Legal document: T-S 8J34.4

Description

Recto: Legal deed (part) for the sale of a house with an orchard on the Jazīra, "between the two rivers and the two bridges." Sold by a woman, probably a widow, whose son owned the adjacent property with two shops. This is not the original deed but rather a Judaeo-Arabic digest or summary of an Arabic-script (Muslim court) deed, headed "the boundaries of the House on the Jazīra." (See Moss. VII,51.1 (PGPID 16085) for a similar case.) There are also Arabic-script section headers for each boundary (al-ḥadd al-awwal... al-ḥadd al-thānī wa-huwa al-baḥrī... etc.). Goitein noticed one corroborating piece of evidence that this was copied from an Arabic-script legal document, namely that the scribe transcribed the nonsensical "twmyd" (תומיד) for the original "yawmaʾidhin" (ىومىد). See NLI 577.2/8 (PGPID 38534) for another instance of the same type of error. (The scribe probably a made a similar error with ריס אלפלאפטה; the word was likely 'qalāfiṭa' in the original document, meaning 'caulkers.') The Jazīra, which Goitein describes as the domicile of high society, was government property, and therefore the buyer of the house had to pay a monthly tax (ground rent / ḥikr) of 5/8 dirhams and the land was not included in the sale. Sales of houses were frequently made before both Muslim and Jewish notaries or courts. The seller of the house was a woman, probably a widow, and an adjacent property belonged to her son. The house described here bordered on one which had once belonged to the Fatimid vizier Yaʿqūb Ibn Killis (d. 991) and other people of high standing. Goitein's notes mention an entry in a court notebook from 1136 CE involving another house on the Jazīra worth at least 660 dinars and owned by a Jew: Bodl. MS Heb. e 98/63 (PGPID 6502). (Claire Schmeller and Marina Rustow based on Goitein's notes.) Verso: The boxed section in the lower left corner is a similar document, a summary of the four boundaries of [a property on Darb] al-Surriyya (about this street see T-S K25.254, T-S J1.47, and Gil, Documents, p. 307 note 7.) Like the document on the recto, this sale transcript lacks the buyer's name. Both were possibly part of a personal archive/record of transactions. Most of the remaining text consists of jotted notes for the preparation of Jewish legal deeds, including: (1) Ketubba which opens with praises for "our master Shemuel," potentially dating this fragment to the period of Shemuel b. Ḥananya. (The hand of the scribe may also be known.) (2) Record of debt between the trader (al-tājir) Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa b. Yosef ha-Kohen, who owes money to Abū l-Riḍā Yosef b. Berakhot Ibn al-Lebdī (probably identical with Yosef II b. Barakāt Ibn al-Lebdī, known from other documents dated 1156 CE (IB I, 37) and 1178 CE (IB I,38). (3) Something involving Ṣāʿid b. Abū ʿAlī and Hilāl and Karīm the sons of Sibāʿ al-ʿAṭṭār. (4) Conditions for the marriage or engagement of ʿEli b. Shemarya al-Bazzāz(?) and Sitt al-ʿAjam bt. [...]. Marriage payments: 5 + 16.