Geniza Lab

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to an unidentified personality in Fustat, expressing gratitude for funds sent to the community in Jerusalem, and requesting the intervention of the recipient to persuade a lady to leave Egypt and join her husband in Jerusalem. Approximately 1030. (Information from CUDL)

Letter. Family letter dealing with grain and payments, and extending greetings. Largely effaced. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter to Nethanel b. Sedaqa asking for assistance and extending condolences for the death of the recipient's father. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Recto: Letter fragment (or rather Hebrew poetry?), mentioning Abraham. Verso: Unusual text, possibly part of a prayer. Several words are written in hollow letters. (Information from CUDL)

Letter (draft) from individuals in physical discomfort, appealing for help. The writers may be lepers, as they refer to their flesh being damaged and their bones uncovered. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from a mother to her children, sent to the shop of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Masʿūd. She is writing from Rashid (Rosetta) on her way to Alexandria, instructing her children to convey news to relatives and friends and to write to her. (Information from CUDL)

Letter fragment in the hand of Avraham b. Farah al-Iskandarani, in Alexandria, to one of the merchants in Fustat, regarding shipments being forwarded to the addressee. Dated 1056 CE. (Information from Gil)

Letter from a physician to his uncle. Tells the writer's sad story, which involved the death of his beloved wife, an unfortunate second marriage, and his eventual flight. The writer asks his uncle to give his son the family bible. (Edited, translated, and analyzed at length in Oded Zinger's dissertation, chapter 5 and document #10.)

Letter from Meir b. al-Hamadani to the judge Eliyyahu, asking that he provide a person the writer had met with certain supplies. Dated to the early 13th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 577, and Goitein's index cards)

Recto: Letter fragment in which the writer complains that Abu Bishr claims from him a payment which has already been paid. (Information from Goitein's index cards) Verso: Jottings and accounts in Arabic script with Coptic numerals. (Information from CUDL)

Petition. Calligraphic letter with wide line-spacing in which the writer asks the recipient, whom he addresses as 'my father,' for support, emphasizing that his poor situation 'has become worse.' (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Medical prescription mentioning lemon, sugar, almonds, rose, lily, chicory, licorice, coriander.

Letter fragment from a son to his remarried father, conveying family news and expressing regret that his father's previous wife is giving him trouble. The writer is suffering from an ailment of the ear: "If my ear were not bound, I would have come to visit you." (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 271, 273.)

Recto: Letter in Judaeo-Arabic, likely sent from Alexandria. Very faded. Concerns a dispute between groups within the community and mentions the synagogue. One group turned to the amir "Nāṣir al-Dawla wa-Sayfuhā" to intervene. There was a person who went to Fustat "to execute the rescripts from the king" (wa-kharaja ilā Miṣr fī injāz al-tawqīʿāt al-musallama min al-malik). Mentions someone from Tripoli (al-Iṭrābulsī) in the margin. It is hard to extract further details. Verso: Two distinct text blocks in Arabic script. The upper one is a record about the height of the Nile flood. The lower one, at 90 degrees, mentions a qāḍī. Needs further examination. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Letter from a woman, in Fustat, to her son Abū l-Maḥāsin, in Funduq al-Qamra, Alexandria. Dictated to Abū Manṣūr. Likely belongs with T-S 10J19.26, in which case the writer of this letter is Sitt Ghazāl bt. Abū ʿUmar. She expresses the anxiety (nār) that afflicts her heart on his behalf ever since his departure on Friday. She has been having nightmares and insomnia, and fears that if he does not return quickly, she will be completely blind by the time he returns. (It is also possible that the phrase "yatlaf baṣarī" refers to death instead of going blind; compare "wafāt ʿaynak" in T-S 10J12.14.) She urges him not to drink wine "on account of your illness. . . May God protect us from illness while separated (al-maraḍ fī l-ghurba). . . If my night visions are distressing to me, how [much the worse] if I should see them while awake." The last sentence is ambiguous: either she fears that nightmares can afflict a blind person at all hours, or she fears that her visions of terrible things happening to her son will become realities. She requests that he bring various goods back with him: a large bowl (qaṣʿa), a linen cloth (? shīta), a good comb (mushṭ), and two spoons (milʿaqatayn), and possibly red ink (? midādun yakūnū ḥumr) for Umm Abū l-Bahā'. The scribe Abū Manṣūr interjects here (line 13), and the remainder of the letter is in his voice. He apologizes for troubling the addressee with news of illness, but the fever is still with him. He asks for news of Abū l-Waḥsh Sibāʿ, and the bible, and the book of Rabbenu Baḥye. He is very anxious to learn what his instructions are—it seems he is to copy one or both of these books for Abū l-Waḥsh—so that he is not accused of tardiness. The instructions should be delivered either to Sūq al-ʿAṭṭārīn to the shop of al-Kohen al-Siqillī, or to al-Sūq al-Kabir, to the shop of Abū l-Faraj al-Sharābī. See Mediterranean Society, IV, pp. 224–25, 260. VMR. ASE.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda, probably to Efrayim b. Shemarya, praising the addressee and complaining about a Fusṭaṭ man, probably Sahlan b. Abraham, particularly concerning the latter’s preference for the title bestowed by the Babylonian yeshiva to that of the Jerusalem yeshiva. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from a woman to her mother ʿAzza al-ʿIblāniyya (from Iʿbillīn, a village in western Galilee), in Fustat. She is asked by her daughter to save her from her husband, life with whom was hell (l. 10), and who wants to take her, against her will, to his native town of Aleppo. The daughter asks her mother to come herself or send a proxy. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 177, and from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from Toviyya to Eliyyahu the judge. Sent to Fustat, to the qāʿa of the faqīh Abū Manṣūr. Toviyya informs Eliyyahu that he found no buyers for lac in al-Mahalla and so he sold it in Damietta. Reused on verso for a poem in Judaeo-Arabic about mortality.

Letter. Second leaf of a long letter relating what happened to the writer's brother, Abū Naṣr, on an adventurous business voyage on the Nile. Abu Nasr had been travelling, alongside others on a ship belonging to Abū Zikrī. The writer calls himself ʿabd, which probably denotes an actual slave. The letter also conveys business requests and greetings. (Information from Goitein's index cards and CUDL)

Letter from Mevasser b. David in Damsis to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat, ca. 1053. The main issue discussed in the letter is an argument between Mevasser and Nahray on the one side and a Christian on the other side. The Christian had financial claims which were not deemed acceptable by Mevasser. Mevasser b. David complains about financial difficulties, especially since he left Mahdiyya where his family remained and lost his property during travels. He anticipates a difficult year for his family, due to famine and rising prices. The letter refers to pearl and book trade and gives the recipient the power of attorney for a sale of silk. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, pp. 299-300 and Goitein notes linked below.)