Geniza Lab

Draft of letter of condolences from Efrayim b. Shemarya on the death of Toviyya b. Daniel, February 1043 (Gil's dating).

Court deposition. The widow Salāma bt. Furayj b. Abī l-Gharīb appoints the Baghdādī Ḥasan/Yefet b. Ṭoviyya/Ṭayyib as her attorney to claim anything due to her late husband Natan/Hiba b. Ḥakam b. Yosef b. Shumaym ha-Levi, and authorizes the expenditure of money, up to 17 dinars, for the transport of her husband's body to Jerusalem. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. The deceased is Saʿdiyya bt. Yūsuf al-Yahūdi. Her father, Yūsuf, is the heir. Dated: Tuesday, 8 Rajab 657 AH, which is 1 July 1259 CE. Witnesses: Hibatallāh b. Faḍāʾil; Bū Saʿd b. Yūsuf b. Sālim. (Information from CUDL and Khan.)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragmentary (horizontal piece from the middle). Mentions a woman going up to Fustat and litigating over 20 dinars. "And if her travel is delayed to pay him the 20 dinars that is part of his merchandise (? raḥluh), she is excused, because her daughter died and she herself became mortally ill, and illness annuls debts." Then the letter, confusingly, appears to address the woman: " go up (iṭlaʿī), and if there is no going up and no payment...." The text in the margin suggests that this letter is a query addressed to a legal authority. On verso there is an unidentified text in a crude hand that includes words in Hebrew, Aramaic, and maybe Judaeo-Arabic.

Letter, possibly a draft, from a man to his family members Moshe and דאני(?). The relationship is unclear: at one point he addresses "my father" and at another point "my brothers." In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Late. The currency שרפי is mentioned in the last line, which is probably the Ottoman sharīfī (first minted 1520 CE) but could also be the Mamlūk ashrafī (first minted 1425 CE). The western Arabic numerals on verso would support a later date. Nearly the entire letter is a moving description of the death of the sender's newborn boy, who did not even live long enough to be circumcised, and the sender's grief for "the noble creature" (khalīqa sharīfa). His heart burns; his eyes are damaged from copious weeping; he has no mind; he cries as he writes this letter. He may also say that he is near death himself. "Every time you wake up a little, and think on the little one, you cry and relapse." He complains about the lack of letters from the addressees. He hopes that Barakāt will stay with him instead of going to them ("if he leaves me, I will go mad"). In the next part, he might remind them to continue sending wheat. On verso there are jottings and accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and what look like western Arabic numerals.

Letter from Yehuda Ibn al-ʿAmmānī, in Alexandria, to Eliyyahu the Judge, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 23 Nisan 1532 Seleucid, which is 1221 CE. There is a lengthy opening with expressions of longing and pleasantries. The addressee is asked to convey a legal query (fatwā) to Avraham Maimonides. Yehuda reports on the death of Hilāl b. Thābit b. Munīr, the brother of the cantor Bū l-Majd (Meʾir b. Yakhin). “[Hilāl] went to rest in the evening and did not awake in the morning. It was the first day of the holiday, and he was buried on the same day; he left a fine boy of sixteen, who studies with me" (trans. Goitein, Med Soc II, 220 and V, 155.) There are photostats and an edition in Goitein's notes (to be uploaded).

Religious literature on death – undated – Bassatine Cemetery – Museum of Islamic Art – (number 189) – in Hebrew. (information from Ḥassanein Muḥammad Rabīʿa, ed., Dalīl Wathā'iq al-Janīza al-Jadīda / Catalogue of the Documents of the New Geniza, 43). MCD.

Legal document. Location: Bilbays. Dated: First decade of Sivan, 1564 Seleucid, which is 1253 CE. Under the reshut of David I Maimonides. Concerning a settlement between Sulaymān b. Yaʿaqov and his brother Nafīs b. Yaʿaqov and Dā'ūd b. Yosef regarding payments for wine left by the late Abū l-Waḥsh b. Sulaymān, who died when a grave collapsed on him. Signed by Avraham b. Elʿazar and Yaḥyā b. Ṭahor ha-Levi. (Information from CUDL and E. Struss-Ashtor, History of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the rule of the Mamluks, 3:12-14) VMR.

Letter of appeal for help, mentioning a recent death, apparently of a husband, leaving the writer (the widow) without livelihood and unable to live with the 'dowager (al-kabira)' (her mother-in-law probably), who is demanding she move out. The lower part of the letter refers to a woman who died in the seventh month of her pregnancy. There is a gap of at least a line or two between the two fragments that comprise this document. It is conceivable that the two fragments belong to two different letters, but they are certainly by the same scribe. Join by Oded Zinger. ASE.

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. The deceased is ʿAlāʾ bt. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ b. Bū Saʿīd (Khan suggests this is the same Bū Saʿīd as in T-S NS 297.1, another report of the death of a Jewish woman). Dated: Thursday, 20 Dhū l-Qaʿda 682 AH, which is 18 February 1284 CE. She left a father and two sons. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.) On verso and the margins of recto, there are business accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and Greek/Coptic numerals.

Verso: formulary for reports of death in which the names of the deceased, the heirs and the witnesses are left blank. In Arabic script. Dating: Ca. 13th century. (Information from CUDL.)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely Tammuz 1232 CE, and almost definitely 1232–37 CE. See below for explanation. Writer and addressee are unidentified. The writer dictated the letter to his son. They were evidently affluent merchants and suppliers to the army. The letter is mainly about the controversy over the prayer reforms of the Nagid Avraham Maimonides. The sons of the Sixth (the family members of the previous dynasty of Nagids) submitted a petition against Avraham to the Sultan al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, to which Avraham responded with a counter-petition signed by almost 200 people from the community, testifying that he had not forced his prayer reforms on anybody. The writer maintains that all those who signed in favor of Avraham testified falsely and deserve to be punished by the shaving of their beards, for he claims that Avraham certainly did force his prayer reforms on the community in their synagogues. The writer goes on to report on recent deaths, including that of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu (who predeceased his father) and Yūsuf b. al-Kharrāz (who ate dinner and went to sleep and died; in the morning, his face was "black as ink"). There is a section on the prices of various commodities, a section on relations with the military officer Kātib al-ʿArab, and greetings. As for the justification for the dating: Avraham Maimonides died in 1237. There were two sultans named al-Malik al-ʿĀdil. The first was the brother of Saladin and reigned 1200–18. The second was the grandson of the first (the son of al-Malik al-Kāmil) and reigned 1238–40, after the death of Avraham Maimonides. However, during the years 1232–38 when al-Malik al-Kāmil lived in Syria, al-Malik al-ʿĀdil the Younger sometimes represented his father in Egypt. Goitein determined that the reference must be to al-Malik al-ʿĀdil the First, which would date the document to 1204–18. But the plot thickens, because Shelomo b. Eliyyhau—whose death is reported in this document—was still alive in the month of Av in 1231 CE (Med Soc II, 575 n. 60) and Heshvan 1231 CE (Freer F 1908.44H). The present letter is dated Sunday 5 Tammuz. This narrows the window to 1232–37 CE. The trouble is that the 5th of Tammuz can never fall on a Sunday.... so either the scribe was off by a day or meant to write 15th of Tammuz. The latter option is supported by the phrase "may its sadness be turned to joy," which might refer to the upcoming 17th of Tammuz fast. (Information mainly from Friedman's article on this document; see also Mediterranean Society, I, p. 141; II, p. 485).

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. Dated: Monday, 13 Shaʿbān 657 AH, which is 5 August 1259 CE. The deceased is Sutayt bt. Mufaḍḍal. Her heir is her father. The witnesses are Hilāl b. Bū ʿAlī and Bū Saʿīd b. Sālim. There is a validation—stating that the witnesses are trustworthy elders of the Jews—written in the hand of the Nagid David I Maimonides, who signs his name "Dāʾūd the son of the ḥākim Ibrāhīm b. Mūsā, Head of the Jews (Rayyis al-Yahūd)." (Information from Khan.)

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

Testimony concerning the death of a man and his son. In Arabic script. Dated: 5 Shawwāl 427 AH, which is 1 August 1036 CE. The witnesses attest that Ṣadaqa b. ʿAllūn Ibn al-Dabbāb has died in Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān after the death of his son Bū Faraj in the town of al-Lādhiqiyya (Latakia) and that his sole heir is his daughter Yamānī, the wife of Mawhūb b. Bashshār. Witnesses: Salāma b. Isḥāq; ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn; Yūsuf b. Menashshe; Barakāt b. Menaḥem b. Mubārak. Three of the signatures have צח ("valid") in Hebrew script above them. As the witnesses are Jews, this would not have been regarded as a valid legal instrument in a Muslim court. (Information from Khan.)

Report of death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. The deceased is Fakhriyya bt. Abū l-Faraj b. Bū Saʿīd. Her father, Abū l-Faraj, will inherit her possessions. The document is witnessed and signed by Abū l-Ghamr b. Maʿālī and by Mufaḍḍal b. al-Dayyān al-Maskīl (or perhaps al-Rabbān al-Maskīl as Khan has it). Dated: Wednesday, 11 Jumādā II 697 AH, which is 26 March 1298 CE.

Report of the death of a Jewish woman. In Arabic script. The deceased was an adult (kāmil) woman Ḥusn bt. Mūsā, and she was survived by her three sons and heirs, Futūḥ, Ibrāhīm and Makīn. Dated: Thursday, 23 Rabīʿ II 655 AH, which is 10 May 1257 CE.