Geniza Lab

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1427 Seleucid, which is 1115/16 CE. Ghāliya bt. Shelomo the divorcee of Ṭahor b. ʿAdiyya al-ʿAkkawī appears before the court and accepts an arrangement under which she will receive a yearly allowance of 4 dinars (from her ex-husband Ṭahor?). A sum of 65 dinars owed to her is also mentioned, which is crossed out and replaced by "all that [...]." Signed by the cantor ʿEli b. Yeḥezqel ha-Kohen he-Ḥaver.

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. This is probably the beginning of a power of attorney granted by the parnas Abū ʿImrān Moshe b. Moshe ha-Levi known as Ibn Majjān (appears also in T-S 10J5.16 + T-S 18J5.2 and L-G Misc. 50) to Abū l-Surūr Simḥa b. ʿAmram ha-Kohen known as Ṣāḥib Shamʿa, for the sake of representing his business interests "in Palermo (Ṣiqilliyya) and elsewhere, the lands of the west, the lands of Sicily (diyār Ṣiqilliyya), and al-Andalus."

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dating: Refers to the beginning of Ḥeshvan 1429 Seleucid, which is 1117 CE, but it is not immediately clear if this refers to a future or past date. The document narrates a protracted dispute which came about when Abū l-Faḍl Maṣliaḥ al-Ṣiqillī sued Abū l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā al-Ḥalabī al-Ṣayrafī for a few dinars. It seems that this contract is laying out the terms under which Abū l-Ḥusayn will pay back the debt via Abū Saʿd [...] b. Naḥmān. (The debtor here, Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Ḥalabī al-Ṣayrafī, is also known from several other documents, e.g., ENA 3616.22, ENA 4011.72, ENA 4020.2, and T-S 8J4.9.)

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Refers to the ending of a man's period of mourning; 'the middle one, R. Peraḥya'; a number of dinars and a rubāʿī; 3 dinars and a rubāʿī; a period of time involving Elul; an additional payment on top of rent; and Abū l-Surūr.

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Concerns one sixth of the equipment (? ʿudda) of a sugar refinery (? maṭbakh). The brother of Abū l-Faḍl Shela ha-Levi purchases it from Ibn Fahda, while Abū l-Faḍl serves as guarantor. Also mentions a party named Mawhūb. Various conditions for the sale are listed as well as a circumstance under which the sale will be reversed.

Legal document, Mamlūk era, deed of sale, in a very faint and worn-off Arabic script. The document is dated to the last ten days (ʿushr al-ākhir) of Rabīʿ II 660 H and the word "اباع" indicates that the document is a deed of sale. Reused for Aramaic liturgical text on verso with some traces also on recto.

Fragment of a ketubba. Dated: 24 Sivan 1313 Seleucid, which is 1002 CE. Groom: ʿAmram b. Maymūn. Bride: Zahra bt. Elishamaʿ. This fragment was reused in 1054/55 CE as a model for the ketubba for the groom Yoshiyya b. Neḥemya Rosh Pirqa (b. Avraham b. Sahlān) and the bride Karīma bt. Yiṣḥaq. Goitein comments ("this is surprising, because Yoshiyya was a payṭan"). (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Fragment of a marriage contract of the groom Elazar and the bride Sitt al-Dar, in which the bride undertakes to bring up the groom's children. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 310, 311)

Ketubba. In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel ha-Ḥaver ("at his best"). Groom: Elʿazar (l. 5). Bride: Dalāl bt. Maḥbūb (l. 2). In the portion preserved, Maḥbūb gives a house (or part of a house) on al-Sūq al-Kabīr (‘the large market’) to his daughter, the bride, while her mother renounces her rights (nazalat ʿan al-shiʿbud). (Information from Goitein’s index card)

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.

End of a legal document written and signed by Elḥanan b. Shemarya. Verso is blank.

Marriage contract. Location: Barqa (Libya). Dated: Thursday 5 Elul 4750 AM, which is 28 August 990 CE. The contract explicitly states that it follows the local custom of Tripoli, Libya, and has some peculiar traits which set it apart from similar documents from other countries. The bride, Ḥasana bt. Yosef al-Ṣarfī, was an heiress. This may account for the fact that she was not provided with a trousseau by her father but received a payment from her future husband, Aharon b. Yeshuʿa, to buy herself an outfit. The settlement is signed by 36 persons, possibly all guests present, only two of whom were witnesses. (Information from Goitein notes linked below.)

Legal document concerning settlements among a family. Location: Qayrawān. Dated: Wednesday, 14 Iyyar 4810 AM, which is 1050 CE. Yosef b. Adoniyya ha-Kohen gave to his second wife, Ḍiyā' bt. Elḥanan, a complete ʿuluww (architectural term). The wife gave 1/2 of the ʿuluww to her daughter from a first marriage (Mawlāt bt. Yosef ha-Kohen) and 1/2 to the narrator of this testimony, her son from a second marriage, Abū l-Maʿālī b. Yefet; Abū l-Maʿālī now gives his half to his stepsister Mawlāt. This ʿuluww is located above the portico (sqīfa) of Zina bt. al-Fājū(?); its eastern boundary is the house of Yehuda b. ʿAmram; its southern boundary is the house of Yehuda b. Seʿadya b. Rawāda(?). Witnesses: Yosef b. Yehuda Rosh ha-Seder; Nissim b. Avraham Ḥarīrī; Avraham b. Yosef. Ed. Simha Assaf, "Old Genizah Documents from Palestine, Egypt and North Africa (conclusion)," Tarbiz 9 (1938), p. 215. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Legal document. Location: Damietta. Dated: 7 Tishrei 4750 AM, which is 9 September 989 CE. Action concerning an estate in Nisibis [Naṣībīn], Mesopotamia, brought before the elders of Damietta (here called Ḥanes). Sahl and Ḥusayn, the sons of the late Yehuda, complain about Neṭira b. Toviyya ha-Kohen, with whom their late father had left 1,320 silver pieces. The sons now claim the estate of their father from Neṭira, who had “confessed before God and the elders,” whereupon each son received his share of the estate: 330 silver pieces each. It is difficult to tell from the digitized images, but it seems that this document was cut into pieces, the pieces were pasted into a long vertical strip, and the blank verso was reused for a Hebrew literary/liturgical text. (Information from Goitein’s attached notes and translation.)

Marriage contract written by Yefet b. David, signed between the groom Yefet b. Shelomo and the bride Beracha bat. Shemarya in October 1029 in Jerusalem. (Information from E. Bareket)

Marriage contract (ketubba). In the hand of Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya. Location: Fustat. Dated: Wednesday, 15 Sivan 1368 Seleucid, which is 1057 CE. Groom: Mawhūb b. Kathīr. Bride: Mubāraka bt. Shelomo. Witnessed by Ḥalfon b. Shabbat, Ḥasan b. [...] ha-Kohen, Yaʿaqov b. Yosef, Shelomo b. Yaḥya, Mevorakh b. David, Yefet b. David b. Shekh[anya], Seʿadya b. Yaʿaqov, and a poor signature (שלהן כרר) that may be misspelled. On verso there is liturgy in Hebrew, apparently relating to the peace offering. (Information from CUDL.) NB: Goitein's index card for Bodl. MS heb. a 2/5 erroneously refers to a 1492 CE ketubba for Ḥayyim b. Moshe Fakharūn and ʿAzīza bt. Shelomo b. Shūsha.

Ketubba fragment. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: Sivan 1438 Seleucid, which is 1127 CE. Groom: Tiqva b. Peraḥya ha-Levi. Details of the dowry (nidūnya) total 174 as far as visible. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: middle third of Iyyar 1414 Seleucid, which is 1103 CE. Unsigned but complete document on vellum, in which a court, as warden of the two minor orphans of Shemuel b. Yefet, permits to use 50 dinars out of the 74 dinars left to them, for urgent repairs of a house in in the alley of מכיל, Old Cairo, left to them also. The money is held by Abū l-Faḍl al-Sharābī Shela b. Elʿazar. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Legal document dated Nissan 1145 CE (1456 Seleucid), under the reshut of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya, certifying that Abū l-Faraj has paid the 20 dinars he owed to Abū l-Maʿānī.

Will of a silk-weaver named Abū l-Faḍl b. Barakāt Ibn al-Maqdisī, dividing his house, workshop, and other belongings to his four sons. In the hand of Yosef b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi. Location: Fustat. Dated: Wednesday, 15 Kislev 1500 Seleucid, which is December 1188 CE, under the authority of the Gaʾon Sar Shalom ha-Levi. Signed by: Shelomo b. Nissim and Levi b. Avraham ha-Levi (may be identical with Abū Sahl Levi the cantor, father of Yedutun and Moshe b. Levi; may also be the same Levi b. Avraham who appears in T-S NS J273 in connection to a silk workshop). There is a full translation and commentary in Goitein's attached notes. ENA NS 76.435.6 + ENA NS 76.435.7 is an earlier, messier version of the same document (same scribe, same date, signed by the same witnesses).