Geniza Lab

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Instructing the addressee to send a ream (dast) of 25 pieces of paper, and also to sell some quires (dafātir) on behalf of the sender. The document concludes with the motto yeshuʿa ("salvation") at lower left.

Addendum to a letter. Addressed to a woman. The sender reports that after finishing the letter, al-Bazzāz al-Ḥajj arrived and insisted that the sender's son owes him 11 dinars and that he knows that the son arrived in Damascus. The sender is asked to write to her own son and tell him to send whatever he can. The sender is ashamed to ask this and says that (s)he shouts at Barakāt to write an Arabic letter to the son who owes the 11 dinars. The entirety of this document is devoted to this issue, and the sender is worried.

Letter from Aryana (? אריינה) to her sister Shurbilliya (? שורבלייא), the wife of Avraham al-Ḥadīb. In Hebrew. Dating: Late, plausibly 16th century, which is Avraham David's assessment. The writer thanks the addressee for the cheese and insists on paying for it, "for our love does not depend on gifts." She reports that the son of Naftali left his father 13 "cintas" (שינטאש) in בית הבאגילירא(?). These should be collected either by a woman called שנייתי or by the addressee. The addressee is asked to purchase with them one אולייא and one דריאדא that should be larger than the ones sold 'by the French Ishamelite." Needs examination. ASE.

Letter from Avraham b. Natan Av, judge in Cairo, to al-Mumhe, i.e. "the specialist," meaning a permanent member of the court, whose name is not preserved, and who was apparently in charge of the money of the qodesh, ca. 1100. Report concerning money of the qodesh after the death of its holder. A certain parnas, Musafir, has donated five dinars to the heqdesh of the synagogue of Cairo. Sa'id, "the head of the congregations," who was given the money in order to bring timber from Alexandria for this sum, died before he could go to Alexandria and the money was left with his widow. An inquiry (carried out by the court) into the matter has shown that the qodesh still owes the widow money and the writer asks that the balance be paid to her. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 220 #35)

Verso: Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragmentary (left side only, long vertical strip). Mentions people such as [...] al-Ḥaver al-Jalīl; Abū l-Qawām; and 'my master Daniel.' The sender seems in distress about something and alludes to unrest or wars (in Hebrew): "...many, many Abyssinians (kushim)... to us, to the sword of the Ishamelites... Egypt, and we pray to God...."

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Only the beginnings of 5 lines, consisting mostly of formulaic phrases, are preserved. Dating: Perhaps 12th or 13th century.

Verso: Opening of a letter from Sherira Gaon sent to Qayrawān. Dating: ca. 970 CE. This is a continuation from the first part of the opening, in T-S 12.370. (Gil, Kingdom, vol. 2, Doc. #22.) VMR. But Gil does not seem right that the two fragments are actually joins with each other.

Letter from an unidentifed writer in Rashīd to Shelomo Ḥalafta. In Judaeo-Arabic. Long and well-preserved, though some of the text is cut off in the FGP image. Same addressee as in ENA 3486.1.

Letters in Judaeo-Arabic, probably copies of letters sent in the name of Avraham Maimonides. There are at least two letters sharing the same folio. Only the ending of the first one is preserved, and it helpfully ends with the date (Adar II 1535 Seleucid, which is 1224 CE), and "Avraham wrote this." The next one begins with the motto "hineh el yeshuʿati" (also used elsewhere by Avraham Maimonides). The letter is addressed to the congregation of Ashmūm and at their head, R. Moshe ha-L[evi]. It addresses the problem that there is no muqaddam in Ashmūm to oversee marriages and divorces, and as such, the people have been going to the Muslim courts. They are informed that this is wrong and that they should stop doing it. R. Moshe b. Peraḥya ha-Dayyan is mentioned. The text on verso seems to be a continuation, because it continues to discuss Ashmūm and brings in a certain R. Yehuda and Minyat Zifta. Needs examination.

Letter fragment from Ṭāhir b. Bū l-Ḥasan known as Ibn [...]. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer asks the recipient to send greetings to somebody and a reprimand to somebody else who had promised him something.

Letter from Avraham, son of the Gaon and people from Fustat to Shelomo b. Yehuda

Letter from Avraham, son of the Gaon and people from Fustat to Shelomo b. Yehuda

Letter concerning business partnership

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic addressed to Mordechai Masis (? משיש) that has been reused for pen trials in square Hebrew letters and possibly a literary text on the verso. Overall, the fragment likely dates to the early modern centuries (16th-19th) although it is unclear how much time passed between its various points of reusage. The year is possibly mentioned with gematria on the recto where "מבי" is repeated after the phrase "יום ג במ" which could translate to the "third day of M[enaḥem]" or the month of Av. The letter fragment follows the conventions of epistolary etiquette in Judaeo-Arabic, for example, in line 9r of the document the author mentions hearing of good news about the recipient "נסמעו ענכום אכבאר אל כייר". The text on the verso appears to be that of a different hand (see esp. variation in aleph) and the tone shifts significantly from an epistolary one to a poetic descriptions with phrases such as "אן ייקול אל ן אדם לקלבו" or "that the son of Adam says to his heart" (l. 1v). It should be noted that "[be]n adam" can also be translated more generally as any human individual depending on the context. MCD.

Draft of the beginning of a letter. Top right corner, three fragmentary lines. Blank verso. Begins with a basmala and then 'katabtu ilaykum...."

Recto: Letter fragment to 'my brother.' Written in Judaeo-Arabic, calligraphic, large quadrangular characters. No detailed are preserved. Verso: In Arabic script (and two different inks), "To be delivered to the tax bureau (dīwān al-kharāj) in Cairo, to Yūsuf." Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter fragment in the hand of the clerk of Yehoshua Maimonides. An instruction to a cantor to warn a woman that her husband had submitted a complaint to the court. He should try to arrange a settlement or to bring her to court. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter sent by David Moulina and a piyyut by Yannai (FGP)

Letter fragment. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions Manṣūr al-Ḥarīrī. On verso, in different ink, there is a Hebrew sentence about sheḥita as well as a few words in large Arabic script underneath.

Lower part of a letter probably written by Abu ‘Ali Yehezkel b. Netanel Halevi, Ḥalfon's brother, while in Qalyub. Mentions Abu l-Fadl and Abu l-Ḥasan who are known from other IB VI documents. [Writer had received two shawls and a fūṭah (waist-wrapper) which in Qalyub were worth 1.5 dinars and 0.5 dinars respectively. Sends greetings to writer’s son Abu l-Fakhr, Abu l-Ḥasan al-Bazzaz (the clothier), and a different Abu l-Ḥasan. Asks for the news of the sick person in the house of the latter Abu l-Ḥasan. Makarim and his siblings also send greetings. ASE.]