Geniza Lab

Deed of sale. In Arabic script. On parchment. One of the parties is a Jew (al-Isrāʾīlī). A certain Ibrāhīm b. Salāma is mentioned. There is a further acknowledgment (iqrār) on verso which references the main document on recto.

Legal document in Arabic script. Fragment (bottom part only). The date appears but is very faded. Witness signatures are preserved. Needs examination.

Recto: deed of sale for part of a house. One of the parties is Abū Naṣr Manṣūr Ibn al-ʿAynzarbī, "one of the entourage of al-Ḥāfiẓ" (the Fatimid caliph al-Ḥāfiẓ who reigned 1131–49 CE). This is a famous physician: see https://scholarlyeditions.brill.com/reader/urn:cts:arabicLit:0668IbnAbiUsaibia.Tabaqatalatibba.lhom-tr-eng1:14.29. (See also T-S NS 264.22, which mentions a volume in the handwriting of Ibn al-ʿAynzarbī. It's possible that fragments in his handwriting have been preserved in the Geniza—Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa emphasizes that Ibn al-ʿAynzarbī was an excellent and prolific scribe.) This document also mentions Karīm al-Dawla ʿAytham, "one of the great amirs of al-Ḥāfiẓ." The verso document also concerns the purchase of the property on the recto, and mentions the Amīr Athīr al-Mulk Sharaf al-Dawla wa-Fārisuhā, Abū Saʿd b. Abū ʿImrān ‘the Jewish moneychanger’, Sitt al-Jamāl bt. Abū Saʿd b. Abū ʿImrān, Abū l-Faḍāʾil Muḥammad Ibn al-Qāḍī, and Maḥmūd, and was witnessed by ʿAbd al-Salām. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Part of a document of sale of a house Verso: Part of an `iqrar on vellum. Recto l. 5, in the description of a property, refers to 'a roof without surmounting structures' (Data from Khan, ALAD, p. 163). AA

Acknowledgement (`iqrar) in Arabic (needs examination)

End of a document of sale of a house on vellum.

Recto: Document of sale of a house. Verso: Legal document. Both recto and verso in Arabic script ((needs examination)

Legal document from a qāḍī court. Dated: 15 Dhū l-Ḥijja 870 AH (Sunday 29 July 1466 CE). The raʾīs al-yahūd, Yūsuf b. Khalīfa, and his deputy, Shemuʾel b. Naṣr, promise not to prevent the physician Manṣūr b. Ibrahīm b. al-Abraṣ (son of the leper, or possibly the redhead) from entering the synagogue in Zuwayla, the Jewish neighborhood in Cairo. The trigger for the conflict was a motion to renovate the synagogue, a fraught issue during the Mamluk period: in 859 AH (1454–55), under the relatively permissive Sultan Īnāl, a court authorized the repair of the old Rabbanite synagogue in Zuwayla and two Rabbanite synagogues in Fusṭāṭ, as well as the Qaraite synagogues in Cairo and Fusṭāṭ (a copy of this permit, from 18 January 1456, survived in the Qaraite archive in Cairo); under Qāʾitbāy, there was apparently a request to repair some synagogues, but the community objected, fearing that Muslims would destroy them, as they had threatened or sought to do in other cases. The judge is Shams al-Dīn al-Sulamī. Goitein discovered T-S Ar.38.131 and discussed it briefly in Med. Soc.; Rustow found the join with T-S Ar. 42.212 in 2014 using the joins suggestions in FGP; meanwhile Dotan Arad discovered a Judaeo-Arabic court document referring to the same case, BL Or. 4856.2. Arad published both documents in an article that was forthcoming as of June 2021. MR

Document of sale of a house (intaqala...), dated 28 Muḥarram 587 AH, which is 25 February 1191 CE. (Though note that Khan at one time read the date as 787 AH, see ALAD p. 45 n. 143.) (Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.)

Legal document (iqrār). In Arabic script, in beautiful handwriting. Dated: Ramaḍān 568 AH, which is 1173 CE. A few lines earlier, Rabīʿ I of the same year is mentioned. The case seems to involve three men (including Abū l-Faḍā'il and Abū ʿAbdallāh) and a woman. (Information in part from Baker/Polliack catalog.)

Deed of sale of a house. In Arabic script. (Information from Baker/Polliack catalog.)

Legal document(s). In Arabic script. Needs examination.

Legal document. In Arabic script. On parchment. One witness signature is preserved. Possibly a deed of sale, since the word "al-mushtarī" appears in l. 4.

Deed of sale. In Arabic script. The price includes the transfer tax and the broker's commission (fīhā al-naql wa-l-jaʿāla, l. 3). (Information from Khan, ALAD, p. 23.)

Unidentified document in Arabic script. Dating: Possibly Ayyubid or Mamluk-era, but this should be checked. 11 fragmentary lines are preserved from the bottom of the document. Mentions al-Rayyis al-Kāmil Amīn al-Ḥukm (at least in Mamluk times, the Amin al-Ḥukm was a qāḍī who supervised the estates of orphans). Also mentions "that day in Cairo." The name ʿImrān al-[...] appears in the last line. Needs further examination.

Deed of acknowledgment (iqrār). Dated: Shawwāl 400 AH (May–June 1010 CE). Abū l-Ḥasan Mubārak b. Asad al-Zajjāj al-Isrāʾīlī ("the Jewish glassmaker") receives a loan of five dinars from [...] al-Shaṭranjī al-Isrāʾīlī ("the Jewish chess player"). The dīnārs are described as "red" (danānīr ḥamrāʾ). There are a few words on verso in Hebrew script that Khan describes as a pen trial. (Information from Khan and from Goitein’s index card)

Recto: Deed of sale, probably. In Arabic script. Contains part of the physical description of one of the parties: [muʿtadi]l al-qāma asmar al-lawn wāḍiḥ al-jabha wa-bi-hā ghuḍūn maqrūn al-ḥājib ashhal [al-ʿaynayn] = average stature, brown in complexion, with a smooth forehead with some wrinkles, with joined eyebrow(s), with dark brown eyes. There is one additional line in Arabic script on verso; needs examination.

Possibly a legal document. According to Wissem Guedich in FGP it is literary (needs examination).

Legal document(s). In Arabic script. The same block of text seems to be copied at least three times, followed by witness statements. At the far lower left, after a basmala, there appears the name Muḥammad b. Ṭalḥa. Dated: Dhū l-Qaʿda 485 AH, which is 1092/93 CE. Needs further examination.

Legal document. In Arabic script. One of the parties is the daughter of Saʿīd b. ʿAllūn al-Ṣaydalānī ('the pharmacist') al-Yahūdī. Concerns a house. Needs examination.