Geniza Lab

Legal document. One of the parties is referred to as Jewish; with some marginalia (FGP)

Recto: Ottoman contract of sale of land Verso: Ottoman legal contract

Legal document. In Arabic script. Dated: 8 Jumādā II [...]. A contract concerning several people, one of whom is Yūsuf b. Manṣūr b. Manṣūr b. al-Yahūdī. Appears to be complete with witnesses. Needs further examination. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Power of attorney. Sāliḥ b. Yūsuf, a Sicilian Jew, gives power of attorney to another Jew in a qadi court. Dating: ca. 1102 CE, as the same Ṣāliḥ also appears in T-S NS J95a. On verso there is Hebrew literary text. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

Recto: `Iqrar Verso: Hebrew prayer - needs examination.

Legal testimony about a commercial dispute. In Arabic script. One party is al-Ṭūsī. Someone died suddenly, and the merchants sealed his shop and the inspectors (al-nāẓirīn) came. Many more details are preserved; needs further examination. On verso there is Hebrew liturgy-

Contract of hire - needs examination.

End of legal document, dated Dhü al-Hijja, A.H. 504. - needs examination. (FGP)

Court record, or deposition of witnesses. Written on cloth by Avraham ben Yiju. Location: India, perhaps Mangalore. Dating: 1132–39 or 1145–49 CE, based on ben Yiju's years in India. The record itself is almost completely effaced. It notes that a trader presented a court record/ruling (maʿase) which had been drawn up in Bharuch (Broach), the well-known port city in northwest India. On verso there are two medical prescriptions in Arabic script. (Information from Goitein and Friedman.)

Legal document, dated A.H. 409 (= 1018-19 C.E.) - needs examination. (FGP)

Legal document, dated 5 Jumädä I, A.H. 556 (= 2 May, 1161 C.E.). - needs examination. (FGP)

Legal document, 'iqrar, dated A.H. 529 (= 1134-35 C.E.). - needs examination. (FGP)

Deed of sale for the sale of half a house in Fusṭāṭ, in the ‘Fortress of the Greeks’. The house abuts the house of ʿUbayd b. Yasir. The deed also mentions Abū l-Ḥusayn the drinks-seller. Dated 497 AH (= 1103-1104 CE). (Information from CUDL)

Document of rent/hire. No decipherable date. - needs examination. (FGP)

Quittance granted by [...] bt. ʿAbdallāh al-[...] to Abū l-Faraj Sulaymān(?) b. Hārūn al-Khaybarī(?) known as Ibn al-Sulūkī(?) and who was somehow associated with the treasury (bayt al-māl al-maʿmūr). (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) "In a few surviving quittance documents from the Fatimid period the early opening formula is attached to the beginning of the iqrār, e.g. T-S Ar. 41.99: hādhā kitāb barā'a li-fulān ibn fulān... katabathu lahu fulāna ibnat fulān wa-aqarrat lahu bi-mā fīhi wa-ashhadat lahu ʿalā dhālika shuhūd hādhā l-kitāb... annahu lā ḥaqq lahā qibal fulān ibn fulān...." This is a document of quittance for so-and-so son of so-and-so... which so-and-so daughter of so and-so wrote for him and she acknowledged to him what is contained herein and called the witnesses of this document to bear testimony to it for him... that she has no claim on so-and-so son of so-and-so...". The witnesses of the document attached autograph witnesses clauses with the formula: shahida fulān ibn fulān ʿalā iqrār al-mubri'a bi-mā fīhi fī tārīkhihi..." "So-and-so son of so-and-so bore witness to the acknowledged of what is contained herein by the woman granting the quittance on its date." Geoffrey Khan, "An Arabic Legal Document from the Umayyad Period," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 4, no. 3 (1994), p. 368. On verso there are Hebrew writing exercises.

End of legal document, dated 13 Dhu al-Hijja, A.H. 596 (= 25 September, 1200 C.E.). - needs examination. (FGP)

Legal document. In Arabic script. Dating: Ottoman-era, likely 16th or 17th century. Concerning the estate of the late Shemuel b. Dan, a Portuguese Jew. His brother Avraham (اورهم), living in Alexandria, attests to having received a sum of 50 gold dinars from Aḥmad(?) Amarillo b. Yosef the Jew, the agent of the daughter of the deceased, and he releases her and the agent from any further claims. ASE

End of legal contract. In Arabic script. Mentions a sum of 9 dinars. - needs examination.

Legal document. In difficult Arabic script. Possibly a contract of sale or lease. - needs examination.

Deed of acknowledgment (iqrār). In Arabic script. Dated: 962 AH, which is 1554/55 CE. (Or possibly just 960 AH.) Involves ʿAbd al-Karīm Namir(?) b. ʿAlī b. ʿAlī and Mūsā b. Dāwūd b. Ibrāhīm the Rabbanite Jew. It seems that the former owes money to the latter, at least 70 dinars. Needs further examination. (This is cited as a medical recipe by Lev & Amar, Practical Materia Medica, p. 107, but they probably meant to write T-S Ar.42.110.) AA. ASE.