Geniza Lab

Legal document. Dated: Monday, 2 Iyyar 1398 Seleucid, which is 1087 CE. Location: Fustat. Moshe b. Elḥanan comes before the court and declares that he has appointed Abū Saʿīd Ḥalfon b. Shelomo ha-Levi ("known as Ibn Levi") as his agent for his affairs while he is Yemen. The agent is to look after his compound (rabʿ) in Fustat in Sūq al-Baṭṭāṭin, which consists of two houses. There are a few words in Arabic script on verso referring to a deposit (wadīʿa). (Information from Goitein's attached notes.)

Legal testimony concerning a partnership release from a commenda. Dating: 1098. Abū al-Ḥasan Yaḥyā ha-Kohen b. Shemuʾel ha-Kohen al-Baghdādī and ʿUlla ha-Levi b. Yosef ha-Levi al-Dimashqī release Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh al-Ḥalabī b. Shelomo from any further claims on their partnership — called shirka, mu‘āmala and muḍāraba (commenda) variously throughout the document, though some of those terms are used in the course of legal indemnification clauses, so don't necessarily reflect the exact structure of the partnership. Abū al-Ḥasan Yaḥyā ha-Kohen b. Shemuʾel ha-Kohen al-Baghdādī and ʿUlla ha-Levi b. Yosef ha-Levi al-Dimashqī testify that they gave Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh al-Ḥalabī b. Shelomo 100 dinars, which he took to Yemen as the active partner; on his return, he gave them back their capital and the profit he accrued. This is one of three documents in Lieberman's corpus involving Abū al-Ḥasan Yaḥyā ha-Kohen b. Shemuʾel ha-Kohen al-Baghdādī and ʿUlla ha-Levi b. Yosef ha-Levi al-Dimashqī; the others are T-S 8J4.11 and T-S Misc. 27.4.29. Lieberman additionally points to CUL Or. 1080 J73 as concerning the same business partners, as well as ENA 4020.2, also a partnership release. One source of the investment capital of Yaḥyā and ‘Ulla could be a money-changing stall (dukkān al-ṣarf), mentioned in TS Misc 27.4.29, and one of Yaḥyā’s partners in ENA 4020.2, verso, is a money-changer (l.16). Possibly in the hand of Hillel b. Eli, but not in Weiss's corpus. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 27–32)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. David b. Yiṣḥaq Ibn al-Ṣafaṭ (? אלצפט) acknowledges receipt of a sum of money from Abū l-Barakāt Berakhot b. Yaʿaqov to conduct business with it abroad. When he returns to Egypt, 1/3 of the profit will go to the investor and 2/3 to the active partner. The same David b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Levi appears in T-S Misc.27.4.28.

Letter from Alexandria to a merchant in Fustat. Around 1065. The letter contains a list of different goods’ prices. Mentions collecting debt in Adan, and persecution of merchants from Genoa in Alexandria. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #794) VMR

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

Letter of recommendation for charity for the judge Avraham b. Yosef. The addressee is on a boat and about to set out for a voyage. The poor scholar likely carried this note with him to the boat. The addressee and his companions on the boat are all asked to contribute, and it is suggested that this good deed will increase the likelihood of a safe trip. (Information from Goitein's notes.)

Letter from a certain ʿEli, unknown location, to the cantor Isḥāq, in Damietta. Addressed specifically to the shop of Abū l-Surūr al-Ṣayrafī. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Dating: ca. 1100 CE, based on Goitein's assessment of the handwriting and the people mentioned. The letter is interspersed with learned quotations of poetry, Bible, and Talmud. The sender apologizes for neglecting the addressee's letters. He reminds the addressee. to send him items he had left with him, including the little thawb (thuwayb), the scarf or turban (radda), and the kerchief (mandīl). He says that the judge Abū Isḥāq al-Rayyis has written several times to Abū l-Surūr and that Nissim b. Naḥum also came (from Damietta?). He particularly wants the collected poems of Yiṣḥaq Ibn Khalfūn (an Andalusi Hebrew poet of the late 10th–early 11th century), either his copy that is with the addressee, or a new copy that the addressee has made. It seems that someone else borrowed another copy, 'was ashamed to give it back,' and took it with him to Yemen. He also wants "my letter/epistle and the poems(?) of the Parnas who/which went to Tinnīs," or copies, since his brother Avraham wants to study it (the letter is torn in the key phrase in this sentence, and this translation is not certain). In a postscript on verso, he wants the addressee to get half a dinar from al-Mawṣilī and purchase bees' honey with it. (Information from Goitein’s index card and from Goitein, "Ibn Khalfun's Collection of Poems in 11th Century Egypt and Yemen," Tarbiz 29 no. 4 (1960), 357–58.)

Letter. Letter concerning a girl who had been regarded as being a Muslim and when she appeared before the Qāḍī, declared she was Jewish, whereupon her case was turned over by the latter to a Jewish judge for further investigation. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Goitein, “Slaves and Slavegirls in the Cairo Geniza Records,” Arabica 9 (1962), 14)

Legal query to Avraham Maimonides regarding a man who takes a 200 dinar loan and appoints his parents as guarantors, providing them with a house on his property equivalent in value to his debt. Over the course of the ten-year period of the loan, the debtor marries a woman in Egypt and then travels to India, leaving her in Egypt. When the ten-year period comes to a close and the debt has not been repaid, the creditors wish to sell the house on the property to recoup their funds. The question facing Avraham Maimonides is whether the wife who remained in Egypt has the authority to prevent the sale. Old IB number: 169. New IB number: VII, 31. (Nathaniel Moses)

Mercantile letter sent possibly from Aden to India. In Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (lower part of recto). The sender received a basket (zanbīl) of pepper which he did not want. He wanted betel nut (fawfal) or cardamom instead. He humorously complains that the pepper won't fetch any money for him to be able to eat or drink. He also did not want the 15 עיטוריה(?) dinars that the addressee sent with Mūsā b. Yūsuf. He wishes that the addressee had used the money to buy him betel nut or cardamom. In a postscript on verso he adds, "whatever you buy for me, please do not put it under my name but rather under your name." (Information in part from Goitein’s attached notes.)

Letter, India book VII66 (unpublished). Letter from South Arabia to Egypt giving order on a large gift to Maimonides. On verso an Arabic account of goods recieved from Yemen

Recto: Letter likely sent from Aden to Fustat. (The locations are not specified in the document; this is Goitein's assessment.) In Judaeo-Arabic, written in a Yemeni hand. Dated: 26 Adar 1530 Seleucid, which is 1219 CE. The sender wants mercury and Iraqi roses to be purchased with the proceeds from bamboo chalk (ṭabāshīr). He asks about the value of Yiṣḥaq's pepper and frankincense. ʿAṭiyya al-Dajjājī is to write with an update on the bag (kharīṭa) of aloeswood and the silk fūṭa. Greetings to al-Asʿad. This is document VII, 52 in India Book VII (unpublished). Verso: Draft of a letter written in Edessa (al-Ruhā). In Judaeo-Arabic. In a different hand than the letter on recto. The sender complains that he has been unemployed for 2.5 years, the first of which he spent in Tyre. Then (the French rabbi Yosef) b. Gershom arrived in ʿAkka, and terrible things happened.... (The fragment ends here.) Goitein suggests that this letter is a request for a post.

Quittance given to the carriers of goods sent from Yemen by a husband, Efrayim b. Yaʿqūb, to his wife. Written by Hillel b. Eli. On the verso another legal deed dealing with an oath, written by another hand.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from a father to his sons, from India Book VII, 60 (unpublished). Note that Goitein calls this manuscript ENA 2739.16 in Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders.

Partnership agreement. Dated: 11 Sivan 1347 Seleucid, which is May/June 1036 CE. Gil identifies the handwriting as that of Sahlān b. Avraham. The contents are as follows: Shemuel b. Sahlan al-Barki brought a shipment of pearls from Farah b. Sahlun, from Qayrawān. Three experts are splitting the pearls between both partners. Shemuel (one of them) asks that his part would be used for traveling and selling the pearls in the Arabian Peninsula. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #799) VMR

Bifolium from a court notebook. Dating: One entry is dated 1411 Seleucid, which is 1099/1100 CE. The four pages have four different cases recorded in four different hands. The details of each case are hard to make out due to the poor state of preservation. 1. A certain (Abū l-)Ḥasan b. Yaʿaqov al-Āmidī is asked to hand over various Bible codices to Yehuda b. Ḥayyim ha-Melammed. 2. Concerning garments sent from Sicily to Damietta to Yemen. The parties are Shalem, Tiqva, Ṣedaqa al-Dimashqī, Ḥusayn, and Ibn Masʿūd. Signed by Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel and Avraham b. Shemaʿya. 3. Appointment of an agent in a commercial matter. Mentions Abū l-Faḍl, Ṣāliḥ b. Meshullam, and 6 dinars. 4. One entry involves a testimony of [...] the judge b. Natan Av ha-Yeshiva about the delivery of a bill of divorce (get). Involves Elʿazar b. Shelomo. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Recto: Partnership record. Dating: 1096. Written in the hand of Hillel ben Eli. Describes a settlement between Yaḥyā and Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh. Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh loans 210 dinars to and places some agricultural commodities with Yaḥyā. Yaḥyā agrees to take upon himself the maintenance of the poor of Fusṭāṭ for a year in the event of nonrepayment. The repayments do not appear here because this would have been recorded only on the debtor’s copy of the loan agreement. Yaḥyā’s testimony that he paid his debt wouldn't be accepted without these records, but testimony by Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh (the creditor) is to be accepted without such condition. Verso: Court record. Dating: 1116. Part of a court record detailing a different partnership. Abū al-Surūr Simḥa ha-Kohen brings a power of attorney to pursue the claims of the brothers Abū al-Ma‘ālī and Abū al-Wafā Tamīm b. Yeshu‘a regarding a partnership held by their dead brother Mevorakh, with Yaḥyā (the same Yaḥyā from the recto) and Abū al-Ḥusayn the money-changer. The structure of the partnership is unclear, but it seems likely that Mevorakh was an investor and Abū al-Barakāt had always been the active partner. Upon Mevorakh’s death, Yaḥyā and Abū Ḥusayn claim 2/3 of the partnership assets, leaving Simḥa to collect the remaining 1/3 for Mevorakh’s heirs. The verso is written in a different hand from the recto, likely that of Nissim b. Naḥray. Signed by Barukh b. Yiṣḥaq, the chief judge of Aleppo. The connection between the two documents is Abū al-Barakāt and Yaḥyā. Per Goitein, this Abū al-Barakāt is not the Mevorakh mentioned on the recto but rather Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh b. Shelomo al-Ḥalabī, and Yaḥyā is Abū al-Ḥasan Yaḥyā ha-Kohen b. Shemuel ha-Kohen al-Baghdādī. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 56-60)

Legal testimony about the custom of the merchants of Fustat regarding partnerships. The testimony describes how partnerships are established. dated to 1141. Signed by Shemarya b. Shelomo, Yoshiyahu ha-kohen b. [...] Yosef b. Avon, Yosef ha-Levi b. [...]

Legal query to Avraham Maimonides about a trader who travelled to Bilād al-Hind, remained there for fifteen years, and reportedly drowned in Fanṣūr, a Sumatran port famous for exporting camphor (Heyd, Commerce du Levant, ii, 592). The question facing Maimonides was whether or not this woman was allowed to re-marry based on the testimony of the Jewish trader who reported the merchant’s death upon his return from Aden. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, via Nathaniel Moses) Old IB number: 233. New IB number: VII, 33