Geniza Lab

Recipes in Arabic script. On verso there is also a piyyut. Needs examination.

Document in Arabic script, probably accounts, probably late.

Document in Arabic script, probably accounts.

Recto: Booklist in Arabic script listing individual Epistles (of the Brethren of Purity) that have been copied and bound and into how many majallāt and karārīs, including risālat al-ʿadad, risālat al-akhlāq, al-ārā' wa-l-madhāhib, and al-ṭarīq ilā Allāh. Verso: Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. ASE.

Bifolium. One folio is a Judaeo-Arabic translation of Exodus 21:1-17, 27:20-28. The other folio is magical instructions in Arabic script. The first few lines of the first page read, "The figure of a person with two wings, and in his hand is [...], and under his leg is a snake, and behind the seal (?). . . . Repeat the prayer/incantation and the incense(?) many times. . . ." There is a small diagram possibly containing an epsilon and a delta. There are astrological references as well (al-kawākib, al-saʿd).The first line of verso mentions "the female gods and the male," the third line mentions the knowledge of all the angels, and the lower part of the page might contain a recipe for incense involving chrysanthemum (zahr al-uqḥuwān). This page is the last of the treatise. Needs further examination. (FGP describes this as "Arabic letter on ritual slaughter.") ASE.

Recto: Arabic document, perhaps a letter. Needs further examination. Verso: Lists of the Islamic months and Coptic months, and prognostications for the coming year based on the Hebrew calendar.

Recto: A few lines of an abandoned letter in Arabic. Verso: A page completely filled with Judaeo-Arabic writing practice (?) of standard phrases from letters, going in all different directions. It is very faded, so hard to tell if there is anything of substance in these phrases.

Letter in Arabic from Moshe ha-Kohen to Abū l-ʿIzz Yeshuʿa ha-Sar, to the market of the goldsmiths (sūq al-ṣāgha) in Fusṭāṭ, in which the addressee's name and titles are given in Hebrew characters in the midst of the Arabic text. Moshe reports that al-Shaykh al-Ajall al-Sadīd b. al-Tilmīdh and his son al-Shaykh al-Muwaffaq (שמ צור again in Hebrew characters) arrived and informed him that [...]. The lower part of recto and the upper part of verso is lost. ASE.

Recto: Small fragment of a formal Arabic letter. Verso: In Judaeo-Arabic, a draft of flattering titles for a Muslim ruler: [[אלאמיר אלמופק]] אמיר אלמומנין במא וכלה יי (!) אליה מן שיאשת אלאמה וערקהא (?) בה מן תדבירהא . . . פי מא כאנת מצלחתהא . . . . عامر פידאעי (?).

State document in calligraphic Arabic. The fragment preserves only the ends of four lines.

Recto: Perhaps a receipt in Arabic script, (ṣaḥḥa li-ṣāḥib al-jalāla (?) . . . al-dāwudī adām allāh ʿizzahu ʿan ujrat al-usṭūl (?) . . . .). The remainder of recto and verso have been filled with accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Needs further examination.

Recto: A few words remaining from an Arabic text. Verso: Malachi 3.

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic, in more than one hand. Late? Mentions Ibrāhīmiyya as a type of currency.

Letter from Faraḥ b. Nuʿmān to the Mumḥe who lives in Damsīs (الممحا المقيم بدمسيس). In Arabic script. A son was born on Tuesday and the addressee is asked to come and circumcise him on Saturday or Sunday (so not 8 days after birth?). (Information from Goitein's note card)

Document in Arabic script, calligraphic with wide space between the lines.

Document in Arabic script. The first line mentions dīwān al-ḥubūs = the waqf administration? Needs examination.

Recto: Judaeo-Arabic recipe involving starch (nashā'; not "starch of Isaac" but yuṣḥaq = let it be crushed), and some jottings in Arabic script including Coptic numerals. The text of the recipe exhibits the early Judaeo-Arabic orthographic feature of representing ḍād by dalet. See Isaacs, Medical, p. 9. Verso: Arabic jottings including Coptic numerals. Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalog.

Letter in Arabic script. The sender is a man from Alexandria who was forced to flee from that city because he was unable to pay the capitation tax for his little boy. He asks the Nagid Avraham Maimonides to instruct the judge Eliyyahu to help. He had been unsuccessful in obtaining work. See verso.

Recto: State document. Accounts regarding agrarian administration submitted by Boqṭor b. Sisinne, a Copt, the overseer (al-khawlī) in Badsā (in the province of al-Giza), for the year 401 kharājī (= 1011/12 CE) and the following year, detailing the amount of produce (ghalla) paid as karaji, the amount of produce remaining in the hands of the cultivators, the amount of seed-advance (taqāwī) used, what was given in by Imāʿīl b. al-Qāsim al-Jaʿfarī and what was transferred to the surveyor (al-dalīl) ʿAbdallāh b. Malik. On verso there is a Hebrew liturgical text. Information from Khan via GRU catalog via FGP.

Accounts in Arabic script for three types of indigo. See Goitein's index card for further information.