Geniza Lab

Avraham b. Rason buys from Yeshua Abu al-Fadl b. Eliyyahu 9/24 of a sugar factory for 150 dinars. He permits him to buy it back for this sum any time during 3 years. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Deed of sale for a slave. Dated: Thursday, 28 Tammuz 1571 Seleucid = 8 July 1260 CE. Seller: the Bilbaysī Mūsā b. Abū l-ʿIzz al-Kohen. Buyer: Abū l-Faḍl b. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ (both son and father are called "al-Rayyis"). Slave: An Abyssinian woman, unnamed, with leukoma of the left eye. Price: 266.5 nuqra dirhams. Unsigned (unless the signatures were on the lower part, now torn away).

Fragment of a deed of sale for one half of a sugar factory which was held in partnership by the son of the Rav and a Qadi. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 292, 531, 590, and from Goitein's index cards)

Recto: Deed of sale of a house bought by Mufaddal. The house had been split into two apartments by the buyer. The description of the boundaries of the house is inserted in Judaeo-Arabic (it appears the writer left space for it). (Goitein estimation: handwriting by Imanuel b. Yehiel, around 1250) VMR Verso: Jottings in Arabic and Hebrew script. (Information from CUDL)

Yosef the cantor, son of Michael, sells a little house in Fustat, one half of which belonged to him and the other to his daughter, the wife of the beadle Hiba b. Ibrahim the water carrier, for 6 dinars. Dated 1153.

Yusuf b. Ali buys a Moroccan female slave from Shelomo b. Sameh for fourteen Egyptian dinars.

Sale contract in which Sitt al-Ikhwa d. Futuh sells to her brother one eighth of a house belonging to her in Alexandria for nine dinars. Her husband confirms the sale. Fustat, 1241. For additional edition and translation, see Zinger, "Women, Gender, and Law" pp. 352-354. See also, T-S 8J6 14A.

Sales contract between Yosef b. Efrayim and Sadaqa b. David Ha-Kohen. Fustat, 1103. The verso contains a beautifully drawn-up poem by the Egyptian poet Sahlan b. Avraham.

Legal document recording the sale of a Nubian female slave by Hiba Nataniel, under the authority of Moshe ha-Talmid; contains the idiomatic phrase אלכאמל אלשרוט: ‘the totality of the stipulations.’ (Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman, “Legal Writing in Medieval Cairo,” in From a Sacred Source: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif,” ed. Ben Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, Brill: 2010, 23) EMS

Sales contract of the Persian slave-girl called 'Perfume' for ten and a half dinars including brokerage and sales tax. Written in the hand of Mevorakh b. Natan (1150-1181).

Deed of sale for a female slave between Bu al-‘Izz b. al-Shaykh bu ‘Imran al-Sharabi and Bu al-Ḥasan, the teacher, executed in the presence of Bu al-Fadl al-Radwi. Dated Iyyar 127 of the Seleucid Era (= 1216 CE). A few lines of unrelated jotting are below. EMS

Legal document mentioning that a man in Fustat is prepared to pay 1000 dirhams for two and one-half out of twenty-four shares of a well-known house in Alexandria. The fragment contains also instructions to a scribe. The transaction summarized is preceded by another one in which Abu al-Faraj b. Abu Mufaddal al-Marawihi buys a Nubian maidservant. Dated ca. 1250. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 285)

Deed of sale of a house. Dated 1483/1171-72. The 'Ha-rav ha-gadol be-yisrael' in line 2 is doubtless Moses Maimonides, who was at that time head of the Jews. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

One party to this legal document sells to another party 9.5 qirat of a house and renounces right of preemption. The house was situated in the Bir Jabr quarter of Alexandria, which harbored the synagogue of the Iraqi Jews of that city, but was contiguous with the house of a Christian clergyman. Dated to the early 13th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, pp. 46, 360, and from Goitein's index cards)

Legal document: deed of sale in Arabic for the purchase of part of a house. Abū l-Faraj Ṣemaḥ b. Ṣedaqa b. Ṣemaḥ the money-changer buys part of a house in Qaṣr al-Shamʿ in Fustat from his uncle Dāwūd b. Ṣemaḥ the indigo dealer. The house abuts the former church of St Michael, the oven of al-Jalāl, and the house of Maymūn b. Dāwūd. Dated 10–20 Shaʿbān 448 (October-November 1056 CE). On verso there is a liturgical text in Hebrew. (Information from Khan.) It is unusual that the document is written on a bifolio; it may be a court copy, which would also explain what seems to be an archival annotation on verso summarizing the document (which Khan deciphers in part but doesn't discuss). MR

Legal document: bill of sale in which Makhlūf b. Jābir b. Nāṣir buys a house in al-Muʿizziyya (Cairo) from […] b. ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn b. Ibrahim b. ʿAlī, one of two trustees of Cairene legacies, under the supervision of Abū l-Ḥasan Masarra b. ʿAbdallāh. Makhlūf’s father, Jābir b. Nāṣir the miller, acts as his agent in the transaction. The house previously belonged to the wife of the amir, Sitt al-Dawla, and is apparently now intestate, hence the involvement of the trustees. 11th-12th century. On verso (recto as conserved) is a Hebrew liturgical text. (Information from Khan, ALAD)

Bill of sale for the purchase of a house by Maḥrūz. Constructed from three fragments: T-S NS 184 52, T-S NS 184 55 and T-S NS 184 56. Location: Fustat. Dating: 1131–32 CE.

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (1100–38). Nafisa, the daughter of Kathir, the widow of Yaʿaqov ha-Kohen, sells the female slave Tawfiq, a minor, to the merchant Abu al-Barakat b. Sha'ya for the considerable sum of 18 and three/fourths dinars. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 331, 501)