Cairo Genizah : Legal document

Cairo Genizah

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Bifolium from the legal record book of the Fusṭāṭ Bet Din. The leaves contain several separate records. F. 1r-2r contains a record (which must have begun on a different page) headed 'concerning Abū l-Faḍl b. al-ʿassāl ('seller of honey') and Ibn al-Lawwāz ('processor of almonds')'. It deals mainly with a dispute over a prayer-book (אלסידור). The names given in the body of the record are Sar Šalom b. Yaḵin the cantor, Solomon, Nathaniel, Nissim and Ṣedaqa ha-Kohen. The record is written and signed by Nathaniel b. Yefet, and Abraham b. Nathan Av ha-Yešiva and Isaac b. Samuel sign as witnesses. This is followed by a short record (f. 2r) dated 6 Nisan 1409 Sel. (= 11 March 1098 CE), which records the outcome of the previous session, and gives the full names of the two parties as Yefet b. Manasseh known as the processor of almonds (al-Lawwāz) and Solomon b. Abraham known as the seller of honey (al-ʿassāl). It is written and signed by Nissim b. Nahray ha-Rav, with the added signatures of Isaac b. Samuel and Abraham b. Šemaʿya he-Ḥaver. The rest of f. 2r is blank, and a new record starts at the top of f. 2v, which is headed 'concerning Ibn Ḥadīra and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Ḥallabī'. It is dated 6 Nisan 1409 Sel. (= 11 March 1098 CE). The full names of the parties given in the body of the record are Aaron b. Moses and Solomon b. Hillel. The record concerns a dispute over a cargo transported by ship from Alexandria to Mahdiyya. It mentions also Ibn al-Sammāk ('son of the fishmonger') and the Wakīl ('representative [of the merchants]'). The record is written and signed by Nissim b. Nahray, with Isaac b. Samuel and Abraham b. Šemaʿya he-Ḥaver also signing. Following this, in the lower part of f. 2v, is a short record on the same case written by Hillel b. Eli, who signs at the end, alongside the signatures of Nissim b. Nahray and Isaac b. Samuel. It is dated Thursday 10 Sivan. See Weiss (1967) for the full text of the records on f. 2r (number 28 in Weiss) and f. 2v (number 27). Weiss includes number 28 as among those documents 'written, dated, completed and signed' by Hillel b. Eli, but this is not correct. Only the record on f. 2v is written by Hillel.</p>