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Full list for Marina

[PGPID 639](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/639/): > Draft of a deed of compensation in the hand of the court reporter Yefet b. David Shekhanya, around 1030. It was given to Efrayim b. Shemarya ha-Ḥaver, the head of the Jerusalem community in Fustat.`\xa0`(Information from Goitein, Palestinian Jewry, pp. 53-54). VMR [PGPID 726](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/726/): > Petition to the Gaʾon Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`ha-Kohen (in office 1127–39). Begins with six lines of Hebrew blessings, and ends with one line of Hebrew blessings. The sender describes himself as a man of more than seventy years who has been afflicted by an illness that makes him unable to work and earn a livelihood. He owes a debt (or rather capitation tax payment?) of 14 qirats and 1 dirham; somehow this is connected to a man named Salāma Ibn al-Maqāniʿiyya and a guarantee. If he is unable to pay, he fears being imprisoned. He states that he is near death and starving, some days eating and some days not. Maṣliaḥ had previously promised to help him pay this sum, so this letter is a reminder. In the margin, mentions a meat shop and someone named Mīkhāʾīl. Verso is filled with Arabic-script jottings and document drafts in a chancery hand, including drafts of a letter or petition to a notable. VMR. EMS. ASE. [PGPID 729](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/729/): > Letter from Masliaḥ`\xa0`Gaʾon. Dating: ca. 1120 CE (unclear on what basis). Containing his genealogy at the beginning. [PGPID 803](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/803/): > Letter/petition to a local dayyan (judge). A complaint against Sulaymān b. Hānī, the abusive husband of the sender's daughter. Including an episode where the husband accuses the wife of not being a virgin and summons the midwife to "check" her.`\xa0`Summarized in Med Soc III, IX, C, 1, note 75. [PGPID 898](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/898/): > Fragment of a letter from`\xa0`Efrayim b. Shemarya, around 1030. Writes about the events in Mount of olives, and some words about`\xa0`the ban on the Karaites and the authorities' response, that is known from Shelomo b. Yehuda's letters.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 pp. 598-599, #327). VMR There is Efrayim b. Shemarya's Arabic hand in the margin and dispersed throughout the letter. [PGPID 912](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/912/): > Document that is a continuation of Sassoon 1055A. Aharon al-Araki, who received a part of a house in Sana'a, sells his part to his brother Salam and his niece Badra for 150 Rial (75 for each); 1667.`\xa0`(Goitein, The Yemenites, 157-158) VMR [PGPID 1008](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1008/): > Legal document connected with the tax-farmer of Atfīḥ. In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel. Location: Fustat. Dated: Adar 1450 Seleucid, which is approximately February 1139 CE, under the authority of Shelomo. This Shelomo was evidently from Damascus and briefly served the head of the Jews after the death of Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`Gaʾon (last seen alive in T-S 12.694, January 1139 CE). (Information from M. A. Friedman's article on Zuta, p. 474 note 3.) [PGPID 1086](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1086/): > Letter in`\xa0`Judaeo-Arabic from a craftsman to ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, second half of the 15th century. [PGPID 1093](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1093/): > Letter from Ismail b. Yitzhak ha-Andalusi, Jerusalem, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1065. Blessings for the holiday. The writer asks to pass an attached letter to his mother and brother in Spain.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Palestine, vol.`\xa0`3, pp. 285-287, #512) VMR [PGPID 1108](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1108/): > Debt contract. No witness signatures. Bahāʾ b. Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār owes 61.5 dinars to Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān al-Kohen al-Tifʾeret. The sum is to be paid in monthly installments of 5 dinars, beginning on the Muslim New Year = 1 Muḥarram 611 AH = 1 Sivan 1525 Seleucid, which is 13 May 1214 CE, under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. Goitein's notes identify Abū ʿImrān as Mūsā b. Abū l-Bayān and Bahāʾ as his uncle, but they do not explain why. (Information from Goitein's index cards and Mediterranean Society, 1:464.) EMS. ASE. [PGPID 1162](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1162/): > Contract of debt. Location: Fustat. Dated: [157]6 Seleucid = 1264/65 CE, and prior to 9 February 1265 CE (the date of verso). In which the proprietor of a sugar factory (al-sukkarī) Abū l-ʿAlāʾ`\xa0`David b. Yefet b. Shelomo acknowledges a loan of 377 nuqra dirhams from the banker (al-ṣayrafī) Abū l-Majd b. Abū l-Maḥāsin, to be repaid in weekly installments of 25 dirhams. Written and signed by ʿImmanuel b. Yeḥiel, also signed by Efrayim b. Shemuel ha-melammed. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 1179](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1179/): > Letter from Yosef to Abū l-Fakhr asking him to help contest his obligation to pay the capitation tax of his brother, who was missing in Syria; he explains that his brother had not charged him with this payment before his departure. The tax collectors harass him for it every year, and he is forced to pay bribes (קטע אלמצאנעה; cf. T-S Ar.41.49 (PGPID 8278), T-S 13J33.9 (PGPID 8067), and T-S 8J20.16 + T-S NS J485 + T-S NS 283.96 (PGPID 2058); Goitein read here`\xa0`וסע אלמצאנעה). [PGPID 1211](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1211/): > Letter from Nahray b. Nissīm, Fusṭāṭ, to Barhūn b. Ṣāliḥ al-Tāhartī, probably`\xa0`in Egypt, ca. 1045, concerning business between the two. Mentions a shipment of`\xa0`pearls. Nahray sends his blessing to Khalfa,`\xa0`from the Tāhartī family, for his marriage to a woman from the Uqba family.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 2, pp. 711-714, #242). VMR. Nahray anxiously mentions to Barhūn that he has already paid the Amīr's emissary Abū Ishāq 150 dīnārs in Fusṭāṭ and it concerns him that the Amīr is still demanding the same from him in Alexandria. "If, God forbid, he continues to demand payment from you after he knows that it was already collected from me, then you will certainly remind him of his own letter to his emissary Abū Isḥāq, so that he will return to us what he has taken from us." YU. [PGPID 1242](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1242/): > Letter from Yosef b. Menashshe, in Ashqelon, to Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Talmid, in Fustat. In Arabic script. Dating: 1085 CE. The writer describes the conditions in Ascalon against the background of the Turcoman/Seljuk invasions, and how he traveled from Ascalon to Jerusalem and visited his abandoned house to recover some books, but only found dafātir and maṣāḥif that had been destroyed by the damp. The girl, al-Jawziyya, whom he had wanted to marry in Ascalon, had become engaged to somebody else. There ensued a legal struggle which involved an official titled Sitr al-Dawla, apparently Abū`\xa0`ʿAbdallāh al-Ma'mūn Yaḥyā Ibn Kātib al-Baṭā'iḥī, who became the vizier in Egypt following al-Afḍal. At the time of the present letter, he was evidently the Fatimid governor in Ascalon. His son Jamāl al-Mullk (Mūsā) is also mentioned, who later became the general of the Fatimid army in Palestine and who lived in Ascalon. (Information from Aodeh) ASE [PGPID 1368](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1368/): > Leaf from a court ledger. On recto: Testimony of compliance with an order issued by the head of the Jews, Netanʾel ha-Levi. Dated: First third of Shevaṭ`\xa0`1471 Seleucid, which is 1160 CE. To wit: Manṣūr al-Dhabbāḥ, a ritual slaughterer and cantor, was brought before the court and instructed to behave properly, to be nice to people, not to argue with those who tease him in the presence of gentiles, and to follow the usual laws of slaughtering. He promised to obey these instructions. (Information in part from Goitein, Mediterranean Society. II, p. 225.) [PGPID 1438](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1438/): > Draft of a letter that was not sent. A question that was addressed to Maimonides about`\xa0`remission of debts. (Information from Goitein, Tarbiz, 28, 1959: 195-196). VMR [PGPID 1449](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1449/): > Letter/petition of a woman to the Gaʾon Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`ha-Kohen (1127–39). In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (1100–38). Describing in detail an episode related to marital problems and travel. Might be connected to T-S NS 226.96 + T-S NS 184.54 (PGPID 1448). [PGPID 1456](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1456/): > Document that tells the story of Aharon ha-Levi and Ḥalfon, who collected money on behalf of the Rambam (Maimonides) for ransom of captives. They sent the Rambam a list of names and amounts of money which people agreed to pay, from the Jewish community in al-Mahalla. One of the community members sold his female slave and gave nine dinars of the payment to the Rambam's messenger. On the other side Moses Maimonides declares that he received the money. Av-Elul 1170.`\xa0`(Goitein, Palestinian Jewry, 316-318) VMR [PGPID 1463](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1463/): > Verso: Account of the Qodesh: building expenditures and supplies for the Synagogue. Dating: ca. 1042 –`\xa0`Nov. 1043. In the hand of Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya (according to Goitein). Only the left part of the leaf is preserved. The work of a carpenter and his helpers is noted as is the supply of plastering materials, including red and white gypsum, probably for some decorative work. There is mention of stones, an item seldom met in these accounts. Candlesticks and chains are supplied to the synagogue. The record also contains some bigger money matters between the leading officials of the congregation, such as the return to one of them of a sum he had advanced for the needs of the synagogue. It must have been a huge sum, since besides dinars, the total amount of which is not preserved, 669 dir. are mentioned. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 204 #28) [PGPID 1490](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1490/): > Letter from Yisrael b. Natan in Jerusalem to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat. November 29, 1061. Concerning copying books and family matters. Mentions Zakkai ha-Nasi, Daniel b. Azarya's brother, and his son, who were about to arrive in Fustat.`\xa0`Also mentions`\xa0`a few people that were coming from Byzantium, traveled through Jerusalem, and some of them stayed there.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Palestine, vol.`\xa0`3, pp. 160-164, #479). VMR [PGPID 1626](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1626/): > Document of authorization from Sitana bt. Avraham to Yosef b. Sad'el. With the signatures of Efrayim b. Zadok and Sar-Shalom b. Yitzhak. In the handwriting of Shemarya b. Elhanan that signed the document as well. (Information from E. Bareket, "The leaders of the Jews in Fustat", vol.`\xa0`2 p. 428). VMR [PGPID 1642](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1642/): > Letter fragment from Daniel b. Azarya to a man in Fustat. Daniel b. Azarya shows his joy that the man recovered from his illness. Daniel b. Azarya describes how he prayed for his recovery in front of Temple`\xa0`Mount and David's tomb. He mentions that he knows about his recovery from a letter he received from Yefet b. David. VMR [PGPID 1691](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1691/): > Letter from Awad b. Hananel from Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1060. The writer is in urgent need of cash "I do not even have a single dīnār left, whatever I had, I purchased with it wheat", "I am in need of your generosity, I do not have a single dirham". Describes the increasing prices of wheat and beans. Mentions a shipment of nuts and oil. It seems`\xa0`that the writer lives in a house that belongs to Nahray.`\xa0`(Information from Gil). VMR, YU. [PGPID 1734](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1734/): > Letter from`\xa0`Awad b. Hananel`\xa0`from`\xa0`Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat, ca. 1060. In the handwriting of Avraham b. Abi al-Hayy and concerning business matters, specifically a shipment of nuts that was send by the writer to Nahray, and a shipment of oil that Nahray sent to the writer. Also mentions several other goods, and an apartment belonging to Nahray in Alexandria, in which the writer lives. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol.`\xa0`3, #567) VMR [PGPID 1736](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1736/): > Fragment of`\xa0`a`\xa0`letter`\xa0`written by Daniel b. Azarya, probably in`\xa0`1051. A complaint about harassment by`\xa0`the brothers Yosef and Eliyyahu`\xa0`ha-Kohanim, sons of Shelomo Gaon, and especially about the older. Daniel b. Azarya complains that they`\xa0`did`\xa0`the same to Natan b. Avraham several years ago.`\xa0`It seems like it was written after the death of Shelomo b. Yehuda.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 675-677, #363)`\xa0`. VMR [PGPID 1797](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1797/): > Letter from Yosef b. Musa al-Tahirti`\xa0`from`\xa0`Mahdiyya, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1058. Mentions several goods including silk, copper, and seashells. Mentions`\xa0`family matters. The writer is concerned about family members and especially about`\xa0`girls that became orphans.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol.`\xa0`3, pp. 215-224, #367). VMR [PGPID 1814](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1814/): > Deed of sale for a slave. Dated: Thursday, 28 Tammuz 1571 Seleucid = 8 July 1260 CE. Seller: the Bilbaysī`\xa0`Mūsā b. Abū l-ʿIzz al-Kohen. Buyer: Abū l-Faḍl b. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ (both son and father are called "al-Rayyis"). Slave: An Abyssinian woman, unnamed, with leukoma of the left eye. Price: 266.5 nuqra dirhams. Unsigned (unless the signatures were on the lower part, now torn away). [PGPID 1868](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1868/): > Legal declaration. Dating: refers to the year 4826 AM, which is 1065/66 CE. (The document itself may be later.) Concerning Nahray b. Nissim's occupancy of larger of his wife's family's house. Nahray sends two witnesses (the narrator and ʿAmmār b. Farrāḥ al-Iṭrābulsī) to his in-law Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī al-Kohen, promising to pay him 1 dinar per month for the part of the house which may exceed one sixth. (Information from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 1871](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1871/): > Recto: Letter, written on red paper by Daniel b. Azarya's assistant (According to Goitein). Verso:`\xa0`Draft of poetry, with a citation from Psalms 33:11. VMR [PGPID 1957](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1957/): > Letter`\xa0`addressed to Shelomo Ḥalafta Yerushalmi and Meir Ashkenazi, concerning business, the commodity saffron (זעפראן)" is mentioned.`\xa0`R. Yiṣḥaq Luria`\xa0`(ha-Ari)`\xa0`was a part of this business as well.`\xa0`(Information from David Avraham, Alei Sefer 14, 1987, p. 135, and David Avraham, “The Role of Egyptian Jews in Sixteenth-century International Trade with Europe,” in From a Sacred Source: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif,” 106 ). VMR and EMS Verso: Jottings of names and accounts, mentioning Rašīd and Nissim Sason. C. 15th-17th century. (Information from CUDL) [PGPID 1992](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1992/): > Letter addressed to Yehuda ha-Talmid. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 7 Ḥeshvan 1551 Seleucid = 7 October 1239 CE. Goitein describes the letter as "overpolite." The sender praises the addressee and asks him to see to his mother's affairs, as she cannot stay in Qūṣ. The sender assures Yehuda that he will be recompensed for his expenses, and that working to find someone especially for this task would double the expenses. Abū l-Futūḥ b. Abū l-ʿIzz the cantor, Abū`\xa0`l-Faraj al-Ziftāwī, Yūsuf ha-Talmid, and his father Abū l-Khayr are also mentioned. (Information in part from Goitein’s index cards.) EMS [PGPID 2004](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2004/): > Letter from Musa b. Abi al-Hayy from Alexandria to Yosef b. Musa ha-Tahirati, Fustat. Around 1055. The writer is available to work because Avraham b. Farah prevented him`\xa0`from selling trading goods that he had. Mentions details about ships in the Nile`\xa0`which are about to depart.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol.`\xa0`3, pp. 530-533, #459). VMR [PGPID 2070](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2070/): > Letter from`\xa0`Yehuda b. Salāma, in an unknown location, to Yosef b. ʿEli ha-Kohen Fāsī, in Fustat. Dating: Ca. 1054 CE. Concerning money shipments.`\xa0`The writer has been unable to obtain anything from Ibn Khafāja, who is sick (r8–9). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol.`\xa0`4, pp. 377-379, #725). VMR [PGPID 2080](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2080/): > Letter, fragmentary, from Shelomo b. Yehuda to an unknown addressee. 1033 or 1037. Shelomo b. Yehuda informs that he receives money probably from Fustat. A part of the payment was divided between the Gaon, head of the court, and a third person, it seems like this is an inheritance.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Palestine, vol.`\xa0`2, pp. 210-212, #116). VMR [PGPID 2247](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2247/): > Recto: fragment of`\xa0`a`\xa0`recommendation letter`\xa0`from Daniel b. Azarya`\xa0`to Eli ha-Ḥaver b. Amram, Fustat. The name of the person who is recommended is unknown but it seems he belonged to one of the Israeli Gaon families. (Gil, Palestine, vol. 2, 688-689, Doc. #372)`\xa0`. VMR [PGPID 2387](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2387/): > Legal document. Dated: Monday, 9 Nisan 1469 Seleucid, which is 1158 CE. Sitt al-Dalāl bt. Seʿadya the widow of Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī Yefet b. ʿEli agrees with her elder son Abū Saʿd to receive from her two sons her delayed marriage payment to the amount of 30 dinars and to renounce her dowry and maintenance worth 20 d dinars. Since the younger son Makārim was a minor, Abū Saʿd agreed with his mother to pay her his share of 15 dinars and to deposit the other 15 dinars until Makārim would be a major, in which case either the latter would also free his mother of the obligation to give an oath, or, after her oath, pay her his share in both delayed marriage payment and dowry, i.e., a total of 25 dinars. The court ordered a ḥerem setam in presence of the widow because rumor had it that the estate had been tampered with. (Information from Goitein's index card.) At the top of recto there is a note for an unrelated legal document, concerning the marriage of the bride (a divorcee) Diyār bt. Yefet and the groom Abū [...] b. Avraham Levi. NB: Goitein refers to this fragment as ENA 4011.5. (Information from Goitein's index card.) (Written by Mevorakh b. Natan. AA) [PGPID 2450](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2450/): > Deed of sale. In Judaeo-Arabic. Location: Fustat. In the hand of Shemuel b. Saʿadya ha-Levi.Dated: Middle decade of Elul 1485 Seleucid = August 1174 CE. Sitt al-Kafāʾa bt. Abu l-Faraj Yeshuʿa al-Ghuzūlī, the wife of Menashshe the judge, sells a quarter of a burnt out house to Abū Isḥāq b. Abū`\xa0`l-Fakhr aka Yiṣḥaq b. Saʿadya for 6 dinars, which she collects. The house is in Qaṣr al-Shamʿ in the מיכל street. (Information from Goitein's attached notes.) [PGPID 2485](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2485/): > Letter fragment from Yoshiyya b. al-Dhahabī`\xa0`to Abū Saʿīd b. al-ʿAfaṣī (=gallnut merchant). In Judaeo-Arabic.The writer congratulates the recipient on his recent marriage and mentions a business deal of exchanging flax for medicine. The writer and the recipient are cooperating with Spanish merchants. (Information from M. Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 368) [PGPID 2536](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2536/): > Letter from Ṭoviya b. ʿEli, in a provincial town, to his cousin Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen, probably in Fustat. Dating: 1122–50, based on the dated documents of the addressee. The writer sends thanks for the forwarding of a prescription from one physician, Abū l-Bahā', and reminds Natan to obtain a second prescription from another physician, al-Amīn, both for his sick wife. The latter physician was perhaps a Muslim or Christian, since the addressee is asked to transcribe the prescription from Arabic to Hebrew (but cf. T-S 8J16.19 + T-S NS 323.13, in which a Jew is asked not to use Arabic script). "Favor your servant with the answer to be given by my lord al-Amīn, may his reward be doubled. Please transcribe for me the prescription into Hebrew letters.") As requested, Ṭoviya provides an elaborate update on the condition of his sick wife: "She has six attacks (fawra) during the day and four during the night. Perspiration (ʿaraq) overcomes her from the sockets of her eyes (maḥājīr ʿaynayhā) to her chest (fu'ādhā). Owing to the high fever (min ʿuẓm al-nār) she has a feeling that her neck first burns (iḥtaraqat) and then becomes cold (yabrud). At the same time, she suffers pain in her knees (wajaʿ`\xa0`rukab). Owing to her grave sufferings (min ʿuẓm al-alam) her menses (al-ṭamth) have stopped. Finally, because of her great anxiety (min kuthrat al-takarrub), she is affected by mild palpitation (rajīf yasīr) of the heart." The same illness is also described in an earlier letter (T-S 12.234). From a later letter (T-S 13J25.15) we learn that she eventually began to feel better. Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 254, 255; V, p. 106. It is possible that no fever is described, only a sensation of burning (nār). It is also possible that the phrase "knee pain" (wajaʿ rukab) should be read "pelvic pain" (wajaʿ rakab), especially as the next sentence describes the menstrual changes brought on by excessive pain. In the margin, changing the topic, Ṭoviya asks for a loan of the piyyut שיר השירים אסלסל (a liturgical poem for the Seventh of Passover composed by Shemuel b. Hoshaʿna the Third) from 'the rayyis,' sends regards to family members, and reports that the family's situation was very difficult when the tax collector arrived on Purim. [PGPID 2587](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2587/): > Letter from Salāma b. Mūsā of Sfax, in Mazar, Sicily, to his partner Yehuda b. Moshe b. Sughmār, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. The longest letter in the Geniza. Dating: Early 1060s according to Ben-Sasson, based on the military disruptions mentioned. 7 September 1064 according to Gil, based on his identification of the battle discussed as that between the Qā'id of Sfax and the Zīrid ruler Tamīm b. Muʿizz on that date. Many details about a wide variety of commodities are mentioned, as well as financial transactions. "In essence, this long letter had a single purpose: to convince Yehuda b. Sughmār, Salāma's partner, not to dissolve the relationship between them." Salāma in fact agrees to the dissolution of the formal partnership (ṣuḥba), "I got your letters this year, and you swore that you wanted to dissolve. I want this to happen even more than you do. If the partnership continues there will be discord. . . . Now we no longer feel as we used to, when we relied on each other" (v4–5, 30). Despite this, Salāma suggests other ways of continuing their relationship, including Yehuda's mentoring of Nissim, a new junior associate Salāma is sending to him, and Yehuda's sending Salāma some goods in agency. Jessica Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, pp. 296–99 ("Salāma b. Mūsā's Disastrous Year"). Salāma opens with his shock and dismay at the letters full of blame that he had received from Yehuda. "I had expected you to congratulate me on my survival in al-Mahdiyya, my deliverance from destruction, and the terrible ordeal (al-mawqif al-ʿaẓīm, also mentioned in r23) that I would not wish on anyone. I was bound (kutiftu) and almost killed (or executed, ʿuriḍtu ʿalā l-sayf) four times (or five—the ink is flaked here). Even if there were no partnership (sharika), love, (mawadda), or association (ṣuḥba) between us, this would have been incumbent on you. Now, more than one year later, the terror has not subsided, rather the fright remains in my heart. My greatest trial in al-Mahdiyya was my concern for your business. . . ." Interestingly, when Salāma mentions Yehuda's illnesses of last year (mā`\xa0`laḥaqak tilk al-sana min al-ḍuʿf wa-l-tawajjuʿ, r75), there is not a word of the usual sympathy or congratulations on his recovery. Gil understands Halper 414 to be a follow-up from this letter; Goldberg believes that Halper 414, a small sheet, was inserted into Halper 389, which seems to agree with Goitein, who calls it a "continuation" of Halper 389 (see Goitein notes linked to PGPID 35364). Information from Goldberg, Ben-Sasson, and Gil. ASE; MR [PGPID 2691](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2691/): > Recto: Letter from Abū`\xa0`Naṣr b. Avraham, in Alexandria, to an India trader (probably not Ḥalfon b. Netanel). Dating: 20 Adar II, likely 1448 Seleucid = 1137 CE. Inquiring about arrivals from the India route and describing the general economic depression in Alexandria. A brother of Abū Naṣr adds greetings. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV; Hebrew description below.) > Verso: Addendum to a letter written by Abū Naṣr b. Avraham, Ḥalfon b. Netanel's representative in Alexandria, possibly to Abū Zikrī Kohen, the representative of the merchants in Fustat. The identification of the sender and addressee was made according to the handwriting, style and content of the letter. The letter reports hard times in Alexandria. The letter testifies to Abu Nasr's involvement in the India trade. Local scarf production is also mentioned. (Information from Frenkel. See additional information in Goitein, Med. Soc. 5:180 no. 36.) [PGPID 2794](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2794/): > Letter in Judaeo--Arabic. Dating: Probably late 11th or early 12th century. The sender congratulates the addressee(s) on the holidays and reminds them of a promise they had made. Mentions people such as Abū Isḥāq b. Abū Bishr al-Bazzāz (the cloth trader; the father Abū Bishr is mentioned in T-S Misc.8.63) and Abū Sahl Mukhtār (this name appears also in T-S 10J28.11, T-S 12.296, T-S AS 157.183, and T-S NS 320.11). On verso there is a draft of a Hebrew letter (to Abūn?).`\xa0`(Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 2854](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2854/): > Letter from a father in Cairo to his son, Abū Manṣūr al-Rashīd, in the Fayyum. The name Jamāl al-Dīn also appears in the address. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. The addressee is told not to get involved in any banking deals with the government. The writer illustrates his warning with examples of people who had suffered both monetary losses and physical torture because of their dealings with the diwan. The addressee is advised to pursue a modest, safe living as a moneychanger. (Information mainly from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 240, 269, 460, 467; IV, p. 161.) Dating: Likely late 12th or early 13th century based on handwriting and typical names; more precise dating should be achievable by identifying the people mentioned in the letter, such as Fakhr al-Dīn ʿUthmān, Abū`\xa0`Saʿd Ibn al-Shavuy, Ṭāhir b. al-Gadol and his partner Ibn al-Wazzān, Ibn al-Ḥaver, Ibn Wahbān, Abū`\xa0`Saʿd the addressee's cousin, Sitt Ḥaẓẓ, Sitt al-Ahl, Sitt al-Milāḥ, Sitt Nadd, al-Shaykh al-Thiqa and al-Wajīhiyya. It was written in a year when Shevaṭ corresponded to Rabīʿ I. Might be related to ENA 4100.25 (PGPID 12368). [PGPID 2970](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/2970/): > Recto: Legal document in which Abū`\xa0`l-Khayr b. Nājī ha-Parnas releases ʿAmīd al-Dawla Yiṣḥaq b. Yosef from any obligations for goods sold by the latter on his behalf in the Dār al-Wakāla. Location: Fustat. Dated: Kislev 1454 Seleucid = November/December 1142 CE, under the authority of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Signed by Moshe b. Binyamin ha-Sefaradi. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 3024](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/3024/): > Contract in which a payment of 25 dinars is agreed upon for a copy of sections of the Torah, to be copied after the model of the first section previously made by the scribe for the same customer. Dated: middle of Shaʿbān 412 AH = late November 1021 CE. The scribe is Shemuel b. Yaʿaqov and the customer is Abū Naṣr Salāma b. Saʿīd b. Ṣaghīr. Also mentions Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Ḥujayj. [PGPID 3028](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/3028/): > Attestation (qiyyum) of a legal document by the Gaʾon Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`b. Shelomo ha-Kohen (1127–39); also signed by Moshe b. Sadoq Av Beit Din (president of the high court) and Yehuda b. Shelomo. The main document (now missing) was signed by the parnas Hillel b. Shabbat ha-Kohen and the cantor Eliyyahu b. ʿEli he-Ḥaver. See NLI 577.3/5 for another attestation of a document by Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon. [PGPID 3201](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/3201/): > Outline of a story probably intended to be written up as a court record. Describing an`\xa0`inheritance dispute concerning two brothers and two sisters. One sister was married to the paternal uncle of the claimant, and`\xa0`after she and her husband died, each of their two daughters retained one thousand dinars from the estate and gave the rest to their maternal aunt.`\xa0`She then married a man with sons from a previous marriage to whom he allegedly owed money. He passed away before his wife, resulting in a long and complicated legal process. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:286–87) EMS [PGPID 3342](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/3342/): > Recto: fragment of`\xa0`a`\xa0`recommendation letter`\xa0`from Daniel b. Azarya`\xa0`to Eli ha-Ḥaver b. Amram, Fustat. The name of the person who is recommended is unknown but it seems he belonged to one of the Palestinian Gaon families. (Gil, Palestine, vol. 2, 688-689, Doc. #372)`\xa0`. VMR [PGPID 3435](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/3435/): > Letter from Labrāṭ b. Moshe b. Sughmār, in al-Mahdiyya, to his brother Yehuda, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: January 9 (12 Shevat), 1058 CE (Gil) or 1061 CE (Ben-Sasson). Labrāṭ congratulates Yehuda on the birth of his firstborn son. There may be a prayer for God to protect the infant from the evil eye (r11–12; the first letter of the word is smudged; Gil reads al-ḍaw' rather than al-sū'; neither one is strictly grammatical). Labrāṭ heard from Zakkār that the infant was a girl and was only reassured when Yehuda's letter arrived with the news that it was a boy. Labrāṭ keeps the blessed letter with him and kisses it and puts it before his eyes; he gave it to his sister this week but made her promise to return it (r4–18). Labrāṭ continues with business affairs. There is an elaborate response to what Yehuda said about the pain Labrāṭ caused him by rebuking him about a business decision taken by Yehuda. Labrāṭ only wrote anything because it concerned somebody else's merchandise. As for what is owed to him by Yehuda, what are 20 dinars next to their relationship, which is worth the whole world? If Yehuda was agitated by Labrāṭ's rebuke, Labrāṭ is now agitated by Yehuda's response. Furthermore, this sum is nothing compared to what they already lost in Qayrawān. As the proverb goes, "If nothing is left of your provisions except a single cake, you might as well throw it into the sea" (r18–32). The letter continues with matters of trade between Ifrīqiyya, Sicily, and Egypt. Numerous people are mentioned: the Nagid, Nissim, Abū Hārūn, Ḥayyim b. ʿAmmār, the boy of Ḥassūn, Ḥassūn b. Mūsā, Yehuda b. Mūsā, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, the notables of Qayrawān and al-Mahdiyya, Isḥāq b. Bar[hūn?], and Yosef b. Eli al-Kohen. People who came from Palermo said that Zakkār was sick but then recovered (r33–57). Labrāṭ is delighted to hear that Yehuda has been studying Torah, Mishna, and Talmud with 'the Rav' (r58 and margin). Verso consists mainly of greetings. Labrāṭ`\xa0`is surprised at Yehuda's rebuke for Nissim's failure to send him letters. (Gil identifies this man with Nissim b. Moshe ha-Shelishi.) Nissim hasn't even written to Labrāṭ, who is two hours away from him. "He is dying, and he should write you a letter?" (v11–13). Nissim redeemed a Bible codex which belongs to Labrāṭ and Yehuda, and which had been plundered in one of the wars of Ifrīqiyya. Labrāṭ now wishes to make arrangements to reimburse Nissim and get it back (v13–17, 23–24). Labrāṭ concludes with the bad news of Ifrīqiyya, Sicily, and al-Andalus (v35–40). The price of wheat has skyrocketed this summer; Qayrawān is a ruin; the Bedouins are waging war on each other; people are worried about Sicily this year, for the Franks have attacked with a great army; they ('Franks') have also invaded al-Andalus this year and destroyed many of its villages, killed many people, and imposed taxes on all the areas they conquered. (Information in part from Gil, vol. 4, p. 36; Ben-Sasson, p. 36.) ASE. [PGPID 3803](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/3803/): > Fragmentary legal record drafted in Fustat and including an incomplete date (Sivan 14[..] Seleucid). Involves Abū`\xa0`l-Surūr and Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd Ḥalfon. Dated to the late 11th or early 12th century. Written and signed by Hillel b. ʿEli. [PGPID 3840](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/3840/): > Letter to Yefet b. Sason (aka Ḥasan b. Surūr) who is described as 'the Modest' (הצנוע). Mainly in Judaeo-Arabic, with the introductory blessings in Hebrew and the address in Arabic script. The sender has a son named Eliʿezer. Mentions the addressee's meeting with a Nasi ("the scion of the tribe of Davidites"). Ends with greetings to several persons (including Abū l-Surūr, Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd and his children, and Abū l-Faḍl ʿAlī b. Bunyām.). The sender complains about the duty of fundraising for the orphans. Same sender and addressee: T-S 8J38.6 (PGPID 3840) and BL OR 5542.33 (PGPID 6227). [PGPID 4097](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/4097/): > Several fragments from a legal document in Judaeo-Arabic. Concerning Abū Saʿd b.`\xa0`Hassūn known as Ibn al-Wuḥsha (i.e., the son of the well-known businesswoman). Dating: first half of the 12th century. Also concerns Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Ḥalabī al-Ṣayrafī and his shop; a certain Abū l-ʿAlāʾ; a partnership (muʿāmala); a condition about a fine of 10 dinars to be paid to the qodesh in case of separation (which may have in fact taken place); and someone, probably Ibn al-Wuḥsha, violating an oath (ואחנת אלשבועה). One of the torn fragments, T-S AS 146.296, was later reused for jottings on verso in a rudimentary hand. (Information in part from CUDL.) Joins: Alan Elbaum. [PGPID 4208](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/4208/): > Fragment of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic with wide line spacing. Refers to Abū`\xa0`l-Ḥasan the 'elder of the congregations' with several honorifics and mentioning some gossip (rekhilut). On the other side there is a commentary or grammatical treatise, with biblical citations such as Deuteronomy 30:14, Isaiah 51:5 and Proverbs 12:19. (Information in part from CUDL.) Join: Alan Elbaum. [PGPID 4460](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/4460/): > Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to David b. Aharon, ca. 1040, concerning an inheritance that was left by a person from Ramla (Mevaser) who had three sons. Zabga b. Yehoshua ha-Ḥaver has been requested to represent the two younger sons but`\xa0`has not fulfilled his role. David b. Aharon is requested to solve the problem. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 226-227, #125). VMR [PGPID 4477](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/4477/): > Letter from`\xa0`Musa b. Abi`\xa0`l-Hayy`\xa0`from Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1055.`\xa0`Mentions details about`\xa0`changing coins and business between the two of them. Also mentions money that was sent to Alexandria to Yisrael b.Natan`\xa0`(Sahlun), Nahray's cousin. On the other side Nahray wrote`\xa0`a comment about a`\xa0`mistake in Musa's`\xa0`calculation.`\xa0`(Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 3, pp. 480-483, #446). VMR [PGPID 5283](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/5283/): > Letter of Benayahu b. Musa, an Alexandrian from Maghribi origin, to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat. The letter contains severe complaints on the local Alexandrian Jews treatment of foreigners, especially from the Maghrib. The letter sheds light on a big communal dispute which reached the Muslim authorities and almost caused the writer to convert to Islam. The letter mentions in passing Avraham al-Deri as being in Alexandria and, apparently, as being on friendly terms with the writer.`\xa0`Benayahu also conveys his preoccupation for the addressee, who is recovering from an illness (r3–6). (Information from Frenkel) [PGPID 5302](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/5302/): > Letter from Mubārak/Mevorakh b. Yiṣḥaq, in Alexandria, to his father-in-law, Abū`\xa0`l-Ḥasan Surūr b. Ḥayyim Ibn Sabra, in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1060s CE according to Frenkel, though the basis for this is unclear. The sender has been in Alexandria for the last month and intends to spend the winter there, even though the addressee had urged him not to. He says that the times are just as difficult in Alexandria as they are in Fustat; bread currently costs a dirham for two ounces. Barhūn Ibn al-Tāhertī arrived from Sunbāṭ and reported that he and his family are safe (the original danger is unspecified), having lost only the furnishings of their house and his servants (khadam), whom he know hopes to redeem (iftikāk). He reports that "your daughter is well, crying due to what she hears about you." This letter is being sent with Abū l-Ḥusayn Hārūn b. Yeshuʿa al-Tinnīsī the friend of ʿAbd al-Bāqī al-ʿAṭṭār. The sender has asked him to obtain some things for him in Fustat; even the clothes they are wearing is borrowed, because clothes cannot be bought in Alexandria. He orders many specific items of clothing to be sent back with the bearer Abū`\xa0`l-Ḥusayn. He says that he misses the addressee and feels such estrangement (ghurba) that sometimes when he eats and he thinks about the addressee and the lack of letters from him, the taste of the food is spoiled or he gets nauseated (atanaghghaṣ li-dhālik). He doesn't know anyone in Alexandria, even though everyone honors him, except for Wuhayb the cantor who ignores the sender even when he greets him. [PGPID 5357](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/5357/): > The widow of Abu al-Barakat, the son of Yosef Lebdi, buys a sixth of two adjacent stores for 53`\xa0`and three/fourths`\xa0`dinars. The widow was Sitt al-Sada, daughter of Abu Nasr al-Tinnisi. This same share of the two stores was bought at an earlier date by Abu al-Fadil, a physician, from his two nephews. These nephews retained the right to buy. Dated: first 10 days of Tammuz, 1454 Sel (= June 1143). [PGPID 5468](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/5468/): > Letter from Bū`\xa0`ʿAlī b. Bū ʿUmar, in Upper Egypt, to his family (his son Abū l-Maḥāsin and his wife), probably in Fustat. In Arabic script. Dating: ca. 1167 CE. The sender is also known from ENA 1822A.75 (PGPID 5490). In this letter he praises Ḥalfon b. Maḍmūn (here called Khalaf b. Maḍmūn) for his help after the sender had been stripped of everything by the Ghuzz (a Seljuk contingent) and for an invitation to Aden, from which he would proceed to India. Ḥalfon also took care of a young woman of the sender's family, who had been divorced by her husband in Aden, Abū ʿImrān who had converted to Islam (cf. T-S Ar.38.88 (PGPID 8218)). (Information mainly from Goitein and Friedman, India Book II.) [PGPID 6219](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6219/): > Letter from Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to the merchant Abū l-Fakhr. In Judaeo-Arabic. Abū l-Fakhr had asked Shelomo how much he should pay him every day, evidently for working as an assistant in his shop. Shelomo responds that he is only asking for the standard rate that the boys (ṣibyān, ghilmān) in the shops (dakākīn) receive, and he defers to Abū`\xa0`l-Fakhr to pay what is fair. [PGPID 6223](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6223/): > Letter in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, in Fustat, to his relative and in-law Abū l-Faraj, in Alexandria. In Judaeo-Arabic. Opens with the usual expressions of longing. The sender reports that his wife (ahl al-bayt) is well. The sender is agitated that the addressee is staying in Alexandria "in the middle of the prison/captivity" (fī wuṣṭ al-ḥabs) and urges him to try to get out of Alexandria and save himself, because the news from there is dire. "May God the exalted reassure our hearts and your hearts for the sake of His name, and not cast you into the hands of your enemies." Greetings to "our father" Abū l-Ḥasan; to al-shaykh al-najīb al-ḥakīm (the physician) Abū l-Barakāt; to "the boy" and his wife or family (ahl baytih); to "my maternal aunt" Umm Abū l-ʿIzz and her son Abū l-ʿIzz. The sender's wife (ahl al-bayt) yearns for Umm Abū l-ʿIzz and sends her regards. The next part of the letter is in her voice; she rebukes the addressee for not sending her a letter ever since she left. She continues, "Give my regards to the neighbors.. greetings to my paternal uncle and to his son ("renewed to him" (?)) and to his wife, and to my grandfather (jiddī) Abū l-Ḥasan and to my (grand?)mother (sittī) and to my maternal uncle Abū`\xa0`l-ʿIzz, and I miss you all greatly. The next part might still be her voice, or might be back in the voice of Shelomo. "O Abū l-Faraj, please let us know the news of the house... the documents of rent in the name of my sister Milāḥ the wife of Abū l-F[...]... in her share, the quarter of the aforementioned house, and do not neglect. (Identification of the scribe from Goitein’s index card.) [PGPID 6257](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6257/): > Court record. Abū Isḥāq Avraham b. Elʿazar summons Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd Ḥalfon ha-Levi b. Yeshuʿa to make a deposition. Abū Saʿīd says that he entered נמרה(?) and came to a certain Ṣedaqa.... (The continuation is lost.) [PGPID 6311](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6311/): > Verso: List of names in Arabic script. Alms distribution list? E.g., Elʿazar, Abū Yaʿqūb, Abū`\xa0`Sahl, Dāʾūd Ibn al-ʿAjamī, a woman from Alexandria, and Mūsā. [PGPID 6312](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6312/): > Deed of release (ibrāʾ) written and signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe concerning the repairs and rent of a house. Mentions a certain Abū l-Muna. Also signed by Avraham b. Shemaʿya he-Ḥaver and [...] b. Shelomo ha-Kohen among others. (Information in part from Goitein notes and index card linked below.) > On verso, in elegant Arabic script, there is the beginning of`\xa0`Kitāb al-Faṣīḥ by Abū l-ʿAbbās Thaʿlab (d. 904): > هذا كتاب اختيار فصيح الكلام مما يجري في كلام الناس وكتبهم فمنه ما فيه لغة واحدة والناس على خلافها فأخبرنا بصواب ذلك . . . باب (فعَلت) بفتح العين تقول نمى المال وغيره ينمى وذَوَى العود يذوى . . . وينشد هذا البيت. (Source: https://shamela.ws/book/96608/2.) [PGPID 6471](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6471/): > Letter from Seʿadya b. Avraham to his 'brother' Ṣedaqa b. Ṣemaḥ. In Judaeo-Arabic. Seʿadya has been worried about Ṣemaḥ's travel, because he is inexperienced in travel, did not go with a companion, and did not send a letter informing Seʿadya of his safe arrival. Seʿadya has sent various commodities to him with Sason. He also gave Sason 8 dirhams for the expenses or setbacks of travel ("in Zājī(?)"). He gave a dirham to the brother of the blind man who said that Ṣedaqa had promised it. He urges Ṣedaqa not to neglect doing business in Jerusalem with the proceeds from the sale of the sūsiyyāt and/or to send the money. Ṣeʿadya was going to send something (לחמה?) until he heard that there was no craftsman in Ṣedaqa's location who could process it. Greetings to Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān Mūsā and to 'the mother' and to Shibl. He asks for a piece of rhubarb. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card) [PGPID 6508](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6508/): > Accounts of the bookseller. People mentioned: Bū`\xa0`l-Ḥasan. See also the description for the whole notebook Bodl. MS heb. f 22/19–52 (PGPID 33686). [PGPID 6513](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6513/): > Accounts of the bookseller. People mentioned: Ibn ʿUbayd, Bū`\xa0`l-Fakhr, and Abū Isḥāq Ibn al-Maṣmūdī. See also the description for the whole notebook Bodl. MS heb. f 22/19–52 (PGPID 33686). [PGPID 6516](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6516/): > Accounts of the bookseller. People mentioned: Abū`\xa0`l-Fakhr, al-Daqqāq, and Bū ʿAlī. See also the description for the whole notebook Bodl. MS heb. f 22/19–52 (PGPID 33686). [PGPID 6566](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6566/): > 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`\xa0`l-Baqāʾ. [PGPID 6573](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6573/): > Letter from a judge of Cairo to a cantor of al-Maṭariyya. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating uncertain (Goitein's index card suggests 14th century). The sender 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 or the district with the same name in the Delta), who is named Sālim. The addressee is asked to intervene with — and offer a bribe to —`\xa0`Nāṣir al-Jazzār who had farmed the taxes of the locality from the Amir Malik al-Umārāʾ and then asked from Sālim 60 instead of 40 dirham nuqra, after Makārim b. Manṣūr al-Sammāk overbid him. See Med Soc II, 606. Reused on verso for accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. [PGPID 6592](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6592/): > Letter from Berakhot b. Avraham Ibn al-Ḥājja (aka Abū l-Barakāt Hibatallāh b. Ibrāhīm al-Ṣāʾigh), in Būsh, in northern Upper Egypt (בעמאל אלצעיד אלאדנא/بعمال الصعيد الادنا), to his mother, in Alexandria. The letter is dated: Sunday, the fast day of 17 Tammuz 4918 AM, which is 1158 CE. The address is made out to Alexandria, the goldsmiths' market, to be given to Abū Zikrī Yehuda b. Yiṣḥaq, who is to forward it to the house (or wife) of Abū l-Wafāʾ b. Ḥalfon al-Ḥaddād in the Bīr Jabr neighborhood, at the Iraqi synagogue (simply called Kanīsat al-Yahūd in the Arabic version). One of those men is the brother-in-law of the sender. The letter is written in Judaeo-Arabic, in a beautiful hand. The address is written in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. He opens with a complaint about the lack of letters from his mother and from his brother Abū Saʿd and even says that he took an oath not to write again, which he clearly failed to keep. He says he is sick and tired of working in Upper Egypt (bilād al-ṣaʿīd), which is why he came down to Būsh, but he is still not content there, so he hopes to move on to Fustat after the holiday. He says that caravans from Alexandria frequently come to Būsh to buy flax. He wants to find a trustworthy man with whom to send some flax to his mother so that she can make him a nice linen garment for Shabbat and holidays; he already has plenty of garments for everyday use. He mentions 100 dinars, but the context is not clear. He was told that ʿAmāʾim and Raḥel her maternal aunt are in Fustat, together with her husband Abū l-Faḍl and a certain Abū l-Surūr. The text in the margin contains some juicy gossip: "A letter came for me (with the news) that Hārūn divorced his wife Yaman. Praise God! She married him and divorced him while we were absent. Keep her with you—(away?) from the wife of Abū l-Wafāʾ—in the house until God grants her a livelihood." The situation is unclear, but it appears that the sender is on the side of Yaman, who also has a son to rear. It is not clear how the wife of Abū l-Wafāʾ—who is supposed to receive this letter, according to the address—fits in. In any case, the addressee should shelter [Yaman] and feed her until the sender can arrive and take her to her brother in al-Shām. The best way to contact the sender is to send letters to Fustat to al-Bilbaysī or to Abū Sahl in Darb al-Kharrāṭīn, and they will forward them with the Jewish merchants to Abū l-Barakāt al-Ṣāʾigh the Jew in Būsh. On verso, the letter concludes with greetings to various people, including: Abū l-Bishr and his mother; Yūsuf; Mukhtār who was in Barqa; the teacher Abū`\xa0`Zikrī Yehuda and his children. (The sender's family name, Ibn al-Ḥājja, means 'son of the woman who made the pilgrimage,' but there is a chance it could be Ibn al-Ḥāja and a nickname for someone with many needs). OZ, AA, ASE. [PGPID 6660](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6660/): > Mercantile letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions people such as Abū ʿAlī; [...] al-Bukhtaj; Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Pinḥas; [...] al-Sharābī; Abū l-Faraj; a parnas; and Aharon. Mentions goods such as a 30-cubit Maghribī sūsiyya. Also mentions the government and the capitation tax. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) [PGPID 6844](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6844/): > Deed of sale for a slave. Fragment (upper left corner). Probably in the hand of Mevorakh b. Natan. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1463 Seleucid = 1151/52 CE. Seller: the parnas Abū ʿAlī Yefet b. Shemarya. Buyer: Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Avraham b. ʿAmram. Slave: a woman named Rahj ("Arsenic"). Price: 20.5 dinars. [PGPID 6863](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6863/): > Narrow bifolio. One page: Legal record in Judaeo-Arabic written and signed by Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen. Dated: Adar 1451 Seleucid, which is 1140 CE. Involving a debt of 30 dinars owed by Abū l-Munā b. Yehuda to Abū l-Ḥasan b. Abū`\xa0`l-Namir(?). Bishr b. Hārūn al-Ruqūqī stood security for him. It seems that the debtor ran away and hid. The brother of Abū l-Munā, Abū ʿAlī b. Yehuda is also mentioned. The remaining three pages: Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 6880](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6880/): > Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. On parchment. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1441 Seleucid, which is 1129/30 CE, under the authority of Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`Gaʾon. The case involves a gift, Sitt al-Karam, Abū l-Munajjā, and a female slave named Rasm. [PGPID 6926](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6926/): > Quittance. Unfinished. Sumr bt. ʿEli releases any debt owed to her by Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Abū l-Bishr Shelomo al-Bazzāz or by his brother Abū l-Faḍl. The case involves an inheritance somehow. [PGPID 7083](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7083/): > Part of a ketubba, mentioning a certain Yefet. Goitein (1978: 404) dates it to c. 1250 CE and says to see T-S 8.127, for another document where`\xa0`תשלום is used in the sense of תוספת. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 7090](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7090/): > Upper left corner of a bill of release given by Abū`\xa0`Saʿd Mevorakh to his maternal aunt Gharb; also mentions his mother. Concerning the rent of a dwelling and the inheritance of Berakhot al-Zayyāt. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 7102](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7102/): > Recto: end of a betrothal deed (לארוסה זו), mentioning the name Shemuel. Witnessed by Ḥananya b. Yosef and Yosef b. Ḥananya. Dated: Adar I of the year '37, likely [13]37 Seleucid = January/February 1026 CE. Verso: one line in Arabic script, probably from a letter, containing a name: [...] b. Abū`\xa0`Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-[...] ادام الله عزه. (Information in part from CUDL.) [PGPID 7151](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7151/): > Engagement (shiddukhin) and betrothal (qiddushin) contract. Location: Fustat. Dated: 10 Nisan 1554 Seleucid, which is 1243 CE. Groom: Yosef b. Avraham. Bride: Rivqa bt. Avraham ha-Parnas, virgin. The marriage proper (dukhūl) will take place in the upcoming Tishrei. Early marriage payment: 10 dinars ("with the well-known conditions concerning henna and strings &c."). Delayed marriage payment: 50 dinars. Witnesses:`\xa0`ʿImmanuel b. Yeḥiel; Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yisrael. (Information in part from Goitein notes and index card linked below.) [PGPID 7169](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7169/): > Legal document likely in the hand of Natan b. Shemuel (or less likely Ḥalfon b. Menashshe?). Dated: Ḥeshvan [14]50 Seleucid, which is approximately October 1138 CE, under the authority of Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`Gaʾon. Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa b. Yehuda Ibn al-Nisṭāṣ (see T-S NS 224.18 + T-S NS 225.25c for either the same person or a family member) cedes for 10 dinars his right of 1/12 of an open space (misṭāḥ) in the al-Qālūs street to Abū l-Khayr Shelomo b. Nājī, who had the right of shafʿa(?). See Med Soc IV, ch. IX, A, 1, note 141. Unsigned. (Information from Goitein's index card.) Verso is covered with legal jottings concerning at least a dozen other legal cases, with numerous names mentioned (one name is Malīḥa bt. Yefet, a widow). All need examination. [PGPID 7185](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7185/): > Letter/petition from an unknown sender, in Alexandria, to Mevorakh b. Saʿadya, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic, with some Hebrew. Dating: likely 1103–11 CE, based on the overlap of Mevorakh b. Saʿadya (d. 1111) and Makhlūf b. Mūsā (active ca. 1103–41). The sender apologizes for including this letter of complaint alongside his other letter of good wishes for the holiday. He has recently returned from a business venture to al-Andalus. He is writing with a complaint against the young man Baqāʾ Ibn Shuwayʿ (appears also in T-S AS 209.251 (PGPID 22788) and Bodl. MS heb. c 50/17 (PGPID 6439)). The sender had traveled with 400 dinars' worth of lac and other merchandise belonging either to this Baqāʾ or to his father and he made great profit on the journey, however he did not touch any of the profit, explaining that the Ibn Shuwayʿ merchandise is exempt (tanṣānu) "from the ʿushr of the jāliya" (the 10% customs tax intermittently imposed on dhimmī merchants?) and other people had to pay hefty duties. Once the sender had returned to Alexandria, Baqāʾ showed up with a power of attorney from his father and the partnership document (sheṭar... al-muwāṣafa). The sender paid him 200 dinars followed by another 400 dinars in the presence of the court. The sender then asked for the legal document (as he had fulfilled its terms), but Baqāʾ refused, whereupon the sender "nearly died" on the spot and said to the court and to the people around him, "This is my recompense?! I have become a widower and I lost many dinars of profit because I took his merchandise...." He then took the document from Baqāʾ by force. A new chapter of the story begins around here (r27). It seems that Baqāʾ`\xa0`enlists as support Ibn ʿAynayn Sārra (=Makhlūf b. Mūsā, well known from other documents; here his name is spelled with the insulting variant שרה, see Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 338 note 4 on the different versions of his name) and a certain Mukhtār and other Maghribī merchants "who all band together (עצבה < ʿaṣabiyya) in taking the possessions of people and notables," and that Ibn ʿAynayn Sārra is the worst of all, and that he is notorious in Alexandria for defying religion and behaving badly toward everyone. In the margin, where the text is partially missing, and continuing onto verso, the sender refers to a calamity (nawba ʿajība) which took place in Bijāya, involving a fight between two merchants, Salmūn and his brother, and his surprise that Mevorakh b. Saʿadya, even in Egypt (iqlīm Miṣr), is not abreast of the problems in Bijāya involving Mukhtār. On verso there are also subsequent pen trials and Hebrew jottings. ASE [PGPID 7205](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7205/): > Letter from Abū Manṣur to his 'brother' Abū`\xa0`Saʿd. Mainly in Judaeo-Arabic. The addressee has promised to come for Rosh Hashana. The sender has sent 5 mezuzot and qinot for the 9th of Av. The sender then discusses the copying of books and the capitation tax. CUL Or.1080 J72 has the same sender and same addressee. [PGPID 7294](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7294/): > Fragment of a Qaraite ketubba. Bride: [...] bt. Sahlawayh b. Ḥayyim. Groom:`\xa0`Ḥesed (presumably Abū Naṣr al-Tustarī). (Information from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 7350](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7350/): > Recto, with the address on verso: Letter from Abū ʿAlī, apparently in Fustat, to Abū l-ʿIzz al-Sharābī, also in Fustat, specifically Sūq al-Kabīr. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. This Abū l-ʿIzz may be the person known to us from various documents from Avraham Maimonides' circle. The sender reports that 'the mother' and Yūsuf arrived safely in Fustat some time ago. He has sent a maqṭaʿ cloth with Qāsim the blind (al-ḍarīr). The sender has sent previous letters asking for the news of al-shaykh al-mukarram Abū l-ʿ[. . .] and his wife and the rest of the family and friends. The jars (jirār) have not arrived; the addressee must send 100 jars quickly with any acquaintance of al-shaykh al-mukarram. Goitein's index card adds that the mother's journey was strenuous. He also says there is an "almost identical letter in..."—but he did not fill in the shelfmark. Verso: Response from Abū`\xa0`l-ʿIzz to Abū ʿAlī. In Judaeo-Arabic, headed by a basmala and tarjama in Arabic script. The Hebrew-script handwriting and orthography are quite rudimentary. He says that he has purchased the jars and makes excuses about why he has not been able to send them yet. He, too, says that he has sent several letters without receiving any response, including two letters tied together with a string, one from himself and one from Abū l-Ḥasan b. Qanṭūr (or Ḥanẓūl?) in which he mentioned something about three people. Greetings to the mother. AA. ASE. [PGPID 7455](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7455/): > Commercial letter related to the India trade. Dating: 1154–61. Mentions sprinkler bottles (qumqum) for rose water brought by the qāḍī`\xa0`Najm al-Dīn, and ‘pure’ (ṭahor) cheese sent from Alexandria to Aden. Remains of address on verso, but most has been torn off. Mentions the Franks and the ruler al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ (=Ṭalāʾiʿ b. Ruzzīk, the Fatimid vizier from 1154–61). (Information in part from CUDL.) [PGPID 7482](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7482/): > Marriage contract (ketubba). Only the heading and first lines preserved. Dated: 1391 Seleucid, which is 1079/80 CE. The groom is named Naḥum. Handwriting of Hillel b.`\xa0`ʿEli? (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) [PGPID 7577](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7577/): > Letter of condolence on the death of the Nasi and Rayyis Sar Shalom (ll. 7, 38). Addressed to another Nasi (al-Rayyis al-Dā'ūdī), with blessings for his son Abū l-Ḥasan. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. It seems that the sender is asking the addressee to convey condolences on his behalf to al-Shaykh al-Thiqa, to Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq and his sons, to the dear brother Abū l-Barakāt al-Ṭabīb and his mother Sitt ʿArīb(?), and to the entire family of the late Rayyis (or of his widow?). [PGPID 7605](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7605/): > Legal document. In the hand of Hillel b.`\xa0`ʿEli. Unusual format. The trustee ("al-neʾeman") Yefet b. Elʿazar, who is the representative of al-Maḥalla, and the 4 undersigned elders of Fustat (ʿUlla b. Yosef ha-Levi, Nissim b. Nahray, Yeshuʿa b. Yakhin, Ṣedaqa b David ha-Kohen), agree to unite (יתעצבו) on behalf of plaintiffs in the Jewish courts who have rights against other people. There are at least two more agreements involving communal affairs. The same Yefet b. Elʿazar is the addressee of T-S 13J19.6. (Information from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 7623](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7623/): > Verso: Letter in Arabic script. Probably related to the legal document on recto, since some of the same names appear. At the top the names Bishāra and ʿAllān b. Saʿīd appear. The letter mentions: someone's in-law Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq; Abū`\xa0`Saʿd al-Ḥalabī; collecting money from someone; Yūsuf; and various business reckonings and instructions. Concludes by mentioning a letter for Sayyidnā al-Rayyis al-Nāsī. Needs further examination. [PGPID 7632](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7632/): > Recto: End of a court record written and signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: Monday, 25 Av 1423 Seleucid = 19 August 1112 CE. The case involves Abū l-Munā and Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān and the sale and purchase of various "ruqʿas" (promissory notes?) for different amounts of money (some are for 3 dinars and some for 5). One of the transactions was witnessed by 'Rabbenu.' Witnesses: Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, Avraham b. Shemaʿya, and Maʿrūf b. Yehuda (perhaps the same as in T-S AS 177.105). (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 7635](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7635/): > Court notebook in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi. > > Fol. 2v: Three entries. Location: Fustat. All dated Tuesday, 17 Tammuz 1438 Seleucid = 28 June 1127 CE. > > (1) Malīḥa bt. Abū l-Faḍl the wife of Adam al-Ḥalabī al-Ṣayrafī appoints Natan b. Avraham ha-Levi in order to sue her husband. The witnesses were Berakhot ha-Kohen he-Ḥaver and the cantor Abū`\xa0`l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Kāmanī(?). > > (2) The physician (ṭabīb) Abū Naṣr b. Abū l-Ḥasan al-Tinnīsī(?) appoints Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Yiṣḥaq al-Kohen known as Ibn Ghazāl to represent him in all his claims against Abū`\xa0`Naṣr b. Abū Saʿīd al-ʿAṭṭār. > > (3) Three witnesses appear before the court of Maṣliaḥ, namely the cantor Abū l-Ḥasan Ibn al-Kāmanī(?), the parnas Abū l-Faḍl, and the parnas Abū ʿAlī, and testify that Malīḥa and her husband Adam al-Ḥalabī al-Ṣayrafī have reached a settlement concerning release each other from all claims, including any further claim on her delayed marriage payment (muʾakhkhar). [PGPID 7655](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7655/): > Recipe in the hand of Berakhot b. Shemuel. In Judaeo-Arabic. Headed "al-qalʿī." For`\xa0`אקאמה אלפלקי (this may not be the 'celestial sphere,' as that would be פלכי). Mentioning substances such as ammonia, white alum and zubd al-baḥr (possibly mercury). (Information in part from Goitein's note card and CUDL.) [PGPID 7668](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7668/): > Recto: Lower part of an incomplete letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq and then describes a quiet apartment which has been obtained for the addressee: "The place which I have taken is in the alley near the house of Ibn Rajāʾ, inside, before you get to the roofed passage of Ibn Rajāʾ, on the righthand side. It is an apartment over another one. There is no one else with you in the apartment, and the people in the house underneath are strangers who keep to themselves and don't poke their noses into anyone's business, and no one has to fear them, such that not a single word that you say will be overheard, except that they are women(?)." Verso: list of commodities such as saffron and wax, with Hebrew numerals. (Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 7969](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/7969/): > Legal document. Dated: Friday, 1 Kislev 1515 Seleucid, which is 7 November 1203 CE. Deathbed declaration of Abū l-Khayr b. Abū l-Barakāt the supplier (al-mūrid). He owes 238 dinars to the banker Abū l-Karam b. Abū l-Naṣr Ibn al-Dayyān. This sum should be paid out of his sugar stored with Abū l-Barakāt b. Abū l-Riḍa Ibn al-Lebdī. What remains from the value of the sugar will belong to the dying man's son. The sale of the sugar will be made by Abū`\xa0`l-Karam and Abū l-Barakāt. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) For transcription, see Rivlin, Inheritance and Wills, #58, pp. 391–94. [PGPID 8076](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8076/): > Polite letter in Judaeo-Arabic, in which the sender explains that he had been reluctant to visit the addressee, as he surmised that his 'brother' Abū`\xa0`Zikrī Yaḥyā b. Menashshe (cf. Halper 383) was visiting, and he was not on speaking terms with the latter. He would now like to come, especially with regard to the friendship which had existed between him and the addressee's late son. The blessings for the addressee include "the restraining of the hand of those who rule by oppression." (Information from Goitein's index card and CUDL.) [PGPID 8151](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8151/): > Letter in the hand of Yehuda b. Ṭoviyyahu (muqaddam of Bilbays, active 1170s–1219). In Judaeo-Arabic. Containing a complaint about illness. The purpose of writing seems to be that the sender is unable to support a Ḥaver who came to stay with him. “[I was] constrained by my great expenses for medicines and chickens… An illness came upon me, on top of my chronic illness: shortness of breath and fever...” Mentions the boy Abū`\xa0`l-Bayān and al-Shaykh al-Muhadhdhab. Cites Berakhot 3b: “A handful cannot satisfy a lion, nor can a pit be filled up with its own clods.” Goitein read the word farrūj as surūj (meaning lamps -"perhaps he stayed up at night"), but see, for instance, Halper 410 and DK 238.3 for the formula "the medicine and the chicken." Regards to "our rabbi Avraham (Maimonides)" in the margin. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) Join: Alan Elbaum. AA. ASE. [PGPID 8161](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8161/): > Letter from Berakhot b. Shemarya, in Damietta, to his parents or at least elder relatives or in-laws (ואלדיה). The address is made out to his brother-in-law Abū`\xa0`Saʿid al-Bavli, in Alexandria. Written in vocalized Judaeo-Arabic in a crude hand with rudimentary spellings. Concerned with a number of business issues and future plans of moving to Palestine or Cairo. The writer reports that he is on his way to Acre, and mentions names such as Ibn al-Muqaddasī, Abū Kammūna and Abū Naṣr. Alludes to the dangers of traveling in the Rīf (פאן אלריף כולו חרפה וקלסה) (Information in part from CUDL.) This is a long and detailed letter—merits further examination. [PGPID 8230](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8230/): > Power of attorney. In Arabic script. Dating: 11th or 12th century. A woman appoints the Jewish dyer Abū`\xa0`Saʿd b. Nājī b. Bū Naṣr as her agent. (Information from Goitein’s index card and Khan.) [PGPID 8289](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8289/): > Business letter in Arabic script from Abū l-Surūr b. Abū l-Munā (a Jewish man, which we learn in v5) to Abū l-Majd b. Abū l-Munā al-Dumyāṭī, in Asyūṭ. Abū l-Surūr defends himself against a charge of neglecting the addressee's affairs. He reports that as soon as the addressee departed, Khalīl became sick with a wound/ulcer (qarḥ). Khalīl paid Abū l-Surūr 68 dirhams in four installments for the shop, and continued to go to work even though he dozed all day long, and ultimately became homebound and died on the 2nd of Ramaḍān. Abū l-Surūr was unable to obtain any of the money which the deceased owed to the addressee. Ten days later, Abū Bakr al-Qasṭallānī produced a ḥujja that the deceased had owed him 700 dirhams from a qirāḍ partnership, and Abū Muḥammad b. Maḥfūẓ produced one that the deceased owed him a (non-partnership?) debt of 200 dirhams. They went to court, and the qāḍī`\xa0`ruled that only the holder of the ḥujja for the partnership (sharika), i.e., Abū Bakr al-Qasṭallānī, could collect his money. The shop was sold for 150 dirhams, but even so Abū Bakr only recovered half of the money due to him. (There are two asides at this point: During the time when Khalīl was sick and homebound, the clothier came to the sender, who paid him 20 dirhams. Also, the owner of the shawl (miṭrafa) which had been pawned with the addressee for 3 dirhams came and redeemed it.) Abū l-Surūr now rebukes the addressee for not having listened to him and staying with his shop. If he had followed this advice, he wouldn't have lost so much money and brought upon himself all this toil and trouble. Abū l-Surūr emphasizes that he spared no efforts in attempting to sue Khalīl for the money owed to the addressee, even when Khalīl was sick. One day, Khalīl's mother came and saw that he was distressed, and he said, "Abu l-Surūr the Jew sued me for his friend's money and said 'hand over the goods,' which wounded my soul." Whereupon the mother came to Abū l-Surūr and "held on to [his] rings" and accused him of killing her son. Abū l-Surūr says, "my soul would have left me were it not for the neighbors and Khalīl (restraining?) her." The same story repeated itself when Abū Bakr al-Qasṭallānī came and sued Khalīl. The letter concludes on a note of all's well that end's well: "If you come back, God willing, you can have a shop for 50 (dirhams) and you will do well and recoup (your losses)." [PGPID 8372](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8372/): > Bill of divorce (geṭ). Dated: Kislev 1100 CE. Signed by Ḥillel b.`\xa0`ʿEli and Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Husband: Shela b. Yehuda. Wife: [...] bt. Avraham. (Information from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 8485](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8485/): > Legal records. Four pages (bifolio) in the handwriting of the judge Natan b. Shemuel. Dating: ca. 1140 CE (dated entries from Tevet 1451 to Marheshvan 1452 Sel.). The first page consists mainly of memorial lists, while the other three contain digests of many documents to be issued by him. One of the entries according to Goitein's index card: Sitt al-Iraq bt. Yaʾir the wife of Abū l-Maʿālī Netanel gives her son Abū`\xa0`Saʿd one quarter of a house in the Darb al-Zanājiliyyīn ('the street of the canister makers') and the other quarter to her daughter Sitt al-Banīn. Her husband has the right to live in the house but has to keep it in repair. [PGPID 8492](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8492/): > List of donors of wheat and/or cash for the poor. Dated: Av 1489 Seleucid = July/August 1178 CE. The occasion was probably the fast of the 9th of Av. Location: Fustat. One of the donors is the son of Bū`\xa0`l-Riḍā Ibn al-Lebdī (the father, Abū l-Riḍā, appears in Yevr.-Arab. I 1700.6 (PGPID 9591)). (Information from Goitein's attached notes.) [PGPID 8515](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8515/): > Detailed inventory of the estate of a rich tax farmer. See Goitein's index card for citations. Mentions names such as Abū l-Karam Ibn al-Ḥunayk(?), Ibn al-Kirmānī, Mūsā, Abū l-Makārim the son of the late Rabbenu Nissim, Abū`\xa0`Saʿd b. Naḥman, Ibn Kūshak al-ʿAmīd, Muslim Ibn al-Naʿja, Abū Sulaymān the Qaraite, Abū l-[...] Ibn Sunaynāt, Abū l-Mufaḍḍal al-Wazzān, Abū l-Manṣūr al-Ṭabīb the Qaraite, al-Ṣaʿīdī, and Dammūh (the place). Signed by Peraḥya b. Yeḥezqel and Moshe b. Yehuda. [PGPID 8861](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8861/): > Legal document. Location: Damietta (אי כפתור). Dated: Shevaṭ 4872 AM = January 1112 CE. Large and well written fragment of a large document in which Daniel b. Yiṣḥaq accepts 12 out of 20 dinars due to him from one Musallam b. Efrayim. The sum was paid by the latter's brother Abū l-Ḥusayn Yosef b. Efrayim, acting as agent (wakīl). Also mentions dealings in the villages Būra and Ibwān, near Damietta (called Kaftor); Abū l-Surūr and his father; government officials including the wālī and 'the protectors of the districts' (ḥumāt al-nawāḥī); Ibrāhīm and Abū l-Faraj; Avraham b. Ḥalfon; Ṭayyib b. ʿAlī; Abū`\xa0`Saʿd b. Yaḥyā; Abū l-Faraj b. Efrayim. There are eight signatures, all written in rudimentary handwriting: Elʿazar b. Ṣedaqa ha-Kohen; Avraham b. Yefet; Mevorakh b. ʿAmram; Yaʿaqov b. Natan; Saʿady{a} b. Natan; Avraham b. Yaʿaqov(?); Yefet b. Ḥalfon; Yehuda b. Faraḥ. Merits further examination. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 8924](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/8924/): > Letter from Abū al-Riḍa, in Qūṣ, to Abū`\xa0`Zikrī, in Fustat, c/o the sugar factory (maṭbakh) of Abū al-Maʿānī. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. (Goitein's index card identifies the addressee as Eliyyahu the Judge, who did have a son named (Abū) Zikrī.) Dating: Probably early 13th century. The addressee is asked to give a responsum (fatwā) with regard to a certain Maḥāsin who wanted to marry his wife's sister. Maḥāsin had denied a charge in connection with this engagement before a Muslim court and confessed it in a Jewish court. The issue involves the wife (bayt) of Ibn Qasāsa and Abū Saʿd al-ʿAṭṭār, who calls himself Shaykh al-Yahūd. The sender complains several times about his illness and poverty (and therefore his inability to resolve the issue). He tells the addressee not to send letters to the shop of Abū Saʿd, because Abū Saʿd always reads them before passing them on to the addressee. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) [PGPID 9102](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/9102/): > Letter from Yeḥezqel b. Netanel ha-Levi, probably in Qalyūb, to his brother Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, in Alexandria. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Sunday, 2 Shevaṭ`\xa0`(1451 Seleucid) = 24 December 1139 CE. Written nine days after Yeḥezqel's preceding letter (IV, 59). He reports that he arrived safely, probably to Qalyub, and that he took care of the things mentioned in certificate IV, 59 and also in the subsequent documents, such as his sale of khazz silk and a payment to Abū Yiṣḥaq. At the end of the letter he greets his son Abū l-Fakhr, who was staying with Ḥalfon in Alexandria. (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV; Hebrew description below.) [PGPID 9196](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/9196/): > Mercantile letter, possibly sent from Aden to India. Reports that Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Ḥalābū(?) was in a shipwreck at Dahlak, near ʿAydhāb, and that a letter from him from אלמכסר has arrived. Mentions numerous other commodities, dealings, and people's names. On verso mentions the judge Ḥiyya with many honorifics. (Information mainly from Goitein's attached notes.) [PGPID 9245](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/9245/): > Letter from Shemuel b. Avraham al-Majjānī, probably in Aden, to (Abū Zikrī) Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yosef, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer has sent spices to the addressee with Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq b. Siwār al-Muslim. He asks him to sell them and give the proceeds to Abū Naṣr b. Elishaʿ, who should give 2 dinars to the writer's mother and the rest to his wife. He reports on the the aṣḥāb (Nahray and Ibn Nufayʿ and Ibn al-Yatīm and al-Fāsī and a Jew whom the writer did not know) who were traveling with ʿAlī al-Dībājī and speculates that perhaps they were detained in Dahlak, because they haven't caught up with the writer's party. He then crosses out that statement and writes above it, "they caught up with us the night of the mabīt (spending the night on board before sailing) to Aden." The writer wishes to travel on to al-Qaṣṣ (identified by Sebastian Prange as Bhadresvar in the Gulf of Kachh, in Gujarat—see Monsoon Islam, Table 4.1). When his ship had reached Bāb al-Mandab, the ruler (ṣāḥib) of Dahlak attacked the ship and plundered it, but let the merchants go. There is a postscript about smuggling Ibn al-Yatīm's coral through customs. ASE [PGPID 9280](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/9280/): > Letter from`\xa0`ʿIwāḍ b. Ḥananel, in Alexanria, to Nahray b. Nissim, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Second half of the 10th century. The writer reports on a terrible Nile journey "as if it were the sea of Sfax"; the water entered the boat because of the many "ניו"; this may be a plural form of نَوء, which means storm or gale. ʿIwāḍ stayed up all night, sitting in the water and guarding the merchandise, crying out for help and receiving none. Eventually someone agreed to help, but demanded a hefty price. ʿIwād ultimately reached Alexandria safe and sound. He reports on the state of the merchandise and how he is faring trying to sell it. Information in part from Goitein's transcription. [PGPID 9298](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/9298/): > Letter from Moshe b. Yefet/Ḥasan to the ḥaver ʿEli b. ʿAmram. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Reporting that Mufarrij b. Ḥusayn b. Shuʿayb appointed Abū l-ʿAlāʾ`\xa0`Yosef b. ʿAbdallāh over his business affairs abroad. It is not immediately clear if this was a will or merely an appointment of an agent. The six witnesses to the appointment: Wuhayb b. Ḥasan; Efrayim b. Abū Yaʿqūb; Ṣāʿid b. [...]; [...] b. Sulaymān; Moshe b. Ḥasan (the scribe of this letter); and Shelomo b. Ḥasan. On verso (apart from the completion of the letter and the address), there are two additional validations, confirming that the sender of the letter, Moshe b. Yefet, came and confirmed that the letter was in his own handwriting. The first is written and signed by Zarʿa b. ʿAmram and the second by Yaḥyā(?) b. ʿAmram ha-Levi. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) [PGPID 9473](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/9473/): > Bill of sale for a female slave. Not completed. In the hand of Hillel b.`\xa0`Eli. Dated: Friday, 2 Tammuz 1409 Seleucid, which is 4 June 1098 CE. The slave is named Naʿīm, of Nubian origin. The seller is Shemarya b. Ḥalfon. The buyer is a woman named Khāliṣa. There is the heading שהדותא in the top margin. (Information in part from CUDL.) [PGPID 10416](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/10416/): > Capitation tax receipt for a 1 dinar payment made by Bū`\xa0`l-Thanāʾ b. Bū Saʿd b. Ṭayyib al-Murakkib (the saddle maker) in New Cairo and Fustat for the year 405 AH, which is 1014/15 CE. Dated: 21 Muḥarram. Registration mark: 'al-ḥamdu lil-lāh ʿalā niʿamih', all praise be to God for his benefactions (found twice on recto and once on verso). Verso also has some numbers written out in Judaeo-Arabic (might be a writing exercise). (Information from PGP tax receipt team.) [PGPID 10666](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/10666/): > One side: Receipt for rent. Bū`\xa0`Yaʿqūb Yūsuf paid Maḥfūẓ 6 dirhams. The other side: Fragmentary note mentioning sugarcane and silk (yaḥtāj ilā firqat?... fī qaṣab wa-ḥarīr). [PGPID 10857](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/10857/): > Legal document in Arabic script. Dated: Rabīʿ II 952 AH = June/July 1545 CE. Deed of acknowledgment made by Ḥammād b. Mubārak b. Ḥayyāra(?). He acknowledges receipt of something (... qabḍ sharʿī...), maybe the price of something or someone he sold (... ibtāʿahā...). On verso there are three Hebrew jottings, the first is a stylized signature (Avraham [...]?), the second is a stamped seal probably with a name in it, and the third is a date (Monday, 5 Rabīʿ I 952 or maybe 955). At the lower right margin of recto, there is an addendum in Arabic script stating that the "aforementioned" female slave has a "defect" (ʿayb), namely a missing toe —`\xa0`thus the sale in the main document is probably of a female slave (and the word "raqīq" may in fact appear in l. 1). This has been recorded in the "sijill of the court." This note is dated 19 Rabīʿ II of the same year. At the top of recto, there is a circular red stamp that seems to read "al-sulṭān al-Malik al-Muẓaffar"; this is puzzling, as it would suggest a Mamluk-era date. Needs further examination. ASE [PGPID 10858](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/10858/): > Legal document(s) in Arabic. Involving a ḍamān (tax farm or guarantee) and ḍumanāʾ (tax farmers or guarantors). Dating: 1101–21 CE, based on the invocation of the caliph al-Āmir (r. 1101–30) and the vizier al-Afḍal (r. 1094–1121) (verso, ll. 6–8). Verso is an iqrār (acknowledgment) made by Ibrāhīm b. Sulaymān, ʿAlī b. Ḥasan, and Yaḥyā b. Mūsā, and perhaps another person (it's also possible that the names are split differently, since the "wa-"/and and the "bin"/son-of look nearly identical). Recto is a set of first-person testimonies stating that "I attended the aforementioned audit/investigation (kashf)" and that everything "in it" is accurate and that the iqrār of the ḍumanāʾ (referring to the document on verso?)`\xa0`is accurate. The statements are signed respectively by Yaḥyā b. Ismāʿīl b. Muḥammad b. [...]; Khalaf b. Ibrāhīm b. Mubārak(?); and Ismāʿīl b. Mūsā b. Muḥammad. ASE [PGPID 10898](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/10898/): > Letter in Arabic script. The portion preserved here consists mostly of greetings, naming people such as Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā,`\xa0`ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Ḥādī, Nūr al-Dīn, Quṭb al-Dīn, and the faqīh Saʿd al-Dīn. Some or all of the address may be legible. Needs further examination. [PGPID 11105](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11105/): > Recto: Bill of sale of for a Nubian female slave named Mulḥ. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Unsigned. Location: Fustat. Dated: 7 Kislev 1412 Seleucid, which is 1100 CE. Seller: Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf b. Netanel. Buyer: Abū`\xa0`Yaʿqūb Yūsuf. b. Efrayim. Price: 20 dinars. [PGPID 11182](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11182/): > Mercantile letter from an unidentified sender, probably in Alexandria, addressed to Abū Isḥāq [Barhū]n b. Mūsā (probably al-Tāhertī), somewhere where one buys flax (the Fayyūm?). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th century. Acknowledges receipt of the addressee's letter which quoted the price of flax. The sender turns down his offer, because the price is not right. He will give some merchandise to the addressee's cousin Abū Isḥāq (perhaps Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Barhūn b. Ṣāliḥ al-Tāhertī). The addressee had mentioned the arrival of Ibrāhīm. Greetings to Abū l-Surūr. Greetings from Abū Isḥāq Barhūn, Abū Saʿīd Maymūn. The sender repeats that he does not want the addressee to buy any flax for him at these prices. But if the price goes down, he wants 6 high-quality bales. There are no boats in Alexandria for shipping. Greetings from Moshe b. Yehuda, a cantor. Abū Saʿīd has now been sick (ʿalīl) for eight [days, probably]. In the right margin there appears to be the draft of the beginning of a different letter. Verso was reused for accounts in Judaeo-Arabic, probably by the addressee. [PGPID 11334](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11334/): > Legal testimony (maḥḍar) from al-Maḥalla regarding kosher butchering. It seems that Shemarya ha-Kohen was granted the right to be sole butcher and another man entered into a legal agreement and swore an oath that he would not butcher`\xa0`— but now he has been witnessed violating that oath. The fact that there is a legal document on the back as well may suggest this was a page from a court notebook. [PGPID 11375](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11375/): > Deed of compensation (שטר פיצוי). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Second half of the 11th century. In which Abū ʿAlī Yefet Tif'eret ha-Qahal b. Avraham confirms that Abū`\xa0`Yaʿqūb Yequṭiel b. Moshe (the Peqid ha-Soḥarim) has paid all the money that he owed to Abū ʿAlī's brother, Ya'ir the Judge. Information in part from M. A. Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, 280 n. 1. [PGPID 11543](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11543/): > Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: Monday, 18 Kislev 1390 Seleucid = 26 November 1078 CE. Ghālib b. Avraham comes before the court with a power of attorney from Yehuda b. Meshullam b. Zekharya ha-Sofer b. ʿAnan and from Yehuda's paternal aunt Ghāliya bt. Zekharya ha-sofer b. ʿAnan, concerning the estate of the late Avraham ha-Melammed ha-Levi b. Yosef b.`\xa0`ʿAnan (but probably no relation, because Avraham is a Levi and Yehuda is not called ha-Levi). Some the following details are faded and difficult to read. Mentions an outstanding sum of 41 dinars + 1/4 + 1/6 + one ḥabba, which had been deposited by the court with ʿEli b. Efrayim al-Tinnīsī. On verso there is a Hebrew prayer. [PGPID 11591](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11591/): > Legal records. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Av and Elul 1527 Seleucid = 1216 CE. Headed by the glyph. > > Verso, doc. 1: Abū l-Khayr Ibn al-Iskāf acknowledges a debt of 6.5 dinars to Maḥāsin b. Abū ʿAmāma, which he will repay in monthly installments of 1 dinar. > > Verso, doc. 2: The three children of Maʿānī al-Ḥarīrī and an in-law of theirs sells something belonging to them in the town of Sammanūd to Abū l-Thanāʾ`\xa0`b. ʿ[...]. > > Verso, doc. 3: Involves Abū l-Faraj al-Ṣāʾigh and a sum of 10 qirats and Abū l-Surūr Ibn Maṭrūḥ. > > Recto: Quite damaged. Involves [...] Majd and [...] Maʿānī and an acknowledgment of debt. [PGPID 11616](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11616/): > Legal fragment. Dating: 12th-13th century. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions many people: Abū`\xa0`l-Raḍiyy; Abū l-ʿAlā' Ṣāʿīd b. Najā al-Ne'eman (namely Ulla ha-Levi ha-Parnas b. Yosef); and Abū l-Surūr Faraḥ. The word "maẓālim" also appears. [PGPID 11676](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11676/): > Letter from al-Mufarrij b. al-Ḥusayn to his father Ismāʿīl(?). In part concerning a deposit (wadāʿa, line 8). Mentions travel to Damascus (ll. 10–11) and the danger of the roads (l. 13). The vast majority of this long letter consists of greetings. Many of the names are prefaced with the honorific "al-ḥājib," which, together with the hand and typical idioms, dates the letter to the Mamluk period. The people include: Sahl; Abū l-Khayr ʿUmar b. Khamīs(?); al-ṣabiyya wa-dāyatihā wa-bint dāyatihā wa-zawj bint dāyatihā; Thābit b. Nizār al-Bazzāz; Ibn Abū Saʿīd. He asks his father to look after the ṣabiyya (wa-lā taqṭaʿūnahā min birrikum wa-min al-masʾala ʿanhā fa-mā baqiya lī ʿindakum ghayruhā wa-law kānat ṭalaʿat al-maʿīsha...). Mentions Abū`\xa0`l-Thanāʾ al-Tājir al-Baghdādī, and many more people on verso. Needs further examination. Join: Alan Elbaum [PGPID 11709](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11709/): > Recto: Communal/administrative letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: likely ca. 1150–1250. Ordering payments to the usual people: Umm Nuṣayra the sister of Ḥayāʾ the wife of Yosef al-Nafūsī; [...] the wife of Hārūn the scribe; ʿAzīza "who is in the house"; someone else (Ḥanna?) who is also in the house; ʿAfīf the greengrocer (? al-bayyāʿ`\xa0`al-khuḍarī), and a couple others. [PGPID 11937](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/11937/): > Letter from the office of the Nagid Yehoshuaʿ Maimonides (d. 1355) to a certain Rabbenu Avraham "the diadem of [...]." Yehoshuaʿ informs Avraham that Sayf al-Dīn Bahādur appeared (before the court) and sued ʿIwāḍ the Alexandria for silver that he was owed. ʿIwāḍ had taken a strict oath not to travel without his creditors' consent—but of course he has done just that. Yehoshuaʿ instructs Avraham to inform ʿIwāḍ's wife that if her husband is with her, and he does not come forth, she too will be placed under the ban, and she will be obliged to pay the 'tarsīm' on his account (this probably refers to paying the debt for him, rather than the other meaning of tarsīm, which refers to the government fees for house arrest). Yehoshuaʿ emphasizes that the creditor is a good man, so his word can be believed; plus, he took a mighty oath that he is not playing a trick. On verso there is the response in Hebrew, signed by Avraham ha-Sefaradi. The hand is distinctly sefaradi and would probably have been dated to a couple centuries later if it weren't for the context. The text is very faded, but some information can be extracted: Avraham found either`\xa0`ʿIwāḍ or his wife or at least people who knew him and threatened to place a ban on him the next day under the authority of the Nagid, unless he paid up the 120 silver pieces that he owed—but ʿIwāḍ refused. Then, "people... to us in the name of ʿIwāḍ that he said that if... him, he will pay... the religion. See [what] should be done in the matter, and inform your slave the son of your maidservant. Avraham Sefaradi." (A previous cataloguer also saw the word "convert" somewhere in here.) OZ, AA, ASE. [PGPID 12107](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/12107/): > Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from a man to a woman regarding the education of the writer's son, who either lives with or is merely the pupil of the addressee. He first thanks her for her care and attention that she has lavished on his son, which have fulfilled his hopes for this arrangment—and then transitions into his chief disappointment. He has tested his son several times and found that he cannot sing (fa-lam ajidhu yaʿrifu yulaḥḥin wa-lā ʿindahu khabar min al-laḥn) and that he can hardly even read (wa-lā yuḥsin yatahajjā ḥarf wa-lā ʿindahu khabar min al-hijā' ra'san). He states that he is not happy with this result, not least because of all the favor (karāma) and money (not only dirhams but dinars) that he has given her. "For the most important thing for me is a beautiful and correct melody and pronunciation (al-laḥn al-malīḥ al-ṣaḥīḥ`\xa0`wa-l-hijāya). Do not allow him to mingle with youths or walk with youths in the street." The writer concludes by demanding that she teach him how to sing a couple nice qinnot (?) with cantorship (qiṭʿatayn qīnā milāḥ bi-laḥn ḥazzānī malīḥ. . . . wa-yakūnū min aḥsan qawl wa-aḥsan laḥn). He must be prepared to recite them in front of al-Shaykh al-Kabīr. No bibliography. ASE [PGPID 12417](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/12417/): > Recto (probably secondary use): Mercantile letter, possibly from Isḥāq b. I[brāhīm?] b. Isḥāq to Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Avraham b. Yosef(?) al-[...]nī. In Judaeo-Arabic, in a large Maghribī hand. The address (in the bottom margin) is barely legible. It would normally be written on verso, except that in this case verso was probably already occupied. Almost entirely concerned with trade in silk. Mentions Alexandria. Merits further examination. [PGPID 12441](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/12441/): > Letter probably to a dignitary called Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Ibrāhīm/Avraham. With a long Hebrew introduction, the body in Judaeo-Arabic, and the address in Arabic script. (The word "the fifth"/חמשי may appear after the address, but it is too damaged to be sure.) Dating: Probably 11th century. Little of the content is preserved. [PGPID 12721](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/12721/): > List of sums of money. Mentions names such as Bayān, Thābit, and Abū`\xa0`Saʿd (though the first two of these could also be common nouns). Interesting linguistic detail: five is spelt כמשה. [PGPID 12758](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/12758/): > Small fragment from a list of contributions to the poor. In Judaeo-Arabic. Includes several Byzantines (rūmī); al-murtaʿish ('the trembler' = someone with epilepsy?); a guard (al-shomer); a sick man (ḍaʿīf); Maʿānī; al-ʿAkkāwī; Fahd; the wife of the son of Yosef; an acquaintance of Ṣāʿid al-Firnās (probably Abū l-ʿAlāʾ`\xa0`Ṣāʿid aka ʿUlla b. Yosef ha-Levi, active ca. 1100); the wife of a 'stricken' man (zawjat al-mubtalā); the wife of al-Fuqqāʿī; Shimʿon; the brother of Hillel; and someone's divorcee. [PGPID 12808](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/12808/): > Lists of names according to different households/families. In the hand of Yedutun ha-Levi (late 12th`\xa0`to early 13th century). Many different names. An intriguing entry at the bottom of verso: "Yeshuʿa the young man who died with his father when the house collapsed on them." Same cluster: T-S Ar.6.28 (PGPID 1278), ENA 2592.24 (PGPID 12808), and T-S K15.46 (PGPID 23221). ASE [PGPID 15721](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/15721/): > 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`\xa0`Isḥāq al-Kohen. [PGPID 15964](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/15964/): > Draft of a contract for a 2-year partnership in a drug store (dukkān al-ʿiṭr). Faded. Names: [...] ha-Kohen; Abū Yaʿaqov ha-Ḥazzan; [...] b. Abū Munā(?). Handwriting of Hillel b.`\xa0`ʿEli? [PGPID 16156](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16156/): > Legal document concerning payments of large sums of money, mentioning precious objects of pearls and gold. The parties are Shemuʾel b. Yaḥyā ha-Kohen and Rabbenu Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuʾel. Also mentions Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd al-Ṣayrafī and retrieving 300 new dinars from where they were buried and paying them to Abū l-ʿAlāʾ. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 16262](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16262/): > Bill of sale of a slave. In Arabic script. Location: Fustat. Dated: first decade of Ramaḍān 483 AH, which is October/November 1090 CE. Seller: Ḥanūn b. ʿAllūn, the Christian clerk (kātib) in the Dār al-Dībāj (‘residence of the viziers’). Buyer: ʿArūs b. Yosef, a wealthy cloth merchant, many of whose accounts and letters are preserved in the Geniza. The sale is for a Christian woman named Qiwām, who has smallpox scars on her back (though Khan read this as "she has a son," ابن جاري rather than اثر جدري`\xa0`). Price: 21 dinars. There is a Judaeo-Arabic filing note on verso. (Information from CUDL, Khan, Aodeh, and Craig Perry.) [PGPID 16382](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16382/): > Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: Monday, 18 Adar II 1436 Seleucid = 24 March 1125 CE. No signatures. Involves Abū l-[...] Netanʾel b. Tamīm the physician (ha-Rofeʾ), Abū l-Faḍāʾil ʿOvadya b. Shemuel known as Ibn Baqāʾ, and [...] Ibn al-Baghdādī. The kunyas of Netanʾel and Ibn al-Baghdādī may be Abū l-ʿAlāʾ and Abū ʿUmar respectively. The case concerns a bundle (ruzma) of stalks of bamboo (khayzurān), which`\xa0`was supposed to be sold on behalf of one of the parties in al-Mahdiyya. Requires further examination to figure out the precise sequence of events and claims. (Information in part from CUDL.) Join: Alan Elbaum [PGPID 16419](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16419/): > Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Deed of a gift, granted by the wife of Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd to her daughter. It might specifically be a wedding gift. (Information in part from CUDL.) [PGPID 16552](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16552/): > Legal document mentioning Abū Saʿīd`\xa0`Ḥal[fon] and probably Abū Naṣr, in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 16651](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16651/): > Legal note in Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu? Dated: Sunday, 7 Tishrei 1532 Seleucid = 6 September 1220 CE. (The scribe wrote 1532 AM in error.) Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq b. Abū Sahl the cantor (=the brother of Yedutun ha-Levi and Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi) says that he cannot repay his debt because he is sick. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE [PGPID 16779](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16779/): > Recto, and lower part of verso: Legal document in the hand of Yosef b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya. Location: Fustat. Drawn up under the authority of the Gaʾon Sar Shalom ha-Levi. Dating: No later than 1193 CE (the legal document came before the letter draft, since the letter draft is crammed into the remaining margins). Sitt al-Ḥusn bt. Abū l-Makārim al-Tājir al-Kohen known as Ibn Qasāsa, who is the widow of Ṣāʿid b. Abū Manṣūr, declares before the court that she had previously reached a settlement with her half-sister (from the same father) Sitt Khafar, the wife of Yehuda al-Ṣāʾigh al-Maghribī, regarding the inheritance of their brother (from the same father) Abū ʿAlī al-Kohen al-Ṭabīb al-Muwaffaq. Several lines are missing here, but it seems the settlement was for 3.25 dinars, and Sitt al-Ḥusn acknowledges receipt of the money from Sitt Khafar. She has also received an unspecified sum from Sitt al-Maʿālī, the widow of the deceased brother Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī. She releases Sitt Khafar and Sitt al-Maʿālī from all further claims. > On verso there are two more drafts of legal documents in the hand of Yosef b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya; these are damaged and difficult to read. The first involves a woman named Sitt al-Sāda and mentions "70 dirhams every week." The second involves a physician ('al-ṭabīb al-sadīd) Abū l-Faraj b. Moshe Ibn al-Kharrāz and perhaps a power of attorney. These documents are comprised by the four big fragments T-S AS 145.165, T-S AS 145.167, T-S AS 145.168 and T-S AS 145.169; T-S AS 145.165 joins with T-S AS 145.168; the beginning of the document is on T-S AS 145.167 and is continued on T-S AS 145.169; mirrored script. (Information in part from CUDL.) AA. ASE. [PGPID 16788](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16788/): > Recto: Legal testimony. Dated Sunday, 2 Shevaṭ 14[..] Seleucid (or 146[.]?). The protagonists are Abū`\xa0`l-Fakhr and Abū Saʿd b. Naḥman. The witnesses state that somebody was coerced to pay a sum of money due to fear alone, and it was not a gift or charity. Signed by Yehoshuaʿ [b. Shemu]el(?) ha-Levi, Yeshaʿyahu b. Nissim and Yaḥyā b. Avraham. (Information in part from CUDL.) > On verso there is a very interesting first-person narrative in Arabic script probably summarizing the same case from the standpoint of one of the parties. "[...] my three brothers and their three wives prosecuted me with this at the time of my father's death, God's mercy be upon him, without any right (ḥaqq) or will (waṣiyya), and they took it from me [...] with slander and calumny, even though [my father] (God have mercy upon him) already paid them, and their [purpose?] is the enrichment of their wives (? ighnāʾ azwājihim), but with God the exalted is the [...], and He will not ignore [...] all of the adversaries." ASE [PGPID 16846](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16846/): > Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic, in an elegant hand with tall, flamingo-like lameds. The sender appears to be a well-connected physician or medical student. Dating: Probably 1170s–90s, based on the mention of Qarāqūsh. Some excerpts: "... I have not found a stable position... in Cairo until that thing is fulfilled... in Fustat... I sat... our Rabbi... the head of the physicians (muqaddam al-ṭibb)... a physician and said to me... Cairo, and sometimes with Abū l-Riḍā, and I stay with him two nights a week and learn from him... your excellence, for 30 dinars' brokerage... entered to Qarāqūsh (likely Bahāʾ al-Dīn Qarāqūsh, active in Egypt 1169–1201) and told him the situation, and he fired him. Your excellence should be reassured, because everything is going well for you. Your excellence should kindly send a letter to 'our master' (Sayyidnā) thanking him for his advocacy for you... does not open his door to a Jew... your slave Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq (=the sender?)... and Abū l-Riḍā and his mother kiss your feet... and Abū l-Ṭāhir sends his regards." (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE [PGPID 16893](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16893/): > Letter from the office of one of the later Maimonidean Nagids addressed to a certain Avraham. In Hebrew. With an undeciphered motto in the header (same as in BL OR 5561B.6). Begins with a mention of two wicked men who have been spreading slander, one named Yosef b. Abū`\xa0`l-Faraj. Also mentions Yehuda. Needs further examination. Verso contains a medical recipe in very faint Arabic script. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 16948](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16948/): > Letter from a certain Yishmaʿel. Written on the 7th of Av. The writer says he will bring the mat or chessboard (naṭʿ) with him when he comes with his father and al-ʿAfīf. They were only delayed due to the wedding of a woman in the family (al-ṣaghīra, spelled`\xa0`אלצגיגה). They received the marriage payment from Abū l-Badr b. al-Ḥakīm (‘Son of the Doctor’) ʿImrān (alternatively, he could be Abū l-Badr the son of the doctor ʿImrān. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 16986](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/16986/): > Letter in the hand of Yefet b. Menashshe to his brother Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. Fragment (upper left corner of recto). He confirms receipt of the previous letter which mentioned that Ḥakam had a dabīqī item and its cushions (mikhāddhā) and that he wished to have them cut (? qaṣārathum)`\xa0`— cf. Moss. II,123.1.2. Ḥakam said that he would send something to Dimyāṭ (Damietta). Regards to Abū Manṣūr Ibn Qasāsa. There is a needle piercing at the center of the top of the page. (Information in part from CUDL.) [PGPID 17112](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17112/): > Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Addressed to Fusṭāṭ, al-Muṣāṣa, the shop of Abū l-Thanāʾ`\xa0`the wine merchant (al-sharābī), to be delivered to Abū Naṣr known as Sabīkh (?) al-Sharābī. There is also a second address on verso: "to al-Rashīd to give it to his friend/partner." The sender is informing the addressee about items (ʿulayqāt, ḥuwayjāt) that he previously sent with Abū l-Riḍā. He asks for confirmation of receipt. "If I'd known they'd be delayed so long, I wouldn't have sent them." (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 17168](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17168/): > Letter of introduction, signed by Shemuel b. Avraham, in an unknown location, on behalf of Yosef b. Ḥelbo, addressed to a Jewish community (לכבודכם, although later uses singular אשריך). In Hebrew, written on parchment. Quite faded. The senders report that Yosef lived among them and was known for his good traits; that his ancestors were "[men of] a good name until the day they died"; that "he did not wish to take a wife"; that he requested this letter, addressed "to our brothers Israel... (attesting) that he is humble and shamefaced"; and they ask the addressees to treat him well, probably by giving him money. Ḥelbo (חלבו) is a rare name, and it is tempting to connect this figure to Menaḥem ben Ḥelbo (11th century), who indeed had a nephew named Yosef (Qara) —`\xa0`but that Yosef spent his life in Troyes. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE [PGPID 17357](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17357/): > Letter from Khaṣīb b. Musāfir to Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq [...] Ḥemdat ha-Yeshiva, the son of somebody who had the title Sheviʿi. Of the letter itself, only the ending is preserved (the upper margin of recto). The addressee is asked to open and shake out some goods. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 17518](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17518/): > Letter in the hand of Yefet b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Two fragments comprising the bottom part of the letter. Refers to the qāḍī Amīn al-Dawla Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī; a request that the addressee put in a good word for the bearer of this letter, Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī Ibn Qaṭāʾīf, who has never purchased goods from government bureaus (dīwān) or public auctions (ḥalqa) (והו מא ישתרי שי מן אלדיואן ולא מן חלקה ולא לה אסם בשרא חואיג מן דיואן) but who is being persecuted by the police (al-rajjāla) on account of his unemployment. There is a version of a raʾy clause toward the end. (Information in part from CUDL.) Join: Alan Elbaum. [PGPID 17583](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17583/): > Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: probably 13th century. Mentions many greetings. Names include: Mūsā; Yehuda; Sulaymān al-Kohen al-Ṣayrafī; Abū`\xa0`Naṣr b. Sālim; Hārūn; Abū l-ʿAlāʾ`\xa0`b. Nuʿmān; Namir; Abū l-ʿIzz al-Murahhiṭ (composer of liturgical poetry; he appears also in T-S K15.43 (PGPID 4619)); and Ibn Abū l-Ghayth. Also mentions commodities such as amomum (qāqulla). (Information in part from CUDL.) There are probably several joins waiting to be found. [PGPID 17661](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17661/): > Business letter in Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Abū`\xa0`Zikrī Kohen? Mentioning Abū l-Ḥasan b. Khulayf and issuing instructions about commodities such as fine Andalusian silk and pepper. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 17723](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17723/): > Fragment from a letter/petition from Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd Ibn al-Muʿallima to Maḍmūn b. [Ḥasan] the Nagid of Yemen. In Judaeo-Arabic, with long introductory formulae in Hebrew. Of note one of Maḍmūn's titles here is מרדכי הזמן, which later became typical of Maimonides' titles, but was not unique to him. The sender is a teacher in the Iraqi synagogue (מע]לם בכניסה אל[ער]אקיין) and also mentions a certain Shelomo [...] al-ḥaver. The continuation and almost all of the substance are missing. Likely he goes on to ask for financial support for the synagogue/community, as we find in other letters sent from Fustat to wealthy benefactors in Yemen edited in the India Book. (Information in part from CUDL and M. A. Friedman.) ASE [PGPID 17726](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17726/): > Letter from Ṭoviyya b.`\xa0`ʿEli ha-Kohen to his cousin the judge Natan b. Shelomo ha-Kohen (active 1125–50). Quite damaged. Needs examination for content. [PGPID 17765](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17765/): > Letter fragment from Abū`\xa0`Saʿd Ibn Nānū. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. Mentioning al-Rayyis and Abū ʿAlāʾ. The sender appear also in T-S AS 153.131 (PGPID 17805). (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 17913](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17913/): > Recto: Business letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Written in unusual blocky characters. Mentions names such as [...]n b. Ṭayyib; Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā(?); and Abū Yaʿqūb b. al-BL[...]. Mentions various quantities of commodities including chebulic myrobalan, clove, and Indian laurel; the sender has asked Abū`\xa0`Zikrī to help the addressee in selling these. He has also sent a qārūra of musk, and six(?) pairs of shoes ([sit]ta azwāj madāsāt). The Arabic marginalia looks like it's on a separate sheet that was stuck here. Verso is also a letter in Judaeo-Arabic, in a different hand, but too faded/damaged to read. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 17964](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/17964/): > Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe probably to one of his brothers. Perhaps to Peraḥya, since Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd (probably Ḥalfon) is greeted at the bottom. Fragment (thin strip from the lower right side of recto). Mentions cloves, salt, and a qāḍī (al-Muwaffaq). (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 18051](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/18051/): > Recto, with the address on verso: letter in Judaeo-Arabic from an unidentified sender (his name might appear in the address) to Abū l-Riḍā Nissim b. Shemuel. After a prolonged and deferential introduction, the substance of the message begins five lines from the bottom. As he had been instructed, the sender went to Abū l-Karam and paid him a sum of dinars. Abū Saʿīd brought a letter from 'al-mukhtār.' Mentions a rubāʿī (quarter-dinar coin).The margin contains other details about other transactions, mentioning Khalaf. ُ The sender reports that he is living in al-Ṣāfiyya (in the Delta, on the Rosetta branch of the Nile). Much of the rest is too faded to read, but might become legible with multispectral imaging. > Verso: Letter in Arabic script addressed to al-Qāḍī al-Ajall Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Qāḍī`\xa0`al-Muwaffaq. The whole page is preserved but the document is too faded to read much. (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE [PGPID 18053](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/18053/): > Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī Ḥusayn, Abū l-ʿAlāʾ, conveying gratitude to various people, the ships of the westerners (? marākib al-gharbiyya), and 100 dinars. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 18167](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/18167/): > Recto: list of names in Judaeo-Arabic such as Qurrat al-ʿAyn, ʿUthmān Dhū l-Nūrayn ("the possessor of two lights," an epithet for ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān), Zubayr, Saʿd and Saʿīd. These are probably "the ten to whom Paradise was promised" (al-ʿashara al-mubashsharūn"), in which case the third line may read (Ṭalḥa) b. ʿUbayd Allāh and (Abū`\xa0`ʿUbayda Ibn al-)Jarrāḥ. Verso: list in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 18215](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/18215/): > Accounting for an India trader, in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe? Mentions goods such as hyacinth and pepper, and their quantities, and many other goods; also mentions the customs in Qūṣ and the agents of the Ṣināʿa.`\xa0`(Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 18832](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/18832/): > Recto: Hebrew blessing; probably the closing line of a letter. Finishes with: u-lehistofef be-beto amen sela, followed by a diamond pattern of four dots. > Verso: One phrase —`\xa0`"the synagogue of the house of Farajūn" — in Judaeo-Arabic. > (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 18874](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/18874/): > Recto, with the address on verso: Letter from [...] b. [...] al-Ṣayrafī to Abū`\xa0`l-Ḥusayn [...] b. Mūsā. In Judaeo-Arabic. Damaged and faded. Dating: likely ca. 13th century (paleographic dating). Mentions Abū Sulaymān. Needs examination for content. > Verso (original use): Official-looking accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals: ومنها ما استخرج في يومي السبت والاحد . . . (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 18905](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/18905/): > Verso: Letter, probably. Dated 4890 from the creation and 1441 of the Seleucid Era (= 1130 CE); at the end of the letter important Jewish biblical figures are listed, such as Adam, Seth, Methusela, David, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc., and up to the Messiah (both Mashiaḥ`\xa0`b. David and Mashiaḥ b. Yosef). (Information from CUDL) [PGPID 19177](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19177/): > Legal document(s) in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (1100–38 CE). Writing on both sides. A settlement concerning arrangements for the dowry items of a woman and her husband Abū l-Faḍāʾil "peloni" (indicating that this is a draft). Also mentions Abū`\xa0`Yaʿqūb. [PGPID 19211](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19211/): > Legal document from Damietta [אי כפתור], dated the [2]7th of Tishrei 1467 Seleucid = 25 September 1155 CE, narrated in the voice of a woman (judging by ואנא קאעדה in the last line of recto). The writer tells how she returned from the synagogue and found the daughters of the sister of Abū l-Faḍl b. al-Ṣabbāgh in her house. One of them (her brother's widow?) claimed that the Dāʿī told her that the writer's brother had left three notebooks in her house (belonging to him?). The next day, the writer went to the wife of Abū l-Riḍā, who told her, "my husband the Dāʿī is a good man, don't hide anything from." So she handed over the key, and the Dāʿī and Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī [b.] Ḥassūn went up and ransacked her library and made off with 17 notebooks. BL OR 5554A.48 is either the continuation of this document or a different document related to the same case (mentions several of the same names and is also dated the 27th of Tishrei 1155 CE). ASE. [PGPID 19290](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19290/): > Three distinct documents in Arabic script, chopped in half vertically and then probably glued together into a rotulus in order to be reused for the Hebrew liturgical or literary text found on recto. > > 1) Deed of lease (hādhā mā`\xa0`istaʾjara Ṣāliḥ b. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad....). Dated: 484 AH = 1091/92 CE. > 2) State or legal document with a registration note at upper left (uthbita fī dīwān al-ishrāf bi-Miṣr). Also concerning the same Ṣāliḥ b. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī. Later on mentions ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī. > 3) Deed of acknowledgment (iqrār). The name of the person making the acknowledgment (the muqirr) appears in l. 2 followed by a physical description (... wāḍiḥ al-jabha...). In lines 4–5, the same Ṣāliḥ b. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAlī from the previous two documents appears. > > Needs further examination. [PGPID 19413](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19413/): > Letter addressed to Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī Aharon ha-Kohen b. Avraham. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, and quite eloquent. The addressee and his father have long strings of titles. Recto is entirely introductory blessings. The writer continues on verso with a strong rebuke for the lack of letters, especially because he has suffered "illnesses like no one has ever suffered before." He justifies his rebuke with an (unattributed) quote from Kitāb al-Zahra, the treatise on love by the 10th-century Muslim jurist Muḥammad b. Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī: "Without rebuking lapses, one can't preserve a friendship." The writer sends regards to Abū ʿImrān, who he fears is mad at him and wants to cut off their correspondence, because he hasn't responded to the writer's letters. Regards to Abū Saʿīd as well, and a nice astronomical blessing: פלא זאלת אפלאך עלוהא דאירה ושמס עזהא נאירה וכואכב סעדהא סאירה. ASE [PGPID 19464](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19464/): > Legal affidavit or court record. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Middle third of Shevat 1434 Seleucid, which is mid-January 1123 CE. But this dating is not certain, because it is very faded. In which Yefet b. ʿEli praises and acknowledges the help of Moshe ha-Sar b. Tiqva(?) and`\xa0`ʿEli ha-Levi b. Netanel, who intervened on his behalf with the Nagid (=Moshe b. Mevorakh, if the dating is correct). The document is very faded, but it appears that the matter has to do with the Palestinian synagogue as well as 'the congregation of the Cairenes.' [PGPID 19524](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19524/): > The first six leaves of a copy of the Ghurar al-Balāgha of Hilāl al-Ṣābi' —`\xa0`a book of formularies for letter-writing — copied in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Edited by Gottheil and discussed by Cohen in "Correspondence and Social Control in the Jewish Communities of the Islamic World," Jewish History 1, no. 2 (1986): 39-48. [PGPID 19538](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19538/): > Court record. Location: Fustat/Cairo. Dated: Shevaṭ`\xa0`5307 AM = 1546/47 CE. The case involves the payment of the ketubba for Esther, the widow of Moshe Castro, and a debt that the late Moshe was owed by the well-known merchant Avraham b. Shānjī, also dead. The story begins in Jerusalem when the widow demanded payment from Shemuel b. Avraham Ibn Shānjī that he repay the debt of his father (80 Venetian ducats). Later, in Fustat/Cairo, the case came before the judge David Ibn Abi Zimra. See A. David's edition on FGP for further information. [PGPID 19595](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19595/): > Legal document in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragmentary, so difficult to figure out the details. Sets out provisions for the care of a minor boy until he comes of age. Mentions a female slave (al-jāriya al-kabīra) twice, once in the context of someone being granted ownership (תצרפת`\xa0`פי גאריתהא`\xa0`תצרף אלמלאך). [PGPID 19913](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/19913/): > Legal document. In Arabic script. Approximately the 17 bottom lines are preserved, densely and neatly written. Dating: at least twice mentions 18 Shaʿbān 421 AH = 21 August 1030 CE; also refers to an earlier document dated Jumādā I 421 AH. Involves the qāʾid Yumn al-Dawla Abū l-ʿAlāʾ`\xa0`Saʿāda al-Ẓāhirī (could be identical with the governor of the citadel of Aleppo by this name several years earlier, mentioned by Ibn al-ʿAdīm, see https://shamela.ws/book/9872/113). He pays the 10 2/3 dinars which he owes to Abū ʿUbaydallāh ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh b. Yaḥyā al-Ḥasanī(?) for (rent for?) a period of one year (this is the year beginning 18 Shaʿbān 421 AH), and receives a release in return. Both four and seven lines from the bottom, Abū`\xa0`ʿUbaydallāh ʿAbdallāh is named together with (his sister?) Fāṭima (واقر كل واحد من ابو عبيد الله عبد الله وفاطمة ابن احمد . . . ). Reused on recto for Hebrew literary text. There are pinpricks all along the edges of the paper. Merits further examination. ASE [PGPID 20371](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/20371/): > Synagogue accounts. Dating: 18th or 19th century. Probably headed Seder Balaq rather than Seder Kalla (as the Baker/Polliack catalog has it). List of names and numbers, some associated with honors in the synagogue service (e.g., 9 — haftara`\xa0`— Shelomo Ashkenazi). Other names are al-Shaykh; Yosef b. Yoqer; Eliyyahu Condiote; Shemuel(?) Fuerte. On verso there are more accounts in Judaeo-Arabic, mainly listing foods: almonds, hazelnuts, chard, fava beans. [PGPID 20547](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/20547/): > Fragment from a legal deed. In the hand of the court scribe Yosef b. Shemuel ha-Levi. One of the parties is Eliyyahu ha-Levi, who is titled פאר [ה . . . .] רצוי הנשיאות. Another is Abū`\xa0`l-Riḍā. May concern a loan of 85 dinars to be repaid over a period of 2 years. AA. ASE. [PGPID 20555](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/20555/): > Letter addressed to Abū l-Faraj Yosef b. Yaʿaqov (Ibn ʿAwkal) and his two sons Hilāl/Hillel and Binyamin. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Rabīʿ I 407 AH, which is 1016 CE (this is the date of the arrival of the letter, recorded in Arabic script next to the address). The name of the sender is faded, but may be legible with effort. The sender has recently lost his only son in a particularly traumatic way (at sea?). There is no grave to visit and feel consoled, and there was no period of illness during which his father could care for him (this part is not completely clear, ll.4–5). "It is now a month and a half that my weeping [is greater?] than the waves of the sea." The bottom part of recto and the upper part of verso are torn away. At some point he turns to business matters and mentions various sums of money. This letter is uncited in the literature. Cf. CUL Or.1080 J154 for another letter addressed to Ibn ʿAwkal and his two sons from 8 years earlier. (Evidently Ibn ʿAwkal's other two sons Abū Sahl Menashshe and Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd Khalaf were not born until after 1016?). For information on Ibn ʿAwkal and his family, see Stillman, "The Eleventh Century Merchant House of Ibn ʿAwkal (A Geniza Study)," JESHO 16 (1973), 15–88. [PGPID 20599](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/20599/): > Recto: Arabic poetry in Arabic script. The antepenultimate and penultimate lines are from a poem by Abū`\xa0`Tammām: https://www.aldiwan.net/poem30596.html. The rest is more difficult. Verso and a couple lines on recto: Hebrew prayers. ASE. [PGPID 20646](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/20646/): > Commercial receipt (see tag). Dated: 27 Muḥarram 498 H. For Abū l-Faḍl Jaʿfar b.`\xa0`ʿAlī al-Dimashqī. The commodity is mentioned is lac(lacquer) and the quantity is 300 bales arṭāl. The document is registered at the court of the chief justice Abī Yaḥyā al-Fāriqī. On verso there is a line of accounts or other notation in Judaeo-Arabic. Needs examination. [PGPID 20778](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/20778/): > Fiscal receipt of some sort. In Arabic script. Beginning "وصل الى بيت المال المعمور..." Mentions the beginning of al-Muḥarram of the year [..]5; a sum of 2 dinars; the capitation taxes of Cairo and Fustat; Hiba b. Bū`\xa0`ʿAlī the Jew; and a sum of 2 dinars again. Needs further examination. [PGPID 21024](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/21024/): > Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Possibly a draft, as it is covered with subsequent jottings. Addressed to 'the brother' Abū`\xa0`l-ʿAlā' (this is not completely clear; line 4). Only in line 10 does the body of the letter begain (wa-ghayra dhālika). The writer reports that he lay sick in the house for a whole month(?), but then God had mercy and delivered him from his illness (وغير ذلك اعلم الاخ اني مرضت وقمت في البيت شهر(?) ايام ولطف الله سبحانه... المملوك وخلصه من الالم الذي كان...). There are greetings to various people in the margin, including to the writer's maternal aunt Hanā(?) and her son Nuṣayr and to Nadd and Ṣafā l-ʿAyn(?). Verso: Letter drafts? Covered with Arabic script (and the Hebrew phrase שובה ישראל), but less organized than recto and more difficult to decipher. Needs further examination. [PGPID 21043](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/21043/): > Recto: Two drafts of the opening of an Arabic petition from Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī b. Abū l-ʿIzz al-Yahūdī to a ruler, in which he introduces himself as a maker of kohl. Dating: looks Ayyubid-era, but this is a guess. > > Verso: Amorous poetry in Arabic script and accounts in Judaeo-Arabic, mentioning "white" and "red" commodities weighed in ounces, a kind of stone, mercury, and the name Abū`\xa0`l-ʿAlāʾ. AA. ASE. [PGPID 21059](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/21059/): > Legal document in Arabic script. Acknowledgment (iqrār). Made by al-Amīr al-Muʾayyad ʿIzz al-Mulk Iftikhār al-Dawla Fityān b. Sayf(?) al-[...] Bū l-Qasam(?) "from the ṭāʾifa of [...]," the muqṭaʿ [...] in the district of [...]. In which he acknowledges owing al-Qāḍī Abū l-Maʿālī b. al-Qāḍī`\xa0`al-Mukhliṣ Thiqat al-Mulk 11 irdabbs of wheat and 7 irdabbs of barley, and possibly other things. He will pay the debt by Muḥarram 547 AH = April/May 1152 CE. The document itself is dated 13 Shaʿbān 546 AH = 25 November 1151 CE. The scribe is Ṣāliḥ b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. There are two witness signatures. ASE > > At 180 degrees and in a different hand/pen, there is a list of ordinal numbers (awwal, thānī, thālith, etc.), each followed by a word that looks like ىاب, and then a Greek/Coptic numeral. > > On verso there are Hebrew piyyutim. [PGPID 22401](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/22401/): > List of debts. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer is owed money by the wife of Zakkay, Salmān, and Ibrāhīm. There is also mention of items of jewelry like rings (khātim) and anklets (khalākhil) accompanied by names such as Abū`\xa0`ʿAbdallāh. AA [PGPID 22472](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/22472/): > Letter from Menashshe b. Shemuel, possibly in Damietta, to Abū`\xa0`l-Barakāt b. Ṣadaqa, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Ca. 1153–56 CE, since T-S 10K20.1 is a synagogue calendar for those years which mentions the same Abū l-Khayr Ṣadaqa and Abū l-Ḥasan b. Ḥashīsh who are mentioned in this letter. The sender expresses his sympathy for some distressing event and makes excuses for why he hasn't been writing. He sends regards to a Kohen and to Abū Saʿd. He has heard that Abū l-Ḥasan b. Ḥashīsh is planning to come to Damietta to collect the gold owed to him. He is annoyed about this, apparently because he planned to come to Fustat and pay. He concludes with greetings for the addressee's father-in-law (right margin) and to Abū l-Khayr Ṣadaqa (upper margin). (But note that this Abū l-Khayr Ṣadaqa is not the addressee's father, since that Ṣadaqa is dead.) On verso, at 180 degrees to the address, there is a list of about a dozen names in Arabic script, e.g., Bū Isḥāq Maʿālī, Abu l-Faḍl, [...] al-ʿAṭṭār, Bū l-Munā, Yūsuf. Some family relations are given. Significance unclear. AA. ASE. [PGPID 22547](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/22547/): > Petition/letter of appeal for charity, in Arabic script, addressed to the qāḍī`\xa0`ʿImād al-Mulk. The writer mentions his distress (al-shidda wa-l-ḍīqa wa-l-khawf). Later (three lines from the bottom) he clarifies that he is scared of the collectors of the capitation tax (aṣḥāb al-jawālī). [PGPID 23361](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/23361/): > Recto: Looks like a leaf from a qāḍī`\xa0`court ledger. Copies of two documents are preserved, with signatures. Needs examination. On verso there is a letter in Judaeo-Arabic (see separate record). [PGPID 23387](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/23387/): > Legal fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Mentions payment in installments; 200 dinars; and the price of the myrobalan. Signed: Shelomo b. Mevorakh ha-Ḥaver and Shelomo b. Saʿadya. There is an addendum with a first-person declaration by Hillel b.`\xa0`ʿEli mentioning Abū l-Ḥusayn Yaḥ[yā] b. Shemuel ha-Kohen and Mevorakh b. Yeshuʿa. There is a validation (qiyyum) underneath in a different hand. [PGPID 23586](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/23586/): > List of names (e.g., al-shaykh Abū`\xa0`ʿAbdallāh) and sums of money in Arabic script. Unclear if private or official. Evidently cut up and reused for the binding of a book with Hebrew piyyuṭ. [PGPID 23881](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/23881/): > Deed of betrothal (erusin). In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (dates: 1100–38). Drawn up under the authority of Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`Gaon (dates: 1127–39). Fiancée: Malka, a divorcee. Her brother is her agent. Possibly witnessed by [Natan b. Shelom]o ha-Kohen. (Information from Ashur's edition.) [PGPID 24161](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24161/): > Court record. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (1100–38 CE) under the reshut of Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`Gaʾon (1127–38). Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa b. Menashshe ha-Levi al-Jubaylī Rosh ha-Qahal (the head of the congregation) passed away without leaving anything to his son Abū ʿAlī, who now demands his share. Also mentions the brother of the deceased. AA. ASE. [PGPID 24163](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24163/): > Mercantile letter. On parchment. Dating: Early 11th century. The address is only partially legible and written in a confusing way. The sender appears to be al-Faḍl b. Yūsuf. The addressee is Abū l-Surūr Faraḥ b. Yehuda al-Kīnānī(?) known as ṣāḥib (the friend of?) al-Baradānī; underneath is written "to Abū`\xa0`l-[Faraj] Yūsuf b. Yaʿqūb Ibn ʿAwkal" (the most prominent merchant in the Geniza documents of this period). The letter was sent to him "either in Fustat or al-Ramla." The sender may be in Tripoli. He is angry about something to do with a huge shipment of 581 cases of "that damned tutty" (tūtiyāʾ, zinc oxide) and a financial loss that is "beyond repair. . . you have destroyed us." He bemoans his loss of reputation among "the Tripolitans, the Sicilians, the Maghribīs, and the Levantines, let alone among the Baghdādīs." Mentions the arrival of a group of traders who had been in Egypt, among them Abū ʿImrān Mūsā b. Yaḥyā Ibn al-Ṭaḥḥāla. Mentions the (arrival of?) the ship of ʿArūs. The letter concludes with something about a woman named Sitt ʿAlam. Uncited in the literature & should be edited. AA. ASE [PGPID 24267](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24267/): > Legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (1100–38 CE). Apparently a debt contract. Abū`\xa0`Zikrī owes a large sum of money (80 dinars is mentioned) to Ṣedaqa. He will pay in monthly installments. New Cairo is mentioned. AA. ASE. [PGPID 24334](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24334/): > Almost complete but faded and damaged business letter. To Abū`\xa0`Ibrāhīm Isḥāq b. [...]. Dating: 11th century. Handwriting of Nahray b. Nissim? Mentions buying something from Ibn al-Dībājī, in the funduq near Ṭā[hi?]r al-Sammāṭ (the necklace maker), who lives with Riḍā b. Dalgha(?), which you see in front of you as you enter from the funduq. Mentions Ibn Sughmār in the margin. AA/ASE. [PGPID 24348](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24348/): > Fragment of a legal deed. Written by Halfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (dates: 1100–38 CE). Probably a deed of a gift, involving Abū`\xa0`l-Jūd, Ṣedaqa, and Abū Saʿd. A third of a total is mentioned. If someone violates the terms, there is a 100-dinar fine to the poor in Fustat. [PGPID 24376](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24376/): > Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe ha-Levi. He is agitated about something ("the knife has reached the bone"), mentions a qāḍī`\xa0`and appeals to ʿaṣabiyya to urge the addressee to rapidly and secretly fulfill a mission for him (obtaining a document/receipt?): ומא תם וצול ללופא עלי מא . . . . . אלעצביה פי אכד אלכתב מן . . . . . . סרעה [PGPID 24528](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24528/): > Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Probably from Yehuda Ibn al-ʿAmmānī, in Alexandria, to Abū l-Majd Meir b. Yakhin, in Fustat. (Identification based on handwriting, typical layout, and references to family members; cf. T-S 12.299 and T-S 8J22.31.) Dating: Early 13th century. On one side, mentions Abū Saʿīd Khalaf the cantor; Ibn Bū`\xa0`l-Zakkār; Umm Bū l-Ḥusayn; and the mother of the addressee. On the other side, reports that the addressee's brothers Saʿīd and Hil[āl] are in good health. If Yehuda manages to find his copy of Ḥullin, he will send it. As for Abū l-[...] the Shammash, he has a very difficult character. They arranged a public charity collection (pesiqa) as requested. But apparently he only received 3 3/4 dirhams. Yehuda asks Meir to meet with R. Yeḥiel. ASE [PGPID 24536](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24536/): > Letter in Judaeo-Arabic (recto) and Hebrew (verso). From the well-known scribe Abū l-Mufaḍḍal Shelomo b. Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi (titled al-Dayyān al-Maskil); Shelomo was active until ca. 1231 CE. He has made copies (nusakh) of certain books. He is extremely grateful for the addressee's role in selling books. He has sent several more books with the bearer, including some in Hebrew (perushim wa-baʿḍ lughawāt [...]) and some in Arabic on logic and medicine. Among the latter: (1) al-Kāfī fī l-Ṭibb by Abū`\xa0`Naṣr Ibn al-ʿAyn Zarbī (d. 1153/54 CE) in the hand of Rabbenu Shelomo ha-Dayyan (ZL); (2) A volume in the hand of Abū Naṣr Ibn al-ʿAyn Zarbī himself(!), comprising 3 books: (2a) al-Kawn wa-l-Fasād (by Ibn Bājja?), (2b) Kitāb al-Maḍnūn bihi ʿalā ghayr Ahlihi by al-Ghazālī, (2c) Masʾala fī l-Nafs wa-mā Taṣīru Ilayhi by Ibn Sīnā; (3) two booklets (juzʾ) containing "The Eight" by Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, missing one section; (4) three booklets containing Sharḥ al-Burhān in the hand(!) of Ibn Fātik. This portion of the letter is torn away around here. Verso may contain the continuation and ending, but it is quite faded and more difficult to understand. ASE [PGPID 24701](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24701/): > Very faded bill of release from Bū Isḥāq b. Bū l-Karam Ibn al-Dayyān, for Bū l-Maʿānī (or Bū`\xa0`l-Maʿālī) and Bū Naṣr the sons of al-shaykh al-amīn(?) Bū l-Fakhr(?). Mentions 1.5 dinars. Dating: 12th or 13th century. Not signed so might be a draft. On verso some Arabic words- needs examination. [PGPID 24872](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24872/): > Bottom of a legal deed in Arabic script. Dated: Rabīʿ`\xa0`I 49[.] AH (=1097–1105 CE). Three witness signatures preserved. Needs further examination. [PGPID 24945](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24945/): > Report. In Arabic script. Headed: al-ʿizza lillāh waḥdahū. Might be a draft, since there are some extra jottings in the same hand around the first few lines of the report. There is also one line in Arabic script on verso. Dating: Likely Ayyubid era based on hand, overall appearance, and typical titles; may mention Rabīʿ`\xa0`I 632 AH, which would be 1234 CE if correctly deciphered (l. 12). From ʿAbdallāh the mushārif al-jawālī (a diwan official—the supervisor of the capitation taxes). He is reporting on something to do with Abū ʿAlī and his brother Ṭāhir (are they jahbadhs?). Underneath the latter's name appears the Greek/Coptic numeral for 70. There is a remaining payment due either of 3 dinars or of 3 dinars every month. At the bottom, the name Hibatallāh b. Bū l-Faraj appears. In the margins and on verso there is Hebrew literary text. Merits much more examination. ASE [PGPID 24993](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/24993/): > Fragment of a Maghrebi mercantile letter of the 11th century. In Judaeo-Arabic. Written on parchment. Mentions that ʿAyyāsh b. Danūn is in Sicily. Other people mentioned: Yehuda al-Fāsī, the Rav, R. Elḥanan, Abū`\xa0`Yaʿaqov, and Abū ʿImrān Mūsā Ibn al-Majjānī. AA. ASE. [PGPID 25002](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25002/): > Letter from Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to a certain Abū Isḥāq, who is addressed as "the esteemed and precious brother." In Judaeo-Arabic. Fragmentary (top part only). Shelomo says that he rode up to the shop and asked the addressee's cousin (ibn khāl) Abū`\xa0`l-Faḍl where the addressee had gone, but Abū l-Faḍl didn't know. On verso there is a list of names followed by Greek/Coptic numerals and one sentence from the Mishneh Torah, all in the hand of Shelomo. AA. ASE. [PGPID 25011](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25011/): > Letter from a father to a son. In Arabic script. Fragment (upper half only). Recto contains only the formulaic opening greetings. Verso contains closing greetings from the addressee's mother and sister, from the whole family, from Hiba, from Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī, and from Sitthum. [PGPID 25138](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25138/): > Recto: Upper part of an official letter/report. In Arabic script. The handwriting looks Ayyubid or Mamluk-era. Moderately wide line spacing. Opens with a taqbīl and salutations for al-majlis al-sāmī al-ajallī al-ʿālī al-mawlawī al-makhdūmī etc. Mentions terms such as "al-dīwān al-maʿmūr" and "al-khidma." Needs examination for content. > > In between the lines and in the upper margin: there is a draft of another letter in Arabic script, possibly in the same handwriting, addressed to Abū l-Futūḥ. Also mentions al-Qāḍī Mūsā, another Qāḍī (al-ajall al-wajīh al-mukarram al-aʿazz al-sadīd)`\xa0`Jalāl al-Dīn, and Abū l-Makārim al-Kātib (same as in T-S 10J6.3 (PGPID 3042)?). > > Verso: The upper section is an unidentified text in Arabic script, maybe a draft of in iqrār. Underneath there are some pen trials, mainly in Arabic script but at the bottom in Judaeo-Arabic, and a transcription of one verse of the Fātiḥa with an awkward error (اياك ان اعبد واياك ان استعين). [PGPID 25331](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25331/): > Damaged bill of release written by Halfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (1100–38 CE). In which [...] b. Ḥusayn al-ʿAṭṭār releases his maternal uncle Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq Avraham b. Yeshuʿa known as Ibn Nissim from all claims. Cf. Bodl. MS heb. c 28/4 (PGPID 6419). AA. ASE. [PGPID 25474](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25474/): > Letter from a man to his 'brother'. In Judaeo-Arabic, rudimentary script and spelling. He informs him that he has "fallen" into the ḍamān (tax farm) of Minyat Badr (near Tinnīs) with Abū`\xa0`Saʿd and that he cannot leave, otherwise he would go up (presuambly to Fustat/Cairo) in person. He has sent some money for purchases and sends regards to various people. ASE. [PGPID 25525](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25525/): > Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions: a 'moshav' (court session?) on Thursday; Rabbi Yiṣḥaq; a dispute over expenses accrued over 9 months, and sums of 8 dinars and 10 dinars, deposits, and witnesses; a letter or document from Abū l-Faḍl from Damascus, and a letter or document from Abū`\xa0`ʿAlī b. Sālim; mentions the Rayyis; greetings at the end. AA. ASE. [PGPID 25560](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25560/): > Right side of a court record, so only a few words from the beginning of each line are preserved. Mentions Yehuda Beḥir ha-Yeshiva; quotes someone's speech to his son; sending good or money; the eventuality that if the ships do not arrive; the winter in the Maghrib; and something "Abū`\xa0`ʿImr[ān] asked me." [PGPID 25751](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25751/): > Court record written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi (1100–38 CE). Fragment (upper left piece). Regarding 20 dinars and involving Peraḥya the elder, Avraham b. Sason (cf. ENA 2558.1 (PGPID 6621) and Moss. VII,71 (PGPID 2751)) , Abū`\xa0`l-Ḥasan b. Asad, Abū Isḥāq, and Yosef ha-Kohen. Maybe a partnership agreement. [PGPID 25818](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25818/): > Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Mentioning a letter of a qāḍī Abū Muḥammad al-Nāʾib. Asks for news of Abū l-Surūr and if he has traveled to the west (al-Gharb) or not. Greetings to al-Muʿallā (=ha-Meʿulle?), Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq, and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ. Verso: Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Needs further examination. [PGPID 25897](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25897/): > Letter from a woman to her son. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 11th century. She may be writing from Ifrīqiyya (based on typical handwriting and orthography). The letter is headed בשם אל עליון, which is unusual. There is no formulaic opening (except ammā baʿd), so perhaps this is the continuation of a previous page or recent letter. Mentions Ḥayyim b. ʿUmar (=Ḥayyim b. ʿAmmār?) and a request to write to the boy of Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān b. Ibrāhīm b. al-[...]. The letter is quite faded and damaged, and it is difficult to figure out more. [PGPID 25929](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25929/): > Distribution list for public charity. In Judaeo-Arabic, transitioning to Arabic script on verso. Dating: Perhaps ca. 13th century, but that is a guess. There are markings next to many of the names, perhaps indicating whether or what they received. There are numerous diminutive forms and some interesting profession names. The beneficiaries include: Abū`\xa0`Yaʿqūb; Barhūn; Abū Zikrī; גזוק; Mūsā; Abū Sahl; Ibn al-ʿAjamī; Surayr; Ṣudayqa; Buraykāt and his mother; מגא; אשוימי; the ear cleaner (munaqqī al-adhān); Ibn Sulaymān; the sons of the killed man; the Kohen; al-maʿārīf; Fuḍayl; Mawhūb; al-jār and his mother; the disabled man (al-muqʿad); the teachers; the blind; Isḥāq; Sulaymān; the Lādhiqī; the Baʿalbakkī; Maḥfūẓ; al-Ramādī; the brother of the disabled man; Khallūf b. al-Dabbāgh; the Baghdadi; the philosopher. The total sum distributed may be given in Arabic script at the bottom left of verso. [PGPID 25948](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/25948/): > Business letter. In Hebrew. Beginning only. Dating: Late, perhaps 16th century. Mentions someone named David Ibn al-Khayr as well as the goods אפלמור`\xa0`(lime or linden?) and חאיר (=khiyār/cassia fistula?). Information from A. David via FGP. [PGPID 26071](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/26071/): > Several fragments from a business letter written by Yefet b. Menashshe ha-Levi to his brother Ḥalfon. In Judaeo-Arabic. Informing him that he sent something with Abū l-Barakāt. Also mentions: a Ṭabarī mattress (martaba); someone or something which arrived with Nahray; and Bū l-Surūr. Yefet has sent the addressee with Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān a piece of steel (fūlādh). The addressee is to sell it and buy oil for Dammūh with the proceeds. Further down mentions "all the Jews" (jamīʿ al-yahūd), and mentions musk in the margin. T-S NS 342.34 may also be part of the same letter (lower right corner). AA/ASE. Joins: Alan Elbaum and Oded Zinger.. [PGPID 26139](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/26139/): > One side: Order from Shelomo b. Eliyyahu addressed to Abū`\xa0`l-Ḥasan. In Judaeo-Arabic. Abū l-Ḥasan is to give the bearer 1/4 raṭl sour pomegranate rubb (condensed juice); 1/4 raṭl apple rubb; 1/4 raṭl of something barley-based. Other side: Medical prescription in Arabic script. Begins "God is the one who cures in His mercy." Uses chicory seeds, borage, sandalwood, licorice, and bamboo chalk. ASE [PGPID 26452](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/26452/): > Mercantile accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 11th century. Mentions Ibn al-Anṣārī and Abū`\xa0`ʿAbdallāh. Needs further examination. [PGPID 26495](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/26495/): > Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th or 12th century. Mentions Abū`\xa0`ʿAbdallāh, al-Sharīf, and various dates, weights, and sums of money. [PGPID 26551](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/26551/): > Mercantile letter. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th century. Mentions somebody in Sūsa; Abū Zikrī al-Ṭabīb; a container of sal ammoniac; pepper; and Abū`\xa0`Saʿd (or Saʿīd) Maymūn b. Khalfa. [PGPID 26566](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/26566/): > Letter addressed to Abū`\xa0`Yaʿqūb [...] b. Nissim. In Judaeo-Arabic. Small fragment. Mentions Yehuda Rosh Kall[a?]. Possibly a request for help or charity. [PGPID 26696](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/26696/): > Fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic letter. Includes the intriguing instructions: "Please go to . . . [and find] the female slave named Ḥidhq and greet her . . . and give her the letter and tell her to deliver it to the house where she slept. . . This is my greatest request. Do not give it to someone who will deceive me and [deliver it] to the mother of the boy (?)."`\xa0`ASE. [PGPID 27113](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/27113/): > Legal document. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe? Involves a certain Rosh ha-Qehillot; the orphans of Tamīm ha-Kohen; a list of luxury goods (e.g. ambergris and pearl bracelets)`\xa0`— this is part of a legal formula as all of them are negated; and a certain Moshe. Needs examination. [PGPID 27414](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/27414/): > Description from NLI 577.10/1: > Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably late 12th or early 13th century; this range can probably be narrowed based on the people mentioned, including the Ayyubid-sounding al-Muʿaẓẓam. Recto is mainly business dealings, including with "Rabbenu" and al-Shaykh al-Yesod. Mentions purchasing 5 dinars' worth of wheat for the upcoming year. The sender is distressed about something, in addition to his earlier loss of the gold that had been left with Hārūn. At the bottom and in the margin mentions Abū l-Majd, Makārim al-Wakīl the collector for the compound of the מלכיין, Ṣafiyy al-Dawla, Ibn Sibāʿ, and Raḍiyy al-Dawla. Then mentions an "original deed" (of sale?) and its witnesses, possibly including Abū Naṣr b. [...], and another deed (or ketubba?) written and/or signed in Qūṣ by Abū Saʿd b. Abū שפה, Karam b. Mufaḍḍal, and Munajjā Ibn al-Maḥallī. The sender has enclosed "it" (money?) together with the letter to be forwarded to "them," which they should not pay now, but only pay if it becomes necessary ("for nothing is permanent but God"). The next part of the letter includes multiple urgings to take care of the necessary renovations in the house, also mentions a woman who has "no relative, no in-law, no brother, and no friend except for you and like you." At the bottom of verso, the addressee is told to speak to the elder Fakhr al-Ṣanāʾiʿ (a master craftsman?) who belongs to the entourage (min ghilmān) of al-Muʿaẓẓam > > Description from T-S 8.22: > Letter addressed to Abū ʿImrān b. Abū l-Faraj al-Kohen. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 1168–1204 CE, based on the reference to Maimonides ("our Rabbi Moshe"). The letter mentions: Ṣafiyy al-Dawla ('al-muḥtashim') and Abū l-Ḥasan the partner of the sender; a warehouse (al-makhzan); an eighth of a dinar; Makārim Ibn al-Amshāṭi and the rent of the warehouse; transferring something to a ṭārma (Nile boat cabin); the word דבשנא ("our honey"?); ʿĪsā Ibn al-Ajlaḥ ("bald on one side of the head"); Abū l-Khayr b. Mufaḍḍal; possibly a physician (al-ḥakīm); someone who is 'long of ears' (ṭawīl al-adhān) and clever (shāṭir); a deed of release and a power of attorney; Hiba al-Labbān and various collaterals; Zayn b. Saʿīd; the town of Qalyūb; Alexandria; a request that the addressee meet with the elder Fakhr al-Ṣanāʾiʿ; Rabbenu Moshe (likely Maimonides); greetings to the addressee's father Abū l-Faraj Beḥir ha-Kohanim; to Abū l-Fakhr al-ʿAṭṭār; al-shaykh al-yesod; Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān al-Tifʾeret; Abū l-Faḍl; and Abū l-Makārim. > > Join: Alan Elbaum. The two pieces likely join directly, but requires further examination; is possible there is still a third missing piece between them. [PGPID 29255](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/29255/): > Recto: List of the opening lines of twenty dirges, followed by a note to Bū`\xa0`l-Majd: "O my master the elder Bū l-Majd (=Meʾir b. Yakhin?), I've written the openings of these from memory, since I looked for the book and couldn't find it. There are some for an old man, for a youth, for an infant, and for a woman, whichever ones you like out of these twenty dirges, let me know... and I will write them out for you. May your peace increase." At 90 degrees there is another note in Judaeo-Arabic, in a different hand, possibly the response, but it is difficult to read. There are also a few undeciphered words in Arabic script and an Aramaic pen trial (נסיונא קולמוסא). (Information in part from CUDL) [PGPID 30049](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30049/): > Upper part of a damaged court record, from the court of Maṣliaḥ`\xa0`Gaʾon (1127–39). Involves Yeshuʿa and someone's sister Milāḥ bt. Ḥalfon. Reused on recto for piyyuṭ. [PGPID 30143](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30143/): > A much damaged letter from Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, probably writing from Qalyub, to a family member, probably his father in Fustat. He has sent some money with the bearer and gives very detailed instructions for the drugs to be bought with it--including from which stall and which vendor--such as pomegranate seeds from al-Mahallah and a rhubarb-barberry concoction. On verso he asks his family to send him something that has to do with R. Moshe, plausibly a fatwa that he had sent for Maimonides to answer (such as T-S 10K8.3`\xa0`+ T-S 8K13.8, in his handwriting); or it is just someone else named R. Moshe. He brings up a man named Isma'il from al-Mahallah, known as Ibn al-Mu'allim; at the end he encourages the recipient to treat this Isma'il well, because he is poor and a stranger and from a good family. Isma'il has a notebook stashed with a man named Ibn al-[[rubbed out]], and the recipient is meant to retrieve it and find the chapters having to do with love [spells?]. The recipient is then to "do them" to various women in the family of Moshe's paternal uncle (so the brother of the likely recipient) including the uncle's wife, his mother, and her daughter (=Moshe's wife?). This reading is uncertain. But other letters of Moshe survive about his sometimes problematic relationship with his wife and also about domestic problems in his paternal uncle's family. Perhaps this is a novel effort to bring peace to the family (and/or try to make his wife desire him). ASE [PGPID 30187](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30187/): > Iqrār (acknowledgment) made by "al-majlis al-ʿālī`\xa0`Qāʾidbāy al-Muʾayyad." Dating: catalogued as 512 AH but more likely 12 Shawwāl 812 AH (or 912 AH?). Potentially linked to Michaelides 1. Needs examination. [PGPID 30321](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30321/): > Fragment (upper part) of a Judaeo-Arabic letter to Avraham Maimonides from al-Muhadhdhab ha-Kohen b. Manṣūr (or Merayot?) ha-Kohen. From the body of the message that remains, al-Muhadhdhab describes his distress on account of the tax (אלמס) he owes.`\xa0`On verso there is also a piece of a letter (a postscript?) with blessings for Eliyya ha-Sar; the address "to be delivered to Eliyya ha-Dayyan" is also preserved, broken into two pieces from how the paper was glued and torn open. [PGPID 30327](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30327/): > Fragment (lower left corner) of a Judaeo-Arabic letter probably from a woman to a male family member. Dating: likely 12th or 13th century. She requests that he send quickly`\xa0`the scarf/veil (miqnaʿa) and the zandiyya (bracelet?). She discusses the prospective visit of Maḥāsin who plans to visit her in the city. She adds a postscript that she is doing well. In a second postscript she writes that she is in a tremendous hurry. She says something about "a long time sleeping in an apartment [..." There is a name on the first line after "al-mawlā al-ajall al-muwaffaq," perhaps "Sitt al-[...]" or possibly Yefet. ASE. [PGPID 30334](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30334/): > Letter from a certain Yehosef to Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm. Written on parchment in a crude Maghribī hand. In Judaeo-Arabic, with ~7 lines of possibly unrelated Arabic script on verso (some of this might be part of the address, though there is also an address in Judaeo-Arabic). Dating: Probably 11th century. The letter opens with sympathies for the addressee's illness ("Your letter arrived... and it was like seeing your dear face. When I heard you were sick, I went out of my mind, until I received your letter and was reassured") and continues with various business matters, e.g., small quantities of garments. Mentions Abū`\xa0`Yūsuf. Further notes in Judaeo-Arabic, possibly in a different hand (accounts of the addressee?) on bottom of verso. Recto is hair side. [PGPID 30568](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30568/): > A list from a greengrocer or druggist? Or a shopping list? In Judaeo-Arabic. Written in a crude or at least hasty hand. Many names of foods and herbs are given along with some people's names. Items include sumac, chard (salq), rue (sadhāb), green onion (baṣal akhḍar) or alternatively another kind of onion (baṣal [...]), mulūkhiyya, taḥīna, coriander, linseed oil (zayt hār), olive oil (zayt ṭayyib), honey ("from the kitchen/factory (maṭbakh) of Bū`\xa0`[...]"), saffron (followed by the name Bū Manṣūr), mastic (followed by the name Bū l-Faḍl), pepper (followed by the name Bū ʿAlī b. Bū Daʾūd), and cinnamon (followed by the name Saloman [sic!] al-ʿAṭṭār). In line three the writer seems to offer an option: "and if we/you think best (wa-in kān narāhu [or yarāhu?]... or mulūkhiyya...." [PGPID 30601](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30601/): > Legal document. Location: New Cairo. Dating: Maybe early 12th century; the handwriting may be known. Recounts the convoluted history of the financial arrangements between Yefet ha-Levi and Manṣūr b.`\xa0`ʿAlī, involving collaterals worth 70 dinars. Signed by Natan b. [...] and Ḥalfon b. [...]. Needs further examination. [PGPID 30851](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/30851/): > Original use: State decree from the Fatimid chancery, written under al-Ḥākim, al-Ẓāhir or al-Mustanṣir to an official in Egypt regarding a dispute over irrigation canals and access to water —`\xa0`insofar as one can judge. Only the left half of the lines are preserved. About 1.3 meters of what was once a much longer decree. The joins of the decree fragment when pieced together refer to the need of restoring the area surrounding the gulf/bay - 'li ḥāja dāʿiya ilā ʿimārat al-khuluj' and the allotment of irrigation from these canals: 'aqsaṭ min al-rī min hādhihi l-khuluj. Verso: Efrayim b. Shemarya uses and reworks passages from the Sheʾiltot for a sermon. Top of the rotulus is headed Shabbat Bereishit (see separate record). Join: Roni Shweka (bottom six fragments) and Rebecca Sebbagh (top fragment). Before 1055. See also Mosseri VI.117.2, which may belong to the left side of this decree. (MR) [PGPID 31598](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/31598/): > Recto: Legal document in Arabic script, probably a deed of sale. Mentions other landmarks including the house of Bū`\xa0`ʿAlī al-Urjuwānī and that of Fāris al-Kubarāʾ(?). Also mentions the al-Mamṣūṣa neighborhood of Fustat. > > Verso: A different, later document in Arabic script. Mentions Abū Jaʿfar b. ʿAlī and Qāsim b. Jamīl al-Ḥāmī. Needs examination. [PGPID 32049](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/32049/): > Mainly a literary text with other jottings in Judaeo-Arabic (including references to mutakallimīn, kalām philosophers). There is also marginal text in Arabic script, including a few words from a draft of a letter to Abū l-ʿAlāʾ`\xa0`Ibn al-Dayyān. [PGPID 32557](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/32557/): > Receipt for the capitation tax of Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf, a Jewish goldsmith (yahūdī`\xa0`ṣāʾigh), in Fustat, for the year 537. See also T-S Ar.35.197. [PGPID 32558](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/32558/): > Receipt for the capitation tax of Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf, a Jewish goldsmith (yahūdī`\xa0`ṣāʾigh), in Fustat, for the year 536. See also T-S Ar.35.196. [PGPID 32943](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/32943/): > One side: Order of payment of Abū`\xa0`Zikrī Kohen. Possibly dated 1449 Seleucid, which would be 1137/38 CE. There is an אמת at the top and a vertical line running through the text. Other side: Document in Arabic script, unidentified. Needs examination. [PGPID 33055](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/33055/): > Copy of a petition in Arabic script addressed to al-Malik al-ʿAzīz Sayf al-Islām Ṭughtakīn, the second Ayyubid amir of Yemen (and brother of Saladin), r. 1182–97. Sent from Aden (verso, l3). The addressee's other titles include "sulṭān juyūsh al-muwaḥḥidīn... bahāʾ al-milla, naṣr al-umma, dhū l-faḍāʾil wa-l-manāqib, [...] amīr al-muʾminīn, abū l-fawāris, Ṭughtakīn al-Nāṣirī...." The petition refers to trading houses of 'the west' (or possibly 'of the Arabs') (matājir al-gharb or al-ʿarab); something "to the lands of Yemen" (ilā diyār al-Yaman); a request for justice for a group of people (al-inṣāf ʿalayhim); the arrival in Aden (madīnat ʿAdan) of al-Shaykh Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān b. Abū Saʿīd b. ʿAllūn (or Ghulayb?) the traveling trader (al-tājir al-mutaraddid) together with his Jewish colleagues who come out from Egypt and who come in from India (wa-jamāʿat al-yahūd aṣḥābuh al-ṣādirūn min Miṣr wa-l-wāridīn min al-Hind). These traders have enjoyed protection by the government (al-riʿāya... wa-l-ḥimāya...). (At this point the scribe skips to the next line because there were preexisting accounts jotted on the page.) They have been able to do business and prosper (ṣarf baḍāʾiʿihim wa-amwālihim(?) wa-maʿūnatihim ʿalā mā yatimm aḥwāluhum ʿalā ghāyat al-[...].... yataṣarrafūn bi-baḍāʾiʿihim bi-[...] wa-shirā...). But now there has been some reversal in their fortunes (al-taqallub fī aḥwālihim aʿāqahu...). Mentions a 'marsūm' in the next line, perhaps a request from the addressee to issue a decree/order to aid the Jewish merchants. See Roxani Margariti, Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade, p. 138, for a discussion of Ibn al-Mujāwir's account of Ṭughtakīn's involvement in trade (by instituting or enforcing the service of maritime patrols to protect the merchants from pirates and to charge the merchants a galley tax in exchange). ASE [PGPID 33598](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/33598/): > Letter from al-Sharīf Ḥasan to the qāḍī Ṣanīʿat al-Mulk. In Arabic script, with diacritics and vowels, calligraphic. Dating: Perhaps 13th to 15th century, on paleographic grounds. This is a letter of recommendation for charity for six 'cut-off' women (nisā' munqaṭiʿāt) who have no husbands (lā azwāj la-hunna) or anybody else to provide for them: Umm Bū Muḥammad and her daughter; the midwife or wet nurse (dāya) and her daughter; and Umm Qays and her daughter.`\xa0`The addressee is described as a "cave (=shelter) for the cut-off and a refuge for those who ask/beg of him" (standard epithets for important and charitable people: see e.g. AIU V.B.48 and on it Cohen, Poverty and Charity, p. 48 n. 36). ASE [PGPID 33701](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/33701/): > Clockwise from upper left: (b) Legal fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. At the top there is a list of names including Bū l-Ḥasan; Sitt [...]; Abū`\xa0`ʿAbdallāh b. Khodadād (likely the same as in ENA NS 71.6); [...] ha-Kohen b. Yiṣḥaq (this is crossed out); [...] b. Yiṣḥaq; and Yūsuf b. Ayyūb ha-Levi. All these people had evidently gathered with Rosh ha-Qehillot, and then most of what ensued is lost; someone named Abū l-Barakāt is also involved. [PGPID 33717](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/33717/): > Fol. 1r: Legal record (deed of release). In the hand of the cantor Yefet b. David. Dated: Monday, 25 Shevaṭ 1338 Seleucid, which is 1028 CE. In which Abū l-Ḥasan Yosef b. Yiṣḥaq b. Yoshiyya releases Aharon b. Moshe Rosh ha-Qahal (aka Hārūn b. Abū Naṣr b. Saʿdān) from any claims with regard to books (maṣāḥif wa-ghayrhā) from the estate of his brother`\xa0`Yaḥyā b. Yiṣḥaq b. Yoshiyya. Witnessed and signed by Yefet b. David, Shemuel b. Ṭalyon ha-Kohen, Yaʿaqov(?) b. Mevasser, and Efrayim b. Shemarya. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.) [PGPID 33960](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/33960/): > Recto: Informal note in Judaeo-Arabic asking Bū l-Ḥasan to purchase 2.5 raṭls of pepper, 1 raṭl of almonds, and 1 raṭl of "bustaj lubbān ṣāliḥ" = good-quality olibanum incense(?). Ṣāfī will do something with the almond oil and the myrtle (marsīn). Dating: Probably late 12th or early 13th century. Might be related to the family of Abū l-Ḥasan Yedutun ha-Levi (who often dealt in small quantities of materia medica and had a factotum named`\xa0`Ṣāfī), but the handwriting still needs to be identified. [PGPID 34002](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/34002/): > Legal document mentioning [...] b. Ḥayyim Nafūsī. Scribed and signed by`\xa0`Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Also signed by Av raham b. Shemaʿya and Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi and ʿEli ha-Kohen ha-[...]. [PGPID 34302](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/34302/): > Fiscal accounting. Dated (on T-S Ar.38.120): 436 kharājī = 1044/45 CE plus or minus a couple years. There are three or four distinct documents present: (I) the end of a petition with blessings for the caliph or a high authority (wa-li-mawlānā`\xa0`ṣallā Allāhu ʿalayhi al-raʾy al-ʿālī) (II) account for the receipt of grain(?) in a government granary (مسطح؟) or sugar refinery (maṭbakh, lit. "kitchen") (III) two more blocks of fiscal accounting, at 90 degrees to each other. Needs examination. > Reused on the other side for a Hebrew sermon or prayer about sinfulness and repentance. Also reused on the same side by a different Hebrew scribe for an unidentified text. Needs further examination. Indirect join: Oded Zinger. [PGPID 34450](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/34450/): > Letter in Judaeo-Arabic, probably of a Maghribī trader of the 11th century. The last three lines are in a different ink and different hand. The sender opens with sympathy for a distressing event. On verso, mentions the departure of a boat (iqlāʿ hādhihi l-qārib) and names such as Abū Zikrī`\xa0`and Abū l-Faraj. [PGPID 34484](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/34484/): > Letter from Ḥasan b. Isḥāq, in ʿAsqalān, to Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllūn b. Yaʿīsh al-Parnas, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. The sender writes on a Thursday, after arriving in ʿAsqalān. He is staying in the funduq of the qāḍī Ibn Khiḍr. He ran into Ḥaffāz (may God preserve him) while en route to visiting Ibn al-ʿAni ("son of the poor man"). Ḥaffāẓ took grave oaths (aymān ṣaʿba) that cannot be violated and took the sender into his home and embarrassed him with hospitality. "He did everything in the world to make me leave my house, but I didn't let him, because my chest is constricted from my separation from my father and my family, and my eye weeps day and night, for my father left me(?) in Ramla... and I do not drink wine or cooked food (i.e., due to the pain of separation)." The sender had asked Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAmmār to purchase something for him. He says that if he were able to return the gold, he would do so. He has sent previous letters from Tinnīs and from Ramla, but has not received a response, "and I do not know if this is disdain or anger or (merely) a delay." A certain woman had asked the sender to buy her a muṣḥaf, but the cheapest he could find was for 3 dinars, and if he purchased it he would not have enough money to continue on his journey. Regards to the sender's sister and to Sitt al-Ahl and al-Baghūḍa(??) and to Abū`\xa0`Kathīr. The last line of the letter reads, "Hopefully Abū Manṣūr will arrive with my father. By God, we have suffered tremendously from his indecency." The addressee of the letter is well-known from many other Geniza documents; see the index of Gil, Palestine, vol. 3, under ʿEli ha-Kohen ha-Parnas b. Ḥayyim. (Information in part from NLI catalogue: https://www.nli.org.il/he/manuscripts/NNL_ALEPH997007966688605171/NLI#$FL128464597.) OZ. ASE [PGPID 34500](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/34500/): > Business accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. Mentions names such as the wife of Ibn al-Malīḥ(?) (in connection to a gold needle); Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq; Abū ʿAbdallāh; al-Faqīh Abū ʿAbdallāh; a simsār; Naṣr al-Ḥājj. On verso there are larger blocks of text, it seems mainly describing various textiles/garments. [PGPID 35171](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/35171/): > Marriage agreement. Location: Fustat. Dated: Kislev 1459 Seleucid, which is 1147 CE. The document is in need of conservation, and several names and words are hidden underneath folds of paper. The woman is probably named Sitt al-Fakhr bt. Abū l-Faraj Mikhaʾel ha-Meshorer. The man is probably named Abū`\xa0`l-Ṭāhir Shemuel b. Natan. (A previous description listed his profession as al-kaḥḥāl, but it is not clear where this is written.) Sitt al-Fakhr receives a piece of real estate in Fustat in מחרם עמאר. NB: When Goitein cites ENA 4011.51 (e.g., in Med Soc V, 135, 542), he means ENA 4011.50. [PGPID 35442](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/35442/): > Deed of lease. In Arabic script. Fragment (upper right corner). The lessee is named Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm al-Sāmirī (the Samaritan). In the upper margin, there is the draft of the beginning of a Jewish legal deed (hand of Hillel b.`\xa0`ʿEli?). On verso there is Hebrew literary text. [PGPID 35513](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/35513/): > Letter of appeal for charity or assistance. Addressed to Peraḥya ha-Kohen. The sender came down with an illness (wa-thāra ʿalā`\xa0`ʿabdih al-maraḍ) and he has been prostrated by it for two weeks (wa-lahū usbūʿayn maṭrūḥ), "may God not afflict any other Jew with this." [PGPID 35631](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/35631/): > Capitation tax receipt for Ṣadaqa b. Bū`\xa0`l-Ḥasan(?) the Jew. Contains registration marks. [PGPID 35752](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/35752/): > Small fragment of a Fatimid decree containing a truncated closing formula and the beginning of the date (day of the week only —`\xa0`Thursday). Interesting for truncation of formula (informal decree from a midlevel official to lower one?). The preserved text reads "liyaʿlam Inshāʾ Allah wa kutiba yawm al-khamīs". [PGPID 35803](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/35803/): > Petition, late Fatimid period given the blessings on a vizier, from a certain Ibn Mūsā (no forename given) concerning a Jew named (2) Bū l-Faraj who took another Jew named (3) Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq to court repeatedly over a debt. The unstated request seems to be that vizier to whom the petition is addressed should either (a) pay (3) Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq’s debt or (b) apply force or (c) imprison him until he pays. The (1) petitioner goes on to state that if a (a-prime) different guarantor (ḍāmin) steps in to pay (3) Ibrāhīm’s debt, or if local officials step in to (c) seize his property, the vizier will be informed. If a (a) guarantor steps in, (3) Ibrāhīm will presumably have to pay more. If (a) the vizier pays on his behalf, it would not cost the debtor more; so de facto the vizier must decide whether to pay or apply force. But if the situation changes —`\xa0`if a guarantor steps in to pay the debt, or the treasury (al-māl, short for bayt al-māl) steps in to seize the debtor's assets, the petitioner will inform the vizier. Perhaps the petitioner is a Jewish communal official who has run out of enforcement options, so now seeks help from the state in resolving the situation as expeditiously as possible. MR [PGPID 36023](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36023/): > Fragment of a legal document in Judaeo-Arabic. Involves Moshe the cantor, Shelomo, a wālī, and "the father and his mother." The word`\xa0`קתל (kill/be killed) appears. [PGPID 36236](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36236/): > Fatimid decree (sijill) of investiture, Judaeo-Arabic copy. Renews the appointment of a Jewish physician "to the headship of all the Israelite denominations: the Rabbanites, Qaraites, and Samaritans." States that the order to write this document was issued by the caliph to the chancery (kharaja amr amīr al-muʾminīn ilā dīwān al-inshāʾ bi-katb hādha al-sijill bi-tajdīd mā kāna anʿama bihī ʿalayka min al-riyāsa ʿalā`\xa0`jamīʿ ṭawāʾif al-isrāʾīliyya min al-rabbānīn wa-l-qaraʾiyyīn wa-l-samara). [PGPID 36620](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36620/): > Letter probably from a certain Abū l-ʿIzz to his brother. In Arabic script. Written on a bifolio. One of the four pages has Hebrew piyyuṭ; the remaining pages are occupied by the letter. Dating: Likely ca. 14th or 15th century, based on the hand, layout, orthography, and the use of the root qshʿ (qšʿ) for "see." The sender excuses his absence by explaining that he has been preoccupied with the illness of the boy (maraḍ al-saghīr(!)), who has turned toward health (qad tawajjah ilā l-ʿāfiya qalīl). The sender himself complains that he no strength left in his feet/legs to walk (ووحق الشريعة ما في رجلي قدر اقدر امشي بها). He complains of his situation (wa-anā fī`\xa0`aḥwāl nāqiṣ), there is no wine (lā nabīz), no vinegar (wa-lā khall), and no harvest at all (wa-lā ḥaṣīda wa-lā shayʾ). He reports about people who came to him and their discussions about money and business affairs. Toward the end he writes that "all the little ones miss you" (wa-l-sighār(!) kullhum mushtāqīn) and that his eye is hurting as he writes this letter, so that he can hardly see what he writes, so the addressee must not blame him for failing to come (وما كتبت لك هذالكتاب … [الا] وعيني توجعني ما قشعت ايش كتبت فلا توخذ عليه (=عليّ) في كوني ما حضرت عندك). YU. ASE. [PGPID 36640](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36640/): > Unidentified text in Judaeo-Arabic, probably documentary. Refers to Abū`\xa0`Sahl and 'the congregation of the synagogue.' [PGPID 36648](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36648/): > Mercantile letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (bottom half). Dating: early to mid-12th century. Mentions ṭabarī cushions, Abū Kathīr, something 'narjisiyya,' and a silver zabdiyya (a kind of vessel). There is a postscript added by Abū l-Ḥasan b. Khulayf al-Iskandarānī, who wants the addressee to ask Abū`\xa0`Zikrī Yehuda al-Sijilmāsī Kohen (the well-known representative of the merchants in Fustat) if the 'khuṣrawān' has reached him with the Raʾīs. [PGPID 36654](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36654/): > Family letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (lower right corner of recto, upper right corner of verso). Refers to a woman's separation from the addressees; "your accompanying her"; patience/forbearance and reverence and fear (of God); and "a single house(hold)." On verso the addressee is urged to act generously. Greetings to Umm Abū`\xa0`l-ʿIzz. [PGPID 36806](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36806/): > Probably a commercial receipt for Abū`\xa0`Zikrī (Yehuda b. Yosef Kohen?). Needs examination. See T-S Ar.34.5 (PGPID 20576) for a list of similar documents. [PGPID 36844](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36844/): > Mercantile letter in Arabic script. Pertaining to the India trade of the first half of the 12th century. The sender mentions Isḥāq al-Nafūsī`\xa0`and al-Shaykh Maḍmūn (twice). He was intending to travel to Egypt (from Yemen?), however he couldn't find anything to buy except pepper. Mentions something that was valued at 35 a bahār. Needs further examination. [PGPID 36938](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36938/): > Verso: Receipt for 1.75 dirhams issued by Abū Zikrī Kohen to Abū`\xa0`l-Surūr. [PGPID 36995](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/36995/): > Accounts written in elegant Arabic script, specifying amounts owed between various people, e.g., Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd Ibn al-Shammāʿ, al-Faḍl, ʿUmar. [PGPID 37147](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/37147/): > Legal documents (or copies or drafts) in Arabic script. Recto and verso could be the same document or two different documents. Dating: mentions the year 517 AH = 1123/24 CE. > > On verso: refers to an agreement between two parties, one of whom is a woman, that she will receive the sum that is owed to her by a man according to the Jewish legal deed (al-sheṭār al-muktatib ʿalayhi fī l-Yahūd), perhaps 28 dinars: واستقر بينهما ان يقوم لها من جملة الشطار المكتتب عليه في اليهود ومبلغه تمان وعشرين دينارا(؟). > > On recto: refers to a "sheṭār" again and a legal 'acquisition' (qinyan) involving Abū Naṣr: ...الشطار واقني منهما على ذلك من الشيخ ابي نصر...`\xa0`Needs further examination. ASE/OZ. [PGPID 37205](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/37205/): > List of names and quantities and possibly commodities. Names include Hiba b. Dāʾūd and Abū`\xa0`Isḥāq. [PGPID 37252](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/37252/): > Unidentified document(s) in Arabic script, probably legal. > > Recto: Involves the perfumer (ʿaṭṭār) Ṭāhir b. Maḥfuẓ`\xa0`al-Yahūdī and one other person. There are several dual participles. > > Verso: Written in a different hand. Also involves Ṭāhir b. Maḥfūẓ al-Yahūdī al-ʿAṭṭār and mentions New Cairo multiple times. Needs examination. [PGPID 37551](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/37551/): > Letter from Abū ʿAlī b. Barakāt al-Isrāʾīlī to Abū`\xa0`Saʿīd b. Abū Sahl, in the perfumers' market in Fustat. On recto only the upper left corner of the letter is preserved, consisting mainly of formulaic greetings. On verso, the address is mostly preserved. [PGPID 37562](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/37562/): > Informal note to Bū`\xa0`ʿAlī beginning "يا مولاي الشيخ بو علي قد طلقت. . . ." Regarding a divorce? Needs examination. There is an unusual drawing on verso, perhaps of some sort of technical device. [PGPID 37729](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/37729/): > Ketubba (marriage contract). dated: Tuesday, 13 Tishrei 1406 Seleucid = 26 September 1094 CE. Groom: Maymuna(?) b. Shelomo. Bride: Mubāraka bt. Avraham. They had previously been married and divorced. Witnesses: Netanʾel b. Yefet he-Ḥaver; the`\xa0`ḥaver Yeḥezqel b. ʿEli ha-Kohen he-Ḥaver; David(?) b. Ḥalfon ha-Kohen. NB: current shelfmark is https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/6374/ (MY). [PGPID 37921](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/37921/): > Receipt for the capitation tax of Bū`\xa0`ʿAlī b. Faraj(?) a Jewish goldsmith (ṣāʾigh) in Fustat for the year [50?]8. [PGPID 38252](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/38252/): > Fol. 9: Original use: State document in Arabic script of which little is preserved. Secondary use: Recto: List of materia medica and valuable foods in Judaeo-Arabic. Verso: Notes on the sale of books in Judaeo-Arabic, with Greek/Coptic numerals. Mentions the name Abū`\xa0`Saʿd. [PGPID 38298](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/38298/): > Recto: Hebrew poetry in the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Verso: Note in Arabic script. The first preserved line reads "[...] Arabic and Hebrew" (عربي وعبراني). Maybe an ownership note: "belonging to Abū Isḥāq b. Hilāl al-Ḥazzān al-Baghdādī" (i.e., Abū Isḥāq the son of Hillel b.`\xa0`ʿEli). The last line is difficult to read. [PGPID 38312](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/38312/): > Story in Judaeo-Arabic, partially rhymed. A first-person narrative attributed to Maḥrūz b. Nājiya al-Ruṣāfī set during the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Wāthiq (r. 842–47). There is a parallel version attributed to Wahb b. Nājiya al-Ruṣāfī in Nūr al-Ṭarf wa-Nūr al-Ẓarf by al-Ḥuṣrī al-Qayrawānī (d. 1095) (https://shamela.ws/book/5351/42), in praise of the hospitality and culture of Bedouins. > > The narrator explains that he was among those accused of embezzling state funds under the reign of al-Wāthiq and was forced to flee to the wilderness. His riding animal brings him to the lands of Banū Shaybān and he enters the courtyard of a house. A woman calls out to extend hospitality, and he responds "yā sayyida, how can a frightened, pursued, terrified, persecuted person find peace... no one can rest with the government after him." She gives him advice and repeats the invitation. The Geniza fragment ends around here. In the parallel version, the woman summons the head of the household (or tribe?) Abū`\xa0`l-Murhaf al-Aswad b. Qanān, who extends hospitality and protection to the fugitive. [PGPID 38409](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/38409/): > Verso (original use): Mercantile letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th century. Damaged and faded; difficult to extract any information. Mentions sending something with the couriers (fuyūj). > > Recto (secondary use): Mercantile accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 11th century. Mentions Tripoli (Libya), al-Mahdiyya, Abū`\xa0`ʿImrān Mūsā, Nizārī dinars, [PGPID 38448](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/38448/): > Fragment of a business account in Judaeo-Arabic, mentioning Abū`\xa0`Zikrī. Dating: likely 12th century. [PGPID 38552](https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/38552/): > Trousseau evaluation in Judaeo-Arabic and Greek/Coptic numerals. Dated: not long before 28 Elul 1594 Seleucid = 21 September 1283 CE, which is set as the date of the wedding (al-dukhūl). She retains the right to determine where she lives in Fustat or Egypt. One of the witnesses is Bū`\xa0`l-Riḍā the cantor.

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