Geniza Lab

Letter from Abū l-ʿIzz to a certain Talmid. In Arabic script. Best wishes for the holiday. Tells him not to listen to Abū l-ʿAlā, who said that he would follow ʿImrān and agreed to go to Damietta on the writer's behalf, but he never fulfills his word. The addressee is asked to 'enter' (Damietta? Fustat?) for a time, until somebody else can be found to monitor the writer's affairs. Also mentions Ashmūm and the son of Abū Sahl.

Letter or petition in Arabic script. Deaing with financial matters.

Bifolium from a larger work in Arabic script. Unidentified. Possibly a collection of poetic texts or letters

Accounts in Arabic script. Expenditures for a (Christian?) funeral and the meals after the funeral or during the mourning. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter fragment (upper right corner) in Arabic script. Mentions Umm Abū ʿAbdallāh and a woman (perhaps the same) who is 'maḍrūba.' Needs further examination.

Letter from a son to his father. In Arabic script. The writer or a sibling may be sick (واما ما تريد علمه ان ولدك ضعيف). There are also several lines of Arabic script on verso, perhaps the end of the letter and the address. Needs further examination

Official document in Arabic script. Ṣaḥḥa...

Accounts in Coptic numerals and Arabic script. Arranged in columns.

Legal document, probably. In Arabic script. Containing detailed summaries of business transactions and mentions Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad (end of line 11). Needs further examination

Letter in Arabic script. Needs examination. On verso there is a mishnaic text in Hebrew (beginning שבעה אבהות וגו' יש נוחלין ומנחלין נוחלין ולא מנחלין).

Letter of appeal from a man, unknown location, to Musallam (or Musallama) Abū ʿAlī, the wakīl of Shams al-Dīn Ildakīz al-Birṭāsī, in Minyat Bāsik in ʿAmal al-Sharqiyya (present-day al-Minya in the district of al-Ṣaff in the province of Giza). In Arabic script. Beautiful handwriting. Dated: 7 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 644 AH, which is 23 July 1246 CE. The sender asks the help of the addressee, "because, as everything is so expensive, he has contracted debts, and himself eats only bread and onions. Presumably, there was a wakīl in every iqṭāʿ, and each of them enjoyed prestige and wealth, similar to that of the Shaykh Musallam." Information from Rabie, Financial System of Egypt, p. 65.

Recto: Fatimid document. Verso: Part of a preliminary draft of a chancery document addressed to a government official. ". . . bi-l-shadd minka fī istikhrāj al-māl ʿalā l-kamāl ʿalā l-kamāl (sic!) wa-l-tamām wa-qaṣr yad man yudawwim al-iḥtimā' ʿalayka wa-l-manʿ min iḥdāth rasm lam tajri bihi l-ʿāda. . . . " That is, an order has been issued in favour of the addressee: "for you to be granted the power to levy the money in its entirety, for the hand to be restrained of whomsoever continually defaults (on his payment) to you, and for the prevention of an unwonted practice.' Information from Khan, "Copy of a Decree," 443n17 and Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, 343n20. See the same references for the term "shadd," likely a refrence to some kind of financial administrator called a shādd.

Unidentified text in Arabic script. Looks like it might be literary. On verso there is a selection of Hebrew and Aramaic biblical phrases and some Arabic jottings and marginal notes.

Legal testimony. In Arabic script. Dating: Fatimid. Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.

Letter in Arabic script. Mentions Damietta in line 3. Unusual format: this may be the letter after it was copied into codex form. Needs further examination.

State accounts relating to the tax farm of the lands of Dayqūf, in the province of al-Bahnasā, administered by Basṭiyya b. Marqūra and the property of the office of the noble lady of al-Āmir in the "Muḥawwil chamber" (al-majlis al-muḥawwil was a chamber in the qaṣr al-baḥr, which in turn was a component of al-qaṣr al-kabīr, the great palace complex of the Fatimid caliphs). Dating: this account is for the kharājī year 550, which corresponds to 551/52 AH and 1156/57 CE. The produce of the land consists of 200 irdabbs: 133 irdabbs of wheat and 66 irdabbs of barley. The verso contains a summary of the document on recto. (Information from CUDL and Khan.)

Document in Arabic script. Not immediately clear if it is a letter or a legal document. Beautiful handwriting.

Accounts in Arabic script. Detailing the arrival of various consigmments of Oriental goods, it seems all by caravan. Dated: Jan–March 994 CE (383 AH). Information from Goitein's note cards.

Unidentified texts in Arabic script. Multiple hands, multiple orientations. Some of the marginal text may be business accounts. Needs further examination.

Legal document, probably. In Arabic script. Needs examination.