Geniza Lab

Treatise on charity in two columns, fragmentary. (Information from Goitein's note card)

Letter from Maḍmūn b. Ḥasan, in Aden, to Avraham Yijū, on the Mangalore coast of India. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1130s CE. There are two copies preserved: T-S 6J4.14 + T-S 18J2.7 (India Book II,13 + 14) and JRL Gaster heb. ms 1863/13 + T-S 12.416 (India Book II,15).

Story of (illicit) love involving a woman named Hind and her husband, a man named Bishr and an old woman.

Polemical composition narrating the story of the exilarch Bustanay. For a parallel text and fuller description, see PGPID 6078.

Bible commentary

Bible commentary

10 pages of Hebrew poems and/or piyyutim. Headings are in Ladino (e.g., "el triste amador") and Hebrew.

Poem of marriage congratulations, mentioning Ḥananya. The words ‘Mar Yefet’ are written above the name Ḥananya, throughout the poem. (Information from CUDL)

Panegyric composed by Arah b. Natan (Musafir b. Wahb) for someone in a high governmental position. (Information from Frenkel).

Hebrew poem written by the cantor Aharon b. Efrayim for a man named Shelomo. (Information from Bareket, Shafrir misrayim, p. 41). Other poems on verso.

Verso: A religious text, probably a translation of 'Keter Malkhut.' Recto: Letter of congratulations from Musalah to Shelomo and his son upon the marriage of the son. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Hebrew panegyric for Avraham ha-Kohen ha-Rofe ha-Sar b. Yiṣḥaq. See Mann, Jews, II, 86–87.

Poems in Judaeo-Arabic (rhymes in -יה).

Verso: Piyyut, (probably a qina) Hebrew poetry. In the hand of Nāṣir al-Adīb al-ʿIbrī. (Information in part from CUDL)

An ethical treatise in the style of al-Ghazali. Classical ethics with a tinge of Sufism. It is a quote from a Shi'ite text - see S.D. Goitein, "Meeting in Jerusalem": Messianic Expectations in the Letters of the Cairo Geniza", AJS Review 4 (1979): 43-57.

Fragment of a poem praising the Nagid, whose name is only hinted at. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Recto: Letter, fragmentary, in formal Arabic script, including the line, "I am to you like a son and you are to me like a father." Needs further examination. Verso: Judaeo-Arabic astronomical treatise.

Poem praising the generosity of a philanthropist. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Verso: Syriac translation of Romans 16:25–26 and 1 Corinthians 13:12–13. The text is written in a distinctive western Syriac hand with most letters of the Estrangelo-type and some reading signs, such as linea occultans and seyame. The presumably Christian scribe did not take special care when writing those verses, for the lines are not ruled and their spacing varies, having being done "by eye." The central crease, which can still be seen, shows that the page was folded at some stage. The verses are taken from the Syriac (Peshiṭta) version of two Pauline epistles. The right column comprises the concluding sentences of the epistle to the Romans (Romans 16:26-27). The left column contains parts of 1 Corinthians 13:12b–13. It is possible that the quotations from the Romans and 1 Corinthians are merely selections, chosen to highlight particular thoughts which might have been important to the writer, e.g. in both sections occurs the catchword ‘faith’ (Romans 16:26; 1 Corinthians 13:13). The assumption that the fragment was originally part of a codex with the intermediate folios being lost is less likely because of the type of handwriting and the fragmentary character of the verses. Be that as it may, the circumstances in which this folio, containing NT verses, was recycled to record a Jewish bride’s trousseau list are perplexing. Perhaps the scribe of the trousseau-list bought this leaf second-hand and was not able to read the Syriac script which cites the name of Jesus the Messiah or it simply did not matter to him, since he had obviously no hesitation or aversion either to using the Muslim basmala formula in Arabic script at the beginning of the trousseau list (T- S 13J7.8 v1). The contents of the Judaeo-Arabic trousseau-list and the Syriac NT verses are diverse and unrelated. However, their mutual appearance is testimony not only for the richness of life in medieval Fusṭāṭ, but for the coexistence of the Christian and Jewish communities during the Fatimid period. Information from Friedrich Niessen, "New Testament translations from the Cairo Genizah," Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 6 (2009), pp. 201–22.

Dirge of 38 lines by the judge Natan b. Shemuel on one Moshe. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 574)