Legal document: T-S 8.81

Description

India Book IV,28 (ח29). Fragment of a partnership agreement in which one of the partners is Abū l-Saʿd Ḥalfon b. Netanʾel ha-Levi. Location: likely Lucena. Dating: likely beginning of July 1138 CE. In which Yosef agrees to hand over the profits by Passover of the year 1139. If he violates the agreement, Yosef must pay twenty mithqāls 'to the poor of Almeria and the captives.' The deed was written by a professional scribe, but the addition on verso is by Ḥalfon himself. Just as document ח26 opens with the statement of the active partner, Yosef b. Shuʿayb Ibn al-Najera, who received money from Ḥalfon to trade in, so here Ḥalfon gave money to Yosef to trade in. If so, we have before us two partnership deeds that were written in the West between Ḥalfon, the investor, and a 'dealer' named Yosef, and it turns out that this refers to the same partner. Since it was agreed that if Yosef broke the agreement, he will give twenty mithqāls 'to the poor of Almeria and to the captives', this document was presumably written in Spain, at the time when Ibn Al-Najera visited Ḥalfon, in Lucena, at the beginning of July 1138. (Information from Goitein, Friedman and Ashur, India Book IVB)