Geniza Lab

Memorandum of testimony concerning the legacy of a certain Isma'il al-'Azazi al-Halabi, who died in Acre, written in Fustat, Kislev 1411/November 1099.

Litigation in court concerning an inheritance, in Damsis. The two heirs Halal b. Ḥalfon and Abu al-Karam b. Ḥalfon are the litigants.The former accuses the latter of dishonesty. Verso: Yeshua b. Ali witnesses to the effect that the pawn he had was redeemed by Abu al-Karam for 10 dinars. (Information from Goitein's index cards) VMR

Responsum by the court of the Babylonian Gaʾon Shemuel b. ʿEli. Dated: Ḥeshvan 1478 Seleucid, which is 1166 CE. Concerns inheritance issues between Yosef and Maʿālī and their wives on one side and an orphan on the other. Strongly worded. Copied in the hand of Yosef b. Yaʿaqov rosh ha-seder of Irbīl. (Information from CUDL, Goitein's index card and Amir Ashur.) VMR

Recto: Legal document. Abū Manṣūr Ḥayyim b. Sahlawayh appoints Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Shaʿyā, known as Ibn Tawwazī, to investigate accounts relating to the estate of Abū Kathīr Ibrahīm b. Salmān b. ʿEzra. Abū Kathīr had died while some assets of his were still with two brothers of Abū Manṣūr, Daniel and Eli, and the brothers had also meanwhile died, leaving Abū Manṣūr as their heir. Abū Yūsuf is appointed to examine the accounts of all three dead men, so that Abū Kathīr’s heirs can receive what is due to them. Abū Yūsuf’s investigation will be supervised by Abū Naṣr Shelomo/Salāma b. Saʿīd Ibn Ṣaghīr. Location: Fusṭāṭ. Dated: Wednesday, 23 Iyyar 1368 Seleucid, which is April 1057 CE, under the authority of Yehuda b. Yosef ha-Kohen ("the Great Rav"). (Information from Goitein's index card and from CUDL)

Yaḥyā b. Zekharya ha-Shofeṭ and Zura ha-Levi b. Avraham testify in a case of inheritance that Baqi al-Hamati received from Sulayman al-Qutaita certain sums which were first deposited in the court of Damascus. Written and signed by Avraham ha-Levi. Signed also by Gamliel b. Joshia. Dated 995. (Information from Mediterranean Society, p. 600 and from Goitein's index cards)

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dated: March 1097. Location: Fustat. Written in the hand of Hillel b. Eli. This document is likely the top half of a document of which ENA NS 18.22 (PGPID 6925) is the final section. This section discusses the details of a partnership between Abū ‘Imrān Moses (dead at the time of document's writing) and Abū al-Baqā Samuel b. Nathan the Ḥaver. Abū ‘Imrān Moses contributed 124.5 dinars out of 484.5 dinars (the latter contributed the balance) and agreed to split profits and losses evenly. Moses traveled to al-Shām and sent merchandise back to the Fustat agency house of Abū al-Ṭāhir b. Rajā, a Muslim. This document was likely written directly after Moses’ death and concerns itself with the division of partnership assets between Moses’ heirs Nathaniel and Aaron and the investor Samuel, mentioning commodities deposited in the names of the heirs, and also those "allocated to the Elder Abū al-Baqā". The active partner bore responsibility for losses (similar to the Talmudic ‘isqa), though no additional amount was allocated to him for his maintenance or as compensation for his work. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 129)

The widow of the Cairene judge Avraham b. Natan confirms having received from her son-in-law everything that was owed to her from the estate of her late husband. The judge's daughter, as the only heir, had paid her mother whatever was owed her from her marriage contract or her husband's will. Dated Adar 1427/ March 1116. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 483)

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to David b. Aharon, ca. 1040, concerning an inheritance that was left by a person from Ramla (Mevaser) who had three sons. Zabga b. Yehoshua ha-Ḥaver has been requested to represent the two younger sons but has not fulfilled his role. David b. Aharon is requested to solve the problem. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 226-227, #125). VMR

Legal document: testimony about the will of Yosef Lebdi. This fragment, written in the hand of Hillel b. Eli, records that before leaving for his last journey, Lebdi made the will. Friedman dates the fragment to the beginning of the 12th century.

Court record of a testimony in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe concerning a dispute among the heirs of a murdered woman named Sitt al-Husn. She had concluded two marriage contracts after the death of her first husband, but perished (in what is called "the murder case") together with her mother and her two husbands. Her second husband had been absent for a long period but returned after she had married a third time and at a time when an outburst of pillage and murder by marauding soldiers or bandits was hitting their provincial town. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 80-81) There is a duplicate copy in T-S NS 31.9 (PGPID 25293).

Fragment of a settlement with a widow. Dated: Nisan 1456 Seleucid, which is 1145 CE, under the authority of Shemuel b. Ḥananya. In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel. The widow acknowledges that she had already received the immediate installments from the marriage gift, as well as copper and other items. The total still due to her was one third, and she has now received it. Her brother releases the heirs in her name from any future claims. Witnesses: Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen; Natan b. Shemuel ha-Ḥaver. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 387.) Join: Oded Zinger.

Letter to Menahem from the cantor of Malij concerning an inheritance. EMS Verso: Jottings in Arabic script. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, Qalyub, to a contact in Fustat. He heard that al-Shaykh al-Yesod would like to spend Shabbat in Fustat, and the addressee is to look after him. There is an air of secrecy, however. "Tell him that I am a member of the family (min dhurriyatikum), and if he asks you about the family (al-dhurriya), tell him there are no news." (Perhaps referring to a waqf dhurriya i.e. family trust? or simply to a regular inheritance?). The specifics of the matter are obscure. Moshe also writes that the Shaykh Sajjāʿ al-Dīn (‘the poet’) apprehended him and said, 'What is that feeble old man doing to you? Let me put him in order (?)." Sajjāʿ al-Din apparently refers to the writer's brother, Abū Isḥāq. Moshe reiterates what the party line should be if either al-Yesod or Sajjāʿ al-Din bring up the matter of an inheritance with the recipient. EMS. ASE.

Letter, fragmentary, from Shelomo b. Yehuda to an unknown addressee. 1033 or 1037. Shelomo b. Yehuda informs that he receives money probably from Fustat. A part of the payment was divided between the Gaon, head of the court, and a third person, it seems like this is an inheritance. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2, pp. 210-212, #116). VMR

Statement of evidence for the declaration of a son unable to fulfill his father's deathbed wish to provide a dinar for his wife. Dated Monday, 8 Kislev 1463/October 1151.

Bill of testimony concerning the will of Abu al-Faraj b. Hillel. EMS

Court record concerning the inheritance of Abū ʿImrān Mūsā b. Yaʿaqov Qābisī, of the Ibn Jāmiʿ family, left to him after the death of his father Yaʿaqov b. Mūsā in Palermo and of his brother Sahlūn in Alexandria. Mūsā b. Yaʿaqov presented to the court in Fusṭāṭ an earlier document issued by a court in Qayrawān on Wednesday, 20 Elul 4792 (1032). The Qayrawān document showed that Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Ṭarābulusī was authorized to govern the inheritance. It also contained a statement of Yaʿaqov b. Mūsā’s widow that she had no claims to the inheritance. Two years later Mūsā b. Yaʿaqov appeared before a court in Fusṭāṭ asking them to issue a document exempting Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Ṭarābulusī from responsibility for the inheritance, which Mūsā has now received in full. The document was issued on Thursday, 21 of the second Adar 4794 (1034). The surviving Fusṭāṭ court record was prepared at the end of Adar 4794. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 406.)

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. The deceased is ʿAlāʾ bt. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ b. Bū Saʿīd (Khan suggests this is the same Bū Saʿīd as in T-S NS 297.1, another report of the death of a Jewish woman). Dated: Thursday, 20 Dhū l-Qaʿda 682 AH, which is 18 February 1284 CE. She left a father and two sons. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.) On verso and the margins of recto, there are business accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and Greek/Coptic numerals.

Legal document. In Arabic script. Dating: Ottoman-era, likely 16th or 17th century. Concerning the estate of the late Shemuel b. Dan, a Portuguese Jew. His brother Avraham (اورهم), living in Alexandria, attests to having received a sum of 50 gold dinars from Aḥmad(?) Amarillo b. Yosef the Jew, the agent of the daughter of the deceased, and he releases her and the agent from any further claims. ASE

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. Dated: Monday, 13 Shaʿbān 657 AH, which is 5 August 1259 CE. The deceased is Sutayt bt. Mufaḍḍal. Her heir is her father. The witnesses are Hilāl b. Bū ʿAlī and Bū Saʿīd b. Sālim. There is a validation—stating that the witnesses are trustworthy elders of the Jews—written in the hand of the Nagid David I Maimonides, who signs his name "Dāʾūd the son of the ḥākim Ibrāhīm b. Mūsā, Head of the Jews (Rayyis al-Yahūd)." (Information from Khan.)