Geniza Lab

Three unsigned court depositions. Location: Damascus. Dating: July 1094 CE and March 1095 CE. They have to do with properties owned by the Zawbaʿa ("Tempest") family. The elder brother was named ʿUthmān b. Yefet. The second brother was Maṣliaḥ b. Yefet known as ha-Gizbar ("the Treasurer"), i.e., he was a government officer. (This Maṣliaḥ is also known from Megillat Evyatar as the man who brought up David b. Daniel b. ʿAzarya.) There were two tyrannical governors in Damascus: Ḥaydara Ibn Manzū (r.1063–64) and Muʿallā Ibn Manzū (r.1068–69). One of these expropriated the property of Maṣliaḥ in the Dār Quzmān neighborhood (near the eastern gate of Damascus, in the Jewish quarter), and the two brothers Maṣliaḥ and ʿUthmān fled the city for Egypt. Some 25 years later, Yefet the son of Maṣliaḥ returned to his birthplace and sued to regain the property abandoned by his father and uncle. In the meantime, another uncle had moved into one of the houses, encroaching beyond the border of the neighboring property owned by his wife. The uncle insisted on bringing the case to the Muslim courts, and Yefet b. Maṣliaḥ here testifies that he was compelled to go to the Muslim courts and did not want to. (Information from Goitein's edition.)