Geniza Lab

Letter from Yosef ha-Kohen b. Ḥalfon, al-Maḥalla, to Binyamin b. Yaʿaqov (who has a son named Yaʿaqov as well), Cairo. The writer reports that he spent only a couple days in al-Muʿizziyya (Cairo) and regrets not being able to pay his respects in person before he had to travel. The letter mainly consists of blessings, with a request at the end to forward the writer's question (legal query?) to Abū l-Maʿālī.

Letter from Yeshaʿyahu ha-Kohen b. Khalaf and his son Yaʿaqov (Qifṭ) to Nahray b. Nissim (Fustat), ca. 1070. Describes the hardships of ship travel from Fustat to Qifṭ. The ship was attacked by pirates near Dahrūṭ and many passengers, including Yeshaʿyahu ha-Kohen and his son Yaʿaqov, were stabbed. The attackers were driven away and the ship reached Qifṭ. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 423. See also Goitein notes linked below.)

The first document is a fragment of a letter from the Qaraite community of Fustat to the Qaraite community of Alexandria. On recto, only the flowery Hebrew beginning seems to be preserved, and a few fragmentary lines in Judaeo-Arabic in the margin. On verso, there is the address in calligraphic Hebrew and four lines of text in Judaeo-Arabic in a different hand, mainly blessings for the addressees but perhaps also encouraging them to give charity. Following the letter are two leaves of piyyutim. ASE.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th century. Mentions Ibn ʿAlī b. Raḥmūn al-Bazzāz, Abū Yiṣḥaq b. Sughmār, the brokers (dallālīn), and many other matters. Needs further examination.

Letter addressed to a certain Daniel. In Hebrew. Dating: Late, perhaps 15th or 16th century. The sender asks to be forwarded any letter or news that arrives from אירודוס (=Rhodes?). He also asks for the 12 dirhams that he is owed. He passes on regards to various people, including 'the pharmacy student (? תלמיד הרוקח) with whom we traveled in the villages and whose name I don't recall.'

Business letter from Shelomo b. Avraham [. . .] Ruqqī to Abū l-Faraj Nissim b. Shelomo Ruqqī. "Abū l-Faraj Nissim, the recipient of this letter, was an India trader, against whom, while in India selling precious Western textiles and mercury, a power of attorney was issued in Fustat. The date of that document is not preserved, but the names of the signatories, known from other sources, put it around 1090. [Goitein notes elsewhere, Med Soc I, 379, that the names of the sender and recipient also both occur in a document dated 1079.] The sender of the letter shared with him the family name, and since he writes in a style possible only among close relatives, he was most probably his nephew. Both clearly were Maghrebis; therefore, their family name must be read as al-Ruqql, derived from a little town in Tunisia named Ruqqa, and not al-Raqqi, from Raqqa, the ancient city on the Euphrates in northern Mesopotamia. The letter was sent from Fustat to Alexandria, for the writer refers to goods brought by him from North Africa ("the West"), but still remaining in the town of the receiver of the letter (sec. D). Many other details in this letter tally with this assumption. The writer most probably left Alexandria on a Thursday and passed the Sabbath in Fuwwa, where he embarked on a Nile boat; or he could have made the whole journey on a boat, using the KhalIj canal, which connected Alexandria with the Nile. See Med. Soc., i, 298-299." Goitein, Letters, 239–40. “People occasionally explain why they had not done something that was expected of them by their frame of mind, their mood, or their lack of nahda, energy, verve, bounce, pep.” Cf. the word ruḥiyya in this letter, and Med Soc V, x, B, 2, no. 111. From the letter: "Business here is slow and practically at a standstill. For there is much confusion in the rate of exchange and, at the present time, 50 dirhems are to be had for 1 dinar, more [or less]. An epidemic is raging in the environs of the town, and because of this, the flow of good dirhems has been cut off so that everyone is having difficulties with his business." Med Soc I, 379, no. 41. The word for epidemic here is بئة, a derivative of وباء, see Lane and Blau.

Letter from Salmān b. [...] to Zayn b. Abū l-Faḍl. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender was happy about the recent letter from the addressee, and is very grateful for something the addressee did. Another Salmān recently arrived after a 5-year absence. The sender was saddened to hear about the addressee's fight (probably legal) with his father. He reports that Sittānā has given birth to a boy. Regards to the addressee's father and the father's wife and the addressee's mother. Salmān has returned to the west(?) to his maternal uncle(?); he and Ḥasan and Raḥel send their regards. On recto there is an Arabic-script document dated Ramaḍān 496 AH, which is June/July 1103 CE.

Letter from Najm [...] al-Muʿallim the brother-in-law of Kamāl b. Yūsuf, in Fustat, to his 'brother' the cantor Musāfir ha-Bavli, in Alexandria. Spellings are eccentric. The first half is obscure, but mainly has to do with how much he misses and is worried about the addressee. He reports that the addressee's sister is still sick. His sister and his mother send regards and kiss his eyes. Turfa and Najm and Yehuda send their regards. Abu Yaʿqūb and his brother and father send their regards. Verso contains the address and a lot of random jottings. Related to Bodl. MS heb. d 66/23. ASE.

Letter from the physician Ibrahim to the physician Ya‘qub in Bilbays, whom he addresses as “my brother.” Ibrahim rebukes Ya‘qub for his failure to send letters or to fulfill his end of various agreements. This is a response to a recent letter in which Ya‘qub rebuked Ibrahim for a delay in forwarding the recipes of two compound drugs: the preventer (al-māni‘) and a drug for swelling (li-l-natwā). Ibrahim explains that he had to research the former and that he had to wait for Abu l-Baha to arrive and verify his recipe for the latter. He promises to send the mirror and the sign together with the rest of Ya‘qub’s goods, but not until Ya‘qub sends him the Shaykh, a medical textbook. Abu l-Ḥasan the physician is also upset at Ya‘qub’s tardiness and failure to communicate, and Ibrahim has had to make excuses for him, saying that he is busy in the shop. After finishing the letter, Ibrahim wrote the requested prescriptions in the margins (one version of the Preventer and two versions of the drug for swelling) and noted that all the ingredients for the third prescription are available in Bilbays. In yet another postscript, he emphasizes that it is only to be used after purging the patient. Greetings are sent by: Abu l-Ḥasan the physician. Greetings are sent to: Ya‘qub’s brothers, Najib, and R. Shemuel. ASE.

Letter from a father to his son Abū l-Riḍā the physician. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dealing with various financial and family matters. The father is in distress from unemployment ('and you know the character of your mother...'). The portion on verso mentions Abū l-Faraj the Christian silk merchant 'who is in your market.' The father has sent a book on sheḥiṭa and asks for copies of other books. Everyone is worried about the capitation tax.

Letter in Arabic script. Complete, filling all of recto and verso. The sender is Christian: he (or she) swears by the baptism in r15 (wa-ḥaqq al-maʿmūdiyya) and by Christ in v7 (wa-haqq al-masīḥ). The letter itself addresses a woman (ishbīnatī, mawlātī, sayyidatī), though the address is made out to Fahd b. Abū l-Ḥasan, in Fustat. The sender is angry about an impertinent letter from the addressee. There is a lot here about financial matters. Needs further examination.

Letter of appeal for charity. Addressed to a ḥaver. In Judaeo-Arabic with phonetic spellings (e.g., אלמותראתיף for المترادف and אלבֵרי for الباري and דיליך for ذلك). The sender is suffering from the cold weather, and there is somebody in his family who is unable to bear it. The addressee is asked to provide a covering or anything that will help.

Business letter from Abū al-Surūr b. David (al-Mahdiyya) to his cousin Abū al-Afrāḥ ʿArūs b. Yosef (Fustat), ca. 1095. The writer sent to the recipient 100 Murābiṭī dinars, worth 267 less 1/3 dinars in the currency of al-Mahdiyya, and now gives instructions to buy jewellery. His other purchase requests from Fustat are for indigo, blue and green “fayyūmī clothes, pearls and more. The letter also mentions Abū al-Surūr’s purchases in al-Mahdiyya, including that of lapiz lazuli for which he was unable to find a buyer and intended to send it to Sicily. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 312.)

Informal note in Judaeo-Arabic. Concerning 'the arrival of the pieces (? qiṭaʿ).' The writer takes a snippy tone: "Please have the good grace to send them quickly, because when I must maintain (? aḥfaẓ) something urgently, I am not a person who wants to wait a long time for it to be maintained (? yanḥafiẓ) by our sins or worse." There are some cryptic headers. One of them is Exodus 1:17 about the midwives fearing God. Perhaps this is meant to allude to Exodus 1:21 about God making the midwives houses, and the desired 'pieces' are intended for a house?

Letter or official report in Arabic script, beautifully written From Ṣādiq b. Hibatallāh. Addressed to a qāḍī. Wide space between the lines on recto, narrow space between the lines on verso (perhaps these are two separate documents?). The text on verso refers to al-ḥabs, majlis al-wālī, an annual payment of 1 dinar (line 11), al-aḥbās (line 21). Needs examination.

Letter from Simḥūn b. Dāwūd ibn al-Siqillī (Qayrawān) to Yosef b. Yaʿaqov b. ʿAwkal (Fustat). The letter deals with a conflict between the sender and the recipient over a consignment of brazilwood, which Simḥūn b. Daʿūd sent to Spain against the instructions of Yosef b. ʿAwkal. This caused a delay in payments and a break of contact between the two. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 644.)

Letter from Simḥūn b. Dāwūd ibn al-Siqillī (Qayrawān) to Yosef b. Yaʿaqov b. ʿAwkal (Fustat). The letter deals with a conflict between the sender and the recipient over a consignment of brazilwood, which Simḥūn b. Daʿūd sent to Spain against the instructions of Yosef b. ʿAwkal. This caused a delay in payments and a break of contact between the two. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, p. 644.)

Letter from Jerusalem from the middle of the 11th century, with a document from the Egyptian office of treasurer on the free space on the back. (Gil: Letter from Ḥayyim ha-ḥaver b. Shelomo/Salāma in Jerusalem to Yiṣḥaq b. Yiṣḥaq he-ḥaver in Fustat regarding a debt owed to the latter. On verso, accounts of very large amounts of money in the hand of Barhūn b. Mūsā al-Tāhirtī, the cousin of Nahray b. Nissim. Ed. Gil, Palestine vol. 3, #463.) (NB: The Goitein material scanned here covers DK 2, DK 333 and DK 11. MR)

Letter from Bayān to his 'father' Abū l-Fakhr. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably 12th or 13th century. The sender reminds the addressee that he had promised to pay Abū Saʿd the money owed, paying a portion with Bayān's money and dealing with the rest himself. But Abū Saʿd sent Bayān a letter complaining that he has only received 30 nuqra dirhams. The lower part of the document is missing. On verso there is the Friday night kiddush in calligraphic Hebrew.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. The sender is probably Maḥrūz b. Yaʿaqov, an India trader and shipowner (nākhudā) known from documents dating from 1131/32 to c.1150 CE. (This identification was made by Amir Ashur and Mordechai Akiva Friedman.) The sender was previously in Qūṣ and is now in some town in the Egyptian Rīf or the Levant, as he asks for news about shipments for him from Aden. On this fragment, the lower part of recto and the upper part of verso are preserved. The sender complains about how the wālī squeezed money out of him this year for paying half of Hiba's capitation tax. He reports that a Maghribī arrived from Damascus, and the community contracted with him to teach their children and lead their prayers for one year, and they will pay him 9 qirṭāses(?) and two fulūs monthly and perhaps 2 dirhams toward his capitation tax. The sender quotes Avot 4:9 ('whoever fulfills the Torah in poverty will ultimately fulfill it in prosperity'). The sender is very pleased about the addressee's apology and gift (of 20 dirhams?) and reiterates that he didn't have to do that. The sender is abashed to send letters to his cousins (abnā' khāla) because he doesn't have any gifts to send them. In the margin of recto there is a request for something (קרכה?) made of white flax (here there seems to be a Judaeo-Persian word, bābat, used in a similar context as in T-S 8J19.28 -- see Shaked's article on Persian-Arabic Bilingualism in From a Sacred Source). The bulk of the text on verso is taken up with the shipment of cloves that never reached the sender. This may be the fault of a certain Sulaymān and the sender seems intimidated by him ('no one sues him except God'?). It may be deposited with the untrustworthy children of Abū Saʿd. The addressee is asked to help. The sender complains that no one will lend him money or borrow money from him. He asks the addressee to put in a good word with the latter's cousin (ibn ʿamm), 'who knows the Levant well.' The sender claims that he can turn dirhams into dinars. He asks for a scroll on parchment (gevil) and the laws of slaughter in Arabic (as the addressee had promised), and he wants the addressee to sell a volume of the Torah for him. The last preserved line of the letter (verso margin) mentions the Levant and yarn and sal ammoniac and "the saliva of m[...]." ASE