Oxford, Bodleian MS. Heb. d. 66.34

Bodleian Library (Oxford, United Kingdom)

One leaf document

Paper

Brown (iron-gall)

Calamus

No ruling can be seen

25+marginalia

12th Century CE

Bilbays

Sepharad

Letter

Petition from Dalāl bt. Masʿūd/Seʿadya (Umm Ibrāhīm), in Bilbays, to the dignitary Abū l-Barakāt Yehuda b. Elʿazar ha-Kohen (titled "ha-Sar" and "Sofer ha-Malkhut," i.e., a government secretary/kātib). When the Frankish king Amalric captured the city of Bilbays in eastern Egypt in November 1168, he took many captives, including Jews. Some participated in finding the means to redeem themselves. This petitioner was one of them, a widow who paid the ransom fees or part of them in installments, one dinar at a time. Abū l-Barakāt had previously helped her and suggested that she leave a dinar with him until she needed it, since ransom fees weren't always paid promptly. When the time came to pay̦, the son of the widow's mother, who was a guarantor on her behalf, had been detained by the police or put under house arrest, so Dalāl asks the minister to do the favor he had promised. Mentions a cousin (ibn khāl) Abū ʿAlī Ḥassūn Ibn Zabqala and Saʿd al-Mulk.

No vowels or accents

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

https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/volume_89 (Date accessed: 2026-02-27)

S. D. Goitein, Palestinian Jewry in Early Islamic and Crusader Times (ha-Yishuv be-Ereṣ Yisraʾel be-Reshit ha-Islam u-ve-Tequfat ha-Ṣalbanim)‎ (in Hebrew) (Yad Izhak Ben Zvi Publications, 1980).

Available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/573/ (accessed February 27, 2026).