Geniza Lab

Recto: Possibly an account Verso: Possibly a letter- needs examination.

Possibly a letter - needs examination.

Letter drafts in Arabic script. Late.

Letter from Shelomo b. Eliyyahu (aka Barakāt b. Abū l-Faraj al-Dayyān) to a physician named Abū l-Maḥāsin (titled al-Shaykh al-Sadīd). In Arabic script with one word in Hebrew. Dating: Early 13th century. The first ~9 lines are standard introductory fare and blessings for the holidays. The last two lines probably contain a request concerning Dāʾūd al-[...]. The letter may have been abandoned unfinished.

Business letter in Arabic script. Fragment (bottom part). Faded. "By that which I believe of the Holy Law (al-sharīʿa al-muqaddasa)! I didn't receive anything from anybody more than a raṭl and a half of indigo...."

Recto is a letter in Arabic script. The lower part is very faed. Unclear if the multiple text blocks on verso are related; some of them sound more legalistic. Needs examination.

Business letter in Arabic script. Somewhat crude hand. The sender urges the addressee to purchase 1/2 dinar's worth of Aleppan textiles and 1/4 dinar's worth of purple (arjuwān) textiles. The addressee might be Abū l-Afrāḥ ʿArūs b. Yosef (Aodeh makes this identification and also suggests that the sender is Avraham b. Hillel, cf. T-S Ar.41.108); the Judaeo-Arabic accounts on verso should be checked against ʿArūs's handwriting.

Brief note in Arabic script instructing the addressee to help the bearer.

Letter from a sick man to a physician. In Arabic script. The verso is written at 90 degrees to the recto, which is unusual, but appears to be the same handwriting and the same letter. Mentions: "on Sunday... you wrote us a copy/prescription (nuskha)... my mother(?), another time to you, and compound for her... she/I entered the bath after two days... by your religion, prescribe me a medicine that will benefit me... I have / she has perished, we are all prostrated, I have no one to go out and bring me anything, and (your) kindness will not be lost on God the exalted. They said to me that it/he is a piece of flesh (qiṭʿat laḥm = a common phrase for describing a wretched sick person)... obtain(?) for me from the hospital (al-maristān) palm ointment (marham nakhlī, cf. T-S 8J20.26 and Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.22), and if I recover / she recovers... {your} kindness will not be lost on me. I salute/greet you (qaraʾtu ʿalayka al-salām)." ASE

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Addressed to Huṣām al-Dawla. Possibly a letter of recommendation for the bearer (hādha l-insān in line 6), but needs further examination. Verso: Jottings in Judaeo-Arabic and of the Hebrew alphabet. Perhaps accounts (various fractions are mentioned and the number 100), perhaps calendrical, perhaps mathematical calculations.

Business letter in Arabic script from Efrayim b. Shemarya to Yehuda b. Yosef ha-Kohen. This hand looks very different from the other hands Rustow has identified as belonging to Efrayim (see The Lost Archive, 498n49, which identifies Halper 354, T-S NS 320.45, Bodl. MS heb. d 66/83, CUL Or. 1080 J7, T-S10J6.6, T-S13J36.14, and T-SAS152.236 + T-SAS 152.269 as all being in Efrayim b. Shemarya's Arabic hand).

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Possibly a draft, as it is covered with subsequent jottings. Addressed to 'the brother' Abū l-ʿAlā' (this is not completely clear; line 4). Only in line 10 does the body of the letter begain (wa-ghayra dhālika). The writer reports that he lay sick in the house for a whole month(?), but then God had mercy and delivered him from his illness (وغير ذلك اعلم الاخ اني مرضت وقمت في البيت شهر(?) ايام ولطف الله سبحانه... المملوك وخلصه من الالم الذي كان...). There are greetings to various people in the margin, including to the writer's maternal aunt Hanā(?) and her son Nuṣayr and to Nadd and Ṣafā l-ʿAyn(?). Verso: Letter drafts? Covered with Arabic script (and the Hebrew phrase שובה ישראל), but less organized than recto and more difficult to decipher. Needs further examination.

Business letter in Arabic script, before 1141, from ʿUmar b. ʿAwaḍ in Qalyūb to the Dār al-Wakāla, to be sent by the Qāḍī Ṣadr al-Dīn the notary (?) discussing a shipment of green dates from Qalyūb and their transport on the Nile. English translation in Goitein, LMJT, 270–71.

Possibly a letter - needs examination.

Possibly a letter - needs examination.

Recto: Brief letter in Arabic script, very polite, asking the addressee not to delay something. Verso: Apparently a commentary on Daniel 1:4f, in both Arabic and Hebrew (FGP).

Letter from a man in Minyat Ghamr to his brother Maḥfūẓ in Fustat. In Arabic script. The writer has been ill, and people tell him he must go to Fustat to recover. He has sent multiple letters asking the addressee to rent him a room in Fustat; no answer. Information from Goitein's note cards.

Letter of appeal in Arabic script. The writer, Faḍā'il al-ʿŪdī b. Baṣīla (?), had lived for 6 years in Alexandria until he had to come this year ("in which nothing is blessed") to Fustāṭ. He is unemployed there and unable to even enter the market of the druggists due to debts owed to Ibn Ṣ[...] and others. He now perishes of hunger and illness. No one in the family has eaten for three nights. He has three dependents: his wife, his daughter (a widow), and her three-year-old son. He asks for charity especially for the rent of a boat (to travel back to Alexandria?). He concludes with blesings for the addressee, in the midst of which he writes, "If it were not for God and your mercy with regard to this year's jāliya, I would be in prison." Information in part from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Letter on trading matters. Verso contains a few heart-shaped designs with words in minute script written inside them. These are also found on top and in margin of recto. (FGP)

Beginning of letter in ornate prose, probably literary risala - needs examination.