Geniza Lab

Letter from Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq, evidently of al-Maḥalla, to Abu Saʿd Hibatallāh (aka Netanʾel b. Yefet Rosh ha-Qahal), in Cairo. The beginning is in Hebrew ("twelve lines of exquisite Hebrew proem"), and the body of the letter is in Arabic script, except for two phrases. (On verso there are also a few lines of accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals.) This is a letter of recommendation for the bearer, one Yakhin ha-Meshorer ("the poet") who had settled in al-Maḥalla but fled from there and abandoned his family,when the superintendent of revenue (ṣāḥib al-Maḥalla) "harassed him" by demanding from him the capitation tax (al-kharāj). The letter presupposes that Yakhin was entitled to tax exemption because he was a Khaybari, a Jew descended from an Arabian clan that asserted it had received special privileges in the time of Muḥammad. The addressee is asked to help Yakhin sort out his documentation. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 386, 611, MR, OZ, NV, ASE.)

Quittance granted by [...] bt. ʿAbdallāh al-[...] to Abū l-Faraj Sulaymān(?) b. Hārūn al-Khaybarī(?) known as Ibn al-Sulūkī(?) and who was somehow associated with the treasury (bayt al-māl al-maʿmūr). (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) "In a few surviving quittance documents from the Fatimid period the early opening formula is attached to the beginning of the iqrār, e.g. T-S Ar. 41.99: hādhā kitāb barā'a li-fulān ibn fulān... katabathu lahu fulāna ibnat fulān wa-aqarrat lahu bi-mā fīhi wa-ashhadat lahu ʿalā dhālika shuhūd hādhā l-kitāb... annahu lā ḥaqq lahā qibal fulān ibn fulān...." This is a document of quittance for so-and-so son of so-and-so... which so-and-so daughter of so and-so wrote for him and she acknowledged to him what is contained herein and called the witnesses of this document to bear testimony to it for him... that she has no claim on so-and-so son of so-and-so...". The witnesses of the document attached autograph witnesses clauses with the formula: shahida fulān ibn fulān ʿalā iqrār al-mubri'a bi-mā fīhi fī tārīkhihi..." "So-and-so son of so-and-so bore witness to the acknowledged of what is contained herein by the woman granting the quittance on its date." Geoffrey Khan, "An Arabic Legal Document from the Umayyad Period," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 4, no. 3 (1994), p. 368. On verso there are Hebrew writing exercises.

Petition from Ṣāliḥ al-Khaybārī, a Jew from the community of Baghdad, to the Fatimid amīr Tāj al-Dawla. In Arabic script. Ṣāliḥ petitions regarding a miserable situation into which he fell after a pledge made to Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. Ḥasan. As a consequence, Ṣāliḥ was imprisoned for six months and is still in debt for 300 dinars. In order to repay his debt he was given the task of producing a tunic out of two pieces of Persian fabric, one yellow and one white. This task has not yet been completed, and Ṣāliḥ seems to be seeking the amīr’s understanding and support in this delay. Dating: ca. 11th century. On recto and between the lines and in the margins of verso, there is a Judaeo-Arabic commentary on passages from Genesis, including the days of the creation, the creation of men and the incident of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Information from CUDL and Khan.)

Testimony in Arabic script. Dated: Shawwāl 654 AH, which is October/November 1256 CE. Certifying that Ibrāhīm b. Ismaʿīl is a Khaybarī Jew (and therefore entitled to privileges that were granted to this tribe by Muḥammad) originally from al-Jawf. Written and witnessed by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn.

Court record. Dating: Perhaps 10th or 11th century. Rayyisa bt. Yosef Bīmī, the wife of Yeshuʿa b. Nissim, vehemently accuses ("mustaghītha mutaẓallima mustaʿdiya ʿalā") Seʿadya b. Binyamin Khaybarī of retaining 4 dinars that are due to her. Her husband acted as her agent. All this is written out twice. On verso there is a Talmudic excerpt in the same hand. (Information from Goitein's index card and Med Soc II, 611n25.)