Documents

Document date

15 Dhū l-Ḥijja 870 Hijrī (29 July 1466 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Ibrahīm b. al-Abraṣ (son of the leper, or possibly the redhead) from entering the synagogue in Zuwayla, the Jewish neighborhood in Cairo.

العلامات

• communal strife
• mamluk
• physician
• qadi court
• ra`is al-yahud

1 نسخ 1 ترجمة 1 مناقشة

Document date

12 Adar II 5453 Anno Mundi (20 March 1693 CE)

Primary language

Hebrew

(Document #13) Abbreviated ketubba entry, with much of the dowry list intact, but lacking the common gold and silver jewelry section (which might continue onto bifolio 1r, as document #8 - PGPID 34880).

Related Places

2

Related Documents

31

1 نسخ

Document date

End of Teveṭ (no year) Anno Mundi

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic. Dating: end of December 1141 CE. The sender reports that he received the letter his father sent with Barukh and rejoiced at his health.

Related Places

2

العلامات

• al-andalus
• almeria
• hinge
• ib4
• india book
• (+ 2 المزيد)

2 نسخين 1 ترجمة 1 مناقشة

Document date

Kislev 4917 Anno Mundi (16 November 1156–15 December 1156 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Those documents from Crete described the entire cheese-making process, from the milking stage onward, and proved that there was no blemish disqualifying the cheese.

Related Places

3

Related Documents

1

العلامات

• certificate
• cheese
• crete
• ib-untranslated-eng
• ib4
• (+ 2 المزيد)

2 نسخين 1 مناقشة

Inferred date

1100–1138 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Goitein writes (index card #11899) that Sitt al-Ahl, the wife of Yosef ha-Kohen, is granted 20 dirhams per month for her little daughters since her husband traveled and left her no money. (The join—ENA 2386.4—clarifies that Sitt al-Ahl is actually the daughter of Yosef ha-Kohen.)

Related People

1

العلامات

• alimony
• halfon b. menashshe

1 نسخ

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The writer describes a harrowing Nile voyage "due to the illness of the passengers and loathsome odors. Three of them ended up dying. The last one survived for a day and a half until he died.

Related Places

3

العلامات

• akhmim
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: death
• illness: marad
• (+ 6 المزيد)

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

He suffered terrible illnesses and nearly perished en route to Constantinople. He lived there for two and a half years, where it seems he developed a new illness and also suffered from "the illness you know about."

Related Places

2

العلامات

• capitation tax
• constantinople
• ib-addenda
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• (+ 7 المزيد)

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Inferred date

1094–1111 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

In the letter, Araḥ reports of serious riots in Alexandria and a drunken brawl that ended only with the intervention of the chief of police (wālī), although he also accuses the other faction of having alerted the wālī, in addition to the drunken brawl having drawn his attention.

Related Places

2

العلامات

• alexandria
• amir
• brawl
• decree
• drunkenness
• (+ 10 المزيد)

2 نسخين 2 ترجمتين 2 مناقشتان

Document date

27 Iyyar 4846 Anno Mundi (14 May 1086 CE)

Primary languages

Aramaic, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

The continuation seems to contain some suggestion of embezzlement from the mint: the ending, in Goitein's translation (with a light edit by Marina Rustow): "Finally, there appeared before us Barakāt b. […] Menashshe took the ʿAdliyya dinars, presumably in order to prevent Manṣūr from getting into trouble from using them openly; Menashshe then advised Manṣūr that if he had any more of them, he shouldn't show them in public but dispose of them secretly. So ends Menashshe's statement, at which point the court asks Manṣūr what he did next.

Related People

12

العلامات

• adliyya dinars
• coins
• embezzlement
• mint
• qasr al-rum
• (+ 2 المزيد)

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Document date

Adar I 1448 Seleucid (1134 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Had he bought goods in Yemen and returned to Egypt in that year he would have made a good profit, for even the young and inexperienced merchants at that time in Egypt made immense profits from the goods they bought in Yemen. At the end of the letter, there are greetings to Ḥalfon from his family and the writer and a request to greet the important people of Aden and to help Abu Nasr b.

Related People

1

Related Places

2

العلامات

• ib4
• ib5
• india book

2 نسخين

Document date

1122–1153 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The relationship may have been an apprenticeship; both parties are entitled to 1.5 dirhams a day, but profits from the sale of some commodities within the shop will accrue only to Sayyid al-Ahl, who seems to be the primary partner.

Related People

1

العلامات

• drug store
• formulary
• island
• natan b. shemuel
• partnership
• (+ 1 المزيد)

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Primary language

Hebrew

My good deeds are known among the Rabbanites and the Qaraites. . . I only entered the service of the king in order to not need charity from people or take anything from Jews, rather to support myself and bring good to Israel from the good that God does for me. . . .

Related People

1

Related Places

4

العلامات

• al-malik al-afdal (1094-1121)
• arrest
• byzantium
• constantinople
• greek
• (+ 3 المزيد)

2 نسخين

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

By the truth of this letter, I do not take from the Muslim with whom I am staying any more than 2 gold qirats, and if it is enough for weekdays, there remains Shabbat and holidays and clothing.

Related People

1

Related Documents

1

1 مناقشة

Primary language

Arabic

, and the addressee is urged to come with him. Verso is almost entirely greetings. Abū l-Ḥasan sends regards. Regards to Abū l-Faḍl, to a paternal uncle, and to a woman and her children.

العلامات

• dimme
• hashir
• tax
• urgent

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

The remainder is obscure, and the transcription would benefit from further revisions. Verso The tail end of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic, also by Moshe b.

Related Places

2

العلامات

• ibn al-taffal
• moshe b. levi

1 نسخ

Inferred date

1120–1138 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

This merchant also made haste to go to the court and declare all the goods belonging to his companion (and therefore his orphans) as soon as he returned to Fustat (l. 10), and even mentioned "several things that were not in the account ledger (daftar al-ḥisāb)." Toward the end there is a list of luxury goods (e.g. ambergris and pearl bracelets), which is part of a legal formula as all of them are negated (cf.

Related People

3

Related Places

1

العلامات

• daftar
• dahlak
• ib7
• india book

2 نسخين 1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Where the text resumes on verso, the letter mentions 'what we suffer,' 'the children,' and a man's paternal aunt who does not enter אלי לאש (is "Lāsh" a place? a dialect word?).

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Document date

26 Kislev 1338 Seleucid (8 December 1026 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

C1 and C2 are both written by Yefet b. Daud. At the end of page signs Shemuel ha-Kohen b. Avtalyon and Efrayim b.

Related Documents

2

العلامات

• court notebook
• yefet b. david

1 نسخ

Inferred date

25 August 1068–25 August 1068 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

In the margin of recto, Mevasser offers an apology having to do with his correspondence, because he has an illness (tawajjuʿ), and his son and wife are sick as well, and his entire household, "may God deliver them. What will become of a small baby and his mother—may God exempt you—who do not have anyone to go in for them (from context, perhaps this should be read yadkhul rather than Gil's yattakil) or go out?

Related People

4

Related Places

6

العلامات

• family
• ibn al-ba'ba'
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: household
• (+ 5 المزيد)

2 نسخين 1 ترجمة

Document date

Wednesday, 17 Av 4837 Anno Mundi (9 August 1077 CE)

Primary languages

Aramaic, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

Mevasser, are well-known members of the rabbinical court of Alexandria at the end of the eleventh century. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 131.)

Related Places

1

العلامات

• alexandria
• muslim court
• partnership

2 نسخين 1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Five leaves of an account book. Mostly daily entries of a money dealer. Goitein writes, "The first two of five leaves written by a fledgling banker are translated here because they convey an idea of the book-keeping for deposit banking, for which no other examples have been found thus far.

Related People

1

العلامات

• banking

1 نسخ 1 ترجمة 2 مناقشتان

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The sender seems worried they do not have enough resources to support the boy. Again repeats that he is safely weaned and that he wants sweets (yurīd al-tanaqqul) "for he is used to being pampered" (wa-huwa muʿawwad bi-dalāl).

العلامات

• children
• late ja
• sugar

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Document date

Sha'ban 429 Hijrī (9 May 1038–6 June 1038 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

According to Gil, Ibn ʿAwkal directed this account to an associate in Alexandria. Each entry begins with the verb אחלתה (aḥaltuhu), meaning "I transferred" or "I assigned" via ḥawāla, a formal legal instrument of debt transfer in Islamic commercial law.

Related People

1

Related Places

1

العلامات

• flax
• hawala
• trade
• yosef b. awkal

2 نسخين 2 ترجمتين 1 مناقشة

Inferred date

2 February 1063–2 February 1063 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Khalaf, who had written to tell al-Tāhartī that he had sent a pouch containing 500 rubāʿiyya (quarter-dinars) in Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ's ship (r, II. 10–11); also mentions details of maritime transport to and from the Maghreb, a ship accident, and the security and government situation in Sicily, whereas by contrast al-Mahdiyya under Tamīm b. Muʿizz is safe. Dated end of Shevaṭ; Gil notes that the same events are discussed in T-S 16.163, which is dated 8 Elul and mentions the year 453H, and so dates this letter to February 2, 1063.

Related People

5

Related Places

8

العلامات

• al-taharti
• ibn al-ba'ba'
• nahray b. nissim
• trade

3 نسخ 1 ترجمة 1 مناقشة

Document date

1126–1129 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Unfortunately, however, he entrusted financial affairs to a rapacious Coptic bureaucrat, Abū Najāḥ ibn Qannāʾ, known as "the Monk" (al-rāhib), who, from the autumn of 1126 until his execution in 1129, managed to terrorize all segments of the populace, including the Jews, with his promiscuous confiscations and arrogant demeanor" (Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, p. 284).

Related People

1

العلامات

• copt
• copts
• fisc
• mazalim
• officials
• (+ 1 المزيد)

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Inferred date

1152–1153 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Goitein often quoted this line to argue for a preference for endogamy and cousin-marriage, but Krakowski persuasively argues (Coming of Age, 218–21) that this situation is too specific to be generalizable: Ibn Yijū seems to want, instead, to use cousin marriage "not to affirm and reify existing social loyalties, but to create an essentially new connection between socially distant relatives" (221). […] On the dating of the letter: Goitein dates the document to September 1153 because this letter was written from Egypt, and Goitein believes Ibn Yijū to have traveled from Aden to Cairo in spring or summer 1153, while the reference to the Salībiyya winds indicates that this letter was written in September — hence September 1153; Friedman, however, believes that Ibn Yijū arrived in Egypt in 1152, and indeed, at r22, Ibn Yijū explains that his daughter had been engaged to the son of Khalaf b. Bundār in Aden for three years, while we know from IB III, 29 that they had arrived in Aden in fall 1149.

Related People

7

Related Places

3

العلامات

• ib3
• india book

2 نسخين 2 ترجمتين

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Bundār, who is in trouble in Aden due to a conflict between him and Yaḥyā al-Tikrītī, involving a scandal with a singer who came to entertain at a gathering of prominent Jews, including Avraham, and Maḍmūn b.

Related Places

1

العلامات

• family
• ib7
• india book
• women's letter

2 نسخين 1 مناقشة

Document date

Elul 5353 Anno Mundi (29 August 1593–26 September 1593 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The list may be useful for cross-referencing people and locations from other 16th-century documents. The first account entry on the recto is related to the communal leader R.

Related Places

1

العلامات

• 16th c
• dammuh
• late prosopography
• late synagogues
• map
• (+ 3 المزيد)

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Damascus... this week... the rosewater... the caravan from Damascus...[skipping to the end]... may your peace increase... if you see fit to write and for the agent to pay for the [...] and charge you(?)

Related Places

1

العلامات

• caravan
• damascus
• mirror image
• pepper
• rose water
• (+ 1 المزيد)

1 مناقشة

"The first document is a letter (lacking, however, a few lines at the end) that was sent by an anonymous merchant to R.

العلامات

• 16th c
• radvaz

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

In the margin, he gives a bleak account of economic conditions in "al-balad" (probably Alexandria): it is not possible to purchase a certain garment or type of flax ("ḥattā l-maqāṭiʿ al-quṭn. . . inqaṭaʿat min al-balad"); "no one enters from the Rīf with anything [to sell]"; conditions here "are as you have heard, they do not require commentary, may God improve them"; "few people have flour"; "may God nullify the evil decree in His mercy for the sake of His name."

Related Places

2

العلامات

• economic depression
• ghala
• judge eliyyahu
• simha ha-kohen
• simha kohen

1 نسخ

Primary language

Hebrew

By my life, do not withhold the 'small powers of attorney' (?): enclose them with the letter and send them. Furthermore, for you to understand the account: I have acquired 600 Qurans (!?).

Related Places

4

العلامات

• basra
• hamadan
• iran
• kabbalists
• late heb
• (+ 3 المزيد)

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

and purchased more goods. "When we entered the city, the representative of the Amir was deposed (?)

Related Places

1

العلامات

• 16th c or later
• jaliya
• late illness
• late ja
• lor
• (+ 4 المزيد)

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The sender informs the addressee, who had submitted the two questions, that the physician had composed an answer (jawāb) to both and it was enclosed it the present letter. The verso contains greetings from Abū l-Faraj, Abū l-Riḍā, Yosef, Hiba, and their mother, as well as the address.

Related People

3

Related Places

2

العلامات

• jewish community
• medicine
• physician

1 نسخ