Geniza Lab

Court record regulating the inheritance of the estate left behind by a Jewish merchant who drowned at sea near Alexandria. His estate was transferred to the Jewish court of Alexandria by the Sahib al-Mawarith (the Muslim judge in charge of estates). The handwriting is that of Amram b. Yiṣḥaq, the relative of Ḥalfon b. Nethanel, who was from Alexandria. (Information from Frenkel; Goitein sets the date as Tevet 4903/January 1143).

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. In a lovely hand; the same scribe seems to have reused numerous Arabic-script documents for literary/liturgical text (see Joins Suggestions). This letter was intended to be sent from Fustat to an addressee who had recently set sail from Alexandria (presumably this is a draft or it was never sent). The letter opens with a quotation from Jeremiah 17:7. A few days after the addressee(s) set out to sea from Alexandria, Abū l-Faḍl (or Ibn al-Faḍl?) Ibn Sabra arrived "drowning" (ghāriq), which caused distress to everybody (did he survive a shipwreck?). The sender reports that the Nile completed its flood (al-māʾ qad awfā) at "5 from 17," which probably means 5 fingers short of 17 cubits. ("A cubit until the height of twelve cubits was divided into twenty-eight fingers, and equaled 0,539m≈54cm. A cubit above the height of twelve cubits consisted of twenty-four fingers, and equaled 0,462m≈46cm," per Kristine Chalyan-Daffner, "Socio-Cultural Attitudes to the Flooding of the Nile (13th–16th Centuries)" (2015).) The sender reports that everything in Egypt is perfect under the ruler (al-Mustanṣir or a vizier?), that new territory is conquered by him every day, that coins have been minted for him, ואלדעוה פי מכות (this phrase is difficult to understand—does it refer to the Fatimid Daʿwa?), and his forces have reached as far as Minyat al-Rudaynī (in the Sharqiyya district in the Nile Delta). ASE.