Geniza Lab

Conditional bill of divorce. In the hand of Mevorakh b. Natan. Dated: Av 1480 Seleucid, which is 1169 CE. The trader Bū Saʿd Moshe b. Yefet gives this conditional divorce to his wife before setting out on a journey to Yemen. Signed by: Mevorakh b. Natan and Shemuel b. Seʿadya. See also T-S 12.585 recto and verso. (Information in part from S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:192, 467; Amir Ashur and Ben Outhwaite, “Between Egypt and Yemen in the Cairo Genizah,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, Vol. 5 (2014), 213.) EMS.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Yemeni hand, according to Goitein. Wide space between the lines. Dealing with various commodities related to the India trade, including ambergris, ʿūd, unpierced pearls, camphor, pepper. Mentions ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Join: Oded Zinger. See also Goitein notes linked below.

Awaiting description

Letter (memo) from an unnamed India trader, probably in Aden, to Mufaḍḍal Ibn Abī Saʿd, in Qūṣ. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: First third of the 13th century, based on the references to the Jewish chief judge of Cairo Menaḥem b. Yiṣḥaq b. Sasson. The document lists a great number of shipments and gifts. Same hand as T-S NS J182 (India Book 7, ז51). See Goitein's notes for further information.

Business letter. Introduction in Hebrew, body in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions the arrival of the Yemeni merchants (v3). Also mentions R. Shemuel Ismāʿīl b. Yūsuf and someone named Ibn ʿAddād: "I mentioned the matter of the dinar, and he went crazy and swore באלילו"—by his אליל? Goitein read this as signifying that Ibn ʿAddād must be Christian or Muslim, but his notes do not reveal specifically how he understood this word.

Text of the oath that Bū ʿImrān must swear to his brother Abū l-Maʿānī concerning his mercantile activities, the price of a house, and the payment of the capitation tax during the time when Abū l-Maʿānī was absent (in Yemen or India). In the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. On verso there are also entries about the sale or exchange of books, perhaps in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. Information from Goitein's attached notes.

Memorandum (tadhkira) for a trader named Mufliḥ b. Binyamin Ibn Ahwāzī. In Judaeo-Arabic. In which he orders a scarf (radda) with his son’s name (Yaʿaqov b. Mufliḥ b. Binyamin) to be embroidered on it in Hebrew script. This fragment contains additional accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals, as well as a recipe in Judaeo-Arabic for a kind of wine (nabīdh al-dā[..]). The trader is based in Aden, as a note in Arabic script on verso reads "wazana/wuzina ilayhim fī furḍat ʿAdan," referring to a payment made in the customshouse (furḍa) of Aden. Goitein writes, "Another order for a garment embroidered with a name, pre­sented by a father to his son, written, as usual, in Arabic language, but Hebrew script, raises problems. It is an incomplete draft of a memo to be sent from Aden to Egypt. I translate in full, line by line, so that the reader may be the judge: (1) Memo from the sheikh Mufliḥ [Successful]: (2) A Dabīqī scarf (radda) (3) five cubits long and (4) five spans broad (4a) of highest quality, (5) bordered by two embroidered inscriptions (maḥshiyya bi-ṭirāzayn) (6) each running from one edge to the other (ḥiwālayn kull ṭirāz) (6a) the first (7) written in Hebrew script: (8) Yaʿqūb b. R. Mufliḥ (9) b. R. Binyamin (10) [Given] to Ibn Ahwāzī." For further information on tirāz, see Stillman, Arab Dress, 120–37. (Information in part from Goitein's attached notes; Goitein, Med Soc IV, 197–98; and Goitein and Friedman, India Traders p. 428 n. 80.) ASE

Letter from Natan b. Avraham, Fustat, to Abu Yusuf Elazar b. Isma'il, Qus, approximately 1035.

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.

Letter from ʿAllān b. Ḥassūn, Aden, after his return from a difficult voyage to the southern coast of India. Fragment only. Before its second arrival at Kūlam, the ship evidently had two nākhudās on board, 'Alī Nāwak, who disembarked at Fāknūr, and a second nākhudā who subsequently died at sea, and who had evidently been the one responsible for navigation. After his death, the ship remained without a "head" and without charts (as well as something else, which cannot be deciphered due to a lacuna). "We intended, on our way home, to travel to Aden, but riots and bloodshed occurred, and [who]ever was in the town fled. The [shipmas]ter, namely, 'Alī Nāwak, wan[ted] also to flee, but I discovered this ... and I informed [X about it] ...We loaded the textiles and the iron during the night, for he (Nāwak) had the power to keep us back (by refusing to sail). Finally, we all fled to Fāknūr... , where 'Alī Nāwak disembarked and remained, while we went on in the same ship to Kūlam and stayed there for some time. The captain had been ill while still in town, but we sailed for ten days.... God granted us safety, but the captain had a stroke and died. We threw his body overboard into the sea. So the boat remained without a commander and a ..., and we had no charts. After twenty days we arrived in Kūlam ... The ... and the manager came on board and took the ship from us, confirming its rights to its proprietor, being afraid of 'Alī Nāwak. . .. Two captains traveled with us, after they had signed documents (confirming their obligations) towards us, and we set sail." (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, pp. 127–28) MR

Awaiting description - see Goitein notes linked below.

Awaiting description

See under ENA 4020.41.

Legal document. On parchment. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Involves [...] b. Ṣadaqa ha-Zaqen and an Abū l-Riḍā. Mentions the port of ʿAkka and somebody who drowned in the Indian Ocean. Med Soc III, IX, C, 4, n. 48. Acre was taken by the Crusaders in 1104. (Information from Goitein's attached notes.)

Maqāma-like work in rhymed Hebrew prose by a certain Shelomo b. Yehuda (not the 11th-century gaʾon, as this fragment is probably 12th–13th century), describing how his father Yehuda migrated from Spain to Egypt to Yemen, married a woman in Yemen, and returned to Egypt, where Shelomo was born. But then the devil led the father astray to take a second wife, who gave birth to a son named Evyatar and two daughters "of different religions"(?!). One of the girls died; Shelomo accuses his brother Evyatar of trying to sleep with the remaining sister; both Evyatar and the remaining sister died; and now Shelomo is writing this hymn of gratitude on account of how God liberated him from his wicked half-siblings. Recto is written over jottings in Arabic script, mainly formulae. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Ṣāfī b. Yakhin appoints [Yaʿ]aqov(?) b. Yiṣḥaq(?) al-Sijilmāsī as his agent to collect aloe from another merchant, probably Abū ʿUmar b. [...] ha-Levi Ibn al-Baghdādī. Ṣāfī b. Yakhin also appears posthumously in L-G Misc. 48. (Information in part from Goitein notes linked below.) Join: Alan Elbaum and Oded Zinger. AA. ASE.

Document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Fragment (left side). Concerning business in pepper in Yemen. Involves Seʿadya ha-Kohen, Abū l-Khayr, Yeshuʿa ha-Levi b. [...] Rosh ha-Qahal, and Abū l-Mufaḍḍal. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Court register, fragment. Upper left corner of a legal record. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dating: 1127–39, under the reshut of Maṣliaḥ Gaon. Naḥman ha-Kohen sues his paternal uncle Yosef b. Moshe ha-Kohen concerning the estate of Yosef's brother Avraham b. Moshe ha-Kohen, who died in Yemen and had assets in both Yemen and Egypt. Information from Goitein notes linked below.

Letter from an India trader, in ʿAydhāb, to his family or colleagues, presumably in Fustat. In Arabic script. There is a transcription in Goitein's attached notes. He comments that "al-Asʿad is the tax farmer of the customs in ʿAydhāb. He receives 5 dinars customs duties and his employees (ghilmān) 1 dinar. Letters of recommendations were sent
s s
him with the sender. But he bheaved nicely even before he had seen the letters."

Letter from an unidentifed merchant, in ʿAydhāb. In Judaeo-Arabic. He complains about the tribulations of getting pepper through customs. The qāḍī in Qūṣ apparently issued an unfavorable judgment. The customs farmer (ḍāmin) in ʿAydhāb said "I have not received anything of the customs duties," and he opened up the store-room (makhzan) and sold off an ʿadl of pepper. The letter was abandoned here. See Goitein's attached notes for further analysis.