Oxford, Bodleian MS. Heb. a. 3.7

Bodleian Library (Oxford, United Kingdom)

One leaf document

Paper

Black (carbon based)

Calamus

No ruling can be seen

51

1125

12th Century CE

10th Marḥeshvan 1437 Seleucid (9 October 1125 CE)

Egypt, Fusṭāṭ

Judeo-Arabic

(Other)

Report of a dispute

Legal document.This document describes release from a partnership in glasswork, explaining that Shemarya ha-Kohen (also known as Abū al-Wafā b. Menashshe ha-Kohen) demanded 9 and 1/6 dinars of his erstwhile partners Yiṣḥaq b. Yehuda and Yiṣḥaq's son Abū al-Karam. Yiṣḥaq gave Shemarya a settlement, andShemariah released him and his son from the partnership. The settlement of the partnership is effected through arbitration (“bederekh peshara”) by a number of “Elders of equity and propriety”. Per Goitein, Jewish courts of the Geniza period generally first sought settlements outside the court. Court decisions themselves not only required the attention of a higher court, such decisions also required an oath (a troublesome process for the court and the community). But a settlement through arbitration did not even require a qinyan. The judges in this case, Avraham b. Shemaʿya and Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi, are the two “permanent judges” of Fusṭāṭ of the period.

No vowels or accents

From the Genizah, 1896.

990053386200205171

https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/manuscripts/hebrew-manuscripts/itempage?vid=KTIV&scope=KTIV&docId=PNX_MANUSCRIPTS990053386200205171&SearchTxt=Heb.%20a.%203.7,AND (Date accessed: 2026-01-13)

https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/volume_5 (Date accessed: 2026-01-13)

P. Ackerman-Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture" (PhD diss., n.p., 2007).

Available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/6324/ (accessed January 13, 2026).