Geniza Lab

Recto: Document of sale Verso: Jottings - needs examination.

Probably a court ledger. In Hebrew. Late. Contains several entries, including one for an engagement (shiddukhin).

Part of a document - needs examination.

Document, possibly of sale Verso: Jottings. - needs examination.

Legal or official document in Arabic script (mā taḥaṣṣala min...). There are closely related texts on both recto and verso. Dated: Looks like 14 [.] 627 AH, which would be 1229/30 CE. The text on recto includes the phrase "bi-ḥuḍūr al-qāḍī Sayf al-Dīn Abī ʿAbdallāh b. al-Qāḍī [...] Jamāl al-Dīn." Needs further examination.

Recto: Acknowledgement of the payment of rent. Dated: 3 Rabīʿ I 607 AH, which is 25 August 1210 CE. Aḥmad b. al-Shaykh ʿAlī Ibn al-Akhḍar has received all the rent due to him from al-Muzbid Abū l-Khayr, the physician, to . The document is written, witnessed and signed by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Harūn. (Information from CUDL and Khan.)

Legal document. Fragment (left side). In Arabic script. The name Muḥammad appears in line 2 and the profession al-Ṣayrafī appears in line 3. Line 4 may give the date. Mentions a sum (mablagh) of something. Needs further examination.

Various jottings in Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script including ad raft of a legal declaration (aqūl wa-anā...) in Judaeo-Arabic, made by [...]r ha-Kohen b. Eliyyahu [... b.] Yeḥezqel ha-Rav ha-Gadol.

Document in Arabic script, occupying one page of a bifolio. (The other pages have Hebrew poetry, including by Ibn Gabirol.) This is catalogued as a deed of sale by Baker and Polliack. Very difficult to read; needs further examination.

Document in Arabic, naskhī script. Possibly a letter or petition? 7 lines are preserved, along with several more lines angled in the margin. Difficult to read. On verso there is a list of prayers in Hebrew. Needs further examination.

A torn fragment from the end of a legal deed. One of the parties is Yosef. Written by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. Perhaps T-S NS J 185b is a fragment from the top part of this document, but no direct join. AA

Strip from end of an `iqrar, preserving the date: Jumada al-ula 434 A.H. (1042)

Legal document. In Arabic script. Fragment from the right side of huge and beautiful deed. A father gives to his two sons a house (it seems a big and a small house belonging together), some as common property and some assigned to one of the brothers. Bordered on one side by the property of Ibn Baqāʾ al-Isrāʾīlī. Contains some interesting architectural details. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Document of sale in Arabic.

Ketubba fragment. Location: Wardūnya, a suburb of Baghdad (ורדוניא דבגדד), on the Tigris river (דגלת). Dated: 13 Nisan 13[..] Seleucid, which corresponds to the range 889–988 CE. Groom: [...] b. Yosef. Bride: Miriam bt. Yosef. There is an extensive secondary literature on this fragment both on account of its unique location and its early date. Simon Hopkins (‘The Oldest Dated Document in the Geniza?’, pp. 92–93) thought that this ketubba might have predated Halper 331; but Olszowy-Schlanger (‘Les plus anciens documents datés de la Guenizah du Caire’) showed that this was based on a misreading of its date, which is 13th century SE, thus between 889 and 988 CE. On this document, see also N. Golb, ‘A Marriage Deed from ‘Warduniā of Baghdad,’ Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43.2 (1984), pp. 152–56. (Information from Krakowski and Stern, "The ‘oldest dated document of the Cairo Genizah’ (Halper 331)," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 31.3 (2021), 617–34.

Recto: acknowledgment of a debt of 400 dinars contracted by Buṭrus b. Jirjis from Abū l-Faḍāʾil ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Hibatallāh b. Shūʿa the Jew. The debt is to be repaid in 4 monthly installments of 100 dinars each, starting from the year 511 AH (1117 CE) and finishing at the end of the month of Shaʿbān of the same year. The acknowledgment is witnessed by […] b. ʿAlī b. Jābir. Verso: a second acknowledgment for the transfer of part of the amount of the debt contracted on recto. Abū l-Faḍāʾil ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Hibatallāh b. Shūʿa the Jew transfers the last two installments of the 400 dinars that had been owed to him by the same Buṭrus b. Jirjis on recto (this is not entirely clear because of the lacunae — possibly to the elder Abū Mufaḍḍal Hibatallāh b. Ḥasan the Jewish physician, who appears on line 9). The document is signed by the witnesses ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad and Yaḥyā b. Muslim. As is often the case, the subsequent transaction is recorded in a smaller text-block on verso. (Information from CUDL, Khan and Rustow)

Legal document. In Arabic script. Small fragment from the top. Dating: ca. 1135 CE, based on the appearance of Maḥfūẓa bt. Yosef Zayn al-Tujjār. Abū Zikrī b. Yūsuf al-Hārūnī al-Yahūdī rents a house from three individuals: Salāma b. Yūsuf, his wife Maḥfūẓa bt. Yūsuf Zayn al-Tujjār (see T-S NS 225.25j), and a third whose name is not preserved. No further details (date and place not preserved). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

Deeds of sale issued by Ottoman courts in 1519CE, with a possible endorsement on the verso mentioning both 925AH and 926AH (1519CE-1520CE). The ḥujja on the recto was recorded by an unknown qadi court (possibly in Baḥṭīṭ or nearby Bilbeis) in 925AH. The ḥujja on the verso was clearly issued by the chief qadi court in Cairo "al-Bāb al-ʿĀlī" (l. 3v). The properties which are being sold on the recto are in Bilbays (l. 7r, 11r) and purchased by a Jewish dyer from Baḥṭīṭ (l. 2r). There is extensive description of the spatial orientation and perimeters of these properties. This fragment was first cited by Goitein in Med. Soc. III in 1978 and, most recently, by James Baldwin on p.36 of the book Islamic Law and Empire in Ottoman Cairo (2017). For a full overview of relevant citations see the FGP bibliography for this fragment. MCD. (information from Goitein's index cards, Baldwin, and Baker/Polliack catalogue).

Recto: Deed of sale. In Arabic script. Dating: ca. 530 AH (= 1135/36 CE). (However, Goitein read the year 55[.] AH somewhere, which would be 1155–64 CE.) Makārim b. Abū l-Faraj b. Yūsuf purchases 1/3 of a house. There is a lengthy physical description of the seller (whose name is lost): ‘a smooth forehead in which are wrinkles […] widely spaced incisors. On his right cheek there are two moles’. Also mentions the elder Sadīd al-Dawla Abū Saʿd, Abū l-Ḥasan the Samaritan, and Abū l-Ḥasan the financier (quṣṭāl). Verso: undeciphered document in Arabic script, probably relating to the sale detailed on recto. (Information from Goitein’s index card and CUDL.)

Deed of rental. Dated: 531 AH, which is 1136/37 CE. ʿAlī b. Ḥassān b. Maʿālī al-Tarābulusī rents a small garden house on the Nile from the shaykh Abu l-Ḥusayn Saʿīd b. Manṣūr, one of the mutawallīn al-jawāmiʿ wa-l-masājid al-maʿmūra (superintendent of government mosques) for the duration of 4 years, 8 or 8 ¼ dinars per year.