Geniza Lab

Recto: Informal note in difficult Arabic script, scrawled basmala on top, possibly a memorandum to do with land tenure? Needs further examination. Verso: Informal note in Judaeo-Arabic from a sick man to his son's teacher informing him that his son behaves outrageously and needs to be disciplined. "A teacher must tell the boy if he tries to leave, 'Don't go around to the houses and the markets.' The gist of the matter is that if the boy comes this Friday afternoon and if he behaves thus (?) at that time, please inform me in your response to this note, in large Hebrew letters, because I am sick (wajiʿ), prostrated beneath my bed (or bedcovers? rāqid taḥt al-firāsh). Uncover his legs and give him a good beating." Perhaps the note on recto is from the teacher, and the man had a hard time reading it, so asked for the next one to be in Hebrew script?

Family letter. In Arabic script. Maybe from a man in serious trouble with his wife, writing to his son who appeased or reached a settlement with her (ṣālaḥta sittak). The sender calls her a ḥānitha (oathbreaker) and a saḥḥāqa (literally "tribadist" but usually meaning "lesbian" - see Pernilla Myrne, Female Sexuality in the Early Medieval Islamic World, p. 146). The sender concludes by threatening to kill himself or do something violent to her unless they “set him free,” and if he acts rashly it will be the addressee’s fault:قد صالحت ستك بالله عليك اطلق سراحي ولك في ذلك الاجر من الله الا [[قلتل]] قتلت روحي او اعمل بها مصيبة وتكون المطالب باثمي. Merits further examination. ASE.

Legal testimony. Dated: Wednesday the 6th of Ḥeshvan, which Goitein identified as October 1231 CE, based on the surmise that this document belongs together with Bodl. MS heb. e 101/14. The testimony describes how Shamun b. al-Muzanjir was attacked by his brother, ʿImrān, while sewing in the store of Simḥa. Shamun didn't lift his hand against his brother for this happened in the presence of Jews, Muslims and Christians. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p.47; V, pp. 305, 306)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. From several people, probably addressed to Sayyidnā al-Rayyis. The senders are currently being held in prison and it sounds like they are making their case to the addressee to exert himself to help them. They had evidently antagonized some man in a legal battle. This man then showed up drunk to a gathering and attacked them and insulted them and tried to smash jars of oil. When this didn't get him anywhere, he went to some government office (Dār al-Sulṭān) and cried out for help, "O Muslims! I do not say... the religion of Islam." They tried to appease him, but he said, "You 'wrote' (a contract?) in Muslim courts... I will take revenge on you!" The authorities responded to the ruckus by throwing everyone in prison. ASE

Letter from a certain Yūsuf. In Judaeo-Arabic. Rudimentary script and spelling. The letter may describe the violent disciplining of a girl, and the writer says it is all the addressee's fault. There is some sort of dispute involving the house that is located in darb silsilat al-ṣulṭāniyya, its original door, Ibn al-Raṣṣāṣ, and 600 dirhams. The continuation on verso is rather faded but includes the line, "I am oppressed." In a diffferent hand and ink, there is a note mentioning baskets containing materia medica (or materials for a drug shop, ḥawā'ij ʿiṭr). ASE.

Letter from a man, in Fustat, to his brothers Yūsuf and Ibrāhīm, unknown location. He blames his delay on the ״כר״ that belongs to Baqā', who refused to let him use it. The sender had a fight with Baqā' (taḍārabtu) and was seriously injured (inkhabaṭtu) and fell sick again (maraḍtu marḍa jadīda) but is now doing better (qad tawajjahtu li-l-ʿāfiya) so no one need worry about him. He will come on Sunday. If the addressees have gotten their hands on Abū Naṣr's silver, they should send it, because Abū Naṣr has already come to the house asking for it 3 or 4 times "and he doesn't know that I am in Fustat." (Information in part from Goitein’s index card)

Recto: Document in Arabic script. Possibly a letter. Rudimentary handwriting and orthography. Sings the praises of a Coptic sage in Alexandria. This sage is versed in theology (الناطق بالقوال التالوغسية) and Hermetic arts (المتادب بالاداب الهرمسية) and translates the Coptic and the Arabic languages (مترجم الغات القبطية والعربية). Verso: Letter (or legal query) from Christians addressed to Muslim authorities. In Arabic script. The writers complain about a Christian who was attacked by Muslims, who had been asked by other Christians to do that. They grabbed him, beat him, and dragged him before the bishop of the Christians. Dating: Unknown. Szilagyi dates the fragment to the 10th-15th centuries on the basis of the handwriting. The reference to translating and Coptic and Arabic suggests an earlier date, 10th to 13th century. And there is one word (الاوبيين) that perhaps should be read "al-Ayyūbiyyīn" which would date the fragment to 1171–1250 CE. But it might also be al-adībīn. Informtion from Krisztina Szilagyi via FGP.

Letter addressed to ʿAbd al-Karīm. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Late, probably 14th century at the earliest. The writer and addressee are Qaraites. Very long. Conveys information about conflicts and disputes and the lashing of women by a court. Altogether a detailed report of communal affairs. Recto. The writer reports on the charge against a certain woman that she went to see an astrologer (munajjim), and that the addressee's mother went as well and protected the other woman. The ḥakīm himself gave the woman 20 strokes with a cane. The writer is very agitated about this and urges secrecy ("these are matters that should only be spoken in the grave"). The next couple dozen lines are damaged and difficult to read. Some time later, Naṣrallāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. the addressee's paternal uncle אבן אלנשו was going up the stairs when Ṣadaqa b. Ibrāhīm al-Ṣaghīr accosted him. It seems that Ṣadaqa upset Naṣrallāh, who went crying to his mother, who spoke angrily without realizing that the guards (shomrim) were listening, and word of what she said reached Ṣadaqa, who confronted the mother of Naṣrallāh and called her a fājirat kalb (!) who goes around seducing (tatabahraju) other men's husbands. The next couple lines are difficult to read; they mention "al-khāziniyyīn" and the addressee's parents. Subsequently, all the protagonists gathered in Dār Ben Sameaḥ (=Dār Simḥa, the main Karaite synagogue in Cairo from roughly the 14th century onward—see tag) on Saturday night for the reading of the Torah (al-talāwa). Ṣadaqa got up to read the Torah. The addressee's cousin ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (the father of Naṣrallāh and the husband of the woman whom Ṣadaqa had insulted) got up together with ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Shurayṭī, and they vehemently objected that a person who curses elders could ever read the Torah in the synagogue. Ṣadaqa then verbally abused them ("half of your prayers are heresy, you ass. . . .") and did the same to the others who confronted him (al-Melammed, al-Ḥakīm, his father and maternal uncle). The brawl continued until "the cameldriver was in the riverbed" (al-ḥādī fī l-wādī) and the community missed the chance to read the Torah. Eventually Ṣadaqa and Naṣrallāh's mother were summoned to continue their argument in the house of al-Muʿallim Sharaf al-Dīn, where Ṣadaqa was convicted of making oaths in vain and cursing elders/ancestors, and he therefore lost his right to pray before the congregation or read the Torah (yaṭlub sefer). The marginal note belongs here ("Why did you curse the khāziniyyīn?" "I only cursed them because of ʿAbd al-Raḥīm. . . "). It seems that a group (Ṣadaqa's gang?) was then overheard threatening to beat the muʿallim. The story winds down around here; the writer repeats that these matters are only to be discussed in the grave. Verso. The writer asks the addressee not to show this letter to Ibn al-Melammed, and also to take it with him to Cairo. The writer excuses the addressee for his failure to write, but, "When you went up to Jerusalem, you had no excuse left" or, "When you go up to Jerusalem, you will have no excuse left." He then gives detailed reports on the sightings of the new moons of Elul and Av. He mentions in passing "Yūsuf b. ʿAlam [who] was traveling through the lands collecting the jāmikiyya." Unpublished, uncited in the literature, and requiring much more work. ASE.

Letter draft from the wife of a drunkard to "sayyidnā." In Judaeo-Arabic, beautifully written. She reports that her husband took her belongings, demanded from her more; hit her with something unmentionable (his shoe); she had already once sent to the Nagid when he threatened to kill her in the evening. When her mother came on Sabbath, he demanded that she pay his capitation tax (jāliya); threatened to beat the mother so that she would be ill. His parents encourage him to beat her. Finally she left the house Saturday night. He had already taken from her 4 dinars and bought wine. Information from Goitein's note card.

Petition for help addressed to a Jewish notable. Written in Hebrew, for the introduction, and Judaeo-Arabic, for the body. The sender is a goldsmith in the central exchange (Dār al-Ṣarf). A certain Daylamī named ʿAzīz al-Dawla has been persecuting him (יעמל מעי פי שפיכות דמים... ממא יעמל מעי מן אלסנאות). The addressee is asked to intervene and stop that man from harming the sender. "I have begun a task and I am unable to obtain my wage on his account." He uses the stock phrase, "The knife has reached the bone." There are also a few words in Arabic script upside down at the bottom of the page (possibly from an earlier document reused for the petition).

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Possibly 12th century. Rudimentary hand. Relates that there is violent domestic conflict between Hilāl and his wife. Mentions Ibn al-Labbān and [Abū?] Naṣr b. al-Sadīd.

Letter from a Jewish woman, in or near Tripoli (Lebanon), to her brother-in-law, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. She is a refugee from Jerusalem who has suffered at the hands of the invading Seljuk Turks in the 1070s CE. She had to flee from Jerusalem to Tripoli, where she reports on the carnage she witnessed: ‘I was with him on the day I saw them killed in terrible fashion... I am an ill woman on the brink of insanity, on top of the hunger of my family and the little girl who are all with me, and the horrid news I heard about my son.’ She suggests it would be better to be captured since those in captivity ‘find someone who gives them food and drink’, whereas uncaptured, she and her children are starving. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Legal document. Court records made by Abū l-Khayr and Peraḥya about a physical argument between the leader Abū l-Bahā and Abū l-Wafā in front of the Babylonian synagogue in Fusṭāṭ, during which Abū l-Wafā beat Abū l-Bahā repeatedly, tearing his clothes and uncovering his head. Attested by the notary Efrayim b. Meshullam (12th century). (Information from CUDL)

Legal testimony. In the hand of Avraham b. Natan Av. No witness signatures. Location: Cairo. Dated: Thursday, 27 Adar I 1415 Seleucid, which is 1104 CE. The document contains the proceedings before the court regarding the matter of dispute between two members of the community of Malīj, Shelomo b. Avraham (aka Salāma b. Ibrāhīm al-Sayrajī) and Peraḥya ha-Kohen b. Ṭarfon (aka Abū l-Surūr b. Ṭarīf). The story opens with a verbatim copy of another testimony (called a sheṭar/maḥḍar) dated 2.5 months earlier (Saturday night 12 Ṭevet 1415 Seleucid), in which the witnesses Mevorakh b. Yiṣḥaq, Yosef b. Mevorakh, and Elʿazar b. Yosef testify that they entered the house of a Jew named Bashshār and found Salāma b. Ibrāhīm assailing Abū l-Surūr b. Ṭarīf and hanging on to his clothing; the latter was not defending himself. Salāma insisted on taking Abū l-Surūr before the government (sulṭan); Abū l-Surūr insisted on taking Salāma to the Jewish courts (before 'the Rayyis'). Salāma then insulted the Rayyis and said, "I am [King] Baldwin (Bardawīl), and Abū l-Surūr is my prisoner!" Salāma summoned the police (rajjāla) and had Abū l-Surūr and Yūsuf b. Rajā and Yūsuf b. Manṣūr taken before the Muslim courts/government (headed by "the amir"). The amir nearly had the defendants beaten. (End of first document.) Now, Abū l-Surūr has finally succeeded in bringing Salāma before the Jewish court and "sayyidnā" (though the pronouns are not entirely clear in l. 4 and it could also be Salāma suing Abū l-Surūr). The court orders Salāma to justify his behavior. Salāma says to summon the witnesses. The court refuses, saying, And what if they don't obey the order? Abū l-Surūr says that the court should use the ḥerem stam (blanket excommunication) to coerce people into reporting any communication they received from Salāma to antagonize Abū l-Surūr before the Muslim courts. Either Salāma or Abū l-Surūr at this point accuses the other of bearing false witness in the Jewish court ("before Sayyidnā"). The court reads out a letter that Salāma confesses to be his own, in which he accuses a troublemaker (=Abū l-Surūr) who had been exiled from Malīj to Cairo of sending letters to Ibn al-Qāsh the dyer and to the shoṭer and the nadiv to the effect that they aren't rid of him yet, since he will return as soon as Rabbenu dies. The court asks Salāma on what basis he made that claim, and Salāma can only respond that someone (he refuses to say who) told him about Abū l-Surūr's alleged letters. The court believes Abū l-Surūr's side of the story, but also issues a ḥerem stam commanding anyone who did receive a troublemaking letter from Abū l-Surūr to come forward with it. The shoṭer and the nadiv are present, and they deny receiving any such letter from Abū l-Surūr. The document ends abruptly with the line, "The day broke, and the crowd dispersed." ASE

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. In a rudimentary hand. This is the second or final page of what was originally a longer letter. There is an unusual grid on both recto and verso. The letter is very difficult to understand. It seems that a woman is being reproached for abandoning her own son ("a woman who has no one in the world but her own son whom she raised, her liver, should cast him aside and not look at him or see him again? this is in the law?") as well as a girl/woman (the להא in l. 1). The sender (the son himself?) says that (s)he has been beaten and mistreated by an unspecified group of people. The sender then switches to masculine imperative verbs, apparently addressing the husband or a male relative of the unloving mother, beseeching him to treat the sender well. The sender concludes by saying "may God the exalted accept from me that which I pray for you night and day," which would be more typical for a female sender, especially a mother, than it is for a male sender or a son. But some of these ambiguities will likely be irresolvable without the first part of the letter. The expression "a son, her liver" (ולד כבדהא, if read and understood correctly) may derive from the Arabic expression "our children are our livers" (awlādunā akbādunā), which in turn derives from a poem by Ḥiṭṭān b. al-Muʿallā al-Ṭāʾī cited in Dīwān al-Ḥamāsa: وإنّـمــا أولادُنــا بيننـــا أكـبــادُنـا تمشــي علــى الأرضِ / لو هَبّتِ الريحُ على بعضهـم لامتنعتْ عيـني من الغَمْضِ. ASE

Letter. In Judaeo-Arabic. Rudimentary hand. The spellings are closer to classical Arabic than usual (e.g. שיא for شيء). The two folios were originally two folios (i.e. not a single folio that was torn in half), because the recto of folio 2 is the direct continuation of the verso of folio 1. The writer is a merchant who lists a number of materia medica (he calls them 'akhbār ʿiṭriyya'). The part of the letter that Goitein typed is the middle portion relating the harrowing events that befell the writer on a boat journey. The writer was attacked in the dead of night and his belt (himyān) was tied around his neck. He cried for help to the Muslims around him, and Muḥammad al-Najjār al-Ishbīlī set him free.

Letter from Shemuel, in Damietta, to Abū l-Mufaḍḍal Hibatallāh b. Faraḥ, perhaps related by marriage through the latter's sister. The handwriting is often ambiguous, so much of this analysis is tentative. Shemuel opens with the bare minimum of formalities, then, "As for what you mentioned about the events in Damietta, very ugly things came to pass. They took your sister to the ḥujra (barracks?). Then they brought her to the administrative complex (dār al-imāra), and they brought a basket to sit her in it and beat her. I pled and pled (? lam azal ashḥad—this verb is used for beggars, but perhaps he is using the Hebrew meaning: to bribe) until God had mercy and they brought her back to the ḥujra, without saying a word to her. I did not cease . . . until I got her out of the ḥujra to the house of Hilāl. Hilāl stood guaranty for her after a period of house arrest (? baʿd an aqām mudda fī l-tarsīm). He lost 13 dinars. They sold everything that was in the house. They left nothing worth even a half dirham. They took your sister's copper and sold it. No one was harsher than the secretary of the head of police (wālī) in Damietta, who supervises the inheritances. I sent him 10 gold coins with Abū l-ʿAlā' Muslim." The next line is tricky and involves something called "kutub al-sulṭān." At this point the writer switches to beseeching the addressee to do his utmost to protect the interests of his own family and of the writer: "Go to the amir Sayf al-Dīn, and to the owner of the house, and meet with Sayyidnā al-Rayyis. Let him go and meet with all of the amirs and bring up these matters that interest you and me." They are also to go to al-Amīr al-Ṭahīr (? אלטהיר. There is a qāḍī with the same epithet in the Arabic document T-S Ar.41.9. But perhaps it is al-ẓahīr). The subject matter on verso becomes still more obscure. The writer tells the addressee not to begrudge a certain payment, "for the amir Fakhr al-Dīn has promised me every good thing in the world. He has bestowed favor on me beyond description. He does not take a penny; others do." There follows another obscure passage: perhaps the writer obtained a loan of 30 gold coins from the amir that he needed for a bribe (shaḥadtu bihā, the same verb used during the beating). He then goes back to describe how the house was completely emptied; not even a nail was left behind. Finally he relates the episode described by Goitein as follows: "In Damietta, the Egyptian seaport, a makhzan was located in a dihlīz, or entrance hall [of the house of Abū Saʿd]. A jug containing a thousand gold pieces was discovered there and, of course, confiscated by the government." Med Soc IV, 79. Goitein mentions this letter one other time: "As with government offices in general, there was no clear-cut and fixed division of duties among the various branches of the judiciary and the security force. Thus we find, for example, in Damietta, the office of the chief of police (wālī) dealing with cases of inheritance, normally the prerogative of the qadis." Med Soc II, 371, referring to recto, lines 12–14. ASE.

Legal document(s). Dating: Possibly 1168 CE, based on the fact that the document was written shortly after the pillage/burning of Fustat (nahb/nawba/ḥarīq Fusṭāṭ). On recto, the parnas Sālim al-Jubaylī makes a first-person declaration making a case for his lack of liability in the loss of the 10,000 dinars that many Jews had deposited in the synagogue ('miqdash') of Fustat under his stewardship. These Jews were apparently suing him to try to recoup some of their losses in the catastrophe. On verso, there is a declaration by witnesses in support of Sālim al-Jubaylī. "Needless to say, the great pillage of Fustat in 1168, nahb misr (referred to also as the affliction, nawba, or burning), the last notorious demonstration of Fatimid impotence, is reflected in the Geniza. The districts preferred by Jews for their homes seem to have been less affected. But a loss of deposits worth about 10,000 dinars, a sum unheard of in the Geniza, shows that the community was by no means spared during that infamous sack" (Goitein, Med Soc V, p. 525).

Letter from Araḥ b. Natan, also known as Musāfir b. Wahb, in Alexandria, to his brother, Avraham b. Natan the seventh, in Cairo. Dating: 1094–1111 CE. Avraham was an associate of the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saadya. In the letter, Araḥ reports of serious riots in Alexandria and a drunken brawl that ended only with the intervention of the chief of police (wālī), although he also accuses the other faction of having alerted the wālī, in addition to the drunken brawl having drawn his attention. The writer praises the local muqaddam who managed to free those involved with the brawl. He also complains of inappropriate fetishization of official decrees, and is so annoyed at the behavior of his fellow Jews that he reports it to the governor, Fakhr al-Mulk. For his brother’s benefit, he adds that the appropriate way to fetishize a decree is, as everyone knows, to kiss it and put it on your eyes, which is what the governor does. But “the Jews,” he complains, “take it around from place to place” and "wave it around like a banner." There is a passing reference to his illness ('I will tell you about it when my spirit recovers from this illness,' v1). It is likely that he is attributing his illness to the events described in the letter (wa-qad lazimanī minhu mulzim), though Frenkel understands this sentence to mean simply that there is some matter that is incumbent on him. (Information from Miriam Frenkel, Alan Elbaum and Marina Rustow)

Recto: Letter/petition to Avraham b. Yaʿaqov ha-Ḥazzan. In Judaeo-Arabic. This is either intended for the eyes of Mevorakh or simply mentions previous petitions submitted to Mevorakh. It is a complaint about the excesses of Shela the Judge and his brothers and sons, who have seized power over the community in Alexandria by "violence and lack of government control(?)" and are behaving in ways unbecoming of judges. (See Mark Cohen, Jewish Self-government in Medieval Egypt, Princeton University Press, 1980, 243.) Join: Oded Zinger. EMS. ASE. Verso: Draft of a court record after the death of the well-known ʿEli ha-Kohen ha-Parnas (b. Ḥayyim/Yaḥyā), confirming that his nephew has received the 20 dinars willed to him. Join: Oded Zinger. ASE