Geniza Lab

Petition from Abū l-Ḥasan b. Dāʾūd to a Fatimid dignitary. In Arabic script. The petitioner is a poor young man, whose father died destitute and left him only some pieces of furniture, which now Abū l-Ḥasan would like to sell. Dating: ca. 12th century. On verso there is a Judaeo-Arabic text on Jewish law divided into numbered paragraphs, regarding marriage contracts and mentioning Rabbi Shimʿon and the Mishna. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: Fragment of an Arabic-script state document or petition. Verso: Reused for a Hebrew text, probably literary. The ink has faded to silver/white.

Recto: Official-looking document. In Arabic script. Dated: 19 Shawwāl 517 AH, which is December 1123 CE. Documenting the receipt of 350 irdabbs of wheat from ʿAlī b. Saʿīd from al-Gharbiyya for something. Needs further examination.

Recto: State document in Arabic script. Reused for Hebrew literary text (recto) as well as a draft of a document of the qodesh (verso, see separate record). Join was identified by Moshe Yagur.

Administrative document(s), probably. On one side: ʿAbd al-Muḥsin b. Ḥasan 1 dinar waẓīfa. On the other side: Muslim b. Salāma 1 dinar waẓīfa. There are also headers/footers/authentication marks.

Tax receipt from the archive of Abū l-Ḥasan b. Wahb (see Khan, ALAD, pp. 140–59). He pays a half dinar for the year 404 AH.

State document: report to a high bureaucrat (with taqbīl clause), written under the Fatimid caliph al-‘Āmir, 509/1115; in the Hebrew on verso, the date is 517/1123. Coptic and other pen trials on the back. Verso: a minute in Judaeo-Arabic noting the date of the corresponding ḥujja, Muḥarram 517.

Rotulus. 5 Arabic-script fragments were pasted together to form a long rotulus for a Hebrew literary text on verso. Text 1 is a decree (wide line spacing, large script). Text 2 has numbers (fiscal hand?). Text 3 has rubrication (could be literary?). Text 4 addresses a qāḍī and contains blessings (state/legal document?).

State document, fragment of a longer text, dismembered at the collesis. What has remained is wa-mā tawfīqī illā bi-l-lāh. Possibly Ayyubid (tawfīqī billāh was an Ayyubid ʿalāma).

Five lines remaining of an official report mentioning two messengers sent from the caliph (al-ḥaḍra al-ṭāhira) to Damascus and also mentioning the Banū Hilāl. The document was reused to make a kind of frame or possibly to plan an inscription.

Text in Ottoman Turkish.

Report or petition to a Fatimid caliph or vizier, opening blessings only. Dating: ca. 1100–71. Cuts off after the taqbīl clause. Addressee may be al-Afḍal b. Badr al-Jamālī (cf. Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, p. 284). Cf. also CUL Or.1080.15.77 (Khan, no. 84).

Petition from a man described as having many dependents (the first two lines read: wa-huwa mamlūk kabīr al-ʿāʾila wa-yasal al-inʿām ʿalayhi wa-al-iḥsān ʾilayhi bi-khurūj ilā al-ʿummāl).

Petition in Arabic script from a physician employed in the hospital in Cairo who had received orders to the effect that his pay would be cut (?), even though he hardly earns five dinars per month. He asks for the benefaction and kindness of a decree to the effect that (there the petition is cut off). The formulary is Fatimid but suggests the 12th century rather than the 11th. Reused for a private petition in Arabic and Hebrew script from and/or two a woman.

Report or memorandum mentioning Ibn Khalīfa and a government job (khidma).

Fragment of a decree. There is a single full word: "al-mustaḥabbīn."

Document in Arabic script. May be a state document. Ends with a ḥamdala and a ḥasbala. Needs examination.

State document, in Arabic script. Petition formulary (?) mentions al-Ḥākim but is written as a literary text. Needs further examination.

State document: fragment of a decree (sijill manshūr). Reused for piyyutim.

Two fragments of a Fatimid order/decree to a lower official. Mentions the caliph's estates (probably mentions its overseer). Repurposed as two folios for Hebrew liturgical text. Mentions appearing before the majlis al-khidma of the amīr Sayf al-Mulk Layth al-Dawla wa-Shujāʿuhā. . . the ṣanīʿa of the caliph, the military commander (mutawallī al-ḥarb). It is possible that there is a gap in the text between lines 3 and 4. The official in question could be al-Amīr al-Muẓaffar Sayf al-Mulk Maʿadd l-Mulk Layth al-Dawla ʿAlī b. Ishāq b. al-Sallār, who was the governor of Alexandria during the time of al- Ẓāfir, hence this document could be dated to that period, i.e., post 545/1150. (See al-Maqrīzī, al-ittiʿāz, pg. 196).