Geniza Lab

Recto: Letter from an unknown busybody in Minyat Zifta to the Nagid Avraham (II?) in Fustat/Cairo. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. The purpose of the letter is to relate various improprieties ("matters proceeding not as they should," r13–14) of a muqaddam (perhaps of Minyat Ghamr?), al-Shaykh al-Sadīd. The first episode (r17–32): The local schoolteacher had to go to Cairo to pay his capitation tax (jizya) because he was originally from the Levant. When the teacher was delayed in returning, the community began talking about hiring a new teacher. Al-Sadīd caught wind of this and vetoed the proposal, fearing that a new teacher would be a nuisance (tashwīsh) to him, and he insisted that he teach the children himself. They responded that he was far too busy with his medical practice and serving as muqaddam, not to mention his business dealings. He persisted, and they said, "But you don't even live here!" He said that he would come live there until the original teacher came back. The teacher came back, and al-Sadīd was so enthusiastic about the additional income that he refused to let the children return to the original teacher, and he had made their parents vow to that effect. The community felt pity on the original teacher because of his poverty. The second episode (r32–45): During the same period of al-Sadīd teaching the children, someone fell sick in Minyat Zifta. A group of people, including another physician named al-Shaykh al-Muhadhdhab, came to visit the patient and found al-Sadīd attending him. Al-Sadīd rudely ignored al-Muhadhdhab. After everyone had sat around the patient, al-Muhadhdhab said, "Are you angry at me? I have been courteous to you, just like the community. I don't know what you want from me. I left you the synagogue and didn't attend today." Al-Sadīd (saracastically): "Thank God you found people to support you (against me?)." The writer of the letter editorializes: There were many people present who also don't attend the synagogue, but not because they were supporting al-Muhadhdhab, rather because they heard about how al-Sadīd had disparaged them. Back to the story: Al-Sadīd sighed and said: "How I hold back from complaining about my travails!" The writer: He didn't hold back at all. The third episode (r45–end): A certain judge (qāḍī al-ḥukm) was seriously ill (marīḍ bi-maraḍ shadīd), and al-Muhadhdhab was attending him "[against] his will and not for his good." This is unclear: was al-Muhadhdhab treating the judge incompetently, or was al-Muhadhdhab the one somehow coerced into this job? Meanwhile, al-Sadīd had been angling to get a connection to this judge. The judge had a slave with jaundice (khadīm bihi yaraqān). This too is unclear: is the slave acutely ill, or is this simply a description of his chronic state? Al-Sadīd came and spoke to the slave, and then came back with something to give to the slave—and the story ends here, unless the join is found. This document is possibly related to Bodl. MS heb. a 3/15, a letter from Avraham (I) Maimonides ordering a territorial muqaddam in Minyat Zifta/Minyat Ghamr to share his duties with his cousin al-Shaykh al-Muhadhdhab. (Information in part from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 189, 560.) Verso: Mysterious page of notes in Judaeo-Arabic in at least two different hands. The items on this page include two recipes for staining (or dying? or removing stains? the word is tulaṭṭakh/laṭkh); Judaeo-Arabic poetry; a riddle or two; and an extended grammatical discussion of case endings after 'kāna and her sisters' and related topics. ASE.

Letter from a certain Abū l-Faraj to someone titled Sayyidnā. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely Mamluk-era (i.e., after ca. 1250) based on paleographic features, position of the tarjama (recto righthand margin), and use of the abbreviation אלממ[לוך]. The sender asks for financial help, including for paying his capitation tax (jāliya). On verso there are Hebrew writing exercises (haqeṣ ʿaṣel) and maybe two names in Arabic script, one of which is Ibn al-Qābila ('son of the midwife'). (Information in part from CUDL)

Letter to Mishaʾel ha-Sar from Hiba Ibn Zaʿafrān, a poor inhabitant of Fusṭāṭ. Hiba asks for assistance paying the capitation tax, and has already been arrested and beaten for not paying it. (Information from CUDL)

Letter regarding the payment of the capitation tax.

Husband who intends to travel abroad allocates 20 dirhams per month, namely, five per week, for his wife, plus some wheat, the 20 dirhams to be used also for his capitation tax and from which she will pay rent and other household expenses, while he stipulates expressly not to lay claim on any earnings made by her through work and spinning. Fustat. Dated Tishri 1445/1133. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, 127, 423)

Recto: Letter of appeal from Mahfūẓ b. Mūsā and his brother Musallam/Muslim. In calligraphic Judaeo-Arabic. The writer describes the humiliation his family (or wife?) has experienced at the hands of the authorities (al-sulṭān) because he is delinquent in paying the capitation tax (here called kharāj) for the last two years ('years 8 and 9'). He asks for help. Verso: Document in Arabic script, which looks like it mentions various quantities and saffron. Information in part from CUDL. ASE.

Census for the capitation tax. List of male persons with consecutive numbers over the names. First complete no. visible is 19, but some names are discernible before that. Total: 68 households. Outsiders: seven from Cairo (in a separate appendix superscribed 'The Cairenes and including the beadle of that city'); three each from Alexandria and al-Mahalla; one from Qus; one Maghribi; one from Damascus. Some are listed together with their descendants, for example (32) Abu Hayyun, the old carpenter, and (33) the son of his daughter (who presumably worked with him). Those listed were certainly persons for whom the community had to provide the capitation tax, either completely or in part. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 460, App. B 75)

Letter of appeal for charity from Abū l-Majd to the physician (ḥakīm) Yeshuʿa ha-Levi. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer needs help paying 20 silver dirhams (nuqra) which he still owes on account of his capitation tax. Information from Goitein's note card.

Instructions in Avraham Maimonides' hand to R. Eliyyahu to give them bread for Sabbath. Also: List of contributors (in the judge's hand) and names of recipients of alms. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 466)

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.

Fiscal or para-fiscal document (i.e., prepared by state officials or by the Jewish community for the government). List of indigent people equally divided between natives of the capital and residents originating from Alexandria, the Sharqiyya and Gharbiyya provinces, the villages around the capital (all entirely destitute), and towns such as Ashmum, Damietta, and Qūṣ. The document refers to three groups with different capacities to pay the capitation tax: (1) those who cannot afford to pay anything, (2) those who can afford to pay 2 dīnārs, but only in instalments and (3) the remainder, from whom 4 dīnārs should be exacted. Khan notes that Rabie (The Financial System of Egypt, 109–10) overlooked the last line of the list, which refers to the payment of 4 dīnārs. Rabie therefore concluded that the document reflected the payment of a flat rate of capitation tax at 2 dīnārs per head. Khan argues that there was variation in the rate of capitation tax in different historical periods (commentary to T-S H15.62, Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, doc. 89, and commentary to this document, ibid., doc. 136): at the beginning of the Ayyubid period, the rates were fixed at 4⅙ dīnārs, 2 1/12 dīnārs and 1⅝ dīnārs. In the middle of the Ayyubid period, the high and intermediate rates were rounded down to 4 dīnārs and 2 dīnārs. Toward the end of the Ayyubid period, a flat rate of 2 dīnārs was introduced. On the basis of this periodization, Khan concludes that our document comes from the middle of the Ayyubid period, around 1200. (Information from Khan and from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 468, App. B 110)

Recto: Letter from Barakāt Ibn al-Dayyān Abū l-Faraj (=Shelomo b. Eliyyahu the Judge). In Arabic script. A narrow vertical strip is missing from the right side. In which Shelomo complains of his poverty and illnesses (alām) and asks for help paying the capitation tax. He may be asking on his father's behalf as well as his own (mentioned three lines from the bottom). (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

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.

State document. Petition to a Fatimid ruler in which the writer asks to be exempted from the payment of his capitation tax (of 1 + 1/3 + 1/4 dinars and a dirham), since lost his sight as a consequence of an eye illness and is now unable to perform his job, while the tax collectors are increasingly pressing. The writer also states that in the past he had been able to pay his capitation tax only thanks to the charitable intervention of the community. Dating: 12th century. On verso there is Hebrew text, possibly liturgical. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Letter fragment (lower right of recto, lower left of verso) in lovely handwriting. Mentions the capitation tax, hunger, and charity. On verso a woman seems to be addressed (wa-taquli lahu). Other phrases: "he ordered me many times that" and "an expression that befits his like." ASE.

Recto and part of verso: Letter from Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, Qalyub, to his father in Fustat. He is concerned about how they will pay the capitation tax. He is very irritated that he has not been informed about the following things: how much money they got for selling the kerchief that he sent them last week; how much they have already payed on his behalf (for his own capitation tax); how much remains to be paid; whether the dirhams that he sent with Bu l-Khayr arrived; whether the dirhams that he sent with his paternal uncle 'Imran arrived. They have sent him no letter at all; they only sent back the 'muthallath' (referring to a 'triple' weave?) coat with instructions to sell it in Qalyub, but why would he have sent it to Fustat in the first place if he wanted to sell it in Qalyub? So he is sending it back with Safi and wants them to sell it for 17 dirhams, and if they can't get that much, they should have the fuller work on it. In the continuation (T-S AS 145.195), there isn't much more of substance, but he mentions al-Shaykh al-Yesod on recto, and then again in a postscript: "please go to al-Yesod [and apologize for me] from him and tell him that I am only hiding because of [the capitation tax?]." Join: Alan Elbaum.

Letter mentioning dirhams, the capitation tax, and names such as Benjamin, Jacob and Yaḥyā. The writer asks addressee to give his deference to every single one of the Kohen brothers. (Information from CUDL)

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentioning the [Head of?] the Yeshiva, the countryside, and the capitation tax (al-jāliya). (Information from CUDL)

Informal note from Abū l-Faraj. In Arabic script. He complains about his illness and inability to go out (on account of the jāliya?). He asks the addressee to send something with the bearer. Maybe wine—the second word of the penultimate line looks like nabīdh.

Letter in Arabic script. The writer mentions his distress (al-shidda wa-l-ḍīqa wa-l-khawf). Later (three lines from the bottom) he clarifies that he is scared of the collectors of the capitation tax (aṣḥāb al-jawālī). The writer refers to the addressee as سيدنا القلفي and thanks him for his generosity (inʿām) and perhaps asks for more. ASE