Geniza Lab

Letter from Abū Zikrī (b. Eliyyahu) to someone he addresses as "father." In rhymed, Judaeo-Arabic prose. Abū Zikrī is sick and hopes that God will send a swift recovery so that he can see the addressee in person. He complains that the addressee has not written and asks for an autograph response. The letter was sent with al-Shaykh al-Kohen Abū l-Fakhr. (Information from Goitein's index cards; Goitein did not think the recipient was actually his father but does not explain why.)

Petition. Report fragment, probably early Ayyubid period (taqbīl clause + paleography + reused by Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, whose documents cluster ca. 1190–1210; see description of verso of this document). Difficult to decipher. Contains a registration mark in faded (iron gall?) ink.

State document in Arabic script. The first three lines only (kharaja al-amr al-ʿālī al-mawlawī al-sulṭānī al-malikī al-[...] al-nāṣirī zāda allāhu fī. . .). (Information from Goitein's index cards)

State document: Official report (fragment) concerning armed insurrection and civil unrest. For verso, see separate entry.

Letter to 'al-haver al-Me'ulle Hakkam ha-Yeshiva' (the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saadya, 1095-1112) regarding business matters. Verso: Petition to a caliph.

Letter in Arabic script. Fragment. Includes phrases such as al-kutub bi-l-akhbār al-mutajaddida fī kull yawm . . .ʿiddat kutub . . . al-kitāb al-kabīr.

Letter in which Eli b. 'Amram invites a scholar to give a lecture in the synagogue on the following Saturday and requests a prompt reply. Dated to the third quarter of the 11th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 218, 568, and Goitein's index cards.) There appear to be two different folios sharing the same shelfmark. Also under this shelfmark: (1) A draft of a legal document concerning a woman called Mubāraka who had sold her maidservant for 20 and a half dinars and had given the money to her brother as capital for a business trip, but was then sued by her husband as only 10 of the 20 and a half dinars were her dowry, so she empowered her husband to sue her brother for the remaining 10 and a half dinars and profits; (2) a letter to a Ḥaver; and (3) a letter in Arabic script. Information from CUDL. Needs further examination.

Legal document. In Arabic script. Approximately the 17 bottom lines are preserved, very densely and neatly written. Dated: 4[..] AH, so probably 11th century CE (the full date is present, just needs examination). Reused on verso for Hebrew literary text. There are pinpricks all along the edges of the paper. Needs further examination.

Letter from Moses Maimonides (in his own hand with his own signature), in Fustat, to al-Shaykh al-Thiqa, in Minyat Zifta. This is a letter of recommendation for Yiṣḥaq al-Darʿī. The community in Minyat Zifta is asked to pay the capitation tax for Yiṣḥaq and his son, who are new arrivals to Egypt and on their way to Damietta. On verso there is the address. In Arabic script: في معنى ابراهيم الدرعي. Perhaps Ibrāhīm is the son of Yiṣḥaq, and this is a note summarizing the content of the letter ('re: Ibrāhīm al-Darʿī'). Or perhaps it is delivery details (‘By means of Ibrāhīm al-Darʿī’). (Information in part from CUDL.)

Highly fulsome letter of praise, consisting of 12 lines of praise in Hebrew, followed by 5 lines of Arabic script containing the actual content of the letter, and closing with a further 13 lines of blessings. The whole letter has a heading בשים איל רחום וחנון. On verso the page is covered with Arabic pen trials. (Information from CUDL.) It appears that the Hebrew beginning and ending were prepared by a scribe in advance. Either the same scribe or somebody else later used the template to fill in the 5 lines of Arabic script. It is a a letter of appeal for charity. ASE. ... ويجعلك الله تعالى من المقبولين ويستجيب مني لحضرتك صالح الدعا وقد علم الله تعالى ايش نحن فيه من الضر والعري انا ومن عندي فلنا اليوم عشرة شهور قد علم الله ايش قاسينا فيها من ضيق اليد . . . . ليل ونهار على ما جرى عليا . . . . . . . . من عبدك لك دعوة في هذه الايام فاسل الله ان يستجيب مني لك . . . . . صالح الدعا

Letter in Arabic script. The Arabic document is the first page of a letter. The formulaic greetings extend to three lines from the bottom, where the writer begins to excuse himself for not appearing in person to kiss the addressee's feet. What prevented him was his illness and the fact that Cairo is "qalīlat al-khāṭir (or ḥāẓir?)"—a somewhat cryptic statement. ASE

Letter from Yeshuʿa b. Ismāʿīl, in Fustat, to Khallūf b. Mūsā, in Palermo. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. Dating: 8 April 1052 CE. The writer complains about Abū Yūsuf Yaʿaqov b. Azhar, who owes him money. Also concerning various commercial issues. Yeshuʿa opens with an allusion to his many illnesses this winter, but reports that he is now doing well (r3–5). There are also many lines of Arabic script (apart from the address), some superimposed on the Judaeo-Arabic text. There are also some brief accounts in Judaeo-Arabic in a different hand than the letter. (Information in part from Gil.)

Recto: Letter in Arabic to a certain Amīr [...] al-Dawla wa-[...]hā, perhaps reporting on business setbacks. The body of the letter begins in line 6 after the space. The writer may be discussing wool (al-ṣūf) and the wool merchants (al-ṣawwāfīn) in the margin. Verso: An unusual Judaeo-Arabic composition, giving recipes and instructions, purpose unclear. Perhaps for detergents and/or dyes and/or bleaches. ASE.

Recto: Letter fragment in Arabic, mentioning Cairo, witnesses, a document (wathīqa). In between the lines of recto, and on verso: Probably a Hebrew letter, in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya, discussing a document that may or may not have been in the handwriting of a Gaon, and his quarrel with someone who was wrongly trying to take money from the fund for the orphans. Needs further examination. ASE.

Letter from [...] b. Avraham ha-Kohen to Abū l-ʿAlā' Ṣāʿid b. al-Munajjā al-Ne'eman. In Judaeo-Arabic (recto) and Arabic script (verso; the text block containing 8 lines of Arabic script appears to be a postscript to the previously Judaeo-Arabic letter). Contains a great deal of information about business arrangements. People mention include Abū Muḥam[mad] al-Ḥalabī, Abū l-Māḍī Khalīfa known as אלכאורגֿי al-Ḥalabī the Muslim, Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf al-Raqqī, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllān, and Bū l-Ḥasan Zikrī. Concludes with greetings, "written on the 6th of Kislev," and then a postscript about how "the testimony that is between me and her (or: you?) is deposited with Salāma b. Saʿīd." In the Arabic-script postscript on verso, he reports that the wife of Abū Saʿd al-Muqaddasī has begun to recover (qad tawajjahat) [from her illness]. He then mentions Abū l-Najm Hilāl and having sent a gourd/vessel (fuqqāʿa) of oil with somebody to Abū Ṭāhir. There may be Goitein attachments for this document that have yet to be uploaded.

Accounts in Arabic script. Needs examination.

Recto: State document. Report to al-Ẓāhir about a tax farmer, beginning only. Dating: 1021–36 CE. (Cited in Khan, BSOAS 53 (1990) 25; Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections 311 n27 with partial transcription.) Indirect join: Oded Zinger.

Letter from Mūsā (or Musallaḥ?) b. Ṣāliḥ to an unknown addressee. In Hebrew and in Arabic script. Appealing for help from the addressee. (Cf. Geoffrey Khan, “The Historical Development of the Structure of Medieval Arabic Petitions,” BSOAS, 53:1 (1990), 21). EMS On verso long text in Judaeo-Arabic.

Recto: Family letter in Arabic script, mentioning transactions and a Qāḍī. Verso: Late letter in Hebrew to R. Shelomo ha-Sofer from "your wife Dona Soro (=Sara?) and your daughters Reina and Raḥel and your son-in-law Moshe." They are dismayed at Shelomo's lack of response to their numerous letters urging him to return. They ask him to approach R. Shelomo ha-Rofe (David suggests this is the same Shelomo ha-Rofe who had access to the Nagid, mentioned in T-S G1.17, lines 15–16) and obtain an exemption from the tax. They have heard that the addressee plan to travel to Turkey, and they beg him not to do so. This would cause strife between his pregnant daughter Reina and her husband Moshe, it would cause bad luck to Rahel, who is grown and beautiful and good and modest, for the world will scorn the family and say, "look at this good, elderly, scribe who abandoned his wife and daughters after so many years. He must have gone mad, because he has traveled to a distant land," and you know what the verse says, "The eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth" (Proverbs 17:24). So please beseech R. Shelomo ha-Rofe that he obtain for you an exemption ('ketav') from the tax, and (even?) if you cannot, return. See also analysis in Zinger, "Long Distance Marriages in the Cairo Geniza," p. 28. ASE

Recto: Letter from the teacher Abū Yaʿqūb to an unknown recipient. Written in a good hand and pleasant style. This letter implores the addressee to help the writer buy medicine (?) and 2 ounces of sugar for his ill infant child, assuring him that he and his wife didn't have enough money even for a pound of bread. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 188; Goitein index cards.) Specifically, the writer requests the price of a qirṭās (probably meaning a bag) of nuqūʿ (which can mean infusion, as of a medicine, but also dried apricots, which would more easily go in a bag). The writer's son has a terrible cold (nazla ʿaẓīma). Verso: The beginnings of seven lines of a letter or petition in Arabic script, with wide space between the lines. In between the lines and at 180 degrees, there are a few more lines in small Arabic script, possibly the address of the letter on recto. The name Abū l-Ṭāhir can be read. ASE.