Documents

Inferred date

1100–1138 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mūsā (line 6). Mentions "all that my son left" (when he died?) (line 4) and Upper Egypt and Yemen and another geographical location that begins with אלאס. Another trader, al-Nafūsī, is involved.

Related People

2

Related Places

1

العلامات

• halfon b. menashshe
• ib-addenda
• ib6
• india book unedited

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Arabic

The raʾy clause is preserved: "al-ʾārā al-sulṭāniyya". Reused for a Hebrew piyyuṭ.

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Document date

64[.] Hijrī (1244–1251 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

The section at the bottom is from Mulḥat al-Iʿrāb, al-Ḥarīrī's poem on Arabic grammar: ونوّن الاسم الفريد المنصرف إذا اندرجت قائلاً ولم تقف...

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Efrayim the perfumer known as al-Yatīm and Makārim b. Avraham Ibn al-Tayyūzī.

Related People

1

العلامات

• halfon b. menashshe

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Draft of a letter from Wāfī b. Iṣḥaq b. Eli al-Majānī, 16 July 1059, written at the back of an earlier letter from his father Iṣḥaq b. Eli al-Majānī. Badly preserved. Mentions flax, myrtle and sandalwood and suggests that the recipient opens a shop.

Related Documents

1

العلامات

• flax
• myrtle
• sandalwood
• trade

1 نسخ 1 ترجمة

Primary language

Arabic

Letter of recommendation, or maybe conveying the arrival of a certain Najīb al-Dawla. The writer introduces Najīb al-Dawla to the addressee and conveys his desire to meet with him so that he may seek his counsel, benefit from his generosity, and deliver his zakāt.

1 نسخ

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Telling the addressee not to worry about something (ולא תחמל עלי קלבך הם) because the gold which the sender owes to someone else will soon be in the creditor's pocket, so he also shouldn't worry (ולא יחמל עלי קלבה הם).

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Arabic

The tarjama at upper left appears to read "ʿabd min al-Maḥalla," but it may be an actual name that is tricky to figure out. The sender offers an explanation for a delay in coming or writing; mentions Fustat and Cairo; business matters; Abū Sulaymān; and "al-ʿaṭṭārīn."

Related Places

3

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Hebrew

Addressed to a notable named Binyamin, with regards for his sons Yaʿaqov and Yeshuʿa, probably residents of Jerusalem. Also mentioned: Shemuel ha-Maskil, Menashshe and Shemarya.

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

(On recto there is the upper left corner of a letter, also in his handwriting, with part of his name at the top.)

Related People

1

العلامات

• order

1 نسخ

Primary language

Hebrew

The letter concerns collecting debts in Alexandria and someone fleeing, perhaps by way of Damietta.

Related Places

2

العلامات

• late heb

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Hebrew

Recto: Legal document in Hebrew. Location: Alexandria. Involves Shemuʾel b. Moshe ha-Levi, who may be deceased; Yiṣḥaq b. [...]; two packages; transporting a deposit from a certain location; another son of Moshe ha-Levi "the brother of the dead man"; and a woman and her husband.

Related Places

1

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

Both sides—one in Arabic script, one in Judaeo-Arabic—are first-person declarations about the details of some financial case involving al-Shaykh al-ʿAfīf. The Arabic side includes the phrase "annanī mā aʿūd uṭālibuhu" (I will not sue him any more).

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Inferred date

1100–1138 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mentions Maʿālī, Sulaymān, and a nāẓir On verso of T-S NS 342.96 there is an outline of a rental contract for a qāʿa, also in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. The lessor is Yiṣḥaq b.

Related People

1

العلامات

• halfon b. menashshe

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Inferred date

1100–1138 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Dating: Probably before 1120 CE. Groom: Abū ʿAlī (Yeḥezqel), the brother of Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, who agrees to pay a fine of 15 dinars if Abū ʿAlī should cancel the betrothal.

Related People

1

Related Places

1

العلامات

• betrothal
• ib-untranslated-eng
• ib4
• india book

3 نسخ 1 ترجمة 1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Abū l-Faraj to the scholar (al-talmid) Avraham al-Nafīs. Written in an elevated register.

العلامات

• petition
• private

1 نسخ

Inferred date

1128–1164 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Strongly formulated note by the prominent judge Natan b. Shemuel ("al-Nezer"), active 1128–1164 CE, to a prominent member of the community, urging the man to send him money for the sick people while staying in his house. […] On verso there is a probably-unrelated name in Arabic script, perhaps from a chancery document: ʿabduhā al-Kāmilī Masʿūd.

Related People

1

العلامات

• communal
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: hospice
• illness: treatment
• (+ 2 المزيد)

1 نسخ

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

The location of Ḥalfon and the dating can be deduced based on the mention of the great storm at sea, also mentioned in ח10 (PGPID 1261). This is a letter of gratitude for Ḥalfon's halakhic responsum on matrimonial matters concerning one Abū l-Ṭāhir, who needed to return to Aden from India. […] (Information from Goitein, Friedman and Ashur, India Book IVB) See also T-S 16.40 (PGPID 9135).

Related People

3

Related Places

2

العلامات

• ib-untranslated-eng
• ib4
• india book

2 نسخين 1 ترجمة

Document date

6th of Nisan 1413 Seleucid (27 March 1102 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The records are bracketed by an introduction and a conclusion explaining the purpose of making these copies: [...] al-Lawwāz came to the court with these in hand and asked for them to be copied "lest they be lost." […] Shemarya ha-Kohen; [...] b. Naḥum; Abū Manṣūr b. al-[...]; Sason. Witnesses (judges): [...] b. Moshe; Avraham b. […] [Avraham]; Yefet; Abū Manṣūr al-Zayyāt; Ibn al-Layth. Witnesses (judges): Yiṣḥaq b.

Related People

1

1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

On recto: - The first section is the genealogy of Moshe and David Maimonides. Headed ʿitrat al-rayyis. The names are ʿOvadyahu, Shelomo, ʿOvad[ya], [Yo]sef, Yiṣḥaq, Yosef, Maymūn, Moshe and David[…] This section partially overlaps with T-S AS 148.5 (PGPID 4164). - The family of al-ʿAjamī: Elʿazar ha-[...] and his son Evyatar Rosh. - The family of al-Mashshāṭī: Ḥananya . . . Avraham, his three sons Saʿadya who died, Ḥayyim and his son Peraḥya, and Ḥananʾel.

Related People

2

1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

This is a response to a recent letter in which Ya‘qub rebuked Ibrahim for a delay in forwarding the recipes of two compound drugs: the preventer (al-māni‘) and a drug for swelling (li-l-natwā). […] Abu l-Ḥasan the physician is also upset at Ya‘qub’s tardiness and failure to communicate, and Ibrahim has had to make excuses for him, saying that he is busy in the shop. After finishing the letter, Ibrahim wrote the requested prescriptions in the margins (one version of the Preventer and two versions of the drug for swelling) and noted that all the ingredients for the third prescription are available in Bilbays.

Related Places

1

العلامات

• bilbays
• physician
• prescription

1 نسخ

Primary languages

Arabic, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

He asks if a woman in the family ('al-kabirah') wants him to buy a certain fabric from Abu l-Yusr. […] He sends regards to his paternal uncles 'Imran and Bayan and reiterates that he needs to know if 'al-kabirah' wants the fabric. Verso contains the address (in Arabic) and Psalm 98 in the handwriting of Abu Sahl Levi (the letter's addressee). See also Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 221, 569. ASE.

Related People

2

Related Places

2

العلامات

• abu sahl levi
• moshe b. levi
• qalyub

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Document date

1406 Seleucid (14 September 1094–2 September 1095 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Dated: 1406 Seleucid, which is 1094/95 CE. Abū ʿAlī Yefet b. Menashshe accuses his wife Milāḥ b. Khayrūn of wishing to divorce him in order to marry Barakāt b. Abū Saʿīd al-ʿAṭṭār, who has "corrupted" (afsada) her. She takes mighty oaths, denying that she would ever marry Barakāt. Later, Abū ʿAlī verbally abuses Barakāt, "Yā fāʿil, yā ṣāniʿ, you corrupt my wife and tell her, 'Divorce him so that I can marry you!'"

Related People

1

العلامات

• marital conflict
• oaths

1 نسخ 1 ترجمة 1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Eliyyahu to Ḥisday ha-Nasi (a Qaraite communal leader) concerning a husband who wishes to divorce the wife he had been coerced into marrying in Alexandria. The husband demands to pay the marriage gift in installments (i.e., never completely) after all that he had suffered from her bad character (al-tarbut raʿa).

العلامات

• aguna
• appeal
• divorce
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• (+ 7 المزيد)

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The case seems tangled and involves Salāma Ibn al-Muʿallim, 33 dirhams, Barakāt al-Dimashqī, outstanding debts to the diwan, and 3 dinars. […] Richards, "Arabic Documents from the Karaite Community in Cairo," doc. XV.) The sender also refers to a woman who is "naked and lacking everything," perhaps a family member of the ex-ḍāmin.

Related Places

1

2 مناقشتان

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

It seems that the sender's father (al-marḥūm abī), who was intimately associated with the addressees, has died. […] The addressees are to send him all the things they are supposed to send, "just as you would to your father." […] He closes by asking them to do what is right, then a threat to escalate the situation if they don't. (All of this is tentative, because the letter has still not been adequately transcribed.)

Related People

1

العلامات

• business dispute
• partnership

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Document date

Tuesday, 11 Tishrei [4799] Anno Mundi (12 September 1038 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from the future Gaon Daniel b. ʿAzarya, in al-Mahdiyya, to the leader of the Babylonian community Sahlān b. […] The letter congratulates Sahlān on his marriage, which we know to have taken place on 9 September 1037 CE, from his ketubba (T-S 20.6). The letter also discusses difficulties experienced by the Babylonian/Iraqi congregation of Fustat that were resolved with the intervention of Abū Naṣr Ḥesed al-Tustarī (ll. 13 and 16).

Related People

6

Related Places

2

العلامات

• illness
• illness letter 969-1517

3 نسخ 1 ترجمة 2 مناقشتان

Inferred date

1042–1042 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Among other matters, he writes, "I had a maternal uncle (khāl) named ʿAlī ibn al-Lādhiqī. He had a feud with Solomon ben Judah [the gaon of the Yeshiva in Palestine] and could not be in the same place with him. […] They appointed him permanent ḥazzan in al-Raqqa and as muqaddam of the city. His name [i.e., patronymic] was Birabbi Joshua [=the son of R. […] He could not remain with him [with the gaon] in Jerusalem and returned to his permanent position in al-Raqqa" (Frenkel). He mentions in passing near the end the illness of the son of Yeḥezqel ha-Kohen he-Meʿulle.

Related People

5

Related Places

3

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Some payments of arrears from the sixth week are also noted. This is a full report. The numerals are not defined. […] Our list notes the number of loaves allocated to each household for one distribution (habitual in all lists of the poor), but registers the total spent on bread during one week (by the distributor concerned).

العلامات

• account
• charity
• communal

1 نسخ 1 مناقشة

Document date

Kislev 5480 Anno Mundi (13 November 1719–12 December 1719 CE)

Primary language

Hebrew

The document entry lists an uncommon locational arrangement: the wedding will take place in eight months in Alexandria on Shavuʿot, however, the married couple plan to reside in Cairo afterwards. Perhaps the bride's family planned to travel from Ottoman Crete for the wedding and Alexandria presented a more accessible venue rather than Cairo. (3) Investment partnership between Yaʿaqov Yo'av and Ḥana the wife of David ha-Levi Ṭorina/Ṭrinqī (?).

Related Places

3

العلامات

• betrothal
• late court records

1 نسخ

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Names include: Yiṣḥaq and Shelomo Banī Fashshāṭ; Avraham al-Kharīdī (dealer in unperforated pearls); Moshe b. […] Shuʿayb; Yefet b. Sahlān; Khalaf b. ʿAlī; Menaḥem b. Baqāʾ; David b. Shemarya; Yefet b. […] Ghulayb; and many more, some quite unusual. On verso there is also a note in Judaeo-Arabic stating that Abū Saʿīd owes half a dirham.

Related People

1

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Primary language

Arabic

Addressed to the vizier ("ḥaḍrat al-wizāra") concerning either the appointment of an amir in Yemen, or written by an amir in Yemen who has previously received several favors from the state and has an established patronage with the vizier. […] The latter is a hierarchy in the Fatimid daʿwa, and a title which the Fatimid caliphs would use to address their vassals in Yemen, especially the Sulayhid empress Arwa. (See ʿImād al-Dīn, ʿŪyūn al-Akhbār vol. VII, and Sijillāt Mustanṣiriyya). 4) Towards the end of the document, the writer mentions an affair that cannot be revealed in written correspondence, perhaps hinting at a matter of confidence. […] The join between {ENA 3700.1 + BL OR 5557K.10} + {T-S NS 162.34 + T-S NS 70.10} is indirect but seems almost certain. Joins: Alan Elbaum. (Information in part from Khan's edition of T-S NS 162.34.)

Related People

1

العلامات

• dimme
• petition
• qadi al-qudah
• report
• vizier
• (+ 1 المزيد)

3 نسخ 2 ترجمتين

Inferred date

1025–1051 CE

Primary language

Hebrew

Sahlan, a leader of Egyptian Jewry, Solomon's 'peer,' with whom he had probably studied many years before, had just died, and his own son was on his way to Aleppo in northern Syria, a voyage fraught with danger. . . . […] I ask God only to keep me alive through this year so that people should not say: "Both died within one year." […] My eyes are dim, and, when I write, it is as if I was learning it, sometimes the lines are straight and sometimes crooked, and so is my style, because my mind is disturbed since the day my beloved [son] traveled to Aleppo to fetch some goods he had left there. I pray to God to bring him back in safety "before I depart and be no more" [Psalms 39:14]'" (Goitein, Med Soc, V, p. 120, translating lines 19–25).

Related People

2

Related Places

1

العلامات

• 11th c
• arabic address
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: letter norms
• (+ 3 المزيد)

1 نسخ

Primary language

Hebrew

] - Saʿd b. ʿUmar - ʿAli b. Bashshār - Suqayr b. [...] - Hiba b. Yiṣḥaq - Ḥārith (חרת) b. […] - Asad ha-[...] אלטרוש (= al-Uṭrūsh = the deaf?) There follows verbiage about what will happen if other people who are not known and not fitting should infringe on the rights of those listed above. A person named Maṣliaḥ is also mentioned. It is possible that this is actually the upper part of T-S 12.239, since the documents have identical layout, and T-S 12.239 also starts with verbiage about how no one else has the right to infringe on the appointees.

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Document date

20 Kislev 1550 Seleucid (29 November 1238 CE)

Goitein's index card suggests that the Nagid at this time is already David I, but it is not clear if he deduced that from the phrases in the document or if he already knew that Avraham died before this date.

Related Places

1

العلامات

• ketubba
• marriage

1 مناقشة

Primary language

Arabic

Fragment (the beginnings of 4 lines from the bottom). Mentions al-Shaykh Ḥamīd and the Jewish m an Khalaf who lives in [...]. Asking the addressee's help to "stop the harm from him" (kaff al-ḍarar ʿanhu). More specifics might be preserved.

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Inferred date

1100–1138 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Addressed to someone important, possibly the Nagid, and possibly specifically Maṣliaḥ Gaon (based on some flattering phrases that also appear in other letters to Maṣliaḥ). He is writing to seek help on behalf of a man named Isḥāq b.

Related People

2

العلامات

• halfon b. menashshe
• prison
• recommendation

1 نسخ

Primary language

Arabic

Poem in elegant Arabic script followed by a curious note: (the poet and/or scribe?) "Mukhliṣ al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Hādī l-Islām Iyādi (?)

Related Documents

1

العلامات

• 19th c
• arabic poetry

لا توجد ثبت المراجع والمصادر

Inferred date

1205–1237 CE

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from the office of Avraham Maimonides (r. 1205–1237 CE), in Fustat, to the community of Alexandria (נאמון). Dating: ca. 1220 CE. He instructs them to help a woman and her little daughter to get to Palestine, where she had another daughter.

Related People

1

Related Places

5

العلامات

• avraham maimonides

1 مناقشة