Documents

Primary language

Arabic

Begins: "Uṣdirat/aṣdartu hādhihi l-[...] ilā al-majlis al-sāmī.... al-ajallī al-mawlawī... al-makhdūmī... al-sayyidī al-sanadī... al-Badrī...." The addressee is probably titled something like Badr al-Dīn or in the service of one. On recto there is a ketubba (see separate entry).

Related Documents

1

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mentions people such as: Abū l-Faraj, al-Faqīh Ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥarīrī, al-Ḥājj Ibrāhīm the partner of Hunayd, Jamāl al-Dīn ʿUmar (of Funduq al-Būrī?), Dā'ūd b. Naba, Yūsuf al-Ṣabbāgh, Nuṣayr b. ʿAlī, and al-Shaykh al-Rashīd.

No Scholarship Records

Document date

1528 Seleucid (15 September 1216–3 September 1217 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Legal document. Location: al-Maḥalla. Dated: 1528 Seleucid = 1216/17 CE. Al-Nuṣayr b. al-Ḥakīm, a Muslim, declares before Yosef b. […] (Information from Goitein's index cards; also Mediterranean Society, I, p. 242; II, 402.) It seems that al-Nuṣayr is not stating that he will do this, but rather threatening to do so if al-Makīn's in-law al-Rashīd Abū ʿAlī b. al-Makīn does not pay off his debt (the part about al-Rashīd appears in the section of l. 8 that Goitein left unread).

Related Places

1

Tags

• debt
• diwan
• state

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Arabic

Mentions other landmarks including the house of Bū ʿAlīal-Urjuwānī and that of Fāris al-Kubarāʾ(?). Also mentions the al-Mamṣūṣa neighborhood of Fustat. […] Mentions Abū Jaʿfar b. ʿAlī and Qāsim b. Jamīl al-Ḥāmī. Needs examination.

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Family letter from the end of the 12th century to Abu al-Faraj b. Abu al-Barakāt, a doctor in Fustat, from his brother in Alexandria. The letter mentions forceful collection of the capitation tax (jaliya) in Alexandria. (Information from Frenkel. See also Goitein, MEd. […] Goitein describes the document as following: Family letter from a physician in Alexandria to his brother, also a physician, who had traveled to Fustat without having paid his poll-tax (or having forgotten to send the receipt back).

Related Places

2

Tags

• capitation tax
• jaliya
• jizya
• personal
• tax

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter that mentions the death of Aharon b. Yeshu'a Ibn al-'Ammani. A man writes to his two brothers in Alexandria. He left Alexandria for Fustat in order to get from the sons of Aharon b. […] Hanan that instructs his Na'ib (his deputy) in Alexandria to give assistance in regards to the will.

Related Places

3

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Arabic

Recto, lower section: -a header: "al-Maḥāriqa" (perhaps a tribe/family name; there are also places by this name in both present-day Yemen and Algeria) -people's names including Ḥasan(?) […] -the term "khāṣṣa" or "khāṣṣatih" (his retinue?) also appears frequently. Verso, upper section: -a header: "min al-Suwayqiẓa (? […] -"min Dāmūs" (there are places by this name in present-day Spain (Ademuz) and Algeria, but it's also a common noun meaning 'vault'; could also be Kāmūs here).

Related Places

2

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Many names mentioned, including Shihāb al-Ḥajj; Munjid; Munajjā al-Ḥajj; ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-[...]; "the Christian who is in the qāʿa of Abū Naṣr"; Abū ʿAlīal-Yahūdī; Sālim b. Yūsuf; Aḥmad al-[...].

No Scholarship Records

Document date

20 Rabīʿ I 909 Hijrī (12 September 1503 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

ENA 3960.6–10 are five distinct but related Mamlūk-era legal documents in Arabic script, all dated 909 H (1503/04 CE), and involving the same people (e.g., Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Khwājā Yūsuf b. al-Ḥājj ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Tājir al-Saffār(?) al-Ḥalabī) and the same witnesses (Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Qādir b. [...] and Ismāʿīl [...]). […] The genre of the sale document is an iqrār, i.e., an acknowledgement which is also a sub-genre of with Islamic legal manuals (shurūṭ al-fiqh).

Tags

• dimme
• iqrar
• pinholes

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

He states that he consulted God and sent with al-Rayyis Fāris 7 manns of saffron in a receptacle (ẓarf); also mentions a pouch (mizwad); he also sent [...] weighing 109; and also a bale of אש.... Almost nothing else remains. On a second unrelated piece of paper underneath, dated 1942, somebody (Alexander Marx?)

Related People

2

Tags

• ib-addenda
• ib5
• india book unedited
• trade

No Scholarship Records

Document date

1235 Hijrī (20 October 1819–8 October 1820 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Receipt or order of payment issued by the state administration for silk production in Alexandria. Dated 25 Ramadan/R[abīʿ] al-Akhr[?] 1235 AH which is 1819 CE. A state official, the "overseer of silk looms [in] Alexandria" signed and stamped the document. A certain Barakāt al-ṣarrāf is also mentioned, possibly the same official mentioned in JRL SERIES C 7 (PGPID 31857).

Related Places

1

Tags

• 19th c
• dimme
• late arabic script

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

State document with a header invoking the name of al-Qāḍī al-Ashraf thiqat al-imām. The main text is barely three lines long, followed by sums and registration marks. There is a mention of "carpet spreaders of the palace" (farrāshī l-quṣur), and an iqṭāʿ. A date is also preserved. Extremely elegant hand. The ʿalāma is: "al-ḥamdu li-llāh ḥamd al-shākirīn".

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Mentions Muḥammad b. ʿAmmār al-Tājir in l. 3. Mentions a variant of the raʾy clause: "al-ʾārā al-ʿāliyya". Could be a petition, but could also be a formal letter, as no other petition formula is preserved. Also ends with the Quranic verse (53:22). On the verso, there are a few words in Hebrew (Proverbs 1:8).

No Scholarship Records

Document date

1531 Seleucid (12 September 1219–30 August 1220 CE)

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mentions people including: his daughter (receives 47 dinars); his cousin (ibn ʿamm); Efrayim his son; Sitt al-Khafāʾ bt. Abū l-Munajjā; Futūḥ b. [...]; Sayyid al-Ahl al-Qāhirī; Makārim al-Maḥallī; al-Rayyis [al-shaykh al-sa?][…] Bū Ghālib; Abū l-Riḍā b. Abū Zikrī; Abū l-ʿAlāʾ; Abū l-Maḥāsin al-Shaykh al-Tifʾeret; Ibn al-Sunbāṭī; Abū l-Fakhr Ibn al-Shammāʿ; Dāʾūd al-Bilbaysī; Abū l-Bahāʾ.

Related People

2

Related Places

1

Tags

• dowry
• slaves
• will

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Arabic

With a popular character: it has extremely short verses with dense rhymes: (1) wa-starhabūhā al-ruhbān. . . wa-staqsamū [..] al-ṣulbān. . . (2) yā ṣāḥ ludhdh bi-alwāḥ wa-nhaḍ [...] al-afrāḥ [...] al-mirāḥ [...] al-aqdāḥ. The latter poem is full of conventional love imagery and reminiscent of Yemeni Shabazian poetry (but there is nothing to suggest that this fragment is late or that it has any connection with Yemen or even with Jews). There is also what may be a name of a woman: Ghālī bt. al-Dawālī.

Tags

• arabic poetry
• arabic script
• popular literature

No Scholarship Records

Document date

Dhū l-Ḥijja 1254 Hijrī (27 March 1838–25 April 1838 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Dated: at the end of [Dhū] al-Ḥijja 1254 AH (1838 CE). Receipt for al-Khwājā Ibrāhīm al-Jūshīyā al-ṣarrāf for the house he rented in Ḥarat al-Yahūd in Darb al-Ḥamṣānī which is an endowment of Sitt Nafīsa al-Najdaliyya. The waqf overseer is listed as Selīm Agha whose ink stamp appears below his name in the right margin. The stamp also bears the corresponding year: ١٢٥۴, 1254 Hijrī.

Tags

• dimme
• waqf

1 Transcription

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

The sender seems to be conveying a legal query from the original queriers (ahl al-suʾāl) to a higher authority (adonenu) concerning a controversy over half of a Torah scroll (al-nuṣf al-sefer). There is also a question concerning the beadle (khādim al-kanīs... al-melammed) and two brass platters (ṭabaqyn nuḥās) Verso: Another letter, in a different hand. Possibly referring to tailors' work, and also to the bearer of this letter. (Information in part from CUDL.)

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Refers to someone's illness (r2), and evidently the sender was also sick because God sent him health (r4) and now he is well. He mentions that he fasts. On verso mentions al-nīl, likely referring to indigo rather than to the Nile (which is usually al-Baḥr). Also mentions somebody who traveled to Ashmūnayn (280 km south of Cairo), also mentioning "al-Minya" and the news of bread and wheat.

Related Places

3

Tags

• illness
• illness letter 969-1517

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Mentions names such as Bayt al-Muʿalllim, Bayt Futūḥ, Bayt Ibn al-Ṣarrāf, Dār Sitt al-Jamāl, Dār Abū l-ʿIzz, Bayt al-Ṣarrāf, al-Dukkān. (The word bayt could also be read as sitt in some of these instances.)

No Scholarship Records

Primary languages

Arabic, Hebrew

The first states that Muḥammad b. ʿAlīal-Mālikī owes Salmūn b. al-Dayyān Mūsā Ibn al-[...] […] The next entry also refers to a Muḥammad b. ʿAlī and calls him a qāḍī. […] Some of the other jottings also refer to other names, such as al-Muʿallim Samawʾal Kūhān (Shemuʾel Kohen).

Related Places

2

Tags

• learning

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter to Abū Zikrī Yehuda b. Menashshe b. David al-Ṣayrafī. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender might be Faraḥ b. Yūsuf al-Qābisī (the usual correspondent of Yehuda b. […] Mercantile letter concerning the trade in commodities such as pepper and mentioning Abū Saʿd and traders from al-Andalus. Mentions the geographical area of Jazāʾir al-Qurashī (also mentioned in T-S 16.13) and awaiting a group of people called al-Fīshāniyyīn or al-Fayshāniyyīn (also mentioned in Sassoon 713).

Tags

• account

No Scholarship Records

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

Recto: Petition draft in Judaeo-Arabic. Abū ʿAlī b. Abū l-[ʿIzz al-Yahūdī] kisses the ground before al-maqām al-ʿālīal-sulṭānī al-malikī al-sayfī al-ʿādilī, and reports that he is a poor man and cannot pay even his own capitation tax (al-qiyām bi-l-jāliya) except through the charity of others. […] He asks for the issuing of a rescript (khurūj al-tawqīʿ) confirming that he should only be liable for his own capitation tax.

Tags

• al-'adil
• capitation tax
• petition
• tawqi'

1 Transcription 1 Translation

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Abu al-Nasr b. al-Melammed mentioning the impending divorce of his nephew and niece. Abu al-Nasr describes himself as suffering 'dispersion and separation from family and friends' after he traveled from Fustat to Alexandria, where he hoped his mother would join him. He adds that he will spread the fame of his benefactor at warehouses and social gatherings. He also writes that his wife refused to return with him to Alexandria after he had had to flee to and spend some time in Fustat after having gone bankrupt in Alexandria.

Related Places

1

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Abū l-Manṣūr b. Ṭāhir al-Kohen, in Alexandria, to Abū ʿAlī Manṣūr b. Yiṣḥaq al-Dimashqī, in Fustat. […] The letter reports on a decree of Saladin that was proclaimed in Alexandria, halving the customs dues (maks) that had been incumbent on local and foreign Jews and Christians. The ṣāḥib al-dīwān authenticated and registered the decree (athbatahū), and the amir Fakhr al-Dīn ordered for it to be implemented.

Related People

2

Related Places

1

Tags

• 12th c
• business
• customs
• decree
• sahib al-diwan
• (+ 5 more)

3 Transcriptions 1 Discussion

Primary language

Arabic

Title and introductory page (recto) for the ophthalmological work Tadhkirat al-Kaḥḥālīn by ʿAlī ibn ʿIsa al-Kaḥḥāl (d. 1038 or 1039 CE). […] The Arabic text on the verso could also be from the Tadhkirat al-Kaḥḥālīn but is in a different scribal hand. The paper was also reused on the recto for piyyuṭ. ASE/MCD.

Tags

• cmp
• medicine

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter sent from Damascus to ʿAllūn b. Yaʿīsh al-Firnās al-Hārūnī (aka the parnas ʿEli b. […] Reporting among many other matters that Abū ʿAlī Ḥassūn b. Musallam Ibn al-Ḥirbish had come to Alexandria and asking that he see to it that al-Hirbish fulfills his obligations.

Related Places

3

Tags

• communal

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Fragment of a legal document, mentioning Ibn Abū l-[...]ān and Bāb(?) al-Ḥarīr (silk) in New Cairo (al-Muʿizziya) and Fustat. Also specifies a sum of cash. (Information in part from CUDL.) For the phrase "bāb al-ḥarīr" see also ENA 2715.23 (PGPID 11106).

Related Places

2

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Seems to be an acknowledgment by [...] b. Ismāʿīl al-Ḥalabī al-Mutaṭabbib (the Aleppan physician) in l. 2 and also mentions [...] b. Isḥāq al-Ḥalabī in l. 3. Needs further examination.

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The writer revised the letter, probably after completing it, and added in several missing alifs. He has an unspecified illness. He is lying sick in the house of Baqā' b. al-Muṣinn (at least in the daytime), also attended by Ibn al-ʿAṣṣār. […] He describes his nights and days twice. Ibn al-Muṣinn is also in distress because his little boy is also sick. […] Date: Probably early 13th century. Abū l-Baqā' b. al-Muṣinn ("son of the stinkard") appears also in T-S NS J32, but this document is undated.

Tags

• bloodletting
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• illness: bloodletting
• illness: hospice
• (+ 6 more)

1 Transcription

Document date

Tuesday, 27 Dhū l-Qaʿda 632 Hijrī (13 August 1235 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Verso: Legal document in Arabic script. Headed by an ʿalāma: tawakkaltu [...] ʿalāAllāh. The Arabic word at the bottom of the page may also be some sort of registration mark (or signature of the scribe?). […] Abū l-Majd report the death of the Jew Yūsuf al-[...] al-Ṣaghīr b. Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabbāgh on the date of Tuesday, 27 Dhū l-Qaʿda 632 AH, which is 13 August 1235 CE. […] Khan, ALAD, docs. 125–31 for a cluster of similar documents from the same period.

Related Documents

1

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Arabic

Official report to an amīr who is addressed with many titles (al-muʾayyad al-manṣūr al-amīr Shihāb al-Dīn ʿumdat al-dawla etc.). The sender reports that he arrived in Dhū [...] and met with the secretary al-Makīn... Abū l-ʿIzz, who said that he intended to travel to the 'victorious' army encampment (al-mukhayyam al-manṣūr). […] (The word qalʿa/fortress also seems to appear here, and ḥaml can mean "campaign" as well as "shipment"; needs further study.)

No Scholarship Records

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

Verso: Apart from the address, also contains a list of Jewish names in Arabic script, including al-Raʾīs; al-Makīn; al-Dayyān; Asad; Abū l-Faraj Mutasawwiq(?); Bayān al-Muqaddasī; al-Sadīd b. al-Thiqa; al-Najīb b. al-Kāmukhī.

Tags

• abu zikri al-rayyis
• unedited judge elijah

No Scholarship Records

Document date

18 Rabīʿ I 909 Hijrī (10 September 1503 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

ENA 3960.6–10 are five distinct but related Mamlūk-era legal documents in Arabic script, all dated 909 H (1503/04 CE), and involving the same people (e.g., Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. al-Khwājā Yūsuf b. al-Ḥājj ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Tājir al-Saffār(?) al-Ḥalabī) and the same witnesses (Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Qādir b. [...] and Ismāʿīl [...]). […] The genre of the sale document is an iqrār, i.e., an acknowledgment which is also a sub-genre of with Islamic legal manuals (shurūṭ al-fiqh).

1 Transcription

Document date

1140 CE

Dating: 1140. The partners (Abū al-Barakāt and Abū al-Faraj) split losses evenly but grant the active partner (Abū al-Faraj) thirteen twenty-fourths of the profit. In fact, the document specifies two twenty-fourths of the profit allocated to Abū al-Faraj, the amount by which his share exceeded Abū al-Barakāt's, as "remuneration [for his trouble and work]". […] Abū al-Barakāt also declares that his partner’s testimony would be trusted, even though both partners are supposed to perform an accounting.

Tags

• partnership

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Primary language

Arabic

The letter opens with greetings to Burhān, Qāḍī Shams al-Dīn, al-Ḥājj Badr, the people of the Ṭashtkhāna (طشتخانة, apparently the place where the royal textiles were kept, washed, and prepared), the Mahtār al-Khayl (also a Mamluk title, taken from a Persian word, meaning something like groom/keeper of the horses), al-muʿallim Muḥammad, al-Ḥājj ʿAlī, Muḥammad al-ʿIfrīt, Badr al-Dīn al-Mukārī, and the people (=women?) […] The sender's party has been delayed due to weight of consignments it was carrying (qufalā) and not on the account of mules and the 'house,' but they hope to arrive soon. The amir ʿAlī Bey greets the addressee. Burhān is asked to get the house ready, for the women are going to arrive soon. The sender conveyed a memorandum/document (mutālaʿa) with orders for Abū Bakr al-Maghribī but Abū Bakr disobeyed him. Also, no one extended hospitality to him in Damascus, even though he conveyed the muṭālaʿāt for Muḥammad (the addressee's brother-in-law?).

Related Places

2

Tags

• dimme
• mamluk

1 Transcription

Primary language

Arabic

It seems that there is an urban food shortage or a case of grain hoarding and the writer is asking for a state intervention. The amir Munjid al-Dawla, Abū l-Ḥasan Mukhtār al-Mustanṣirī comes from a family of government officials, his father Amīn al-Dawla was also an amir and his grandson Maʾmūn al-Baṭāʾiḥī was a very influential government official and wazir of the Caliph al-Āmir Billah. According to the time period al-Maqrīzī situates Munjid al-Dawla in, he was an amir during the time of al-Mustanṣir Billah and the food shortage he is referring to could be the Shidda ʿUzma or some other famine that occurred during his reign. (See al-Maqrīzī, al-Muqaffāʿ al-Kabīr: VI, 254). YU

Related People

1

Related Documents

1

Tags

• dimme
• famine
• food shortage
• shidda
• wheat

1 Transcription 1 Translation

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Many people and professions and commodities are named. Mentions Dār al-Maqādisa; Darb al-Maqādisa; Dār Ibn ʿImrān; al-ʿAnbarī; Ḥashshāshīn; Bū l-Faraj; Bū l-Munā; Bū ʿAlī; and al-Shaykh al-Rashīd al-Ṣayrafī.

Tags

• list

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Legal document concerning business matters, particularly the price of wax (thaman al-sham’), and citing various sums of money. Abu Yaqub Yusuf al-Fasi, Ibn Ishaq al-Andalusi, al-Farah b. Ishaq al-Muqaddas, and Yusuf b. ‘Ali are all mentioned.

Related Places

1

Related Documents

1

Tags

• business
• wax

1 Transcription

Primary language

Arabic

State document, a decree from the chancery of al-Ḥāfiẓ. Probably a copy of a decree, than an original decree as it is less elegant and less grandiose. Contains some administrative notes on verso like: sijill muʿazzam, al-ʿalāmaal-sharīfa, al-ʿalāmaal-juyūshiya. Merits further examination.

1 Transcription

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

The four men are Abū l-Ḥasan the cantor known as Ibn מכור; Yaʿaqov and Khulayf the sons of Yosef al-Ḥazzan; and Khalaf b. Hiba known as al-Ṭunnāmilī (appears also in ENA 1822a.24 (PGPID 2620) in the context of mushāq). The document also mentions R. Yiṣḥaq; Abū l-Maʿālī; checking the court records (al-shimmush); Barakāt known as Ibn ʿĀdī. There are also other commodities involved, including codices (maṣāḥif).

Related People

2

Tags

• flax

1 Transcription 1 Discussion