Geniza Lab

Legal document. Partnership record. Dated: 1140. Location: Fustat. The brothers Abū al-Faḍl and Abū al-Riḍā Yosef b. Berakhot, owners of a sugar factory, take on Yosef b. Peraḥya and Peraḥya b. Nissim (possibly Ibn Yiju, great-grandson of Avraham Yiju, the India trader) as investors, investing 400 and 200 dinars respectively. There is a reference to "Arabic documents" which record the dimensions and location of the factory, and the fact that the brothers inherited part of the factory and purchased the balance from their father. The investors allow the brothers to pursue other investments outside the partnership with partnership funds. Withdrawals from the partnership capital are recorded as a transfer of a share of the ownership from the brothers to the investors, and any rent on this share goes to the investors. The investors are required to return the partial ownership of the factory when the funds are repaid. The Arabic documents record the sale of the factory (and presumably the transfer of the shares) as a "fixed" purchase. The brothers remain active partners in the five-year partnership. Partnership profits are divided equally, despite the unequal investments. The brothers will account for their expenses by subtracting from partnership profits 2 dinars per molded block of sugar. Per Goitein, a document at shelfmark T-S NS J215 describes the eventual sale of the factory discussed in this document. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 23-25)

Two accounts of Ibn Yiju about transactions with the Nakhuda Abu Abd Allah Ibn al-Kataib, Aden, 1140-1145. This is the verso of III, 19.

Accounts of Avraham Ibn Yiju's workshop for bronze vessels, India 1132-1139, 1145-1149. The verso of this document is III, 21.

Accounts. Perhaps in the hand of one of Ben Yijū’s workers, but not his handwriting. Similar to India Book III 19 (shelfmark CUL Or.1080 J95). The account was clearly written in India, as the prices are given in Indian coinage, Kūlamī fīlīs, i.e., from the famous port city Quilon on the Malabar Coast, and fanam. The writer's anonymous associate, whose account is registered here, was charged for the receipt of various commodities, including both Indian products and items usually imported for personal use from Yemen and the West. He must have been a Yemeni or from elsewhere in the West, who was staying in India. Commodities: civet, cinnabar, a copper pot, glass vessels, raisins, a lamp (or Indian horse chestnut? what is written is "qandalī"), sugar, honey, myrrh, storax, and Egyptian sugar. One of the important pieces of information to emerge from this document (assuming the merchant was careful with his sums) is that the fanam was not precisely a quarter of a fīlī but rather slightly less: the ratio is 0.236 in this document. (Information from India Book and Goitein’s index card.) Not edited in the India Book: an additional list of accounts on verso, written in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals and headed by the glyph. One of the items on that list is zabada (civet), indicating that it is probably connected to the Judaeo-Arabic account. The word "fīlī" in Arabic script may also appear at bottom left.

Account by Avraham Ibn Yiju of Indian products sold for another merchant, Aden, ca. 1141-44.

List of Ibn Yiju's deposits and expenditures after arriving in the Egyptian capital.

Letter from Yeshua b. Yaʿaqov to Avraham Ibn Yiju regarding the death of Madmun b. Yefet, Dhu Jibla, 1151.

Secondary use: Fragment of three responsa written by Ibn Avraham Ibn Yiju, most probably in Yemen. Dating: ca. 1151 CE. Written on a reused letter (see PGPID 4719). (Information from India Book III; IB III, 34 = T-S 10J9.24v IB III, 35 = T-S 10J32.6.)

Original use: Short letter from Yosef b. Avraham, in Aden, to Avraham Ibn Yiju. Dating: ca. 1135–38 CE. The address is on part B as Yosef used to write so it would be seen when the letter is folded. In the available space Ibn Yiju wrote drafts of two questions about Halakhot (see PGPID 4718). (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book III: Avraham Ibn Yiju. pp. 84-88). VMR

Calendar for September 1153-September 1156 for Avraham Ibn Yiju's private synagogue.

Three sundry accounts written by Avraham Ibn Yiju. Yemen, apparently 1140-44, 1149-1152.

Calendar written by Ibn Yiju for the year September 1149-September 1150, which seems to indicate that, as before in India and later in Egypt, he planned to organize and lead a private service in Yemen.

List of customs paid in Aydhab by Avraham Ibn Yiju, around 1152. III 40a is the top of the page. III, 40b is the bottom of the page. III, 40c is the verso, a draft of a letter written by Avraham b. Yiju for another man and having nothing to do with the India trade, and therefore not edited in Goitein-Friedman. It is, however, edited in Assaf, Texts, 149-51.

Letter of request, addressed apparently to Madmun b. Yefet, by a person in inland Yemen, for help against Ibn Yiju, involving a shipment of five bahars (of what is not said).

Brief letter from Yosef b. Avraham in Aden to Avraham b. Yiju, ca. 1147 or 1148. The letter discusses some business matters and mentions the supposed arrival of Ibn Yiju's brother, Mevasser.

Letter (large but fragmentary) from Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq in Aden to Avraham Ibn Yiju, around 1139-1140. The letter is written in the hand of Shemuel b. Moshe b. Eleazar. The letter contains information about their commercial ventures.

Letter from Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq in Aden to Avraham Ibn Yiju in Dahbattan on the Malabar coast. Goitein dated the letter to after 1139, while Friedman to after 1138. The letter contains much information on commercial business and the report of a shipwreck in Bab al-Mandab.

Account written by Avraham Ibn Yiju in Yemen around 1149-52 detailing a compensation in kind to Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq and Yosef b. Avraham.

Distrust between associates and disruption of family life, on the way to Egypt. Aydhab, probably 1152. (India Book III, 39)

Account by Avraham Ibn Yiju of Indian products sold for another merchant, Aden, ca. 1141-44.