Geniza Lab

Sermon in Judaeo-Arabic based on a narrative of real events. Dated: shortly after Kislev 1460 Seleucid, which is 1148 CE. The writer may be Mevorakh b. Natan (or may be named Zakkay, as written between lines 1 and 2 of recto). On recto he writes "this is a drash (sermon) that I recorded/composed while in mourning for my son Moshe. I heard this on Friday, 13 Kislev 1460..." There are further details here about the date and the day of the week (he notes in the margin that it is a good sign to die on erev shabbat) and the Torah portion that coincided with the shiva in both Fustat and al-Maḥalla (parashat Vayishlaḥ). The sermon begins on verso. "One Friday, 13 Kislev 1460, I was sitting in al-Maḥalla copying books as is my custom, with the boys studying Torah before me. I heard them talking about an ugly business. I said to them, 'What's this that you're talking about?' They said, "Just what we heard." I said, "Who did you hear it from, and on what authority?" They said, "from the family of the cantor" ['bayt' can also mean wife, but here it is marked as a mixed/masculine plural]. I said, "And where did the family of the cantor hear it from?" They said, 'From their relative Maʿānī in Fustat." I sent for Maʿānī, and as God knows, I was present but absent, estranged, alone, and lonely due to the remnants of an illness and [due to being] surrounded by enemies who await my public downfall..."

Ownership inscription of a book that belonged to Mevasser b. Yeshuʿa ha-Levi. The book was then purchased by Nadiv b. Saʿadya ha-Levi in 1469 of the Seleucid Era (= 1157 CE) and later inherited by Shelomo b. Shemuel ha-Levi. In the top part of recto, there are Judaeo-Arabic notes in which an unidentified person recorded all the items of titillating gossip that (s)he and his or her brother "Ab" heard mainly from Abū l-Khayr. (1) Abū Manṣūr used to think that your father was מכשוף אלדאר אלכומר, the meaning of which is not entirely clear. (2) The "family" of al-Raḥbī does not observe the laws of purity (טומאה וטהרה) and sits in front of him exposed in a diaphanous gown (ghilāla), and al-Raḥbī drinks on the Sabbath. (3) Ibn al-Baṭṭāl sits with al-Raḥbī and curses you with "the Z and the Q" (from "zawj qaḥba," the worst curse possible; see Ibn Taymiyya, Minhāj al-Sunna, https://lib.eshia.ir/11366/1/458) and al-Raḥbī joins in the cursing even as he pretends to be among those who love you, but "promise not to tell that I told you." (4) [Some days later in Suwayqat al-Shamʿ or al-Jāmiʿ]: Al-Raḥbī said that someone was his "son" in Alexandria; the rest of this tidbit is cryptic and mentions a certain Kohen; (5) ʿUqayb said that al-Raḥbī told him that Ibn al-Baradānī fornicated (fasaqa) with the juwayra (presumably a diminutive form of jāriya, female slave, perhaps implying that she was also a minor) whom he redeemed from captivity, "and he is even more wicked than that" or "could there be someone more wicked than that?" (פיכון רשע ארשע מן האדא). (6) ʿUqayb said something about running into Ibn al-Baṭṭāl. (7) He said that Abū ʿImrān cursed me with a curse that would be too long to tell. (8) Among the various things he said about Abū Isḥāq and his brother-in-law. . . . [this one is tricky to figure out, and involves a drunk Ibn Kulayb and a house known by the name of Samāʾ al-Mulk]. (Information in part from GRU catalogue via FGP.) ASE