Documents

Primary language

Hebrew

Shelomo the physician, known as Ibn al-Ṭaffāl (“son of the fuller”), who arrived in Qalyub bearing a letter from Sar Shalom supposedly appointing him as the exclusive mohel for “all the villages.” […] Moshe now gets to the point of the letter: he has heard that Ibn al-Ṭaffāl slandered him to Sar Shalom, claiming that he said things against the Gaon that he never said. […] He would have presented himself in person, but it was all he could do to even write a letter. He wrote it lying down, prostrated by illness of his intestines and eyes.

Related Places

2

Tags

• circumcision
• ibn al-taffal
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: excuse
• (+ 6 more)

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mentions Sahlān b. Avraham. Also mentions shipments of money and goods: honey, crocus, linen, linen fabrics, and “lāsīn” silk. […] When I go to the bazaar, I am forced to sit on the road five times and more. I have ceased all my work. May God have mercy on me." The translations of Goitein and Gil diverge significantly. […] Both read "mayyit" (incurable, fatal) instead of ʿayītu, but as the next word is almost illegible, the only way to decide between the two readings is via comparing it with Nissim's other מs and עs.

Related People

2

Related Places

2

Tags

• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: limb
• illness: physician
• illness: treatment

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Document date

1469/1471 Seleucid (1158–1160 CE)

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

Ḥalfon ha-Kohen and Sitt al-Milāḥ b. Abū Saʿīd, at the top the name Khalaf Abū Saʿīd al-Kohen from Cairo (the bride’s father) is mentioned. (2) A second statement refers to Khalaf Abū Saʿīd who will trade with a sum of money paid to him for the orphan Abū Ḥasan (b. […] for a 50% share of the profits, dated Elul 1470 of the Seleucid Era (= 1159 CE). (3) The copy of a power of attorney dated to the first decade of Tammuz 1469 of the Seleucid Era (= 1158 CE) in Damīra under authority of the Nagid Shemuʾel is given by Sitt al-Niʿam bt. Yeshuʿa b. ʿAmram to Yosef b. ʿOvadya ha-Levi concerning dealings with her father’s estate, as well as mentioning names such as Hillel known as al-Abzārī and Damietta. (4) Another witness statement concerning a partnership in a shop and dated Marḥeshvan 1471 of the Seleucid Era (= 1160 CE) is signed by Shemarya b.

Related People

1

1 Transcription 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Primary languages

Hebrew, Ladino

Legal declaration, probably the concluding page of a deposition, signed by Shem Ṭov al-Ḥāmī. In Hebrew and Ladino. Dating: Late. Shem Ṭov declares that he vowed to undertake the nezirut of Samson (i.e., abstain from wine and let his hair go wild) when his son had an eye disease. […] At this point they wanted the mother-in-law to leave them alone, but she refused to leave without her daughter. […] He signs Shem Tov ("Good Name") al-Ḥāmī, watchman of a quarter. "The purpose of the declaration was, of course, that the impulsive watchman thirsted for wine and wished to be absolved from his overhasty vow."

Tags

• illness
• illness: eye
• ladino
• late heb
• marital dispute

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Document date

1647 Seleucid (October 1335 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

(perhaps read 1647, which is 1335/36 C.E., which is much more likely than 647 A.M = 881/82 C.E., but note that the preceding letter looks more like a dalet [= 4000] than an alef). In any event, this notation seems to have been there before the list was written, as proved by the last name on line 10, Sulayman, which had to be squeezed in to avoid the letters in the margin, and by the fact that the note is seemingly in a different hand. […] (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 496, App. C 69 and Cohen.) Also discussed in Goitein, "The Twilight of the House of Maimonides," Tarbiz 54 (1984), 99f.

Tags

• 14th c
• communal

1 Transcription

Document date

1352 Seleucid (11 September 1040–30 August 1041 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The case comes before the caliph ʿUmar Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, who is impressed that Bustanay does not flinch when a mosquito bites him. […] The point of the polemic: all the descendants of Bustanay are compromised, and the true house of King David will be revealed only in messianic times. […] Avraham, cast aspersions on Danʾiel b. ʿAzarya presumably also against Shelomo b. Yehuda. (Rustow, Heresy, 314) For a parallel text, see PGPID 35180.

Tags

• bustanay
• conversion
• exilarch
• literary with documentary value
• nasis
• (+ 1 more)

1 Transcription 2 Discussions

Document date

Tuesday, 5 Adar II 1437 Seleucid (1126 CE)

Primary languages

Aramaic, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

(Information in part from Friedman, "A Case of Polygyny with David, Abigail, and Ḥasana," Dine Israel X–XI (1981–83). Also discussed in Friedman, "Polygyny in Jewish Tradition and Practice," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 49 (1982), 33–68.) […] Yosef ha-Parnas (whose name appears also on verso of T-S 16.252 (PGPID 3470)).

Related People

1

Tags

• halfon b. menashshe
• ketubba
• polygyny

1 Transcription 2 Discussions

Children's alphabet

No Scholarship Records

Alphabets for children

No Scholarship Records

Alphabets for children

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Alchemical text.

Tags

• alchemy

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Yisrael b. Natan, from Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Qayrawan. Around 1045.

Related People

3

Related Places

3

Tags

• nahray b. nissim
• trade

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

In Judaeo-Arabic. Concerning alimonies (15 dirhams and 3 waybas per month) which the wife of Faraḥ was being paid during the period she was nursing a boy. […] The brother of Faraḥ, Sālim, left and went to the army camp (al-ʿaskar). The sender asks Eliyyahu to bring up this matter with 'sayydinā' (probably Avraham Maimonides).

Related People

1

Tags

• alimony
• army

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

People mentioned include the shammash Thābit, the Ḥaver, someone's father-in-law (ḥammūhu) Abū l-Ḥusayn; and Abū Isḥāq al-Ṣayrafī—this last is the person with whom Nissim sent his previous letter along with the medicinal electuary (maʿjūn).

Related People

1

Tags

• book trade
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: medicine

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Inferred date

1135–1164 CE

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

Information from Goitein’s note cards and Med Soc II, 44. See also card #27137.

Related People

1

Related Places

1

Tags

• bonesetter
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: limb
• illness: treatment

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Hebrew

A few names are mentioned such as Moshe b. Ḥayyīm and Yiṣḥaq al-Sh__[?]. In the first entry the payment may be related to a quantity of leather (גלדי). […] The shelfmarks ENA 2898.7-14 may all be from the same booklet. MCD.

Tags

• 15th or 16th c
• leather
• numismatic dating

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Hebrew

, to Moshe Abudarham, in Alexandria. In Hebrew. Dating: Second half of the 16th century, based on Avraham David's identification of the addressee.

Related Places

2

Tags

• moshe b. abudarham
• perahim

No Scholarship Records

Document date

7 Elul 4839 Anno Mundi (8 August 1079 CE)

In the hand of the ḥaver ʿAmram b. Ṣedaqa (see also T-S AS 150.230, T-S 16.136, T-S AS 156.394, and T-S AS 150.230).

Related Places

1

Tags

• ketubba
• marriage

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Inferred date

1030–1030 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Petition from Shelomo b. Yehuda to the caliph al-Ẓāhir (matn only) defending his position against Yūsuf al-Sijilmasi, the Iraqi leader in Palestine.

Related People

2

Related Places

2

Tags

• copy
• dimme
• investiture
• lost archive
• petition
• (+ 1 more)

4 Transcriptions 1 Translation

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic, Unidentified language and script

Written in Judaeo-Arabic and a cipher (lines 7-12; noticed by OZ; probably this is also in Judaeo-Arabic). The portion of the letter not in cipher mostly consists of regards, and a complaint that the addressee had sent no letter ever since Abū Manṣūr had left her, and he is angry at her.

Tags

• bilingual
• cipher
• to examine

1 Transcription

Document date

937 Hijrī (25 August 1530–14 August 1531 CE)

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

The bottom of the verso has a note in Hebrew mentioning that Moshe ibn Sunbul went "from there (Abū Qīr?) to go to Alexandria" (~15 miles distance if Abū Qīr was implied).

Related Places

2

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Late family letter in Judaeo-Arabic, it seems from a man to his brother Shemuel (or less likely his father, if the letter is read as a ב). Alexandria is mentioned in the first line. The addressee is to tell something confidential to Sari (?)

Related Places

1

Tags

• late ja

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Business letter from Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Ṭulayṭulī to Abū al-Najm Hilāl b. Yosef ha-Qara.

Tags

• aodeh
• dimme
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: hammam
• (+ 2 more)

2 Transcriptions

Primary language

Arabic

The writer thanks the addressee for his benefactions and reports on a specific group of people who were consumed by greed and hence lost their decency. Mentions bāb al-Ṭāhir al-Nabawī, probably the Caliph himself, and reports that no traveler passed through the gates of southern Upper Egypt.

Tags

• dimme
• taqbil

1 Transcription

Primary language

Arabic

Fragment of a petition in Arabic script, interspersed with Arabic script in the wide spaces what seems like a draft of a letter or just casual reuse of the state document. The second hand also seems like a chancery hand but is different from the first hand.

Tags

• dimme

1 Transcription

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

This letter concerns a transaction in wheat (possibly one irdabb) and involving among others a haver ('member of the yeshiva'). If al-shaykh Yeshu'a (lines 3-4) is the same person as al-melammed ('the teacher', line 1), he may be identified as one of two persons attested in Geniza documents by the name Yeshu'a ha-melammed b.

1 Transcription

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

An unnamed elder (titled 'the most illustrious, solid') directs the beadle Abu al-Tahir to furnish Harun the copyist with a good copy of a Torah scroll so that the latter can copy from it. Harun is to bring the book to the beadle each Friday, to be read on the Sabbath. A beadle named Abu al-Tahir b. Mahfuz was active between 1183 and 1223 (Med.

1 Transcription

The accounts relate to income (וארד) from a variety of sources, such as the "ṭaʾifat al-qaṣabaya[?]" (טאייפת אלקצבאייה) which may be an erratic spelling meant to refer to a butcher's guild in Cairo. The following names appear in the accounts: (recto) Muḥammad Ṭara[?], al-Ḥajj Ismaʿīl, (verso) Muḥammad Ḥarārī, and Nissīm Ḥāmī, among others.

Tags

• 19th c

No Scholarship Records

Inferred date

1750–1850 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

On the recto there is also a list of books in the Bible and the corresponding totals of their respective chapters (i.e.

Tags

• 18th or 19th c

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

He wants to know which ships have arrived, the news of the merchants and the merchandise, and sends greetings to Abū Bakr and al-F[...] b. Ilyās (?). Fragment filled with Arabic script and Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew written at all angles.

Related Places

1

Related Documents

1

Tags

• arabic script

1 Transcription

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

On verso there is a list of medical simples, including saffron, sugar, aloe, camphor, honey, and alum (this description might belong with a different fragment; it does not seem to match the handful of mysterious words in Hebrew script that actually appear on verso).

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Nahray b. Nissim, from Alexandria, to Yosef b. Eli Kohen Fasi, Fustat. Around 1055.

Related People

2

Related Places

2

Tags

• byzantine coins
• coins
• trade

3 Transcriptions 1 Translation

Inferred date

1040–1040 CE

Some of the names mentioned in the document are: Khalaf b. Musa al-Barqi and Sahlan b. Yehoshua al-Tarabulusi. This document was written in Iyyar 1351/ February-March 1040 (Ben-Sasson).

Related Places

5

Related Documents

1

2 Transcriptions