Geniza Lab

Legal document. Partnership document. Location: Fustat. Dating: 1100 (per Goitein). This document, signed by Yitzhak b. Shemuʾel ha-Sefaradi, describes itself as a partnership document enacted between Abraham al-Mirjānī b. Moses and Mevorakh b. Eleazar, though details as to the partnership itself and the divison of profits and losses are missing from the preserved portion and much of the language is reminiscent of release documents. Each of the partners is given a copy of the document. The clauses here concerning soundness of mind are common in release documents as well. They also appear in both power of attorney and partnership agreements. While it is logical that soundness of mind would be required while releasing an erstwhile partner or while appointing an agent and releasing him from certain claims, it is odd that these clauses would appear when a new partnership relationship is formed. The soundness of mind clauses in the partnership release documents mirror those clauses seen in divorce or debt settlements, wills and release documents, suggesting that soundness of mind is required when one relinquishes a right. The document was written on Wednesday, 1 Sivan "in the year dated above" (which is not visible in the extant text) and signed the following day. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 234)

Legal document recording Surūra bt. Shelomo’s suit for maintenance from her husband Surur b. Yaʿaqov Ibn al-Jāsūs. For the expenses, Surūra was ceded one-half of a bill of debt given in Qayrawān to her husband’s father by a merchant in Alexandria in summer 1029 CE (the date on the bill quoted is Tammuz [4]789 [A.M.]), amounting to 280 silver pieces, worth 23.33 dinars. Surūra presented the bill to a court in Fustat with the request to have it collected in Alexandria, and further stated that her husband had left her an ʿaguna and thus owed her and the children this maintenance. T-S 13J8.2, part of CUL Or.1080 J7, and T-S NS J149 all include versions of the same document, or at least concerning the same case. (Oded Zinger, Women, Gender, and Law; S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 3:203, 319.) EMS

Yaʿaqov ha-Kohen b. Moshe declares that Abu al-Ala Mevorakh b. Avraham al-Safuri, owed him 1/3 and to his brother Aharon 2/3 of a sum of 230 dinars, but left for their payment only 100 dinars. Now Yaʿaqov wishes to take not 33 1/3 but only 20 dinars, so that he and his dead brother's four children - Moshe, Daniel, Shemuʾel, and Sara - should get each 1/5 of 100. (Goitein) VMR

Document of release concerning Avraham b. Shemuel and Sa’dan b. Sa’id, witnessed by Yosef ha-Kohen. (Information from Goitein's index cards.) See also BL OR 5550.1, another legal document involving Sa'dan b. Sa'id, dated 979 CE. EMS, ASE.

Pre-marital contract containing a stipulation allowing the bride to opt out of a patrilocal household even without proof she had been mistreated: “Whenever she hates living with his father and mother, he must lodge her wherever she chooses.” Egypt, twelfth century. (Eve Krakowski, “Female adolescence in the Cairo Geniza documents,” PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2012, 202, 206-7) EMS

Deathbed will by Yefet ha-Levi. Location: Probably Damascus. Dating: Unknown, but see verso. In which he dedicates one-third of an orchard and a house located in the village of Hammuriyya near Damascus and stipulates the income of the estate is to be used to purchase food for students of the law. Two trustees are appointed, Yequti’el and Petahya. (Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza, Brill, 1976, 482-4) EMS

Verso: Formulary in Aramaic for a deathbed will, dated Av 1552 (= 1241 CE) in Fustat. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document concerning power of attorney in which Shelomo b. Hatim appoints Menachem b. Shelomo to pursue his claims against Ḥasan b. Avraham and Shemuel b. Nisin. EMS

Deed of sale for a male Abyssinian slave (ghulām ḥabashī) named Muqbil, a minor (dūn al-bulūgh), who was tattooed on a covered part of his body (malʿūṭ laʿṭ khafiyy). Location: Probably Alexandria (or potentially Damietta; a city on the Mediterranean). Dated: Wednesday, 9 Tammuz 4912 AM, which is 13 June 1152 CE. Seller: Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa b. Mevasser Ibn al-ʿAnī. Buyer: Moshe b. ʿIwāḍ b. Moshe Ibn al-Riqāʿī. Price: 10.25 dinars. All additional fees and taxes (samsara, maks, wājib, juʿl) will be paid by the buyer, according to a clause inserted between lines 17 and 18. (Information from Goitein's index card; for potential identification of Yeshuʿa b. Mevasser, see Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, p. 457.) EMS

Court record from 22 Sivan (4)802 A.M. (June 1042) regarding the marriage of a minor. On the other side of the page a legal opinion of a Muslim Judge in Arabic letters written on Rabi' al-Awwal 434 A.H. (October-November 1042). The two honorable members of the community who testified before the Muslim judge are the judge, Yosef b. Sulayman, and the cantor, Sahl b. Musa. Apparently, the Muslim judge had a mistake in writing the name of the cantor's father. The cantor should be identified with Yosef b. Yehoshuaʿ (Information from Frenkel).

Document of release concerning a partnership, denoted here as ‘mufawwada.’ (Phillip Ackerman-Lieberman, The Business of Identity, Stanford University Press, 2014, 112, 365) EMS

Testimony of Abū Zikrī Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yehosef ha-Kohen releasing Abū Isḥāq Avraham b. Yaʿaqov ha-Zaken in the hand of Natan b. Shemuʾel ha-Kohen, signed by Efrayim b. Meshullam (dated documents: 1142–59)

Two questions addressed to Avraham Maimonides about milking sheep on Shabbat. (Information from Goitein's index card). VMR

Document written in Zawīlat al-Mahdiyya with a validation written by the court of Fustat, as denoted in Hebrew אשרנוהו (in the validation of the court). The main document concerns a shipment of goods which was sent by Yaḥyā b. Mūsā and which did not include trading goods for Salmān b. Shabīb ha-Kohen. Salmān claims his goods in front of the court. The document mentions Yisrael b.Yūsuf Ibn Bānūqa and others. It is dated: Thursday, 19 Tammuz 4807 AM, which is 1047 CE. Witnesses: Khallūf b. Yehuda; Barhūn b. Moshe b. Barhūn; Yiṣḥaq b. Yaʿaqov .The validation is in the handwriting of Efrayim b. Shemarya. Other witnesses: Avraham b. Mevasser; the cantor Yefet b. David (b. Shekhanya). (Gil, Kingdom, 4: 106-7, Doc. #633; S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:236-7, 574; and Oded Zinger, Women, Gender, and Law, 402). EMS and VMR

Responsum by the court of the Babylonian Gaʾon Shemuel b. ʿEli. Dated: Ḥeshvan 1478 Seleucid, which is 1166 CE. Concerns inheritance issues between Yosef and Maʿālī and their wives on one side and an orphan on the other. Strongly worded. Copied in the hand of Yosef b. Yaʿaqov rosh ha-seder of Irbīl. (Information from CUDL, Goitein's index card and Amir Ashur.) VMR

Legal testimony. Location: Fustat. Dated: Tuesday, 24 Tammuz 1358 Seleucid, which is 1047 CE. Faraj b. Sulaymān known as Ibn al-Muqashshir was asked about the oath that he said that Avraham b. Bunyām the teacher had sworn regarding teaching. Faraj responded that he knew nothing about such an oath.

Collection of Geonic responsa, in the same hand as T-S 16.99, T-S G2.29, T-S 12.169, and T-S 16.310. (Information from CUDL)

Ketubba, beautifully written. Location: Fustat. Dated: Friday, 13 Nisan 129[7] Seleucid = March 986 CE. Bride: Muʿtazz, the freedwoman of Moshe b. Palṭiel. Groom: Bushayr/Bashīr b. Khalaf. Witnessed by Avraham b. Isḥāq b. Bahlūl, Yeshuʿa b. [...], Daniel [...], Saʿīd [...], [...] b. Shuʾal (שואל). Goitein notes that the dowry (45 dinars) is very high for a freedwoman. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Recto: part of a ketubba for [...] bat Yeshuʿa and [...] b. Shelomo. Date not preserved. Mentions Maṣliaḥ ha-Kohen b. ʿA[…]. Witnesses are [Ḥal]fon ha-Levi b. Shelomo (who surround his signature with a motto), [...] b. Shelomo, Mevass[er], Abraham b. Meʾir ha-[...]. Verso: list of Arabic names and amounts (of money?). (Information from CUDL)

Legal document. Record of release. This document describes the termination of a partnership and a release from Efrayim b. Ḥalfon Ibn Zaffān, upon the apparent death of his partner Moses b. Ḥalfōn, who may have been his brother. In addition to their mu‘āmalāt or joint enterprises, Efrayim and Moses also seem to have had an interest in a partnership with a Muslim, described as a khulṭa. Efrayim and Moses clearly shared an interest in a number of shipments with each other (ll.8, 13). Moses’ son Ḥalfon seems to be the primary heir; he is mentioned in lines 11 and 30 as Efrayim’s primary counterparty in the qinyan. Unlike in T-S 12.606 (PGPID 3187), another partnership release in this documentary corpus, the partnership cannot survive its partners, as is well-known in Jewish and Islamic law alike. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 116)