Geniza Lab

Tax receipt. From the archive of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb. Join: Alan Elbaum.

State document: End of a Fatimid petition or report from the period of al-Ḥākim (996–1021) or earlier.

Tax receipt from the archive of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb, in the hand of Mikhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ

Recto: State document. In Arabic script, in a chancery hand. The beginnings of 7 lines are preserved. Possibly a decree? Talking about the destruction of the districts (wa-athāruhu maʿrūfa... al-nawāḥī wa-afʿālahum... maʿrūf wa-lladhī... kharāb al-nawāḥī...). On verso there are ~8 lines of poetry in Arabic script and 12 in Hebrew script. Both the Arabic and Hebrew poems are headed with "basīṭa." The Hebrew poem is also headed with the name of the melody (ʿalā X) and then "fī nuskhat mawlāyyā al-ḥazan."

Large list in two columns, covering both recto and verso. In Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Giving names of houses, their owners or tenants, numbers, and the word ṣaḥḥa/ṣuḥḥa next to each entry. List of houses and their owners or tenants, On verso there is al the note nusikha fī dīwān al-majlis. Verso contains the very beginnings of four lines of majuscule—this is a reused chancery petition. Cited in Rabie, Financial System of Egypt 144, 198.

Official receipt of some kind. In Arabic script. Dated: 556 AH (or kharājī?); if AH, this would correspond to 1160/61 CE. For Bū l-Ḥasan b. Bū l-Qāsim(?). The sum recorded, twice in words and once in Greek/Coptic numerals, is 2/3 dinar. Names the judge Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ismāʿīl, and it also involves Maḥfūẓ al-Ṣabbāgh (or al-Ṣāyigh?). The text on verso may be a filing note, but it mentions [...] b. Lāwī who is not named in the main document. (Information from receipt team: LB, SL, MR, NV.)

Letter from Muḥammad Jāwīsh(?). In Arabic script. Dating: Ottoman era. Asking the addressee (al-ʿāmil bi-Miṣr al-Qadīma?) to return the burda(?) that he took from ʿAṭiyya and asking the amir to send approximately 20 heads of sheep (ghanam).

Recto: Fatimid document. Verso: Part of a preliminary draft of a chancery document addressed to a government official. ". . . bi-l-shadd minka fī istikhrāj al-māl ʿalā l-kamāl ʿalā l-kamāl (sic!) wa-l-tamām wa-qaṣr yad man yudawwim al-iḥtimā' ʿalayka wa-l-manʿ min iḥdāth rasm lam tajri bihi l-ʿāda. . . . " That is, an order has been issued in favour of the addressee: "for you to be granted the power to levy the money in its entirety, for the hand to be restrained of whomsoever continually defaults (on his payment) to you, and for the prevention of an unwonted practice.' Information from Khan, "Copy of a Decree," 443n17 and Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, 343n20. See the same references for the term "shadd," likely a refrence to some kind of financial administrator called a shādd.

Petition to the Fatimid vizier Al-ʿAbbās requesting an allowance in corn to be paid to the petitioner in yearly instalments. Dating: 548–49 AH, which is 1153–54 CE. (Information from CUDL.) The dating is based on the identification of the vizier in question with Abū l-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās Ibn Abī l-Futūḥ.

Legal testimony. In Arabic script. Dating: Fatimid. Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.

State accounts relating to the tax farm of the lands of Dayqūf, in the province of al-Bahnasā, administered by Basṭiyya b. Marqūra and the property of the office of the noble lady of al-Āmir in the "Muḥawwil chamber" (al-majlis al-muḥawwil was a chamber in the qaṣr al-baḥr, which in turn was a component of al-qaṣr al-kabīr, the great palace complex of the Fatimid caliphs). Dating: this account is for the kharājī year 550, which corresponds to 551/52 AH and 1156/57 CE. The produce of the land consists of 200 irdabbs: 133 irdabbs of wheat and 66 irdabbs of barley. The verso contains a summary of the document on recto. (Information from CUDL and Khan.)

State document, probably a report to a higher official (not a petition). This is a long strip cut from the right side of the document. At top, "ṣalawāt allāh." Mentions a sum of money (mablagh); [...] b. Abū l-ʿIzz b. Manṣūr; something "al-muʿaẓẓam" (probably a reference to a document, as this is followed by al-muʾarrakh); and taqdīr ʿamal min dīwān al-Ṭ[...]. There may be a damaged date in the last line of the main text block. There are portions of two more lines after a long space, including the phrase "an yakūna." On verso there are Hebrew liturgical pieces with other material interspersed, including several references to the prayer of Ḥanna.

Petition from a woman to a high dignitary or perhaps to al-Malik al-ʿĀdil himself (one reigned 1200–18 and another reigned 1238–40). She seems to be appealing for redress against a Christian tax farmer named Abū l-Fakhr and an intricate network of his family members, including his son, his brother Abū Saʿīd, Abū Saʿīd's wife, and possibly also 2 women (slaves?) named Aqrān and ʿAlam. They are behaving in a high-handed way in the hoarding of money, saying things that shouldn't be said, and something involving timber. Concludes with a lengthy curse on anybody who comes into possession of this petition and fails to convey it to al-ʿĀdil and apprise him of its contents. Ed. Tamer el-Leithy, Marina Rustow and Naïm Vanthieghem (December 2016). (Information from TL, MR, NV, AA, and ASE.)

Petition to a Fatimid dignitary concerning (or from?) a certain Abū l-Faraj apparently regarding various properties in a neighborhood (and perhaps their commandeering?). Subsidiary to the main request: "...to my lord the glorious shaykh, may God make his exaltation endure, belongs the lofty resolution concerning the use of the servant’s provisions, if what they contain should be of help to him..." (wa-li-mawlāya al-shaykh al-jalīl adāma allāh ʿuluwwahu ʿālī al-raʾy fī ightinām maʾūnat ʿabdihi in kāna mā yataḥaṣṣa fīhā ʿāyidan ʿalā ʿawnihi). (Khan, ALAD, p.316n46; also mentioned in "Historical Development," p.19.) There are also two lines at the bottom from a unrelated, unidentified document in Arabic script—perhaps a letter. The two documents were glued together by a Jewish scribe, who reused verso for Hebrew liturgy.

State document: On verso, titulature in calligraphic script, including al-khilāfa al-fāṭimiyya, which is rare (maybe hapax) in documentary texts.

Fiscal account to do with sugarcane and a sugar-house. Some to go as taxes to tax-farmers, some to be planted. Three lines at the top: a docket?

Tadhkira (memorandum) from a Fatimid official to another Fatimid official. Tax receipt on verso.

Tax receipt. Mentions the mustakhdim al-jawālī in Damietta. Dated: 601 AH. Amount: 1.25 dinars. ʿAlāma: الحمد لله وبه استعين. Endorsed across the text rather than above it, which is unusual.

Legal deed for real estate, Mamluk period, with lots of archival process. 710s-750s AH

State document, Fatimid period. Petition or report to a vizier (beginning only), possibly under al-ʿAḍid (see line 4, where the blessing uses the verb ʿaḍada; thanks to Lara Balaa for this observation). (MR)