Geniza Lab

Legal document. Court record. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1134. Abū Sa‘d and Abū Sahl form a partnership lasting 6.5 months to manufacture and sell glass. Half the capital (20 dinars in total) invested by Abū Sa‘d is considered a loan to Abū Sahl, who pledges title to his home as a security. This may suggest diversion from the commenda model, where the active partner is not liable for loss. But the partnership also diverges from the ‘eseq model, wherein only the active partner transacts. Both the profit/loss characteristics and the working arrangement between the partners suggests a craft partnership. Abū Sa‘d is likely the senior partner: he is identified as al-Zajjāj, “the glazier” (i.e., a known personage in the field), while Abū Sahl is given no professional designation; as well, Abū Sa‘d invests all of the capital, suggesting that he may be short of liquid assets). Finally, the partnership stipulates that Abū Sa‘d need only work two shifts a week (suggesting he may have other business elsewhere), while Abū Sahl will work the rest of the week. Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen, mentioned in line 54, functioned as leader of the Jewish community of Fusṭāṭ from 1127 to 1139. The signatories to the document, Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen and Natan b. Avraham ha-Levi, signed 5 months after the agreement was initiated, for unknown reasons. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Society", pp. 17-21)

Recto: Petition to Masliah Gaon from a woman wishing to have a divorce. Probably 1127 CE. Discussed in detail, with translation, in Oded Zinger's dissertation, pp. 201–02: 'Malīḥa bt. Abū al-Faḍl wanted a divorce. She claimed that her husband suffered from many illnesses and that his children from a previous marriage were irreligious. Malīḥa feared for the well-being of her children were she to die. We have a resolute petition written on her behalf to the head of the Jews, Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen, informing him of the following: "I am the wife of Adam, the money changer. For the past eight months, I have asked repeatedly for divorce, but could not obtain it. I had thought that with the arrival of your most venerable presence, you would not postpone giving a ruling to me or to another (on my behalf) a single hour. He is a man afflicted with many illnesses and sicknesses. He has children far removed from religion and others. The servant fears lest what is sealed upon people (i.e. death) overtake him, or me. There is no assurance what will happen with him and with my children.1 By the divine law that you possess! Examine my state and quickly issue a verdict, whatever it may be.2 The servant appointed a representative, but from all that was done to the man; he said that he would not return to mediate between us. The servant is bashful, I do not have a tongue to speak with. By your parents! Examine my state and please liberate me.3 .... All that I want is the liberation of the servant, by any means necessary. And what the divine law obligates."4 We hear of Malīḥaʼs ultimate success in her bid for divorce in another document, T-S 8J5.4 2v. A four-line entry in a page from a court notebook records that on 28 June 1127, Malīḥa appointed Nathan ha-Levi b. Abraham as her representative to sue her husband. This short entry is followed by another entry recording an unrelated appointment of a representative. The next entry in the court notebook, however, records that on the very same day, a cantor who was one of the witnesses of the first appointment came to the court with two parnasim from the community. The three men declared to the court that they had made the symbolic purchase from Malīḥa confirming that she relinquished the entirety of her meʿuḥar and was willing to take an oath over her claims regarding the dowry. Her husband also made the symbolic purchase confirming that he had no claim over her. It appears that Malīḥa got her divorce.'5 Margins of recto, and verso: Copious jottings in Hebrew and Arabic script. It is unclear how much, if any, pertains to the main letter on recto. Shelomo ha-Levi b. Moshe is named. Many of the Arabic writings appear to be formulaic phrases from a letter to a dignitary (titled in one place Imam and Amir).

Letter from Maṣliaḥ Gaon to Aharon ha-Sar b. Netan'el. Opens with Maṣliaḥ's genealogy: Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen b. Shelomo b. Eliyyahu b. Shelomo (thus far all are titled Rosh Yeshivat Ge'on Yaʿaqov) b. Yehosef ha-Kohen Bayt Din Kohen Ṣedeq b. Aharon. Maṣliaḥ writes that he has sent his emissary Yefet ha-Levi and asks the addressee to assist him in his mission. Dated: Iyyar 1443 Seleucid, which is 1132 CE. The transcription available on FGP does not entirely correspond to the images available. The FGP transcription is for a circular letter by Maṣliaḥ Gaon sent to all the cities of the Rīf. This text may have come from part of the letter that was not digitized.

Legal document(s)
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the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (Date: 1100–38 CE). The main text (not in the margins) on both sides may just be formulary. No names seem to be mentioned, and there are many elaborate formulae of release. The marginal text was written with a different pen, one with a smaller tip. Recto: refers to the Gaon (Maṣliaḥ), Naḥman, someone suing his late paternal uncle, and another paternal uncle Yosef ha-Kohen. Verso: Refers to the Gaon Maṣliaḥ (1127–39 CE); a woman making someone take an oath; "the court has no connection to this case, and your paternal uncle until now has been responding to..."; more about an oath and repaying something; it being discovered that someone had no right to anything belonging to his or her paternal uncle's; and then a brief narrative of someone abasing(?) themselves by putting their head between someone's arms and/or legs and begging for forgiveness; but the paternal uncle was ashamed to ask those present to do something. Very cryptic—needs further examination.

Letter from a woman to Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon containing an update on a lawsuit between her and a male family member (possibly her son). She seems to be submitting this letter in order to postpone the lawsuit until after the end of the period of the man's "ḍamān" (tax farming tenure?). Mentions the death of the man's maternal uncle and his claim that he is not withholding anything that is due to the woman. Also mentions a garden (bustān).

Letter from Maḥrūz b. Yaʿaqov, in Fustat, to his in-law Abū Zikrī Kohen, in Alexandria. Dating: Sunday, 15 Jumāda = 16 Adar, which is probably 3 March 1135 CE. The letter is an urgent warning advising Abū Zikrī to take all his merchandise out of a warehouse in Alexandria. "A business partner of Abu Zikrī's in Fustat was dying, and because of the lawlessness prevailing at that time in Egypt, Abu Zikrī's goods would be confiscated together with those of the dead man (before 1129, it seems). {The dying man, Abū Saʿīd, was related to Abu Zikrī's partner the well-known Alexandrian India trader Abu Naṣr b. Elishaʿ. Evidently, Abu Saʿīd did not have any heirs of the first degree, and the officials of the diwan al-mawārīth (line 5: aṣḥāb mawarif!), the Office of Estates, which took advantage ofsuch situations, were about to confiscate all ofhis belongings held by Abu Naṣr. Not taking any chances, the officials would sequester Abu Naṣr's assets and, moreover, those of Abū Zikrī, since the partners' holdings were stored together. The Head of the Yeshiva, certainly Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen, who in fact was apparently Abū Zikrī's cousin, personally conveyed the warning to Maḥrūz and instructed him to send immediately an urgent message to his brother-in-law Abū Zikrī. For this purpose, Maḥrūz hired a private courier (najjāb) to Alexandria by camel. In his letter, Maḥrūz tells Abū Zikrī to disregard costs and extricate his wares without delay. The warning is repeated in a postscript written after Musallam (see the previous document) informed the writer that the courier would not set out that night. The Head of the Yeshiva's warning is not related to Abu Zikri's urgent request to him in II, 58, since that letter was written several years after II, 59. No. II, 59 is dated Sunday, 15 Jumada. Since Maḥrūz urges Abu Zikri to return to Fustat to be with his family before the approaching holiday, the date can be fixed with a fair degree of certainty as March 2, 1135, when 15 Jumada I came four weeks before Passover. (I do not know why Goitein assumed the letter had been written before 1129.) As already noted, Maḥrūz was not accustomed to writing, and others penned for him most of his letters, which have been preserved, except for this one and V, 20. Because ofthe urgency ofthis letter, he evidently wrote it himself. His untrained hand, poor style and substandard language, replete with vulgar forms and other orthographic irregularities, prove the wisdom of his normal practice.}" Also of note: Maṣliaḥ Gaon is sick with "the stone" (al-ḥaṣā), i.e., a urinary stone (r17). On verso there are six lines of love poetry in Arabic script. Description based on India Book; see attached. ASE.

Legal document. Small fragment from a beginning of a legal document, probably bill of gift, written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi, under the authority of Masliah Gaon, whose name is not mentioned but his father and grandfathers are. It is probably from the first years of his rule, ca. 1127. Elazar [… son of …] Iskandrani is also mentioned. Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic. AA

Colophon to Kitāb Khalq al-Insān by Abū l-Ḥasan Saʿīd ibn Hibat Allāh (1045–1101). In Judaeo-Arabic. This copy was completed 7 Shevat 4883 AM, which is January 1123 CE. The next lines of the colophon name (the patron?) al-Rayyis Abū Manṣūr Ṣāliḥ Ra's al-Mathība al-Hārūnī (=a Kohen?) b. [Su]laymān Ra's al-Mathība al-Hārūnī - which, according to the titles, name, nasab and date can fit the gaon Maṣliaḥ b. Solomon. On the author of the original text: Saʿīd b. Hibat Allāh was a "Nestorian Christian court physician to the ’Abbāsid caliphs al-Muqtadī (ruled 467-487 AH/1075-1094 CE) and al-Mustaẓhir (ruled 487-512 AH/1094-1118 CE) and physician at the ’Aḍudī hospital in Baghdad. This treatise on the generation and development of human beings from conception to death is in fifty chapters." (Information from Bodleian catalog, description of MS. Pococke 66.)

Minute fragment from a marriage deed. On recto probably from a marriage agreement or ketubah, with monogamy clause and probably a stipulation about domicile. On verso probably the qiyyum (legal establishment of this deed) under the authority of Masliah Gaon. Only part of the date survived: Ad[ar … 14]48 (only תמ remains) = 1137. AA

Interesting fragment of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew, with wide space between the lines, addressing al-Mukhtār Muntajab al-Dawla Badr. There is a date and location at the bottom: Adar II 14[.]2, Fustat (צוען מצרים). Most likely is 1442 = 1131 CE (per the catalog), in part because most of the other plausible years were not leap years. The catalog also says that this letter is in the name of Maṣliaḥ Gaon.

Letter from Ḥalfon b. Menashshe to the Gaon Maṣliaḥ b. Shelomo ha-Kohen. Small fragment. (Information from CUDL.)

Long vertical strip from the top of a ketuba written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi, from 1130, under the jurisdiction of Masliah Gaon. The groom is Yehuda ha-rofe and the bride Sitt al-Nas. AA

Letter to Masliah ha-Kohen Gaon from a woman, the daughter of Abraham the cantor and the wife of Abu 'l-Ma`ali Khalaf b. Harun, describing her husband's mistreatment of her and petitioning the Gaon to look into her plight. Image not available (Data from FGP)

Hebrew poetry in honor of ge'onenu ve-nizrenu Mazliah. ASE.

Letter from a community in an unknown location addressed to the community in Fustat. Fragment: bottom part only. In Hebrew. Written by a scribe. The preserved text conveys greetings to the the head of the Academy Maṣliaḥ. The date is added in a different hand. Dated: Elul [4]893 AM, which is 1133 CE. Signed by: Yaʿaqov b. Moshe ha-Kohen; Yisrael b. Ṭoviyya; Naḥum b. ʿEzra; Moshe b. Avraham the judge; Shemuel b. Avraham ha-Kohen; and Matitya b. Moshe Palermi (=from Palermo). On parchment. AA

Letter from an unknown writer, in Alexandria, to Maṣliaḥ Gaon, in Fustat. Dating: 1127–38 CE. In Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew. The purpose of the letter is to beseech Maṣliaḥ to investigate the matter of the death of a family member of the writer, a case with which Maṣliaḥ was clearly somewhat familiar already. It seems that the legal proceedings in Alexandria had not gone in the writer's favor, and he blames a group of evildoers not only for this but also for the death of the family member in the first place. The writer opens with the rabbinic dictum (Bava Meṣiʿa 58b) that verbal oppression is graver than monetary oppression, because the latter can be restituted but the former cannot. This is all the more true, he adds, when frauds or conspiracies (ghabā'in) have been perpetrated on somebody. He continues by saying that a physician who has personal experience of illness and treatment is all the more effective in treating others; that Maṣliaḥ himself has been the victim of conspiracy of rank (? ḥāl) and money (māl), but God in his mercy restored to each person what they deserved; thus, Maṣliaḥ will be the most suitable person to take up the case the writer is about to present, which is one of conspiracy of rank and money and family and connections (? wasā'iṭ) and witnesses. Indeed, there is a group of well-known evildoers in Alexandria who seek to pervert justice and corrupt the judges, and make it appear as if their victims are the ones at fault. As for the dead man (l. 20f), and how he lost his mind and perished after drinking the medicine—what truly killed him, according to the writer, was the fact that he had been slandered by others who complained about him to Maṣliaḥ, when in fact the dead man was the one who was wronged and ought to have been the one complaining. The writer's only desire is for Maṣliaḥ to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter. The writer prefers this to the entire inheritance, for which he has no need. He then cites a (sadly faded) saying of certain physicians about the delirium (hadhayān) that certain illnesses produce; all the more so for someone (the dead man) who suffered multiple illnesses, of mind, of body, and a conspiracy (ghabīna) against him. He concludes with formulaic praises and pleas, and finally writes, cryptically, "Ben Zoma is still outside" (Ḥagiga 15a). ASE.

Legal document recording that Sitt al-Husn, daughter of Saadya, sought a gold tiara ('isaba) that she had pawned to the recently-deceased physician Abu al-Murajja b. Daniel against a loan of 24 dinars, from his heirs. A witness testifies that the deceased had forgiven the loan. Dated Tammuz 1440/ July 1129. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 487). Written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi.

Letter, beautifully written, by a woman married for 15 years addressed to Masliah, the head of the Jewish community in Egypt (1127-1138), complaining about neglect and asking him to intervene with her husband to grant her divorce and payment of her dues. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 186 and CUDL)

Letter from Ḥalfon b. Netanel from ‘Aydhab to his brother Ali b. Netanel, 1132. Ḥalfon is on his way back to Egypt after an unsuccessful journey to India. He writes to his brother, a judge in Fustat, concerning his business and his disappointment that it did not go as expected. He also describes in details an event that happened in Yemen when he was a part of an argument between members of the Jewish community there, about the Gaon's authority (Masliah Gaon from the yeshiva of Palestine), which led to Ḥalfon's humiliation. He writes how hurt he is and asks his brother, that is very close to the Gaon, to talk with him about it. (Information from Gil and Fleischer "Yehuda Ha-Levi and his circle", pp: 348-354). VMR

Bottom part from a legal document written under the jurisdiction of Masliah Gaon (although his name does not appear) by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi, so can be dated to 1127-1138. AA