Geniza Lab

Letter from Moshe Yehoshuaʿ Ashkenazi, in Alexandria, to Alalas y Sahlon, in Cairo (spelled Cairro). Dated: Sunday, 21 Adar II 5480 AM, which is 1720 CE. In Ladino. There is a great deal about business transactions and trouble with the customs office, specifically with a certain accursed Jirjis. Commodities include linen or flax, coral, and kermes (a red dye). Moshe reports on the arrival of a ship from Marseilles bearing wool, raisins, paper, tin, and kermes, among other things. Moshe seems aggravated: "as there are other things to be doing, I will be brief" (ll. 29–30), and "I have carried out a thousand contrabands but have never had so much trouble as with this one" (in standardized Spanish spelling: mil contra bandos hice nunca me tomé tanto ṣaʿar como esto") (l. 33). See "Alpalas y Sahalon" tag for other documents from the same group. (Information from Grace Masback's Princeton senior thesis, April 2021.)

Letter from Maymūn b. Khalfa, Palermo, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. 18 August 1056 (Gil). Describes the movement of goods and ships to and from Sicily. The government of Sicily imposed on Jewish merchants in Palermo a customs import duty (ʿushr), normally imposed only on foreign merchants, because resident Jews cooperated with their foreign partners and declared incoming goods as their property. A judge and other Jews were sent to prison. The writer reproaches Nahray for his dealings with a resident of the island, Sulaymān b. Shaʾul. Also mentions "the ships (plural!) of Abū ʿAbdallah Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ:

Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. Aharon Sijilmāsī, in ʿAydhāb, to Ḥalfon b. Netanel. Dating: 25 Iyyar [4900] AM, which is 14 May 1140 CE. Yiṣḥaq b. Aharon Sijilmāsī wrote this letter from ʿAydhāb nearly 4 months after he departed from Fustat to Aden, as described in document ח65 (where he is called Abū Isḥāq Sijilmāsī). He stayed in ʿAydhāb for a time before traveling further south (he wrote this letter after boarding the ship in ʿAydhāb). In the interim he already sent one letter to Ḥalfon and received one letter in response. The present letter asks Ḥalfon to help the bearer, a fellow man of Sijilmāsa, with some mercantile matters. Yiṣḥaq also reports on (and curses) two Jews who reported him to the government in ʿAydhāb, claiming that he cheated on customs dues for some coral. One of the accusers later drowned. On verso there are also several lines of piyyuṭ. (Information from India Book 4; Hebrew description below.)

Business letter by a young Spanish merchant writing from Fez to his father in Almeria, Spain, revealing that he preferred not to use his father's house in Fez but to stay with friends instead in order to be able to declare his merchandise as destined for a local merchant. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 61-62 and Goitein's translation, attached.) After he was forced to pay the governor (qā'id) and customs inspector (mutawalli al-ʿushūr) and sundry others, "I was sick for three days out of anger and sorrow. Had I possessed here the same courage as I usually have in Almeria, I would have escaped with less than this. But I consoled myself with the solace of one who has no choice."

List of customs paid in Aydhab by Avraham Ibn Yiju, around 1152. III 40a is the top of the page. III, 40b is the bottom of the page. III, 40c is the verso, a draft of a letter written by Avraham b. Yiju for another man and having nothing to do with the India trade, and therefore not edited in Goitein-Friedman. It is, however, edited in Assaf, Texts, 149-51.

Legal/official document in Arabic script. Drawn up in the majlis al-khidma of an amir with grand titles (...majd al-khilāfa ʿizz al-dīn jamāl al-[...] fakhr al-mulk sayf al-dawla wa-[...]hā b. al-M[...]m ṣanīʿat amīr al-muʾminīn...). Dated: 16 Rabīʿ II 504 AH = 1 November 1110 CE. In which Rawʿ b. Ḥammūd, a Muslim funduqānī (proprietor of a caravanserai), undertakes to transport to the Ṣināʿa ("the Arsenal"), the river port of Old Cairo, all falat (goods that had evaded the payment of dues) and all those for which customs had to be paid, whether they had been brought to his own place or to other caravanserais, or had otherwise come to his knowledge. Reused on recto for Hebrew poems. (Information in part from Goitein's note card and Med Soc I, 189–90.)

Letter from Abū l-Manṣūr b. Ṭāhir al-Kohen, in Alexandria, to the Abū ʿAlī Manṣūr b. Yiṣḥaq al-Dimashqī, in Fustat. Dating: 1170s CE. The addressee was just then beginning his commercial career. The letter reports on an decree of Saladin that was proclaimed in Alexandria, halving the customs dues (maks) that had been incumbent on local and foreign Jews and Christians. The ṣāḥib al-dīwān authenticated and registered the decree (athbatahū), and the amir Fakhr al-Dīn ordered for it to be implemented. The local Jews took out the Torah scroll and prostrated themselves and prayed for the government. Also mentions various business dealings, including in sugar, and people including Hibatallāh the trader from Tripoli and Abū l-ʿIzz b. Bishr. (Information in part from CUDL and Frenkel.)

Report of transactions, payments, and assets, mentioning a payment to patrolmen and customs, probably in Alexandria.

Business accounts. In Judaeo-Arabic. Rich and detailed. Mentions goods such as oil and lead. Mentions people such as Yiṣḥaq and Abū ʿImrān. May give details of customs payments. On verso there is Hebrew piyyuṭ.

Legal document dealing with a loan granted by Abū Naṣr Elʿazar b. Karmī Ibn Shabīb to Abū Manṣūr Elʿazar Ibn Zabqala. Dated: Tammuz 1543 Seleucid, which is 1232 CE. Same case as T-S Misc.25.2. Goitein originally described the borrower as a communal official and described the occasion of the loan as public expenses such as dues on the import of myrtles into Fustat. He later wrote, "The 62 Kāmilī fulūs were dirhems and not copper coins and were regarded as an equivalent of 9 Nāṣirī dirhems plus customs dues paid to the makkāsīn Miṣr, the customs officials of Fusṭāṭ. (I had read instead of mksyn - mrsyn, and translated consequently "myrtles"!). Thus, 62 Kāmilī fulūs do not correspond exactly to 9 Nāṣirī dirhems, but to a somewhat higher amount. The customs dues were paid for... anbāq ḥashīsha. Should we assume that in those days not only the leaves and stalks of the hemp, but also its berries were used as drugs?" (Information from Goitein's index cards, Mediterranean Society, I, p. 385, and S. D. Goitein, “Erratum to JESHO 8 [1965] on The Exchange Rate of Gold and Silver Money in Fatimid and Ayyubid Times,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 12, no. 1 (January 1969), 112.) VMR. ASE. Join: Alan Elbaum.

JRL Series B 4089: This document is the continuation of a letter on the recto. The business letter describes commercial transactions, including taxes paid at the customshouse of the port city of Aden in Yemen, and dates to the 12th century. See PGPID 5479.

JRL Series B 4089: This business letter describes commercial transactions and what the author describes as favors or 'gifts' to a fellow trader. The main commodities mentioned are copper and pepper; customs dues, freight charges, porters' fees, and safekeeping are also reported. The mention of a tax paid at al-Furda (the customshouse at the port city of Aden) and the names of Ali al-Nili ('the indigo trader') and Abu Ghalib al-Rubban ('the captain') suggest that the author reports from the port city of Aden in Yemen sometime in the 12th century. The letter continues on the verso. On the men mentioned by name see Goitein and Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages, 145, 603; and 153, 325-27; on al-Furda see Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, passim; and Margariti, Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade, passim. See PGPID 5479.