Oxford, Bodleian MS. Heb. d. 65.9

Bodleian Library (Oxford, United Kingdom)

One leaf document

Parchment

Brown (iron-gall)

Calamus

No ruling can be seen

37+marginalia (recto); 3 (verso)

230

230

11th Century CE

Around 1017.

Qayrawan (Ifriqiya)

al-Andalus, al-Maghrib, al-Mahdiyya

Judeo-Arabic

Letter

Fragment of a letter from the brothers Yosef and Nissim b. Berekhya from Qayrawan (Ifrīqiya) to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal, Fustat. Around 1017. Yosef, the older brother, writes the letter. Mentions details about the Nagid, Avraham b. Ata, and his activities for the Yeshivas. The money that was collected in Fustat and Qayrawan from Yemen, Spain, and the Maghreb, is sent to Ibn ʿAwkal in Fustat. A small portion of the money is designated to the Ereṣ Yisraʾel yeshiva but most of the money is designated to the Babylonian Yeshivas. Also mentions a military travel by the governor of Qayrawān, and the Nagid Avraham b. Ata accompanied the governor (probably while he was a doctor).

No vowels or accents

Bought through the Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1896 (from the Genizah).

990053420200205171

https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/manuscripts/hebrew-manuscripts/itempage?vid=KTIV&scope=KTIV&docId=PNX_MANUSCRIPTS990053420200205171&SearchTxt=d.%2065.9,AND (Date accessed: 2026-02-09)

https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/volume_88 (Date accessed: 2026-02-09)

M. Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael‎ (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv University, 1997), vol. 2.

Available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/5611/ (accessed February 9, 2026).