Geniza Lab

Detailed but incomplete letter to an army doctor, possibly from his son-in-law, end of the 11th century. Contains many details about accounts, selling of books, the health of the family, misfortunes of acquaintances, and public affairs. The family had houses in Cairo and Fustat and also agriculture land where they kept sheep, certainly for the production of cheese. (Information from Goitein index card and notes linked below.)

Deathbed will of a notable, dividing his landed property, his flocks of sheep and all the orchards possessed or leased by him between his brother and his children, and making stipulations for his widow. In the hand of and witnessed by Hillel b. ʿEli. The dying man appoints his brother as the will’s executor explicitly stating that no court may interfere with his actions. A copy of this will is found in T-S 20.99. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below and Goitein, Mediterranean Society, Vol. 1, pp. 117, 425 and Vol. 3, p. 259, 299, 493n97.)

Family letter from Natan b. Yehuda (Alexandria, ca. 1160) to Moshe b. Ṣemaḥ and his brother (Fustat), the writer’s cousins-in-law. Natan b. Yehuda reports that everyone in the house was ill because of a great epidemic of sweating sickness (wakham) in Alexandria. He praises the brothers for their munificence but also politely reminds them that it was time for them to marry and wishes that their mother may see their “joy”. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below and from Goitein, MedSoc, Vol. 3, p. 61 and p. 440n61 and Vol. 5, p. 113.)

Draft(?) of a court record. Dated: 29 Nisan 1543 Seleucid, which is April 1232 CE. The widow (Sitt al-)Tujjār bt. Manṣūr claims that 10 shares in a house in Bilbays belong to her children as heirs of her husband. Tujjār's sister-in-law's husband, Abū l-ʿAlāʾ b. Yosef ha-Kohen, produces Arabic deeds, not confirmed by a Jewish court, showing that the children's grandmother had sold him those shares. He asserted that in Bilbays such confirmations are not customary. Tujjār produces a Hebrew document witnessed, but not validated by a court. At the advice of experts, Abū l-ʿAlāʾ agrees to pay his nephews 300 dirhams. (Information from Goitein, Med Soc, vol. 4, p. 276, and Goitein notes and index card linked below.)

Letter from a mother in Aden to her son in Egypt.

Letter from Yosef b. Shemuel al-Dani in Palermo to Isma’il b. Avraham in Damsis. The first part of the letter deals with the tragedy that happened in the sea, near Gabes (Qābis), on the way to Sicily. After the writer arrived in Sicily, he found out that he had been expelled from his house. In the other part, Yosef writes about his wife that is still in Egypt. He wrote her a divorce certificate in case he will not be able to come back. He is willing to sell his land and take the risk to come back to Egypt, to take her and their son to Palermo, if she swears she will go with him. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #173) VMR

Letter from a man, in Fustat, to his mother, unknown location. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably 12th or maybe 13th century. He speaks about his children (he probably also had a wife). He had been in al-Maḥalla for 2 months, then came to Fustat intending to stay only 5 days, but it was impossible to leave on account of the children. He now sends her 40 dirhams with Ibrāhim Ibn al-Ashqar. She should pay 5 to Abū ʿAlī and buy 10 dirhams of wheat (qamḥ) for the children. He gives further difficult-to-understand instructions for what to do with the rest of the money—maybe orders for spinning (istighzāl)? He is staying with Abū Naṣr b. Karīm at Qaʿāt al-Fāḍil. (Information from Goitein’s index card.)

Letter (likely a draft) dictated by the wife and written by the son (Zayn al-Dār) of the India trader ʿAllān b. Ḥassūn, beseeching him to return. She has just weaned the infant, who has been sick. The only other adult male in the family has also been absent. The family is in financial straits and has had to sell household furnishings and lease the upper floor in order to pay the physician and buy medicine and two chickens every day. (Information from Med Soc III, 194, where there is also a translation.) "When a boy writing to his father abroad sends regards from his mother, grandmother, maternal aunts, the widow of a paternal uncle, and the maidservant, and adds, ‘The travel of Grandpa coincided with yours so that we have become like orphans," one gets the impression that all the persons mentioned formed one household.’” (Goitein, Med. Soc., 3:39 at n. 28.) "Adult children showed their reverence toward their parents by kissing their hands, or hands and feet—at least in letters." (Goitein, Med. Soc., viii, C, 2, n. 116; see also T-S 10J17.3, CUL Or.1081 J5, T-S 16.265 and T-S 13J24.22.)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Long. Dating: Probably 13th century or later, based on the script, but this is a guess. Mentioning some problems in the family. The writer is a stoic: "maḍā alladhī maḍā. . . fāt alladhī fāt."

Letter from Sulaymān to his father. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. There is also a basmala in Arabic script followed by "al-mamlūk Sulaymān" at the top of recto. The sender urges his father to spend the holiday with him, as he was accustomed to doing, although at that time he had urged the writer to visit with him. He also reports that his wife is pregnant. On verso there is also poetry in Arabic script and additional jottings in Arabic script. (Information from Cecilia Palombo, CUDL, and Mediterranean Society, V, 15).

Letter from Yeshuʿa b. Ismaʿīl al-Makmūrī (Fustat) to ʿAyyāsh b. Ṣedaqa (Alexandria), ca. 1050. Yeshuʿa b. Ismaʿīl al-Makmūrī asks ʿAyyāsh b. Ṣedaqa to secretly find out if his brother-in-law is planning to send him any merchandise. ʿAyyāsh b. Ṣedaqa wrote some draft accounts in the free space left on the verso of the letter. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 56. See Goiteins notes linked below.)

Letter from a brother admonishing Sitt Ikhtiṣār and Sitt al-Wasṭāniyya to take good care of their mother and younger sister (by pawning something to send them money to buy grain). Note that he addresses the women in one part of the letter but switches to addressing a man in the remainder. The sender has sent two sleeping carpets (waṭāwayn), one for the girl (al-ṣabiyya) and the other for Misk ("Musk"), the girl's female slave (jāriya). The handwriting of this letter looks very similar or identical with that of T-S NS J3, and some of the same names appear in each letter, including Abū l-Surūr, Abū ʿAlī, and Sitt Ikhtiṣār. (Information in part from Goitein's index cards.) ASE

Letter. Family letter dealing with grain and payments, and extending greetings. Largely effaced. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from Abū l-Manṣūr b. Abū l-Faraj al-Qubaybiyya(!) to his mother in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. He apologizes for not visiting the house while he has been away on a business trip, probably from Fustat to the Ṣaʿīd (upper Egypt). He also writes that his business trip was successful, despite some difficulties, and that she should not worry. (In a postscript: "If you are thinking of my journey the time I visited you in Dalāṣ(?) with the camel(?) with its tail cut off—this journey was not like that journey"). He conveys greetings also to his own wife whom he calls ṣāḥibat al-bayt. Goitein reasonably assumed that the word Qubaybiyya referred to the mother, and he noted that two villages in the Aṭfīḥ district are called Qubaybāt. However, the word appears with Abū l-Manṣūr's name rather than his mother's, and the word is unambiguously part of his own name in ENA 2806.4, his petition to Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon. It may be a toponym referring to one of the villages called Qubayba near Jerusalem, especially if this is the same man called al-Muqaddasī/al-Maqdisī in T-S 6J4.12. The feminine ending remains unexplained; maybe it is actually a plural (equivalent to al-Qubaybiyyīn) indicating both his father's origin and his own origin? (Information in part from Goitein's index cards.) ASE

Letter from Mansur b. Salim in Alexandria to a friend in Cairo inquiring about his son, who had run away to the army and had perhaps travelled as far as Yemen. See also T-S 10J13.10 and T-S Ar.18(1).137, letters by the same sender concerning the same matter. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 379)

Letter from Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi (active 1190s–1212 CE), in Qalyūb, to a family member in Fustat. Moshe requests a silver mirwad (stick for applying kohl) that is in the possession of Ibn Yaʿaqov, and he will send the price. He had sent with the bearer a load of lāsīn silk for Abū l-Riḍā the son of Sitt Ziyāda, who is to pay 2.5 dirhams. He wants to know if they have received the silver from Saʿāda the female slave of Ṭāḥir b. al-Ghuzzī and to purchase with it all the goods that Moshe had already told his mother about, viz., polypodium (? אשתיואן); Iraqi incense; frankincense; white mastic. He has sent another letter with the bearer of the letter for Ibn al-Ṭaffāl. He mentions Ibn al-Nuʿmān in the last couple lines. On recto there is a taqbīl clause and three lines of Arabic script in a chancery hand from a presumably Ayyubid government report (see separate entry). ASE.

Letter from Nahray b. Nissim from Fustat to a person in Qayrawan. Around 1045. Mentions galls, Camphor, and shipment of money. Nahray Also expresses his worries for his family in Qayrawan. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #243) VMR

Letter from Mevasser b. David, in Tinnīs, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 22 Elul (25 August [1068 — Gil's inference]), with plentiful blessings for the Jewish new year. Mevasser inquires about previous letters and asks Nahray to pass on any news from Ifrīqiyya. It is rumored that ʿAbdallāh Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ, who became the (last) Muslim ruler of Sicily the following year, arrived in Alexandria in a ghurāb (river boat) and may have escaped. Probably this refers to his flight from the ruler of Ifrīqiyya, Tamīm b. Muʿizz. In the margin of recto, Mevasser offers an apology having to do with his correspondence, because he has an illness (tawajjuʿ), and his son and wife are sick as well, and his entire household, "may God deliver them. What will become of a small baby and his mother—may God exempt you—who do not have anyone to go in for them (from context, perhaps this should be read yadkhul rather than Gil's yattakil) or go out? Every person is occupied with himself (mashghūl bi-rūḥihi)." Gil understands Mevasser's sick family members to be not in Tinnīs with him but in al-Mahdiyya, which is currently under siege, with no ships coming and going (connecting recto, right margin, lines 4–5, with verso, lines 10–11). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, # 695 and Goitein notes linked below.) ASE.

Verso: Drafts of at least half a dozen letters and other texts in Arabic script. One letter (written between the lines of another one) is to the writer's maternal aunt (khālatī sayyidatī al-ʿazīza). This one contains only expressions of longing. The letter around it is addressed to a dignitary and may report that someone has been captured (qubiḍa ʿalā X jazāhu allāh), and may God expose the works of a certain group of dogs (jamāʿat al-kilāb). Another letter is to a dignitary titled Nāṣir al-Dīn, called "the friend of the caliph" (khalīl amīr al-muʾminīn). Another text block is the beginning of the muʿallaqa of Imruʾ al-Qays ("Qifā nabki...") Another text block, located in the margin at 90 degrees to the muʿallaqa, names one of the parties from the Judaeo-Arabic legal document on recto, or perhaps his brother: "...and the slave was employed with Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Sahlawayh b. Ḥusayn in the ṣināʿa (arsenal? manufacture?)." Dating: recto contains a legal document from 1057 CE, so this side is probably later. Merits further examination. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Verso: A man who possessed five-eighths of a house gives one-eighth to his wife and her son as lodgings 'belonging to them forever.' Dated Shevat 1443/January 1132. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 259) Recto: Legal document recording that Sitt al-Husn, daughter of Saadya, sought a gold tiara ('isaba) that she had pawned to the recently-deceased physician Abu al-Murajja b. Daniel against a loan of 24 dinars, from his heirs. A witness testifies that the deceased had forgiven the loan. Dated Tammuz 1440/ July 1129. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 487)