Geniza Lab

State document: report to a high bureaucrat (with taqbīl clause), written under the Fatimid caliph al-‘Āmir, 509/1115; in the Hebrew on verso, the date is 517/1123. Coptic and other pen trials on the back. Verso: a minute in Judaeo-Arabic noting the date of the corresponding ḥujja, Muḥarram 517.

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.

Report or petition to a Fatimid caliph or vizier, opening blessings only. Dating: ca. 1100–71. Cuts off after the taqbīl clause. Addressee may be al-Afḍal b. Badr al-Jamālī (cf. Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, p. 284). Cf. also CUL Or.1080.15.77 (Khan, no. 84).

Report or memorandum mentioning Ibn Khalīfa and a government job (khidma).

Report on fiscal matters, draft.

Petition or report, Fatimid, fragment from near the beginning containing end of blessings, the taqbīl clause, and part of the qiṣṣa. Dating: 1100–71.

Fatimid state report from a lower official to the caliph or other high official(s), including raʾy clause, ḥamdala and ḥasbala. Only the last two lines before the ending are preserved. Mentions Ibn al-Anbārī and excuses for why a group of people were prevented from arriving somewhere (possibly tempests—anwāʾ).

Recto: Report fragment, 7 lines. The sender mentions a group of people who came before him and pledged their allegiance (...ʿindī mudhʿinīn muslimīn ilayya qāʾimīn bi-l-khidma fī dhālika...). Later, "after they departed," a group of infantry and cavalry came before him (...dakhala ilayya jamāʿa min al-mutarajjila wa-l-khayl...) and said, "Our master, we heard that so-and-so and so-and-so came before you and told you the opposite of what was agreed upon in the majlis" (haḍarū bi-haḍratak wa-takallamū bi-khilāf mā istaqarra fī l-majlis bi-l-asr(?)), and they didn't realize it until it was nearly too late (...mā ʿalimnā bihi ḥattā tamḍī al-sāʿa...). Verso: Financial record—a receipt for a certain Mufaḍḍal. Possibly with eastern Arabic numerals (but these are not used in the classical Geniza period) and possibly with a dāl abbreviation for dīnār or dirham.

Recto: Small fragment (2 lines) from an official report. Needs examination for content. Verso: The report was torn and reused for an order of a half-ounce of saffron (worth 1 dinar?) from ʿArīf al-ʿAṭṭār (or possibly: "the ʿarīf/head of the ʿaṭṭārīn"). Signed: al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ = Ṭalāʾiʿ b. Ruzzīk (the Fatimid vizier, 1154–61). Written on Monday, the 16th of Jumādā II. The signature and date are written in a different hand than the main text. (Information in part from محمد على ابو حمزة, Marina Rustow, Boris Liebrenz, and Tamer el-Leithy.) ASE

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.

Verso (original use): Fragment of a state report. The ends of 6 lines are preserved: "...the ṭalḥiyyūn(?), and there did not remain in al-Ramla... Muḥammad(?) b. Muḥsin(?) al-Anṭākī... the reins(?) of the slaves in it... with seventeen horses... they went out against it... the remaining ones..."

Report to an Ayyubid official mentioning al-Malik al-ʿĀdil and a deceased official named Shams al-Dīn. The Mainz shelfmark is how it's listed in FGP, but it's not actually in Mainz. The image in FGP is from a microfilm at the National Library of Israel; the original was at a paper museum in Mainz that has since closed, now presumed lost. Join: Marina Rustow.

Petition. Report fragment, probably early Ayyubid period (taqbīl clause + paleography + reused by Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, whose documents cluster ca. 1190–1210; see description of verso of this document). Difficult to decipher. Contains a registration mark in faded (iron gall?) ink.

State document: Official report (fragment) concerning armed insurrection and civil unrest. For verso, see separate entry.

Recto: State document. Report to al-Ẓāhir about a tax farmer, beginning only. Dating: 1021–36 CE. (Cited in Khan, BSOAS 53 (1990) 25; Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections 311 n27 with partial transcription.) Indirect join: Oded Zinger.

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

Report to the Fatimid chancery. In Arabic script. Dating: beginning of the 12th century, during the reign of al-Afḍal. Describing a battle against the Crusaders. This fragment reports on the strategies used by the army. On verso of T-S 16.114 and T-S 24.57 there is a Hebrew poetic eulogy; on verso of T-S AS 11.383 and T-S AS 146.195 there is the beginning of a letter draft in Judaeo-Arabic. (Information from Khan and CUDL.)

Description from T-S 20.145: Letter/petition from ʿAmram b. Aharon ha-Kohen "the seventh" (the son-in-law of the head of the Palestinian Yeshiva, Evyatar b. Shelomo ha-Kohen) to dignitaries in Fustat, including the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saadya. Dating: 1108–09 CE. The sender wants the addressee to exercise his influence to have the Fatimid navy rescue Evyatar and his family from Tripoli in the period between the summer of 1108 CE (when the populace of Tripoli overthrew Ibn ʿAmmār) and 12 July 1109 CE, when the Franks sacked Tripoli. (Information from Brendan Goldman's edition.) Description from T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177 (old PGPID 17817): Letter. Mainly in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1108 CE, as it refers to the flight of Fakhr al-Mulk Ibn ʿAmmār from Tripoli and how he left it in the hands of his cousin Abū l-Manāqib. The layout is like a formal report, with a narrow width and wide space between the lines. The sender says that he has previously sent a letter concerning "the same matter" to "our cousin," a great dignitary and a kohen. "They took it and traveled with it... toward the beginning of Shabbat Vayoshaʿ (=Beshalaḥ?), the day that Ibn ʿAmmār traveled for Beirut—let him return no more to his house, and let not his place know him any more (Job 7:10)—and then traveled for Tiberias (? טברי) to fortify himself there, and the city is now in the hand of his cousin (ibn ʿamm) Abū l-Manāqib." (Information in part from CUDL.) Joins by CUDL (for T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177) and Alan Elbaum (for T-S 20.145 + {T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177}). For an example of the Fatimid state document format which this is emulating, see another report concerning this period in Tripoli (unpublished): T-S AS 129.149 + T-S AS 116.11 + T-S NS 137.20 + T-S NS 207.44 + AIU I.C.73 + T-S NS 238.99 + T-S NS 244.84 (+ T-S NS 125.135). ASE

Letter or petition (or draft) in Arabic script. Strings of titles. There are alternating lines of light ink (bigger letters) and dark ink (smaller letters), one presumably written before the other. ḥaḍara ilā al-majlis al-ʿālī etc.

Report of a provincial official, Ibn لفش(?) al-Shihābī. In Arabic script. It seems that he received an order to present himself, together with the qāḍī and the ʿāmil (and the kātib?) (ll.5–6). He reports that a well/cistern overflowed and posed a danger to all the land underneath and had to be fixed (ll.10–12). He complains about a Christian named Abū l-Fakhr who made a complaint; "do not ask about the trouble he caused me and the tax farmers (ḍummān)" (ll.14–16). Needs further examination.