Geniza Lab

Draft of a petition in the handwriting of Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen, addressed to al-Malik al-ʿĀdil (aka the vizier Ibn al-Salār), asking that he release the estate of the Jewish merchant Abū l-Faḍāʾil b. Baqāʾ, which had been illegally sealed by the Mutawalli al-Maʿūna in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1150–51 CE. (Information from Khan and from Goitein, Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 269, 437; II, pp. 353, 513, 604.)

Letter from Abū l-Manṣūr b. Ṭāhir al-Kohen, in Alexandria, to the Abū ʿAlī Manṣūr b. Yiṣḥaq al-Dimashqī, in Fustat. Dating: 1170s CE. The addressee was just then beginning his commercial career. The letter reports on an decree of Saladin that was proclaimed in Alexandria, halving the customs dues (maks) that had been incumbent on local and foreign Jews and Christians. The ṣāḥib al-dīwān authenticated and registered the decree (athbatahū), and the amir Fakhr al-Dīn ordered for it to be implemented. The local Jews took out the Torah scroll and prostrated themselves and prayed for the government. Also mentions various business dealings, including in sugar, and people including Hibatallāh the trader from Tripoli and Abū l-ʿIzz b. Bishr. (Information in part from CUDL and Frenkel.)

Fragmentary resolution of a community in provincial Egypt, dealing with the relations with Muslim authorities, Sivan 1519/May 1208.

Decree (copy in Hebrew script) from the Fatimid caliph al-Ẓāhir to a governor of Palestine (probably Anushtekin al-Dizbirī) informing him of another decree that had come in response to a petition in the name of the Rabbanite Jews regarding a conflict with the Qaraites. That decree is referred to as muktatab lahum (registered with them). Ca. 1030.

T-S 13J22.6 was published By Gil, Palestine, #404. It is the left hand side of the letter. T-S 13J7.6 is the right hand side of the same letter, published by Gil (transcription of the whole document) in his 1991 article of corrections and additions to his 3-volume Palestine. This is a letter of complaint to Avraham ha-Kohen b. Yiṣḥaq b. Furat (mid 11th century). The writers complains about the Christian governor Ibn Gorgas who built a church next to a mosque, a controversy arose, and now the Jews are in danger.

Recto: Report to a vizier of al-Ḥāfiẓ by a military official in which the sender references previous petitions and also makes a new request for a rescript. Dating: second quarter of the sixth century AH / 12 century CE. (Information from Khan, ALAD.) EMS

Fatimid decree. The decree is from the period of al-Hafiz (1131–49) and mentions the congregational mosques of al-Ḥākim (in Cairo) and al-Ḥāfiẓ (it is not clear which the second mosque was). Marina Rustow

State document in Arabic script, an internal memorandum or report containing multiple hands. Containing (on the last fragment) the signature of the vizier Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad (441 AH/1049–50 CE). The dating is discussed in Stern's article and should be considered definite; it is also corroborated by the caliph's name. The Arabic text is written in five different hands, reflecting administrative procedure. NB: This is a continuous join: T-S Ar.18(2).193 + T-S Ar.30.306 + T-S Ar.30.314. Whether T-S 24.21 and ENA NS 10.31 also join is less clear: they were reused by the same scribe for the same text, but may not have been part of the same state document. If they were, the first two fragments don't join continuously with the last three. Between the lines on recto is a Judaeo-Arabic letter (see separate record, PGPID 16773). On verso is Shemuʾel b. Ḥofni's Kitāb Aḥkām al-Shurūṭ, parallel to the text in SP RNL Evr-Arab. I 2938 fol. 3b. (Information from CUDL and Marina Rustow.) Joins: Marina Rustow.

Legal document with the testimony of Natanʾel b. Tamīm concerning a signature he witnessed for Saʿīd b. Yūsuf, who releases Mufaḍḍal b. Salāma b. Saʿīd of any future claims related to a signature that he, in turn, had given on behalf of Ibn Najīb al-Dawla. Signed by Natan ha-Kohen b. Shelomo ha-Kohen and, in the right margin at ninety degrees, Efrayim b. Yosef. There was a Fatimid official named Ibn Najīb al-Dawla who was active in the early twelfth century. MR

Recto: Letter from Natan, a foreigner from Jerba (the island off the coast of Ifrīqiyya), who claims that he has been unjustly placed under house detention by the Muslim authorities. House arrest was imposed for unpaid debts in general, not just for the capitation tax. Unable to acquit himself of the entire obligation he owed he had been paying interest for nine months as well as the fee for house arrest (payment for the guardsman, called tarsīm), the normal procedure in such cases, a form of 'debtor's prison.' He asks assistance from a notable, a Jewish courtier with connections to the Muslim government. (Information from Cohen.) Join by Oded Zinger.

Fragment of a letter from Nahray b. Nissim to an unidentified addressee mentioning accounts and the amount of linen that the addressee has to provide. A load of soap on the sultan's ship is also mentioned. Dated to the second half of the 11th century.

Three unsigned court depositions. Location: Damascus. Dating: July 1094 CE and March 1095 CE. They have to do with properties owned by the Zawbaʿa ("Tempest") family. The elder brother was named ʿUthmān b. Yefet. The second brother was Maṣliaḥ b. Yefet known as ha-Gizbar ("the Treasurer"), i.e., he was a government officer. (This Maṣliaḥ is also known from Megillat Evyatar as the man who brought up David b. Daniel b. ʿAzarya.) There were two tyrannical governors in Damascus: Ḥaydara Ibn Manzū (r.1063–64) and Muʿallā Ibn Manzū (r.1068–69). One of these expropriated the property of Maṣliaḥ in the Dār Quzmān neighborhood (near the eastern gate of Damascus, in the Jewish quarter), and the two brothers Maṣliaḥ and ʿUthmān fled the city for Egypt. Some 25 years later, Yefet the son of Maṣliaḥ returned to his birthplace and sued to regain the property abandoned by his father and uncle. In the meantime, another uncle had moved into one of the houses, encroaching beyond the border of the neighboring property owned by his wife. The uncle insisted on bringing the case to the Muslim courts, and Yefet b. Maṣliaḥ here testifies that he was compelled to go to the Muslim courts and did not want to. (Information from Goitein's edition.)

List of 31 contributors in Arabic and Coptic numerals (1, 1 1/2, 2 2 1/2, 3, 4 4 1/2, 5, 8, 9) but no denominations of coins. The physician of the hospital here is the al-Sadid of T-S K.149. Arabic was used here no doubt because the originator of the collection was a merchant who was accustomed to corresponding in Arabic rather than in Hebrew script. He also arranged collections in two noted bourses of Fustat (two collections in each bourse), one, the dar al-Fadil, founded by al-Fadil al-Baysani, originally a Fatimid official, but later chancellor and confidant of Saladin, and dar al-Za'fran (saffron house), which was adjacent to the house of gems, repeatedly mentioned in Mediterranean Society (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 508, App. C 139)

Payment order from David ha-Nasi (not David b. Daniel, head of the Jews 1082-1094) ordering 3 communal officers to pay a quarter dinar to the foster sons of al-Afdal, using the revenue from houses donated 'for Jerusalem.' Dated to the second half of the 12th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 249, 481)

Fragment of a letter of appeal for charity, from Jerusalem, complaining about the heavy taxation. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

The Case of the Great/Fat Eunuch: five-part join of a court record from Fustat in the hand of Yefet b. David dealing with a case of inheritance totaling 12,000 dinars and the state's attempt to acquire part of it (via the great/fat eunuch). Names: David b. Aharon ha-Levi, Yiṣḥaq b. Muʾammal, Yaʿaqov b. Avraham (among others). (Information from Oded Zinger and E. Bareket, Shafrir Misrayim, p. 240.)

State document, Mamluk period, 1442. Draft of a petition from the Jewish community of Fustat to the Mamluk government concerning the malpractices of ‘Abd al-Latif the physician, head of the Jews, who is reported to have sold portions of pious foundation properties and leased others below their value, imposed high fiscal penalties, and confiscated property of the Jews, among a litany of other harmful acts. The document requests his removal from office. (Mark Cohen, "Jews in the Mamlūk Environment: The Crisis of 1442 (A Geniza Study)," BSOAS, 1984, 431-4) EMS

Ketubba for Sitt al-Banāt. In the hand of Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen (1125–50). The ends of 6 lines are preserved. The groom undertakes not to curse the bride or treat her with disrespect. The identification of the scribe as Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen allows us to tentatively date the letter to the last years of Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon (1138–39) when there was a mutiny against the government, and Maṣliaḥ picked the wrong side, so that many Jews were jailed and Maṣliaḥ himself was executed in 1139. (Information from Amir Ashur.)

Verso, continuing onto recto between the lines (secondary use): Letter describing a requisition (muṣādara) carried out against a whole town, in which Muslims, Christians, Samaritans and Jews were all affected, with the latter suffering even more than the others. All clothing and provisions of wheat and wine hoarded in the house of the writer's maternal uncle were plundered; even the rope of the well was taken way. The authority ordering the requisition is referred to as the biblical 'Haman the wicked'. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 393.) The sender himself was interrogated by the raqqāṣīn who were searching for his uncle, but he pretended to be not from there and fled. The letter refers to three obscure torture devices or techniques: "they in{ser}ted the ʿṬY (עטי), the hinbāzīn (הנבאזין), and the khazm (? כזם) in their (the Jews') noses (v3). Later, the sender explains that a person who has had the ʿṬY enter his flesh will not heal (r5–6). The meaning of ʿṬY is not clear; khazm is also not clear, but comes from a root referring to piercing, sometimes nose piercing. The term hinbāzīn/הנבאזין/هنبازين is apparently known from Coptic martyrologies (according to some sources deriving from Greek ἑρμητάριον < Latin armentarium < Armentarius, the nickname of the emperor Galerius Maximianus); see https://st-takla.org/Coptic-Faith-Creed-Dogma/Coptic-Rite-n-Ritual-Taks-Al-Kanisa/Dictionary-of-Coptic-Ritual-Terms/9-Coptic-Terminology_Heh-Waw-Yeh/henbazeen.html and Phillips Barry, "Martyrs' Milk" (1914) (https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Open_Court/VuoXAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=ermetarion&pg=PA563&printsec=frontcover). Recto (original use): Ketubba for Sitt al-Banāt. In the hand of Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen (1125–50). The ends of 6 lines are preserved. The groom undertakes not to curse her or treat her with disrespect. The identification of the scribe as Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen allows us to tentatively date the letter to the last years of Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon (1138–39) when there was a mutiny against the government, and Maṣliaḥ picked the wrong side, so that many Jews were jailed and Maṣliaḥ himself was executed in 1139. (Information from Amir Ashur.)

Testimony concerning the death of a man and his son. In Arabic script. Dated: 5 Shawwāl 427 AH, which is 1 August 1036 CE. The witnesses attest that Ṣadaqa b. ʿAllūn Ibn al-Dabbāb has died in Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān after the death of his son Bū Faraj in the town of al-Lādhiqiyya (Latakia) and that his sole heir is his daughter Yamānī, the wife of Mawhūb b. Bashshār. Witnesses: Salāma b. Isḥāq; ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn; Yūsuf b. Menashshe; Barakāt b. Menaḥem b. Mubārak. Three of the signatures have צח ("valid") in Hebrew script above them. As the witnesses are Jews, this would not have been regarded as a valid legal instrument in a Muslim court. (Information from Khan.)