Legal document: Bodl. MS heb. a 2/23
Legal document Bodl. MS heb. a 2/23Description
Legal document concerning settlements among a family. Location: Qayrawān. Dated: Wednesday, 14 Iyyar 4810 AM, which is 1050 CE. Yosef b. Adoniyya ha-Kohen gave to his second wife, Ḍiyā' bt. Elḥanan, a complete ʿuluww (architectural term). The wife gave 1/2 of the ʿuluww to her daughter from a first marriage (Mawlāt bt. Yosef ha-Kohen) and 1/2 to the narrator of this testimony, her son from a second marriage, Abū l-Maʿālī b. Yefet; Abū l-Maʿālī now gives his half to his stepsister Mawlāt. This ʿuluww is located above the portico (sqīfa) of Zina bt. al-Fājū(?); its eastern boundary is the house of Yehuda b. ʿAmram; its southern boundary is the house of Yehuda b. Seʿadya b. Rawāda(?). Witnesses: Yosef b. Yehuda Rosh ha-Seder; Nissim b. Avraham Ḥarīrī; Avraham b. Yosef. Ed. Simha Assaf, "Old Genizah Documents from Palestine, Egypt and North Africa (conclusion)," Tarbiz 9 (1938), p. 215. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)
Translation: Goitein, S. D. (in English)
Bodl. MS heb. a 2/23 23 recto
Transcription
Translation
S. D. Goitein, "Geniza Documents on the Transfer and Insection of Houses," Revue de l'Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée (n.p., 1973), 401 - 412.Recto
Rabbi Abi ʾ1-Maʿālī b. Japheth appeared before us, the witnesses who sign at the bottom of this document, and said out of his own free will : "Be witness to my obligation and contract with me an agreement valid from this time on, write it down, sign and hand it over to my sister Mawlāt, the daughter of R. Joseph ha-Kohen b. Adoniya, to serve her as a title of right, as follows :
R. Joseph b. Adoniya, the Kohen, gave my mother, his wife, Ḍiyāʾ the daughter of our Master Elḥanan o(f blessed) m(emory), the upper story, and he gave her a free hand to sell it or to give it as a gift or to do with it whatever she liked. She gave one-half to me, Abi ʾ1-Maʿālī, as a definite, public and manifest gift— and I possess a document to this effect — and the other half to my sister Mawlāt.
Having thus established the validity of that gift of one-half of the upper story, I hereby give, out of my own free will, this one-half of the upper storey to my sister Mawlāt, the daughter of R. Joseph ha-Kohen, as a definite, public and manifest gift, as from today, on condition that it should serve her as a marriage gift. However, if death overtakes her before she marries, this half will revert to me, or to my heirs in the case of my death. On this condition, I hereby give this gift of one-half of the upper story, which is above the saqīfā (row of shops) belonging to Zīna, the daughter of the Fājō (the agent ? ).
Its boundaries: On the east, it stretches to the house of R. Judah b. Amram; on the west, to the middle of the house; on the south, it borders on the house of R. Judah b. R. Saadya Ibn Rawārah; on the north, it extends on to another roof, on which is the staircase of the house of
the aforementioned Zīna. This upper story, one-half of which I give to my sister Mawlāt, is the small upper story”.
(There follow ten lines of legal terms partly in Hebrew, partly in Arabic, confirming the gift, similar to those translated in I, above).
We signed on Wednesday, the fourteenth of Iyyār in the year 810 in al-Qairawān.
(Three signatures, including, at the end, that of the President of the court, who evidently was the scribe of the document).
Bodl. MS heb. a 2/23 23 verso
