Geniza Lab

Legal document. Loan terms. Dated: September 1239. Location: Bilbays. Between Amram b. Ḥalfon and Avraham b. Efrayim. Initially described as commenda (qirāḍ) but re-negotiated into a loan with a fixed rate of interest at 20 dirhams on the 36 dinars of capital. Emerged both from Jewish and Islamic courts. The renegotiation is because of Abraham's failure as the active partner in the qirāḍ: under pressure from Amram in the Islamic courts, he deeds his house to Amram for the value of 36 dinars. This sale is confirmed in the Jewish courts with a codicil that Avraham can redeem the house by repaying the loan (which has an initial term of four years) within 12 years. Avraham had given Amram promissory notes prior to this sale, produced in Jewish and Islamic courts. Following the debt restructuring, a ban placed on Avraham (likely in some earlier document) by the judge Peraḥya is lifted. In this case, the ban was brought down on anyone who had information concerning the partnership yet had not come forward to testify. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 5-7)

Letter sent from Cairo to Bilbays containing a request to contribute to the capitation tax of a poor teacher and his son. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from the physician Ibrahim to the physician Ya‘qub in Bilbays, whom he addresses as “my brother.” Ibrahim rebukes Ya‘qub for his failure to send letters or to fulfill his end of various agreements. This is a response to a recent letter in which Ya‘qub rebuked Ibrahim for a delay in forwarding the recipes of two compound drugs: the preventer (al-māni‘) and a drug for swelling (li-l-natwā). Ibrahim explains that he had to research the former and that he had to wait for Abu l-Baha to arrive and verify his recipe for the latter. He promises to send the mirror and the sign together with the rest of Ya‘qub’s goods, but not until Ya‘qub sends him the Shaykh, a medical textbook. Abu l-Ḥasan the physician is also upset at Ya‘qub’s tardiness and failure to communicate, and Ibrahim has had to make excuses for him, saying that he is busy in the shop. After finishing the letter, Ibrahim wrote the requested prescriptions in the margins (one version of the Preventer and two versions of the drug for swelling) and noted that all the ingredients for the third prescription are available in Bilbays. In yet another postscript, he emphasizes that it is only to be used after purging the patient. Greetings are sent by: Abu l-Ḥasan the physician. Greetings are sent to: Ya‘qub’s brothers, Najib, and R. Shemuel. ASE.

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Location: Bilbays. Dated: January 1209. This document is a partnership agreement in a perfume- and dye-manufacturing shop. The partners, Faḍā’il b. Abū al-Ḥasan and Manṣūr b. Abū Sa‘īd, contribute a total of 700 dirhams (200 and 500 dirhams respectively). The document doesn't use the formal terms shirka or mu‘āmala to describe their relationship, but the parties attest to "having partnered" in the shop. Both partners seem to work in the operation, profits and losses are generally to be split equally, and weekly maintenance is specified for each party. Manṣūr seems to be the senior partner; he brings more assets to the partnership, and the facility itself may belong to him, as he is allocated 4 dirhams of rent for the shop each month. However, income from the sale of scent sachets was allocated to Faḍā’il, who may have produced these alone without Manṣūr's assistance. Written and signed by Yehuda b. Tuvyahu he-Ḥaver ha-Kohen, Meshullam b. Mevorakh and Berakhot b. Elazar ha-Ḥazzan. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 73-74) The verso is a bifolium of a bible.

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.

One of two drafts (the other is T-S G1.26) of a curious and obsequious letter from a man whose handwriting is known, apparently to a man named Yahya b. Khalid who has a son named Abu l-Mahasin. In this version: he describes how he saw the recipient in the kitchen on Sunday and an idea occurred to him that the recipient approved of (possibly to travel to somewhere other than Bilbays?). However, the writer decided it would be better for him to travel to Bilbays. He has not traveled yet, because it is unthinkable to travel when the doors of the house are still in their sorry state: the main door needs to be fixed, and the door of the upper floor/apartment needs to be replaced completely. He alludes to his illness. He then gives his excuse for not having come to attend the recipient (before he traveled?) as requested. He has had a fever since Friday. When he heard that his presence was requested, he was in the middle of Musaf, having just reached Ashrei, and he rushed to fulfill the command but found only the boy Abu l-Mahasin, to whom he explained the matter. He concludes with blessings. Other letters that may be in his handwriting (distinctive in part for including Arabic diacritics over Hebrew letters, e.g. two dots for "t" and three dots for "th"): T-S 12.346, T-S 8J15.20, T-S 12.652 (dated after 1165/6), and T-S AS 151.22. ASE.

Letter from a certain Moshe to his son, the physician Avraham. Fragment. In Judaeo-Arabic. What remains is largely taken up with expressions of the preoccupation of the writer and his wife for their son's health. If they receive good news of Avraham, his mother rejoices, and if they receive bad news, she becomes sad and distressed. Moshe and his wife seem to be concerned because Avraham is traveling frequently (r11–15), and perhaps because of something to do with his wife (rm1). On verso, there are repetitive instructions about not allowing a certain man (Avraham's brother?) to go anywhere without taking Avraham's mother with him. At the end of the letter, Moshe reports that he has obtained the ophthalmic medications (ashyāf) from the physician Abū l-Faraj as requested, and has forwarded them along with a letter from the same Abū l-Faraj. Several towns of the Delta are mentioned in the letter: Bilbays, Minyat Ghamr, and—if this a place name—al-Ṣāliḥiyya. Avraham responded on the same piece of paper, writing nothing more than that he read the letter and thanked God for the health of his father and mother and the children. There are also some Arabic jottings on verso. ASE.

Letter from Judge Eliyyahu to his colleague David ha-Kohen in Bilbays addressing a query; asks whether one Bushr, daughter of Asad, had formally dissolved a previous engagement and is free to remarry.

Letter asking for financial help, sent from Jerusalem to Bilbays and signed by Yosef b. Gershon and Jehiel Sarfati (the Frenchman).

Letter from Surūr, in Bilbays, to his widowed mother, in Cairo, who lives with her two other sons Faraj Allāh and Rashīd. The letter deals with a case to be brought before the Nagid Yehoshua Maimonides (1310–55) b. Avraham II (1245–1313) b. David (1222–1300) b. Avraham (1186–1237) b. Moshe (1135–1204), containing circumstantial evidence (amāra) and details sustaining it. The first part of the letter (r1–17) includes lengthy apologies for failing to visit when he heard that his mother was sick. He was unable to come because of the expense of renting an animal, the danger of the journey, and because he was suffering from ophthalmia ('but now, thank God, I am better'). In the next part of the letter (r18–v1), he informs his mother that he remarried four months earlier, to a beautiful virgin who shares all of his mother's good traits and who is the fulfillment of his mother's prayers for him. His wife is distressed on behalf of her mother-in-law's illness and wishes to come to visit. Goitein suggests that the key to why Surūr neglected to tell his mother or ask her permission prior to the marriage lies in his neglect to mention his wife's name or that she comes from a good family. Most likely, she did not come from a good family, and his mother would have disapproved. In the third part of the letter (v1–27), he gets to the main purpose of writing: he had loaned a siddur to a pilgrim to Palestine named Fakhr against a security of 6.5 nuqra dirhams (containing three times as much silver as regular dirhams). Now that Fakhr has returned to Cairo, he has heard that family members already returned the silver, but Fakhr refused to return the siddur. The writer wishes Fakhr to be pressured to return the siddur. He suggests first that his family tell Sulaymān al-ʿAṭṭār, who mediated the original loan/security, "So-and-so [Surūr] says such-and-such to you with the following signs." He then recounts the story of how Sulaymān and Fakhr stayed in the khān in Bilbays with six other pilgrims (al-Shaykh Muwaffaq the cantor, Saʿīd b. al-Kātib, Nāṣir b. Ṭayyib, Yehoshua b. al-Ghāriq, Mūsā b. Mardūk, and Ibn Abū Saʿd al-Khādim), and how they were stranded there over Shabbat when the caravan left. If Sulaymān's intervention doesn't work, Surūr's brother Faraj Allāh should approach the Nagid Yehoshua. He then gives "signs" to remind the Nagid of his case: how, when he visited Bilbays, he spoke with Surūr about the copy of a Bible belonging to Yaʿqūb the brother of the teacher; how the Nagid was involved in Surūr's divorce from his first wife; and how the Nagid went to see the head of police (wālī) of Bilbays, who directed him to the Qadi, who was not available. If this doesn't work, he suggests that his brother go to Yaʿqūb the brother of the teacher and solicit his help. Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 337, 601 and from Goitein's Tarbiz article on Yehoshua Maimonides. ASE.

Text of a will, Fustat, 1250, as well as a draft of a letter to Abu l-Ḥasan, a judge in Bilbays. At the top of the page some books of Hayy Gaʾon are mentioned, which are in the possession of the Nasi. (Information from CUDL)

Letter mentioning R. Hananel he-Hasid, written in the time of David Maimonides I. (Information from Paul Fenton, Tarbiz 55 [1956], p. 78) VMR

Letter from a woman, unknown location, to her brother Yūsuf b. Makārim the cantor and dyer, in Bilbays. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. Dating: Likely 15th or 16th century, per Goitein. Contents: The writer is ill, possibly with ophthalmia. She asks for instructions concerning various matters, many having to do with their house. (Information in part from Goitein's index cards and CUDL.) EMS. ASE.

Letter from Avraham b. Rav Shelomo the Yemeni, in Jerusalem, to Eliyyahu the Judge in Fustat. Avraham lives with Eliyyahu's son, the physician Abu Zikri, and he conveys the good news that Abu Zikri has recovered from his febrile illness and has not relapsed for forty days. Avraham's family recently arrived from Bilbays. On verso are jottings and accounts in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. Same writer and recipient as T-S 13J21.5, which was written not long after this one (Goitein's note cards suggest ca. 1214). Alan Elbaum.

Engagement (‘shiddukhin’) contract drafted in Bilbays, 1218, for a nine-year-old orphan girl named Sutayt, noting that she will “enter the huppa in the year 1523 (= 1221 CE), three years from today.” (Eve Krakowski, “Female adolescence in the Cairo Geniza documents,” PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2012, 84, 251). Recto and verso relate to the same case; see also T-S 8J9.13 recto. EMS Written by Yehuda Hakohen b. Tuviahu, who serves as the muqaddam of Bilbays. Published by Ashur, Engagement documents, p. 116-120. See also Mosseri VII.124.1, probably another contract related to the same couple.

Letter from Avraham b. Saadya the Hebronite, (the muqaddam of?) Bilbays, to Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel the Sefaradi, Fustat, beginning of the twelfth century. Discusses in detail the communal problems that arose around the proposal of tearing down the synagogue and rebuilding it. The Muslm governor said that a synagogue may not be built under the reign of al-Mawla al-Afḍal. Verso has been reused for drafts of Arabic medical writings. CUDL description: Recto: letter in Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic from Abraham b. Saʿadya he-Ḥebroni, on behalf of refugees from Hebron that are now in Bilbays. Abraham writes to Isaac b. Shemuʾel ha-Sefaradi (active ca. 1090-1130 CE) in Fusṭāṭ, concerning the building of a new synagogue in Bilbays, replacing an old synagogue that had been torn down. The entire community joined forces to dismantle the synagogue and rebuild the new building. The letter lists the donations given by members of the community, and describes in detail the surrounding properties and their owners. A muslim judge initially objected to the construction of the new synagogue, so the community tactically rebranded their construction as a ‘home’, to which the judge had no objection. Verso: jottings of an Arabic philosophical text. (Information from CUDL)

Deeds of sale issued by Ottoman courts in 1519CE, with a possible endorsement on the verso mentioning both 925AH and 926AH (1519CE-1520CE). The ḥujja on the recto was recorded by an unknown qadi court (possibly in Baḥṭīṭ or nearby Bilbeis) in 925AH. The ḥujja on the verso was clearly issued by the chief qadi court in Cairo "al-Bāb al-ʿĀlī" (l. 3v). The properties which are being sold on the recto are in Bilbays (l. 7r, 11r) and purchased by a Jewish dyer from Baḥṭīṭ (l. 2r). There is extensive description of the spatial orientation and perimeters of these properties. This fragment was first cited by Goitein in Med. Soc. III in 1978 and, most recently, by James Baldwin on p.36 of the book Islamic Law and Empire in Ottoman Cairo (2017). For a full overview of relevant citations see the FGP bibliography for this fragment. MCD. (information from Goitein's index cards, Baldwin, and Baker/Polliack catalogue).

Draft of a note or draft in the hand of Avraham b. Moshe b. Maymūn (Abraham Maimonides) addressed to Yehuda Hakohen (b. Tuviahu) who was the muqqdam of Bilbays (1170's - 1218), including the Arabic phrase muqaddam al-yahūd Bilbays. AA

Letter from Abū Niʿma to Eliyyahu the Judge. Concerning a complaint filed by the daughter of the late Abū l-Maḥāsin. Mentions Bilbays and Muslims. There is one line of faded Arabic script on verso, likely the address. (Information in part from CUDL)

Small fragment from a letter. The writer is informing about Bilbays, and refer to the order of 'our master'. Also referring to the Haver may his memory be blessed. On verso few words in vocalized Hebrew script.