Geniza Lab

Order. In Arabic script. Abū l-Faraj is asked to send something with the bearer. Ends with a ḥamdala. AA. ASE.

Letter(s) in Arabic script. One side may be the original letter or report and the other side may be the response. Both sides have the glyph. One side: al-mamlūk al-aṣghar yuqabbil al-arḍ wa-yunhī annahu kāna... The other side: [...] furqat al-akh wa-ʿalimtu... Needs further examination.

Letter, probably. In Arabic script. 3 full lines are preserved, and portions of another ~8 lines. Needs examination.

Letter addressed to Abū l-Faraj Yosef b. Yaʿaqov (Ibn ʿAwkal) and his two sons Hilāl/Hillel and Binyamin. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Rabīʿ I 407 AH, which is 1016 CE (this is the date of the arrival of the letter, recorded in Arabic script next to the address). The name of the sender is faded, but may be legible with effort. The sender has recently lost his only son in a particularly traumatic way (at sea?). There is no grave to visit and feel consoled, and there was no period of illness during which his father could care for him (this part is not completely clear, ll.4–5). "It is now a month and a half that my weeping [is greater?] than the waves of the sea." The bottom part of recto and the upper part of verso are torn away. At some point he turns to business matters and mentions various sums of money. This letter is uncited in the literature. Cf. CUL Or.1080 J154 for another letter addressed to Ibn ʿAwkal and his two sons from 8 years earlier. (Evidently Ibn ʿAwkal's other two sons Abū Sahl Menashshe and Abū Saʿīd Khalaf were not born until after 1016?). For information on Ibn ʿAwkal and his family, see Stillman, "The Eleventh Century Merchant House of Ibn ʿAwkal (A Geniza Study)," JESHO 16 (1973), 15–88.

Drafts of dozens of documents including letters/petitions to amīrs, mostly in Arabic script. There is also a recipe or prescription.

Writing exercises in Arabic script. Dating: Late, probably 18th or 19th century. Of documentary value because there is a copy of the beginning of a letter to a 'dear brother.'

Letter in Arabic script. Addressed to a 'brother.' The sender has recently traveled from Damascus to Cairo (ll. 5–6 where he describes the journey and l. 11 where he arrives in Cairo). Mentions 'dying' of worry together with Umm Ibrāhīm (ll.8–9). He was worried about something having to do with Dāwūd (ll. 11–12). Needs further examination. On verso there is a legal deed (see alternate listing).

Letter fragment. In Judaeo-Arabic. On verso there are some accounts in Arabic script. Very damaged and faded. Only scattered words and phrases are legible. It appears to be addressed to a father (wālid). The sender complains about a lack of letters.

Beginning of a letter in Arabic script. Only the opening blessings are preserved.

Numerous drafts of the opening of a petition or an otherwise formal letter. In Arabic script. It is not clear if any of the substance of the letter is preserved, or if all this is formulary. In the margins of recto, there are also reckonings in Greek/Coptic numerals.

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Fragment. Mentions Yūsuf (l. 1), a boat, and a qāḍī (l. 3). On verso there is a tax receipt (see separate entry). (Information in part from CUDL)

Arabic letter - needs examination.

Verso: Letter/petition in Arabic script. Opens with the phrase "(al-mamlūku) yakhdumu majlisa mawlānā wa-sayyidinā...." The sender asks the addressee to send something with Abū l-Ḥasan, it seems his salary (jāmiakiyya) from the outgoing month.

Recto: Deferent letter in Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic to a R. El[. . .] called ha-paṭish ha-ḥazaq. The writer mentions that Ibn Bishāra arrived, then reports on the dimensions and prices of the two maqṭaʿ cloths.

Recto: An Arabic note with instructions. "Send to Alexandria with the ghulām of Ibn al-Falā[tī?] 5 1/2 manns of aloe wood (ʿūd), to be delivered to the faqīh Ibn ʿAṭṭīya. And send with ʿAlī b. Raḥīm and Ibn al-Maṣīṣī (?) 10 manns of fine aloe wood and 10 manns of middling aloe wood. And send with Ibn Muḥayyar (?) . . ." Verso: Judaeo-Arabic accounts, completely crossed out. ASE.

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. The glyph appears at the top. The hand is skilled and the margins are large, and there is a taqbīl at the end. Dating: Maybe 12th–13th century, but this is a guess. Mentions 'what Bū l-Ḥasan said to the qāḍī' (l. 5). Makes excuses and justifications about various things: "that which I think about you nothing like what you imagined..." (wa-lā fī nafsī mink mimmā tawahhamta shayʾ...). Mentions Dār al-Anmāṭ, which was a well-known market complex on the eastern bank of the Nile near the mosque of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ and the main street of Fustat (see Ahmad Ghabin, Ḥisba, Arts and Crafts in Islam, p. 241, where there is also a reference to Geniza documents cited by Gil). Needs further examination. Verso: fragment of an official-looking (fiscal?) account in Arabic script. Needs further examination.

Nearly complete letter in Arabic, written by a Muslim and/or addressed to a Muslim (concludes with prayers for the prophet Muhammad), sent to somebody close to the India trader and Nagid Maḍmūn b. al-Ḥasan (active 1131–51). Unfortunately, the beginning of the letter and the address are lost. The writer reports meeting with [Abū?] l-Faraj b. al-Surūr and learning that the addressee had directed his business (? taklīfak) to the West (bilād al-gharb) and has been left without strong connections in India (bilād al-hind). He then brings up Maḍmūn b. al-Ḥasan and (it seems) how Maḍmūn has bestowed his favor on the addressee more than on others. He then explains why he has been unable to travel: his East African slave (al-ʿabd al-zanjī) died, and the [In]dian slave who was with him in Sunkhalā (= present-day Songkhla) had already departed. . . . "and I remained cut off" (? wa-baqītu munqaṭiʿ). Despite this, he is doing well (qalbī ṭayyib), and he requests a favor from Maḍmūn. In the margin he mentions the ship-owner (nākhudhā) Abū ʿAbd al-Qahhār (? this word is uncertain) Abū l-K[...]. Merits further examination. ASE.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. On recto there is a medical text in Arabic script. On verso there is further Arabic text on medical themes, but it is not immediately clear whether this is the same text as recto. In between the lines, someone has written either a letter or a draft of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic. The content is difficult to make out, but it mentions silver and gold; mentions al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, either the sultan from 1200–18 or his grandson with the same title who served intermittently as regent from 1232–38 and reigned 1238–40; and concludes by urging the addressee to act.

Letter or petition (or draft) in Arabic script. Strings of titles. There are alternating lines of light ink (bigger letters) and dark ink (smaller letters), one presumably written before the other. ḥaḍara ilā al-majlis al-ʿālī etc.

Letter mainly consisting of business accounts. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions Tripoli and Cairo. Concludes with a note, "how shall we divide it? Perhaps .... because I am sick."