Geniza Lab

State decree from the Fatimid chancery, written under al-Ḥākim, al-Ẓāhir or al-Mustanṣir to an official in Egypt regarding a dispute over irrigation canals and access to water — insofar as one can judge. Only the left half of the lines are preserved. About 1.3 meters of what was once a much longer decree. The joins of the decree fragment when pieced together refer to the need of restoring the area surrounding the gulf/bay - 'li ḥāja dāʿiya ilā ʿimārat al-khuluj' and the allotment of irrigation from these canals: 'aqsaṭ min al-rī min hādhihi l-khuluj. Verso: Efrayim b. Shemarya uses and reworks passages from the Sheʾiltot for a sermon. Top of the rotulus is headed Shabbat Bereishit (see separate record). Join: Roni Shweka (bottom six fragments) and Rebecca Sebbagh (top fragment). Before 1055. See also Mosseri VI.117.2, which may belong to the left side of this decree. (MR)

State decree, fragment of right margin, line 3 mentions "this day"

Leaf from a court ledger. On recto: Testimony of compliance with an order issued by the head of the Jews, Netanʾel ha-Levi. Dated: First third of Shevaṭ 1471 Seleucid, which is 1160 CE. To wit: Manṣūr al-Dhabbāḥ, a ritual slaughterer and cantor, was brought before the court and instructed to behave properly, to be nice to people, not to argue with those who tease him in the presence of gentiles, and to follow the usual laws of slaughtering. He promised to obey these instructions. (Information in part from Goitein, Mediterranean Society. II, p. 225.)

Decree. In Arabic script. Only a few words are preserved here (...ʿalā ikhtilāf...). Reused for a dirge by Yosef Ibn Avitor. (Information in part from FGP.)

Decree fragment. One fragmentary line and the top of another. Illā 'adda afṣadda al-in[ ]. Reused for the Hebrew script document on recto--a fragment of ten lines.

A few enormous words in Arabic script, likely from a decree. It is a title and a name, perhaps Thiqat al-Dawla Ḥammād b. ʿAlī. Above it, at 90 degrees, there is another text block in Arabic script. Possibly horoscopes (mentions Mercury/ʿAṭārid). But needs examination.

Fatimid decree, probably. Only a single phrase is preserved: ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. A piece of another letter from the line above is also preserved. The decree was cut up and converted into a bifolio. The secondary use is a literary text in Arabic script, at least partially about wars and kings. E.g., one phrase read at random: والتقى الجمعان في معترك نزال(؟), which is an allusion to Quran 3:155, 166. This fragment may be related to T-S Ar.41.139.

Decree? In Arabic script, chancery hand, large letters and huge space between the lines. One and a half lines are preserved. It is difficult to make sense of anything beyond a few words: انفاذه... والى... الكشف... على المصلى.... On verso there are magical instructions in Judaeo-Arabic in a rudimentary hand for ensuring the separation (bāb furqa) of two people for all time. At least part of the spell consists of taking a dog hair and a cat hair and burning them together, and saying "just as these two [will never come together], so-and-so and so-and-so will never come together until the Day of Resurrection." There are also a few words in Hebrew script on recto.

Decree, probably. Only a few enormous words are preserved, including ʿalayhi. Reused for poetry in Judaeo-Arabic.

Recto: Decree, fragment, to two local officials stating that a certain Abū l-Faraj b. Bū l-Waḥsh should be exempted from paying taxes (or from standing surety on the tax-farm?) on a shop (ḍamān al-ḥānūt) and that he requires no further documentation of his exemption. Join: Mordechai Friedman and Amir Ashur.

Letter from Araḥ b. Natan, also known as Musāfir b. Wahb, in Alexandria, to his brother, Avraham b. Natan the seventh, in Cairo. Dating: 1094–1111 CE. Avraham was an associate of the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saadya. In the letter, Araḥ reports of serious riots in Alexandria and a drunken brawl that ended only with the intervention of the chief of police (wālī), although he also accuses the other faction of having alerted the wālī, in addition to the drunken brawl having drawn his attention. The writer praises the local muqaddam who managed to free those involved with the brawl. He also complains of inappropriate fetishization of official decrees, and is so annoyed at the behavior of his fellow Jews that he reports it to the governor, Fakhr al-Mulk. For his brother’s benefit, he adds that the appropriate way to fetishize a decree is, as everyone knows, to kiss it and put it on your eyes, which is what the governor does. But “the Jews,” he complains, “take it around from place to place” and "wave it around like a banner." There is a passing reference to his illness ('I will tell you about it when my spirit recovers from this illness,' v1). It is likely that he is attributing his illness to the events described in the letter (wa-qad lazimanī minhu mulzim), though Frenkel understands this sentence to mean simply that there is some matter that is incumbent on him. (Information from Miriam Frenkel, Alan Elbaum and Marina Rustow)

Original use: State report. In Arabic script. Nearly four lines are preserved, wide space between the lines. Refers to the arrival of a mighty decree (sijill muʿaẓẓam) possibly issued in response to a situation the sender had previously written about (jawāban ʿammā kāna ṭāliʿ bihi(?) min ḥāl...).

Recto: Decree from the 1130s. Only the closing boilerplate and a date (without the year) have survived. Reused by the India trader Abū ʿAlī Yeḥezqel b. Netanel in Qalyūb for a letter to his brother Ḥalfon in Alexandria. Join: A. Ashur and M. A. Friedman.