Geniza Lab

Letter per FGP, but the format is more suitable for literature - needs examination. AA

Three audition (samāʿ) certificates of a literary work. In Arabic script. Two of the notes are demarcated by square lines and may be of the same hand while the third note is written by a different hand (and with different ink and pen) at the foot of the page. The dates are given, but it appears that the year is torn away each time. Many names are given (the listeners, the readers, and in one case the scribe). For an overview of this genre, see Tilman Seidensticker, "Audience Certificates in Arabic Manuscripts – the Genre and a Case Study*," Manuscript Cultures 8, 75–91. Needs further examination. ASE.

Possibly a literary text or a paraliterary record. In Arabic script. Mentions (l. 5) the year 608 AH, which (if correctly read) is 1211/12 CE. Mentions the names of numerous (Muslim) scholars, one of whom "read it to him in my presence (lit. "as I listened") in Baghdad." Needs further examination.

Fragments of a notebook containing drafts. Drafts are of letters and short notes; poems; anecdote about Hajjāj and opening formulary of a petition. (FGP) See Khan, The Arabic fragments in the Cambridge Genizah collections, Manuscripts of the Middle East, p. 58 and n. 17. (FGP and AA)

Recipe and book-list. See Isaacs, Medical, p. 35.

Talisman for safe journey. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Recipes for effecting desired results with Psalms (shimmush tehillim).

Booklet of divinations. See T-S Ar.44.54. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Booklet of divinations with introduction. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Notebook of advice composed in reply to questions about a wide variety of matters, e.g. seeking office, choosing a profession, taking a wife, going on travels, dealing with friends and enemies, etc. Written in the hand of Hillel b. Eli. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, p. 292)

Literary text in Judaeo-Arabic. Advice on how to succeed against enemies, on a journey, etc. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

There are 10 unrelated fragments sharing this shelfmark. All are literary: see FGP for identifications. The most documentary fragment is fol. 4, which is a leaf from a book in Judaeo-Arabic that tells you the Psalms to recite in various scenarios (if your ship is about to sink at sea... if you are going before the king...).

Recipe, alchemical. (Information in part from Goitein's index card)

Collection of Judaeo-Arabic proverbs, such as those used in letters. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Verso: Medical prescription or recipe in Arabic script. Quantities of the ingredients are written out both in words and in Greek/Coptic numerals. (Information from FGP and AA.)

Folios 1v-2v (the fragment is conserved the wrong way round) contain Suras 1 and 2:1-10 from the Qur’an in Hebrew script, followed by omens for undertaking a journey. F. 1r is blank apart from the owner's name Samuel b. Judah, written in a different hand to the text. Ca. 11th century. Information from CUDL.

Magical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic. One of the pages features a large diagram of the human body, captioned "ghulām al-malik Saydūk," and two smaller figurines. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card)

Fragment from guide for pilgrims.

Culinary or medical recipe. In Arabic script, Kūfī, seven lines. On parchment. Dating: "Particularly old" per Goitein; likely 10th century or earlier. This was probably torn from a page that originally had more recipes, as the tops of the letters from the next entry are just barely visible. Needs further examination. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Adages and ethical exhortations in Judaeo-Arabic. Some of them concern love and marriage. (This is not a letter, as it was described in the Backer & Polliack catalogue.) On verso of fol. 2 there is a name: Saʿīd b. Shelom[o ...] b. Rabīʿ b. [....]. Maybe a colophon. AA. ASE.