Abstract: Previous scholars have suggested that the Latin term for risk, resicum, first documented in a Genoese commenda (investment-loan) contract in 1156, likely derives from the Arabic rizq. In Arabic, the noun rizq derives from the root رزق (r-z-q, “to provide/ he provided”). Combining Geniza documents and Latin contracts from Genoa, this talk examines how exactly the Arabic term razaq may have figured as a predecessor of the Latin resicum. Long before 1156, in Arabic commenda contracts, investors instructed agents to buy or sell llāhu wa-razaq, meaning “whatever God provides.” Contemporaneously, Latin notaries wrote the formula quod deus in eis dederit, meaning “whatever God will give in profit.” However, from 1156 on, this phrase could be replaced by the single term resicum, stipulating that an investment is made ad tuum resicum, “at your risk.” This etymological trajectory suggests that the legal concept of risk (resicum) received its name from cross-cultural encounters in the Mediterranean.