Geniza Lab

Fragment of a decree mentioning the funds of a dīwān in exchange for something. Late Fatimid (paleographic dating), same chancery hand as some of the docs from Cambridge. The preserved text reads as "wa-l-īrād ḥāfiẓan lī amwāl al-dīwān bādilan fī ".

Order or report in multiple hands to do with 131 dīnārs paid to the treasury (bayt al-māl). Person mentioned is Saʿd al-Mulk Ilyās, possibly a tax collector, asking for the issuing of a decree (al-amr al-ʿalī). Check for joins.

State document. Accounts from the central fisc. Begins: waṣala ilā bayt al-māl al-maʿmūr.... Lower down refers to Mālik b. Ibrāhīm. In the bottom text block on recto, may refer to the capitation tax. At the bottom of recto there is a ṣalwala. There are registration mottos (ʿalāʾīm) on both recto and verso. Needs further examination. ASE & MR.

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dating: 1126–29 CE. Containing a statement about Salāma and Ibn Siman Ṭov, Jewish aides/accomplices to the rapacious Coptic finance minister known as "the monk" (al-rāhib), Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ. The background is summarized by Mark Cohen as follows: "In October 1125, the vizier al-Maʾmun, implicated in a plot against the caliph al-Āmir, was deposed and imprisoned along with five brothers, and later executed (in 1128). The caliph, then twenty-nine years old and tired of being cloistered in the shadows of highhanded dictators, attempted after 1125 to rule by himself. Unfortunately, however, he entrusted financial affairs to a rapacious Coptic bureaucrat, Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ, known as "the Monk" (al-rāhib), who, from the autumn of 1126 until his execution in 1129, managed to terrorize all segments of the populace, including the Jews, with his promiscuous confiscations and arrogant demeanor" (Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, p. 284). This document consists of two manuscripts; the right half is T-S NS J272 and the left half is T-S NS 12.91 (the transcription here includes both documents beginning at line 16). (Information from Goitein's index cards; Mediterranean Society, II, p. 281; and Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, pp. 284–85.)