Geniza Lab

Letter in the hand of Yehuda b. Ṭoviyyahu (muqaddam of Bilbays, active 1170s–1219). In Judaeo-Arabic. Containing a complaint about illness. The purpose of writing seems to be that the sender is unable to support a Ḥaver who came to stay with him. “[I was] constrained by my great expenses for medicines and chickens… An illness came upon me, on top of my chronic illness: shortness of breath and fever...” Mentions the boy Abū l-Bayān and al-Shaykh al-Muhadhdhab. Cites Berakhot 3b: “A handful cannot satisfy a lion, nor can a pit be filled up with its own clods.” Goitein read the word farrūj as surūj (meaning lamps -"perhaps he stayed up at night"), but see, for instance, Halper 410 and DK 238.3 for the formula "the medicine and the chicken." Regards to "our rabbi Avraham (Maimonides)" in the margin. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) Join: Alan Elbaum. AA. ASE.

Letter from Shelomo Kohen b. Abū Zikrī Yehuda b. Yosef ha-Sijilmasi, in Fustat, to his father, most likely in Aden while on his return journey from India. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: January 1148 CE. Shelomo gives a detailed account of the Almohad invasions and persecutions in the West from 1145 to the present-day (on the day he wrote the letter, a messenger arrived with the news that Bejaia had fallen to the Almohads). He also gives a detailed description of his illness. "As for me, after having opened a shop, a great general depression (kasār) occurred. I was ill for nine months with tertiary fever (al-muthallatha) and fever of the liver (ḥummā l-kabd). Neither I, nor anyone else believed that I would recover from this. In the wake of the illness, difficulties in breathing (ḍīq nafas) befell me, which lasted two months. Had I not made up my mind to leave the business, I would have perished. At present, I do nothing, sitting partly in the qāʿa [workshop or Bible school] of Joseph and partly in the store of the Son of the Scholar. I study a good part of the night with him every night" (Goitein, Med Soc, V, p. 337). Shelomo concludes with a profuse expression of filial dedication: “Please, with the help of the Almighty, may the reply to this my letter be the sight of you, if God wills. Be not enticed by business so that you forget us. For—by my faith in Heaven—every additional day of your absence takes a year from our lives. Consider that the life of the son of man is nothing but light. You are our light. If you are not with us, how can we live?” (Goitein, Med. Soc., viii, C, 2, n. 125; translation slightly altered for clarity). Partial English translation by Goitein, Med Soc V, 59-61 and 107. Discussed in Miriam Frenkel, “Genizah Documents as Literary Products.” ASE.

Letter from a male family member, probably in Damīra, to a physician, probably in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating unknown. The letter is convoluted and repetitive, giving the impression of having been dictated. The purpose of writing is to urge the addressee to stop trying to obtain a government salary (jāmakiyya) and to apply only for a license (dustūr), for he if persists in seeking the salary, they will refuse him even the license. The writer and those with him have been on tenterhooks regarding the addressee's news, in a state of anxiety (hamm) and fasting (ṣiyām). He writes that it would be better to treat patients for free than to have the government salary, even if it were 100 dinars. It seems that the government salary would also require the physician to return to Damīra and practice there, an outcome the writer is desperate to avoid. "If you return to Damīra, it will be our destruction (dimārnā)." The writer (humorously) insists that here in Damīra there has been no season (faṣl, of illness), and disease (maraḍ) and ophthalmia (ramad) are nowhere to be found; there is no demand for the addressee's services, for everyone is healthy. (Whether intentionally or not, this passage echoes the first chapter of Ibn Buṭlān's Daʿwat al-Aṭṭibā', in which a shifty physician in Mayyāfāriqīn tries to convince a newcomer and potential competitor that all the diseases have disappeared.) The family is not from Damīra originally (the writer calls it bilād al-ghurba); the writer wants to return to their hometown where they own property and do not have to pay 10 dirhams a month for rent. Meanwhile, the family is perishing from the cold, and the children are 'naked.' The writer himself is ill: in a postscript, he writes, "Do not even ask about me: the illness has gotten seriously worse (zāda bī jiddan). Now, pieces of bloody phlegm (qiṭaʿ balgham dam) are coming up, together with the intense pain (al-alam al-shadīd). How often this flares up in me (yathūr bī)!" He does not ask for a prescription or medical advice, but perhaps the request is implied. The letter also contains quite a lot of discussion of wheat. ASE.

Letter in the hand of Abū Zikrī, physician to the sultan al-Malik al-ʿAzīz (Saladin's son and successor), sent to his father Eliyyahu the Judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1193–98 CE, if all the identifications are correct (this document would then be several years earlier than any other document relating to Abū Zikrī or his father Eliyyahu). This is the second page of what was originally a longer letter. Abū Zikrī describes his overwhelming grief upon hearing the news that his younger brother had died. Members of the court came to express their condolences, including the sultan himself, who said that he considers the deceased as equal to his own younger brother, al-Malik al-Amjad. (Information in part from S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:346-47, 5:175–77.) EMS. ASE.