Geniza Lab

Three unsigned court depositions. Location: Damascus. Dating: July 1094 CE and March 1095 CE. They have to do with properties owned by the Zawbaʿa ("Tempest") family. The elder brother was named ʿUthmān b. Yefet. The second brother was Maṣliaḥ b. Yefet known as ha-Gizbar ("the Treasurer"), i.e., he was a government officer. (This Maṣliaḥ is also known from Megillat Evyatar as the man who brought up David b. Daniel b. ʿAzarya.) There were two tyrannical governors in Damascus: Ḥaydara Ibn Manzū (r.1063–64) and Muʿallā Ibn Manzū (r.1068–69). One of these expropriated the property of Maṣliaḥ in the Dār Quzmān neighborhood (near the eastern gate of Damascus, in the Jewish quarter), and the two brothers Maṣliaḥ and ʿUthmān fled the city for Egypt. Some 25 years later, Yefet the son of Maṣliaḥ returned to his birthplace and sued to regain the property abandoned by his father and uncle. In the meantime, another uncle had moved into one of the houses, encroaching beyond the border of the neighboring property owned by his wife. The uncle insisted on bringing the case to the Muslim courts, and Yefet b. Maṣliaḥ here testifies that he was compelled to go to the Muslim courts and did not want to. (Information from Goitein's edition.)

Legal document. Court record (copy). This document concerns the settlement of an account between Abū al-Mufaḍḍal Netanel b. Yefet and Abū al-Ḥasan Ṭoviyya b. Avraham ha-Levi. Netanel brought a court-validated document specifying that Ṭoviyya owed him 65 dinars. Ṭoviyya claimed that he sent the amount in various commodities (15 pounds of silk worth 15 dirhams, and fragrances worth 15 dinars, in addition to kābulī murabbā (preserve of chebulic myrobalan), as well as 10 dinars in cash) by means of the agent Abū al-Faraj to be sold in Tunisia. It is unclear whether the 65 dinars is a partnership account or a debt owed Netanel by Ṭoviyya. However, that the commodities were sent to be sold in Tunisia (see T-S 8J4.9) suggests that Ṭoviyya has a financial interest in the sale. Depositing the funds with Abū al-Faraj, Netanel and Ṭoviyya have contracted a partnership of sorts for repayment of Ṭoviyya's debt. Lieberman speculates that the Abū al-Faraj al-Wakīl mentioned here may have been Abū al-Faraj Yeshu‘a b. Isma‘īl al-Maghribī, a well-known Tunisian merchant from the late 11th century (see T-S 12.566, PGPID 3181; and T-S 10J20.7, PGPID 2953). A draft copy of this document also exists; see (see T-S 8J4.9, PGPID 2128. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture", 177).

Legal document recording that the parnas Eli ha-Kohen and his colleague testified in court that three orphan girls had received ten dinars bequeathed to them by an uncle in Tyre, which had been sent by Abū al-Khayr b. al-Muʿassal; from 1098. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Two contrary depositions in court concerning a sum of 47 dinars, a female slave, and an apartment. Mentions Abū al-Munajja Thiqat al-Mulk Sulaymān b. Sahl and dated 28 Elul 1098. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society 2:356, 605; and Goitein’s index cards) EMS

Legal document recording that Hārūn b. Joseph undertakes to pay his former partner Masʿūd b. Efrayim two dinars remaining from their former connection in installments of a quarter dinar per month. Kislev, 1098. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Legal document recording that Yaʿaqub al-Rumi deposited the trousseau of his wife Zayn with the beadle Ma‘ali pending a dispute between husband and wife. 18 Av 1098. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Lengthy testimony describing that at the arrival of the ships from the West in Alexandria, Shelomo b. Hillel from Aleppo and Amran b. Yosef from Tyre had a dispute regarding 4 dinars, which was settled after the intervention of colleagues. 21 Av 1098. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Legal document describing that Avraham b. Moshe and Shelomo ha-Kohen al-Bilbaysi dissolve their business and proposed family relations. Shelomo still owes 12 dinars, of which he pays six in cash and for securities he gives ‘khanaqa’ (a gold necklace). 24 Shevat 1100. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Legal document concerning the miller Yefet b. Eli, who undertakes payment of two dinars to his divorced wife, which he still owes her, in monthly installments. 1 Nisan 1100. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Legal document concerning a nasty financial quarrel between Shemarya b. Ḥalfon and his son Eli, detailing that Eli initially took their dispute to a shari‘a (Islamic) court where he sued his father for property that originally belonged to his mother. The case then went before a beit din (Jewish rabbinic court) where father and son agreed that the mother’s property would be sold and Eli would receive half. After Shemarya had fulfilled his end of the bargain, Eli would write him a writ of release in a shari‘a court, which would absolve him of all further claims according to Islamic law. Their agreement further specified that that the Islamic writ of release would also absolve Shemarya of all further claims in a Jewish court. Dated Shevat 1412 of the Seleucid Era (= 1100 CE). (Jessica Marglin, “Jews in Shari‘a Courts: A Family Dispute from the Cairo Geniza,” in Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen, ed. A. Franklin, et al., Brill, 2014; 207, 216-24) EMS

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Deed regarding alimony provided by a husband for his wife in Tyre, while he travels to Egypt. The husband will provide wheat, oil, fuel, cash and service to his wife. Tyre or Tripoli, Lebanon, September/October 1102.

Bill of release. Location: Minyat Zifta. Dated: Monday, 23 Ṭevet 4864 AM, which is 24 December 1103 CE. Shelomo b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen had sent with Yāsīn Ibn al-Khabbāza a bale of flax and empowered Abū ʿAlī b. Fahd (al-wakil), known as Ibn Khulayf, to sell it. Abu Bishr Shelomo b. Furqan al-Kohen was present and reported the price garnered for it. One qintar belonged to Yiṣḥaq b. Yehuda. (Information from S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:188, 446; Med Soc 2:532, n. 41; Goitein’s index cards; and Norman Golb, “Topography of Jews of Medieval Egypt,” JNES, 33 (1974), 145.) EMS

Lawsuit concerning a consignment of oil, which upon its arrival in Alexandria was left in the ship instead of being forwarded immediately to Fustat because the merchant in charge of it went directly to Palestine. Dated December, 1026. Verso: arbitration after the breaking off of a betrothal (PGPID 2120). (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Arbitration after the breaking off of a betrothal. A board of arbitration, consisting of four prominent citizens, decided that the brother of the bride, Tarib (Avraham, known as Abu Tarib) had to pay the groom nine of the fifteen dinars paid as a first installment of the marriage gift. Tarib also renounces any future claims of himself, his mother and sister might raise against the groom and his brother. December 22 1026.

Legal document regarding potential claims of Hayya al-Kohen b. Yeshu'a against the orphan son of Abu l-Surur al-Halabi. Mentions Perahya b. Natan. Dated Kislev 1419 of the Seleucid Era (= 1107 CE), and signed by Berakhot ha-Kohen b. Aharon and Yefet b. Hillel (GRU updated by MRC 05.17.16) See Frenkel, Qehillat Halab, 63-69.

Legal document. Inventory of estate. Dated: August 1108. Location: Cairo. Signed by Abraham b. Ḥalfōn b. Abraham and Isaac b. Abraham. Eleazar b. Araḥ assumes management of his father’s estate (including a shop) on behalf of his widowed mother and his brother, a youth. The valuation of the store one is in total 11.5 dinars (including 169 dirhams, rose marmalade, sugar, honey, and "potions"). His brother’s share, 5.75 dinars, is to be loaned to Eleazar for his investment or other use. There is no discussion of profit or loss sharing. Eleazar is charged with sustaining the widow and boy from assets that have been set aside for the purpose and upon which he has no claim. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 179)

Verso: Betrothal deed between Nathan ha-Levi b. Isaac and Sitt al-Bayt bat Nathan ha-Parnas from Cairo. Dated Marḥešvan 1420 of the Seleucid Era (= 1108 CE). Written and signed by the clerk Moses ha-Levi b. David, also signed by Ṣemaḥ ha-Levi b. Jacob and ʿAmram b. Šemarya. (Information from CUDL) See T-S 8J4.22v, T-S 8J4.22A and Goitein's index cards below.

Inventory of various kinds of building materials and wood (probably after the dismantling of a house), followed by "we saw the house and nothing remained after the aforementioned matter." Goitein calls it the inventory of the estate of a poor interior decorator. Signed by Eli b. Yeshu'a, Mevorakh b. Natan, Ḥalfon b. Saadya, Shela b. Menashshe, Ya'ir ha-Kohen b. Saadya (Information from CUDL and Goitein, Med Soc IV, p. 464 no. 240)

Betrothal between two possible cousins (both named Levi), a groom whose father had died and a bride called Baghdad with a wedding gift of 25 dinars and the promise of the groom to be responsible for the payment of the expenses of the wedding which was to take place seven months later. Written by Avraham b. Natan, the judge. Cairo, October 1110.