Geniza Lab

Account for funeral expenses of a poor (travelling?) man who had lived in a pious foundation belonging to the community. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dated: 18 January 1061. Location: Fustat. This document initiates a partnership in the ritual washing of corpses. Sulaymān b. Ḥusayn and his son Isḥaq take on a third partner, Daʾūd b. Ḥasan (nicknamed Abū Jaʿd, "Curly"), who will receive a quarter of all revenues. The three worked in shifts, with one on duty at any given time, but the other two partners agree to work outside of their regularly scheduled shifts if necessary. Isḥaq’s share in the profits is not stipulated. All funds are to be given to Suleyman, suggesting that Isḥaq and Dāwūd may have been his apprentices. No partnership term is given. The document states explicitly that the terms of the contract are immutable. Signed by: ʿEli b. ʿAmram ha-Levi; Shemuel b. Avraham; and Surūr b. Ḥayyim Ibn Sabra. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 95)

Letter from Mevorakh b. Natan to Elazar ha-Kohen expressing sympathy at the death of his father. The writer notes that he had already sent a letter to the same effect but was afraid that it had gone astray. He excuses himself for not attending the funeral because of his poor health. Second half of the 12th century. (Information from Goitein's index cards and CUDL)

Letter by a Karaite woman to three different family members. The language is opaque in many places. (1) To her mother, she opens with her sadness at her mother's departure. "Your love did not overcome [your desire to leave]." She then lists all the people who have died (mātū yā ummī māt. . .): the elderly Dāwudiyya (female descendant of David); the wife of al-Kāzarūnī who was the paternal aunt of the wife of Yehuda; the son of Ibrahim the Deaf—no one has been able to bury him for two days, "they say he is ḥashrī," probably meaning "without heirs" rather than "verminous" (see Lecker, "Customs Dues at the Time of Muhammad," al-Qantara, XXII, 2001, p. 33). (Unless the concentration of deaths means it was plague time, and some corpses were regarded as hazardous?) As for the writer's own news, she swears by the Sabbath day that she has had financial trouble with her landlord, who seems to have given her a loan and to have come on Friday to demand a payment. She had to pawn her daughter's ring. "Do not ask what trouble I had with Maʿānī yesterday. Tell him (the landlord?), 'He (Maʿānī?) is not hiding. It is just that he has had ophthalmia (ramad) for 20 days. Be patient. He will soon work and repay you in installments just like he took (the loan) in installments.'" The bottom of the letter may be missing. On verso, she addresses (2) Abū Manṣūr, and exhorts him, "Be diligent in your work, and everything will turn out well for you (yajīk kull shay' mustawī)." She makes some cryptic statements, which may mean, "As for what Umm Yehuda said, pay no mind. I have told you that the Rabbanite should pay the debt of the Samaritan on your behalf. This would be good luck and an end to the setbacks." (It is from this line that Goitein deduced that the writer was a Karaite.) She says she is working as hard as she can for the sake of "the dowry" (? al-mahr) and has already paid ʿUbayd a qadaḥ and a half of flour and some honey and two pieces of firewood and a qadaḥ of vetch (julubbān) and lye (? ghāsūl). She mentions an underfilled (? muṭaffafa) clay vessel (burniyya) and asks the addressees to send it back to her properly filled (lā tuṭaffūhā). Finally, she addresses (3) her brother Abū Thābit. "I have no counsel for you except that they are your guests. Do not be heartsick on your brother's account. Do not spurn (? tufqir) my advice, and you will overcome much misfortune (?). Do good deeds. He who digs the hole (al-zūbīya) falls in it. Do not lay a hand on him. . . You will regret it very much and say, 'That old woman (al-qaḥba) my sister was right.'" ASE.

Letter, likely sent to Abū l-Majd Meir b. Yakhin, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 1216/17 CE (1528 Seleucid). The writer urges the addressee to come see his sister, who is very sick. She has a throbbing pain (ḍarabān) in her right hip; a burning pain in her heart; a nonhealing wound (the word looks like khalal) in her right thigh; and her tongue is dry. She prays to God that she will see the addressee's face before she dies. "When your [brother?] said to her, 'Let her take the rhubarb-barberry pastille and make it […] and hopefully it will abate,' my master, she said, 'I do not want any of this unless he obtains a prescription, and the prescribing physician prepares it for me and sends it.' This is deliverance, my master. They prescribed hiera oil (duhn al-iyārij) for her thigh, but it was not effective. What is killing her is the pain in her thigh. I do not need to urge you to come. If her condition becomes fatal, your mother will die next. She will never live after her. The best is for them to slake their yearning for you, and you will gain your mother’s prayers." The letter continues with an update on the addressee's brother Hilāl ('his condition is the same'); a description of a large funeral; something to do with the addressee's request for Masā'il Ḥullin and how he needs to be more specific; a long series of rebukes for the addressee's negligence in writing; and regards to various people. ASE.

Will of Wuhsha, the broker, detailing various items and sums of money willed to relatives and charitable and religious purposes; appointment and provisions for a son born out of wedlock as heir and what to do if he dies before reaching maturity; funeral expenses; and references to previously-made declarations. The total amount of sums referred to in the will is 689 dinars, a large fortune, and the denoted funeral expenses were lavish for the time. Regarding the father of her only child, Wuhsha notes, “He shall not get a penny.” (S. D. Goitein, “A Jewish Business Woman of the Eleventh Century,” Jewish Quarterly Review, 1967, 229-41) EMS

Fragment of a will of the teacher Sittuna bat Avraham the parnas. She leaves a property to the son of her sister's daughter, who will pay her funeral expenses out of the income of this property, and her personal belongings to her sister's daughter. (Information from Goitein's index cards)