Geniza Lab

List of names with numbers. In Judaeo-Arabic. Rosh ha-Qahal, Ibn Nufayʿ al-Ḥazzan, Yūsuf b. Ḥaffāẓ, Ṣadaqa the blind. Presumably distribution of funds from the communal chest.

List. Perhaps for the distribution of bread for the week of Noaḥ. In Judaeo-Arabic. Recipients include: Ibrāhīm al-Ṭawwāf; Abū l-Ṭāhir al-Khādim; Abū Naṣr al-Khādim; al-Dayyan R. Menashshe ZL(???); the sick man from Bilbays.

Distribution of wheat to Byzantines (thabat al-Rūm). Belongs with T-S K15.113. Dating: ca. 1100–40 CE.

List of around sixty "houses" (bayt) and of eight male individuals, each followed by Coptic numerals. Includes an entry for "the house of the rayyis, the house of our lord R. Avraham (Maimonides)," which Cohen takes as proof that this is a donor list rather than an alms list. Goitein speculates that this might be "a collection arranged by women to which also a few gentlemen contributed." Cohen, however, takes "house" to mean not "wife" but "household," and when a married woman appears on the list, she is mentioned using the term imraʾa (col. 3, line 17). Likewise, in the entry "the bayt of ʿAziza," a woman's name, bayt can only mean "househo1d" (col. 3, line 12). Entries are crossed out when people paid their pledges. (Information from Cohen, Voice of the Poor, 182)

Recto: Distribution list for cash and wheat for the poor of the Rabbanites, administered by the ḥaver (al-ḥibr) [...] and Yaʿqūb al-[...]. This is a massive document, written in Arabic script, possibly in imitation of a chancery document, quite unlike the other known distribution lists from this period. About 55 lines are preserved, listing dozens of alms recipients, many of them blind. This document was subsequently cut up to form (at least) 3 folios, which were then reused for a halakhic text in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya. Merits further examination. ASE