Geniza Lab

Family letter. In Judaeo-Arabic. Almost certainly from a woman, addressed to her cousin (ibn ʿamm). Goitein describes it as a "fragment of a family letter warning a young husband not to squander his wife’s trousseau." The relationships will take some work to figure out. The sender reports that a certain woman heard that her sister's husband is in prison. Referring to another man, "he and his wife are doing well." Then, "Please ask her husband to let her stay with us until she give birth, so that we can look after her, I and her sister. At this point, she inserts the threats—if the husband touches the dowry, she will send a petition/complaint to the Nagid informing him of everything. The sender has sent with Umm Hiba the bearer of the letter two shirts and two malʿabs (toys?). She has purchased garments for the woman and for her mother-in-law (apparently an effort to win her good graces so that she treats her daughter-in-law well, as he writes, "if I hear that she treats her well, God Almighty will reward her"). If the pregnant woman's own mother were not sick, she would have traveled to her. Regards to "the dear girl" and her children and her husband. "I have sent you 3 [...] for the children." מפרכה and her sister send regards. (Information in part from Oded Zinger.) ASE

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic to "my brother." The writer mainly communicates that he arrived at his destination safely, and that he rejoiced to learn of the safe delivery (childbirth) of Muʿazzazah and the wife of Hilāl. The addressee's cousin, Umm Maʿā[nī?] sends her regards.

Letter from Bū l-Karam to his brother Abū Naṣr. In Judaeo-Arabic. Rudimentary handwriting and spelling. Business letter in which the writer informs his brother about business matter but also inserts family news, notably about the health of his wife, who apparently had previously lost her little girl but had just given birth to a baby-boy. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 228, 474)

Letter from an unidentified writer to Eliyyahu the Judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer conveys condolences for a death in the family of Eliyyahu (r6–9). He says that the blow is even harder to bear than his own trials with the sick woman (al-ṣaghīra) in his household. The rest of the letter is about this woman. (Motzkin identifies her with Eliyyahu's daughter-in-law Sitt Ghazāl, but he does not explain why.) The writer asks Eliyyahu to obtain a medical consultation with the Rayyis (Avraham Maimonides?) concerning the patient. The writer provides a detailed, albeit cryptic, account of her problems (r15–v1). First she withdrew from mingling with people (inʿazalat ʿan al-khalṭa—unless this refers to a khilṭ/humor) and remained either silent (sākita) or with some altered mental status (sābita). Those around her attributed this to the wakham (bad air/epidemic) and to her pregnancy. But in the fifth month of her pregnancy, she was afflicted with "dullness of mind (balādat khāṭir), irritability (ḍajar), confusion (taḥayyur), and disorientation (taghayyub)." The family members refrained from giving her any medicine to drink on account of the pregnancy. Finally, God had mercy and she gave birth. (Motzkin understood this as a miscarriage, but the letter does not. She could just as well have carried the fetus to term and given birth to a live child.) But, the writer continues, her situation is still unstable, and they anxiously await Eliyyahu's response with the Rayyis's advice. ASE

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.

Letter from a man to his brother. In Judaeo-Arabic, in a lovely hand. Dating: 11th or 12th century. Refers to the addressee's pilgrimage the preceding year; Qayrawān; how the sender's wife died in giving birth to a son, while he himself was away in Byzantium; how her mother and family sent to recover her dowry (raḥl), valued at 200 quarter-dinars; how he subsequently married a minor girl (ṣabiyya saghīra) who is now pregnant (wa-hiya minnī [fī ḥāl]). (The phrase "...qām al-ḍawʾ" also appears here—the full first word and the meaning are unclear.) The sender has set up a shop in the square of the perfumers, and he is in good health. He refers to a woman (probably their mother) who is in good health and yearns to see the addressee's face. There are a couple lines of business matters at the end (mentions 1000 mithqāls of something and a ship). ASE

Letter from the Gaon Shelomo b. Yehuda, in Ramle, to his son Abū Isḥāq Avraham, in Tyre or Damascus (Shelomo does not know which, so he arranges for the letter to reach Avraham in either case). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: June 27, 1033 CE, based on Gil's assessment. Shelomo had traveled from Jerusalem to Ramle to see his daughter, because she had given birth prematurely to a boy at 7 months. It seemed at first that the newborn would survive (kānat ʿalāmatuhu khayr), but he died soon afterward (r4–6). Shelomo's daughter remains ill with an intermittent fever (r19, where the word "nawba" is probably to be understood in its technical sense of "paroxysm"), however it seems not dangeorusly ill, since Shelomo plans to return to Jerusalem in two days. Shelomo had sent two previous letters with the same content: he had sent one copy to Tyre, to be forwarded to Damascus, and he had given the other copy to a Damascene Muslim in Abu Musa's caravanserai in Ramleh, who was to pass it on to R. Moshe al-Ḥaver (r6–10). Information in part from Goitein's note card and in part from Gil ASE