Geniza Lab

Recto: Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dated: November 1076. Manṣūr b. Khalaf al-Ṣūrī (from Tyre) will partner with Yefet b. Avraham and Shelomo b. Avraham for one year, beginning in the month of Ṭevet in 1388. Goitein suggests that the three were involved in minting, on the basis of another document which shows a relationship between Yefet and Manṣūr in the sifting of gold dust. Here, Manṣūr is prohibited from traveling or mentioning travel or even expressing a wish to see his family – perhaps his partners are afraid that he will abscond with the gold used in minting? – if he does so, he must pay 20 dinars to the poor, a standard penalty clause. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 36-37) Verso: Unidentified document in Arabic script. Mentions "al-kātib ... al-ishrāf(?) Muḥammad b. Ḥammūd al-Qāḍī." (Information in part from Goitein’s index card and attached notes.)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from Ṣedaqa b. Khalaf b. Fuhayd, in Tyre, to Abū Isḥāq Avraham b. al-Sheviʿi. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Late 11th century or early 12th century, based on Goitein's assessment. The letter relates that after the death of the writer's father, his brother Fahd, who worked in the local mint, had been deceived by a newcomer Abū Manṣūr Baghdādī. It further discusses large sums of money (hundreds of dinars) owed or handled by a man who was found dead on the sea shore. Some say he committeed suicide, some say he was murdered. The writer requests a rescript from al-Mālik (al-Afḍal?) to the Qāḍī Thiqat al-Dawla. Information from Goitein's note card for this shelfmark and for BL OR 5566B.5. ASE.

Court record concerning mint management. Dated: 1513 CE. Issued in the court of the Nagid Yiṣḥaq Sholal. Witnesses include Yaʿaqov Beirav and Nissim Biba. The issue centers on an oath that the Nagid took when he was running the mint (dār al-ḍarb) to the effect that Avraham Talmid would not do business with anone in the world for as long as Sholal remained at the mint. There are mutliple sections to this document, some of which are testimonies from witnesses. See Avraham David's edition on FGP for further information.

Recto: Legal query involving partners in the royal mint whose money was stolen. In particular, when one of the partners runs away and hides so he doesn't have to pay his share. Written in Hebrew. Probably from the time of Avraham Maimuni, but not addressed to him. (Cf. T-S 20.83: an enormous legal deed dated March 12 1066 CE involving a 1000-dinar claim resulting from two partners work in the royal mint. 20.83 is another document regarding inheritance. It is not connected to this legal query. AA) NB: PGP previously incorrectly listed this document as NLI 577.5/41 (AA).

Legal document. Record of release. Location: Fustat. Dated: Second third of Elul 1482 Seleucid, which is August 1171 CE. The mutual release of the metal caster (al-sabbāk) Faḍāʾil/Shela b. Mūsā and the metal caster Abū l-Barakāt/Berakhot b. Abū Naṣr Yefet al-Mūrid, formerly partners in an unspecified industry, likely to have been in minting as both of the partners bear the same by-name al-Sabbāk (metal-caster) and Berakhot’s father is called al-Mūrid (supplier of metal to the mint). Other details of the partnership (e.g., the amount of the partners’ investment, division of profits and losses) are absent from the release. The act of qinyan is recorded twice in the document, once for each party's release of the other. Interestingly, the specific claims from which the partners are released are different in each case: Shela releases Berakhot from any claim "arising from a bill of exchange" (ḥawāla), a clause absent when Berakhot releases Shela. Conversely, when Berakhot releases Shela, he retains claims for neither "a commenda (muḍāraba), nor a loan, nor a commenda (qirāḍ), nor a demand for rent nor [for leasing …]", all clauses which are absent from Shela’s release of Berakhot. While partnership release clauses generally seem to be formulaic, other documents' release clauses often contain information concerning the partnerships' commodities. Here, it's possible that these clauses were tailored to the roles of the specific partners. If so, the fact that Berakhot releases Shela from these obligations (which would have been incumbent upon a borrower) suggests that Berakhot was a senior partner or investor. As well, in his lifetime, Berakhot’s father was himself involved in a corollary business concerning precious metals; this partnership may have relied upon Berakhot’s family connections or wealth. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 222)

Legal document: three legal documents on a single rotulus. Dated 27 Iyyar 4846 (14 May 1086). All the cases concern Maʿālī b. Khalaf and some ʿadliyya dinars, apparently worth three regular dinars and not in use by the public. Goitein defines ʿadliyya dinars as "special deluxe issues that were not supposed to be circulated" (Med. Soc. 1:231). In the first case, which is fragmentary, Maʿālī b. Khalaf sued his brother Abū Naṣr Manṣūr in connection with a deal in flax valued between 40 and 50 dinars. There is also reference to Yefet b. Avraham, the administrator of the mint (mutawallī dār al-ḍarb), who had rented or purchased part of a house from Manṣūr b. Khalaf and transferred to it a disputed treasure found near the Qubba mosque in the Fortress of the Greeks. Line 6: "He showed him dinars buried in the neighborhood of the Mosque of the Qubba. The continuation seems to contain some suggestion of embezzlement from the mint: the ending, in Goitein's translation (with a light edit by Marina Rustow): "Finally, there appeared before us Barakāt b. Khalaf, who made the following deposition: Maʿālī b. Khalaf brought me to the house of Yefet b. Avraham and gave me a basket with gold dust, which I carried to the house of his brother Manṣūr at nighttime. On the following morning, Manṣūr b. Khalaf sifted the dust that I had carried to him, brought a Muslim customer and sold it to him for about three dinars in my presence. We have written down what has been said before us and signed, so that it may serve as an instrument of securing rights and as a proof." In the second legal document on the recto, which carries the date 27 Iyyar 4846, Menashshe b. Yaʿaqov, testifies that many years prior, Manṣūr b. Khalaf, brother of Maʿālī, had come to him accompanied by two Muslims who demanded payment from him for flax that he had bought from them. Manṣur handed him (Menashshe) some dinars to weigh, and Menashshe found among them 15 or 17 ʿAdliyya dinars, which frightened him, as such coins weren't available to the public. He weighed them and handed them to the Muslims in payment for the flax, and later asked one of the Muslims to exchange three or four of the dinars with him, despite his earlier fear. Menashshe took the ʿAdliyya dinars, presumably in order to prevent Manṣūr from getting into trouble from using them openly; Menashshe then advised Manṣūr that if he had any more of them, he shouldn't show them in public but dispose of them secretly. So ends Menashshe's statement, at which point the court asks Manṣūr what he did next. Manṣūr replied: "I told him that I didn't have any more of these coins, but had borrowed them from my brother," Maʿālī. Two weeks later, the affair of Maʿālī and his embezzlement in the household of Yefet b. Avraham, manager of the mint, came to light. The third document, on verso, is written by Hillel b. ʿEli and signed by him and by ʿEli ha-Kohen b. Yaḥyā and Yoshiyyaʿhu b. Moshe. Yefet presents claims against Manṣūr also involving ʿAdliyya dinars. (Information from Goitein's translation)

Letter from Alexandria from the 21st of October 1219, a short time before the crusaders' assault on Damietta. A man who had to flee Cairo to Alexandria due to debts writes to his sister, who still resided in Cairo, to ask for her help. The letter reflects the difficult situation in Alexandria. The Jewish community cannot manage to support all those in need, since it has only recently paid a large sum to the ruling authorities, a kind of a war tax (tabarru' and ju‘l). (Information from Frenkel). See additional information in Goitein, Med. Soc. 1:98-99 and the detailed discussion in V:55-56. Goitein adds that the letter was sent from Alexandria by a former official of the imperial mint of Fustat to his rich sister. The writer describes how he had lost his post, his house and all his possessions. He hired out his boy to a tailor who paid him half a dirham per week. He lists ten reasons why he cannot possibly come to Cairo; the tenth and "most stringent reason for not making the trip to Cairo was the certainty that his enemies seeing him in such a state of humiliation would rejoice over his misfortune." "Despite the careful enumeration of all his afflictions he forgot one, possibly the worst of all, which he added as a postscript ot his long letter: 'Because of my worries I got dry pimples and my skin peeled off my bones.' Of all concerns, bad health is most apt to move hardhearted relatives" (Med Soc V:56). See also T-S 8J20.26.

Small fragment of a legal document in Arabic script involving [...] b. Hārūn al-Yahūdī (and?) a supplier to the mint ([mū]rid bi-dār al-ḍarb). There are a few words in Judaeo-Arabic in the upper margin.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. In a lovely hand; the same scribe seems to have reused numerous Arabic-script documents for literary/liturgical text (see Joins Suggestions). This letter was intended to be sent from Fustat to an addressee who had recently set sail from Alexandria (presumably this is a draft or it was never sent). The letter opens with a quotation from Jeremiah 17:7. A few days after the addressee(s) set out to sea from Alexandria, Abū l-Faḍl (or Ibn al-Faḍl?) Ibn Sabra arrived "drowning" (ghāriq), which caused distress to everybody (did he survive a shipwreck?). The sender reports that the Nile completed its flood (al-māʾ qad awfā) at "5 from 17," which probably means 5 fingers short of 17 cubits. ("A cubit until the height of twelve cubits was divided into twenty-eight fingers, and equaled 0,539m≈54cm. A cubit above the height of twelve cubits consisted of twenty-four fingers, and equaled 0,462m≈46cm," per Kristine Chalyan-Daffner, "Socio-Cultural Attitudes to the Flooding of the Nile (13th–16th Centuries)" (2015).) The sender reports that everything in Egypt is perfect under the ruler (al-Mustanṣir or a vizier?), that new territory is conquered by him every day, that coins have been minted for him, ואלדעוה פי מכות (this phrase is difficult to understand—does it refer to the Fatimid Daʿwa?), and his forces have reached as far as Minyat al-Rudaynī (in the Sharqiyya district in the Nile Delta). ASE.

Partnership/investment agreement. Location: Fustat. Dated: 13[.]4, probably 1384 Seleucid, which would be 1072/73 CE. (1334 and 1394 Seleucid are also technically possible; the decade word is very faded.) In which Avraham b. [...] acknowledges receipt of 70 dinars from a woman named Mulūk [...] bt. Yiṣḥaq. Profits and losses will be split 50/50. Avraham is connected to the mint (Dār al-Ḍarb), as that is listed as one of the places where the money could potentially be stolen.