Geniza Lab

Letter from a certain Dāʾūd to Eliyyahu the Judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. Concerning alimonies (15 dirhams and 3 waybas per month) which the wife of Faraḥ was being paid during the period she was nursing a boy. After she weaned the boy, the family of Faraḥ said they would pay only the money, not the wheat. The sender is fighting with them about this. The brother of Faraḥ, Sālim, left and went to the army camp (al-ʿaskar). The sender asks Eliyyahu to bring up this matter with 'sayydinā' (probably Avraham Maimonides).(Information in part from Goitein’s index card)

Legal document. Dated Thursday 26 Elul 1386 Sel. (September 1075 CE). There is an invocation of the Nagid Yehuda b. Seʿadya at the beginning. Yiṣḥaq b. Musāfir b. Pinḥas b. Zurayq, heir to his maternal uncle Yūsuf b. ʿAbdallāh's estate registers a claim against Avraham b. Naṣīr ha-Levi, with whom his uncle had deposited some of his belongings. In the deposition before the Fusṭāṭ tribunal, Avrahām acknowledged that he had stored the items in his house in Malīj. However, "his house had been plundered (nuhiba) during the pillage which affected Malīj and the whole region" when the entire population was affected by the plunder (nahb). Avraham had managed to secure some of Yūsuf's possessions but he was "intercepted and waylaid by the Lawāta Berbers who robbed him of his clothes and those of Yūsuf that he was carrying" (Cohen, Self-government, pg. 59). The pillage had most likely taken place during the period of lawlessness and famine, 1062–74 CE. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Med Soc V, p.524, n.110.) The document was written around the text of a fiscal account in Arabic relating to the kharāj payments of 437 Kharaji (ca. 1046 CE) (PGPID 34343). YU

Letter in Arabic script. Some kind of (state?) report on agricultural activities this year? وقد زرع في هذه السنة... وجميع الفلاحين فيها فلاحين السلطان... احد العسكرية هذا سوا ما يزرع فيها من الارز... باطلاق عمارة في الضياع ال... وانكشفت جميع الناس. On verso there is a Hebrew literary text (as well as between the lines on Bodl. MS heb. f 107/34).

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Long and full of interesting details. Tells a long story on recto concerning a eunuch, the amir Murhaf al-Dawla, the king, and someone named al-Numayrī, and someone and "his slave who is his wife." At the end mentions a woman who fasts and prays for an absent young man (presumably her son). Needs further examination.

Original document: Accounts in very small Arabic script. Subsequent document: Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic addressed to a woman. Written in the spaces around the original Arabic script. The writer reports on his meeting with the prospective groom of the addressee's daughter, in which they reached an agreement that the man would go to Bilbays and betroth (yuqaddis ʿalā) the woman (al-ṣughayyira) there and maintain her until Shavuʿot (al-ʿAnṣara), at which time the wedding will take place (yadkhulu baytahu). The early marriage payment is to be 5 dinars "with the conditions" (bi-l-shurūṭ: on this term see Ashur's dissertation, p. 217, n. 9) and the late marriage payment 20 dinars. Following the betrothal, the fiance's brother is going to take her to Cairo and rent her a house and maintain her until Shavuʿot when the marriage will take place. The writer warns the addressee 'not to let him come close' without paying the 5 dinars of the early marriage payment. He then suggests that there will be a second betrothal (taqdīs/qiddushin) ceremony in Cairo. He exhorts the addressee to be diligent in all this so that her daughter will obtain her livelihood/support. The letter becomes more difficult to understand around here. The writer mentions the army or army camp (al-ʿaskar) in connection with his own affairs. The letter is very faded in some places; this reading is provisional. Merits further examination. ASE.

Letter from Manṣūr b. Sālim, a worried father, to a figure of authority asking him to help him locate and bring back his son who has left home and joined the army. Other documents written on the same issue are: T-S 13 J 28.17, T-S 12.415, T-S Ar.18(1).137, T-S 10J13.10 and T-S 10J14.12.

Letter from a cantor of Mosul. T-S 12.257r is continued in T-S K25.209 and ends in T-S 12.257v. The letter is written in childish script, often omitting letters. The sender cites his eye illness to excuse his bad script. He travelled with a Nasi to Egypt. In Alexandria, he bought something nice for 15 dinars for his wife. Then he had some very dramatic adventures on the way to Cairo including a brush with the army and a companion detained by the (Ayyubid?) military and accused of being a Frankish spy. (Information in part from Goitein's note card and transcription.) In the handwriting of the same scribe: T-S 13J14.22 and T-S 6J5.1. The join with T-S AS 145.278 was identified by Alan Elbaum.

Letter draft from Efrayim b. Shemarya to Shelomo b. Yehuda. Fragment: the upper part only. Dating: probably 1028 CE (Gil's estimate). The letter praises the army's victory. Written on the front and back of a chancery decree fragment (see PGPID 35179).

Letter from an army doctor, in Ashmūm Ṭannāḥ (present-day Ashmūn al-Rummān), to his son, in an unknown location. The purpose of the letter is to excuse himself for failing to attend his wife's confinement, for he has no choice but to obey the amir's orders. He urges his son to buy her anything she wishes. He relates that the amir first sent him to Salmūn where he stayed treating a Mamlūk until he recovered on Monday. The doctor was then sent to Damietta, and returned to Ashmūm on Tuesday after suffering terribly from the riding. His son's letter informing him of his wife's labor, and her anger at his absence, reached him on Wednesday with al-Kohen (the same day he is writing the present letter). The writer does not anticipate being able to leave before Monday, as the amir will want to take his medicine on Sunday. Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 380, 610. ASE.

Verso (original use): Petition in Arabic script. Somewhat rudimentary hand. Possibly to the caliph himself (al-ḥaḍra al-ṭāhira). The sender desires to be sent to Syria to fight (raghiba al-jihād) with the victorious army (...wa-yatajarrad ilā al-Shām fī jumlat al-ʿaskar al-manṣūr wa-yabdhul majhūdahu fī al-khidma al-sharīfa...). The addressee is asked to issue an order to the Kātib al-Jaysh ordering his deployment (tajrīd). Recto (secondary use): Informal note in Arabic script confirming the granting of a gift without any conditions.

Letter addressed to a judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1221–52 CE, as it mentions Crusaders ("Franks") fighting at al-Manṣūra 2 years prior. At that time, Sayyidnā al-Nasi intended to borrow from the sender a beautiful copy of the book of Īlāqī (probably al-Īlāqī's epitome of the first book of Avicenna's Canon) in order to copy it for the addressee. The Crusaders were attacking al-Manṣūra, and the sender was in the army camp together with a gentile (presumably Muslim). He had three books with him, including a commentary and some of the 'kalām' of Maimonides (=Guide for the Perplexed?) as well as the Īlāqī. The Muslim companion had no eyes for anything but the Īlāqī, and he offered money to borrow it, copy it, and return it. As everyone was penniless at the time, the sender agreed, but he never saw the book again. Sayyidnā al-Nasi already forgave the sender for this, but is making him write this letter to explain the situation to the addressee. The addressee must not think that he is being negligent in finding another ('regular') copy to use for his purposes. Everyone he asks either says they don't have it, or they're worried he'll make off with it and give it to the Nasi. ASE

Recto: Petition to the vizier Ibn al-Salār from an impoverished army veteran who had served in ʿAsqalān. Dating: 544–48 AH, which is 1149–53 CE. (Information from Khan.)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions Abū l-Faraj Ibn al-Rayyis (=Eliyyahu the Judge). Mentions receiving a letter from a woman about her brother-in-law who went to the army. There are a few lines in Arabic script on verso, likely the address.

Letter from Avraham b. Moshe b. Ṣalḥūn to Abū l-Bayān(?) Moshe b. Yishmaʿel al-Kātib fī Dīwān al-Jaysh (i.e., a military administrator). In Hebrew (for the long opening and one address), Judaeo-Arabic (for the body of the letter), and also Arabic script (for the other address). There was probably once a lower portion of the letter that was glued on but which subsequently got torn off. Nothing is preserved of the body of the letter except for greetings.