Legal document: T-S 8J32.3

Description

Legal document. Court record from Fustat. Dated: Tuesday, 4 Av 1473 (17 July 1162). Incomplete record of proceedings of the court of Netan’el ha-Levi (ga’on b. Moshe the sixth) concerning a silk-trading partnership between Shemu’el b. Shelomo and (Abū) Manṣūr El’azar b. Yishaq al-Dimashqī. Shemu’el b. Shelomo attests to the existence of a partnership agreement, which stipulated that profits were to be split 1/3 to 2/3, the bulk going to El’azar. This roughly corresponded with their investment in the partnership capital, Shemu’el b. Shelomo bringing 55 dinars and El’azar bringing 95. Each of the partners has the right of disposal of partnership assets. The funds are invested with local workers in various towns in the Nile Delta (Sammanūd and al-Maḥalla) as well as in longer-distance investments (such as in Tyre). The record does not discuss a dispute between the partners, but is instead largely concerned with the details of sales, investments, and profits of the partnership. Each attests to transactions and deposits; apparently, the partners did not trust one another "as two proper witnesses", and they required direct testimony of the partnership accounting. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 190)