Geniza Lab

Receipt for the price of sugar collected from a certain ʿAbdūn by the messenger Aḥmad al-Ḥawlī. The document is dated Tuesday, 13th RabīʿII 859 H. Similar receipt on verso issued on the 8th of the same month mentioning goods and prices, sugar being one of them.

Letter in early Judaeo-Persian. Dating: ca. 790. Matters discussed include the local ruler and his daughter, a trade deal or gift exchange with them involving sheep, Sogdians, slaves, capers, musk, silk, sugar, and news of Kashgar, including the capture or killing of Tibetans in battle. The dating is based on political events in western China to which the letter seems to be alluding. The variant of New Persian in which the letter is written is, according to Zhan Zhang, very early, containing grammatical and/or lexical elements from Middle Persian, Sogdian, Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese. The letter surfaced in China in 2004 and is now housed at the National Library of China. Zhang published an edition and Chinese translation in 2009: “Yijian xinfaxian Youtaibosiyu xinzha de duandai yu shidu ⼀ 件新发现犹太波斯 信札的断代与 [Dating and interpretation of a newly-discovered Judaeo-Persian letter]," Dunhuang tulufan yanjiu 敦煌吐番研究 11 (2008) [2009], 77–99. An English translation of Zhang's Chinese translation appears in Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History with Documents (2012). Zhang is working on a new edition and a new English translation as of 2021.

Accounts in the hand of Nissim b. Ḥalfon, presented to Nahray b. Nissim; 1066 CE. Lists payments for various goods, made either directly or through others, and gives details of various shipments, some of them to Tripoli, Libya. Mentions skins, textiles, beads, sugar, red wood, ammonia, furs, lead, baked goods, wine, meat, camphor, wax, tin, cloves, pearls and laque. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 986.)

Legal document. Partnership record. Dated: 1140. Location: Fustat. The brothers Abū al-Faḍl and Abū al-Riḍā Yosef b. Berakhot, owners of a sugar factory, take on Yosef b. Peraḥya and Peraḥya b. Nissim (possibly Ibn Yiju, great-grandson of Avraham Yiju, the India trader) as investors, investing 400 and 200 dinars respectively. There is a reference to "Arabic documents" which record the dimensions and location of the factory, and the fact that the brothers inherited part of the factory and purchased the balance from their father. The investors allow the brothers to pursue other investments outside the partnership with partnership funds. Withdrawals from the partnership capital are recorded as a transfer of a share of the ownership from the brothers to the investors, and any rent on this share goes to the investors. The investors are required to return the partial ownership of the factory when the funds are repaid. The Arabic documents record the sale of the factory (and presumably the transfer of the shares) as a "fixed" purchase. The brothers remain active partners in the five-year partnership. Partnership profits are divided equally, despite the unequal investments. The brothers will account for their expenses by subtracting from partnership profits 2 dinars per molded block of sugar. Per Goitein, a document at shelfmark T-S NS J215 describes the eventual sale of the factory discussed in this document. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 23-25)

Two fragments of the same legal document, dated 1532/1220-1221. The physician Abū l-Maḥāsin Yefet b. Yoshiyya and the sugar merchant Abū l-ʿIzz b. Abū l-Maʿānī declare that they had operated a sugar factory for many years together, but were now unable to pay the heavy government taxes any longer. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 580)

Bottom part of a decree of a Fatimid Amīr titled Surūr al-Malikī to a provincial governor or fiscal official, dated 2 Jumâda II, no year. Concerns collection of the kharāj on the refining of sugarcane (qaṣab) and taro (qulqās) in the village of Jawjar, where there was a press. The men of a high official (amīr muntakhab) titled Dhukhr al-Mulk wa-Sadīduhā (Treasure and Bulwark of the Realm) should be allowed to collect tax as the latter sees fit, while allowing the iqṭāʿ holders their income. Glued at top to a Judaeo-Arabic letter (see separate entry).

Letter of business to Judge Eliyyahu, mainly about small quantities of sugar candy-- see Goitein Nachlass material

Letter from Abū al-Riḍa, in Qūṣ, to Abū Zikrī, in Fustat, c/o the sugar factory (maṭbakh) of Abū al-Maʿānī. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. (Goitein's index card identifies the addressee as Eliyyahu the Judge, who did have a son named (Abū) Zikrī.) Dating: Probably early 13th century. The addressee is asked to give a responsum (fatwā) with regard to a certain Maḥāsin who wanted to marry his wife's sister. Maḥāsin had denied a charge in connection with this engagement before a Muslim court and confessed it in a Jewish court. The issue involves the wife (bayt) of Ibn Qasāsa and Abū Saʿd al-ʿAṭṭār, who calls himself Shaykh al-Yahūd. The sender complains several times about his illness and poverty (and therefore his inability to resolve the issue). He tells the addressee not to send letters to the shop of Abū Saʿd, because Abū Saʿd always reads them before passing them on to the addressee. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

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.

An inventory dated 8 Jumada II of a shop selling fruit and sugar, the ingredients for homemade candy "for those who wished to enjoy the fruit in a state other than natural." Lists a large amount of regular sugar and a small one of rock sugar, 100 pounds of hazelnuts and smaller quantities of pomegranate seeds, sumac, pistachios and two types of raisins. Also banana leaves, probably used for wrapping. Goitein has a full translation in the footnote. See Med. Soc., IV: 246, ix C 1 n. 152.

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dated: 1248-1249. Location: Fustat. This document describes a partnership in a sugar-factory. It's likely the document is a draft because it lacks the signatures of witnesses, and because it uses “So-and-So” ("Pl[oni] ben Pl[oni]") in place of the partners’ names throughout. However, the level of detail which is included suggests that this was not simply the page out of a formulary work. The partnership may have been an apprenticeship since only one of the partners is described as bringing assets to the partnership, the distribution of profits is not even between the partners but rather grants one partner two-thirds of the profit despite the fact that both partners are active in trading, and the partnership itself is to last “a number of years”. Lines 14-15 read “And if So-and-So requests [this] of us, we will affix our signature”, suggesting that perhaps sometimes partnership agreements were formed without witnesse. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 85)

Recto, with the address on verso: Business letter addressed to Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi. In Arabic script. Dating: Before the beginning of 1136 CE. Concerning business in goods such as sal ammoniac and turpeth, and mentions a public auction (ḥalqa) several times. (Information in part from Aodeh; see also Hebrew description from Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV) Ḥalfon reused verso for a draft of a legal document (see separate record).

Letter from Isma’il b. Farah, Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. September 23, 1056. The letter contains details about shipments of money and goods, and several requests to send letters, as well as requests related to buying goods (mainly sugar) and selling goods (mainly silk) in Fustat. Also mentions a large shipment of wax that was sent to the government. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #490) VMR

Legal document. Partnership agreement. Dating: 1229. Location: Fustat. In a document written in Hebrew emerging from the court of Abraham Maimonides, Abū al-‘Alā b. Joseph and his father enter into a partnership with Mufaḍḍal in a sugar factory, splitting profits and losses evenly. Mufaḍḍal gave 50 dinars to "his Elder" (possibly his grandfather), which would act as capital to be used by the grandfather to purchase raw sugar; as well as an additional 50 dinars to his partners. The purpose of this document is to bring Mufaḍḍal into the relationship between Abū al-‘Alā and his father; no qinyan between the father and son is recorded here. Goitein points out that although the relationship is well-defined here, it may not have been canonized with a formal qinyan. The document may have been written for Mufaḍḍal and to record his investment (100 dinars) and the split of profits or losses due to him.The sole preserved signatory, the judge Yehiel b. Eliakim of Aleppo, is known to have signed other documents with Abraham Maimonides. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 106)

Letter from Abū l-Manṣūr b. Ṭāhir al-Kohen, in Alexandria, to the Abū ʿAlī Manṣūr b. Yiṣḥaq al-Dimashqī, in Fustat. Dating: 1170s CE. The addressee was just then beginning his commercial career. The letter reports on an decree of Saladin that was proclaimed in Alexandria, halving the customs dues (maks) that had been incumbent on local and foreign Jews and Christians. The ṣāḥib al-dīwān authenticated and registered the decree (athbatahū), and the amir Fakhr al-Dīn ordered for it to be implemented. The local Jews took out the Torah scroll and prostrated themselves and prayed for the government. Also mentions various business dealings, including in sugar, and people including Hibatallāh the trader from Tripoli and Abū l-ʿIzz b. Bishr. (Information in part from CUDL and Frenkel.)

Letter from Mūsā b. Iṣḥaq b. Nissim al-ʿĀbid (al-Mahdiya) to Avraham b. Daʾūd al-Raḥbī (Fustat), ca. 1030. The writer supplies goods from the Maghreb, including oil olive, fruit jam, spices, etc. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 683.) Contains a list of prices of local goods: pepper, laque, spices, sugar, precious stones and pearls. Letter written in the evening after the fast of the day of Atonement. (Informations from Goitein index cards linked below).

Deed of a loan of 377 nuqra dirhams granted by a banker to the proprietor of a sugar factory to be paid back in weekly installments of 25 pieces, in Fustat, [157]6/1265.

Avraham b. Rason buys from Yeshua Abu al-Fadl b. Eliyyahu 9/24 of a sugar factory for 150 dinars. He permits him to buy it back for this sum any time during 3 years. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic addressed to Abū l-Ḥasan Sar ha-Bina. Bitter complaint of a sugar-maker that the addressee did not send him the material for his workshop (qalīl sukkar aṭbakhahu). (Information from Goitein's index card)

Accounts of a merchant. Mentioning goods such as pepper (filfil), oil (dihn), cumin (kammūn), bitumen (qifār), brazilwood (baqqam), sugar and syrup (sukkar wa-sharāb). Mentioning names such as Abū Naṣr, Abū 'Alī, al-Shaykh al-Itrābulsi, and Abū l-Qāsim. ASE.