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Medieval international commerce was based to a large extent on spices, medicines, dyes, and additional products imported from the Far East, especially India. There are very few primary sources attesting to this trade. This situation lends importance to the Cairo Geniza in which hundreds of documents have survived, written by Jewish traders, most of them dating from the late 11th to the middle of the 12th centuries. These middle-class traders came from the Mediterranean countries, primarily Egypt, Palestine and Syria, North Africa, Siclily, and Spain.<p> The first scholar to note the importance of these documents and record them was the late Prof. Shelomo D. Goitein. However, his <i>India</i> remained unfinished, due to his involvement with research in other topics emerging from the Geniza documents. Volume 1, devoted to Joseph Lebdi, known as "the great trader," has now been edited by Goitein's pupil, Mordechai Akiva Friedman.