Geniza Lab

Recto: Letter from Yefet b. David, Tyre, to his father, David b. Shekhanya, Fustat, informing him of his arrival in Tyre and expressing his disappointment at finding only two letters waiting for him. Greetings are sent to various family members. Dated ca. 1007 or 1010 CE. Verso: Address in Arabic along with a draft of a document in a different hand. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from a woman in Egypt named Maliḥa, living in Byzantium ("Romaniya"), to her brothers Abū Saʿīd and Shelomo asking one of them to come fetch her. She wants to return to her homeland; however, she adds, “I looked into the Torah scroll, which showed me that my luck was bad and that I would not be successful; therefore, I could not come together with the bearers of the letter.” (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:346, 489) EMS

Letter from Bū Manṣūr b. Abū Saʿd Shemuel to Avraham al-Maḥallī al-Talmid (the student/scholar). Addressed to Fustat, the synagogue of the Palestinians, situated in Zuqāq Khabīṣa. The letter consists entirely of well wishes and greetings for the holiday. Sending regards: the children, Sitt Rayḥān, Najmiyya, Thanāʾ, ʿAfīf. Regards to (among others): Yosef b. Abū ʿImrān and his mother and brother-in-law and wife, and Rabbenu Yeḥezqel ha-Dayyan ha-Gadol. (Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's index cards.) VMR. ASE.

Letter containing a note of congratulations for a marriage contract and wishing the new husband a fertile union, citing the biblical blessing conferred on Ruth upon her marriage. (Eve Krakowski, “Female adolescence in the Cairo Geniza documents,” PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2012, 163) EMS. Names of addressee and sender are visible (but faded) on verso.

Family letter sent from Qal'at Ja'bar on the Euphrates River Syria, by a man to his brother, saying that he had learned about the death of his father and about his brother's marriage and about the birth of his son only from his brother's letter. The letter contains orders for both a turban and a robe. Dated ca. 1100. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, pp. 159, 398; V, p. 541)

Letter from a young wife, whose father-in-law was also her uncle and who had a brother living in the same town, asking her mother to visit her urgently. (Information from Goitein's index cards, and Mediterranean Society, III, p. 172)

Letter from Aharon ha-Kohen b. Namir to ʿEli ha-Kohen b. Moshe. The writer informs the addressee that the item he expects is now on its way to him after a delay. (Information from Shaked, Tentative Bibliography, p. 128, and Goitein's index cards.)

Recto: Letter from a woman to her son Abū l-Faḍā'il al-Yahūdī al-Bawāridī ('the maker of cooling or cold vegetables') in al-Qamra, Alexandria. She describes a dangerous journey on the Nile ("we nearly drowned three times, but the end was good. God willed that we meet with the Shaykh Abū l-Makārim, and I stayed with Umm Hiba.") She advises her son to redeem the copper lamp that had been pawned for 3 1/8 (dirhams?). "Do not ask about my state and my illness, about which you know. I left with the fire in my heart on account of Futūḥ and his illness. Do not ask what weighs on Makārim's heart on your account. By God and by the breast which nursed you, do not neglect your son Sulaymān." She sends regards to Ḥasab (?) and his children, to her brother, and to Umm ʿAzīza. Verso: Apart from the address, there is a postscript in a different hand (with rudimentary script and spelling), from another family member who had traveled with the mother from Alexandria. This writer says that everyone is fed up with Karīm. The qumāsh which they brought with them from Alexandria has now been pawned for 40 dirhams. Karīm has not paid a penny of his capitation tax. He even pulled a trick to make his brother have to pay his debt. He is not working. Sulaymān (probably his brother) is working instead, and the writer was forced to accept public charity (kashaft wajhī) to pay off the debt. The next couple lines are tricky. Maybe: 'After all this, he regards me as idle. I do not even have enough water to drink because of him." Then: I regret leaving Alexandria. Regards to you and your family. Send us news of Umm Maʿānī quickly. Information in part from Goitein's note card and Med Soc, I, p. 424; III, pp. 246, 480. ASE.

Letter from Amram b. Yiṣḥaq in Alexandria to Ḥalfon b. Nethanel in Fustat. The letter was written in the 5th of April 1142. The letter contains details on the illness of Amram's wife (who is "dead on the face of the earth"; this is the third and final known letter of ʿAmram on the matter), his deplorable family situation, a request to borrow a book (tafasir Isaiah 'Commentary on the Book of Isaiah') and matters of an estate that Amram has dealt with. (Information from Frenkel).

Personal letter sent by the court clerk Mevorakh b. Natan, apologizing for his younger brother Abu al-Fakhr Yehosef, who had made fun of the son of the Jewish government official (katib), Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Elazar. The writer says that Yehosef had been absent minded at the time. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 243, 574, and from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from a male family member, probably in Damīra, to a physician, probably in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating unknown. The letter is convoluted and repetitive, giving the impression of having been dictated. The purpose of writing is to urge the addressee to stop trying to obtain a government salary (jāmakiyya) and to apply only for a license (dustūr), for he if persists in seeking the salary, they will refuse him even the license. The writer and those with him have been on tenterhooks regarding the addressee's news, in a state of anxiety (hamm) and fasting (ṣiyām). He writes that it would be better to treat patients for free than to have the government salary, even if it were 100 dinars. It seems that the government salary would also require the physician to return to Damīra and practice there, an outcome the writer is desperate to avoid. "If you return to Damīra, it will be our destruction (dimārnā)." The writer (humorously) insists that here in Damīra there has been no season (faṣl, of illness), and disease (maraḍ) and ophthalmia (ramad) are nowhere to be found; there is no demand for the addressee's services, for everyone is healthy. (Whether intentionally or not, this passage echoes the first chapter of Ibn Buṭlān's Daʿwat al-Aṭṭibā', in which a shifty physician in Mayyāfāriqīn tries to convince a newcomer and potential competitor that all the diseases have disappeared.) The family is not from Damīra originally (the writer calls it bilād al-ghurba); the writer wants to return to their hometown where they own property and do not have to pay 10 dirhams a month for rent. Meanwhile, the family is perishing from the cold, and the children are 'naked.' The writer himself is ill: in a postscript, he writes, "Do not even ask about me: the illness has gotten seriously worse (zāda bī jiddan). Now, pieces of bloody phlegm (qiṭaʿ balgham dam) are coming up, together with the intense pain (al-alam al-shadīd). How often this flares up in me (yathūr bī)!" He does not ask for a prescription or medical advice, but perhaps the request is implied. The letter also contains quite a lot of discussion of wheat. ASE.

Invitation by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to his father to spend the Sabbath with him. Shelomo has "turned toward health" after an illness.

Condolence letter from Eliyyahu Ha-Kohen b. Shelomo Gaon to Avraham Ha-Kohen b. Yiṣḥaq b. Furat.

Family letter sent from al-Raqqa by the mother of Dosa b. Yehoshuaʿ Ladiqi to her son, expressing her yearnings and asking him to send her letters and buy her something. (Information from Gil)

Sentimental letter sent by a man to his maternal uncle reporting that he and his wife are well and healthy, but perishing from longing for the recipient and the family, and giving regards to about 25 persons. Possibly dated to the 14th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 25, 26, 432)

Family letter sent to New Cairo. Mainly in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 14th–15th century if not later. Starting with biblical quotations and containing greetings to various people, probably relatives of the sender.

Letter from a father living in the countryside to his son's grandmother residing in Fustat. The father expresses his concerns that bad company is leading his son astray, for which he blames the grandmother. He urges her not to let his son leave the city before learning a craft. (Information and partial translation, Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 41, 516)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. The addressee is asked to intervene in a divorce case where the woman is being treated unfairly by her husband, who is trying to bilk her out of her dowry (qumāsh) and delayed marriage payment (muʾakhkhar). Likely a draft, based on the format and numerous corrections. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Family note from Hilal. He is requested to meet Avi al-Fakhar, the brother-in-law of the writer, because the Christian Ibn Badir is not being trusted; written to his father-in-law. (Information from Goitein's index cards) VMR

Letter from a certain Binyamin to a certain Ḥayyim, perhaps the son of Ḥananel b. Shemuel. Dating: Middle of the 13th century, during the time of David I Maimonides. "We are fortunate to possess a letter from the mid-thirteenth century describing a more extended version of the solitary retreat (khalwa). The letter, composed by one Benjamin to his friend, Ḥayyim, apparently the son of Ḥananel b. Samuel, sought to calm the worried son’s mind over the “journey” undertaken by his father. Eliyahu Ashtor, who published the letter, interpreted this journey as a lengthy business trip. More recently, Paul Fenton has conclusively argued in favor of a pietist interpretation of the letter. The letter is the only direct confirmation that the pietists of Egypt practiced the forty-day retreat known among contemporary Sufis." The complete letter, including the full valediction, was translated into French by Fenton, Deux Traités, pp.63–65. (Information from Russ-Fishbane, Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt, pp.115–18.)