar.30.314. Whether T-S 24.21 and ENA NS 10.31 also join is less clear: they were reused by the same scribe for the same text, but may not have been part of the same state document. If they were, the first two fragments don't join continuously with the last three. Between the lines on recto is a Judaeo-Arabic letter (see separate record, PGPID 16773). On verso is Shemuʾel b. Ḥofni's Kitāb Aḥkām al-Shurūṭ, parallel to the text in SP RNL Evr-Arab. I 2938 fol. 3b. (Information from CUDL and Marina Rustow.) Joins: Marina Rustow.

Petition to the Fatimid vizier al-Afḍal, including the raʾy component and endorsements.

State petition. Recto: petition to the the imām Al-Āmir bi-Aḥkām Allāh from a Jewish merchant, Mūsā b. Ṣadaqa, who was detained unlawfully after his return from India and Yemen with goods. The merchant writes that he had already registered documents in the court of the judge Jalāl al-Mulk Tāj al-Aḥkam (Abū l-Ḥajjāj Yūsuf b. Ayyūb al-Maḡribī) and asks for his property and freedom to be restored. Ca. 516-521 AH (= 1123-1127 CE). On verso there is Hebrew liturgical text. (information from CUDL.) See also Goitein notes linked below.

State document in Arabic script. Uses the phrase khidmat mālik al-riqq (see Khan, ALAD, 345, 368, 434 for meaning and other examples); and see T-S Ar. 42.162. Reused on both recto and verso for very curious philosophical and narrative compositions in vocalized Judaeo-Arabic mentioning Aristotle and medical aphorisms (see FGP for more specific identifications). T-S Ar.30.308 and T-S 12.359 are clearly a join, but not a direct join, as the Judaeo-Arabic text is oriented in the same direction as the Arabic text in T-S 12.359, while it is oriented in the opposite direction in T-S Ar.30.308. The scribe of the Judaeo-Arabic text is the same as the sender of T-S 10J7.3 + T-S AS 144.258 and numerous related fragments (see tag "ibn habib's patient"). The Arabic script looks quite different on each fragment, so the scribe probably took at least two different state documents and glued them together for his literary text(s). One of them mentions the amir Fāris al-Dawla.

Tax receipt, Fatimid, in the hand of Mikhaʾil b. ʿAbd al-Masiḥ, from the caliphate of al-Ḥakim.

Petition, draft, from an ex-government servant asking for work, from the period of the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥākim (996–1021) or possibly earlier. Verso: tax receipt in the hand of Mikhaʾil b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ (see separate entry).

Tax receipt. For the capitation tax in Cairo and Fustat of [...] b. Mūsā al-Yahūdī. Payment: 2 dinars.

Tax receipt (and not a petition as the Baker/Polliack catalogue has it).

Tax receipt. Fatimid-era. Short. Granted to a certain Yūsuf. Amounts and date and scribe are not immediately clear. Needs further examination.

Tax receipt. Fatimid-era. In Arabic script. Granted to Bū Saʿd Ibrāhīm. The sum is 7.5 (written at lower left), and half of that is 3.75 (written at lower right). The sum of 7.5 is also written on verso in Judaeo-Arabic. The name of the scribe appears at the bottom. It is not immediately clear if there is a date. Needs further examination.

Decree of investiture; two lines widely spaced.

Writing exercises in a chancery hand.

Letter. Internal administrative goverment document. Six widely spaced lines (Baker and Polliack) in chancery hand. Contains some lacunae and in particular the first few lines are incomplete. Deals with property. Mentions: ahl al-[...], li-na'khadhū biyārahum, qā'id al-qawm, istawlat (or istawlada?) 'alayhā al dhilla li-taḥqīqihā, lammā waṣalat talab.

Letter or petition (or draft) in Arabic script. Strings of titles. There are alternating lines of light ink (bigger letters) and dark ink (smaller letters), one presumably written before the other. ḥaḍara ilā al-majlis al-ʿālī etc.