Geniza Lab

Fragment of a letter from an imprisoned government official. 12th century.

Bottom part of a decree of a Fatimid Amīr titled Surūr al-Malikī to a provincial governor or fiscal official, dated 2 Jumâda II, no year. Concerns collection of the kharāj on the refining of sugarcane (qaṣab) and taro (qulqās) in the village of Jawjar, where there was a press. The men of a high official (amīr muntakhab) titled Dhukhr al-Mulk wa-Sadīduhā (Treasure and Bulwark of the Realm) should be allowed to collect tax as the latter sees fit, while allowing the iqṭāʿ holders their income. Glued at top to a Judaeo-Arabic letter (see separate entry).

Five lines remaining of an official report mentioning two messengers sent from the caliph (al-ḥaḍra al-ṭāhira) to Damascus and also mentioning the Banū Hilāl. The document was reused to make a kind of frame or possibly to plan an inscription.

Official letter. After the basmala one reads :ʾaṭāla llāh baqāhā wa-ʾadāma taʾyīdahā wa-ʿalāhā (l. 2), ʿārafahu bi-mā li-l-ḥadra al-sāmiyya al-ʾaǧalliyya al-raʾīsiyya (l. 3), ʿalā al-ḥadrat al-mawlā al-ʾaǧall waladihā (l. 5), taḥmīl (or: bi-jamīl) al-raʾy al-šarīf, ǧaʿala llāh al-riyasa ʿalā al-ṭāʾiʿīn (l. 6), ʾinnī iǧtmaʿtu bi-ḥadrat mawlāya al-šayḫ al-ʾaǧall (l. 7). L. 12 mentions something that "deserves an increase" (istaḥaqqa or astaḥiqqu l-ziyāda)—maybe the sender is asking for a raise. L. 14 mentions a mukātaba ʾilā al-ḥadra al-ʾaǧalliyya al-raʾīsiyya.

Decree to a lower official commanding him to retrieve bricks and everything belonging to the government from a certain location (a ruined mosque?); and from other ruined mosques; and to assert the government's authority over the aforementioned mill.

Letter from Isma’il b. Salama al-Gazal, al-Bahnasa, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Dating: ca. 1051. Details about payments and business with local government officials in Upper Egypt. Mentions a stock of about 30 tons of grain. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #709.) VMR

Letter from Avraham Maimuni informin the Nasi that a certain document was not found among papers brought forth by a third party and that the matter would be followed up only if the recipient insists. AA

T-S 13J22.6 was published By Gil, Palestine, #404. It is the left hand side of the letter. T-S 13J7.6 is the right hand side of the same letter, published by Gil (transcription of the whole document) in his 1991 article of corrections and additions to his 3-volume Palestine. This is a letter of complaint to Avraham ha-Kohen b. Yiṣḥaq b. Furat (mid 11th century). The writers complains about the Christian governor Ibn Gorgas who built a church next to a mosque, a controversy arose, and now the Jews are in danger.

Recto: Report to a vizier of al-Ḥāfiẓ by a military official in which the sender references previous petitions and also makes a new request for a rescript. Dating: second quarter of the sixth century AH / 12 century CE. (Information from Khan, ALAD.) EMS

State document in Arabic script, an internal memorandum or report containing multiple hands. Containing (on the last fragment) the signature of the vizier Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad (441 AH/1049–50 CE). The dating is discussed in Stern's article and should be considered definite; it is also corroborated by the caliph's name. The Arabic text is written in five different hands, reflecting administrative procedure. NB: This is a continuous join: T-S Ar.18(2).193 + T-S Ar.30.306 + T-S Ar.30.314. Whether T-S 24.21 and ENA NS 10.31 also join is less clear: they were reused by the same scribe for the same text, but may not have been part of the same state document. If they were, the first two fragments don't join continuously with the last three. Between the lines on recto is a Judaeo-Arabic letter (see separate record, PGPID 16773). On verso is Shemuʾel b. Ḥofni's Kitāb Aḥkām al-Shurūṭ, parallel to the text in SP RNL Evr-Arab. I 2938 fol. 3b. (Information from CUDL and Marina Rustow.) Joins: Marina Rustow.

List of 31 contributors in Arabic and Coptic numerals (1, 1 1/2, 2 2 1/2, 3, 4 4 1/2, 5, 8, 9) but no denominations of coins. The physician of the hospital here is the al-Sadid of T-S K.149. Arabic was used here no doubt because the originator of the collection was a merchant who was accustomed to corresponding in Arabic rather than in Hebrew script. He also arranged collections in two noted bourses of Fustat (two collections in each bourse), one, the dar al-Fadil, founded by al-Fadil al-Baysani, originally a Fatimid official, but later chancellor and confidant of Saladin, and dar al-Za'fran (saffron house), which was adjacent to the house of gems, repeatedly mentioned in Mediterranean Society (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 508, App. C 139)

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dating: 1126–29 CE. Containing a statement about Salāma and Ibn Siman Ṭov, Jewish aides/accomplices to the rapacious Coptic finance minister known as "the monk" (al-rāhib), Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ. The background is summarized by Mark Cohen as follows: "In October 1125, the vizier al-Maʾmun, implicated in a plot against the caliph al-Āmir, was deposed and imprisoned along with five brothers, and later executed (in 1128). The caliph, then twenty-nine years old and tired of being cloistered in the shadows of highhanded dictators, attempted after 1125 to rule by himself. Unfortunately, however, he entrusted financial affairs to a rapacious Coptic bureaucrat, Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ, known as "the Monk" (al-rāhib), who, from the autumn of 1126 until his execution in 1129, managed to terrorize all segments of the populace, including the Jews, with his promiscuous confiscations and arrogant demeanor" (Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, p. 284). This document consists of two manuscripts; the right half is T-S NS J272 and the left half is T-S NS 12.91 (the transcription here includes both documents beginning at line 16). (Information from Goitein's index cards; Mediterranean Society, II, p. 281; and Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, pp. 284–85.)