List or table: T-S Ar.30.275

Description

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew dealing with funds from a wide variety of Ottoman tax farm districts (iltizām) and their respective tax farmers (multazim). Dated in multiple entries, possibly as Rajab 1089 AH: אפ׳׳ט, with the aleph marking 1000 (1678 CE). This digit may be non-alphanumerical, however, and requires further research because the paleography could also be eighteenth-century or, less likely, sixteenth-century. The year 1289 AH (1872 CE) is out of the question because the iltizām tax farming system was abolished by Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha in 1812 CE. At least two people practiced the signatures on this bifolio: Shelomo b. Moshe Saʿadīya and M[oshe?]/M[eʾīr?] Ḥazaq. Oddly, the quality of handwriting varies widely for each signature, raising the question of whether multiple pupils were copying and learning from their structure. The scribal hands are distinct enough from the state accounts that they may be of no relation and were probably recorded once the bifolio became scrap paper. The scribe who recorded these accounts likely held a post within the Ottoman fiscal administration of Egypt given the extent of their knowledge of tax farm funds throughout the entire province. Many members of the imperial administration in Egypt are mentioned as well as their corresponding rank/titles and respective tax farm districts: -Muḥ[ammad]/Maḥ[mūd] ibn Sīnān müteferriqa of the Diwān Miṣr (Governor's Court of Cairo), kāshif and multazim of the district Baʿd Jawāzī(?) under wilayat al-Gharbiyya; -Muṣṭafa ibn ʿAbdallah müteferriqa in the Diwān Miṣr, multazim of the district Abū al-Haythām under wilayat al-Gharbiyya; -Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad for (?)מנקעדין, multazim of the district al-שבכאניין under wilayet al-Sharqiyya; -Badr-dīn al-Samlawī müteferriqa in the Diwān Miṣr, multazim of the district Minyat מעלה and others under wilayet al-Sharqiyya; -Qāsim ibn ʿAbdallah(?) tüfekçiyān, multazim of the district Sammānūd and others under wilayat al-Gharbiyya; -Muṣṭafa ibn Yosef follower of Sulayman Beğ Jām.. גומליאן(?), multazim of the district שנכאב and others under wilayet al-Gīziyya; -Muḥ[ammad]/Maḥ[mūd] ibn Aḥmad al-Rashdī müteferriqa of the Diwān Miṣr, multazim of [... i]khrāj Jazīrat al-Khaḍara; -Iskender ibn ʿAbdallah müteferriqa, former kāshif and multazim of wilayet al-Sharqiyya; -Yosef ibn Ibrahīm and the ..(?) Ḥefeṣ, Jews, may His Rock keep them and sustain them (יצ׳׳ו), former tax farmers of shares (מקטעת) in Alexandria and Rāshīd, followers of the emir(?); -Muṣṭafa ibn Maḥmū[d] emin (superintendant) of the terskhāne (dockyard) of Būlāq and the port of Suez...; Description and edition in-progress. Identified by Matthew Dudley in June 2026. MCD