Geniza Lab

Legal document(s). Location: Fustat. Dated: Ṭevet 1392 Seleucid, which is 1080/81 CE. (The first deposition is from 10 Ṭevet, the second is from 21 Ṭevet.) Two court depositions concerning a debt, allegedly paid, and "a load of Ḥalabī" (Aleppan textiles) drowned in the ship of Abū ʿAlī al-Shāmī. The parties are Sason b. Natan and Ḥesed b. Shela; one of them makes a statement mentioning "before I traveled to Tripoli," (Libya). The first deposition is signed by Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq; Yehuda b. Menashshe, and Yosef b. Shemuel. The second deposition is signed by Avraham b. Yiṣhaq, Yehuda b. Menashshe, and Ṣedaqa b. Menaḥem. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card)

Deed of a gift.

A fragment of a Palestinian deed (maʿase) settling a marital dispute, affirming that the wife will be receive room and board from her husband's estate after his death. Information from Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, p. 443, n. 44.

Marriage contract between Natan b. Peraḥya and Malīḥa bat Yefet, Fustat, 1119. An enormous sheet illuminated in various colours and decorated with flowers. Very poorly preserved. Mentions 25 gold dinars as part of the dowry. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below.)

Beautiful calligraphic fragment of deed of sale of a bathhouse in Zawilat al-Mahdiyya, Ifrīqiya, by one Jew to another. The seller describes the bath and mentions that the bathhouse had been acquired by his brother, as proved by the document of purchase produced in court. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 98, 99)

Fragment of a legal document involving the execution of the will of a certain Avraham. Mentions Adoniya b. David, Shemuel ha-Levi b. Avraham, ʿAllūsh, and Avraham.

Fragment of a late ketubba, with sums in muayyadis, including the stipulation that the husband will not take a second wife without the bride's consent.

Fragment of a deed of gift, given in Ramla, approximately 1030.

A confirmation of the Beit Din that there were no obstacles to the marriage between Sālim al-Ḥalabī al-Ṣabbāgh and Sitt al-Kuttāb b. Yefet. Fustat, 1153. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below.)

Legal testimony. Location: Damietta (אי כפתור). Dated: 20 Tishrei 1469 Seleucid, which is 1157 CE, under the reshut of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Denouncing a man named Yūsuf al-Rūmī (the Byzantine) who arrived in Damietta late in the afternoon one Friday, the eve of the first day of Sukkot, bearing a letter (of recommendation for charity) from the Nagid. On Sunday, the second day of Sukkot, he took the money raised on his behalf (more than a dinar) and a letter addressed to the perfumers' market in Sammanūd and a sewn basket (quffa makhtūṭa) and he embarked on the boat and traveled, violating the holiday. Witnesses: Yefet b. Shemuel; Shemuel b. Mevasser ha-Kohen

Deed in which Abū Isḥāq Abzārī gives the Nagid Avraham Maimonides the right to buy back the burj, a tower in the ancient Byzantine fortress of Fustat, for sixty dinars for a period of five years. The rent was waived. The deed is dated Tevet 4974 (1213/4) with the day of the month and week left blank, and no space is left for signatures. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below and Goitein MedSoc, Vol. 4, p. 87.)

Draft(?) of a court record. Dated: 29 Nisan 1543 Seleucid, which is April 1232 CE. The widow (Sitt al-)Tujjār bt. Manṣūr claims that 10 shares in a house in Bilbays belong to her children as heirs of her husband. Tujjār's sister-in-law's husband, Abū l-ʿAlāʾ b. Yosef ha-Kohen, produces Arabic deeds, not confirmed by a Jewish court, showing that the children's grandmother had sold him those shares. He asserted that in Bilbays such confirmations are not customary. Tujjār produces a Hebrew document witnessed, but not validated by a court. At the advice of experts, Abū l-ʿAlāʾ agrees to pay his nephews 300 dirhams. (Information from Goitein, Med Soc, vol. 4, p. 276, and Goitein notes and index card linked below.)

An engagement agreement from 1331. It looks like a registration in the court's notebook.

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Contract for the sale of flax following the dissolution of the partnership.Tiqva ha-Levi known as Abū l-Munā b. Peraḥya ha-Levi known Ibn al-Amʿaṭ sells to Abū l-Mufaḍḍal Netanel b. Peraḥya one-half of four gunny sacks (shakā'ir) of flax for 18 dinars and a mat with a scrap of flax (ḥuṣayra mushāqa) for 4 dinars. Signed by Ḥalfon as well as Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi. The small letters = Psalms 31:2. Information from Goitein's note card.

Marriage contract written in Tiberias Colonia, 1035.

Legal document. Draft of a acknowledgement regarding a sale of a store in Tiberias. Mid-September 1034.

Fragment of a ketubba (marriage contract) from Tiberias, May 1035.

Fragment of a ketubba. Containing mainly part of the dowry list. May be in the hand of Mevorakh b. Natan. Between the lines and upside down, there is an outline of an unrelated legal document to be drawn up. Concerning Natan b. Moshe al-[...], his sons Yefet, Ṣedaqa, and Mevorakh, and their sister Sitt al-Kull, and a property in Fustat.

Engagement (shiddukhin) agreement. Since there are no betrothal (erusin/qiddushin) agreements in the Geniza before the twelfth century, this document is probably an engagement agreement despite the fact that 'amlaka' means either 'betrothed' or 'engaged,' and despite the fact that the word engagement is not mentioned directly in the document. he engagements were conducted in front of both the Babylonian and the Palestinian congregation as both Yefet b. David, the leader of the Palestinian congregation, and Avraham b. Sahlān (mentioned here as the 'Aluf he-Ḥaver) and his son Neḥemya from the Babylonian congregation are mentioned. Friedman (Jewish Marriage in Palestine, 2:447) dated the document to 1028 CE, despite its verso: Bodl. MS. Heb. c 13, fol. 22v(?). From the same ledger: ENA 4010.28, ENA NS 8.15, and Bodl. MS heb. c 13/21.

Witness statement given on 25 April 1028. Mubārak b. Hiba, a beadle of the Babylonian community in Fustat, declares that he had caught a man on the last day of Passover and confined him in his house. Yaʿaqov Levi b. Yosef testifies that he saw the imprisoned man escape through a window of the beadle’s house. (Information from Goitein notes linked below.) Another court record from the same date is found in Bodl. MS heb. c 13/21 recto.