Geniza Lab

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)

Legal document in Arabic script. "Aqarra Yūsuf b. [...] b. Yūsuf Yahūdī bi-Dār al-Ṣarf ʿurrifa(?) bi-l-Qudsī iqrāran...." Later in the document there appears Yūsuf Khādim al-Kanīs as well as a Yaʿqūb ... al-ʿAṭṭār known as the brother-in-law of the Sicilian. There are two witness signatures. Dated: 3 Rajab 876 AH, which is December 1471 CE. Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalog via FGP.

Chancery document in Arabic script. Mentions two different bureaus: dīwan al-[...] al-miṣrī (line 2) and dīwān al-ḥubūs al-miṣriyya (line 7). The number '500' appears in the last line, perhaps part of a date (5[..] AH?).

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Addressed to Huṣām al-Dawla. Possibly a letter of recommendation for the bearer (hādha l-insān in line 6), but needs further examination. Verso: Jottings in Judaeo-Arabic and of the Hebrew alphabet. Perhaps accounts (various fractions are mentioned and the number 100), perhaps calendrical, perhaps mathematical calculations.

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Possibly a draft, as it is covered with subsequent jottings. Addressed to 'the brother' Abū l-ʿAlā' (this is not completely clear; line 4). Only in line 10 does the body of the letter begain (wa-ghayra dhālika). The writer reports that he lay sick in the house for a whole month(?), but then God had mercy and delivered him from his illness (وغير ذلك اعلم الاخ اني مرضت وقمت في البيت شهر(?) ايام ولطف الله سبحانه... المملوك وخلصه من الالم الذي كان...). There are greetings to various people in the margin, including to the writer's maternal aunt Hanā(?) and her son Nuṣayr and to Nadd and Ṣafā l-ʿAyn(?). Verso: Letter drafts? Covered with Arabic script (and the Hebrew phrase שובה ישראל), but less organized than recto and more difficult to decipher. Needs further examination.

Chancery document in Arabic script. Dated: 675 AH, which is 1276/77 CE. Contains various annotations by clerks and is endorsed by both thin and thick pen. It is probably concerned with wager (=wages?) (indecipherable). Information from Baker/Polliack catalog via FGP.

Legal documents in Arabic script. One each on recto and on verso. Needs examination.

Petition, draft. in Arabic script. Arranged in four columns on a bifolium, with text at 90 degrees in the space between columns. Needs further examination. On verso there is Hebrew literary text.

Business letter in Arabic script, before 1141, from ʿUmar b. ʿAwaḍ in Qalyūb to the Dār al-Wakāla, to be sent by the Qāḍī Ṣadr al-Dīn the notary (?) discussing a shipment of green dates from Qalyūb and their transport on the Nile. English translation in Goitein, LMJT, 270–71.

Accounts in Arabic script. Containing information on the dirham/dinar exchange rate. Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.

Petition to an Ayyubid sultan by a Jewish physician. "The slave Makārim b. Isḥāq, the doctor. In the name of God, the merciful and compassionate. (The slave) kisses the ground and reports that he is a trained and able practitioner in the profession of medicine. The two doctors of our master the sultan, al-Rashīd al-Dimashqī and al-Rashīd Abū Ḥulayqa, attest to the excellence of the slave's knowledge in this profession. He makes a request before our lord the sultan, may God make great his victory, of the gift of the remainder of the salary of al-Asʿad, the doctor in the hospital of Cairo, that is three dinars every month, (paid) to the salve for him to practise the treatment of the sick and let the prayer (of the slave) [for] our lord the sultan be answered. The resolution (of the sultan) is exalted. Praise be to God alone and his blessings [be upon our lord] Muḥammad and his family and save them." Translation by Geoffrey Khan. See tag for additional documents involving Makārim b. Isḥāq.

Recto: Arabic script document containing several sections. The lower part may be a tax receipt for a sum received from Zuhayr b. [...] from the ḍamān of [al-Abwāb?] for the year 1023/24 CE (414 kharājiyya). Needs further examination. Verso: "List of male persons, low occupations, foreigners, in Arabic characters, superscripted with Isaiah 65:23 (in Hebrew). Presumably persons for whom capitation tax has to be paid" (Goitein's note card). In addition to this list, and upside down, is a literary paragraph discussing ʿilm and citing verses by al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī (taʿallama l-ʿilma fa-laysa l-mar'u yūladu ʿāliman. . .") ASE.

Letter from a man in Minyat Ghamr to his brother Maḥfūẓ in Fustat. In Arabic script. The writer has been ill, and people tell him he must go to Fustat to recover. He has sent multiple letters asking the addressee to rent him a room in Fustat; no answer. Information from Goitein's note cards.

Letter of appeal in Arabic script. The writer, Faḍā'il al-ʿŪdī b. Baṣīla (?), had lived for 6 years in Alexandria until he had to come this year ("in which nothing is blessed") to Fustāṭ. He is unemployed there and unable to even enter the market of the druggists due to debts owed to Ibn Ṣ[...] and others. He now perishes of hunger and illness. No one in the family has eaten for three nights. He has three dependents: his wife, his daughter (a widow), and her three-year-old son. He asks for charity especially for the rent of a boat (to travel back to Alexandria?). He concludes with blesings for the addressee, in the midst of which he writes, "If it were not for God and your mercy with regard to this year's jāliya, I would be in prison." Information in part from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Legal document in Arabic script, dated Ṣafar 1334 CE (735 Hijri). Sitt al-ʿAdā confirms to have received from [...] b. Samaw'il b. Rashīd b. Abū Saʿd al-Yahūdī al-ʿAṭṭār for the rent of a store in the Sūq al-Maghāriba 28 dirhams for the month of Muḥarram. Information from Goitein's note card.

Decree (manshūr) issued by the caliph al-Hafiz on 21 Rajab 528/1133 to stop two cases of malpractice which were adversely affecting the Delta province of al-Nastarawiyya. Merchants from al-Nastarawiyya who traveled to the neighboring coastal regions to buy goods were being mistreated by government officials and their business was being disrupted; and fishermen from al-Gharbiyya province were fishing illegally along the shores of Lake Burullus within the territory of al-Nastarawiyya, causing financial harm to the ḍamān for fisheries held by ḍāmins from al-Nastarawiyya (and thus to the fisc). (Khan, 1986, p. 441) This version of the decree was copied onto a bifolio in the chancery for storage in its archives; for more on this process and the relationship of compact archival decrees to monumental rotuli, see Rustow, The Lost Archive, 326–34.

Recto: Letter in Arabic script (with the words שער הנשיאות in Hebrew) to a Nasi, by ʿImrān b. Muhājir. According to Goitein's note card, it is an apology for disrespectful remarks about the latter's origin. Gotein likely succeeded in reading an obscure passage of the letter, but on its face it seems more like a straightforward appeal for financial aid invoking the afflictions of fate: "al-mamlūk mustaḥiyy min fiʿl hādha l-zamān alladhī ṣayyaranā [[anā]] lā naqdir al-qiyām bi-mā ʿalaynā min al-maḥqūq al-wājiba idh ḥukimat ʿalaynā al-iqrār. . . . wa-baʿd inna l-kull zamān wa-kull waqt aḥwāl yudabbirhā hādha l-falak bi-mā amar wa-bi-mā rakkab fīhi fa-l-mamlūk mustaḥiyy. . . ." Verso: A note in Judaeo-Arabic about the distribution of bread "from the Talmid, from the day of our arrival." This is followed by a pair of verses in Arabic, which have been transcribed into Judaeo-Arabic, against chess. ASE.

Business letter in Arabic script, lengthy, ca. 1055, with a list of pharmaceutical items, spices and herbs from Fustat.

Fiscal account. Contains multiple entries, each marked with nuqila, “it has been copied.” Khan dates this document to the same period as T-S Ar.40.37, which is dated 1134 CE and contains the same mark (Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, p. 449; Bauden, “Maqriziana II,” 110–12; Rustow, Lost Archive, 337ff.).

Fatimid fiscal requisition for the dīwān al-jaysh, including information about an iqtā`. Contains a request for registration and at least one registration mark.