Geniza Lab

Contract of lease for an irrigation channel on the jazīra of Fustat (the Nile island later known as Rawḍa). Dated: 18 (or maybe 28?) Shawwāl 407 AH (March 1017 CE). The lessees are Maḥāṣin b. Sayyidihim b. ʿAbdallāh; Muḥammad b. Abdallāh; Abū l-Faraj b. Sayyidihm; Khalīl al-Naṣrānī; Sulaymān b. Maḥāsin b. Naṣr al-Naṣrānī. The lease is for a period of 5 months, beginning on 23 Shawwāl 407. The lessees are to pay 600 dirhams paid in 5 monthly installments (munajjama) of 120 dirhams. The property borders that of the town (Fustat) and contains an orchard of date palms, strawberries, sycamore. No signatures are preserved. Reused for Hebrew poetry.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Elegant hand. Mentions the town of Ṭanān and deals with the construction of a dike (jisr) and an irrigation canal (turʿa); the addressee is to go and obtain for this purpose the cattle (abqār) and dredging tools (jarārīf: see Rapoport, "Irrigation in the Medieval Islamic Fayyum," p. 24, and Borsch, Stuart (2014) "Plague Depopulation and Irrigation Decay in Medieval Egypt," The Medieval Globe: Vol. 1 : No. 1, p. 139). ASE.

State decree from the Fatimid chancery, written under al-Ḥākim, al-Ẓāhir or al-Mustanṣir to an official in Egypt regarding a dispute over irrigation canals and access to water — insofar as one can judge. Only the left half of the lines are preserved. About 1.3 meters of what was once a much longer decree. The joins of the decree fragment when pieced together refer to the need of restoring the area surrounding the gulf/bay - 'li ḥāja dāʿiya ilā ʿimārat al-khuluj' and the allotment of irrigation from these canals: 'aqsaṭ min al-rī min hādhihi l-khuluj. Verso: Efrayim b. Shemarya uses and reworks passages from the Sheʾiltot for a sermon. Top of the rotulus is headed Shabbat Bereishit (see separate record). Join: Roni Shweka (bottom six fragments) and Rebecca Sebbagh (top fragment). Before 1055. See also Mosseri VI.117.2, which may belong to the left side of this decree. (MR)