Geniza Lab

Tax receipt? Very faded.

Official-looking document(s) in Arabic script. Extremely faded. One side might be a tax receipt.

Petition. In large Arabic script, wide space between the lines, in a chancery hand. This is a small fragment from the lower right corner of the document, with clauses deferring to the addressee's wisdom and the beginning of a ḥamdala & ṣalwala. On verso there is a short prayer/blessing (poem?) for Meʾir b. Shelomo in Hebrew.

Decree? In Arabic script, chancery hand, large letters and huge space between the lines. One and a half lines are preserved. It is difficult to make sense of anything beyond a few words: انفاذه... والى... الكشف... على المصلى.... On verso there are magical instructions in Judaeo-Arabic in a rudimentary hand for ensuring the separation (bāb furqa) of two people for all time. At least part of the spell consists of taking a dog hair and a cat hair and burning them together, and saying "just as these two [will never come together], so-and-so and so-and-so will never come together until the Day of Resurrection." There are also a few words in Hebrew script on recto.

Tax receipt? Needs examination.

Fragment of a petition. Portions of 8 lines are preserved, with different sizes of text and large gaps apparently dividing sections. Mentions "the Jews" and otherwise contains a lot of flattery and deference from the "mamlūk" for "sayyidnā." Reused for Hebrew piyyut on verso.

Tax receipt? Needs examination.

Petition or report, probably. In Arabic script. The ends of 6 lines are preserved. Mentions: al-muslimīn... mutawallī al-balad... al-ghulām... ʿalā nafsihi l-ʿādila...lammā kānat hādha l-waqt... li-anfusikum wa-khāfa...wa-taḍarraʿa...

Petition from Ḥātim to Nuwayr al-Dīn(?) In Arabic script. Dating: Perhaps Ayyubid or early Mamluk-era. The first ~6 lines are preserved.

Makhzūma (official ledger of accounts). In Arabic script. Maybe dated 658 AH, which would be 1259/60 CE if correct. On verso there are two validation notes (ṣaḥḥa dhālika...). On the makhzūma document type, see Rustow, Lost Archive, 512–13n26. Needs further examination.

Recto: Upper part of a petition in Arabic script. Dating: Mamluk-era? Verso: Possibly a rescript concerning the content of the petition. On both sides the term iqṭāʿ appears multiple times. Needs examination.

Recto: Bottom of a letter (official letter?) in Arabic script. Verso: Tax receipt issued by ʿArafāt(?) b. al-Naqīb the silk tax farmer (ḍāmin al-ḥarīr) to Abū l-Ḥasan the dyer (al-Ṣabbāgh) for a payment of 36 dirhams (for one year? li-shuhūr X).

State document? - needs examination.

Fragment of a petition in Arabic script. Difficult hand. Portions of 5 lines are preserved. "...wa-yasʾal al-inʿām ʿalayhi wa-l-iḥsān ilayhi..."

Part of a document, addressed to a Fatimid caliph or vizier - needs examination. (Info from FGP)

Probably an official document - needs examination.

Tax receipt? Needs examination.

Administrative document of some kind. There are Greek/Coptic numerals at upper right specifying a sum in the hundreds. The phrase al-qāḍī al-ajall appears. Dated: 15 Shaʿbān 637(?) AH, but this needs to be checked.

Petition from the Jewish physician Sulaymān b. Mūsā. In Arabic script. He reports that he "was raised among the physicians of the hospital (māristān) in Old Cairo, and he is one of the sons of the physicians who are employed there, and he has attended. . . .” The continuation is missing. He is presumably leading up to a request that he be formally employed at the hospital himself. On verso there is part of a medical notebook dealing with ophthalmology. Recto contains a list of simples used for curing eye complaints and follows roughly the list found in ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā, Tadhkirat al-kaḥḥālīn (ed. Hyderabad 1964, p. 347). Simples mentioned include antimony, sarcocolla, ceruse, acacia, lichen, gum of sal ammoniac, myrtle, melitot, galbanum, onions, borax, lettuce seeds, zinc oxide, and egg white. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Petition. In Arabic script. Fragment (upper right corner). The petitioner seems to be a female slave (and not just a figurative slave/mamlūka): "wa-tunhī al-mamlūka annahā jāriya kānat...." In the margin, it may say that "she is in the room of ʿAlī Ibn Zaf[fān or Zaffāt]."