Geniza Lab

Bill of divorce formulary or draft. Location: Fustat. Dateable perhaps to the eleventh or twelfth centuries. Line one was left incomplete and undated perhaps as draft or formulary. Line two mentions a husband's name Masʿūd b. Yosef b. Nissim. The wife is named Sayyida. This document represents a rare instance in which a husband notes that he himself has drawn up the bill of divorce (ll. 12-13). MCD. ASE.

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Fragment (lower right corner). Concerning a divorce. Mentions something (the bill of divorce? the ketubba payment?) given to Elʿazar (her agent?). Dated 1127-1138. under the authority of Masliah Gaon.

Letter from Masʿūd b. Mawhūb to his brother Sābiq b. Mawhūb. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender is agitated about the news he heard from Umm Subayʿ b. ʿAbdallāh, namely that his wife has taken their son out of the school (kuttāb) and allowed him to play all day. "She behaves like an idiot (ablah), inflicting unhealable wounds." He will travel (or send raqqāṣīn?) to Cyprus (קברץ), where it seems the woman lives. He has sent 15 dirhams with Abū l-Munā b. Ḥiyya to give to the teacher. The boy should not be allowed to play hooky. He sends a jūkāniyya (a garment) for the boy. He asks for Abū ʿImrān to draw up a bill of divorce for him for Ṣafar [5]31 (=1136/37 CE) for a half dinar. Some of this summary is tentative; needs further examination. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Letter addressed to ʿEli the Parnas. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender petitions on behalf of a divorcee who came to him "complaining and crying" that her ex-husband, Avraham b. Khalaf, had not paid her and her nursing infant alimony for eight consecutive months. The woman had previously gone to the Parnas for help ("threw herself down in the house of the Parnas"), evidently to no avail. (Information in part from Goitein's index cards.) Join: Oded Zinger. ASE

Bill of divorce (get). Location: Fustat. Husband: Evyatar.

Bill of divorce, Fustat, 1248. (Ashtor incorrectly cites shelfmark as T-S NS 324.)

Legal document (zikhron ʿedut). Dated: Thursday, 13 Elul 1528 Seleucid, which is 18 August 1217 CE. Settlement of the payment of a mu'akhkhar in installments. A total of 15 dinars is reduced to 10, to be paid from the beginning of Shevat in weekly installments of 3 dirhams. For the divorcee's children, 5 1/4 dirhams are to be paid every week from the beginning of Tishrei for the period of 1 year. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Legal record (#6). Divorce settlement. Dated: Monday, 20 Sivan 1467 Seleucid. Abū Saʿd al-Zayyāt b. Khalīl attests, acting as agent for his sister Sitt al-Fakhr, that he has received her dowry, worth 21.5 dinars, from her soon-to-be ex-husband Hiba, except for the 'bulging' golden bracelet worth 10 dinars (al-ḥadīda al-dhahab al-manfūkh). The delayed marriage payment is 30 dinars; thus Hiba will give her a total value of 51.5 dinars as well as the bill of divorce. Witnesses: Mevorakh b. Natan; Natan b. Moshe. (Information in part from Goitein's notes.)

A Karaite agreement to give a bill of divorce in case the husband will be absent for more than one year.

Yosef b. Shlomo is taking upon himself to give a conditional bill of divorce to his future wife Venesa d. Avraham Susu in case he will be absent for more than a year. Dated Monday 23rd Tevet, 5529 (1769)

A Karaite divorce after betrothal