Geniza Lab

Settlement after marital dispute between husband and wife, safeguarding her freedom of movement. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (1100–38). Agreement between Ẓāfira b. Yefet the cantor and her husband, who agree after being on the brink of divorce and following reconciliation that she will have the right of leaving the house and can move between designated places according to her will. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index cards)

Legal document concerning debts, mentioning [...] b. Moses, Moses b. Shelomo (known as Ibn Ḥassān), and Abū Naṣr. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Court record. Fragment (lower part only). In the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. In which Abū l-Ghayth al-Sabbāk ("the caster") and his son Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarīrī renounce a claim on two pieces of cloth worth two dinars which belong to Sitt al-Milāḥ, the wife of Sulaymān and divorcee of Abū Saʿīd, as described in her ketubba and left to her by her husband. Also mentions [...] b. Ṣedaqa and Abū Manṣūr. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index cards)

Recto: Declaration made by the merchant Yosef b. Moshe b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī. Location: Alexandria. Dated: Sunday, 8 days remaining in Iyyar 4807 AM, which is 1047 CE. Stating that a sum of 20 dinars assigned to him as a debt in a document of settlement drawn up a year earlier belonged to the daughter of Menaḥem al-Shaʿālī, the wife of Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Ibn al-Zākī. The woman's deceased brother, Khulayf b. Menaḥem al-Shaʿālī, had been present at the drawing up of the first document. The present declaration is drawn up in the presence of Yehoshuaʿ and Sahlān, the sons of Menaḥem al-Shaʿālī and heirs of Khulayf. Verso: Draft of the same document with the additional information that the earlier document was drawn up in front of a court comprised of Alexandrians and Ifrīqiyans. The woman is described here as the wife of Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Ibn al-Zākī who joins with Yosef b. Moshe (b. Barhūn al-Tāhirtī) in making the declaration. Also, it is mentioned that Khalaf/Khulayf died while traveling to Syria. Yosef b. Moshe asks the witnesses to declare he had already given the woman a debt acknowledgement before her brother's death. See AIU VII.E.55v, which is related. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Settlement agreement between Abu al-Ḥasan and Mansur, his brother-in-law. A document establishing some detail was made out for the sister with the same provisions as her ketubba (probably that she was entitled to part of a house). (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Deed of sale of a house, possibly a draft. Fragment (upper left corner). Hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe? (See Goitein's index card for further information.)

Halakhic discussion regarding the proper time for prayer.

Statement of evidence for the declaration of a son unable to fulfill his father's deathbed wish to provide a dinar for his wife. Dated Monday, 8 Kislev 1463/October 1151.

Legal document. Court record. Location: Fustat. Dated: 17 July 1162. This document is an incomplete record of proceedings of the court of Nathaniel ha-Levi (Gaon b. Moses the sixth) concerning a silk trading partnership between Samuel b. Solomon and (Abū) Manṣūr Eleazar b. Isaac al-Dimashqī. Samuel attests to the existence of a partnership agreement, which stipulated that profits were to be split 1/3 to 2/3, the bulk going to Eleazar. This roughly corresponded with their investment in the partnership capital, Samuel bringing 55 dinars and Eleazar bringing 95. Each of the partners has the right of disposal of partnership assets. The funds are invested with local workers in various towns in the Nile Delta (Sammanūd and al-Maḥalla) as well as in longer-distance investments (such as in Tyre). The record does not discuss any dispute between the partners, but is instead largely concerned with the details of sales, investments, and profits of the partnership. Each attests to transactions and deposits; apparently, the partners did not trust one another "as two proper witnesses", and they required direct testimony of the partnership accounting. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 190)

Fragment from the beginning of a legal record dated 9 Elul 1533/August 1222, in Fustat, in the court under the authority of the Nagid Avraham Maimonides (1205-1237).

Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi agrees to bring to court a husband and his wife, the latter being accused of frightening another man's wife with practices of necromancy forbidden by religion. (Information from Mediterranean Society II, pp. 332, 599)

Record of statement of release issued by the court of the Nagid Avraham Maimonides (1205-1237). Dated Iyyar 1538/May 1227.

Legal document. Partnership dissolution. Dated: March 1029. Location: Fustat. This document, emerging from the court of Abraham b. Sahlān, records the dissolution of a partnership between Ibn al-Kashshāsh Isḥaq b. Elijah and Samḥūn b. Tamīm. Isḥaq is to pay six dinars at the end of roughly seven months, at the end of the month of Tishri of the next year, and Samḥūn thereby absolved Isḥaq of any further obligation. Isḥaq also agreed that if he were to travel to the West without Samḥūn, that he would pay the six dinars prior to his departure. Court record dealing with the affairs of two business partners signed by Avraham he-Ḥaver b. Sahlan, Shemuel ha-Kohen and Sadaqa b. Yahya. Dated Tishri 1341/September 1029.

F.1: calendrical reckoning for the years 1018–19 and 1019–20 CE. F.2: legal documents. Recto: document, mentioning Abū Abraham Ismaʿīl b. Ṭalyon, Maḵlūf b. Mūsā and a large number of objects; dated Adar 1338 of the Seleucid Era (= 1027 CE). Below is a document concerning debts which Judah b. Ḥudayd owes Ḵalaf b. Sahl. Signed by Samuel ha-Kohen b. Avṭalyon and Aaron b. Isaac, and dated Kislev 1336 of the Seleucid Era (= 1024 CE). Verso: document from Fusṭāṭ concerning financial matters between Isaac b. Elijah, known as al-Qaš[...] and Samḥūn. Dated Nisan 1340 of the Seleucid Era (= 1029 CE), and signed by Abraham he-Ḥaver b. Sahlān, Samuel ha-Kohen Roš ha-Qahal b. Avṭalyon and Ṣedaqa b. Yaḥya. Below is an addendum, concerned with modalities if Isaac travels abroad; with the same three signatories. (Information from CUDL.) See also Goitein's index card.

Legal document for a partnership between Berakhot ha-Levi b. Shemuʾel and Ṣedaqa b. Ṣemaḥ. Dating: 1127–39 CE, as this was drawn up in the court of Maṣliaḥ Gaon. Signed: Yosef b. Ḥalfon b. Yosef ha-Kohen. (Information in part from CUDL.) Join by Oded Zinger.

Notarized grant of permission to travel until a specific date given by a wife to her husband and an empowerment by the notary to issue her a bill of divorce should the husband not return within the prescribed time. Written in Fustat in Tammuz 1356/July 1045.

Legal document in Hebrew containing a declaration by a wife that her husband abandoned her when he travelled abroad eight years ago to the land of Israel. She has witnesses to support her claim.

Fragment of a legal document under the authority of Avraham Maimonides (1205-1237). Dated 1546/1234-35.

Record of writ of release.

Fragmentary court record, apparently settling or recording accounts between partners.Drafted in Fustat, dated Tammuz 1404/July 1093.