Dublin Core
Title
Sitt al-Husn, daughter of Se'adya: Egypt, c. 1150
Subject
Sitt al-Husn, daughter of Se'adya
Description
Sitt al-Husn was married to a scholar/judge, and dictated her deathbed will on a Saturday. Due to the prohibition of writing on Sabbath, the will could not be recorded until the Sabbat was over. The bequests include manumissions and real estate gifts to the freed slave women, with the condition that they remain Jewish.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION FROM THE PRINCETON GENIZA PROJECT:
Legal document. Deathbed will of the wife of a scholar, ca. probably 1151. A personal record of an anonymous writer, apparently a member of the court. Together with four other people he was called to attend the deathbed declaration of Sitt al-Husn, the wife of Judge Natan b. Shemuʾel ha-Ḥaver, "the Diadem of the Scholars." Since it was a Saturday, the official report could not be written, and the writer noted the main parts of the declaration immediately after Saturday was over, in order not to forget it. He was probably a court clerk, since his record contains the main formal elements of a regular deed. The woman frees her two female slaves and bequeaths them a quarter of a compound belonging to her, and dedicates half the compound in which the declaration is given to the qodesh. The two female slaves can live in the room in which the declaration is given, provided they keep the Jewish faith. An eighth of another compound partly owned by her is to be sold to cover the expenses ofher burial. She also states which of her belongings should be given to her husband. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 270 #55)
(https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1041/)
See above link for IMAGE and TRANSCRIPTION.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION FROM THE PRINCETON GENIZA PROJECT:
Legal document. Deathbed will of the wife of a scholar, ca. probably 1151. A personal record of an anonymous writer, apparently a member of the court. Together with four other people he was called to attend the deathbed declaration of Sitt al-Husn, the wife of Judge Natan b. Shemuʾel ha-Ḥaver, "the Diadem of the Scholars." Since it was a Saturday, the official report could not be written, and the writer noted the main parts of the declaration immediately after Saturday was over, in order not to forget it. He was probably a court clerk, since his record contains the main formal elements of a regular deed. The woman frees her two female slaves and bequeaths them a quarter of a compound belonging to her, and dedicates half the compound in which the declaration is given to the qodesh. The two female slaves can live in the room in which the declaration is given, provided they keep the Jewish faith. An eighth of another compound partly owned by her is to be sold to cover the expenses ofher burial. She also states which of her belongings should be given to her husband. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 270 #55)
(https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1041/)
See above link for IMAGE and TRANSCRIPTION.
Creator
Egypt (likely Fustat)
Date
c. 1150
Source
Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, University of Cambridge
T-S 13J22.2
Goitein, "Wills and Deathbed Declarations from the Cairo Geniza" (in Hebrew), Sefunot 8 (1964).
Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden: Brill, 1976), doc. 55, pp. 270-274.
Princeton Geniza Project:
https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1041/
https://geniza.princeton.edu/en/documents/1041/
Language
Judeo-Arabic
Coverage
Cairo Geniza
Egypt
Contributor
Princeton Geniza Project
Rachel Richman