Geniza Lab

Letter from X b. Ya’qub from Qayrawan, to Yusuf b. Ya’aqub b. Awkal, Fustat. Describes a dangerous situation in Fustat. Also informs about the passing of the brother of the writer’s mother. Mentions the name of Sa’id Khaluf b. Zakarya al-Ashkar, from b. Awkal’ social circle. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #199) VMR

Congratulations to Eli ha-Kohen the Parnas (dated documents 1057–1107) and his son Abū Kathīr from Ḥasan b. Manṣūr al-Ne'eman from a locality in the Rīf. Al-Mumḥe b. al-Shofeṭ served as cantor. But when he said public prayer for the elders of the community and included Marwān, there was trouble. The addressee knows who the troublemakers were and is asked to intervene with Sayyidnā. Goitein identifies this cantor, son of the slaughterer, as the same peron as the writer of T-S 8J15.3. The shelfmark ENA 2736.20 is either erroneous or no longer exists, true shelfmark TBD. Goitein's transcription is attached.

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe to his brother Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. Fragment (upper right corner of recto). Yefet refers to his departure from Fustat (or Egypt), a period of 20 days, and his worry at the lack of letters. He greets Abū ʿImrān b. Shuwayʿ. He refers to having given something to the 'purifier' (al-muṣaffī).

Recto (secondary use): Receipt in Judaeo-Arabic written on the back of a fragment of an Arabic-script letter (see separate record). The writer (maybe Shelomo b. Eliyyahu) records that he received 20 dirhams from the judge Yehuda ha-Neʾeman for seder Moʿed. Dated: 23 Tishrei 1441 Seleucid = 1229 CE. 20 dirhams remain to be paid, maybe when seder Berakhot will be delivered.

Verso (original use): Letter fragment in Arabic script. Reports on the sale of wheat by Hilāl and good news ("abshirū!") concerning 'the thing which I/you said to Yūsuf.' Some numbers and weights are specified, but not much more is preserved.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic to a woman in a late hand. Dealing with commercial or at least monetary matters.

Lower fragment: Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. Ḥaggay to a woman named Raḥel (but to be delivered to Moshe b. Suhayl). In Hebrew. Dating: Late, probably ca. 15th–17th century. Mentions items that have been sent and small sums of money in medins (מידיש).

Upper fragment: Informal note from Yosef b. Sheshet to Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa b. Ḥananya. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably 12th or 13th century. The sender is in a great hurry on account of his upcoming trip. He asks the addressee to send with the bearer, Abū Saʿd Ibn al-Karnīb, the two scarves or turbans (radda) which are with Abū Isḥāq al-Kohen.

Letter in a late hand with a very fancy signature. The signature seems to be : חיים ס"ט בכ"ר יעקב זלה"ה שמחון Hayyim b. Ya'akov Simhon .

Family letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (lower left corner). At one point the sender calls the addressee 'my daughter' (yā bintī). Mentions the name Abū Yaʿaqov Yosef b. Faraḥ (the same merchant known from many other letters ca. 1050?). Then refers to "his father our rabbi [...]" and to the death of Abū l-Ḥasan "his son." The sender compares his or her grief now to their grief at the time of a previous bereavement (laqad fajaʿanī khabaruh ka-fajʿatī bi-aʿazz al-nās...). The sender then rebukes the addressee for neglecting and forgetting him or her, and complains about frailty of body and vision. The sender reports on a woman who has a boy and a girl who misses the addressee and weeps over the separation. Greetings to various people including the addressee's sister and her children. In a postscript the sender apologizes that 'my letters to you are empty, because I don't have enough (to buy) anything"—maybe an allusion to an expectation that a gift would be sent along with a letter. "Your maternal aunt Raḥel died... and they are in Palermo, ʿAzīza and her mother... and the daughters of your maternal aunt are in Sūsa."

Letter opening from the Nagid Avraham b. Ata from Qayrawan (Ifrīqiya) to Yusuf b. Ya’aqub b. Awkal, Fustat, in the handwriting of Yusuf b. Brakhya. Confirms that received books or letters that Ibn Awkal sent. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #164) VMR

Recto: Letter in poetic Hebrew, addressed to Rabbenu Yehuda (=Abū Zikrī Kohen) asking for help, because "bread has run out."

Business letter. A Hebrew letter in a late hand written by Yishaq

Upper left fragment: Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe to his brother Abū l-Surūr Peraḥya b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (upper right corner of recto). Mentions: Isḥāq al-Maghribī; having received a bit of qanbīl (=kamala, a red dye produced by the plant Mallotus philippensis — see Gerrit Bos et al, Marwān Ibn Janāḥ, no. 823).

Bottom fragment: Letter in formal Hebrew with wide line spacing, mentioning and perhaps addressed to [...] b. Yefet ha-Kohen. In between the lines, someone wrote in red ink some literary text .

Upper right fragment: Letter probably from the cantor Yosef b. Yefet ha-Levi Ibn al-Jāzfīnī to Abū Mūsā Hārūn "the ornament of conviviality and the crown of the revelers" (jāmal al-majālis wa-tāj al-qaṣṣāfīn). In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender calls himself "the lamb/suckling of your benefaction" (ghadhiyy inʿām mawlāy) and asks him to immediately come bestow his "benefaction and beauty" on all of his friends (aṣdiqāh wa-awliyāh), for it is indispensable, and they cannot wait to see him. (On the al-Jāzfīnī/al-Ghāzfīnī family of cantors, see Oded Zinger's dissertation, pp. 363–66).

Two letters. (a) Letter from Yaʿaqov b. Yosef [..]ān al-Barqī to Shemarya b. Shemuel. He decribes the difficult winter they have had, not to mention the illness and inkisār (debts to the diwan? see T-S 13J3.6v) of Nissim; the illness of Ezra; the "arrival of that [woman]" and their expenses on her behalf. He mentions the arrival of Barakāt b. Khulayf (mentioned in several other letters) and having purchased two robes (shuqqatayn) for the addressee. ʿAwāḍ is also seriously ill, as well as his elder daughter. He has likely become dependent on public charity (inkashafa), and he even put up his ghulām for sale, but there are no buyers. Faḍl bought a donkey and has gone wandering about. "As for ʿAwāḍ [finding relief?], here no [travelers?] enter or leave." Mūsā b. ʿAllūsh has run away from his family. ASE.

(b) Perhaps the response. What remains begins on verso (the beginning is missing) and spills over onto recto. This letter is written in a crude hand. The subject matter is quite difficult to parse. The addressee is to go to Abū ʿImrān b. al-Ṭawīla and get the letters from him. "The congregation" and "the gentile" are mentioned. The writer concludes by telling the addressee to go to the wife of Ezra al-ʿArīf (the same Ezra who was sick on recto?) and send her a message about the addressee's brother (=the writer?) and make some excuses for why she hasn't heard from him yet. ASE.

Letter from Yeḥiel b. Elyaqim to a certain Tamīm. In Hebrew. The addressee had come to Yehiel's home but missed him. The letter deals with trying to arrange a date in which Yeḥiel can come to Qalyub to arrange a wedding with Yeḥiel's busy schedule. Dating: 13th century. Specifically, somebody else had asked Yeḥiel to come out to Qalyūb and officiate at his son's wedding, and Yeḥiel had told him that he had two other weddings, one on Tuesday and one on Tuesday night, so he would come to Qalyūb on the preceding Sunday (to do the wedding on Monday). But he checked again and found that in fact his two existing bookings were on Monday (one in the morning and one at night), so he now plans to come to Qalyūb on Tuesday. He asks the addressee if the wedding can be delayed until Tuesday. He has sent this letter with a poor man whom he hired as messenger.

Petition in Judaeo-Arabic with a Hebrew beginning for financial assistance addressed to Rabbenu Avraham, can be dated by script to around the 13th century (i.e. probably Avraham Maimonides). Yosef al-Andalusi has spent three months in Fustat, his robe is torn and the authorities are demanding the capitation tax from him. He needs help.