Documents

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Abū l-Barakāt b. Abū l-Ḥasan, in Alexandria, to Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. […] Shelomo's father, Eliyyahu the judge, is asked to come and serve as judge in Alexandria. Gives many names of important community members in Alexandria.

Related Places

1

Tags

• alexandria
• communal

3 Transcriptions 1 Discussion

Document date

3 Rabīʿ I 607 Hijrī (25 August 1210 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Dated: 3 Rabīʿ I 607 AH, which is 25 August 1210 CE. Aḥmad b. al-Shaykh ʿAlī Ibn al-Akhḍar has received all the rent due to him from al-Muzbid Abū l-Khayr the physician. The document is written, witnessed and signed by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Harūn. (Information from CUDL and Khan.)

Related People

3

Related Documents

1

1 Transcription 1 Translation

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe Ibn al-Qaṭāʾif, in Alexandria, to one of his brothers (Ḥalfon or Peraḥya), in Fustat. […] The letter describes the general mourning of the community in Alexandria after somebody's death. Mentions a cantor from the Ibn al-Jāzfīnī/Ghāzfīnī family; Abū l-Khayr; and a young woman.

Related People

2

Related Places

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Tags

• nar

1 Transcription

Document date

3 Adar II 4845 Anno Mundi (2 March 1085 CE)

Legal document, Sunday 3 Adar II 4845 A.M. (1085), Alexandria. Yehuda b. Moshe b. Sighmar appoints Eli ha-Kohen b. […] Yahya) as his agent to represent him in a litigation against a business partner, Avraham b. Faraj al-Raḥbī al-Kohen. This is three years after Yehuda had asked Eli to help him to get the money that Avraham owed him and ten years after the original deal between the two. See also Bodl. MS heb. d 65/5 (ed. Cohen in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 56 [2013], pp. 218-263, also in Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #623).

Related People

7

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5

Tags

• mandate

4 Transcriptions 2 Translations 2 Discussions

Primary language

Arabic

Letter addressed to al-Shaykh al-Ajal al-Raʾis Abū ʿĪmrān Mūsā (Shelomo b. Mūsā al-Mahdāwī in al-Mahdiyya) from his business associate (Peraḥya b. […] Towards the end, he extends greetings to the addressee's father and a Shaykh al-Ajal Abū l-Ḥasan. See also T-S 10J14.16.

Tags

• al-ra`is
• aodeh
• arabic script
• business
• trade

1 Transcription

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

Concerning Abū Saʿd b. Hassūn known as Ibn al-Wuḥsha (i.e., the son of the well-known businesswoman). Dating: first half of the 12th century. Also concerns Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Ḥalabī al-Ṣayrafī and his shop; a certain Abū l-ʿAlāʾ; a partnership (muʿāmala); a condition about a fine of 10 dinars to be paid to the qodesh in case of separation (which may have in fact taken place); and someone, probably Ibn al-Wuḥsha, violating an oath (ואחנת אלשבועה). […] (Information in part from CUDL.) Joins: Alan Elbaum.

Related People

2

Tags

• 12th c
• women in business

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Refers to Ibn Ṣalaḥ, "who was the ruler of Aleppo and surrendered it and the citadel. . . ." The identity of this Ibn Ṣalaḥ is not clear. It is also possible to read Abū Salaḥ, and if an alif is missing, Ibn Ṣāliḥ or Ibn Ṣalāḥ (al-Dīn? i.e., al-Ẓāhir Ghāzī?). Needs further examination.

Related Places

3

1 Transcription

Primary language

Arabic

Letter from al-Mufarrij b. al-Ḥusayn to his father Ismāʿīl(?). […] Mentions Abū l-Thanāʾ al-Tājir al-Baghdādī, and many more people on verso. Needs further examination. Join: Alan Elbaum

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1

Tags

• damascus
• danger

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter of complaint from the administrator of the Quppa (the bread basket of the community) in Alexandria to R. Avraham the Nagid. Alexandria had a charity collection out of which it was customary to distribute loaves of bread to the needy. […] Avraham the Nagid and the letter includes a complaint against an Alexandrian Ḥaver who took it upon himself to distribute the loaves of bread against the instructions of the Nagid and the local judge. […] (Information from Frenkel; see also Goitein Med. Soc. 2:492). Verso: Note conveying festival greetings, citing Isaiah 56:7.

Tags

• communal
• complaint
• quppa

2 Transcriptions 1 Discussion

Primary languages

Arabic, Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from an unknown writer, probably in Alexandria, to Abū l-Khayr (?) b. Yūsuf, in Fustat, care of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Yahūdī al-Ṣā'igh in the market of the goldsmiths. […] The writer reports that the female slave left for al-Maḥalla 10 days ago, and a terrible rumor reached them that she is either critically ill (marīḍa ʿalā khuṭṭa) or dead. The addressee's wife is also "sick in her knee"; she had a fall, and now cannot sit up or stand up.

Related Places

3

Tags

• al-mahalla
• arabic address
• hostile letter
• illness
• illness letter 969-1517
• (+ 9 more)

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Document date

13 Ramaḍān 405 Hijrī (7 March 1015 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Written by Mīkhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ the jahbadh and registered by the Dīwān al-ʿAmal and the Dīwān al-Ishrāf. Payment made under the supervision of three officials: (1) under the supervision of the auspicious, rightly guided qāḍī Thiqat al-Mulk Makīn al-Dawla wa-Amīnuhā, protégé of the Commander of the Faithful, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Nahār; (2) on behalf of the fiduciary qāḍī Abū ʿAlī l-Ḥasan b. Yaḥyā b. Nahār; and (3) under the tax accounting of the elder Sadīd al-Dawla Abū l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Masīḥ b.

Related People

7

Related Places

1

Tags

• abu l-hasan b. wahb
• damin
• tax receipt

3 Transcriptions 3 Translations 1 Discussion

Document date

1086–1147 CE

Primary languages

Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

The letter originates in Spain or the Maghrib and dates to the period 1086–1147 CE, probably the earlier part of that range, based on the reference to the Almoravid invasions: "the Almoravids descended upon us and burned and plundered and killed. . . ." (l. 11). It seems also to refer to "Alfonso"—presumably either Alfonso VI of León and Castile (r. 1065–1109) or Alfonso VII of León and Castile (r. 1126–57). […] Numerous Geniza documents mention Almoravid dinars, but there are very few documents directly describing the Almoravids' military activities and rule; see Sassoon 713 (PGPID 9640) for another.

Related Places

1

Tags

• almoravids

1 Transcription

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

After describing the charlatanry of the new Christian physician, he asks the addressee to find out if the head physicians in Fusṭāṭ will do anything about it: "Go to al-Shaykh al-Sadīd al-Ṭabīb. . . so that he will tell our lord ʿAlamal-Dīn, who will not approve of this, for he is against their (charlatans'?) […] If you hear anything from our lord ʿAlamal-Dīn, write to me." Apparently moving on to the matter of grain that has yet to be "released" (already mentioned earlier in the letter), "The judge Jalāl al-Dīn, the fiscal adminstrator (ṣāḥib al-dīwān), has arrived and seen the situation for himself. I have explained this matter to him, and al-Faqīh al-Mudarris has also met with him regarding this.

Tags

• business
• christians
• complaints
• faqih
• fasting
• (+ 9 more)

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Arabic

Petition from a man described as having many dependents (the first two lines read: wa-huwa ṣuʿlūk kathīr al-ʿāʾila wa-yasal al-inʿām ʿalayhi wa-al-iḥsān ʾilayhi bi-khurūj ilā al-ʿummāl(?)).

Tags

• petition

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Avraham Maimonides (autograph) to Fakhr al-Dawla al-Kohen. In Judaeo-Arabic. He has heard that Fakhr al-Dawla is upset at him, and he is shocked and dismayed and tells him that there is no reason to be upset. Also mentions the Nasi Shelomo.

Related People

2

Tags

• avraham maimonides

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mentions: someone called Rabbenu; a request to thank al-Shaykh al-Thiqa on the sender's behalf; telling the addressee to be patient; travel to al-Shām; al-dīwā(n?); Hilāl al-Dawla; and a request to investigate something.

Related People

1

No Scholarship Records

Document date

25 August 1056 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from Ibrāhīm b. Farrāḥ, Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, 25 August 1056 (Gil). Mentions that Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ (here called Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣāʾigh) has unloaded his goods in Mazāra.

Related People

4

Related Places

4

Tags

• ibn al-ba'ba'
• suftaja

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mentions people such as al-Shaykh al-Makīn, Maḥāsin, and Amīn al-Dawla. Inquires about the price of saffron in Fustat/Egypt; also mentions galingale and dried ginger, which are in demand

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from David b. Nahum in Alexandria to Ismail b. Farah al-Qabisi in Fustat. The letter deals with goods and money. The writer also refers to slanderous and insulting remarks made in another letter.

Related Places

2

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Names include: [...] b. Abū l-Fakhr; al-Maḥallī; Yosef al-Maghribī; al-Muʿallim Avraham b. [...]; Mukram; al-Shaykh al-Muhadhdhab.

Tags

• account
• book trade

2 Transcriptions 1 Translation 1 Discussion

Primary language

Hebrew

Hebrew poems in the hand of Nāṣir al-Adīb al-ʿIbrī. There are also pen trials in a different hand.

Tags

• nasir

No Scholarship Records

Inferred date

1097–1097 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Written in Fusṭāṭ but also mentions Alexandria. Written under the authority of Mevorakh b. […] The parties are ʿImrān b. Yosef al-Barqī who is described as poor and ‘damaged of intelligence’ (maʾūf al-ʿaql) and Nissim b. […] Yosef al-Barqī.

Related People

1

Related Places

2

Tags

• illness:
• mental

2 Transcriptions 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Levi ha-Levi, Qalyub, to a contact in Fustat. He heard that al-Shaykh al-Yesod would like to spend Shabbat in Fustat, and the addressee is to look after him. […] The specifics of the matter are obscure. Moshe also writes that the Shaykh Sajjāʿ al-Dīn (‘the poet’) apprehended him and said, 'What is that feeble old man doing to you? […] Moshe reiterates what the party line should be if either al-Yesod or Sajjāʿ al-Din bring up the matter of an inheritance with the recipient.

Related Places

1

Tags

• inheritance
• moshe b. levi
• qalyub

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Hilāl to Abū l-Faraj b. Ibrāhīm, in Alexandria. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address both in Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. […] May refer to 'the letter of the women' (kitāb al-nisā). Mentions the judge Menaḥem, who also 'went out of his mind.' Mentions other people including Abū Saʿīd Ibn al-Muqaddasī (appears also in Bodl. MS heb. f 22/47 (PGPID 605) ca. 1160 CE) and Abū l-Maʿanī.

Related Places

1

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Inferred date

1100–1138 CE

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Shela ha-Levi gives a part of a house to his wife against her renouncing all her marriage portion. Detailed description of borders shows that the house is neighboring buildings owned by Muslims (e.g., al-qāḍī Thiqat al-Dawla Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥusayn b. Ṣadaqa b. Abī l-Raddād al-Muʿaddal) and Christians (e.g., Abū Malīḥ who owns the renovated funduq). […] There are also further jottings on verso and in the margins of recto ("Galen said...").

Related People

1

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Document date

21 Rajab 528 Hijrī (17 May 1134 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Decree (manshūr) issued by the caliph al-Hafiz on 21 Rajab 528/1133 to stop two cases of malpractice which were adversely affecting the Delta province of al-Nastarawiyya. Merchants from al-Nastarawiyya who traveled to the neighboring coastal regions to buy goods were being mistreated by government officials and their business was being disrupted; and fishermen from al-Gharbiyya province were fishing illegally along the shores of Lake Burullus within the territory of al-Nastarawiyya, causing financial harm to the ḍamān for fisheries held by ḍāmins from al-Nastarawiyya (and thus to the fisc). (Khan, 1986, p. 441) This version of the decree was copied onto a bifolio in the chancery for storage in its archives; for more on this process and the relationship of compact archival decrees to monumental rotuli, see Rustow, The Lost Archive, 326–34. See also T-S Ar.39.304 (PGPID 20876).

Related People

2

Related Places

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Tags

• al-hafiz
• arabic script
• damin
• decree
• diwan
• (+ 2 more)

1 Transcription 1 Translation 2 Discussions

Primary language

Arabic

Subsidiary to the main request: "...to my lord the glorious shaykh, may God make his exaltation endure, belongs the lofty resolution concerning the use of the servant’s provisions, if what they contain should be of help to him..." (wa-li-mawlāya al-shaykh al-jalīl adāma allāh ʿuluwwahu ʿālīal-raʾy fī ightinām maʾūnat ʿabdihi in kāna mā yataḥaṣṣa fīhā ʿāyidan ʿalā ʿawnihi). (Khan, ALAD, p.316n46; also mentioned in "Historical Development," p.19 but Khan reads maʿūna instead of mathūba).

Related Documents

1

Tags

• dimme
• petition

1 Transcription 1 Translation

Document date

26 Jumādā I 405 Hijrī (9 December 1012 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Written by Mīkhāʾīl b. ʿAbd al-Masīḥ the jahbadh and registered by the Dīwān al-ʿAmal and the Dīwān al-Ishrāf. Payment made under the supervision of three officials: (1) under the supervision of the auspicious, rightly guided qāḍī Thiqat al-Mulk Makīn al-Dawla wa-Amīnuhā, protégé of the Commander of the Faithful, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Nahār; (2) on behalf of the fiduciary qāḍī Abū ʿAlī l-Ḥasan b. Yaḥyā b. Nahār; and (3) under the tax accounting of the elder Sadīd al-Dawla Abū l-Faraj ʿAbd al-Masīḥ b.

Related People

6

Related Places

1

Tags

• abu l-hasan b. wahb
• damin
• tax

2 Transcriptions 2 Translations 1 Discussion

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Probably for ink, based on the ingredients and instructions and the phrase "ilā an yasīr fī qawām al-[ḥi]br" (third line from the bottom). Ingredients include oak galls (ʿafṣ), gum arabic (samgh ʿarabī), Cypriot vitriol (zāj qubrusī, misspelled קרבסי in the document), an unknown ingredient in a lacuna, a bit of saffron, a bit of rock salt (milḥ darānī, also known as andarānī), lapis lazuli (lazuward). The ingredients are soaked in water; some green myrtle (or myrrh, if myrtle is unavailable) is also involved; and there is also a stage of leaving it out in the sun. […] ASE The handwriting is reminiscent of that of some of the India traders. The alefs (essentially two lines at an obtuse angle) and the gimmels (which look like the number 2) are especially distinctive.

Tags

• ink
• recipe

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Hebrew

The letter concerns the salt industry in the area of al-Manzala and al-ʿAṣāfira (next to Baḥr al-Mallāḥa, between Damietta and Port Said) and also mentions Qaṭya, the caravan waystation in the Sinai desert about 60km east of Port Said. […] Somehow involved are the apostate (meshummad) Yaḥyā and the qāḍī ʿAbd al-Bāqī and the faqīh ʿAbd al-Majīd.

Related Places

3

Tags

• apostate
• late heb
• mining
• salt
• sinai

1 Transcription

Primary language

Arabic

List of books that [...] al-Dawla Abū l-Barakāt inherited from the late Abū l-[...]. The first two items are difficult to read (except for maqāla in both and al-malikī in item 2). The remaining items are two volumes of Kitāb al-Filāḥa, a volume of al-Mutanabbī, a volume of Adab al-Kātib, a volume of ashʿār wa-tuḥaf (sounds like a literary anthology), a volume containing a grammar treatise, and two volumes of Kitāb al-Aghānī. 10 books altogether.

Related Documents

1

Tags

• booklist

No Scholarship Records

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Letter from a Byzantine silk dyer to the elder al-Najib Ezra in Fustat, detailing that the writer is afflicted by severe agony (al-ʿadhāb al-shadīd) after having been tortured and his children seized as a security. He had allegedly spoiled some previous silk garments, and asks Ezra al-Najib to help in reclaiming his children. (Information partly from Goitein’s index cards.) EMS. Verso also contains the draft of the beginning of a family letter in rudimentary handwriting, in which the writer defenes himself against his brother's rebukes.

Related Places

2

Tags

• byzantines
• captives
• communal
• petition
• torture

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Primary language

Hebrew

Letter from a physician named Menahem b. Ṣadoq ha-Kohen from Aleppo including greetings from many men including his nephew Yahya b. […] Shemuʾel and his two sons Shemuʾel and Tamīm - all these men populate the bet midrash of the great Rabbi Barukh b. Yiṣḥaq of Aleppo. Published in Miriam Frenkel, MA Thesis on Aleppo, p. 306–07. on the back a drawing of a cypress tree?

Related People

1

Related Places

1

Tags

• aleppo
• illumination

1 Transcription

Primary language

Judaeo-Arabic

Mercantile letter, probably by a Maghribī trader of the 11th century, probably sent from Alexandria to Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Mawhūb b. ʿAmmār was present with the sender. Mentions a sum of money, the name Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār, and that Mawhūb came to Alexandria and didn't know anything about this. […] If Abū ʿImrān has returned from Upper Egypt (al-Ṣaʿīd), the addressee is asked to greet him.

Tags

• illness
• illness letter 969-1517

1 Discussion

Document date

Jumādā II 1239 Hijrī (2 February 1824–1 March 1824 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

Official salary receipt issued by the state administration for silk production in Alexandria. Dated: Jumādā II 1239 AH (1824 CE). In the introduction to her edition, Jane Hathaway notes: "This brief document is a receipt for a salary payment from the director of a silk factory in Alexandria to the gatekeeper (bawwāb) of the wakāla where the factory was probably located.... Ibrāhīm, the gatekeeper of the Wakālat al-Bīṭāsh, receives a salary of 20 pāras... from the grandee al-Ḥājj ʿUmar Agha, who is styled nāẓir anwāl al-ḥarīr, or supervisor of the silk looms."

Related Places

1

1 Transcription 1 Translation

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic mentioning a variety of itemized money transfers in the name of Ḥayyīm Ṣanūʿa who also appears in nearby accounts JRL SERIES C 109 (PGPID 31959). […] The money transfers (ḥawalāt) involved individuals named: al-Shaykh ʿAlī, ʾUm Miryam, al-Shaykh Nīlī. The headings of other entries mentions Raḥamīm al-Ḥāmī and Shemuʾel al-Griyanī.

Tags

• 18th or 19th c

No Scholarship Records

Document date

Rabīʿ I 1112 Hijrī (16 August 1700–14 September 1700 CE)

Primary language

Arabic

In Arabic script. Lessor: "Shaykh al-Islām" ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad al-ʿIbādī(?). Lessee: Shemuel b. Mūsā al-Yahūdī al-Rūmī. The property is a first floor (al-ṭabaqa al-ūlā) in the glaziers' quarter (rabʿ al-zajjājīn).

No Scholarship Records

Primary languages

Aramaic, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic

Yosef (aka Hārūn b. Yūsuf), known as Ibn al-Ghazzāl (the spinner) in Zawīlat al-Mahdiyya and Sūsa and "all the cities of the Maghrib." Dating: ca. 1047 CE, since the same Ibn al-Ghazzāl appears in T-S 13J9.5 (PGPID 1237) from that year; he also is the sender of T-S 13J29.2 (PGPID 1095). (Information in part CUDL, Goitein's index cards, and Mediterranean Society, I, 416.) Join: Alan Elbaum

Related Places

3

Tags

• power of attorney

1 Transcription 1 Discussion

Letter from Yeshua b. Isma’il al-Makhmuri from Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. […] Information that the writer heard from Jewish merchants that came to Alexandria from Sicily, regarding the situation in Palermo and the news about the passing of Nissim b. […] The writer expresses his sorrow for the latter. Also discloses that his slave, Ṭayyib, has fled his service (according to Goldberg, due to his well-known difficult personality.

Related People

3

Related Places

3

2 Transcriptions 2 Translations 1 Discussion