Geniza Lab

Letter from a Spanish community to Egypt concerning an impoverished and aging man from Rhodez, France, who appraoched the ruler of his land for redress after his son was murdered; the ruler instead expropriated his possessions. Wants to go to Jerusalem to spend the rest of his life there. Recto after a long alphabetical exordium.

Recto: Legal document, probably 11th-century, attesting to the sale of half of a vineyard to a certain Sha'ul. The other half of the vineyard belongs to Yosef b. Yiṣḥaq. The vineyard abuts the public domain on three sides and the property of the Muslim Aḥmad b. מיריל (?) on the fourth side. The vineyard is located on the other side of the the river Tagus (תאגה) in the place known as ואדי לעפש (=wādī l-ʿafṣ?) in the village of אלבֿיגֿש. The bulk of the document is in Hebrew, but four lines from the bottom begins a list of all the potential defects in the vineyard in Judaeo-Arabic, which Sha'ul accepts. Goitein: "Unlike orchards, vineyards, as fields—in one document, wine- growing areas are indeed designated as "fields"—were legally the prop- erty of the government or its amirs. Therefore, a karrām, or "wine-grower," is not to be regarded as a proprietor of vineyards, but as one who leased them from the government and took care of them. Of cases like this we read in our papers, for example, about an exquisite vineyard belonging to, or being under the jurisdiction of, the governor of Alexandria, which the writer of the letter had for years tried in vain to lease. For this purpose a letter of recommendation had been sent to the governor from influential people in the capital.52 In Spain, the legal situation was different. The Hebrew documents or formularies that have reached the Geniza from there show that private persons possessed vineyards and sold or leased them at liberty. Of particular interest is one deed of sale of half a vineyard, which, after having detailed all the legal aspects of the transaction in most elaborate Hebrew, enumerates in Arabic, "in the terminology in vogue in Muslim courts," no fewer than fifteen defects and diseases that the vineyard might have and in which the buyer was prepared to acquiesce." Med Soc I, p. 123. Verso: Piyyut.

Fragments from a copy of a letter. The writer is a person from Pumbedita (which belongs to a family of several Gaons) to a person in Spain, might be Hisdai b. Shafrut. The copy from the 11th century. Original letter from March/April 953. The letter contains important details about the connections with Spain, as well as about main figures in the Iraqi yeshiva. Mentions the head of the Gola – Shlomo b. Yisha’ayahu. (Gil, Kingdom, vol. 2, Doc. #13) VMR

Legal document. Quittance or bill of release (barāʾa) from Almeria, in al-Andalus, confirmed in Egypt. Individuals mentioned include […] b. al-Naḡara, Ḥalfon ha-Levi, Yiṣḥaq b. Aharon, Yosef ha-Levi b. Ḥarith, Yiṣḥaq b. ʿOvadya b. Yiṣḥaq, and Yiṣḥaq b. Yaʿaqov. The document is probably connected with Ḥalfon b. Nathaniel ha-Levi. (Information from CUDL.) Join by Mordechai Akiva Friedman.

Large fragment of a detailed order for textiles, specifying 18 different colors, sent to Spain, perhaps from al- Ahwaz. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 106, and from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from Natan b. Nahray (Alexandria), probably to Nahray b. Nissim (Fustat). Ca. 1062. Talks about business links with Spain. Mentions a number of commodities: indigo, lead, turbans from Susa and cloves. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 416.)

Important business letter sent from Alexandria to Fustat by a Maghribi merchant named Nissim who, coming from al-Mahdiyya, had arrived in Alexandria at time of a civil unrest. The writer describes the difficult situation in Alexandria and al-Mahdiyya, attaches valuable price lists and assures the addressee that his wife and baby daughter are perfectly comfortable. Dated 1060-1070. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 168; V, pp. 50, 51, 519.) A letter from Alexandria, in the hand of Salāma b. Mūsā b. Iṣḥaq Safāquṣī, to an unknown recipient. Summer of 1062. Lists prices in Alexandria. Mentions trade links with Byzantium, Genoa, Crete, Sicily, and Spain. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 445-446.)

Letter from ʿAllūsh b. Yeshuʿa (Qayrawan) to Ismaʿīl b. Avraham al-Andalusī (Fustat), ca. 1010. A cargo of best quality flax was stolen from a ship. The ship’s owner compensated merchants for their losses but received his money back when the cargo was found. The letter testifies to a wide-ranging commercial activity of traders from Muslim Spain. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 617-618.)

Business letter by a young Spanish merchant writing from Fez to his father in Almeria, Spain, revealing that he preferred not to use his father's house in Fez but to stay with friends instead in order to be able to declare his merchandise as destined for a local merchant. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 61-62 and Goitein's translation, attached.) After he was forced to pay the governor (qā'id) and customs inspector (mutawalli al-ʿushūr) and sundry others, "I was sick for three days out of anger and sorrow. Had I possessed here the same courage as I usually have in Almeria, I would have escaped with less than this. But I consoled myself with the solace of one who has no choice."

Letter from Spain to Egypt about a war in the Mediterranean (spring, 1137). Naval battle between Muslims and Christians. Written on late Nisan 1448 sel., which is mid-April 1137.

Court record detailing that in Denia, Spain, Efrayim b. Yaakov appoints one Abun as his attorney to claim whatever his late father might have left him in Egypt. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:407, no. 45) VMR The deed was confirmed in Al-Mahdiyya, Tunisia, and again in Alexandria.

Letter fragment. Sent from Jerusalem, presumably to Fustat. In Hebrew. Dating: Ca. 1048/49 CE. Damaged and faded. Mentions a scholar who escaped from trouble with the government, apparently in the Maghrib; his sister and a guardianship; that the community honored him when he came to Jerusalem "three years ago [in] the year 4806," which is 1045/46 CE. Also mentions Natan Av Bet Din. Goitein speculated that this might be a description of Daniel b. ʿAzarya, in part based on seeing a dispute over kosher slaughter in l. 21 and connecting this letter to T-S 20.19. Gil disagreed and understood this letter to be saying that the scholar is now dead.

Recto: Letter, mentioning Yehosef the Nagid of the Diaspora, and Spain. This is probably Yehosef b. Shemuel ha-Nagid (date: 11th century). Cf. ENA 3765.8–9 and T-S 6J3.25 for other letters addressed to him. The letter starts in Hebrew, but the marginal text is in Judaeo-Arabic. Verso: accounts, with sums in dirhams. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Maqāma-like work in rhymed Hebrew prose by a certain Shelomo b. Yehuda (not the 11th-century gaʾon, as this fragment is probably 12th–13th century), describing how his father Yehuda migrated from Spain to Egypt to Yemen, married a woman in Yemen, and returned to Egypt, where Shelomo was born. But then the devil led the father astray to take a second wife, who gave birth to a son named Evyatar and two daughters "of different religions"(?!). One of the girls died; Shelomo accuses his brother Evyatar of trying to sleep with the remaining sister; both Evyatar and the remaining sister died; and now Shelomo is writing this hymn of gratitude on account of how God liberated him from his wicked half-siblings. Recto is written over jottings in Arabic script, mainly formulae. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Two fragments from a Spanish letter requesting financial support for a convert. See Engel, The Wandering of a Provencal Proselyte: A Puzzle of Three Genizah Fragments, Sefunot: 7(22) p. 13-21.

Letter in which Arus b. Yosef mentions accounts of the export of five qintars of wool worth thirty dinars from Alexandria to Almeria in Spain. The trader had to pay six dinars for freight, half in Alexandria and half on arrival in Spain. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp.105, 344, 419)