Geniza Lab

Unusual order of payment of Abū Zikrī Kohen. In Judaeo-Arabic, with a Hebrew 'emet' and Arabic and Greek/Coptic numerals in the upper margin. Moshe b. Netanʾel ha-Shishi ha-Levi initially sent a note instructing Yehuda ha-Kohen (=Abū Zikī Kohen) to issue an order of payment to his banker Abū l-Khayr Khiyār to give somebody (presumably Moshe) 6 dinars for 3 irdabbs of wheat. Upon receiving this note, it seems that Abū Zikrī Kohen added the note "pay them (the dinars) to him," signed it, and added the "emet" and other pertinent notations in the upper margin, i.e., he turned the note requesting an order of payment into an order of payment. (Information in part from Goitein's attached notes.)

Bill of divorce (geṭ). Draft. Dated: 7 Tammuz 1376 Seleucid, which is 1062 CE. Husband: ʿEli b. David. Wife; Milāḥ bt. Avram. Written and signed by ʿEli b. ʿAmram.Also signed by Aharon b. Yefet. Not delivered. See also T-S 10J2.6, a bill of divorce for the same couple from several years later, also not delivered. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Recto: Legal testimony. Incomplete. Drawn up in Fustat. Dated 1151/52 CE (1463 Seleucid), under the reshut of Shemuel ha-Nagid. The case involves Abū l-Faraj al-Tājir al-Qāhirī aka Yeshuʿa ha-Zaqen b. Yūsuf ha-Zaqen and Abū l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. Shelomo b. Yehuda ha-Kohen ha-Sar. The margins and verso are filled with Arabic script. ASE

Document regarding repayment of a debt, 1276.

Legal declaration. Fragment: only the right side is preserved. Dating: 1089–1188 CE. In Judaeo-Arabic. Involves [Yiṣḥaq] b. Yeshuʿa and Zakkāy. Signed by Moshe ha-Levi b. Ibrahīm.

Legal document. Court record. Dating: Iyyar 1410 (May 1099). Signed by Nissim b. Nahray, the judge Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi and Hillel b. ʿEli. The recto and the beginning of the first column of the verso concern a partnership between Yaḥyā ha-Levi and Abū ʿAli Yefet b. Avraham involving trading goods and supplying metal to the mint. Profits between the partners are to be divided evenly. Column 2 of the recto describes a dispute between the two partners, the testimony of which is notarized by the judges in Verso, column 1. Verso, column 2, concerns a separate lawsuit, in which Yefet b. Avraham is a litigant and the matter is minting. Here, ʿAmram b. ʿEzra, identified elsewhere as “a banker”, sues Yefet for ten dinars. The two had a number of business ventures in common, including some which were defined as partnerships (mu‘āmalāt). ʿAmram disagrees with the reckoning performed by Yefet. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 268)

Legal record. Dated Friday, 3 Av or July 4, 1231. Scribal notes for a draft of a partnership contract. The notes state that Abū Sa‘d has 83 dinars (minus two qirāṭs) together with Manṣūr b. the great-grandson, Suleymān b. ‘Imrān and Futūḥ b. Abū al-‘Izz, with the profit to be split in two halves, half for Futūḥ b. Abū al-‘Izz (less a twenty-fourth) and half for Abū Sa‘d, with Suleymān given 19 as a commenda. The full details of these notes are delineated in the contract itself (see TS 8 J 6.9, verso). (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 182-183)

Agreement between a nephew and his uncle in which the nephew acknowledges having received 500 dinars from his uncle on Hanukkah and that the remaining 500 would be paid next Hanukkah. Dated December 29, 1066. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 254)

Court records and notes in the hand of the judge Natan b. Shemuel. Dating: Ca. 1143 CE. Entries include the estate inventory of Abū l-Barakāt Ibn al-Sharābī (including a huge library containing 200 bound codices), payment of a debt, an instruction to charge the community fund with 75 dirhams, and the sale of a house. (Information from CUDL.) Gil edited one of the entries; this is the transcription below. Record of a payment to an Amir, ca. 1143. Two payments in wheat, due the army commander (amir) Hiṣn al-Dawla, are effected through the qodesh; the account is briefly recorded among other records of the court. The date corresponding to 1143 appears on the reverse side of the document, written in the same hand. A previous PGP description erroneously called this "Rough draft of an agreement between spouses, in the hand of Hillel b. Eli."

Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dating: 1126–29 CE. Containing a statement about Salāma and Ibn Siman Ṭov, Jewish aides/accomplices to the rapacious Coptic finance minister known as "the monk" (al-rāhib), Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ. The background is summarized by Mark Cohen as follows: "In October 1125, the vizier al-Maʾmun, implicated in a plot against the caliph al-Āmir, was deposed and imprisoned along with five brothers, and later executed (in 1128). The caliph, then twenty-nine years old and tired of being cloistered in the shadows of highhanded dictators, attempted after 1125 to rule by himself. Unfortunately, however, he entrusted financial affairs to a rapacious Coptic bureaucrat, Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ, known as "the Monk" (al-rāhib), who, from the autumn of 1126 until his execution in 1129, managed to terrorize all segments of the populace, including the Jews, with his promiscuous confiscations and arrogant demeanor" (Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, p. 284). This document consists of two manuscripts; the right half is T-S NS J272 and the left half is T-S NS 12.91 (the transcription here includes both documents beginning at line 16). (Information from Goitein's index cards; Mediterranean Society, II, p. 281; and Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, pp. 284–85.)

Summary of a power of attorney. Levi b. Ibrāhīm appointed Abū ʿAlī b. Barukh to obtain for him the implements of a silk weaving workshop in the Egyptian village Dahshūr from Maʿālī b. al-Ruqūqī. See Bodl. MS heb. a 2/9, where Levi b. Avraham signs the will of the silkweaver Abū l-Faḍl who leaves silk weaving equipment (l. 12) to his eldest son. Same expressions apear in this document in l. 3.(Information from Goitein's index cards)

Betrothal (erusin) contract. In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel he-Ḥaver. Location; Fustat. Dated: Sunday, 5 Elul 1449 Seleucid, which is 1138 CE, under the reshut of Maṣliaḥ Gaon. Fiancé: Hillel b. Elʿazar. Fiancee: Sitt al-Karam [bt. Abū l-Alāʾ] ha-Levi. b. Iyov, virgin and divorcee. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Verso: Formulary for a bill of divorce (geṭ). Location: Fustat. Dated: Wednesday 13 Ṭevet 1526 Seleucid = 4975 AM, which is 1214/15 CE. The names are generic (fulān b. fulān) except that the wife is fulāna bt. fulāna ha-maʿaravi ("from the West, the Maghribī").

Marriage contract (ketubba) from Damascus, late tenth century. The dowry list includes a short garment of linen decorated with silver and golden threads, two shirts, two velvet covers, and two dyeing vessels. (Information from CUDL)

Will. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. "No wailing women; and of garments in which I shall be buried, no more than these: two cloaks, three robes, a washed turban of fine linen—it is already wound up—new underpants (sarāwīl) of mine, and a new waist­band (zunnār) of mine." He wishes to be buried next to his paternal uncle or his wife. He has released his wife from the requirement of taking an oath before collecting her ketubba. (Information and translation from Goitein, Med Soc IV, 160.)

Rough draft of a question probably sent to a Gaon in Palestine.

Legal document: dissolution of a partnership, concerning a tax farm in al-Maṭariyya.

Court ledger with records of 10 distinct documents. Dated: Ḥeshvan–Elul 1601 Seleucid, which is 1289–90 CE. Several of the entries refer to the presence and/or the house of the Nagid (probably David I b. Avraham b. Moshe Maimonides). At least one specifies the location as New Cairo. Many entries are crossed out. In chronological order: 1. Undated: End of a marriage record. 2. 14 Ḥeshvan: an oath not to pray in the Babylonian or Palestinian synagogues for a period of two months. 3. 29 Ḥeshvan: report of a lost ketubba. The husband is Makārim b. Maymūn. 4. Undated: End of an unidentified document. 5. 22 Kislev: The tax farmer of al-Maṭariyya releases his partner Abū Muʿammar from all claims (unless the latter tries to enter the town before 29 months have elapsed). R. Ḥayyim was present. (Compare DK 236, probably unrelated, but also about the tax farming of al-Maṭariyya.) 6. Undated: Deed of sale regarding land. Mentions Yosef al-Naṣabti (? אלנצבתי). 7. 20 Shevaṭ: Re-engagement (qiddushin) of Sadīda bt. ʿIwaḍ to her ex-husband Bū l-Faraj b. Ibrāhīm b. Efrayim. 8. Undated: Record concerning the inheritance of the late al-Shaykh al-Sadīd. 9. 26 Elul: Another record partially preserved. 10. Undated: Another record partially preserved.

Legal document from February 1255 concerning two members of an orphans’ court who sell certain garments through the “great simsar,” referred to here as ‘munadi,’ or market crier, auctioneer, whose compensation is termed ‘dilala,’ or broker’s fee. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:160, 439) EMS

Legal document. Court record. Dating: 1232. Record of three tannery partners, Rāḍī ha-Kohen, Mufaḍḍal ha-Kohen, and Ṭāhir, who worked in Minyat Ziftā. The total amount of the partnership was fourteen hundred dirhams. Rāḍī and Ṭāhir may have held their portion of the partnership jointly, and Rāḍī seems to have been the managing partner. Rāḍī attests to having paid out seventeen dinars’ worth of hides to Mufaḍḍal, leaving him (Rāḍī) owing three dinars. Lieberman thus infers that Mufaḍḍal’s share of twenty dinars represents roughly one-third of the total value of the partnership. Prior litigation on the same matter in an Islamic court led to a ruling requiring Rāḍī to pay Mufaḍḍal 1.5 dinars each month. Rāḍī seems not to have accepted the ruling, and while Mufaḍḍal seems to have been willing to compromise and accept only one dinar a month, Rāḍī brings "an Islamic document" to challenge him. The case then comes before the court of Abraham Maimonides (though testimony was not admissible as one of the litigants was a relative of the witness). The document does not record any final settlement. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 264)