ثيقة شرعيّة: DK 314
ثيقة شرعيّة DK 314What's in the PGP
- 1 Translation
الوصف
Legal document, in Arabic script. The two Christians Barzūq b. Mufriḥ and Zurayn b. Makhlūf jointly lease (=shares) a vegetable garden (arḍ al-baqla) on the west shore of the Nile from a Muslim Tammām b. ʿAlī b. Ḥamūl. The document lists the usual lease clauses. Dated: 19 Ramaḍān 496 H. (TeL, YU) Formerly DK 2. Goitein's description: Two Christians lease from a Muslim two thirds of a vegetable garden on the outskirts of Alexandria. June, 1103. This document, written, of course, in Arabic characters by a Muslim notary, is of interest for several reasons, see Med. Soc., 1:119–20. Particularly noteworthy is this: payment is made not at the end of the year of lease, as was Muslim (and Jewish) law, and not in installments, as was also customary, but in one sum, in the eighth month after its inception. Various reasons could be adduced for such a stipulation. Goitein's notes to his translation: Marzūq, Mufrij, Zurayq, Makhlūf: these four names were found among Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike. Yamēmī: The manuscript clearly has two dots under the first y. But, to the best of my knowledge, no Yamīmī exists in Arabic. Therefore I take the word as denoting Yamāmī (from Yamāma, a country in Arabia), pronounced with imāla, that is, ē for ā. One could assume a scribal error (the two dots written beneath instead of above), which would give the rather common Tamīmī. But I believe the notaries were quite exact. Khalīj: The Khalīj of Alexandria, the large waterway which connected that city with the Nile. Beyond it: dūnahā, meaning, away from Alexandria to the south. bridge: I am not sure whether the word should be read jisr, bridge, or ḥadd, border. "castle": qaṣr, which goes ultimately back to the smae Latin word as English "castle," designates also a primitive agricultural building: see Grohmann, APEL I, no. 72, pp. 268, 270. Ṭoobeh: This is the fifth month of the Coptic (Christian) year, which, in 1104, partly coincided with the fifth month of the Muslim year, which then began on Jan. 31. The Coptic month begins on the 8th or 9th of January, see, e.g., Lane, Modern Egyptians, p. 225. (The dates in Wuestenfeld-Mahler-Spuler, p. 45, are according to the Julian, not our, the Georgian, calendar.) ... ... : two words, partly effaced, which I have not yet been able to identify. In Goitein's unpublished translation below, he comments at the end of the document: "There follows a note that the words added bewteen the lines, see notes 6 and 10 abobe, were essentail parts of the document. No signatures are attached. The reverse side is used for a private letter written in Hebrew characters. Mr. E. Shufani, who in 1962 was a research assistant of mine, made a copy of this document, after having discussed it with me. Naturally, much has been learned about it and the Geniza in general since."
العلامات
Translator: Goitein, S. D. (in English)
DK 314 recto
Recto
In the name of God, the All-merciful. And may God pray for our lord Muhammad, his prophet, and his family, and greet them with peace.
Marzūq b. Mufrij, the Christian, and Zuraq b. Makhlūf, the Christian, leased in equal shares from Abū ʿAlī Ḥammūd al-Yamēmī the entire //two thirds// of the land of the vegetable garden of which he claimed it was his property.
That garden is found on the outskirts of the city of Alenadria on the northern bank of its Khalīj, and these are its boundaries:
Beyond it, the Khalīj;
To its north, the vienyard of the shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muhammad b. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Hādī;
To its west, the brdige separating it frmo the vinyard of Jabbāra and Ismāʿīl.
The outside //of the four borders belongs to the rights of this // this land; and its borders, "castle," well, wooden irrigation wheel, which is fixed in it, and all rights belonging to it, both inside and outside of it, have been leased to them by a legally valid and binding lease for the duration of one entire year of succesive moths, beginning with the first of Shwwāl fo the year 496 (8 July 1103) against a payment of 6 dinars of excellent gold of full weight on condition that the two lessees will pay to the lessor this entire lease in the month of Ṭoobeh, which is the fifth month of the year 467, without delay and without counter-claims against this contract of lease.
The lessor has ... and delivered to the lessees two thirds of the land of this vegetable garden. They have received it and [acknowledged its receipt] and their taking possession of it by right of their lease until its termination on condition that they plant on it, as long as this lease is in force ... ... all kinds of vegetables and sorts of greens.
The parties have confirmed these oblligations by witnesses after the contract was read out to them and acknowldged by them while they were in good health and full command of their faculties.
This happened on the nineteenth of Ramaḍān of the year 496 (26 June 1103).