Documents

Primary languages

Arabic, Greek/Coptic Numerals

Accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals, headed al-muʿallim Ibrāhīm al-[...].

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Literary text, probably medical. Mentions "al-zībaq al-aḥmar" red mercury.

Tags

• dimme

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Unidentified text in Arabic script, in red ink. Mentions flour and "al-ḥajar al-...".

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Account in Judaeo-Arabic giving the value of something that was sold in Alexandria, probably mercury (ziʾbaq).

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Yosef b. Yeshu'a, Alexandria, to Yosef b. Awkal (1028 or 1029).

Related Places

1

Tags

• 11th c

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Primary language

Arabic

Accounts. Mentions al-Jaʿfarī and al-Naṣrānī. Verso may mention the rent of a warehouse.

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mentions Yehuda and Tripoli (טרבלס) and Alexandria (סכדריה).

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter begging for help from a communal authority ('sayyidnā'), written by Abu Sahl b. al-Ahuv during a famine. Likely early 13th century. […] Ibn Imran recently stole 100 dinars that were buried in Abu Sahl's house and also took items from his house and sold them. Due to Abu Sahl's age and weakness, he could not act to stop this. […] Abu Sahl himself has been ill for the last month. He turned to al-Shaykh al-Nezer, who told him that Sayyidnā ordered for him to receive bread in the distribution, but it has been three weeks and he has not received any bread.

Related People

1

Tags

• appeal
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: dying
• illness: poverty
• (+ 1 more)

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Inferred date

1425–1600 CE

coinage (l. 13r). All of these figures are expressed alphanumerically. On the verso, the same hand continues accounts connected to a variety of individuals such as Yiṣḥaq b. al-Ashqar "אלאשקר" (l. 6-7v from left side of fragment), Meʾīr Saragosī "סראגוסי" (l. 8-9v), and Aharon b. al-Ashqar (l. 11-12v)– at least one of whom is traceable in dated sixteenth-century documents (R. […] In the calculations connected to these individuals, the general label "silver / פצה" (=medin) is used alongside the more specific designation of the gold "sharifi / שריפי" which was first minted under the Mamluk sultanate in 1425 CE (Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire, 60).

Tags

• list
• numismatic dating

No Scholarship Records

Document date

Ṣafar 481 Hijrī (26 April 1088–24 May 1088 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Faraḥ paid his share of the customs on the bale in Tinnīs (2.75 dinars), which means that Mawhūb owes 1.375 dinars (apparently they are dividing expenses at a 2:1 ratio). Faraḥ and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ checked the ledger of the wakīl and found in it only the entry for the customs of Fustat; Abū l-ʿAlāʾ and Ṣāʿid can both testify to this. Then mentions Tripoli, Abū l-Riḍā, and the customs for a sack of starch (mikhlāt al-kathīrāʾ) and linen cloth (khaysha). Abū l-ʿAlāʾ apparently told Mawhūb to leave the 1.375 dinars in Fustat with Abū l-Khayr Ṣadaqa. Faraḥ "did not travel until I ordered Abū l-ʿAlāʾ to collect it from the wakīl." Concludes, "If you wish to see the ledger of the wakīl, go to my master the qāḍī Abū l-Qāsim.

Related Places

3

Tags

• bialphabetic
• customs
• daftar
• qadi
• wakil al-tujjar

1 Transcription

Another interesting point in the letter is that the woman mentions that Izz al-Din came to Egypt "Because the sultan called al-Kamil sent him" - a clear reference to the Ayyubid Sultan al-Kamil (1218-1238) giving us a dating for the letter. Finally, Shelomo ha-Melammed added a personal message to Yosef at the end of the letter: He asks him to send greetings to Shelomo's cousin (the son of Shelomo's mother's brother) Abu al-Faraj and his two sons Ma'ani abd Abu Majd. These relatives are also mentioned in T-S 10J7.2 and T-S 13J35.15 (OZ).

Tags

• capitation tax
• jaliya
• jizya
• nar
• tax
• (+ 1 more)

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Document date

1248 Hijrī (31 May 1832–20 May 1833 CE)

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

The legal query reads, "A Jewish woman died, and some man came and demanded a bribe from her husband and brother "as is their custom" (ʿalā ʿādatihim)" The ruling of the jurist Aḥmad al-Tamīmī al-Khalīlī al-Ḥanafī: the bribe is invalid and the husband and brother can demand their money back. […] There are two official seals on this document, the first belonging to the Muslim authority (Aḥmad al-Tamīmī al-Ḥanafī), the second belonging to the Jewish authority Yosef Mas___[?].

Tags

• 19th c
• fatwa
• seal

1 Transcription

Inferred date

1214–1215 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

ʿIwāḍ to Ḥananel b. Shemuel. Alexandria, probably 1214-1215. Yosef's brother Futūḥ had died recently on a ship on the India route near Yemen. […] David) took the deceased man's possessions and sent them to Futūḥ's heirs in Alexandria. Yosef claims that Futūḥ did write a will that bequeathed a gift to him, but the will was not drawn up properly as they were "in a wine party" (ʿalā sharāb, l. 13). As a result, Yosef is now penniless. He reports already having written to the Nagīd of Egyptian Jewry (at the time, Avraham Maimonides), who wrote several unsuccessful letters on his behalf in an attempt to secure help from the local Jewish community.

Related People

6

Related Places

3

Tags

• 13th c
• ib2
• india book

2 Transcriptions 3 Translations 2 Discussions

Document date

Tuesday, 15 Kislev 1526 Seleucid (19 November 1214 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Abū l-Bahāʾ b. Abū l-Ḥasan al-Dalātī Ibn al-Naḥḥāl (the beekeeper) releases his nephew Moshe ha-Kohen from all obligations resulting from "all of the joint enterprises (muʿāmalāt) which were between us from the beginning of time until now", as well as any concomitant oaths. […] Goitein identifies three other financial documents between Abū l-Bahāʾ and Moshe, all of which concern loans from Moshe to his uncle. […] As the other documents are all concerned with the repayment of loans from Moshe to his uncle, it seems likely that Moshe was the source of capital for this partnership, and one of their "mutual dealings" was an investment partnership.

Related People

3

Related Places

1

Tags

• partnership
• release

1 Transcription 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Document date

20 July 1885 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Shelomo Mizraḥi or a female family member, in Alexandria, to Ibrāhīm/Brahim Aghion, in Cairo (Miṣr). […] The relationship with the addressee is also confusing, because the sender refers to her "wālida" (mother) and "umm" (mother) as if they are different people. […] (There may be a rebuke here for the addressee, who failed to write and inquire about his health.) There may also be a couple lines of poetry (the part with long hyphens), but this needs examination.

Tags

• aghion
• illness

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

They have sent him no letter at all; they only sent back the 'muthallath' (triple-weave) coat with instructions to sell it in Qalyub, but why would he have sent it to Fustat in the first place if he wanted to sell it in Qalyub? […] In the continuation (T-S AS 145.195), there isn't much more of substance, but he mentions al-Shaykh al-Yesod on recto, and then again in a postscript: "please go to al-Yesod [and apologize for me] from him and tell him that I am only hiding because of [the capitation tax?]." Join: Alan Elbaum.

Related People

2

Related Places

2

Related Documents

1

Tags

• abu sahl levi
• capitation tax
• jaliya
• moshe b. levi
• tax

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Recto: Letter from communal leaders, in Alexandria, to the judge Shemuel, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. […] Regarding a woman in Alexandria with a sick daughter, whose husband had fled his creditor and gone to the capital. […] The matter was of utmost seriousness since the Alexandrian wife asserted that her husband had married another woman and was living with her in Cairo.

Related Places

3

Tags

• aguna
• communal
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: children's
• (+ 1 more)

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from an unnamed woman, in al-Mahdiyya, to her brother, probably in Egypt. […] than you being in a foreign land... and your money will not increase as much as you think." She alludes to the loneliness of their mother, especially after their brother Yosef married and moved to al-Jibāl (the mountain region of Tunisia), where he now has two boys (possibly twins), and after another brother, Mevasser, got married in Palermo earlier that year to the daughter of their relative Abū l-Khayr Ibn al-Mazmīzī. She sends greetings (twice) from her husband and her children Zikrī, Farrāḥ, Barakāt, and Umm al-Yaman. She reports that she has taken Zikrī out of school (the kuttāb), and he is now working as a dyer.

Related Places

2

1 Discussion

Document date

1235–1236 CE

Primary languages

Arabic, Greek/Coptic Numerals, Judaeo-Arabic

See Goitein's note cards and Med Soc II, 492–93, appendix C, #55. See also Elisha Russ-Fishbane, "Earthquake, Famine, and Plague in Early Thirteenth-Century Egypt: Muslim and Jewish Sources," p. 158. […] Goitein: 'Emergency appeal for the purchase of wax candles both for the synagogue and needy persons (see B 89, 90) and also for some other communal expenses. Written mostly in Arabic characters and with Coptic numerals. […] But a few of the 32 receivers of wax candles appear also among the contributors. At least 6 names identical with C 57.'

Tags

• demographics

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

(At another point in the letter he mentions a place called Wādī al-ʿUlayqāt and a traveling companion named Ṣāliḥ al-ʿUlayqī.) The same group had come in the night and killed the kāshif, and 15 Turks had fled, "and they plundered all of the documents." The next part of the letter deals with 3 gold coins that the addressees are supposed to collect in Fustat/Cairo, and also various commodities, some of which the sender sent with Muḥammad al-Babarī. […] He mentions someone named al-rayyis/al-amir Samāʿīn. He wants Suʿūd and ʿAbd al-Karīm to come see visit him in Zarnīkh, quickly.

Related Places

2

Tags

• turks
• violence
• war

No Scholarship Records

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

Poetry in Judaeo-Arabic. There are also two lines in Arabic script, difficult to read.

Tags

• arabic script
• judaeo-arabic poetry

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic mentioning (perhaps addressed to) al-Shaykh al-Melammed Abū Saʿīd.

Related Documents

1

No Scholarship Records

Shemuel mentioning Alexandria. On the back are drafts in a cursive hand, perhaps of poetry.

Tags

• literary with documentary value

No Scholarship Records

Unidentified list in Arabic script. Also possibly a column of Coptic numerals on the left.

No Scholarship Records

Accounts. Three pages. See also ENA 3770.8. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

1 Discussion

Accounts. Three pages. See also ENA 3770.7. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

1 Discussion

Alphanumerical calculations or perhaps alphabetical practice.

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Very disorganized. There is also a nice doodle.

No Scholarship Records