Geniza Lab

Letter from Mevorakh b. Natan ha-Ḥaver (judge in Fustat, 1150–81) to Shabbetay b. Avraham (judge in Minyat Zifta, 1135–78). Concerning (1) a muqaddam who has been causing trouble and making light of notables; (2) a question submitted to the physicians in the capital by Shabbetay's son Abu Saʿd: all the physicians reply that they must see the patient, hear his words, and see his (urine) flask before prescribing an effectve remedy; (3) a recommendation for the bearer, a brother of the late Judge Menaḥem. Information from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Sender and addressee are unidentified. Full of expressions of deference. The sender was distressed at 'the calamity' (al-nūba) that befell the addressee 'and joins in the preoccupation of his heart' (musāhim fī shughl qalbih). Regards from Abū Isḥāq al-Ṣayrafī and Abū l-Ḥasan al-Khāzin. The addressee should pass on greetings to Abū ʿImrān al-Kohen and tell him that his son is well and that "all the friends" were pained to hear about his illness. Mentions Abū Saʿd b. Pinḥas. Someone should try to rein in Abū l-Khayr, who 'went out' somewhere and is now unemployed and 'playing' all day long. The addressee should find a trustworthy man (rajul maʾmūn) to assist. Then: "Yours is the noble opinion (wa-lak ʿuluww al-raʾy). [Please kiss for] me the hand of my master the father." (Information in part from CUDL.) Join: Alan Elbaum.

Letter to the judge Eliyyahu b. Zekharya requesting he intervene with the Nagid on behalf of the bearer of the letter, who had spent six months in prison and was ill. The bearer is named Abu l-[Faraj?] al-Sayrafi. Goitein deduces that the bearer was sick even before his time in prison from the language in lines 14-18: "You knew him in his prosperous and happy state and how he was at that time and what he suffered. His suffering has only increased due to his degradation and his staying in prison close to six months, sick among the gentiles. He is in the meanest state among them due to his illness." (Information from Goitein's index cards. See also card #27109.) EMS. ASE.

Letter fragment (lower part of recto). The recipient's brother-in-law is to pay something to Ḥayyim b. [...]. The writer urges the recipient to help him, because he is sick (ḍaʿīf). ASE.

Letter from the lepers of Tiberias to Furayj b. Ḥasan. Dating: ca. 1030 CE. Asking for donations be given to the emissaries from Tiberias collecting charity on the senders' behalf.

Legal query in the hand of Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi regarding a man who married a widow, then found in her a "hidden defect" from which he contracted an illness. He is a poor man without even enough money for food and has no source of livelihood except public charity. He is in bad straits because whenever he demands a divorce, she insists on receiving her ketubba payment in full. Does the law permit him to pay it in installments? He insists that he is unable to pay one lump sum because of his illness and poverty. On verso there is a fragment of a page of piyyutim in the hand of Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi. ASE.

Letter to a woman. In Judaeo-Arabic. The addressee had left when she was ill (marīḍa). The writer mentions Sulaymān, whom they had not seen for a year (?) as well as other relatives, someone who is in good health in Jerusalem, and Abū l-Ḥasan who sends his regards. (Information from CUDL)

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. The writer describes how he became so sick he despaired of life, but God sent health. Also mentions Abū l-Ḥasan b. Khulayf and Alexandria. Regards to Abū l-Faḍl and the writer's father. (Information in part from CUDL)

Shelomo b. Eliyyahu asks Abu l-Ḥasan to give the (medicinal) syrup that he kindly cooked to the young boy for delivery. (Information from Goitein's index cards.)

Letter from Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq, in Aden, to Ḥalfon ha-Levi b. Netanel, in Bharuch, India (v14). Dating: ca. 1134 CE. Damaged and missing the ends of the lines. The letter mainly deals with business, much of it in pepper and textiles. It mentions that a ship capsized at the entrance to the city [in fact, the join clarifies that it was a man named Yarbaḥ who drowned] (r15); that Maḍmūn b. Ḥasan did not send any merchandise to Egypt this year [in fact, that he did not sell any pepper this year] (r17–18); various Jewish merchants who reached Aden from Egypt this year, including Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-ʿAkkāwī, the son of Ibn al-ʿAfṣī, the son of Sibāʿ, [...] al-Mahdawī, and Ismāʿīl al-Maghribī, who brought good news about relations with the sultan (or government, r22–25); the arrival of two ships from India (r32); and Khalaf's six-month illness, from Tevet to Sivan (v8–10). Greetings are extended to colleagues in al-Qaṣṣ and Bharuch. Information in part from Goitein and Friedman. (Goitein initially identified the addressee as Avraham ben Yijū.) Join by Amir Ashur. ASE. Aden; 1134

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.

Letter from an India trader in Quṣ. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably end of 11th or early 12th century, based on Goitein's assessment. The writer departed when sick (wajiʿ) and arrived healthy in Qūṣ after a Nile voyage of 14 days. He reports that a tremendous Fatimid treasure had been commandeered by al-Bulyanī (perhaps the head of the tribe which commanded the Qūṣ-ʿAydhāb route). The treasure included 70 slave women, each with a eunuch and jewels and a chest of textiles. See Goitein's attached transcription and correspondence with Claude Cahen.

Communal petition. Petition from a man claiming to be without shelter and saying he was living in a donkey's stable without anything to eat. He asks the recipient to extricate from another man the 13 5/8 dinars he owes him and apologizes for being unable to attend public prayer service because of his present state. "For one month, thirty days, I have been living in a donkey's stable, alone, starving, and ill; most of the time I do not eat or drink. Meat, fish, or rich food do not come into my mouth. My strength fails because of my sinfullness" (Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 90, 91).

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe probably to his brother Abū l-Surūr Peraḥya b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. (We know the addressee has to be Peraḥya, because Yefet talks about their brother Abū Saʿīd Ḥalfon in the third person.) Yefet complains about his isolation and urges the addressee(s) to come quickly. He reports that the mummy (אלמומיא) has sold for 6 dinars and 45 dirhams. The term mūmiyāʾ referred to three different medicinal substances in this period—bitumen, pissasphalt, and a substance extracted from mummified corpses—and it is hard to know which of these is most likely in this letter. (For a review of the evolving meanings of mumiyāʾ, see Karl Dannenfeldt, "Egyptian Mumia: The Sixteenth Century Experience and Debate," The Sixteenth Century Journal 16 no. 2 (1985), 163–80.) Yefet has spoken to Ibn Salma and to Efrayim about something. There follows advice or exhortations about travel, but these are tricky to understand (". . . if you wanted to travel every two months, you would, and others are not cleverer(?) than you. Rent from Fustat to Alexandria. . . the time of the departure of the ships, may God guide them. . . ." Greetings to Ḥalfon and "those with him" (man ʿindahū). Greetings from their mother and sisters. It seems the letter initially ended here. Yefet continues with a reminder for Ḥalfon to obtain a letter or document from the judge "concerning the thing I asked him about." Yefet wants the addressee to bring tutty and other medicinal ingredients, since they have been prescribed for his eyes and they tell him that nothing else will work. Greetings to Sitt Naʿīm and to Ibrāhīm (who should come together with the addressee). Joins: Oded Zinger. ASE

Letter of appeal for charity. Fragment (upper part only). The op line is in Arabic script (the address?), and the rest in Judaeo-Arabic. The sender asks for two dirhams until after the Sabbath in order to buy bread and a medicinal syrup, for "nothing has entered his mouth."

Letter to a doctor with his reply (CUDL). "Medical enquiry to a doctor with his reply. This document type is a responsa type dealing with a few questions sent by a man to his physician; the verso is the practitioner’s answer. The patient does not describe his medical problem, but asks about food (the amount of bread he can eat), drink and if he can go bathing. Most probably the doctor knew the patient and his medical problem, since he gave precise answers without asking for the symptoms. The doctor ends his reply with the phrase ‘ve-rofe holim yerape’kha’ (‘May He who heals the sick heal you!’) This short letter is informal, lacking honorary titles and names of both the sender and the recipient, as opposed to the previous document. Therefore this document can be considered a medical responsum between patient and physician. The drink that was recommended by the physician is, in fact, a recipe for medicine." Information from Amir Ashur and Efraim Lev. The handwriting of the physician looks like that of Yedutun ha-Levi (cf. L-G Misc. 99, T-S NS 305.115, and CUL Or.1080 J117v for evidence that Yedutun was a physician). ASE

Letter in which a patient reports to his physician, describing his illness and asking for a prescription. Full translation by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, V, 105. "I[n Your name, O] M[erciful]. My lord, the chief physician Abu Rida. May your Excellency take notice that cold and heat have shaken me from Sunday until this hour. I cannot taste anything edible. Yesterday I rolled bread crumbs into two little balls, but after having eaten about a quarter ounce of bread, I hiccupped until midnight, and believed the hiccup would never stop. Then my soul desired a bit of fried cheese, but.... For three days more [the call of] nature has not come to me. Fever, headache, weakness, and shaking do not leave me all day long. Moreover, I cannot taste anything, not even lemon with sugar. I am also unable to give myself an enema. So, what do you prescribe for me? I drink very much water. May your well-being increase and never decrease. And Peace."

Part of a letter with holiday greetings; writer describes his illness and explains that he is spending the holiday in the house of his brother’s father (probably his stepfather) to get some rest; citing Genesis 15:13 and Job 2:10. (Information from CUDL)

Verso: note from an invalid begging for oil for the sabbath to be sent with the carrier of the note. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Pinḥas al-Ṣāʾigh to R. Shūʿa. In Judaeo-Arabic. Late. The sender opens with a complaint about his arthritis and a request for medicine. Mentions Sulaymān; the sender's arrival in his present location from Miṣr (Fustat/Cairo or Egypt); and various reports and instructions that are difficult to understand. Regards to the sender's paternal aunt; the addressee's wife and children; the sender's cousin (bint khāl); and another cousin (bint ʿamma) and her husband. There is more unidentified text on verso. Needs further examination.