Geniza Lab

Petition from the wife of Abu'l-Faraj the Silkweaver, to Shemuʾel ha-Nagid b. Ḥananya (in office 1140–59). She is an "unprotected woman" (marʾa munqaṭiʿa) whose father could not support her and whose brother was a young boy with no connections. She explains that she “got stuck” with a man who was not ashamed of the bad things people had said about him (or maybe of the bad things of which he himself speaks?). The petition was written after a legal proceeding in which the Nagid ordered the husband to restore the ketubba to its original wording (apparently the husband had decreased the sum stated in the ketubba). However, now the husband has taken an oath that he would restore only ten dinars, a lower sum than previously agreed upon. The husband apparently managed to ignore the Nagidʼs commands by finding someone who supported him in his claims. The wife had been getting advice from her congregation and from the local judge, but, she writes, she is fed up with words and no action. The judge, for example, told her brother to leave the matter until Sunday, but “Sunday came and nothing was done for my issue except postponement.” She complains that she is treated “as if it was I who has done something unpermitted” (ḥattā ka-annī qad ʿamiltu shayʾ lā yanṣāgh (!) – for the last word (=yanṣāgh) see Blau, Dictionary, 379). Even a ruling of the Nagid was subjected to a process of negotiation at the local level until it was watered down to ineffectiveness. The same matter is also mentioned briefly in T-S 10J17.22. (Information from Zinger, "Women, Gender and Law" (PhD diss), 248n139, lightly revised by MR.) Alternate description based on Goitein's notes: Complaint to Shemuel ha-Nagid (his titles occupy 7 lines) by the wife of Abū l-Faraj, the silkspinner (qazzāz). Her husband had left her and her little daughter without provisions, however, he was not without means. His female slave she claims had been adjudicated to her, but was kept by her husband in his sister's house. The judge, to whom the complaint was made first was not effective in securing her rights. (some corrections by AA)

Letter from Binyām (Binyamin) of Rosetta, probably in Alexandria, to Abū Saʿīd the gallnut merchant, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Containing urgent instructions to sell or to send certain drugs, metallic dyes, and medical plants, ca. 1120. See Bodl. MS heb. d 66/52, esp. r8–10, for their identities. Goods named in this letter include afsantīn (wormwood); kundus (baby's breath); zunjufr (cinnabar); sunbul (spikenard); quṣṭ (=qusṭ, alecost or costus); martak (litharge); salaqūn (red lead); jullanār (pomegranate blossom); qiṭna or qaṭina (a cryptic term which may simply be a derivative of cotton, but in this form means 'omasum' according to the dictionaries); אבר (either abār, meaning lead, or ibar, meaning "needles"); khaskhāsh abyaḍ (white poppy); 1000 dūdīyya li-l-misk (Goitein suggests astringent kermes worms); qurashiyya (Goitein suggests "odoriferous claws"; Lisān al-ʿArab says it is a type of wheat); and asārūn (asarabacca), which [in Rosetta, probably] is going for 1 dinar, due to demand from the Andalusians. The writer will promptly send money, or if the addressee desires, he may take the payment from Abū Naṣr b. Shaʿyā. Information largely from Goitein's attached notes. Cf. T-S NS 321.60, same sender and same addressee. ASE.

Letter in Arabic script from Umm Zayn to Umm Isḥāq. The writer seems to want to travel to the addressee's location but has no money. The recurring refrain is "He doesn't give me anything." Needs further examination

Business letter in Arabic script from Mubārak b. Isḥāq to Abū l-Faḍl Sahl b. Yaḥyā al-Baṣrī (or al-Baṣīr), expressing longing for the addressee and sending greetings to Abū l-Faḍāʾil b. Baqāʾ and Abū Saʿd b. Abū l-Baqāʾ.

Family letter from Sālim to Bū Manṣūr b. Sukkarī (or Zikrī?) in Alexandria reporting that the Rūmī cheese had arrived and that the writer had sent the pottery (or clay pipes, fukhkhār) desired. Greetings to Mother and both grandparents. The address is in Arabic script on verso. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter from Yeḥezqel b. Eli ha-Kohen b. Yeḥezqel, in Jerusalem, to Eli ha-Kohen b. Ḥayyim (aka Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllūn b. Yaʿīsh), in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic. Dating: second half of the 11th century. See also T-S Misc.28.171. The writer expresses his relief at the news that the addressee recovered from his illness. He devotes much space to excusing himself for failing to send any letters until now. He asks the addressee to remind 'the Rayyis' (probably identical with al-Rayyis Abū l-Ṭayyib in T-S Misc.28.171) to remind his son to fulfill the money order (suftaja) that had been sent. In a postscript, he conveys the news that the sister of Hiba ('who is with Shimʿon al-Rav') died, who was also the mother-in-law of Abūn b. Ṣedaqa. Information from Gil. ASE. NB: The first Goitein note card (#6240) belongs with DK 228.4 (PGPID 31342).

Recto: A long, interesting letter from a judge to a cantor. The writer is publicizing the ban of excommunication that the late Nagid (אדונינו ראש ישיבתה שלתורה הקדוש זצל) placed on Makārim b. Manṣūr al-Sammāk who encroached on the rights of the tax farmer of al-Maṭariyya—either Heliopolis (Goitein) or the district with the same name in the Delta—who is named Sālim. Goitein: Letter of a dayyān of Cairo to the ḥazzān of al-Maṭariyya, requesting him to intervene with Nāṣir al-Jazzār who had farmed the taxes of the locality from the Amir Malik al-Umārā' and then asked from Sālim 60 instead of 40 dirham nuqra, after Makārim b. Manṣūr al-Sammāk overbade him. See Med Soc II, 606. Verso: Accounts in Arabic script. Needs further examination

Letter from Meʾir b. ʿEli ha-Kohen, in Damascus (חדרך סוריא), to his brother Ṭoviyya b. ʿEli, in Fustat. Dating: beginning of September 1127 CE. The letters deals with financial matters and the purchase of flax and indicates that the Gaon (Maṣliaḥ) was by then in Egypt. "Mutual affection was expressed by kissing the eyes" (Goitein, Med. Soc., viii, C, 2, n. 117). Cf. T-S 10J17.8. Also mentions someone who got very sick (balagha kathīr) but God sent health (recto, 8–10). Mentions the same Yaḥyā b. Najm who appears in T-S 6J2.13.

Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. David b. Sughmār, Fustat, to his partner Makhlūf b. ʿAzarya, Jerusalem. (DK XV, ed. Gil, Palestine, Pt. 3, pp. 178-183.) The market was at a standstill because of an epidemic (amrāḍ). ASE.

Letter of appeal, begging for charity.

Letter from Saʿīd b. Yūnus, in מנומון (Memnon?), to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat, ca. 1060. The writer works for Nahray in acquiring flax from the villages in the area. He impatiently awaits the arrival of Nahray. Various local Muslims are mentioned who have business relations with Nahray, including "the Sultan," perhaps the local military leader. Information from Gil.

Letter (likely a draft) dictated by the wife and written by the son (Zayn al-Dār) of the India trader ʿAllān b. Ḥassūn, beseeching him to return. She has just weaned the infant, who has been sick. The only other adult male in the family has also been absent. The family is in financial straits and has had to sell household furnishings and lease the upper floor in order to pay the physician and buy medicine and two chickens every day. (Information from Med Soc III, 194, where there is also a translation.) "When a boy writing to his father abroad sends regards from his mother, grandmother, maternal aunts, the widow of a paternal uncle, and the maidservant, and adds, ‘The travel of Grandpa coincided with yours so that we have become like orphans," one gets the impression that all the persons mentioned formed one household.’” (Goitein, Med. Soc., 3:39 at n. 28.) "Adult children showed their reverence toward their parents by kissing their hands, or hands and feet—at least in letters." (Goitein, Med. Soc., viii, C, 2, n. 116; see also T-S 10J17.3, CUL Or.1081 J5, T-S 16.265 and T-S 13J24.22.)

11th century letter from Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq near Tripoli to his son Mevorakh b. Avraham Ibn Sabra. See Oded Zinger’s dissertation, which mentions this letter several times and gives a partial translation on p. 305. “Avrahamʼs daughter had been divorced from her husband and her son returned her home to her fatherʼs place in Fustat. It seems that at least two children remained with the husband. The daughter was deeply depressed and longed to return to her abusive husband.” She had been in bed for three months, abstaining from baths and festivities, and saying that she will be grief-stricken until she dies and that she will never marry again so that her ex-husband will be punished for her sins. Remarkably, Avraham returns to this story in the last phrase of the letter: "It is a problem with the mind, to ask after someone who does not ask after you." He also conveys family news, including his delight that Mevorakh's wife has given him a daughter in his "old age." Abu Sa'd, whose "life is renewed" after surviving a serious illness, is on his way to Mevorakh's location from Tripoli. Oded Zinger, “Women, Gender, and Law: Marital Disputes According to Documents from the Cairo Genizah,” Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2014, p. 305.

Letter from Nissim b. Ḥalfon b. Benaya to Nahray b. Nissim.

Letter/petition in Judaeo-Arabic. The sender wishes to redeem two ruins which belonged to two women, Umm Banīn and Umm ʿIzziyya (?), and were taken away from them while they had been minor orphans. One was converted into a stable for government horses, and one was taken by a wicked man named Ibn al-Sandabīsī. Information from Goitein's note card. NB: In Goitein's notes, DK 239.1 is referred to as DK XXVI. Join by Oded Zinger.

Letter. David ha-Ḥazzan b. ʿEli asks the notable Ḥujayj to help a relative of the bearer of the letter, Seʿadya b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen, named Faraj b. Abū ʿAmr, to marry a poor and lonely orphan girl related to him. Information from Goitein's note card (#6238).

Business letter to Yiṣḥaq Ashkenazi (Avraham David does not think it is Luria).

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from a government official to a certain Yehuda b. Elʿazar ha-Kohen, giving a great deal of information about other government officials at the time of Saladin. Beginning missing; verso is blank. People mentioned: ʿAfīf al-Dīn, Ibn al-Lamṭī, Nāṣir al-Dīn (al-ṣāḥib al-makhdūm), בן שכר (mushārif al-balad), Ibn ʿUthmān (al-qāḍī al-saʿīd), Saniyy al-Dawla, Abū l-Walīd (al-rayyis), and Saʿd al-Mulk.

Letter from Faraj, the “freed” of Barhun (ha-Tahirti?) from the Maghreb, to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal and his sons, Fustat; ca. 1015. Regards a purchase of pearls. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #167) VMR.

Letter of appeal for charity. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender complains that Sayyidnā al-Rayyis and Abū Man[ṣūr?] al-ʿAfīf have cut off the payments with which they used to support the family in the lifetime of the sender's father al-Shaykh al-Faḍā'il. (The latter used to give 1/2 dirham per head.) The addressee is asked to approach them and ask them to restart the payments. On verso there is Hebrew alphabet practice.