Legal document: T-S NS J20 + T-S AS 168.232 + T-S AS 159.199 + T-S 12.477

Description

Large legal document (drafts?) at least partially in the hand of Meʾir b. Hillel b. Ṣadoq. Dated: Thursday, 1 Tammuz 4940 AM = 26 June 1180 CE. A man named Moshe b. Shelomo who had inherited from his wife 8 out of 24 shares of a house in the neighborhood of Ḥammām al-Akhawayn, which had belonged to his father-in-law Hillel b. Avraham b. Elishaʿ, gives two shares to his mother-in-law Sitt al-Tujjār bt. Yaʿaqov b. Ḥananʾel as a gift and leases the remaining 6 shares to his two sisters-in-law (Sitt al-Kafāʾa and Sitt al-Turaf the wife of Elʿazar b. Nadiv) for a 5-year period ending Iyyar 4945 AM (= 1185 CE) for a total rent of 15 dinars, which sum he renounces to them. In the margin (in another hand), these shares are given to them as a gift. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) Oded Zinger identified that T-S NS J20 and T-S 12.477 are from the same document; Alan Elbaum identified that T-S AS 168.232 and T-S AS 159.199 bridge the gap and join the two larger pieces. Merits further examination. Description from T-S AS 159.199: Recto: draft of a legal document. Mentions [...] who was my wife, Sitt al-Kafāʾa. Refers to five shares of a house. Verso: unusually formatted legal document (formatted like a letter), in a different hand. Involves real estate, an inheritance from a father, and a tenant Moshe b. Shela "who was the husband of Sitt al-[...] our sister."