Geniza Lab

A damaged page from a diwan, probably, of Arabic poetry

Arabic poetry.

Four pages from an Arabic literary treatise on prosody (ʿilm al-ʿarūḍ).

Arabic poetry, calligraphic.

Arabic poetry.

Arabic poetry, probably.

Recto: excerpts of Arabic poetry, transcribed into Judaeo-Arabic. The poem beginning in line 6 is credited to Qays b. al-Mulawwah (Majnun Layla) in some anthologies. Verso: extremely faded Hebrew in large letters. Needs further examination. ASE.

Poem in elegant Arabic script followed by a curious note: (the poet and/or scribe?) "Mukhliṣ al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Hādī l-Islām Iyādi (?) was born in 1233H (1817/88 CE). 1263-30=1233." Presumably he was calculating his date of birth based on knowing that he was currently 30 and that the current year was 1847/48 CE.

From a diwan of Arabic poetry dating from 1847/48 CE.

Poems, probably. In Arabic script. There are also a couple lines of sums in Greek/Coptic numerals.

Arabic poetry. With a popular character: it has extremely short verses with dense rhymes: (1) wa-starhabūhā al-ruhbān. . . wa-staqsamū [..] al-ṣulbān. . . (2) yā ṣāḥ ludhdh bi-alwāḥ wa-nhaḍ [...] al-afrāḥ [...] al-mirāḥ [...] al-aqdāḥ. The latter poem is full of conventional love imagery and reminiscent of Yemeni Shabazian poetry (but there is nothing to suggest that this fragment is late or that it has any connection with Yemen or even with Jews). There is also what may be a name of a woman: Ghālī bt. al-Dawālī.

Letter from Maḥrūz b. Yaʿaqov, in Fustat, to his in-law Abū Zikrī Kohen, in Alexandria. Dating: Sunday, 15 Jumāda = 16 Adar, which is probably 3 March 1135 CE. The letter is an urgent warning advising Abū Zikrī to take all his merchandise out of a warehouse in Alexandria. "A business partner of Abu Zikrī's in Fustat was dying, and because of the lawlessness prevailing at that time in Egypt, Abu Zikrī's goods would be confiscated together with those of the dead man (before 1129, it seems). {The dying man, Abū Saʿīd, was related to Abu Zikrī's partner the well-known Alexandrian India trader Abu Naṣr b. Elishaʿ. Evidently, Abu Saʿīd did not have any heirs of the first degree, and the officials of the diwan al-mawārīth (line 5: aṣḥāb mawarif!), the Office of Estates, which took advantage ofsuch situations, were about to confiscate all ofhis belongings held by Abu Naṣr. Not taking any chances, the officials would sequester Abu Naṣr's assets and, moreover, those of Abū Zikrī, since the partners' holdings were stored together. The Head of the Yeshiva, certainly Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen, who in fact was apparently Abū Zikrī's cousin, personally conveyed the warning to Maḥrūz and instructed him to send immediately an urgent message to his brother-in-law Abū Zikrī. For this purpose, Maḥrūz hired a private courier (najjāb) to Alexandria by camel. In his letter, Maḥrūz tells Abū Zikrī to disregard costs and extricate his wares without delay. The warning is repeated in a postscript written after Musallam (see the previous document) informed the writer that the courier would not set out that night. The Head of the Yeshiva's warning is not related to Abu Zikri's urgent request to him in II, 58, since that letter was written several years after II, 59. No. II, 59 is dated Sunday, 15 Jumada. Since Maḥrūz urges Abu Zikri to return to Fustat to be with his family before the approaching holiday, the date can be fixed with a fair degree of certainty as March 2, 1135, when 15 Jumada I came four weeks before Passover. (I do not know why Goitein assumed the letter had been written before 1129.) As already noted, Maḥrūz was not accustomed to writing, and others penned for him most of his letters, which have been preserved, except for this one and V, 20. Because ofthe urgency ofthis letter, he evidently wrote it himself. His untrained hand, poor style and substandard language, replete with vulgar forms and other orthographic irregularities, prove the wisdom of his normal practice.}" Also of note: Maṣliaḥ Gaon is sick with "the stone" (al-ḥaṣā), i.e., a urinary stone (r17). On verso there are six lines of love poetry in Arabic script. Description based on India Book; see attached. ASE.

Arabic poetry: a close variant of this poem, praising the tongue/speech over other forms of beautyرأيت العز في أدب وعقل وفي الجهل المذلة والهوانوماحسن الرجال لهم بحسن إذا لم يسعد الحسن البيانكفى بالمرء عيباً أن تراه له وجه وليس له لسان

Several stanzas of Judaeo-Arabic poetry, at least partly about wine; late.

Several pages of Judaeo-Arabic poetry on religious themes.

Mystical poetry in Judaeo-Arabic ("shughl ilāhī").

Literary text in Arabic script. Part of contains an epistolary exchange written in verse, full of expressions of heartsickness and longing. The arrangement of the text on recto is interesting: there is a horizontal crease in the middle and the text blocks on either side of the crease are oriented downward, at 180 degrees to each other.

Document in Arabic script. Possibly a medical prescription: the word sharāb (syrup) appears in the first line, and words for weights (dirham and ūqiya) appear several times. There are two fragments under this shelfmark. The lower one is Arabic poetry

One side: A muwashshaḥ by al-Aʿmā al-Tuṭīlī (d. 1126). The other side: More difficult to read, but also contains poetic phrases (ḥumrat al-ward...). ASE.

Both sides consist of Arabic poetry transcribed into Judaeo-Arabic. There is an interesting albeit damaged postscript in a different handwriting (but conceivably the same scribe) that begins "I am the [....] from among those who sung to..." Needs further examination. ASE