Geniza Lab

Deed of lease. Location: Cairo. Dated: Monday, 27 Tammuz 1613 Seleucid = Shawwāl 701 AH, which is June 1302 CE. The elders of the Qaraite Jews of Cairo lease the right of way (sulūka) through a doorway of the street of the synagogue (darb al-kanīs), "may it soon be reopened" (in Hebrew in an otherwise Judaeo-Arabic text), to al-Ṣafiyy Abū l-Maḥāsin b. al-Asʿad Abū l-Ḥasan, for 6 dirhems per year. During the persecutions of 1301–02, the houses of worship of Christians and Jews were closed by the Muslim authorities for about a year until the Byzantine emperor and other Christian monarches obtained their (partial) reopening (see Strauss, Mamluks, I, 86–87). Information from Goitein, Med Soc II, p. 435 (Appendix A, #173). ASE.

Legal testimony, Qaraite. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Sunday, 17 Heshvan 5472 AM, which is 1711 CE. It has to do with the floor (ṭabaqa) that is across from the mill, above the house of Raẓon ha-Rofe. The floor belongs to the Qaraite waqf. Elishaʿ and his brother Avraham al-Sākit were living there, and it fell into a ruin. The miller Yūsur Muḥibb sued them to remove the hazardous ruin. They stated that they could not afford to do so, but agreed to vacate their rights to the dwelling and have it revert to the waqf, which would then be responsible for the repairs.