Geniza Lab

Legal document. Power of attorney. Dated: November 1050. Location: Fustat. An unsigned assignment of power of attorney from Eleazar Manṣūr ("Head of the Congregations") b. Menaḥem of Aleppo to Hillel b. Avraham. Eleazar waives all right to the claim that Hillel subverted his agency, suggesting this is an unlimited power of attorney. Although documents granting unlimited power of attorney are typically granted to agents effecting marriage, this document reveals Eleazar to have been appointed to collect on an inheritance claim advanced by one Mulūk bt. Neḥuma b. Wahab, a claim described in T-S 18J2.12 (PGPID 3527) wherein Mulūk explains that her inheritance was left by her father’s wife with Tamīm; in this document, Eleazar appoints Hillel to collect Mulūk’s inheritance from "…any person at all, among them… Tamīm…" (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 86-87)

Legal document, testimony from a woman concerning her debt and her husband's inheritance. In the hand of Yefet b. David, the scribe of Efrayim b. Shemarya’s court in Egypt, second quarter of the eleventh century. Refers to Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen (probably b. Furat).

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.)