Geniza Lab

Will, in which the testator grants a lot of valuable property to various people in his family, including a kānūn sharābiyya (a syrup-maker's brazier?) and a female slave named עב[...] to one of the women in his family.

Legal document in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragmentary, so difficult to figure out the details. Sets out provisions for the care of a minor boy. Mentions a female slave (al-jāriya al-kabīra) twice, once in the context of someone being granted ownership (תצרפת פי גאריתהא תצרף אלמלאך).

Trousseau list to accompany a marriage contract. Groom: Abū Naṣr Elʿazar ha-Kohen b. Yaḥyā. Bride: Sitt al-Maʿālī bt. Abū l-Ḥasan al-Simsār. Real value: 57 dinars. Including a female slave (unnamed) worth 20 dinars. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Abū Manṣūr Elʿazar b. Elʿazar al-Dimashqī gives the female slave Rahaj ("Arsenic") as well as clothing and household goods which he had inherited from his wife Fakhr bt. Abū l-Surūr al-Jashshāsh as a gift to his two daughters, Ḥasab and Kafā'. (Information from Goitein's index card.) NB: This portion of the document is on recto of Bodl. MS heb. f 56/46.

Deed of sale for the sale of a female slave. Location: Fustat. Dated: Tuesday, 1 Nisan 1537 Seleucid, which is 31 March 1226 CE, under the authority of Avraham Maimonides. This is a copy of T-S 13J4.2. Yiṣḥaq b. Yehuda Ibn al-Mashshāṭ, agent (wakīl) of Yeshuʿa b. Hillel Ibn Zikr, sells to Hillel b. Barakāt the female slave Ḍiyāʾ, who was born into slavery (muwallad) and was brought (musayyara) to Fustat. Price: 25 dinars. Not signed. Seems to be a (good) copy made by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 433, 458, and from Goitein's index cards)

Recto: Letter of recommendation addressed to Aharon ha-Ḥazzan. In Hebrew, calligraphically written. Headed with the title 'Rosh ha-Seder.' Requesting that Aharon look after a blind man named Shabbat who claimed to have been cheated of his allocation. Verso: A woman pawns pieces of her trousseau against loans. The date 26 May 1050 CE appears in lines 4–5. Information from Goitein's note cards. Old description: Fragments of responsum by a Gaon, dealing with children of female slaves.

Petition from the wife of Abu'l-Faraj the Silkweaver, to Shemuʾel ha-Nagid b. Ḥananya (in office 1140–59). She is an "unprotected woman" (marʾa munqaṭiʿa) whose father could not support her and whose brother was a young boy with no connections. She explains that she “got stuck” with a man who was not ashamed of the bad things people had said about him (or maybe of the bad things of which he himself speaks?). The petition was written after a legal proceeding in which the Nagid ordered the husband to restore the ketubba to its original wording (apparently the husband had decreased the sum stated in the ketubba). However, now the husband has taken an oath that he would restore only ten dinars, a lower sum than previously agreed upon. The husband apparently managed to ignore the Nagidʼs commands by finding someone who supported him in his claims. The wife had been getting advice from her congregation and from the local judge, but, she writes, she is fed up with words and no action. The judge, for example, told her brother to leave the matter until Sunday, but “Sunday came and nothing was done for my issue except postponement.” She complains that she is treated “as if it was I who has done something unpermitted” (ḥattā ka-annī qad ʿamiltu shayʾ lā yanṣāgh (!) – for the last word (=yanṣāgh) see Blau, Dictionary, 379). Even a ruling of the Nagid was subjected to a process of negotiation at the local level until it was watered down to ineffectiveness. The same matter is also mentioned briefly in T-S 10J17.22. (Information from Zinger, "Women, Gender and Law" (PhD diss), 248n139, lightly revised by MR.) Alternate description based on Goitein's notes: Complaint to Shemuel ha-Nagid (his titles occupy 7 lines) by the wife of Abū l-Faraj, the silkspinner (qazzāz). Her husband had left her and her little daughter without provisions, however, he was not without means. His female slave she claims had been adjudicated to her, but was kept by her husband in his sister's house. The judge, to whom the complaint was made first was not effective in securing her rights. (some corrections by AA)

Verso: Legal document (bill of sale?) involving a Nubian female slave and the daughter of R. Yosef and someone's wife. Very faded. Dated: 1 Elul 1538 Seleucid (i.e., about a week after the main document on recto). No signatures.

Register, legal: biofolio of a notebook with legal and communal entries. In the first entry Abu al-Faraj al-Saigh b. Abu Ishaq Ibrahaim al-Maghrebi allows his wife to give thier son 10 shares of a house that belonged to her father. Signed are Ḥalfon ha-kohen b. Elazar and Shemuʾel b. Mevasser ha-Melammed. The year 27 is written and going by the script I assume 1527 is meant, i.e. 1216. In the next entry Barakat b. Munajja testifies that she owes Abu al-rida ha-levi 160 dirhams on top of a previous debt of 134 and a half dirhems. The third entry is a sale of a slave by Abu al-Faraj to Banat b. Yaaqov. On the back are accounts of communal collections.

Bill of sale for a female slave. Mevorakh and Yekutiel

Recto: Bill of sale of for a Nubian female slave named Mulḥ. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Unsigned. Location: Fustat. Dated: 7 Kislev 1412 Seleucid, which is 1100 CE. Seller: Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf b. Netanel. Buyer: Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf. b. Efrayim. Price: 20 dinars.

Recto: Bill of sale for a female slave. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Av 1466 Seleucid, which is 1155 CE, under the authority of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Seller: the trader (tājir) Abū ʿAlī b. Natan he-Ḥaver. Buyer: the trader (tājir) Abū l-Faḍl b. Elʿazar. Slave: An Indian woman named Ghazāl. The price is missing. On verso there is a communal account which Gil dates to ca. 1215 CE (see PGPID 775).

Verso: Bill of sale for a slave. Incomplete and unsigned. Dated: Monday 26 Ḥeshvan 1403 Seleucid, which is 1091 CE. Seller: Meshullam b. Hiba known as Ibn al-Shuwaykiyya (cf. T-S 20.30 and the cluster of related documents). Buyer: Moshe b. Ghālib ha-Kohen. Slave: a woman named Kitmān, born into slavery (muwallada). Price: 25 dinars.

Probably a bill of sale for a female slave. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. No details preserved.

Bill of sale for a female slave named Waṣīfa. Fragment, containing the first half of 5 lines. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe.

Recto: bottom of a marriage contract (ketubba). Groom: Yosef b. Shelomo. Bride: Karīmā bt. Nuṣayr known as Elʿazar. The end of her dowry list is preserved, including a black female slave valued at 30 dinars. The scribe and one of the witnesses is Yosef b. Elʿazar b. ha-Shofeṭ (who also signed T-S NS J269, dated December 29, 1066). Numerous other witnesses signed, including Ḥalfon b. Mevorakh, and Yehuda b. Moshe (?) ha-Ḥazzan. Verso: four different blocks of dense text, most in poetic, rhyming Hebrew lines. Join by Goitein.

Deed of manumission for Ashu, an Indian female slave, written by Avraham Ibn Yijū, Mangalore, October 17, 1132. On the verso and on the margins of the deed Ibn Yijū copied drafts of 3 poems for Maḍmūn b. Ḥasan of Aden (See II, 40). Both Goitein and Friedman suggest that Ibn Yijū bought Ashu so that he could release her and then marry her. This deed is especially important for the 'reshut' clause, written in India, and mentioning both Daniel b. [Ḥ]isday, the Exilarch in Baghdad and Maṣliaḥ b. Shelomo, the head of the Palestinian Yeshiva residing in Cairo.

Deed of sale of a female slave. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Involves a woman named Sitt al-Kull and notably refers to Dār al-Dībāj (the "House of Brocade") in Cairo (cf. T-S Ar.42.174, an Arabic-script deed of sale for a female slave, also mentioning Dār al-Dībāj, but from at least 10 years earlier).

Document concerning the manumission of slaves. (Information from CUDL)

Testimony given by Moshe b. Ṭahor concerning the sale of a Nubian female slave. Location: Fusṭāṭ. Dated: Heshvan 1542 Seleucid, which is 1230 CE. Under the authority of Avraham Maimonides (‘the Great Nagid’). There is a decorated title, זכרון עדות ברורה. (Information from CUDL)