Geniza Lab

Recto: injunction issued by the vizier of al-Fāʾiz (Ṭalāʾīʿ b. Ruzzīk) ordering Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh b. Kāmil b. ʿAbd al-Karīm to execute all of his orders. Verso: end of a legal document dated 13 Ṣafar 554 AH (= March 1159). Written on parchment (like legal documents, and unlike standard chancery documents). (Information in part from Khan and CUDL.)

Recto: deed of sale for part of a house in Fusṭāṭ. The parties are ʿAbdallāh b. Ṭāhir, the moneychanger, and Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir, the carpet dealer. Ca. 11th-12th century. Verso: Arabic note, apparently unrelated to the document on recto. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document. In Arabic script. Dated: Dhū l-Qaʿda 450 AH, which is 1058/59 CE. Involves Ibrāhīm b. Faraj al-Isrāʾīlī. Only the bottom right corner is preserved.

Fragment from a legal document, probably a deathbed declaration. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. Involves a woman named Sitt al-Dār and the physician Mishaʾel ha-Levi (possibly the same Mishaʾel ha-Levi who appears in ENA 4011.45). OZ. AA.

Deed of sale. In Arabic script. Abū l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā b. ʿAlī b. Aslama b. ʿAbi Zayd (a dealer in dates) buys part of a shop from Aḥmad b. Ibrahim b. Muḥammad al-Muzanī. The shop’s boundaries extend to the property of the heirs of Shuʿayb (dealer in dates) and the heirs of Ilyās b. Kāmil. Dating: ca. 11th-12th century.The price is 165 dinars. The store is located in the Dār al-Tammārin. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

Bill of sale in Arabic script. Dating: late 5th century AH/11th century CE. Abū ʿAlī Ḥassan b. Ibrahīm b. Azhar al-Ṣayrafī buys two ruins near al-Mamṣuṣa, on the east side of Qaṣr al-Shamʿ, and donates them (or a part of them) to Yūsuf b. Daʾūd. Roughly 1100 CE. Contains a note of registration in a court archive. The buyer, Ḥassan ibn 'Ibrāhīm b. Azhar, is also the buyer in T-S Misc. 29.21 (Khan, ALAD, doc. 8), which is dated 480H on verso. There are also documents of partnership referring to him by his Hebrew name, Yefet b. Avraham b. Yaʾir, which also indicate that he worked in the government mint in the second half of the 5th/11th c; cf. Goitein, Med. Soc. I, 362; IV, 354, n. 104. (Information from Goitein’s index card and from Khan)

Legal document. Bill of sale, fragment, in Arabic script. Yosef b. Yaʿaqov, the Jew, known as al-ʿIjla (or al-ʿĀjala?) buys from three Christian women one-fourth of a house in the Rāya district for 70 dinars. The other three-fourths were already in his possession (total value 280 dinars). Verso (in entirely different handwriting): He gives this house to the son of his daughter and makes other gifts. This document is also incomplete. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Recto: Legal document. In Arabic script. Portions of 9 lines are preserved. Involves Mūsā b. ʿĀdī(?). Dating: Mentions the year 42[.] AH, which corresponds to 1029–38 CE (l. 4). (This should be checked.) The last few lines contain numerous release formulae. Needs further examination.

Deed of sale. In Arabic script. Abū l-Bayān b. Barakāt buys for his wife (name not preserved) one-half out of twenty-four shares of a house, from her brother Abū l-Faraj b. Yūsuf, in Khiṭṭat al-Rāya in the district known as Maḥbas Banāna. Most of the text preserved here is a description of the buyer. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Legal deed for the purchase of a house by a descendant of the Ṭabāṭabā family. Dating: early 5th/11th century. See also T-S Ar. 38127 (early 6th c AH), which mentions a house in Fustat in the khiṭṭa of Tujīb known as "the house of the Banī Ṭabāṭabā." (information from Khan, ALAD, p. 88-90)

Deed of sale. Dated: Last decade of Rabīʿ I 512 AH, which is June 1118 CE. Sale of a one-fourth of a new portion of a small house (duwayra) in Fustat by Ḥassan b. Shabbat the Jew to ʿAlī b. […]. Verso: Legal document concerning the same individual. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.)

Legal document. In Arabic script. Fragment of a contract made before a Muslim notary about a bible (al-Tawrāh) codex of twenty-four pages. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Legal deed for real estate, Mamluk period, with lots of archival process. 710s-750s AH

Fol. 3: Legal document. Left side of an agreement with a wife that she would receive the rent from the middle story of a house, but if it was unoccupied it would be her loss. Dated: 1436 Seleucid or slightly earlier, which is ca. 1124 CE. Names Isḥāq b. Makhlūf al-Nafūsī; a Lebdī; and [...] b. Abū ʿUmar al-Ṭabīb. In the lower margin, at 90 degrees: "Efrayim b. Elʿazar ha-Ḥazzan, Sitt al-Kull bt. Yaḥyā." (Information from Goitein’s attached notes.)

Legal query addressed to Great Rav Elʿazar of Alexandria (ha-Gaon, ha-Nasi). Concerning two men who had an argument over chess. "The two spread out the chessboard and played in accordance with the rules, play after play, and move after move, when a checkmate (shēh mēt) came in sight to A, without B noticing it." The remaining script indicates that one party was not agreeable. (Information from Goitein's index card and Med Soc V, p. 44.)

Declaration about five generations of males and females related by ramified family connections. Dated to the 13th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 286)

Settlement made before the divorce between Abu al-Faraj b. Abu Ishaq and 'Alam bint Abu Ishaq al-Hazzan. Abu al-Faraj renounces his rights to 3/5 of a mill in his possession and all his furniture, clothing and books in favor of his wife, 'Alam bint Abu Ishaq al-Hazzan, in order to be permitted to divorce her. Dated Sivan 1514/ May 1203. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 485)

Record of the birth of a child in May 1197 CE. Dated according to two Jewish calendars, the Coptic calendar, and the Muslim calendar. (Information from Goitein’s index card.) Anno mundi: Friday night, 20 Iyar 4957 (the 17th year of Maḥzor 261). Seleucid: 20 Iyar 1508 Seleucid Coptic: 15 Pashons 913 Hijrī: 21 Jumādā II 593

Engagement contract between Ḥusayn b. Faraj and his prospective father-in-law Fuḍayl b. ʿAllūn, for the hand of Fuḍayl's elder daughter Mufaddāt. Dating: Ca. 1000, per Goitein. Conditions: 1) Muqaddam is 25 dinars, of which 5 are paid immediately and 20 in Tishrei. 2) The fiancée receives the entire trousseau of her late mother except for the silver. 3) The silver will be divided equally between the two daughters, but Mufaddāt will receive not less than 40–50 dinars. 4) Likewise copper 40–50 dinars. 5) If Ḥusayn is not satisfied, the engagement is nullified without formalities. The text on verso is unrelated. (Information from Goitein’s index card.)

Outline for drawing up a marriage contract. Ca. 1100 CE. Groom: Barakāt/Berakhot b. Seʿadya ha-Kohen. Bride: Khulla bt. ʿAmram. Early marriage payment (muqaddam): 20 dinars. Delayed marriage payment (muʾakhkhar): 20 dinars. Trousseau: Approximately 35 items listed; total value 455 dinars. (Information from Goitein's index card.)