Geniza Lab

Legal document. Acknowledgement of loan. Dating: February 1135, in (new) Cairo. Document recognizing a loan of 10 dinars from Yosef ha-Levi to Yefet b. Yaḥyā for the term of one year, to coincide exactly with the term of a partnership between them ("the beginning of Adar II", 1446). Per Maimonides, whenever one gives funds to another person to transact, half of the funds comprise a loan for which the active partner is fully responsible, even in the case of an unavoidable circumstance. The concurrent nature of the loan and the partnership to which the loan agreement alludes suggests the application of this principle, as does the fact that Yefet is responsible for the debt. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 211)

Acknowledgment by Yiṣḥaq b. Avraham ha-Maʿaravi of debt amounting to 600 niqar which he owes to David Kohen b. Shelomo, written in Fustat, 967.

Court document dated 15 Kislev 1469/26 November 1157 acknowledging that the court had heard the testimony of the wife of the addressee, the Shaykh Abu Mansur b. Shemuel, including testimony enumerating the assets of her son, Abu Imran, which were in her possession. List of these assets follows: Inventory of a silk-weaver's shop. Includes 32 items, most either effaced or partly torn away: 4 looms, 3 combs for silkweaving, 3 wooden rolls on which the bolts of silk were rolled, 2 irons, one for robes and another for turbans, wicker baskets full of warps, various quantities of bleached and other linen (which was woven together with silk), a small pot with weaver's reeds, copper threads covered with silver, and other items not preserved. (Information from Mediterranean Society, 1:412
s s
24; Friedman, Jewish Marriage, vol. 1, 412; vol. 2, 150, 312; and Marina Rustow)

Iqrar ('acknowledgment') document stipulating a term of three months for the repayment of a sum of 10 dinars and noting that repayment is to entered on the reverse side, Iyyar 1418/April 1107.

Acknowledgment of debt, unfinished. Debtor: Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen b. Yehuda ha-Kohen. Creditor: Abu Naṣr Yehuda ha-Levi b. Yeshuʿa the minister (ha-sar). Town of al-Banhā,, Sunday, 3rd of Tishri 1556 sel., (1244, the day of the week does not match the date. MY) (Information from Goitein's index card) Followed by post-classical rhymed seliḥot for the ten days of repentance on recto and verso, with an alphabetic acrostic. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: Acknowledgment of debt of seventy dinars Abu l-Tana al-Sukkari (the sugar seller) b. Abu l-Barakat the perfumer by Aharon Ha-Kohen the perfumer. Verso: Rhymed funerary poem.

Acknowledgement of receipt of money by Abu al-Faraj b. Shanuda the Christian seaman, leader of the sailors of "the weavers," from Abu Sa’d Daniyal b. Mina in the town of Akhmim. Dated: Jumada II 534 (January–February 1140). (Information from Khan) EMS Reused by Natan ha-Kohen b. Shelomo (see PGPID 34347).

Legal document dealing with a loan granted by Abū Naṣr Elʿazar b. Karmī Ibn Shabīb to Abū Manṣūr Elʿazar Ibn Zabqala. Dated: Tammuz 1543 Seleucid, which is 1232 CE. Same case as T-S Misc.25.2. Goitein originally described the borrower as a communal official and described the occasion of the loan as public expenses such as dues on the import of myrtles into Fustat. He later wrote, "The 62 Kāmilī fulūs were dirhems and not copper coins and were regarded as an equivalent of 9 Nāṣirī dirhems plus customs dues paid to the makkāsīn Miṣr, the customs officials of Fusṭāṭ. (I had read instead of mksyn - mrsyn, and translated consequently "myrtles"!). Thus, 62 Kāmilī fulūs do not correspond exactly to 9 Nāṣirī dirhems, but to a somewhat higher amount. The customs dues were paid for... anbāq ḥashīsha. Should we assume that in those days not only the leaves and stalks of the hemp, but also its berries were used as drugs?" (Information from Goitein's index cards, Mediterranean Society, I, p. 385, and S. D. Goitein, “Erratum to JESHO 8 [1965] on The Exchange Rate of Gold and Silver Money in Fatimid and Ayyubid Times,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 12, no. 1 (January 1969), 112.) VMR. ASE. Join: Alan Elbaum.