Geniza Lab

Recto: Bill of divorce (geṭ). Location: New Cairo. Dated: Friday, 24 Adar 1[6]50 Seleucid, which is 5 March 1339 CE. Husband: ʿEzer b. Yehoshuaʿ. Wife: Shumaysa bt. Mordekhay. The divorce was not completed on this occasion, as there are no witnesses. Cf. T-S 20.10 (dating to 1310 CE), which may involve the same couple. Bottom of recto and verso: unrelated jottings in Judaeo-Arabic, and three lines of a child’s handwriting exercise. See ENA NS 55.18 for a similar geṭ with similar reuse (same scribes?). (Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: Ḥeshvan 1350 Seleucid, which is 1038 CE. The contents are difficult to understand because of the poor state of preservation. Signed by: Mevorakh b. David, Maḥfūẓ b. Yiṣḥaq; Yiṣḥaq b. Khalaf; and Shelomo b. Mundhir. The validation is written by Efrayim b. Shemarya (as head of the Beit Din) and signed by himself and by the cantor Yefet b. David. (Cited in Oded Zinger, Women, Gender, and Law: Marital Disputes according to Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 383; Jacob Mann, Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs, 1:99) EMS

Draft of an oath to be taken by Yosef Lebdi in which he enumerates his assets. Due to the litigation between Yosef Lebdi and his nephew, David b. Shelomo, following Shelomo's death, Yosef Lebdi was to make a formal oath stating that he had cheated neither his brother nor nephew. The draft is incomplete, probably because the elders of the community intervened and prevented such a respectable merchant as he from the shame of making such an oath. There is reason to believe that the detailing of Yosef's assets and dealings is complete.

Prenuptial agreement between a Karaite bridegroom and a Rabbanite bride, stipulating a fine to be paid to the Rabbanite and Karite poor by the bridegroom Abu Sa'id, scion of a family of Karaite bankers, should he break any of the stipulations of the contract.

Legal document. Partnership document. Dating: 1300-1350 (per Goitein). This manuscript mentions the two partners, Abū al-Ḥasan b. Abū al-Faraj and Khalaf b. Ḥasan, who withdrew from a group involved in banking, because some of the partners had loaned funds without the permission of Abū al-Ḥasan. Apparently, Abū al-Ḥasan visited the seems to have been in charge of the workplace but visited only periodically. The withdrawal appears to have taken place six years before this document was written and the account with Abū al-Ḥasan was settled. The partnership likely charged interest on some of its loans, since the clients include Muslims and Christians (e.g., a Coptic clergyman from Barbaya). (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 234)

Court record of sale of a slave who had already lived in the house of the buyer and was therefore known to her.

Part of a legal document, dated the month of Shevat. Witnessed by Menashshe ha-Levi b. Abraham b. Aaron b. Shuʿayb, Manṣūr b. Shelomo b. Azhar, Elʿazar b. Yefet, Shemuʾel b. Isaac, Ṣedaqa b. Naḥman, Abraham b. [...], and Muḥsin b. Ḥusayn. (Information from CUDL)

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.

Sale of a female slave. Seller: David Ha-Levi. 25 dinars. Probably 12/13 century. (Ashur estimation). VMR

Litigation in court concerning an inheritance, in Damsis. The two heirs Halal b. Ḥalfon and Abu al-Karam b. Ḥalfon are the litigants.The former accuses the latter of dishonesty. Verso: Yeshua b. Ali witnesses to the effect that the pawn he had was redeemed by Abu al-Karam for 10 dinars. (Information from Goitein's index cards) VMR

Legal document concerning a husband who wanted to travel to see his mother and relatives and his wife took him to court for it. He reportedly said that he would “go and come back,” to which his wife replied, “I did not believe his words” (lo he ’emanti li-devarav). (Oded Zinger, Women, Gender, and Law, 83) EMS

Legal document concerning a power of attorney from Zuhra bat Joseph, apparently for Jacob he-haver, regarding the inheritance of hasan b. Faraj al-Amidi. Mentions Joseph b. Isaac and [...] ha-Levi b. Furqan, and towns such as Aleppo and the Lebanese Tripoli. Verso: document, probably a letter, in Arabic script. (Information from the Cambridge Genizah Research Unit via FGP).

Confirmation by witness of the divorce of Raisa b. Kathir, who wanted to marry Yosef. Written by Yefet ha-Hazan b. David. (information from Goitein's index cards) VMR

Fragmentary record of testimony, 1340/1028.

Document of release concerning the estate of Barakat ha-Levi’s deceased wife Jaliyya, mentioning the mother of Jaliyya and the daughter of her sister specifically. EMS

Recto: Trousseau list. Groom: Yeshuʿa b. Avraham. Bride: Mubāraka bt. Ṭoviyya. Marriage payments: 20 + 30 = 50. Value of the dowry is 480 dinars (according to the text, or 488 dinars by Goitein's calculation — the parties may have agreed on a round number). Dating: late 11th or early 12th century CE. Verso is Syriac (see separate record). The join was discovered by Goitein in 1980. There is a discussion and partial translation in Goitein, Med Soc IV, App. D, item (e). Information from Goitein (Med Soc IV, pp. 344, 467, n. 286), FGP, and Friedrich Niessen, "New Testament translations from the Cairo Genizah."

Document containing a few names: Abu al-Faraj b. Asad, Shemuʾel b. Surur. Also mentioned are representatives of the Sultan, the destruction of houses, and the sum of 500 dinars. Tyre, 1546 sel., (1234-5). (Information from Goitein index cards) VMR

Court record concerning a grain dealer who promises to pay his former wife 4 dirhams every week for his five-year-old son, who was staying with her. The document further stipulates the boy visit the father on a Sabbath or a weekday, whenever he (the father) wished. In return, the divorcée acknowledges having received from her husband all that is due to her and agrees not to give him a bad name, nor sue him before a Muslim court or state authority. In case of default, she would be banned or excommunicated. Payments were to be made to a third person in Cairo, specified in the document. September, 1052. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:152, 438; 3:334-5, 502) EMS

Fragment from the end of a contract, followed by a whole contract, both of which are between Avraham and Shalom and witnessed by the scribe Natan b. Avraham and Ḥayyim Ṭārīqa(?). The first contract, written during the Feast of Tabernacles 5304 (= 1544 CE) in Egypt, mentions the sum of 59.5 עתמאני (i.e. the Ottoman unit of currency). In the second contract, Shalom agrees to pay Abraham the same amount using gold peraḥim (ducat equivalents) from the coinage of Sultan Sulaymān. An exchange rate is given: every peraḥ is worth 59.5 ʿuthmānīs. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Legal document. Power of attorney. Location: Fustat. Dated: February 1084. Power of attorney from Moshe b. Avraham to ʿAmram b. Yosef ha-Ḥasid, to act on his behalf in litigation with Maḥbūb. Moses b. Abraham appoints Amram b. Joseph his unlimited agent to collect debts from Maḥbūb b. Ḥibān in al-Maḥdiya, some of which consist of partnership assets (including semiprecious stones, glass beads, gold, and similar commodities) as a ṣuḥba, in this case meaning a deposit with, with Ḥassūn ha-Levi b. Solomon. The partnership relationship was fairly complex, Moses depositing funds with Ḥassūn who passed them on to Maḥbūb. Maḥbūb may have been a regular partner with Moses or alternatively, an agent serving many traders and remitting funds from active partners who stopped in Tunisia to their investors in Fusṭāṭ and elsewhere. When the funds failed to reach Fusṭāṭ, Moses sent Amram to collect them. The clauses denoting proper state of mind are common to release documents and powers of attorney. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 167)