Will (Fustāt, Egypt)

This document, a copy of the will of Khulla bint Shabbat, provides a list of Khulla’s accounts and states how her assets should be distributed after her death. Khulla was evidently fairly wealthy, and she shared significant real-estate holdings with her siblings. She made a charitable bequest to the synagogue in Dammūh, a town near Cairo, and left other funds for the impoverished who could not pay the poll tax. As other evidence shows, this tax often proved burdensome on the Jewish poor. Like many contemporary court documents, this copy was written in the hand of Ḥalfon ben Manasseh. The opening formulary protected the copyist from accusations of error. The text was written in Judeo-Arabic; words in italics are in Hebrew or Aramaic in the original. Ellipses indicate lacunae in the manuscript.