Geniza Lab

Bifolio of a court register in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe consisting of four pages and containing four court cases. 1r: Legal document concerning a quittance of debt, dated 1440 Sel. (1129 CE), written under the authority of the gaon Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen. Mentions Abū l-Maʿālī b. Yūsuf (known as Ibn Tamar) and Yeshuʿa b. Ḥananya. Signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe and Natan ha-Kohen b. Shelomo. 1v: Will of Kulla b. Shabbat, mentioning Yehuda Ibn al-Sofer, the daughter of Kulla’s brother Abū ʿAlī al-Kohen and Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen b. ʿEli. 2r: Legal document concerning a quittance of debt, dated 1446 Sel. (1135 CE). Signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe and Elʿazar b. Yosef. Mentions Yaʿqūb Abū l-Maʿālī b. Yūsuf, known as Ibn Kujik (כוגך, Kushek, Persian 'Small') and Abū ʿAlī b. Shemuʾel b. Shelomo, known as Ibn al-Dustarī. 2v: Legal testimony declaring that Hassun of Ascalon was the father of Abū Saʿd, the illegitimate son of Wuhsha the Broker. Mentions Abū ʿAlī al-Parnas Yefet b. Maṣliaḥ, Ibn al-Sukkarī, Ḥalfon ha-Kohen b. Yosef and Abū Naṣr al-Kohen Ibn al-Kamūkhī. (Information in part from CUDL)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Fragment. It seems that Abū l-Mufaḍḍal (line 9) undertakes to salvage something from the authorities (sulṭān, line 4). Information from Goitein's note card.

Marriage contract in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, dated October 1116 (Thursday, 11 Marḥershvan, 142...). The marriage gift consists of 16 dinars. The bride is a divorcee on whose earning the husband will have no right, but who will provide her clothing by herself. Verso is blank. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below and Goitein, Med Soc, Vol. 3, p. 380.) NB: Goitein identified T-S 8.210 as a join with T-S 12.164 + Bodl. MS heb. b 12/19, but this does not seem definite.

Marriage contract in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, dated October 1116 (Thursday, 11 Marḥershvan, 142...). The marriage gift consists of 16 dinars. The bride is a divorcee on whose earning the husband will have no right, but who will provide her clothing by herself. Verso is blank. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below and Goitein, MedSoc, Vol. 3, p. 380.)

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Written in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: 1003-1004. Location: Fustat. In bad repair, this fragment (T-S 8J22.16) reveals part of a partnership document between ʿOvadya and Menashshe ha-Kohen. It is signed by Ḥalfōn b. Manasseh and Manasseh ha-Kohen b. Jacob, thus datable to the first half of the twelfth century. Each of the partners is to receive a copy of the agreement, which is enacted in accordance with both their wills, as well as a specific appraisal (which is not preserved). This appraisal may have detailed the assets of the partnership and each partner’s contribution. Division of profits and losses is not preserved. The relationship is described both as a shutafut and a shirka. The term shirka may be used to refer to an act of qinyan; lines 8-9 seem to refer to the act of shirka along with acts of payment and appraisal. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 187-188). T-S 12.525 expresses that the store sold olive oil and legumes, and the partners invested equally (9 dinars each, ʿOvadya in cash and Menashshe in goods such as linseed oil, olives, and lemon juice). The term of the contract was one year and should a party leave, he would pay the other 2 dinars. Each party received a copy. (Information from Weiss, "Legal Documents written by the Court Clerk Halfon Ben Manasse", 149-150)

Legal document written and signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: [..]3[.], which must be 143[.] Seleucid, meaning 1118–28 CE. Also signed by Nissim b. Shemuel.

Ketubba in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. The bridegroom is possibly Is[aac b. ...]. The name of the bride and further details are not preserved. May belong with T-S 12.604. AA

Ketubba fragment. Bride: Sitt al-Ahl bt. Yosef. Bridegroom's name is not preserved. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. May belong with T-S 12.595. AA

A damaged Ketubbah of Joseph b. ʿEli (groom), dated [...] Kislev [...]. No other details preserved. Probably written by Halfon b. Menasheshe Halevi. AA

Bill of gift and release granted to grandchildren. In the hand of Halfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. One of the parties name is ʿAmram. AA

Small strip from the top a Ketubbah of Sason b. [...] (groom), in Fusṭāṭ. No further details are preserved. Written by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe Halevi. AA

Letter on behalf of Yaḥyā b. ʿAmmār of Alexandria addressed to ʿŪlla ha-Levi b. Yosef, a.k.a. Abū l-ʿAlā' Ṣāʿid b. Munajjā, a parnas (social welfare official) and trustee of the court in Fustat, dated documents 1084–1117. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Yaḥyā requests financial help, especially with paying off his debts. His dependents include his children and his old, blind mother. When he could not bear to see them suffering from hunger, he ran away. For some time he has been in hiding from his debtors, some of whom are Muslim. He has recently heard that his mother is dying. He fears that she will die "on his account" before he is able to return and obtain her forgiveness. Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 257, Goitein's index cards, CUDL, and Cohen. ASE.

Letter from Ḥalfon b. Menashshe's wife, in Fustat, to her brother Abū l-Ḥasan ʿEli b. Hillel, probably in Bahnasa (based on T-S 13J21.18). In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1121–25 CE. She reports that the young son of Sitt al-Jamāl died immediately after ʿEli departed. They buried him in the 'desert' early on Friday, and when they returned, they found Sitt al-Jamāl's son Abū l-Mufaḍḍal sick as well, and he remains in a difficult condition (r6–11). She reports that later the same day, Abū l-Faḍl b. al-Ne'eman was fired from his post by the vizier al-Ma'mūn (1121–25) and was commanded to leave Cairo and take up residence in Fustat. Abū l-Faḍl cannot show his face now, and the rest cannot be explained in a letter (r11–14). "These things came to me upon emptiness of heart (farāgh qalb)" (cf. Quran 28:10)—perhaps she means that she could spare no attention for this matter, because she was so preoccupied on account of her children, who are still sick, as the addressee knows. "My heart became split, rising and falling, and if it weren't for your rebuke, I wouldn't have written you a single letter of all this" (r14–16). Abū ʿImrān is in the same state (probably of illness) that the addressee knows about (r16–17). She here describes the weaving of a shuqqa cloth and a complex deal involving al-Qazzāz and the addressee and money to be sent (r19–25). Goitein writes that the letter contains information about wages for silk weaving. (Information in part from Goitein's index cards; also Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 90, 404, 412; II, pp. 183, 345, 558; V, pp. 243, 574.) ASE.

Letter from Ḥalfon b. Menashshe's daughter to her maternal uncle ʿEli b. Hillel, the deputy overseer (nā'ib al-nāẓir) of Bahnasa. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1100–38 CE. The writer urges her uncle to visit herself and her mother. She is in the sixth month of her pregnancy (r5). She asks the addressee to buy for her a black girl about 5 or 6 years of age from the jālib (slave trader), because she has heard that there are many available in Bahnasa (r15–17). The writer is sad to be separated from her daughter (r26–27). She reports in the margin on the sad condition of Sitt Ikhtiyār, who has been bedbound (rāqida lāzima) for three months with hectic illness (ʿillat al-diqq). "There is nothing left in her but that we say, 'right away, right away'"—does this mean they wait on her hand and foot? or that they expect her to die soon? In any event, her condition is a terrible blow to the writer. ASE.

Verso: Six lines of accounts of debts on clothing, written by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated Kislev 1431/ November-December 1119. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 375, and from Goitein's index cards)

Marriage contract, fragmentary and damaged, in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, in the later period of his activity as scribe (dated documents: 1100-1138), in which an Indian female slave worth 20 dinars formed part of a dowry. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, pp. 325, 326, 456)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. A settlement in connection with the dissolution of a partnership between Abū ʿAlī Yeḥezqel ha-Levi and Banīn (possibly the druggist Banīn b. Daʿūd), who had jointly run a perfumery in Giza. Abū ʿAlī will continue to run the store on his own, and Banīn will repay him in weekly installments for his share of the rent of the store. The store itself is owned by Sibāʿ the Muslim. Dated: 5 Shevaṭ 1437 Seleucid, which is 1126 CE. Ḥalfon also signed the document, together with the teacher Yiṣḥaq b. Ḥayyim Nafūsī. Join with PER H 92? (Information from CUDL.)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. Dated: 11 Iyyar; dating: 1126 CE. Change of a will signed by Ḥalfon b. Ghalib and Yefet b. Efrayim two days before the death of the testator, saying that Najiyya is to receive part of a house from her dying maternal aunt on condition that she and her husband, Abū Naṣr Mevasser ha-Levi, renounce all other claims on the estate. A freed woman (Nashū) will receive another part of the house and a man promises to marry her and never divorce her. Yefet b. Ḥadīd is also released by the dying woman. Signed by Ḥalfon b. Ghalib the cantor and Yefet b. Efrayim (Information from Goitein's index cards.) This document consists of two fragments; the right side is document T-S 16.44 and the left side is document T-S 12.613, the break between the two documents is indicated in the transcription by /.

Legal document recording that Sitt al-Husn, daughter of Saadya, sought a gold tiara ('isaba) that she had pawned to the recently-deceased physician Abu al-Murajja b. Daniel against a loan of 24 dinars, from his heirs. A witness testifies that the deceased had forgiven the loan. Dated Tammuz 1440/ July 1129. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 487). Written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi.

Legal document(s) in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Recto: Decision of the court on repairs in a compound partly owned by the Qodesh. Dated: 1134 CE. A certain Obadiah, co-proprieter of a compound of which a quarter belonged to the qodesh, carried out repairs in that compound. The repairs were agreed upon by the representatives of the qodesh, their urgency having been recognized. Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa b. Ṣedaqa al-Ramli was appointed to supervise the building operations, and Obadiah advanced the sums that were necessary. A total expenditure of 24 dinars was now recognized by the court. Obadiah was given the right to collect rent from the part of the compound belonging to the qodesh, up to a total of 6.25 dinars, which included the sum due him from the qodesh, and a former debt of .25 dinar. Verso: Approval of the court record. The verso, which is very deteriorated, includes details of an accounting between the qodesh and the same Obadiah, here called 'Abdallah, the Arabic equivalent of the former. This accounting obviously represents the fulfillment of the agreement between the two parties. The representative of the qodesh is Abū l-Maʿālī, which nickname most probably referred to Judge Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen ha-Meʿulle, who is also a signatory of the agreement. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 254 #47 and CUDL)