Geniza Lab

Small fragment, perhaps a genealogy or memorial list, including a lineage with an Aluf ha-Ḥaver . . . bar Avraham bar . . . Sahlān bar . . . Avraham bar . . . Sahlān bar Av[raham].

Letter by Sahlan b. Avraham to Menashshe b. Hayyim, congratulating him on his marriage. Dated ca. 1030. (Information from E. Bareket, Shafrir misrayim, pp. 181, 182, 234)

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda, probably to Efrayim b. Shemarya, praising the addressee and complaining about a Fusṭaṭ man, probably Sahlan b. Abraham, particularly concerning the latter’s preference for the title bestowed by the Babylonian yeshiva to that of the Jerusalem yeshiva. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Sahlān b. Avraham perhaps to Efrayim b. Shemarya. Dating: ca. 1030 CE. Written in a calligraphic hand and beautiful biblical style. Only the right side of the letter is preserved. Sahlān refers to his illness, a physician, and going to the synagogue. Information from Bareket and from Goitein's index cards. ASE.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda, in Jerusalem, to Sahlān b. Avraham, in Fustat. In Hebrew. Dating: 1029 CE. "Here is a description of old age in the hand of Solomon b. Judah Gaon, the president of the Jerusalem yeshiva and official head of the Jews of the Fatimid empire, written nineteen years before his death. The time was excruciating for him: things in the yeshiva and the community at large did not go according to his wishes. Abraham b. Sahlan, a leader of Egyptian Jewry, Solomon's 'peer,' with whom he had probably studied many years before, had just died, and his own son was on his way to Aleppo in northern Syria, a voyage fraught with danger. . . . But old age, like life in general, has its ups and downs: the rich correspondence of the Gaon shows him as being active in affairs and rich in style during the long years following the passage translated above, although a premonition of death is certainly felt in it. 'I am a descending sun, soon to set. My soul is very much depressed since my peer passed away, may he rest in Eden. I ask God only to keep me alive through this year so that people should not say: "Both died within one year." Take notice, my dear, that I am going about like a shadow [cf. Psalms 39:7]. I have no authority (reshut), only the title. My strength is gone, my knee is feeble, and my foot staggers. My eyes are dim, and, when I write, it is as if I was learning it, sometimes the lines are straight and sometimes crooked, and so is my style, because my mind is disturbed since the day my beloved [son] traveled to Aleppo to fetch some goods he had left there. I pray to God to bring him back in safety "before I depart and be no more" [Psalms 39:14]'" (Goitein, Med Soc, V, p. 120, translating lines 19–25).

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to Sahlan b. Avraham, end of 1042.

Letter from the future Gaon Daniel b. ʿAzarya, in al-Mahdiyya, to the leader of the Babylonian community Sahlān b. Ibrāhīm (aka Abū ʿAmr Sahlān b. Barhūn), in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. Dating: Tuesday, 11 Tishrei, probably October 1038 CE (according to both Gil and Goitein). The letter congratulates Sahlān on his marriage, which we know to have taken place on 9 September 1037 CE, from his ketubba (T-S 20.6). The letter also discusses difficulties experienced by the Babylonian/Iraqi congregation of Fustat that were resolved with the intervention of Abū Naṣr Ḥesed al-Tustarī (ll. 13 and 16). Daniel is working on these matters together with the Rosh ha-Gola, at present in the Maghrib, and with the Nagid of Qayrawān (Yaʿaqov b. ʿAmram or Shemuel ha-Sefaradi). The Arabic-script address on verso references Sahlān’s late father Ibrāhīm b. Sahlān (d. ca. 1031), previously the head of the Iraqi community of Fustat, and refers to him as “Barhūn.” The letter briefly mentions Sahlān's deliverance from an illness, but this part of the letter is too damaged to discern any more information (l. 8). (Information from Gil and from S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:511; 3:118, 451.) EMS. NB: As of 01/2022, the PGP transcription is missing all of the text in the margins and on verso.

Letter from Avraham, son of the Gaon, to Sahlan b. Avraham, approximately 1029.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to Sahlan b. Avraham, 1048.

Letter from Sahlān b. Avraham to a Ḥaver. Dating: ca. 1035. Mentions Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllūn. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 622-623, #339). Goitein summarizes this as follows: "Fragment. According to the request of a Gaon, the scribe of a court deposition restates the contents of that deposition (probably lost), which was against the interest of a certain ḥaver. The letter is addressed to that ḥaver. Preserved is the name of Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllūn, who was granted a power of attorney." VMR

Note from Sahlan b. Avraham about Aharon ha-Ḥaver b. Tuvia ha-Shlishi (the third) that came from Jerusalem to Fustat. Sahlan asks one of his assistances to provide Aharon's needs and especially to find him an apartment for Shabbat. Around 1050. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 624, #341). VMR

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to the head of the Babylonian community in Egypt, Sahlan b. Avraham, thanking him for forwarding a donation of ten dinars destined for the poor in Jerusalem, and justifying his unwillingness to borrow a midrash on the Song of Songs (Midrash Hazita) from the 'Third' and copy bits out for Sahlan, approximately 1048. Verso: Address in Arabic. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Avraham the son of the Gaon to Sahlān b. Avraham. (Identifications by Gil; whereas Goitein says that it is written in the "unmistakable hand" of the Gaon Shelomo b. Yehuda.) Mainly in Arabic script, with some Hebrew mixed in. Dating: ca. 1045 CE. The sender mainly details the honors and appointments that were given out during the month of Tishrei. He refers to the "Av Bet Din" and his brother "ha-Shelishi," who are probably (Gil says "certainly") Yosef and Eliyyahu, the two sons of Shelomo Gaon (hence the estimated date). On verso there is a draft of a piyyuṭ in the handwriting of Sahlān b. Avraham (hence the identification of the addressee). (Information from Gil.) NB: Goitein published this fragment in "New sources on the Palestinian Gaonate," Baron Jubilee Volume (1974), but at the time it was called "T-S NS 320.16." Perhaps the confusion arose because Goitein understood these two fragments to be part of the same document. His index card for this manuscript is also located under that shelfmark. The index card currently attached to this shelfmark must be referring to a different manuscript. It says, "Ṣadaqa b. Moshe ha-Levi buys from Yosef b. Shelomo for 25 dinars Tawfīq (a female slave) whom the latter had originally bought from another Jew for his daughter Sitt al-Ahl."