Geniza Lab

Fiscal account to do with sugarcane and a sugar-house. Some to go as taxes to tax-farmers, some to be planted. Three lines at the top: a docket?

Tadhkira (memorandum) from a Fatimid official to another Fatimid official. Tax receipt on verso.

Tax receipt. Mentions the mustakhdim al-jawālī in Damietta. Dated: 601 AH. Amount: 1.25 dinars. ʿAlāma: الحمد لله وبه استعين. Endorsed across the text rather than above it, which is unusual.

State document. Dating: ca. beginning of the 13th century (Ayyubid period). Petition from Khuyalāʾ b. Ḥasan and Abū l-Jaysh to the caliph al-ʿĀdil regarding an iqṭāʿ in the district of Minyat Khalaf. The land for the iqṭāʿ formerly belonged to the amīr Muʾnis ʿAlī b. Jawl al-Mihrānī and, after he decamped, to Sayf al-Islām. Khuyalāʾ is asking for a decree that would allow him and Abū l-Jaysh to enter these lands. On verso is a Hebrew liturgical text. (Information from CUDL)

State document of some kind. Fiscal account? Wide line spacing, small letters. Discrete text blocks arranged in columns. At least one of the text blocks appears to be dated 453 AH, which is 1061/62 CE. Reused for a text in Judaeo-Arabic with some Hebrew mixed in, listing some of the wonders of creation (e.g., how fruit comes from trees and babies from wombs; how fire takes hold of wood; how there is hearing, vision, thinking, sleep; Noah's ark; the existence of colors and dyes, etc.)

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. State document? On verso there are medical recipes in Judaeo-Arabic. Needs examination.

Small fragment of a decree. Reused for Judaeo-Arabic literary work.

Decree. The ends of two lines are preserved. Cut, folded into a bifolio, and reused for a Judaeo-Arabic literary text on the laws of vows (חיבור בערבית בדיני נדרים, משנה נדרים רפ"ג, וגמ' עליה כא,ב 10-15). Looks like the same Hebrew scribe as T-S NS 222.9 and T-S Ar.46.89 (which are likewise reused decrees).

State document, Fatimid period. Petition to a vizier of Al-ʿĀḍid li-Dīn Allāh from a baker in Fusṭāṭ concerning a debt that he had incurred with a certain ʿAbd al-Bāqī b. Wardar and is not able to repay. He is asking for a decree allowing him to pay his debt in instalments. On verso are two versions of the same reply to the petition, in which the judge Kāmal al-Dīn is entrusted with clarifying the status of the petitioner and working out a solution for him. Dating: 556–59 AH, which is 1161–64 CE. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Recto, with address on verso: Petition from Muslim b. ʿAlī b. Muslim to Abū l-Faraj b. [...] b. Yūḥannā. Phrases that jump out are "wa-laysa fī hādhihi l-nawāḥī mā...." (l. 11) and "qad ʿalimat ḥaḍratuhu annī rajulun mastūr" (l. 12). Needs further examination. On verso there is also the end of a Judaeo-Arabic letter: "I greet you and all the friends, and may R. Natan and Rabbenu and his son be in perfect well-being." In the same hand, there are also liturgical compositions for Shabbat.

Fatimid-era petition. Dating: 422–23 AH, which is 1031–32 CE. End of a petition to the caliph al-Ẓāhir requesting the return of a church to the Christian community and the payment of a sum of 24 dinars in yearly installments of 6 dinars. On verso there are biblical verses with a Hebrew commentary relating the verses to recent historical events. (Information from Khan and CUDL)

Tiny fragment of an Arabic-script document in a chancery hand. Mention a sum of X-hundred dinars and the phrase "...which are mine, and that..." (allatī lī fa-tilka).

The beginnings of two lines of an official letter in Arabic script. On verso reused for Hebrew seliḥot.

Letter in Arabic script. Chancery report? 4 lines preserved. Very faded. Reused on recto for prayers for ʿAravit and Minḥa with Judaeo-Arabic heading. (Information from CUDL)

Report or letter between officials. In Arabic script, written in a chancery hand. Four lines remain. Surrounding the text and on verso there is a Hebrew liturgical text. After the introduction, it reports that al-Ṭansāwī (from Ṭansā, near the Fayyūm) reported what the addressee did with him. Then:والزامه من البقاع والا(؟) ينتفع به وينظلم(؟) من ذلك ويستغيث. The last word means that he is now crying out for help. On the next page, the addressee may be instructed to do something with this man (...qiyāmuhū bi-mā yukrimuhū min al-ʿimāra(?)...). In the last line, the loaning of a book may be mentioned (or are these technical bureaucratic terms?) followed by an inshallāh. (Information in part from CUDL.) MR. ASE.

Fragment of an official letter (report or petition?). In Arabic script. The ends of two lines are preserved. Phrases include: lil-khidma bi-l-thaghr... bi-ḍawāḥīh... Reused on both sides for the Hebrew shemaʿ for the Shabbat morning service. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Petition from Abū Bakr b. ʿAlī to a dignitary whose name is torn off. Mentions Abū l-Ḥasan, who may be a kātib. (Information in part from CUDL.) Join from CUDL.

Unidentified text in Arabic script. Probably accounts, possibly fiscal/state. Might mention ʿAbd al-Ṣamad. Reused for a Hebrew literary text. (Information from CUDL)

Petition fragment. Contains part of a raʾy clause and a reference to Dīwān al-Shām al-Maʿmūr, and then perhaps "the response of the slave with what he performed (wa-ijābat al-ʿabd bi-mā tamaththaltuhū), although the pronouns here are tricky. Reused for Hebrew piyyuṭ. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Recto: Official letter/report, probably. In Arabic script. The ends of ~5 lines are preserved. Verso: piyyuṭ and phrases praising a dignitary. (Information in part from CUDL)