Geniza Lab

Possibly a letter. In a late hand.

Fragment of a letter in Arabic script. 4 lines preserved, with the continuation written at an angle in the margin. Some phrases: ...فضلا عما . . . اه اذ كان جميع ال . . . . . . . فالله تعالى ذكره يطالب كل من يحكي المحال فيذكر ملائمه وبيده الافعال والكتب الذي امتلكت الاوسية وصنعت آخر(؟) غلا[ته؟] بجملة مال. "...may God the exalted punish anyone who speaks the impossible and describes its attributes(?). He has the operations(?) and the documents which the estate/domain (al-ūsiya) possessed and its cro[ps?] produced, a lot of money..." These readings are tentative. In the margin, mentions wheat and barley and someone's name. On recto there is a faded biblical-sounding Hebrew text.

Letter, draft, very cursve and hard to decipher. Mentions an illness, a ghulām. Telling a narrative. Verso contains few words in large Arabic script. Also the name Yiṣḥaq ha-Melammed b. Ḥayyim.

Letter or official correspondence in Arabic script. Fragment (right side only). In the last line: ...ʿādāti l-ḥaḍrati l-muqaddasati ḥarasa llāhu [muddatahū?].... On verso, there is literary text in Hebrew.

Letter in Hebrew. Late. Mentions Elʿazar Castro.

Business letter addressed to Abū l-Khayr b. Mufaḍḍal al-Yahūdī al-Bilbaysī(?), in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Maghrebi hand. Dating: Likely ca. 13th century. Consists almost entirely of detailed business instructions, mentioning many commodities and their prices.

Letter(s) in Judaeo-Arabic. It is not immediately clear if recto and verso are in the same handwriting or not. On recto, the addressee is a woman. The sender (presumably male) mentions something "red and white," and he hopes to come in person soon. He tells her not to worry. Mentions how "you know my love for you" (ואנתי תעל[מי] מחבתי לך), so probably a traveling husband to his wife back home. Mentions Abū l-Waḥsh and offers *(to bring with him?) anything the addressee desires. Verso: Also a letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Urges a quick response, which should be sent to the goldsmiths' market (sūq al-ṣāgha). The sender swears by God "apart from whom there is no God" (billāhi alladhī lā ilāha illā huwa). Greetings to Abū l-Maʿālī(?) b. [...] and his son Abū l-Bahāʾ.

Note to Yosef ha-Shofeṭ. mainly praises

Subsequent use: Draft of a formal letter containing polite phrases and blessings written out multiple times (e.g., ḥaḍrat mawlāyya al-shaykh al-jalīl). 'Addressed' to Abū Naṣr al-Faḍl b. Sahl (al-Tustarī). There are ~4 'senders' listed, whose names are prefaced with 'khādimhā': one is ʿAlī b. [...] and one is Ṭībān b. Khalaf.

Letter. Rhymed blessings as appear in the beginning of many letters - the top two lines look like the text of an endng of a letter.

Recto (probably the secondary use): Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of the same supporter of Daniel b. ʿAzarya who also wrote T-S K25.244. Probably related to the Arabic-script petition on the other side. This too is a petition/report presumably sent to a dignitary, asking him not to remain silent in the face of suffering.

Letter in Hebrew. Late. Very faded. Dealing with business matters. Currency: gurush.

Letter concerning legal matters. In Judaeo-Arabic. Large but very faded.

Blessings in large, thick, square letters to X b. Shekhanya.

Letter with wide spacing.

Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. [...] to Ismaʿīl b. Barhūn. In Judaeo-Arabic. This is an 11th-century, Maghribī business letter. Uncited in the literature.

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Faded and damaged.

Recto: Communal/administrative letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: likely ca. 1150–1250. Ordering payments to the usual people: Umm Nuṣayra the sister of Ḥayāʾ the wife of Yosef al-Nafūsī; [...] the wife of Hārūn the scribe; ʿAzīza "who is in the house"; someone else (Ḥanna?) who is also in the house; ʿAfīf the greengrocer (? al-bayyāʿ al-khuḍarī), and a couple others.

Business letter. In Hebrew. Dating: 16th century, based on Avraham David's assessment. Currency: muayyadi/medin.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Tiny fragment: preserves only the opening and part of the Arabic-script address. The hand is almost certainly the same as several other known letters: see tag. This fragment could be part of a non-contiguous join with ENA NS 7.48.