Geniza Lab

Official letter in Arabic script. The sender received a letter from ʿAlī b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Aysar delivered by the ghulām of a man from [...] Baghdād. Mentions going to ʿIrāq. In between the lines, a scribe-in-training has copied each line. On verso there is piyyuṭ. (Information in part from CUDL)

Accounts, possibly state/official. In Arabic script. Needs examination. On verso there is piyyuṭ. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Official letter, probably. In Arabic script. The ends of 3 lines are preserved; upslanting and wide space between lines. Needs examination for content. On verso there is piyyut. (Information in part from CUDL)

Small fragment of an official document in Arabic script. Beginning of three lines. The second line begins "al-mubārak..." Reused on verso for a liturgical text in Hebrew.

Small fragment of a state document in Arabic script. Mentions [...]rāʾiḍ al-Dawla. Reused for an unidentified text in Hebrew, possibly part of a commentary, (Information in part from CUDL)

Beginnings of 5 lines of an official document or letter in Arabic script. On verso, liturgical text in Hebrew. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: The beginnings of 4 lines of an official report in Arabic script. "When I found the districts in the aforementioned state..." (wa-lammā alfaytu l-nawāḥī ʿalā l-ḥāl al-madhkūr...). On verso there is either a literary text or a letter in Hebrew. (Information in part from CUDL)

One line of Arabic text from an official letter or document, mentioning al-jāmiʿ ("the mosque"). Reused for piyyuṭim, one of which is ascribed to Isaac b. R. Samuel. (Information from CUDL.)

Two lines from an official letter in Arabic script. Reused for liturgical text in Hebrew (same scribe as T-S NS 111.63?).

Official letter in Arabic Script. Needs examination. On verso there is liturgical text in Hebrew. (Information from CUDL)

Official report in Arabic script. May mention Naṣr al-[...] b. al-Faḍāʾil b. [...] in the first line. Approximately 5 lines are preserved. On verso there is piyyuṭ in a crude hand and red/brown ink. (Information in part from CUDL.) Needs further examination.

Fragment from the bottom of an (official?) document in Arabic script. Reused for piyyut on recto. (Information from CUDL)

Small fragment of a state document in Arabic script: "al-Anjab(?) Sulṭān al-[...].... ṣāḥabtuhū ilayhi..." Reused for Hebrew liturgical text on recto and verso. (Information in part from CUDL)

Report from a Fatimid official, probably sent from Tyre. Dating: 1108 or 1109 CE, as it concerns the events in Tripoli following the flight of Fakhr al-Mulk Ibn ʿAmmār (cf. T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177) and around the time of the fall of Tripoli to the Crusaders. The document resembles another report to al-Malik al-Afḍal also preserved in the Geniza, T-S 16.114 + T-S 24.57 + T-S AS 11.383 + T-S AS 146.195, edited by Geoffrey Khan (ALAD doc. 111). Among many other matters, it discusses: a request for a Fatimid fleet to come to the aid of Tripoli; how Ibn ʿAmmār was an enemy of the people and of the notables (muqaddamīn) of Tripoli and of the Fatimid state; how the traitorous al-Sharīf al-ʿArīḍī had been sending Ibn ʿAmmār state secrets (akhbār al-dawla) until Sayf al-Mulk b. ʿAllūn ordered the former to be detained; how a boat containing twenty-two men and women arrived from Crusader-ruled ʿAkkā (Acre) after letting themselves into the city over its walls by rope; how those newcomers report that Muhannad b. Ghawth had returned to Jabal ʿĀmil(a) and Kafr Birʿim, where he now serves the Franks and lived among them; a blood feud between Banū Ḥaddāthā (حداثا in present-day Lebanon) and the neighboring Banū Shabakhtān, a disruption that the authorities in the sender’s location had to manage; and something to do with army regiments (al-muwallada and al-sūd, "the blacks"), taxes, and Franks. Needs further examination. On verso there is a Hebrew prayer (the second baqqasha of Seʿadya Gaon). T-S NS 125.135 is a join for the prayer on verso but not for the report on recto. There are still several fragments missing. Joins: Alan Elbaum. ASE. Description from PGPID 20866: Recto: Hebrew prayer Verso: Arabic document or letter - needs examination.

Minute fragment of a state document. Only one full word (al-nāḥiya) is preserved. Reused for piyyuṭ.

Fiscal order requesting the registration of an expenditure (?) in the Fatimid dīwān al-majlis (privy council). Written in five (?) different hands, reflecting a complex procedure. Dated 1 Shawwāl 504 (19 April 1111). Reused for Hebrew poetry, constructed into a quire by the same scribe as ENA 3714.5, T-S Ar.38.119, T-S NS 145.22, T-S Ar.42.186.

Brief official report in Arabic script. Ends, "anhā dhālika wa-l-raʾy aʿlāhu." Dating: Likely Ayyubid or early Mamluk-era, based on handwriting and format. Needs further examination for content. On verso there is piyyuṭ. (Information in part from CUDL)

Part of a document in Arabic script. Chancery hand, wide space between the lines. Words from 3 lines are preserved. On verso there is piyyuṭ. (Information in part from CUDL)

A few words from the end of a line of a state document in large Arabic script. On verso there is piyyuṭ. (Information in part from CUDL)

Fragment of a decree, probably. The only phrases preserved are a reference to the caliph ("al-imām al-ʿĀḍid li-Dīn Allāh Amīr al-Muʾminīn," r. 1160–71) and perhaps "ʿalā ayyāmihī" as part of a blessing. Reused on recto for Hebrew piyyuṭ and on verso for a very faded text in Arabic script, perhaps from a lexical work (e.g., "wa-aṭrada iṭrādan," two lines from the bottom).