The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 3: The Early Roman Period 9780521243773, 9780521772488, 9780521889049, 0521243777

Table of contents :
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I. Jews in the Medieval islamic World
A. The Islamic World in the Middle Ages
1 The Sources
2 Jewish Perceptions of and Attitudes toward Islam and Muslims
3 Islamic Attitudes and Policies
B. Regional Surveys
4 The Maghrib and Egypt
5 The Jews of Muslim Spain
6 Beyond Crescent and Cross: Jews in Medieval Syria and Sicily
7 Yemen and India from the Rise of Islam to 1500
8 The Jews of Northern Arabia in Early Islam
9 Judaism in Pre-Islamic Arabia
10 The Islamic East
Part II. Social and Institutional History
11 Demography and Migrations
12 Economic Activities
13 Jewish Religious and Communal Organization
14 Schools and Education
15 The Life Cycle and tyhe Annual Cycle in Genizah Society
16 Family Life in Genizah Society
Part III. Spiritual and Intellectual History
17 Karaism
18 Non-Rabbinic and Non-Karaite Religious Movements
19 Languages and Translation
20 Book Production
21 Jewish Biblical Exegesis in Muslim Lands in the Middle Ages
22 Jewish Law
23 Liturgy
24 Piyyut
25 Jewish Philosophy
26 Science and Medicine
27 Magic
28 Mysticism
29 Belles Lettres
30 Jewish-Muslim Polemics
31 Historiography
32 Material Culture, Art, and Architecture
Index

Citation preview

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF JUDAISM

Volume 5 examines the history of Judaism in the Islamic world from the rise of Islam in the early sixth century to the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the fifteenth. This period witnessed radical transformations both within the Jewish community itself and in the broader contexts in which the Jews found themselves. The rise of Islam had a decisive influence on Jews and Judaism as the conditions of daily life and elite culture shifted throughout the Islamicate world. Islamic conquest and expansion affected the shape of the Jewish community as the center of gravity shifted west to the North African communities, and long distance trading opportunities led to the establishment of trading diasporas and flourishing communities as far east as India. By the end of our period, many of the communities on the “other” side of the Mediterranean had come into their own while many of the Jewish communities in the Islamicate world had retreated from their high water mark. Phillip I. Lieberman is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Associate Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Studies at Vanderbilt University. He has published widely on medieval Jewish history in the Islamic world, both in books and in American and foreign academic journals. His 2014 book, The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the category of Sephardi/Mizrahi Culture. He also served as section editor for the award winning Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (2010).

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF JUDAISM FOUNDING EDITORS

W. D. Davies† L. Finkelstein† ALREADY PUBLISHED

Volume 1 Introduction: The Persian Period Edited by W. D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein 1984, 978 0 521 21880 1 Volume 2 The Hellenistic Age Edited by W. D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein 1989, 978 0 521 21929 7 Volume 3 The Early Roman Period Edited by William Horbury, W. D. Davies and John Sturdy 1999, 978 0 521 24377 3 Volume 4 The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period Edited by Steven T. Katz 2006, 978 0 521 77248 8 Volume 6 The Middle Ages: The Christian World Edited by Robert Chazan 2018, 978 0 521 51724 9 Volume 7 The Early Modern World, 1500–1815 Edited by Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe 2018, 978 0 521 88904 9 Volume 8 The Modern World, 1815–2000 Edited by Mitchell B. Hart and Tony Michels 2017, 978 0 521 76953 2

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF JUDAISM VOLUME V

JEWS IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD EDITED BY

PHILLIP I. LIEBERMAN

University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314 321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi

110025, India

103 Penang Road, #05 06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521517171 doi: 10.1017/9781139048873 © Cambridge University Press 2021 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2021 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow Cornwal A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. isbn 978-0-521-51717-1 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

List of Figures Acknowledgments

page viii xi

Introduction

1

P H I L L I P I. L I E B E R M A N , Vanderbilt University

part i jews in the medieval islamic world

31

a. the islamic world in the middle ages

33

1 The Sources

35

S T E F A N C . R E I F , University of Cambridge and University of Haifa

2 Jewish Perceptions of and Attitudes toward Islam and Muslims

64

R O S S B R A N N , Cornell University

3 Islamic Attitudes and Policies

92

M A R K R . C O H E N , Princeton University

b. regional surveys

125

4 The Maghrib and Egypt MENAHEM BEN SASSON University of Jerusalem

127 AND

O D E D Z I N G E R , The Hebrew

5 The Jews of Muslim Spain

164

J A N E S . G E R B E R , The Graduate Center of the City University of New York

6 Beyond Crescent and Cross: Jews in Medieval Syria and Sicily

199

B R E N D A N G O L D M A N , University of Washington

7 Yemen and India from the Rise of Islam to 1500 A M I R A S H U R , University of Haifa; A N D E L I Z A B E T H L A M B O U R N , De Montfort University

v

223

vi contents 8 The Jews of Northern Arabia in Early Islam

255

M I C H A E L L E C K E R , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

9 Judaism in Pre-Islamic Arabia

294

C H R I S T I A N J U L I E N R O B I N , Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (T R A N S L A T E D B Y J A S O N H A R R I S , Vanderbilt University)

10 The Islamic East

332

O F I R H A I M , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

part ii social and institutional history 11 Demography and Migrations

369 371

P H I L L I P I. L I E B E R M A N , Vanderbilt University

12 Economic Activities

412

J E S S I C A L . G O L D B E R G , University of California at Los Angeles (W I T H P H I L L I P I. L I E B E R M A N , Vanderbilt University)

13 Jewish Religious and Communal Organization

450

A R N O L D E. F R A N K L I N , Queens College, City University of New York

14 Schools and Education

484

M O S H E S O K O L O W , Yeshiva University

15 The Life Cycle and the Annual Cycle in Genizah Society

514

M I R I A M F R E N K E L , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

16 Family Life in Genizah Society

540

M I R I A M F R E N K E L , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

part iii spiritual and intellectual history 17 Karaism

569 571

H A G G A I B E N S H A M M A I , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

18 Non-Rabbinic and Non-Karaite Religious Movements

606

F R E D A S T R E N , San Francisco State University

19 Languages and Translation

634

20 Book Production

666

Á N G E L S Á E N Z B A D I L L O S ,† Complutense University of Madrid; A N D S . J . P E A R C E , New York University J U D I T H O L S Z O W Y S C H L A N G E R , École Pratique des Hautes Études, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres and University of Oxford, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies

contents 21 Jewish Bible Exegesis in Muslim Lands in the Middle Ages

vii 701

M O R D E C H A I Z . C O H E N , Yeshiva University

22 Jewish Law

728

G I D E O N L I B S O N , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Zefat Academic College

23 Liturgy

762

S T E F A N C. R E I F , University of Cambridge and University of Haifa

24 Piyyut T O_V A B E E R I , Tel Aviv University

780

25 Jewish Philosophy

796

A L F R E D L . I V R Y , New York University

26 Science and Medicine

825

G A B R I E L E F E R R A R I O , University of Bologna; A N D M A U D K O Z O D O Y , The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization

27 Magic

864

G I D E O N B O H A K , Tel Aviv University

28 Mysticism

891

S A R A S V I R I , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

29 Belles Lettres

923

R A Y M O N D P. S C H E I N D L I N , The Jewish Theological Seminary of America

30 Jewish-Muslim Polemics

946

H A G G A I M A Z U Z , Shaʾanan Academic Religious Teachers’ College

31 Historiography

974

K A T J A V E H L O W , Brooklyn College

32 Material Culture, Art, and Architecture

993

V I V I A N B . M A N N ,† The Jewish Theological Seminary of America and The Jewish Museum; A N D S H A L O M S A B A R , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Index

1029

FIGURES

7.1(a) and 7.1(b) Inked rubbings of one of the incised copperplates from the Kollam grant of 849 ce. Three groups of witness statements are visible: in Arabic, in Pahlavi, and in Judeo Persian (from Gopinatha Rao, 1920) page 229 7.2 The Kodungallur copperplate grant of 1000 ce, still in India in the possession of the Jewish community, now in Kochi (Cochin). Photograph courtesy of Ellen Goldberg 232 7.3 View of the Jewish cemetery at al Maʿallāʾ, ʿAden, from a 1950s postcard by Rehamim Bensoor. Image courtesy of the ʿAden Jewish Museum, Tel Aviv 244 7.4 Carved basalt tombstone, one of a pair incised in Hebrew to the memory of Madmiyah, the daughter of Seʿadyah, the son of Abraham, who died in 1644 of the year of contracts (Seleucid era, equivalent to 1333 ce) (99 x 72 x 15 cm). British Museum accession number 1886,0711.2 © The Trustees of the British Museum 245 7.5(a) and 7.5(b) Illuminated double page finispiece from the so called San’a Pentateuch, completed in S ̣anʿāʾ, Yemen, on the equivalent of 15 August 1469 ce. The illuminated Arabic finispiece gives the date as ah 6 S ̣afar 874 and the name of the patron as Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Saʿīd b. Ibrāhīm al Israʾīlī. British Library Or. 2348, fols. 155r and 154v. Reproduced with permission of the British Library Public Domain Mark 1.0 249 8.1 Jewish settlements in the Arabian Peninsula 256 8.2 Pre and early Islamic Yathrib (Medina) 258 9.1 Ancient Arabia 301 9.2 Yemen 302 9.3 Inscription of Ḥasī establishing a cemetery reserved for Jews (beginning of the _fifth century ce) 302 9.4 Inscription of a Jew from the Diaspora named Yəhuˆ dâ (Judah) Yakkuf commemorating the construction of a palace in the capital, Z ̣afār (c. 400 ce) 306

viii

list of figures 9.5 Detail from the inscription of Yəhuˆ dâ Yakkuf (Figure 9.4): graffito in Hebrew, inscribed by Yəhuˆ dâ himself, within the central monogram 9.6 The list of mishmarôt (priestly families serving in the Temple in Jerusalem) found in the mosque of Bayt Ḥādir (Yemen) _ 9.7 One of the inscriptions (= Ja 1028) that commemorated the siege of Najrān by an army of the king Joseph in June/July 523 ce 9.8 Nabataean inscription from the Darb al Bakra (= UJadhNab 538) dated_ to the day of the feast of Passover in 303 ce (yôm hagg al-Fatıˆr); _ God here is called “Master of the Worlds” (marâ ʿAlmê)_ 20.1 CUL T S Ar. 51.60, a leaf from an illustrated codex of Kalīla wa-Dimna, found in the Cairo Genizah 20.2 Bodleian Library, MS Heb f 56.50, recto: inventory of books in the Iraqis’ synagogue in Fustāt _ _ 20.3 RNL MS St. Petersburg, Firkovitch I B 19a (“Leningrad Codex”), a complete Bible copied in Fustāt, in 1008, by Samuel b. Jacob for _ _ b. Joseph Ibn Yazdād a wealthy Karaite patron, Mevorakh 20.4 British Library, MS Or 2540, a carpet page of a Karaite Bible in Arabic script, Egypt (eleventh century) 20.5 CUL Add 3336, liturgical poems (qinot and selihot), some by Qallir and Seʿadyah Gaʾon, written on a rotulus made_ of reused business letter in Judeo Arabic to Abū ʿAlī Ezekiel b. Nathaniel Dimyātī and a petition in Arabic to a Muslim official, concerning taxes _ and land tenure, Egypt (twelfth century) 20.6 CUL T S K 11.54, a ruling board (mastara) made of cardboard _ preserved in the Cairo Genizah 20.7 Mosseri VIII. 35, a fragment of a draft of the Guide for the Perplexed in Maimonides’ hand, Arabic in Hebrew characters 27.1 MS New York, New York Public Library Heb. 190, p. 181 (published in Bohak, A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript, 1:223) 27.2 CUL T S AS 142.174 (published in Naveh Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, G1) 27.3 CUL T S Ar. 51.95 (P3) (unpublished) 27.4 MS New York, New York Public Library Heb. 190, p. 156 (published in Bohak, A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript, 1:199) 27.5 CUL T S AS 142.245 (published in Bohak, “Mezuzoth with Magical Additions”) 32.1 Torah ark doors, Ben Ezra Synagogue (fifteenth century). Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, and New York, Yeshiva University Museum 32.2 Vestibule of Isaac Mehab Synagogue, Córdoba (1314 15). Photograph courtesy of Shalom Sabar

ix

307 308 320

326 669 675

680 686

690 694 697 869 870 877 879 888 997 998

x

list of figures

32.3 Mudéjar decorations. Interior of the El Tránsito Synagogue, Toledo (1357). Photograph courtesy of Shalom Sabar 32.4 Interior of a synagogue in medieval Spain, showing the raised wooden platform and oil lamps in Islamic style. From the “Sister Haggadah,” Catalonia (c. 1320 30). London, British Library, MS Or 2884, fol. 17 verso 32.5 Remnant of a synagogue lamp discovered in the excavations at Lorca. Luces de Sefarad/Lights of Sefarad 32.6 Colophon page of the scribe Samuel ben Jacob. Bible (“Petersburg Codex”), Cairo (1008 13). St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Evr. B 19a 32.7 Carpet page and decorative letters. Children’s alphabet primer. Egypt, Cairo Genizah. CUL T S K 5.13, folios 1 verso 2 recto 32.8 Fragment of a ketubbah from the Cairo Genizah. Egypt (?) (c. twelfth century). CUL T S K 10.4 32.9 Colophon page containing the patron’s name: Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Saʿīd [b.] Ibrāhīm al Isrāʾīlī. Pentateuch, S ̣anʿāʾ, 1469. London, British Library, MS Or 2348, fol. 154 verso 32.10 Glazed ceramic Hanukkah lamp (reconstructed), fragmentarily discovered at the Jewish Quarter of Teruel, Spain (fifteenth century). Teruel, Museo de Teruel 32.11 A cast bronze Hanukkah lamp known in a few slightly different copies. Northern Spain or southern France (fourteenth century; suspected by some to be a nineteenth century forgery). Jerusalem, The Israel Museum 32.12 A Passover plate made in the Islamic ceramic style in Valencia just prior to the Expulsion from Spain. Ceramic lusterware, Spain (c. 1480). Jerusalem, The Israel Museum 32.13 Ornamental and inscribed portion of a synagogue wall. Faience tile mosaic (264.2 x 472.4 cm). Isfahān (?), Iran (c. sixteenth century). _ New York, The Jewish Museum

999

1001 1003

1010 1012 1014

1016

1021

1022

1023

1024

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It has been more than twelve years since a committee of scholars convened to commission what would become volumes 5 and 6 of The Cambridge History of Judaism. In their proposal to Cambridge University Press, these scholars noted the need for a new, collaborative synthesis of Jewish life in the medieval period – a need made particularly pointed by the “everexpanding corpus of primary materials and the ever-growing body of scholarly studies.” Those scholars – Elisheva Baumgarten, David Berger, Mark R. Cohen, Jane S. Gerber, Anna Sapir Abulafia, and Raymond P. Scheindlin – made these two volumes possible. In their proposal, they expressed the hope that these volumes would draw on “leading scholars in the field, who have produced definitive statements in their respective areas of expertise,” and so it is more than fitting that when the chapters in these volumes were ultimately commissioned, they themselves would each come to contribute at least one chapter to them. As the editor of volume 5, I thank them for conceiving of these volumes and their dedication to this cause. As volumes 5 (Jews in the Medieval Islamic World), and 6 (The Middle Ages: The Christian World) complement one another, I have had the privilege of working closely with Robert Chazan, editor of volume 6. I am deeply in his debt for his supportive counsel, his sage advice, and for his unflagging confidence in my ability to bring this volume to completion. Our brilliant editor at Cambridge University Press, Beatrice Rehl, has been a fount of wisdom and an expert hand, always thoughtful and helpful with her guidance. It has truly been an honor and a pleasure to work with her. This volume also has the significant impress of Marina Rustow upon it, as she commissioned most of the chapters (including my own contribution!) and provided invaluable editorial feedback. One could not ask for a more generous colleague, and I offer her my thanks as well. This volume would not be what it is without the patience and commitment of the scholars whose writing graces its pages. It has been a joy to collaborate with them. Often, upon reading the draft of one or another chapter, I would be in awe of the depths of understanding revealed by the writing before me – not simple erudition, which scholars often foolishly xi

xii acknowledgments imagine to be displayed by the composition of copious footnotes, but genuine insight into the lives of the Jews of the medieval Islamic world and into the study of the Jews of the medieval Islamic world, unparalleled elsewhere in the literature. I hope that the publication of this volume brings them as much joy as it brings me. It is, therefore, with sadness that I note that two of the contributors to this volume – Ángel Sáenz-Badillos and Vivian B. Mann – will not be able to share in this joy, as they have both gone on to their eternal reward. This volume serves as a testament to their enduring impact as scholars. I thank S. J. Pearce and Shalom Sabar for picking up the quills laid down by these two individuals who modeled in their work and in their personal characters the best of what it means to be a “humanist.” I greatly appreciate Ross Brann and Arnold E. Franklin’s willingness to go above and beyond their own contributions and to provide critical feedback on my own introduction. To the extent that errors remain there – or elsewhere in the volume – the responsibility lies with me, of course. I beg the reader’s forgiveness for any such errors. Over the course of the past two years during my service as editor for this volume, there have been some surprises. For instance, when I opened the chapter sent to me by Christian Julien Robin, I realized that he had written his chapter in French. My thanks go to Jason Harris for translating this chapter speedily and expertly. It has been my good fortune to have an office on the floor directly below his. I offer my final thanks to my family for surrendering me to the computer during the long hours I was sequestered working on this project. It means the world to me that my family – particularly my wife, Yedida Eisenstat, and my son, Gabriel Isaiah Ackerman-Lieberman – seem to take as much joy and pride in my stewardship of this project as I do. I lovingly dedicate this volume to my daughter, Sadie Meira “Calculus” Lieberman, who for the entirety of her days thus far has had to share me with The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5. It is my great hope that she will do more with this volume than simply tear out its pages for fun.

INTRODUCTION phillip i. lieberman

The period covered by this volume – from roughly 600 to 1500 ce – witnessed radical transformations both within the Jewish community itself and in the broader contexts in which the Jews found themselves. By focusing on the Islamicate world, this volume necessarily engages questions about how the development, rise, and maturation of Islam itself from its cradle in the Arabian Peninsula to its florescence and expansion from the Iberian Peninsula in the West to India and China in the East shaped that context. The rise of Islam and its penetration into Byzantine, Sasanian Persian, and Visigothic domains had a decisive influence on Jews and Judaism in these regions as the conditions of daily life and elite culture shifted throughout the Islamicate world. At the outset of this period, the vast majority of world Jewry lived in the “East,” with the spiritual and demographic center of Babylonia/Iraq occupying a place of particular prominence. Islamic conquest and expansion would come to have a definite effect on the shape of the Jewish community as the center of gravity shifted west to the North African communities, and long-distance trading opportunities led to the establishment of trading diasporas as far from the early centers as the Malabar Coast of India. Of course, with the turn of the millennium, the seedling Jewish communities of Christian Europe would begin to take root. By the end of our period, many of the communities on the “other” side of the Mediterranean had come into their own – while many of the Jewish communities in the Islamicate world had retreated from their high-water mark. Here, too, developments in the broader Islamic context – the rise of the Berber Almoravid (al-Murābit) _ and Almohad (al-Muwahhid) dynasties in the West, the Ayyūbid and _ _ Mamlūk sultanates in North Africa and the Levant, and the Mongol Īlkhāns in the East – trickled down to all levels of Jewish society and significantly transformed Jewish life. Although there would be areas of continued Jewish flourishing and creativity – particularly in the areas of piyyut, mysticism, and rabbinic literature in the form of legal responsa _ (teshuvot), these shifts in the broader society led to a retrenchment of many 1

2 phillip i. lieberman 1 aspects of Jewish life. The history of medieval Jewish civilization, then, is inextricably entwined with that of Islam. And as some amount of people, texts, practices, and ideas migrated from the Islamicate world to the Christian world in this period and were therefore at least partially responsible for nurturing Jewry on both north and south of the divided Mediterranean intellectually, spiritually, religiously, and even organizationally, Jewish life in Islamic lands produced a heritage that provided a formative impress on subsequent Jewish life in Christian Europe. Yet Jewish life in the medieval Islamicate world differed from its counterpart in Christian Europe. Whether one has in mind rabbinic scholars, urbanized elites, craftsmen, or rural peasants, the activities Jews pursued and the framework which gave rise to those pursuits were given their distinctive character by medieval Islam. At the same time, medieval Islamic society owed a great debt to its predecessors – in the domain of thought, this meant the classical Greek philosophical and scientific tradition, often mediated through its Syriac Christian guise; in the domain of religion, this included Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, pagan Arab, and other traditions; in the domain of quotidian life, inside and outside the city, this often included technologies and models of mercantile cooperation that hearkened back to Greek and Roman traditions. Thus, at its foundations the story of Jewish life in the medieval Islamic world is one of the reception of late antiquity under new conditions: the presence of ethnic Arabs throughout the Mediterranean in the wake of Islamic conquest, the kindling – or rekindling – of connections between the communities of the Diaspora and the Jewish centers of Babylonia and the Land of Israel, a rising wealth disparity between urban elites and rural peasants amidst deepening ties between urban and rural areas, and the emergence of an ever more confident Islam whose classical underpinnings faded into the background.

1

For a discussion of continued Jewish creativity in these areas, see the relevant chapters in this volume, “Piyyut” (Tova Beeri), “Mysticism” (Sara Sviri), and “Jewish Law” (Gideon _ Libson). For the historiographic narrative of declining conditions over the course of the period covered by this volume, see, for example, Oded Zinger’s discussion in “The Maghrib and Egypt,” in which he points to a “spirit of mounting religious strictness, if not intolerance” identified by S. D. Goitein as having gripped Egypt over the course of Ayyūbid and Mamlūk rule. For an important rejoinder to this narrative, see, for example, Amir Mazor, “Jewish Court Physicians in the Mamluk Sultanate during the First Half of the 8th/14th Century,” Medieval Encounters 20 (2014), 38 65, and also Nathan Hofer, “The Ideology of Decline and the Jews of Ayyubid and Mamluk Syria,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Bonn, 2017), 113 20.

introduction 3 On the surface, this volume shares much with its companion volume, volume 6, The Middle Ages: The Christian World. The two volumes were certainly conceived with each other in mind and the structural parallels are obvious, even if in substance they describe different worlds of Judaism. But the fact that this volume includes two chapters on “non-rabbinic religious movements” – one devoted to Karaism alone and the other a broader survey of non-rabbinic movements other than Karaism – suggests the complexity and diversity of Jewish religious life spread over the vast geographic and human expanse that was the medieval Islamicate world. Judaism itself underwent radical transformations as the Babylonian Talmud reached its close in late antiquity and the talmudic academies (yeshivot) exercised at least a putative and at times even palpable influence on the communities of the Diaspora, although this authority would come to be challenged both by movements that rejected the authority of the Talmud directly (that is, “non-rabbinic” movements) and those that accepted the authority of the talmudic academies yet weakened their hold as local rabbinic leadership in the Diaspora came to supplant the power of the central academies. The complexity of Jewish religious life was matched by the breadth of its intellectual life generally. Science, mathematics, and philosophy all captured the Jewish imagination in the lands of Islam, and the engagement with Islam represented a sea change from the Sasanian, Byzantine, and talmudic influences of the late antique world. These fields of study are rounded out by the world of magic, which itself occupied a place on a continuum between science and medicine, on the one hand, and mysticism, on the other. A favorable disposition toward empiricism known from antiquity led many to accept the efficacy of “magical” remedies (cf. Mishnah Shabbat 6:10 and the reception of this passage in part III, chapter 37, of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed), and recourse to magic cut across strata of society – with geonic figures considering which magical practices might be permissible from the perspective of halakhah, on the one hand, and the amulets and spells practiced by common people, on the other. Of course, the enumeration of life both among intellectual elites and the “common” people alike is immeasurably aided by the source material of the Cairo Genizah – which the doyen of Genizah studies, S. D. Goitein, called “a true mirror of life, often cracked and blotchy, but very wide in scope and reflecting each and every aspect of the society that originated it.”2 The present volume, then, owes a tremendous debt to the

2

S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 1:9.

4 phillip i. lieberman Cairo Genizah and to Goitein himself. The Genizah not only provided (and continues to provide) new vistas into the classical texts of rabbinic and even biblical literature which were of interest to the religious scholars; it shed glimpses of light on a world of daily life previously available only through its infrequent shadows in other materials. The twentieth-century turn to social history typified by Goitein’s own work and paralleled by (if not necessarily shaped by) the rise of the Annales school of historians3 betokened a shift toward “ordinary people” and their pursuits as much as earlier historians had looked to rabbinic scholars and communal elites. Goitein’s own transformation of what earlier scholars had deemed “rubbish” into a coherent depiction of daily life in the medieval Islamic Mediterranean bore fruit in the master’s five-volume magnum opus (plus index volume, prepared by Paula Sanders), A Mediterranean Society. Yet Goitein did not see his work as history per se; he termed it historical interpretive “sociography.”4 Goitein’s use of the indefinite article “A” at the beginning of his title was not simple humility, but rather a caveat that his sociographic analysis was restricted to the “Genizah society,” only one society among many within the Mediterranean – let alone the Islamicate world as a whole. Even if the Genizah provided a mirror, that mirror is bounded in time and space by the documents of the Genizah. And while Goitein did turn to Genizah documents concerning the Red Sea trade and India in his posthumously completed India Book (completed by Mordechai Akiva Friedman in English in 2008, with Friedman’s subsequent publication of the India Book volumes in Hebrew, 2009–13), and the discovery in 2013 of a much smaller “Afghan Genizah” opened up the possibility of applying Goitein’s methods to yet another collection of materials, such studies are once again bounded in time and place by their source materials. A close reading of Goitein’s sociography might allow us to infer his historiographic pretensions and reveal him as a historian, and in fact, Jessica L. Goldberg unlocked for us how Goitein’s masterwork is a complex of competing syntheses and hypotheses.5 But A Mediterranean Society is not 3

4

5

For a discussion of Goitein’s relationship with Fernand Braudel, one of the leaders of the “second generation” of Annales historians and certainly one who directed the school toward a greater focus on “ordinary people,” see Peter N. Miller, “Two Men in a Boat: The Braudel Goitein ‘Correspondence’ and the Beginning of Thalassography,” in Peter N. Miller, ed., The Sea: Thalassography and Historiography (Ann Arbor, 2013), 27 59. For the impact of Goitein’s method on the “sociography” he produces, as amounting to “a collection of brilliant syntheses and hypotheses,” see Jessica Goldberg, “On Reading Goitein’s A Mediterranean Society: A View from Economic History,” Mediterranean Historical Review 26, 2 (2011), 171 86. See ibid.

introduction 5 a history of Jewish life in Islamicate lands in the medieval period. The impact of Goitein’s remarkable, seminal work may be found on nearly every page of the present volume – but the present volume serves as an introduction to a world much broader in terms of its geography, cultural milieux, and time frame than A Mediterranean Society. Thus, even if we may adduce the historiographical direction of A Mediterranean Society amidst (or despite) its masses of data, the geographic narrowness of its data set (even a data set as large as the Cairo Genizah) restricts its focus. And so, in thinking about Jewish life in the medieval Islamic world, there are a number of important regional histories or histories of one or another sector of the population that bear mention here. But if A Mediterranean Society may be seen as narrow despite its depth, one might make a similar comment concerning Walter Fischel’s still more circumscribed Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam (1937) or H. Z. Hirschberg’s History of the Jews of North Africa (Hebrew, 1965; English, 1974): both these studies are building blocks in a much larger edifice, which this volume seeks to establish. In the former, the role of elite Jews in the ʿAbbāsid, Fātimid, and Īlkhānid administrations edges out the daily life of those who_ were not directly involved with those administrations; in the latter, the author does draw the trajectory of the longue durée and engages many aspects of a histoire totale, but Hirschberg restricts himself to only one region among many. Moshe Gil’s A History of Palestine, 634–1099 (Hebrew, 3 volumes, 1983; English, 1 volume, trans. Ethel Broido, 1992) also focuses on one region (if a different one from Hirschberg); and as such aims to be a history of that region (to include the people who lived in it) rather than first and foremost a history of its Jewish inhabitants per se – let alone a history of “Judaism.” Gil, like Hirschberg, does take great concern with economic life, communal organization, and even religious diversity, but his study – focused heavily upon letters from the Genizah (the presentation of Genizah documents made for vols. II–III of his Hebrew work) – does not quite aspire to being a histoire totale. Rather, Gil takes on a number of specific historical problems in A History of Palestine, such as the nature of Islamic conquest of the Land of Israel, which he describes as gradual and designed to bring Arab tribes in erstwhile Byzantine territory into the Muslim fold. The English-language version of the work includes a marketing blurb opposite the front cover on an unnumbered page describing it as “the first comprehensive history of Palestine from the Muslim conquest in 634 to that of the Crusaders in 1099,” but in his review of the Hebrew version of the work, Norman A. Stillman wrote that “Gil modestly refers to his chapters as ‘Studies,’ arguing that the

6 phillip i. lieberman time is still too early and the sources too incomplete for a proper history.”6 That is to say, Gil’s work tended toward the encyclopedic in tackling his problems (even if his approach was incomplete in avoiding numismatics, the archaeological record, and material culture), but his work is not quite a history per se.7 Gil’s Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages (Hebrew, 4 volumes – vols. II–IV including transcriptions and translations of Genizah documents, 1997; English, 1 volume, trans. David Strassler, 2004) covers geographical domains far afield of both A Mediterranean Society and A History of Palestine – Gil discusses the Arabian Peninsula, Babylonia/Persia, and Sicily. But much discussion here, too, is focused on the great men who led the yeshivot or (reminiscent of Fischel) elite Jews who served ʿAbbāsid or Fātimid rulers as _ “financiers” or provisioners. In reaching beyond the elites, Gil does devote a section to a discussion of slavery, but this is presented in the context of economic activities generally and is not devoted to the lives of slaves per se. And so while communal organization and the role of the geonim of Babylonia figure prominently here, questions of, say, religious education – or even of the implementation of the rulings of the talmudic academies in the local community itself – are in the background if they are present at all. Other works have taken a broader approach – for example, Stillman’s The Jews of Arab Lands (1979) or his magisterial Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (hereafter: “EJIW,” 2010) – but The Jews of Arab Lands is intended as much to provide a “historical tableau . . . painted with broad brushstrokes”8 as the five-volume EJIW aims at comprehensiveness. The EJIW included in its initial publication – and continues to include in its electronic updates – important, comprehensive surveys that parallel or complement the chapters in this volume. Yet as an encyclopedia, the EJIW is designed in the first instance to provide the reader with a Vorspeise. Good encyclopedia articles – and the EJIW is overflowing with outstanding articles – will introduce the reader to the most prominent 6

7

8

Norman Stillman, “Review of Palestine During the First Muslim Period (634 1099) by Moshe Gil,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 109, 1 (1989), 139. Pace Steven Bowman, who in his review of the English version calls it a “comprehensive, indeed encyclopedic history.” (Steven Bowman, “Review of A History of Palestine, 634 1099 by Moshe Gil,” Speculum 69, 4 (1994), 1172.) See Carole Hillenbrand’s review of A History of Palestine, Carole Hillenbrand, “Review of A History of Palestine, 634 1099 by Moshe Gil,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 24, 2 (1997), 261: “It is a pity that a book so full of information should suffer from a rather short sighted attitude toward the writing of history.” Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), xvi.

introduction 7 9 scholarly literature concerning one or another matter, but the technical limitations of the genre of the encyclopedia make it difficult to initiate the reader into the controversies that enliven one or another corner of the field. The overview essays (say, Stillman’s own 12,500-word essay there on “The Academic Study of Islamicate Jewry”) do serve as important tools for professional researchers – no less than the briefer articles that present both the beginner and the seasoned researcher with “data.” But The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5 aspires to present simultaneously syntheses or overviews useful to both the entry-level reader and the professional, while nonetheless including notes and bibliographic references for those who wish to delve deeper.10 These syntheses are at the very heart of the Cambridge History, while they are just a part of the EJIW. With its far-reaching overviews augmenting its historical entries, the EJIW gives the reader a view of the elements of a histoire totale across the trajectory of Jewish history in the Islamicate world. This volume builds on that. But The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5 finds itself in the middle of a series that reaches across a broader spectrum of both time and place. The series not only established the literary frame for the volume, presenting detailed surveys accessible to scholars, students, and lay readers alike, with detailed notes where possible to slake the thirst of those eager for more, but the series established some of the basic questions asked by this volume. Religious, legal, literary, economic, and social history are covered both in volumes 4 and 6; although, as I have said, the complex nature of Jewish religion in the medieval Islamicate world means that particular attention is paid in the present volume to “non-rabbinic” religious movements – both the Karaite “movement” and others. This complexity is certainly due in part to the inchoate, developing, and even fragmentary nature of Islam in its early centuries – even as rabbinic Judaism strove to solidify its own place in the daily life of Jews in the centuries following the close of the Talmuds. Volume 6 includes chapters on “The Prior Church Legacy,” “Medieval Church Doctrines and Policies,” and “Mutual Perceptions and Attitudes,” whereas the absence of an institutional “Church” in the medieval Islamicate world makes for a necessarily more complex treatment of 9

10

See Stillman’s introduction, that “a good academic encyclopedia ought to provide not only an introduction to a subject but also references for further reading and research.” Of course, had he not written it for the EJIW, Stillman’s summa on “The Academic Study of Islamicate Jewry” could well have been included here in a different form, focusing on the medieval Islamic world and with notes. One might compare Stefan C. Reif’s chapter on liturgy in this volume with his overview, “Prayer and Liturgy,” in the EJIW.

8 phillip i. lieberman “Islamic Attitudes and Policies” in the present volume (written by Mark R. Cohen) – one which concerns both formal policies and the lived experience of the Jews of Islamicate lands.11 Thus, Cohen begins with the life of the Prophet Muhammad and attitudes toward Judaism in the Qurʾān, and makes his way_to daily life in the High Middle Ages. Cohen pays particular attention to the document known as the Pact of ʿUmar and its formative role in relations between Muslims and others – even if, as he notes, the rules of this document were only enforced in the breach. Yet the importance of the Pact lies in its guarantee of security for non-Muslim dhimmī populations – thus, physical security and the ability to “maintain a separate identity for their own communities . . . was ‘toleration’ in the medieval sense of the word.” Although volume 6 describes medieval church doctrines and policies, there is no single attitude of “Islam” as an entity; Cohen’s chapter therefore describes the breadth of the field rather than falling prey to either the earlier mytho-historiographical frames of a “golden age” or a “[neo-] lachrymose theory of Jewish history in Islamic lands” – both of which Cohen has engaged and debunked in his own writing.12 The “obverse” of this coin,13 perhaps, is Ross Brann’s chapter, “Jewish Perceptions of and Attitudes toward Islam and Muslims” – which itself begins with an important discussion of the historiography of Jews in Islamic lands. This complements Cohen’s discussion of the Pact of ʿUmar, its sources and its implementation, because Brann draws the trajectory of how historians have described Jewish-Muslim relations from the rise of modern historywriting all the way up to Cohen himself. Brann richens his analysis by yoking together developments in historical perspective with developments in historical methodology, since the rise of cultural history in particular has opened up new vistas for viewing Jewish-Muslim perceptions and relations. Brann inclines toward a historical-anthropological lens that is more expansive in the material it considers and more nuanced in its depiction than other modes of historiography. From texts which view the Qurʾān as 11

12 13

This is obviously an area in which Cohen has written extensively, most notably in Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994). For a discussion of this, see Cohen’s introduction in ibid. I use “obverse” here deliberately, suggesting that The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 5 might put “Jewish Perceptions of and Attitudes toward Islam and Muslims” before “Islamic Attitudes and Policies” whereas Robert Chazan’s editorial decision in volume 6 was to put “Medieval Church Doctrines and Policies” before “Mutual Perceptions and Attitudes” perhaps because the former played a significant role in establishing the Christian Jewish dynamic, whereas the picture of Muslim Jewish rela tions is more contingent and local and perhaps less defined by an approach toward Jews “qua Jews” (as Cohen puts it).

introduction 9 a proof text in defense of Jews and Judaism to piyyutim that lament Israel’s fate, Brann identifies texts which push back against_ Islam and view its rise negatively. Yet he also uncovers amicable personal relations between Jews and Muslims that challenge these negative images. As in the biblical narrative of Abraham’s first two sons, Brann sees “ambivalence, rivalry, intimacy and conflict governing the ways in which Jews thought of Muslims, Islam, and Islamdom.” Despite their depth and wisdom, the chapters by Cohen and Brann do not entirely cover the territory of attitudes toward the other; and so Haggai Mazuz’s chapter, “Jewish-Muslim Polemics,” should be seen not only as part of the “Spiritual and Intellectual History” section of the volume in which it is included, but also as shedding some light on mutual perceptions and attitudes. Mazuz presents us both with polemics written by Jews confronting the ideas of Islam and their own place in Muslim society and parallel material from Muslims attacking the authenticity of the Bible and yet arguing that it announced the advent of the Prophet Muhammad. Mazuz also encourages us to think about the audiences for these _writings: given that Islamic law prescribes capital punishment for insulting Muhammad and Islam, much of what could be labeled polemic should _ be labeled apologetic – that is, inward-directed rather than intended instead for Muslim eyes. Of course, the membrane between polemic and apologetic is permeable, often penetrated by liminal figures who traveled from one community to another. In fact, a number of the figures discussed by Mazuz converted from Judaism to Islam, contributed to the polemical literature, and played a formative role in subsequent Muslim-Jewish relations. Whereas in volume 6 questions about “perceptions and attitudes,” to include those of the Church, fit under the broad rubric of “Jews in the Medieval Christian World,” and therefore they precede the regional surveys, Mazuz’s contribution in this volume fits better under “Spiritual and Intellectual History” because these polemics concern the inner life of the Jews as much as their quotidian interactions in the medieval Islamicate world. Likewise, Stefan C. Reif’s chapter, “The Sources,” sits in front of the regional surveys in this volume (as opposed to Ephraim Shoham-Steiner’s chapter in volume 6, which begins Part II) because the varied nature of the source material for Jewish life in the Islamicate world naturally dictates the tone and detail of the surveys that can be written for one or another region. The importance of the Genizah for the study of medieval Islamicate Jewry cannot be gainsaid, but as Menahem Ben-Sasson and Oded Zinger note in their survey of “The Maghrib and Egypt,” the documentary Genizah is richest for its detail concerning the region in which most of its papers were written and where they were eventually found. Reif identifies the corpora

10 phillip i. lieberman of “literary” materials to which historians have made recourse – Rabbanite, Karaite, and Muslim historiography; legal sources from the hands of Jews and Muslims alike; travelogues; other documentary materials; and modern histories. In recent years, scholars have also begun to move beyond the written word to explore the contribution that archaeological finds might make to the writing of medieval Jewish history in the Islamicate world.14 Yet these rich sources can complicate rather than facilitate the writing of history. As Reif notes, historical writers’ intentions hardly lie in the presentation of what modern writers would call “history.” Another complication to be faced is the irregular character of the data itself, painfully scant in some areas and so dense as to be nearly impenetrable in others. Further, the Jewish experience in each of these geographical spheres was distinct, and so the focus and tone of the regional surveys varies greatly. With this in mind, Jane Gerber’s survey of Jewish life in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) focuses on urban elites, given that the documentary and literary materials alike from the region tell us something about life in the cities.15 Many of those individual Jews who rose to prominence in alAndalus are well known to us – whether through their impact on rabbinic literature, on Muslim rule while serving the Umayyads in Córdoba or their successors, the petty kingdoms (tāifas) throughout al-Andalus, on the sciences and philosophy, or on _belles lettres (including grammar and poetry). The urban character of Jewish populations (as we know them from the evidence) meant that there were substantial Jewish settlements in cities such as Lucena (reputedly entirely Jewish), Granada, Toledo, and beyond. Gerber taps the idea of a “golden age” of Jewish life in Spain for its utility in describing the lives of these individuals and the arc of Jewish culture from Arab conquest to decline under the Almoravids (1090–1147) and their successors, the Almohads (c. 1147–1235). Yet saying much about how this population interacted with the agrarian, ruralized majority is difficult. On the other hand, the Genizah documents open the door to a broader history of Jews in other parts of the Mediterranean littoral – particularly Egypt and the regions with which it was well connected, including the Maghrib, Sicily, and the Land of Israel – and it also permits us to gain 14

15

One important example of this is the work of Miriam Frenkel and Ayala Lester, “Evidence of Material Culture from the Geniza: An Attempt to Correlate Textual and Archaeological Findings,” in Daniella Talmon Heller and Katia Cytryn Silverman, eds., Material Evidence and Narrative Sources (Leiden, 2015), 147 87. For a discussion of some of these methodological issues, see David J. Wasserstein, “Jewish Élites in al Andalus,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity (Leiden, 1995), 101 10, in which Wasserstein touches briefly on the problems of knowing much about Jews living outside of urban areas at least in al Andalus.

introduction 11 insight into the rural countryside as well as urban areas. The regional surveys reflect this. Furthermore, the regional surveys have been structured to capture logical divisions in the Jewish historical experience that arise from inhabiting disconnected or even rival Islamic political, religious, cultural, and economic ambits. Thus, even before the rise of the Fātimids in northwest Africa in the early tenth century drove a wedge _ between ʿAbbāsid domains in North Africa and in Spain, Ifrīqiya was distinct from its neighbor across the Straits of Gibraltar. Although the connections between the Maghrib and Spain have run deep through much of Islamic history, particularly during the period of the Berber dynasties, Jewish settlement to the south and east of the Straits may be seen as connected to Egypt rather than to Iberia. Fātimid expansion into Egypt (leading to the establishment of Cairo in _969) and still further east (culminating in the invocation of the name of the Fātimid imām alMustansir bi-llāh at the public Friday sermon in Baghdad_ in 1058) yoked the fate_ of Ifrīqiya to that of Cairo; even if the Fātimids’ Zīrid vassals _ would quickly slough off their loyalty to their overlords, the personal, economic, and spiritual connection between the Jews of Ifrīqiya and Egypt was strong. Genizah documents attest to the complexity and extent of these multifaceted networks, and the survey of Ben-Sasson and Zinger tells this story among many others establishing the ties between Egypt and the “Maghrib.” Indeed, Ben-Sasson suggests that one could call the Cairo Genizah the “Maghribī Genizah found in Cairo”! Maghribīs retained a strong sense of identity with their place of origin despite spreading themselves throughout the Mediterranean littoral and flourishing in their adoptive locales, even rising to positions of importance in the yeshiva of the Land of Israel. Locally in the Maghrib the influx of a population from the “Land of Edom” (Christian Europe – in this case, Italy) had an impress on local halakhic traditions from as early as the tenth century. The synthesis in religious praxis that would emerge would shape the future of the region. The complex makeup of the Jewish population of Egypt – with an authochthonous element augmented by migrants from the East, the West, and the Christian Mediterranean – was mirrored by the web of relationships within the Jewish community. This web of relationships connected newcomers and denizens, loyalists of the Shāmī (Land of Israel) rite and those of the Babylonian rite, Rabbanites and Karaites, and Jews and the Islamic state. As Zinger points out, the latter has been the linchpin of the well-being of the Jews of the medieval Islamic world; his analysis highlights recent scholarship arguing for more robust Jewish involvement in the Fātimid state. _ Land of Israel began in 635 and led quickly to the Islamic conquest of the formation of the military district Jund Filastīn within the broader province _

12 phillip i. lieberman of Syria (Bilād al-Shām). The founding of the regional administrative capital, Ramle, before the year 715, shifted the focus away from some of the extant cities and established a new entrepôt on the route from Fustāt (Old Cairo) to Damascus, driving home the role of the Land of Israel as _an_ important secondary market to the commercial centers in Egypt and Syria. With this in mind, it might have made sense to combine the historical survey of the Land of Israel with that of Egypt, on the one hand, and Greater Syria (that is, Bilād al-Shām), on the other. But its place as a crossroads of conflict from antiquity to the present demands that the Land of Israel be treated as more than an economic backwater to the primary markets of the Nile Delta and Damascus. The prominence of the Land of Israel in the Jewish imagination, its institutional history sustaining an academy of Talmud study, and the centrality of sites in the Land of Israel such as Jerusalem and Ramle in the life of the Karaite community all support this. But as the epicenter of centuries-long conflict between Christian and Muslim forces jockeying for military, political, and ultimately cultural control, the Land of Israel actually shares much with its moredistant neighbor Sicily. Brendan Goldman’s chapter turns to the parallels between these two regions to detail the Jewish experience under shifting regimes and competing “holy wars.” Indeed, changes in Sicily and the Land of Israel vis-à-vis Islamic rule led to the reshaping of relationships between the various Jewish communities themselves: for instance, Seljūq invasions of Syria from 1071 weakened the ability of the yeshiva of the Land of Israel to shape Jewish life in the western Diaspora. This retrenchment in the Land of Israel led to the rise of an independent office of the Head of the Jews in Egypt. Goldman’s attention to the changing fate of these regions also sharpens Zinger’s point that understanding the relationship between Jews and the state is essential to interpreting Jewish history. As the cradle of Islam, the cradle of Jewish-Muslim relations is – of course – the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabian Peninsula is of great interest because of its role as a possible destination for Jews migrating from the Land of Israel going as far back as the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in the year 70. In his chapter, “Judaism in Pre-Islamic Arabia,”16 Christian Julien Robin brings epigraphic evidence to bear to demonstrate the important role Jews played in southern Arabia (that is, in Yemen) and indeed in the Peninsula as a whole in the period before Muhammad. As Robin explains, this branch of the Jewish people has long been_ almost entirely ignored (The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period does not discuss it), but the Jewish 16

Christian Julien Robin’s chapter was translated into English by Jason Harris.

introduction 13 presence in the prominent kingdom of Ḥimyar in south Arabia speaks to an important chapter in Jewish history and the history of the region as a whole. The inclusion of this chapter also fits with the theme of the volume as speaking to the range of Jewish religious expression in the period, as Robin discusses the complex reception of rabbinic tradition by the Jews of Ḥimyar. Robin’s chapter complements Michael Lecker’s chapter on the Jews of northern Arabia, which opens on the eve of Islam. Lecker’s chapter not only develops further the picture of Jewish settlement in the Arabian Peninsula and details the occupations of its Jews; Lecker challenges earlier depictions and sharpens our understanding of the so-called Constitution of Medina, a document which would define Jewish-Muslim relations from the very foundation of the Islamic umma (people – or, perhaps, “nation”). The materials available for a history of Muhammad’s early confrontations with the Jews contains much “noise,” but _Lecker filters out the dross to outline the attacks, exile, sieges, and stalemates that comprise these first interactions. His survey touches on the persistence of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula beyond the life of the Prophet – despite attestations in the traditional literature to the contrary, Lecker points to Jews in the towns of Khaybar and Wādī l-Qurā as late as the tenth century ce (the latter was even predominantly Jewish!). Two further regional surveys have been included here: the first, Ofir Haim’s survey of the “Islamic East,” looks eastward from the Islamic heartlands of Iran, Khurāsān, and Transoxania in the direction of China. Here, Haim had the benefit of the recently discovered “Afghan Genizah” to provide details concerning some of the Jewish denizens of Khūzistān and Khurāsān. The connections of some of these Jews with those of Egypt and North Africa is well known; as Haim points out, letters written in early Judeo-Persian contain the names of known Genizah merchants. But his survey unearths connections as far east as Guangzhou as early as the ninth century. In a way, his assessment decenters medieval Jewish history in the Islamicate world by demonstrating demographic, geographic, and economic breadth in the East. As for the picture of religious life in this region, Haim explains that distance from the Babylonian center enabled a variety of Jewish forms to emerge that challenged the hegemony of rabbinic Judaism. This included Persian-speaking Karaites, of course, but also much more. As far afield as these sectarians might have been from Babylonia and the Land of Israel, Haim demonstrates that they were nonetheless connected to their distant brethren. Messianic Jewish challenges to the Rabbanite movement such the various groups which followed Yūdghān of Hamadān are well known from al-Qirqisānī’s Kitāb al-Anwār wa-l-Marāqib (Book of Lights and Watchtowers), although following the advent of the Mongols, fourteenth-century Judeo-Persian literature saw a

14 phillip i. lieberman renewal of rabbinic culture as rabbinic works would come to outnumber their Karaite counterparts. The other remaining regional survey is that of Amir Ashur and Elizabeth Lambourn, which brings together Yemen and India. While some of their material builds on the same sources as Robin’s survey, the main part of their study connects these two areas as part and parcel of the Red Sea trade, Goitein’s early interest in Genizah documents prior to his publication of A Mediterranean Society. As I have already said, the India Book itself would not find its way into print until Friedman published it in 2008, but the groundwork was laid there connecting Yemen to India. Of course, Ashur and Lambourn explore India prior to the burgeoning trade from the late eleventh to the mid-thirteenth centuries, when hundreds of Mediterranean Jews made their way to the Egyptian trading diaspora on the Malabar Coast. Furthermore, their study goes beyond this single trading diaspora, noting odd references to Sri Lanka and beyond. The persistence of Jewish merchants in India is also an important contribution of their chapter, as connections between Europe and India – and record of the Jews there – bring us from the medieval period into the modern. The regional survey conspicuous by its absence from this volume is that of Iraq. In many ways, Babylonia was the fount of medieval Jewish culture. The demographic center of gravity of the Diaspora, home to perhaps 90 percent of the world’s Jewish population at the time of the rise of Islam, Babylonia was also the seat of Jewish religious and even political leadership. The Iraqi yeshivot that produced the Babylonian Talmud held great spiritual sway over the Diaspora, and the exilarch (Aramaic, resh galuta; Hebrew, rosh ha-golah) resident in Iraq served as an intermediary between the Jewish community and its Islamic overlords – at least until regional leaders (negidim) assumed responsibility for this over the course of the eleventh century.17 Both Islamic sources mentioning individual Jews and the fate of the Jewish community at large, and writings from Jews themselves in this region, abound. Iraqi high culture also had a profound effect on the Jewish community: Arabic translation of Greek philosophical works (at times in their Syriac Christian guise) gathered steam in the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid periods (whether or not this was undertaken specifically at the ʿAbbāsid Bayt al-Ḥikma, a question in contention by scholars),18 and Baghdad was a center for the study of philosophy, certainly in the circle of al-Kindī (c. 800–870). Early Jewish philosophical figures such as Isaac Israeli (855–955) and Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) were 17

18

See Arnold E. Franklin’s chapter in this volume, “Jewish Religious and Communal Organization,” for a discussion of the development of the role of the exilarchs. Cf. EI3, s.v. “Bayt al Hikma” (Dimitri Gutas and Kevin van Bladel).

introduction 15 influenced by these trends. That the former lived in North Africa (and the latter was born there) only points to the breadth of influence of the translation movement and Islamic philosophy generally throughout the Islamic world. Likewise, the yeshivot had a significant impact on the expression of Jewish law throughout the Diaspora communities, despite the famous statement of Abraham Ibn Daud that at least one famous tenth-century teacher of Jewish law in Spain only had “more or less” knowledge of the Talmud.19 Responsa of the Babylonian geonim shed light not only on the daily lives of petitioners from throughout the Diaspora who posed their halakhic questions from their lived experience; they also tell us about their writers of the responsa and their own world in Iraq. At times, responsa provide us with enough data to tell us something about one or another specific corner of the Jewish world, although they are often preserved without much of the detail that would help us in this direction.20 Yet if the literature of the geonim tells us something about the institutions of religious and communal leadership (a subject taken on in this volume by Arnold E. Franklin in his chapter,“Jewish Religious and Communal Organization”), their writings also provide us with an entrée into the complex religious picture in Iraq. The rise of an Islamic polity whose religious, legal, and political institutions were themselves inchoate encouraged fragmentation and development within the parallel institutions of Jewish society – perhaps typified by the meeting of Abū Ḥanīfa (eponym of the Ḥanafī school of Islamic law) and ʿAnan b. David (an erstwhile candidate for the exilarchate who became the founder of a non-rabbinic movement) in an ʿAbbāsid prison in the year 767. Thus, challenges to the religious hegemony of the Babylonian yeshivot abound in the East with the rise of the Yūdghāniyya (or, indeed, the Karaite populations that would eventually surface there); in the West, with its own Karaite elements; and in the Land of Israel both with non-rabbinic movements and with its aforementioned rabbinic yeshiva which advanced claims to its own reshut (administrative district). But religious life in Iraq itself was no less complex and nuanced. When it comes to economic life, Iraq is also complicated. As Isaiah Gafni explained in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4, “Commercial activity among Babylonian Jews seems to have been 19

20

Gershon D. Cohen, ed. and trans., The Book of Tradition (Sefer ha Qabbalah) by Abraham Ibn Daud (Philadelphia, 1967), 65. This process paralleled a practice among Islamic jurists known as tajrīd; for a discussion of tajrīd, see Wael B. Hallaq, “From Fatwās to Furūʿ: Growth and Change in Islamic Substantive Law,” Islamic Law and Society 1, 1 (1994), 44 48.

16 phillip i. lieberman directly connected to the production and sale of agricultural by-products.”21 Yet Fischel’s Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam depicted merchants and bankers and an urban presence very different from Gafni’s depiction.22 This shift into urban crafts and trade may or may not have been broad-based,23 but it is worth pointing out that this buzzing center of Jewish religious, organizational, and economic life experienced radical changes in the medieval period. At the same time, the forces for change that affected Jewish life were the same as those that affected their Muslim brethren: the concentration of political power in Baghdad with the rise of the ʿAbbāsids (750–1258); the rise and fall of the local economy amidst the decay of agricultural infrastructure as the ʿAbbāsid regime concentrated on retaining control over its periphery rather than maintaining its heartlands; and an inability of the political center to hold amidst the Zanj revolts in the ninth century,24 exacerbated by the rise of Būyid emirs in the tenth.25 The effect of these developments on religious movements, on communal organization, on economic life, and on the demographics of the Jewish population of Iraq are all discussed in the various chapters in this volume – by Fred Astren and Haggai Ben-Shammai on non-rabbinic religious movements in general and on the Karaites in specific (respectively), by Arnold E. Franklin (as mentioned) on religious and communal organization, by Jessica L. Goldberg on economic activities, and by myself on demography and migrations. Thus, as the very nucleus of Jewish life in the medieval Islamicate world, the social and institutional history of the Jews of Iraq is intertwined with that of the Islamicate ambit writ large. That is to say, any survey of Jewish life in Iraq that might have been included in this volume would simply have drawn on the very materials that make up Part II, “Social and Institutional History,” and Part III, “Spiritual and Intellectual History” – for example, Raymond P. Scheindlin’s section on 21

22

23

24 25

Isaiah Gafni, “The Political, Social, and Economic History of Babylonian Jewry, 224 638 ce,” in Steven T. Katz, ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman Rabbinic Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 810. It is worth pointing out that Gafni does not place the Jews exclusively in agrarian pursuits, and he notes that “it is fair to assume a distinction between rabbinic attitudes and those of Babylonian commoners” (ibid.), hinting at Jewish participation in handi crafts more broadly than talmudic literature would suggest. See my own Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, “Revisiting Jewish Occupational Choice and Urbanization in Iraq under the Early Abbasids,” Jewish History 29, 2 (2015), 113 35, for a challenge to the idea that the urbanization of Jews under early Islamic regimes was (near )universal. See EI2, s.v. “Zandj” (Alexandre Popovic). John J. Donohoe, The Buwayhid Dynasty in Iraq (Leiden, 2003).

introduction 17 “Hebrew Belles Lettres in the East” in his chapter includes a discussion of literary life in Iraq. Rather than generating unnecessary replication in the volume, then, the material on Iraq may be found throughout Parts II and III rather than in a dedicated regional survey in Part I. As in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 6, Parts II and III of volume 5 are reminiscent of Salo W. Baron’s magnificent eighteen-volume Social and Religious History of the Jews in that they concern the social and institutional history, and the spiritual and intellectual history, of the Jews (respectively).26 The impact of Baron’s historiographical approach is discernible here every bit as much as is his overarching framework discussing these aspects of the Jewish experience: developments within Jewish life are often placed in their broader context. Thus, Moshe Sokolow highlights in his chapter, “Schools and Education,” that education was a “shared religious concern” and that the fundamentals of the Jewish curriculum were influenced by – indeed, shaped by – their Islamic counterparts, seen in the work of scholars such as Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī. Sokolow outlines the theory behind the traditional curriculum which ran from ages three and a half to twenty-eight and proceeds to discuss its practical implementation, for which the Genizah materials are quite rich. He also discusses educational practices in the geonic academies of Babylonia and their successor institutions in al-Andalus, and closes his chapter with a brief discussion of specific educational ideas of the Karaites. But it is in Sokolow’s analysis of the parallels between the theory of character education in al-Ghazālī and Maimonides that the importance of Baron’s contextual approach comes to the fore. Likewise, in her chapter, “The Life Cycle and the Annual Cycle in Genizah Society,” Miriam Frenkel explains that “Most people asked to be buried in green clothes, a typical Muslim idea being that green was the color of paradise.” So, too, the food with which the Yom Kippur fast was broken (dates) was the same as that with which Muslims broke their daily fast during Ramadān, and the custom of wearing new clothes on Yom _ come from a Muslim custom on ʿĪd al-Fitr. Frenkel Kippur may well have _ describes a “stable and organic society integrated in its environment.” While much of the rhythms of daily life and of the annual cycle came from Jewish law and tradition, its content was colored by the medieval Islamicate environment. The impress of Islamic society is perhaps least felt in Franklin’s chapter, where the central institutions of Jewish leadership – the gaonate and the

26

Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols. (second edition, New York, 1952 83).

18 phillip i. lieberman exilarchate – were distinctively Jewish structures that at least claimed continuity with pre-Islamic institutions. Yet even here, key developments were shaped by interaction with the broader Islamic environment: Franklin highlights Mark Cohen’s research identifying the forces behind the emergence of a “distinct office of leadership on Egyptian soil” at the moment of the departure of the Palestinian yeshiva from Fātimid domains in the direction of Tyre.27 While the creation of the office_ itself was the result of an internal development within the Jewish community, the dynamics of the Fātimid/ʿAbbāsid conflict led to a Jewish “power _ vacuum” when the yeshiva moved northward beyond Fātimid control. _ own leaderJewish leaders in Fustāt then responded by establishing their _ _ ship structure within Fātimid domains. Drawing again on Cohen, Franklin explains that the_ Coptic patriarchate moved from Alexandria to Cairo at the same time, bringing to light a useful parallel with other dhimmī populations. Indeed, looking to other dhimmī groups rather than to their Muslim overlords for parallels may be particularly apposite where religious or communal leadership is concerned – whereas comparisons at the level of daily life (as in Frenkel’s examples) may be drawn between specific Jews and Muslims when they sat next to one another on the social hierarchy. Here, the model of “commensality” suggested by Stillman28 may be carried for the medieval period beyond the arena of high culture to which he applies it, extended here to the daily life of “ordinary” Jews and Muslims. Frenkel’s second chapter, “Family Life in Genizah Society,” shows these same parallels – whether in a declining age of marriage that “was probably a new medieval social norm, the result of a change in sexual ethics and in the ideology of pedophilia in the Islamicate world” or in the restrictions on a wife’s freedom of movement common to Jews and Muslims alike. Yet her chapter provokes the question of whether practices were in fact borrowed from the broader Islamicate environment or whether that environment simply encouraged Jews to embrace practices resident (if quiescent) in Jewish tradition. For instance: although Jewish law is typically understood to place the power to initiate divorce in the hands of the husband alone, Frenkel discusses the legal maneuver known as iftidāʾ (“ransom”) through which a woman might obtain a divorce at the cost of her marital gift. Yet despite its reliance on an Arabic legal term, Frenkel points out the talmudic origins of this practice in the institution of the moredet (“the rebellious 27

28

Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065 1126 (Princeton, 1980), 87 90. For Stillman’s model, see Norman A. Stilman, “The Commensality of Islamic and Jewish Civilizations,” Middle Eastern Lectures 2 (1997), 81 94.

introduction 19 wife”), and draws on the work of Mordechai Akiva Friedman who explains that “the use of Islamic legal terms is merely a case of borrowed Arabic legal nomenclature.”29 Parallels, then, need not indicate borrowing per se, though they may point to the role of commensality in bringing one or another practice to the fore. It is, of course, where economic activities are concerned that the deepest connections between Jewish and Muslim life are understood to have been forged, with recent scholarship even striving to demonstrate how practices in the broad-based marketplace had a formative influence on Jewish Law.30 In her chapter, “Economic Activities,” Jessica L. Goldberg begins by describing early economic historiography as focusing on the “court Jew,” moving on from there to explain how the riches of the Genizah reveal a plethora of information concerning merchants of the “middling sort.” Her survey details Jews active in all the major sectors of economic activity in the medieval Islamicate world except for mining and the military; although within these broad categories there are a few specific areas (some quite significant economically) in which Jews were not to be found. Thus, Goldberg draws the critical distinction between “embeddedness” in Islamicate society and being “indistinguishable” from other groups. By laying out the Islamic attitudes that framed Jewish life, Goldberg is able to discuss Jewish participation in the “medieval Islamic economy.” Drawing on the richness of her own work on long-distance trade in establishing geographies of mercantile connections,31 Goldberg moves beyond the metropoli of Cairo and Alexandria to touch on the role of agriculture in Jewish economic life. The interweaving of rural, urban, and international Jews in the economy provides a crucial corrective to outdated depictions of Jews as court elites and wealthy, urban merchants. Of course, Goldberg’s focus on Genizah materials affords her a glimpse into Mediterranean trade and an economic sphere whose center was Egypt, whereas an attempt to delve deep into Jewish economic life in, say, al-Andalus beyond that of the urbanized elites might not yield much (as I have mentioned with respect to Jane S. Gerber’s chapter on Muslim Spain).

29

30

31

Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Divorce upon the Wife’s Demand as Reflected in Manuscripts in the Cairo Geniza,” Jewish Law Annual 4 (1981), 107. For this, see Mark R. Cohen, Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World (Philadelphia, 2017), although I myself have argued that Jewish economic practices were at times a vehicle for the manifestation of a distinctive Jewish identity; see Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014). Jessica Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World (Cambridge, 2012).

20

phillip i. lieberman If the evidence of Jewish economic activities is spread unevenly throughout the Islamicate world, so too are the source materials that allow for a discussion of “Demography and Migrations,” the subject of my own chapter. Although Goldberg described the range of economic activities, she wisely did not attempt to put numbers on the absolute (or, for that matter, the relative) size of the groups who were involved in one or another category of activity. She describes the Jews as disproportionately urban, though she does point to the smatterings of Jewish migrants to the smaller cities and villages of Egypt known from the Genizah – even if the latter seem likely to have been craftsmen and artisans rather than landholders. But determining the relative size of one or another of these groups seems a fool’s errand. As I have said, Goitein called the Genizah “a true mirror of life, often cracked and blotchy”;32 one aspect of that blotchiness, as it were, is that the Genizah documents almost certainly overrepresent the literate stratum of Egyptian Jewish society; indeed, the problem of overrepresentation faces all sources we have for the period – though one corpus of materials might overrepresent a different group than another.33 Of course, medieval travelogues provide some help, but the problems with the transmission of such manuscripts are legion, and there is no reason to believe in their accuracy – not to mention their incompleteness and the lack of attention on the part of medieval writers to anything outside of cities. Modern scholars seem to respond to this problem by using medieval testimonies only sometimes (a less charitable way of putting this might

32 33

Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:9. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein argue that “It is possible that as farmers and rural households rarely left written records . . . the documents of the Cairo Geniza over represent urban households” (Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70 1492 (Princeton, 2012), 35). Yet their statement that the geonic responsa do not suffer from the same problem, overrepresenting one or another group (though not necessarily the same group as the Genizah documents), assumes not only that geonic influence over the Jewish populace was similar across demographic, economic, and social divisions, but also that individuals appealed to the geonim across those divisions with the same frequency. Their source for this idea is Moshe Gil (Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2004), 603), but in fact Gil makes no such claim. Like Goitein, it seems that Gil understood the Genizah generally to survey the range of Jewish occupations but he says nothing about the quantity of geonic responsa in one or another area. In fact, it seems logical to assert that certain areas of life encountered questions that might be posed to the geonim more frequently than others, or certain areas of rabbinic law were more or less settled than others and therefore did not call for questions to be posed to the geonim. With this in mind, the enormous corpus of geonic responsa should be treated very carefully as a tool for saying anything at all about demographics or the relative size of one group within Jewish society to that of another.

introduction 21 be “inconsistently”), where they bolster findings garnered elsewhere. The grand narrative of medieval Jewish demographic and migratory history in the medieval Islamicate world is one of urbanization under early Islamic regimes, particularly with the establishment of Baghdad by ʿAbbāsid rulers in 762, and migration of a massive population concentrated in Babylonia/ Iraq to the communities of the Islamic Mediterranean.34 In my chapter, I aim to nuance this narrative carefully and to survey what can confidently be said about Jewish populations and their movements. While the grand narrative has much to recommend it, I suggest that there are chinks in its evidentiary foundations that demand attention outside the scope of this volume. The social and institutional history of Part II might be seen as describing the exoteric world of the Jews of the Islamicate world, while the religious and spiritual history in Part III tends toward the inner life – but these two distinct parts are more closely integrated than such an imagined divide would allow. Schools and education shape the practices of learning that allowed young people to join the trades and to participate in communal worship, but they also laid the groundwork for the few who had the opportunity to pursue higher learning in law, medicine and the sciences, philosophy, or belles-lettres to do so. So, too, the annual cycle and the life cycle shaped the response of Judaism qua religion and the inner life of the individual to life’s liminal moments – birth, marriage, death, and so forth. That is to say, the passage of time and the cycles of life may have been universal phenomena, but the way in which those passages were marked lends insight into the interior life. Jewish law had a voice in the rhythms of daily life, even if those rhythms emerged from a diverse symphony of forces. The division between Parts II and III of the work makes for a convenient heuristic but the reader should also see these sections as part of a seamless whole. One might also be inclined to see the chapters in Part III as discussing the province of elites – surely “Book Production” was an area of interest only to the select few who could actually read, “Historiography” or “Belles Lettres” even more so. Indeed, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger notes in her chapter, “Book Production,” following Miriam Frenkel, that book producers (warrāqūn, “stationers”) were part of an elite network. But she also notes that books themselves reached a broad swath of Jewish society in the medieval Islamicate world, and suppliers produced a range of offerings to meet the needs of this expanded reading public both in terms of the design and production of the book as an object and in terms of its content: from 34

For a reprise of this narrative, see Botticini and Eckstein, The Chosen Few, 124 37.

22 phillip i. lieberman orphans and poor children learning to read from a communally owned Bible scroll to wealthy patrons who commissioned such codices as items of conspicuous consumption. Katja Vehlow, likewise, even identifies history writing that sometimes reached a larger audience in her chapter, “Historiography.” Vehlow also shows the interconnectedness of the Jewish communities of the medieval Mediterranean world in her discussion of Sefer Yosippon, a work originating in ninth-century Byzantine Italy popular with Rabbanites and Karaites, Muslims and Christians. Of course, the audience for these works was greatly enhanced by the deepening of literacy among the Jews of the medieval Islamicate world – touched on by Olszowy-Schlanger – which represented a sea change from life in the rabbinic period in which literacy was very rare.35 The chapters by Fred Astren, “Non-Rabbinic and Non-Karaite Religious Movements,” and Haggai Ben-Shammai, “Karaism,” also reach beyond the elites as seen in older historiography, understanding the rabbinic movement to have been dominant throughout the medieval Islamic world (including the historiography of the rabbis themselves). The pictures that Astren and Ben-Shammai present show that even in the wellspring of rabbinic literature, Iraq, challenges to rabbinic hegemony and the movements that developed therefrom were significant. Astren describes messianism as an organizing principle at the core of several of these movements from Spain to Isfahān. Many of these movements _ clustered around charismatic individuals who captured the spirit of the moment. This spirit included both messianic speculation responding to the unfolding of Islamic history, and messianic strains within Islam itself (especially Shīʿī Islam). The practices of these movements were often recognizably in dialogue with rabbinic practice – at times agreeing with it and at others disagreeing – such as the various degrees of permitted or prohibited consanguinity in marriage. Intergroup polemics could be harsh. Yet some members of these groups ascended to positions of power in the Islamic state and wielded that power for the good of the whole: BenShammai points out that particularly after the turn of the millennium, “wealthy Karaite notables established their political power and influence both in intra-Jewish relations and vis-à-vis the Fātimid authorities on _ behalf of the entire Jewish community.” And even amidst his description of the various strains of the Karaite movement from its putative founders onward, as well as the movement’s major literary, juridical, and philosophical figures, Ben-Shammai points to the complexity of intergroup relations

35

For a discussion of literacy in the rabbinic period, see Catherine Heszer, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (Tübingen, 2001).

introduction 23 by examining Rabbanite-Karaite connections in daily life. He reports that in a spirit of “moderation” after the turn of the millennium, prominent Rabbanites and Karaites even married one another.36 He also traces the development of Karaism into Byzantium, demonstrating that the long shadow of this movement extended past the boundaries of the Islamic world. Both Astren’s and Ben-Shammai’s analyses point to the importance of moving beyond Rabbanite historiography in describing the medieval Jewish community in the Islamicate world. Yet if all these aspects of literary life gestured toward a broad public, there were nonetheless others that were indeed primarily confined to certain intellectual elites: in his chapter, “Jewish Philosophy,” Alfred Ivry identifies Jewish philosophers to have been primarily engaged with the classical Greek philosophers and their Muslim transmitters and interlocutors. While there are some suggestions of the concerns of these writers with a broader audience – Ivry notes that “Maimonides is aware . . . of the need people have for a personal, responsive God, and aware that the Bible has so presented Him” – much of the time, Ivry’s subjects were consumed by the world of the perennial, interconfessional questions of philosophy that would have been of only passing interest at best to the rank and file. These strains of Greek and Arabic learning would influence Jewish reading of scripture as well; discussing “Jewish Bible Exegesis in Muslim Lands in the Middle Ages,” Mordechai Z. Cohen outlines how reading practices of the Jews of the medieval Islamic world would eclipse earlier midrashic forms from the rabbinic period – particularly as the rise of rationalist Muʿtazilite thought challenged fanciful rabbinic midrash. Cohen gives due attention to Karaite exegesis as well as its Rabbanite counterpart, showing simultaneously the tension between their respective reading practices and the willingness of these sometime adversaries to learn from one another. Cohen’s discussion sketching the rise of the “peshat movement” _ century) to from Seʿadyah to Jonah Ibn Janah (first half of the eleventh _ Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1164) – the latter writing in Hebrew in Christian Spain but freely drawing on Karaite exegesis no less than Rabbanite – lays the groundwork for the reception of the Judeo-Arabic exegetical tradition in Christian lands. Seeing Rabbanite scholars spurred on by the Karaite challenge to produce a more philologically grounded mode of reading the Bible, Cohen locates the ultimate source of this philological tradition in Qurʾānic exegesis.37 Jewish and Muslim scripture may have been distinct, 36

37

Judith Olszowy Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Contracts from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden, 1997). Rina Drory also develops the idea of Karaite exegetes as intermediaries between Muslim and Rabbanite readings of scripture in Rina Drory, “Literary Contacts and Where to

24 phillip i. lieberman but Islamic exegetical practices goaded their Jewish counterparts to reach new heights. In their chapter, “Science and Medicine,” Gabriele Ferrario and Maud Kozodoy also discuss an area that transcended confessional boundaries. They likewise note the prominence of non-Muslims in the sciences in the Islamicate world – both in contributing to the scientific and medical literature and as practitioners of the sciences and medicine. Thus, the Jewish astronomer Māshāʾallāh b. Atharī (d. 815) was one of the astrologers responsible for choosing an auspicious moment for the ʿAbbāsid caliph alMansūr to found the city of Baghdad in 762; and on the other side of the _ Mediterranean, the Jewish notable Ḥasday b. Isaac Ibn Shaprūt (c. 915–970) is reported by an Arabic chronicler to have worked on the_ Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica. The latter, of course, is known also to have played an important role in the administration of the Spanish Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (r. 929–961) and his son _ al-Ḥakam II (r. 961–976), notwithstanding the provisions of the Pact of ʿUmar prohibiting such roles to dhimmīs.38 Jewish and Christian medical practitioners often plied their trade in breach of the Pact in the service of elites. But they also served their own communities, and the Genizah is rife with their writings and testaments to their work. If the theory underpinning science and medicine transcended confessional boundaries, so did the practice; Jews and Muslims served as master and apprentice to one another. Because of its broad-based clientele and its connections with the desiderata of daily life – health, love, finding out the unknown, or material success – magic is often considered an area of popular rather than elite interest. As such, the popular appeal of magic might be seen as a counterpoint to narrow elite interest in philosophy. But magic is actually an area that cuts across economic and social divisions. Discussing “Magic,” Gideon Bohak notes the tension between magic and the rationalist mindset of Arabic and Greek philosophers – goading on Maimonides to inveigh against popular magical practices he knew well. Some rabbinic leaders were, of course, more open to the possibility of a synthesis that accommodated magic: Hayya Gaʾon (939–1038) critically evaluated a range of magical practices in a famous responsum, concluding that magic was generally ineffective even though it was nonetheless embedded in the life of the yeshivot. Yet other intellectual

38

Find Them: On Arabic Literary Models in Medieval Jewish Literature,” Poetics Today 14, 2 (1993), 277 302. See Jane S. Gerber’s survey of “The Jews of Muslim Spain” in this volume for a discussion of Hasday and the Pact of ʿUmar in general.

introduction 25 and communal elites certainly did turn to magic: Bohak mentions the amulet made for Masliah ha-Kohen Gaʾon – head of the Jews in Egypt _ therefore see the deep penetration into society from 1127 to 1139. We_ can and the broad heritage on which medieval Jewish magic in the Islamicate world drew, turning to material from Jewish antiquity and the Islamicate context (to include Eastern and Western Christian sources) alike. As Bohak explains, intra-Jewish creativity was not a profound source for new magical techniques, although this would change after 1492 as the Spanish Expulsion would give rise to a new center of mysticism and magic alike in the city of Safed in Palestine. In introducing the reader to the points of contention among contemporary scholars in one or another area, the contributors to this volume often break new ground. In discussing Jewish mysticism, Sara Sviri picks up an area often linked with magic and describes it as largely independent of it. While there are some literary sources common to the two subjects such as the tenth/eleventh-century Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (The Goal of the Sage, known in Latin as Picatrix), Sviri’s treatment of mysticism and its roots turns to Neoplatonic mystical philosophy. Establishing the strong link with Neoplatonism also allows her to trace out the root structure of the family tree of later Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah) and to undo the longimagined connection between Jewish mysticism and S ̣ūfīsm. Sviri argues that the Neoplatonic material, typified by the Epistles of the Sincere Brethren (Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-S ̣afāʾ) for the lens through which this work depicted a rational mysticism, combined with ancient Jewish mystical precedents such as Sefer Yesirah and the Merkavah and Hekhalot literature _ to give rise to medieval Jewish mysticism. She supports her argument by explaining that attention to bātinī (inner) modes of worship may be _ ascribed to an Ismāʿīlī orientation rather than a S ̣ūfī one as Fātimid influence fanned out from North Africa beginning in the early _tenth century. This refinement helps us reenvision the development of Kabbalah. Although Sviri attends primarily to Andalusian thinkers in her chapter, she does not neglect prominent “Eastern” figures such as Seʿadyah, nor the descendants of Maimonides who were themselves in many ways bearers of an Andalusian tradition going back to Bahya Ibn Paquda (c. 1050–1120) distinct from the theurgic mysticism of_ Judah Halevi (c. 1075–1141) – which would itself lead into the later Spanish Kabbalah tradition. Sviri’s chapter is perhaps most notable for the careful treatment of questions of how context contributes to the inner experience of the Jews of the Islamicate world. Her resistance to engaging questions of “influence” in favor of a discussion of “continuity” mirrors that of Elliot R. Wolfson in his chapter in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 6, which “shifts the primary emphasis away from historical criteria to an

26 phillip i. lieberman appreciation of the religious phenomenon.”39 Neither scholar rejects the historical, but each also carefully avoids reducing the Jewish mystical experience to some sort of isnād (chain) of received tradition. Despite Maimonides’ statement in Guide III:32 that “Your worship should consist solely in meditation without any work at all,” directing devotion away from the frame of a fixed liturgy and hinting at a Jewish sūfism, liturgical and lectionary practices played an important role in the _ lives of Jews as individuals and as members of a community in the medieval Islamic world. Stefan C. Reif takes on these questions in his chapter, “Liturgy.” Here, the efforts of the Babylonian yeshivot established their place as the spiritual authorities for the Diaspora by spearheading changes in the preexisting rabbinic tradition toward greater uniformity in practice. The production and dissemination of prayer books by Amram b. Sheshna Gaʾon (d. 875) and Seʿadyah Gaʾon were obviously part of this strategy. At the same time, the distinct practices of the Palestinian communities maintained a foothold in parts of the Mediterranean; and the rise of Karaism presented yet another challenge. Although the Babylonian yeshivot came to have a decisive impact on the contours of Jewish liturgy throughout much of the Diaspora, a preexisting tradition of piyyut – _ liturgical poetry understood to have had its roots in Palestinian synagogue practice – held on. In discussing this literary genre and its development throughout the Islamic Middle Ages, Tova Beeri points out that some 40 percent of the Genizah documents are poetry and the majority of these are piyyut. By the end of the ninth century, the practice of writing piyyut _ begun to spread throughout the Islamic Mediterranean –_ had already which itself led to new forms within the genre as local hazzanim (prayer leaders) who might be less-talented could simply add on_ a coda to classic compositions. New contributions to the genre embellished the fixed worship service throughout the medieval period, although the twelfth century saw many of these arrangements uprooted from their original liturgical contexts amidst Abraham Maimonides’ reforms simplifying the prayer service under S ̣ūfī influence. Piyyutim were not the only form of poetry composed throughout the Middle _Ages, as Raymond P. Scheindlin points out in his chapter, “Belles Lettres.” Familiarity with Arabic poetic and prosodic literary forms gave rise to secular poetry and epistles as well as writings on the literary craft itself such as Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Arabic Kitāb al-Muhād ara wa-l_ _ Mudhākara (Book of Discussion and Recollection). Although the 39

Elliot R. Wolfson, “Mysticism,” in Robert Chazan, ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 6: The Middle Ages: The Christian World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 744.

introduction 27 Andalusian Jewish tradition of belles lettres is well known, Scheindlin also discusses its Eastern counterpart as well as the various genres of poetry from East and West, discussing the major composers of each of those genres. Even as the power of the geonic authorities faded, Iraq continued to foster the growth of poets such as Judah al-Ḥarīzī (1165–1225) and Eleazar b. Jacob ha-Bavli (1195–1250). In the West, the Jewish version of the maqāma took hold on Christian soil as well, helping shape poetry in Spain, Provence, and Italy as discussed by Jonathan Decter in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 6. That volume includes distinct chapters on Jewish law and the study of the Talmud, whereas the present volume includes only one such chapter, entitled “Jewish Law,” by Gideon Libson. Libson discusses the rise of four main genres of halakhic composition in the medieval Islamicate world – broad legal compendia, the responsum, halakhic monographs, and works on legal theory. The development of these various genres reflects the tension between rigorous Talmud study, on the one hand, and a preference for finding practical answers to halakhic questions, on the other. Therefore, the history of the halakhic literature cannot be viewed independent of the history of Talmud study. Libson also contextualizes the development of Jewish law in light of the waning power of the Babylonian academies and the evolving relationship between Jewish legal authorities and their Muslim overlords. Jewish legal theorists adopted the jargon of their Muslim brethren and at times the very concepts underpinning that language. Sometimes, though, Rabbanite jurists were simply couching their own ideas in an Arabic guise, and strong reactions were a response to challenges from Karaism rather than from Islam. Libson’s discussion of Judeo-Arabic legal terms and the possibility of their Islamic influence calls to mind the relationship between Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, and Arabic among the Jews of the medieval Islamicate world. As pointed out by Scheindlin, Drory identified the festive and grandiloquent role served by Hebrew, which sat in tension with the communicative function served by Judeo-Arabic,40 but Jews also wrote in Aramaic, Judeo-Greek, Judeo-Persian, Judeo-Berber, various JudeoRomance languages (to include Judeo-French and Judeo-Italian), and Yiddish. Angel Sáenz-Badillos and S. J. Pearce introduce these languages and discuss language choice in their chapter, “Languages and Translation.” They also discuss the art of translation – which included, as I have already mentioned, Jewish participation in Arabic translation of Greek classics

40

Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000).

28 phillip i. lieberman such as Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, but also translation of Arabic philosophical classics into Hebrew – through which translators would breathe life into the study of philosophy in Christian Europe. This translation movement would, of course, include the translation into Hebrew and dissemination of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed even in the Great Eagle’s own lifetime. Scholars have sucked the marrow of the Genizah for the textual evidence it provides, but Vivian B. Mann and Shalom Sabar tread beyond the textual in their foray into “Material Culture, Art, and Architecture.” Illustrated manuscripts in the Genizah itself, material remains, and miniature illustrations primarily produced in the West under Christian rule in the Mudéjar style combine with textual evidence describing artistic activity and works of art. Here, as with the major works of Jewish philosophy, Jews would become brokers of culture from the Islamicate world to the Christian world – particularly in the West as Almohad persecutions in the twelfth century, riots in the year 1391, and eventually the Expulsion in 1492 all led Jews to migrate and to bring Islamicate art and architecture to Christian lands. For example, Mann and Sabar find evidence of Jewish material culture in the Islamicate world in a responsum of Asher b. Jehiel (1250–1327, born in Cologne and died in Toledo) from his time in Christian Spain, indicating that prayer rugs with images flanked the ark in which the Torah was stored – one such image apparently having been the Kaʿba in Mecca! As a histoire totale, there is obviously much that this volume does not take on. Yedida Stillman’s volume Arab Dress drew copiously upon the Genizah documents, and with it one might have (as she does) begun to engage the question of Jewish dress in Islamic lands.41 Likewise, David Freidenreich has written about food and drink of the Jews of the medieval Islamicate world,42 and his work could have formed the backbone of a broader survey of the same. And while The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4 has a chapter devoted to “Women in Jewish Life and Law,” by Tal Ilan, the present volume includes the history of women in its other chapters – most prominently, perhaps, in Miriam Frenkel’s chapter, “Family Life in Genizah Society.” But there are also areas of life, many of them simply touched on in footnotes in A Mediterranean Society, that could have developed into chapters in this volume. What did Jewish life sound like in the medieval Islamicate world – not only its music, taken on 41

42

Yedida Kalfon Stillman and Norman A. Stillman, Arab Dress: A Short History from the Dawn of Islam to Modern Times (Leiden, 2000), particularly chapter 5, “The Laws of Differentiation and the Clothing of Non Muslims.” See EJIW, s.v. “Food and Drink Medieval Period” (David Freidenreich).

introduction 29 by Edwin Seroussi in the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, but its daily life? How did this connect with, differ from, shape, and become shaped by the attachment of Jews with their own traditions and their relationship with their Islamic context? As the wealth of historical materials available to us continues to be mined, new pathways come to light that allow us to piece together Jewish life; but our image of history is also shaped by the interests of historians themselves. It has only been by overcoming Solomon Schechter’s harsh verdict that much of the documentary Genizah was “rubbish” that historians could come to produce the present volume; and it is their expanding conceptions of that history that will ensure the continuing development of the field. I close with a note about terminology in this volume. Historians can and should grant their evidence a voice in directing their inquiry. With this in mind, the contributors to this volume have chosen terms that fit their subject matter and that emerge from their evidentiary sources themselves. Jews have prayed for thousands of years for a return to the Land of Israel, so it hardly makes sense for a chapter on liturgy to use the term “Greater Syria” – while Arabic sources refer to the same strip of land as part of Bilād al-Shām. On the other hand, when considering economic activities, the subordinate role the Land of Israel played to Egypt, on the one hand, and Syria, on the other, suggests that Greater Syria is more appropriate. As editor, I have retained the terms most appropriate to the subject matter of the various chapters; I trust that the reader will see in the use of several distinct terms for a single referent a design – like Picasso’s – of rendering a three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional canvas.

part i JEWS IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC WORLD

a. THE ISLAMIC WORLD IN THE MIDDLE AGES

chapter 1

THE SOURCES stefan c. reif

INTRODUCTION

For those with an interest in understanding the evolution of Judaism in the Islamic lands of the Middle Ages, but not necessarily with a specialized knowledge or training as historians, it is necessary to offer a few general words of warning about the nature, variety, and exploitation of the sources from which history is derived. Though now virtually axiomatic for those who research and write about the past in a scientific fashion, such cautions need to be sounded because there are still approaches to the history of medieval religion – perhaps particularly to that area of study – that may, at least sometimes, take it for granted that the circumstances, personalities, and interpretations that are noted in the early and traditional texts of a faith community are to be understood literally. The reality is that what is reflected in such data is not only a view on a particular period but also the notions and commitments of their chroniclers. History is lived forward but written backward so that all assessments have more than a small element of hindsight and bias.1 It seems always to have been the case that those who became dominant, powerful, and representative of what they regarded as the normative wrote themselves into the center of events in the story of their religious traditions and marginalized those whose views survived only among a minority and who came to be regarded by the majority as marginal or even heretical. One day’s orthodoxy became a later period’s heresy and may ultimately have ended its existence as no more than a superstition. If this was true within each religious community, it was that much more the case when the 1

Examples of works in which these notions occur include Edward H. Carr, What Is History? The George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures Delivered in the University of Cambridge January March 1961 (London, 1961; second edition, ed. Robert W. Davies, Basingstoke, 1986); Jack H. Hexter, Doing History (London, 1971); Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (London, 1931); C. Veronica Wedgwood, The Thirty Years War (London, 1938); and C. Veronica Wedgwood, William the Silent: William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, 1533 1584 (London, 1944).

35

36 stefan c. reif scholars of one faith described what had occurred over the years to the adherents of a rival theology. It is therefore essential to bear in mind that the Jews, Muslims, and Christians writing about the history of medieval Judaism in both the medieval and modern periods all had something of an agenda of their own when they expressed their views about their own earlier history and that of each other. A further complication exists in the attitude to history that is manifest in the rabbinic literature of the talmudic and medieval periods. The rabbinic leaders were very much aware of the changes that had occurred in Jewish beliefs and practices between the biblical and later periods and of the need for each generation to respond to its contemporary situation. Their interest was not, however, in chronicling events and describing personalities for their own sake but only in alluding to them and their message in the context of the continuous development and consistent application of Jewish religious law (halakhah) and lore (midrash) as they understood them, and as they were attempting to promote and justify them. Their attitude to history was that “what happened in the past is now in the past”; it was over, finished with, and different from the realities and relevancies of their own day. At the same time, they were not averse to tracing their own traditions as far back into Jewish history as the biblical and post-biblical texts would allow, albeit with a fair degree of subjective manipulation.2 Elements of the historical did find a place in rabbinic literature in the post-talmudic period and it may well be the case that they originally owed more to Palestinian than to Babylonian precedents. All these cautions and complications having been noted, it would be foolhardy to ignore any of the sources in the context of a contemporary attempt to trace the evolution of medieval Judaism. There is no doubt that they all have something important to contribute to today’s overall understanding of what happened in each period, how it came about, and why it is significant in setting the 2

Moshe D. Herr, “The Conception of History among the Sages,” in Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division C, Volume 3 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1977), 129 42; Solomon Fischer, “The Exit of the Jews from ‘History’ and the Talmud,” in Samuel N. Eisenstadt and Moses Lissak, eds., Zionism and the Return to History: A Reappraisal [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1999), 56 70; Amos Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley, 1993); Jacob Neusner, The Idea of History in Rabbinic Judaism (second edition, Leiden, 2004); Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Memory (edition with new preface, Seattle, 1996); Johannes Heil, “Beyond ‘History and Memory’: Traces of Jewish Historiography in the Middle Ages,” Medieval Jewish Studies 1 (2007 8), 29 71. See also Stefan C. Reif, “The Function of History in Early Rabbinic Liturgy,” in Jan Liesen and Nuria Calduch Benages, eds., Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, Yearbook 2006: History and Identity: How Israel’s Later Authors Viewed Its Earlier History (Berlin, 2006), 321 39.

the sources 37 total historical scene. In order to gauge that importance, it will be helpful to subsume each group of sources under a general heading, to describe what at least some of their representatives had to offer, and to assess – briefly and in broad terms – their historical value. The major impact made in the course of the past century and a half by the fresh and extensive materials from Hebrew manuscripts in general, and from the Cairo Genizah in particular, will (deservedly) receive independent and lengthier attention below, after details have been provided of the sources that were already known and used before that epic discovery. RABBINIC HISTORIOGRAPHY

Although, for the reasons already explained, there were no serious works of history composed within rabbinic circles until the later medieval and early modern period, there are a number of treatises with historical content that deserve to be counted among the earliest Jewish sources for some limited aspects of the period under discussion. The epistle written in 987 by Sherira b. Ḥanina Gaʾon, head of the rabbinic academy in Pumbedita, Babylonia, constituted a response to the question addressed to him from Qayrawān in Ifrīqiya (modern-day Tunisia) about the origins and development of the talmudic tradition. Sherira not only dealt with the whole concept of the chain of transmission but also provided details of the leading authorities of the geonic period of which his son, Hayya Gaʾon, was destined to become the final representative.3 Another tenth-century Babylonian source, only fragments of which have survived, is the Chronicle of Nathan Ha-Bavli. Nathan described the clashes that took place between those holding office as exilarchs (in a sense the “lay” leadership) and those rabbinic luminaries who headed the talmudic academies. The accounts are undoubtedly contemporary but they amount to eyewitness impressions rather than precise details of personalities and their exact chronology.4 Also invaluable is the twelfthcentury travelogue of Benjamin of Tudela, who described in some important detail the Jewish communities he encountered in his travels from Spain through Italy, Greece, and the Holy Land, reaching as far as

3

4

Abraham Hyman, ed., Igereth Rav Sherira Gaon: The Letter of R. Sherira Gaon (London, 1910); Margarete Schlüter, Auf welche Weise wurde die Mishna geschrieben? Das Antwortschreiben des Rav Sherira Gaon, mit einem Faksimile der Handschrift Berlin Qu. 685 (Or. 160) und des Erstdrucks Konstantinopel 1566 (Tübingen, 1993). Adolf Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes (Oxford, 1887), 2:83.

38 stefan c. reif Iraq and returning via Egypt.5 It should also be recalled that many of the medieval halakhic authorities in the Islamic world, such as Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), unwittingly provided insights into their local communities while discussing halakhic matters, but these sources came to be used extensively by historians only in the modern period.6 Although much of the Jewish historiographical tradition of early medieval Italy (as exemplified in the Sefer Josippon) concerned the situation of the Jews outside the Islamic sphere, there were some mentions of the communities of Palestine and of North Africa in the Chronicle of Ahimaaz, written in southern Italy in the middle of the eleventh century.7 A more substantial work of history was that of the Sefer ha-Qabbalah (Book of Tradition) of Abraham Ibn Daud who flourished in Toledo. Written in 1160, the volume came from an author with the broad cultural tendencies of his native Córdoba, an interest in history, and a knowledge of other religions. He was keen to demonstrate how Egypt, North Africa, and Spain had inherited the rabbinic traditions of Babylonia and he may even have had some access to data from that latter center through a secondary source such as Nissim Ibn Shāhīn. Like Sherira before him, one of his primary concerns was to polemicize against the Karaite interpretation of Jewish history, of which more below.8 Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, a number of scholarly émigrés from Spain and Portugal resettled in Italy, Turkey, and the countries of the eastern Mediterranean and composed a variety of works that described what had happened to the Jews over the centuries. Writers such as Joseph Ibn S ̣adīq, Abraham Zacuto, Azariah de Rossi, and David Gans were among the first to make significant use of non-Jewish materials in their historical studies and to demonstrate an ability to undertake original research and to advance critical viewpoints. A whole genre of works, such as those by Profayt Duran, Joseph Ibn Verga, Joseph haKohen, and Gedaliah b. Yahyā, dealt with Jewish history as a catalog of persecutions, although some_ biographical and bibliographical details were at times included. Although the Babylonian geonic period and Jewish life in Muslim Spain received some attention, there was little knowledge or

5 6

7

8

Marcus N. Adler, ed., The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (London, 1907). The latest scholarly biographies are by Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York, 2008); and Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides: Life and Thought (Princeton, 2013). David Flusser, ed., Sefer Yosifon, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1980 81); Marcus Salzman, ed. and trans., The Chronicle of Ahimaaz (New York, 1924). Gerson D. Cohen, ed., The Book of Tradition (Sefer Ha Qabbalah) by Abraham Ibn Daud (Philadelphia, 1967).

the sources 39 discussion of the events and personalities of the Middle Ages in the wider Islamic world, the impression being given that the same sources, such as the chronicles of Sherira Gaʾon and Abraham Ibn Daud, were used by all. The one interesting exception is the work of Joseph Sambari (1640–1703, apparently in Alexandria), who knew Arabic, made use of library collections, and specialized in the history of the Jews of Egypt, particularly in the Mamlūk and Ottoman periods.9 KARAITE HISTORIOGRAPHY

Like their Rabbanite rivals, the Karaites of the early Islamic period were somewhat indifferent to history qua history. Having, however, been goaded by the Rabbanite evaluation of Karaism as a heretical movement, as portrayed or implied, for example, in the works of Sherira and Ibn Daud, they then developed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries their own versions of the “chain of tradition,” as a counter-polemic against Rabbanite ideology. There is already something of an historical flavor to the tenthcentury analysis of Salmon b. Jeroham, who, as well as gathering together what he regarded as various proto-Karaite pasts, referred to the three stages of Karaite development as messianic (ʿAnan), exegetical (Benjamin alNahawāndī), and scripturalist, and described a fourth as representing the broader and more-developed movement. In that same period, Qirqisānī wrote his history of heresies, the theological content of which betrays the influence of Christian (e.g., John of Damascus) and Muslim thinkers. Though written more as philosophy or theology, it also had important historical information. In the eleventh century, Elijah b. Abraham traced the historical progression of Karaite activity through the generations. He presented Karaism as more ancient, authentic, and orthodox than innovative Rabbanism and “constructed a true historical narrative [in which] questions of historical continuity are addressed and several historical theories are postulated.”10 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Karaism accommodated itself to a greater degree with Rabbanism, minimized the differences, and even made use of some Rabbanite sources for its own history. Moses Bashyachi (d. 1572) offered the first Karaite attempt at narrative history, regarding Karaism as a later form of the interpretations first offered by the tannaitic figure Shammai almost a millennium earlier. What is of overall importance is that data, viewpoints, and events that were interpreted in a particular 9

10

This is well summarized by Cecil Roth, “Historiography,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. VIII, cols. 556 60. Fred Astren, Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia, SC, 2004), 157.

40 stefan c. reif way by the Rabbanites were seen quite differently by the Karaites and this provides historians with the possibility of comparing one set of sources with another and attempting thereby to reach a more informed and balanced assessment. In the early modern period, Karaite historiography was influenced by Protestantism which sympathized with Karaism as an antiestablishment movement like itself. In response to Christian academic inquiries, Solomon b. Aaron Troki and Mordechai b. Nissan of Kokizow offered explanations of Karaite history that were based on earlier Karaite authors, with expansions of the related chronology and narrative. The most complete version of Karaite historical expression was that of Simhah Isaac _ Orah Lutzki (d. 1766). By way of his two works, Meʾirat ʿEinayim and S ̣addiqim, he provided a heresiographical study of Jewish history, present-_ ing Karaism as part of the larger Israel but at odds with rabbinic interpretations. As Fred Astren has put it, he engaged in “a multi-layered historical exercise with allusions to most types of Jewish literature, both Karaite and Rabbanite,” presenting Rabbanism as a First Temple deviation while arguing that Karaism is the true Judaism.11 Although Jewish literature in the Islamic world did not produce anything comparable to the massive world histories of the Muslim scholars, some Jews did compose some important chronologies and travelogues, mostly in Judeo-Arabic or Arabic. While acknowledging that much research remains to be done, Katja Vehlow has dealt with their contributions to this sphere of learning in her contribution to this volume in considerably greater detail than is done in this chapter.12 MUSLIM TEXTS

There are also many Muslim sources that relate to the Jewish political and social status in the Islamic world and to historical events. The emphasis in the present context is, however, on materials that testify to how Muslims understood Judaism in the medieval period, rather than to the way they treated them in daily contact. It should not be forgotten that most of the information about the religion of the Jews that circulated among medieval Muslims and other non-Jewish groups in the Islamic environment may be traced back to the Qurʾān and to a number of early Muslim writers who included data about Judaism in their works. The Qurʾān itself offered favorable assessments of the Jewish relationship with God and with divine revelation, as well as with the Holy Land. It also spoke of the Jews’ right to 11

Ibid., 272 73.

12

See Chapter 31 in this volume.

the sources 41 eternal bliss and of their excellence among the nations. At the same time, it criticized them in various contexts for treachery, evil, disbelief, and conceit and referred to them as cursed. As far as early Muslim writers are concerned, a relatively recent study of the most prominent of these authors has examined and summarized what they had to offer on the topic.13 ʿAlī b. Rabban al-Ṭabarī (810–865) from eastern Iran, originally a Nestorian Christian, demonstrated an elementary knowledge of Hebrew but polemicized against Judaism without displaying an accurate firsthand knowledge of its nature. Writing in Baghdad, Abū Muhammad Ibn Qutayba (828–889), who may have had some personal _ contacts with Jews, attacked Judaism and Christianity but dealt only with the period up to the spread of Islam. The earliest Muslim historian who represented the religious philosophy of the Shīʿites was Ahmad al-Yaʿqūbī _ Jewish beliefs (820–905) and he was able to discuss in greater detail some and practices including the religious calendar, liturgy, language, marriage laws, and ritual slaughter. Although he knew about the Jewish exilarch who represented his community at the court of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs, the information possessed by Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī (839–923) was generally rather inaccurate and his interest in the Christians and Jews extended little beyond the time of Muhammad. Abū al-Ḥasan al-Masʿūdī (893–956), whose extensive travels and _broad interests brought him special knowledge of the various religious groups in the Islamic empire, was able to convey facts as well as opinions on Judaism. He also cited an interesting disputation between a Copt and a Jew at the court of the Egyptian ruler Ibn Ṭūlūn, as well as displaying close acquaintance with Karaism and with some leading Rabbanites such as Seʿadyah Gaʾon. One of history’s early students of comparative religion was Abū Nasr al-Maqdisī, who was born in Jerusalem but flourished in _ Iran in the middle of the tenth century. To his credit, his descriptions of Jewish beliefs and practices were the most extensive offered to date in the Islamic world. Writing as a zealous and fundamentalist supporter of orthodox Sunnī Islam and polemicizing powerfully against other faiths including Judaism, Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī’s most significant snippet of information in the current connection concerned a group of Jews with views of prophecy somewhat akin to those of Christianity and Islam. A more balanced outlook was achieved by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (973–1050), who set out _ to acquire accurate information about other religions, and to master various related languages. He described a number of Jewish sects and 13

See note 14 for these sources.

42 stefan c. reif theologies and even used Jewish sources for a better understanding of Judaism’s religious calendar. Abū Muhammad Ibn Ḥazm (994–1064) _ was a broadly educated and highly prolific Muslim in Umayyad Spain who had personal contacts with Jews and discussed the various interpretations of Judaism. He may have been influenced by Karaite attacks on rabbinic Judaism since he criticized the talmudic, midrashic, and mystical notions of the Jews and linked them all with what he regarded as the misguided teachings of the Talmud.14 A few other examples are equally illustrative. One of ninth-century Islam’s most distinguished intellectuals, Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāhiz, a master _ of poetry, literature, history, and science, as well as theology, _explained in one of his numerous works why the Muslim masses preferred Christians to Jews. An attack on the Jewish exilarchate as corrupt, arrogant, and demanding was made in the same century by Shīʿite theologian alQāsim b. Ibrāhīm, while some 200 years later a Jewish convert to Islam, Islām al-Samawʾal al-Maghribī, wrote about what he saw as the unconvincing nature of the Jewish religious traditions for a scientific mind such as his own. Interestingly, the Jewish physician and philosopher Saʿd b. Mansūr Ibn Kammūna of Baghdad (1215–85) responded to what he _ saw as such misrepresentations of Judaism by Muslims in a close and highly scientific examination of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism that greatly offended the Muslim public and almost cost him his life. His work is a most important witness to the acerbic but also intellectually fruitful interchange of religious ideas that took place in the High Middle Ages within the Islamic world. It was unfortunately not continued during the Mamlūk period but had to await new developments in the Ottoman world before finding some degree of renewed expression.15 Also to be taken into account in the search for source material relating to the Jews in the medieval Islamic environment are the texts composed by Muslim travelers who were visiting the relevant areas. Although there were some like Ibn Battuta who were serious geographers and provided a wide __ _ about the places and peoples they encountered, the range of information majority of such works are in no way comparable to the parallel Christian 14

15

Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden, 1996), especially chapter 2, 23 69; as well as Camilla Adang, Maribel Fierro, and Sabine Schmidtke, eds., Ibn Hazm of Cordoba: The Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker (Leiden, 2013). Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), 66, 170, 176 77, 229 32, 259 61; Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Göttingen, 2017). See also Norman A. Stillman et al., eds., Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (Leiden, 2010).

the sources 43 literature. They often included prayers and quotations from sacred Muslim sources but the information about social, economic, and political matters was fairly thin. This changed as the medieval gave way to the modern and those Muslims traveling in the Ottoman Empire gave closer attention to the Jews and Judaism that they encountered.16 CHRISTIAN VIEWS

A number of leading Christian churchmen have left us their impressions of the countries and peoples of the Near East, although they were usually more closely concerned with the dominant religion of Islam than with Jews and Judaism of the Muslim environment. The journeys undertaken around 680 by the Frankish bishop and pilgrim Arculf included a period in the Holy Land. As well as describing holy sites, impressive monuments, and major cities, he also offered his impressions of Islam which had conquered the whole area only a few decades earlier. St. John of Damascus (Yūhannā b. Mansūr, d. 749) wrote about heresies in his _ _ after 742, giving his negative views of Fount of Knowledge, composed Islam and Judaism, while Peter of Cluny (c. 1092–1156) was anxious to know more about other religions, especially Islam, in order to refute what he regarded as their heresies. Jacques (James) of Vitry (1160 or 1170–1240), who was, just before his death, elected Patriarch of Jerusalem (an appointment not ratified by the Pope), recorded serious reservations about debating with Jews. William of Tripoli, a Dominican based in the Crusader city of Acre in the latter part of the thirteenth century, sought to convert Jews and evangelize Christians. He was well acquainted with Islam and Judaism and wrote a guide to Islamic beliefs and customs. Ricoldo da Monte Croce (c. 1243–1320), an Italian Dominican, wrote a polemic against Islam and a treatise against the “errors of the Jews.” He had visited the Holy Land and Iraq and therefore had a firsthand acquaintance with the Jews and Muslims of those centers. He also met Christians of other denominations and was involved in conflicts with them. A period in which Christians, Muslims, and Jews knew a good deal about each other’s faiths and practice, and often exchanged ideas on theological topics, was that of Umayyad Spain in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Another important genre, with potential for providing additional information, is that of the extensive Christian pilgrimage literature. Cecil Roth 16

See Ian R. Netton, ed., Islamic and Middle Eastern Geographers and Travellers: Critical Concepts in Islamic Thought (London, 2008).

44 stefan c. reif dealt with this in detail in a valuable article written some forty years ago.17 Although often concerned primarily with holy sites and prayers to be recited there, such travel books sometimes include data on social and economic conditions, as well as on local Muslims and Jews. There were large numbers of European Christian pilgrims after the Crusades and many of them committed their experiences to writing. The texts are of course religiously biased but still offer some important illumination. The approach became more balanced in the premodern period, and Christian writers sometimes reported exchanges with local Jews. MODERN PERIOD: CHRISTIANS

Not surprisingly, as Cecil Roth long ago pointed out, the impetus for providing improved sources for the history of the Jews came from the Christian scholarly world of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which evinced a growing interest in the origins and development of Judaism. Such an interest obviously had its own bias and agenda but nevertheless succeeded in laying some of the foundations for critical research. Jacques Basnage (1653–1723), a French Protestant pastor, preacher, and theologian who operated in France and the Netherlands, was particularly enthused by the history of religion. His histories of the Church contain their fair share of Protestant polemic but there is more of a scientific aspect to his works on Jewish history – Histoire des Juifs (Rotterdam, 1706; English trans., 1708) and the Antiquitez judaiques ou remarques critiques sur la république des Hébreux (1713). Although he used Latin translations of Jewish material and not sources in their primary languages, his histories were scholarly in style and extensive in coverage and exercised an important influence on later works. He dealt not only 17

Dominique Iogna Prat, Order and Exclusion: Cluny and Christendom Face Heresy, Judaism and Islam (1000 1150) (New York, 2002); Jessalyn L. Bird, “The Historia Orientalis of Jacques de Vitry: Visual and Written Commentaries as Evidence of a Text’s Audience, Reception, and Utilization,” Essays in Medieval Studies 20 (2003), 56 74; Thomas F. O’Meara, “The Theology and Times of William of Tripoli, OP: A Different View of Islam,” Theological Studies 69 (2008), 80 98; Thomas E. Burman, Religious Polemic and the Intellectual History of the Mozarabs, c.1050 1200 (Leiden, 1994); Cecil Roth, “Travelers and Travels to Erez Israel,” Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. XV, cols. 1354 57 on Christians, and cols. 1358 59 on_Muslims; Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies (London, 2006). See also John D. Martin, Representations of Jews in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature (Oxford, 2004); Elhanan Reiner, “Pilgrims and Pilgrimage to Eretz Yisrael, 1099 1517” [Hebrew] (PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988); and the articles by David N. Myers, Elliott Horowitz, and Oded Irshai in Jewish Quarterly Review 99 (2009), 437 86.

the sources 45 with Jews in Christian countries but also gave considerable attention to how adherents to Judaism coped and developed under Islam. Hannah Adams (1755–1831), who flourished in Massachusetts, is widely regarded as the first American woman to be a writer by profession. As a Unitarian, she was somewhat more open to other monotheistic faiths. She succeeded in writing on the world’s religions from their own perspective, a somewhat novel way of tackling history at that time. She corresponded with Abbé Grégoire and received assistance from him in her research and writing of her History of the Jews (1812). Adams also made use of Jewish correspondents for contemporary information. She demonstrated how early Islam inspired Jewish religious developments but also traced how this gave way to persecution in later centuries. Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868), Anglican churchman and Oxford graduate, wrote plays, poems, hymns, and religious and political histories (as well as notes on Gibbon’s famous Decline and Fall) and became Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The three volumes of his History of the Jews, first published in 1829 and many times in later years, provided an update of Josephus’s Antiquities, a summary of the Hebrew Bible, and an account of later Jewish history. He treated the biblical Hebrews as a Semitic tribe and employed a scientific and rational approach to the sources that led to criticism by ecclesiastical colleagues. As well as covering the history of the Jews under the caliphs, he makes reference to Karaism, the “Khosar Kingdom,” and Maimonides. Other Christian historians composed histories of the Jews in specific countries and localities that attempted to be more accurate and more comprehensive than the earlier sources.18 MODERN PERIOD: JEWS

Although it was the leading Jewish figures of the new scientific learning of nineteenth-century Central and Western Europe who developed and promoted a broader, more analytical, and less religiously partisan method of studying and presenting Jewish history (Wissenschaft des Judentums), they had a few predecessors with a similar freshness of approach. Peter (Peretz) Beer (1758 or 1764–1838) was educated in traditional yeshivot but became fairly radical and modernist in his religious views. He held a formal Austrian government appointment in education and wrote books on the Jewish religion, paying special attention to the ideas of its less-normative forms. 18

See Roth, “Historiography,” col. 560; and the entries for Basnage, Adams, and Milman in Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911 edition), in Who Was Who in America, Historical Volume 1607 1896: A Companion Volume to Who’s Who in America (Chicago, 1963), and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Hannah Adams” (Oxford, 2004).

46 stefan c. reif The history of the Jews that he published in 1796 censored out major parts of the Jewish religious experience that did not accord with his philosophy but nevertheless became widely popular in “enlightened” circles. Solomon Löwisohn (1789–1821), who worked in Vienna as a proofreader of Hebrew books for Anton von Schmidt, was an original thinker who produced outstanding work in Hebrew language and poetry, as well as in Jewish geography and history. In his Vorlesungen über die neuere Geschichte der Juden (Lectures on a New History of the Jews; Vienna, 1820), he made important links between Jewish and non-Jewish history, discussed the role of Jewish merchants in the development of trade and of Jewish intellectuals in the world of learning, and provided biographies of leading personalities. Although David Ottensosser (1784–1858) studied and taught in the yeshiva context, he was anxious to provide German-speaking Jews – and perhaps also the wider European world – with information about the culture and history of the Jews. He prepared editions of some of the classical Jewish literary works, especially those of Maimonides, and translated some of these into what has been called “Ashkenazic German.”19 In the same vein, he compiled his three volumes of Die Geschichte der Jehudim (Fürth, 1821–25), which ranged from the end of the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century bce until the modern period. He provided data about major events, important centers, and leading personalities. The champions of the Wissenschaft des Judentums, as they flourished in the middle of the nineteenth century, were committed to an intellectual revision of ways of thinking about the Jewish peoples’ past and their religion. They set out to understand the ancient and medieval contexts in which Jewish religious theory and practice had evolved and attempted to relate those to the modern world. This inevitably led them to make value judgments about the relative importance of the various historical components that comprised the total tradition. The whole process required a new historical awareness and a fresh look at the past, not just for the purpose of accumulating data but also with a mind to adjusting interpretations. While many earlier Jewish historians had been exclusively concerned with Jewish sources, events, and personalities within their own cultural context, Nahman Krochmal, Leopold Zunz, Zacharias Frankel, Abraham Geiger, _ Solomon J. Rapoport, and their followers were anxious to integrate Jewish history with contemporary philosophy. These learned and intellectual Jews recognized that religious tradition had not been monolithic even when it had presented itself as such, and

19

Paul Wexler, “Ashkenazic German 1760 1895,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 30 (1981), 119 32.

the sources 47 their inquiries into, and understanding of, non-Jewish sources inevitably meant that they acknowledged the existence of non-Jewish influences on Jewish life in its entirety. They engaged in the literary analysis of materials which had originally been composed without any historical intent or relevance. By closely dissecting halakhic, poetic, and midrashic works with the intention of identifying items that reflected on matters above and beyond the texts themselves, they succeeded in achieving a greater appreciation of Jewish history and its evolution. They noted that sources that had been used widely and for long periods might well be fallible and, with the object of replacing them with earlier and what might be more authentic records, they set themselves the task of locating unpublished manuscripts and undertaking their decipherment and critical exploitation. It was thanks to their efforts that the rich collections of Hebrew codices that already existed in major academic centers were supplemented by new discoveries and were then carefully exploited in the rewriting of Jewish history. By posing new questions, they were able to invest old data with fresh meaning. Instead of limiting themselves to classical Hebrew and Aramaic texts, they broadened the sources to include the literary productivity of Jews in any language, even if they were not transmitting normative notions or subscribing to the ideology and practice of central religious authorities. The drive for emancipation in Central and Western Europe powered a desire on the part of these scholars to take over the writing of Jewish history from the non-Jews, while at the same time making maximum use of the methodologies developed and promoted by the latter. In addition, it inspired an intellectual campaign to restore to the Jews a confidence in their history, religion, literary and linguistic traditions, and broader, historical, culture. It was of course the religious reformers among these innovative thinkers who made most use of these new ideas when they first emerged, not only applying their new understanding of past evolutions to justify current revolutions but sometimes also allowing themselves, somewhat imaginatively and romantically, to see in the past parallels to the present. But the more critical method of writing history, even allowing for a degree of tendenz, made an educational impact well beyond the circles of radical, religious reform, ultimately making itself felt across the religious spectrum, even to include what came later to be known as modern Orthodoxy. How this affected the understanding of Jewish history in general, and that of Jews in Islamic countries in particular, becomes evident from a brief assessment of some of the most famous historical works produced within the movement of Wissenschaft des Judentums. Isaak M. Jost’s Geschichte der Israeliten (1820–28) was critical, comprehensive, and radical – but also

48 stefan c. reif nothing short of bigoted against rabbinic Judaism. Zunz argued in a more balanced fashion and saw a process of evolution and revitalization rather than degeneration. Rapoport’s biographical essays began to illuminate the hitherto obscure period of the geonim but he – as, indeed, a number of others – presented the Islamic world and especially that of medieval Spain as a kind of prototype of Germany in the nineteenth century, “tempered by the dictates of reason, antagonistic to mystical excesses, and open to secular learning,” as Ismar Schorsch has put it. Geiger began with an antagonism toward rabbinic Judaism that was much in the style of Jost but later found a new form of analysis that permitted him a more positive historical appreciation of rabbinic achievements. A knowledge of comparative law led to a deeper understanding of the process by which halakhah had developed over the centuries. Moritz Steinschneider made a massive contribution to the improved understanding and more sympathetic treatment of medieval Jewry. He drew attention to Jewish cultural activity under Islam, pointing out how the two worlds were in fact closely intertwined and mutually dependent. Though important as an historical clarification, this was seen by Samuel David Luzzatto as a threat to the accurate portrayal of Jewish history since it sometimes stressed the Islamic aspect of medieval Jewish achievement at the expense of its “authentically Jewish” side. With regard to the glorification of parts of the Islamic Jewish experience, Zunz had early realized that the bias against Ashkenazic Jewish history had to be rectified, but it took almost a century for that lesson to be properly learned. Zunz, Rapoport, Luzzatto, Frankel, and Steinschneider had focused mainly on literary texts. It was Heinrich Graetz who created another scholarly revolution by integrating political and cultural history. He was thus able to paint a broader picture of life in each of the geographical areas of Jewish activity in the medieval world, including those of the Islamic world. Out of some 2,200 pages in his original German edition, about 10–12 percent is indeed devoted to the Jews in Islamic lands in the Middle Ages, but it is highly significant and perhaps somewhat historically skewed that half of that percentage deals with Spain. It has nevertheless to be acknowledged that even the unimpressive figure of 5–6 percent that he devoted to a topic of such magnitude represents a vast improvement on the treatment accorded to it by most of his predecessors.20

20

Roth, “Historiography,” cols. 561 62; Ismar Schorsch, “The Emergence of Historical Consciousness in Modern Judaism,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 28 (1983), 413 37 (with the quote on 423); Shmuel Feiner, Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness (Oxford, 2002). See also David N. Myers,

the sources

49

HEBREW AND JEWISH MANUSCRIPTS

A development of the nineteenth century that proved highly productive for historians of the medieval world was the expansion of the Hebrew and Jewish manuscript collections in the major academic libraries of North America and Europe. In addition to the contributions made by the Firkovich and Genizah collections, which are impressive and significant enough to warrant independent descriptions below, there are other extensive mines of manuscript information that have been enthusiastically quarried by scholars in the course of the past century and a half. Through the agency of travelers, explorers, and booksellers, as well as academic researchers themselves, hundreds of codices, many of them dating from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, were added to the literary treasures that had already been amassed during the explosion of learning that had characterized the periods of the Protestant Reformation and the various reactions to it. Since these caches of codices are rich in data concerning the Jews in the Islamic world, as well as those who found refuge in the Christian countries to the north and west, they merit some brief documentation in the present context. What emerges from their survey is that they again reflect the manner in which the modern historian’s study of the sources brought together Jewish and Christian scholars and interests. Given the limits of the size of this chapter, only the most extensive collections are here noted. For historical reasons, not the least of which relate to the religious developments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the interests of the British Empire in the Victorian period, there is a “golden triangle” of such manuscript collections in the south of England that cannot be ignored by any serious student of the medieval Jewish experience. While earlier ages demanded of scholars that they make the pilgrimages to London, Oxford, and Cambridge, the use of photography and the process of microfilming eased the burden of travel if not the constraint of expense, and there are currently various projects that are bringing digital images of folios from these manuscripts onto the screens of the personal computer of anyone with a competent interest in deciphering and reading them. There Re inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History (New York, 1995); Reimund Leicht and Gad Freudenthal, eds., Studies on Steinschneider: Moritz Steinschneider and the Emergence of the Science of Judaism in Nineteenth Century Germany (Leiden, 2012); Ismar Schorsch, Leopold Zunz: Creativity in Adversity (Philadelphia, 2016); and Norman A. Stillman, “Islamici nil a me alienum puto: The Mindset of Jewish Scholars of Islamic Studies,” in Ottfried Fraisse, ed., Modern Jewish Scholarship on Islam in Context: Rationality, European Borders, and the Search for Belonging (Berlin, 2018), 181 98.

50 stefan c. reif are in the British Library (established in 1973 as an independent entity within the British Museum and subsequently moved to its own custombuilt site in 1997) in London, in the Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford, and in the Cambridge University Library, as well as in other college and university libraries in those cities, a total of some 8,000 Hebrew manuscripts. In addition, the John Rylands University Library of Manchester and the Brotherton Library in the University of Leeds boast another few hundred Hebrew codices among their Oriental collections. Jews’ College, the London Beth Din, and Montefiore College also once owned hundreds of precious Hebrew manuscripts, but they have now been sold and dispersed. All of these figures are independent of the world’s holdings of Genizah fragments, some 80 percent of which are to be found in England. It was not only the theological and political propensities of Christian Britain that provided an impetus to the accumulation of such Jewish source materials. From the middle of the nineteenth century, Jewish librarians became a feature of the universities and it was the likes of Solomon Marcus Schiller-Szinessy in Cambridge and Adolf Neubauer in Oxford who recommended their purchase, cataloged their content, and analyzed their texts. It should also of course be noted that the chronicling of Jewish history is not exclusively reliant on Hebrew sources but requires the examination of Jewish and non-Jewish sources written in other languages. In the case of the Jewish communities of the medieval Islamic world, Arabic and other Islamic materials are often of close relevance. Wherever there are Hebrew manuscripts (in the Western world at large, as well as in the United Kingdom), there are almost always Islamic ones, and it is often the case that the latter are more numerous. They constitute an invaluable resource even if the detection of data relating specifically to Jews, in a body of work that covers much else besides, may at times represent a daunting challenge to the researcher. What is more, much of the Jewish content remains unexploited since students of Arabic and Islam have, regrettably, tended to neglect this area of scholarship. Other institutional European centers also figure among major holders of manuscript Hebraica and related Judaica, much of it originating in the private collections of wealthy and/or scholarly Jewish individuals who graced the pages of emancipation history and exemplified the degree to which their new status kindled greater interest in documenting their accurate history. It is not surprising, given their roles in the cultural and social history of modern European Judaism, that France and Germany have large numbers, with about 1,500 items in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and perhaps as many as another 1,000 in other French libraries, while the German collections, amounting to almost 2,000 codices, which

the sources 51 inevitably suffered much disruption during the Nazi period, are more equally divided. The Preussischer Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, with over a third of the total, is the best-endowed in Berlin, but there are also substantial numbers to be found in the state and university libraries of Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, and Munich. The other country that enjoys major holdings is Italy, where the two outstanding collections are located in the Vatican (about 900), for obvious reasons, and in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, 1,432 of whose Hebrew manuscripts were purchased for the library in 1816 by Princess Maria Luisa of Austria from the collection of the renowned Christian Orientalist Giovanni Bernardo de Rossi. The Ambrosian Library in Milan has about 200 Hebrew manuscripts and the Medici-Lorenzo Library in Florence has some 175. Smaller, but important collections, most of them by now well described, are located in Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Poland. The Royal Library in Copenhagen has 244 Hebrew manuscripts, a substantial proportion of them acquired from the collections of David Simonsen in 1932 and Lazarus Goldschmidt in 1949. Simonsen was a local rabbi, scholar, and bibliophile, while Goldschmidt, with similar interests but less of an establishment figure, was best known for his complete translation of the Babylonian Talmud into German. The AustroHungarian Empire also took a considerable interest in Oriental scholarship in general and in literary sources for Jewish history in particular. The Austrian National Library in Vienna has some 220 manuscripts, expertly and punctiliously described by Arthur Schwarz, while there are more than four times that number in Budapest, almost 600 of them in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and 250 in the Jewish Theological Seminary (now: Budapest University of Jewish Studies). The library of the Sephardic community in Amsterdam (“Ets Haim,” now on permanent loan to the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem) contains over 450 Hebrew manuscripts while its sometime near neighbor, the Biblioteca Rosenthaliana in the Library of the University of Amsterdam, which began as the collection of Leser Rosenthal (d. 1868) but was subsequently much expanded, has over 850 items, and the Leiden University Library has over 100. Unlike most of the other collections just mentioned, those of significance in Switzerland, Poland, and Israel acquired their form, for different reasons, not in the nineteenth century but at various points in the twentieth. About 200 out of the 235 Hebrew manuscripts of the Central Library of Zurich once belonged to the local chaplain and eminent Orientalist Moritz Heidenheim (d. 1898), a German Jewish cantor’s son who pursued rabbinic studies, converted to Christianity while at Giessen University, and, following a course in theology at King’s College, London, was ordained as an Anglican priest. They were purchased after his death by

52 stefan c. reif the Jewish community of that Swiss city and presented to the Library. Once again, this collection is a testimony to an amalgam of Jewish, Christian, and scholarly interests. The Hebrew manuscript collection of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw primarily consists of over a thousand volumes that had been pillaged by the Nazis from Jewish libraries and, on their discovery at the end of the Second World War, had been assigned to the Institute. The Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem has a large number of manuscripts and archives (about 8,500) but many of them do not compare in quality or age to the collections held in Europe and North America. On the other hand, there are among those a fair number that relate more closely to the history of the Jews in the Middle East in general and to Jerusalem and the Land of Israel/ Palestine in particular. The Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem is especially important for historians of the Islamic world since it has a collection of over 3,000 manuscripts, including the famous Aleppo Codex of the Hebrew Bible, and there are also important collections in the Schocken Institute, Heikhal Shelomo, Rav Kook Institute, and the Israel Museum. The country with today’s largest number of Hebrew manuscripts is the United States, although it should immediately be added that the bulk of these are not scattered among the various states of the Union but are located in New York, and that most of the deposits were made in the twentieth century. The undisputed record holder in the manuscript stakes is the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York – which, given the major role played by Solomon Schechter in its expansion and development a century ago, is hardly surprising. With 11,000 items, many of them of primary scholarly importance, it holds the largest single collection of Hebrew manuscripts in the world, almost half of it from the English bibliophile and scholar Elkan Nathan Adler, the son of Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler. Also in New York, the Lehmann family has about 1,000 items and Columbia University only a little less than that, while Yeshiva University has several hundred but mostly from the modern period and there are a few other institutions such as YIVO, New York University, and the Hebrew Union College that are smaller players in the field. The central campus of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati has over 1,000 manuscripts from a variety of sources – many of noteworthy historical significance – and there are an additional few hundred items, mostly acquired in the nineteenth century, in the collections of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies in the University of Pennsylvania (formerly Dropsie College), the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Houghton Library at Harvard. As with the European collections, it is fair to say that those locating, acquiring, and identifying Hebrew manuscripts in the United States in the

the sources 53 modern period (particularly in the nineteenth century) dealt more with those of European provenance and conventional content. Material deriving from Islamic countries and containing more marginal texts was less well represented although it has to be acknowledged that items from Spain before the ultimate success of the Christian Reconquista appear to have counted as European. It will require more research to ascertain whether this Eurocentric trend of scholarship was due to a lack of alternative available items and therefore faute de mieux, or an expression of scholarly preference and even prejudice. Interestingly, the Genizah discoveries and their scientific exploitation, described below, led to a major inversion of this state of affairs.21 FIRKOVICH AND THE RUSSIAN COLLECTIONS

Future research into the possibly Eurocentric nature of Jewish historical studies in the nineteenth century will require close account of the academic situation in Russia at that time. It may conceivably emerge that Russian colleges, libraries, and scholars were among the first to pay more attention to alternative Jewish cultures, including those outside Europe and in a certain degree to adumbrate the scientific approaches later associated with Genizah studies. Such an interest was in no way driven by a favorable attitude to the Jews but may have been partly motivated by a desire to understand them better in order to convert – or at least assimilate – them. How, then, did these institutions and individuals contribute, between one and two centuries ago, to the total picture being painted of medieval Jewish life? The first point to be made – and it cannot be overstressed – is that the Tsarist rulers, the loyal aristocracy, and much of the Russian establishment were engaged in the battle between Westernism and Slavophilism and that their cultural and intellectual interests often reflected the former rather than the latter philosophy. Originally created out of a desperate need to modernize its industry, science, and economy, the desire to match and utilize what was being achieved in Central and 21

Most of the data in this section is taken from the second, revised edition of Benjamin Richler, Guide to Hebrew Manuscript Collections (Jerusalem, 2014). I have supplemented from my own knowledge whenever appropriate. See also Leonard S. Gold, ed., A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books and Illuminated Manuscripts (New York, 1988); Benjamin Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts: A Treasured Legacy (Cleveland, 1990); Malachi Beit Arié, Hebrew Manuscripts of East and West: Towards a Comparative Codicology (The Panizzi Lectures 1992) (London, 1992); Stefan C. Reif, Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library: A Description and Introduction (Cambridge, 1997); Colette Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2002); Ilana Tahan, Hebrew Manuscripts: The Power of Script and Image (London, 2007).

54 stefan c. reif Western Europe later took on a cultural hue. English (and American), German, and French language, literature, ideology, and the arts were greatly admired and much imitated by those with sufficient education to become acquainted with them and to inject into them Russian flavors. It is against such a background, as well as in the light of Russian political and military expansion into areas once subject to an Islamic hegemony, that Russian scholarly interests and developments have to be understood.22 Having been founded by Catherine the Great in 1795, the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg (now the National Library of Russia) moved into its own splendid building in 1814 and began to amass an extensive collection of material relating to the Russian Empire. By the middle of the century, the Oriental aspect was receiving closer attention and in 1858, the Library acquired a small number of Hebrew manuscripts – mostly Karaite – from the German theologian Konstantin von Tischendorf. A more serious expansion took place in 1862 with the purchase of hundreds of assorted Hebrew manuscripts from the Karaite Abraham Firkovich. This came to be known as the First Firkovich Collection, to distinguish it from a much more extensive collection consisting of over 15,000 manuscripts and fragments that was acquired in 1876, two years after Firkovich’s death, and was entitled the Second Firkovich Collection. Many of the Firkovich manuscripts are linguistically intriguing, have unique content, and date from the early medieval period. In addition, a large number of Samaritan manuscripts was purchased in 1870, and toward the end of the century a collection of over 1,000 fragments from the Cairo Genizah, which had been acquired by the Archimandrite of the Russian Orthodox community in Jerusalem, Antonin (Andrei Ivanovitch) Kapustin, was added to the Library’s holdings. Part of the inspiration for all these developments came from Daniel Chwolson, who was Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of St. Petersburg, and from Albert Harkavy, who was in charge of Jewish and Oriental manuscripts in the Library and prepared descriptions of many of these. In the twentieth century, acquisitions included JudeoPersian, Krimchak (Crimean-Jewish), and Karaite manuscripts, the collections of Russian Hebraists, and some Yiddish materials, bringing the total to about 18,000.23 22

23

The general historical background is described in Lionel Kochan, The Making of Modern Russia (London, 1962), especially 133 63; and Michael Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia 1825 1855 (Philadelphia, 1983). I am again indebted to Richler’s Guide (190 94) for the data concerning Firkovich, Antonin, and the National Library of Russia. See also the website of the Library and the section dealing with the Library’s history (www.nlr.ru/eng/nlr/history/). See also

the sources 55 As in so many instances elsewhere, the history of Russian scholarship involves complex relations between groups as well as between individuals. Firkovich was so anxious to establish the early pedigree of his own Karaite Judaism and thus to discredit the Rabbanite version that he made alterations to the dates of some of his manuscripts. He was partly motivated by an ambition to encourage those in authority in Russia to accord rights to Karaites that were still denied to Rabbanites. His work was later defended by Chwolson and attacked by Harkavy. It is not perhaps without significance that although they both came from Orthodox Jewish backgrounds in Eastern Europe and received an intensive rabbinic education as well as a serious exposure to Wissenschaft des Judentums, Chwolson converted to Christianity and received his university appointment while Harkavy remained a loyal Jew and, despite his great learning, was permitted to function as a librarian but not as an academic teacher. As Mikhail Kizilov has put it, there was between “Russia’s two most important scholars-Hebraists . . . more of animosity and conflict than understanding and co-operation.”24 As far as the Second Firkovich Collection is concerned, it is well established that many of its fragments are closely related to those in Genizah collections around the world. If this indicates that part of the Firkovich haul originated in the same place as some of the folios from the Cairo Genizah, it is possible that Firkovich obtained some of his fragments from the Ben Ezra Synagogue but more convincing to argue, as Menahem Ben-Sasson has done, that the so-called Genizah texts are not all from one or more Rabbanite synagogues but also include items from the Karaite genizot in Cairo.25 It also remains to be established what precisely was the motivation for a scholar, theologian, and active missionary such as Archimandrite Antonin Kapustin, who headed the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, to purchase Genizah fragments and send them on to

24

25

Malachi Beit Arié, “Hebrew Manuscript Collections in Leningrad and Their Importance to the History of the Hebrew Book” [Hebrew], Jewish Studies 31 (1991), 33 46. Much of the detail concerning the Hebrew collections of St. Petersburg is given in Shimon Iakerson’s Russian volume, Evreiskie sokrovishcha Peterburga: Svitki, kodeksy, dokumenty, the English title of which is Jewish Treasures of Petersburg: Scrolls, Codices, Documents (St. Petersburg, 2008), and which is beautifully produced and sumptuously illuminated. One hopes that an English edition will appear at an early date. Meanwhile, see the important and informative review by Mikhail Kizilov (“it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the Judaica collections kept in St. Petersburg”) on the website of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Science (www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/). Menahem Ben Sasson, “Firkovich’s Second Collection: Remarks on Historical and Halakhic Material” [Hebrew], Jewish Studies 31 (1991), 47 67.

56 stefan c. reif St. Petersburg. He was an Orientalist and an archaeologist but his primary work was the founding of many Russian Orthodox institutions in the Holy City, including the Russian Ascension Convent on the Mount of Olives, where he was buried in 1894.26 Harkavy’s manuscripts and Genizah fragments were presented by him to the Leningrad Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia but were later transferred to Kiev where they are now housed in the Vernadsky Library of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. The Asiatic Museum was established in St. Petersburg in 1818. It acquired 1,100 Hebrew manuscripts, as well as an important collection of Karaite manuscripts. In 1930, it was renamed the Institute of Oriental Studies in the Russian Academy of Sciences and twenty years later it became a branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow. The private collection of Moses Aryeh Leb Friedland, a wealthy philanthropist who enjoyed good relations with the Russian government and was made an honorary citizen of St. Petersburg, included 300 Hebrew manuscripts and he presented those, as well as his important printed holdings, to the Asiatic Museum in 1890. The National Library of Russia also has among its holdings of Hebrew manuscripts the collection of the Günzburg family, amounting to more than 1,900 items. This collection was about to be purchased by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York when the First World War broke out. It was then purchased by Russian Zionists for the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem but was confiscated by the Russian revolutionary government and transferred to what became its Moscow home. The National Library of Russia also has a few hundred Hebrew manuscripts, taken from the Nazis who had stolen them from Jewish institutions, and some 200 Hasidic items, mainly of Ḥabad provenance.27 CAIRO GENIZAH

It is a remarkable fact that the source that has proved to be by far the richest for any serious study of Judaism in the medieval Islamic world was virtually unknown until almost a thousand years after the period that it portrays so vividly. In addition to being, undoubtedly, the most extensive source for that topic, it also has a number of remarkable, and at times unique, features that gives it a special status in the assessment of the relative importance of all the quarries of information from which current 26

27

Biographical details of Kapustin are provided by the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem on its website in the section dealing with the Mission’s history (www .jerusalem mission.org/history.html). See Richler, Guide, 74, 87, 91, 111, 152; and the website www.rsl.ru/en.

the sources 57 historians may attempt to hew out their raw materials. While so many other supplies of data consist of secondary items, copied from other sources, many of the Genizah texts constitute primary evidence. The majority of them are in manuscript and even the printed texts include incunabula or pages from sixteenth-century editions. No serious scholar of Jewish life in the medieval Islamic world can today afford to pay anything less than meticulous attention to the evidence provided by the Genizah collections. While few of the manuscripts used for historical study and reconstruction in the pre-Genizah period date from earlier than the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the bulk of the Genizah folios may safely be assigned to the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. They therefore fill a huge gap in Jewish cultural history. What is more, although the active period is three or four centuries, there are pieces that were composed as early as the sixth century and as late as the nineteenth. The texts relate to individuals, incidents, and ideas that are by no means limited to the area of Cairo and to the country of Egypt but range from as far west as France to as far east as India. The size of the collection is in itself of major significance, some 200,000 items yielding almost half a million folios in the various scholarly centers in which the materials are housed around the world.28 Perhaps more importantly than anything else, it is not only the literary, legal, and theological aspects of Jewish life that are represented. The Genizah source has a vast number of what have been called “documentary” texts – that is, the writings of or about individuals that relate not to the sacred texts of Judaism or its authoritative compendia but to the ordinary lives of Jews, both those who played a significant role in Jewish history and those who were simply the “Jews in the pews” or the “Hebrews in their homes.” If literary texts always remain open to the suspicion that the religious powers have ensured that only what has been approved has been transcribed and transmitted, the documentary ones often represent what has been instantly felt, emotionally expressed, and spontaneously recorded.29 28

29

For general information about the Genizah’s overall importance to numerous fields, as discussed here and below, see Stefan C. Reif, A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: A History of Cambridge University’s Genizah Collection (Richmond, Surrey, 2000). See also Mark Glickman, Sacred Treasure: The Cairo Genizah (Woodstock, VT, 2011); and Peter Cole and Adina Hoffman, Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza (New York, 2011). The documentary aspect has been brilliantly exploited by S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93). There is a most useful digest by Jacob Lassner, A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume (Berkeley, 1999).

58

stefan c. reif The main three languages of the Genizah are Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic, and the forms in which they appear differ substantially from those that have been transmitted in the more standard sources. They often represent those languages at earlier stages and they shed light on the development not only of Semitic languages in general but also of specific Jewish ethnolects. Judeo-Arabic is a Jewish dialect of the medieval Mediterranean areas that has been reconstructed virtually in its entirety from the Genizah texts. In addition, knowledge of other Jewish dialects, also written in Hebrew characters and including a substantial degree of Hebrew vocabulary, has been greatly enriched by material found in various Genizah collections. These include early forms of Judeo-Spanish, JudeoGreek, Judeo-Persian, and Judeo-German. Cooperative projects have recently been undertaken by many of the institutions with major Genizah holdings and are ensuring that the folios are being professionally conserved, scientifically described, expertly digitized, and generously made accessible. It has also to be acknowledged that the utilization of the Genizah source is not without its special problems. These problems are at times simply the reverse side of the same piece of information that looks very attractive when viewed from the obverse. First of all, the Genizah is not an archive that was deliberately planned as such. It is the result of consigning thousands of documents to a synagogue room in the hope that they would eventually rot away. The motivation was generally because these items were worn or damaged, but the halakhic concept of genizah also applies to texts that are in some way regarded as heterodoxical.30 There is always at least a slight suspicion that items found in the Genizah are for one reason or another unreliable evidence – at least for authoritative rabbinic Judaism – and this challenge must be faced and overcome (as it usually can be by a meticulous scholar) by careful consideration of how these items relate to other textual witnesses. This highlights another difficulty, namely, the fact that there is little similar material contemporaneous with the Genizah texts and against which they can be judged. While it is not uncommon for the manuscripts of the late medieval and early modern periods to constitute substantial and attractive codices on which a great deal of time and effort has been spent by professional scribes, the Genizah texts are more often than not merely fragmentary remnants of small, amateur, and even primitive collections of folios. There is also a danger in trying to reconstruct the missing sections since there is a fair chance that part of the 30

See the talmudic discussion in Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 115a.

the sources 59 missing text actually exists in another library somewhere across the globe and it therefore seems prudent to await the result of comprehensive cataloging. What is more, while major codices of later centuries often provide the names of the author, the scribe, the provenance, and the date (or at least some of these data), the average Genizah text comes without any such context. It is possible in some instances to piece together the evidence and produce some sort of guidance as to the text’s origins but this is rarely an easy task. Given the vast number of Genizah fragments, and the fact that legal documents and personal letters, if discovered in their entirety, offer dates, it is possible to identify what kind of script was used when and where, but some documents tend to be highly stylized and this interferes with the detective work. It should, in addition, be noted that many scholars have been willing to play the role of detectives only with regard to the promotion of their own personal research projects. It has been no more than a minority of Genizah specialists who have applied themselves to the broader tasks relating to the comprehensive exploitation of this remarkable Egyptian Jewish source.31 But centralized funding provided by such foundations as the Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society has now encouraged cooperation and the problem of scientific selfishness is consequently becoming progressively less troublesome.32 There are numerous areas of learning in which the fresh data from the Genizah source have made a major impact, revolutionizing views that had been standard for many centuries. While the consonantal text of the Hebrew Bible reflected in the Genizah texts is rarely unexpected, the systems of pointing used, the whole masoretic tradition recorded, and the lectionary cycles presupposed have all revealed many surprises. The richness and variety of the midrashic and targumic forms of exegesis have demonstrated that the talmudic and halakhic tradition did not always overshadow scriptural interpretation and have even provided examples of views somewhat at odds with aspects of that tradition. At the same time, it has emerged that the scholars of the post-talmudic age were not simply transmitters of the earlier rabbinic lifestyle but themselves made a major contribution to its evolution and adoption. Many previously unknown 31

32

For an assessment of the physical aspects of the Genizah source, see Stefan C. Reif, “Reviewing the Links between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Cairo Genizah,” in Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford, 2010), 652 79. See the website, available in both English and Hebrew, for its latest projects and achievements and for images of thousands of Genizah fragments (https://fjms.genizah .org).

60 stefan c. reif responsa, reference works, and codes have been discovered and these have shed light not only on the manner in which the geonic sages interpreted the traditions of their predecessors but also the extent to which they innovated aspects of Judaism by way of reaction to other Jewish, as well as to non-Jewish, religious teachings. The lives, works, and overall chronologies of such sages and the manner in which they interacted have become much clearer, allowing the composition of more serious histories of the period. What is more, the talmudic and midrashic texts themselves are newly available in forms much earlier and more reliable than the standard editions of later centuries. Whereas before the discovery and exploitation of the Cairo Genizah, some 40,000 pieces of medieval Hebrew poetry were known, that source has now increased the number to some 100,000. The work of the earliest Hebrew poets in the Jewish homeland is now better understood and has been critically compared with the considerably dissimilar genres of other major centers such as Babylonia, North Africa, Italy, and Spain. It has also become possible to write improved studies not only of the poetry of prolific individuals but also of the overall linguistic and literary developments that can be detected within these many verses. Scientific understanding of the standard rabbinic prayers has also improved immeasurably, with a welter of data about the clashes between the Palestinian and Babylonian rites, about their detailed contents, and about the way in which the Mesopotamian religious authorities successfully laid down liturgical law as they saw it for many a community near and far. Perhaps even more intriguing has been the realization that once such a standardization had been effected, it was soon followed by a bifurcation into local rites that once again provided the opportunity for innovation and variation. The repertoire of prayers, hymns, and benedictions available to the early medieval Jewish communities is now seen to have been much wider than hitherto supposed and it is proving possible to explain liturgical adjustment in social, political, and historical terms, as well as from theological angles. In the matter of theology, numerous Genizah texts have demonstrated that the Judaism practiced in the medieval Islamic world was often capable of relating and responding to the religious ideologies of Islam and Christianity – at times in a polemical fashion, on other occasions in a more defensive manner. It has certainly become clear that the various religious communities of that environment rarely led lives that were physically isolated or spiritually insular and that the Jewish dhimmī status did not always lead to serious disadvantage and persecution. Remarkably, a whole range of often otherwise unknown chancery documents from the Fātimid administration have surfaced in the Genizah and illuminated _ how the Egyptian

the sources 61 government of the period operated and what the issues were that occupied its close attention.33 The history of Judaism can properly be explained only if the events, environs, and exceptional individuals that created it can be carefully traced, identified, and clarified. The Genizah source has illuminated what were once the darkest corners of Jewish existence in the early Middle Ages and demonstrated that there is always more to history than what is chronicled and transmitted by the dominant circle within any political, religious, or social setting. The traditions of the Jews in the Greco-Roman culture of late antiquity apparently found some refuge within the Byzantine world, while what came to be regarded by the talmudic establishment as sectarian or heterodoxical works were somehow still circulating among some Jewish groups half a millennium later.34 Aspects of the Palestinian interpretation of Judaism may have been virtually suppressed by the Babylonian authorities but have again surfaced as the Genizah texts have been discovered and deciphered. It has now become possible to trace in some detail the process by which the religious leaders of the Holy Land quarreled among themselves and with others, and coped with difficult political and economic circumstances. They once held rabbinic sway over Egypt and Syria but ultimately were absorbed into those communities after the Crusader invasion and conquest, finally losing their individual identity in the thirteenth century. A new and more balanced understanding of Karaism has been achieved through reading many fresh sources that have their origins in communities where the Rabbanites and Karaites cooperated in many fields, exercised mutual influences, and even intermarried.35 What is more, it has emerged that it was the Karaites who inspired the Rabbanites to take a greater interest in Scripture, the Hebrew language, and the Land of Israel.36 33

34

35

36

Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge, 1993). Stefan C. Reif, “The Genizah and the Dead Sea Scrolls: How Important and Direct Is the Connection,” in Armin Lange, Emanuel Tov, and Matthias Weingold, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context (Leiden, 2011), 2:673 91. See Judith Olszowy Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine (Leiden, 1998). For a collection of articles on various aspects of recent Genizah research by Menahem Kister, Michael Klein, Menahem Kahana, Neil Danzig, Joseph Yahalom, Haggai Ben Shammai, Paul Fenton, Mordechai Friedman, Joel Kraemer, and Reif himself, see Stefan C. Reif and Shulamit Reif, eds., The Cambridge Genizah Collections: The Contents and Significance (Cambridge, 2002). There are also many other volumes in the Genizah Series published by Cambridge University Press for Cambridge University Library between 1978 and 2006 that cover major areas of Genizah material. See also Meira Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003).

62

stefan c. reif It has become clear that Jews, given their relatively small numbers, were disproportionately represented in the fields of medicine and pharmacology, where they were highly regarded by non-Jews, as well as by their own coreligionists. Recent research among the relevant Genizah documents has revealed novel information about the medical textbooks used and the names of the doctors that made use of them, as well as details of the medical advice given, the prescriptions written for patients, and the drugs dispensed for their various ailments. Learned Jews were also active in the study of mathematics and astronomy, as already recognized and applauded by the historians of the nineteenth, and first half of the twentieth, centuries. What such wissenschaftliche researchers were more averse to acknowledging was the presence within the Jewish communities of the medieval Islamic world of an enthusiastic interest in, and regular use of, a wide range of mystical and magical theories and practices. Genizah texts testify to the influence that mystical ideologies had not only on popular religion but also on midrashic, liturgical, and even halakhic works. Practical use was also made of magic and the Jewish communities produced their own experts in such activities. There appears to have been little compunction about borrowing material from non-Jewish sources although efforts were often made to Judaize them to a substantial degree. This applied to the composition and use of popular amulets, spells, and incantations but even left its mark on the more religiously formal world of the synagogue and the liturgy.37 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adang, Camilla. Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden, 1996). Astren, Fred. Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia, SC, 2004). Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 volumes (Berkeley, 1967–93). Iakerson, Shimon. Evreiskie sokrovishcha Peterburga: Svitki, kodeksy, dokumenty [Jewish treasures of Petersburg: Scrolls, codices, documents] (St. Petersburg, 2008).

37

Examples of the impact on the history of medicine are to be found in many publications by Efraim Lev, especially Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar, Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean according to the Cairo Genizah (Leiden, 2008). On the history of magic among the Jews, see Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge, 2008).

the sources 63 Lassner, Jacob. A Mediterranean Society: An Abridgement in One Volume (Berkeley, 1999). Leicht, Reimund, and Gad Freudenthal, eds. Studies on Steinschneider: Moritz Steinschneider and the Emergence of the Science of Judaism in Nineteenth-Century Germany (Leiden, 2012). Myers, David N. Re-inventing the Jewish Past: European Jewish Intellectuals and the Zionist Return to History (New York, 1995). Polliack, Meira, ed. Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003). Reif, Stefan C. A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: A History of Cambridge University’s Genizah Collection (Richmond, Surrey, 2000). Reif, Stefan C., and Shulamit Reif, eds. The Cambridge Genizah Collections: The Contents and Significance (Cambridge, 2002). Richler, Benjamin. Guide to Hebrew Manuscript Collections (second, revised edition, Jerusalem, 2014). Roth, Cecil. “Historiography,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, with an appended section by Lloyd P. Gartner, vol. VIII, cols. 551–67. Schorsch, Ismar. Leopold Zunz: Creativity in Adversity (Philadelphia, 2016). Sirat, Colette. Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2002). Stillman, Norman A. “Islamici nil a me alienum puto: The Mindset of Jewish Scholars of Islamic Studies,” in Ottfried Fraisse, ed., Modern Jewish Scholarship on Islam in Context: Rationality, European Borders, and the Search for Belonging (Berlin, 2018), 181–98. Yerushalmi, Yosef H. Zakhor: Jewish History and Memory (Seattle, 1996).

chapter 2

JEWISH PERCEPTIONS OF AND ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM AND MUSLIMS ross brann*

Jewish perceptions of and attitudes toward Muslims and Islam during the latter’s classical age, when the vast majority of Jews lived in the lands of Islam, were always conditioned by the Jews’ status as a small religious community, widely dispersed yet overrepresented in the major urban centers of Iberia, North Africa, and the Middle East. During the ninth through twelfth centuries (corresponding to the High Middle Ages in Christendom) the Jews of Islam enjoyed full communal autonomy and achieved significant economic prosperity even as a subject minority. Rabbanites and Karaites alike vigorously built new communal institutions and produced singularly important cultural achievements that would transform and rival the inheritance of rabbinic Judaism. However, interpretation of the Jews’ experience under the orbit of classical Islam has been quite varied and is itself historically constructed. In recent years it has been dominated by two fundamentally adverse presentist scholarly paradigms, each with supposed implications for understanding conflict in the modern Middle East. HISTORIOGRAPHY

Modern historiography on the Jewish experience under classical Islam was fraught with its own peculiar mythology long before partisans of modern Jewish and Arab nationalisms compromised its study by projecting the political struggles of the present back onto the record and memory of things past. Jewish historiography was thoroughly enamored of the tenor of Jewish life under classical Islam, especially in opposition to its view of the experience of the Jews in medieval Christendom.1 Heinrich Graetz, * I am deeply appreciative of the efforts of the editor, Phillip I. Lieberman, who expertly and meticulously rescued this volume and my chapter from oblivion. 1 See Jane Gerber, “Reconsiderations of Sephardic History: The Origins of the Image of the Golden Age of Muslim Jewish Relations,” The Solomon Goldman Lectures 4 (1985), 85 92.

64

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 65 one of the founders of the Wissenschaft des Judentums movement, declared in his Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart (1887–1911; translated as History of the Jews, 1956): in consequence of their Semitic descent, the Jews of Arabia possessed many points of similarity with the inhabitants of the country. Their language was closely related to Arabic, and their customs, except those that had been produced by their religion, were not different from those of the sons of Arabia. The Jews became, therefore, so thoroughly Arabic that they were distinguished from the natives of the country only by their religious beliefs.2

Graetz allowed that the Jews’ situation deteriorated somewhat under the classical caliphate but his perspective was always conditioned by comparison to their position in Christendom as he and his followers perceived it: In the lands of the Caliphate, especially in Babylonia (Irak) at that time the center of Jewish life, the Jews gradually lost the favorable position which they had hitherto enjoyed, although the intolerance of the Mahometan rulers was mild compared with that of the Christian princes.3

For his part the great bibliographer Moritz Steinschneider (1816–1907) employed the terms “Arab Judaism” and “Jewish Arabism” to celebrate what he saw as the Jews’ cultural assimilation under Islam. Jewish-Muslim relations were thus framed as a close cultural and relatively comfortable sociopolitical encounter between related peoples. Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) was singled out as the site of a Jewish “golden age” although it was often unclear whether this period was viewed as a “golden age of Jewish culture,” a “golden age for the Jews,” or both. The constructed nature of the historiography is especially apparent in the quaint way Graetz celebrated Andalusian Jews’ cultural achievement doubtlessly thinking of his own attachment to Germany and its high culture: The Jewish inhabitants of this happy peninsula [Iberia] contributed by their hearty interest to the greatness of the country, which they loved as only a fatherland can be loved, and in so doing achieved world wide reputation.4

Accordingly, the historiography of the “golden age” established tenthcentury Umayyad al-Andalus as an oasis of tolerance and inclusion that came to be viewed as representative (although to a higher degree) of the general sociopolitical circumstances of Jewish life in the lands of Islam. As Graetz put it, the Jews of Arab lands “were free to raise their heads, and did 2 4

Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, 6 vols. (Philadelphia, 1956), 3:56. Ibid., 235.

3

Ibid., 176.

66 ross brann not need to look about them with fear and humiliation . . . they were not shut out from the paths of honor nor excluded from the privileges of the state, but, untrammeled, were allowed to develop their powers in the midst of a free, simple and talented people.”5 In response to twentieth-century trends in the historiography of the Jews under Christendom and in Europe, Salo W. Baron’s monumental eighteen-volume Social and Religious History of the Jews (1953–83) sought to debunk and offset what he earlier termed the “lachrymose” historiography of the Jews.6 Meanwhile S. D. Goitein’s authoritative studies of the documents of the Cairo Genizah fully transformed the way scholars would approach the history of the Jews under Islam in its classical age.7 Goitein developed the notion of “interfaith symbiosis” in Islamic civilization and demonstrated in detail the Jews’ historically rooted place in Islamic society as a “protected minority” (ahl al-dhimma) who were permitted to practice their religion (with conditions), manage their communal affairs autonomously, and benefit from new economic opportunities afforded in Islamdom. Literary materials offered earlier researchers a window into the attitudes of socioreligious elites – attitudes propagated and disseminated widely in literary genres of a religious nature. Such materials were produced and consumed largely by the select few and therefore exclude from view the perspectives and inner worlds of women and members of lower social classes, who are in effect silenced by scholarship’s sole reliance on literary material. The Cairo Genizah documents afforded Goitein a more uncensored view of daily life in all its complexities, as well as written testimony regarding the outlook and feelings of classes below those of communal and intellectual elites. His efforts yielded a portrait of a much more complex political economy and sociopolitical reality for members of the Jewish community including both genders and non-elite social classes in the southern and eastern Mediterranean from the tenth into the thirteenth century. A richer, broader, more detailed and decidedly ambiguous picture of Jewish attitudes toward and perceptions of Muslims, Islam, and Islamdom also emerged. Drawing upon Goitein’s work the next generation of scholars further developed the lines of research he opened. Yet the impact of writing during the last half of the twentieth century became all too apparent in the 5 6

7

Ibid., 53. Salo W. Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation: Shall We Revise the Traditional View?” Menorah Journal 14 (1928), 515 26. S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World according to the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93).

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 67 supposed implications for the modern Middle East some authors and many readers drew from their research. More than a few social and political historians of the Jews of Islam became engaged in efforts to define the “essential” nature of the relationship between Islamic society and its Jews, framing their subject around assessing the extent of “anti-Semitism” in Islamic society and defining the broader narrative of the Jewish experience under Islam as either “conflict” or “coexistence.” One contingent of scholars has tended to depict Jewish life in the lands of Islam as stamped by pervasive degradation and nearly unqualified suffering. They ascribe this oppressive experience to the unyielding hostility toward Jews and Judaism that is purportedly fundamental to Islam going back to its origins at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. The effort of these scholars is marked by their identification with _the Jews’ subordinate status, humiliation, suffering, and religious and political aspirations as a social and religious minority in the lands of Islam.8 Another group of scholars concentrates on a substantial record of productive, congenial relations between Muslims and Jews and the latter’s historically rooted, accepted, and legally protected place in Islamic society going back to the “Constitution of Medina” and the “Pact of ʿUmar.”9 This accepted and protected place in Islamic society is said to have afforded the Jews the opportunity to flourish economically and culturally with few barriers and signifies the absence of major enmity between members of the two religious communities. Among Goitein’s students and followers, Mark Cohen attempted to steer something of a middle course between the two camps on the interpretive continuum. He critiqued the notion that premodern classical Islamdom could possibly have constituted the “interfaith utopia” it was made out to be in some scholarly circles ever since the founding of the “science of Judaism.”10 Cohen also asserted that a cohort of scholars took 8

9

10

Aviezer Ravitzky sensed the danger of framing Jewish Muslim relations along these lines and warned “against the demonization of Islam and dehumanization of Muslims.” See “The Clash of Civilizations Is Not Our War,” Haaretz, April 11, 2004, cited by Reuven Snir, “Ana min al Yahud: The Demise of Arab Jewish Culture in the Twentieth Century,” Archiv Orientalni 74 (2006), 395. Michael Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina”: Muhammad’s First Legal Document (Princeton, 2004); Moshe Gil, “The Constitution of Medina: A Reconsideration,” Israel Oriental Studies 4 (1974), 44 66; Mark R. Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar: A Literary Historical Study,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 23 (1999), 100 157. Gideon Libson, “Hidden Worlds and Open Shutters: S. D. Goitein between Judaism and Islam,” in David N. Myers and David B. Ruderman, eds., The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians (New Haven, 1998), 163 98.

68 ross brann the corrective impulse much too far, displacing myth with countermyth and attracting the attention of popularizing authors who found certain historical assertions useful in promoting their own view of events in the modern Middle East.11 By contrast, Cohen’s comparative project demonstrated how very different Jewish life was in the lands of classical Islam from medieval Christendom. His judicious use of literary, documentary, and historical sources drew attention to the socioreligious, legal, and structural differences underlying the divergent experiences of the Jews in Christian and Islamic polities during the High Middle Ages/ classical age of Islam.12 DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES

Apart from observing the twists and turns in historiography that serve as a backdrop to any inquiry into Jewish attitudes and perceptions of Islam, Islamdom, and Muslims, it is necessary to address the disciplinary lens through which we investigate Jewish-Muslim relations during the classical age of Islam. The social, economic, and legal historian, whose work is based primarily on the documentary record as well as certain literary materials such as responsa (fatāwā), is obviously attuned to the Jews’ economic diversification under Islam, to trade, the movement of people, goods and ideas, and communal institutions, that is, to various forms of social intercourse between Muslims and Jews and the moments when and the manners and conditions by which individuals and groups interact.13 For her part, the historian of religion necessarily looks for signs of differentiation and boundaries as well as appropriated, mutually held, or related traditions and the role converts play in transmitting and transforming them. The historian of religion will study shared conceptual frameworks, terminology, and methods of interpreting scripture, as well as

11

12

13

Mark R. Cohen, “Islam and the Jews: Myth, Counter Myth, History,” The Jerusalem Quarterly 38 (1986), 125 37, and “The Neo Lachrymose Conception of Jewish Arab History,” Tikkun 6 (May/June 1991), 55 60; Norman Stillman, “Myth, Countermyth, Distortion [A Response to Mark R. Cohen],” Tikkun 6 (May/June 1991), 60 64; Mark R. Cohen, Yossi Yonah, and Norman Stillman, “Revisionist Jewish Arab History: An Exchange,” Tikkun 6 (July/August 1991), 96 97. Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994; second, revised edition, 2008), the first chapter of which presents details of the afore mentioned articles’ argument. For example, see the recent study by Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014), which challenges some of the conclusions of Goitein and his followers.

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 69 14 practices in sacred law, theology, and mystical piety. By its very nature, the polemical literature the religionist also studies casts its own peculiar outlook on Muslim-Jewish relations, painting a portrait at variance, say, with al-Ḥumaydī’s famous report of an interreligious polemical assembly in ninth-century Baghdad involving Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and representatives of all Islamic factions debating according to the strict canons of reason alone without recourse to revelation.15 Such reports naturally capture the interest of the historian of ideas for they involve the universe of the mind where certain kinds of knowledge were highly valued regardless of their source. The intellectual historian thus encounters evidence of a world, admittedly circumscribed, in which the particularities of religion and its exclusive claims may be relatively less important – where Muslim and Jewish practitioners of interdenominational philosophical thinking and scientific research seem to transcend their religious and communal boundaries and identities.16 Finally, the literary historian investigates the ways in which Jewish authors of Hebrew poetry and elevated rhymed prose reimagined and adapted their craft in accordance with the style, themes, form, and structure of Arabic models. What of the discipline of cultural history including its interest in literary production and material culture? Although some scholars still favor an “internalist” view stressing inner-Jewish development that downplays the interpenetration of ideas and practices between cultures, the comparative and diachronic approach, with its emphasis on the convergence of Judaism and Islam and Hebrew and Arabic and their respective religious and cultural traditions, now looms large over the field of study from social to religious and intellectual history. Its impact is captured variously by Goitein’s “creative symbiosis”17 – language also used by Steven Wasserstrom18 – Bernard Lewis’s “Judeo-Islamic tradition,”19 Hava

14

15

16

17

18

19

On the latter, see Elisha Russ Fishbane, Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Times (Oxford, 2015). Muhammad b. Futūh al Humaydī, Jadhwat al Muqtabis, ed. Muhammad al Tānjī _ Maktab Nashr_ al Thaqāfa al Islāmiyya, 1952), 101 2. _ (Cairo: Steven M. Wasserstrom, “Jewish Muslim Relations in the Context of Andalusian Emigration,” in Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English, eds., Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction and Cultural Change (Notre Dame, 1999), 69, refers to participants in these encounters as “interconfessional despite themselves.” S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (third edition, New York, 1994), 10, and A Mediterranean Society, 2:289 99. Steven M. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam (Princeton, 1995). Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, 1984), 67 106.

70 ross brann Lazarus-Yafeh’s “intertwined worlds,”20 Lenn Goodman’s “crosspollinations,”21 Mark Cohen’s “Jewish cultural embeddedness,”22 or Sarah Stroumsa’s “integrated approach” to the intersection of Jewish and Islamic thought.23 By habit and inclination, the cultural historian, especially the comparatist, draws upon the findings of all of the aforementioned disciplines.24 She looks for places where and moments wherein producers and consumers of the written word rub up against one another, where literary and religious intellectuals and their circles are reading and conversing across various boundaries, and the artifacts of material culture share a common vocabulary. The first generations of Muslims in the formative period of Islam certainly absorbed and Islamized a good deal of Jewish material, much of it via learned converts. Reciprocally, the Islamic cultural environment had a profound impact on Jews’ linguistic, aesthetic, and intellectual values and discursive practices. In this respect the cultural history of the Jews of Islam is largely about Muslim-Jewish relations in the broadest sense. Each of the aforementioned disciplinary approaches yields a different picture of how Jews perceived Islam, Islamdom, and Muslims during the classical age of Islam. When we employ them together, as befits the study of premodern society and culture, we incline toward the practice of historical anthropology. As defined by Aaron Gurevich, historical anthropology “consists in revealing the human content of history in all the manifestations of man as a social being.”25 Historical-anthropological study of Jewish perceptions presents a much richer, more complex perspective than any one of the disciplines exercised alone, cautioning us to avoid placing exclusive or undue emphasis on particular memories, records, events, textual genres, or ways of reading them.26 For our purposes, the 20

21

22 23

24

25

26

Hava Lazarus Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton, 1992). Lenn E. Goodman, Jewish and Islamic Philosophy: Crosspollinations in the Classical Age (New Brunswick, 1999). Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 271. For example, Sarah Stroumsa, “Thinkers of ‘This Peninsula’: Toward an Integrative Approach to the Study of Philosophy in al Andalus,” in David M. Freidenreich and Miriam Goldstein, eds., Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World (Philadelphia, 2012), 44 53. On the trajectory, benefits, and problems of the discipline of cultural history, see Peter Burke, What Is Cultural History? (third edition, Cambridge, 2018). Aaron Gurevich, Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages, ed. Jana Howlett (Chicago, 1992), 1 20. For example, essentializing al Hākim’s persecution of Jews (along with Christians) in Fātimid Egypt (beginning as early as 1001), the devastating assault on the Jews of Zīrid _ Granada (1066), the displacement of Jews caused by Almoravid invasion and occupation

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 71 contradictory evidence transdisciplinary practices offer captures perfectly the ambiguities and ambivalences with which Jews encountered Muslims, Islam, and Islamdom over time and place in the world of Islam during its classical age.27 SOURCES, THEIR PROVENANCE, AND THEMES

If trends in historiography and the range of disciplines and their methods pose problems for gauging the attitudes of Jews toward Islam, Islamdom, and Muslims, the diversity of the sources provides its own set of challenges. Jewish perceptions of and attitudes toward Muslims and Islam during the latter’s classical age were of course conditioned by various historical, social, economic, and political factors. Indeed, it is impossible to articulate a statement of Jewish attitudes and perceptions toward Muslims, Islamdom, and Islam during the latter’s classical age without speaking in detail about time and place, on the one hand, and socioeconomic conditions, on the other. Let us briefly reflect on the critical importance of periodization and the varied geographical terrain on which Jewish perspectives play out in reading both literary and documentary sources. How, really, could anyone presume to essentialize nearly a millennium of encounter across a geographical expanse from the Maghrib to the Central Asian steppe and from the Anatolian plateau to the mountains of Yemen? The experience of the Jews, say, in ʿAbbāsid Iraq does not fully resemble their experience in seventh-century Ḥijāz, Fātimid Egypt, _ Umayyad al-Andalus, Zaydī Yemen, Ayyūbid Syro-Palestine, or Almohad Morocco, yet all lived under the orbit of Islam during its classical age. Indeed, the dynastic terms alone, as well as diversities of Islamic law and thought within both Sunnī and Shīʿī Islam, suggest the shifting nature of political economy in Islamdom and by extension the variable nature of majority-minority, Muslim-Jewish relations. Even within each period and place we encounter abundant contradictions such that the fabric and pattern of the record of Muslim-Jewish relations seems to depend upon the rhetorical conventions of the genre in the texts and the very specific sociohistorical and geographical contexts in which they were produced. For example, the tenth-century Andalusian court physician, diplomat, and Jewish grandee Ḥasday Ibn Shaprūt presents an idealized picture of the _

27

of al Andalus (1086), and the Almohad forced conversions (along with Christians) and destruction of Jewish communities of al Andalus and the Maghrib (1146). Esperanza Alfonso, Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes: Al Andalus from the Tenth to Twelfth Century (London, 2008), conducts just this sort of inquiry for the time and place indicated in the book’s subtitle.

72 ross brann richness of al-Andalus, the security of its Jewish life, and his amicable relationship with the Umayyad caliph in his correspondence to Joseph, king of the Khazars: When God saw their (the Jews’) affliction and toil . . . He exerted His influence and put me before the King and was graceful to me so that He drew his attention to me because of His kindness and for the sake of His alliance and not because of my merit . . . We, indeed, who are of the remnant of captive Israelites, servants of my lord the king, are dwelling peacefully in the land of our sojourning.

At the same time, some Muslim officials express animosity toward Ibn Shaprūt on account of his high office and influence in the Umayyad state.28 _So too, Ibn Shaprūt commissioned his court secretary Menahem _ Ibn Sarūq to compose two poems to accompany the epistle to the Khazar monarch, one of which represents “Knesset Israel” as subjugated in exile.29 Apart from questions of periodization and geographical locus, the difficulty of assessing the Jews’ complex thoughts and feelings is exacerbated by the array of sources that have come down to us touching upon this subject. Jewish authors expressed attitudes regarding their Muslim neighbors, their hegemonic culture and polity, and at times triumphalist religion in virtually every literary genre cultivated during the period: late rabbinic midrashim, liturgical poetry (piyyutim) and communal laments, biblical commentaries, Arabic-style social_ verse and rhymed prose narrative in Hebrew, occasional letters, rabbinic legal writing and polemical literature. Such a diverse array of literary material calls for different reading practices. To put it another way, the discursive subject in question, the historical and geographical context in which it is approached, and the literary genre in which it is addressed all frame the textual conditions of representation through specific socio-rhetorical conventions. One must also carefully distinguish the ways in which Jews thought of and expressed their opinions and views regarding Islam and their 28

29

Pavel Konstantinovich Ḳoḳovtsov, Evreisko khazarskaia perepiska v X veke (Leningrad, 1932), 10. The eleventh century pietist Bahya Ibn Paqūda of Saragossa strikes a note _ similar to Ibn Shaprūt’s albeit without reference to the community’s noble origins (al Hidāya ilā Farāʾid al _Qulūb, ed. Abraham S. Yahuda (Leiden, 1912), 119); The Book of _ Direction to the Duties of the Heart, trans. Menahem Mansoor (Oxford, 2004), 171. Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (New York, 1972), 1:21 22. Ibn Shaprūt’s letter to the Byzantine princess: “. . . for the Caliph and I are _ related by bonds of brotherhood and love and his love never fails those who trust him.” Yet Ibn Shaprūt’s consciousness of temporal well being does not lead him to abandon _ his historical consciousness or messianic aspirations. On the contrary he specifically asks the Khazar king if he has any knowledge pertaining to the messiah.

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 73 experience of living in Islamdom from their attitudes and perceptions toward their Muslim neighbors and counterparts. While these attitudes are inherently interconnected they are by no means identical. Here we need only contrast Moses Maimonides’ (1138–1204) intellectual interest in and respect for Islamic theology as interpreted by rationalist Muslim thinkers and philosophers with scattered comments about his family’s perilous travails in the Almohad Muslim polity of al-Andalus and the Maghrib. Indeed, juxtaposing Maimonides’ biography and his diverse comments about Islam, Islamdom, and Muslims, in occasional, halakhic, and philosophical writings captures the manifold contradictions of the age. For example, Maimonides asserts emphatically in a famous responsum-letter to Obadiah the Proselyte that from the halakhic perspective Islam is a strictly monotheistic religion.30 By contrast Maimonides alludes to the very difficult socioreligious and political circumstances under which he managed to compose the Commentary to the Mishnah: “especially since my mind was frequently burdened by the vicissitudes of fate and the exile and wandering from one end of the world to the other God decreed for us.”31 Recent work on Maimonides’ rabbinical writings has shed new light on the extent of his deep engagement with intellectual trends of the Islamic milieu in general and of the Master’s study of Islamic law and theology and the importance of this understanding for his magisterial presentation of rabbinic Judaism in particular.32 By contrast, the social-psychological strain of living as a member of a small minority religious community in Islamdom sometimes elicits despair and grief in places such as twelfthcentury Yemen, and al-Andalus and the Maghrib under the Almohad state during the same period. That is the very specific historical, political, and literary context of Maimonides’ well-known and often-cited pastoral remarks in the Epistle to Yemen (1172):

30

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Iggerot ha Rambam, ed. Isaac Shailat (Jerusalem, 1987), 1:233 41. For the full halakhic picture, see Eliezer Schlossberg, “The Attitude of Maimonides towards Islam” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 42 (1990), 42 45. The concluding note to his Commentary to the Mishnah, Seder Tohorot, ed. Joseph Qāfih _ (Jerusalem, 1967), 4:355 56. Teshuvot ha Rambam, ed. Joshua Blau, 4 vols. (Jerusalem, 1957 86), 2:725 28, num. 448; Sarah Stroumsa, “Was Maimonides an Almohad Thinker?” [Hebrew], in Daniel J. Lasker and Haggai Ben Shammai, eds., ʿAlei ʿAsor: Proceedings of the Tenth Conference of the Society for Judaeo Arabic Studies (Beersheba, 2008), 151 71, elaborated in Sarah Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Princeton, 2009).

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You know my brethren that on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely . . . No nation has ever done more harm to Israel. None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us.33

Yet Maimonides could not apply this assessment to his own decades-long experience in Egypt, a sojourn characterized by his extensive and productive relations with Muslim scholars and representatives of the Islamic state. The Epistle to Yemen universalizes a view of Islamic society and the Islamic state for its intended audience of besieged Yemenite Jews, a view that doubtlessly resonates with Maimonides’ own experiences as a young man in the Almohad west. Maimonides’ personal relationship with Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk and his circle of Islamic literary, scientific, religious intellectuals in Cairo, as well as with the successive Muslim political figures and patrons in the Fātimid and Ayyūbid administrations, in particular S ̣alāh al-Dīn’s confidant and_ chief administrator al-Qādī al-Fādil, are of another_ order and quality _ altogether.34 Such individuals _were members of Maimonides’ social class with whom he frequently shared intellectual ambitions and orientation even though they did not belong to the same religious community. As Joel Kraemer has noted, “cosmopolitanism, tolerance, reason, and friendship made possible the convocation of these societies of learning, devoted to a common pursuit of truth and preservation of ancient wisdom, by surmounting particular religious ties in favor of shared human experience.”35 Corresponding to what Leo Spitzer calls “situational marginality,” the Jews’ position in Islamic society, and thus their responses to it, was contingent, varying greatly according to the social, political, and religious context in which they found themselves even as it was subject to the specific preoccupations and impulses of Islamic society at a given time and place.36 What sources are available to us in order to gauge the range of Jewish attitudes and perceptions toward Islam, Islamdom, and Muslims? Texts that have come down to us from the formative period of the Jews’ encounter with Islam focus almost exclusively on Islamdom and 33

34

35

36

Abraham S. Halkin, ed., Iggeret Teiman [Epistle to Yemen, trans. Abraham S. Halkin and Boaz Cohen] (New York, 1952), 94, (trans.) xvii. S. D. Goitein, “The Moses Maimonides Ibn Sana’ al Mulk Circle (A Deathbed Declaration from 1182),” in Moshe Sharon, ed., Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon (Jerusalem, 1986), 399 405; Franz Rosenthal, “Maimonides and a Discussion of Muslim Speculative Theology,” in Mishael M. Caspi, ed., Jewish Tradition in the Diaspora (Berkeley, 1981), 109 12. Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden, 1986), 60. Leo Spitzer, Lives in Between: Assimilation and Marginality in Austria, Brazil, and West Africa, 1780 1945 (Cambridge, 1989).

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 75 secondarily on Islam, the religion, as these relate to the fate of the people of Israel. As the encounter with Muslims, Islamdom, and Islam turns into an extended, deeper, and complex experience, Jewish texts widen their focus to include occasional portrayals of individual Muslims and reflections on Arabic culture. Toward the end of the period twelfth-century texts return to the subject of Islam, Islamdom, as well as brief references to prominent Muslim figures that are seen to play a critical role in the fulfillment of Jewish messianism. The first few centuries of Jewish life under Islam, roughly from the seventh through the mid-ninth, offer very little in the way of documentation or even constructed material from which we might tease reliable details from some otherwise general historical observations.37 S. D. Goitein even characterized these centuries as a period of “documentary silence” as far the Jews of Islam are concerned.38 However, late seventhand eighth-century Jewish sources note and interpret the tumultuous events of the early seventh century: the arrival of Islam in the heartland of the Near East and the collapse of Byzantine rule in the west and Sasanian rule in the east. Whether we are persuaded by modern scholarship that would connect the appearance of Islam itself as a manifestation of widespread socioreligious upheaval and messianic tensions among Jews, Christians, and Arabs,39 the Jews of Near Eastern lands certainly regarded the appearance and triumphs of Islam as having historical-religious significance for their community; they had no doubt that God was the ultimate author of history. That is, the rapid spread of Islam and extension of Islamdom necessarily fulfilled some divine purpose that involved the fate of the people of Israel. Apocalyptic writings clearly establish the topos of Islam’s and Islamdom’s role in delivering Israel from Byzantine rule, especially in Palestine. By extension, such texts also suggest the Jews’ understanding 37

38

39

Reuven Firestone, “Jewish Culture in the Formative Period of Islam,” in David Biale, ed., Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York, 2002), 267 302, thus relies almost exclusively on Muslim sources. Pre ninth century geonic materials deal primarily with social and legal matters internal to the Jewish community and its leadership. S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (New York, 1974), 95 96. Along with this general observation concerning the available evidence we should note the apparent and understandable reluctance of the members of a tiny minority commu nity to speak or write openly and directly about those who came to rule over them, those whose holy law expressly prohibited their subject peoples such as the Jews from voicing sentiments or ideas that would offend the majority’s religious sensibility or challenge their sociopolitical prerogatives. For example, Michael Cook and Patricia Crone, Hagarism: The Making of the Muslim World (Cambridge, 1980).

76 ross brann of nascent Islam as a harbinger of Israel’s ultimate redemption with the appearance of the Jewish Messiah as in the following apocalyptic poem: On that day when the Messiah, son of David, will come To a downtrodden people These signs will be seen in the world, and will be brought forth: Earth and heaven will wither, And the sun and the moon will be blemished, And the dwellers in the Land (of Israel) will be struck silent . . . And a king will go forth from the land of Yoqtan (Arabia) _ And his armies will seize the Land40

Similarly, The Secrets of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, a late midrashic text in _ the form of a revelation bestowed upon a rabbinic authority from late 41 antiquity, reassures the Jews of the Near East that the “kingdom of Ishmael” and its prophet are divinely appointed to deliver the Jews from the “wicked kingdom of Edom” – that is, Christendom. In the religious imagination, these events lead directly to the messianic age as suggested by the attention the “second king” of the Ishmaelites pays to Jerusalem and the restoration of the Temple Mount: Do not fear, Ben Yohai! The Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring the _ kingdom of Ishmael except to deliver you from this evil one, and He will set up a prophet for them by His will, and he will conquer the land for them, and they will rebuild ruined cities and clear the roads, and they will plant the gardens and vineyards and they will return them to you . . . And the second king will be set up from Ishmael, and he will conquer all the kingdoms. And he will come to Jerusalem and will prostrate there. He will make war with the Edomites, and they will flee before him, and he will have taken the kingdom by force. He will become a lover of Israel and repair the fences and guard the Temple and carve out the Temple Mount and make all of it a plain and call to Israel for building buildings on the Temple.42

40

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42

“Oto ha yom,” in Judah Kaufman, ed., Midreshei Geʾullah (second edition, Jerusalem, 1953), 158 60, is of uncertain dating; trans. Bernard Lewis, “On That Day: A Jewish Apocalyptic Poem of the Arab Conquests,” in Salmon Pierre, ed., Mélanges d’Islamologie, volume dédié à la mémoire de Armand Abel (Leiden, 1974), 197 200. The Secrets is frequently dated to the eighth century and the end of Umayyad rule but a later dating of one of its iterations would have the text recalling the apocalyptic tradition typologically, to reflect on parallel Crusade era developments witnessed under later classical Islam. Nistarot Rabbi Shimʿon bar Yohai, in Adolph Jellenik, ed., Beit ha Midrash (third edition, Jerusalem, 1967), 4:119_ 20; trans. Gordon D. Newby, “Jewish Muslim Relations, 632 750 C.E.,” in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren, eds., Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction [Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner] (Leiden, 2000), 84; on the question of the text’s dating, its textual

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 77 The Secrets and other texts rely upon interpretation of a critical cluster of late biblical apocalyptic passages in Daniel, especially the “little horn” (7:8), as referring to Islam (cf. also Isaiah 21:7). Accordingly, Islamdom is foreseen as the seventh and final kingdom to reign before the dominion of the “Ancient of Days.” Not all late rabbinic midrashic texts present so sanguine a view of Islam’s role as a precursor of the messianic age and the deliverance of the Jews. Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer, dating from the first half of the eighth century, shares the apocalyptic flavor but its ideological orientation contrasts sharply with other texts. This midrash narrates Israel’s sacred history and describes the events of the end of days in a manner fitting the tumultuous end of Umayyad rule (mid-eighth century): Of the seventy nations that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world, He did not put His name on any one of them except Israel; and since the Holy One, blessed be He, made the name of Ishmael similar to the name of Israel, woe to him who shall live in his days . . . In the future the children of Ishmael will do fifteen things in the land (of Israel) in the latter days: . . . falsehood will multiply and truth will be hidden; the statutes will be removed far from Israel; sins will be multiplied in Israel; he will hew down the rock of the kingdom, and they will rebuild the desolated cities and sweep the ways; and they will plant gardens and parks, and fence in the broken walls of the Temple; and they will build a building in the Holy Place; and two brothers will arise over them, princes at the end; and in their days the Branch, the Son of David, will arise as it is said “. . . and in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44).43

Aside from their ever-present apocalyptic turn a few Jewish sources assent to the prophethood of Muhammad as a divinely appointed messen_ ger to the Arabs. Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī, the leader of an eighth-century _ Jewish messianic movement (the ʿĪsawiyya) on the eastern frontier of Islam, is known from the tenth-century Karaite sage al-Qirqisānī (and from many Muslim sources). Abū ʿĪsā apparently upheld the doctrine that Jesus and Muhammad were genuine prophets God sent to their respective _ a notion implicit in The Secrets of Simon bar Yohai as far as communities,44 Muhammad is concerned. A later Jewish text, Bustān al-ʿUqūl_(Garden of the _Intellect) by the twelfth-century Yemenite mystical philosopher

43 44

variants, and significance, see Bernard Lewis, “An Apocalyptic Vision of Islamic History,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 13 (1950), 307 38; and Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 1099 (Cambridge, 1992), 62 65. Gerald Friedlander, trans., Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (New York, 1981), 221 22. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, 68 82, discusses the sources for Abū ʿĪsā and the ʿĪsawiyya.

78 ross brann Nathaniel Ibn al-Fayyūmī, goes so far as to cite a Qurʾānic proof text in support of the notion that God has sent an array of prophets to the nations of the world, in particular Muhammad: _

A proof that He sends a prophet to every people according to their language is found in this passage of the Koran, “We sent a prophet only according to the language of his people . . . Lo, thou art one of the apostles sent to warn a people whose fathers I have not warned.” [Qurʾān 14:4] . . . As for us, behold our fathers were not without warnings throughout an extended period, and likewise prophets did not fail them. But Mohammed’s message was to a people whose fathers had not been warned and who had no Divine Law through which to be led aright, there he directed them to his law since they were in need of it.45

That Jewish authors would express such a seemingly accommodating attitude toward Islam is itself an object of contention among scholars.46 However, preceding this passage Ibn al-Fayyūmī clearly demonstrates that his recourse to the Qurʾān in fact serves as a proof text in defense of the Jews and Judaism: The Quran mentions that God favored us, that He made us superior to all other men: “O children of Israel, remember my favor wherewith I showed favor unto you; and that to you above all creatures I have been bounteous” [Qurʾān 2:58] . . . He speaks after this manner in many verses and also to the effect that the Torah has not been abrogated. This contradicts what they assert because of the power they exercise over us, because of our weakness in their eyes, and because our succor has been cut off.47

Less overt textual gestures regarding the Jews’ messianic expectations and the role of Muslims, Islam, and Islamdom in their realization survive in various Jewish sources. Forgetting the devastating political experiences of the Jewish tribes of Yathrib/Medina during the Prophet Muhammad’s _ residence in that oasis town, pseudo-historical Jewish texts project as normative mutually beneficial relations between the Jews and early representatives of the Islamic state. For instance, a Judeo-Arabic text preserved in the Cairo Genizah offers a pared-down version of important Islamic traditions about first encounters in the Holy City.48 The text reports

45

46 48

Nathanel Ibn al Fayyūmī, Bustān al ʿUqūl, ed. Joseph Qāfih (Jerusalem, 1953), 121; _ trans. David Levine (New York, 1908), 109. 47 Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew, 134. Qāfih, 116; Levine, 105. On these traditions and what can be gleaned from them, _see Gil, A History of Palestine, 65 74. For our purposes we are interested principally in Jewish traditions and, when necessary or important, corroborating Muslim traditions. There are additional Muslim sources noting seventh and early eighth century cooperation between local Jewish communities and the invading forces of Islam in Iberia, Iran, as well as Palestine.

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 79 apocryphally that Caliph ʿUmar reopened Jerusalem to Jews of erstwhile Byzantine Palestine. ʿUmar is also said to have consulted with Jewish authorities for their expert testimony about the site of the Temple and its Foundation Stone: So every Muslim who came was in town or valley, and there came with them a group of Jews. Then he (ʿUmar) ordered them to sweep the holy place (the Temple site) and to cleanse it. ʿUmar himself oversaw them at all times, and each time something was uncovered, he would ask the Jewish elders about the Rock, which was the Foundation Stone. Finally, one of their scholars indicated the precise boundaries of the place, as a result of which it was uncovered. He commanded that walls be built around the holy site and that a dome be constructed over the foundation Stone, and that it should be gilded. After this, the Jews sent word to all the rest of the Jews in Palestine to inform them of the agreement that ʿUmar had made with them . . . Then ʿUmar said, “Where would you wish to live in the city?” “In the southern part,” they replied. And that is now the Market of the Jews. The aim of their request was to be near the Temple Mount and its gates and likewise be near the water of Silwan for ritual bathing. The Commander of the Faithful granted this to them.49

A letter sent in the eleventh century from the Jerusalem rabbinical academy to the Diaspora communities indicates this memory was passed down and preserved by the Jews of Palestine: It was thanks to God, who turned toward us the compassion of the Ishmaelite kingdom, that it stretched out its hand and captured the Holy Land from the Edomites and came to Jerusalem. With the Ishmaelites were Jews, who showed them the site of the Temple and remained with them [in Jerusalem] from that time to this very day.50

Another text, Sefer ha-Yishuv, provides an account of the Jews of Hebron (in 638) assisting the conquering army of Muslims in pacifying the town. In return for their assistance the Jews obtain permission to build a synagogue at the entrance to the Cave of Machpelah: But when they (the Arabs) came to Hebron, they marveled at the strong and beautiful construction of its walls and that there was no opening by which they

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CUL T S Arabic Box 6, f.1, ed. Simha Assaf, Meqorot u Mehqarim be Toldot Yisra’el _ Gil, Palestine during_ the First Muslim Period (Jerusalem, 1946), 20 21; re ed. Moshe (634 1009), 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:1 3; trans. Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), 154 55. Gil, ed., Palestine during the First Muslim Period, 3:14 18; trans. Moshe Gil, “The Jewish Community,” in Joshua Prawer and Haggai Ben Shammai, eds., The History of Jerusalem: The Early Muslim Period, 638 1009 (Jerusalem and New York, 1996), 167.

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could enter it. Meanwhile, some Jews, who had remained under the Greeks [i.e., Byzantines] in that region, came over to them and said: “Grant us security so that we would have a similar status amongst you, and may we be conceded the right to build a synagogue in front of the entrance (to the Cave of Machpelah). If you will do this, we will show you where you should make a gateway.” And thus it was done.51

Whatever actually transpired, this literary trope set the frame for the Jewish encounter with early Muslims and Islamdom. Hebrew, JudeoArabic, and Arabic texts written in the lands of Islam preserved literary “memories” of “practical cooperation” between Jews and Muslims during the rapid expansion of Islam following the death of Muhammad. Islamic _ sources are constructed to demonstrate the “protected peoples’” acceptance of Islamic political authority over their communities. Jewish sources, as we have seen, are constructed to present Muslim activity in and authority over Jerusalem as a manifest sign of hope in the advent of redemption and the reconstruction of the Temple.52 On account of their distinctive attachment to Jerusalem, the Karaites were not to be outdone. The topos of Israel’s rescue, if not exactly its ultimate deliverance, via the polity of Islam, appears in the exegetical remarks of Salmon b. Yeruhim, a tenth-century Karaite scholar (Commentary on Psalms, 30): _ It is a well known fact that the Temple Mount was under Roman rule for 500 years and that the Jews could not enter Jerusalem during that period. Anyone who did enter and whose identity was discovered was put to death. However, with the departure of the Romans, thanks to God’s abundant grace, and with the victory of the Ishmaelites kingdom, the Jews were once more to enter the city and reside therein.53

Such memories and traditions are preserved for many reasons: they seemed to offer solace, assurance of security, and hope for eventual deliverance to their contemporary audience. Accordingly, this trope of Jewish life under Islamdom was echoed again at the very end of the classical age. A late twelfth/early thirteenth-century Hebrew rhymed prose rhetorical anecdote (the “Jerusalem maqāma”) by Judah al-Ḥarīzī, a traveler from Toledo who 51

52

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“Canonici Hebronensis Tractatus de inventione sanctorum patriarchum Abraham, Ysaac, et Jacob,” Sefer ha Yishuv, 2:6; trans. Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands, 152. S. D. Goitein, “Jerusalem in the Arab Period (638 1099),” Jerusalem Cathedra 2 (1982), 72 73. Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (reprinted London, 1969), 1:46; Jacob Mann, “Karaite Settlement in Jerusalem,” in Texts and Studies in Jewish Literature, 2 vols. (reprinted with new matter, New York, 1972), 2:18; trans. Ross Brann apud F. E. Peters, Jerusalem (Princeton, 1985), 193 94.

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 81 settled in the Islamic East, embraces the restoration of Islamic sovereignty over Palestine as a sign of the approaching messianic age and more – Islamdom is the very agent for reconstituting Jewish life in the Holy City just as in the seventh century: Then he [S ̣alāh al Dīn] commanded that in every city there sound a call to both _ saying: “Bid Jerusalem take heart in rebirth, that all seed of great and small, Ephraim who desire shall return in mirth, who are left in Mosul and Egypt’s dearth, and those dispersed to the uttermost ends of the earth. From all sides let them gather unto her and settle within her border.”54

Likewise, al-Ḥarīzī’s Arabic-language rhetorical anecdote about the Jewish communities in the Islamic East (“The Pleasant Garden”) celebrates the benefit the Jews derived from the Ayyūbid victory over the Crusaders in Egypt.55 The persistence of the trope and its appearance in varied genres attests to its messianic significance more than whatever sociopolitical benefit the Jews perceived in living under Islamic rather than Christian rule.56 This sensibility is evident in Maimonides’ historical-teleological interpretation of the Jews’ minority status in an age dominated by the contest between Islam and Christianity, Islamdom and Christendom. The penultimate chapter of the uncensored version of the Mishneh Torah sets forth the regulations and framework of the messianic age: However, the thoughts of the Creator of the world are beyond the ability of humans to apprehend . . . and all the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and this Arab who arose after him, they are only to prepare the way for the Messiah King and to order the whole world to serve the Lord together.57

In other words, the appearance and temporal success of Islam and Islamdom are seen as directed by Providence. They represent a historical stage in the religious development of humankind culminating in the messianic age and the deliverance of Israel. Maimonides’ son Abraham 54

55

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Judah al Harīzī, Tahkemoni, ed. Y. Toporowsky and Israel Zamora (Tel Aviv, 1952), 248; _ Reichert, The Tahhkemoni of Judah Al Harizi, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, trans. Victor Emanuel _ 1973), 2:148. Joseph Yahalom and Joshua Blau, The Wanderings of Judah Al Harizi: Five Accounts of His Travels [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2002), xvii. Compare the history of a related trope, “Better under Edom than Ishmael,” Bernard Septimus, “Hispano Jewish Views of Christendom and Islam,” in Bernard Dov Cooperman, ed., Iberia and Beyond: Hispanic Jews between Cultures (Newark, DE, 1998), 43 65. Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Melakhim 11: end (Jerusalem, 1972 = facsimile edition, Constantinople, 1509); trans. Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader (Springfield, NJ, 1972), 226 27.

82 ross brann (1186–1237) with his profound interest in S ̣ūfī ideas and practices and his close ties to the S ̣ūfī movement in Ayyūbid Egypt was arguably even more open-minded toward Islam.58 During the classical period we also find abundant expressions of complaint against Islam and Islamdom in late rabbinic midrashim, liturgical poetry, communal laments, biblical commentaries, responsa literature, occasional writings. Works of theology also express these sentiments in response to persecution of Jews in al-Andalus, the Maghrib, Egypt, or Yemen. They also reflect longstanding tensions between Judaism and Islam over monotheistic sacred history. In contrast with messages of reassurance about the immediate and ultimate benefits of living in the Muslim polity, late ninth- and tenth-century Karaite authorities such as Daniel al-Qūmisī, Salmon b. Yeruhim, Japheth b. ʿEli, Yaʿqūb al_ Qirqisānī, and Yūsuf al-Basīr were among the first to venture written _ critiques of Islam in their epistles, biblical commentaries, and legal codes. These texts also registered complaints about Jewish life under the Islamic polity.59 Al-Qirqisānī’s work on Karaite law, for example, includes a critical appraisal of Islam in the form of refuting Islamic arguments regarding the Hebrew Bible (“Refutation of the Muslims”) and whoever asserts the prophethood of the “unfit one” (“pasul” – a play on the Arabic rasūl, “messenger”).60 By contrast, even so powerful, confident, and voluble a public persona and ardent rabbanite polemicist as Seʿadyah Gaʾon remained all but silent when it came to Islam, preferring to confront the religious challenge it posed indirectly and by allusion.61 In this respect it is instructive to compare Seʿadyah’s Hebrew introduction to his Sefer haEgron and its implicit critique of Islamic doctrine regarding the Arabic Qurʾān with the book’s Arabic introduction (without the critique) written

58

59

60

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Elisha Russ Fishbane, “Respectful Rival: Abraham Maimonides on Islam,” in Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora, eds., A History of Jewish Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton, 2013), 856 64. See also S. D. Goitein, “A Jewish Addict to Sufism: In the Time of the Nagid David II Maimonides,” Jewish Quarterly Review 44 (1953), 37 49. Haggai Ben Shammai, “The Attitude of Some Early Karaites towards Islam,” in Isadore Twersky, ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 2:3 40. Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, ed. Leon Nemoy (New York, 1941), 3:292 301 (part 3, chapter 15). Ben Shammai, “The Attitude,” 7 8; Daniel J. Lasker, “Saadya Gaon on Christianity and Islam,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1995), 166 67; Eliezer Schlossberg, “The Attitude of Seʿadyah Gaon towards Islam” [Hebrew], Daʿat 25 (1990), 21 51.

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 83 62 thereafter. Among subsequent late tenth- and early eleventh-century Rabbanite authorities Samuel b. Hophni Gaon abandoned Seʿadyah’s cautious restraint and authored the polemical treatise Kitāb Naskh alSharʿ (Treatise on Abrogation of the Law) refuting a crucial Islamic doctrine concerning divine revelations prior to Islam (that also occupied alQirqisānī).63 Like Yūsuf al-Basīr’s even more brazen critique of the “inim_ itable wondrousness of the Qurʾān” (iʿjāz al-qurʾān) Samuel’s work seems to have been designed to serve as a resource for Jews drawn into assemblies of interreligious debate.64 Karaite attitudes toward Islam were themselves dynamic and represent a dialectical response to internal circumstances and external conditions.65 During the middle of the ninth century, Daniel al-Qūmisī expresses a characteristically pragmatic and positive view of Islamdom that reflects Karaite reliance upon and gratitude for Muslim acceptance of Karaite “legitimacy” in its challenge to rabbanite authority and its efforts to settle in Jerusalem (much as Salmon b. Yeruhim would write a century later): _ From the outset of exile the rabbanites ruled and judged . . . until the Muslim kingdom arrived and assisted the Karaites to observe the Torah of Moses. It is thus incumbent for us to bless them.66

By the tenth century, however, much had changed and the attitude of prominent Jerusalem-oriented Karaite thinkers (known as the Mourners of Zion or Shoshanim) toward Islam and the Muslim presence on the Temple Mount had turned sharply hostile. For example, Japheth ben ʿEli reads the plaintive Psalm 74 as speaking directly to the Karaite Jewish complaint against Islam and Islamdom: The phrase “eliminate (him) from within your bosom” (v.11) is a request to God asking that He eliminate Ishmael from the midst of His holy place . . . Concerning the latter he says “eliminate,” since their sin is greater than others’. For while they 62

63

64

65

66

Ha Egron (Kitāb Usūl al Shiʿr al ʿIbrānī), ed. Nehemiah Allony (Jerusalem, 1969), _ 54 [Arabic]. 156 63 [Hebrew]; 148 Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible: From Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden, 1996), and Lazarus Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 19 49, discuss the details of these polemics. David Sklare, Samuel Ben Hofni Gaon & His Cultural World: Texts & Studies (Leiden, 1996), 28 29; David Sklare, “Responses to Islamic Polemics by Jewish Mutakkalimun in the Tenth Century,” in Hava Lazarus Yafeh, Mark R. Cohen, Sasson Somekh, and Sidney H. Griffith, eds., The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam (Wiesbaden, 1999), 138, 146 150. Moshe Sokolow, “The Denial of Muslim Sovereignty over Eretz Israel in Two Tenth Century Texts” [Hebrew], Shalem 3 (1981), 309. Jacob Mann, “A Tract of an Early Karaite Settler in Jerusalem,” Jewish Quarterly Review 12 (1921 22), 285.

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have “mocked” (yeharefu) and “despised” (yenaʾasu) as others have done, they _ in reviling the Lord’s name_ in His sanctuary with their have exceeded others impurity, adultery, fornication, and funeral biers.67

Rabbinic midrash (homiletic literature) and liturgical poetry that frequently draws upon its idioms, themes, and perspectives were among the most extensively cultivated genres of the Jews’ strictly religious literature. Such texts were written in Hebrew rather than Arabic and were thus “safe” literary vehicles for expressing the innermost religious anxieties and religiopolitical aspirations of the community.68 Accordingly, they confront head on the problematic aspects of Jewish life under Islamic authority. These genres make ample reference to the biblical figure of Ishmael (and those closely related to or identified with him such as his son Kedar (Genesis 25:13)) as prototypes for Islamdom and Islamic society in relation to its Jewish subjects. Late rabbinic midrashim naturally drew upon earlier rabbinic sources regarding Ishmael: Carol Bakhos has noted that in general such pre-Islamic material regarding Ishmael tends to be affirming of his character.69 Under Islamdom, the tenor and tone of late rabbinic midrash concerning the biblical figure of Ishmael were adjusted and the sources reshaped to reflect the Jews’ new sociopolitical and religious conditions. With a few notable exceptions the later midrashim adopt a negative and harsh view of the figure of Ishmael prefiguring the Jewish subject experience under Islamdom, wherein the child of the matriarch (Sarah) serves the offspring of the handmaiden (Hagar). The ascendance of Ishmael’s descendants over Isaac’s was seen as a temporary (if historically extended) violation of the divinely ordained socioreligious order set forth in Genesis. Yemenite philosophical midrashim stand apart: they absorbed both strains of Maimonides’ critical appraisal of Islamdom and nuanced approach to Islam, respectively.70 67

68

69

70

Daniel Frank, “The Shoshanim of Tenth Century Jerusalem: Karaite Exegesis, Prayer, and Communal Identity,” in The Jews of Medieval Islam, 219. It is significant that with notable exceptions discussed below most of what the Jews of Islam in its classical age produced was composed in their register of middle Arabic, that is, Judeo Arabic, usually written in Hebrew script. Early Karaite authors such as al Qirqisānī preferred writing Arabic in the Arabic script as opposed to Hebrew script used by Rabbanites. See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Hebrew in Arabic Script: Al Qirqisānī’s View,” Studies in Judaica, Karaitica and Islamica Presented to Leon Nemoy (Ramat Gan, 1992), 115 26. Carol Bakhos, Ishmael on the Border: Rabbinic Portrayals of the First Arab (Albany, 2006), treats the complex trajectories of the biblical figure Ishmael as depicted in rabbinic and late rabbinic sources. Yitzhak Tzvi Langermann, Yemenite Midrash: Philosophical Commentaries on the Torah (San Francisco, 1996), 157, 172 75.

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 85 Ever since the Byzantine age, liturgical poets composed Hebrew piyyutim on the theme of catholic Israel’s redemption from exile; they were _recited in the synagogue as the final element of a highly complex poetic cycle (the yoser). Liturgical verse composed for recitation in the _ thus the most widely disseminated genre) was a synagogue service (and particularly significant medium for venting complaints about the Jews’ subjugation under Islamdom, as well as for expressing the Jews’ fervent hopes for speedy redemption from this situation. Hayya b. Sherira Gaʾon (939–1038), the last of the great Eastern rabbinic authorities, produced a liturgical lament on the plight of Israel. Its typically broad historical stroke refers to the four kingdoms in Daniel’s apocalyptic eschatology whose successive dominion over the Jews persists: This is the people that never was/devoured by all, Divided up to the ends of the earth/all the nations despoiled them. Before Media drove them out/Babylonia devoured them up, Greece swallowed them up/but Islam did not spew them out. Why aggravate their yoke?/Why double their misery? Powerless, without strength/how can they endure?71

During the Andalusian period, poetic embellishments to the liturgy on the theme of communal redemption known as geʾullah (redemption), some with an urgent and imminent agenda of eschatological homecoming, evolved into an independent strophic genre. Solomon Ibn Gabirol (eleventh century) addresses the theme with the voice belonging to the community of Israel; note how Christendom and Islamdom are paired in the second strophe, a convention in this type of lyric that frames Israel’s predicament typologically: Captive, miserable, in a foreign land, Taken as maidservant for an Egyptian maid, Since the day you left her she looks [to you]. Make her deportees return, You who are mighty in deed! May the decimated people become a world power again. Fast, quick as a flash, bring her good news through Elijah. Rejoice, daughter of Zion, our Messiah has come. Why would you utterly forget us? . . . Wounded and oppressed, bearing a heavy burden Spoiled and shorn, trampled upon, How long, O God, shall I shout “Violence,” 71

“Akhen sar mar ha mawet,” in Hayyim Brody, “Religious and Laudatory Poems of R. Hayya Gaon” [Hebrew], Studies of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry 3 (1936), 17 19 [lines 7 12].

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ross brann As my heart melts with fear? We labored for tribute all these years. Ishmael as a lion, and Esau as a falcon As one releases us, the other grabs us.72

An ostensibly more historically specific, yet still typological, complaint is Abraham Ibn Ezra’s occasional lament for the mid-twelfth-century destruction of the Jewish communities of al-Andalus and the Maghrib under the Almohads. The elegy (“Oh woe! Misfortune from Heaven has fallen upon Sefarad!”) maps out a list of devastated Jewish communities in Iberia and North Africa (Sefarad, Seville, Córdoba, Jaen, Almeria, Majorca, Malaga, Sijlmasa, Fez, Tlemçen, Ceuta, Meknes, Derʿa) but shifts metaphorically to connect this experience to the Jews’ history of tribulations. In the process the lyric nearly de-historicizes the event by holding off allusion to the perpetrators to the very end: Tears on her cheeks, she is held by a maidservant who Fires a bow directly at her until the Lord looks down from Heaven.73

Messianic speculation and activity intensified at the turn of the twelfth century when Islamdom and Christendom were vying for control of the Holy Land in the East and for Iberia in the West. During the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, deepened messianic longing and the stricter Jewish piety exercised by figures such as Judah Halevi (c. 1075–1141) can be read in part as heightened Jewish sensitivity toward and resistance to subject status in Islamdom. In an occasional poem, Halevi gave unusual voice to a dream of imminent vengeance directed against Islamdom: Tell Hagar’s son, “Let down your haughty hand From Sarah’s son, the rival you have scorned, For I have seen you in my dream, a ruin; Perhaps in life you really are undone. Perhaps this year, eleven hundred thirty Will see your pride thrown down, your thinking thwarted.”74

Aside from normative expressions of complaint against Islamdom and the polemical engagement with Islam we find in religious texts, it is

72

73

74

Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Liturgical Poetry, ed. Dov Jarden [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1977 79), 2:494 95 [lines 1 7, 14 19]; trans. Alfonso, Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes, 56 57. Text: Israel Levin, ed., Abraham Ibn ʿEzra Reader [Hebrew] (New York, 1985), 101 3; trans. Ross Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Muslims and Jews in Eleventh and Twelfth Century Islamic Spain (Princeton, 2002), 120 25. Text and translation: Raymond P. Scheindlin, The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel, and the Soul (Philadelphia, 1991), 108 9 [lines 3 5].

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 87 significant that the private correspondence discovered in the Cairo Genizah is virtually silent on the subject. Jacob Lassner observes: If the Genizah records are an indication of Muslim Jewish relations for the period in question indeed what better sources could there be then the Jews lived in a relatively tolerant environment despite the animus of Muslim tradition against them. There are no major complaints against the Muslims in the myriad of private letters that have come into our possession. One could of course expect that Jews were not likely to complain in public before the Muslim authorities, but surely when writing their private thoughts and in a Hebrew script, which was unfamiliar to Muslims, they could have safely expressed their outward resentment. That there is no such record is an indication that Jews had become accustomed to the relationship that they shared with their Muslim neighbors and the Muslim authorities, and they were more than willing to settle for that lot.75

Uncensored remarks discovered in a turn-of-the-twelfth-century business letter sent by a son in Fez to his father in Almería testify to the peculiar ambivalence we have observed. The son complains about anti-Jewish sentiment in Morocco, yet goes on to describe friendly personal relations with Muslims and a lot of business done in the “inhospitable” country.76 Such contradictions and reservations about Jewish life in the lands of Islam found unique imaginative expression in one of Judah al-Ḥarīzī’s rhetorical anecdotes, “The Maqāma of the Astrologer.”77 This singular Hebrew narrative relates the experiences of a posse of young Jewish men and their misadventures with a “street astrologer.” To amuse themselves, the exuberant lads challenge the charlatan with messianic queries and come close to trespassing inviolate Islamic sensibilities about what non-Muslims may and may not do publicly in Islamic society. With a reputation to uphold, the astrologer incites an unruly mob against the Jews, who are ultimately rescued and protected by an enlightened Muslim magistrate. CULTURE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Al-Ḥarīzī’s dramatization of the uncertainties and potential risks of Jewish visibility in Islamic society; Ibn Gabirol’s plaintive lyric concerning the 75

76 77

Jacob Lassner, “The Jews under Islam in the Age of the Geniza,” in Jacob Lassner, ed., Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue: A Gateway to Medieval Mediterranean Life (Chicago, 2001), 49. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:278. al Harīzī, Tahhkemoni, 213 17; trans. Reichert, The Tahkemoni, 2:96 102. On this narrative, see_ Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Al Harizi’s Astrologer: A Document of Jewish Islamic Relations,” Studies in Muslim Jewish Relations 1 (1993), 165 75; Brann, Power in the Portrayal, 140 59.

88 ross brann Jews’ ongoing captivity in foreign lands, including Islamdom; and Maimonides’ sweeping judgment about Islamdom’s treatment of the Jews at first blush seem to support Jacob Lassner’s assertion that the Jewish-Muslim encounter was governed by the themes of “Muslim triumphalism and Jewish penitence,” central to their respective historical consciousness.78 Yet Jewish intellectual, literary, and religious elites occupied an unusual place in the lands of classical Islam, a position that generated a distinctive cultural-historical consciousness reflected in thematic paradigms other than penitence. They took it upon themselves as we have seen to offer consolation, solace, and encouragement to less-privileged members of their religious community. They were also participants in a shared sociocultural experience with their Muslim counterparts even as they remained religious outsiders.79 Jewish literary and religious intellectuals were well aware of their deep engagement with Arabo-Islamicate culture in general and its role in stimulating rethinking and reworking of Jewish culture in particular.80 For example, Jewish religious and literary intellectuals testify repeatedly to the closeness of the languages of the Qurʾān and the Hebrew Bible. Beginning with Seʿadyah Gaʾon in the ninth-century Islamic East and extending across North Africa (Judah Ibn Quraysh) and into al-Andalus (Ḥayyūj, Ibn Janāh, _ and Ibn Barūn), Hebrew grammarians privileged Arabic learning as an essential tool in the production of Jewish scholarship. Jonah Ibn Janāh observes: “for after Aramaic, Arabic is the language that most resembles_ ours.”81 Maimonides went further still, asserting that Hebrew and Arabic are virtually the same language: “and as for the Arabic and Hebrew languages, all who know them both agree that they are one language without a doubt.”82

78

79

80

81

82

Jacob Lassner, “Time, Historiography, and Historical Consciousness: The Dialectic of Jewish Muslim Relations,” in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren, eds., Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction. Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner (Leiden, 2000), 9; see also Jacob Lassner, “The Dialectic of Jewish Muslim Relations in the Medieval Near East,” in The Middle East Remembered: Forgotten Identities, Competing Narratives, Contested Spaces (Ann Arbor, 2000), 267 91. For this duality in al Andalus, see Ross Brann, “The Arabized Jews,” in María Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, eds., The Literature of Al Andalus (The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature) (Cambridge, 2000), 435 54. See Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Merchants and Intellectuals, Rabbis and Poets: Judeo Arabic Culture in the Golden Age of Islam,” in Cultures of the Jews, 313 86. Jonah Ibn Janāh, Kitāb al Lumaʿ (Le livre des parterres fleuris), ed. Joseph Derenbourg (Paris, 1886), 8. _ “wa amma al lugha al ʿarabiyya wa l ʿibrāniyya fa qad ittafaqa kullu man ʿalima al lughatayn innahumā lugha wāhida bi lā shakka,” Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Iggrot, ed. _ 150. Joseph Qāfih (Jerusalem, 1972), _

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 89 Jewish religious intellectuals such as Maimonides in fact shared much more than a language with their Muslim counterparts. They shared a set of cultural assumptions and experiences with like-minded Muslim intellectuals: they believed that the scientific-philosophical orientation of Islamic civilization (and its Jewish subcultural adaptation) was essential to the realization of human perfection and social harmony. Jewish literary intellectuals evinced a studied intimacy with the entire corpus of Arabo-Islamic knowledge and embraced the aesthetic ethos of their Muslim counterparts. Their deep structural encounter with Arabic language and learning spurred them to develop novel approaches to Jewish tradition, produce new forms of Jewish literature based on Arabic models, and to express themselves in Arabic as a principal language of Jewish culture. In these ventures, Jewish religious and literary intellectuals evinced self-confidence as producers of Jewish culture, on the one hand, and self-conscious awareness of their debt to Arabic, on the other. Jewish awareness of the preeminence of Arabic and the lure of AraboIslamic learning also prompted the Jewish elites of al-Andalus to become consciously engaged in cultural competition with Arabic alongside their admiration for it. The challenge it posed elicited responses in various expressions of defensive apologetics, frequently with religious overtones, self-assertion, and cultural resistance.83 Dūnash b. Labrāt, the tenthcentury poet who introduced Arabicizing prosody to Hebrew_ verse, extols Shemariah ben Elhanan, the most prominent Egyptian Jewish scholar at _ the time, in relation to his standing over Muslim counterparts: “He thwarts ignorant foes/and the Muslim sages.”84 Samuel the Nagid (Ibn Naghrella), an eleventh-century Hebrew poet, grammarian, rabbinic scholar, and Jewish communal leader, also served in Granada under the Zīrid Berbers as the highest fiscal and administrative official of the Islamic state from 1038 until his death in 1056. Samuel was the most significant Jewish cultural mediator of eleventh-century al-Andalus, in part because 83

84

See Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Baltimore, 1991); Joseph Sadan, “Identity and Inimitability: Contexts of Inter religious Polemics and Solidarity in Medieval Spain, in the Light of Two Passages by Moshe Ibn ʿEzra and Yaʿaqov Ben Elʿazar,” Israel Oriental Studies 14 (1994), 325 47; Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000), 208 32. Dūnash b. Labrāt, Shirim, ed. Nehemiah Allony (Jerusalem, 1947), 88 92 [verse 5]; cited _ Culture through Jewish Eyes, 36. Another of Dūnash’s poems Alfonso by Alfonso, Islamic cites offers (hyperbolic) praise to his patron Hasdai Ibn Shaprūt (Dūnash b. Labrāt, _ _ Shirim, 66 71): East and West/his fame is great and grand. The house of Esau and Arabia/depend upon his kindness [verse 30].

90 ross brann his social and political status among Jews and Muslims conferred legitimacy on his production of and support for Judeo-Arabic culture and its fusion of Jewish and Arabo-Islamic elements. For our purposes it is significant that his lyrics reflect poetically on his achievements, aspirations, and claims to authority. Samuel depicted forces arrayed against Granada as his personal enemies and represented himself as a latter-day biblical field marshal on behalf of the people of Israel.85 In one epic poem, Samuel airs his enemies’ complaints about his intolerable Jewish interference in the affairs of a Muslim state but identifies them by ethnicity (“‘Slavs,’ Christian mercenaries, and Andalusi ‘ʿArabs’”/ʿamaleq edom u-vnei qeturah). Yet nowhere in this lyric or in others like it does the poet refer _ explicitly to their religion, which, after all, his foes shared with his Berber Zīrid sponsors.86 Among the next generations of Andalusian Jewish literary and religious intellectuals, Moses Ibn Ezra, Judah Halevi, Abraham Ibn Daud, and Judah al-Ḥarīzī all produced subtle anecdotes that can be read as imaginative defense mechanisms for those of their class and intellectual orientation aware of the strong and contested interface between their culture and their Muslim neighbors.87 Jewish attitudes toward Islam, Islamdom, and Muslims were varied, complex, unstable, and nuanced, revealing more about the psychosocial, religious, historical, and cultural situation of a particular writer’s community and self-image than that of the depicted subject. Islam, when approached at all, tended to be addressed in polemical fashion; the attitude toward Islamdom varied according to time and place but inclined toward complaint. The array of attitudes we have encountered paints a complex picture of competition and coexistence, polemic and exchange, cautious silence and benign neglect, a sense of openness and insistence on exclusivity. These attitudes provide us with a sense of the ambivalence, rivalry, intimacy, and conflict governing the ways in which Jews thought of Muslims, Islam, and Islamdom during the classical age of Islam. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackerman-Lieberman, Phillip I. The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014). Alfonso, Esperanza. Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes: Al-Andalus from the Tenth to Twelfth Century (London, 2008). 85 87

Brann, Compunctious Poet, 46 58. Ibid., 126 30.

86

Brann, Power in the Portrayal, 130 39.

jewish perceptions of islam and muslims 91 Brann, Ross. Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Muslims and Jews in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain (Princeton, 2002). Cohen, Mark R. Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994; second, revised edition, 2008). Drory, Rina. Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000). Firestone, Reuven. “Jewish Culture in the Formative Period of Islam,” in David Biale, ed., The Cultures of the Jews (New York, 2002), 267–302. Frank, Daniel, ed. The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, & Identity (Leiden, 1995). Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World according to the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). Kraemer, Joel L. Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York, 2008). Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, Mark R. Cohen, Sasson Somekh, and Sidney H. Griffith, eds. The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam (Wiesbaden, 1999). Lewis, Bernard. The Jews of Islam (Princeton, 1984). Meddeb, Abdelwahab, and Benjamin Stora, eds. A History of JewishMuslim Relations: From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton, 2013). Sadan, Joseph. “Identity and Inimitability: Contexts of Inter-religious Polemics and Solidarity in Medieval Spain, in the Light of Two Passages by Moshe Ibn ʿEzra and Yaʿaqov Ben Elʿazar,” Israel Oriental Studies 14 (1994), 325–47. Scheindlin, Raymond P. “Merchants and Intellectuals, Rabbis and Poets: Judeo-Arabic Culture in the Golden Age of Islam,” in David Biale, ed., The Cultures of the Jews (New York, 2002), 313–86. Stroumsa, Sarah. Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Princeton, 2009).

chapter 3

ISLAMIC ATTITUDES AND POLICIES mark r. cohen*

MYTH AND COUNTERMYTH

Islamic attitudes and policies concerning the Jews in the Middle Ages have been the subject of heated debate in recent decades. Some see a benign, tolerant Islam, protecting its Jewish and other non-Muslim subjects from violence and respecting their religion and religious institutions. Others see conflict, intolerance, persecution, and even antisemitism.1 The first image harks back to the nineteenth century, a time when Jewish historians tended to paint an exaggerated picture of a “golden age” of Jewish-Muslim harmony, taking al-Andalus, or Muslim Spain, as the model. The idea stemmed from the disappointment Central European Jewish intellectuals felt as Emancipation-era promises of political and cultural equality remained unfulfilled. Historians exploited the tolerance they ascribed to Islam to chastise their Christian neighbors for failing to rise to the standards set by non-Christian society hundreds of years earlier.2 The interfaith utopia was to a certain extent a myth; it ignored, or left unmentioned, the legal inferiority of the Jews and periodic outbursts of violence. Yet, when compared to the far more frequent and severe persecution of Jews in medieval Northern Europe and late medieval Spain, it contained a very large kernel of truth. The image of a persecutory Islam, on the other hand, is a “countermyth.” It arose in the mid-twentieth century as a response to Arab and Muslim * With the permission of Cambridge University Press, a shorter version of this chapter was published in A History of Jewish Muslim Relations from the Origins to the Present Day (French version, Paris, 2013; English version, Princeton, 2013). 1 These matters are discussed at length in Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994; new edition with new introduction and afterword by the author, Princeton, 2008), chapter 1. 2 To the best of my knowledge, this insight was first expressed by Bernard Lewis in “The Pro Islamic Jews,” Judaism 17 (1968), 402: “The myth was invented by Jews in 19th century Europe as a reproach to Christians and taken up by Muslims in our time as a reproach to Jews.”

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islamic attitudes and policies 93 appropriation of the Jewish concept of an interfaith utopia and its use in a new narrative that blamed the breakdown of the erstwhile harmony on Zionism and the State of Israel.3 Adapting the coinage of Salo Baron, who labeled the nineteenth-century historiography of medieval Jews living under Christendom a “lachrymose conception of Jewish history,”4 we may say that the revisionists have created a “neo-lachrymose conception of JewishArab history.”5 The truth, as always, lies somewhere between the two extremes. Islamic attitudes and policies concerning the Jews were marked at best by ambivalence, and it is precisely this ambivalence that has allowed both sides in the polarized debate – the “harmony school” and the “conflict school” – to claim “proof” of tolerance or intolerance in the sources themselves. Such a binary approach obscures the nuances and hues inherent to historical reality. Historical reality starts with the fundamental truth that tolerance was not a virtue in premodern times, neither for Islam, for Christianity, nor for Judaism. On the contrary, all three considered intolerance a virtue. Each espoused a doctrine of exclusive, divine election. The biblical Israelite religion claimed to have replaced ancient Near Eastern idolatrous cults, which it derided and despised, while postbiblical Judaism insisted on its abiding superiority over pagan Persia, the idolatrous Greco-Roman world, and finally, over Christianity and Islam. Christians claimed to have superseded Judaism and paganism alike, part of God’s plan for the salvation of humanity. As St. Augustine articulated in Christian doctrine in the early fifth century, however, Jews should be allowed to live among Christians – as a fossil religion, to be sure – as witnesses to the triumph of Christianity, as preservers of the divinely revealed Hebrew text of the Bible, and, at the Second Coming, as witnesses, by their conversion, to Christ’s messianic 3

4

5

The danger of Muslim exploitation of the myth of Islamic tolerance was first noted by British historian Cecil Roth in the Zionist Organization of America’s New Palestine (October 4, 1946), 239 42, and in the British Zionist Jewish Forum in the same month (33 38). The essay was virtually forgotten until it was reprinted by the America Israel Public Affairs Committee in the “Myths and Facts” supplement to its Near East Report shortly after the Six Day War of June 1967 (B 17 20). Coincidentally, at exactly the same time, a more conciliatory article appeared by Trude Weiss Rosmarin, “Toward Jewish Muslim Dialogue,” The Jewish Spectator (September 1967), 1 44. Salo Wittmayer Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation,” The Menorah Journal, 14, 6 (June 1928), 515 26, at the end; reprinted Leo W. Schwarz, ed., Menorah Treasury: Harvest of Half a Century (Philadelphia, 1964), 59 63. Mark R. Cohen, “The Neo lachrymose Conception of Jewish Arab History,” Tikkun (May/June, 1991), 55 60; also Mark R. Cohen, “Islam and the Jews: Myth, Counter Myth, History,” The Jerusalem Quarterly 38 (1986), 125 37; and Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, chapter 1.

94 mark r. cohen divinity. Islam, chronologically the last monotheistic religion to arise, asserted its own divine election, rejecting polytheism, on the one hand, and superseding both Christianity and Judaism, on the other, with Muhammad as the “Seal of the Prophets.” It expressed itself in the same kind_ of triumphalist, exclusive claim to the truth as its two monotheistic predecessors. If Islam – understanding the word “Islam” to mean both the religion and the society in which it was the dominant religion – seems less severe than Christendom in its attitudes and policies toward the Jews, this is true only in a qualified sense. Its more benign treatment of Jews (and Christians) stemmed not from enlightened tolerance, but from a complex set of religious, legal, economic, and social realities that, to a certain extent, offset the hostility to be expected of one religion toward another in the Middle Ages. When we speak of Islamic tolerance in the following discussion we should understand it in this context. When, on the other hand, we describe attitudes in Islam that were often hostile toward the Jews and policies that were discriminatory, we should keep in mind the structural features of religious intolerance common to all monotheistic faiths and not mistakenly search for some sort of primordial Islamic antisemitism.6 THE SOURCES

In assessing Islamic attitudes and policies concerning the Jews, we face the same methodological problems encountered by early Islamic historians: the limited and sometimes unreliable nature of the sources. In the first instance, we must rely on the Qurʾān as the main reservoir of statements regarding the Jews directly attributed to the Prophet. These are closely followed by early post-Qurʾānic literature: Qurʾānic commentary, biographies of the Prophet, and the hadīth literature, or the records of what the Prophet is reported by others _to have said or done. Early Islamic legal sources also provide information on the subject, as do chronicles of the early conquest period. Very little material comes from the Jewish side, with 6

In keeping with scholars of the subject, I understand antisemitism to be a religiously based complex of irrational, mythical, and stereotypical beliefs about the diabolical, malevolent, and all powerful Jew, infused, in its modern, secular form, with racism and the belief that there is a Jewish conspiracy against mankind. See also Bernard Lewis, Semites and Anti Semites (new edition, New York, 1999); Mark R. Cohen, “Modern Myths of Muslim Antisemitism” [Hebrew], Politika 19 (2009), 121 40; in English in Moshe Maoz, ed., Muslim Attitudes to Jews and Israel: The Ambivalences of Rejection, Antagonism, Tolerance and Cooperation (Sussex, 2010), 31 47; and many other scholarly writings.

islamic attitudes and policies 95 the exception of a few apocalyptic midrashim and some piyyutim (liturgical _ poems) written around the time of the Arab conquests. While scholars, both medieval and modern, have cast doubt on the reliability of many of the hadīth, and modern scholars have viewed the _ life of Muhammad with skepticism and medieval biographies of the subjected the Qurʾān to a kind of “higher_ criticism,” the position taken here is that the Qurʾān well describes the Prophet’s teachings regarding the Jews, as believed by early Muslims and transmitted and accepted by them ever since his time. Similarly, even if the chains of transmission (isnāds) of many hadīth are shaky and cannot be authenticated, it is reasonable to assume_ that their content (matn) reflects actual issues of concern to the early Muslim community, including attitudes toward non-Muslims.7 The same holds true for the biographical literature.8 THE PROPHET MUH AMMAD _

Muhammad acquired the mantle of prophethood around the year 610, in _ his native Mecca, when the forty-year-old merchant had his first revelation: God’s command, through the angel Gabriel, that he “recite” (iqraʾ, the verbal form of the noun Qurʾān, cf. Sura 96:1). His prophetic mission ended with his death in 632 in the oasis settlement of Yathrib (renamed Medina), to which he and his Companions had migrated (the Arabic word for migration is hijra) in 622. In Medina, the Prophet founded a new polity, an umma, based on bonds of faith rather than kinship. The question of where Muhammad learned about monotheism and in _ particular Judaism can be answered through a combination of conjecture 9 and evidence. Arabia at that time was largely pagan, though in this vast soil 7

8

9

See Georges Vajda, “Juifs et Musulmans selon le Hadīt,” Journal Asiatique 229 (1937), 59: “Le hadit n’est pas, on le sait, un guide sûr pour la_ connaissance de la biographie authentique du prophète, mais, il est, dans sa diversité, miroir fidèle des fluctuations de l’Islam en évolution.” Cf. Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York, 1994), 31 36. Recent discussions of the problem of the biographical literature, arguing a less skeptical position, include essays in Harald Motzki, ed., The Biography of Muhammad: The Issue of the Sources (Leiden, 2000); and Andreas Görke and Gregor Schoeler, Die ältesten Berichte über das Leben Muhammads (Princeton, 2008). A sensible discussion of the _ in Fred M. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers: At problem of the sources is found the Origins of Islam (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 50 56. The discussion was inaugurated by Abraham Geiger in a famous essay, Was hat Mohamed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen (Bonn, 1833). Geiger later became a major ideologue of the early German Reform movement in Judaism. The essay was later translated into English, Judaism and Islam: A Prize Essay, by Abraham Geiger, for the use of Christian missionaries in India (Madras, 1898).

96 mark r. cohen of Arabian paganism, seeds of monotheistic belief seem to have been planted before Muhammad entered the scene. Mecca, where Muhammad _ was born, was home_ of a great pagan shrine, the Kaʿba, later to become the focal point of Islamic pilgrimage. Those isolated Jews residing in Mecca during his youth – Jewish wives of members of his tribe, the Quraysh, and their offspring – would not have served as a significant source of knowledge about Judaism.10 Muhammad was more likely to have come in contact with _ in the town, or during his own commercial travels Jewish merchants trading to the north. From them he would have been exposed to some Jewish beliefs and practices. He doubtless met Christians, too, whether merchants trading in Mecca, hermits living in the desert, or Christian members of other Arabian tribes. From them he would have absorbed ideas of Christianity as well as of Judaism filtered through Christian eyes. In Medina, by contrast, he encountered no Christians, only a large settlement of Jewish tribes, most of them affiliated with local Arabs, in addition to three large, wealthy, and powerful Jewish tribes: the Banū Nadīr, the Banū Qaynuqāʿ, and the Banū Qurayza. From them he would have_ learned much more about Judaism, though it_ is uncertain how much their Judaism was informed by rabbinic law.While Muhammad’s attitudes toward the Jews, as expressed in the Qurʾān, began to be_ formed already in his Meccan period, his Jewish policies were a product of his experience in Medina. IN THE QURʾĀN

The Qurʾān, according to traditional Muslim understanding canonized in its present form during the reign of the third caliph, ʿUthmān (r. 644–56), contains a mixed message about the Jews (as well as about the Christians). This mirrors the ambivalent attitudes of the Prophet, reflecting the gulf between his high expectations and the Jews’ disappointing response. At the outset, most scholars agree, Muhammad assumed the Jews would flock to his preaching and recognize him_ as their own prophet – indeed, the final, or “seal” of the prophets. Fred M. Donner argues, in fact, that the new religion – the “community of believers,” he calls them – was originally meant as an ecumenical community open to Jews and Christians.11 And so 10

11

On the Jewish wives of Qurashī pagans, see Michael Lecker, “A Note on Early Marriage Links between Qurashīs and Jewish Women,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), 17 39. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers, 68 74, based on his article “From Believers to Muslims: Confessional Self identity in the Early Islamic Community,” al Abhāth 50 51 _ (2002 3), 9 53.

islamic attitudes and policies 97 Muhammad’s attitude was at first largely conciliatory. In stark contrast to _ the Fathers of the Christian Church, who often made polemical use of the Old Testament, reinterpreting it allegorically in order to sway Jews to Christ and buttress their own new teachings, Muhammad’s revelation _ postbiblical midincorporated biblical stories into the Qurʾān, often with rashic embellishments presumably gathered from local Jewish oral traditions, to add to the store of reference points that he hoped would attract the Jews.12 He also adopted or adapted several Jewish practices in hopes of drawing Jews near. The fast of Yom Kippur on the tenth day following Rosh ha-Shanah, the Jewish New Year, became the fast of ʿĀshūrāʾ, the name (from Arabic “ten”) for the tenth day of the month of Muharram. _ dān. Later, this fast day was replaced by the month-long fast of Rama Muhammad received revelations concerning dietary laws unknown_ to _ Arabs but practiced by Jews, including the prohibition of pork pagan and carrion, and he required that a blessing be pronounced when slaughtering animals for food, as in Judaism. He introduced prayer, eventually set at five times each day, similar to the thrice-daily prayers of the Jews (or perhaps the multiple daily prayers of Christian monks). The Jewish Sabbath received an Islamic impress, with Friday designated a day of communal prayer, though not as a day of rest. Initially he designated Jerusalem as the direction to be faced during prayer, though later, when the Jews rejected his preaching, he switched it from Jerusalem to Mecca. He further beckoned to the Jews by elevating Moses in the Qurʾān to the position of the most important prophet before himself (Moses is mentioned more than a hundred times, more than any other prophet).13 Equally important, he expressed special admiration for contemporary Jews, along with the Christians and a group called Sabians – evidently the Gnostic baptizing sect of the Mandaeans – for possessing a book of divine teachings. This further created bonds between Islam and, as he called them, the “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb). All these efforts were aimed at winning Jewish acknowledgment of Muhammad’s prophetic _ mundane reason mission. Apart from religious motives, there was a more

12

13

Reuven Firestone, Journeys in Holy Lands: the Evolution of the Abraham Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis (Albany, 1990), argues that in what he calls a culture of biblical storytelling in pre Islamic Arabia, Muslims were permitted, even encouraged, to relate stories handed down by the Banū Isrāʾīl, but later this license was revoked. Meir Kister, “Haddithū ʿan Bānī Isrāʾīla wa lā kharaja,” Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972), 215 39. S. D. Goitein raised the possibility that Muhammad’s model was a sect of Judaism that _ and Arabs: A Concise History of their Social revered Moses as its central figure. See his Jews and Cultural Relations (reprint, Mineola, NY, 2005), 55 58.

98 mark r. cohen for reaching out to the Jews. He needed the militarily powerful and wealthy Jewish tribes of Medina as allies against his enemies in Mecca. On the other side, there are negative statements about the Jews in the Qurʾān, reflecting the Prophet’s frustration at their refusal to embrace his preaching. Characteristically, this is sometimes combined with disparaging comments about the Christians. A famous sura, repeated more than once in the Qurʾān and cited often in hadīth and in later polemical contexts, _ not the Jews and the Christians for proclaims: “O ye who believe, take friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is [one] of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk” (5:51).14 Elsewhere, Jews alone are singled out for their historical treachery: “In that they broke their covenant; that they rejected the signs of Allah; that they slew the Messengers in defiance of right; that they said, ‘Our hearts are the wrappings [which preserve Allah’s Word; We need no more]’; Nay, Allah hath set the seal on their hearts for their blasphemy, and little is it they believe” (4:155). Treachery is perhaps the most common indictment of the Jews in the Qurʾān, a vivid reflection of the Prophet’s actual experience of Jewish opposition. One of the most notorious vilifications of the Jews, notorious because it is widely used in contemporary Arab propaganda, is the “apes-pigs” motif. It appears in three Qurʾānic verses as a punishment inflicted by God, two of them singling out the Jews (in the text, “Sabbath breakers”), calling them apes, the other specifying the People of the Book in general.15 However, the apes-pigs theme, often held up today as a prime example of classical Islamic antisemitism, is applied in Qurʾānic commentary to Christians alone, where they are called pigs, reducing the epithet from a specifically anti-Jewish libel to one aimed at non-Muslims in general. Here we have a distinctive characteristic of the early Islamic attitude – and future policy – toward the Jews: they are generally subsumed under a broader 14

15

This and other quotations from the Qurʾān are taken from the translation of Mohammad Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran: An Explanatory Translation (London, 1930), which often captures the meaning of the Qurʾān more literally than others; the translator has added words in brackets for greater comprehension. “And ye know of those of you who broke the Sabbath, how We said unto them: Be ye apes, despised and hated” (Qurʾān 2:65). “Shall I tell thee of a worse [case] than theirs for retribution with Allah? [Worse is the case of him] whom Allah hath cursed, him on whom His wrath hath fallen and of whose sort Allah hath turned some to apes and swine, and who serveth idols. Such are in worse plight and further astray from the plain road” (5:60, referring to the People of the Book, which includes Jews and Christians). “So when they took pride in that which they had been forbidden, We said unto them: Be ye apes despised and loathed” (7:166, referring to Sabbath breakers).

islamic attitudes and policies 99 category, so that the policy toward them is part and parcel of a policy toward non-Muslim “People of the Book” in general.16 In contrast to these abusive themes, one of the most important Qurʾānic policies regarding the Jews – indeed, all Peoples of the Book – is summed up in the verse “There is no compulsion in religion” (lā ikrāha fī al-dīn) (2:256).17 It gives voice to a realistic pluralism in early Islam. In context, as one scholar has persuasively argued, the verse seems to have been meant descriptively, not prescriptively, that is, as a statement of resignation, acknowledging that people are not likely to give up the faith into which they were born.18 Nonetheless, over time, the verse came to be understood as a prescription forbidding Muslims to compel others to accept Islam against their will. On the rare occasion when a ruler forced Jews or Christians to convert to Islam on pain of death, he was seen as committing a violation of Islamic law. History also records examples of rulers reversing this violation of Islamic law on the part of a predecessor and allowing forced converts to revert to their original faith, notwithstanding the fact that conversion from Islam to another religion was equivalent to apostasy and punishable by death according to many classical jurists.19 Sources also 16

17

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19

The apes pigs theme is a folkloristic motif present in other, non Islamic cultures and apparently borrowed from them; see Ilse Lichtenstaedter, “And Become Ye Accursed Apes,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 14 (1991), 153 75. The language of the verses does not actually suggest that the Jews are innately inhuman, only that they were transformed into animals for their misdeeds. In an eschatological context in post Qurʾānic sources it is Muslim sinners and heretics, adversely infected by imitation of Jewish and Christian ways, whom God will turn into apes and pigs, a warning and a threat aimed at shoring up Islamic identity; see Uri Rubin, “Apes, Pigs and the Islamic Identity,” Israel Oriental Studies 17 (1997), 89 105. On rare occasions in the Middle Ages the Qurʾānic theme reared its head, urging repression, even violence, against the Jews, notoriously by the Spanish Arabic poet who used it in a poem inciting a “pogrom” against the Jews of Granada in 1066 (see below), a favorite episode cited by the “neo lachrymose” school as proof of Islamic violent malevolence toward the Jews. I discuss this and other so called antisemitic motifs in early Islamic literature in my “Modern Myths of Muslim Antisemitism.” See discussion in Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge, 2003), 87 120. Rudi Paret, “Sura 2, 256: lā ikrāha fi d dini. Toleranz oder Resignation?” Der Islam 45 (1969), 299 300. The Fātimid caliph al Zāhir issued a decree in 1021 reversing the forced conversions imposed_ by his father, al Hākim, after the latter’s mysterious disappearance, thus allowing Jews and Christians to return to their former religions. Yaacov Lev, “Persecutions and Conversion to Islam in Eleventh Century Egypt,” Asian and African Studies 22 (1988), 86 87. Similarly, in North Africa, Jews forced to convert under persecution by the Almohads in the twelfth century eventually returned to Judaism. Christians did not. On apostasy and its punishment, see Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, chapter 4.

100 mark r. cohen describe Jews who embraced Islam willingly, sometimes for opportunistic reasons and sometimes out of faith. Often the conversions resulted from rationalist thought, leading to a conviction about the equivalence of all religions and the choice of Islam, the faith of the ruling majority.20 The “no compulsion in religion” verse should be seen in conjunction with yet another statement in the Qurʾān that illustrates the pluralistic attitude of the nascent Islamic umma toward other monotheists. “Had Allah willed He could have made you one community. But that He may try you by that which He hath given you [i.e. the revelation] [He hath made you as ye are]. So vie one with another in good works” (5:48).21 This pluralism is enshrined in the ninth sura, in a verse that establishes the basis for Islamic policy toward the Jews and other Peoples of the Book. The sura begins with a set of revelations preached to the mushrikūn (idolaters, polytheists). Their fate, if they fail to believe in Muhammad and the _ message of Islam, is to be fought to the death or until they accept Islam. This is the source of the proverbial image of “Islam or the sword.” Verse 29 declares a different policy for the People of the Book. It grants the Jews, Christians, and other members of scriptural religions a third choice: freedom to remain in their religion as long as they pay tribute and assume a humble position vis-à-vis the majority religion: “Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.” “Tribute” here translates the Arabic word jizya, which in time, in imitation of Byzantine and Sasanian taxation systems, evolved into a discriminatory poll tax incumbent upon People of the Book once a year.22 “Being brought low,” Arabic sāghirūn, later constituted the proof _ text for the regimen of humiliating restrictions (saghār) imposed on nonMuslims by Islamic law as it evolved in succeeding_ centuries. The enigmatic phrase rendered “readily,” “ʿan yadin” in Arabic, could be also translated as “out of hand,” or “with the hand,” or “from what is at hand.” The words

20

21

22

Of the literature on Jewish conversion to Islam, see Sarah Stroumsa, “On Jewish Intellectuals Who Converted in the Early Middle Ages,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, Identity (Leiden, 1995), 179 97. For a thoughtful discussion of Islam’s pluralistic approach to religion, grounded in the Qurʾān, see Abdulaziz Sachedina, The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism (New York, 2001). See also Heribert Busse, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity: Theological and Historical Affiliations (Princeton, 1998), 33 35. Part 4 of Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, discusses sociological factors underlying this pluralism. On the Byzantine and Sasanian taxation systems, see Antoine Fattal, Le statut légal des non Musulmans en pays d’Islam (Beirut, 1958), 317 23.

islamic attitudes and policies 101 gave rise to so many different interpretations in medieval Qurʾān commentaries that it seems that no one knew precisely what they originally meant.23 Reflecting the ambivalence of early Islam toward the Jews, we find both harsh and lenient interpretations of the phrase. Stringent explanations include the requirement that the non-Muslim place his hand beneath that of the Muslim tax collector to show his inferiority and subordination, or that the tax collector slap him on the nape of his neck with his hand at the time of payment. A more lenient approach translates “ʿan yadin” as “according to his financial ability,” a considerate interpretation that was actually implemented in many places in the Islamic empire in the form of a graduated poll tax linked to the income and financial capacity of the payer. It seems clear, however, that medieval commentators were not of the unanimous opinion that the Qurʾān itself prescribes debasing treatment of the People of the Book and that the later reality was read back into the text. This confusion seems, again, to reflect the ambivalence in early Islamic attitudes toward monotheist non-Muslim communities. What is clear is that the Prophet’s intention, once the People of the Book rejected his message and despite their status as infidels, was to keep them at a low and inferior rank, permitting them freedom of religion and protection so long as they adhered to certain rules and paid tribute. What the rules were would be elaborated later on. As Muhammad’s mission in Medina progressed and he steadily suc_ ceeded in spreading Islam among the pagan Arabs, Jewish rejection and, in some cases, outright hostility and treachery grated on him all the more, and he expelled two of the three main Jewish tribes. According to credible Islamic sources, including a possibly vague allusion to the event in the Qurʾān, the third tribe, the Banū Qurayza, was violently attacked because 24 _ of their alliance with the polytheist Meccans. Nearly all the males were killed and the women and children were enslaved.25 What seems like a change in “policy” from the original, benign religious tolerance to violent opposition did not, however, become a precedent. 23

24

25

Meir J. Kister, “‘ʿAn Yadin’ (Qurʾān, IX/29),” Arabica 11 (1964), 272 78; Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 56. Uri Rubin, “Quran and Tafsīr: The Case of ‘ʿAn Yadin,’” Der Islam 7 (1993), 133 43. For varying interpretations of “ʿan yadin” by Islamic jurists and accounts in historical sources of how the jizya was collected at different times and in different places, see Fattal, Le statut légal des non Musulmans, 286 91. The Qurʾānic allusion is in 33:27 28. See Meir J. Kister, “The Massacre of the Banū Qurayza: A Re examination of the Evidence,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986),_ 61 96. This event is the subject of heated polemical debate, some citing it as evidence of Muhammad’s “antisemitic” cruelty, others denying the veracity of the story. A sampling _ literature is cited and discussed in Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 206n18. of the

102

mark r. cohen I N T H E Ḥ A D Ī T H

In a survey of hadīths relating to the Jews, Georges Vajda found both _ positive and negative views, echoing the ambivalence found in the 26 Qurʾān. The generous approach reverberates in a hadīth concerning a _ non-Muslim who was unable to pay his jizya. It appears in one of the noncanonical collections (hence it is unmentioned by Vajda), but it nonetheless reflects the views of at least some Muslims. One should be patient with him until he finds the means to pay, and [meanwhile] nothing should be held against him. If he should become rich, it should be taken from him when he comes. If he is unable to comply with any part of the peace settlement to which he agreed, the burden should be lifted from him if his inability is confirmed, and the imām (that is, the caliph) shall assume the burden on his behalf.27

Similar hadīths about collecting the jizya with leniency are found in the book on_ taxation by the Kūfan jurist Abū Yūsuf (d. 798).28 Looming large among negative sentiments in the hadīth literature are _ attempts in the injunctions to avoid Jewish customs, replacing overt Qurʾān to attract Jews to Islam. These are summed up in the hadīth by _ the Arabic verb khālifūhum, “act differently from them.”29 This injunction was only natural as Islam gained traction and Muslim converts strove to differentiate themselves from their former coreligionists. The hadīth literature preserves an abundance of texts describing Jewish perfidy,_ and these are matched by narratives on the same theme recounted in the biography of the Prophet in the second and third Islamic centuries. One such story in the sīra (biography) of the Prophet written by Ibn Ishāq _ (d. 761 or 767) and redacted by Ibn Hishām (d. 833) describes an unsuccessful attempt by members of one of the major Jewish tribes, the Banū Nadīr, later expelled from Medina, to assassinate the Prophet by rolling a rock_ onto him from a rooftop as he sat below. Miraculously warned by

26 27

28

29

Vajda, “Juifs et Musulmans selon le Hadīt,” 57 127. _ Habīb al Rahmān al Aʿzamī (Beirut, 1972), ʿAbd al Razzāq al Sanʿānī, al Musannaf, ed. _ _ _ 6:9 90. Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Ibrāhīm al Ansārī al Kūfī, Kitāb al Kharāj (Cairo, 1933 34), _ hadīth about a dhimmī left exposed to the 147 50. Abū Yūsuf quotes a well known _ sun for nonpayment of his jizya until the perpetrator of the draconian measure was told that the Prophet had said that anyone tormenting another person in this world would be tormented by God in the hereafter. Ibid., 149. Vajda, “Juifs et Musulmans selon le Hadīt,” 63; Cf. Meir J. Kister, “‘Do Not Assimilate _ Yourselves . . .’: lā tashabbahū, with an Appendix by Menahem Kister,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 12 (1989), 321 71.

islamic attitudes and policies 103 heaven, Muhammad arose from his seat just in time to avoid being crushed to death.30 _ Important for understanding the Prophet’s policy toward the Jews is a story in the hadīth of a similarly treacherous attempt to kill the Prophet. _ was a Jewess named Zaynab bt. Ḥārith of Khaybar, a town The perpetrator heavily populated by Jews and subdued by the Prophet. She tries to poison him, but he is saved by a miracle when the poisoned morsel of food speaks to warn him. Confronted by the Prophet, she confesses, explaining that she did what she did to avenge the deaths of her fellow Jewish tribesmen killed by the Muslims. In one version of the hadīth, the Prophet orders her _ suggesting that her action executed. According to another, he pardons her, conformed to a logic that was acceptable in the mores of Arab society. Several years later, on his deathbed, so the hadīths relate, the Prophet is said to have connected his final illness with_ residual effects of Zaynab’s poisonous morsel, and he dies – in what amounts, for some, to a martyr’s death.31 Although important for understanding Muhammad’s attitude and _ who transmitted the policy toward the Jews, and the attitude of those story, the Zaynab stories had hardly any effect on Muslim-Jewish relations in the Middle Ages. This contrasts strikingly with the story in the Gospels that the Jews killed Christ, a libelous accusation that formed one of the foundational motifs of Christian antisemitism from earliest times. The difference lies partly in the fact that the killing of Jesus was tantamount to the killing of God, whereas Muhammad was a mortal prophet, not a divine _ sought a rationale for persecuting and being. But had medieval Muslims even annihilating the Jews, the Zaynab story could have served the purpose. Nowhere did it do so.32 THE “CONSTITUTION OF MEDINA”

Apart from the Qurʾān and the hadīth, the most important source regarding Muhammad’s attitude and_ policy toward the Jews is the so_ called Constitution of Medina. The document deserves some detailed 30

31

32

Ibn Hishām, al Sīra al Nabawiyya (Cairo, n.d.), 3:114; Alfred Guillaume, trans., The Life of Muhammad (Oxford, 1955), 437. Etan Kolberg, “The Image of the Prophet Muhammad as a Shahīd” [Hebrew], in ʿIyyunim ba islam ha qadum: devarim she neʾemru be yom ʿiyyun likhvod Meʾir J. Kister bi mlot lo tishʿim shana [Studies in early Islam: Papers honouring Meir J. Kister on his ninetieth birthday] (Jerusalem, 2005), 45 71. I discuss the Zaynab story at greater length in my “Modern Myths of Muslim Anti Semitism.”

104 mark r. cohen discussion because it is so controversial. It has spurred a considerable scholarly literature, including an exhaustive study by Michael Lecker which puts forth an important new interpretation of the status of the Jews during Muhammad’s time.33 _ “Constitution” is preserved in two full versions, the The text of the better known of the two contained in the biography of the Prophet by Ibn Ishāq/Ibn Hishām.34 It is referred to as a kitāb, a “document” or “com_ (the translation “constitution” is a modernism with an obvious pact” programmatic purpose).35 The document creates a unified umma (Fred Donner refers to it as the “umma document”36) based on faith rather than on separate tribal loyalties – “one people (umma wāhida) to the exclusion _ obligations of the of others,” as the introduction states. It spells out the various tribes toward one another and toward the general war effort against pagan enemies in the Arabian Peninsula. Since one of Muhammad’s functions was to mediate tribal feuds that in ancient Arabian _ law were settled by vengeance and bloodshed, he appears in the document in his role as arbitrator. Jewish tribes are mentioned as well, although contrary to what is expected, the three large tribes, Banū Nadīr, Banū Qaynuqāʿ, and _ Banū Qurayza, are not singled out by name. _ The language of the document is archaic, but there are repetitions that have led some scholars to question its authenticity and its unity. Today, however, its authenticity seems unassailable.37 Lecker understands the Constitution as one document containing two separate agreements, introduced by the title “Compact of the apostle, may God pray for him and give him peace, which he drew up between the emigrants (from Mecca) and the helpers (the tribes of Medina), and a muwādaʿa with the Jews.” Muwādaʿa, Lecker explains, means a nonbelligerency treaty, a guarantee of security (amān) in return for cessation of hostilities and cooperation against the enemy.38 Ibn Ishāq’s introduction adds the important detail that the muwādaʿa _ (and compact; ʿahd) with the Jews “allowed them to keep their religion 33

34

35

36 37

38

Michael Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina”: Muhammad’s First Legal Document _ (Princeton, 2004). The two versions, the other one being from Abū ʿUbayd’s Kitāb al Amwāl (see note 40), are conveniently printed together in Lecker’s book. See Muhammad Hamidullah, ed. and trans., The First Written Constitution in the World: An Important Document of the Time of the Holy Prophet (third edition, Lahore, 1981). Donner, Muhammad and the Believers, 72 74. Even such a normally skeptical scholar as Patricia Crone upholds the authenticity of the Constitution. Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity (Cambridge, 1980), 7. See also Donner, Muhammad and the Believers, 72. Lecker, “Constitution of Medina,” 143.

islamic attitudes and policies 105 and property (aqarrahum ʿalā dīnihim wa-amwālihim).” The Constitution itself begins with a cover statement, introducing the first part of the document, which does not concern the Jews: “This is a compact from Muhammad the Prophet between the muʾminūn and the muslimūn of _ Quraysh and Yathrib and those who join them as clients, attach themselves to them and fight the holy war with them.” Lecker identifies the muʾminūn with the Prophet’s own tribe, the Quraysh, along with Arabs of Yathrib-Medina, and the muslimūn (“Muslims”) with other tribes living in the oasis.39 In contrast to the single reference to the Jews in the first twenty-six clauses, where they appear as clients of particular Arab tribes, in the second part they are the main counterparties. Two important clauses at the very beginning whose meaning is disputed form the crux. The first is usually rendered as follows (following Ibn Ishāq’s recension): “The Jews share _ expenses with the believers as long as they are at war. The Jews of Banū ʿAwf are umma maʿa al-muʾminīn,” “an umma (community) with the believers.”40 Almost every scholar takes this to mean that the Jews were initially part of the Muslim community. The second phrase is translated, “the Jews have their religion (dīn) and the Muslims have theirs.” This correlates with the statement in Ibn Ishāq’s introduction, aqarrahum ʿalā dīnihim wa-amwālihim, and should not_be understood otherwise.41 It gives expression to the religious pluralism in Islam mentioned before. 39

40

41

For Donner, in keeping with his main thesis, muʾminūn refers to all believers, including Jews and Christians, while muslimūn refers to the new converts from paganism. Later on the term muslimūn took on the more restrictive meaning of a new faith distinctive from Judaism and Christianity. Donner, Muhammad and the Believers, 57 58, 71 72. Abū ʿUbayd’s recension, in Muhammad Khalīl Harrās, ed., Kitāb al Amwāl (Cairo, 1975), 260 64, has min in place of_ maʿa. Uri Rubin prefers that version and interprets it to mean “umma of (i.e., “consisting of”) believers,” in keeping with Qurʾānic usage of this preposition. “The ‘Constitution of Medina’: Some Notes,” Studia Islamica 62 (1985), 14. The result, however, is the same: the Jews are part of the umma. Moshe Gil believes the “Constitution” is compatible with an unsympathetic, even hostile, attitude on the part of the Prophet toward the Jewish inhabitants of the oasis from virtually the moment he arrived. He therefore vocalizes the word dīn as dayn, “debt,” making it refer not to religious freedom, but to the obligation of the remaining Jews to share military expenses with all other groups, as stipulated in other clauses in the document. Moshe Gil, “The Constitution of Medina: A Reconsideration,” Israel Oriental Studies 4 (1974), 44 66. The article is reprinted with some important changes responding to critics in Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 21 45. Lecker follows other scholars who stand by the translation “religion,” agreeing with Rubin, “The ‘Constitution of Medina,’” 16n44, who opposes Gil’s eccentric interpretation. See the present writer’s review of Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages in The Medieval Review (2005), https://scholarworks .iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/15969.

106 mark r. cohen With some textual support from outside the Constitution, Lecker emends “umma” to “amana” and translates (adopting Abū ʿUbayd’s variant with min in place of maʿa): “the Jews of Banū ʿAwf are secure (amana) from (min) the muʾminūn” (he leaves the last word untranslated). This emendation is orthographically plausible. Combined with a careful logical argument, Lecker’s revisionist interpretation constitutes a bold suggestion. The Constitution, he argues, is consistent with separate nonbelligerency compacts concluded with the three large Jewish tribes shortly after the hijra (thus incidentally explaining their omission from the document), part of a pragmatic policy to assure Jewish loyalty and support in return for their own security and religious freedom.42 While Donner’s theory would strengthen the case that the Prophet meant to be inclusive, incorporating the Jews into the umma of monotheistic believers, on Lecker’s interpretation it is not necessary to conclude that the Jews were part of the community of Islam. Hence, determining the date of the treaty or whether or not the Prophet had at first a “proJewish” policy is asking the wrong question.43 If Lecker’s view is upheld, we would be entitled to conclude that Muhammad’s policy in Medina – as _ distinct from his attitude – did not change from tolerant (in the Constitution of Medina) to intolerant, culminating in the oft-mentioned “break with the Jews.” Rather, his policy, as represented already in the Constitution, was consistent, stemming from a pragmatic decision to achieve mutual nonbelligerency with the Jews and to attain their cooperation in the struggle against Mecca. As part of this policy he granted the Jews security (amān) and religious freedom, which then became standard in subsequent conquest treaties made with native populations.44 As we 42

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Michael Lecker, “Did Muhammad Conclude Treaties with the Jewish Tribes Nadīr, _ Qurayza, and Qaynuqāʿ?” Israel Oriental Studies 17 (1997), 29 36. For another explan _ ation for their exclusion, see Rubin, “The ‘Constitution of Medina,’” 9 10, which argues that the umma constituted a unity of Arabs, including Jewish allies of Arab tribes, based on locality, and that the three major tribes were excluded from the document since they lived outside the central area of Medina, among their date palm groves and near their fortresses. Moshe Gil (see note 41) buttresses his theory that Muhammad had an “anti Jewish” _ policy from the very outset in Medina by dating the “Constitution” before the Battle of Badr, which took place eighteen months after the Prophet’s arrival in the oasis. Milka Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire (Cambridge, 2011), 31 34, claims that the term amān, which does not occur in the Qurʾān, imitates and in effect translates the Greek pistis (equivalent to Latin fides), meaning “protection and assurance of safety,” presumably the term used by conquered people in Byzantine territory in suing the Muslims for peace. Said Arjomand (see note 45) adopts the view of Robert Serjeant, who took the word muʾminūn in the Constitution to be a derivative of the word amān and understood muʾminūn not as “believers,” as it meant later on, but as

islamic attitudes and policies 107 shall see, this set the stage for the full-blown dhimma system governing Muslim/non-Muslim relations throughout the Middle Ages (indeed until it was abolished in the nineteenth century in the Ottoman Empire and the early twentieth century in Morocco; in Yemen it ended only with the mass exodus of Yemenite Jews to Israel in 1950).45 Another way to judge early Islamic policy, and with it the early Islamic attitude toward the Jews, is to examine developments outside of Medina, in other parts of the Arabian Peninsula. To the south, the people of Najrān, a mainly Christian town, sued for peace. As “People of the Book,” they were awarded a treaty by the Prophet granting them security and freedom of religion in exchange for tribute, paid in kind.46 We have already mentioned Khaybar, to the north, where some of the exiled Medinan Jews had settled. There, after a fierce battle, Muhammad _ accepted the inhabitants’ plea for peace, which he granted in return for tribute. Other Arabian settlements where Jews lived, farther north near the border with Byzantium, similarly benefited from peace treaties instead of annihilation or forced conversion.47 This became the pattern throughout the subsequent conquests outside Arabia, whether in towns that surrendered without hostilities or those that surrendered following a battle and siege. If the policy toward idolaters followed the principle “Islam or the

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members of a security pact, to be contrasted with “Muslims.” Attempting to preserve the connotation “believers,” he translates the word “faithful covenanters [under God’s security],” among whom the Jews are to be numbered. Like Lecker, Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 27 (in a paragraph not included in the original article, “The ‘Constitution of Medina,’” 50) states that muʾminūn derives from the word amān and means “those who provide security,” though he does not take the step of emending umma to amana, as does Lecker. He believes that umma simply means “a group or a community” (ibid.). Nor does he claim, as does Lecker, that the second part of the document is a nonbelligerency pact. For a recent discussion of the Constitution of Medina, see Said Amir Arjomand, “The Constitution of Medina: A Sociolegal Interpretation of Muhammad’s Acts of Foundation of the Umma,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 41 (2009), 555 75. Arjomand accepts Lecker’s subdivision of the documents, however, though he tentatively suggests subdividing Lecker’s second part in two and considers the third section to be a supplement, a separate agreement, or “defense pact,” with the client Jewish tribe of Banū Qurayza, called “the Jews of Aws” in the text; Arjomand, “The _ If the third section constitutes a separate agreement, in Constitution of Medina,” 560. Arjomand’s opinion (which differs from Lecker’s), at least one of the main Jewish tribes was originally included in the umma. He asserts, though, that “[t]he critical division is between the first two deeds,” i.e., in agreement with Lecker’s subdivision. Ibid., 561. Al Balādhūrī, Futūh al Buldān, ed. Michael J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1866), 63 68; Philip K. Hitti, trans., The_ Origins of the Islamic State (Beirut, 1966), 1:98 101. Fred M. Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981), 76.

108 mark r. cohen sword” (as in Qurʾān 9:1–28), a more realistic, and more tolerant policy underlay relations with the non-Muslim People of the Book. THE DHIMMA POLICY

The foundations laid in Medina and elaborated elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula during Muhammad’s lifetime paved the way for a policy toward _ during the first great wave of conquests in the the peoples subjugated Christian Byzantine and Zoroastrian Sasanian empires after the Prophet’s death in 632.48 This policy was based on dhimma, or “protection,” a word that appears a handful of times in the Qurʾān and is later found in the phrase “the dhimma of God,” which designates a covenantal relationship between God and man; it occurs in that sense, among other places, in the Constitution of Medina.49 The policy grew out of the accommodationist side of the Prophet’s attitude toward non-Muslim People of the Book in the Qurʾān and also conformed with his pragmatic policy of security (amān) and free exercise of religion in return for loyalty – established with respect to the Jews and then extended to other Peoples of the Book. Pragmatism, rather than protracted warfare, dictated policy toward the vast population of Zoroastrians as well. Mentioned only once in the Qurʾān (Arabic mājūs, Qurʾān 22:17), the Zoroastrians possessed a revealed book, the Avesta, and this included them as protected People of the Book despite their seemingly idolatrous worship of fire.50 The evolving policy is clearly evident in the conquest treaties, where the word dhimma occurs in the context of the security and freedom of religion offered by the Muslims to the conquered peoples in return for nonbelligerency and the payment of tribute.51 The conquered non-Muslims 48

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Lecker (“Constitution of Medina,” 146) notes that the variant dhimma occurs in two late (fourteenth century) recensions of the document, which could mean that later author ities recognized that there was a connection between the granting of security in the Constitution and the policy based on security that became standard following Muhammad’s death. See _the important article by Mahmoud Ayoub, “Dhimmah in Qur’ān and Hadith,” Arab Studies Quarterly 5 (Spring 1993), 172 82, reprinted in Robert Hoyland, ed., Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society (Aldershot, 2004), 25 35. Jamsheed Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society (New York, 1997). The authenticity of the conquest treaties, like the biographies of the Prophet and kindred literature, has evoked skepticism, but the very variety of details bespeaks authenticity. See Albrecht Noth, “Die literarische überlieferten Verträge der Eroberungzeit als historische Quellen für die Behandlung der unterworfenen Nicht Muslims durch ihre neuen muslimischen Oberherren,” in Tilman Nagel et al., eds., Studien zum Minderheitenproblem im Islam (Bonn, 1973), 1:282 304, regarding the

islamic attitudes and policies 109 eventually assumed the title ahl al-dhimma, “protected people,” dhimmīs for short.52 The payment of a lump sum tribute upon the surrender of a town was later converted into a permanent, annual poll tax levied on each non-Muslim individual. This was construed as a fulfillment of the command of Qurʾān 9:29. The jizya was considered a kind of protection money, and dhimmīs remitted it on the assumption that it would guarantee their security.53 Pragmatism had its advantages for both sides. The Arabian Muslims were desert fighters, sweeping from town to town, conquering one after the other, with neither the time, the inclination, nor the administrative skills to govern them. Here and there they established separate garrison settlements in which tribes managed their own lives according to the new rule of Islam. It proved convenient and politic to leave indigenous populations alone and allow religious communities to govern themselves. Thus, the older warrant for religious freedom and amān came to include a large measure of communal autonomy. Such autonomy had for centuries been one of the hallmarks of policy toward the Jews under Persian,

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unadulterated authenticity of at least some of the treaties; and Wadād al Qādī, _ “Madkhal ilā dirāsāt ʿuhūd al sulh al islāmiyya zamān al futūh,” in Muhammad _ Proceedings of the Second _ Symposium _ (4th A. Bakhit and Ihsān ʿAbbās, _ eds., Conference) on the _ History of Bilād al Shām during the Early Muslim Period up to 40 ah /640 ad (Amman, 1987), 2:193 269. To my mind the case has been settled by Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, chapter 1. Taking the longue durée approach, she shows that the treaties substantially resemble treaties with con quered peoples in Greco Roman and Iranian antiquity and even have distant echoes in the dim ancient Near Eastern past. The chief proponent of the “neo lachrymose school,” Bat Yeʾor [pseudonym of Gisèle Littman], has made famous the term “dhimmitude” to describe only the humiliating restrictions imposed by Islam on Jews and Christians and summed up in the Pact of ʿUmar (see below). This accompanies her story of one long history of persecution of Jews and Christians in Muslim Arab lands since the rise of Islam. Illustrative of her many books is The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam; trans. David Maisel, Paul Fenton (document section), and David Littman (Rutherford, NJ, 1985), originally published in 1980 in French with a title more revealing of the author’s tendentiousness, Le dhimmi: profil de l’opprimé en Orient et en Afrique du Nord depuis la conquête arabe (Paris, 1980). See also her Les chrétientés d’Orient entre jihād et dhimmitude: VIIe XXe siècle (Paris, 1991); trans. Miriam Kochan and David Littman, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: from Jihad to Dhimmitude: Seventh Twentieth Century (Madison, NJ, 1996). See Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 70 72, where the expression yahqin dimāʾhu, _ “spares his life” (ibid., 230n123), echoes phraseology in Islamic peace treaties. See Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 33 (ʿalā haqn dimāʾihim). For various _ Musulmans, 264 66. juristic definitions of jizya, see Fattal, Le statut légal des non

110 mark r. cohen Greco-Roman, and Christian regimes.54 The impact this de facto continuity had on Jewish community life in the Islamic world may be found elsewhere in this volume. Furthermore, the conquering Arabs were ill-equipped to administer their own new state apparatus, and so non-Muslim self-government on the local level was matched by the service of non-Muslims in the Islamic bureaucracy. Dhimmī employment in Muslim government under the first ruling dynasty, the Umayyads of Syria (661–750), had the odd result that Greek continued to be used as the language of administration for a considerable time in conquered Byzantine territories. Even when Muslims began to assume bureaucratic control of the empire, dhimmīs continued to serve in positions of authority, some of them rising very high at court and in the administration. This placed non-Muslims in situations in which they exercised power over Muslims, much to the consternation of pious rulers, Muslim clerics, and Muslims who coveted such high rank for themselves.55 The pragmatic policy of the Arabs during the conquests, a prudent alternative to stretching thin their relatively small forces in fights to the bitter end, was later applied to people who were neither monotheists nor People of the Book, such as Hindus in some parts of India. This constituted a strategic move to subdue the subcontinent without having to massacre or forcibly convert all its inhabitants. Nonetheless, the vast losses of Hindus in combat left deep scars on Hindu memory, and the losses

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On dhimmī judicial autonomy and its limits, see Fattal, Le statut légal des non Musulmans, chapter 8, translated into English in Robert Hoyland, ed., Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society (Aldershot, 2004), 83 102. See also Néophyte Edelby, “L’autonomie législative des chrétiens en terre d’Islam,” Archives d’histoire du droit oriental 5 (Brussels, 1950 51), 307 51, translated in Hoyland, ed., Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, 37 82. An early example is the infamous decree of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al Mutawakkil in 850, rebuking governors in the provinces for employing non Muslims in positions of author ity over Muslims. See the translation in Bernard Lewis, ed. and trans., Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople (New York, 1974), 1:225 (no. 78). This is different from the more often cited decree of the same caliph imposing stringent limitations on the non Muslims along the lines of the Pact of ʿUmar. Ibid., 224 25 (no. 77). On non Muslims serving in Muslim government offices, the normative prohibition compared with the abundant evidence from historical sources of rampant overstepping of the prohibition, see Fattal, Le statut légal des non Musulmans, 236 63; and Luke B. Yarbrough, Friends of the Emir: Non Muslim State Officials in Premodern Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2019), who traces the attitude (he calls it “discourse”) concerning non Muslims serving in high positions in the Islamic state from earliest times and, among other things, presents an important new analysis and interpretation of the much discussed edict and decree of caliph al Mutawakkil.

islamic attitudes and policies 111 through conversion have had their unhappy consequences on the Asian subcontinent to this very day. Jews were inhabitants of many of the conquered towns in both the Byzantine and Persian empires, sometimes present in large numbers. But they were subalterns and thus do not figure as parties to the conquest agreements with the Muslims. Scholarly attempts to inflate their political and military role in stemming the tide of the Arab-Muslim conquests are less than convincing.56 At most, they might be mentioned for some other purpose, for instance, in the case of Alexandria, where, according to the Coptic bishop John of Nikiu, writing at the end of the seventh century, the agreement stipulated that “the Jews were to be permitted to remain in the city.”57 The more famous case is the treaty with Jerusalem in 638, which specifically excludes Jews from residing there, evidently a concession to the local Christians to maintain the status quo ante in the Byzantine period.58 Other than that, the Jews were subject to the same terms as the majority conquered population as detailed in the conquest treaties. In one case, this is stated explicitly.59 They paid the same poll tax, received the same protection in return for loyalty and proper subordination, and benefited from the same freedom of religion and communal autonomy. Unlike the days of Medina, where Jews were the only representatives of the nonMuslim People of the Book and occupied center stage in evolving Islamic policy, now Jews were but one dhimmī group among others, at least two in the former Byzantine Empire and sometimes, as in Iran, three. Islamic policy toward the Jews was, therefore, diffused over the entire protected non-Muslim class. We may judge Jewish reactions to the conquest from several early Hebrew Palestinian apocalyptic midrashim and liturgical poems alluding to the advent of Islam. These texts express with cautious optimism the 56

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Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 83 100. See the present writer’s review in The Medieval Review (see note 41). Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, chapter 1, esp. 52 53. Al Tabarī, Tārīkh al Rusul wa l Mulūk, ed. Muhammad Abū al Fadl Ibrāhīm (Cairo, _ (Albany, 1992), 1962), 3:609; trans. Yohanan Friedmann, The _History of al Tabarī 191 92; cf. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 51 56. See also Milka Levy Rubin, “Were the Jews Prohibited from Settling in Jerusalem following the Arab Conquest? On the Authenticity of al Tabarī’s Jerusalem Surrender Treaty,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009), 63 81; and Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 52 53. Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 53: “This is an agreement (kitāb) given by Habīb b. Maslama to the Christian inhabitants of Dabīl, to its Magian [inhabitants], and to its Jewish [inhabitants].”

112 mark r. cohen hope that, in defeating the persecuting Christian-Byzantine ruler, the Muslims heralded the imminent arrival of the messianic era.60 Not surprisingly, the fierce persecution of the Jews in Visigothic Spain at the end of the seventh century similarly disposed the Jews to look favorably upon the Muslims when they crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in 711 and conquered the Iberian Peninsula.61 For Oriental Christians in the Byzantine Empire, by contrast, the coming of Islam meant the abrupt end of Christian rule and a considerable shock, though one may imagine that, with the passage of time, many among them who had been considered members of heretical sects by the Orthodox Church and even persecuted found Islam’s policy of protection an improvement. Under Islam they were all Christian and dhimmīs, entitled to the same protection and religious autonomy. As with the Jews, there was some ruminating over the meaning of the Arab conquests for Christian apocalyptic expectations for the end-time.62 Nestorians and other Christian denominations in the conquered Sasanian lands (as well as members of the Zoroastrian lower classes) were – like the Jews – already inured to second-class status and to the payment of a poll tax.63 In the Islamic world, nothing along the lines of the specific “Jewry law” of Christendom developed. Under Christian rule, Jewry law focused attention upon the Jews as the single nonconforming group within the population (apart from Christian heretics) and eroded the protected status of religio licita that they had enjoyed under pagan Roman law. In Islamic law, Jews were considered part of the dhimmī class as a whole. When violations of what we may call “dhimmī law” occurred, it was the dhimmīs who were condemned, usually Christians and Jews together, and, where they were present, the Zoroastrians as well. A policy focused on the Jews 60

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Yosef Yahalom, Piyyut u mesiut be shilhe ha zeman ha ʿatiq [Poetry and society in _ Jewish Galilee of late_ antiquity] (Tel Aviv, 1999), 93 106. Y. Even Shemuel, ed., Midreshei Geʾulah (second edition, Jerusalem, 1954). Many of the Jewish sources are excerpted in English in Robert Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, 1997). Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, trans. Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz Klein (Philadelphia, 1973), 1:15 16. Sidney H. Griffith, The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam (Princeton, 2008), 32 35; John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination (New York, 2002), chapter 3. For Syriac apocalyptic responses to the Islamic conquests, see also Gerrit J. Reinink, ed., Syriac Christianity under Late Sasanian and Early Islamic Rule (Aldershot, 2005). See Michael Morony, “Religious Communities in Late Sasanian and Early Muslim Iraq,” reprinted in Robert Hoyland, ed., Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, 1 23.

islamic attitudes and policies 113 qua Jews did not exist, and this had considerable importance for the relationship between Muslims and Jews. SOCIOLOGICAL FACTORS

Islamic policy toward non-Muslims in the conquered territories was not, however, dictated simply by pragmatic considerations. What we might call sociological factors also played a role. The heterogeneous mixture in the Islamic empire of non-Muslim peoples professing a variety of religions – a veritable pluralism of infidels – was complemented by a mixture of ethnic Muslim or Islamized groups. There were the Arabs, of course, but also Muslim Iranians. Muslim Berbers populated North Africa. In Spain the Jews lived alongside Islamized Slavs, Christian converts, as well as Hispano-Romans and descendants of the Germanic Goths. Turkic peoples began to arrive in Iraq as military slaves as early as the ninth century. These and others created a richly hued mosaic of peoples and religions, in which the Jews constituted just one group out of many. In this society, different religions and ethnic groups lived side by side, aware of their differences but coexisting in a more or less live-and-let-live atmosphere, each recognizing its place in the hierarchy. Within this hierarchy, necessarily based on religion, Jews and Christians were at the bottom; Muslims were on top.64 Most of the time, however, as long as everyone abided by the rules, people could and more often than not did relate to one another on a day-to-day basis with relatively little friction. In places where religion mattered very little, notably the urban marketplace, confessional hierarchy was nearly completely set aside; the main thing that governed relationships was the market economy. Jews and Muslims did business together, even formed partnerships, ignoring a rule of Islamic law that required Muslims to have control of affairs, lest the non-Muslim partner use the Muslim’s invested funds to purchase items forbidden to Muslims, such as pork.65 Jews, for their part, could ignore an old talmudic prohibition against partnerships with Gentiles. That precept based itself, in part, on the fear that a Jew might take an oath by one of his partner’s pagan gods. Since rabbinic opinion recognized Muslims as bona 64

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My ideas about hierarchy, along with marginality and ethnicity, as heuristic concepts illuminating the status of Jews in the Islamic world, are developed in Under Crescent and Cross, chapter 6. Yohanan Friedmann touches on hierarchy in Islam in Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, 38. An important book on hierarchy in Islam is Louise Marlow, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (New York, 1997). On the freedom of the marketplace and the few restrictions placed upon non Muslims, see Fattal, Le statut légal des non Musulmans, chapter 4.

114 mark r. cohen fide monotheists, this was rendered a nonissue in medieval halakhah. Moreover, Jews and Muslims could relate to one another as near equals because the marketplace was governed by a shared “custom of the merchants.” Muslim and Jewish legists found ways of assimilating these customs into Islamic and Jewish law, respectively, in order to keep apace of developments that had nothing to do with religious principles.66 Apart from international trade, Jews and other dhimmīs could be found in nearly all categories of Islamic society, working alongside Muslims who outranked them by virtue of religion. They functioned as artisans, government clerks, and in a number of other professions common to Muslims. Informally, the educated elite shared intellectual pursuits such as philosophy with Muslim counterparts, practiced medicine in interdenominational settings, and ministered to the sick in the same hospitals. In these endeavors, Jews and Muslims manifested “loyalties of category,” to use terminology coined by Roy Mottahedeh, that straddled the Muslim/nonMuslim divide and mitigated the discrimination inherent to the everpresent religious hierarchy.67 For all the reasons discussed above, it is not surprising that the Jews only rarely suffered qua Jews in the Islamic world. The well-known persecutions of the Middle Ages, such as the destructive assault on dhimmīs and their houses of worship by the Fātimid caliph al-Ḥākim (r. 996–1021), were _ and not at Christians or Jews alone. The aimed at non-Muslims as a group same is true of the devastating conquest of North Africa and Muslim Spain in the 1140s by the puritanical Almohads, in which thousands of Jews and Christians were killed and thousands of others converted to Islam under duress or fled. The Almohads targeted lax Muslims as well. An exception proving the rule is the notorious “pogrom” against the Jewish community of Granada in 1066, in which the males of the community were killed and the women and children enslaved as punishment for the allegedly haughty behavior of the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrella. The massacre followed episodes of court intrigue in which Ibn Naghrella himself took part, earning enemies, but the assassination and the horrific killings themselves were apparently inspired by a virulent anti-Jewish poem about the evils wrought by the high-handed Jewish vizier and, by extension, the entire community. This tragic episode, exceptional as it was in targeting the Jews per se, is regularly cited by proponents of the 66

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See my Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World (Philadelphia, 2017). Also Gideon Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law: A Comparative Study of Custom during the Gaonic Period (Cambridge, MA, 2003). See Roy P. Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, 1980), 108 15; Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 114.

islamic attitudes and policies 115 “neo-lachrymose conception of Jewish-Arab history” as an example of medieval Islamic antisemitism. In reality, it represents an extreme instance in which Muslims retaliated against dhimmīs for exceeding the accepted norms of their hierarchical relationship by exercising power in a way some Muslims considered treacherous – this indeed is one of the themes in that poem.68 In other instances when Jews allegedly violated dhimmī law the infractions were often investigated with judicial standards of fairness.69 THE PACT OF ʿUMAR

The Granada episode brings us to the Pact of ʿUmar,70 the most important statement of Islamic policy toward the dhimmīs. Notably, the Pact guarantees non-Muslims the very same amān that underlies the nonbelligerency treaty in the Constitution of Medina, and is in direct continuity with the early policy pioneered by the Prophet and developed further in the conquest treaties. There are many questions concerning the text of the document: Who wrote it? Was it really ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb, the second caliph (r. 634–644) and Companion of the Prophet, or _ _perhaps ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (r. 717–720), who was known for his piety and rigorous enforcement of Islamic law? What is the provenance and purpose of the stipulations? Why does the document take the strange form of a letter written by the conquered non-Muslim people themselves and listing in detail the harsh conditions of their subordination, rather than the form of an agreement 68

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Among the many discussions of this episode is Moshe Perlmann, “Eleventh Century Andalusian Authors on the Jews of Granada,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 18 (1948 49), 843 61. The poem is handily accessible in Bernard Lewis’s translation in Olivia Remie Constable, ed., Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources (Philadelphia, 1997), 96 99; excerpts from the main Arabic and Jewish sources about the event, translated by Amin T. Tibi and Gerson D. Cohen, respectively, are also found there. The Hebrew source, like the Arabic chronicle and the Arabic poem, share the view that Joseph acted high handedly while in office. See also Yarbrough, Friends of the Emir, 188 89. See Richard J. H. Gottheil, “An Eleventh Century Document concerning a Cairo Synagogue,” Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 19 (1907), 467 39; Mark R. Cohen, “Jews in the Mamluk Environment: The Crisis of 1442 (A Geniza Study),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47 (1984), 425 48; see also Marina Rustow, “At the Limits of Communal Autonomy: Jewish Bids for Government Interference,” Mamlūk Studies Review 13 (2009), 133 59. See Mark R. Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar: A Literary Historical Study,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 23 (1999), 100 62, and other literature cited there. To this should be added Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, chapter 2.

116 mark r. cohen composed by the conquering caliph or general, in the normal manner of conquest treaties? Because of its central importance in Islamic dhimmī policy in the Middle Ages, we give the text here in its entirety, divided by the present writer into sections for greater clarity. Like the actual conquest treaties and for the same reasons, the many versions of the Pact of ʿUmar do not feature the Jews as the petitioners (it is usually Christians). But the Jews were nonetheless subject to the same rules. ʿAbd al Rahmān b. Ghanm related: When ʿUmar b. al Khattāb, may God be pleased with_ him, made peace with the Christian inhabitants of_ _Syria, we wrote to him as follows: Cover Letter In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. This is a letter to the servant of God, ʿUmar, the Commander of the Faithful, from the Christians of such and such city. The Letter When you came against us, we asked you for a guarantee of protection (amān) for ourselves, our offspring, our property, and the people of our religious community (milla), and we undertook the following obligations toward you, namely: • We shall not build in our cities or in their vicinity new monasteries, churches, hermitages, or monks’ cells, nor shall we repair, by night or day, any of them that have fallen into ruin or that are located in the quarters of the Muslims. • We shall keep our gates wide open for passersby and travelers. • We shall provide three days’ food and lodging to any Muslims who pass our way. • We shall not give shelter in our churches or in our homes to any spy, nor hide him from the Muslims. • We shall not teach our children the Qurʾān. • We shall not hold public religious ceremonies. • We shall not seek to proselytize anyone. • We shall not prevent any of our kin from embracing Islam if they so desire. • We shall show deference to the Muslims and shall rise from our seats when they wish it. • We shall not attempt to resemble the Muslims in any way with regard to their dress, as, for example, with the qalansuwa [a conical cap], the turban, footwear, or parting of the hair. • We shall not speak as they do, nor shall we adopt their kunyas [honorific bynames]. • We shall not ride on saddles. • We shall not wear swords or bear weapons of any kind, or even carry them on our persons.

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• We shall not engrave Arabic inscriptions on our seals. • We shall not sell alcoholic beverages. • We shall dress in our traditional fashion wherever we may be, and we shall bind the zunnār [a special belt] around our waists. • We shall not display our crosses or our books anywhere in the roads or markets of the Muslims. • We shall only beat the clappers in our churches very quietly. • We shall not raise our voices in our church services, or in the presence of Muslims. • We shall not go outside on Palm Sunday or Easter, nor shall we raise our voices in our funeral processions. • We shall not display lights in any of the roads of the Muslims or in the marketplaces. • We shall not come near them with our funeral processions (or: we shall not bury our dead near the Muslims). • We shall not take slaves who have been allotted to the Muslims. • We shall not build our homes higher than theirs. Amendment Clause When I brought the letter to ʿUmar, may God be pleased with him, he added: “We shall not strike any Muslim.” Forfeiture Clause We accept these conditions for ourselves and for the members of our religious community, and in return we are to be given protection (amān). If we in any way violate these conditions that we have accepted and for which we stand surety, we forfeit our covenant of protection (dhimma) and shall become liable to the penalties for rebelliousness and sedition. Confirmation Clause Then ʿUmar, may God be pleased with him, wrote to him (ʿAbd al Rahmān b. Ghanm): “Confirm what they asked, but add two clauses, which I _make conditional upon them in addition to those which they have made conditional upon themselves. They are: ‘They shall not buy anyone made prisoner by the Muslims,’ and ‘Whoever strikes a Muslim with deliberate intent shall forfeit the protection of this pact.’”71

In an important article, Albrecht Noth persuasively argued that many of the clauses in the Pact reflect the early conquest period and that, in its 71

The translation is based on those of Lewis, ed. and trans., Islam, 2:217 19; and Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Sourcebook (Philadelphia, 1979), 157 58.

118 mark r. cohen original context, it was not devised to humiliate, let alone persecute, nonMuslims. Rather, it was meant to erect boundaries differentiating between a tiny Muslim minority and the vast majority of conquered non-Muslim peoples. In order to strengthen their own identity, the Muslims needed to distinguish themselves from the local populations, to put the non-Muslims in their humble place, and to insure they remained in the low rank to which they had been assigned by religion.72 The need for such a system of differentiation would have increased in places where Muslims lived among non-Muslims, whether in conquered towns where treaties had originally guaranteed the inhabitants substantial liberties, or where non-Muslims resided in Muslim garrison settlements.73 As the number of Muslims grew through conversion, these neophytes would have searched for ways to strengthen their new identity and reinforce their newfound superior status by humbling followers of their former religion, perhaps even exerting pressure on them to convert. The process would have followed the “curve” of conversion that led to Muslims becoming the majority, in many places by the tenth century, approximately the period in which the Pact of ʿUmar was evolving toward canonized form.74 It is logical that these former Christians or Zoroastrians, many of whom now walked the corridors of Muslim power, would have looked to their own background for devising these rules. The limits placed on houses of worship and other religious practices recall similar laws in the legal codes of the Roman-Byzantine emperors Theodosius and Justinian in the fifth and sixth centuries, respectively, and were likely adopted by Christian converts to Islam serving in government, who wished not to be confused with their former coreligionists.75 This would explain the contradiction with the free practice of religion the Muslims guaranteed in the conquest treaties. Other stipulations clearly come directly from those same treaties, such as the conditions requiring the protected subjects not to shelter spies, or to accommodate Muslim travelers for three days. Many provisions have the 72

73

74

75

Albrecht Noth, “Abgrenzungsprobleme zwischen Muslimen und Nicht Muslimen: Die ‘Bedingungen ʿUmars (aš šurūt al ʿumariyya)’ unter einem anderen Aspekt gelesen,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 9 (1987), 290 315; English translation in Hoyland, ed., Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, 103 24. See the discussion of the juristic debate over the status of non Muslims living in garrison towns and the related question of the status of the conquest treaties where Muslims lived in the conquered towns themselves in Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 63 68. Richard Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge, MA, 1979). This is the view of Fattal, Le statut légal des non Musulmans, 67.

islamic attitudes and policies 119 purpose of making it easy for Muslims to identify non-Muslims, and thus to know how to interact with them. Such provisions include the dress regulations; for example, the clause about the special belt, the zunnār, which Noth showed philologically did not impose a new mark of dishonor but required the continuation of wearing an item of clothing Christians had already been accustomed to wear – indeed it was a belt of honor among soldiers. Milka Levy-Rubin argues persuasively that many of the regulations imposed upon the non-Muslims in the Pact, in particular those regarding special clothing, honorific names, outward display of religion, showing deference to Muslims, and bearing arms, are based not on Byzantine laws regarding the Jews (others, she concedes, are), but on Sasanian models. Among Zoroastrian Iranians, such rules had supported a rigid, discriminatory social hierarchy, separating the privileged classes from the lowly farmers, artisans, and tradesmen. Levy-Rubin claims – not conclusively in my opinion – that the regulations in the Pact of ʿUmar adopted from Sasanian practice are similarly discriminatory and humiliating, rather than, as Noth claims, simply a means of differentiating between Muslims and non-Muslims.76 Whether adopted from Byzantine or Zoroastrian precedents, the rules embody the same characteristic triumphalism wielded by all monotheistic religions over the ones they replaced. Furthermore – and this is an important corrective to the view that the rules were fundamentally oppressive, if not persecutory – they served as a means to create and preserve a natural hierarchy, natural in the sense that it characterized Western monotheistic societies in premodern times in general. In the Islamic hierarchy, however, everyone had a rank, including non-Muslims. They occupied a low rank, to be sure, but a secure one nonetheless. As humiliating as the rules were in practice (when successfully enforced), Jews and other nonMuslim People of the Book seem to have resigned themselves to the discriminating differentiation because it guaranteed their security and because they, especially the religious leaders, wished to maintain a separate identity for their own communities.77 This was “toleration” in the medieval sense of the word. The subjugated people may have dreamed of a reversal of the hierarchy, in history or in the messianic era, but for the time 76 77

Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 136 42. See Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, chapter 6. A very good study of the attitudes of Jewish and Christian religious elites toward maintaining separate identities for their communities, with particular reference to legal jurisdiction, may be found in Uriel I. Simonsohn, A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (Philadelphia, 2011).

120 mark r. cohen being, generally speaking, they bore their fate with a certain amount of equanimity. Levy-Rubin brings new evidence of Muslim rulers attempting to enforce the regulations of the Pact during the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid periods.78 The evidence, however, does not necessarily indicate the extent to which the enforcement was successful, that is, the extent to which dhimmīs and others actually complied. Instances of violence against nonMuslims for violating the laws are evidence not of compliance, but of precisely the opposite: they indicate consistent evasion. My contention, along with other scholars with whom Levy-Rubin disagrees, is that the many attempts to enforce the rules show how often and to what extent they were observed in the breach. This must mean that local and even central authorities, as well as local Muslim populations, exercised a rather laissez-faire attitude toward the official policy dictated by Islamic law. Moreover, a certain permeability of the boundaries separating Muslims from their non-Muslim neighbors was possible with general acquiescence on both sides, especially absent the acute religious tension that accompanied the theologically tinged hierarchy of Christianity and Judaism. Attested in Muslim and Jewish literary sources and especially in the documents of the Cairo Genizah, we see this at work in the economic, social, cultural, and even political realms, where, despite their marginality, Jews regularly crossed boundaries, coexisting on a daily basis with Muslims with more or less minimal conflict. This is what made it possible for both Muslims and nonMuslims to ignore many of the rules of the Pact of ʿUmar, much to the objection, of course, of Islamic clerics, for whom this constituted a violation of the hierarchy and an insult to the Prophet and to God. Their criticism targeted Muslim authorities who disregarded the humbling restrictions and employed Jews and Christians in government offices, as much as they chastised the Jews and Christians themselves. The Islamic model of hierarchy was flexible, and to a certain extent this flexibility muted the stipulations of the Pact, which, as time passed, had become truly humiliating.79 The earliest dateable version of the standard Pact as we know it, with the letter-form and the characteristic components, comes from the middle of the ninth century.80 A short Arabic treatise from the first half of the tenth century called “Stipulations of the Christians” discusses hadīths containing _ 78 79

80

Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, chapter 4. See the discussion in Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, part 4, drawing inspiration from Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System, trans. Mark Sainsbury (Chicago, 1970), and from other social anthropologists and sociologists. See Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar,” 110 16, 119 20; and Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al Kharāj, 65.

islamic attitudes and policies 121 four distinct versions of the “Pact,” an indication that it had been in existence for some time.81 Once the Pact achieved canonical status, it became part of the holy law of Islam, the sharīʿa, and as such, apart from minor changes or elaborations from time to time, it remained a fixed and stable guide to policy, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by rulers.82 The enigmatic literary form of the Pact is puzzling: a letter composed and presented by the conquered people, imposing upon themselves a seemingly draconian regimen of restrictive stipulations. Instances of conquered peoples suing for peace and security by presenting a letter to the Muslims are found elsewhere.83 It stands to reason that people would have wanted treaties similar to ones with which they were familiar,84 but not with such damaging conditions as the Pact of ʿUmar. Moreover, the Pact is much more fully developed than the typical conquest treaty, as shown by its literary structure (see the subdivisions). Though a literary fiction, the Pact must nonetheless have been recognized by medieval Muslims as something real from their own experience. Doubtless they took it to be a genuine petition to the conqueror.85 The caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb was a _ _ of the natural choice as recipient of the petition, both because he was one 81 82

83

84

85

Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar,” 110 16. For an episode illustrating the nonarbitrary manner in which the Pact of ʿUmar was applied in a Jewish case from the late Middle Ages, see Cohen, “Jews in the Mamluk Environment.” Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 37 38, to which one can add the treaty with Najrān. The account of its subjugation is found in Balādhurī’s Futūh al _ to Buldān. See The Origins of the Islamic State, trans. Philip K. Hitti, 1:98: “There came the Prophet the military chief and the civil chief, delegated by the people of Najrān in al Yaman, and asked for terms (al sulh) which they made on behalf of the people of Najrān” _ this _ in “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar.” (emphasis added). I failed to note Levy Rubin makes this cogent point in chapter 1 of Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire. See Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar.” Milka Levy Rubin makes the argument that the Pact as we have it was but one of several alternative documents regulating the conduct of non Muslim subjects; some were absorbed into the Pact proper. Levy Rubin, “Shurut ʿUmar and Its Alternatives: The Legal Debate on the Status of the Dhimmis,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 30 (2005), 170 206, incorporated into chapter 2 of her Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire. A similar conclusion was reached independently by Daniel Miller, “From Catalogue to Canon: The Rise of the Petition to ʿUmar among Legal Traditions Governing Non Muslims in Medieval Islamicate Societies” (PhD diss., University of Missouri Kansas City, 2000). This idea about alternative documents existing at the same time has much merit, but it hinges in part on whether a chapter in al Shāfiʿīs law book, Kitāb al Umm, from around 800, represents one of those alternative documents, or simply shows awareness of provisions in the actual Pact as it was evolving. Similarly, a conquest treaty for Syria attributed to the general Abū ʿUbayda ibn al Jarrāh and preserved _ in Abū Yūsuf’s book on taxation, Kitāb al Kharāj, itemizes many of the stipulations found in the actual Pact. It may be an “alternative” to the Pact, as Levy Rubin argues, but it also

122 mark r. cohen “founding fathers” of the Islamic polity and because he was the caliph during the first wave of conquests outside the Arabian Peninsula. As in Islamic administrative procedure generally, the ruler reviews the petition, decides whether to accept it as is, to modify it (here, ʿUmar adds two stipulations), or to reject it. If he approves, he returns it to the petitioners in the form of a decree. The answer to the question who wrote the Pact of ʿUmar is, on the face of it, the conquered parties, but of course authorship was placed in the hands of the Muslim rulers themselves. By placing the stipulations in the mouths of the dhimmīs, the Muslims strengthened their case for enforcing them. Moreover, by transmitting the text, initially at least, in the form of a hadīth, the document acquired _ the weighty authority of an account transmitted faithfully from earliest times. The all-important jizya was also omitted, since that was clearly Qurʾānic and did not result from a caliph’s ruling.86 Although the annual poll tax was burdensome for the Jewish poor (even when it was lightened by charitable subsidies from the community),87 it functioned as a kind of guarantee of security.88 Likewise, the dhimma system worked tolerably well most of the time, imparting a sense of security for non-Muslims and integration into society. When from time to time the system broke down and Jews (usually along with Christians) suffered from extreme discrimination, even physical violence and forced conversion, they understood this as a temporary lapse of the dhimma system (only on rare occasions lasting many years) and counted on an eventual return to normalcy. That is why, unlike their Ashkenazic brethren in Northern Europe, subjects of the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history,” they preserved no collective memory of persecution.89 A general feeling of security most of the time made possible the remarkable immersion of Jews in the culture of Arab-Islamic society during the Islamic High Middle Ages, described in subsequent chapters of this volume. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bat Yeʾor [pseud.]. The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam, trans. David Maisel, Paul Fenton (document section), and David Littman (Rutherford, NJ, 1985).

86 87

88

could simply be dependent upon that evolving document. Levy Rubin, Non Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire, 70 75. Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar,” 129 30. Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, 2005), 235. 89 See note 53. On this point, see Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, chapter 10.

islamic attitudes and policies 123 Cohen, Mark R. Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994; new edition with new introduction and afterword by the author, 2008). “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar: A Literary-Historical Study,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 23 (1999), 100–62. Maimonides and the Merchants: Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World (Philadelphia, 2017). Fattal, Antoine. Le statut légal des non-Musulmans en pays d’Islam (Beirut, 1958). Friedmann, Yohanan. Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge, 2003). Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992). Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004). Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). Jews and Arabs: A Concise History of Their Social and Cultural Relations (reprint, Mineola, NY, 2005). Hoyland, Robert, ed. Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society (Aldershot, 2004). Lecker, Michael. The “Constitution of Medina”: Muhammad’s First Legal _ Document (Princeton, 2004). Levy-Rubin, Milka. Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire (Cambridge, 2011). Libson, Gideon. Jewish and Islamic Law: A Comparative Study of Custom during the Gaonic Period (Cambridge, MA, 2003). Mottahedeh, Roy P. Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, 1980). Rustow, Marina. “At the Limits of Communal Autonomy: Jewish Bids for Government Interference,” Mamlūk Studies Review 13 (2009), 133–59. Simonsohn, Uriel I. A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (Philadelphia, 2011). Vajda, Georges. “Juifs et Musulmans selon le Hadīt,” Journal Asiatique 229 _ (1937), 57–127. Yarbrough, Luke. Friends of the Emir: Non-Muslim State Officials in Premodern Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2019).

b. REGIONAL SURVEYS

chapter 4

THE MAGHRIB AND EGYPT m e n a h e m b e n s a s s o n and od ed z i ng er

INTRODUCTION

The Jewish communities of Egypt and North Africa are arguably the best-documented Jewish communities in the medieval Islamic world (with the possible exception of those of Palestine). The riches of the genizot of Cairo and geonic responsa open unparalleled vistas for the study of Jewish life in these regions and attest to the strong links between them. As explored further below, Egypt and North Africa shared a common orientation toward the Mediterranean and were tied by a vibrant maritime and overland trade. In 969, the dynasty that had ruled over the central Maghrib from the beginning of the century conquered Egypt and subsequently proclaimed this victory by establishing its new capital in it (Cairo, Arabic al-Qāhira, “the victorious”). The transfer of the religious, military, and administrative center of the empire from the Maghrib to Egypt constituted another strong connection between the two regions. The combination of these commercial and political ties brought about a substantial migration and settlement of Maghribī Jews to Egypt, a process that further bonded the regions together and proved decisive in shaping their Jewish communities. THE MAGHRIB AS A GEOPOLITICAL UNIT*

Derived from the word for the West – the setting sun – the Maghrib sits in opposition to the rising sun of the East – the Mashriq or the Levant. The Maghrib refers to the region of North Africa stretching from the southern shores of the Mediterranean to the Atlas Mountains in the south; and from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Barqa, Libya (ancient Cyrenaica). It includes the regions of Tripolitania, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. Partially isolated from the rest of the continent by the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara desert, the inhabitants of the northern parts of the region * This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 2087/18).

127

128 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger were the Berbers. Berber and – later – Phoenician and Carthaginian settlements were centered in the Gulf of Tunis (Carthage, Utica, Tunisia) along the North African littoral, between the Pillars of Hercules and the Libyan coast east of ancient Cyrenaica. Roman defeat of Carthage in 206 bce led to the establishment of the province of Africa (Africa Proconsularis), which in turn yielded to Barbarian invasions in the fifth century. Barbarian Vandals established their capital at Carthage in 430 ce, and a century later, the Byzantines defeated the Vandals and ruled the region for 150 years.1 Among the autochthonic elements of the region were Jews who dwelled therein from the Roman period. The population in the far west (for example, in Ceuta) included many refugees – among them Jews – from a ruinous Visigoth civil war that had broken out in Hispania. Arian Christians and Jews alike took refuge in the Maghrib, fleeing forced conversions at the hands of the Visigothic Catholic Church. Arab conquerors took control of the region with the advent of Islam in the mid-seventh century. Islamic conquest of Byzantine-controlled territories of northwest Africa began in 647; conquest of urban areas and the coast was complete by 710: central Libya in the 640s, Tunisia between 670 and 698, Algeria in the 680s, and Morocco by 710. Yet none of these states was strong enough to unify control and to place all the Berber tribes under one rule. Berber tribes were restive under their new overlords and perpetually rebelled against their authority – among the rebels was a Berber queen, Kāhina, mistakenly regarded by some traditions as having had Jewish origins.2 The Maghrib is divided into three regions – West (Maghrib al-Aqsā), _ Central (Maghrib al-Awsat), and East (Maghrib al-Adnā). _ SOURCES AND SCHOLARSHIP

Basic data on the history of the Maghrib is found in the historical writing of Muslims on the conquest, the land, and its inhabitants. The place of the Jews in the Muslim reports is rather marginal and rare.3 Archaeological 1

2

3

John D. Fage, ed., The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 2: From c. 500 bc to ad 1050 (Cambridge, 1979), 1 10. Haim Zeev Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1974 81), 1:21 86; for the Kāhina, see ibid., 88 97; Haim Zeev Hirschberg, “Ha ʻKāhina’ ha Berberit,” Tarbiz 26 (1956/57), 370 83; EJIW, s.v. “Kāhina, al ” (Norman A. Stillman). Hirschberg, History of the Jews of North Africa, 87 88; Hady Roger Idris, La Berbérie orientale sous les Zīrīdes, Xe XIIe siècles, Volume 1 (Algeria, 1962), xxiii, 764 66; Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands (Philadelphia, 1979), xiii; Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), xiv; Eliyahu Ashtor, History of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the Rule of the Mamluks, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1944), 1:iii x.

the maghrib and egypt 129 findings of Jewish remnants are even scarcer. However, the riches of the Cairo Genizah compensate for this, particularly for the tenth and eleventh centuries. Indeed, one could refer to the Cairo Genizah as the “Maghribī Genizah found in Cairo.” As we shall see, the Genizah Synagogue became the central gathering place for Maghribīs living or simply sojourning in Egypt. This prominent community was established by migrants in the wake of the relocation of the Fātimid court to Fustāt in the 970s.4 _ _ _ JEWISH MUSLIM RELATIONS AND JEWISH RELATIONS WITH THE MUSLIM STATE

According to tradition, the great Arab conqueror of the Maghrib, ʿUqba b. Nāfiʿ (622–683), invited Jews to settle in the newly founded town of Qayrawān and exempted them from taxes in order to promote its growth and commercial development.5 In later times, Jews were heavily taxed; though in turn they seem to have been protected by Muslim rulers for most of Islamic history. Muslims and Jews had close economic ties, sharing both in commercial and agricultural ventures. The fifties and sixties of the eleventh century were marked by destruction of urban settlements – including Qayrawān – by Bedouins of the Hilāl and Sulaym tribes. The Jewish community was affected as well by these attacks.6 The middle of the twelfth century saw a second major crisis, this one even more traumatic than the earlier depredations of the Bedouin: the rise of the Almohad dynasty (1145–1248), preaching an extreme form of Islam that ignored dhimmī status and demanding either conversion to Islam or exile. Almohad rule stretched from Spain to Ifrīqiya and included Morocco. While the majority converted and few chose to die as martyrs, 4

5

6

S. D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966), 279 328; S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 1:1 28; Jessica L. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and their Business World (Cambridge, 2016), 12 13, 41, 44 45, 148, 291 94; Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Cairo Genizah: One Hundred Years of Research,” in Stefan C. Reif and Menahem Ben Sasson, eds., The Cairo Genizah: A Mosaic of Life (Jerusalem, 1997), 8 10; Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Jews of Islam in their Formative Era: The Cairo Genizahs The Findings and Their Impact,” in Yirmiyahu Yovel et al., eds., New Jewish Time: Jewish Culture in a Secular Age [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2008), 223 32; Menahem Ben Sasson (with Z. Elkin), “Firkovitch and Cairo Genizas” [Hebrew] Peʿamim 90 (2002), 51 95. Hirschberg, History of the Jews of North Africa, 1:144; see note 8 (regarding Fez) and note 9 (regarding the four captives). Roland Oliver, ed., The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c.1050 to c.1600 (Cambridge, 1977), 241 47.

130 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger many continued to practice Judaism secretly and remained faithful to Judaism behind closed doors; others preferred to leave the region. Since Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were at the far eastern periphery of their vast empire, we do not have evidence that the Almohads imposed conversion upon the conquered non-Muslim population there as elsewhere. Despite this, the heavy yoke of the Almohads was also felt in the eastern parts of the Maghrib; an anonymous poet mentions the suffering of S ̣urmān, Mesallāta, and Misurāta – all towns in Tripolitania – although he alluded to heavy taxes and_ exile rather than to death or forced conversion.7 A tradition very different from that of Qayrawān concerns the establishment of Fez: Jews, who emigrated from Spain and Ifrīqiya, constituted an important and active segment of the population of Fez from the time of its founding in 789.8 Although the precise number of Jews in medieval Fez is unknown, they must have been quite numerous, as early chronicles reckon their jizya (capitation tax) at 30,000 dinars in the time of the Idrīsids (788–974). After the waning of Almohad rule, Fez regained its economic and social prestige under the Marīnid dynasty (1244–1465) and later. DEMOGRAPHY, ECONOMIC LIFE, AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE

The famous legend “The Story of the Four Captives,” referring to the tenth century, describes the migration of four Jewish scholars from Italy to the Islamic Mediterranean world. Three of their names are mentioned: Ḥushiʾel the father of Ḥananel, Moses and his son Enoch, and Shemariah 7

8

Hirschberg, History of the Jews of North Africa, 1:134; Oliver, ed., Cambridge History of Africa, 3:245 48, 339 46. In the context of these forced conversions under the Almohads, one should read Maimonides’ “Epistle on Martyrdom,” showing the way of keeping crypto Jewish life under the watchful eye of the Almohads. See Menahem Ben Sasson, “La persécution almohade mythes et histoire,” in Samuel Trigano, ed., Le monde Sépharade (Paris, 2006), 1:123 38; Menahem Ben Sasson, “On the Jewish Identity of Forced Converts: A Study of Forced Conversion in the Almohade Period” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 42 (1990), 16 37; Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Prayer of the Anusim,” in Isaiah M. Gafni and Aviezer Ravitzky, eds., Sanctity of Life and Martyrdom [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1992), 153 66; Menahem Ben Sasson, “Remembrance and Oblivion of Religious Persecutions: On Sanctifying the Name of God (Qiddush ha Shem) in Christian and Islamic Countries during the Middle Ages,” in Arnold E. Franklin, Roxani Eleni Margariti, Marina Rustow, and Uriel Simonsohn, eds., Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen (Leiden, 2014), 169 94. Hirschberg, History of the Jews of North Africa, 99; Menahem Ben Sasson, “Mouvement de population et perceptions d’identité Fès sous les Idrisides et les Zirides,” in Michel Abitbol, ed., Relations judéo musulmanes au Maroc (Paris, 1997), 47 56.

the maghrib and egypt 131 the father of Elhanan. Other historical materials testify to the redemption of captives in _ the period: Shabbetay Donnolo the physician, and Shabbetay b. Hodayah b. Amittai. Taken captive by sea pirates, the scholars were released in exchange for a substantial ransom paid by the Jewish community of the Maghrib, and they eventually became leaders of that same community.9 The main question raised by this legend is how individuals coming from outside the community came to replace traditional local leaders. This suggests a process whereby intellect and certain functional-courtier qualities began to displace the inherited role of prominent, “pedigreed” families in leadership. Maghribī Jewish communities were primarily urban and pursued a variety of occupations, among which international commerce was predominant. Jewish immigration to the Maghrib dwarfed the autochthonous population that preceded the Arab conquest. Jews were also active in most spheres of the economy outside of government administration.10 The Jewish Maghribī family was marked by distinctive local customs which counteracted several destabilizing forces in daily life. Among these destabilizing forces was the predominance of migrants and sojourners, who brought distinct customs to the community. Yet migrants from Babylonia were encouraged to adopt the customs of local representatives of Babylonian Jewry, which seem to have held sway over the local community as a whole. On the other hand, these varieties in Jewish practice in the Maghrib were not as broad as they were elsewhere; the absence of Karaism within the Maghrib prior to the end of the tenth century is particularly striking, the sole documented exception to this being a Karaite presence in 9

10

For the four captives, see Gerson D. Cohen, “The Story of the Four Captives,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 29 (1960 61), 55 131. See also Abraham Ibn Daud, The Book of Tradition: Sefer ha Qabbalah, ed. and trans. Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia, 1976), 46 48 (Hebrew section), 63 64 (English section); Piergabriele Mancuso, ed. and trans., Shabbatai Donnolo’s Sefer Hakhmoni: Introduction, Critical Text, and Annotated English Translation (Leiden, 2010), 12 13, 224 27. Maurice Eisenbeth, Les Juifs d’Afrique du Nord: Démographie et onomastique (Algiers, 1936). Research on Qayrawān between 800 and 1057 indicates that a few Jews were artisans, mainly dyers, scribes, and workers in precious metals, while others were involved in moneylending, international commerce, and the slave trade; see Menahem Ben Sasson, The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World (Qayrawan 800 1057) [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1996), 54 74; Menahem Ben Sasson, “A Family at a Time of Transition: A Study of the Encounter between Halakha and History in North Africa with New Evidence on Dunash ben Tamim” [Hebrew], Sefunot 20 (1991), 51 69; on Gabès as an example for midsize community, see Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Jewish Community of Gabes in the 11th Century,” in Michel Abitbol, ed., Communautés juives des marges sahariennes du Maghreb (Jerusalem, 1982), 264 84.

132 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger Wargla (Ourgla) noted by Abraham Ibn Daud.11 International commerce was a second destabilizing force. Family networks and Jewish communal institutions alike provided support for individuals who participated in long-distance trade. These communal institutions included the aforementioned local representatives of the Iraqi/Babylonian Jewish leadership.12 However, any investigation into the rise of the local Jewish community must not be limited to ties between it and the Jewish centers, nor to the community’s self-understanding in halakhic terms. Communal institutions fall into two groups: those whose activities were entirely within the realm of the community, including the synagogue, pious foundations (Hebrew, hekdesh; Arabic, waqf), and various charitable institutions; and those whose activities devolved from their connections with the central leadership institutions in Babylonia and the Land of Israel, including the local academy (beit midrash or midrash), the court (beit din), and the “regional” headship (negidut). Although the synagogue was a central institution in communal life, the synagogue itself did not hold sway over the community at large. Rather, it housed other communal structures that did wield authority within the community and through which the synagogue maintained an aura of authority: the beit midrash – which was in the synagogue or next to it – and the beit din. The batei midrash of Qayrawān, Gabès, Sijilmāsa and Fez maintained local traditions of learning eventuating in halakhic treatises produced for their students. These treatises also led to further independence of the local beit midrash and reduced the need for frequent consultations with the Eastern authorities. The beit midrash of Qayrawān took on a position of unique regional importance and channeled both halakhic questions and financial gifts to the Babylonian yeshivot. En route, halakhic questions were revised by the Qayrawānese rabbi Jacob b. Nissim Ibn Shāhīn (late tenth century), giving the regional sage the status of a high 11

12

Abraham Ibn Daud, The Book of Tradition, 68 (Hebrew section), 93 (English section); the Muslims of medieval Wargla were adherents of the Khārijite Ibādī sect, which was _ a Karaite center generally tolerant of Jews. The Jewish community there was apparently (noted as such by Abraham Ibn Daud and Abraham Ibn Ezra the latter in his commentary to Exodus 12:11). Based on documents from the Genizah, it would appear that the Jews of Wargla were involved in the trans Saharan trade and that the commu nity was prosperous. On Karaites in Qayrawān and Gabès after the eleventh century, see Ben Sasson, Emergence, 47 53; Nissim Levi, ed. and trans., Iggeret ha Mofet: be Khashrut Baʿale ha Hayyim (= Risālat al barhān f_ī tadkiyat al hayawān) le Rabi Shemuʾel Ibn Gāmaʿ [Arabic and Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2018), 89 98. _ Menahem Ben Sasson, “Varieties of Inter communal Relations in the Geonic Period,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society and Identity (Leiden, 1997), 17 31.

the maghrib and egypt 133 court for the surrounding communities. Over time, local authorities came to serve as authorities for answering halakhic questions throughout the region, particularly with the ascendancy of Ḥananel b. Ḥushiʾel (c. 981–1053) and Nissim b. Jacob Ibn Shāhīn (987–1062). The beit din, like its counterpart in the yeshivot of the East, controlled many aspects of communal life beyond the judicial. The court’s use of both early and contemporary halakhic sources in making their decisions was a crucial factor in determining the public’s trust or lack of it in the capability of their judges, as well as judges’ willingness to act decisively. Thus, the ability of the Maghribī local community to run its life independently relied heavily upon the level of learning and the judicial authority of the leaders of the local academic and judicial institutions, and the way these were put into practice as they guided the community. The headship of the community – the negidut – was the third pillar of local leadership. It is generally accepted that the title of Head (nagid) was not acquired through official appointment of the Muslim ruler, but rather was an honorary title bestowed by the Jewish centers in Babylonia and the Land of Israel.13 Bestowing this title was a way to influence the person occupying the highest status in the community – due to his connections with the court of the local ruler and his involvement in the affairs of the leadership and the judiciary – to act on behalf of the centers. CONNECTION WITH THE BABYLONIAN CENTER

The ties of the local Maghribī communities with the Babylonian center were not merely formal, projecting the subjugation of the former to the latter; they were functional in nature. The arrival of responsa from the sages of Iraq affirmed the supremacy of the center, but those responsa were only generated at the initiative of the communities of the West, who had sent in their questions in the first instance. There was no fixed system of referral, nor was the community bound to accept the conclusions following from the decisions handed down from Babylonia.14 Thus, the 13

14

For an annotated and updated discussion of this topic, see Chapter 13 in this volume; see also note 18; Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Emergence of the Qayrawan Jewish Community and Its Importance as a Maghrebi Community,” in Norman Golb, ed., Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for Judaeo Arabic Studies (Amsterdam, 1997); and Menahem Ben Sasson, “Maghrib/Mashriq Ties from the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 38 (1989), 35 48. Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998), 150 54; Shraga Abramson, “One Question and Two Answers” [Hebrew], Shenaton ha Mishpat ha Ivri: Annual of the Institute for Research in Jewish Law 11/12 (1984 86), 1 40.

134 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger West retained a modicum of independence – an independence which grew with the waning of Babylonian hegemony. Connections between center and periphery relied not only on the place of the East in the Jewish mindset as the source of the Talmud and rabbinic wisdom generally, but also upon the idea of kelal Yisraʾel – Jewish collectivity – an idea which persisted among the Jews of Islamic lands. These ties were of particular importance to the Jews of Qayrawān. Thus, to have officially proclaimed their independence would not only have constituted a deviation from accepted custom; it would have been an open rejection of certain fundamental, sacred, and concrete elements – that is, the supremacy of the halakhic scholars and judges – that were of direct significance to the inner life of the community. Yet, as has already been mentioned, the central institutions of Maghribī leadership, the beit din and the beit midrash, operated in parallel to their Babylonian counterparts: “It was right and necessary for each small communal entity to take upon itself all those offices and functions which were meant to serve the community as a whole.”15 With this in mind, we may see how leading communities within the intercommunal network, such as Qayrawān and Fez, avoided assuming responsibility for the local communities in their respective orbits. On the contrary, local communities retained independence and a sense of distinctive identity and as the decay of the Babylonian center would give way in the later Middle Ages to regional, local, and communal identities supracommunal relationships faded from view. What remained was a purely ceremonial relationship with the Iraqi center. In contrast, Maghribīs living in Egypt had a vibrant relationship with the yeshiva of the Land of Israel, embracing mutual economic, institutional, and social interests. The economic and political power of the Maghribī trading diaspora in Fustāt was significant; this group might even _ _ in Egypt. Likewise, there was an be regarded as a “Maghribī lobby” additional Maghribī collective in the Land of Israel – composed of Maghribīs who had made their way there for a host of reasons. Some came out of religious devotion or seeking penance; others came as representatives of great commercial houses that had established outposts along the arteries of international trade; still others sought employment as religious functionaries or sought better economic conditions. Given the predominance of the Land of Israel in the study of Hebrew grammar and similar subjects, some may have come to learn. Living in the Land of Israel meant official

15

Yitzhak Baer, “The Foundations and Beginnings of a Jewish Community Structure in the Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Zion 15 (1950), 1.

the maghrib and egypt 135 subordination to the yeshiva of the Land of Israel and its officials. These Maghribī émigrés also served as an informal pipeline for information about the institutions of the Land of Israel to their confrères in Egypt and the Maghrib; this information also helped Maghribīs decide how much financial support to give institutions in the Land of Israel. For example, a report was circulated about the disappearance of sixty dinars sent from Ifrīqiya to the Land of Israel, for which the Head of the yeshiva was called to account.16 Some of these Maghribī Jews also rose to positions of control and leadership among the communities of the Land of Israel.17 However, one position seemed to be closed to them: the headship of the yeshiva of the Land of Israel. Until the end of the tenth century, this office was the sole province of members of three “Israeli” families; although toward the end of the tenth century, a few Maghribīs managed to buck this trend. The appointment of Maghribīs to key positions in the central institutions of the Land of Israel was the culmination of efforts of three groups of Maghribī Jews: those living in the Maghrib, those in Egypt, and those in the Land of Israel. These groups worked in tandem to bring about the appointment of persons preferred by the Maghribīs. These efforts were not always successful; in a controversy concerning the office of the gaon at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh centuries, members of a priestly Maghribī family from Sijilmāsa challenged the gaonate of Samuel b. Joseph ha-Kohen, a member of a priestly family of the Land of Israel. But despite their failure on this particular occasion, not long afterward members of this Maghribī family filled senior leadership roles in the yeshiva.18 16

17

18

Arthur E. Cowley, “Bodleian Geniza Fragments,” Jewish Quarterly Review 19 (1907), 255 57; Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634 1099), 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1983), 2:605 7. Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Jews of the Maghreb and Their Relations with Eretz Israel in the Ninth through Eleventh Centuries” [Hebrew], Shalem 5 (1987), 31 82. Joseph b. Menahem ha Kohen Sijilmassi presided as av bet din (president of the rabbinical court) during the first quarter of the eleventh century, and his son Solomon was appointed gaon in 1025. Solomon ha Kohen the Maghribī appointed Solomon b. Judah Fāsī as gaon. The latter relates in a document that when the previous gaon decided to appoint him president of the court, some people tried to challenge his promotion, arguing that he did not belong to one of the families worthy of the appointment. This argument was repeated in another context, in a description of how the Maghribīs gained control of positions and offices in Egypt and the Land of Israel. When Solomon b. Judah fell into disfavor after nearly fifteen years in office, it was precisely the Maghrībīs living in Egypt and their associates who were involved in an attempt to replace him with Nathan b. Abraham. They pressed for Nathan’s appoint ment and, according to members of Solomon’s party, Nathan arrived in Egypt from the Maghrib with letters of support from the Maghribī leadership recommending his

136 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger Political intervention did not always take the same form, and not all Maghribīs were of one camp. However, Maghribīs seem to have agreed to endorse candidates who were themselves from the Maghrib or who were educated in the Maghrib. Egyptian Maghribīs lobbied local Muslim officials for their ends; and the nagid in the Maghrib itself played an important role in influencing the opinion both of Fātimid officials in Egypt and the _ bore significant influence and Maghribī community as a whole. The nagid by extension his local community had the most sway over the appointment to the headship of the yeshiva of the Land of Israel, despite the fact that he was physically farther away than the other groups of Maghribīs in the Land of Israel itself or in Egypt. The power of the nagid was due at least in part to his control over financial gifts from the Diaspora to the Land of Israel, although he also had influence over Muslim state officials. The appointment of a Maghribī candidate meant that other posts would also be given to allies of the new gaon.19 THE MAGHRIBĪ INTERCOMMUNAL FRAMEWORK

Maghribī communities were attractive to their Eastern counterparts for three reasons: their affluence from an intensive involvement in international commerce; their growth owing to immigration; and, finally, the power individual Jews in the West had gained by finding their way to the courts of Muslim rulers. The influence of these individuals allowed them to play key roles both in the activities of their own communities and in international Jewish politics. While in the East leadership was largely determined by pedigree, Maghribī communities selected their leaders based on their skill.20 With

19

20

appointment as gaon of the yeshiva of the Land of Israel. Both sides in this affair tried to mobilize the support of the most prominent Jew in the Maghrib the nagid who resided in North Africa (on the office of the nagid, see note 13), asking him to make public his position on the appointment of a gaon for the yeshiva. The appointment of Daniel b. Azariah was likewise not devoid of controversy. In this case, too, Maghribīs living in Egypt were enlisted to help him obtain the post. During the 1080s, when David b. Daniel sought the office of Chief of the Jews, the Maghribīs in Egypt and Jerusalem came to his aid. Those in North Africa were not involved, as at the time they were busy restoring their own communities after the great sack of cities to which the Maghrib had been subject in that decade. Such was the case soon after the appointment of Solomon b. Judah, Daniel b. Azariah, and David b. Daniel to the office of Head of the yeshiva; Ben Sasson, “The Jews of the Maghreb.” See also Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Gaonate of R. Samuel b. Joseph ha Kohen Which Was ‘Like a Bath of Boiling Water’” [Hebrew], Zion 51 (1986), 379 409. See Chapter 13 in this volume; see also Menahem Ben Sasson, “Intercommunal Relations and Regional Organization in the Maghreb in the 9th to the 11th

the maghrib and egypt 137 no local tradition of sacred authority, communities in the West were able to define their own developing, basic needs. For the Eastern centers, the problem was clear: how to maintain tight bonds with the Maghribīs. Knowing the needs of the Western communities for responsa, books, and commercial contacts, the geonim employed existing intercommunal ties to develop their influence in the Maghrib. As leaders, they were not unique in combining economic ties with politico-religious aims. Caliphs also used merchants on the East-West caravan route – as well as those who went to India – to deliver their messages and propaganda. Economic ties among Jews facilitated the delivery of mail, halakhic questions and responsa, new books, and money. In order to develop contacts with the Western communities, which lay outside the formal reshuyot, the Eastern centers took several initiatives: 1. They bestowed honorary titles upon the regional leaders. Traditionally, such honorifics as Rosh Kallah, Rosh Seder, Aluf, Ḥaver be-Sanhedra Rabbah, and Nagid belonged exclusively to the world of the sacred centers.21 2. They composed books and dedicated them to regional leaders. 3. They encouraged regional leaders to build a local network, over and above the existing commercial network, for the collection of funds and the delivery of responsa.

In the Maghrib, we may properly speak of “intercommunal” relationships which did not rely on subordination to a center, but rather operated on a voluntary basis; the Maghribī intercommunal network served the sacred centers for a long time without being part of a supra-communal system. Even when the centers weakened during the second half of the eleventh century, the leaders of the intercommunal regional networks did not attempt to claim sacred authority – that remained, in the final analysis, the prerogative of the geonim and the exilarchs. CHALLENGES TO COMMUNAL UNITY: ITALIAN AND SICILIAN IMMIGRANTS TO THE MAGHRIB

One challenge to local authorities was the influx of Italian Jewish refugees, known in North Africa as early as the tenth century. A resonance of their

21

Centuries” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 18 (1984), 3 37; Ben Sasson, “Varieties of Inter communal Relations in the Geonic Period.” Menahem Ben Sasson, “Senior Nominations: Positions, Titles and Ceremonies in Jewish Communities in the Mediterranean Basin in the Middle Ages,” in Aharon Barak, Karin Karmit Yefet, and Elyakim Rubenstein, eds., The Turkel Festschrift: Studies in Theory, Philosophy and the Law [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2020), 215 38.

138 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger influence is apparent in the aforementioned “Story of the Four Captives.” Some Italians who found their way to the communities of Tunisia were indeed captives redeemed by the community, and others had chosen to migrate to Ifrīqiya thanks to favorable economic and security conditions at a time of trouble in southern Italy.22 In fact, an early eleventh-century document suggests that the second nagid of Qayrawān, Jacob b. Amram, had personal and perhaps familial connections to Jews in Italy, since funds raised partially in Italy and earmarked for the Land of Israel were deposited with a “Roman” relative of the nagid.23 Local communal organizations had to respond to problems presented on various levels by those immigrants, ranging from redemption of captives to supporting the needy, payment of the poll tax, and the purchase of food. Migration from Italy to Ifrīqiya should be seen as part and parcel of a general migratory trend to the region. Connections between the Maghrib and Italy therefore cut across at least three domains: members of each community dwelled in the lands of the other; they had shared conceptions of what communal institutions should hold sway; and each region’s own institutions worked with those of the other. At the same time, migrants from Italy in the Maghrib and vice versa were a source of tension. The author of Megillat Ahimaaz describes his ancestors – who were community leaders – as wonder workers, and describes at length how they revived the dead, how they transported themselves magically from place to place, and how they calmed stormy seas and repelled enemies. Yet a responsum of Hayya Gaʾon directed to the community of Qayrawān, dated some forty years earlier and containing similar vignettes of the miraculous powers of Italian migrants, is clearly meant to convince the community that the tradition was false. Indeed, the people of Qayrawān asked more than once about miracles – including how they might perform the same wonders in their own time. Yet despite their differences, Italian immigrants were able to influence the Maghribīs in matters of faith, doctrine, and the character of Jewish communal leadership.

22

23

See Chapter 6 in this volume; see also Menahem Ben Sasson, “Italy and Ifriqiyya from the 9th to the 11th Centuries,” in Jean Louis Miege, ed., Les relations intercommunau taires juives en Méditerranée et en Europe occidentale (Paris, 1984), 34 50; Menahem Ben Sasson, The Jews of Sicily, 825 1068: Documents and Sources [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1991). Jacob Mann, “Addenda to The Responsa of the Babylonian Geonim as a Source of Jewish History,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. VII X, Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 11 (1920/21), 454 56; Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1997), 2:348 50.

the maghrib and egypt 139 Scholars – not merchants – from the “Land of Edom” presented challenges to the leadership in Ifrīqiya in the realm of halakhah and custom just as popular legends had affected Maghribī faith and doctrine. At times, the Italian approach won out over the traditional local one. In the academy of Qayrawān, as in other Maghribī academies, the tradition of the halakhist rather than that of the wonder worker prevailed, although immigrants would come to take over leadership of the local academy. This trend was reversed when a local scholar, the aforementioned Nissim b. Jacob Ibn Shāhīn, inherited the position of his Italian teachers. During the first half of the eleventh century, the rulings of the academy of Qayrawān were considered authoritative both locally and by Maghribī Jews throughout the Mediterranean. The hegemony of this academy rested on its tradition of intensive study, although the heyday of Qayrawān was followed by a period of decline in the 1040s and eventual destruction by the Banū Hilāl and Sulaym in the fifties and sixties of that century. We may turn to Italian thinkers at this point for their attitude toward the academic traditions of the Maghrib. A question concerning animal slaughter was addressed by the rabbis of Siponto to various authorities, but they received no answer: A few scholars were present in that beit midrash . . . Some of them declared it kosher, and others unfit to eat . . . No one was to be found . . . who would either permit or forbid it, until they found the responsum of Rabbenu Ḥananel b. Ḥushiʾel of blessed memory and those of Rabbenu Nissim Gaʾon, of blessed memory.24

These words suggest not only that the sources summarized in Ifrīqiya were considered normative in Italy, but also that the jurisdiction of the last generation of halakhists active in the academy of Qayrawān – one an immigrant from Italy, the other native-born – extended there. Italian rabbis of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries continued this tradition. The lexicon of Rabbi Nathan b. Jehiel of Rome, entitled Sefer he-ʿArukh, was a compilation of the teachings of the geonim that drew heavily on the works of Rabbenu Ḥananel and Rabbenu Nissim. Shortly after it appeared, this lexicon was supplemented by a halakhist from the city of Gabès (Qābis), Samuel Ibn Jāmaʿ. Among the other Italians influenced by the doctrine of the geonim as received by the scholars of Qayrawān were Isaiah di Trani the Elder (c. 1180–1250) and Zedekiah b. Abraham ʿAnav. In short, the characteristics and traditions of refugees competed on equal grounds with those of the denizens in their places of refuge. That competition led to the creation of a new, synthetic cultural 24

Adolf Neubauer, “Devarim ʿAtiqim me Oxford” [Hebrew], ha Magid 17 (1874), 41.

140 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger tradition, which in subsequent generations became the core of a tradition common to the Mediterranean Basin, with roots in both Italy and the Maghrib. In time, that cultural synthesis would come to shape the way of life of the medieval Jewish community. EGYPT*

The Fātimid conquest of Egypt in 969 and the transfer of their adminis_ trative center there from Ifrīqiya transformed Egypt from an autonomous province to the center of a new, prosperous, and generally well-managed empire.25 Capitalizing on the geographic position of Egypt at the nexus of the Mediterranean, the Nile and the Red Sea, the empire became a hub connecting North Africa, Nubia, Syria and Palestine, and India (via Yemen). With the founding of Cairo, the Fātimids created one of the _ major centers of Islamic life and culture that outlived their own rule. The Jews of Egypt were profoundly affected by this transformation. While they never regained the wealth and prominence they enjoyed before the Kitos War – the Diaspora Rebellion of 115–17 ce – there was a continuous Jewish presence in Egypt from late antiquity onward. The evidence for Jews in late antique Egypt is not abundant, but it is clear that the largest Jewish center was in Alexandria and that Egyptian Jews maintained a marked Palestinian orientation.26 Information on the Jews of Egypt under Muslim rule up to the Fātimid conquest is similarly scant. Arabic literary works rarely mention Jews_ and are more concerned with the Christians who constituted the majority of the Egyptian population.27 * This study was supported by the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University. Oded Zinger would like to thank Amir Ashur, Moshe Yagur, Menahem Ben Sasson, and the editor of this volume, Phillip I. Lieberman, for their helpful comments on an early draft. 25 A convenient guide to the Fātimid Empire is Paul E. Walker, Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and Its_ Sources (London, 2002). See also Michael Brett, The Fatimid Empire (Edinburgh, 2017). 26 Roger S. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton, 1993), 275 78; Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Baltimore, 1997), 91 127; Guy Stroumsa, “Jewish Survival in Late Antique Alexandria,” in Robert Bonfil et al., eds., Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures (Leiden, 2012), 257 70; Tal Ilan, “The Jewish Community in Egypt before and after 117 ce in Light of Old and New Papyri”, in Yair Furstenberg, ed., Jewish and Christian Communal Identities in the Roman World (Leiden, 2016), 216; Colette Sirat et al., La Ketouba de Cologne: Un contrat de mariage juif à Antinoopolis (Opladen, 1986). 27 See, for example, Hussein Omar, “‘The Crinkly Haired People of the Black Earth’: Examining Egyptian Identities in Ibn ʿAbd al Hakam’s Futūh,” in Philip Wood, ed., _ 149 67. History and Identity in the Late Antique Near East (Oxford, 2013),

the maghrib and egypt 141 A famous account of the Islamic conquest of Egypt reports that when the Arabs conquered Alexandria in 642, they found there some 40,000 Jews, but this number is clearly an exaggeration.28 Even though our information on Egyptian Jewry before the Fātimid period is scarce, the fact that both _ Israeli (c. 855–955) and the polymath the Neoplatonist philosopher Isaac Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) spent the first decades of their lives in Egypt and wrote their first works there shows that substantial Jewish and general education was available.29 Indeed, Seʿadyah was born in Dīlās, a small _ town east of the Fayyūm Oasis, which suggests that at least preliminary educational opportunities were available even outside Alexandria and the Delta. Tellingly, however, both scholars left Egypt to greener intellectual pastures – Isaac to Qayrawān and Seʿadyah to Palestine and later Iraq. A century later, under the Fātimids and later under the Ayyūbids, this _ scholarly outflow would be reversed as Jewish scholars – most famous among them Moses Maimonides – would come from both East and West to settle in Egypt with its then-stable and prosperous Jewish community. Papyri (as broadly defined by papyrologists) are the most important source for the history of Egyptian Jews before the Fātimid period.30 Particularly promising are papyri written in Arabic script, _only a fraction of which have been published and studied, and thus we may expect new material relating to Jews to be identified in the future.31 At the moment, what we can learn about Jews from the papyri is limited because it is not clear to what extent Jews had distinct onomastic practices and the evidence that refers explicitly to Jews (Arabic, yahūdī, for example) is rather meager and scattered. However, as noted perceptively by Petra Sijpesteijn, the 28

29

30

31

Another report has 70,000 Jews fleeing Alexandria when it was captured by the Muslims: see Ibn ʿAbd al Hakam, Futūh Misr, ed. Charles C. Torrey (New Haven, _ _ 1922), 82. On Israeli, see Alexander Altmann and Samuel M. Stern, Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century, with a new foreword by Alfred Ivry (Chicago, 2009). On Seʿadyah Gaʾon, see Robert Brody, Saʿadyah Gaon (Oxford, 2013). Colette Sirat catalogs fragments in the Hebrew alphabet from the third to tenth centuries in her Les Papyrus en caractères hébraïques trouvés en Égypte (Paris, 1985). In their “Judeo Arabic Papyri: Collected, Edited, Translated and Analysed,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 9 (1987), 87 160, Joshua Blau and Simon Hopkins published Judeo Arabic documentary papyri in full. This preliminary study led to a more broadly conceived study, the first volume of which was recently published as Joshua Blau and Simon Hopkins, Early Judaeo Arabic in Phonetic Spelling: Texts from the End of the First Millennium [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2017). This volume includes texts dealing with the Bible (glossaries, translations, exegesis, etc.), while the next volume will deal with texts not related to the Bible, including documentary material. On Arabic papyri, see Petra M. Sijpesteijn, “Arabic Papyri and Islamic Egypt” in Roger S. Bagnall, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology (Oxford, 2009), 452 72.

142 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger relative rarity of people labeled as “Jewish” does not indicate absence of Jews from early Islamic Egypt so much as reflect concerns other than religious identity. In the first two centuries after the Islamic conquests, the major division in Egyptian society was between rulers and ruled (expressed often as Arabs versus Egyptians, or soldiers versus peasants). It is in the ninth century, with the continued migration of Arabs deeper into the Egyptian countryside, increased conversion of the local population to Islam, and the arrival of Persian-Turkish military elite that replaced the older ruling Arab elite, that religious and ethnic identities come to the fore in the documents.32 However, even this earlier material is highly suggestive. For example, two eighth-century letters from a traveling Jew to a stationary Jew deal with the maintenance of the writer’s family left behind and the moral character of the addressee’s son-in-law.33 A papyrus from 761–62 records the sale of a mule by a Jewish family through a non-Jewish document.34 A prison register apparently from 806 records the successful petition of a Jew for release from debt imprisonment, the result of forty dinars owed to another Jew.35 Despite their dispersion, these documents shed light on crucial issues ranging from Jewish adoption of Arabic language and epistolary formulas, the definition of what constitutes moral character, to Jewish use of Muslim legal and state institutions. As the field of Arabic papyrology is currently undergoing a revival, we may expect substantial advances in our knowledge of Egyptian Jews in the pre-Fātimid period.36 _ 32

33

34

35

36

This is the argument developed in Petra M. Sijpesteijn, “Visible Identities: In Search of Egypt’s Jews in Early Islamic Egypt,” in Alison Salvesen, Sarah Pearce, and Miriam Frenkel, eds., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (Leiden, 2020), 424 40. This study also surveys the known mentions of Jews in Arabic papyri. I am grateful to Sijpesteijn for sharing with me her study before its publication. See also Omar, “‘The Crinkly Haired People.’” Werner Diem, Vier Studien zu arabischen Dokumenten des 8. 14. Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 2018), 1 16, with references to earlier studies by Karl Jahn, Giorgio Levi della Vida, and Simon Hopkins. Alia Hanafi, “Two Unpublished Paper Documents and a Papyrus,” in Petra J. Sijpesteijn and Lennart Sundelin, eds., Papyrology and the History of Early Islamic Egypt (Leiden, 2004), 56 60. Mathieu Tillier and Naïm Vanthieghem, “Un registre carcéral de la Fustāt abbasside,” _ Islamic Law and Society 25 (2018), 323 and 325. Notice the editors’ comment at 343n25 that this record constitutes the first documentary attestation for Jews residing outside the ancient settlement of Babylon; see also Wladyslaw B. Kubiak, al Fustat: Its Foundation and Early Urban Development (Cairo, 1987), 84. The indispensable tool for searching Arabic papyrology is the Arabic Papyrology Database (www.apd.gwi.uni muenchen.de/apd/project.jsp). For navigating the papyri collections and editions, the Checklist of Arabic Documents is essential (www.naher osten.lmu.de/isapchecklist).

the maghrib and egypt 143 The scarcity of sources disappears at the point where the documents of the Cairo Genizah begin to appear. The Genizah includes a small number of documents dated to the ninth century, a growing trickle from the tenth century, and then a deluge for the eleventh, twelfth, and the first half of the thirteenth centuries.37 The corpus is estimated at about 40,000 documentary fragments (as opposed to around 360,000 literary items, though there is substantial overlap). Scholars are still far from cataloging and mapping adequately the documentary Genizah, let alone exhausting its riches.38 Another valuable source for the study of Egyptian Jewry are the responsa of Egyptian rabbis, most importantly Moses Maimonides and his son Abraham.39 As the majority of these responsa have been preserved outside the Genizah, they provide an important “control” over the evidence from

37

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39

Two previous overviews of the Jews of Egypt mention a Genizah fragment dated to 750; see Norman A. Stillman, “The Non Muslim Communities: The Jewish Community,” in Carl F. Petry, ed., The Cambridge History of Egypt (Cambridge, 1998), 199; and EJIW, s.v. “Egypt” (Elinoar Bareket and Racheline Barda). This fragment is CUL T S 16.67, published in Israel Abrahams, “An Eighth Century Genizah Document,” Jewish Quarterly Review 17 (1905), 426 30. However, Abrahams’ date of 750 is due to a scribal omission of “three hundred” from the dating formula, as has already been convincingly argued in Jacob L. Teicher, “The Oldest Dated Document in the Genizah?” Journal of Jewish Studies 1, 3 (1949), 156 58. For a survey of the oldest dated documents in the Genizah, see Simon Hopkins, “The Oldest Dated Document in the Geniza?” in Shelomo Morag, Issachar Ben Ami, and Norman Stillman, eds., Studies in Judaism and Islam Presented to Shelomo Dov Goitein (Jerusalem, 1981), 83 98. The aforemen tioned second volume of Blau and Hopkins, Early Judaeo Arabic in Phonetic Spelling, promises to provide an updated survey and study of this early material. For the most recent estimate, see Marina Rustow, The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue (Princeton, 2020), 2, 7, 451, 453. By “the Cairo Genizah,” I am referring to the Genizah found in and around the Ben Ezra Synagogue; on this, see Phyllis Lambert, ed., Fortifications and the Synagogue: The Fortress of Babylon and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo (Montreal, 1994). The Genizah that makes up a substantial part of the Second Firkovitch Collection at the National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg, was probably found in the Karaite Dār Simhah Synagogue in Cairo. This Genizah contained _ documentary material is mostly from a later much less documentary material and its period. For the different genizot of Cairo and what “the Cairo Genizah” may have been, see Haggai Ben Shammai, “Is ‘The Cairo Genizah’ a Proper Name or a Generic Noun? On the Relationship between the Genizot of the Ben Ezra and Dār Simha Synagogues,” _ in Ben Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, eds., “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2010), 43 52; and Rebecca J. W. Jefferson, “Deconstructing ‘the Cairo Genizah’: A Fresh Look at Genizah Manuscript Discoveries in Cairo before 1897,” Jewish Quarterly Review 108 (2018), 422 48. See also Chapter 1 in this volume. Moses Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Joshua Blau, 3 vols. [Hebrew] (fourth edition, Jerusalem, 2014); and Abraham Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Abraham H. Freimann, trans. S. D. Goitein [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1937).

144 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger 40 the Genizah. S. D. Goitein’s magnum opus, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, is the most comprehensive study of Genizah documents and Egyptian Jewry. Indeed, it is widely regarded as one of the great works of historical scholarship and imagination of the twentieth century. Yet despite its undisputable significance, it is important to note that A Mediterranean Society is a synchronic synthesis rather than a diachronic study and as such it does not provide a narrative history of Egyptian Jews. While this lacuna has partially been filled by the work of Elinoar Bareket and Mark R. Cohen for the eleventh century, we are still waiting for a diachronic study of the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth centuries.41 While one might debate whether “the Jewish Communities of the Arab World” formed a distinct society – as implied by the subtitle to Goitein’s work – rather than being embedded in broader Islamic society, there is little doubt that Goitein’s characterization of these communities as “Mediterranean” is correct.42 The life-giving Nile plays an important role in Genizah documents, but Egyptian Jewry was primarily oriented toward 40

41

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Another source, still far from exhaustion, are Arabic literary works mostly from the Mamlūk period which occasionally mention Jews. See, for example, Amir Mazor, “Jewish Court Physicians in the Mamluk Sultanate during the First Half of the 8th/ 14th Century,” Medieval Encounters 20 (2014), 38 65; and Nathan Hofer, “The Ideology of Decline and the Jews of Ayyubid and Mamluk Syria,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Bonn, 2017), 113 20. Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065 1126 (Princeton, 1980); and Elinoar Bareket, Fustat on the Nile: The Jewish Elite in Medieval Egypt (Leiden, 1999). This is true for political history as well as economic history, where the works of Moshe Gil and Jessica Goldberg deal with the eleventh century, but not with the twelfth century; see Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004); and Jessica L. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World (Cambridge, 2012). The recently published docu ments regarding the India trade are mostly from the twelfth century; see S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (‘India Book’) (Leiden, 2008). These documents offer a great wealth of material for historical inquiry. For two wonderful initial forays in this area, see Roxani Eleni Margariti, Aden & the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port (Chapel Hill, 2007); and Elizabeth Lambourn, Abraham’s Luggage: A Social Life of Things in the Medieval Indian Ocean World (Cambridge, 2018). The title A Mediterranean Society suggests that “the Jewish Communities of the Arab World” formed a distinct society within the Mediterranean. However, in various places Goitein writes of “Mediterranean Society” or “The Mediterranean Mind” as a coherent broader unit; see, for example, Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:70 (“The Geniza People as Representative of Mediterranean Society”).

the maghrib and egypt 145 the Mediterranean. Goitein famously collected a list of 450 professions mentioned in the Genizah, which shows the diverse economic base of Egyptian Jewry. But it was the merchants plying the Mediterranean and later the Indian Ocean that he believed not only served as the economic mainstay of the Jewish communities, but also constituted their political and religious leadership. Indeed, Goitein saw them as representative of the middle class that was for him the bearer of Islamic civilization in the Middle Ages and played a decisive role in formulating the spirit of Islam.44 Jessica Goldberg has recently emphasized that these merchants were also heavily involved in securing raw material deep in the Nile Delta, but the destination for trade – as shown by the marvelous maps she has prepared – was mostly the Islamic Mediterranean.45 Conducted mostly through various forms of partnerships and “friendships,” Jewish merchants specialized in a broad variety of commodities, including finished textiles and their raw material, dyeing material, spices and aromatics, metals (often copper and tin), olive oil and its products, paper and books, and coins.46 Most of the trade was conducted from Fustāt through Alexandria, Rashīd, and Tinnīs to the ports of Tunisia, _ _ and Syria-Palestine. Even with the growing prominence of the Sicily, Indian Ocean trade in the twelfth century conducted through Qūs, _ ʿAydhāb, and ʿAden, this trade was deeply connected with the 43

43

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45

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The seasons of Mediterranean navigation are far more present in Genizah correspond ence than the Nile’s cyclical inundations. For this tension between the Mediterranean and the Nile among the Jews of Egypt in the modern period, see Aimée Israel Pelletier, On the Mediterranean and the Nile: The Jews of Egypt (Bloomington, 2018). S. D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966), 217 54, esp. 243. Closely associated with the merchants, and like them often combining positions of government employment and communal leadership, were the physicians, whom Goitein viewed as “the torchbearers of secular erudition, the professional expounders of philosophy and the sciences . . . disciples of the Greeks, heirs to a universal tradition, a spiritual brotherhood which transcended the barriers of religion, language and coun tries,” A Mediterranean Society, 2:241. See now Amir Mazor and Efraim Lev, “Dynasties of Jewish Physicians in the Fatimid and Ayyubid Periods,” Hebrew Union College Annual 89 (2018), 221 60; and Paulina B. Lewicka, “Healer, Scholar, Conspirator: The Jewish Physician in the Arabic Islamic Discourse of the Mamluk Period,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Bonn, 2017), 121 43. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 101 4, and the maps in 301 2. See also A. L. Udovitch, “International Trade and the Medieval Egyptian Countryside,” Proceedings of the British Academy 96 (1999), 267 85. For the different ways to conduct business, see Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014). For the different commodities, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:153 54. For a landmark study on the Jewish merchants, see Goldberg, Trade and Institutions.

146 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger Mediterranean trade, as can be seen in the careers of merchants like Joseph Lebdī and Ḥalfon b. Nethanel.47 Alongside this international trade, the Genizah contains much information that awaits close analysis on local industries and, of course, local consumption.48 The total number of the Jews of Egypt in the eleventh and twelfth centuries is estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000. This makes Egypt one of the largest centers for Jews in the medieval Islamic world, second probably only to Iraq and al-Andalus. The center of Jewish life in Egypt was Fustāt, which in the mid-twelfth century contained between 3,600 and _ _ 49 The famine, earthquake, and epidemic of 1200–1202, which 7,000 Jews. were followed by subsequent epidemics in 1216 and 1235–36, led to a substantial decline in the Egyptian Jewish population.50 The population recovered only with the renewed immigration of Jews from Iberia and the prosperity of the early Ottoman period. The Mediterranean orientation and cosmopolitan mix often found in the heart of empires is reflected in the constitution of Egyptian Jewry. At different periods, the native Egyptian Jewish population was supplemented by different waves of migration. The first discernable wave of immigration was Jews from Iraq and Persia.51 The majority of these Jews settled in Egypt before the eleventh century – that is to say, their arrival took place before the Genizah sheds its dazzling light.52 The Iraqis were numerous enough to maintain a separate synagogue in the larger towns, where they completed the reading of the Torah in a single year, as opposed to the 47

48

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50

51

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For Lebdī, see Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 27 36. For Halfon, see Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Halfon and Judah ha Levi: The Lives of a Merchant Scholar and a Poet Laureate according to the Cairo Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2013). For the local industries and the working people, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:75 147. For consumption, see ibid., 4:105 269. 3,600 is Goitein’s estimate explained in A Mediterranean Society, 2:140. 7,000 is reported by Benjamin of Tudela for Fustāt Cairo. For various reasons, Goitein’s estimate is _ probably a minimum figure, and _Benjamin of Tudela’s a maximum. Elisha Russ Fishbane, “Earthquake, Famine, and Plague in Early Thirteenth Century Egypt: Muslim and Jewish Sources,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Bonn, 2017), 145 75. The migration of Iraqi Jews to Egypt was part of a much larger migration; see Eliyahu Ashtor, “Un mouvement migratoire au haut Moyen Âge: Migrations de l’Irak vers les pays méditerranéens,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 27 (1972), 185 214. See also Chapter 11 in this volume. Notice that one of the earliest dated documents from the Genizah is a fragment of a ketubbah from Iraq; see Norman Golb, “A Marriage Deed from ‘Warduniā of Baghdad,’” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43 (1984), 151 56. Also, the building for the synagogue of the Iraqis was bought from the Christians in 882, further demonstrating the early arrival of this community.

the maghrib and egypt 147 53 three-year reading circle followed in the Palestinian tradition. Since the Karaite movement began in Persia and Iraq, it is not surprising to find that many of the Karaites also had their origins in the East.54 The immigrants most prominent in Genizah documents are the Maghribīs, mentioned in the earlier section on the Maghrib. Hailing mostly from towns in what is modern-day Tunisia, in all likelihood they either followed the Fātimid imperial administration and army when it _ drawn to Egypt as it became the heart of a moved to Egypt or were prosperous empire. Following the Seljūq invasion and the onslaught of the Crusaders there was also a wave of refugees and redeemed captives from Palestine and Syria from the seventies of the eleventh century onward. With Almohad persecution of non-Muslims in al-Andalus and the Maghrib in the middle of the twelfth century, Egypt received another wave of refugees from the West.55 In the beginning of the thirteenth century, a wave of French Jews arrived in Egypt.56 Throughout this period, there was also immigration to Egypt from various other regions such as Yemen, Byzantium, Sicily, and Italy that did not fall into recognizable waves.57 With the exception of the Iraqis, these various waves of migration did not lead to the formation of distinct communities or congregations – as would later be the case in Ottoman Egypt. At the same time, Genizah documents certainly attest to tensions between the various groups.58 For instance, autochthonous residents objected when immigrants from Palestine, Spain, and France were appointed to positions of communal

53

54

55

56

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58

Since we do not have the Genizah of the Iraqi synagogue, it is not clear whether by the eleventh and twelfth centuries it served mostly Jews of Iraqi origin or Jews won over to the Iraqi synagogue service. In any case, its establishment in 882 was probably a response to the needs of recent immigrants from the East. See, for example, the famous Tustarī family, studied in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 269 271 and 663 75. See also Shaul Shaked, “An Early Karaite Document in Judeo Persian” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 41 (1971), 49 58. Moshe Yagur is finalizing a study on Spanish Jews in Egypt titled “The Cautious Beginnings of Sephardi Self identification: A View from the Cairo Geniza (10th 13th Centuries).” I am grateful to Dr. Yagur for sharing with me his study before its publication. Alexandra Cuffel, “Call and Response: European Jewish Emigration to Egypt and Palestine in the Middle Ages,” Jewish Quarterly Review 90 (1999), 61 102. Many Jews also left Egypt to settle elsewhere, but the nature of the Genizah makes it difficult for us to discern their histories. For Jewish Yemenites in Egypt, see S. D. Goitein, The Yemenites: History, Communal Organization, Spiritual Life [Hebrew], ed. Menahem Ben Sasson (Jerusalem, 1983), 120 34. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:67 and 167.

148 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger 59 leadership. When it comes to the relations between the Rabbanite and the Karaite communities, the situation in Egypt was usually characterized by cooperation and mutual assistance, as opposed to their more confrontational relations in Palestine;60 one of the strongest indications for this cooperation are the several marriage agreements for mixed couples that lay out in advance a modus vivendi between the religious requirements of each spouse.61 However, evidence of such cooperation decreases with the decline of the Karaite courtier class (and the Karaite community in general) after the eleventh century, and the efforts of Moses Maimonides to distance Rabbanite Jews from the Karaites.62 The cosmopolitan composition of Jewish communities in medieval Egypt is also reflected in the realm of scholarship. With its Genizah, Egypt provides us with a unique opportunity to observe scenes of Jewish learning that did not otherwise bequeath an enduring legacy in the Jewish intellectual tradition. Egypt never enjoyed the sanctity of Palestine or the scholarly prestige of Iraq – and, with the notable exception of the time of Maimonides, was not considered as a center of learning of the first rank.63 The weakness of Egyptian institutions of learning is at least partially due to

59

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62 63

For an example of the community of al Mahalla rebelling against an appointed leader _ that we now know to have been of Syrian Palestinian origin, see Cohen, Jewish Self government, 322 34. The identity of the leader was pointed out by Shulamit Elizur, Sheʾerit Yosef: The Piyyutim of Rabbi Yosef ha Levi he Haver [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994), _ 16; and Oded Zinger, “Meanderings in the Literary Genizot,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 8 (2020), 207 12. For the communal strife surrounding the appoint ment of French immigrants as communal leaders, see Cuffel, “Call and Response,” 73 75; Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Maimonides Appoints R. Anatoly Muqaddam of Alexandria” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 83 (2015), 135 61; and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “The Nagid, the Nasi and the French Rabbis: A Threat to Abraham Maimonides’ Leadership” [Hebrew], Zion 82 (2017), 193 266. Karaite Rabbanite relations are currently a controversial topic: see Marina Rustow, “The Qaraites as Sect: The Tyranny of a Construct,” in Sacha Stern, ed., Sects and Sectarianism in Jewish History (Leiden, 2011), 266 88; and Yoram Erder, “The Split between the Rabbanites and the Karaite Communities in the Geonic Period” [Hebrew], Zion 88 (2013), 321 49. Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), 239 65, and especially 243n11 for the geographical spread of these mixed marriages. For Maimonides and the Karaites, see Maimonides, Responsa, #242, 263, 265, 351, 449. This is reflected in the way Israel M. Ta Shma’s literary history of Talmudic commen tary covers Ashkenaz, France, North Africa, Spain, Provence, and Italy, but leaves out Egypt; see his Talmudic Commentary in Europe and North Africa: Literary History, Volume 1: 1000 1200 (Jerusalem, 2000). A chapter on Egypt from Ta Shma’s nachlass was published in his Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature, Volume 4: East and Provence [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010), 64 84.

the maghrib and egypt 149 Egypt’s allegiance to the Palestinian yeshiva in Jerusalem (on this, see below) that was essentially a political institution rather than an institution of learning like its counterparts in Iraq. Even though it was the supposed destination of one of the four captives from the famous foundation legend found in Abraham Ibn Daʾud’s Sefer ha-Qabbalah,64 Egypt produced very few local scholars of stature and most of the scholars we hear about in the Genizah are of foreign origin.65 Besides the obvious case of Maimonides, other scholars like Judah “ha-Rav” ha-Kohen b. Joseph, Shemariah haKohen b. Nathan, Isaac b. Samuel ha-Sefaradi al-Kanzī, and Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder were all of foreign origin.66 These scholars typically composed biblical commentaries, liturgical poetry, sermons, and responsa, and the later ones also engaged in talmudic commentary, usually by commentating on al-Fāsī’s abridgment. Beyond the works of such second-tier scholars, the survival of the lecture notes of disciples in the Genizah offers us a glimpse into Egyptian study halls.67 The well-being of the Jewish communities in the medieval Islamic world depended largely upon securing favorable relations with the state. The Fātimids have long been noted for their relatively favorable treatment _ 64

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The Egyptian captive in the story of the four captives was Shemariah b. Elhanan; on him, see EJIW, s.v. “Shemariah ben Elhanan” (Marina Rustow). On his son, _see EJIW, s.v. “Elhanan ben Shemariah” (Elinoar_ Bareket). _ The notable exception is Hananel b. Samuel of the Ibn al Amshātī family, on whom see _ Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 90 120 (with the long presence of the family in Egypt at 94n22, and further bibliography at 112n106). See also Dan Greenberger, Steven B. Bowman, and Nahem Ilan, “From the Quill of Hananel ben Shmuel,” Ginzei Qedem _ 13 (2017), 9 23. For Judah, Isaac, and Joseph, see their respective entries in the EJIW. On Shemariah ha Kohen b. Nathan and his book of sermons, see Rafiq Nahara, “Kitab al Tuffāha: _ Collection of Judaeo Arabic Homilies on the Torah, from the End of the 11th or the Beginning of the 12th Century” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2016). Perahyah b. Nissim, who wrote several commentaries on al Fāsī that _ have been published, belonged on his father’s side to the famous Maghribī Ben Yījū family, and on his mother’s side to the equally famous Egyptian Ibn al Amshātī family; _ often see the genealogical tree in Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 120. A scholar mentioned in this context is Ishmael b. Hakmon, who, like Perahyah b. Nissim and _ Hiyya b. Isaac b. Samuel, composed commentaries on al Fāsī. However, doubt has recently been raised whether Ishmael indeed resided in Egypt; see ʿAdiʾel Breuer, “Rabbi Ishmael b. Hakmun and the Identification of Segments of His Commentaries to Sukkah, Beitzah, Pesahim and Yevamot” [Hebrew], Yeshurun 35 (2017), 70 86. _ See Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Notes by a Disciple in Maimonides’ Academy Pertaining to Beliefs and Concepts and Halakha” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 62 (1993), 523 84; Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Page with Notes of a Disciple of Maimonides Quoting Notes of a Disciple of Ibn Migash” [Hebrew], Ginzei Qedem 15 (2019), 163 78, with further references at 171n52.

150 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger of the non-Muslim communities of their empire. With the notable exception of al-Ḥākim’s persecutions in the beginning of the eleventh century and the execution of the Head of the Jews, Masliah Gaʾon, in 1139, this _ _ Mamlūk periods, see assessment seems to hold true (on the Ayyūbid and 68 below). Goitein characterized the Egyptian state as maintaining a laissezfaire policy toward the everyday affairs of its subjects. Studying the great mass of state documents preserved in the Genizah through their reuse by Jews, Marina Rustow has challenged this view, arguing for a much more intense involvement of the state in the lives of Jews from all walks of life.69 The state did not just appoint the Head of the Jews (on this office, see below), resting content and allowing him to administer the Jewish communities. There were several other points of contact between Egyptian Jews and the state. Many upper-class Jews served in the administration of the Fātimid state, where they served as an important channel both for the _ communal leadership as well as for regular Jews to the operation and decision-making of the state.70 Middling Jews occasionally served as tax farmers (sing. d āmin, pl. d ummān) for various localities and trades.71 Jews of all classes – _including a_ substantial number of women – made extensive use of Muslim legal venues, whether qād ī courts, government procedures _ or Muslim jurisconsults (muftīs for the redress of wrongs (mazālim courts), _ 68

69 70

71

For al Hākim, see Paul E. Walker, “Al Hākim and the Dhimmīs,” Medieval Encounters 21 (2015), 345 63. For Genizah evidence for his reign, see Gil, A History of Palestine, 376 78 (sec. 572); and Miriam Frenkel, “Adaptive Tactics: The Jewish Communities Facing New Realities,” Medieval Encounters 21 (2015), 380 83. The “Egyptian Scroll” mentioned in these publications has recently been republished in Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata, The Yotserot of R. Samuel the Third: A Leading Figure in Jerusalem of the 10th Century, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2014), 2:1007 13. On the murder of the Head of the Jews, see Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “On Judah ha Levi and the Martyrdom of a Head of the Jews: A Letter by Halfon ha Levi b. Nethanel,” in Y. Tzvi Langermann and Josef Stern, eds., Adaptations and Innovations: Studies on the Interaction of Jewish and Islamic Thought and Literature from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Twentieth Century Dedicated to Professor Joel L. Kraemer (Louvain, 2007), 92 96. Rustow, The Lost Archive. See also Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 164 77. Scholars tend to point out the few Jews who reached the very highest echelons of the state, like Ibrāhīm b. Sahl al Tustarī, or Jews who converted to Islam on the way to the top, like Yaʿqūb Ibn Killis, Hasan b. Ibrāhīm al Tustarī, and Sadaqa b. Yūsuf al Fallāhī; _ see Stillman, “The Jewish Community,” 206 7. However, there were dozens of Jews employed in the lower levels of the state bureaucracy. On tax farming in Egypt, see the recent Chris Wickham, “The Power of Property: Land Tenure in Fātimid Egypt,” Journal for the Social and Economic History of the Orient 62 _ The Genizah contains a wealth of information about tax farming (2019), 67 107. (especially about who were the tax farmers) that remains to be sifted through and analyzed.

the maghrib and egypt 151 and their fatwās). A Genizah letter in which a mother updates her son on the recent actions of Ayyūbid sultan al-Kāmil (r. 1218–38) and gives her son valuable advice on how to secure a lower tax rate once he returns to Egypt suggests a high level of familiarity with the workings of the state even among circles in which we might not initially expect it.73 Vertical relationships with the state did not come at the expense of horizontal relationships with Muslims (typically referred to as goy/goyyim in Genizah documents).74 Genizah documents occasionally attest to the existence of anti-Jewish sentiments (Hebrew, sinʾut) among the general population, especially in connection with Alexandria, though coexistence and cooperation are much more commonly attested.75 While certain neighborhoods and streets had a substantial concentration of Jews, none were exclusively Jewish: Jews were not restricted to them nor was there any spatial separation between religious communities. Indeed, examining records of sale of real estate, Goitein showed that Jews, Muslims, and Christians often lived as neighbors in the same residential complex and shared a common courtyard.76 In the economic realm, while Jews generally preferred to cooperate with other Jews, we also hear of partnerships between Jews and Muslims, both in long-distance trade as well as in running of a local workshop.77 Such cooperation could extend to the upper echelons of society, as attested in the Moses Maimonides–Ibn Sanāʾ circle.78 When a thirteenth-century Egyptian Jewish judge instructed his son to appear before the Muslim governor of Jerusalem 72

72

73 74

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76 78

Marina Rustow, “At the Limits of Communal Autonomy: Jewish Bids for Intervention from the Mamluk State,” Mamluk Studies Review 13 (2009), 133 59; Uriel Simonsohn, A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (Philadelphia, 2011); Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, “Legal Pluralism among the Court Records of Medieval Egypt,” Bulletin d’études orientales 63 (2014), 79 112; Oded Zinger, “‘She Aims to Harass Him’: Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues in Medieval Egypt,” AJS Review 42 (2018), 159 92. JTS ENA NS I.99, unpublished. This, I think, is a central problem in the relevance of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi’s thesis to medieval Egypt; see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Servants of Kings and Not Servants of Servants: Some Aspects of the Political History of the Jews (Atlanta, 2005). Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:278 83. It is not clear what made Alexandria into a hotspot for anti Jewish sentiments. 77 Ibid., 290 93. Ibid., 276 and 293 98. S. D. Goitein, “The Moses Maimonides Ibn Sanāʾ Circle (A Deathbed Declaration from March 1182),” in Moshe Sharon, ed., Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon (Jerusalem, 1986), 399 405; and Franz Rosenthal, “Maimonides and a Discussion of Muslim Speculative Theology,” in Mishael Maswari Caspi, ed., Jewish Tradition in the Diaspora: Studies in Memory of Professor Walter J. Fischel (Berkeley, 1981), 109 12.

152 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger and request a favor, he told him to tell the governor that they are “from his family.”79 While the Genizah contains substantial evidence on Jewish-Muslim relations (much of it still unpublished and under-examined), the general impression is that there is much less evidence on relations with Christians (usually referred to as ʿarel/ʿarelim – “uncircumcised” in Genizah documents).80 This is striking because at least until the thirteenth century, Christians comprised the majority of the Egyptian population.81 This relative silence is explained in part by the fact that Jews were mostly concentrated in the urban centers of the Delta, while Christians were more dominant in Middle and Upper Egypt. Another explanation is that the Jewish community was oriented toward the Muslim state and cultivated relations with prominent Muslim figures, but had less of an incentive to foster such relations with Christians.82 The well-known History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church also only very rarely refers to individual Jews.83 As for the communal structure of Egyptian Jewry: at the beginning of the eleventh century, when the Genizah begins shedding substantial light on communal affairs, Egyptian communities were under the authority of 79

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Bodl. MS Heb. d 66.57 verso line 13, ed. S. D. Goitein, Palestinian Jewry in Early Islamic and Crusader Times in Light of the Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1980), 327 32. On the Christians of Egypt, see Maged S. A. Mikhail, From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest (London, 2016); Mark N. Swanson, The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt (641 1517) (Cairo, 2010); Johannes Pahlitzsch, “The Melkites in Fatimid Egypt and Syria (1021 1171),” Medieval Encounters 21 (2015), 485 515; and several of the other articles in this special issue of Medieval Encounters on “Non Muslim Communities in Fatimid Egypt (10th 12th Centuries ce)”; Marlis J. Saleh, “Government Relations with the Coptic Community in Egypt during the Fātimid Period (358 567/969 1171)” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1995); Stanley H. Skresket, “The Greeks in Medieval Islamic Egypt: A Melkite Dhimmi Community under the Patriarch of Alexandria (640 1095)” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1987). See the discussion in Tamer El Leithy, “Coptic Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo, 1293 1524 a.d.” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005), 13 65. The majority of Christians in medieval Egypt belonged to the Coptic Church, but there was also a Melkite minority. Jacob Mann described the Christian and Jewish communities as “waging bitter war against each other”: Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fātimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (New York, 1920 22), 1:212. However, Goitein argued that “this generalization is not warranted by our sources”; see A Mediterranean Society, 2:281. For an exceptional mention there of a Jew who converted to Christianity in 1159, see Moshe Yagur, “Religious Identity and Communal Boundaries in Geniza Society (10th 13th Centuries): Proselytes, Slaves, Apostates” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2017), 166 68.

the maghrib and egypt 153 the Palestinian yeshiva in Jerusalem. The Fātimid caliph recognized the heads of the yeshiva (Hebrew, gaʾon, short_ for Rosh Yeshivat Geʾon Yaʿaqov) as the preeminent Jewish leader in his empire; apparently the Fātimids even provided financial support to the yeshiva in the early years of _their rule.84 The authority of the Palestinian yeshiva over the Jews of Egypt included the power to appoint judges for the larger Jewish communities, recognizing local Jewish leaders by bestowing titles, and power to declare the ban.85 For Egyptian communities, in turn, recognizing the authority of the Palestinian yeshiva meant accepting these prerogatives and sending donations to the yeshiva.86 However, the relationship between yeshiva and community was not one of a simple and rigid hierarchy, as the yeshiva in Palestine was dependent on the more prosperous and populous communities of Egypt for financial support and upon the Jewish courtiers at the Fātimid court in Cairo for their entrée to Muslim power.87 _ the Palestinian yeshiva did not have exclusive authority over Furthermore, the Egyptian community because alongside the main Palestinian congregation there were also Iraqi and Karaite congregations in Egypt. The Karaites seem to have been independent from the Palestinian yeshiva, while the Iraqis kept strong ties (i.e., sent donations and received titles) with the yeshivot in Iraq. Up until the 1060s, we see occasional attempts to set up separate Karaite and Babylonian courts; but these attempts seem to have been short-lived.88 84

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Gil, A History of Palestine, 551 52. Miriam Frenkel has put forward the reasonable argument that the state recognition of the Palestinian yeshiva was a Fātimid innovation; _ see Miriam Frenkel, “Jewish Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the Fatimid Period,” in Yitzhak Hen and Iris Shagrir, eds., Ut Videant et Contingant: Essays on Pilgrimage and Sacred Space in Honor of Ora Limor [Hebrew] (Raʿanana, 2011), 137. The basic title bestowed by the Palestinian yeshiva was haver, i.e., a member of the hierarchy of the yeshiva; see Friedman, Halfon and Judah_ ha Levi, 94 98. Other titles were of the form “beloved of the yeshiva,” “cherished of the yeshiva,” “diadem of the yeshiva,” etc. Often a shortened version of the title became the common way of referring to a person, and thus we find references to “the beloved,” “the cherished,” or “the diadem” in Genizah documents. As the Palestinian yeshiva was not an educational institution like its Babylonian counterparts, the answering of queries was not a significant element of its authority. See Marina Rustow, “The Genizah and Jewish Communal History,” in Ben Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, eds., “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2010), 289 318. See also the earlier overview by Mark R. Cohen, “Jewish Communal Organization in Medieval Egypt: Research, Results and Prospects,” Judeo Arabic Studies 1 (1997), 73 86. Oded Zinger, “A Karaite Rabbanite Court Session in Mid Eleventh Century Egypt,” Ginzei Qedem: Genizah Research Annual 13 (2017), 98* 102*; and Oded Zinger, “Introduction to the Jewish Legal Arena in Medieval Egypt,” in Miriam Frenkel, ed., The Jews in Medieval Egypt (Brookline, MA, forthcoming), 92n19.

154 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger With the Seljūq conquest of Palestine, the yeshiva migrated to Tyre and eventually to Damascus, outside the control of the Fātimid Empire;89 _ “Head of the amidst these developments, an independent office of the 90 Jews” (Arabic, raʾīs al-yahūd) slowly developed in Egypt. This development was seemingly due to a host of factors, including both intra-Jewish dynamics and a desire on the part of the state that the leader of the Jews be a local figure in the capital of the empire. The Head of the Jews was thus usually a highly placed official in the state administration (often a physician) as well as a recognized Jewish communal leader. The Head of the Jews took over most of the prerogatives of the Palestinian gaon, most importantly appointing judges to the larger towns and local leaders (Arabic, muqaddam) to the smaller communities. This development took place mostly through the efforts of two rival leaders: the Maghribī Mevorakh b. Seʿadyah (r. 1078–82 and 1094–1111) and the son of a Palestinian gaon, David b. Daniel b. Azariah (r. 1082–94). The Head of the Jews was occasionally referred to in Hebrew as nagid (a title earlier attested in North Africa and Spain) – a fact that led to much scholarly confusion – but this title only became standard in the reign of Abraham Maimonides (r. 1204–37), in the beginning of the second decade of the thirteenth century.91 The titles and prerogatives of the Head of the Jews fluctuated during the twelfth century, and only during the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk periods do we have clear and systematic elaborations of the prerogatives of the office in Egypt, and even then they are found only in Muslim sources.92 While the Palestinian gaon had authority only over the 89

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For a discussion of the movements of the Palestinian yeshiva, see Chapters 6 and 13 in this volume. The process was explored in depth in Cohen, Jewish Self government in Medieval Egypt. An alternative narrative developed by Shulamit Sela and Elinoar Bareket has not gained broad acceptance: see Shulamit Sela, “The Head of the Rabbanite, Karaite and Samaritan Jews: On the History of a Title,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 57 (1994), 255 67; and Elinoar Bareket, “The Head of the Jews (Raʾis al Yahud) in Fatimid Egypt: A Re evaluation,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 64 (2004), 185 97. Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “A Complaint to the Sultan against Abraham Maimonides” [Hebrew], Zion 81 (2016), 350; and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “New Evidence of the Abolition of Eretz Israel Prayers and Prayer Rituals in Egypt in Abraham Maimonides’ Times,” in Uri Ehrlich, ed., Jewish Prayer: New Perspectives [Hebrew] (Beer Sheva, 2016), 320. Another source of confusion in the first decades of Genizah research was that one of the holders of the office of the Head of the Jews, Samuel b. Hananiah, is commonly referred to in Genizah documents as Samuel ha Nagid; this led researchers to confuse him with the famous Andalusian poet who bore the same title. Clifford E. Bosworth, “Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries in Mamluk Egypt and Syria: Qalqashandi’s Information on Their Hierarchy, Titulature and Appointment

the maghrib and egypt 155 Palestinian congregation, the new Head of the Jews apparently represented all Jewish communities: Palestinian, Babylonian, and even the Karaite.93 In the twelfth century, a branch of the Palestinian yeshiva settled in Egypt, making Egyptian independence from Palestine complete. As already noted, we still await a comprehensive diachronic study of the Jewish communities of Egypt after the eleventh century.94 Yet it is nonetheless possible to identify a trend of increasing administrative activity, centralization, and professionalization in Jewish communal services in the twelfth century. For example, when we compare pages from notebooks of the Jewish court in Fustāt from the eleventh century to the twelfth century _ _ we find that the later records are more professionally executed in terms of script, layout, and use of legal formulas. Furthermore, while in the earlier notebooks the scribe and the court personnel often change from one session to the next, in the later notebooks they are more consistent, suggesting a more professional and centralized daily practice of the courts.95 The charitable operations of the Jewish community also developed and expanded. For example, the number of documents of the

93

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(II),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972), 210 15. See also an Ayyūbid letter of appointment for a Jewish leader in Syria from 1193 in Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge, 1993), 460 66, doc. 121. Though it is likely that there were fluctuations in this regard as well. David b. Daniel b. Azariah was married to a Karaite woman from a wealthy courtier class and thus had strong connections with the Karaites. The Heads of the Jews who followed him did not have such strong ties to the Karaite community and, in any case, the diminished visibility of the Karaite community in twelfth century sources makes it difficult to know much about the community. See Elinoar Bareket, “Karaite Communities in the Middle East during the Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries,” in Meira Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003), 237 52. The only community to have been the subject of such a study is Alexandria; see Miriam Frenkel, “The Compassionate and Benevolent”: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006). For editions of documents of the pious foundations, see Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden, 1976). Unfortunately, Gil’s study organizes his documents chronologically but provides no diachronic analysis. Fragments of court notebooks from the first half of the eleventh century are published in Elinoar Bareket, “Books of Records of the Jerusalemite Court from the Cairo Geniza in the First Half of the Eleventh Century” [Hebrew], Hebrew Union College Annual 69 (1998), 1 55. The much larger corpus of twelfth century notebooks has not been studied systematically. For two further studies on court notebooks, see Gideon Libson, “The ʻCourt Memorandumʼ (Mahd ar) in Saadiahʼs Writings and the Genizah and the Muslim Mahd ar” [Hebrew],_ _Ginzei Qedem 5 (2009), 99 163; and Judith Olszowy _ _ archives médiévales dans la genizah du Caire: registres des tribunaux Schlanger, “Les rabbiniques et pratiques d’archivage reconstituées,” Afriques: Débats, méthodes et terrains d’histoire 7 (2016), 1 16.

156 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger Jewish pious foundations that survived in the Genizah increases sharply during the twelfth century.96 In 1150, the Head of the Jews and the senior judges appointed Isaiah ha-Levi to a new position of a general administrator of the Egyptian pious foundations.97 Around this time we also see new attempts to monitor and regulate the institution of marriage, whether by assuring that the bride was not a minor or that neither spouse was involved in an existing marriage.98 These developments can be viewed as the ripple effects of the earlier consolidation of the office of the Head of the Jews. They may also be connected to the noticeable decrease in Jewish economic activity from the eleventh to the twelfth centuries.99 In other words, with the relative decline of the wealthy Maghribī mercantile elite, the administrative operations of the Jewish community not only grew in size and importance, but were conducted in a more formalistic manner. The culmination of this process (which remains yet to be verified and substantiated) may be seen in the leadership of Moses Maimonides in the last three decades of the twelfth century. Maimonides’ political career in Egypt has received a great deal of attention, but still even the basic questions of what position he held and when remain unclear. We have direct evidence that he was the Head of the Jews around 1171–72 and there are strong indications that he held this office again sometime after 1196 until his death in 1204.100 However, between these two periods we find him deeply involved in communal welfare services, responding to legal queries, upholding bans, and promoting new legislation (Hebrew, 96 97 98

99

100

See the table of contents in Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations. Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations, doc. 49. Amir Ashur, “Engagement and Betrothal Documents from the Cairo Geniza” [Hebrew], (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2006), 170 76 and 329 35. At 185, Ashur points to the development of the office of the Head of the Jews in Egypt alongside the growth in the India trade as instrumental to the development of the engagement contract in the twelfth century. However, in later work on the subject, Ashur attributes this primarily to the Indian Ocean trade: see Amir Ashur, “The India Trade and the Emergence of the Engagement Contract: A Cairo Geniza Study,” The Medieval Globe 3 (2018), 27 49. The Indian Ocean trade may have been the economic mainstay of the Jews of Egypt in the twelfth century, but it is highly doubtful that it could replace the intensive Mediterranean trade of the eleventh century. In any case, Genizah documents reveal a substantial decrease in Jewish involvement in the Indian Ocean trade in the thirteenth century. For key studies, see Menahem Ben Sasson, “Maimonides in Egypt: The First Stage,” in Arthur Hyman, ed., Maimonidean Studies II (New York, 1991), 3 30; Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Maimonides: Rayyis al Yahud [Head of the Jews] in Egypt,” in Uri Ehrlich, Howard Kreisel, and Daniel J. Lasker, eds., By the Well: Studies in Jewish Philosophy and Halakhic Thought Presented to Gerald J. Blidstein (Beer Sheva, 2008), 413 35; and Friedman, “Maimonides Appoints R. Anatoly.”

the maghrib and egypt 157 taqqanot). In matters of both legal and communal welfare, Maimonides strove to unify and regulate Egyptian practice and to centralize communal administration. While his methods were certainly innovative (and often at odds with those of his political opponent), their goal and substance seems to fit the trend suggested above for the twelfth century as a whole.102 Maimonides’ style of leadership was continued by his son Abraham, who served as Head of the Jews in Egypt until his death in 1237.103 Alongside leading a pietistic circle engaged in prostrating and kneeling in prayer and in supererogatory ascetic practices such as nightly vigils, fasting, and social seclusion, Abraham strove to reform the customs of the Palestinian synagogue of Fustāt and align it with the Babylonian practice. In this he was trying to unite_ _the diverging customs and claimed he was continuing the legacy of his father.104 After Abraham, some five 101

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For Maimonides’ involvement in the communal welfare operations, see Menahem Ben Sasson, “Maimonides, Charity and Pious Foundations” [Hebrew], Zion 84 (2019), 335 87. For Maimonides’ legislation and declaration of bans, see Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Maimonides, Zuta and the Muqaddams: A Story of Three Bans” [Hebrew], Zion 70 (2005), 473 528. For a recent innovative study of Maimonides’ legislation on women’s menstruation, see Eve Krakowski, “Maimonides’ Menstrual Reform in Egypt,” Jewish Quarterly Review 110 (2020), 245 89. I am grateful to Krakowski for sharing with me her study before its publication. Important evidence in this regard is a taqqanah that has not received much attention from scholars as it was only mentioned in letters en passant. Maimonides seems to have legislated that he alone would answer legal queries; see S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Abraham Ben Yijū: India Trader and Manufacturer (Jerusalem, 2010), 401 and 403. Ben Sasson, “Maimonides, Charity and Pious Foundations,” 372 74. Much has been written on Abraham Maimonides in recent years; see Elisha Russ Fishbane, Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Times (Oxford, 2015); and Paul B. Fenton, “Sufis and Jews in Mamluk Egypt,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Bonn, 2017), 41 62 (with references to his earlier studies). Mordechai Akiva Friedman dedicated many studies to Abraham Maimonides, his movement, and his reforms. For the three latest ones in Hebrew, see Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “The Appointment of a Prayer Leader and His Dismissal according to Maimonides and His Son Rabbi Avraham,” in Moshe Bar Asher, Yehuda Liebes, Moshe Assis, and Yosef Kaplan, eds., Benayahu Memorial, Volume 1: Studies in Talmud, Halakhah, Custom and Jewish History (Jerusalem, 2019), 275 327; Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Pietistic Criticism: Remonstration among Abraham Maimonides’ Devotees” [Hebrew], Teʿuda 30 (2018), 253 85; and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “The Shabbat Evening Prayer in the Palestinian Congregation of Fustat in Abraham Maimonides’ Times” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 85 (2017), 145 99. For two English studies, see Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Abraham Maimonides on his Leadership, Reforms and Spiritual Imperfections,” Jewish Quarterly Review 104 (2014), 495 512; and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Abraham Maimuni’s

158 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger generations of Maimonides’ descendants occupied the office of the Head of the Jews for the following two centuries – a dynasty combining political and scholarly activity without parallel in Jewish history.105 Maimonides’ own quick (and short-lived) rise to power around 1170–71 must have been related to the equally meteoric (but much longer-lasting) rise of Saladin to power in Egypt at the very same moment. By 1174, Saladin had disposed of the Fātimid caliph; for the next seven decades, _ descendants, the Ayyūbid sultans. The Egypt was ruled by Saladin and his Ayyūbids styled themselves as the restorers and champions of Sunnī orthodoxy and periodically performed this role by proclaiming legislation against non-Muslims. These legislations were mostly regarding distinguishing clothing and appearance (Arabic, ghiyār), higher customs tax rates, and employment restrictions in the state bureaucracy. However, it is difficult to assess the degree and the length of time in which these regulations were enforced and observed.106 We know of many Jews who were employed in the Muslim government under the Ayyūbids, whether as officials or as physicians;107 likewise, evidence for the implementation of the ghiyār is also inconclusive.108 Higher customs rates were imposed but were later retracted causing “no lasting detrimental effect on the economic or social position of the non-Muslims.”109 Scholarly study of non-Muslims in the Ayyūbid period has focused on the reign of Saladin, but without systematic study it is difficult to determine the extent to which events in

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Prayer Reforms Continuation or Revision of His Father’s Teachings,” in Carlos Fraenkel, ed., Traditions of Maimonideanism (Leiden, 2009), 139 54. Menahem Ben Sasson is currently engaged in a long term study of the Maimonidean dynasty. See, for the time being, his “The Maimonidean Dynasty: Between Conservatism and Revolution,” in Jay M. Harris, ed., Maimonides after 800 Years: Essays on Maimonides and His Influence (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 1 17; “Tradition and Change in the Pattern of Controversy of the Descents of Maimonides,” in Joshua Blau and David Doron, eds., Heritage and Innovation in Medieval Judeo Arabic Culture [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 2000), 71 94; and “The ‘Libraries’ of the Maimonides Family between Cairo and Aleppo,” in Yom Tov Assis, Miriam Frenkel, and Yaron Harel, eds., Aleppo Studies I [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2009), 51 105. Nathan Hofer points out that in the Mamlūk period such anti dhimmī legislations were often proclaimed at the start of a ruler’s reign. Thus, they should not be read as indicating permanent state policy but as “formal enunciations of power”; see Hofer, “The Ideology of Decline,” 110n59. This insight, which Hofer attributes to Tamer el Leithy, may apply to the Ayyūbids as well. See also Oded Zinger, “‘One Hour He Is a Christian and the Next He Is a Muslim!’ A Family Dispute from the Cairo Geniza,” al Masāq 31 (2019), 25n30. 108 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:374. Zinger, “One Hour,” 24 25. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:289.

the maghrib and egypt 159 the beginning of the period represent the Ayyūbid period as a whole.110 While Goitein saw the Ayyūbid period as essentially continuing the generally favorable conditions for Jews under the Fātimids, he also noted _ a “spirit of mounting religious strictness, if not intolerance” that heralded the worsening conditions that were to come under the Mamlūks.111 One important process begun by the Ayyūbids that was to have an unforeseen detrimental effect upon non-Muslim communities has to do with the Ayyūbids’ ties with madrasas and Sunnī scholars (the ʿulamāʾ). As a military elite, the Ayyūbids needed to reinforce their religious legitimacy, which they achieved by endowing madrasas and supporting the ʿulamāʾ. Many of the growing numbers of ʿulamāʾ emerging from these madrasas sought government employment, and competition with non-Muslim elites for such positions was probably the reason for the appearance of works arguing against the employment of non-Muslims in the government.112 Competition within the ʿulamāʾ also likely contributed to the aforementioned “spirit of mounting religious strictness” as each scholar sought to demonstrate his piety by adopting a more stringent line when it came to discussions of the ghiyār, attacks on churches and synagogues, social interaction with non-Muslims, and using their physicians. All this led to the emergence in the thirteenth century of an anti-dhimmī literature which greatly expanded in the fourteenth century.113 Periodic campaigns by Crusaders from the North against Egypt and the threat of a Mongol invasion from the East may also have contributed to animosity against non-Muslims.114 110

111 112

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I am not aware of any study specifically on the Jews under the Ayyūbids, except for the brief study of Mohamed Hawary, “Muslim Jewish Relations in Ayyubid Egypt, 1171 1250,” in Moshe Maʿoz, ed., The Meeting of Civilizations: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish (Brighton, 2009), 66 73. For studies about Saladin, see, for example, Eliyahu Ashtor Strauss, “Saladin and the Jews,” Hebrew Union College Annual 27 (1956), 305 26; Yaacov Lev, Saladin in Egypt (Leiden, 1999), 190 93; and Anne Marie Eddé, Saladin (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 397 417. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:38. See also ibid., 6:13 (index). This is the argument presented in Luke Yarbrough, “The Madrasa and the Non Muslims of Thirteenth Century Egypt: A Reassessment,” in Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Messler, eds., Entangled Histories: Knowledge, Authority and Jewish Culture in the Thirteenth Century (Philadelphia, 2017), 93 112. Yarbrough revises the influential earlier contribution of Gary Leiser, “The Madrasas and the Islamization of the Middle East: The Case of Egypt,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 22 (1985), 29 47. Tamer El Leithy, “Sufis, Copts, and the Politics of Piety: Moral Regulation in 14th Century Upper Egypt,” in Adam Sabra and Richard McGregor, eds., The Development of Sufism in Mamluk Egypt (Cairo, 2006), 76. Yarbrough, “The Madrasa,” 94.

160 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger The Ayyūbids were replaced by the Mamlūks in 1250, who secured their rule for the next two and a half centuries with their victory over the invading Mongols in 1260. The Mamlūk period is one of the more neglected periods in the study of Egyptian Jewry. The first two Hebrew volumes of Eliyahu Ashtor-Strauss’s History of the Jews in Egypt and in Syria under the Rule of the Mamluks, published in 1944 and 1951, are still the only comprehensive treatment of this period.115 The neglect is partially due to the dearth of Genizah documents from after 1250.116 Another reason is that the Mamlūk period stands in the shadow of the Fātimid period, _ overall one of remarkable economic activity and relative individual and communal security, as evidenced by Egypt’s attractiveness to Jewish immigrants mentioned above. A famine in 1201–2, followed by further famines and epidemics, substantially reduced the numbers of Jews in Egypt.117 The economic situation of the remnant also deteriorated, continuing a process underway in the twelfth century. With the aforementioned “spirit of mounting religious strictness” came governmental anti-dhimmī decrees combined regularly with (often S ̣ūfī-led) popular violence against houses of worship (the two most famous outbreaks took place in 1301 and 1354).118 Despite this, it should be noted that the Jews – the less-conspicuous minority in Egypt – suffered less from these tribulations than the Copts.119 Jews developed various ways to cope with these worsening conditions.120 Such strategies included keeping a low profile, developing legends about the antiquity of houses of worship, disguising oneself as Muslim,

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119 120

The third volume of Ashtor Strauss’s work, published in 1970, includes editions of some seventy four Genizah documents from the Mamlūk period. However, see the review by S. D. Goitein, “Geniza Documents from the Mamluk Period” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 41 (1971), 59 81. See also S. D. Goitein, “The Twilight of the House of Maimonides” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 54 (1984), 67 104; Donald S. Richards, “Arabic Documents from the Karaite Community in Cairo,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 15 (1972), 105 62; and Dotan Arad, “Jews in 15th Century Alexandria in the Light of New Documents” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 156 (2018), 167 84. The dwindling number of Genizah documents in the Mamlūk period is usually explained by the fact that most Jews moved from Fustāt, which had been descending _ _Cairo, where there must have into ruin from the end of the Fātimid period, to nearby _ been another genizah which did not survive. Russ Fishbane, “Earthquake, Famine, and Plague.” See also Mark R. Cohen, “Jews in the Mamlūk Environment: The Crisis of 1442 (A Geniza Study, T S. AS 150.3),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47 (1984), 425 48. El Leithy, “Sufis, Copts, and the Politics of Piety,” 75 120. Nathan Hofer recently decried what he sees as “the ideology of decline” in the study of Jews in Ayyūbid and Mamlūk Syria; see Hofer, “The Ideology of Decline” (which also discusses the same approach to Egyptian Jewry).

the maghrib and egypt 161 establishing pious foundations (Arabic, awqāf; sing. waqf) to protect estates from being seized by the state, and amassing documentation to defend one’s rights.121 These challenges should not obscure from us some of the other interesting features of this period, such as the aforementioned Egyptian pietistic movement that reached its prominence under the leadership of Abraham Maimonides in the Ayyūbid period but continued with his descendants well into the Mamlūk period.122 Furthermore, religious creativity did not cease and the Maimonidean dynasty produced and curated an impressive series of works stretching for several generations.123 The Jewish communities of Egypt were to be invigorated by immigrants fleeing the Spanish exile of 1492. Their arrival, combined with the Ottoman rule that replaced Mamlūk control in 1517, spelled a profound change for Egyptian Jewry. CONCLUSION

The genizot of Cairo and geonic responsa shed a dazzling light on the Jewish communities of North Africa and Egypt. Through them, scholars can reconstruct in detail the intercommunal structure, local politics, economic activities, family life, Jewish learning and scholarship, and complex engagements with different Islamic regimes of these communities. While North Africa and Egypt were linked through the various ties explored above, there were also substantial differences that set them apart. The strong agrarian base provided by the Nile valley meant that Egypt resisted more successfully the processes of tribalization and nomadization that took place further west. This not only meant that for most of our period Egypt was the basis of a strong and centralized empire, but it also facilitated the persistence of a substantial nonMuslim population, in the form of the Copts. The existence of another (and significantly larger) non-Muslim group protected the Jews of Egypt from some of the harsher treatments that Jews received in places where they became the sole non-Muslim community (such as in Yemen and the Maghrib). Egypt and North Africa were also set apart in their relationship to other Jewish centers in Palestine and Babylonia. As explained above, Egypt 121

122 123

Dotan Arad, “Being a Jew under the Mamluks: Some Coping Strategies,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Bonn, 2017), 21 39; and Hofer, “The Ideology of Decline,” 115 20. Fenton, “Sufis and Jews in Mamluk Egypt.” Ben Sasson, “The ‘Libraries’ of the Maimonides Family.”

162 menahem ben-sasson and oded zinger maintained a marked Palestinian orientation and was under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian yeshiva until the latter declined following the Seljūq conquest and the Crusades. The Maghrib, however, fell outside the zones of direct jurisdiction of either center, but maintained a functional and later ceremonial relationship with the Iraqi center. The Maghrib was also closely connected with Spain, with its strong Babylonian orientation. The difference in how these communities interacted with the long-standing centers goes a long way in explaining the efflorescence of rabbinic scholarship in the local academies of the Maghrib compared to the relative weakness of Egyptian Jewry in this regard. It would be interesting to explore the broader ramifications of this difference beyond the academies – for example, in the everyday work of the courts or in the role of scholarship as a prerequisite for communal leadership in both regions. The riches of the Cairo genizot and geonic responsa promise to reward future scholars engaged in such comparative work. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

the maghrib Abramson, Shraga. Ba-Merkazim u-va-Tefusot bi-Tequfat ha-Geʾonim _ (Jerusalem, 1965). Ben-Sasson, Menahem. The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World (Qayrawan 800–1057) [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1996). “Varieties of Inter-communal Relations in the Geonic Period,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society and Identity (Leiden, 1997), 17–31. Brody, Robert. The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998). Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992). Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004). Goitein, S. D. Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966). A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). Goldberg, Jessica L. Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World (Cambridge, 2016). Hirschberg, Haim Zeev. A History of the Jews in North Africa, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1974–81).

the maghrib and egypt 163 Mann, Jacob. “The Responsa of the Babylonian Geonim as a Source of Jewish History,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. VII–X (1917–21) [republished New York, 1973]. egypt Ashtor-Strauss, Eliyahu. History of the Jews in Egypt and in Syria under the Rule of the Mamluks, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1944–70). Cohen, Mark R. Jewish Self-government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, 1980). Conermann, Stephan, ed. Muslim-Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171–1517) (Bonn, 2017). Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. “Maimonides, Zuta and the Muqaddams: A Story of Three Bans” [Hebrew], Zion 70 (2005), 473–528. Goitein, S. D., and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (‘India Book’) (Leiden, 2008). Russ-Fishbane, Elisha. Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Times (Oxford, 2015). Rustow, Marina. The Lost Archive: Traces of a Caliphate in a Cairo Synagogue (Princeton, 2020). Sijpesteijn, Petra M. “Visible Identities: In Search of Egypt’s Jews in Early Islamic Egypt,” in Alison Salvesen, Sarah Pearce, and Miriam Frenkel, eds., Israel in Egypt: The Land of Egypt as Concept and Reality for Jews in Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (Leiden, 2020), 424–40.

chapter 5

THE JEWS OF MUSLIM SPAIN jane s. gerber

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

In 711, a small Muslim invading force composed of Arabs and Berbers crossed the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa and began a military campaign that overthrew the Visigothic Kingdom and inaugurated a new chapter in Islamic and European history. It also marked the beginning of a new era in Jewish history. The Arabs applied the name al-Andalus to the newly acquired Iberian territory, probably recalling the Vandals, one of the Germanic tribal groups who formed the prior Christian kingdom. Henceforth, the Iberian Peninsula under Muslim rule would be known as Andalusia or al-Andalus. Al-Andalus endured for almost 800 years in an ever-contracting territory until its last stronghold, the Nāsrid Kingdom of _ Granada, fell in 1492. Since the end of the fifteenth century, the name Andalusia has denoted the small southwestern province at the tip of the Iberian Peninsula; the entire, unified, peninsula became known as Spain. The Jews recall the area as Sepharad and its Jewish inhabitants and their descendants are designated Sephardim. Andalusia was situated at the westernmost frontier of the Islamic empire. Its boundaries were never static during the Middle Ages and the relations among its several ethnic and religious groups were often tumultuous. Medieval Iberian history was characterized by almost continuous friction among its various Arab and Berber populations and a centurieslong Christian campaign to “recapture” the land for Christendom (later known as the Reconquista). Medieval Spain carries the distinction of being the place with the longest and most intense history of coexistence between Jews, Muslims, and Christians. (Muslim rule in Sicily was much shorter and more ephemeral in its historical impact.) The quality of this coexistence (in Spanish, literally convivencia) of the three faiths has been the subject of modern historiographic debate as well as a great deal of

164

the jews of muslim spain 165 1 idealization and exaggeration concerning medieval tolerance. However one interprets the coexistence of the three faiths in medieval Iberia, it is clear that the comingling of the many peoples and several faiths produced an extraordinary symbiosis and a distinctive civilization manifest in music, art, architecture, poetry in several languages, and philosophy and science. Iberian pluralism was especially conducive to the creation of a remarkable Jewish culture and the formation of one of the two main branches of the Jewish people. Jews were stimulated by its diversity and intellectual curiosity and inspired by its dynamism and cultural ferment.2 Being multilingual, they were equipped to play a significant role as commercial and cultural intermediaries between the Arabic-speaking world and the Latinand vernacular-speaking worlds via Hebrew and the Iberian vernaculars. An independent Muslim presence persisted in the Iberian Peninsula until 1492. However, beginning in the eleventh century and accelerating after 1147, Jews began to flee the shrinking Muslim territory in search of refuge from the persecutions instituted by the fundamentalist Almoravid (Arabic, al-Murābitī, 1090–1145) and Almohad (Arabic, al-Muwahhid, _ _ in _ By 1492, only a small Jewish presence remained 1147–1223) dynasties. the surviving Muslim redoubt in the Nāsrid Kingdom of Granada. The _ major religious groups were never hermetically sealed from one another. Despite constant military confrontations and ephemeral alliances, Spain’s diverse population enjoyed a steady exchange of ideas, inventions, artistic motifs, luxury goods, tradesmen, and clerics across porous, ever-shifting boundaries separating Muslim and Christian territories. Any evaluation of the nature of the Sephardic experience must take into account this unstable Iberian context in which the Jews were precariously situated, caught in the middle, and periodically suffering as victims of both main religious blocs. The Jews of Andalusia were an overwhelmingly urban group settled among a predominantly agricultural population. While they probably numbered no more than 2 percent of the overall population, they constituted a strong presence in the cities and towns of the region and consequently tended to be more conspicuous to travelers, chroniclers, and

1

2

On the romanticization of Jewish life in Muslim Spain, see Ismar Schorsch, “The Myth of Sephardic Supremacy,” in From Text to Context: The Turn to History in Modern Judaism (Waltham, MA, 1994), 71 92, and references in note 6. Thomas F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages: Comparative Perspectives on Social and Cultural Formation (Princeton, 1979), 55 and 323n12, on the special name designating Christians who lived under Muslim rule and Muslims who lived under Christian rule. The designations mudéjares and mozárabes convey the hybrid cultural stances that characterized each group.

166 jane s. gerber geographers. For instance, in the case of medieval Granada, Jews may have comprised the majority of the population! In popular parlance, the city was known as Gharnātat al-Yahūd (Granada of the Jews). Medieval Lucena was _ the site of a famous academy of higher Jewish learning and reputedly housed an entirely Jewish population. Jewish onomastic traditions derived the name of Toledo from the Hebrew word toledot or tulaytula (migration _ or wandering), asserting that the city was named _by exiles from the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 ce. In the later Middle Ages, they also ascribed Toledo’s Jewish population to exiles from the destruction of the First Temple in 586 bce, thereby excluding them from collective responsibility for the death of Jesus in Jerusalem. While the custom of matching place of settlements in medieval Europe with Hebrew words or biblical contexts was common, in the case of Toledo, topographical reconstructions of its medieval, sprawling Jewish quarters testify to a sizable and deeply rooted Jewish population in that historic urban center.3 Historians have been hampered in their attempts to reconstruct Jewish life in Muslim Spain during the early Middle Ages by the paucity of Hebrew or Arabic sources.4 The Cairo Genizah, the greatest repository of primary archival material on everyday Jewish life under medieval Islam, scarcely touches upon Spain. The treasure trove preserved in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustāt, Old Cairo, contained the records and correspond_ _ ence of the Palestinian Jewish community of Fustāt and consequently _ _ in its quotidian reflected the life of that particular community primarily relations with the Jewries in Palestine and North Africa. However, we may make some cautious generalizations about daily life in Muslim Spain on the basis of Genizah records, since a degree of uniformity prevailed in many areas of Jewish life in the Mediterranean-wide civilization established by Islam. Arabic chronicles present their own challenges for the reconstruction of Andalusian Jewish history. The events they record tend to dwell on Córdoba whereas conditions outside the capital and its royal palace were frequently markedly different. Moreover, Muslim chroniclers tended to ignore the lives of the minorities in their midst and to focus on the biographies of Muslim scholars and their legal debates, peppered occasionally by notations of noteworthy or idiosyncratic events. Public records 3

4

See Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, “Exile and Expulsion in Jewish History,” in Benjamin Gampel, ed., Crisis and Creativity in Jewish History (New York, 1997), 14 15, for a discussion of onomastic traditions in Europe in the process of “judaization of exile.” See Chapter 1 in this volume; see also Stefan C. Reif, A Jewish Archive From Old Cairo (Richmond, 2000), 20 22.

the jews of muslim spain 167 from Muslim Spain are also extremely rare. In contrast to the abundance of municipal and royal records from the Christian period, especially from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries, the legal records of Muslim Spain that might have revealed information about the Jews ceased to have validity as each Muslim territory in Iberia succumbed to Christian rule: records of property rights or commercial agreements were either destroyed or likely discarded since an entirely new legal system was introduced at the time of the reconquest. Sources in Hebrew for Andalusia are also largely unavailable. Rabbinic responsa, with their characteristic wealth of information on internal Jewish life, are extremely scarce since independent Iberian rabbinic scholarship was in its infancy under Islamic rule and does not emerge as significant until the Christian period of rule. As a result, historians have been compelled to mine literary sources such as the collections of medieval Hebrew poetry (dīwāns) for information on the history of the Jews of Muslim Spain. While quite rich from a literary point of view, such sources pose their own problems of bias since the poetry of Spain tends to reflect the lifestyle and interests of a small Jewish elite who operated in the rarified atmosphere of Muslim courts and served the tastes and egos of elite Jewish patrons of culture. The isolated data imbedded in the poetry does not necessarily reflect the lives of the Jewish majority. The Jewish historical experience in al-Andalus became a subject of much interest and delight in the nineteenth century. Its larger-than-life personalities who functioned in the public arena and mastered secular knowledge provided a perfect foil for a European Jewish scholarly class seeking human models in their battle to obtain civic rights in Europe. The fruits of their scholarship have been colored by the bias of these nineteenth-century founders of the scientific study of the Jewish experience who initially retrieved and reconstructed their story. The European pioneers of Jewish scholarship, such as Heinrich Graetz and Abraham Geiger, were actively engaged in the public debates for Jewish emancipation. The opponents of Jewish emancipation in the parliaments, the universities, and the European press contended that the Jews were incapable of sharing in the general culture or speaking the native language of their fellow countrymen. In response, proponents of emancipation eagerly seized upon examples from medieval Spain, citing the remarkable level of Jewish acculturation attained by some of Spain’s worldly courtiers and poets. Its galaxy of Jewish personalities served as ammunition in these public battles and also constituted an oblique attack on the perceived obscurantism of the Jewries of nineteenth-century Europe. Jewish historians tended to ascribe exaggerated qualities of tolerance and enlightenment to Andalusian Islamic rule, juxtaposing the “tolerance” and interfaith

168 jane s. gerber amity of Muslim Spain to a largely persecutory medieval Christendom.5 Their apologetic analyses formed one voice in a broader movement of romanticization of medieval Spain associated with the publication of such works as Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra in the United States. This idyllic image has been reiterated in more recent decades in Spain, the Muslim world, and the United States, in each case for its own particular, frequently political, purposes. Americo Castro’s influential theories of the formation of Spanish culture from the harmonious coexistence (convivencia) of Muslims, Christians, and Jews continue to color interpretations of Spanish history. These several factors, coupled with the genuine novelty of Spain’s multireligious medieval scene and the Jews’ accomplishments in the secular sphere, shaped the development of what has become known as the “Sephardic mystique” among the Jews.6 Jewish life in early medieval and Muslim Spain can be divided into several periods: its obscure beginnings in the Greco-Roman period; the era of peninsular expansion and subsequent persecution under Visigothic rule to 711; the age of conquest and consolidation of Muslim rules in the emirate and caliphate of Córdoba, 756–1031 – during which Jewish culture flourished; a short and vibrant cultural era in the “party” (Arabic, tāʾifa) _ kingdoms, 1031–89; the cultural efflorescence accompanied by political decline under Almoravid rule, 1090–1147; and the abrupt end of Jewish life under the Almohads, c. 1147–1235. By the thirteenth century, the majority of Sephardim dwelled in Christian Spain, with a small remnant persisting under Muslim hegemony as Muslim rule contracted. The Jews lived almost an equal amount of time under Christian hegemony as under the Muslims, enjoying growth and cultural efflorescence for several generations in each realm, ultimately encountering persecution and forced conversion in both realms. The Sephardic entity was dispersed in many Iberian kingdoms and nurtured strong ties with several local cultures and both Christian and Muslim overlords. In a deeply divided society, the Jews paradoxically acquired a sense of kinship and shared cultural identity in many significant respects which transcended the country’s fragmentation, 5

6

For a discussion of the place of Jews in medieval Christendom, see Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994). For an extended discussion of the “Sephardic mystique,” see John Efron, German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (Princeton, 2016). On the multiculturalism of medieval Spain as the foundation of the Spanish nation and the meaning of convivencia, see Americo Castro, The Structure of Spanish History (Princeton, 1954). For an example of the contemporary formulation of Spain’s “culture of tolerance,” see Maria Rosa Menocal, Culture in a Time of Tolerance: Al Andalus as a Model for Our Time, Yale Law School Occasional Papers 6 (Boston, 2002). For an expanded discourse on “Islamic tolerance vs. Christendom’s intolerance,” see Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross.

the jews of muslim spain 169 facilitating the emergence of an entity gradually identified as Sephardic Jewry. Historians and lay people frequently describe the history of the Jews of Spain as a golden age. Technically, the “golden age” of Spain in Jewish history constituted a brief moment, perhaps a century in duration, amidst a complex history enduring some two millennia. The descriptive applies to a cultural reality more than a political reality that unfolded under the caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031) and the tāʾifa kingdoms (1031–90). At the _ same time as the golden era of Jewish culture, extreme political instability and constant warfare prevailed among various Arab, Berber, neo-Muslim, and Christian groups. Jews suffered disproportionately from the internecine Muslim political quarrels. In one famous instance, in 1066, in Granada, the community reportedly suffered the slaughter of approximately 4,000 members. Examples of Jewish courtiers wielding local influence, such as that of the Ibn Naghrellas in Granada, should be evaluated in the light of the fragility of intergroup relations. The remarkable Hebrew poetry, scientific thought, linguistic innovation, and legal and philosophical writings which have captured the imagination of later historians and spectators emerged in the context of fierce intergroup conflicts. True, the range of Sephardic learning was impressive, especially by premodern standards. However, Jews were also often caught in the crossfire and were permanently shaped by the pattern of oscillating power between Christendom and Islam. Living side by side with Christians and Muslims, they frequently moved freely between Muslim and Christian political and cultural realms and were simultaneously at home in multiple linguistic contexts. They could appropriate ideas and arguments from divergent traditions, creating an exciting and novel synthesis. Yet, as the smallest religious group in the Iberian triad of religious traditions, Jews were also its most vulnerable and defenseless population. These many contradictions and elusive ingredients shaped the originality of the Jews in Muslim Spain. THE BEGINNINGS OF JEWISH LIFE IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA AND VISIGOTHIC SPAIN

Jews lived in organized Jewish communities in the Iberian Peninsula long before the Arabs’ arrival in 711. Their presence in ancient times is corroborated by a few archaeological remains, some literary allusions, and by Jewish oral tradition. Sephardic Jews tended to identify with specific cities and provinces of Spain during medieval times, buttressing their claims of longevity with foundation legends and pseudoscientific etymologies of place names to reinforce their ancient roots and legitimacy. Thus, for

170 jane s. gerber instance, the eastern Mediterranean biblical town of Tarshish mentioned in the Book of Jonah was identified with Tartessus, originally a Phoenician and later a Carthaginian seaport on the western Mediterranean coast. The city of Mérida in southern Spain was reputed to have been founded in ancient times as a refuge for the exiled aristocracy of Jerusalem. The fourth-century Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible by Saint Jerome translates the singular mention of Sepharad in the prophetic book of Obadiah (1:20) as Hispamia.7 The fanciful Hebrew derivations ascribed to the names of Iberian towns such as Toledo, Granada, and Calatayud emphasized both the importance and the antiquity of Jewish settlement. By the ninth century, the biblical “Sepharad” appearing once in the biblical verse “The exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad . . .” (Obadiah 1:20) was widely accepted as synonymous with Spain. Indeed, the association of Spain’s Jews with the exiles of the Judean aristocracy of ancient Jerusalem was widely accepted. They served several psychological and political purposes: claims of noble lineage brought privileges in medieval Arab society; proof of longevity could shield local Jews from mounting and lethal deicidal accusations in Christian Spain. While it is true that many European and Middle Eastern Jewries have preserved legends of their origins from the dispersed Judean refugees, in the Sephardic case, this apologetic claim was also expressive of a special sense of identification with their Iberian homeland. Ships bringing produce from the East during the Greco-Roman period also transported Jewish merchants and tradespeople. Agricultural products from the rich Roman province of Hispamia circulated freely along with ideas and peoples. These varied exchanges within the Roman Empire were facilitated by the highly developed Roman road system. According to archaeological and literary evidence, organized Jewish settlements dotted the Iberian Peninsula, especially its southern Mediterranean coastal region, by at least the third century. Trilingual tombstone inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek, and – to a lesser extent – Latin testify to the presence of synagogues with designated synagogue elders. Tombstone iconography, including the presence of the menorah, express a continuing Jewish identification with the Land of Israel. The Jews of Spain formed part of an interconnected diaspora, linked through North Africa and Italy to a widely dispersed people and sharing in the vicissitudes of the late Greco-Roman world as Germanic tribes from the North occupied the Peninsula.

7

Abraham Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah: The Book of Tradition, ed. Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia, 1967), book VII, 294, on the Judean aristocratic origins of Andalusian Jewry.

the jews of muslim spain 171 Decrees of the early Church councils suggest that the Jews enjoyed an elevated economic and social status in late antiquity, even posing a challenge to the missionizing efforts of the early Church in Spain and North Africa as elsewhere. One of the first Church councils to convene in the fourth century, in Elvira, Spain, sought to address the competition that Judaism apparently posed to the fledgling Church by promulgating a series of regulations aimed at restricting social interactions between Jews and non-Jews. Christians were exhorted to desist from discussing matters of faith with rabbis and to avoid turning to rabbis to bless their fields. These measures confirm that Judaism was an attractive religious presence, regarded by both pagans and Christians as a viable religious option. In the ongoing competition for the hearts of pagans, the Church felt challenged and threatened. Various measures were repeatedly adopted by the ecclesiastical authorities to separate the Jews from the rest of the population.8 Jewish fortunes took an ominous downturn with the conversion of Visigothic King Reccared from Arian Christianity to Catholicism in 587. Decisions of the Church councils that convened in Toledo were henceforth implemented as the law of the land. Soon after the kingdom’s conversion, lay and ecclesiastical leaders turned their attention to the question of the position of the Jews in Iberian society. In order to limit their demographic expansion, Jews were prohibited from intermarrying and from possessing slaves. Slaves already in the Jews’ possession were to be handed over to Christians immediately. Since slaveholding formed the backbone of the predominantly agricultural economy in Spain, this prohibition was tantamount to barring Jews from agricultural occupations. Moreover, since Jewish slaveholders would customarily manumit their slaves and convert them to Judaism, one of the consequences of the law was to limit the further expansion of the Jewish population. Additionally, any Jew found proselytizing was subject to capital punishment. In a similar discriminatory vein, Jews were prohibited from holding public office.

8

For a discussion of the Jewish position in the Greco Roman world, see John Gager, The Origins of Anti Semitism: Attitudes towards Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York, 1983), chapter 6. On the measures adopted by the early Church councils in the Iberian Peninsula, see James Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study of the Origins of Anti Semitism (Philadelphia, 1961), 379 88. For illustrative texts, see ibid., 394 401. For a general discussion of Visigothic policies and their implementa tion, see Bernard S. Bachrach, “A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy, 589 711,” American Historical Review 78, 1 (1973), 12; and Solomon Katz, The Jews in the Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul (Cambridge, MA, 1937).

172 jane s. gerber Finally, in a radical decree promulgated in 613,9 King Sisebut called for the forced conversion of all Jews. In 694, the Toledan council declared all Jews to be slaves, their possessions confiscated, and their children under the age of seven relinquished to Christians to be raised as Christians. Flight was prohibited and the converted Jews were compelled to pledge their devotion to Christianity in elaborate oaths of abjuration that seethed with loathing in their denunciations of Judaism.10 Scholars are in disagreement as to whether the draconian Visigothic decrees were ever implemented.11 The fact that the decrees were repeated at regular intervals suggests that their implementation was either partial or difficult to enforce. Anti-Jewish policies appear to have played a role in the political rhetoric that accompanied the battles for royal succession to the Visigothic throne. The use of the term “New Christian” that was applied to the converts in Visigothic documents suggests that forced conversion did indeed occur, perhaps resulting in the phenomenon of crypto-Judaism. The appearance of the label “New Christian” to designate the forced convert also presents a fascinating foreshadowing of the popular racial distinctions that would be drawn between “Old Christians” and “New Christians” in Spain and Portugal in the later Middle Ages. But religious coercion of the Jews could neither assure Jewish conformity nor divert popular attention from the country’s political dysfunction, opening the doors to the Muslim invasion in the spring of 711. Jewish flight to North Africa or the outward adoption of Christianity were characteristic Jewish responses to the series of persecutory decrees. At this precarious juncture in Iberian Jewish history, the progress of the Muslim advance in North Africa was undoubtedly witnessed by Jews with a mixture of trepidation and hope at the amelioration of their dire situation.

9

10

11

On the motivations behind the anti Jewish legislation of King Sisebut prohibiting Jewish slaveholding and the hiring of Christian workers, see Bernard S. Bachrach, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe (Minneapolis, 1977), 7 12. For a sample text of the oath of abjuration, see Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, 351 53. See also Katz, Jews in Visigothic and Frankish Kingdoms of Spain and Gaul, 12 13 and 25; and Aloysius Ziegler, Church and State in Visigothic Spain (Washington, DC, 1930). For a discussion of the differing points of view regarding implementation of Visigothic anti Jewish legislation, see Bachrach, “A Reassessment of Visigothic Jewish Policy,” 11 34. According to Paul Goubert, “Administration de l’Espagne Byzantine,” Revue des Études Byzantines 4 (1946), 38 and 246n46, Sisebut was swayed by rumors that the Byzantine Jews were attacking Christians in alliance with the Persian Empire in the East. Sisebut’s persecutory policies have been interpreted as an expression of his personal piety by Edward A. Thompson, The Goths in Spain (Oxford, 1969). See also Ziegler, Church and State in Visigothic Spain.

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THE MUSLIM CONQUEST OF SPAIN AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW SOCIAL ORDER

The Muslim conquest of Spain was initially an extension of the conquerors’ fierce and prolonged campaigns in North Africa. The promise of easy victory, the evidence of Visigothic divisions, and the exaggerated reports of spoils awaiting the conquerors made Spain an attractive target. Some literary sources interpret the incursions into Iberia as the results of the betrayal of disaffected Iberian Christians. Other traditions, Christian in origin, point the finger of blame for the fall of Visigothic Spain at the Jews. Spanish Jewish refugees from the Visigothic persecutions who found shelter in North Africa had likely recounted their plight and related that the country was torn by internal strife. But no evidence exists that these refugees had either the power or the resources to engineer an invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.12 The initial encounter of the Muslim raiders with the local Iberian population was unanticipated. Much to the surprise of the invaders, the indigenous Christian inhabitants mounted little resistance in many key places. One town after the next either surrendered (in which case the local inhabitants were permitted to remain and relegated to a subordinate position) or its local Christian militias left the city gates unguarded as they fled the invaders and abandoned their homes and headed for their mountain fastnesses. Many residents may not have taken the invasion seriously. Inured to military conflicts, they surrendered without offering any resistance. Wherever the local Christian population resisted, Muslim vengeance was cruel and immediate. In some places, only a cowed Jewish population remained in the deserted towns, fearfully witnessing the approach of the foreign, unruly troops. The process of conquest of Córdoba is described by a later Arab chronicler as follows:13 12

13

The history of the Arab and Berber invasions and subsequent conquest has been recounted many times by medieval chroniclers and modern historians. Surviving Arabic chronicles date from the tenth century and preserve some of the earlier accounts in edited form. One Arabic document from 713 records a peace treaty between the Arab general and Theodimir, the ruler of Murcia, enumerating the standard terms of capitu lation. Later accounts contain the first mention of the role played by Jews in the immediate aftermath of the conquests. There is no apparent reason why Arab chronicles would have mentioned the role of Jews unless such data had been transmitted to them through earlier sources and traditions. On the policies of the conquering Muslim troops, see Roger Collins, Caliphs and Kings: Spain, 796 1031 (Chichester, 2012). On the historiography of the conquests, see also Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al Andalus (London, 1996). Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands (Philadelphia, 1979), 156, from an anonymous chronicle, Ajbar Machmuá/Crónica Anónima del Siglo Xi, ed. Emilio Lafuente y Cantara (Madrid, 1867), 12 14.

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Mughīth entered Cordova’s municipal palace and occupied it. Then he went out the next day and besieged the uncircumcised (Christians) who had taken refuge in the cathedral. Mughīth maintained the siege for three months until they were worn out by it. Then he demanded their unconditional surrender as captives, and had them beheaded . . . He gathered the Jews of Cordova together and made them into a garrison over the city. He occupied the citadel himself and gave the city for his men.

The invaders apparently appointed local Jews to serve as defenders and guardians of the gates of deserted towns, leaving a few of their own troops behind as they moved on to pursue ever further conquests. The chroniclers comment succinctly, but significantly, that where there were no local Jews available to stand guard, more Muslim troops were left behind. With the exception of a few northern provinces of the peninsula, which remained in Christian hands, the conquest of Iberia was largely accomplished within four years of the initial invasion. When the dust of battle settled, the Muslims set out to establish a new order. Religion was the main yardstick used for classifying and differentiating groups in the newly conquered territories throughout the Muslim empire. Ethnicity was a second, and in many cases equally important, criterion of rule. Tribal affiliation also prevailed as a guide in the division of spoils. In the first generations after its inception, the far-flung Islamic empire hammered out a crucial theory and practice of majority/minority relations. Muslim jurists drew upon various precedents of rule from injunctions in the Qurʾān, traditions of the Prophet Muhammad _ (hadīth), the rulings of recognized Muslim scholars in the heartland of _ Islam, and local traditions to determine how Jews and Christians should be treated. Trial and error, as well as a good measure of pragmatism, played a role in defining the evolving status of non-Muslims. On the one hand, specific Qurʾānic injunctions imposed a discriminatory poll tax (Arabic, jizya) on non-Muslims. This tax served essentially as protection money. A discriminatory land tax or kharāj on the produce of non-Muslim cultivators was also imposed. On the other hand, general admonitions about the treatment of Jews in the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad _ formed the basis for spelling out more elaborate and specific discriminatory regulations. These specifics differed widely from place to place, many taken over from prior Byzantine practices. In their aggregate they became collectively known as “The Pact of ʿUmar.”14 14

On the disabilities encountered by monotheistic minorities in the world of Islam, see Antoine Fattal, Le Statut Légal des Non Musulmans en Pays d’Islam (Beirut, 1958); Jane S. Gerber, “Anti Semitism and the Muslim World,” in David Berger, ed., History and Hate (Philadelphia, 1986), 73 93. For a comparative discussion of the status of Jews

the jews of muslim spain 175 Negative Qurʾānic pronouncements on the Jews were grounded in the seventh-century conditions of the Prophet’s career in Arabia. They reflected heated polemical exchanges between Muhammad and the Jews _ of Mecca at several in the Arabian oasis of Medina, and the cultic center junctures in the Prophet’s career. Nevertheless, because of their provenance in the Qurʾān and the believer’s perception of their divine inspiration, these pronouncements would serve as the paradigm for many of the harsh regulations soon imposed upon the Jews. Qurʾānic statements such as that “baseness be stamped upon” the Jews (Qurʾān 2:61) or “we have forbidden them some good things that were previously permitted to them” (4:160–61) formed the basis for discussion and adjudication in the early schools of Islamic law and served as guidelines for the elaboration of detailed restrictions on the Jews. These elaborations were intended to carry out the spirit of the prophetic pronouncements. Thus, for example, Jewish submissiveness was assured through the imposition of distinctive clothing (sometimes humiliating or ludicrous in nature) which would serve as tangible proof of the bearer’s inferiority. Jews and Christians were prohibited from donning swords and riding horses. Their very names were required to emphasize modesty and submissiveness. Restrictions on Jewish economic occupations were also imposed. The monotheistic non-Muslims were prohibited from serving in positions of authority over Muslims. Yet despite the restrictive tone of the early legislation, Jews in Muslim lands usually confronted few obstacles to participation in broad areas of the economy during the early Middle Ages. It was left to local authorities to implement what constituted “submission” and “protection.” For example, to assure the superiority of the Muslim and his faith, Jews were required to assume a deferential posture toward Muslims. All forms of Jewish worship were required to be inconspicuous and modest. No new churches or synagogues were to be erected and older ones could not be repaired. Synagogues were required to be lower than the mosque, and Jewish prayers were to be unobtrusive. In general, the strictures of the Pact were not consistently enforced, particularly in the early Middle Ages during the era of Islamic expansion and

under Christendom and Islam, see Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross; and Mark R. Cohen, “Islam and the Jews: Myth, Counter myth, History,” Jerusalem Quarterly 18 (1996), 125 37. For a detailed enumeration of the disabilities that Jews encountered over the centuries, see Bat Yeʾor, The Dhimmis: Jews and Christians under Islam (Rutherford, NJ, 1985). On the discriminatory poll tax, see Daniel C. Dennett, Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam (Cambridge, MA, 1950); for a discussion and summary overview, see Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton, 1985). For a discussion of early Muslim Jewish relations, see also Chapter 8 in this volume.

176 jane s. gerber prosperity; new synagogues did, in fact, proliferate after the conquest; Jews commonly wore lavish clothing if they could afford to; and some Jews even rose to high positions in the courts of Islamic rulers. Nevertheless, when the discrepancy between the theoretical, lowly status of the Jew and his actual position became too great, religious reformers could insist upon the restoration or implementation of the Jews’ “inferiority.”15 The Islamic legal literature provided a ready blueprint that rulers were expected to follow. If they diverged too sharply from the ideals implicit in the Pact of ʿUmar, their laxity could arouse the religious authorities, the pietists in their midst, and the masses. This was, indeed, occasionally the case in medieval Andalusia. From the point of view of a Jew in the Middle Ages, the strictures of the Pact of ʿUmar were counterbalanced by some important Islamic precedents of grudging toleration of Jews and Christians. In return for their submission, Jews (and Christians) received the assurance of “protection” (dhimma), religious freedom, communal autonomy, and personal mobility. These were major concessions from the point of view of Jewish well-being and potential prosperity in the world of Islam. Moreover, the position of dhimmī contrasted favorably with the restrictions imposed upon their counterparts elsewhere in Europe during medieval times.16

15

16

The rise of Jews to positions of political power over Muslims posed the risk of arousing the opposition of the ʿulamāʾ and the masses. The career of Samuel Ibn Naghrella and his son, Joseph, in the mid eleventh century fanned the opposition of rival ruling factions in the Berber Zīrid Kingdom of Granada, producing polemics and literary taunting of the Muslim patron of the Jews. See Stillman, “A Political Attack on the Jews of Granada,” The Jews of Arab Lands, 214 16, and “The Fall of the Jewish Vizier of Granada”, ibid., 217 25. See also Ross Brann, Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh and Twelfth Century Islamic Spain (Princeton, 2002), esp. 1 21 and 24 118. For a synthetic overview of the history of the Jews in medieval Europe, see Robert Chazan, The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom 1000 1500 (Cambridge, 2006). Comparisons between the vicissitudes of Jewish life under Islamic and Christian rule should be exercised with caution given the vast differences on the fate of the Jews in each realm during various time periods. Each should be analyzed on its own terms. For a dialogue between two scholars on assessing the history of the Jews in Muslim lands, see Mark R. Cohen, “The Neo lachrymose Conception of Jewish Arab History,” Tikkun 6, 3 (1992), 55 60; and Norman Stillman, “Myth, Countermyth, and Distortion,” Tikkun 6, 3 (1992), 60 64. For two overviews of the history of Jews under Islam, see S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (New York, 1955); and Lewis, The Jews of Islam. For discussion of daily Jewish life in Muslim lands, see the magisterial, multivolume study of S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93).

the jews of muslim spain 177 The Iberian Peninsula entered into the orbit of medieval Islam soon after the conquests. Troops from as far as Syria and Yemen joined Arab administrators and Berber immigrants to settle the rich but fragmented territory. In the wake of the conquests, ancient cities revived and new ones were established as a new economic order descended upon the lands subdued by Islam. Public markets and main squares expanded and centrally located mosques were erected or converted from their prior use as churches. Daily life revolved around the markets and the mosques. Open squares for the review of troops were placed alongside the newly constructed palaces in main cities such as Damascus, Córdoba, or Baghdad. The routes of commerce expanded and luxury goods and raw materials began to circulate freely in the Mediterranean region. Jewish craftsmen and artisans, merchants and bankers played a distinct role in the new Mediterranean economy. Shops and ateliers for the production of textiles, leather goods, and metals and jewelry – prominent branches of Jewish economic endeavor – were established in Spain and often concentrated in specific districts of the city. Historical chronicles and Genizah documents offer ample testimony that Jews and Christians lived alongside Muslims and worked side by side in the many marketplaces and bazaars that became the staples of urban civilization in the new order. Partnerships between members of the different faith communities were commonplace. New synagogues and churches were erected, particularly in the towns that emerged to serve the military enclaves or garrison towns as a result of the settlement policies of the Arab conquerors. The strictures of the Pact of ʿUmar were only haphazardly applied during the era of Islamic expansion in the early Middle Ages. Only when expansion ceased and feudal military regimes or religiously zealous dynasties (such as the Almoravids and Almohads in Spain) acceded to power were discriminatory laws imposed upon the dhimmīs.17 Little data exists on the Jews during the early centuries of Islamic rule in Spain. Generalization requires assumptions culled from our knowledge of the nature of Jewish life elsewhere in the world of Islam. Such assumptions are frequently confirmed by specifically Iberian data emerging in the ninth century. Jewish residential patterns in the centers of Muslim rule, including in Andalusia, were not significantly altered from their ancient mold. 17

See Lewis, The Jews of Islam, for a discussion of the deterioration of the status of the Jews in the late medieval period of Islamic rule in Mediterranean lands. See the lament of Abraham Ibn Ezra on the destruction of various Jewish communities in North Africa and Iberia during the Almohad sweep through the Maghrib and Andalusia in the mid twelfth century in Jonathan Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al Andalus and Christian Europe (Bloomington, IN, 2007), 64 65.

178 jane s. gerber Jews continued to live near one another according to occupational and kinship patterns. Residential concentration of the Jews was not compulsory, though it suited Jewish religious requirements to live in close proximity to their houses of worship. Muslims, Christians, and Jews of similar socioeconomic status frequently lived alongside one another in the same quarter, sometimes even in the same multifamily dwelling or around shared courtyards, although Muslim concerns about the segregation of their women often influenced both the choice of location of their residence as well as its style. In some regions, Islamic legislation encouraged separate Muslim areas of residence lest Jews or Christians live too near a mosque or have a vantage point overlooking a Muslim residential courtyard. In general, the residential quarters of Iberian and Middle Eastern towns were composed of warrens of narrow streets, barely wide enough for two fully loaded camels, donkeys, or horses to pass one another. Jewish dwellings were multifamily structures, typically set around central courtyards. The courtyard served an important social function as the public space where guests were welcomed and entertained. Details in the Hebrew poetry of Spain reveal that the bubbling fountains and perfumed foliage in the courtyard served as the locus of male nighttime séances and poetic declamations. This charmed setting was also the subject or motif of poetic description and reverie. The several religions often shared the same bathhouses, utilizing them on different days of the week. Muslims patronized Jewish merchants and had recourse to Jewish physicians, despite the repeated exhortations of their religious leaders. The specialized skills of the Jews as artisans, craftsmen, and merchants were undoubtedly welcomed by the new Umayyad regime of Spain (r. 929–1031). The Arabs among the newcomers tended to be warriors as well as large landowners; the Berbers served as a peasantry. Jews and Christians were usually concentrated among the townspeople.18 Thus, despite the disabilities that Islam imposed upon the Jews – or, to put it more positively, as a result of the basic religious and communal rights they were granted – the foundations for the later renaissance of Jewish life were in place. THE BIRTH AND EMERGENCE OF A SEPHARDIC GOLDEN ERA

In 756, the last surviving son of the eastern Umayyad dynasty, ʿAbd alRahmān I (r. 756–88), escaped the carnage of a coup d’état in Damascus, _ 18

See Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature, on the garden as a site of reverie and subject of poetic description. See also Raymond Scheindlin, Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life (Philadelphia, 1991), introduction and 35 39.

the jews of muslim spain 179 made his way across North Africa, and reestablished the Umayyad House in Spain. He was inspired by his lineage and personal ambitions to replicate the dynastic and cultural traditions of his family that had been lost to ʿAbbāsid foes in Baghdad. The early Umayyad princes introduced the flora and culinary traditions of the East into Spain, in addition to Arab mercenary troops, Islamic scholars, and Middle Eastern administrative traditions. They imported hydraulic experts, artists, and skilled administrators; they repaired the old Roman routes and aqueducts. They endowed libraries and mosques, especially the monumental mosque of Córdoba, blending the traditional architectural style of Damascus with the indigenous traditions of North Africa and Iberia. The combination of artistic traditions from East and West, North Africa and Iraq with local traditions provided the artistic ingredients for the emergence of a distinctive and vibrant local Andalusian style that was shared by all minorities, including the Sephardic population. The Muslim conquests sparked a general population influx into Iberian territory. The new administration abandoned the Visigothic capital of Toledo, associated with established Christian history and ecclesiastical traditions, in favor of the centrally located, former Roman town of Córdoba. Córdoba offered a central location, a favored location on the Guadalquivir and a natural market for all branches of agriculture. Over the centuries, Córdoba and its lavish palace complex in suburban Madīnat l-Zahrāʾ (“The Shining City”) has become synonymous with Andalusian civilization and with the emergence of “Sepharad” as a definable entity in Jewish history. But despite its fame, Córdoba was never the sole seat of Andalusian culture. Smaller urban centers such as Seville, Saragossa, Granada, Málaga, and Lucena soon imitated the sparkle of Córdoba and competed for the talents of Jews that redounded to the benefit of Hebrew poetry and scientific production. When Córdoba was sacked and crippled by civil strife in the eleventh century, Seville became Andalusia’s leading urban center. When Seville, in turn, was captured by Christian forces in 1248, Granada assumed the role of political center of the surviving Muslim power. But Jewish settlement was not confined to these cities. Jews were dispersed throughout several kingdoms of Spain, forming their own residential concentrations and intellectual circles in Barcelona, Saragossa, Tarragona, Valencia, and several smaller locales. Some Jews also worked the land as vintners, farmers, and grain cultivators. Already in the ninth century the geonim of the academy of Sura corresponded with scholars in Lucena. Its talmudic academy flourished under Isaac Ibn Giyyāth, Isaac Alfasi, and Joseph Ibn Migash. The city served as the spiritual center for Andalusian Jews until the tenth century. In the ninth century, a query from Lucena

180 jane s. gerber stimulated Amram Gaʾon to dispatch a responsum that provided the rudiments of the Sephardic prayer book. Seʿadyah Gaʾon was also in contact with the scholars of Lucena. The academy of Lucena later moved to Toledo under the sons of Ibn Migash.19 The population within the city walls of Lucena was reportedly entirely Jewish. They engaged in a variety of occupations, exploiting its rich agricultural potential and actively pursuing the exportation of agricultural products. Claims of lineage from Lucena were a point of pride for later medieval Andalusian scholars, such as Abraham Ibn Daud.20 The process of the conversion of Iberian Christians to Islam was a slow one. While Arabs formed a distinct minority among the invaders, gradual Arabization and the adoption of Arab genealogies by many Berbers, coupled with the steady conversion of Christians (and, to a much lesser extent, of Jews), culminated in a Muslim majority by the tenth century. According to Richard Bulliet’s calculus of the conversion rate of the natives to Islam, based on an onomastic analysis of the names of medieval Iberian jurists in biographical dictionaries, an explosive expansion of the Muslim population occurred by the mid-tenth-century reign of ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (r. 929–61). Around the year 1000, approximately 75 percent of_ the Andalusian population was Muslim, at which point the conversion curve flattened.21 Tension between Arabs and Berbers persisted, however, despite both groups being Muslim, and punctuated all relationships for most of the Middle Ages.22 The immigration of Jews to Spain was a continuous process during the first several centuries of Muslim rule. With the establishment of the caliphate of Córdoba in the tenth century, the influx of Jews probably accelerated. Jews from the eastern Mediterranean were enticed by the growing security and affluence of Andalusia, as well as the declining stability of life in the eastern caliphate. The increasing cultural sophistication of the Jewish community and the establishment of an independent center of Jewish learning also proved enticing, especially to Jews in North Africa. Jewish merchants, craftsmen, and scholars from the East joined the

19 20

21

22

Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah, xvii, xix, xlvi, 217. Al Idrīsī, Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne, ed. and intro. Reinhart Dozy and Michael J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1866), 205, cited by Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 3 vols. in 2 (Philadelphia, 1973), 1:309n66. See Jonathan Decter’s inclusion of the poem of Abraham Ibn Ezra “weeping” for Lucena in Iberian Jewish Literature, 64 65. Richard Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period (Cambridge, MA, 1979); see also Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain (Berkeley, 1992), 35 51. See David Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain, 1002 1086 (Princeton, 1985), introduction.

the jews of muslim spain 181 23 general movement westward. Jews, like their neighbors, were overwhelmingly Arabophone by the tenth century. They were also familiar with the several vernaculars of Spain. Located at the edge of the West, Spain’s fragile border between Christendom and Islam was in constant flux. The Muslims never succeeded in subduing the entire Iberian Peninsula. A Christian presence remained in the region of Asturias and León in the north and served as a constant thorn in the side of the Muslims and the center for irredentism and revolt. The history of medieval Spain was shaped, in large measure, by its role as a frontier in the struggle for Christian reconquest and a battleground for infighting among various Berbers, Arabs, and Christians. Given the deep internal divisions of the country and the persistent threat of warfare from the Christians in the north, it was logical that some Muslim rulers should turn to Jews to help administer the state and develop its economy. Jews were often preferred as civil servants and palace appointees since they lacked territorial ambitions or natural foreign allies. They depended on the goodwill of the ruling powers. At the same time, their facility with the several languages of Iberia and their literacy in Arabic increased their usefulness. Moreover, as part of a far-flung commercial diaspora, the Jews possessed distinct economic know-how that could not be easily dismissed. Andalusia’s lively cities emerged as centers of industry and commerce in the ninth and tenth centuries. Its markets overflowed with staples and luxuries from Italy, North Africa, Egypt, and even further East, alongside colorful displays of local goods of recent invention such as lead crystal, especially fine leather, locally produced luxury cloth and brocades, ivory carvings, and luster-glazed ceramics. Gold and silver circulated freely through the country, and agriculture, always the backbone of Spain’s economy, thrived. From a ninth-century Arabic account, Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik (The Book of Roads and Kingdoms), we learn incidentally of the remarkable commercial activities of the Rādhāniyya, a little-known Jewish commercial firm whose operations may have been based in southern 23

While Spanish power was consolidating in the tenth century, the ʿAbbāsid caliphate was rapidly declining. The talmudic academies in Sura and Pumbedita were undermined by the combined forces of a weakening of order in Baghdad, the loss of revenue from other Jewries as they emerged as independent intellectual centers, the periodic plagues and uprisings in the city of Baghdad, internal quarrels within the leadership of the academies, as well as the deep rifts in Jewish society provoked by the challenge of the Karaites. By the tenth century, both academies found themselves temporarily bereft of leadership. Emigration from the East ensued. On the vicissitudes of the geonate in the East, see the discussion below and Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998).

182 jane s. gerber France or Spain. Their trade stretched across several continents with branches in many ports and commercial outposts. Their representatives followed four distinct land and sea routes, one of which passed through southern Spain and continued northward through Europe via Prague, Bulgaria, and the Land of the Khazars (the Crimean area) to the East. Two of their routes proceeded from Spain southward along the Mediterranean littoral and ended in Iran and Iraq. The fourth went by sea, terminating in China. Generally, the Jewish commercial agents traveled only part of a route, making trades with colleagues who had accumulated merchandise on an adjacent leg of the route. Spain’s raw materials, agricultural produce, and fine leathers and textiles formed an integral part of the international commerce conducted by the Rādhāniyya and other merchants between East and West.24 The medieval world illuminated by the Cairo Genizah depicts a Mediterranean of material abundance and relative security where Jews braved the natural elements and the pirates of the Mediterranean and sought their fortunes in Spain. While remote from the center of Jewish learning in the East during the early centuries of Islamic rule, Umayyad Spain’s Jews were linked by ties of marriage and commerce to the wider Mediterranean Jewish world. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INDIGENOUS JEWISH INTELLECTUAL TRADITION

Sometime in the eighth century, the first mention of Jews in Muslim Spain emerges in rabbinic sources. Far from the hub of Jewish scholarship in Iraq and bereft of books and local teachers, Jews in Iberia sought guidance from the leading Jewish authority in Baghdad, Amram Gaʾon, head of the rabbinical academy of Sura, on such basic issues as the order of prayer in the synagogue. The gaon’s response to their query formed the core of what would eventually crystallize into the Sephardic prayer book. Intellectual guidance also radiated from Qayrawān in North Africa. But the first few centuries of Jewish life in Muslim Spain are among the most obscure in Sephardic history; whatever little is known is generally based either on oral 24

The economy and internal life of the medieval Mediterranean Jewish community is illuminated by Goitein, A Mediterranean Society. On the Rādhāniyya, see text in Stillman, “The Itinerary of the Radhanite Jewish Merchants” in The Jews of Arab Lands, 163 64. For a more extensive discussion of the identity of the Rādhāniyya and its routes and merchandise, see Wilhelm Heyd, Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen Âge, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1959), 1:126 28. See also Robert Lopez, Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (New York, 1955); and Moshe Gil, “The Radhanite Merchants and the Land of Radhan,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17, 1 (1974), 299 328.

the jews of muslim spain 183 traditions written down much later or on retrospective reasoning. Allusions to individual Jews prior to the tenth century are extremely rare. Jewish individuals emerge from obscurity as the Umayyads reached the zenith of their powers in tenth-century Córdoba. Under the able and unusually long rule of ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (r. 912–29 as emir; r. 929–61 _ finally pacified and its decades-long as caliph) the Iberian Peninsula was rebellions were quelled. ʿAbd al-Rahmān III assumed the title of caliph in _ 929 in response to the military threat and imperial pretensions of the Shīʿite Fātimids in North Africa. The act of establishing a caliphate in the _ West amounted to a virtual severing of ties with the ʿAbbāsid caliphate centered in Baghdad. It was natural that the Jewish establishment in Spain would also loosen its ties with Baghdad under the circumstances, asserting its independence from the Babylonian geonim and embarking upon the establishment of an independent center of Jewish culture. This transfer of power and emergence of a new distribution of Jewish knowledge was somewhat fancifully portrayed in the story of the four captives contained in the medieval historian Abraham Ibn Daud’s Sefer ha-Qabbalah. Talents from various corners of Andalusia and the wider Muslim world streamed into the imperial capital, Córdoba, as it reached its height of power and affluence in the tenth century. Newcomers included Jewish poets and scholars from North Africa, Italy, and the East. Some had been trained at the famed academies of Jewish learning, Sura and Pumbedita, in Baghdad, others in Palestine and North Africa. Talented newcomers were invited by the Jewish court physician Ḥasday Ibn Shaprūt (c. 915–70) in _ by Muslim the time-honored pattern of patronage that was exercised courtiers. Ḥasday set up a school of talmudic learning in Córdoba under the direction of the immigrant scholar Rabbi Moses b. Enoch and procured a library of Judaica from the academy of Sura in Baghdad. But the new Iberian intellectual development was not solely a reflection of Muslim politics or geonic models but reflected the maturation of the Jewish community in Spain. As news of the intellectual ferment in Córdoba spread, enterprising Jewish parents would dispatch their talented sons from smaller Iberian towns or even from abroad to the great city to take advantage of the new opportunities for learning. Through attaining a “modern education” in the capital, they hoped that their sons might be noticed and would thereby succeed in finding employment at the Muslim imperial court or in the service of its scintillating Jewish courtier class. Ḥasday’s biography, although frequently romanticized by modern scholars, was typical of the career of the future Sephardic courtier class. A doctor by training, Ḥasday initially came to the attention of the caliph ʿAbd al-Rahmān III as the result of his knowledge of pharmacology and _ ancient medicine, including cures for poisoning and impotence. He

184 jane s. gerber quickly advanced from the position of medical consultant among the group of court doctors to the role of trusted advisor, diplomat, and financial expert. As a by-product of his esteemed position at the caliphal court, he was appointed nasi or head of the Jewish community and was entrusted to represent the interests of the Jewish community before the ruling authorities. In the manner of the Muslim courtier class, Ḥasday surrounded himself with talented individuals, summoning Jews from afar to serve in his entourage. He engaged the services of a certain Menahem Ibn Sarūq (b. c. 910–20) as secretary. Soon, however, a newcomer from North Africa, Dunash b. Labrat, arrived. Dunash had studied in Baghdad _ intellectual of his day, Seʿadyah Gaʾon, with the most important Jewish where he had imbibed new scientific approaches to understanding and manipulating the Hebrew language. Soon, the two poets in the service of Ḥasday – Dunash and Menahem – began to engage in fierce competition for Ḥasday’s favors and patronage, arguing heatedly over the nature of the Hebrew language and the construction of Hebrew verse. Ḥasday commissioned grammatical texts and a dictionary from Menahem and relished the poetic rivalry of Menahem and the talented Hebrew poet Dunash. The newly established school of Moses b. Enoch rivaled the declining talmudic academies of North Africa and the East. Before long a locally trained cadre of scholars emerged and enabled Córdoba to function as a center of learning independently of the geonim. This process of the transfer of learning from the East to Spain was recognized by Arab witnesses. According to the Arab chronicler S ̣āʿid al-Andalusī:25 There were a number of Jewish men of science in Spain. Among those who took an interest in medicine was Ḥasday b. Isaac (Ibn Shaprūt) who was in the service of al Ḥakam b. ʿAbd al Rahmān al Nāsir li Dīn Allāh. He_ specialized in the art of _ _ medicine and had an exemplary knowledge of the science of Jewish law. He was the first to open for Andalusian Jewry the gates of their science of jurisprudence, chronology, and other subjects. Previously they had recourse to the Jews of Baghdad . . . When Ḥasday became attached to al Ḥakam II, gaining his highest regard for his professional ability, his great talent, and his culture, he was able to procure through him the works of the Jews in the East which he desired. They were able as a result of this to dispense with the inconvenience which had burdened them.

25

Sāʿid al Andalusī, Tabaqāt al Umam, ed. Louis Cheikho (Beirut, 1912), 88 89, cited by Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 210. The fullest treatment of Hasday’s career can be found in Eliyahu Ashtor, History of the Jews in Moslem Spain, vol. I. See also Jonathan P. Decter, “Before Caliphs and Kings: Jewish Courtiers in Medieval Iberia,” in Jonathan Ray, ed., The Jew in Medieval Iberia (Boston, 2012), 1 12. On ʿAbd al Rahmān III, see Maribel Fierro, ‘Abd al Rahman III: The First Cordoban Caliph (London, _2005).

the jews of muslim spain 185 Ḥasday’s career continued under ʿAbd al-Rahmān’s son, al-Ḥakam II (r. 961–76). Al-Ḥakam II is remembered in _Andalusian history as a cultured ruler and the generous bibliophile who established a great library in Córdoba containing 400,000 books. He is reputed to have personally taken charge of the lending of its rare volumes to indigent scholars. In this atmosphere of general luxury and learning, the Jewish “golden age of Spain” is generally considered to have commenced. The career of the learned Jewish courtier, diplomat, and physician Ḥasday would be recognized in retrospect as the beginning of a renaissance of Jewish culture. It was a culture connected with courtiers, imbued with the spirit of Arabic inquiry, infused with classical textual familiarity, and nurtured by the unique context of Umayyad Spain. Since the Jews were Arabic-speaking, the vast world of ancient classics, recently translated into Arabic in the East, was accessible. Jews also had access to original Arab learning in the sciences and the arts being cultivated in Muslim educated circles. This direct exposure to the breadth of medieval Arabic learning provided a powerful impetus to the expansion of Jewish knowledge. The Jews in Andalusia began to adapt various aspects of Arabic secular culture. Before long, al-Andalus surpassed other centers of Jewish learning by virtue of the size of its Jewish population and the breadth of the surrounding culture. Jews became participants in the Islamic scientific and philosophical traditions and, above all, in the poetic expressions of the Arab majority, fusing elements of these with their own Hebraic and Judaic traditions. And it was a new cultural fusion that transpired, not a simple borrowing from one culture to the other.26 THE HEBREW POETIC REVOLUTION IN MUSLIM SPAIN

To some extent, the history of the Jews in Muslim Spain, as it has been transmitted, is the history of forceful and versatile personalities who charismatically dominated Jewish communities while at the same time managing to negotiate their way in Gentile society. Many multitalented Jews, either consciously or unconsciously, melded Jewish traditions with Arabic culture. The cultural artifacts they created in Spain were expressive of a community that was deeply rooted in the broader culture of alAndalus. Indeed, the Jewish people would not again experience such a thoroughgoing synthesis of Judaic culture with foreign elements until the 26

For a thoughtful discussion of cultural “borrowing” in the study of philosophy, see Sara Stroumsa, “Thinkers of ‘This Peninsula’: Toward an Integrative Approach to the Study of Philosophy in al Andalus,” in David M. Freidenreich and Miriam Goldstein, eds., Beyond Religious Borders (Philadelphia, 2012), 30 43.

186 jane s. gerber modern era. Poetry, primarily in the Hebrew language, was the chief medium in which this process occurred, during a relatively short but brilliant period of poetic innovation (950–1147). In addition, Jews delved into philosophy, law, the sciences, and mathematics, producing classics of Jewish scholarship. Perhaps the best way to appreciate the stimulation that Jews experienced from their cultural surroundings in Andalusia is to glance at a surviving Jewish school curriculum from Toledo from the twelfth century that is based upon the medieval Arab models.27 Its breadth of offerings reflects the humanistic curriculum typical of medieval Islam. It included the standard traditional Judaic subjects (Hebrew, Torah, and Talmud). Noteworthy, however, are the novel additions unheard of outside the Islamic orbit. These included a graded course of study in “philosophic observations on religion,” logic, mathematics, optics, astronomy, astrology, music, mechanics, metaphysics, Greek, Arabic, and medicine. The model for the educated Jewish male was the Muslim adīb – the humanist – who commanded social graces, knew something about everything, and dabbled in languages and poetry.28 Jewish males of a certain class were expected to master Judaic and secular learning while bearing themselves with sophistication and speaking with eloquence and wit. As historian Gerson D. Cohen has noted, “Jews were as chic in their Arab tastes as they were fastidious in their Jewish ones.”29 Torah and Greek wisdom went hand in hand. A cadre of Jewish polymaths who were at home in several worlds of learning frequently studied side by side with Muslims – sometimes at the feet of a Muslim scholar. While poetry held pride of place in such cultivated circles, the contemplation of philosophy, much of it composed by the ancient Greeks and translated by medieval Arabs into Arabic, was prized as well. The Arab notion of refinement, shared by the SpanishJewish courtier class, also included elements derived from Persian courtly models. In this milieu, even the Hebrew script became an art form with special emphasis placed on fine calligraphy. It has often been remarked that Arab culture has a special attachment to its language, with poetry held in especially high esteem. According to

27

28

29

Jacob Marcus, “A Medieval Curriculum of Advanced Jewish and Secular Studies,” in Mark Saperstein, ed., The Jew in the Medieval World (revised edition, Cincinnati, 1999), 226 28. See Jane Gerber, The Jews of Spain (New York, 1992), chapter 2. See Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 226 29, for a copy of the curriculum; as well as Gerson D. Cohen, “The Typology of the Rabbinate,” in Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah, 263. On the concept of adab with its overlay of social and intellectual elements and its special emphasis on philology and poetry, see EI1, s.v. “adab” (Ignaz Goldziher). Cohen, “The Typology of the Rabbinate,” 282.

the jews of muslim spain 187 Islamic theology, God speaks Arabic in paradise and the inimitable beauty of the Arabic language of the Qurʾān is proof of special divine affection for the Arabs. For a medieval Jew, such claims could scarcely go unchallenged. For the Jew, God’s language was Hebrew – not Arabic – the language of the Torah as well as of the Garden of Eden. Menahem Ibn Sarūq, Ḥasday’s secretary, clearly linked language and nation in God’s choice of Hebrew and the Jewish people in the following words:30 Inasmuch as God made wonders with all breathing creatures, but particularly with humans, by giving them excellence in language, He also made greater wonders with the people of His choice than with the rest of peoples and communities on the earth. Inasmuch as He made man more admirable by giving him language, He also made the Holy Language more admirable than the language of all other peoples and nations. Before the capacity of thinking and speaking had been given to the inhabitants of the world, God chose this language, engraved it [on the tablets] (Exodus 32:16), and spoke in it the day of His appearance in the Horeb.

Poet Moses Ibn Ezra (c. 1055–1138) elaborated more fully on the special qualities of the Hebrew language in his treatise on rhetoric and poetry, Kitāb al-Muhād ara wa-l-Mudhākara. Mastery of the dominant culture, _ _ including perfection in the use of Arabic and refinement in its diction, was the surest path to worldly success. In the traditional account of the rise to prominence of the poet and courtier Samuel Ibn Naghrella (d. 1056) the poet was “discovered” as a result of his refined calligraphy, a talent initially enabling him to enter the service of the princes of Granada. Nuances of speech and the use of ornamental phrases were especially appreciated by the Arabs. The Jews followed suit, entering with zest into this atmosphere of religious and linguistic competition. Under the influence of the Arab preoccupation with linguistic purity, Jews began to delve into the scientific study of their sacred language, Hebrew, in order to prove to themselves and to their Muslim neighbors that Hebrew was every bit as flexible and nimble as Arabic. Verbal jousts in the Muslim courts and the Jewish salons soon followed as Jews competed among themselves in their mastery and manipulation of Hebrew.31 Many of the leaders of the Jewish community were simultaneously poets. Anyone with pretensions to being educated 30

31

Menahem Ibn Sarūq, Mahberet, ed. Ángel Sáenz Badillos (Granada, 1986), cited by Esperanza Alfonso, Islamic_ Culture through Jewish Eyes: Al Andalus from the Tenth to Twelfth Century (London, 2005), 11 and 125n13. See Yefim Shirmann, “The Function of the Hebrew Poet in Medieval Spain,” Jewish Social Studies 16, 3 (1954), 235 52, for a portrait of the place of the Hebrew poet in his society. See also Raymond Scheindlin, “The Jews in Muslim Spain,” in Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed., The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Leiden, 1992), 1:188 200; and Scheindlin, Wine, Women and Death.

188 jane s. gerber would try his hand at poetry. Like other men of their class, the Jewish courtiers of Spain surrounded themselves with aspiring poets and cultivated literati who borrowed freely from the poetic forms and content of Arab poets, adapting Arabic metrical forms to Hebrew while incorporating and reworking Arabic poetic motifs. The themes of the new Hebrew poetry that emerged in this milieu were shockingly Arab and quite revolutionary for Hebrew poetry. Thematic innovations included descriptions of the bouquet of a glass of fine wine, the parting of friends, the charms of a young woman or a young man, and the delights of friendship.32 Much of the new Andalusian Hebrew poetry was frivolous in nature, composed of such charming trifles as the poet’s discovery of the first gray hair in his head (Judah Halevi, 1075–1141) or a clever poem about the exploits of a flea (Judah al-Ḥarīzī), the rough texture of an old overcoat (Abraham Ibn Ezra), the crunch produced when biting into an apple, or the bouquet of good wine in a crystal goblet. Never before had the Hebrew language been employed in such fashion. A poem was appreciated for its clever turns of phrase, use of puns, and manipulation of the language of the Bible. All these poems were composed in biblical Hebrew, often including the clever or unanticipated insertion of an arcane Hebrew word found only once in the Bible (Greek, hapax legomenon). A poem might make sense backward and forward. Puns and riddles were especially applauded for their allusive qualities, sophistication, eloquence, and verbal cleverness. Remarkably, the same poet who could write so frivolously on the intoxicating qualities of wine in a delicate goblet or the beauty of a young girl in a garden also wrote profoundly religious liturgical poetry that adorns the Sabbath and High Holiday liturgy to this day. Traditional themes such as God’s love for the People of Israel and the Jew’s longing for God and Zion were composed in the new Arabic-style poetic system. More shocking still, this innovative liturgical poetry was often set to the tunes of Arab popular street songs or familiar drinking songs. Some of the most talented Jewish poets, such as Solomon Ibn Gabirol (c. 1020–57), interlaced their verse with lofty philosophical ruminations. Other poets, like Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth, included scientific observations in their verse. The omnipresence of the new poetry in Andalusian daily life was staggering. Its joie de vivre was contagious. Yet, while enjoying life to the hilt, the Hebrew poets of Spain did not lose sight of the fact that they were in exile, albeit a comfortable one. Their verse was infused with laments about the contradictions and tensions of living in the rarified and hedonistic atmosphere of

32

See Scheindlin, Wine, Women and Death, 19 75.

the jews of muslim spain 189 33 Andalusian courts while Zion lay in ruins. It is not clear to scholars whether these laments were genuine or simply poetic conventions. Poet laureate Judah Halevi’s verses provide some of the most vibrant expressions of the poet’s duality. At the height of his fame, Halevi renounced family and fortune to undertake a pilgrimage to the Land of Israel, writing eloquent verse on his longing for Zion and the perils of the sea voyage. The internalization of the cultural cues of the Iberian Arab milieu took many novel forms. It included the introduction and enthusiastic appropriation of the Sephardic self-image as an aristocracy of noble lineage and royal origins in the exiles of Jerusalem (Obadiah 1:20). The depiction of Sephardim as an ancient Jewry with a Judean pedigree flourished in an environment where notions of aristocracy and noble pedigree were gaining increasing popularity in Muslim society. Claims of Sephardic aristocracy were disseminated by an Andalusian rabbinic elite who were embedded in a cultural milieu in which one’s ethnic roots were a central concern of the new Islamic civilization in formation. Arab lineage and ancestry (nasab), preferably from Arabia and from the tribe of the Prophet, formed the basis of privilege and power. Consequently, a veritable industry of forging genealogies to prove one’s Arab roots flourished in Berber circles. Facility and eloquence in the Arabic language played a dominant role in cultural mores determining one’s social standing. While Jews were merely witnesses to the Arab-Berber contests regarding ethnicity, they were drawn into the competition on the virtues of Arabic versus other languages and prided themselves on their ability to write and speak an elegant and eloquent Arabic. They also realized that this ability was a prerequisite for a cultured Jew who sought a position of leadership in either Jewish or Andalusian society. A GOLDEN AGE AMIDST POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY: T H E E R A O F T H E T ̣Ā ʾ I F A K I N G D O M S

In the year 1009, the caliphate of Córdoba broke down – the victim of palace intrigues, of the ongoing turbulence of the Berber tribes, and of escalating military and intra-tribal conflicts. The sumptuous palace complex of Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ was sacked by the mob and the palace lay in ruins. The fragile political unity that had been imposed on the recalcitrant Andalusian population by the caliphate gave way to a renewal of civil war and the emergence in its stead of over two dozen ministates known as the 33

See Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Baltimore, 1991), for an extended analysis of the duality experienced by the Hebrew poets of Spain.

190 jane s. gerber 34 tāʾifa or party states. They existed from 1031 until the last decade of the _eleventh century when unity was imposed on Andalusia by the Berber Almoravids from North Africa. Each of the Arab or Berber party kingdoms or statelets that flourished in the eleventh century was politically fragile although frequently culturally dazzling as various Muslim princes competed with one another to attract scientists, poets, entertainers, and artists to their rival courts. They vied in building public works and palaces and supported scintillating literary and artistic soirées, much as later Italian princes competed with one another politically and culturally during the Renaissance. Each small Muslim state also cultivated a scintillating court of its own, providing expanded opportunities for the proliferation of courtiers of various ethnicities who in turn sponsored their own intellectual circles. The flowering of the arts under the eleventh-century party kings extended to the Jews. Wandering Jewish poets moved from court to court, seeking patrons among courtier Jews and Muslim princes. Hebrew poems would be dispatched from city to city and eagerly distributed for Jewish consumption. The poems of Spain would even reach the far corners of the Muslim world, carried across the Mediterranean in the pouches of peripatetic Jewish merchants along with their cargo of luxury goods. These eventually found their way to Egypt, where many were ultimately preserved by accident in the cache of the Cairo Genizah. So pleased were the courtiers of Andalusia with themselves and their intellectual accomplishments that they began to embellish and trumpet the theory of themselves as a distinctively noble part of the Jewish people, descended from the aristocracy of Jerusalem or, better yet, from King David, the poet extraordinaire of ancient Israel. Samuel Ibn Naghrella proudly spoke of himself as the David of his age in this hyperbolic vein.35 Composing Hebrew poetry in the Arab mode was the pastime of a small Jewish elite. Their poetry was eagerly received, however, by a broader Jewish middle class. Some modern scholars witnessing the exceptional outpouring of Hebrew poetry in medieval Spain attribute the products to a Muslim-Jewish symbiosis and the fruit of Islamic tolerance. Their enthusiasm has mistaken this syncretic culture that fused Arabic and Hebrew literatures for a shared culture of tolerance. While the Jews were enamored of the Arabs’ poems, there is no evidence that any Muslims ever read or were familiar with the Hebrew poetry emerging from the Jews in their midst. The two courtly groups may have shared an ethos, but Jews remained outsiders and dhimmīs, subordinate people in a fiercely 34 35

See Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party Kings, introduction. In The Compunctious Poet, Ross Brann provides an extended analysis of the duality of the Hebrew poets of Muslim and Christian Spain.

the jews of muslim spain 191 hierarchical society. Hebrew poets and courtiers functioned on a parallel axis with Muslim society. Moreover, their greatest poetry was created at the moment when Spain was drifting into political chaos and increasing intolerance. Each party kingdom was ephemeral at best. Sensing the dangers posed by the ubiquitous political strife, poets gave voice to the precarious nature of their existence and their sense of exile. The era that is recalled retrospectively by the Jews as the “golden age of Spain” was a contradictory one: the so-called golden age was the preserve of a golden class whose members were immersed in the broader culture and able to filter that culture through the lens of Judaic or Hebraic traditions. The revolutionary Hebrew cultural flowering was essentially an internal development signaling the Jews’ ability to harmonize and blend Arab secular traditions with the Judaic heritage. Arabic cultural influence on the Jews was not confined to poetry. Science and religion were interrelated in medieval circles with Jews parsing and quoting the Bible to buttress their new scientific observations and halakhic innovations.36 Scientific theories even provided thematic material for liturgical poetry. Arabic was the language of science for those who engaged in it. Medicine, astronomy, and astrology were the main disciplines the Jews studied intensively. Many of the more cultured Muslim princes in the tāʾifa kingdoms were patrons of scientific learning. They commissioned _astronomers, botanists, and famed agronomists to serve in their courts. Each court boasted its talents. The ruling family of Cuenca patronized the development of a school of ivory carvers. Al-Maʾmūn (r. 1044–75) sponsored the botanist Ibn Wāfid in the royal gardens of Toledo, as well as the astronomer Abraham Ibn Zarzal. The powerful prince of Seville, al-Muʿtadid (r. 1042–69), was an accomplished poet. The _ ruler of Badajoz, al-Muzaffar (r. 1045–68), reputedly compiled a fifty_ volume encyclopedia on art, science, poetry, and literature. At the same time, al-Muqtadir of Saragossa (r. 1046–82) was deeply engaged in the study of geometry and natural philosophy, while his son al-Muʾtamin (r. 1082–85) composed a treatise on mathematics. The ʿAbbādids of Seville excelled in poetry.37 Pragmatically realizing that cooperation with Muslim princes might protect their community while enhancing their personal

36 37

See Chapter 26 in this volume. Thomas F. Glick, “Science in Medieval Spain: The Jewish Contribution in the Context of Convivencia,” in Vivian Mann, Thomas Glick, and Jerrilyn Dodds, eds., Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain (New York, 1992), 83 112. See also Mariano Gómez Aranda, “The Jew as Scientist and Philosopher in Medieval Iberia,” in Ray, ed., The Jew in Medieval Iberia, 60 101.

192 jane s. gerber social status, Jews serving at Muslim courts were exposed to the newly translated ancient Greek scientific canon that circulated in its midst. The first signs of a renaissance of science in Andalusia appeared in the tenth century in such areas as pharmacology, technical inventiveness (such as the creation of the water clock), and medicine. Noteworthy in this regard was the decisive influence that Ḥasday Ibn Shaprūt played in _ the advance of scientific knowledge in ʿAbd al-Rahmān III’s court _ through his involvement in the acquisition and translation from Greek into Arabic of the ancient medical classic De Materia Medica by Dioscorides. His translation project, an interfaith endeavor, stimulated much of the subsequent botanical and pharmacological work undertaken in al-Andalus. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the fruits of Andalusian science and its Eastern predecessors (philosophy was included among the sciences at that time) reached Europe through the migration (forced as well as voluntary) of Andalusian Jewish scholars from Muslim into Christian Spain. Jewish translators and scientists participated in translation teams commissioned by Spanish Christian kings and bishops, serving as cultural intermediaries between the Arabic, Latin, and Romance worlds. The multireligious translation teams began the cooperative process of transmission of the ancient scientific canon into Latin and European languages.38 The Jews also composed original scientific works on mathematics, astronomy, astrology, medicine, and philosophy, in the process also adapting some of the ancient theories to their specific religious needs. Jews had always been interested in astronomy as the result of their practical need to perform correct computations in order to determine the time of the Sabbath and the proper dates of their festivals. The first Andalusian treatises on astronomical instruments such as astrolabes date from the tenth century. Astrolabes with Hebrew as well as Arabic inscriptions bear evidence of Jewish participation in the important process of scientific invention that transpired. Two of the greatest Jewish scientists to emerge from the Muslim milieu were especially influential, Abraham b. Ḥiyya (c. 1065–1140), for his part in the transmission of geometry tables, and Abraham Ibn Ezra (d. 1167), in the preparation of astronomical tables. The former collaborated with one of the most prolific European translators who worked in Spain, Plato of Tivoli. Together the two translated

38

Jane S. Gerber, “Crossing the Border of Art and Society: Toledo as a Meeting Place of Cultures,” in Cities of Splendour in the Shaping of Sephardi Jewry (London, 2020), 48 84, for a discussion of the role of Jews in the translation of the classical heritage from Arabic into Latin and the vernacular in medieval Christian Toledo.

the jews of muslim spain 193 astronomical tables from Arabic into Latin; he is also remembered for his treatise on geometry, Ḥibbur ha-Meshiha ve-ha-Tishboret, which Plato of Tivoli translated into Latin in 1145. This_translation may have been the first Latin account of Arab algebra. Abraham b. Ḥiyya created an entire Hebrew scientific literature, including an encyclopedia of the sciences and a philosophical treatise. He also composed a Hebrew work on the Jewish calendar entitled Sefer ha-ʿIbbur (Book of Intercalation). Abraham Ibn Ezra was born in Muslim Tudela at the end of the eleventh century and his work was infused with Arabic culture. An accomplished polymath, Ibn Ezra fled the chaos of Muslim Spain, traveling widely in Europe and spreading the fruits of the scientific learning that he had acquired in Spain. Among his many works that illuminate the breadth of his interests Ibn Ezra prepared a Hebrew translation of Ibn alMuthannā’s commentary on the astronomical tables of al-Khwārizmī, explicating how Hindu astronomy was transmitted to the Arabs and also explaining the decimal system and square roots. His Sefer ha-Mispar (Book of the Number) served as a fundamental text in medieval mathematics introducing the Jews of Latin Europe to Arab arithmetic. Like other Jewish scientists, he tried to harmonize the principles of Judaism with the science of his day. Ibn Ezra was a man of enormous talents. He is still appreciated today not only for his scientific writings and his poetry but also for his incisive biblical exegesis. Instruments of astronomical calculation, especially the astrolabe, were useful in navigation, serving as a kind of computer for astronomers and astrologers. Muslim interest in nautical instruments was a by-product of their far-flung empire and commercial routes. Treatises on the construction and utilization of astrolabes, as well as the instruments themselves bearing inscriptions in Hebrew, Arabic and Latin, have survived. The versatile poet and biblical exegete Ibn Ezra wrote a treatise on astrolabe construction, Keli ha-Nehoshet (The Copper Instrument), in Hebrew. In his _ town in Italy and France, he reportedly would wanderings from town to adapt astronomical tables in the Arabic tradition to the local meridians. By the twelfth century, Spanish Jewish authors formed a recognizable link in the chain of transmission of Arabic science to Europe. Moving from Muslim into Christian Spain, Jews maintained a presence in scientific circles. The so-called Toledan Tables, antecedent of the famed Alfonsine Tables, were produced by the two Jewish astronomers Isaac Ibn Saʿīd and Judah b. Moses (called in Christian sources Don Yhuda Mosca), in the court of Alfonso X between 1262 and 1272. These tables, as is well known, later served as the basis for the tables of Portuguese Jewish scientist Abraham Zacuto that were employed by both Columbus and Vasco da Gama in their voyages.

194 jane s. gerber Jewish participation in the transmission of philosophic knowledge from the East to the West via Muslim Spain has also been widely noted. By the end of the thirteenth century, the sizable Arabic philosophical corpus was translated into Hebrew and ultimately found its way in Latin translations into Western Christian Europe. Jewish and Western philosophy was also profoundly enriched by the greatest of the Sephardic Jewish philosophers, Moses Maimonides (1138–1204). His medical writings, when translated from Arabic into Hebrew and Latin, remained a staple of medical education in the West into the Renaissance. His career unfolded in Spain, Morocco, and especially Egypt but his influence radiated to Christian Europe soon after his death. Maimonides’ flight from Andalusia at the time of the Almohad persecutions of the twelfth century was part of a greater wave of emigration that transplanted Andalusian Jewish culture to Christian Spain, nearby Provence, and Italy, and to the more remote shores of England and the Near East. Despite his need to escape from a persecutory Andalusia, Maimonides continued to refer to himself as haSephardi, the Spanish Jew, even in his exile in Egypt. His genius in philosophical writings and in the codification of Jewish law are also fruits of the Judeo-Islamic encounter in Spain. THE BREAKDOWN OF ANDALUSIAN JEWISH LIFE AND END OF THE GOLDEN ERA

The easygoing social mores and lively intellectual exchanges among members of the several faiths were not condoned by all segments of the various faith communities. Voices of protest began to be heard in eleventhcentury Muslim religious circles denouncing the hedonistic lifestyle of the party kingdoms and the widespread laxity of Muslim religious observance. Similar protests were later also taken up by Jewish moralists regarding the elite class of Jewish intellectuals and courtiers. Some Muslim critics singled out for denunciation the employment of Jews in high positions as especially offensive to Islam. One particular object of such attacks was Joseph Ibn Naghrella, son of poet and statesman Samuel Ibn Naghrella. Samuel had risen to the highest positions of state in eleventh-century Zīrid Granada, even leading Muslim troops and boasting in poetry of his military prowess. Both father and son were closely involved in the court intrigues surrounding successions to power in the Berber kingdom. As the Jewish chronicler Ibn Daud remarked of Joseph, “of all the fine qualities which his father possessed he lacked but one . . . his father’s humility.” Critics among the political opposition in the court joined with the ʿulamāʾ (Muslim religious scholars) to warn the Muslim prince that he would be held accountable for the “arrogance” of the Jews who had risen too high.

the jews of muslim spain 195 The Jewish exercise of power, they reminded the authorities, constituted an insult to God, and to the Prophet and his Holy Scripture.39 Calls for restoration of the Jews to their position of degradation prescribed in the Pact of ʿUmar circulated in acerbic and satirical poetry. Partially in response to these calls, a pogrom broke out in Granada in 1066. As a result, Joseph and perhaps as many as 4,000 Jews in the city were murdered at the hands of the mob. These events augured the breakdown of Muslim-Jewish relations that would soon follow.40 With the fall of Toledo to the Christian armies of Alfonso VI in 1085, panicked Muslim princes turned to the North African Berber dynasty of the Almoravids for military reinforcement. In return for their assistance, the Almoravids demanded the implementation of a stricter, reformed Islam. Once in power, however, the Almoravids quickly succumbed to the hedonistic lifestyle characteristic of the tāʾifa courts. Predictably, in _ the ʿulamāʾ called for the response to perceived Almoravid religious laxity, enforcement of the discriminatory regulations on the status of the Jews in accordance with the strictures of the Mālikī school of Islamic law. The twelfth-century Sevillian market inspector’s manual (hisba) of Ibn ʿAbdūn spells out the required relationship that should prevail_in the city’s markets. Among its many directives, the author reminds Muslim believers:41 A Muslim must not massage a Jew or a Christian nor throw away his refuse nor clean his latrines. The Jew and the Christian are better fitted for such trades, since they are the trades of those who are vile. A Muslim should not attend to the animal of a Jew or of a Christian, nor serve him as a muleteer, nor hold his stirrup. If any Muslim is known to do this, he should be denounced . . . A garment belonging to a sick man, a Jew, or a Christian must not be sold without indicating its origin . . . No contractor, policeman, Jew, or Christian may be allowed to dress in the costume of people of position, of a jurist, or of a worthy man. They must, on the contrary, be abhorred and shunned and should not be greeted with the 39

40

41

Ross Brann’s Power in the Portrayal provides a close textual analysis of the literary texts reflecting the power relations between the Jews and Muslims of the period. While Hebrew texts are cautiously reserved in their appraisal of Muslims, the Muslim texts graphically condemn the Jewish grandees and their usurpation of power. On the hubris of Joseph Ibn Naghrella, his conspiratorial anti dynastic activities, and the carnage in Granada, see Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 2:158 89. On the number of victims, see ibid., 2:333 34n281. Ashtor cites the following disparate figures: Ibn ʿIdhārī offers a figure of 300 Jews slain; Ibn Bassām’s figure is 4,000; see al Dhakīra f ī Mahāsin Ahl al Jazīra (Cairo, 1939 42), part 1, 2:272. Abraham Ibn Daud claims that _ community of Granada was killed; and Solomon Ibn Verga asserts that more the entire than 1,500 families were killed. See Olivia Remie Constable, ed., Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources (Philadelphia, 1997), 175 79. Ibn ʿAbdūn, “Hisba Manual” (trans. Bernard Lewis), in Constable, ed., Medieval Iberia, 178 79.

196

jane s. gerber

formula “Peace be with you” . . . They must have a distinguishing sign by which they are recognized to their shame.

The continuing military instability and public unrest in Andalusia brought forth fresh Hebrew poetic expressions. The fall of Córdoba in 1013, the advent of the Almoravids and their increasingly intolerant rule from 1090 to the 1120s, followed by the Almohad invasions and implementation of a drastic policy of forced conversion of Jews in 1147 precipitated waves of Jewish emigration from Muslim to Christian Spain. During their flight Hebrew poets Moses Ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi recalled alAndalus with both ambivalence and nostalgic fondness. Until his last days, Moses Ibn Ezra referred to himself as a refugee and fugitive, far from the gardens and friendships of his youth, alone in the dark and cold forests of northern Spain. Halevi’s nostalgia was more complex since his displacement from Spain was partially self-imposed. While reacting to the antiJewish violence in Toledo that accompanied the Reconquista, Halevi’s sense of estrangement was counterbalanced by the fact that his departure was intended as an escape from exile to the Land of Israel. In 1147, the Almohads, a Moroccan fundamentalist Islamic sect, invaded Spain and initiated a policy of forced conversion of Christians and Jews to Islam. Thousands of Jews were martyred or converted at the hands of the Almohad armies. Echoes of the Almohad persecution have been preserved in rare Genizah fragments and the lamentation of Hebrew poet Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092–1167). His dirge on “the calamity that has descended on Sepharad” recalls the agonies that tens of thousands of North African and Spanish Jews encountered and singles out the carnage in Córdoba and Lucena, as well as other Iberian Jewish communities. As the Jews of Andalusia scattered, they transported their rich cultural traditions far and wide. Some Jews, like the Maimonides family, wandered for years during the Almohad upheaval, eventually reaching Morocco, and finally settling in Egypt in 1168. Echoes of the persecutions colored Maimonides’ famous empathetic epistles to beleaguered Jewries in Morocco and Yemen. Many of the victims never found a permanent asylum but wandered far afield. The lamentations of the exiled poets provided a template in Hebrew verse on the loss of al-Andalus. The Jewish experience in Andalusia began to be mythologized at the precise moment that Muslim Spain was being abandoned. The poets nostalgically recalled the refined life and friendships that they had been forced to leave. The majority of the refugees who ended up in Toledo retained their Arabic language for several generations, serving anew in the historic process of cultural mediation as they had in earlier generations. As al-Andalus became a memory and the Jews poured into the newly conquered cities of Christian Spain the complex reality of Sepharad

the jews of muslim spain 197 underwent new permutations. Yet the distinctive Jewish culture shaped in Muslim Spain, a rarified culture that was the preserve of a small Jewish upper crust, was sufficiently mobile to survive the traumas of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Its bearers were sufficiently resilient to transform their legacy, especially its philosophical components, into new forms of expression as they confronted the new realities of life in Christian Spain. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashtor, Eliyahu. The Jews of Moslem Spain, trans. Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1973–84). Brann, Ross. The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Medieval Spain (Baltimore, 1991). “The Arabized Jews,” in Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: The Literature of al-Andalus (Cambridge, 2000), 435–54. Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventhand Twelfth-Century Islamic Spain (Princeton, 2002). Decter, Jonathan. Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe (Bloomington, IN, 2007). Efron, John. German Jewry and the Allure of the Sephardic (Princeton, 2016). Gerber, Jane S. The Jews of Spain (New York, 1992). “Pride and Pedigree: The Development of the Myth of Aristocratic Lineage,” in Brian Smollett and Christian Wiese, eds., Reappraisals and New Studies of the Modern Jewish Experience: Essays in Honor of Robert M. Seltzer (Leiden, 2014), 83–103. Cities of Splendour in the Shaping of Sephardi Jewry (London, 2020). Glick, Thomas F. “Science in Medieval Spain: The Jewish Contribution in the Context of Convivencia,” in Vivian Mann, Thomas Glick, and Jerrilyn Dodds, eds., Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain (New York, 1992), 83–112. Goldstein, Bernard R. “Astronomy as a ‘Neutral Zone’: Interreligious Cooperation in Medieval Spain,” Medieval Encounters 15 (2009), 159–74. Jayyusi, Salma Khadra, ed. The Legacy of Muslim Spain, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1992). Ray, Jonathan. The Sephardic Frontier: The Reconquista and the Jewish Community in Medieval Spain (Ithaca, 2006). Scheindlin, Raymond. Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life (Philadelphia, 1986).

198 jane s. gerber Shirmann, Yefim. “The Function of the Hebrew Poet in Medieval Spain,” Jewish Social Studies 16, 3 (1954), 235–52. Wasserstein, David J. The Rise and Fall of the Party-Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain 1002–1086 (Princeton, 1985). “Jewish Elites in al-Andalus,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews in Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity (Leiden, 1992), 101–10. Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. “Exile and Expulsion in Jewish History,” in Benjamin R. Gampel, ed., Crisis and Creativity in Jewish History (New York, 1997), 3–22.

chapter 6

BEYOND CRESCENT AND CROSS Jews in Medieval Syria and Sicily brendan goldman

INTRODUCTION

No single, coherent chapter on the societies of modern Syria (Arabic, alShām) and Sicily (Arabic, S ̣iqilliyah) could or would be written today: Sicily is a Western Christian state; Syria an Arab and Islamic one. But for most of the Middle Ages, there was no such clarity about these societies’ dispositions. War and regime change plagued both territories. Political power passed back and forth among Persian, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin conquerors. These rulers included partisans of the popes of Rome, the patriarchs of Constantinople, the Sunnī caliphs of Baghdad, and the Shīʿī imams of Cairo. As a result of these changes in regime, as well as ongoing immigration and emigration, medieval Syria and Sicily came to host ethnolinguistic and confessional communities whose diversity reflected that of their wider Mediterranean world. Among these populations, substantial Syrian and Sicilian Jewish communities survived and often thrived throughout the Middle Ages. How did Jews in medieval Sicily and Syria cope with centuries of Christian/Islamic holy war and regime change? The Jews and their neighbors – that is, the conquered people of Syria and Sicily – benefited from continuity of state institutions and administrative norms across periods of dynastic transition. In other words, new regimes largely left the government offices of their vanquished predecessors intact. Jewish documents reveal that the conquered people also preserved commercial, social, and religious networks that transcended the ever-changing borders of Christendom and the Dār al-Islām. Arabic became the lingua franca for most Syrian and Sicilian Jews over the first century of Muslim occupation of their lands; it remained so across periods of Islamic and Christian rule.1 The reason Jewish communities in 1

For Sicily, see Henri Bresc, Arabes de langue, Juifs de religion: L’évolution du judaïsme sicilien dans l’environnement latin, xiie xve siècles (Paris, 2001); for Syria, see Brendan Goldman, “Arabic Speaking Jews in Crusader Syria: Conquest, Continuity and Adaptation in the Medieval Mediterranean” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2018).

199

200 brendan goldman Syria and Sicily kept speaking, writing, and issuing legal documents in Arabic was that they maintained their commercial and social relationships with their Arabophone coreligionists across the Eastern Mediterranean. Members of both communities donated to the yeshivot of Palestine and Iraq, as well as institutions associated with the headship of the Jews (riʾāsat al-yahūd) of Egypt.2 They also continued to trade with fellow Arabicspeaking Jews, Muslims, and Christians in the Islamic Near East. Finally, they persisted in migrating – as both merchants and permanent settlers – across Christian- and Muslim-held territories.3 The histories of these societies and their Jewish communities challenge traditional historiographies of Jewish and non-Jewish communities that assume hard boundaries between the Christian and Islamic worlds.4 Linguistic and cultural hybridity was not a fringe phenomenon in medieval Syria and Sicily; it was the norm. Following the Islamic conquests of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, the chanceries of the new Islamic regimes utilized local non-Muslims as administrators and continued to issue documents in Greek and Coptic (as well as Arabic).5 Similarly, in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, when Europeans conquered Syria and Sicily, they staffed their administrations with their new Arabicspeaking subjects. These conquerors also continued to allow Islamic, Jewish, and non-Western Christian legal institutions to function. They even struck Arabic coins.6 The reason that both sets of conquerors embraced administrative continuity was not a commitment to an abstract notion of tolerance and 2 3

4

5

6

See Chapter 13 in this volume for further detail on these institutions. Shlomo Simonsohn, The Jews in Sicily (383 1300), 19 vols. (Leiden, 1997 2006), 1:xxxiv lix. One of the primary contributions of Mediterranean studies has been to challenge the assumption of such hard divisions between regions. See Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford, 2000), esp. 9 26 and 123 72. On bilingual administration in the early Islamic empire, see Jørgen Baek Simonsen, Studies in the Genesis and Early Development of the Caliphal Taxation System (Copenhagen, 1988). A parallel cultural and administrative hybridity existed in the Iberian Peninsula. Its impact on the region’s Jewish elites is discussed in Jonathan P. Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature between al Andalus and Christian Europe (Bloomington, IN, 2007). On Arabic administration in Sicily, see Alex Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily: Arabic Speakers and the End of Islam (Leeds, 2003); and Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge, 2002). On multilingual coins in the Crusader states, see Alex G. Malloy, Irene Fraley Preston, and Arthur J. Seltman, Coins of the Crusader States, 1098 1291: Including the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Its Vassal States of Syria and Palestine, the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus (1192 1489), and the Latin Empire of Constantinople and Its Vassal States of Greece and the Archipelago (New York, 1994).

jews in medieval syria and sicily 201 diversity, but a pragmatic concern for keeping the state (and especially the tax system) running. Continuity subsequently ensured the rapid stabilization of the conquered regions. Thus, while changes in regime precipitated temporary chaos, they also catalyzed new opportunities for Sicilians and Syrians – Jews and non-Jews – to affirm and/or redefine their relationships with merchants, craftsmen, courtiers, and religious leaders across Christian- and Muslim-held regions of the Mediterranean. JEWS IN EARLY ISLAMIC SYRIA AND SICILY

For over a thousand years preceding the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome (132–35 ce), Greater Syria or al-Shām (i.e., the territory of modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, western Jordan, and southwest Turkey) and, more specifically, Judea/Palestine, hosted one of the largest Jewish communities of the ancient world. In the aftermath of the failed revolt, many Jewish settlements in central Palestine lay in ruin and the center of Jewish life in the region shifted north to the Galilee.7 Over the subsequent centuries, Palestine’s Jews looked to the Sasanians of Persia to liberate the Holy Land – a feat the Sasanians finally accomplished with Jewish support in 614 ce. However, the success of the Jewish-Persian alliance proved short-lived. The Byzantines retook Palestine in 628 and exacted revenge on the Holy Land’s Jews.8 The costs of the war between the Byzantines and Sasanians left both empires vulnerable to the Muslim armies that materialized out of the Arabian Peninsula in the mid-to-late 630s. Following the Muslims’ victory over the Byzantines at Yarmūk in 636, Palestine lay open to conquest. Jerusalem fell to siege in 637. By 638, the whole of Greater Syria – from Gaza to Antioch – lay in Muslim hands. Eighth-century Islamic sources record that the Jews of Palestine actively assisted the Muslim invaders during the conquests of Syrian cities – a plausible scenario considering Jewish hostility to the Byzantines, but one that is impossible to verify.9 Islamic sources from the same period claim that the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb (r. 634–44) consecrated the Temple __ 7

8

9

On the development of Jews and Judaism in Palestine after the Bar Kokhba revolt, see Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton, 2002). On the revolt and its sources, see Hagith Sivan, “From Byzantine to Persian Jerusalem: Jewish Perspectives and Jewish Christian Polemics,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 41 (2000), 277 306. See the excerpt of Canonici Hebronensis Tractatus de inventione sanctorum patriarchum Abraham, Ysaac et Jacob, ed. and trans. Samuel Klein, Sefer ha Yishuv, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1939), 2:206, published in Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Sourcebook (Philadelphia, 1979), 152.

202 brendan goldman Mount/al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf – which the Byzantines had desecrated – with the assistance of Palestine’s Jews. ʿUmar also ostensibly allowed Jews to resettle in Jerusalem, from which they had been expelled by the Byzantines.10 ʿUmar’s actions may have inspired the composition of apocalyptic Jewish texts that celebrate the Arab conquests as the dawn of the messianic age.11 On the other hand, archaeological surveys suggest that many synagogues (and churches) were destroyed during the Islamic conquests, intimating the possibility of a much less amiable transition to Muslim rule.12 Under the Damascus-based Umayyad caliphate (661–750), Islamic Syria reached its cultural and economic zenith. The Umayyads were great patrons of art and architecture across the region. They built the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, fostering Jerusalem as a site of Muslim pilgrimage.13 While we may intuit that Syria’s Jews benefited – directly or indirectly – from Umayyad patronage of Syrian craftsmen, courtiers, intellectuals, and artists, there are few sources pertaining to Jewish life in Syria during this period that can substantiate (or disprove) this supposition. What we do know is that the Umayyads expressed little interest in proselytizing or otherwise interfering with the daily lives of Syria’s Jews and other, non-Arab subjects. The Umayyads and their Muslim successors divided Syria into five or six military districts (junūd). Jews moved to the new capital(s) of Jund Filastīn (Palestine), Lod, and al-Ramle. Substantial Jewish populations also _ continued to exist in Syrian ports including Ascalon, Haifa, Acre, Tyre, Beirut, Byblos, and Tripoli. Inland, in addition to al-Ramle and Jerusalem, Jews continued to reside in Tiberias, villages across the Galilee, Damascus, Aleppo, and smaller cities like al-Raqqa across central and eastern Syria.14 The collapse of the Umayyad regime in the face of the ʿAbbāsid revolution (750) caused Syria’s patronage networks to fall into disarray. Subsequently, Umayyad pretenders attempted to resurrect a Syria-centered dynasty with limited success.15 The ʿAbbāsids proved more proactive in 10

11

12 13

14 15

Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine (634 1099), trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 65 74 (secs. 81 87). On messianic Jewish responses to the rise of Islam, see Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (Cambridge, 1977), 1 9. While the authors have retracted some of their conclusions, their analysis of Islamo philic Jewish messianic movements remains credible. Gil, Palestine, 60 64 (secs. 75 80). Gerald R. Hawting, The First Dynasty of Islam: The Umayyad Caliphate AD 661 750 (New York, 2000); and Gil, Palestine, 104 10 (secs. 115 21). Gil, Palestine, 169 223 (secs. 275 334). Paul Cobb, White Banners: Contention in ʿAbbasid Syria, 750 800 (Albany, 2001).

jews in medieval syria and sicily 203 trying to convert (and, consequently, Arabize) their non-Muslim subjects.16 But direct ʿAbbāsid rule of Syria lasted little over a century. The Egypt-based successor dynasties of the Ṭūlūnids (887–905) and the Ikhshīdids (941–69) nominally recognized ʿAbbāsid suzerainty but were effectively independent from Baghdad. When Ikhshīdid rule collapsed, the Byzantines took advantage of the chaos, recapturing much of northern Syria, including Antioch in 969.17 Only the arrival of the Fātimid armies _ circa 970 prevented the Byzantines from retaking the entire Syrian littoral and Jerusalem. While Byzantine forces were advancing in Syria, their armies in Sicily were yielding their last strongholds to Muslim invaders. The first Muslim soldiers crossed into Sicily in 652, only two decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. These initial incursions did not result in an _ extended occupation; rather, it was only in the early to mid-ninth century that Arab forces began to solidify control of Sicily. The last Byzantine fortress on the island only fell in 965. Jews had ostensibly settled in Sicily after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce. The few extant documents about Jews from the subsequent centuries suggest that by the seventh century there were substantial, Greek-speaking Jewish communities in Palermo, Messina, and Syracuse.18 The first Muslim rulers of Sicily were the Aghlabids (r. 831–909), a dynasty of Sunnī Arab emirs who ruled – at least nominally – as clients of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs of Baghdad. Documentation of Jewish life from this period preceding Fātimid rule (909–1171) is almost nonexistent.19 _ T H E F Ā TI M I D S I N S I C I L Y A N D S Y R I A ( 9 0 9 1 1 7 1 ) _

The Fātimid movement began in Sijilmāsa (in modern-day Morocco) _ among Amazigh tribes that rallied in support of the Ismāʿīlī Shīʿī leader ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahdī bi-llāh (r. 909–34). Al-Mahdī claimed the imāmate (rightful spiritual and political leadership) of all Muslims based on his prophetic lineage.20 The Fātimids captured Sicily shortly after al-Mahdī _ The island remained under direct Fātimid declared himself caliph in 909. _ 16

17 18 19 20

Richard Bulliet’s classic quantitative analysis of biographical dictionaries makes a com pelling case for the tipping point of conversion to Islam only occurring after the ʿAbbāsid conquests. See Richard Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period (Cambridge, MA, 1979). Gil, Palestine, 279 334 (secs. 386 542). Shlomo Simonsohn, Between Scylla and Charybdis (Leiden, 2011), 8 14. Ibid., 14 28. Paul Walker, Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and Its Sources (New York, 2002), 15 39.

204 brendan goldman rule until 948, when the Fātimids delegated its administration to their proxies (the Zīrid and Kalbid_ emirs). In 969, the Fātimids completed their conquest of Egypt and established their new capital_ at Cairo, adjacent to the old garrison town of Fustāt. _ _ Concurrently, Fātimid forces quickly secured Palestine and southern Syria. _ But Fātimid control of the region proved tenuous. Bedouin tribes instigated _the so-called Jarrāhid Wars that continued, intermittently, from _ the 980s until the 1020s (983–88, 996–98, 1011–14, 1024–29). During the longest period of peace between these wars, the Byzantines invaded Syria (998–99).21 From 1029 to 1068 the political situation stabilized; however, in the latter year an earthquake destroyed al-Ramle and cities across central Palestine. Fātimid military campaigns also continued in northern Syria _ region around Aleppo) and Bedouin raids plagued Syria’s (mostly in the thoroughfares and cities.22 What little stability had been achieved collapsed when the Seljūqs invaded the region in 1071. J E W I S H L I F E I N F Ā TI M I D S Y R I A _

Much of what we know about Jewish life in Fātimid Syria derives from _ academy of Palestine Genizah documents relating to the affairs of the (yeshivat eres Yisraʾel). This institution’s responsibilities were primarily (or _ entirely) political and administrative, not scholastic.23 The Palestinian yeshiva was based first in Tiberias (c. 985), then Jerusalem (c. 985–1073), then Tyre (c. 1077–1102), then Tripoli (c. 1102–9), and finally Damascus (c. 1110–93).24 21 23

24

22 Gil, Palestine, 364 397 (secs. 562 93). Ibid., 397 408 (secs. 594 602). All of our sources for the Palestinian yeshiva’s existence are from the Genizah and it is unclear whether and/or in what form it may have existed prior to the Fātimid conquests. There is certainly a large corpus of rabbinic works and liturgical poems _(piyyutim) from _ early Islamic and pre Islamic Palestine, but there is no reason to assume they were produced in the institutional context of the Palestinian yeshiva. This is the subject of a forthcoming article by Eve Krakowski, “Byzantine Judaism in Early Islamic Palestine: Rethinking the Gaonic Model,” in Scott Johnson, Elizabeth Bolman, and Jack Tannous, eds., The Byzantine Near East: A New History (Cambridge, forthcoming). S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Genizah, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 2:5 40; Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), 67 108; Brendan Goldman, “Mediterranean Notables and the Politics of Survival in Islamic and Latin Syria: A New Geniza Petition from Tripoli under Crusader Siege,” Crusades 16 (2017), 4 7; Moshe Gil, “The Scroll of Evyatar as a Source for the History of the Struggles of the Yeshivah of Jerusalem during the Second Half of the Eleventh Century: A New Reading of the Scroll,” in Benjamin Z. Kedar, ed., Jerusalem in the Middle Ages: Selected Papers (Jerusalem, 1979), 45 46 and 72.

jews in medieval syria and sicily 205 The Fātimid caliphs and/or their viziers invested the geonim of the Palestinian_ yeshiva with the right to appoint Jewish judges and communal leaders, to resolve intra-communal Jewish disputes, to organize drives to redeem captives, and to confer titles of municipal leadership on Jewish notables across the caliphate. The yeshiva also maintained a high court and may have been involved in collecting taxes from Jews on behalf of the Fātimid _ of caliphs. Finally, the geonim of Palestine maintained the right as the leaders the Jews of the Land of Israel to set the Jewish calendar – an issue that the Babylonian yeshivot disputed, but which the Palestinians never conceded.25 The leaders of the yeshiva did not and could not have done all this administrative heavy lifting on their own. They were based in Jerusalem, an economic backwater that hosted no major Muslim political figure with whom they could communicate directly (the administrative center of Palestine was at al-Ramle). Instead, the leaders of the yeshiva relied on Egyptian Jewish notables – courtiers, merchants, and bankers, both Karaite and Rabbanite Jews – to enforce their rulings among their laypeople and to defend their interests at the Fātimid court.26 These allies _ were particularly critical during periods when followers of the Iraqi yeshivot, or of peripatetic claimants of Davidic ancestry (nesiʾim), tried to usurp the Palestinian yeshiva’s administrative prerogatives.27 Many of the most prominent Syrian, Egyptian, and North African merchants, judges, and courtiers who appear in Genizah documents in the eleventh century bear titles from the Palestinian yeshiva. This titulature reflects the yeshiva’s recognition of its reliance on Jewish notables for financial and political support.28 From the second half of the eleventh century, the Cairo-based institution of the headship of the Jews of Egypt (riʾāsat al-yahūd) began to usurp the prerogatives formerly granted to the Palestinian gaonate.29 The Seljūq invasions of Palestine, which forced the yeshiva to flee to Tyre – a city outside the Fātimid realm – contributed to the institution’s decline. _ Nevertheless, the Palestinian yeshiva continued to hold court in Tyre until the Fātimids sacked the city and its leaders had to flee again – this time to _ 25 26

27

28 29

Rustow, Heresy, 15 20 and 337 39. Marina Rustow, “The Genizah and Jewish Communal History,” in Siam Bhayro and Ben M. Outhwaite, eds., From a Sacred Source: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2010), 289 317. On the nesiʾim and their challenge to Jewish communal authorities in the Near East, see Arnold Franklin, This Noble House: Jewish Descendants of King David in the Medieval Islamic East (Philadelphia, 2012), 107 30. Rustow, Heresy, 82 86. Mark Cohen, Jewish Self government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of the Head of the Jews, ca. 1065 1126 (Princeton, 1980).

206 brendan goldman Tripoli (in Lebanon). There they remained until the Crusaders took the port and compelled the yeshiva to move to its final home in Damascus.30 While merchants played a critical role in Jewish relations to the state in southern Syria in the eleventh century, their endeavors in the region were limited. Southern Syria was poor compared to surrounding regions and offered few economic opportunities for profit seekers.31 The modest group of goods that Genizah merchants purchased in Palestine included oil, fruit preserves, salt (from the Dead Sea), indigo, and linen.32 As Jessica Goldberg has shown, Genizah merchants treated southern Syria as hinterland to the emporia of Fustāt-Cairo; that is, they moved resources from _ _ Alexandria) for resale, rather than trading Palestine to Fustāt-Cairo (or _ _ goods from Palestine directly to the wider region.33 The economic situation in northern Syria was an entirely different story. The ports of Tyre and Tripoli served the markets of Damascus and were emporia where merchants from across the Mediterranean bought goods from the Near and Far East (via Aleppo).34 Unfortunately, because these merchants were not dependent on Fustāt (where the Genizah was located), _ _ we know much less about their ventures than we do about those of merchants in southern Syria. This discrepancy points to a broader bias in extant Jewish sources: while there is every indication that as many or more Jews lived in Damascus and Aleppo than in southern Syria and Egypt, we know relatively little about these communities because of our reliance on the Genizah. Other source biases occlude our knowledge of experiences of Jews outside the literate elite.35 To summarize: Before the Seljuq invasions of the 1070s, the Jews of southern Syria played only a minor role in regional trade. The Palestinian yeshiva oversaw the communal administration of Jews across the Fātimid _ the caliphate. The yeshiva was compelled in the 1070s to resettle beyond Fātimid realm and its activities (to the extent that they persisted) subse_ quently become increasingly obscure in Genizah sources. But substantial 30 31

32 34 35

Ibid. Jessica L. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World (Cambridge, 2012), 220 27. 33 Gil, Palestine, 236 41 (secs. 345 51). Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 229 36. Ibid., 227 29. The works of al Maqdisī, al Tabarī, and Benjamin of Tudela suggest that Syrian Jews were disproportionately represented among modest professions including tanning, dyeing, and glassmaking. But these literary sources’ assessments of professional demo graphics are unverifiable and should be viewed with skepticism. On the question of the Genizah corpus and class representation, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:148 266; and Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014), 200 203.

jews in medieval syria and sicily 207 Jewish communities remained in Syria’s principal ports throughout this period. J E W I S H L I F E I N F Ā TI M I D S I C I L Y _

Medieval Sicily’s Jews hosted no institution comparable to the yeshiva of Palestine; however, the island and its Jewish merchants eclipsed their Palestinian counterparts in the central role they played in Mediterranean trade.36 Due to the vagaries of regional winds and Frankish and Byzantine control of the northern Mediterranean, most commercial routes connecting Islamic North Africa, Egypt, and the Levant passed through Sicily.37 Sicily’s central role in trade allowed the island’s Jews to maintain commercial, social, and patronage relationships with their coreligionists throughout the broader region – including with the leaders of the yeshivot of Palestine and Iraq, to whom they donated generously.38 We are almost entirely dependent on the Genizah documents for the history of the Jews of Fātimid Sicily. Well over 150 Genizah documents – _ also court deeds, petitions, and public appeals – mostly personal letters, but survive from Sicily during the Fātimid period.39 Nearly all of these texts date to the eleventh century; that_ is, the last six decades of Muslim rule. This substantial corpus illuminates the functioning of large Jewish communities in Mazara, Palermo, and smaller cities and towns throughout the island.40 Sicily possessed exceptional natural resources and a climate ideally suited for the production of wheat, silk, and other products. Primary Sicilian exports during the Islamic period include lāsīn, Sicilian silk that was cheaper than other varieties, along with finished and partially finished textiles, leather products, olive oil, grains, and hides.41 The merchants also

36 37

38 39

40 41

Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 319 28. Ruth Gertwagen, “Geniza Letters: Maritime Difficulties along the Alexandria Palermo Route,” in Sophia Menache, ed., Communication in the Jewish Diaspora (Leiden, 1996), 73 90. Rustow, Heresy, 135. Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, xiii. Simonsohn counted 138 Genizah documents that survived from the Fātimid period. His calculations were based on the corpus that _ Moshe Gil collected. Many more Sicilian documents have been discovered (and some published) since Gil’s works were published. Many are available via the Princeton Geniza Project (https://geniza.princeton.edu/pgp/) and the Friedberg Geniza Project (https://fjms.genizah.org/index.html). Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, 68 69. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:223.

208 brendan goldman exported silver, gold, copper, and other minerals mined on the island.42 Sicily relied on imports of certain spices, including pepper, as well as wax, soap, dyes, and goods needed for the production of textiles – most prominently, Egyptian flax. Flax was the primary commodity with which Jewish merchants based in Egypt worked. Goitein estimates that approximately 8,000 merchants followed the Egypt-Tunisia-Sicily trade route per year during the first part of the eleventh century.43 Sicily’s close commercial ties to Islamic North Africa help explain why Jews from Ifrīqiya fled to the island in the aftermath of the Hilālī invasions in the 1050s and the Norman incursions in the mid-twelfth century.44 The most prominent Jewish residents of Islamic Sicily during the period illuminated by the Genizah (1020s–1060s) were the Madīnī family: ʿAmmār b. ʿEzrūn and his sons, Zakkār and Ḥayyim. The Madīnīs were closely associated with Rabbi Masliah b. Elijah, a fellow merchant and the _ _ chief rabbi of Palermo in the mid-eleventh century. Ḥayyim functioned as a commercial representative for the coalition of Egyptian and North African Jewish traders who frequented the island. He used his ties to local Muslim leaders to protect his partners from excessive taxes and appropriation of their goods.45 Even the well-connected Madīnīs, however, could not protect their coreligionists from tragedies on the high seas – both natural and manmade – that frequently afflicted merchants traveling to and from Sicily. In the early to mid-eleventh century, pirates and Byzantine naval vessels – often indistinguishable in Genizah documents in which they are referred to simply as “the enemy” (al-ʿadū) – plagued the trade routes linking Sicily to mainland Africa and the Levant.46 This situation only deteriorated from the mid-1050s, when the island descended into civil war.47 INVASIONS AND CHAOS

Syria and Sicily’s Fātimid-aligned regimes both collapsed in the mid_ eleventh century. In 1049, the Zīrid emirs of North Africa declared their independence from the Fātimids, converting to Sunnī Islam and swearing _ 42

43 44

45 47

Moshe Gil, “The Jewish Merchants in the Light of Eleventh Century Geniza Documents,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46, 3 (2003), 273 319 (here 287 300); Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, xxx. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:217. Henri Bresc, “La Sicile médiévale, terre de refuge pour les juifs: migration et exil,” al Masāq 17, 1 (2005), 31 46. 46 Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, xvii xxi. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:327 30. Johns, Arabic Administration, 31 34.

jews in medieval syria and sicily 209 48 allegiance to the ʿAbbāsid caliph of Baghdad. Shortly thereafter, in 1053, the final Kalbid claimant to Sicily’s governorship died. His death and the machinations of the Zīrids prompted a full-scale civil war among the island’s Muslim elites. Two competing Sicilian leaders, Ibn al-Thumna and Ibn al-Ḥawwās, managed to solidify power on their respective parts of the island. When Ibn al-Thumna proved unable to dislodge his enemy, he called for the support of Norman mercenaries from southern Italy. The Normans came to Ibn al-Thumna’s aid in 1061. Ibn al-Thumna’s forces and those of his Norman allies appear in Genizah letters from this period raiding caravans, plundering merchant vessels, blockading ports, and enslaving or slaughtering local people. After Ibn al-Thumna’s death in the summer of 1062 and Robert Guiscard’s subsequent victory at Cermani in 1063, the Normans slowly solidified their control over the island. In 1072, they captured Palermo and massacred much of its population to encourage other cities to sue for peace. The Normans had limited manpower and therefore relied on “surrender on terms” in Sicily.49 At the height of the Norman invasion in the mid-1060s, Jewish refugees appear in Genizah letters fleeing Sicily for North Africa, the Levant, and Egypt.50 This period of violent transition was protracted since it took decades after Palermo’s fall for the Normans to subdue all Muslim resistance on the island.51 The Seljūq invasion of Syria was contemporaneous with the Norman invasion of Sicily and proved devastating to Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities across the Syrian interior.52 Many of the region’s most prominent merchants and scholars fled the Palestinian hinterland for the fortified Levantine ports of Tyre, Tripoli, and Acre.53 At the onset of the Fātimid-Seljūq wars in 1071, the leaders of these ports – local qād īs and _ discontented generals – rose in rebellion against the Fātimids._54 The Fātimid reprisals proved costly for the ports’ residents. Some_ chose to flee _ for Egypt and other, safer locales.55 The Fātimid-Seljūq wars Syria _ 48 51 52 53 54

55

49 50 Ibid., 52 54. Ibid., 31 34. Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, xviii xxii. Simonsohn, Between Scylla and Charybdis, 28 44. See Gil, Palestine, 409 18 (secs. 603 9); and Goldman, “Jews in Crusader Syria,” 25 42. See Goldman, “Mediterranean Notables,” 4 9. David Bramoullé, “Les villes maritimes fatimides en Méditerranée orientale (969 1171),” Histoire Urbaine 2, 19 (2007), 93 116; and Gil, Palestine, 414 20 (secs. 608 11). See, for instance, John Rylands Library L 213, a letter from Sedaqah b. Shelomoh b. Yufayʿ to his father, Shelomo b. Seʿadyah, also from around 1090, in which the former informs the latter that he is trying to leave Tyre and go to Egypt. See also a comparable letter from Abraham b. Nathan Av, ENA 1822 A 44 45. Finally, see the discussion of T S 8 J 4.18 C, ed. S. D. Goitein, “Tyre Tripoli ʿArqa: Geniza Documents from the Beginning of the Crusader Period,” Jewish Quarterly Review 66, 2 (1975), 69 88.

210 brendan goldman continued until 1098, when the Fātimids regained control of most of _ conflicts with the rebellious port Palestine and Jerusalem.56 The Fātimids’ _ cities of Tyre and Tripoli continued for over a decade after the Crusaders conquered most of Palestine.57 To review: The situation of the Jews of Sicily on the eve of the Norman conquests in the 1060s and the Jews of Syria immediately before the First Crusade were analogous in many ways. In both regions, there were internecine Muslim conflicts that facilitated the Latin Christian conquests. Both also witnessed large-scale migration at this time. Nevertheless, large numbers of Syrian Jews remained in the Levantine ports when they fell to the Franks. Similarly, many Sicilian Jews stayed in the cities of Palermo, Mazara, and Syracuse when those ports came under Norman control. THE NORMAN KINGDOM OF SICILY (1061 1194)

From the middle of the eleventh century, Latin Christian armies advanced on the Dār al-Islām across three fronts: Sicily and North Africa, Iberia, and the Levant.58 Western scholars had long treated these campaigns as discrete events, but more recent studies have argued that they should be viewed as products of a single crusading movement.59 This conclusion was an obvious one for medieval Muslim historians like the chronicler Ibn alAthīr and even some contemporary Jewish observers.60 From this 56

57

58

59

60

See Paul Cobb, The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades (Oxford, 2014), 99 103. These independent ports included Tripoli under the Banū ʿAmmār and Tyre under Ibn Abī ʿAqīl. Even after the latter’s fall, Tyre remained disputed between the Fātimids and _ Cobb, the atabeg of Damascus, Tughtakin, until the port fell to the Crusaders in 1124. The Race for Paradise, 112 14. Paul Chevveden, “The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade: A New (Old) Paradigm for Understanding the Crusades,” Der Islam 83, 1 (2006), 90 136; and Yehoshua Frenkel, “Muslim Responses to the Frankish Dominion in the Near East, 1098 1291,” in Conor Kostick, ed., The Crusades and the Near East: Cultural Histories (New York, 2011), 27 55. On this turn in Western historiography, see, for instance, the popular work of Jonathan Riley Smith, The Crusades: A History (New Haven, 2005), 245 79, which incorporates the Reconquista at least post 1098 but not the Norman invasions. Ibn al Athīr, al Kāmil fī al Taʾrīkh, 12 vols., ed. C. J. Tornberg (Leiden, 1851 76), 10:185 88. The Genizah document is a letter from Labrat b. Moses Ibn Sughmār in al _ 1058. Labrat writes, “People Mahdiyya to his brother Judah in Fustāt written in January _ _ of the Franks, who are amassing _ are worried this year over Sicily because enormous forces against her. I beseech the lord for a happy ending. They were victorious this year on the Spanish peninsula and destroyed many villages.” See TS 16.179, verso lines 37 39; trans. Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, 255 61 (doc. 122).

jews in medieval syria and sicily 211 perspective, the Frankish wars began in Sicily (1061), continued with the Reconquista in Iberia (Toledo fell to the Christians in 1085), and climaxed with the Crusader conquest of the Levant (1098–99). That said, the Normans of southern Italy were hardly the archetypes of Christian holy warriors. They arrived in the region as mercenaries of warring Lombard and Byzantine forces (needless to say, both Christian parties). True, Pope Nicholas II (r. 1059–61) gave the Norman lord Robert Guiscard the title “Duke of Sicily” to encourage him to campaign against the Muslims there. But it was pragmatic territorial ambition, rather than a commitment to holy war, that motivated Robert to intervene in the Sicilian civil war on the side of Ibn al-Thumna.61 After they solidified their control of Sicily, the Norman kings were more than happy to allow the existing Arabic administration to endure. Throughout the period of Norman rule of Sicily (1071–1194), the mints of the Christian kingdom continued to strike Arabic-script coins; its dīwān/chancery continued to employ Arabic-speakers and issue decrees in Arabic; and its taxmen continued to collect the Islamic poll tax (jizya – called “gisia” by the Normans) from Muslims and Jews (as opposed to Jews and Christians).62 The Norman kings modeled their court ceremony on that of the Fātimids of Egypt down to the employment of Arabic al-tirāz – _ – given to loyal supporters of the crown and the kings’ _ use honorary fabrics 63 of Arabic ʿalamāt (identifying insignias) on royal decrees. Nor was this continuity and imitation limited to administrative institutions: the Normans also hired Muslim craftsmen from Fātimid Egypt to build their _ that melds Latin and churches, palaces, and public sculptures in a style 64 Near Eastern artistic elements. JEWS IN NORMAN SICILY

The Norman conquests had a detrimental impact on Sicilian-Egyptian trade in the short term, as is evident from the fact that few Sicilian documents reached the Genizah between the fall of Palermo in 1072 and

61 62 63 64

Kenneth Baxter Wolf, The Papacy and the Normans (Philadelphia, 1995), 46 53. Ibid., 91 300; Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, 127 74. Johns, Arabic Administration, 16 18, 109 14, 274 83. Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, 44 46 and 68. See also the curatorial committee authored articles “Royal Art in the Norman Age: Institutional Architecture” and “The Meetings of Culture in Norman Art” in Nicola Giuliano Leone, Eliana Mauro, Carla Quartarone, and Ettore Sessa, eds., Siculo Norman Art: Islamic Culture in Medieval Sicily (Vienna, 2004).

212 brendan goldman the beginning of the reign of Roger II in 1130.65 It is impossible – at least at this time – to determine what this relative silence means in terms of whether there was a large-scale Jewish exodus from Sicily and/or whether trade was cut off due to Fātimid-Norman hostilities.66 What we do know _ is that relations between Norman Sicily and Fātimid Egypt warmed during _ the reign of Roger II (r. 1130–54), who maintained an active personal correspondence with the Fātimid caliph al-Ḥāfiz (r. 1130–49). This corres_ pondence included concessions with regard to _mercantile fleets from the leaders’ respective realms. This may explain the reemergence of Sicilian trade in Genizah letters from this period.67 In any case, when Genizah documents involving Sicilians do appear again, the island’s Jews appear to be involved in commercial networks spanning Byzantine, Crusader state and Fātimid/Ayyūbid territories. Some_ Latin state administrative documents relating to Jews survive from Norman Sicily. These legal texts follow standard, European feudal norms – for instance, recording the exchange of the right to peasant tax revenues among Christian lords, clergymen, and royals.68 But these administrative documents only reflect the practice of a high court that served a small group of European nobles. Most Sicilians continued to frequent their own parochial courts. The Normans permitted the admittance of Arabic and Greek legal documents even in Latin state courts.69 Genizah documents from Sicily demonstrate that rabbinic courts (batei din) continued to produce Arabic deeds throughout the period of Norman rule and beyond.70 During the eleventh century, Arabic-speaking Jewish traders invested substantial capital in trade across the Islamic world – from al-Andalus to Iraq. Yet there is no evidence that any of these merchants traveled to Latin Christian states for business.71 Then, in the twelfth century, following the 65

66

67 68 70

71

Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, xxxvi. Note that Simonsohn’s claim for a cessation in trade was based on his corpus of Sicilian documents a corpus that has expanded substantially since his work was published. There is, for instance, a reference to the Fātimids forbidding trade and travel to Sicily at the time of the invasion, though this order_ was then rescinded. It is possible that it was reinstated without evidence surviving in the Genizah. See TS 8 J 21.2, upper margin and verso line 1; trans. Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, 276 77 (doc. 129). Johns, Arabic Administration, 258 68. 69 Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, 394 97 (docs. 172 74). Ibid., 421 22 (doc. 187). See, for instance, T S NS J 254; Eliyahu Ashtor, ed., The History of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the Mamluks, 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1944 70), 3:47 48 (#27). Ibid., 19 20. See also Armand O. Citarella, “A Puzzling Question concerning the Relations between the Jewish Communities of Christian Europe and Those Represented in the Genizah Documents,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 91, 3 (1971), 390 97.

jews in medieval syria and sicily 213 First Crusade and the stabilization of Norman Sicily, this pattern suddenly changes: Over two dozen letters survive from the Genizah that involve Jews traveling and trading in Latin Sicily and the Crusader states.72 As Jessica Goldberg theorized and I substantiated in the context of Crusader Syria, this change was the result of the fact that Sicilian and Syrian Jews maintained Jewish courts that produced deeds that were intelligible – and thus enforceable – in the surrounding Islamic world, protecting the bodies and possessions of Jewish traders moving across the boundaries of Christendom and the Dār al-Islām.73 The family most prominently represented among the Jewish merchants of Norman Sicily in the Genizah documents is the Banū Yijū: Joseph b. Yijū and his sons, Perahya, Moses, and Samuel, and his brother, Mevasser, had been residents_ of al-Mahdiyya in North Africa, but moved to Sicily after 1148 when that city came under Norman control.74 In a letter from 1155, we learn that Moses b. Yijū was returning from a trading venture to his parents’ home in Mazara when his boat was overtaken by pirates. The Jews of Latin Tyre likely ransomed Moses from the pirates. During his travails, Moses became sick and thus remained in the port for some time. In the letter to his brother Perahya, Moses reveals that the two had a half dozen trade partners then in Tyre_ who came from Sicily, North Africa, and Egypt and who supported Moses financially during his stay.75 Such letters provide a tantalizing glimpse of the role Norman Sicily and Crusader Palestine’s Jews played in trans-Mediterranean trade. Such glimpses are relatively rare as the number of Genizah trade documents in general declines at this period due to the waning prosperity of the city of Fustāt and Jewish merchants’ reallocation of trading capital to _ _76 David Abulafia, Avner Grief, and other prominent the Indian Ocean. 72

73

74

75

76

Examples of documents from twelfth and thirteenth century Sicily that concern or mention trade and/or traders from Sicily include T S 8 J 21.7, Bodl. Ms Heb D 66/139, ENA 1822a.48, ENA 2557.151, T S 12.337 VER. 2, T S 13 J 6.15, T S 8 J 36.3, T S Arabic Box 7.18, and T S AS 147.24. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 19 26; and Goldman, “Jews in Crusader Syria,” chapter 3.1, 180 200. Joseph and Mevasser’s older brother, Abraham, was a trader who settled in India and did not return to the Mediterranean until 1153, though over eighty documents of his survived in the Cairo Genizah. English editions of a number of these documents were published in S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden, 2008); the entire corpus is treated in S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, India Book III: Abraham b. Yijū, India Trader and Manufacturer [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010). T S 13 J 20.7, recto lines 25 32. Partially translated and discussed in Goldman, “Jews in Crusader Syria,” 216 18. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:16 23 and 2:141 42.

214 brendan goldman economic historians have argued that this silence indicates a “transition from Muslim and Jewish domination of the trade routes to Christian, Northern-Italian, ascendancy” – but the Genizah documents that do survive do not vindicate this zero-sum notion of trade.77 Instead, Arabicspeaking Jewish merchants continued to participate in the same type of small-scale trade that characterized regional exchange when Sicily was in Muslim hands.78 THE CRUSADES AND THE CRUSADER STATES OF SYRIA (1098 1291)

In November 1095, Pope Urban II called at the Council of Clermont for a war to drive back the “pagan” enemies of Christ (i.e., the Muslim Turks). In the aftermath of their victory at Manzikert in eastern Anatolia in 1071, the pope claimed the Muslims threatened the survival of the Byzantine Empire, the welfare of Eastern Christian communities, and the lives of Western pilgrims to Palestine. This holy war later became known as the First Crusade. Even before the official Crusade began, bands of peasants set out to the Holy Land, slaughtering Jews in the Rhineland and fellow Christians in the Balkans. Subsequently, every major Crusade to the Holy Land was accompanied by attacks on European (though never Syrian) Jews, despite papal opposition.79 By 1097, the main body of the First Crusade reached northern Syria. In June 1098, the Crusaders finally managed to breach the walls of Antioch. From there, they made their way to Jerusalem, which they sacked in July 1099. It took the Franks over two decades to grind down Muslim resistance in Syria’s heavily fortified ports. Acre fell in 1104, Tripoli in 1109, Sidon in 1110, and Tyre in 1124. Ascalon only surrendered to the Christians in 1153. The Franks established four Crusader states in Greater Syria: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and

77

78 79

David Abulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean (Oxford, 2011), 294 99; John H. Pryor, Geography, Technology and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649 1571 (Cambridge, 1988), 112 35; Eliyahu Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1976); Avner Grief, “Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders,” Journal of Economic History 49, 4 (1989), 857 82 (here 877). Goldman, “Jews in Crusader Syria,” chapter 3.2 3.3 (201 53). Joshua Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1988), 107.

jews in medieval syria and sicily 215 the County of Edessa. These states’ territories stretched from the banks of the Syrian Euphrates to the northern outskirts of the Sinai desert.80 Syria under the Franks proved no more politically stable than it had under the Fātimids and Seljūqs. By the 1140s, Muslim opposition to the _ solidified under the atabeg (governor) of Aleppo, ʿImād Franks in Syria al-Dīn Zengī (r. 1127–46). Zengī’s anti-Frankish campaigns culminated in the capture of the city of Edessa in 1144 and the subsequent collapse of the eponymous County of Edessa (the first Crusader state). This Christian defeat precipitated the Second Crusade, a campaign that – against the advice of the Levantine Frankish nobility – targeted Zengī’s enemy, the atabeg of Damascus, and thus only succeeded in extending Zengid influence in Syria.81 The Levantine Franks’ greatest fear was that Syria and Egypt would unify under a single leader – a feat that S ̣alāh al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī (Saladin) _ accomplished over the course of a decade following his dissolution of the Egyptian Fātimid caliphate in 1171. In 1187, Saladin launched a full-scale _ Kingdom of Jerusalem and retook the Holy City and every invasion of the major Frankish center outside Tyre, Tripoli, and Antioch. In response to the fall of Jerusalem, Pope Gregory VIII (r. Oct.–Dec. 1187) called for a holy war that would become the Third Crusade. Under the leadership of Richard the Lionheart of England, the Crusaders managed to retake most major ports on the Syrian coast, but could not recover Jerusalem.82 For the subsequent century (1189–1291) much of coastal Syria remained in Christian hands. Acre effectively became the administrative center of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.83 The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1220–50) did manage to recover Jerusalem for the Franks after the Sixth Crusade in 1229. However, the city fell again to Muslim rule two decades later.84 In the 1250s, the Mamlūk soldiers of the Ayyūbid sultans revolted against their masters and established the Mamlūk sultanate. The sultanate’s hold over Syria and Egypt solidified under the Mamlūk leader Baybars (1260–77). Baybars and his successors managed to both prevent the expansion of the Mongol Īlkhānate into southern Syria following the Mamlūk victory at the Battle of ʿAyn Jālūt (1260), and to wear down the remaining Levantine Frankish ports. Antioch fell in 1268, Tripoli in 1289, and finally Tyre and Acre in 1291.85 80 83

84 85

81 82 Cobb, The Race for Paradise, 104 30. Ibid., 125 46. Ibid., 194 219. For the intra Ayyūbid conflicts, see Stephen Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193 1260 (Albany, 1977). Prawer, History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom, 85 86. Cobb, The Race for Paradise, 225 40.

216 brendan goldman The history of the Crusader states is often told as one of a miraculous series of victories (the First Crusade) followed by a nearly twocenturies long decline. But the prolonged existence of these states in which European settlers constituted a small minority of the population was remarkable. What explains this longevity? Like the Normans of Sicily, the Levantine Franks made concessions to the local population, including maintaining extant Arabic courts and fiscal administration; refraining from intervening in the affairs of Syrian Jews, Muslims, and Christians; and prioritizing profit over ideological uniformity. In the last of these three goals they were particularly successful: in the midthirteenth century, the royal revenues from trade taxes from the Crusader port of Acre alone surpassed those of the entire Kingdom of England.86 JEWS IN CRUSADER SYRIA

There is a common perception that the forces of the First Crusade slaughtered many or most of Syria’s Jews and Muslims; however, the Genizah documents make clear that even at the site of the Crusaders’ most infamous massacre – Jerusalem – most Jews were captured and ransomed, not killed. Subsequent to Jerusalem’s fall, the Franks realized that it was more practical to maintain local populations than expel or slaughter them. Since the Seljūq invasions had already precipitated the flight of most Syrian Jews to the fortified ports of the coasts, these populations were (mostly) peacefully absorbed into the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states from 1104 to 1124. The largest Jewish communities in the kingdom resided in Acre and Tyre.87 There was no large-scale flight of Jews from Crusader Palestine as there was from Norman Sicily. In fact, the Genizah documents suggest that economic and political stability returned to Latin Syria in relatively short order. From the mid-1130s, we have evidence of Arabic-speaking Jews moving to the Crusader ports – rather than fleeing from them. In the thirteenth century, a small group of prominent European rabbis – including the famous Iberian scholar Moses b. Nahman (1194–1270) or _ Nahmanides – migrated to Latin Acre.88 _ In the decades following the Crusader conquests, Levantine Jews became agents of the emerging emporia of Latin Tyre and Acre. They sold Levantine 86

87

Jonathan Riley Smith, “The Survival in Latin Palestine of Muslim Administration,” in Peter M. Holt, ed., The Eastern Mediterranean Lands in the Period of the Crusades (Warminster, 1977), 9 22 (here 17). 88 Goldman, “Jews in Crusader Syria,” 25 59. Ibid., chapters 1.2 1.3, 60 111.

jews in medieval syria and sicily 217 products to merchants from across the Mediterranean. They also participated in commercial networks linking the Levant to Indian Ocean trade.89 As in Norman Sicily, the Haute Cour (High Court) of the Crusader kingdoms followed European feudal law, but most of the conquered population continued to frequent Arabic-language legal venues. Latin Syria’s Jews maintained a rabbinic court system that produced documents in Arabic – both Hebrew- and Arabic-script deeds. Sometimes, the protections of rabbinic courts – which could not offer immediate recourse to state power – were insufficient; in these cases, Syrian courts drew up Arabic deeds that could then be submitted to (or, if in Hebrew script, read before) courts in the Islamic world or Crusader principalities, protecting Syrian merchants and travelers from potential exploitation at home and abroad.90 Jews in the Crusader states also maintained their relationships to institutions of Jewish religious authority in Islamic Egypt and Syria. This is evident from the regular correspondence between Latin Syria’s rabbinic leaders and the heads of the Jews of Egypt – most notably, Moses Maimonides, his son, Abraham, and his grandson, David. These correspondences make clear that Syrians recognized the authority of the raʾīs alyahūd as the head of their own community until the last decades of the thirteenth century.91 Again, we know much less about Jews in regions of northern Syria that remained in Muslim hands at this period. The mid-twelfth-century travelogue of Benjamin of Tudela indicates that tens of thousands of Jews lived in Damascus and Aleppo – two cities that never fell to the Franks. Smaller communities existed across Islamic Syria from al-Lādhiqīya to Palmyra.92 What we can say is that the yeshiva of Palestine continued to reside in Damascus until the late twelfth century. The catalyst for its disappearance seems to have been the creation of the office of the negidut of Damascus in 1193. In that year, the Damascene ruler al-Afdal issued a document of _ investiture to Abū al-Maʿālī ʿAbd Allāh that granted him the headship of the Jews – both Rabbanite and Karaite – as well as of the Samaritans in all

89 91 92

90 Ibid., chapter 3.2, 201 25. Ibid., chapter 3.1, 180 200. Ibid., chapters 4.1 4.2, 254 312. Benjamin of Tudela claims Aleppo hosted a Jewish community of some 5,000 people. Damascus’s community, according to Benjamin, could count some 3,000 Jews. Benjamin also observed large Syrian Jewish communities in Palmyra (2,000 Jews) and Qalʿat Jaʿbar (2,000 Jews). He also notes the existence of Jewish communities in al Lādhiqīya, Homs, Sidon, and other Syrian cities he visited. See Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and trans. Marcus Nathan Adler (London, 1907), 26 35 and 42 51; Petahyah of Regensburg, Travels of R. Petachia of Ratisbon, ed. and trans. Abraham Benisch _(London, 1856).

218 brendan goldman 93 of Syria (jamīʿ al-Shām). By investing Abū al-Maʿālī with these responsibilities, al-Afdal effectively deprived the yeshiva of all its administrative functions.94 _ In 1285, David Maimonides, the raʾīs al-yahūd of Egypt and grandson of Moses Maimonides, was overthrown and fled Mamlūk Fustāt for _ Crusader Acre. Upon his arrival at Acre, a group of the port’s _rabbis welcomed David by declaring his grandfather’s writing heretical. This precipitated one of the great Maimonidean controversies of the thirteenth century that soon involved Jewish leaders from Provence, Northern France, Catalonia, Ashkenaz, Italy, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. These leaders issued excommunications and counter-excommunications. The trans-regional conflict was never resolved. It continued until the Mamlūks breached Acre’s walls in 1291.95 LATER SICILIAN CHRISTIAN RULERS AND THE END OF JEWISH SICILY (1194 1493)

While Syria’s time as a hybrid Islamicate/Latinate state and society ceased with the fall of Latin Acre, Christian Sicily’s took centuries to erode. In 1194, the last Norman king of Sicily, Tancred, died and the island was annexed by the Hohenstaufen kings of southern Germany. In the aftermath of this regime change, the administration of Sicily became increasingly Latinized. As a result, Jews became servi camerae regis, “serfs of the royal court” – that is, possessions of the Christian king.96 The fate of Sicily’s Muslims proved far worse: in 1220, under the leadership of Muhammad b. Abbād, Muslims across Sicily rebelled against the young _ Hohenstaufen King and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–45). Frederick defeated the rebels in 1224 and began the long process of expelling all Muslims from Sicily, which his successor completed sometime after 1246.97 After the expulsion, we might assume that the Jews of Sicily were no longer of the Islamic world, since there were no Muslims left on their island. But the Genizah documents make clear that Sicilian 93

94 96

97

T S Ar. 38.93 1, verso lines 16 18; 2, recto lines 3 18, ed. and trans. Geoffrey Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge, 2006 [1993]), 460 66 (doc. 121). 95 Goldman, “Jews in Crusader Syria,” 272 77. Ibid., chapter 4.3, 313 32. On Jews as servi camerae regis, see Salo W. Baron’s classic essay, “Medieval Nationalism and Jewish Serfdom,” in Leon A. Feldman, ed., Ancient and Medieval Jewish History (New Brunswick, 1972), 308 22; and the commentary of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Servants of Kings and Not Servants of Servants: Some Aspects of the Political History of the Jews (Atlanta, 2005). David Abulafia, “The Last Muslims in Italy,” Dante Studies 125 (2007), 271 87.

jews in medieval syria and sicily 219 Jews continued to speak, write, and produce documents in Arabic throughout the thirteenth century. They also continued to write Judeo-Arabic queries pertaining to Jewish law to scholars based in the Islamic world.98 After 1250, the number of documents deposited in the Genizah decline precipitously, making it difficult if not impossible to trace the ongoing relationship between Sicilian Jews and their coreligionists in the Islamic Near East following the Angevin (1266–82) period. What we do know is that some Sicilian Jews continued to serve as Arabic translators at the Christian courts of their Aragonese rulers (1298–1479). Others produced important commentaries on the works of Maimonides.99 The fact that Sicilian Jews continued to speak Arabic long after their Muslim neighbors were expelled from the island was surprising even to contemporary observers like the Iberian rabbi Abraham Abulafia (c. 1240–91), who wrote: The Jews who live among the Ishmaelites (i.e., Arabs) speak Arabic like them; those who live among the Greeks speak Greek; those who inhabit Italy speak Italian . . . But the great wonder is what happens among the Jews in all Sicily, who do not only speak the local language . . . but have preserved the Arabic tongue which they learned in their former times when the Ishmaelites were dwelling there.100

The ongoing utility of Arabic for Sicily’s Jews speaks to their continued participation in an Eastern Mediterranean society that transcended the boundaries of their Latin Christian state. This phenomenon may have persisted until 1493, when all Jews were expelled from Sicily. MAMLŪK SYRIA AND THE QUESTION OF DHIMMĪ DECLINE (1291 1517)

The Mamlūks extirpated any remnants of Latin Christian rule and settlement from Syria following the fall of Acre in 1291. Jewish life in medieval Syria did not end in expulsion, as it did for the Jews of Sicily. The Ayyūbids and Mamlūks even allowed a small Jewish community to resettle

98

99

100

See, for instance, the Judeo Arabic questions to and responsa from Moshe Maimonides in Teshuvot ha Rambam, 4 vols., ed. Joshua Blau (Jerusalem, 1957 61), 1:135 38 (#87), 152 53 (#93); trans. Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, 435 37 (docs. 201 2). Cecil Roth, “Jewish Intellectual Life in Medieval Sicily,” Jewish Quarterly Review 47, 4 (1957), 317 35. Avraham Shemuʿel Abulafia, Osar ʿEden Ganuz, ed. Adolf Neubauer, Revue des études juives 9 (1884), 149; translation _here follows ibid., 118.

220 brendan goldman in Jerusalem, from which Jews had been expelled by the Crusaders.101 However, from 1265 to 1291, the Mamlūks destroyed major ports and fortified cities across Syria, including Acre and Antioch, to prevent the Franks from reestablishing themselves in the region.102 In the process, they also enslaved or killed many of the Jewish and Christian residents of these Crusader strongholds.103 Over the course of the fourteenth century, Mamlūk sultans permitted episodes of popular anti-dhimmī violence unprecedented in Fātimid and Ayyūbid times that contributed to the large-scale conversion _of Coptic Christians (and an unknown number of Jews) to Islam.104 As a result, while Arabic-speaking Christians had constituted the majority of the residents of Crusader Syria, the Mamlūk era witnessed a dramatic demographic shift in favor of the resurgent Muslim community.105 Despite this upturn in persecutory policies and public hostility to dhimmīs, Jews in Mamlūk Syria continued to deploy their ties to the Egyptian court to protect their individual and communal interests.106 While leading figures of the study of the Jews of the Mamlūk sultanate – most notably, Eliyahu Ashtor – have characterized this period as one of perpetual decline, recent scholarship has attempted to revisit this appraisal.107 101

102

103

104

105

106

107

Abraham David, “The Contribution of the Cairo Geniza to the Study of Jewish Jerusalem at the End of the Mamluk Period and the Beginning of the Ottoman Period” [Hebrew], Hidushim be Heqer Yerushalayim 21 (2016), 321 42. Albrecht Fuess, “Rotting Ships and Razed Harbours: The Naval Policy of the Mamluks,” Mamluk Studies Review 5 (2001), 45 71. In addition to the claims of Christian chronicles, see T S 8 K 13.11, which records the large scale rape of Jewish women and slaughter of Jewish men when the Mamlūks breached Acre’s walls. See the edition in Mordechai Akiva Friedman, “Geniza Sources for the Crusader Period and for Maimonides and his Descendants,” in Nahum Waldman, ed., Community and Culture: Essays in Jewish Studies in Honor of the Ninetieth Anniversary of Gratz College (Philadelphia, 1987), 51 66 (here 60 63). On these persecutory episodes, see Dotan Arad, “Being a Jew under the Mamluks: Some Coping Strategies,” in Stephan Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations in the Middle Islamic Period: Jews in the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates (1171 1517) (Bonn, 2017), 21 39. On the conversion of Copts to Islam, see Tamer el Leithy, “Coptic Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo: 1293 1524 a.d.” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2006). Thomas A. Carleson, “Contours of Conversion: The Geography of Islamization in Syria, 600 1500,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 135, 4 (2015), 791 816 (here 808 11). Marina Rustow, “At the Limits of Communal Autonomy: Jewish Bids for Intervention from the Mamluk State,” Mamlūk Studies Review 13, 2 (2009), 133 59. On Ashtor’s appraisal, see Miriam Frenkel, “Eliyahu Ashtor: A Forgotten Pioneer Researcher of Jewish History under the Mamluks,” in Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations, 63 74. For a revisionist account, see Nathan Hofer, “The Ideology of Decline and the Jews of Ayyubid and Mamluk Syria,” in Conermann, ed., Muslim Jewish Relations, 95 120.

jews in medieval syria and sicily

221

CONCLUSION

This chapter has surveyed Syrian and Sicilian Jewish history from the Byzantine era through the years leading up to the Ottoman invasion of Egypt (1516–17) and the expulsion of Jews from the Crown of Aragon and Castile. The end of these regions’ stories is similar: the expulsion or conversion of large numbers of religious minorities; the abandonment of multilingual administration; and the affirmation of the Islamic or Christian character of the state. But the histories of the Jewish communities of these regions remind us that this outcome was not inevitable and that administrative and demographic diversity was once the norm in much of the Eastern Mediterranean. Regime change among Muslim and Christian sovereigns did not always precipitate radical discontinuities. Instead, Jews and other everyday people found ways to maintain ties to trans-regional social and professional networks across the domains of Crescent and Cross. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

syria Ashtor, Eliyahu. The History of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the Mamluks, 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1944–70). Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine (634–1099), trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992). Goitein, S. D. Palestinian Jewry in Early Islamic and Crusader Times [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1980). Goldman, Brendan. “Arabic-speaking Jews in Crusader Syria: Conquest, Continuity and Adaptation in the Medieval Mediterranean” (PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2018). Mann, Jacob. The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fātimid Caliphs, 2 vols. (London, 1920–22; reprint, New York, 1970). _ Prawer, Joshua. The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1988). Reiner, Elchanan. “Aliyah ve-Aliyah la-regel, 1099–1517” (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988). sicily Ben Sasson, Menahem, ed. The Jews of Sicily, 825–1068 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1991). Bresc, Henri. Arabes de langue, Juifs de religion: L’évolution du judaïsme sicilien dans l’environnement latin, xiie–xve siècles (Paris, 2001).

222 brendan goldman Gil, Moshe. “Sicily 827–1072, in the Light of the Geniza Documents and Parallel Sources,” Italia Judaica 5 (1995), 96–171. Roth, Cecil. “Jewish Intellectual Life in Medieval Sicily,” Jewish Quarterly Review 47, 4 (1957), 317–35. Simonsohn, Shlomo. The Jews in Sicily (383–1300), 19 vols. (Leiden, 1997– 2006). Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Jews in Sicily (Leiden, 2011). Zeldes, Nadia, and Miriam Frenkel. “The Sicilian Trade: Jewish Merchants in the Mediterranean in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” Michael 14 (1997), 89–137.

chapter 7

YEMEN AND INDIA FROM THE RISE OF ISLAM TO 1500 a m i r a s h u r and e l i z a b e t h l a m b o u r n

INTRODUCTION: SEARCHING FOR THE JEWISH COMMUNITIES OF EARLY YEMEN AND INDIA

The Jewish community of the Yemen is well known for having been amongst the oldest in the Arabian Peninsula with origins in the early first millennium ce, if not far earlier since oral traditions recall a first arrival even before the destruction of the First Temple in 587 bce. As one of the most important contemporary scholars of Yemenite Judaism, Yosef (Joseph) Tobi, and other scholars, have noted, this timeline has strongly impacted scholarship on Yemenite Jewry,1 leading some of the early scholarship on Yemenite Jews to express a “romantic, even Orientalist, view that perceives this community as . . . embodying unchanged ancient tenets of Judaism from the Talmudic period, and resembling an ‘authentic’ old Jewish society.”2 This chapter joins a body of more critical approaches now emerging that understand Yemenite Jewry as a dynamic and complex society and it is for this reason that readers find the Yemen paired here with India, a region where firm evidence for a Jewish presence before 1500, and in particular the matter of first arrivals, continues to elude scholars and generates as much debate as the Yemenite material.3 If this chapter skirts the question of “first arrivals,” it nevertheless links the two regions because a large proportion of it will focus on the exceptional documentary corpus known as the Cairo Genizah and more specifically the body of documents

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Joseph Tobi, The Jews of Yemen: Studies in Their History and Culture (Leiden, 1999), chapter 16, “Trends in the Study of Yemenite Jewry.” Bat Zion Eraqi Klorman, “The Jews of Yemen,” Oxford Bibliographies, https://tinyurl .com/y2ky7unh. See Nathan Katz’s excellent Who Are the Jews of India? (Berkeley, 2000); also Arthur Michael Lesley, “Shingly in Cochin Jewish Memory and in Eyewitness Accounts,” Journal of Indo Judaic Studies 3 (2000), 7 20; and more recently, Ophira Gamliel, “Back from Shingly: Revisiting the Premodern History of Jews in Kerala,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 55, 1 (2018), 53 76.

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224 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn that S. D. Goitein nicknamed his “India Book,” material relating to the Jewish trade between the eastern Mediterranean and South Asia, via the Yemen. While the Yemen, and ʿAden in particular, remain at the center of “India Book” documents, all of this material is deeply entangled through trade, travel, and marriage with South Asia and wider Mediterranean and Indian Ocean networks. The wider context for these connections is, of course, the trans-Eurasian trade boom of the period. The “India Book” material within the Cairo Genizah offers exceptional opportunities to flesh out for the Yemen, but also India, what otherwise remains the barest bones of Jewish history. This material, together with local literary production and extra-communal sources dating to the twelfth to fourteenth centuries – much of it in fact recovered from the Cairo Genizah – offers the potential for new histories and discourses.4 We start, though, with these barest of bones and the broad outlines of the history of Jews in the Yemen and India. SEVENTH TO ELEVENTH CENTURIES ce

Jewish communities have a long history of settlement in the Arabian Peninsula from the Ḥijāzī towns of Medina, Khaybar, and Taymāʾ, to al-Qatīf near the al-Ahsāʾ Oasis on the coast of the Gulf, and in the 5 _ _ Ḥadramawt and the Yemen. Particularly well-documented and studied _ is a period of notably strong “Judaizing” tendencies in the Peninsula before 522 ce and which culminated in a short-lived Jewish kingdom based in 4

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The “India Book” corpus is still in the course of edition, translation, and publication with “books” 5 to 7 still awaiting publication. For books 1 to 4, see S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza (“India Book”) (Leiden, 2008); S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, Joseph Lebdi, Prominent India Trader: India Book I, Cairo Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2009); S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, Mad mūn, Nagid of _ Yemen and the India Trade: India Book II, Cairo Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010); S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, Abraham Ben Yijū, India Trader and Manufacturer: India Book III, Cairo Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010); Mordechai A. Friedman and S. D. Goitein, Halfon the Traveling Merchant Scholar: India Book IV/A, Cairo Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2013); S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, with the assistance of Amir Ashur, Halfon the Traveling Merchant Scholar: India Book IV/B, Cairo Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2013). Gordon D. Newby, History of the Jews of Arabia from Ancient Times to the Eclipse under Islam (New York, 1988); and also Serguei A. Frantsouzoff, “Judaism in Hadramaut on the Eve of Islam,” in Ephraim Isaac and Yosef Tobi, eds., Judaeo Yemenite Studies: Proceedings of the Second International Congress (Princeton and Haifa, 1999), 27 32; and references in note 6.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 225 6 Ḥimyar, in Yemen, until it fell to the Aksumites in 540. Nevertheless, it is difficult to communicate strongly enough quite how sparse sources on the Jewish communities of the Yemen are after this period, and this in spite of the determined work of Joseph Tobi and others to recover fresh material from Jewish and Islamic sources. Only in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries does material become more abundant and it is this that forms the true starting point of most histories. In large part this void must be a consequence of the repeated and often forced displacements of Jewish communities in the Yemen over their long history, displacements sometimes within a single town, at other times across the whole country, during which precious documents and other sources were lost or destroyed. As an example one might cite Robert B. Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock’s research on the Jews of S ̣anʿāʾ, which was unable to establish with any certainty where the earliest Jewish quarters and synagogues of the medieval city had been located.7 The marked lack of urban archaeology in Yemen, even before the 2015 Civil War, has certainly not helped the situation – yet, as Joseph Tobi concludes, the large amount of information about Judaism found in the early Muslim sources, whose handing down was very largely the work of converts from Yemen and north Arabia . . . contains clear evidence that the writings of the Jewish Sages were well known to the Jews of Yemen.8

And one can perhaps infer from this that the community was thriving. The location of these aforementioned settlements and the Ḥimyarite kingdom together with other scattered finds point to the early involvement of Jewish communities in trans-Arabian trade between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. There can be no denying Yemen’s advantageous geographical position, straddling the Red Sea coast and the shores of the western Indian Ocean, ensured that it played an important part in transregional maritime trade between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean well before the rise of Islam. ʿAden offered a particularly safe harbor and prominent wayfinding point for ships but the ports of both coasts were ideally situated to offer access to four major axes of maritime communication: East of the Yemenite coast lay the direct transoceanic routes to

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The French bibliography is especially rich, see in particular Iwona Gajda, Le royaume de Himyar à l’époque monothéiste: l’histoire de l’Arabie du sud ancienne de la fin du IVe siècle de l’ère chrétienne jusqu’à l’avènement de l’Islam (Paris, 2009); and Christian J. Robin, ed., Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique (Turnhout, 2015). In Robert B. Serjeant and R. Lewcock, “The Jews of Sanʿāʾ,” in Robert B. Serjeant and R. Lewcock, eds., Sanʿāʾ: An Arabian Islamic City (London, 1983), 391 431. Tobi, Jews of Yemen: Studies, 36.

226 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn southern India’s Malabar and Konkan coasts and to Sri Lanka; alternatively, ships might hug the coasts to travel northeast along the Arabian shore to points that allowed access to the longer sailing seasons along the top of the western Indian Ocean to Sind and western India, or into the Gulf. To the northwest the Red Sea led up toward Egypt and the Mediterranean, and finally to the south was the long coast of the Horn of Africa and the entire eastern African seaboard. These routes and Yemen’s central position in them are already evident in a first-century ce Greek-language merchant manual known as the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea. Although Jewish travelers and merchants are not mentioned in this source, traces of a third-century synagogue at the Ḥadramī port of Qāniʾ, _ frankincense, evithe center of the region’s trade in aromatics, notably dence the later importance of Jewish mercantile activity in this area and contact with the wider Indian Ocean world. The Yemen, by the later sixth century under Sasanian Persian government, was the last region of Arabia to join the newly emerging Muslim state, in this instance through the peaceful conversion of its Sasanian governor in 628. As was typical of such top-down conversions, the inhabitants of the Yemen became de facto Muslims with the exception of Yemenite Jews and Christians. Arab sources tell us that Muhammad _ Islam ordered his military commander, Muʿādh b. Jabal, not to force 9 upon them and to treat them with respect. Yemenite Jews in effect acquired dhimmī status, that is, non-Muslim peoples protected under Muslim law, a covenant system also made with other conquered “Peoples of the Book” such as Christians, Sabaeans, and sometimes Zoroastrians and Hindus. Tobi underlines the fact that Yemenite Jews did not pose a threat to the new polity, and were on the contrary socially and economically important, a fact that encouraged Muhammad to adopt _ a more conciliatory approach.10 Tobi cites Islamic traditions according to which Yemenite Jews were among the Arab armies that subsequently conquered Jerusalem in 636 and North Africa in the second half of the seventh century, likely, Tobi suggests, as “suppliers of provisions and services.”11 The financial and logistical importance of Jewish merchants during times of war is an issue that arises again in the interpretation of at least one Indian grant of privileges to a Jewish group.12 Few Yemenite Jews, it seems, were converted to Islam, although among those that did were

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Joseph Tobi, Jews of Yemen under the Shade of Islam from its Advent to the Present Day [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2018), 31, citing ʿUmar b. ʿAlī b. Samūra al Jaʿdī, Tabaqāt Fuqahāʾ al Yaman (Beirut, 1957), 18. 11 12 Ibid., 32. Ibid., 37. See later discussion in this chapter.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 227 scholars such as Kaʿb al-Ahbār, remembered among scholars as the earliest _ tradition. Muslim authority on Jewish While protected status brought freedom of religion and protection of property and personal security, it also entailed a number of restrictions and regulations, by far the most resented of which was the yearly jizya, a poll tax on earnings, and sometimes land. Additionally, according to the Yemenite sources, Jews were required to pay one dinar’s worth of textiles for every adult; another source sets the total impost at 2,000 cloak-lengths of cloth, each worth 40 dirhams.13 The choice of cloth as a means of payment may suggest that at least some Jewish communities were involved in urban crafts and trade, areas of activity that characterized the community well into the modern era. With the rise of the Umayyad (661–750) and later ʿAbbāsid (750–1258) caliphates and the shift of their imperial capitals first to Damascus and later Baghdad, the Yemen slipped to the political periphery of the Islamic world. Tobi notes an absence of written records about the Jews of Yemen until the rise of the Fātimid caliphate in North Africa (from 909) _ and Egypt (from 969). Nevertheless, Yemen’s enviable position relative to East-West trade and its natural connections to the western Indian Ocean remained and there is reason to believe that it continued to be important commercially. The ʿAbbāsid geographer Ibn Khurradādhbih, writing around 870, mentions the ports of Shihr in Ḥadramawt and ʿAden, both _ the latter _ had, he notes, neither known sites of Jewish settlement. While wheat nor livestock, ambergris, musk, and aloes were abundant there and it was an entrepot for goods from Sind, India, and China, from the country of the Zanj and from along the length of the Red Sea.14 New archaeology along the East African coast, in the Comoros Islands and Madagascar over the last decade, is demonstrating the vitality of connections between these areas and the Arabian Peninsula. The eastern coast of Arabia was thus a vital hub in both North-South and East-West trade and it is the latter that leads us to the Jews of India. As in the Yemen, Indian Jewish tradition seeks to place its foundations early in the Diaspora, in this case in the early first millennium, after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 ce. However, hard physical or textual evidence of a Jewish presence is often much later or largely circumstantial and does not even point in the first instance to the Yemen. That is not to say that the Diaspora did not reach India or other

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Tobi, Jews of Yemen, 35. Ibn Khurradādhbih, Kitāb Masālik wa l Mamālik, ed. Michael J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1889), 52.

228 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn locations, or that Jews were not active in Indo-Roman and late antique trade, but simply that the evidence is fragile and complex. The evidence is stronger after the rise of Islam, although through sources very different from those that survive for the Yemen. A few literary references suggest the presence of Jewish travelers and the existence of established Jewish communities across trans-Eurasian networks from the ninth century onward. A tenth-century account of trade with India and China by Abū Zayd Sīrāfī counts Jewish merchants alongside Muslims and Zoroastrians killed at the eastern Chinese port of Guangzhou (Arabic, Khānfū) in 878–79 during the revolt of Huang Chao.15 A later collection of seafaring tales commonly referred to as the Book of the Wonders of India (Kitāb ʿAjāʾib al-Hind) and ascribed to the Persian sea captain Buzūrg b. Shahriyār includes a story about an ʿOmānī Jew, Ishāq b. Yahūda, who had made his fortune in China.16 At a period when the_ Middle East was in the process of Islamization, but certainly far from being mostly Muslim, it is clear that Jews were just another West Asian faith community active across the Indian Ocean, alongside Zoroastrians, Christians, and, of course, Muslims. With India and Sri Lanka as essential stopping points on the sea routes to China, we may guess that Jewish merchants at the very least sojourned in South Asia on their way to and from China. The Jews of the Arabian Peninsula spoke Arabic and often used Arabicized versions of their names, a practice that makes the identification of Jewish individuals particularly difficult, especially when sources from this period rarely signal ethnicity and religion explicitly. India preserves two important documents that highlight the centrality of onomastics in the identification of Jewish presences. The names of five Jewish witnesses appear on a grant document, inscribed on copper plates in the Indian fashion, awarded to a Persian Christian church at the southern Malabari port of Kollam (Quilon) in 849.17 Four Jewish individuals are immediately obvious as the last group of witness statements is written in Judeo-Persian (see Figure 7.1(a)): 15

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Akhbār al Sīn wa l Hind, with a supplement by Abū Zayd al Hassān Sīrāfī; Arabic edition and English trans. Tim Mackintosh Smith, Accounts of China and India: Abū Zayd al Sīrāfī, in Philip F. Kennedy and Shawkat M. Toorawa, eds., Two Arabic Travel Books (New York, 2014), 69 (section 2.2.1). Buzurg b. Shahriyar, Kitāb ʿAjā’ib al Hind; trans. and ed. Greville S. P. Freeman Grenville, The Book of the Wonders of India (London, 1981), 62 64, now understood to belong to a larger compilation of tales gathered in early Fātimid Cairo. See Jean _ al Awsi al Sirafi, al Charles Ducène, “Compte Rendu d’Abu Imran Musa ibn Rabah Sahīh min akhbār al bihār wa ʿajāʾibihā, édité par Yusuf Al Hadi,” Journal Asiatique _ _2 (2010), 579 84. _ 298, See the longer discussion with further references in Pius Malekandathil, Maritime India: Trade, Religion and Polity in the Indian Ocean (Delhi, 2010), 38 61.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 (a)

Figures 7.1(a) and 7.1(b) Inked rubbings of one of the incised copperplates from the Kollam grant of 849 ce. Three groups of witness statements are visible: in Arabic, in Pahlavi, and in Judeo Persian Source: Gopinatha Rao, 1920

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Figures 7.1(a) and 7.1(b) (cont.)

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500

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Likewise I, Ḥasan ʿAlī, am witness to it. Likewise I, S ̣ahaq Samaʿēl, am witness to it. Likewise I, Abraham Quwamī, am witness. Likewise I, Kuruš Yahiya, am _ witness.18

The fifth Jewish witness is less easy to spot. The Persian Jewish names appear alongside witness statements in Pahlavi, recording the names of both Zoroastrian and Christian witnesses, and eleven names in Arabic (Figure 7.1(b)).19 It is the last witness, Ismāʿīl b. Yaʿqūb, who may be identified as Jewish; an Arabophone Jew rather than a Persian-speaking Jew, his name is an obvious transposition of the Hebrew name Ishmael b. Jacob. The grant document does not clarify whether these five individuals were simply sojourning traders – Kollam was a vital watering point on the sea route to China – or residents of the port. However, the existence of a church supported by the local Cera ruler of Malabar suggests that at least one West Asian faith community was permanently settled at the port of Kollam. A second important document from India confirming the existence of Jewish settlements there is the grant document still held by the Jewish community of Kochi (Cochin). Inscribed in Malayalam and dated to around 1000, it records the trade privileges accorded to the Anjuvanam trade association of Kodungallur (Muyirikoddu), then a principal port of the Cera kingdom, as well as other benefits including the headship of the trade association accorded to a certain Issuppu Irappan (Figure 7.2).20 As earlier at Kollam, the various rights and privileges which he, and indeed his descendants, received in perpetuity make the mercantile activities of the Anjuvannam association abundantly clear: Issuppu Irappan is granted revenue from “tolls by the boat and by carts, Anjuvannam dues” and was “remitted [the] duty and weighing fee as well as being exempted from [the] payments made by other settlers in the town to the king.”21 There is nothing in the grant wording explicitly stating the religion of this individual; rather, it is the fact that the document was retained in the ownership of the Jewish community of Malabar for centuries that points to this

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Carlo G. Cereti, “The Pahlavi Signatures on the Quilon Copper Plates (Tabula Quilonensis),” in Werner Sundermann, Almut Hintze, and François de Blois, eds., Exegisti Monumenta: Festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Sims Williams (Wiesbaden, 2009), 31 50. Roberta Giunta provided the Arabic readings in ibid., 37 38. Muttayil G. S. Narayanan, “The Jewish Copper plates of Cochin,” Cultural Symbiosis in Kerala (Trivandrum, 1972), 23 30 and 79 82; and Muttayil G. S. Narayanan, “Further Studies in the Jewish Copper Plates of Cochin,” The Journal of Indo Judaic Studies 6 (2003), 19 28. Narayanan, “The Jewish Copper plates of Cochin,” 81.

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Figure 7.2 The Kodungallur copperplate grant of 1000 ce, still in India in the possession of the Jewish community, now in Kochi (Cochin) Source: Photograph courtesy of Ellen Goldberg

having been a grant to a Jewish individual, Issuppu Irappan, and his community. Here we face another onomastic challenge, working back from the Malayalam rendering of a name to the original West Asian name it sought to transcribe. One possible reading is the Arabic Yūsuf alRubbān, Joseph the Sailor, or more specifically “pilot”; another reading is simply Yūsuf Rabban, Joseph the Elder. More than the Kollam plates, the Kochi plates offer insights into the integration of this Jewish community into the local political and social and cultural landscape. The Indian scholar Muttayil G. S. Narayanan, who studied these plates over a long period of time, observed that the award was made two years after another southern Indian dynasty, the Colas, launched a military campaign in Malabar and that the privileges were awarded in the presence of six of the district governors and the head of the army, in effect a council of war. Narayanan therefore suggests that the grant was made in return for the loyalty of West Asian merchant groups, possibly specifically the Jewish community in this case, and perhaps even in return for their

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 233 22 financial support of the Cera campaign against the Colas. We do not know if Jews remained at the headship of the Anjuvannam at Kodungallur after the Cola conquests but the Jewish community there certainly continued to be prominent in trade in the long term. The grant document also makes clear that the headship came with a number of highly symbolic ceremonial privileges, known in a number of grants as the seventy-two privileges; among these were “the right to employ [the] day lamp, decorative cloth, palanquin, umbrella, kettledrum, trumpet, gateway, arch, arched roof.”23 Records such as these lend credibility to more general references in Islamic sources to a Jewish presence along the Indian coast, allusions that might otherwise seem more literary topos than historical fact. Thus, Abū Dulaf Misʿar b. Muhalhil’s largely lost tenth-century text, the ʿAjāʾib al-Buldān (Wonders of Countries), states that at Saymur, the present-day site of Chaul, south of Mumbai, “there are Muslims, Christians, Jews and Fire worshippers. . . . there are mosques, Christian churches, synagogues and fire temples.”24 This last passage is an important reminder that the pattern seen among Jewish communities was part of a wider commercial and social policy among Indian rulers, namely, to offer land for settlement and to support the establishment of places of worship for communities they wished to attract to their domains.25 The status of the Jewish community and its quality of life in India could not be in greater contrast to that of Yemenite Jews. There is no equivalent to the Cairo Genizah for the early western Indian Ocean but Jewish merchants are a persistent, if faint and irregular, presence in the sources from the coasts of the Arabian Peninsula to India and Sri Lanka.26 Implied presences such as these are not full proof; nevertheless, it is difficult to explain the subsequent “great leap” of Mediterranean 22

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Muttayil G. S. Narayanan, Perumals of Kerala: Political and Social Conditions of Kerala under the Cera Perumals of Makotai (c. 800 a.d. 1124 a.d. ) (Kerala, 1996), 55. Narayanan, “The Jewish Copper plates of Cochin,” 81. Gabriel Ferrand, Relations de voyages et textes géographiques arabes, persans et turks relatifs à l’Extrême Orient du VIIIe au XVIIIe siècles, 2 vols. (Paris, 1913), 1:223. Elizabeth Lambourn, “Describing a Lost Camel: Clues for West Asian Mercantile Networks in South Asian Maritime Trade (Tenth Twelfth Centuries ce),” in Marie Françoise Boussac, Jean François Salles, and Jean Baptiste Yon, eds., Harbours of the Indian Ocean: Proceedings of the Kolkata Colloquium 2011 (Median Project) (Delhi, 2016), 351 407. For overviews of Jewish trade in India before 1300, see Ranabir Chakravarti, “Reaching Out to Distant Shores: Indo Judaic Trade Contacts (up to ce 1300),” in Nathan Katz, ed., Indo Judaic Studies in the Twenty First Century: A View from the Margin (Gordonsville, VA, 2007), 19 43; and also André Wink, “The Jewish Diaspora in India: Eighth to Thirteenth Centuries,” The Indian Economic & Social History Review 24, 4 (1987), 349 66.

234 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn Jews into Indian Ocean trade at the end of the eleventh century, or indeed Benjamin of Tudela’s contemporary record of Jewish communities along the Indian seaboard27 without accepting the premise of a long-standing if discreet prior presence. YEMEN AND INDIA IN THE “INDIA BOOK”

If the Yemen and India had been linked for millennia already, it is only since the discovery of the “India Book” documents within the Cairo Genizah, and more particularly the publication in 2008 of the first large batch of documents under the title India Traders of the Middle Ages, that all manner of interactions between the two regions can finally be examined at some level of high resolution. It is difficult at present to say categorically whether the connected world that emerges from the “India Book” is paradigmatic of centuries of Jewish habitation between the two areas, or simply a brief unusual period of interconnectivity. In any case, the documents allow us to see a history of Yemenite Judaism that is far from the constant narrative of Zaydī Muslim oppression that characterizes many existing narratives, and also one that materializes more clearly the nature of contact between Yemenite and Indian Jews. If the Yemen had occupied a somewhat peripheral position in the Islamic world after the departure of the center of the early Islamic state from the Arabian Peninsula, the rise of the Fātimid state in North Africa and its subsequent shift of capital to Cairo in _the 960s reinvigorated the Red Sea as a major axis of trade and communication between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. The Yemen itself had been in a state of turmoil since the second half of the ninth century, a period of factional fighting and competition which ultimately resulted in the establishment in the Yemeni highlands of the Shīʿī imāmate that was to shape Yemen until the 1960s, and in fact continues to do so today. The Zaydī imāmate was founded in 901 by Yahyā b. al-Ḥusayn and has left compara_ treatment of the Jewish community, tively ample and early sources on its an unexpected wealth understandably exploited by Jewish historians such as Joseph Tobi, who dedicates chapters on Imām al-Hādī’s attitude toward the Jews of Yemen as detailed in sources such as the Sirāt al-Hādī of ʿAlī b. Muhammad al-ʿAlawī (later tenth century) or Yahyā al-Yamanī’s Anbāʾ _ fī Akhbār al-Yaman (late ninth/early tenth_ century).28 The topic al-Zaman 27

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Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, trans. Marcus N. Adler (London, 1907), 67. See, for example, the chapters on these works in Tobi, Jews of Yemen: Studies (in English), and Tobi, Jews of Yemen (in Hebrew). A new cooperative digitization and

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 235 has been of keen interest to Jewish scholars of the Yemen given the increasingly harsh treatment of Yemenite Jews under Islamic law from the fifteenth century onward. In this chapter, however, we wish to highlight another set of sources: documents generated within the Jewish community of the earlier period that speak not of the legalistic theory behind Jewish habitation in the Yemen but of the nature of daily life. Beyond the highlands, along the Tihāma coast and around ʿAden, another Shīʿī dynasty, the Ismāʿīlī S ̣ulayhids, together with their appointed gov_ ernors in ʿAden, the Zurayʿids, administered Jewish communities and an increasingly busy through traffic of Jewish traders. The late eleventh century witnessed a sudden irruption of Mediterranean Jews into the Indian Ocean trade world, a move economic historian Jessica Goldberg has described as a “breathtaking leap.”29 As the previous discussion of the early Jewish presence in the western Indian Ocean has perhaps made clear, this “breathtaking leap” is in fact only so from a Mediterranean perspective; Jewish merchants otherwise had a very long prior history in Indian Ocean trade. It is surely no accident, then, that in the earliest sources from the documentary Genizah for ʿAden, it is a Jew of Iranian origin who emerges as the key figure at the port. Japheth b. Bundār was an India trader in his own right but also ʿAden’s wakīl altujjār or “representative of the merchants.”30 Tenth-century observers had noted a strong Iranian presence in ʿAden and up the Red Sea to Jedda, which must surely have included Iranian Jews, but the route and timeline of Japheth b. Bundār’s arrival in ʿAden remains obscure.31 Several factors nevertheless aided this connection, one certainly being the Fātimids’ development of what French historian David Bramoullé has _ as the first coherent and articulated Fātimid policy in the Red identified Sea and Indian Ocean after 1073.32 Another is the _undoubted prominence

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research project on the Zaydī Manuscript Tradition (ZMT) led by the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML) in Minnesota will perhaps open the door to the identification of further relevant material; their portal is at www.ias.edu/digital scholarship/zaydi manuscript tradition. Jessica L. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and their Business World (Cambridge, 2012), 305. Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 37, with references in n1 to the documents in which Japheth b. Bundār is mentioned. On the problems of understanding the nature of merchant leadership, see Roxani Margariti, Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port (Chapel Hill, 2007), 178 81 and 183 84. By contrast, EJIW, s.v. “Ibn Bundār, Hasan, Abū ʿAlī (Japheth)” (Michael G. Wechsler), suggests that Japheth was a very recent arrival. David Bramoullé, “The Fatimids and the Red Sea (969 1171),” in Dionisius A. Agius et al., eds., Navigated Spaces, Connected Places: Proceedings of Red Sea Project V (Oxford, 2012), 127 36; also Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 170 72 and 176 77.

236 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn of the Jewish community in Fātimid trade, scholarship, and court life.33 _ The representatives of the merchants in Egypt and in ʿAden were both Jewish and it was Japheth’s greatest achievement, as ʿAden’s representative, to consolidate the easterly and westerly arms of ʿAden’s trade. Through him, a trio of strategic marriages united the families of the Egyptian and ʿAdenese representatives of merchants. Japheth’s son Madmūn was married to a sister of Judah Abū Zikrī ha-Kohen, the powerful _representative of the merchants in Egypt, while Japheth’s niece, his sister’s daughter, married Judah Abū Zikrī ha-Kohen himself and moved to Egypt. Finally, her brother Mahrūz b. Jacob was married to another of Judah’s sisters, who in turn came to_ live in ʿAden. YEMEN AND INDIA IN THE INDIA TRADE

A huge number of Jewish merchants and fortune seekers now transited through ʿAden and other Yemenite ports on their way to locations all along the western Indian seaboard, also to Sri Lanka and even beyond. Mediterranean Jewish traders arrived comparatively late into the India trade and tended to fit themselves into well-established, already millennium-old patterns of exchange: spices and iron from southern India or textiles and lac gum from western India were exchanged for copper and scrap brass, known as cullet, silver, and sometimes gold, coming from the west; at other times foodstuffs or medicinal foods rare in parts of India such as raisins or white sugar, also Middle Eastern glass.34 Noticeably absent from Genizah records are some of the most prestigious items traded between the two areas – horses and slaves – amidst a growing market for horses for warfare in India and Indian slaves for household service in the Middle East. The first at least is likely to have been under government control; as for the second, the Genizah sources suggest that Jews were not involved in the slave trade beyond purchasing slaves for their personal use, mainly for domestic work.35 33

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See, for instance, the rising of the Tustarī family during the first half of the eleventh century. On the Tustarīs, see Moshe Gil, The Tustaris: Family and Sect [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1981). On the development of Jewish and Karaite leadership at this period, see Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008). For an excellent overview, see Goitein and Friedman’s introduction to India Traders, though one should read Goitein and Friedman’s list of commodities with caution as they conflate items supplied for Jewish homes in India with commodities for trade. Craig Perry, “The Daily Life of Slavery and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969 1250 ce” (PhD diss., Emory University, 2014); also Amitav Ghosh, “The Slave of Ms. H. 6.,” Subaltern Studies 7 (1992), 159 220.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 237 The “India Book” material is far from published, but even from the current four volumes it is clear that hundreds of Mediterranean Jews entered the India trade between the late eleventh and mid-thirteenth centuries, joining already well-established Yemenite Jews and Jews from other parts of the Indian Ocean world. Many Mediterranean Jews kept their main residence with their wives and children in Egypt or the Yemen and made round trips out to India for trade. Others, however, settled in South Asia for extended periods, with some never returning west, as correspondence about abandoned wives and subsequent changes to the legal terms of engagement contracts testifies. In many prenuptial and marriage documents we find travel restrictions and stipulations regarding the freedom of movement of the husband. These conditions would define the duration of the husband’s absence, and in several cases even order the husband to ask his wife’s permission before setting off on such a journey. Elsewhere husbands were required by law to hand their future wives conditional divorce decrees, to be implemented if they failed to return within an agreed time frame. In one betrothal deed, a husband is forbidden from forcing his wife to travel with him should she not wish to.36 Depending on different couples’ situations and temperaments, some surviving agreements either forbid the husband from traveling or, conversely, forbid him from traveling without his wife if she is willing to travel; if unwilling to travel, wives often stipulated that their departing husbands should leave behind sufficient provisions for themselves and any children.37 It is probably no surprise that some long-term sojourners married locally, the best-documented instance being that of the North African Jew Abraham Ben Yijū, whose life on the Malabar coast and marriage to an Indian slave have occasioned repeated scholarly interest.38 Whether travelers to India were short-term or long-term sojourners, it is abundantly clear that their experience of India had a long-term effect

36

37

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John Rylands Library, Manchester B 3001, from 1100 to 1138. On this and other stipulations, see Amir Ashur, “Protecting the Wife’s Rights in Marriage as Reflected in Pre nuptials and Marriage Contracts from the Cairo Genizah and Parallel Arabic Sources,” Religion Compass 6 (2012), 381 89. For example, CUL T S NS 226.7. On the development of new stipulations and marriage contracts, see Amir Ashur, “The India Trade and the Emergence of the Engagement Contract: A Cairo Geniza Study,” The Medieval Globe 3, 1 (2017), 27 46, and the sources cited therein. Amitav Ghosh, In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler’s Tale (New York, 1994); the portions relating to Ben Yijū in Goitein and Friedman, India Traders; and Elizabeth Lambourn, Abraham’s Luggage: A Social Life of Things in the Medieval Indian Ocean World (Cambridge, 2018).

238 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn on Judeo-Arabic culture, linguistically and in terms of material culture and food culture.39 While western India and the Malabar coast appear to have been particular foci of trade, the Genizah sources indicate that Jewish traders traded at, or at least transited through, most of the principal ports and cities along the full length of India’s western seaboard where they were part of already cosmopolitan settlements. Yet this was not the only pattern: analysis of the trade activity of Abraham Ben Yijū in northern Malabar suggests that they also targeted small, newly formed port polities where we have little evidence for preexisting international trade with the Middle East. This strategy assured Ben Yijū access to a broad range of resources, markets, and craft expertise.40 Our sources naturally only capture a portion of this trade – by the very nature of their survival in Cairo’s various genizot, we only see the correspondence returned to Egypt – however, odd references to a group of Jewish goldsmiths heading to Sri Lanka or to merchants not heard of since they sailed for maritime Southeast Asia suggest that these Jewish networks were far wider. Across this vast area Jewish merchants proved their adaptability and trade acumen. As Roxani Margariti has shown, beyond the Middle East the success of their business depended on new forms of trade partnership and new partners from across the social spectrum of each locality;41 across this vast area they learned to function within different monetary systems and pre-monetized economies.42 One of the most frustrating aspects of the Genizah material for India is certainly its lack of detail about the Jewish communities that already existed there as witnessed by the earlier Kochi grant of 1000 and referenced later in the twelfth century by Benjamin of Tudela. Putting aside the 39

40

41

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Elizabeth Lambourn, “Borrowed Words in an Ocean of Objects: Geniza Sources and New Cultural Histories of the Indian Ocean,” in Kesavan Veluthat and Donald Davis, Jr., eds., Irreverent History: Essays for M. G. S. Narayanan (Delhi, 2014), 363 414. Elizabeth Lambourn, “India in the ‘India Book’: 12th Century Northern Malabar through Geniza Documents,” in Claire Hardy Guilbert et al., eds., Sur les chemins d’Onagre: histoire et archéologie orientales. Hommage à Monik Kervran (Oxford, 2018), 71 84. Roxani Margariti, “Ashābunā l Tujjār Our Associates, the Merchants: Non Jewish _ Cairo Geniza’s India Traders,” in Marina Rustow, Roxani Business Partners of _the E. Margariti, and Arnold E. Franklin, eds., Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen (Leiden, 2014), 40 58. See also Ophira Gamliel, “Who was the Fadiyār? Conflating Textual Evidence in Judaeo Arabic and Old Malayalam,” Ginzei Qedem 14 (2018), 9 42. Roxani Margariti, “Coins and Commerce: Monetization and Cross cultural Collaboration in the Western Indian Ocean (Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries),” in Francesca Trivellato, Leor Halevi, and Catia Antunes, eds., Religion and Trade: Cross cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000 1900 (Oxford, 2014), 192 215.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 239 matter of whether the latter actually traveled to India in person, Benjamin’s mapping of communities is insightful not only for the possible sites of Jewish settlement that he refers to – notably at al-Gingaleh (likely Kodungallur, otherwise known as Shingly) and in Sri Lanka43 – but for the way in which he sees the Yemen as part of India, a geographical construct that in fact goes back through the Islamic conquests into classical antiquity. Through the documentation that survives from, and about, Abraham Ben Yijū, we see that the conversion of female slaves probably played a part in the spread of Judaism in the area, while the Hebraized names of some of Ben Yijū’s workmen may also be clues to other conversion processes.44 JEWISH COMMUNAL ORGANIZATION IN YEMEN AND INDIA

Nevertheless, ʿAden was the undisputed hub of Middle Eastern trade in the western Indian Ocean and the Bundār family appears to have enjoyed an exceptional status and tight control over this. Japheth b. Bundār’s son Madmūn inherited his father’s position as representative of the merchants and_is even known to have traded in partnership with the Muslim Zurayʿid governor of ʿAden, Bilāl b. Jarīr. Surviving letters refer to their outfitting of a ship in partnership for a trade venture to Sri Lanka.45 The representative of the merchants played a key role and much about the nature of the position has been revealed through Genizah sources. The role was neither that of a guildmaster, since European-style guilds were not found in the Muslim world at this period, nor was he a government official, but something in between – freer and more flexible. His main job was to serve as a legal representative of visiting merchants, and in many cases he himself was a foreigner or son of a foreigner. The responsibilities of this position developed over time and the representative of the merchants came to control a large range of mercantile services, receiving commodities and buying and selling them, receiving mail, apportioning profits, and maintaining a warehouse (dār wakāla) in which all the activity took place. In ʿAden, the representative of the merchants held an official position in both Jewish society and the state in which he was active. In a Genizah document from around 1135, Madmūn b. Japheth b. Bundār, the _ and the nagid of Yemen, is representative of the merchants in ʿAden 43 44

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Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary, 67. See discussions in Lambourn, Abraham’s Luggage, 60 63; and Ophira Gamliel, “Aśu the Convert: A Slave Girl or a Nāyar Land Owner?” Entangled Religions 6 (2018), 201 46. Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 611.

240 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn described as “one who is appointed by the exilarchs and the heads of the yeshivas over all of Israel and invested with the trust of the rulers who are overseas and those who are in the desert.”46 That is, he signed agreements with the rulers and tribal leaders who controlled the main trade routes, he was acknowledged by the local Muslim ruler, and he was regarded as the head of the Jews of Yemen. The role would appear to be substantially different from that of the headship of the Anjuvanam trade association seen earlier in Kodungallur in Malabar, which involved a substantial role in tax collection and brought ceremonial privileges. However, in both cases the heads of the merchants played a vital role as mediators in international trade and in the supervision of mercantile groups within local society. The headship was not a matter of honor alone, but was also a matter of jurisdiction, for the Jewish merchants used to bring their judicial issues in front of Jewish courts in Yemen, and a single judicial network operated from India to Spain. For example, we find a letter from the rabbinical court in Fustāt sent to the rabbinical court in ʿAden regarding the estate of _ an Egyptian_ merchant who had been shipwrecked near ʿAden.47 Another paradigmatic Genizah document is a quittance issued by the rabbinical court of Fustāt to the nagid Madmūn II for around 173 dinars, representing _ “near Yemen.” The estate was salvaged the estate of_ a_ merchant drowned by the nagid and sent by him via a Muslim qād ī to the dead man’s heir in Alexandria.48 In another case, the rabbinical _ court in Yemen approved evidence attesting to the death of a merchant in a shipwreck, but applied to the rabbinical court in Egypt for corroboration: “We may not make a ruling to permit or prohibit in this case before those who are greater than us, our rabbis the judges of Egypt.”49 With an important role to play in international commerce and a burgeoning stature in the geopolitics of the Judeo-Islamic world, Yemen and the allegiance of its Jewish congregations became of increasing interest to competing Jewish leaders in Iraq and Egypt as they sought to build up their influence there. Yemen’s Jewish communities were fully aware of the broader politics and accordingly positioned themselves carefully between the two academies, maintaining regular correspondence with their respective geonim. While the Bundār family, of Persian origin, had close relations with the head of the Babylonian yeshivot in Iraq, Jews of Mediterranean origin were naturally more closely connected to Cairo but these were not 46 47 48 49

National Library of Israel 4º 577.2/15 (Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 398). CUL T S 13 J 8.17, published in Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 524 29. CUL T S NS J 242 (Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 542 43). Papyrussammlung Erherzog Rainer, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, H 161 (Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 530 40).

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 241 exclusive routes of communicaton. Thus, in one letter addressed to the Palestinian gaon in Cairo, Japheth b. Bundār’s son Madmūn sends a query about the ritual status of Chinese porcelain vessels _ and the measures appropriate for their purification.50 Such letters also demonstrate that the Jews of Yemen were wealthy enough to send financial support to the academies of Cairo and Babylonia; the aforementioned letter alludes to enclosures of donations in kind for the gaon and other members of the yeshiva. From other letters we learn that an organized collection of funds destined for Fustāt was not uncommon in ʿAden.51 The language _ of_ many of these letters is itself fascinating because they were written not in Aramaic – the language of the Babylonian academies – but in Hebrew. The holy language was often preferred for communications of a more official or rhetorical nature, and was considered a suitable language of communication for communal affairs too. From the letters from ʿAden, discovered in the Cairo Genizah, we learn just how strong the Yemenite Jewish tradition of writing in a highly elaborate Hebrew was. These letters are also useful for revealing where Jews were settled in the Yemen. The Babylonian gaon Sherira sent a letter in multiple copies to eight centers in Yemen outside S ̣anʿāʾ, the capital of Yemen at the time: one to al-Ḥabīl and its vicinity, one to ʿAden and four nearby settlements, another to Taraj in the northern tip of Yemen, and finally one to the city of S ̣aʿada. BETWEEN CAIRO AND BAGHDAD: THE DOUBLE RASHUT

One of the most startling pieces of evidence for the careful positioning of the Yemenite Jewish community between the two academies is their use of the rashut, the traditional statement of allegiance to the head of the academy.52 While this most commonly took the form of a public declaration in the synagogue before the cantor’s reading of the prayers or the preacher’s delivery of his sermon, it is also found as a formula added at the start of the text of marital agreements and other legal documents. It consisted of the name of the serving Head of the Jews along with his sometimes quite-bombastic titles. The rashut formula appears to have been 50

51 52

Elizabeth Lambourn and Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, “Chinese Porcelain and the Material Taxonomies of Medieval Rabbinic Law: Encounters with Disruptive Substances in Twelfth Century Yemen,” The Medieval Globe 2, 2 (2016), 199 238. See note 54. On the rashut, see Mordechai A. Friedman, “R. Yehiel b. Elayakim’s Responsum Permitting the Reshut” [Hebrew], in Ezra Fleischer, Mordechai A. Friedman, and Joel Kraemer, eds., Masʾat Moshe: Studies in Jewish and Islamic Culture Presented to Moshe Gil (Jerusalem, 1998), 328 67.

242 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn introduced into documents in Egypt as a privilege of the negidut (the rulership [of the Jews]) by the Palestinian gaon Masliah ha-Kohen _ _ Following b. Solomon, who ruled as raʾīs (head) in the period 1127–39. its introduction, however, the rashut became a cause of controversy in Yemen, where certain members of the community appear to have been allied with the Babylonian academy. Madmūn b. Ḥasan, the Jewish _ later became a local nagid, representative of the merchants who himself sent a letter to the wider Jewish communities of Yemen asking them to add Masliah Gaʾon’s name to their public recitation of the rashut formula. _ _ Testimony sent from the city of ʿAden, however, relates how a Jewish visitor from S ̣aʿda in northern Yemen was censured for mentioning the Palestinian gaon in the Sabbath service, despite this having previously been the practice in ʿAden, and was forced to make a public apology.53 In the face of such energetic support for the Babylonian cause, even in southern Yemen, Madmūn backed down and promulgated the removal of the _ sliah Gaʾon from the rashut in Yemen. Among the opponmention of Ma _ _ authority ents to Masliah’s were Egyptian Jews in ʿAden, who, it seems, _ _ were partisan members of Fustāt’s Babylonian community, rather than _ _ Further evidence of this can be seen in followers of the Palestinian yeshiva. letters sent by a Yemenite Jew, Jacob b. Salīm, to the Palestinian yeshiva in Fustāt. In one, he reports collecting large sums of money on behalf of _ _ h Gaʾon from the inland town of al-Juwwa. In another letter, he Maslia _ explains_ that he is unable to collect funds for the Palestinian cause from the port city of ʿAden, due to a controversy having erupted in the community, and he himself has been forced to decamp to al-Juwwa. This is evidently as a result of the growing Babylonian influence in the port city, probably given increasing impetus by the arrival there of merchants from the Babylonian community of Fustāt.54 _ Proof, if it were needed, that _Yemen and India were intimately connected at this period, and that rashut formulae remained very diverse, is the fact that the earliest surviving document to carry a so-called double rashut comes 53

54

For further discussion on the controversy, see Friedman and Goitein, India Book IV/A, 115 28; Arnold E. Franklin, “Shoots of David: Members of the Exilarchal Dynasty in the Middle Ages” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2001), 115 27; Arnold E. Franklin, “Relations between Nesiʾim and Exilarchs: Competition or Cooperation?” in Benjamin Hary and Haggai Ben Shammai, eds., Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo Arabic Culture (Leiden, 2006), 310 12. Based mostly on Amir Ashur and Ben Outhwaite, “An Eleventh Century Pledge of Allegiance to Egypt from the Jewish Community of Yemen,” Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen 2 (2016), 34 48. The letter from Jacob b. Salīm was published by Amir Ashur and Ben Outhwaite, “Between Egypt and Yemen in the Cairo Genizah,” Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 5 (2014), 203 14.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 243 from a draft of a deed of manumission for a female slave written at the port of Mangalore in India in 1132: “Under the rashut of our master Daniel, the great nasi (exilarch), the Head of the Congregations of all Israel . . . and under the rashut of our gaon Masliah ha-Kohen, the Head of the Yeshiva of _ well-known North African merchant the Pride of Jacob.”55 Written by_ the Abraham Ben Yijū, this document reveals not only the earlier practice in the Yemen but also its implementation among some Jews in India. MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN YEMEN AND INDIA

Little remains of what we might fairly describe as a golden age of the Yemenite Jewish community either in ʿAden or elsewhere. Roxani Margariti’s 2007 study of the port’s commercial and urban life, ʿAden and the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port, established an important benchmark in terms of the potential of the Genizah material to contribute to new histories of the Yemen and yet as she repeatedly points out, the material culture of ʿAden itself and its Jewish communities remains hard to grasp beyond written and cartographic sources. As is the case also for the many Indian cities and ports where Jewish merchants traveled and traded, medieval archaeology has barely been undertaken in ʿAden itself and the gulf produced by its absence is noticeable. The Genizah material comes into its own here as a valuable source even if it cannot be corroborated by material remains. The mercantile elite of Yemen, and of ʿAden in particular, emerge as avid consumers of luxury homewares and foodstuffs unavailable in the Yemen but sourced through their vast networks stretching out both to the East and to the West. These took their place alongside more mundane objects and foodstuffs from the immediate locality, be it in the Yemen or indeed in India. The household of Abraham Ben Yijū in Malabar emerges from the documentation with particular clarity and confirms this tendency, mingling local southern Indian objects and foods with a range of imports from across the Indian Ocean as well as the Mediterranean. In Ben Yijū we see the lengths a welloff merchant of North African origin might go to in order to maintain a Mediterranean identity and ritually observant household on the Indian coast, and so understand the importance of homes as places of business and status symbols among this mercantile elite.56 55

56

As appeared in a deed of manumission of Ashū, a slave girl purchased by Abraham b. Yijū, St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, D55.10; see Goitein and Friedman, India Book III, 162 66. Explored at length in Lambourn, Abraham’s Luggage, passim.

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Figure 7.3 View of the Jewish cemetery at al Maʿallāʾ, ʿAden, from a 1950s postcard by Rehamim Bensoor Source: Image courtesy of the ʿAden Jewish Museum, Tel Aviv

Paradoxically, the most enduring material remains of medieval Judaism in the Yemen and India are cemeteries and a few scattered inscriptions.57 Figure 7.3 shows a view of ʿAden’s substantial Jewish cemetery at al-Maʿallā, as it survived in the 1950s or 1960s. The medieval tombstones from such sites set a fascinating counterpart to the picture of Jewish homes that emerges from the Genizah. As this tombstone preserved in the British Museum shows (Figure 7.4), the tombstones made from ʿAden’s volcanic basalt were almost crude in execution, likely deliberately so, and communicate in death a lack of ostentation quite opposite to the lavishly furnished homes of the living. Y E M E N A F T E R T H E F Ā TI M I D P E R I O D _

The collapse of the Fātimid state and the advent of Ayyūbid control over _ Yemen in the later twelfth century brought turbulent times to many Jewish communities. In the Yemen, messianic expectations among local Muslims led to a period of religious persecution, with many Jews forced to convert to Islam. At the same time, in the equivalent of 1172–73, a false 57

Extensively published, see Aviva Klein Franke, “Tombstones Bearing Hebrew Inscriptions in Aden,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 16 (2005), 161 82, with extensive bibliography.

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Figure 7.4 Carved basalt tombstone, one of a pair incised in Hebrew to the memory of Madmiyah, the daughter of Seʿadyah, the son of Abraham, who died in 1644 of the year of contracts (Seleucid era, equivalent to 1333 ce) (99 x 72 x 15 cm) Source: British Museum accession number 1886,0711.2 © The Trustees of the British Museum

246 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn messiah arose there and through his preaching attracted many Jews. It was in the context of this perceived internal threat to the community that the leader of the Yemeni Jewish community, Jacob b. Nethanel Fayyūmī, approached Maimonides, then Head of the Jews in Egypt, who wrote the now-famous “Epistle to Yemen” – in fact a compilation of several responsa establishing the falsity of the so-called messiah’s claim and entreating Yemeni Jews to keep their faith.58 Maimonides’ communication earned him an enduring place in Yemeni Judaism, a fact noted in the later fifteenth century (1489) by the Italian rabbi Obadiah da Bertinoro, who remarked in a brief description of Yemenite Jews that “they do not possess the Talmud but Rav Alfas (Isaac Alfasi, 1013–1103) with commentary and Maimonides, may his memory be blessed. And everyone, big or small, is proficient in Maimonides, because they only study him.”59 Maimonides’ works were also, it would seem, of central importance to Indian Jews, described around the same time by the Portuguese traveler and Jewish convert to Christianity Abraham Franco, who reported that the “sixty tractates (of the Talmud) are not among us, only a few of them, and all of the Maimuni (Maimonides’ code, the Mishneh Torah) is in our hands.”60 If, during his lifetime, Maimonides (1138–1204) had lamented what he considered to be a lack of religious education among Indian Jews,61 references such as these point to the wide and enduring impact of his Mishneh Torah in the Jewish world of the Indian Ocean. Yemeni Jews continued regular contact with Jewish centers around the Mediterranean and Middle East. The aforementioned letters from the Babylonian authority Sherira Gaʾon were sent to Yemen two decades before Moses Maimonides’ “Epistle.” After Maimonides’ death, his son and successor, Abraham Maimonides, is also remembered for another exchange of letters with the Yemen about various aspects of Jewish practice such as the amount of the marriage payment stipulated in the ketubbah, the “open” and “closed” sections written in Torah scrolls, betrothal in front of two witnesses, the permissibility of gluing a piece of cotton in a book on the Sabbath, and, inevitably perhaps, the issue of the appointed time of the Messiah – as 58

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The epistle to Yemen has been researched and discussed intensively; see, amongst others, Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Maimonides, the Yemenite Messiah and Apostasy [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2002), 37 48. Abraham Yaari, Iggerot Eres Yisraʾel: shekatvu ha yehudim ha yoshvim ba ares le ahihem _ she ba gola mi ymey galut bavel ve ʿad shivat siyon she be yamenu [Hebrew]_ (Tel _Aviv, _ 1943), 140. See ibid., 542 43, for the sources cited. Cited in Arthur Michael Lesley, “Shingly in Cochin Jewish Memory and in Eyewitness Accounts,” Journal of Indo Judaic Studies 3 (2000), 15. A famous lament included in his letter to the Jews of Lunel in France; see Avraham Lichtenberg, Anthology of the Maimonides Responsa and Letters (Leipzig, 1859), 3:44.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 247 62 Maimonides himself had discussed in his “Epistle.” Other matters, such as the question of the types of bread and wine suitable for the correct performance of the full grace after meals and the agricultural calendar in Yemen, offer important insights into the difficulties of translating Judaism’s two key ritual foods, namely, grape wine and wheat bread, beyond the Mediterranean, to Yemen (and indeed India).63 Ayyūbid rule over Yemen came to an end in 1229 to be replaced very rapidly by a new, independent regional dynasty, that of the Rasūlids, founded by ʿUmar b. ʿAlī in 1235. As Indian Ocean and trans-Eurasian trade boomed, the Yemen could only benefit and with it, we suppose, Yemen’s Jewish communities. Genizah materials largely peter out for the Yemen by this period, leaving scholars once again reliant on Islamic sources for Jewish history. While the poll tax and other marks of dhimmī status continued to be imposed – for example, during the reign of the Rasūlid al-Ashraf Ismāʿīl II (r. 1427–38), the Jews of Taʿiz were forced to wear a colored belt and destroy new synagogues in the city64 – on the other hand, we also hear of Jews active at the sultan’s court. Around 1397, the Rasūlid sultan al-Mansūr employed a Jewish physician, and another Jew _ was in charge of the treasury in ʿAden in the beginning of the fifteenth 65 century. Yet conversion continued to be rewarded and the sources speak of a procession through the city of Zabīd of newly converted Jews bestowed with robes of honor.66 The Rasūlid period was also one of intellectual exchange between Jewish and Muslim scholars. Jews had long been exposed to Muslim philosophical literature; in the Yemen this was often of an Ismāʿīlī orientation, but intellectual currents also flowed in the opposite direction when a Yemenite Jew transcribed Maimonides’ Dalālat al-Ḥāʾirīn (Guide for the Perplexed) from its original Judeo-Arabic – that is, written in Arabic but in Hebrew characters – into Arabic script so that it would be available to Muslim scholars.67 62

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There are thirteen responsa sent from Abraham Maimonides to the Yemen; see nos. 82 94 in Abraham Maimuni, Responsa, ed. Abraham H. Freimann and S. D. Goitein (Jerusalem, 1937), 107 36; also Mordechai A. Friedman, “A Dispute between a Yemenite Divine and R. Abraham Maimuni concerning the Marriage Payment and the Authority of Tradition” [Hebrew], Teʿuda 14 (1998), 139 92. On the full grace after meals with sorghum and millet bread, see discussion in Lambourn, Abraham’s Luggage, chapter 5, 129 60. Tobi, Jews of Yemen, 68, citing ʿAbd al Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al Rahmān Burayhī, Tabaqāt _ 198, 218. Sulahāʾ al Yaman al maʿrūf bi Taʾrīkh al Burayhī (Sanʿāʾ, 1994), Ibid._ (Burayhī, Tabaqāt, 177). Ibid., 70, citing ʿAlī b. al Husayn al Khazrajī, al ʿUqūd al Luʾluʾiyya fī Taʾrīkh al Dawla al Rasūlīya (Beirut, 1983), 2:200 208. Tobi, Jews of Yemen, 70.

248 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn Even fewer references and insights survive from the brief Ṭāhirid period between the fall of the Rasūlids in 1454 and the Ottoman conquest of 1517. Overall, however, the narrative appears to be one of diminishing social status amidst growing contact with the wider Mediterranean world. An Arabic chronicle from the Yemen mentions the activity of a Jewish rebel and messianic figure in the Ḥadramawt between 1495 and 1500, known _ simply as “the messiah from Haiban.” Ṭāhirid intervention quashed the threat and with it the Jewish community of Ḥadramawt. Those who were not killed or did not convert to Islam moved _to ʿAden.68 Nevertheless, even at this period, pockets of Jewish culture still thrived in the Yemen: S ̣anʿāʾ was evidently a center of active Jewish manuscript culture as witnessed by a group of at least five manuscripts produced in the second half of the fifteenth century.69 Of these, one justly famous illuminated copy of the Pentateuch is now available in its entirety online through the British Library. Copied with exceptional passages of micrography, its fine double-page finispiece, illustrated here as Figures 7.5(a) and 7.5(b), records that it was finished on the equivalent of 15 August 1469 ce for Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Saʿīd b. Ibrāhīm al-Israʾīlī, likely by the scribe Benaiah b. Seʿadyah b. Zechariah b. Marga (d. 1490), who had already copied a manuscript of the Former Prophets for the same patron in 1460–61, and was to produce other texts for him into the 1470s. The manuscript’s illumination, believed to have been carried out by the scribe himself, is fully in the Yemenite style and entirely comparable with contemporary Islamic illumination and decoration from other Yemenite contexts; it should come as little surprise perhaps that the finispiece is in Arabic and uses the Muslim (Hijrī) calendar.70 Another illuminated and finely bound copy of the Pentateuch carries a colophon recording its production in S ̣anʿāʾ in 1515 (1826 of the Seleucid era) under the patronage of Aaron b. Amram b. Joseph.71 This important manuscript remains, as far as we know,

68

69

70

71

Ibid., 74 76; S. D. Goitein, The Yemenites: History, Communal Organization, Spiritual Life, ed. Menahem Ben Sasson [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1983), 135 38. The Arabic chron icle is discussed in Robert B. Serjeant, “Material for South Arabian History,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 13 (1950), 294. See list of manuscripts published by the famous scholar of Islamic art Richard Ettinghausen in “Yemenite Bible Manuscripts of the XVth Century,” Eretz Israel 7 (1964), 32 39. The entire manuscript has been digitized by the British Library and is available at https://tinyurl.com/b82b9zhr. Formerly in the collection of Westminster College, Cambridge, the manuscript was unfortunately deaccessioned in 2007 and sold at Sotheby’s into a private collection; see “Sale catalogue online Western manuscripts,” June 29, 2007, lot 32, https://tinyurl.com/ tetehyud. The manuscript’s present whereabouts are unknown.

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(a)

Figures 7.5(a) and 7.5(b) Illuminated double page finispiece from the so called San’a Pentateuch, completed in Sanʿāʾ, Yemen, on the equivalent of 15 August 1469 ce. The illuminated Arabic finispiece gives the date as ah 6 Safar 874 and the name of the patron as Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Saʿīd b. Ibrāhīm al Israʾīlī Source: British Library Or. 2348, fols. 155r and 154v. Reproduced with permission of the British Library Public Domain Mark 1.0

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(b)

Figures 7.5(a) and 7.5(b) (cont.)

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 251 unpublished. While much note has been taken of the family genealogy subsequently written around the colophon, the manuscript is bound in a box binding, a technique particular to the western Mediterranean and likely evidence for the migration of a Sephardic Jewish bookbinder to the Yemen after 1492. The manuscript was purchased in the late nineteenth century by A. E. Saffrin in Jerusalem from a family of “impoverished Yemenite Jews” and subsequently made its way to the United Kingdom. If this manuscript’s later history fulfills every expectation of the standard narrative of Yemenite Judaism as one of displacement and loss, its production points to the continued vitality of Yemen’s Jewish communities and their ongoing connections to the wider Diaspora in the early sixteenth century. THE JEWS OF INDIA AFTER THE TWELFTH CENTURY

Indian Jews, as much as their Yemenite peers, fade into comparative obscurity after the later twelfth century and the end of coverage within the Cairo Genizah even as they prospered. Islamic sources of the first half of the fourteenth century refer to Jewish communities along the Malabar coast at Shaliyat (Chaliyam), Shingly (likely Kodungallur), and at Fandarayna (Pantalayini Kollam, near modern Koyilandi); stories about a former site of Jewish settlement at Kunja-Kari (Chennamangalam) are also reported by Ibn Battūta.72 What little else we know comes from surviving __ _ inscriptions, now carefully tended by the remaining Jewish communities in India. A woman’s gravestone inscribed to the equivalent of 1264 and found just south of modern Mumbai, and a synagogue foundation inscription from Kochi dated the equivalent of 1344, corroborate the Islamic sources. It is impossible to draw conclusions about community size or indeed origins from such sparse material; however, new techniques of human DNA analysis now offer some fresh details. Genetic analyses of Keralan Jews, while repeatedly confirming that “Cochin Jews have both Jewish and Indian ancestry,”73 also suggest continued and active exchanges with the Middle East after the twelfth century. A 2016 study by Yedael Waldman and colleagues noted in particular “a significant recent Jewish gene flow into this community 13–22 generations (~470–730 years) ago,

72 73

See Gamliel, “Back from Shingly,” 64, with references and identifications of each site. Yedael Y. Waldman, Arjun Biddanda, Maya Dubrovsky, Christopher L. Campbell, Carole Oddoux, Eitan Friedman, Gil Atzmon, Eran Halperin, Harry Ostrer, and Alon Keinan, “The Genetic History of Cochin Jews from India,” Human Genetics 135, 10 (2016), 1127 43, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5020127/.

252 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn with contributions from Yemenite, Sephardi, and Middle-Eastern Jews.”74 Broadly speaking, then, the genetic evidence points to continued contact and intermarriage between Indian Jews and the wider community from the mid- to late thirteenth century through to the mid-sixteenth century. One later source at least suggests that some Indian Jews were prominent as middlemen in the pepper trade and traveled to Cairo as part of their business, a millennium-old route of interaction that explains exactly this genetic pattern. The Italian rabbi Obadiah b. Abraham da Bertinoro noted in the 1480s that he had previously encountered two dark-skinned Indian Jews in Egypt and that “people say that most of the pepper and spices that they sell originated from their land.”75 More than their business activity, however, da Bertinoro was interested in Judaism in India; his report, however brief, offers an important insight into a community otherwise undocumented until the sixteenth century. Obadiah writes that we could not determine whether they follow the laws of the Karaites or the Rabbinates, because they seem to keep a few customs of the Karaites, such as not keeping fire in their houses in Shabbat, but they follow the Rabbinates in other customs. And they say they are affiliated with the tribe of Dan. . . . This is what I have seen and heard with my own eyes and ears, although the two persons knew only very little Hebrew, and their Arabic is hardly comprehensible to the people of this land.76

This report bears out data from the slightly later and better-known letter received in 1520 by David Ibn Abi Zimra from the Cochin Jews. Discussion of the passage has naturally focused around the dispute between more recently arrived Jews who possessed “lineage” and the majority of Indian Jews seen as descended from intermarriages with local Indians and slaves, exactly the intermarriage pattern documented for Abraham Ben Yijū in Mangalore in the mid-twelfth century. However, equally important are the details it gives about the port’s Jewish community barely a quarter century after the establishment of direct contacts with Europe and the western Mediterranean. The letter notes that Cochin’s Jewish community numbered 900 households, the majority of which (800) were Indian Jews. They were, furthermore, “rich, devout, and charitable,” close to the royal house and the government, and therefore the main intermediaries for merchants.77 Few original documents or

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75 76 Ibid. Yaari, Iggerot Eres Yisraʾel, 133 (sources cited in ibid., 542 43). Ibid. _ 61 62; also Gamliel, “Back from Shingly,” 59 60. For Discussed in Katz, Jews of India, the text of the letter, see J. B. Segal, “White and Black Jews of Cochin: The Story of a Controversy,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 2 (1983), 228 52.

yemen and india from the rise of islam to 1500 253 manuscripts of any age have survived in India itself and it is thus often through European and Middle Eastern eyes that this community’s distinctive practices emerge. Important work by José Alberto da Silva Tavim on the records of the Portuguese Inquisition tribunals held in Goa in the 1560s brings details from the interrogation of Indian Jewish converts on the community’s Purim celebrations, their ritual use of raisin wine (another feature shared with the Yemen), and so much more.78 Notwithstanding Portuguese and other European influences along the western seaboard, India’s Jewish communities remained prosperous and influential as witnessed by the magnificent teak Kadavumbagan synagogue built in Cochin between 1539 and 1544, the ceiling of which was rebuilt in the Israel Museum.79 While the Torah ark is of later manufacture, the surviving coffered ceiling may well be original. As the S ̣anʿāʾ Pentateuch of 1515 reminds us, Yemen was also not a cultural desert and there are opportunities in both places to refine our understanding of what may initially appear to be periods devoid of history. Recovering the stories of both Yemenite and Indian communities is undoubtedly a complex endeavor. With the exception of the material in the Cairo Genizah, sources and material remains are few before the eighteenth century. Both histories have also been constrained by the gaze of Middle Eastern and European Jews, too easily distracted by the “black” skins of Yemenite and Indian Jews, bodily signs of the “exotic” east in which these communities were perceived to live. The Jews of Yemen and India enjoyed a long and often intertwined history, and one equally connected with the wider Jewish Diaspora. While there is no denying the reduced status of the Yemenite Jewish community as dhimmīs within an Islamic state as compared to that of Jewish communities in India, neither condition guaranteed a single outcome: prosperity and status or persecution and poverty. If we are to recover and complicate these histories, we need to widen our understanding of what exactly makes history. Arabic sources offer, as Joseph Tobi showed for the Yemen, an important new angle; likewise, the potential of the Cairo Genizah made available through the efforts of S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman has allowed a new generation of scholars to revolutionize Indian Ocean history and with it Jewish histories in the Yemen and India. But we must also look

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José Alberto da Silva Tavim, “Purim in Cochin in the Middle of the Sixteenth Century according to Lisbon’s Inquisition Trials,” Journal of Indo Judaic Studies 11 (2010), 7 24. Published in Orpa Slapak, ed., The Jews of India: A Story of Three Communities (Hanover, 1995), 56 63; the later (eighteenth or nineteenth century) Torah ark is now preserved in Israel at Moshav Nehalim. _

254 amir ashur and elizabeth lambourn to deaccessioned manuscripts, to epitaphs and foundation inscriptions, to inquisition records, to Malayalam Jewish oral records as mined by Ophira Gamliel, to synagogue interiors, and one day – hopefully – to archaeology as well. Yemenite Jews were a dynamic and complex society; Indian Jewry was no less so, and at times the two shared an interconnected history. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ahroni, Reuben. Yemenite Jewry: Origins, Culture, and Literature (Bloomington, IN, 1986). Ashtor-Strauss, Eliyahu. “A Journey to India” [Hebrew], Zion 4 (1939), 217–31. Assaf, Simha. “The Relations between the Jews of Egypt and Aden in the Twelfth Century” [Hebrew], Bulletin of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society 12 (1946), 116–19. Cooper, Alanna E. “Conceptualizing Diaspora: Tales of Jewish Travelers in Search of the Lost Tribes,” AJS Review 30, 1 (2006), 95–117. Eraqi Klorman, Bat-Zion. The Jews of Yemen: History, Society, Culture, vol. 2 (Raanana, 2004). Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. “On the Date of the First Known Messianic Harbinger from Yemen” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 91 (2002), 27–29. Goitein, S. D. “Jewish Communal Life in Yemen” [Hebrew], in Moshe Davis, ed., Mordecai M. Kaplan Jubilee Volume, on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (New York, 1953), 43–61. “From the Mediterranean to India,” Speculum 29 (1964), 181–97. “From Aden to India,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 23 (1979–80), 43–66. Neubauer, Adolf. “The Literature of the Jews in Yemen,” Jewish Quarterly Review 3, 4 (July 1891), 604–22. Shivtiel, Avi, Wilfred Lockwood, and Robert B. Serjeant. “The Jews of San‘a’,” in Robert B. Serjeant and Ronald Lewcock, eds., Şan‘āʾ: An Arabian Islamic City (London, 1983), 391–431. Tobi, Joseph. The Jews of Yemen: Studies in Their History and Culture (Leiden, 1999). Verskin, Alan. The Travels of a European Orientalist and His Native Guide: A Translation of Hayyim Habshush’s Travelogue (Palo Alto, 2018). Yedid, Rachel, and Danny Bar-Maoz, eds. Ascending the Palm Tree: An Anthology of the Yemenite Jewish Heritage (Rehovot, 2018).

chapter 8

THE JEWS OF NORTHERN ARABIA IN EARLY ISLAM michael lecker

INTRODUCTION

With few exceptions, medieval Islamic literature shows little curiosity regarding non-Muslims. The Jews of northern Arabia,1 especially those who lived in Medina (pre-Islamic Yathrib), are a prominent exception, due to their role both as supporters and adversaries of the Prophet Muhammad. The huge medieval literary output about Muhammad _ _ provides many details about them. The details are often problematic, but they are by no means impenetrable. In any case, one’s expectations must take into account the limitations imposed by the very nature of the source material. Many if not most of the details concerning the Jews are found in several chapters of Muhammad’s biography dedicated to his conflict with them, _ namely, the chapters about Qaynuqāʿ, Nadīr, Qurayza, and Khaybar. _ Naturally, these “Jewish chapters,” which include some_ fine examples of storytelling, are biased, but they remain indispensable for modern historians struggling to reconstruct Muhammad’s troubled relations with the Jews. In addition to an outline of_ the main events, they provide information about the people, the tribes, and the places involved. The evidence is shrouded in trivia, false leads, and tendentious claims, not to mention many lacunae which can sometimes be filled by reference to other types of the vast Islamic literature. The study of early Islam in general, and Jewish-Muslim relations in particular, is still rather close to its starting point. In recent years epigraphy has emerged as very promising, but for the time being the huge medieval literary output remains the main source. In order to make progress researchers need to bring into the discussion new texts – they are at hand, thanks to modern digital tools – and refine their analytical and critical tools.

1

The place name “Arabia” in this chapter refers to the Arabian Peninsula.

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Before arriving at Medina and other places in Arabia inhabited by Jews on the eve of Islam, a comment regarding Mecca and Ṭāʾif, southeast of Mecca, is in order (Figure 8.1). Prior to his call to prophecy, Muhammad was a merchant for a quarter of a century, and in his journeys_ outside Arabia he no doubt met Jews and Christians. However, the evidence on these meetings is problematic and unreliable. The Arab preoccupation with genealogy secured the preservation of some evidence regarding prominent Meccans from the Quraysh tribe

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the jews of northern arabia in early islam 257 who had been born to Jewish women. Two great-uncles of Muhammad _ (brothers of his grandfather) are on the list of these Qurashīs. (Medieval genealogists created such lists to the detriment of the persons and families involved.) The Jewish mothers probably point to Mecca’s links with Medina and Khaybar. Among the Jewish mothers there was one from the people of Yathrib (Ahl Yathrib),2 whose mother was a noble Jewish woman (sharīfa yahūdiyya), and two of the women were from Khaybar.3 Jewish women who gave birth to less prominent Qurashīs were of no interest to the genealogists. In ah 73/692 ce there was a Jewish cemetery in Mecca: the body of the rebel caliph Ibn al-Zubayr was cast there.4 This points to the existence of a Jewish community in Mecca, and the conjecture that the community was there before Islam is not far-fetched. Ṭāʾif was connected to Mecca in many ways, and hence the existence of Jews there is relevant for us here. Again, the evidence relates to the first decades of Islam, but the community must have been there before Islam. Jews expelled from Medina in the time of Muhammad, and from the _ ttāb, one decade after Yemen in the time of the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Kha _ order to engage in Muhammad’s death, settled in the district of Ṭāʾif _in _ trade (Arabic, li-l-tijāra). The Jews of Ṭāʾif also engaged in agriculture: the caliph Muʿāwiya (r. 661–80) bought his orchards in Ṭāʾif from a Jew.5 YATHRIB/MEDINA

There were contacts between Muhammad’s tribe, Quraysh, and the inhab_ itants, both Jews and pagans, of Medina (Figure 8.2). Meccan merchants needed protection in Medina and vice versa. Meccan caravans heading to Syria traversed the territories of Bedouin tribes allied with Medina. Muhammad’s family had particularly close links with a certain nonJewish _tribal group in Medina, namely, the Najjār, a branch of the Khazraj tribe.6 Muhammad’s grandfather (ʿAbd al-Muttalib) was born in Medina _ __ 2 3

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Both a place name for the oasis as a whole and a specific town in its northwest. Michael Lecker, “Genealogy and Politics: Muhammad’s Family Links with the Khazraj,” Journal of Semitic Studies 60 (2015), 111 29, at _112 16; Michael Lecker, “A Note on Early Marriage Links between Qurashīs and Jewish Women,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10 (1987), 17 39. Obviously, the term marriage does not apply when a link with a slave girl is concerned. “Fa ulqiya fī qubūr al yahūd”; Husayn b. Muhammad Diyārbakrī, Taʾrīkh al Khamīs _ (Cairo, 1866; reprint Beirut, n.d.), 2:306. “Qawn min al yahūd turidū min al Yaman wa Yathrib”; Ahmad b. Yahyā al Balādhurī, _ 56. _ _ Futūh al Buldān, ed. Michael Jan de Goeje (Leiden, 1863 66), _ “Genealogy and Politics.” Lecker,

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to Salmā, a woman from the Najjār. Shortly before the hijra Muhammad _ marmarried Sawda, a close relative of Salmā. It was Muhammad’s first _ riage after the death of his first wife, Khadīja. Being a mother of small children, Sawda was not an obvious choice for a widower in his early fifties who had lost his first wife some three years earlier – rather, it is logical to

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 259 connect his marriage to Sawda to the hijra. Muhammad’s family links with the Najjār were, among other considerations,_ behind his migration to Medina in September 622. Muhammad’s stormy Medinan decade was replete with political and military_ activity, and the parties concerned changed their attitudes during this period. This is true of Muhammad’s tribe, Quraysh; the Bedouin tribes, the Ansār, “the helpers,” as_the two Arab tribes of Medina, Aws and Khazraj, came_ to be called; and of course the Jews. The Jews were organized in tribes which were as always divided into subtribes. The built-in social and political divisions played a role in Muhammad’s relations with the Jews in ways that are not yet clear to us. _ However, the possibility that not all of the Jews were members of tribes has to be considered. Medina had two types of settlements, namely, towns and villages (the Arabic word qarya means both town and village), and one assumes that most of the Jews lived in towns. The villages are sometimes referred to collectively as qurā al-ansār, or the villages of the Ansār. Each of _ _ example, these villages belonged to a tribal group. Qaryat Banī Sāʿida, for belonged to a branch of the Khazraj called Sāʿida. The population of the towns was more numerous and richer than that of the villages, since the towns were hubs of economic activity: for example, Zuhra and the nearby alQuff.7 One assumes that the inhabitants of the towns, or many of them, engaged in trade, although there were orchards and grazing ground for small cattle in the peripheries of the towns. Unlike the population of qurā alansār, the town inhabitants were not a homogeneous lot, and consisted of _ several tribal groups, one of which may have been dominant. The town’s presumed non-tribal population was made up of merchants and artisans. The Nadīr were dominant in Zuhra, which was also home to other Jewish _ of which is known by its name: Thaʿlaba b. al-Fityawn. tribes, one The two main Jewish tribes of Medina were Nadīr _and Qurayza. _ According to some, they descended from the Judhām_ tribe.8 However, the two tribes were often referred to, even before Islam, as al-kāhinān, or 7

8

Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 10, says that Zuhra was inhabited by 300 Jewish craftsmen (sāniʿ). Instead of _ A History of the sāniʿ, read: sāʾigh, or goldsmith. It is not clear how Gordon D. Newby, _Jews of Arabia _ from Ancient Times to Their Eclipse under Islam (Columbia, SC, 1988), 52, reached the conclusion that not all of the goldsmiths were Jewish. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 11. Note, however, that Mawhūb b. Rashīd mentioned by Gil was not a member of Qurayza, but a Bedouin from the Qurayt tribe, and the relevant places are in the territory of his_ tribe. See, for example, Yāqūt al_ Hamawī, Muʿjam al Buldān (Beirut, 1957), s.v. “Suwāj.” The Banū Ghudra linked to the territory of Judhām (ibid., 12) are Banū ʿUdhra. Hawdha b. Qays al Wāʾilī and Abū ʿAmmār al Wāʾilī (ibid., 13) are from the Aws, not from Judhām (see note 93).

260 michael lecker the two priestly tribes, as the alleged descendants of al-Kāhin, son of Moses’ brother, Aaron. As one can expect, the pedigrees vary. For example: Qurayza, Nadīr, and Hadl, sons of al-Nahhām . . . (five ancestors) b. al_ _ 9 Their descent is associated _ b. ʿImrān b. Qāhith b. Lāwī. Kāhin _b. Hārūn with the story of their settlement in Medina, in which they formed the second wave of settlers following the Banū Isrāʾīl, who are supposed to have been there since the time of Moses. The two-waves story goes back to the Jews themselves: fa-zaʿamat Banū Qurayza, or the Banū Qurayza _ alleged, and so on.10 It is a Jewish tradition _in Islamic garb. In other words, this is what Qurayza wanted others to believe regarding their _ descent and the circumstances of their settlement in Medina. The Qurazī claim rules out the possibility that the Jews in question were Arab _proselytes from Judhām or any other tribe. The claim goes back to Qurayza, not to Nadīr, because members of Qurayza who survived the _ massacre (on _ on Islamic trad_ which see below) left their mark Qurayza _ ition. Nadīr went into exile and almost totally disappeared from the _ Islamic literature. Perhaps the source of the claim was Muhammad b. Kaʿb al-Qurazī, the most prominent scholar of Qurazī descent._ 11 _ _ 9 10

11

Muhammad b. Habīb, Muhabbar, ed. Ilse Lichtenstaedter (Hyderabad, 1942), 387. _ Muʿjam al Buldān, s.v. _ “al Madīna,” 5:84b. Cf. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 7. Yāqūt, In fact, Yāqūt (who created his dictionary putting together excerpts from many earlier sources) has two consecutive accounts on this matter. The one just mentioned (which includes the reference to Thamad al Rūm, see below) goes back to Qurayza and refers to _ the Byzantine conquest of Syria (Shām in this context, Palestine). The other goes back to a Jewish scholar from Hijāz (“baʿd ʿulamāʾ al Hijāz min al yahūd”) and mentions the wish of the Byzantine king who was_ a Christian to marry a woman from Banū Hārūn. Cf. his account on the second wave of Jewish settlers, which includes a reference to the first wave, in ʿAlī b. ʿAbdallāh al Samhūdī’s quotation from Ibn Zabāla, who in turn quotes from Muhammad b. Kaʿb al Qurazī: “thumma asnada [= Ibn Zabāla] ʿan _ _ wa kharajat Qurayza wa ikhwānuhum Muhammad ibn Kaʿb al Qurazī annahu qāla: _ Hadl wa ʿAmr abnāʾ al Khazraj _ Banū ibn al Sarīh . . . wa l Nad īr ibn_ al Nahhām ibn al _ __ Khazraj ibn al Sarīh baʿda hāʾlāʾi fa tatabbaʿū āthārahum . . .”_ in ʿAlī b. ʿAbdallāh al Samhūdī, Wafāʾ al_ Wafā bi Akhbār Dār al Mus tafā, ed. Qāsim al Sāmarrāʾī (London, __ 2001), 1:299 300. For the obscure transmitter Ibrāhīm b. Muhammad, who quotes Nāfiʿ _ b. Thābit, bridging the gap between Ibn Zabāla and Muhammad b. Kaʿb, see Ibn _ ʿAsākir, Taʾrīkh Madīnat Dimashq, ed. ʿUmar b. Gharāma al ʿAmrawī (Beirut, 1995 98), 28:160; Ahmad b. ʿAlī al Maqrīzī, Imtāʿ al Asmāʿ bi mā li l Nabī mina al _ l Hafada wa l Matāʿ, ed. Muhammad ʿAbd al Hamīd al Namīsī Ahwāl wa l Amwāl wa _ (Beirut, 1999), 12:260. In ʿAlī b. al Husayn al Isfahānī,_ Kitāb al Aghānī (Cairo, 1927 74), 22:108, instead of Tamr al Rūm, read: Thamad_ al Rūm. Newby, A History of the Jews of Arabia, 126n6: “The Arabic word tamr means a sun dried date, the image being that the Romans were left in the desert to shrivel like dates in the sun.” See also Gordon D. Newby, “The Jews of Arabia at the Birth of Islam,” in Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora, eds., A History of Jewish Muslim Relations: From the Origins to the

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 261 The fanciful pedigree quoted in support of the priestly descent should not be taken seriously.12 Besides, the two alleged brother tribes were not of the same social status. They did collaborate economically in the caravan trade (see below) and militarily, in the Battle of Buʿāth several years before the hijra.13 But under normal circumstances, Nadīr and Qurayza belonged _ to rival political and military alliances: Nadīr, together with the_ third main _ Jewish tribe, Qaynuqāʿ, were allied with the Khazraj, while Qurayza were _ allied with the Aws. The rival alliances were still in place in Muhammad’s _ time. As a result, the Khazraj leader Ibn Ubayy intervened for Qaynuqāʿ and was involved, one way or another, in Muhammad’s war against Nadīr. _ _ His influence was limited because some – perhaps many – of his fellow tribesmen were loyal to Muhammad. But Ibn Ubayy played no role in the _ za who, as has been mentioned, were allied siege and massacre of Quray _ with the Aws. The lack of unity between the alleged priestly tribes is reflected in some of the reports on their conflict with Muhammad. One report has it that Muhammad besieged Nadīr, demanding_ that they conclude a compact _ with_ him. When they refused, he turned against Qurayza, who agreed to conclude such a compact. Then Muhammad returned to _Nadīr and fought _ them until their surrender.14 This report is found in several _other sources, but only the one quoted above includes an indirect reference to the distance between Muhammad’s “territorial basis” (i.e., his mosque and _ its vicinity) and the territories of the two Jewish tribes: while in the siege of Nadīr Muhammad employed troops (katāʾib) alone, in the siege of _ _ za, whose Quray territory was further away from the “territorial basis,” he _ employed both horsemen and troops. Elsewhere we read that the two tribes declared war at the same time. Muhammad fought against Nadīr but _ Then Qurayza declared _ war. let Qurayza stay and was gracious to them. _ _

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13 14

Present Day (Princeton, 2013), 39 53, at 53. Thamad al Rūm, or “the small cavity in which the rain water collects of the Byzantines,” in which the Byzantines who were chasing the Jews are supposed to have perished of thirst, is north of Madāʾin Sālih: it is _ between al Junayna in the north and al Hijr (Madāʾin Sālih) in the south; Husayn _ b. ʿAlī al Aftasī, al Majmūʿ al Lafīf, ed. Yahyā Wahīb al Jabūrī (Beirut, 2005), 346. For _ _ Hijr, and Wadī al Qurā as stations al Junayna, al on the road from Damascus to Mecca, see Ibn Khurradādhbih, Kitāb al Masālik wa l Mamālik, ed. Michael J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1889), 150. Cf. Bruno Chiesa, “Les communautés juives en Arabie,” in Sergio Noja, ed., L’Arabie avant l’Islam (Aix en Provence, 1994), 167 97, at 193. EI3, “Buʿāth” (Michael Lecker). Meir J. Kister, “The Massacre of the Banū Qurayza: A Re examination of a Tradition,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986), 61_ 96, at 83, quoting the Musannaf of _ on the ʿAbd al Razzāq (d. ah 211/827 ce). The source is Nāfiʿ, the mawlā of Ibn ʿUmar authority of his master, Ibn ʿUmar.

262 michael lecker He killed their men and divided their women, children, and orchards among the Muslims, with the exception of some Qurazīs who joined him, received a guarantee of security, and adopted Islam. _He expelled all the Jews of Medina: Qaynuqāʿ, namely, the tribe of ʿAbdallāh b. Salām, the Jews of Banū Ḥāritha, and every Jew in Medina.15 The supposed priestly tribes did not share the same social and legal status. When a Qurazī killed a Nadīrī, he was killed in retaliation, but when a Nadīrī killed _a Qurazī, the _matter was settled by blood money. _ money paid for a dead Nadīrī killed by a _ amount of blood Moreover, the _ by a Nadīrī. Qurazī was double the amount paid for a dead Qurazī killed _ _ _ Qurʾān exegesis has it that after some of Qurayza and Nadīr had converted _ _ to Islam, a Nadīrī killed a Qurazī. Nadīr offered blood money according to _ but Qurayza_argued_ that they were brothers sharing the the usual practice, _ same descent (nasab – a reference to the priestly claim) and the same religion, and were equal in terms of bloodwite. Nadīr had prevailed over _ them in the Jāhiliyya, but God brought Islam (“wa-lākinnakum kuntum taghlibūnanā fī al-Jāhiliyya fa-qad jāʾa [llāh bi]-l-islām]”). Muhammad _ supported Qurayza and the Nadīrī was executed.16 _ _ THE SO CALLED CONSTITUTION OF MEDINA

The so-called Constitution is an agreement which Muhammad concluded with certain parties in Medina during the first year_ after the hijra. It consists of two parts:17 The first deals with the muʾminūn, namely, the Ansār, on the one hand, and those who came with Muhammad from _ _ (the Muhājirūn), on the other. The second part, clearly Mecca distinct from the first, deals with the Jews who chose to participate in the agreement. There is no mention of the main Jewish tribes, for the simple reason that they were not part of it. Hence, the Constitution only included part, probably a small part, of the Jews. For many years, scholars were misled by a corrupt text18 and by apologetic claims made in Ansārī _ 15

16 17

18

Kister, “Massacre”, 82 83; Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 1:514 15. Samhūdī remarks that one version of this account adds the words “baʿda dhālika,” or afterward, i.e., following Qurayza’s _ second declaration of war. His conclusion: the expulsion of the remaining Jewish tribes took place after the Qurayza massacre. _ al Manthūr fī al Tafsīr bi l Maʾthūr (Beirut, 1993), 2:581. Jalāl al Dīn al Suyūtī, al Durr _ “Constitution of Medina”: Muhammad’s First Legal Document Michael Lecker, The _ (Michael Lecker); Michael (Princeton, 2004); EI3, s.v. “Constitution of Medina” Lecker, “The Constitution of Medina,” in Andrew Rippin, ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Islamic Studies (New York, 2014). Michael Lecker, “Wāqidī’s Account on the Status of the Jews of Medina: A Study of a Combined Report,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 54 (1995), 15 32.

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 263 19 historiography regarding the position of the Ansār vis-à-vis the Jews. This _ led them to assume that the main Jewish tribes did participate in the Constitution. However, this assumption was based on two wrong hypotheses: First, that the Constitution unified the whole population of Medina. But the document dates back to the first year after the hijra, and it is unlikely that Muhammad achieved such a major feat shortly after his _ the main Jewish tribes were clients to the Ansār, arrival. Second, that _ and hence did not appear under their proper names, but rather, according to Arabian custom, as “the Jews of Banū of so-and-so.” However, the main Jewish tribes were not clients. On the contrary, they were the owners of weapons and castles par excellence. Although most of the Jews, including the main tribes, were not party to the Constitution, the agreement had a major effect on them (and indeed on the whole population of Medina), regardless of whether or not they participated. It created a new umma, a legal and political entity the members of which were committed to each other at the expense of their blood relations. For several critical years, until Medina or most of it was more or less unified under Muhammad’s leadership, the solidarity binding _ by the solidarity of the new umma. This one to one’s kin was superseded affected both personal/family bonds and tribal alliances. Once the conflict with the Jews broke out, the pagan allies of the Jews, whose family members joined the umma, were neutralized, because fighting against one’s own kin was not an option. The list of participants in the so-called Constitution seems to reveal Byzantine involvement in Muhammad’s attempt to establish himself in _ emigrated to Ethiopia while he was still Medina. Muhammad’s followers _ in Mecca, perhaps pointing to Byzantium as a friendly world power. The main Jewish tribes were traditionally allied with the Sasanians, and Byzantium must have been interested in weakening them, perhaps by relying on weaker Jewish elements in Medina. Byzantium relied on the Ghassān buffer kingdom to secure its interests on the Arab front; Ghassān designates both a territory and an alliance of a group of tribes from the large Yemenite tribal federation called Azd. Reportedly, the tribes formed the alliance at a watering place called Ghassān, which thus gave its name both to the alliance and to the Byzantine buffer kingdom. Some of the Jewish groups mentioned in the Constitution were of Ghassānid origin. While most of the Jewish groups listed in the Constitution are simply 19

Michael Lecker, “Were the Jewish Tribes in Arabia Clients of Arab Tribes?” in Monique Bernards and John Nawas, eds., Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam (Leiden, 2005), 50 69, at 51 56; Michael Lecker, Muhammad ve ha Yehudim _ [Muhammad and the Jews] [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2014), 42 43. _

264 michael lecker referred to as Yahūd Banī . . . or “the Jews of Banū so-and-so,” making it difficult for us to ascertain their identity, three groups appear with their proper names, making it possible to trace their Ghassānid origin. One of the three, Thaʿlaba, was Jewish, while the other two, namely, al-Shutayba/ _ al-Shatba and Jafna, were non-Jewish. _ The descendants of Kaʿb b. ʿAmr Muzayqiyāʾ were part of the Ghassānid alliance, and this is also true of the descendants of Kaʿb’s brother Jafna, among them the kings of Ghassān. One of Jafna’s sons married a woman called al-Shutayba or al-Shatba (the former being the _ their descendants, _ diminutive form of the latter), and who lived in Medina and were party to the Constitution, were called after their mother: Banū alShutayba or Banū al-Shatba.20 The Shutayba were not Jewish but were _ _ – hence their_ inclusion along with the Jews in probably allied with the Jews “the Jewish part” of the Constitution. The other non-Jewish group in the Constitution, which was similarly allied with the Jews, was called Jafna (descendants of the aforementioned Jafna). Al-Shutayba and Jafna, both of _ Ghassānid origin, appear side by side in the Constitution. The third group of Ghassānid descent in the Constitution was Jewish, namely, “the Jewish Banū Thaʿlaba” (Yahūd Banī Thaʿlaba). This was the only Yahūd Banī . . . group in the Constitution known by its name, and it should be identified with the Jewish tribe called Thaʿlaba said to have been “from Ghassān.” This detail appears in the context of the Battle of Buʿāth in which the Thaʿlaba fought side by side with Nadīr, Qurayza, and the _ _ b. al-Fityawn Aws.21 They are sometimes referred to as Banū Thaʿlaba (and also as Banū al-Fityawn) and lived in the town of Zuhra (on_ which see _ b. al-Fityawn descended from another brother of the below). The Thaʿlaba above-mentioned Kaʿb b. _ʿAmr Muzayqiyāʾ, namely, al-Ḥārith alMuharriq b. ʿAmr Muzayqiyāʾ,22 which again makes them part of the _ Ghassān alliance,23 just like the non-Jewish al-Shutayba and Jafna.24 _ 20

21 22

23

24

They were considered Ansār; Ibn al Kalbī, Jamharat al Nasab, ed. Nājī Hasan (Beirut, 1986), 617: “wa ʿidāduhum_ fī al Ansār bi l Madīna.” _ 76 77. Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” Werner Caskel and Gert Strenziok, Ğamharat an nasab: Das genealogische Werk des Hišām ibn Muhammad al Kalbī (Leiden, 1966), 1:195. _ of al Hārith are described as a family (ahl bayt) in Medina “with” the The descendants Ansār. This description, which probably relates to the second century ah/eighth century ce,_ is followed by more detailed information, allowing us to place our Thaʿlaba in the correct genealogical context; Ibn al Kalbī, Jamharat al Nasab, 619 21. Thaʿlaba b. al Fityawn’s friendly relations with Muhammad did not last long, and they _ _ them who did not convert to Islam) (or rather those of were expelled in ah 3/624 ce; Michael Lecker, “Muhammad at Medina: A Geographical Approach,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6_ (1985), 29 62, at 41 (expulsion of Banū al Fityawn); ʿAbdallāh _

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 265 Genealogy played a major role in politics, and it seems plausible that the Ghassānid origin of the three groups points to Byzantine support for Muhammad in the first and crucial stage of his Medinan decade.25 _ Jewish participants in the Constitution were not part of The Muhammad’s umma: after all, its latter part includes a special agreement _ concluded with them.26 In any case, the Jewish participants in the Constitution were among Muhammad’s Jewish supporters during the first _ period after the hijra. The Thaʿlaba (b. al-Fityawn) who lived in Zuhra _ may have been at the forefront of his Jewish supporters at that stage. MUH AMMAD’S LAND IN ZUHRA _

Beside the Constitution, three other factors should to be taken into account with regard to Muhammad’s relations with the Jews between _ (ah 2/624 ce): the relations with the three the hijra and the Battle of Badr main Jewish tribes, the direction of prayer, and Muhammad’s ownership _ of land in Zuhra. Muhammad concluded separate nonbelligerency treaties with the three _ main Jewish tribes.27 These are rudimentary security arrangements based on a mutual guarantee of security. The state of the sources and the sensitivity of the subject matter are reflected in the differences regarding the specific clauses of the nonbelligerency treaties with the Jews. But the existence of mutual commitments is not in dispute. The Jews’ commitments in the nonbelligerency treaties were limited compared to those undertaken by Jewish participants in the Constitution. In any case, the combination of the Constitution and the nonbelligerency treaties assured stability for Muhammad and his supporters during the first period after the hijra, while they_ were struggling to establish themselves economically and politically. Polemics may have already started at this early stage, but

25

26

27

b. Abī Zayd al Qayrawānī, Kitāb al Jāmiʿ, ed. Muhammad Abū al Ajfān and ʿUthmān _ 3/624 ce] ghazwat Banī Fityawn Battīkh (Beirut and Tunis, 1982), 276: “wa fīhā [ah _ _ wa ādhanahum ʿalayhi al salām bi l harb aw bi l jalāʾ fa jalaw min ghayr qitāl _ilā al _ Shām.” For more, see Michael Lecker, “Were the Ghassānids and the Byzantines behind Muhammad’s Hijra?” in Denis Genequand and Christian Robin, eds., Les Jafnides, _ arabes au service de Byzance (VIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne) (Paris, 2015), 268 86; des rois Glen W. Bowersock, Empires in Collision in Late Antiquity (Waltham, MA, 2012), 56. It is unlikely that each of the Yahūd Banī . . . groups was an umma in its own right. Hence, it has been suggested that the word umma in the latter part of the Constitution should be replaced by amana/amina/āmina (all of which are possible plurals of āmin). Michael Lecker, “Did Muhammad Conclude Treaties with the Jewish Tribes Nadīr, _ _ Qurayza and Qaynuqāʿ?” Israel Oriental Studies 17 (1997), 29 36. _

266 michael lecker Muhammad’s settlement with his small group of Muhājirūn was peaceful. _ Muhammad did not arrive at Medina with hostile intentions; he _ attempted to win the Jews over to his cause. The adoption by Muhammad of Jerusalem as the direction of prayer (qibla) supports the _ assumption that prior to Muhammad’s victory at Badr there was peaceful _ sources do not conceal the reasons behind coexistence with the Jews. The the adoption of the Jerusalem qibla: most of the inhabitants of Medina were Jewish, and Muhammad wanted to attract them to Islam.28 His paternal cousin Ibn _ʿAbbās is supposed to have said: “When the Messenger of God emigrated to Medina – and the Jews who were the majority among its inhabitants were praying toward Jerusalem – God enjoined him to turn to Jerusalem in prayer, and the Jews rejoiced.”29 The subsequent change of qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca, roughly a year and a half after the hijra, gave rise to polemics, as described in the Islamic tradition. We return now to the town of Zuhra, which lets us look at Muhammad’s relations with the Jews from a geographical viewpoint. _ after the hijra Muhammad became the owner of land in Zuhra, Shortly a town which is known to_ have been inhabited by several Jewish tribes, including the strong and rich Nadīr,30 probably the dominant element in _ its population. Zuhra was also inhabited by the Thaʿlaba b. al-Fityawn _ (i.e., the aforementioned Jewish Thaʿlaba known from the Constitution). The supposed eponym of Thaʿlaba, the Arab Jewish king al-Fityawn, is _ night.” said to have practiced the ius primae noctis, or “the right of the first The king, who lived several generations before Muhammad, is described as _ the lord of Zuhra (sāhib Zuhra). Zuhra was also inhabited by other Jewish _ _ tribes, the identity of which is unknown. Zuhra is reported to have been one of the largest settlements in Medina and in its town (qarya), there were 300 Jewish goldsmiths. The wording suggests that the place-name Zuhra referred to both the town and its fringes, which included orchards and grazing ground for small cattle. The existence of Muhammad’s land in Zuhra is a marginal detail found in a rare report. Zuhra_ appears in it together with three other places in 28

29

30

“Istimāla li qulūb al yahūd an yusalliya ilā qiblatihim rubbamā yarghabūna fī dīnihi”; _ Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 2:78. “Lammā hājara rasūlu llāh ilā al Madīna wa l yahūd akthar ahlihā yastaqbilūna Bayt al Maqdis amarahu llāh an yastaqbila Bayt al Maqdis fa farihat al yahūd”; ibid., 82 83. _ Regarding Nadīr, see al Diyārbakrī, Taʾrīkh al Khamīs, 1:460, l. 5: “wa kānat _ nāhiyat al Furʿ [read: al Ghars] wa mā yaqrubuhā bi qarya yuqālu manāziluhum bi _ correct place name, al Ghars, see Ibn al Jawzī, al Muntazam fī lahā Zuhra.” For the Taʾrīkh al Mulūk wa l Umam, ed. Muhammad ʿAbd al Qādir ʿAtā and Mustafā_ ʿAbd _ _ __ al Qādir ʿAtā (Beirut, 1992), 3:203. _

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 267 northern Medina, namely, Rātij, Ḥusayka, and Thamgh (see Figure 8.2). The inhabitants of the three places – probably all of whom were Jewish – were connected to events that took place on the eve of the hijra and continued one way or another after it.31 The evidence linking Muhammad to Zuhra is found in the context of a contest for prestige between_ the Muhājirūn and the Ansār. The contest _ endowment addressed the question of who owned the first charitable (sadaqa) in Islam. According to the Muhājirūn, it was the second caliph, _ ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb (r. ah 13–23/634–44 ce), while according to the Ansār __ Zuhra is mentioned in support of the former claim: _ it was Muhammad. _ shortly after Muhammad’s arrival at Medina (awwal mā qadima al_ [sic] a large tract of land in Zuhra. The land had Madīna), he found belonged to the Jews of Rātij and Ḥusayka, who had been expelled from Medina before his arrival. Part of their land was the said large tract of land. Another part of it was an unirrigated orchard of young palm trees called alḤashāshīn that also became Muhammad’s property. (As has just been mentioned, there were orchards _ on the outskirts of Zuhra.) Finally, another part of their land was an estate called Thamgh, which Muhammad granted ʿUmar. ʿUmar later bought the adjacent land from _ unspecified Jews. From the geographical point of view, the state of affairs depicted here is rather complicated: Zuhra was far from Thamgh. In other words, the lands left behind by the Jews were located in different parts of Medina. So far we have learned that Muhammad owned land in Zuhra _ But the dispute was about the and that he granted ʿUmar land in Thamgh. first sadaqa, not about land ownership. _ Ansār (who supported Muhammad in this literary contest) claimed The that a rich_ Jew called Mukhayrīq,_ who was killed in the Battle of Uhud _ (ah 3/625 ce) while fighting with Muhammad, had bequeathed his orch32 _ ards to Muhammad. The latter created his charitable endowment immediately after_the battle. ʿUmar only created his charitable endowment in ah 7/628 ce, after the conquest of Khaybar. In other words, while ʿUmar did 31

32

Rātij was a tower house (utum) belonging to certain Jews after which the whole area _ Wafāʾ, 4:284. Husayka was inhabited by Jews; ibid., 238. (nāhiya) was called; Samhūdī, _ Mukhayrīq was the wealthiest man among Qaynuqāʿ and was well versed in the Torah; Ibn Saʿd, al Tabaqāt al Kubrā (Beirut, 1957 68), 1:502: “kāna Mukhayrīq aysar Banī Qaynuqāʿ wa kāna min ahbār yahūd wa ʿulamāʾihā bi l tawrāt.” According to al Miswar b. Rifāʿa, reporting on _ the authority of Muhammad b. Kaʿb al Qurazī, the first _ Muhammad’s. Mukhayrīq _ who was charitable endowment (sadaqa/waqf) in Islam was _ killed in the Battle of U_hud bequeathed his orchards (amwāl) to Muhammad, and the _ latter declared them charitable endowments; ibid., 501; Lecker, The_ “Constitution of Medina,” 82. According to others (see below), Mukhayrīq belonged to the Thaʿlaba b. al Fityawn who lived in Zuhra. _

268 michael lecker own land in Thamgh shortly after the hijra, he only declared it charitable endowment some four years after Muhammad had created his own _ charitable endowment. Muhammad’s land in Zuhra gave him a foothold in this major town of _ 300 Jewish goldsmiths. Zuhra (no doubt together with the nearby market of Qaynuqāʿ) was the throbbing heart of the gold business in Medina and was home to Nadīr, Thaʿlaba, and other Jewish tribes. This crucial detail _ of geographic history conforms to the evidence of the Constitution, the Jerusalem qibla, and the various separate nonbelligerency treaties with the main Jewish tribes. Obviously, we do not have the full picture of what was happening behind the scenes, because Islamic historiography has its own priorities and concerns. The unease on the part of the informant regarding what appears to be Muhammad’s close link with the Jews of Zuhra is _ verb wajada (“he found”) in connection with revealed by the use of the Muhammad’s land. Muhammad may have purchased it or, perhaps more _ received it from one _ (or more) of his Jewish supporters, or partners, likely, in order to facilitate his settlement.33 After all, this is how his charitable endowment, which had been the property of the Jew Mukhayrīq, came into being. According to some, Mukhayrīq was a member of the Thaʿlaba b. al-Fityawn and bequeathed to Muhammad several orchards,34 making _ him the_ first sadaqa/waqf (charitable endowment) owner in Islam. _ Muhammad did not impose himself on the Jews of Zuhra. They – or some of_ them – received him with open arms, while others were probably indifferent. To the extent that “religion” was at all relevant, the Jews may have welcomed him because he preached monotheism in an oasis otherwise immersed in idol worship. Moreover, the Jews may have viewed him and his Companions as prospective converts. Unfortunately, the current state of scholarship makes it impossible to know whether there were other political and economic considerations behind his peaceful entrance into Zuhra (such as joint trade projects with certain Jews). Obviously, Muhammad’s biography only offers us the Muhājirī/Ansārī version of _ the _story. The Jewish contribution to Muhammad’s success remains _ widely unknown. 33

34

When Muhammad arrived at Medina, the Ansār reportedly granted him every piece of _ unirrigated_ land, and gave him free hand concerning it (“lammā qadima al Madīna jaʿalū lahu kull ard lā yablughuhā al māʾ yasnaʿū fīhā mā shāʾa”); Meir J. Kister, “Land _ Journal of the Economic _ and Social History of the Orient 34 (1991), Property and Jihād,” 270 311, at 304, quoting Abū ʿUbayd al Bakrī, Muʿjam mā Istaʿjam, ed. Mustafā al _ _ Ansār Saqqā (Cairo, 1945 51; reprint Beirut, n.d.), 3:953, s.v. “al ʿAqīq.” This grant of the _ (assuming it is factual and not apologetic) seems to be irrelevant for us in the context of Zuhra. Lecker, The “Constitution of Medina,” index, s.v. “Mukhayrīq.”

the jews of northern arabia in early islam

269

AL QUFF AND BAYT AL-MIDRĀS

Three months before the hijra, Muhammad concluded an agreement in _ Mecca with the Ansār. The Khazraj played the leading role in the meeting, _ and continued to do so throughout Muhammad’s Medinan period. There is _ no specific mention of the Jews in the account of the agreement,35 although they were certainly not completely absent. The leaders of the Ansār at the _ were meeting were the twelve tribal representatives (nuqabāʾ), nine of whom from the Khazraj, while three were from the Aws. Seven of the twelve were literate, or “graduates” of the Jewish bayt al-midrās,36 apparently the only place in Medina in which literacy was taught. They attended the bayt almidrās as young children and should not be considered converts to Judaism, in the absence of supporting evidence to this effect. Despite this, the bayt almidrās must have acquainted them with monotheism. The bayt al-midrās was located in al-Quff near Zuhra.37 Al-Quff was inhabited by Qaynuqāʿ among other tribes and probably included a nontribal population. Qaynuqāʿ were merchants and goldsmiths. Under Islam, the place-names al-Quff and Zuhra, among others, almost disappeared from living memory and from the literature. Parts of these towns were divided among the Muhājirūn and were called after their new owners. The bayt al-midrās where young Jewish children and certain nonJewish ones acquired literacy skills was an “elite” school and the list of students included several prominent figures, such as Zayd b. Thābit, who played a leading role in the preparation of the official version of the Qurʾān under the third caliph, ʿUthmān. The Jewish group Māsika also lived in al-Quff, and its two tower-houses were located “in the town itself” (fī al-qarya). This expression indicates that the place-name al-Quff, just like the name of nearby Zuhra, referred to both the town and its fringes, which included the town’s orchards and grazing ground for small cattle. In terms of Islamic Medina, Māsika’s territory was near the charitable endowments of Marwān b. al-Ḥakam (the governor of Medina under Muʿāwiya) and of Muhammad.38 Muhammad’s charitable _ _ 35

36

37 38

The assumption that yahūd were mentioned at the meeting is based on a corrupt text; Michael Lecker, “Yahūd/ʿuhūd: A Variant Reading in the Story of the ʿAqaba Meeting,” Le Muséon 109 (1996), 169 184. See also Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 11; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 40 41. Michael Lecker, “Zayd b. Thābit, ‘A Jew with Two Sidelocks’: Judaism and Literacy in Pre Islamic Medina (Yathrib),” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997), 259 73, at 271. Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 1:299, 4:312. Ibid., 1:304, 4:436. Muhammad’s charitable endowment Hasnā (or Husnā) was near al _ (“min nāhiyat al Quff ”), 411 (“bi l Quff ”; in Samhūdī’s time Quff or in it; ibid., 3:404 _ the place was called al Husayniyyāt), 4:312 13 (Hasnā was close to Muhammad’s _

270 michael lecker endowment called Mashrabat Umm Ibrāhīm was located in al-Quff39 and was close to the bayt al-midrās.40 THE JEWS: OWNERS OF WEAPONS AND FORTRESSES

When Muhammad arrived at Medina, the Jews were not subordinated by _ were the dominant military, political, and economic power the Ansār, but _ there. Their military superiority is stated clearly in many sources, albeit in a corrupt passage which misled generations of scholars. According to the correct version of the passage, when Muhammad came to Medina, the Jews (namely, Nadīr and Qurayza) were the_ owners of weapons and castles _ par excellence: _ When the Messenger of God came to Medina, its population was a mixture. Among them there were Muslims who were unified by the call of the Messenger of God, polytheists who worshipped idols, and Jews. They [the latter] were the owners (literally: the people) of weapons and castles and the allies of the two clans, the Aws and the Khazraj.41

The passage is confirmed by independent evidence. Large numbers of weapons were found in the castles of the Jews after their surrender.42 As to the castles, Nadīr and Qurayza (in addition to two branches of the Aws) _ fortifications which were not used for _ owned large are known to have residence, unlike the common tower-houses, hundreds of which were sprinkled all over Medina. These were pure military structures, large enough to shelter the whole tribe. One expects them to have included storage rooms and access to a source of water. It is reported that Nadīr as a _ whole used such a castle in wartime;43 likewise, Qurayza sought shelter in _

39

40

41 42

43

charitable endowments al Dilāl and al Sāfiya), 437 (al Husayniyyāt was near the Mashraba, north of it). The Mashraba is Mashrabat Umm Ibrāhīm. For grazing ground in al Quff, see ibid. The Mashraba was called after Muhammad’s concubine Māriya the Copt, or Umm _ Ibrāhīm. It was in Upper Medina, more precisely in al Quff; ibid., 3:176. Ibid., 175 (“bayt midrās al yahūd”), 403. Lecker, “Zayd b. Thābit,” 259, 264, has it that the Māsika lived in Lower Medina. In fact, they lived in al Quff at the northern edge of Upper Medina, or between Upper and Lower Medina. Lecker, “Wāqidī’s Account.” Regarding Qurayza, see Kister, “Massacre,” 94. Regarding Nadīr, see Wāqidī, Kitāb al _ _ Maghāzī, ed. Marsden Jones (Oxford, 1966), 1:377. “Fād ija . . . māl bi l ʿĀliya maʿrūf al yawm bi nāhiyat Jifāf kāna bihi utum li Banī al _ Early Islamic Nad_ īr ʿāmattan”; Michael Lecker, Muslims, Jews_ and Pagans: Studies on _ Medina (Leiden, 1995), 14 15; Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 4:413.

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 271 44 their castle in times of emergency. The eastern part of Upper Medina had more fortifications than any other area of Medina, and it was also the least accessible to Muhammad’s preaching (and control). The two Aws branches which owned_ similar castles were certainly rich and strong, but unlike the Jews they are not known to have owned large arsenals. Given the strength of the Jewish tribes, the Ansārī claim that the Aws _ and Khazraj tribes were mightier than the Jews before Islam should be put in context and rejected. In early Islam, Ansārī reputation came under _ to the inferior status of attack from Quraysh among others who referred the Aws and Khazraj vis-à-vis the Jews. The Ansār could not deny their _ initial inferiority, following their settlement in Medina. But they argued that several generations before Islam one of them killed the evil Jewish king al-Fityawn, making them the dominant power in Medina. This is apologetics_ plain and simple. The Aws and Khazraj may well have inflicted a heavy blow on the Jews, and they surely established themselves both before and after the reign of the evil king, but in Muhammad’s time the Jews were still the owners of weapons and castles _par excellence. Moreover, in the Battle of Buʿāth several years before the hijra, a coalition of Nadīr, Qurayza, and the Aws defeated the Khazraj, who _ _ were generally considered stronger than the Aws.45 Events in northern Medina around Rātij and Ḥusayka, which made their Jewish inhabitants (or some of them) leave Medina, do not seem to have affected Nadīr and _ Qurayza. In any case, whatever setbacks the main Jewish tribes suffered _ several generations earlier, by the advent of Islam they regained their former strength or much of it. JEWISH INVOLVEMENT IN TRADE

It is possible to view Muhammad’s choice of Medina for his hijra from an _ economic viewpoint. Medina had many orchards, some of which grew (and still grow) excellent types of dates, but a castle large enough to accommodate the whole tribe cannot be financed by revenues from 44

45

Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 4:477: “al Muʿrid : utum Banī Qurayza lladhī kānū yaljaʾūna ilayhi _ _ as follows: “kāna _ fī mā bayn al Dawma llatī fī idhā faziʿū.” Its precise location is given Baqīʿ Banī Qurayza ilā al nakhli llatī yakhruju minhā al sayl” (“it was between al Dawma that is in _the Baqīʿ [‘a spacious piece of land with trees’] of Banū Qurayza _ and the palm orchard from which the torrent issues.” In Lecker, Muslims, Jews and Pagans, 15, instead of al dawha (“the great tree with spreading branches”), read: al Dawma (a place name). The_ Aws branches that owned similar fortresses in Upper Medina were Khatma and Wāqif; ibid., 16 18. EI3, s.v. “Buʿāth” _(Michael Lecker).

272 michael lecker agriculture alone. There are also clear indications of lively trade, such as the four markets that existed in pre-Islamic Medina (see Figure 8.2). The most famous and probably most significant one was the market of Qaynuqāʿ. It enjoyed a unique position among the markets of Arabia in the sense that no other market was called after a tribe. In fact, it was not only a market: several times during the year it became a fair. Contests for prestige between poets took place in it.46 The market, together with the nearby Zuhra with its many goldsmiths, must have resembled an oriental bazaar. There is evidence that the Jews traded with Busrā and Adhriʿāt. Busrā _ to the Persian Gulf, _ was linked to Philadelphia (present-day ʿAmmān), and – via Palestine – to the Mediterranean. Two roads linked Busrā to _ In Damascus, and it had large markets, the ruins of which are still visible. the Byzantine period Busrā was a frontier market serving Arab caravans and pastoralists alike.47 _ A Qurʾānic exegete says that Muhammad expelled Nadīr, and they _ which, according to_ the exegete, (rather, some of them) went to Adhriʿāt, 48 was the place they came from. The expelled Qaynuqāʿ, merchants and goldsmiths, also headed to Adhriʿāt.49 Meccan merchants traded with Gaza,50 while the Jews of Medina headed further north. According to certain Qurʾānic exegetes, Busrā and _ Adhriʿāt were the starting points of seven caravans belonging to Quray za _ and Nadīr which arrived at Medina on the same day carrying luxury goods: _ a variety of fabrics, perfumes, jewelry, and goods imported by sea (amtiʿat al-bahr, or “sea merchandise” – the sea in this context being the 51 _ Mediterranean). The arrival of the seven caravans on the same day, being “the circumstance of revelation” of the Qurʾān, is not necessarily a historical fact. But the background which provides the alleged event with a context seems 46

47 48

49 50

51

Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 4:330: “yaqūmu fī al sana mirāran wa yatafākharu al nās bihi wa yatanāshadūna al ashʿār.” This is followed by an account of one such contest. EI2, s.v. “Bosra” (A. Abel). Abū Hayyān,_ Tafsīr al Bahr al Muhīt, ed. ʿĀdil Ahmad ʿAbd al Mawjūd and ʿAlī _ _ _ _ 3:278 (“. . . narudduhum Muhammad Muʿawwad (Beirut, 2001), ilā haythu jāʾū minhu _ Adhriʿāt al Shām, _ _ yurīdu ijlāʾ Banī al Nad īr”). wa hiya _ Maqrīzī, Imtāʿ al Asmāʿ, 1:123. Gil, A History of Palestine, 16n7. See also ʿAbd al Rahmān Abū Zurʿa, Taʾrīkh, ed. Shukr _ Allāh al Qūjānī (Damascus, 1980), 1:593. Meir J. Kister, “Some Reports concerning Mecca from Jāhiliyya to Islam,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 15 (1972), 61 93, at 77. Qurʾānic exegesis may not be an obvious source for economic history, but research makes do with what there is on offer.

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 273 trustworthy. At the background we find not only the Jewish long-range caravan trade, but also imported luxury goods (for which there must have been a market in Medina). Without the background, exegesis based on the alleged event collapses. There is more evidence for Jewish trade. A leading role in long-distance trade was played by the Abū al-Ḥuqayq family from Nadīr. One of its _ members (Kināna b. al-Rabīʿ b. Abī al-Ḥuqayq) was in charge of Nadīr’s _ communal fund, which was kept in a camel’s hide (mask al-jamal). The expelled Nadīr were allowed to take with them gold and silver, weapons, jars full of _precious metals (amwāl), and the aforementioned camel’s hide.52 The communal fund, which was no doubt linked to Nadīr’s trade, _ owned was unique. No other tribe, Jewish or non-Jewish, is known to have such a fund. Another member of the same family (Kināna’s uncle, Abū Rāfiʿ Sallām b. Abī al-Ḥuqayq) was referred to as tājir ahl al-Ḥijāz, or the foremost merchant among the people of Ḥijāz. This appellation is found in the story of his assassination in Khaybar, which includes many details about life in Khaybar. Links between the Jewish towns of Arabia may be relevant for us here. After Qurayza’s massacre, mothers were sold with their small children to _ pagan Bedouin, but also to Jews from Medina, Taymāʾ, and Khaybar. When the Jews of Khaybar discussed their options prior to Muhammad’s attack, one of them allegedly suggested a preemptive attack on_ Medina with Jewish warriors from Taymāʾ, Fadak, and Wādī al-Qurā, without seeking aid from any of the treacherous Bedouin.53 Although this is clearly a post factum theatrical reworking referring to an option that had never materialized, it made enough sense for the narrator who created the scene. Taymāʾ and Medina are linked in a report about tribesmen from the Balī tribe (more specifically, from a branch called Ḥishna) who were forced to adopt Judaism when they sought shelter in Taymāʾ; later some of them emigrated from Taymāʾ to Medina.54 According to his own alleged testimony, Muhammad’s famous Companion Salmān al-Fārisī had been sold to a Jew in_ Wādī al-Qurā and was later bought by another Jew from Qurayza who brought him to Medina.55 The Abū al-Ḥuqayq family of _ 52

53 54 55

Ibn al ʿArabī, Ahkām al Qurʾān, ed. Muhammad ʿAbd al Qādir ʿAtā (Beirut, 1996), _ Akhbār al Madīna, ed. _ʿAlī Dandal and Yāsīn Bayān _ (Beirut, 1996), 4:208; Ibn Shabba, 1:254. (Elsewhere it is referred to as māl Abī al Huqayq.) Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 2:530 31; Maqrīzī, Imtāʿ al Asmāʿ, 1:255. Lecker, Muslims, Jews and Pagans, 63 67; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 10. Ibn al Athīr, Usd al Ghāba fī Maʿrifat al Sahāba, ed. ʿAlī Muhammad Muʿawwad and _ the account has it_ that _ 2:512. A variant of ʿĀdil Ahmad ʿAbd al Mawjūd (Beirut, 1994), _ zī was a paternal cousin of Salmān’s former master. However, according to the Qura some, the_ former belonged to Nadīr; Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 3:407. _

274 michael lecker Nadīr owned date orchards in Khaybar.56 On their way to Adhriʿāt the _ expelled Qaynuqāʿ received aid from the Jews of Wādī al-Qurā.57 The Jews of Fadak wanted the Jews of Medina to ask Muhammad about a case _ of adultery.58 Nadīr’s ownership of camels points to their involvement in caravan trade. _Nadīr’s exile was a major operation requiring great skill and involv_ ing 600 camels. An unknown number of the camels which were the property of Nadīr themselves were brought from Nadīr’s grazing ground in Dhū al-Jadr_ (south of Medina, near the Buthān_ dam), while other _ camels were hired from the Ashjaʿ tribe,59 which _must have played a vital role in the Jewish caravan trade. Later Muhammad’s milch camels were _ grazing in Dhū al-Jadr.60 Obviously, when Nadīr went into exile, _ this was the case Muhammad took over their grazing ground. Indeed, _ with almost all of the properties left behind by the expelled Nadīr. _ A similar case can probably be traced on the other side of the oasis, namely, in the ʿAqīq valley. Al-Jurf appears in a verse of Kaʿb b. alAshraf which suggests that he owned it,61 while elsewhere we are told that Muhammad cultivated land there.62 _ MUH AMMAD’S NEW MARKET _

Muhammad’s ownership of property in Zuhra should probably be associated_ with his experience as a merchant prior to the Call. Muhammad’s association with trade is obvious in the case of the market _which he reportedly established for his Companions. The precise date is unknown, but his first attempt to establish it took place when Kaʿb b. al-Ashraf from Nadīr was still alive.63 _ 56

57 58 59

60 62

63

Abū Rāfiʿ Sallām b. Abī al Huqayq: “fa in takuni [printed: yakuni] al nakhl qad taraknāhā fa innā naqdamu ʿalā nakhl bi Khaybar” (“even though we left behind date palms [in Medina], well, we arrive at date palms in Khaybar [i.e., orchards we own there]”); Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 1:375. Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 1:180. Qurtubī, Tafsīr (al Jāmiʿ li Ahkām al Qurʾān) (Cairo, 1967), 6:177. “Wa_ arsalū ilā zahr lahum bi_ Dhī al Jadr wa takāraw min nās min Ashjaʿ ibilan”; Ibn _ al Kubrā, 2:57. Saʿd, al Tabaqāt 61 Ibid., 93. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al Buldān, s.v. “al Jurf.” “Izdaraʿa bi l Jurf ”; Kister, “Land Property and Jihād,” 300. One of ʿAbd al Rahmān _ b. ʿAwf’s sons reportedly described how his father employed a shovel while handling irrigation in his land in al Jurf; ʿAbd al Razzāq, Musannaf, ed. Habīb al Rahmān al _ _ Aʿzamī (Beirut, 1970 72), 11:457. _ Meir J. Kister, “The Market of the Prophet,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 8 (1965), 272 76; Michael Lecker, “The Market of the Prophet Muhammad” (forthcoming). _

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 275 The survival of the report about Muhammad’s first attempt to establish a market is in itself remarkable, because_ the details are rather inconvenient from the viewpoint of Muhammad’s image. Obviously, the details were _ preserved – to be sure, outside the mainstream literature – because they served someone’s interest. Besides, the sources are reticent when it comes to the practical aspects of Muhammad’s life, and distance him from any _ when Muhammad received an expensive economic activity. For example, _ who sold it to a Jew.64 gown from a visitor, it was his uncle al-ʿAbbās However, there were no self-imposed limitations in the case of Muhammad’s closest Companions, and there are details regarding their _ entrepreneurial acumen and trading skills. Prominent among them was ʿAbd al-Rahmān b. ʿAwf. His Ansārī host generously offered him half (the produce of _) his orchard, and was _prepared to divorce one of his two wives and let ʿAbd al-Rahmān marry her. However, ʿAbd al-Rahmān preferred _ He asked to be shown the way to _ the market of trade to agriculture. Qaynuqāʿ, and after a day’s trading (as a middleman, for he had no merchandise of his own) he returned with some clarified butter and cheese. Shortly afterward he got married, as shown by traces of saffron on his clothes. He told Muhammad that his wife’s dowry had been a piece of gold _ the size of a date stone. ʿAbd al-Rahmān boasted: “[In those days] I felt _ gold or silver to be found.”65 The that under every stone I lifted there was mention of gold and silver is not accidental: obviously, not only butter and cheese were traded in the market of Qaynuqāʿ. The boasting must not be taken at face value. But there can be no doubt that ʿAbd al-Rahmān was a _ gifted businessman, and the same is true of several other Companions that belonged to Muhammad’s closest circle. Whatever revenues ʿAbd alRahmān collected_ from his cultivated land,66 his main source of revenue was_ no doubt trade. Muhammad’s entrepreneurial Companions were well _ of the huge opportunities that opened up placed to take advantage following Muhammad’s monumental success, not to mention the _ after his death. The sources of revenue of the young Islamic conquests Muslim community were trade and agriculture – in this order. 64

65

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Ibn Hajar, al Isāba fī Tamyīz al Sahāba, ed. ʿAbdallāh Muhammad al Bijāwī (Cairo, _ 1972), 6:521, s.v._ “Hāniʾ b. Habīb al_ Dārī.” Ibn Saʿd, al Tabaqāt al Kubrā, 3:126: “fa la qad raʾaytunī wa law rafaʿtu hajaran rajawtu an usība tahtahu dhahaban aw fid d a.” Gold is also associated with date_ stones _ _ ʿAbd al Rahmān left_ behind _ in another context: in Mecca a “jubjuba fīhā nawan min _ dhahab,” or a basket made of skins in which dust is removed, including pieces of gold the size of date stones; al Zamakhsharī, al Fāʾiq fī Gharīb al Hadīth, ed. ʿAbdallāh Muhammad al Bijāwī and Muhammad Abū al Fadl Ibrāhīm (Cairo, 1945 47), 1:187, s.v. _ _ _ j.b.j.b. See, e.g., note 62.

276 michael lecker For a while after the hijra, the Muhājirūn traded in the market of Qaynuqāʿ. However, having established himself, Muhammad made an attempt to create a market for his Companions near_ the southeastern corner of his mosque. The land belonged to the above-mentioned Kaʿb b. al-Ashraf, who thwarted the attempt. Consequently, Muhammad _ created his market on the other side of the mosque, that is, southwest of it. The market formed an essential component in the build-up of Muhammad’s financial resources. It sheds light on the economic dimension_ of his confrontation with the Jews. EARLY ASSASSINATIONS

The literary evidence for Muhammad’s confrontation with the Jews includes a huge amount of detail._ Much of it is “noise” with details serving a certain image or cause. Many crucial details are still missing. However, we do have an outline of the major events regarding which there are several independent accounts, whatever their differences and contradictions. Qaynuqāʿ, Nadīr, Qurayza, and Khaybar are the main “Jewish chapters” _ _ biography, in Muhammad’s and will always form the skeleton within _ which critical research will take place, for all the chronological and other difficulties involved in each and every one of them. Muhammad’s victory in the Battle of Badr (ah 2/624 ce) and the change_ of qibla, or the direction of prayer, from Jerusalem to Mecca were a watershed in Muhammad’s relations with the Jews. Hostilities started _ of two Arab Jewish poets, a woman and an old man, with the assassination who composed satirical verses against Muhammad and the tribal groups _ that supported him.67 They were assassinated in their homes in Upper Medina by their own relatives, new converts to Islam who proved their loyalty by abandoning their family and tribal solidarity for the new umma, turning against their own kin or former associates. These and other political assassinations of Jews were carried out by Ansār, not by Muhājirūn. They are described in Muhammad’s biography in_ great detail, _ the perpetrator’s only claim to particularly when the assassination was fame. Among these stories, the long accounts about two assassinations of members of Nadīr, namely, Abū Rāfiʿ Sallām b. Abī al-Ḥuqayq (in _ b. al-Ashraf (in Medina), are most revealing with Khaybar) and Kaʿb regard to the shift of loyalties during Muhammad’s confrontation with _ the Jews. Members of the umma had to choose between two conflicting loyalties, and those who chose well gained eternal fame. For one or two 67

Lecker, Muslims, Jews and Pagans, index, s.vv. “ʿAsmāʾ” and “Abū ʿAfak.” _

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 277 generations the assassination accounts had been told and retold in the family, before becoming general Islamic heritage through the efforts of compilers who collected them. The early assassinations of poets – leaders of public opinion – signaled that the old system of solidarity was crumbling. QAYNUQĀʿ: PARTIAL EXILE

Qaynuqāʿ were besieged shortly after the Battle of Badr. Typically, the chapter about them in Muhammad’s biography lacks vital components _ other sources fill part of the gap. As has such as place-names. However, already been mentioned, Qaynuqāʿ lived in al-Quff (together with other tribes), but since they were not only merchants but also goldsmiths, it is logical that some, if not many, of them lived or worked in nearby Zuhra. They were goldsmiths (sāgha), and when they were expelled, many weapons (since they were_ also fine warriors) and goldsmiths’ tools were found in their fortresses.68 The accounts of the causes of Muhammad’s confrontation with _ apologetic. The repertoire of Qaynuqāʿ are contradictory and sometimes causes regarding the confrontation with the Jewish tribes includes both shared elements and unique ones. Obviously, a good story stood a better chance of survival. The usual accusation that the Jews violated their treaties with Muhammad is always there, but there are also other causes. It is as if _ several informants were discussing feasible casus belli, each opting for one. At a later stage, a compiler collecting materials for Muhammad’s biography _ either listed several of them or settled for one. The casus belli are usually contradictory and quite unnecessary, which does not seem to have bothered compilers. Sometimes a Qurʾānic exegete contributes an idea of his own in the form of a sabab nuzūl, or an occasion of revelation of a Qurʾānic verse. The sabab nuzūl may be incongruous with the other casus belli, or even make them superfluous. Sometimes the popularity of a casus belli is linked to literary and aesthetic criteria. In the case of Qaynuqāʿ, the leading casus belli by far is a bellicose fairy tale involving a woman who was humiliated while being attended to by a goldsmith from Qaynuqāʿ. However, we should give priority to politics, personal rivalries, social undercurrents, or even, as a last resort, religion, over fairy tales. In the case of Qaynuqāʿ, a political undercurrent should be taken into account, namely, the rivalry between 68

Balādhurī, Ansāb al Ashrāf, ed. Muhammad Hamīdullāh (Cairo, 1959), 1:309. Newby’s _ Arabia, 88) that the tools were used in making assumption (A History of the Jews of weapons and armour is unfounded.

278 michael lecker two men from different subdivisions of a Khazraj branch called ʿAwf. The two, who held equal shares of a treaty with Qaynuqāʿ, were Ibn Ubayy (d. ah 9/631 ce), arguably the strongest non-Jewish leader on the eve of Islam, and the much younger ʿUbāda b. al-S ̣āmit (d. c. ah 40/660 ce).69 Both of them were literate – that is, “graduates” of the bayt al-midrās.70 Ibn Ubayy managed to hold on to his power until his very death, and Muhammad was always careful to avoid confrontation with him. With great_ unease one source tells us (in the context of the preparations for the Tabūk expedition, ah 9/630 ce) that Ibn Ubayy’s camp was larger than Muhammad’s.71 Amidst all the “noise,” the sources sometimes treat us to a _ stock-taking statement such as this one. Muhammad benefited from the rivalry between Ibn Ubayy, who did _ not abandon his alliance with the Jews, and ʿUbāda, who repudiated it. The two did share a commitment to Qaynuqāʿ, but the latter’s repudiation of it turned it into a dead letter, since tribal subdivisions would not fight each other to uphold an alliance. In a purely fictional scene Ibn Ubayy explains that he clung to his alliance with the Jews because he feared the vicissitudes of time. In other words, it was as if he were signaling that the tables might still turn against Muhammad. The audience attending a _ spoken on the stage are not those Shakespeare play knows that the words of Henry VIII, but according to Shakespeare they could have been. Ibn Ubayy did not utter the words attributed to him, and once we have the precious detail about the alliance with Qaynuqāʿ shared by the two leaders, the theatrical scene is a bonus. But it is reassuring to know that the narrator who created the scene was not into science fiction, but rather conformed to the actual historical context. Their alliance with the ʿAwf branch of the Khazraj having been voided, Qaynuqāʿ were doomed. Unlike Nadīr and Qurayza, they do not seem to _ exactly where they _ it is not clear have owned a central fortification, and came under siege. In any case, they surrendered unconditionally, following the old Arabian law according to which the victor had the right to decide the fate of the vanquished. Muhammad intended to execute the menfolk _ (and, it goes without saying, enslave the women and children). But Ibn Ubayy literally forced him to let them go into exile. The scene is described in much detail and it is so inconvenient from the viewpoint of Muhammad’s image that one is inclined to assume that it somehow _ corresponds to actual fact.

69 71

70 Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 41. Lecker, “Zayd b. Thābit,” 270 71. EI3, s.v. “ʿAbdallāh b. Ubayy” (Michael Lecker).

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 279 The account of Qaynuqāʿ’s exile creates the impression that all of them left, but there are reasons to assume that this was not the case. First, assuming that the goldsmiths of Medina were from Qaynuqāʿ, it is highly unlikely that Muhammad would have left Medina completely without _ there is evidence that an unknown number of goldsmiths. Second, Qaynuqāʿīs lived in Medina after the expulsion: The Qaynuqāʿ who remained in Medina are said to have participated in Muhammad’s war against Qurayza.72 Also in the Battle of Khaybar there _ were “several _ Qaynuqāʿīs; they [Qaynuqāʿ in general] were powerful warriors” 73 (ashiddāʾ). Moreover, the list of hypocrites (munāfiqūn), which no doubt relates to a time later than the expulsion, includes several members of Qaynuqāʿ.74 Qaynuqāʿ’s qualities as warriors are also attested in another context: when Ibn Ubayy pleaded with Muhammad that they be spared, he referred _ to their military prowess – they numbered 700 warriors, 400 with armor and 300 without it (that is, carrying weapons but no armor). It is observed in this context that they were the most courageous warriors among the Jews (ashjaʿ yahūd).75 In a tribal environment survival depends on alliances. A large number of warriors, and even castles and weapons, are not enough. By means of the Constitution and negotiations, concerning which we are still in the dark, Muhammad changed the political realities on the ground. _ N A Ḍ Ī R : A S U R P R I S E A T T A C K A N D A S I E G E

For all the warfare described in great detail in Muhammad’s biography, _ including the confrontation with the Jews, the attitude reflected in the maxim à la guerre comme à la guerre is absent. There were no considerations one would deem legitimate in warfare such as expediency, the choice of propitious timing, a window of opportunity, and the very basic desire to improve the umma’s lot in life. Instead there are casus belli galore. 72

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“Anna rasūla llāh staʿāna bi yahūd Qaynuqāʿ ʿalā Banī Qurayza wa lam yuʿtihim min al _ al Shāfiʿī ghanīma shayʾan”; al Sarakhsī, Kitāb al Mabsūt, ed. Mu_hammad Hasan _ _ (Beirut, 2001), 10:27. The context is the legitimacy of seeking aid from ahl al dhimma in the war against the pagans. The context is again the legitimacy of seeking aid from ahl al dhimma: “thumma staʿāna rasūlu llāh baʿda Badr bi sanatayni [read: bi sinīna, several years] fī ghazāt Khaybar bi ʿadad min yahūd Banī Qaynuqāʿ, kānū ashiddāʾ”; al Shāfiʿī, Kitāb al Umm (Beirut, 1993), 4:372. “Wa kāna mimman dakhala fī al islām wa taʿawwadha bihi min ahbār yahūd Banī _ Qaynuqāʿ . . .”; Ibn Habīb, Muhabbar, 470. _ Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 1:177 78.

280 michael lecker In Nadīr’s case, the leading ones are two failed spectacular assassination _ Most popular is the story of how Muhammad marched against attempts. _ allegedly to take place Nadīr following an assassination attempt. This was _ when he came to demand that they assist him in the payment of bloodwite to a Bedouin tribe. In the mishmash of contradictory claims relating to this affair,76 two sources (at least) provide a piece of information which looks reliable: Muhammad had an agreement with Nadīr prescribing mutual _ assistance in _the payment of bloodwite.77 The accounts of the war against Nadīr are confusing. On the one hand, they surrendered after having been_ besieged in a castle. The name and location of a castle owned by Nadīr are known from sources outside the biography.78 On the other hand,_ there are accounts about fighting from house to house. In this specific case, harmonization seems to be called for. Fighting from house to house took place in an urban environment, and the first place that comes to mind is Zuhra, the town of Nadīr.79 It must have been a surprise attack which prevented them from _ reaching their castle. The besieged were those who made it to the castle. One should bear in mind that Nadīr had landed property all over _ the oasis. Qaynuqāʿ – or, more precisely, those of them who went into exile – surrendered unconditionally, risking a massacre which did not materialize. By contrast, Nadīr went into exile following an agreement with _ Muhammad. Qaynuqāʿ were stripped of their possessions, while Nadīr _ _ were allowed to take with them their gold and silver.

76

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78

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Meir J. Kister, “Social and Religious Concepts of Authority in Islam,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 18 (1994), 84 127, at 91 92. Al Maqdisī, al Badʾ wa l Taʾrīkh, ed. Clément Huart (Paris, 1899 1919), 4:212: “fa jāʾahum rasūlu llāh yastaʿīnuhum fī diyat dhaynika al qatīlayn lladhayn asābahumā ʿAmr _ yataghāwathū ibn Umayya wa kāna fī al ʿahdi lladhī baynahum wa bayna rasūli llāh an wa yatahammala mā yanūbu baʿd uhum ʿan baʿd .” See also al Fakhr al Rāzī, al Tafsīr al _ Mafātīh al Ghayb (Beirut, _ _ (quoting Ibn ʿAbbās, al Kalbī, and 1990), 11:144 Kabīr aw _ Muqātil, regarding Qurʾān 5:11): ʿAmr b. Umayya and another man killed two Bedouin who had a guarantee of security (amān) from Muhammad. Muhammad, accompanied _ by the four rightly guided caliphs, came to Nadīr, _who had undertaken to assist him in _ the payment of blood money: “wa qad kānū ʿāhadū al nabī ʿalā tark al qitāl wa ʿalā an yuʿīnūhu fī al diyāt.” Lecker, Muslims, Jews and Pagans, 14 15. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al Buldān, 5:290, s.v. “al Nadīr,” says that no historian mentioned the names of their quarters, which is what a _ of his book would be looking for: “lam ara ahadan min ahl al siyar dhakara asmāʾ reader _ fī hādhā al kitāb.” manāzilihim wa huwa mimmā yahtāju ilayhi al nāzir _ have taken place _ in al Buwayra, another settlement However, urban fighting could also inhabited by Nadīr. _

the jews of northern arabia in early islam

281

QURAYẒA: THE MASSACRE AND ITS SURVIVORS

The final episode of Muhammad’s confrontation with the Jews of Medina _ took place in the vast territory of Qurayza. Unlike Nadīr, they were not _ territory. Typically, _ known to have owned property outside their the name of their castle is not found in the biography of Muhammad. Like _ Muhammad Qaynuqāʿ, Qurayza surrendered unconditionally, allowing _ _ exile to decide their fate. Perhaps they expected to be allowed to go into like Qaynuqāʿ, but they grossly miscalculated and many of them – though not all of them – were massacred. Simply put, Qurayza – unlike Qaynuqāʿ – did not have the backing of a strong ally. They_ were allied with the Aws, who did plead for them. Reportedly, Muhammad realized _ of Qurayza’s that contrary to the Khazraj, who took part in the beheading 80 _ men and were elated, the Aws did not rejoice. But they had little leverage with Muhammad for the simple reason that most of them had not yet converted_ to Islam. More specifically, three branches of the Aws out of five (the three were referred to collectively as Aws Allāh) followed their leader (Abū Qays b. al-Aslat), who is accused of having kept them back from embracing Islam “until the Battle of Khandaq was over.”81 Qurayza’s siege _ started immediately after the battle. Perhaps with some malice it is reported how Muhammad managed to quell the concerns of the Aws regarding the fate_ of the vanquished Qurayza: he offered to delegate the decision to a member of the Aws. _ The chosen one, a loyal Companion,82 had been fatally wounded in the Battle of Khandaq. He decided that the men would be put to death, and the women and children be sold into slavery. Just like the expulsion of Nadīr, which is described in colorful detail, the Qurayza massacre is at the _ execution, not far _ of many elaborate accounts. The exact site of their center 83 from Muhammad’s new market, was still remembered many years after _ 80

81 82

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“Fa jaʿalat al Khazraj tad ribu aʿnāqahum wa yasurruhum dhālika fa nazara rasūlu llāh _ _ ilā al Khazraj wa wujūhuhum mustabshira”; Ibn Hishām, al Sīra al Nabawiyya, ed. Mustafā al Saqqā, Ibrāhīm al Ibyārī, and ʿAbd al Hafīz al Shalabī (Cairo, 1936; reprint _ _ _ 1971), 3:63. Beirut, Lecker, Muslims, Jews and Pagans, index, s.v. “Abū Qays b. al Aslat.” Saʿd b. Muʿādh belonged to a clan of the Aws called ʿAbd al Ashhal which was very loyal to Muhammad. Actually, in _ the area to which Muhammad’s market later extended: trenches were _ excavated in what is “today” the market of Medina (“ilā sūq al Madīna llatī hiya sūquhā al yawm”); Ibn Hishām, Sīra, 3:251. About Ahjār al Zayt, which are linked to _ the massacre, see Amikam Elad, The Rebellion of Muhammad al Nafs al Zakiyya in 145/ _ 762: Tālibīs and Early ʿAbbāsīs in Conflict (Leiden, 2016), 218 21.

282 michael lecker the event. Just like Nadīr’s expulsion, those who witnessed it knew that Medina would never be_ the same again. Qurayza’s castle in the eastern part of Upper Medina was the last Jewish bastion in_ Medina.84 Having lost their strong Jewish allies, the three Aws Allāh branches embraced Islam, which in political terms meant that they gave up their opposition to Muhammad. There were still Jews in Medina, _ perhaps even a considerable number, but legally they were protected neighbors, not equal parties to treaties of nonbelligerency. Jews lived in Medina in the Umayyad period, and probably later as well, but they were of no interest to the medieval historians. Two Jewish cemeteries in Medina are mentioned in connection with the burial of the third caliph, ʿUthmān (assassinated in ah 35/656 ce).85 The Khaybarī Jew Zurʿa b. Ibrāhīm, who lived in Medina in the Umayyad period, attracted some attention because he engaged in witchcraft and “used, by means of witchcraft, to estrange the women from the men and the men from the women.” He later converted to Islam and became a hadīth _ scholar.86 KHAYBAR

The Khaybar oasis is some 150 km north of Medina. Its main town was probably al-Natāt, in which one of the annual fairs of Arabia took place.87 _ 84

85

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In the western side of Upper Medina, namely, in the town of Qubāʾ, there was still opposition to Muhammad as late as ah 9/630 ce; Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, s.v. _ “Mosque of the Dissension” (Claude Gilliot): “The event of the mosque of the dissen sion is important because it reveals that in 9/630 many of the ‘Muslims’ in Qubāʾ i.e. those who had ‘submitted’ (either by accepting Islam or by coming under the political leadership of Muhammad) were still opposed to the authority of Muhammad as a _ _ prophet or as a leader.” One of them was an orchard (hāʾit) called Hashsh Kawkab (“kānat al yahūd tadfanu fīhi _ bury _ their dead in it”), which touched upon Baqīʿ al mawtāhum,” “the Jews used to Gharqad. The other was near Mt. Salʿ; Tabarī, Taʾrīkh al Rusul wa l Mulūk, ed. Michael J. de Goeje et al. (Leiden, 1879 1901), 1:3046 47. The latter cemetery is also mentioned in connection with the burial of those killed during the rebellion of al Nafs al Zakiyya (ah 145/762 ce); ibid., 3:253. Hashsh Kawkab is east of Baqīʿ al Gharqad; Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 3:298. Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrīkh Dimashq, 19:3 8; Michael Lecker, “The Bewitching of the Prophet Muhammad by the Jews: A Note à propos ʿAbd al Malik b. Habīb’s Mukhtasar fī al t _ _ ibb,”_ al Qantara 13 (1992), 561 69, at 567. _ The Lisān al ʿArab dictionary defines al Natāt (among other definitions) as “qasabat _ Khaybar,” or the chief town of Khaybar. The_ fair lasted from the tenth of Muharram _ (the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ) to the end of the month; Ibn Habīb, Muhabbar, 268. _

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 283 88 The local economy also relied on date palms, in addition to other crops (such as onions and garlic).89 Khaybar was made up of several regions, each having its own fortresses and orchards. As usual, the abundance of water was accompanied by malaria. Reportedly, the Jews knew how to protect themselves, whereas for the Bedouin Khaybar was very insalubrious. Hence “the fever of Khaybar” (hummā Khaybar) became proverbial.90 The trade in dates required collabor_ ation with camel-herding Bedouin who handled transportation. They carried the dates of Khaybar to the villages/towns, keeping for themselves half of the return.91 Khaybar’s close relationship with the Bedouin also had a military dimension, namely, the latter’s commitment to participate in the defence of Khaybar, which turned out to be the Jews’ Achilles’ heel. When Nadīr were expelled from Medina, those who ended up in _ Khaybar included their leaders, such as Ḥuyayy b. Akhtab, Abū Rāfiʿ Sallām b. Abī al-Ḥuqayq, and Kināna b. al-Rabīʿ, “and its_ people obeyed them.”92 For Nadīr’s leaders the war was not over yet. The three partici_ pated in the recruitment of the Bedouin for the Battle of Khandaq, in collaboration with the Wāʾil, a branch of the Aws Allāh group.93 The participation of the wealthy Nadīrīs Abū Rāfiʿ and Kināna points to the _ The siege of Medina in the Battle of financial aspect of the recruitment. Khandaq failed, but Khaybar with its irredentist Nadīr leadership still posed a danger to Muhammad’s project. The Jews had_ the motivation, a _ financial capabilities, and strong allies. Still, in significant military power, ah 7/628 ce, Muhammad attacked Khaybar and conquered its fortresses one after the other._ The details await a thorough investigation, but clearly Khaybar’s military defeat was preceded by a diplomatic one – the outcome of Muhammad’s negotiations with Khaybar’s allies. _ 88

89

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92 93

For example, one of its regions (al Katība) is said to have included 40,000 fruit bearing date palms; Maqrīzī, Imtāʿ al Asmāʿ, 1:315. ʿAbdallāh b. Rawāha evaluated Khaybar’s total produce at 40,000 camel loads; Qurtubī, Tafsīr, 7:105. _ _ t et al. (Beirut, 1995 2008), 18:167. The Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, ed. Shuʿayb al Arnāwū _ report relates to both Fadak and Khaybar. Also hummā al Natāt; Hamdānī, Sifat Jazīrat al ʿArab, ed. Muhammad al Akwaʿ _ _ 1990), 237. _ (Sanʿāʾ, “Kānat yahūd idhā saramat nakhlahā jāʾathumu al aʿrāb bi rakāʾibihim fa yahmilūna _ ilā al qurā fa yabīʿūna yakūnu li hādhā [sic] nisfu al thaman _ wa li lahum ʿurwa bi ʿurwa _ haʾulāʾi nisfuhu”; Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 2:35; Lecker, “Were the Jewish Tribes in Arabia _ Clients of Arab Tribes?” 64 65. “Fa dānat lahum Khaybar”; Qurtubī, Tafsīr, 18:8. The two leaders from the Wāʾil_ in the delegation were Hawdha b. Qays and Abū ʿAmmār; Tabarī, Taʾrīkh, 1:1464; see note 8. Nadīr collaborated with the Aws in the _ normal circumstances Nadīr were Battle of Buʿāth before the hijra. However, under _ allied with the Khazraj.

284 michael lecker The first hurdle was Khaybar’s treaty with Muhammad’s own tribe, _ Quraysh. Muhammad, accompanied by a large Bedouin army, headed _ toward Mecca, supposedly in order to make an ʿumra, or a “lesser pilgrimage.” He did not intend to conquer Mecca, but wanted to negotiate a truce with Quraysh from a position of strength. The negotiations, which led to a nonbelligerency treaty, took place at Ḥudaybiyya (modern-day alShumaysī), on the edge of the haram, some 20 km northwest of the Kaʿba. Reportedly, the terms of _his pilgrimage the following year were on the table, but Muhammad’s flexibility during the negotiations, which _ the sources make no effort to conceal, points to a much larger bonanza. Time and again he gave in to Qurashī demands, even when they were rather humiliating. Regarding the actual reward, the sources leave us in the dark. However, as Muhammad Ḥamīdullāh (1908–2002) discovered many _ written in Transoxania in the eleventh century years ago,94 a legal treatise by the jurist Sarakhsī preserves a precious report. It made its way to Sarakhs in channels unknown to us and popped up a millennium ago, as a legal precedent in the jurist’s book. Thanks to this report we now realize that in return for his concessions, Muhammad achieved the annulment of _ Khaybar’s defense treaty with Quraysh. The treaty had been directed against their common enemy, Muhammad. Medina is located between _ of the treaty conformed to this Khaybar and Mecca, and the terms situation: It prescribed that if Muhammad attacked Khaybar, Quraysh would attack Medina from behind;_ and if he attacked Mecca, Khaybar would attack Medina from behind. The very complexity of the story and the fact that it fits well in the Ḥudaybiyya concessions puzzle suggest that it is trustworthy. It is also congruous with other evidence concerning links between Nadīr and Quraysh. _ nonbelligerency treaty with Quraysh turned the latter’s Muhammad’s _ defense treaty with Khaybar into a dead letter. Quraysh sacrificed Khaybar in order to avoid an imminent attack (and remove obstacles facing their trade). However, the respite they bought was rather short – Mecca was conquered in ah 8/630 ce. Having secured his southern flank, Muhammad turned against _ The Jews were well Khaybar, where he faced another major hurdle: fortified and had sufficient food supplies to withstand a long siege. But they were vulnerable since they relied on their defense agreement with their strong Bedouin allies. Muhammad’s presumed negotiations with _ and only faint echoes remain in our these Bedouin are not transparent, 94

Muhammad Hamīdullāh, Muslim Conduct of State (Hyderabad Deccan, 1941 42), 165 _66; Michael Lecker, “The Hudaybiyya Treaty and the Expedition against Khaybar,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 5 (1984), 1 11.

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 285 sources. But the facts on the ground testify to the success of his diplomacy: Khaybar’s Bedouin allies took no part in its defense. The fall of Khaybar was a matter of time. With great political acumen Muhammad neutralized the Jews’ allies – both the Quraysh and the Bedouin –_ removed the threat of Khaybar, and amassed a huge war chest. Khaybar’s new masters received half of its produce – although one should keep in mind that Khaybar, like every other oasis in Arabia, granted “its” Bedouin an agreed annual share of the produce.95 A decade after Muhammad’s conquest, the Jews of Khaybar (or some of them) were expelled _by the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb. They were only allowed to stay as long as their labor and expertise were__ required. Following the influx into Arabia of thousands of slaves under ʿUmar, the new masters of Khaybar did not have to share its produce with its inhabitants.96 The many transactions involving chattels and plots of land that followed the expulsion are described in the primary sources in great detail, because they were of considerable material value for the beneficiaries. “Temporary pleasure marriages” (nikāh al-mutʿa) took place with Jewish females taken captive in Khaybar._ Some associated them with “the Farewell Hill” (Thaniyyat al-Wadāʿ) north of Medina (see Figure 8.2). At this point, we are told, the Muslims parted with the “pleasure women” (nisāʾ al-mutʿa),97 who were later sold into slavery. The explanation behind the place-name is doubtful, but the fate of the females at the background seems to be reliable. Two female captives from Khaybar who are not associated with the “pleasure marriages” deserve special notice: S ̣afiyya, daughter of the Nadīr _ leader Ḥuyayy b. Akhtab, who became one of Muhammad’s favored wives _ _ (or concubines), although he had killed her father and her husband,

95

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Cf. the above mentioned 50 percent share of the Bedouin who carried Khaybar’s dates to the towns. See also Lecker, “Were the Jewish Tribes in Arabia Clients of Arab Tribes?” See Kister, “Social and Religious Concepts of Authority in Islam,” 91: “The real reasons for certain political, military, and social decisions by the Prophet may be discerned in some accounts adorned by a layer of miraculous stories.” Concerning Khaybar, Kister observes (ibid., 92): “The expulsion of the Jews from Khaybar was carried out by ʿUmar and was caused by economic factors, as explained in some of the sources: When the Prophet conquered Khaybar, he could not find labourers to till the land, and thus left the land in the hands of the Jews on condition that they hand over half of the crops to the Muslim community in Medina. In the time of ʿUmar, when the Muslims got labourers who were able to carry out the agricultural work, he expelled the Jews to Syria and divided the land among the Muslims.” Samhūdī, Wafāʾ, 4:195.

286 michael lecker together with all of the latter’s male relatives;98 and Zaynab bt. al-Ḥārith, said to have put poison in mutton shoulder which was Muhammad’s _ favorite meat dish. A late eighth-/early ninth-century ce source says about Khaybar: “It is now inhabited by Muslims and there are no Jews there.”99 But a source from the tenth century ce mentions Jews among its inhabitants.100 FADAK

The Jewish oasis Fadak (ancient Padakku, modern-day al-Ḥāʾit, some _ tribe 150 km east-northeast of Khaybar)101 was conquered by a Bedouin (Kalb) around 570. A Jewish goldsmith was taken captive during the conquest, together with his wife and four daughters.102 (One assumes that he was not the only goldsmith there.) Fadak produced dates and cereals, in addition to several types of textiles called after it: the qatīfa Fadakiyya, or _ Fadakī striped the Fadakī villous garment, the ʿabāʾa Fadakiyya, or the woollen garment, and the aksiya (sing. kisāʾ) Fadakiyya, or the Fadakī wraps. A qatīfa Fadakiyya was part of the booty of Khaybar,103 and the _ caliph Abū Bakr was wearing an ʿabāʾa Fadakiyya.104 The people of Fadak moved to Khaybar reportedly motivated by fear because of what Muhammad had done to Qurayza. They submitted to _ Muhammad, adopting_ Khaybar’s terms.105 They probably returned later to _ their oasis. 98

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Michael Lecker, “Wāqidī (d. 822) vs. Zuhrī (d. 742): The Fate of the Jewish Banū Abī l Huqayq,” in Christian J. Robin, ed., Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique (Paris, 2015), 495 509. See also the following reference to the slain Banū Abī al Huqayq (plural): “fa ammā sarātu al yahūd wa ahl al saʿa minhum qad qutilū: Banū Abī al Huqayq . . .”; Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 2:713. ʿAbd al Razzāq, Musannaf, 4:125: “fa ahluhā al āna al muslimūna laysa fīhā al yahūd.” _ (Variants in other sources have, instead of al yahūd: yahūd and yahūdī.) The source of this statement, ʿĀmir b. ʿAbd al Rahmān b. Nistās, lived in the second century ah/ _ _ eighth century ce. Hamdānī (d. c. ah 334/945 ce), Sifat Jazīrat al ʿArab, 244, says that Khaybar is inhabited by Jews, mawālī (non Arab clients), and a mixed Bedouin population. Arnulf Hausleiter, Hanspeter Schaudig, in collaboration with Steffen Baier, Abdulaziz al Dayel, Khaled Al Hā’iti et al., “A New Rock Relief with Cuneiform Inscription of King Nabonidus from al Hāʾit,” ATLAL Journal of Saudi Arabian Archaeology (forth _ coming). Meir J. Kister, “On the Wife of the Goldsmith from Fadak and Her Progeny,” Le Muséon 92 (1979), 321 30; Lecker, “Were the Jewish Tribes in Arabia Clients of Arab Tribes?” 60 61. 104 Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 2:687. Ibid., 772. Ibn Habīb, Muhabbar, 121. For the negotiations with Fadak, see Michael Lecker, “The Assassination of_ the Jewish Merchant Ibn Sunayna according to an Authentic Family

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 287 Khaybar, Fadak, and Wādī al-Qurā are lumped together in a report about the technicalities of land division. ʿUmar set out with the two best arithmeticians of Medina (qāsimā al-Madīna wa-hāsibāhā, namely, Jabbār b. S ̣akhr and Zayd b. Thābit), and they carried_ out the division of Khaybar among the Muslim landowners. They evaluated the date palms and the other cultivated land of Fadak, and ʿUmar gave its Jews half their value. Finally, the two divided the Muslims’ shares in Wādī al-Qurā.106 No compensation is mentioned in the case of Khaybar and Wādī al-Qurā. Fadak also forms a separate category with regard to ʿUmar’s land reforms. He divided Khaybar into eighteen shares, then he sent Abū Ḥabība al-Ḥārithī to Fadak (i.e., to settle land issues with its Jews). Finally, ʿUmar continued on to Wādī al-Qurā. He executed the grants (“wa-anfadha z.ʿ.n.,” read: tuʿam) of Khaybar and Wādī _ al-Qurā according to Mu_hammad’s instructions. ʿUmar’s action gave _ the proprietors full ownership, and they could sell and bequeath their land.107 It appears that ʿUmar was only interested in agricultural land, in which case landowners alone were affected by his measures. The replacement of the Jewish artisans (including the goldsmiths) by slaves was harder to accomplish. WĀDĪ AL QURĀ

The main town in Wādī al-Qurā or “the Valley of Towns” was al-Qurh, _ also known as al-S ̣aʿīd and S ̣aʿīd Qurh (modern-day al-Mābiyyāt). Before _ Islam it was the site of an annual fair. Muhammad marched on Wādī al_ defeat, he received one-fifth Qurā after the conquest of Khaybar. After its of the booty (with the rest going to the warriors). The orchards and fields remained in the hands of the Jews, according to the terms agreed upon in Khaybar. It is reported that ʿUmar expelled the Jews of Khaybar and Fadak, but not those of Taymāʾ and Wādī al-Qurā, because the latter were part of Syria. ʿUmar considered the area south of Wādī al-Qurā as part of the Ḥijāz, while Wādī al-Qurā itself and the area north of it were considered as part of Syria.108 However, this report is contradicted by ʿUmar’s division of

106 108

Account,” in Nicolet Boekhoff van der Voort, Kees Versteegh, and Joas Wagemakers, eds., The Transmission and Dynamics of the Textual Sources of Islam: Essays in Honour of Harald Motzki (Leiden, 2011), 181 95, at 189 91. 107 Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 2:721. Ibn Hibbān, al Thiqāt (Hyderabad, 1973 83), 2:222. Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 2:711; Kister, “Social and Religious Concepts of Authority in Islam,” 94.

288 michael lecker land in Wādī al-Qurā, which was carried out after the expulsion of the Jews of Khaybar (or some of them) and the division of their land. In other words, at least some Jews were also expelled from Wādī al-Qurā. The Bedouin neighbors of Wādī al-Qurā belonged to the ʿUdhra tribe. An agreement between the Jews of Wādī al-Qurā and the ʿUdhra secured for the latter one-third of Wādī al-Qurā’s date produce, in return for protection from other tribes. The advent of Islam improved ʿUdhra’s situation. After the conquest, Muhammad took half of the Jews’ share – _ i.e., one-third of the produce – while the Jews kept one-third to themselves. When ʿUmar expelled the Jews, they received in cash the estimated value of their share, namely, 90,000 dinars. ʿUmar offered the ʿUdhra an additional sixth of the produce in return for one-sixth of the value – i.e., 45,000 dinars. They consented, becoming the owners of half (one-third and one-sixth) of Wādī al-Qurā’s produce.109 But while the advent of Islam increased the share of the Bedouin, the main beneficiaries from the division of the land were Muhammad’s Companions from Mecca and Medina. Zayd b. Thābit (one of_ the two assessors sent to Wādī al-Qurā), among others, declared his land in Wādī al-Qurā a charitable endowment.110 When Muhammad was on his way to Tabūk, a Jewish family in Wādī al-Qurā called_ Banū ʿUrayd prepared for him a dish of cooked meat and _ wheat pounded together (harīs). He rewarded it with an annual grant of forty camel-loads of dates, which was still in place at the beginning of the ninth century.111 They were not among the Jews expelled from Wādī alQurā.112 In the fourth century ah/tenth century ce, al-Qurh was predominantly _ Jewish.113

109 110 111

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Lecker, “Were the Jewish Tribes in Arabia Clients of Arab Tribes?” 62 63. Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 2:721. Ibid., 3:1006 (“fa hiya jāriya ʿalayhim”). Gil, A History of Palestine, 27, says that “the Prophet imposed on them an annual tax of 40 wasqs of dates (a wasq is ca. 200 kilograms, or the load that a camel can bear).” But the text speaks of a grant, not a tax. Bakrī, Muʿjam, 1:44 (they prepared for him a khazīr, or broth made of minced meat and flour, or a harīsa, and eulogized him; they were not among the exiled Jews). EI2, s.v. “Wādī l Ḳurā” (Michael Lecker), where the place name is wrongly translated “the valley of villages.” For queries sent by the Jews of Wādī al Qurā to Sherira Gaʾon and Hayya (av bet dīn) of Pumbedita around 1000 ce, see Gil, A History of Palestine, 27; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 199.

the jews of northern arabia in early islam

289

TAYMĀʾ

Jews lived in Taymāʾ as early as the beginning of the third century ce.114 Taymāʾ is associated above all with Samawʾal b. ʿĀdiyāʾ, who was its Jewish king in the middle of the sixth century ce. He owned a famous fortress called al-Ablaq, or the piebald.115 He sacrificed his son rather than surrender coats of mail entrusted to him by a famous poet, which made Samawʾal’s name in medieval Arabic literature synonymous with loyalty. This is reflected, for example, in the famous adage “awfā min al-Samawʾal” (“more loyal than al-Samawʾal”). The poet in question, Imruʾ al-Qays (d. c. 550 ce), belonged to the Kinda tribe, which at that time was predominantly Jewish.116 Classical Arabic literature is indifferent to religion with regard to Samawʾal’s loyalty, but religion may well have played a role in the king’s relationship with the poet. Samawʾal’s genealogy indicates that he was an Arab convert to Judaism, or a descendant of one. He descended from Kaʿb b. ʿAmr Muzaqiyāʾ, whose offspring (as has been indicated above) were part of the Ghassān alliance. His Ghassānī pedigree117 suggests an alliance with the Byzantines. A remote relative of his was among the Ghassānids who defected to

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This is shown by a Nabataean inscription from Taymāʾ on an epitaph of its ruler or chief citizen, dated 203 ce._ All but one of the names in the inscription are Jewish, which makes it the earliest record of Jews in this oasis; Mohammed Al Najem and Michael C. A. Macdonald, “A New Nabataean Inscription from Taymāʾ,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 20 (2009), 208 17. EI2, s.v. “al Samawʾal b. ʿĀdiyā” (Thomas Bauer). The fortress has not yet been identified by the German archaeological expedition excavating there; Arnulf Hausleiter, “The Oasis of Tayma,” in Ali Ibrahim al Ghabban, Béatrice André Salvini, Françoise Demange, Carine Juvin, and Marianne Cotty, eds., Roads of Arabia: Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Paris, 2010), 219 39, at 221. Michael Lecker, “Judaism among Kinda and the Ridda of Kinda,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115 (1995), 635 50. Imruʾ al Qays may have been Jewish, but this assumption is only supported by circumstantial evidence. See also Yosef Tobi, “Qesharim ve heqsherim yehudiyyim be shirat Imruʾ al Qays (ca. 497 545)” [Jewish connections and connotations in the poetry of Imruʾ al Qays] [Hebrew], Bein ʿEver ve ʿArav 5 (2012), 9 66. Masʿūdī, al Tanbīh wa l Ishrāf, ed. Michael J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1894), 243, quoting Abū ʿUbayda’s al Dībāj, calls him al Ghassānī. However, this nisba is missing in Abū ʿUbayda, al Dībāj, ed. ʿAbdallāh al Jarbūʿ and ʿAbd al Rahmān al ʿUthaymīn (Cairo, _ 1991), 46. For a detailed pedigree of Samawʾal, see, e.g., Masʿūdī, al Tanbīh wa l Ishrāf, 258; for a slightly different version, see Caskel and Strenziok, Ğamharat an nasab, 1:194. Some said that his mother was from Ghassān, while according to others he descended from al Kāhin, son of Hārūn; al Isfahānī, Kitāb al Aghānī, 22:117. _

290 michael lecker Byzantium during the Muslim conquest of Syria.118 In the second century ah/eighth century ce, Samawʾal’s descendants were still living in Taymāʾ.119 Taymāʾ surrendered to Muhammad in 7 ah/628 ce after the surrender of Khaybar, Fadak, and Wādī_ al-Qurā, and its inhabitants remained on their land in return for an annual tribute. BUṢRĀ, ADHRIʿĀT, JERICHO, JARBĀ, ADHRUH , _ AYLA, AND MAQNĀ

These seven towns are mentioned here because their Jewish inhabitants must have had links with the Jewish towns discussed earlier in this chapter. Towns along trade routes would have been interconnected, and Jewish merchants would have collaborated with one another. However, at present there is only evidence relating to the first two towns – namely, the report about the seven caravans (see section “Jewish Involvement in Trade”). Jericho belongs here because it is mentioned side by side with Adhriʿāt as a destination of the expelled Nadīr.120 Likewise, when ʿUmar b. al_ Khattāb expelled the Jews of Khaybar, ten years after Muhammad’s _ period _ _ conquest, they went to Taymāʾ and Jericho.121 In the Umayyad there was a group (Arabic, hayy) of Jews in Jericho. It included the son of _ Ḥārith Abū Zaynab, a famous Jewish cavalryman from Khaybar.122 The son, now an old man, reported that the members of the group were among those who had been expelled by ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb. He refused to convert to Islam – so the story goes – because he feared_ _ the Jews’ reproach. The Jews would say: “Your father, O son of the head of the Jews (sayyid alyahūd), did not abandon Judaism. Your father was killed for it, and you will do the opposite?”123 Beyond the polemics around the issue of conversion, we have here a reliable background detail regarding the presence of expelled Khaybarīs in Jericho several decades after the event. The inhabitants of Jarbā, Adhruh, Ayla, and Maqnā concluded treaties with Muhammad during the Tabūk_ expedition (ah 9/630 ce). Jarbā and _

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Abū al Nims al Ghassānī who, like al Samawʾal, descended from Kaʿb b. ʿAmr Muzayqiyāʾ; Ibn al Kalbī, Jamharat al Nasab, 619. 120 Ibid. Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, ed. Ahmad Farīd (Beirut, 2003), 1:61. _ ʿAbd al Razzāq, Musannaf, 6:55. _ Zaynab has been mentioned above; see section “Khaybar.” Wāqidī, Maghāzī, 2:654 55. The source is ʿAmr b. Abī ʿAmr, on whom see Mizzī, Tahdhīb al Kamāl, ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf (Beirut, 1985 92), 22:168 71.

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 291 124 125 the nearby Adhruh are east of Petra, in the Balqāʾ region. It is _ specifically stated that the people of Jarbā, Adhruh, and Maqnā were 126 _ hammad’s treaties Jewish. This fact is mentioned in the context of Mu 127 _ with the three towns. The port town Ayla (biblical Elath; modern-day ʿAqaba) and the port town Maqnā in Madyan/Midyan west of Tabūk, some 160 km south of Ayla, are on the coast of the Red Sea. Ayla was inhabited by both Christians and Jews. Ayla’s treaty with Muhammad was concluded by its _ Christian king, Yuhannā, probably representing all the merchants of Ayla. _ The town by the sea, the Jewish inhabitants of which broke the Sabbath (Qurʾān 7:163) was, according to most exegetes, Ayla.128 One assumes that the existence of Jews there was a matter of common knowledge. The Andalusian Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī (d. 487/1094)129 reports that Ayla is a big town inhabited by many Jews. They claim to have in their possession a striped garment (burd) of Muhammad sent to them as a guarantee of security (amānan). The garment_ was ʿAdanī (i.e., it was manufactured in ʿAden) and was wrapped in clothes. They would only expose one span of it, to protect it from being stained by touching hands.130 124 125

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129 130

EI3, s.v. “Ayla” (Michael Lecker); Gil, A History of Palestine, 28 30. See, regarding Adhruh, Yāqūt, Muʿjam al Buldān, s.v. “Adhruh” (“min nawāhī al _ _ _ Balqāʾ”). Gil, A History of Palestine, 30. Wāqidī’s wording is clear: “wa ahl Maqnā yahūd ʿalā sāhil _ al bahr wa ahl Jarbā wa Adhruh yahūd ayd an”; Ibn Saʿd, al Tabaqāt al Kubrā, 1:291. _ EI3, _s.v. “Adhruh” (Harry Munt), refers_ to al Muqaddasī, Ahsan al Taqāsīm, ed. _ Michael J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1906), 178, according to whom_ the inhabitants of Adhruh kept the Prophet’s mantle and a copy of their treaty with Muhammad. But _ _ maktūb fī Muqaddasī’s passage (“wa ʿindahum burdat rasūli llāh wa ʿahduhu wa huwa adīm”) is probably misplaced and belongs to the description of Ayla later in the same paragraph. See the same blunder in Zeyad al Salameen et al., “New Arabic Christian Inscriptions from Udhruh, Southern Jordan,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 22 _ mention of Balqāʾ brings to mind the Jewish highwayman (2011), 232 42, at 240. The Yahyā b. Irmiyā, from the Jews of al Balqāʾ, who was active in this region in the _ ʿAbbāsid period, around 800 ce; Gil, A History of Palestine, 170 71 and 282 83. In Gil’s view, it was a Jewish uprising in Palestine. But events took place in al Balqāʾ and perhaps in the Damascus area, not in Palestine. Since Adhruh was also inhabited by Christians (al Salameen, “New Arabic Christian _ Inscriptions from Udhruh”), one wonders if the above statement means that only the _ with Muhammad. Jews were party to the treaty Some exegetes identified it with Maqnā_ and Tiberias; Uri Rubin, “‘Become You Apes, Repelled!’ (Qurʾān 7:166): The Transformation of the Israelites into Apes and Its Biblical and Midrashic Background,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78 (2015), 25 40, at 38 40. EI2, s.v. “Abū ʿUbayd al Bakrī” (Évariste Lévi Provençal). Abū ʿUbayd al Bakrī, al Masālik wa l Mamālik, ed. Adrien van Leeuwen and André Ferré (Tunis, 1992), 1:420 21. Another account about the garment does not mention

292 michael lecker Muhammad made an agreement with Banū Janba, “Jews living in _ and with the people of Maqnā in general.131 It is again al-Bakrī Maqnā,” who reports that yahūd Madyan, or the Jews of Midyan – he refers to the inhabitants of Maqnā – have a letter which they display. It is written on a piece of hide which turned black over time, although the writing is still clear. The letter ends with the scribe’s name.132 Interestingly, the Jews living in these port towns are supposed to have possessed material evidence of the security granted to them by Muhammad. This should perhaps be _ linked to the forged letters of yahūd Khaybar which appeared in the fifth century ah/eleventh century ce, and aimed at exempting them from the poll tax.133 Finally, it should also be mentioned that in early Islam Madyan/ Midyan was part of Palestine, since the borderline between Shām (Greater Syria) or, more precisely, Filastīn (Palaestina Tertia) and the Ḥijāz was in _ the vicinity of Wādī al-Qurā.134 The story of the Jews in northern Arabia and their role in the emergence of Islam is far from exhausted. Research is often a hide-and-seek game involving apologetics, censorship, and above all a huge gap between the viewpoint of modern historians and that of the medieval scholars in whose debt we are for whatever heritage that has survived in the manuscript libraries. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Costa, José. “Les juifs d’Arabie dans la littérature talmudique,” in Christian J. Robin, ed., Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique, Actes du colloque de Jérusalem (février 2006) (Turnhout, 2015), 453–84. Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992).

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Jews. It goes back to the hadīth scholar Damra b. Rabīʿa al Filastīnī al Ramlī (from _ Ramla, d. ah 202/818 ce), several of whose teachers were from Ayla;_ Mizzī, Tahdhīb al Kamāl, 13:316 21. According to Damra (who identifies the garment with the famous burda given by Muhammad to the poet Kaʿb b. Zuhayr), the garment was taken by ʿAbdallāh b. Khālid _b. Abī Awfā, the governor of Ayla in the time of the last Umayyad caliph, and remained in the caliph’s treasury until he was killed. According to others, the first ʿAbbāsid caliph bought it for 300 dinars; Abū Yaʿlā al Farrāʾ (d. 458), al Ahkām al Sultāniyya, ed. Muhammad Hāmid al Fiqī (Cairo, 1938; reprint Beirut, 1974), _202. _ Kubrā, 1:276 77 and 290 91. There are several other versions _ al Tabaqāt al Ibn Saʿd, concerning the family’s name. The Maqnā affair awaits a thorough investigation. Bakrī, al Masālik wa l Mamālik, 1:420. Simcha Gross, “When the Jews Greeted Ali: Sherira Gaon’s Epistle in Light of Arabic and Syriac Historiography,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 24 (2017), 122 44, at 130 31. Michael Lecker, “Biographical Notes on Ibn Shihāb al Zuhrī,” Jewish Social Studies 41 (1996), 21 63, at 58 61.

the jews of northern arabia in early islam 293 Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004). Hoyland, Robert. “The Jews of the Hijaz in the Qurʾān and in Their Inscriptions,” in Gabriel Said Reynolds, ed., New Perspectives on the Qurʾān: The Qurʾān in Its Historical Context, vol. 2 (London, 2011). “The Jewish Poets of Muhammad’s Ḥijāz,” in Christian J. Robin, ed., _ Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique: Actes du Colloque de Jérusalem (février 2006) (Turnhout, 2015), 511–22. Kister, Meir Jacob. “The Massacre of the Banū Qurayza: A Re_ Islam 8 examination of a Tradition,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and (1986), 61–96. Lecker, Michael. Muhammad ve-ha-yehudim [Muhammad and the Jews] _ _ [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2014). Lichtenstaedter, Ilse. “Some References to Jews in Pre-Islamic Arabic Literature,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 10 (1940), 185–94. Mazuz, Haggai. The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina (Leiden, 2014). “Northern Arabia and Its Jewry in Early Rabbinic Sources: More than Meets the Eye,” Antiguo Oriente 13 (2015), 149–68. Robin, Christian J. “Quel judaïsme en Arabie?” in Christian J. Robin, ed., Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique, Actes du colloque de Jérusalem (février 2006) (Turnhout, 2015), 15–295. Rubin, Uri. “Jews and Judaism,” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān (Leiden, 2001–6).

chapter 9

JUDAISM IN PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA c h r i s t i a n j u l i e n r o b i n (t r a n s l a t e d b y j a s o n h a r r i s )*

According to chroniclers and Byzantine hagiographers, the kingdom of Ḥimyar,1 whose capital was located in Yemen but whose territory encompassed the majority of the Arabian Peninsula, was Jewish at the beginning of the sixth century ce. The Islamic scholarly tradition confirms this fact and notes that Judaism was introduced to Yemen by an ancient king. The same sources also mention influential Jewish communities in northwestern Arabia. Yet Jewish tradition itself ignores almost entirely the existence of this Arabian branch of Judaism.2 The Talmud knows of no monarch in Arabia who converted to Judaism, even while it refers frequently to those of Adiabene, located in the north of present-day Iraq. The rabbis of Arabia are responsible for none of the opinions in the Talmud and we have only two queries posed to the Babylonian geonim by the “Banû Wâdî al-Qurà” in the Ḥijāz,3 but far later, since these two geonim, Sherira and his son Hayya, presided over the Babylonian academy of Pumbedita during the tenth and eleventh centuries. More generally, the peoples of pre-Islamic Arabia hardly appear within Jewish tradition; when Arabs do appear, they nearly always are those living in regions near Palestine or Babylonia. To resolve this apparent contradiction, we may turn to the findings of archaeological research in Arabia, which began to a limited degree in the nineteenth century, was suspended from 1914 to 1970, and commenced again after that period to the present.4

* For a list of epigraphic abbreviations used, please see the end of the chapter. 1 For toponyms and ethnonyms, see Figures 9.1 and 9.2. 2 Jan Retsö, “Arabs in Talmudic Sources,” in The Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to the Umayyads (London, 2003), 526 35; José Costa, “Les juifs d’Arabie dans la littérature talmudique,” in Christian Julien Robin, ed., Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique (Turnhout, 2015), 453 84. 3 Wādī al Qurà is the ancient and medieval name for the region of Madāʾin Sālīh, al ʿUlā, and al Mabyāt in the northern Hijāz (Saudi Arabia). 4 For Judaism in ancient Arabia, see Robin, ed., Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique.

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T H E C O N V E R S I O N O F T H E K I N G D O M O F Ḥ I M Y A R TO A NEW RELIGION (C. 380 ce)

The kingdom of Ḥimyar lasted for six centuries (from the end of the first century bce to 570 ce) as the principal power in ancient Yemen, and even served for three centuries (from c. 350 ce) as the principal power on the Arabian Peninsula. It followed the famous kingdom of Sabaʾ, biblical Sheba, the crucible of South Arabian civilization beginning around 1000 bce. the kingdom of hị myar The ancient capital of Ḥimyar,5 the city of Z ̣afār, located at an elevation of 2,750 m, is now a tiny village 130 km south of S ̣anʿāʾ (this city should not be confused with the southern province of Oman that has the same name). The royal residence was Raydān palace. This is why the Ḥimyarite king is often called (the one) “of Raydān” (dhū Raydān), as well as the territories that he ruled. His official title, “King of Sabaʾ and dhū Raydān,” clearly reflects the symbolic preeminence of Sabaʾ and the equivalence between Ḥimyar and dhū Raydān. The written language of the Ḥimyarites was Sabaic, the main ancient language out of the five spoken in South Arabia (including Qatabānic, Maʿīnic, Ḥadramitic, and Southern Old Arabic). _ closest to Arabic, although distinSabaic is the South Arabian language guishable in several ways, notably with an additional sibilant (lateral) and a suffixed definite article (while the article in Arabic precedes its noun). The language spoken by the Ḥimyarites seems to have been closer to Sabaic than to Arabic, while the Ḥimyaritic spoken in medieval times is merely a dialect of Arabic. The writing system used by the Ḥimyarites was a consonantal alphabet common to all peoples of South Arabia known as South Arabian. The region shared a writing system even while sustaining great linguistic diversity. This unity also was present in the cultural realm, as the iconographic 5

Iwona Gajda, Le royaume de Himyar à l’époque monothéiste. L’histoire de l’Arabie du Sud Ancienne de la fin du IVe siècle de l’ère chrétienne jusqu’à l’avènement de l’Islam (Paris, 2009); Christian Julien Robin, “The Peoples beyond the Arabian Frontier in Late Antiquity: Recent Epigraphic Discoveries and Latest Advances,” in Jitse H. F. Dijkstra and Greg Fisher, eds., Inside and Out: Interactions between Rome and the Peoples on the Arabian and Egyptian Frontiers in Late Antiquity (Leuven, 2014), 33 79. For a selection of Himyarite texts, see Christian Julien Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie?”; and (in English) Christian Julien Robin, “Himyar, Aksûm, and Arabia Deserta in Late Antiquity: The Epigraphic Evidence,” in Greg Fisher, ed., Arabs and Empires before Islam (Oxford, 2015), 127 71.

296 christian julien robin repertoire, architecture, bronzework, and stonework, together with other aspects of material culture, demonstrate innumerable common characteristics. The only vowels represented by the South Arabian writing system were long vowels in final position. Modern scholars transliterate South Arabian texts into Latin characters using only consonants, as the restoration of vowels presents great uncertainty. The Ḥimyarites, who lived in the mountainous regions, made their living mainly through agriculture, which was quite developed in their part of Arabia due to the abundant monsoon rains during the summer. While the Sabaeans were primarily focused on land-based trans-Arabian commerce by caravan, the Ḥimyarites focused their attention more on the sea. From the end of the first century bce, they were the main allies of Rome in the region. the unification of south arabia Although initially a relatively modest tribe, Roman support transformed Ḥimyar into the primary power in Yemen. When the Aksūmites of Ethiopia invaded the southern region of Arabia in the second and third centuries ce, it was the Ḥimyarites who finally drove them back. This victory allowed the kings of Ḥimyar to gain immense prestige, to annex Sabaʾ, and to conquer Ḥadramawt, the last remaining independent king_ Ḥimyarite king Shammar Yuharʿish, who dom in South Arabia. The accomplished these feats, changed his title to “King of Sabaʾ, dhū Raydān, Ḥadramawt, and Yamnat.” _ fourth century ce, the Ḥimyarites launched raids throughDuring the out the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula and progressively extended their influence, to the detriment of the Arab kings in the Euphrates River valley, who were tributaries of the Sassanids. Around 420–40 ce, they annexed central and western Arabia. The title of their king then became “King of Sabaʾ, dhū Raydān, Ḥadramawt, Yamnat, and the Arabs of the highlands and the coast.” From this _point forward, Ḥimyar was an empire with a dual base of both the ancient peoples of South Arabia and those living in the deserts of Arabia, who were called “Arabs.” religious reform This rapid territorial expansion by the kingdom of Ḥimyar clearly increased the linguistic, cultural, and religious heterogeneity of the population. Traditionally, the distribution of religious practices was identical to the distribution of the tribes: each tribe had its own divinities who were worshipped during public ceremonies. Yet the formation of new tribal

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 297 entities progressively shattered the link between tribe and religious practice. This rupture engendered a crisis revealed both by the sudden decrease during the fourth century of the number of inscriptions commemorating offerings in temples and by the rise of movement to cease invoking polytheistic divinities in other inscriptions. At the same time, invocations to a single god made their appearance. A radical religious reform occurred in the years prior to 384 ce, when the Ḥimyarite dynasty officially adopted a new religion. While the doctrinal foundations of this new religion were formulated with quite vague wording in royal inscriptions, they appeared more clearly in inscriptions composed by individuals, in their blessings, prayers addressed to God, and vocabulary. The conversion of Ḥimyar took place during the reign of the king Malkīkarib Yuhaʾmin, who was co-regent with his sons Abīkarib Asʿad and Dharaʾʾamar Ayman. As it is clearly very difficult to understand the extent of this conversion, we only may note that the majority of princely families in the mountains of Yemen followed this new religion and that it is plausible that their tribes did the same. THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW R E L I G I O N O F Ḥ I M Y A R

The more remarkable innovations presented by this new religion are the appearance of a single god with multiple names who starkly differed from the innumerable divinities of the past, the institution of a new cultic center, and the emergence of a new social grouping named “Israel.” single god A single god replaces the earlier polytheistic divinities in South Arabia, including Almaqah (the great god of Sabaʾ), Sayīn (the great god of Ḥadramawt), ʿAthtar (the supreme god of the South Arabians), and many _ This single god was referred to in many ways by combining two others. elements. While the first element is initially a name (“god”),6 beginning from around 420 ce, this name tends to be replaced by the theonym Rahmānān. The second element is a minor descriptive phrase of the type, _ as “the Master of Heaven,”7 “the Lord of Heaven,”8 “the Lord of such Heaven and Earth,”9 “He who holds the Earth and Heaven,”10 and even 6

7

The most common name is the singular Īlān (“god” in the Sabaic of Himyar). The singular ilāhān (“god” in Sabaic) is rarely found, while the plural aʾlāhān (which likely is linked to the Hebrew elôhim) appears once. 8 9 10 Bʿl S¹myn. Mrʾ S¹myn. Mrʾ S¹myn w ʾrd n. ḏ l hw S¹myn w ʾrd n. _ _

298 christian julien robin once, “the God of Israel.”11 Although this God is fundamentally a celestial power, it quickly becomes clear that the God on high equally rules the here below: he is the “Lord of Heaven and Earth, who has created all things.”12 All of these names scattered throughout various categories of inscriptions are interchangeable synonyms. The name Rahmānān, which is found in Qurʾānic Arabic in the form _ to the idea of “mercy.” Such a quality was hardly al-Rahmān, refers _ associated with the idea of God in early Judaism; only in late antiquity did this appear with the theonym Rahmana, common in the Babylonian _ Talmud, rarer in the Jerusalem Talmud, and attested in the Aramaic Targums. This theonym is also found in Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Syriac (but only in relation to Christian Ḥimyarites).13 In the kingdom of Ḥimyar, the name of Rahmānān is sometimes _ 523 that is certainly specified with an adjective. In a text dating to July ad 14 Jewish, he is described as “Most High,” while the adjective “merciful” appears in a text whose religious orientation is not explicit.15 Finally, in a text dating to the Christian period, which may nonetheless indicate some Judaizing, we find “Rahmānān the king” or “Rahmānān who rules.”16 _ _ 11 13

14 16

12 ʾlh Ys³r[ʾl] (SR Naʿd 9). Mrʾ S¹myn w ʾrd n ḏ brʾ klm. _ in the Qurʾān and the idea of mercy _ The connection between one of the names for God poses an interesting problem. Muhammad, son of ʿAbdallāh, the prophet of Islam, begins his mission with apocalyptic_ overtones that announce the end of time and the final judgment; in such a context, these are the concepts of anger and strict justice that are associated with God. The adoption of al Rahmān as the name of God (or one name of God) likely betrays a shift that perhaps relates _to the foundation of a theocratic state at Medina in 622 ce. From this point, the end of time is no longer as close as previously believed, since God appears to have been compassionate; Muhammad, who is occupied with the proper functioning of his community, gives himself _time. 15 Rhmnn ʿlyn in Ja 1028/11. Rhmnn mtrhmn, in Fa 74/3. _ n mlkn, Ja 547 + 546 + 544 + 545/14, _ _ Rhmn November 558 ce. Remarkably, the names of a _ single God evolve in a fashion similar to the inscriptions of the kingdom of Himyar, to those of the kingdom of Aksūm (in the north of present day Ethiopia), and to the discourse of Muhammad. In the inscriptions of the Aksūmite ʿEzānā, after the official _ king to Christianity around the beginning of the 360s, are found conversion of this rather neutral designations, in which numerous religious orientations may be recognized and which were liable to find general support. We notably encounter a God who acts as a celestial power: “The Lord of Heaven, who is victorious for me in Heaven and on Earth” (ʾəgziʾa samāy [za ba] samāy wa mədr mawāʾi lita), then shortened to “The Lord of Heaven” (ʾəgziʾa samāy), “The Lord of the Universe” (ʾəgziʾa kwəlu), and “The Lord of the Earth” (ʾəgziʾa bəher); cf. RIÉth 189 in vocalized Geʿez and RIÉth 190 in South _ Arabian script. One of these appellations, ʾəgziʾa bəher, gradually imposed itself and _ became the proper name of God for Christians in Ethiopia. It was only in the sixth century that belief in the Trinity is strongly affirmed in RIÉth 191 (King Kālēb, c. 500), RIÉth 195 (probably King Kālēb, c. 530), and RIÉth 192 (King Waʿzeb, in the 540s or 550s). In the teachings of Muhammad, God is named in two ways, first by many small _

judaism in pre-islamic arabia the mikrab : a new place of worship

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The new religion had its own “place of worship,” an expression whose meaning we will discuss later. In polytheistic inscriptions, places of worship were designated by a series of terms, the most common of which were mahram (“sanctuary”) and bayt (“temple”). From 380 until around 500, the_ place of worship was consistently called mikrāb. After 500, two new names appear, bīʿat and qalīs, both of which mean “church,” the first borrowed from the Syraic biʿoto (“the top of an arch,” which derives from the word “egg”), and the second from the Greek ekklêsia (which has been transmitted to Italian as chiesa and to French as église). They replace the term mikrāb, which is no longer attested after 530. The expression “place of worship” should be understood as a generic designation for all monuments and all consecrated spaces where individual or collective religious rituals (oracular consultations, offerings, sacrifices, prayers, atonements) were practiced, whether or not they were performed at specific times. Many places of worship have other functions – notably for the study, teaching, or accommodation of travelers; some serve as banks for the faithful or play a role in the local economy and the like. Nevertheless, these secondary functions are very difficult to define. In the case of the mikrāb, the actual functions are never explicitly mentioned by the sources. They are not even verifiable by archaeological observation, since no mikrāb has yet been identified. The assumption that a building in the port of Qanīʾ (Ḥadramawt) was a synagogue rests on unconclusive and tenuous evidence.17 _ vocalization of the Sabaic mkrb certainly is mikrāb, as surmised from The attestations of the word among the dialects of Yemen conveyed by two travelers of the nineteenth century, Eduard Glaser and Ḥayyim Ḥabshūsh. The noun mikrāb is a term particular to Sabaic; if it is also attested in Geʿez (Classical Ethiopian) in the form məkwrāb (with the meaning of “synagogue” or “Temple in Jerusalem”), it is probably a loanword from Sabaic.18

17 18

descriptive phrases, such as “Lord of the Heavens” (Rabb al Samawāt), “Lord of the Seven Heavens” (Rabb al Samawāt al Sabʿ), “Lord of the Heavens and the Earth” (Rabb al Samawāt wa l Ard ), “Lord of the Earth” (Rabb al Ard ), “Lord of Sirius” (Rabb al _ Shiʿrā), “Lord of Power” (Rabb al ʿIzza), “Lord of the East_ and the West and everything between” (Rabb al Mashriq wa l Maghrib wa mā bayna humā), or “Lord of the Easts and the Wests” (Rabb al Mashāriq wa l Maghārib), and then by one of two proper names, Allāh or al Rahmān. These two proper names are finally united in the formula _ (“Allah [who is] al Rahmān the compassionate,” reinterpreted Allāh al Rahmān al rahīm _ _ by Muslim theologians in “Allah, the merciful, _the compassionate”). Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 9 and 67 68. Wolf Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic). Geʿez English/English Geʿez with an Index of the Semitic Roots (Wiesbaden, 1987), 341, classifies məkwrāb under the root MKRB (and not under the root KRB), since the noun is an isolate.

300 christian julien robin The meaning of the root KRB, to which belong the noun mikrāb and other words in South Arabian languages, notably the title of mkrb (with the traditional vocalization of mukarrib) held by powerful leaders (“kings of kings”) in South Arabia and Ethiopia, has long been discussed. It is reasonably certain now that KRB expresses the idea “to bless” both in monotheistic texts and in earlier polytheistic texts.19 The more certain attestations are found in salutations at the beginning of letters, copies of which are preserved on wooden sticks.20 The noun mkrb thus may denote a “place of blessing.” The root KRB in Sabaic clearly is related to the root BRK in Hebrew and Arabic, which also expresses the concept “to bless” and is one of the more certain examples of metathesis in a Semitic root. Sabaic is likely the only language in which the two roots are attested at the same time, both the local root KRB and the root borrowed from JudeoAramaic BRK during the monotheistic period. The attestations of the noun mikrāb currently number ten. Used six times to describe something built by a prominent individual (e.g., a king or a prince), mikrāb thus certainly relates to a public building.21 One text specifies that a mikrāb with the name of Yaʿūq22 contained an assembly hall and porticoes.23 A second text, unfortunately fragmentary, suggests that another mikrāb included a kneset, apparently another type of assembly hall.24 Concerning the five extant proper names for a mikrāb, three derive from Hebrew and Judeo-Aramaic: S ̣ūrīʾīl (appearing once)25 from the Hebrew S ̣ûrîʾēl (“God is my rock”)26 and Barîk (appearing twice) from the Aramaic barîk (“Blessed”).27 The mikrāb is the only South Arabian building for which a proper name of foreign origin is attested. One mikrāb is located in a cemetery reserved for Jews. The related inscription (Figure 9.3)28 converts four parcels of land into an inalienable property dedicated to God in order to create a cemetery specifically for 19

20

21

22

23 25 27

Abraham J. Drewes, “The Meaning of Sabaean mkrb, Facts and Fictions,” Semitica 51 (2001), 93 125. For a polytheistic example, see “May the [divine] Patron [namely, the god Aranyadaʿ of Nashshān] bless you,” w S²ymn (2) l krbn k (YM 11738 = X TYA 15/1 2). For a monotheistic example, see “May Rahmānān who is in Heaven bless your power with good fortune and well being,” w R_hmnn ḏ b S¹myn l ykrbn (4) thrg kmw b nʿmtm _ _ w wfym (X.SBS 141 = Mon.script.sab 6/3). Two mikrāb were constructed by kings (Ja 856 and YM 1200) and four by princes, either certainly (Ry 520 and Ry 534 + Rayda 1) or likely (CIH 152 + 151 and Gl 1194). Ry 520. In the Qurʾān and the scholarly tradition of Muslim Arabs, Yaʿūq is a polytheistic divinity. The existence of a link between the name of the mikrāb and the theonym is unknown. 24 The terms in Sabaic are ms³wd etʾs¹qf. YM 1200/7 (kns¹t . . .). 26 MAFRAY Hasī 1 (Swryʾl). This is a personal name found in Numbers 3:35. 28 _ Ry 534 + Rayda 1 (ll. 1 and 5, Brk and Bryk). Ja 856 (Bryk) and MAFRAY Hasī 1. _

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 35°

40°

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35°

Ugarit

Dimashq

jabal Usays (al ṢAFĀ )

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JĀZ) -ḤI (al TIHĀMA Makka 20°

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Place-name known only in the Islamic period Place-name known only in Greek Town or village Various sites (mountain, well, locality, residence) Extent of the principality of Kinda

Figure 9.1 Ancient Arabia

Jews. It stipulates that a fourth parcel was added to the three parcels and to the well that already had been given over to the mikrāb S ̣uriel. We thus learn that this mikrāb, which was entrusted to a guardian (hazzān), earning _ a living from the well, owned property. The word mikrāb is not the translation of any terms in Greek, such as proseuchê (“prayer”) or sunagôgê (“gathering”), Hebrew, or Judeo-Aramaic

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Region Community or tribe Town, village Place name Princely family who headed a community Name in the present day or in Arabic manuscripts

Figure 9.2 Yemen

Figure 9.3 Inscription of Hasī establishing a cemetery reserved for Jews (beginning of the _ fifth century ce)

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 303 (kneset, kneshet) used to denote a synagogue. We may conclude that the mikrāb is an original institution and not simply the copy of one from the Mediterranean Jewish Diaspora; Ḥimyarite Judaism developed its own organization. a new social entity named “israel” With this new religion, a new social grouping named “Israel” appeared, mentioned in three inscriptions invoking “their community Israel.”29 One of the individuals who commissioned these inscriptions was Ḥimyarite in origin and another of foreign extraction, while the name of the individual in the third fragmentary text is lost. As the reference to Israel in these inscriptions seems to replace earlier invocations to the “community” (shaʿb, appellation of sedentary tribes of Southern Arabia) of origin, we may hypothesize that the Jews, as well as their sympathizers (or some of them), were united within a new social grouping named the “community Israel.” This “community Israel” likely was conceived of as a means to unify society by overcoming tribal divisions, although it only is attested in the comopolitan milieu of the capital. In the provinces, local power always was held by princes, who never failed to mention the communities (which were flourishing) on which their authority depended. This new grouping – whose name suggests that it is based on religion – was not simply a new community, but has an almost supernatural dimension as when its name appears between two names for God in a blessing that begins a text: May the name of Rahmānān who is in heaven, Israel and (2) His/their God,30 the Lord of the Jews, who_ has come to the aid of his servant, bless and be blessed . . .31

The name “Israel” given to this new social grouping is not insignificant but likely expresses the hopes for the restoration of the historical Israel. We also see that “Israel” very possibly came from Jews of Judean origin, since these Jews called themselves in this way when they were together. Consistently, in the invocations, the “community Israel” is mentioned before the king.

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See Garb Bayt al Ashwal 1, ZM 2000, and Garb Framm. 7. The grammar does not allow for the identification of God as that of Israel (a collective that agrees with the plural) or that of the text’s authors. [b]rk w tbrk s¹m Rhmnn ḏ b S¹myn w Ys³rʾl w (2)ʾlh hmw Rb Yhd ḏ hrdʾ ʿbd hmw . . . _ A + B). The numbers in parentheses indicate the line number. (CIH 543 = ZM 772

304 christian julien robin A fourth occurrence of Israel,32 alluded to earlier, is found in an entirely different context: an individual from the princely class, who was commemorating the construction of a palace, invokes “[God or Rahmānān,] Master _ of Heaven, God of Israel.” The commissioner of this text, which dates from the 430s or 460s, is again a Ḥimyarite (and not an exile from Judea). one and the same monotheistic religion? We must confirm that all of these inscriptions indeed refer to one and the same faith. At first glance, the variety of names given to God would suggest a corresponding diversity, rather than unity, of religious groups, but it quickly becomes clear that these names are interchangeable since two or more may be used in the same text.33 Furthermore, the unity of this corpus is founded on the notable differences presented by this group of inscriptions, not only with the inscriptions that precede but also with those that follow, namely, Christian inscriptions from the period 530–60 ce. Significantly, these Christian inscriptions are unified by a new way of designating God and a new name for the cult place. Finally, we do not find in the new religion any term or element of doctrine that allows us to isolate a group of inscriptions and to oppose it to another, except for the fact that the royal inscriptions are more laconic than the others – an observation whose significance we will discuss later. There is, therefore, no reason to believe that the inscriptions from the period 380–530 ce do not form a homogeneous group. They very likely refer to one and the same religion. JUDAISM (RATHER THAN A RELIGION INSPIRED BY JUDAISM)

This religion clearly was a Judaism that revered the Temple and the priesthood and did not believe in the resurrection. Lexical, onomastic, and doctrinal clues allow us to situate the new religion within the religious panorama of the Near East (polytheistic, Jewish, Christian, Manichaean, Gnostic, or Zoroastrian). Many of these clues indicate great proximity to Judaism alone. Although some of these clues orient the new religion 32 33

SR Naʿd 9. _ For instance, we find in the same text: Rahmānān and “the Lord of Heaven” (ZM 5+8 +10); Rahmānān and the “Lord of the Jews”_ (Ry 515; Ja 1028; CIH 543 = ZM 772 A + B); _ and “Īlān, master of Heaven and Earth”; Rahmānān and “Īlān who holds Rahmānān _ _ Heaven and Earth” (Ja 1028); and Rahmānān and “Aʾlāhān who holds Heaven and _ Earth” (Ry 508).

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 305 toward Christianity as much as to Judaism, none suggests a link with Christianity or another alone. The scholarly tradition of Muslim Arabs, whose reliability has been strongly challenged in the last four decades, rightly argued that ancient Yemen “in its entirety” had become Jewish and that the king who had introduced Judaism to Yemen was named Abūkarib Asʿad.

the evidence of judaism The texts explicitly mentioning the presence of Jews within the kingdom of Ḥimyar are not many. The most significant is a rock inscription at Ḥasī (near the city of al-Baydāʾ, 210 km southwest of S ̣anʿāʾ) that established _a _ and forbidden to pagans: cemetery reserved for Jews [The prince of the local community] has grant(3)ed to the Lord of Heaven four plots of land, beside this rock, going down (4) to the fence of the land under cultivation, for the burial of Jews, with the assurance that (5) the burial of a non Jew among them will be prevented, so that they may fulfill their obligations to the Jews.34

In addition, a graffito of uncertain date is carved on a desert rock by a passerby who declares himself yahūdī (“Judean” or “Jew”).35 What we have above all is a substantial collection of texts proving, or at least strongly suggesting, that the religion of those who commissioned them was Judaism. The most convincing are the four attestations of the name of Israel (Ys³rʾl) and the three attestations of the phrase “Lord of the Jews,” to which I will return. To these we may add the discovery of two texts in Hebrew, the first of which is a small graffito, carved in the monogram of a monumental inscription (Figure 9.4). The commissioner of this inscription who commemorated the construction of a palace in the capital Z ̣afār, Yəhûdâ Yakkuf, was a Jew (as suggested by his name, the allusion to Israel, lexical borrowing from Judeo-Aramaic, and Hebrew graffito) likely from the Diaspora but close to royal power, since he belonged to the entourage of a co-regent who ruled between 375 and 420 ce (Figure 9.5). The second text in Hebrew, to which we also will return, is a substantial fragment from the list of priestly families (or the list of “guards,” mishmarot) who were appointed to serve in the Temple in 34

35

. . . gz(3)r l Mrʾ S¹myn ʾrb(ʿ) ʿbrtm ʿbrn ḏn zrn wrd (4) ṯw hzr gntn l qtbr b hn ʾyhdn w b __ hymntm b(5)n qtbr b hmw ʾrmym d l ywfynn_ l ʾyhdn (MAFRAY Hasī 1). yhwdy, Eskoubi 2000 C1, Zahrān of the South (in southwest _ Saudi Arabia). See Alexander Sima, “Juden und al ʿUzzā Verehrer. Neue Lesung zweier altsüdarabischer Graffiti aus Saudi Arabien,” Archäologische Berichte aus dem Yemen 10 (2005), 175 77.

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Figure 9.4 Inscription of a Jew from the Diaspora named Yəhûdâ (Judah) Yakkuf commemorating the construction of a palace in the capital, Zafār (c. 400 ce)

Jerusalem (Figure 9.6),36 whose date is uncertain. The ritual exclamations amen and shalom37 provide additional support, but only the written form s¹lwm with the mater lectionis /w/ surely indicates Judaism because amen and salām38 are found in Christian inscriptions. Ḥimyarite onomastics include a name, Yəhûdâ, which is always Jewish, and two others, Joseph (Yūsuf ) and Isaac (Yishāq/Ishāq), which may be _ __ Jewish or Christian.39 The majority of lexical borrowings from Aramaic show provenance as much from Judeo-Aramaic as from Christian Aramaic Syriac. Two of these, which express the ideas of “prayer” (salāt) and “favor” or “(divine) grace” _ they are found 200 years later in the (zakāt),40 are particularly interesting, as Qurʾān with the sense of “prayer” (Arabic, salāt) and “obligatory almsgiving” _ 36 37 39

40

DJE 23 (from the village of Bayt Hādir, 15 km east of Sanʿāʾ). 38 Sabaic ʾmn and s¹lwm. Sabaic_ ʾmn and s¹lm. Isaac may be written in two ways, Yis hāq, which derives exactly from Hebrew, and Ishāq, __ _ which comes from Aramaic and is found in Arabic during the pre Islamic and Islamic periods. It would seem that Yis hāq is used by Jews and Ishāq by Christians. In this __ regard, the preservation of the initial /y/ (which is replaced by_ a glottal stop in Aramaic and Arabic) also appears in the name Ys³rʾl. Sabaic slt and zkt. _

judaism in pre-islamic arabia

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Figure 9. 5 Detail from the inscription of Yəhûdâ Yakkuf (Figure 9.4): graffito in Hebrew, inscribed by Yəhûdâ himself, within the central monogram

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Figure 9.6 The list of mishmarôt (priestly families serving in the Temple in Jerusalem) found in the mosque of Bayt Hādir (Yemen) _

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 309 41 (Arabic, zakāt), which today form two of the five pillars of Islam. This does not mean that these Aramaic terms were borrowed by Ḥimyar and that they passed from there into Arabic,42 as the means of transmission are varied, but it is nevertheless remarkable that these terms in the Qurʾān had already taken root in Yemen long before the arrival of Islam. Finally, epigraphic texts prove movement between Ḥimyar and Palestine and a great attachment by certain Ḥimyarites to the Land of Israel. One such example is the tomb belonging to the “Ḥimyarites” in a collective burial site at Bet Sheʿarim in the Galilee.43 In addition, a funerary stela, composed in Aramaic, likely comes from a necropolis near the Dead Sea, whose author, Yoseh son of Awfà, died in the city of Ṭafar [= Z ̣afār] (3) in the Land of the Ḥimyarites, departed (4) for the Land of Israel and was buried the day (5) of the eve of the Sabbath, the twenty ninth (6) day of the month of Tammuz, the first (7) year of the sabbatical cycle, equal (8) to the year [400] after the destruction of the Temple.44

The conversion of Ḥimyar to Judaism was not a mere interlude between polytheism and, after a brief period of Christianity, Islam; it left a lasting mark in Yemen. The political and economic strength of the Jewish community remained important until the seventeenth century.45 We have a negative illustration of this influence in the works of the greatest Yemeni scholar, al-Ḥasan al-Hamdānī (893–after 970 ce). Describing Yemen and Arabia, al-Hamdānī demonstrates a striking religious neutrality, in contrast to all Arab literary production, as if he wished to show that, in Yemeni history, Muhammad and Islam simply represented one age following many _ others.

a judaism that seems different from rabbinic judaism If inscriptions reveal that Ḥimyar converted to Judaism, it is appropriate to ask what type of Judaism. The dominant opinion has long been that 41

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The five pillars are the profession of faith, pilgrimage to Mecca, fasting during Ramadān, _ prayer (salāt), and almsgiving (zakāt). _ The written forms in Sabaic, slt and zkt, do not account for the wāw that appears in the Arabic written form (slwt and_ zkwt). _ en Arabie,” 68 and 193 94; Rony Reich, “The Himyarite Tomb Robin, “Quel judaïsme in the Jewish Necropolis of Beth Sheʿarim: An Introductory Note,” in Robin, Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique, 423 36. Naveh Epitaph of Yoseh = Naveh Suʿar 24, cf. Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 192 93 and Fig. 40. See Bat Zion Eraqi Klorman, The Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century (Leiden, 1993), who is particularly interested in messianism among Jews in Yemen.

310 christian julien robin subsequent to the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 ce, the chief strain of Judaism was Rabbinic Judaism (even if still in formation) and the various sects in the period prior to the destruction (Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots) – well-known thanks to Josephus – did not survive the fall of Jerusalem. In recent decades, however, scholars have gradually asserted the hypothesis that several branches of Judaism are recognizable. Consequently, “rabbinization” would not be the immediate result of the destruction of the Second Temple, but rather a long process that only concluded at the very end of late antiquity or the foundation of Islam. Yet even if we accept the latter hypothesis, opinions strongly diverge regarding the number, definition, and name (Rabbinic, Scriptural, Priestly, Hellenistic, Synagogal, etc.) of these groups. To better understand the Judaism of Ḥimyar, we must study the doctrinal elements that were shared or differed between each branch, although investigative possibilities are limited due to the brevity of epigraphical texts. Nevertheless, on at least one point of doctrine, namely, the question of resurrection after death, the Judaism of Ḥimyar seems to differ from Rabbinic Judaism, as illustrated by six inscriptions that end with the wishes concerning the end of their authors’ lives, none of which mentions resurrection. In the first text, elite individuals (otherwise unknown), who were commemorating the construction of their palace in the capital of Ḥimyar, end their text with the prayer: “with the help of Rahmānān, _ master of Heaven, so that He may grant them (8) a pure beginning and 46 end, āmēn.” The authors thus ask God to watch over their life on earth and especially its end, yet they request nothing after their death, suggesting that they did not believe in an afterlife. Two other documents lead us to the same conclusion, the first of which commemorates the construction of a mikrāb by a princely family from the region of S ̣anʿāʾ. The prince explains the reasons for his patronage: “so that Rahmānān may grant that he, as well as his wi(6)fe and his children, lives a just_ life and (7) dies a just death, and so that Rahmānān may grant to him _ of Rahmānān.”47 The honorable children(8), in service for the name author of the second document, the aforementioned Jew_ Judah Yakkuf, who does not seem to originally come from Ḥimyar, commemorates the construction of a palace in the capital. In his prayers, Judah seeks to emphasize the main traits of the God in whom he believes: “With the

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b (7)rdʾ Rhmnn bʿl S¹myn l ẖmr (8)hmw qdmm w ʿḏ(r)m ks³h(m ʾ)mn (Garb Nuove _ _ iscrizioni 4). l ẖmr hw w ʾhs¹kt (6)hw w wld hw Rhmnn hyy hyw sdqm w (7)mwt mwt sdqm w l ẖmr _ m slhm s¹b m l s¹m R_hmnn _(Ry _520)._ _ hw Rhmnn wld(8) _ _ __

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 311 help and grace of the Lord who created him, the Lord of life and death, the Lord of H(3)eaven and Earth, who has created all things.”48 Once again, the afterlife is not mentioned, while death is mentioned after life, as if it were the ultimate end. This argument ex silentio should not be dismissed; presumably the afterlife is a perpetual concern for those who believe in it. Another document, a bilingual funerary stela in Aramaic and Sabaic of unknown provenance, is more ambiguous. The fact that the text in JudeoAramaic is presented before the Sabaic text beneath suggests that the stela comes from a Jewish necropolis of the Near East and not of Yemen.49 The document is unclear, since the first text explicitly mentions the resurrection, while the second does not. The Aramaic text reads, May her soul (rest) in eternal life (3), and she will rest and will remain (ready) for the resurrection at the en(4)d of days. Amen and amen. Peace (shalom).

The Sabaic text follows, “May Rahmānān grant her repose. (7) Amen, _ peace (shalom).”50 This difference in form most likely suggests that the inscriber was content to recopy the formulae that he had at hand or that the family requesting the epitaph had provided to him. This would mean that the Ḥimyarite Jews did not believe in the afterlife (or were not accustomed to mention it in their funerary inscriptions), whereas the Jews of the Levant did. We must set aside the aforementioned funerary stela in Aramaic for Yoseh son of Awf à, because we do not know if it concerns the religious beliefs of Ḥimyarite Jews: “May the soul of Yoseh son (2) of Awf à, who died in the city of Ṭafar (3) in the land of the Ḥimyarites and set out (4) for the land of Israel, find rest.”51 If the deceased died in the land of the Ḥimyarites, nothing proves that he himself was Ḥimyarite (at most, we may note that he had an Arab patronymic). No allusion, however, is made to the resurrection. A final Ḥimyarite inscription bears mention, though it also poses problems of interpretation. Inscribed during the reign of the Christian 48

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b rdʾ w b zkt Mrʾ hw ḏ brʾ nfs¹ hw Mrʾ hyn w mwtn Mrʾ S¹(3)myn w ʾrd n ḏ brʾ klm _ _ (Garb Bayt al Ashwal 1). Naveh Épitaphe de Leʾah. The hypothesis that this epitaph is a forgery cannot be completely discarded but seems unlikely. The Sabaic text with no known model is perfectly acceptable. Aramaic text: nšmt h l hyy ʿwlm (3) w tnwh w tʿmwd l gwrl hyym lqs (4) h ymyn ʾmn w _ ʾmn s¹lwm (Naveh _ Épitaphe _ de Leʾah). ʾmn šlwm. Sabaic text: _l nhn hw Rhmnn (7) _ d gz b _Tfr mdynth (3) b ʾrʿhwn d Hmyrʾy w nfq (4) l ʾrʿh d ttnyh nfšh d Ywsh br (2) ʾwfy Yśrʾl_ (Naveh Épitaphe de Yoseh = Naveh Suʿar 24).

312 christian julien robin king Abraha, it dates to a period when Christianity was the only religion that could be expressed publicly. The individuals who commissioned the inscription actually present themselves as Christians, as they have added a small cross to the end of lines 10, 13, and 14. Their Christianity, however, is obviously quite unenthusiastic, since the crosses are very discreet and placed in such a manner as to be taken as letters. It is also notable that they do not invoke the Trinity but “Rahmānān, Lord of Heaven and _ the sponsors of this inscripEarth” and “Rahmānān the king.”52 Finally, _ tion were from dhū Hamdān, a heavily Judaized community. This distinctive text, which also differs due to an irregular writing style, concludes with the following prayer: “May (Rahmānān) grant them an honorable life (14) and the pleasure of Rahmānān.”_53 Since all Jewish inscriptions fail to mention life after death, the_ absence of such an allusion in this inscription would not be remarkable if those who commissioned it were Jews. Yet if they were indeed Christians, we may simply conclude that in Yemen, the afterlife was not a theme cited in epigraphical texts. It would be unlikely that, if these individuals were Christians, they did not believe in the last judgment and in the resurrection, both essential in their profession of faith.54 All of these texts available to us seem to show that the afterlife was not a concern for the Jews of Ḥimyar, who likely did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yet, according to the Mishnah, those who denied the resurrection were excluded from the world to come: “These are those who have no portion in the world to come: He who says that there is no resurrection, that the Torah does not come from Heaven, and an apikoros (Epicurean) . . .”55 According to the rabbis, the most severe punishment was reserved for “sectarians (minim), apostates (meshumadim), traitors (mesorot), apikorsim, those who have denied (the divine origin) of the Torah, those who have strayed from the paths of the community, those who have doubted the resurrection of the dead, those who have sinned, those who have made the community (ha-rabbim) to sin, as did Jeroboam and Ahab, those who have made terror to rule on the land of the living, _ who have stretched out their hand against the dwelling place and those

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Rhmnn mrʾ s¹my(n) w ʾrd (8)n and Rhmnn mlkn (Ja 547 + 546 + 544 + 545, Maʾrib, _ _ November 558, lines 7 8 _and 10). l ẖmr hmw hywm ks³hm (14) w mrd ytm l Rhmnn cross (Ja 547 + 546 + 544 + 545, lines _ _ _ _ 13 14). The inscription MAFRAY Hasī 1, which establishes a cemetery reserved for Jews, is not mentioned in this list, since _its purpose was mainly legal. The author of this text therefore would have no reason to allude to the afterlife. Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1, ms. Kaufman (I thank José Costa for this reference).

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 313 56 (i.e., the Temple).” This is the first clue demonstrating that the Judaism of Ḥimyar was not Rabbinic Judaism. We should reiterate that one of the main causes of rebuke directed by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, to his opponents, generally believed to _ be adherents of the ancient religion of Mecca, was their lack of belief in the final judgment and the resurrection. Yet the example of the Ḥimyarite Jews who did not believe in the resurrection shows that among these adversaries there certainly may have been believers of other monotheistic faiths. After the conversion of Arabia to Islam, the transformation was immediate: in the earliest Muslim Arabic inscriptions of Arabia, the author frequently “seeks Paradise.” A second point of doctrine that distinguished the Judaism of Ḥimyar from Rabbinic Judaism is the question of dualism or bitheism. This controversial point emerges from a single enigmatic inscription: “May the name of Rahmānān who is in Heaven, Israel, and (2) their God,57 _ the Lord of the Jews, who has helped their servant Shahrum, (3) his mother m um Bd , his wife Shams , their chil(4)dren (together) Ḍmm, ʾbs²ʿr and Msr _ (5)m, bless and be blessed . . .”58 The introductory blessing includes God (“Rahmānān who is in Heaven”), Israel, and the “Lord of the Jews” (Rabb _ – i.e., two divine entities and Israel. This may well be an example Yahūd) of the belief, denounced by the rabbis, in “two powers in the Heavens.”59 This blessing also encourages us to think about the relation between Rahmānān and the “Lord of the Jews” found in two other prayers: _ of the Jews, with the One who is Praised”60 and “Lord of the “Lord Jews, with Rahmānān.”61 _ observe that the authors of these three texts using the We only may name “Lord of the Jews” (Rabb Yahūd)62 are almost certainly Ḥimyarites in origin and that they all invoke the divinity in succession under two different names, as if they were two separate divinities: the “Lord of the 56 58

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57 Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:5 (a reference also provided by José Costa). See note 30. [b]rk w tbrk s¹m Rhmnn ḏ b S¹myn w Ys³rʾl w (2)’lh hmw Rb Yhd ḏ hrdʾ ʿbd hmw S²hrm w (3)ʾm hw Bdm w_ hs²kt hw S²ms¹m w ʾl(4)wd hmy Dmm w ʾbs²ʿr w Msr(5)m . . . (CIH _ _ 543 = ZM 772 A + B). Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden, 2002). Rb hd b Mhmd (Ja 1028/12). The vocalization of Mhmd may equally be Muhammad or _ _ Mahmūd. _ n _ Rb hwd b Rhmn (Ry 515). The written_ form in Sabaic (Rb Yhd, Rb Hd, and Rb hwd), which varies greatly, likely derives from a foreign form. The mater lectionis notably appears very infrequently and quite late in Sabaic. We thus may see here the influence of pre Islamic Arabic orthography.

314 christian julien robin Jews” and Rahmānān or the “Lord of the Jews” and Mhmd. In fact, it is _ unlikely that such a name was used by Jews of Judean _origin, since they preferred “Israel” to Yahūd when referring to themselves. The term “Jew” is used above all by non-Jews; when used by Jews, it is in conversation with individuals outside of the community. The theonym Mhmd, found once, means the “One who is (greatly) _ Praised.” It can be vocalized Mahmūd or Muhammad (as in the prophet of _ epithet is_ connected to the enigmatic Islam). It may be the case that this Ḥmd-Rhb, who also is found once in the expression “Rahmanān and Ḥmd_ ḤMD.63 _ Rhb,” since Mhmd and Ḥmd are linked to the same root, _ To identify _the branch of ancient Judaism to which Ḥimyar adhered, we should further note that some other characteristics were shared with the Judaisms of the Mediterranean world and others were not. The Jews of Ḥimyar, as those of the Mediterranean, wrote in the local language and writing system (and not in Hebrew, a language that was strictly confined to devotional usages).64 Conversely, the Judaism of Ḥimyar differed from Mediterranean and Levantine Judaisms by the absence of the menorah and other symbols customary in the synagogues of Galilee and elsewhere.65 A final unique trait of Ḥimyarite Judaism is the famous list of mishmarot (or “guards”) of Bayt Ḥādir mentioned above, which enumerates the twenty-four priestly families_ who would have been appointed to serve as priests in the Temple in Jerusalem after the return from Babylonian exile in the Persian period, and includes with family names their place of residence in the Galilee. There is little doubt that this list came from groups who sought the restoration of the Temple and that it served to legitimize the priestly ambitions of lineages rooted in the Galilee. Yemen is the only place outside the Land of Israel where such a list has been inscribed in stone. Given that epigraphy was expensive, such a detail is significant. Explaining why such a document was reproduced in Yemen demands conjecture. The list may have had a symbolic meaning, such as the public affirmation of an unfailing attachment to the Temple or the belief that the priests alone could legitimately lead the community. It could also have been used as an instrument of propaganda for the benefit of priestly families actually present in Yemen. Although the list of the mishmarot of Bayt Ḥādir cannot be dated with any specificity, if it belongs to a period of _ intense power struggles within Judaism, it very likely dates to the period 380–530 ce. 63

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“With the aid of Rahmānān and (4) Hmd rhb,” b nsr Rhmnn w (4)Hmd rhb (Robin _ _ _ _ Viallard 1 = Ja 3205). _ 65 Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 64 101. Ibid., 151 54.

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 315 In addition to the list of the mishmarot, the fact that the Judaism of Ḥimyar used biblical and not Aramaic orthography (the latter from postbiblical texts) for proper names gives the impression it was composed by conservative elements within the community not only attached to the Temple, but also to the text of Scripture. Given that Ḥimyarite Jews seem to have shared an unbelief in the resurrection with the Saducees – the priestly faction at the end of the Second Temple period – it seems justified to consider Ḥimyarite Judaism as “priestly,” more so since it in no way resembles Rabbinic Judaism. The situation in Ḥimyar was quite different than that in Yathrib in the seventh century. Haggai Mazuz recently has convincingly shown that the Judaism of this oasis shared numerous characteristics with Rabbinic Judaism.66 We therefore may suppose that the Jews of northwest Arabia did not choose the same doctrinal viewpoints as those of South Arabia. Onomastic evidence supports this point as there were differences in this area between Ḥimyar and the communities of the Ḥijāz. As we shall see, recognizably “Jewish” names are quite exceptional in the South, whereas they appear frequently in the North. This may well be because the Jewish communities of the Ḥijāz welcomed a great number of exiles from the Land of Israel or Egypt who preserved their traditional names and introduced them into Arabia. In contrast, Yemenite Jewish onomastic practices do not differ from those of non-Jewish Ḥimyarites, likely explained by the fact that converts were markedly more numerous than Jews of Judean origin.67 We may extrapolate from the onomastic evidence to suggest that these two parts of Arabia, more than a thousand kilometers distant from one another, also differed in other areas, especially at the doctrinal level. However, given the demographic and political dominance of Ḥimyar throughout the Arabian Peninsula, perhaps from the middle of the fourth century and surely from the first decades of the fifth, it is difficult to imagine that the Judaism of Ḥimyar, the only Jewish state, would not have been the reference and model for Jewish communities of lesser importance in the region. These geopolitical considerations seem to carry more weight than the argument based on onomastics. Thus, we may maintain that, in the fifth century, the Judaism practiced in the northern Ḥijāz was aligned with that of Ḥimyar. 66 67

Haggai Mazuz, The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina (Leiden, 2014). The same phenomenon occurred among the Christian Himyarites of Najrān. In the list of the 177 victims, only 4 have a name recognizable as Christian: Abraham, David (twice), and Sergius. See Axel Moberg, The Book of the Himyarites: Fragments of a Hitherto Unknown Syriac Work (Lund, 1924), 24b/6 25b/11.

316 christian julien robin However, in the seventh century, around 620, Jewish power in the kingdom of Ḥimyar had collapsed for over a century. The intellectual centers referred to in Judaism were now Babylonia and the Galilee. The brilliance of these centers was at its apogee since the Sassanid Persians, who had chased the Byzantines out of the Near East in 614 and notably depended on the Jews for the establishment of their rule in the Levant. Thereafter, the small Jewish community of Yathrib fell under the aegis of the sages of Babylonia and the Galilee, among whom the rabbis already held a dominant position. Nevertheless, a special reverence existed for priests in Arabia, as indicated by the systematic attribution within Muslim Arab traditions of priestly lineage to the Jews who occupied positions of power. Yet if they did so, it clearly was in imitation of the Jews. the hidden nature of royal inscriptions Although we have argued that Yemen converted to a non-Rabbinic Judaism, two questions still remain: in which religion did the king believe, and, if it indeed was Judaism, did this religion have official status? Answering these questions requires a close analysis of royal Ḥimyarite inscriptions from the period 380–530. In these texts, religious invocations are systematically quite brief and differ from those in texts commissioned by individuals, which contain varied religious formulae. Some of the latter are just as laconic as royal inscriptions, while others clearly reveal the imprint of Judaism; between the two types, we find a spectrum. The most perplexing characteristic of Ḥimyarite inscriptions is the reticence of official texts. This may be explained by a royal desire to maintain their power by attracting support from as wide a base of followers as possible. While they did gain the active support of the Jewish faction and its sympathizers, this party was likely in the minority in the wake of radical and transformational changes even among the ruling classes. To avoid conflict, while conversions had to continue apace, it was imperative that as many groups as possible pledge allegiance, even if they did not adopt the new religion. As the main fracture placed the followers of ancient rites and the adherents of monotheism at loggerheads, we may imagine that the kings of Ḥimyar sought to unify the believers of all monotheistic faiths that offered obedience to the kings. Such a hypothesis is not as gratuitous as it seems. It holds true at least for a reign, that of the Jewish king Joseph, who had the support of Christian members of the Church of Persia (Nestorians) when he quashed the revolt of pro-Byzantine Christians of Najrān in 522–23. In his public communications, the king accounted for the political and religious tendencies of his allies, although we do not know what this

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 317 monotheistic political-religious coalition was called. Likewise, in the Jewish kingdom of Ḥimyar, there may have existed a coalition composed of Jews and Nestorian Christians that explains the minimalism of royal Ḥimyarite inscriptions. We find similar practices in the kingdom of Aksūm at the time of its conversion to Christianity (under the reign of ʿEzānā around the middle of the fourth century ce) and in the first Muslim state, each time in the wake of an important religious reform.68 We thus may argue that the kingdom of Ḥimyar officially converted to Judaism, even if royal propaganda never makes any explicit mention of this. The king may himself have been Jewish, although we see evidence of this for only three kings. Furthermore, the only king who was certainly Jewish – although it is not clear whether he was born Jewish or whether he converted – was Joseph (Sabaic, Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar), who ruled from 522 to between 525 and 530. The sources, which are very diverse, unanimously confirm this fact, although his biblical name is not as determinative, since the name also is used by Christians.69 We may accept that a second king, Abīkarib Asʿad (c. 375–445), was likely Jewish, since Arab tradition presents him as one who introduced Judaism to Yemen.70 Finally, it is quite possible that the king Shurihbiʾīl Yaʿfur (468–80), who had the priest Azqīr of Najrān executed on _the advice of the rabbis, also was Jewish. The text of The Martyrdom of Azqīr (in Geʿez) does not explicitly confirm this, but the summary of the Martyrdom in the Ethiopian Synaxarium describes him as “king of the Jews” (nəguśa ayhud).71 Thus, the minimalism of the Ḥimyarite royal inscriptions does not significantly challenge the theory of Ḥimyar’s conversion to Judaism; it simply could indicate that the political base of the regime was never solid enough for the king’s adherence to Judaism to be made public, likely because his power rested on a coalition of groups that were not all Jewish. This conversion thus could be described as “hidden,” since it was never explicitly conveyed in royal propaganda. On the other hand, the official conversion of Ḥimyar to Judaism seems very likely, as it allows for the logical reconstruction of events. Thus, we may assert that all kings of the period 380–500 were Jewish.

68

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See note 16; and Christian Julien Robin, “The Judaism of the Ancient Kingdom of Himyar in Arabia: A Discrete Conversion,” in the proceedings of the conference “Diversité et rabbinisation. Textes et sociétés dans le judaïsme entre 400 et 1000 de notre ère: Paris, June 24 26, 2015” (in preparation). Christian Julien Robin, “Joseph, dernier roi de Himyar (de 522 à 525, ou une des années suivantes),” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34 (2008), 1 124. Christian Julien Robin, “Le judaïsme de Himyar,” Arabia 1 (2003), 130 39. Alessandro Bausi, “Il Gadla ʾAzqir,” Adamantius 23 (2017), 341 80.

318 christian julien robin Another interpretation of the religious politics among the kings of Ḥimyar, which suggested a conversion not to Judaism, but a new religion with “Jewish inspiration,” was proposed in 1984 by A. F. L. Beeston, based on a corpus of texts considerably more reduced. Beeston believed that the Ḥimyarite kings had followed a particular form of monotheism independent from Christianity or Judaism;72 he used the name of “Rahmānism” _ coined by D. S. Margoliouth to identify the monotheism of the (so-called, according to him) Jews of Yathrib. Beeston conceded that several inscriptions were Jewish, but certainly not all that included monotheistic formulae. This “Rahmānist” hypothesis has the advantage of offering a plausible origin for the_ hanīf of the Muslim Arab tradition, namely, those Arabs of _ period who would have chosen monotheism without the pre-Islamic believing in one of the great established religions. Nevertheless, some scholars of Islam who have devoted attention to these ideas, including Andrew Rippin,73 are not convinced by this hypothesis. THE END OF THE JEWISH KINGDOM

At the beginning of the sixth century, the negus of Aksūm in Ethiopia succeeded in placing on the throne of Ḥimyar a king who pledged allegiance to him with the support of minor Christian communities around the edges of Ḥimyar, especially that of Najrān. He ensured the obedience of his tributary – who was from that point onward a Christian – by stationing an Aksūmite garrison of some 300 men in the capital, Z ̣afār. the revolt of joseph (522 ce) The third of these tributary kings of the negus, who was named Joseph (Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar), revolted as soon as he acceded to the throne in the summer of 522. He massacred the Aksūmite garrison at Z ̣afār and undertook a campaign of intimidation against the Ḥimyarite populations in the coastal regions who had historically made alliances with the Aksūmites. In anticipation of his official enthronement, he took the title “king of all 72

73

A. F. L. Beeston, “Himyarite Monotheism,” in A. Abdalla, S. Al Sakkar, and R. Mortel, eds., Studies in the History of Arabia, II: Pre Islamic Arabia (Riyadh, 1984), 149 54; A. F. L. Beeston, “Judaism and Christianity in Pre Islamic Yemen,” in Joseph Chelhod et al., eds., L’Arabie du Sud, histoire et civilisation, I: Le peuple yéménite et ses racines (Paris, 1984), 271 78. Andrew Rippin, “Rhmnn and the Hanīfs,” in Wael B. Hallaq and Donald P. Little, eds., _ Islamic Studies Presented to Charles J. Adams (Leiden, 1991), 153 68; reprinted in Andrew Rippin, The Qurʾan and Its Interpretative Tradition (Aldershot, 2001).

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 319 communities.” He then ordered all of the Ḥimyarites to provide him with armed forces for his military operations. The contingent sent by the Christians of Najrān, commanded by al-Ḥārith b. Kaʿb, was at the point of joining with the royal army when it understood the nature of the operations undertaken by the king and then decided to turn back and to revolt. 74

the massacre of the christians of najran who had revolted (november 523) Joseph then sent an army to besiege the oasis of Najrān and to suppress the revolt (Figure 9.7). This army met with such strong resistance that the king needed to come in person to negotiate the surrender of the rebels. Although the king had solemnly promised to pardon them, he had the rebels and their relatives (male and female) executed, along with some children and servants. Syriac hagiographies date this massacre to November 523. Although these executions are traditionally presented as the persecution of Christians, this is not exactly correct. Christians certainly numbered more among Joseph’s followers than among his adversaries. These Christians who supported Joseph were members of the Church of Persia – that is, Nestorian. In fact, Joseph fought those Christians who, having taken the side of Aksūm and Byzantium, were his political adversaries. This event was therefore not religious persecution, but rather the brutal repression of a population who revolted for political reasons. The execution of al-Ḥārith b. Kaʿb (Arethas in Greek) and his companions, which had a considerable impact, offered to the Aksūmite negus Kālēb Ella Asbəha (Elesbaas or Hellestheaios in Greek) a strong argument _ troops and intervening militarily. Sixty merchant ships _ his for mobilizing were assembled and ten more constructed to cross the Red Sea. The negus led a solemn procession to the cathedral of Aksūm, the Ethiopian capital, “after Pentecost” (in the year 525) for the success of the expedition. The Ethiopian army, having embarked on its seventy ships, crossed over into Arabia and wiped out the Ḥimyarite forces of the king Joseph, whose defeat, capture, and execution occurred sometime between 525 and 530. The crusade of the negus, who systematically massacred the Jewish populations, reached Z ̣afār, Marib (where the royal residence was burned), and Najrān. The negus did not question the existence of the Ḥimyarite kingdom but made it an Aksūmite protectorate, overseen by a Christian Ḥimyarite who was closely watched by a powerful occupying army. This 74

mlk kl ʾs²ʿbn.

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Figure 9.7 One of the inscriptions (= Ja 1028) that commemorated the siege of Najrān by an army of the king Joseph in June/July 523 ce

was a bad move, as the Ḥimyarite king was overthrown by one of the heads of this army named Abraha. the aksumite abraha, christian king of hị myar (c. 532–65) For fifteen years, Abraha faced all sorts of difficulties including two retaliatory campaigns ordered by the negus, as well as tribal revolts. Despite this, he gained international recognition of his regime in the autumn of 547 and immediately sought to reconquer the desert regions of Arabia. He succeeded in 552, notably achieving the submission of Yathrib (later called Medina). Abraha transferred the capital to S ̣anʿāʾ (halfway between Z ̣afār and Najrān) where he had a splendid church built as a center for pilgrimage. An inscription dating from the reign of Abraha commemorates the construction of an ambitious building that may be this church (CIH 325).75 It 75

Christian Julien Robin, “La Grande Église d’Abraha à Sanʿāʾ. Quelques remarques sur son emplacement, ses dimensions et sa date,” in Vassilios Christides, ed., Interrelations between the Peoples of the Near East and Byzantium in Pre Islamic Times (Córdoba, 2015), 105 29. The church of Sanʿāʾ built by Abraha, the most imposing monument on the

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 321 is likely that Abraha then reformed the calendar, by abandoning the Babylonian lunar calendar with its additional months (still used today by the Jews) for the Julian (solar) calendar. the end of hị myar In the 570s, in order to expel the Ethiopian occupying forces, a Jewish Yemenite aristocrat by the name of Sayf b. dhī Yazʾan sought military support from Sassanian Persia, which responded with troops who were installed permanently. The last Persian governor of Yemen submitted to Islamic power during Muhammad’s lifetime, shortly before his death in 632. Henceforth, Yemen was _just a peripheral province of a vast empire that had as its capital cities Medina (northwest Arabia, until 656), al-Kūfa (Iraq, until 661), Damascus (Syria, until 750), and finally Baghdad (Iraq, from 762). The tribe of Ḥimyar that seems to have survived the Aksūmite conquest quickly disappeared. In the tenth century, it was merely a distant memory when the Yemeni encyclopedist al-Ḥasan al-Hamdānī described the Arabian Peninsula. The heart of the ancient kingdom of Ḥimyar was inhabited by Arab populations originating from the region of Najrān, likely settled there by Abraha. Nevertheless, Judaism remained alive in Islamic Yemen, especially in the mountains. Likely aligned from then with Rabbinic Judaism, it did preserve some original characteristics, including a strong expectation of the Messiah. Subsequent messianic movements date from the twelfth century, 1499/1500, 1666 (after the uprising provoked in the Ottoman Empire by Shabbetai S ̣evi), and finally 1860 and 1870 entire Arabian Peninsula during his time, impressed his contemporaries, and its descrip tion has been handed down by Muslim Arab tradition, which calls it al Qalīs (after the Greek ekklêsia). The layout was square, and the building had a height of 60 cubits (20 metres). The walls were constructed of stones in different colors, with a frieze of alabaster blocks above. The bronze door opened up to a nave measuring 80 x 40 cubits, whose ceiling was supported by wooden columns adorned with nails of gold and silver. From there one passed into a space measuring 40 cubits on the right and left, decorated with mosaics containing vegetable motifs and golden stars. Finally, one would reach the pulpit made of ebony and ivory under a cupola measuring 30 x 30 cubits that was covered in gold, silver, and mosaics depicting crosses. According to al Tabarī, Abraha would have employed Byzantine artisans for the marble work and the making of the mosaics. The Great Mosque of Sanʿāʾ had logically been built after the arrival of Islam directly next to al Qalīs, since large areas for building are rare in cities. The successive enlargements of the mosque would likely have brought about the destruction of al Qalīs, which would have taken place in the third quarter of the eighth century, by the order of a governor who wished to salvage its materials. Today, only the sculpted blocks that were reused in the Great Mosque remain in particular, two capitals with crosses.

322 christian julien robin (Kuhayl I and II). Although migration to the Land of Israel would reduce the numbers of this community, several thousand believers would remain in Yemen who eventually merged with the majority or themselves emigrated in turn. T H E J E W S O F T H E Ḥ I J Ā Z

Byzantine sources make only vague allusions to the existence of important Jewish communities in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula. According to the Byzantine historian Procopius, for example, the island of Iôtabê, at the entrance of the Straits of Tiran between the Red Sea and the Gulf of ʿAqaba, would have been inhabited by Jews who were fully independent from time immemorial, before the Romans established their rule at the beginning of the reign of Justinian (527–65).76 The scholarly tradition of Muslim Arabs, our main source for this region, reveals that the Jews held the dominant position in nearly all of the oases in the north of the Ḥijāz, from Yathrib (later, Medina) to Maqnā (a small port town on the Gulf of ʿAqaba), and passing through Khaybar, Fadak, and Taymāʾ. This tradition focuses closely on the Jews of this region, as they had been the strongest opponents to the prophetic and political ambitions of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. The veracity of this tradition has been _ questioned by numerous scholars during the last fifty years, since no archaeological traces can be attributed to these Jews of the Ḥijāz. However, this is not still the case, even if the facts are quite tenuous. onomastics Onomastic research provides the first definite clues concerning the existence of Jewish communities in the oases of the Ḥijāz. Two funerary inscriptions from the northern Ḥijāz, in the Aramaic language but written in the Nabataean alphabet (a variant of the alphabet used for Aramaic), _ mention individuals with biblical names, some of whom also held the title “first magistrate” of the oasis. Yet we know that onomastic evidence should be used judiciously; a simple personal name is never a sufficient argument to determine one’s ethnicity or religion. Biblical names especially may belong to Christians (and, after the arrival of Islam, to Muslims). It nevertheless is likely that biblical names from inscriptions of the Ḥijāz reveal the existence of Jewish communities, because no “typically” Christian names are found in the same region during this 76

Procopius, History of the Wars, 1.19.3 4.

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 323 period. The manuscript tradition confirms this fact: if they denote a strong Jewish presence, they are virtually silent about Christians. An epitaph discovered in 2009 at Taymāʾ77 mentions a deceased person by the name of Isaiah (ʾšʿyh); his father (Joseph) and one of his brothers also have biblical names. Only one of the individuals cited in this inscription has a name that could be local. Onomastics here suggest a particuliar attachment to Israel that likely reveals origins from Judea. Even more remarkably, Isaiah son of Joseph cites, after his identity, the title of “first magistrate of Taymâ” (rʾš Tymy), which seemingly refers to his father. The meaning of rîsh (rʾš and ryš) is rather vague: it may denote different types of “chiefs” (of a city, caravan, monastery, or group). Here it likely matches the title of “first citizen” (primus civitatis) found in a Roman inscription from the nearby oasis Ḥigrâ dating to a similar period.78 While this term describes a noble who fulfilled his duties as the leading magistrate of the city, we do not know precisely the implications of this position. Nevertheless, it is possible that the title of rîsh Taymâ was more modest, perhaps as the “leader (of the Jewish community) of Taymâ.” The Taymāʾ inscription is dated to 203 ce. We are not certain if Rome, who controlled these regions in the 170s – and only since the annexation of the Nabataean kingdom in 106 – was still politically and militarily present _ in 203, although it certainly is possible. If this were the case, it would not be unlikely that the Romans preferred to entrust the highest responsibilities to individuals originating from a province long integrated into the empire, rather than to locals less easy to control. Even if Jews occupied a leading position at Taymāʾ, we cannot conclude that the oasis was Jewish at that time, as it had been in the sixth century.79 We see that the funerary stela of Isaiah son of Joseph contains neither a formula nor a symbol of religious nature, and we may suppose that it would have presented them if Taymāʾ had been entirely Jewish. A century and a half later, in 356, another funerary stela from Ḥigrâ (present-day Madāʾin S ̣ālih) provides similar information.80 It honors a deceased woman named _ 77

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Mohammed Al Najem and M. C. A. Macdonald, “A New Nabataean Inscription from Taymāʾ,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 20 (2009), 208 17. Amro Haianis [Arabic, ʿAmr son of Hayyān] (pri)(10)mo civitatis eorum. The imperial titulature allows us to date the inscription to 175 77. See Dhayfallah al Talhi and Mohammad al Daire, “Roman Presence in the Desert: A New Inscription from Hegra,” Chiron 35 (2005), 205 17. Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 165 66. Franz Altheim and Ruth Stiehl, “Jüdische Dynasten im nördlichen Hejaz,” in Franz Altheim and Ruth Stiehl, eds., Die Araber in der alten Welt, vol. 5.1 (Berlin, 1968), 305 9 and 500 (fig. 54).

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“Māwiyah, daughter of ʿAmr, son of ʿĀdiyān, son of Samuel, first magistrate of Taymâ,” who was wife of “ʿĀdiy[ān], son of Ḥannà, son of Samuel, first magistrate of Ḥigrâ.”

In this inscription, the title of “first magistrate of Taymâ” appears again, as well as a parallel with Ḥigrâ (where the primus civitatis ʿAmr, son of Ḥayyān, was mentioned). While the stela contains no religious identification or symbol, of the seven personal names within the text, five are Jewish: ʿĀdiyān (twice), Ḥannà, and Samuel (twice). Only two of these names are Arab: Māwiyah and ʿAmr. These two inscriptions indicate that, from the beginning of the third century to the middle of the fourth century ce, individuals with Jewish names occupied positions of power in two oases of the northern Ḥijāz, Taymâ and al-Ḥijr/Ḥigrâ. This Jewish presence certainly could have been the consequence of the large-scale immigration of Judean or Jewish refugees, either following the brutal repression by the Romans, after the revolts of 70 and 135 ce in Judea, or after the collapse of the Jewish community of Alexandria in Egypt, around the end of the reign of Trajan in 115–17 ce. In rock inscriptions written in Nabataean or Nabataean Arabic (i.e., in a _ _ Nabataean alphabet that evolves into Arabic) and engraved along the Darb _ al-Bakra, a caravan route between Madāʾin S ̣ālih and Tabūk, biblical names (including Absalom, Daniel, Haggai, Levi,_ Simeon, Shoshannah, Judah, Jacob, or Joseph) are found in increased numbers.81 This discovery is convincing proof for the existence of important Jewish communities in the region, even if the authors of some of these graffiti may have come from farther away. Unlike those of the Yemenite Jews, those in the Ḥijāz remarkably often have a biblical name or one well-attested in Jewish communities. This characteristic is due to the fact that, as we have already noted, the communities of the Ḥijāz were composed of a substantial proportion of members with Judean origin, while those in Yemen consisted primarily of converts. Several rock inscriptions written in Hebrew letters have been discovered in the northern Ḥijāz, notably in the Wādī al-Qurà (al-ʿUlā and Madāʾin S ̣ālih), that further prove the presence or movement of Jews in the region. _ inscriptions seem to date from the Islamic period, however, as it is These unlikely that the Hebrew alphabet was used during antiquity (except in religious or funerary contexts).82 81

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Laïla Nehmé, The Darb al Bakrah: A Caravan Route in North West Arabia, Discovered by Ali I. al Ghabban. Catalogue of Inscriptions (Riyadh, 2018). Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 76 79.

judaism in pre-islamic arabia god as the “master of the worlds”

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The name given to God by the Jews of the Ḥijāz is known due to two epigraphical texts. The first is a funerary inscription from Madāʾin S ̣ālih, in Nabataean writing but in a language that mixes Aramaic and Arabic: _ _ May the Master of the Worlds (or: the World) curse (7) whomever would damage this tomb.83

The individual who commissioned this inscription likely was a monotheist, since he invokes only one God and names him in a way that breaks with the past. Mry is a regional written variant of Mrʾ, which is attested in several languages of Arabia (although Arabic prefers rabb). It thus is probable, but not certain, that it is a borrowing from Aramaic. Regarding ʿlmʾ, on the other hand, the borrowing is certain: we have here the Aramaic noun ʿlm (“world”), which survives in Arabic with the vocalization ʿālam. The written form ʿlmʾ does not allow us to identify the word as singular or plural. A Nabataean graffito from Darb al-Bakra published in 2018 confirms _ that the “Master of the Worlds (or: the World)” is the name for God (or one of the names for God) for the Jews of the Ḥijāz, because the sponsor, who refers to the feast of Passover, is certainly Jewish: In memory of Sillà son of Aws (2) in good and peace for anyone who gives allegiance (3) to the Master of the Worlds (or: the World); this inscription (4) was written on the day of the feast (5) of Passover [word for word: the Feast of Unleavened Bread] in the year 197 [Figure 9.8].84

The year 197 in the Arabian provincial calendar corresponds to 303–4 ce. The “Feast of Unleavened Bread” certainly is the Jewish feast of Passover. The first argument is offered by the noun hg, which makes sense if translated as “feast” (following the Hebrew _hag, “feast”), and not as _ “pilgrimage” (following the Arabic hajj). The second argument is provided _ by the Arabic noun fatīr (“unleavened bread”); only the Jewish Passover is an annual ritual that _requires unleavened bread and also prescribes consuming the sacrificial lamb with bitter herbs. The expression hg ʾl-ftyr for 85 _ the feast of Passover translates an appellation which is found in_ the Bible and the Talmud, but not frequently. The combination of a borrowing from Hebrew and the particular attention to a Jewish feast (even if this 83

84

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w lʿn (7) Mry ʿlmʾ mn ys²nʾ ʾl qbrw (8) dʾ (JS 17 in Nabataean script and Arabic _ language, July 267 ce). bly dkyr Sly br ʾwsw (2) b tb w šlm mn qdm (3) mry ʿlmʾ w ktb dnh (4) ktb ywm hg (5) _ ʾl ftyr šnt mʾt w tšʿyn w šbʿ_ (UJadhNab 538). Hag_ ha Masot for example, Exodus 23:15. _

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Figure 9.8 Nabataean inscription from the Darb al Bakra (= UJadhNab 538) dated to the day of the feast of_ Passover in 303 ce (yôm hagg al Fatîr); God here is called “Master of the _ _ Worlds” (marâ ʿAlmê)

feast is identified in an uncommon way) is sufficient to confirm that the author of this text is Jewish. Again, it is difficult to say if ʿlmʾ is singular or plural.86 We thus may hypothetically understand Mry ʿlmʾ as the “Master of the Worlds,” likely Heaven and Earth. It is remarkable that the Jews of the Ḥijāz, as those in Yemen around the period of their conversion, do not give God a proper name, but designate Him by a very consensual periphrasis. It is likely that the Qurʾānic title Rabb al-ʿālamīn (“Master of the Worlds”) derives from this older name for God. Rabb is the Arabic equivalent of the Aramaic and South Arabian mry/

86

The designation Mry ʿlmʾ may relate to a Jewish Himyarite expression that perhaps may clarify it. A text that unfortunately is fragmentary reads: “in the world [or: the two worlds], near and far,” b ʿlmn [or: ʿlmn] bʿdn w qrbn (CIH 539/2). This world (or these worlds) near and far are likely understood spacially as the world above (Heaven) and the world below (Earth). The argument supporting this hypothesis is the parallel offered by the most common descriptive phrase for God in Himyarite texts, namely, “Lord [or: Master] of Heaven and Earth,” with the most distant realm always listed first. If bʿdn w qrbn is interpreted temporally, as the future world and the present world, we may think of an allusion to the resurrection; also we would need to explain why the future world is mentioned before the present world.

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 327 mrʾ; ʿālamīn is an Arabic loanword from Aramaic, with the external mark for the plural (ʿālamūn, ʿālamīn). CENTRAL AND EASTERN ARABIA

The Islamic scholarly tradition, fond of compilations, established several lists of tribes composed of Jews. Unfortunately, in most cases, except for Yemen and the Ḥijāz, the extant information is limited to rather vague references. central arabia The evidence for central Arabia is tenuous. We only can cite one governor of the tribes of this region who served on behalf of the kings of Ḥimyar, the famous Ḥujr, “the One who eats bitter herbs,” Ḥujr Ākil al-murār, who may have been Jewish, since murār clearly evokes the ritual of Jewish Passover. This individual, who came from the Yemenite Arab tribe of Kinda, is certainly a historical figure, as he commissioned a brief inscription as “Ḥugr, son of ʿAmr, king of Kiddat (= Kinda).”87 The idea that Ḥujr might have been Jewish is plausible: this prince was placed at the head of the tribes of Maʿadd by the king Abīkarib Asʿad who, according to Islamic tradition, “introduced Judaism” into the kingdom of Ḥimyar.88 The surname of “the One who eats bitter herbs” may have been a way of making light of his faith in Judaism by mentioning a rite that shocked common sense. The special notoriety of Ḥujr evidently stems from the fact that he is the great-great-grandfather of one of the most famous poets of pre-Islamic Arabia, Imruʾ al-Qays, son of Ḥujr, son of al87

88

Iwona Gajda, “Huǧr b. ʿAmr roi de Kinda et l’établissement de la domination himyarite en Arabie centrale,” Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 26 (1996), 65_ 73 and pl. I. The surname of Hujr, the “one who eats bitter herbs,” has been interpreted differently by Muslim Arab scholars of Islam: the king would have eaten murār (a bitter plant), or would have been compared to a camel spitting out foam after having eaten murār (see Gunnar Olinder, The Kings of Kinda of the Family of Ākil al Murār (Lund, 1927), 42). These differences show that the origin of the surname had been forgotten and that the motif of the murār had been embellished without explanation. The noun murār is easily understood, as it is related to the root MRR, which expresses the idea of bitterness. Nevertheless, it is only linked with Hujr in Arabic. We may wonder rather speculatively whether murār, just as fatīr mentioned above, would not recall the rituals of Jewish Passover, which required the_ meat of the lamb to be eaten “with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.” In Hebrew, these bitter herbs are called marôr (pl. mərôrîm) (cf. Exodus 12:8 and Numbers 9:11), and in Syriac mərorô (pl. mərorê). The Arabic murār likely is a derivation from these Hebrew and Syriac terms. Robin, “Le judaïsme de Himyar,” 130 39.

328 christian julien robin Ḥārith the King, son of ʿAmr the Diminished, son of Ḥujr, the One who eats bitter herbs.89 eastern arabia The manuscript sources make some mention of Jewish presence in eastern Arabia, on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Flavius Josephus reports that, shortly after the beginning of the first century ce, the son of the king of Adiabene (in the north of modern-day Iraq) converted to Judaism in a city near the Gulf.90 The Babylonian Talmud notes that Rav Hamnuna established his academy at al-Ḥīra, the capital of a small Arab kingdom on the lower Euphrates.91 In the compilation of the acts and decrees of the Nestorian synods, a decision by the bishops on the Arabian side of the Arab Persian Gulf, “the land of the Qatrayê,” dated to 677 ce (more than forty years after the _ warned the Christians who “hurry, after leaving church Islamic conquest), on Mass days, to go to the taverns of the Jews to drink wine.” There are also Arabic sources concerning the Islamic conquest of the Persian Gulf that refer to Jews who refused to convert to Islam. The existence of Jewish communities in these regions is all the more guaranteed since they are mentioned by various sources, but the extant information still is quite limited. CONCLUSION

The deep roots of Judaism in pre-Islamic Arabia, which are not a recent discovery, have intrigued scholars for the last 200 years.92 During the last few decades, however, the discovery of epigraphic remains has allowed scholars to piece together a history of this Judaism and to highlight a definite diversity, as opposed to earlier research founded exclusively on the tendentious and unreliable Islamic scholarly tradition. While archaeological exploration continues, such research often leads to a tension between archaeological and manuscript sources. The historian’s task is difficult, as illustrated by the example of the peʾôt, long sidelocks certain Jews refuse to cut and that have become markers of identity among certain communities, notably in Yemen. While a handful of Arab traditions and a sculpture from Yemen have led two scholars to argue that the Jews of

89 91 92

90 Olinder, The Kings of Kinda, 94 118. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 20.34 35. Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 19b. Abraham Geiger, Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen (Bonn, 1833).

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 329 93 pre-Islamic Arabia also sported peʾôt, a reexamination of the sources suggests that this conclusion is far from certain.94 However, in spite of the elusive character of our sources, there is little doubt that our understanding of Judaism in pre-Islamic Arabia can progress considerably further. EPIGRAPHIC ABBREVIATIONS South Arabian For the following abbreviations (without bibliographical references), refer to the database DASI (Digital Archive for the Study of Pre Islamic Arabian Inscriptions), which provides the transcription, translation, illustration, and bibliography for each entry (http://dasi.cnr.it/) CIH 152 + 151; 325; 543 = Z ̣M 772 A + B; 539 Eskoubi 2000 C1 (Z ̣ahrān du Sud): Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 178 79 and Fig. 18 Fa 74 Garb Bayt al Ashwal 1 Garb Framm. 7 Garb Nuove iscrizioni 4 Gl 1194 Ja 547 + 546 + 544 + 545; 856; 1028 MAFRAY Ḥasī 1 _ de Leʾah: Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 191 92 and Naveh Épitaphe Fig. 39 Robin Viallard 1 = Ja 3205 Ry 508, 515; 520; 534 (Ry 534 + Rayda 1) SR Naʿd 9: Robin & Rijziger, “The Owner of the Sky, God of Israel” X.SBS _ 141 = Mon.script.sab 6: Peter Stein, Die altsüdarabischen Minuskulinschriften auf Holzstäbchen aus der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek in München. I: Die Inschriften der mittel- und spätsabäischen Periode, 2 vols. (Tübingen, 2010) (cursive) YM 1200 YM 11738 = X TYA 15 (cursive) Z ̣M 5+8+10; 2000 93

94

Michael Lecker, “Zayd b. Thābit, ‘A Jew with Two Sidelocks’: Judaism and Literacy in Pre Islamic Medina (Yathrib),” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997), 259 73; reprinted in Michael Lecker, Jews and Arabs in Pre and Early Islamic Arabia (Aldershot, 1998). See also Yosef Tobi, “The Sidelocks of the Jews of Yemen,” Arabia 3 (2005 6), 243 59. Christian Julien Robin, “Depuis quand certains juifs portent ils de longues mèches de cheveux de part et d’autre du visage?” in Jean Baumgarten, José Costa, Jean Patrick Guillaume, and Judith Kogel, eds., En mémoire de Sophie Kessler Mesguich (Paris, 2012), 54 76.

330

christian julien robin

Hebrew DJE 23: Maria Gorea, “Les classes sacerdotales (mišmarôt) de l’inscription juive de Bayt Ḥādir (Yémen),” in Robin, Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique, 297 329 _ Nabataean and Nabataeo-Arabic JS _17: J. F. Healey _and G. R. Smith, “Jaussen Savignac 17 The Earliest Dated Arabic Document (a.d. 267),” Atlal 12 (1989), 77 84 and pl. 46 UJadhNab 538: Nehmé, The Darb al-Bakrah Judeo-Aramaic Naveh Épitaphe de Leʾah: Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 191 92 and Fig. 39 Naveh Épitaphe de Yoseh = Naveh S ̣uʿar 24: Robin, “Quel judaïsme en Arabie,” 192 93 and Fig. 40 Geʿez E. Bernand, A. J. Drewes, and R. Schneider, Recueil des inscriptions de l’Éthiopie des périodes pré-axoumite et axoumite, Tome I: Les documents; Tome II: Les planches (Paris, 1991); Etienne Bernand, Tome III: Traductions et commentaires, A. Les inscriptions grecques (Paris, 2000) RIÉth 189, 190, 191, 192, 195

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Altheim, Franz, and Ruth Stiehl. “Jüdische Dynasten im nördlichen Hejaz,” in Ruth Stiehl, ed., Die Araber in der alten Welt, vol. 5.1 (Berlin, 1968), 305–9. Eraqi Klorman, Bat-Zion. The Jews of Yemen in the Nineteenth Century (Leiden, 1993). Gajda, Iwona. Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste. L’histoire de l’Arabie du Sud Ancienne de la fin du ive siècle de l’ère chrétienne jusqu’à l’avènement de l’Islam (Paris, 2009). Geiger, Abraham. Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen (Bonn, 1833). Lecker, Michael. “Zayd b. Thābit, ‘A Jew with Two Sidelocks’: Judaism and Literacy in Pre-Islamic Medina (Yathrib),” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56 (1997), 259–73. Jews and Arabs in Pre- and Early Islamic Arabia (Aldershot, 1998). Mazuz, Haggai. The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina (Leiden, 2014). Al-Najem, Mohammed, and M. C. A. Macdonald, “A New Nabataean Inscription from Taymāʾ,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 20 (2009), 208–17.

judaism in pre-islamic arabia 331 Nehmé, Laïla. The Darb al-Bakrah: A Caravan Route in North-West Arabia, Discovered by Ali I. al-Ghabban. Catalogue of Inscriptions (Riyadh, 2018). Robin, Christian Julien. “Le judaïsme de Ḥimyar,” Arabia 1 (2003), 97–172. “Ḥimyar et Israel,” Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Comptes rendus de l’année (2004), 831–906. “Joseph, dernier roi de Ḥimyar (de 522 à 525, ou une des années suivantes),” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 34 (2008), 1–124. “Depuis quand certains juifs portent-ils de longues mèches de cheveux de part et d’autre du visage?” in Jean Baumgarten, José Costa, JeanPatrick Guillaume, and Judith Kogel, eds., En mémoire de Sophie Kessler-Mesguich (Paris, 2012), 54–76. “Les signes de la prophétie en Arabie à l’époque de Muhammad (fin du _ vie et début du viie siècle de l’ère chrétienne),” in Stella Georgoudi, Renée Koch Piettre, and Francis Schmidt, eds., La raison des signes. Présages, rites, destin dans les sociétés de la Méditerranée ancienne (Leiden, 2012), 433–76. “The Judaism of the Ancient Kingdom of Ḥimyar in Arabia: A Discreet Conversion,” in Gavin McDowell, Ron Naiweld, and Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, eds., Diversity and Rabbinization: Jewish Texts and Societies between 400 and 1000 CE (Cambridge, 2021), 116–82. Robin, Christian Julien, ed. Le judaïsme de l’Arabie antique, Actes du colloque de Jérusalem (février 2006) (Turnhout, 2015). Robin, Christian Julien, and Sarah Rijziger. “‘The Owner of the Sky, God of Israel’ in a New Jewish Ḥimyaritic Inscription Dating from the Fifth Century CE,” Der Islam 95 (2018), 271–90. Tobi, Yosef. “The Sidelocks of the Jews of Yemen,” Arabia 3 (2005–6), 243–59.

chapter 10

THE ISLAMIC EAST ofir haim

The present chapter concerns the Jewish inhabitants of the vast area stretching from modern Iran in the west to China in the east, and from the Central Asian steppes in the north to the shores of the Persian Gulf in the south. Most of the chapter is dedicated to the Jews of the Iranian world, namely, the territories which were historically inhabited by Iranianspeaking peoples, from the advent of Islam up to the rise of the Safavids in the early sixteenth century. I conclude this chapter with the history of Jewish presence in territories historically ruled by Chinese dynasties, as most of the sources relating to Jews in this part of the world indicate their possible Iranian origin. THE STATE OF THE SCHOLARSHIP

Several studies have dealt with the geographical distribution and the social and economic history of Iranian Jewry in the discussed period, particularly in pre-Mongol times (up to the early thirteenth century). In a series of articles, Walter Fischel explored the Jewish history in different regions of the Iranian world, including Ādharbayjān, Isfahān, and Khurāsān.1 _ Fischel’s research on the Jews of pre-Mongol Khurāsān was continued by later scholars such as Michael Zand and Ben Zion Yehoshua-Raz.2 Using the studies mentioned above, while adding valuable references from a wide range of sources, Moshe Gil elaborately discussed the geographical

1

2

For Fischel’s list of publications, see Mishael M. Caspi, “Bibliography of Walter J. Fischel’s Publications,” in Mishael M. Caspi, ed., Jewish Tradition in Diaspora: Studies in Memory of Professor Walter J. Fischel (Berkeley, 1981), 35 43. Michael Zand, “Jewish Settlement in Central Asia in Ancient Times and in the Early Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 35 (1988), 4 21; Ben Zion Yehoshua Raz, From the Lost Tribes in Afghanistan to the Mashhad Jewish Converts of Iran [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1992), 35 95.

332

the islamic east 333 distribution of the Jews of the Iranian world in his In the Kingdom of Ishmael in the Geonic Period.3 In his study on the history and cultural heritage of the Jews of Iran, David Yeroushlami dedicates a chapter to the history of the Jewish communities from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries.4 Recently, Albert Kaganovitch published an article discussing the Jewish communities of Central Asia in the medieval and early modern periods.5 In the field of Judeo-Persian literature, particularly that of the postMongol period, the number of studies is remarkably large.6 Since the nineteenth century, numerous studies on a wide variety of texts, such as Bible translations, dictionaries, and poetic pieces, have been published by scholars, a few of whom should be mentioned here:7 de Lagarde,8 Bacher,9 Asmussen,10 Mainz and Paper.11 Further research on Judeo-Persian literature was conducted by Netzer,12 Soroudi,13

3

Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael in the Geonic Period, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1997), 1:516 28. An English translation is available for the first volume. See Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 520 32. 4 David Yeroushalmi, The Jews of Iran: Chapters in Their History and Cultural Heritage (Costa Mesa, 2016), 3 36. 5 Albert Kaganovitch, “The Jewish Communities of Central Asia in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods,” Iranian Studies 52, 5 6 (2019), 923 46. 6 Useful surveys of Judeo Persian literature are given in Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Judeo Persian Communities: ix. Judeo Persian Literature” (Amnon Netzer); Yeroushalmi, Jews of Iran, 127 45; Vera B. Moreen, “Judeo Persian Literature,” in John R. Perry, ed., Persian Literature from Outside Iran: The Indian Subcontinent, Anatolia, Central Asia, and in Judeo Persian (London, 2018), 390 409. 7 For a detailed survey of the history of research on Judeo Persian language and literature, see Thamar E. Gindin, The Early Judaeo Persian Tafsīrs of Ezekiel: Text, Translation, Commentary, 2 vols. (Vienna, 2007), 1:13 18. 8 For de Lagarde’s publication of a Judeo Persian translation of the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, see Paul de Lagarde, Persische Studien (Göttingen, 1884). 9 For a list of Bacher’s numerous publications in the field of Judeo Persian poetry and lexicography, see Netzer, “Judeo Persian Literature.” 10 For Asmussen’s publications on Judeo Persian language and literature, see ibid. 11 Paper and Mainz edited multiple Judeo Persian Bible translations. For their list of publications, see ibid. 12 For Netzer’s bibliography, see Amnon Netzer, An Annotated Bibliography (Jerusalem, 2004). 13 Sarah S. Soroudi, Persian Literature and Judeo Persian Culture: Collected Writings of Sorour S. Soroudi, ed. Houchang E. Chehabi (Cambridge, MA, 2010).

334 ofir haim 14 15 Yeroushalmi, Moreen, Shapira,16 and recently by Rubanovich17 and Tamir.18 Lazard’s publications from the 1960s onwards have constituted the basis for the study of Judeo-Persian dialectology.19 During these years, Lazard and others, particularly MacKenzie,20 showed increasing interest in the 14

15

16

17

18

19

20

For an extensive study on ʿImrānī’s Ganj nāma, see David Yeroushalmi, The Judeo Persian Poet Emrani and His “Book of Treasure”: Emrani’s Ganj name. A Versified Commentary on the Mishnaic Tractate Abot (Leiden, 1995). For a survey of Judeo Persian Bible translations, see David Yeroushalmi, “Judeo Persian Bible Translations” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 84 (2000), 21 39. For an English translation of ʿImrānī’s Fath nāma, see Vera B. Moreen with Orit _ Illustrated Manuscript of ʿImrani’s Fath Carmeli, The Bible as a Judeo Persian Epic: An Nama (Jerusalem, 2016). Moreen has published several studies on Shāhīn and ʿImrānī. See Vera B. Moreen, “The Legend of Adam in the Judeo Persian Epic ‘Bereshit [Namah]’ (14th Century),” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 57 (1990 91), 155 78; Vera B. Moreen, “Moses, God’s Shepherd: An Episode from a Judeo Persian Epic,” Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish Literary History 11, 2 (1991), 107 30; Vera B. Moreen, “A Dialogue between God and Satan in Shahin’s ‘Bereshit Namah,’” in Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer, eds., Irano Judaica III (Jerusalem, 1994), 127 41; Vera B. Moreen, “The ‘Iranization’ of Biblical Heroes in Judeo Persian Epics: Shahin’s ‘Ardashir namah’ and ‘ʿEzra namah,’” Iranian Studies 29, 3 4 (Summer Autumn 1996), 321 38; Vera B. Moreen, “‘Is[h]maʿiliyat’: A Judeo Persian Account of the Building of the Kaʿba,” in Benjamin H. Hary et al., eds., Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communications, and Interaction: Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner (Leiden, 2000), 185 99; Vera B. Moreen, “The Heroic Mold in ʿImrānī’s Fath nāmah [‘The Book of Conquest’], 15th Century,” Studia Iranica 42, 1 (2013), 71 90; Vera B. Moreen, “Shāhīn’s Interpretation of Shira and Haʾazinu,” in Julia Rubanovich and Geoffrey Herman, eds., Irano Judaica VII (Jerusalem, 2019), 637 56. See Dan Shapira, “Bel and the Dragon in Judeo Persian,” in Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer, eds., Irano Judaica V (Jerusalem, 2003), 53 67; Dan Shapira, “On Judeo Persian in the Medieval Crimea,” in Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer, eds., Irano Judaica VI (Jerusalem, 2008), 253 89. See also Dan Shapira, “Qissa ye Dānīʾel or ‘The Story of __ Dānīʾel’ in Judaeo Persian: The Text and Its Translation” [Hebrew], Sefunot 22 (1999), 337 66. See Julia Rubanovich, “Joseph and His Two Wives: Patterns of Cultural Accommodation in the Judeo Persian Tale of Yusof and Zoleykhā,” Journal of Persianate Studies 13, 2 (forthcoming). See Liora Tamir, “The Story of Yūsuf and Zulaykhā in Judeo Persian by Shāhīn i Shīrāzī: A Perso Islamic Rendering of the Biblical Story” (MA thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2017). For Lazard’s studies of Judeo Persian, particularly its complex dialectal variation, see Gilbert Lazard, La formation de la langue persane (Paris, 1995). See also Gilbert Lazard, “La dialectologie du persan préclassique à la lumière des nouvelles données judéo persanes,” in Julia Rubanovich and Geoffrey Herman, eds., Irano Judaica VII (Jerusalem, 2019), 527 43. For MacKenzie’s list of publications on Judeo Persian, see Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., s.v. “Judeo Persian” (Gilbert Lazard et al.).

the islamic east 335 earliest layer of Judeo-Persian, which is datable to the pre-Mongol period. The significance of pre-Mongol Judeo-Persian (or Early Judeo-Persian) and its distinctive characteristics in comparison to contemporary New Persian and the later classical Judeo-Persian has been brought to the fore by Shaked.21 Thanks to the latter’s scholarly efforts over the years, many Early Judeo-Persian texts from the Cairo Genizah and the so-called Afghan Genizah were made accessible.22 The linguistic features of Early JudeoPersian were further discussed by Paul, mainly in his Grammar of Early Judaeo-Persian,23 and Gindin, whose research focuses on the commentary on Ezekiel, the largest extant monograph written in Early Judeo-Persian.24 Mention should also be made of Khan’s annotated edition of the grammatical commentary on the Hagiographa, whose fragments are scattered in different collections of the Cairo Genizah.25 THE SOURCES

The available primary sources for the history of Iranian Jewry are divided into several groups, the largest of which is composed of manuscripts or fragments thereof, containing different literary and religious texts written in Judeo-Persian and Hebrew. These texts are the principal source for reconstructing the cultural and intellectual heritage of Iranian Jewry. Moreover, in several instances, they serve as the only evidence for a Jewish presence in certain regions or towns. The Early Judeo-Persian manuscripts hail from two geographical locations, which are very distant from each other: Cairo, mainly from the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustāt (the Cairo Genizah) and the Karaite synagogue _ _ Afghanistan (the “Afghan Genizah”).26 The of Dār Simhah; and central _ 21

22

23

24

25 26

On the different dialects of Early Judeo Persian, see Shaul Shaked, “Classification of Linguistic Features in Early Judeo Persian Texts,” in Werner Sundermann et al., eds., Exegisti Monumenta: Festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Sims Williams (Wiesbaden, 2009), 449 61. For Shaked’s contribution to the study of Judeo Persian language and literature, see Ofir Haim, “Shaul Shaked and the Study of Judeo Persian,” in Yohanan Friedmann and Etan Kohlberg, eds., Studies in Honor of Shaul Shaked (Jerusalem, 2019), 15 18. See also Shaked’s list of publications in ibid., 176 94. See Ludwig Paul, A Grammar of Early Judaeo Persian (Wiesbaden, 2013). For other studies by Paul on Early Judeo Persian, see ibid., 17. See Gindin, Early Judaeo Persian Tafsīrs. Other studies by Gindin are indicated in ibid., 1:271 72. See Geoffrey Khan, Early Karaite Grammatical Texts (Atlanta, 2009), 231 41. On the trove of manuscripts discovered in central Afghanistan, which came to be conveniently labeled the “Afghan Genizah,” see Shaul Shaked, “Early Persian Documents from Khorasan,” Journal of Persianate Studies 6 (2013), 153 62; Ofir

336 ofir haim many Judeo-Persian texts which found their way to synagogues in Cairo were apparently brought there by immigrants. The presence of Persianspeaking Karaites in Egypt and the Levant from the tenth century onward is well-attested in the Cairo Genizah.27 Interestingly, very few manuscripts from the pre-Mongol period were discovered in present-day Iran. By contrast, a substantial portion of the extant manuscripts from the Īlkhānid period (1256–1335) and onward hails from there. From the second half of the fourteenth century onward, we also find manuscripts from eastern Iran, particularly the Bukhārā region. In comparison to the literary and religious texts of the first group, the documentary material – namely, letters, legal documents, and ledgers – written and owned by Persian-speaking Jews is quite scarce. Nonetheless, the Cairo Genizah and the “Afghan Genizah” contain the invaluable remains of several family archives from the regions of Khūzistān and Khurāsān, respectively. It seems that these families belonged to the Jewish literate elite. The documents from the Cairo Genizah were composed by merchants from the southwestern corner of the Iranian world, whereas those from Afghanistan had been in the possession of a prominent member of the Jewish communities in the early Ghaznavid state (977–1186). Information regarding the Jewish communities of the Iranian world are also found in historical, geographical, and literary works composed by Muslim authors in Arabic and Persian. Similarly, works composed by nonIranian Jews refer to their coreligionists in the Iranian world. These texts, which are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Judeo-Arabic, belong to a wide array of genres, ranging from legal literature to travel literature. The sources in this group usually report the existence of Jews in a certain area or town and do not provide further details. An exception in this regard is Benjamin of Tudela’s itinerary, in which the Jewish communities of the Iranian world are broadly discussed.28 According to Jacoby, Benjamin of Tudela did not travel beyond Isfahān. The information on the eastern territories, such as Khurāsān and_ Transoxania, was apparently collected from merchants and Jews whom Benjamin encountered in the Jibāl region

27

28

Haim, “What Is the ‘Afghan Genizah’? A Short Guide to the Collection of the Afghan Manuscripts in the National Library of Israel, with the Edition of Two Documents,” Afghanistan 2, 1 (2019), 70 90. See Shaul Shaked, “On the Early Heritage of the Jews of Persia” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 23 (1985), 25 27. See Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. and trans. Marcus N. Adler (London, 1907), 51 63, ‫מט נח‬.

the islamic east 337 and the Persian Gulf. Therefore, some of the details in his work, including his assessments of Jewish populations, should be taken with a grain of salt.30 The wide selection of texts listed above is accompanied by a corpus of archaeological finds and artifacts from the Iranian world. In this regard, it is worth mentioning two significant archaeological finds which were discovered in Afghanistan in the mid-twentieth century. The first is the rock inscriptions of Tang-i Azao located in present-day central Afghanistan, which were dated to 1064 of the Seleucid era (752–53 ce).31 The second is a group of tombstones from Ghūr, which revealed the existence of the hitherto unknown Jewish community of Fīrūzkūh (eleventh to thirteenth centuries).32 The tombstones probably marked the burial place of notable and wealthy men of the Fīrūzkūh community.33 Another Jewish object was reportedly found in Ghūr – an elongated bronze rod with an inscription in Judeo-Persian datable to the twelfth to thirteenth centuries. It is possible that this bronze rod is a Torah-pointer.34 29

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION35

From the extant pieces of evidence, it is apparent that Jewish communities and individuals were spread all across the Iranian world during the

29

30 31

32 33 34

35

David Jacoby, “Benjamin of Tudela and His ‘Book of Travels,’” in Klaus Herbers and Felicitas Schmieder, eds., Venezia incrocio di culture: Percezioni di viaggiatori europei e non europei a confronto (Rome: Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, 2008), 158 59 (135 64). See also Chapter 11 in this volume. See Walter B. Henning, “The Inscriptions of Tang i Azao,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 20, 1/3 (1957), 335 42. See also Shaul Shaked, “New Data on the Jews of Afghanistan in the Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 79 (1999), 6 7. On the date of the inscription, see Henning, “Inscriptions,” 337 39. The interpretation of the date as 1064 of the Seleucid era (752 53 ce) renders the inscriptions the earliest known Early Judeo Persian text. However, the dating is quite problematic since the letters indicating the year are not arranged in the correct order. From a paleographic point of view, the inscriptions are datable to a much later period, perhaps the tenth to eleventh centuries (Edna Engel, private correspondence). For the main publications of inscriptions, see Shaked, “New Data,” 14. See ibid., 9. See Shaul Shaked and Ruth Jacoby, “An Early Torah Pointer from Afghanistan,” Ars Judaica 1 (2005), 147 52; Shaul Shaked, “New Early Judaeo Persian Finds,” in Irano Judaica VI, 222 25 (222 52). In each section, the pre Mongol and (post )Mongol periods will be dealt with separately, as the Mongol invasion is regarded as the watershed moment in the history of Iranian Jewry. On this, see, e.g., Shaked, “Early Heritage,” 23 25.

338 ofir haim 36 pre-Mongol period. Moreover, the conspicuous Jewish presence in certain towns and regions, and the “Jewish names” thereof (e.g., al-Yahūdiyya or Jahūdhān), may have led to the creation of legendary traditions concerning the beginning of the Jewish settlement.37 In Ādharbayjān, Jewish presence is attested in Marāgha, Urmiyya, Khuy, Tabrīz, and Salamās.38 A fragmentary document in Early Judeo-Persian mentioning a certain “Joseph of Ardabīl” confirms the presence of Jews in this locality as well.39 Along the southern Caspian shoreline, in the regions of Daylam and Ṭabaristān, Jews resided in Āmul and Abhar.40 According to Benjamin of Tudela, a large Jewish community lived in Rudbār, and four others in the lands ruled by the Ismāʿīlī Assassins.41 The possibility of contacts between the Jews and Ismāʿīlīs in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries is demonstrated in the writings of the Jewish vizier Rashīd al-Dīn (1247–1318). According to Rashīd al-Dīn, his grandfather Muwaffaq alDawla Abū al-Faraj ʿAlī al-Hamadānī and his children were held in the Ismāʿīlī stronghold of Maymūndiz. Rashīd al-Dīn’s grandfather was eventually released by the Mongol ruler Hülegü (c. 1218–65).42 36

37

38

39

40 42

In addition to the towns and regions discussed in this section, Goitein listed several others in which the presence of Jews is confirmed by the Cairo Genizah documents: Barzanj, Kāzarūn, Sinān, Tawwāz, and Tūs. See S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 1:400n2. No references, however, were provided and I was not able to trace the relevant documents. On the traditions regarding Isfahān, see Walter J. Fischel, “Isfahan: The Study of a Jewish Community in Persia,”_ in Joshua Starr Memorial Volume: Studies in History and Philology (New York, 1953), 112 13 (111 28). Marw: See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 529. Balkh: See Walter J. Fischel, “The Jews of Central Asia (Khorasan) in Medieval Hebrew and Islamic Literature,” Historia Judaica 7 (1945), 37. Ghūr: See Walter J. Fischel, “The Rediscovery of the Medieval Jewish Community at Fīrūzkūh in Central Afghanistān,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 85, 2 (April June 1965), 149 50; Zand, “Jewish Settlement,” 14 15. Samarqand: See ibid., 19. See Walter J. Fischel, “Azarbaijan in Jewish History,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 22 (1953), 2 3; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 523 24. So far, two fragments of the document have been identified: CUL T S K24.1 and TS Ar. 30.301. For a reading and translation of the document, see Ludwig Paul, “Grammatical and Philological Studies on the Early Judaeo Persian Texts from the Cairo Geniza” (Dr. habil. thesis, University of Göttingen, 2002), 236 38. I am grateful to Shaul Shaked for his permission to use his list of Early Judeo Persian texts from the Cairo Genizah. Unless stated otherwise, the shelfmarks of the unpublished texts are taken from this list. 41 See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 520. Ibid. On Rashīd al Dīn’s account and its somewhat problematic nature, see Jonathan Brack, “A Jewish Vizier and His Shīʿī Manifesto: Jews, Shīʿīs, and the Politicization of Confessional Identities in Mongol Ruled Iraq and Iran (13th to 14th Centuries),” Der Islam 96, 2 (2019), 395 97.

the islamic east 339 Further to the east, in the region of Damghān, lies the city of Qūmis. Several Jewish individuals bearing the toponymic nisba Qūmisī are attested in Jewish and Muslim sources, notably the early Karaite Daniel alQūmisī.43 Another Karaite commentator named Abū Sulaymān (ben?) Daniel Qūmisī is mentioned in a fragmentary commentary on Isaiah 10–11 written in Early Judeo-Persian.44 Abū Sulaymān Daniel Qūmisī may be identified with the Karaite scholar Abū Sulaymān al-Qūmisī, whose name is attested in two Karaite commentaries on Leviticus, one of which by Japheth b. ʿEli. In view of the fact that the kunya Abū Sulaymān is often attached to the name Dāwūd/David, Abū Sulaymān al-Qūmisī may well be Dāwūd al-Qūmisī, who, according to al-Masʿūdī, lived in Jerusalem and died there in 344/945–46. It is also possible that Abū Sulaymān (Dāwūd) was the son of Daniel al-Qūmisī.45 As for the neighboring region of Gurgān (Jurjān), al-Bīrūnī and Yāqūt mention the presence of Jews in the city of that name.46 The vast Jibāl region in the western Iranian world seems to have a large Jewish population, as noted by the tenth-century geographer alMuqaddasī.47 Different sources point to Jewish presence in the cities of Ḥulwān, Kurkān, Khaftiyān, Qazwīn, Hamadān, Qarmāsin (Kirmānshāh), Isfahān (one of its parts was called al-Yahūdiyya), and _ Nihāwand,48 which was the town of the early Karaite Benjamin alNihāwandī. In addition, the name of a hitherto unknown exegete called Jacob of Nihāwand appears in an Early Judeo-Persian Karaite commentary on the third weekly portion of the Book of Numbers.49 In the village of Zefreh (100 km northeast of Isfahān), a fragment of a translation of Psalms into Early Judeo-Persian was _discovered by Amnon Netzer.50 A significant portion of Early Judeo-Persian writings discovered in the Cairo Genizah was written in the dialect of Khūzistān.51 Several documents composed in Ahwāz found their way to Fustāt. Particularly important are the documents which belong to the archive _of_ the Tustarī family, such as an Early Judeo-Persian court record (mahd ar) involving Hannah bt. Israel _ _ sent by Ephraim b. Saʿīd to and her husband,52 and a Judeo-Arabic letter

43 45

46 49 51 52

44 Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 527. RNL Evr. Arab. I 4610, 2r, l. 6. See Meira Polliack, The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation: A Linguistic and Exegetical Study of Karaite Translations of the Pentateuch from the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries C.E. (Leiden, 1997), 14, and references therein. 47 48 See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 527 28. See ibid., 57. Ibid., 520 22. 50 BL Or. 2459, 26r, l. 20. On this fragment, see below. See Shaked, “Classification,” 450; Lazard, “Dialectologie du persan préclassique,” 531. Bodl. MS Heb. b 12/24. For the publication history of this document, see Lazard et al., “Judeo Persian,” 552.

340 ofir haim Sahl al-Tustarī and his brothers in 1026.53 That there was a Jewish community in Tustar is corroborated by Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī’s several references to the Tustarīs, probably the Karaites of this town.54 According to Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish community also existed in Shūsh, the burial place of Daniel.55 Moreover, a Jewish banker described as Arrajānī, namely, from the town of Arrajān, on the border between Khūzistān and Fārs, is mentioned in a letter from the Cairo Genizah.56 Not far from Arrajān is the town of Gunbad-i Mallaghān (or Mallagān/ Mallajān).57 A Judeo-Persian colophon of a biblical fragment (Nehemiah 13:20–31) indicates that the text was copied by Joseph b. Nimorad (?) in this town in 1215 of the Seleucid era (903–4 ce).58 In the same area lay the town of Sīnīz (or Shīnīz), which was famous for its textiles. Two individuals bearing the nisba Shīnīzī appear in the Cairo Genizah: Hiba b. Khalaf al-Shīnīzī, a witness in a Karaite ketubbah dated 1324 of the Seleucid era (1002 ce);59 and a certain “son of al-Shīnīzī,” who is mentioned in connection with the orphan children of his brother-in-law Abū al-Khayr in a letter from around 1065.60 East of Khūzistān lies the region of Fārs. Fischel asserts that Jews lived in the port city of Sīrāf as it was governed by a Jew named Rūzbih in 899.61 Gil provides further evidence for the Jewish presence in Sīrāf in the form of a letter mentioning Abū al-Fakhr Ḥunayn al-Sirafī.62 The city of Shīrāz apparently had a Jewish community in pre-Mongol times. In addition to 53

54

55 57

58

59

60

61

62

CUL T S 13J25, fol. 18. See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 668 69. For a reading and translation, see Gil, Kingdom of Ishmael, 2:517 20. On the Tustarīs in al Qirqisānī’s Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, see Moshe Gil, The Tustaris, Family and Sect (Tel Aviv, 1981), 59 63. See also Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), 140 42. 56 Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 526. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:244. Scholars identify this locality with present day Du Gunbadān, also known as Gachsārān. See Guy le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur (New York, 1905), 272. CUL T S NS 246.26.2. For further information regarding the manuscript, which is the oldest dated medieval Hebrew manuscript, see M. Beit Arié et al., Codices hebraicis litteris exarati quo tempore scripti fuerint exhibentes; Tome I: jusqu’à 1020 (Turnhout, 1997), #2. CUL T S 6Ja.2 (3r). Information retrieved from the Princeton Geniza Project’s digital document library: https://geniza.princeton.edu. JTS ENA 2805, fol. 2a. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 716. For a reading and translation of the letter, see Gil, Kingdom of Ishmael, 4:575 77. Walter J. Fischel, “The Region of the Persian Gulf and Its Jewish Settlements in Islamic Times,” in Saul Lieberman, ed., Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (New York, 1950), 207 (203 30). The Hebrew form attested in the letter is ‫אלסרפי‬, perhaps a variant of al Sīrāfī. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 527.

the islamic east 341 63 its mention by Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish exegete named Rūzbih b. Masliah (of ) Shīrāz appears in the Karaite commentary on Numbers.64 As for_ the_ neighboring region of Kirmān, Mann provides a legal manuscript written in Early Judeo-Persian containing the names Eli b. Nissi and his father, Nissi b. Samuel, from the city of Sirjān in the land of Kirmān.65 Other documents dated to the twelfth century from the Cairo Genizah refer to Jewish individuals named al-Kirmānī.66 The vast region of Khurāsān apparently had a large Jewish population, whose presence is attested as early as the tenth century. The tenth-century geographer al-Muqaddasī states that Khurāsān has many Jewish inhabitants and a few Christian ones.67 The report in the Judeo-Arabic chronicle of Nathan the Babylonian (apparently written in the mid-tenth century) discusses a quarrel between the exilarch ʿUqba and the gaon of Pumbedita over the revenues of the Jewish communities of Khurāsān.68 The Cairo Genizah offers several other pieces of evidence regarding the Jews of Khurāsān, such as a letter from around 1040, which mentions a certain Samuel ben Sahl from Khurāsān.69 Many other sources indicate the existence of Jewish communities in the eastern Iranian world: in the region of Khwārazm, as well as in the cities of Nishāpūr, Herat, Marw, Abīward, Balkh (with its Jewish quarter called Jahūdhānak), Maymana (also known as Yahūdiyya/Jahūdhān), Fīrūzkūh, and Ghaznī.70 As for the area of Kābul, the rock inscriptions of Tang-i Azao were apparently written by Jewish merchants from Kuban, which Henning identified as the Kābul valley, in the mid-eighth century.71 Another evidence for the Jews of Kābul is given by the twelfth-century geographer al-Idrīsī in his Nuzhat al-Mushtāq fī Ikhtirāq al-Āfāq.72 Particularly intriguing in this respect are the several dozen tombstones from an ancient Jewish cemetery near Jam in Ghūr province. These tombstones reveal the existence of the Jewish community of Fīrūzkūh

63 65

66 67 69

70

71 72

64 Ibid., 526 27. BL Or. 2459, 16r, l. 12. Mosseri IIIa, 6. See Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, 1931 35), 1:457. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 4:99 and 375n98. 68 Zand, “Jewish Settlement,” 12. Ibid. CUL T S 13J17.4 and TS 10J10.9. For a reading of the letter, see Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634 1099), 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:248 49. See Fischel, “Jews of Central Asia,” 31 43; Zand, “Jewish Settlement,” 6 19; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 528 32; Kaganovitch, “Jewish Communities,” 1 9 (especially on the Jews of Khwārazm). On the identification of Kuban (‫)קובן‬, see Henning, “Inscriptions,” 340. EJIW, s.v. “Kabul” (Ben Zion Yehoshua Raz).

342 ofir haim during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries,73 and offer a glimpse into the lives of its members. Albeit short, the funerary inscriptions carved on the tombstones inform us of the name-giving practices, the use of honorary titles, and the various functions and professions which were prevalent in this community.74 Further discoveries in recent years have increased our knowledge of the Jews of the eastern Iranian world. A Jewish Aramaic amulet on paper was reportedly found in Bāmiyān, whose Jewish community was hitherto unknown. According to paleographic analysis, this amulet was apparently produced around the beginning of the eleventh century.75 The presence of Jews in Bāmiyān was later corroborated by the documents of the “Afghan Genizah,” the earliest layer of which is the archive of a Jewish family from eleventh-century Bāmiyān.76 The two individuals who figure prominently in this archive are Abū Nasr Judah b. Daniel, and his son, Abū al-Ḥasan _ Siman-Ṭov. Their correspondence reveals a complex web of personal and economic interests shared by them with their family and business associates from other settlements in the region, particularly the Jewish community of Ghaznī.77 Therefore, the archive confirms the several Jewish and Islamic sources attesting to a Jewish presence in Ghaznī during the eleventh to twelfth centuries.78 There is no concrete evidence for Jewish presence in the Bukhārā region during the pre-Mongol period. However, Shaked notes that some of the extant Early Judeo-Persian texts, especially those from the Firkovitch Collection at the National Library of Russia, can be assigned to the Bukhārā region, as some of their linguistic features still exist in modern Tajik.79 By contrast, the evidence for Jewish presence in Samarqand is stronger. The earliest mention of the Jews of Samarqand was made by the Karaite exegete Salmon b. Yeruhim (fl. tenth century). When the latter _ 73

74

75

76 78

79

On the chronological span of the tombstones, see Haim, “What Is the ‘Afghan Genizah’?” 72n9. For a discussion of the names and honorary titles engraved on the tombstones, see Shaul Shaked, “Epigraphica Judaeo Iranica,” in Shelomo Morag et al., eds., Studies in Judaism and Islam Presented to Shelomo Dov Goitein on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1981), 77 81. There is no certainty, however, that the owner of the amulet, a woman named Mahnāz, was Jewish. See Shaul Shaked, “A Jewish Aramaic Amulet from Afghanistan,” in Károly D. Dobos and Miklós K˝oszeghy, eds., With Wisdom as a Robe: Qumran and Other Jewish Studies in Honour of Ida Fröhlich (Sheffield, 2009), 485 94. 77 On the dating of this archive, see Haim, “Afghan Genizah,” 72 73. See ibid. On the evidence for the Jewish presence in Ghaznī, see Fischel, “Jews of Central Asia,” 38 40; Zand, “Jewish Settlement,” 14; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 527. Shaked, “Classification,” 450. Lazard, on the other hand, places these texts in north western Iran. See Lazard, “Dialectologie du persan préclassique,” 534 36.

the islamic east 343 writes about the sufferings of the Jews under Islam in his commentary on Lamentations, he mentions “the Jews of Samarqand and the region.”80 Letters from the Cairo Genizah dated to the second half of the eleventh century mention individuals of Samarqandī origin.81 In the twelfth century, Benjamin of Tudela reports of a Jewish community in Samarqand led by Rabbi Obadiah, who carries the title nasi.82 Zand raises the possibility of a Jewish presence in regions further north and east to Bukhāra and Samarqand. Based on a verse from the poetry of Rashīd al-Dīn Watwāt (d. 1182), Zand suggests that Jews were present in Jand, which lies on_ the_ bank of the Sīr-Daryā.83 Furthermore, the Turkic toponym Yahūdhliq (literally, “a place abounding in Jews”) may imply Jewish presence in the area situated in the frontier of Farghāna and Īlāq.84 Information regarding the size of the Jewish communities in the preMongol Iranian world is scant. Tenth-century geographers estimate that the Jewish populations of Jibāl and Khurāsān were substantial, as mentioned above. Jewish travelers of the twelfth century provide some demographic data about the Jewish communities of the Iranian world. Thus, Petahiah of Regensburg writes that there were 600,000 Jews in Kush and Persia,85 and Benjamin of Tudela provides figures for the following Jewish communities: Sūs (7,000), Rūdbar (20,000), Nihāwand (4,000), Hamadān (30,000), Ṭabaristān (4,000), Isfahān (15,000) Shīrāz (10,000), _ (50,000).87 While these large Ghaznī (8,000 or 80,000),86 and Samarqand numbers do not seem to reflect the actual size of these Jewish communities, they “give some indication as to the perceived presence of Jews in various regions of the Iranian world during the late twelfth century.”88 80

81 83 84

85 86

87

For the translation of the full account, see Haggai Ben Shammai, “The Attitude of Some Early Karaites towards Islam,” in Isadore Twersky, ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, Volume II (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 10. 82 See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 531. Ibid. Zand, “Jewish Settlement,” 20. Ibid. The reading Yahūdhliq appears in the English translation of the anonymous treatise Hudūd al ʿĀlam composed in the tenth century. See Vladimir Minorsky, trans., Hudūd al ʿālam: ‘The Regions of the World,’ A Persian Geography, 372 a.h. 982 a.d. (London, 1970), 117. However, the variant “N.mūdhlugh” is given in al Istakhrī’s __ (fl. first half of the tenth century) Kitāb al Masālik wa l Mamālik. See ibid., 356n67. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 491. The two variants are given in different manuscripts. See Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary, 48, ‫נד‬. Moses Ibn Ezra reports of 40,000 Jews in Ghaznī. See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 527. Kaganovitch does not agree with the identification of the toponym mentioned in the manuscripts of Benjamin’s itinerary (Giva) with Ghaznī. In his opinion, this toponym resulted from “distortions of Gorganj and Khiva merged into one name.” See Kaganovitch, “Jewish Communities,” 7 8. 88 Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary, 51 63, ‫נח מט‬. Yeroushalmi, Jews of Iran, 14.

344 ofir haim Between the invasion of Chinggis Khan (1219–22) and Hülegü Khan’s arrival in Transoxania in 1255, we have almost no knowledge of the Jews of the Iranian world. Juwaynī (d. 1283) writes in his Tārīkh-i jahāngushāy that the Jews were not included in the decree by Chinggis Khan, according to which men of religion from among the Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists were exempt from taxation.89 The Jews mentioned in this account may be those of the eastern Iranian world, as the decree was probably issued around 1220 – namely, the time of the conquest of Transoxania.90 Moreover, an account given by Ibn al-Fuwatī suggests that _ Jews were present in Bukhārā not long after the Mongol conquest. According to this account, the rebel Abū al-Karam al-Dārānī ordered the slaughtering of Jews and Christians in Bukhārā in 637/1239–40.91 Notwithstanding these accounts, the arrival of the Mongols in Transoxania and Khurāsān apparently brought to an end the Jewish presence in many localities in those regions. This may be exemplified by the Jewish tombstones from the city of Fīrūzkūh, which date no later than the early thirteenth century, upon the arrival of the Mongols in Ghūr.92 However, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marked the renewal of Jewish settlement in the eastern Iranian world. A manuscript containing the midrashic compilation titled Pitron Torah, which contains an appendix in Judeo-Persian, was copied in smbʾdgʾn (‫ )סמבאדגאן‬in 1328. This toponym can be identified with several localities in the Iranian world, most likely in northeastern Iran.93 Another manuscript dated to 1336 mentions a disputation between an anonymous exilarch and two Christians in Marw.94 In the city of Ūrganj (Gūrganj) in 1339, Samuel b. Isaac compiled a Hebrew-Persian lexicon titled Sefer ha-Melisa.95 More _ 89

90 91

92 93

94

Reuven Amitai, “Jews at the Mongol Court in Iran: Cultural Brokers or Minor Actors in a Cultural Boom?” in Marc von der Höh et al., eds., Cultural Brokers at Mediterranean Courts in the Middle Ages (Paderborn, 2013), 36. Ibid. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 531. Juwaynī gives the name Tārābī and does not mention this matter. See Peter Jackson, The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion (New Haven, 2017), 528n179. Shaked, “Early Heritage,” 25. See Ephraim E. Urbach, ed., Sefer Pitron Torah: A Collection of Midrashim and Interpretations (Jerusalem, 1978). It is also possible to identify the toponym smbʾdgʾn with Sanbādhajān, a village in Alanjān county in Isfahān province. This toponym is _ dated to c. ah 550/1155 56 ce, mentioned in a legal document from the Seljūq period, appearing in a collection of documents titled al Mukhtārāt min al Rasāʾil. See Īraj Afshār, “Turbat i Nizām wa turbat i bahāʾī dar Isfahān,” Yaghmā 11 (1355/1977), _ _ 670 74, esp. 672. 95 See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 445. On this work, see below.

the islamic east 345 than a hundred years later, Hebrew manuscripts were copied in Marw, Samarqand, and Bukhārā.96 Information regarding the Jews of the western Iranian world during the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries is quite scant as well. Dated Hebrew manuscripts copied during the Īlkhānid period and later on indicate Jewish presence in Tabrīz (1262, 1310), Khūy (1303), Qom/Qumm (1483–85), Kāshān (1494–95), and Isfahān (1502).97 Although the sources _ communities of the thirteenth to do not reveal much about the Jewish fifteenth centuries, it is assumed that Jews were present in many localities in the western Iranian world. As stated by Fischel, “That the Jewish settlements in Persia . . . had survived these war-filled and troubled centuries became evident when, with the rise of the Safavids . . . the veil of obscurity which was hanging over the fate of the Jews began to be lifted.”98 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS

Like their coreligionists in central Muslim lands, the Jews of the Iranian world belonged to the category of ahl al-dhimma. The latter consists of non-Muslims who were granted protection by the Muslim rulers in exchange for the payment of the poll tax (Arabic, jizya or jāliya) and the observance of the Islamic laws relating to them.99 The sources at hand do not shed much light on the condition of the Jewish minority in the Iranian world and its relationship with the Muslims. It may be assumed that the condition of the Jews varied according to time and place. Periods of hardship and persecution are recorded in sources, such as the events following the messianic uprising of Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī in the mid-eighth _ communities probably century.100 In other periods, however, the Jewish enjoyed legal and communal autonomy and were able to manage their internal affairs.101 Our knowledge of the organization of the Jewish communities in the pre-Mongol Iranian world is also quite scarce and refers mostly to the 96

For further details, see below. Information retrieved from the Sfardata database: http://sfardata.nli.org.il. For a dis cussion of some of these manuscripts, see below. 98 Walter J. Fischel, “The Jews in Medieval Iran: From the 16th to 18th Centuries: Political, Economic, and Communal Aspects,” in Shaul Shaked, ed., Irano Judaica: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture throughout the Ages (Jerusalem, 1982), 265. 99 See EI3, s.v. “Dhimma” (Yohanan Friedmann). 100 On Abū ʿĪsā al Isfahānī, see below. For Maimonides’ account on the uprising and its _ aftermath, see Yeroushalmi, Jews of Iran, 25 and references therein. 101 Ibid., 27. 97

346 ofir haim second half of the twelfth century. Some of the tombstones from Ghūr contain titles used to indicate the high social standing of the deceased. These titles, such as ha-Nasi and Rosh ha-qahal, may also be understood as designations of public office.102 Another intriguing detail regarding the communal organization of Iranian Jewry is given by Benjamin of Tudela. The latter writes that Sar Shalom, the religious leader of Isfahān, was _ appointed by the exilarch and had authority over all the rabbis/ 103 Rabbanites (rabbanim) of Persia. The extant sources mostly concern the upper echelons of Jewish society. In some cases, we read of Jewish individuals who gained political power and served as senior bureaucrats for different Muslim dynasties. According to al-Ṭabarī, a Jew named ʿAqiva was appointed governor in Marw in 739 ce, during the time of the Umayyad caliph Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 724–43). ʿAqiva collected the jizya from the local Muslims while the non-Muslims inhabitants were exempt.104 As mentioned, in 899 ce, the governor of Sīrāf, a port city on the coast of Fārs region, was a Jew named Rūzbih.105 Worthy of note in this regard is the Tustarī family, whose members gained prominence in Fātimid Egypt during the eleventh cen106 _ tury, a generation after leaving Khūzistān. As mentioned above, the coming of the Mongols to Transoxania and Khurāsān led to the disappearance of the Jewish presence in many settlements in these regions. However, Mongol rule during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries led to an improvement in the legal and social status of the Jews, and of non-Muslims in general. The Mongols’ equal treatment of the different faiths which they encountered led to the exemption of the ahl al-dhimma from paying the jizya. Further, a portion of the revenues of Islamic pious foundations (Arabic, awqāf, sing. waqf) were allocated to charitable work benefiting Christians and Jews.107 Yet despite this tolerant policy, the last decades of the Īlkhānate marked the restoration of the dhimmī status. Christians and Jews were briefly persecuted at the beginning of Ghazan’s reign (r. 1295–1304), following the latter’s conversion to Islam. Upon his arrival in Tabrīz, Ghazan ordered the destruction of churches and synagogues, and imposed payment of the jizya and the wearing of distinguishing marks (ghiyār) on Christians and Jews.108 Similarly, Ghazan’s brother and successor, Öljeitü (r. 1304–16), levied 102 104 105 106

107

103 Shaked, “Epigraphica,” 80. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 523. Ibid., 276. Rūzbih is mentioned with regard to a quarrel between two Buyid rulers. See ibid., 527. On the Tustarīs, see Gil, Tustaris. See also EJIW, s.v. “Tustarī Family” (Marina Rustow). 108 Jackson, Mongols, 316 17. Ibid., 369.

the islamic east 347 109 the jizya on non-Muslims for a short period. The jizya was eventually reinstated by the last Īlkhānid ruler, Abū Saʿīd (r. 1316–35).110 The Mongol policy of religious pluralism facilitated the rise of nonMuslims to high office in the Īlkhānid court.111 Hülegü is described in several sources as a patron of scholars and wise men of different religions, particularly Jewish ones.112 During the reign of his successors, two Jewish individuals attained the high rank of vizier: Saʿd al-Dawla b. al-S ̣afī (d. 1291) and Rashīd al-Dīn Fadlallāh b. Abī Khayr (d. 1318), the latter of which converted to Islam at an_early stage of his career.113 Saʿd al-Dawla served as Arghun’s vizier in the years 1289–91, after filling some administrative posts in Baghdad during the 1280s and serving as Arghun’s chief physician.114 During his stint as vizier, Saʿd al-Dawla promoted his kinsmen and appointed them to head the administration of a number of provinces: his brothers Muhadhdhib al-Dawla and Fakhr al-Dawla in Baghdad and Iraq; Amīn al-Dawla, another brother of his, in Diyār Bakr; and a certain Shams al-Dawla in Fārs.115 According to the historian Gregory Bar Hebraeus (also known as Ibn al-ʿIbrī), the situation of the Jews improved in the Īlkhānid state during Saʿd al-Dawla’s tenure.116 However, this situation caused much resentment among Muslims and increased the tension between Jewish and Muslim populations. Following the vizier’s death, riots against the Jews broke out in several towns, ending only after the intervention of the authorities.117 Rashīd al-Dīn, who hailed from a Jewish family of physicians from Hamadān, began his career as a physician in the court of Arghun in the 1280s or 1290s. He then served as a cook (baʾurchi) under Gaikhatu (1291–95) and was appointed chief vizier by Ghazan in 1298. Rashīd 109

110 111

112

113

114

115 117

Ibid., 371. Although the sources refer to the Christians under Īlkhānid rule, it is probable that the Jews were also obligated to pay the jizya. Ibid., 371 72. Furthermore, some historical sources mention that Arghun issued an edict prohibiting Muslims from serving in the central administration and the court. See Brack, “Jewish Vizier,” 383. Whereas some of the accounts may be regarded as fantastic, they may allude to the presence of various scholars in Hülegü’s court. See Amitai, “Jews at the Mongol Court,” 36 39. On the date of his conversion, see Reuven Amitai Press, “New Material from the Mamluk Sources for the Biography of Rashid al Din,” in Julian Raby and Teresa Fitzherbert, eds., The Court of the Il Khans, 1290 1340 (Oxford, 1996), 26. For an extensive biographical survey of Saʿd al Dawla, see Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam (New York, 1969), 90 117. See also Amitai, “Jews at the Mongol Court,” 39 41. 116 Jackson, Mongols, 292. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life, 105 6. Ibid., 115 17.

348 ofir haim al-Dīn held this position for two decades, serving under Ghazan, Öljeitü, and for a short period under Abū Saʿīd.118 It seems that Rashīd al-Dīn was accompanied by a group of Jewish court physicians, who converted to Islam in 1306. The group was headed by Najīb al-Dawla Kahhāl, who also served Saʿd al-Dawla and later joined Ghazan’s retinue.119 _ _ Apart from his role in the affairs of the state under Ghazan and Öljeitü, particularly the implementation of the former’s administrative reforms, Rashīd al-Dīn was a patron of numerous scholars and composed works in the fields of agronomy, medicine, and geography.120 However, he is better known for his historical work titled the Compendium of Chronicles (Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh). Composed in the early fourteenth century, the Compendium of Chronicles is an important source for the history of the Mongols and the Īlkhānid state. Rashīd al-Dīn extensively narrates Islamic history from the creation of Adam to the last ʿAbbāsid caliphs together with the history of pre-Islamic Iran, whereas other sections of his work are dedicated to the history of the Oghuz Turks, Franks, Chinese, Indians, and the Israelites (Tārīkh-i Banī Isrāʾīl).121 The integration of the history of the Israelites alongside the Islamic narrative of the prophets of Israel, which is based on the Isrāʾīliyyāt literature, is particularly intriguing. As stated by Amitai: “This parallel approach to early Jewish history is apparently unmatched in Muslim writing, and reflects both Rashīd al-Dīn’s particular background and his wide horizons and perspective.”122 Rashīd al-Dīn’s unique background and prolific intellectual activity enabled him to act in the capacity of a cultural broker mediating between different cultural spheres.123 In addition to incorporating the history of the Israelites and other peoples into his historical magnum opus, Rashīd al-Dīn successfully integrated Mongol history and culture into Islamic

118

119 121

122

123

For further biographical details on Rashīd al Dīn, see Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life, 118 25; Amnon Netzer, “Rashīd al Dīn and His Jewish Background,” in Irano Judaica III, 118 26; Amitai Preiss, “New Material,” 23 37. For a recent biograph ical survey, see Stefan Kamola, Making Mongol History: Rashid al Din and the Jamiʿ al Tawarikh (Edinburgh, 2019), 28 58; Jonathan Brack, “Rashīd al Dīn: Buddhism in Iran and the Mongol Silk Roads,” in Michal Biran et al., eds., Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals (Berkeley, 2020). 120 Brack, “Jewish Vizier,” 399. See Jackson, Mongols, 229 33. For further information regarding the Compendium of Chronicles, see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Jāmeʿ al Tawārik” (Charles Melville). Amitai, “Jews at the Mongol Court,” 43. In this regard, see Melville’s statement that Rashīd al Dīn’s Jewish background possibly made him “comfortable approaching Islamic history from a different perspective than was usual.” See Melville, “Jāmeʿ al Tawārik.” Amitai, “Jews at the Mongol Court,” 44.

the islamic east 349 tradition. As for Saʿd al-Dawla, it has recently been suggested that he functioned as a cultural broker in Arghun’s court, as his manifesto (mahd ar) was apparently the first instance utilizing Nasīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s _ _ ethics in order to redefine the relationship between _ the ruler and political 125 Islamic law. As Brack points out, the manifesto “serves as indication of the high level of integration of the Jews in the intellectual exchange of ideas in the Arabic- and Persian-speaking Islamic worlds.”126 Like the social aspects in the history of Iranian Jewry, not much is known about the economic activities of Iranian Jewry. Agriculture was probably not a central occupation of the Jews of the Iranian world after the advent of Islam, although it is possible that there were some rural Jewish communities such as the two Jewish villages near Nīshāpūr whose inhabitants converted to Islam.127 The Jewish population was mainly urban, as in the Arabic-speaking lands to the west,128 and practiced a wide array of trades. Two sources whose authors originated in the western Iranian world mention occupations typical of Jews. In Benjamin al-Nihāwandī’s Book of Laws (Sefer Dinim), the following occupations are mentioned: tailor; fuller (washer of flax); metal, copper, tin, and lead smiths; dyer (of textiles); weaver; and all artisans.129 Abū Nuʿaym al-Isfahānī (d. 1038 ce) lists the _ prevalent crafts among the Jews of al-Yahūdiyya in Isfahān: barbering, 130 _ tanning, flax laundering, and butchery. Trade was also a common occupation among Iranian Jews. Persianspeaking Jews (or those of Iranian origin) were involved in the Mediterranean trade depicted in the Cairo Genizah. A merchant named Isaac b. Simha al-Naysābūrī (al-Nīshāpūrī) from Alexandria sent three Judeo-Arabic _letters around 1080 concerning different commodities (silk, pearls, spices) and sea transport.131 The corpus of Early Judeo-Persian letters from the Cairo Genizah sheds further light on the commercial 124

124

125 127

128 129 131

Judith Pfeiffer, “The Canonization of Cultural Memory: Ghāzān Khān, Rashīd al Dīn, and the construction of the Mongol past,” in Anna Akasoy et al., eds., Rashīd al Dīn: Agent and Mediator of Cultural Exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran (London, 2013), 57 70. For Rashīd al Dīn’s new models of imperial authority based on both Mongol and Islamic concepts, see Jonathan Brack, “Theologies of Auspicious Kingship: The Islamization of Chinggisid Sacral Kingship in the Islamic World,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 60, 4 (October 2018), 1143 71, esp. 1162 64. 126 See Brack, “Jewish Vizier,” 384 88. Ibid., 397. See Richard W. Bulliet, The Patricians of Nishapur: A Study in Medieval Islamic Social History (Cambridge, MA, 1972), 15. Yeroushalmi, Jews of Iran, 19 20 and the references therein. 130 Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 603. Ibid. See ibid., 529. It is not clear when Isaac’s family emigrated from Nīshāpūr to Alexandria. Perhaps his father settled in Egypt a few decades before. For a reading and translation of the three letters, see Gil, Kingdom of Ishmael, 4:412 23.

350 ofir haim activities of Persian-speaking Jews in the vast area stretching from Fustāt to _ the Persian Gulf. This may be exemplified by a letter datable to the _early eleventh century, which was sent by Tanhum b. Sulaymān in Jerusalem to his mother and brothers in Basra. The_ letter concerns the transfer of money and the trade of different_ goods, such as precious stones, pearls, and possibly Torah codices.132 Other letters written in Early Judeo-Persian contain the names of known Genizah merchants, suggesting that the writers of the letters were part of their commercial networks. A commercial letter written half in Arabic and half in Judeo-Persian mentions Jacob Ibn ʿAwkal and Joseph b. Jacob.133 The first generation of the Tustarīs in Egypt (Abū al-Fadl Sahl, _ Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf, and Abū Sahl Saʿīd) did not neglect their commercial activity in the area of the Persian Gulf after moving to Cairo. The JudeoArabic letter by Ephraim b. Saʿīd from 1026 concerns the shipment of goods to and from Egypt (mostly textile products) and the Tustarīs’ assets in Ahwāz.134 Moreover, three Early Judeo-Persian letters were sent to the brothers, attesting to their commercial activity in the Persian Gulf area in the early eleventh century.135 Possible evidence for later (late twelfthcentury) engagement of Jews in trade in the Persian Gulf area is given by Benjamin of Tudela. According to the latter, 500 Jews lived in the Island of Kīsh, the meeting place of merchants from India, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran.136 As for the eastern Iranian world, the practice of long-distance trade of Persian-speaking Jews is borne out by the two Early Judeo-Persian letters found in the ruins of a Buddhist monastery in Dandan Uiliq near Khotan.137 These letters place Jewish merchants in the commercial routes leading to China as early as the late eighth and early ninth centuries. Mention should also be made of the Jewish merchants known as the Radhanites (al-Rādhāniyya), who are discussed in Ibn Khurdādhbih’s (d. 913) Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik and Ibn Faqīh’s (fl. early ninth 132

133

134 135

136

CUL T S 18J3.16. For a reading and translation of the letter, see Paul, Grammatical and Philological Studies, 214 18. CUL T S K24.16. The letter is mentioned in Norman A. Stillman, “The Eleventh Century Merchant House of Ibn ʿAwkal (A Geniza Study),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 16, 1 (January 1973), 17n4. The Ibn ʿAwkal family, which was of apparently Iranian origin, had arrived in Tunisia sometime in the first half of the tenth century, and later to Egypt with the Fatimids after 969. See ibid. On this, see above. For an annotated edition of these letters, see Paul, Grammatical and Philological Studies, 224 25 (CUL T S Misc. 28.103), 233 36 (Bodl. MS Heb. d 75/22), 238 41 (CUL T S 10J32.7). 137 Fischel, “Persian Gulf,” 208. On these letters, see below.

the islamic east 351 century) Kitāb al-Buldān. Fischel suggests that Khurāsānī Jewish merchants had ties to the Radhanites, who spoke Persian among several other languages. According to Ibn Khurdādhbih, the Radhanites visited at Balkh and traveled across the Oxus on their way to China.138 A different picture, however, emerges from the archive of the Jewish family of Judah b. Daniel. From the nature and contents of the documents preserved at the National Library of Israel, we may infer that Judah b. Daniel and his son Siman-Ṭov were landowners and local merchants.139 Several documents attest to Judah b. Daniel’s ownership of lands which he leased to the local Muslim inhabitants in, perhaps, the Bāmiyān area.140 So far, no evidence for long-distance trade has been found in these documents. In a letter to Siman-Ṭov b. Judah, Yaʾir b. Emēd from Ghaznī writes that he cannot leave his place of residence in Ghaznī since he owns a shop which he cannot close for even a single day, and he states that he is not accustomed to traveling.141 At the same time, it is possible that the two parties in Bāmiyān and Ghaznī engaged in trade on a local level. Yaʾir mentions the purchase of oil and eggplants, which he will send to Bāmiyān.142 Merchants were also present in the Jewish community of Fīrūzkūh, as suggested by three titles engraved on the tombstones from Ghūr. The Hebrew title taggar (“merchant”), a cognate form of Arabic tājir, is engraved on a tombstone from 1514 of the Seleucid era (1202 ce).143 Perhaps the Persian title rawghanīn (“relating to oil”), attested in a tombstone from 1472 of the Seleucid era (1161 ce), points to a person involved in the oil business, particularly an oil merchant.144 The Hebrew titles paqid and shaliah, probably corresponding to Arabic wakīl (“commercial representative”),_ appear on tombstones from the years 1484, 1490, and 1499 of the Seleucid era (1173, 1178, and 1187 ce, respectively).145

138

139 140

141

142 144 145

Fischel, “Jews of Central Asia,” 48. The origin of the Radhanites has been much debated. Moshe Gil’s suggestion of Iraqi origin is now accepted. See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 615 37. See also Michael Lecker, “Wa bi Rādhān mā bi Rādhān . . .: The Landed Property of ʿAbdallāh ibn Masʿūd,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78, 1 (February 2015), 53 66. See Haim, “‘Afghan Genizah,’” 73. Ibid. See also Ofir Haim, “Acknowledgment Deeds (Iqrārs) in Early New Persian from the Area of Bāmiyān (395 430 ah/1005 1039 ce),” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 29, 3 (July 2019), 432 34. See Ofir Haim, “An Early Judeo Persian Letter sent from Ghazna to Bāmiyān (Ms. Heb. 48333.29),” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 26 (2016), 108 and 111. 143 Ibid., 108 and 112. Shaked, “Epigraphica,” 80 81. See Shaked, “New Data,” 11 12. Shaked, “Epigraphica,” 80 81 and the references therein.

352 ofir haim Similarly, the Aramaic term sheliha is attested in two commercial notes from the “Afghan Genizah” datable_ to the early eleventh century.146 This term may refer to a representative in the region of the Babylonian academies, which provided spiritual and religious guidance to the Jews of the early Ghaznavid state.147 However, it seems more likely that the sheliha is _ either a messenger or a commercial representative working for Judah b. Daniel or one of his associates. The use of an Aramaic term in these texts should not come as a surprise, as speakers of Jewish languages tended to integrate Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary into their everyday speech. The commercial terminology of the archive owners and their Jewish business associates is not an exception in this case. INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS HISTORY

As shown by Shaked, Judeo-Persian literature had its beginning not in the fourteenth century, as had been believed, but rather much earlier; the Cairo Genizah and finds from other synagogues include a wide array of literary and religious materials written in Early Judeo-Persian, some of them dating back to the tenth century.148 The main genres to which these materials belong are grammar and lexicography, law, magic, medicine, poetry, stories and proverbs, and biblical exegesis (tafsīr).149 The category of Bible exegesis is the most-represented genre in the extant Early Judeo-Persian body of literature. The study of the Bible was a central occupation in Jewish intellectual circles in the Iranian world. It is possible that at least some parts of the Bible were translated into Iranian languages as early as the pre-Islamic period. Evidence for the translation of the Scroll of Esther into Elamite and Median – either dialects of Middle Iranian or varieties of the Persian language – is found in the Babylonian Talmud (Babylonian Talmud Megillah 18a).150 Moreover, Maimonides notes that the Torah was translated into Persian a few hundred years before the advent of Islam.151 While details still evade us, it is evident that the Scriptures were translated into Early Judeo-Persian from the tenth century onward. The following translations have survived: Hagiographa 146 147

148 149

150

151

NLI Ms. Heb. 8333.220=4, 19r:9; Ms. Heb. 8333.14=4, verso, l. 5. For the possibility that the Jewish academies send representatives to the communities of Khurāsān in the tenth century, see below. Shaked, “Early Heritage,” 23 31. For a detailed survey of these categories, see Lazard et al., “Judeo Persian,” 550 52. See also Shaked, “Early Heritage.” See Shaul Shaked, “A List of Judeo Persian Bible Translations” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 84 (2000), 12. See Yeroushalmi, “Judeo Persian Bible Translations,” 21.

the islamic east 353 153 (Cairo), Psalms (Zefreh and central Afghanistan), and Jeremiah (central Afghanistan).154 References to the early exegetical activity of Iranian Jews is attested in Judeo-Arabic works from the tenth century. The Karaite exegete Sahl b. Masliah (fl. mid-tenth century) writes in his commentary on Genesis _ _ disciplines that the of exegesis (tafsīr) and grammar (diqduq) emerged in 155 Isfahān. The Karaite scholar Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī (fl. tenth century) _ mentions grammarians of the Hebrew language from Isfahān, Tustar, and Basra.156 Furthermore, some of the earliest Jewish Bible_ commentaries _ in Hebrew were composed in the Iranian world (or by Jews of Iranian origin), such as those by Benjamin al-Nihāwandī (fl. early ninth century) and Daniel al-Qūmisī (fl. late ninth to early tenth centuries).157 The earliest extant commentaries written in Early Judeo-Persian (with an accompanying translation) are datable to the eleventh century. Significantly, a group of closely related manuscripts containing anonymous Karaite Bible commentaries is preserved at the British Library and the National Library of Russia, and most likely originates in the Karaite synagogue of Dār Simhah.158 Other fragmentary commentaries from the Cairo Genizah and the_ “Afghan Genizah” are preserved in libraries in Europe, the United States, and Israel.159 152

152

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155

156 157

158 159

Another possibility is that the translation is datable to the Īlkhānid period. See Lazard et al., “Judeo Persian,” 551. On Zefreh, see Amnon Netzer, “An Early Judaeo Persian Fragment from Zefreh. Psalms 44:24 27, 45:1 9 and 55:2 16,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 27 (2002), 419 38; Shaked, “New Early Judaeo Persian Finds,” 228 45. On Afghanistan, see NLI Ms. Heb. 8333.199=4; Ofir Haim, “Further Documents from Afghanistan in the National Library of Israel” [Hebrew], AB”A: Journal for the Research and Study of the Jews of Iran, Bukhara and Afghanistan 10 (2017), 13 14. See Shaul Shaked, “A Fragment of the Book of Jeremiah in Early Judaeo Persian,” in Irano Judaica VII, 545 77. See Khan, Early Karaite Grammatical Texts, 244. On the identification of Sahl b. Masliah as the author of this particular commentary, see Daniel Frank, Search _ _ Well: Scripture Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004), 16n64. See ibid. For publications concerning the commentaries attributed to Daniel al Qūmisī, see Barry Dov Walfish and Mikhail Kizilov, Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism (Leiden, 2011), 394 95. For further discussion of these commentaries, see below. For the commentaries from the Cairo Genizah and those preserved in the National Library of Russia, see Shaked, “List,” 14 16; Shaul Shaked, “Early Judaeo Persian Texts: With Notes on a Commentary to Genesis,” in Ludwig Paul, ed., Persian Origins: Early Judaeo Persian and the Emergence of New Persian. Collected Papers of the Symposium, Göttingen 1999 (Wiesbaden, 2003), 200 202.

354 ofir haim The Early Judeo-Persian literature, especially the religious texts, shed light on the religious situation of the Jews in the pre-Mongol Iranian world. Although underrepresented in the extant Early Judeo-Persian texts, it is reasonable to assume that the Rabbanite population was quite substantial and constituted the majority of the Jewish population of the Iranian world. Rabbanite Jews fell under the jurisdiction of the Babylonian academies of Sura and Pumbedita, or of the exilarch. Nathan the Babylonian defines Khurāsān as a rashut (area of rabbinic hegemony) under the authority of the Pumbedita academy, and adds that the Jews of Khurāsān provided financial support for the academy in exchange for “spiritual guidance,” such as sending judges (dayyanim) to the different communities.160 Evidence for the ties of Khurāsān Jewry to the Pumbedita academy is also found in the writings of the geonim of Pumbedita. According to Hayya Gaʾon (d. 1038), his grandfather, Judah Gaʾon, instructed the Jews of Khurāsān in matters of marital consecration.161 The tombstones from Ghūr may also contain expressions of loyalty to the Rabbanite sect. Three tombstones have the title alluf.162 During the geonic period, this title was primarily conferred upon those who sat in the first rows of the Babylonian academies, and later upon prominent members of Jewish congregations throughout the Diaspora who supported the Babylonian academies.163 Whereas two of the tombstones are undated, the third was made in 1518 of the Seleucid era (1206 ce), long after the academies of Sura and Pumbedita were closed. We see, therefore, the title was still employed in order to mark prominent members of the Jewish community of Fīrūzkūh, and probably in other communities too. Furthermore, according to a medieval Zoroastrian polemical treatise in New Persian called ʿUlamā-yi Islām, the leader (miyānjī) of the Jews is titled alluf.164 As for the Jibāl region in the west, Nathan the Babylonian states that the city of Ḥulwān was included in the rashut of the exilarch, while Sherira Gaʾon (d. 1006) regards it as belonging to that of the academy of Pumbedita.165 This obscurity regarding the Jibāl region persisted after the geonic period. Benjamin of Tudela reports that Sar Shalom of 160

161 162 163 164 165

See Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Structure, Goals, and Content of the Story of Nathan ha Babli,” in Menahem Ben Sasson et al., eds., Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben Sasson [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1989), 181 82. In this context, see also the discussion of the terms shaliah and sheliha above. _ _ Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 528. Shaked, “New Early Judaeo Persian Finds,” 227 28. On the title, see EJIW, s.v. “Alluf” (Elinoar Bareket). Shaked, “New Early Judaeo Persian Finds,” 227 28. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 520.

the islamic east 355 Isfahān, religious leader of rabbis/Rabbanites of Persia, was appointed by _ exilarch.166 According to Petahiah of Regensburg, however, the the Baghdadī gaon Samuel b. Eli (r. 1164–1194/97) appointed judges in different regions, including Persia.167 In addition, Samuel b. Eli had ties with several Jewish communities in the western Iranian world as some of his extant correspondence was sent to Kurkān (perhaps next to Kirmānshāh), Khaftiyān, and Hamadān.168 Several fragments of rabbinic texts from the pre-Mongol Iranian world have survived in the Cairo Genizah, which indicate the emigration of Rabbanite Jews from the Iranian world to Egypt.169 A few of these fragments should be mentioned: A commentary on Genesis 32–37 containing midrashic material;170 a commentary on Tractate Avot;171 and a legal work discussing the Rabbanite institution of the ʿeruv.172 The “Afghan Genizah” collection in the National Library of Israel also contains several fragments of rabbinic texts, such as a bifolio from the Mishnah173 and a folio from Seʿadyah Gaʾon’s commentary on Isaiah 33–34.174 Furthermore, both repositories contain Rabbanite liturgical texts with instructions in Judeo-Persian.175 The pre-Mongol Iranian world was fertile ground for the emergence of heterodox groups or individuals from among the general population176 as well as the Jewish minority. The distance from the spiritual center in Babylonia led individuals and groups alike to move out from under the control of the central religious leadership.177 One of the better-known

166 169

170 171 173

174

175

176

177

167 168 Ibid., 523. Ibid., 140. Ibid., 521 22. However, it is worth noting that Rabbanite works were also in the possession of Karaites. See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Is ‘the Cairo Genizah’ a Proper Name or a Generic Noun? On the Relationship between the Genizot of the Ben Ezra and the Dār Simha Synagogues,” in Ben M. Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, eds., From a Sacred _ Source: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2011), 46 47. CUL T S K24.20. The fragment is shortly discussed in Shaked, “List,” 15. 172 CUL T S NS 220.60. CUL T S K24.2(1). NLI Ms. Heb. 8333.30. For further information, see Matthew Morgenstern, “Mishna, Tractate ʿAvoda Zara (Fragment),” in Anton Pritula, ed., Life in Medieval Khorasan: A Genizah from the National Library of Israel. Exhibition Catalogue (St. Petersburg, 2019), 65 69. NLI Ms. Heb. 8333.6=4. On this fragment, see Haggai Ben Shammai, “Saʿadya’s Commentary on Isaiah 33 34,” in Life in Medieval Khorasan, 59 63. See, e.g., NLI Ms. Heb. 8333.33=4, which is a fragment of a prayer book with several liturgical units of the day of the Sabbath. On this, see Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism (Cambridge, 2012). See Shaked, “New Data,” 7, where he refers to Khurāsān.

356 ofir haim individuals to do so was Ḥīwī (or: Ḥayyawayh/Ḥayyūya) al-Balkhī (fl. ninth century). Not much is known about his life, except for his work of 200 questions about the Scriptures, probably composed in verse. Ḥīwī doubts the basic principles of Jewish belief and presents the Bible as selfcontradicting and irrational. The majority of Ḥīwī’s work has not been preserved. His arguments were reconstructed mainly from Seʿadyah Gaʾon, who refuted Ḥīwī’s arguments in a rhymed response.178 Furthermore, we hear of the emergence of several messianic movements from among the Jewish minority. The Karaite scholar al-Qirqisānī writes of a Jewish messianic movement led by Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī in the middle _ succeeded by his of the eighth century. After Abū ʿIsā’s death, he was 179 disciple, Yūdghān of Hamadān. Another known case of a messianic movement was that of Solomon b. al-Rūjī and his son Menahem, who were merged into the figure of David al-Roy in Jewish sources. Solomon and Menahem led a movement for a few decades from the end of the eleventh century, which began in the Kurdish province of Hakkāri (Çölamerik) in present-day southeastern Turkey. The movement appears to have gained a foothold in the northwestern area of the Iranian world; Samawʾal al-Maghribī (d. 1175) reports of supporters of the movement from among the Persian Jews (yahūd al-aʿājim) in the cities Khūy, Silmās, Tabrīz, and Marāgha.180 A report of yet another Jewish messianic movement headed by Abū Saʿīd b. Dāwūdī from Isfahān in 1179 is given in a _ letter attributed to Maimonides.181 The Karaite movement posed the largest challenge to Rabbanite Judaism in the medieval period. During the eighth century, protoKaraite groups developed in present-day Iran and Iraq.182 As noted above, some of the earliest known Karaite scholars, such as Benjamin alNihāwandī and Daniel al-Qūmisī, were of Iranian origin. In his Kitāb al-Anwār wa-l-Marāqib, al-Qirqisānī refers to the Karaites of Tustar, Jibāl, and Khurāsān.183 Furthermore, the Cairo Genizah contains a legal

178 179 180

181

182

183

See EJIW, s.v. “Hīwī al Balkhī” (Marzena Zawanowska) and references therein. For further information, see Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 241 47. For further details regarding Solomon and Menahem, see EJIW, s.v. “Rūjī, Solomon _ and Menahem, al ” (Norman Golb). Gil doubts that the letter was written by Maimonides. At the same time, he asserts that “it does not obviate the possibility of a kernel of truth.” See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 430. On this, see Moshe Gil, “The Origins of the Karaites,” in Meira Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003), 73 118, esp. 100 114. Elinoar Bareket, “Karaite Communities in the Middle East during the Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries,” in Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism, 239.

the islamic east 357 document in Early Judeo-Persian, which was drawn up in a “Karaite court” in 950/51.184 Fragments of Karaite literature in Judeo-Persian have also survived in the Cairo Genizah. To name a few: A halakhic treatise on rules of purity and impurity;185 a grammatical treatise titled Qarqaʿot ha-Diqduq;186 a grammatical commentary on the Hagiographa;187 and a fragment of a Karaite prayer book with instructions in Early Judeo-Persian.188 In addition, an introduction to a Karaite book of precepts (sefer misvot) is _ preserved in the British Library.189 The majority of the Early Judeo-Persian exegetical corpus is composed of Karaite commentaries presently housed in the National Library of Russia and the British Library. The manuscripts, datable to the eleventh to twelfth centuries, were probably copied by the same group of scribes and composed in the same intellectual milieu.190 This exegetical corpus uncovers new information about the Persian-speaking Karaites, notably hitherto unknown commentators, two of whom were mentioned above: Jacob of Nihāwand, Rūzbih b. Masliah of Shīraz, and Michael.191 The _ to_ the famous “Mourners of Zion,” corpus also indicates strong literary ties the Karaite community of Jerusalem from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, as the exegetical opinions of known Karaite commentators are cited. This shows that Early Judeo-Persian commentaries were not the literary product of a secluded and isolated sect. The Karaites of the Iranian 184

185 186

187 189

190

191

Mosseri Ia 1.2. The Early Judeo Persian expression is ‫בית דין קראאן‬. The document was published in Shaul Shaked, “An Early Karaite Document in Judaeo Persian” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 41, 1 (1971), 49 58. CUL T S K24.30. See also Shaked, “Early Heritage,” 28. For an edition and translation, see Nehemia Allony, “Three Excerpts from Qarqaʿot ha Diqduq by Joshua ben Abraham,” in Yitzhak Gilat et al., eds., Studies in Rabbinic Literature, Bible and Jewish History in Honor of Prof. E. Z. Melamed [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1982), 291 311. 188 See Khan, Early Karaite Grammatical Texts, 241 331. CUL T S NS 150.20. BL Or. 8659. For a reading and translation, see David N. MacKenzie, “An Early Jewish Persian Argument,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 31, 2 (1968), 249 69. For some remarks on this edition, see Shaul Shaked, “Judaeo Persian Notes,” Israeli Oriental Studies 1 (1971), 178 80. This manuscript possibly hails from the Cairo Genizah. On this, see Ofir Haim, “The Early Judeo Persian Manuscripts in the British Library and in the National Library of Russia: A Unified Textual Corpus?” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 9, no. 1 2 (2021), 29 61. All three commentators are mentioned in the commentary on the third weekly portion of the Book of Numbers. The names of these three individuals are followed by a blessing indicating that they had already passed away at the time of copying. See BL Or. 2459, 16r:12 (Rūzbih ben Masliah of Shīraz), 26r:20 (Jacob of Nihāwand), and _ _ 25v:15 ff. (Michael).

358 ofir haim world took part in the developed exegetical tradition of the early Karaites, represented mostly by commentators who wrote in Judeo-Arabic.192 It seems that the advent of the Mongols caused a clear break between the pre-Mongol Jewish-Iranian culture and the Judeo-Persian literature that emerged in the fourteenth century. To date, none of the extant JudeoPersian works from the pre-Mongol period have been preserved in later manuscripts.193 The renewal of Jewish culture under the Īlkhānids marked a new episode in the history of Judeo-Persian literature, in which new literary genres were introduced. Furthermore, unlike the pre-Mongol period, the number of rabbinic works from this period outnumbers the Karaite ones. Some of the extant Hebrew manuscripts from the Īlkhānid period were produced in the northwest, the political center of the Īlkhānid state, suggesting a certain cultural Jewish flourishing in the area. The earliest known Hebrew manuscript copied in Īlkhānid Iran is Abraham Ibn Ezra’s (d. 1167) commentary on the Pentateuch, which was copied in Tabrīz in 1262.194 In 1310, a scribe named Daniel copied a section of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah for his brother Sar Shalom, also known as ʿIzz al-Dawla, in Tabrīz.195 It is possible that the cultural flourishing in the northwest, particularly Tabrīz, attracted Jewish scholars from different locations in the Iranian world and the Caucasus, such as Isaiah b. Joseph, who moved from Tiflīs to Tabrīz. Isaiah composed several Kabbalistic works at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries. In one of the colophons, he stated that the work Sefer Gan ʿEden was copied for a judge (dayyan) named Elijah the Levite in Tabrīz in 1330.196 As for the eastern Iranian world, Jewish literary production was renewed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 1339, Solomon b. Samuel of Ūrganj (Gūrganj) compiled a Hebrew-Persian lexicon titled Sefer haMelisa. This work was copied by Samuel b. Isaac in Marw in 1473.197 _ 192

193 195

196 197

See Ofir Haim, “Polemical Aspects in an Early Judeo Persian Bible Exegesis: The Commentary on the Story of Hannah (RNL Yevr. Arab. I 4608),” Entangled Religions: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Religious Contact and Transfer 6 (2018), 162 200; Haim, “Early Judeo Persian Manuscripts.” 194 Shaked, “Early Heritage,” 24. RNL Evr. II A 242/2. Bodl. Ms. Hunt. 567. The manuscript contains several more works: The commentary on Jeremiah and Ezekiel by Moses b. Sheshet (fl. twelfth century), Abraham b. Ezra’s commentary on Job, and a selection of sermons and aggadic material written in Judeo Arabic. For further information regarding the manuscript, see Adolf Neubauer and Arthur E. Cowley, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and in the College Libraries of Oxford, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1886 1906), 1:608. See Fischel, “Azarbaijan,” 9. BL Or. 13872 (formerly Sasson 710). On this manuscript, see Netzer, “Judeo Persian Literature.” For a different identification of this manuscript, see Vera B. Moreen, “A Supplementary List of Judaeo Persian Manuscripts,” The British Library Journal 21, 1 (Spring 1995), 73 74.

the islamic east 359 Several manuscripts from the second half of the fifteenth century attesting to the Jewish presence in Samarqand (1461) and Bukhārā (1485–99) contain not only the transmission of the Torah and prophetic lections (haftarot), _ 198 but also legal works, midrashic materials, and Hebrew-Persian lexicons. In both the eastern and western parts of the Iranian world, several literary genres and compositions were prevalent among Jews. In the field of Jewish law, Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah was popular among Iranian Jews. Fragments of this composition with many Persian glosses between the lines are preserved in the Cairo Genizah.199 A manuscript of Sefer Ahavah from the Mishneh Torah was possibly produced in the Iranian world sometime in the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries.200 Another copy of Sefer Ahavah was prepared in Samarqand in 1461,201 whereas Sefer Ṭaharah was prepared in Bukhārā in 1486.202 Moreover, the manuscripts copied in Bukhārā at the end of the fifteenth century contain legal works by Isaac b. Jacob Alfasi and Hayya Gaʾon, as well as different legal discussions based on the Talmud.203 The study of the Persian Bible continued to be popular among Jews during the Īlkhānid and post-Īlkhānid periods, as attested by two dated manuscripts of Bible translations into Judeo-Persian: the translation of the Scroll of Esther copied in 1280,204 and a translation of the Pentateuch prepared by Joseph b. Moses in 1319.205 Another important translation of the Pentateuch lacking a colophon is preserved in the Vatican Library.206 Although the date and place of origin cannot be determined, it is assumed to be quite old, containing many rare Persian words and expressions. Later translations, such as those which were prepared in Lār in the early 198

199

200

201 202 203 204

205

206

For more details regarding the manuscripts from Bukhārā and Samarqand, see Giora Fuseilov, “The Jews of Central Asia between the 14th and 18th Centuries, in View of Hebrew Manuscripts” [Hebrew], AB”A: Journal for the Research and Study of the Jews of Iran, Bukhara and Afghanistan 9 (2016), 6 14. CUL T S F7.83 and T S AS 97.7. Information retrieved from the Friedberg Genizah Project website: https://fgp.genizah.org/. BL Or. 10041. That the manuscript was owned by a Persian speaker, at least for a certain period of time, is borne out by the appendix attached to the manuscript, which contains words from the Book of Isaiah and their translation into Judeo Persian. See ibid., f. 123r. AIU Ms. 455 H. See also Fuseilov, “Jews of Central Asia,” 8. BIU Moussaieff 1005. See also Fuseilov, “Jews of Central Asia,” 12. See also ibid., 8 14. BNF Hébreu 127, published in Ernst Mainz, “Esther en judéo persan,” Journal Asiatique 257 (1970), 95 106. BL Or. 5446. Published in Herbert H. Paper, A Judeo Persian Bible Pentateuch (Jerusalem, 1972). Vat. Pers. 61. Published in Herbert H. Paper, “The Vatican Judeo Persian Pentateuch,” Acta Orientalia 28 (1965), 263 340; 29 (1965/6), 75 181, 253 310; 31 (1968), 55 113.

360 ofir haim seventeenth century and later brought to Europe by Giambattista Vecchietti (1552–1619), might have relied on earlier sources common among Iranian Jews.207 Another group of texts related to the Bible translation consists of lexical works. Solomon b. Samuel’s Sefer ha-Melisa encompasses the language of _ the Bible, Targum, Talmud, and midrashim, reflecting a high level of intellectual tradition consisting of the study of the Bible and later Jewish sources.208 Another lexical work of the Bible called the Egron was compiled by Moses b. Aaron in Shirwān in 1459.209 Several other lexical works are datable to this period and preserve archaic Persian vocabulary and morphology, such as ʿAmuqot Shemuʾel, which concerns the difficult words in the Book of Samuel,210 and an incomplete dictionary of biblical Hebrew.211 Unlike the pre-Mongol period, no running biblical commentaries in Judeo-Persian have survived from the later period up to the rise of the Safavids. However, manuscripts copied in Tabrīz during the late Īlkhānid period contain Hebrew biblical commentaries composed by Abraham Ibn Ezra and Moses b. Sheshet.212 Furthermore, a manuscript copied in Bukhārā in 1496–98 includes Ḥemʾat ha-Ḥemda, a commentary on the Pentateuch by Seth b. Japheth of Aleppo (fl. second half of the thirteenth century).213 The Bukhārā manuscripts presented by Fuseilov also contain many midrashim.214 In general, the Jews of the Iranian world had a taste for midrashic literature. Adaptations of midrashim into Judeo-Persian are attested in manuscripts from this period, among which mention should be made of a manuscript housed in the Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem. This manuscript is datable to the fourteenth century and contains several Judeo-Persian texts, such as those on the death of Moses, the death of Aaron, and the ascension of Moses.215 Another related text is the narrative known as the “Story of Daniel,” which is preserved in a single copy.216 On the translations obtained by Vecchietti, see Walter J. Fischel, “The Bible in Persian Translation,” Harvard Theological Review 14, 1 (January 1952), 7 17. 208 209 On this work, see Netzer, “Judeo Persian Literature.” Ibid. 210 BL Or. 10482(2). On this work, see Wilhelm Bacher, “Ein persischer Kommentar zum Buche Samuel,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51, 3 (1897), 392 425. 211 JTSA MS L706a. For further information about the manuscript, see Vera B. Moreen, Catalogue of Judeo Persian Manuscripts in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (Leiden, 2015), 349. 212 Bodl. Ms. Hunt. 567. See above. 213 BIU Moussaieff 1004. See also Fuseilov, “Jews of Central Asia,” 9 10. 214 215 See ibid., 8 14. BZI Ms. 4529. See Netzer, “Judeo Persian Literature.” 216 BNF Hébreu 128, 72a 96b. For the most recent reading and translation (into Hebrew), see Shapira, “Qissa ye Dānīʾel.” __ 207

the islamic east 361 I have already mentioned the midrashic compilation known as Pitron Torah, which was copied in smbʾdgʾn (‫ )סמבאדגאן‬in 1328.217 The copy is incomplete as it includes only the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Another fragment of this work concerning a portion of Genesis is said to hail from the area of Bukhārā.218 The copying of the discussed works from northwestern Iran to Bukhārā suggests that the Jewish communities of the Iranian world consumed a range of compositions from the Jewish world as far as al-Andalus. Moreover, the authors of Judeo-Persian translations and lexica relied on the writings of early rabbinic sources, such as the Aramaic targumim, Talmud, midrash, as well as on medieval sources such as Rashi, David Qimhi, and Abraham Ibn Ezra.219 _ the majority of the literary production mentioned so far consisted While of early and medieval rabbinic texts, the Karaite sect seems to have persisted in Iran, especially during the Īlkhānid period. The most important manuscript of Daniel al-Qūmisī’s commentary on the Minor Prophets was copied in the city of Khūy in 1302.220 Moreover, a Judeo-Persian Karaite commentary on Deuteronomy 33 was copied around the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, indicating the intellectual activity of Persianspeaking Karaites under the Mongols.221 After the fourteenth century, there seems to be no evidence of the presence of Karaites in the Iranian world. Interestingly, a few Karaite families of Iranian origin played a key role in the revival of the Karaite community of Cairo.222 The study of the Bible and halakhah was accompanied by the rise of the Judeo-Persian poetry in the fourteenth century. The first known Jewish poet is Mawlānā Shāhīn, who flourished during the time of the last Īlkhānid ruler, Abū Saʿīd. Shāhīn composed several epic poems223 based on the biblical narrative and which rely heavily on the Jewish and PersoIslamic literary traditions.224 Another known Judeo-Persian poet is 217 219

220

221 222

223 224

218 On this toponym, see above. NLI Ms. Heb. 5557=8. See Yeroushalmi, “Judeo Persian Bible Translations,” 23 24; Netzer, “Judeo Persian Literature.” RNL Evr. II A 113. For an edition of the text, see Daniel al Qūmisī, Pitron Shnem ʿAsar, ed. Isaac D. Markon (Jerusalem, 1957). RNL Evr. Arab. I 4606. See Haggai Ben Shammai, “New Sources for the History of the Karaites in Sixteenth Century Egypt (A Preliminary Description)” [Hebrew], Ginzei Qedem 2 (2006), 100. These families might have brought their writings in Judeo Persian with them to Egypt. For further details, see Netzer, “Judeo Persian Literature.” See Wilhelm Bacher, Zwei jüdisch persische Dichter: Schahin und Imrani (Budapest, 1907), 80 117; Moreen, “‘Is[h]maʿiliyat,’” 187 88; Rubanovich, “Joseph and His Two Wives”; Tamir, “Story of Yūsuf and Zulaykhā.”

362 ofir haim ʿImrānī, who was born in Isfahān in 1454 and died in Kāshān sometime after 1536. ʿImrānī composed_ around thirteen works, most of which are in verse form. According to Yeroushalmi’s classification, ʿImrānī’s works fall into four categories: epics, Jewish historic and midrashic narratives, didactic, and lyric and non-Jewish compositions.225 Unlike Shāhīn, ʿImrānī does not seem to integrate Islamic traditions in his works. At the same time, his work titled Fath-nāma, which narrates the books of Joshua, Ruth, _ draws much from the Persian epic tradition, I Samuel, and II Samuel, particularly the Shāh-nāma.226 The impressive number of manuscripts containing the works of Shāhīn and ʿImrānī attest to their popularity in the Persian-speaking Jewish world. With the literary achievement of the two, others followed soon, using the poetic conventions set by Shāhīn and ʿImrānī in their retelling of the biblical narrative in verse, such as Khwāja Bukhārāʾī in the early seventeenth century (Dāniyāl-nāma) and Aaron ben Mashiah at the end of the _ same century (Shoftim-nāma).227 _ THE CHINESE WORLD228

Several texts hailing from present-day western China provide direct testimony for the presence of Jews on the road south to the Taklamakan desert during the period of the Tang dynasty (618–906). The expedition headed by Sir Aurel Stein in the early twentieth century led to the discovery of an Early Judeo-Persian business letter in the area of Dandān-Uiliq, north of Khotan.229 At the beginning of the twenty-first century, a second letter appeared and was purchased by the National Library of China.230 Both letters were apparently written by the same Jewish merchant to his business associate regarding different commercial affairs.231 Based on several 225 226 227 228 229 230

231

For further discussion of ʿImrānī, see Yeroushalmi, Jews of Iran, 146 81. See, e.g., Moreen, “Heroic Mold.” On these poets, see Netzer, “Judeo Persian Literature.” I am grateful to Dror Weil for his useful comments on this section. BL Or. 8212. For studies relating to this letter, see Lazard et al., “Judeo Persian,” 552. National Library of China BH1 19. For the edition and translation of Dandan Uiliq II, see Zhang Zhan and Shi Guang, “A Newly Discovered Judeo Persian Letter” [Chinese], Dunhuang Tulufan Yanjiu 11 (2008), 71 99. An English translation prepared by Zhang Zhan appeared in Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History with Documents (New York, 2017), 381 82. New readings and interpretations of some passages in the two letters were recently suggested in Yutaka Yoshida, “Some New Interpretations of the Two Judeo Persian Letters from Khotan,” in Almut Hintze et al., eds., A Thousand Judgements: Festschrift for Maria Macuch (Wiesbaden, 2019), 385 94. According to Yoshida, the two fragments are of one and the same letter. See Yoshida, “Some New Interpretations,” 385.

the islamic east 363 linguistic features of the letters, Yutaka Yoshida raises the possibility that the writer of the letters was a native speaker of Sogdian, and that Persian was a second language to him. Furthermore, the writer is called a “Sogdian” by one of the individuals mentioned in the letter.232 If this assumption is correct, it may also serve as evidence for Jewish presence in Sogdian-speaking areas, that is, Transoxania, in the early Islamic period. Another Hebrew text written on Chinese paper was found in Dunhuang. The eighteen-line text, which is contemporaneous with the two letters from Dandān-Uiliq, seems to be a prayer containing verses from the Book of Psalms.233 Folded several times, the text may have been used as a protective talisman and carried by a traveling Jewish merchant who passed in Dunhuang.234 In view of the scarce material, it seems unlikely that a Jewish community lived in the area. It is reasonable to assume that these were carried by traveling Jewish merchants who passed through Dandān-Uiliq and Dunhuang.235 In this geographical context, it is worth mentioning two later sources which possibly indicate Jewish presence in western China. The traveler Abū Dulaf (fl. second half of the tenth century) mentions a place called Bahī in the area of present-day Xinjiang province. According to Abū Dulaf, this place is inhabited by Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians.236 Moreover, the names Yahūdī(?) Yalu and Yahūd İkän are mentioned in two legal documents from the Yārkand oasis (dated ah 473/1080 ce and 503/1110, respectively).237

232

233

234

235

236 237

See ibid., 391 92. For the view that the writer was mistaken for a Sogdian, see Hansen, Silk Road, 359. BNF Hébreu 1412. For further information regarding this document, see Philippe Berger and Moïse Schwab, “Le plus ancien manuscrit hébreu,” Journal Asiatique, 11th series, 2 (July August 1913), 139 75; Wu Chi Yu, “Le manuscrit hébreu de Touen houang,” in Jean Pierre Drège, ed., De Dunhuang au Japon: études chinoises et boud dhiques offertes à Michel Soymié (Geneva, 1996), 259 92. Alternatively, it may have been purchased by a non Jew, who might have brought it with him to Dunhuang. Hansen, Silk Road, 302 and 325. Scholars have regarded the letters and the prayer as evidence for the commercial activity of the Rādhānites, who traveled to China according to Ibn Khurdādhbih. See, e.g., Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 297 and 629. However, the scant information regarding the Rādhānites, on the one hand, and the Jewish presence in China, on the other, cannot corroborate this assumption. See Zand, “Jewish Settlement,” 20. On the name Yahūdī(?) Yalu, see Marcel Erdal, “The Turkish Yarkand Documents,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 47, 2 (1984), 276. On Yahūd İkän, see Monika Gronke, “The Arabic Yārkand Documents,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 49, 3 (1986), 491 92.

364 ofir haim In the time of the Tang dynasty, Jews did not travel to China by land alone. Jewish merchants may have arrived in the port city of Guangzhou by sea, along with Muslim merchants who established trading communities in the port cities of southern China. According to Abū Zayd Ḥasan b. Yazīd al-Sīrāfī (fl. tenth century), 120,000 Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews were massacred during a revolt which occurred in the city in 878–79.238 These important pieces of evidence notwithstanding, the better-known Jewish community in China was that of Kaifeng.239 In general, there are four groups of sources available for the study of the history of the Kaifeng community: (1) inscriptions from the Kaifeng synagogue written in 1489, 1512, 1663, and 1679; (2) Hebrew manuscripts belonging to the community; (3) reports of foreigners visitors; (4) Chinese local gazetteers.240 Although our knowledge of the Kaifeng community in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries is quite obscure, these sources shed light on a few aspects regarding the state of the community in the first centuries of its existence. Positioned at the crossroads of terrestrial and marine routes, Kaifeng was the capital of the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). Its centrality may explain the arrival of the Jews in the city, possibly around 1120, prior to its conquest by the Jurchens, the founders of the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), in 1127.241 The assumption that the Kaifeng community was established in the early twelfth century is based on the 1489 inscription, according to which the synagogue of Kaifeng was built in 1163. Therefore, it is likely that the Jewish presence in the city predates this year.242 According to the 1489 inscription, the founders of the Kaifeng community were cotton merchants from India (Tianzhu), which apparently refers

238

239

240

241

242

See Donald D. Leslie, The Survival of the Chinese Jews (Leiden, 1972), 7 8. According to Adam Silverstein, Jewish and Muslim merchants did not make maritime journeys to southern China after the revolt; see Adam Silverstein, “From Markets to Marvels: Jews on the Maritime Route to China ca. 850 ca. 950 ce,” Journal of Jewish Studies 58, 1 (2007), 91 104. For a short survey of scholarly literature on the Kaifeng Jews, see Fook Kong Wong and Dalia Yasharpour, The Haggadah of the Kaifeng Jews of China (Leiden, 2011), 4 5. Ibid., 4. A detailed discussion of these sources is given in Donald D. Leslie, The Chinese Hebrew Memorial Book (Canberra, 1984), xxix xliv. See Irene Eber, “Kaifeng Jews Revisited: Sinification as Affirmation of Identity,” Monumenta Serica 41 (1993), 233 34. Ibid. Leslie raises the possibility that the community was established in 1163, with the building of the synagogue. See Leslie, Survival, 23. For the early dates mentioned by the later synagogue inscriptions, see ibid., 3 4.

the islamic east 365 243 here to countries west of China. The community, or at least part thereof, originated in the Iranian world, apparently Khurāsān or Transoxania. The community’s writings, especially the rubrics in the prayer books, the colophons of the Torah codices, and the translated passages in the Haggadah,244 contain a rather early form of JudeoPersian which is linguistically reminiscent of pre-Mongol Judeo-Persian from the northeastern Iranian world.245 The community of Kaifeng is not mentioned in sources composed during the time of the Yuan dynasty (1280–1368). However, some sources of the period mention Jews and indicate their presence in other locations in China. Chinese sources mention the zhuhu and zhuwu, probably forms derived from New Persian juhūd, in relation to payment or exemption of taxes, marriage law, and military service.246 Interestingly, one source dated to 1280 concerns the prohibition of animal slaughtering according to the Muslim or Jewish customs. Another source writes that the officials of the Hangzhou sugar board were Jewish and Muslim merchants. Non-Chinese texts confirm these accounts; Ibn Battūta also states that Jews lived in _ _ of the city gates was called the Khansā (Hangzhou) in 1346 and that _one “Jews’ gate.” Moreover, Western travelers to Yuan China report of Jewish presence in Zayton (Quanzhou) and Khanbaliq (Beijing).247 Sources from the time of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) also attest to a Jewish presence in China. Based on the inscriptions in the Kaifeng synagogue, it is likely that Jews were present in Ningbo and Yangzhou. Two Torah scrolls were brought from Ningbo to Kaifeng sometime in 1457–65. Another Torah scroll was obtained from Yangzhou in the early sixteenth century. Both communities disappeared sometime during the seventeenth century.248 Jews also appear in the writings of European travelers to China from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The

243

244

245 246

247 248

Ibid., 18. For a discussion of the place of origin of the Kaifeng community, see ibid., 18 21. Other possible explanations for the use of the term Tianzhu are given in Shaul Shaked, “Assimilation or Survival: The Kai Feng Jews according to Their Own Documents,” in Avraham Elqayam and Yosef Kaplan, eds., Conceal the Outcasts: Jews with Hidden Identities [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2016), 346. For a survey of the manuscripts of the Kaifeng community, see Leslie, Survival, 139 59. For the latest study of Kaifeng Haggadah, see Wong and Yasharpour, Haggadah. On the Judeo Persian colophons, see Donald D. Leslie, “The Judaeo Persian Colophons to the Pentateuch of the Kʾaifeng Jews,” Abr Nahrain 8 (1969), 1 36. See Shaked, “Assimilation,” 348 51. See Leslie, Survival, 11 15; Donald D. Leslie, “The Mongol Attitude to Jews in China,” Central Asiatic Journal 39, 2 (1995), 234 45. On the accounts from the Yuan period, see Leslie, Survival, 14 15. Ibid., 29 and 146.

366 ofir haim Jesuit Matteo Ricci writes about the Jews of Hangzhou and their synagogue in 1605, while others state that the Jews of Beijing and Nanjing converted to Islam.249 The same Ricci was the first to report of the existence of the Kaifeng community to the Europeans in 1605, after meeting a Kaifeng Jew named Ai Tian.250 Unlike other Jewish communities in China, the community of Kaifeng did not vanish around that time. Although the community of Kaifeng underwent a process of integration into Chinese society from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it managed to sustain its Jewish identity. According to Eber, the Jewish identity of the Kaifeng community persisted on account of this integration process, which involved the use of Chinese surnames and the adoption of the Chinese lineage family organization around the same locality, namely, Kaifeng.251 This transformation from community to a group of lineages was accompanied by the development of a sectarian identity which reinforced the Jewish one. The Jews of Kaifeng were regarded as a popular religious sect (jiao), which had a shrine, a religious leader, scriptures, and distinguishing practices. This sect was characterized by syncretism, intertwining Jewish and Confucian concepts and elements from Jewish and Chinese history and creation myths.252 The combination of family and sectarian identity allowed the Jews of Kaifeng to blend in the Chinese social fabric, while holding to their kinship ties, practices, and memory of a Jewish past. As pointed out by Eber, “Because of a unique process of acculturation and transformation . . . the identity of the Kaifeng Jews was strengthened rather than destroyed, allowing for its persistence into the twentieth century.”253 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

history of iranian jewry and judeo-persian language and literature Gil, Moshe. In the Kingdom of Ishmael in the Geonic Period, 4 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1997). Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004). Lazard, Gilbert. La formation de la langue persane (Paris, 1995). Moreen, Vera B. In Queen Esther’s Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature (New Haven, 2000). 249 251 253

250 Ibid., 16 17. On this encounter, see ibid., 31 35. 252 On this, see Eber, “Kaifeng Jews Revisited,” 235 38. On this, see ibid., 238 45. Ibid., 246.

the islamic east 367 “Judeo-Persian Literature,” in John R. Perry, ed., Persian Literature from Outside Iran: The Indian Subcontinent, Anatolia, Central Asia, and in Judeo-Persian (London, 2018), 390–409. Netzer, Amnon. “Judeo-Persian Communities ix. Judeo-Persian Literature,” Encyclopaedia Iranica. An Anthology of the Persian Poetry of the Jews of Iran, publ. as Muntakhab-i ashʿār-i fārsī az āthār-i yahūdiyān-i īrān [Persian] (Tehran, 1352 SH/1973). Paul, Ludwig. A Grammar of Early Judaeo-Persian (Wiesbaden, 2013). Rubanovich, Julia, and Geoffrey Herman, eds. Irano-Judaica VII (Jerusalem, 2019). Shaked, Shaul. “On the Early Heritage of the Jews of Persia” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 23 (1985), 22–37. “Classification of Linguistic Features in Early Judeo-Persian Texts,” in Werner Sundermann et al., eds., Exegisti Monumenta: Festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Sims-Williams (Wiesbaden, 2009), 449–61. Shaked, Shaul, ed. Irano-Judaica: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture throughout the Ages (Jerusalem, 1982). Shaked, Shaul, and Amnon Netzer, eds. Irano-Judaica II–VI (Jerusalem, 1990–2008). Yeroushalmi, David. The Jews of Iran: Chapters in Their History and Cultural Heritage (Costa Mesa, 2016). kaifeng jewry Eber, Irene. “Kaifeng Jews Revisited: Sinification as Affirmation of Identity,” Monumenta Serica 41 (1993), 231–47. Laytner, Anson H., and Jordan Paper, eds. The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng: A Millennium of Adaptation and Endurance (Lanham, MD, 2017). Leslie, Donald D. The Survival of the Chinese Jews (Leiden, 1972). Shaked, Shaul. “Assimilation or Survival: The Kai Feng Jews according to Their Own Documents,” in Avraham Elqayam and Yosef Kaplan, eds., Conceal the Outcasts: Jews with Hidden Identities (Jerusalem, 2016), 345–51. Wong, Fook-Kong, and Dalia Yasharpour. The Haggadah of the Kaifeng Jews of China (Leiden, 2011).

part ii SOCIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

chapter 11

DEMOGRAPHY AND MIGRATIONS phillip i. lieberman

In his “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” Eliyahu Ashtor notes the poverty of sources documenting the demographic development of Jews in medieval Islamic lands.1 Although scholarly estimates draw on systematic methods in forming conjectures, they nonetheless admit of wide variation. The size of any population responds to “a complex of biological, social, and cultural factors,” including plague, socioeconomic transformations, migration, and conversion.2 In this chapter, I discuss population estimates for Jews in Islamic lands from the rise of Islam through the fifteenth century – critically evaluating the sources, methods, and assumptions that scholars have used to arrive at them. SOURCES AND METHODS

The major literary sources on which previous demographic estimates have relied are medieval travelogues and historical chronicles. These sources describe various locales and often include either population “figures” or other data such as the names of the streets delimiting an area of Jewish settlement. Since the discovery of the Cairo Genizah, its documentary evidence has also been used to calculate population estimates. Tax registers occasionally permit one to estimate the size of Jewish communities when those communities collected their own taxes or when Islamic regimes levied special taxes on non-Muslim communities. Some scholars have also estimated the proportion of the Jewish community relative to the population as a whole and thereby arrived at population numbers for areas of Jewish settlement. Where possible, some have used archaeological detail to complement all of these other sources. 1

2

Eliyahu Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” Jewish Quarterly Review, no. 50 (1959 60), 55. Sergio Della Pergola, “Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History,” in Sergio Della Pergola and Judith Even, eds., Papers in Jewish Demography, 1997 (Jerusalem, 2001), 13.

371

372 phillip i. lieberman Yet each of these sources of data poses difficulties that complicate the enterprise of historical demography. There is no reason to believe that medieval travelers intended to portray the size and composition of Jewish populations accurately, and it is unclear whether they had at their disposal any sort of reliable or accurate tool for estimating – let alone actually counting – any given Jewish population. In some cases, it is not entirely clear that travelers actually visited the places they describe, leading to skepticism concerning accounts such as that of Benjamin of Tudela, whose travels are supposed to have taken him throughout Islamic lands between 1165 and 1173 ce.3 Travelogues also generally concern themselves with urban settlements, leaving the modern scholar little narrative evidence for calculating the size of rural Jewish populations. Further, the structure and size of the nuclear family likely varied no less than urban density, so where it would seem that Benjamin and others provide a count of “households” rather than individuals, these numbers are difficult to convert into overall population figures. Finally, there are problems in the textual transmission of medieval travelogues: divergences in manuscripts of Benjamin’s account, for example, are extreme in number and magnitude, and textual variants tend to creep in precisely where numbers are concerned. Chronicles, too – though they are rich in detail concerning prominent individuals – do not supply much information concerning the wider Jewish population; it is generally not possible to use detail about the elites to describe the demographic features of the Jewish population as a whole. Official records of the Jewish community itself pose a different set of challenges. Where such records exist, scholars are forced either to assume that they are complete or to speculate as to what percentage of the community they represent. Yet the accuracy of the records themselves is suspect: when Jewish leaders played a role in fixing the total amount of poll tax to be collected, they would have had a vested interest in keeping the amount low and the number of registered “residents” high, even if those residents were simply sojourners and might have been able to register themselves elsewhere, in order to share the burden over a larger number of people. Ottoman censuses can be used as indirect, supporting evidence, in order to buttress estimates of the Jewish population in earlier periods, but these censuses generally record the number of households rather than

3

Typifying this skepticism, Elkan N. Adler writes concerning Benjamin that “What he says of India and China is only hearsay, but he is the first European writer who so much as mentions China.” (Elkan N. Adler and Judah D. Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers: A Treasury of Travelogues from 9 Centuries, 2nd ed. (New York, 1966), xiii.)

demography and migrations 373 4 the number of individuals, begging the question of family size. Further, where censuses were performed only at long intervals, they offer no information about population fluctuations in the intervening years. The dead may even have remained on a tax register, and if the poor or sick were not taxed, the size of these subpopulations must be taken into account. The ratios of rich to poor and healthy to sick were highly variable, and should not be considered fixed or stable over the long term, even though some scholars treat them as such. The availability of lists in the Cairo Genizah has given rise to estimates for the Jewish populations of Fustāt and Cairo, _ _the ratio of but it cannot be assumed that the lists are complete or that 5 donors to recipients remained stable. Scholars have also attempted to use archaeological evidence to estimate the geographic size of specific Jewish settlements. Yet even precise measurements of areas of Jewish habitation do not necessarily allow an accurate calculation of the Jewish population.6 Unless the literary or documentary sources represent the same historical period as the archaeological evidence, one cannot assume that streets or markets with a given name did not move from one location to another. Nor did the density of Jewish population in one period – difficult to estimate in any case – necessarily hold across historical periods or locales. Even when governmental fiat ordered the transfer of Jews, some may have remained in their former homes (or remained and converted). Christians and Muslims may also have lived in the area of Jewish concentration. Scholars have, however, taken a number of steps to reduce the possibility of error. One is to estimate population in the aggregate by stratifying Jewish settlements into those in large cities, middle-sized communities, and smaller villages, often based on the social and legal institutions present in each locale. Understanding these institutions only to have emerged in settlements of a particular size produces statistically unbiased estimates of aggregate population.7 Although documentary and literary evidence both exhibit a selection bias, focusing on institutions and locales closest to or of 4

5

6

7

R. Stephen Humphreys points out the value of the Ottoman archives for the study of earlier periods, while nonetheless underscoring their problems in Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (Princeton, 1991), 248. For such an estimate, see Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), 48; and note 21. See Humphreys’ critical evaluation of this strategy for estimating the population of medieval Islamic cities in Humphreys, Islamic History, 247 48. The term “statistically unbiased” is used here in its technical sense: known small villages are understood to be representative of the whole (that is, both known and unknown villages), so an average of known small villages can accurately be used to estimate the aggregate population of “small villages.”

374 phillip i. lieberman greatest interest to their writers, the centers of documentary production were also the population centers. Thus, where Jewish populations were small, information may be scarce and imprecise yet great variability of estimates for these settlements in percentage terms would nonetheless be small in actual numbers. For this reason, one need not despair entirely of the enterprise of demography – but one must always keep in mind the speculative nature of the endeavor. Yet the reliability of speculative estimates improves when the documentary, literary, and archaeological sources all lead to figures that are close in number – even if this proximity requires modifying one or another figure because of the idiosyncratic recording of “households” rather than individuals. While it is possible that the figures in any one literary source were adjusted by transmitters in light of other sources or even simply corrupted in transmission, evidence pointing to changes in the human and natural environments alike can corroborate trends seen in these literary sources.8 The entire range of available sources must be brought to bear in the service of population estimates that accord with the human and natural environments, revealing trends due both to exogenous factors such as natural disasters and endogenous factors such as conversion or eschatological fervor. PRE ISLAMIC AND EARLY ISLAMIC ARABIA

Though there was a Jewish population in the Arabian Peninsula long before the rise of Islam, attempts to reconstruct its early history have remained highly speculative.9 In antiquity, the Ḥijāz served as a trade entrepôt and housed a Jewish population involved in commerce. Jewish settlers in oases were also involved in agriculture.10 In the first and second centuries ce, many Judean refugees arrived in the Arabian Peninsula after

8

9

10

Perhaps the most important, recent intervention in the field of medieval demography in Islamic lands that accounts for the effects of changes in the natural environment over the longue durée is Ronnie Ellenblum’s Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950 1072 (Cambridge, 2012). See, for instance, the somewhat uncritical use of the talmudic legend that at the destruction of the First Temple, 80,000 priests departed for Arabia (Palestinian Talmud, Taʿanit 69b): H. Z. Hirschberg, Yisrael ba ʿArav (Tel Aviv, 1946), 36 and 40; and Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2004), 7. For current scientific attempts to trace the demographic scope of this population, see Chapters 8 and 9 in this volume. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 3. See also Carole Hillenbrand, “Muhammad and the Rise of Islam,” in Paul Fouracre, ed., The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 1 (Cambridge, 2005), 321.

demography and migrations 375 11 the failure of the rebellions against Rome in 70 and 135 ce. The Jewish population and its influence in south Arabia were significant enough that in the early sixth century, the royal house of Ḥimyar briefly adopted Judaism.12 This population faded from view following its subjugation by Ethiopia in 525, but Jewish settlements persisted in Yemen continuously until mass migrations began in the late nineteenth century. Arabic chronicles and Christian sources provide information as to the order of magnitude of this population, including accounts of the number of Christians that the Ḥimyarite king Dhū Nuwās persecuted in the sixth century. But Christian sources tend progressively to inflate the Christian population, influencing Arabic accounts over time so that the number of those executed grew from 200 to 70,000.13 Although the Jewish population of Ḥimyar certainly expanded with the conversions and military campaigns of Dhū Nuwās, economic changes and natural disasters in the sixth century reduced these numbers and led to a general migration northward. Jewish and Christian groups comprised important and 11

12

13

Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 4. This view is not universally held among scholars of the Second Temple period: Lawrence Schiffman notes that following the Great Revolt (66 73 ce), “[t]he Jews and their civilization adapted to the new circumstances and tried to live normally under the Romans in a restored and rebuilt land” (Lawrence H. Schiffman, From Text to Tradition: A History of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism (Hoboken, NJ, 1991), 162); while following the Bar Kokhba Revolt “[a]s if history were repeating itself, recovery and the reinstitution of Jewish self government ensued once again” (ibid., 174). Furthermore, it is not clear that those Jews who did leave Judea went to Arabia as opposed to the Galilee (Seth Schwartz writes only that following 70 ce “[t]he district of Judaea seems to have lost much . . . of its Jewish population” in his “Political, Social, and Economic Life in the Land of Israel, 66 c.235,” in Steven T. Katz, ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4 (Cambridge, 2006)). However, the sense that the destruction following the Great Revolt led to an influx of Jews in the Arabian Peninsula is shared by L. Veccia Vaglieri in EI2, s.v. “Khaybar.” Joseph Adler cites as evidence for this influx “tombstones on ancient sites halfway between Medina and Eretz Israel. These grave markers date to years before and after the destruction of the Second Temple” (Joseph Adler, “The Jewish Kingdom of Himyar (Yemen): Its Rise and Fall,” Midstream 46, 4 (2000), 28). Moshe Gil notes that “[t]he Muslim sources speak of the town of Yathrib as having been a Jewish city, and are quite clear that its founders were survivors from the revolt against the Romans” (Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 11), and that rabbinic literature expresses “condemnation of the Arabs’ treatment of refugees of the revolt” (ibid., 20), suggesting the presence of a substantial population of refugees, but the historicity of these sources need not be taken for granted. Cf. Hirschberg’s discussion of Himyar in Hirschberg, Yisrael ba ʿArav, 75 111. See also ʿAbd al Malik Ibn Hishām and Muhammad Ibn Ishāq, The Life of Muhammad: _ _ Introduction and Notes _ Allāh, with by A Translation of Ibn Ishāq’s Sīrat Rasūl _ Alfred Guillaume (London, 1955), 17. A. Guillaume, ed. and trans. Adler, “The Jewish Kingdom of Himyar,” 30; see also Hirschberg, Yisrael ba ʿArav, 102.

376 phillip i. lieberman occasionally dominant settlements in a number of towns of the Ḥimyarite kingdom, which was otherwise populated by pagans, though the current state of research does not allow the size of these various populations to be estimated. Islamic conquest and concomitant conversion transformed the population in the first half of the seventh century. The hagiographic nature of Islamic literary sources from the period also makes it difficult to hazard a guess as to the size of the Jewish population of the Arabian Peninsula as a whole in the sixth and seventh centuries. However, it is clear that the Jewish presence in the Ḥijāz was significant enough to influence the ideational milieu from which Muhammad and Islam emerged. Islamic literary sources suggest that Mecca_ housed an assemblage of Jewish merchants, though these seem to have been individuals rather than clans or tribes organized and governed according to bloodlines. S. D. Goitein’s depiction of Jewish life in the Ḥijāz as “organized into compact agricultural units engaged mainly in the cultivation of dates” describes the oasis of Medina;14 the Jewish population in Mecca seems to have consisted of a small and disorganized smattering of groups of traders and teachers. Jewish populations in Mecca and Medina certainly played differing roles in the local economy, a difference that portends a broader shift in economic life in Islamic lands in the eighth and ninth centuries from agricultural life to urban commerce.15 According to Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, the Jewish community of the Islamic world as a whole benefited disproportionately from this transformation because of its commitment to literacy, itself rooted in educational reforms from late antiquity, while others maintain that Jewish urbanization was a tool for the maintenance of communal identity and boundaries.16 The Jews of Medina were organized into clans and tribes, and it is possible to arrive at a tentative estimate of their size. Early biographies of Muhammad detail the names of his rabbinic adversaries in his mission, _ 14 15

16

S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (New York, 1964), 48. Cf. S. D. Goitein, “The Rise of the Middle Eastern Bourgeoisie in Early Islamic Times,” in Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966), 217 41. For the work of Botticini and Eckstein, see Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, “Jewish Occupational Selection: Education, Restrictions, or Minorities?” Journal of Economic History 65, 4 (2005). These arguments are developed further in their The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History 70 1492 (Princeton, 2012). Botticini and Eckstein also summarize the views of Simon Kuznets and Max Weber, who describe the impetus for Jewish urbanism as boundary maintenance and a desire to facilitate ritual observance, respectively (Botticini and Eckstein, “Jewish Occupational Selection,” 889 90).

demography and migrations 377 17 suggesting a rabbinically educated stratum of Jews in Medina. Seventeen of these are identified as belonging to the tribe of the Banū Qurayza. The Sīra of Ibn Ishāq points out that between 600 and 900 Jews of the_ Banū Qurayza were _killed in 627, while nearly all the women and children were spared._18 A Qurʾānic verse (33:26) traditionally understood as referring to the massacre of the Banū Qurayza provides complementary information, pointing out that “some” (farīqan)_ of the “People of the Book” were killed, while some were imprisoned.19 If the portion of individuals who were imprisoned is intended to refer to women and children, this suggests that the Jewish population of the Banū Qurayza was about 3,000, assuming an _ average family size of 4 persons.20 The Banū Qurayza settlement can be _ density of some estimated at 11.5 hectares, but the average population 260 individuals per hectare that this suggests is too high, even without accounting for the Aws living in their neighborhood or for unpopulated agricultural land in this section of the oasis.21 The 17 rabbinic figures mentioned by the Sīra would imply just over 0.5 percent of the population 17

18 20

21

“Rabbinic adversaries”: see Ibn Hishām and Ibn Ishāq, The Life of Muhammad, 239ff. As _ in the Qurʾān (5:44, _ for the term “rabbis”: the word rabbāniyūn appears 5:63), juxta posed with “learned individuals” (ahbār) which is itself juxtaposed elsewhere (9:31) _ then, seem to be a clerical elite. The mention of with “monks” (ruhbān). The “rabbis,” “rabbis” as an educated elite, perhaps students of the rabbinic tradition, supports the portrayal of literacy and education endorsed by Botticini and Eckstein, though (as will be shown), the proportion of those enumerated as “rabbis” seems to be far smaller than one might expect from their analysis. 19 Ibid., 461ff. and 64 66. Cf., for example, al Tabarī to Qurʾān 33:26. Ashtor relies on an average family of 6 in al Andalus, and about 5 in medieval Egypt. Infant mortality may well have meant an average family size larger than that assumed here, but using such numbers would increase the population density per hectare well above the numbers used by Ashtor for urbanized al Andalus, a result which would seem to make little sense in a Hijāzī oasis in the seventh century. Sergio Della Pergola uses a “cautious factor of 4.375 persons per household” (Pergola, “Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History,” 19). As a higher figure than the 4 persons used here would likely be more accurate from the perspective of actual family size in the Hijāz in the seventh century, it should be considered that the count of the dead of the Banū Qurayza may well have included adolescent male children who had not yet established families_ and would have been dependents in other households, raising the average family size and lowering the number of families represented by the 600 to 900 dead. This estimate emerges from the area allocated to Banū Qurayza and Aws in John Lewis _ Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia: Comprehending an Account of Those Territories in Hedjaz Which the Mohammedans Regard as Sacred (London, 1829), vol. II as reproduced and modified by Hirschberg (Yisrael ba ʿArav, 119) and Stillman (The Jews of Arab Lands, 12). Note that these measurements rely on Burckhardt’s nineteenth century notes, suggest ing further the difficulty of the problem at hand since they are hardly reliable measures for the size of Medina in the seventh century. However, while not confirming its accuracy, the repeated publication of Burckhardt’s map suggests its general acceptance.

378 phillip i. lieberman being identified as “rabbis.” Speculating that population density was closer to 225 individuals per hectare, even allocating two-thirds of the settlement of Aws to the Banū Qurayza themselves would yield a population of 1,725 _ count of the dead in the Sīra is too high, and Jews.22 This suggests that the should be modified downward to around 430 Jews.23 The proportion of the population labeled as “rabbis” would then be closer to 1 percent. Allowing that the Sīra’s count of 17 rabbis for Banū Qurayza is incomplete, we may arrive at an estimate of the order of magnitude for_ the Jewish population of other areas of Medina by speculating that the proportion of “rabbis” was roughly similar in other tribal areas of Medina.24 This would put the population of the Banū al-Nadīr in the vicinity of 1,000 souls (10 rabbis) and the Banū Qaynuqāʿ around_ 3,100 (31 rabbis).25 The territory of the Banū al-Nadīr was approximately 2.5 hectares, suggesting a population density of 400 _persons/hectare. Although this number seems high, it is likely that the territory of the Banū al-Nadīr was more densely populated _ than the other areas of Jewish settlement since it was the oldest developed agricultural settlement and it occupied the best land.26 The exit of the Banū al-Nadīr “in an impressive caravan of 600 camels” recorded by al-Wāqidī is_ not entirely unreasonable in light of a population of 1,000 Jews.27 The territory of the Banū Qaynuqāʿ consisted of roughly 10 hectares, suggesting a population density of 310 persons/hectare – also a high number, though less dense than the settlement of the Banū al-Nadīr. _ Although these calculations suggest a range of population densities over the region, the total estimated population of around 5,800 Jews would suggest 1,450 adult males. These revised population figures find support in the 1,500 swords, 300 suits of armor, 200 spears, and 1,500 shields later

22

23

24

25

26 27

Tom Boiy discusses various estimates of population density and carrying capacity for the antique and late antique periods in Tom Boiy, Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon (Leuven, 2004), 232 33, arriving at estimates in the vicinity of 200 individuals per hectare. Once again, unless the dead were not simply heads of household, but were adult males from every household, in which case the count of 600 dead Jews can be accepted. This speculation assumes that the populations of the sections of Medina were not radically different from one another and therefore each subpopulation would possess roughly the same percentage of “rabbis,” as it would possess roughly the same percentage of tanners, camel herders, and so forth. Note that Marshall Hodgson estimates this sector of the population as “[n]umbering perhaps two thousand adults” (Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago, 1974), 177), whereas the estimate here of 3,100 souls would imply roughly 1,500 adults. Hirschberg, Yisrael ba ʿArav, 119. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 14; and his translation of al Wāqidī, ibid., 136.

demography and migrations 379 28 seized by the Muslims. Though Meir J. Kister has pointed out that these quantities were “disproportionate relative to the number of fighting men,” in fact they are not unreasonable in defining the total arsenal of the Jewish population of Medina.29 Additionally, the Sīra mentions some 7 additional rabbis from other tribes that held significant swaths of land in Medina, suggesting another 700 Jews, for a total of some 6,500 Jews in Medina. Upon their expulsion from Medina, the Banū al-Nadīr found their way _ some 150 miles north to the oasis of Khaybar, augmenting the Jewish population involved primarily in agriculture. Muhammad marched on Khaybar in 629 with some 1,600–1,800 men and 100_horses and conquered the area in the name of Islam.30 Heinrich Graetz, Simon Dubnow, and Norman Stillman held that ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb (r. 634–44) expelled the _ Jews of Khaybar along with the rest of the _Jews of the Ḥijāz in 642;31 Graetz theorized that some of these Jews ended up in Kūfa, while Stillman notes folk traditions that these Jews were spread throughout the Middle East, including Palestine.32 Indeed, some Tiberian Jews of the eleventh century claimed descent from Khaybarī stock.33 But this expulsion was either incomplete or not permanently effective: both Sherira Gaʾon (c. 906–1006) and Hayya Gaʾon (939–1038) received inquiries from the Jews of Wādī al-Qurā, close to Khaybar.34 Likewise, Benjamin of Tudela records 50,000 Jews in Khaybar, an exaggerated figure that nonetheless suggests the survival or refoundation of a Jewish community there. Even if Benjamin of Tudela’s population figures for cities and regions in the Arabian Peninsula are exaggerated, he does preserve the names of Jewish population centers, perhaps on the basis of common knowledge at the period in which he was writing. Benjamin records Jewish settlements in Yemen as well as in northwest Arabia (Taimāʾ, Tilmas, and Tanai). His figure of 400,000 Jews likely overstates a population that had been dispossessed of its property and turned into tenant farmers as Islam emerged in the Ḥijāz and beyond: the total Jewish population of the 28

29 30 31 32

33 34

Meir Kister cites the sources for these figures and mentions variations among them in Meir J. Kister, “The Massacre of the Banū Qurayza: A Re examination of a Tradition,” _ Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986), 94n131. Ibid., 93ff. Cf. EI2, s.v. “Khaybar,” and the alternate tradition of 1,400 men and 200 horses there. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 59. Stillman (ibid., 19n39) cites Itzhak Ben Zvi, The Exiled and the Redeemed (Jerusalem, 1976), 167 208. Cf. Gil, A History of Palestine, 152 and 152n20. Albert Harkavy, ed., Teshuvot ha Geʾonim (Jerusalem, 1965), 201; discussed by Gil, A History of Palestine, 27n23. See also the discussion in Haggai Mazuz, The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina (Leiden, 2014), 100 101.

380 phillip i. lieberman Arabian Peninsula around the time of the hijra was likely not to have exceeded 100,000 Jews.35 (Della Pergola accepts Benjamin’s twelfthcentury estimate of 455,000, placing some 37.9 percent of world Jewry in the Arabian Pensinsula, but this figure calls out for revision.36) As the Islamic conquest progressed, the Jewish population of the Arabian Peninsula dwindled due to casualties and conversion to Islam rather than migration.37 Genizah documents and rabbinic responsa survive attesting to a Jewish population in the Arabian Peninsula in the tenth through twelfth centuries, including the aforementioned settlement in Wādī al-Qurā. But documents from Yemen far outnumber those from the Ḥijāz, particularly those concerning the twelfth-century port of ʿAden and the India trade.38 The Genizah’s location in Egypt and Egypt’s role as a hub for the India trade suggest a preservation bias. But a population of the scale Benjamin imagined would likely have sent more inquiries to the rabbinic authorities in Iraq than the two I have mentioned, and none are attested. IRAQ AND IRAN

The Jewish population of Iraq had its origins in resettlement following the destruction of the First Temple (586 bce) and conversion of these immigrants’ neighbors and slaves.39 Intermarriage also probably played a role. The rate of conversion to Judaism must, however, have declined from the fifth century ce as the rate of conversion to Christianity increased. Jacob Neusner has offered what he considers a conservative estimate of the Jewish population of Mesopotamia in the Sasanid period (226–651 ce) at one-tenth to one-eighth of the local population.40 Based on an average 35

36

37

38

39 40

Note that this figure is on the order of magnitude of the 80,000 priests who migrated to Arabia in the aforementioned legend (see note 9). Pergola, “Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History,” 18. Pergola does note that “[s]ome of Tudela’s figures, namely the huge Jewish concentrations reported in the Arabian Peninsula, admittedly appear quite unreliable, and occasionally quite fantastic” (ibid., 19), yet he does not adjust Benjamin’s figure downward. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 511, cites Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al Kharāj (Cairo, 1928), who mentions conversion among dhimmī populations, both Jewish and Christian. For further detail concerning the port of ʿAden, see Roxani E. Margariti, Aden & the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port (Chapel Hill, 2007); for the India trade in general, see S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza: India Book, Part One (Leiden, 2008). See also Chapter 7 in this volume. Michael G. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984), 306. Jacob Neusner, A History of the Jews in Babylonia (Chico, CA, 1984), 2:246.

demography and migrations 381 population density for Sasanid Iran as a whole, this would suggest 600,000 to 1 million Jews in Mesopotamia and its environs.41 Neusner then establishes the robustness of this estimate by counting the number of Jewish settlements attested in the Babylonian Talmud and assuming the size of each settlement’s Jewish population based on whether they were cities, towns, or villages. This leads him to reckon 860,000 Jews around the sixth century. Other estimates of the Jewish population of Mesopotamia in this period reach as high as 2 million.42 Sherira Gaʾon’s epistle to Qayrawān (986–87) says that 90,000 Jews welcomed ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (r. 656–61) upon his conquest of Fīrūz-Shābūr in 657, a figure that lends credibility to the order of magnitude of Neusner’s estimate.43 Sasanid Jews were concentrated in the alluvial plain of the Tigris and the Euphrates.44 Michael Morony places the great majority of Jews in the peasant class, involved in both agrarian pursuits and commerce – though he argues that by the fourth century, commerce brought a better return than agriculture.45 This shift away from small-scale farms again portends growing rates of urbanization with the establishment of the ʿAbbāsid administration in Baghdad, a shift evidenced in the rabbinic ruling of 787 allowing debts on estates to be paid out of movable property.46 Although this ruling was promulgated by the academies of Sura and of the exilarch, historical reality led to its gradual acceptance by the Pumbeditan yeshiva (academy) as well. Yet that the constituency of the Babylonian academies was largely involved in agricultural pursuits is evident from the annual schedule of 41

42

43

44

45 46

Note that this assumes an overall average population density of 46 to 60 persons per square kilometer, based on Julius Beloch, Die Bevölkerung der griechisch römischen Welt (New York, 1979), 250 51. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, 308n18, citing Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews: From the Babylonian Exile to the Present (Philadelphia, 1968), 227. Fīrūz Shābūr: Sherira b. Hanina, Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaʾon, ed. Benjamin Manasseh Lewin (Haifa, 1921), 101. Ibn Daud also notes (see Gerson D. Cohen, ed. and trans., Sefer ha Qabbalah: A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Philadelphia, 1967), 44 45) that Rabbi Isaac welcomed ʿAlī. Ibn Daud’s date for this is 4420 am/660 ce; Morony (Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, 324) agrees with Ibn Daud’s dating. See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 58: “Jewish settlements in Babylonia during the reign of the Persian kingdom were concentrated in three groups: (1) in the neighborhood of the Euphrates, around Nehardeʿa (i.e. Fīrūz Shābūr) and Pumbedita; (2) in the southern area around Sura; (3) the eastern area around Māhōzē and the _ Rādhān canals (i.e. Jūkhā).” Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, 311. Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998), 63.

382 phillip i. lieberman the academies, which invited students to participate in lectures only during the kallah months of Adar (February/March) and Elul (August/ September). The persistence of this tradition of gathering during those periods of the year, when “there was no urgent agricultural work to be performed,” strongly suggests the centrality of farming even after the Islamic conquests.47 Additionally, the geonim themselves held “investments in real estate, which presumably represented a sort of endowment fund.”48 Yet unification of the former Sasanid and Byzantine parts of the Middle East into one polity under Islam removed many of the barriers to trade.49 The ensuing commercial revolution seems to have increased the Jewish population in urban areas and steered many Jews from agriculture to commerce and crafts. Goitein’s understanding of Jewish participation in a “bourgeois revolution” of the eighth and ninth centuries characterized by urbanization and “the dramatic growth of a mercantile economy and the business arts” still has much to recommend it.50 The so-called Rādhānite merchants, long understood to have originated in Europe, have been proved convincingly by Moshe Gil to have had their origins in the eastern part of Mesopotamia, on the Persian border, in or perhaps even before the ninth century.51 Jews’ involvement in growing urbanization and commercial life is also reflected in the relocation of the rabbinic academies of Pumbedita and Sura to Baghdad following the establishment of the latter as the ʿAbbāsid center, though these relocations took more than a century to occur and may have been an attempt to gain closer access to Muslim authorities as well as a desire to seize economic opportunities in the urbanized center. Of course, opportunities persisted on the periphery – even if many of those opportunities were in support of life at the center.52 But it seems that at least

47 48

49 50

51 52

Ibid., 43. Ibid., 39. A letter dated by Cowley to 953 alludes to the devastation of agricultural lands (qarqaʿot) of the academy of Pumbedita (Arthur E. Cowley, “Bodleian Geniza Fragments,” Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 18, 3 (1906), 402). Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge, 2002), 46. Bourgeois revolution: S. D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966), 217 41; and Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 29. Botticini and Eckstein argue for a comparative advantage afforded the Jewish community by a high rate of literacy and social structure: Botticini and Eckstein, “Jewish Occupational Selection.” Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 615 37. For a discussion of the persistence of those opportunities, see Hugh Kennedy, “Feeding the Five Hundred Thousand: Cities and Agriculture in Early Islamic Mesopotamia,” Iraq 73 (2001), 177 200; see also Phillip I. Lieberman, “Revisiting Jewish Occupational Choice and Urbanization in Iraq under the Early Abbasids,” Jewish History 29 (2015), 113 35.

demography and migrations 383 some Jews did make the shift from rural to urban life in the early Islamic centuries. Turning to Iran, sectarian movements gained some momentum in Persia in the first centuries following Islamic conquest, as followers of Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī gave rise to a syncretistic movement in the eighth century, and _the ninth and tenth centuries saw the rise of Karaism in the eastern region of Khurasān among other places. A number of prominent individuals who derived from families of Persian origin would play important roles in the history of both the ʿAbbāsid and Fātimid caliphates; for instance, Abū ʿĪsā fomented a rebellion against the _ʿAbbāsid al-Mansūr _ (r. 754–75), and the Tustarī family emerged as masters of court intrigue 53 under the Fātimid al-Ḥākim (r. 996–1021). Arab geographers attest to _ Jewish settlement throughout Persia in both urban and rural areas. The tenth-century geographer al-Istakhrī declares Jews the third most populous group in Iran after Zoroastrians and Christians; however, Richard Bulliet’s “curve of conversion in Iran” suggests that conversion to Islam had gained momentum by al-Istakhrī’s time, and so al-Istakhrī may be referring only to non-Muslims (that is, Jews would have been the fourth most populous group).54 Benjamin of Tudela’s report of 15,000 Jews in Isfahān and _ 10,000 in Shīrāz (and Petahiah of Regensburg’s report of 600,000 Jews in Mesopotamia and an equivalent number in Persia) are likely inaccurate, but they do suggest the persistence of a significant Jewish settlement through the twelfth century.55 From the period of urban efflorescence in the eighth century until the political disorder of the ʿAbbāsid center in the late ninth, the Jewish community increased in influence and at least a tiny core of that community participated in the elite life of Iraq as bankers and civil servants, perhaps matched by a somewhat larger sector involved in commerce and crafts.56

53

54

55

56

Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political life of Mediaeval Islam (London, 1937). Richard W. Bulliet, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge, MA, 1979), 23. Petahiah: Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 53, 71. Note that Gil believes the Tustarīs to be a distinct sect, or “separate trend,” within the Karaite community (Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 269). Gil mentions a number of Jewish figures with important roles in military finance and in tax collecting in Persia see ibid., 660 62. For the Jewish role in commerce, particularly in banking, see Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political life of Mediaeval Islam, 1 44. As for Jewish involvement in crafts, Gil notes the statement of al Jāhiz that “all Jews were dyers, hide tanners, barbers, _ _ in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle butchers, and pitcher menders” (cited Ages, 603).

384 phillip i. lieberman But the bloody Zanj revolts in 871 exacted a high cost on Jewish life in Basra, a large Jewish settlement; and the late ninth century also saw severe _ plagues in both Khurasān and Baghdad, followed by a fire in the Karkh Quarter of Baghdad in 920.57 Any concentration of Jewish life in urban areas would have meant that the Jews were disproportionately affected by these events. Indeed, one sees the steady migration of the Iraqi population to the west over the course of the late ninth and tenth centuries, perhaps as a result of this urban unrest in Iraq.58 The establishment of rival independent caliphates in Ifrīqiya and al-Andalus in 909 and 929 (respectively) contributed to the ascendance of Mediterranean communities, and the Jewish population of Iraq declined – at least in prominence and power.59 The decline of the ʿAbbāsid center was due to more than politics: over the course of the late ninth and early tenth centuries, Iraq faced widespread economic regression, the result of the state’s neglect of irrigation and agriculture generally and the encroachment of nomadic pastoralists into agricultural settlements. International trade suffered due to political instability, fueled by the Zanj revolts, the Qarmatī rebellions of the early tenth century, and the _ subsequent rise of the Buwayhids in the middle of that century.60 This, combined with the rise of the Fātimids, challenged both the security and _ for international trade.61 The decreasthe dominance of Iraq as a channel ing importance of the scribal class during the disintegration of the ʿAbbāsid center would have weakened the power of those dhimmīs in government service.62 57 58 59

60

61 62

Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 343. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 42. Pace Wasserstein, who argues concerning Jewish westward migration in the early centuries of Islam that “neither the reality nor the size of such alleged migration is demonstrable today”(David Wasserstein, “Islamisation and the Conversion of the Jews,” in Mercedes García Arenal, ed., Conversions islamiques: Identités religieuses en Islam méditerranéen (Paris, 2001), 55). Indeed, the mention in Genizah documents of individ uals with nisbas indicating descent from Iraqi or Persian stock supports the assertion of a westward migration (cf. S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 1:30 and 400n2). However, my own systematic analysis of nisbas as they appear in Genizah documents suggests that the actual distribution of nisbas tends to weight the population toward the West and not toward Iraq and Persia. Cf. Eliyahu Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (London, 1976), chapter 4, for a discussion of the Zanj and Qarmatian rebellions. _ Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 135 36. Lapidus and Ashtor, respectively, discuss the decreasing importance of the scribal class in ibid., 136; and Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages, 140ff.

demography and migrations 385 There was urban violence from the middle of the eleventh century directed at dhimmīs generally and Jews in particular, and Sunnī-Shīʿī tensions led to violence often redirected against dhimmīs.63 By the twelfth century, Benjamin records only 121,500 Jews in Iraq – a figure that Della Pergola accepts without modification and that in any event attests to a significant decline.64 Relations between the yeshivot in Iraq and the rest of the Diaspora, built up over the eighth and ninth centuries, reached their apogee in the tenth, followed by decline.65 The geographic mobility of Jews in the Islamic world amidst a general climate of westward migration meant that Jewish populations in Iraq dwindled in favor of emerging Mediterranean communities.66 Ibn Daud’s “Story of the Four Captives,” describing the settlement of Jewish leaders throughout the Mediterranean, should be taken as emblematic of a general decline in the size of the Eastern communities and the rise in prominence of those in the Mediterranean.67 Migrations from Iran led to a further dispersal of Jewish populations, particularly those involved in commerce and crafts, both eastward to India (with intermediate stops in Egypt and along the ports of the Red Sea) and westward to North Africa. Amidst the ascendance of local academies in the Mediterranean Diaspora that “no longer felt the need to subordinate themselves to a distant cultural center,” the geonic yeshivot largely faded from view over the course of the eleventh century.68 Yet a local Jewish settlement persisted in Iraq, with exilarchs and members of the Davidic family maintaining claims to leadership. While the documents of the Cairo Genizah have contributed extensively to the understanding of the importance and magnitude of the Karaite community of Fātimid Egypt, evidence for Iraq concerns the intellectual _ elite, making it difficult to track the size of this community. The prominence of several Karaite intellectuals and merchants points to the community’s significance, likely also manifest in its numerical significance. 63 64 65

66

67 68

Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 416. Pergola, “Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History,” 18. Goitein, Jews and Arabs, 110. See Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture, 130ff.; as well as Menahem Ben Sasson, The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World Qayrawān 800 1057 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1996), for a discussion of the ties of the Babylonian center with the Mediterranean Diaspora, particularly Qayrawān. Goitein discusses Jewish geographic mobility in Goitein, Jews and Arabs, 109. For a discussion of the general climate of westward migration, see Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture, 129 and 129n17. For the “Story of the Four Captives,” see Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah, 61 62. Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture, 334.

386 phillip i. lieberman Qirqisānī’s tenth-century heresiography points to small communities of Yūghdānites and ʿĪsāwiyya in Isfahān, and ʿĪsāwiyya at Damascus as well. _ The movement of the Tustarī family from Ahwāz in Khūzistān to Egypt in the tenth century both epitomizes and prefigures Karaite migrations westward; Gil points out that the movements of Karaite and Rabbanite merchants “were not only simultaneous, but, to a certain extent, also intermixed.”69 Though Karaites showed a particular affinity for moving to Palestine, particularly Jerusalem and Ramle, as well as Damascus, some Karaites did end up in North Africa.70 Rabbanite migrations also tended toward the Maghrib, helping build “the new bourgeoisie of the North African countries.”71 Gil perceives a continued downward trajectory – and continued persecutions – of the Jewish community of Iraq in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Christian sources point out that Zangid rulers in Syria and in the governorate of Mosul made life difficult for Shīʿī and dhimmī alike.72 These tensions seem to have been typical of life in Iraq in general, and the appearance of mob violence in chronicles suggests that such persecutions did not emerge from the ruling elite alone: mob violence erupted in Baghdad in 1178 following a localized conflict in al-Madāʾin (formerly Māhōzē).73 Heightening tensions led to messianic fervor, but undoubtedly also_ to Jewish apostasy, particularly on the part of the wealthy and educated: the jurist and preacher Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 1200) claims that he personally converted about 200 dhimmīs.74 The first half of the thirteenth century saw the Mongol conquest wreak havoc and violence in Iraq. Though the Jews of ʿImrāniyya, near Mosul, were spared a Mongol attack on Yom Kippur, Gil ascribes this to chance and actually perceives an initial tendency on the part of the Mongols to

69 70

71

72 74

Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 664. Judith Olszowy Schlanger details a number of Karaite communities in North Africa which emerge from the migrations of the ninth to eleventh centuries in Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine (Leiden, 1998), 46 47. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:30. The movement of the Tustarīs is emblematic of the tenth /eleventh century migrations described by Ashtor in Eliyahu Ashtor, “Un mouvement migratoire au Haut Moyen Âge: migration de l’Irak vers les pays méditerranéens,” Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 27 (1972), 185 214. 73 Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 429. Ibid. Cited in ibid., 430. Conversion might have taken place on the rural periphery as well as migrations to the cities and early conversions robbed settlements outside the cities of a Jewish core necessary to sustain communal institutions.

demography and migrations 387 75 discriminate against the Jews. According to Ibn Kathīr, Hülegü’s bloody conquest of Baghdad spared the Christians and Jews (as well as those Muslims who hid in the homes of Christians and Jews);76 but instability, violence, and apostasy all contributed to a general decrease in the Jewish population of Baghdad over the course of the thirteenth century;77 an Arabic chronicle records 36,000 Jews in Baghdad at the time of Hülegü’s conquest, down from the 40,000 recounted by Benjamin of Tudela less than a century before, and a total Iraqi Jewish population of some 200,000.78 Tensions were undoubtedly exacerbated following the return to Baghdad of Muslims who had fled during the invasion, as anti-Jewish rioting spread throughout Iraq toward the end of the thirteenth century.79 Over the course of the period discussed here, the community lost 75 percent or more of its size to migrations, political instability, intercommunal strife, economic regression, and apostasy, perhaps remaining on the order of magnitude described by Benjamin (that is, 200,000 persons) until the Ottoman conquest in the early sixteenth century. GREATER SYRIA (INCLUDING PALESTINE)

That Damascus possessed a substantial Jewish community in antiquity is attested by the Book of Acts of the Apostles. Amidst Byzantine repression in the early seventh century, Jews of Antioch and Damascus participated in popular revolts in 610: these revolts took the life of the patriarch in Antioch and suggest a Jewish presence of some significance in the city.80 Damascene Jews also contributed personnel to a force described as some 75

76 77

78

79 80

The attack on Yom Kippur is discussed in ibid., 432, and in a Genizah document which Gil translates in Moshe Gil, Be malkhut Yishmaʿel bi Tequfat ha Geʾonim, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1997), doc. 93, lines 8ff. Cited in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 433. Pace Petahiah of Regensburg, who states that “[i]n the city of Baghdad there are a thousand Jews” (Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 69). This figure is out of line with his statement that there are more than “sixty myriads” (“yoter mi shishim rebo”) of Jews in “Cush and Babel” (ibid., 71), and an equivalent number in Persia, and also out of line with his statement that 60,000 or 80,000 Jews congregated at the grave of Ezekiel on the Feast of Tabernacles (ibid., 74). Furthermore, Petahiah’s statement that “[t]he Jews in the land of Babel live in peace” (ibid., 71) contrasts sharply with Gil’s detailing of the period. Benjamin’s estimate is mentioned in Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 433; for the total Iraqi Jewish population, see ibid., 492. Ibid., 433. Note that Benjamin finds but ten Jewish families at Antioch on his visit; cf. Benjamin b. Jonah of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. Marcus Nathan Adler (London, 1907), 16.

388 phillip i. lieberman 20,000 strong which revolted against Byzantine rule in Tyre.81 The area of the Old City of Damascus later described as the “Jewish Quarter,” along the south wall between Bāb Kaysān and al-Bāb al-S ̣aghīr, was likely less than 25 hectares;82 this suggests a total Jewish community of Damascus before the Islamic conquests on the order of 6,000–8,000 Jews.83 The unrest to which all this contributed paved the way for Sasanid conquest under Khusraw II in 612. Jews in Ḥims also rejected the governor of the _ in favor of Muslim armies in Byzantine emperor Heraclius (r. 610–40) 84 636–37. That the Syrian Jewish community maintained very close ties with that of Palestine is clear both from their support of the rebellion in Tyre and from Arabic chronicles’ claim that ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb negoti__ ated a treaty with the Jews of Jerusalem at Jābiya, south of Damascus, “on 85 the urgings of Syrian Jews.” The period of the Umayyad caliphate (661–750) seems to have seen little change in the religious makeup of Damascus. Islamization and Arabization were gradual, and they contributed to increasing civil strife that culminated in anarchy and abandonment by the Umayyads of Damascus for their new capital of Ḥarrān by 744.86 The Umayyads seem to have considered the Jews generally loyal, though they used their strategy of resettlement, employed to neutralize ʿAlid supporters in Kūfa, to resettle Jews in Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast as well.87 Some scholars have seen Damascus 81

82 83

84

85

86

87

Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols. (New York, 1952 83), 3:19. Note that Baron thinks that this figure “should be considerably reduced” (ibid., 236n20), an assertion strengthened by the estimate given here of some 6,000 8,000 Jews in Damascus at the time. Ernst Herzfeld, “Damascus: Studies in Architecture,” Ars Islamica 13 14 (1948), 126. Cf. the city plan drawn by Nezar AlSayyad in Cities and Caliphs: On the Genesis of Arab Muslim Urbanism (New York, 1991), 86, following Jean Sauvaget and Nikita Elisséeff. Note that this estimate assumes a density of roughly 300 persons/hectare, and assumes that Jews made up nearly all the population in this quarter, an assumption which certainly does not hold for the Ottoman period (see Najwa al Qattan’s study of Ottoman Damascus “Litigants and Neighbors,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 44, 3 (2003), 523: “legal accommodation and residential coexistence were every day realities”). Note, furthermore, that this area represents a significant segment, roughly 40 per cent, of AlSayyad’s city plan, likely overestimating the proportion of the Damascene population as a whole that was Jewish. Ahmad b. Yahyā al Balādhurī, The Origins of the Islamic State, ed. and trans. Philip _ _ Francis Clark Murgotten (New York, 1968), 211. Khuri Hitti and Fred McGraw Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests (Princeton, 1981), 152 and n287. See also Gil, A History of Palestine, 64. The tradition is from al Tabarī. EI2, s.v. “Dimashḳ” (Nikita Elisséeff ): “The domination of the conquerors did not at first bring any changes in the life of the city since the Muslim element was no more than an infinitesimal minority.” Gil, A History of Palestine, 108.

demography and migrations 389 itself as continuing to be of importance during the ʿAbbāsid period, including as a stop on the trade route from the Mediterranean to Baghdad.88 But Ashtor believes that by the middle of the eleventh century, there were fewer than 2,000 Rabbanite Jews in Damascus, in addition to a Karaite population of perhaps equal size;89 and Benjamin finds only 3,000 Rabbanites there in the twelfth century, in addition to a small “sectarian” population.90 Benjamin also finds 5,000 Jews in Aleppo, though this is certainly an exaggerated figure;91 Petahiah of Regensburg produces a somewhat unlikely count of 10,000 Jews in Damascus shortly thereafter.92 It is certain that the aforementioned migrations to commercial centers on the Mediterranean accounted for some of the population shift reflected in Benjamin’s figure, and indeed, Goitein notes the prominence of the family names Dimashqī and Ḥalabī in Genizah documents originating in Egypt.93 It is also true that the Jewish population in Damascus would have suffered as part of a general urban decline following the fall of the Umayyads.94 Seljūq penetration into Syria and Lebanon from the second half of the eleventh century undoubtedly “had a shattering effect on the Jewish communities”;95 Genizah documents record the poverty of the Jewish community of Damascus in the late eleventh century.96 Crusader movements in the early twelfth century did little to ameliorate this. Nonetheless, Damascus had sufficient prominence to provide a haven for the Palestinian yeshiva from around 1094 and to sustain the geonate there for more than

88

89 90

91

92 93 94

95

96

For Damascus’s continued role, see David Conforte, Sefer Qore ha Dorot, ed. David Cassel (Jerusalem, 1969), 5b, though Gerson Cohen disagrees that Ibn Abitur’s destin ation was indeed Damascus, explaining that “[i]t may be, therefore, that Ibn Daud mistranslated a statement that Ibn Abitur went to al Shamm. Was the mistranslation a deliberate one with an eye on Amos 5.27?” (Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah, 136n96). Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 61. Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 90 91: “[o]ne hundred Karaites dwell here, also 400 Cuthim, and there is peace between them, but they do not intermarry.” Benjamin identifies the “Cuthim” elsewhere as Samaritans (ibid., 80). Asher’s figure is 1,500 (cf. Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 63n29), pointing to the difficulty of the manuscripts of Benjamin’s report; Benjamin b. Jonah of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 93. Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 85. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:20. Andrew Petersen, The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule: ad 600 1600 (Oxford, 2005), 27. Joshua Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (Oxford, 1988), 6. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:257.

390 phillip i. lieberman 97 thirty years. In the late twelfth century, the community was significant enough to have its own gaon, and in the late thirteenth century even to have accommodated an exilarch.98 The early thirteenth century may have seen an extraordinary migration of European scholars to Palestine, though economic conditions may have forced these migrants to settle elsewhere, reaching as far north as Damascus.99 Nahmanides mentions leading a pilgrimage from Damascus to _ Jerusalem; based on this source, Richard Gottheil explains that Nahmanides “visited Damascus and succeeded in leading a Jewish colony _ to Jerusalem” between 1267 and 1270.100 That the city’s Jewish population stagnated or even decreased is suggested by the finding of some 450 householders in Damascus by Meshullam da Volterra in 1481, implying a total population less than 2,000 Jews.101 On the other hand, Meshullam mentions that all these 450 householders were economically secure, hinting that the Jewish population as a whole might have exceeded this figure. A population of roughly the size indicated by Meshullam’s report seems to have greeted emigrants from Iberia at the end of the fifteenth century, when the Jewish population throughout Syria totaled some 7,000 souls.102 In the Umayyad period, Palestine was partitioned into two administrative divisions: Jund Urdunn, incorporating the districts of Tiberias and the regions surrounding the Sea of Galilee (southward to Bet Shean) as well as points west to the Mediterranean coast (including Acre and Tyre); and Jund Filastīn, incorporating the southern, central, and western regions _ 97 98

99

100 101

102

Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 9. Raʾīs al yahūd: see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:527n41; Gil, A History of Palestine, 510n19; exilarch: see Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 286. For the migration of scholars, see Alexandra Cuffel, “Call and Response: European Jewish Emigration to Egypt and Palestine in the Middle Ages,” Jewish Quarterly Review 90, 1 2 (1999); as well as Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 78ff. Note that Prawer believes the number of actual migrants to be somewhat greater than the 300 rabbis mentioned by Ibn Verga (Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 80), though it is unclear that even this many individuals actually ended up in Palestine as noted by Cuffel and Prawer, respectively (cf. Cuffel, “Call and Response,” and Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 85). Importantly, Prawer notes the facility of movement between Damascus and points south leading even to Cairo in the Crusader period. Richard Gottheil, “Damascus,” in Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1906). For Meshullam’s report, see Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 199. Moses Bassola d’Ancona’s figure roughly comports with this number; he sees 500 Jewish households in Damascus in 1522, cited in Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 289. Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 65.

demography and migrations 391 of the Land of Israel, including Caesarea, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Gaza, and Eilat.103 The amalgamation of Roman/Byzantine Palaestina prima (which had included the coastal area as well as Judaea and Samaria) and parts of Palaestina tertia (which had consisted of Edom and Moab as well as the ʿArava Valley) into Jund Filastīn led to a shift in the prominence and _ population of a number of important Jewish settlements. Tyre, home to some 4,000 Jews prior to the Islamic conquest, benefited along with Acre from Muʿāwiya’s (r. 661–80) redevelopment of coastal cities and deployment of military units which he transferred from Jund Dimashq.104 Tyre’s economic importance would rise further in the eleventh century with the ascent of the Mediterranean “Maghribī” merchants;105 at the same time, its religious and political significance for the Jewish community rose with the aforementioned move of the Palestinian yeshiva to Tyre.106 However, an attempt by the qād ī Ibn Abī ʿAqīl to secede from Fātimid rule in 1063 led _ to increasing local _tensions and Fātimid reconquest, completed in 1093 and _ culminating in the sack of the city. In the wake of three decades of conflict and destruction, the Damascus Jewish community ransomed many captives from Tyre. Nonetheless, a Jewish population persisted in Tyre even after the Crusader conquests which decimated the other maritime cities (except Ascalon).107 Benjamin records finding in Tyre, which had been a center of Jewish migration throughout the Crusader period, some 400–500 households, a very substantial scholarly community, and a number of congregations – though the population would disappear with Mamlūk conquest in 1291.108 Ottomans tax records reveal that Tyre had faded in

103

104

105

106

107 108

Gil, A History of Palestine, 111 12; Petersen, The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule, 166, fig. 11. Population prior to Islamic conquest: see Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 3:19, 236n20, citing the ninth century Alexandrian Saʿīd b. Bitrīq. For the transfer _ of military units, see al Balādhurī, The Origins of the Islamic State, 180; and Gil, A History of Palestine, 107 8. For information on the Maghribī merchants, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 6, s.v. “Maghrib(ī).” The Palestinian yeshiva sojourned in Tyre from roughly 1077 to 1093 (Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 9). Ibid., 42. Note that Ashtor believes Benjamin’s finding of 400 500 households actually to be the total number of Jews (Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 62 63). As for the effects of Mamlūk conquest, Petersen writes, “[o]ne of the defining features of Mamluk policy was the destruction of the coastal cities of Palestine and Syria to prevent their recapture by the Crusaders” (Petersen, The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule, 81).

392 phillip i. lieberman significance, becoming no more than a secondary stopping point for Christian and Jewish pilgrims.109 Tyre’s trajectory of development – expansion in the wake of the Islamic conquest, stability or stagnation through the eleventh century, destruction or expulsion of the Jewish community (in whole or part) with Crusader conquests, and subsequent Mamlūk neglect – was shared by a number of other cities including S ̣idon, Ḥaifa, Caesarea, Jaffa, and Gaza. Indeed, while Palestine experienced a great expansion of its Jewish population in the early Ottoman period, that population in the late fifteenth century was likely as low as on the order of 6,000 souls.110 Typical of this trajectory, Caesarea was a key Byzantine commercial and maritime center as well as the administrative capital of Palestine in the time of Heraclius (r. 610–41), falling to Islamic conquest only after a siege of some 7 years. According to al-Balādhurī, Caesarea was home to some 30,000 Samaritans and 20,000 Jews, and accommodated 700,000 soldiers when it was taken by Muʿāwiya in the fall of 640.111 While al-Balādhurī’s account is challenged by historians, a significant Jewish population certainly lived there at the time of the Islamic conquest.112 By Benjamin’s time, this population had receded; he counts only 200 Jews and 200 Samaritans;113 and a like number in Ḥaifa. This precipitous drop in population is reflected in the evidence that the enclosed area of Caesarea was reduced by 86 percent during the Byzantine and Fātimid periods.114 Although the decrease in a city’s topographical footprint _could be counterbalanced by an increase in the population density in the shrinking center, the further decline of Caesarea’s settled area, a total decrease of some 99 percent from alBalādhurī’s figure to Benjamin’s, is symptomatic of Mamlūk neglect and destruction of the coastal region. This policy was accompanied by the transfer and settlement of Turkomans in order to provide a first line of defense against invasions.115 Contributing to Caesarea’s decline was Ramle’s 109

110 111 112

113 114

Amnon Cohen and Bernard Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century (Princeton, 1978), 12. See the sources cited in Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 89. al Balādhurī, The Origins of the Islamic State, 217. Thus, Gil writes (A History of Palestine, 59), concerning al Balādhurī’s statement that the siege was only successful when a Jew came out from the city and showed the besieging force a tunnel that allowed them to enter the city, “[i]t is quite possible that the sources . . . are influenced by the information on the conquest of Caesarea in Cappadocia by Maslama b. ʿAbd al Malik in 729.” Note that Gil errs in recording 200,000 Jews in Caesarea both in the English and Hebrew versions of his work instead of 20,000 as in al Balādhurī. Benjamin b. Jonah of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 80. 115 Petersen, The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule, 80. Ibid., 81.

demography and migrations 393 establishment as the administrative center of Jund Filastīn in the early eighth century;116 Ramle siphoned off economic activity,_ resources, and even population from other trading centers. The city of Acre defies the developmental pattern, having occupied an important place under Crusader rule. The point of entry to Palestine on Maimonides’ pilgrimage around 1165, Acre played a key role in longdistance trade for centuries. Although neglected in the wake of the Islamic conquest, it reemerged as a commercial center in the late ninth century when Ahmad Ibn Ṭūlūn renewed its port.117 The fortified city was _ captured in a bloody campaign by the Crusader Baldwin I in May 1104; even those fleeing the city were plundered and killed. Yet Genizah documents reveal that an organized Jewish community existed there shortly after this conquest, even sustaining an outpost of Alexandrian and Tiberian Jews in the twelfth century.118 Benjamin’s figure of 200 families suggests a substantial Jewish population in Acre, which may reflect a renaissance after Baldwin’s plunder and the return of those who had fled. Capital of the Second Crusader Kingdom from 1191, Acre maintained important commercial ties to both the Islamic and the Christian Mediterranean and offered economic opportunities that Jerusalem could not; some of the aforementioned thirteenth-century scholarly migrants from Europe to Palestine settled in Acre in order to avail themselves of these opportunities.119 Toward the end of the thirteenth century, the Jewish population of Acre may even have been wealthy enough to hold slaves.120 During the Crusader period, the walled area of the city expanded by 66 percent to 85.5 hectares.121 However, Mamlūk conquest and the end of Crusader rule in 1291 meant the destruction of Acre’s coastal defenses and port, decimating its physical structures and economy. Crusader conquests engendered migration of some Jews from Palestine to the neighboring Mediterranean Diaspora, particularly to Fātimid Egypt; groups maintained cohesiveness in their adoptive homes for a_ number of generations, self-identifying as “Jerusalemites” and “people of Acco.”122 Yet the vicissitudes of Jerusalem and Acre had been quite different from one another. Christian chroniclers contemporary with the Islamic conquest in 116 117 118

119 120 121 122

Ibid., 95; al Balādhurī, The Origins of the Islamic State, 220. Gil, A History of Palestine, 189. Conquest of Acre: Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 60 61. Alexandrians: Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 61. Tiberians: Gil, A History of Palestine, 190. Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 80. Cf. Responsa Ibn Adret, vol. 1, #53, 68 (cited in ibid., 105n39). Petersen, The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule, 81. Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 45.

394 phillip i. lieberman the seventh century describe “the absence of any protection for any Jew living in Jerusalem, and that, if found there, they would be punished physically and their property affected.”123 However, Jewish settlement in Jerusalem may actually have preceded the Islamic conquest (between 636 and 638), which brought the preexisting prohibition to an end in any case.124 Jewish literary sources record the reawakening of Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, and a chronicle preserved in a Genizah fragment even records that the reinstatement of Jewish settlement was inaugurated by 70 families who were permitted to migrate there from Tiberias – a compromise, as the Jews had actually asked the conquering caliph ʿUmar for permission to settle some 200 families there.125 However, Jerusalem’s renaissance was hampered by Ramle’s establishment as the administrative center of Jund Filastīn from the early eighth _ century.126 Distant from the coastal trading centers, Jerusalem was an economic backwater. This left few opportunities for the Jewish community to support itself, and both communal collections and pious foundations in cities such as Ramle and Fustāt contributed much for the _ _ other hand, Jerusalem’s role sustenance of the poor of Jerusalem. On the as religious symbol and home to the Palestinian yeshiva following its return from Tiberias some generations after the Muslim conquest meant that Jerusalem retained an important role in the Jewish mindset and also remained a destination for Jewish pilgrimage.127 Indeed, charitable lists reveal a significant presence of Jews who had made their way to Jerusalem in the tenth and eleventh centuries from points as far west as al-Andalus128 and as far east as Persia.129 The early tenth-century Karaite leader Daniel al-Qūmisī even initiated successful propaganda encouraging Karaite immigration to Palestine in general and Jerusalem in particular.130 This immigration seems to have continued into the eleventh century and to 123 124

125 127

128 130

Gil, A History of Palestine, 56. Gil (ibid., 51 52) outlines the various sources concerning the date of the conquest of Jerusalem, including the letter of covenant given to the people of Jerusalem by ʿUmar b. al Khattāb at Jābiya and preserved in al Tabarī, which mentions explicitly that a __ Jewish population lived there. 126 Ibid., 70 71. Ibid., 104 5. For the return of the yeshiva, see ibid., 174 75. As mentioned above, the Palestinian yeshiva would migrate northward once again in the second half of the eleventh century. Note that Goitein dates the return of the Palestinian academy to Jerusalem from Tiberias to roughly the beginning of the ninth century (cf. EI2, “al Ḳuds” (S. D. Goitein)). 129 Cf. Cuffel, “Call and Response,” 65. Cuffel (ibid., 64n12), citing Ashtor. Gil, A History of Palestine, 618 19. Although Karaite tradition dates this influx from the middle of the ninth century, Gil argues Karaites did not settle in Palestine prior to Daniel.

demography and migrations 395 have drawn on a population extending as far west as Spain as Jerusalem assumed its role as the Karaite spiritual center.131 Christian pilgrimage also assumed prominence from the middle of the eleventh century. Although migrations and pilgrimage brought vigor to the city, the eleventh century saw the imposition of crippling local taxes on the Jewish population, ripples of persecution under the Fātimid caliph alḤākim (r. 996–1021), and natural disasters (such as an_ earthquake in 1016). Following the Crusader massacre of the Jerusalemite Jewish community in 1099, described in literary sources, Jerusalem was left a shambles, with much of the remaining Jewish population departing for Ascalon in the south.132 Baldwin I (r. 1100–118) reinstated the Roman prohibition on Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, and both Benjamin and Petahiah of Regensburg attest to almost no Jews remaining in Jerusalem toward the end of the twelfth century.133 Following Saladin’s reconquest in 1187, the Jewish community began to reappear, with the aforementioned migration of scholars from Europe (understood to have taken place in 1211) encountering “a notable and excellent community from the Maghrib” in Jerusalem.134 Although Judah al-Ḥarīzī as early as 1217 describes Saladin as a typologized Cyrus of Persia, calling on the Jews to return from Babylon and to settle in Jerusalem, no documentary sources exist that attest to such a proclamation.135 Rather, the numbers of Jewish settlers following this reconquest were small – though the community as a whole was sufficiently large to support three distinct communities mentioned by Judah: a “Frankish” community, a Maghribī community, and a Palestinian community. Some of those Jews displaced by Saladin’s dismantling of Ascalon in 1191 in order to prevent the Crusaders from gaining a foothold near the coast may have settled in Jerusalem. The restored community was short-lived; the population was left defenseless when the Ayyūbid al-Malik al-Muʿazzam destroyed the city _ _ the city. Many Jews walls in 1219, to prevent Crusaders from reconquering fled to Acre in fear, though some of them may have returned shortly thereafter.136 When Jerusalem was handed over to Emperor Frederick II in 1229, Jews were again prohibited from dwelling in the city until the Crusaders were expelled some 15 years later. The city’s relative isolation throughout the Mamlūk period kept a damper on permanent settlers 131 132 133 135 136

For the migration of Jews from Spain, see ibid., 621. Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 33. 134 For Baldwin I’s reinstatement of the prohibition, see ibid., 46 47. Ibid., 69 70. For Cyrus’s proclamation, see Ezra 1:1 4; II Chronicles 36:22 23. Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 266 67.

396 phillip i. lieberman (as opposed to pilgrims), though early Ottoman tax registers reveal just under 200 households across 3 neighborhoods measuring just over 9 hectares in area.137 Although this implies a low density of Jewish population, consistent with the city’s repeated destruction and its lack of economic vitality, Jews shared these neighborhoods with Christians.138 Ramle presents an important counterpoint to Jerusalem, as its role as administrative center of Jund Filastīn from the Umayyad period made it a _ center of Jewish population and economic life. Ramle’s Jewish population drew on other cities in the region, notably Lod, eventually exceeding that of Jerusalem and sustaining separate communities loyal to Palestinian, Babylonian, and Karaite traditions (as seen in other large communities).139 Ramle was also a seat of judicial and religious authority, housing a “market of the Jews” which included a substantial meeting-house.140 Gil provides a rather sanguine estimate of some 5,000 Jewish souls in the first half of the eleventh century, of whom 20 percent were Karaites;141 the Genizah evidence he provides suggests a figure somewhat less than half that size. Like Jerusalem, Ramle suffered crippling damage from earthquakes and Seljūq and Crusader conquest in the eleventh century.142 Although the Mamlūks attempted to restore the city to its former glory, its role as administrative center fluctuated over the course of the period and these efforts were largely unsuccessful. Gaza, likewise, was the beneficiary of Mamlūk expansion, benefiting from its proximity to the Egyptian Mamlūk center and from the dismantling of Ascalon.143 As mentioned, Jund Urdunn was administered from Tiberias, whose religious prominence is attested by its retention of the Palestinian academy for an extended period even after Jerusalem returned to Muslim hands. In the middle of the eighth century, Tiberias boasted more than thirty synagogues and a substantial Jewish population that could trace its roots back to late antiquity.144 Genizah evidence suggests that Tiberias remained a Jewish city until the late eleventh century.145 Both Palestinian and Babylonian communities existed in Tiberias, though we have no 137

138

139 140 142 143 144

For a listing of the neighborhoods, see Cohen and Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century, 92ff. For the total area of Jewish settlement, see the map in Adar Arnon, “The Quarters of Jerusalem in the Ottoman Period,” Middle Eastern Studies 28 (1992), 10. Note, for instance, that Lewis shows Christians in Rīsha (Cohen and Lewis, Population and Revenue in the Towns of Palestine in the Sixteenth Century, 92). Gil, A History of Palestine, 106, 73. 141 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:45, 165 66. Gil, A History of Palestine, 174. Prawer, The History of the Jews in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 15. Petersen, The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule, 39. 145 Gil, A History of Palestine, 175. Ibid.

demography and migrations 397 146 information as to a Karaite population there. Tiberias’s leper colony, known from at least the late sixth century, was maintained through the eleventh, the salutary effects of the city’s baths being described in the Genizah. However, the eleventh century saw both an earthquake (in 1033, though Genizah letters attest to the city’s recovery from this) and Crusader conquest (1099). Despite having been capital of the Crusader principality of Galilee, Tiberias declined in importance over the course of the twelfth century; Benjamin found all of fifty Jews in Tiberias.147 In 1187, Saladin burned what remained of the city.148 Archaeological evidence reveals that the city had been reduced from 124 hectares in the early Islamic period to 8 hectares in the Crusader period, and Ibn Battūta records the town still in _ _ administrative capital of ruins in 1325.149 As the Mamlūk period saw _the the region shift to Safed, Jewish settlement may have also shifted northward from Tiberias. Benjamin records no Jewish settlement in Safed, but Genizah documents attest to some settlement there extending as far back as the first half of the eleventh century. The absence of a burdensome tax regime made Jewish settlement in Safed favorable in the late fifteenth/early sixteenth century. Joseph Mantabia records some 300 families in Safed and its outlying villages in 1481.150 This figure is difficult to accept, but it attests to the rising significance of the town, where many expellees from Iberia settled. EGYPT AND NORTH AFRICA

The study of Egypt and North Africa is vastly aided by the Genizah documents, which provide unparalleled information about taxation, plague and birth rates, density of Jewish settlement, migration, and other changes in the High Middle Ages. Yet these documents provide little information prior to the Fātimid conquest of Egypt (969). Literary sources, including writings of the _ninth-century historian Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, record 40,000 Jews in Alexandria at the time of the Islamic conquest (641), in addition to another 70,000 Jews who fled at the time of the Islamic occupation; the same chronicler attests to 600,000 adult males living in Alexandria after the conquest, though these numbers are clearly 146 147 148 149

150

Ibid., 178ff., 82ff. Benjamin b. Jonah of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 28. Petersen, The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule, 76. For the evidence in the Crusader period, see ibid., 77; for Ibn Battūta’s testimony, see __ _ EI2, s.v. “Tabariyya” (M. Lavergne). Cited in Solomon Schechter, Studies in Judaism: Second Series (Freeport, NY, 1972), 206 7.

398 phillip i. lieberman typological rather than historical.151 Although Ashtor suggests that the conquest “brought about a change for the better in the condition of the Jews,” it may also have led to a wave of conversion to Islam among the Alexandrian Jewish population.152 Furthermore, revolts in the ninth century in the wake of crippling taxes led to a crackdown which motivated Egyptian Jewry to migrate westward.153 The population dwindled throughout the tenth century; the eleventh century saw no more than 300 families in the Jewish community of Alexandria, “since all we hear is of two synagogues which had supposedly existed there for centuries.”154 Benjamin’s figure of 3,000 Jews in Alexandria is high, though his figures for Egypt likely reflect the correct relative size of Jewish populations in Alexandria (3,000) and Cairo (2,000 or 7,000, varying by manuscript) with respect to other cities such as Damīra (700) or al-Mahalla (500). Ashtor generally accepts Benjamin’s figures, periodically with_ modifications; relying on the figure of 1,500 Jews for Cairo at the time of the Crusades, Ashtor concludes that 700 Jews resided in Alexandria and the total Egyptian Jewish population was in the region of 10,000–12,000.155 This would represent less than 1 percent of the Egyptian population in the period, which itself reached a low in the tenth/eleventh centuries of 1.5 million and rose rapidly in the twelfth/thirteenth centuries.156 Alexandria was divided between those involved in long-distance trade and those subsisting on income from manual labor.157 Yet its environment 151

152

153 154 155

156

157

Ashtor mentions these numbers in “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 55; though Wasserstein notes the problematic nature of them in “Islamisation and the Conversion of the Jews,” 52n12. Stillman estimates this number as “closer to 4,000” (in “The Non Muslim Communities: the Jewish Community,” in Carl F. Petry, ed., The Cambridge History of Egypt (Cambridge, 1998), 198). Ashtor explains that the Jewish population would have expanded as a result of the Islamic conquest, which improved life for the Jewish population (Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 56). For a brief discussion of Jewish conversion to Islam over the course of the Islamic conquest, see Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 3:96 98. Wasserstein treats the literary evidence carefully, pointing out that it may be difficult to gauge the scope of conversion, in Wasserstein, “Islamisation and the Conversion of the Jews.” Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1973), 1:61. Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 58. Eliyahu Ashtor, “The Number of Jews in Medieval Egypt,” Journal of Jewish Studies 18 19 (1967 68), 12 13. This differs from Labib’s statement in EI2, s.v. “al Iskandariyya” (Sobhi Labib), that “Ashtor notes that this figure includes only those from whom taxes were levied and assumes that the total number of Jews may be estimated at about 9,000.” Josiah C. Russell, “The Population of Medieval Egypt,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 5 (1966), 75 Ashtor, “The Number of Jews in Medieval Egypt,” part 2, 8.

demography and migrations 399 was quite cosmopolitan due both to sojourners who had another destination in mind but found themselves comfortable in Alexandria or unable to afford further travel, and to captives who had settled there after being redeemed by the local community.158 These sojourners included French Jewish pilgrims who settled in both Alexandria and Fustāt.159 Although the _ _ low levels of the Nile and the plagues of the thirteenth century (1201–2 and 160 1216–17) would likely have affected Alexandria less than Fustāt, Mamlūk persecutions checked the growth of the Jewish population._161_ The late fifteenth-century figures provided by Meshullam da Volterra and Obadiah da Bertinoro of sixty and twenty-five Jewish families, respectively, reflect this;162 Obadiah’s account notes the poor state of Alexandria in general, with much of the city desolate and many houses uninhabited. Iberian exiles infused the Alexandrian community with new life at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries, typified by the life of David Ibn Abi Zimra, whose early life took him from Spain to Safed, Fez, and – eventually – Cairo, where he would reside and serve as Chief Rabbi until he returned to Safed at the age of ninety. Although Fustāt was the first city to be founded in Egypt by Muslim _ _ sources yield little information concerning the Jewish conquerors in 641, community for some three centuries. Yet the Jewish community of Fustāt _ _ certainly benefited from the westward migrations of the eighth and ninth centuries accompanying the ʿAbbāsids’ rise to power, and the “political upheavals of the second half of the ninth century that shook Iraq and Iran.”163 The population was large enough to sustain distinct communities following Babylonian and Palestinian rites, and a significant Karaite community also existed in Fustāt. Genizah records vastly aid the enterprise of _ _ “the well-to-do families were large and those demography: explaining that of the poor small,” Goitein calculated an astonishingly small 2.4 persons

158

159

160 161 162

163

Sojourners: Goitein writes, “those who had reached the capital intended to remain there for good, whereas those staying behind in Alexandria either had not yet made up their minds or were resolved to return home baʿd qad ā al hawāʾij, after having attained their _ _ 4:8). See also Cuffel, “Call and economic goals” (Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, Response,” 69ff. Captives: cf. Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, 2005), 111ff.; Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah. Elhanan Reiner, “ʿAliyah va ʿAliyah le Regel le Eres Yisraʾel: 1099 1517” (PhD diss., _ Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988), 50, cited_ in Cuffel, “Call and Response,” The 69ff., 73n46. For a discussion of these plagues, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 5:112 16. Plagues: Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, 1977), 33 34. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 74nn33 34; Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 228 29. Stillman, “The Non Muslim Communities,” 199.

400 phillip i. lieberman per family among charitable recipients;164 later medieval travelers corroborate these findings.165 Understanding that everyone either gave charity or received it, the ratio of 1 recipient for every 4 givers seen in charity lists leads to a total Jewish population of 3,600 in eleventh-century Fustāt.166 _ _ This was a high-water mark for the community, which had suffered emigration and conversion to Islam in response to the aforementioned persecutions under the Fātimid caliph al-Ḥākim in the early eleventh _ century.167 Bolstered by westward immigration in the eleventh century (as in the two centuries preceding), the Fustāt Jewish population faced a _ may have been exacerdownward trend from the twelfth century. _This bated by a general breakdown in public order in the latter part of the eleventh century or the pillage and conflagration which wracked Fustāt in _ _ to 1168 at the hands of the Fātimid vizier Shāwar, but seems more likely _ have been the result of the famine and plague of 1201–2, mentioned by Ibn al-Athīr, which wiped out “half, if not more, of the Jewish population.”168 In the thirteenth century, immigration and conversion would become epidemic, with the community dipping to below 200 males – a decline of 50–75 percent over roughly 7 years.169 164 165

166

167

168

169

Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:140 and 460. Meshullam da Volterra estimates “three or four to a household” for fifteenth century Cairo (Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 166). This figure, from Stillman (The Jews of Arab Lands, 48n21), is reasonable though potentially problematic: first, Stillman relies on “Goitein’s estimate of 2.5 persons per well to do family” (see note 164), while Goitein’s estimate of 2.4 persons per family was for welfare recipients, not donors; and, second, there is no reason to believe that Goitein’s ratio of one donor for every four welfare recipients (cf. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:139 40) would be stable across periods. Indeed, relatively profitable periods might see a higher ratio of givers to recipients, while plagues or an influx of refugees from the countryside into urban areas in years of low Nile or poor agricultural production might actually shift this ratio significantly. However, both of these sources for error would actually raise Stillman’s estimate of the total population of Fustāt. _ _ A Mediterranean Society, 2:299 303. Note that Jews who converted to Islam Goitein, were allowed to return to their former religion prior to the death of al Hākim. General breakdown in public order: see ibid., 4:25; pace Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages, 207. Shāwar: see EI2, s.v. “Shāwar, Abū Shujāʿ b. Mudjīr al Saʿdī” (Donald S. Richards). Famine and plague: see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:141. For the “epidemic” of conversion, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:303, citing Eliyahu Ashtor, Toldot ha Yehudim be Mitsrayim ve Suryah tahat shilton ha Mamlukim, _ _ 200 _males, see Goitein, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1944), 1:279 91. For the population figure of A Mediterranean Society, 2:139 41. Note that Goitein seems to believe that this figure accounts for most (or even all) of the community; Ashtor concludes, instead, that the total number of individuals was “no more than 1,500” (Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 57).

demography and migrations 401 Cairo and Fustāt should be seen somewhat as demographic comple_ _ was established in 970 by the caliph al-Muʿizz as the ments.170 The former seat of the Fātimid court and its entourage, and synagogues are noted there _ within a century of its founding.171 Some of the Jewish elite did live in Cairo, and some seem to have had homes in both Cairo and Fustāt.172 _ _ Genizah documents from Cairo overrepresent the poorer strata of society relative to Fustāt, though this may be because the elite corresponded in _ _ instead of Hebrew and therefore would not have saved Arabic characters their disused documents. A gradual relocation from Fustāt to Cairo is _ _ already apparent from the letters of Maimonides; by the fourteenth century, Fustāt had become a shadow of its former self. Yet the Cairene Jewish _ _ was stable in the Mamlūk period: Meshullam da Volterra population estimates 800 Rabbanite, 150 Karaite, and 50 Samaritan households in Cairo at the end of the fifteenth century.173 The waning of Fustāt com_ _ bined with the atrophy of Jewish life in Alexandria to reduce the Egyptian Jewish population to only around 4,500 at the arrival of the Iberian expellees.174 As opposed to the urbanizing trend seen in Iraq and al-Andalus (discussed below), Jewry in Egypt and North Africa as a whole maintained an important presence in the Rīf, or countryside, throughout the High Middle Ages.175 Involvement in agriculture, value-added production, and tax farming all demanded a Jewish presence which fanned out from urban areas and port cities well into the countryside, creating a bidirectional flow of goods and financial capital.176 Medieval Egypt maintained at least ninety distinct areas of Jewish settlement, many of which were what Goitein 170

171

172 173

174 175 176

Note that this describes the relationship between Cairo and Fustāt generally; for _ _ tāt, in the late instance, although the establishment of Cairo did not impoverish Fus _ as rubble eleventh and early twelfth centuries, Fātimid viziers took materials _left 2 _ following famine in Fustāt to be used for buildings in Cairo (cf. EI , s.v. “al Fustāt” _ _ _ _ (Jacques Jomier)). Document from 1038 noting a synagogue: cf. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:243n10. Goitein mentions Jews establishing domiciles in both Cairo and Fustāt in ibid., 4:11. _ _ Meshullam’s estimates: Ashtor reads 600 Rabbanites (cf. Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 64); while Adler reads 800 (Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 171). Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” 65. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 4:10. Cf. Jessica Goldberg, “Geographies of Trade and Traders in the Eleventh Century Mediterranean: A Study Based on Documents from the Cairo Geniza” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 2005), and her subsequent book Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World (Cambridge, 2012).

402 phillip i. lieberman would call “village communities” – smaller settlements which often lacked organized communal structures.177 Benjamin mentions fifteen such communities, many of which dotted the Nile Delta. Smaller Jewish settlements existed along the Nile throughout Upper Egypt as well, possibly including Aswān.178 The legend of Eldad the Danite from the second half of the ninth century also describes a Jewish kingdom in sub-Saharan East Africa, though his account is highly suspect.179 The structures of human organization which appear in settlements on either a permanent or a temporary basis allow for the stratification of Jewish communities by size: that is, “[i]n the capital cities the highest juridical and religious authorities had their seats and there alone a thorough religious and secular education was available,” while communities of the second rank “partly took care of the communities of the third type, located in the numerous smaller places, which, as a rule, were unable to maintain full panels of religious and communal officials.”180 Thus, the rich material concerning the Qayrawān community describing its communal institutions which has been preserved attests to its importance as “the metropolis of Ifrīqiyā.”181 An Arabic chronicle notes that the governor of Egypt under the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 685–705) founded Qayrawān by transferring 1,000 Jews (or Copts!) westward in the late seventh or early eighth century, and a number of Arabic sources implausibly mention the conversion of Berber tribes in Ifrīqiya to Judaism prior to the Islamic conquest.182 Qayrawān’s ties to the yeshivot (particularly of Babylonia, but also of Palestine) are well-known;183 as donations flowed 177

178

179

180 181 182

183

Golb enumerates the various places of Jewish settlement in Norman Golb, “The Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24, 3 (1965), 251 70; and Norman Golb, “The Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 33, 1 (1974), 116 49. For a description of “village communities,” see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:50 51. Golb corrects Benjamin’s “Hulwān” for “Aswān” (Golb, “The Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt,” 262). See Adler and Eisenstein, Jewish Travellers, 4 21. For skepticism regarding Eldad’s report, see David Wasserstein, “Eldad ha Dani and Prester John,” in Charles F. Beckingham and Bernard Hamilton, eds., Prester John, the Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes (Aldershot, 1996). Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:43. Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 172. For the establishment of Qayrawān, see H. Z. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1974), 1:144n2. For the conversion of Berber tribes to Judaism, see H. Z. Hirschberg, “The Problem of the Judaized Berbers,” Journal of African History 4 (1963), 313 39. See, for instance, Gil’s discussion of these connections (Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 172ff.).

demography and migrations 403 eastward from North Africa and even Iberia to Iraq via Qayrawān, population flowed in the opposite direction, trickling from Qayrawān on to destinations throughout North Africa – though Fātimid conquest established Egypt as the new focal point of Babylonian_ contacts with North Africa.184 Qayrawān also maintained a Karaite population from at least the tenth century.185 The beginnings of Zīrid rule in Qayrawān (from 972) were marked by tensions, and the early eleventh century saw rioting and pillaging directed at Shīʿī populations.186 The ensuing unrest worsened conditions for the Jewish population and led to eastward Jewish migration from North Africa, particularly toward Egypt.187 The Fātimids attempted to suppress the Zīrid defection in 1048, sending the Banū_ Hilāl and Banū Sulaym into Zīrid domains from Upper Egypt. This resulted in the destruction of Qayrawān in 1057, reducing the Jewish population to a handful.188 The remaining Jews were expelled from the city in the thirteenth century.189 Although Jewish settlements throughout the heartland of Ifrīqiya did not disappear, they remained small in size. Genizah documents also reveal a Jewish community in Sicily throughout its two and a half centuries of Muslim rule, which terminated with Christian reconquest in 1068. That the administration of justice was concentrated locally suggests that the community was of moderate size, though insufficient detail exists to provide estimates for either the Palermo community or the Sicilian community in general.190 The end of the fifteenth century saw the migration of Sicilian Jews to Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, spurred by their official expulsion in 1492 (an adjunct to Jewish expulsion from Spain, as Sicily was also under direct Aragonese control), when the community may have numbered as much as 50,000.191 184 185

186 187 188 190

191

Ibid., 677. Olszowy Schlanger (in Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza, 46 48) lists a number of Karaite communities in North Africa from the ninth to the eleventh centuries. As she points out (ibid., 47n40), scholars presently have no Karaite docu ments dating from the period, but Ben Sasson inferred the presence of Karaites there on the basis of rabbinic responsa and literature. EI2, “al Ḳayrawān” (Mohamed Talbi). For worsening conditions, see Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:111ff. 189 Ibid., 1:116. Ibid., 1:116n3. For the Jewish community of Sicily in the Muslim period generally, see Menahem Ben Sasson, Nadia Zeldes, and Miriam Frenkel, Yehude Sisilyah, 825 1068: Teʿudot _ u Meqorot (Jerusalem, 1991). See Eliyahu Ashtor, “Palermitan Jewry in the Fifteenth Century,” Hebrew Union College Annual 50 (1979), 219 51. Ashtor relies on the number of some 50 communities, the largest of which being Palermo and reckoned by Benjamin of Tudela to house 1,500 Jews. Ashtor takes this as heads of household, calculating Palermitan Jewry at 5,000

404 phillip i. lieberman Unlike the populations of urban areas in Ifrīqiya, which were largely descended or were themselves immigrants from Iraq, the chains of Jewish settlements along northern and northwest Africa expanded along with Berber movements westward and traced their roots to small communities in North Africa predating the Islamic conquests.192 These chains of settlement continued at least until the middle of the twelfth century, when Almohad persecutions decimated North African Jewish populations “from the end of the world to the city of al-Mahdiyya.”193 One of these chains occupied key points of the border region between the settled country and the Sahara, with the other stretching across the highlands.194 From the end of the ninth century, these populations also likely included a Karaite contingent.195 Other small settlements were scattered throughout North Africa; and expulsions from Iberia would see the establishment and revitalization of Jewish populations along the North African coast at the end of the fourteenth and the end of the fifteenth centuries. From its early years, Fez, founded in the late eighth century by Idrīs I (r. 788–91), included a Jewish population of some note; relying on sources mentioning tax collections, Hirschberg considers the possibility that some 45,000 Jews lived there, though this was likely the figure for all of Idrīsid Morocco.196 Even if this figure is not accurate, the story of the emir Yahyā _ al-Idrīsī’s love for a Jewish maiden points to the prominence (though not necessarily to the numerical magnitude) of the Jewish community in Fez in the second half of the ninth century.197 However, the Jewish community

192 193

194 196

197

souls out of a total Palermitan population of 40,000. He attempts to support his calculations by making recourse to population density and to the geographic size of the area of Jewish settlement in Palermo, but these figures would actually suggest a smaller Jewish population, perhaps of 2,500 3,500 souls. All this would suggest that 50,000 for Sicilian Jewry as a whole is, perhaps, a rather sanguine figure. Hirschberg, “The Problem of the Judaized Berbers,” 320. Although Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:134 36, does present some evidence for some continuing Jewish settlement in areas of Almohad conquest (specif ically, Tripoli in Libya), he describes the breadth of Almohad depredations in ibid., 1:125, citing Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah, 66/88. Note his substitution of Salé for Cohen’s “‫( ”שלב‬Silves/Portugal) (ibid., 125n4). 195 Hirschberg, “The Problem of the Judaized Berbers,” 320. See notes 69 70. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:99. Note that the evidence for this figure comes from an Arabic chronicle mentioning that the Jewish community was liable for 30,000 dinars of poll tax, which does not necessarily indicate a population of any specific size. Poll tax rates were assessed at different levels (cf. EJIW, s.v. “Taxation” (Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman)). The population may have included some 6,000 Jews who settled in Fez after being expelled from Córdoba following a revolt in 818, but Ashtor rejects this (Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 1:411n11). Cf. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:99 100.

demography and migrations 405 experienced difficulties in subsequent centuries; a geonic responsum notes that some of the Jewish residents of Fez had been transferred to the new city of Ashīr in the last quarter of the tenth century, presumably by early Zīrid rulers.198 The elevation of a Jew to the post of tax collector from Jewish communities in Spanish Umayyad domains (which extended as far east as Sijilmāsa) may have caused further tensions, as it may have led some to suspect the tax collector in meddling in non-Jewish affairs, though it is clear that he had no authority to do so. Berber depredations that followed in 1032 reportedly resulted in the deaths of some 6,000 Jews.199 Amidst the increasing tensions concomitant with the rise of the Almoravids in the Maghrib, the second half of the eleventh century saw further decline among the Jewish community. Some Jews migrated to alAndalus, though both the rise of the Almoravids and the Almohad conquest of al-Andalus would see Jewish migration changing direction from al-Andalus toward the Maghrib, Ifrīqiya, Egypt, and Syria, in the twelfth century, in addition to northward toward Christian Spain and Provence. Although the North African community was also crippled by Almohad persecutions, including massacres mentioned in Genizah documents dating from the 1140s, the community endured;200 Maimonides continued to correspond with the Jewish communities of the Maghrib throughout the twelfth century and the geographer Yāqūt (d. 1229) reports that most of the merchants in the Darʿa Valley of southern Morocco were Jews, though much of the community did migrate either to Egypt, Palestine, or even Genoa.201 Weak Jewish communal control in the Maghrib led many to convert to Islam in response to challenging conditions.202 In 1438, the Jewish community of Fez was forcibly transferred to a district known as the mellāh, at _ which time some Jews chose conversion over transfer.203 Yet it is difficult 198 199 200

201

202 203

Ibid., 105 6; cf. Simhah Assaf, Teshuvot ha Geonim (Jerusalem, 1927), 39, #9 and n8. Hirschberg, A History_ of the Jews in North Africa, 1:107 8. Olivia Remie Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900 1500 (Cambridge, 1994), 95 96. Yāqūt: see Yāqūt b. ʿAbd Allāh al Hamawī, Muʿjam al Buldān, ed. and trans. Farīd ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Jundī, 7 vols. (Beirut, 1990), s.v. “Darʿa,” cited in Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:138n2. Note that the Darʿa community was one of those mentioned specifically by Abraham Ibn Ezra as having been destroyed by Almohad persecutions (cf. Mercedes García Arenal, “Jewish Converts to Islam in the Muslim West,” in Uri Rubin and David J. Wasserstein, eds., Dhimmis and Others: Jews and Christians and the World of Classical Islam, Israel Oriental Studies XVII (Tel Aviv, 1979), 236; Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:123ff.). For migrations of these populations, see Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:139n1. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:191. García Arenal, “Jewish Converts to Islam in the Muslim West,” 242.

406 phillip i. lieberman to estimate the effect that conversion might have had on the size of the community; the Maghribī heartland was also a haven for “Jews who had voluntarily or involuntarily defected in other countries and wished to live again openly as Jews.”204 Persecutions under the Wattāsids in __ both 1465 weakened the North African community, though communities on the coast and in the heartland swelled with the influx of expellees from Spain and Portugal in 1492. AL ANDALUS (MUSLIM SPAIN)

Little reliable information is available concerning Jewish life in the Iberian Peninsula for the first two centuries of Islamic presence there.205 However, Visigothic legal materials hint that the Jewish population played a role in Ṭāriq b. Ziyād’s initial conquests in the early eighth century, and Arabic chronicles suggest that Ṭāriq “mounted a garrison from among the Jews” upon the conquest of Toledo and elsewhere.206 Islamic conquerors engendered a favorable atmosphere for Jewish economic growth, though it is only from the late tenth century that documentary sources allow for a detailed depiction of mercantile life among the Jewish community of alAndalus.207 However, Abraham Ibn Daud’s story of the four captives lands a Jewish scholar in Córdoba, pointing to the increasing growth and independence of the Andalusian Jewish community over the course of the tenth century;208 and an Arabic history from the second half of the eleventh century records that “those learned in the law of the Jews, they are innumerable, both in the East and in the West” noting “a number” of Jewish practitioners of medicine in al-Andalus.209 Jewish sources actually 204 205

206

207

208

209

Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 1:191. David J. Wasserstein, “The Muslims and the Golden Age of the Jews in Al Andalus,” in Uri Rubin and David J. Wasserstein, eds., Dhimmis and Others: Jews and Christians and the World of Classical Islam, Israel Oriental Studies XVII (Tel Aviv, 1979), 181. Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 1:16, 18ff. Pace Wasserstein, who dismisses such stories as “at least largely later inventions” (Wasserstein, “The Muslims and the Golden Age of the Jews in Al Andalus,” 180). Constable points out that conditions were favorable for economic growth in Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain, 86. As for the general difficulty of knowing the progress of Jewish life from the conquests to the tenth century, Wasserstein writes, “We know too little, and are not likely ever to know more, of that dark age of two and a half centuries between the conquest and the middle of the tenth century” (Wasserstein, “The Muslims and the Golden Age of the Jews in Al Andalus,” 184). For the story of the four captives, see Ibn Daud, Sefer ha Qabbalah, 63 66 (English), 46 48 (Hebrew). Translated by Wasserstein, “The Muslims and the Golden Age of the Jews in Al Andalus,” 189, 91.

demography and migrations 407 describe the town of Lucena, southeast of Córdoba, as an entirely Jewish city, and its importance to Jewish literature and culture must be noted, though the sources do not make for an estimate of its size. Jewish and Islamic literatures mention a number of significant figures from the eighth to tenth centuries who migrated to Iberia, though it is not entirely clear that Iberian Jewry (as opposed to that of Greater Syria/ Palestine and North Africa) benefited significantly from the aforementioned westward-bound “bourgeois revolution” of the period.210 Longdistance trade expanded in the first half of the eleventh century, leading to growth of the Jewish community. However, the rise of individual Jews to government service (though not necessarily in official positions) suggests small numbers for the community as a whole, as “[t]heir lack of numbers and of possible sources of help from outside the state made them appear less potentially dangerous or subversive, and thereby the more useful as officials whose loyalties might be relied on.”211 Relying on the geographical size of Jewish settlement rather than tax records, Ashtor calculated the Jewish population to have been 6–10 percent of the urban population, and as high as 20 percent in Granada, a settlement of unusual Jewish concentration.212 His analysis turned to archaeological data gathered by Leopoldo Torres Balbás, who employed a fixed population density of 348 persons/hectare, deriving a total Jewish population in the eleventh century in the vicinity of 50,000–55,000, concentrated primarily in urban areas and comprising less than 1 percent of rural areas.213 Unfortunately, however, the magnitude of the general population in rural

210

211

212

213

For the mention of figures migrating westward, see, for example, the legendary account of Natronay b. Havivay, a Babylonian gaon of the late eighth century exiled to “the West,”_ whose journey to Spain was recorded in the Milal wa l Nihal of Ibn Hazm as a story in which a Jewish sage travels from Baghdad to Córdoba in a _single day in order to rescue the Jewish community there from an enemy (cf. EJIW, s.v. “Natronay bar _ Havivay” (Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman)). “Official positions”: see Wasserstein’s challenge to the widely held belief that Hasday Ibn Shaprūt held an official position in the Umayyad caliphate in Wasserstein, “The _ the Golden Age of the Jews in Al Andalus,” 184 87. The quotation here Muslims and comes from David Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party Kings: Politics and Society in Islamic Spain 1002 1086 (Princeton, 1985), 192. Ashtor’s estimates can be found in his article, “The Number of the Jews in Moslem Spain” [Hebrew], Zion 28 (1963), 34 56. Leopoldo Torres Balbás, “Extensión y demografía de las ciudades hispanomusulmanas,” Studia Islamica 3 (1955), 35 59, particularly 53 and n1. It is important to note that however accurate Torres Balbás’s statistic might be, he presumably intended it to apply only to eleventh century Iberia, though this has not prevented scholars from employing it widely in other locations or periods.

408 phillip i. lieberman areas is entirely unknown, and there is no way to evaluate the reasonability of Ashtor’s estimate. In the tāʾifa states – petty kingdoms flowering after the disintegration of _ the Córdoban caliphate in 1008 – the role of Samuel Ibn Naghrella and his son Joseph must be mentioned, as well as the bloody riots in 1066 in the wake of court intrigue involving Joseph that took the lives of (according to medieval sources) as many as 4,000 Jews.214 The internal weakness of the tāʾifa states contributed to Christian conquest, a critical point being the _absorption of Toledo in 1085. Islamic backlash to the weakness of the tāʾifas and resulting Christian _ the Maghrib, who made life conquest led to the rise of the Almoravids in 215 difficult for the Jewish population there. The Almoravids were superseded by the Almohads, whose persecution of Jews (and Christians) in the Maghrib in the 1140s had driven some to Christian Spain; the Almohad presence penetrated deeper into North Africa and into Spain over the course of the twelfth century, leading to migrations toward North Africa, these migrants notably including the Maimonides family (around 1149). Almohad dominion over al-Andalus led to mass Jewish conversions to Islam, as well as exodus to Egypt, Syria, and Christian Spain. Despite Salo Baron’s statement that [e]ven under the intolerant Almohad domination of the 12th century many, perhaps most, Jews continued secretly to profess Judaism. They “rolled with the waves” until the 13th century reconquest by the Christian Spaniards, when they could once again overtly profess Judaism and resume their demographic as well as socioeconomic and cultural expansion216

the thirteenth century saw the Jewish community in Christian-conquered al-Andalus shrink significantly.217 Relying on tax rolls, Yitzhak Baer estimated some 3,600 tax-paying families in Castile (and a total Iberian Jewish

214

215 217

For a description of the period of the tāʾifa kingdoms generally, see Wasserstein, The _ Rise and Fall of the Party Kings. For a brief description of the episode involving Joseph b. Samuel Ibn Naghrella, see Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 59, and the notes there. As for the numbers of Jews killed in these riots, which sources recount to have been as high as 4,000, see the sources cited in Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party Kings, 206n45. 216 Ibid., 285. EJ, s.v. “Population” (Salo Wittmayer Baron). Yitzhak Baer writes that “Andalusia, in the south, which had been a constant battle ground from the Almoravid population until its reconquest by the Christians, was virtually depopulated” (Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (Philadelphia, 1961), 2:190). Likewise, Stillman writes that following the abuses of the Almohads, “Jewish life in the little that was left of Islamic Spain ceased to exist altogether” (Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands, 61).

demography and migrations 409 population in the vicinity of 45,000 souls) at the end of the century.218 That the capitulations of 1491 contain provisions concerning Jews resident in the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada suggests the persistence of a Jewish population_ through the fifteenth century, though this was certainly small. The number of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 remains a controversial issue; estimates range from 40,000–50,000 to beyond 200,000.219 As mentioned, this exodus (as well as that of the Jews of Sicily, which was of a piece with Spanish expulsion) contributed to a renaissance in Jewish populations around the Mediterranean littoral in the late fifteenth century and beyond. CONCLUSION

Although it is clear that medieval accounts cannot be relied upon for their contribution to population figures, some scholars have seen fit to turn to them as a last resort. Scholars’ periodic (as opposed to systematic) adjustment of the figures in these accounts – for instance, declaring that the figures given by Benjamin of Tudela represent “heads of families” rather than total populations – suggests that scholars read these accounts expecting them to confirm a population estimate which they have reached through other means. It cannot be ruled out that for some of these scholars, the “other means” is guesswork, at times animated by their own desire to portray a particularly large or a particularly small Jewish population. Indeed, it might be more honest simply to cast out the figures from medieval travelogues entirely, rather than adjusting them in a capricious manner. Medieval chronicles must also be understood as Heilsgeschichte of a sort, and as such they have been presented here with great caution. The difficulties intrinsic to the interpretation of archaeological data have already been discussed, and while the documentary evidence of the Genizah has made a tremendous and significant contribution to our understanding of the makeup of the Jewish population of medieval Egypt and the Mediterranean as a whole, the study of these documents faces similar difficulties. 218

219

Baer’s estimate is cited in Ashtor, “The Number of the Jews in Moslem Spain,” 35; see Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 1:190. See also the further discussion of Jocelyn N. Hillgarth, The Spanish Kingdoms, 1250 1516, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1976), 1:30 32. Note that Grätz (also relying on tax records) estimates the population to have been 850,000 Jews at this time and place, while Amador de los Rios estimates 40,000 70,000 (see Ashtor, “The Number of the Jews in Moslem Spain,” 34). For “minimalist” estimates of 40,000 50,000, see Henry Kamen, “The Mediterranean and the Expulsion of Spanish Jews in 1492,” Past and Present 119 (1988), 44. As Kamen writes, “figures for those expelled have varied between about 150,000 and about 400,000, with some estimates going very much higher” (ibid., 31n1).

410 phillip i. lieberman Awareness of these difficulties begs the question: What can be known about medieval Jewish demography and migrations in the Islamic world? Since, in many cases, the size of the aggregate population in a particular locale is itself difficult or impossible to determine, estimating the percentage of that population that was Jewish (an endeavor often undertaken by scholars) is unhelpful. However, careful consideration of evidence from all quarters can often allow for the order of magnitude of the Jewish population to be identified within reasonable limits; thus, the estimates given in this chapter should be taken as indicators of this, rather than as unequivocal figures of population size. For instance, the estimate of 6,000–8,000 Jews in Damascus at the time of Islamic conquest is offered to indicate that the population of Jews was not 20,000 – nor was it 1,000. Yet the possibility that the actual Jewish population was, for instance, 5,000 or 9,000 cannot be gainsaid on the basis of the present level of evidence. This same caveat applies to migrations, conversions, and other forces affecting population dynamics. Genizah evidence supports the notion that the Jewish population participated in a broad westward migration experienced by the Islamic world as a whole in the ninth and tenth centuries.220 But this broad westward migration may have been a trickle of elites rather than a wave of the population as a whole, and those elites may have had a palpable effect on the shape of Jewish life in North Africa well beyond their size. Further, the persistence of connections between North African Jewry and Iraq points to a continued Jewish presence in Iraq, strengthening the possibility that gradual conversion and worsening local economic factors may have also played a role in the diminution of Jewry there rather than a massive broad-based migratory shift. Similarly, the ravages of the Crusades may have motivated a shift of populations within Palestine, but evidence also points to the return of Jewish populations in Jerusalem and elsewhere almost as soon as they were cast out by conquerors. In depicting population shifts, economic, social, and political change must be evaluated along with the countervailing force of inertia and the strain associated with upheaval. Therefore, for instance, even knowing the number of Jews in Spain or Sicily prior to the expulsions of 1492 sheds no more than a hazy light on any estimate of the number of emigrants. Yet the cultural significance of Jewish populations in Islamic lands can be identified, even if their numerical prominence cannot; and to the extent that Jewish settlements have found their way into the known literary, documentary, and archaeological heritage of the medieval Islamic 220

Ben Sasson outlines the literature discussing these migrations in Ben Sasson, The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World, 34n10, and Goitein’s analysis of the Genizah evidence has already been discussed above.

demography and migrations 411 world, many of those settlements and the forces they have encountered have been identified here. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashtor, Eliyahu. “The Number of the Jews in Moslem Spain” [Hebrew], Zion 28 (1963), 34–56. “The Number of Jews in Medieval Egypt,” Journal of Jewish Studies 18–19 (1967–68), 9–42; 19 (1968), 1–22. “Un mouvement migratoire au Haut Moyen Âge: migration de l’Irak vers les pays méditerranéens,” Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 27 (1972), 185–214. Botticini, Maristella, and Zvi Eckstein. The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70–1492 (Princeton, 2012). Cuffel, Alexandra. “Call and Response: European Jewish Emigration to Egypt and Palestine in the Middle Ages,” Jewish Quarterly Review 90, 1–2 (1999), 61–101. Della Pergola, Sergio. “Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History,” in Sergio Della Pergola and Judith Even, eds., Papers in Jewish Demography, 1997 (Jerusalem, 2001), 11–33. Dols, Michael W. The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, 1977). Ellenblum, Ronnie. The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950–1072 (Cambridge, 2012). Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1997). Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004). Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1968–1993). Golb, Norman. “The Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24, 3 (1965), 251–70; 33, 1 (1974), 116–49. Goldberg, Jessica. Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World (Cambridge, 2012). Hirschberg, Ḥayyim Zeʾev. A History of the Jews of North Africa from Antiquity to Our Times, Volume 1: From Antiquity to the Sixteenth Century (Leiden, 1974). Petersen, Andrew. The Towns of Palestine under Muslim Rule: AD 600–1600 (Oxford, 2005). Stillman, Norman A. The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979).

chapter 12

ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES j e s s i c a l . g o l d b e r g (w i t h p h i l l i p i . l i e b e r m a n )

INTRODUCTION

Those studying the economic activities of Jews in the medieval Islamic world find themselves in an odd position of glut and dearth. For the vast geographic and temporal sweep of medieval Islamic history, we still know relatively little about the economy in general.1 A lack of survey scholarship makes it difficult to know a great deal about the economic activities of the Jewish community as a whole for most of its history under Islam, and even more, how to interpret the smattering of economic information that comes from literary sources, chronicles, travelogues, geographies, geonic responsa, legal treatises and formularies. It is hard to understand or sometimes even identify the economic activities of Jews to which these documents occasionally refer, and even harder to put them in the broader context of Islamic society. The degree and severity of the gap in the scholarship is only made more obvious when we turn to the writings on the economy of medieval Europe. Though it is traditional to suggest that the relative paucity of scholarship on the medieval Islamic economy is a reflection of the source material at our command, such assertions are only partly true. Many of the kinds of material upon which historians of the ancient Mediterranean or historians of medieval Western Europe have built their histories are indeed lacking, but a number of scholars have pointed out the profound possibilities in the different source materials that were produced and survived the Islamic

1

See further discussion of this point and the literature in Jessica Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and Their Business World (Cambridge, 2012), 11 29. On the debate about the causes of growth and decline in the Islamic economy see, most recently, Maya Shatzmiller, “Recent Trends in Middle East Economic History: Cultural Factors and Structural Change in the Medieval Period 650 1500,” History Compass 16, 12 (2018), e12504, https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12504 and https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12504 (in two parts) and the literature cited there.

412

economic activities 413 2 Middle Ages that have not been exploited. But it is equally true that many of the most promising sources for the Islamic economy or even the Islamic world writ large – biographical dictionaries, documents for religious endowments and mosques, records of tax farmers and merchants on papyrus and paper – even if deployed, have little to nothing to say about Jews; though others, such as administrative manuals, market inspector manuals, legal treatises, and fatwā collections, contain information or prescriptions – albeit limited – for intercommunal economic activity, or they provide some tidbits of detail about Jews themselves. This combination of circumstances helps explain how certain theories about Jewish economic activity under medieval Islam gained traction in twentieth-century scholarship, and sometimes still form part of a common image of Jews in the Islamic world.3 Such theories posited a prominent or even dominant role of Jews in banking, government administration, or long-distance trade of the medieval Islamic world, with a “court Jew” as the most representative figure of Jewish economic identity. Such an image arises partially from the Islamic sources used: usually the only Jews worth mentioning in geographies, chronicles, or travelogues upon which these analyses relied were the rare individuals who achieved an unusual prominence in these fields.4 Islamic evidence of this sort could be used to give scholarly gloss to theories tracing an unbroken web of Jewish control of banking and long-distance trade from antiquity, through the Islamic Middle Ages, to modernity.5 The picture of the Jews as international merchants also dovetailed with a narrative of medieval European economic history in which Jews played a critical role as the only long-distance traders 2

3

4

5

See the discussion in R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (Princeton, 1991); and Bernard Lewis, “Sources for the Economic History of the Middle East,” in Michael A. Cook, ed., Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East (Oxford, 1970), 78 92. For these theories, as they impacted the historiography of Jewish economic life in medieval Christian Europe, see Michael Toch, The Economic History of European Jews: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages (Leiden, 2013). The evidence for the presence of Jews in prominent posts (formal or otherwise) in Islamic regimes is particularly well documented for Muslim Spain; see, for instance, Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews in Moslem Spain, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1973). In addition to the literature built up on the Rādhānites (who appear in but one paragraph of a single ninth century Islamic geography text), Louis Massignon built a theory of Jewish banking in the Islamic world on a few ninth century loans. See Louis Massignon, “L’influence de l’Islam au moyen âge sur la fondation et l’essor des banques juives,” Bulletin d’études orientales de l’Institut Français de Damas 1 (1932), 3 12. Massignon was followed in this regard by Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam (London, 1937), and this strain of argument was picked up in Moshe Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2004), 638 62.

414 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) in early medieval Europe (from the seventh to the eleventh centuries). By virtue of their confessional connections, it was argued, they had acted as cosmopolitan brokers between Europe and Islam; only to be replaced in the twelfth century as Italians gained confidence and power.6 For one significant slice of time and society, however, there is an abundance of sources on Jewish economic activities, and the content of these materials reveals the problems with such long-standing narratives about Jewish economic life. Indeed, owing to the particular practices of the Jewish community of Fustāt-Cairo in depositing written records into the _ _ genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, it is fair to say that we know more about the economic activities of Jews in Egypt in the eleventh, twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries than we do about the economic activities of virtually any other group of people in the contemporary Islamic or European world. These documents show a radically different picture of Jewish economic life by opening a window through which to see a very wide range of Jewish economic actors. They make it impossible to sustain theories about the exceptional role of the Jews in the Islamic world or a central role for Jews as economic brokers between Europe and Islam. The Cairo Genizah brought to light thousands upon thousands of fragments of religious materials, but also between 30,000 and 45,000 fragments of quotidian materials usually referred to as the “historical” or “documentary” Genizah.7 The range of kinds of written documents in the documentary Genizah is truly astonishing, from children’s school exercises to dossiers of lawsuits that came before the rabbinic court in Fustāt or _ _the Jerusalem, from magic amulets to sections of scholarly treatises. For economic historian, they are sources of almost unmanageable richness: we have partnership contracts and quittances involving many economic sectors and a wide range of capital; lawsuits and legal queries from persons across a variety of economic roles; letters of petition asking for forms of aid and explaining the economic circumstances that necessitate it; financial accounts of many types (e.g., household holiday shopping lists that manage a few dirhams, shopkeepers’ bills, synagogue building accounts, 6

7

See Henri Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne (New York, 1939), 174; and Robert S. Lopez, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1971), 60 62, who makes the early eleventh century the high water mark for these merchants. See also the critiques in Bernhard Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chrétiens dan le Monde Occidental (Paris, 1960); Toch, The Economic History of European Jews. Stefan C. Reif, A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University’s Genizah Collection (Richmond, Surrey, 2000). See also Chapter 1 in this volume. S. D. Goitein coined the term “documentary Genizah”; see S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 1:1 16.

economic activities 415 bankers’ lists dealing in thousands of dinars); commercial letters from merchants of the long-distance economy; dowry lists; lists of communal donors and their contributions; lists of recipients of charity and what they were given; family and communal correspondence mentioning economic aspects of life in passing. The majority of materials in the documentary Genizah, no matter their ostensible subject, have something to say about economic organization and activity. Though these documents have been recognized for over a half-century for their wealth of information regarding Jewish participation in the economy, perhaps less acknowledged is how richly they document the ambient Islamic economy. But Jews moved through markets and neighborhoods in their daily life, had complex personal, professional, and property relationships with Muslim and Christian neighbors, partners, notables, and officials, used the economic services of individuals across the classes and confessions of Islamic society, and reported in commercial correspondence on general patterns of shipping, port activity and regimes, states of markets, market players, and states of particular industries, revealing bits of general economic life at every turn. A careful sifting through Genizah materials reveals nearly as much about the overall economic organization of the Islamic world as it does about the particular activities of Jewish participants. It is thus unfortunate that both economic historians of the Islamic world and social historians of the Fātimid period _ have made but modest use of them.8 Since this chapter relies heavily on Genizah materials for details on both Jewish economic activities and the structures of the Islamic economy, it is important to recognize the limitations and difficulties of the data provided by the Genizah while nonetheless noting the unexpected riches of the data it provides in documenting economic activity across the Islamic world and throughout the medieval period. The Cairo Genizah was the genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustāt. Fustāt was the administrative capital of _ _ conquest _ _ Islamic Egypt before the Fātimid of 969 and establishment of a _ royal city, Cairo, and it remained the economic capital of Egypt for centuries afterward. But beginning in the Ayyūbid era (1171–1250), Fustāt _ _ began to lose position to an expanding Cairo, meaning much of the population moved away from the area around the synagogue. These facts mean our economic data are sharply tilted toward first Fustāt, and then _ _ Egypt in general, and include materials from the widest economic variety of people in the period around 1000–1250. But the documents of the 8

See Yaacov Lev, State and Society in Fatimid Egypt (Leiden, 1991); Paul E. Walker, Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and Its Sources (London, 2002); Marina Rustow, The Lost Archive (Princeton, 2020).

416 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) Genizah also provide much broader information, for two reasons: First, during much of the period in question, Fustāt-Cairo was the dominant _ _ the Islamic world) as a city of the Islamic Mediterranean (and perhaps whole, and the center of several commercial postal systems in an Islamic world characterized by a fair degree of personal mobility, by densities of networks connecting individuals around the Mediterranean by ties of family, business, education, and religious community.9 All these factors meant an astonishing range of people had occasion to write to or visit the city; and they left witness to their connections by papers in the Genizah. Second, the deposits of this Genizah were enhanced by traditions that asserted the sacrality of the site and building, which led both communities and individuals of more varied temporal and geographic origin to lay their documents to rest in the sacred company of the Ben Ezra genizah room; and even led displaced Jewish communities to deposit entire communal archives in it. These aspects of the deposits let us say a great deal about the economic activities of Jews in much of the Islamic Mediterranean, have substantial data for certain economic sectors in parts of the Indian Ocean, and diffuse but limited information for economic activities of Jews in Islamic Asia during the period 1000–1250. There are small but significant materials that reflect on economic patterns in the tenth century, but little prior to it. Though deposits become more erratic and less concentrated on documentary materials after 1250, the Genizah continues to give some information about Jewish economic life. Unfortunately, relatively little work has been done on the “late Genizah”; doubtless the sketch below will need to be revised when work has been done with these sources. Given the nature of overall sources and state of study, a survey of Jewish economic activity must necessarily be preliminary. This chapter, moreover, tackles the topic in a somewhat unusual manner to suit the data and scholarship. Since the “historical” Genizah offers so much specific information for the central Middle Ages, the focus of this chapter will primarily be given over to examining various aspects of economic activity in this period, and indeed with a focus on the Egyptian material. From there, we will reach out temporally using the information the Genizah provides about economic migration and geographic connection to suggest how we might better understand the much more occasional and less descriptive 9

For detail on the mercantile postal system in Fātimid domains, see Goitein’s discussion _ in A Mediterranean Society, 1:281 95; and the updated analysis and maps in Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 189 93. For the postal service in the medieval Islamic world more broadly, see Adam J. Silverstein, Postal Systems in the Pre modern Islamic World (Cambridge, 2009).

economic activities 417 sources we find from other regions and from the early and later Middle Ages, but also noting how tentative and preliminary some of this survey must remain. AN OVERVIEW FROM THE GENIZAH: THE “CLASSICAL PERIOD,” 1000 1250

Early accounts of Jews in the economy found them only as the courtiers or the great international traders. These accounts relied on allusions to such prominent individuals in the sources (generally edited literary materials).10 In fact, the records of the Genizah document the existence of both these figures, containing documents from or about the few Jewish individuals who also show up in the literary record. In this way, the Genizah material confirmed some of the detail found in the literary record. The Genizah records show, however, that such men were only the tip of a socioeconomic iceberg: Jews could be found in nearly every main social class of medieval Islamic society and in nearly every profession. Indeed, the most obvious general thing to say about the Jews in this economy is that they were not economically exceptional.11 That is, it is impossible to find Jews in a profession where we do not also find non-Jews, nor even a case of a particular city in which Jews monopolized a particular craft or industry. Genizah materials also show that even the merchant and the courtier played rather different socioeconomic roles than earlier writers assumed. First and foremost, there is no evidence that Jews occupied these roles disproportionately, that they exercised exceptional power in Islamic society through such positions, or that they occupied such roles because they were more educated or cosmopolitan and thus more able to act as “cross-cultural brokers” than members of other groups.12 The Genizah documents, then, challenged a long-held vision of Jewish economic history. The merchants of the Genizah were not quite the people scholars expected them to be. 10

11

12

For one such account, see Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam. For a discussion of Jewish exceptionalism in the medieval Islamic world and a narrative that challenges the view that Jews were unexceptional, see Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History 70 1492 (Princeton, 2012), chapter 6. See the discussion of Jewish courtiers in Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), 120 23. See Philip D. Curtin, Cross cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984), on such brokerage. Of course, the idea that Jews were indeed not more educated than their contemporaries challenges the depiction of Jewish economic history presented by Botticini and Eckstein in The Chosen Few.

418 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) First, the great majority of them were of the “middling sort” – not part of the truly wealthy elite. Perhaps most importantly for theories of a special Jewish cosmopolitanism, none of them – even the wealthiest – had any business connections at all with European or Byzantine Jews, though the Genizah shows that there were indeed some family connections, movement of scholars and scholarship, and pilgrimage across those boundaries.13 Jewish merchants mostly traded with the Christian merchants of Western Europe or the Byzantine Empire who came to Islamic ports; in the rare instances when they ventured into Christian territory to trade, their complaints and performance show their connections and knowledge in those markets were surprisingly weak. Indeed, rather than “cross-cultural” brokers, the merchants of the eleventh century tended to be primarily brokers of the production of their home region onto the “international” markets of the Islamic Mediterranean. That is, they were deeply and personally tied to local agricultural and manufacturing production, and they made their money primarily by organizing the movement and sale of regional production in the great cities of the Islamic Mediterranean: Fustāt/Cairo, Qayrawān/al-Mahdiyya, Palermo, Tripoli, Fez, or _ _ Córdoba. When they expanded their activities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they did not venture to Europe but rather into the Indian Ocean – either in Islamic areas, or areas long ago pioneered by Muslim merchant communities. Like Jews in many professions, they usually preferred to form partnership and business associations with fellow Jews, for reasons discussed below. But they were professionally and legally part of a merchant class, the “men of affairs” who sustained the great urban wholesale trading markets, and had plenty of occasions to work and form business relationships with their Muslim counterparts. Like Jews in other professions throughout the Islamic Mediterranean, they were deeply “embedded” in Islamic economic life, as Cohen has suggested was true of Jews under Islam in general social terms.14 If the “embeddedness” and “non-exceptionality” of Jews applies as the most general statement about economic activities, still a few key aspects of participation are worth noting. First, the Genizah has some evidence about

13

14

Armando O. Citarella, “A Puzzling Question concerning the Relations between the Jewish Communities of Christian Europe and Those Represented in the Geniza Documents,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 91 (1971), 390 97. Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994). For a further discussion of embeddedness, see Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014), 1 48.

economic activities 419 15 most sectors of the economic activity and work in the Islamic world, and documents at least some participation of Jews in the great majority of them. Of what we might call the main employment areas – animal husbandry (whether for meat, wool, leather, or transport), arable cultivation, mining, manufacturing, and construction, transportation, trade, services, educated professions, civil service, military, religious professionals – Jews can be documented in all but two: mining and the military. We find Jews in a host of craft specialties, from sieve-makers to tanners to silversmiths, in services such as professional mourner, water carrier, embroidery teacher; keeping orchards, bees, and modest flocks; and as sailors and fishermen. The line between artisan and trader was often hard to distinguish, since many craftsmen kept storefronts and many traders operated manufacturing concerns. However, there were many whose main occupation was trading – from female brokers who served female artisans and customers in their homes to the international merchants discussed above. Despite religious assertions that non-Muslims should not be in authority over Muslims, we find Jews at nearly every level of government office: from policeman to tax farmer, petty bureaucrat to heads of government departments.16 There are specific areas in which we do not find Jews: it is worth noting among these some that were quite significant economically – the grain trade, the timber industry, overland transport – as well as some that were regarded as disreputable – collectors of refuse, and cleaners of streets, sewers, and cesspools, for example. Both absences tell us something about Jewish economic opportunities and attitudes. But it is not merely the range of economic sectors that is worth noting, but the astonishing number of professions attested. The Genizah mentions literally hundreds of professions, especially in the service and manufacturing sectors. Indeed, we can often find specialist labels for many different parts of manufacturing processes, especially in the complex textile industry. The dispersion of what were modest numbers of Jews – both in terms of raw numbers and the proportion of society – across professions is remarkable, as is the fact that such professional dispersion was matched geographically: Jews occupied many professional niches within any city in which we find them, and they were, as Chapter 11 in this volume has discussed, widely dispersed among a great many cities and villages across the breadth of the Mediterranean. Nor does the Mediterranean picture presented in the Genizah show the Jews highly clustered either in or near 15

16

Mining is an important exception. Though trade in metals documents the existence of a mining sector, we learn nothing about it from the Genizah. The presence of Jews in prominent posts (formal or otherwise) in Islamic regimes is, of course, also known from literary materials, particularly for Muslim Spain; see, for instance, Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews in Moslem Spain, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1973).

420 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) the largest cities – nor clustered around the ancient cultural or population centers in Palestine or Iraq. That is, we find professional diversity wherever we find Jews, in cities, towns, and villages around the Mediterranean. We find concentrations of Jews in some professions in individual cities and a paucity of them in others, an artifact of patterns of urbanism, but there is no evidence of monopolization of any kind of industry or manufacturing by Jews or indeed by any other groups.17 The variety of professional work is shown both by documents reporting occupation directly, and the indirect evidence of professional nisbas. A nisba is a “noun of relation” – part of one’s name.18 As opposed to a personal name or one’s patronymic, a nisba can serve as a family name of sorts and tends to be either of professional or geographic origin. The former – professional nisbas – are similar to the late medieval British adoption of names such as Smith or Baker. Geographic nisbas – sometimes useful for the study of demography – are more common than professional ones among the Jews attested in the Genizah, occurring in perhaps a quarter of the names.19 But such professional labels are also useful in expanding the range of known occupations among the Jews.20 In addition, they reveal a surprising degree of professional mobility, as such nisbas so often do not match up with the work the individual did, rather representing the work of some earlier generation. Furthermore, even where a nisba is 17

18

19

20

Cf. Maya Shatzmiller, Labour in the Medieval Islamic World (Leiden, 1994), 345: “no single urban sector was monopolized by a single ethnic group.” Despite this, Shatzmiller does devote a chapter to the ethnic division of labor documented in the literary sources (ibid., 346 47). Such group professional clustering was a culturally expected form of professional organization, and particularly a well known organizational strategy for both the military and large scale husbandry (pastoralists) sectors. On the late medieval transformation of Christian agricultural villagers into tribal Muslim ones, see Yossef Rapoport, Rural Economy and Tribal Society in Islamic Egypt: A Study of Al Nabulusi’s Villages of the Fayyum (Turnhout, 2018). See EI2, s.v. “nisba” (Jacqueline Sublet). See also EJIW, s.v. “Names and Naming Practices Middle Ages” (Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman). For an example of the use of geographic nisbas for demographic analysis, see Eliyahu Ashtor, “Un mouvement migratoire au haut Moyen Âge: migrations de l’Irak vers les pays méditerranéens,” Annales 27, 1 (1972), 185 214. For the problems associated with this methodological intervention, see Chapter 11 in this volume. A geographic nisba might indicate a significant association with one or another locality rather than one’s actual familial connections with that locality. A good example is the “representative of the merchants” (wakīl al tujjār) Ibrāhīm b. Farah in Alexandria in the later part of the _ eleventh century. He was known as (Ibn) al Iskandarānī for his economic role in the city; he was actually from Ifrīqiya. For an example of the use of professional nisbas linking occupation and social/economic class, see Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, 2005), 55 66.

economic activities 421 associated with a particular individual and not his predecessors, that nisba might represent a professional accomplishment rather than the bread-andbutter of his (or her!) work; for example, the astrolabes fashioned by the famous tenth-century Aleppan woman Maryam al-Asturlābī may account for only part of her professional endeavors. In some_ cases, professional mobility is made the more obvious in that an individual is named first by his family professional nisba, and then given his own profession: along the lines of “Jacob son of Isaac Baker, the Silk-Weaver.” Even though we find Jews in agriculture, husbandry, and transportation, the Genizah shows employment skewed primarily toward occupations we would consider urban: principally manufacturing and services, with significant participation in civil service, educated professions, and religious professions. Such a pattern is in part as an artifact of the circumstances of the Genizah: its location, the conditions which occasioned its contents, and the cultural patterns of Islamic society in the period. The Genizah comes from Fustāt, and its contents are dominated _ _ – most of whom were substantial by documents of the urban middling sort artisans or merchants. They shared in the common prejudices of Islamic society, in which the countryside (referred to as the rīf) and its residents, whatever their economic significance, lay largely outside the cultural imagination.21 Yet equally, there is enough secondary evidence from deposits of communal materials from places like Ascalon to suggest even within the erstwhile agricultural homeland of the Jews, agricultural participation was modest. In pre-Islamic Iraq, the large Jewish population is generally thought to have been primarily agricultural; the establishment of the garrison cities was long considered to have caused a radical shift in the economic pursuits of the Jews toward crafts and trade.22 21

22

For the tension between urban center and countryside, see Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 256 57. For this transformation in Iraq, see Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols. (New York, 1952 83), 4:150 71; Eliyahu Ashtor, “Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental Jewry,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 50, 2 (1959), 148 49, https://doi.org/10.2307/1453196; Haim H. Ben Sasson, The Medieval Jewish Community: A Selection of Articles [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1976), 388 400; and Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70 1492 (Princeton, 2012), 124 51. For a rejoinder to the idea that the establishment of the garrison cities led to urbanization of the Jews (or, for that matter, of anyone) en masse, see Hugh Kennedy, “Feeding the Five Hundred Thousand: Cities and Agriculture in Early Islamic Mesopotamia,” Iraq 73 (2000), 177 200; the implications of Kennedy’s conclusions for the Jewish community in specific are discussed in further detail in Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, “Revisiting Occupational Choice and Urbanization in Iraq under the Early Abbasids,” Jewish History 29 (2015), 113 35. See Chapter 11 in this volume for further discussion.

422 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) These findings tend to support a stereotype of the Jewish population: that it was far more urban than other confessional groups – though, as will be discussed, the economic and social meaning of urbanism must be adjusted by viewing the general nature of economic integration of the rural and urban economies, and the nature of Islamic urbanism. At the same time, a closer look at professional diversity and the financial status of artisanal work will show that the Genizah provides no evidence that the Jewish community as a whole was either relatively richer or poorer than other identity groups, more skilled or more educated.23 Nor does it seem we should give overmuch attention to literary reports at a given period of the fame of Jews in some industry or another; when documents suggest family or city traditions in particular manufactures, we must also give a great deal of weight to a professional mobility evident in this community’s prosopography, and the even-clearer evidence that nearly any professional label we can find attached to Jews can be found attached to non-Jews as well.24 Thus, Jews were not exceptional, they were embedded in the medieval Islamic economy as a whole. But embedded does not mean indistinguishable. To understand the activities of Jews – the extent and nature of their participation in the larger economy, the kinds of economic power they did and did not wield – involves examining three aspects of economic activity in the Genizah period. First, an understanding of the social construction and meaning of “work” in the Islamic milieu that explains the breadth of Jewish economic participation. Second, the general organization of the economy and economic activity explains the economic position of the Jewish community within the broad economy. Third, Islamic economic and market organization in which forms of affiliation, religious rules, and religious identity were brought to the market in particular ways helps explain patterns of Jewish economic ties within and outside the community. ISLAMIC ATTITUDES: SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND RELIGIOUS MEANINGS OF WORK

It is typical to stress the tolerance and lack of active restriction in explaining the comparative range of Jewish economic opportunity in the Islamic world, and in comparing the situation of these Jews with their 23 24

Pace Botticini and Eckstein, The Chosen Few. Cf. S. D. Goitein, “The Main Industries of the Mediterranean Area as Reflected in the Records of the Cairo Geniza,” Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 4 (1961), 168 97. See also S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:75 147, where the same claim is made, but the conflicting prosopographic evidence is noted.

economic activities 423 coreligionists under medieval Latin Christendom. The more defined religious tolerance of Islam, and its special regard for Jews (in comparison to Roman attitudes) as “People of the Book,” certainly played a significant role in shaping the nature and limits of economic participation, but a more complicated mix of circumstances and attitudes developed in early and middle Islamic societies that did the same. Some of these were continuities with patterns in the late antique economy, but others represent substantial cultural shifts that significantly broadened the range of work for Jewish individuals and across urban Jewish communities. Perhaps the most important changes from the late antique world, a development that sharply separated medieval Islamic and Christian spheres, were several aspects of the relationship between work and religion. The absence in Islam of a professional clergy, controlling both financial resources and doctrinal or theological authority, is perhaps the most obvious and powerful change from ancient and late antique precedents. But a cascade of additional effects arose from the decoupling of work and religion that had particularly important consequences for the Jewish minority. New Islamic social attitudes toward religion, work, and status were also shared by Jewish communities in the Islamic milieu. A lack of a clergy did not mean a complete lack of religious professionals or paid religious work; it meant that religious leadership in local communities was largely unremunerated.25 It was, rather, one of the main arenas for the pursuit of social status; and was pursued largely by individuals who also worked in other and varied parts of the economy for their subsistence. Indeed, religious scholarship, leadership, and the social prestige associated with it were most respectably combined with moneymaking work of various sorts. Such attitudes were prominent among Muslims in their urban communities and were deeply shared by the Jews who lived among them. The example and attitude of Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), who made his living as court and hospital physician in Cairo while acting as the leader of the Jewish community – and advised a student to earn his bread out of something other than his religious studies – is only a particularly prominent instance of social attitudes and activities.26 It is echoed in analyses of the professions of the ʿulamāʾ, the Muslim religious elite, as documented in the great biographical dictionaries, medieval Islamic

25 26

Jewish cantors, for instance, were paid as were Muslim muezzins. For Moses Maimonides’ famous objection to the payment of scholars for their services, see Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah) (New Haven, 1982), 82 83.

424 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) equivalents of a scholars’ Who’s Who that often sketch the basic professional facts of scholars’ non-scholarly lives.27 There were several effects of this new organization of religious leadership. As a great deal of social prestige was funneled into religious knowledge and into leadership that was unpaid, so, too, the ties of social identity to profession weakened, promoting multi-professionalism and professional mobility along many rungs of the social ladder. Perhaps most importantly, the example of the Prophet Muhammad in shaping attitudes toward work _ promoted social approval of pursuit of profit, rather than simple subsistence, as a respectable end for every social class and kind of work.28 Against the famous story of Constantinople in which the ninth-century Emperor Theophilus had his wife’s commercial ship burnt to protect his prestige, we might place the utter respectability of the Zīrid sultan’s mother owning commercial ships – an example imitated throughout the political class.29 In a world where pursuit of profit is respectable and backed by religious example, one also looks in vain for a social attitude promoting leisure as a special sign of social status. Equally, there is little evidence for a prejudice against manual labor, or a distinction stricto sensu between professions that involved manual or craft labor and those that did not. Among the Jews, we find a well-to-do merchant doing some tailoring during a low period of trade, and a weaver who became the head of one of the Jewish academies in Iraq. Even women of the moneyed classes did not live in leisure or simply manage the family home; they, like all other women, could be found spinning and weaving cloth, but particularly embroidering and embellishing it – not only to decorate their own persons and homes, but to sell their production respectably (whether in the markets with the assistance of a male relative or through a female broker); they also bought and sold household moveables, brokered loans, and managed commercial real estate. The relative importance of their remunerative work was in part a 27

28

29

Hayyim J. Cohen, “The Economic Background and the Secular Occupations of Muslim Jurisprudents and Traditionists in the Classical Period of Islam (until the Middle of the Eleventh Century),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 13, 1 (1970), 16 61. The Qurʾān’s insistence that trade and usury not be confused (2:275), admitting the one and condemning the other, suggests both familiarity and critique of Christian condem nations of profit as avarice. See also S. D. Goitein, “The Rise of the Middle Eastern Bourgeoisie in Early Islamic Times,” in Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1966), 215 41. See Robert S. Lopez, The Commercial Revolution, 65 66, for the Byzantine case; see Michael Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth Century ce (Leiden, 2001); and Lev, State and Society, on the commercial activities of the Fātimid family. _

economic activities 425 consequence of a service sector that undertook certain parts of what would be household work in other societies, as well as the availability of female domestic slaves.30 Indeed, it is clear from marriage contracts – at least from the twelfth century, when they come to contain more individualized clauses – that keeping one’s own earnings was an important economic concern for women of many economic classes.31 Perhaps the most important result of these attitudes for Jews was the absence of anything that we might call a guild. Though the term “guild” has been applied to various forms of professional affiliation in societies across premodern Eurasia, most forms of guild and guild power have serious consequences for minority group labor participation. Whether it is a claim to monopolistic rights over a profession, a close connection of professional groups to political power, a power of the guild to control or patrol production in concert with government authority, the conveying of civic status to members of professional groups, limiting the right to practice a profession according to such civic status, or, most importantly, the close association of profession with religious community and religious ritual, guilds tend to create or reinforce segregation of work by social, familial, gender, or religious affiliation.32 As we will see, local craft 30

31

32

As is true for most medieval economic sources, much of women’s activity escapes the written record; information about their work comes mostly from large deposits of marriage contracts in the Genizah, though much more remains to be done by sifting through off hand remarks in other materials. The standard clause in marriage contracts that a woman is to be considered trustworthy is often further specified with language that indicates her expected management of household spending; well to do families often purchased female slaves to carry the physical burdens of home maintenance, as well as completing menial errands outside the home (fetching water, going to the public ovens, washing clothes). See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:144 47; Eve Krakowski, Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture (Princeton, 2017), 142 80; Craig Perry, “The Daily Life of Slaves and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969 1250 ce” (PhD diss., Emory University, Atlanta), 66 105. Ownership of male slaves was much less common. The most common kind of additional clause concerned place of residence; second was prohibition of taking of additional wives; third concerned a wife’s mobility (whether she went in and out of the house freely). Women’s keeping of personal earnings came fourth in the twelfth century (usually with the stipulation that she then provide her own clothing), but became so standard in the thirteenth century that it was replaced by a (infrequently used) clause specifying the husband’s right to her earnings. See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:100 159. Sheilagh Ogilvie addresses these issues in the European context in a number of works, and consequences for women as well as minorities; see especially Sheilagh C. Ogilvie, A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany (Oxford, 2003); and Sheilagh C. Ogilvie, Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000 1800 (Cambridge, 2011).

426 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) communities could certainly show solidarity, and attempt to band together against outsiders, but such solidarity, without an institutional character, was not a powerful vehicle to create craft segregation or monopoly.33 Finally, social attitudes toward labor relationships helped redefine respectability, at least in part, according to the ways labor was remunerated, rather than designating professions themselves as more and less respectable. Employment in the Islamic world was often described as slavery, a dependence degrading for a mature man.34 The wage labor that appears regularly in the legal or documentary records is most often that of unequipped manual laborers, who had only their muscular strength to offer. Most skilled or artisanal work was done on the basis of partnerships in a small shop. As everyone in a shop was conceived of as a part owner paid by the profits of the investment, the respectability of profit-making was granted to a large share of the working classes, no matter how minute their working capital. Genizah people tended to see some professions as more respectable than others, in part given the working capital required to do them – potters and oysterers, for example, ranked low in the eyes of the middling sort, while perfumers and goldsmiths usually numbered among them. The records of those who gave and received charity tend to confirm some of these prejudices, but undermine others.35 The notables of Alexandria despised some of the community as “dyers,” for example, but dyers were numbered among the city’s wealthiest Jews.36 The possibilities for investment and scaling of production, as we discuss below, helped further blur boundaries of wealth based on profession. These social attitudes, religious opinions, and institutional frameworks helped promote the kinds of Jewish economic participation we see in the Genizah documents, where Jews are found in an enormous range of 33

34 35 36

Islamic guilds were the subject of academic debate in the twentieth century; see Janet L. Abu Lughod, “The Islamic City Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 19, 2 (1987), 155 76. The combined evidence of the Genizah, chronicles, and market inspectors’ manuals provide conclusive evidence for their absence in the medieval centuries. The questions of when the preexisting Roman guild system ended, and how the Ottoman one came into existence, remain interesting and vexed. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:87, 161. See Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 55 66. Note the common link between Jews and the dyeing profession seen in the work of al Jāhiz (776 869) in his Risāla (trans. Joshua Finkel in “A Risāla of al Jāhiz,” Journal of the _ _ _ in Ahsan al American Oriental Society 47 (1927), 327 28); and al Muqaddasī (945_ 91) _ Taqāsīm (trans. G. S. A. Ranking and R. F. Azoo in Ahsanu t Taqāsīm fī Maʿrifat l _ Aqālīm (Calcutta, 1897), 301). Salo W. Baron objects to this characterization and argues that it applied to northern Syria alone (Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 8:236).

economic activities 427 professions – neither excluded from nor dominating any specific fields. A lack of guilds, and organization of most production into small partnership workshops, made it possible for members of different identity groups to work in the same industries: sometimes in competition, sometimes developing the solidarity of profession.37 Since workshops in any industry did not join together as a political or religious group of affiliation, there was little pressure and indeed few mechanisms to keep industries tied to any group of affiliation, even when a manufacturing sector might have originally been the import and monopoly of a particular immigrant group – and means, too, that literary reports that associate professions with particular ethnic or confessional communities should be read with caution.38 Lack of special status distinctions among professions also helped make multi-confessional or multiethnic participation in varied sectors of the economy largely uncomplicated and uncontested, despite, as we will see, shared values for social segregation of religious groups, embraced equally by Jewish, Muslim, and Christian religious leaders. THE MEDITERRANEAN ISLAMIC ECONOMY, C. 1000 1250

The structures of confessional participation in the economy were thus determined by the radical reshaping of values of work, labor, and their ties to political and religious community in the Islamic world. But the nature and meaning of Jews’ varied economic activities were also determined by the organization of local, regional, and interregional production and exchange in the Islamic world. This economy was characterized by the strength and intensity of market-oriented production. Such production was permitted and encouraged by a highly integrated, highly monetized, and highly urbanized Islamic Mediterranean. The Genizah records must under-record the existence and workings of an agricultural subsistence economy, invisible to urban dwellers and Islamic culture.39 But equally, they document the surprising ways and degree to which the economy was commercialized – whether in agriculture, the consumption patterns of the lower classes, or in the activities of the government itself. 37

38 39

For an example of an “interfaith” partnership, see Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Joshua Blau (Jerusalem, 1957 86), 2:360, #204. See notes 17 and 36. Arabic papyrological collections, most of which originate from either the Fayyūm or Middle Egypt, do document the agricultural economy. Given that less than 1 percent of these collections have been edited, and the general absence of Jews in known documents, this chapter omits them from consideration. Edited documents are now accessible in both edition and translation through the Arabic Papyrology Database (www.apd.gwi.uni muenchen.de/apd/project.jsp).

428 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) The economy, like most economies in the premodern period, rested firmly on a base of primary agricultural production. Though scholarship on the Islamic world has often focused on the role of the extra-regional luxuries – particularly gold and spices – that passed through the Islamic Mediterranean, such accounts misread the evidence by looking at European interests in Islamic markets. The Islamic economy was more urban and commercialized than most of Europe throughout the medieval period, but this commercialization had trade in regional agriculture as its base. Exchange was not directed or dominated by the transit trade.40 The records of the Jewish merchants who participated in the interregional wholesale economy reveal that bulk primary production formed the majority of cargo in the commercial shipping that crossed the Eastern Basin of the Mediterranean. These same men also invested in a top layer of manufacturing and transshipped extra-Mediterranean products (transit trade), but these goods not only took up less cargo space, their overall value was dwarfed by that of processed primary production. Wholesale dealers thus handled all three kinds of goods, and economic exchange rested in part on the linkages among these categories, as will be discussed below. But when we look at the records of even the wealthiest of these international merchants, those who dealt in goods across the Islamic Mediterranean and into Islamic Asia and handled a great variety of luxury exotica, their trade in products like flax and olive oil is greater in value by an order of magnitude than their dealings in all other kinds of merchandise.41 Much of the production that moved long-distance was either in foodstuffs or the raw materials of textile production, the most important industry. These large-scale movements attest to an economy that, in continuity with the late antique world, was still largely Mediterranean (it did not encompass all the territories of Islam) – but reoriented in its geography to constrain most commercial exchange within the Islamic part of the Mediterranean, reoriented in its values for different kinds of consumption, and reoriented in its sectors for a much closer commercial connection between arable crops and animal husbandry. We must understand Jewish economic activity in light of this agricultural base, for Jews were at best marginal participants in it. Jews 40

41

Cf. especially David Abulafia, “Asia, Africa and the Trade of Medieval Europe,” in Michael M. Postan and Edward Miller with Cynthia Postan, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Volume 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, second edition (Cambridge, 1987), 402; but see the longer discussion in Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 17 21, 337 50. See the analyses of these accounts in Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 276 95.

economic activities 429 bought land and invested in commercial agriculture but mostly within rather modest limits. Urban residents bought land near their homes in part for food security – grain shortages could affect even the wealthy, and there is a surprising amount of anxiety over acquisition of staple household flour among the rich – but we find more investments in small orchards and beekeeping aimed at supplying local markets. Allusions to Jewish ownership of estates in the principal commercial crops are very rare, even among the elite, and to Jewish herd owners, nonexistent; and it is hard not to read the exclusion from agricultural production as related in part to religious identity, especially as the famous Jacob Ibn Killīs, who converted from Judaism to become one of the most powerful Fātimid viziers, certainly acquired large estates as a perquisite of office.42 Nor_ is this absence merely a question of wealth: though scales of agricultural ownership are not known, there is plenty of Genizah evidence for the existence of small commercial farms that sold directly to wholesalers, in addition to both large private and large government estates.43 Regardless of direct Jewish participation in agricultural production, the the high degree of commercialization of agriculture, and the direct connections between this production economy and the great commercial capitals of the Islamic world, had profound implications for economic organization throughout the economy. It cycled money geographically through arable and pastoral areas, underwrote an enormous amount of artisanal work dispersed across both geographic space and levels of the market, and allowed for a great degree of secondary and tertiary urbanism that allowed “urban” Jews who had little role in agricultural production to be closely tied to the agricultural landscape and economy. One of the most interesting facts to emerge from the Genizah is how closely tied the countryside was to the great urban economy and international exchange. The very same individuals who sent great commercial 42

43

See Moshe Sharon, Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicum Palestinae, 6 vols. plus addendum vol. (Leiden, 1997 2017), 3:16, for mention of land granted to Ibn Killīs by the Fātimid _ imām al ʿAzīz (r. 975 96). Herding was associated almost exclusively with pastoral groups organized tribally. Historians debate how much Islam had penetrated into the countryside by this period; and it is worth noting that in the eleventh century, Genizah merchants made such payments almost exclusively to smallholders with Christian names, while merchants and brokers in secondary and tertiary towns generally had Muslim ones (indeed, Genizah merchants often refer to the merchant community as a whole as “Muslims and Jews”). On the thorny problem of both legal definitions and practical economic meanings of land ownership and tenure in medieval Egypt, see most recently, Chris Wickham, “The Power of Property: Land Tenure in Fātimid Egypt,” Journal of the Economic and Social _ History of the Orient 62, 1 (2019), 67 107.

430 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) loads of flax, olive oil, soap, and hides across the Mediterranean for sale in the great international markets would also travel directly to producers to buy harvest crops and oversee the processing that turned them into bulk commodities.44 In an economy in which great urban wholesale commerce was founded on credit, individual producers could and did demand ready money for their products, and indeed were able to demand a small amount of earnest money to secure the prospective crop. They sometimes even demand substantial prepayment. The Genizah documents of international wholesalers show that these demands provoked the most substantial movement of specie they made each year. These monetary cycles moved coin from great urban centers back to individual farmers and herders annually, fueling monetary circulation throughout the economy. Much agricultural wealth went back to the cities: some flax from government-owned estates, for instance, was paid for in Fustāt, with the purchaser issued a receipt for _ _ Genizah merchants gave hundreds of local collection. And even when dinars directly to estates in the countryside, many payments were undoubtedly made to estate managers for urban owners, and agricultural buyers from the metropolis sometimes brought market goods in addition to money, ensuring some of the agricultural receipts went back into the merchant’s hand. Still, the cycling of money into the countryside was substantial, and helped assure the monetization, integration, and commercialization of the entire economy.45 The close links between international dealers and even small agricultural producers attest in one way to the economic integration of regional economies in the Islamic world. But we must look more closely at the nature and consequences of this integration in two ways: the ways it produced bottom-up demands and money for regional production market oriented to lower classes of consumers, and in the top-down support it provided to a dispersed manufacturing economy, both processes that radically increased the artisanal sector of the economy and its ability to sustain dispersed urbanism and non-landed artisans. A surprise of the demography in the Genizah, especially from Egypt where we get the clearest picture, is the extent of Jewish residence in 44 45

Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 229 46. Ibid., 286 95. On monetary movements to the countryside, see also A. L. Udovitch, Nahray Archive (unpublished editions and commentary on selected merchant letters in Princeton Special Collections). An account that documents pre payments to Christian flax farmers in the Fayyūm is found in Heidelberg Institute of Papyrology, p. Heid. Heb. 17, first discussed in Goitein, “Bankers Accounts from the Eleventh Century a.d.,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 9.1, 2 (1966), 28 66, then edited and reinterpreted in Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1997), 2:912 16.

economic activities 431 smaller cities and villages, and the amount of migration to these small cities and villages we find over the course of the period from individuals originating outside Egypt. Yet most Jewish dwellers in these places – indeed most Jewish migrants in general – tended to be craftspeople. With few exceptions, they do not seem to have had the resources to purchase significant landholdings, so their presence indicates the ability of the small cities and villages to sustain people who made their living largely or wholly from craft production. There were two aspects to this ability. First, and probably most important, was the fact that enough money – and credit in its wake46 – flowed into the countryside to fund artisanal production, services, and marketing of many basic necessities for every social class. Dense webs of transport and connection between the great cities and their regions actually allowed dispersion of manufacturing in two directions: urban manufacturers could produce for the lower ends of the market, distributing goods into the countryside; while artisans in secondary cities, and even village dwellers, could produce high-end manufactures for the great metropolitan markets.47 Indeed, if we look again at the international wholesalers of primary production, these same traders dealt in a variety of manufactures as well as in the rare and bulk spices that represented the largest part of the transit trade. Spices in the medieval sense meant not just items of culinary value, but medicines, chemicals, and dyes, and this distinction is economically critical. A closer analysis of these merchants’ distribution networks showed they played a central role in bringing the “spices” that were needed for luxury manufacturing to a variety of secondary and tertiary manufacturing centers in their regions, while limiting the movement of most consumer luxuries (edible spices, more exotic ornaments and perfumes) to the great cities. Merchants from the metropolis were equally on hand to purchase these manufactures from scattered production centers and bring them back to the great Mediterranean cities where the most predictable markets for such goods were located. Merchants naturally made money on both ends 46

47

For a discussion of the rise of credit and in particular the use of the suftaja, the “order of payment,” see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:240 46; see also Avihai Shivtiel, “Orders of Payment, Orders of Supply, Instructions for Payment, and Statements of Credit in the Genizah and in Other Collections at Cambridge University,” in Ben Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, eds., ‘From a Sacred Source’: Genizah Studies in Honor of Professor Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2011), 331 42. The latter points out the range of various long distance instruments for payment and credit. Connections between the cities and the rīf developed apace over the first half of the eleventh century, transforming the nature of the connections between center and periphery; see Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 256 57.

432 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) of this deal, but their actions knit secondary and tertiary cities, and villages, into the international economy, and sustained a powerful economic base for secondary urbanism.48 Merchant activities also allowed the maintenance of a system of small, independent workshops and shared ownership of manufacturing that was this society’s labor ideal. Such manufacturing bases in smaller cities and villages were an important counterpoint to one of the consequences of the urban preference of Islamic society: a tendency for the richest landowners to maintain a residence – and spend their money – in the great cities. This cultural pattern drained resources out of the rural economy; while, on the other side, it dispersed manufacturing, alongside the earnings of smaller landowners and tenant farmers, and helped keep goods and money flowing through smaller cities, villages, and countryside. Indeed, metropolitan merchants sustained this system directly, in that they often took long business trips to these manufacturing centers, selling manufacturing inputs (in Ascalon, for example, a mix of high-grade flax and dyes for its specialty production of linen dresses), and then slowly assembling “lots” of similar manufactures from a collection of independent workshops, bundling them into groups of tens or twenties to be shipped and sold in cities like Fustāt or al-Mahdiyya, either for wholesaling and distribution in these lots, _or_ sold retail. Workshops with sufficient capital could thus buy the kinds of raw materials that allowed them to produce for the great international market, even on a modest scale. The system in fact allowed participation by those with even less capital: some businessmen purchased local manufactures from independent producers; their close colleagues might organize production themselves, bringing inputs to workshops capitalized only by tools, and taking away the manufactures whose inputs they had continued to own throughout the production process.49 The ability to participate in the same industry or even part of a production process with vastly different amounts of capital appears in a 48 49

See Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, 229 46, for a detailed discussion. The economic consequences are not necessarily to the artisan’s benefit he or she may be compensated for his or her time, but not able to turn a profit. The models of business partnership in both Islamic and Jewish law allowed for individuals of little means to partner with investors and to avail themselves of profitable opportunities. These struc tures were particularly well adapted for long distance trade but could also be imple mented locally particularly where an investor was involved in multiple simultaneous going concerns. For the investment partnership in Islamic law (qirād or mud āraba in _ 1970); Arabic), see A. L. Udovitch, Partnership and Profit in Medieval Islam _(Princeton, for their counterpart in Jewish law (ʿisqa in Aramaic and ʿeseq in Hebrew), see Ackerman Lieberman, The Business of Identity, chapter 2.

economic activities 433 surprising variety of sectors, and also had profound consequences for investment and social mobility. It gave individuals of many professions who accumulated some capital a variety of investment choices in the urban economy, and indeed pulled people into economic diversification, as sitting capital represented not only an opportunity, but an anxiety. An anxiety we see in merchants’ correspondence – “Do not let the money sit idle even for a minute” – seems to have pervaded economic culture. As we find in the records of the medieval Genoese, people from different classes and occupations invested their money, but the Genizah also attests to the different range and preferences in investing.50 Since the majority of our records concerning trade come from the wellto-do, they show most clearly the difficulties and opportunities that capital represented. As discussed above, even wealthy Jews did not buy up agricultural estates, the economically obvious place to park capital. Nor were there banks with interest-bearing deposits, public debt, or corporations to pay yearly returns – innovations of later ages.51 Outside agriculture, we see a clear preference for trading ventures among those with means and ability. Yet while such investments could be made using a sleeping-active partnership in which the sleeping investor received a smaller share of the profits in proportion to his investment than the active trader, such partnerships were not really available to large groups even within the middling sort – it was not standard business practice, as in later Genoa, for established businessmen to collect investment capital from a large pool of small investors through a commenda (the Italian name for the sleeping-active partnership).52 Thus, though we find men with means and social connections who were not professional businessmen participating as sleeping partners in trade, women of the same class were often discouraged from making such investments independently by family and the courts due

50

51

52

Genoese investment in long distance trade across social classes is analyzed in Quentin Van Doosselaere, Commercial Agreements and Social Dynamics in Medieval Genoa (Cambridge, 2009), where a full bibliography on the subject can also be found. For an argument on the role that the absence of the corporation in Islamic law played in the long term economic outcomes of medieval Islamic society, see Timur Kuran, “The Absence of the Corporation in Islamic Law: Origins and Persistence,” American Journal of Comparative Law 53, 4 (2005), 785 834; see also Timur Kuran, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton, 2010). The Genizah does periodically reveal partnerships with more than two partners. However, the collaborate structure seen here is one in which each of the artisans provides work (in addition to any capital) unlike the Genoese model of investors in seaborne trade.

434 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) to these difficulties.53 Wealthier middle-class women were instead often endowed by their families with urban real estate, both residential and commercial, as rental properties (indeed, they appear more often than men as owners of real estate in the records), a lower-risk and lower-return investment we also find being made by synagogues and older merchants. There were also investments, as we have seen, in urban and suburban agriculture. The initial capital outlays for real estate were substantial; those with less to invest had other options available within their own city: it was possible to broker loans or invest as a sleeping partner in a small shop. It is in these areas that we see the most opportunities for artisans to diversify in the economy and accumulate capital beyond workshop production. The successful baker might branch out by brokering a loan to a professional colleague, or investing in a different workshop.54 In practice, all such investment carried a fair amount of risk (indeed in accordance with the prescriptions of Jewish and Islamic law), and much of it required fairly active and attentive management. But this investment was yet another factor in sustaining the commercialization of the local economy by plowing capital back into local commercial endeavors, and provided one avenue for economic mobility. If we look at economic mobility, it is clear that one path to wealth was through increasing investment in trade as an outlet for accumulated capital, though this was often mixed with acting as a sleeping partner in manufacturing. There is evidence for success and failure of this route mostly in Muslim biographical dictionaries, but prosopographic evidence from the Jewish communities shows that many wealthy merchants actually came out of the artisanal sectors.55 Though most common are origins in those crafts with the highest capital requirements – goldsmith, perfumer, silk dealer – a surprising number of modest crafts also appear. Education could also have driven aspirations in both the Jewish community and broader society: some individuals of modest origin rose into the scholarly 53

54

55

There are certainly cases involving women managing substantial inheritances for their children, and the extensive investment by some women who belonged to the large business clans (and thus had a horde of male relatives to look after their interest) demonstrates the appeal of interregional commerce. For a particularly interesting example, see S. D. Goitein, “A Jewish Business Woman of the Eleventh Century,” Jewish Quarterly Review 75 (1967), 225 42. See Geoffrey Khan, “An Arabic Document of Acknowledgement from the Cairo Genizah,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 53, 2 (1994), 117 24, for an example. See Olivia Remie Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900 1500 (Cambridge, 1994), for biographical evidence from al Andalus.

economic activities 435 elite through brilliance; physicians could become courtiers; skillful bureaucrats could rise to heads of department.56 But education alone was no guarantee of upward social mobility – Genizah records are replete with pleas from educated men of no family looking for some place that would reward their skills; clerking, scribing, and copying, the general resort of such persons, paid less than most artisanal work.57 Finally, to understand this commercialization and the nature of economic participation, we should acknowledge how deeply the functions of government were tied to commerce and the market. In the arena of agriculture, for instance, we find the Fātimid government’s policy surpris_ economy. Government estates ingly intertwined with the commercial produced and sold a great deal of field flax to private investors like the Genizah merchants, who then made the profits from its processing, packaging, and sale on the international market. On the other side, for a long period the Fātimid government purchased large quantities of grain on _ the commercial market, assuring its own supply and then usually reselling the excess, whether for profit or loss.58 Even more interestingly, the states we can observe in the eastern Mediterranean had government officers to handle the acquisition and supply of strategic goods (timber, metals, military equipment), but acquired most of the other imported goods they needed through a simple system of sequestration. That is, they seized potentially needed goods from private merchants when they arrived in the ports, either releasing them or paying the “market price” whenever government need and eventual supply had been fully determined. Such systems depended upon and took for granted a secure and wellregulated market that would attract goods and trade, and indeed states took a strong interest in the order of the marketplace – both practically and often rhetorically – as an important indicator of right government. The means by which states maintained market order and security changed over the course of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries (as will be discussed below), but throughout we see the strong interest and investment of 56

57

58

In our period, for instance, we find the Jewish physician of the Zīrid sultan as an important courtier, Abū Ishāq Ibrahīm b. ʿAtāʾ, mentioned in CUL T S 13 J 36.1 recto, _ a century earlier is the case of Seʿadyah lines 25 29. More famous,_though, more than Gaʾon, who, despite his claims to ancient lineage, did not have the traditional family connections to the academy when appointed gaon of Sura. See EJ2, s.v. “Saadiah (Ben Joseph) Gaon” (Abraham Halkin et al.). See S. D. Goitein, Jewish Education in Muslim Countries, Based on Records from the Cairo Geniza [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1962), on the dynamics of education; and Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:75 92; 2:185 90, for wage reports that suggest this comparison. For Fātimid involvement in the grain trade, see Lev, State and Society, 162 64. _

436 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) government in market order principally by absence: absence of complaints about security, theft, or disorder; absence of payments for private security forces. These are all the more striking since travel – both overland and by sea – invariably involved insecurity. Caravans required their own guards whether in times of peace or war, and often payments to tribal groups, seen by the urban payees as extortion, not a form of legitimate toll. Ships were rarely escorted by warships, nor did government provide marine protection or oversee convoys, or even effectively enforce regulations on overloading or inspection for seaworthiness, meaning movement of goods overseas involved high rates of loss principally from damage by wetting and jettison as overloaded ships tried to clear port bars, but also through shipwreck and piracy.59 In addition to its direct use of and participation in the markets, it is important to see how much the functions of government – whether parts of administration, production, or taxation – could be commercialized and made objects of investment and exchange. The government contracted out minting, for example, leaving us the evidence of a Jewish partnership contract to produce coins, just as there were partnership contracts to train and work as a government kātib, the general term for bureaucrat. Some lesser tax farms, especially for urban stores, were regularly sold for a fixed fee; though more important agricultural taxes remained in the hands of officials or were direct appointments by governors of private individuals. Provincial officers in general were essentially independent in the day-today conduct of their job: they were free to hire lesser officers to help them; and to use the revenues that came to their office not only to fulfill its duties, but for personal use and investment. We often find officers running warehouses or fitting out ships, for instance, as commercial enterprises in competition with vessels held by private individuals.60

59

60

For an introduction to Islamic maritime law that draws connections with the practices of the Genizah merchants, see Hassan S. Khalilieh, Islamic Maritime Law: An Introduction (Leiden, 1998). See ʿAbd al Rahmān b. Nasr al Shayzarī, The Book of the Islamic Market Inspector, trans. _ _ 1999), 1 23; Samuel M. Stern, Fatimid Decrees: Original Ronald P. Buckley (Oxford, Documents from the Fatimid Chancery (London, 1964); Walker, Exploring an Islamic Empire, on diplomas of office and staffing. See A. L. Udovitch, “Merchants and Amirs: Government and Trade in Eleventh Century Egypt,” Asian and African Studies 22 (1988), 53 72, on commercial vessels owned by provincial officials. See also Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids; and Gladys Frantz Murphy, “A New Interpretation of the Economic History of Medieval Egypt: The Role of the Textile Industry 254 567/ 868 1171,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 24, 3 (1981), 274 97, on general commercial investment by members of government.

economic activities 437 Affiliations with government also provided the greatest opportunities for rapid and radical accumulation of wealth. There were several avenues through which individuals could gain access to these opportunities. Wealth itself could breed wealth through a businessman’s entry into the upper levels of government service: we find successful Jewish members of the business community being called to administer estates of rulers, members of the ruling family, or viziers, or acting as government purveyors. It was also possible to access government wealth through direct patronage through the learned professions: court physicians and poets could establish personal connections to the ruler or his family, with consequent showers of gifts and even property.61 A third avenue was rising in the government bureaucracy itself, though it is not easy to follow paths of career bureaucrats to see how much upward mobility there was. But it should be equally noted that the risks and costs of affiliation with rulers may also have had a strong role in limiting economic aspirations even for the upper end of the middling sort. For with great reward came great risk: when a courtier or official lost his place, he could expect to be milked of all his property (just as he could use the revenues of his office personally, the state did not recognize the continued existence of one’s private estate once office was taken), and might well lose his life as well.62 Such dangers weighed all the more heavily in a society where there is little evidence that Jews in private life faced dangers of arbitrary property seizure or personal violence from the state. It is clear in Islamic law that members of religious minorities should not be in positions of power over Muslims, and thus not part of government.63 61

62

63

This route to wealth and power is well known in al Andalus as well as in Egypt; see Chapter 5 in this volume. See the discussion in Lev, State and Society, 72 74, on the practice of milking officers at the end of service, and periodically within it. See Ahmad b. ʿAlī al Maqrīzī, Ittiʿāz al _ _ Hunafāʾ bi Akhbār al Aʾimmat al Fātimiyyīn al Khulafāʾ, ed. Jamāl al Dīn al Shayyāl _ and Muhammad H. M. Ahmad, 3 vols. (Cairo, 1967 73), 1:262; 3:11, on the milking of _ Ibn Killis_ and then his inheritance. See also ʿIzz al Dīn Ibn al Athīr, al Kāmil fī al Taʾrīkh, ed. Carl J. Tornberg, 14 vols. (Beirut, 1965), 7:17, 42 55, 63, 110; 10:337 for extensive lists and details of milking of officers. On the fate of Abū Saʿd Sahl al Tustarī, executed in the wake of court intrigue that stemmed from his commercial ties to the Fātimid imām al Zāhir, see Moshe Gil, The Tustaris: Family and Sect [Hebrew] (Tel _ 1981). For an example from al Andalus, that of Joseph Ibn Naghrella, see David Aviv, J. Wasserstein, “Samuel ibn Naghrīlah ha Nagid and Islamic Historiography in al Andalus,” Al Qantara 14 (1993), 109 25. _ Muslim legal authorities date this restriction to the Pact of ʿUmar, under the rule of the second caliph, ʿUmar b. al Khattāb (r. 634 44), though study suggests it was redacted in _ the eighth century and perhaps_revised later. See EI2, s.v. “Dhimma” (Chafik Chehata); and Mark R. Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar? A Literary Historical Study,”

438 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) In the earliest period of Islam, demography made imposition of such rules impossible. Even in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, religious demography in much of the Islamic Mediterranean still made such a posture difficult to put into practice. And indeed, the issue was made more complex in that farming out of government duties made it difficult to draw a firm line between public and private sectors. At the same time, long tradition now established minority participation in government bureaucracy in many places, bolstered too in some circles of ʿulamāʾ by the interpretation that government service was a religiously suspect form of work, since it would make the worker – whatever his day-to-day tasks – complicit in acts of violence or extortion that were naturally part of the running of government.64 Such a mix of history and attitudes sustained the participation of religious minorities in government, but episodes of popular outrage and violence against minorities in positions of economic or political power in this period suggest the ethics of this rule against minority power-holding were part of popular Muslim sentiment. Such incidents, and documentable Jewish awareness and anxiety about the possibility of anti-Jewish feeling, put certain limits and pressures on Jewish participation in various kinds of government positions, but also in economic arenas that are traditionally of strategic interest to Mediterranean governments: timber, slaves, grain. In the case of grain, for instance, though it was traded on the open market, shortages could cause riots. One government strategy to assuage such feelings was public flogging of grain merchants, and it seems obvious that Jews avoided the trade so as not to be subjects of a combustible combination of popular economic and religious sentiment. Genizah records thus document a layer of merchants who had the resources and position to join the patronage elite, and yet shows that most eschewed such ties. But there were ambitious individuals in each generation who did, as well as families we find in courtier circles for generations. Indeed, links of patronage were socially and economically important throughout Islamic society, and the Jewish community as a whole depended upon those with ties to court and provincial officers to soften the blows of official policy, to

64

Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 23 (1999), 100 156. On the further history of this restriction and cultural attitudes, see Luke Yarbrough, “Did ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Issue an Edict concerning Non Muslim Officials?” in Antoine Borrut and Fred M. Donner, eds., Christians and Others in the Umayyad State (Chicago, 2016). On the broader topic, see also Luke Yarbrough, “‘A Rather Small Genre’: Arabic Works against Non Muslim State Officials,”Der Islam 93, 1 (2016), 139 69; and Luke Yarbrough, Friends of the Emir: Non Muslim State Officials in Premodern Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2019). See Richard Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York, 1994).

economic activities 439 intervene for individuals, to secure recognition and money for the Jewish courts. Some individuals plowed the profits of such patronage back into the Jewish community, marrying their children to great rabbinic families. But equally, those who joined the court circle sometimes converted to Islam to seek greater privilege, or their children did to more effectively protect the advantages they had accrued.65 This outline of the economy suggests how deeply Jews were embedded as part of an integrated economic system even when we do not find most of them directly engaged in agriculture. It also suggests why we cannot posit any connection between Jewish urbanism and some sort of Jewish exceptionalism. Like other urban merchants, Jews participated in brokering the great commercial exchanges of the Islamic world, but they did not control the main levers of wealth: the great estates for arable and pastoralists’ herds. Nothing in the literary record, moreover, supports a view of the Jewish minority as unduly privileged, while systems of communal charity and the degree to which the poll tax was felt as a severe burden, especially on some parts of the artisan and service sector class, suggests Jews did not stand out economically.66 A better sketch of the nature of the economy puts urban work into its proper place. People could support themselves solely through market-oriented artisanal production or services in small towns just as in the larger cities – or even when their production was consumed by the lower classes, because the economy was so fully commercialized. Given this fact, and our knowledge of widespread commercial agriculture practiced by individual, small-scale farmers, it is impossible to say much about the relative incomes of the lower classes of urban workers versus their rural counterparts. But it reinforces too just how much it was possible to maintain labor “respectability” by producing goods and services for many classes of society, and throughout the secondary and tertiary cities of the Islamic Mediterranean. 65

66

For the importance of patronage among the Genizah merchants, see Jessica L. Goldberg, “Back biting and Self promotion: The Work of Merchants of the Cairo Geniza,” in Rachel Fulton and Bruce W. Holsinger, eds., History in the Comic Mode: Medieval Communities and the Matter of Person (New York, 2007), 117 27; A. L. Udovitch, “Merchants and Amirs: Government and Trade in Eleventh Century Egypt,” Asian and African Studies 22 (1988), 53 72; Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008); Miriam Frenkel, “The Compassionate and Benevolent”: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006); on patronage dynamics in the medieval Islamic world generally, see Roy P. Mottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (Princeton, 1980); see also Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190 1350 (Cambridge, 1995). For the burden of the poll tax, see Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 130 38.

440

jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) THE ISLAMIC MARKET

We have thus far seen how social attitudes toward work, and the overall shape of the medieval economy, allowed Jews surprisingly broad participation across a range of economic sectors and professions, and the general milieu that limited opportunities or pressures for economic monopolization within the urban economy. Yet when we turn to the rules and organizations of the market itself, the legal frameworks that shaped economic life, and the demography of Islamic urbanism, we find both pressures for conducting parts of economic life within the confessional community and others cross-confessionally, and countervailing forms of solidarity that promoted additional cross-confessional economic ties. Islamic law and, progressively, Islamic political thinkers, took special interest in the market and its operation. For Jewish economic actors, the most important aspects of this interest were legal ideas of legitimate and preferred contract, cultural notions of what constituted market order, and whose role it was to secure that order. In the case of buying and selling, not only did Islamic law not expect one to give custom preferentially to members of one’s own group, but Islamic legists’ understanding that profit-seeking was the core aim of economic activity also made them explicit in ruling for absolutely equal participation in the marketplace by members of different confessions, a practice which would permit actors maximum freedom to buy the best goods and make the best deals.67 Yet interestingly, this legal stance, rather than promoting hugely impersonal markets, had the effect of creating enormous webs of economic sociability. In these markets, purchase was rarely an anonymous spot transaction.68 Purchase and payment were temporally separate acts, meaning much market activity floated on a pervasive base of consumer credit.69 This credit, in turn, created innumerable tiny ties of trust and obligation

67 68

69

See Goitein, “The Rise of the Middle Eastern Bourgeoisie.” For a discussion of the connections between the personal and the commercial in merchants’ letters, see A. L. Udovitch, “Formalism and Informalism in the Social and Economic Institutions of the Medieval Islamic World,” in Amin Banani and Speros Vyronis, Jr., eds., Individualism and Conformity in Classical Islam (Wiesbaden, 1977), 61 81; see also Avner Greif, “Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies,” Journal of Political Economy 102, 5 (1994), 912 50. Though such credit was legally approved as an underpinning for wholesale trade, Genizah shopkeeper accounts suggest how this system had penetrated markets as consumer credit by the eleventh century.

economic activities 441 70 between buyers and sellers in the marketplace. Such credit relationships were one of the keys to the depth of commercialization in the economy, lubricating the possibility of purchase, sale, and running a household at the lower ends of the artisanal and service economy. At a basic level, then, a more highly commercialized economy was sustained by the very personalism of markets. Ties of neighborhood and reputation, bonds of knowledge, underpinned the longer relationship of shopkeeper and patron that made such modest credit relationships possible. Muslim thinkers understood the marketplace as non-anonymous, as a space of personal connections. One’s standing, connections, and reputation were part of one’s market persona.71 On a legal plane, transactions were guaranteed by the availability of witnesses, the Muslim class of morally reputable people, turning the market into a kind of religiously guaranteed space. Such notions helped inform an understanding of the state or leader’s religious duty to assure reputable behavior across the market, indeed to protect the “reputation” of his market. By the twelfth century, this notion of the ruler’s religious responsibility to sustain market order crystallized in the manuals and person of the market inspector, and such manuals proliferated around the Muslim world.72 Yet there was also a crucial distinction here – that between the workshop and the commercial buying and selling of the market. In contrast to the interconfessional freedom of sales, Islamic and Jewish legal thinkers expressed explicit worries about interconfessional partnership contracts. Some schools of thought forbade them on the grounds that one could become legally or religiously liable for the actions of a partner who did not follow the religious rules of one’s own faith. Jewish partners, for example, might earn illicit profits for work done on the Sabbath by their Muslim coworkers. In other writings and the market inspectors’ manuals, one can see that such rules were in part reified by worries about interconfessional sociability, that sociability would naturally grow out of long hours of shared endeavor in the same space. Though both Genizah records and Muslim and Jewish legal opinions show that interconfessional workshops and partnerships existed, they show even more clearly that they were the exception, and we also find 70

71

72

Udovitch discusses the role of trust in “Formalism and Informalism”; so, too, Ackerman Lieberman in The Business of Identity, 53 60 and passim. A. L. Udovitch, “Credit as a Means of Investment in Medieval Islamic Trade,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 87, no. 3 (1967), 260 64. For a discussion of the development of the role of the market inspector (Arabic, muhtasib), see Kristen Stilt, Islamic Law in Action: Authority, Discretion, and Everyday _ Experiences in Mamluk Egypt (Oxford, 2011).

442 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) cases of Jewish workers thrown out of Muslim workshops when their (hidden) religious identity was discovered.73 The legal system itself reinforced tendencies to form intra-confessional partnerships and workshops. By Islamic law, everyone, including Jews, had access to Muslim courts.74 Jews often took care to write commercial contracts with one another that assured their right to take claims to these courts, which had much greater enforcement capacity than Jewish ones. But Jews had advantages in trying to settle affairs in Jewish courts: these courts were free (never the case for access to the Muslim judge) and often speedy, as community elders would pressure parties to a settlement;75 they did not expose the plaintiff or defendant to possible imprisonment or physical punishment. Though Jews often publicly expressed their trust in Muslim courts, in a mixed partnership a Jew would almost certainly be at a disadvantage of knowledge and power in being forced to bring any case that would arise to a Muslim court. Yet because Islamic cities were immigrant cities, individuals were often tied by multiple vectors of identity, and some of these vectors could override confessional divides and promote interconfessional economic activity and solidarity. Activity in the market was sustained by ties of personal connection, underwritten by a variety of claims to commonality. In the central Middle Ages, geographic origin (most commonly defined by city rather than region), ethnic or tribal identity, and profession were all central identity groups that helped turn immigrants in great cities from amorphous masses to communities tied by dense, intersecting, and crosscutting social ties. Within the city, both the affiliations and organization of neighborhoods and chains of patronage further placed individuals within communities and networks. In economic life, many of these ties, and the claims of affiliation and solidarity that went with them, created ties that could override the claims of confessional solidarity. Cross-confessional partnerships could be based on shared place of origin; claims of origins were also used to garner introductions, to help outsiders establish a place in a new city. Even in the absence of a guild, professional solidarity and local professional reputation shaped

73 74

75

Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:285 86. For Jews in Islamic courts and vice versa, see Uriel I. Simonsohn, A Common Justice: The Legal Alliances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (Philadelphia, 2011); see also Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, “Legal Pluralism among the Court Records of Medieval Egypt,” Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 63 (2014), 79 112. The process of settlement in Jewish courts is discussed in Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, “Commercial Forms and Legal Norms in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt,” Law & History Review 30, 4 (2012), 1007 52.

economic activities 443 economic choices. There are handfuls of documents showing crossconfessional loans and investments by members of the same profession. And though sometimes Jews would help fellow Jews set up in a new town (particularly when a shared geographic affiliation could be found), there are also instances in which a local professional group, Jew and non-Jew alike, banded together to try and bar Jewish immigrants from entering their trade. The vagaries of history and migration patterns combined with Islamic law and the institutionalization of the market inspector position (Arabic, muhtasib) to create complex outcomes in different cities. In some cities Jews_ were concentrated in a few industries, with sufficient demographic and economic weight to keep a great deal of work intra-confessional and perhaps even dominate a subfield in manufacturing – say, a certain kind of glassmaking, or one part of silk processing. In other cities, Jews were scattered across more professions, and formed more interconfessional workshops and partnerships, even when they worked in the same professions that were highly Jewish in other towns. The complexity of these situations lay on unknowable bases of earlier history and the emergence of variations in local Islamic culture. Changes in Jewish economic life in the latter Middle Ages were in turn determined in part by the different economic patterns of interaction and segregation we find across the Mediterranean in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD FROM THE GENIZA PERIOD: ECONOMIC ORIGINS

The density and range of economic activities of the Jews in urban economies around the Mediterranean in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, and their broad distribution over space, obviously built on earlier foundations. But how early? Both archaeological and literary evidence is slim for the early Islamic economy, particularly in the Mediterranean, but mixed strands of evidence from late antiquity and the early Islamic period all suggest the range of Jewish participation in the economy may in fact flow from the transformations of late antiquity. That is, shifting linguistic and settlement patterns among Syrian and Mesopotamian Jews in late antiquity allowed Jews to be early adopters of Islamic acculturation, particularly Arabization, and perhaps much earlier migrants to new Islamic cities than has previously been thought, or is indeed part of Jewish historical traditions in the later Middle Ages.76 Certainly we can 76

See, for example, the discussion in Chapter 5 of this volume of the origins of the Jewish community in Spain, or Ibn Daud’s “Story of the Four Captives.”

444 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) at least see that the Jewish communities of Greater Syria and Mesopotamia, in late antiquity the demographic and cultural heartlands, were at a situational advantage during the period of Islamic expansion.77 Archaeological evidence also suggests that population density and urbanization were growing in the Levant and Mesopotamia through much of late antiquity, even as population and city life was declining in much of the Roman world.78 Though the percentage of Jews in these two areas is the subject of ongoing debate, there is little dispute that they represented substantial portions of the population,79 and that these boom areas of the late antique world were also the largest reservoirs of Jewish populations. Arabic had also made significant linguistic inroads in the Aramaicspeaking region, and the switch from Aramaic to Arabic is relatively easy linguistically. Culturally, the late antique reintroduction of Hebrew as a liturgical language created a gap between liturgical and vernacular that made a switch of vernacular much less culturally fraught. These circumstances combined to propel earlier and more complete Arabization among these Jews than their Christian neighbors.80 Greater population density, and a greater pattern of urban life, combined with the advantages of possessing the language of the new ruling elite, may well have pulled the Jews of Syria and Mesopotamia into both the new and revitalized cities of the Islamic realm. It is easy to imagine, given the evidence of the Genizah, that the “court Jews” in our ninthcentury literary sources, for instance, represent the tips of equally large icebergs of Jews throughout the Iraqi economy.81 Equally, though the period of disorder and depopulation in the eastern Mediterranean was shorter and less dramatic than that which overtook the western Mediterranean and Roman Europe, we should also give due weight to the severity of sixth- and seventh-century change. The toll of the Justiniac plague, long-term warfare in Syria between the Romans and Sasanids, waves of religious dispute that periodically broke into military action or 77

78

79 80

81

For the case of Iraq in specific, see Robert M. Adams, The Land behind Baghdad: A History of Settlement on the Diyala Plains (Chicago, 1965). Population decline was lower or nonexistent in many parts of the eastern empire through the early sixth century, but parts of the Levant (the best archaeological evidence is from surveys of Israel, but recent work in Syria seems to confirm the pattern) show much more definite patterns of growth and urbanization in the fifth and sixth centuries. See Michael Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton, 1984), 306 31. Finds of early Judeo Arabic variant forms attest to a vernacular adoption see the work of Joshua Blau and Simon Hopkins, Early Judaeo Arabic in Phonetic Spelling: Texts from the First Millennium, Part One [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2017). For these “court Jews,” see Fischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam; see also, Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages.

economic activities 445 effective civil war, and the process of Islamic conquest caused not only abandonment of many urban sites throughout the eastern Mediterranean and interior Syro-Mesopotamia, but a battering of the cultural and administrative regimes that shaped economic life – and in some cases limited Jewish opportunities. The severity of violence, including late antique tactics of terrorizing civilian populations or reducing the enemy’s civilian resource base,82 could have created a push for Jews, already uprooted, to leave Syria and Mesopotamia. At the same time, there were economic opportunities for migrants to new Islamic urban foundations – legal evidence shows non-Muslims building homes and doing business in the supposedly Muslim-only encampments founded by the Islamic conquerors within a generation of their establishment. Equally, archaeological evidence suggests similar opportunities in “old” Mediterranean cities that in many cases saw a great deal more reconstitution than continuity after Islamic conquest. Even if we rightfully suppose that the highly urbanized Jewish communities of the Roman central and western Mediterranean survived the radical urban decline of late antiquity, it is tempting to imagine a situation in the eighth and ninth centuries similar (if geographically reversed) to that after 1492, in which new, Arabized Jewish migrants from the East imposed themselves as cultural leaders of older or waning Jewish communities in the West. Indeed, the patterning of large-scale exchange in the Mediterranean shows some continuity with ancient patterns, but also suggests a great economic reshaping. Either freed from its role in supplying wheat to Asia Minor – or perhaps bereft of this market – by the tenth century at least (and probably long before) the Egyptian commercial export sector shifted to flax, a product more in demand in East-West exchange with Ifrīqiya (Roman Africa), and one that fit new cultural patterns of consumption in textiles as well.83 Ifrīqiya retained its ancient role in the supply of olive products, but its transport was now associated with the nearby herding economy rather than a pottery industry, and olive products traveled in

82

83

Brent D. Shaw, “War and Violence,” in Glen W. Bowersock et al., eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 130 69. See the discussion of flax export in Frantz Murphy, “A New Interpretation”; Philip Mayerson, “The Role of Flax in Roman and Fatimid Egypt,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 56, 3 (1997), 201 7; documentary evidence for the ninth century in Yusuf Ragib, Marchands d’étoffes du Fayyoum au IIIe/IXe siècle d’après leurs archives (Actes et Lettres) (Cairo, 1982); and even an eighth century Coptic hagiography in which a flax dealer has a role to play (we are grateful to Peter Brown for this reference).

446 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) skins alongside bundles of hides and leathers rather than in amphorae beside earthenware dishes. Both traveled in a fleet of smaller private ships, and more of their routes were now East to West.84 The Levant still contributed the products of its vines and trees, together with recently introduced cotton and sugar; Ifrīqiya and Sicily maintained their ancient role as grain producers, but in Sicily too, an increase in cotton and hide production attests to the more dominant role of textiles and leather in the economy. Thus, there was continuity in agriculture, but also a radical reshaping of transport, manufacturing associated with transport, and dominant manufacturing industries, all pointing to significant economic transformation not only in the new cities of Islam, but in the ancient economic heartland of Africa and Egypt. Certain patterns in Genizah evidence suggest – or at least do not rule out – that Jews might have been part of the shaping of this new economic order, for they at least suggest the presence of an earlier Jewish population and economic participation in the Islamic Mediterranean than previous scholarship had concluded.85 Looking once again at prosopography, we can see, for instance, that Qayrawān and Palermo were magnets for Jewish migration in the tenth century, when the two cities formed the main economic nexus of the Mediterranean. Yet the names of Jewish migrants, when they carry a geographic nisba, show that they were overwhelmingly from the Islamic West. They were not, as has previously been argued, refugees or fortune seekers from a declining ʿAbbāsid power in the East. In fact, their names show they came not only from ancient Mediterranean cities like Tripoli, but many were arriving in Qayrawān in the tenth, or perhaps even the ninth, century, bearing names that showed their families had earlier had seats or worked in the great inland Islamic cities, places like Tāhert, Fez, or Sijilmāsa. Though it is impossible to say when these families had migrated, it may be that Jewish economic embeddedness throughout the Islamic world owed something to relatively early adoption not of Islam, but of Islamic urbanism, led by migration of Arabized Iraqis and Syrians in the footsteps of the conquerors.

84

85

Despite an emphasis on exchanges north south in the eastern and central Mediterranean, the Roman annona ships often swept a triangle that brought African goods to Egypt. Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard P. Saller, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco Roman World (Cambridge, 2007), 710. Cf. Gil, Kingdom of Ishmael; Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book (Philadelphia, 1979), 41, both relying on Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 1:30, 400n2. The cultural impact of Muslim Iranian and Iraqi refugees is also discussed in Bulliet, Islam, 145 68; that of the Jewish ones in Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 134 55.

economic activities

447

LOOKING BACKWARD AND FORWARD FROM THE GENIZA PERIOD:THE LATTER MIDDLE AGES

Jews arriving from Europe in Egypt in the thirteenth century could still be amazed by the relative economic opportunities of their coreligionists.86 Yet if we compare the situation of the eleventh and twelfth centuries with scattered data from the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, there are indications of downward trends – though with different timing, of differing severity, and not necessarily always permanent. Most downward trends reflect complex outcomes of shifting demography and political ideology, but were grounded in the basic cultural attitudes explored above. In some places, we see a downward economic spiral propelled by shifting political ideology. In Egypt, the Ayyūbids (1171–1250) were the first rulers to lay claims to an otherwise absent political legitimacy through a special role as protectors of Islam (a borrowing from their earlier Seljūq overlords). These claims became more strident and consequential under the Mamlūks (1250–1517), leading to much heightened pressures to maintain social segregation between Muslims and dhimmīs (the “protected peoples”), to expel non-Muslims from government, and pressures to convert, particularly among the upper classes.87 As conversion increased, the Mamlūks were increasingly in a demographic position to make government work a Muslim prerogative, and to impose the discriminatory codes of the Pact of ʿUmar. Often hand in hand with such developments was the rise of professional classes trained in the madrasas, the state-funded schools of law, and the powerful new institutional container for popular Islamic piety, the S ̣ūfī brotherhoods. The former could press both for government posts and adherence to legal discrimination, while the latter created powerful new senses of Muslim community identity in the lower social classes to compete with other identity claims. Individual converts from both Judaism and Christianity often chose conversion as a way to protect their coreligionists, but connections and protection wore thin with marriage patterns in succeeding generations.88 86

87

88

See the famous polemical letter sent by Jacob b. Elijah to Pablo Christiani, discussed in Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross, 88. At the same time, we do find Jews continuing in the same roles they had occupied before the advent of the Mamlūks for example, Amir Mazor reveals the continued high status of Jewish medical practitioners serving Muslim political, military, and intellectual elites in the fourteenth century see Amir Mazor, “Jewish Court Physicians in the Mamluk Sultanate during the First Half of the 8th/14th Century,” Medieval Encounters 20 (2014), 38 65. Tamer el Leithy, “Coptic Culture and Conversion in Medieval Cairo, 1293 1524 A.D.” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005).

448 jessica l. goldberg (with phillip i. lieberman) If the loss of wealthy members and connections to patronage proceeded too far, it undercut the economic basis of communal solidarity. Such solidarity was enormously strengthened in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries by the fact that Jews sought social status within the community through community leadership, which was economically grounded not only in the maintenance of the synagogue establishment and funding of the talmudic academies (yeshivot), but in the provision of charity that paid the poll tax, redeemed prisoners, and provided subsistence aid to the needy.89 In a vicious spiral, a community bled of its wealthiest members called ever more on the resources of a declining base, creating further pressure both from below and above to leave the group. Such pressures could reach a tipping point that must account for the very rapid decline of some Jewish communities in the fifteenth century. But if we can see this pattern play out fairly clearly in Mamlūk Egypt, and some echoes in late medieval Morocco, there is less evidence for decline in northern Syria, Iraq, or central North Africa. Neither demography nor political ideology were the same throughout the Islamic world, and ties of professional and neighborhood solidarity could hold, while the economic mobility markets and economic structures made recovery possible. At the close of the medieval period, when new Jewish migrants entered the Islamic territories from Spain, and the Ottomans built new institutional structures of rule, the high medieval culture that permitted expansive Jewish economic participation across the breadth of the Islamic world was gone. But these new rulers and new migrants did not encounter everywhere a Jewish community in economic decline, but instead a range of economic communities and opportunities, helping explain the quite different geography and activity of Jewish economic life under Ottoman rule. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashtor, Eliyahu. A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1976). Botticini, Maristella, and Zvi Eckstein. The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History 70-1492 (Princeton, 2012). Cohen, Hayyim J. “The Economic Background and the Secular Occupations of Muslim Jurisprudents and Traditionists in the Classical Period of Islam (until the Middle of the Eleventh 89

See Cohen, Poverty and Charity; for charitable institutions in the Mamlūk period more generally, see Adam Sabra, Poverty and Charity in Medieval Islam: Mamluk Egypt, 1250 1517 (Cambridge, 2000).

economic activities 449 Century),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 13, 1 (1970), 16–61. Constable, Olivia Remie. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500 (Cambridge, 1994). Cook, Michael A., ed. Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: From the Rise of Islam to the Present Day (London, 1970). Fischel, Walter J. Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam (London, 1937). Gil, Moshe. “The Flax Trade in the Mediterranean in the Eleventh Century AD as Seen in Merchants’ Letters from the Cairo Geniza,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 63, 2 (2004), 81–96. Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). Goldberg, Jessica. Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and their Business World (Cambridge, 2012). Greif, Avner. Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade (Cambridge, 2006). Margariti, Roxani Eleni. Aden & the Indian Ocean Trade: 150 Years in the Life of a Medieval Arabian Port (Chapel Hill, 2007). Sabra, Adam A. Poverty and Charity in Medieval Islam: Mamluk Egypt, 1250–1517 (Cambridge, 2000). Shatzmiller, Maya. Labour in the Medieval Islamic World (Leiden, 1994). Udovitch, A. L. “Bankers without Banks: Commerce, Banking, and Society in the Islamic World of the Middle Ages,” in Camille P. Castorina, ed., The Dawn of Modern Banking (New Haven, 1979), 255–73. Zeldes, Nadia, and Miriam Frenkel. “The Sicilian Trade: Jewish Merchants in the Mediterranean in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in Nicola Bucaria, ed., Gli ebrei in Sicilia: dal tardoantico al medioevo (Palermo, 1998), 243–56.

chapter 13

JEWISH RELIGIOUS AND COMMUNAL ORGANIZATION arnold e. franklin*

Among the privileges that Jews and other non-Muslim minorities enjoyed in the medieval Islamic world, in accordance with the terms governing dhimmī (“protected”) populations, was the right to self-governance. A version of the Pact of ʿUmar preserved in the law code of the Islamic jurist al-Shāfiʿī formulates this privilege as follows: We (i.e. the Muslim authorities) shall not supervise transactions between you and your coreligionists or any other unbelievers nor inquire into them as long as you are content . . . If one of you or any other unbeliever applies to us for judgment, we shall adjudicate according to the law of Islam. But if he does not come to us, we shall not intervene among you.1

Inherent in this provision is the notion that law was personal rather than territorial, that individuals were governed – at least with respect to civil matters – by the regulations of their respective religious communities, and not by a universally applied legal system.2 This chapter examines the authority structures that were maintained by the medieval Jewish community, and through which this fundamental dispensation was put into practice. Out of necessity, it focuses primarily on the two and a half centuries between 1000 and 1250, the period for which we have the most abundant sources. * I wish to express my thanks to Robert Chazan and Marina Rustow, the previous editors of this volume, as well as to Jay Diehl, Sara McDougall, Lauren Mancia, Janine Peterson, Andrew Romig, and Neslihan Senocak, who read and commented on an earlier draft of this chapter. 1 Abū ʿAbdallāh Muhammad b. Idrīs al Shāfiʿī, Kitāb al Umm (Beirut, 1973), 4:197 99. _ The translation is taken from Bernard Lewis, Islam: From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. (New York, 1974), 2:219 23. For a thorough analysis of the literary form of the Pact of ʿUmar in light of administrative procedures in the fully developed Islamic caliphate, including discussion of al Shāfiʿī’s version, see Mark R. Cohen, “What Was the Pact of ʿUmar? A Literary Historical Study,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 23 (1999), 100 157. 2 S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 1993), 1:66 67.

450

jewish religious and communal organization 451 The first scholarly discussions of the organizational structure of the Jewish community in the Islamic world dealt almost exclusively with institutions of centralized leadership in Iraq (or Babylonia, as medieval Jews continued to refer to the region) up to the middle of the eleventh century, when they were assumed to have disappeared. This focus was determined to a large extent by the limited kinds of sources that were then available to historians – mainly medieval chronicles and a variety of writings on legal and theological matters. The resulting view was that Jewish society in the Islamic world was highly centralized in structure and autocratic in its form of self-government. With the discovery of the Cairo Genizah at the end of the nineteenth century, however, scholars were confronted with an abundance of new information attesting to the vitality of Jewish political life as it played out at the local level. The Genizah revealed the way centralized leaders relied on local officials and carefully cultivated relationships with them in order to further their own interests. Furthermore, the Genizah’s rich documentation of the operations of the centralized institutions well into the twelfth century necessitated a reconsideration of other assumptions about the structure of the Jewish community. Recent scholarship has therefore generated a model of Jewish communal organization in the Islamic world that is considerably more dynamic and complex than that sketched in the work of earlier generations of historians.3 This chapter will examine the organizational structure of the Jewish community on three interrelated planes. Beginning at the broadest level, it surveys the offices of centralized or ecumenical leadership. These institutions were distinguished by their claims of universal authority within the Jewish community and their assertion of a history rooted in the rabbinic and biblical pasts. Next, it will consider the offices of territorial leadership that come into full view during the eleventh century, offices whose jurisdictional authority grew out of the older offices of leadership and bespoke the maturation of new geographical bases of economic, political, 3

On the historiography of Jewish communal organization, see most recently Miriam Frenkel and Moshe Yagur, “Jewish Communal History in Geniza Scholarship: Part 1, From Early Beginnings to Goitein’s Magnum Opus,” Jewish History 32 (2019), 131 42; and Arnold E. Franklin, “Jewish Communal History in Geniza Scholarship: Part 2, Goitein’s Successors,” Jewish History 32 (2019), 143 59. See also Marina Rustow, “The Genizah and Jewish Communal History,” in Ben M. Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, eds., “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2010), 289 317; and Mark R. Cohen, “Jewish Communal Organization in Medieval Egypt: Research, Results and Prospects,” in Norman Golb, ed., Judaeo Arabic Studies: Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for Judaeo Arabic Studies (Reading, UK, 1997), 73 86.

452 arnold e. franklin and intellectual power in the Jewish community. Here, too, the Genizah has shed important light, allowing for a more accurate and nuanced understanding of their institutional history as well as their relationship to the older offices of centralized leadership. Finally, we will explore the organizational structures that operated at the level of the local urban center. As we will see, local officials often benefited from the patronage of the regional or central heads, reinforcing the impression that the Jewish community was structured hierarchically. At the same time, local officials also knew how to play the interests of the central leaders off of one another so as to be able to exercise a considerable measure of administrative autonomy. THE CENTRAL INSTITUTIONS

the gaonate The office of gaon (pl. geonim) was arguably the most important position of Jewish communal authority in Islamic lands between the seventh and eleventh centuries.4 Geonim served as the heads of educational and administrative institutions known as yeshivot (sing. yeshiva), and among their enduring achievements is the successful establishment of the Babylonian rabbinic legal tradition as the authoritative expression of normative Judaism. Up until the eleventh century there were two geonic institutions in Iraq: the yeshivot of Sura and Pumbedita. A third geonic institution was located in Palestine. We begin our survey with the Iraqi yeshivot and will then consider the yeshiva in Palestine. An especially important source of information for the history of the Iraqi yeshivot is the Epistle of Sherira b. Ḥanina, the head of the Pumbedita yeshiva from 968 to 1004.5 Written in 986/87 in response to queries from the Jewish community of Qayrawān concerning the transmission of rabbinic tradition, Sherira’s Epistle enumerates the occupants of the office of gaon at Sura and Pumbedita through the second half of the tenth century interspersed with notices about contemporary events. As such, it is an indispensable tool for reconstructing the history of those 4

5

The title, which means “splendor,” is evidently a shortened form of a longer honorific based on Psalms 47:5, “the head of the academy of the splendor of Jacob.” For an excellent overview of the geonic period, its institutions and the relevant source material, see Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998). On the historiography of the period, see the still useful study of Gerson D. Cohen, “Reconstruction of Gaonic History,” in Jacob Mann, ed., Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (reprint New York, 1972). Sherira b Hanina, Iggeret Rav Sherira G.aʾon, ed. Benjamin M. Lewin (Haifa, 1921).

jewish religious and communal organization 453 institutions and the succession of geonic leadership. While scholars have identified a bias in favor of Sherira’s own Pumbedita institution at various points in the text, as, for example, when he notes the Pumbeditan origins of several of the geonim who served at Sura, they have generally viewed the historical and prosopographical data in the Epistle as reliable. An equally important – though evidently more tendentious – source is the Report of Rabbi Nathan the Babylonian, a mid-tenth-century JudeoArabic work that was likely also written for an audience in North Africa.6 The first section of Nathan’s Report recounts two significant conflicts that embroiled the Jewish leadership in Iraq at the beginning of the tenth century; the second part describes the various functions, prerogatives, and ceremonies associated with the leadership institutions. It appears that Nathan’s goal was to reassure his readers that the Iraqi institutions were thriving despite rumored disruptions in their operations and that they were therefore still entitled to the respect and financial backing of the Jewish communities in North Africa.7 In addition to these historiographical works, we are fortunate to have thousands of documentary and semidocumentary materials that permit a more direct glimpse of the daily activities of the geonim. The information provided by these sources is of value not only because it sheds further light on the institutions described in Sherira’s and Nathan’s works, but also because it often presents a contrasting and less sanitized view of the way power was distributed in the Jewish community. Responsa – formal answers to questions that were submitted to geonim in their capacity as legal and spiritual authorities – contain a wealth of information relating not only to the social, economic, and religious challenges that confronted medieval Jews, but also to the organization and operation of the yeshivot. And the Genizah manuscripts, which include letters by and about various geonim, add still further detail to this picture, illuminating both conditions within the yeshivot as well as the complex relations between them and local Jewish communities. Many previously unknown literary works by geonim were also discovered among the Genizah materials; such texts

6

7

Two versions of Nathan’s text are extant: portions of the Judeo Arabic original and a complete medieval Hebrew translation. For the Hebrew text, see Adolf Neubauer, ed., Medieval Jewish Chronicles and Chronological Notes, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1887 95), 2:78 88. For fragments of the Judeo Arabic original and a thorough study of the historical context in which the work was composed, see Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Structure, Goals, and Content of the Story of Nathan Ha Babli,” in Menahem Ben Sasson, Robert Bonfil, and Joseph Hacker, eds., Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben Sasson [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1989), 181 95. This is the argument of Ben Sasson, “Structure, Goals, and Content,” 142 62.

454 arnold e. franklin reflect the changing spiritual needs of the Jewish community and the evolving role of the gaon. Each of the Iraqi academies claimed to be able to trace itself back to a rabbinic-era institution, thus directly associating itself with an ancient and legitimizing past. The Sura yeshiva maintained a tradition according to which it was founded by the famous third-century rabbinic sage Rav, while Pumbedita claimed to be a continuation of the academy of Rav’s contemporary and counterpart, Samuel. In a similar vein, we find the assembly of scholars affiliated with each of the yeshivot referred to as the Sanhedrin, an appropriation of the name of a political institution in Roman Palestine that in rabbinic sources is portrayed as a council of sages and high court. By means of these and other averred links to the sages of the tannaitic and amoraic periods the yeshivot cast themselves as the authoritative expositors of rabbinic tradition in the Middle Ages and asserted their unique prerogatives as the supreme arbiters in matters pertaining to talmudic law. Modern scholars have tended to view such claims with skepticism, however, emphasizing instead the degree to which the medieval yeshivot diverged from what admittedly little we actually know about their rabbinic-era precursors.8 the role and authority of the gaon As heads of institutions of learning, the geonim were involved in the training of students. Our sources, however, provide only limited information as to their precise role in that enterprise. The primary subject of study at the yeshivot was the Babylonian Talmud, although a number of its tractates – in particular those dealing with Temple-related matters – were apparently excluded from the regular curriculum. A glimpse of one type of instruction that took place at the yeshivot is provided in Nathan the Babylonian’s description of the assemblies held twice a year, during the months of Elul and Adar. According to Nathan, the gaon would select a tractate of the Talmud to be studied in advance of these meetings by students and other members of the yeshiva. Nathan reports that during the convocation itself the gaon would review the assigned text with those present, examining their comprehension of the legal issues involved and resolving difficulties. Unfortunately, we are almost entirely dependent on 8

See Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 38 40. For the argument that rabbinic instruction in the pre Islamic period took place in informal “disciple circles,” see David M. Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia (Leiden, 1975); David M. Goodblatt, “The History of the Babylonian Academies,” in Steven T. Katz, ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 4: The Late Roman Rabbinic Period (Cambridge, 2006), 821 39.

jewish religious and communal organization 455 Nathan for our knowledge of this system, making it difficult to determine whether it was implemented as regularly as some have assumed. It is reasonably certain that talmudic material was studied at the academies at other times of the year, although we have no comparable description of the setting in which that would have occurred. A Genizah letter in which the Palestinian gaon Solomon b. Judah (d. 1051) mentions that his son Yahyā is “sitting and repeating” Halakhot Gedolot before the head of the _ Pumbedita academy, Hayya b. Sherira (d. 1038), confirms that geonim might be personally engaged in the transmission of rabbinic learning, but also suggests that later legal compendia – as opposed to the Talmud itself – may have played a critical role in the way that material was encountered.9 The pedagogic activities of the geonim are also reflected in their authorship of legal monographs, a new development that emerges in the tenth century. By means of such works, which included treatises on specific areas of law and commentaries on biblical and talmudic texts, geonim could reasonably expect to expand their educational impact beyond the small number of disciples who participated in the predominantly oral mode of instruction that took place within the walls of the yeshivot themselves. In addition to overseeing academic instruction at the yeshivot, geonim also presided over the various judicial activities that were carried out by their institutions, as a result of which they assumed a number of further responsibilities. Among these was service as a judge. Frequent references to legal matters brought before the “great court” of a gaon, as well as the existence of formularies for documents submitted to, or issued by, such courts, attest to this particular geonic function. A related role involved the authoring of responsa, the most abundant and representative genre of geonic literary activity. Queries were sent to geonim from Jewish communities throughout the Islamic world (and occasionally from Christian lands as well) seeking advisement on a wide range of subjects, including questions of practical halakhah and ritual, the interpretation of scriptural and talmudic passages, and matters of religious doctrine or spiritual concern. For the community sending the query, the address constituted an implicit and symbolically significant recognition of the gaon’s stature and was frequently accompanied by a monetary contribution to his yeshiva, while for the gaon, the dispatch of rulings was an important means of enacting his authority across great distances.

9

See Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fātimid Caliphs, 2 vols. _ Brody, Geonim of (New York, 1970), 1:119 20, 2:133 34. On Halakhot Gedolot, see Babylonia, 223 30.

456 arnold e. franklin It was, however, in yet a third capacity, as political figures, that geonim would have had their most direct and extensive impact on medieval Jewish society. For, in addition to his responsibilities within the yeshiva, a gaon also served as the head of an administrative district or reshut (pl. reshuyot). Nathan the Babylonian delineates the territories that fell under the control of the two geonic institutions, though it is important to remember that his testimony comes from the first half of the tenth century and that the boundaries of the administrative districts were in any event probably more fluid than he would have us believe.10 According to Nathan, Pumbedita exercised jurisdiction over the eastern province of Khurasān, while Sura controlled lands in southern Iraq and possibly in the environs of Baghdad as well. (Nathan also describes a third territory controlled by the exilarchate, about which more will be said below.) Within the territory of his reshut, the gaon’s authority was manifested in two especially important realms: the collection of revenue for the support of his institution, its staff, and its students, and the appointment of local officials. Nathan puts the income of Sura at about 1,500 dinars per year. That figure may be exaggerated, but when we bear in mind that the monthly expenses of an average family in twelfth-century Egypt came to about 2 dinars, it gives us a rough sense of the size of the operating budgets of the yeshivot.11 Most of this money came by way of internally collected taxes – as opposed to donations – referred to in the correspondence of the geonim as hoq ha-yeshivah (“the dues of the yeshiva”).12 Officials_ appointed by the gaon represented his authority within the local Jewish community, most critically through their control of the local court. A formulary for the appointment of such an official, cited in a later source, reads as follows: We appointed so and so as judge in such and such a locality, and granted him authority to judge and supervise all matters of religion regarding that which is permissible and that which is forbidden and in matters concerning the fear of God. Whoever refuses to submit to his judgement is subject to punishment, as prescribed by heaven.13 10

11

12

13

On the reshuyot and whether they were principally territorial domains, see Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), 84n36. See Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 39. For this estimate of a lower middle class family’s monthly costs, see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:359. For contemporary sources that refer to the “dues of the yeshiva” and illuminate how they were collected, see S. D. Goitein, “The Support by Yemenite Jews of the Academies of Iraq and Palestine and the School of Moses Maimonides,” in The Yemenites: History, Communal Organization, Spiritual Life [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1983), 19 32. See Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 68 71, and the responsa cited there.

jewish religious and communal organization 457 Besides their juridical responsibilities, these officials were also empowered to nominate lower functionaries within the community and to collect fees for various services, including, according to Nathan, the drafting of certain types of legal documents and the slaughter of meat.14 They also played a critical role in insuring that the local community lived up to its annual financial obligation to the yeshivot. As the heads of courts backed by the authority of the yeshiva, they had two principal means of enforcing their policies and restraining recalcitrant members of the local community: the imposition of fines and excommunication. As contemporary sources make clear, however, these methods were not always sufficient to the task. Inasmuch as they served at the pleasure of the gaon, local representatives might be removed from office if they were perceived to have insufficiently looked after his interests. In this manner, the gaon, through the mediation of a network of loyal deputies, was capable of exerting a degree of administrative control over those in his reshut. Beyond the core areas of the reshuyot, where the authority of the geonim was relatively formalized and stable, were much more extensive territories in which geonic influence seems to have been both more wavering and contingent on personal connections. Evidence of such a situation comes from the Maghrib and from Spain, two areas that were at a considerable distance from the seat of the geonim, and that, from the beginning of the tenth century, were no longer part of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. During the ninth and tenth centuries, these areas absorbed large numbers of Jews from Iraq and Persia who had moved westward as part of a broad migratory movement triggered by the political destabilization and economic disruptions affecting the eastern lands of the ʿAbbāsid realm.15 While communities in North Africa and Spain, many of whose members would have thus felt an understandable loyalty to the Iraqi institutions, corresponded with the geonim, acknowledged their spiritual authority, and even provided them with financial support, they did so voluntarily and not as the exclusive subjects of a particular institution.16 A revealing glimpse of this situation is provided by several Genizah letters from the early part of the eleventh century that describe the collection of monies in Qayrawān for

14 15

16

See Neubauer, Medieval Jewish Chronicles, 2:85. See Eliyahu Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1976), 149, 169 77; Eliyahu Ashtor, “Un mouvement migratoire au haut Moyen Age: migration de l’Irak vers les pays méditerranéens,” Annales: Economies, sociétés, civilisations 27 (1972), 185 214. See Menahem Ben Sasson, The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World: Qayrawan, 800 1057 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1996), 422 24.

458 arnold e. franklin both Iraqi yeshivot and the Palestinian yeshiva.17 During the eleventh century, a similar situation can be observed in Fustāt, which was nominally _ _ that time absorbed a subordinate to the Palestinian gaonate but had by large and assertive Tunisian population with strong allegiances to the yeshivot in Iraq. A fragmentary responsum tentatively dated to the eleventh century reveals both how vigorously geonim endeavored to maintain control over local communities as well as the serious challenges those efforts might face. The anonymous text presents the case of a local judge who fell into disfavor with his appointing gaon and was subsequently removed from office. The local community, however, continued to support the dismissed official and to solicit legal opinions from him. The writer of the responsum fulminates against such a blatant act of defiance: “One who rebels against the head of the yeshiva . . . and carries out the rulings of someone whom he has dismissed breaks down the fences of Israel.”18 The letter goes on to castigate in the strongest possible terms anyone who violates the gaon’s authority; such an individual “removes the yoke of the law, sows the corruption of all of the laws of Israel and strengthens divisiveness.” Of particular interest is the unusual reference to an oath (yamīn) taken by the entire community pledging its fealty to the gaon, a situation that made its subsequent disregard for the gaon’s decision all the more egregious. While the measure was no doubt intended to formalize the gaon’s authority over local communities, its effectiveness – as this case illustrates – hinged crucially on the sometimes unpredictable will of the local community members. The fragility of geonic authority is also revealed in the perennially present option of having one’s legal matters heard by a Muslim court. While Islamic law recognized the judicial autonomy of the dhimmī communities, it also permitted non-Muslims to bring their disputes before a qād ī (judge), in which case Islamic law would normally be applied.19 _ Geonic responsa grapple with this situation, suggesting that it was not 17

18

19

See S. D. Goitein, “Three Letters from Qayrawan Addressed to Joseph ben Jacob ben ʿAwkal” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 34 (1965), 162 82; S. D. Goitein, “The Qayrawan United Appeal for the Babylonian Yeshivoth and the Emergence of the Nagid Abraham Ben ʿAtāʾ” [Hebrew], Zion 27 (1962), 156 65. See CUL T S Ar. 48.87, folio 2, in David E. Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and His Cultural World: Texts and Studies (Leiden, 1996), 81 85, 97. On recourse to external judicial authorities among Jews and Christians, see Uriel I. Simonsohn, A Common Justice: The Legal Allegiances of Christians and Jews under Early Islam (Philadelphia, 2011). See also Gideon Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law: A Comparative Study of Custom during the Geonic Period (Cambridge, MA, 2003), 101 3; Gideon Libson, “Legal Autonomy and the Recourse to Legal Proceedings by

jewish religious and communal organization 459 an infrequent occurrence in Jewish society. Among the concerns motivating individuals to apply to Muslim courts was the expectation of finding a more favorable outcome there than would have been possible in a Jewish court.20 Jews may also have been motivated by the Muslim court’s more effective means of executing its decisions.21 While geonim delineated areas in which recourse to Muslim courts was permissible, they were generally wary of the practice and sought to control the conditions under which it occurred. On the other hand, Genizah sources indicate that individual Jews could sometimes make advantageous use of the threat of appeal to a Muslim court as an effective means of pressuring their leaders into a desired course of action. While in theory appointment to the office of gaon was based upon a candidate’s personal merit and scholarly attainments, in practice the position was often controlled by members of a few influential Iraqi families, a development that has been connected with the important role lineage played in the legitimization of power in ʿAbbāsid society.22 Typically, the post of gaon was held for life and appointees were usually chosen from within the ranks of the yeshiva itself. Sources describing the tenth-century conflict between the Sura gaon Seʿadyah b. Joseph al-Fayyūmī (d. 942) and the exilarch David b. Zakkay (d. 940) reveal, among other things, that the interests of the Baghdad Jewish elites could play a decisive role in the selection process as well. Scholars are divided on the question of whether Iraqi geonim also received formal writs of appointment from the Muslim authorities, however. As we shall see, there are references to caliphal letters

20 21

22

Protected Peoples, according to Muslim Sources during the Gaonic Period,” in Nahem Ilan, ed., The Intertwined Worlds of Islam: Essays in Memory of Hava Lazarus Yafeh [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2002), 334 92. For studies of women availing themselves of Muslim courts, see Oded Zinger, “Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues: Seven Legal Documents from the Cairo Geniza,” in Zvi Stampfer and Amir Ashur, eds., Language, Gender and Law in the Judaeo Islamic Milieu (Leiden, 2020), 38 85; Oded Zinger, “‘She Aims to Harass Him’: Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues in Medieval Egypt,” AJS Review 42 (2018), 159 92. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:398. See Uriel Simonsohn, “Communal Boundaries Reconsidered: Jews and Christians Appealing to Muslim Authorities in the Medieval Near East,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 14 (2007), 339. On the oligarchic nature of the yeshivot, see Ginzberg, Geonica, 1:9 11. On the possible connections with Islamic attitudes toward lineage, see Avraham Grossman, “From Father to Son: The Inheritance of the Spiritual Leadership of the Jewish Communities in the Early Middle Ages,” in David Kraemer, ed., The Jewish Family: Metaphor and Memory (Oxford, 1989), 115 32. On the importance of genealogy as a determinant of status in Jewish society more broadly, see Arnold E. Franklin, This Noble House: Jewish Descendants of King David in the Medieval Islamic East (Philadelphia, 2013).

460 arnold e. franklin of appointment for geonim in the twelfth century, but by that point the circumstances of the gaonate had changed considerably: Sura and Pumbedita were by then no longer operational and given how little we know about the history of the yeshiva that replaced them it is problematic to infer earlier conditions from the later situation. At the same time, we find virtually no mention of caliphs appointing geonim during the preceding centuries.23 The relative unfamiliarity of medieval Islamic sources with the gaonate (as compared with their much richer documentation of the office of exilarch) has also been taken as evidence that Iraqi geonim did not enjoy official governmental recognition before the twelfth century. In any case, according to the general practice such appointments would have merely provided official governmental imprimatur on a selection process first concluded within the Jewish community itself. GEONIM AND LOCAL LEADERS

Despite the heavy-handed rhetoric and the air of superiority that one frequently encounters in their writings, geonim were acutely aware that they were in many respects dependent on the support of their correspondents and the political connections of their more influential constituents. This intricate interdependence of geonim and their followers is especially evident in a letter that Seʿadyah addressed to the Jews of Fustāt shortly _ _Toward after his appointment to the headship of the Sura yeshiva in 928. the end of the missive Seʿadyah’s tone is marked by the kind of selfassurance and unquestioned authority one would expect from a supreme religious leader communicating with his subjects: We further admonish you and write to you letters of warning and rebuke to arouse your hearts and awaken you to the commandments of the Lord our God concerning what you ought to do that you may live and what you must avoid that you not perish.

Yet in the very next line the tone changes as Seʿadyah urges his readers to write to him regularly and keep him abreast of their affairs, explaining that “without an army there can be no king and in the absence of students there

23

For an argument that Iraqi geonim before the twelfth century did not enjoy formal governmental appointment, see Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 337 40. For the sugges tion that they may have, see Mark R. Cohen, “Administrative Relations between Palestinian and Egyptian Jewry during the Fatimid Period,” in Amnon Cohen and Gabriel Baer, eds., Egypt and Palestine: A Millennium of Association (868 1948) (Jerusalem, 1984), 117n13.

jewish religious and communal organization 461 24 is no glory for scholars.” If the relationships Seʿadyah here invokes are explicitly hierarchical, his formulation nonetheless betrays a recognition that power was distributed within them in ways that were far less straightforward. In the same letter, Seʿadyah also refers to his contacts with the well-connected Baghdad families of Mar Netira and Mar Aaron, whose _ put at the disposal of his access to the ʿAbbāsid authorities he offers to Egyptian readers. In so doing, Seʿadyah once again reveals that geonim were beholden in a variety of ways to the very populations they sought to lead. One of the principal ways geonim tried to secure the continued loyalty of local Jewish communities was by conferring honorific titles on some of their most prominent and wealthy members, a practice that mirrored the dispensation of honorifics by caliphs in Islamic society.25 Among those commonly bestowed by the Iraqi institutions were the titles alluf, rosh haseder, rosh kalla, and resh pirqa. In certain cases, the granting of titles constituted a formal recognition of an individual’s legal training and authorized him to serve on the local court. In other cases, it was an acknowledgment of the recipient’s wealth and social standing, qualities that were no less vital to the geonim as they endeavored to provide for their institutions’ financial needs and maintain or expand their sphere of influence. Geonim formally dispensed titles in public ceremonies that, like the titles themselves, were intended to enhance the recipient’s reputation. For the individual honored with a title, the tribute was a highly prized mark of distinction that was expected to be used in both public and private contexts. When a poor foreigner writes a letter to Abū Sahl b. Moses, the cantor of the Palestinian congregation in Fustāt, begging for assistance, _ _ some of his addressee’s and, in a postscript, apologizes for having omitted honorific titles, one gets a sense of how seriously such matters were taken.26 As for the gaon who bestowed the title, its conferral was understood to oblige future fidelity and support on the part of the grantee. Things did not always work out that way, however, and documents from the Genizah reveal that prominent individuals were sometimes happy to be courted by competing institutions. Sahlān b. Abraham, who led the Iraqi community in Fustāt from about 1030 until his death in 1050, _ _ 24

25

26

For the letter, see Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1997), 2:27 30. On the granting of titles, see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:22 40, 5:260 72; Elinoar Bareket, Fustat on the Nile: The Jewish Elite in Medieval Egypt (Leiden, 1999), 34 36; Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 76 86. See CUL T S 8 J 16.7, translated in Mark R. Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages: An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza (Princeton, 2006), 58.

462 arnold e. franklin provides an illustrative example. During his period in office Sahlān was in close contact with both Iraqi and Palestinian authorities and was showered with an assortment of flattering titles by both: a letter written shortly before his death addresses him as “the dear one of seven titles.”27 In 1029 Sahlān was given the title haver by the Palestinian gaon Solomon b. Judah _ to have been awarded the equivalent Iraqi title and shortly thereafter seems 28 of alluf. Sahlān’s apparent preference for the Iraqi designation angered the Palestinian gaon, whose feelings of betrayal are evident when he complains to a sympathizer that Sahlān “rejected the waters of Siloam [a spring in Jerusalem] to drink from the Euphrates and . . . satisfied himself with the title alluf in place of haver.”29 As the same gaon put it in another letter: “[Sahlān] was honored_ and given a title for nothing.”30 THE IRAQI GAONATE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY AND BEYOND

By the beginning of the twelfth century, the Iraqi gaonate had undergone a significant reconfiguration as Sura and Pumbedita were permanently shuttered and replaced by a single institution in Baghdad. This structural reorganization was preceded by a variety of disruptions in the activities of the yeshivot that become noticeable already in the tenth century. In about the year 930, Sura was rocked by a bitter conflict that erupted between its head, Seʿadyah b. Joseph, and the exilarch David b. Zakkay. Among the consequences of this dispute was the emergence of a rival faction within the yeshiva with its own candidate for the office of gaon. The rift was eventually mended, but shortly thereafter the Sura yeshiva was closed, and would remain so for almost fifty years. Though it experienced a brief period of efflorescence at the end of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries, reflected in the gaonate of Samuel b. Hophni (d. 1013), Sura ceased to exist as a functioning institution by the middle of that century. Intramural tensions of a similar sort can be detected in Pumbedita by the middle of the tenth century as well. Sherira reports that in about the year 943, Aaron ha-Kohen b. Joseph usurped the position of gaon by displacing the rightful heir to the post, Amram b. Mishoy. Sometime later, a breakaway faction emerged within Pumbedita that was led by Nehemiah 27

28 29 30

See CUL T S 13 J 31.8, in Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634 1099), 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1983), 2:259 61. See Bareket, Fustat on the Nile, 236 46. See CUL T S 13 J 15.1, in Gil, Palestine, 2:149 50. See CUL T S 20.181, in Gil, Palestine, 2:178 80. On this affair generally, see Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1994), 537 38.

jewish religious and communal organization 463 b. Kohen S ̣edeq, a third claimant to the position of gaon. A letter written in the year 953 by a supporter of Nehemiah refers to the dispute and depicts the way the two camps competed for contributions to the yeshiva from outside communities.31 While it, too, would recover and experience a period of growth and stability, most visibly during the gaonates of Sherira and Hayya (969–1038), the name Pumbedita, like Sura, vanishes from our sources by the middle of the eleventh century. Modern historians, following the cues of certain medieval chroniclers, have tended to see the closure of these institutions as marking the effective end of the geonic period, although it is far from clear that contemporaries would have viewed the matter quite so unambiguously. There is, in fact, ample source material reflecting both the continued activity of individuals recognized as geonim in this alleged “post-geonic” period as well as the perception that such activity was a continuation of the duties and prerogatives exercised by earlier geonim.32 An Iraqi gaon living in the late twelfth century evidently considered himself part of an uninterrupted chain of geonic authority when he referred to “the custom of the heads of the yeshivot from the time of our master Rav until this very day.”33 It is, moreover, precisely at this moment that we find our first explicit evidence of Iraqi geonim enjoying formal recognition by the Muslim authorities. The Arabic chronicle of Ibn al-Sāʿī preserves a letter from the caliph al-Nāsir (d. 1225) in which Daniel b. Eleazar (d. 1209) is appointed “head of the_ yeshiva of the Jews” and is given jurisdiction over “the Jewish communities and judges of Baghdad and the provinces of Iraq.” In outlining the appointee’s prerogatives the letter specifically refers to his authority in matters involving the administration of justice. The same document also refers to equivalent appointments enjoyed by two of Daniel’s predecessors.34 Much of what we know about the gaonate in this period relates in one way or another to the long career of Samuel b. ʿEli, the head of the Baghdad yeshiva from about 1160 to 1193.35 Both Benjamin of Tudela 31

32

33

34

35

On this episode, see Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 47 52. (Note, however, that the English translation misrepresents the identification of the “robber” mentioned in the 953 letter; see the parallel passage in Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 1:235.) On this period, see the pioneering work of Samuel Poznanski, Babylonische Geonim im nachgäonische Zeitalter nach handschriftlichen und gedrucket Quellen (Berlin, 1914). See Simhah Assaf, “Letters of R. Samuel ben Eli and His Contemporaries” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 1,_ 2 (1930), 82, 106. See ʿAlī ibn Ajnab ibn al Sāʿī, al Jāmiʿ al Mukhtasar (Baghdad, 1934), 9:266 69; English _ Lands: A History and Source Book translation in Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab (Philadelphia, 1979), 178 79. For these dates, see Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 452.

464 arnold e. franklin and Petahiah of Regensburg visited Baghdad during Samuel’s tenure in office and provide interesting – though somewhat contrasting – depictions of his authority. While Benjamin acknowledged that Samuel was the leading rabbinic figure in the city, it was, in his view, the exilarch who ultimately controlled the appointment of judges in local communities. Petahiah, on the other hand, attributes this prerogative to the gaon. “In all the lands of Assyria and Damascus, in the cities of Persia and Media, as well as in the land of Babylon,” he writes, “there is no judge that has not been appointed by Rabbi Samuel, the head of the yeshiva. It is he who gives license in every city to judge and to teach. His authority is recognized in every land, even in the land of Israel. They all revere him.”36 A somewhat more complicated picture emerges from the sizable number of Samuel’s letters that were preserved in the Genizah.37 In several of these the gaon chastises communities in northern Syria and Iraq for not living up to their financial obligations to the yeshiva and for not properly honoring the emissaries that have been sent to them. And a long letter in that collection addressed to the Jews in some fifteen towns in the same region complains bitterly about recent defections from the gaon’s institution to the camp of a newly appointed exilarch. Of particular note is the unusual emphasis Samuel places in these missives on the yeshiva as “the seat of Moses” (mansib Moshe) and the person of the gaon as the represen_ Moshe), a theme that may speak to efforts to revive tative of Moses (nāʾib flagging support for the gaonate in his day. That being said, Iraqi geonim at the end of the twelfth century continued to be sought out as experts on legal matters, much as their predecessors had, as becomes evident from a collection of Samuel’s responsa that has been partially preserved in the Genizah.38 And his famous conflict with Maimonides on the issue of resurrection of the dead indicates, among other things, that Samuel was viewed as an authority on theological matters by at least some in his day and that supporters of his could be found as far away as Yemen.39 While we know the names of a number of the geonim who succeeded Samuel b. ʿEli, the available sources tell us very little about the actual scope 36

37

38

39

Die Rundreise des R. Petachjah aus Regensburg, ed. Lazar Grünhut (Jerusalem, 1905), 10. A slightly different version of this passage appears in Abraham David, “Sibbuv rabi Petahya me Regensburg be nusah hadash,” Qobes ʿal Yad 13 (1996), 260. _ Assaf, “Letters of Rabbi _Samuel _ Simhah ben Eli_ and His Contemporaries” [Hebrew], _ 1, 1 (1929), 102 30; 1, 2 (1930), 43 84; 1, 3 (1930), 15 80. A number of additional Tarbiz letters are published in Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 2:204 13. CUL T S 8 G 7.5, described in Jacob Mann, ha Tsofeh 6 (1921/22), 109. For other responsa attributed to Samuel b. ʿEli, see Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 455n263. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Samuel ben Eli’s Epistle on Resurrection” [Hebrew], Qobes ʿal _ Yad 15 (2001), 39 94.

jewish religious and communal organization 465 of their authority. Two brief notices in the Arabic chronicle of Ibn alFuwatī, however, demonstrate that well into the thirteenth century the heads_ of the yeshiva continued to be formally invested with authority by the Muslim state, though in this period it was the chief qād ī who evidently _ The investihandled the procedure and issued their writs of appointment. ture formula used in the two instances once again spells out the gaon’s right to deliberate in judicial matters and resolve legal disputes.40 The Iraqi gaonate disappears altogether from view by the end of the thirteenth century, perhaps as a consequence of changes resulting from the Īlkhānid capture of Baghdad in 1258. Our last information relates to the gaon Samuel ha-Kohen b. Daniel, who penned two letters in the year 1288 in conjunction with the campaign to defend Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed against some of its detractors. It is of note that in one of the missives, addressed to sympathetic scholars in Acre and Egypt, Samuel casts himself as the head of a thriving institution, sending his readers greetings from the “disciples and the members of the yeshiva.”41 It is, of course, difficult to assess what reality lay behind such expressions, however. THE PALESTINIAN GAONATE

In addition to the two institutions in Iraq, a third geonic yeshiva was located in Palestine up until the final quarter of the eleventh century, and thereafter in Syria and then Egypt. Its territory comprised the Jewish communities in all three of those areas, regions that had earlier been part of the Byzantine Empire. The kinds of sources available to us for this yeshiva are, however, considerably different from those at our disposal for its eastern counterparts. Nothing comparable to the diachronic and synchronic depictions of the Iraqi yeshivot in Sherira’s Epistle and the Report of Nathan the Babylonian, respectively, exists for reconstructing the history and prerogatives of the Palestinian academy. And the responsa literature that plays such a critical role in our understanding of the operations of the gaonate is all but nonexistent in the case of the Palestinian institution. On the other hand, we are quite fortunate to have preserved among the Genizah manuscripts hundreds of letters that provide a richly detailed record of the administrative responsibilities of Palestinian geonim in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as well as a behind-the-scenes glimpse at 40

41

ʿAbd al Razzāq ibn Ahmad ibn al Fuwatī, al Hawādith al Jāmiʿa wa l Tajārib al _ _ 218 (appointment of Daniel b. Samuel Nāfiʿa, ed. Mustafā Jawād (Baghdad, 1932), _ _ Ibn Abī al Rabīʿ), 248 (appointment of ʿEli b. Zechariah); English translation in Stillman, Jews of Arab Lands, 181 82. See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 467.

466 arnold e. franklin the delicate art of leading an often fractious community. The Genizah has also furnished a number of important documents reflecting on the status of the Palestinian yeshiva in the eyes of the Muslim authorities. Just about everything we know about the Palestinian gaonate, in fact – its history, its prerogatives, and the individuals who controlled it – derives from the Genizah sources. The Palestinian yeshiva, like the yeshivot in Iraq, sought legitimacy through connections with older institutions of rabbinic authority. By virtue of its geographic location, the Palestinian academy presented itself as the direct successor to the ancient Sanhedrin, the patriarchate of Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi, and even the Jerusalem Temple itself.42 In the eleventh century, this historical claim along with the special prerogatives deriving from it were put on full public display as officials of the yeshiva formally proclaimed the calendar for the upcoming year during an annual convocation on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. In so doing, they were exercising a privilege that in rabbinic literature was entrusted exclusively to the Jewish authorities in the Land of Israel. While some modern scholars have argued that the history of the yeshiva can indeed be traced back to the rabbinic period – thus corroborating the institution’s own claims – it must be said that the evidence for such continuity is rather meager.43 The yeshiva first comes into view in a letter from the Jewish authorities of Iraq datable to the year 835.44 The text, which formally recognizes the authority of the scholars of Palestine in matters pertaining to the calendar, refers specifically to the havurah of Palestine, its head (rosh), and its members (haverim). All of_ this suggests a situation consistent with what _ we know from later sources; indeed, in Genizah materials the yeshiva is frequently referred to by the first of these terms and its scholars and associates by the last. A slightly better glimpse of the institution is provided by sources from nearly a century later, when once again the issue was control over the calendar. In the year 921/22 Jewish authorities in Iraq vehemently opposed the calendar proclaimed by the Palestinian gaon in what amounted to an apparent reversal of their former position.45 The 42

43

44

45

See Menahem Ben Sasson, “Varieties of Inter communal Relations in the Geonic Period,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1995), 19. See the contrasting views of Gil, History of Palestine, 495 97; and Catherine Hezser, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (Tübingen, 1997), 226 27. See also Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 13 14. See CUL T S 8 G 7.1, in Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 2:11 12. On this episode, see Gil, History of Palestine, 566. For the most up to date and thorough analysis of this entire subject including an edition of the pertinent records, see Sacha Stern, The Jewish Calendar Controversy of 921/2 ce (Leiden, 2019).

jewish religious and communal organization 467 successful assertion of Iraqi authority in a matter previously acknowledged to be the unique privilege of Palestinian geonim is often seen as part of a broader offensive that ultimately witnessed the triumph of the Iraqi gaonate and its religious traditions. Thanks to the Genizah, the intermittent source record of the ninth and tenth centuries becomes a steady stream as we move into the eleventh, a period that coincides with the first phase of Fātimid rule in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria (969–1074). _ Deeply invested in the symbolism of its connection to the Land of Israel, the Palestinian yeshiva would nonetheless be forced to relocate a number of times and ultimately abandon the very soil in which its unique sanctity was so deeply rooted. During the ninth and early tenth centuries, the home of the yeshiva was in Tiberias, a connection preserved in the designation of its head as “the Tiberian” or “the gaon of Tiberias” long after its base of operations had been transferred elsewhere. By the early part of the eleventh century, we find the yeshiva in Jerusalem, though much of its daily business was conducted in the town of Ramle, the capital of the province of Filastīn and the seat of the local Fātimid administration. _ of the Seljūq conquest of Jerusalem _ Within a few years in 1073, it would leave Palestine altogether for the thriving Mediterranean port city of Tyre, where it would remain for several decades. The yeshiva’s historic link to the Land of Israel and its institutions nevertheless remained critical in this period as is illustrated by Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon’s decision to travel from the yeshiva’s new home to Ḥaifa in 1082 in order to exercise the traditional geonic privilege of declaring the New Year.46 A letter from the year 1116 indicates that the yeshiva was then located in Damascus, while by 1127 it had once again moved, this time to Fustāt, where it would _ _ of Egypt.47 eventually merge with the office of the Head of the Jews APPOINTMENT

Unlike the situation for the Iraqi gaonate, there is firm evidence that the heads of the Palestinian yeshiva were officially recognized by the Muslim authorities, at least after the establishment of Fātimid rule in Egypt in 969. _ of a petition that was Preserved in the Genizah is an undated draft submitted to the Fātimid administration by leaders of the Jewish commu_ nity requesting its confirmation of the prerogatives of a gaon. Since the practice of the chancery was to issue rescripts in response to, and reflecting the language of, formal petitions such as this one – petitions which were themselves drawn up in accordance with formulary conventions – the 46

Gil, History of Palestine, 744 46.

47

Ibid., 774 76.

468 arnold e. franklin document provides us with a mirror image of what the executed letter of appointment would have looked like.48 A number of things about this very unique document stand out. First, it acknowledges that the appointment is no more than a ratification of a decision already concluded within the Jewish community. Second, it spells out a number of the appointee’s prerogatives, providing us with a vivid picture of the scope of the Palestinian gaonate’s authority. The gaon is recognized as the supreme judicial authority for the Rabbanite Jews living in the Fātimid realm – a _ North Africa, territory that comprised at its height Egypt and portions of Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and the Ḥijāz. He is given the right to appoint and dismiss communal officials including judges, ritual slaughterers, and cantors; to designate a representative in every locality; to oversee the administration of communal property; and to impose and cancel the bans of excommunication. PERSONNEL

Genizah documents illuminate a number of the other official positions within the yeshiva administration as well. Second to the gaon in the chain of command was the av bet din (head of the court), who was in turn followed by five others bearing numeric titles from shelishi (third) to sheviʿi (seventh) that indicated their respective position in the yeshiva’s hierarchy. Extending beyond the operations of the administration board of the institution, the title mumheh and the even more elevated designation haver _ officials who formally represented the yeshiva_ and were often bestowed on carried out its prerogatives within the local community, most significantly the administration of justice. Typically, an individual would attain the post of gaon only after rising through the lower offices of the yeshiva where he no doubt would have gained considerable experience and formed critical relationships with key supporters outside of the institution. We can track Abiathar ha-Kohen b. Elijah’s rise to the gaonate in 1083, for example, in earlier documents that reveal him ascending through the ranks of “fourth,” “third,” and av bet din, respectively.49 48

49

See Halper 354v, in S. D. Goitein, “The President of the Palestinian Yeshiva (High Council) as Head of the Jews of the Fatimid Empire,” in Joseph Hacker, ed., Palestinian Jewry in Early Islamic and Crusader Times in the Light of the Geniza Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1980), 57; English translation in S. D. Goitein, “New Sources on the Palestinian Gaonate,” in Saul Lieberman and Arthur Hyman, eds., Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1974), 524 25. On the dating of this document and the circumstances in which it was issued, see Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 294 96. See Gil, History of Palestine, 745, 747 50.

jewish religious and communal organization 469 The Palestinian gaonate was even more tightly in the hands of an oligarchic elite than the Iraqi academies. For a considerable portion of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a single priestly family controlled the yeshiva, its members occupying not only the office of gaon but many of its other leading administrative positions as well. The same Abiathar ha-Kohen, for instance, was the son, grandson, nephew, brother, uncle, and great-uncle of individuals who also held the post of gaon and who succeeded to the gaonate by working their way up the ranks of the yeshiva as he had. FUNCTIONS

Documentary materials from the Genizah reinforce the impression that the Palestinian gaonate’s primary functions were of a more-or-less exclusively administrative nature. Thus, despite the reference to a midrash (school) affiliated with the yeshiva, we have virtually no evidence that regular instruction actually took place within the yeshiva’s walls, nor do we find there anything comparable to the convocations for study held at the Iraqi institutions.50 Yet another difference between the Palestinian and Iraqi yeshivot – one that is perhaps connected with the distinction just noted – pertains to the writing of responsa. While scholars have identified a few examples of such literature emanating from Palestinian geonim, this activity seems to have played a far less significant role in fostering connections between local communities and the Palestinian yeshiva than it did in the case of the Iraqi institutions.51 A good bit of material, on the other hand, attests to the judicial activity of the Palestinian yeshiva. We know that it operated a court of its own presided over by the av bet din, but we also find it monitoring legal proceedings in local communities and occasionally providing detailed instructions as to how specific cases should be handled. Genizah documents, moreover, enable us to observe how the gaon’s authority over the administration of justice was exercised through his control over the appointment of local judges. Illustrative of this is an eleventh-century document concerning a gaon’s reauthorization of Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon in the office of chief judge in Alexandria, from which we incidentally learn that Joseph had been appointed to that post by three 50

51

See S. D. Goitein, Palestinian Jewry in Early Islamic and Crusader Times in Light of Geniza Documents, ed. Joseph Hacker [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1980), 47 49. See Avraham Grossman, “The Yeshiva of Eretz Israel: Its Literary Output and Relationship with the Diaspora,” in Joshua Prawer, ed., The History of Jerusalem: The Early Muslim Period, 638 1099 (Jerusalem, 1996), 239 40.

470 arnold e. franklin 52 preceding geonim as well. Particularly noteworthy is the stipulation that Joseph can only be removed from office by “the head of the yeshiva, who has appointed him and invested him with authority.” Excommunication, specifically enumerated in the petition as one of the prerogatives of the gaon, is mentioned frequently in the documentary record, and appears to have been one of the most relied upon means of enforcing his rulings and those of the courts that operated under his authority.53 A description of the proclamation of a ban in the summer of 1029 against certain Jews in Fustāt by Solomon b. Judah – a highly _ _ in the subterranean Jerusalem synachoreographed ritual that took place gogue known as “the cave” and involved special readings from the Torah – demonstrates the way geonim and officials of the yeshiva utilized such occasions as opportunities for dramatically asserting their institution’s supreme religious and administrative authority.54 In particularly dire situations, such as a threat of secession from the jurisdiction of the yeshiva, geonim could also turn to the Fātimid authorities for confirmation of their _ authorized powers. The yeshiva supported itself through a number of sources of income, including charitable donations, fees paid for the drawing up of legal documents, communal property specifically endowed for its upkeep, and a portion of the profits from the slaughter and sale of meat. The last looms especially large in documents from the Genizah. Letters exchanged between Japheth b. David, a cantor and scribe in Fustāt, and Daniel b. Azariah, gaon of the Palestinian yeshiva in the middle_ of_ the eleventh century, reveal that at that point the yeshiva claimed 50 percent of the revenue from the sale of meat.55 T H E J E W I S H E L I T E O F F U S TĀ T _ _

In part because of their remoteness from the imperial capital, Palestinian geonim – even more than their Iraqi counterparts – found themselves dependent on representatives and supporters outside of the yeshiva’s administration, and accordingly devoted considerable energy to establishing close connections with influential members of local communities. 52

53

54 55

See CUL T S NS Box 320.45, in Goitein, “New Sources on the Palestinian Gaonate,” 526 28, 536. See Gil, History of Palestine, 522 23. For a query addressed to a gaon concerning the appropriateness of applying corporal punishment and a fine in a case involving Sabbath violation, see CUL T S 8 J 7.18, in Gil, Palestine, 2:618 19. See CUL T S 20.102, in Gil, History of Palestine, 524. See Bareket, Fustat on the Nile, 172 76; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:227.

jewish religious and communal organization 471 Cultivating links with prominent members of the Jewish community in Fustāt was especially critical as such individuals could provide direct access _ _ Fātimid administration. The importance of such relationships and to the _ the pragmatic manner in which they were pursued is revealed by a letter from the year 1025 in which Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph, newly elected by the officials of the yeshiva to the post of gaon, asks a group of notables in Fustāt with ties to the Fātmid court to solicit a letter of investiture on _ _ from the caliph al-Z _ ̣āhir (r. 1021–36). Especially noteworthy is his behalf the fact that those addressed by the gaon included not only members of the town’s two Rabbanite congregations but also a number of prominent Karaites as well.56 Titles played a crucial role in the formalization of these long-distance relationships. Honorifics such as hemdat ha-yeshivah (the delight of the yeshiva) and yedid ha-yeshivah (the_ friend of the yeshiva), which were dispensed by Palestinian geonim, are ubiquitous in the Genizah and reflect the attempt to motivate loyalty. The presence within the Fātimid realm of a significant population of Jews who followed Babylonian _rites and looked to the yeshivot in Iraq for spiritual guidance presented obvious challenges for Palestinian geonim. In Fustāt, various attempts were made to undermine the supremacy of the _ _ Palestinian gaonate, most dramatically when Elhanan b. Shemariah, in the second decade of the eleventh century, opened _a school, claimed the right to impose excommunication, and collected taxes from Jewish communities in Palestine and Syria.57 And in the 1030s, Solomon b. Judah faced opposition as the Babylonian Jews in Ramle sought to secede from the yeshiva’s jurisdiction by establishing their own separate community under the leadership of a certain Joseph al-Sijilmāsī. It is revealing that in order to suppress this emergent rebellion in his own backyard Solomon found it once more expedient to appeal to the Fātimid authorities through the _ mediation of the Fustāt notables. _ _ Palestine was subject to a number of military and political upheavals during the second half of the eleventh century that considerably impaired the gaonate’s ability to carry out its regular functions. During the 1070s, the Sunnī Seljūqs mounted a direct assault on Fātimid holdings in the _ Mediterranean. Combined with the effects of territorial losses in North Africa and Sicily, the Seljūq conquests reduced the Fātimid Empire to little _ fateful decision of more than Egypt itself. At this critical juncture it was the 56

57

CUL T S 24.43, in Gil, Palestine, 2:88 90. See the discussion in Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, 91 93. On Elhanan, see S. D. Goitein, “Elhanan b. Shemarya as a Communal Leader,” in _ Joshua Finkel Festschrift [Hebrew] (New York, Sidney _Hoenig and Leon Stitskin, eds., 1974), 117 37; Bareket, Fustat on the Nile, 205 22.

472 arnold e. franklin Elijah ha-Kohen to move the yeshiva not to Egypt but to Tyre – then in the hands of an independent ruler on friendly terms with the Seljūqs – for as a consequence the gaonate found itself at an even greater remove, both geographically and politically, from the Fātimid administration and the Jewish elites of Fustāt. Though Tyre would _be recaptured by the Fātimids _ _ within a year, this time to the advancing Crusader _ in 1097, it was lost again armies, forcing the yeshiva to move even further afield to Damascus. By the time a branch of the yeshiva finally relocated to the Fātimid capital in the first quarter of the twelfth century, it was clear to _all that in the intervening decades it had become more or less irrelevant as an institution of political leadership. For as it wandered progressively northward, a new post empowered to administer the affairs of Rabbanite Jews in the Fātimid _ Empire – the office of raʾīs al-yahūd (the Head of the Jews) – had emerged in Fustāt, essentially replacing the former role of the gaonate. Indeed, _ _ gaon Masliah ha-Kohen ben Solomon brought the Palestinian when the _ so precisely in order to fill a vacancy in that new yeshiva to Egypt, he_ did office and to become the next raʾīs al-yahūd. THE EXILARCHATE

Located in Baghdad alongside – and frequently in some tension with – the Iraqi yeshivot was the dynastic office of the exilarch or “head of the exile” (Aramaic, resh galuta; Hebrew, rosh ha-golah). The roots of the office have been traced as least as far back as the first century of the Sasanian era (224–651 ce), when its incumbents held an important but still dimly understood position of leadership within the Babylonian Jewish community.58 But if modern historians have located the origins of the institution in late antiquity, already in the Sasanian period the family that controlled the exilarchate sought legitimacy in an ancestry tracing itself back to King David and the ancient Israelite monarchy, a genealogical claim that most likely developed in imitation of the royal lineage asserted by the Jewish patriarchate in Palestine at about the same time.59 While rabbinic sources reflect an ambivalent attitude toward the exilarchs, at times condemning their laxity in observing religious precepts and their excessive intimacy with Persian officials, for the most part they tend to substantiate the exilarchs’ alleged Davidic roots. In the Islamic period, this ancestral tradition would 58

59

On the origins of the exilarchate, see Geoffrey Herman, A Prince without a Kingdom: The Exilarch in the Sasanian Era (Tübingen, 2012). On the Davidic ancestry of the patriarchs, see David Goodblatt, The Monarchic Principle (Tübingen, 1994), 147 75.

jewish religious and communal organization 473 play an increasingly important role in defining the exilarchate and validating its authority. While we have little direct information about Jewish communal organization in the years immediately following the Islamic expansion throughout the Near East, it has been plausibly conjectured that the new rulers of the region perpetuated the system in place under the Sasanians, and formally recognized the exilarch as an official representative of the Jewish community.60 A later, legendary account about this early period is to be found in the story of Bustanay, a scion of the Davidic line, who so impressed the caliph ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb that the latter supported his __ bid for the exilarchate against the counterclaims of a non-Davidic 61 usurper. While great efforts have been made to identify a kernel of historically reliable information in this story, the fruits of such analysis must be considered tentative at best.62 Certainly by the ninth century, however, we find ourselves on firmer ground as various sources converge in depicting the exilarch as a leading figure in the Jewish community. It has been suggested that, unlike the Babylonian geonim, exilarchs served as official representatives of the Jewish community and accordingly were issued letters of appointment by the Muslim government. The twelfth-century Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela seems to confirm this when he describes the exilarchs as having been granted a “seal of authority” over the Jews in the caliphal domain.63 While no actual writs of appointment for an exilarch have survived, scholars have speculated that they would have been similar to the extant letters of investiture issued to the Katholikos, the occupant of a corresponding leadership office in the Nestorian Christian community. Given their presumed status as appointees of the Muslim state, it is not surprising to find that, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, exilarchs maintained a residence in Baghdad, the seat of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. While membership in the House of David continued to be a necessary precondition for appointment as exilarch, the post was not always passed down from father to son. In fact, medieval sources provide information about a number of disputes between dynasts who contended for the office. It is evident that exilarchs played an important role in managing the affairs of the Jewish minority population. Nevertheless, it is difficult to delineate the precise functions and prerogatives that were entrusted to 60 61 62 63

See Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 340; Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 84, 95. For the story of Bustanay, see Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 2:4 10. See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 58 81. Marcus N. Adler, ed. and trans., The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907), 40.

474 arnold e. franklin them, especially in relation to those exercised by the geonim. According to Nathan the Babylonian, the exilarch, like the geonim, functioned as the head of a reshut. Nathan writes that the domain of the exilarch lay east of the Tigris, and that within it he appointed judges and collected taxes. The neat picture presented by Nathan notwithstanding, the boundaries between the spheres of influence of exilarchs and geonim were in reality fluid, often leading to territorial disputes. There is some evidence that exilarchs maintained a court of law comparable to the courts of the yeshivot. A number of sources refer to the judicial activities of scholars associated with the exilarchate, and several rulings by the ninth-century judge S ̣emah b. Solomon, who served as the head of the court of the exilarch Ḥisday b._ Natronay, have been preserved. _ Particularly close ties seem to have existed between this court and the Sura yeshiva. The coercive powers of the exilarchate, like those available to the geonim, were apparently limited for the most part to the imposition of monetary fines and excommunication. Unlike the geonim, the exilarch seems to have enjoyed at least occasional access to the Muslim authorities. Nathan the Babylonian describes the warm reception the exilarch would be shown whenever he appeared with a request before the ruler, and Benjamin of Tudela writes with great excitement about the exilarch’s weekly audience with the caliph. Muslim sources also portray the exilarch as appearing from time to time in the caliph’s entourage.64 The reign of the caliph al-Maʾmūn (813–33) was apparently a crucial juncture in the history of the exilarchate. Two Christian chronicles describe a conflict over the selection of a new exilarch that erupted in that period. They further report that the controversy eventuated in a decision by the caliph to allow any ten or more members of a religious community to organize themselves into a distinct group with its own leader, a policy that, if implemented, would have severely undermined the established authorities in both the Jewish and Christian communities. Sherira refers to this episode as well, albeit from a decidedly different point of view. In his Epistle he notes that for several centuries exilarchs had treated the geonim with high-handed arrogance thanks to the backing they enjoyed from the ruling powers. But “200 years ago” – that is, in the late eighth or early ninth century – “they were reduced from the sovereignty of the kingdom,” a change that clearly met with his approval. The available Christian and Jewish sources thus seem to provide contrasting perspectives

64

See Steven Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam (Princeton, 1995), 109 12.

jewish religious and communal organization 475 on the same episode: what Michael the Syrian and Bar Hebraeus regarded as a worrisome turn of events that threatened the stability of religious authority structures, Sherira perceived as a fitting restoration of geonic privilege. On the whole it appears that the authority of the exilarchate declined over the course of the Middle Ages in relation to that of the gaonate, with the controversy in the early ninth century described above possibly representing an important turning point in the distribution of power between the two institutions. During the tenth century, the exilarchate was embroiled in two particularly acute conflicts with the gaonate. At the beginning of the century the exilarch ʿUqba was deposed after trying to appropriate the income from the region of Khurasān, an area that traditionally fell within the administrative district of the Pumbedita yeshiva. Two decades later, the exilarch David b. Zakkay clashed with Seʿadyah when the latter refused to endorse one of his rulings. Both controversies underscore the ongoing potential for conflict between the gaonate and the exilarchate, and highlight the fact that tensions between the two often resulted from one institution’s efforts to encroach upon the prerogatives of the other. Clashes between exilarchs and geonim continued in the eleventh and twelfth centuries as well, with influence over local Jewish communities often at stake. Documents from the Genizah illuminate the involvement of the exilarchs Hezekiah b. David and Daniel b. Ḥisday in the affairs of Jewish communities in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, and North Africa. For the implementation of their authority, exilarchs, like geonim, relied on personal connections with members of the local Jewish community. It is not surprising, then, to find that, like geonim, they too bestowed honorific titles as a means of cultivating loyalty.65 Our information about the exilarchate becomes less clear after the beginning of the thirteenth century, when, as a number of sources suggest, it may have relocated to the town of Mosul. Jacob b. Elijah of Valencia, in a letter chastising a former Jew for converting to Christianity, refers to the protection that the Mongol invaders extended to “our master, the exilarch Rabbi Samuel from the House of David” when they sacked Baghdad in 1258, perhaps indicating that the exilarchate continued to function under Īlkhānid rule. Scattered references to individuals bearing the title exilarch are to be found over the course of the next two and a half centuries, but it becomes increasingly difficult to determine whether these reflect the

65

See Goitein, The Yemenites, 80 81.

476 arnold e. franklin continued functioning of the earlier institution or merely the perpetuation of the dynastic claim associated with it.66

territorial leadership During the eleventh century, the prerogatives of the yeshivot and the exilarchate were increasingly ceded to regional leaders, many of whom held the Hebrew title nagid (pl. negidim). Relying primarily on the testimony of local foundation legends – texts such as Sefer ha-Qabbalah by the Andalusian chronicler Abraham Ibn Daud and Divrei Yosef by the Egyptian writer Joseph Sambari – an earlier generation of historians concluded that the impetus for this new pattern of leadership came from local Muslim rulers who encouraged their Jewish subjects to sever ties with the Iraqi institutions in tandem with their own aspirations to political independence from the ʿAbbāsid authorities. The emergence of these territorial offices, in Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen, was also understood to have spelled the end of the hegemony of the geonim, a blow the latter ultimately had no choice but to accept. More recent scholarship, taking advantage of the Genizah materials, has revised this picture considerably, playing down the role of the Muslim rulers and drawing attention instead to the way territorial leadership grew organically out of the centralized institutions. Indeed, when it first appears, the title nagid was an honorific that geonim bestowed on local leaders. The resulting picture is of a process that took place only gradually and with the full participation of the Jewish community itself. Our most abundant information on this transformation relates to the office of raʾīs al-yahūd (literally, “Head of the Jews”) in Egypt, which emerged just as the short-lived nagidates in Spain and Tunisia were disappearing.67 At the beginning of the twentieth century Jacob Mann suggested that the office of raʾīs al-yahūd was created by the Fātimids shortly after their conquest of Egypt in the year 969. In his view, the_ Fātimids’ opposition to _ office as a way of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate pushed them to establish the new limiting the Jews’ dependence on institutions located in enemy territory.68 The revisionist work of S. D. Goitein challenged Mann’s thesis, demonstrating that in fact the office only began to emerge a century later, in the 66 67

68

See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 433 47. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:24 25. On the office of the nagid in Qayrawān in the context of the unique set of relations that inhered between communities in North Africa and the Iraqi yeshivot, see Ben Sasson, Emergence, 347 74. Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065 1126 (Princeton, 1980), 3 42.

jewish religious and communal organization 477 1060s, and even then at the instigation of the Jewish notables of Fustāt and _ Cairo.69 In his considerable expansion on Goitein’s conclusions,_ Mark Cohen identified a number of crucial factors that helped to further explain why the office emerged when it did. First, he noted that in the years leading up to its appearance the Egyptian Jewish community absorbed a significant number of immigrants from North Africa and Palestine who instilled it with “the social and intellectual self-confidence it needed to strike out on its own.”70 Second, he observed that the office of the Head of the Jews emerged at the very moment when an already-hobbled Palestinian yeshiva abandoned Fātimid territory and relocated to Tyre. It was to fill _ the power vacuum created by that move that Jewish leaders in Fustāt _ _ began to create a distinct office of leadership on Egyptian soil.71 Thus, instead of the foreign policy considerations of the Fātimids, it was effect_ that brought the ively an internal Jewish desire for administrative change office into existence. Significantly, Cohen also found a parallel to these changes in the organization of the Jewish community in the relocation of the seat of the Coptic patriarchate from Alexandria to Cairo at about the same time.72 Both communities, it would seem, found it advantageous at that point to have their leaders situated in closer proximity to the Fātimid authorities. _The new position emerged tentatively under the direction of Judah b. Seʿadyah (c. 1065–78): while he presided over the local Jewish court in the Egyptian capital, he does not seem to have headed an appellate court or to have appointed local judges and communal functionaries. Over the next two decades, during the administrations of Judah’s brother Mevorakh (1078–82) and David b. Daniel (1082–94), the prerogatives of the office were considerably expanded and formalized. In founding the first Egyptian high court, assuming the right to appoint communal officials and making use of the power to issue bans, David seems to have been especially intent on supplanting the administrative role of the yeshiva. The final stage in the process occurred during Mevorakh b. Seʿadyah’s second administration (1094–1111) when the office’s authority over the judicial, administrative, and religious affairs of Egyptian Jewry became firmly established and it succeeded in eclipsing the Palestinian gaonate. The official status of the post is reflected in the description of a Fātimid ceremony that took place in the year 1122 in which the Head of the_ Jews and the Coptic patriarch participated as the representatives of their respective dhimmī communities.73 69 71 73

70 Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:23 40. Cohen, Jewish Self government, 87 90. 72 Ibid., 79 84. Ibid., 66 78. See the description of Ibn Muyassar, cited in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:374.

478 arnold e. franklin As the Palestinian gaon previously had been, the Head of the Jews in Egypt was appointed to his post by the Fātimid authorities after the leaders _ of the Jewish community had themselves agreed on a suitable candidate. In the early years, individuals with close ties to the Fātimid administration _ were chosen to fill the post; frequently such individuals served as court physicians. The rights and privileges of the Head of the Jews are spelled out in Jewish and Islamic sources, the latter dating primarily from the Mamlūk period. As we have noted, the Head of the Jews was recognized as the supreme judicial authority for the Jewish community. Documentary sources also describe him as representing the Jewish community before the Muslim authorities in a range of matters, including the ransoming of captives and ensuring payment of the poll tax. As the official in charge of communal funds, he was also responsible for providing charity to the needy. It is probably not a coincidence that in this period, too, the title haver, with its historic connection to the Palestinian yeshiva, came to be _ replaced by the more generic term muqaddam as the standard designation for local appointees. The office of Head of the Jews of Egypt would continue to operate under the Ayyūbids and the Mamlūks. During the Ayyūbid period (1171–1250) it was transformed into a dynastic post and remained in the hands of Maimonides’ descendants for over two centuries.74 And though it had been in use earlier in Spain and Tunisia, it was only in this period that the Hebrew title nagid came to function as the regular Hebrew designation for the Egyptian raʾīs al-yahūd. Toward the end of the Mamlūk period (1250–1517), a number of other changes become evident as well. Scholars have observed, for instance, that in these years negidim evinced an increasingly autocratic style of rule, a development that has been seen against the background of generally worsening conditions for Jewish life in these centuries and as a reaction to threats to the stability of the Jewish community. It has further been suggested that these changes may have been encouraged by the example of the governing style of the Mamlūk rulers. A sign of the office’s more centralized power in this period is evidence that the negidim maintained a prison for punishing offenders. (A Jewish traveler from Italy who visited Egypt in the last decades of the fifteenth century avers that they also had the right to impose capital punishment, though that is almost certainly an exaggeration.) The scope of the office was also expanded at this point to include Karaites and Samaritans in addition to

74

On the Maimonidean dynasty, see Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Maimonidean Dynasty: Between Conservatism and Revolution,” in Jay Harris, ed., Maimonides after 800 Years: Essays on Maimonides and His Influence (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 1 17.

jewish religious and communal organization 479 Rabbanite Jews. With the Ottomans’ conquest of Egypt in 1517, the office was discontinued.75

local communities One of the most significant areas illuminated by the Genizah documents is the organization and operation of local Jewish communities, as we have already had occasion to observe. The various terms and formulations that are used to convey the idea of the local community indicate that it was a significant concept in the minds of medieval men and women even if there is no evidence that it had a clearly defined legal status. As we have already noted, local leaders – most often referred to in the Genizah by the term muqaddam – were appointed either by the gaon or the territorial head and were confirmed in their office by the Muslim authorities. But they also needed the consent of the local population, something that was not always readily forthcoming. In the letter to the Jewish community of Alexandria mentioned earlier Solomon b. Judah addresses recent complaints about the yeshiva’s representative in that town, emphasizing that he would never appoint someone against the community’s will. While it is true that he managed to override the community’s grumblings, he nonetheless felt obliged to pay lip service to its right of refusal. In other cases we find appointees who were either refused recognition by the local community or ousted from their post.76 The most important function of the muqaddam was to preside over the local court. In sizable towns, the appointed head typically had some formal legal training and had gained previous experience as a lower judge before attaining his post. Often, his jurisdiction would cover a number of nearby villages as well. In smaller communities, the leader was usually a lower functionary such as a cantor who often had little expertise in legal matters. Genizah letters from the Jewish authorities in Fustāt to such officials occasionally reveal glaring errors in the application _of_ Jewish law. The correspondence of a leader of the town al-Mahalla provides a view of some _ of the other roles these officials might be called upon to fill, including 75

76

For an overview of the nagidate during the Mamlūk period, see E. Strauss (Ashtor), Toledot ha yehudim be Misrayim ve Suria tahat shilton ha Mamlūkim, 3 vols (Jerusalem, _ _ 1944 70), 1:298 304, 2:237_ 58. For more focused studies, see Mark R. Cohen, “Jews in the Mamlūk Environment: The Crisis of 1442 (A Geniza Study),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43 (1984), 425 48; and Marina Rustow, “At the Limits of Communal Autonomy: Jewish Bids for Intervention from the Mamluk State,” Mamlūk Studies Review 8 (2009), 133 59. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:56, 66, 71 72.

480 arnold e. franklin maintaining peace among the members of the community; representing it before the local Muslim authorities; ruling on matters of religious and ritual law; and teaching adults and children. Local leaders also assisted government officials in levying the poll tax.77 In exchange for his services the muqaddam was paid a salary that was drawn from the communal chest. Large towns like Fustāt, Alexandria, and Ramle usually comprised three _ _ distinct Jewish congregations: one for the Babylonians, one for the Palestinians, and one for the Karaites. In the period of the Genizah, membership in a particular congregation was as much a function of personal taste as it was an expression of family tradition, and individuals are frequently found switching allegiances from one congregation to another. Each of the congregations maintained its own synagogue and staff, and in certain respects operated independently of one another. A number of Genizah sources, for instance, describe competition between the Palestinian and Babylonian congregations in Fustāt for members. _ _ also made by Small donations – especially of religious objects – were individuals to specific synagogues. In other respects, however, the various congregations – Rabbanite and Karaite – joined forces to form a single civic entity. Most of the social services provided by the local community, for instance, including the salaries of officials, were paid for out of a collective fund. The synagogue building served not only as the site of religious worship; it was also the principal gathering place for the community. It was the seat of the local court, the place where collections for charitable causes were made and where various levels of public instruction were provided.78 It was also customary to read written communications from the territorial and central leaders publicly in the synagogue. Two of the most important positions in the synagogue’s personnel were that of cantor (hazan) and beadle (khādim). The cantor was in charge of conducting _the prayer services, while the beadle was responsible for taking care of the synagogue premises and assisting with the various communal activities that went on inside. Perhaps because of the special skills it required – Genizah sources indicate that individuals studied in order to become cantors – sons frequently inherited the position from their fathers. Both cantors and beadles were salaried functionaries, who were paid from the collective funds of the community. 77 78

Ibid., 72. On the synagogue building, see Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Medieval Period: The Tenth to the Fourteenth Centuries,” in Phyllis Lambert, Johan Bellaert, and Richard Paré, eds., Fortifications and the Synagogue: The Fortress of Babylon and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo (Montreal, 2001), 201ff.

jewish religious and communal organization 481 The officials most commonly encountered in the Genizah sources are the parnasim (sing. parnas). These were low-level functionaries whose main responsibilities were overseeing the communal property – usually called the qodesh in Hebrew or the ahbās al-yahūd in Arabic – and _ funded through its income.79 administering the social services that were The position was largely an honorary one: parnasim do not seem to have received a regular salary for their work – most came from the upper middle class – and the office was often passed down from father to son. Care for the needy took a variety of forms: the weekly distribution of bread on Tuesdays and Fridays, the distribution of clothing, the subsidization of housing, and assistance to those who had difficulty paying the poll tax. Particular importance was attached to the redemption of captives, by far the most costly demand imposed on Jewish society and one that almost always required close coordination among several communities. Communal funds were also used to pay for the education of orphans and the children of the poor as well as for medicines for the sick. Surveying the impressive range of services that were supported, Cohen has suggested that such charitable activities served as “one of the most important social agglutinates of the autonomous Jewish community in the Islamic world.”80 On the basis of Genizah materials relating to the city of Alexandria between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, Miriam Frenkel has tried to look beyond such formal institutions of authority to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of how power was understood, accrued, and implemented in Jewish communities in the medieval Islamic world. Focusing on the biographies of fifteen prominent communal figures, Frenkel arrives at the important conclusion that power in the Mediterranean port city was not restricted to a single leader, but rather was distributed in more diffuse fashion among a broader class of individuals. This group, she argues, shared a set of social, economic, and cultural concerns that simultaneously linked it to Jewish elites in other communities and set it apart from the rest of Alexandria’s Jewish community. Particularly noteworthy is her observation that communal functions served, among other things, as a means of reinforcing the unique status of the elite.81 79

80

81

On the qodesh, see Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden, 1976). Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, 2005), 70. Miriam Frenkel, “The Compassionate and the Benevolent”: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006).

482 arnold e. franklin Prior to the discovery of the Genizah, attempts to sketch the communal organization of medieval Jewish society in the Near East were largely shaped by the need to explain the apparent triumph by the period’s close of the Babylonian gaonate and its traditions. The resulting image was of a community that was rigidly pyramidal in structure, with autocratic geonim enjoying far-reaching powers and uncontested authority. The Genizah has not only added additional layers to this structure; it has demonstrated that they were interrelated in far more complex ways than was once recognized. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bareket, Elinoar. Fustat on the Nile: The Jewish Elite in Medieval Egypt (Leiden, 1999). Ben-Sasson, Menahem. “Varieties of Inter-communal Relations in the Geonic Period,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity (Leiden, 1995), 17–31. The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World: Qayrawan, 800–1057 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1996). “Religious Leadership in Islamic Lands: Forms of Leadership and Sources of Authority,” in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Jewish Religious Leadership: Image and Reality (New York, 2004), vol. 1, 177–209. Cohen, Mark R. Jewish Self-government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of the Head of the Jews of Egypt, ca. 1065–1126 (Princeton, 1980). “Jews in the Mamlūk Environment: The Crisis of 1442 (A Geniza Study),” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43 (1984), 425–48. “Jewish Communal Organization in Medieval Egypt: Research, Results and Prospects,” in Norman Golb, ed., Judaeo-Arabic Studies: Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for JudaeoArabic Studies (Reading, UK, 1997), 17–31. Franklin, Arnold E. “Jewish Communal History in Geniza Scholarship: Part 2, Goitein’s Successors,” Jewish History 32 (2019), 143–59. Frenkel, Miriam. “The Compassionate and Benevolent”: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006). Frenkel, Miriam, and Moshe Yagur. “Jewish Communal History in Geniza Scholarship: Part 1, From Early Beginnings to Goitein’s Magnum Opus,” Jewish History 32 (2019), 131–42. Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992).

jewish religious and communal organization 483 Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004). Rustow, Marina. Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008). “At the Limits of Communal Autonomy: Jewish Bids for Intervention from the Mamluk State,” Mamlūk Studies Review 8 (2009), 133–59. “The Genizah and Jewish Communal History,” in Ben M. Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, eds., “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2010), 289–317.

chapter 14

SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION moshe sokolow

Education in general can be characterized as the interactions among four “commonplaces,” that is, four factors that are usually present in educational situations and enterprises: the learner, the instructor, the milieu, and the subject matter.1 It is our intention here to marshal the sources that illuminate the assumptions that Jewish communities and individuals living in the medieval Islamic world made about these factors. While Jewish society and, hence, education in the earlier part of the Middle Ages, corresponding to the geonic period (c. 640–1040) and the Umayyad and ʿAbbāsid caliphates, was largely centralized and homogeneous – mirroring Islamic rule and society – the latter period ushered in significant differences influenced by geographical, cultural, political, and social conditions.2 THE SOURCES

The principal source of information regarding the affairs of Jews under Islamic rule is the Cairo Genizah. Many of the sources pertaining to education have been distilled through the magisterial labors of S. D. Goitein, who once served as a senior education official in the government of the nascent State of Israel and had a vested and sustained interest in the subject. His contributions in this regard consist of a comprehensive survey published in A Mediterranean Society,3 a collection of documents published 1 2

3

Joseph Schwab, Science, Curriculum and Liberal Education (Chicago, 1978), 365. See Educational Encyclopedia (Jerusalem, 1971). The Middle Ages are covered in volume 4, part 3 (169 263), with separate sections devoted to education in Islamic lands (211 28), Jewish education in the geonic era (228 41), and in Muslim Spain (241 51). S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 2:171 211. Goitein stipulated that in this survey he made a deliberate effort to “eliminate . . . the specifically Jewish aspects of education,” and, secondly, that while education in Egypt was the most representative of Genizah society, that of Spain or Ifrīqiya (North Africa) was implicitly superior (173).

484

schools and education 485 as Jewish Education in Muslim Countries, Based on Records from the Cairo Genizah,4 and a miscellany of additional sources published in the Gratz College Anniversary Volume.5 In education, as in just about every facet of Jewish life, some of our most informative sources are rabbinic responsa. In addition to those few questions that rabbis were asked directly about education, there are also references to educational practices in their other correspondence. However, it is often difficult to determine whether the practices about which rabbis were asked, or about which they volunteered information, were “descriptive” (actual) or “prescriptive” (theoretical) in nature. We shall attempt to maintain that distinction as often and as clearly as the sources allow. Literary sources of all kinds also suggest much about the educational practices of Jews during the Middle Ages, both directly and indirectly. The substantial and variegated literary output of medieval Jewish scholars is eloquent testimony to the nature (and success!) of their education. While it is rare for authors to acknowledge direct indebtedness to the educational system of which they were a product, it is possible to extrapolate from these works some conclusions regarding the pedagogical methods and curricula that produced their authors.6 Booklists from the Cairo Genizah, of which some 120 have been published,7 were prepared and kept by a variety of individuals and institutions between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, with two-thirds originating in either the twelfth or thirteenth centuries.8 Booklists were kept primarily by booksellers and by creditors who received books as pledges. As such, they cut across socioeconomic lines and afford us a reasonably representative glimpse of the educational practices and enterprises that produced the works they enumerate. For instance, the fact that 4

5

6

7

8

S. D. Goitein, Jewish Education in Muslim Countries, Based on Records from the Cairo Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1962). S. D. Goitein, “Side Lights on Jewish Education from the Cairo Genizah,” in Samuel T. Lachs and Isidore D. Passow, eds., Gratz College Anniversary Volume (Philadelphia, 1971), 83 110. A definitive anthology of pertinent literary sources and documents including the Genizah texts published prior to Goitein was compiled originally by Simha Assaf _ 4 vols. and revised recently by Shemuʾel Glick, Sources for the History of Jewish Education, [Hebrew] (New York, 2001). Nehemiah Allony, The Jewish Library in the Middle Ages: Book Lists from the Cairo Genizah [Hebrew], ed. Miriam Frenkel and Haggai Ben Shammai (Jerusalem, 2006). Moshe Sokolow, “Arabic Books in Jewish Libraries: The Evidence of Genizah Booklists,” in Marilyn Chiat and Kathryn Reyerson, eds., The Medieval Mediterranean: Cross cultural Contacts (St. Cloud, MN, 1988), 96. The percentages cited below are reported there as well.

486 moshe sokolow 2,000 of the total of 4,500 entries (45 percent) comprise works of halakhah (law) and midrash (hermeneutics and homiletics), and another 1,150 (25 percent) deal with the Bible and its exegesis, supports the conclusion we might have arrived at even without this evidence, that Jewish education was overwhelmingly focused on these highly traditional disciplines. On the other hand, the distribution of the remaining 30 percent of titles among religion and philosophy (3 percent), poetry and piyyut (9 percent), science and medicine (8 percent), grammar and linguistics (6 _percent), and history (2 percent) supports the inference that Jewish education in this age was also characterized by an openness to nontraditional – and not even distinctively Jewish! – disciplines as well. The linguistic distribution of the 2,500 individual titles appearing in the booklists (i.e., excluding titles of classical Jewish works such as the Bible and Talmud) is likewise instructive. About 1,400 (55 percent) are Hebrew and 1,100 (45 percent) are Arabic, suggesting that while Hebrew remained the principal language of Jewish learning and scholarship, most Jews were able to engage in both traditional and nontraditional studies in Arabic as well – many in Classical Arabic, and not only in Judeo-Arabic. (See, again, the literary evidence to be marshaled later.) EDUCATION: A SHARED RELIGIOUS CONCERN

To a significant extent, the nature of Jewish education in the medieval Muslim world was influenced by the fact that Jews shared with their Muslim hosts a perspective on education as the preparation of the young to assume the full weight and responsibility of membership in a religious community.9 Toward that common end, both Jews and Muslims strove to instill in their young the knowledge and worship of, and obedience to, God, an appreciation of and familiarity with ritual obligations, and a sense of camaraderie or brotherhood with coreligionists that required their equitable and compassionate treatment. In both cases, these requirements were to be met primarily through the knowledge of sacred Scripture – the Torah for Jews and Qurʾān for Muslims – along with its authoritative, traditional interpretation and application – the Oral Law for Jews and the hadīth and _ Sunna for Muslims.

9

Cf. Moshe Sokolow and Matthew L. N. Wilkinson: “Reclaiming the Common Sacred Ground of Jewish Muslim Experiences of Education,” in Josef Meri, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Muslim Jewish Relations (New York, 2016), 195 217.

schools and education 487 These mutual educational objectives and aspirations also account for the striking similarity – not the least, in terminology alone – between the Jewish concept of halakhah and Muslim sharīʿa. JEWISH EDUCATIONAL THEORY

While education, per se, was not recognized as a scholarly or literary discipline in the geonic era, the presence of educational institutions and practices presupposes the prior consideration of educational theory or theories. Such questions as the nature of children and their motivation, the qualities of effective instruction, and the choice of subject matter all had to be contemplated in advance of the development of schools and the production of scholarship. Consequently, we find the subject addressed either directly or indirectly. Indeed, the introduction to the Arabic translation of the Torah (tafsīr) of Seʿadyah Gaʾon contains a pedagogical observation on the nature of motivation worthy of such behaviorist psychologists as B. F. Skinner and Carl Rogers.10 When the Omniscient desired, in this Book, to instruct human beings and to direct them to His service and worship, [He utilized] three didactic approaches, each more important than the other. The first approach, which is the least significant, is to tell the object of instruction [i.e., man], “Do this, but don’t do that,” without revealing to him the purpose of the command or the prohibition, because the commander knows that the one so commanded will yet obey the instruction and be wary of the prohibition. The second approach is that, along with [reciting] the command and prohibition, he reveals to the one so commanded and prohibited the conse quences of his actions, telling him, “do this and obtain this reward, and do not do that lest you suffer this penalty.” This approach is more significant than the former because such a man can contemplate the benefits or repercussions of his actions.

10

The value of positive reinforcement has roots in the talmudic formulation “Out of insincere motives, sincerity will emerge” (mi tokh she lo lishmah, ba li shmah), and it is also contradicted by such statements as “Do not be as servants who serve a master in order to earn a reward” (al tihyu ka ʿavadim ha meshamshim et ha rav ʿal menat le qabel peras; Mishnah Avot 1:3). Maimonides’ attempt at reconciling the contradiction, situated in his commentary to the Mishnah in Avot and compared to Skinner, is featured in Michael E. Leshtz and Norman Stemmer: “Positive Reinforcement according to Maimonides the 12th Century Jewish Philosopher,” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 39, 3 (Fall 2006), 405 6.

488

moshe sokolow

The third approach is that, along with informing the one so commanded and prohibited the beneficial consequences of observance, he tells him about people who obeyed their instructions and were properly rewarded; and along with informing him of the severe penalties for disobedience, he tells him about people who intentionally transgressed those prohibitions and suffered the penalties. This approach is superior to the first two because actual experience becomes engraved upon the heart of the listener who then treats it as though he had witnessed it himself.11

By the eleventh century, however, education had gained disciplinary recognition – due, perhaps, to its prior acknowledgment in Islam.12 Accordingly, we find more explicit comments on educational theory in the works of Jewish commentators. One such author was Joseph ben Judah Ibn ʿAqnīn (1150–1220), who was born in Barcelona but fled the Almohad persecutions and lived from an early age in Fez,13 where he made the acquaintance of Maimonides. Ibn ʿAqnīn composed a comprehensive Arabic work of moral philosophy entitled Ṭibb al-Nufūs al-Salīma (Treatment for Healthy Souls). In chapter 27 of the Ṭibb, he laid out a detailed and comprehensive program of Jewish education.14 Of particular interest are the conditions that Ibn ʿAqnīn stipulated for successful teachers and students. The teacher must be perfectly certain of the subject he seeks to teach; he must practice what his knowledge mandates; his instruction must be offered free, without remuneration; he should treat his students as his children; he must direct them to the upright path and the authentic program (manāhij); in teaching, he should not be

11

12

13

14

Joseph Derenbourg, Oeuvres Complètes de R. Saadia ben Iosef al Fayyoumi (Paris, 1893), 1:1 2. Seʿadyah makes the identical point more concisely in the introduction to his commentary on Psalms: “There are some for whom command and prohibition are most effective; for others, the impending [promise of] reward or [threat of] retribution must [strengthen or] weaken their resolve. For yet others, the recounting of the stories of those who improved and succeeded, and those who were corrupt and perished, is the most compelling means of enforcing this lesson.” Moshe Sokolow, “Saadiah Gaon’s Prolegomenon to Psalms,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 61 (1984), 145. Cf. Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1970). See Joseph Tobi, “ha pereq ha shishi be tibb al nufūs le rav Yosef ibn ʿAqnin,” in Joseph _ in Judaism Dedicated to Rabbi Joseph Kafih Tobi, ed., le Rosh Yosef: Texts and Studies _ (Jerusalem, 1995), 311 42. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Hunt. 518 [Neubauer catalogue #1273], folio 106rff., cited in Moritz Gudemann, Die Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der abendlaen dischen Juden, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1880 88).

schools and education 489 hypercritical or impatient (alternatively, illiberal), but patient and generous; he must teach them according to the capacity of their intellects, gradually, one thing after another, until he promotes them to the highest level, which is the level of perfection. As for the student, the nine conditions he must meet are religious characteristics that promote purity and guard against impurity: his inner and outer qualities must be alike; he must pose questions without embarrassment, to purge himself of stubbornness and defer to the superior experience of his teacher; he must reduce his involvement in material concerns and acquire a profession prior to studying – it is also preferable for him to begin study before marriage to limit or eliminate distractions; he should study progressively, beginning with the fundamentals and moving in a graduated fashion to examine contradictions, doubts and obscurities; he should exert himself to study all the sciences and not be deterred by his lack of success in any particular facet thereof; he should utilize all his waking hours for study – of either science, religion, or to advance himself professionally, because “for this was man created”; he should engage in study for its own sake, rather than to promote an external goal (honor, wealth, reputation) and should make a lifelong commitment to it; he should be prepared, if necessary, to emigrate to advance his knowledge and to prefer teachers to books; and he should honor his teacher even above his parents and show him the proper respect, reverence, and devotion. These stipulations reflect the influence on Ibn ʿAqnīn of the Muslim thinker Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (1058–1111),15 whose own provisions for effective education are formulated in Ihyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn (Revival of the _ conduct in the everyday life of Religious Sciences), a “major work on ethical 16 Muslims,” whose influence on Maimonides’ “Book of Knowledge” (Sefer ha-Madaʿ) from his Mishneh Torah has been established in convincing detail.17 Six of the stipulations covering teachers are shared by Ghazālī and Ibn ʿAqnīn, as are four regarding the student. While most of the correspondences can be attributed to their common observation of human nature, the requirement of a teacher to provide instruction without

15

16 17

Cf. Avner Giladi: “Islamic Educational Theories in the Middle Ages: Some Methodological Notes with Special Reference to al Ghazali,” Bulletin of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies 14, 1 (1987), 3 10. Frank Griffel, Al Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology (Oxford, 2009), 215. Franz Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant (Leiden, 1970), 95 96; Steven Harvey: “Al Ghazali and Maimonides and Their Books of Knowledge,” in Jay M. Harris, ed., Beʾerot Yishaq: Studies in Memory of Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 115ff.

490 moshe sokolow 18 remuneration might reflect a mutual religious tradition with its origin in the Talmud.19 SUBJECT MATTER: THE CURRICULUM

Among Muslims, the elementary curriculum had a pronounced religious character, consisting mainly of learning the Qurʾān and the fundamentals of religion, reading, and writing, and – occasionally – the rudiments of poetry, grammar, narration, and arithmetic, with some attention being devoted to moral instruction. The higher curriculum during the first centuries of Islam was purely religious and included the sciences of Qurʾān commentary (tafsīr), prophetic traditions (hadīth), law (fiqh), and _ to aid in their study, dialectical theology (kalām), and disciplines designed such as linguistics, literature, and poetry, as well as branches of knowledge that had developed in the margins of the religious sciences, such as the narratives of the military campaigns of the Prophet and subsequent Islamic history. As Islamic civilization assimilated Greek science, there arose alongside the Islamic curriculum a parallel curriculum that also included philosophy and science (mathematics, logic, medicine, astronomy, natural sciences, etc.). Ghazālī, whose influence on Ibn ʿAqnīn has already been noted, distinguished clearly between two types of curriculum: obligatory sciences, including the religious sciences and related or ancillary disciplines such as linguistics and literature, which must be studied by everyone; and optional sciences, which are studied according to the wishes and capacities of the student. These are in turn divided into four revealed sciences: (1) the fundamentals (usūl) – the Qurʾān, the example of the Prophet and his _ Companions (sunna), the consensus of religious authorities (ijmāʿ), and the teachings of the Companions of the Prophet (hadīth); (2) the branches (fiqh and ethics); (3) methods (linguistics and _grammar); and (4) the accessories (reading, tafsīr, the sources of fiqh, annals, and genealogy), and the non-revealed (i.e., rational) sciences: medicine, mathematics, poetry, and history.

18

19

Ghazālī explicitly commends this practice as that of the “law giver,” i.e., Muhammad. _ According to Arthur S. Tritton, Materials on Muslim Education in the Middle Ages (London, 1957), 10n1: “Presumably this began with the Koran because it was a duty and a privilege to teach the holy book to those ignorant of it so no question of payment could arise . . . The phrases: ‘he took no pay for teaching the Koran’, and: ‘he took no pay for teaching’, occur frequently in biographies.” Babylonian Talmud, Nedarim 36b.

schools and education 491 Ibn ʿAqnīn’s recommended sequence of studies appears to mirror both the division and progression of Ghazālī:20 reading, writing, Torah, Mishnah, Hebrew grammar, poetry, Talmud, philosophy of religion, logic, arithmetic, geometry, optics, astronomy, music, mechanics, medicine, and metaphysics.21 A more comprehensive treatment of education – indeed, the most wideranging in medieval Jewish literature – is offered by Maimonides (1138–1204).22 His most succinct statement on education is contained in his Book of the Commandments and found its subsequent elaboration in his Code, the Mishneh Torah (see below): The 11th positive commandment requires us to teach Torah wisdom and to study it,23 this being known as Torah instruction [talmud torah]. [The Torah] states: “You shall teach them diligently to your children,” and the Sifrei explains: “[Children] refers to one’s students . . . ‘Diligently’ means that they shall be incisive in your mouth; if someone questions you, do not stammer but reply immediately.”24 20

21

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24

The pertinent passage from Tibb al Nufūs appears in an English translation in Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands (Philadelphia, 1979), 226 28. In a typically pragmatic fashion, the noted Muslim author al Jāhiz (781 868) wrote: _ _ arithmetic, and “The first duty of fathers to their sons is to teach them writing, swimming. Teach my son swimming before writing; he can always find someone to write for him but not someone to swim for him” (Kitāb al Bayān wa al Tabyīn [The book of eloquence and exposition], 2:92), cited by Tritton, Materials, 2 3. The Talmud noted, similarly, that a father is obliged to teach his son to swim (Babylonian Talmud, Qiddushin 29a). Cf. Joseph Stern, “Maimonides on Education,” in Amèlie Oksenberg Rorty, ed., Philosophers on Education (New York, 1998), 109 23; Isadore Twersky, “What Must a Jew Study and Why?” in Seymour Fox, ed., Visions of Jewish Education (Cambridge, 2003), 47ff. I have followed the Arabic text, which clearly places “teach” prior to “study.” This precedence is supported by the proof text (“teach them diligently”) and is the sequence actually followed by Maimonides in his Laws of Torah Instruction, where the rules of teaching precede those of study. The standard Hebrew versions, however, place “study” first, possibly misreading the initial lelammed as lilmod, under the influence of the well known liturgical formulation: lishmoʿa, lilmod u lelammed, lishmor ve laʿasot u leqayyem (to hear, to study, and teach, to observe, practice, and fulfill). Josef Qafih, ed. and trans., Sefer Ha Misvot shel ha RaMBaM, Arabic original and _ _ Hebrew translation (Jerusalem, 1971), 65. Although Qafih (note 47) apologized for his rendition of “[Torah] wisdom” (Arabic, ʿilm; Hebrew,_ hokhma), noting that Ibn Tibbon’s translation omits it, its use is consistent with Maimonides’ later incorporation of “The Laws of Torah Instruction” into the very first section of the “Code”: “The Book of Knowledge” [Hebrew, Sefer ha Madaʿ], which mimics the title of the very first part of Ghazālī’s Ihyāʾ ʿUlūm al Dīn: Kitāb al ʿIlm (Book of Knowledge). As Franz Rosenthal noted: “It is_ obvious that his ‘Book of Knowledge,’ occurring as it does at the beginning of the Law Code, owes its title, its being, and its place, to the attitude of Muslim

492 moshe sokolow Maimonides clearly delineated education as a religious obligation whose fulfillment requires both teaching and study. In his Code, Maimonides devoted an entire section of the Book of Knowledge (Sefer ha-Madaʿ) – whose affinity to Ghazālī we observed above – to “The Laws of Torah Instruction” (Hilkhot Talmud Torah). While too prolix and detailed to summarize – the section contains seven chapters comprising eighty-two individual laws – the following is a representative selection: Every Jew, regardless of physical, social or economic condition, is obligated to study Torah throughout his life [just as] the Sages of yore combined Torah study with manual vocations . . . One is obligated to divide his study time into thirds: one third to the Written Law; one third to the Oral Law; and one third to rational comprehension via deductive reasoning, inference, comparison and Biblical hermeneutics, in order to understand the essence of the hermeneutic principles and how to utilize them in ruling on prohibition or sanction or other such matters that are learned via tradition. This [final third] is known as gemara.25 . . . This applies to one’s elementary education. When he grows intellectually, however, and has no need either to study the Written Law or to deal continually with the Oral Law, let him read the Written Law and the Tradition periodically lest he forget matters of [explicit] Torah law and devote all of [the balance of] his time exclusively to gemara according to his breadth of comprehension and intelligence.26

This passage encapsulates Maimonides’ view of what contemporary educational scholarship calls the formulation of educational objectives in the cognitive domain.27 THE SEVEN SCIENCES

From the thirteenth century onward, the prescribed curriculum among Jews (as well as among Christians) comprised the “seven sciences” (shevaʿ

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26 27

civilization toward ‘knowledge’ and the trends and developments described in this chapter” (Rosenthal, Knowledge Triumphant, 96.) Other (and more reliable) editions read here “Talmud.” On the consequences of this variant, cf. Twersky, Visions, 53; and Ralph Lerner, Maimonides’ Empire of Light (Chicago, 2000), 30, vs. Stern, “Maimonides on Education,” 113. Maimonides, Sefer ha Madaʿ, 1:8 12. Benjamin S. Bloom, ed., Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals (New York, 1956 64). “Gemara,” a studiously ambivalent term, can be either synonymous with Talmud, referring to a specific corpus of literature, or a common Aramaic noun meaning comprehensiveness. If the former, its use here by Maimonides would correspond to the lower taxonomic levels of knowledge and com prehension; if the latter, to the higher levels of synthesis and evaluation.

schools and education 493 hokhmot). Classically, these were divided into a “trivium” of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and a “quadrivium” of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, and are reflected in the works of Jewish authors including Shem-Ṭov b. Joseph Falaquera (d. after 1290) (especially in ha-Mevaqqesh, about a young man’s quest for knowledge); Joseph Ezobi (c. 1250) (in his didactic poem Qaʿarat Kesef); and Profayt Duran of Catalonia (c. 1350) (in the introduction to his grammatical work Maʿaseh Efod).28 Judah b. Samuel Ibn ʿAbbas, scion of a notable family of philosophers and liturgical poets, offered the following curricular advice in Yaʾir Nativ, a work of moral and religious instruction he composed in Spain around 1250:29 Between ages three and three and a half, children should begin learning the Hebrew alphabet and vowel signs. At four and a half, they should learn biblical accentuation (teʿamim) and practice with verses from each week’s Torah reading, increasing the _quantity weekly until they can read the entire portion. They should also begin translating into the vernacular to enhance comprehension. At five and a half, they should begin learning the Aramaic version of the Torah (also a prerequisite for later Talmud study); the Former Prophets, with translation into the vernacular, followed by the Later Prophets and Hagiographa; and penman ship. They should do all this for a period of seven and a half years. At age thirteen, they should begin studying grammar, linguistics, and Talmud, exclusively with the commentary of Rashi, since all other commentaries constitute “a waste of time.” Since the objective of Talmud study is “to understand the commandments and the practical applications of the law,” special attention should be paid to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah.

The balance of this section contains the curricula to be followed until age twenty-eight, and recommends the study of various works of philosophy, including Ibn ʿAqnīn’s Ṭibb, and works of biblical exegesis, particularly those of Rashi and Abraham Ibn Ezra, followed by forays into “secular” disciplines such as medicine (works by Maimonides, Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Rushd, and Galen); mathematics (Ibn Ezra, Abraham Bar Ḥiyya, and alKhwārizmī); logic and rhetoric (Aristotle, Ibn Rushd); astrology (Ptolemy, Ibn Rushd); engineering, optics, music, and mechanics. From 28

29

Jewish education in Italy in the thirteenth century exhibited pronounced similarities to the above, due, in part, to the influence of émigré scholars, including Jacob b. Abba Mari Anatolio of Provence; Zerahiah b. Isaac of Barcelona; Kalonymus b. Kalonymus of Provence; and such native Italian Jews as Judah b. Moses and the poet Immanuel of Rome, who also stimulated interest in the “alien sciences” and in the scientific treatment of Jewish literature. See Dov Rappel, Shevaʿ ha Hokhmot: ha vikuah ʿal limudei hol be _ sifrut ha hinukh ha yehudit ʿad reshit ha haskala (Jerusalem, 1990). _ _ The educational advice was published by Moritz Gudemann in Jüdisches Unterrichtswesen Während der Spanisch Arabischen Periode (Vienna, 1873), 58 62.

494 moshe sokolow ages twenty-eight through forty, one should study the natural sciences. At forty, “one should withdraw from all worldly affairs” and study metaphysics (Aristotle with the commentaries of Ibn Rushd), reviewing one’s studies repeatedly, with the evenings reserved for ongoing Torah study. However, the systematic, methodical, and comprehensive nature of educational theory is often belied (then as now!) by the pedagogical facts on the ground. Many Jewish communities (particularly those of the Muslim East), which operated under different social, economic, and cultural conditions, tended toward a more conservative, “perennialist,” approach to education, emphasizing the basic skills of memorization and recitation while focusing on the traditional curriculum of the Written and Oral Laws. JEWISH EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE

Elementary education in the Middle Ages continued the talmudic tradition of universal, public education – for boys.30 Until the age of six, children were attached to their mothers;31 thereafter, their education became the responsibility of their fathers, who entrusted them to the care of teachers, who began their training to fill the roles that they would assume upon reaching adulthood, particularly their participation in the synagogue service. Tuition was usually half a silver dirham per child per week,32 at a time (eleventh to twelfth centuries) that the daily wage of a manual laborer was five to six dirhams.33 Parents paid tuition directly to the teacher, usually on Thursdays,34 with the fees for poor and orphaned children paid by the community. Initially, those children were taught separately, but over time (certainly by the thirteenth century) they were “integrated” into the regular

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Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 21a: “R. Joshua ben Gamla [d. 69 ce] is to be remembered fondly because without him Torah would have been forgotten from Israel . . . [He] enacted that teachers should be established in each and every city and that studies should begin at age 6 or 7.” Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 119b: “The world endures only on account of the breath of schoolchildren . . . One may not interrupt the study of schoolchildren even to build the Temple.” Cf. Maimonides, Laws of Torah Study, 2:1 2. Goitein, Jewish Education, #22. Goitein, Side Lights, cites several sources to this effect (e.g., #11, 12). Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:94ff. Probably to facilitate teachers’ preparations for Sabbath, they came to be known, colloquially, as khamīs al kuttāb (Thursday school fees). Cf. Goitein, Jewish Education, 106.

schools and education 495 classes, more on account of financial considerations than pedagogical ones.35 A Genizah booklist of this era lists the titles of several biblical books (Psalms and the Five Megillot enjoyed particular popularity) that were distributed by a teacher to his students to either read from or to copy over. The list is followed by an accounting of the wages due the teacher from parents or the communal coffers.36 As codified by Maimonides37 and reflected in other sources, an individual teacher could teach up to twenty-five pupils unassisted, and, with an aide, up to forty, with twenty dirhams serving as an average weekly salary. Teachers, then, earned less than manual laborers who presumably worked six days a week at a daily wage of five to six dirhams and had no need to compensate an aide. Although teachers received “bonuses,” usually on Hanukkah, no fees were collected during the vacations, sometimes forcing teachers into debt and even poverty. But as Goitein comments, “teaching was regarded as a comparatively sure and independent source of income, and the records that express or exemplify this fact are more numerous . . . than the complaints registered.”38 Classes were held in private quarters – either those of the teacher or of prosperous parents – with the use of the synagogue (or an annex) reserved for a teacher who had earned public approbation. In Qayrawān, the study hall (beit midrash) also served as a synagogue.39 An oft-quoted ruling of Hayya Gaʾon (939–1038) permitted instruction in Arabic calligraphy and arithmetic alongside Torah studies – even in the synagogue – and sanctioned providing such instruction there to non-Jewish children as well.40 The extent to which the latter situation was prevalent cannot be determined; that it existed at all is eloquent testimony to what has been termed the Judeo-Arabic “symbiosis.” Given the prominence that Scripture plays in the synagogue service, the major focus of public primary education was on its reading and recitation. Comprehension, along with religious and moral instruction in general, was left to the exercise of individual parental prerogative. The evidence of Genizah booklists indicates that even the weekly prophetic lection (haftarah) was read from unvocalized and unpunctuated texts, _ 35

36 38 39

40

Goitein (Mediterranean Society, 2:186) notes that the epithet “teacher of the orphans” was a badge of honor and was appended to signatures on documents. 37 Allony, Jewish Library, 290 91. Maimonides, Laws of Torah Study, 2:5. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:188 89. Menahem Ben Sasson, Semihat ha qehilla ha yehudit be arsot ha islam: Qayrwān 800 _ 1057 (Jerusalem, 1996), 191ff. _ Cited by Rabbi Judah of Barcelona, Sefer ha ʿIttim (Krakow, 1902), 256. Writing in Arabic and, certainly, Arabic calligraphy was pursued primarily for professional reasons e.g., clerking and was usually reserved for “higher” education.

496 moshe sokolow presupposing an advanced facility with Hebrew.41 In some communities, public Torah and haftarah recitations were accompanied by reading the _ Aramaic Targum,42 which would also have required extensive preparation. (The custom persists today almost exclusively among Jews of Yemenite descent.) Teachers would provide their pupils with the texts they were to study; the sharing of such books as were available sometimes led to children learning to read upside down or sideways.43 Class exercise booklets discovered in the Genizah44 indicate that Hebrew reading was learned through the phonetic method45 and an Egyptian responsum of the early twelfth century roundly rejected a maverick teacher’s attempt to introduce a form of “whole language” instruction: You also mentioned that a teacher in your place instructs the boys without [first teaching them] the alphabet and the vowel signs. This is by no means permissible, for the alphabet and the vowel signs are the basis of all teaching; through the alphabet, God has given us His message; through it, the pupils get a firm grounding; and on it, everything rests. Indeed, reading with a boy without first teaching him the alphabet and the vowel signs is of no avail and of no use. Therefore, if the facts are as you reported, please instruct that teacher to act according to this letter and to teach methodically, if he wants to be a teacher of Jewish children. Please act on all points dealt with in this letter in a way which will justify you before God, and report back about any action taken. May your welfare and that of the community increase and never decrease, etc.46

INSTRUCTION

Teachers had no training per se; nor was there any form of licensure (such as existed in the Islamic world).47 Instruction was mainly by rote repetition 41 43

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42 Allony, Jewish Library, 296 l. 23; 300 ll. 14 17. Ibid., 296 l. 16; 299 l. 11. This situation like many aspects of medieval Jewish education persisted into the modern period in Yemen, and is attested in memoirs of Yemenite Jews. Cf. Yosef Qafih, _ Halikhot Teiman (Jerusalem, 1969), 49 55. See Judith Olszowy Schlanger: “Learning to Read and Write in Medieval Egypt,” Journal of Semitic Studies 48, 1 (2003), 47 69. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:178 79. Since character recognition was primarily for purposes of reading, writing in Hebrew was not ordinarily part of an elementary education. Goitein, Side Lights, #10 (93 94). The responder is Rabbi Isaac b. Samuel “the Spaniard,” who served as a judge in Fustāt c. 1099 1127. _ _ became standard in the Islamic world Ijāza, permission or certification to teach, beginning in the ninth century. Cf. George Makdisi, “Madrasa and University in the Middle Ages,” Studia Islamica 32 (1970), 260; George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges:

schools and education 497 and memorization. Corporal punishment was considered “the only way some children will learn”48 and justified on talmudic precedent.49 In contrast to the disdain with which teachers were generally regarded in both classical Rome and the early Islamic world, the Jewish teacher in the medieval Islamic orbit enjoyed greater respect, as witnessed by the use of “the teacher” (Hebrew, ha-melammed; Arabic, al-muʿallim) as an epithet frequently appended to signatures on Genizah documents.50 Elementary instruction focused on preparing children for participation in the synagogue rites. Although this meant that girls did not receive instruction, their overall education – as was typical in the medieval Islamic world – was not entirely neglected. Girls were educated at home by their mothers, and, as financial circumstances allowed, they received supplementary lessons from tutors.51 An autograph responsum by Maimonides, for instance, cites the case of a blind teacher of girls who taught them prayer and whose students refused to be taught by anyone else.52 Another of his responsa deals with a woman “knowledgeable in Scripture” who taught (male) children the Bible in order “to make ends meet.”53 The language of instruction in this particular case and, presumably, throughout the orbit of Islam was Arabic. HIGHER EDUCATION

The formal education of most boys concluded at the elementary level. At the age of thirteen, students attained their religious maturity and assumed

48

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50 51 52 53

Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1981), 270ff. While Makdisi compared the Islamic ijāza to the subsequent Christian licentia docendi, he neglected to cite the talmudic precedent of the license to rule individually in matters of civil law, Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 5a. Robert Brody, ed., Teshuvot Rav Natronai Gaʾon (Jerusalem, 1994), #256. Cf. Goitein, _ Side Lights, 90, #7a. Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 21a: “When striking a child, only a shoelace may be used.” It is codified this way by Maimonides, Laws of Torah Study, 2:2. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:190. Ibid., 183 85; Goitein, Jewish Education, 223 27. Maimonides, Teshuvot ha Rambam, ed. Joshua Blau (Jerusalem, 1958 61), #276. Ibid., #34. The petitioner stipulates, inter alia, that were the woman to interrupt her career “for even a day,” she would be unable to resume it because the fathers would take their sons elsewhere. If taken literally, this reflects either a highly competitive educational sellers’ market, or a parent body exceptionally devoted to fulfilling its pedagogical obligations. Goitein (Mediterranean Society, 2:186 87) discusses competition among teachers. For an in depth discussion of this responsum, see Reneé Levine Melammed, “He Said, She Said: A Woman Teacher in Twelfth Century Cairo,” AJS Review 22, 1 (1997), 19 35.

498 moshe sokolow the public and private roles assigned to them.54 Secondary education, as we know it, was unknown. For a minority of people, however, an advanced education was available in the academies (yeshivot) whose venerable pedigrees extended back to the talmudic era. Our knowledge of the curriculum and pedagogy of the geonic academies derives from the first-hand account of Nathan the Babylonian,55 who recorded his observations and impressions of the academies in Baghdad in the mid-tenth century.56 In addition to physical descriptions of the academies of Sura and Pumbedita, their personnel, and the pomp and circumstance that surrounded them,57 Nathan also detailed the order of study he witnessed there. The academies saw themselves as the successors of the eponymous institutions that existed during the Amoraic period (third to sixth centuries), and claimed to have functioned continuously, with only minor interruptions, since their establishment in the third century. By about 900, both academies had relocated to Baghdad, the political and intellectual capital of the Islamic world, thereby enhancing

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Miriam Frenkel, “Adolescence in Jewish Medieval Society under Islam,” Continuity and Change 16 (2001), 263 81, delineates adolescence as the (brief ) interim period during which a legally minor child has demonstrated the capacity for rational thought and bears the moral responsibility of an adult (ibid., 266). A much broader definition is used by Elliott Horowitz, “The Worlds of Jewish Youth in Europe, 1300 1800,” in Giovanni Levi and Jean Claude Schmitt, eds., A History of Young People in the West (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 1:85, who stipulates: “The age of thirty shall be regarded as the termination of youth, and the age of ten its onset . . . because these were the years of life in which one might be considered in practice no longer a mere child but not yet fully an adult.” Though he was called “the Babylonian,” he was from North Africa. Menahem Ben Sasson, “ha mivneh, ha megamot, ve ha tokhen shel hibbur r’ natan ha bavli,” in _ Menahem Ben Sasson, Robert Bonfil, and Joseph Hacker, eds., Tarbut ve hevra be _ toledot yisraʾel bi mei ha benayim (Jerusalem, 1989), 158. Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998), cautions that Nathan appears “not to have had any profound acquaintance” with the academy’s workings (ibid., 43). A Hebrew version of the original Arabic report was published by Adolph Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles (Amsterdam, 1970), 2:87 88. The yeshiva of Sura had an annex known as beit rabbenu shel Bavel, which refers to an actual synagogue that was identified with one reportedly established by the Amora Rav in the third century. It, too, moved to Baghdad while retaining its original name. During the second half of the ninth century, there also existed an academy established by the exilarch, who served as the nominal gaon, while the actual talmudic authority was vested in the av beit din. Brody (Geonim of Babylonia, 42) maintains that many of the references in this period to the two yeshivot are actually to Sura and the exilarchic yeshiva rather than to Sura and Pumbedita.

schools and education 499 Jews’ relationships with Muslim authorities and increasing their exposure to new and modern ideas.58 The head of the academy (Aramaic, reish metivta; Hebrew, rosh yeshiva) bore the title gaon (“pride,” an abbreviation of rosh yeshivat geʾon yaʿaqov).59 He was assisted by an av beit din (chief justice) and a number of lesser authorities called allufim (masters) or rashei kalla (heads of rows).60 These constituted a total of seventy senior members of the academy corresponding to the number of members of the ancient Sanhedrin. The honorific title haver (associate) was bestowed upon learned members of _ outlying communities that supported the academies and was “eagerly sought after” as a status symbol.61 The number of “regular” students, who attended primarily during the kallah (plenary) months of Adar (early spring) and Elul (late summer), is put by Nathan at about 400. The academies were also served by tannaim (reporters), who had committed to memory vast quantities of oral texts of the first, second, and early third centuries. Their expertise was sought when questions of a textual nature arose. There were also amoraim who were, analogously, experts in talmudic recitation.62 A scribe called the sofer ha-yeshiva took the gaon’s dictation and wrote his responsa.63 These methods of education changed over time, and particularly with the urbanization of the world’s largest and most preeminent Jewish community in the eighth and ninth centuries. When the Jews forsook the agrarian society that so characterizes the folios of the Babylonian Talmud and relocated to the cities of Iran and Iraq, they transformed themselves into the merchant and banking classes that so distinguish the documents of the Cairo Genizah. This socioeconomic and cultural transformation left an indelible mark on Jewish education: a loss of leisure time led to the abandonment of the talmudic schema of equal attention to Bible, 58

59

60

61 62

63

Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 35ff. Also cf. Abraham Grossman, “ha yeshiva be vavel, be germaniya, u ve sarefat ba meot ha 10 11,” in Rebecca Paldahi and Immanuel Etqes, _ _ eds., Hinukh ve historiya (Jerusalem, 1999). The senior scholars of the academy selected one of their number as gaon. The choice would presumably have been based, in principle, on intellectual distinction and leader ship, but considerations of seniority and family alliances may well have played a part. See Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 53. In Sura, at least, the seventy senior scholars were seated ten to a row in seven rows, while in Pumbedita, they were all seated in three rows. The former is an indigenous Babylonian practice; the latter is Palestinian. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:172. Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 50. The comparable titles of mustamli and muʿidh are recorded in Muslim education; cf. Tritton, Materials, 35 37. As Goitein points out (Jewish Education, 145), the academies or, at least, Sura as per Nathan functioned more as high courts than as educational institutions.

500 moshe sokolow 64 Mishnah, and Talmud in favor of a preoccupation with the latter. The mid-ninth-century gaon Natronay b. Hilay explained this radical departure from earlier tradition in _a responsum: When poverty became widespread and scholars were forced to earn a living, they were unable to study all the time or to follow the tripartite curriculum [Bible, Mishnah, and Talmud], relying upon the adage: “All the rivers [Bible, Mishnah, and Ḥumash (alt: Midrash)] flow to the sea [Talmud].”65

Besides this major change in the curriculum the yeshivot followed, the structure of instruction still followed the outlines familiar from pre-Islamic Jewish sources. Nathan’s report distinguishes between the “permanent” body of seventy academy scholars and the hundreds of “visiting” students, in two principal respects: the former enjoyed set places and a stipend, and followed a fixed curriculum, studying the tractate designated for that term’s study;66 the latter had neither preset places nor a stipend, and followed a flexible curriculum. Not every tractate in the Babylonian Talmud was part of the academy’s curriculum, but it appears that whatever the choice was, it was studied in its entirety. During the month-long kallah plenum, the gaon would engage students and scholars in discussion of the tractate they had prepared. They would commence their recitation and he would intervene to clarify their questions and, eventually, indicate the decisive resolution. In the fourth and final week, he would interrogate them and test their intelligence, with the promise of promotion as a reward and the threat of a lower stipend as punishment. In the kallah of Adar, in particular, the gaon would involve the academy scholars in the production of responsa. Putting before them all the questions that had been submitted over the year, he would encourage them to air their own opinions and deliberate before providing his own definitive 64

65

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“One should divide his study time into three parts: one third Scripture, one third Mishnah and one third Talmud” (Babylonian Talmud, Qiddushin 30a). Natronay b. Hilay, Shaʿarei Teshuva (Leipzig, 1858), #55. This clarification comes _ apropos of his description of the daily procedures followed in the yeshiva. He stipulated that there were two groups of students who met daily after morning prayer: those who studied (only) Talmud, and those who committed texts to memory (i.e., the tannaim), who also occupied themselves with Mishnah, Midrash, and Tosefta. Elsewhere, Natronay recommended that additional leisure be created by arising before astronomical _ and dedicating time to study prior to morning services. Natronay b. Hilay, dawn _ Teshuvot ha geʾonim, ed. B. Musafia (Lyck, 1864), #87. While Nathan intimated that only one tractate was studied per kallah, Brody (Geonim of Babylonia, 44) marshals other geonic evidence that indicates that one tractate was studied superficially while another was studied in depth, and that several tractates may have been studied at home.

schools and education 501 answers, which were then recorded by the official scribe and returned to the petitioners. This, Nathan explained, was their custom each and every day until they replied to all the questions that had arrived that year from the Jewish communities. At the end of the month, they would proclaim all the responsa and all the questions in the presence of all the assembled and the rosh yeshivah would sign them and return them to the petitioners. Then he would distribute their funds.67

ORALITY VERSUS TEXTUALITY: YESHIVA AND MADRASA

Given the reliance of both religions on tradition, initially oral and, eventually, recorded, it is not surprising that both placed considerable emphasis on its memorization. The Talmud, for instance, stipulated that “One who repeats his lessons 100 times cannot be compared to one who repeats them 101 times” (Babylonian Talmud, Ḥagigah 9b) and regarded memorization as a necessary prerequisite to analysis and comprehension, stating “Let one memorize and then analyze” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 63a).68 In Islam, memorizing the Qurʾān was an educational necessity as well as a religious virtue. As reported in a hadīth: _

Whoever reads the Qurʾān, memorizes it, and acts upon it, on the Day of Judgment he will be clad [by angels] with a crown of light, its light like the sunlight, and his parents will be clad with two garments better than the whole world and whatever it contains. So they would ask in amazement “What did we do to deserve this?” they would be told “Because your son memorized the Qur’an.” (al Tirmidhī)

The questions of similarity and influence between the Jewish yeshiva and the Islamic madrasa (school of religious study) have formed the object of scholarly debate. Nevertheless, it is clear that both institutions valued memorization and engendered and encouraged a culture of “orality” (as opposed to “textuality”).69 A closer look at this predilection will provide a 67 68

69

Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, 88. This calls to mind an aphorism of Nasr al Dīn Tūsī: “Memorizing two words is better _ than hearing two pages but understanding two words is better than memorizing two pages” (Risāla 19r). Daphna Efrat and Yaakov Elman, “Orality and the Institutionalization of Tradition: The Growth of the Geonic Yeshiva and the Islamic Madrasa,” in Yaakov Elman and Israel Gershoni, eds., Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality, and Cultural Diffusion (New Haven, 2000), 107 37. One outstanding distinction they report is that

502 moshe sokolow significant insight into the self-perception of the geonim in their educational endeavors. The geonim themselves attributed the composition of the Talmud to the efforts of oral transmission. In his epistle to the Jewish community of Qayrawān, which had asked how the Mishnah and Talmud were written, Sherira b. Ḥananiah, gaon of Pumbedita (968–1004), wrote: The Talmud and Mishnah were not written, but rather composed, and the rabbis were careful to recite orally, but not from [written] copies, for we say, “Things that are oral, you may not say in writing,” and we say, “These you may write, but you may not write laws.”70

Robert Brody has characterized their position as follows: “For the Geonim and the members of their academies, up to the very end of the Geonic period, the Talmud remained literally in the category of Oral Torah.”71 Nonetheless, the earliest reduction of the Babylonian Talmud to writing dates to the eighth century, although the earliest datable fragments of the Talmud retrieved from the Genizah date to the eleventh. But the talmudic canon was a closed corpus much earlier, before the Amoraic study circles were transformed into the geonic academies in the seventh century.72 The geonim and the members of their academies were so persuaded of the superiority of their received oral traditions of the Talmud that they could not even countenance the possibility that it was in error. This contrasts starkly with the attitude of medieval rabbinic authorities in Europe – such as those of Franco-Germany – who approached the Talmud only as a written text and had less faith in its textual accuracy, and, consequently, were likely to offer emendations when confronted by difficulties in the text. To be sure, “orality” was also useful in maintaining the elite status of the academies – which were, in any case, closed and hierarchical – and their personnel.

70 71

72

Islamic law had certainly developed a strong book tradition by the time of the organiza tion of the famous Nizāmiyya madrasa in 1067. In contrast, “the geonic yeshivot struggled to maintain a _privileged position for orality while yielding to the demands of the book culture within which it found itself” (ibid., 109). Benjamin M. Lewin, ed., Iggeret Rav Sherira (Haifa, 1921), 71 72. Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 156; adding: “Geonic literature reflects, virtually without exception, the same recension of the Babylonian Talmud with which we are familiar” (ibid., 159). Brody cites a responsum of Aaron Sarjado, a later gaon of Pumbedita (943 60), to the same effect: “[Our yeshiva’s] version [of the Talmud] is from the mouths of the great ones . . . Most of the [members of the academy] do not know anything about a book” (ibid., 157). Efrat and Elman, “Orality and the Institutionalization of Tradition,” 110.

schools and education 503 Such were the practices of higher education in Iraq. Despite the affinity that Jewish education in Egypt, North Africa, and Spain displayed for that of the geonic center (illustrated in Sefer ha-Qabbalah [The Book of Tradition] by Abraham Ibn Daud, who had the academies of Fustāt, Qayrawān, and _ _ who were kidCórdoba established by scholars of the Baghdad academy napped and ransomed at these locations), the academies outside Iraq maintained some distinctive indigenous educational practices.73 Those of the Iberian Peninsula included a general absence of hereditary succession, which differed from the practice in Iraq (and Ashkenaz). The precedent for this was set by Isaac Alfasi (1013–1103), who selected Isaac Ibn Migash (1077–1141) to be his successor in Lucena over and above his own son, Jacob. Further, small schools met in public buildings, rather than private homes, and this greater degree of institutionalization influenced the relations between teachers and students, placing greater distance between them than prevailed in Ashkenaz.74 While in Ashkenaz, Torah scholars often served in communal roles as well, in Spain, as in the eastern Islamic world, secular functions were performed by the courtier class (Isaac al-Balia and Nahmanides being noteworthy exceptions). The courtier class also saw to it that_ the community paid the salaries of the heads of the academies, and while this provided them with the latitude to devote themselves entirely to their studies, it occasionally put them at a disadvantage, placing them under the thumb of the courtiers. Finally, Iberian scholars, true to the conservative ethic (noted above) with regard to the oral vs. written talmudic traditions, did not encourage their students to disagree with them and, in general, did not encourage their creativity to the extent that it was supported in Ashkenaz, where the existence of “multiple truths” was widely acknowledged and inculcated.75 The curriculum in the Iberian academies also displayed the influence of Babylonia and differed from those of Ashkenaz. While the latter concentrated on the exegesis of Talmud, Bible, and piyyut, those of Iberia and _ Iraq were focused more narrowly on Talmud and deciding halakhah. To some degree, the narrowing of the curricular focus was a result of the massive displacement of Iberian and North African Jews caused by the Almohad invasion beginning around 1147. The ensuing disruption may well account for Maimonides’ exaggerated elegy on the decline of Torah 73

74

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Gerson D. Cohen, ed. and trans., The Book of Tradition (Sefer ha Qabbalah) by Abraham Ibn Daud (Philadelphia, 1967), 63ff. Abraham Grossman: “Qavvim le ofyah shel ha yeshiva ha sefardit ba tequfa ha musle mit,” in Immanuel Etqes, ed., Yeshivot u Vatei Midrsahot (Jerusalem, 2007), 60, 65. Ephraim Kanarfogel:_ “Torah Study and Truth in Medieval Ashkenazic Rabbinic Literature and Thought,” in Howard Kreisel, ed., Study and Knowledge in Jewish Thought (Beersheva, 2006), 101 9, passim.

504 moshe sokolow study in the Muslim world that serves as part of the backdrop for his “Epistle to the Sages of Lunel in Southern France.”76 The lack of attention devoted to biblical study in the Iberian academies77 is evidenced by the absence of a record of commentaries written by either Isaac Alfasi or Isaac Ibn Migash. Nor is there evidence of their having been queried about biblical interpretations. Perhaps the exegetical accomplishments of the previous era (e.g., Seʿadyah Gaʾon) made the task unnecessary; perhaps the prerequisites of knowing grammar and comparative Semitics made biblical studies difficult for talmudists, or even disdained. There is evidence of biblical study by laymen and by philologists, but not in the academies, and certainly not after the first half of the eleventh century. While the biblical commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra (1093–1164) is a paradigm of the genre, it was composed mostly while he sojourned outside Muslim Spain and was intended largely for non-Spanish audiences. While the methodical study of Hebrew grammar and philology in the tenth and eleventh centuries feature prominently in the oeuvre of Seʿadyah Gaʾon, including Kutub al-Lugha (Books on Language) and the Egron (an Arabic–Hebrew dictionary), and in the works of Judah Ḥayyūj (North Africa, c. 945–1000) and Jonah Ibn Janāh (al-Andalus, c. 985–1050), it may not have been an integral component_ of systematic Jewish studies. From Jonah’s introduction to his compendious Hebrew grammar (Arabic, Kitāb al-Lumaʿ; Hebrew, Sefer ha-Riqmah), we learn that formal Hebrew grammar received sparse attention even in Spain and that talmudists and legalists (baʿalei halakhah ve-talmud) were wont to demean its study, which they considered relatively impious, and condemned it as “akin to heresy.”78 Ibn Janāh, to the contrary, regarded grammar as the sine qua non for the proper_ understanding of talmudic hermeneutics and saw its rejection as essentially self-defeating. This situation, in which grammar and philology were held in disdain by conservative religious authorities, persisted through the modern era and left its impression on Jewish educational practice today in the large number of schools in which children are rushed into Talmud study at the expense of obtaining a proper foundation in the Written Law.79

76 77

78 79

Isaac Shailat, ed., Iggerot Ha Rambam, 2 vols. (Maʿale Adumim, 1988), 2:555. For a detailed and comprehensive overview of the role of the Bible in the curriculum of the academy (albeit not particularly of Muslim lands), cf. Mordechai Breuer, Ohalei Torah (Jerusalem, 2004), 118 29. Sefer ha Riqmah, ed. Michael Wilensky (Jerusalem, 1964), 1:12. Cf. Gideon Rothstein, “Walking before Running: Towards a More Practical Judaic Studies Curriculum,” in Jeffrey Saks and Susan Handelman, eds., Wisdom from All My Teachers (Jerusalem, 2003), 323 40.

schools and education 505 More surprising is the almost absolute absence of any study of midrash on the Iberian Peninsula – again, in sharp contrast to Ashkenaz – due, perhaps, to the preoccupation with philosophy, whose rational-analytical bent inclined it against accepting aggadah and against relying upon aggadah in deciding halakhah. In Ashkenaz, by contrast, the preoccupation with aggadah invested it even with halakhic authority. Likewise, whereas some Iberian heads of academies, such as Isaac al-Balia, composed piyyutim, there is no evidence that piyyut formed part of the curriculum _ in sharp contrast to Ashkenaz). This _ can be viewed as a corollary of (again, the abstinence from the study of aggadah. But in the broader Islamic sphere, was formal Bible study merely curtailed or entirely eliminated? Goitein suggested that Egyptian Jews studied Bible by day and reserved Talmud study for the cooler evenings.80 Likewise, Yaakov Elman pointed out that while the Bible was not a subject well represented in the curricula of the gaonic yeshivot in Baghdad, it was certainly reflected in the curricula of the lower schools.81 David Berger, however, offered the following caveat: One wonders whether this was only a result of insufficient time. The all consuming nature of Talmudic study led to a very similar conclusion among Ashkenazic Jews; moreover, the fact that Judaism shared the Bible with Christianity and, to a degree, with Islam may have helped to generate an instinct that this was not a quintessentially Jewish pursuit. Only the Talmud was the special “mystery” of the Jewish people.82

Although the surfeit of Bible commentaries versus Talmud commentaries among the Genizah booklists argues for greater study of the former than the latter, this can be explained in several ways. First, the Bible remained the mainstay of popular, “adult” Jewish education and the booklists reflect the tastes of the larger general Jewish public more than the relatively refined tastes of the academies, which, in any case, had limited enrollment. Second, Bible commentaries served a considerable polemical purpose in the ongoing struggle with the Karaites, thereby making their possession useful even for non-scholars. Finally, the Bible, whose subject matter ranges from the legal to the didactic to the poetic, inherently lends itself to more wide-ranging interpretation than the Talmud, whose interpretation must arrive at a normative conclusion. Hence, the greater number of Bible commentaries than talmudic ones. 80 81 82

Goitein, Jewish Education, 164. Efrat and Elman, “Orality and the Institutionalization of Tradition,” 112 13. David Berger, “Judaism and General Culture in Medieval and Early Modern Times,” in Jacob J. Schacter, ed., Judaism’s Encounter with Other Cultures (Northvale, NJ, 1997), 71.

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CHARACTER EDUCATION AND THE PREEMINENCE OF HABIT: GHAZĀLĪ AND MAIMONIDES83

One area of striking correspondence between medieval Jewish and Muslim education is the preeminence of habit in character education. As we have previously demonstrated the influence of Ghazālī on Maimonides,84 we will refer to their respective thoughts on the importance of habit. A fundamental question in ethical and religious education is whether we are influenced to a greater extent by what we know, or by what we do. The majority of contemporary educators and educational psychologists subscribe to the former proposition. They disdain rote learning, which they consider artificial, mechanical, and only short-term, and maintain that only knowledge that is actively “constructed” will be internalized by students and retained in long-term memory. Consequently, a hallmark of modern education is the assumption that conclusions that students arrive at on their own – as a result of their analysis of traditional sources – are more likely to be implemented than conclusions that students act upon on the basis of either prior conditioning or an external authority. Classical and medieval philosophers, on the other hand, believed that: “the deepest impressions on a man’s soul are made not by his thoughts alone, but by overt acts.”85 The early Greek philosophers asked, “What is the good of a person?” leading them to list what they considered to be the traits of character that make someone virtuous. Aristotle proposed that the goal of an ethical life was the exercise of rational activities that would lead to intellectual and moral virtue. Whereas intellectual virtue comes from explicit instruction, moral virtue results from habit. Over the course of time, we become virtuous by acting virtuously. In religious education, however, as in moral education, this creates the paradox identified with the late English philosopher of education Richard S. Peters.86 If our goal is religious performance inspired and sustained by rational comprehension, what do we do in the face of the established facts of cognitive development that indicate that children are incapable of understanding our curricular goals until well past the age at which we would begin to habituate them? Alternatively, or additionally, what if reason creates an antipathy toward habit and serves to undermine it?

83

84 86

Cf. Moshe Sokolow, “Knowledge and Action, Reason and Habit, in Jewish and Muslim Philosophies of Education,” Journal of Research on Christian Education 22 (2013), 21 29. 85 See note 17. Gersion Appel, A Philosophy of Mitzvot (New York, 1975), 87 88. Richard S. Peters, “Habit and Reason: The Paradox of Moral Education,” in Richard S. Peters, ed., Moral Development and Moral Education (London, 1981).

schools and education 507 Aristotle’s resolution of this paradox (Nicomachean Ethics II: 1) was that we initially perform virtuous actions without really having full knowledge and deliberate choice. Once we form a good disposition, however, virtuous actions subsequently flow from that disposition. Our natural ability to be virtuous is nurtured to maturity by habits that we acquire through ongoing practice. Aristotle, therefore, advocated the inclusion in children’s education of moral training by habit, recognizing that as they grew older, they ought to be able to rationalize those same behaviors.

ghazali Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī’s (1058–1111) conception was that moral/character education combines thought and action, corresponding to the dual dimensions of man: divine and mundane; spiritual and physical. Actions should be performed repetitively, and defective actions could be remedied through the performance of positive actions – just as physical maladies could be cured through antagonistic remedies – thereby restoring a proper balance to the soul.87 Ghazālī defined (moral) character traits (akhlāq) as dispositions that are embedded in the soul that manipulate the limbs to perform certain activities, without hesitating on account of deliberation or rumination. Through the repetition of related activities, these dispositions are then internalized. Initially, a person imposes them on himself through exertion, but after they are assimilated these same actions become the stimulus for spontaneous behavior. He wrote: This is one of the remarkable things about the connection between the heart and the limbs, that is, the soul and the body. Every trait that reveals itself in the heart leaves its trace on the limbs to the extent that, undoubtedly, they move only in accordance with it. Every action that proceeds from the limbs leaves a trace on the heart, creating a cycle.88

He continued to illustrate this idea by way of an analogy (mathal): One who seeks proficiency in penmanship possesses a natural disposition toward calligraphy; he needs only to perform the same manual tasks performed by the 87

88

For a use of the analogy between medicine and morality, see chapter 1 of Maimonides’ Eight Chapters. As noted earlier, Maimonides’ colleague, Joseph ben Jacob Ibn ʿAqnīn, entitled his opus of moral philosophy: Tibb al Nufūs (Hygiene for the Soul), Arabic for Refuʾat ha Nefesh inspired, perhaps, by Psalms 41:5, “Cure my soul (refaʾah nafshi) for I have sinned towards you.” Abū Hāmid Muhammad al Ghazālī, Ihyāʾ ʿUlūm al Dīn [Revival of the religious _ _ sciences] (Cairo, n.d.), vol. 3, section 2, 58.

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calligrapher, persevering for as long as it takes to imitate proper penmanship, since proper penmanship constitutes the activity of the calligrapher and the novice must exert himself to imitate the expert. He must persevere [in this imitation] until it becomes an imbedded trait in his soul and eventually his calligraphy will be as beautiful naturally as it first was through his exertion . . . Originally, his calligraphy was unnatural; however, it impacted upon his heart; from his heart it moved to the limb, and he thereby became a natural calligrapher.89

maimonides This notion of a natural tendency brought to the fore through practice is paralleled in Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), according to an epitome provided by David Qimhi (1160–1235) in his commentary on Jeremiah 1:5: _

The great sage Maimonides wrote that this is the case with every prophet. He cannot [prophesy] without a natural disposition (hakhanah tivʿit) in his essential _ (hitlamdut). being, with which he can aspire to prophecy through training

To which Qimhi himself added: “Moreover, every wisdom and natural _ trait in which a person excels, he must have some predisposition toward it, which improves along with training.”90 According to Ghazālī, the way in which activities that are initially cumbersome become natural is through their repetition (iʿitiyād) until they become habitual (muʿtada). The way to the purification of the soul, therefore, is to become accustomed to actions that emanate from the perfect pure souls, until they become habitual by virtue of their repetition, with increasing frequency thereby creating a disposition embedded in the soul. These activities are transformed by habit into nature, and the same positive [traits] that were [initially] difficult are now simplified . . .

89

90

Ibid. The choice of this analogy appears to have been influenced by its prior use by al Fārābī. Cf. Richard Walzer, Al Farabi on the Perfect State (Oxford, 1985), 261. See Guide, part 2, chapter 38, for Maimonides’ own elaboration of his position on prophecy. On training, in general, see Guide, part 1, chapter 34: “As regards the privileged few, ‘the remnant whom the Lord calls’ (Joel 3:5), they only attain the perfection at which they aim after due preparatory labor. The necessity of such a preparation and the need of such a training for the acquisition of real knowledge, has been plainly stated by King Solomon in the following words: ‘If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength: and it is profitable to prepare for wisdom’ (Ecclesiastes 10:10); ‘Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end’ (Proverbs 29:20).”

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It is remarkable that the relationship between the soul and the body [resembles] a circle. By means of the enforced physical activities, the soul obtains a [virtuous] trait; this trait influences the body and determines a [subsequent] physical activity to which one has now become naturally habituated after [first] having performed it unnaturally.91

To Maimonides, habituation is not merely the essence of education; according to his Commentary on the Mishnah (Menahot 4:4), it is its _ definition: The meaning of hinukh is habituation (al-taʿwīd) . . . The word hinukh is used in _ _ these matters to refer, metaphorically, to the beginning of a process, as though a utensil were being accustomed to a particular task. This can be compared to a person who is first learning a particular science or a particular virtue, which he repeats until he acquires it.92

Although Maimonides’ encomium to habit appears to be patterned after that of Ghazālī and strongly suggests the latter’s influence, it also dovetails neatly with one of his Jewish predecessors who operated entirely outside the sphere of Arabic influence (or of any discernable philosophical influence, for that matter), namely, Rashi, the premier biblical and talmudic exegete of northern France (1040–1105), who defined hinukh in his Torah commentary (Genesis 14:14) as follows: [hinukh] _ indicates the introduction of a person or a utensil into a _ profession in which it is intended to persevere . . . and is known, colloquially, as “to educate.”93

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Avner Giladi, “Mahashevet ha Hinukh shel al Ghazālī” [al Ghazālī’s philosophy of education] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983), 168. In modern Hebrew, hinukh signifies education, although its use in biblical and mishnaic Hebrew seems to be_ restricted to training or initiation. Proverbs 22:6, for instance, states: “Train (hanokh) a lad in the way he ought to go; He will not swerve from it even _ in old age.” Today, this verse is widely understood by Jewish educators to signify the need to recognize every student’s individuality in a manner that has come to be known, popularly, as differentiated instruction. According to Rashi and Maimonides, however, the advice offered by the verse is as follows: If initiated (hanokh) properly at the outset _ he will not abandon even (pi) of a youngster’s path (darko), he will acquire habits that later in life (ki yazqin). Rashi’s interpretation of hinukh as education/initiation is reinforced by his similar _ yadayim. To wit (Exodus 28:41): “all forms of ‘filling the treatment of the idiom miluy hands’ signify training, when one enters something to become well established in it henceforth . . .” The likelihood of Maimonides’ familiarity with the works of Rashi is treated by Shamma Friedman, “Did the Commentary of Rashi Not Appear at All in the Study Hall of Maimonides?” in Abraham Grossman and Sara Japheth, eds., Rashi: The Man and His Work [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2009), 403 64.

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CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY AS REFLECTED IN THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE GEONIM AND RISHONIM

Due to the paucity of primary sources describing or reflecting actual educational theories and practices, we may benefit from inferring them from the intellectual and literary accomplishments of the geonim and their successors. If, in other words, we regularly encounter works of a specific nature, it is reasonable to assume that their authors acquired that knowledge formally. A similar education (formal and informal) can also be assumed of their intended audiences. Alternatively, we may regard some of those works as intended to provide such education. Few works besides responsa have survived from the early gaonic period. But a notable exception is a series of 190 disquisitions, called Sheʾiltot, that Ahai of Shabha, gaon of Pumbedita (d. c. 750), composed following the _ _ sequence of weekly Torah readings. Comprising halakhic and ethical-moral instruction, the Sheʾiltot may have originated as synagogue sermons (derashot) and functioned largely as a means of adult education. The work’s sophistication presupposes an audience knowledgeable in talmudic and midrashic literature, concerned about ethical behavior, and able to connect the two. We are on different terrain altogether when it comes to Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942). A pioneer in multiple disciplines, Seʿadyah wrote the first systematic work of rabbinic Jewish philosophy (Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-lIʿtiqādāt, translated to Hebrew as Emunot ve-Deʿot), translated much of the Bible into Judeo-Arabic and wrote commentaries to it, wrote an early study on the Hebrew language, and composed piyyutim. His preparation _ for these accomplishments must have entailed a thorough grounding in general as well as Jewish knowledge and we can assume the same on the part of his appreciative audience. The same can be said of Samuel b. Hophni (d. 1013), who, like Seʿadyah, served in the geonate of Sura. Genizah evidence indicates that he was the most prolific of all the geonim composing at least forty halakhic monographs,94 many reflecting a detailed and extensive knowledge of Islamic law,95 along with his own translation and commentary on part of the Pentateuch, works of religious philosophy, and a systematic and compendious Judeo-Arabic introduction (madkhal) to the Talmud. The detailed extent to which he went in his explanation of the seven-generation chain of Amoraic transmission, for example,96 presupposes an audience 94 96

95 Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 261. Ibid., 262. To which he devoted an extensive chapter (#141), published, along with a Hebrew translation, by Shraga Abramson, Mevo ha talmud le rav shemuʿel ben hofni gaʾon _ (Jerusalem, 1990), 23 58 (Arabic), 61 105 (Hebrew).

schools and education 511 that would recognize the dramatis personae and have a sustained and vested interest in understanding their interactions and their results. In the post-geonic era, scholars of Muslim Spain are acknowledged as having mastered hokhmah yevanit (literally, Greek wisdom, or philosophy) and, in particular, Arabic belles lettres (adab), alongside the Torah. Even as late as the fourteenth century, Isaac Israeli (of Toledo) took exception to a ruling of Rabbi Asher b. Jehiel on the grounds that he was proficient in neither philosophy nor Classical Arabic.97 EDUCATION AMONG THE KARAITES

Throughout the Middle Ages and across the Muslim world, the educational practices we have described heretofore typified the talmudo-centric Jews – generally known as Rabbanites – whether they were adherents of the Palestinian academy or either of the two Babylonian academies, Sura and Pumbedita, which, as noted, had relocated to Baghdad by the start of the tenth century. It is significant that many of these routines were shared by the Karaites, their religious adversaries. A proverb attributed to the founder of Karaism, ʿAnan ben David, stipulates: “Search Scripture well, and do not rely on my opinion.” Pursuant to that credo, Karaism valued independence of thought and scriptural interpretation. To meet this challenge, Karaite education emphasized a sophisticated knowledge of Hebrew and biblical hermeneutics, fostering an aptitude for the Karaites’ particular form of halakhic exegesis.98 This dual curriculum is epitomized by a later Karaite authority, Elijah Bashyachi (Adrianople and Constantinople, 1420–90), whose code of law, Aderet Eliyahu (Elijah’s Mantle), is regarded by Karaites as equivalent to that of Maimonides. In elaborating on the sixth of the ten principles of Karaite faith,99 he offers ten educational guidelines:100 97

98

99

100

See the responsa of Asher b. Jehiel (New York, 1954), section 55, #9, folio 52b. Conversely, Asher, a native of Germany who emigrated to Spain, took pride in his ignorance of philosophy, considering it an asset for a talmudist (ibid.). Cf. Barry Walfish, “Karaite Education in the Middle Ages,” Dor Ledor: Studies in the History of Jewish Education in Israel and the Diaspora 5 (1992), 1 25. “The believer must know the language of our Torah and its interpretation . . . This principle is divisible in two: The first [obligates one] to acquire the means to compre hend Scripture, and the second is the means to ascertain its interpretation.” Zvi Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium: The Formative Years, 970 1100 (New York, 1968), 200n113, noted the similarity between Bashyachi’s formulation of the sixth principle and the earlier one of Judah Hadassi (twelfth century). Eliyahu Bashyachi, Aderet Eliyahu: Sefer ha misvot shel ha yehudim ha qaraʾim (Israel, _ 1966), 166 68. A more comprehensive English version appears in Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature (New Haven, 1952), 252 56.

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1. Children should begin study at age six, unless physically fit at five, but no younger on account of the fragility of a young mind. 2. Teachers must be proper role models, neither bad tempered [aggressive?] nor submissive. 3. Discipline is to be administered lightly,101 so the effects are only temporary. 4. A book, once begun, should be read to completion; students should not skip around from book to book because excessive movement exhausts and weakens the memory. 5. Books should be attractive as should study halls in order to inspire reading. Books should be acquired at communal expense and loaned out to those unable to purchase their own. 6. Texts should be read aloud, with proper intonation [melody?] to stimulate internalization, which is why the sages called the Bible miqraʾ (recitation).102 7. Reading exercise should be conducted by students cooperatively because repetition promotes the active realization of potential. 8. Study should be conducted when relaxed and at a moderate pace in order to impress itself on the memory. Hurried speech often leads to improper and inappropriate speech, and to the expression of heretical views (kefirah). 9. One should not impose time limits on study because it is a divine, spiritual gift that transcends time. Nevertheless, one should dedicate specific times for study three times daily: morning, afternoon, and evening utilizing particularly the long winter nights. 10. Lessons should be repeated as often as possible to facilitate memorization.

Secular education, while excoriated by early (ninth-century) Karaite authorities, was highly valued by later Karaites, particularly philosophy (of the rationalist variety). SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brody, Robert. The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998). Efrat, Daphna, and Yaakov Elman. “Orality and the Institutionalization of Tradition: The Growth of the Geonic Yeshiva and the Islamic Madrasa,” in Yaakov Elman and Israel Gershoni, eds., Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality, and Cultural Diffusion (New Haven, 2000), 107–37. 101

102

Literally, “with a small strap,” reminiscent of the “shoelace” stipulated in the talmudic guidelines cited above (notes 48 49). While earlier Karaites pilloried the Talmud and its sages, later Karaites, somewhat counterintuitively, often refer to talmudic sages as though they were their own and not the Rabbanites’. Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium, 239 43, offers an appraisal of this reevaluation, citing Bashyachi’s introduction to Aderet Eliyahu: “most of the Mishnah and Talmud are the pronouncements of our [Karaite] ancestors” (ibid., 241n79).

schools and education 513 Frenkel, Miriam. “Adolescence in Jewish Medieval Society under Islam,” Continuity and Change 16 (2001), 263–81. Giladi, Avner. “Mahashevet ha-Hinukh shel al-Ghazālī” [al-Ghazālī’s philosophy of education] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1983). Glick, Shemuʾel. Sources for the History of Jewish Education, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (New York, 2001). Goitein, S. D. Jewish Education in Muslim Countries, Based on Records from the Cairo Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1962). A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). “Side Lights on Jewish Education from the Cairo Genizah,” in Samuel T. Lachs and Isidore D. Passow, eds., Gratz College Anniversary Volume (Philadelphia, 1971). Gudemann, Moritz. Die Geschichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der abendlaendischen Juden, 3 vols. (Vienna, 1880–88). Makdisi, George. The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh, 1981). Rappel, Dov. Shevaʿ ha-hokhmot: ha-vikuah ʿal limudei hol be-sifrut ha-h _ _(Jerusalem, 1990). _ _ inukh ha-yehudit ʿad_ reshit ha-haskala Rosenthal, Franz. Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Leiden, 1970). Sokolow, Moshe. “Knowledge and Action, Reason and Habit, in Jewish and Muslim Philosophies of Education,” Journal of Research on Christian Education 22 (2013), 21–29. Sokolow, Moshe, and Matthew L. N. Wilkinson. “Reclaiming the Common Sacred Ground of Jewish-Muslim Experiences of Education,” in Josef Meri, ed., The Routledge Handbook of MuslimJewish Relations (New York, 2016), 195–217. Tritton, Arthur S. Materials on Muslim Education in the Middle Ages (London, 1957).

chapter 15

THE LIFE CYCLE AND THE ANNUAL CYCLE IN GENIZAH SOCIETY miriam frenkel

The mind relies on time to make sense of the flow of experience. Human societies develop different ways of creating and marking time. Although systems for reckoning time in any given society are established by people, they are also based on the temporal sequences of nature and on the inner life of the individual. This chapter deals with two systems of time used in the society of the Jews of the medieval Islamic world whose material remains are preserved in the Genizah. It starts with the cycle of life – from an individual’s birth all the way to death. Then, it proceeds to discuss the community’s rhythms of time and the way time structured the annual cycle. THE CYCLE OF LIFE

pregnancy and birth The appearance of the pregnancy of Sitt Ghalb was perceived in the middle of the Muslim month of Shawwāl, known as the Jewish month of Ṭevet. Then it was established for Marheshvan. I vowed _ of bread and a that if it were a boy, I would give a hundred pounds lamb as alms at his circumcision, and I would call him Abū Saʿd after my brother, may God have mercy upon him.1

This short note, written by a happy father in the first decades of the twelfth century, reflects the delight and expectations that the birth of a new male child aroused in a medieval Jewish family. The period of pregnancy was a precarious and dangerous one and the risks during childbirth were great. Women used to write wills during their pregnancy taking into consideration the possibility that they would not survive childbirth, and there are several references to the death of mothers at delivery or shortly thereafter. 1

JTS ENA 2727.4, translation based on that of S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, (Berkeley, 1967 85), 3:231.

514

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 515 After childbirth it was usual for female acquaintances to pay a visit to the new mother. The family had to be prepared to receive them properly. The birth of a son was celebrated in the home with jubilation, music, and congratulatory parties. A circumcision ceremony was held eight days after the birth. At the ceremony itself, which was of great communal importance – as well as on the Sabbath preceding it – certain prolonged prayers were recited and special poems with blessings for the newborn and his family were read aloud, many of which were preserved in the Genizah. This was also an opportunity to give charity. The right to perform the circumcision was given by the nagid (that is, the head of the Jewish community) to a medical man or to any layman who had learned the skill. For some people the performance of circumcisions was a source of income; others did it gratis as an act of religious piety. Attendance at the ceremony was of high social importance and community officials saw it as their duty to participate, especially at circumcision ceremonies for the poor. In contrast, the birth of a girl passed silently, with no ceremonies. Letters announcing the birth of a girl usually added a wish for a boy next time. Babies were nursed by their biological mothers up to the age of two. Weaning was a medically precarious stage in which special nourishing food was prepared for both mother and child. During nursing, a woman was not supposed to do heavy work. Birthdays were never celebrated. However, the birth of a child was carefully noted according to the Jewish, Muslim, and sometimes also Christian calendars, together with the hour and the horoscope. childhood Childhood was regarded as a state of imperfection. The ultimate target of life and its most desirable stage was believed to be the calmness of old age. Reaching one’s dotage was seen as receiving divine blessing. On the other hand, “child” (sabī) was a sobriquet given to servants and apprentices – _ of low social and professional status. The imperfection that is, to persons ascribed to childhood was manifest in the total absence of separate clothing for children. People used to dress in the same way all their life; only the size of the clothes changed. This points to a conception viewing human life as a gradual development toward the ideal stage of adulthood; earlier stages were nothing more than preparatory. There was no need to emphasize them by special outward signs such as different clothes. Rather, a child should try to resemble an adult, thereby deemphasizing his imperfect stage in life. Children participated constantly in the lives of the adults and were considered an indispensable component of the community. Boys

516 miriam frenkel participated in the synagogue service and took an active part in it, while girls were integrated into the domestic sphere of women. Much importance was ascribed to the education of children. Whenever children are mentioned in Genizah letters, it is in connection with their studies. Fathers, away from home, inquired about the studies of their sons and requested their addressees to see to it that they did not miss school. School fees were a regular item in family budgets, even among more modest families; though schooling of poor children and orphans was paid for by the community. The school itself was in the synagogue compound or in a teacher’s private home. Pupils were supposed to arrive punctually and properly dressed. Corporal punishment was permitted, though letters have also been found from parents asking teachers to avoid such punishment. Elementary studies were based on memorizing the texts of Scripture, seeking to prepare pupils to take an active part in the synagogue service. In many ways, then, study was also a kind of worship. Despite this, the regular fixed prayers themselves were not studied at school; young boys were expected to learn them through regular attendance at synagogue with their fathers. Children were allowed from time to time to take an active part in the synagogue service and to read publicly a section of the weekly lection apportioned to their father or its Aramaic translation; the latter was considered to be even more challenging and prestigious. This privilege was sometimes obtained by donating hefty sums of money to the congregation. This was an efficient way of initiating young boys into the society of adults. Many colorful, decorated exercise booklets have been found in the Genizah which shed light on the methods used to teach reading. Boys were expected to color in large calligraphic outlines of different Hebrew letters, learning to identify them in the process. Later on, they would write combinations of letters and then whole verses from Scripture.2 Yet these exercises were designed merely to teach reading. The skills of writing were not taught at this stage, but only at a higher level of schooling. At times, the syllabus of elementary studies also included secular subjects – for the most part, this consisted of arithmetic and Arabic calligraphy, thus preparing young children for a future career as merchants or government officials. On Sabbaths and holidays, children were taken to the synagogue together with their parents. Boys attended the service, while girls joined their mothers in the women’s gallery, watching and following the prayers.

2

S. D. Goitein, Jewish Education in Muslim Countries: New Sources from the Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1962), 42 43.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 517 Since elementary education was conceived mainly as preparation for participating in the synagogue service, girls as a rule were not sent to school – although there were exceptional cases in which girls did attend. There were also special classes for girls. Most girls were educated by private instructors at home. Their education aimed at teaching them the basic prayers and, in some cases, also at instructing them in what were considered to be feminine arts and crafts like embroidery. As usual, there were always exceptions and some fathers took the pain to teach their daughters the Holy Scriptures and even the art of writing. These exceptions to the rule keeping girls from school were socially ostracized and religiously rejected: in one of his halakhic responsa, Maimonides stated explicitly that women should not be taught the Bible. Although Jewish communities normally insisted on schooling orphans and poor children, not all children passed their years of childhood at school. Children were also hired out as laborers; one of the most tragic cases is found in a Genizah letter from Alexandria written by a former official of the imperial mint in Fustāt in 1219. The writer had lost his post, _ was obliged to hire his son, who his house, and all his possessions._ He walked naked in the streets, to a tailor who paid him a very low daily salary, barely enough for food.3 In times of need, children would themselves serve as collateral. In a letter to her brother written at the time of the Norman invasions, a widow in the Nile Delta town of al-Mahdiyya excuses herself for giving away her daughter as a pledge.4 Another woman, who was blind, appealed to the congregation of Fustāt for help and recounted that she had _ _order to pay the doctor who treated been forced to pledge her children in 5 her sick daughter. adolescence Even though the people of that time were very much aware of birth dates, as demonstrated by the abundance of astrological treatises, no trace of any rite of passage from childhood to adulthood equivalent to the modern Bar Mitzvah ceremony is to be found. The passage from childhood to a stage of maturity in which a Jewish person became obliged to fulfil the religious commandments was gradual and individual. It was not determined solely by chronological age, but rather by physical and cognitive criteria, as well.

3

4

CUL T S 16.286. Miriam Frenkel, The Compassionate and Benevolent: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006), doc. no. 31. 5 CUL T S 10 J 14.20. CUL T S NS J 430.

518 miriam frenkel This was anchored by the geonim of the period in various halakhic monographs.6 It was also something for the parents to decide. When a father noticed that his son had attained the right stage of religious education, which started in early childhood, he would give him phylacteries (tefillin) and a prayer shawl (tallit) and ensure that he participated in public religious ceremonies in the_synagogue. Nevertheless, the threshold was still very low compared to that commonly found in the twenty-first century. A boy or a girl of thirteen or twelve, who was believed to be physically and mentally mature, was considered an adult. Still, crossing the threshold into adulthood was neither automatic nor represented by a single event. On the contrary, it was subjected to a series of limitations and restrictions which left a gap for a potential period of liminality and adolescence. Adolescents were not at all invisible; their presence was felt and pronounced. Young pupils of the beit midrash (literally, house of learning; an institution of higher learning) constituted a concerned segment of the community, usually representing protest and opposition. Quite frequently they interfered in communal disputes, usually demanding change and opposing the traditional leadership. In some places they held punitive powers, which they tended to wield particularly in matters of domestic and public morality. In Qayrawān, for example, they determined that someone who was caught drinking and singing in taverns of gentiles (goyim) should be flogged.7 Adolescents used to congregate in peer groups in the synagogue compound, especially on Sabbaths and holidays. They were also sometimes involved in drunken brawls, impugning the reputation of the community. The Genizah society developed several systems for socializing its adolescents, such as the aforementioned beit midrash and a sophisticated apprenticeship system in commerce, which enabled a young man to integrate into adult life smoothly and under close surveillance. Adolescent girls were much less visible. They were expected to remain passive and sheltered, depending on their close relatives and controlled by them. Their parents – and, in their parents’ absence, grandparents, mature siblings, and even uncles and aunts – were expected to feed and to clothe them and to prepare and negotiate their future marriage. Some adolescent girls did work, but all they earned was saved for their dowry. Marriage marked the beginning of adulthood. It was only after marriage that a woman was legally entitled to be supported by her husband, to 6

7

Miriam Frenkel, “Adolescence in Medieval Jewish Society,” Continuity and Change 16, 2 (2001), 263 81. Menahem Ben Sasson, The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World: Qayrawan, 800 1057 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1996), 112.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 519 8 support herself by working, or to control her dowry independently. Eve Krakowski has shown that the codes of honor and shame attributed to Mediterranean societies are lacking among the Jews of the Genizah, who did not manifest any particular concern with the virginity of unmarried women. The mobility limitations imposed on women and on adolescent girls alike, which prevented them from departing their households, stemmed from an understanding of female seclusion as a marker of elite status of women and adolescent girls alike, not out of zealous guarding of their chastity to guarantee their own honor.9 marriage Marriage was considered to be the natural state for adult men and women. In reality, many people married even before attaining adulthood – that is, before the age of twelve. Hence, the wedding ceremony actually functioned as a rite of passage. Early marriage was another way to control and socialize adolescents and to strengthen the extended family further. Marriage was normally effected in three stages: (i) Engagement (shiddukhin), the witnessed signing of a contract in which the two parties agreed on the conditions of the marriage and the date of the wedding. (ii) Betrothal (ʿerusin, qiddushin), in which the two parties were declared husband and wife, but the marriage could not yet be consummated.10 (iii) Wedding (dukhūl, kinnus, zifāf), the formal culmination of the marriage process, during which the bride was brought to the groom’s house in a festive procession and the marriage contract (ketubbah) was written out. betrothal The betrothal was accompanied by a ceremony in which rings were given to the bride and betrothal benedictions were said together with a blessing over a cup of wine. A banquet was also customary at this event. A description of such a ceremony is given in a tenth-century query presented to Seʿadyah Gaʾon by the community of Qayrawān: This is our local custom with regard to marriage. If she has come of age, she empowers her father to receive her betrothal gift; if she is a minor, he does so on his own, as approved by the Sages. The congregation assembles in the synagogue which the father attends and he receives there the betrothal gift for his daughter. This Reuben (the father) was a scholar and an old man, and scholars and others 8

9

Eve Krakowski, Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture (Princeton, 2018), 142 80. 10 Ibid., 181 206. See also Chapter 16 in this volume.

520

miriam frenkel

gathered in the house of study (Beit Midrash). Simeon (the groom) stood up from his seat and gave the betrothal gift to Reuben, while the scholars from the school of the late Rabbi Nathan were seated around. Simeon spoke up and said, “May your daughter be married to me by this ring.”11

the marriage ceremony Most marriages took place in the month of Sivan, especially before the Feast of Pentecost (Shavuʿot), while engagements were normally concluded in the autumn months of Ḥeshvan and Kislev when most traders were at home before embarking on their commercial voyages. This was also right after the Jewish High Holy Days, when families had many opportunities to meet and make decisions.12 Invitations to the wedding were probably delivered orally, though a few written notifications to close relatives have been found, such as the following note sent by a mother to her son in Alexandria: I expected you and your children for the holidays, but you did not come, which disquieted me very much. Your sister misses you immensely; her eye is on the door all the time because of her yearning for you. Please, take notice that the little one (the sister’s daughter) has been betrothed and will marry on the 25th. So, make haste and come, you and your children, under all circumstances. I also wish you would ask her aunt to come with you and treat her well, since she has no one in the world except God and you.13

A celebratory meal was given at the time the engagement was concluded, with another to follow on the night of the betrothal.14 Wedding festivities were held both before and after the bride’s procession to the home of her future husband. The banquets for men and women were held separately. During the congratulatory reception (hanāʾ), a tray (sīniyya) was set out in _ which donations for the poor were collected. On two consecutive Sabbaths – before and after the wedding – the groom was ceremoniously accompanied to the synagogue and was honored there with the public 11

12

13 14

Nissim Modaʿi, ed., Teshuvot ha Geʾonim Shaʿarei Sedeq (Jerusalem, 1966), 40, no. 12; translation based on Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:88. This was actually a unique case in which Reuben had two daughters and there were doubts as to with which one the marriage was to be concluded. The query goes on to tell us that “those present shouted to him in Hebrew about four or five times: ‘Say which, say which,’ but he paid no attention to them because he was abashed, standing before the congregation and scholars.” Amir Ashur, “Engagement and Betrothal Documents from the Cairo Genizah” [Hebrew], (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University 2006), 95 97. CUL T S 10 J 7.5; translation after Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:115. CUL T S 8 J 9.13, a payment agreement between the groom and the bride’s father from 1219; cf. Ashur, “Engagement,” 85 86.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 521 reading of the Torah. On these occasions, the cantor used to sing special religious poems in honor of the bride and groom, many of which have been found in the Genizah. A special decorated dress would be prepared for the bride; this was normally a white dress with wide sleeves called a jilwah. The bride’s hair was dyed with saffron and other special colors, and her hands and feet were tinted with henna. Special jewelry and ornaments were prepared in order to beautify the bride. Music (laʿb) was an indispensable part of the ceremony that fell under the groom’s purview. Marriage ceremonies were sometimes extremely extravagant; a twelfthcentury agreement states explicitly that the groom is not expected to pay for any of the “lavish luxuries common among the people of Fustāt.”15 Yet _ _ the marriage celebration was of a mundane character; it did not require the presence of a religious functionary and was usually not held in a synagogue. Accordingly, many secular wedding poems were composed and were likely even read aloud at this occasion. The following lines are quoted from a qasīda by Moses Ibn Ezra, written for the wedding of his close _ friend, Solomon Ibn Mattār. Its rich, sensuous images vividly convey the __ ceremony: picture and air of a wedding Drink up for he is founding his house; drink up I say, lest you be forced! And rejoice, O young Man, in the loving doe and let the two sing forth, both of them joyful And delight in she whose stature is like unto a palm tree but who sways like branches of the myrtle And fear not the jungle of ornaments at her throat at evening and the rattling of headdresses And be not afraid of eyes like doves that intoxicate (and not from the wine of wrath) And may your heart withstand the embrace of arms in bracelets and the bravery of anklets And flee not the scorpion curls upon a face flushed with shyness For they go forth in peace to meet you though they hide her beauteous face and conceal it And pomegranates in a rose garden; indeed overlaid on the tips with perfume And your hands in passing over them gently squeeze and caress them.16 15 16

Ashur, “Engagement,” 222 23, no. A 12. Moses Ibn Ezra, Shirei ha Hol, ed. Hayyim Brody (Berlin, 1935), 159, no. 160; translated by Ann Brener, Judah Halevi and his Circle of Hebrew Poets in Granada (Leiden, 2005), 118.

522 miriam frenkel Despite the secular atmosphere of the wedding – well reflected in this poem – the impress of religious authority was not entirely absent from the ceremony. For instance, the aforementioned query to Seʿadyah Gaʾon makes it clear that in tenth-century Qayrawān, the marriage of a minor girl was usually performed in the synagogue attended by the bride’s father.17 old age The age of fifty was considered by the Genizah people to be the beginning of one’s dotage, but few attained it. It was the proper stage for a man to prepare for his impending death, as explained by twelfth-century poet Judah Halevi: At fifty man remembers life’s futility and mourns, for mourning is near. He despises the pleasures of this world and fears that his hour has come.

Halevi continues by pointing out that seventy was considered extreme old age: “A man who has reached his eighth decade – no one listens to his words or pays attention to his advice. Let him return to his origin (Genesis 3:19).”18 Despite this, we have record of quite a few people who attained extreme old age while yet vital and energetic. For example, Hayya Gaʾon, head of the Pumbedita yeshiva, died in 1038 at the age of ninety-nine while still occupying this prominent office. Many of the celebrated great merchants of that time, such as Joseph Ibn ʿAwkal, Nahray b. Nissim, and Madmūn b. Japheth, directed their far-flung commercial enterprises personally_ until their death at an old age. However, it must be pointed out that these and other examples of vital old people concern prominent and well-to-do persons; almost nothing is known about life expectancy or old age among the lower echelons of society. As stated above, old age was honored and old people were considered more reliable than the young. Advanced age was perceived as the most desirable age, the ultimate target of life, in which one receives God’s blessings. Personal letters expressed the wish that their addressees reach a good and respectable old age; among these blessings we find that “May God give you a good ending” (yetiv ha-el aharito) was most common. _ _ 17 18

See note 11. Jefim Schirmann, Hebrew Poetry in Spain and Provence [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1979), 1:589; translation based on Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:119.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 523 “Old man” (Hebrew, zaqen; Arabic, shaykh) was an honorific. Likewise, the community bestowed honorific titles upon old persons and they were honored by invitations to read sacred texts during the synagogue service. Still, complaints about the infirmities of old age are also heard in Genizah letters, like the following words of Solomon b. Judah, gaon of Palestine (r. 1025–50), who nevertheless continued to hold this office many years after writing these words: Take notice, my dear that I am walking around like a shadow (Psalms 39:7). I have no authority, only the title. My strength is gone, my knee is feeble, and my foot staggers. My eyes are dim and when I write, it is as if I was learning it. Sometimes the lines are cracked and sometimes crooked.19

Adult children were expected to take care of and provide for their old parents, but this was a moral obligation, not a legal one. Indeed, in some cases legal agreements were signed in which offspring undertook to provide for their old parents. In some of these agreements, the obligation was assumed against a gift, usually a house or other property the old person possessed; in others it was stated explicitly that the obligation was taken “for God’s sake” – that is, voluntarily. Ideally, old people were supposed to live with their families, but the Genizah reveals many complaints about remoteness and neglect suggesting a different reality. The following letter constitutes one of the most extreme cases of malice toward old people. It is a petition addressed to the Palestinian gaon, Masliah (r. 1127–38): _ _ I wish to inform your high Excellency that I am a blind woman. For a long time, I have been sitting in a corner [forsaken], with no access to this world [that is, without regular income], but as long as my daughter lived, she was always around me and cared for me. Now she has died, and her brothers and their sons have taken what she possessed. My son Abraham, the firstborn, took the estate, and has not provided me with anything since she died not even a loaf of bread. I have now entrusted my spirit in God, the exalted, and to you. Shout at him and tell him he should give me what is indispensable.20

Well-off persons usually saved money for their old age, either by hoarding cash or in promissory notes to ensure that their capital would go on working. People with limited resources saw to it that a certain person, either a relative or an acquaintance they could trust, would serve as an

19

20

CUL T S 12. 217. Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634 1099) [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv,1983), doc. 86; translated by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:120. Bodl. Ms. Heb. d 74.37; translated by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:124.

524 miriam frenkel administrator to care for them as long as they lived and to arrange a proper funeral for them when they died, in exchange for their possessions. Most of these arrangements were concluded between personal acquaintances, but there were also commercial hospices for sick and old people. Nathan b. Samuel he-Ḥaver and his colleague, Nathan b. Solomon ha-Kohen, both ran such hospices. As judges they enjoyed the trust of the community and could probably solicit funds and provide for old people who in exchange entrusted them with their properties. death The Genizah reflects two seemingly contradictory views concerning the termination of life: On the one hand, death was understood as punishment and atonement for sins; on the other, it was believed to be a predestined event fixed by God. Either way, people prepared themselves for death and took the trouble to write wills. These wills were legal dispositions dealing mainly with the appointment of executors and the distribution of legacies. Making dispositions in contemplation of death was a general practice common among all levels of society, men and women alike. Dispositions were written whenever the testator found it necessary, but mostly when a person was near to death – say, during a terminal illness or in a situation of danger. The deathbed declaration was made in front of witnesses who took an active part in its writing and functioned as a kind of council; they reminded the testator about forgotten issues, asking him for details and suggesting corrections and additions. Although these deathbed declarations are legal statements dealing with practical matters and they are not ethical wills per se, they do reveal the concerns of people when contemplating their departure from this world. Their main concern was to repay debts and to release other people, business partners, spouses, children, and other kin, from any charges. Many declarations also include manumission of slaves. Another major concern was to secure the financial well-being of their offspring and other members of their family by assigning parts of their legacy to them. Manumitted slaves were also endowed with parts of the legacy, usually with the means necessary to marry. A tithe (maʿaser) of the property was expected to be given to charity – for the poor, for religious scholars, for synagogues, or for holy shrines. Very specific orders concerning funeral arrangements indicate a deep concern with how one was finally to be laid to rest. Funeral pomp was an indicator of social status, but it was also an indispensable part of an abiding belief in the afterlife and the resurrection of the dead. Preceding death, prayers were recited in the synagogue and relatives fasted and distributed alms. The dying man would also recite a

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 525 confessional litany. Accompanying the dead to his final resting place was considered an important religious and social obligation. In small towns as well as in the big cities, the whole community would normally follow the bier. Arranging for and attending a proper funeral was an especially important communal obligation when the deceased person was a lonely foreigner. Special prayers were said by professional cantors and eulogies were recited in the home of the deceased. Burial took place immediately after death. A distinctive custom was held in Alexandria: The coffin would be brought into the synagogue’s courtyard early in the morning; and only after the service had taken place and community members had attended the recitation of elegies would they accompany the dead person to his or her last rest. Maimonides strongly rejected this custom, which was not known elsewhere. However, during the seven days of mourning it was customary to recite elegies in the synagogue. The funeral itself was a highly structured ceremony, which involved professional personnel in the shape of washers, pallbearers, gravediggers, cantors, and wailing women. In certain communities, such as that of Alexandria, that preserved the ancient Palestinian custom, there were also flute players who accompanied the bier.21 The cantor functioned as the public funeral director. He sang the prayers and lamented the deceased. In the more elaborate funerals there were several cantors of different ranks. The wailing women were professionals hired especially for this event. They walked in front of the coffin and performed the wailing ritual for the deceased, men and women alike. The body of the deceased was ritually washed and sometimes also fumigated and sprinkled with perfumes and preservatives. Washers maintained a professional union and their work varied in terms of the services they would render. Gravediggers and tomb builders were also organized in professional unions; the latter were in charge of building the coffin-like roofed burial chambers of bricks in which the deceased were laid. The dead were buried in carefully chosen attire, normally specified in detail in deathbed declarations. People wished to be buried in their most respectable clothing – this was sometimes their Sabbath vestments – but jewelry was never part of the burial outfit. Most people asked to be buried in green clothes, a typical Muslim idea being that green was the color of paradise. When a person died without having made any specifications concerning his burial attire, minimum standards were followed. The

21

Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:42; in al Mahdiyya: Bodl. Ms. Heb. c 28 (cat. 2876), f.52.

526 miriam frenkel deceased was carried in a new wooden coffin (although probably not actually interred in it), perhaps out of fear that the Muslim mob would disturb dhimmī funeral processions. Bribes to Muslim officials, presumably for protection from such mobs, may be found in lists of funeral expenses. With the closing of the tomb, a special prayer known as “rahham” was _ _ started. recited invoking divine mercy, and a month of mourning Mourning for parents lasted a whole year. Condolences and food were brought to the mourners, who were supposed to remain confined to their homes and not to leave them for the seven days following the burial. During these days, in which the mourners sat on the floor and refrained from work, visitors arrived, day and night, to console them. This was also considered to be an auspicious time for charity, and beggars would arrive at the mourner’s house to receive their share. Prayers, sermons, and lamentations were all recited. After a week of mourning, appointed representatives of the community arrived at the house of the deceased and sealed all his possessions to ensure that the orphans and widow would receive their due from the deceased’s property. A court clerk would note the steps taken and make a list of all the valuables found in the house. In addition to the prescribed religious rites, we find a range of personal physical expressions of grief and mourning. This included discarding one’s clothes and entering the public sphere clad only in underwear, disfiguring one’s face with ashes, fasting for long periods, and weeping. All these were regarded as proper, and even laudable. Likewise, inconsolability was considered to be a noble trait – although mourners were expected to accept and justify God’s decree as intoned in a prayer entitled “justification of judgment” (sidduq ha-din). _ Literary expressions of mourning were abundant; these included letters of condolence, elegies, lamentations, and dirges. The famous statesman and poet Samuel ha-Nagid Ibn Naghrella (d. 1056) dedicated scores of poems to his late brother, in which he described in minute detail the processes of illness, death, and mourning. A special literary genre was the “Book of Comfort,” a compilation of didactic tales aimed at comforting the mourner and keeping him busy. The most famous of these books is Nissim b. Jacob Ibn Shahīn’s eleventh-century Book of Comfort after Distress (al-Faraj baʿd al-Shidda). Death did not end the close relationship between friends and relatives. It was deeply believed that the dead protected, helped, and conveyed blessings upon the living, while the living were expected to honor and venerate the dead by praying for them, mentioning them, recounting their good deeds, and visiting their tombs. Cemeteries were indeed conceived as the dwelling places of the dead and visits to the cemetery were a way to show respect toward the dead or to invoke their intercession. Most Jewish

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 527 cemeteries were situated outside the city wall, near the historical Jewish Quarter of the town by the gate that in many cases was called Bāb alYahūd (“The Gate of the Jews”);22 in times of calamity, such as after an earthquake, in years of severe drought or in times of persecution, the whole community would gather in the cemetery for public supplication. Even the Torah scrolls would be taken out of the synagogues and carried there on such occasions. Life and death were two dimensions of the human existence. Belief in the world to come and in the resurrection of the dead was deep-rooted. Hence the dead continued to abide with the living and to constitute an indispensable component of life. THE ANNUAL CYCLE

everyday life The day began with communal prayers; one was allowed to take breakfast only after this. Services in the synagogue were held thrice daily. Regular attendance at public services was not obligatory but served to bond its participants together. This may explain the legal document in which the people of al-Mahalla were scolded for “sitting most of the time in _ the streets and shops and in the shade of sycamores, thereby spurning 23 the synagogues.” On Monday and Thursday, the ark was opened, a Torah scroll was taken out of the Holy Ark, and a section of the weekly lection from the Torah was read in public. This was an opportunity to hold special prayers for benefactors or supplications for the dead and to take oaths and vows in front of the Torah scroll. This was also the occasion in which appeals to the congregation assembled together were made.24 After the service, the rabbinical court held its sessions in the synagogue compound. On Tuesday and Friday, the bread dole was carried out in the same compound to help sustain the poor and communal officials. People used to visit the public bathhouse weekly, preferably on Friday before the Sabbath rest. After bathing, one avoided doing business. When a sick man recovered from illness, one of the first things he would do was to visit the bathhouse. Visits to the bathhouse were considered to be one of 22

23

24

For Aleppo, see Miriam Frenkel, “The Jewish Community of Aleppo: Preserving Unity and Uniqueness” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 61 (1994), 57 74. CUL T S 20.125; translated by Mark R. Cohen, Jewish Self government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065 1126 (Princeton, 1980), 330. See Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, 2005), 222.

528 miriam frenkel the fundamental privileges of women anchored in religious law. Trousseau lists found in the Genizah contain many sorts of textiles and utensils intended for these weekly visits. The day commemorating the new moon marked the beginning of the Jewish and Muslim months. For Jewish women this was a half-holiday from their ordinary household chores and was particularly suited for bathhouse visits. On these occasions, refreshments were served and the event assumed the air of a female party, parallel to men’s drinking parties.

the sabbath The Sabbath was the sacred day of repose and sanctity. According to the Bible, the Sabbath was hallowed at the time of the creation itself, a concept reflected in the synagogue liturgy. On Friday evening all community members attended the service, initiating the Sabbath. On Sabbaths, four services were held. The first service was held early in the morning. It included readings from the scriptures together with their translation into Aramaic (Targum) – a custom retained out of respect for its antiquity despite the fact that Aramaic was not broadly understood at that time. In the afternoon, the congregation would gather again to listen to a public sermon by a local scholar or by a visiting preacher. At these sermons, the attendants were not mere passive listeners, but rather a very active audience, raising questions and objections. When a celebrated preacher arrived, people from several synagogues would draw together to listen to him. Each sermon was preceded by a symbolic request of permission (reshut) from the ecumenical leader (gaon or nagid) in office. When the local Jewish leadership was contested, the opposing party would refrain from attending the synagogue. Compositions of superogatory liturgical poetry were introduced (piyyut, _ hizāna) into the liturgy proper.25 Piyyutim were known from late antiquity, _but they continued to be composed actively _ in the Genizah period, with cantors eagerly competing with one another to produce new texts for their enthusiastic audiences. The abundance of Genizah fragments containing piyyutim testifies to their vast popularity. The muqaddam, who conducted _ the liturgical ceremony, was also in charge of choosing the members of the community who would be honored with leading the prayer. This was considered to be a great honor, indicative of social prestige. In some cases, it was a privilege for life and was even passed down to the next generation. Since prayer led by an unworthy man was considered to be unlawful, this 25

See Chapter 24 in this volume.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 529 privilege was also an indication of an individual’s personal piety. Likewise, people suspected of improper conduct were at times almost violently prevented from ascending the reader’s platform. On these occasions, the synagogue compound served as a social meeting place, where people had the opportunity to see and be seen, to exchange social information, and to discuss business matters. The Sabbath acquired an element of sociability as well, probably due to Muslim influence; it became a day of get-togethers and visits to family and friends. Sabbath was the proper time for hospitality; people would spend the Sabbath with relatives and friends even from distant places. The sanctity of Sabbath also required special clothing; this was considered to be a basic right for any Jew and the community took care to provide Sabbath clothes for those who could not buy them. The weekly day of rest was sometimes exploited for mundane pastimes, not always approved by religious authorities. These amusements are minutely described in a query addressed to Maimonides: People get together on Sabbaths and holidays for drinking wine, playing with dice made of ivory bearing signs. The stakes are goblets of wine. He who wins, drinks. They have also other customs using kinds of seeds; for instance, one takes three and a half grains in his hand and lets the others in turn guess their number. He who hits the right number drinks and plays the next game. Are these and similar things permitted on the Sabbaths and holidays or not? Many and highly esteemed persons occupy themselves with this. May your Excellency instruct us.26

Young people used to promenade for pleasure in the gardens and agricultural areas which normally surrounded the big Muslim cities.27 Others went to swim in the Nile, which could earn one a summons to the rabbinic court since swimming on the Sabbath was rabbinically prohibited.28 festivals The holidays and fasts punctuated the cycle of the year at fixed intervals. Congratulatory wishes for the holidays are often found in letters. Any mention of a holiday required a good wish, usually paired with expressions of messianic hopes; the standard form reading: “May God grant you many years in happiness and joy, and may He grant you to behold the beauty of 26

27

28

Maimonides, Responsa, 2:327 28, no. 179; translated by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:13. For Alexandria, see Miriam Frenkel, The Compassionate and Benevolent: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006), 30, 127. JTS ENA 4100.21; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:12 13.

530 miriam frenkel the Lord and to visit His Temple” (Psalms 27:4). Since in ancient times a Jewish man was required to visit the Temple in Jerusalem on the three main pilgrimage festivals, the letter-writer bestowed upon the addressee the hope that he might be granted the same privilege during his own lifetime.

the high holy days The lengthy feasts of autumn offered a good opportunity for ceremonial gatherings of family and circles of friends. This was the time when the Mediterranean traders returned home from their lengthy summer commercial journeys, which started right after Passover, and could spend the autumn holidays with their families. People from the provinces streamed into the urban centers to attend the celebratory services and listen to renowned cantors. Residents of the big cities also used to spend the holidays in the countryside. This was an opportunity to display sociability; people competed with one another for the honor of playing the host – as demonstrated in the following letter sent to a brother and his family members: If you do not come for the holiday, I swear that I shall never talk to anyone of you in the future. Peace upon you and peace upon my mother. And do not bring bowls and dishes with you. I have plenty of everything. I am lacking nothing except you all.29

The highest Jewish dignitaries – the head of the yeshiva and other leading functionaries – used to leave the big city at this time of year and spend the holidays in other communities; leading synagogue services at a distant congregation bestowed honor upon the community they visited. On the High Holy Days, special prayers were said for the well-being of the Jewish ecumenical authorities as well as for other dignitaries. The High Holy Days were the time for individuals to commit to their annual donations to the community. Communities relied heavily on voluntary donations by their members. On the High Holy Days, people would vow how much they would donate for the public chest. It was a religious vow (neder) which earned additional sanctity during these Holy Days.30 The intermediate days of the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot), when people congregated and met, were also used for the fulfillment of contractual obligations or the payment of debts.

29 30

CUL T S Ar. box 7.9; translation based on Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:15. Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 220.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society the feast of the new year ( rosh ha-shanah )

531

The Feast of the New Year celebrated the creation of the world and the future restoration of the Kingdom of God. Its most conspicuous ritual was the blowing of the shofar, an ungulate’s horn intended to remind the people of the promise of messianic redemption and the future restoration of the Kingdom of God. At the beginning of the New Year new clothes were bought, and old clothes were often given to charity. The two-day feast required special arrangements: household accounts found in the Genizah show extensive food provisions, especially of substantial quantities of meat. A sheep’s head, a symbol of new beginnings, was a favored dish for the New Year’s supper. The two days of New Year and the Day of Atonement were part of the “Ten Days of Repentance” opening the year. They were meant to call the individual to examine his deeds, to confess, and to mend his ways. the day of atonement ( yom ha-kippurim ) The Day of Atonement was the most solemn of the Jewish liturgical year. It was dedicated to fasting, confession of sins, glorification of God, and supplications for forgiveness. The central part of the service was the reading of the description, in the Bible and in later sources, of the ritual of atonement which used to be performed by the high priest in the Jerusalem Temple, intended to help transform the penitent into a new being. On this occasion all members of the community, women included, gathered in the synagogue to participate in the service. It was a moment of communal and national solidarity. At the beginning of the twelfth century, the notorious businesswoman known as al-Wuhsha, then pregnant from her illicit relations with a foreign refugee, took _the trouble to attend the synagogue on the eve of the Day of Atonement – this was probably a way to challenge the camaraderie of the community members and to test its borders. The Head of the Jews at that time, David b. Daniel, could not consent to her presence at this holy event and expelled her from the synagogue. Her expulsion seems to have contravened the principle that even excommunicated people are permitted to join the community on that day of forgiveness.31 On the eve of the Day of Atonement, special prayers were recited for the Muslim ruler and for the Jewish ecumenical leader. Blessings were also 31

About the life story of al Wuhsha, see: S. D. Goitein, “A Jewish Business Woman of the _ Neuman and Solomon Zeitlin, eds., The Seventy Fifth 11th Century,” in Abraham A. Anniversary Volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review (Philadelphia, 1967), 225 47.

532 miriam frenkel invoked upon the elite of the community – for the learned divines, for the spiritual leaders of the local congregations, and those who had been awarded honorific titles. In case of rivalries between Jewish communal rulers, which were quite common, the community had to take sides. On this day, families remembered their dead. The cantor would convey blessings upon the deceased ancestors of the family and would mention each of them with their honorific titles and their good deeds. He did this assisted by detailed memorial lists, many of which are found in the Genizah. Genizah people ascribed much importance to wearing new clothes on the Day of Atonement; letters written before Yom Kippurim are full of requests for new clothing for this event. This was probably influenced by the Muslim custom of wearing new clothing on ʿĪd al-Fitr, the holiday concluding the fast of the month of Ramadān. Since charity_ was regarded _ was expected to attend the as a means of expiation and since everyone public synagogue service on this day, the Day of Atonement (like Rosh haShana) offered an opportunity for people to pledge charitable donations. This was the right time to arrange a pesiqah, a pledge drive for donations in support of communal officials and for other communal purposes.32 This was also a time for distributing wheat to the needy and to communal officials. The Yom Kippurim fast was broken with nourishing sweet dates, just as Muslims broke their Ramadān fast. _ the feast of tabernacles ( sukkot ) The biblical Feast of Tabernacles was originally the agricultural feast of the autumn harvest, one of the three ancient festivals accompanied by pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It also commemorated the sojourn of the Children of Israel in the desert, living in tents in the wake of the Exodus (Leviticus 23:42–43). Like the other agricultural holidays of the Bible (Passover in spring and Pentecost in summer), its days were divided between study and enjoyment. It required special clothing, usually of joyous appearance. In most synagogue compounds there stood a permanent booth (sukkah), which served during the rest of the year as a storeroom for the wheat and bread that was to be distributed to the needy and to communal officials. During the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, it served as a sukkah. The usual wish bestowed upon one’s fellows for the Feast of Tabernacles was that one might witness the “rejoicing of the water libation,” as in the times of the Temple. 32

Cohen, Poverty and Charity, 220 24.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society festival of lights (hanukkah)

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The postbiblical Festival of Lights commemorating the victory of the Maccabeans was referred to as a holiday (Arabic, ʿīd; Hebrew, moʿed) and was ascribed much greater importance than in medieval Ashkenazi Judaism. It was the holiday of miracles and salvation and the customary wish for it was: “May He who wrought miracles for our ancestors in those days do the same for me and you and all Israel.” Private teachers received presents on this occasion and it was a time for gatherings and staying with relatives and friends, like the other holidays. purim Purim is another postbiblical holiday concerned with miracles and redemption. It was a day of merriment rather than a solemn festival. The customary wishes on Purim were for wonders, miracles, and redemption as in the times commemorated on this holiday. On Purim, many people performed a pilgrimage to the holy shrine of Jawjar (Goger), in the Nile Delta, whose synagogue was named after Elijah, the harbinger of redemption. Children expected to receive a “Purim dinar.” Boys would also burn effigies of Haman, the central villain of the Book of Esther. In times of internal strife, this custom could acquire a contemporary political interpretation, as happened in the middle of the eleventh century, when rumors spread that on Purim, Karaites had burned effigies of three Rabbanite leaders. passover ( pesa h ) _ From its roots in the Bible, Passover served both as an agricultural spring festival and as a commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. Customs included the distribution of funds to the poor before Passover instead of clothing or wheat. Immediately after Passover, merchants set out from Baghdad and could take with them the halakhic answers from the Babylonian academies to all the communities which had submitted queries. The seven-day festival was exploited by artists and intellectuals for spiritual and worldly entertainment. Famous poets, scholars, and connoisseurs used to gather in one home to read aloud and listen to poems and other artistic works. The cheerful atmosphere is well reflected in the following letter written at the beginning of the twelfth century by the poet Isaac Ibn Ezra: I believe Mar Joseph [Ibn S ̣adīq] is travelling to your place to spend Passover there with Ibn al Fakhkhār, for the latter has made him desirous of spending the

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miriam frenkel

holidays in his house, where he would have a good time. Mar Joseph had planned to go to Seville, but he has changed his mind and is coming to Granada. Take notice of this. I decided not to let this letter go without some foolish poetry of mine. Last night I drafted the nonsense you will see. Mar Joseph has chosen them [the poems] and you will pardon me.33

The common blessing for Passover was that one might partake in the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb and other offerings that were given on that festival during the time of the Temple. pentecost ( shavuʿot ) Shavuʿot commemorates the revelation of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai. The two-day feast was celebrated seven weeks after Passover. The custom prevailing among European Jews of eating dairy products on that day was unknown to the Genizah community. Household accounts found in the Genizah indicate extensive consumption of meat on these two festival days. The customary wish for this holiday was: “May you be granted to see the Messiah, son of David, and to behold the presence of God face to face,” alluding to the divine revelation to Moses on Mount Sinai when the Torah was given to the Children of Israel (Numbers 14:14). On and around Pentecost, pilgrimage was performed to the Synagogue of Moses in Dammūh, south of Fustat. visits to holy shrines The annual cycle was also marked by regular visits to holy shrines. Most of the shrines were visited throughout the year, but some of them saw special ceremonies at fixed times. The most important rite was held at the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem on the High Holy Days. During the eleventh century, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem became greatly emphasized throughout the entire Jewish world. The head of the Palestinian yeshiva, who was recognized at that time as the “Head of the Jews” in the Fātimid caliphate, _ rites, which and other leading members of the yeshiva conducted the became the most important annual event in Jerusalem. The rites were held during the whole Hebrew month of Tishrei. Preparations started a few days before the eve of the New Year, when communal leaders from all over the Jewish world started to arrive in the city. Carefully arranged public 33

T S 12.280; translated by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:16. On Joseph Ibn Sadīq, see Hayim Schirmann, New Poems from the Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1965), 257 66.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 535 prayers were held during the whole month in synagogues and in the private homes of local leaders. On the day of the New Year the calendar arrangements were announced (ʿibbur) and on the eighth day of Tabernacles (Shemini ʿAseret), at the very end of the month, a special supplication for rain was_ held. These gatherings were the moment to announce new appointments to various communal offices and for giving festive sermons. The most central rite was held on the last day of Sukkot (also called Hoshaʿna Rabbah).34 This rite started in the Temple, in front of the “Gate of the Kohen” as thousands of pilgrims from all over the Jewish world gathered there. From there, a procession headed by the gaon himself marched toward the peak of the Mount of Olives. The procession was accompanied by songs and litanies. On the way, the pilgrims would stop at each of the gates that surrounded the Temple Mount and pray there. When the pilgrims arrived at the summit of the mountain, they circumambulated a flat rock called the “Chair of the Cantors” (Kise ha-Ḥazzanim). The gaon stood up on the rock and delivered a sermon. Thereafter he intoned the names of sinners upon whom the ban and excommunication was to fall, and he gave his blessings to the various Jewish communities – particularly to the people who had donated money for the Jerusalem yeshiva and for the Jewish residents of Jerusalem. The names of the donors were written in a special memorial book and solemnly read aloud. The gathering of many heterogeneous groups and the spirit of exaltation and brotherly excitement typical of all pilgrims35 sometimes resulted in unseemly incidents. In 1045, a brawl broke out between pilgrims from Tyre and a group of pilgrims from Tiberias when a man from Tyre sexually harassed another man from Tiberias. But normally, order was kept. The pilgrimage had a dramatic impact on the economy of Jerusalem. The pilgrimage month of Tishrei was a very good one for scribes, who copied Torah books for the pilgrims, for house owners who could rent rooms for good prices and for all merchants who benefited from intensive commerce at this time of the year. The shrine most venerated by the Jews of Egypt was the synagogue of Dammūh, the only remaining synagogue of ancient Memphis, once the royal capital of Egypt. Dammūh attracted seasonal pilgrimage that encompassed all levels of society, men and women alike. The main pilgrimages to the site took place twice a year, on Pentecost and on the seventh of the Hebrew month of Adar, regarded as the date of both Moses’ birth and his 34

35

On the pilgrimage festival of 1029, see Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), 202 4. Victor Turner, “The Center Out There: Pilgrim’s Goal,” History of Religions 12, 3 (1973), 191 230. Turner named this mood communitas.

536 miriam frenkel death. The veneration of the place was indeed related to the cult of Moses and the ancient synagogue itself was called “The Synagogue of Moses.” Moses Maimonides and his descendants were very much concerned with the upkeep of this place, which flourished especially throughout the thirteenth century, during which time the gathering at the place developed into a week-long mass carnival. The way to Dammūh was dangerous and the pilgrims were at risk of being attacked by the Bedouins, or by the Sudanese who controlled the area. Yet the dangers and risks were an indispensable part of the pilgrimage and some pilgrims even insisted on making their way on foot. The pilgrimage to Dammūh came to be of crucial communal and personal importance at this time, as can be seen through a marriage agreement found in the Genizah in which a nagid promises his newly wedded second bride not to spend more than two days a week at Dammūh accompanied by his first wife.36 The following statute, aiming at regulating the behavior of pilgrims at Dammūh, sheds light on the spirit these visits assumed: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

36

All should attend solely for devotion. No merrymaking is to be tolerated. Marionette shows and similar entertainments are not permitted. No beer should be brewed there. No visitor should be accompanied by a Gentile or by an apostate. No woman should be admitted except when accompanied by a father, a husband, a brother, or an adult son unless she is a very old woman. The synagogue building should be respected and revered like any other synagogue. Boys, or an adult man together with a boy, should not enter, in order not to expose themselves to suspicion and make a bad name for themselves. Both men and women should take the utmost care not to desecrate the Sabbath in any way. Playing chess is forbidden. Likewise, games like “watermelon and clay.” Making noise by banging something or clapping hands is disapproved of. No instrumental music. No dancing. On the Sabbath, water should be drawn from the well only when needed for drinking. Men should not mix with women, nor come near them, nor are they permitted to look at them. In the synagogue, women should pray in the gallery upstairs and men in the hall downstairs, as is established by ancient custom.

Joel L. Kraemer, “A Jewish Cult of the Saints in Fatimid Egypt,” in Marianne Barrucand, ed., L’Egypte fatimide son art et son histoire (Paris, 1999), 579 601.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 17.

18.

537

Visitors to the place, in times other than those of pilgrimage, should go there only for serious purposes not for pleasure or for something that, by deed or word, might endanger them or others or damage the compound. They should provide themselves with keys and not tamper with the locks, nor enter through the gardens or by scaling a wall. The community has empowered a person to represent the community in any matter concerning that synagogue may God keep it.37

Another holy shrine functioned in Tatay, in which an ancient Torah scroll _ was regularly visited and venerated. Even more frequented was the synagogue of al-Mahalla, a provincial capital in the Nile Delta, where a yearly _ pilgrimage was made on the new moon of the Jewish month of Iyyar, about a week after Passover, to venerate an old Torah scroll which was kept there. This event attracted pilgrims from all over Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. the time of the merchants The year was also divided according to commercial seasons. There were probably fixed market days, although they are mentioned but rarely in Genizah documents. On market days, special items that could not be obtained regularly were offered for sale, and credit was granted from one market day to the next. Regular movements of land caravans and of ship convoys divided the year into seasons of extensive business and others of slow business. In early spring, about a month before Passover, preparations for the sailing of the spring convoys started and markets were expected to become lively. In midsummer, the land caravans from southern Morocco and Tunisia arrived in Egypt. At this time of the year, all merchants were eager to buy merchandise in order to ship them on the boats that were expected to sail in September and business became dynamic again. CONCLUSION

In Jewish society under medieval Islam, individual life cycle and communal annual cycle were mainly, though not solely, understood and articulated in religious terms. The beginning of life for male newborns was celebrated by the religious ceremony of circumcision, which marked their acceptance to the Jewish community. The short childhood was dedicated for religious education and preparation for participating in the synagogue service. Transition from childhood to adulthood was determined by halakhic criteria. Marriage, 37

CUL T S 20.117 verso; translated by David H. Baneth in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 5:21 22.

538 miriam frenkel though mainly a family event, was apprehended as the proper way to perpetuate the ultimate raison d’être of Jewish existence, namely, the procreation of a new generation that will continue to study the Torah. The termination of life was celebrated by religious rites and was apprehended as a transitory stage to the world to come. The year cycle, too, was punctuated by religious holy days, fasts, and yearly pilgrimages. Even the time of the merchants dictated by the movement of commercial caravans was referred to in merchants’ letters in religious terms. Hence, the medieval Jews of Islam, albeit an urban society par excellence, seemed to reckon their time according to a religious law initially intended for an agricultural society. Although the exact division of time was not at all consensual, and even stimulated some bitter strifes between rival groups within the society,38 the main lines of annual and life cycles apparently persisted almost unchanged since antiquity. Nevertheless, a scrutinized study of the Genizah documents reveals changes and innovations along continuity. Changes occurred in the annual cycle. They included innovative rites performed on new occasions, such as the yearly pilgrimage to Dammūh, celebrated on the seventh of Adar, as well as supplementary rituals added to the classic holy days, such as the rite on Mount Olives celebrated on Shemini ʿAseret. _ by classic halakhic law, went Life cycle, too, although ostensibly dictated through significant changes such as an earlier age of marriage and the local burial customs of Alexandria. All these changes and innovations were the consequence of concrete new social and cultural environments under Islamic rule. In their literary oeuvres, the medieval Jews of Islam expressed a dire feeling of exile and temporariness. The diasporic condition of the Jewish people and their messianic hopes for redemption were a main recurrent theme in temporary literature and liturgy.39 Nevertheless, the Jewish annual and life cycles which dictated the rhythm of routine daily life do not betray an alienated society. The cyclical feature of time was highlighted by religious festivals which awarded distinctive dates with special significance, while daily liturgy and rituals – like the basic organic actions of eating and sleeping – constituted an indispensable part of the ongoing daily routine and bestowed it with spiritual and ritual meaning. This 38

39

The main controversies were between Rabbanites and Karaites, but also between Palestinians and Babylonians. See Marina Rustow and Sacha Stern, “The Jewish Calendar Controversy of 921 22: Reconstructing the Manuscripts and Their Transmission History,” in Sacha Stern and Charles Burnett, eds., Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition (Leiden, 2014), 79 95. See Chapter 23 in this volume.

life cycle and annual cycle in genizah society 539 accentuated periodicity rather manifests a stable and organic society integrated in its environment and maintaining of close relations between individuals and their community. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Frenkel, Miriam. “Adolescence in Medieval Jewish Society,” Continuity and Change 16, 2 (2001), 263–81. “Constructing the Sacred: Holy Shrines in Aleppo and Its Environs,” in Urbain Vermeulen and Kristof D’hulster, eds., Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid, and Mamluk Eras (Leuven, 2010), vol. 6, 63–78. “Pilgrimage and Charity in the Geniza Society,” in Arnold E. Franklin, Roxani E. Margariti, Marina Rustow, and Uriel Simonsohn, eds., Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times: A Festschrift in Honor of Mark R. Cohen (Leiden, 2014), 59–66. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. “The Ethics of Medieval Jewish Marriage,” in S. D. Goitein, ed., Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, 1974), 83–101. Jewish Marriage in Palestine: A Cairo Geniza Study (Tel Aviv, 1980). “Polygyny in Jewish Tradition and Practice: New Sources from the Cairo Geniza,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 49 (1982), 33–68. “On Marital Age, Violence and Mutuality as Reflected in the Genizah Documents,” in Stefan C. Reif, ed., The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance (Cambridge, 2002), 160–77. Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). Kraemer, Joel L. “A Jewish Cult of the Saints in Fatimid Egypt,” in Marianne Barrucand, ed., L’Egypte fatimide – son art et son histoire (Paris, 1999), 579–601. Krakowski, Eve. Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture (Princeton, 2018). Perry, Craig. “The Daily Life of Slavery and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt 969–1250 CE” (PhD diss., Emory University, 2014). Rustow, Marina. Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008). Zinger, Oded. “Women, Gender, and Law: Marital Disputes according to Documents from the Cairo Geniza” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2014).

chapter 16

FAMILY LIFE IN GENIZAH SOCIETY miriam frenkel

This chapter deals with family life in the Jewish society of the medieval Islamic world, which is mainly reconstructed on the basis of Genizah finds. It starts with a short survey about the ways in which family, kinship, and pedigree were conceived in this society, and then it goes on to speak about the functions expected and fulfilled by family members. The next paragraph examines the boundaries of the family, focusing on the special role occupied by domestic slaves. Thereafter, I will examine the institution of marriage: its roles, the legal processes required to establish and to end it, and its structure, including a short discussion about polygyny. The chapter ends with a description of the relations between family members as they surface in Genizah documents: spousal relations, relations between parents and children at various ages, and among siblings. THE CONCEPT OF FAMILY

In medieval Jewish society under Islam, the notion of a nuclear family consisting of parents and their offspring was as yet indistinct. With no specific term to denote the idea, the Genizah people used a range of overlapping designations. Many of these, such as bayt, ahl, dār implied a common dwelling place;1 others, like ʿitra or ʿashīra, stood for a lineage group. Some expressions were used more narrowly: the biblical Hebrew word mishpahah, for instance, usually denoted a distinguished family, _ word ʿāʾila generally meant a household.2 But all these while the Arabic terms were also employed in a nonspecific way for a variety of social groupings.3 1

2

3

Joshua Blau, A Dictionary of Mediaeval Judaeo Arabic Texts (Jerusalem, 2006), 24, 56, 222 23. S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 3:3; Blau, Dictionary, 470. Blau, Dictionary, 423; Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 3:2 3.

540

family life in genizah society 541 For the Genizah people, a Jewish community was conceived as a mosaic of various social and professional groups. This can be seen in the way letters addressed to the community opened with greetings to every social group – scribes, cantors, pupils, young children – with no mention of families, since these were not perceived as a unit in the social structure. Kinship did play a central role in society, but the family group did not form a social unit. Kinship was, rather, a social association that was generally expected to oblige mutual obligations and loyalties, but these obligations were not bound to any imperative rules or hierarchies. As put by Eve Krakowski: “kinship bonds needed tending to bear social meaning.”4 Most binding relations within the family were based on individual relationships between relatives, rather than on larger family groups. Indeed, most people mentioned in Genizah letters are identified by their tie to a specific relative: “the brother of so-and-so,” “the nephew of so-andso,” and so forth, and only very rarely as members of a particular family group. The loyalties expected by kinship mainly extended to social affiliation and financial support. In many cases, kinship also implied cohabitation. Nevertheless, in many cases these ties could also be denied or ended. Correspondence between relatives could be interrupted and financial support could be denied, although this was not socially approved. Genizah families were not organized according to a rigid given structure, but by personal loyalties among individual relatives. As they were based on confined individual loyalties, they were also changeable and fluid.5 Nevertheless, much importance was ascribed to pedigree. Paternal lineage is often mentioned in letters, legal documents, and most conspicuously in genealogical lists preserved in the Genizah. Descent from noble ancestry served political rivals as a legitimate claim for ruling positions, just as it served petitioners to charity as a proof of their being among the deserving poor.6 Although in social practice maternal kinship ties mattered a great deal, genealogies were mainly patrilineal as is manifest in the many genealogical lists found in the Genizah, most of which feature only the names of male descendants and agnates. Even the bond between husband and wife was 4

5 6

Eve Krakowski, Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture (Princeton, 2018), 58. Ibid., 56 64. Arnold E. Franklin, This Noble House: Jewish Descendants of King David in the Medieval Middle East (Philadelphia, 2012), 115 18; Mark R. Cohen, Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Princeton, 2005), 67 70; Krakowski, Coming of Age, 61 62.

542 miriam frenkel considered to be more honorable and worthy when both came from an esteemed paternal lineage. Seeking to reconcile a husband and wife, the head of the Jerusalem yeshiva wrote in 1030, “They are both of an esteemed lineage . . . and the virtue of their forefathers will protect both of them.”7 FAMILY AS A FUNCTIONAL UNIT

In spite of what seem to be loose and flexible bonds that tied together most Genizah families, there were several family groups that responded in many ways to the well-known patterns of classic patriarchy. Most of them were families of affluent merchants called after a common ancestor such as the Ibn ʿAwkal family and the Ben Nissim family, or after their places of origin, such as the Tāhertīs and the Tustarīs.8 These big clans functioned as identity groups. Many political rifts within the Jewish communities ran along those familial lines; as a rule, political rivals were automatically supported by their family members and, by the same token, were judged in terms of their family allegiances. At least several branches of these extended families shared a common domicile or lived in neighbouring dwellings. The most prominent commercial companies, such as the Tāhertīs of Qayrawān or the Ibn ʿAwkal family in Egypt, were essentially family partnerships. Similar patterns of family relations were sometimes repeated among less affluent traders and artisans. The degree to which kinship, domestic arrangements, and financial partnership could be intertwined is demonstrated in an agreement concluded in 1181 between two brothers who jointly owned a shop: the brothers would share a single home and eat at the same table; their meals would be covered by the business and each would receive one dirham per day. If the younger brother, still a bachelor, declined to partake of his brother’s food, he would receive two dirhams per day for living expenses.9 Kinship implied financial support. Indigent individuals felt entitled to receive help from affluent relatives even when the actual kinship was rather vague, and their letters invoked every family relation, however remote. On the part of the wealthy, there was an unquestioned commitment to helping 7

8

9

Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634 1099), 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1983), doc. 104 See Moshe Gil, The Tustaris: Family and Sect [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1981); Norman Stillman, “The Eleventh Century Merchant House of Ibn ʿAwkal (A Geniza Study),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 15, 1 (1973), 15 88. CUL T S 10 J 4.7, as recorded by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:182.

family life in genizah society 543 needy relatives. In her will, the famed eleventh-century businesswoman known as al-Wuhsha took the trouble of bequeathing two dinars to an _ whom she knew was related to her in some way, even impoverished orphan though she could not recall the girl’s name. Family members used to cover each other’s debts, including payment of the poll tax. For the Muslim authorities, too, this was considered the norm: if someone in arrears was absent, the poll tax he owed was automatically levied upon his family members, notably parents and brothers – but also in-laws. If these relatives failed to pay, they were invariably put in prison. The implications of this could be costly as can be seen in the case of the prominent Tustarī family: when Abū Nasr (Ḥesed) al-Tustarī was _ killed in 1049, only two years after the assassination of his brother, the vizier Abū Saʿd (Abraham) al-Tustarī, claims against him were automatically transferred to their surviving brother, Abū Mansūr, as revealed in a _ court record issued in 1052.10 Likewise, Jewish charitable institutions expected family members to take responsibility for their needy relatives. Alms lists from the Genizah note those instances when a registered pauper had relatives in town, a fact which would disqualify him from communal support.11 Nonetheless, in many other cases, obligations implied in kinship relations could be ignored or rejected, even within large solidarity-based families and among the most intimate circle of siblings. This is demonstrated clearly in a letter written in 1058 by Labrat b. Moses b. Sughmār, of _ the celebrated and influential Banū Sughmār family, to his brother Judah. Referring to another brother, he writes: “I mostly deal with him by keeping away from him completely, and considering him non-existent.”12 SLAVES AS KIN

In medieval Jewish society, male and female slavery was a widespread urban phenomenon. Household slaves served as caretakers for children and for their adult owners. Slave women also attended to their mistresses in times of need and when their own kin could not – or would not – come

10

11

12

Bodl. Ms Heb. b 3 (cat. 2806), f.1, cited in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:183. For more on the Tustarīs, see Gil, The Tustaris. On these lists drawn up on the initiative of the Jewish communities and for samples of these lists, see Mark R. Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages: An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza (Princeton, 2005), 107 63. Bodl. Ms Heb. b 13.49; Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1997), doc. 615, cited in Krakowski, Coming of Age, 63.

544 miriam frenkel to their aid. In this way, they functioned as “practical kin,” to use Pierre Bourdieu’s terminology.13 Slaves were deeply embedded in family life. Slave women performed all public labor that was necessary for the medieval household economy – fetching water, going to public bread ovens, and transacting business in the market. As such they enabled the maintenance of free women’s social status and honor. On the other hand, slave women often served as concubines and introduced much tension into conjugal life. Sometimes they were lodged in different residences outside their marital homes, with husbands splitting their time between the two places. In other cases, husbands totally abandoned their wives and children and lived with their slave concubines.14 Female slaves could sometimes join the Jewish community without formal manumission and conversion, mainly through tight connections with their Jewish owners. This generally happened by way of intimate relations between enslaved women and their Jewish male owners, in what can be called “sociological conversion.”15 Another way in which a householder could sociologically integrate slaves into his family was by apprenticing them to a trade or to management of the household. Male slaves who showed particular promise would often gain the confidence of their masters and be entrusted with major tasks such as buying and selling on their masters’ behalf. Indeed, they were a part of the institution of apprenticeship in commerce, which was normally in the hands of biological sons. On the other hand, a slave could be integrated into the master’s household not just as an adjoined alien but as legal kin through marriage. There was significant social pressure on masters to free and legally marry slave girls with whom they had had sexual relations or whom they had impregnated.16 Once a slave was freed, she had a good chance of marrying into a respectable family even if her former patron did not himself marry her. Her master would not only see to it that she was married but would also make efforts to connect her through this marriage to his own familial network.17 Many marriage contracts involving former slaves indicate that the erstwhile master provided not only his name and reputation, but also a 13

14 16

Moshe Yagur, “Religious Identity and Communal Boundaries in Geniza Society (10th 13th Centuries)” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2017), 80 85; Craig Perry, “The Daily Life of Slaves and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969 1250” (PhD diss., Emory University, 2014), 69 71; Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, 1977), 33 38. 15 Perry, “Daily Life,” 112 53. Yagur, “Religious Identity,” 101 31. 17 Perry, “Daily Life,” 107 53. CUL T S 13 J 3.26 and JTS ENA 2559.13.

family life in genizah society 545 major part of the wedding dowry, including jewelry, clothing, bedding, and household goods.18 Hence, the acquisition of a slave was in many ways equivalent to adoption, and indeed many people were eager to acquire slaves of a very tender age. We repeatedly come across the purchase of slaves between the ages of six months and three years. Similarly, masters went to great lengths and invested a lot of money trying to ransom captive slaves, just as they would do for other family members. These bondage-extending mechanisms created a specific sort of kinship, in which other elements substituted for blood ties as the basis of family. These mechanisms incorporated the slave, via the household, into the social networks of Jewish society.19 THE ROLE OF MARRIAGE

Matrimony was considered the normal condition for men and women reaching adulthood. Although only men were required by Jewish law to marry, Jewish society expected women to marry as well. Indeed, marriage and childbearing was the sole prospect for a woman. As formulated in the nuptial contracts of this time, marriage was essentially a mutual understanding between the bride, who agreed to become a wife, and the groom, who undertook to provide her with food, clothing, and the fulfillment of conjugal obligations “as Jewish men faithfully do” – and to honor her. Although it was usually left unmentioned, procreation – not merely companionship – was certainly the primary raison d’être of marriage, to ensure the physical continuity of Jewish existence as well as its spiritual perpetuation through bringing into the world “sons studying Torah and fulfilling its commandments” – to quote a phrase common in letters of congratulation. But, as attested by so many personal letters of the Genizah, marriage was primarily a family affair. Some marriages were endogamous, mostly between patrilineal cousins (i.e., cousins whose fathers are brothers), but as Krakowski has shown, endogamy was a relatively infrequent practice, not a dominant social norm as was previously assumed.20 Most marriages 18 19

20

Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:145. Miriam Frenkel, “Slavery in Jewish Medieval Society under Islam: A Gendered Perspective,” in Matthias Morgenstern, Christian Boudignon, and Christiane Tietz, eds., Male and Female He Created Them Masculine and Feminine in the Mediterranean Religions and Their Influence on Matrimonial Religious Law (Göttingen, 2011), 249 59. Goitein claimed that endogamy was a prevailing norm among Genizah Jews. This assertion was followed by other scholars. See, for instance, Amir Ashur, “Engagement

546 miriam frenkel among Genizah Jews were exogamous – that is, between previously unrelated families. Both forms of marriage – within the family and outside it – were commended in letters using the same vocabulary of praise and approval. Of special importance was the social bond created by marriage between a man and his wife’s male relatives, termed in Genizah writings as ittisāl. _ Amidst the widespread immigration of this period, marriage into a powerful local family was an expedient way for a newcomer to integrate. The most celebrated instance of such a strategy was provided by none other than Moses Maimonides. After many years’ wandering – from Spain to North Africa and Palestine – Maimonides sealed his decision to settle in Egypt with an immediate marriage. His bride was the daughter of Mishael b. Isaiah ha-Levi al-Shaykh al-Thiqqa, a government official and physician whose paternal and maternal lineages included scholars, physicians, and public officials. The marriage thus provided a robust network of relatives to help Maimonides integrate successfully into social and professional life as well as politics and business. The benefits of such a match were further enhanced when Maimonides’ sister married the bride’s brother, Abū alMaʿālī Uzziel, a high-ranking government official at the Ayyūbid court. It is likely, then, that Maimonides headed a household which included his sister’s family together with her brothers-in-law and their families. This new network of dependable relatives proved to be necessary and efficient in securing Maimonides’ illustrious career in Egypt.21 Auspicious marriage ties were a key consideration for Jewish India traders. Prominent among the latter at the height of the India trade was Madmūn b. Japheth, the central figure in Yemenite Jewry, who served as the _official head of his community and held six honorific titles conferred on him by both Babylonian and Palestinian Jewish academies. In addition, he was the representative of the merchants in ʿAden and superintendent of the port of ʿAden. Madmūn was married to the sister of Abū Zikrī Judah _ b. Joseph ha-Kohen, a prominent India trader and the representative of the

21

and Betrothal Documents from the Cairo Geniza” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2006), 92; Joel Kraemer, “Women Speak for Themselves,” in Stefan Reif, ed., The Cambridge Geniza Collections: Their Contents and Significance (Cambridge, 2002), 178 216; Ayeh L. Motzkin, “The Arabic Correspondence of Judge Elijah and His Family (Papers from the Cairo Geniza) A Chapter in the Social History of Thirteenth Century Egypt” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1965), 26. For Krakowski’s more recent finding challenging this presumption, see Krakowski, Coming of Age, 213 23. Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York, 2008), 230 32.

family life in genizah society 547 merchants in Fustāt, who was a scion of the family of Palestinian geonim _ and who himself _married Madmūn’s cousin.22 Marrying into a respected _family was regarded as an important goal. Typical of the congratulations offered on such occasions are those sent to Judah b. Moses Ibn Sughmār: God has granted that you become connected with the most illustrious and finest people, those of whom one can boast in East and West. This is more precious than the Earth and the fullness thereof. Thank and praise God that He has cast your lot with the grandees of Israel . . . May God aid them through you and aid you through them and make you a blessing for one another.23

By the same token, a conspicuous disparity of fortune between two marital partners was regarded as a mismatch: “Why did you let them marry you to an orphan girl who lived in their house and served them? Instead I would have made them your in-laws,” wrote a frustrated man from Sicily to his relative in Alexandria.24 Marriage between two scholarly families offered the desirable prospect of producing “sons studying the Torah.” In such cases it was common to praise the fathers for “joining grapes of the vine with grapes of the vine.” This well illustrates a genetic perception of family: women were excluded from Torah study, but the bride, being from a learned family, was expected to bring to the union the genes – in modern parlance – of gifted scholars, and so give birth to sons who would carry on the tradition of Torah study. Moreover, since learned families also had wealth and power, marriage between them was one of the most powerful tools in building and preserving a leading elite, which extended across the Islamic world and beyond.25 However, one’s choice of partner was not always based on expediency alone; personal preference could also play a part. In Qayrawān, for example, a bride could legitimately demand the dissolution of a betrothal on the grounds that she disliked the groom.26 Likewise, legal practice in Fustāt allowed for an engagement to be annulled if the bride _ and the groom_ formally announced their mutual dislike.27 The Genizah 22

23 24 25

26

27

S. D. Goitein and Mordechai A. Friedman, India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza: “India Book” (Leiden, 2008), 37 44. Bodl. Ms Heb. b 13.49, cited by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:56 57. CUL T S 20.122, cited by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:49. Miriam Frenkel, The Compassionate and the Benevolent: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006), 207 35. CUL T S Ar. 50.197, published by Mordechai A. Friedman, “The Interference of the Government in Qairawan in the Divorce of an Engaged Woman” [Hebrew], Michael 5 (1978), 213 38. CUL T S 13 J 16.5.

548 miriam frenkel contains many documents concerning the dissolution of engagements and betrothal agreements on these grounds. As a family affair, the choice of marital partner minimized the voice of the bride concerning the choice of her future husband. According to classical rabbinic law, a girl of twelve years was considered to have reached legal maturity as a bogeret, henceforth entitled to hold her own property, to bear financial responsibility, and to marry herself off without her father’s approval. Nevertheless, Genizah writings show that as long as girls remained unmarried, they stayed economically passive and had no autonomy in choosing their husbands. Although the Genizah records some cases in which girls protested against their engagements, the girl’s protest usually advanced the interests of her parents, and her reticence was used as a strategy in negotiating the marriage engagement between the two families.28 Further, contemporary geonic and Egyptian Rabbanite responsa interpret the talmudic dictum concerning the bogeret in a way that subverts its original intention. Thus, for example, we find in a responsum attributed to Hayya Gaʾon: It is the custom of all daughters of Israel even a mature daughter in her father’s house, and even a twenty year old whose father is still alive to follow after her father . . . [She is] not so licentious or impudent as to reveal her will and say, “I want So and So” rather, she relies on her father.29

THE AGE OF MARRIAGE

According to rabbinic law, a father may marry off his minor daughter from the age of three. In spite of occasional rabbinic passages that criticize child marriage, medieval Jewish jurists understood this dictum as a legal permission that permitted child marriage to be consummated physically. However, child marriage in the Genizah society was very rare.30 The 28

29

30

These cases were interpreted by Goitein as a manifestation of the bride’s autonomy; cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:73. But see Krakowski, Coming of Age, 230 39. Harkavy, Zikhron kamma geʾonim u ve yihud Rav Sherira ve Rav beno ve Rav ha Rav _ by Krakowski, Coming of Age, 234. See also R. Yis haq al Fāsī (Berlin, 1887), no. 194, cited _ _ Libson, “Betrothal of an Adult Woman by an Agent in Geonic Responsa: Legal Gideon Construction Accord with Islamic Law,” in Benjamin Hary and Haggai Ben Shammai, eds., Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo Arabic Culture (Leiden, 2006), 175 89. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:76 79; Ashur, “Engagement,” 162 72; Mordechai A. Friedman, “The Ethics of Medieval Jewish Marriage,” in S. D. Goitein, ed., Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, 1974), 83 102; Mordechai A. Friedman, “On Marital Age, Violence and Mutuality as Reflected in the Genizah Documents”, in Stefan C. Reif, ed., The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance

family life in genizah society 549 average age of first marriage is difficult to determine. However, most engagements and betrothals were performed when the bride reached the legal age of maturity at twelve and a half. As actual marriage was normally postponed for several years, the average age of marriage for a girl was likely to have been around fifteen or sixteen.31 This was probably a new medieval social norm, the result of a change in sexual ethics and in the ideology of pedophilia in the Islamicate world.32 THE LEGAL PROCESS OF MARRIAGE

Marriage was normally accomplished through a three-stage process, although this was often shortened by combining stages two and three. 1. engagement (shiddukhin ). This involved signing a contract before witnesses in which the two parties agreed on the conditions of the marriage and the date of the wedding, and determined the fines to be paid for failing to honor the contract. The document stipulated the financial conditions of the union: the marital gift, the dowry, and that any small gifts given to the fiancée were to be returned if the engagement were broken. The marital gift was only to become the bride’s property on the day of the wedding. The engagement contract also had specific personal injunctions, including clauses that related to the conduct of the couple. In one of these, the groom promised not to marry another wife and not to take a slave girl against the wishes of his future wife. Other clauses dealt with the bride’s personal property, the couple’s future domicile, and restrictions upon their movement and way of life. A detailed list of the bride’s trousseau and its value was normally appended to the engagement contract. 2. betrothal (ʿerusin, qiddushin ). This in effect represented a formal marriage and could be terminated only through divorce. The two parties were declared husband and wife, but the marriage could not yet be consummated, the couple did not live together, and the husband did not provide for his wife. It was at this stage – before the actual wedding – that

31

(Cambridge, 2002), 160 77; Avraham Grossman, “Child Marriage in Jewish Society in the Middle Ages until the Thirteenth Century,” Peʿamim 45 (1990), 108 25. Goitein concluded that child marriage was an insignificant social phenomenon and usually involved poor orphaned girls who were thus provided with the shelter of a home, this being the prime intention. Friedman and Ashur pointed out that in most cases, although the girls were engaged while still minors, the marriage was consummated only when they attained maturity. Krakowski (Coming of Age, 113 28) accepts the conclusions of Goitein, Friedman, and Ashur, and rejects Grossman’s claims that child marriage was a common practice especially from the eleventh century onward. 32 Ashur, “Engagement,” 162 71. Krakowski, Coming of Age, 128 41.

550 miriam frenkel the union was confirmed and all the financial arrangements finalized so as to avoid any last-minute misunderstandings. The betrothal had its own ceremony, and a banquet was also customary to mark the occasion. 3. wedding (dukhul, kinnus, zifaf ). During this formal culmination of the marriage process, the bride was brought to the groom’s house in a festive procession. It was at this stage that the marriage contract (ketubbah) was written out, with formulaic promises on the part of the groom that were reciprocated by the bride: he undertook to maintain and to honor her, and she agreed to become his wife. Note was made of the nuptial gift (mohar), consisting of a legal minimum of 25 dirhams (equivalent to the talmudic 200 zuz to be given a woman at her first marriage), and the groom’s “additional marriage gift” (tosefet ketubbah) was recorded. This was the principal monetary offering. It was divided into two instalments, one to be paid immediately (muqdam) and the other (meʾuhar) to be paid in the eventuality that the marriage came to an _ through divorce or upon the death of the husband. In the end, whether ketubbah, the husband mortgaged all his possessions – movables and immovables alike – including his estate after his death, to the debt he owed his wife. Hence, any future sale of his immovables would require the consent of his wife. The dowry (nedunyā, jihāz, shawār) brought by the bride was also listed in great detail. It was given as an irrevocable gift to the bride by her father and was henceforth considered her exclusive property, providing for her needs in the event of the termination of her marriage. The dowry was entrusted to the future husband, who had to pay it in full when necessary; half was to be returned to the wife’s family if she died childless. The dowry included the bride’s personal belongings: clothing, jewelry, furniture, and domestic items. These possessions were for the most part family heirlooms passed down for generations; money itself played no part. The bride’s dowry was on average ten times more valuable than the groom’s marital gift. There was inevitably a heavy dependence on the accumulated wealth of the extended family as it was the main economic foundation of a nuclear family. Appended to these sections of the ketubbah was a list of stipulations, some of them standard provisions, others more specifically relating to the circumstances of the couple. Prominent among them was the requirement that the husband trust his wife and declare, “She is trustworthy in her statements concerning everything and no oath of any kind may be imposed on her.” This clause probably reflects the anxiety that the wife might remain loyal to her paternal family and put its interests before those of her husband. It might also refer to a husband’s suspicions that money

family life in genizah society 551 earned by the wife might not find its way into the family purse, as was expected, but would secretly be set aside. It was also often stated that the husband was forbidden to marry a second wife or buy a slave girl without the first wife’s consent. The prevalence of these two linked clauses attests to the frequency of both polygyny and concubinage with slaves in this society.33 Other conditions concerned the couple’s place of residence and relations with their families. In most cases it was stated that they would live with the husband’s relatives. A bride could consent to this and even promise never to demand that her husband move away from his family. She could also make such an arrangement conditional on it not being detrimental to her. In some cases, it was stipulated that the bride would continue to live in her parents’ house or in their vicinity, especially when the house was part of her dowry. Further conditions concerned the freedom of movement of wife and husband. Like their Muslim counterparts, Genizah women could only leave their homes for very specific reasons: to visit their parents, to participate in festivals or assemblies of mourning, or to attend to female friends and relatives. In his code Mishneh Torah, Maimonides recommended that married women stay at home seated in the corner.34 Because the wife’s movement was restricted by religious law as well as by social mores, ketubbot contain hardly any stipulations restricting the wife’s freedom of movement. On the other hand, there are very few instances of marriage contracts that relate to the length of the husband’s absence on travels, despite the fact that absenteeism on the part of the husband was perhaps the most conspicuous marital problem of the time. However, there were legal precautions a wife could take to preempt the problem: provision for a conditional divorce that released the wife from the bond of marriage if her husband did not return before a fixed time; the required deposit of the delayed marriage gift from the husband before his departure; or a commitment to leave the wife all she needed to meet her expenses during her husband’s absence. Conditions regulating the interpersonal conduct of spouses exist, but were quite rare. In one instance, for example, a bride was explicitly instructed to respect her father-in-law. In another, a groom promised to

33

34

Mordechai A. Friedman, Jewish Polygyny in the Middle Ages: New Documents from the Cairo Geniza [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1986), where he refutes Goitein’s assumption that polygyny was only “a minor social evil.” Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:150. On concubinage, see Yagur, “Religious Identity,” 101 31. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Marriage, 13:11.

552 miriam frenkel avoid the company of frivolous and impious people, and to refrain from beating his wife.35 SPOUSAL RELATIONS

1. involvement of the extended family. The implications of marriage were far more complex than simply taking a husband or wife; a whole new relationship within the two families involved came into play.36 When Judah Ibn Sughmār was married, his elder brother, Labrat, wrote to _ congratulate him and to explain the meaning of his new status: My boy, you should know how to behave, and God forbid do not contradict your father in law. Accept him as a substitute for your own father, may he rest in Eden, and for myself, and accept your mother in law as a substitute for your mother, may God have mercy upon her.37

Even a marriage between kinsfolk inevitably generated new familial constellations that required certain adjustments. This could present numerous difficulties, especially for the young wife. Given the chaotic reality of urban houses in Fātimid and Ayyūbid cities, young couples lived in different, _ often-fragmented living spaces which they shared in a changeable, and variety of ways with relatives or with nonrelatives,38 but in most cases a young wife had to leave her nuclear family and join the household of her husband. She was expected to honor and obey not only her husband but also his parents and sisters, and she had to join the other female members of the household in maintaining and keeping the house. No wonder there are many letters in which she comes across as a “lonely stranger”; there are also numerous references to friction with the couple’s relatives. One extreme case comes to light in a complaint addressed to a judge, where it is claimed that a husband beat and cursed his young wife, his sister hit her with a shoe, his father called her names whenever he saw her, and they all spread rumors about her, giving her a bad name.39 Some families took precautionary steps in the engagement contract, making the marriage conditional on the wife’s right to choose the couple’s place of residence, 35

36

37

38

On the introduction of marriage agreements in the twelfth century and the political circumstances behind these new diplomatic innovations, their real worth in life, and the ways they could be used by family members, see Krakowski, Coming of Age, 241 64. On marriage as a form of reciprocal patronage, creating dyadic links between male in laws, see Krakowski, Coming of Age, 56 64. JTS ENA NS 18.35, recto, lines 35 36, published by Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 4:17 (no. 614). 39 Krakowski, Coming of Age, 47 56. Mosseri A 16.

family life in genizah society 553 or to have her private chamber (bayt) in the marital household (dār) – in part, at least to avoid the risk of such a situation.40 The extended family was also deeply involved in the couple’s economic life. Since the economic foundation of marriage consisted of the dowry given by the wife’s family – constituting more than half of the couple’s resources – every conjugal misunderstanding took on a wider significance and could bring the families into conflict. Many cases are recorded in which the wife’s family did not provide all that was stipulated in the marriage contract. In other instances, the wife’s family registered dissatisfaction with her husband’s management of the dowry. It should be noted that although the dowry was legally the wife’s personal property, it was held by the husband and he could make his own use of it.41 Indeed, husbands often appropriated the rent that accrued from houses included in the dowry, or used its assets as collateral for their own commercial enterprises; if these failed, the husband could find himself being sued by his wife’s family. On the other hand, having a dowry as joint property could also promote strong bonds between the families and between the spouses. In many cases we hear of long-term enterprises jointly managed by the families. Sometimes the wife took an active role in the business, and there are records of wives granting loans and selling, buying, or standing security for their husbands, as well as vice versa. 2. treatment of wives. Jewish law written at this time favored the moderate use of physical force against women. In the eighth century, Rav Yehudai Gaʾon – reputed to be the first author of a post-talmudic code of law – stated that “A wife should never raise her voice against her husband, but should remain silent if he beats her, as chaste women do.”42 Maimonides wrote in his own code: “A woman who refuses to do the work to which she is obliged may be forced to do so even with a stick.”43 That the violence that accompanied married life was widespread is attested in a variety of documents. Engagement contracts sometimes required the husband to refrain from aggressive behavior: “He will not beat her; whenever he will cause her any harm he will pay her ten dinars as 40 41

42 43

Krakowski, Coming of Age, 266 84. Krakowski compares this legal framework to that prescribed by Islamic law and finds it “considerably more restrictive of female property rights within marriage.” See Krakowski, Coming of Age, 49. See also Yossef Rapoport, “Matrimonial Gifts in Early Islamic Egypt,” Islamic Law and Society 7 (2000), 1 36, especially 23 24. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:185n123. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Marriage, 21:10.

554 miriam frenkel a gift; he will not curse her; his mother and sisters will not trouble her.”44 Abused wives submitted petitions such as the following, which was addressed to the head of the Jewish community in Egypt at the beginning of the twelfth century: In the name of the All Merciful, may God grant peace to our master and teacher Masliah ha Kohen, the Head of the Academy, may his rule endure for ever. Your _ _ maidservant has been married to this man for fifteen years, and has never received a thing from him, not even a piece of silver for going to the bathhouse; he bought me no clothing not even a cap and I complain about vexation and beating. He keeps saying to me: “Buy your freedom [by renouncing your marital gift].” May God punish him for what he is doing to me. He must pay me my marriage gift; fifteen years I have suffered his bad character and his vexations. Now I throw myself upon God and upon you. I am a captive. Free me!45

Evidence of the harsh treatment of women at the hands of their husbands can likewise be seen in written settlements of marital discord, court records, and halakhic queries. The marital disputes underpinning these documents were oftentimes the result of poverty. Financial shortage could lead husbands to pressure their wives to relinquish property from the dowry or to mortgage it, and sometimes even to seize it and run away.46 Violence against wives was prevalent at all levels of society, from the illiterate poor to the wealthy, educated elite. A typical instance of troubled conjugal life can be seen in the case of the court clerk, cantor, and teacher Solomon b. Elijah and his young wife, Sitt al-Ghazāl. The correspondence that carries their story deserves close attention on account of the insights it offers.47 The couple, who were cousins, were married in Sitt al-Ghazāl’s hometown of Alexandria when she was not yet fifteen, and left shortly afterward for their permanent home in Fustāt. About a month went by _ not the obedient wife he before Solomon realized that his young bride_ was had expected. In a letter to her father, written not long after the wedding, he explained candidly: I do not hate her. It is only her character that I hate. I say to her “Don’t do this”; she says “All right. I won’t.” But then she forgets what I said and does it. I do hope

44 45

46

47

Ashur, “Engagement,” 97 104. CUL T S 8 J 22.27; translated by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:186, revised by the author. Oded Zinger, “Women, Gender, and Law: Marital Disputes according to Documents from the Cairo Geniza” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2014), 177 80. Most of the correspondence was published by Motzkin, “Arabic Correspondence.” Krakowski has analyzed and dedicated a special chapter to this couple; see Krakowski, Coming of Age, 280 93.

family life in genizah society

555

God will reform her and her “blessed” character and her “blessed” movements . . . Oh, my dear cousin, if I were living with you in the same town, I would never leave you, and you would make peace between us. 48

However, when Sitt al-Ghazāl herself demanded that they go back to Alexandria, and her family supported the idea, Solomon objected: “In Fustāt, I get to teach children from good families. I am afraid that if I were _ _ up my teaching here, I would find nothing like it in Alexandria.” to give Relations between Solomon b. Elijah and Sitt al-Ghazāl seem to have deteriorated even further after the death of her father. In an attempt to improve matters, her brother wrote to the husband: “All I have with you is the little one. She is a stranger [in Fustāt], she is an orphan, she is young, _ _you have treated her, no one will and she is your own kin. As for the way think well of you for that.” Then he addresses his sister directly: My child, you do remember how your mother would attend to her duties. Don’t disobey your aunt whenever she assigns you a chore. They only want what is good for you. You know my way. Still, even if there were a year’s travel between us, I would show you something you haven’t been used to [meaning: I will punish you or beat you]. You know that you have no one left except God and these people. There is no one in the family more important than the old man, so serve him so well that I will get a letter from him about how you are doing, and about how you do not need a scolding.

However, the situation only worsened. Sitt al-Ghazāl fell sick and Solomon became increasingly hostile as one may infer from the letter written to him by Sitt al-Ghazāl’s uncle: your own words testify against what you say and here is the proof: you say she does not even comb her hair. Listen, intelligent one! If she were feeling well, would she go without combing her hair? For were she all right, her body would be perfumed, her hair combed and parted and she would put her eye shadow on. As to what you say that she is shameless and insolent she is your own, and belongs to you she is the daughter of your maternal aunt. Does a Jew accuse a child of Israel of shamelessness? My lord evidently does not know that the word “shame less” [Arabic, waqīh] means “ʿAz panim, mamzer ben nidda” [insolent, a bastard _ conceived by a woman during menstruation]. Let my lord beware of using this word . . . Coming now to your complaint that she does not do her chores: your mother does not actually know what she does. It is concealed from her. How do you expect any of the housework to be done perfectly by her if you use her as a maid? For you know that she is alone in strange surroundings, an orphan and so young. She has no one to lean upon except God may He help her in His good ways and

48

A euphemism for “cursed.”

556

miriam frenkel

console her in her orphanhood. Now, my lord knows that we accepted the fact that she lives with you and that we are separated from her. We rely on your generosity, your chivalry, your piety, your learning and your noble lineage. We are all agreed that you are chivalrous, and know that you will not destroy her life by coercing her, for you are so politic and manage things so well.

Later in the letter he offers direct advice concerning Sitt al-Ghazāl: Read her the following words aloud: “Sitt al Ghazāl! Remember the training you received from your mother and father. I swear to you by the God who will let me see you have a son, [you should] do and act towards the judge, your great patron, towards your husband and your aunt in the same way you used to act towards your father, grandfather and uncle.”49

What surfaces from this prolonged correspondence between the leading males of this prominent family concerning a young woman is that using moderate violence toward one considered a disobedient wife was fully accepted as an established norm. Even Sitt al-Ghazāl’s brother, who certainly cared for her, threatened to put her in her place through corporal punishment. It was only when the husband’s violence became excessive and the beatings were accompanied by cursing and exploitation that other male members of the family found it necessary to intervene, and even then they adhered to the basic notion that it is the primary duty of a wife to obey her “patron.” The husband could also restrict a woman’s liberty and confine her to the house; this was considered to be his privilege, even his duty. As Maimonides states explicitly in his code: It is unseemly for a woman to be constantly going abroad and into streets, and the husband should prevent his wife from going out more than once or twice a month as the need may arise. Rather, it is proper for a woman to sit in the corner of her house, for it is written: Inside [the palace], the king’s daughter looks splendid (Psalms 45:14).50

However, it was forbidden to prevent a woman from visiting her father’s house or her female friends. Nevertheless, it seems that even these provisions were widely disregarded. Some agreements signed between husband and wife contain clauses in which the wife consents not to leave the house without special permission from her husband and not to complain if he locks her in. 49

50

CUL T S 12.69; CUL T S 13 J 8.23, translated by Motzkin, “Arabic Correspondence,” 61 65. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Marriage, 23:2; translated by Kraemer, Maimonides, 341.

family life in genizah society 557 Elsewhere the husband agrees not to prevent his wife from going to the synagogue, to the bathhouse, to a party, or to a place of mourning, or to sell and buy clothes or visit her sister, all of which suggests that her legal entitlement to these activities was disregarded prior to the agreement.51 The ill treatment of wives also took another form: There are many recorded instances of husbands abandoning their families and disappearing, whether to evade creditors or other foes, or in order to live with another woman. The wife was left with no support and no information as to her husband’s fate. Such cases were very common at all levels of society and communal authorities usually intervened in an attempt to find the errant husband and bring him to court, and then either compel him to return to his family or to ensure that they were adequately provided for. In certain cases, he was threatened with excommunication if he refused to free his wife by writing her a bill of repudiation. Meanwhile the family suffered greatly, as can be seen from the following letter written to the head of the Palestinian congregation in Fustāt by one Hayfāʾ, daughter of Sulaymān, _ _ at the end of the eleventh century: I am a poor foreigner reporting what I have to endure from my husband, Saʿīd b. Muʿammar, the silk weaver. He left me pregnant and departed. Then he came back and stayed a while until I was with child. He left me again. I delivered a boy and took care of him until he was a year old. Whereupon Saʿīd came back. Then there was that incident with Ibn al Zuqilliya, who drove us out of our place. We arrived in Jaffa, where Saʿīd abandoned me, leaving me alone in a town where I was a stranger. Thus I was forced to get back to my family. From them, however, I suffered their harsh words, which only God knows. I decided to leave; living on public charity, I finally arrived here, where I learned that Saʿīd had come to Malīj, where a brother of his lives. I went there, but was told that he had returned to the Holy Land. I ask you now to write to someone there who would induce him to have compassion on me and my child; for the boy is now like an orphan; any one looking at him has compassion for him and blames his father. If he responds, fine; otherwise, have him set me free. I do not blame him. I call upon God and Judge, day and night, I am now looking forward to the action to be taken by you and ask God to accept my prayers for you in his mercy.52

When the nature of his work obliged the husband to be away for lengthy periods – as in the case of traders as well as craftsmen, physicians, 51

52

CUL T S 8 J 29.13; S. D. Goitein, “The Sexual Mores of the Common People,” in Afaf Lutfi al Sayyid Marsot, ed., Society and the Sexes in Medieval Islam: Sixth Giorgio Levi Della Vida Biennial Conference, May 1977 (Malibu, CA, 1979), 58; Ashur, “Engagement,” 117 23. Translation of Psalms 45:14 after The Complete Jewish Bible (Clarksville, MD, 2011). CUL T S 13 J 8.19, translated by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:197.

558 miriam frenkel scholars, and cantors obliged to seek livelihoods outside their hometown – special arrangements were made to provide for the family during his absence.53 If this was expected to be especially prolonged, a conditional bill of divorce was given to the wife, according to which the marriage would be annulled if her husband failed to return at the agreed date. 3. personal relations between man and wife. Of all the aspects of family life, the nature of the personal, unmediated relations between husband and wife is the least known. As a rule, husbands did not write directly to their wives, and only in very rare cases did they write about them or even mention them in letters. Women wrote to their husbands (always addressed as “my lord”) only under very pressing circumstances and with the aid of a male writer, as they were illiterate. Addressing the wife or referring to her directly went against religious conventions and the code of social conduct. Thus in our attempts to penetrate the dark glass through which we observe this society, certain strategies have to be adopted in reading the relevant documents. For example, it must be kept in mind that a wife was never called by any name equivalent to the English term “wife,” but rather in terms that illustrated a wife’s role: the house (alahl), the family (al-ʿāʾila), the mother of my children, the one who is with me (man ʿindī), the small one (al-saghīra) or the baby (al-tifla). Indeed, a _ wife was expected to be as docile, dependent, and obedient_ as an infant, as well as an exemplary housewife who did her chores without complaining and stayed inside the house out of public view. She was expected to produce and raise the next generation, and to be “with” her husband – namely, loyal and helpful. These expectations are exemplified in the words of approval sent to a newlywed husband: “I was happy to learn that your wife is efficient, clean, solid and doing her chores well.”54 Although a woman’s beauty was no doubt an important factor, this is hardly ever mentioned explicitly in writing. Nevertheless, wives were expected to keep up appearances and to make themselves attractive to their husbands. For his part, a husband was expected to treat his wife with kindness, tenderness, and consideration (hanāʾ, shafqa, riʿāiyya), as many a _ pleading father reminded his son-in-law. Husbands felt compelled to bring their wives presents. Weekly and monthly shopping lists drawn up by married men usually included an item labeled “present for the wife.” Wives also saw this as their prerogative and did not hesitate to prompt

53

54

Oded Zinger, “Long Distance Marriage in the Cairo Geniza” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 121 (2009), 7 66. Hungarian Academy of Sciences, DK XIII; cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:166.

family life in genizah society 559 their husbands – though not directly, needless to say, but through a relative. “Love” in the modern sense of the word barely entered the lexicon of matrimony. Although such affection could be expressed unreservedly by men toward male companions, commercial partners, and other kin, only very rarely was it directed toward a spouse; this was reflected in the love poetry of the time: highly elaborate, it very rarely featured a spouse as the object of love. Religious poetry directed its ardor toward the divine presence, while secular poems often focused on the attributes of a slave girl or boy. Wedding songs were abundant, but consisted mostly of conventional images that offer no specific viewpoint. On the other hand, lengthy periods of separation did occasionally prompt letters that openly articulate emotion and longing. The following letter, written by an India trader away from home, is one of the most passionate declarations penned in this society: I do not believe that the heart of anyone travelling away from his wife has remained like mine, all the time and all the years from the moment of our separation to the very hour of writing this letter so constantly thinking of you and yearning after you and regretting to be unable to provide you with what I so much desire: your legal rights on every Sabbath and holiday.55

In this last remark, the languishing correspondent was hinting at sexual relations, which were regulated by custom and by law and stipulated in the marriage contract. The proper time for the fulfillment of a wife’s “legal rights” was the night preceding the days of rest – namely Sabbaths and holidays. POLYGYNY

The practice of polygyny is demonstrated by numerous documents from this period. Indeed, the custom was widespread at all levels of Jewish society throughout the Middle Ages, even though it was generally frowned upon and required the consent of the first wife or else the granting of a divorce. Brides and their families often insisted on prenuptial conditions that prohibited the future husband from taking another wife, and that obliged him, if he did so, to divorce his first wife and repay the marital gift in full. This stipulation was so common that it came to be termed “the well-known clause.”56 The Jewish authorities and Jewish courts also sought 55

56

JTS ENA 2739.16 (= India Book, 7:60), translated by S. D. Goitein, Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders Translated from the Arabic (Princeton, 1973), 223. A variety of such agreements is to be found in Friedman, Polygyny, 55 82.

560 miriam frenkel to protect the first wife and safeguard her right to divorce if she was opposed to a second wife.57 In polygynous families, the equal rights of both wives were preserved through a variety of legal stipulations that guaranteed both women all their legal rights (food, clothing, and conjugal relations) in equal measure. In many cases, the court obliged the husband to provide a separate residence for each wife. In his code, Maimonides established this as a binding condition for polygyny.58 In many instances, the second wife was a freed slave. This was so common that the “wellknown clause” in prenuptial agreements had the twofold stipulation that the husband would not take a second wife nor purchase a slave girl without his first wife’s consent.59 Freeing and marrying slave girls was especially prevalent among the India traders who spent long years in distant countries.60 Biblical law stipulates that when a man dies childless, it is incumbent upon his brother to marry his widowed sister-in-law, although he is free to refuse the marriage if he performs a special ceremony called halisah.61 This _ Genizah institution is called levirate marriage (Hebrew, yibum). In_ the society, this institution was interpreted literally among Rabbanite Jews and endorsed by Maimonides, who declared such levirate marriage to be a religious duty, taking precedence over all other considerations.62 The widespread nature of this practice largely accounts for the prevalence of polygyny. Another established custom was sororate, by which a sister took the place of a deceased wife. This had no legal basis in any code of law but was so entrenched in society that a sister would break an engagement contract to marry a bereaved brother-in-law. In many cases this was at the instigation of the late wife’s family, in order to regain the family’s possessions. TERMINATION OF MARRIAGE

According to Jewish law, divorce is the husband’s exclusive prerogative and only he can bring about the end of a marriage. It is the man who divorces his wife, even without her consent, as stated in the Mishnah: “A woman may be divorced with or without her consent; a man can give divorce only with his full consent.”63 57 59 60

61 63

58 Ibid., 241 69. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Personal Status (Ishut), 14:3. Yagur, “Religious Identity,” 101 15. Friedman, Polygyny, 291 399; Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, 55 57, 73 75, 690 92. 62 Cf. Deuteronomy 25:7 9. Maimonides, Responsa, 2:650 55 (no. 373). Mishnah Yevamot 14:1 (Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 112b).

family life in genizah society 561 A wife, on the other hand, could demand her husband divorce her only on very limited and specified grounds.64 Yet evidence from the Genizah points to a practice of women initiating divorce proceedings against their husbands by relinquishing their delayed marriage gift (meʾuhar). The procedure acquired legal status through an established statute, _according to which the wife, by declaring herself a “rebellious wife” (moredet) and giving up her marriage gift, could compel her husband to agree to a divorce.65 This procedure, called “ransom” (iftidāʾ), ostensibly enabled wives who were unhappy with their marriage to initiate divorce even without their husbands’ consent. Nevertheless, Genizah documents show that in most cases the husbands were trying to lay a hand on their wives’ property. This pressured their wives to “ransom” themselves. This arrangement was normally arrived at not as the result of wives’ subjective dislike of their husbands, but in the context of husbandsʼ abuse and neglect.66 In some cases, however, wealthy women from powerful families could obtain a divorce without renouncing their rights and property, and even secure favorable terms from the former husband. This phenomenon may be seen in a number of legal documents in which the husband agrees to hand over almost all his property – as one bill of repudiation from 1203 puts it: “all the furniture, clothing, Bible codices and other books found in the house, and everything belonging to him under the sky.” The bill was followed by a declaration on the part of the husband that he had no claims whatsoever against his wife.67 It seems, then, that the “ransom divorce” played a different function for privileged women than for weak women: whereas for wealthy women it permitted a legal (albeit expensive) escape from marriage, for abused women it further deteriorated their position vis-àvis their exploitative husbands. For the divorce to be valid, the husband had to write a bill of divorce (get) and present it to his wife in front of witnesses, who could then testify _ the bill “has got into her hand.” This symbolic act was invested with that great importance. A legal divorce also required a bill of release (barāʾa), through which husband and wife declared they had no financial claims against each other. In most cases, however, these two basic documents did not suffice, and the process of divorce proved long and exhausting, 64 65

66 67

Mishnah Ketubbot, chapter 7. Mordechai A. Friedman, “Divorce upon the Wifeʼs Demand, as Reflected in Manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza,” Jewish Law Annual 4 (1981), 103 26; Mordechai A. Friedman, “The Ransom Divorce: Divorce Proceedings Initiated by the Wife in Medieval Jewish Practice,” Israel Oriental Studies 6 (1976), 287 307. Zinger, “Women, Gender, and Law,” 132 80. CUL T S Ar. box 54.69, from 1203.

562 miriam frenkel involving many further judicial procedures that were more intricate and differed from case to case. Generally, Genizah women went to great lengths in order to avoid divorce and to keep their marriages. They preferred to remain married rather than to be alone and were willing to make substantial sacrifices for this goal.68 Marriage also came to an end with the demise of one of the spouses. The widower usually remarried shortly afterward. His economic and social status was not unduly affected since he was the legal heir to his wife’s dowry and her other possessions; moreover, as a widower he was exempt from paying the delayed marriage gift, and the necessary domestic duties were taken on by other female relatives. For the widow, however, bereavement was a severe blow. She ceased to be “the mistress of the house,” lost her main financial support, and in many cases lost her home as well. Thenceforth she was dependent on what remained of her dowry, her personal possessions – if she had any – and the delayed marriage gift. Although a wife was not usually made a beneficiary, in many cases she had been appointed by her husband as executor and administrator, and thus had some control over the family’s possessions. Otherwise it was customary for everything in the house to pass into the ownership of the legal heirs. The widow could claim that her rightful due be extracted from the deceased’s estate, but her position was weak and in many cases her claims were simply disregarded. As recorded in many Genizah documents, it took considerable time and effort to acquire these financial assets; in rare instances of success, the sum won did not usually meet her needs.69 It is hardly surprising, then, that most of the women found enrolled on public charity lists were widows. PARENT CHILD RELATIONS

Procreation was a prime religious injunction, and producing sons to sustain the time-honored tradition of Torah study, fulfilling its commandments for future generations of Torah scholars, was of paramount religious and moral importance; in this way God’s sacred law would be preserved for eternity. The birth of a son also had the practical advantage of enhancing a family’s resources and prestige. It was assumed that he would take up his father’s profession or occupation, becoming an assistant or partner in a commercial firm, craft industry, or community position. Writings and letters of the time abound in references to sons; they are sent reports, greetings, and blessings. 68 69

Zinger, “Women, Gender, and Law,” 164 65. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:250 60; Joseph Rivlin, Inheritance and Wills in Jewish Law [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1999), 76 77, 82.

family life in genizah society 563 The many endearments they inspire include such expressions as “the shining diamond,” “the shy flower,” “the blossoming rose.” Daughters were seen in a very different light. The birth of a girl was given only scant, indirect mention, usually in the course of celebrating the mother’s well-being after childbirth. The announcement that a girl child had died was always followed by the wish that she would be replaced by a boy. This unfavorable attitude had a twofold cause: first, since women did not study the Torah and did not actively participate in religious ceremonies, they were regarded as insignificant for the overall purpose of religious continuity; second, in practical terms, girls imposed a heavy financial burden on the family, as they were not expected to take part in any economic enterprise, and would require an expensive dowry in order to marry. This did not mean, of course, that girls were not loved and cared for. Expressions of affection found in the Genizah letters include the following, from a young cantor away from home: Thank God, I am perfectly well, but yearn after my “family” (ahl: my wife) and my daughter . . . The people here are happy with me, but my mind is troubled. I wish I could fly to you; tell me what I can do. Please, write me how you are, especially my daughter and her mother, for when I am alone, I cry all the time because of my separation from them . . . while I am writing this, my tears are running down.70

The education of children depended upon a family’s social and economic standing, but the ideal of the well-reared child was no doubt shared by the entire Jewish community. It is an image reflected in a father’s eulogy for his son who died at the age of six: the child is praised for never playing in the streets, for running to the gate of his home to welcome a needy person and share food with him, and for delighting his father with intelligent questions.71 From this we can infer that the ideal young son spent most of his time at home with his family, was intelligent, eager to learn, generous, and pious. He was also expected to be a loyal member of the extended family, always attentive to his relatives and their needs. ADOLESCENTS

Childhood, according to halakhic precepts, was short: on reaching the age of thirteen, for a boy, and twelve, for a girl, an individual who had attained 70 71

Bodl. Ms Heb. c 28 (cat. 2876) 58; translated by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:229. The eulogy was published by Ezra Fleischer, “Remarks on Medieval Hebrew Poetry,” in Ezra Fleischer, ed., Studies in Literature Presented to Simon Halkin [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1973), 183 89. Translation by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 3:234.

564 miriam frenkel physical and mental maturity was considered to be fully adult.72 In reality, the transition from childhood to adulthood was much longer and more complicated. Medieval Jewish poets could long for their youth – in alḤarīzī’s words, “Making love in the villages surrounded by roses and farms and grazing deer while time was still my slave”73 – but Genizah letters reveal a harsher reality in which mobs of youngsters used to congregate and interfere, sometimes violently, in communal affairs, opposing the traditional leadership, or simply challenging the social order through anarchic lawlessness and drunken brawls. Jewish society developed an efficient system for socializing its adolescents. This was done through the institution of higher learning, the beit midrash, whose pupils constituted a very involved segment of the community, usually representing protest and opposition. In this way they were given an opportunity to channel their energies, while taking an independent, active part in community life and rehearsing their future roles in the society. Another method of socialization was the practice of apprenticeship. As a rule, a merchant’s son was sent to a well-known commercial firm or experienced merchant in order to serve as an apprentice and learn the ways of commerce. There usually developed a special relationship, called “education” (tarbiya), between apprentice and merchant, the latter being addressed as “my teacher.” The period of apprenticeship offered the adolescent boy a transitional phase in which he became fully integrated into the adult world while still under the surveillance of his family or of the social and professional milieu in which his family lived. Since the major merchant families had complex networks of marital and business ties, the adolescent was absorbed into a broad, family-like social structure. However, this elaborate mechanism of socialization, which closely supervised a boy’s entry into the commercial world, was not always effective. Adolescents who were not absorbed into the socializing frameworks that society prepared for them sometimes created a disturbing presence which was very pronounced.74 Adolescent girls were totally dependent on their relatives. Before her marriage, a girl’s life was controlled by her parents or other relatives in her household, who fed and clothed her, ordered her daily life, chose her 72

73

74

Tirza Meacham Yoreh, ed., and Miriam Frenkel, trans., The Book of Maturity by Rav Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and the Book of the Years by Rav Yehudah ha Kohen Rosh ha Seder [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1999). Judah al Harīzī, Tahkemoni, or The Tales of Heman the Ezrahite, ed. Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010), 235. Miriam Frenkel, “Adolescence in Jewish Medieval Society under Islam,” Continuity and Change 16, 2 (2001), 263 81.

family life in genizah society 565 husband, gave her dowry, and negotiated her marriage contract, that is, shaped her future married life. When she inherited property or proved capable of working, she was allowed to use her own money only to increase her dowry and prepare herself for marriage.75 Like mature women, adolescent girls were expected to refrain from visiting public spaces and to seclude themselves at home. This restriction was a marker of social class; lower-class girls could be seen quite frequently in public spaces. Seclusion did not come out of special anxiety for adolescent girls’ sexuality; it also applied to married wives, widows, and divorced women.76 ATTITUDE TO PARENTS

In all circumstances, however, honoring one’s parents was the religious and social norm. Young children, adolescents, and adult children showed respect toward their parents by addressing and referring to them as “my lord” and “my lady,” and by kissing their hands and feet. Whenever possible, adult children stayed close by to provide for their parents and to extend any help needed. There were often instances when adults cancelled a planned journey because of a parent’s immediate need. Expressions of longing and love exchanged between parents and children are among the most touching texts in the Genizah. Reverence toward parents was also grounded in practical considerations. Girls needed their parents to find a match for them, to protect their interests while married, and to support them if their marriage came to an end. Sons relied heavily on their parents’ financial assistance in arranging a marriage and, when married, in furnishing the initial needs of a young couple. In many cases, fathers and sons cooperated in a commercial partnership and their economic interests were thoroughly intertwined. Inevitably, such interdependence did not exist without conflict, which even reached the court in some cases. But in the main, litigation between parents and children was rare and was considered improper. Most quarrels between parents and children were subdued and resolved within the family. SIBLING RELATIONS

Brothers were united by strong bonds of love, commitment, and cooperation. The firstborn son had a privileged position; he was entrusted as his father’s deputy and considered to be the closest to him. The firstborn also 75

Krakowski, Coming of Age, 142 80.

76

Ibid., 181 206.

566 miriam frenkel felt responsible for his younger siblings and replaced the father when he died. The most famous expression of love for a younger brother is found in Maimonides’ lament for his brother, David: The worst disaster that struck me of late, worse than anything I had ever experi enced from the time I was born until this day, was the demise of that upright man, may the memory of the upright be a blessing, who drowned in the Indian Ocean . . . From then until this day, that is, about eight years, I have been in a state of disconsolate mourning. How can I be consoled? For he was my son; he grew up upon my knees; he was my brother, my pupil. It was he who did the business in the marketplace, earning a livelihood, while I dwelled in security. He had a ready grasp of Talmud and a superb mastery of grammar. My only joy was to see him. All joy is darkened, The mirth of the land is gone (Isaiah 24:11). For he has gone to eternal life, leaving me dismayed in a foreign land. Whenever I see his handwriting or one of his books, my heart is churned inside me and my sorrow is rekindled . . . and were it not for the Torah which is my delight and for scientific matters, which let me forget my sorrow, I would have perished in my affliction (Psalms 119:92).77

As seen in this letter, it was the custom for brothers to study together. Other evidence shows brothers sending joint halakhic queries, copying manuscripts together, sharing books, writing joint letters, and administering fundraising projects together. Brothers were often financial partners and conducted joint commercial enterprises. The relationship between brother and sister could also be very close, and expressions of love and devotion were freely articulated in Genizah letters. An elder sister would be treated with great respect and referred to as “my mistress.” An elder brother would feel responsible for his sister’s well-being and was committed to assisting and protecting her. Younger sisters did not hesitate to turn to their brothers for help when necessary. A brother would represent his sister in the negotiations leading to marriage, sometimes even when their father was still alive; after his death, it was the brother that accompanied his sister through life, providing her with everything needed for the marriage, and admitting her into his household if she was widowed or divorced. Elder or better-off sisters were also committed to helping their siblings financially. Whether through wealth, force of personality, or other propitious circumstances, sisters were able to gain positions of power within the family. An influential sister could intervene in family disputes and mediate in quarrels between her siblings. Since the only females with whom a

77

Isaac Shailat, ed. and trans., Letters and Essays of Maimonides [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1987 88), 228 30; translation after Kraemer, Maimonides, 255 56.

family life in genizah society 567 young bachelor could talk freely and intimately were his sisters, it is small wonder that even after marriage he would often find their company more congenial than that of his new wife. This created considerable tension between wife and sister-in-law. CONCLUSION

Family life played a central role in the Genizah society, although the family group itself did not cohere and was not apprehended as a social unit within this society. Family ties were not imperative and depended on the goodwill of family members. Nevertheless, some families, most of them of affluent merchants, like the Ibn ʿAwkal family, the Ben Nissim family, the Tāhertīs, and the Tustarīs, formed big clans and functioned as identity groups. Family borders extended sometimes beyond biological ties to include also domestic slaves, who functioned as “practical kin.” Matrimony was considered the normal condition for men and women reaching adulthood. For women it was actually the only prospect in life. Polygyny was legal and common, though generally frowned upon. As we would expect, Genizah letters attest to a range of relations between family members from deep affection and commitment to alienation and hostility. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Frenkel, Miriam. “Adolescence in Jewish Medieval Society under Islam,” Continuity and Change 16, 2 (2001), 263–81. “Slavery in Jewish Medieval Society under Islam: A Gendered Perspective,” in Matthias Morgenstern, Christian Boudignon, and Christiane Tietz, eds., Male and Female He Created Them – Masculine and Feminine in the Mediterranean Religions and Their Influence on Matrimonial Religious Law (Göttingen, 2011), 249–60. Friedman, Mordechai A. “The Ethics of Medieval Jewish Marriage,” in S. D. Goitein, ed., Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, 1974), 83–102. “The Ransom Divorce: Divorce Proceedings Initiated by the Wife in Medieval Jewish Practice,” Israel Oriental Studies 6 (1976), 288–307. Jewish Marriage in Palestine: A Cairo Geniza Study, 2 vols. (New York, 1980). Jewish Polygyny in the Middle Ages: New Documents from the Cairo Geniza [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1986). “On Marital Age, Violence and Mutuality as Reflected in the Genizah Documents,” in Stefen C. Reif, ed., The Cambridge Genizah

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miriam frenkel Collections: Their Contents and Significance (Cambridge, 2002), 160–77. Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). Krakowski, Eve. Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture (Princeton, 2018). Perry, Craig. “The Daily Life of Slavery and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt 969–1250 CE” (PhD diss., Emory University, 2014). Zinger, Oded. “Women, Gender, and Law: Marital Disputes according to Documents from the Cairo Geniza” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2014).

part iii SPIRITUAL AND INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

chapter 17

KARAISM haggai ben shammai

Karaism is the Europeanized name given to a Jewish movement whose members identified themselves by the Hebrew name qaraʾim,1 a term widely understood to mean “those who are dedicated or devoted to the study of the Law [Torah],” “those who observe the Torah strictly according to the plain meaning of its text,” or “those who consider the text of the Torah to be the sole source of legislation.” Put otherwise, the Karaites are those Jews who reject the authority of the rabbinic tradition (or Oral Law, Torah she-be-ʿal peh) as the definitive interpretation of the Hebrew Bible.2 ORIGINS OF KARAISM

Although the existence of a movement under the name “Karaites” is not documented before the ninth century, some popular writings – and many Karaites themselves – believe the movement was founded in the eighth century by a figure named ʿAnan b. David. According to various sources, ʿAnan was the eldest son of an exilarch, while Karaite sources from alQirqisānī (active in Iraq c. 920–40) onward refer to him as the exilarch – that is, as though he actually served in this capacity.3 In fact, ʿAnan started 1

2

3

Arabic, qarāʾiyyūn. In Karaite Hebrew sources, one also finds benei miqra and, occasion ally, baʿalei miqra. Useful tools for further reading and research can be found in Meira Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003); Barry Dov Walfish with Mikhail Kizilov, Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism (Leiden, 2011). On the basis of this, a legendary tradition developed according to which ʿAnan was the heir designate of his father but was rejected in favor of his younger brother, Hananiah. When he objected, he was imprisoned by the caliph and sentenced to death on the grounds that he had intended to start a rebellion. He managed to avoid his sentence by arguing, at the advice of a Muslim jurisconsult who was his cellmate (identified in some sources as Abū Hanīfa, the eponym of the Hanafī school of law), that he based his calendar on lunar observation, like the Muslims do. See Fred Astren, “Karaite

571

572 haggai ben-shammai a movement of “ʿAnanites” (Arabic, ʿanāniyya) whose tenets differed significantly from what would later be called Karaism.4 Fragments of ʿAnan’s Sefer Misvot (Book of Laws) survived in the original Aramaic, and Karaite literature_ preserved quotations from the book in Aramaic or Hebrew or Arabic translations or paraphrases.5 From these, it is clear that the book does not even pretend to adhere strictly to the literal meaning of biblical law – rather, the emphasis is on faithful adherence to ʿAnan’s interpretations as the sole authority for Jewish law. The book also includes many legal rulings found in the Mishnah, the Talmud, and other tannaitic and targumic sources that were not accepted by rabbinic tradition (e.g., lex talionis – literal interpretation of “an eye for an eye” in criminal law [Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20]). Indeed, al-Qirqisānī reports that when two geonim, Ḥayya (head of the Sura yeshiva, r. 886–96) and his father Nahshon, translated ʿAnan’s entire work into Hebrew, they were able to _ all of the laws it contained to rabbinic sources except for one, which trace they found in the oeuvre of the liturgical poet Yannay. This report may be exaggerated, but it concurs neatly with the claim of Natronay Gaʾon (mid_ ninth century) that ʿAnan had said to his followers, “Abandon the laws of the Mishna and Talmud. I will compose for you a Talmud of my own.”6 This reference suggests that ʿAnan accepted the basic claims and methods of rabbinic Judaism while rejecting some of its contents that became normative for Rabbanite Jews. From several statements in the Sefer haMisvot, we may clearly see ʿAnan’s exegetical method.7 _ Some Karaites later attributed Karaite interpretive methodologies to ʿAnan. In his commentary on Zechariah 5:8, Japheth b. ʿEli (second half of the tenth century, active in Jerusalem) attributes the dictum: “Search

4 5

6

7

Historiography and Historical Consciousness,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, esp. 30 36; Leon Nemoy, “Elijah Ben Abraham and His Tract against The Rabbanites,” Hebrew Union College Annual 51 (1980), 63 87; Moshe Gil, “The Origins of Karaism,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, esp. 63 70. See EI3, s.v. “ʿAnaniyya” (Georges Vajda and Haggai Ben Shammai). Most of the extant fragments were published by Albert Harkavy, “Aus den ältesten karäischen Gesetzbüchern von Anan, Benjamin Nehawendi und Daniel al Kummissi,” in his Studien und Mittheilungen (Zikhron la Rishonim) [Hebrew] (St. Petersburg, 1903), vol. 8; Solomon Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries (Cambridge, 1910), vol. 2. For a survey of all publications on ʿAnan’s book, see Haggai Ben Shammai, “Babylonian Aramaic in Arabic Characters: A Passage from ʿAnan’s Book of Precepts in a Work by Yeshuʿah b. Judah the Karaite,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 32 (2006), 419 32. Robert Brody, ed., Teshuvot Rav Natronay bar Hilay Gaon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2011), 257 59 (Orah Hayim, sec. 138), and see note 10; also quoted in Daniel Goldschmidt, ed., _ Seder Rav ʿAmram Gaʾon (Jerusalem, 1971), 2:111 12. Cf. Haggai Ben Shammai, “Between Ananites and Karaites: Observations on Early Medieval Jewish Sectarianism,” Studies in Muslim Jewish Relations 1 (1993), 19 29.

karaism 573 well in the Torah and do not rely on my opinion” (happisū be-orayta shappir ve-al tishaʿanū ʿal daʿati) to ʿAnan. In fact, this_ dictum is composed of two clauses, the first in Aramaic, the second in Hebrew. While the first clause may agree with ʿAnan’s rulings,8 the second is not found in the oldest manuscript of Japheth’s commentary. Rather, it seems to reflect a reinterpretation of ʿAnan’s work, perhaps in keeping with the views of the Karaite Daniel al-Qūmisī (second half of the ninth century). It also seems to contradict the definitive language of ʿAnan’s rulings. ʿAnan’s movement was apparently one of several that did not recognize the authority of the Babylonian branch of rabbinic tradition, which was in his time at a very early stage of consolidation; among these groups one may well also include the Palestinian branch of rabbinic Judaism, revived under the nascent Islamic state.9 In the first treatise of his magnum opus, Kitāb al-Anwār wa-l-Marāqib (Book of Lights and Watchtowers),10 al-Qirqisānī numbers an entire succession of such movements or groups, several of which were extant in his time or close to it. Several of them were of a messianic character (ʿĪsāwiyya, and the followers of Yudghān), while others emphasized certain ritual aspects – notably the calendar – while still others were more stringent or more permissive.11 The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls led some scholars to speculate about a possible connection between the Jewish community at Qumrān and the early Karaites. These scholars have cited four kinds of evidence: similarities in exegetical approach, messianic or sectarian terminology, and laws related to food and prohibited marriages; the fact that the Cairo Genizah preserved substantial sections of a medieval copy of the Damascus Document found at Qumrān;12 a letter by Timotheus, the 8 9 10

11

12

Cf. Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well (Leiden, 2004), 22 32. For a discussion of these other movements, see Chapter 18 in this volume. A critical edition was published by Leon Nemoy, 5 vols. (New York, 1939 43). For partial translations into English (by Leon Nemoy) and French (by Georges Vajda) see Walfish, Bibliographia Karaitica, #4903 24. Prof. Joshua Blau is preparing a Hebrew translation of the entire work. The first volume (= first volume of the Arabic original) will hopefully appear in the near future. The earliest attempts at a Hebrew translation of the work are known to have been done in the sixteenth century by a great grandson of Elijah Bashyatchi, fragments of which have been identified in the collections of the Russian National Library and the Institute of Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg. Kitāb al Anwār, 1:6 14 (chapter 2) is actually a list with a brief description of the groups and sects related to Judaism and before the Karaites of Qirqisānī’s time. Chapters 3 18 include the characteristics of each of them (including chapter 8 on the Christians thus represented as an offshoot of Judaism). The fragment of the Damascus Document was published by Solomon Schechter, as vol. I of Documents of Jewish Sectaries (see note 5), under the subtitle “Fragments of a Zadokite Document.” The first systematic discussion of a possible connection is found

574 haggai ben-shammai Nestorian Katholikos of Baghdad (c. 800), discussing Hebrew scrolls of texts resembling the Psalms found in the vicinity of Jericho by a hunter who followed his quarry into a cave and carried away by Jews from Jerusalem;13 and Qirqisānī’s account of a “cave sect” (al-maghāriyya).14 Yet, there is no evidence that the Qumrān community continued to exist after the first century ce. It may well be that some of their writings surfaced in the beginning of the ninth century and had some influence on early Karaites. Yet no Karaite source is known to contain references to ancient documents that corroborate Karaite views or principles. Moreover, in some major areas – such as the calendar – the differences between the two groups are too great to be ignored: the starting point for the Karaite calendar is the rabbinic calendar, which combines both lunar and solar elements, while the calendar from Qumrān is purely solar.15 A SHORT SURVEY OF THE KARAITE DIASPORA IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Early Karaite sources offer two possibilities as to who might be considered the earliest attested Karaites: al-Qirqisānī distinguishes very clearly between those of his time and all the groups or movements or sects or religions related to Judaism (except for Islam) that preceded the Karaites.16 Of these, al-Qirqisānī mentions three who disagree with what he considers the proper Karaite position on theological and legal issues: ʿAnan and his followers,17 Benjamin al-Nahāwandī,18 and Daniel al-Dāmaghānī (i.e., alQūmisī).19 Yet even if these movements and their founders are seen as precursors, their formative influence on Karaism is palpable. Another approach may be found in the commentary of Salmon b. Jeroham (Jerusalem, mid-tenth century) to Psalms 69:1.20 In a schematic eschatological history, Salmon counts four stages leading to the ultimate Redemption at the end of the Four Kingdoms (cf. Daniel 7–8). Under the reign of the Fourth Kingdom (i.e., Islam), first ʿAnan appeared and opened the eyes of the people to desire the Book of God, exerting

13 14 15 16 18 20

in Naphtali Wieder, The Judean Scrolls and Karaism (second revised edition, Jerusalem, 2005), fifty years after the publication of Schechter and fifteen years after the first discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. See Moshe Gil, in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 102 3. Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār, 1:43 See extensive bibliography in Walfish, Bibliographia Karaitica, #476 614. 17 Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār 1:59 (part 1, chapter 18). Ibid., 53 54 (chapter 13). 19 Ibid., 55 56 (chapter 14). Ibid., 58 59 (chapter 18). Salmon b. Jeroham the Karaite, The Arabic Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Chapters 42 72, ed. Lawrence Marwick (Philadelphia, 1956), 98.

karaism 575 themselves in its study. Next, Benjamin (al-Nahāwandī) appeared and he discovered matters in which ʿAnan had actually followed the Rabbanites. Third, the Karaites appeared and deepened comprehension and proficiency in the study of the Scripture. Finally, people from East and West appeared who added their devotion to religion, striving, and knowledge; they gave up their worldly belongings and settled in Jerusalem, “they are the lilies.”21 Al-Qirqisānī’s presentation starts Karaite history with his own generation in Iraq. He either does not know about the rise of the new center in Jerusalem, or he simply ignores it and the development of the ideology of the “Mourners of Zion” (explained below). However, according to both authors, ʿAnan and Benjamin were precursors to the Karaites proper.22 In contrast, Salmon focuses on the messianic element of the movement, which in his time was developing in Jerusalem an integral part of Karaism, connected to the person and activity of Daniel al-Qūmisī. In the second half of the ninth century, Daniel – from northeastern Iran – actively recruited members to the new movement, traveling through Jewish communities in Iran and the Fertile Crescent. He finally settled in Jerusalem, where he founded the most important center of Karaite communal and literary activity, and may have been active there until the first decade of the tenth century.23 Al-Qūmisī also introduced the idea of mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple as a major component of Karaite ideology, mainly in the communities of Palestine and their sphere of influence; the Karaites there designated themselves Mourners of Zion (Hebrew, Avelei S ̣iyyon), engaged in ascetic practices and dedicated much of their time to mourning rituals and ceremonies.24 In later periods, devout Karaites – such as Judah Hadassi, the twelfth-century

21 22

23

24

See Frank, Search Scripture Well, index s.v. “shoshana, shoshanim.” See EJIW, s.v. “Benjamin al Nahāwandī” (Yoram Erder). Benjamin was a judge in the town of Nihāwand in western Iran. He wrote (inter alia) a legal compendium entitled Sefer Misvot (The Book of Commandments). Composed in beautiful Mishnaic Hebrew, the latter_ is the first work that represents the Karaite principle that commandments can be derived from the entire corpus of the Hebrew Bible contrary to the rabbinic rule that only the Pentateuch can be the source of scriptural commandments. For this principle, see Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 10b, Bava Qama 2b, and Niddah 23a. Haggai Ben Shammai, “Fragments of Daniel al Qumisi’s Commentary on the Book of Daniel as a Historical Source,” Henoch 13 (1991), 259 81; Haggai Ben Shammai, EI3, s.v. “Daniel al Qūmisī.” See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Poetic Works and Lamentations of Qaraite ‘Mourners of Zion’: Structure and Contents,” in Shulamit Elizur, Moshe D. Herr, Gershon Shaked, and Avigdor Shinan, eds., Knesset Ezra: Literature and Life in the Synagogue, Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994), 191 234.

576 haggai ben-shammai Byzantine author of Eshkol ha-Kofer – even adopted the title “the mourner” (Hebrew, ha-avel). The tenth and eleventh centuries, often described as the golden age of Karaism, witnessed the rapid expansion of Karaite communities, many centered on prominent Karaite authors and other notables: in Iran, alNahāwandī and al-Qūmisī; in Iraq, al-Qirqisānī; in Syria-Palestine, numerous authors in Jerusalem (see below); in Egypt, the Tustarīs from southwest Iran and other influential families; in the Iberian Peninsula, perhaps an ʿAnanite community that may later have switched to Karaism;25 and in Byzantium, Karaite immigrants from Palestine and elsewhere. Some family names of Karaite authors (al-Fāsī, al-Darʿī) may attest to the existence of Karaite communities in North Africa,26 but it is also possible that these individuals embraced Karaism only after they had immigrated to Palestine or Egypt. It was during this period that descendants of ʿAnan and leaders of the ʿAnanite movement joined the Karaite movement in Jerusalem – an important development in Jewish communal history that also decisively shaped the perception of the origins of Karaism in popular and polemical literature. As nesiʾim (princes), descendants of the family of the Babylonian exilarchs, ʿAnanite leaders claimed Davidic lineage. But the ranks of their movement were shrinking, and assuming leadership of the Karaites secured for them a large and rising body of followers. The Karaites also benefited from acquiring leaders with “royal” lineage with its messianic overtones. These new leaders were recognized as leaders of the Karaite communities in Jerusalem and Cairo (and, later on, in Damascus as well).27 The first such leader seems to have been ʿAnan II, perhaps a great-grandson of ʿAnan and the reason that ʿAnan began to be perceived as the founding father of Karaism.28 Rabbanite sources also reflect this changed perception

25

26

27

28

On the ʿAnanites in Spain, see Ben Shammai, “Ananites”; on the spread of Karaism in Spain (primarily in al Andalus), see Gerson D. Cohen, ed. and trans., The Book of Tradition (Sefer ha Qabbalah) by Abraham Ibn Daud (Philadelphia, 1967), xlvi l; on twelfth century Christian Spain, see S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 5:456, 465; Daniel J. Lasker, “Karaism in Twelfth Century Spain,” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 1, 2 (1992), 179 95. See the mention of a Karaite community in the Maghribī region of Warjalān; cf. Cohen, The Book of Tradition, 93, and index, s.v. “Maghreb.” Members of Rabbanite families who claimed Davidic lineage were also termed nesiʾim, but quite often had a hard time trying to find communal positions to sustain their livelihoods. According to al Qirqisānī, who consistently calls him raʾs al jālūth (i.e., exilarch), ʿAnan made important strides toward revealing the truth but fell short.

karaism 577 of ʿAnan’s role, depicting his secession from rabbinic Judaism as a reaction to his frustration at being passed over for an appointment as exilarch.29 Some modern scholars have opined that some Karaite nesiʾim in tenthcentury Jerusalem served as gaon of the Jerusalem yeshiva.30 While the tenth century was marked by tense relations between Karaites and Rabbanites and the language of intergroup polemics from the period is quite aggressive, this tension declined around the turn of the millennium. The Karaites had passed the apex of their missionary aspirations and achievements and seem to have accepted their numerical inferiority. At the same time, wealthy Karaite notables established their political power and influence both in intra-Jewish relations and vis-à-vis the Fātimid _ authorities on behalf of the entire Jewish community.31 One expression of this new moderation can be seen in the ties of marriage among members of prominent families on both sides, as documented in marriage contracts (ketubbot) from the Cairo Genizah.32 A formative feature of the Karaite center in Jerusalem was the institutionalization of learning in a dār al-ʿilm (house of knowledge), located in the courtyard of Yūsuf b. Bakhtawayh (who may well have been identical with Yūsuf Ibn Nūh;33 see below). This was a place where leading scholars could study together_ and teach young scholars from Karaite communities both near and far. For the Karaites, the dār al-ʿilm may well have represented a counterpart to the Rabbanite yeshiva. Following the destruction of the Karaite center in Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099 and the transfer of a large part of the Karaite library from Jerusalem (and Ramle) to Egypt,34 the main Karaite centers were now located in Egypt (mainly Fustāt and Cairo) and Byzantium (at first, _ _ elsewhere in Asia Minor and the primarily Constantinople; later, 35 Balkans). During the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk periods, the Karaite

29 30 31

32

33

34

35

See Nemoy, “Elijah Ben Abraham and His Tract against The Rabbanites.” Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 4 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1997), 1:103 8. Moshe Gil, Palestine in the First Muslim Period (634 1099), 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1983), 1:451 60, 573 80, 632 40, and passim; Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), part 2. Judith Olszowy Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine (Leiden, 1998); Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community, chapters 9 and 10. See Miriam Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The Judeo Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūh and Abū al Faraj Harūn (Tübingen, 2011). _ Haggai Ben Shammai, “Notes on the Peregrinations of the Aleppo Codex,” in Yom Tov Assis et al., eds., Aleppo Studies: The Jews of Aleppo, Their History and Culture (Jerusalem, 2009), 146 47. Zvi Ankori, The Karaites in Byzantium (New York, 1959).

578 haggai ben-shammai communities of Egypt (mainly in Cairo and Alexandria) were the largest in the eastern Mediterranean. There were smaller communities in Syria (mainly Damascus), Iraq (Baghdad and Hīt), and possibly also Iran. In the twelfth century, the early stages of the Karaite community in Constantinople, relations between Rabbanites and Karaites were quite tense.36 Matters improved over time such that in the fifteenth century, a charged dispute broke out within the Rabbanite community as to whether it was permissible to teach Talmud to Karaites.37 Over the course of these centuries, Constantinople, Adrianople, and Nicomedia became centers of learning and teaching for the Karaite communities of Eastern Europe and occasionally for the Arabic-speaking communities in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent as well.38 The community of Constantinople retained its position of primacy after the Ottoman conquest in 1453.39 Following the reconquest of Jerusalem from the Crusaders by S ̣alāh al_ Dīn (Saladin) in 1187 and the final fall of the Latin Kingdoms in Palestine, Karaite communities of modest size were reestablished in Palestine – notably in Jerusalem, where Karaites took temporary control of the nearby tomb of Samuel (Nabī S ̣amwīl).40 Starting in the late fifteenth century, Karaites’ disputes with the Rabbanites over their status motivated Jews to appeal to the Muslim authorities and courts in Jerusalem and Istanbul over the course of many decades.41 The history of Karaites in Eastern Europe begins in the late Middle Ages with the Karaite settlements in the Crimean Peninsula. Jewish settlement 36

37

38

39

40

41

See the description of The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary, by Marcus Nathan Adler (London, 1907), 18 [Hebrew], about the wall separating the two communities; see also Ankori, The Karaites in Byzantium, chapter 3. Jean Christophe Attias, Le Commentaire Biblique: Mordekhai Komtino ou l’herméneutique du dialogue (Paris, 1991). Daniel Frank, “Elijah Yerushalmi and Karaite Ambivalence toward Rabbanite Literature,” in Daniel Frank and Matt Goldish, eds., Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics (Detroit, 2008), 249 69. In Karaite sources, the city continued to be called Qūstīnā, Qūsantīnā, or Qūsdīnā, and _ the letters _ published in Jacob the relative adjectives are derived accordingly; see, e.g., Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, 1931 35), 2:343 443. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the tomb was the largest ziyāra (pilgrimage site) in Palestine for both Jews and Muslims. On the period of Ayyūbids and Mamlūks, see Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:120 25, 186 93, and 201 55. See also Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology (New Haven, 1952), 147 69; and at the end of this chapter on Moses b. Samuel of Safed; see also Amnon Cohen, The Jewish Community of Jerusalem in the Sixteenth Century [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1982); Amnon Cohen and Elisheva Simon Pikali, Jews in the Moslem Religious Court: Society, Economy and Communal Organization in the XVI Century Documents from Ottoman Jerusalem [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1993), “Karaites,” passim.

karaism 579 in the peninsula hearkens back to Khazar rule, if not before. Karaites immigrated to Crimea from Constantinople, from northeastern Iran, from Central Asia, and perhaps also from Egypt (via Constantinople). The earliest Karaite community known from Karaite sources was in Sulkhat (present-day Stary Krim). Aharon b. Joseph mentions his personal acquaintance with this community in conjunction with an event that occurred there in 1278. Other communities there existed during the Middle Ages in Kaffa, Chufut-Kale (also known as Qirqyer or Qirq-Yer), and Mangup (until 1475, the Greek principality of Theodoro).42 The story of the expansion of Karaite settlements further into Eastern Europe is rather shrouded in a mist of legendary or semilegendary traditions. The Crimea and the lower Volga Valley may have been points of origin of Karaite immigration further north into territories that had been under the sovereignty of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and simultaneously to parts of the Polish kingdom. It seems that around the last decade of the fourteenth century, a considerable number of Karaite families immigrated northward and settled in Halicz (which gave its name to the principality of Galicia), and then to Luck (Łuck, pronounced Lutsk) in Volhinya and Trakai (alias Troki) in Lithuania. Some of the early settlements in Lithuania went through rather turbulent times until the union with the Polish kingdom.43 In the early modern period, these Karaites played a significant role (relative to their modest numbers) in the cultural and literary history of the movement. Karaite scholars had contacts with Protestant clergy and academics in Sweden and Holland who were interested in Karaism in the context of their theological agenda, and, as a byproduct, were also instrumental in enhancing the acquaintance of European academics with Karaism.44 THE LANGUAGES OF KARAITES AND THEIR LITERARY CULTURE

Medieval Karaites lived in a multilingual environment. They had Hebrew in common as the language of ritual and Scripture. In the Fertile Crescent and beyond, non-Karaite Jews used Aramaic as the language of study in the yeshivot and in legal contracts (including those for betrothal, marriage, and divorce); Eastern Christians used Aramaic as well. For their part, Karaites 42

43 44

See the chapters in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, by Dan Shapira (“Beginnings”), Golda Akhiezer (“The History”), and Mikhail Kizilov (“The Karaite Communities”). See Dan Shapira, “The Turkic Languages,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism. See the chapters in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, by Paul Fenton (“The European Discovery”) and Fred Astren (“Karaite Historiography”) esp. 50 55.

580 haggai ben-shammai avoided Aramaic in principle as the very “linguistic representation” of rabbinic tradition and Rabbanite Judaism.45 The earliest Karaite communities lived in the Persian cultural sphere, where Arabic and Persian were both spoken and written – Arabic being the particular province of the ruling class. The earliest Karaite authors in or from Iran used Hebrew for their works. Benjamin al-Nahāwandī wrote his Sefer Misvot in rabbinic Hebrew; and most of the works or fragments ascribed _(by medieval scribes or modern scholars) to Daniel al-Qūmisī are in a Hebrew replete with Arabisms and Arabic and some Persian glosses. This led one scholar to conclude that al-Qūmisī’s commentary on the Minor Prophets46 was an eleventh-century Arabic work poorly translated two or three centuries later.47 This proposition was convincingly refuted48 on the basis of comparison with al-Qūmisī’s “Epistle”49 (or “Sermon”), a document preserved in the Cairo Genizah.50 Some of the early translations of biblical books into Judeo-Persian, among the earliest works in this Jewish vernacular, may have been made by Karaites, although the evidence for this is circumstantial.51 At the beginning of the golden age, most Karaites resided in Arabicspeaking lands and wrote exclusively in Judeo-Arabic,52 except for liturgical 45

46 47 48 49

50

51 52

In this sense, ʿAnan who wrote his Book of Precepts in typical geonic Aramaic was certainly not a Karaite. Interestingly, the tenth century Karaite lexicographer al Fāsī refers often to Aramaic translations of the Bible as a source of reference for the interpretation of biblical lexemes. Isaac D. Markon, ed., Pitron Sheneim ʿAsar (Jerusalem, 1958). Lawrence E. Marwick, Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 5 (1962), 42 61. Wieder, The Judean Scrolls and Karaism, 265 69. Jacob Mann, “A Tract by an Early Karaite Settler in Jerusalem,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 12, 3 (1922), 257 98. Leon Nemoy, “The Pseudo Qumisian Sermon to the Karaites,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 43 (1976), 49 105. See EJIW, s.v. “Judeo Persian Literature” (Thamar Gindin). Standard Judeo Arabic is written in Hebrew characters according to a more or less uniform method of transliteration which was standardized by Seʿadyah. There were Karaites who did not follow this norm and preferred Arabic script. This seems to have occurred mainly between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Hundreds of manuscripts that are written in this way can be found in collections of major libraries, notably the National Russian Library and the British Library. Some Karaites went even further and wrote Hebrew in Arabic characters. Thus it is possible to find biblical books or prayer books written in this way; see Haggai Ben Shammai, “Hebrew in Arabic Characters,” in Sheldon R. Brunswick, ed., Studies in Judaica, Karaitica and Islamica Presented to L. Nemoy (Ramat Gan, 1982), 115 26; Geoffrey Khan, Karaite Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge, 1990); Geoffrey Khan, “Al Qirqisani’s Opinions concerning the Text of the Bible and Parallel Muslim Attitudes towards the Text of the Qurʾān,” Jewish Quarterly Review 81 (1990), 59 73; Geoffrey

karaism 581 53 poems (piyyutim), elogies (qinot), and a few polemical works in Hebrew. The number_ of Karaite works written in Judeo-Arabic in Baghdad, Jerusalem, Cairo, and elsewhere during this period is impressive indeed. Books were also sent to the Iberian Peninsula (probably to both sides of the boundary separating Muslim from Christian rule) and thus could have been known to Arabic-reading Jewish scholars and audiences (Rabbanite or Karaite). New works in Judeo-Arabic continued to be composed by members of Arabic-speaking communities throughout the Middle Ages, mainly in Egypt. During this period, Karaites also began writing in Hebrew for nonArabic-speaking communities, notably in Byzantium. These included both translations from Judeo-Arabic and works originally written in Hebrew.54 The latter were often inspired by Judeo-Arabic works or closely reflected the contents of Judeo-Arabic works; some Bible commentaries in Hebrew probably preceded the main translations from Judeo-Arabic.55 Both Hebrew works and Hebrew translations were written for a Greek-speaking audience by Arabic-speaking Karaites who emigrated from Palestine (probably by the tenth century).56 This is evident in two features of their use of Hebrew: first, the prominence of Arabisms; and, second, the presence of Greek glosses. The former is more palpable in translations than in commentaries, as translations often slavishly follow the Arabic original texts even where doing so leads to incomprehensibility. Medieval Judeo-Greek translations of biblical books have survived, but it seems that all of them were composed by Rabbanites.57

53

54

55

56

57

Khan, “The Medieval Karaite Transcriptions of Hebrew into Arabic Script,” Israel Oriental Studies 12 (1992), 157 76. According to Joshua Blau and Simon Hopkins, Early Judaeo Arabic in Phonetic Spelling [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2017), vol. 1, Biblical Texts, many such texts were written in a pre standard spelling by Karaites; see also Haggai Ben Shammai’s forthcoming review article in the Journal of Jewish Languages. On elogies on Jerusalem and the Temple that are written in Judeo Arabic or a mixture of Hebrew and Judeo Arabic, see Ben Shammai, “Poetic Works and Lamentations,” 206 16. On Karaite Hebrew in general, see Aharon Maman, “Karaite Hebrew,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism. Important fragments of commentaries were published in Nicholas R. M. De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts from the Cairo Genizah (Tübingen, 1996); on them, see Richard C. Steiner, “The Byzantine Biblical Commentaries from the Genizah: Rabbanite vs. Karaite,” in Moshe Bar Asher et al., eds., Shai le Sara Japhet (Jerusalem, 2007), 243 62. See, for example, Moshe Gil’s discussion of Tobiah b. Moses in Palestine in the First Muslim Period. Shifra Sznol, “Medieval Judeo Greek Bibliography: Texts and Vocabularies,” Jewish Studies 39 (1999), 107 32.

582 haggai ben-shammai Translations played an important role in making the legacy of the Jerusalem Karaite center accessible to the Byzantine Karaites, although this translation movement is small compared to its counterpart in southwest Europe (which encompassed Provence, Christian Spain, and Italy) from the second half of the twelfth century onward. Translators were selective, choosing works they deemed important and of a manageable size. Voluminous works such as the commentaries of Japheth b. ʿEli were used as sources for more concise works. Karaite translators employed a cumbersome and overly literal style. They tried, in a very purist fashion, to use biblical vocabulary alone and, accordingly, used rare – sometimes unique – biblical lexemes for technical philosophic or scientific terms. The style of these works of the tenth to eleventh centuries had a deep impact on those written in subsequent centuries (such as Eshkol ha-Kofer, discussed below). Hebrew also served as the main means of communication, particularly for communal leaders from around the Karaite world.58 Later on, in light of the encounter of Byzantine Karaites with the translations of the school of Ibn Tibbon and works by Spanish authors such as Abraham Ibn Ezra, the style of Byzantine Karaites became closer to its southwest European counterpart. Medieval Karaites fostered a book culture, both as authors and owners/ collectors.59 Given the size of their community, the number of books authored by medieval Karaites is impressive. Books were used until they wore out, and new copies were produced in manuscript as late as the nineteenth century. Most Karaite works are extant in several copies. Karaite synagogues possessed libraries to which members of the communities would donate books (and not necessarily Karaite works per se) to be used – that is, read and studied by communities. The accumulation of worn books in the Karaite synagogue in Cairo dates at least from the beginning of the twelfth century, with the removal of the books from the Jerusalem synagogue after they were ransomed from the Crusaders in 1105.60 Other libraries may have been integrated into the Cairo library over the centuries; with the disappearance of the community of Damascus at the beginning of the nineteenth century, its library was apparently transferred to Cairo.61 This synagogue’s library was the source 58

59 60 61

In a book of records of the Karaite court of Cairo in the 1560s, 90 percent of the documents are in Hebrew; see Haggai Ben Shammai, “New Sources on the Karaite Community in Egypt in the Sixteenth Century” [Hebrew], Ginzei Qedem 2 (2006), 9 26. For further discussion of this “book culture,” see Chapter 20 in this volume. See Ben Shammai, “Notes on the Peregrinations of the Aleppo Codex.” See Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:210 11.

karaism 583 of most of the second Firkovitch Collection of manuscripts, brought by Abraham Firkovitch to Russia and now housed in the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. This collection contains over 15,000 manuscript items, including a large number of codices. Furthermore, Firkovitch left hundreds – perhaps thousands – of codices in the Karaite synagogue, which are now scattered across several collections (in Paris, London, New York, Budapest, Ramle, and elsewhere). The contents of the Cairo library were highly diverse and extended beyond Karaite works. For instance, it included classical Hebrew poetry (Judah Halevi, Judah al-Ḥarīzī); the oldest extant complete exemplar of the Hebrew Bible (the famous Leningrad B19 Codex); Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew Bible exegesis of all provenances, schools, and ideologies; lexicographies and grammars of Hebrew; rabbinic law; Rabbanite theology (including the oldest copy of Seʿadyah Gaʾon’s Book of Beliefs and Opinions); Islamic theology (kalām) transliterated in Judeo-Arabic; and Arabic Neoplatonism (pseudo-Aristotle’s Theology). That is to say, it encompassed every genre and area of knowledge that would fall within the interests of educated Karaites in the Middle Ages. THE KARAITE LITERARY AND CULTURAL LEGACY

biblical exegesis:62 Karaites ascribed particular importance to the study of the Bible, both because they saw the Bible as the ultimate source of religious instruction and legal authority and because they rejected the normativity of the rabbinic tradition. Some early (pre-Seʿadyah) JudeoArabic translations of biblical books and glossaries of biblical Hebrew were probably also written by Karaites.63 Karaite devotion to exegesis may have influenced the Rabbanite attitude toward these pursuits as well. Karaite exegetical works sometimes blurred the line between commentaries and legal compendia; the former often included extended discussions of legal matters and the latter, long discourses on hermeneutics. The earliest Karaite whose exegetical works survived (if only in fragments) is Daniel al-Qūmisī, whose most important work is a nearly complete Hebrew commentary64 on the Minor Prophets. Al-Qūmisī strives for a concise philological-historical interpretation of the biblical 62 63 64

See Meira Polliack, “Major Trends,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 363 413. See Blau and Hopkins, Early Judaeo Arabic. On this and other fragments, see Meira Polliack, “Major Trends,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism; Nehemiah Gordon, “Does Scripture Really Only Have One Meaning? A Study of Daniel al Qumisi’s Exegetical Approach in ‘Pitron Shnem ʿAsar’” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 76 (2006 7), 385 414.

584 haggai ben-shammai text; but it is not clear whether he believed there was only one “correct” meaning or that the Bible was multivalent. In this, we may see parallels between al-Qūmisī’s method and the Qumrānic pesher65 as a method of prognostic midrash:66 modern scholars ascribe to al-Qūmisī – or to his circle – an epistle or a sermon67 in which he calls on his fellow Karaites to come to Jerusalem in order to mourn, and he expounds the most important legal issues separating Karaites from Rabbanites. He also supplies his audience with a crude list of articles of faith reflecting the Muʿtazilite system of rationalistic Islamic theology.68 All medieval exegetes in Arabic-speaking countries wrote in JudeoArabic. The aforementioned al-Qirqisānī was the second important Karaite exegete and an important jurist as well (see below, on Karaite law). He wrote commentaries on a number of biblical books; of these, fragments of an extended commentary on the story of creation and a relatively concise commentary on the entire Pentateuch have survived. The former contains long philosophical disquisitions. The latter, entitled Kitāb al-Riyād wa-l-Ḥadāʾiq (Book of Meadows and Gardens), is intended to touch on _ all aspects of the nonlegal sections of the Pentateuch – including language, theology, and history; the legal sections are discussed in his compendium Kitāb al-Anwār. Al-Qirqisānī often cites the views of previous exegetes anonymously. This work is as yet unpublished except for brief fragments and a partial edition of al-Qirqisānī’s important methodical introduction; the printed edition of the latter is based on the sole manuscript known at the time of printing.69 The introduction contains thirtyseven principles, including – inter alia – the necessary agreement between the message of Scripture and principles of philosophy and science; the importance of literal or widely accepted meanings of the words of revelation; and the conditions in which deviation from this meaning is allowed and even obligatory (conditions very similar to those laid down by

65

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67 68 69

This term, taken from the vocabulary of the Dead Sea Scrolls, means actualizing or prognostic interpretation aimed at adjusting the biblical text with the conditions of an exegete’s time period in eschatological terms. That is, a homily that interprets the biblical text as prophesizing the circumstances of the exegete’s time period. See notes 50 51. See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Major Tends,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism, 340 44. Hartwig Hirschfeld, Qirqisānī Studies (London, 1918), Arabic text with introduction and an abridged English translation (the edition is replete with various mistakes). Cf. Nemoy, Karaite Anthology. A complete edition, based on all extant manuscripts, was prepared by Bruno Chiesa with an English translation by Wilfrid Lockwood and awaits publication.

karaism 585 Seʿadyah ). Al-Qirqisānī’s method leaves much room for “nonliteral” interpretation. Salmon b. Jeroham (Jerusalem, middle of the tenth century)71 wrote commentaries on several books of the Bible. His commentaries on Psalms,72 Ecclesiastes,73 Lamentations, and Song of Songs have survived complete, whereas those on Isaiah and Daniel are only largely complete. His are the earliest Karaite works that follow the pattern of Seʿadyah’s running commentaries – including opening lemmata from the biblical verse followed by translation and then commentary. This pattern may be applied to a group of several adjacent verses. Salmon was a typical representative of the Mourners of Zion: in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, he propagates and discusses at length the importance of asceticism; and his commentary on Lamentations actually provides a liturgical-homiletic framework for the regular ceremonies and rites of the Mourners.74 The next generation of Karaite exegetes included some of the most prominent and most influential in the history of the group. Foremost among these is Japheth b. ʿEli ha-Levi (Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-Basrī, _ fl. c. 960–1000; he was still alive in ah 395/1003–4 ce). Japheth wrote extensive commentaries on the entire Bible (“twenty-four books”), though there is no evidence that he commented on Lamentations. Some commentaries have survived only fragmentarily, but several and sometimes more copies survive of his commentaries on most of the books of the Bible. These copies sometimes stretch over many centuries – from the early eleventh until the late nineteenth; and so there are many hundreds and perhaps thousands of copies of his commentaries. The arrangement of the text therein is similar to that of Seʿadyah’s commentaries, though from the oldest manuscript of Japheth’s commentaries (which dates to the author’s lifetime) we find the Hebrew text of the biblical verses given in full. This suggests that the inclusion of the full Hebrew text was important for Japheth himself. This 70

70

71 72

73

74

See Haggai Ben Shammai in Jane McAuliffe et al., eds., With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Oxford, 2003), 33 50. See Walfish, Bibliographia Karaitica, #4714 34, and index, 779. Salmon’s commentaries on Psalms 1 10 were published by Joseph Alobaidi as Le commentaire des Psaumes par le Qaraïte Salmon ben Yeruham: Psaumes 1 10 (Frankfurt am Main, 1996); see the review by Haggai Ben Shammai, Jewish Quarterly Review 91 (2001), 438 46. Salmon’s commentaries on Psalms 42 72 were published by Marwick, mentioned above in note 20. For an introduction to Salmon’s commentaries to the Book of Psalms, see Jonathan Shunary, “Salmon ben Yeruham’s Commentary on the Book of Psalms,” Jewish Quarterly Review 73 (1982), 155 75. See Georges Vajda, Deux commentaires karaïtes sur l’Ecclésiaste (Leiden, 1971), 8 114, 220 28. See Ben Shammai, “Poetic Works and Lamentations.”

586 haggai ben-shammai practice was not followed universally; some arrangements of the text include commentary alone, while others simply abridge the biblical material. Japheth’s translations tend to be very literal, strictly following the word order and syntax of the Hebrew original. This makes it difficult to understand his translation much of the time without his commentary. Japheth strove to give an Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew text as close as possible to the original, with a bare minimum of interpretive elements. At the same time, alternative translations are often presented for particular words that play a key role in his exegesis. However, since the number of these alternatives multiplies in later copies of the commentaries, it is very difficult to know and determine which alternative translations originated from Japheth’s hand and which were added later. His commentaries are extensive, occasionally with long diversions on specific issues. He often quotes earlier commentators, though almost never by name except in polemical contexts, particularly where more than one interpretation is suggested. In some cases, Japheth inclines toward one of the various alternatives, explaining his choice. In others, he simply presents them and leaves the decision to the reader. Japheth strove to cover all aspects of the text: philology, history, theology, and law. Narrative gaps are often filled by traditions that can be traced to rabbinic or to earlier Karaite sources, though equally often they cannot be traced and thus may be (at least partly) Japheth’s own innovations. Japheth developed the idea of the mudawwin, the redactor(s) who – by divine inspiration – gave the biblical texts their final wording. His concept of the mudawwin draws on alQirqisānī’s ideas, laid out in his introduction to Kitāb al-Riyād .75 The _ presence of the divinely inspired redactor explains anachronisms and apparent historical or logical contradictions and inconsistencies, avoiding theological difficulties and preserving the status of Scripture as the manifestation of the ultimate divine truth. Al-Qirqisānī’s notion may be connected to an idea present in Ismāʿīlī theology concerning the functions of the prophet. At the same time, Karaite discussions of the identity of the person(s) who put the biblical texts to writing may have been related to a famous rabbinic discussion (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 14b–15b). Yet Japheth developed the notion much further in assigning to the redactor a much deeper and more significant impact on the final shape and size of the biblical text.76 The notion is firmly established in subsequent Karaite 75 76

See Hirschfeld, Qirqisānī Studies; and Nemoy, Karaite Anthology. Haggai Ben Shammai, “On Mudawwin the Redactor of the Hebrew Bible,” in Joseph Hacker et al., eds., From Sages to Savants: Studies Presented to Avraham Grossman [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010), 73 110; see also Meira Polliack, “The ‘Voice’ of the Narrator,” Birkat Shalom 2 (2008), 891 915.

karaism 587 Judeo-Arabic exegesis and also found in Oriental Rabbanite exegesis. The idea may also have been the source of the term “sadran” in Hebrew Byzantine Karaite and Rabbanite exegesis in the tenth to eleventh centuries,77 and from there may have wandered into later Rabbanite anthologies in southwest Europe.78 A different direction was taken by Japheth’s contemporary, Yūsuf Ibn Nūh (likely identical with Yūsuf b. Bakhtawayh), the founder of a Karaite _ learning institution (dār li-l-ʿilm) in Jerusalem.79 The focus of his exegetical works, which included the entire corpus of the Hebrew Bible, is the linguistic aspect. His commentary was, in fact, entitled Diqduq (Grammar), and may be considered a grammatical work. He followed the tradition of the diqduqiyyūn, which apparently started in Isfāhān.80 _ Many of his commentaries have survived in complete manuscripts. Ibn Nūh’s linguistic exegesis marks a transition toward systematization of _ Masoretic traditions81 into an organized theory. Ibn Nūh also wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch. It has not survived in its_ original form, but an abridgment (Arabic, talkhīs) of it was supplemented by his pupil _ the eleventh century), the leading Abū al-Faraj Hārūn (first half of grammarian among Arabic-speaking Karaites (on him, see below). This double-layered work survived almost in its entirety in several fragmentary manuscripts. Although the linguistic element (grammar and lexicography) is prominent in the combined work, other areas are also treated, including law, history, biblical narrative and style, and theology.82 The differences in linguistic methodology between the teacher and his pupil are discernible in the combined work.83 The version of Abū al-Faraj was abridged again, 77

78

79 80

81

82 83

See Richard C. Steiner, “A Jewish Theory of Biblical Redaction from Byzantium,” Jewish Studies, an Internet Journal 2 (2003), 123 67. See Jacob Elbaum, “The Anthology Sekhel Tov,” in Meir M. Bar Asher, et al., eds., A Word Fitly Spoken (Jerusalem, 2007), 71 96. On Japheth’s theological system, see Haggai Ben Shammai, Doctrines of Religious Thought. On his narrative supplements, see Marzena Zawanowska, The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ʻEli the Karaite on the Abraham Narratives (Genesis 11:10 25:18): Edition and Introduction (Leiden, 2012). See Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis. See Geoffrey Khan, The Early Karaite Tradition of Grammatical Thought (Leiden, 2000), introduction. Ibn Nūh was active a generation or two after the prominent Masoretic scholar Aaron _ (the author of the vocalization and the Masoretic notes of the Aleppo Codex), Ben Asher whose Karaite connections have been established beyond doubt. For a detailed discussion, see Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis. See Geoffrey Khan, “Biblical Exegesis and Grammatical Theory in the Karaite Tradition,” in Geoffrey Khan, ed., Exegesis and Grammar in Medieval Karaite Texts (Oxford, 2001), 127 49.

588 haggai ben-shammai in its turn, by ʿAlī b. Sulaymān (active in Jerusalem and Egypt in the last third of the eleventh century),84 who revised it into a commentary on the Pentateuch.85 The commentaries of Ibn Nūh on the Prophets and _ the Diqduq on the Hagiographa survived in their original forms; 86 Hagiographa was published in its entirety. Another contemporary of Japheth who composed a number of commentaries was Sahl b. Masliah. Fragments of his commentary on the Torah _ _ have survived, and an extensive anonymous commentary on Hosea has recently been identified as composed by him. David b. Boaz ha-Nasi (the “Prince” or communal leader) of Jerusalem wrote a number of commentaries on biblical books, but to date none has been studied. The most prolific and versatile Karaite author in eleventh-century Jerusalem was Yeshuʿa b. Judah.87 He was a pupil of Yūsuf al-Basīr (on _ him, see below) and, later, the most important scholar and communal leader of the Karaite center in Jerusalem in the middle of the eleventh century. Students from communities near and far came to learn from him in his daily classes (Arabic, nawba).88 Among his many writings, most of which have survived, is a comprehensive commentary on the Pentateuch which has survived in several manuscripts. It was commissioned from him by a wealthy and influential Cairene Karaite named David b. Amram, who wanted a commentary on the Pentateuch that would serve as a comprehensive textbook for his son’s schooling in all areas of knowledge necessary for an educated Karaite: law, Hebrew language, theology, and history. The work also includes many interesting comments on the realia of Yeshuʿa’s time and place regarding flora, fauna, historical sites, peoples, and so forth. Yeshuʿa’s work is longer than he seems to have intended. The commentary follows the traditional structure: Hebrew text, translation, commentary. Perhaps more than any other Karaite translation, Yeshuʿa’s includes alternatives.89 Interestingly, Yeshuʿa does not hesitate to include quotations

84

85

86 87

88 89

On him, see Ben Shammai, “Hebrew in Arabic Characters”; Nasir Basal, “A Fragment of Abū Al Faraj Hārūn’s Al Kitāb Al Muštamil in Arabic Script,” Jewish Quarterly Review 92, 1 2 (2001), 1 20. Solomon L. Skoss, ed., The Arabic Commentary of ʿAli ben Suleiman the Karaite on the Book of Genesis (Philadelphia, 1928). Khan, The Early Karaite Tradition, 159 527. See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Yeshuʿa ben Yehuda The Figure of an Eleventh Century Karaite Scholar in Jerusalem” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 32 (1987), 3 20. Gil, Palestine in the First Muslim Period, 2:530 32 (doc. #297). Meira Polliack, The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation: A Linguistic and Exegetical Study of Karaite Translations of the Pentateuch from the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries C.E. (Leiden, 1997).

karaism 589 90 from rabbinic materials in his works, including his commentary; and unlike most of his predecessors – Rabbanite and Karaite alike – Yeshuʿa almost always names his sources. His quotations are therefore an invaluable source for the history of the textual traditions of rabbinic works. The fact that early (eleventh- to twelfth-century) manuscripts of the commentary have survived makes them particularly important independent Eastern witnesses. A striking example of their importance is the case of the reconstruction of one-third of a lost tannaitic Midrash on the basis of such quotations.91 Yeshuʿa wrote two long commentaries, focusing on halakhic issues in select portions of the Pentateuch: (1) the Ten Commandments (tafsīr ʿaseret ha-devarim), and (2) select sections of Leviticus, arranged according to weekly pericopes and chapters therein on specific subjects. None of his commentaries, complete or parts thereof, has been published. Not much happened in Judeo-Arabic Karaite exegesis after Yeshuʿa. Japheth’s commentaries continued to be copied for centuries. Occasionally, abridged versions would be prepared.92 A more advanced version of this genre involves abridgments of select sections from Japheth’s commentaries with comments and revisions by Samuel b. Joseph, nicknamed ‫( כוגך‬probably Turkish kücük, “small”), who was active in Cairo in the fourteenth century. Another development of exegetical literature in Judeo-Arabic was the muqaddimāt genre, involving homilies introducing the weekly Pentateuchal lection. The earliest versions are ascribed in manuscripts to Sahl b. Masliah (tenth century). Some more developed versions are _ _ ascribed to Yeshuʿa, but most – several hundred – are by Samuel b. Moses ha-Maʿaravi (Egypt, fifteenth century). Early versions of this genre consisted of a few verses from the Psalms, and some homiletic pieces on the main themes of the weekly portion. Later versions (from around the thirteenth century) include longer passages from the Psalms with extended comments (quoted from Japheth’s commentaries), followed by extended homiletic expositions on the main themes of the

90

91

92

Ofra Tirosh Becker, Rabbinic Excerpts in Medieval Karaite Literature [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2011). Most of the excerpts described and discussed in this study are from works by Yeshuʿa. See Menahem Y. Kahana, Sifre Zuta Devarim: Muvaʾot mi Midrash Tanaʾi Hadash _ (Jerusalem,_ 2002). See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Edition and Versions of Japhteh b. Eli’s Bible Commentary” [Hebrew], Alei Sefer (Journal for the Study of the Hebrew Book) 2 (1976), 17 32.

590 haggai ben-shammai weekly portion, stretching to several pages.93 To date there are no published studies of the genre. The beginnings of Hebrew exegesis written by Byzantine Karaites go back to the tenth century;94 abridgments and compendia based on this material – including translations from Judeo-Arabic – date from the eleventh century. Tobiah b. Moses95 wrote an extensive commentary on Leviticus, entitled Osar Nehmad, based mainly on the works of David _ which survives in a unique manuscript.96 b. Boaz and Japheth_ b. ʿEli, A comprehensive project is Jacob b. Reuben’s commentary on the entire Hebrew Bible, entitled Sefer ha-ʿOsher (Book of Riches). This work is commonly dated around 1200, though without documentary support for this dating. Although concise, the work nonetheless contains sufficient evidence of the author’s extensive use of Japheth b. ʿEli’s commentaries to serve as an indirect witness to the textual history of the latter.97 The entire work has survived in several manuscripts.98 A much more impressive project was that of Aaron b. Joseph (“the elder,” “the physician,” Crimea, c. 1250–1320): a complete commentary on the Pentateuch, entitled Sefer ha-Mivhar. He also wrote a commentary on the Former Prophets, most of Isaiah_ and Psalms 1–71, entitled Mivhar _ Yesharim.99 He had first-hand acquaintance with the Spanish and Provençal commentaries (notably Ibn Ezra and Qimhi) as well as the _ the Guide) and Hebrew versions of the works of Maimonides (notably was very influenced by their contents and Hebrew style. Consequently, his discussions of linguistic and theological issues are related to the contents of these works, which represented a radical change in Karaite discourse. His anti-Rabbanite polemics are written in a very straightforward and moderate style. His commentaries were quite popular, and in subsequent centuries supercommentaries were written on them. The last important medieval Karaite exegete in Byzantium was Aaron b. Elijah of Nicomedia (c. 1328–69). Aaron wrote a trilogy with one section devoted to law and another to theology, the third being a commentary on 93

94

95 96 97 98

99

The Muqaddimāt are reminiscent of similar collections by Rabbanite authors, like the one ascribed to David ha Nagid, Maimonides’ grandson. See De Lange, Greek Jewish Texts; and Steiner, “The Byzantine Biblical Commentaries” and “A Jewish Theory of Biblical Redaction.” See Gil on Tobiah b. Moses in Palestine in the First Muslim Period. See Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium, 431 43. See Ben Shammai, “Edition and Versions of Japheth b. ʿEli’s Bible Commentary.” Only part of the commentary on the Prophets and the entire commentary on the Hagiographa was printed at the end of the edition of Mivhar Yesharim by Aaron _ b. Joseph (see below). Both works were printed in Gozlow/Evpatoria, 1835 36.

karaism 591 100 the Pentateuch entitled Keter Torah. The latter has become the standard traditional commentary among Karaites, equivalent to the status of Rashi among Rabbanites. Aaron’s comprehensive commentary gives more or less equal weight to hermeneutical, legal, ritual, and theological issues. Although loyal to the literal meaning of Scripture in line with Karaite tradition, he follows earlier Karaite sources in deviating from the literal whenever consistency and theological considerations require it. His polemics against the Rabbanites are always written in the moderate style typical of Byzantine Karaites of the late Middle Ages. PHILOSOPHY, THEOLOGY, POLEMICS101

The rise of Karaism occurred at the very moment of Jews’ initial interest in systematic theology (kalām). This was a consequence of the Jewish adoption of Arabic, as the use of Arabic brought to light theological questions of great interest from the earliest stages of Karaite history. Early Karaite sources ascribe to Benjamin al-Nahāwandī the belief in an “Angel creator” (reminiscent of Plato’s demiurgos), to which he may have been influenced by Neoplatonic ideas, and which he accepted as a solution to the theological-exegetical problem of biblical anthropomorphisms. In the Epistle/Sermon ascribed to Daniel al-Qūmisī or his circle102 we find an unsystematic list of articles of faith in which Muʿtazilite terminology may easily be discerned. Daniel could only have learned this through Arabic sources written originally by Christians or Muslims. Since Daniel consistently attacks the idea of making recourse to “foreign (Arabic, barrānī) books” there are two possible explanations for this seeming contradiction: either he knew well the origin of these principles and accepted them nonetheless (dressing them in Hebrew garb) because he believed that they agreed with the true Jewish faith; or these ideas had already penetrated the Jewish discourse so deeply by his time that one might think that they were inherently Jewish. In the tenth century, Jewish society in Arabic-speaking lands made a grand entrance into the area of rationalist theology and Greco-Arab philosophy. In both Rabbanite and Karaite camps, opposition was raised voicing fear that engagement in such areas could lead to disbelief and 100 101

102

Printed in Gozlow/Evpatoria, 1867; reprinted in Ramle, 1972. See Ben Shammai, “Major Trends,” in Polliack, Karaite Judaism; see also Daniel J. Lasker, From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Karaite Philosophy (Leiden, 2008). See Mann, “A Tract by an Early Settler to Jerusalem”; see also Nemoy, “The Pseudo Qumisian Sermon to the Karaites.”

592 haggai ben-shammai heresy. Such opposition was even much more widespread in Muslim society. Yet all of this did not prevent prominent leaders like Seʿadyah from promoting their agendas and introducing theology and rationalist exegesis in Judeo-Arabic into the most conservative leadership of the yeshivot. A parallel process took place among the Karaites. Seʿadyah’s contemporary al-Qirqisānī mentions that he composed a work entitled Kitāb alTawhīd (Book of [God’s] Unity) which may well have been similar to _ Seʿadyah’s summa. It is possible, nonetheless, to elicit a theological system from al-Qirqisānī’s extant works – both his aforementioned commentary on the Pentateuch and the theoretical sections of his great halakhic work Kitāb al-Anwār (see below). This system is typical of kalām philosophy both in methodology and content. Like Seʿadyah he generally follows Muʿtazilite theology, but he is not committed to a specific school within this wide framework. He was very well read in philosophy and in Scripture (Muslim and Christian alike), and he was careful in choosing his own philosophic path. In contrast, Japheth b. ʿEli probably did not leave a philosophic work behind; rather, he inserted long theological discussions in his commentaries. It is possible to reconstruct a system from his work that reveals his theology to have been close to that of al-Qirqisānī. Japheth is conservative on many counts, yet on occasion he is more innovative than al-Qirqisānī: for example, in his interpretation of the story of King Saul and the necromancer of En-Dor (I Samuel 28:7–25), Japheth explains that Samuel could not have been brought back from the dead, but rather the whole affair was a psychological trick played by the necromancer. Japheth is much more systematic elsewhere – for example, in explicating the degrees of prophecy – or much more detailed in filling in gaps in the biblical narrative.103 Japheth’s son Levi was a leading scholar in the Karaite community of Jerusalem. Recent discoveries suggest that Levi was the first Karaite to write a proper kalām work – Kitāb al-Niʿma (Book of Bliss).104 To date, only fragments of this work have been identified.

103

104

See Haggai Ben Shammai, “The Doctrines of Religious Thought of Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al Qirqisānī and Japheth b. ʿEli” [Hebrew], (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1978). The fragments were identified by David Sklare; for the published fragments, see David E. Sklare, “Levi Ben Yefet and his Kitāb al Niʿma: Selected Texts,” in Camilla Adang, Sabine Schmidtke, and David Sklare, eds., A Common Rationality: Muʿtazilism in Islam and Judaism (Würzburg, 2007), 156 216.

karaism 593 Yūsuf al-Basīr (Arabic, “the Seer,” a euphemism for blind) was an Iraqi _ in Jerusalem in the first half of the eleventh century. immigrant active Prior to his arrival in Jerusalem he had experience and reputation debating with Muslim scholars in Baghdad.105 Despite his blindness, he managed to be a very prolific author; many colophons of copies of his works mention that he dictated them. In the area of theology, he left two compendia and a number of short responsa and monographs.106 The compendia are (1) alTamyīz (Distinction/Discernment), sometimes called al-Mansurī, after a patron to whom al-Basīr dedicated the book;107 and (2) _ al-Muhtawī _ (Comprehensive).108 Both_ works were translated into Hebrew by Tobiah b. Moses a few decades after their appearance, and were called in Hebrew Mahkimat Peti and Neʿimot (respectively). The first is a short version – _ according to Yūsuf, readers and students found too concise, which which, he therefore revised in a more detailed version. Al-Muhtawī is arranged like _ a typical kalām work, starting with a methodological introduction explaining the terminology and the necessity and obligation of rationalist investigation and conception of the faith. This is followed by chapters dealing with the creation of the world, the unity of God, divine justice, prophecy, as well as with specific kalām groups/sects, the transmigration of souls, repentance, and the like. Apart from a few quotations of biblical verses and occasional references to Yūsuf’s bulky halakhic compendium, there is little in this work that is “Jewish.” Yūsuf was absolutely committed to the Basran form of Muʿtazilite thought,109 as summed up extensively by _ al-Jabbār (d. 1024/25), whom Yūsuf quotes by name. In alʿAbd Muhtawī, Yūsuf even takes sides in internal arguments between rival _ Muʿtazilite factions. This work influenced Karaites everywhere, particularly through its Hebrew translation. Yeshuʿa and Yūsuf demonstrate that kalām theology had become the standard for medieval Karaites. Several 105

106

107

108

109

David E. Sklare, “Responses to Islamic Polemics by Jewish Mutakallimun in the Tenth Century,” in Hava Lazarus Yafeh et al., eds., The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam (Wiesbaden, 1999), 137 61. The gaon Samuel b. Hophni is also mentioned in these reports. Haggai Ben Shammai and David E. Sklare, eds., Judaeo Arabic Manuscripts in the Firkovitch Collections: The Works of Yusuf al Basir [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1997). Published as Yūsuf al Basīr, Das Buch der Unterscheidung: Judäo Arabisch, Deutsch, _ Wolfgang von Abel (Freiburg, 2005). Übersetzt und eingeleitet von Published with extensive annotation and additional studies as Georges Vajda, ed., trans., and commentator, al Kitab al Muhtawi de Yusuf al Basir, ed. David R. Blumenthal (Leiden, 1985), supplemented by Ben Shammai in Ben Shammai and Sklare, Judaeo Arabic Manuscripts in the Firkovitch Collections. See also Haggai Ben Shammai, “Review of al Kitab al Muhtawi” [Hebrew], ed. David R. Blumenthal, Kiryat Sefer 62 (1988 89), 407 26. See EI3, s.v. “ʿAbd al Jabbār b. Ahmad al Hamadhānī” (Margaretha Heemskerk). _

594 haggai ben-shammai Karaite medieval theological treatises have been ascribed in the Middle Ages to Yeshuʿa and Yūsuf, but such attributions are likely false.110 Yeshuʿa’s writing includes philosophical and theological material alike. For example, his Kitāb al-Tawriya111 (Book of Concealment) deals at length with the abrogation of the Mosaic Law, a point of contention often finding its way into polemics between Jews and Muslims. His discussion of this matter also concerns itself with the mechanism of revelation and a hermeneutic question with far-reaching theological consequences: Is it possible that God concealed the precise meaning of His commandments? Put otherwise: Is it possible that biblical verses that contain commandments could intend something other than their straightforward literal meaning? This question leads to corollary questions concerning divine justice.112 Manuscripts of nearly all Kitāb al-Tawriya have survived – some parts, in more than one manuscript. Another interesting work of Yeshuʿa is his treatise on prohibited marriages, Kitāb al-ʿArayot, or Jawābāt Masāʾil fī al-ʿaravot. This work begins with a detailed discussion of epistemology. The work was translated into Hebrew by Jacob b. Simeon (second half of the eleventh century),113 and was thus accessible to a Karaite Hebrew readership. In the second half of the eleventh century lived in Jerusalem Yashar b. Ḥesed (in Arabic, Abū al-Fadl Sahl b. al-Fadl al-Tustarī), a member of _ the famous family of Karaite _ communal leaders and courtiers in the 114 Fātimid state, the last representative of the scholars of the Jerusalem _ school. He wrote a number of works of philosophy, theology, and Karaite jurisprudence. One of them is Kitāb al-Īmāʾ ilā Jawāmiʿ al-Taklīf ʿIlm waʿAmal (Book Intimating the Ensemble of Theoretical and Practical Components of the Obligation Imposed by God). The work is divided into three treatises: principles of faith (usūl al-dīn), principles of jurisprudence _ 110 111

112

113

114

See, for example, Vajda, Muhtawi, 25 26, 377 86. Cf. William Wright, A Grammar of the Arabic Language, 2 vols. in 1 (London, 1859 62), 2:115 B. Haggai Ben Shammai, “A Unique Elegy on Jerusalem at the End of a Hitherto Lost Work by the Karaite Yeshuʿa b. Judah,” in Ezra Fleischer, Mordechai A. Friedman, and Joel Kraemer, eds., Masʾat Moshe: Jewish and Islamic Culture Presented to Moshe Gil [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1998), 74 83. Published by Isaac Markon as Sefer ha ʿArayot ha Mekhuneh Sefer ha Yashar (St. Petersburg, 1908). Since the opening of the Russian National Library to non Soviet scholars, several manuscripts of the Arabic original text have been identified; see Haggai Ben Shammai, “Babylonian Aramaic in Arabic Characters: A Passage from ʿAnan’s Book of Precepts in a Work by Yeshuʿah b. Judah the Karaite,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 32 (2006), 419 32. He may have encountered al Ghazālī there during the latter’s sojourn in Jerusalem.

karaism 595 (usūl al-fiqh), and foundations of the various ordinances contained in the 115 _ Pentateuch. Sahl enjoyed a lengthy philosophical exchange of questions and responsa with ʿAlī b. Sulaymān. He also endeavored to refute Aristotelian philosophy in his Kitāb al-Talwīhāt. _ An important contribution to the Byzantine Karaite philosophical oeuvre was Es Ḥayyim (Tree of Life) by the aforementioned Aaron 116 _ b. Elijah of Nicomedia. Aaron probably intended this work to be the Karaite equivalent of Maimonides’ Guide. Aaron was quite knowledgeable in Jewish Aristotelian philosophy and the Karaite kalām tradition, whose followers he termed hakhmei ha-mehqar (“research scholars”). The book is _ kalām works; it seems to agree with structured along the _lines of traditional them in substance as well, though one may read some sections as partially accepting Aristotelian philosophy.117 Karaite literature, in all of its genres, is replete with anti-Rabbanite polemics. For instance, most of the writings of Salmon b. Jeroham include acerbic material most fully manifest in his Hebrew versified work Milhamot Adonay (Wars of the Lord).118 This work takes aim at rabbinic _ literature writ large, but particularly at Seʿadyah Gaʾon. The aforementioned Sahl b. Masliah – a well-known member of the Karaite House of _ _ from the generation after Salmon – composed his Learning in Jerusalem Tokhahat Megullah (Open Admonition),119 a moderate and even concili_ atory document aimed at convincing Rabbanites that Karaites held the correct interpretation of the Torah. A Byzantine Karaite named Elijah b. Abraham (possibly in the twelfth century) wrote a tract entitled Ḥilluq ha-Qaraʾim ve-ha-Rabbanim (Controversy of the Karaites and the Rabbanites).120 Elijah adduces a new version of the history of Karaism, 115

116

117

118 119

120

For a thorough description and analysis of the surviving fragments and a discussion of the author’s entire oeuvre, see Gregor Schwarb, “Sahl b. al Fadl al Tustarī’s Kitāb al _ Īmāʾ,” Ginzei Qedem 2 (2006), 61* 105*. Critical edition by Franz Delitsch (Leipzig, 1841); see also Daniel Frank, “The Religious Philosophy of the Karaite Aaron ben Elijah: The Problem of Divine Justice” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1991). See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Studies in Karaite Atomism,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 (1985), 243 98; Lasker, From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi, 69 95. Published first by Israel Davidson, 1934, and again by Joseph Algamil, 2000. First published by Simhah Pinsker, Lickute Kadmoniot (Wien, 1860), 2:27 43; See _ 111 22; Leon Nemoy, “The Epistle of Sahl ben Masliah,” Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 38 39 (1970 71), 145 77. Note that both writings of Arabic speaking authors were written in Hebrew, perhaps with non Arabic speaking readers in mind. First published by Pinsker, Lickute Kadmoniot, 99 106; see the publications of Nemoy, “Elijah Ben Abraham and His Tract against the Rabbanites”; and Astren, “Karaite Historiography and Historical Consciousness.”

596 haggai ben-shammai namely, that the error of the Rabbanites originated with Simeon b. Shetah, _ _ the brother of Queen Salome Alexandra in the first century bce; the latter is said to have consolidated the authority of the Pharisees, who – for the Karaite author – are identical with the Rabbanites of his day. The Karaites are thus preserving the “true faith.” Elijah posits this true history of Karaism against the (false) version spread by Seʿadyah that the origin of Karaism was ʿAnan’s dissent because he was unjustly denied the post of exilarch after his father. Like Sahl in his epistle, Elijah concludes in a conciliatory tone with the hope for an imminent redemption in which the entire nation of Israel will be reunited, preferably under the aegis of the Karaites. LAW AND CUSTOMS

One of the novelties of the geonic period is the genre of legal compendia, epitomizing the talmudic system in various formats, like Halakhot Gedolot. In the Islamic environment, too, the genre of such compendia arranged by subject was growing rapidly. Al-Qirqisānī, in his description of the sects and religious groups that preceded the Karaites, remarks that all of the founders of these groups – with one exception – composed “books.” He of course knew about ʿAnan’s Book of Commandments, though he never quotes it verbatim in Aramaic. It is not surprising, then, that the Karaites followed this model from their beginnings. Many Karaite scholars considered it their duty to write a book of commandments, although unlike the Rabbanites, Karaites had no fixed number of commandments. In addition to ʿAnan, Benjamin al-Nahāwandī and Daniel al-Qūmisī both wrote such works, the earliest being Benjamin’s – fragments of which survive both in a few late manuscripts and in citations.121 If the ascription is correct, he is the first author to use the term Benei Miqra (Sons of Scripture) to designate his group. The style of the work is very reminiscent of rabbinic works, but in content Benjamin’s legislation relies directly on the entire corpus of the Hebrew Bible and more closely reflects Karaite traditions.122 Interestingly, on one occasion where al-Qirqisānī quotes Benjamin he remarks, “What we have mentioned, some of it are his views which we have seen [i.e., written] and some which has been told us in the 121

122

Sefer Dinim or Masʾat Binyamin, printed as an appendix to Mivhar Yesharim (Gozlow/ _ of a very old manu Evpatoria, 1836; new separate printing, Ramle, 1978). Fragments script have been recently identified in a hoard of eleventh century manuscripts found in Afghanistan. In rabbinic tradition, laws are deduced only from the Pentateuch; see Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 10b, Bava Qamma 2b, Niddah 23a.

karaism 597 name of his followers.” The generation after Benjamin may have seen a Judeo-Arabic book of laws from the first identified author of such a work, Daniel b. Israel al-Qūmisī, of Jerusalem. Fragments of this work survive.124 One of the most important books of laws – and early Karaite works in general – is al-Qirqisānī’s Kitāb al-Anwār wa-l-Marāqib (Book of Lights and Watchtowers).125 Formally, the book is made up of thirteen “discourses.” The introductory portion of the work, consisting of the first four discourses, deals with historical, philosophical-polemical, and methodological issues. The remaining nine discourses discuss positive law in detail arranged by subject headings. This work is a very important source for the history of Jewish sectarianism in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages – as well as the history of early Karaism in general, and early Karaite law in particular. Al-Qirqisānī freely quotes rabbinic sources and presents detailed challenges to rabbinic tradition amidst his philosophical remarks and discussions.126 He often discussed the views of ʿAnan and the ʿAnaniyya – always in Arabic; it would seem that he acquired all his knowledge on these matters from Judeo-Arabic ʿAnanite writings, either in the form of legal compendia or collections of responsa. Fragments of a Book of Laws by the aforementioned Japheth ben ʿEli have been identified in the collections of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg; though a much more important Book of Laws was written by his son Levi in 1007. Levi’s legal approach was to find a golden mean between the stringent rulings of the Karaite tradition and more lenient rulings one might conclude from a rationalist approach. Large fragments of the Judeo-Arabic text have been identified in the Russian National Library. A compact compendium of Karaite law, it was translated into Hebrew in the eleventh century, probably by Tobiah b. Moses. Tobiah’s translation is quite free, often deviating from the Arabic and even adding to and omitting material from Levi’s own text. He may also have been working from an incomplete text since no complete manuscript of the Judeo-Arabic original has survived, nor is there a single complete manuscript of the Hebrew translation.127 Yet thanks to its Hebrew translation, Levi became 123

123 124

125 126 127

Kitāb al Anwār, 2:321, lines 9 10. See Sklare in Ben Shammai and Sklare, eds., Judaeo Arabic Manuscripts in the Firkovitch Collection, 127 39. See the critical edition by Nemoy already cited. See Tirosh Becker, Rabbinic Excerpts in Medieval Karaite Literature. For details, with examples of texts, see Haggai Ben Shammai, “A New Fragment of the Arabic Original Text of Sefer Ha Misvot by Levi b. Japheth the Karaite” [Hebrew], _ 86), 99 133. See also Sklare, “Levi Ben Yefet Shenaton ha Mishpat ha ʿIvri 11 12 (1984 and His Kitāb al Niʿama: Selected Texts.”

598 haggai ben-shammai the most broadly accepted – and most widely cited – classical legal authority among Byzantine Karaites. However, on one point they could not accept Levi’s views: on the issue of rikkuv, a catenary128 system by which the prohibition on marriage with blood relations is extended to an extreme degree. Early Karaites inherited this system from ʿAnan; though Yūsuf al-Basīr set out to reform it, along _ with his pupil, Yeshuʿa b. Judah. Yeshuʿa composed a work on the subject 129 which was translated into Hebrew, and served the Byzantine Karaites – who preferred it to the older system advocated by Levi. Rikkuv generated perpetual controversy; in the second half of the twelfth century, the Cairene Solomon b. David Nasi composed an Epistle on Prohibited Marriages (Risāla fī al-ʿArayot) in which he defended Yeshuʿa’s views at length.130 Levi also wrote a work of comparative law entitled Kitāb fīhi ʿUyūn mā bayn al-Shaykhayn Abī ʿAlī wa-Abī al-S ̣urrī . . . min al-Khalaf fī al-Misvot _ wa-mā ittafaqā ʿalayhi (The Main Points of Difference and Agreement between the Two Teachers Abū ʿAlī and Abū al-Surrī regarding the Commandments) detailing the legal differences between Levi’s father, Japheth b. ʿEli, and Sahl b. Masliah. Levi took the materials for this _ _ Pentateuch work from the commentaries on the by Sahl and by Japheth. Quoted in various medieval Karaite works in Arabic and Hebrew, one complete copy (in the Russian National Library) and large fragments (there and in the British Library) survive. Its genre, presenting lists of differences of opinions between leading scholars in one or another field, is known elsewhere in medieval Judeo-Arabic literature,131 and was also common among Muslims in the fields of theology, grammar, and the like. This work probably inspired Judah Hadassi in the twelfth century (on him, see below) to use the term “the school of the priest and the school of the Levite” (modeled after the Mishnaic Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai): the priest here refers to Sahl, and the Levite to Japheth (ha-Levi). ʿAlī b. Sulaymān (last third of the eleventh century, see above) divided the work into paragraphs which he appended to the weekly Pentateuchal lection.

128

129 130 131

This term borrowed from the field of mathematics is used in discussing Karaite marriage law to explain the exponential rise of prohibited marriages; see Nemoy, Karaite Anthology, 123 32, and index, s.v. “Catenary Theory.” See Markon, Sefer ha ʿArayot. See Ben Shammai, “Babylonian Aramaic in Arabic Characters.” For example, the Masoretic differences between Ben Asher and Ben Naftali for this, see Lazar Lipschütz, ed., Kitab al Khilaf: Mishael ben Uzziel’s Treatise on the Differences between Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali (Jerusalem, 1965).

karaism 599 Yūsuf al-Basīr, who left an indelible mark on the development of _ Karaite philosophy, wanted to leave a similar mark on Karaite halakhah. He envisaged apparently a work of the size and structure of al-Qirqisānī’s al-Anwār. He wrote monographs dedicated to central subjects, such as circumcision, the Sabbath, holidays, and so forth, which also include philosophical diversions. Although these monographs stand on their own, Yūsuf gave a title to his work in aggregate, Kitāb al-Istibsār (Book of _ Reflection; a pun on Yūsuf’s sobriquet al-Basīr, “the Insightful”). Large _ parts of his monographs survived, but no version of the aggregate work – if it ever existed.132 Karaite legal writing in Judeo-Arabic continued, notably in Cairo, until the end of the Middle Ages. This continued to the fifteenth century, when Samuel b. Moses ha-Maʿaravi composed his compendium al-Murshid (Instructor). This work survives in a number of complete copies.133 Around the turn of the thirteenth century, the aforementioned Aaron b. Joseph, who introduced innovative elements into Karaite exegesis, set out to revolutionize the Karaite prayer book. Until his time, Karaite prayers consisted mainly of biblical passages, notably from the Psalms. A few extra-biblical poems had been allowed in semiofficial services, such as those surrounding mourning. Aaron incorporated a large number of liturgical poems into the prayer book, many of his own composition and many others by classical Rabbanite poets such as Ibn Gabirol, Judah Halevi, Moses Ibn Ezra, and Abraham Ibn Ezra. Aaron also legitimized the insertion of benedictions into prayer in the rabbinic style. Once these reforms were accepted, the number of such additions increased constantly. Aaron b. Elijah of Nicomedia (on him, see above) made his third important contribution in a legal compendium entitled Gan Eden.134 His positions are often stringent (although he was lenient on the issue of rikkuv) and adhere strictly to the literal meaning of the biblical text; this may have hampered universal acceptance of his work as normative. The last Byzantine Karaite medieval legislator was Elijah b. Moses Bashyatchi (1420–90); born in Adrianople, he moved to Constantinople at the behest of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, conqueror of Constantinople. Elijah is associated with a move on both the Karaite and Rabbanite sides to improve relations between the two communities – a move supported by his Rabbanite counterpart Mordecai Comtino/ Komtiano. Elijah’s magnum opus was his comprehensive legal 132 133

134

See Ben Shammai and Sklare, Judaeo Arabic Manuscripts in the Firkovitch Collection. Parts of the work have been published; see Walfish, Bibliographia Karaitica, author index, s.v. “Samuel ben Moses.” Printed in Gozlow/Evpatoria, 1864; reprinted in Ramle, 1972.

600 haggai ben-shammai compendium Aderet Eliyahu (Mantle of Elijah).135 He reformed the hoary Karaite tradition of sitting in the dark and refraining from lighting candles on the Sabbath (based on Exodus 35:3). This reform was initiated by Elijah’s grandfather, though Elijah himself gave it final authority by basing it on a biblical proof text. Despite this, Karaites of Arabic-speaking lands did not accept this ruling. Although Elijah himself did not live to complete his compendium, it was finished by his disciple and son-inlaw Caleb Afendopolo (1464–1525).136 Afendopolo completed another reform started by Bashyatchi’s grandfather, shifting the start of the annual Pentateuchal lection from the month of Nissan to the month of Tishri, after the Feast of Tabernacles. In his work Patshegen Ketav ha-Dat,137 Caleb argued that this was actually the original Karaite custom – and so the apparent “reform” was actually a “return.” Caleb’s list of weekly Pentateuchal lections is almost identical to Rabbanite lists. Aderet Eliyahu immediately became universally recognized as the definitive Karaite halakhic compendium, similar to the status later given by Rabbanites to Joseph Karo’s Shulhan ʿArukh. _ HEBREW LANGUAGE AND MASORETIC KNOWLEDGE

Because of Karaites’ dedication to the study of the Hebrew Bible, they were active in efforts to determine its exact text. This activity was particularly intense from the late ninth century to the middle of the tenth.138 They were also involved in the production of early glossaries – lists of JudeoArabic translations and interpretations of lexemes in biblical Hebrew. In most cases these works used an “Early Judeo-Arabic spelling.”139 These early glossaries may have been precursors to later dictionaries; they certainly occupy a place between exegesis and lexicography. An early impressive achievement in the field was the first ever JudeoArabic dictionary of biblical Hebrew, authored by David b. Abraham alFāsī (likely from the middle of the tenth century, in Jerusalem). David wrote two versions of this dictionary – a short one and a long one. Many fragments of both versions of the work have been identified in manuscript 135

136 137 138

139

Printed in Constantinople, 1530/31; Gozlow/Evpatoria, 1834/35; last original print, Odessa, 1871. Reprinted in Ramle, 1966, with an Hebrew introduction by Zvi Ankori entitled “The House of Bashyachi and Their Regulations.” See Caleb’s remark on page ‫קעב‬. Printed in Ramle, 1977. Afendopolo’s arguments on the subject are found on 13 15. As noted, the connections of Aaron Ben Asher to the Karaite community have long been established. See Blau and Hopkins, Early Judaeo Arabic, 1:112 234.

karaism 601 collections, notably in St. Petersburg. Solomon L. Skoss published a critical edition of the short version, and included samples of the long version in its introduction.140 The work attracted the attention of various scholars who produced revised versions of it: Levi b. Japheth and ʿAlī b. Sulaymān (both mentioned above) and the Rabbanite exegete ʿEli b. Israel (active in Palestine in the middle of the eleventh century).141 The colophons of manuscripts attest to the fact that it was copied and used by Karaites and Rabbanites alike.142 The dictionary is arranged according to biconsonantal roots and – in part – even monoconsonantal roots. It is a treasure trove of translations and interpretations of biblical verses, as well as geographic, historic, and linguistic information (for example, about spoken Arabic, with ample use of Aramaic translations). The last great Arabic-speaking grammarian was Abū al-Faraj Hārūn, whom I have already mentioned. He wrote an extensive compendium of Hebrew grammar, entitled al-Mushtamil (Comprehensive),143 and an abstract thereof, entitled al-Kāfī (Sufficient).144 Both works address all aspects of biblical grammar: phonology, morphology, and syntax. In addition to his thorough knowledge of the biblical text, Abū al-Faraj was well-versed in the work of Arab grammarians. Like Rabbanite linguists of the eleventh-century Spanish school of Hebrew grammar (Judah Ḥayūj and Jonah Ibn Janāh), Abū al-Faraj used the Arabic technical terminology _ of the Arab grammarians, applied their concepts to Hebrew grammar, and even quoted entire paragraphs from their works (without acknowledging his sources). Unlike those Rabbanite grammarians, he did not know, or use, the system of triliteral roots. An allusion by Abraham Ibn Ezra to a 140

141

142

143

144

Solomon L. Skoss, The Hebrew Arabic Dictionary of the Bible Known as Kitab Jāmiʿ al Alfāz (Agron) of David ben Abraham al Fasi the Karaite, 2 vols. (New Haven, 1936 45). First_ mentioned by Moritz Steinschneider, Die arabische Literatur der Juden (Frankfurt am Main, 1902), 112 13. He knew that ʿEli wrote a commentary on I Samuel, a copy of which existed in the Second Firkovitch Collection in St. Petersburg. No shelf mark is mentioned. Further references are found in Mann, Texts and Studies (he calls him consistently ʿAlī), 2:31, 58 61, 95 98, 119, with much information in his commentary on I Samuel and other matters. See also Haggai Ben Shammai, “From Rabbinic Homilies to Geonic Doctrinal Exegesis: The Story of the Witch of En Dor as a Test Case,” in Georges Tamer, ed., Exegetical Crossroads: Understanding Scripture in Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Medieval Orient (Berlin, 2018), 178 79. See, for example, the colophon of RNL EVR Arab I 2889, copied by Abraham b. Shabtai, a Rabbanite (as attested by the Aramaic formulas in the colophon) in Tyre, February 1091. This work is being prepared for publication by Professor Aharon Maman of the Hebrew University. Published by Geoffrey Khan and Maria Angeles Gallego, The Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought in Its Classical Form (Leiden, 2003).

602 haggai ben-shammai “Jerusalemite savant whose name we do not know” and references to “the Jerusalemite grammarian” are commonly interpreted as references to Abū al-Faraj, and serve as evidence that the latter’s works reached Spain. Abū al-Faraj also wrote about the Masoretic tradition; the Arabic original title of his work is Hidāyat al-Qāriʾ (Guide for the Reciter). A few Hebrew versions of paraphrases of the book circulated in both Arabic-speaking countries and in Christian Europe in the Middle Ages; the most popular of these was entitled Horayat ha-Qore. A revised Hebrew epitome of the book, with additions from other works, was composed by the Byzantine Karaite Joseph Kostandini (c. 1100 or earlier). The identity of the author of Horayat ha-Qore was long disputed by modern scholars, though it has recently been firmly established to have been Abū al-Faraj.145 The work is aimed at guiding those entrusted with public recitation of the Bible in the synagogue to the most accurate possible reading based on a thorough knowledge of Hebrew grammar – notably orthography, phonology, and morphology. Another compendium of Hebrew grammar was written in Hebrew by an anonymous Byzantine Karaite in the twelfth century, entitled Meʾor ʿAyin.146 The work is based on the works of the Jerusalem school. VARIA

Judah Hadassi (ha-Avel, the Mourner) wrote his Eshkol ha-Kofer (Cluster of Henna) in Constantinople in 1148–49. This is, ostensibly, a book of commandments arranged according to the Ten Commandments, with each commandment or group of commandments related to one of the Ten. It includes an introduction and ten parts, but also a vast number of diversions on a very wide range of topics on an encyclopedic scale – including hermeneutical methodology, exegesis, Hebrew linguistics and Masorah, philosophy, theology (Judah formulated a list of ten articles of faith half a century before Maimonides), polemics (against rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), mysticism and magic, natural science, wonders of the world, curious legends, and more.147 Judah had access – directly or indirectly – to the Karaite Judeo-Arabic legacy of the Jerusalem center and also to a wide range of rabbinic and Rabbanite sources. Of special importance is the presence in the book of a Judeo-Greek element (based on 145

146

147

See Ilan Eldar, The Study of the Art of Correct Reading as Reflected in the Medieval Treatise Hidāyat al Qāriʾ [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994); see ibid., passim, on the mention of Judah Hayyūj in this work. Published by Meir N. Zisslin, with an annotated Russian translation, Moscow, 1990. The name of the author is perhaps Judah b. Jacob b. Judah. See Lasker, From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi, chapter 4 and passim.

karaism 603 medieval Byzantine Greek), and evidence of Hadassi’s acquaintance with medieval Greek philosophy. Eshkol ha-Kofer is divided into 385 chapters. Each chapter is divided into short paragraphs arranged as an alphabetic acrostic. In the last chapters, the acrostic is based on the author’s name with additional phrases. All of the paragraphs rhyme with the syllable -kha (the second-person singular masculine pronoun in Hebrew). The language of the work is heavy and not very reader-friendly. The fifteenth-century Karaite renaissance in Byzantium renewed interest in the book and led to the production of many copies in Turkey, as well as in Egypt. In 1836, Abraham Firkovitch published the book in his printing press in Gozlov/ Evpatoria.148 In recent years, Daniel Lasker has worked with a team of scholars on a critical edition of the work. The first results of these labors have already been published, a critical edition of the Hebrew text of the first hundred chapters (“Alphabets”) with a running English translation.149 A critical edition of the entire Hebrew text is expected in the near future. POETS

Moses Darʿī is the only Karaite poet with a formal collection (Arabic, dīwān) of his entire work. Moses was active in Cairo and Alexandria150 in the middle of the twelfth century, and edited his own collection in 1163. His entire work survived in several manuscripts and has been published.151 148

149

150 151

At the beginning of the book, Firkovitch appended an abstract of its contents arranged according to the chapters entitled Nahal Eshkol, which had been prepared in 1497 by _ Caleb Afendopolo. However, Firkovitch’s project had some serious defects. Firkovitch was unfamiliar with proper methods in preparing a critical edition, and he also had personal and political prejudices and preferences that affected the work. He omitted whole chapters from the printed edition that he considered offensive to Christianity (in order to enhance his cause of achieving civil rights for the Karaites in the Russian Empire), along with all of the Judeo Greek elements (which he probably considered unimportant and incomprehensible to his readership). Daniel J. Lasker, Johannes Niehoff Panagiotidis, and David Sklare, Theological Encounters at a Crossroads: An Edition and Translation of Judah Hadassi’s Eshkol ha kofer, First Commandment, and Studies of the Book’s Judaeo Arabic and Byzantine Contexts (Leiden, 2018). His last name may indicate that he or his family originated in Morocco. Leon J. Weinberger, Jewish Poet in Muslim Egypt: Moses Darʿi’s Hebrew Collection, critical edition with introduction and commentary (Leiden, 2000). A similar printing was published with a Hebrew title page by the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL, 1998). This edition has, however, some serious flaws: it is based on a late defective manuscript; the editor changed the original order of the poems as arranged and numbered by the poet; the editor omitted all of the Judeo Arabic parts two introduc tions, all of the Judeo Arabic poems, and the titles of the poems, which contain interesting materials regarding the social or historical circumstances that occasioned

604 haggai ben-shammai The Dīwān contains two parts: personal poems, including those occasioned by social or communal events, panegyrics for his patrons, and similar works; and liturgical poems. Darʿī was deeply influenced by the Spanish style of Hebrew poetry. Moses b. Samuel (fourteenth century), a native of the town of Safed,152 was recruited to serve in the management of the private estates of the Mamlūk governor of Damascus. In 1354, he was forced to convert to Islam (or else face death). When the governor went to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage, Moses was compelled to join him. What he saw there encouraged him to flee to Egypt, where he was received in the service of the local vizier, and apparently reverted to Judaism. In his poems, he described his experiences in Damascus and in Mecca, which were quite rare and unusual in the medieval setting. He also composed some liturgical poems. CONCLUSION

The Karaite movement appeared on the stage of Jewish history in the early Middle Ages as an energetic, if not militant, force – aspiring to become a leading force in the Jewish people or even to attract the majority of Jews to its cause. It left an indelible mark on the social and cultural history of medieval Judaism. Yet for all their creativity, none of the Karaites’ aspirations materialized. They found themselves at the end of the Middle Ages a minority group dispersed in relatively small communities in vast territories stretched from Lithuania in the north to Egypt in the south, struggling constantly for survival. In such circumstances, their survival until our time seems remarkable. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ankori, Zvi. Karaites in Byzantium: The Formative Years, 970–1100 (New York, 1959). Ben-Shammai, Haggai. “The Doctrines of Religious Thought of Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī and Japheth b. ʿEli” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1977).

152

the composition of certain poems. For the importance of the titles, see Haggai Ben Shammai, “On a Torah Case with Ornaments and a Bar Misvah Ceremony in a Karaite _ Synagogue in Egypt in the Twelfth Century” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 104 (2005), 5 10. This may be a single evidence for the existence of a Karaite presence in this town. See Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:201 12, for the historical context of Moses (“The Vicissitudes of Moses b. Samuel,” and so forth), and 212 55 (“Portions from the Diwān of Moses ben Samuel”), in which Mann assembled all the poems which he could find and identify.

karaism 605 Birnbaum, Philip, ed. Karaite Studies (New York, 1971). Erder, Yoram. The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2004). The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls: On the History of an Alternative to Rabbinic Judaism (Turnhout, 2017). Frank, Daniel. “The Study of Medieval Karaism, 1959–1989: A Bibliographic Essay,” Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies 6 (1990), 15–23. Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004). Khan, Geoffrey. The Early Karaite Tradition of Grammatical Thought (Leiden, 2000). Lasker, Daniel J. From Judah Hadassi To Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Karaite Philosophy (Leiden, 2008). Mann, Jacob. Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (Cincinnati, 1935). Nemoy, Leon. Karaite Anthology (New Haven, 1952). Polliack, Meira, ed. Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003). Rustow, Marina. Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008). Vajda, Georges, ed. and trans. Al-Kitāb al-Muhtawī de Yūsuf al-Basīr, ed. _ _ David R. Blumenthal (Leiden, 1985). Zawanowska, Marzena. “Review of Scholarly Research on Yefet Ben ʿEli and His Work,” Revue des Études Juives 173 (2014), 97–138.

chapter 18

NON-RABBINIC AND NON-KARAITE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS fred astren

INTRODUCTION

The range of Jewish religious variety in medieval Islamic societies was shaped both by elements innate to Judaism and by the contemporaneous historical environment. Two perennial forces typically shaped modes of difference. Messianic and prophetic claims date back to at least the Hellenistic era, and coupled with apocalypticism promised Jews a final resolution to fundamental problems (in this period, specifically, the problems of Jewish powerlessness and dispersion). Older still was interpretive disagreement over matters of Scripture and law, based on the idea that Jews constitute a scriptural community whose covenantal obligation is to understand and necessarily interpret Scripture in order to live according to its guiding principles. Messianism and interpretive diversity are pervasive, if not intrinsic, to Judaism, yet they act as key components of religious and social movements only in certain historical moments, two of which emerged in the Islamic Middle Ages. In addition to intra-Jewish modes of difference, the medieval Islamic environment created distinct historical conditions for the manifestation of difference. In the early Islamic centuries (c. 600–900), the Muslim caliphate and its successors provided enhanced connectivity between previously separated or isolated Jewish communities, while the acceleration of Islamization in Near Eastern, North African, and Iberian societies challenged all non-Muslim religious communities in a variety of ways.1 In addition, the evolution of Islam as a fully elaborated religious and cultural tradition – with its own forms of messianism, prophetism, and interpretive disagreement – further created an environment in which Jews and other non-Muslims rethought their own traditions and relationships with the wider world. Later, against the background of social, religious, and political

1

On Islamization and Jews, see EJIW, s.v. “Conversion” (Fred Astren), and the bibliography there.

606

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 607 change in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there is evidence for heightened apocalyptic and messianic expectation among Jews. History in these periods is marked by the strong influence of apocalypticism, which was given wide credence in the worldviews held by Jews, Muslims, and Christians.2 Because of the limited number and quality of medieval historical sources, especially in the earlier centuries, it is often difficult for modern scholars to identify with certainty the historical, social, and religious conditions that were necessary for interpretive difference to become socioreligious difference, and for messianism to become activistic rather than remaining latent or quietistic, as it had in other times. In the early Islamic centuries, the most important source for many of the diverse Jewish religious leaders and movements is the Karaite Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī, whose massive compilation of law, exegesis, philosophy, and commentary on many other topics was written in 937.3 In his extended discussion of Jewish sects, connections between legal or exegetical particularity and socioreligious groups or movements are obscure.4 Other reports, found in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources, just as often contradict rather than corroborate al-Qirqisānī. In addition, rabbinic propensities to eschew history and ignore ideological and hegemonic challenges render rabbinic texts silent or unclear on non-rabbinic religious difference.5 In contrast, Maimonides provides a unique source for several messianic movements in Yemen and Muslim Spain in the twelfth century. THE RISE OF ISLAM AND THE MUSLIM CONQUESTS

Jewish heterogeneity at the time of the rise of Islam was rooted in natural differences that distinguished Jews one from another across a widely dispersed geography. The major Jewish centers of the late sixth and early 2

3

4

5

For overviews, see Moshe Idel, “Jewish Apocalypticism, 670 1670,” in Bernard McGinn, John J. Collins, and Stephen J. Stein, eds., The Continuum History of Apocalypticism (New York, 2003), 354 79; and Saïd Amir Arjomand, “Islamic Apocalypticism in the Classic Period,” in The Continuum History of Apocalypticism, 380 413. Yaʿqūb al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al anwār wal marāqib, Code of Karaite Law, ed. Leon Nemoy, 3 vols. (New York, 1939 43). The heresiography of section 1 is translated in Yaʿqūb al Qirqisānī on Jewish Sects and Christianity, a Translation of “Kitāb al anwār”, Book I, with Two Introductory Essays, ed. and trans. Bruno Chiesa and Wilfrid Lockwood (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), 91 188. Bruno Chiesa, “Yaʿqūb al Qirqisānī come fonte storiografica,” in Yaʿqūb al Qirqisānī on Jewish Sects and Christianity, a Translation of “Kitāb al anwār”, Book I, 15 47. For a discussion of rabbinic “opposition” to history, see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, 1983); and Jacob Neusner, The Idea of History in Rabbinic Judaism (Leiden, 2004). More broadly, see Dean Phillip Bell, ed., The Routledge Companion to Jewish History and Historiography (London, 2019).

608 fred astren seventh centuries were located in Mesopotamia (referred to by Jews as Babylonia), northern Palestine, and the Jawlān (Golan). Beyond that, Jews were more widely dispersed across the eastern Mediterranean, including significant communities in regions of the Byzantine and Persian empires and in southern Arabia.6 By the time of the early seventh-century Muslim conquests of the Near East, rabbinic law and thought had come to maturity, exemplified by the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud. However, the proliferation and dominance of rabbinic Judaism was not as wide or deep as the rabbinic sources imply. Although largely unattested, regional and local varieties of Judaism, possibly non-rabbinic or little influenced by rabbinic Judaism, were unexceptional. In this period, historical circumstances could fuel apocalyptic and messianic impulses. Some Jewish communities in the Byzantine Empire fared badly during the decades of resource-draining warfare between the Byzantine Greeks and Sasanian Persians in the early seventh century. More widely, the lengthy struggle between universal empires was framed in apocalyptic terms by both Jews and Christians.7 Some evidence indicates that Jews governed Jerusalem for a short time after its conquest by the Persians in 614, and are reported to have persecuted and massacred Christians. They may have even engaged in religious rituals on the Temple Mount. Temporary control of the Temple Mount, followed by disappointment after the Persians revoked local Jewish authority, must have heightened Jewish apocalyptic and messianic inclinations.8 After the Byzantine reconquest of the East in 629, the emperor Heraclius recovered the True Cross from the Persians and returned it to Jerusalem. He then ordered a forced baptism of Jews, whose exact extent and impact is unknown.9 In the same year, Muslim forces engaged Byzantines 6 7

8

9

See Chapters 8 and 9 in this volume. See Wout J. van Bekkum, “Jewish Messianic Expectations in the Age of Heraclius,” in Gerrit J. Reinink and Bernard H. Stolte, eds., The Reign of Heraclius (610 641): Crisis and Confrontation (Leuven, 2002), 95 112. For overviews for this period, see David Olster, “Byzantine Apocalypses,” in The Continuum History of Apocalypticism, 254 72; and Cynthia Villagomez, “Christian Salvation Through Muslim Domination: Divine Punishment and Syriac Apocalyptic Expectation in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries,” Medieval Encounters 4, 3 (1998), 203 18. On Jews and the Temple Mount in the early seventh century, see Julian Raby, “In Vitro Veritas: Glass Pilgrim Vessels from 7th Century Jerusalem,” in Jeremy Johns, ed., Bayt al Maqdis: Jerusalem and Early Islam, Part 2 (Oxford, 1999), 113 90; Elliot Horowitz, “‘The Vengeance of the Jews Was Stronger than Their Avarice,’ Modern Historians and the Persian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614,” Jewish Social Studies, n.s. 4 (1998), 1 39; and Hagith Sivan, “From Byzantine to Persian Jerusalem: Jewish Perspectives and Jewish/ Christian Polemics,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 41 (2000), 277 306. Gilbert Dagron and Vincent Déroche, “Juifs et Chrétiens dans l’Orient du VIIe Siècle,” Travaux et Mémoires 11 (1991), 28 32.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 609 east of the Dead Sea, and by 636 the Muslim advance out of Arabia resulted in the Byzantine loss of Palestine and Syria. In 638, the fall of Jerusalem and the beginnings of Muslim rehabilitation of the Temple Mount also led to a renewed presence of Jews in the city after a long period of interdiction.10 All these events offered stimulus to heightened messianic expectation among Jews and Christians. For Muslims, the idea that victory was understood to be part of God’s plan was fundamental to Islam’s decidedly apocalyptic worldview.11 An enigmatic report found in an anonymous Syriac chronicle describes the so-called Jewish rebel of Pelūgāta, who claimed that “the Messiah had come.” His rebellion against local government authority in Iraq, and the anti-Christian violence that accompanied it, may or may not have occurred at the time of the conquests. Neither is it known whether the rebel made any messianic claims for himself.12 The report suggests that Jewish participation in communal violence, such as what happened in Jerusalem and in association with the Byzantine circus factions, could become entangled with messianism and apocalyptic expectation.13 More broadly, the advent of Islam and the Muslim conquests provide a point of departure for contextualizing Jewish apocalypticism, messianism, and other socioreligious movements in the following centuries.

10

11

12

13

Milka Levy Rubin, “Were the Jews Prohibited from Settling in Jerusalem? On the Authenticity of al Tabarī’s Jerusalem Surrender Agreement,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 35, Studies in Memory of Moshe Perlmann (2009), 63 82. For wider context, see Averil Cameron, “The Jews in Seventh Century Palestine,” Scripta Classica Israelica 13 (1994), 75 93; Averil Cameron, “Byzantines and Jews: Some Recent Work on Early Byzantium,” Byzantine and Medieval Greek Studies 20 (1996), 249 74; and Averil Cameron, “Blaming the Jews: The Seventh Century Invasions of Palestine in Context,” Travaux et Mémoires 14 (2002), 57 78. Bernard Lewis, “On That Day: A Jewish Apocalyptic Poem on the Arab Conquest,” in Pierre Salmon, ed., Mélanges d’Islamologie: Volume dédié à la mémoire de Armand Abel (Leiden, 1974), 197 201. On Jews and the Muslim conquests, see Fred Astren, “Re reading the Arabic Sources: Jewish History and the Muslim Conquests,” in Yohanan Friedmann, ed., Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 35, Studies in Memory of Moshe Perlmann (2009), 83 130. The source for the rebel of Pelūgāta (possibly Pumbedita, Arab., al Fallūja) is the seventh century Nestorian Khūzistān Chronicle, in Ignacio Guidi, ed., Chronica Minora I, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 1 2, Scriptores Syrii 1 (Paris, 1903), 15 39. See Alan Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford, 1976), 149 52; Dagron and Déroche, “Juifs et Chrétiens dans l’Orient du VIIe Siècle,” 17 46; and David M. Olster, Roman Defeat, Christian Response, and the Literary Construction of the Jew (Philadelphia, 1994).

610

fred astren UNDER THE UMAYYAD AND EARLY ʿABBĀSID DYNASTIES

After the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty in 661, caliphal ideology and popular notions of imperial power often were expressed using apocalyptic language and imagery.14 Correspondingly, from the beginning, intra-Muslim polemics and resistance to the state were couched in similar religious language, often using apocalyptic, prophetic, and messianic ideas. For example, Shīʿite claims to leadership of the Muslim community (and hence the caliphate) increasingly were conceived to be divinely sanctioned, and as early as the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (685–705), one al-Ḥarīth ibn Saʿīd claimed to be a Muslim prophet in Jerusalem.15 By the mid-eighth century, an increasingly sophisticated messianism helped shape Muslim religious movements and sometimes impel rebellion. Contemporaneously, two figures claimed messianic authority with significant impact on Jews in the Near East and across the Mediterranean. Sometime in the early eighth century, a messianic claimant named Severus is reported to have built a large following among Jews. Described in one Syriac chronicle as a Christian, he is reported to have impregnated a Jewess in Bēth Shemariyā (northern Iraq), but fled to Bēth Aramayē (southern Iraq) after being beaten and tortured by the Jews. There he learned sorcery in order to avenge himself on the Jews, and upon returning to Bēth Shemariyā he claimed that he was Moses and would lead the people back to the Land of Israel. In the course of his messianic career he murdered many Jews and accumulated great wealth, eventually absconding with the gold. However, the Jews “came to themselves” and caught up with him. He was turned over to the caliph, who had him cruelly executed.16 Around the same time, a late eleventh-century Persian source reports on a 14

15

16

David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Princeton, 2002); Hayrettin Yücesoy, Messianic Beliefs and Imperial Politics in Medieval Islam: The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in the Early Ninth Century (Columbia, SC, 2009). Note the Christian messianic context in Sean W. Anthony, “The Prophecy and Passion of al Hāriṯ b. Saʿīd al Kaddāb: Narrating a Religious Movement from the Caliphate of _ _ Arabica 57 (2010), 1 29. ʿAbd al Malik b. Marwān,” The most detailed among several Syriac sources for Severus (Sāwīrā) is the eighth century The Chronicle of Zuqnīn attributed to Dionysius of Tel Mahre in Incerti auctoris chronicon anonymum pseudo Dionysianum vulgo dictum II, ed. Jean Baptiste Chabot, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 104, Scriptores Syrii 53 (Leuven, 1933), 172 74. In English, see Amir Harrak, trans., The Chronicle of Zuqnin, Parts III and IV, a.d. 488 775 (Toronto, 1999), 162 64. See also shorter reports from other sources compiled and translated into English in Robert G. Hoyland, trans., Theophilus of Edessa’s Chronicle, and the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Liverpool, 2011), 220.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 611 messianic figure known as the Shepherd (al-raʿī), who claimed to be the forerunner of the Messiah, performed miracles, and called the people to piety and asceticism. Opposed by “the Jews,” he was jailed in Damascus but miraculously disappeared from prison. Despite some differences in the narratives, these reports likely refer to the same figure.17 The Syriac sources date Severus to the time of the caliphs Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik (720–24) and Hishām (724–43), while the Persian source specifies the reign of Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik (715–17) for the Shepherd. In the Christian Syriac texts the story is framed as an example of Jewish credulity, since the Jews were fooled into believing that Severus was the Messiah. However, the plausibility presumed by the narrative stands as an important indicator of messianic energy among Jews of the era. The story might be confirmed by the Iberian Chronicle of 754, which dates the messianic movement of a figure named Serenus to the time of the governorate of ʿAnbasa b. Suhaym (721–26) and describes how Jews in Spain abandoned their property_ in expectation of messianic deliverance.18 These events follow immediately on a third and failed Muslim attempt in 716–17 to conquer Constantinople, an objective that continued to have apocalyptic import in Muslim and Jewish thought for centuries.19 In the West, the Muslim conquest of Spain in the 710s and fall of the Visigoths, whose antiJewish policies were severe, could have led Jews to think in apocalyptic terms and act accordingly. Whether or not these sources are reliable in their detail, they testify to activistic messianism among Jews in this period and to ways that Mediterranean connectivity could potentiate transregional Jewish movements. A responsum possibly attributed to Natronay b. Nehemiah Gaʾon (fl. after 719–before 739) lists some of the _practices of this movement. “They do not pray, do not abstain from forbidden meats or guard their wine from turning into wine of oblation (used by gentiles), they work on 17

18

19

Abū al Maʿālī Muhammad al ʿAlawī, Bayān al Adyān, ed. ʿAbbās Iqbāl Āshtānī, _ Muhammad Taqī Dānishpazhūh, and Muhammad Dabīr Siyāqī (Tehran, 1997), 75. _ _ On this conclusion, see Sean W. Anthony, “Who Was the Shepherd of Damascus? The Enigma of Jewish and Messianist Responses to the Islamic Conquests in Marwānid Syria and Mesopotamia,” in Paul M. Cobb, ed., The Lineaments of Islam: Studies in Honor of Fred McGraw Donner (Leiden, 2012), 21 59. The Serenus story is a late interpolation into this text. Positive identification of Serenus with Severus/the Shepherd cannot be fully established. The source is José Eduardo López Pereira, ed. and trans., Crónica mozárabe de 754: edición crítica y traducción (Saragossa, 1980), §74. It is translated into English in Kenneth Baxter Wolf, ed. and trans., Conquerors and Chroniclers of Early Medieval Spain (Liverpool, 1990), 111 60. See Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs (Cambridge, MA, 2004), 60 71, and the sources there.

612 fred astren the second day of festivals, and do not write marriage contracts in the form prescribed by the rabbis.”20 These deviations from normative rabbinic practice were ruled not severe enough to disqualify former adherents from rejoining the rabbinic Jewish community. Whereas the movement’s legal leniency is consistent with a drift toward a millennialist abrogation of the Law, in practice the laws reposition members of the movement into new social relationships by eliminating long-standing or well-known religiosocial boundaries and restrictions. Human relations within the new subcommunity, with other Jews, and with non-Jews would thereby have been transformed. Some years later, different socioreligious conditions shaped the career of Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī, whose movement is only slightly better attested than _ that of Severus/the Shepherd/Serenus. By the middle of the eighth century, the caliphate was divided by Arab factionalism and its armies, and the authority of the Umayyad state was challenged by Shīʿite ideology and Iranian nativism. Pressure from many quarters eventually led to the third fitna, or civil war, beginning in 744. In that year an uprising of Arab tribes in Palestine, in part over treatment of dhimmīs (protected non-Muslims), indicates that among important matters at stake in the civil war was the place of non-Muslims in the caliphate.21 In fact, the place of non-Arab Muslims in the larger community and polity was one of the issues that impelled the ʿAbbāsid revolution of 750.22 Only basic outlines of the career of Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī can be discerned _ from the few, often contradictory Jewish and Muslim sources.23 He is 20

21

22

23

Jacob Mann argues that sryny (or shryny) mentioned in the responsum could not be Serenus (named as such only in the Chronicle of 754) and that the gaon is Natronay b. Hilay (fl. after 853). See the appendix, “Concerning Serene (Serenus) and the ‘Minim’ in Two Geonic Responsa,” in “An Early Theological Polemical Work,” Hebrew Union College Annual 12 13 (1937/38), 454 59. Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine, 634 1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992), 84 86. See Saleh Said Agha, The Revolution Which Toppled the Umayyads: Neither Arab nor ʿAbbāsid (Leiden, 2003). See also Amikam Elad, “The Ethnic Composition of the ʿAbbasid Revolution: A Reevaluation of Some Recent Research,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 24 (2000), 246 326; and Elton L. Daniel, “Arabs, Persians, and the Advent of the Abbasids Reconsidered,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117, 3 (1997), 542 48. The two main sources for Abū ʿĪsā al Isfahānī are al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wa l _ al Karīm al Shahrastānī, Kitāb al Milal wa l Marāqib, 12, 51 52; and Muhammad ʿAbd Nihal, Book of Religions and_ Philosophical Sects, ed. William Cureton (London, 1846), 168._ He is also mentioned more briefly in a number of Muslim sources, such as Khwārizmī, Maqdisī, Abū Maʿālī, Ibn Hazm, Maqrīzī, and others. See Steven Wasserstrom, “The ʿIsawiyya Revisited,” Studia Islamica 75 (1992), 57 80; and Yoram

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 613 portrayed as having led a revolt against caliphal authority that may have lasted two or three years, during which time he controlled a large area of highland Iran centered on Isfahān. A Muslim army sent from Baghdad _ defeated Abū ʿĪsā’s forces in battle outside of Rayy, where he was probably killed. The Muslim heresiographer al-Shahrastānī (1086–1153) dates the events to the time of the second ʿAbbāsid caliph, al-Mansūr (754–75), _ while al-Qirqisānī dates him to the time of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd alMalik (685–705). Abū ʿĪsā professed to being a prophet, and like the Prophet Muhammad, claimed to be illiterate. Such a claim provided divine author_ his prophecies and writings, the latter of which he is reported to ity for have shown to people. As such, these prophecies and writings would have been understood to have come directly from God and not been the result of human artifice or copying from existing books.24 Reflected in his prophetic name, Abū ʿĪsā (“Father of Jesus”), is his teaching that Jesus and Muhammad were true prophets of God, who had been sent to their respective_ peoples, just as Moses (and now Abū ʿĪsā) had been sent to the Jews. This doctrine echoes that of the Muslim Rāwandiyya, who emerged after the ʿAbbāsid revolution, and who maintained the continuing validity of divinely revealed books given to prophets, including the Torah of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus.25 Extending an old Jewish tradition that admits to the prophethood of the non-Jews Balaam and Job in the Hebrew Bible, this doctrine lowered eighth-century social and religious barriers that normally separated Jews, Muslims, and perhaps even Christians, thereby permitting wide participation of individuals and communities in Abū ʿĪsā’s movement. He maintained the primacy of Judaism by claiming that the Messiah was superior to other prophets and that Jews were to observe their own laws. His given name is reported to have been Isaac b. Jacob, but the messianic names of Obadiah and ʿOved Elohim (“Servant of God”) are also reported. In terms of messianism, he claimed to be a kind of messenger or harbinger of the Messiah. Sean Anthony argues that the Persian story of the Shepherd refers to Abū ʿĪsā, and that he referred to himself not as raʿī, but as a dāʿī (“propagandist”), a term often associated with the ʿAbbāsid

24

25

Erder, “The Doctrine of Abū ʿĪsā al Isfahānī and Its Sources,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic _ and Islam 20 (1996), 162 99. Cf. Isaiah Goldfeld, “The Illiterate Prophet (nabī ummī): An Inquiry into the Development of a Dogma in Islamic Tradition,” Der Islam 57 (1980), 58 67. Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism (Cambridge, 2012), 90 91. On the Rāwandiyya, see EI2, s.v. “al Rāwandiyya” (Etan Kohlberg).

614 fred astren revolution and Muslim Shīʿīte movements of the era.26 The dāʿī was often understood to be working in expectation of the eschatological appearance of the Mahdī (“rightly guided one”) or Imām (in the Shīʿite context, the divinely appointed leading member of the family of the Prophet).27 This title, along with other elements of doctrine and terminology shared by Abū ʿĪsā, his movement, and a number of contemporaneous Shīʿite movements, were documented in an important series of studies by Israel Friedländer in the early twentieth century.28 Such shared elements, along with the aforementioned low social barriers, suggest that religious identity within Abū ʿĪsā’s movement might include ambiguity that could be both Jewish, Muslim, or other. Interestingly, Abū ʿĪsā is used paradigmatically in many medieval Muslim jurisprudential texts in discussions of the shahāda, the testimony to monotheism and fundamental creedal statement of Islam (“There is no god but God, and Muhammad is His prophet”). _ God is one and that Because Abū ʿĪsā and his followers affirm that Muhammad is a prophet, but do not accept Muhammad as their prophet, _ _ whether or not they are the ambiguous position demands determination of to be considered Muslims. The discussions conclude that he and his followers are not Muslims (and therefore not liable as heretics).29 In terms of chronology, many features of Abū ʿĪsā’s movement support the dating of al-Shahrastānī to the period of the ʿAbbāsid revolution and subsequent years. By the time of the revolution – which mobilized eschatological and Shīʿite themes – the permanence of Muslim dominion in the Iranian highlands was leading to a change in the character of local indigenous revolts against caliphal authority. Critique and revolt continued to be endemic but were increasingly expressed in terms of Muslim ideology and identity. Just before the revolution the radical Shīʿite messianist revolt in Iran of the ʿAlid ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya (744–47/48), like Abū ʿĪsā’s movement, incorporated a variety of otherwise disparate groups, many of which had contradictory theologies and political points of view but were unified by opposition to the caliphate of Marwān b. Muhammad (740–50).30 Along similar lines, Abū ʿĪsā’s doctrines are _ 26 27

28

29

30

Anthony, “Who Was the Shepherd of Damascus?” On the daʿwa (“call,” in the sense of propaganda program) that eventually fueled the ʿAbbāsid revolution, see Agha, The Revolution Which Toppled the Umayyads, and sources cited there. “Jewish Arabic Studies,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 1 (1910 11), 183 215; 2 (1911 12), 481 517; 3 (1912 13), 235 300. Moshe Gil discusses many of these sources in Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004), 243 46. This is one of the conclusions of William F. Tucker, Mahdis and Millenarians: Shī‘ite Extremists in Early Muslim Iraq (Cambridge, 2008), 88 108.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 615 consistent with many features of the Khurramiyya, a rural Iranian identity connected to the Zoroastrian heresy of Mazdakism that both appropriated and resisted Islam (sometimes in Shīʿīte garb). The Khurramīs, as described by Patricia Crone, combined anti-Arab animosity and messianic apocalypticism to fuel anti-caliphal rebellion in the eighth and ninth centuries.31 Dating Abū ʿĪsā to the caliphate of al-Mansūr is sup_ ported by the only reported battle in this period fought at Rayy by a caliphal army, which was sent by al-Mansūr to put down the Khurramī rebellion of Sunbādh in 775. Crone states_ that Abū ʿĪsā “seems to have joined” Sunbādh along with many locals who felt betrayed and disappointed by the ʿAbbāsid revolution.32 Extrapolating from Crone’s point of view, Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī can be understood as a Jewish Iranian nativist, whose idiosyncratic_ Khurramism appropriated and resisted both rabbinic Judaism and Islam. Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī was succeeded by his disciple Yudghān, who led the _ religious movement based on Abū ʿĪsā’s teachings known as the 33 ʿĪsāwiyya. Abū ʿĪsā is reported to have been killed in the battle at Rayy, or in another report to have ridden off to teach the descendants of Moses “beyond the dunes,” that is, beyond the legendary sand river Sambatyon, where it was believed that the great remnant of Israel resided in expectation of reunification with their brethren in the messianic era. Such a denial of the leader’s death is a well-known doctrinal response to the failure of rebellion. Teachings such as this, as well as the so-called doctrine of the two messiahs, are known in Jewish history as responses to the disappointment of messianic failure.34 Mirroring similar doctrines in Shīʿite Islam and the miraculous disappearance of the Shepherd from prison, it is reported that among the ʿĪsāwiyya it was believed that Abū ʿĪsā had not died, but was hiding in a mountain cave and would return as the Messiah. The same doctrine was held by the followers of many contemporaneous Shīʿite messianic claimants, especially among the groups related to the Kaysāniyya, and later are associated with Muhammad alMahdī, the twelfth imām of the Ithnā ʿAsharī (Twelver)_ branch of Shīʿism, whose followers claimed that he went into occultation (ghayba)

31 33

34

32 Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran. Ibid., 36. The main primary sources for Yudghān are al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, 12 13, 52 53; and al Shahrastānī, Kitāb al Milal wa l Nihal, 168 69. According to _ Abū ʿĪsā, the ʿĪsāwiyya, Wasserstrom, “The ʿIsawiyya Revisited,” differences between and Yudghān may represent evolutionary stages of the movement. See John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (New York, 1995); and Naphtali Wieder, “The Doctrine of the Two Messiahs among the Karaites,” Journal of Jewish Studies 6 (1955), 14 23.

616 fred astren 35 in 869. The notion of hiding or occultation is linked to the doctrine of return (rajʿa), which stipulates that the “Hidden Imām” will reappear as the Messiah at the end of time. Although it is likely that Abū ʿĪsā claimed only to be a prophet, after his death the ʿĪsāwiyya made him into the Messiah. With this move, the ʿĪsāwiyya could be perceived to be in alignment with Khurramī notions of rajʿa, which was more about the periodic indwelling of the divine in human beings and reincarnation than simply the return from occultation.36 Among the ʿĪsāwiyya, prohibitions against eating the flesh of animals and drinking wine are reported, two features of the pietist movement known as aveley siyyon (“Mourners of Zion”), a precursor to Karaism whose foundations_ in late antiquity were conceived in terms of mourning the loss of the Temple in Jerusalem.37 In the absence of the Temple, such rigor offsets physical distance from the Land of Israel and temporal distance from messianic restoration of Jews there. Explicit in this ideology is that only in the Holy Land and only after the restoration will Jews be permitted to eat meat and drink wine. Such a teaching stands in direct contradistinction to rabbinic law, which permits meat and wine, but also discourages excessive mourning (especially for the Temple), rejects messianic activism, and diminishes the importance of legal differences between the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. As with so many non-rabbinic movements in the early centuries of Islam, the weight of the Diaspora and its imminent end were felt with immediacy – in contrast to the indifference of rabbinic Judaism, which would later be criticized by Karaites for accommodating the Diaspora. By the same token, not killing animals for meat was a practice of many Khurramīs, whose panpsychism located soul, spirit, or mind in everything, while abstaining from drinking wine was normative to Islam.38 Hence, these positions of the Mourners of Zion were aligned with local Iranian practices. The ʿĪsāwiyya also forbade divorce and are variously reported to have prayed either seven or ten times 35

36 37

38

See EI2, s.v. “Kaysāniyya” (Wilferd Madelung); Saïd Amir Arjomand, “Imam Absconditus and the Beginnings of a Theology of Occultation: Imami Shiʿism Circa 280 90 a.h./900 a.d.,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117, 1 (1997), 1 12. Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran, 233 52. See Moshe Zucker, “Teguvot li tenu‘at aveley siyyon ha kara’im bi sifrut ha rabbanit” [Responses to the Karaite Mourners of the Zion_ movement in Rabbanite literature], in Sefer ha Yovel le Rabi Hanokh Albek [Jubilee volume in honor of Hanokh Albeck] [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1963), 378 401; and Barry Dov Walfish, “The Mourners of Zion (‘Avelei Siyyon): A Karaite Aliyah Movement of the Early Arab Period,” in Menachem Mor, ed., Eretz Israel, Israel and the Jewish Diaspora Mutual Relations (New York, 1991), 42 52. Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran, 257 60, 272 73.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 617 a day. Al-Qirqisānī states that they observed the rabbinic calendar and therefore were not considered by the rabbis to be heretics, and thus intermarriage was not prohibited between the groups. However, the Karaite Judah Hadassi (fl. 1148–49) states that they used a solar calendar, which may have been Abū ʿĪsā’s original position and would have made acceptance by the rabbis impossible.39 Yudghān claimed to be a prophet, but his followers held that he was the Messiah. He followed Abū ʿĪsā in the prohibition of meat and wine, but also required frequent fasting and prayer, another rigorist feature of the Mourners of Zion, among whose ranks he is assigned by al-Qirqisānī. Yudghān also taught that the Sabbath and holidays were not required in the Diaspora, but should merely be remembered. The Karaite Japheth b. ʿEli (fl. late tenth century) states that Yudghān taught that the laws of purity were void in the Diaspora.40 Such antinomianism mirrored attitudes of the followers of ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya and Khurramīs toward certain aspects of Muslim law, especially ritual observance, dietary prohibitions, and perhaps marriage.41 With interpretive strategies similar to some teachers in the Muslim milieu, he maintained that the Torah had both an esoteric and exoteric meaning, with the implication that the esoteric was available through his interpretation (taʾwīl).42 The pietistic rigor of prohibitions combined with lenient antinomianism in Yudghān’s teachings brings together anti-rabbanism and messianic expectation. Al-Qirqisānī reports that his followers called him the Shepherd (al-rāʿī), but it is possible that he was a follower of the Shepherd. If, in fact, al-Qirqisānī misunderstood this appellation, then the possibility looms that the messianism of the Shepherd, Abū ʿĪsā, and Yudghān are part of an intrinsically amalgamated phenomenon.43 If this were the case, then al-Qirqisānī’s early dating for Abū ʿĪsā would make sense. Al-Qirqisānī states that a small number of the ʿĪsāwiyya survived in Isfahān and Damascus in the tenth century, while some Muslim sources _ suggest that the movement persisted until the eleventh and twelfth 39

40

41 42

43

Judah Hadassi, Eshkol ha Kofer (Westmead, England, 1971 [reprint of Gozlow, 1836]), 41c, Alphabet 97. In his Commentary to Parashat Nisavim, cited in Simhah Pinsker, Liqqutei Qadmoniyot _ (Vienna, 1860), 26. Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran, 261 64. Use of the term taʾwīl indicates allegorical and esoteric interpretation, with roots in early Muslim sectarian debates over exegetical methodology. See Isaiah Goldfeld, “The Development of Theory on Qur’ānic Exegesis in Islamic Scholarship,” Studia Islamica 67 (1988), 5 27. On the esoteric (bātin) in Islamic thought, see Encyclopaedia Iranica, s.v. “Bāten” (Bernd Radtke); and EI3_, s.v. “Bātiniyya” (Paul E. Walker). Argued _by Anthony, “Who Was the Shepherd_ of Damascus?”

618 fred astren centuries. Al-Shahrastānī mentions Mushkā, a successor of Yudghān’s, who is reported to have followed the teachings of Yudghān, but also declared it obligatory to rebel and fight against his adversaries – a Khurramī teaching.44 What is reported as the last gasp of militant Jewish messianic activism in this period was extinguished when he was killed with nineteen of his followers at Qum. This report has echoes of the massacre of Muhammad’s grandson, al-Ḥusayn, at Karbala in 680, and after that, the _ mission of the Tawwābūn (“the Penitents”) in 685, suggesting that suicide Shīʿite conceptions – if not literary tropes – continued to inform Jewish messianic activist thinking.45 The messianic and sectarian movements of Severus/the Shepherd/ Serenus, Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī, and Yudghān (if not also Mushkā) can be contextualized in three_ ways. First, they exhibit a kind of inner-Jewish logic derived from messianism, apocalypticism, and scriptural and legal interpretation. Second, features consistent with Muslim doctrine and interpretation (especially Shīʿite) reflect the ascendancy of Islam as a global imperial and religio-cultural frame. And third, consistencies with Khurramism parallel some aspects of the Jewish Mourners of Zion, but more importantly, indicate the persistence of pre-Islamic Iranian influence and the specificity of the Iranian highlands as a regional geo-cultural frame, especially for Abū ʿĪsā and the ʿĪsāwiyya. THE NINTH CENTURY

By the middle of the ninth century, the well-ordered imperial system of the early ʿAbbāsid caliphate began to fall apart. In 836, a new capital was founded at Sāmarrāʾ in order to relocate unruly imperial troops, who in Baghdad had contributed to social and political upheaval. In the south of Iraq, the Zanj rebellion challenged central authority and disrupted the economy from 869 to 893. At the same time, Islam was developing into a fully elaborated religion, and Islamization was proceeding rapidly in many regions. By the beginning of the century, urban life in its Islamic forms was becoming fully articulated, accompanied by immigration from the countryside to cities and from one region to another, especially to the newly founded imperial center of Baghdad.46 44 45

46

Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran, 254 57. On al Husayn, see EI2, s.v. “al Husayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Tālib” (Laura Veccia Vaglieri). On the Tawwābūn, see Syed Husain Mohammad Jafri, The Origins and Early Development of Shi‘a Islam (London, 1976), 222 34. See Hugh Kennedy, “Feeding the Five Hundred Thousand: Cities and Agriculture in Early Islamic Mesopotamia,” Iraq 73 (2011), 177 99; Sylvie Denoix, “Founded Cities of

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 619 It is likely that at this time Jews were becoming increasingly urban, as the agriculturally based Jewish communities described in the Babylonian Talmud were being abandoned for the cities (especially Baghdad) or eradicated through conversion to Islam.47 The resulting social dislocation in cities provided fertile ground for the emergence of new social and religious affiliations among Jews and Muslims that sometimes centered around a new type of religious leader who offered innovative, if not heterodox, scriptural interpretations and laws. An important core of the audience for such new interpreters could be found among urban readerships that developed in conjunction with the massive explosion of Muslim (mostly Arabic) writing in the ninth century.48 Made possible by the introduction of papermaking in Iraq, this writing revolution led to a significant increase in the availability of written material that, in turn, changed the ways people read. The new Arabic book culture encouraged the individualized private reading of texts, which challenged traditional aural reading based on memorization and recitation. It also led to the rise of the individual author.49 Correspondingly, new modes of close reading of Scripture led to new types of religious interpretation among both Muslims and Jews.50 For some Jews these new modes of reading were mobilized in interpretive opposition to the rabbis, whose tradition was vulnerable to critique using scripturalist and other strategies.51 In a region characterized by the disorder and exploding growth of newly founded cities, such as Kūfa and Basra (and later Baghdad) was ʿAnan b. David, whose failed candidacy for_ the exilarchate was proffered as a

47 48

49

50

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the Arab World,” in Salma K. Jayyusi, ed., The City in the Islamic World (Leiden, 2008), 1:115 39; and Françoise Micheau, “Baghdad in the Abbasid Era: A Cosmopolitan and Multi confessional Capital,” in The City in the Islamic World, 221 45. See Chapter 11 in this volume. Shawkat M. Toorawa, Ibn Abī Tāhir Tayfūr and Arabic Writerly Culture: A Ninth Century Bookman in Baghdad (London, 2005). David Stern, “The First Jewish Books and the Early History of Jewish Reading,” Jewish Quarterly Review 98, 2 (2008), 163 202. For Islam, see Gregor Schoeler, The Genesis of Literature in Islam: From the Aural to the Read (Edinburgh, 2002); and a collection of Schoeler’s articles, The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, ed. James E. Montgomery (London, 2006). See Fred Astren, “ʿAbbāsid Book Culture and Ninth Century Jewish Sectarianism,” in Antoine Borrut and Alison Vacca, eds., Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World (Turnhout, forthcoming). See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Return to the Scriptures in Ancient and Medieval Jewish Sectarianism and in Early Islam,” in Évelyne Patlagean and Alain Le Boulluec, eds., Les Retours aux Écritures: fondamentalismes présents et passés (Leuven, 1993), 319 39.

620 fred astren motive for his non-rabbinic teaching.52 Considered a founder or predecessor of Karaism, his teaching is characterized by Salo Baron as rigorist in its legal orientation and separatist in relation to non-Jews, thus circumscribing a lifestyle for an urban Jewish intelligentsia – a readership.53 The movement’s behavioral strictness and high social boundaries offered a defensive response for Jews struggling with Islamization and urban dislocation in rapidly growing cities. Significantly, ʿAnan anticipated new modes of writing that would soon emerge in subsequent decades. On one hand, his Sefer Misvot (Book of Commandments) depended upon rabbinic modes of discourse,_ such as allegorical interpretation, the use of Aramaic, and of legal material taken from rabbinic literature. On the other hand, his writing elevated nonnormative rabbinic legal rulings, and by being penned under his own name – in contrast to rabbinic notions of orality and collective authorship – prefigured new interpretive modes and readerships.54 ʿAnan’s followers, the ʿAnanites, preserved his teachings and followed the leadership provided by his family, surviving as a separate movement perhaps to some time after the year 1000.55 Al-Qirqisānī, along with a few Muslim writers, mentions several ninthcentury Jewish interpreters of law, whose teachings and actions align with contemporaneous historical circumstances. The first is Ismāʿīl al-ʿUkbarī, who lived at the time of the caliph al-Muʿtasim (r. 833–42).56 It is not _ known whether Ismāʿīl lived in Baghdad; however, nearby ʿUkbara is recorded to have had a Jewish population at times in the Middle Ages. Ismāʿīl is reported to have made several distinctive legal pronouncements. Like the rabbis, he maintained that the determination of rosh hodesh (the first day of the new month) is to be based on astronomical _calculation (presumably of lunar conjunction) rather than a method prescribed in other non-rabbinic legal material of the period: direct observation of the new moon. However, at variance with the rabbis, he instructed that prayer and sacrifice is to begin at the astronomical moment of the beginning of 52

53

54

55 56

On ʿAnan, see Samuel Poznański, “Anan et ses Écrits,” Revue des Études Juives 44 (1901), 161 87; 45 (1902), 51 69, 176 203; Leon Nemoy, “Anan ben David, a Reappraisal of the Historical Data,” in Philip Birnbaum, ed., Karaite Studies (New York, 1971), 309 18 (article reprint of 1947); and Martin A. Cohen, “Anan ben David and Karaite Origins,” Jewish Quarterly Review 68, 3 (1978), 129 45; 68, 4 (1978), 224 34. Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume 5: Religious Controls and Dissensions (New York, 1957), 210 22. See Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000), who discusses the consummation of these processes in the tenth century. On ʿAnan, see Chapter 17 in this volume. al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, 13, 56 57.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 621 the month, even if it occurs late in the day. Thus, Ismāʿīl’s calculated month, like that of the rabbis, allowed for a universalizing of the calendar across wide geographic expanses, but differed with the rabbis by altering liturgical practice associated with rosh hodesh.57 Like the quasi-ascetic _ Mourners of Zion movement, whose pietism focused on Jerusalem and the absent Temple, he forbade the consumption of meat, thereby distinguishing his practice from that of rabbinic Jews. However, he lowered boundaries between Jews and non-Jews by a lenient interpretation of Sabbath regulations, including the permissibility of eating Gentileprepared foods on the Sabbath. Such leniencies would have had value in Baghdad and other large multi-segmented early Islamic cities. Although operating as a religious interpreter and leader of a movement, Ismāʿīl’s messianic pretensions are indicated in the epitaph reported to have been inscribed on his tomb, “the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof” (II Kings 2:12), a verse alluded to in the Jewish apocalypse, Nistarot de Rabbi Shimʿon bar Yohay.58 Al-Qirqisānī states that Ismāʿīl’s _ movement disappeared by the mid-tenth century. Whereas Ismāʿīl’s legal positions show parallels with non-rabbinic Jewish law from many periods, his thinking on Scripture points to contemporaneous historical phenomena. He categorically rejected the Jewish tradition of reading some words of the Bible differently from the way they are written (known as qere and ketiv, respectively) and maintained that the Bible should be read as written, including even pronunciation of the traditionally ineffable four-letter name of God, the Tetragrammaton. His position constitutes a rudimentary scripturalist rejection of the Masoretic project, which centered on preserving and fixing the biblical text, and was active in Iraq and Palestine by this time.59 Yet, he also agreed with the Masoretes, claiming that the existing text of the Bible was subject to corruption, thereby attributing some scriptural readings to copyist error. However, his position was opportunistic, in that he thereby justified unmethodically substituting words or phrases that he thought made better sense than the words in the Bible. His 57

58

59

On rosh hodesh in Jewish calendars, see Sacha Stern, Calendar and Community: A History _ Calendar, Second Century bce Tenth Century ce (Oxford, 2001), passim, of the Jewish esp. 99 154. See John C. Reeves, Trajectories in Near Eastern Apocalyptic: A Postrabbinic Jewish Apocalypse Reader (Atlanta, 2005), 80n25; and Bernard Lewis, “On That Day.” The edited text is in Yehuda Even Shmuel, Midreshey Geʾulla, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem, 1954), 401 3. On the early medieval Masoretes, see EJ, second edition, s.v. “Masorah” (Aron Dotan). See also Elvira Martín Contreras and Guadalupe Seijas de los Ríos Zarzosa, Masora: La Transmisión de la Tradición de la Biblia Hebrea (Estella, Spain, 2010).

622 fred astren unsophisticated interpretations parallel a kind of naive scripturalism found in a literary genre based on biblical questions and answers known from the Cairo Genizah.60 In addition, this simple scripturalism is presupposed of Judaism in some of the questions of Ḥīwī al-Balkhī, Ismāʿīl’s younger contemporary, or in a critique of Judaism found in the Zoroastrian Persian Škand Gumānīg Wīzār.61 At a minimum, Ismāʿīl’s response to the Masoretic project indicates that new ways of reading were being contested among ninth-century Jews. The Masoretes, described by David Stern as the first “professional Jewish readers of the Bible,” depended upon working with a biblical text that could be read visually and analyzed synoptically – a way of reading that works well with a text written in the form of a codex, as opposed to an unwieldy (and costly to produce) scroll.62 In fact, the oldest known Jewish codices are from the ninth century, and all extant early Masoretic works were composed in the codex form. In these contexts, Ismāʿīl’s naive but close reading of Scripture coincides with the time when the Bible as memorized verse and public recitation was being challenged by visual reading akin to that of the Masoretes and as found in Arabic book culture. In another register, the juxtaposition of Ismāʿīl and the Masoretes echoes the wide range of opinion and parallel debates in Islam concerning the text of the Qurʾān, its transmission, and the status of Arabic.63 In tune with the new age of writing, al-Qirqisānī notes that Ismāʿīl wrote books, which he characterized as uneducated ravings, and in which he “belittles” and “slanders ʿAnan and accuses him of asinine stupidity.” According to al-Qirqisānī, followers of Ismāʿīl al-ʿUkbarī claimed that Abū ʿImrān al-Tiflīsī (also known as Mūsā al-Zaʿfarānī) was a student of their leader. He was originally from Baghdad, but moved to Tbilisi

60

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62 63

David Sklare, “Ninth Century Judeo Arabic Texts of Biblical Questions and Answers,” in Miriam L. Hjälm, ed., Senses of Scripture: The Bible in Arabic among Jews, Christians, and Muslims (Leiden, 2017), 105 24. For a brief overview, see EJIW, s.v. “Hīwī al Balkhī” (Marzena Zawanowska). For modern scholarship on Hīwī, see David E. Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and His Cultural World: Texts and Studies (Leiden, 1996), 127nn86 and 87. For a brief overview of the Škand, see Jean de Menasce, “Zoroastrian Literature after the Muslim Conquest,” in Richard N. Frye, ed., The Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1975), 4:551 53. See also Samuel Thrope, “Contradictions and Vile Utterances: The Zoroastrian Critique of Judaism in the Škand Gumānīg Wīzār” (PhD diss., University of California, 2012). Stern, “The First Jewish Books and the Early History of Jewish Reading.” For the eighth century, see Michael A. Cook, “Anan and Islam: The Origins of Karaite Scripturalism,” Jewish Studies in Arabic and Islam 9 (1987), 174 75. In the ninth century, Hīwī may echo Muʿtazilite “rationalist” perspectives. See Gil, Jews in Islamic Countries, 322.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 623 (in Georgia).64 The tenth-century Karaite Japheth b. ʿEli states that he denied the resurrection65 and that his followers had to migrate outside the caliphate on account of pressure from the rabbinic academies.66 It cannot be determined whether such pressure came from the academies’ increased presence in Baghdad or is better explained by the end of an enforced caliphal Muslim orthodoxy in the capital after the accession of alMutawakkil in 847, which was accompanied by increased anti-dhimmī policies.67 The group was still active in Tbilisi at the time of al-Qirqisānī, and was later reported to exist there in the twelfth century. Abū ʿImrān calculated rosh hodesh differently from Rabbanites, and decreed like many _ non-rabbinic interpreters that Shavuʿot must fall on Sunday. Differing with Ismāʿīl and the Mourners of Zion he permitted eating meat, and like the rabbis, prohibited eating the fat tail of a permitted animal. He prohibited uncle-niece marriage, a practice known among Rabbanites. Unlike ʿAnan and Ismāʿīl, he did not compose a book of law, but did participate in the new ninth-century writerly culture, whose Jewish subculture often focused on inter-sectarian debates. In this context, al-Qirqisānī reports that Abū ʿImrān penned responses to Ḥīwī al-Balkhī a century before Seʿadyah would do so. It is worth noting that the teknonym (Arabic, kunya) Abū ʿImrān (“Father of ʿImrān”) suggests a messianic connotation based on the Arabic Āl ʿImrān (“House of ʿImrān”), which in the Qurʾān refers to the father of Mary and is the title of its third chapter. Although no link between Abū ʿImrān al-Tiflīsī and Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī is known, the teknonym echoes the messianic implications of the _name Abū ʿĪsā. Another mid-ninth-century leader, Malik al-Ramlī, is noted by alQirqisānī not to have written a book of law, but did follow a legal pattern similar to Abū ʿImrān al-Tiflīsī, mandating Shavuʿot on Sunday, prohibiting fat tail, and forbidding uncle-niece marriage.68 He lived in Ramle, as indicated by his denonym (Arabic, nisba). Like some of the Mourners of Zion and later the Karaites, he called for Jews to settle in Jerusalem.69 His 64 65 66 67

68 69

al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, 13 14, 57. Pinsker, Liqqute Qadmoniyot, 26. _ ʿImrān al Tiflīsī” (Yoram Erder). EJIW, s.v. “Abū Jacob Mann suggests this reason for the return of Jews to the rabbinic community at this time. See “An Early Theological Polemical Work,” 457 58. On the official orthodoxy in this period, see John A. Nawas, “A Reexamination of Three Current Explanations for al Maʾmūn’s Introduction of the Mihna,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 26, 4 _ (1994), 615 29. al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, 13 14, 57. Avraham Grossman, “Aliya in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries,” in Lee I. Levine, ed., The Jerusalem Cathedra (Jerusalem, 1983), 174 87; and Moshe Gil, “Aliya and Pilgrimage in the Early Arab Period (634 1009),” in The Jerusalem Cathedra, 163 73.

624 fred astren followers, the Ramliyya or Malikiyya, were known in al-Qirqisānī’s time. Al-Qirqisānī reports that Malik stood up in Jerusalem and swore that cocks had formerly been sacrificed on the altar in the Temple. Malik’s statement demonstrates how, in the context of early medieval sectarianism, questions regarding what foods were permitted or forbidden could be framed using the Temple and its ruined condition as a legal paradigm. He claimed that the torim of Leviticus 1:14 (usually translated as “turtledoves”), used for burnt offerings at the Temple, were chickens, and were therefore permissible for food. Al-Qirqisānī refutes Malik’s position by declaring that “this is the action of an ignorant man,” thereby signaling the lack of scriptural basis for Malik’s claim. In this matter, Malik contradicts ʿAnan b. David, the judge Benjamin b. Moses al-Nahāwandī (c. 830–60), and the late ninth-century Karaite Daniel al-Qūmisī, all three of whom claimed that chickens were unclean birds and not permitted as food. Malik’s rule illustrates that sectarian debate in the era occurred in the legally indeterminate space between scriptural literalism and rabbinic tradition.70 At the same time, these debates show continuity with Second Temple disputes about certain types of food permitted in Jerusalem that are recorded in the Talmud and Dead Sea Scrolls.71 In the second half of the ninth century, another Jewish interpreter from ʿUkbara founded a movement that lasted at least until the twelfth century. Mīshawayh al-ʿUkbarī is known primarily from Karaite texts, which denounce and refute his positions. None of his own writing is extant.72 His name is Persian, suggesting an eastern origin; however, he is also referred to as al-Baʿalbakī (from Baʿalbek in Lebanon), which may indicate that he or his followers migrated there. Probably originating in the 70

71

72

Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004), 33 94 (“Unclean Birds and Tassels: Indeterminacy and Halakhic Exegesis”). See Babylonian Talmud Bava Qamma 82b; and Elisha Qimron, “The Chicken, the Dog, and the Temple Scroll 11QTc (Col. XLVIII)” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 64 (1995 96), 473 75; and Jodi Magness, “Dogs and Chickens at Qumran,” in Adolfo Roitman, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Shani Tzoref, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture: Proceedings of the International Conference held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (July 6 8, 2008), STDJ 93 (Leiden, 2011), 349 62. Cf. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 12, chapter 3, §4. al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, 14, 57 58. Mīshawayh’s teaching is opposed in both Karaite and Rabbanite writing. The most complete treatment of Mīshawayh is found in Yoram Erder, The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls: On the History of an Alternative to Rabbanite Judaism (Turnhout, 2017), 167 307. The eleventh century Tobias b. Eliezer of Castoria, a Rabbanite who comments on Mīshawayh, is discussed at length in Zvi Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium: The Formative Years, 970 1110 (New York, 1959), 372 415.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 625 Mourners of Zion milieu, Mīshawayh’s messianist attitudes led to distinctive legal rulings that were rejected by both Rabbanites and Karaites. He believed that the coming of the Messiah was imminent, and accordingly understood many laws to be held in abeyance while Jews lived outside of the Land of Israel until the advent of the messianic era. Thus the Commandments were to be forsworn until they could soon be observed in their fullness. Exegetically, he justified this position by equating the current era with the biblical era that followed the Exodus, during which the Israelites were in the desert but had not yet received the Law. Thus, he permitted eating meat in general and the fat tail in particular, as well as the eating of hames (“leaven”) on Passover while in exile.73 As for calendrical _ said _ that Shavuʿot must always fall on a Sunday, but almatters, he Qirqisānī reports that Mīshawayh could not determine which Sunday was correct.74 Karaite critics claimed that he followed a solar calendar, which would obviate problems associated with determining rosh hodesh. _ This position is irreconcilable with al-Qirqisānī’s claim that Mīshawayh was uncertain about rosh hodesh, and therefore said in accommodation to the rabbinic calendar, “All_ money is a convenience, so you may as well hold on to the counterfeits.” He also claimed that the day began in the morning, and not in the evening as observed by the rabbis. Mīshawayh’s law was perceived by the rabbis to be antinomian and therefore heretical, while Karaites engaged anti-Mīshawite polemics until the end of the fifteenth century even though their arguments had become purely notional after the mid-thirteenth century. Mīshawayh was accused of having converted to Christianity late in life, an accusation that may reflect this antinomian perception.75 Yoram Erder has argued persuasively that Mīshawayh’s law is derived from the Dead Sea Scrolls, some elements of which may have been known at the time but were rejected by the Mourners of Zion and others.76 By understanding much Jewish law to be inapplicable in the unredeemed Diaspora, Mīshawayh was consistent with antinomian tendencies associated with messianic and eschatological movements (such as the ʿĪsāwiyya), and with the broad lowering 73

74

75

76

Yoram Erder, “The Observance of the Commandments in the Diaspora on the Eve of the Redemption in the Doctrine of the Karaite Mourners of Zion,” Henoch 19 (1997), 175 202. That is, according to Leviticus 23:15, one should begin counting the days from the “day after the Sabbath.” The Sabbath in question may refer to the weekly Sabbath that falls during the Passover week (as construed by many sectarians) or the “Sabbath” (as defined in rabbinic Judaism) that constitutes the first day of Passover itself. The accusation was made by the eleventh century Karaite, Tobias b. Moses. See Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium, 401 5. Yoram Erder, The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls.

626 fred astren of boundaries that evokes the complicated urban milieux of Baghdad and Islamic cities in the period when identities could be fluid and changeable. Al-Qirqisānī reports that Mīshawayh had followers (the Mīshawiyya) in ʿUkbara in the tenth century, but that there were no scholars among them. Judah Hadassi reports that the movement was extant in the midtwelfth century. By the tenth century, most Jewish messianic sectarianism had become quietistic. However, the increased variety of biblical and legal interpretation in the eighth and ninth centuries – driven by the massive explosion of Arabic literary activity – generated the largest number of Jewish socioreligious formations since the era of the Second Temple. Contemporaneously, rabbinic Judaism increasingly established its universal claim to authority among Jews, while the complicated non-rabbinic sectarian milieu provided fuel for the consolidation of anti-rabbinic Karaite Judaism. Karaism’s debt to its eighth- and ninthcentury sectarian predecessors is exemplified in the career of the early Karaite Daniel b. Moses al-Qūmisī (fl. end of the ninth century), some of whose writing techniques as described by al-Qirqisānī locate him in the urban literary milieu that helped shape ninth-century Jewish sectarianism.77 Like his predecessors, al-Qūmisī was invested in the innersectarian debates, evincing strong affinities with the Mourners of Zion while explicitly repudiating ʿAnan ben David and rejecting some positions of other messianists and sectarian leaders. Non-rabbinic Karaite Judaism “harnessed” messianism by maintaining strong messianic and eschatological ideals, at least until the end of its Jerusalem center in the eleventh century, but without going so far as to identify specific individuals as the Messiah or his forerunner. By the time of the tenth-century Karaite al-Qirqisānī, many of the non-rabbinic movements of the eighth and ninth centuries no longer existed. THE TWELFTH CENTURY

By the middle of the eleventh century, the two rabbinic academies in Iraq began to fail, and Babylonia began to occupy more of an imaginary rather than real space in Jewish worldviews. With the demise of a Davidic prince in Babylonia (resh galuta, or exilarch) and nullification of the political and messianic implications that came with that office, nesiʾim (“princes”) with claims to Davidic ancestry rose to positions of regional leadership 77

al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib, 4 5. On Daniel al Qūmisī, see Chapter 17 in this volume.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 627 elsewhere in the Jewish world.78 These developments serve as historical background to the early twelfth century, when a number of messianic claimants are known from the historical record, although none left any writing. In this era, dates occur that were freighted with apocalyptic meaning, such as 1,000 years after the Temple was destroyed, the 256th Metonic (19year) cycle of the Jewish calendar, or 500 years after the Prophet Muhammad (whether the hijra in 622 – the beginning of the Muslim _ calendar – or Muhammad’s death in 632, a date which could be calculated _ years or Jewish and Christian years, depending on who using Muslim lunar was doing the calculating). In addition, the burgeoning commercial revolution of the Middle Ages was transforming cities and reordering economies, often displacing Jews from previously held economic niches, while the Crusades and their perceived enormity were often interpreted apocalyptically. In 1096, Jewish messianic enthusiasm gripped Byzantine Thessalonika, either in anticipation of the arrival of the Crusaders from the West or in reaction to the massacres of Jews in the Rhineland.79 Throughout the century, heightened messianic expectation is in evidence in the writings of such rabbinic scholars as Abraham b. Ḥiyya, Abraham Ibn Daud, and Judah Halevi, all of whom offer calculations for the date of the coming of the Messiah.80 Scattered reports concerning several messianic claimants from this period are found in both Jewish and Muslim sources, including two in Islamic lands that are known only from Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen.81 Written between 1169 and 1172 as a response to a rabbinic query from Yemen asking what to do with followers of a messianic pretender, the Epistle constitutes a wide-ranging discussion of rabbinic attitudes toward messianism. Maimonides echoes the heightened messianic expectation of the day, stating that “the advent of the Messiah will take place some time subsequent to the universal expansion of the Roman Empire and Arab rule, which is an actuality today.” The anxious messianic mood of the era is 78

79

80

81

See Arnold E. Franklin, This Noble House: Jewish Descendants of King David in the Medieval Islamic East (Philadelphia, 2012); and Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca, 2008), 324. Andrew Sharf, “An Unknown Messiah of 1096 and the Emperor Alexius,” Journal of Jewish Studies 7 (1956), 59 70. Mercedes García Arenal, Messianism and Puritanical Reform: Mahdīs of the Muslim West (Leiden, 2006), 148. These reports are found only in a single Arabic manuscript, published in Abraham Salomon Halkin, ed., and Boaz Cohen, trans., Epistle to Yemen. The Arabic Original and the Three Hebrew Versions (New York, 1952). English translations below are adapted from this edition.

628 fred astren reflected in his report of an Andalusian Jew who calculated the coming of the Messiah, but at the appointed time a “rebel leader appeared . . . who issued an order of conversion” (the Almohads in 1163). Maimonides also says, “The precise date of the messianic advent cannot be known.” Nevertheless, he offers a calculation of his own that yields either the year 1210 or 1216. The first messianic pretender reported by Maimonides in Islamic lands82 emerged around 1100 from a respectable circle in Córdoba, whose members engaged in astrology and held dreams to be revelatory. They identified a teacher named Ibn Aryeh to be the Messiah, and a group of followers arose in the city. Community leaders assembled in the synagogue and had Ibn Aryeh flogged in public, and when he refused to renounce his supporters and the messianic claim, he was fined and put under the ban. His followers were dealt with similarly. The second messianist, dated by Maimonides to be “about fifty years ago or less” (c. 1122–27), is the pious and virtuous Moses al-Darʿī, who attracted attention by claiming the Messiah had come, although without claiming to be the Messiah himself. He had come to al-Andalus to study with Joseph Ibn Migash (1077–1141) and then went to Fez. There he predicted events that came true, such as the falling of red rain, and that the Messiah would come at Passover. Messianic enthusiasm led Jews to sell their property and borrow from Muslims at high rates of interest with no expectation of later paying back the loans since the messianic era would have begun. These people were ruined and some tried to kill Moses alDarʿī. Maimonides reports that in Fez his own father had unsuccessfully opposed the pretender. In the end, Moses al-Darʿī departed the Maghrib for Palestine and died there. Ibn Aryeh’s movement may in part have been a response to pressures from Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn, the Almoravid ruler, to convert Jews to Islam.83 More generally, background to the two messianic movements of Ibn Aryeh and Moses al-Darʿī can be found in the spread of S ̣ūfism among Muslims in the Maghrib during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, which included esotericism and concern for prophecy and divine friendship, or 82

83

Maimonides also mentions an earlier messianic pretender (c. 1060) in “Linon” (possibly Lyons), a “large city in the heart of France.” He was believed to have performed miracles, including flying like a bird. The authorities killed him along with many of his followers and confiscated Jewish property. A report in the fifteenth century Arabic chronicle al Hulal al Mawsiyya states that this occurred around ah 500 in Lucena, an almost entirely Jewish town. Behind the story is an obscure Muslim tradition that states the Jews of the time of Muhammad promised _ García Arenal, that if the Messiah did not come in 500 years, they would convert. See Messianism and Puritanical Reform, 152.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 629 sainthood (walāya). These notions and the rise of veneration of the Prophet Muhammad fueled Muslim messianism and were used as critiques _ to the authority of the legalistically oriented Almoravids, and challenges who from the middle of the eleventh century ruled most of northwest Africa, and after 1094, Spain. It can be surmised that these two Jewish messianic movements reflected those developments in Islamic society. In fact, Moses al-Darʿī prophesized in Fez shortly after Ibn Ṭūmart preached there and was then expelled for his revolutionary claims and behavior.84 Ibn Ṭūmart went on to found the Almohad movement, which constitutes a culmination of contemporaneous Muslim mystical and messianic trends, and whose polity later overthrew the Almoravids. In the East, a collection of Genizah documents tells the story of a messianic enthusiasm among Jews in Baghdad in 1120 or 1121. Although the story is incomplete, it involves visions of Elijah beheld by a physician’s daughter. The caliph took advantage of the resulting enthusiasm among Jews by jailing Jewish notables for not observing sumptuary legislation that required Jews to wear distinctive and identifiable clothing. The tale includes narrative tropes such as the mysterious appearance of Elijah before the caliph, a conciliatory Muslim religious scholar, and the miraculous liberation of a prominent Jew from prison (reminiscent of the Shepherd). The entire affair ended with the Jews paying a fine to the caliph. Contemporaneous reports in Muslim sources indicate more soberly that the Jews paid large fines to the caliph and the Seljūq sultan in exchange for exemption from the sumptuary laws.85 The combination of historical event with legendary embellishment frames messianic activism didactically as a danger to the Jewish community that could be exploited by non-Jewish authorities. At the same time (1121), the Norman convert to Judaism, Obadiah the Proselyte (Johannes son of Dreux of Oppido Lucano in southern Italy), tells in a personal chronicle of meeting in Bāniyās in Palestine the Karaite Solomon ha-Kohen, who was traveling through the region announcing the ingathering of exiles and claiming to be the Messiah.86 Nothing else is known of this figure. 84

85

86

Ibid., 151. There is also a report from Ibn Khaldūn on a Jew from Fez who used astrology to prophesize the coming of the Almohads and his own later execution. The story and its sources are treated in S. D. Goitein, “A Report on Messianic Troubles in Baghdad in 1120 21,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 43, 1 (1952), 57 76. New York, Jewish Theological Seminary of America MS Adler 4208=3098, fol. 7. See Jacob Mann, “ha Tenuʿot ha meshihiyyot bi me masʿe ha selav ha rishonim” (part 2), ha _ _ Tequfa 24 (1925 26), 335 39; and Norman Golb, “Le Memorie autografe di Ovadiah il Proselito da Oppido Lucano e la Lettere di Baruk ben Yitzhaq di Aleppo Introduzione e versione italiana,” in Antonio de Rosa and Mauro Perani, eds., Giovanni Ovadiah da Oppido, proselito, viaggiatore e musicista dell’età normanna (Florence, 2005), 245 73.

630 fred astren Another messianic episode is associated with the continuing Crusader presence in the Levant in the twelfth century and the fractured political conditions of the Seljūq sultanate, which claimed dominion over the Near East. What is known about David al-Rōʾī or al-Rūhī (more likely al-Rūjī, _ from Rūj, west of Aleppo) is convoluted and difficult to understand, coming from Benjamin of Tudela (1130–73) and writings of a Jewish convert to Islam, Samawʾal b. Yahyā al-Maghribī (d. c. 1180), as well as some Genizah fragments.87 Around_ the year 1121, one Solomon b. Rūjī (or Dūjī) sent out letters making known that under his leadership the time had come for the ingathering of exiles and, evoking a kind of mirror image of the Crusades, called for a Jewish conquest of Jerusalem. Years later, his son, Menahem, seems to have revitalized these ideas by calling for prayer, fasting, and the imminent return of Jews to Jerusalem. Menahem was identified by Benjamin of Tudela as David al-Rōʾī, and thereby came into Jewish literature. The names Menahem and David carry messianic connotations, while the nisba is probably a corruption of the name al-Rūjī (his grandfather). Although the movement was suppressed, it later reemerged in Kurdistan during the period of Crusader-Muslim conflict leading up to or concurrent with the Second Crusade (1147). Possibly in collaboration with ʿImād al-Dīn Zengī, the atabeg of Mosul, Aleppo, and Ḥamā (and in 1146 the conqueror of Crusader Edessa), al-Rōʾī’s plan was for Jews to converge on ʿAmadiya (the ancient ʿAmida, north of Mosul) in order to take control surreptitiously of the hilltop fortress city. The plan did not succeed and al-Rōʾī was killed. Many of the messianic elements of the alRōʾī narrative appear to be literary tropes, suggesting that the matter may be more legendary than historical. The last of the known twelfth-century messianic figures is the ostensible subject of Maimonides’ Epistle to Yemen, as well as of further comments in a letter to the rabbis of southern France in 1194.88 In the Epistle, Maimonides judges the unnamed Yemenite messianic figure to be mentally ill, stipulating that “a sick person should not be rebuked or reproved 87

88

Benjamin of Tudela, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary, ed. Marcus Nathan Adler (Oxford, 1907), 54 56 [English], 51 53 [Hebrew]; Moshe Perlmann, “Samauʾal al Maghribī Ifhām al Yahūd: Silencing the Jews/Ifhām al Yahūd Taʾalīf al Samawʾal al Maghribī _(al Qarn as Sādis al Hijrī),” _ Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 32 (1964), 72 74 [English], 87 93 [Arabic]. The story of David al Rōʾī is also narrated in Joseph ha Kohen, Emeq ha bakha, ed. Meir Halevi Letteris (Kracow, 1895), 47 49; and Solomon Ibn Verga, Sefer Shevet Yehuda, ed. Yitzhak Baer and Azriel Shochat (Jerusalem, 1947), 74 75. The story was popularized by Benjamin Disraeli in The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, along with The Rise of Iskander (London, 1833). Iggerot ha Rambam, ed. Isaac Sheilat, 2 vols. (Maʿale Adumim, 1988), 2:474 90.

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 631 for an illness brought on by no fault of his own,” while in the later letter he states that the “poor fellow was an ignorant religious fanatic without any sense at all.”89 Maimonides reports that the messianist “made innovations to the prayer book,” ordered his followers to give away all their belongings, and was believed to have performed miracles. Maimonides’ advice to his correspondent, Jacob b. Nethanel al-Fayyūmī, is to have the pretender thrown into chains so that the Muslim authorities could see that he was insane and that the Jewish authorities had the matter under control, thereby preempting governmental intervention. Maimonides’ tactical concern, in this case and in general, is that if the Gentiles “learn of this affair of their own accord, then you will most likely incur their wrath.” As with so many messianic events, the potential for disrupting Jewish-Muslim relations was great. In the end the pretender was arrested by the Muslim authorities and his followers dispersed. After telling the Muslim ruler, “If you sever my head, I shall immediately be resurrected,” he was killed.90 The Jews paid large fines, while some followers continued to believe that their messiah would be resurrected. The career of the Yemenite messiah came shortly before the fall of the short-lived Mahdid dynasty, following an episode of forced conversion during the time of ʿAbd al-Nabī Ibn Mahdī, who ruled portions of Yemen from 1159 until the Ayyūbid conquest in 1173. The dynasty’s political theology was apocalyptic and messianic, and its teachings included the communal ownership of property – a doctrine that may have influenced the Yemenite messiah.91 Maimonides notes that the unnamed messianic pretender’s followers included both Jews and Muslims and declared that those followers conflated this messiah with “the son of the Mahdī,” which may simply be the name Ibn Mahdī. Although some twelfth-century Jewish messianists and their movements seem to have left an impression on Maimonides, they had little impact on Jewish history. The thinness of the evidence provides modern historians with little material, so that the theological and social histories of these people and events remain obscure. At best, correspondences to Muslim

89

90

91

See Haggai Mazuz, “The Identity of the Apostate in the Epistle to Yemen,” AJS Review 38, 2 (2014), 363 74, which argues that the apostate is Samawʾal b. Yahyā al Maghribī, who converted to Islam and wrote an anti Jewish polemical pamphlet._ Compare this to al Mukhtār al Thaqafī, who in the late seventh century led a Muslim messianic revolt in Kūfa against the Umayyads and claimed that when the expected Mahdī will arrive there, someone will strike his neck with a sword but he will remain unharmed. See Ibn Saʿd, Kitāb al Tabaqāt al Kubrā, 9 vols., ed. Eduard Sachau et. al. (Leiden, 1904 40), 5:74. See EI2, s.v. “Mahdids” (G. Rex Smith).

632 fred astren phenomena provide some historical contextualization. Whereas reports such as these suggest that the potential for sectarianism and messianism was persistent throughout medieval Jewish history, it would not be until the sixteenth century that such phenomena would reappear in the historical record. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anthony, Sean W. “Who Was the Shepherd of Damascus? The Enigma of Jewish and Messianist Responses to the Islamic Conquests in Marwānid Syria and Mesopotamia,” in Paul M. Cobb, ed., The Lineaments of Islam: Studies in Honor of Fred McGraw Donner (Leiden, 2012), 21–59. Astren, Fred. “ʿAbbāsid Book Culture and Ninth-Century Jewish Sectarianism,” in Antoine Borrut and Alison Vacca, eds., Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World (Turnhout, forthcoming). Baron, Salo W. A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume 5: Religious Controls and Dissensions (New York, 1957). Ben-Shammai, Haggai. “Return to the Scriptures in Ancient and Medieval Jewish Sectarianism and in Early Islam,” in Évelyne Patlagean and Alain Le Boulluec, eds., Les Retours aux Écritures: fondamentalismes présents et passés (Louvain, 1993), 319–39. Chiesa, Bruno, and Wilfrid Lockwood, eds. Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī on Jewish Sects and Christianity, a Translation of “Kitāb al-Anwār”, Book I, with Two Introductory Essays (Frankfurt am Main, 1984). Erder, Yoram. “The Doctrine of Abū ʿĪsā al-Isfahānī and Its Sources,” _ Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 20 (1996), 162–99. The Karaite Mourners of Zion and the Qumran Scrolls: On the History of an Alternative to Rabbanite Judaism (Turnhout, 2017). “Abū ʿImrān al-Tiflīsī,” Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, vol. I, 30. Friedlaender, Israel. “Jewish-Arabic Studies,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 1 (1910–11), 183–215; 2 (1911–12), 481–517; 3 (1912–13), 235–300. Gil, Moshe. A History of Palestine, 634–1099, trans. Ethel Broido (Cambridge, 1992). Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, trans. David Strassler (Leiden, 2004). Goitein, S. D. “A Report on Messianic Troubles in Baghdad in 1120–21,” Jewish Quarterly Review 43, 1 (1952), 57–76. Moses Maimonides. Iggeret Teman, ed. Abraham Halkin, trans. Boaz Cohen (New York, 1952).

non-rabbinic and non-karaite religious movements 633 al-Qirqisānī, Yaʿqūb. Kitāb al-Anwār wa-l-Marāqib, Code of Karaite Law, ed. Leon Nemoy, 3 vols. (New York, 1939–43). van Bekkum, Wout J. “Jewish Messianic Expectations in the Age of Heraclius,” in Gerrit J. Reinink and Bernard H. Stolte, eds., The Reign of Heraclius (610–641): Crisis and Confrontation (Leuven, 2002), 95–112. Wasserstrom, Steven. “The ʿIsawiyya Revisited,” Studia Islamica 75 (1992), 57–80. “Who Were the Jewish Sectarians under Early Islam?” in Menahem Mor, ed., Jewish Sects, Religious Movements and Political Parties (Omaha, NE, 1992), 101–12.

chapter 19

LANGUAGES AND TRANSLATION a' n g e l s a' e n z b a d i l l o s † an d s . j . p e a r c e

Jews living in the Islamic world during the medieval period had access to a great variety of languages and frequently used several, depending upon the social, cultural, religious, or economic context in which they operated at any given time. But as these languages came to be used within Jewish communities, they developed idiosyncrasies in relation to the particular religious culture in which they grew up and came to form variants that were clearly distinguished from the variety used in non-Jewish communities.1 While medieval Jews living in Islamic lands used standard varieties of their languages outside of the Jewish community, they also used specific Jewish varieties when communicating with their coreligionists. Over the years, scholars have debated whether there are enough reasons to use the term “Jewish languages” to describe the written and spoken variants used by members of Jewish communities. The purely linguistic arguments seem insufficient to some philologists to justify distinguishing different linguistic systems.2 These objections aside, the prevailing opinion is that from a sociolinguistic perspective, Jews often used a particular form of language (“sociolect,” “ethnolect,” or “religiolect”) in intra-communal contexts.3 † 1

2

3

Professor Ángel Sáenz Badillos died on December 30, 2013. Cf. Benjamin Hary, “Judeo Arabic in the Arabic Speaking World,” in Benjamin Hary and Sarah Bunin Benor, eds., Languages in Jewish Communities, Past and Present (Berlin, 2018), 36 68; Joseph Chetrit, “Judeo Berber in Morocco,” in ibid., 70 92; David M. Bunis, “Judezmo: A Historical and Sociolinguistic Portrait,” in ibid., 185 238; Elaine R. Miller, Jewish Multiglossia: Hebrew, Arabic, and Castilian in Medieval Spain (Newark, DE, 2000); Isaac Benabu and Giuseppe Sermoneta, eds., Judeo Romance Languages (Jerusalem, 1985). A. S. Halkin, “Judeo Arabic Literature,” in L. Finkelstein, ed., The Jews (Philadelphia, 1949); and Joshau Blau, “Judaeo Arabic in Its Linguistic Setting,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 36 (1968), 1 12. Esther Miriam Wagner, “Judeo Arabic Language or Jewish Arabic Sociolect? Linguistic Terminology between Linguistics and Ideology,” in Lily Khan, ed., Jewish Languages in Historical Perspective (Leiden, 2019), 189 206. On the term “religiolect,” Benjamin Hary offers a short introduction in his “Religiolect,” in Critical Terms in Jewish Languages: Frankel Institute Annual 4 (2011), 43 46, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod idx/

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languages and translation 635 And in fact, many linguists prefer to use the phrase “Jewish language continuum” to describe the relationship between Jewish languages and the majority-culture languages to which they relate; this terminology allows for scholarly analysis to consider both continuities and differences between Jewish and other varieties of languages.4 Hebrew is a language closely identified with the history and culture of the Jewish people, and it is often identified as “the language of Judaism,” although as we shall see below the reality is often more complex. In fact, it was far from being the main or only language of the Jews in the Middle Ages. There is no doubt that medieval Jews were at least bilingual and, in some cases, plurilingual, using their many languages to conduct varied activities in all areas of cultural and day-to-day life, and working between languages as translators, dragomans, and go-betweens. Linguists generally use the term “diglossia” for a linguistic community which employs two different varieties of the same language – one with a high register (the classical language), and another with a low register (the dialect).5 The term “diglossia” may also be applied, in a broad sense, to two languages without a linguistic relationship but that are used in ways parallel to a true case of diglossia within a single sociocultural situation.6 In the case of the Jewish communities it means that they used a high, learned, grammatically complex variety of language (Hebrew or Arabic) in formal contexts such as religion and education; and a low, spoken variety (Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, or others varying by time and place) for familial, legal, and even scientific communications.7 Besides Arabic and Hebrew,

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5 6

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religiolect.pdf, an abridgment of the argument he makes more fully in the introductions to both his Translating Religion (Leiden, 2009) and Multiglossia in Judeo Arabic (Leiden, 1992). Frank Alvarez Pereyre, “Jewish Languages and Their Typology: Issues and Models,” in Lily Khan, ed., Jewish Languages in Historical Perspective (Leiden, 2019), 208 38; and Sarah Bunin Benor and Benjamin Hary, “Introduction,” in Benjamin Hary and Sarah Bunin Benor, eds., Languages in Jewish Communities, Past and Present (Berlin, 2018), 1. Other terms for these varieties include lects, religiolects, linguistic repertories, and language phenomena. Since Charles A. Ferguson, “Diglossia,” Word 15 (1959), 325 40. Joshua A. Fishman, Sociolinguistics: A Brief Introduction (Rowley, MA, 1970); Joshua A. Fishman, Language and Ethnicity in Minority Sociolinguistic Perspective (Clevedon, England, 1989). Miller, Jewish Multiglossia, 30, states: “The presence of more than one possible H[igh register] language suggests that the situation of the medieval Jews might more aptly be labeled ‘multiglossia.’” Examples of this phenomenon in the scientific context are discussed in many of the chapters in Alexander Fidora et al., eds., Latin into Hebrew: Texts and Studies (Leiden, 2013); and in familial and legal contexts in Phillip

636 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce Jewish communities during the Middle Ages used several other languages in different geographical areas. For instance, in Persia, Jews spoke JudeoPersian; in western North Africa, local communities used Judeo-Berber and Judeo-Arabic; and in European Christian kingdoms Jews spoke different varieties of Romance and Judeo-Romance.8 Jewish varieties of languages share common characteristics even though they come from several distinct language families: all contain a Hebrew and Aramaic substrate, especially in religious vocabulary, but also in other aspects of the language; in most cases, Jews used Hebrew script for writing texts in a Jewish language; moreover, generally, these languages preserved more archaisms than the corresponding majority language. In spite of some attempts to demonstrate substantial differences in pronunciation and in the morpho-syntactic structure of these languages, the arguments are not always convincing. In the Byzantine period, prior to the rise of Islam, Hebrew was used for religious and literary functions especially in synagogues, in liturgical poetry, and in rabbinic commentaries on Scripture, while Aramaic was employed in Eastern lands, especially in Babylonia, for religious, juridical, and economic purposes, and even as a spoken vernacular. After the rise and expansion of the Islamic empire in the seventh century, Arabic almost completely replaced Aramaic and fulfilled most of its functions, both as a vernacular and literary language, even in many religious functions.9 During the last centuries of the first millennium, with the exception of some European centers, the most influential Jewish communities spoke and wrote mainly in Arabic. However, theirs was not the classic language of the Qurʾān and of pre-Islamic poetry – this high register of the language was in use only at an official level or in poetry – but the so-called low register, or dialect, was used in spoken language and other contexts.

8

9

I. Lieberman, “Legal Terminology in Judaeo Arabic: Loanwords or Loan Shifts?” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 43 (2016), 1 10. Lily Khan, “Yiddish,” in Lily Khan, ed., Handbook of Jewish Languages (Leiden, 2016), 642 748. For the most recent discoveries of early strata of Yiddish in texts from Cologne, see Erika Timm, “Ein neu entdeckter literarischer Text in hebräischen Lettern aus der Zeit vor 1349,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 142 (2013), 417 43. For a discussion on Arabic replacing and/or being used alongside Hebrew as a liturgical language, see sections 2.5 and 3.5 of Ronny Vollandt, Arabic Versions of the Pentateuch (Leiden, 2015), 36 38 and 73 86; and Haggai Ben Shammai, “The Tension Between Literal Interpretation and Exegetical Freedom,” in Jane Dammen McAuliffe et al., eds., With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Oxford, 2010), 33 50.

languages and translation 637 Even within particular local Jewish communities, the role of Arabic varied, with Karaites and Rabbanites making distinct linguistic choices. In some parts of the Islamic world, Karaites were notable for using Hebrew for some time in competition with Arabic in several genres of writing, often moving freely from one language to the other. They wrote predominantly in Arabic characters, even in the case of Hebrew liturgical texts, a relatively unusual phenomenon.10 But for most Jewish communities, the functions of Hebrew and Arabic were well compartmentalized: Hebrew was employed for writings with literary-aesthetic functions when the text had a particular aesthetic purpose or was of a solemn or religious nature, while Arabic fulfilled the communicative function of language, when it was important for the contents to be well understood.11 Exceptions to these general rules occurred along geographic and socioeconomic lines as well as in the cases of particular individuals with personal linguistic proclivities; to date, there is no totally convincing global theory of Jewish languages. HEBREW12

Although Hebrew fell into disuse in the day-to-day over the course of antiquity, the old national language of the Jews was never completely abandoned or forgotten, instead remaining an important element of the cultural nationalism that united Jewish communities across Islamic lands

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12

Geoffrey Khan, “The Medieval Karaite Transcriptions of Hebrew into Arabic Script,” Israel Oriental Studies 12 (1992), 157 76. Rina Drory, “‘Words Beautifully Put’: Hebrew versus Arabic in Tenth Century Jewish Literature,” in Joshua Blau and Stefan C. Reif, eds., Genizah Research after Ninety Years: The Case of Judaeo Arabic (Cambridge, 1992), 60; this chapter came to form part of a larger study in Drory’s Models and Contacts (Leiden, 2000). See also Mark Cohen, “On the Interplay of Arabic and Hebrew in the Cairo Geniza Letters,” in Jonathan P. Decter and Michael Rand, eds., Studies in Arabic and Hebrew Letters in Honor of Raymond P. Scheindlin (Piscataway, NJ, 2007), 17 36. It is perhaps worth noting that Professor Sáenz Badillos’ original version of this section contained next to no footnotes because he himself was the author of the standard history of the Hebrew language, Historia de la lengua hebrea, first published in 1988. The work has since appeared in translation in several languages, with the author updating and collaborating with his translators as time progressed. It is available in English as A History of the Hebrew Language, trans. John Elwolde (Cambridge, 1993); the most up to date version of the book may be found in the Italian translation by Piero Capelli, Storia della lingua ebraica (Brescia, 2007). Bibliography for this section may be found in those volumes; selected notes are also included here.

638 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce and helped individual communities cohere internally.13 But from the Babylonian exile in the sixth century bce, its use as a living spoken language had been reduced to very small areas. The literary language of the Hebrew Bible was employed artificially in some post-exilic books, but the language survived largely through the reading of the Pentateuch and the books of the Prophets in synagogues rather than through new composition.14 During the Byzantine period other variants of Hebrew were used for different purposes, particularly for liturgy and for communal and family prayers. A middle register of Hebrew was used by liturgical poets in developing the piyyutim (liturgical poems) that became significant in prayer in community_ synagogues. A more colloquial, spoken form of Hebrew was used by rabbis in teaching their pupils, debating about juridical topics, and commenting on the Bible or preaching about it. For most of these functions Hebrew was little by little replaced by Aramaic, a more popular language with a set of dialects that could also be employed as vernaculars in the eastern Mediterranean Basin and into what is presentday Iran: such was the situation at the time of the expansion of Islam in the seventh century. Beginning with the rise of Islam, Arabic replaced Aramaic in the aforementioned spoken and day-to-day functions. At the same time, Hebrew preserved its sacral character as the “language of the sanctuary” (leshon ha-qodesh); and with minor exceptions, it was not a vehicle of communication normally used in daily life in the Islamic empire. During the ninth century and the first half of the tenth century, some modest essays were composed that expanded the possibilities for written uses of Hebrew in the East and in Egypt: Hebrew started to be used in philological works, some polemical writings, a few nonliturgical poems, responsa of spiritual leaders, and so forth, and in particular in some writings of the Masoretes dedicated to the correct preservation of the biblical text, and of the Karaites. The tradition of reading the Bible in Hebrew had been alive for centuries and some treatises like the Horayat ha-Qore tried to describe and regulate its pronunciation.15 According to Jewish travelogues, it seems that in some cases Hebrew was also a vehicle of cross-communal communication: a few communities used 13

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On cultural nationalism, see David Aberbach, “Jewish Nationalism in Medieval Islam,” in his Jewish Cultural Nationalism (New York, 2007), 37 56; Drory also discusses the applicability of this phenomenon in linguistic and literary terms in Models and Contacts. Sáenz Badillos, A History of Hebrew Language; and William Schniedewind, A Social History of Hebrew: Its Origins through the Rabbinic Period (New Haven, 2013). Horayat ha Qore’, ed. Giulio Bussi (Frankfurt, 1984).

languages and translation 639 Hebrew as a kind of koine that allowed travelers to establish contacts with Jews from other countries. We usually call this language medieval Hebrew; it was used during the Middle Ages in the writings of Jews from the East and the West, from the seventh century until the end of the fifteenth century. A turning point came in western Islamic lands, specifically in al-Andalus, in the middle of the tenth century. Instead of preserving Hebrew as a residual phenomenon, Andalusian intellectuals chose the Hebrew of the Bible – with some unavoidable novelties – to write prose and verse. Taking the interest of Muslim scholars in the language of the Qurʾān as a model and stimulus, they gave Hebrew a strong revival and it attained a level of richness and intensity that was not known in earlier times. This revitalization was based on a meticulous philological study of the language of the Bible. Following in the steps of Arabic philologists, at the beginning of the tenth century, a few Jewish scholars from Iraq and North Africa started the systematic study of the morphology and vocabulary of the language of the Bible, comparing it with more familiar, related languages such as Arabic and Aramaic. In the mid-tenth century, in Córdoba, Menahem Ibn Sarūq and Dunash b. Labrat started to write Hebrew treatises on the language of the Bible, main-_ tained harsh debates in Hebrew on some aspects of biblical language, and wrote a new kind of Hebrew poetry that followed in the steps of Arab poets.16 Jewish writers educated at Andalusian courts saw in the language of the Bible a stylistic and linguistic model to create a national response to the challenges posed by the divine character of Arabic while, at the same time, serving as a sign of their own identity. Jewish authors with national and religious pride viewed Hebrew as a culturally significant language – not reduced to its scarce historical remains, but full of new possibilities of expression, no less than the language of their neighbors. Thanks to this revival of literary Hebrew in poetry and prose, it was possible to write in Hebrew about all kinds of topics: songs about wine and love, panegyrics, elegies, and poems of war, descriptions of nature, and wedding songs, sophisticated prose stories, books on philology, science and philosophy, and others.

16

Ángel Sáenz Badillos, “Hebrew Philology in Sefarad: The State of the Question,” in Nicholas de Lange, ed., Hebrew Scholarship in the Medieval World (Cambridge, 2001), 38 68; Dan Pagis, Change and Tradition in Secular Poetry (Jerusalem, 1976). For an accessible, general overview of this literary history and exemplars in English translation, see Peter Cole, The Dream of the Poem (Princeton, 2007).

640 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce The language used by these writers was not limited to biblical words and grammar. They had to enlarge the meaning of many old words and open them to new demands of expression.17 They had to create new words and phrases, be it by analogical development within the existing Hebrew corpus or by calques of the dominant language – Arabic and, at times, some Romance languages. The use of the language of the rabbis and the degree of “purity” of biblical Hebrew depended, in each case, on the will and the ideological principles of the writers. There were no generally accepted norms or regulations and, being mostly a literary language, users felt free to create new words, new terminology, and to accept more or less the influence of their mother language. One of the connections with the previous centuries was the liturgical poetry written by the paytanim.18 Although the classical piyyut had its peak _ in Palestine in Byzantine _times, over several centuries these creations found new homes in the East, Iraq, North Africa, Italy, and Central and Western Europe. Their elements were taken from biblical and rabbinic Hebrew, but the synagogal poets coined many new words, with numerous Aramaisms and Greek terms, free modifications of Classical Hebrew grammar, and new forms and stylistic novelties, with the resulting language peculiar, sometimes obscure, and full of difficult allusions.19 Unlike many of their coreligionists, Masoretes and Karaites living in eastern Islamic lands wrote nonliterary prose in Hebrew, although they more frequently made use of Judeo-Arabic for that purpose. Exemplary of this phenomenon is Aharon Ben Asher, who composed Diqduqe ha-Teʿamim (Precision of the Accents), one of the most significant grammatical and Masoretic Hebrew compositions, at the beginning of the tenth century.20 Seʿadyah b. Joseph was born in Egypt, but was most active in Babylonia. He

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Because of his Perush ha Millot ha Zarot appended to his Hebrew translation of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, Samuel Ibn Tibbon is often treated as the lexicographer sine qua non, coining neologisms while translating from Arabic into Hebrew. On this phenomenon, see Carlos Fraenkel, From Maimonides to Samuel ibn Tibbon (Jerusalem, 2007). For greater detail and full bibliography, see Chapter 24 in this volume. The current state of piyyut studies may be appreciated in the range of studies on the _ t in Naoya Katsumata and Wout van Bekkum, Giving a poetics and history of piyyu Diamond: Essays in Honor of_ Joseph Yahalom (Leiden, 2011). Foundationally, see also Joseph Yahalom, “Piyyut as Poetry,” in Lee Levine, ed., The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia, 1987), 111 26. Aharon Ben Asher, Diqduqe ha Te‘amim, ed. Aron Dotan (Jerusalem, 1967). See also Colette Sirat, Hebrew Manuscripts of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2002), 55; and Emmanuel Tov, Textual Developments Collected Essays, Volume 4 (Leiden, 2019), 81ff.

languages and translation 641 wrote liturgical and polemical poetry and some prose works in Hebrew; for other writings, he used Judeo-Arabic. In his piyyutim, he preferred a more _ biblical language, without grammatical errors or irregularities. Still, he introduced numerous new forms and synonyms. He also enlarged the use of Hebrew for verses not destined for synagogal use. In his prose, he imitated biblical Hebrew, with a certain preference for rare and archaic words or hapax legomena, including expressions taken from rabbinic Hebrew and Arabic.21 Poetry was one of the most representative fields for the new life of biblical Hebrew. As the first Andalusian poets were also linguists, their way of composing poetry was deeply influenced by their linguistic conceptions. “Purism” – fidelity to the language of the Bible – was one of the most important principles for some of the poets of the so-called golden age of Hebrew poetry in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Some poets, however, were not completely true to this principle of deliberate anachronism and accepted rabbinic forms, borrowed from Arabic, or created new forms. The adaptation of the metrical meter initiated by Dunash b. Labrat had an _ impact upon the structure of language, adjusting it to the requirements of 22 the meter. The Andalusian study of Hebrew grammar and lexicography also left its influence on poetic vocabulary, especially the inclusion of rare words or even hapax legomena, as the poets desired to attain a very sophisticated register of language.23 There were significant differences between the language of poetry written to be incorporated into liturgy and prayer and that of literary compositions meant to be integrated into the courtly life of Andalusian Arabic culture. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, liturgical poetry 21

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Much has been written about Seʿadyah’s linguistic ideas and other writings. A selection of recent studies includes Amir Ashur, “On Autographs of Saadya Gaon Attested in the Genizah,” Cambridge University Library’s Fragment of the Month, January 2018; Joshua Blau, Notes on Sa‘adya Gaon’s Translation of the Torah (Jerusalem, 2019); Joshua Blau, “Saadya Gaon’s Pentateuch Translation in Light of an Early Eleventh Century Egyptian Manuscript,” Leshonenu 61 (1998), 111 30; Tamar Zewi, “Early Genizah Fragments of Saadya Gaon’s Arabic Translation of the Pentateuch,” Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin 4, 2 (2018), 195 99. And for a general overview, see Robert Brody, Saadyah Gaon (New York, 2013). Rina Drory, “Dunash ben Labrat’s Innovations in Light of the Arabic Conception of Meter,” Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 11 (1987), 483 99. Aharon Maman, Comparative Semitic Philology in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2004); José Martínez Delgado, “From the Bible to Lexicography through the Masora in al Andalus,” in Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala and Ángel Urbán, eds., Sacred Text: Explorations in Lexicography (Berlin, 2009), 167 97, and José Martínez Delgado, “The Philosophical Background of the Andalusian Hebrew Grammar,” Zutot (2003), 42 48; Carlos del Valle Rodríguez, Historia de la gramática hebrea en España, 10 vols. (Madrid, 2002).

642 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce followed traditional schemas but the different sociologic context, the pressure of the environment, and new aesthetic tendencies of the communities gradually changed the distinctive character of Hebrew poetic language.24 Secular poetry had a different profile. Although it was born in the atmosphere of Islamic courts and adopted many elements of Arabic literature, this new Hebrew poetry was seen from its very beginning as a sign of identity for the Jewish elite; and these courtiers reacted against an all-encompassing pan-Arabic influence by incorporating their own distinctive values and the language of the Bible as opposed to that of the Qurʾān.25 In some cases, biblical quotations and allusions were a mosaic, building a literary structure that was only understood by people who were very familiar with the books of Scripture. However, this preference for biblical elements usually did not go so far as to prevent expanding the vocabulary in accordance with the expressive needs of the poet, often on the basis of Arabic analogues. Arabic language and culture also left their traces in the syntax and vocabulary of Hebrew secular poetry, as well as in prose writing.26 The various sociological, aesthetic, and literary contexts in which Hebrew poetry emerged in the Christian kingdoms of the north of the Iberian Peninsula from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries also had a deep impact on the character of its language.27 Some authors from the northeast, under European influence, avoided the Andalusian style. Instead, they sought another mode of expression which bore strong rabbinic influences. This was the case of Meshullam de Piera, who lived in Girona in the thirteenth century; he expressed in verse his friendship with the masters of the Kabbalah and his aversion to Maimonides.28 This was not, however, the predominant tendency. In the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, and especially in the city of Toledo, new courtiers and intellectuals felt much more deeply rooted in Andalusian aesthetics and 24 25

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Sáenz Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language. Ross Brann, “The Arabized Jews,” in María Rosa Menocal et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: The Literature of al Andalus (Cambridge, 2000), 435 54. Joseph Tobi, Between Hebrew and Arabic Poetry (Leiden, 2010); Tova Rosen, Secular Poetry in the Middle Ages (Tel Aviv, 1997); Dan Pagis, Innovation and Tradition in Hebrew Secular Poetry (Jerusalem, 1976). Hayim Schirmann and Ezra Fleischer, History of Hebrew Poetry in Christian Spain and Southern France (Jerusalem, 1997). Uriah Kfir and Ayelet Oettinger, “A Bird Has Sung to Me of Love: Two Readings of One Poem by Meshullam da Piera,” Prooftexts 37 (2019), 183 214; Ross Brann, “The ‘Dissembling Poet,’ in Medieval Hebrew Literature,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 107, 1 (1987), 39 54; and James H. Lehmann, “Polemic and Satire in the Poetry of the Maimonidean Controversy,” Prooftexts 1, 2 (1981), 133 51.

languages and translation 643 values, and maintained the biblical character of their language, replacing Arabic with Romance influences or adapting it to new realistic categories. In Italy, where interchange with Palestine had been particularly strong, liturgical poetry followed the classical tradition of the piyyut until the Andalusian way of writing poetry came to be better known _there from about the beginning of the thirteenth century. In that period Immanuel of Rome and some of his followers wrote poetry in biblical language with Andalusian meters; they also used new local forms, like the sonnet, based on work by Italian poets.29 Provence – a region neighboring Catalonia and sharing with it deep, historic ties – received many Jews fleeing from alAndalus during the Almoravid and Almohad periods who wrote poetry according to the Andalusian tradition; thus Provence maintained a kind of poetic distance from northern France which, like other European communities, cultivated traditional liturgical poetry and commentaries on the piyyutim.30 _ Literary prose in Hebrew was not very significant during the Andalusian period, except in letters and in the emerging maqāma genre. It developed particularly among Jews living in the Christian kingdoms in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. The best-known examples of literary prose of the late Middle Ages were the maqāma taken from Arabs, other narratives or novellae, and the melisah – a kind of rhetorical rhymed prose used for _ While Andalusian compositions were more literary correspondence. strongly influenced by Arabic, compositions from Christian territories were generally less subject to such influence. By the middle of the twelfth century the Jewish communities of al-Andalus, already weakened by nearly half a century of Almoravid rule, faced further existential challenges upon the arrival of the Almohads from North Africa; consequently, many Jews escaped to the Christian kingdoms in the north of the peninsula. There, Hebrew prose was also used in writings of philological, philosophical, exegetical, apologetic, or theological and Kabbalistic nature, as well as travel books, chronicles, and so forth. These kinds of works attained their full development in the Christian period but often also retained marks of their earlier phases of evolution in Arabo-Islamic lands. Until the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, revived Classical Hebrew was used not only in poetry, but also in artistic prose in many technical fields, such as philosophy, Kabbalah, sermons, letters, grammar, and even in commercial documents. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, some bilingual or

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Isabel Levy, “Immanuel of Rome: A Bibliography,” Digital Dante, https://digitaldante .columbia.edu/immanuel bibliography/. Elisabeth Hollender, Piyyut Commentary in Medieval Ashkenaz (Berlin, 2008).

644 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce even trilingual lexica and commercial documents written in Hebrew by members of the community reveal the vitality acquired by the language. While philological writings were composed in Hebrew prior to the tenth century, later they were written almost without exception in Judeo-Arabic. Only in the middle of the twelfth century did Abraham Ibn Ezra return to Hebrew in order to reach his target audience, Jews from Italy and France who did not understand Arabic and were interested in the language of the Bible. Other grammatical works in Hebrew were written in the twelfth century by members of the Qimhi family in southern France. _ For apologetic, historic, or philosophical books, the choice of the language – Hebrew or Arabic – was decided based on the preference of the writers. The first Hebrew scientific works written in the twelfth century by Abraham Bar Ḥiyya or Abraham Ibn Ezra had to create new terminology for fields like mathematics, astronomy, or astrology, and for other encyclopedic subjects that were completely new to Jewish tradition. Most medical treatises in al-Andalus or in North Africa were written in Arabic. Moses Maimonides composed most of his works, including philosophy, medicine, and correspondence, in Arabic, with the exception being his legal code, the Mishneh Torah, which was written in rabbinic Hebrew with some biblical components, translations of Aramaic expressions, and some Arabic influence.31 Hebrew was the language of the Maimonidean Controversies in the Iberian Peninsula and in France during the thirteenth century.32 From the fourteenth century onward, works of Jewish thought

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Professor Sáenz Badillos argued here that Maimonides’ choice of language was a matter of being, in his words, “true to Jewish traditions” of legal writing; however, an alternative explanation is the practical one, namely, that Maimonides was aware of the increasing appetite for his writings in non Arabophone lands. See chapter 18 of Joel Kramer, Maimonides (New York, 2008). The Maimonidean Controversies remain somewhat understudied. For overviews, see Joseph Sarachek, Faith and Reason: The Conflict over the Rationalism of Maimonides (Paris, 1935); Joseph Shatzmiller, “Toward a Picture of the First Maimonidean Controversy,” Zion 44, 4 (1969), 125 44; and David Jeremy Silver, Maimonidean Criticism and the Maimonidean Controversy (Leiden, 1965). The state of the question is updated in Elisha Russ Fishbane, “Maimonidean Controversies afer Maimonides,” Hebrew Union College Annual 88 (2017), 159 202. Specialized aspects of the controversies are treated in a number of articles, including, but not limited to, David Berger, “How Did Nahmanides Propose to Resolve the Maimonidean Controversy?” in his Cultures in Collision and Conversation (Brighton, MA, 2011), 117 28; James H. Lehmann, “Polemic and Satire in the Poetry of the Maimonidean Controversies,” Prooftexts 1, 2 (1981), 133 51; Dov Schwartz, “The Debate over the Maimonidean Theory of Providence in Thirteenth Century Jewish Philosophy,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 2, 2 (1995), 185 96; and Sarah Stroumsa, “The Beginnings of the Maimonidean Controversy in the East,” AJS Review 26, 1 (2002), 141 43.

languages and translation 645 and theology, exegesis, logic, and polemic were written in Hebrew with a similar mixture of biblical, rabbinic, and medieval Hebrew components. They did not show strong Arabic influence except in some technical terminology. More elements were taken from Latin and other Romance languages. Unlike the rationalists, who wrote largely in Judeo-Arabic, the most significant works of the Kabbalists were written in Hebrew, adapting the meanings of old classical words to their new theosophic categories; here, too, many new technical terms were created and there was a strong influence on esoteric writings. JUDEO ARABIC

Judeo-Arabic is the most accepted term for the variety of Arabic spoken and written in the medieval Jewish communities living in Islamic lands.33 As in the case of the linguistic varieties of other minority groups, there are scholars who still debate its linguistic unity and think that the entire category should be avoided. However, it is widely recognized that from the point of view of sociolinguistics and religion, Judeo-Arabic is a religiolect,34 one of the religiously inflected varieties of Middle Arabic, such as Christian Arabic.35 Jews living in Islamic lands used Arabic in their daily lives and in most of their writings for many centuries. Many prose works of medieval Jewish authors were composed in Judeo-Arabic; the period was one of great creativity.36 As already noted, Judeo-Arabic falls within the cluster of 33

34 35

36

See EJIW, s.v. “Judeo Arabic History and Linguistic Description” (Norman A. Stillman); Benjamin H. Hary, “Judeo Arabic: A Diachronic Reexamination,” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 163 (2003), 61 75. A notable recent intervention that challenges the conventional wisdom is Ella Shohat, “The Invention of Judeo Arabic,” Interventions 19, 2 (2017), 153 200; however, she stipulates at the begin ning of the article that she excludes the medieval context from her discussion. Two recent corpus based dictionaries have become important if incomplete resources: Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Dictionary of Medieval Judeo Arabic (Jerusalem, 2016); and Joshua Blau, Dictionary of Mediaeval Judaeo Arabic Texts (Jerusalem, 2006). Benjamin Hary, Multiglossia in Judeo Arabic (Leiden, 1992). Joshua Blau, “On the Rise of Some Similarities and Differences in Judeo Arabic and Christian Arabic,” Tarbiz 43 (1963), 131 39; and A Grammar of Christian Arabic (Louvain, 1966). For additional readings, see Alexander Treiger, “Christian Arabic: A Classified Bibliography for Researchers,” www.academia.edu/12618678/Christian Arabic A Classified Bibliography for Researchers. The breadth, depth, and diversity of Judeo Arabic writing are so great that it would be impossible to compile a sensible representative list for an article of this length and type; readers curious about the range of writings would do well to begin by consulting Joshua Blau, Judaeo Arabic Literature: Selected Texts (Winona Lake, IN, 1985).

646 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce varieties of Arabic called “Middle Arabic.” As Joshua Blau has described in his many studies of Middle Arabic, this cluster joins classical, postclassical, and dialectal (Neo-Arabic) features, including some pseudo-corrections.37 The emergence of Middle Arabic was coeval with the Arab conquests of the seventh century. It seems that it soon became the language of urban residents, starting with the lower strata of the native population but finally including all strata of society. Some scholars argue that the main reason for using linguistic varieties within the cluster of Middle Arabic was the lack of interest in pan-Arabization implied in the cultural ideal of ʿArabiyya – namely, that the Arabic language and culture were superior – and the desire to exalt the values of their own culture, Shuʿūbiyya – the idea that non-Arab Muslims could participate just as effectively in high culture.38 Other scholars take the view that use of Middle Arabic was primarily a pragmatic choice rather than an ideological one.39 There is general agreement that there were many levels of deviation with respect to classical norms during the medieval period, originating in a large number of linguistic variants of Middle Arabic.40 From a religious and sociological point of view, it has been emphasized that the Jewish community that started to use Middle Arabic did not have the same theological necessity for the Classical Arabic of the Qurʾān as did Muslims. For that reason, they were less likely to place emphasis upon classical norms and were more likely to adopt numerous dialectal forms, without attempting to make corrections or pseudo-corrections.41 All the same, Jewish writers and

37

38 39

40

41

Joshua Blau, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo Arabic: A Study of the Origins of Middle Arabic, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem, 1981), 1. See also Joshua Blau, “Judaeo Arabic in its Linguistic Setting,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 36 (1968), 1 12; Joshua Blau, Studies in Middle Arabic and its Judaeo Arabic Variety (Jerusalem, 1988); Joshua Blau, A Handbook of Early Middle Arabic (Jerusalem, 2002). See also chapters 9 and 15 of Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Language, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 2014), on Middle Arabic and Arabic as a minority language. David Wacks, Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature (Bloomington, 2015), 37ff. The former claim is sustained by Blau in his Handbook of Middle Arabic (reprint, Jerusalem, 2002); for an example of the latter, see Joseph Tobi, “Written Judeo Arabic: Colloquial versus Middle Arabic,” in Liesbeth Zack and Arie Schippers, eds., Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic: Diachrony and Synchrony (Leiden, 2012), 265 77; as well as Mark R. Cohen, “On the Interplay of Arabic and Hebrew in the Cairo Geniza Letters,” in Jonathan Decter and Michael Rand, eds., Studies in Arabic and Hebrew Letters in Honor of Raymond P. Scheindlin (Piscataway, NJ, 2007), 17 35; and Phillip Ackerman Lieberman, “Legal Pluralism among the Court Records of Medieval Egypt.” Bulletin d’études orientales 34 (2014), 79 112. Hary, “Judeo Arabic,” 62, prefers to call this phenomenon “continuglossia” due to its “practically infinite intermediate varieties.” Ignacio Ferrando, Introducción a la Historia de la lengua árabe (Zaragoza, 2001), 155.

languages and translation 647 thinkers showed a wide, complex, and diverse range of attitudes toward Arabic and its literary conventions.42 Blau describes one of the most notable differences of this language in relation to Bedouin dialects and Classical Arabic as being that while the latter is a synthetic language – relying more heavily upon internal morphology to create meaning – Judeo-Arabic, as a vernacular variety of Middle Arabic, is much more analytical – relying more on overall syntax to create meaning.43 However, it is worth noting that in the Arabic-speaking world, Jews nonetheless turned to Bedouins as linguistic models.44 Other significant differences also occur: the change in the nature of the accent provoked the disappearance of nominal case endings and verbal modal endings.45 Rather than the Classical Arabic word order – verb, subject, and object – Judeo-Arabic sentences employed a different order – subject, verb, and object – as in many languages of the peoples that adopted Arabic after the expansion of Islam. New markers for the object and new particles were introduced. The changes in phonetics, morphology, syntax, and even lexicon were considerable.46 Judeo-Arabic was generally written in Hebrew characters. This may have been a Jewish effort to maintain a distinct identity through the aesthetics of writing or simply as a consequence of making the text accessible to less educated members of the community unfamiliar with Arabic characters. The oldest texts reflect a phonetic transcription that depends on Hebrew orthography and does not exhibit any influence of Arabic orthography. Arabic influence is very clear in texts written after the tenth century, in which every Arabic grapheme has a corresponding one in Hebrew, with diacritical signs to distinguish between certain pairs of Hebrew letters, since the Hebrew alphabet has only twenty-two consonants while Arabic has twenty-eight.47 It is very likely that the influence of Seʿadyah’s Bible 42

43 44 45

46

47

Esperanza Alfonso, “Attitudes toward Language,” in her Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes (New York, 2008). Jonathan Owens, A Linguistic History of Arabic (Oxford, 2006), 111ff. Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community (Ithaca, 2008), 40ff. As shown convincingly by Federico Corriente, Árabe andalusí y lenguas romances (Madrid: MAPFRE, 1992), 60. José Martínez Delgado, “La ‘Introducción’ a la Gramática del judeoárabe medieval de J. Blau,” Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 5 (2008), 371 75. Cf. Joshua Blau and Simon Hopkins, “On Early Judaeo Arabic Orthography,” Zeitschrift für arabische Linguistik 12 (1984), 9 27; Joshua Blau and Simon Hopkins, Early Judaeo Arabic in Phonetic Spelling (Jerusalem, 2017); María Ángeles Gallego, El judeo árabe medieval: edición, traducción y estudio lingüístico del Kitāb al taswi’a de Yonah ibn Ğanāh (Bern, 2006), 18 24; Phillip I. Lieberman, “The Disappearance of the Early Phonetic _ Judaeo Arabic Spelling and Saʿadya Gaon’s Translation of the Bible,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 41 (2014), 137 72.

648 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce translation contributed to altering the early standard method of transcription.48 Only when Jews wrote to Muslim authorities asking for permits or in writings for a broader, not exclusively Jewish audience, did they use Arabic script. Another characteristic of Judeo-Arabic is the inclusion of important elements of Hebrew and Aramaic vocabulary, particularly when dealing with topics of Jewish religion and in the translations and commentaries of biblical texts. In the same way, the structure of some basic Hebrew constructions can still be seen, even when they have been Arabized or replaced with Arabic terms. According to Blau, many Jewish authors tried to write in Classical Arabic, but they did not always succeed. The result was a mixed language with different kinds of pseudo-corrections (hypo-corrections when they were not “classical enough”, or hyper-corrections when they were “too classical”). Nevertheless, Middle Arabic is not simply a product of error. Rather, it is possible to recognize different styles with varied mixtures of Classical and Middle Arabic elements.49 We also see that Arabophone Jews used different linguistic registers taking into account their diverse bodies of addressees: It has been observed that Maimonides writes in “Classical Arabic in letters to Muslims, but when he writes to his co-religionists his language contains many of the features found in other Middle Arabic texts.”50 In the case of one such letter, drafts that have been preserved are actually in Middle Arabic, while the final version is in Classical Arabic. The proportion of classicisms can be very different according to the contents and the addressees. In short, as Benjamin Hary writes, “Judeo-Arabic is the meeting point of Classical Arabic, Arabic dialects, Hebrew and Aramaic, with results in numerous mixed forms.”51 It is possible to conclude that each category of writings had its own development and internal history. It is very likely that the first biblical commentaries, up to the eleventh century, were written in Hebrew. Important works of the Masoretes that helped preserve and interpret the biblical text were also in Hebrew. Grammarians such as Seʿadyah wrote the first edition of a dictionary (the Egron) in Hebrew and the second one, some years later, in Arabic. Menahem Ibn Sarūq probably had ideological reasons for using Hebrew for his biblical dictionary, the Mahberet, in the mid-tenth century, and this determined the language used_ by his rival Dunash b. Labrat and their respective students. But the language of _ 48

49 50 51

Blau and Hopkins, “On Early Judaeo Arabic,” 15. See also Joseph Sadan, “On Medieval ‘Torah’ in Arabic,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 2, 3 (1983), 404 15. Blau, The Emergence and Linguistic Background, 24 25. Kees Versteeg, The Arabic Language, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 2001), 121. Hary, “Judeo Arabic,” 63.

languages and translation 649 philology was usually Arabic until the travels of Abraham Ibn Ezra to Europe in the mid-twelfth century. However, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla already felt the need to translate Judeo-Arabic writings into Hebrew in the eleventh century. In the same way, scientific treatises were written in Arabic until they were needed in the Christian kingdoms in the northern Iberian Peninsula, where Abraham Bar Ḥiyya wrote on science in Hebrew at the beginning of the twelfth century. In parallel with Arabic poetry, the poems of medieval Jews, particularly in al-Andalus, were written almost exclusively in Hebrew, with just a few in Aramaic, and some, depending upon the ideological and philological commitments of the poets, written in Arabic. By using Arabic, it was almost unavoidable to recourse to the language of Islamic religious ideals. Because of this, by and large Andalusian Jews decided to write poetry in Arabic patterns of rhyme, meter, and theme, but in biblical Hebrew language in order to solve questions posed by the novel historical and cultural situation that their Arabophone world presented them; it allowed them to elevate their own sacred language against the theological challenge presented by the divine language status of Arabic within Islam.52 Jewish writers took the Bible as a stylistic and linguistic model whose existence led to a certain confrontation with Arabic.53 Their national and religious pride led them to demonstrate that Hebrew could be a culturally significant language. However, when writing in prose (on philology, philosophy, ethics, poetics, apologetics, etc.) all the greatest poets of the so-called golden age of Andalusian poetry used Judeo-Arabic, just like most of the other Jewish writers in the era.54 Liturgy was always in Hebrew, including the reading of the Torah, the prayers, and the synagogal poetry, but the traditional reading of the Aramaic translation of the biblical texts was in many cases abandoned. No synagogal poetry in Arabic was ever used by Jews, not even under the influence of S ̣ūfī poetry.55 52

53

54

55

This phenomenon was not limited to poetry. See, for additional examples, Jonathan Decter, “The Rendering of Qur’anic Quotations in Hebrew Translations of Islamic Texts,” Jewish Quarterly Review 96, 3 (2006), 336 58. Ángel Sáenz Badillos and Judit Targarona Borrás, Poetas hebreos de al Andalus (Córdoba, 2003). The bibliography on this subject is quite substantial; the reader may wish to begin with the following studies: Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet (Baltimore, 1991); Jonathan Decter, Dominion Built of Praise (Philadelphia, 2018); Adena Tanenbaum, The Contemplative Soul: Hebrew Poetry and Philosophical Theory in Medieval Spain (Leiden, 2002); Yosef Tobi, Between Hebrew and Arabic Poetry (Leiden, 2010). For a consideration of a possible exception to this rule, see Nasir Basal and Joseph Sadan, “Semi Liturgical Poems in Judeo Arabic,” in Samuel Rafael, ed., Studies in Honor of Judith Dishon (Ramat Gan, 2013), 177 203.

650

a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce JUDEO ARAMAIC

Despite the increasing use of Arabic, dialects of Aramaic continued to be used in some Jewish communities, especially in central and eastern Islamic lands. In some specific areas, Aramaic has been spoken, without interruption, to this day.56 The use of Aramaic in Jewish communities during the Middle Ages is different from that of other Jewish languages in that except in very limited areas in Iraq and Iran, Aramaic was not a vernacular; rather, it had a respected classical, textual tradition among Jews due to its usage in religious and juridical writings during the Byzantine period and its central place within Jewish education. No significant literary works were written in Babylonian Aramaic after the completion of the Talmud. A few poems, responsa, and juridical documents continued to be written in Aramaic during the Middle Ages. Jewish philologists such as Judah Ibn Quraysh tried to retain this language in the North African synagogues, where the reading of the Aramaic translation of the Bible (Targum) had lost its meaning since it was not understood by the participants in the liturgy. However, important documents for Jewish life, such as marriage contracts (ketubbot) were almost always written in Aramaic. Those early medieval Jewish philologists who promoted the study of comparative linguistics in North Africa and al-Andalus included Aramaic alongside Hebrew and Arabic in their comparative studies. Judeo-Aramaic was used in al-Andalus not only for synagogal poems, as was relatively common in the Orient before Islam, but also for profane poetry. The greatest poets of the Andalusian golden age, such as Samuel haNagid, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth, or Judah Halevi, wrote poems in Aramaic. Judah al-Ḥarīzī could show his expertise writing a poem using the three languages – Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic – in each verse.57 JUDEO PERSIAN

Besides Old Persian, written in cuneiform and Aramaic characters, scholars distinguish Early or Middle Persian, written in alphabets of Aramaic origin, from New or Classical Persian written in Arabic, 56

57

Cf. Joan Ferrer i Costa, Esbozo de historia de la lengua aramea (Córdoba, 2004); Steven E. Fassberg, “Judeo Aramaic,” in Lily Khan, ed., Handbook of Jewish Languages (Leiden, 2016), 64 117; and Geoffrey Khan, “Jewish Neo Aramaic in Kurdistan and Iran,” in Benjamin Hary and Sarah Bunin Benor, eds., Languages in Jewish Communities (Berlin, 2018), 9 34. See also Siam Bhayro, “Judeo Syriac,” in Lily Khan, ed., Handbook of Jewish Languages (Leiden, 2016), 630 33. Luis Díez Merino, “El arameo, lengua mediterránea y española,” in Agustí Borrell, Alfonso de la Fuente, and Armand Puig, eds., La Bíblia i el Mediterrani: Actes del Congrés de Barcelona 18 22 de setembre de 1995, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1997), 2:3 27.

languages and translation 651 58 Hebrew, or other characters. An early translation of the Psalms (from Syriac) to Pahlavi was probably composed in the sixth or seventh century. From the eighth century, if not before, Iranian Jews spoke and wrote in dialects of Persian. Some Hebrew lapidary inscriptions from Greater Persia have been dated to the eighth century. Two letters by a Jewish merchant, also in Persian in Hebrew characters, were written a bit later. They introduced Hebrew and Aramaic words in their variety of the local language, while Hebrew was reserved for religious practices. JudeoPersian was used for synagogal sermons and legal documents, and also for the translation and commentary of the Bible. Judeo-Persian was revived in the fourteenth century thanks to the poems of Shāhīn-i Shīrāzī, written in Hebrew characters, but in a language with a relatively small Hebrew component.59 JUDEO BERBER

The Jews of southern Morocco, especially in the rural and semirural communities living in the mountains, spoke with Muslim Berbers and even within their own families in several dialects. Apparently, a large part of that population did not understand Arabic. As research by Joseph Chetrit has shown, traditional Jewish texts were never produced in these Judeo-Berber dialects – nor was the Jews’ form of Berber substantially different from the language of their Muslim neighbors. For that reason, our sources of information about the characteristics of Judeo-Berber during the Middle Ages are very limited.60 JUDEO ROMANCE

Jews in Romance-speaking countries also used local vernaculars, even in cases in which Arabic remained the dominant language of culture and 58

59

60

Habib Borjian, “Judeo Iranian Languages,” in Lily Khan, ed., Handbook of Jewish Languages (Leiden, 2016), 234 97; and Habib Borjian, “What Is Judeo Madian and How Does It Differ from Judeo Persian?” Journal of Jewish Languages 2 (2014), 117 42. For a more historiographical discussion, see Ofir Haim, “Shaul Shaked and the Study of Judeo Persian,” in Yohanan Friedmann and Etan Kohlberg, eds., Studies in Honor of Shaul Shaked (Jerusalem, 2019), 15 18. See EJIW, s.v. “Judeo Persian Language” (Thamar E. Gindin). The Encyclopaedia Iranica also offers extensive bibliography on Judeo Persian languages appended to Gindin’s article, “Judeo Persian Language,” Encyclopaedia Iranica 15, part 2, 132 39. Cf. Joseph Chetrit, “Le Judéo berbère et ses usages au Maroc: Dépôts lexicaux, textes parodiques et textes calques,” in Joseph Chetrit, Diglossie, Hybridation et Diversité intra linguistique: Etudes socio pragmatiques sur les langues juives, le judéo arabe et le judéo berbère (Paris, 2007), 213 352; EJIW, s.v. “Judeo Berber” (Joseph Chetrit).

652 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce commerce. Although Judeo-Romance blossoms as a phenomenon in Christian Europe, we also find examples of it in Muslim Spain and the Mediterranean regions with which it was interconnected. Many personal and economic documents, communal dispositions, letters, testaments, juridical disputes, and some literary works were written in languages spoken in Castile, Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, Galicia, Portugal, Provence, France, and Italy.61 Jews referred to these languages in general as “laʿaz.” In many cases, these texts were also written in Hebrew characters, although some were written in Latin characters. It seems that the nature of their audiences (whether Jews or Christians) determined the character of the script. The Coplas de Yosef,62 for instance, have been preserved in Hebrew characters in all the known manuscripts, while all but one of the manuscripts of the Proverbios morales by Shem Ṭov de Carrión are in Latin characters.63 While some scholars add the prefix “Judeo-” to each of these medieval Romance languages and consider them to be religiolects corresponding to the social and historical situation of the different Jewish communities, others feel some discomfort applying a name that could also be understood in a linguistic sense, and prefer to use names like “Judaic Spanish,” in parallel to “Islamic Spanish,” for instance.64 There is some agreement that the language used by these communities, in spite of the script, archaisms, and some Hebraisms, especially in religious texts, was not essentially different from the language of the majority just as the Old French used by Rashi in eleventh-century France or the Spanish used by Iberian Jews before the expulsions were probably very similar to those of their Christian neighbors.65 In the Iberian Peninsula, among the oldest texts in Romance language used by Jews are the almost thirty Old Spanish kharajāt (final couplets) at the end of Hebrew muwashshahāt (“girdle” poems, a strophic poetic form). 61

62

63

64

65

Elaine Miller, Jewish Multiglossia: Hebrew, Arabic, and Castilian in Medieval Spain (Newark, DE, 2000). Abraham Toledo, Las coplas de Yosef, ed. and trans. Avner Peretz (Jerusalem, 2005); Luis Girón Negrón and Laura Minervini, Las coplas de Yosef: Entre la biblia y el midrash en la poesía (Madrid, 2006). Santob de Carrión, Proverbios morales, ed. with commentary by Theodore A. Perry (Madison, 1986). Eva Núñez Méndez, Diachronic Applications in Hispanic Linguistics (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2016), 56 57. See George Jochnowitz, “Judeo Romance Languages,” in Herbert H. Paper, ed., Jewish Languages: Theme and Variations (Cambridge, MA, 1978), 65 74. See also Peter Nahon, “Diglossia among French Sephardim as a Motivation for the Genesis of Judeo Gascon,” Journal of Jewish Languages 5, 1 (2017), 104 19.

languages and translation 653 A substantial part of these texts are strophic poems written by Judah Halevi (c. 1075–1141) and Ṭodros Abulafiah (1247–after 1300). It is very likely that such songs existed before they were written down by these Hebrew poets; but in several cases it is almost certain that they adapted the texts to the circumstances and audiences.66 In addition to literary texts, there are ritual instructions, oaths, testaments, private correspondence, a lawsuit, juridical and economic texts, medical recipes, and so forth, all written in Judeo-Romance varieties. The taqqanot or communal regulations set down in Valladolid in 1432 are one of the most notable texts written in Judeo-Castilian, containing many Hebraisms and biblical quotations and using the Hebrew alphabet. Responsa written in Catalonia, some wedding songs, and a chronicle of the Dispute of Tortosa, testaments, and many economic documents also included some words in Judeo-Catalan and Judeo-Aragonese.67 In the same way, various rabbinical and medical writings and personal records were written by Jews and for Jews in Romance languages with Hebrew characters.

66

67

Cf. Federico Corriente and Ángel Sáenz Badillos, “Nueva propuesta de lectura de las Xarajāt con texto romance de la serie hebrea,” Revista de Filología Española 74 (1994), 283 89; Ángel Sáenz Badillos, “Las moaxajas de Yehudah ha Levi,” Actas del VI Simposio de la Sociedad Española de Literatura Comparada (Granada, 13, 14, 15 y 16 de marzo 1986), ed. J. Paredes and A. Soria (Granada, 1989), 123 30. Editions of a variety of Judeo Romance texts may be found in the following volumes: Laura Minervini, Testi giudeo spagnoli medievali (Castiglia e Aragona), 2 vols. (Naples, 1992); José Ramón Magdalena Nom de Déu, “Notas a un glosario aljamiado judeo árabe y judeo romance de la Genizah,” Anuario de Filología 12 (1986), 45 72; “Judeorromances ‘marginales’ de Sefarad,” Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos 37 38 (1988 89), 41 53; “Las otras judeolenguas de Sefarad antes de la expulsión,” in Josep Ribera, ed., Actes del Simposi Internacional sobre Cultura Sefardita (1993), 73 82; “Corpus de aljamías hebraicoarago nesas,” in Aragón Sefarad 1 (2005), 497 507; Meritxell Blasco Orellana and José Ramón Magdalena Nom de Déu, Aljamías hebraicorromances en los responsa de Rabí Yishaq bar Seset Perfet (Ryba”s) de Barcelona (Barcelona, 2005); Coloma Lleal, El Judezmo: el dialecto sefardí y su historia (Barcelona, 1992); Yom Tov Assis and José R. Magdalena, The Jews of Navarre in the Late Middle Ages (Jerusalem, 1992); Jaume Riera i Sans, Cants de noces dels jueus catalans (Barcelona, 1974); Yolanda Moreno, ed., Las Taqqanot de Valladolid de 1432 (Salamanca, 1987); Avihai Shivtiel, “Judaeo Romance and Judaeo Arabic Word list from the Genizah,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 34 (2007), 63 74. In the latter, he studies a fragment of the Genizah, CUL T S NS 163.57, containing a list of terms in Judeo Arabic with their equivalent in Romance, written in both cases in Hebrew characters; Gerold Hilty, “Um novo texto judeu portuguès aljamiado,” in Hans Jörg Döhla, ed., Lenguas en diálogo: el iberromance y su diversidad lingüística y literaria; ensayos en homenaje a Georg Bossong (Madrid, 2008), 177 82. On these varieties, see Ilil Baum, “El Català en les fonts hebrees: Algunes consideracions de l’aportació d’un tresor negligit,” Estudis Romànics 39 (2017), 345 54.

654 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce Iberian Jews left some traces of their religious culture in their language. For example, they used “el Dio” beside the Spanish name “Dios,” which can be understood as a plural. Also, some Hebrew words were modified adding Romance elements. Particular words used in these texts include sinoga, “synagogue”; meldar, “to read the Torah”; preto, “black”; and so on. However, the global study of Laura Minervini shows that the generalized hypothesis of the formation of a kind of koine in the Iberian Peninsula before the expulsion of 1492, as a precedent of the later Judezmo, cannot be confirmed, and that the language of Jewish documents in Romance does not have as many archaisms as once thought.68 One discrete case for exploring this phenomenon is the translation into Romance of sections of the liturgy (mostly for women of the community who were not familiar with Hebrew), and in particular of the Bible (as will be commented on later): different versions of all or a good part of the biblical books into Castilian, in Latin characters, have been preserved. Judeo-Romance language varieties abounded elsewhere in the IberoProvençal cultural orbit. There were also some writings in Portugal in Judeo-Portuguese: a medical treatise on ophthalmology in Hebrew characters written in 1300; a treaty of medical astrology from the fifteenth century; a Mahzor published in Portugal around 1485 including some ritual instructions in_ Aljamiado; O livro de como se fazem as cores, which contains instructions for the illumination of manuscripts; and so on.69 In Provence, some glosses to a ritual work of the twelfth century by Isaac b. Abba Mari of Marseilles, a version of Esther by Crescas du Caylar, a women’s prayer book with the blessing “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who made me a woman,” from the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and some popular prose reflecting the spoken language have been preserved in Judeo-Provençal (Shuadit) in Hebrew characters.70 Counter to Judeo-Provençal texts, the term Judeo-French is usually reserved for texts from northern France, such as the eleventh-century glosses of Rashi and Moshe ha-Darshan in commentaries to the Bible and the Talmud. Similar glosses became frequent in all kind of writings of the French Jews from the twelfth century onward. From the thirteenth century on, these 68

69

70

Minervini, Testi giudeospagnoli, 1:129 30. See also Ilil Baum, “A Hebrew Letter Fragment in Mixed Castilian Catalan from around the Time of the Expulsion and Its Implications for the Emergence of Judeo Spanish,” in David Bunis et al., eds., Caminos de Leche y Miel (Barcelona, 2018), 46 63. Gerold Hilty, “Le judéo portugais une langue marginalisée?” in De márgenes y silencios; homenaje a Martín Lienhard, ed. Annina Clerici and Marília Mendes (Madrid, 2006), 99 116. Henri Guttel and Cyril Aslanov, “Judeo Provençal,” in Berenbaum and Skolnik, eds., Encyclopaedia Judaica, 11:559 60.

languages and translation 655 71 kinds of glosses to the Bible were collected in biblical glossaries. At the same time, from the mid-thirteenth century on Judeo-French was used in some poems, writings of medicine and astronomy, and in commercial documents.72 Judeo-Italian was a koine employed as a common literary vehicle by Jews of the different medieval Italian territories. Among the written documents are the tenth-century glosses by Shabbethai Donnolo explaining obscure philosophical lemmata in his Sefer Hakhmoni; a commentary on the Sefer Yesirah; the Judeo-Italian glossary tradition of Maimonides’ _ Guide for the Perplexed, compiled circa 1250 by Moses da Salerno; Judah Romano’s transcriptions of the Divine Comedy in the fourteenth century, as well as an elegy for the Ninth of Av and biblical translations; a fourteenth-century Judeo-Italian translation of Moses Qimhi’s Mahalakh Shevile ha-Daʿat; and a glossary by Moses da Rieti (fifteenth century).73 TRANSLATION ACTIVITIES AMONG JEWS

The multilingual character of educated medieval Jews allowed them to play a very important role in the transmission of knowledge from one language to another as cultural intermediaries, brokers, and dragomen.74 In some cases, their translation activity was undertaken for the benefit of their own community: Seʿadyah Gaʾon translated the Bible into Arabic at the beginning of the tenth century because many of his coreligionists could not understand the original Hebrew text well; similarly, European Jews were the audience of translations from Arabic into Hebrew for Ibn Chiquitilla, 71

72

73

74

See Menahem Banitt, L’étude des glossaires bibliques des Juifs de France au Moyen Age: méthode et application (Jerusalem, 1967). Cf. Kirsten A. Fudeman, Vernacular Voices: Language and Identity in Medieval French Jewish Communities (Philadelphia, 2010). See Menahem Banitt and Cyril Aslanov, “Judeo French,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, 11:545. Cf. Umberto Fortis, La parlata degli ebrei di Venezia e le parlate giudeo italiane (Firenze, 2006); Moses ben Solomon, Un glossario filosofico ebraico italiano del XIII secolo, ed. G. Sermoneta (Rome, 1969); Vena Hebraica in Judaeorum linguis: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on the Hebrew and Aramaic Elements in Jewish Languages (Milan, October 23 26, 1995), ed. Shelomo Morag, Moshe Bar Asher, and Maria Mayer Modena (Milan, 1999); Maria Mayer Modena, “Il giudeo italiano: risultati e prospettive della ricerca sull’espressione linguistica degli ebrei d’Italia,” in Il giudeo spagnolo. Cultura e tradizione sefardita tra presente, passato e futuro (Livorno, 2007), 65 78; and Gad Freudenthal, “Abraham ibn Ezra and Judah ibn Tibbon as Cultural Intermediaries,” in Haggai Ben Shammai and Sarah Stroumsa, eds., Exchange and Transmission across Cultural Boundaries (Jerusalem, 2013), 52 81. For bibliography current through 2002, see Robert Singerman, Jewish Translation History: A Bibliography of Bibliographies and Studies (Amsterdam, 2002).

656 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce Abraham Ibn Ezra, the Ibn Tibbon family, and al-Ḥarīzī in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, as was the case for medical translations from Latin into Hebrew in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In other instances, the beneficiaries were Christian intellectuals, as evidenced in many of the translations made from Arabic into Latin or into Romance in Toledo and other Spanish cities or in the translations of the Bible from Hebrew into Romance in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The expansion of Islam and the high level of prosperity of its empire in the early Middle Ages spurred a revival of interest in all the sciences. Muslim scholars learned from antiquity, translated the most important works on science and philosophy of the Greeks into Arabic, and also made original contributions in many fields. A confluence of different factors helps explain the notable role played by the Jews as translators of Arabic works during the Middle Ages: Islamic culture had both made the works of Greek, Persian, and Indian science and philosophy accessible and produced its own works; European Christian scholars were curious but, in most cases, could not read Arabic; their Jewish counterparts were particularly experts in the knowledge of languages and even worked as translators in Christian courts.75 Of course, Jews were not the only translators. Beginning with the first translations in the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid periods (the mid-seventh through eighth centuries), many Greek works were translated into Arabic by Muslims and Christians; in most cases based on the Syriac versions from the fourth and fifth centuries. Aristotle and his commentators, Proclus, Plotinus, Porphyry, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Galen were among the best-known philosophers and scientists. Muslim intellectuals became familiar with some form of Neo-Platonism and Aristotelism. The process of translation into Arabic was intensified during the time of al-Kindī and his circle (ninth century); at the same time, some Nestorians like Ḥunayn b. Ishāq and his son Ishāq _ _ contributed translations of Greek thought and science and especially 76 medicine into Arabic. These trends continued through the eleventh century and emerged around the Mediterranean Basin. Ḥasday Ibn Shaprūt was an early example of a Jewish translator in the mid-tenth century. His_ expertise in languages helped him in his career at the service of Córdoba’s caliph ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (r. 929–61), who sent _ him on various diplomatic missions. When the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porfyrogenetos, seeking help from the caliphate for his 75

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The most complete information about the translations by Jews during the Middle Ages is Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Graz, 1956). Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture (New York, 1998).

languages and translation 657 designs on Egypt, sent as a present a Greek manuscript with the important pharmacological work of Dioscorides, De materia medica, Ḥasday was one of the translators who converted into Arabic the Latin version of the Greek document prepared by the monk Nicholas. The work included the names of herbs, drugs, and remedies that were basic for medieval medicine.77 During the eleventh century, Moses Ibn Chiquitilla translated the two main philological works of Judah Ḥayyūj from Arabic into Hebrew, with some additions of his own. He dealt with topics in a rather flexible way but also respected linguistic purity. It seems remarkable that he wrote his philological and exegetical treatises in Arabic, but felt the need to translate Judah’s works. We do not know precisely who his audience was, but it had to be members of Jewish communities from the north – especially if he lived for some years in Saragossa, as many believe. Around 1116, Moses Sephardi, a convert who adopted the name of Petrus Alfonsi after his conversion, translated the astronomical tables of al-Khwārizmī from Arabic into Latin that had been elaborated by the Spanish astronomer Maslama al-Majrītī. This translation is of special _ significance for having introduced Ptolemaic astronomy into Europe while enriching the spirit of direct observation of the Arabs. Moses also translated a collection of thirty-three tales from Arabic literature into Latin.78 Some of these tales were from the Panchatantra and Arabian Nights, such as the story cycle of “Sinbad the Sailor.” Petrus Alfonsi also worked in England with other scholars like Adelard and Walcher of Malvern, translating and developing astronomical concepts from Spain.79 While we do not have information on any Jews working in the northern centers of Ripoll or the Ebro valley in the twelfth century except for Abraham Bar Ḥiyya, who worked with Plato of Tivoli,80 at least two Jews played a significant role in the translations of the Toledo Cathedral in the second half of the century, during the life of the archbishops Don Raymond de la Sauvetat and John of Castellmoron: Avendauth and Abuteus Levita. Gerard of Cremona and Gundissalinus developed a concrete program for translating from Arabic to Latin the most notable works on philosophy, science, and medicine.81 Avendauth helped Gundissalinus 77 78

79 80

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Joan Vernet, La cultura hispanoárabe en Oriente y Ocidente (Barcelona, 1978), 35 39. On language choice in Petrus Alfonsi’s work, see Charles Burnett, “The Works of Petrus Alfonsi: Questions of Authenticity,” Medium Aevum 66, 1 (1997), 42 79. John Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers (Talahassee, 1993). Chanoch Gamliel, “The Language of Abraham Bar Hiyya,” Leshonenu 4 (1997), 277 95; Charles Burnett, “Plato of Tivoli” in “Béziers as an Astronomical Center for Jews and Christians in the Mid twelfth Century,” Aleph 17, 2 (2017), 212 14. Cf. Charles Burnett, “The Translating Activity in Medieval Spain,” in Salma Khadra Jayyusi, ed., The Legacy of Muslim Spain, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1994), 2:1036 58; Charles

658 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce in the translation of a treatise of Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) on the soul, and he probably recommended also some other books that should be translated, including the Arabic metaphysical work of Salomon Ibn Gabirol, the Fons Vitae, and other works that represented the readings of Jewish and Arabic intellectuals of the time. According to some scholars, Avendauth may be identified with the Jewish philosopher Abraham Ibn Daud, who had left Córdoba and established himself in Toledo.82 Gundissalinus made many more translations with other helpers, including probably Mozarabs. Gerard of Cremona, who translated more than seventy works, did not have Jewish collaborators.83 Abraham Bar Ḥiyya worked in Barcelona in the first half of the twelfth century. Besides his own scientific works on geometry and astronomy, he translated with Plato of Tivoli, from Arabic to Latin, a dozen astrological, astronomical, and geometric scientific works. It is very likely that Bar Ḥiyya also collaborated with Plato on the translation of the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy in 1138. They both translated into Latin the great astronomical work of al-Battānī, De motu stellarum, which had a marked influence on European scholars. Abraham Ibn Ezra, born in Tudela in 1092, made his own contributions to mathematics and astronomy as well as some translations of the Astrological Issues of Māshāllāh b. Atharī or his Book of Eclipses of the Moon and the Sun from Arabic into Hebrew (and perhaps into Latin). He translated from the Arabic into Hebrew the commentary of Ibn al-Muthannā to the astronomical tables of al-Khwārizmī that had been translated into Latin by Hugo of Santalla in Tarazona. In his translations, Abraham Ibn Ezra tried to be loyal both to the original meaning of the texts and to the Hebrew of the Bible. Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s and Abraham Ibn Ezra’s scientific treatises in Hebrew, based upon Arabic ones, were the basis of the mathematical education of European Jews. Thanks to them,

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Burnett, “The Coherence of the Arabic Latin Translation Program in Toledo in the Twelfth Century,” Science in Context 14 (2001), 249 88; Charles Burnett, “Arabic into Latin: The Reception of Arabic Philosophy into Western Europe,” in Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), 370 404. See M. T. D’Alverny, “Avendauth,” in Homenaje a Millás Vallicrosa (Madrid, 1954), 19 43. On the historical writing of the individuals profiled in this paragraph, see Ram Ben Shalom, “History of the Iberian Monarchies,” in his Medieval Jews and the Christian Past (Liverpool, 2006), 177 238. See La Escuela de Traductores de Toledo (Toledo, 1996). Cf. Mauro Zonta, “The Jewish Mediation in the Transmission of Arabo Islamic Science and Philosophy to the Latin Middle Ages: Historical Overview and Perspectives of Research,” in Andreas Speer and Lydia Wegener, eds., Wissen über Grenzen. Arabisches Wissen und lateinisches Mittelalter (Berlin, 2006), 89 105.

languages and translation 659 Jews became interested in science and collected a scientific corpus in Hebrew that “marked a distinctive moment in Jewish intellectual history.”84 A short time later, the main works on mathematics, Euclid’s Elements, Ptolemy’s Almagest, Nicomachus of Gerasa’s Introduction, Archimedean and Apollonian texts and many others, were translated from Arabic into Hebrew in southern France by Jacob Anatoli in the 1230s, Moses Ibn Tibbon in the 1270s, Jacob b. Makhir in the 1280s, Qalonymus b. Qalonymus (translator of Averroes) in the 1310s, and Samuel b. Judah of Marseilles in the 1330s.85 A few Hebrew translations that are probably from the first half of the twelfth century, including Aristotle’s De anima by Gundissalinus, Isaac Israeli’s Liber de definicionibus, Qustā b. Lūqā’s De differentia spiritus et animae, and Ibn Gabirol’s Fons Vitae,_ were apparently not translated from Arabic but from Latin. They were probably done by Jews living in the north of the peninsula, where there was no strong Arabic influence.86 In the thirteenth century, there were also some Hebrew translations of Arabic literary texts: al-Ḥarīzī, besides philosophical and gynecological texts, translated the maqāmāt of al-Harīrī. In Toledo, Jacob b. Eleazar translated and adapted an Arabic version of the Indian Kalīla wa-Dimna. In addition to a variety of philosophical works, Abraham Ibn Ḥasday translated in Catalonia the Arabic text of Barlaam and Josaphat using the title Ben ha-Melekh ve-ha-Nazir, The King and the Monk. Jafudà Bonsenyor translated from Arabic the Llibre de paraules e dits de savis e filosofs.87 Over several generations, members of the Ibn Tibbon family who had come from al-Andalus and settled in Provence sat at the center of the translation of scientific and philosophical texts from Arabic into Hebrew. As heirs to an Andalusian education, Judah Ibn Tibbon, his son, grandchildren, and other relatives over five generations aimed to make accessible the jewels of Arabic science and philosophy to their European coreligionists who did not understand Arabic.88 They understood the richness of 84

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Thomas F. Glick, “Science in Medieval Spain: The Jewish Contribution in the Context of Convivencia,” in Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn D. Dodds, eds., Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain (New York, 1992), 85. Tony Lévy, “The Establishment of the Mathematical Bookshelf of the Medieval Hebrew Scholar: Translations and Translators,” Science in Context 10 (1997), 440. Jacob L. Teicher, “The Latin Hebrew School of Translators in Spain in the Twelfth Century,” in Homenaje a Millás Vallicrosa (Barcelona, 1954 56), 2:403 44. Libro de palabras y dichos de sabios y filósofos, introducción y traducción por José Ramón Magdalena Nom de Déu (Barcelona, 1990). For a cultural historical study of the Ibn Tibbon workshop, see S. J. Pearce, The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition (Bloomington, 2017).

660 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce possibilities of Arabic and the limitations of Hebrew, which had never been used for these purposes, and created an Arabized prose with many new technical terms taken from Arabic and with a syntax that reflected – in many aspects – the source language of the original texts. This kind of technical prose, with many Arabic influences in its vocabulary and syntax, became the pattern of scientific Hebrew in the Middle Ages. The morphology of these translations reveals a tendency to reproduce the original, increasing the usage of nouns with suffixes, changing the gender of words, building plurals from singulars or singulars from plurals, and adapting Arabic idioms. But the Arabization of the language was felt particularly in the syntax of translations, which often followed Arabic usage. Scholars call the language of the translations of this family “Tibbonid Hebrew,” which had a significant influence in the writings of different areas of knowledge. The Tibbonid translators made a considerable impact on Hebrew translations for close to two centuries, spanning five generations. Judah Ibn Tibbon (c. 1120–90) dedicated himself to the translation of JudeoArabic works, including texts by Seʿadyah Gaʾon (Sefer ha-Emunot ve-haDeʿot), the major philological works of Jonah Ibn Janāh (Sefer ha-Riqmah, _ Sefer ha-Shorashim), Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Tiqqun Middot ha-Nefesh), Bahya Ibn Paquda (Hovot ha-Levavot), and Judah Halevi (Sefer ha_ Kuzari). His son Samuel (c. 1165–1232) translated works of Maimonides. His most famous translation was the Guide for the Perplexed, with a glossary of foreign words. He was able to consult with Maimonides himself in translating difficult passages, and the great philosopher answered explaining the meaning of his own words. Samuel also translated other works by Maimonides, such as the Commentary on the mishnaic treatise Avot, the Treatise on Resurrection, the Letter on Translation, the Letter to Yemen, and so forth. He also produced the first Hebrew versions of the Meteorology of Aristotle and the Three Treatises on Conjunction by Averroes and his son ʿAbd Allāh as well as other minor works by al-Fārābī, alBitrūjī, and Avicenna. His translations aim for both accuracy and faithful_ to the original. In the next generation of translators, Jacob Anatoli ness (c. 1194–1256), the son-in-law and chief disciple of Samuel, translated Ptolemy, Averroes’ abridgment of Ptolemy, al-Farghānī, and Averroes’ middle commentaries on Aristotle’s Organon. Samuel’s son Moses (fl. 1244–83) translated dozens of works on philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine by Euclid (Elements), Geminus (Introduction to the Almagest of Ptolemy), Theodosius, Themistius, Ḥunayn b. Ishāq (Introduction to Medical Science), Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (Book of _the Classifications), Ibn al-Haytham, al-Hassār (Treatise on Arithmetic), Ibn __ al-Jazzār (Viaticum), Averroes (Commentaries on Aristotle), al-Fārābī (Book of the Principles), Avicenna (The Small Canon), Ibn al-Sīd al-Batalywsī, _

languages and translation 661 Jābir b. Aflah, al-Bitrūjī, and Maimonides (Hanhagat ha-Beriut, sections of _ the Commentary on the Mishnah, the Book of the Commandments, the Treatise on Logic, the Treatise on Poisons, etc.). The last major figure in the family was Jacob b. Makhir (c. 1236–1306), who translated from Arabic additional works by Euclid, Menelaus, Autolycus, Theodosius, Qustā _ b. Lūqā, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn al-S ̣affār, Azarquel, Jābir b. Aflah, and _ Averroes. He also seems to have rendered a work from the Latin into Hebrew: a medical text by his contemporary Arnau of Vilanova. The vocabulary of the classical language was substantially expanded through direct borrowing from Arabic, with many adaptations based on the meaning of ancient words; and loan translations, expressing the contents of Arabic technical and scientific terms through existing Hebrew words. In this way, hundreds of new words were created in each area of knowledge by translators of the most notable works that Muslim and Jewish authors had written in the Orient, North Africa, and al-Andalus. There were, of course, other possibilities. Some translators like Joseph Qimhi (c. 1105–70) or al-Ḥarīzī in the beginning of the thirteenth century _ struggled to maintain existing Hebrew words, avoiding Arabisms and searching for simple and understandable forms of biblical Hebrew, but they were ultimately not successful. During the reign of Alfonso X the Wise in the kingdom of Castile (1252–84), distinguished members of the Toledo Jewish community were an essential element at the disposal of the king to develop his cultural project, probably inspired by Eastern models.89 As connoisseurs of the Arabic language and expert astronomers, Jews at court played an important role in the work of translation and compilation of scientific, astronomical, and astrological works that were of interest to the whole of Europe as well as to the manufacture and use of scientific instruments.90 According to the plans of the king, the vast majority of translations and compilations were made in Romance, giving birth to a new cultured prose language;91 in some cases, the monarch himself oversaw the stylistic corrections. Some scholars have underscored the role that Spanish Jews played in promoting 89 90

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Francisco Márquez Villanueva, El concepto cultural alfonsí (Barcelona, 2004). Norman Roth, “Jewish Collaborators in Alfonso’s Scientific Work,” in Robert Burns, ed., Emperor of Culture: Alfonso X and His Thirteenth Century Renaissance (Philadelphia, 1990), 59 71. On the legal status of Jews in Alfonsine Castile, see Dwayne Carpenter, ed., Alfonso X and the Jews: An Edition of and Commentary on Siete Partidas 7.24 (Berkeley, 1986); Joseph O’Callaghan, “The Law of Non Christian Peoples,” in his Alfonso X: The Justinian of His Age (Ithaca, 2019); and H. Salvador Martínez, La convivencia en la España del siglo XIII: Perspectivas alfonsíes (Madrid, 2006). Lloyd Kasten, “Alfonso el Sabio and the Thirteenth Century Language,” in Emperor of Culture, 33 45.

662 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce the use of the Castilian language, which was for them more familiar than Latin. For practical reasons, they were better able to translate into Romance than into Latin and it coincided with the linguistic policy promoted by the king.92 Three distinct periods of productivity have been identified during the kingdom of Alfonso X: a period of translations (1250–59), another dedicated to the preparation of astronomical tables (1263–72), and a third focused mainly on compilations (1276–79). According to David Romano, the Jews that dominated Arabic and Romance comprised 42 percent of the number of the king’s collaborators and were present in one way or another in 74 percent of the translated works.93 Among the royal translators, there were about ten Christians and five Jews who, under royal patronage, developed all sorts of activities, from simple translations to the manufacture of scientific equipment or the composition of original works. The most significant translator from Arabic is Yehudah ben Moses ha-Kohen Ibn Matqa, a physician who was expert in astrology and astronomy, who translated into Romance, among other books, the Lapidario, the Libro conplido, and so forth. Isaac ibn Saʿīd (Rabiçag) compiled various writings on instruments, such as the Libro de las armellas, Libro del astrolabio redondo, the Libros del relogio, and so forth. Both of them, without known Christian collaborators, were the authors of the Tablas Alfonsíes. At least three more Jews were involved in some of the versions: Don Abraham (Ibn Shoshan?) Alfaquim or from Toledo, translator of the Libro de la açafeha, La escala de Mahoma, and so forth; Samuel ha-Levi Abulafia, who wrote the Libro del relogio de la candela and collaborated in the revision of the Estrellas fixas (1276); and Don Moses (Xosse) Alfaqui, who finished translating the Libro de la alcora around 1277. This group of Toledan Jews provided invaluable help to the development of philosophy, astronomy, medicine, and other sciences throughout Europe. The new universities benefited particularly from their activities as translators.94 Translations of medical works were especially important during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and had a particular evolution. The most significant works were translated from Arabic into Latin in Salerno 92

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Enrique Obediente Sosa, “Los judíos y el romance hispano,” in his Biografía de una lengua: Nacimiento, desarrollo y expansión del español (Mérida, 2007), 179ff. David Romano, “Le opere scientifiche di Alfonso X e l’intervento degli ebrei,” in David Romano, ed., De Historia Judía Hispánica (Barcelona, 1991), 147 81. See Angel Sáenz Badillos, “Participación de judíos en las traducciones de Toledo,” in Julio Samsó et al., eds., La Escuela de Traductores de Toledo (Toledo, 1996), 65 70; and Bernard Goldstein, “The Alfonsine Tables in Hebrew,” Aleph 19, 2 (2019), 269 83.

languages and translation 663 and Toledo, and arrived in southern France, where important schools of medicine like Montpellier were universally recognized and admired. The Jews that had no access to these Christian institutions and were not very familiar with Latin continued translating from Arabic into Hebrew during the thirteenth century. Besides Samuel and Moses Ibn Tibbon, Jacob Anatoli, Jacob b. Makhir, Solomon Ibn Ayyūb from Granada, and Zerahiah Gracian from Barcelona participated in the translations of medical and philosophical works. Shem Ṭov b. Isaac of Tortosa translated works of philosophy and medicine in southern France, while his son Abraham of Tortosa translated the medical works of Ibn Sarābī and Abulcasis in the thirteenth century. Additionally, Solomon Ibn Ayyūb of Granada translated works about medicine and philology, and Shem Ṭov Ibn Falaqera translated the metaphysical work of Ibn Gabirol. In the fourteenth century, the state of the field of translation changed as the intellectual centers of Jewish Europe shifted: although the translations from Arabic continued in pockets, Jews from southern France and the northern peninsula admired the Christian university system and, in particular, the medical school of Montpellier. As they were not well versed in Latin, the most important texts had to be translated from Latin into Hebrew many times through a Romance intermediary.95 This was the case, for example, of several treatises by the Montpellier master Bernard de Gordon: Tractatus de prognosticis (de crisi) (Haqdamat ha-Yediʿah), Lilium medicine (Shoshan ha-Refuʾah), and De phlebotomia (Ha-Maʾamar baHaqazah), and one by Arnau de Vilanova (his Regimen sanitatis ad regem Aragonum – Hanhagat ha-Beriʾut). The best-known translators from Latin into Hebrew were Jacob b. Joseph ha-Levi and Hezekiah of Milhaud, translators of treatises by Arnau de Vilanova; Estori b. Moses ha-Parhi _ (1306), translator of the Tabula antidotarii of Armengaud Blaise; Israel b. Joseph Caslari (1327), translator of the Regimen sanitatis of Arnau de Vilanova; Joseph b. Judah ha-Sefardi, translator of the Regimen sanitatis of Arnau de Vilanova; Leon Joseph of Carcassonne (fl. 1394–1402), translator of the Practica super nono Almansoris of Gérard de Solo (fl. 1335); and Abraham ben Meshullam ben Solomon Abigdor (1379), translator of the Introductorium of Bernard Alberti (fl. 1340).96 These translations were much less influenced by Arabic, instead using a characteristic mixture of biblical and rabbinic Hebrew with medieval components and occasionally some loanwords from Arabic or Latin. 95

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Luis García Ballester, Lola Ferre, and Eduard Feliu, “Jewish Appreciation of Fourteenth Century Scholastic Medicine,” Osiris, second series, 6 (1990), 85 117. Dolores Ferre, “Traducciones al hebreo de obras médicas en los siglos XIII y XIV,” Miscelánea de Estudios Arabes y Hebraicos 33 (1984), 63 64.

664 a' ngel s a' enz-badillos and s. j. pearce The translations from Arabic into Hebrew continued: Isaac b. Nathan of Córdoba worked on philosophical writings; Solomon ha-Kohen, on astronomy; Joseph Ibn Waqār translated medical works; Isaac Ibn Pulguer, the philosophy of al-Ghazālī. Judah Bonsenyor and Samuel Benveniste translated from Arabic into Catalan at the request of the kings. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, there were still translators from Arabic into Hebrew, like Vidal Ibn Labi (who became a converso in 1414 by the name of Gonzalo de la Caballería), who translated an Arabic medical treatise by Joshua ha-Lorqi. It seems that he was also the author of a translation of Cicero from Latin into Romance. Meir Alguadex (d. 1410) translated Aristotle’s Ethics from Latin into Hebrew. Eli Habillo of Monzón and Abraham Nahmias of Ocaña translated works of Thomas Aquinas from Latin into Hebrew around 1470. A particular case was Seʿadyah Ibn Danan in the last decades of the Muslim kingdom of Granada: he wrote a dictionary of biblical Hebrew in Arabic, with an introduction on Hebrew grammar and poetics; as he had students that were not familiar with Arabic, he himself translated his philological introductions into Hebrew.97 Medieval translations of the Bible by Jews were particularly notable. Fragments of very old Arabic translations have been identified: they were very literal and probably reflected an oral tradition that was subsequently put into writing. Seʿadyah Gaʾon translated the whole Bible into Arabic at the beginning of the tenth century and commented on it in the same language. This was the first translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Arabic, and has remained the standard Bible for Arabic-speaking Jews. Seʿadyah was not always literal, paraphrasing the text when he considered it necessary. Karaites transliterated the Bible into Arabic characters and translated it into Arabic too. The text that we know is from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. In the fifteenth century, new versions in Arabic were made in several Jewish communities, known by the general name of sharh. _ Particularly interesting are the translations into Romance made by Spanish Jews during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Besides some partial translations of books or passages of the Bible in the fifteenth century, the most notable manuscripts of Romance versions of the Hebrew Bible were made by Spanish Jews mainly for Christians.98 Chief among those is the 97

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See Seʿadyah Ibn Danan, Libro de las raíces (diccionario de hebreo bíblico), trans. Milagros Jiménez Sánchez (Granada, 2004); Moshe Kohen, Ha Haqdamot ha Diqduqiyot le Sefer ha Shorashim shel Rabi Seʿadyah ben Maimon Ibn Danan, Balshan, Meshorer ve Historyon bi Tequfat Gerush Sefarad (Jerusalem, 2000). A study by Esperanza Alfonso of the language and citational practices of these works is forthcoming.

languages and translation 665 Bible of Arragel (sometimes also referred to as the Alba Bible for the ducal family in Spain that owns the book and controls access to it), probably the most complete and significant translation of the whole Bible, made by Moses Arragel at the request of Luis de Guzman, Grand Master of Calatrava, between 1422 and 1430. The manuscript also contains a commentary made by Arragel from the point of view of Jewish exegetes and many illuminations prepared by Christian artists.99 Its text is highly Latinized, in consonance with the intellectual fashion of the time;100 it takes into consideration the Vulgata text, but Arragel often follows more literally the Hebrew original. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alfonso, Esperanza. Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes (New York, 2007). Brenner-Idan, Athalya, and Meira Polliack. Jewish Biblical Exegesis from Islamic Lands (Atlanta, 2019). Cohen, Mordechai Z. Opening the Gates of Interpretation (Leiden, 2011). Freudenthal, Gad. “Abraham ibn Ezra and Judah ibn Tibbon as Cultural Intermediaries,” in Haggai Ben-Shammai and Sarah Stroumsa, eds., Exchange and Transmission across Cultural Boundaries (Jerusalem, 2013), 52–81. Hary, Benjamin, and Sarah Bunin Benor. Languages in Jewish Communities Past and Present (Berlin, 2018). Khan, Lily, ed. Jewish Languages in Historical Perspective (Leiden, 2008). Khan, Lily. Handbook of Jewish Languages (Leiden, 2015). Maman, Aharon. Comparative Semitic Philology in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2004). Sáenz-Badillos, Ángel. A History of the Hebrew Language, trans. John Elwolde (Cambridge, 1993).

99

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Facsimile reproduction: La Biblia de Alba: An Illustrated Manuscript Bible in Castilian, by Rabbi Moses Arragel [Edición facsímil], ed. Jeremy Schonfield, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1992). Andrés Enrique Arias, “Una nueva herramienta para la investigación de fuentes bíblicas en la Edad Media: el corpus Biblia medieval,” in Jesús Cañas Murillo, Francisco Javier Grande Quejigo, and José Roso Díaz, eds., Medievalismo en Extremadura: Estudios sobre Literatura y Cultura Hispánicas de la Edad Media (Cáceres, 2010), 85 94; Francisco Javier Pueyo Mena, “Biblias romanceadas y en ladino,” in Iacob M. Hassán, Ricardo Izquierdo Benito, and Elena Romero, eds., Sefardíes: Literatura y lengua de una nación dispersa (Cuenca, 2008), 193 263.

chapter 20

BOOK PRODUCTION judith olszowy schlanger

The medieval period was a time of important changes in Jewish book culture in the Muslim world. While book production and use were to some extent a continuation of ancient traditions, medieval Jewish readers discovered an array of unprecedented subjects and genres. Unlike anonymous or apocryphal transmission of antiquity, individual medieval authors strove to shape and control the circulation of their original works by fostering the notion of an “authorized” and “correct” text.1 Books took new physical forms and formats, used newly introduced book materials, and acquired a new status as sought after vehicles of scientific knowledge, pleasurable pastimes, or as prized collectors’ pieces. A book’s appearance depended on its cultural context but was also related to its intended destination: public use in a synagogue or a house of learning, a trophy acquisition for the library of a wealthy bibliophile, or for personal use as modest textbooks for scholars or schoolchildren. The reader and his capacity to make use of the books, his reading comfort, and his literacy and linguistic skills were all important considerations when a book was made. Books had already taken on an important role in Jewish religious, intellectual, and social life in the pre-Islamic period. The textual contents and physical embodiments of liturgical scrolls had been the object of veneration and well-defined rules of production and use. In the Middle Ages, however, books became more diversified and accessible to a growing readership within and beyond religious spheres. Pentateuch scrolls and prayer books continued, of course, to be a focus of public and private devotion, and rabbinic authorities strove to safeguard ancient techniques by declaring them to be compulsory for the production 1

The transmission of the works of Maimonides is a good example of the author’s control. MS Oxford, Bodl. Hunt. 80 contains a note in Maimonides’ own hand saying that it was “corrected against my own book”; see Colette Sirat, “La composition et l’édition des textes philosophiques juifs au moyen âge: quelques exemples,” Bulletin de philosophie médiévale 30 (1988), 224 32.

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book production 667 of liturgical scrolls. Geonic responsa addressed the discrepancy between their contemporary bookmaking techniques influenced by non-Jewish book cultures, and the normative rules of the Talmud. Some scholars, such as Pirqoy b. Baboy (eighth/ninth century), outwardly criticized the use of parchment for scrolls by the Jews of the Land of Israel and advocated the scrolls on tanned leather (gevil), as was common in his native Iraq.2 Great rabbinic authorities, chief among them Moses Maimonides, included rules in their legal compendia for making liturgical books, whereas new guidebooks for scribes strove to systematize the ancient talmudic prescriptions in a more pedagogical and handy form. However, many Eastern medieval scrolls, preserved as fragments in the Cairo Genizah, depart from the strict norm. In the Middle Ages, the Jewish book gained new intellectual and economic dimensions with the spread of literacy beyond the sphere of liturgy. The growth of a literate audience entailed an unprecedented production of books in a variety of fields. Books became the prime means for transmission of scientific knowledge, the main tool for professional undertakings of justice, medicine, and trade; reading books, including belles lettres, came to be seen as a source of sophisticated enjoyment. These changes in medieval Jewish readership occurred in a close contact with Arabic book culture and massive book production. Jews not only spoke Arabic but from the ninth century onward had adopted it as one of their literary languages.3 Attuned to the Arabic culture of refinement (Arabic, adab), Jews took interest and participated creatively in the literary fields which were relatively new for them such as philosophy, grammar, sciences, medicine, or secular poetry. Even traditional Jewish domains such as biblical exegesis and jurisprudence underwent major transformations. Instead of the homiletically oriented anonymous midrashim, there began to thrive a genre of grammar-based “philological” commentaries written by identifiable authors. Thematically arranged legal monographs and books of precepts penned by named individuals served to systematize the teachings of the Talmud and its sages. Books became a status symbol, and wealthy Jews, like their Muslim counterparts, cherished them and did not spare efforts to search for prized items to embellish their collections. According to the thirteenth-century Syrian physician and historian Ibn Abī Usaybiʿa, a Jewish physician, Ifrāʾīm b. al-Ḥasan, amassed a huge library of _20,000 volumes, so precious that after Ifrāʾīm’s death the Fātimid caliph refused _ 2

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Louis Ginzberg, ed., Genizah Studies: In Memory of Doctor Solomon Schechter, 2 vols. (New York, 1929), 2:561 62. Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000).

668 judith olszowy-schlanger their sale to an Iraqi merchant and kept them instead for his own collections.4 The Cairo Genizah as well contains testimonies of bibliophilia, recording individuals seeking out books in faraway places. It also transmitted the pious wishes of an anonymous book owner (probably a keen talmudist judging from the contents of his library) appended to the inventory of the books he had just bought at an auction: “May God give me the privilege to read all the books I have acquired – to know, obey and follow what the Creator, may he be blessed, ordered us to do.”5 Books were also a source of aesthetic and intellectual enjoyment. The physician, mathematician, and son of a rabbi from Fez, Samawʾal b. Yahyā _ al-Maghribī (c. 1130–80), who converted to Islam at the age of thirty-three, traveled extensively in Iraq and Central Asia, and polemicized against Judaism, described his intimate reading experience: at the age of twelve or thirteen, a strong love for reading books and records from the past was awakened in my heart. I desired to know most of all what happened in days of yore and in centuries past. I therefore read compilations of accounts and stories. From them I passed to reading long entertaining stories and anthologies of tales and fables, such as the Tales of the ʿAntar, The Alexander Romance, and al-ʿAnqāʾa (The Sphinx).6

Indeed, the interest of Jewish readers in belles lettres is confirmed by the presence in the Genizah of such books as The Alexander Romance, Kalīla wa-Dimna (Figure 20.1), or the Arabian Nights.7 Indeed, from the tenth century onward, readership in Eastern Jewish society was at its peak. Although the numbers of medieval manuscripts preserved today are by no means an exact reflection of the number of books actually produced in the past, the mass of book fragments preserved in the Cairo Genizah alone is overwhelming. The Jewish inhabitants of Fustāt _ _ were active book producers and compulsive readers – and, most importantly, they filled the genizah storage rooms of their synagogues not only, as prescribed, with holy writings but with any written matter, however profane

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Emilie Savage Smith, Simon Swain, and Geert Jan van Velder, eds., A Literary History of Medicine: The ʿUyūn al anbāʾ fī tabaqāt al atibbāʾ of Ibn Abī Usaybiʿah (Brill Online), _ _ L’armoire à sagesse. https://brill.com/view/db/lhom, _14.26.2 3. See Houari Touati, Bibliothèques et collections en Islam (Paris, 2003), 50. CUL T S NS 83.37 of 1153 55, in Nehemiah Allony, Miriam Frenkel, and Haggai Ben Shammai, eds., with the participation of Moshe Sokolow, The Jewish Library in the Middle Ages: Book Lists from the Cairo Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006), doc. #58. See Joseph Sambari, Sefer Divrei Yosef [Hebrew], ed. Shimʿon Shtober (Jerusalem, 1994), 16 17. S. D. Goitein, “On the Oldest Documentary Evidence for the Title Alf Laila wa Laila,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 78 (1958), 301 2. See Chapter 29 in this volume.

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Figure 20.1 CUL T S Ar. 51.60, a leaf from an illustrated codex of Kalīla wa Dimna, found in the Cairo Genizah

or trivial it was. The discovery of the Cairo Genizah by European scholars in the second half of the nineteenth century provided Jewish historians with a huge corpus of more than 300,000 fragments of manuscripts, the majority dating from the Fātimid (967–1171 ce) and Ayyūbid (1171–1250) periods. _ More than 95 percent of the fragments came from books rather than documents. It is not possible at the present state of research to ascertain to how many volumes these fragments originally belonged. According to a rough estimate proposed by Malachi Beit Arié, 40,000 books were written or available in Fustāt between 1000 and 1250.8 In addition to the frag_ _better-preserved manuscripts from Egypt and other ments, thousands of 8

Malachi Beit Arié, Hebrew Codicology: History and Comparative Typology of Hebrew Medieval Codices Based on Documentation of the Extant Dated Manuscripts in Quantitative Approach, prepublication Internet version 2018, p. 65 (http://web.nli.org .il/sites/NLI/Hebrew/collections/manuscripts/hebrew codicology/).

670 judith olszowy-schlanger centers of the Eastern Diaspora are extant. They are housed today in major collections across the world, chief among them the Firkovich collections at the Russian National Library, the Pococke and Huntington collections at the Bodleian Library, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, and the British Library. The cultural and literary changes brought about by contact with Arabic culture had an impact not only on the contents, genres, and reading practices, but also on the logistics and contexts of book production and on material aspects of Jewish books. Medieval book production involved a growing professionalization together with major technical developments, including the adoption of the codex form for a wide array of Jewish texts; the use of paper; the development of paratextual elements such as clear page layouts and graphically distinct text divisions to facilitate consultation and navigation in the body of a text. These all had a massive impact on the spread and the systematizing of knowledge. These features are the topics of the overview presented here, addressing in turn issues of the contexts and economics of book production, the status of their scribes, and the material and technical aspects such as writing materials, the shapes and formats of books, their aesthetic composition, their internal organization, their copying and script, and, finally, their binding.9 THE AVAILABILITY OF BOOKS

If a Jewish person wanted to read a book, he had several possibilities to find one, all of them well-documented for the medieval period. He could commission or create a new book or buy an existing book, inherit, get as a gift, borrow, steal, loot, redeem, read at someone else’s home or in a bookseller’s shop – or, for some books, find it in a synagogue or a school (beit midrash). Contracts of sale or donation – often written within the books themselves – record consecutive purchases and changes of ownership, and a number of Genizah documents attest to the importance of the profession of booksellers (warrāqūn) and of the specialized book market. Fees for mediation in selling books were roughly 10 percent of the price of the book. In the document Bodl. MS Heb. d 66/119, the intermediary (samsār) Solomon b. Elijah ha-Dayyan sells a copy of Galen’s S ̣inaʿāt al-Ṭibb for eleven dirhams, ten for the seller and one as his commission, 9

The description of the books’ materiality here is indebted to the work of the Franco Israeli Hebrew Palaeography project led since the 1960s by Malachi Beit Arié and Colette Sirat and its main result, the online database of the manuscripts with an explicit date of copy, Sfardata, http://sfardata.nli.org.il/.

book production 671 and a copy of the Guide for the Perplexed for thirty-two dirhams, of which he retained two dirhams.10 The role of professional brokers in the trade in secondhand books is also attested.11 Book inventories, dedicatory inscriptions in the volumes and documents from the Cairo Genizah yield information on book bequests. Books were transmitted as family heirlooms but were also donated to communal institutions for public use. As attested by the extant inventories, synagogues owned books for liturgy, for study, or for their commercial value. Just like silk garments and other valuables donated to the synagogues, books were assets which could be liquidated and used for funding such community activities as charity for the poor.12 The usual way of acquisition of Torah scrolls and other books by synagogues was through the inalienable endowment to a pious foundation (heqdesh), bearing similarities to the Muslim waqf. Many extant codices of the Bible and other texts contain dedicatory inscriptions of endowment (haqdashah), in many cases to Karaite institutions.13 Although a comprehensive inventory of the manuscripts with such inscriptions has not yet been drawn up, the known evidence is sufficient to reveal the importance 10 11

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Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #41. In the twelfth century, a book merchant, Nissim be Rabbi Shelah, acts as an agent for the sale of the collection of Isaac b. Hayyim Nafusi ha Melammed to a haver whose _ Library, name is not mentioned (Bodl. MS Heb. d 66/129); see Allony et al., Jewish doc. #41. When a physician, Mukhtār known as Ibn Ilyās, in the small town of Dammūh in the Egyptian Rīf bequeathed his collection of medical books to the small local synagogue, he certainly did not intend to transform it into a medical school. See S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 2:111 and 485n37 (JTS ENA 2727.15E). For example, the codex of the Prophets from the Karaite synagogue Mūsā Darʿī in Cairo, today in private hands, an eleventh century copy of a model made in 896 and vocalized by Moses b. Asher, was dedicated to the Karaite school in Jerusalem, described as “the compound (haser) of Yaʿabes b. Solomon”; see Richard Gottheil, “Some Hebrew Manuscripts _in_ Cairo,” Jewish_ Quarterly Review 17 (1905), 609 55, doc. #34; Federico Pérez Castro et al., eds., El Códice de Profetas de el Cairo (Madrid, 1979 88); Malachi Beit Arié, Colette Sirat, and Mordechai Glatzer, Codices hebraicis litteris exarati quo tempore scripti fuerint exhibentes; Tome I: jusqu’à 1020 (Turnhout, 1997), vol. 1, doc. #1, or the famous “Aleppo Codex” (MS Jerusalem, Ben Zvi Institute no. 1), vocalized by Aaron b. Moses Ben Asher in c. 930, and donated to the Karaite community of Jerusalem by Israel b. Simhah b. Seʿadyah b. Ephraim of Basra, according to the _ Pentateuch, during inscriptions, which were lost,_ together with a large portion of the anti Jewish riots in Aleppo in 1947. See Haggai Ben Shammai, “Notes on the Peregrinations of the Aleppo Codex,” in Yaron Harel, Yom Tov Assis, and Miriam Frenkel, eds., Eres u meloʾah: The Jews of Aleppo: Their History and Culture (Jerusalem, 2009), 1:148 53. _

672 judith olszowy-schlanger of the phenomenon among the Karaites.14 Pious donation was also widespread among the Rabbanites. Maimonides’ son Abraham mentions a dedicated scroll in one of his responsa,15 and several inventories of the Babylonian and Palestinian synagogues in Fustāt describe their books as an _ _ endowed property (waqf).16 Such endowments implied that a wealthy individual commissioned or bought a book and then donated it to the synagogue. Some inscriptions specify that the book was acquired with the patron’s own money. Indeed, pious endowment was an important institution at the time when patronage and charity were pillars of the social order. Giving a book to a charitable end was commendable on two accounts. First, it allowed the donor to accomplish a commandment, made explicit by Maimonides, that each man should produce a Torah scroll for himself or at least be a patron of its composition (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Sefer Torah 7:1–2). Second, it was an elegant and memorable way of alms giving, directed toward a communal good, with a durable record of this generous act, inscribed in a cherished object on public display. This is why donating a book was a frequent practice for men and women alike. A letter to his wife by a cantor and scribe, Isaac b. Baruch, who left Fustāt to look for employment in the provinces (he writes from _ _ contains a request to communicate with a lady, Umm Sammanūd), Thanā, who is eagerly awaiting a copy of the Pentateuch.17 It seems that the copy was happily accomplished, since a “new codex of the Torah ordered and dedicated to the synagogue by Umm Thanā” is listed among the possessions of the Babylonian synagogue of Fustāt in 1181.18 _ _ 14

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A Karaite letter describing the looting of Jerusalem by the Crusaders in 1099 (CUL T S 10J5.6 and TS 20.113) mentions the redeeming in Ascalon of no less than 230 Bibles (i.e., codices) and 28 Torah scrolls, all consecrated for the community; see Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634 1099), 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1982), vol. 1, sec. 947, vol. 3, doc. #577 (vol. 1 translated into English as A History of Palestine, 634 1099 (Cambridge, 1992)). Abraham Maimonides, Responsa, #102, 1:161 67. E.g., Bodl. MS Heb. f 56/50 and CUL T S 20.47, Fustāt, list the books of the synagogue _ _the Bible and Targum, but also of the Babylonians of 1080, listing seventeen codices of non biblical works: eight fascicles (juzʾ) of Halakhot Gedolot, and two fascicles of an order of the Mishnah. Legal works were indeed donated to the synagogues as attested by a copy of Lawāzim al Hukkām (Instructions for the Judges) by Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon, gifted by a daughter of Masliah b. Solomon ha Kohen, the head of the Palestinian _ book had previously belonged to Masliah’s father, yeshiva in Fustāt since 1127._ The _ _ _ _ Solomon b. Elijah Gaʾon; see Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #80. CUL T S 13 J 20.9, ed. Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fātimid _ 302 Caliphs, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1920 22), 1:242 and 2:307 8; Allony et al., Jewish Library, (wrongly cited as CUL T S 13 J 20.19). Bodl. MS Heb. f 56/50; Allony et al. Jewish Library, 301.

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CONTEXTS AND MODES OF BOOK PRODUCTION

Whereas synagogues and houses of learning were places where books were read and made accessible, these institutions never played a role comparable to that of Christian and Muslim religious establishments. Christian book production in the early Middle Ages was primarily carried out in monastic scriptoria, which ensured a certain uniformity and control over the transmission of the texts and their graphic form.19 Even when the focus of Latin bookmaking shifted from the contemplative monasteries to the lay town workshops in the twelfth century, book production was supervised by the Church and the newly established universities. In the Muslim world, book production was to some degree initiated and overseen by the caliphal libraries, such as the Dār al-Ḥikma founded in ʿAbbāsid Baghdad by the caliph al-Maʾmūn,20 Umayyad Damascus, or the library in Fātimid Cairo founded by al-ʿAzīz in 988,21 which not only treasured books_ and made them available to the public but employed scribes to make new copies to enrich the collections, and later by schools (madāris, sing. madrasa). By contrast, Malachi Beit-Arié has concluded that Jewish books were “almost exclusively the product of private initiative.”22 Indeed, there is no evidence that the synagogues or other communal institutions were the locus or agents of book production. As we saw, the synagogues possessed books and needed them for liturgy,23 and elementary schools adjacent to the synagogues kept communal codices for teaching orphans and poor children who could not afford a personal bible.24 These institutions were therefore the primary consumers of books and played a leading role in promoting literacy and the centrality of the book in Jewish life. However, only one document in the Genizah corpus portrays the Fustāt community as an _ _ 19 20 21

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Guglielmo Cavallo, ed., Le biblioteche nel mondo antico e medievale (Rome, 1989), xxii. Johannes Pedersen, The Arabic Book (Princeton, 1984), 44. Yūsuf Eche (Ishsh), Les bibliothèques arabes publiques et semi publiques en Mésopotamie, en Syrie et en Egypte au moyen âge (Damascus, 1967), 79 and 86. Beit Arié, Hebrew Codicology, 84; Malachi Beit Arié, Unveiled Faces of Medieval Hebrew Books: The Evolution of Manuscript Production Progression or Regression (Jerusalem, 2003), 62 63. From the colophons of some 4,000 codices, Beit Arié gathered that, all in all, 38 percent of books were produced by a scribe working on commission for a specified patron, 29 percent were written by a scribe for his own use or for a member of his family, and 33 percent do not contain any mention of their destination. Bodl. MS Heb. f 56/49; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #82. JTS ENA 4010.1 lists codices of the Bible, which are described as for the use of the orphans. For the books copied for the use of children in wealthier families, see CUL T S 16.179, Bodl. MS Heb. d. 37/1 (1044, a Pentateuch bought by Yahyā b. Hillel for his _ son); Bodl. MS Heb. d. 44/3 (a section of Ezekiel copied by a teacher for two boys); CUL T S 20.131 (a father returns a Pentateuch); Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:557.

674 judith olszowy-schlanger agent helping to finance a book. A synagogue inventory (Bodl. MS Heb. f 56/50 (lines 11–12)) of 1181/82 contains a record of “a large codex of four Former Prophets with an inscription ‘al-Shaykh Abū Mansūr the _ from Physician,’ which was acquired half with his money and the rest 25 community (qahal)” (Figure 20.2). In general, the production of Jewish books appears to have been a matter of private financing. Indeed, from the colophons of 395 explicitly dated Oriental codices, Malachi Beit-Arié gathered that 22 percent were commissioned by specified patrons, 27 percent were copied by a scribe for his own use, and 51 percent do not specify their destination.26 The modes of production based on patronage and user production are indeed well attested. Many colophons include names and praises for the wealthy bibliophiles, and Genizah documents contain information about the paying patrons commissioning professional scribes to copy books for their private collections. For example, a contract enrolled in the register of the Palestinian congregation of Fustāt in 1021 (CUL T-S 10 J 5.15), contains the terms of _ _ agreement between Samuel b. Jacob, the exceptional scribe of the “Leningrad Codex” (and several other extant manuscripts27), and the wealthy Salāma b. Saʿīd b. S ̣aghīr. This remarkable scribe undertakes to produce a volume containing the Prophets and the Hagiographa, including the consonantal text, the vowels and the Masoretic annotations, inscriptions between the codex sections, the binding, and the outer wrapper – all for the large sum of twenty-five gold dinars. The contract specifies that the book must follow as its model (namūdaj) a Pentateuch that the scribe had previously made for another patron, Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm b. Ḥujayj _ (Abraham b. Haggai).28 On the opposite end from the work of a commissioned artistcalligrapher lies the production of books for one’s personal use. Colophons of such books state that the scribe copied them “in his own handwriting and for himself.”29 Some user-produced books are carefully copied, whereas others reveal their informal nature by the poor quality of materials and execution.

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26 Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #81. Beit Arié, Hebrew Codicology, 108. Kim Phillips, “A New Codex behind the Scribe of the Leningrad Codex: L17,” Tyndale Bulletin 68, 1 (2017), 1 29. Ben Outhwaite, “Beyond the Leningrad Codex: Samuel ben Jacob in the Cairo Genizah,” in Nadia Vidro, Ronny Vollandt, Esther Miriam Wagner, and Judith Olszowy Schlanger, eds., Studies in Semitic Linguistics and Manuscripts: A Liber Discipulorum in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Khan (Uppsala, 2018), 330 32. E.g., RNL Firkovich EBP AP I 4562, Kitāb al Mustalhaq of Jonah Ibn Janāh, copied in _ _ ʿAden, in 1143, by Eleazar b. Abraham b. Elisha.

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Figure 20.2 Bodleian Library, MS Heb f 56.50, recto: inventory of books in the Iraqis’ synagogue in Fustāt _ _

In addition to the patronage and user production, medieval book culture in the world of Islam witnesses a considerable growth of professionalization of production destined for the now thriving book market. This market was the domain of warrāqūn (from Arabic waraq, “paper”), “stationers,” book and writing-ware professionals and their specialized

676 judith olszowy-schlanger shops and ateliers in the large urban centers.30 The evidence of Jewish warrāqūn provided by the booklists from the Cairo Genizah was recently studied by Miriam Frenkel, who concluded that they operated as an elite network, in which bookmakers, sellers, buyers, collectors, and readers played interchangeable roles.31 Indeed, warrāqūn were scribes and books, paper ware and writing professionals of versatile skills. The notebook of a warrāq in Bodl. MS Heb. f 22/25b–52b, written sometime between 1155 and 1162, contains his different accounts, personal notes, and shorthand drafts of legal contracts he was to prepare as clean copies for the parties who hired him to act as a public scrivener copying documents on demand. The notebook contains lists of books he sold and lists of books he lent in exchange for a payment.32 Other documents concerning warrāqūn show that they acted as intermediaries to acquire books for collectors, sometimes in distant places, such as an anonymous agent who in the first half of the eleventh century bought books for a wealthy Karaite merchant of Fustāt, identified by Geoffrey _ their Muslim counterKhan as Daʾūd b. ʿImrān.33 Jewish warrāqūn, _like parts, were often scholars and authors. Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder, son of an emissary of an Iraqi gaon, who settled in Egypt at the end of the twelfth century, left dozens of handwritten notes including his trade booklists and drafts of his own legal works.34 Some warrāqūn specialized in bookbinding.35 They also acted as entrepreneurs employing other scribes who produced books for sale. BOOK PRICES

Whether cheap fascicles or sumptuous display copies, made for one’s personal use or for a wealthy patron, by a freelance artist or by a craftsman in a warrāq’s shop, books had costs and prices and were a part of the local 30 31

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See Pedersen, The Arabic Book, 43. Miriam Frenkel, “Book Lists from the Cairo Genizah: A Window on the Production of Texts in the Middle Ages,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 80 (2017), 241. Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #40; see Goitein, “The Oldest Documentary Evidence,” 301 2. CUL T S K 25.230, ed. Geoffrey Khan, “On the Question of Script in Medieval Karaite Manuscripts: New Evidence from the Genizah,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library of Manchester 75, 3 (1993), 132 41. Allony et al., Jewish Library, docs. #97 114, and bibliography there; Lipa Ginat, Rabbi Joseph Rosh ha Seder and His Commentaries on the Mishnah (from the Genizah) [Hebrew] (master’s thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1990). Allony et al., Jewish Library, docs. #43 45.

book production 677 economy. Booklists, contracts, and letters from the Cairo Genizah give some information on book prices, mostly for the twelfth and thirteenth century. Even when accounting for the variability in the value of coins through time,37 book prices varied greatly according to the type of text, the material quality of the book, or whether the book was new or secondhand.38 Prices depended on the size and costs of the writing material – notably papyrus, parchment, paper, and ink, which varied according to its type and quality. In the Fātimid period, parchment was expensive, paper slightly less so: thirty leaves_ of paper could be bought for one dinar, but less expensive Baghdadi paper could be found for four and a half dirhams for ten leaves.39 In the tenth century, a ratl (Egyptian pound) of ink could _ cost of the scribe’s work was be bought for a quarter of a dirham. The 40 about half the price of the book. The calligraphic vocalized Hebrew Bible required large quantities of parchment and time to make. Zakkay b. Moses, a scribe from al-Mahalla in the twelfth century, received two and a half dinars for a copy of_ the Judeo-Arabic tafsīr of the Pentateuch, and complained that he was grossly underpaid, since this work was as intricate as the copying and vocalizing of a Hebrew Bible (CUL T-S 13 J 20.11).41 For the making of the aforementioned codex of the Prophets and Hagiographa in 1021, the calligrapher Samuel b. Jacob was paid 25 dinars, the price of another Bible from the same period, mentioned in a letter of Nahray b. Nissim (CUL T-S 16.339 verso).42 The most expensive full Bible on record is worth thirty-seven and a half dinars,43 whereas the cheapest full Bible costs only fourteen dinars.44 In the thirteenth century, documented prices of the Pentateuch alone 36

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44

See Eliyahu Ashtor, Histoire des prix et des salaires dans l’orient médiéval (Paris, 1969), 216. See Ashtor, Histoire des prix et des salaires, 61: for instance, in the eleventh century, one dinar was equivalent to twenty four dirhams; in the twelfth century, one dinar was close to the rate of forty dirhams. In general, new books were more expensive. A booklist in Bodl. MS Heb. b 3/35, from the twelfth century, lists relatively inexpensive books, their prices ranging from two to fifteen dirhams. The exception is a kitāb jadīd, “a new book,” which costs half a dinar. Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #48. Ashtor, Histoire des prix et des salaires, 112. Judith Olszowy Schlanger, “Cheap Books in Medieval Egypt: Rotuli from the Cairo Genizah,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 4 (2016), 82 101. 42 Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:238, 574. Ibid., 239, 574. A three volume item mentioned in a booklist of 1153 55 (CUL T S NS 83.37); see Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #58. It appears in a postmortem inventory of the library of Abraham he Hasid, put on sale in Fustāt in 1223 (CUL T S 20.44); see Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #67. _ _

678 judith olszowy-schlanger range between two and a half dinars45 (JTS ENA 1290.7) and eight dinars (CUL T-S 20.44); the eight Prophets between two dinars (JTS ENA 1290.7) and twenty-two dinars (CUL T-S 20.44); and Hagiographa between three dinars (CUL T-S 20.44) and ten dinars (JTS ENA 1290.7).46 Separate biblical books were also sold as small, low-cost fascicles: for instance, a Book of Daniel in twelfth-century Fustāt was worth only two dirhams (Bodl. MS Heb. b. 3/35b).47 Unvocalized_ _scrolls on leather were less expensive than the best quality codices, despite their high-quality writing material; in a list of Joseph Rosh ha-Seder drawn up in Fustāt circa _ _ the 1200, two Torah scrolls together with two scrolls of the lections from Prophets (Haftarot) and two scrolls of Esther are all estimated at forty _ K 6.170).48 A “megillah on leather” (probably a scroll of dinars (CUL T-S Esther) is priced at eighteen and a half dirhams of poor alloy (waraq) (CUL T-S 20.44).49 Indeed, the vocalization and Masoretic notes in Bible codices required more time and skilled work. Non-biblical codices were slightly cheaper. Prices of midrashim are around a quarter of a dinar for a fascicle (juzʾ).50 A copy of the Mishnah in five parts cost five dinars (JTS ENA 1290.7).51 Two orders of the Babylonian Talmud (Neziqin and Moʿed) in two volumes reached no less than twenty dinars (CUL T-S NS 83.37),52 but in another document twenty dinars could buy four orders (CUL T-S K 6.170).53 Separate tractates were also sold as small fascicles, for instance a copy of Bava Qamma for seven dirhams, in 1229.54 The prices of books on science, linguistics, or philosophy varied. For example, a bound fascicle of Euclid’s 45

46

47 50

51 52 53

54

A Pentateuch codex was sold in the twelfth century through the intermediary of a warrāq for a very modest price of only twenty five dirhams, but it was incomplete, lacking the beginning and the end; Bodl. MS Heb. d 66/129; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #41. CUL T S 20.44 is a postmortem public sale of books of Abraham he Hasid, drawn up in 1223, in Fustāt; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #67. JTS ENA 1290.7, another _ _ postmortem inventory, can be dated to the thirteenth century, Egypt; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #47. 48 49 Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #48. Ibid., doc. #99. Ibid., doc. #67. For instance, a bound volume of Vayiqra Rabba and a section on dreams from Babylonian Talmud Berakhot mentioned in Bodl. MS Heb. d 66/131 132; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #46. For the definition of juzʾ, see Geneviève Humbert, “Le ğuz’ dans les manuscrits arabes médiévaux,” in François Déroche and Francis Richard, eds., Scribes et manuscrits du Moyen Orient (Paris, 1997), 77 86. This was in thirteenth century Egypt; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #47. 1153 55, in Fustāt; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #58. _ _of Joseph Rosh ha Seder, c. 1200, Fustāt; Allony et al., Jewish Library, A list and a note _ _ doc. #99. Bodl. MS Heb. d 66/119; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #56.

book production 679 Elements costs a quarter of a dinar (Bodl. MS Heb. d 66/131–32), and the comprehensive biblical dictionary the Kitāb al-Usūl of Jonah Ibn Janāh 55 _ was priced, together with another book, at three dinars; three fascicles of_ Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed were worth three dinars.56 THE SCRIBES

A book’s economic value and its aesthetic and textual qualities depended to a large extent on its scribes (Hebrew, sofer; Arabic, kātib), whether they were literate individuals copying books for themselves, authors preparing their own works for circulation, or skilled professionals making books for sale. In societies before print, the scribe or copyist was indeed the central figure in the world of books. The scribe’s work required talent, learning, physical resilience, and hard manual labor. When Jews came to recognize the art of calligraphy, some scribes enjoyed admiration and fame. Freelance calligraphers such as Samuel b. Jacob produced prized masterpieces illuminated with geometrical, architectural, and floral elements. The lines of Masoretic notes and biblical verses form intricate and decorative designs (micrography) on the opening and closing pages of the books, whose design resembles an Oriental carpet. The “Leningrad Codex” copied and decorated by Samuel b. Jacob contains no less than sixteen such ornate micrographic carpet pages. Such deluxe volumes were sought after by wealthy patrons, and the famous calligraphers’ works were the models for future generations of book craftsmen (Figure 20.3). Samuel b. Jacob’s handwriting was still used as a model for calligraphers 200 years after his death. More often, however, the paid scribes were modest schoolteachers (melammed) or members of other professions. Almost all known scribes of Jewish Oriental books were men. There were literate women in the Oriental Jewish communities and they may have copied books but there is only one known female scribe in the Orient – Miriam bt. Benaiah in Yemen, in the fifteenth century. Although scribes’ wages accounted for a large part (roughly half ) of the book’s final price, in per diem terms the salary they earned was very modest. Commissioned scribes were often paid a prearranged total price that varied according to the type of text being copied. The aforementioned Zakkay b. Moses agreed to copy the aforementioned tafsīr for three dinars (of which he received half a dinar in advance); when he had finished the work, he offered a discount of half a dinar, earning two and a half dinars in 55 56

CUL T S 20.44; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #67. JTS ENA 1290.7; Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #47.

680

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Figure 20.3 RNL MS St. Petersburg, Firkovitch I B 19a (“Leningrad Codex”), a complete Bible copied in Fustāt, in 1008, by Samuel b. Jacob for a wealthy Karaite patron, Mevorakh _ _ b. Joseph Ibn Yazdād

total (CUL T-S 13 J 20.11).57 Scribes could also be paid per page. Of course, when a price was agreed upon in advance and the parchment or paper provided by the employer, a price of a page could be calculated. In yet another Genizah letter, the scribe carefully informs the addressee that the 57

CUL T S 13 J 20.11, see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:238.

book production 681 amount of parchment sent to him was sufficient for four quires less one leaf, and that the ink he received was so bad that he would have to prepare or buy new ink.58 All these details are relevant because they affected the total price agreed for the copy. Some agreements set the price from the outset: one dirham per leaf for the copy or for the restoration of one folio of a worn-out manuscript,59 a rate similar to that attested in Arabic sources from the tenth century onward.60 Sometimes the scribe was paid per day, with attested wages of one dirham daily. We have little data concerning the rapidity of a scribe’s work. The speed could vary according to the type of text, style of script, legibility of the model to copy, and the scribe’s idiosyncrasies, but on average a scribe could copy two leaves of a calligraphic script per day.61 One dirham a day is less than the wages of manual workers, who in the eleventh century earned between twenty-five and fifty dirhams a month.62 BOOK MATERIALS

Scribes and other book professionals such as punctators, illuminators, and proofreaders, as well as parchment-, paper-, and ink-makers and bookbinders all collaborated to produce the unique object – a handwritten book with its specific size, texture, weight, graphic layout, and visual and decorative program. Books were crafted of materials reflecting the techniques and economic organization of the society. These materials had an impact on books’ accessibility and the spread of book culture. The extant Hebrew books from the Middle Ages were copied on four different materials: papyrus, leather, parchment, and paper. Papyrus is rare in the period under consideration. This ancient Egyptian writing material, obtained from the stems of an Egyptian reed (Cyperus

58 59

60

61

62

CUL T S 8.86, see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:573n30. A thirteenth century Genizah document recounts the restoration of sixty leaves of an ancient Masoretic codex in the Palestinian synagogue of Cairo; see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:239. Ashtor, Histoire des prix et des salaires, 60. Ashtor points out that in the ninth century scribes’ wages were much lower. This average corresponds to the numbers obtained for Latin manuscripts: see Carla Bozzolo and Ezio Ornato, Pour une histoire du livre manuscrit au Moyen Age. Trois essais de codicologie quantitative (Paris, 1980), 46 49. The comparison with Arabic manuscripts is irrelevant because the ligatured nature of Arabic script allows for much quicker copying. See François Déroche et al., Manuel de codicologie des manuscrits en écriture arabe (Paris, 2000), 210 11. Ashtor, Histoire des prix et des salaires, 112.

682 judith olszowy-schlanger 63 papyrus), was prevalent among Jews in classical antiquity and the Byzantine period (Hebrew, niyar). Its use declined after the Arab conquest to become rare by the eleventh century.64 When it was still used, it served mainly to copy letters and legal deeds. Only one medieval Hebrew book is known on papyrus, a small codex or rather booklet found in the Cairo Genizah (CUL T-S 6H9.21) containing liturgical poems (piyyutim) of _ Joseph b. Nissan, whose poems were included in the Palestinian synagogue 65 ritual and found in other Genizah manuscripts. The booklet is composed of twenty-four folded double sheets of papyrus, cut from a larger roll of sheets glued together (papyrus was commercialized in this form), piled and stitched with a vegetal thread to form a single quire. Though undated, this papyrus booklet is undoubtedly one of the most ancient examples of the medieval Hebrew book: the features of its square calligraphic script, the division into paragraphs using a circle with a dot inside as a paragraph marker, the aleph-lamed ligature, and the presence of a few vowels of the Palestinian type are all features consistent with tenth-century manuscripts. Leather is a processed writing material made of the tanned skins of cattle, sheep, goats, or other animals. Many fragments of leather scrolls and rotuli were found in the Cairo Genizah. Leather used for medieval scrolls is thick (full thickness of the middle layer of the skin: the dermis or corium),66 dark brown due to the tanning substance (gallnuts), shiny on the hair side, and soft and suede-like on the flesh side. Only the hair side was prepared to be used for writing. Writing found on the flesh side in some Genizah fragments is usually due to a reuse of the manuscript. The techniques by which animal hides are transformed into a writing surface were discussed in the geonic responsa and legal compendia of medieval authors.67 These descriptions concern the preparation of the writing material for liturgical scrolls, and correspond to the production of gevil 63

64 65

66

67

For a detailed description, see esp. Naphtali Lewis, Papyrus in Classical Antiquity (Oxford, 1974). For the use of papyrus in Arabic texts, see Adolf Grohmann, Arabische Paläographie (Vienna, 1967), 1:66 93; Geoffrey Khan, “Arabic Papyri,” in Yahsin Dutton, ed., The Codicology of Islamic Manuscripts (London, 1995), 1 16. Colette Sirat, Les papyrus en caractères hébraïques trouvés en Egypte (Paris, 1985), 19. Simon Hopkins, “The Oldest Dated Document in the Geniza?” in Shelomo Morag, Issachar Ben Ami, and Norman A. Stillman, eds., Studies in Judaism and Islam Presented to Shlomo Dov Goitein on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday by His Students, Colleagues and Friends (Jerusalem, 1981), 91; Sirat, Les papyrus, 67 80. The original photographs of the manuscript, taken before its conservation, were recently rediscovered in the Cambridge University Library. For the three layered structure of the skin, see John W. Waterer, Leather Craftsmanship (London, 1968), 18 23. Sources such as a responsum of Sar Shalom Gaʾon or Maimonides are quoted and analyzed by Menahem Haran, “Bible Scrolls in Eastern and Western Jewish

book production 683 68 prepared by salting, flouring, and tanning. Talmudic gevil was prepared from the full thickness of the dermis, unlike two other types of material, qelaf and duksustos, which were apparently obtained by splitting the skin _ through its thickness (Maimonides, Laws of Tefillin 1:7).69 It was considered as the most suitable material for Torah scrolls although parchment was a more frequent choice for biblical scrolls found in the Cairo Genizah. Gevil was also the material of some early scrolls from the Cairo Genizah containing late midrashim, Mishnah, or tractates of the Babylonian Talmud.70 Until the end of the eleventh century, parchment was the main writing material for Jewish books in the East. Like leather, parchment is an animal product, most frequently made from the hides of sheep, calves, and goats. Unlike leather, parchment is treated with lime, which facilitates hair removal.71 It is then thinned by scraping layers of the dermis on both sides with a knife, and the structure of its tissues is transformed by stretching the wet skin on a wooden frame and drying it under tension, rather than by beating it like leather. Parchment is untanned and usually white- or creamcolored, although some intermediary techniques are known that required light sprinkling with crushed gallnut on the hair side, which resulted in a darker color. Some medieval parchments were treated with chalk while drying, which gave them a particularly white aspect.72 Unlike leather, parchment is destined for writing on both sides. While the leather used in medieval scrolls followed ancient Jewish techniques, parchment was produced in accordance with the local techniques shared with non-Jewish neighbors. It is possible that in the East, just as in medieval Europe, parchment for Jewish books could be acquired from non-Jewish parchment-makers, although Jewish parchment-makers (Arabic, ruqūqī) are attested.73 In Judeo-Arabic texts, parchment used for Jewish books is

68 70

71

72 73

Communities from Qumran to the High Middle Ages,” Hebrew Union College Annual 56 (1985), 21 62. 69 See Haran, “Bible Scrolls,” 34 37. See ibid., 44 47. Talmud Bavli, Hullin 101a 105a, in CUL T S Misc. 26.53.17; see Shamma Friedman, “An Ancient Scroll Fragment (B. Hullin 101a 105a) and the Rediscovery of the Babylonian Branch of Tannaitic Hebrew,” Jewish Quarterly Review 86 (1995), 9 50. For an overview, see Judith Olszowy Schlanger, “The Anatomy of Non biblical Scrolls from the Cairo Geniza,” in Irina Wandrey, ed., Jewish Manuscript Cultures: New Perspectives (Berlin, 2017), 49 88. For attestations of the use of lime in Jewish sources, see the responsum of Hayya Gaʾon, ed. Albert Harkavy, Responsen der Geonim (zumeist aus dem X. XI. Jahrhundert) (reprint Berlin, 2010), 28. Reed, Ancient Skins, 147. For a Jewish parchment maker, see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:422n84.

684 judith olszowy-schlanger consistently referred to by the Arabic term raqq – untanned Eastern parchment.74 It is noteworthy that the lack of tanning made raqq difficult for rabbinic authorities to accept as suitable for writing liturgical scrolls. Raqq was not identified with any of the types of leather mentioned in the Talmud, unlike the Western “parchment” identified with qelaf and considered suitable for religious writings in Europe.75 But raqq nonetheless prevails in Hebrew bookmaking until the end of the eleventh century when, except for large Masoretic Bible codices, it is progressively replaced by paper. Toward the end of the eleventh century, paper became the most frequent writing material for Eastern Jewish books. Invented in China some five centuries before Islam, papermaking technology was adopted by the Arabs by the mid-eighth century. A paper factory functioned in Bagdad as early as 794.76 In the Muslim world, paper was made of a paste of vegetal fibers (linen, hemp, cotton cloth, or recycled paper), bleached with lime, soaked and suspended in water, and finally placed in a mold, drained, and dried. The quality and the type of paper depended on the raw material but also on the quality of the water and the structure and size of the mold. Until the late thirteenth century, Eastern manuscripts were copied exclusively on so-called Oriental paper, whose main characteristic is the absence of watermarks – the trademarks of paper mills, which were introduced in thirteenth-century Italy and continued to be used in Western papermaking.77 The absence of watermarks makes it difficult to divide Eastern paper into types, but preliminary attempts at such a typology, notably for Jewish manuscripts, have been made on the basis of particularities of format and other traces left by the mold: imprints of metal wires parallel to the long sides of the mold (“laid lines”) and of the wooden parts parallel to the short sides of the mold (“chain lines”).78 Malachi Beit-Arié has divided the paper in Hebrew dated manuscripts into three groups corresponding roughly to the three types of molds used in Arabic paper mills:79 paper without visible 74

75 76

77

78

79

For raqq and jild, see esp. Gerhard Endress, “Pergament in der Codicologie des islamisch arabischen Mittelalters,” in Peter Rück, ed., Pergament: Geschichte, Struktur, Restaurierung, Herstellung (Sigmaringen, 1991), 45 46. See Haran, “Bible Scrolls,” 50 52. Josef von Karabacek, “Das arabische Papier,” in Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer (Vienna, 1887), vols. 2 3; Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World (New Haven, 2001). See Marie Thérèse Le Léannec Bavavéas, Les papiers non filigranés médiévaux de la Perse à l’Espagne: Bibliographie, 1950 1995 (Paris, 1998). Malachi Beit Arié, “The Oriental Arabic Paper,” Gazette du Livre Médiéval 28 (1996), 9 12; Malachi Beit Arié, “Quantitative Typology of Oriental Paper Patterns,” in Monique Zerdoun, ed., Le papier au moyen âge: histoire et techniques (Turnhout, 1999), 41 53. See Karabacek, “Das arabische Papier,” 53.

book production 685 lines (attested in a limited number of Iraqi, Persian, and Yemenite writings), paper with visible laid lines only (mainly from Iraq and Persia), and paper with differently grouped chain lines.80 The use of paper is attested among Eastern Jews as early as the eighth century (in this case Chinese, mulberry bark paper), in documents found in the oases situated along the Silk Road: two Judeo-Persian letters from Dandan-Uilik (British Library Or 8212/16681 and National Library of China B 1–1982) and a leaf with a prayer in Hebrew vocalized with Babylonian vowels, probably brought by Paul Peillot from Dung-Huang (BNF MS hébr. 1412). From the tenth century onward, paper was used in Jewish documents and books, the earliest explicitly dated book being British Library Or 2554, written in 1005. From that time onward the use of paper increases, to replace almost completely the other types of writing material for most types of books, except for liturgical scrolls. Most paper manuscripts are of medium or small size and are less formal than some parchment codices such as Masoretic Bibles. Nonetheless, just like the Qurʾān, some paper manuscripts were high-quality calligraphic books, such as the Karaite Hebrew Bibles in Arabic script (Figure 20.4), the early eleventh-century Hebrew-Arabic Pentateuch MS Russian National Library Firkovich EBP II C 1, copied by Samuel b. Jacob for a certain Solomon b. Abraham the Clerk, or the codex of the Prophets MS Russian National Library Firkovich EBP II C 144, copied in 1122 in Alexandria for a certain Solomon.83 INKS

Two basic types of ink (Hebrew, diyo) were used in Eastern Jewish manuscripts: “black” carbon-based ink prepared from soot (lamp-black) mixed with a binding agent84 and “brown” ink prepared with a tanning 80

81

82

83 84

Malachi Beit Arié, Hebrew Codicology: Tentative Typology of Technical Practices Employed in Hebrew Dated Medieval Manuscripts (Paris, 1976), 29 32. David S. Margoliouth, “An Early Judaeo Persian Document From Khotan in the Stein Collection, with Other Early Persian Documents,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (October, 1903), 737 60; Gilbert Lazard, “Remarques sur le fragment judéo persan de Dandan Uiliq,” in Werner Sundermann, Jacques Duchesne Guillemin, and Fereydun Vahman, eds., Barg e Sabz. A Green Leaf: Papers in Honour of Professor Jes P. Asmussen (Leiden, 1988), 205 9. Zhan Zhang, “The Second Jewish Persian Letter, ca. 790,” in Valerie Hansen, ed., The Silk Road: A New History with Documents (New York, 2017), 381 82. These two letters are written by the same scribe. Their further paleographical study is a desideratum. See Glatzer, Sirat, and Beit Arié, Codices, vol. 3, doc. #60. For various recipes for black ink, see Monique Zerdoun Bat Yehouda, Les encres noires au moyen âge (jusqu’à 1600) (Paris, 1983).

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Figure 20.4 British Library, MS Or 2540, a carpet page of a Karaite Bible in Arabic script, Egypt (eleventh century)

substance, notably gallnuts (Hebrew, ʿafasim) macerated in water mixed _ vitriol) and a binding agent with metallic salts (iron or copper sulfates, (resin). Maimonides provides us with a recipe for mixed ink: the carbonbased ink made from lamp-black (obtained from oil, wax, pitch, etc.)

book production 687 kneaded with resin and honey into dry “cakes” diluted with a gallnut solution (before writing the solid “cakes” are soaked in gallnut water). He also mentions the possibility of writing with gallnut water or qanqantum (vitriol) alone, which he considers equally acceptable for religious purposes and more durable (Laws of Tefillin 1:4). As time passes, “black” ink can look black or gray, while “brown” ink assumes all kind of hues, from almost black to dark or light brown, to orange and almost yellow; for a reliable identification of the ink composition modern scientific techniques such as multispectral imaging and X-ray fluorescence can be useful.85 The quality and precise proportions of the ingredients account for how well the text will be preserved. Too many metallic salts may result in corrosion, with letters literally biting into the writing material and leaving holes where the strokes used to be. Pure black inks are easily washed with water, while gallnut inks have tanning properties and, when used on parchment or leather, react with the writing support to stain it permanently. Obtaining good quality ink was a matter of primary importance for scribes. Genizah letters show that scribes from provincial towns did not hesitate to import good ink from Fustāt.86 _ _ BOOK FORMS AND THEIR STRUCTURE

In the Middle Ages, Jewish books were written in the form of scrolls, rolls, and codices of various formats and dimensions. Scrolls (Hebrew, sefer or megillah; in codicologists’ terminology, volumen) made of papyrus, and later of leather or parchment,87 had been the common Jewish book form since biblical times (Ezra 2:9). Rabbinic literature (both early texts such as the Mishnah and Talmud, and medieval works such as Masekhet Soferim or the responsa and commentaries) abound with rules concerning the production and preservation of scrolls, particularly those to be used in liturgy. To produce a liturgically suitable scroll, sheets of leather of a ritually clean animal species large enough to accommodate between three to eight columns of text each (Soferim 2:10) were sewn together with sinews of clean animals or with linen threads to 85

86 87

Zina Cohen, Judith Olszowy Schlanger, Oliver Hahn, and Ira Rabin, “Composition Analysis of Writing Materials in Geniza Fragments,” in Jewish Manuscript Cultures, 323 38. See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:233. Papyrus was used in a few biblical manuscripts from the Judean Desert: Emanuel Tov, “Copying of a Biblical Scroll,” Journal of Religious History 26, 2 (2002), 189. Later rabbinic texts considered it unsuitable for liturgical texts, for which more durable animal skins were preferred. See, e.g., Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 79b; Soferim 1:5.

688 judith olszowy-schlanger form a long strip of writing support. Lines of writing are perpendicular to the stitches and to the axis on which the book is opened. More often than not, the text is written on the hair side only, in parallel columns, each of them wide enough to contain on one line thrice the longest word of the Pentateuch, le-mishpehoteihem (Genesis 8:19), and containing the pre_ scribed number of forty-two lines of text. The scroll was rolled vertically, with the text on the inside, from both sides toward the middle for the Torah scrolls. The extremities of the scroll, left free of text, were fixed to wooden handles (called ʿamud, a “pillar” – or, later, ʿes hayim, “tree of _ _scrolls, but one life”).88 Twin handles at two ends were used for Pentateuch handle was sufficient for smaller and less heavy scrolls such as Esther. No complete Eastern scrolls from the Middle Ages are known to have survived, but a systematic study of the hundreds of fragments preserved in the Cairo Genizah, some as early as the eighth century, allows us to describe the medieval techniques of production and to assess their conformity with the prescriptive texts. These fragments show that the scroll was primarily used for the Pentateuch (Torah), haftarot (lectionary por_ of Esther) – that is, tions of the Prophets), and megillot (notably the Book the texts destined to be read publicly in synagogue. Other texts were copied in different book forms such as the codex. However, even in the ninth and early tenth centuries when the form of the codex was wellestablished in the Jewish bookmaking tradition, the use of scrolls for nonliturgical purposes did not cease: the early stratum of the Cairo Genizah belongs to a transitional period when the scroll form was still used for nonliturgical manuscripts.89 Indeed, over fifty fragments of horizontal scrolls on leather or parchment, including tractates of the Babylonian Talmud, liturgical poetic compilations, Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, and Aramaic Targum with vowels according to the Palestinian or Babylonian Masoretic systems have been identified so far. While none of these texts is dated, paleographical analysis reveals features consistent with manuscripts produced by the tenth century or slightly earlier.90 88

89

90

The latter echoes Proverbs 3:18, “The wisdom [that is, in rabbinic interpretation, Torah] is a tree of life for all who grasp her.” Dating manuscripts on the basis of their book form calls for caution. For some of the Cairo Genizah fragments of rabbinic literature, very early dates in the fourth or fifth century have been suggested because they were written on scrolls: see Marc Bregman, “An Early Fragment of Avot de Rabbi Nathan from a Scroll” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 52 (1983), 212. The paleographical analysis by Malachi Beit Arié quoted there (204) offers a more realistic approximation of the “ninth century at the latest.” See, as well, Stefan Reif, “Codicological Aspects of Jewish Liturgical History,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library of Manchester 75, 3 (1993), 124. Olszowy Schlanger, “The Anatomy of Non biblical Scrolls.”

book production 689 A rotulus (roll in codicologial terminology) is a scroll in which the written lines are parallel to the stitched edges of the individual sheets, which is consequently read vertically and unrolled from top to bottom. This ancient book form was common in late antiquity and is mentioned in the Talmud (takhrikh, Babylonian Talmud Bava Mesiʿa 20b), albeit in a legal rather than literary context. The rotulus _was widespread in Byzantium and Western Europe (especially for legal records and official correspondence) and was also attested in the Arabic-speaking world.91 This book form was popular among Eastern Jews at least until the early thirteenth century. It was used for letters, documents, and amulets, but could also accommodate longer texts. Books on rotuli are documented by more than 500 fragments found in the Cairo Genizah.92 The rotuli are made from narrow strips of leather, parchment, or paper of varying length. While the height of the regular horizontal scrolls can be important (often more than 50 cm), the corresponding dimension – the width of the rotulus – is usually much smaller. So far, the widest rotuli examined reach only 27cm (e.g., CUL T-S AS 78.394 containing a talmudic text), with the narrowest some 6 cm (e.g., the liturgical rotuli CUL T-S 28.25 and CUL T-S NS 272.106), and the large majority ranging between 8 and 13 cm. Most of the rotuli are opisthographs (containing text on both sides) written in one narrow block; very often the verso is written upside down with respect to the recto. These books on long strips of writing material that were stitched – or, if made of paper, glued – together were kept in small rolls or (if paper) folded into small packets. Often of uneven quality, these rather informal books contain a wide range of texts: liturgy, grammar and lexicography, Talmud and compilations of geonic responsa, anthologies of biblical passages, magic and medicine (Figure 20.5). The codex was the most widespread form of the book among Eastern Jews in the Middle Ages. Several recent studies have discussed the question of the invention of the codex by the Romans, its adoption by the Jews, and the technical, intellectual, and economic implications of this bookmaking revolution.93 Although it is unlikely that the Jews were unfamiliar with the 91

92

93

Solange Ory, “Un nouveau type de mushaf. Inventaire des corans en rouleaux de provenance damascène, conservés à Istanbul,” Revue des Études Islamiques 33 (1965), 87 149. A detailed study of the Cairo Genizah rotuli is in preparation by Gideon Bohak and myself. See esp. Irven M. Resnick, “The Codex in Early Jewish and Christian Communities,” Journal of Religious History 17 (1992), 1 17; Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in Literary Transmission, Beliefs and Manners of Palestine in the I Century B.C.E. IV Century C.E. (New York, 1962), 204; Menahem Haran, “The Codex, the Pinax and the Tablets” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 57 (1988), 151 64.

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Figure 20.5 CUL Add 3336, liturgical poems (qinot and selihot) some by Qallir and _ letter in Judeo Arabic to Seʿadyah Gaʾon, written on a rotulus made of reused business Abū ʿAlī Ezekiel b. Nathaniel Dimyātī and a petition in Arabic to a Muslim official, _ (twelfth century) concerning taxes and land tenure, Egypt

book production 691 Roman invention, they seem to have adopted this practical and economic book form only after the Islamic conquest, probably under the influence of the Muslims who used it for the Qurʾān.94 Indeed, the terms for codex in medieval Hebrew, mashaf or daftar, are Arabic loanwords. The former designates the codex in_ _ its earliest mention among the Jews, the eighthcentury Halakhot Pesuqot of Yehuday b. Nahman Gaʾon of Sura _ (r. 760–64).95 The codex is made of quires (gatherings – Hebrew, quntrasim; Arabic, _ karārīs) composed of folded sheets of writing material – papyrus, parchment, or paper. “Gatherings” in Eastern codices usually contain five folded sheets (bifolios) in a quire, except for Persian books, in which four folded sheets were more frequent.96 But the number of sheets varies according to the quality of the book or the place of the quire in the book (often the last quire is larger or smaller, depending on the amount of text it had to accommodate). For example, the Cambridge Papyrus Codex is composed of one large quire of twenty-four sheets forming a self-contained booklet, and a copy of tractates Sanhedrin and Megillah of the Babylonian Talmud preserved in several Genizah fragments might have originally contained thirty tall and narrow sheets.97 Books circulated either as bound volumes or as separate quires. In both cases, scribes indicated the order in which the quires were to be bound together or copied and read. In the East, they included catchwords (the first word of the following quire written at the end of the previous quire, usually in the lower left corner of the last page) and signatures (quire numbers expressed in Hebrew letters). Sometimes both catchwords and signatures are found, as in the famous Leningrad Codex of the Bible (RNL I Firkovich Heb. B 19a), copied in Cairo in 1008.98 BOOK SIZES AND FORMATS

Eastern Hebrew books come in various shapes and sizes, depending in part on the kind of text to be copied and the availability of a specific size of 94 95

96

97

98

See Déroche et al., Manuel de codicologie, 13. See Halakhot Gedolot (Hilkhot Megillah) 80a, ed. Venice 1548. See also Mordechai Glatzer, “The Aleppo Codex: Codicological and Palaeographical Aspects” [Hebrew], Sefunot 4 (1989), 260 61. Malachi Beit Arié, “Some Technical Practices Employed in Hebrew Dated Medieval Manuscripts,” Codicologica 2 (1978), 82 83. Shlomi Efrati, “A Quire of Chapters of Sanhedrin and Megillah: A Unique Textual Tradition of the Babylonian Talmud” Part 1 [Hebrew], Tarbiz 85, 1 (2017), 65 144; Part 2 [Hebrew] Tarbiz 85, 2 (2018), 233 91. Beit Arié, Sirat and Glatzer, Codices, doc. #17.

692 judith olszowy-schlanger writing material. The Cairo Genizah contains examples of manuscripts in which the scribe was clearly faced with a shortage of parchment and overcame it only through his own ingenuity. In an incomplete eleventhcentury Haggadah (CUL T-S NS 71.80), two out of four folios were made up of three pieces of dark and patched parchment stitched together with white thread to create bifolios of a small but sufficient size. In general, however, and economic difficulties aside, conformity to aesthetic models was a major factor in the choice of the shape and dimensions of a book. The largest Eastern books are codices of the Masoretic Bible on parchment. Some are pandects – i.e., books containing the entire twenty-four books of the Bible in one volume – and their large size is a natural requirement.99 Heights between 30 and 35 cm are found very frequently among Genizah fragments of Masoretic Bibles (e.g., CUL T-S NS 16.32; CUL T-S NS 20.1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 14), but smaller sizes are also frequent for Bibles and other texts. Pocket formats were frequent: CUL T-S Misc. 24.80, for instance, measures only 10 x 8 cm. A diversity of sizes is also found among scrolls: a scroll of Psalms with Palestinian vocalization preserved in several fragments (CUL T-S 20.50, 53, 54, 58) was at least 38 cm high, while a scroll containing liturgical compositions (CUL T-S Misc. 29.11) is less than a half of this height (16 cm). The shape of the book was also a matter of local preference. The height of many Eastern codices exceeded their width (especially after the thirteenth century), like the usual rectangular printed books of today. However, at an early stage, many Eastern Jewish codices were almost square (e.g., CUL T-S NS 20.1, 30 x 29 cm) or even oblong, with their width exceeding their height. This was apparently the case with the Cambridge Papyrus Codex, whose careful reconstruction suggests original dimensions in the range of 19.5–21.5 cm high and 19.5–23 cm wide.100

99

100

However, pandects such as the Aleppo Codex, which measures c. 32.5 x 27 cm; and the Leningrad Bible, measuring c. 33.5 x 29.5 cm, are considerably smaller in dimension despite containing more leaves than the codex of the Former Prophets, RNL MS Firkovich EBP II B 39 (988/9, copied and vocalized by Joseph b. Jacob ha Maʿaravi, possibly in Jerusalem), measuring c. 46.5 x 37 cm, or the Pentateuch RNL MS Firkovich EBP II B 17 (929, copied by Solomon b. Buyaʿa, also possibly in Jerusalem), measuring c. 44 x 39 cm (242 fols). See Michèle Dukan and Colette Sirat, “Les codex de la Bible hébraïque en pays d’Islam jusqu’à 1200: formes et formats,ˮ in Scribes et Manuscrits, 35 56. Although no comparable research has been done for Eastern parchment manuscripts, the maximum sizes obtained from sheep skins in Western manuscripts were calculated at 48 x 60 cm. See Bozzolo and Ornato, Pour une histoire du livre manuscrit, 267. Sirat, Papyrus, 79.

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693

PREPARING THE SUPPORT FOR WRITING

The text was copied on sheets of writing material before they were bound together to form the book. For high-quality books, the scribe carefully planned and prepared the layout of the page before writing. He ensured the regularity of written lines by using a grid of guidelines – the ruling. To guide the ruling, the margins of the manuscript were pricked with a sharp instrument – a knife or an awl – and lines were traced between the pricked holes with a ruler. The ruling was traced with a hard metal point usually applied on the hair side of the leather scrolls but on the flesh side of the parchment sheets of codices. The pressure of the instrument resulted in visible furrows on the side where the instrument was applied and ridges on the reverse. Paper manuscripts were most often ruled with a ruling board (mastara); just such a ruling board made of cardboard with vegetal threads _attached to it has been preserved in the Cairo Genizah (CUL T-S K 11.54) (Figure 20.6). The paper sheet was pressed and rubbed on the ruling device, which left imprints of the threads. The use of this device in paper manuscripts did not require pricking, was less aggressive to easily torn material, and allowed ruling an entire page at a time. The pattern of the ruling in Eastern manuscripts contains usually a single vertical line at each side of the block of the text and the number of horizontal lines equal to that of the line of writing. The first and last lines of writing are placed under the first and the last ruled lines, respectively. COPYING THE BOOK

Once the page layout was prepared by ruling, the work of copying could begin. This essential part of book production might involve several stages; copying the consonantal text (only consonants are written on the line as “letters”), for some types of texts, the addition of vowels (as additional supra- or infra-linear strokes and dots), and for Bible codices, occasionally the addition of a critical apparatus, of corrections (often made by comparison with one or several model exemplars), or of decoration. These different stages involved one or several specialized craftsmen. The most complex Hebrew books in this respect were Masoretic Bible codices. The colophons found in medieval Bibles often differentiate between different stages of copying: the consonants, the vowels, and cantillation signs, the masorah parva and masorah magna, and the collation and correction of the copied text. In some cases, all three tasks were accomplished by the same person: for example, one of eight colophons of the Leningrad Codex, copied in 1008 in Cairo, states clearly that

694

judith olszowy-schlanger

Figure 20.6 CUL T S K 11.54, a ruling board (mastara) made of cardboard preserved in the _ Cairo Genizah

“Samuel b. Jacob wrote and vocalized this Bible codex and provided it with the Masorah . . . and it is very clearly corrected.” Samuel b. Jacob was also responsible for the micrography decoration and the “carpet pages.” In other cases, different craftsmen worked on the same book: in RNL MS Firkovich EBP II B 17, Salomon b. Buyaʿa copied the consonantal text whereas his brother, Ephraim b. Buyaʿa, added the vowels, accents, Masorah, illumination, and corrections. Some volumes contain separate colophons of correctors (e.g., RNL MS Firkovich EBP II B 281).

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HEBREW SCRIPT

Most Eastern Jewish books were copied in Hebrew script, even if they were expressed in a vernacular language such as Arabic, Persian, or Greek. The script was often adapted to reflect these languages. Many Jews were not only bilingual but also bi-alphabetical, capable of reading and writing in Arabic characters. Elementary writing exercises from the Cairo Genizah show how children practiced Arabic calligraphy alongside Hebrew. A letter (CUL T-S K 25.230) written in the middle of the eleventh century from Jerusalem by an anonymous agent acquiring books for a wealthy Karaite patron, probably Dāʾūd b. ʿImrān, discusses the choice of the alphabet for the clean master copy of the commentary on the Pentateuch. The author, the well-known Karaite thinker and the leader of the Karaite school of Jerusalem, Abū al-Faraj Furqān b. Asad – also known as Joshua b. Judah – awaits the patron’s decision about whether he should copy the commentary in Hebrew or in Arabic characters. A scribe was able to use either of the two writing systems, and the choice depended on the preference of the patron – the privileged reader – rather than on the skills of the scribe.101 Indeed, some Karaite scribes even transcribed the Hebrew Bible in Arabic characters,102 and scientific and medical compositions by Karaites and Rabbanites alike were rendered in both Hebrew and Arabic script. The medical works of Moses Maimonides, for example, were of universal interest; some were dedicated to the members of Saladin’s family, and thus had to be released for circulation in Arabic script.103 Although Maimonides’ drafts found in the Cairo Genizah show his personal preference for Hebrew script, even the Guide for the Perplexed written emphatically for the Jewish audience circulated in Arabic-script manuscripts soon

101 102

103

See Khan, “On the Question of Script,” 132 41. Reinhart Hoering, British Museum Karaite Mss.: Description and Collation of Six Karaite Manuscripts of Portions of the Hebrew Bible in Arabic Characters (London, 1889); Geoffrey Khan, Karaite Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge, 1990). For the richly illuminated Karaite manuscript of the Book of Exodus in the British Library (MS Or 2540), see Ilana Tahan, Hebrew Manuscripts: The Power of Script and Image (London, 2007), 14 17. Tractate on Poisons and Their Antidotes is preserved in at least six manuscripts in Arabic script and four in Hebrew script; see Fred Rosner, The Medical Legacy of Moses Maimonides (Hoboken, NJ, 1998), 32. His Book of the Names of Drugs is preserved only in one manuscript, in Arabic script, copied by the thirteenth century Muslim botanist Ibn al Baytār; see Lola Ferre, “Dissemination of Maimonides’ Medical Writings in the _ Middle Ages,” in Carlos Fraenkel, ed., Traditions of Maimonideanism (Leiden, 2009), 20.

696 judith olszowy-schlanger after its composition.104 However, the overwhelming majority of extant Jewish manuscripts are in Hebrew characters, with which readers were familiar through their elementary education (Figure 20.7). Eastern Jewish manuscripts are written in the script typologically defined as “Oriental.” This broad definition includes several subtypes that depend on chronological and geographical factors: The Oriental family contains manuscripts produced in various zones of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, such as Iraq, Iran and Central Asia, Egypt, North Africa, Palestine, and Yemen.105 Until the twelfth century, one can distinguish between Western (Egypt-Palestine) and Eastern (Iraq and Iran) Oriental scripts. The Iranian and Central Asian subgroup also developed distinctive features. A characteristic Yemenite script can be identified from the thirteenth century onward.106 In addition to the square script used for the scrolls, Bible codices, and many good quality books, more cursive registers appear from the tenth century onward, first as chancellery script of the Babylonian geonim and then spreading to the Diaspora as a documentary script as well as a stylish book hand.107 BOOK BINDINGS

Binding, the last element of the finished volume, was intended for its protection, for reading comfort, and sometimes for embellishment. It involved two technical stages: fastening together the parts of the book (stitching together the quires of the codex) and fixing the book to a cover. The typical fixed bookbinding applied to the codex; scrolls and rotuli were kept in boxes or bags that were not attached to the book itself. Codices were also often kept, sold, and read unbound. Booklists from the Genizah often provide descriptions of books without binding (Arabic, ghayr tajlīd), of separate quires of a specific text (Arabic, karārīs), or of bundles of loose quires or leaves (Arabic, rizma), as opposed to bound

104

105

106 107

Simon Hopkins, “The Languages of Maimonides,” in Georges Tamer, ed., The Trias of Maimonides: Jewish, Arabic and Ancient Culture of Knowledge/Die Trias des Maimonides: Jüdische, arabische und antike Wissenskultur (Berlin, 2005), 91. Malachi Beit Arié with Edna Engel and Ada Yardeni, Specimens of Mediaeval Hebrew Script, I: Oriental and Yemenite Scripts [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1987). Beit Arié et al., Specimens, 10. Judith Olszowy Schlanger, “Early Babylonian ‘Documentary’ Script: Diplomatic and Palaeographical Study of Two Geonic Letters from the British Library Cairo Genizah Collection,” in Nicholas de Lange and Judith Olszowy Schlanger, eds., Manuscrits hébreux et arabes. Mélanges en l’honneur de Colette Sirat (Turnhout, 2014), 177 95.

book production

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Figure 20.7 Mosseri VIII. 35, a fragment of a draft of the Guide for the Perplexed in Maimonides’ hand, Arabic in Hebrew characters

volumes (Arabic, mujallad).108 Book bindings were made of leather; they could be red, black, or white in color, and could be square.109 Even Masoretic codices may have been kept unbound and stored in protective boxes, such as the Codex of the Prophets from the Karaite synagogue of Cairo according to the description made by Paul Kahle in 1956.110 Bookbinding was nonetheless an important craft, and Genizah fragments contain information about Jewish binders in Egypt but also about readymade book covers imported from Ifrīqiya.111 Unfortunately, today it is almost impossible to study the techniques of medieval Eastern Jewish bookbinding. As the most exposed part of the book, bindings deteriorated easily and had to be replaced frequently; practically none of the extant medieval Eastern Hebrew manuscripts has its original binding. A wooden board covered with embossed 108

See Allony et al., Jewish Library, e.g., doc. #1 (CUL T S K 6.45, beginning of the eleventh century). 109 Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:112; e.g., Allony et al., Jewish Library, doc. #5: mujallad jild ahmar (“bound in red leather”). 110 Paul Kahle, Der_ hebräische Bibeltext seit Franz Delitsch (Stuttgart, 1961), 78. 111 See Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:112.

698 judith olszowy-schlanger leather kept with the Leningrad Codex may be a part of its binding, but it dates to some four centuries after the manuscript itself.112 It was probably a box-cover, a type of binding frequent in medieval Islamic books for which the book edges are enclosed on all sides with a stiff leather strip of the thickness of the block of the quires. The block itself is permanently attached to the lower board, while the upper board constitutes a mobile lid and often contains a clasp.113 Types of early binding can be partly reconstructed from the remains of holes for the attachment thread in some manuscripts. Such is the case of the Genizah Papyrus Codex, which contains indications that it was bound in soft covers probably made of leather.114 A few detached covers or boards have been found in the Cairo Genizah, but most of those were Spanish rather than Eastern: CUL T-S Misc. 27.4.20 is a fragment of a brown leather soft binding with an attached piece of parchment; CUL Or 1080 11.20 is a dark leather bookbinding with a punched decoration; and CUL Or 1080 11.1–19 are fragments of paper manuscripts which have been reused to create cardboard for this binding. Some of these leaves contain Sephardic script and Latin notes of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. A parchment piece attached to CUL Or 1080 11.20 contains a colophon in Sephardi script with the date corresponding to 1242 ce. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Despite the important role of orality and memory in the transmission of traditional Jewish learning, books and written documents were omnipresent in medieval Jewish society. The emphasis on the book as a material artifact presented here reflects only one aspect of medieval Jewish book culture and leaves aside by necessity the essential and related questions of textual transmission and of Jewish literacy in general. Nevertheless, this approach allows us to shed light on the book as the dynamic product of several interrelated factors: the setting and economics of its production; technical parameters related to raw material and procedures; contents and type or genre of text it carried; and indeed, its reception.

112

113

114

See Thérèse Metzger, “La reliure du Cod. Hébr. I B 19a de la Bibliothèque nationale de Russie, à Saint Pétersbourg,” Gutenberg Jahrbuch 78 (2003), 259 83. See Georges Marçais and Louis Poinssot, Objets kairouanais, IXe au XIIIe siècle. Reliures, verreries, cuivres et bronzes, bijoux, fasc. 1 (Tunis, 1948), 14; Déroche, Manuel de codicologie, 282 83. Sirat, Papyrus, 76 78.

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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allony, Nehemiah, Miriam Frenkel, and Haggai Ben-Shammai, eds., with the participation of Moshe Sokolow. The Jewish Library in the Middle Ages: Book Lists from the Cairo Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006). Beit-Arié, Malachi. Hebrew Codicology: History and Comparative Typology of Hebrew Medieval Codices Based on Documentation of the Extant Dated Manuscripts in Quantitative Approach, prepublication internet version 2018 (http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/Hebrew/collections/ manuscripts/hebrew codicology/). Beit-Arié, Malachi, Colette Sirat, and Mordechai Glatzer. Codices hebraicis litteris exarati quo tempore scripti fuerint exhibentes; Tome I: jusqu’à 1020 (Turnhout, 1997). Ben Shammai, Haggai. “Notes on the Peregrinations of the Aleppo Codex,” in Yaron Harel, Yom-Tov Assis, and Miriam Frenkel, eds., Eres u-meloʾah: The Jews of Aleppo: Their History and Culture _ (Jerusalem, 2009), 139–54. Drory, Rina. Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000). Frenkel, Miriam. “Book Lists from the Cairo Genizah: A Window on the Production of Texts in the Middle Ages,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 80 (2017), 233–52. Goitein, S. D. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967–93). Haran, Menahem. “Bible Scrolls in Eastern and Western Jewish Communities from Qumran to the High Middle Ages,” Hebrew Union College Annual 56 (1985), 21–62. Khan, Geoffrey. “On the Question of Script in Medieval Karaite Manuscripts: New Evidence from the Genizah,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library of Manchester 75, 3 (1993), 132–41. Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith. “Cheap Books in Medieval Egypt: Rotuli from the Cairo Genizah,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 4 (2016), 82–101. “The Anatomy of Non-biblical Scrolls from the Cairo Geniza,” in Irina Wandrey, ed., Jewish Manuscript Cultures: New Perspectives (Berlin, 2017), 49–88. Outhwaite, Ben. “Beyond the Leningrad Codex: Samuel ben Jacob in the Cairo Genizah,” in Nadia Vidro, Ronny Vollandt, Esther-Miriam Wagner, and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, eds., Studies in Semitic Linguistics and Manuscripts: A Liber Discipulorum in Honour of Professor Geoffrey Khan (Uppsala, 2018), 330–32.

700 judith olszowy-schlanger Phillips, Kim. “A New Codex behind the Scribe of the Leningrad Codex: L17,” Tyndale Bulletin 68, 1 (2017), 1–29. Savage-Smith, Emilie, Simon Swain, and Geert Jan van Gelder, eds. A Literary History of Medicine: The ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī tabaqāt al_ atibbāʾ of Ibn Abī Usaybiʿah (Brill Online), https://brill.com/view/ _ _ db/lhom. Sirat, Colette. Les papyrus en caractères hébraïques trouvés en Egypte (Paris, 1985). Touati, Houari. L’armoire à sagesse. Bibliothèques et collections en Islam (Paris, 2003).

chapter 21

JEWISH BIBLE EXEGESIS IN MUSLIM LANDS IN THE MIDDLE AGES mordechai z. cohen

Jewish learning in Muslim lands in the Middle Ages was transformed by its absorption of Muslim and Greco-Arabic learning, which included grammar and philology, poetics, hermeneutics, and philosophy, all of which contributed to the forging of substantially new methods of Jewish Bible exegesis. Earlier Jewish Bible interpretation was dominated by the creative midrashic forms of “rewriting” the Bible, which had been consolidated in the Talmud and various halakhic and aggadic midrashic compilations. But from the ninth century onward, Karaite scholars in the Muslim East rejected rabbinic authority and spearheaded a new philologically oriented exegetical method.1 Aside from the towering intellect Jacob al-Qirqisānī (Iraq, early tenth century), the most influential early Karaite exegetes belonged to the Jerusalem school that flourished in the tenth and eleventh centuries, most prominently Japheth b. ʿEli (c. 950–1000). Spurred, no doubt, by this challenge, and inspired by philological methods of Qurʾān exegesis, Rabbanite scholars carved a substantial niche within which to engage in a non-midrashic exegesis while at the same time adhering to rabbinic authority. Founded in tenth-century Baghdad by the pioneering polymath Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) and his successor Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon (d. 1013), this new exegetical tradition was transplanted in the eleventh century to al-Andalus (Muslim Spain), where it reached its apogee by the middle of the twelfth century.2 Breaking out of the mold of rabbinic interpretive genres, in which associative, non-philological readings of Scripture attributed to numerous authorities were transmitted in 1

2

See Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004). See also Meira Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003). On the Karaite authors cited below, see Leon Nemoy, Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature Translated from Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew (New Haven, 1952). See Haggai Ben Shammai, A Leader’s Project: Studies in the Philosophical and Exegetical Works of Saadya Gaon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2015); Robert Brody, Saʿadya Gaon, trans. Betsy Rosenberg (Oxford, 2013); David Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and His Cultural World (Leiden, 1996).

701

702 mordechai z. cohen collections written in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, the Karaite and Rabbanite schools began to produce individually authored works in Arabic that included true exegetical commentaries and related expository treatises on Hebrew grammar, philology, poetics, and philosophy. The Jerusalem Karaite school came to a close with the Christian conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, though it had by then sent offshoots to Byzantium, where Karaite scholarship written in Arabic was summarized and translated into Hebrew. In Muslim Spain, Almohad persecution in the mid-twelfth century sent the Rabbanite school there into decline. Yet by that point, the Andalusian exegetical tradition was mature enough to be translated into Hebrew and transplanted by exiles who emigrated to Christian lands (including Spain, as the Reconquista progressed), where they encountered an indigenous, parallel endeavor to interpret Scripture philologically in the so-called peshat school developed by Rashi (1040–1105) and his students in northern_ France. Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1164) was perhaps the most instrumental figure in transplanting the geonic-Andalusian exegetical method – which he, too, termed “the way of peshat” – to Christian lands.3 Emigrating from Spain in 1140, Ibn Ezra spent the_remainder of his life traveling from town to town in Italy, Provence, northern France, and England, where he penned commentaries and grammatical works in Hebrew that epitomized his predecessors’ exegetical accomplishments. Geonic and Andalusian works were likewise made available in Hebrew translations penned in Provence by Judah Ibn Tibbon (c. 1120–90; an émigré from Granada who resettled in Lunel), his son Samuel Ibn Tibbon (c. 1160–1230; Lunel and Marseilles), and other translators, such as Judah al-Ḥarīzī (Toledo, Marseilles, and Aleppo; 1165–1225). These Hebrew works sparked the important afterlife of the Judeo-Arabic exegetical tradition in the thirteenth century among Jewish authors in Christian lands including, most importantly, the great Bible commentators David Qimhi, also known as _ Radak (Provence, 1160–1235) and Moses Nahmanides (Barcelona and Acre, _ 1194–1270). HISTORICAL REVIEW OF AUTHORS AND WORKS

karaite ʿAnan b. David (Iraq, eighth century) was revered by some Karaite scholars as their first leader; but apart from his break with the authority of rabbinic Judaism, his model did not actually shape the Karaite movement. Nor did 3

See Uriel Simon, The Ear Discerns Words: Studies in Ibn Ezra’s Exegetical Methodology [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 2013).

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 703 ʿAnan’s methods of Bible interpretation differ substantially from those applied in the Talmud, as he relied heavily on the midrashic techniques of heqqesh (analogy) and gezerah shavah (comparison of similar expressions). In fact, ʿAnan wrote in a talmudically influenced dialect of Aramaic similar to that of the Rabbanite geonim of his time. Benjamin al-Nahāwandī (Persia or Iraq, mid-ninth century) is often mentioned together with ʿAnan as an early Karaite leader, though he, too, might better be regarded as a sort of proto-Karaite. Following ʿAnan, Benjamin distanced himself further from rabbinic halakhah in his religious-legal works, The Book of Precepts and The Book of Rules, both written in a fluid Hebrew, which was not typically employed in Rabbanite circles. He seems to have been the first to adopt the appellations baʿalei miqra (“masters of Scripture”) and benei miqra (“people of Scripture”) – later embraced by many Karaites. Yet, even Benjamin at times relied on rabbinic sources, since it was difficult to create a complete halakhic system based on Scripture alone. Benjamin is reported to have composed commentaries on the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel; but none is extant except small fragments of his commentary on Genesis. Later sources indicate that he maintained that the Creator actually created only a single angel, who, in turn, created the world, communicated with the prophets, and issued the commandments. The true founder of Karaism and its new scripturalism seems to have been Daniel al-Qūmisī, who emigrated from his native Ṭabaristān in northern Iran and resettled in Jerusalem in the late ninth century. Harshly rejecting the rabbinic establishment as corrupt, he called for a return of the Jews of the Diaspora to Jerusalem and a reading of Scripture free of the distortions of the Rabbis’ midrashic interpretations. Daniel wrote commentaries on many biblical books in Hebrew mixed with Arabic, unlike later Jerusalem Karaites who wrote exclusively in Arabic. Though only fragments of his commentaries survive, they do reflect his fundamental exegetical method of interpreting Scripture philologically and contextually. Rejecting the rabbinic notion that Scripture has “forty-nine meanings,” he argued that any given biblical verse has only one true meaning. Yet this did not prevent him from offering, alongside his literal-historical analysis of the Hebrew Bible, prognostic-allegorical interpretations relevant to his own day – a method that resembles some aspects of the pesher of Qumran exegesis, which some scholars believe actually influenced Qūmisī and his followers in ninth- and tenth-century Jerusalem. Of supreme importance in Karaite exegesis are the works of Qirqisānī, who lived in Iraq and traveled throughout the Muslim East. Qirqisānī freely cites from the Qurʾān and New Testament, and was well-versed in Muʿtazilite learning. His halakhic code, Kitāb al-Anwār wa-l-Marāqib (The Book of Lights and Watchtowers), written in 937, discusses the legal

704 mordechai z. cohen sections of the Pentateuch and includes a historical-methodological survey of early Karaism. Its sequel, Kitāb al-Riyād wa-l-Ḥadāʾiq (The Book of Heaths and Gardens), completed in 938,_ treats the nonlegal sections of the Pentateuch and includes a systematic exposition of the principles of Bible exegesis. Qirqisānī was not connected with the more radical Karaite center in Jerusalem, where the vocally anti-Rabbanite “Mourners of Zion” were composing Bible commentaries and polemical works that starkly defined Karaite ideology. Among them was Salmon b. Yeruhim (b. 910), who penned The Book of the Wars of the Lord, a _ harsh polemic against Seʿadyah Gaʾon, as well as Bible commentaries now surviving only in fragmentary form. Japheth b. ʿEli was undoubtedly the most important Karaite exegete of all time.4 He penned commentaries on the entire Bible (in Arabic), which provide rich grammatical, philological, and literary analysis of precisely the type that would be favored by the later peshat schools. Probably born in _ Basra in southern Iraq circa 915–20, Japheth immigrated to Palestine and _ settled in Jerusalem, where he died circa 1007. He ascribed to ʿAnan the directive, “Search Scripture well and do not rely upon my opinion” (commentary on Zechariah 5:9–11), which he applies consistently. Japheth’s opinions were often utilized by later Rabbanite commentators, most notably Abraham Ibn Ezra. Japheth himself was influenced by Qirqisānī’s principles, and at times clarifies points of interpretive theory. But unlike Qirqisānī, Japheth did not compose theoretical treatises, nor does he seem to have been inclined toward systematic thought. Furthermore, like Daniel al-Qūmisī, he opposed the use of “external sciences” from non-Jewish writings – which had inspired Qirqisānī’s systematic thought. Also following the model of earlier Jerusalem Karaites, Japheth engaged in anti-Rabbanite polemics and ardently adopted the Karaite prognostic method, finding references to events of his own days in the biblical text. Among the members of the Jerusalem school were a number of Karaite scholars who focused on Hebrew grammar and lexicography.5 David b. Abraham al-Fāsī (mid-tenth century; originally of Fez in North Africa, as his name indicates) penned Kitāb Jāmiʿ al-Alfāz, the first bilingual (Arabic and Hebrew) dictionary devoted exclusively_ to biblical Hebrew and Aramaic. Late in the tenth century an actual Karaite “college” (dār li-lʿilm) was founded by Yūsuf Ibn Nūh, whose disciples included Abū al_ 4

5

See Marzena Zawanowska, The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ʻEli the Karaite on the Abraham Narratives (Leiden, 2011). See Geoffrey Khan, Maria Angeles Gallego, and Judith Olszowy Schlanger, The Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought in Its Classical Form (Leiden, 2003).

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 705 Faraj Hārūn, Levi b. Japheth (Japheth b. ʿEli’s son), and Yūsuf al-Basīr _ (d. c. 1040). Ibn Nūh’s works include a commentary on the Pentateuch _ (abridged by Abū al-Faraj Hārūn, in turn summarized by ʿAlī ben Sulaymān in the twelfth century) and a grammatical work entitled alDiqduq (The Grammar), which displays the influence of the Arabic Kūfan school of grammar. Succeeding Ibn Nūh as head of the Jerusalem college, _ Abū al-Faraj Hārūn authored Kitāb al-Mushtamil (completed in 1026), a comprehensive analysis of the Hebrew language (which he abridged under the title Kitāb al-Kāfī), as well as Sharh al-Alfāz, a collection of selected _ explanatory _ biblical verses translated into Arabic with glosses. Yūsuf alBasīr wrote halakhic and philosophical works that influenced later Karaite _ exegetes, among them his student in Jerusalem Yeshuʿah b. Judah (Abū alFaraj Furqān b. Asad; mid-eleventh century). The most influential Karaite commentator of the eleventh century, Yeshuʿah translated the Pentateuch into Arabic and composed commentaries on Genesis and the Decalogue. Among Yeshuʿah’s students were the Byzantine scholars Tobias b. Moses and Jacob b. Reuben, both of whom translated Karaite works from the Arabic into Hebrew. The Karaite tradition was carried on in Byzantium in the twelfth through fourteenth centuries by Judah Hadassi, Aaron b. Joseph “the Elder,” and Aaron b. Elijah “the Latter.”6 rabbanite Rabbanite exegetes had to balance their innovative analytic methods with rabbinic tradition. Seʿadyah Gaʾon thus expresses reverence for the talmudic Rabbis while at the same time establishing new exegetical paths. His Tafsīr, a boldly original Arabic Bible translation that quickly became a sort of authorized Arabic version for Rabbanite Jews in Muslim lands, was accompanied by detailed philological-literary commentaries on a number of biblical books, including Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Daniel. Seʿadyah’s introductions to each of these commentaries addressed fundamental historical, literary, and hermeneutical questions, and would exert great influence upon his successors. Seʿadyah also penned pioneering works of Hebrew linguistics that dealt with grammar, philology, and poetics. His philosophical opus, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (which was influenced by Muʿtazilite thought), established theological parameters for subsequent geonic and Andalusian exegesis. Seʿadyah also composed anti-Karaite polemical treatises, as well as a 6

See Zvi Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium: The Formative Years, 970 1100 (New York, 1959).

706 mordechai z. cohen refutation of the “critiques” of the Bible itself by the early ninth-century Jewish heretic Ḥīwī (or Hayyoy) al-Balkhī (of Balkh, in Afghanistan). Termed “the first speaker in all areas” by Abraham Ibn Ezra, Seʿadyah commanded great reverence among subsequent Judeo-Arabic Rabbanite authors, who nonetheless refined and at times rejected Seʿadyah’s views. Samuel b. Hophni continued Seʿadyah’s exegetical project by writing commentaries on books he had not covered. He also sharpened the hermeneutical foundations of Seʿadyah’s method, coordinating his Arabic interpretive terms and concepts (drawn from Qurʾānic hermeneutics and usūl al-fiqh, i.e., Muslim jurisprudence) with rabbinic ones, _ that the new geonic exegetical methods can be regarded as a emphasizing continuation of rabbinic tradition. Already in Samuel b. Hophni’s day, the Rabbanite exegetical school was migrating to the Muslim West, that is, the Maghrib (North Africa) and al-Andalus – where it reached its apex two centuries later. Menahem Ibn Sarūq (mid-tenth century), living in Córdoba, composed an important biblical dictionary, the Mahberet (book, composition). This work was subject to harsh criticism –_ that took the form of written “rejoinders” (teshuvot) – by Dunash b. Labrat (c. 925–after 985), who had been one of Seʿadyah’s youngest students in _Baghdad before moving to Fez and then Córdoba. But their work was eclipsed by subsequent breakthroughs in Hebrew linguistics (see below) by Judah b. David Ḥayyūj (c. 945–1000, born in Fez, settled in Córdoba in 960) and Jonah Ibn Janāh (late tenth/ early eleventh century; Lucena, Córdoba, and Saragossa). _ Our knowledge of the Andalusian exegetical school is incomplete, as the works of some important authors have been lost and are known only from later citations. For example, the poet-talmudist Samuel Ibn Naghrella haNagid (993–1056), who became vizier of Granada, wrote commentaries that focused on linguistic matters. An intellectual rival of Ibn Janāh, _ Samuel maintained correspondence with the Babylonian geonim as well as other rabbinic scholars in North Africa. Working on the foundations laid by Ibn Janāh and his contemporaries, _ two exegetes dominated Andalusian Bible scholarship in the late eleventh century: Moses Ibn Chiquitilla (mid-eleventh century; originally of Granada, resettled in Saragossa), whose extensive commentaries raised provocative historical and literary questions (see below), and his younger contemporary, Judah Ibn Balaam (of Toledo, later settled in Seville), whose extensive, linguistically oriented commentaries included critiques of Ibn Chiquitilla. Most of Ibn Balaam’s commentaries have survived, whereas only fragments of Ibn Chiquitilla’s are extant today, though some of his views and interpretive methods can be reconstructed from citations by later authors.

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 707 Together with Seʿadyah’s Tafsīr, the works of Ibn Janāh, Ibn _ Chiquitilla, and Ibn Balaam provided the basis for subsequent developments in the Andalusian school, which tended to focus on specialized areas in the twelfth century. For example, Isaac Ibn Barūn (d. 1128, who lived in Saragossa and Malaga) penned The Book of Comparison between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages, a dedicated treatment of the comparative linguistic method used to varying degrees within the Judeo-Arabic exegetical school (see below). Ibn Barūn’s friend Moses Ibn Ezra (c. 1055–1138, no relation to Abraham Ibn Ezra), who achieved renown as a Hebrew poet in Granada but was forced to flee to Christian Spain after the Almoravid conquest in 1090, wrote two expository works relevant for biblical interpretation: The Book of Discussion and Conversation, a Hebrew poetics that provides an aesthetic analysis of Scripture, and The Treatise of the Garden, which harmonizes Scripture with a neo-Platonic philosophical outlook. Moses Ibn Ezra’s poetic protégé, Judah Halevi (1075–1141; Toledo, Granada, died in Palestine), addresses key issues of biblical interpretation in his Kuzari, a philosophical-theological work. Although the major centers of Rabbanite Judeo-Arabic biblical scholarship were in al-Andalus, some works of note were penned in North Africa and Egypt. Judah Ibn Quraysh of Tāhert (Algeria), in the tenth century, penned an epistle (Risāla) to the Jews of Fez urging them to rescind their decision to discontinue reciting the Aramaic Targum in the synagogue. That work emphasizes the importance of Aramaic – and Arabic – for understanding biblical Hebrew. Isaac b. Samuel al-Kanzī (c. 1065–1140), a religious judge (dayyan) in Fustāt (Old Cairo), known as “ha-Sefaradi” _ _ from al-Andalus, wrote a commentary because he (or his father) originated (now only partially extant) on the Former Prophets which displays a unique and innovative novel literary sensitivity in analyzing biblical narrative. Exhibiting a similar biographical trajectory as al-Kanzī, the preeminent rabbinic scholar Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) was an Andalusian émigré (born to an important rabbinic family in Córdoba) who fled first to Fez and Palestine but ultimately settled in Fustāt. Maimonides did not write _ _ known for his influential running biblical commentaries and is best talmudic-halakhic (i.e., legal) works, especially his code of Jewish law, Mishneh Torah, and his philosophical magnum opus, The Guide of the Perplexed. Yet Maimonides sought to anchor both his halakhah and philosophy in a methodologically correct reading of Scripture and therefore addresses fundamental hermeneutical issues throughout his writing.7 7

See Mordechai Cohen, Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu (Leiden, 2011).

708 mordechai z. cohen An acquaintance of Maimonides, Judah b. Joseph Ibn ʿAqnīn (c. 1150–1220), born in Cordoba but who lived most of his life in Fez (perhaps as a crypto-Jew), composed a detailed commentary on the Song of Songs that included three interpretive levels: a literal analysis, a philosophical reading relating the soul’s striving for God, and a national historical-allegorical reading inspired by midrashic sources. Abraham Ibn Ezra, who wrote extensive biblical commentaries that became enormously influential, can be regarded as the capstone of the geonic-Andalusian exegetical tradition and heralds its translation into Hebrew and transplantation to Christian lands at the moment of its decline in al-Andalus. Dismissing Rashi’s commentaries as too midrashic, he set out to show that “the way of peshat” is truly exemplified within the geonic-Andalusian school. In fact, Ibn _Ezra avidly draws upon Karaite commentators – especially Japheth and Yeshuʿa. Hence, while Abraham Ibn Ezra’s works were written in Hebrew outside of Muslim dominion, they are stellar manifestations of the Judeo-Arabic exegetical tradition and signal the beginning of its afterlife in Christian lands. With the decline of the Jewish exegetical school in al-Andalus in the twelfth century, Judeo-Arabic exegesis in the same mold continued for another century or so in Egypt. Abraham (son of Moses) Maimonides (1186–1237) penned a commentary on Genesis and Exodus that included a S ̣ūfī-inspired pietist-mystical element. Tanhum ha-Yerushalmi _ (c. 1220–91), who settled in Egypt, wrote philologically oriented biblical commentaries (now only partially extant) that reveal a profound debt to his illustrious Andalusian predecessors. BIBLICAL LINGUISTICS AND POETICS

The study of Hebrew grammar and philology were central in Judeo-Arabic exegetical traditions, and went hand in hand with increased sensitivity to the poetics of biblical literary expression. Dedicated works of grammar and lexicography were penned by Seʿadyah and his Rabbanite followers in alAndalus, as well as the Karaites of the Jerusalem school, as mentioned above. Yet it was Ḥayyūj’s discovery of the triliteral Hebrew verb root – based on his understanding of the weak and geminate roots – that put Andalusian biblical exegesis on a methodologically sound footing by endowing it with a precise template for philological analysis. That discovery formed the basis of the most influential medieval Hebrew linguistic work: Ibn Janāh’s Kitāb al-Tanqīh, which comprised _ dealt with biblical _ syntax and poeta comprehensive grammar (that also ics), Kitāb al-Lumaʿ (translated into Hebrew by Judah Ibn Tibbon as Sefer ha-Riqmah), and a dictionary, Kitāb al-Usūl (Book of Roots, translated by _

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 709 Ibn Tibbon as Sefer ha-Shorashim). Of particular importance was Ibn Janāh’s theory that a word might be used “in the sense of another,” to _ he devoted a substantial chapter of Kitāb al-Lumaʿ. While which Abraham Ibn Ezra attacked this notion of “substitution” as a license for exegetical mayhem, the basic premise of linguistic flexibility that it represents actually reflects a fundamental principle shared by earlier exegetes, both Rabbanite and Karaite. In distinction to midrashic exegesis, which tends to be hyper-literal, Ibn Janāh delineates various forms of _ figurative language used in the Bible, including metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, simile, allegory, and hyperbole. Like many aspects of his grammatical work, these notions (and the terminology used to denote them) were drawn by Ibn Janāh from Arabic learning, in this case, the _ elaborate system of poetic “ornaments” (mahāsin al-shiʿr) classified and _ vein that Moses Ibn Ezra defined by Arab experts on poetry. It is in this turns his attention to biblical aesthetics in his Book of Discussion, which was actually designed as a handbook for writing Hebrew poetry according to the rules of Arabic poetics. Drawing upon similar Arabic works, Moses Ibn Ezra enumerates, defines, and illustrates twenty poetic ornaments that include various types of figurative language and allusion, as well as elliptical and expansive poetic verse forms. Arab handbooks on poetry illustrated the ornaments with examples from the Qurʾān and Arabic poetry, which Moses Ibn Ezra augmented with examples from the Hebrew Bible, thereby creating a sort of aesthetic exegesis.8 Moses Ibn Ezra’s poetic interests led him to investigate other aesthetic dimensions of the Hebrew Bible. Adopting Arabic literary standards, he ponders which of its books (or parts thereof ) might be considered poetry (shiʿr), that is, rhymed, metrical verse, as opposed to mere prose. He also addresses the question of biblical translation, warning that a precise rendering of Hebrew Scripture in a foreign language will inevitably forfeit its literary elegance. He instead favors a free translation possessing its own literary merit, and cites the example of Hafsa al-Qūti (the Goth), a ninth_ into versified _ century Christian who translated the Psalms Arabic.9 The poetics of scriptural expression and composition were a primary concern of Karaite exegetes, especially in the tenth century, although they did not draw upon Arabic poetics as such for inspiration. Nonetheless, 8

9

See Mordechai Cohen, “‘The Best of Poetry’: Literary Approaches to the Bible in the Spanish Peshat Tradition,” Torah U Madda Journal 6 (1995/96), 15 57. See Mordechai Cohen, “Words of Eloquence: Rhetoric and Poetics in Jewish Peshat Exegesis in Its Muslim and Christian Contexts,” in Mordechai Cohen and Adele Berlin, eds., Interpreting Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Overlapping Inquiries (Cambridge, 2016), 266 72.

710 mordechai z. cohen they were attuned to the workings of biblical figurative language, which they also identified using technical Arabic poetic terminology. Most significantly, Japheth – developing a model established by Qirqisānī – devoted attention to the literary process by which the books of the Bible were composed. Qirqisānī and Japheth regularly referred to the literaryeditorial role of the so-called biblical mudawwin (editor-compiler). This conception of the mudawwin has received a great deal of attention by modern scholars.10 Qirqisānī speaks of “Moses was the one who wrote down (or compiled, dawwana) the Torah from its beginning in Genesis to its end.” In using the Arabic root d-w-n (form II verb), which connotes composition, compilation, taking oral material, and committing it to writing, or, in some cases, editing preexisting written texts, Qirqisānī evidently drew upon a conception of Scripture articulated by the so-called Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-S ̣afāʾ), a secret society of Muslim philosophers (in Basra, _ Iraq, sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries), in their influential encyclopedic work Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-S ̣afāʾ (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity). By their account, the prophets who received revelation from God also committed it to writing – a process termed tadwīn – in the Torah, the Gospels, the Psalms, and the Qurʾān. The Brethren of Purity delineate the stages of the prophetic mission: “receiving divine revelation (wahy), pro_ mulgating the call to the nation, composition (tadwīn) of the revelation in succinct language, explaining to people how to recite it properly, clarifying the explanation (tafsīr) of its matters, and the attainment of its inner interpretation (taʾwīl).” Accordingly, an essential aspect of the work of the prophet was tadwīn – formulation of the divine word in the most fitting language. It would seem that this way of thinking was in Qirqisānī’s mind when referring to Moses as the mudawwin of the Torah, that is, the one who engaged in tadwīn in committing God’s word to writing. The Torah narrative is told from the perspective of Moses and his generation. Qirqisānī notes, for example, that the wording of the early chapters of Genesis reflects the geopolitical realities of Moses’ era, not the primordial era depicted in the creation story or even the time of Abraham. Qirqisānī’s use of the root d-w-n to describe the compilation of the Pentateuch suggests that Moses played an active role in determining its 10

See Haggai Ben Shammai, “On the Mudawwin Editor of the Biblical Books in Judeo Arabic Exegesis,” in Joseph R. Hacker, Yosef Kaplan, and Benjamin Z. Kedar, eds., From Sages to Savants: Studies Presented to Avraham Grossman [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010), 73 110; Marzena Zawanowska, “Was Moses the Mudawwin of the Torah? The Question of Authorship of the Pentateuch according to Yefet ben ʿEli,” in Haggai Ben Shammai et al., eds., Studies in Judeo Arabic Culture: Proceedings of the Fourteenth Conference of the Society for Judaeo Arabic Studies (Tel Aviv, 2014), 7* 35*.

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 711 literary design and formulation. This would be a bold position indeed, because it seems to have been traditionally assumed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch directly from divine dictation, that is, he received it word for word from God. The way of thinking opened by Qirqisānī was developed further by Japheth, who seems to have conceived of Moses as the mudawwin of the Pentateuch in the sense of being responsible for shaping its biblical narrative entirely – based on content received from God. For example, Japheth emphasizes that Moses, as the narrator of the Pentateuch, was selective in describing events that transpired in the creation of the world and the early history of humanity. In his commentaries on the Prophets and the Writings, Japheth often speaks of the role of the mudawwin in shaping the biblical text as we have it today. In Classical Arabic, the term dīwān connotes an anthology or collection of poems, compiled by a mudawwin (editor, compiler). Accordingly, Japheth uses the term mudawwin to connote the individuals who gathered, edited, and arranged the biblical text under prophetic guidance. In his view, each of the fifteen literary prophets – Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve “minor prophets” – was responsible for writing down his own collection (dīwān) of prophecies. Japheth also recognized further literary development in the prophetic books, attributing the next step of their compilation to an anonymous mudawwin who decided on the overall arrangement of those fifteen books in the Bible. The mudawwin also selected which prophecies to include within each book. In his view, “many of the prophecies of Hosea and Micah were omitted from the collection (diwān) . . . For [the mudawwin] did not record most of their prophecies; rather, he recorded only those that would prove necessary for the Jewish people in exile.” Japheth brings evidence for this selective process from the explicit notes in the books of Kings and Chronicles that “the rest of the acts of King so and so are found in the chronicles of the kings of Israel/Judah” (see, e.g., I Kings 14:19, 29). Just as the mudawwin of those books drew selectively from earlier historical sources, Japheth argues that the mudawwin of the prophetic books drew selectively from larger collections of prophecies only those with eternal significance.11 Another sort of literary interest is manifested in the Pentateuch commentary of Yūsuf Ibn Nūh, as summarized by Abū al-Faraj Hārūn. These _ two Karaite exegetes pay special attention to the structural elements of the Hebrew Bible, meticulously noting the beginning and ending formulas 11

See Meira Polliack, “Karaite Conception of the Biblical Narrator (Mudawwin),” in Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery Peck, and William Scott Green, eds., Encyclopaedia of Midrash: Biblical Interpretation in Formative Judaism, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2004), 1:350 74.

712 mordechai z. cohen (referred to using the Arabic literary terms sadr and khātima, respectively) of both its narrative and legal sections. This_interest led them, for example, to identify inclusio as a characteristic biblical style (sīrat al-kitāb) and to seek explanations for the arrangement of topics within larger biblical sections.12 It is conceivable that this Karaite interest in the structural elements of the Hebrew Bible was intended to demonstrate its literary elegance, especially in the face of the Muslim claims of the stylistic excellence – and even “inimitability” – of the Qurʾān. In fact, this was one of the explicit objectives of Moses Ibn Ezra in his endeavor to trace a wide variety of Arabic poetic techniques to Scripture. The specialized Arabic-inspired aesthetic perspective displayed transparently by Moses Ibn Ezra seems to have been relevant exclusively to Jewish readers immersed in Arabic culture. Probably for this reason, his poetically focused Book of Discussion was not translated into Hebrew (for Jews in Christian lands) in the medieval era, whereas his philosophical-exegetical Treatise of the Garden was translated by al-Ḥarīzī and circulated in Provence. However, one aspect of the aesthetic approach developed in al-Andalus was transplanted to later Jewish exegesis in Christian lands: namely, the notion that Scripture will often employ seemingly redundant words for the sake of literary elegance, fasāha wa-balāgha, as Jonah Ibn _ Abraham Ibn Ezra, who Janāh put it.13 This outlook was shared_ by _ undercuts many midrashic inferences by arguing that seeming redundancies in the Bible merely reflect literary conventions.14 Maimonides manifests a similar understanding of biblical literary stylistics in the introduction to his Guide of the Perplexed, a work that deals extensively with the interpretation of biblical allegories. There he asserts that in most cases, a biblical allegory will have one central deeper meaning and that the details of the allegorical tale are deployed for the sake of literary elegance, and therefore no further meaning should be attributed to them.15 The interpretive possibilities opened by this principle can be seen in Maimonides’ approach to the Song of Songs. While this biblical text, taken literally, would seem to be simply a collection of love poems, the traditional midrashic approach (which Maimonides cites in his Epistle to Yemen) takes it to be an allegory for the history of Israel, cast as a love relationship with God. The Karaites as well interpreted the Song of Songs 12

13

14

See Miriam Goldstein, Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The Judeo Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūh and Abū al Faraj Hārūn (Tübingen, 2011). _ Kitāb al Lumaʿ, chapter 25. See Mordechai Cohen, Three Approaches to Biblical Metaphor: From Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides to David Kimhi (Leiden, 2003), 240. 15 See Cohen, Three Approaches, 238 39. Cohen, Opening the Gates, 187 89.

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 713 prognostically, as a reference to their own special relationship with God – and threats to their community from the Rabbanites. This allegorical type of reading provides a deeper meaning for every episode – and even every verse – in the Song, as Ibn ʿAqnīn, for example, showed in the third level of his commentary (mentioned above). Even Abraham Ibn Ezra composed a detailed allegorical commentary on the Song based on the midrashic model to supplement his peshat commentary. Maimonides, on the other _ interpretation, taking the Song as a hand, offers a sparser allegorical celebration of the irresistible passion of human love, which should be a model for human devotion to God (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Repentance 10:3). As noted by his Provençal devotee Joseph Ibn Kaspi, Maimonides’ approach is predicated on his aforementioned hermeneutical principle, which allowed him to posit that the allegorical meaning of the Song is conveyed by the text in its totality, rather than its individual details, which serve merely to enhance its literary beauty.16 When formulating his rule of allegorical interpretation in the Guide, Maimonides criticizes contemporary midrashic interpreters who sought meaning in every detail of all biblical allegories, reflecting the midrashic doctrine of “omnisignificance.”17 In Maimonides’ view such darshanim (preachers) distort the true intention of Scripture by projecting onto the text ideas that were not intended by its authors.18 The status of the Hebrew language was of particular interest within the Judeo-Arabic tradition. Qirqisānī, in his introduction to Genesis, cites proofs from Scripture that Hebrew was the first language and emphasizes its unique character. However, later Karaites (such as Abū al-Faraj Hārūn) argued that all languages – presumably including Hebrew – are simply the product of human convention, with vocabulary and grammar inherently arbitrary and decided upon simply by mutual agreement, which is an Aristotelian view adapted from al-Fārābī. Maimonides likewise states that all languages “are conventional and not ‘natural,’ as has sometimes been thought” (Guide, II:30). The view Maimonides rejects (which has its roots in Plato) was advanced by Judah Halevi with respect to Hebrew, which he regards as the single “natural” language used by God Himself (Kuzari 4:25), a position that Moses Nahmanides – as a kabbalist – adopted _ (commentary on Exodus 30:13), strongly rejecting Maimonides’ rationalist approach. Apart from the theoretical status of the Hebrew language, a practical issue arose among Arabic-speaking Jews regarding the similarity between 16 17 18

Ibid., 203 12. See James Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge, MA, 1997), 20 21. See Cohen, Opening the Gates, 196 97.

714 mordechai z. cohen the two sister Semitic languages which proved useful for philological and grammatical analysis of Scripture.19 Furthermore, the strong knowledge of Aramaic among both Rabbanite and Karaite scholars allowed for a threefold study of comparative Semitics, as reflected in the Risāla of Judah Ibn Quraysh. Despite occasional opposition to the use of Arabic for understanding the Hebrew Bible (most notably by Menahem Ibn Sarūq), this, in fact, became the norm in the Judeo-Arabic tradition, as noted by Ibn Barūn in his Book of Comparison between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages. Moses Ibn Ezra goes so far as to say that the secrets of the Hebrew language were revealed only once the Jews came into contact with Arabic language and culture (Book of Conversation, 30b). RATIONALISM

The endeavor to interpret Scripture in light of reason (Arabic, ʿaql) was a hallmark of Judeo-Arabic exegesis that set it apart from the midrashic interpretation. Manifesting Muʿtazilite thought, both Seʿadyah (introduction to Genesis; Beliefs and Opinions 7:1) and Qirqisānī (introduction to Genesis) established the principle that the Bible, as a rule, must be understood according to its apparent (i.e., literal) sense (zāhir), but that a nonliteral interpretation (taʾwīl) is indicated where that _would lead to a contradiction with sense perception and reason, or another biblical verse, in which case one must posit that the language of Scripture is majāz (figurative or otherwise nonliteral language), rather than haqīqa (literally, truth; i.e., literal language). For example, Deuteronomy_ 4:24, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire” must not be taken literally since fire is dependent on a fuel source, whereas God’s existence is self-sufficient and eternal. Accordingly, this verse is rendered in Seʿadyah’s Tafsīr, “For the punishment of the Lord your God is like a consuming fire.” Under the rubric of this rule, Seʿadyah argues that Scripture must be harmonized with rabbinic tradition, which he (as opposed to Qirqisānī) regarded as a source of knowledge as valid as sense perception. Hence, in light of the rabbinic tradition that prohibits eating any sort of meat cooked with milk, Seʿadyah does not take Exodus 23:19 (“You shall not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”) literally, but rather renders it “Do not eat meat with milk” in his Tafsīr. Taking a further characteristically Rabbanite step, Samuel b. Hophni identified Seʿadyah’s axiom with the talmudic maxim that “Scripture does not leave the realm (lit. hands) of its peshat” (Babylonian _ 19

See Aharon Maman, Comparative Semitic Philology in the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2004).

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 715 20 Talmud Shabbat 63a). Equating the Hebrew/Aramaic term peshat with Arabic zāhir, he interpreted this talmudic rule to mean that Scripture_ must _ be taken literally, unless there is a compelling reason to “remove normally it” from its literal sense using taʾwīl. While this is not what the maxim meant in its original talmudic context, Samuel b. Hophni used it to endow Seʿadyah’s innovative interpretive agenda with rabbinic authority – a move that would be repeated in the subsequent Rabbanite exegetical tradition (see below). Despite the apparent literalism implied by Seʿadyah’s axiom, he frequently diverged from the literal sense of Scripture in his Tafsīr, and his commentaries are replete with philological notes defending his readings by way of taʾwīl, which at times are particularly drastic with respect to the biblical anthropomorphic depictions of God. Japheth criticized this method as a distortion of Scripture, and developed a more subtle literary solution to the theological problem posed by such verses, arguing that they must be translated literally, with the understanding that Scripture speaks about God imaginatively in human terms.21 This binary approach was embraced by Abraham Ibn Ezra, who supports it by citing the talmudic maxim “The Torah spoke in the language of men” (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 31b, where it is used in a different sense) – i.e., Scripture speaks of God metaphorically in order to make His purely spiritual existence understandable to ordinary people.22 It is to this subject that Moses Ibn Ezra had dedicated his above-mentioned Treatise of the Garden, the first section of which addresses the concepts of majāz and haqīqa, God’s unity, incorpor_ eality, and unknowability, as well as creation, man’s nature, and the commandments. The second section, arranged in a quasi-dictionary format, catalogs the literal (haqīqa) and figurative (majāz) meanings of _ the human body and reinterprets the biblical words associated with anthropomorphic depictions of God in accordance with the philosophical tenets established earlier in the Treatise. Reflecting his poetic perspective, Moses Ibn Ezra argues that aesthetic considerations dictated the need for Scripture to employ various of types of majāz, such as metaphor (istiʿāra), metonymy (badal al-mujāwara), simile (tashbīh), and hyperbole (ghuluww). Moses Ibn Ezra’s work may have served as a model for Maimonides, who engages in taʾwīl throughout his Guide of the Perplexed. Instead of turning to Arabic poetics, though, Maimonides drew 20 21

22

See Cohen, Opening the Gates, 350 51. See Meira Polliack, The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation: A Linguistic and Exegetical Study of Karaite Translations of the Pentateuch from the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries C.E. (Leiden, 1997), 41 43. See Cohen, Three Approaches, 73 75, 206 9.

716 mordechai z. cohen upon al-Fārābī’s Aristotelian model of metaphor to compose a series of “lexicographic chapters” aimed at reinterpreting biblical anthropomorphic depictions of God. Rather than viewing metaphor as a poetic trope, as Moses Ibn Ezra had done, Maimonides – following al-Fārābī – regards it as a by-product of the natural process of linguistic development, in which words come to acquire new meanings. Seʿadyah’s rationalist axiom at times led to controversy. For example, although I Samuel 28 relates how the witch of En-Dor raised the prophet Samuel from the dead for King Saul, Samuel b. Hophni argued that Saul was merely tricked into thinking that he saw Samuel’s ghost. This departure from the Talmud was criticized by Hayya Gaʾon (939–1038; Samuel b. Hophni’s son-in-law).23 In other instances, as well, exegetical rationalism led to conflicts with deeply rooted traditional beliefs. Abraham Ibn Ezra cites Seʿadyah and Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Malaga, Valencia; 1021–70) as denying that the serpent in the Garden of Eden or Balaam’s ass actually spoke, requiring rather tenuous interpretations of Genesis 3:1 and Numbers 22:28 – which Ibn Ezra rejected in favor of a literal reading. Maimonides, citing the authority of Ibn Chiquitilla and Ibn Balaam, takes Isaiah’s famous messianic prophecy (“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb . . .” [11:6–11]) figuratively. Ibn Chiquitilla, in fact, regularly applied this approach to prophetic supernatural depictions, including those traditionally taken to foretell the messianic era. He even argued that many such prophecies were fulfilled in biblical times and are not messianic at all, an approach criticized by Ibn Balaam, who wrote a separate treatise (no longer extant) to refute it. Ibn Chiquitilla’s rationalism also manifested itself in a distinctly historical approach to the Bible’s composition. He argued that some of the Psalms – traditionally ascribed to King David – were written much later, as suggested by events depicted therein; for example, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (Psalm 79), the Babylonian exile (Psalm 137), and the return to Zion (Psalm 126). While Abraham Ibn Ezra cites this as a viable approach, he sides with rabbinic tradition that King David wrote such Psalms prophetically. Yet Ibn Ezra elsewhere adopts the rationalisthistorical outlook; for example, in positing (albeit in enigmatic language) that Isaiah 40–66 was written by another, later prophet during the Babylonian exile. He even hints (on Genesis 12:6 and Deuteronomy 1:2) that some verses in the Pentateuch – traditionally ascribed to Moses in its entirety – are later glosses.

23

See Mordechai Cohen, “En Dor, Medium of,” Hermann Spieckermann et al., eds., Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (Berlin, 2013), 7:873 74.

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 717 The scientific-philosophical reinterpretation of Scripture reached a high point in the work of Maimonides. Seʿadyah, followed by Qirqisānī and Japheth, had invoked philosophical arguments to uphold the traditional belief in creation ex nihilo, as attested in Genesis 1. Maimonides, however, was willing to consider reinterpreting that biblical text in accordance with the Aristotelian doctrine of eternity. In the end, he deems Plato’s theory of creation from primordial matter to be no less compelling, and therefore professes acceptance of the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Yet, for the particulars of the “Account of Creation” (maʿaseh bereshit in rabbinic parlance), Maimonides drew upon Aristotelian physics, much as he used Aristotle’s metaphysics to interpret the “Chariot Vision” (maʿaseh merkavah) in Ezekiel 1, which the Rabbis took to embody secrets of the universe.24 Maimonides, likewise, interpreted a broad array of other biblical themes and concepts in light of Greco-Arabic scientific and philosophical notions. He explains, for example, that biblical accounts of people seeing and interacting with angels (which he assumed to be incorporeal) must be taken as visions (Guide II:6). He also argues that the notion of the divine “presence” (shekhinah) in the Tabernacle and Temple must be understood figuratively, because God cannot be located in any physical space (Guide I:25). Maimonides similarly formulates a rather naturalistic account of prophecy, which he adapts from views of “the philosophers” of the Arabic Aristotelian school (Guide II:42). Maimonides’ rationalism was often sharply criticized by Nahmanides (see, e.g., his commentaries on _ Genesis 18:1 and 46:1), who formulated a system of interpretive thought based on a fusion of a close literal reading of the biblical text and kabbalistic doctrines. While the latter reflect the new dominance of Kabbalah in Christian Spain, Nahmanides’ resistance of rationalism can _ in the more traditionally oriented be traced to an Andalusian strain thought of Judah Halevi, who devised mystically oriented approaches to matters such as the divine presence and prophecy. Empowered by Greco-Arabic learning, Judeo-Arabic interpreters looked to Scripture as a source of theology. Seʿadyah, for example, interpreted the Book of Job as a record of an ancient debate concerning the theological dilemma posed by the suffering of a righteous man without moral blemish. Fusing Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite thought with rabbinic traditions, his commentary endows the dialogues among Job, his companions and God Himself with analytic rigor and depth. Seʿadyah finds the solution to the dilemma of Job in the speeches of the wise companion Elihu (Job 32–37),

24

See Sara Klein Braslavy, Maimonides’ Interpretation of the Story of Creation [Hebrew] (second edition, Jerusalem, 1987).

718 mordechai z. cohen which he interprets in light of the Muʿtazilite doctrine that God may cause the righteous to suffer in order to increase their reward in the world to come. Seʿadyah’s philosophical reading was embraced by Abraham Ibn Ezra. Maimonides (Guide III:17–23), on the other hand, rejected the conclusions Seʿadyah drew from Job, though he does acknowledge a precedent for the latter’s Muʿtazilite solution to the dilemma in the talmudic doctrine of “the chastenings of love” (Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 5a). Reviving a rejected talmudic opinion, Maimonides takes Job as a didactic fictional tale (mashal) that conveys various philosophical approaches to reconcile the doctrines of divine providence and justice with the suffering of the righteous. This interpretive strategy enables Maimonides to extract from the biblical text a wider range of views than Seʿadyah had identified in the dialogues, including theories espoused by Aristotle and Epicurus. For Maimonides, the true solution to the dilemma in Job – which he, like Seʿadyah, attributes to Elihu – is that constant divine providence is limited to those rare individuals who have achieved intellectual perfection and have thus become “near to God.” This solution is based upon Maimonides’ own view that “providence is . . . consequent upon the intellect . . . [and] is graded as . . . human perfection is graded,” which he supports by interpreting numerous biblical verses in light of Aristotelian and Platonic conceptions – as mediated by Arabic tradition.25 Various branches of Arabic learning were applied to explain the logic of the halakhah, the central core of both Rabbanite and Karaite Judaism, which is rooted in the legal (halakhic) sections of the Pentateuch. Reflecting Muʿtazilite influence, Seʿadyah and his contemporaries Qirqisānī and Japheth distinguished between laws given by God that stem from reason (al-ʿaqliyyāt), and those whose authority is based purely on revelation (al-samʿiyyāt), which have no rationale beyond the simple command of God by itself. This classification was embraced by subsequent authors in both the Karaite and Rabbanite schools. Judah Halevi explained further that whereas the laws of reason serve as the basis for human society at large, the laws of revelation mystically link the people of Israel uniquely with God, a connection he expresses in terms borrowed from S ̣ūfī thought, especially ittisāl (to conjoin, unite).26 Finding another avenue to explain _ the laws of revelation, Abraham Ibn Ezra drew upon astrological notions to explain the esoteric purpose of the Tabernacle, the sacrificial services, and so forth. In seeking a scientific rationale for what Seʿadyah had classified as 25

26

See Mordechai Cohen, “Maimonides’ Disagreements with ‘The Torah’ and Talmud in His Interpretation of Job,” Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 4 (2004), 66 78. See Diana Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha Levi’s Kuzari (Albany, 2000).

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 719 “laws of revelation,” Ibn Ezra chips away at the basic Seʿadyanic distinction, but it was Maimonides who rejected it completely, arguing (in Guide III:26–28) that all of the divine laws – as commanded in the Pentateuch – stem from reason and are indeed beneficial to man, although in some cases that benefit is less evident than in others. It is in this spirit that Maimonides (Guide III:29–49) ambitiously explains the purpose of the entire gamut of biblical law in light of Aristotelian ethical and political concepts of a properly functioning society and virtuous individuals. For those laws which cannot readily be explained in these terms, he offers a different rationale, arguing that they were intended to wean the ancient Israelites away from the surrounding Near Eastern pagan cultures and their corrupt ways.27 While the Pentateuch is theoretically the source of the halakhah, in practice its contours are laid out in detail in postbiblical layers of interpretation or “derivation.” While the Rabbis of the Talmud seem to have gone about this process unselfconsciously, the spirit of Greco-Arabic rationalism as well as the Karaite challenge necessitated a clear exposition of this process. A sharp debate sparked in the tenth century over the derivation of halakhah and its relation to the biblical text between Karaite and Rabbanite scholars, both of whom borrowed concepts from Muslim jurisprudence to justify their positions. Within Islam, the religious law (sharīʿa) comprised, first and foremost, that which is specified in the text (nas s) of the Qurʾān and the hadīth (traditions from Muhammad and his _ __ Companions), supplemented _by that which is generally accepted by consensus (ijmāʿ) of the Muslim community. Somewhat more contentious was the status of the fourth source of law, qiyās, that is, legal inference through analogy with existing laws, with some advocating the validity of this application of human reason (ʿaql), and others insisting on supporting all legal decision-making based on the other three sources which are anchored in tradition (naql). Parallels to all four Muslim sources of law can be found in the Talmud, most notably qiyās. This term is actually a cognate of the technical talmudic term heqqesh, likewise a method of legal derivation from Scripture through analogy. Karaites and Rabbanites were divided over what to make of these parallels. As mentioned above, ʿAnan was fond of using heqqesh – just like the Rabbis of the Talmud – though he applied it in an independent manner without regard for the existing talmudic legal system. Later Karaites criticized ʿAnan’s conclusions as being too far-fetched, but themselves found a need to rely on qiyās to supplement the law as stated in Scripture alone – especially since they 27

See Cohen, Opening the Gates, 166 84.

720 mordechai z. cohen rejected the Rabbanite “Oral Law.” Seʿadyah vociferously rejected the use of qiyās and even argued that its apparent application in the Talmud is an illusion, explaining that the entire system of talmudic halakhah in all of its details can be traced to the original Oral Law given together with the Written Law (i.e., the Pentateuch) at Sinai. In his opinion, the apparent “derivations” in the Talmud via heqqesh and similar methods are not true sources of the details of the law, but rather secondary associations to confirm what was already known from Sinai. Qirqisānī and Japheth accused Seʿadyah of misrepresenting the reality that the Rabbis of the Talmud creatively derived new legislation through legal analogy – which therefore undercuts his criticism of the Karaite use of qiyās. While still asserting the fundamental principle of an Oral Law and its faithful transmission through the generations, later Rabbanite scholars in al-Andalus, most notably Maimonides (see below), tacitly agreed with the Karaite account of the creative use of heqqesh and other midrashic hermeneutical methods (middot) by the Rabbis in the Talmud. They disagreed with the Karaites, however, over the authority to apply these methods independently, arguing that only the ancient Rabbis of the talmudic era had that right, and that they did so in deference to the continuous tradition of Oral Law recorded in the Mishnah.28 INNOVATION VS. TRADITION: THE IDEA OF PESHAT _

The theological battle between Rabbanites and Karaites forced each group to grapple with the tension between tradition and innovation in their interpretations of the Bible. Nominally, of course, the Karaites were freed from this tension by the above-mentioned motto attributed to ʿAnan, “Search Scripture well, and do not rely on my opinion.” Yet, in practice, early Karaite interpreters often relied on rabbinic exegesis for halakhic purposes; Benjamin al-Nahāwandī, for example, at times accepted talmudic law in the absence of clear biblical legislation, and Yeshuʿa b. Judah actually incorporated rabbinic halakhic midrashim in his Pentateuch commentary. On the Rabbanite side, matters were more complex because the results of the new philological method often seemed diametrically opposed to talmudic Bible interpretation. While Seʿadyah and his early successors developed strategies for bridging this gap, the one that ultimately would prevail is first articulated by Ibn Janāh, who argues _ realm (lit. that the rabbinic maxim “a biblical verse does not leave the hands) of its peshat” implies that “the peshat of a verse is one thing (lit. _ _ 28

See ibid., 243 82.

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 721 alone), and the halakhah is another (lit. alone),” as “it is not impossible that one language expression can bear two correct meanings” (Kitāb alLumaʿ, 8; Sefer ha-Riqmah, 19). In other words, the biblical text can be interpreted in two alternative, but equally valid, ways: (1) philologically and contextually, yielding “the peshat of Scripture” – the realm of his own _ analysis; (2) according to the midrashic methods of the Rabbis, which determine the halakhah. Notwithstanding the importance of the latter, he asserts that the former is inviolate based on the talmudic maxim that “Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat,” which he takes to mean _ that Scripture cannot be deprived of its philological-contextual sense 29 (peshat). Ibn_ Janāh’s appropriation of the talmudic “rule of peshat” (used in _ _ rabbinic literature in a different way) for this purpose represents an innovation – at least as far as the extant literature indicates. Yet, the method that he refers to as peshat was already well-established among Rabbanite scholars in Muslim lands_by his time. Hence, Ibn Janāh goes on _ in the above-cited passage to argue that those talmudists who denied the validity of the philological method do so “because of their scant study of the peshat commentaries of Rav Seʿadyah and Samuel b. Hophni.” Projecting_ his definition of the term back onto his great predecessors, Ibn Janāh refers to their commentaries as peshat; yet neither Seʿadyah nor _ Samuel b._ Hophni, in fact, used this term to characterize their method. An incidental reference to the rabbinic term peshuto shel miqra (“the peshat of _ _ Scripture”) is buried deep in Seʿadyah’s Proverbs commentary (on 30:1), but plays no substantial role in his hermeneutics. And, while Samuel b. Hophni does invoke the talmudic rule of peshat (see above), he does _ fundamental axiom so in a different connection – to support Seʿadyah’s regarding taʾwīl. As construed by Samuel b. Hophni, the talmudic rule of peshat dictates that Scripture must be interpreted literally, that is, _ according to its zāhir/peshat – except where taʾwīl is indicated. While _ the notion of zāhir (Samuel b. Hophni’s _ there is some overlap between _ definition of peshat) and the philological-contextual sense (Ibn Janāh’s _ _ definition of peshat), the two are not identical, since the latter includes the _ application of taʾwīl where appropriate. Furthermore, Samuel – following Seʿadyah’s axiom – endeavors to arrive at the single correct interpretation of Scripture, which includes a process of harmonization with halakhic and other traditions transmitted by the Rabbis. Ibn Janāh, on the other hand, _ frees himself from the need for such harmonization with his dual 29

On the various construals of the peshat maxim within the Jewish exegetical tradition, see Mordechai Cohen, The Rule of Peshat:_ Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture in Their Christian and Muslim Contexts, c. 900 1270 (Philadelphia, 2020).

722 mordechai z. cohen hermeneutic that effectively enables him to engage in his linguistic exegesis without restraint. Ibn Janāh’s usage of the rule of peshat to carve out a niche for the _ _ philological-rational interpretive method within Rabbanite thought was a turning point that would ultimately gain currency. Yet, in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries its impact still seems to have been quite limited. In fact, Ibn Janāh himself used the term peshat only very rarely. Normally, he _ hermeneutical terminology _ – much like the early Karaite relied on Arabic exegetes who wrote in Arabic and had no need to cite the talmudic rule of peshat, since they hardly required talmudic license to engage in their _ philological exegesis. Neither Ibn Chiquitilla nor Ibn Balaam (in their extant writings) invoke the talmudic peshat maxim, nor do Moses Ibn Ezra _ or Judah Halevi, all of whom had ample opportunity to do so; for example, when rejecting rabbinic readings as mere derash (homiletics). It also seems that Samuel b. Hophni’s version of rule of peshat remained current in alAndalus well into the twelfth century, as Isaac_ Ibn Barūn (citing the authority of Samuel Ibn Naghrella ha-Nagid) attaches it to Seʿadyah’s axiom. Intriguingly, a close parallel to Ibn Janāh’s theory of peshat can be _ found in Rashi in northern France, who used_ the very same talmudic sources to create a dual hermeneutic, a model taken to its logical conclusion by Rashbam (Ramerupt, 1080–1160), who engages in a peshat analysis _ of the legal portions of the Pentateuch that is strikingly independent of talmudic halakhah. It is unclear, however, if Ibn Janāh’s works – written in Arabic – were even available to Rashi or Rashbam in_any form (written or oral), and it is possible that they arrived at their hermeneutical model independently based purely on the talmudic sources.30 Somewhat ironically, it was Abraham Ibn Ezra – writing in Hebrew in Christian lands – who played a decisive role in forming the identity of what would come to be known as the “peshat movement” that had _ emerged from the school of Seʿadyah’s followers in Muslim lands. Unlike his predecessors who wrote in Arabic, Ibn Ezra regularly uses the term peshat to label his rational, philological-contextual exegetical _ method – conceivably a response to the culture clash that confronted him in Christian lands, where Rashi had already achieved great popularity. Rashi’s claim to have penned a peshat commentary, coupled with his _ frequent reliance on midrashic interpretations, rankled Ibn Ezra, who argues that the methodology of his geonic and Andalusian predecessors truly represents the “way of peshat.” _ 30

See Mordechai Cohen, “A Possible Spanish Source for Rashi’s Concept of Peshuto Shel _ and Miqra,” in Sara Japhet and Avraham Grossman, eds., Rashi: His Image, His Work His Influence for Generations [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2008), 353 79.

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 723 Whereas Ibn Janāh made peshat inviolate but acknowledged the rab_ as a viable _ alternative reading of Scripture, Ibn binic midrashic method Ezra goes a step further and argues that peshat is actually the single genuine _ is how he construed the interpretation of the biblical text – and this talmudic maxim that “Scripture does not leave the realm of its peshat.”31 _ Accordingly, Ibn Ezra refers to peshat as “the truth” (emet) and “the _ essence” (ʿiqar) of Scripture. He relegates midrashic exegesis to the status of derash and asmakhta, that is, fanciful projections onto the biblical text. Intriguingly, Ibn Ezra’s strong claim that Scripture has but one meaning comes close to Daniel al-Qūmisī’s position of the singularity of scriptural signification (see above). A further step was taken by Maimonides, who created a hermeneutical model in which peshuto shel miqra serves as the fundamental basis of the halakhah. This unique_ view is advanced in his Book of the Commandments, a halakhic work that enumerates the 613 commandments (misvot) trad_ itionally believed to have been given to Moses at Sinai, a genre quite popular in the Geonic-Andalusian tradition. But whereas earlier “enumerators” of the commandments included laws of rabbinic origin (de-rabbanan), Maimonides insisted on limiting this core group of 613 to those of biblical origin and authority (de-orayta) – which he identifies as those stated in Scripture itself – as opposed to those derived by way of derash. To support this claim, he invokes the rule that “Scripture does not leave the realm (lit. hands) of its peshat,” which he takes to mean that the _ original meaning and authority of Scripture does not go beyond (“leave the hands of”) its peshat (Book of the Commandments, Introduction, Second _ Principle). This dichotomy is based on the theory of the sources of Jewish law presented by Maimonides in the introduction to his Mishnah commentary, where he differentiates between the original law given at Sinai – composed of the “Written Law” (i.e., the Pentateuch) and “Oral Law” – and further applications derived subsequently by the Rabbis using the elaborate methods (middot) of derash. Drawing upon a dichotomy in Muslim jurisprudence, he terms the former “the roots” (usūl), which _ number 613, whereas the latter are “branches” (furūʿ), which reach “many 32 thousands.” Maimonides’ insistence that biblical authority is limited to peshateh di_ qera would seem to be based on Ibn Ezra’s singular model of peshat (rather _ than Ibn Janāh’s dual hermeneutic, in which peshat and derash are treated _ interpretive modes). But Maimonides _ as equally valid goes further than

31 32

Abraham Ibn Ezra, Yesod Diqduq, ed. Nehemia Allony [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1985), 86. Cohen, Opening the Gates, 283 304.

724 mordechai z. cohen Ibn Ezra in his adherence to peshateh di-qera by making it the exclusive _ basis of laws that are de-orayta, whereas Ibn Ezra allowed for laws transmitted in a purely oral fashion. This stricter Maimonidean adherence to peshat, however, forces him to embrace – as valid construals of peshateh di_ qera _– tenuous rabbinic halakhic readings that Ibn Ezra could simply relegate to the status of asmakhta (with the laws themselves being known from the oral tradition). In order to sustain his system, Maimonides explains that the correct sense of peshateh di-qera, that is, the text of the _ Pentateuch (the “Written Law”), was established by its oral interpretation (the “Oral Law”) given at Sinai – which, as he himself acknowledges, often diverges from its apparent contextual-philological sense (zāhir). In fact, the _ detailed reasons he offers for the misvot in the third section of the Guide _ (mentioned above) are based on his own contextual-philological analysis of the biblical text without regard for the interpretation of the Oral Law, which by his own admission is authoritative for the purpose of halakhah (a divergence that has long troubled students of Maimonides). Having established peshateh di-qera as the essential source of his legal system, Maimonides relies _heavily on Scripture in his halakhic writings (much more so than other talmudists), which feature numerous biblical citations – often accompanied by rabbinic exegesis, which he will label as a Sinaitic “transmitted interpretation” (tafsīr marwī), or with the Hebrew expression mi-pi ha-shemuʿa lamedu (“based on the tradition they expounded”). It is not entirely clear why Maimonides took the extreme position that peshateh di-qera is the exclusive source of biblical law, especially since this _ obligates him to include within its purview tenuous rabbinic readings that diverge from the contextual-philological sense. Conceivably, this may have been a response to the Karaite critique that Rabbanite halakhah betrayed the true sense of Scripture. But it would also seem that he was influenced by Muslim jurisprudence, in which a sharp distinction was made between laws stated explicitly in a sacred source-text (nass), that is, from the Qurʾān or hadīth, as opposed to those derived __ _ emphasized, the former two enjoy through qiyās. As Muslim legal theorists the authority of tradition (naql), whereas qiyās is based on the power of reason (ʿaql) of an individual jurist. In his introduction to the Mishnah, Maimonides makes precisely this epistemological distinction between the “roots” revealed in the “Written Law” and “Oral Law” and the “branches,” that is, derivative laws derived through the middot (to which he refers using the Arabic term qiyās). Echoing discussions in Muslim jurisprudence, he states that the former are known with certainty and were never subject to debate, since they are based on an authoritative tradition from Sinai, whereas the latter are subject to debate because they are based on human legal reasoning, which is subjective by nature. As it turns out, then,

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 725 Maimonides uses the talmudic rule of peshat primarily to make a legal_ exegetical-methodological epistemological distinction, as opposed to the one made by other pashtanim. Maimonides’ radical _position regarding the role and nature of peshuto _ shel miqra sparked the sharp critique of Nahmanides, who rejected the _ notion that “the truth is peshateh di-qera alone, and not matters derived _ midrashically” (as he paraphrased Maimonides). Aiming to undercut Maimonides’ primary talmudic source, that is, the rule that “Scripture does not leave the realm (lit. hands) of its peshat,” Nahmanides argues: _ _ They did not say “Scripture has no meaning but its peshat,” but rather both its _ hands of” either one midrash with its peshat [are viable], and it does not “leave the _ of them. But Scripture can bear all [meanings], both being true. (Hassagot on Maimonides’ Book of the Commandments, Second Principle)

Returning to Ibn Janāh’s dual hermeneutic, Nahmanides asserts that the _ cannot be deprived of talmudic rule of peshat _indicates only that Scripture _ its peshat (which he defines as its contextual-philological sense), but not _ that derivations of further laws using the midrashic middot are any less authoritative for establishing halakhah. Yet Nahmanides tacitly accepts Maimonides’ conceptual hierarchy in which pesha_ teh di-qera provides the _ as opposed to those basis of the original core of biblical laws (the “roots”), derived subsequently (the “branches”) through the middot, which are merely inferences from the biblical text. His argument with Maimonides relates to the halakhic status of these categories: in Nahmanides’ view, both _ the original core and later derivations have biblical (de-orayta) authority, since the divinely revealed text of the Pentateuch was given as an openended source of legal interpretation and inference.33 THE LEGACY OF MEDIEVAL JEWISH BIBLE EXEGESIS IN ISLAMIC LANDS

The conceptual world of the “People of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb) has always been largely shaped by the Hebrew Bible. But throughout the postbiblical era, Jewish scholars also drew avidly from their cultural surroundings to interpret (at times effectively rewriting) their sacred Scripture. In the lands of Islam, Arabic and Greco-Arabic disciplines – from grammar to poetics, logic to physics, ethics to metaphysics, as well as more distinctly Muslim forms of learning, such as Qurʾānic exegesis, Muʿtazilite theology, and S ̣ūfī mysticism – would enrich the Jewish perspective toward the biblical text. 33

See Cohen, Rule of Peshat, 274 82.

726 mordechai z. cohen This was true of both Karaite and Rabbanite exegetes, with the latter having to accommodate a third ingredient: rabbinic tradition, with its own distinctive interpretive and legal components. The Judeo-Arabic exegetical tradition might thus be characterized as a continual tension between appropriation and self-definition within a foreign host culture. This fusion was so successful that many of these originally foreign elements embraced and integrated into the Jewish exegetical tradition continued to be relevant even once Judeo-Arabic ceased to be its language and Jewish scholarship was transplanted to Christian lands, leading to the productive afterlife of the Rabbanite geonic-Andalusian interpretive tradition in Spain and Provence, and of its Karaite counterpart in Byzantium. While the Late Middle Ages would witness an increasing interest in other forms of Bible interpretation, especially midrashic and kabbalistic ones, the chief legacy of the Judeo-Arabic schools was a rational, philological-literary method of analysis, which by then was termed peshat/peshuto shel miqra – by both Rabbanite and Karaite exegetes (the latter_ – in _Byzantium – under the influence of the former). With the advent of printing centuries after the decline of the great exegetical schools in Iraq, Jerusalem, and al-Andalus, the commentaries of their Hebrew-writing successors in Christian lands could be disseminated widely, but here there was a sharp divergence between the two schools in the realization of this potential. The much smaller Karaite community (which spread from Turkey into Crimea and northward into Russia, Poland, and Lithuania) was slow in taking advantage of the new printing technology, and it was not until the midnineteenth century that any major Karaite Bible commentaries were published, which effectively relegated them to obscurity. By contrast, Rabbanite exegetical works were published avidly – beginning in Italy in the late fifteenth century, and later throughout Europe – and thus became enormously influential. In particular, the commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra, David Qimhi, and Nahmanides have appeared alongside those of _ Rashi in the “Rabbinic Bible”_ (Miqraʾot Gedolot), which has been printed in numerous editions since the early sixteenth century and remains in use among traditional Jewish readers of Scripture until this day.34 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ben-Shammai, Haggai. A Leader’s Project: Studies in the Philosophical and Exegetical Works of Seʿadyah Gaʾon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2015). Brody, Robert. Saʿadyah Gaon, trans. Betsy Rosenberg (Oxford, 2013). 34

David Stern, The Jewish Bible: A Material History (Seattle, 2017), 117 26, 142 57.

jewish bible exegesis in muslim lands 727 Cohen, Mordechai. Three Approaches to Biblical Metaphor: From Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides to David Kimhi (Leiden, 2003). Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu (Leiden, 2011). The Rule of Peshat: Jewish Constructions of the Plain Sense of Scripture in Their Christian and Muslim Contexts, c. 900–1270 (Philadelphia, 2020). Frank, Daniel. Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004). Goldstein, Miriam. Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The JudeoArabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūh and Abū al-Faraj _ Hārūn (Tübingen, 2011). Khan, Geoffrey, Maria Angeles Gallego, and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger. The Karaite Tradition of Hebrew Grammatical Thought in Its Classical Form (Leiden, 2003). Klein-Braslavy, Sara. Maimonides’ Interpretation of the Story of Creation [Hebrew] (second edition, Jerusalem, 1987). Nemoy, Leon. Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature Translated from Arabic, Aramaic, and Hebrew (New Haven, 1952). Polliack, Meira. The Karaite Tradition of Arabic Bible Translation: A Linguistic and Exegetical Study of Karaite Translations of the Pentateuch from the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries C.E. (Leiden, 1997). Polliack, Meira, ed. Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003). Simon, Uriel. The Ear Discerns Words: Studies in Ibn Ezra’s Exegetical Methodology [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 2013). Sklare, David. Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and His Cultural World (Leiden, 1996). Zawanowska, Marzena. The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ʻEli the Karaite on the Abraham Narratives (Leiden, 2011).

chapter 22

JEWISH LAW gideon libson

INTRODUCTION

In the present chapter, I survey the major features of Jewish civil law in the Islamicate world through the fifteenth century – the production of halakhic (Jewish legal) literature, the approaches of the most important sages to the sources of law and other legal principles, and the procedures followed by rabbinic courts. I will also focus on how Islamic law influenced the development of halakhah in the Jewish communities in the Islamicate world. THE DISTINCTIVE FACETS OF JEWISH LAW IN COUNTRIES UNDER MUSLIM RULE

Here I consider five aspects of Jewish Law: (1) the production of halakhic literature; (2) the sources of law; (3) the status of the decisor; (4) the domains of legal activity; and (5) connections and disjunctions with the legal system of the host society – that is, with Islamic law. We may conveniently divide this analysis into two periods: that of the geonim (the heads of the talmudic academies of Babylonia and the Land of Israel, who flourished from the eighth through the twelfth centuries), when the initial links with Islamic law were first forged in the wake of the closing of the Babylonian Talmud, and the post-geonic period up to the end of the fifteenth century, when the links to Islamic law – though weaker – may still be discovered in some enclaves, chiefly in Egypt and North Africa. HALAKHIC LITERATURE

Four main categories of halakhic literature were produced in the geonic period: (1) diverse compendia of halakhic rulings, the hallmark of halakhah in the Islamic world. These compendia reflected the tension in these countries between the insistence upon rigorous Talmud study and the 728

jewish law 729 preference for simply consulting such compilations. (2) The responsa literature, the main source for practical application of halakhah. (3) Halakhic monographs, written in Judeo-Arabic (that is, Arabic in Hebrew letters), which epitomized the transition from collectively produced halakhic literature to works emerging from the hands of specific, named individuals. (4) Writings on legal theory, focusing on the legal sources of halakhah. These four categories of halakhic literature represent innovations by the Babylonian geonim and a sea change from the literature of the talmudic era. The literature of halakhic rulings – including halakhic monographs – developed out of the legal autonomy that Muslim rulers granted their Jewish subjects. In the twelfth century, Maimonides would make this point in his letter to the rabbinic court judge Phinehas of Alexandria in comparing the fate of Jews in Christian and Muslim countries: “None of the Jews in the cities of the Uncircumcised – not even the greatest sage among them – is an expert in civil law, because they are not accustomed to dealing with it; unlike the Ishmaelites, the Uncircumcised do not allow them to sit in judgment.”1 Collections of halakhic rulings intermingled with talmudic exegesis were an innovation of the geonic age; examples include the Halakhot Pesuqot, attributed to Yehudai Gaʾon (r. 757–61), and Simeon Qayyāra’s ninthcentury Halakhot Gedolot.2 These works had a direct impact on practical halakhic rulings. The practice of combining talmudic exegesis with halakhic rulings continued after the geonic age in North Africa and Muslim Spain, based mainly on the teachings of the geonim, a prominent North African example being the talmudic commentary of Ḥananel b. Ḥushiel – which, though mainly a commentary, frequently offers halakhic rulings, the tension between commentary and halakhic conclusions being evident throughout. Ḥananel also composed a (now-lost) volume of halakhic decisions entitled Sefer Dinim.3 Eleventh-century Muslim Spain produced eclectic compendia rather than original halakhic works. These include the Hilkheta Gavrata by Samuel ha-Nagid Ibn Naghrella (d. 1056). This work compiles halakhic rulings on narrow topics and makes no pretense of being a comprehensive 1

2

3

Letters and Essays of Moses Maimonides, ed. Isaac Shailat [Hebrew and Judeo Arabic] (Jerusalem, 1987/8), 2:446. On Yehudai Gaʾon and Halakhot Pesuqot, see Neil Danzig, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot [Hebrew] (New York, 1999). On Rabbenu Hananel and his methods of halakhic decision making, see Israel M. Ta Shma, Talmudic Commentary in Europe and North Africa: Part I. 1000 1200 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1999), 120 59.

730 gideon libson code of the practices of the age. Samuel was followed by Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth (d. 1089), who followed Samuel in some of the decisions in his Halakhot Kelulot but also incorporated all the laws relevant to daily life. Ibn Ghiyyāth also composed a collection of rulings on economic law and prepared a talmudic commentary designed to facilitate the rendering of halakhic decisions.4 Following on the steps of the work of Ibn Ghiyyāth was the monumental work Sefer ha-Halakhot Rabbati by Isaac Alfasi (believed to have been Ibn Ghiyyāth’s student). Written in North Africa in the second half of the eleventh century, it quickly made its way to Spain.5 Alfasi’s work differs from those of his predecessors in several ways: First, it is a sort of abridgment of the Babylonian Talmud that combines a discussion of each talmudic passage with the halakhah derived from it. Next, Alfasi draws on the Palestinian Talmud to supplement the Babylonian – though he gives priority to the latter where the two are in conflict. Alfasi’s work is replete with the principles for rendering halakhic decisions, which attest to his stature and authority as a decisor. When reaching a halakhic decision, he omits rare precedents or doubtful cases and sometimes refrains from citing the opinion of earlier authorities. In effect, Alfasi produced an alternative to the study of the Talmud – a role many ascribe to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah a century or so later. Although our current edition of Alfasi’s work reflects his final written opinion, he did not hesitate to introduce even sweeping changes in the various editions of his magnum opus or in his responsa. This attests to his independence of thought and his view of his work as a compilation of halakhah and subject to modification, even on major points, sometimes in response to the changing needs of society. Others, including Alfasi’s pupil Joseph Ibn Migash, followed his tendency to combine talmudic commentary with halakhic rulings. The development of halakhic compendia in the Islamicate world reached its apex with Moses Maimonides’ (1138–1204) Mishneh Torah. The Mishneh Torah may be seen as the next step in Maimonides’ other halakhic compositions – first, his commentary on the Mishnah; and then his Book of Precepts. Maimonides’ inclusion of halakhic rulings in a commentary on the Mishnah follows a model established by Nathan b. Abraham, av bet din of the academy of the Land of Israel in the eleventh 4 5

On Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth, see Ta Shma, Talmudic Commentary, 162 66. On Alfasi, his method of halakhic decision making, and the spread of his work, see Ta Shma, Talmudic Commentary, 145 59; see also Leonard R. Levy, “R. Yitzhaq Alfasi’s Application of Principles of Adjudication in ‘Halakhot Rabbati,’” (PhD diss., Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2002).

jewish law 731 century – which, though mainly lexicographical, also includes halakhic rulings. The Mishneh Torah represents an attempt to establish a unitary halakhic tradition amidst the political decline and historical crises that beset Maimonides’ contemporaries in the Islamic world – in Yemen, North Africa, Spain, and the Land of Israel. The Mishneh Torah proposes an alternative to the talmudic and earlier pesaq literature. The work represents a layered construction undergirded by the Talmuds – to include the Palestinian Talmud – and surmounted by elements of the teachings, rulings, and customs of the later authorities. These authorities included both the geonim and their successors such as Alfasi and Ibn Migash (with whom Maimonides’ own father studied), whom Maimonides calls “my masters.” At times, Maimonides rejects his geonic predecessors; at others, he cites them explicitly with the common catchphrase, “this is how the geonim ruled.” Some geonic leaders protested the rising authority of Maimonides and his code. Six qualities distinguish the Mishneh Torah from earlier pesaq literature and in particular Sefer ha-Halakhot Rabbati, which Maimonides may have taken as a counterexample in all points of his composition despite his fervent admiration for Alfasi. First of all, the Mishneh Torah covers the entire Oral Law, including halakhot not in force in his age. Second, in his preface Maimonides emphasizes the tradition of reception and chain of halakhah since the revelation at Sinai. Third, his code is structured by topics whose framework comes from his own Book of Precepts. Fourth, he restricts himself to the halakhic bottom line and omits the debates addressed at length in his commentary on the Mishnah. Fifth, he does not quote talmudic passages to support his ruling and he does not reference his sources, underscoring the work’s autonomy as a legal code. Sixth, it is clear and concise, written in pure Hebrew, “to make it easier for most people.” We cannot be certain whether Maimonides intended the work simply to summarize the state of halakhah in his time or actually to supersede earlier sources.6 In any case, the work gained broad circulation during Maimonides’ lifetime in communities in the East – Yemen, Syria, and Iraq – and the West. The compositions by Alfasi and Maimonides became fundamental texts of rabbinic studies during their lifetimes and continued to enjoy pride of place in subsequent generations. By the early twelfth century, consensus in Spain and Provence had accepted Alfasi’s book as authoritative. Some 6

On the motivations and aims of the Mishneh Torah, see Herbert A. Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford, 2005), 197 2001; Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York, 2008), 320 25; Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2009), 145 72.

732 gideon libson came to see it as a substitute for the Talmud, and an extensive literature of objections, criticisms, glosses, supplements, additions, and commentaries appeared. The Mishneh Torah enjoyed a similar destiny in both the East and in North Africa, and it even had a significant impact beyond the Islamicate world. There were many in both East and West who criticized, opposed, defended, or filled in the gaps in the Mishneh Torah; additionally, some endeavored to identify his talmudic sources. The legal codes of Alfasi and Maimonides typify the greater weight given to halakhic digests than to talmudic exegesis per se; this situation would continue until the middle of the twelfth century, at which point the balance shifted. Their constituents, too, devoted little time to Talmud and preferred to study compendia of halakhah, increasing the prestige of the pesaq literature and raising the prestige of decisors. In addition to the halakhic monographs of the geonim of Babylonia and these broad-based compendia I have just discussed, legal writers in the Islamicate world also devoted significant effort to composing responsa. Responsa played a key role in laying down the halakhah; they also developed distinctive characteristics as a literary genre. Responsa as a literary form originated in the geonic period. They became a key component of Jewish intellectual life in Spain, Egypt, and North Africa, where responsa were usually written in Judeo-Arabic. Responsa emerged as a literature to fulfill the demand in the Diaspora for halakhic guidance from the authoritative centers in Babylonia. From the mid-ninth century, the geonim of Babylonia began to receive a broad spectrum of questions from the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean Basin (mainly the Maghrib but also Spain, Egypt, Italy, and the Land of Israel) ranging from biblical and talmudic exegesis through issues of practical halakhah. That these inquiries were addressed to the geonim reflects the preeminent status of the Babylonian academies in the eyes of the questioners. In their replies, the geonim relied chiefly on the Talmud7 and very little on the extra-talmudic rabbinic literature or earlier halakhic compilations written outside the world of the academies, such as Halakhot Pesuqot and the Sheʾiltot. Responsa were composed under the tutelage of the scholars of the academies in the kallah months, a period during which the Babylonian academies called together all their students for collective study; this setting gave the geonim the authority of a religious court and their replies the status of a legal ruling. The recipients of these responsa generally saw them as binding or at least as a strong recommendation.

7

For a challenge to this idea, see the recent controversial work of Talya Fishman, Becoming the People of the Talmud (Philadelphia, 2013), 63 64.

jewish law 733 Indeed, responsa were collected and archived and served as a collection of legal decisions. This view of the responsum as binding is reflected in Yehudai Gaʾon’s commentary on the dictum of Judah b. Ṭabbai (Mishnah Avot 1:8) that one should not endeavor to influence the judges: a dayyan must not issue a ruling if the questioner has merely requested an advisory opinion and does not want him to decide the case.8 Because of the importance the geonim assigned to responsa, they were opposed to the practice common throughout the Diaspora communities of submitting the same question to the heads of the two rival academies in the hopes of “shopping” for a more desirable answer. Responsa constituted the most important written genre for the Babylonian geonim until Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) inaugurated the composition of monographs in the early tenth century, and despite the importance of these monographs the volume of responsa increased in the late geonic era in the time of Sherira (second half of the tenth century) and Hayya Gaʾon (the first half of the eleventh century). Responsa came with the collective imprimatur of the academy from which they emerged, although with the passage of time, the element of collective accountability diminished and was replaced by the gaon’s personal authority. Responsa continued to be a major halakhic instrument for the jurists of the Islamicate world even after the geonic period. As the vicissitudes of history weakened the central authority in Babylonia and enhanced the power of the local communities, responsa tended to lose their status as court rulings and turned into something more akin to an advisory opinion. This can be seen, for example, in the responsa of Solomon b. Simeon Duran (c. 1400–1467). Perhaps as a result, the style employed in responsa became less categorical and imperious. The earliest Spanish responsa were composed by Moses b. Enoch (d. c. 965), his son Enoch, and by Joseph Ibn Abitur. Alfasi, later, is credited with some 500 responsa, many of them addressed to his pupils and most of them written while he was living in Spain. Likewise, the 250 extant responsa of Joseph Ibn Migash testify to his prominence as a halakhic authority, as he himself notes in one of them: “This ruling of mine has spread to all countries and has become a fixed foundation for all.”9 Several generations of the Maimonides family, too, were active in writing responsa, starting with Maimonides’ father (several of whose responsa survive). Maimonides himself dispatched close to 500 responsa 8

9

Benjamin M. Lewin, Osar ha Geʾonim: Ketubbot (Jerusalem, 1938/39), Responsa, #349. _ Berachyahu Lipshitz, “The Legal Status of the Responsa See the interpretation by Literature” [Hebrew], Shenaton ha mishpat ha ʿivri 9 10 (1981/82 1982/83), 269 71. _ Joseph Ibn Migash, Responsa, #124.

734 gideon libson to Jewish communities all over the East (the Land of Israel, Syria, Yemen) and the Maghrib, in addition to those in Egypt; most of the responsa were short because they were intended for scholars. This tradition continued with his descendants: his son Abraham replied to questioners from Syria and Yemen, as well as to Daniel the Babylonian, to explain his father’s Mishneh Torah and Book of Precepts. A collection of responsa sent to ʿAden, among other destinations, by Maimonides’ great-grandson Joshua haNagid, survives. The later North African jurists Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, Solomon b. Simeon Duran, and Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran also took up the mantle of responsa and dealt with the problems of_ their own age: the status of conversos, the affairs of local communities and communal regulations, relations between majorities and minorities, the friction between the old and new communities in North Africa produced by the wave of Jewish immigration to the Maghrib, economic competition, relations between spouses, and the encounter with the Muslim world in general. Another pillar of the halakhic literature was the legal monograph. The tradition of composing summaries of a particular area of the law began with Seʿadyah Gaʾon, who wrote several such monographs, of which the best-known today is his Book of Testimony and Legal Documents. This genre picked up speed with Samuel b. Hophni Gaon (like Seʿadyah, the head of the academy of Sura), who composed more than forty monographs, of which the best-known today in the field of private law are the Book of Suretyship, the Book of Abutters’ Rights, and the Book of Partnership. The genre reached its apex with Hayya Gaʾon, some of whose monographs reconsider topics already covered by Seʿadyah and Samuel b. Hophni, including the Book of Legal Documents, the Book of the Obligation of Judges, the Book of Abutters’ Rights, and the Book of Oaths. Several of Hayya’s monographs have survived intact, including The Laws of Oaths and the Book of Commercial Transactions.10 These monographs, written in Judeo-Arabic, pursued two seemingly incommensurable goals. The choice of language was intended to help acquaint Jews with Arabic legal terminology and to guide and assist them in their dealings with members of the host society. This explains the titles of the monographs and of their chapters, and sometimes even specific laws, 10

On Seʿadyah’s monographs, see Robert Brody, R. Seʿadyah Gaon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006/7), 137 48. On the monographs by Samuel ben Hophni, see David E. Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon & His Cultural World (Leiden, 1996), 19 26; Gideon Libson, “The Contribution of the Geniza to the Study of the Halakhic Monographs by R. Samuel ben Hofni: Structure, Scope, and Development” [Hebrew], Teʿuda 15 (1998/99), 189 240. On the monographs by Hayya Gaʾon, see Tsvi Groner, The Legal Methodology of Hai Gaon (Chico, CA, 1985), 12 13.

jewish law 735 which parallel the Islamic legal (fiqh) literature on the same topic. On the other hand, the monographs summarize talmudic law on each issue in order to highlight the differences between Jewish law and Muslim practice and to warn Jews against incorporating the latter into halakhah. It is possible to distinguish the adoption of the language and terminology from the rejection of content, although sometimes we find that particular laws, too, have been taken over from the Muslims. Halakhic monographs were also composed with introductions, providing us with some insights into what their Sitz im Leben might have been. In the preface to his Book of Testimony and Legal Documents, Seʿadyah Gaʾon emphasized the role of the monographs as manuals to guide both halakhists and laymen; he also wrote that the monographs were simply segments of a comprehensive halakhic code he intended to write, though his plan never came to fruition.11 Or, as Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon wrote in the preface to his Treatise on the Attainment of Legal Majority and Puberty: “I write this treatise on this topic, cognizant that knowledge of it conveys general benefit and its study provides comprehensive profit.”12 Samuel may also have hoped that his monographs would eventually cover all areas of halakhah. A later work that seeks to comprehend diverse topics, more or less continuing the geonic model, is David b. Seʿadyah’s al-Ḥāwī (Spain, eleventh century) – an attempt to produce a code to guide judges in the foundations of jurisprudence and to help them apply halakhah. But this work marked the end of the era of halakhic monographs in Spain. LEGAL THEORY

Beyond early attempts to lay out principles of biblical legal exegesis, there is no systematic discussion of legal theory and the sources of law in the literature of the talmudic era. The geonim, by contrast, follow in the footsteps of Muslim jurists mainly of the Muʿtazilite school and wrote a number of works about legal theory in which they addressed theoretical aspects of halakhah: the sources of law and knowledge, the status of tradition, the role of rational inquiry and analogy, consensus, custom, and interpretation. The first gaon to write about legal theory was Seʿadyah, mainly in his Kitāb Tahsil al-Sharīʿa al-Samʿiyya (Book of the __ 11

12

For a discussion of one aspect of this work, see, for now, Gideon Libson, “The Writ of Use (Mahd ar) in R. Seʿadyah Gaon and the Geniza and the Muslim Mahd ar” _ [Hebrew], _Ginzei Qedem 5 (2008/9), 99 163, esp. 110 18. See Tirzah Meacham (leBeit Yoreh), ed., and Miriam Frenkel, trans., The Book of Adolescence by Rav Samuel Ben Hofni and the Book of Years by Rav Yehudah ha Kohen Rosh ha Sedder [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1999).

736 gideon libson Source of the Traditional [shimʿiyot] Precepts in the Torah); Samuel b. Hophni did the same in several of his works – in his Introduction to the Talmud, Ten Questions, and Book of Guidance. Samuel, like Seʿadyah, also incorporated a discussion of legal theory into a preface to his biblical commentary. Both borrowed from legal theory of the Muʿtazilite kalām philosophy, cited the law’s philosophical underpinnings, and endeavored to incorporate them into the Jewish legal tradition.13 Other geonim, notably Sherira and Hayya Gaon, also periodically touch on legal theory. Seʿadyah’s discussions of jurisprudence focus on tradition and the validity of analogy. For him, tradition sits alongside sense perception, rational intuition, and logical inference as a fourth source of knowledge; its aims are to determine the truth. Rational inquiry supplements tradition and pursues the same goal. According to Seʿadyah, rabbinic law is part of a continuous tradition extending to the time of the prophets; halakhists simply transmit and preserve tradition. Thus, halakhot ostensibly enacted over the course of history are in fact of ancient origin, deriving from the biblical prophets or with roots in the Bible. For example, the laws of abutters are grounded in the Bible even though a close reading of the talmudic literature makes it plain that their origins are much later, perhaps under the influence of Roman provincial law. Samuel b. Hophni, too, discusses legal tradition and analogy, but disagrees with Seʿadyah’s reason for rejecting the application of analogy (qiyās) to precepts grounded in tradition (or revelation). Samuel makes popular consent (ijmāʿ) one focus of his discussion of the sources of law but asserts that it must be combined with tradition in order to validate the law. Consent by itself is not enough. The theoretical canons of the Babylonian geonim left almost no imprint on the halakhic writings of later scholars. Spanish sages such as Alfasi, Joseph Ibn Migash, and their successors more or less ignored the theory of law. The only exception was David b. Seʿadyah, perhaps the first to view the theory of law as an independent body of knowledge to be applied to talmudic passages. Serious attention to the topic awaited Maimonides in the twelfth century, who considered legal theory in his Treatise on Logic as well as in the preface to the Book of Precepts, the Commentary on the Mishnah, and, finally, in the Guide for the Perplexed. In his halakhic and philosophical writings he lays the foundation for a philosophy of halakhah: rationale for the precepts, their purpose, their influence on human 13

On Seʿadyah’s approach to legal theory and interpretation, see Moshe Zucker, “Fragments of the Kitāb tahsīl al sharāʾʿi al samāʿīya” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 41 (1971/72), __ _ York, 1983/ 373 410; Moshe Zucker, Seʿadyah’s Commentary on Genesis [Hebrew] (New 84), 11 69. On Samuel b. Hophni’s legal theory, see Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon.

jewish law 737 consciousness and social order, and, for some of them, their historical background. Maimonides’ son Abraham explained and defended his father’s philosophical works and addresses legal theory as well. In some of his responsa, as well as in the Kifāyat al-ʿĀbidīn (Comprehensive Guide for the Servants of God), he briefly notes several matters associated with the theory of law: interpretation, the use of analogy, and the status of legal precedents. We find this in his well-known remark in a responsum about the assets of orphans: “The gate of rational thought and analogy is not closed.”14 In the Kifāya he bases the principle that the halakhah is in keeping with the most recent authority upon the notion of the accumulation of knowledge, familiar in the Ashkenazic literature in the image of the dwarf sitting on the shoulders of a giant.15 Maimonides himself parted company with the geonim in his understanding of the fundamental categories of halakhah and the sources of halakhic knowledge, except where the commitment of the Oral Law to writing is concerned. Both Maimonides and the geonim believed that it was Judah the Patriarch who wrote down the Mishnah (contra French scholars from the time of Rashi onward).16 COMMUNAL REGULATIONS AND LOCAL CUSTOM

The geonim of the talmudic academies expressed their authority through two categories of law sourced in the Talmud: enactments or regulations (taqqanot) and customs (minhagim). These legal instruments supplemented consensus – which, unlike regulations, had only ex post facto validity. New enactments dominated public law and taqqanot were a legislative device for modifying and innovating halakhah in order to bridge the gaps that sometimes emerged between halakhah and the real world. The religious courts of the academies stood at the heart of halakhic activity, and they – rather than the qahal, the community or its representatives – had exclusive authority to introduce new rules and regulations. Outside Babylonia, the qahal may have held some authority to enact regulations, although it is difficult to speak of a uniform situation in all 14 15

16

Abraham Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Abraham Freimann (Jerusalem, 1927/28), #66. Nissim Dana, ed., Kitāb Kifāyat al ʿĀbidīn (Sefer Ha Maspik le ʿovdei Hashem) (Ramat Gan, 1988/89), 76. See also Shai A. Wosner, “The Halakha Is according to the Latest Authority: A Re examination” [Hebrew], Shenaton ha mishpat ha ʿivri 20 (1994/ _ 95 1996/97), 160. These French scholars believed that the Mishnah was not committed to writing until a later date. See Jacob Sussman, “The Oral Torah in the Literal Sense” [Hebrew], in Jacob Sussman and David Rosenthal, eds., Mehqerei Talmud (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005), 1:227.

738 gideon libson Jewish communities of the Islamic world, including its Babylonian heartland. Some geonic responsa attest to power granted to the qahal. The community’s authority to enact regulations is confirmed by public documents included in Seʿadyah’s Book of Testimony and Legal Documents. But Sheshna Gaʾon of Sura (r. c. 670 ce) ruled that when a qahal excommunicates under duress and in fear of the civil authorities, the ban is invalid. Subsequent legal writing reveals the question of the qahal’s power to make regulations to have endured: Alfasi allows that the qahal, in consultation with the community elders, is empowered to enact regulations.17 But in another responsum, he mentions excommunication imposed by a community – though he reserves the power to lift the ban, should the community regret having imposed it, for the sage.18 Alfasi’s pupil Joseph Ibn Migash mentions community regulations in a responsum in which he notes that such regulations were to be enacted “by the beit din and not by the community.”19 In contrast, Maimonides sees the qahal and the beit din as partners in imposing bans and enacting regulations governing sensitive matters: not conducting litigation in gentile courts (banned in 1187); observing the rules of ritual immersion; concerning marriage and divorce; the consensus in the city of Memphis not to eat the meat of animals killed by a particular ritual slaughterer; refusing to recognize the authority of a dayyan appointed by the central authority; and ignoring the rulings of the exilarch and the head of the academy in matters of prayer and the redemption of captives.20 The responsa of Abraham Maimonides suggest that the use of public regulations had diminished by the thirteenth century.21 Fifteenth-century North African rabbis made frequent use of regulations in diverse matters: taxes and custom duties, inheritance, legal documents, official 17

18

19

20

21

Isaac Alfasi, Responsa, ed. Leiter, #13. The role of the elders is also mentioned with regard to the imposition of a fine (ibid., #36) and the appointment of guardians (ibid., #135). Ibid., #281. See also Isaac Alfasi, Responsa, ed. Z. Byednowitz, (Biłgoraj, 1933/34), #31, #41, #85. On the two questions that contain references to community regulations, see Joseph Ibn Migash, Responsa, ed. Simha Hasidah (Jerusalem, 1990/91), #59; Israel M. Ta Shma and _ New Responsa by R. Joseph Ibn Migash,” Qoves ʿal Yad 8 Haggai Ben Shammai, “Eight _ Migash, (1975/76), #7. On a custom as having the status of a regulation, see Joseph Ibn Responsa, ed. Hasidah, #117 and #138. See in Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Blau: Laws of Gentile Courts, #27; Laws of Immersion, #242; Laws of Marriage and Divorce, #347 (not to marry a woman to a non Jew), #348 (marriage and divorce by specific rabbis); Laws of Ritual Slaughter, #173; recognizing the authority of a dayyan, #270; not to obey the exilarch, #329; Laws of Prayer, #183; Redemption of Captives, #452; excommunication in public, #349. See Abraham Maimonides, Responsa, ed. S. D. Goitein (Jerusalem, 1937/38), #8 (ostra cism) and #106 (betrothal).

jewish law 739 appointments, and more. Their discussions of these are similar to the responsa issued by the rabbis of Christian Spain. In contrast to geonic times, when courts of the talmudic academies were the hub of all halakhic activity including the enactment of regulations, the hierarchy was different for communities outside Babylonia and later in Muslim (and Christian) Spain: the status of the elders waned while that of the community as a whole waxed. Despite the relatively weak standing of custom in the hierarchy of sources of traditional halakhah, geonic custom was a preeminent legal tool and overshadowed other devices. But the geonim were not in total agreement about reliance on custom and they reveal different approaches to the acceptance or rejection of custom. Seʿadyah gave short shrift to custom or employed it only rarely and in limited domains, chiefly with regard to ritual.22 Two groups of customs were especially prominent in geonic times: one consists of customs that corroborate a halakhic tradition (often of the longue durée) by elucidating a talmudic passage or resolving a disagreement; the other comprises customs that determine norms – that is, entrenched practices that evolved into halakhic canons. Their validity hangs on the consent of halakhic scholars, who sometimes try to find biblical proof texts for them. This category includes the customs of batei din and sometimes the customs of the merchants. The idea that custom determined halakhic canons struck roots in two ways. The first relied on the public’s inherent capacity for imitation and their power of invention. Yet for the geonim, a custom was understood to be established as a valid norm only with the explicit or implicit consent of the rabbis.23 The second way custom became grounded was through the legal precedent of a beit din which, over time, evolved into a widespread custom. For the latter, custom served as the normative underpinning of the court ruling, inasmuch as judicial precedent itself is not technically a binding source of Jewish law. The geonic approach that a custom is binding only through the rabbis’ implicit or explicit consent is fundamentally close to the analytic theory of law, which accepts the force of custom only if it is recognized by a competent court or legislative body. The second form of custom, which creates new principles, sometimes contravenes talmudic law; for instance, the custom of the merchants regarding the use of the suftaja (a sort of bill of payment, discussed below). 22

23

On the standing, scope, and application of custom in geonic literature, see Gideon Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law: A Comparative Study of Custom during the Geonic Period (Cambridge, MA, 2003). All of the examples mentioned here are discussed there at length. See Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law, 28 33.

740 gideon libson In order to blur the contradiction between custom and talmudic law, the geonim sometimes tried to bring the two as close together as possible. At times, the geonim would assert the importance of communal welfare (say, averting disputes, protecting a woman’s dignity, or some essential economic need) to justify preference for a custom over talmudic law. Where prevailing Muslim legal practice won the approval of the lay public and later the rabbinical courts, that practice was adopted as a “borrowed custom” and led to the development of Jewish legal norms.24 However, we also see “reactive customs” derived from judicial precedents but lacking a parallel in Islamic law. Both borrowed customs and reactive customs have historical antecedents that can usually be documented. There are also borrowed customs shaped by but substantially different from their Islamic legal analogues such as the procedure of the aforementioned “blanket ban” developed by the rabbinic courts. Borrowed customs reduced the need for the geonim to rely on the principle of dina demalkhuta dina, which is not widespread in their writing. The geonim do not deal with the theory of custom and never define what custom is. Sometimes, however, they stipulate that for a custom to be valid it must be “widespread” (mefursam), “established” (muhzaq), “well _ known” (yaduaʿ), “ancient” (ʿatiq), or “fixed” (qavuaʿ). In general, they require a public commitment to adhere to customs and are even willing to enforce them. Jewish jurists in both Islamic and Christian Spain refer to some geonic customs as “regulations,” in effect altering the legal basis of the norm from custom to regulation. Alfasi actually sees custom and regulation as identical and does not distinguish between them, and writes that “They are acting in accordance with the essence of the custom – namely, that the majority of the community consults with the elders of the community and enacts a regulation and complies with it.”25 Joseph Ibn Migash may have shared this view. Alfasi also notes the force of custom as molding practice, sometimes even contrary to talmudic law, and emphasizes the element of public consent in these regulations, whether explicit or implicit, although in most cases the roots of these customs can already be found in geonic responsa. Maimonides was strongly aware of the force of custom. Even though the Mishneh Torah is a collection of fixed halakhic rulings, he often refers to custom (the custom of the prophets, of the sages, of all Israel, of the people, the prevalent custom (minhag pashut), and so on), especially with regard to rituals falling into place _ after the final 24

Ibid., 62.

25

Alfasi, Responsa, #13.

jewish law 741 redaction of the Talmud. His attitude toward them is complex, although as a matter of principle he is flexible about their validity. In the preface to the Mishneh Torah he acknowledges the existence of variant customs in different places and accepts the legitimacy of such pluralism: “Those living in one country are not compelled to observe the customs of another country.”26 Although Maimonides does at times incline toward one or another custom where there is a conflict, at others he refrains from rendering a verdict. THE STATUS OF THE HALAKHIC DECISOR

Three factors contributed to the special status and enhanced authority of the halakhic decisor in the Islamicate world. First was the personal bond between teacher and student, manifested in regular contact and oral transmission.27 Second was the centralized authority of the Babylonian academies, whose heads served as the ultimate decisors for all of the Jewish communities of the Islamic world and whose goal was the creation of a uniform halakhah based on the Babylonian Talmud. Third was the status of Alfasi and Maimonides and their codes. Works by these individuals – the geonim themselves and their successors in the Mediterranean Diaspora – and their rapid diffusion made the decisor more important. The speedy acceptance of these works and the prominence of their writers helped shift the center of gravity from the study of the textual sources to the decisor himself. Thus, Alfasi’s disciple Joseph Ibn Migash wrote in a responsum that a scholar expert in the rulings of the geonim but unable to fathom the Talmud should be chosen as a dayyan (judge) in preference to one knowledgeable in the Talmud but unfamiliar with the rulings of the geonim.28 This trend reached its pinnacle in the time of Maimonides, in which the independence of later decisors to override precedents set by Alfasi and Maimonides was curtailed. This phenomenon was one of the factors that provoked the criticism of and objections to the works of Alfasi and Maimonides, voiced shortly after their composition, and that animated the fierce battle against the Mishneh Torah, especially outside the Islamic world.

26 27

28

Shailat, Letters and Essays, 2:437; see also Twersky, Maimonides Reader, 38. See Israel M. Ta Shma, Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature, Part 4: The East, Provence, and Supplement (Jerusalem, 2009/10), 19 21. See Ibn Migash, Responsa, #114.

742

gideon libson THE DOMAINS OF LEGAL ACTIVITY

The Talmud’s ban on litigating in non-Jewish courts (Babylonian Talmud Gittin 88b) and the principle “the law of the land is the law” (Babylonian __ Talmud Nedarim 28a et pass.) defined the boundaries and content of Jewish judicial activity. The rabbinic attitude toward these principles changed over time and reshaped the relationship of the Jewish legal system to that of the Jews’ Muslim overlords. The ban on pursuing lawsuits in non-Jewish courts was an important topic for halakhists in the Islamic world, precisely because many Jewish litigants did so in quest of legal remedies they could not obtain in Jewish courts. The geonim dealt with the phenomenon in two ways: first, they sometimes amended Jewish law so as to remove the inducement to take a case to gentile courts; second, they adopted a flexible policy about permitting a litigant to do so, especially with regard to enforcing commercial documents (notably deeds of evidence) and with regard to the execution of court judgments. They allowed successful plaintiffs to turn to non-Jewish courts to get the latter to enforce verdicts of the geonim, which their own courts could not enforce because of political restrictions.29 Despite the talmudic ban, Jews everywhere took cases to gentile courts in the post-geonic period, although not always with the same frequency. The phenomenon was not widespread in eleventh-century Spain – Alfasi’s hundreds of responsa include only a single reference to this matter – whereas Maimonides’ responsa and Genizah documents from the period suggest that in Egypt it was a frequent occurrence, despite the wellestablished Jewish court system. Maimonides acted vigorously against the phenomenon, even threatening to excommunicate those who resorted to non-Jewish courts, in part because of the threat that it might undermine the foundations of the Jewish legal system and empty Jewish civil law of its content – as he wrote in his letter to Phinehas the dayyan of Alexandria, drawing on the Midrash: “Anyone who judges according to the laws of non-Jews and their courts, even though their laws are the same as the laws of Israel, is a malefactor who has, as it were, cursed and blasphemed and raised his hand against the Torah of our teacher Moses.”30 Halakhic

29

30

On litigation by Jews in Gentile courts in the geonic era, see Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law, 101 3. Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Sanhedrin 26:7. On Maimonides’ attitude toward Jewish recourse to Muslim courts and the taqqanah prohibiting such recourse, see Gideon Libson, “The Prohibition of Jewish Recourse to Non Jewish Courts and the Imposition of Bans,” in Arye Edrei et al., eds., Studies in Law and Halakhah: Menachem Elon Memorial Volume [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2018), 265 303.

jewish law 743 authorities also reacted strongly because Muslim courts could serve as a channel to encourage Jewish conversion to Islam. The talmudic principle of dina de-malkhuta dina was adopted by halakhists both in the Islamicate world and Christian countries, though with one striking difference: sages outside the Islamic world sometimes identified Jewish custom with the “law of the land.” The geonim did not make extensive use of this principle, evidently because they absorbed elements of the law of the host society through custom and, at times, even through new enactments.31 Indeed, this principle cannot be found in the responsa of Alfasi and Ibn Migash; Maimonides seems to be the first Sephardic sage to offer a reason for it. There are, however, two prominent limitations to this principle which were retained in both the Sephardic and Ashkenazic milieux. First, the law of the land must apply equally to all citizens. Second, it may be followed only in financial matters and not with regard to matters of personal status such as marriage, consanguinity, divorce, and the like. The principle of equality under the law – meaning that the law must apply equally to all and that Jews must not recognize foreign legislation that discriminates between one person and another – first appears among the scholars of the Islamic world, notably Ibn Migash and Maimonides (see Mishneh Torah, Laws of Robbery and Lost Property 5:14).32 Maimonides explains the second limitation – namely, that the principle applies only for financial matters – as “they judge according to all of the king’s laws about money.”33 By the same token, two of the five conditions that the sages attach to the principle – the agreement of the inhabitants and the king’s effective control of the country – are cited by the scholars of both Islamic and Christian domains. Maimonides indirectly equates the law of a non-Jewish king with that of a Jewish king when he bases the validity of the enactments of a Jewish king on the principle of dina de-malkhuta dina. The syllogism is stated explicitly by sages of Christian Spain (Nahmanides, _ Solomon Ibn Adret, Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi), as well as by Menahem Meiri in Provence.

31

32

33

On the principle of dina de malkhuta dina as understood by the geonim, see Samuel Shilo, Dina De Malkhuta Dina: The Law of the State is Law (Jerusalem, 1973/74), 44 58; Menahem Elon, Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1973), 1:51 64; Gerald J. Blidstein, Political Concepts in Maimonides’ Halakha [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 2001), 160 73; Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law, 87. Hyman Klein, trans., The Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah): Book 11, The Book of Torts (New Haven, 1954). Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Acquisition and Gifts 1:14.

744 gideon libson In the Islamicate world, local communities maintained a broad diversity of tribunals and judicial institutions that complemented the rulings of the talmudic academies and the exilarch. These institutions included courts composed of merchants or householders, and various categories of arbitrators. The geonim and the sages in the post-geonic period were active in diverse branches of law, including family law and personal status (marriage, divorce, alimony, child custody, and so on), private law (trade, loans, partnership, guarantees, abutters, and more), public law (the enactment of regulations), penal law, and judicial procedure. All of these left their imprint on the halakhic literature. Here I will consider only two halakhic issues that reflect the specific circumstances of the period in the Islamicate world: punishment of criminals and legal procedure. Jewish communities of the geonic period enjoyed only limited power in the realm of penal law; the authorities of the host culture retained a nearmonopoly in this realm – especially with regard to capital punishment but also perhaps when it came to the imposition of fines – as well as restrictions on methods of coercion and the enforcement of court orders. These limits forced the geonim to rely mainly on ostracism, excommunication, and flagellation; only rarely do we find the use of imprisonment or corporal punishment other than stripes, such as forced shaving of the head.34 The suspension of the death penalty and the inability to impose monetary fines were also the direct outcomes of two halakhic principles: first, that capital cases cannot be heard in the Exile; second, that fines cannot be imposed in Babylonia. The inability to enforce court verdicts more or less compelled the geonim to allow litigants to take their cases to gentile courts to implement their rulings. Against the background of these constraints, ostracism and excommunication came into use as modes of punishment and coercion in the geonic period; eventually they were applied to a long list of offenses, including those whose halakhic sanction would otherwise be death, and were invoked to persuade those who caused damages to compensate the injured party in order to appease the latter (circumventing the principle that fines could not be imposed in Babylonia) and to enforce community regulations. The geonim actually went beyond the Talmud in their strict approach toward people whom they had excommunicated. They also expanded flagellation beyond those offenses assigned it by the Torah and Talmud. Even in Muslim Spain, excommunication became a key form of punishment, though there is also some evidence that capital punishment had

34

Avigdor Aptowitzer, “Flogging and Makkat Mardut in Responsa of the Geonim” [Hebrew], Ha Mishpat ha ʿIvri 5 (1937), 33 104. _

jewish law 745 initially been imposed in Spain for certain crimes – chiefly against Karaites, heretics, and informers. Imprisonment was also practiced in Spain. Joseph Ibn Abitur reports that his great-great-grandfather “decreed the four forms of execution in Spain.” Judah b. Barzillai al-Bargeloni reports, in the name of Samuel ha-Nagid Ibn Naghrella, that “our ancestors flogged [offenders], but some people who were judged to have the capacity to survive flogging [nevertheless] died as a result.” Ibn Migash, too, is supposed to have sentenced informers to death.35 Maimonides expanded the use of capital punishment as a matter of his political philosophy and supports its use beyond the prescriptions of talmudic law. In his commentary on the Mishnah he writes (about sectarians): Know that we have received a tradition from our rabbis that in the present time, which is a time of exile, and capital cases are not judged, this [limitation] applies only to a Jew who has committed a capital offence. But when it comes to sectarians and Sadducees and Boethusians, in their great wickedness, we punish them [i.e., the limitation does not apply] so that they will not destroy Israel and eradicate the faith. This principle has been applied in practice to many persons in the West.36

In these circumstances, punishment seems to have been vigilante justice rather than the result of a court verdict. In extreme cases, such as those in which the perpetrator was an informant or a sectarian, the malefactor was handed over to the Gentile authorities for execution, as Maimonides attests was the practice in the West (North Africa and Spain): “In the cities of the West it is a routine occurrence that they kill informants who have been held responsible for turning over the money of Jews – they deliver these informers to the Gentiles, to kill them and flog them and hand them over to the wicked.”37 Certain crimes were punished at the discretion of the bet din in order to establish and protect standards of behavior following the talmudic principle that “a beit din may flog and punish, other than as prescribed by the Torah, not for transgressing the words of the Torah but in order to erect a fence around the Torah” (Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 90b and Sanhedrin 46a). This principle was adopted by Alfasi and Ibn Migash, and 35

36

37

For these sources, see Simhah Assaf, Punishment after the Final Redaction of the Talmud _ [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1921/22), 62 64. Maimonides, Commentary on the Mishnah, Hullin 1:2, ed. Joseph Qafih (Jerusalem, _ 1966/67), 5:175 76. Mishneh Torah, Laws of Personal Injuries 8:11. On Maimonides’ approach to punish ment, see Gerald Blidstein, “‘Ideal’ and ‘Real’ in Classical Jewish Political Theory,” in Zvi Gitelman, ed., The Quest for Utopia (New York, 1992), 41 66; Gerald Blidstein, Authority and Dissent in Maimonidean Law [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2001/2), 118 28, 174 84.

746 gideon libson subsequently formulated by Maimonides: “All of this is as the judge may deem appropriate and what the age requires. And in all matters let his actions be in the name of Heaven.”38 To deal with social and economic constraints, the geonim implemented two innovations regarding judicial procedure in rabbinic courts: one related to trials and the other to the drafting of documents and contracts, collection of debts, and execution of judgments. There were four major innovations in courtroom procedure, all of them associated with oathtaking. The first was the imposition of an asseveration (gezirta) instead of an oath; this made it possible for the geonim to expand the circumstances in which a litigant was required to take an oath beyond those stipulated in the Talmud.39 The second, an extension of the first, was the use of the blanket ban, in which a litigant was threatened with excommunication in order to substantiate a doubtful assertion when corroborating evidence was unavailable or when it was impossible to require him to take an oath. The third was the introduction of a new type of oath, not found in the Talmud, the “indigent’s oath” (shevuʿat ein li), whereby a debtor affirmed that he had no property from which to pay his debt. The fourth was the introduction of a new procedure for a woman to take an oath in her own house, to avoid humiliating her by compelling her to appear in public and take the oath in the courtroom. With regard to documents and contracts, the geonim introduced new clauses not mentioned in the Talmud and added two methods to buttress the ability of the possessor of a loan agreement to enforce its terms. The first was the addition of a credibility clause, to the effect that the mere presentation of the document served as sufficient ground to collect the debt without requiring the claimant to submit some other proof or take an oath. This clause was also added to the ketubbah to make it easier for a woman to collect what was owed her under that document. The second defined the finality of a document, eliminating the requirement to serve public notice (modaʿa) for all types of documents and thereby averting all future challenges to the document’s validity. To augment the enforceability of contracts, they added an assignment clause, in which the claimant 38

39

Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of the Sanhedrin 24:10. See also Hanina Ben Menahem, Judicial Deviation in Talmudic Law (New York, 1991), 142 49. On the gezirta, see Gideon Libson, “Gezirta and Herem Setam in the Geonic Period and Early Middle Ages” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1979). On the blanket ban (herem setam), see Gideon Libson, “The ‘Anonymous Ban’ in the Geonic Period and_ Early Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Shenaton ha mishpat ha ʿivri 22 (2000/1 2003/4), 107 232. On the indigent’s oath, see Libson, Jewish_ and Islamic Law, 133 56. On the administration of an oath to a woman, the litigants’ elucidation of their claims, and allowing witnesses to be seated, see ibid., 105 10.

jewish law 747 (relying on the four cubits of land he ostensibly possessed in the Land of Israel) conveys to an authorized person the object of the claim or the debt, so that the latter can represent him and the defendant cannot assert that the delegate is simply not his counterparty.40 Commercial documents were prominent in domestic and international trade; hence it is no wonder that Seʿadyah and Hayya Gaʾon devoted entire treatises to them. After the geonic era, several works on the subject were written in eleventh-century Spain: The Legal Documents of the Community of Lucena,41 and, later, the Book of Documents by Judah b. Barzillai al-Bargeloni – which, although written in Christian Spain, is based mainly on the literature of the geonim. The need to facilitate commercial life was so strong that the practice emerged that ordinary correspondence could serve as a substitute for the standard types of documents and contracts. EXTRALEGAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF JEWISH LAW

In addition to the aforementioned internal developments in the institutions of Jewish law, which saw the rise of authorities in the Mediterranean communities and the waning of geonic power and influence, developments in the various societies in which the Jews found themselves also had a profound influence on the shape of Jewish law in the medieval Islamicate world. As we have already seen, the Almohad persecutions which led to the emigration of the Maimonides family from Spain weakened further geonic authority in North Africa. Likewise, the two waves of migration that followed persecutions in Spain and then the expulsion from Spain itself – at the end of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, respectively – led refugees from Christian Spain to carry the Spanish tradition to the major Jewish communities of the Muslim East – the Land of Israel, Egypt, Constantinople, and Salonika. Among them were leading halakhic decisors and authors of responsa who, in their new abodes, served as heads of academies and disseminated the teachings of Spain. They included Moses b. Isaac Alashkar, who settled in Palestine after an odyssey that took him through Tunisia, Greece, and Egypt; Jacob b. Moses Beirav, the teacher of Joseph Caro, who took up residence in Safed; Joseph b. Moses of Ṭrani, who ended up in Turkey; David b. Solomon Ibn Abi Zimra, who became the chief rabbi of Egypt; and others. The cities of North Africa (especially Algiers), which had been major centers of halakhic activity from the ninth 40

41

On the goal of these modifications to commercial instruments, see Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law, 97 98. See Joseph Rivlin, Bills and Contracts from Lucena (1020 1025 ce ) (Ramat Gan, 1994).

748 gideon libson to the mid-twelfth centuries, regained their prominence, thanks to three leading sages: Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, Solomon b. Simeon Duran, and Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran. They strongly maintained their Spanish trad_ ition and based themselves on the rulings of rabbinic sages of Christian Spain – Nahmanides, Solomon Ibn Adret, and Nissim Gerondi, “whose _ waters we drink,” as Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran wrote about Rabbenu 42 Nissim, even in their adoptive Muslim_environment. The migration of halakhic authorities over the medieval period included both migration within the Islamic world and migration from the Islamic world to Christendom. The former is epitomized by the life stories of Alfasi and Maimonides. Late in life, Alfasi relocated from North Africa to Muslim Spain, where he energized Jewish Andalusia. Alfasi gave new impetus to halakhic activity in Spain, which had already existed for several generations, especially since the time of Samuel ha-Nagid Ibn Naghrella. His arrival in Spain was not welcomed by local halakhists because he challenged their legal traditions. In contrast, Maimonides and his family left Spain in his youth to escape Almohad persecution. After an interlude in the Maghrib he moved to Fātimid Egypt – which became a leading center of halakhic activity under _his leadership. As he emphasized in his writings, Maimonides always saw himself as a product of the Andalusian tradition. Nevertheless, the Muslim legal tradition of Egypt certainly influenced his halakhic thinking, as we shall see. Some halakhists who migrated from Muslim Spain to Christendom maintained their traditions and made a significant impact on Jewish law in Christian Spain and Provence; just as earlier contacts in the tenth and eleventh centuries had brought scholars from Provence to Muslim Spain. These cultural interactions sometimes produced clashes between different customs and spawned the composition of books of customs to deal with the proliferation of customs and their validity. Many sages in Christian Spain, whom we have already mentioned, were still imbued with Arabic culture and the legacy of the geonim and carried on the tradition of their own teachers from Muslim Spain. These include Judah b. Barzillai alBargeloni, and, later, Meʾir Abulafia (second half of the twelfth century) – who marks the shift of the center of gravity from Muslim to Christian Spain. Others in this category include Nahmanides, with his roots in Spain, even though he lived in Gerona _ in Catalonia, adjacent to Provence, which had its own outstanding traditions of literature; as well as Solomon Ibn Adret, Yom Ṭov Ishbili, and others. Later waves of migration from Christian Spain also transformed halakhic thinking in 42

Simeon ben Semah Duran, Responsa ha Tashbes, vol. 2, #283. _ _

jewish law 749 the Muslim West: the first of these, mainly to North Africa, followed the forced conversions and persecutions of 1391. Its most eminent representatives were Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran, and Solomon _ after the expulsion b. Simeon Duran. The second wave, a century later, from Spain, carried scholars to the eastern Mediterranean. These thinkers saw themselves as continuing the Spanish halakhic tradition; their main contribution to halakhic activity in their new homes was the composition of responsa on diverse topics, some of them sparked by their new Muslim environment. However, looking at their responsa as a whole, it is difficult to determine to what extent they applied the Spanish tradition on which they were raised (there are rulings that reflect this),43 how much they were influenced by the legal tradition of their new places of residence, and how much their decision blurred the distinctions between the two legal traditions. For instance, there are responsa whose conclusions fully correspond with Islamic law but nevertheless reflect the halakhic norms of Christian Spain. There were also scholars who moved from Provence, France, and Germany to recently Christianized parts of Spain or to the Muslim East. As early as the tenth century, we have evidence of French rabbis who were in contact with Spanish sages. The Cairo Genizah yields fragments of Ashkenazic halakhic works which may have been brought to the East by sages who traveled to Egypt from Provence and France in the twelfth century. This migration continued in the early thirteenth century, notably in the immigration to the Land of Israel by Jonathan ha-Kohen of Lunel and by Jehiel b. Joseph of Paris, author of Sefer ha-Dinnim, accompanied by 300 disciples, who disseminated the works of the Tosafists throughout the Levant. A century later, Asher b. Jehiel fled Germany and settled in Toledo, where Muslim influence was still felt. Three further factors emerged shortly after the Muslim conquest which influenced the patterns of halakhah, its formulation, and actual rules, although these factors are not necessarily associated with the Islamic legal system per se. These are (1) the internal development of halakhah in parallel to changes in the host culture; (2) developments associated with the rivalry and polemics between Rabbanites and Karaites; and (3) changes in socioeconomic structures that influenced members of all religions. 1. An example of the first category is the gradual shift from an oral culture to a written culture, whose high point was the consignment of the Oral Law to writing within a few decades of the Muslim conquest (before or after). This 43

See Shilo, Dina De Malkhuta Dina, 344.

750

gideon libson

transition is not necessarily associated, as one might speculate, with Muslim culture and with the debate conducted by Muslim legal scholars of the ninth century about setting down the hadīth in writing. Rather, it may be linked to _ Jews that took place during those same the geographic dispersion of the centuries and to the desire to facilitate Talmud study which until that time had been concentrated in the Babylonian academies and in other communities throughout the East. This change greatly affected the works written by the geonim. It may also have had an impact on Hayya Gaʾon and (later) Alfasi who, having modified their views in light of the oral tradition, endeavored to harmonize their new opinions with the written text. 2. The second category is related to the rise of the Karaite schism, prefigured by ʿAnan b. David (c. 715 95). Over the course of the ninth and tenth centuries, ʿAnan’s followers and others coalesced into the Karaite sect, which recognized only Scripture and rejected the normativity of the Oral Law. Some of the Karaites’ new exegetical principles influenced the discourse of Rabbanite halakhah. Theological disputes between the Rabbanite and Karaite sages affected some aspects of geonic legal theory, such as Seʿadyah’s rejection of analogy, and several areas in the domain of positive law, manifested in the emphasis on various prohibitions, notably those related to incest. The impress of Karaism is also reflected in Maimonides’ responsa and may even be dis cerned in the structure of the Mishneh Torah. 3. The most important of the economic and structural changes was the transition throughout the East from an agricultural society to one based on commerce, which left its mark on the development of halakhah in the geonic era. Responding to the challenges of the real world, the geonim searched for creative legal solutions to the incompatibilities between talmudic halakhah and the new social order. These economic and social changes form the background for some of the regulations enacted by the geonim, notably those related to movable property, intended to permit greater flexibility and mobility in commercial dealings in contrast to the legal situation in the talmudic era, when business transactions were focused on land.44 In addition, the geonim emulating the Muslims absorbed into Jewish law a financial instrument used by merchant known as the suftaja (a sort of bill of payment) an instrument intended to facilitate the transfer of funds designed to overcome the insecurity of overland travel even though it was not really compatible with talmudic law. The fact that these regulations and other customs brought Jewish law into alignment with Muslim practice does not mean that they were influenced by it, but only that they were a product of the same circumstances: the new economic reality faced by both societies produced similar legal solutions what the literature refers to as the “human age.”45 The need for these solutions

44

45

See Robert Brody, “Were the Geonim Legislators?” [Hebrew], Shenaton ha Mishpat ha _ ʿIvri 11 12 (1984 86), 279 315. See Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law, 12.

jewish law

751

was so strong that they were adopted even when they were not really compat ible with the talmudic tradition.46

Likewise, at times we may see internal factors at play in the development of Jewish jurisprudence instead of the dialogue with Islamic law: although Seʿadyah and Maimonides held different positions regarding analogy, and both their positions are also found in Muslim legal theory, it is possible that the source of their differences is rooted in their distinct reactions to Karaite theology, one of whose hallmarks is reliance on analogy and logical inference, rather than in the debate among Muslim jurists. THE RELATIONSHIP OF ISLAMIC LAW TO JEWISH LAW

The geonim of Babylonia saw themselves as the ultimate source of Jewish law for the communities of the Diaspora, a sort of Great Sanhedrin continuing the talmudic tradition, to which they added new interpretations from time to time compatible with their contemporary world. While holding on to the inalienable legal principles of the talmudic tradition, the geonim were also influenced by their Muslim environment and its philosophical, theological, and legal currents. As we shall see, the judicial autonomy that Muslim rulers allowed dhimmīs did not keep the Jews from occasionally having to rely on Islamic law; nevertheless, this remained a marginal phenomenon that did not touch the core of the halakhic system.47 Islamic law made both theoretical and practical contributions to the consolidation of halakhah in the East, which forged a partial synthesis of Jewish tradition and evolving Islamic law. Halakhists who responded to the challenges of their own age could not avoid adopting a number of models, rules, and customs from Islamic law – directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, voluntarily or under coercion. Despite this, they never acknowledge having done so, whether explicitly or by allusion. An example of this is the regulation of the rebellious wife, introduced around the time of the Muslim conquest and intended to reduce the incentive for Jewish wives to file for divorce in Muslim courts. As such it defended both the family unit and the foundations of halakhah. 46

47

See Mark R. Cohen, Maimonides and the Merchants, Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World (Philadelphia, 2017). On the Jews’ judicial autonomy and the restrictions on it, in keeping with the public regulations of Islamic law, about which Muslims did not yield, see Gideon Libson, “Legal Autonomy and the Recourse to Legal Proceedings by Protected People, according to Muslim Sources during the Gaonic Period,” in Nahem Ilan, ed., The _ Intertwined Worlds of Islam (Jerusalem, 2001/2), 334 92.

752 gideon libson Three factors mediated the exposure of the geonim and later halakhists to Islamic law and its influence across time and place: (1) the vitality or weakness of the Babylonian academies; (2) the strength of the Muslim government, its judicial institutions, and its legal policy toward minorities; and (3) the personalities of individual halakhic scholars and the extent to which they were open to their non-Jewish environment, including its culture and legal system. I will discuss each of these factors here: time and place: In the late geonic period, Baghdad was the hub of the Babylonian Jewish community; the fact that this city was also an important Muslim center augmented the influence of Islamic law. The intensity of this influence was affected by the progressive collapse of Jewish institutions in Babylonia, and was felt more strongly in the academy of Sura amidst numerous crises of leadership in the ninth century. However, this influence was not universal; the works of Alfasi and Ibn Migash suggest that it was hardly felt in Muslim Spain, although Maimonides and his son Abraham reveal clear signs of Muslim influence at different levels and from diverse sources.48 Toward the end of the fifteenth century, the influence of Islamic law faded, though it did persist in the Jewish communities of North Africa, where there was vibrant communal life under Muslim rule, as indicated by the responsa of Solomon b. Simeon Duran, Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, and Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran. _ Evidence of the strength of this influence in the geonic age and of its later decline may be found in the customs and regulations formulated by the geonim. Although responsive to the needs of the community in the time and place in which they were initially enacted and responsive to their legal context, some of these regulations fell into desuetude or vanished entirely in the face of vigorous opposition of halakhists in both the East and the West. This was the fate, for example, of the regulation concerning the rebellious wife. Enacted by the geonim to benefit women who wanted a divorce in hopes of forestalling their recourse to Muslim courts, it sparked fierce objections in many countries in the post-geonic age. Likewise, the indigent’s oath (shevuʿat ein li) enacted by the geonim as a “custom of the court” (minhag bet din) in emulation of Muslim practice left few traces in the subsequent rabbinic literature and its use was circumscribed by Maimonides. As geonic power faded, their use of the harsh penalties of ostracism and excommunication dissipated as well.49 the power of muslim overlords: The demands imposed on dhimmīs by Muslim jurists shaped Jewish law. This influence was most prominent 48

49

For instance, in Abraham’s ruling that erstwhile masters have rights to the property of their emancipated slaves. See Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, Responsa, #173.

jewish law 753 in the early centuries of Islam but diminished as Muslim rulers’ attempts to hold together geographically and ethnically diverse empires proved unworkable. geonic openness to islamic law: With the sole exception of one responsum by Natronay Gaʾon, there is almost no evidence of Muslim _ geonim up to the time of Seʿadyah. Even Seʿadyah influence on the early had reservations about relying upon custom as a legal source, though custom was a major conduit for the absorption of ideas and practices from Islamic law. Indeed he eschewed any connection with Islamic law in matters of positive law (as opposed to jurisprudence); his only references to it lie outside the legal system proper, in the realms of theory and theology, exegesis and philology, and the composition of monographs. In the latter, we may identify a link between Seʿadyah’s Book of Testimony and Legal Documents and Muslim practice. His distinction between a memorandum (mahd ar) and a verdict (sijill) parallels a distinction made _ by Muslims in their_ documents and was probably influenced by them. On the other hand, we find clear links between Islamic and Jewish law in the writings of Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon – not only in his use of common Islamic legal literary forms but also in the body of positive law itself. He proffers halakhot that parallel material in Muslim codes, chiefly in the realm of civil law relating to abutters, guarantors, and partnership. For the most part, however, he does so to fill a halakhic lacuna and he avoids explicitly contradicting talmudic law. Although Sherira Gaʾon and Hayya Gaʾon, two of the most important geonim of Pumbedita after Samuel’s time, were acquainted with Islamic law,50 the influence of Islamic law is weaker if nonetheless palpable in their writing. For example, Hayya Gaʾon, in his treatise on the Laws of Oaths, includes the indigent’s oath among the standard types, even though there is no doubt that it derived from the prevailing Muslim practice and runs counter to talmudic law. At times, Hayya tries to interpret talmudic texts on the basis of contemporary Muslim notions which may be at variance with the talmudic tradition. But a responsum by Sherira Gaʾon expresses his vigorous opposition to adopting the principle of the “estimated dower,” instituted by earlier geonim, because he believes that it contravenes the talmudic ruling. Sherira does not hint that he opposes the custom because its source is Islamic law, although he must have been aware of this fact. The legal system that prevailed in the Jews’ social and political environment had an impact on all four levels of legal enterprise: the genres of halakhic composition (specifically, both the pesaq literature that 50

On geonic knowledge of Islamic law, see Libson, Jewish and Islamic Law, 83 91.

754 gideon libson summarizes the Babylonian Talmud and the halakhic monographs), jurisprudence and the sources of law, positive law (through the absorption of customs and laws), and legal language and terminology. The pesaq literature may be seen as starting with the Sheʾiltot (a collection of sermons arranged by the weekly Torah portion; the halakhic discussions at the start and end of each sermon serve only as a frame for the homily and are subordinate to it) by Ahai of Shabha, and followed by _ _ intended to offer two works in Aramaic, written some two centuries apart, a précis of talmudic halakhah: Halakhot Pesuqot, attributed to Yehudai Gaʾon in the mid-eighth century; and Halakhot Gedolot of Simeon Qayyāra in the mid-tenth century. Although the emergence of this genre was chiefly an internal Jewish development, it is difficult to ignore the fact that there was a similar trend in Muslim legal literature of the same period. The composition of the Halakhot Pesuqot was more or less contemporary with the plan for a précis of Islamic law submitted to the caliph by the Persian-born Muslim scholar Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ.51 Though nothing came of his initiative, it is evidence of the need felt in that era for this type of legal text. Soon enough, in fact, legal summae did flourish in Islam, reflecting the same need which prompted the author of the Halakhot Pesuqot. The second genre – halakhic monographs in Judeo-Arabic, already discussed above – has an even stronger connection to a Muslim model. This genre, originated by Seʿadyah, was continued by Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon and Hayya Gaʾon. We may find the influence of Islamic law in structure, topics, and subtitles of the geonic monographs. The monographs also include prefaces which draw connections between halakhah and theology, a commonplace in Muslim works as well. At times, material in these monographs bears an unmistakable resemblance to Islamic law in language, suggesting influence. The breadth of subject areas covered by the geonic monographs also has its parallel in Islam, where the fiqh (Islamic legal literature) addresses almost every legal topic.52 The purpose, overall structure, and topics of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, too, may well have been influenced by the fiqh writings that were more or less contemporary with it and that cover almost every facet of Islamic law.53

51

52

53

See ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al Muqaffaʿ, Risālat l sahhaba, ed. and trans. by Charles Pellat (Paris, _ Joseph Lowry, “The First Islamic Legal 1976), 42 45. On his work in general, _ see Theory: Ibn al Muqaffaʿ on Interpretation, Authority, and the Structure of the Law,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 25 (2008), 25 40. In the introduction to his Book of Testimony and Legal Documents, Seʿadyah outlines his goal of producing monographs covering every area of halakhah. Likewise, Samuel b. Hophni produced monographs in over forty distinct areas of halakhah. See Libson, “The Contribution of the Geniza,” 227 30, and the references there.

jewish law 755 Among the topics addressed in works that parallel the Muslim fiqh literature we should mention in particular Seʿadyah’s Book of Testimony and Legal Documents, the Book of Legal Documents by Hayya Gaʾon, and the books of the Obligations of Judges by Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon and Hayya Gaʾon. Comparable treatises are found in the Islamic legal literature of the same era. Other halakhic genres, such as the volumes on legal theory and the sources of halakhic knowledge written by Seʿadyah and Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon, and later by Maimonides, were influenced by this connection. It is likewise possible that the interest in the composition of halakhic digests, mentioned in several Spanish sources, is a product of the mukhtasar handbooks written by Islamic legal scholars of the same era.54 The _pesaq literature and monographs of the geonic age paved the way for two of the most important collections of definitive halakhic rulings of subsequent generations. The first, Alfasi’s Sefer Halakhot Rabbati, adheres to the format and order of the Talmud. The second, Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, by contrast, is arranged thematically, and in this respect is closer to the monograph literature. Its scope and structure, too, were influenced by Muslim models.55 In their writings, several geonim, including Seʿadyah and Samuel b. Hophni, deal with fundamental concepts of legal theory – analogy, tradition, and consensus – and are influenced in turn by the parallel discussions of these concepts by Muslim jurists. The geonim also make extensive use of the metaphor of roots and branches in jurisprudence or legal exegesis and the development of positive law common in Muslim treatises. Later, Maimonides evinces a clear familiarity with Muslim concepts when he addresses legal theory. He too uses the image of roots and branches, but with a different sense. He sees the thirteen hermeneutic principles by which the Torah is expounded as rules of analogy that guide halakhic inference, by which he means the extrapolation of new laws – the branches – from the roots of halakhah. In this way he gives the new laws an exegetical status, rather than a constitutive status as part of the divine revelation (as would later be maintained by Nahmanides). A similar theory _ which considers qiyās is prominent in Muslim theoretical literature,

54

55

See, for example, David Sklare, “David ben Seʿadya al Ger and His Work al Hāwī” [Hebrew], Teʿudah 14 (1998), 103 23. See Libson, “The Contribution of the Geniza,” 228n202, and the references there. See also Haym Soloveitchik, “Thoughts about Maimonides’ Categories in the Mishneh Torah: Real and Spurious Problems” [Hebrew], Maimonidean Studies 4 (New York, 2000), 107 115; Haym Soloveitchik, “Mishneh Torah: Polemic and Art,” in Jay M. Harris, ed., Maimonides after 800 Years: Essays in Maimonides and His Influence (Cambridge, MA, 2007), 327 43.

756 gideon libson (analogy) to be an exegetical tool rather than a founding instrument. Similarly, Maimonides frequently invokes the notion of consensus (ijmāʿ), cited earlier by the Babylonian geonim, in both his theoretical and his theological ruminations; for instance, what is considered to be part of the revelation at Sinai, the status of the Babylonian Talmud, and the confirmation of certain halakhot by the consensus of the geonim or by acceptance by the majority, generally in order to demonstrate the force of the halakhic tradition. Despite Maimonides’ frequent appeal to consensus, he does not see it as an independent legal concept, perhaps because consensus was a key element of the Karaite theory of the sources of law which Maimonides opposed.56 Maimonides’ political philosophy, too, with its focus on the idea of kingship and the king’s authority in matters of war, law, punishment and religion, is imbued with Muslim concepts or has parallels in the Muslim literature about the ruler’s power and status,57 like Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māwardī’s al-Ahkām al-Sultaniyya. One of Maimonides’ statements about exegesis – _“Nor are the_ gates of figurative interpretation shut in our faces or impossible for us to access” – has a parallel in a common attitude in Islam, although no explicit written source has been identified; it is restated in a responsum by his son, Abraham: “the gate of ratiocination and analogy is not sealed shut.”58 Similarly, the theory of punishment and its function, expounded by Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed,59 has parallels in the work by Ibn Taymiyya – which, although written several generations after Maimonides, evidently reflects a Muslim tradition that was contemporary with (or perhaps earlier than) Maimonides. The works and responsa by Alfasi and Ibn Migash are almost totally independent of Islamic law in the domains of positive law and public law. Yet we may identify a long list of halakhot in the Mishneh Torah that 56

57 58

59

For Maimonides’ view of consensus and the legal sources of ijmāʿ in Islamic law, see Gideon Libson, “Maimonides and Muslim Law in the Context of His Age,” in Aviezer Ravitzky, ed., Maimonides: Conservatism, Originality, Revolution [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2008/9), 1:278 85, and the references there. There are lines of similarity between consensus and custom, even though the latter derives its force from the fact that is has spread throughout the people (in the locution minhag pashut, the adjective refers to _ the fact that it has spread [pashat] and does not mean “simple”). In Islamic law, _ custom, which classic Muslim jurisprudence did consensus as a source of law replaces not recognize as a valid source of law; but in the Jewish legal system, where custom is so recognized, there is no need to rely on consensus. This may be why Maimonides does not accept it as an independent source of law, even though he makes extensive use of it. Ibid., 251 55, and the references there. See Maimonides, Guide, part 2, chapter 25; Abraham Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Freiman, 77 (#66). Maimonides, Guide, part 3, chapter 8.

jewish law 757 parallel Muslim law, especially that of the Shāfiʿī school, which, by virtue of the historical circumstances of the diffusion of Muslim law, was dominant in Egypt during Maimonides’ lifetime and seems to have influenced him. Sometimes he draws rather on the traditions of the Ismāʿīli sect, to which the Fātimids, who ruled Egypt until around the time that _ Maimonides arrived in the country, adhered.60 Trial procedure, too, as defined in the Mishneh Torah, echoes Muslim custom; Maimonides notes in his Laws of Sanhedrin with regard to allowing witnesses and litigants to be seated in the courtroom that “We do not have the power to enforce the laws of [our] religion.”61 Thus he rules in keeping with the norm in Islamic law in contravention of the talmudic principle. This statement is testimony to the immense power of Muslim custom in his age. In the case of family law, too, the Mishneh Torah reveals parallels with Islamic law concerning the legal status of women, particularly in limitations on their freedom of movement, specification of their duties in the household and marriage, their standing with regard to their husband’s desire to contract a bigamous marriage, and equal rights for all wives in one’s dwelling.62 Maimonides’ position on polygamy is not clear-cut. We have already seen that sages in Christian Spain, such as Solomon Ibn Adret and Yom Ṭov b. Abraham Ishbili, detected a Muslim influence in Maimonides’ sanction of the practice. Although in his Commentary on the Mishnah he seems to allow a man to take two wives, several of his responsa suggest an opposition to polygyny. Documents from the Genizah indicate that polygyny was common in his time and place.63 Other echoes of Islamic law can be found in various passages of the Mishneh Torah, such as characterizing non-Jews and assigning the resident alien (ger toshav) a status in terms reminiscent of Muslim law relating to dhimmīs.64 Sometimes we may even identify a specific Muslim text that may have served as Maimonides’ model (e.g., works by al-Ghazālī or Ibn Rushd). Although his specific formulations may have come from geonic 60 61 62

63

64

See Libson, “Maimonides and Muslim Law,” 267 78. Laws of the Sanhedrin 21:5. Restrictions on women’s freedom of movement, Laws of Marital Relations 13:11; wives’ duties in the household and marriage, ibid., 21:10; a wife’s status in a polygynous household, Laws of Divorce 10:12; equal accommodations for all wives, Laws of Marital Relations 14:3. For Maimonides’ attitude toward polygamy, see Friedman, Jewish Polygyny in the Middle Ages, 25n77, and the reference there. See also Maimonides, Responsa, 1:45. For the description of the non Jew modeled on that of the dhimmī, see Laws of Idolatry 10:6; for the description of the resident alien modeled on that of the dhimmī, see Laws of Kings 6:1.

758 gideon libson literature and not from Islamic materials, the parallels in various halakhot between Maimonides and the Shāfiʿī school do point to a direct link between Maimonides and the practices of that school, which prevailed in Egypt. In several passages Maimonides argues against and rebuts the Muslim tradition.65 As their responsa make plain, the sages of North Africa in the fifteenth century also had to deal with Muslim customs. Sometimes they adopted them under duress. Solomon b. Simeon Duran accepted the Muslim custom of a husband’s obligation to treat his wives equally with regard to sexual relations, although this has no basis in the Talmud: “The custom in these lands, of allotting each wife one night, is like that of the Ishmaelites. . . . If the wives insist on it, it seems that he must adhere to this custom.”66 In some circumstances where they deemed it appropriate, Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet and Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran imposed an oath on witnesses, contrary to the Jewish practice _ but prevalent in Christian countries and mandated by Islamic law, as followed by the Muslims in Algiers.67 In general, these sages expand the acceptance of legal documents recognized by gentile courts and accept the verdict of gentile courts derived from recognition of these documents. In particular, they recognize the validity of the Muslim sadāq, which is a husband’s undertaking to his wife at the time of their marriage, even if it assigns the woman an amount larger than that specified in her ketubbah.68 The rabbis of North Africa in the fifteenth century expressed their trepidation about emulating Muslim traditions and customs and endeavored to defend Jewish law against them. At the same time, these sages were also aware of the danger of conduct that was grossly at variance with Muslim practice. Both Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran and Solomon b. Simeon Duran agreed that the community _had the right to enact regulations against entering the synagogue in shoes, copying Muslim practice, “because of the scandal that the Muslims heap on them.” Similarly, Simeon b. S ̣emah Duran bans slaughtering the _ part of the animal, as well as Muslims’ “paschal sacrifice” and eating

65 66 67

68

See, for now, Libson, “Maimonides and Muslim Law.” Solomon b. Simeon Duran, Responsa, #624. See Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, Responsa, #94, #170, #176, #266; Simeon b. Semah Duran, _ Responsa ha Tashbes, vol. 3, #15; Elon, Jewish Law, 4:1697 1707. _ See Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, Responsa, #97, #102, #148, #174; Simeon b. Semah Duran, Responsa ha Tashbes, vol. 3, #94, #219, #278; and especially Solomon b. Simeon_ Duran, Responsa, #477. _

jewish law 759 wearing one’s hair in a style similar to that common among “their Muslim neighbors.”69 The texts of Islamic law, with their many levels and genres, enriched the judicial language and terminology of halakhic sages. Because these sages wrote in Judeo-Arabic, it was only natural for them to adopt the legal jargon, formulas, and idioms of the diverse genres of Islamic legal literature. They employed terms such as fatwā (for responsum) and muftī (for halakhic sage), as well as muhtasib (the overseer of markets and public morals). In legal theory, they_ adopted concepts such as qiyās (analogy), ijmāʿ (consensus), mutawātir (a tradition handed down by multiple chains of transmitters), usūl and furūʿ (root and branch), taqlīd (blind acceptance _ of an earlier opinion), and ijtihād (an independent halakhic ruling, rather than one drawn from previous authorities). In the domain of exegesis – mainly biblical commentary – they borrowed a long series of terms employed by Muslims to expound the Qurʾān: mudawwin (editor), haqīqa (understanding a term in its primary sense) and majāz (metaphor_ meaning), ʿāmm and khāss (general and particular), and muhkamāt ical __ _ mul(terms with only one interpretation) and mutashābihāt (terms with 70 tiple meanings). Especially common was the use of Muslim legal terms related to positive law, such as d amān (commercial guarantee), mud āraba _ for a (partnership), d amān wa-kafāla_ (guarantee for a debt and guarantee _ body), shufʿā (abutters’ rights), rahn (pledge), hudūd (punishments), and _ mahd ar (the written record of the court proceeding). Muslim formulas are _ common in the geonic and later literature and in questions directed to the geonim; for example, the phrase often applied to a judge whose verdicts are just: “he has a double reward from heaven.”71 Similarly, in the Book of Precepts, Maimonides employs a Muslim formula that can be traced to the

69

70 71

On the removal of shoes when entering the synagogue, see Solomon b. Simeon Duran, Responsa, #285, where it is reported that this regulation had been enacted by his father, Simeon b. Semah Duran, because “the regulation is appropriate for all sensible persons.” _ For the ban on slaughtering animals for Muslims, see Simeon b. Semah Duran, Responsa _ Ibn Adret in ha Tashbes, vol. 3, #133. A similar question was directed to Solomon Christian _Spain; see his Responsa (Benei Beraq, 1957/58), vol. 1, #345. On the prohibition of copying the Muslim hairstyle, see ibid., vol. 3, #93. We may conjecture that this last stricture translated the Muslim regulation that banned Jews from copying the appear ance of Muslims into halakhic terms and did not derive from a fear of emulating Muslim customs. For further discussion of biblical exegesis, see Chapter 21 in this volume. See Ignaz Goldziher, “Über eine Formel in der jüdischen Responsenlitteratur und in den muhammedanischen Fetwâs,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 52, 4 (1899), 645 52, for a discussion of the migration of this phrase from Islamic sources into their Jewish counterparts.

760 gideon libson Qurʾān: “commanding right and forbidding wrong.”72 Although for the most part we are dealing with technical terms which have been borrowed from Islamic law, sometimes the borrowed expression has a broader exegetical significance. It can be difficult to decide whether a term or concept is merely a linguistic shell for a Jewish concept or whether the content, too, is Islamic, and that Muslim legal notions, interpretations, and even ideological content have been imported through them and sometimes actually broadened.73 Certainly there are instances in which the use of Muslim terminology serves as an exegetical tool for the adaptation (conscious or subconscious) of halakhic texts to suit the legal situation in the host society.74 On the other hand, when Maimonides uses the term ijmāʿ (consensus) he expands its boundaries beyond the corresponding norm in Islamic law. And when he employs the expression, “He (God) commanded him to do what is good and warned him against what is bad,” he seems to be trying to infuse Jewish content into a Muslim formula common among Muslim theologians and jurists of his age.75 In his responsa, Maimonides borrows the expression bidʿa and uses it in its Muslim sense of “novelty” or “deviation.”76 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackerman-Lieberman, Phillip I. The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014). Bloomberg, Jon I. “Arabic Legal Terms in Maimonides” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1980). Cohen, Mark R. Maimonides and the Merchants, Jewish Law and Society in the Medieval Islamic World (Philadelphia, 2017). Elon, Menahem. Jewish Law: History, Sources, Principles, trans. Bernard Auerbach and Melvin J. Sykes, 4 vols. (Philadelphia, 2003). Goitein, S. D. Jews and Arabs: Their Contacts through the Ages (New York, 1955; reprint, 1974).

72

73

74

75

Maimonides, Book of Precepts, Positive Precepts 176. Cf. Qurʾān 3:103. The formula can also be found in various texts from the Genizah and other text documents. On its use in the Qurʾān and later Muslim sources, see Michael Cook, Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2000). An attempt in this direction was made by Joshua I. Bloomberg, “Arabic Legal Terms in Maimonides” (PhD diss., Yale University, 1980). See Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, “Arabic Legal Terminology in Judaeo Arabic: Loanwords or Loan Shifts?” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 44 (2017), 1 10. 76 See Libson, “Maimonides and Muslim Law,” 293 94. See ibid., 250n6.

jewish law 761 “The Interplay of Jewish and Islamic Laws,” in Bernard S. Jackson, ed., Jewish Law in Legal History and the Modern World (Leiden, 1980), 61–77. Kraemer, Joel L. “The Influence of Islamic Law on Maimonides: The Case of the Five Qualifications” [Hebrew], Teʿuda 10 (1996), 225–44. Libson, Gideon. “Chapters from the Book of Abutters’ Rights by R. Samuel ben Hofni Gaon” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 56 (1986/87), 75–78. _ Law? Sefer Ha-Arevuth of Rav “Islamic Influence on Medieval Jewish Shmuel Ben Hofni Gaon and Its Relationship to Islamic Law,” Studia Islamica 73 (1991), 5–23. “The Contribution of the Geniza to the Study of the Halakhic Monographs by R. Samuel ben Hofni: Structure, Scope, and Development” [Hebrew], Teʿuda 15 (1998/99), 189–240. “Legal Autonomy and the Recourse to Legal Proceedings by Protected People, according to Muslim Sources during the Gaonic Period,” in Nahem Ilan, ed., The Intertwined Worlds of Islam [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2001/2), 334–92. Jewish and Islamic Law: A Comparative Study of Custom during the Geonic Period (Cambridge, MA, 2003). “Betrothal of an Adult Woman by an Agent in Geonic Responsa: Legal Construction in Accord with Islamic Law,” in Benjamin Hary and Haggai Ben-Shammai, eds., Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in JudeoArabic Culture (Leiden, 2006), 175–92. “Maimonides and Muslim Law in the Context of His Age,” in Aviezer Ravitzky, ed., Maimonides: Conservatism, Originality, Revolution [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2008/9), vol. 1, 278–85. “The Writ of Use (Mahd ar) in R. Seʿadya Gaon and the Geniza and the _ Muslim Mahd ar” [Hebrew], Ginzei Qedem 5 (2008/9), 99–163. _ “The Prohibition of Jewish Recourse to Non-Jewish Courts and the Imposition of Bans,” in Arye Edrei et al., eds., Studies in Law and Halakhah: Menachem Elon Memorial Volume [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2018), 265–303.

chapter 23

LITURGY stefan c. reif

INTRODUCTION

Any serious effort to compose an historical description of the liturgy of Judaism in the Middle Ages must at the outset overcome a number of serious obstacles. First, the whole notion of “the Middle Ages” is one with which students of Islam, Judaism, and Roman Catholicism feel distinctly uncomfortable since it often presupposes a primitive world of intellectual darkness where institutions overshadow individuals, and in which an obsession with rules and authorities negates the illuminating effect of novel thought and expression. Such students are keenly aware that there is a great deal more to the so-called medieval age than its existence as a miserable interlude between the two exciting and productive periods of GrecoRoman antiquity, on the one hand, and the modern centuries that followed the Renaissance and the Reformation, on the other. If, in 1884, it could be claimed that “the first centuries of the middle ages are often termed the dark ages, a name which they certainly deserve,” it must be acknowledged that there is today no shortage of voices that would cry out (if not entirely in unison) that such an assessment amounts to an unjustified generalization, if not a bigoted distortion. Newly discovered data and a commitment to balanced analysis present the opportunity of more careful evaluation.1 Secondly, medieval liturgy was by its very nature a form of religious expression which was rarely presented as novel. Conservatives stressed the hoary antiquity of its content, while innovators claimed to be following precedents with ancient pedigrees. Consequently, those transmitting Jewish prayers invariably laid emphasis on consistency and continuity

1

The quotation is from Charles Annandale, ed., The Popular Encyclopedia or Conversations Lexicon, Being a General Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature, Biography, and History (London, 1882 85), 9:212 15. See also Stefan C. Reif, Why Medieval Hebrew Studies? (Cambridge, 2001), and the pertinent remarks of Alex Burghart, “Medieval Studies in Brief,” Times Literary Supplement, July 10, 2009, 11.

762

liturgy 763 and thereby blurred the distinctions between the interests and achievements of successive generations.2 If a prayer was mentioned by name, it was often presupposed that its precise contents, as familiar to the person currently citing it, were identical to those that had been in vogue some centuries earlier. A third, and related, difficulty arises out of the Jewish (but perhaps not only Jewish) tendency to regard the recitation of hymns, benedictions, praises, and appeals addressed to God as part of one’s religious obligations and to forget the varied theological sense of each piece of liturgy and of discrete phrases within it. Where there were textual variations between communities that were geographically and historically separated, it was assumed that they were simply expressions of the same religious message, be it a general or a more detailed one. Given these (and other) challenges, it becomes necessary to explain what precisely each period or each community contributed to the overall development of liturgy within Judaism and to detect whether there are not forms and instances of dynamic development and creative religiosity that have tended to be obscured by preconceived notions of historical stratification as well as by continuous and devout practice.3 TALMUDIC LEGACY

If such clarifications are to be achieved with regard to the liturgy of Judaism within the communities of the Muslim world from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries, the first task is to describe the status quo that existed when the Jews first found themselves under the domination of Islam as it spread across the countries of the Near and Middle East. The pre-Islamic talmudic sources undoubtedly make much of rabbinic requirements regarding specific prayers but they rarely provide more than a title or a few words of each prayer. The critical historian must therefore be wary of making unwarranted assumptions about the precise nature and content of any specific item. When, however, such talmudic traditions are considered together with evidence that is prior and external to the rabbinic materials, a picture emerges of the overall situation leading up to the seventh century. The Shemaʿ and the ʿAmidah were at the center of the daily office. The first of these recitations was biblical in content and appears to have evolved in the talmudic period from one verse or paragraph (Deuteronomy 6:4–9) 2

3

A good example is the work of Abraham, son of Moses Maimonides, discussed below in the section “Mysticism and the Sephardic Impact.” See the related comments of Dov Rappel, “On Liturgical Study and the Approach to Prayer,” Pithei Sheʿarim [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2001), 25 48. _

764 stefan c. reif to three (adding Deuteronomy 11:1–21 and Numbers 15:37–41). It was regarded as a public, religious statement that stressed the acceptance of divine kingship and of a fair system of heavenly reward and punishment, the need for Israel’s loyalty and devotion, the centrality of religious education and ritual practice, and the acknowledgment that God rescued Israel from Egypt and established a special relationship with that people. So central was the topic of divine kingship for the early rabbis that they composed and inserted a theological statement about this after the first verse of the Shemaʿ. That centrality seems, however, to have raised problems among those who wished to see God as a father rather than, or as much as, a king. The recitation of the Shemaʿ was surrounded by a number of rabbinic benedictions on the natural world, on the Jewish people’s role, on the exodus from Egypt, and on Israel’s security.4 The daily form of the ʿAmidah, which originated separately from the Shemaʿ, brought together a collection of twelve or thirteen benedictions that appealed for divine blessing with regard to knowledge, repentance, pardon, redemption, healing, plentiful produce, the end of exile and persecution, restoration of autonomy, removal of apostasy, blessing of the righteous and of converts, the Jerusalem and Davidic dynasty (either one or two benedictions), and successful prayer. To these were prefixed three benedictions that stressed the historical role of the biblical patriarchs, the divine powers especially with regard to eternal life, and the special sanctity of God. There were also three concluding benedictions centered on cultic restoration, thanksgiving, and peace (including the priestly benediction for peace from Numbers 6:24–26). On Sabbaths and festivals, one benediction on the theme of the day usually replaced the list of requests.5 Because they have major characteristics that do not obviously match those of the Shemaʿ and the ʿAmidah, there are some other prayers that have reasonable claims to be of early origin, perhaps even predating in some form those two standard liturgies. They include those that marked the inauguration and termination of Sabbaths and festivals (qiddush and havdalah), that offered thanks before and after meals, and that were associated with the tale of the original Passover related on the first evening

4

5

Ismar Elbogen, Der jüdische Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Frankfurt am Main, 1931); English edition, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, trans. and ed. Raymond P. Scheindlin (Philadelphia, 1993), 16 24; Stefan C. Reif, Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy (Berlin, 2006), 107 25; Stefan C. Reif, Jews, Bible and Prayer: Essays on Jewish Biblical Exegesis and Liturgical Notions (Berlin, 2017), 314 33. Elbogen, Gottesdienst, 27 60, Jewish Liturgy, 24 54; Ezekiel Luger, The Weekday Amidah in the Cairo Genizah [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2001).

liturgy 765 of that festival in the domestic setting (haggadah). The talmudic rabbis had dictated the overall content and had introduced their own order, style, vocabulary, and broad formulation. The precise wording of a whole prayer was not often indicated, there is a distinct lack of evidence that the rabbinic practice was that of all groups of Jews, and the talmudic traditions were yet to be authoritatively explained and codified.6 It should be noted that in addition to these more standard prayers, there were also liturgical practices that related to magic, heavenly bodies, and the dead and that are reported in the talmudic traditions.7 BABYLONIA AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL

In the first five centuries of Islamic hegemony, the mantle for ensuring the continuation of Jewish religious practice in general and of liturgy in particular passed to the two major centers of Judaism, namely, Babylonia and the Land of Israel. The situation in Mesopotamia was almost always more stable during that period than its equivalent in the eastern Mediterranean. The Jewish communities of what is now Iraq were generally more affluent, more organized, and more centralized than their coreligionists in the homeland. The latter suffered from political and military upheavals, from a lack of unification, and from economic difficulties.8 What impacted most on the Babylonian Jews was the centralized authority of Islam and the Muslim world and they quickly learned religious lessons from the new religio-political authorities. The local Jewish leaders, both communal and educational, created and expanded their 6

7

8

Elbogen, Gottesdienst, 107 12, 120 22, 243, Jewish Liturgy, 91 95, 101 3, 194; Issachar Jacobson, Netiv Bina, 5 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1968 83), 2:127 30 and 388 92; Louis Finkelstein, “The Birkat Ha Mazon,” Jewish Quarterly Review 19 (1928 29), 211 62; Avi Shmidman, “Developments within the Statutory Text of the Birkat Ha Mazon in Light of Its Poetic Counterparts,” in Albert Gerhards and Clemens Leonhard, eds., Jewish and Christian Liturgy and Worship: New Insights into Its History and Interaction (Leiden, 2007), 109 26; Joseph Tabory, JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia, 2008). Yehuda Septimus, On the Boundaries of Talmudic Prayer (Mohr Siebeck, 2015). See also, for comparison, the essays in Stefan C. Reif, Andreas Lehnardt, and Avriel Bar Levav, eds., Death in Jewish Life: Burial and Mourning Customs among the Jews of Europe and Nearby Communities (Berlin, 2014). Moshe Gil, A History of Palestine 634 1099 (Cambridge, 1992). On the rite of the Jewish homeland, see Ezra Fleischer, Eretz Israel Prayer and Prayer Rituals as Portrayed in the Genizah Documents, [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1988), and his posthumously collected essays Statutory Jewish Prayers: Their Emergence and Development, ed. by Shulamit Elizur and Tova Beeri, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 2012).

766 stefan c. reif institutions and were able to plan and execute their own policies and thereby to shape the development of Judaism as they understood it. In the Land of Israel, there were some equivalent personalities and structures, and they certainly influenced the nearby Jewish communities of Egypt and Syria, but the Babylonian geonim, as the heads of the yeshivot (rabbinical academies) were known, dictated religious philosophies, policies, and practices to a geographically wider selection of Jewish centers throughout the Islamic world. The geonic authorities created interpretations, sets of legal decisions, and individual responsa based on the talmudic traditions that they edited and transmitted in oral form. They saw it as a major task to give practical religious expression to the instructions, customs, and comments found in the talmudic sources. Part of this process was inevitably applied to the field of liturgy and they opted for some talmudic traditions while rejecting others. What guided them was a desire for authority and consistency, as well as for practices that could be justified, or at least not denigrated, by the religious thinkers – Muslim as well as Jewish – who were in their day inheriting and developing systematic philosophies of Greco-Roman and Christian origin. Perhaps with some degree of envy for the brief Muslim prayers, they objected to the Palestinian tendencies to innovate, and to opt for longer, more complex, versions of blessings, petitions, phraseologies, and poems.9 The most dominant of the Babylonian leaders wished to eliminate the great degree of variation that was evident in the rites practiced in the Land of Israel. Perhaps most importantly, it was in Babylonia that the oral monopoly was broken and that the first prayer books were composed in the ninth and tenth centuries. The texts circulated by Natronay b. Hilay, _ Amram b. Sheshna (both ninth century), and Seʿadyah b. Joseph (882–942) were destined to shape many future liturgical developments throughout a Jewish world that was becoming progressively more dispersed. Significantly, the prayer book written by Seʿadyah had an extensive introduction and running commentary and was undoubtedly aimed at explaining and vindicating rabbinic formulations, as well as polemicizing against Karaism’s commitment to the exclusive use of biblical texts for worship.10 9

10

Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998). Stefan C. Reif, Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History (Cambridge, 1993), 183 89; Robert Brody, “Liturgical Uses of the Book of Psalms in the Geonic Period,” in James L. Kugel, ed., Prayers that Cite Scripture (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 63 64.

liturgy 767 Various liturgical issues on which the Babylonian and Palestinian Jews differed are indicative of some (albeit fairly minor) divergences in their religious philosophies. The Babylonians sat during the recitation of the Shemaʿ, and did not necessarily face the ark containing the Torah scrolls, apparently indicating a greater concern with placing rabbinic rather than biblical concerns at the center of their religious thinking. They read the whole Pentateuch in precisely one year, rather than following a lectionary that was completed twice in seven years, and opted for a reading cycle that was virtually identical from year to year and therefore more closely associated with specific religious events and seasons. Their preference for the prayer-leader to take responsibility for the recitation of various benedictions constituted an attempt to standardize and centralize religious practice in the synagogue prayers, while their preference for dealing with only one topic at a time within each prayer formulation, and their animosity toward complicated and highly allusive liturgical poetry, reflected an interest in expressing theology through the rational and literary rather than the lyrical and the imaginative.11 The Babylonian trait to insist on ten Jews for the quorum rather than on seven (a custom that may have obtained in the Land of Israel) was probably a way of emphasizing the importance of community.12 In the Jewish homeland, the number of formal wedding benedictions was apparently three and the themes covered were the divine creation of humanity, happiness, and marriage. Shulamit Elizur has recently argued for the existence of a different formula in the homeland that covered wine, happiness, and (by extension) marriage.13 In Babylonia, the list was ultimately expanded to seven, opportunity being taken of also laying out the theological importance of the divine provision of all the world’s supplies, the creation of the soul, the future restoration of Zion, and the link between the Garden of Eden and the joy of marriage.14 11

12

13

14

Benjamin M. Lewin, Osar Hilluf Minhagim: Thesaurus of Halachic Differences between _ the Palestinian and Babylonian Schools (Jerusalem, 1942); Mordecai Margaliot, The Differences between Babylonian and Palestinian Jews (Jerusalem, 1937). See also Shlomo Naeh, “On the Septennial Cycle of the Torah Reading in Early Palestine,” Tarbiz 74 (2005), 43 75. Massekhet Soferim, ed. Michael Higger (New York, 1937), 214 15, sec. 10.6; ed. Israel W. Slotki (London, 1965), 258, sec. 10.7. Shulamit Elizur, “A New Look at the Nuptial Benedictions in Babylonia and Palestine,” in Nuria Calduch Benages, Michael Duggan, and Dalia Marx, eds., On Wings of Prayer. Sources of Jewish Worship. Essays in Honor of Professor Stefan C. Reif on the Occasion of His Seventy Fifth Birthday (Berlin, 2019), 171 86. Lewin, Osar, 58; Margaliot, Differences, 83, 143 45; Talmudic Encyclopedia (1956), 4:644 49._

768 stefan c. reif In addition to these more general developments, the geonic age also saw the introduction (exemplified in both the Babylonian and Palestinian rites) of a variety of prayers that had been virtually unknown or little used in earlier periods. Among these are the qaddish (praise of God) and the qedushah (an expanded Trisagion based on Isaiah 6:3) in their various forms; the more formal recitation of selections from the Book of Psalms, sometimes with the figure of David being employed as the archetypal reciter of praise to God; the more specific incorporation of cosmic, celestial, and angelological themes into some of the prayers; the adoption of a benediction for the kindling of Sabbath lights and of a passage in the ʿAmidah marking the festivals of Hanukkah and Purim; and the more extensive utilization of Exodus 15 (the Song at the Sea) for liturgical purposes. Rituals and benedictions that had been personal and/or domestic (such as optional supplicatory prayers known as tahanunim) were gradually _ transferred to the synagogal context. One of the ultimate results was that the statutory prayers no longer began with the Shemaʿ and its benedictions, and ended with the ʿAmidah, but attracted to themselves additional introductory and concluding items.15 Although there were, in the precise wording of the rites, ongoing mutual influences between the centers in Babylonia and the Land of Israel, the former were undoubtedly more anxious to standardize textual formulation while the latter remained comfortable with a variety of options. In the realm of liturgical poetry (piyyut), this genre, composed in order to expand and explain statutory prayers _ and biblical lectionaries, found itself an honorable place in most liturgical frameworks, either in the simpler form preferred in Babylonia, or in the more complex variety developed in the Land of Israel. There were always some objections to the degree to which poetry entered the liturgy and even usurped the place of some prayers, but its presence became virtually ubiquitous by the early medieval period.16 BIFURCATION OF RITES

The Palestinian Jewish communities were effectively eliminated by the Crusaders at the end of the eleventh century, although those who survived 15

16

Stefan C. Reif, “The Early History of Jewish Worship,” in Paul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffman, eds., The Making of Jewish and Christian Worship (South Bend, IN, 1991), 109 36. On the qaddish, for example, see Andreas Lehnardt, Qaddish: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Rezeption eines rabbinischen Gebetes (Tübingen, 2002). For a full discussion of the development of liturgical poetry in this period, see Chapter 24 in this volume.

liturgy 769 and resettled in Egypt and Syria succeeded in maintaining their liturgical traditions for at least a century and a half. They, like all other Jewish communities, then succumbed to the pervasive influence of the Babylonian rite. Paradoxically, however, no sooner had that influence been universally established, than the Babylonian center itself entered a period of decay and the centers of Jewish religious authority and intense education moved elsewhere. Inevitably, this meant that the communities that had once been closely guided by the Babylonian spiritual leaders with regard to liturgical rites now began to evolve their own adaptations of such rites. The North African community displays just such an overall historical progression. In its early years it was still influenced by the homeland with regard to such matters as Torah reading, liturgical poetry, and priestly status; the authority of the Babylonian leadership, and a significant migration from Mesopotamia to Ifrīqiya (modern-day Tunisia), brought about the adoption of the synagogal customs of the geonic center. Once the power of that center waned, the local North African communities generated more of their own versions of the prayer rites and in due course played a part in the development of the formulations utilized in Jewish Spain.17 The liturgical situation in Spain and Portugal from the eleventh century until the expulsions at the end of the fifteenth century is even more complicated. However common it is to refer to the “Sephardic rite,” it must be acknowledged that this was by no means a uniform construct. The liturgical evolution in Iberia over that period of half a millennium was not only dependent on Babylonian influence, which was major and early, and on some atavistic impact from the Jewish homeland. Other factors were the changing nature of Muslim control of the center and south of the Iberian Peninsula, the growing power of the Christians to the north, and the existence of many independent states, such as Catalonia, Aragon, and Castile, with their own forms of Jewish custom and identity.18 In the guidance that they offered with regard to the prayers, leading halakhic figures such as Isaac ben Judah Ibn Ghiyyāth of Lucena (1038–89) and Judah b. Barzillay of Barcelona (about half a century later), often

17

18

Menahem Ben Sasson, The Emergence of the Local Jewish Community in the Muslim World: Qayrawan, 800 1057 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1997), 33 41, 155 79. For the broader historical background, see the first volume of Hayyim W. (J. W.) Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1965). Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1973 84); Isaac Fritz Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1961 66).

770 stefan c. reif motivated by a desire for religious accuracy and consistency, attempted to maintain a balance between local custom and geonic instruction.19 Provence stood at the crossroads of Spanish, French, and Italian liturgical highways and was consequently one of the centers most intensely affected by the clash of numerous and various rites and customs. Judah b. Yaqar, the twelfth-century teacher of Nahmanides, was aware of many different rites but attempted to achieve some_ degree of standardization by compiling and disseminating a systematic liturgical commentary. Solomon b. Abraham Ibn Adret (1235–1310), for his part, took a strong line against some local trends, especially if they lacked decorum, but at the same time admitted that “no two places follow precisely the same practice.” The resultant mélange was chronicled in some detail by Abraham b. Nathan of Lunel in the early thirteenth century. Having traveled extensively, he had become aware of the many variations in Jewish liturgical traditions. A similar assessment (“a variety of customs in different kingdoms”) was also made in 1340 by David b. Joseph Abudraham of Seville, who attempted to improve matters by writing his own detailed and comprehensive text and commentary on the prayers, benedictions, lectionaries, and the ritual calendar. Mystical input became significant in Spain in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and will be discussed below.20 One of Jewish Spain’s most famous sons, Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), had personal experience of the rites of Andalusia, Morocco, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Egypt, and faced the conundrum of how to legislate for his community in Cairo. Close study of his works reveals that he had personal preferences for the customs (as in matters of ritual ablution) of his birthplace, Córdoba, and a degree of antagonism toward the Palestinian practices (for example, the triennial cycle), imported to Egypt by refugees from the Crusader invasion. He did not, however, think it wise to rule against the local Egyptian/North African rites, which largely constituted an amalgam of the Babylonian and the local traditions. In his code, Mishneh Torah, he appears to have adopted those rites, but his liturgical guidance became the strict archetype for only one major community in the Islamic world, namely, that of Yemen. Although 19

20

See Shaʿarei Simhah, ed. Seligman Baer Bamberger, 2 vols. (Fürth, 1861 2), 1:14 16, 19, 20 24, 28 29, 32,_ 38, 42, 60 62, 64 65, 87, 89, 99, 109 12, 114, 116, 2:2 5, 7, 26, 52, 55, 65 66, 69, 73, 99 100, 102, 105 6, 108 9, 111; Sefer ha ʿIttim, ed. Jacob Schor (Berlin, 1902 3), especially 33 42, 170 218, 243 83, and 289 90. Judah b. Yaqar, Perush ha Tefillot ve ha Berakhot, ed. Samuel Yerushalmi, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1968); Solomon b. Abraham Ibn Adret, Responsa, 3 parts (Bnei Brak, 1958 59), 1:191, no. 473; Abraham b. Nathan, Sefer ha Manhig: Rulings and Customs, ed. Isaac Raphael, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1978); Abraham J. Wertheimer and Solomon A. Wertheimer, eds., Sefer Abudraham ha Shalem (Jerusalem, 1963), 6.

liturgy 771 it displays some traces of the prayer book of Seʿadyah Gaʾon, the Yemenite rite is almost identical with the rulings of Maimonides during the period under discussion.21 Although the rites of the Land of Israel virtually disappeared from the broader liturgical scene in the Islamic empire by the middle of the thirteenth century, they succeeded in leaving a mark in a number of medieval communities. Remnants of Palestinian usage survived in synagogal customs recorded in Aleppo, in those parts of Greece, the Balkans, and Turkey that were part of the Byzantine Empire (“Rūm” to the Arabicspeaking Jews), and in Persia. Given the geographical proximity of Syria and Palestine and the flight of many Jews from the homeland to the Syrian Jewish communities, the influences on Aleppo are hardly surprising. Similarly, the chain of liturgical transmission between the Land of Israel and the European centers is widely thought to have been via Italian and Byzantine centers, thus creating what is known as the Romaniote rite (Nusah Romanya). _ the medieval Persian prayer book owes some of its content to preWhy Crusader Palestine is less obvious. Perhaps settlers or even visitors from the Holy Land in the talmudic and geonic periods brought with them to the Mesopotamian areas some liturgical traditions and these were displaced by the Babylonian leadership in all but the Persian areas. Be that as it may, the surviving characteristics testify, among others, to a preference for Palestinian liturgical poems, orders of prayers, biblical lectionaries, collections of Psalms and biblical verses, and pleas for future redemptions to match those of the past.22 MYSTICISM AND THE SEPHARDIC IMPACT

Although the Jewish liturgical historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries strongly pressed the argument that the mystical content of Jewish prayer was decadent, escapist and a negation of life, the work of Gershom Scholem and his scholarly successors has proved beyond doubt that there was always at least a tension between the halakhic and the mystical tendencies and that both formed part of the continuous evolution of Jewish prayer customs. The talmudic and geonic periods 21

22

Gerald Blidstein, Prayer in Maimonidean Halakha [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994); Reif, Problems with Prayers, 207 28. Many examples of these rites are provided in Ernst D. Goldschmidt, On Jewish Liturgy: Essays on Prayer and Religious Poetry [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1978). See also Solomon Tal, ed., The Persian Jewish Prayer Book: Facsimile of MS Adler ENA 23 in the Jewish Theological Seminary Library (Jerusalem, 1980); and Reif, Judaism, 161 63.

772 stefan c. reif saw the creation of a rich variety of hymns (hekhalot) concerned with heaven, angels, and the aspiration for ecstatic expression, some of which gradually made their ways into the regular offices.23 Not all authorities approved and the Jewish rationalists were always suspicious of anything that smacked in any way of the anthropomorphic. Paradoxically, it was the son of Maimonides, Abraham b. Moses, who led the way in thirteenth-century Egypt toward a deeper commitment to asceticism, pietism, and intense liturgical concentration. He used a host of bodily movements and ritual ablutions to achieve what he regarded as the higher levels of spiritual devotion. He saw this as a return to ancient Jewish religiosity but it was already argued seventy years ago by Naphtali Wieder that his proposals were novel rather than traditional, inspired by Islamic example and akin to S ̣ūfī tendencies.24 There is, however, no clear indication that Abraham Maimuni and his followers succeeded in making significant inroads into established liturgical practice. That was achieved only by the Spanish kabbalists of the sixteenth century who combined what they had inherited from the mystics of various Jewish communities outside the Islamic sphere into what later became known as the Lurianic kabbalah, after its supposed champion, Isaac Luria (1534–72). It is not surprising that Sephardic rabbis and teachers should ultimately have imposed their mystical ideas and customs on other groups of Jews. The attitude cultivated in Spain during the late medieval period was that its leaders, communities, education, and practices were superior to those of all other Jewish centers. When, by force majeure, they emigrated in the late fifteenth century, they may have lost their personal and communal properties, their businesses, and sometimes even members of their close 23

24

Gershom Scholem, Kabbala (New York, 1974), based on his articles in the Encyclopaedia Judaica; Meir Bar Ilan, The Mysteries of Jewish Prayer and Hekhalot [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1987); Roland Goetschel, ed., Prière, Mystique et Judaïsme (Paris, 1987); Joseph Dan, The Ancient Jewish Mysticism (Tel Aviv, 1993); Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988). Naphtali Wieder, Islamic Influences on the Jewish Worship [Hebrew] (Oxford, 1947); S. D. Goitein, “Abraham Maimonides and His Pietist Circle,” in Alexander Altmann, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 145 64; Paul B. Fenton, “A Mystical Treatise on Prayer and the Spiritual Quest from the Pietist Circle,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 16 (1993), 137 75; Mordechai A. Friedman, “‘A Controversy for the Sake of Heaven’: Studies in the Liturgical Polemics of Abraham Maimonides and his Contemporaries,” Teʿuda 10 (1996), 245 98; Mordechai A. Friedman, “Abraham Maimuni’s Prayer Reforms: Continuation or Revision of his Father’s Teachings?” in Carlos Fraenkel, ed., Traditions of Maimonideanism (Leiden, 2009), 139 54; Y. Tzvi Langermann, “From Private Devotion to Communal Prayer: New Light on Abraham Maimonides’ Synagogue Reforms,” Ginzei Qedem: Genizah Research Annual 1 (2005), 31 49.

liturgy 773 family. They did, however, retain their feelings of superiority. Consequently, those who were able to settle elsewhere, and to enjoy a fair degree of freedom, not only established their own synagogues, following the various Sephardic rites, but also succeeded in many cases in displacing the rites of the communities in which they had newly resettled.25 As Samuel b. Moses de Medina put it early in the sixteenth century, “It seems to me that those who abandon other liturgical rites and adopt that of Spain are not only undeserving of censure but should actually be praised since their ancestors might have done the same in similar circumstances.”26 WOMEN

Given the nature of male-centered religious activity in the premodern period, was there any involvement by women in Jewish liturgical matters in the Islamic period? In the Land of Israel of the earlier pre-talmudic and talmudic periods, women had an area of the Temple that was designated for them, some rituals in that center were undoubtedly open to both sexes, and there was serious discussion about female participation in public reading of Scripture and in Torah study. In the communities of the Greco-Roman world, it is by no means clear from the archaeological evidence that women were segregated in all synagogues, and there are inscriptions that give them titles that presuppose an active status of some sort in communal activities. The post-talmudic Babylonian centers – perhaps because they operated in an Islamic cultural context – seem to have been more content with a male-dominated establishment and were not much concerned with the possibility of women performing the same liturgical functions as men, either as individuals or in a congregational context.27 25

26

27

Joseph R. Hacker, “The Intellectual Activity of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire during the 16th and 17th Centuries,” in Isadore Twersky and Bernard Septimus, eds., Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1987), 95 135. Responsa (Lemberg, 1862), no. 35, translated in Morris S. Goodblatt, Jewish Life in Turkey in the XVIth Century (New York, 1952), 139 43. On related themes, see Solomon Schechter, Studies in Judaism, First Series (London, 1896), 313 25; Bernadette Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (Chico, CA, 1982); Moshe Meiselman, Jewish Woman in Jewish Law (New York, 1978); Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law (New York, 1984); Avraham Weiss, Women at Prayer (New York, 1990); Eliezer Berkovits, Jewish Women in Time and Torah (Hoboken, 1990); Judith R. Baskin, ed., Jewish Women in Historical Perspective (Detroit, 1991); Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut, eds., Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue (Philadelphia, 1992); and Markus McDowell, Prayers of Jewish Women: Studies of Patterns of Prayer in the Second Temple Period (Tübingen, 2006).

774 stefan c. reif The medieval community about which historians know the most is that of Cairo, since the rich materials of the Genizah provide eyewitness accounts of daily activities in all contexts. Women were sometimes educated, especially in the Hebrew Bible, and could serve as teachers of young girls.28 They made donations to the synagogue and thereby expected a direct influence over which males in their family were given honors during public worship. Where it was necessary to make a public announcement at times of worship, they could do so from the area allotted to them. There were also instances in which they were appointed to maintain synagogue property of various sorts. But neither the Egyptian rabbinic authorities nor those of other communities in the Islamic sphere were as interested as their equivalents in non-Islamic countries in seriously discussing, for example, the halakhic ramifications of women as reciters of scriptural passages in the formal synagogue context.29 KARAITES

As the Rabbanites of the geonic and early medieval periods were fixing the precise forms of their prayers and composing their first prayer books, the greatest challenge to these activities came from the Karaites. Since that alternative Jewish group regarded itself as the authentic transmitter of Judaism as it had been passed down from biblical times, it tolerated no truck with any of the talmudic and related ideology and usage. As far as prayers were concerned, they saw the Hebrew Bible as the main authoritative text and the Book of Psalms as their primary source for their prayers; they rejected any formulation that was, as they saw it, the invention of the rabbinic imagination. But the two groups undoubtedly influenced each other.30 From the twelfth century onward, when their power began to weaken, the Karaites came to emulate Rabbanite practice in many religious contexts, even kindling lights before the Sabbath as the Rabbanites had done for many centuries. The Rabbanites, for their part, were much affected by aspects of Karaite piety between the eighth and twelfth centuries, returning to the Hebrew Bible, making greater use of Hebrew than they previously 28 29

30

See Chapter 16 in this volume. Sara Reguer, “Women and the Synagogue in Medieval Cairo,” in Grossman and Haut, eds., Daughters of the King, 51 57; Stefan C. Reif, A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University’s Genizah Collection (Richmond, Surrey, 2000), 226 28. Daniel Frank, “Karaite Ritual,” in Lawrence Fine, ed., Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period (Princeton, 2001), 248 63; Meira Polliack, ed., Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Sources (Leiden, 2003).

liturgy 775 had done, and expressing a love of Zion and Jerusalem. In this latter connection, recent manuscript discoveries have testified to a pietistic practice that was followed by both groups of Jews, though probably initiated by the Karaites: they circumambulated the walls of Jerusalem, reciting prayers and verses at each of the gates before finally arriving at the Temple Mount.31 PHYSICAL MEDIA

It should not be forgotten that the physical medium of the prayers was altered during the whole period under discussion. Until the eighth or ninth century, the prayers, like all other rabbinic sources, were transmitted orally. This is not to say that they were not well structured or subject to an editorial process, simply to argue that they were not committed to a scroll as were the books of the Hebrew Bible. Whether under the influence of Christian and Muslim practice, or simply because of the need to protect their religious traditions, rabbinic leaders then began to make use of the codex format for their literary compositions including their prayers. At first this was done only for those prayers less familiar to the worshipper and there were no more than two or three bifolia, offering four or six sides for transcription. The style was primitive, the content simple, and the whole appearance was that of a hastily composed notebook. The material used was papyrus, leather, or cloth. The prayer books produced by the geonic leaders were more comprehensive and better-structured but they were composed in response to specific requests from communities that required full halakhic guidance. They were, therefore, the exception rather than the rule. Smaller and simpler codices were used by those who led the prayers and perhaps needed some prompting or by those who were composing liturgical poems to accompany the statutory prayers, or maybe even in some educational context. Gradually, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, vellum gave way to paper, square script was replaced by semicursive or cursive, notes were added to the text, the format became a little more uniform, and the number of folios increased. Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the siddur (rabbinic prayer book) came to be regarded as a piece of 31

Elhanan Reiner, “Concerning the Priest Gate and its Location,” Tarbiz 56 (1987), 279 90; Ezra Fleischer, “Pilgrims’ Prayer at the Gates of Jerusalem,” in Ezra Fleischer, Mordechai A. Friedman, and Joel Kraemer, eds., Masʾat Moshe: Studies in Jewish and Islamic Culture Presented to Moshe Gil [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1998), 298 327; Haggai Ben Shammai, “A Unique Lamentation on Jerusalem by the Karaite Author Yeshuʿa b. Judah”, in Masʾat Moshe, 93 102.

776 stefan c. reif authoritative literature. A whole range of scribal techniques was adopted, standards of illustration and illumination became more impressive, and individuals took pride in collecting attractive copies for their libraries or for synagogal use. The larger the liturgical codex, and the wider its margins, the more grew the tendency to gloss it with sources, exegesis, variant readings, and halakhic guidance. Ultimately, Spain even developed workshops that specialized in creating high-quality products and the resultant codices came to resemble their biblical counterparts. This increased their status, giving them a degree of authority and increasing the prospect that their formulations would be approved and disseminated. The latter half of the fifteenth century saw the invention of printing and the production of the earliest prayer books in this novel medium. One manuscript could now be copied in a printed edition and made available to hundreds of Jews. With such a text in front of them, they could argue about what they regarded as textually authentic. Familiarity with the content no longer necessarily relied on the loud recitation of each word by the prayer-leader and the knowledge of less familiar prayers could be greatly increased. In the Islamic environment, it was in Turkey that many early Jewish prayer books were printed.32 GENIZAH SOURCES

With the data now presented, it is important to conclude with some remarks about historical sources and methodology, especially with regard to the early centuries of the Islamic period. Scholarly understanding of the development of Jewish liturgy in the Islamic world of the Middle Ages has been totally revolutionized in the course of the past 120 years by the discovery, decipherment, analysis, and publication of the Cairo Genizah documents. Prior to the appearance of these many thousands of manuscript fragments (housed in many centers around the world but mostly at the Cambridge University Library, in the United Kingdom), knowledge of the early medieval period was heavily dependent on sources that dated from at least 300 or 400 years later. Not a great deal was known of the liturgical practice of the Holy Land before the Crusader period and there was little with which to compare and contrast the texts authorized by Amram Gaon and Seʿadyah Gaʾon. Consequently, it was unclear how easy, or difficult, it was for the Babylonian rite to emerge, develop, and ultimately achieve a position of domination.

32

Reif, Problems, 181 206.

liturgy 777 These matters have all been intensely illuminated by the Genizah discoveries. In addition, a host of totally unknown benedictions and prayers have come to light, much novel phraseology has surfaced, and numerous variant texts, within and surrounding the Shemaʿ and the ʿAmidah, have been discovered. The question why the recitation of the Shemaʿ does not have a benediction may now be confidently answered with the statement that there are many Genizah texts that testify to just such a benediction. New knowledge even includes a Jewish prayer for the military success of a twelfth-century caliph and there is fresh data not only on the halakhic aspect of liturgy but also in relation to its mystical, eschatological, and pietistic manifestations. Not everyone agrees that the Genizah material also often reflects earlier talmudic variation, subsequently standardized by the geonic leadership.33 But however one explains these “nonstandard” items, they represent an important piece of historical evidence in the liturgical field. If the Genizah data represent a revolutionary break with what was authorized and practiced by the talmudic rabbis, or a serious adaptation of much of its content, questions must inevitably rise about whether that talmudic tradition was quite as powerful as many have portrayed it. Alternatively, if such major variations in liturgical structure and formulation had already existed from the earliest rabbinic times and had continued in use in some communities until the tenth century, this must testify to a lesser degree of uniformity and authority on the part of the talmudic traditions than has often been supposed. Either way, the existence of one sanctioned form for each rabbinic prayer and benediction that never tolerated variation now appears to be highly unlikely. The early history of Judaism’s prayer book in the Islamic environment has therefore become that much more colorful and intriguing.34 CONCLUSION

The most powerful impact on Jewish liturgy in the first few centuries of the Islamic hegemony was that of the Babylonian rabbinic leaders, who imposed 33

34

Compare, for example, the approach of Uri Ehrlich in his various publications, especially The Weekday Amidah in Cairo Genizah Prayer Books: Roots and Transmission (Jerusalem, 2013). Reif, “Genizah and Jewish Liturgy: Past Achievements and a Current Project,” Medieval Encounters 5 (1999), 29 45. There are also important essays in Debra Reed Blank, ed., The Experience of Jewish Liturgy: Studies Dedicated to Menahem Schmelzer (Leiden, 2011). For overall bibliographical guidance, see Ruth Langer, Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research (Lanham, MD, 2015).

778 stefan c. reif their understanding of the talmudic traditions and their desire for consistency on most of the Diaspora communities, while some remnants of the less standardized liturgical practices of the Jews of the Land of Israel found their way into a few of the early medieval rites such as those of Aleppo and Persia. As the two major centers of Babylonia and Palestine disintegrated, the liturgical traditions of North Africa, Egypt, and Yemen found their own ways forward, while those of Spain, Portugal, and Provence became marked by a renewal of variety within their constituent communities that survived until the fifteenth century. Sephardic émigrés were self-confident enough to impose their rites on the communities where they found refuge. Innovative mystical ideas and rituals similar to those of the Muslim S ̣ūfīs were introduced into the Egyptian Jewish liturgy in the thirteenth century by Abraham, the son of Moses Maimonides, but it was the mysticism of Christian-dominated Provence, Catalonia, and Spain that was ultimately to enter the Jewish communities of the Ottoman world. Attitudes to the liturgical role of women remained as conservative as those of medieval Islam, while the mutual recriminations of Rabbanites and Karaites did not prevent them from influencing each other’s liturgical customs. The adoption of the codex and its evolution from a few rough folios into an impressive scribal production gave the siddur a growing theological status, while the invention of printing lent a more democratic aspect to the choice of prayers. The analysis of Jewish prayer in the Muslim world of the High Middle Ages has been uniquely revolutionized by the discovery and study of the many thousands of liturgical texts from the Cairo Genizah. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dan, Joseph. The Ancient Jewish Mysticism (Tel Aviv, 1993). Ehrlich, Uri. The Weekday Amidah in Cairo Genizah Prayer Books: Roots and Transmission [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2013). Elbogen, Ismar. Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, trans. and ed. Raymond P. Scheindlin (Philadelphia, 1993). Finkelstein, Louis. “The Birkat Ha-Mazon,” Jewish Quarterly Review 19 (1928–29), 211–62. Fleischer, Ezra. Eretz-Israel Prayer and Prayer Rituals as Portrayed in the Genizah Documents [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1988). Frank, Daniel. “Karaite Ritual,” in Lawrence Fine, ed., Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period (Princeton, 2001), 248–63. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva. “Abraham Maimuni’s Prayer Reforms: Continuation or Revision of his Father’s Teachings?” in Carlos Fraenkel, ed., Traditions of Maimonideanism (Leiden, 2009), 139–54.

liturgy 779 Goldschmidt, Eliezer D. On Jewish Liturgy: Essays on Prayer and Religious Poetry [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1978). Langer, Ruth. Jewish Liturgy: A Guide to Research (Lanham, MD, 2015). Reif, Stefan C. Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History (Cambridge, 1993). A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University’s Genizah Collection (Richmond, Surrey, 2000). Problems with Prayers: Studies in the Textual History of Early Rabbinic Liturgy (Berlin, 2006). Tabory, Joseph. JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia, 2008). Weiss, Avraham. Women at Prayer (New York, 1990). Wieder, Naphtali. The Formation of Jewish Liturgy in the East and the West: A Collection of Essays, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1998).

chapter 24

PIYYUT _

tova beeri

INTRODUCTION

Piyyut (pl. piyyutim) is the Hebrew term for liturgical poetry that embellishes_the public _recitation of the statutory prayers recited in the synagogue by the precentor (hazzan). As a substitute for most of the fixed versions _ of the obligatory prayers (except for the berakhot), its function was to introduce variety, in this case through artistic poetic expression, to the established, statutory prayers. Because of their close connection in liturgical function and genre to the obligatory prayers, piyyut compositions largely embellish the ʿAmidah _ benedictions (Shmoneh ʿEsreh) and the Shemaʿ in the morning and the evening services, among other prayers. The piyyutim that embellish the ʿAmidah, generally known as qerovah (pl. qerovot),_ can be further broken down into piyyutim for the Sabbath and festival morning ʿAmidah, known as qedushta (pl. _qedushtaʾot), and for the Musaf ʿAmidah, termed shivʿata (“seven,” because the Musaf ʿAmidah includes seven blessings). In the case of the piyyutim that adorn the Shemaʿ, those for the morning service (introduced _by the blessing yoser or) are called yoser (pl. yoserot) and for 1 _ _ the evening (ʿArvit) prayer maʿariv. As defined here, piyyu_t refers to its _ religious or synagogal function in public prayer, regardless of its content, otherwise. Naturally, these texts deal with liturgical subjects, and are more often linked to the weekly Torah portion read in the synagogue. Like the standard prayers, the piyyutim were composed in Hebrew and express _ communal concerns; the author not only conceals his identity but also rarely refers to either his historical epoch or location. Thus, in prayers for redemption from the oppressive rule of contemporary nations, the paytan _ (liturgical poet – pl. paytanim) refers to them metonymically: biblical _ Edom or Esau represents the Byzantine or Christian nations, and Ishmael or Kedar the Muslims of the Islamic era. 1

On these prayers and the accompanying genres of piyyut, see Ismar Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin (Philadelphia, 1993),_ 168 77. See also note 3.

780

piyyu t 781 _ Scholarly consensus holds that piyyut originated in and developed in the synagogues of the Land of Israel and _reflects and follows the Palestinian prayer rite.2 Opinions differ as to its early stages, though all agree that by the fifth century ce, hazzanim incorporated liturgical poetic compositions _ in their prayer, especially in the festival and Sabbath services, in many major synagogues in the Land of Israel.3 Much of our information on the Hebrew poetry of the East, from late antiquity through the Middle Ages, comes from discoveries in the famed Cairo Genizah. Of an estimated 250,000 Genizah manuscripts, about 40 percent are poetry; of these the majority are piyyut. In suggesting _ landmarks for this large corpus, the late Professor Ezra Fleischer divided the piyyutim recovered from the Genizah into three (distinct) poetical and _ literary periods: pre-classical, classical, and late Eastern. Note, however, that this periodization does not necessarily coincide with major events in world history; it relies instead on literary developments in the piyyutim themselves. _ LITURGICAL POETRY IN THE EAST

pre-classical period The first or pre-classical period (c. 380–500) is probably the least homogenous in nature. Its anonymous poetry is characterized by the absence of systematic rhyme patterns, though a clear-cut system of pure stress meter is generally applied. This metric system predominated among paytanim in the following centuries. Quantitative meter (based on the Arab_ system) probably first appeared in al-Andalus, evidently not before the mid-tenth century ce. An early, reliable tradition indicates that the last poet of the preclassical period was Yose b. Yose, who flourished in the Land of Israel around the fourth to fifth centuries ce. Yose is known for his very long piyyutim for _ Yom Kippur, including poetic elaborations on the Yom Kippur sacrifice as carried out by the High Priest in the Temple service (Seder ʿAvodah).4 2

3

4

For example, qerovot for the weekday ʿAmidah always cover eighteen benedictions per the Palestinian rite, and not the nineteen of the Babylonian one. For a concise summary of aspects of early and classical piyyut, see Ezra Fleischer, “Piyyut,” in Shmuel Safrai et al., eds., The Literature of _the Sages: Part Two _ (Minneapolis, 2006), 363 74. For a more comprehensive study, see Ezra Fleischer, Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2007), 41 275. On this liturgical genre, see Michael D. Swartz and Joseph Yahalom, eds. and trans., Avodah: An Anthology of Ancient Poetry for Yom Kippur (University Park, PA, 2005). For various other piyyutim from this period, see Ophir Münz Manor, ed., The Early Piyyut _ 2015). Some Aramaic Jewish poems belong also to this period. See_ [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, now, Laura S. Lieber, Jewish Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity (Leiden, 2018).

782 tova beeri Various works by other paytanim from this period – several penitential _ destruction of the Temple – are also extant. poems as well as dirges for the classical period The piyyut of the classical period (sixth to eighth centuries) is marked by _ the intentional and regular use of rhyme – at times in a highly developed, complex system that enabled the formation of strophic units – and by the common authorial practice of inserting acrostic signatures. The first paytan _ to use systematic rhymed versification and to sign his name to his compositions was Yannay, who flourished in the Land of Israel around the first half of the sixth century. Scholars regard this illustrious, prolific poet, virtually unknown before the discovery of the Cairo Genizah, as the first in a long chain of poets comprising the classical period. Historically, the earlier classical paytanim flourished during the Byzantine era (e.g., Yannay, Simeon b. Megas,_ and others), but the greatest and probably the most important and influential paytan of the classical period, Elazar bi-rabbi Qillir (c. 570–640), lived to _see the Arab conquest (638) and in many respects all the later paytanim of the Islamic period can be considered his _ disciples. Phinehas ha-Kohen b. Jacob (second half of the eighth century) of Kifra (near Tiberias) closes the classical period, and harbingers of the forthcoming poetic age are detectable in his varied oeuvre.5 Selected examples of piyyutim by classical paytanim are available in English _ _ translation.6 In the main, classical paytanim elaborated on the ʿAmidah prayer, developing the various qerovot_ (for Sabbaths, festivals, and special weekdays, each with its specific characteristics), particularly the qedushta (in which the verses of the qedushah are recited), the most important and revered genre. They also composed some yoserot for Sabbaths and festi_ vals.7 Thematically, their poems dealt with topics related to the weekly or festival Torah portions, but we also find prayers for redemption among 5

6

7

On this gifted poet, see Shulamit Elizur, The Liturgical Poems of Rabbi Pinhas ha Kohen [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2004). See T. Carmi, ed., The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse (Philadelphia, 1981), 215 34. See also Jakob J. Petuchowski, Theology and Poetry (London, 1978). For a bilingual edition of Yannay’s piyyutim for Genesis, see Laura S. Lieber, Yannai on Genesis: An Invitation to _ Piyyut (Cincinnati, 2010), 303 782. For additional piyyutim by Yannay and Elazar bi rabbi Qillir, see Laura S. Lieber, A Vocabulary of Desire: _The Song of Songs in the Early Synagogue (Leiden, 2014). See also, Peter Cole, The Poetry of Kabbalah (New Haven, 2012), 24 26 (Yannay); 27 31 (Qillir). On qerovot, see Fleischer, Liturgical Poetry, 117 275. See also Ezra Fleischer, The Yozer: Its Emergence and Development [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1984), 89 148.

piyyu t 783 _ their oeuvre. In their literary expansions on these topics, these paytanim drew heavily on midrashic literature. Largely composed by erudite_ men well versed in all aspects of Jewish learning, piyyut aimed to provide scholastic entertainment in the classical period in _the context of the synagogue service. It is therefore not surprising that paytanim, from at least the time of Qillir, developed an enigmatic, highly_ hermetic condensed style combining linguistic and grammatical neologisms with an intricate technique of metonymy (kinnuy) for recurring notions, such as Israel, the Torah, God, and biblical heroes or events. The resulting obscure style, referred to as “paytanic style,” posed an appealing intellectual challenge for many a man_ who attended the performances of paytanim/ _ hazzanim in the synagogue.8 _ late eastern piyyu t _ Fleischer designates the third stage of paytanic activity in the East, which followed the classical period and lasted for_ about three centuries, to have been the age of late Eastern piyyut (c. 800–1100). Perhaps the most productive in terms of quantity, but _not necessarily quality, this period is best represented by the literary output of hundreds of hazzanim/paytanim _ whose compositions comprise a substantial number of_ the Cairo Genizah manuscripts containing poetry. Many of these paytanim are known only _ by their personal names as found in their acrostical signatures. I will elaborate on some of the outstanding poets among them below. Although piyyut was an innovation of the Palestinian school, toward the _ end of the ninth century, we find evidence of paytanic activity outside the _ first in communities Land of Israel due to its appeal.9 This took place under the direct influence of the Palestinian school and it subsequently spread to other major centers as well, with the exception of Yemen, where liturgical poetry as defined here did not take root. However, our knowledge of the dissemination of piyyut in different parts of the Islamic world _ relies almost entirely on the manuscripts haphazardly discarded in the Cairo Genizah and so lacunae exist in our knowledge of remote communities. From about the mid-tenth century we can chart a clear shift in the center of paytanic activity from the Land of Israel to the Diaspora, with communities_ such as Egypt, the Maghrib (Qayrawān), Babylonia (Iraq), 8

9

See Shulamit Elizur, “The Enigmatic Nature of Hebrew Poetry in the Orient from Its Origins until the Twelfth Century” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 59 (1994), 14 34. One of the earliest centers was southern Italy (from c. 850), but as it was under Byzantine rule it is beyond the scope of this chapter. The first Ashkenazi paytan was _ Rabbi Simeon bar Isaac, who flourished around the latter half of the tenth century.

784 tova beeri Syria, and later al-Andalus (Spain) assuming the leading role. Not all these centers produced equally great poetry, nor has everything written there been preserved. The late Eastern period does not represent a fresh start, and many piyyutim composed during this period preserve classical features. But this _ also saw the introduction of several new genres, such as the masdar period (introductory piece that precedes the yoser),10 or the ʿoseh shalom _ (an independent piyyut for the concluding _ benediction of the ʿAmidah) together with some_ new structural devices. These and other new forms of piyyut influenced some subsequent innovations of the Spanish school. _ Two notable factors distinguish the literary output of the late Eastern poets from that of the previous classical period. The first is related to gradual changes in the cycle of the synagogal Torah reading from the triennial Palestinian to the annual Babylonian system, even in the Land of Israel. This had an immediate effect on paytanic activity, as the all famous classical qedushtaʾot, which followed the_ triennial cycle, could no longer be recited. The paytanim of the late Eastern period directed their main _ creative output to embellishing the yoser prayer instead, producing yoserot _ of compositions – a sequence of piyyutim_ that covers each liturgical station _ the yoser prayer – for every Sabbath, in line with the new annual Torah _ If the classical period is often denoted the “age of the qedushta,” reading. the late Eastern one could justifiably be named the “age of the yoser.” The second factor concerns the quality of the poems: the _growing demand for, and public love of, piyyut during the service inevitably led _ often lacked the talent to write to mass production by local hazzanim, who _ long, intricate compositions in the classical mold. They built their compositions by combining selections from the classical qedushtaʾot and adding their own short independent poems, which they signed acrostically, marked in the manuscripts as pizmon (interlude, refrain poem – pl. pizmonim). Thus the new artifact became a heterogeneous composition that incorporated different styles. But judging by the number of piyyutim _ produced in this fashion, this did not in the least disturb the local audience’s aesthetic sense. Many of these pizmonim bear incipits reading, for example: lahn basit, or lahn be-shir ha-shirim, and the like, indicating _ to be _ sung_ in a specific musical mode or to the tune of that this piece was another well-known piyyut. Of course, such instructions were written by _ the performer, alone. and intended for the hazzan, _ music was allowed in the synagogue – as a sign of Since no instrumental mourning for the destruction of the Temple – the only permitted musical 10

Masdar: from the Arabic _

“opening, beginning.”

piyyu t 785 _ form was vocal. From their inception, piyyutim were probably not recited _ but sung to simple tunes, possibly to melodies resembling the Torah cantillation. Highly developed melodies would have blurred the meaning of the text, making it hard to follow or remember since at this stage these piyyutim would only have been performed once a year.11 _ late Eastern period saw enhanced public yearning for more elaborThe ate musical performances. Instead of using intricate tunes, the hazzanim varied the service by dividing the performance between cantor and_ “choir”: the longer sections were sung solo by the hazzan, and the shorter, inter_ polated sections – for example, the pizmonim in the qedushsta, or other short stanzas in fixed “stations” in the yoser composition – were sung by _ (possibly the hazzan’s sons) or the “choir,” which consisted of several boys men. Ezra Fleischer was the first to suggest that this theory_ yielded the key to some peculiar forms of piyyut, which arose mainly during the late _ Eastern period.12 Signs of such antiphonal performances can already be detected in the classical period (mainly by Qillir), but in a more measured fashion. But in their eagerness to satisfy their audience with musical performances, the poets of the late Eastern period piled up pizmon after pizmon, thereby destroying the well-balanced tectonic structure of the original compositions. SELECTED MAJOR POETS OF THE LATE EASTERN PERIOD

As mentioned earlier, minor poets – local hazzanim – many of them _ a large share of the extant figures obscured from us by history, composed liturgical poems from the late Eastern period. But with the systematic cataloging and deciphering of Genizah manuscripts, and the publication of collected works of some major poets of the time, we now have a clearer view of the scope of paytanic activity in the East.13 A good example is our knowledge of piyyut in _Babylonia. For many years, scholars believed that _ in Babylonia – the greatest center of Jewish learning in its day, host to the famed yeshivot of Baghdad – piyyut was not recited in the synagogue due _ 11

12

13

At this stage piyyutim were performed once and would be repeated, at the earliest, only a _ year later. See Ezra Fleischer, “The Influence of Choral Elements on the Formation and Development of Piyyut Genres” [Hebrew], Yuval 3 (1974), 18 48, esp. 45 48, for textual _ of such “choirs.” evidence for the existence Thanks to the work carried out in the Ezra Fleischer Institute for Research of Hebrew Poetry in the Genizah.

786 tova beeri to the hostility of some geonim toward versified prayer.14 But, with the ongoing study of the Cairo Genizah material, new documents and manuscripts containing piyyutim have come to light, greatly altering the previous view. Today we know _that, despite some antagonism toward their recitation, not only were versified prayers performed in Babylonian synagogues from the turn of the tenth century on, but some were also composed by native Babylonian poets. The paytanic legacy of the more prolific and important poets of the Babylonian_ region illustrates the main, characteristic features of the late Eastern period. The first is Solomon Sulaymān of Sanjar (present-day northern Iraq), who flourished around the second half of the ninth century, just before the time of Seʿadyah Gaon. He composed qedushtaʾot for the festivals and a cycle of yoserot for every Sabbath.15 From hints found _ that he may have left Iraq and served in his numerous poems we learn different communities: some that followed the Palestinian rite; others, the Babylonian one. Next was the al-Baradānī family, natives of Iraq, originating from Baradān, an old suburb north of Baghdad. At least two members of this family – Ḥayyim al-Baradānī (early tenth century) and his son Joseph al-Baradānī (d. before 998)16 – wrote liturgical poetry and were active hazzanim in Iraq. Joseph was the chief cantor in the Baghdad _ central synagogue and performed his many piyyutim there,17 much to the _ a letter from 1006.18 congregants’ delight, as Hayya Gaʾon attests in Typical of his day, Joseph al-Baradānī wrote many pizmonim, both in

14

15

16

17

18

See Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998), 113 18, and the studies listed there. For the geonic attitude toward the problematic halakhic status of piyyut in the statutory prayers, see Ruth Langer, To Worship God Properly (Cincinnati, 1998),_ 117 30. For a detailed study and edition of his qedushtaʾot, see Eden HaCohen, “The Qedushtaot of Rabbi Shelomo Suleiman al Sanjary” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2003). For additional poems by Sulaymān al Sanjarī, see now Naoya Katsumata, Seder Avodah for the Day of Atonement by Shelomo Suleiman Al Sanjari (Tübingen, 2009). For a critical edition of Sulaymān’s yoserot, see now Eden HaCohen, The Yoserot of Rabbi Selomo Sulaymān al Sanjarī for the _Annual Cycle of Torah Reading _ (Jerusalem, 2019). [Hebrew] This is confirmed in a dated letter written by his son, Nahum al Baradānī (also a hazzan but a very minor poet). See Ignaz Goldziher, “Mélanges judéo arabes,” Revue des _Études Juives 50 (1905), 182 88. The over 300 of his piyyutim recovered from the Genizah probably represent only part of his oeuvre. For a critical_ edition of his work, see Tova Beeri, The “Great Cantor” of Baghdad: The Liturgical Poems of Joseph ben Hayyim al Baradani [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2002). For the text and previous studies of this letter, see Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1997), 2:111.

piyyu t 787 _ the qedushtaʾot and in the yoserot that he composed for the festivals, allotting ample opportunity for_ the “choir” to sing its parts. For ordinary Sabbaths he wrote only masdarim, the aforementioned newly developed _ In some of these masdarim one may detect genre that introduced the yoser. _ _ feelings, relating, for a fresh atmosphere in which the poet refers to his own example, his joy at seeing the congregation surround him while he performs his piyyut in the synagogue. While still on Iraqi soil, we must _ mention a prominent member of the Baghdadi Jewish elite: Nissim Alluf (Nahrawānī, late ninth/early tenth century), who composed mainly selihot, _ penitential poems, most of which are still in manuscript. Another very interesting poet of Iraqi origin, a descendant of the exilarchic family, is Nehemiah b. Solomon (c. 960), who composed in genres that belong to the pre-classical and the classical periods.19 Concurrently, in the Land of Israel there was only one illustrious and prolific paytan of note: Samuel ha_ Shlishi b. Hoshaʿna (d. shortly after 1012),20 an important member of the Palestinian academy (Sanhedrin). He composed, among other pieces, a full cycle of yoserot for the weekly Sabbaths in a difficult paytanic style with _ _ many midrashic allusions, which demonstrates both a strong link to the famous Qillirian style and to Seʿadyah Gaʾon’s linguistic innovations.21 Seʿadyah Gaʾon (Fayyūm, Egypt, 882–Baghdad, 942) should follow Sulaymān chronologically. But, as the foremost scholar to be exposed to Arab cultural influence, and because of his tremendous impact on all Jewish learning, including Hebrew belles lettres, he merits separate treatment.22 In addition to his multifaceted activity in varied fields, Seʿadyah was also a prolific, innovative author, who composed both secular poetry as well as the liturgical poetry that concerns us here.23 He composed a cycle of yoserot for every Sabbath, wrote Sidrei ʿAvodah in a completely new style _ 19

20

21

22

23

See Naoya Katsumata, The Liturgical Poetry of Nehemiah ben Shelomo ben Heiman Ha Nasi (Leiden, 2002), and the publications by Menahem Zulay cited there. Another, minor, tenth century paytan is Elazar ben Qillar; see Shulamit Elizur, The _ Piyyutim of Rabbi Elʿazar bi rabbi Qillar [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1988), not to be confused with _the classical Qillir. He too composed a cycle of yoserot. For a comprehensive study of this poet’s style, see Naoya_ Katsumata, Hebrew Style in the Liturgical Poetry of Shmuel ha Shlishi [Hebrew and English] (Leiden, 2003). For a critical edition of the yoserot of this prolific paytan, see Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata, eds., The Yoserot_of R. Samuel the Third,_2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2014). For a review _ see Wout van Bekkum, “Lyrical Aspects of Samuel the Third’s Poetry,” on this book, Ginzei Qedem 11 (2015), 39* 49*. Much has been written about this great rabbinic authority and his works. For a concise summary, see Brody, Geonim of Babylonia, 235 48, and the works cited there. For a detailed study of Seʿadyah’s literary activity and a critical edition of his yoserot, see _ of the Yosef Tobi, “The Liturgical Poems of Rav Seʿadyah Gaʾon: A Critical Edition Yoseroth” [Hebrew] (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1982).

788 tova beeri (that triggered followers among a major line of poets in Spain), and various piyyutim for Yom Kippur. He also wrote azharot – long pieces based on _ halakhic material – an expansion for the piyyutim of the festival of Shavuʿot. All of his liturgical poems reflect his _ neoclassicist ideology, coupled with some daring structural and linguistic innovations in the enigmatic Qillirian vein.24 Aside from these liturgical poems, Seʿadyah also wrote two long baqashot (supplications) in an elevated prose style. Intended for private prayer, a completely novel notion at the time, Seʿadyah even included them in his famous siddur as optional prayers.25 His long poem of rebuke (tokhehah), written in blank verse – an excep_ tional form as Hebrew poetry regularly uses rhyme from the sixth century – achieved such great popularity that it was translated into Judeo-Arabic. Among Seʿadyah’s interests in the Hebrew language was his wish to educate poets and elevate Hebrew belles lettres, mainly piyyut – which, as noted above, had declined in his day. The emphasis he placed_ on the Bible as the main source for Hebrew writings became the guiding principle for the Andalusian school of Hebrew poetry. His linguistic innovations, which derived from the biblical lexicon, were also influenced by contemporary Arabic linguistic theories. Indeed, Seʿadyah was very attentive to the surrounding Arab culture in all fields, integrating in his works and even in his piyyutim, in understated but still recognizable fashion, borrowed philosophical_ ideas, such as contemplations on God, the soul, and the like. Seʿadyah’s high rank guaranteed the wide dissemination of his writings among the Jewish communities of the Islamic world. He can be defined as the scholar who opened the door to Arab culture, and who, through his writings, taught what he thought could be adopted in order to enhance Jewish culture. CHANGES IN THE STATUS OF PIYYUT : COMPOSITIONS I N T H E L A T E E A S T E R N P _E R I O D

From the late eleventh century on we notice a tendency in various congregations, to reintroduce gradually – possibly as the result of pressure by 24

25

Seʿadyah’s interest in linguistics is well known: he composed the first Hebrew dictionary (Egron) and a concise book on Hebrew grammar. For a summary of his linguistic innovations in piyyut, see Menahem Zulay, Ha Askolah Ha Paytanit Shel Rav Seʿadyah _ _ Gaon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1964), 14 40. See Israel Davidson et al., eds. and trans., Siddur Rav Seʿadyah Gaʾon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1979). For the baqashot, see ibid., 47 81. On the Judeo Arabic translation of Seʿadyah’s poem of rebuke, see Yosef Tobi, “The Translation and Commentary of R. Isaac ben Samuel ha Sefaradi to Seʿadyah’s poem Im lefi vohorkha” [Hebrew], Teʿuda _ 14 (1998), 57 68.

piyyu t 789 _ halakhists – the wording of the statutory prayers to the hazzan’s perform_ instead of their ance. This brought with it a change in the status of piyyutim: _ original function as a replacement for the standard texts as practiced for centuries, we now find poets writing only individual pieces of a composition that originally covered the full scope of the prayers. This trend may explain the appearance of a new genre, named rahat (pl. rehatim) in the manu_ a pizmon or as an scripts. This term came to mean a piyyut that _functions as 26 _ independent poem on a biblical or religious theme. Three additional members of the Babylonian center deserve brief mention. Each illustrates the different directions taken by piyyut composition as described above. Hayya Gaʾon (939–1038), in many ways_ the last gaon of note, wrote many rehatim in quantitative Arabic meter, whose exact _ function cannot be determined, some of which bear the acrostic of his 27 hazzan Abraham b. Isaac. This gaon also wrote laudatory qasīda (long _ _ rather monorhymed poems) in quantitative meter. A second talented, outstanding poet active in Iraq, possibly in the vicinity of Hayya Gaʾon, is Ezekiel ha-Kohen. Most of his extant poems do not function as true liturgical piyyut: they elaborate on the longing of Israel for redemption _ using an allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs, as seen, for example, in the following strophe from one of his long poems: I said to the spice bearing mountains, where the fawn leaps: “Take heed; do not be proud that you are favored with myrrh and henna. My arms too once dripped with myrrh for my strong and graceful lover, but he broke my teeth on gravel, and trampled me in ashes” (Lamentations 3:16)28

But his most intriguing writings are those in which the relationship between God and his people is colored by motifs drawn from Arabic love poetry (ghazal).29 A third outstanding poet is David ha-Nasi, the son of Hezekiah ben David II the Exilarch (d. c. 1050). He devoted all his poetic energy to one genre only:

26

27

28

29

This new genre requires further study. It seems that copyists used this term as an alternative for “poem,” and we even find Genizah manuscripts with Hebrew poems called rahat that use Arabic poetic forms (muwashshah with kharja). _ Poetry of R. Hai Gaon,” in Zvi On Hayya’s_ piyyutim, see Ezra Fleischer, “Studies in the _ Habermann Festschrift [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1977), 239 74, and the Malachi, ed., A. M. studies cited there. See Carmi, Hebrew Verse, 257. On a recent translation of this poem, see Idit Einat Nov, “On the Art of Piyyut: A Reading of Yehezqel Hacohen’s Amarti la Avanim (I Said to the Stones),” Hebrew Studies 58 (2017), 247 62. Some Sūfī influence may be detected here. For a critical edition of all the extant poems of this interesting poet, see Tova Beeri, “The Poems of Yehezkel ha Kohen ben Eli,” _ Qoves ʿal Yad 25, In Memory of Ezra Fleischer (2017), 297 359. _

790 tova beeri 30 penitential poems and tokhehot. In some of his poems, which often contain a hundred or more lines, the_ author harshly rebukes the leaders for their low moral standards, or their greed and lust for power. Although acquainted with the poetic innovations of the Spanish school, David ha-Nasi refused to accept them and built most of his poems on traditional quatrains. In spite of their harsh reprimands, David ha-Nasi’s poems enjoyed great popularity, as evidenced by the number of extant manuscript copies. Close study of their contents, coupled with the fact that they did not function as true liturgical piyyut, suggests that they were intended for recitation by pious Jews in special _ assemblies, possibly held in the early morning or late at night. If correct, this predates the well-known, documented existence of groups of pious Jews in the East in Abraham Maimonides’ day (Egypt, 1186–1237). Some of ha-Nasi’s poems clearly reflect Sufi influence, both in content and language. These poems are appropriately named zuhdiyya (ascetic poems) in the manuscripts. Consider, for example, the following line: “Let me wake up to curse this world, in which today I laugh and tomorrow I shall wail.” Or the first stanza of another long tokheha: _ Woe to you, my soul, how vain you are; Rushing toward haughtiness, you run to the summit; Like a galloping mare you dance and sprint, Desiring wealth and awaiting kingship.31

The late Eastern period also saw the composition of many semi-liturgical poems. These poems embellished religious ceremonies; for example, weddings or burials. Since these compositions were not meant for the statutory prayers performed in the synagogue, they do not concern us here. LITURGICAL POETRY IN THE WEST: AL ANDALUS

From the mid-ninth century on close ties developed between the geonic center in the East and the emerging Jewish center in southern Spain, in al-Andalus. It is therefore not surprising that the Eastern tradition of liturgical poetry was known there, along with Seʿadyah Gaʾon’s literary heritage. The few, earliest poetical works known to us from al-Andalus, which date from the first decades of the tenth century, are attributed to Menahem Ibn Sarūq and display close affinity to the poetics of the late Eastern period. Evidently, 30

31

On this poet and for a critical edition of his works, see Tova Beeri, Le David Mizmor: The Liturgical Poems of David Ha Nasi Son of Hezekiah the Exilarch [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2009). See Beeri, Le David Mizmor, 121, 212, respectively. I thank Professor Sara Sviri for the translation.

piyyu t 791 _ the Spanish poets were acquainted with the heritage of late Eastern liturgical poetry and its disintegrative changes. That perhaps explains why, from the start, Spanish paytanim wrote not an entire yoser, but separate parts of the _ _ the like, rather than a full sequence, for example, ofan, ahavah, geʾulah, and 32 composition to replace the entire yoser prayer. _ its introduction to Jewish society of The Spanish school is famous for secular court poetry modeled on the contemporary Arabic poetry. If, however, their secular poetry is considered innovative, their activity in the liturgical field must be regarded as revolutionary. Here, to suit their temperament and esthetic values, they deliberately diverged from a longstanding tradition of piyyut in the East. These departures are reflected in three fields: structure and_ prosody, language, and content. In order to express their special needs fully, they allotted new liturgical stations to piyyutim, outside the framework of the statutory prayers: an unheard-of _ innovation that flies in the face of the basic logic of liturgical poetry as described above. The new stations chosen for these liturgical insertions were the end of pesuqei de-zimra (verses of song) and before the yoser _ prayer. The piyyutim that embellish these loci are the various reshuyot that _ function as opening pieces for the Sabbath or festival morning prayers.33 Of the Spanish poets, Solomon Ibn Gabirol (c.1021–58) is rightly considered the prime innovator of the new genres of Spanish piyyut.34 Most _ in both Spanish piyyutim are distinguished from their Eastern counterparts _ prosody and structure. For the first time, we find exact metric systems applied to many piyyutim. Quantitative meter – borrowed from Arabic _ prosody and initially introduced by Dunash b. Labrat around 950 – was used mainly in various reshuyot, formed in monorhyme_ that resembled the 32

33

34

The few qedushtaot of the Spaniards greatly resemble the format of the late Eastern and not the classical ones: they contain the first four parts and a long silluq, as found in examples by Joseph al Baradānī. On this topic, see Shulamit Elizur, “The Character and Influence of the Babylonian Center of Poetic Production: Considerations in the Wake of Tova Beeri’s Books” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 129 (2010/11), 229 48. On Andalusian piyyut, see Fleischer, Liturgical Poetry, 333 421. For the theme of the Divine Israel link as a _love relationship in Andalusian piyyut, see Raymond P. Scheindlin, The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel and the_ Soul (Philadelphia, 1991). For additional translations of Andalusian piyyut, see Carmi, Hebrew Verse, 334 38 (Judah _ Poem (Princeton, 2007), 74 191 (including Halevi). See also Peter Cole, The Dream of the both secular poems and piyyutim by the great poets of the golden age of Spain); Cole, The _ Poetry of Kabbalah, 55 69 (Solomon Ibn Gabirol), 70 76 (Judah Halevi). Another earlier, very prolific Andalusian paytan is Joseph Ibn Abītūr (Spain c. 950 Egypt? c. 1024), who left Spain for the East and_ wrote mostly in the late Eastern paytanic _ style. On a polemical piyyut by Ibn Abītūr, see Michael Rand, “An Anti Christian Polemical Piyyut by Yosef _Ibn Avitur Employing Elements from Toledot Yeshu,” European Journal of Jewish Studies 7, 1 (2013), 1 16.

792 tova beeri Arabic qitʿa (short monorhymed poem). Some piyyutim for the yoser were built like_the Arabic muwashshah and also scanned in_ quantitative _meter.35 _ In most other genres, the Andalusian poets preferred a special muwashshahlike strophic form, similar to the local zajal (strophic poem), to which_ a special syllabic meter was applied.36 This strophic structure was well suited to the synagogue performance of piyyut: these piyyutim possess a refrain, _ by the congregants. _ often part of a biblical verse, repeated The same pattern was very popular for penitential poems, a much developed and widely used genre in Spain. In some of their piyyutim, however, mainly for the High Holy Days, the Spanish poets retained_ the traditional prosody and structure of the late Eastern piyyut. As for language, the Spanish school _adopted loyalty to biblical language as its governing principle. The tendency toward biblical purism is diametrically opposed to the language of Eastern or classical piyyut, in which we _ tanic neolofind the combination of different linguistic strata and pay 37 gisms. As they moved away from paytanic language, _the Spanish paytanim also abandoned the metonymy and_ allusions to rabbinic midrash that_ had characterized Eastern piyyut. In their stead, we find the introduction of contemplation, science, and_ philosophy to the various types of piyyut, of which the most outstanding were the reshuyot.38 Another note_ change was the shift in the narrator’s status: in many piyyutim the worthy _ Spanish paytan displayed self-awareness and consciousness of his emotions. _ He related to his “I” in the context of prayer, and he speculated on his place in the world vis-à-vis God, creation, and the like.39 These were themes and topics not treated in Eastern piyyut. In its traditional form _ 35

36

37

38

39

For translations of some of Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth’s piyyutim in these forms, see Carmi, _ Hebrew Verse, 317 18. See also Cole, The Dream of the Poem, 111 13. For a definition of muwashshah, see ibid., 537. _ Syllabic meter was applied also to the new forms of tokhehot (introduced by Ibn Gabirol). But the new form given to the Mi Kamokha piyyutim_ was left unscanned. _ Witness Abraham Ibn Ezra’s diatribe against paytanic language (of Qillir) in his _ commentary on Ecclesiastes 5:1. See, for example, Menahem H. Schmelzer, “Two Philosophical Passages in the Liturgical Poetry of Rabbi Isaac Ibn Giat,” in Menahem H. Schmelzer, Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Medieval Hebrew Poetry (New York, 2006), 233* 38*. For Ibn Gabirol’s piyyutim, see Peter Cole, Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Princeton, _ for Keter Malkhut, see ibid., 137 95, and the notes to these poems. 2001), 111 36; and See also Israel Levin, The Crown of Kingship [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2005). For the piyyutim _ of Ibn Ezra, the most philosophical of the paytanim, see Israel Levin, The Religious Poems _ of Abraham Ibn Ezra, vols. 1 2 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1975, 1980). See the reshuyot by Ibn Gabirol (but the phenomenon occurs in other paytanic works) in Cole, Ibn Gabirol, 112, 121. Regarding self awareness, cf. some masdarim _by al Baradānī _ mentioned above.

piyyu t 793 _ and function, because piyyut was intended to replace the public recitation of the prayer by the hazzan,_ it uses the plural and speaks in the people’s name like the prayers._ The speaker’s new individual stance is reflected not only in fresh liturgical forms such as the reshuyot, but also surprisingly, though to a lesser degree, in a substantial number of selihot. Traditionally, _ in selihot the people confessed their sins and begged for divine forgiveness: _ here we find the Spanish paytan often mentioning his own sins and his _ personal fear of the Day of Judgment, among similar themes. Notwithstanding the above-mentioned innovations, the Spanish paytanim did preserve the tradition of name acrostics and of concluding _ wording suggestive of the place where their composition was to be with inserted in the prayer. Thus, the concluding lines of the reshuyot for nishmat use some form of the word neshamah (soul); ahavah, a form of the word ahavah (love); and geʾulot, a form of the word geʾulah (redemption). But the bold innovativeness of the Spanish school in no way suggests that it originated ex nihilo. Fleischer correctly assessed Seʿadyah’s multifaceted influence on Spanish creativity in many spheres, the poetic one in particular.40 As noted earlier, it was Seʿadyah who opened the door to, and made it permissible to learn from, the world of Arabic culture and his erudition and status fueled the impetus for Spanish writers to continue in and develop his path. This was the means by which Arabic poetic structures and meter penetrated synagogue piyyut, and with them themes _ above with regard to originating in the secular world, as discussed Seʿadyah. Although Spanish boldness in granting the individual and his feelings a voice in the synagogue context may also be attributable to Seʿadyah, the Spanish poets exhibited far more daring.41 From the eleventh century’s first decades some influence in the opposite direction is discernible: by the Spanish paytanic school on the parallel compositions in the East. This is evidenced by_ structure and prosody, as in the quantitative meter found in some of Hayya Gaʾon’s works mentioned above. Thus the process came full circle, from Eastern influences on Spain, through the medium of Seʿadyah’s works, to the influence of Spanish paytanim on their Eastern counterparts. Eastern piyyut, however, never _ “surrendered” to the Spanish innovations.42 _ totally 40

41

42

See Ezra Fleischer, “Seʿadyah Gaʾon’s Place in the History of Hebrew Poetry” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 54 (1993), 4 17. I refer here to the two baqashot by Seʿadyah mentioned in the text. The very references to the individual worshipper and awareness of his personal needs could have served as an exemplar for the Spanish process. This phenomenon of acceptance of, and reservations toward, Spanish piyyut is well _ who demonstrated in the oeuvre of a paytan active in Egypt during the twelfth century _

794

tova beeri THE END OF THE AGE OF PIYYUT _

As noted above, the return of the public recitation of the texts of the statutory prayers by the hazzan in the twelfth century was accompanied by a gradual loss of piyyu_t’s independent status as liturgical works. This _ both in the East and in the West, was not, process, which took place however, uniform in all regions. In Spain, it was a historical event – the mid-twelfth century Almohad invasion – that brought literary creativity in al-Andalus to a halt. The almost simultaneous departure from Spain of two poetic giants, Judah Halevi and Abraham Ibn Ezra, also marks the end of liturgical paytanic activity in Spain, and so ended the golden age of Spanish _ and secular alike.43 poetry, sacred In the East, it was Abraham, the son of Maimonides, leader and nagid of Egyptian Jewry, who dealt the fatal blow to already-faltering liturgical piyyut. Under S ̣ūfī influence he attempted to introduce new prayer _ and, at the same time, to cancel entirely the recitation of piyyutim customs _ in the context of public prayer. The well-documented, stormy public 44 debate these steps aroused has merited comprehensive study. But naturally, composition of piyyutim by paytanim did not cease in _ _ most of the lands under Muslim hegemony. The public loved poetry and song in the synagogue, even though in many congregations these piyyutim _ were no longer performed in their original liturgical context.45

43

44

45

was friendly with Judah Halevi during the latter’s stay in Egypt. See Sarah Cohen, The Poetry of Aaron Al ʿAmmānī [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2008). Poems with religious content written in Spain during the golden age and afterward in northern Spain are not our concern here. A corpus of piyyutim by Shelomo DePiera, who was active in Christian Spain (c. 1340 1420), apparently_ represents an attempt at neoclassicism. There is, however, no evidence that they were performed during public prayer. On the man and his poetry, see Jefim Schirmann, The History of Hebrew Poetry in Christian Spain and Southern France, edited, supplemented and annotated by Ezra Fleischer [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1997), 580 99. For a study in English, see Mordechai A. Friedman, “Abraham Maimuni’s Prayer Reforms: Continuation or Revision of His Father’s Teachings?” in Carlos Fraenkel, ed., Traditions of Maimonideanism (Leiden, 2009), 139 54, and the sources cited there. See also Mordechai A. Friedman, “Abraham Maimonides on His Leadership, Reforms and Spiritual Imperfection,” Jewish Quarterly Review 104, 3 (2014), 495 512, and the studies cited there. Judah al Harīzī’s early thirteenth century satirical description of the prayer of a hazzan _ who recited piyyutim with choral accompaniment is perhaps one of the last attestations _ to the performance of piyyutim in a definitively liturgical context. See Judah al Harīzī, _ and explicated by David S. Segal (Oxford, 2003), 215 23. The Book of Tahkemoni, trans. _ ʿElazar b. Jacob, a Babylonian poet contemporary with al Harīzī, composed piyyutim, most of which remain in manuscript form. That they were performed during _ the statutory prayers as liturgical piyyutim is doubtful. _

piyyu t _

795

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Beeri, Tova. Le-David Mizmor: The Liturgical Poems of David Ha-Nasi Son of Hezekiah the Exilarch [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2009). The “Great Cantor” of Baghdad: The Liturgical Poems of Joseph ben Ḥayyim al-Baradani [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2002). Brody, Robert. The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998). Elbogen, Ismar. Jewish Liturgy, trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin (Philadelphia, 1993). Elizur, Shulamit. “The Enigmatic Nature of Hebrew Poetry in the Orient from Its Origins until the Twelfth Century” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 59 (1994), 14–34. Fleischer, Ezra. “The Influence of Choral Elements on the Formation and Development of Piyyut Genres” [Hebrew], Yuval 3 (1974), 18–48. The Yozer: Its Emergence _and Development [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1984). “Seʿadyah Gaʾon’s Place in the History of Hebrew Poetry” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 54 (1993), 4–17. “Piyyut,” in Shmuel Safrai et al., eds., The Literature of the Sages: Part Two_ (Minneapolis, 2006). Hebrew Liturgical Poetry in the Middle Ages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2007). Friedman, Mordechai A. “Abraham Maimuni’s Prayer Reforms: Continuation or Revision of His Father’s Teachings?” in Carlos Fraenkel, ed., Traditions of Maimonideanism (Leiden, 2009). HaCohen, Eden. The Yoserot of Rabbi Selomo Sulaymān al-Sanjarī for the _ Reading [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2019). Annual Cycle of Torah Langer, Ruth. To Worship God Properly (Cincinnati, 1998). Scheindlin, Raymond P. The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel and the Soul (Philadelphia, 1991). Yahalom, Joseph, and Naoya Katsumata, eds. The Yoserot of R. Samuel the _ Third, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2014).

chapter 25

JEWISH PHILOSOPHY alfred l. ivry

The history of Jewish philosophy is tied to the emergence of philosophy in the Islamic world three centuries after the beginnings of Islam. By the tenth century, the legacy of Greek science and thought had been absorbed, through translations and paraphrases, into Arabic, and had given rise to a new class of Muslims, called appropriately falāsifa (sing. faylasūf). Though small in number, these philosophers saw themselves as distinct from the more numerous theologians or mutakallimūn of Islam. These practioners of kalām were also the beneficiaries of Greek thought and logic, mingled though with issues raised by the encounter of Hellenistic thought with Christianity. Accordingly, the mutakallimūn became skilled apologists on behalf of their faith, dividing into two major camps that differed principally on the need to present the Deity as transparently rational in His relations with mankind. The philosophers of Islam tried to avoid taking stands on the theological issues that consumed the mutakallimūn and that often rendered their discourse parochial. The mutakallimūn did develop a universal physics of atomism, based on the denial of natural science and causality. God alone was considered responsible for the continuous re-creation of atoms and “accidents” that had no inherent properties, all “occasioned” by God’s will. Hence, this theory can also be known as Occasionalism. For the falāsifa, God’s will was expressed through nature, which had its autonomous (or semiautonomous) realm of being, allowing for scientific analysis. The philosophers’ God was akin to the images of the deity proposed by Aristotle or Plotinus, though adapted in various ways to accommodate the faith of the Prophet. The Jewish community that lived in Islamic lands witnessed the rise of these two intellectual movements and responded to both. This was in contrast to their largely negative reaction to Hellenistic philosophy and to Christian theology in pre-Islamic times. Philo Judaeus in the first century ce is the only major Jewish philosopher known from that period, and his (theological) influence was felt in the Christian world rather than among his fellow Jews. 796

jewish philosophy 797 Initially, Jewish theology in Islamic lands patterned itself largely after kalām compositions, their influence particularly felt among Karaite authors, down to the late Middle Ages. Most Rabbanite writers, however (with the major exception of Seʿadyah Gaʾon), eschewed the style and stances of the mutakallimūn, and tended to deal with theological themes as part of their natural philosophy. Hence, distinct schools of Jewish theology never arose in medieval Judaism, and the filosofim (sing. filosof) were principally challenged intellectually from within, by fellow philosophers. Opposition, though, to the very attempt to introduce philosophy as a valid subject for Jewish study was widespread, and the combined religious movements of talmudic study and Jewish mysticism eventually overpowered the discipline of philosophy. Still, from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, Jewish philosophy helped shape the character and dynamism of Jewish life in Islamic lands. Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) is often considered the first figure of note in Jewish philosophy, though he was preceded in the ninth century by both Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammis and Isaac Israeli. Ibn al-Muqammis, _ _ whose work is extant only in fragments, wrote in a style that Seʿadyah was to make famous, combining philosophical and theological tropes, heavily influenced by writings of both a Christian as well as Muslim character;1 Isaac Israeli, more of a committed philosopher, had little direct influence on later thinkers. Seʿadyah is a rationalist acquainted with philosophical topics and texts, but who is more comfortable with theological approaches such as were practiced by the Muʿtazila sect of mutakallimūn. He was born in Fayyūm or Lower Egypt in 882 ce (and hence called in Arabic Saʿīd b. Yūsuf alFayyūmī), and made his mark in Baghdad, where he died in 942. There he was in the center of things, politically active as the leader or gaon of the Rabbanite Jewish community (and opposed as such to the fundamentalist Karaites), and extraordinarily prolific as a scholar. He translated and commented upon the Bible in Arabic; wrote significantly in the fields of rabbinics, mathematics, and grammar; and composed a Hebrew dictionary, liturgical poems, and a prayer book. He bridged the spectrum of religious thought in his day, commenting on the mystical Book of Creation and composing a number of theological and philosophical treatises. He is best known for his Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-Iʿtiqādāt, translated as The Book of Doctrines and Beliefs.2 1

2

Sarah Stroumsa, ed. and trans., Dāwūd ibn Marwān al Muqammis’s Twenty Chapters _ (ʿIshrūn Maqāla) (Leiden, 1989), 23 35. Seʿadyah b. Joseph al Fayyūmī, Sefer hanivhar be emunot u v deʿot (ha emunot ve ha _ (Jerusalem, 1960); Samuel Rosenblatt, deʿot), ed. and trans. Joseph Qafih [Hebrew] _

798 alfred l. ivry As this book shows, Seʿadyah had some knowledge of Aristotle and Plato, but was more informed about the diverse sects and ideas current in Baghdad – those of Gnostics, skeptics, and Indian theosophists. He drew his main inspiration from the Muʿtazila, the kalām sect known as ahl alʿadl wa-l-tawhīd, the “proponents of justice and (divine) unity.” Embedded in _that slogan was the belief in a God whose edicts could be shown to be fair, using human criteria of justice and equity; and a fiercely logical belief in the impossibility of predicating anything of God, lest it compromise His pure oneness of being. The God whose being could not be known had to be discerned through His actions. In the prolegomena to Doctrines and Beliefs, Seʿadyah sets out the criteria for certain knowledge, claiming that people are in thrall to error and confusion, needing guidance. In this way he implicitly justifies the need for writing what his readers could perceive to be a book foreign to their tradition. Seʿadyah was not about to scandalize his readers, however, for he writes that in addition to the true knowledge produced by sound sensations, logical thought, and inferential reasoning, a person can also rely on the truth of reliable, accurate tradition, al-khabar al-sadīq.3 The trad_ endorsing and ition Seʿadyah has in mind is that of rabbinic Judaism, expanding as it does upon the Bible, the veracity of which he considers historically proven. As Seʿadyah sees it, rather than revealing truths unique to revelation, tradition mostly endorses the knowledge that the other three epistemic sources provide. A reliable tradition facilitates the acquisition of truth by the whole people, and is not restricted to a segment of the population only. For Seʿadyah, then, the truths of revealed tradition agree with the evidence presented by the senses and by natural reason, even as these human faculties lead us to affirm the teachings of revelation. Seʿadyah believes these teachings include the belief in creation from nothing; personal providence and immortality either in heaven or hell; resurrection; and messianic redemption. A number of these ideas are not part of the classical philosophical curriculum and deal with issues that are properly theological. Seʿadyah mixes both approaches, and the success of his book

3

trans., Saadia Gaon, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (New Haven, 1948); Saadya Gaon: Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, abridged edition, trans. Alexander Altmann, in Hans Lewy, Alexander Altmann, and Isaak Heinemann, eds., Three Jewish Philosophers (New York, 1973). Citations will be drawn from Altmann’s translation. Cf. as well Alexander Altmann, “Saadya’s Theory of Revelation: Its Origin and Background,” in Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism (Ithaca, 1969); and Haggai Ben Shammai, “Saadya’s Goal in his Commentary on Sefer Yetzirah,” in Ruth Link Salinger, ed., A Straight Path: Studies in Medieval Philosophy and Culture (Washington, DC, 1988), 1 10. Altmann, Saadya Gaon, 37.

jewish philosophy 799 gave Jewish philosophy a theological bent that subsequent philosophers, in greater or lesser degrees, followed. On select themes such as creation, the nature of God’s being, revelation, and the typology of religious law, Seʿadyah is philosophically rewarding. His defense of the notion of creation from nothing brings him to refute twelve other competing views, including those of Aristotle, Plato, the Atomists, and Manichean dualists. Seʿadyah’s “own” arguments for creation are taken from proofs found in the writings of the mutakallimūn,4 to which he adds proof texts taken from the Bible. Seʿadyah is not totally indebted to kalām ideology, however, for he rejects their doctrine of atomism and Occasionalism, adopting Aristotle’s understanding of a self-evidently natural (though created) world, its elements arranged according to weight. It is on that basis that he believes the argument for the coexistence of an infinite number of worlds is impossible. “For it is inconceivable that, nature being what it is, some earth should exist above the fire, or that air should be found beneath the water.”5 The first proof for creation that Seʿadyah brings is based on the belief that the world, being finite in magnitude (as experienced by sensory observation), must have a finite force within it, and therefore must have a beginning as well as an end. He does not mention Aristotle’s view of an eternal external force responsible for the motion of the finite universe. Seʿadyah’s second proof is an argument from design, which implies a Designer. Here Seʿadyah speaks in general terms of the joining of parts and segments of bodies, and not of the hylomorphic structure of all beings that is fundamental to Aristotle’s physics. Seʿadyah’s third proof, based on the nature of accidents, employs that term in the broad manner of the mutakallimūn, for whom everything is a combination of atom and accidents, and not in the restricted sense of accident that Aristotle uses. Seʿadyah, however, not being an Occasionalist, uses this proof merely to argue that as the nonessential, “accidental” components of a body are (initially, not continually) created, so is the body to which they are attached; an argument that culminates in the created body of the universe. Seʿadyah’s fourth proof is based on the nature of time – which, if assumed infinite, would have a past that could never reach the present. “And since I find myself existent,” he writes, “I know that the process of generation has traversed time until it has reached us, and that if time were not finite, the process of generation would not have traversed it.”6 Here, 4

5

Harry A. Wolfson, “The Kalam Arguments for Creation in Saadya, Averroes, Maimonides and St. Thomas,” in Boaz Cohen, ed., Saadya Anniversary Volume (New York, 1943), 197 229. 6 Altmann, Saadya Gaon, 53. Ibid., 56.

800 alfred l. ivry too, Seʿadyah ignores Aristotle’s claim for a time that is as eternal as the body of the universe, preempting Seʿadyah’s argument by distinguishing between an essential and an accidental causal series. In the latter case, the causes and effects exist in succession to one another, and can continue as such to infinity, being infinite in potentiality only. Having established to his satisfaction that the world is created and not eternal, Seʿadyah proceeds to argue for the notion of a divine creation from nothing. He does this by dismissing as illogical counterclaims such as the view that the world may have created itself, or that it was created from something already existent. This latter view is rejected as simply selfcontradictory with the meaning of creation. In taking this position, Seʿadyah is narrowly construing a term – creation – that Plato before him and most philosophers after him understood more broadly as compatible with an eternal universe. Not accepting that premise, Seʿadyah feels entitled to insist on a creation that is from nothing, though he is aware of the philosophical tenet that nothing can come from nothing.7 Seʿadyah’s first move in establishing the unity of the Creator is to divest Him of corporeality, since that would dispossess the Creator of the absolute unity that is His hallmark. Having many gods would entail enumeration, which for Seʿadyah is a function of material objects, and the maker of all bodies is not Himself another body.8 Nor do the attributes of God that Seʿadyah next enumerates introduce composition into the Creator’s being. Besides considering God as Creator and One, Seʿadyah attributes life, power, and wisdom to Him. He views these attributes, however, as entailed by the concept of God as creator, not constituting difference or diversity within the divine essence. That essence is unique, the attributes testifying to God’s action in the world and not to His essence. Seʿadyah boldly dismisses the anthropomorphisms with which the Bible abounds, since “it is impossible and absurd to speak of Him in terms of the things which He created.”9 Biblical descriptions of God’s being and actions must be read symbolically and figuratively, not literally, Seʿadyah declares. He draws the line on the use of metaphor, however, to explain the visions of God that Ezekiel and Daniel had. Borrowing from mystical sources, Seʿadyah claims that it is not God who was seen, but rather a substantial form created out of light. It is called the Created Glory (kavod nivra), as well as the Holy Spirit (ruah ha-qodesh) and Divine Presence _ (Shekhina). Similarly, Seʿadyah considers the words that reach the prophets’ ears as a Created Speech (dibbur nivra) not spoken by God 7

Ibid., 60.

8

Ibid., 81

9

Ibid., 85.

jewish philosophy 801 Himself. These hypostases or formal substances are posited to preserve both God’s transcendence and the validity of that which is revealed in His name; while, as created beings, they do not compromise His unique eternality. Seʿadyah thus avoids the theological conundrums caused by the Christian logos doctrine, and Islam’s doctrine of the eternal Qurʾān. In commenting on the category of quality, Seʿadyah makes the startling claim that God has no affect: He neither loves, hates, nor has any emotion. Biblical statements that seem to say otherwise are to be construed as prescriptions for us to observe the commandments He (only seemly) loves, and to abstain from the acts that he (ostensibly) hates.11 Seʿadyah has taken a first step in reconfiguring the image of God, leaving it to later philosophers – particularly Maimonides – to elaborate. The commandments are God’s gift to mortals, and Seʿadyah divides them, following rabbinic precedence, into rational and a-rational laws, ʿaqliyyāt and samʿiyyāt. The latter term reflects the fact that the commandments in question, mostly cultic, were “heard” when revealed, though their rationale is not discernable easily, if at all. Their utility lies in the reward to be earned for obedience to them. Seʿadyah explains the rational laws in terms fully compatible with philosophical ethics, and offers plausible – though not compelling – reasons for the nonrational laws. Revelation is necessary for the rational as well as nonrational laws, he believes, since the commandments provide the dos and don’ts, the practical matrix of actions that cover all aspects of life and give concrete expression to the universal dictates of reason.12 Here Seʿadyah shows the instincts of a political philosopher. Though committed to a natural, if divinely created, order, Seʿadyah has little difficulty in accepting the prophets’ ability to upend that order by performing miracles. He believes this is the test of a true prophet, though he conditions the performance of miracles on a prior announcement by God, as recorded in the Bible.13 This effectively limits the phenomenon of prophecy and of miracles to the biblical period, precluding the claims of later generations – and later faiths – to have authentic prophets. The Bible is also Seʿadyah’s witness for the eternal validity of the law (as developed by the rabbis), never to be abrogated. It is supported not only by the miracles of Moses and the prophets, but also by their moral teachings.14 Seʿadyah sides with the Muʿtazilite branch of kalām in proclaiming that a person has free will – though God, being omniscient, has foreknowledge of the person’s choice of behavior. Seʿadyah attempts to resolve these 10

10 13

Ibid., 90, and see Altmann’s note there. 14 Ibid., 106, 107. Ibid., 112, 113.

11

Ibid., 92.

12

Ibid., 103.

802 alfred l. ivry contradictory claims by offering the (Muʿtazilite) view that God’s foreknowledge is not the (immediate) cause of the action chosen. Thus, the individual is not absolved of responsibility for his acts, however determined.15 Seʿadyah believes reward and punishment are conditional on freedom of the will, as is the very issuing of commandments, the act of a God who is just and merciful as well as omniscient and omnipotent. That persons disobey God does not affect Him; His (seeming) abhorrence of disobedience is for the sake of man’s welfare, not His own. Seʿadyah believes both in a heavenly and earthly reward and punishment, the former compensating for inequitable allotments of either on earth. God, who has particular knowledge of each of a person’s deeds, may test the pious with unwarranted suffering, but only if He knows they can withstand the test, rewarding them eventually.16 In this manner Seʿadyah broaches the issue of theodicy, a theme he investigates fully in his Commentary on the Book of Job.17 Seʿadyah is familiar with a number of theories about the nature of the soul, particularly kalām and Aristotelian views, but opts for a Platonic understanding of a soul with three parts, created though by God at the same time as the body. Seʿadyah finds Hebrew equivalents for the tripartite division of the soul: nefesh indicates the faculty of appetite, or desire; ruah the faculty of passion and courage; and neshamah the faculty of _ or wisdom.18 He does not explore the topic philosophically much reason, further than this, however, preferring to offer his opinion on the state of the soul after death. He believes it remains as a separate substance until the End of Days, when it will be reunited with its resurrected body.19 Resurrection and the belief in the coming of the Messiah are important elements of Seʿadyah’s theology. He believes resurrection poses no problem for a God who created the world from nothing, and he finds it supported in biblical and rabbinic texts as well as by the consensus of public opinion. Resurrection of deceased Jews will occur with the advent of the messianic era, while a universal resurrection, to be followed by a final judgment of all people, will occur in the next world, after the end of this world.20 Seʿadyah deliberates over the timing of the messianic advent, and finds with rabbinic predecessors that it may come either at an ordained time, or prior to that, if the people have shown sufficient penitence.21 Such 15 17

18 21

16 Ibid., 122. Ibid., 138. Lenn Evan Goodman, The Book of Theodicy: A Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job (New Haven, 1988). 19 20 Altmann, Saadya Gaon, 147. Ibid., 153, 154. Ibid., 155 58. Ibid., 171 75.

jewish philosophy 803 speculation is fueled by exile, the historic condition of Jews to which Seʿadyah is attempting to respond rationally. His writings reflect his dual allegiance to universal reason and to the particularities of the Jewish faith and tradition. Though no one in the Rabbanite community was to succeed Seʿadyah in composing a work similar to his Beliefs and Opinions, his influence, and through him the influence of kalām thought, was felt among later geonim, as well as by later Jewish philosophers in Spain. Maimonides, a fierce critic of kalām, is no stranger to the thought of Seʿadyah. In general, Seʿadyah contributed greatly to establishing the course outline of what would become Jewish philosophy, in which theological concerns are seldom absent. Although Seʿadyah had a lasting impact on the world of Jewish philosophy, he was not in fact in first to write in the field. Isaac Israeli is the first medieval Jew we would recognize today as a philosopher, using the term in its classical sense: someone who works rigorously within one or another of the classical philosophical traditions, particularly the Aristotelian or Neoplatonic ones. He is reputed to have lived 100 years, spanning the mid-ninth to mid-tenth centuries. Though only slightly older than Seʿadyah, Isaac may be said to have lived in a different world than his younger contemporary, both intellectually and politically. He resided the first half of his life in Egypt, and moved to Qayrawān (in present-day Tunisia) in the first decade of the tenth century. There he served as physician to the founding ruler of the Fātimid dynasty, ʿUbayd Allāh al_ of his successors. We do not Mahdī, (r. 910–34), and possibly also to one know if he held any office in the Jewish community. As a medical authority, Isaac wrote several treatises that were widely regarded in both the Islamic world and, through Latin translation, in Christian Europe. Included among these works are The Book of Fevers, The Book of Foodstuffs and Drugs, and The Book of Urine. Though far from the center of Islamic intellectual life, which was Baghdad at that time, Isaac was familiar with the progress Muslims had made there in science, philosophy, and medicine. He contributed scholarly treatises in all three areas. Most of his extant philosophical oeuvre is now available in English translation,22 and it consists of five treatises: The Book 22

Alexander Altmann and Samuel M. Stern, Isaac Israeli: a Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century. His Works Translated with Comments and an Outline of His Philosophy (Oxford, 1958). Reprinted, with a new foreword by Alfred Ivry (Chicago, 2009). Samuel M. Stern, “The Hebrew Versions of Isaac Israeli’s ‘Book of Definitions’ and ‘Book on Spirit and Soul’: Critical Editions,” posthumous publication, Aleph 17, 1 (2017), 11 93.

804 alfred l. ivry of Definitions, The Book of Substances, The Book on Spirit and Soul, The Mantua Text, and The Book on the Elements (excerpts only in translation). These treatises indicate that Isaac was influenced by texts that purported to represent Aristotle’s teachings, but which were heavily imbued with Neoplatonic views. Thus the Theology of Aristotle, available in both shorter and longer recensions, was a partial paraphrase of Plotinus’ Enneads, even as the Book of the Pure Good (known in Arabic as Kitāb al-Khayr al-Mahd and in Latin as Liber de causis), while attributed to __ Aristotle, paraphrased Proclus’ Elements of Theology. A further source of Isaac’s ideas has been discovered in a Neoplatonic treatise extant only as translated in the thirteenth century by Abraham Ibn Ḥasday, who appended it to his literary work, The Prince and the Ascetic. Lastly, Isaac was very familiar with the writings of the “first philosopher” of Islam, Yaʿqūb b. Ishāq al-Kindī (d. c. 870), who had assimilated these _ texts as well as Porphyry’s Isagoge. Al-Kindī’s influence is particularly marked in Israeli’s Book of Definitions. Like al-Kindī, Isaac was introducing his community to the building blocks of philosophy, identifying and defining its epistemic and ontic structures and its logical concepts, implicitly presenting the case for legitimizing its study. Thus, philosophy was described as both the love of wisdom – understanding the truth of things (which requires knowledge of the four natural causes, the material, formal, efficient, and final cause, each in turn defined as having a spiritual and corporeal aspect) – and knowledge of one’s self – which, when complete, is tantamount to knowledge of everything.23 As presented, then, philosophy promised to empower the individual with knowledge of all things, a knowledge that expanded the self and eventually joined it to a higher realm of being. This last stage of the soul’s journey is both an ascent and return to its source in a universal Soul. In Neoplatonic fashion, Isaac understands Soul to emanate from a universal Intellect (Plotinus’ nous), though, idiosyncratically, Israeli has Intellect proceeding not directly and eternally from the One itself, but from a First Matter and First Form that were created by God. Israeli considers the perfected individual soul, now part of universal Soul, as participating in the light and realm of Intellect. That is the person’s reward, his paradise, for a life of intellectual achievement and of virtue ordained by God’s “prophets, messengers, and true teachers.” It is they “who prescribe justice and rectitude and the acceptance of things permissible; the pursuit of 23

Altmann and Stern, Isaac Israeli, 24 27; Peter Adamson, “Al Kindi and the Reception of Greek Philosophy,” in Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), 32 51.

jewish philosophy 805 goodness, loving-kindness, and mildness, the shunning of evil, injustice and injury; and the refusal of things unlawful.”24 Thus, while not subscribing to the rabbinic (and theological) notion of resurrection, Isaac endorses rabbinic authority and ethics, albeit in general terms. His use of scriptural proof texts, and thus his explicit identification with Judaism, is pronounced only in his Book on Spirit and Soul. Here too, though, the soul and its intellect is dissociated from the spirit of a person, the former to unite with the universal Soul and Intellect, the latter to perish with the elements and humors that it comprises.25 The Book on Spirit and Soul also contains Isaac’s nuanced understanding of emanationism, whereby a certain shade as well as light proceed hierarchically down the chain of being, each subsequent and lesser hypostasis the diminished product of both.26 This graduated “downward way” of emanation is matched by the “upward way” of intellectual perfection, Isaac understanding the intellect to be manifested in three ways: as a potential, acquired, and fully actualized spiritual substance.27 In the last stage lies immortality, however imprecisely sketched. Isaac did not have much of an influence on later Jewish thinkers with the exception of his pupil, Dunash b. Tamim, who referred to him frequently in a commentary on the short version of the mystical Sefer Yesira (Book of Creation). Later Jewish Neoplatonists, however, built upon the_ concepts and issues Isaac introduced into Jewish literature. Solomon b. Judah Ibn Gabirol (c. 1022–58), who lived most of his life in Saragossa, Spain, should have secured a lasting legacy for Neoplatonic doctrine among Jews with his imposing book Meqor Ḥayyim, but it was soon lost in its original Arabic and not known to have been his creation. Salomon Munk identified it in the nineteenth century from Hebrew fragments translated by Shem Ṭov Ibn Falaquera in the thirteenth century.28 It is known in English usually as The Fountain of Life, its twelfth century Latin translation called Fons Vitae, its author thought a Muslim or Christian and called, among other names, “Avicebron” or “Avencebrol.”29 The work reverberated among a few Jewish Neoplatonists and Kabbalists, but made a greater impression in Latin upon Duns Scotus and other medieval Franciscan theologians.

24 27 29

25 26 Altmann and Stern, Isaac Israeli, 26. Ibid., 109, 110. Ibid., 111. 28 Ibid., 36. Salomon Munk, Mélanges de philosophie Juive et Arabe (Paris, 1859). Clemens Bäumker, ed., Avencebrolis (Ibn Gebirol) Fons Vitae ex arabico in latinum translatus ab Johanne Hispano et Dominico Gundissalino (Münster, 1892 1895). A Hebrew translation by Jacob Bluwstein (1926) and a French translation by Jacques Schlanger (1970) follow the paragraph divisions in Bäumker’s edition.

806 alfred l. ivry Meqor Ḥayyim may have been neglected by its Jewish readers because of its total lack of biblical and rabbinic quotations and allusions. It is a work without any identifiable confessional leanings. Moreover, its literary style, though formally dialogical, dissolves into long and not always consistent disquisitions that must have tried the patience of its readers. Ibn Gabirol’s literary strength lay elsewhere, in his many and diverse poetic compositions. They have been justly admired through the centuries, some finding their way into the prayer book. Ibn Gabirol expresses some of his philosophical ideas in the epic poem Keter Malkhut (The Kingly Crown),30 interspersed with traditional Jewish references. In writing in two distinct genres, as a (seemingly) unattached universalist and as a committed Jew, Ibn Gabirol may be following the example set by Isaac Israeli. Meqor Ḥayyim is not, however, a book indifferent to the quest for truth and meaning in life. As do all beings, humans seek the good peculiar to them, which is the actualization of their form in the matter suited to it. For people, this is the perfection of their rational faculty, knowing all that is humanly possible. Reaching that state leads to a sense of great happiness, or beatitude.31 Ibn Gabirol believes his philosophy can free the reader from the grip of mortality and join him (in close proximity) to the source of life, namely, God: evasio motis et applicatio ad originem vitae.32 This is accomplished by spurning material attractions and concentrating on the intelligible constructs offered by a metaphysical theory rooted in many of the same Neoplatonic sources that Isaac Israeli utilized: Arabicized versions of Plotinus and Proclus, as well as a book falsely attributed to Empedocles. Ibn Gabirol differs with his Greek mentors and may be influenced by Isaac Israeli or pseudo-Empedocles in positing a universal, “spiritual” Matter and a universal Form as the first of created beings; both present in the succeeding emanations of the hypostases of Intellect, Soul, and Nature, as well as in the corporeal world that is the last to emerge. The creation of universal Matter and Form is attributed sometimes to a Divine Will,33 though at other times the Will is held responsible for the creation of universal form only, the creation of universal matter thought to emerge from God’s very essence.34 In either case, a hypostatized universal Matter is given high priority in the origination of being, at the opposite end of the

30 31 34

Bernard Lewis, trans., The Kingly Crown: Keter Malkhut (Notre Dame, 1961). 32 33 Bäumker, Fons Vitae, sec. 5:35. Ibid., sec. 5:43. Ibid., secs. 5:36, 38. Ibid., sec. 5:42; Sarah Pessin, “Jewish Neoplatonism: Being above Being and Divine Emanation in Solomon ibn Gabirol and Isaac Israeli,” in Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, eds., Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge, 2003), 91 110.

jewish philosophy 807 emanative scheme to which matter is usually relegated, where Plotinus has characterized it as to mē on, “nonbeing.” Ibn Gabirol entertains the idea that God’s Will, though not separate from His essence, can be functionally distinct, responsible for the creation at least of universal Form. Though not consistent, Ibn Gabirol treats this Form as the principle of multiplicity and individuation of being, while universal Matter satisfies the prior condition of providing a substantial undifferentiated base for these forms. Like Aristotle, Ibn Gabirol sees all beings as hylomorphic, a mixture of matter (hylē) and form (morphē). Unlike Aristotle, however, Ibn Gabirol reifies these entities, though at every level of being they seek to be joined.35 The individual soul, seeking intellectual and thus psychic perfection, may go beyond identification with the universal Intellect to apprehend and unite with universal Form and universal Matter. As the former is a comprehensive idea of form that is even more fundamental than the totality of forms that comprise the universal Intellect, so universal Matter is the undifferentiated source of all being, a thing that is nothing actually and everything potentially. Universal Matter thus approaches the essence of the Divine, its Creator, a being that is all comprehensive and nondifferentiated;36 the ayn sof or “Infinite No-thing,” as later mystics were to say. The five treatises that comprise Meqor Ḥayyim are taken up mostly with the concepts of matter and form in all their diverse appearances throughout the emanative chain of being. This subject is the first of three “sciences” that Ibn Gabirol wished to discuss, the other two involving God’s will and essence, but he does not get to them in comparable detail. The Divine Will is seen as omnipresent, the ultimate cause of all movement as well as of all forms. It is the expression of God’s actions in the world, while the essence of God in itself remains unknowable. As does Isaac Israeli, Ibn Gabirol portrays man as a microcosm of the universe, replicating in his body and soul the constituents of the heavens.37 True self-knowledge thus is equivalent to knowledge of all universal beings. This knowledge passes from a discursive mode to an intuitive one, from knowledge of discrete truths to a knowledge that comprehends the all as one. Keter Malkhut gives poetic voice to Ibn Gabirol’s philosophy, mingling spiritual petitions for mercy and forgiveness with astronomical data and Ibn Gabirol’s metaphysical assumptions. Reminiscent of Isaac Israeli’s position, emanation is described as proceeding from the shadow or shaded 35

Bäumker, Fons Vitae, secs. 2:8, 5:32.

36

Ibid., sec. 3:57.

37

Ibid., sec. 1:2.

808 alfred l. ivry 38 aspect of the Divine Light, and universal First Matter is depicted as a “throne of glory,” placed above universal Intelligence.39 The quest for perfection may culminate in intellectual union with the Divine Will, but it begins with Improvement of the Qualities of the Soul (Tiqqun middot ha-nefesh), the title of a book on ethics that Ibn Gabirol composed in 1045.40 This work was well-received in the Jewish community, and was quickly translated into Hebrew. It offers physical correlations of virtues and vices with the five senses and the four humors in a person’s makeup, and urges cultivation of humility, contentment, and modesty. This attempt to reach God by improving one’s character is central to Bahya Ibn Paquda’s Ḥovot ha-Levavot (Duties of the Heart) – the Hebrew title_ of the work having been given to it in 1161 by its translator, Judah Ibn Tibbon. Bahya, writing in Judeo-Arabic about 1080, called it a Guidebook to the Duties_ of the Heart (al-Hidāya ilā Farāʾid al-Qulūb).41 Though that _ work, it is as Duties of the title is more representative of the character of the Heart that the book captured, in Hebrew, the hearts of its readers through the centuries. Ḥovot ha-Levavot was and is regarded as a classic expression of Jewish pietistic ethics, a manual instructing the reader toward recognition of and devotion to God. It does not detract from that impression to learn that many of Bahya’s ethical teachings stem from the S ̣ūfī Muslim tradition, and that his_ philosophy is heavily indebted to Muslim and ultimately Greek sources as well. It is the philosophical portion of Bahya’s composition that commends _ work is confined to a relatively it to this essay, though that aspect of the small part of the book. Bahya is not a philosopher, but he integrates _ much of the Neoplatonic tradition into what we may call his philosophy of Judaism. That philosophy is an amalgam of diverse religious modalities, blending rational motifs and ethical teachings with ascetic and quasi-mystical themes. These disparate approaches to religion circulated in the Muslim culture of Spain in the eleventh century as Bahya came of age, perhaps at Saragossa _ him beyond his writings, which (like Ibn Gabirol). We know little of include some religious poems as well as Ḥovot ha-Levavot. We become

38 40

41

39 Lewis, Kingly Crown, sec. 1:42. Ibid., sec. 26:82. Stephen S. Wise, trans., The Improvement of the Moral Qualities, with the Arabic text (New York, 1902; reprint, 1966). Abraham S. Yahuda, ed., al Hidāya ʿilā Farāʾid al Qulūb des Bachja Ibn Josef Ibn Paqūda _ of Direction to the Duties of the Heart (Leiden, 1912); Menahem Mansoor, trans., Book (London, 1973); Moses Hyamson, trans., Duties of the Heart, together with the Hebrew translation of Judah Ibn Tibbon, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1965). The translations follow Yahuda in citing the book by its “gates” or main chapters and subchapters.

jewish philosophy 809 acquainted with Bahya in the introduction to that work, finding him to be a person seeking to _revitalize a tradition that he believed had neglected its inner dimension. He regarded the study of the Bible and the Talmud, the investigations that philosophy undertook, and the punctilious observance of the commandments as necessary but not sufficient means to approach God. One needed to emphasize the duties of the heart, the cultivation of one’s soul, to imbue it with an awareness of the overwhelming presence of God. The faith had to be internalized, a road map of behavioral practices had to be charted, to lead one toward abiding in that presence. Accordingly, in his introduction Bahya announces the establishment of _ ten “gates” (abwāb, sing. bāb) or chapters, steps of psychic improvements leading to a final stage of utmost nearness to the Divine.42 The ten chapters offer Bahya’s understanding of what is meant by affirming the _ s al-tawhīd); by considering (iʿtibār) created beings and unity of God (ikhlā _ _ God; by being obliged to obey God (iltizām realizing their relationship to tāʿat Allāh); by trust (tawwakul) in God; by acting sincerely (ikhlās al_aʿmāl); by humility (tawād uʿ); by repentance (tawba); by introspection _ _ (muhāsaba); by asceticism (zuhd); and by love (al-mahabba) of God. _ matter of the first As_ is evident from the table of contents, the subject two chapters is closest to being traditionally philosophical, while the remaining chapters gravitate toward pietistic and mystical expressions. In chapter 1, Bahya insists that Scripture and tradition, as well as reason itself, _ affirm that belief in God’s unity must be based on rational speculation (nazr) and demonstrable (istidlāl), syllogistic reasoning (qiyās). Bahya’s _ _ quotations from the Bible are meant to support this contention, many which he knows will be news to most of his readers. Bahya pursues the path set out by the mutakallimūn and followed by _ before him in arguing that the existence of the one God is proven Seʿadyah by the created nature of the world. Three premises are adduced to argue for a world created “not from something” (lā min shayʾ): that nothing can make itself; that all causal series (mabādiʾ – literally, “principles”) are finite and must have a first principle; and that everything composite is created.43 The argument for the finitude of a causal series is common to many critics of Aristotle, who believed that without a finite beginning to a causal series, there would be no way to arrive at a given moment in the present, the series receding to infinity. While Bahya echoes Seʿadyah in this proof, _ he brings a second argument for the finitude of the world, found in alKindī and Isaac Israeli, based on the disparate infinities that would ensue

42

Yahuda, al Hidāya, introduction, 33.

43

Ibid., secs. 1:5, 43.

810 alfred l. ivry were one to take a segment of an infinite series, itself infinite, and compare it to the infinite remainder. In arguing for the (finite) priority and hence created nature of the parts of a composite whole, Bahya begins to show his familiarity with the _ principles of Aristotelian physics, though rejecting the latter’s view of their eternality. Bahya believes the very composition of the world argues for a _ composer, it being inconceivable to him that the world came about by chance (bakht) or accident (ittifāq) without a creator.44 Bahya brings seven arguments to buttress his view that there must be a single_ and singular creator of the world, a being characterized by absolute oneness or unity of being.45 The order found in the complex and interrelated nature of beings points in Bahya’s opinion to a single designer, _ while logic finds it unnecessary and self-contradictory to posit more than one creator for such a world. Bahya’s arguments are based partly on a priori _ metaphysical and logical principles, and partly on what he takes to be an objective and empirical evaluation of the physical world. For Bahya, the oneness of God, the unity of His being, is essential to Him, not _an attribute or “accident” joined to His essence. It is ultimately identical with that essence, as are the other two essential attributes that Bahya identifies, namely, existence and eternality.46 These attributes are not_ to be taken as saying anything positive about God, for that would introduce composition (of subject and predicate) and multiplicity into the godhead. Rather, the attributes are meant to negate their opposite, contrary terms: “one” negates multiplicity and change of any sort; “existent” negates nonexistence; and “eternal” negates createdness. Bahya understands that his God is a being whom we cannot know, given _ the limitations of our intellect and language. Even the divine attributes Bahya considers essential are equivocal terms, their unique _ meaning in relation to God grasped barely, and only indirectly. Such a One is transcendent, and in being unchanging is totally without affect, or ought to be. Perhaps for this reason Bahya does not follow Seʿadyah in considering God’s essential attributes to _be power, wisdom, and will. Yet Bahya does believe God possesses these attributes, though he cannot _ account for them. He does not follow Ibn Gabirol in positing a hypostatized Will and a chain of being from the One to the many through which God’s providence can be expressed, and does not offer an alternative metaphysics. His One is fashioned along Neoplatonic lines, but without the corresponding ties to the world that Plotinus and his followers, including Isaac Israeli and Ibn Gabirol, adopted. 44

Ibid., secs. 1:6, 48.

45

Ibid., secs. 1:7, 50.

46

Ibid., secs. 1:10, 69.

jewish philosophy 811 This is not the God of Scripture, Bahya knows, and he knows too that few people would have understood (or _accepted) a deity so characterized. Moses and the prophets therefore presented God in personal, anthropomorphic terms so that the entire people could be brought to worship Him; hoping that wise persons would realize that the descriptions of God were to be understood metaphorically, and not taken literally.47 Bahya also _ follows Seʿadyah in claiming (without elaboration) that it was the “Glory” (kavod) of God that is revealed in Scripture, not God Himself. Bahya is not troubled by the misapprehension that the masses have of God’s_ true nature, as the commandments they follow have a beneficial effect upon them anyway. The Torah for the Jews, as the ordinances (al-siyāsāt) of other nations, is an expression in social and political terms of a universe presided over by a beneficent deity. His existence is testified to by the effects (āthār) of His providence in the world, effects that Bahya labels as efficacious (as opposed to “essential”) attributes, al-sifāt _al_ Will, fiʿliyya.48 All of creation bears these effects, caused by the Divine a will that Bahya has not accounted for philosophically but which he cannot gainsay._ This is what an examination or consideration (iʿtibār) of the world leads to for Bahya, a task he undertakes in the second “gate” or chapter of the _ book. Surveying the elements that comprise heaven and earth – the mineral, vegetable, and animal domains – Bahya finds all of creation to be good, the _ Creator. The very irregularity and product of an eminently wise and just diversity among individuals of a species proves to Bahya that God has chosen His actions, one of which is to grant humans free_ will. Applying a common philosophical trope, Bahya regards man as a “microcosm of the universe” (al-ʿālam al-saghīr)._49 He describes every organ and faculty of a person, finding them all perfectly suited to promote the health and well-being of the individual and of society. The Torah is the greatest of God’s gifts to mankind, the source of Israel’s survival and success even in exile, and proof once again of God’s existence and goodness.50 The first two “gates” of Ḥovot ha-levavot thus present a positive view of the world and of Israel’s place in it, an ordered and hospitable world for Jew and non-Jew, with (unspecified) rewards after death for those obedient to God’s commands. Bahya’s philosophical and scientific sources, together _ of the world, contribute to this view. If not with his own observation consistent philosophically, it is consistent in its life-affirming stance.

47 50

Ibid., secs. 1:10, 74, 75. Ibid., secs. 2:5, 119.

48

Ibid., secs. 1:10, 72; 2:1, 97.

49

Ibid., secs. 2:5, 105.

812 alfred l. ivry Beginning with the third “gate,” however, the tone of the book shifts. Without denying the benefits and necessity of life as lived with other people, and of observance of the Torah’s socially and politically oriented commandments, Bahya increasingly turns inward, to attune the person to _ his or her own relationship to God. Bahya instructs his reader in the _ various ways to approach the Divine, teaching what true trust, humility, repentance, and self-examination entail. An individual is to forsake success as the world knows it, and to embrace asceticism, to be satisfied with a minimum of life’s necessities. The S ̣ūfī model of complete withdrawal from society is his ideal,51 though he knows it is unattainable for most people, and far from the moderate behavioral path the Torah usually recommends. Bahya settles on a private withdrawal from society, a psychic detachment _from others while in practice engaging with them in all matters. At heart, for Bahya, a person is a stranger in the world, his soul yearning to _ and to heaven. Love of God should be the goal and return to God preoccupation of one’s life, a love that does not, in Bahya’s view, result in union or conjunction with the Divine, but is _its own felt, if unspecified, reality. Bahya thus charts a course that has philosophical and mystical elements, _ is not fully subscribed to either tradition. Maimonides was to but that adopt many of Bahya’s themes and locutions,52 though Bahya’s greatest _ like himself who were pietists first, philosophers _ appeal was to persons and mystics second. Jewish writers who lived in Islamic lands, mostly Muslim Spain, continued to be influenced by Neoplatonic thought through the twelfth century. The more well-known (but little-studied) of these philosophically inclined writers include “Pseudo-Bahya,” the anonymous author of the _ the Essence of the Soul); Joseph Ibn Book called Kitāb Maʿānī al-Nafs (On S ̣addiq, who titled his work, retained only in Hebrew, as Sefer ha-ʿOlam ha-Qatan (Book of the Microcosm); and Abraham Ibn Ezra, who is best known_ for his biblical commentaries. Judah Halevi (c. 1075–1141) was also familiar with Neoplatonic doctrine, but mostly as seen through the lenses of one of Islam’s greatest philosophers, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn Ibn Sīnā, known in the West as Avicenna (980–1037). Avicenna had synthesized Neoplatonic thought with 51 52

Ibid., secs. 9:3, 360. The relations between Maimonides and Bahya, as well as Bahya’s relation to Sūfī and _ _ philosophical sources, have been explored thoroughly by Diana Lobel, A Sufi Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya Ibn Paqūda’s Duties of the Heart _ (Philadelphia, 2007).

jewish philosophy 813 Aristotelian teachings, and established in his many writings an integrated metaphysics that became dominant in Islamic falsafa, notwithstanding the critiques of al-Ghazālī (c. 1058–1111) and Averroes (1126–98). Halevi joins this august company, and probably under the influence of al-Ghazālī rejects the epistemological core of Avicenna’s philosophy, though after first establishing his understanding of it. Halevi, generally recognized as the premier Hebrew poet of the Middle Ages, is reckoned among philosophers for the book known as The Kuzari, though its full title is The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Religion.53 As the full title indicates, the book has a marked apologetic concern, defending the Jewish faith (and people) by means of logical argument – up to a point. Denying the necessity of the basic premises of philosophy, Halevi constructs a philosophy of Judaism on premises alien to philosophy as normally understood. While few Jewish philosophers have emulated Halevi’s approach, The Kuzari has had a devoted popular following through the ages. The Kuzari is structured as a dialogue principally between the king of the Khazars and a spokesman for the author, called haver (fellow). The form of the book is reminiscent of Plato’s Dialogues,_ and like them is devoted to a search for truth and a meaningful life. The king interviews a philosopher, a Christian, and a Muslim before turning in dissatisfaction to the haver. Halevi represents all viewpoints fairly, pointing out that _ Christianity and Islam derive theologically from Judaism, whereas philosophy ignores the practical action, al-ʿamal, that the king seeks.54 Halevi emphasizes that Judaism is an action- or deed-oriented faith, supported by a reliable historical tradition that has been faithfully kept through the ages, its miracles publicly witnessed and universally acknowledged.55 He regards Jews as genetically superior to other peoples, having a divine quotient, or power (amr ilāhī), that brings them closer to God and 53

54

David H. Baneth, ed., Kitāb al Radd wa l Dalīl fī al Dīn al Dhalīl (Jerusalem, 1977). An English translation by Barry Kogan based on this edition will appear in the Yale Judaica Series. The translation of Hartwig Hirschfeld, first published in 1905, as well as Isaak Heinemann’s abridged translation in Three Jewish Philosophers (1969), are based on Hirschfeld’s 1887 Arabic edition. Following Hirschfeld, the division into chapters and sections is uniform in all editions and translations, and will be cited as Kuzari. Cf. too Jon McGinnis, Avicenna (Oxford, 2010); Steven Harvey, “Avicenna’s Influence on Jewish Thought: Some Reflections,” in Y. Tzvi Langermann, ed., Avicenna and His Legacy: A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy (Turnhout, 2009), 327 40; Gad Freudenthal and Mauro Zonta, “Avicenna among Medieval Jews: The Reception of Avicenna’s Philosophical, Scientific and Medical Writings in Jewish Cultures, East and West,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 22 (2012), 217 87. 55 Kuzari, secs. 1:2, 98. Ibid., secs. 1:11, 25; 2:48, 56.

814 alfred l. ivry ensures their survival, however despised and defeated they appear.56 Halevi views the observance of the law in all its prescriptions as essential to Judaism’s destiny, and finds that law to be essentially moderate and communally oriented, not the ascetic and soul-searching interiority that Bahya sought.57 _ While drawing on the rabbinic tradition for much of his belief in Israel’s superiority, Halevi employs elitist terms and racial themes found in Shīʿī Muslim theology.58 He may be borrowing the conceptual arsenal of the Ismāʿīlīs to polemicize against them as well as against the philosophers, for the Ismāʿīlīs were energetic and biblically informed proselytizers. Halevi’s defense of Judaism, however spirited and inspiring it may be to believers, is of little philosophical value. His philosophical acumen is best represented in the broad review and subsequent critique of philosophy he offers in chapter 5. He first summarizes the dominant philosophical understanding of form and matter, planetary motion and its effect upon the four elements from which composite beings are formed on earth. The philosophers understand all this as part of a natural and eternal universe, with God a remote formal cause acting through a mechanistic emanative process. Scientific knowledge of all this is accessible on the level of species and genera, which does not deter people from seeking the universal truths that can be known, and the felicity – and immortality – that ensues from that knowledge. This felicity is a product of the conjunction between an individual’s intellect and the universal, eternal Agent Intellect, the source of our forms. People are ranked in relation to their level of conjunction with the Agent Intellect, which is considered a divine, angelic substance, and prophets rank highest, receiving knowledge directly from the Agent Intellect.59 While Halevi offers these doctrines as representative philosophical teachings, they are closely aligned to Avicenna’s views. Sections 5 through 12 of chapter 5 are actually copied from an Avicennian treatise on the soul, a treatise that follows Aristotle’s book by that name. It appears he accepts the Aristotelian/Avicennian understanding of the nature and functions of the soul, its faculties of sensation, perception, and cognition, including the various stages of intellectual development. He is critical only of the philosopher’s concept of conjunction, though he offers no alternative theory to support his own belief in immortality.

56 58

59

57 Ibid., secs. 1:95; 2:34, 36; 5:20, fourth principle. Ibid., secs. 3:5, 6. Shlomo Pines, “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980), 165 251. Kuzari, sec. 5:10.

jewish philosophy 815 This general acceptance of Avicennian psychology is in marked contrast to Halevi’s demurral in principle from the basic premises of Avicenna’s physics and metaphysics, seen as conjectures lacking proofs.60 He detects a divine design in that which the philosophers attribute to chance and accident. He does not deny the existence of the natural world and of intermediary causes, but Halevi believes it is God who wills the world into creation from nothing. Though He is omniscient, man has free will and his actions are not determined.61 Abraham Ibn Daud (c. 1110–80) introduces a new spirit into Jewish philosophy as practiced in Islamic lands, and that is the greater acceptance of Aristotelian teachings, as transmitted by leading Muslim falāsifa such as al-Fārābī, al-Ghazālī, and, particularly, Avicenna. Al-Fārābī was Ibn Daud’s mentor in summarizing Aristotelian logic, while Avicenna and alGhazālī’s abridgment of Avicenna’s teachings served him as guideposts to physics and metaphysics. Ibn Daud may have been born and educated in Muslim Córdoba, but it is in Christian Toledo that he became known as the author of two significant books, the historically apologetical Sefer ha-Qabbala (Book of Tradition)62 and the philosophical Exalted Faith. The latter book, written in Arabic as al-ʿAqīda al-Rafīʿa, was lost in that language but retained in two fourteenth-century Hebrew translations, one titled ha-Emunah ha-Ramah and the other ha-Emunah ha-Nisaʾah. It is as ha-Emunah haRamah that the work is best known,63 though a thorough study comparing the translations and their sources has been done apropos of editing haEmunah ha-Nisaʾah.64 Ibn Daud begins his book announcing his intention to resolve the question whether a person’s actions are the results of free choice or whether they are governed by causal necessity and thus strictly determined. Ibn Daud immediately gives this philosophical question a theological twist, seeing God as the source of a deterministic reading, putting Him into an 60 62

63

64

61 Ibid., sec. 5:14. Ibid., sec. 5:20. Gerson D. Cohen, ed. and trans., A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha Qabbalah) by Abraham Ibn Daud (London, 1967). Simson Weil, ed. and trans., Das Buch Emunah Ramah Oder Der Erhabene Glaube (Frankfurt am Main, 1852); Gershon Weiss, ed., The Exalted Faith: Abraham ibn Daud, trans. Norbert M. Samuelson (Rutherford, NJ, 1986). Cf. Resianne Fontaine, In Defence of Judaism: Abraham Ibn Daud. Sources and Structure of Ha Emunah ha Ramah (Assen, 1990). Amira Eran, Meqorotav ha filosofiyyim shel Avraham ibn Daud be sifro al ʿAqīda al rafīʿa (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1990). Cf., too, Eran’s critical editions and commen taries on both translations of “The Exalted Faith” and an anonymous commentary to ha Emunah ha Ramah (Jerusalem, 2019).

816 alfred l. ivry untenable ethical dilemma, judging man for actions forced upon him. Yet for man to be truly free to make choices, God has to be ignorant of the choice before it is made, and that would seem to limit God’s omniscience. Ibn Daud attempts to resolve this problem by affirming causation in general and free will, together with divine knowledge of all that transpires, but without foreknowledge of contingent events.65 Taking a position diametrically opposed to Halevi, Ibn Daud affirms complete agreement between philosophy and religion, and feels that instructing his readers in the logical, physical, and metaphysical principles of (mostly Aristotelian) philosophy will persuade them of this. The first part or treatise (maʾamar) of the book is thus a philosophical epitome (kelal), conveying information about substance and the categories, form and matter, the elements, motion and infinity, as well as the First Mover, the soul, angels, and the heavens. Throughout the book, philosophical positions are buttressed by biblical proof texts which, when necessary, insist upon a metaphorical rather than literal reading of Scripture. In the second part of the book, Ibn Daud attempts to implement his plan to harmonize philosophy and religion. Concerned with defending the Jewish faith in particular, he qualifies the philosophers’ acceptance of prophecy as a universal if rare phenomenon by restricting it, as did Halevi, to the Jewish biblical tradition.66 Ibn Daud’s arguments for the existence and unity of God connect Him, however, more to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover and Avicenna’s Necessary Existent than to the God of Creation and Sinai. Ibn Daud is notably reticent about creation, though he sees God as the prime cause of all that exists, acting through heavenly intelligences like the Agent Intellect that are part of a cosmic order He has ordained. Matter, while part of that order and constituting, together with form, a primary substance, is also regarded (in Avicennian fashion) as privation of being, and as such the cause of evil. In his treatment of divine attributes, Ibn Daud takes the standard philosophical attitude of denying their existence as separate from God’s essence, not to be understood as positive predicates that would introduce multiplicity into the divine simplicity of being. The biblical descriptions of God in anthropomorphic terms are to be understood metaphorically. The third treatise is a shortened essay on practical philosophy, extolling virtuous behavior in personal and family life and observance of the Torah, along lines commensurate with Aristotle’s Golden Mean. The ultimate goal of life is perfection of the rational faculty of a soul that is, in any event,

65 66

Eran, Emunah Ramah, sec. 2:6; Weil, Das Buch Emunah Ramah, 96. Weil, Das Buch Emunah Ramah, 74.

jewish philosophy 817 an immortal substance. It is not clear if Ibn Daud believes that achievement gives our intellects or souls individual immortality. It is with Moses b. Maimon (1138–1204), known in the West with the Latinized name of Maimonides, that Jewish philosophy in Islamic lands arrives at its zenith. Jews continued to write philosophy, often of a highly impressive caliber, but rarely in Arabic, the center of Jewish cultural life having shifted to the lands of Christendom, both in Reconquista Spain and in France and Italy. Through the next three centuries, philosophers like Gersonides, Crescas, and Narboni wrote in Hebrew, their access to the Arabic work of their predecessors, both Jews and Muslims, facilitated through translation. Maimonides was born and raised in Córdoba but, due to the political turmoil and persecution wrought by the Almohad dynasty in Andalusia and the Maghrib, relocated with his family to Egypt. He arrived there in 1165 and rapidly assumed positions of leadership in the community and recognition as a formidable rabbinic scholar, as well as an authority in medicine and philosophy. In an early compendium of logical terms, called Maqāla fī S ̣ināʿat al-Mantiq (Treatise on the Art of Logic),67 Maimonides _ drew on al-Fārābī’s transmission of key elements of mostly Aristotelian logic, supplying terms, definitions, and standards of reasoning that were to guide him in his later writings.68 Al-Fārābī’s influence is marked also in Maimonides’ writings on ethics and what may be seen as political philosophy. In his Commentary on the Mishnah (1168), Maimonides prefaces his remarks on the tractate Avot with a preface in eight chapters that stands alone as a treatise on ethics.69 The Book of Knowledge (or Science), Sefer ha-Madaʿ, which is the first book of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, his code of Jewish law (1177), has a section that is also concerned with ethics. It is called “Laws concerning Character Traits” (Hilkhot Deʿot), and presents the commandments as instruments with which to improve moral character.70 67

68

69

70

Israel Efros, ed. and trans., Maimonides’ Treatise on Logic (New York, 1938); Efros, ed. full text in Judeo Arabic, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 34 (1966), [Hebrew section] 9 41. Joel L. Kraemer, “Maimonides on the Philosophic Sciences in his Treatise on the Art of Logic,” in Joel L. Kraemer, ed., Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies (Oxford, 1991), 77 104. Charles E. Butterworth and Raymond L. Weiss, trans., “Eight Chapters,” in Ethical Writings of Maimonides (New York, 1975), 60 104. Cf. Herbert Davidson, “Maimonides’ Shemonah Peraqim and Alfarabi’s Fusūl al Madanī,” in Arthur Hyman, ed., Essays in Medieval Jewish and Islamic Philosophy (New York, 1977), 116 33. Raymond L. Weiss, trans., “Laws Concerning Character Traits,” in Ethical Writings, 27 58. Cf. Joel Kraemer, “Alfarabi’s Opinions of the Virtuous City and Maimonides’

818 alfred l. ivry Both treatises posit Mosaic law as an attempt to mitigate extreme behavior, Maimonides adopting the Aristotelian ideal of moderation as a cardinal virtue. Extreme actions such as excessive fasting, abstentions of all sorts, and hermetic behavior are excused only when medically and politically necessary. As Maimonides says, the goal of the law “is for man to be natural by following the middle way.”71 For all the many Aristotelian virtues that Maimonides endorses, his image of the ideal man is other than that of his Greek mentor. Where Aristotle praised a “large-souled” and proud individual who was a great public benefactor fully engaged with his society, Maimonides upheld the model of extreme humility attributed to Moses, and forbade expressions, and even feelings, of anger. Anger may be feigned by a parent or leader as a pedagogic/political technique, but should not be allowed to disturb the equanimity of the soul.72 Maimonides’ ideal man is the pious sage, a man apparently involved in society but essentially detached from it, alone with his God in contemplation and love. These religious attitudes must be based on an intellectual grasp of God’s nature and His relation to mankind, topics that are addressed for Maimonides by the study of philosophy. Accordingly, the first section of the Book of Knowledge in the Mishneh Torah, called “Laws concerning the Basic Principles of the Torah,” is an outline of mostly Aristotelian principles of physics and metaphysics. It is with their aid that Maimonides offers a proof, assuming an eternal universe, for the existence of an eternal mover, the uniquely one God. In his Dalālat al-Ḥāʾirīn (Guide of the Perplexed)73 (1185–90), Maimonides dilates upon the issues treated more summarily in his rabbinic writings and is concerned to offer a stalwart philosophical alternative to beliefs rooted either in kalām theological principles, fundamentalist literalisms, or even certain key tenets accepted by his Muslim philosophic mentors. For it is the Muslim falāsifa, and particularly al-Fārābī, that Maimonides recommends, after Aristotle, for one who wishes to be prepared for reading the Guide.74 Maimonides has little respect for the philosophical activity of

71 72 73

74

Foundations of the Law,” in Joshua Blau et al., eds., Studia Orientalia Memoriae D.H. Baneth (Jerusalem, 1979), 107 53. Butterworth and Weiss, “Eight Chapters,” 70. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics IV:2, 3; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Deʿot 2:3. Salomon Munk, ed., Dalālat al Hāʾirīn (Jerusalem, 1929); Shlomo Pines, trans., The Guide of the Perplexed, with an introductory essay by Leo Strauss (Chicago, 1963). References to the Guide will be to this translation. Excerpts of Maimonides’ letter to his translator, Samuel Ibn Tibbon, in which he passes judgment on a host of philosophers, are given in Pines’ introduction to his translation of

jewish philosophy 819 his Jewish predecessors, as well as, supposedly, for the philosophers of Neoplatonism, be they Jewish or not. That does not mean he is untouched by their work – not at all. Ostensibly, Maimonides identifies with Aristotle and his commentators, including Maimonides’ contemporary Averroes, though it is not clear how much of Averroes’ work Maimonides read. He was certainly influenced by Avicenna’s proof for the existence of God construed as a “Necessary Existent,”75 while Ibn Bājjah (d. 1138) explicitly informs his understanding of astronomy and intellection.76 These and a host of other Greek and Muslim authors are mentioned or silently drawn upon in the Guide to elaborate a metaphysics that is coherent but admittedly not conclusive.77 Maimonides is sure of the validity of what is essentially Aristotelian terrestrial physics, but believes that the metaphysics, particularly Aristotle’s cosmology, is conjectural.78 Even the attempts of Ptolemy and medieval astronomers to modify the movements of the heavenly bodies in conformity with later observations are unsatisfactory to Maimonides, leaving him with the belief that the claim for an eternal universe independent of God’s creation and direction is unwarranted. Maimonides has no empirical evidence either for his stated belief in a creation from nothing, but believes it is sufficient to argue for the logical possibility of such an event, since before creation none of the physical laws that argue for eternal motion obtain.79 For Maimonides, accepting the idea of creation clears the way for an accommodation between science and faith, giving a divine imprimatur to scientific pursuits while attesting to a providential design in the universe compatible with religious belief. Whether Maimonides truly believed in creation from nothing, or held to an Aristotelian belief in an eternal universe, or to a Platonically inspired belief in an eternal universe of created epochs, or whether he was a skeptic or an agonistic, is still a subject of considerable scholarly controversy.80

75 76 77

78 80

the Guide, “The Philosophic Sources of the Guide of the Perplexed,” lix; a new translation of the letter is given by Joel Kraemer, “Maimonides and the Spanish Aristotelian School,” in Mark K. Myerson and Edward D. English, eds., Christians, Muslims and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Notre Dame, 1999), 43 44. Guide, introduction to the second part, premises 19 21, 238; secs. 2:1, 247 48. Ibid., secs. 1:74, 221; 2:9, 268; 2:24, 326. Pines, “Translator’s Introduction: The Philosophic Sources of The Guide of the Perplexed,” lvii cxxxiv; Alfred L. Ivry, “The Guide and Maimonides’ Philosophical Sources,” in Kenneth Seeskin, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides (Cambridge, 2005), 58 81. 79 Guide, secs. 2:22, 319 20. Ibid., secs. 2:17, 294 98. Cf., for example, Shlomo Pines, “The Limitations of Human Knowledge According to Al Farabi, ibn Bajja, and Maimonides,” in Isadore Twersky, ed., Studies in Medieval

820 alfred l. ivry This is due to Maimonides’ adoption of an esoteric style of writing that leaves his understanding of an issue subject to diverse interpretations. He informs his readers in the introduction to the first part of the Guide that out of deference to rabbinic tradition he will speak of physics and metaphysics in a guarded and secretive manner, deliberately crafting contradictory or contrary statements. This, Maimonides says, is in part done for pedagogic reasons, to adapt the truth at first to the reader’s imagination.81 Maimonides is acknowledging his own craftiness, but believes this is true of any book, and certainly of the Book of Books. Maimonides is convinced that the universe exhibits a design that is the product of Divine Will, a will that is synonymous with wisdom. It is this lack of volition in Aristotle’s God/Unmoved Mover (as opposed to Plato’s Demiurgos) that distinguishes him, in Maimonides’ eyes, from the God of Israel. Yet Maimonides’ God is not recognizable as the deity of rabbinic Judaism, or not at first, and much of the Guide is an attempt by Maimonides to alter our understanding of what the term “god” entails. To that effect, Maimonides embarks in the first part of the book on an extensive examination of the biblical depictions of God, giving, as did his predecessors, metaphorical interpretations to its many anthropomorphisms. Thus, for example, depictions of God as sitting or standing are seen as metaphors for His unchanging nature,82 while reports of His seeing and hearing represent God’s intellectual apprehension.83 The Bible was written in the conventional language and beliefs of its time, necessary to win adherence to its message, but it contained from the first, Maimonides believes, an esoteric teaching that he feels must now be made explicit. The image of God that Maimonides propounds is of a singular incorporeal being whose existence can be proved, but whose essence cannot be known. The radical unity of His being does not admit of any subject-predicate composition, so that the wisdom and will that are commonly associated with Him, as too life and power, cannot be attributed to Him other than as synonyms of essence. They are all subsumed within the one unknowable being, best alluded to by the tetragrammaton yhwh, denoting being. As do his philosophical predecessors, Maimonides adopts the doctrine of negative attribution, urging that positive attributes be understood as negations of the attribute’s privation. Thus, the statement “God is living”

81 83

Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, MA, 1979), 82 109; Alexander Altmann, “Maimonides on the Intellect and the Scope of Metaphysics,” in Von der mittelalterli chen zur modernen Aufklärung (Tübingen, 1987), 60 129. 82 Guide, introduction, 6 18. Ibid., secs. 1:11 13, 37 40. Ibid., secs. 1:44, 45, 95 96.

jewish philosophy 821 really affirms God is not dead, His being “powerful” means He is not powerless, “knowing” means not ignorant, and so forth.84 The proofs for God’s existence that Maimonides propounds offer powerful arguments for a first cause of motion and of being, itself uncaused and hence inexplicable.85 Following Aristotle, Maimonides pictures this God as an Intellect or Mind,86 but one that, like Plotinus’ nous, contains in an indivisible unity all the intelligible ideas, or forms, of the universe.87 This includes the idea of prime matter, which may be understood as pure potentiality, and as such is created by God.88 Following convention, Maimonides distinguishes between the unchanging celestial and constantly changing terrestrial matter, associating the latter in Neoplatonic fashion with corruption (as well as generation), privation and evil.89 Matter is also the culprit that is a strong “veil” (hijāb) preventing our understanding of _ task for one seeking truth is to avoid the essential form of an object.90 The becoming entangled in material pursuits and issues, concentrating rather on the forms that lead one to God. At the same time, one must accept whatever evils and accidents do befall a person, they being the concomitants of material nature, not the (direct) effect of God’s actions, all of which are essentially good.91 The essential, universal forms emanate onto the world automatically and constantly without any change or (post-creation) initiative on God’s part, being an expression of His goodness and providence. For God cannot act or be portrayed in any particular way without introducing composition or change into His nature, that is, without betraying His being. This means that Maimonides’ God has no aspect that is affected and hence caused by anything else. This God is unresponsive, without affect, His presence in the world an unchanging reality apprehended through the formal structure of all beings. Human beings project human emotions and responses upon God and attribute ad hoc actions to Him that Maimonides tolerates, but does not believe possible as such. His God has no awareness of changing particulars, including individual persons, His omniscience encompassing them only insofar as they are members of a universal species. Maimonides is aware, however, of the need people have for a personal, responsive God, and aware that the Bible has so presented Him. 84 85

86 89 91

Ibid., sec. 1:58, p. 135. Herbert A. Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York, 1987), 194 209, 240 48, 378 83. 87 88 Guide, secs. 1:68, 163. Ibid., secs. 1:69, 169; 2:12, 279. Ibid., secs. 1:28, 61. 90 Ibid., secs. 2:26, 331; 3:8, 430 32. Ibid., 3:9, 436. Ibid., secs. 3:10, 440; 3:12, 443.

822 alfred l. ivry Accordingly, Maimonides adopts this style to his own discourse, referring often to a volitional deity in personal terms that contradict his exhaustively argued contrary position. This has led many scholars to doubt Maimonides’ deistic stance, seeing him returning to a traditional image of a personal God intimately connected to the Jewish people. In the third part of the Guide, Maimonides offers rational explanations for the laws of the Torah, which he claims are unsurpassable in their excellence for governing individuals and society, avoiding extreme behavior and encouraging moderation. When properly understood, the laws convey both theoretical/universal teachings and practical/particular prescriptions, directed at the body and soul of a person.92 They are divine in origin, revealed at Sinai, belief in the miracle of which is supported by, and largely dependent upon, acceptance of the paradigmatic miracle of creation. Yet here, too, Maimonides is sending a mixed message, since the God of Sinai speaks and behaves in a manner that Maimonides cannot take literally. He must understand the biblical account of the entire encounter between God and the Children of Israel as an elaborate allegory, the product of Moses’ prophetic imagination. This would make sense were it any other prophet than Moses, for Maimonides endorses the philosophers’ evaluation of the role of the imaginative faculty among prophets, enabling them to present universal truths in graphic particular terms.93 For Maimonides, however, Moses is unique in being able to intuit universal truths without the aid of the imaginative faculty, his intellect conjoined directly and continually to the Agent Intellect, God’s emissary of forms on earth, and repository of universal truth and being. This conjunction ensures the eternal validity of the law as a particular expression of universal truth, but does not do away with the linguistic format in which the laws are presented, a function of the imaginative faculty that Maimonides’ Moses presumably dispenses with. It is likely, therefore, that Maimonides believes the religious experience Moses had in encountering the Divine is beyond description in human terms, legal or otherwise; that as God is an indivisible one, so the ultimate apprehension of His being, already at the level of the Agent Intellect (the highest level of divinity accessible to human beings), is indescribable. Maimonides’ Mosaic law is therefore an inspired but human interpretation 92 93

Ibid., secs. 3:27, 510, and cf. 2:39, 378 81. Ibid., secs. 2:36, 369 72. Alfred Ivry, “Maimonides’ Psychology,” in Idit Dobbs Weinstein, Lenn E. Goodman, and James A. Grady, eds., Maimonides and His Heritage (Albany, 2009), 51 60.

jewish philosophy 823 of a prophetic experience, in which Moses functions as both the prophet and the prophet’s translator. The type of conjunction with the Agent Intellect that Moses experienced (if not in the same degree) is available in principle to anyone who apprehends universal truth. Conjunction with this eternal being provides a degree of immortality, open in theory to anyone who apprehends even a single universal truth. Maimonides, however, following convention, makes immortality contingent upon knowledge of all, or nearly all, there is to know. This makes intellectual acuity a criterion of immortality, though there is nothing personal for the soul that is conjoined to and thus unified with universal truth.94 Maimonides concludes the Guide with a call for social responsibility, his intellectually accomplished and socially detached person urged to imitate the “actions” of God that are viewed as expressions of loving kindness, righteousness, and judgment, hesed, sedaqa ve-mishpat.95 Many take this to _ _but the essential _message of the Guide. be not only Maimonides’ last word, Maimonides’ successors have debated this ever since. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adamson, Peter. “Al-Kindi and the Reception of Greek Philosophy,” in Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), 32–51. Altmann, Alexander, trans. Saadya Gaon: Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, in Hans Lewy, Alexander Altmann, and Isaak Heinemann, eds., Three Jewish Philosophers (New York, 1973). Altmann, Alexander, and Samuel M. Stern. Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century. His Works Translated with Comments and an Outline of His Philosophy (Oxford, 1958). Reprinted, with a new foreword by Alfred Ivry (Chicago, 2009). Butterworth, Charles, and Raymond Weiss. Ethical Writings of Maimonides (New York, 1975). Eran, Amira, ed. and trans. “The Exalted Faith” and an anonymous commentary to Ha-Emunah ha-Ramah (Jerusalem, 2019). Fontaine, Resianne. In Defence of Judaism: Abraham Ibn Daud. Sources and Structure of Ha-Emunah ha-Ramah (Assen, 1990). Freudenthal, Gad, and Mauro Zonta. “Avicenna among Medieval Jews: The Reception of Avicenna’s Philosophical, Scientific and Medical

94

Guide, secs. 1:74, 221.

95

Munk, Dalālat al Hāʾirīn, 470; Guide, secs. 3:54, 637.

824

alfred l. ivry Writings in Jewish Cultures, East and West,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 22 (2012), 217–87. Harvey, Steven. “Avicenna’s Influence on Jewish Thought: Some Reflections,” in Y. Tzvi Langermann, ed., Avicenna and His Legacy: A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy (Turnhout, 2009), 327–40. Kraemer, Joel, ed. Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies (Oxford, 1991). Lewis, Bernard, trans. The Kingly Crown: Keter Malkhut (Notre Dame, 1961). Lobel, Diana. A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya _ Ibn Paqūda’s Duties of the Heart (Philadelphia, 2007). McGinnis, Jon. Avicenna (Oxford, 2010). Pessin, Sarah. “Jewish Neoplatonism: Being above Being and Divine Emanation in Solomon ibn Gabirol and Isaac Israeli,” in Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge, 2003), 91–110. Pines, Shlomo, trans. The Guide of the Perplexed, with an introductory essay by Leo Strauss (Chicago, 1963). Stroumsa, Sarah, ed. and trans. Dāwūd ibn Marwān al-Muqammis’s _ Twenty Chapters (ʿIshrūn Maqāla) (Leiden, 1989).

chapter 26

SCIENCE AND MEDICINE g a b r i e l e f e r r a r i o and m au d k oz od oy

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter we describe the medieval sciences as studied, transmitted, and practiced within the different Jewish communities in Islamic lands. We have followed a rough chronological scheme, based on general demographic and cultural shifts. We begin by treating the period up until the tenth century, about which very little is known. In the second and longest section, we examine Jewish scientific activity through the tenth to the end of the twelfth century, first as reflected in direct sources (extant manuscripts preserved in European libraries and the documentary material in the Cairo Genizah) and then in indirect sources (nonscientific writing in which scientific theories appear in passing). After that we turn to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and, finally, treat the fifteenth century on its own. In Y. Tzvi Langermann’s broad and useful definition, the term “scientific” indicates “a factual account of the world of phenomena, whether of the cosmos in its entirety or of its particular parts.”1 And by “the sciences” (Hebrew, hokhmot; sing. hokhmah) we mean those fields of knowledge _ (Latin, scientia) included in_ the part of the medieval curriculum known as “natural philosophy,” which corresponds roughly to what modern scholars consider science: mathematics, astronomy, physics, medicine, geology, alchemy, optics, meteorology, medicine, and so on. Some medieval “sciences,” like psychology and metaphysics, which belong more properly to philosophy, and grammar, which is in many ways a field of its own, will not be considered here. Aristotle’s works – supplemented by Hippocrates and Galen – formed the basis of medieval scientific knowledge in the Islamic (and Christian) world. The fields of logic, mathematics, and physics – the analysis of the concepts of time, space, motion, and so on – were propaedeutic to 1

Y. Tzvi Langermann, “On the Beginnings of Hebrew Scientific Literature and on Studying History through ‘Maqbilot’ (Parallels),” Aleph 2 (2002), 169 89, esp. 169.

825

826 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy metaphysics and, especially after Maimonides made this progression explicit in his writings, were often studied as part of the process of coming to know the divine. In addition, logical and physical concepts were often deployed in theological and philosophical discussions, as in arguments for the existence and oneness of God, the creation of the world, and the immortality of the soul, among others. By far the most popular science among the Jews in all periods was astronomy.2 For reasons that are not entirely clear, optics was of less interest to Jews,3 as were musical theory and alchemy. In encyclopedias of general learning, one might find mineralogy, botany, and zoology with a little astronomy and some psychology; these also sometimes included meteorology – which dealt with atmospheric conditions above the earth and below, including comets, clouds, and precipitation, and bodies of water such as oceans and rivers, as well as the formation of minerals and metals below the surface of the earth.4 As is well known, medicine was a very popular profession among Jews throughout the medieval period; the subject was sometimes pursued as a theoretical field as well. In general, science and philosophy represented neutral areas where minorities could participate in the dominant culture without hindrance and with little reference to their religious affiliation. The first and most important mediators of science were non-Muslims, especially in the area of translation; Christians, Sabeans, and Jews all took part. Syriac-speaking Christians were central in the movement to translate Greek works into Arabic. From at least the eighth century onward, Muslims and nonMuslims worked together, primarily in astronomy and medicine. Most medical and scientific works – including those by Jews – were written in Arabic and were meant for a general audience.5 The confessional identity 2

3

4

5

Bernard R. Goldstein, “The Medieval Hebrew Tradition in Astronomy,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 85 (1965), 145 48; Bernard R. Goldstein, “The Hebrew Astronomical Tradition: New Sources,” Isis 72 (1981), 237 51. See Eyal Meiron, “Mathematical and Physical Optics in Medieval Jewish Thought,” in Gad Freudenthal, ed., Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures (Cambridge, 2011), 172 81. Mauro Zonta, “The Reception of Al Fārābī’s and Ibn Sīnā’s Classifications of the Mathematical and Natural Sciences in the Hebrew Medieval Philosophical Literature,” Medieval Encounters 1 (1995), 358 82; Resianne Fontaine, “The Reception of Aristotle’s ‘Meteorology’ in Hebrew Scientific Writings of the Thirteenth Century,” Aleph 1 (2001), 101 39. See, for example, Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000); Chaim Rabin, “Hebrew and Arabic in Jewish Medieval Philosophy,” in Siegfried Stein and Raphael Loewe, eds., Studies in Jewish Religious and Intellectual History (Tuscaloosa, 1979), 235 45; Moritz Steinschneider, “Schriften der Araber in hebräischen Handschriften: ein Beitrag zur arabischen Bibliographie,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 47 (1893), 335 84;

science and medicine 827 of the author of a scientific treatise might surface in its introduction, conclusion, and – in passing – in the core of the text, but many scientific texts written by individuals of various faiths read exactly the same way.6 Nevertheless, while Jews engaged in science as part of a society-wide activity, their motivations for and the directions taken in their work were also shaped by their own religious affiliations. In other words, the specific religious needs of a community could drive the direction of scientific investigation.7 For instance, the particular conditions of Karaite religious practice – e.g., relying on a calendar that was based on observing lunar cycles and the state of the barley harvest – shaped their scientific activity, encouraging both astronomical and (narrowly focused) botanical investigation. So, too, astronomy was favored by Rabbanite Jews throughout the medieval period for a number of reasons, some of which were doctrinal. This remains an understudied aspect of Jewish participation in medieval science. Hermeneutic factors could also be at work. The numerous early scientific commentaries on the neo-Pythagorean text Sefer Yesirah, for example, _ represent reactions to the conflict between the newly ascendant Hellenistic scientific legacy and older Jewish views of the universe, now anomalous yet attributed to respected Jewish authorities. Similarly, polemical conflicts with other groups over the religious calendar – Karaites and, later, Christians – spurred astronomical interest on all sides of these debates. Science could also be driven by more ecumenical economic and political pressures. The intellectual or military interests of a Muslim ruler guided the behavior of the members of his court and of individuals he patronized, some of whom might have been Jews. Likewise, late medieval maritime empires provided economic incentives for the development of the compass and the quadrant, as well as of techniques of mapmaking; Jews participated in these enterprises as well. One of the most unambiguous examples of the role of court patronage in stimulating certain kinds of scientific activity was the construction of zījes. A zīj is a set of tables, each of which presents a list of mathematical, calendrical, astronomical, or astrological data. Each gives the results of

6

7

Moritz Steinschneider, “An Introduction to the Arabic Literature of the Jews,” Jewish Quarterly Review 12 (1899), 114 32; 13 (1901), 446 87. See Mohammed Hannan Hassan, “Where Were the Jews in the Development of Sciences in Medieval Islam? A Quantitative Analysis of Two Medieval Muslim Biographical Notices,” Hebrew Union College Annual 81 (2010), 105 26. See, for the Islamic world, David A. King, In Synchrony with the Heavens: Studies in Astronomical Timekeeping and Instrumentation in Medieval Islamic Civilization, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2004/5).

828 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy some calculation or series of calculations that would otherwise be cumbersome or difficult to carry out each time the user needed them. They can be as simple as lists of sine functions for degrees of a circle, or as complicated as tables of values for the “equation” of a planet – i.e., the difference between its mean longitude and its true longitude. Zījes were major undertakings and therefore were often constructed by groups of scholars brought together by a patron. For example, among the protégés of the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 813–33), we find a Jewish convert named Sind (or Sanad) b. ʿAlī, part of al-Maʾmūn’s circle of astronomers, who translated and adapted Indian astronomical tables into the work known as Zīj al-Sindhind, the first astronomical tables introduced in the Islamic world. The Arabic originals are not extant, however. Arabic sources attribute to Sind b. ʿAlī the construction of observational instruments as well, and of a kanīsa, either an observatory or a synagogue.8 Two later group research projects that resulted in zījes similarly involved Jews: the Toledan Tables, sponsored by the Muslim Saʿīd al-Andalusī (1029–70), originally written in no-longer-extant Arabic versions, and the Alfonsine Tables, conducted under the patronage of Alfonso X (1252–84) of Castile. In this connection, we can also see how polemical needs can spur scientific study. In 931, Seʿadyah Gaʾon used a zīj to calculate the positions of the sun, moon, and five planets for noon of that day, which he noted in his commentary on Sefer Yesirah.9 Langermann has suggested that _ the use of a zīj specifically in order to Seʿadyah familiarized himself with counter the claims of a group that sought to use zījes to calculate, each month, when the new moon would be visible, and to sanctify the new moon day according to that calculation.10 For most of the period under consideration, the only direct evidence of scientific activity by Jews in the Islamic world is to be found in the extant manuscripts preserved in libraries or in the Cairo Genizah. Material objects related to science or medicine are very few; astrolabes, for example, usually date from later in this period and mostly from Christian lands.11 In fact, Bernard R. Goldstein, “Astronomy and the Jewish Community in Early Islam,” Aleph 1 (2001), 17 57. 9 Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Saadya and the Sciences,” in The Jews and the Sciences in the Middle Ages (Brookfield, VT, 1999), 3. 10 Ibid., 6. 11 Solomon Gandz, “The Astrolabe in Jewish Literature,” in Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics (New York, 1970), 245 62; Bernard R. Goldstein, “The Hebrew Astrolabe in the Adler Planetarium,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 35 (1976), 251 60; Bernard R. Goldstein, “Descriptions of Astronomical Instruments in Hebrew,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 500 (1987), 105 41; David A. King, “An Astrolabe from 14th Century Christian Spain with Inscriptions in Latin, Hebrew and Arabic,” Suhayl 3 8

science and medicine 829 texts are the source of nearly all we know about this period. It should, however, be kept in mind that ascribing a rational basis to scientific activity does not necessarily imply that the activity itself is text-based. Medicine, for example, provides an illuminating example of the potential disjunction between theoretical knowledge and practical expertise; Jewish physicians practiced medicine throughout the medieval period, but only some were literate. In addition, some medical and scientific ephemera, such as prescriptions or lists of observations, and certain kinds of textual evidence, like almanacs and star tables, medical glossaries and account books, represent a different register of science from a theoretical treatise. They are texts, but they contain only the end result of scientific activity – i.e., they often omit any discussion of underlying principles. Finally, specific methods for the construction of astrolabes, or, say, hydraulic techniques used in agronomy, might in many cases have been transmitted entirely outside the textual tradition. BEFORE THE TENTH CENTURY

The birth and development of sciences in the Islamic world were made possible by a number of political and cultural factors: the Arab conquest, the rule of the Umayyad caliphate from the mid-seventh to the mid-eighth century, and the ʿAbbāsid revolution. Unification of the lands of Egypt, the Fertile Crescent, Persia, and part of India under Islamic rule allowed an unprecedented flow of materials, people, knowledge, skills, techniques, and modes of thought. Even before the advent of Islam, the study of sciences was well developed in, for example, the cities of al-Ḥīra in southern Iraq, of Ḥarrān in northern Mesopotamia, and of Marw in northern Persia, among others. This new cultural flow was enhanced by the introduction of papermaking techniques acquired through contact with Chinese civilization, facilitating the exchange of ideas through the lands of the caliphate. While paper was expensive, it was significantly cheaper than parchment; beginning in the year 750, this new writing material made its way from the eastern borders of the caliphate to the West. In Byzantium, Chalcedonian Greek Orthodoxy strongly opposed secular Greek learning, and societies under Byzantine rule experienced the repressive effects of a growing wave of anti-Hellenization; lands conquered by Muslims were spared this trend. Secular Greek learning was at the heart (2002 3), 9 156; and Josefina Rodríguez Arribas, “Medieval Jews and Medieval Astrolabes: Where, Why, How, and What for?” in Sacha Stern and Charles Burnett, eds., Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition (Leiden, 2013), 221 72.

830 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy of the culture of Syriac-speaking Christians who, under Islamic rule, found themselves freed from the constraints of religious orthodoxy and could devote themselves to the secular sciences. Even before the rise of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, some translations of Greek philosophical and scientific treatises had already appeared as a result of the efforts of individuals like Sergius of Rēshʿāynā, a philosopher, physician, and priest who was active up to the first half of the sixth century and who translated into Syriac the first three books of Aristotle’s Organon and Porphyry’s Isagoge. The tenthcentury bibliophile al-Nadīm reports that the first Arabic translations of books of medicine, astrology, and alchemy were commissioned by Umayyad caliphs and princes.

proto-scientific works in hebrew We have only a few traces of Jewish scientific activity in the centuries from the rise of Islam to the tenth century. Some are found in passing, in texts that are not primarily “scientific.” For example, both the Tanhuma and Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer include extended and highly schematic_ descriptions of the cosmos, which reformulate preexisting rabbinic statements about the heavens and earth into a coherent whole.12 Generally construing early rabbinic descriptions of the cosmos literally, they reflect little of the Hellenistic scientific legacy ascendant at that time: not the four elements, nor the spherical earth, nor the Ptolemaic system of nested celestial spheres. But these highly conservative cosmologies were not the only such works being composed in the early centuries of Islam. Concurrent with them is a group of writings that have been described as “the first chapter in the history of Hebrew scientific literature”13 – a small group of proto-scientific texts identified by Langermann as belonging to the late eighth and ninth centuries, presumably written in the Near East (some were probably written under Byzantine rule), all of which employ classical Hebrew words to express new scientific meanings.14 The first is a purely mathematical work, on geometry and mensuration, called Mishnat ha-Middot (Treatise on Measures); the sixth chapter is a 12

13 14

See Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, “From Mythic Motifs to Sustained Myth: The Revision of Rabbinic Traditions in Medieval Midrashim,” Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996), 131 59. Langermann, “On the Beginnings of Hebrew Scientific Literature,” 169. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Science in the Jewish Communities,” in David C. Lindberg and Michael H. Shank, eds., Cambridge History of Science, Volume 2: Medieval Science (Cambridge, 2013), 168 89.

science and medicine 831 separate treatment of the measurements of the biblical Tabernacle.15 Another is the Neopythagorean work traditionally ascribed to Abraham, Sefer Yesirah, which describes the emanation of the universe, with three _ air, water, and fire; letters and numbers are the fundamental elements, principles governing the structure of the universe. Beraita de-Mazalot is a short astrological text, appearing in a Genizah fragment; parts of it were translated into Latin before the end of the tenth century. Some have attributed it to the tenth-century Italian Shabbetai Donnolo, who quotes it.16 And still another is the Beraita de-Shmuʾel, pseudepigraphically attributed to the third-century talmudic sage Samuel, which concerns basic astronomy and astrology and includes discussions of eclipses, gnomons, and planetary distances. The Sefer ha-Refuʾot (Book of Remedies), also known as Sefer Assaf (Book of Assaf ) from the name of its supposed author, Assaf b. Perahyah haRofe,17 aims to harmonize medicine and Judaism by presenting _rabbinic traditions about the transmission of medicine from God to mankind. The book, which seems to have drawn on sources of Indian origin, includes both a glossary of materia medica, of great importance for the constitution of a Hebrew medical terminology, and a “physician’s oath” of Hippocratic derivation. Finally, Yesirat ha-Walad (Formation of the Fetus) is a short, undated, _ work on embryology – i.e., it describes the progressive formation of the child – which displays many linguistic features in common with the rest of these works. These Hebrew texts, which drew on rabbinic material, were aimed not at the wider Arabic-speaking world but at the Jewish community. All strove to describe the natural world, but their authors were without the standardized technical Hebrew vocabulary that would eventually be developed with the translation movement from Arabic to Hebrew.

jewish astronomers and astrologers A number of Jewish astronomers and astrologers worked within the early Islamic world and wrote – if they wrote – in Arabic. The first and most famous was Māshāʾallāh b. Atharī (d. 815), born in Basra. He is said to have _ 15

16

17

Solomon Gandz, “The Mishnat ha Middot or the First Hebrew Geometry Written about 150 C.E., Prolegomena to a New Edition,” Hebrew Union College Annual 6 (1929), 263 76. Reimund Leicht, Astrologumena Judaica: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der astrologischen Literatur der Juden (Tübingen, 2006), 87 88. Langermann, “Science in the Jewish Communities.”

832 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy been one of the astrologers gathered by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mansūr to _ in choose the date for the foundation of the new capital city of Baghdad 762. He wrote more than twenty works based on Syriac sources, preserving traces of pre-Ptolemaic planetary models similar to Sanskrit ones. Six of these are still extant in the original Arabic, others are extant in Latin translations, including a treatise on the astrolabe,18 and two remain only in Hebrew translations (possibly by Abraham Ibn Ezra): Sefer ha-Sheʾelot (Book of Interrogations) and the Sefer be-Qadrut ha-Levana ve-ha-Shemesh (Book on the Lunar and Solar Eclipse). Another early Jewish astrologer, said to have converted to Islam, was Sahl b. Bishr (fl. 821–50). His name is linked to the first translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest into Arabic. He served the governor of Khurāsān, Ṭāhir b. al-Ḥusayn al-Aʿwar, and later al-Ḥasan b. Sahl (d. 850/51), secretary to al-Maʾmūn, and wrote various astrological works in Arabic, including Kitāb al-Mawālīd al-Kabīr (On Nativities – i.e., constructing and interpreting horoscopes for the moment of birth), Kitāb Tahāwīl Sinī _ al-Mawālīd (On Anniversaries of Nativities), Kitāb al-Ikhtiyārāt (On Elections – i.e., constructing horoscopes to find an auspicious time to begin a particular enterprise), Kitāb al-Masāʾil al-Kabīr (On Interrogations), and Kitāb al-Amtār wa-l-Riyāh (On Meteorology), and Kitāb fī ʿIlm al-Falak wa_ hkām al-Falakiyya _ l-Burūj wa-l-A ʿalā al-Tamām wa-l-Kamāl (On _ Astronomy, the Zodiacal Signs, and Astrological Predictions – a treatise on interrogations, or constructing horoscopes that answer a particular question), and more. In the twelfth century, these works by Sahl b. Bishr gained a vast diffusion in Latin translations made by John of Seville and Herman of Carinthia. One was translated into Hebrew with the title Kelalim (Rules) and is preserved in a single manuscript.19 jewish physicians Some names of Jewish physicians are known from this early period, but that is all. Māsarjawayh of Basra, who lived in the seventh century, is said _ books now lost: on foods, on diseases of to have written several medical the eye, and on medicinal herbs. He is also mentioned as one of the translators of Greek and Syriac medical works into Arabic. His son ʿĪsā practiced medicine as well. Rabban al-Ṭabarī was active as a translator and 18

19

See Ron B. Thomson, Pseudo Mashaʾallah, On the Astrolabe: A Critical Edition of the Latin Text with English Translation (Toronto, 2015). Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums. Band VII: Astrologie Meteorologie und Verwandtes bis ca. 430 H. (Leiden, 1979), 125 28; Victor Stegemann, Dorotheos von Sidon und das sogennante Introductorium des Sahl ibn Bišr (Prague, 1942).

science and medicine 833 physician in Persia and his son was one of the physicians of the caliphs around the first half of the ninth century, worked on ophthalmology, and was probably among the teachers of the famous physician and alchemist Muhammad b. Zakariyya al-Rāzī. Two other Jewish physicians are known _ by name: Furāt b. Shahnatha and Mūsā b. Israel of Kūfa. TENTH THROUGH TWELFTH CENTURIES

At the beginning of the ninth century, the Arabic translation movement had not yet turned its full attention to the Greek scientific legacy,20 but over the course of this century the intensive and large-scale translation of texts from fields like linguistics, theology, and history expanded to include Greek scientific texts.21 Once translated into Arabic and available to the vast Arabic-speaking intellectual world, Greek astronomical theories became part of the normative worldview of the medieval West. This meant that Arabic-speaking Jewish scholars in the Mediterranean world of the ninth and tenth centuries had access to these works (in theory, at least) and thus to Greek attempts at describing the cosmos. Over the course of this period, the process of harmonizing the philosophy of Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, and their Hellenistic commentators into a single philosophical system – already begun in Christian circles – was completed.22 The emergence of scientific commentaries to Sefer Yesirah and Beraita de-Shmuʾel in the tenth century reflects the ongoing _diffusion of the Greco-Arabic cosmological system and its consequent clash with the eclectic and schematic worlds of older rabbinic writings. The commentators included Shabbetai Donnolo in the Byzantine world on both Sefer Yesirah and Beraita de-Shmuʾel, and Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) in _ Baghdad and Dunash b. Tamīm (c. 885–after 995) in Qayrawān on Sefer Yesirah. Seʿadyah’s Tafsīr Kitāb al-Mabādiʾ, the commentary on Sefer Ye_sirah, includes explanations based on astronomical and astrological _ 20

21

22

Roshdi Rashed, “Problems of the Transmission of Greek Scientific Thought into Arabic: Examples from Mathematics and Optics,” History of Science 27 (1989), 199 209, 200. See George Saliba, “The Development of Astronomy in Medieval Islamic Society,” in A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories during the Golden Age of Islam (New York, 1994), 51 65. Cristina D’Ancona, “The Theology Attributed to Aristotle: Sources, Structure, Influence,” in Khaled El Rouayheb and Sabine Schmidtke, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy (Oxford, 2017), 8 29; Cristina D’Ancona, “Greek into Arabic: Neoplatonism in Translation,” in Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), 10 31.

834 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy theories taken from Arabic sources;23 this text was the first to identify biblical stars and constellations using the Greco-Arabic Ptolemaic tradition.24 Curiously, Dunash does not mention the nested Ptolemaic spheres in his original version; they seem to have been added later, appearing in an eleventh-century Hebrew abbreviated version.25 direct sources The manuscript fragments retrieved from the Genizah of Fustāt (Old _ Cairo) have revolutionized our knowledge and understanding of all_ aspects of medieval Judaism. It should be noted that, while their religious, literary, and historical relevance has been widely recognized, Genizah fragments attesting to the natural philosophical and scientific interests of medieval Jews have, in general, not received the scholarly attention they deserve. Most Genizah material is datable to the period between the start of the eleventh and the middle of the thirteenth centuries, the so-called classical Genizah period, when Egypt was under Fātimid (until 1171) and Ayyūbid _ (until 1250) rule, though there is some earlier material also from the Ṭūlūnid (until 905) and Ikhshidid (until 969) periods and, later, from the Mamlūk period (until 1517). These dates cover the period that saw the acquisition, translation, and assimilation of Greco-Hellenistic scientific material into the Arabo-Islamic world. The Genizah preserves fragments of the Judeo-Arabic versions of scientific texts that were circulating in the Jewish community and for this alone is a source of paramount importance for our understanding of the penetration and circulation of these sciences within Jewish communities in Islamic lands.26 logic There is little direct evidence for the formal study of logic among Jews in the Islamic world outside the Genizah. We have assumed that it was 23

24

25

26

Langermann, “Saadya and the Sciences”; Goldstein, “Astronomy and the Jewish Community in Early Islam.” Shlomo Sela, “Biblical Stars in Medieval Jewish Thought (Tenth Twelfth Centuries),” Journal of Jewish Studies 66 (2015), 317 40. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Cosmology and Cosmogony in Doresh Reshumoth: A Thirteenth Century Commentary on the Torah,” Harvard Theological Review 92 (2004), 199 227, 205. This survey is mostly based on the Genizah Collection at Cambridge University Library. Shelf marks in the notes below refer to this collection unless specified otherwise. Instead of a statistical reckoning, for which the state of research is still too incomplete, we have chosen to discuss a number of representative examples.

science and medicine 835 studied, as it was mentioned in enumerations of the sciences and educational curricula – e.g., that of Joseph b. Judah Ibn ʿAqnīn in twelfthcentury Morocco27 – and deployed in works of religious philosophy, but we have little evidence regarding which logical texts Jews studied, apart from the Maqāla fī al-S ̣inaʿat al-Mantiq (Treatise on the Art of Logic). This is a short essay defining logical terms,_based primarily on al-Fārābī (d. 950) and composed in Arabic for a Muslim audience but later translated into Hebrew; it is traditionally attributed to Maimonides. The Genizah, however, reveals fragments of logical texts in JudeoArabic, which were evidently copied and studied by Jews: commentaries on Aristotle’s Rhetoric28 and Categories,29 an abridgment of Aristotle’s logical works attributed to Muhammad b. Zakariyya al-Rāzī,30 a commentary of the De Interpretatione _ by Abū Bishr Mattā, and on Porphyry’s Isagoge,31 and original works based on Aristotle like the Kitāb Ḥudūd al-Mantiq (Definitions of Logic) by the eighth-century Nestorian bishop _ Ibn Bahrīz.32 ʿAbdīshūʿ mathematics A variety of Arabic mathematical works, some of which originally composed by Jews, circulated in both Arabic and Hebrew script among the Jewish communities of the medieval Islamicate world. The mathematical sciences were appealing theoretically. Mathematical proofs were based on premises of indisputable truth and used reliable demonstrations; they were often held up as the model of rational argumentation. Mathematics was also of great practical utility in several fields. Trigonometry, in particular, was not only intriguing on a theoretical level, but also extremely useful for astronomical and navigational calculation, as well as the reckoning of the calendar. Euclidean thought is strikingly prominent in the Genizah fragments. Euclid’s Elements and some of its commentaries, like the one by Simplicius, are found both in complete manuscripts and in fragments. The Genizah preserves Judeo-Arabic fragments of the Elements in Thābit b. Qurrah’s (d. 901) revised translation, based on Ḥunayn b. Ishāq’s first _ there Arabic translation. Here the manuscript record is also informative; were at least four different Hebrew versions of the Elements, together with abridged versions preserved in a Hebrew translation of the geometrical 27

28 31

Charles H. Manekin, “Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, 114. 29 30 CUL T S Ar. 40.178. CUL T S Ar. 44.98. CUL T S Ar. 50.19. 32 CUL T S NS 91.2. CUL T S K6.181.

836 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy section of Ibn Sīnā’s (Avicenna, d. 428/1037) al-Shifāʾ (though it should be noted that Arabophone Jews were generally uninterested in Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical works33) and in the second part of Judah b. Solomon haKohen’s Midrash Ḥokhmah. Arabic commentaries on Euclid, like those of al-Fārābī and Ibn al-Haytham (d. 1040), circulated in Hebrew translations as well as in numerous Judeo-Arabic renditions. In the Genizah, commentaries on the Elements are found in both Arabic34 and Judeo-Arabic35 fragments, which often include geometrical drawings and tables of calculations.36 None of this should be surprising; Euclid’s Elements was the most read, used, commented upon, praised, and criticized work on the topic in Islamicate society. Original Arabic mathematical works, like the treatise on measurements and geometry, Mukhtasar fī al-Mamsūhāt, by Ahmad b. Muhammad al_ _ Ashʿarī, appear to have _had a good circulation in _Hebrew transcriptions as well. Nicomacus of Gerasa’s Introduction to Arithmetic was translated into Hebrew from an Arabic version ultimately derived from a Syriac version, and we find Hebrew translations of the Archimedean text The Measurement of the Circle and other texts on isoperimetric problems translated from Arabic. Apollonius’ Conics were available in Arabic already in the ninth century; they were not translated into Hebrew but texts in the same tradition were circulating in Hebrew translation.

physics Jewish texts that consider traditional questions of medieval physics (time, space, and motion) are relatively sparse. The most important, and certainly the best studied, is the Kitāb al-Muʿtabar, in which Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (c. 1080–after 1165) presents a new idea of time not as the standard accident of motion, but as having a priori reality. In this work, too, he considers the physics of projectile motion, adopting Ibn Sīnā’s concept of “violent inclination” (Arabic, mayl qasrī) and suggesting that the application of a constant force meant that bodies would accelerate; he diverges from Ibn Sīnā in claiming that the mayl is progressively consumed

33

34

35

36

Gad Freudenthal and Mauro Zonta, “The Reception of Avicenna in Jewish Cultures, East and West,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 22 (2012), 217 87. E.g., CUL T S NS 297.251; CUL T S NS 90.45; CUL T S Ar. 42.114; CUL T S Ar. 41.26; CUL T S Ar. 42.74; CUL T S Ar. 42.114. E.g., CUL T S Ar. 29.163; CUL T S Ar. 29.172; CUL T S Ar. 30.105; CUL T S AS 144.97. CUL T S AS 144.97; CUL T S Ar. 10.13; CUL T S Ar. 41.26; CUL T S NS 324.120.

science and medicine 837 37 by the motion and thus the motion eventually ceases. Curiously, in the Muslim East, only Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī, Moses Maimonides, David (II) Maimonides, and ʿIzz al-Dawla Saʿd b. Mansūr Ibn al-Kammūna engaged with Ibn Sīnā’s philosophical writings.38 _ The Genizah material is of great interest here as well. Texts of Aristotelian physics in Judeo-Arabic were being read and studied by Jews: the Meteorologica,39 De Anima,40 and De Generatione et Corruptione41 are explicitly mentioned in Genizah fragments, together with the spurious De Plantis, which was in the library of Maimonides during his time in Fustāt.42 _ _ ideas appear in biblical exegesis; an unidentified fragment of Aristotelian an exegetical work found in the Genizah says that, in case of doubt, one should read Aristotle’s books on plants and animals, together with an otherwise-unspecified “Book on Anatomy,”43 and a fragment from a Judeo-Arabic text on physics (al-Samāʿ al-Ṭabīʿī) written by Abraham Ibn Daud (c. 1110–80) of Toledo, presumably a commentary on the eighth book of Aristotle’s Physics, has recently been discovered.44 Ibn Daud also incorporated a short discussion of physics into his philosophical work The Exalted Faith. Aristotle’s works had a strong influence on the Jewish natural philosophers of medieval Egypt, but, in line with the current trends among Muslim thinkers, Aristotelian physics was harmonized with a Neoplatonic view of the cosmos. Platonic ideas on metempsychosis are discussed and rejected,45 but Neoplatonic doctrines of the First Cause, the separate intelligences, and the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm are found in a group of Genizah manuscripts.46 The Neoplatonic and Ismāʿīlī ideas of the Ikhwān al-S ̣afāʾ (the Brethren of Purity) also entered medieval Jewish natural philosophy. Some fragments mention the

37

38 40 42

43 44

45 46

Shlomo Pines, The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines: Studies in Abuʼl Barakāt al Baghdādī, Physics and Metaphysics (Jerusalem, 1979). 39 Freudenthal and Zonta, “The Reception of Avicenna.” CUL T S Ar. 44.19. 41 CUL T S NS 90.3. CUL T S Ar.12.1. CUL T S Ar. 41.41. See the Cambridge Genizah Unit’s “Fragment of the Month” for January 2017, at www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor schechter Genizah research unit/fragment month/fotm 2017/fragment. CUL T S Ar. 24.56. Krisztina Szilágyi and Y. Tzvi Langermann, “A Fragment of a Book of Physics from the David Kaufmann Genizah Collection (Budapest) and the Identity of Ibn Daud with Avendauth,” Aleph 16 (2016), 10 31. CUL T S Ar. 44.84. E.g., CUL T S NS 91.29 and CUL T S NS 91.30 show clear Neoplatonic influences.

838 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy 47 Brethren, their doctrines on the formation of minerals in the caves48 and the Intellect,49 and their musical theory.

astronomy Jewish scientists interested in astronomy wrote treatises (and polemics) concerning the correct calculation of the Jewish calendar. Later, they also translated Arabic astronomical works into Hebrew. They composed original treatises on and commentaries to works about mathematical astronomy, cosmology, and related subjects. They also read and copied Greek works in their Arabic versions, such as Autolycus of Pitane’s On the Rotating Sphere and two books on spherical geometry by Theodosius of Bithynia and Menelaus of Alexandria, all of which circulated in JudeoArabic. Mathematical astronomy, such as Ptolemy’s Almagest, and works by al-Bitrūjī, Thābit b. Qurrah, Jābir b. Aflah, al-Farghānī, Ibn al-Haytham, _ _ and others, were read in Arabic and later translated into Hebrew.50 We know of Jewish astronomers who were active in Islamic lands before the twelfth century. Al-Nadīm mentions ʿAlī b. Dāʾūd al-Yahūdī, who lived at the beginning of the ninth century; a certain Abū Dāʾūd, who lived in Baghdad a century later and composed the Sefer Nevuʾot (Book on Prophecies), which circulated also in an Arabic translation; and Isaac b. Baruch Albalia, talmudist and expert in the Jewish calendar, who was the court astronomer of al-Muʿtamid of Seville from 1039. The North African scholar Dunash b. Tamīm, who worked for the third Fātimid _ caliph in Ifrīqiya, is credited with the composition of a treatise on Indian calculus known as Ḥisāb al-Ghubar, together with an astronomical treatise on the structure of the spheres, mathematical astronomy, and astrology. While these texts have been lost, Dunash’s astronomical and mathematical expertise appears clearly in his commentary on the Sefer Yesirah, men_ tioned above, as well as in a short work on the armillary sphere. Jews and Muslims alike applied the principles of Hellenistic astronomy for religious and administrative purposes.51 The correct reckoning of the calendar and of the days of the Jewish festivals was a serious preoccupation 47 49 50

51

48 CUL T S Ar. 29.54. CUL T S Ar. 43.289. CUL T S Ar. 43.286, mentioning Epistle 35. See Bernard R. Goldstein, “The Medieval Hebrew Tradition in Astronomy,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 85 (1965), 145 48; Bernard R. Goldstein, “The Hebrew Astronomical Tradition: New Sources,” Isis 72 (1981), 237 51. The classic study of this process in the Islamic context is Abdelhamid I. Sabra, “The Appropriation and Subsequent Naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval Islam: A Preliminary Statement,” History of Science 25 (1987), 223 43.

science and medicine 839 for the Jews of Cairo; they left behind several hundred pages of calendars, theoretical treatises on how to build them, works on intercalation and on the days of religious festivals, and letters among scholars passionately discussing calendrical questions. The recently revived scholarly interest in the calendrical dispute that led the Palestinian and Babylonian Jewish communities to celebrate Passover and the New Year of 922 on different dates has brought to light a cache of Genizah letters exchanged among its scholarly protagonists.52 The Ptolemaic planetary system underlies the numerous Genizah fragments devoted to the description of the skies, planetary motions, and celestial phenomena (in particular, eclipses). An overall assessment of this material is still a scholarly desideratum. At the current stage of research we can provisionally note the presence of astronomical calculations and discussions regarding the configuration of the heavenly bodies in general53 and for specific dates.54 These astronomical texts appear at times together with liturgical works and suggest that astronomical ideas of Greek derivation were circulating in traditional religious circles, or, given the paperrecycling tendencies of Genizah scribes, they testify to the phenomenon of random multi-textuality.55

astrology Astrology was of great interest to medieval Jews, and astrological concepts found their way into many different arenas of Jewish thought. The relationship between astronomy and astrology has been debated since antiquity; in general, although the borders between the two disciplines were blurry, they were considered separate fields. For example, Ptolemy’s highly influential Tetrabiblos argues that astronomy is an autonomous science, complete and useful in itself, while astrology is not, given the weak and variable nature of the objects it studies and the concomitant absence of 52 53

54

55

Sacha Stern, The Jewish Calendar Controversy of 921/23 (Leiden, 2019). E.g., CUL T S AS 146.353; CUL T S AS 153.140; CUL T S AS 161.217; CUL T S Ar. 10.4; CUL T S Ar. 10.10; CUL T S Ar. 10.18. E.g., CUL T S K2.17, a description of the astral configuration for the days between the twenty fourth and the twenty ninth of the month Dhū al Hijja of ah 535; CUL T S K 3.19, computation of solar, lunar, and planetary positions for two dates in 1299 ce. E.g., CUL T S Ar. 10.16, a fragment preserving Kol Nidre and liturgical instructions, together with an astronomical text on the position of the constellations of Virgo, Libra, and Capricorn in the skies; CUL T S Ar. 10.17, where Hebrew liturgical prayers for Yom Kippur and Sukkot share the same page with a portion of an Arabic treatise on planetary movements; CUL T S NS 265.2, Hebrew ʿAmidah and Judeo Arabic astronomical material.

840 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy positive or infallible rules.56 Astrology was, more generally, considered to be a science based on repeated experience (Arabic, tajriba). In other words, astrologers were thought to be able to predict future states and events because humans had observed over the course of many generations that certain heavenly configurations always coincide with certain sublunar states or events.57 The fundamental, underlying concepts of astrological theory – i.e., that the heavenly bodies have a physical effect on the sublunar realm – were generally accepted. Criticism tended to focus instead on narrower issues such as the unreliability of practicing astrologers, the epistemological weakness of astrology as a science, the problematic issues of free will implied by the claim that one might predict precise details of future events, or the association with the Chaldean magic forbidden by the Talmud. Medieval Jewish scientists themselves differed sharply on the validity of astrology.58 Maimonides was among the strongest and most famous opponents of astrological theory, but there was a very wide range of views about this science among medieval Jewish thinkers. Judah b. Barzillay and Abraham b. Ḥiyya famously had a written exchange on its validity. Jews, as much as their neighbors, often looked at the movements and positions of the celestial bodies as an influential factor in one’s health, luck, success, and decisions. Popular interest in astrology spurred responses and attacks on the science by geonim such as Seʿadyah, who included an attack on certain forms of astrological prognostication in his commentary on the Book of Daniel, but also incorporated astrological concepts into his commentary on Sefer Yesirah. Sherira Gaʾon (c. 906–1006) and his son Hayya Gaʾon (939–1038)_both wrote responsa dealing with certain aspects of astrology, and Dunash b. Tamīm included astrological concepts in his commentary on Genesis, and also wrote a treatise Fī Ḍaʿf al-Usūl fī Ahkām _ al-Nujūm (The Fragility of the Principles of Judicial Astrology). _ The Genizah material reveals hundreds of fragments of astrological interest. It seems that during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a considerable number of astrological texts written in Palestinian Aramaic and derived from Greek sources translated during the Byzantine or early Islamic periods were circulating among Jewish communities of the Mediterranean.59 Horoscopes and astrological almanacs indicating 56

57

58 59

Shlomo Sela, “The Fuzzy Borders between Astronomy and Astrology in the Thought and Work of Three Twelfth Century Jewish Intellectuals,” Aleph 1 (2001), 59 100. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “From My Notebooks: On Tajriba/Nissayon (‘Experience’): Texts in Hebrew, Judeo Arabic, and Arabic,” Aleph 14 (2014), 365 94. See Chapter 27 in this volume. See Reimund Leicht, “Toward a History of Hebrew Astrological Literature: A Bibliographical Survey,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, 255 91.

science and medicine 841 60 propitious and inauspicious days are preserved in the Genizah, together with numerous astrological prognostications61 and texts on the influence of the stars and planets on the weather and crops62 or on periods of peace and unrest63 and on the preservation of good health and the occurrence of epidemics.64 After the formative period of Islamic science, there is no evidence for prominent Jewish astronomers or astrologers in Iraq, as there is in al-Andalus.65 Abraham Ibn Ezra The most important figure in medieval Jewish astrology is Abraham Ibn Ezra, who was born in Tudela in 1089, while the city was under the rule of the Muslim emirs of Zaragoza, and who died in 1164, after a life of travels that brought him to North Africa, Italy, Palestine, southern and northern France, and England. Although Ibn Ezra wrote most of his scientific works after leaving Muslim Spain in order to escape the Almohads, they are strongly influenced by the Arabic tradition. Ibn Ezra wrote three introductions to astrology: Reshit Ḥokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom), Mishpete ha-Mazalot (Judgments of the _ (Book of Reasons) – the latter expliConstellations), and Sefer ha-Ṭeʿamim cates Reshit Ḥokhmah. In addition, Sefer ha-ʿOlam (Book of the World) treats historical and meteorological astrology. Sefer ha-Mivharim (The Book of Elections) deals with choosing the right time to begin an_ enterprise. And Sefer ha-Sheʾelot (Book of Interrogations) helps the astrologer answer clients’ questions about their lives by casting a horoscope according to the moment in time when the question is asked. Finally, Sefer ha-Meʾorot (Book of the Luminaries), a work of medical astrology, shows how to determine when crises occur in the course of an illness and what these crises signify when they do occur; a horoscope cast for the time of the onset of the disease will indicate the patient’s prognosis. Recent scholarship has recognized an underlying encyclopedic structure for Ibn Ezra’s corpus of astrological writings, which were composed over a 60

61 63 64

65

Bernard Goldstein and David Pingree, “Horoscopes from the Cairo Genizah,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 36 (1977), 113 44; Bernard Goldstein and David Pingree, “Astrological Almanacs from the Cairo Geniza,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 38, 3 4 (1979), 113 44, 231 56. See also, e.g., CUL T S AS 160.379; CUL T S NS 98.33; CUL T S 13 J 12.3. 62 E.g., CUL T S AS 122.42. E.g., CUL T S AS 154.316; CUL T S AS 176.324. E.g., CUL T S AS 156.326; CUL T S K2.51. E.g., CUL T S AS 160.399; CUL T S NS 98.104; CUL T S Ar. 39.234; CUL T S AS 154.402; CUL T S Ar. 29.18 (on the influence of the stars on the embryo). Goldstein, “Astronomy and the Jewish Community in Early Islam,” 26.

842 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy very brief period of time – between June and November 1148 in Béziers, with most later rewritten in Rouen around 1154 – following a clear order and interconnected by an innovative system of cross-references.66 Abraham Ibn Ezra also composed a short treatise on the astrolabe, Keli ha-Nehoshet (The Copper Instrument), and some mathematical works, based _ on his own rather idiosyncratic theories of number: Sefer haMispar (Book of the Number) and Sefer ha-Ehad (Book of the One). _ alchemy Genizah material is particularly significant for investigating the oft-debated question of Jewish involvement in alchemy and in the transmission of alchemical knowledge.67 While non-Jewish alchemists have long attributed to the Jews a particular preeminence in the alchemical art, modern scholars have tended to deny any kind of Jewish involvement in what was considered to be a fraudulent or deviant practice.68 Despite this, over a hundred alchemical fragments have been preserved in the Cairo Genizah; they are a unique source for knowledge of the Jewish involvement in alchemy during the Middle Ages.69 The alchemical corpus of the Genizah is primarily composed of recipes, appearing both on their own and as part of miscellaneous collections that describe laboratory practice in a rather linear fashion and straightforward language.70 The use of Decknamen (code names), aimed at preserving the esoteric character of this discipline by concealing the identity of its ingredients, is here usually confined to replacing the names of metals with the names of the corresponding planets. The recipes focus on transmutation of metals and aim at the artificial production of gold and silver in line with the operative tendencies of Islamic alchemy in the tradition of Muhammad _ b. Zakariyya al-Rāzī. Langermann has pointed out that the eighth and 66

67

68

69 70

Shlomo Sela, “Encyclopedic Aspects of Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Scientific Corpus,” in Steven Harvey, ed., The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (Dordrecht, 2000), 154 70. See Gad Freudenthal, “Medieval Alchemy in Hebrew: A Noted Absence,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, 343 58. Gabriele Ferrario, “The Jews and Alchemy: Notes for a Problematic Approach,” in Miguel López Pérez, Didier Kahn, and Mar Rey Bueno, eds., Chymia: Science and Nature in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2010), 19 30. CUL T S NS 31.6 and CUL T S Ar. 44.4. Examples of single recipes are found in CUL OR 1080 15.62, CUL T S 12.105, CUL T S 12.307, CUL T S 20.85, and CUL T S AS 165.79. Examples of miscellaneous collections of multiple recipes can be found in CUL T S NS 339.62, CUL T S NS 222.8, CUL T S Misc 8.24, CUL T S AS 186.206.

science and medicine 843 ninth centuries were a period of “cross-fertilization” between alchemy and medicine, although by this period they had diverged.71 The practical nature of many alchemical fragments and the codicological features of most of them suggest that these were copied as operational directions for practicing alchemists rather than as material of theoretical interest. Nevertheless, the Genizah preserves some traces of Jewish engagement with alchemical doctrines and ideas from the GrecoArabic alchemical heritage. A list of the works by the notorious Arabic alchemist Jābir b. Ḥayyān,72 a Judeo-Arabic translation of passages from the pseudepigraphical Liber de Mineralibus Aristotelis,73 and mentions of Ibn Umayl al-Tamīmī,74 Ibn Wahshiyya, Khālid b. Yazīd, and Hermes75 _ all constitute evidence of the circulation of alchemical recipes and alchemical theory in the medieval Jewish community of Fustāt. _ _ medicine In general, scientific medicine developed on a theoretical foundation inherited from the Greeks. In the second century, Galen wrote extensive commentaries on the Hippocratic corpus of medical texts, themselves stemming from between 420 and 350 bce, constructing a consistent system that harmonized medical theory with Aristotle’s physical principles. Beginning around the turn of the sixth century, Greek medical works were translated into Syriac by Eastern Christians and arranged in a set order; translated into Arabic as the Jawāmiʿ al-Iskandarānīyyīn, this group of texts, mostly works by Galen, served as the basis for the medical curriculum in the Islamicate world.76 According to the Galenic system, the body is characterized by a temperament or complexion (Hebrew, mezeg) depending on the balance of the four humors – blood, red (or yellow) bile, black bile, and phlegm. Each humor is a combination of the four elements – earth, air, fire, and water – and the primary qualities: heat, cold, dryness, and moisture. In addition, certain external (“nonnatural”) factors affect the balance of humors: air; food, and drink; movement and rest; emotions; sleeping and wakefulness; 71

72 73

74 76

Y. Tzvi Langermann, “From My Notebooks: Masih bin Hakam, a Jewish Christian (?) _ Physician of the Early Ninth Century,” Aleph 4 (2004), 283 97. CUL T S Ar. 35.104. CUL T S Ar. 43.267; CUL T S AS 160.251. These fragments were first identified by Bink Hallum of the British Library, who kindly shared his discovery. 75 CUL T S Ar. 53.58. CUL T S NS 31.6 and CUL T S Ar. 44.4. Michael W. Dols, Medieval Islamic Medicine: Ibn Ridwan’s Treatise “On the Prevention of Bodily Ills in Egypt” (Berkeley, 1984).

844 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy excretion and retention. Imbalance in the bodily humors causes illness. For both prevention and treatment, diet was the first line of approach, but bloodletting and purging were also common medical procedures, and drugs were also used in therapy. Nevertheless, medieval medicine was not entirely based on the theories of Galen. Prognostication was an important part of medicine and some physicians used extra-rational techniques, like divination, in order to predict whether a patient might live or die. Some established healing techniques themselves did not accord with Galenic theories. While the Talmud mentions numerous illnesses and cures and shows some influence of Persian and Babylonian medicine, folk medicine as found in the Talmud was hardly used by medieval Jewish physicians. Still, other, similar, cures originated in authoritative Greek and Arabic texts. These cures coexisted with Galenic medicine and were themselves eventually rationalized. Medicines could be effective by means of their “whole substance” or through a “specific property” or occult virtue.77 An occult virtue (Arabic, khāssa; Hebrew, segulah) is a quality or property of a substance __ a physical effect that has been proven through experience, that produces but is not rationally predictable by reasoning from Galenic or Aristotelian principles. Despite the fact that precisely how the virtue functions is hidden from human reason, it was considered a part of nature and not a product of supernatural intervention or magic. Jewish physicians in al-Andalus From the tenth to the beginning of the twelfth century, Jewish physicians seem to have participated on an equal footing in the larger medical world; Jewish physicians studied with Muslim masters and vice versa.78 In Muslim-ruled al-Andalus, there is evidence, if meager, for the presence 77

78

See, for example, Joshua Otto Leibowitz and Shlomo Marcus, eds. and trans., Sefer haNisyonot: The Book of Medical Experiences Attributed to Abraham ibn Ezra (Jerusalem, 1984). S. D. Goitein, “The Medical Profession in the Light of the Cairo Genizah Documents,” Hebrew Union College Annual 34 (1963), 177 94; Paul Fenton, “The Importance of the Cairo Genizah for the History of Medicine,” Medical History 24 (1980), 347 48; Colin F. Baker, “Islamic and Jewish Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean World: The Genizah Evidence,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 89 (1996), 577 80; Haskell D. Isaacs (with Colin F. Baker), Medical and Para medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections (Cambridge, 1994); Friedrich Niessen and Efraim Lev, “Addenda to Isaacs’s Catalogue of the Medical and Para Medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collection Together with the Edition of Two Medical Documents T S 12.33 and T S NS 297.56,” Hebrew Union College Annual 77 (2008), 131 65.

science and medicine 845 of Jewish physicians, but most of what we know consists of the names of and the very occasional medical writing by Jewish medical practitioners. In 1068, Sāʿid al-Andalusī described the scientific activities of the eight nations of the earth, including the Banū Isrāʾīl, the Jews. He mentions four Jewish physicians from al-Andalus, with one of whom he had been personally friendly, namely, Ishāq b. Qistār, who died in Toledo in 1056.80 _ hāq, otherwise known as Ḥasday b. Isaac He also mentions Ḥasday b. Is _ Ibn Shaprūt, the famous tenth-century patron of the poets Dunash _ b. Labrat and Menahem Ibn Sarūq and vizier to ʿAbd al-Rahman III. _ _ He “specialized in the art of medicine” and was reported – by another Arab chronicler – to have worked on the Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ Materia medica together with a Christian monk named Nicolaus and other Muslim experts.81 In the eleventh century, with the rise of Zaragoza as a cultural center, we find Jewish physicians there as well.82 Sāʿid mentions two Jewish physicians from Zaragoza – Menahem b. al-Fawwāl and Marwān b. Janāh (Jonah b. Janāh), who is otherwise well-known as a Hebrew grammarian._ _ comments, wrote a work on simples and their doses. The Ibn Janāh, Sāʿid _ extant parts of his treatise, Kitāb al-Talkhīs, reveal a useful explanation of _ _ and a rich list of drugs with the weights and measures used in medicine their names in Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Greek, and Spanish.83 The court physician to the Hūd sultan of Zaragoza, Abū Jāfar Ahmad II _ al-Mustaʿīn bi-llāh (r. 1085–1109), was Jonah b. Biklārish. He is remembered for his multilingual medical dictionary, completed around 1106, where he recorded names of drugs in Syriac, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Spanish, which may have been based in part on Ibn Janāh’s work. Kitāb _ 79

79

80

81

82

83

George F. Hourani, “The Early Growth of the Secular Sciences in Andalusia,” Studia Islamica 32 (1970), 143 56. Sāʿid al Andalusī, Science in the Medieval World: “Book of the Categories of the Nations,” ed. and trans. Semaʿan I. Salem and Alok Kumar (Austin, 1991); see also Joshua Finkel, “An Eleventh Century Source for the History of Jewish Scientists in Mohammedan Land (Ibn Saꜥid),” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 18 (1927), 45 54. Max Meyerhof, “Mediaeval Jewish Physicians in the Near East, from Arabic Sources,” Isis 28, no. 2 (May 1938), 440 41 (432 60); see also Max Meyerhof, Die Materia Medica des Dioskurides bei den Arabern (Berlin, 1933), 72 84. See George T. Beech, The Brief Eminence and Doomed Fall of Islamic Saragossa: A Great Center of Jewish and Arabic Learning in the Iberian Peninsula during the 11th Century (Zaragoza, 2008). See Gerrit Bos, Fabian Käs, Guido Mensching, and Maylin Lübke, “Ibn Ganah on the Nomenclature of Medicinal Drugs: The Rediscovered Kitab al Talhis and Its Significance for the History of Arabic Pharmacognosy,” Iberia Judaica 7 (2015), 95 110; Paul B. Fenton, “Jonah Ibn Ğanāh’s Medical Dictionary, the Kitāb al Talḫ īs: _ Lost and Found,” Aleph 16 (2016), 107 43. _

846 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy al-Mustaʿīnī (Book of Simples for al-Mustaʿīn) presents a detailed exposition of materia medica in the relatively rare form of tables – a handy vade mecum for the physician – and lists the names, properties, and uses of a great number of drugs available at the time. A fragment of a Judeo-Arabic version was recently identified in the Genizah.84 Langermann has suggested that a distinctive kind of medicine was practiced in al-Andalus; this type of medicine was followed by Maimonides, whose teachers and sources were primarily Andalusian physicians. Indeed, some have argued that until the ninth century, Andalusian science in general represented a mixed tradition of Latin, Visigothic, and Mozarabic sources; it was only from between the middle of the ninth century to the fall of the Cordoban caliphate in 1031 that one can discern appreciable influence from the Muslim East. After the eleventh century, science in al-Andalus – this may well have been the case with medicine as well – was more and more independent of the East, with closer and closer ties with North Africa.85 Perhaps born in Barcelona, Joseph b. Judah Ibn ʿAqnīn (c. 1150–1220) moved to Fez, where he composed the Ikhtisār Sharh Jālīnūs li-Fusūl Abuqrāt (Abridgment of Galen’s Commentary _on _ _ 86 _ Hippocrates’ Aphorisms). Jewish physicians in the Genizah sources As for Egypt, the Genizah contains hundreds of documents, letters, and lists of names that refer to various individuals as “doctor” (Hebrew, ha-rofe; Arabic, al-tabīb). The Genizah itself preserves more than 2,500 fragments of medical _relevance: pages of Judeo-Arabic renditions of Greek and Arabic medical works, original Judeo-Arabic treatises, medical booklets for private use, medical prescriptions, and druggists’ notes. Learned medical treatises could be copies of Arabic texts in both Arabic and Judeo-Arabic. The Genizah holds fragments of Hebrew medical texts as well, which is perhaps somewhat surprising in light of the view that during this period Jewish medical texts were nearly all written in Arabic. 84

85

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Yaron Serri and Efraim Lev, “A Judaeo Arabic Fragment of Ibn Biklarish’s Kitāb al Mustaʿīnī, Part of a Unique 12th Century Tabular Medical Book Found in the Cairo Genizah,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 20 (2010), 407 40. Jean Vernet and Julio Samsó, “The Development of Arabic Science in Andalusia,” Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science (London, 1996), 1:244. See Hadar Peri, “The Medical Treatise of Joseph ibn ‘Aqnīn, Ikhtisār sharh Jālīnūs li _ Commentary _ fusūl Abuqrāt: Its Place in the Thought of Ibn ‘Aqnīn and in the to _ _ [Hebrew] (PhD diss., Bar Ilan University, 2007); Hadar Peri, “The Image Hippocrates” of Joseph ben Judah ibn ‘Aqnīn as a Physician” [Hebrew], Korot 19 (2008), 21 42.

science and medicine 847 In addition, the Genizah preserves extensive evidence – in letters written to patients, in prescriptions to be given to a pharmacist, in pharmacists’ inventories or orders to suppliers, in professional correspondence between physicians, and in doctors’ personal notebooks of recipes for treatment and materia medica – of the actual practices of Jewish physicians, above and beyond what we know through their theoretical medical writings. A recent study of Judeo-Arabic medical notebooks has highlighted the prominence in this material of eye diseases, followed by references to “skin diseases, coughs and colds, dentistry and oral hygiene and gynecological conditions.”87 The two most widely read and transcribed Arabic books of medicine in medieval Jewish communities were Ibn Sīnā’s al-Qānūn and the ophthalmological treatise Tadhkīrat al-Kahhalīn by ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā al__ Kahhāl. Their diffusion is attested by the considerable number of extant _ _ manuscript copies produced by Jews in Islamic lands, and by the many Judeo-Arabic fragments from the Genizah. Although the number of Jewish physicians who authored original medical works is limited, the medical profession was one of the most popular within medieval Jewish communities: it provided economic stability, raised the physician to a high rank in society, and allowed him to develop contacts outside the Jewish community. Medical knowledge was not exclusively bookish, but could be acquired through apprenticeship: there are examples of Jewish medical students learning from Muslim physicians as well as the reverse. The apprenticeship implied attending to patients under the supervision of a master and could take place in hospitals.88 Hospitals (called bīmāristān, a loanword from Persian) had been established – by royal patrons, to symbolize their wealth and charitable inclinations – in the Islamicate world from before the beginning of the ninth century, and from the tenth century spread quite rapidly. These institutions – meant for poor people who could not be cared for at home – were private, endowed by wealthy individuals, and located in large cities. Importantly, they were secular (like the Galenic medicine they relied on) and administered by government officials, and thus could permit nonMuslims to practice within their walls; initially, in fact, most medical professionals were Syrian Christians.89 87

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Efraim Lev, “Mediators between Theoretical and Practical Medieval Knowledge: Medical Notebooks from the Cairo Genizah and their Significance,” Medical History 57 (2013), 487 515. Carmen Caballero Navas, “Medicine among Medieval Jews: The Science, the Art, and the Practice,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, 320 42, 328. Michael W. Dols, “The Origins of the Islamic Hospital: Myth and Reality,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 61 (1987), 367 80.

848 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy Jewish physicians practiced in the courts of the caliphs and their viziers in al-Andalus, in North Africa, Egypt, and in the Near East. In the case of Ḥasday Ibn Shaprut, who is said to have translated the materia medica of Dioscorides, a role _as courtier in the tenth-century Córdoba of ʿAbd alRahmān III was combined with medical expertise, though we do not know _ to what extent Ḥasday’s abilities or duties included the actual practice of medicine. In the eleventh century, Ephraim Ibn al-Zafrān (d. c. 1068) worked for the caliphs in Egypt and famously owned some 20,000 medical and philosophical books. In Egypt, Maimonides was employed as court physician by a vizier, al-Qādī al-Fādil, in 1185, while he also served as head _ Private physician to S ̣alāh al-Dīn of the Jewish community _ of Cairo. himself, Abū al-ʿAshāʾir Hibatallāh b. Zayn b. Ḥasan b._ Ifrāʾīm b. Yaʿqūb b. Ismāʿīl Ibn Jumayʿ al-Isrāʾīlī (d. c. 1198) wrote the first commentary on al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb (Canon of Medicine) by Ibn Sīnā, drew up a proposal for improving the study and practice of medicine,90 and composed a medical encyclopedia, Kitāb al-Irshād li-Masālih al-Anfus _ wa-al-Ajsād (Guidance for the Welfare of Souls and Bodies). Isaac Israeli Around the beginning of the tenth century, Isaac b. Solomon Israeli, thought to have been born in Fayyūm, moved from Cairo to Qayrawān, where he became the physician of the last Aghlabid prince, Ziyādat Allāh III (r. 903–9), and later of ʿUbayd Allāh al-Mahdī, founder of the Fātimid _ dynasty. He wrote extensively on various medical topics, including urine, the pulse, fevers, and materia medica; he is also renowned for his Neoplatonic philosophical works.91 Isaac Israeli’s innovative work on urine (Kitāb al-Bawl) begins with a theory of digestion explaining how the appearance of an individual’s urine can reflect the processes of the human body, goes on to discuss the collection and treatment of the samples, and then explains how and why certain characteristics of the urine are caused by conditions of the body, all of this in preparation for the practical rules of uroscopy.92 The work was written in Arabic, and has been preserved in manuscripts in both Arabic 90

91

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Hibatallāh b. Zayn Ibn Jumayʿ, Treatise to Salah ad Din on the Revival of the Art of Medicine, ed. and trans. Hartmut Fähndrich (Wiesbaden, 1983). Lola Ferre and Raphaela Veit, “The Textual Traditions of Isaac Israeli’s Book on Fevers in Arabic, Latin, Hebrew, and Spanish,” Aleph 9 (2009), 309 34. Tamas Visi, “Tradition and Innovation: Isaac Israeli’s Classification of the Colors of Urines,” in Kenneth Collins, Samuel Kottek, and Helena Paavilainen, eds., Isaac Israeli: The Philosopher Physician (Jerusalem, 2015), 39 66.

science and medicine 849 and Hebrew characters, as well as in an eleventh-century Latin translation by Constantine the African. Both the Arabic and the Latin entered the standard curriculum of medical schools in the medieval West and were translated into Hebrew several times. Isaac’s interest in medicine also embraced the ethics linked to the medical profession, as witnessed in the Guide for Physicians (Musar haRofʾim), which survives only in Hebrew translation. This set of instructions for physicians includes both moral and practical advice for engaging with patients. Maimonides The towering figure of Maimonides dominates the twelfth century in the fields of religion, law, philosophy – and medicine. After the death of his brother David and the loss of the latter’s financial support, Maimonides became physician to al-Qādī al-Fādil, Salāh al-Dīn’s vizier, in order to _ medical topics, often in the _ extensively _ provide for his family. He wrote on form of consilia meant for wealthy Muslim patients. Basing his medicine on the humoral theory of Hippocrates and Galen, Maimonides insisted on the importance of considering the patient’s general state of health as opposed to focusing on the single ailment. He divided medicine into three complementary branches: (1) the prevention of illnesses; (2) the healing of sick people; and (3) the recovery of the convalescent, the aged, and the physically impaired. He banned the use of amulets and spells, although this was common practice at the time among both Muslims and Jews, as shown by the number of amulets, talismans, and fragments of practical magic found in the Genizah.93 Maimonides also dealt with the Greek medical heritage in his alMukhtasarāt, a compendium of Galen’s writing, and in his commentary _ on Ḥunayn b. Ishāq’s Arabic version of Galen’s Aphorisms; he also wrote _ some original aphorisms, the Fusūl Mūsā (The Chapters of Moses, translated _ a compendium of materia medica called into Hebrew as Pirqei Moshe), and Sharh Asmāʾ al-ʿUqqār (Explanation of the Names of Drugs), in which he _ an alphabetical list of drugs with their Arabic, Greek, Persian, offered Spanish, Moroccan, Egyptian, and Berber names. His consilia focused on particular ailments and medical problems, including hemorrhoids (Fī alBawāsīr), sexual intercourse (Fī al-Jimāʿa), asthma (Maqāla fī al-Rabw), and poisons and their antidotes (Kitāb al-Sumūm wa-l-Mutaharriz min _ 93

Sarah Stroumsa, “Al Fārābī and Maimonides on Medicine as a Science,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 3 (1993), 235 49. See also Chapter 27 in this volume.

850 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy al-Adwiya al-Qattāla). Of two consilia written for al-Malik al-Afdal ʿAlī, Saladin’s eldest son (1169/70–1225), one was Fī Tadbīr al-Sihha _(On the __ Regimen of Health); it includes both specific advice for his patient, who suffered from indigestion, constipation, and depression, and general recommendations for healthy living. The second, known as Maqāla fī Bayān Baʿd al-Aʿrād wa-l-Jawāb ʿAnhā (On the Elucidation of Some Symptoms _ to Them), reviews the advice of his patient’s other doctors, and_the Response and also includes instructions for a full daily routine, including tips for eating and drinking, napping, snacking, listening to music, engaging in pleasant conversation, and so on.94

indirect sources Jews in the medieval Islamicate world were deeply embedded in the general culture around them and had relatively easy access to Arabic scientific literature. Jewish elites engaged with the scientific and philosophical issues of the day. By contrast, Jews under Christendom, most of whom did not know Latin, were generally barred from access to current scientific literature. It therefore may seem paradoxical that we have far more extant scientific texts written by Jews from the supposedly inhospitable world of medieval Christendom than we do from the presumably open culture of medieval Islam. But there is no paradox. It was precisely the embeddedness of Jewish scientists and physicians in the Arabophone culture around them that resulted in the relative paucity of extant Jewish scientific texts from the Islamicate world. With the development and flourishing of Arabic science, Jews began to write scientific works in Arabic, the language of rational inquiry. Of those, most have been lost – unless they were translated into Hebrew. Our direct knowledge of much of the scientific activity within the Jewish communities of this period is thus very sparse indeed. We will consider here more indirect sources. Some may be Jewish writings that may not themselves be strictly scientific, but which assume a level of scientific knowledge on the part of the reader – or, again, responsa or legal works that either deploy or allude to scientific techniques or bodies of knowledge. As noted above, for Jews in the Islamicate world, scientific knowledge could present something of a challenge to the traditional worldview expressed in Hebrew scriptures. Responding to this challenge and resolving the tension between contemporary scientific “knowledge” regarding the nature, shape, and origin of the universe, on the one hand, and the 94

See the editions and translations by Gerrit Bos of Maimonides’ medical writings.

science and medicine 851 canonical texts of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Talmud, on the other, was a major concern of Jewish writers. They dealt with this issue by incorporating astronomical, cosmological, mathematical, and even medical information into their biblical commentaries, commentaries on rabbinic texts, and responsa. It is through these snippets that we can sometimes piece together the state of their knowledge of contemporary scientific theories. religious philosophy General principles of religious philosophy encouraged the study of scientific and medical concepts; and some specific arguments, such as those used in kalām for the existence of God, required basic scientific knowledge. Metaphysical arguments are often based on physical premises – including the definition and nature of time, the structure of the cosmos, and the nature of created beings in the sublunar world, and so the study of physics was considered a necessary prelude to metaphysics. Further, not only does the exercise of the intellect move one toward human perfection, but interpretation of the word of God needs to be conducted in accordance with what is scientifically possible. Even medicine has its place, as the study of the human body can reveal something of God’s purposes. In terms of religious conceptions, gratitude to God requires knowledge of His creation, as does the commandment to love and fear God. Bahya Ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Heart, for example, a work of religious _ ethics, incorporates general scientific knowledge; the author’s emphasis on gratitude to God in the third chapter highlights the importance of knowing and understanding the created world. Judah Halevi’s Kuzari involves a geographical explanation of prophecy, a discussion of the calendar, and a commentary on Sefer Yesirah, the last of which is used to argue that the _ Jews have a science of their own.95 Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed makes allusion to current astronomical issues as well as to scientific/medical justifications for rabbinic statements and laws. And Nethanel al-Fayyūmī’s (also known as Nethanel b. al-Fayyūmī, d. c. 1150) Bustān al-ʿUqūl contains, among other things, a Neopythagorean discussion of numbers. hebrew poetry Liturgical poetry was composed strictly in Hebrew, and some of these poems incorporated astronomical or other scientific concepts. Sidrei 95

See Alexander Altmann and Lenn J. Schramm, eds. and trans., “Judah Halevi’s Theory of Climates,” Aleph 5 (2005), 215 46.

852 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy ʿAvodah, for example, have a narrative introduction that usually includes a description of the creation of the world and the history of mankind. Examples of this genre were written by Solomon Sulaymān al-Sanjarī, Seʿadyah, Nehemiah b. Solomon, Joseph Ibn Abītūr, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth, Moses Ibn Ezra, and Abraham Ibn Ezra.96 These poems, while certainly neither extensive in their descriptions nor technical in their intent, do offer evidence of some of the first efforts of scientifically and philosophically educated Jews in the Arabic-speaking world to enunciate astronomical concepts in the Hebrew language. The astronomical rahat, ʿAsita Arbaʿa Adanim, by Isaac b. Judah Ibn Ghiyyāth (d. 1089),_ The Crown of Kingship (Keter malkhut) by Solomon Ibn Gabirol (b. 1022), and Be-shem el Asher Amar, by Moses Ibn Ezra (c. 1055–1138)97 all cover much the same cosmological ground98 and all three offer an implicit exegesis of both biblical and rabbinic material in light of Greco-Arabic science. Ibn Ghiyyāth quotes Beraita de-Shmuʾel in his poem, suggesting that the important talmudic center in Lucena may have included in its curriculum one of the very few Hebrew scientific writings of the time. biblical commentaries Another phenomenon marking the progressive penetration of GrecoArabic science into Jewish intellectual culture during this period is the composition of biblical commentaries – in particular by the geonim, in both Arabic and Hebrew – that incorporated discussions of scientific topics. Seʿadyah’s commentary on Genesis, for example, includes long digressions on astronomy, biology, and other scientific topics, his commentary on Job includes some astronomical content, and his commentary on Daniel, as noted above, is prefaced by a discussion of astrology. Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon discusses the dreams of Joseph using Greco-Arabic dream interpretation theory.99 And Isaac Ibn Ghiyyāth’s Judeo-Arabic commentary on Ecclesiastes details the sciences,100 as does that by 96

97

98

99

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Naoya Katsumata, The Liturgical Poetry of Nehemiah ben Shlomo ben Heiman Ha Nasi: A Critical Edition (Leiden, 2002). Adena Tanenbaum, “Nine Spheres or Ten? A Medieval Gloss on Moses Ibn Ezra’s Be Shem El Asher Amar,” Journal of Jewish Studies 47 (1996), 294 310. Cf. Paul Fenton, Philosophie et exégèse dans Le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn ʿEzra, philosophe et poète (Leiden, 1996). Aaron Greenbaum, The Biblical Commentary of Rav Samuel ben Hofni Gaon (Jerusalem, 1978); David E. Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and His Cultural World (Leiden, 1996). Georges Vajda, “Quelques observations en marge du commentaire d’Isaac ibn Ghiyath sur l’Ecclésiaste,” Jewish Quarterly Review 57 (1967), 518 27.

science and medicine 853 101 Tanhum b. Joseph ha-Yerushalmi (d. 1291, Fustāt). Abraham Ibn Ezra _ _ _commentaries, but does criticizes the geonim for including science in their so himself at great length.

halakhic monographs The geonim also composed monographs on halakhic topics, where legal discussions sometimes required some scientific knowledge. While the Bible reveals a very elementary degree of mathematical knowledge, rabbinic literature shows a certain familiarity with Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, and Persian mathematics. Considerable mathematical knowledge was also required for the solution of practical halakhic problems. For example, basic geometry was needed for the calculation of Sabbath boundaries in areas marked by hills and ditches, and some knowledge of geometric progression and exponential equations was needed for problems of inheritance. Trigonometry and mathematical astronomy were important for solving calendrical questions and for reckoning the times of the new moon, the sequence of normal and leap years, and the times of festivals. Thus Seʿadyah’s work on inheritance (Kitāb al-Mawārīth) required basic algebra, fractional calculation, root extractions, and calculations of the areas of fields of different shape. His writings on the calendar involved some knowledge of astronomy and mathematics for manipulating the numbers. Seʿadyah seems to have known Indian numerals, but instead used Hebrew words and letters. He also knew the theory of amicable numbers.102 It is well known that Maimonides included a brief summary of physics and astronomy as well as some psychology in the first volume of his halakhic code, the Mishneh Torah. Yet despite his praise of the sciences, Maimonides wrote no independent works in these areas. He is reported to have composed mathematical treatises, but these are not extant, though we do have some notes to Apollonius’ Conics.103 The section of the Mishneh Torah dealing with the laws of the sanctification of the new moon, however, presents a sophisticated discussion of one of the most difficult

101

102

103

Raphael Dascalu, A Philosopher of Scripture: The Exegesis and Thought of Tanhum ha _ Yerushalmi (Leiden, 2019). Solomon Gandz, “Saadia Gaon as Mathematician,” in Boaz Cohen, ed., Saadia Anniversary Volume (New York, 1943), reprinted in Gandz, Studies in Hebrew Astronomy and Mathematics, 477 529. See Y. Tzvi Langermann, “The Mathematical Writings of Maimonides,” Jewish Quarterly Review 75 (1984), 57 65.

854 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy questions in medieval astronomy: the visibility of the new moon and how at the beginning of the month it can be seen early in the evening.

karaites Karaites engaged in some scientific activities for practical religious purposes; their system of religious law did not rely on a body of authoritative rulings like the Talmud. These primarily included astronomy for their observational lunar calendar and zoology for determining which species of animal (birds and fish) could be eaten.104 They, like the Rabbanites, used scientific theories in their religious philosophy and some included scientific information in their biblical commentaries. Early Karaites, who followed kalām, were usually atomists; al-Qirqisānī and Japheth b. ʿEli were likely atomists, but neither one dealt with the subject directly. Abū Yaʿqūb Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm al-Basīr (Joseph b. Abraham ha-Roʾeh) (d. c. 1040) was a follower of kalām_ and an atomist,105 as was Abū al-Faraj Furqān b. Asad (Jeshuʿa b. Judah), one of his students.

encyclopedias of science Once the Greco-Arabic scientific curriculum became known and digested by medieval Jewish scholars, a number of encyclopedias aimed at embracing the whole of scientific knowledge of the time began to appear. The contents and structure of medieval encyclopedias of science bear a manifold importance. The inclusion or exclusion of a particular discipline in the enumeration of accepted sciences, for example, has consequences for its perception and treatment as a true science as opposed to a pseudo-scientific activity and popular practice. In general, encyclopedias aimed at providing a structured picture of the system of knowledge by defining a hierarchy of sciences, according to which some disciplines are considered propaedeutic to the study of others. Arabic encyclopedias of science, especially alFārābī’s Ihsāʾ al-ʿUlūm (The Enumeration of the Sciences) and Ibn Sīnā’s __ Kitāb al-Shifāʾ (The Book of Healing), exerted a fundamental influence on the works of later Muslim, Jewish, and Christian encyclopedists. The Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-S ̣afāʾ (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity) from tenthcentury Iraq were also influential, though their theoretical approach to 104

105

Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004); Daniel J. Lasker, “Medieval Karaism and Science,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures. Georges Vajda, Al Kitāb al Muhtawī de Yūsuf al Basīr (Leiden, 1985). _ _

science and medicine 855 science, owing to the Brethren’s particular religious and sectarian positions, diverged somewhat from the Aristotelian tradition. The first encyclopedia of science written by a Jewish author dates from the first quarter of the twelfth century: Yesodei ha-Tevuna u-Migdal haEmuna (The Principles of Understanding and the Tower of Faith) by Abraham b. Ḥiyya.106 Also from the twelfth century is the Arabic Kitāb al-Muʿtabar, by Abū al-Barakāt al-Baghdādī (d. c. 1169), mentioned above, written in Baghdad. The latter also follows the Aristotelian order of the sciences, but also includes twenty-five chapters on psychology within the section on physics, including a chapter on visions and dreams.107 In the thirteenth century, Judah b. Solomon ha-Kohen wrote an Arabic encyclopedia of the sciences, Midrash Ḥokhmah, likely while living in Toledo, and translated it into Hebrew in 1247, probably after having moved to northern Italy. The work has not been completely preserved, but it seems to have had two main sections. The first dealt with logic (the first four books of Aristotle’s Organon), physics, and metaphysics, and included a discussion of Genesis, Psalms, and Proverbs. The second focused on mathematics and incidentally also treated the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The work opens with a description of a tripartite curriculum of sciences of clear Aristotelian derivation: natural sciences, which belong to the sublunar realm of generation and corruption; mathematical sciences, which are used to understand the celestial spheres; and divine sciences, which treat the incorruptible world of the divine. THIRTEENTH TO FOURTEENTH CENTURIES

Over the course of the twelfth century, the center of Jewish cultural production moved out of Islamic lands and into Christian Europe. Some Arabic texts by both Jewish and non-Jewish authors were translated into 106

107

See Israel Efros, “Studies in Pre Tibbonian Philosophical Terminology: I. Abraham bar Hiyya, the Prince,” Jewish Quarterly Review 17 (1926), 129 64, 323 68. See Shlomo Pines, “Studies in Abu’l Barakât al Baghdâdî’s Poetics and Metaphysics,” in The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, Volume I: Studies in Abu’l Barakāt al Baghdādī: Physics and Metaphysics (Jerusalem, 1979), [138 36] 275 77; Harry Austryn Wolfson, “The Classification of Sciences in Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy,” in Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams, eds., Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion (Cambridge, MA, 1973); also Wofhart Heinrichs, “The Classification of the Sciences and the Consolidation of Philology in Classical Islam,” in Jan Willem Drijvers and Alasdair A. MacDonald, eds., Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre modern Europe and the Near East (Leiden, 1995), 119 39; Osman Bakar, Classification of Knowledge in Islam (Cambridge, 1998).

856 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy Hebrew, primarily for the use of Jews living in Christian lands who did not speak Arabic in their daily lives and – with some exceptions – did not read or write it. Hebrew became the primary language of Jewish scientific and medical writing. Jewish authors of treatises on astronomy, for example, now composed them – again with some exceptions – in Hebrew, and increasingly supplemented their scientific bookshelf with Hebrew translations from Latin (and vernacular) scientific texts.108 From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, Jewish scientific activity in Christian Europe blossomed. Still, it should be remembered that Jews under Christendom drew on the literary traditions of the Jews in the Islamic world, through works that were still read in Judeo-Arabic, primarily in the field of medicine, and through Hebrew translations of Arabic texts. Fragments of European medical and scientific texts have appeared in the Genizah as well. The two worlds were by no means entirely disconnected. Scientific and medical works continued to be written in the Muslim East, Muslim Spain, and Yemen. In Iraq, Ibn Kammūna al-Baghdādī composed al-Jadīd fī al-Ḥikma (The New Wisdom), a comprehensive treatise on thirteenth-century science and philosophy.109 He also wrote an encyclopedic commentary on al-Suhrawardī’s philosophical (emanationist) Talwīhāt (Elucidations). As in the earlier period, scientific ideas infused works_ of religious thought and exegesis. For example, Tanhum _ b. Joseph ha-Yerushalmi (d. 1291) wrote a scientifically and philosophically informed commentary on the Prophets and Writings called Kitāb al-Ījāz wa-l-Bayān (The Book of Simplification and Elucidation); his commentary on Ecclesiastes is especially permeated with scientific material. He also wrote an Arabic lexicon for the mishnaic Hebrew of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, al-Murshid al-Kāfī (The Sufficient Guide).110 His Kitāb al-Fikr fī alMakhlūqāt wa-Iʿtibār Ḥikmat al-S ̣āniʿ fī l-Mawjūdāt (The Book of Reflection upon the Created Beings and Contemplation of the Wisdom of the Artisan in Existent Things) is no longer extant. Joseph Ibn Waqār of Seville composed astronomical tables in the fourteenth century; the headings are in Arabic, in Hebrew characters.111

108 109

110 111

See Gad Freudenthal’s chapter “Science and Medicine” in volume 6 of this series. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Ibn Kammūna and the New Wisdom,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15 (2005), 277 327; Saʿd b. Mansūr Ibn Kammūna al Baghdādī, Subtle Insights Concerning Knowledge and Practice,_ trans. Y. Tzvi Langermann (New Haven, 2019). See Dascalu, A Philosopher of Scripture. José Chabás Bergón and Bernard R. Goldstein, Essays on Medieval Computational Astronomy (Leiden, 2014), 44.

science and medicine 857 And a recently discovered Genizah fragment of Isaac Israeli’s Yesod ʿOlam (Foundation of the World), composed in Toledo during the first half of the fourteenth century, provides evidence for the wide circulation of mathematical and astronomical ideas, this time from West to East. The first three chapters of the book deal with mathematics (in particular, spherical trigonometry), cosmology, and astronomy; the goal of this work was nominally to provide the context and intellectual tools needed for calendrical reckoning, which occupies the book’s final chapters.112 medicine Under the Mamlūks, Jewish physicians faced increasing difficulties. We know of two prominent Jewish physicians in Cairo, al-Sadīd al-Dimyātī _ and Faraj Allāh b. Saghīr, who served the Mamlūk sultan, al-Nāsir Muhammad b. Qalāwūn. They seem to have been part of an extended _ family that had served Muslim rulers as physicians for centuries, Karaite but, under increasing pressure in the fourteenth century, most members of the family converted to Islam. Another Jewish physician, Asad al-Yahūdī, served Mamlūk emirs in Syria at around the same time.113 In medicine, a few works of some importance were composed in Islamic lands. Tentatively dated to thirteenth-century Syria is the commentary by Nuʿmān b. Abī al-Ridāʾ b. Sālim b. Ishāq al-Isrāʾīlī to Kitāb al-Miʾa _ _ the medical textbook (Book of the Hundred), of Abū Sahl al-Masīhī 114 _ (960–1000). Abū al-Fadl Dāwūd b. Sulaymān Ibn Abī al-Bayān al-Isrāʾīlī (d. 1236), a _ Karaite physician, studied with the Muslim physician Ibn Jumayʿ and served in the court of al-ʿĀdil. He directed the Nāsirī hospital in Cairo and _ wrote a book of recipes to be used in hospitals, al-Dustūr al-Bīmāristānī fī 115 al-Adwiyya al-Murakkaba. Abū al-Munā Dāwūd b. Abī Nasr al-Kūhin _ 112

113

114

115

Ilana Wartenberg, “The Discovery of a Fragment of Isaac ha Israeli’s Yesod Olam in the Cairo Genizah,” Zutot 9 (2012), 51 58. Amir Mazor, “Jewish Court Physicians in the Mamluk Sultanate during the First Half of the 8th/14th Century,” Medieval Encounters 20 (2014), 38 65. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Nuʿmān al Isrāʾīlī and His Commentary to Abū Sahl al Masīhī’s _ Kitāb al Miʾa (‘Book of the Hundred’),” https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31158.45126. 2 See EI , s.v. “Ibn Abi’l Bayan” (J. Vernet); Dāwūd Ibn Abī al Bayān, “al Dustūr al Bīmāristānī in Paul Sbath, Le Formulaire des hôpitaux d’Ibn abil Bayan, médicin du bimaristan annacery au Caire au XIIIe siècle” [Arabic], Bulletin de l’Institut d’Egypte 15 (1932 33), 9 78; Efraim Lev, Leigh Chipman, and Friedrich Niessen, “A Hospital Handbook for the Community: Evidence for the Extensive Use of Ibn Abī’l Bayān’s al Dustūr al Bīmāristānī by the Jewish Practitioners of Medieval Cairo,” Journal of Semitic Studies 53 (2008), 103 18.

858 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy al-ʿAttār al-Isrāʾīlī, a Jewish physician active in Egypt,116 wrote a popular __ twenty-five-chapter manual for pharmacists in 1260 called Minhāj alDukkān wa-Dustūr al-Aʿyān fī Aʿmāl wa-Tarākīb al-Adwiyya al-Nāfiʿa lil-Insān (Management of the [Pharmacist’s] Shop and the Rule for the Notables on the Preparation and Composition of Medicines Beneficial to Man). The manual discusses simples, substitute drugs, weights and measures, compound medicines, and more.117 The Arabic commentary (written originally in Arabic characters and later transcribed into Hebrew characters) by the fourteenth-century Solomon b. Abraham Ibn Yaʿīsh of Seville (d. 1345) on Ibn Sīnā’s alQānūn paralleled in its philological and scholastic methods the commentaries on Ibn Sīnā produced in the world of the European universities, which is surprising given Ibn Yaʿīsh’s separation from that world.118

yemen Yemenite communities, from the thirteenth century through the end of the medieval period, were home to a number of Jewish scholars, whose interests included science and philosophy.119 Their scientific activity peaked in the fifteenth century and, judging from their Arabic texts copied in Hebrew characters, they displayed a particular interest in astronomy and, less so, in mathematics. While enthusiastic followers of Maimonides, Yemenite Jewish scholars were eclectic; they tended to adopt a Neoplatonist cosmology and were open to astrological concepts, probably influenced in this by Ismāʿīlī thought. Yemenite prayer books often included a table of the astrologically relevant stations of the moon, taken from the Brethren of Purity, and at least two Arabic astrological texts have been found in Yemenite manuscripts in Hebrew characters, including 116

117

118

119

Leigh Chipman and Efraim Lev, “Syrup from the Apothecary’s Shop: A Genizah Fragment Containing one of the Earliest Manuscripts of Minhaj al Dukkan,” Journal of Semitic Studies 50 (2006), 137 67. Leigh Chipman, The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamlūk Cairo (Leiden, 2010); Paul B. Fenton, “Le Minhāj ad Dukkān d’Abū l Munā Da’ūd al Isrā’īlī: Contribution à l’histoire de la pharmacologie,” in Gad Freudenthal and Samuel Kottek, eds., Mélanges d’histoire de la médecine hébraïque (Leiden, 2003), 81 89. See Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Solomon ibn Yaʿīsh’s Commentary on the Qānūn of Ibn Sina” [Hebrew], Kiryat Sefer 63 (1990 91), 1331 33. For the Jews of Yemen, see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Cultural Contacts of the Jews of Yemen,” in Amir Harrak, ed., Contacts between Cultures: West Asia and North Africa (Lewiston, NY, 1992), 281 85; Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Yemenite Philosophical Midrash as a Source for the Intellectual History of the Jews of Yemen,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity (Leiden, 1995), 335 47.

science and medicine 859 120 al-Bīrūnī’s Instruction in the Art of Astrology. The Letters of the Brethren of Purity on geometry and astronomy were also transcribed in Hebrew characters. Evidence for these individuals and their scientific activity includes an Arabic treatise on twilight that was copied in Hebrew letters.121 At the end of the fifteenth century, David (Aluel) b. Yeshaʿ commented on some of the astronomical writings of Abū Bakr al-Fārisī, an important Yemenite astronomer, and he composed a commentary to Maimonides’ Laws of Sanctification of the New Moon, in which he adduces al-Fārisī’s zījes, and compares them with other zījes available to him. Aluel also seems to have known an astronomical work by one of the members of the Maragha school, Qutb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s Nihāyat al-Idrāk. In addition, _ he wrote commentaries on al-Khiraqī’s Tabsira and Jabir b. Aflah’s _ _ (fl. c. 1120) Islāh al-Majistī. _ _ _ FIFTEENTH CENTURY

Beginning with the riots and forced conversions of 1391 in Spain and continuing with the later expulsions of the Jews from Spain and Portugal a century later, Jewish scientific expertise, mostly originating in Christian Iberia and often passing through Italy, began to flow toward the Islamicate world. Sephardic Jews, who had been involved in astronomical and other scientific circles around the various royal courts, licensed as physicians in the various regions of Spain, and even taught astronomy (for example) at or around universities such as the University of Salamanca, were driven across the Mediterranean. Some found refuge in North Africa and many settled in the Ottoman Empire, as well as in the islands of the Eastern Mediterranean where the Venetian Empire had established substantial colonial outposts. sephardic refugees in north africa In North Africa, we find some scientifically inclined refugees from the Iberian Peninsula, including Simon b. S ̣emah Duran (1361–1444), a phys_ and the natural sciences, ician and learned in philosophy, mathematics, born in Mallorca who fled to Algiers after 1391, where he became chief rabbi. His Magen Avot treats human and animal physiology and pathology,

120 121

Leicht, “Toward a History of Hebrew Astrological Literature.” Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Transcriptions of Arabic Treatises into the Hebrew Alphabet: An Underappreciated Mode of Transmission,” in F. Jamil Ragep and P. Salley Ragep, eds., Tradition, Transmission, Transformation (Leiden, 1996), 247 60.

860 gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy psychology, sound, and more.122 Simon’s son Solomon (1400–67) studied both medicine and science with his father and succeeded the latter as chief rabbi. Another refugee was Abraham Zacuto (1452–1515), who composed an important astronomical work in Hebrew, ha-Ḥibbur ha-Gadol, in Spain in 1478, and the Almanach Perpetuum, in Leiria in 1496. Fleeing Portugal in 1497, Zacuto settled in Tunis where alongside his historical work, Sefer Yuhasin, he composed a treatise using eclipses and conjunctions to calculate_ the time of the messianic redemption. He updated his tables for the year 1501 and did so again in 1513. He also calculated the Jewish calendar for his time.123

the ottoman empire Under the Ottomans, Spanish Jews settled in Istanbul, Salonika, Adrianople, Nicopolis, Jerusalem, Safed, Damascus, Egypt, and Asia Minor – in Bursa, Tokat, and Amasya. These Sephardic Jews, some of whom were literate in Latin as well as the vernacular, had access to a corpus of scientific and medical literature in Hebrew. When they arrived, they also encountered a rich tradition of Byzantine Jewish science. The science thus produced by Jews living in the Islamic lands under Ottoman rule was a continuation of two different scientific traditions, both stemming from lands under Christian rule (Iberia and Byzantium), and both written in Hebrew. Under the Ottoman sultans, the court was an important locus of power and patronage, and again directed the scientific efforts of Jews. A burst of interest in astronomical instruments at the beginning of the sixteenth century has been traced to the sultan’s interests, for example.124 Jews also held positions at court as physicians; Jacob of Gaeta was private physician to Mehmed II, as were members of the Hamon family. In Constantinople (later Istanbul), where Romaniote Jews were concentrated and formed an unusually important segment of the population, the Byzantine Jewish scientific tradition was carried on by a number of interesting individuals. Mordecai b. Eliezer Comtino (1402–82) combined rabbinic expertise (he was a student of Enoch Saporta) with engagement in the sciences, in particular astronomy and mathematics. He included scientific information in his biblical commentary and in his 122

123

124

Joshua O. Lebowitz, “R. Simon ben Zemah Duran (1361 1444) and His Conception of Metabolism in Magen Avot,” Korot (1979), 626 33. See José Chabás and Bernard R. Goldstein, Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula: Abraham Zacut and the Transition from Manuscript to Print (Philadelphia, 2000). Y. Tzvi Langermann, “A Compendium of Renaissance Science: Taʿalumot hokmah by _ Moses Galeano,” Aleph 7 (2007), 285 318.

science and medicine 861 supercommentaries on Ibn Ezra. He composed an independent treatise on arithmetic and geometry, Sefer ha-Ḥeshbon ve-ha-Middot, as well as a commentary on astronomical tables. He also wrote on astronomical instruments such as the astrolabe and the gnomon. Two of his students also wrote on mathematics: Elijah Mizrahi (d. 1526) in Sefer ha-Mispar, and _ the Karaite Caleb Afendopolo in a commentary on the Hebrew translation of Nicomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic, which includes extensive digressions on astronomy and astrology. Elijah Mizrahi also seems to have composed a commentary to Ptolemy’s Almagest, using_ the Hebrew translation by Jacob Anatoli. While referring to the Arabic versions for alternate readings, he corrected the text in places on the basis of the original Greek as well. In this commentary, Mizrahi _ pays special attention to astronomical instrumentation, cosmography, and lunar motion, and he expands the debates on the problems of Ptolemaic mathematical astronomy and Aristotelian physics initially enunciated (among Jews) by Maimonides.125 These debates had been reinvigorated in late medieval Provence and Aragon with Gersonides and Profayt Duran; Mizrahi’s interest may have been spurred by the arrival of Hebrew astro_ manuscripts from Christian Iberia and Provence. nomical Moses Galeano (Mūsā Jālīnūs; fl. 1497–1502) wrote in Hebrew and Arabic; while he traveled through the broader Italian world, he also lived for a while in Istanbul, where he was in turn a student of Elijah Mizrahi. _ His Taʿalumot Ḥokhmah (Puzzles of Wisdom) considers a homocentric astronomical model that attempts to account for the motions of the planets using no epicycles or eccentrics, but only orbs rotating uniformly about the center of the earth.126 At the same time Ilyās b. Ibrāhīm al-Yahūdī (d. after 1512), who was also at the court of Bayezid II and a later convert to Islam, wrote a Hebrew text – which he translated into Arabic – on an astronomical instrument of his own invention. In the last quarter of the fifteenth century, Joseph b. Solomon Ṭaitasaq, Salonikan kabbalist and rabbinic scholar (c. 1465–1545), composed _a _short manual on how to construct an astrolabe; the text is extant in a single manuscript. His biblical commentaries also include extended passages translated from Latin scholastic authors, including Aquinas and Egidius of Rome.127

125

126

127

Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Science in the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Cultural Orbit,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, 438 53. Robert Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe,” Isis 105 (2014), 32 57. Joseph Sermoneta, “Scholastic Philosophic Literature in Rabbi Joseph Taitasaq’s Porat _ _ Yosef ” [Hebrew], Sefunot 11 (1978), 135 85.

862

gabriele ferrario and maud kozodoy CONCLUSION

As we have seen, over the first seven centuries of the first millennium ce, a vast corpus of philosophy, astronomy, medicine, mathematics, astrology, and much more made its way from Greek, often through Syriac translations, into Arabic. The resulting scientific and philosophical synthesis was an intellectual heritage broadly available to Arabophone Muslims, Christians, and Jews. During the late eighth and ninth centuries, before the Greco-Arabic scientific worldview had become fully systematized and codified, a tiny group of works on scientific subjects were written in Hebrew, in the style of the Mishnah, for a specifically Jewish audience. But from the tenth century on, Jews who lived in the Islamic world and participated in the general intellectual environment contributed to the common corpus of scientific knowledge. Over the course of the twelfth century, the center of Jewish cultural production moved out of Islamic lands and into Christian Europe, where Jewish scientific activity flourished. With this shift, the shape of intellectual culture changed. Many Judeo-Arabic manuscripts disappeared, as readers lost fluency in Arabic. A different social and cultural environment under Christendom also meant that many texts simply no longer enjoyed the same relevance. In the meantime, among those Jews in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries who lived in the Islamicate world, in North Africa, Egypt, Yemen, and eventually the Eastern Mediterranean under the Ottomans, some scientific and medical works were still being composed, many of which we know of only from fragments or booklists in the Genizah. But by the middle of the fifteenth century, Jewish communities in some parts of the Ottoman Empire, especially Istanbul and later Salonika, were home to a thriving intellectual – and scientific – culture. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chipman, Leigh. The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamlūk Cairo (Leiden, 2010). Freudenthal, Gad, ed. Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures (Cambridge, 2011). Gandz, Solomon. “Studies in Hebrew Mathematics and Astronomy,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 9 (1938–39), 5–50. Goldstein, Bernard R. “The Heritage of Arabic Science in Hebrew,” in Roshdi Rashed, ed., Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science (New York, 1996), 276–83.

science and medicine 863 Gómez-Aranda, Mariano. “The Contribution of the Jews of Spain to the Transmission of Science in the Middle Ages,” European Review 16 (2008), 169–81. Harvey, Steven, ed. The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (Dordrecht, 2000). Langermann, Y. Tzvi. “Arabic Writings in Hebrew Manuscripts: A Preliminary Relisting,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 6 (1996), 137–60. The Jews and the Sciences in the Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1999). “On the Beginnings of Hebrew Scientific Literature and on Studying History through ‘Maqbilot’ (Parallels),” Aleph 2 (2002), 169–89. Lev, Efraim, and Zohar Amar. Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean according to the Cairo Genizah (Leiden, 2008). Lev, Efraim, and Leigh Chipman. Medical Prescriptions in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, Practical Medicine and Pharmacology in Medieval Egypt (Leiden, 2012). Lévy, Tony. “The Establishment of the Mathematical Bookshelf of the Medieval Hebrew Scholar: Translations and Translators,” Science in Context 10 (1997), 431–51. Sarfatti, Gad B. Mathematical Terminology in Hebrew Scientific Literature of the Middle Ages [English and Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1968). Sela, Shlomo. “The Fuzzy Borders between Astronomy and Astrology in the Thought and Work of Three Twelfth-Century Jewish Intellectuals,” Aleph 1 (2001), 59–100. Sela, Shlomo, and Gad Freudenthal. “Abraham ibn Ezra’s Scholarly Writings: A Chronological Listing,” Aleph 6 (2006), 13–55. Smithuis, Renate. “Abraham ibn Ezra’s Astrological Works in Hebrew and Latin: New Discoveries and Exhaustive Listing,” Aleph 6 (2006), 239–338. Steinschneider, Moritz. Die Hebraeischen Uebersetzsungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Berlin, 1893). Zonta, Mauro. “Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology in Hebrew Medieval Encyclopedias,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 6 (1996), 263–315.

chapter 27

MAGIC gideon bohak*

“Magic” is a notoriously difficult term whose exact meaning tends to change from one scholarly treatment to the next.1 For the purpose of the current survey, magic is the attempt to achieve concrete results in the real world through actions that seek to harness or influence supernatural forces.2 However, as much of Judaism easily falls under such a definition, in the following survey we shall focus especially on practices that remained outside the framework of “normative Judaism” as embedded in its standard halakhic codes and prayer books. Armed with the above definition, one quickly notes that the practice of magic is well-attested in the Jewish world from the biblical period onward.3 It is especially well-documented beginning in late antiquity, when Jewish magic became more scribal (as against its earlier phase, when most of the

* I would like to thank Reimund Leicht and Marina Rustow for their comments on an earlier version of this chapter. All remaining errors are, of course, my own. 1 For a useful survey of this issue and its scholarly history as well as a definition that differs from the one offered here see Yuval Harari, Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah, trans. Batya Stein (Detroit, 2017), 15 175. 2 For a rare example of a medieval Jewish definition of magic, see the words of the tenth century Yaʿqūb al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wal Marāqib, trans. Leon Nemoy (New York, 1939 43), sec. VI.9.1, 3:575: “The type of witchcraft (sihr) which is forbidden to be _ practiced is the one about which the performers thereof claim that it works miracles, transforms nature, sways (human) hearts towards love or hatred, generates illnesses in, or removes them from, (human) bodies without using such means as comestibles, potions, blows, or similar things, or that it counteracts all these by means of spoken, written, or otherwise expressed (incantations)” (trans. Leon Nemoy, “Al Qirqisānī on the Occult Sciences,” Jewish Quarterly Review 76 (1986), 337; see also 337n15); see also note 15. 3 For useful introductions to the Jewish magical tradition, accompanied by many excellent photographs, see Filip Vukosavović, ed. Angels and Demons: Jewish Magic through the Ages (Jerusalem, 2010); Gideon Bohak and Anne Hélène Hoog, eds., Magie, anges et démons dans la tradition juive (Paris, 2015). For broader surveys, see Georges Vajda, “La magie en Israël,” in Le monde du sorcier (Paris, 1966), 127 53; and esp. Yuval Harari, “Jewish Magic: An Annotated Overview” [Hebrew], El Prezente: Studies in Sephardic Culture 5 (2011), 13* 85*.

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magic 865 magical practices were transmitted and executed in an oral fashion).4 Jewish magic in the period from the seventh to the late fifteenth centuries in Muslim-ruled lands has not yet been properly surveyed, especially since Joshua Trachtenberg’s classic treatment of Jewish magic deals only with the Ashkenazic world, and more recent scholarship on Jewish magic has focused on earlier or later phases.5 Moreover, many of the sources pertaining to such a survey have yet to be published, translated, and analyzed. Thus, the following sketch is merely an attempt to put some general order to a chaotic and mostly uncharted body of evidence.6 We shall begin with the available sources for the study of Jewish magic from the medieval Islamic world, turn to a broad overview of its main features, examine the magical traditions that shaped its transformation, try to assess who its practitioners and clients were, and look at the controversies surrounding its use and at the complex movement of “magical” practices into the realm of “religion” and vice versa. THE SOURCES

In the study of magical texts and practices, it often is useful to separate “insider” evidence, that is, texts and objects produced by the magicians themselves, from “outsider” evidence, that is, descriptions, discussions, or accusations of magic by people who were not themselves practitioners of it. For the Jews of Islamic lands in the Middle Ages, both types of sources are available in great abundance. On the “insider” front, we have many hundreds of fragments from the Cairo Genizah that contain magical recipes and magical recipe books, amulets, adjurations, erotic spells, curses, and “dream requests” (rituals for summoning a dream or an angelic revelation in order to find out hidden facts) dating mostly from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries 4

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For the “scribalization” of the Jewish magical tradition in late antiquity, see Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge, 2008), esp. 143 44, 283 85. See Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion (New York, 1939; reprint, Philadelphia, 2004, with an introduction by Moshe Idel). For more recent scholarship, see Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic; Harari, Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah; Jeffrey Howard Chajes, Between Worlds: Dybbuks, Exorcists, and Early Modern Judaism (Philadelphia, 2003); Gideon Bohak, “Prolegomena to the Study of the Jewish Magical Tradition,” Currents in Biblical Literature 8 (2009), 107 50. For earlier surveys, see Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols. (2nd ed., New York, 1952 83), 8:3 29; Shaul Shaked, “The Jewish Magical Literature in the Lands of Islam: Notes and Examples” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 15 (1983), 15 28; Shaul Shaked, “Between Judaism and Islam: Some Issues in Popular Religion” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 60 (1994), 4 19. Other pertinent studies will be mentioned below.

866 gideon bohak and providing direct access both to the manuals used by Jewish magicians at the time and to the “finished products” that they produced for specific clients.7 We also have non-Genizah manuscripts with magical recipes, including several large manuscripts of the fifteenth or sixteenth century with hundreds of recipes each, including many that had been circulating in the Jewish magical tradition for centuries. These manuscripts provide ample evidence of the circulation of magical practices among Jews in Islamic lands.8 And, in addition to these two large textual corpora, we

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For the most important publications, see Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem, 1985; 3rd edition, 1998); Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem, 1993); Lawrence H. Schiffman and Michael D. Swartz, Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Geniza: Selected Texts from Taylor Schechter Box K1 (Sheffield, 1992); Peter Schäfer and Shaul Shaked, Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza (Tübingen, vol. 1, 1994; vol. 2, 1997; vol. 3, 1999); Emma Abate, Sigillare il mondo: Amuleti e ricette dalla Genizah: Manoscritti magici ebraici della biblioteca della Alliance Israélite Universelle di Parigi (Palermo, 2015). For broader surveys, see Norman Golb, “The Esoteric Practices of the Jews of Fatimid Egypt,” American Philosophical Society Yearbook (1965), 533 35; Norman Golb, “Aspects of the Historical Background of Jewish Life in Medieval Egypt,” in Alexander Altmann, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 1 18, esp. 12 18; Peter Schäfer, “Jewish Magic Literature in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” Journal of Jewish Studies 41 (1990), 75 91; Steven M. Wasserstrom, “The Magical Texts in the Cairo Geniza,” in Joshua Blau and Stefan Reif, eds., Genizah Research after Ninety Years: The Case of Judaeo Arabic (Cambridge, 1992), 160 66; Steven M. Wasserstrom, “The Unwritten Chapter: Notes Towards a Social and Religious History of Geniza Magic,” in Shaul Shaked, ed., Officina Magica (Leiden, 2005), 269 93; Shaul Shaked, “Medieval Jewish Magic in Relation to Islam: Theoretical Attitudes and Genres,” in Benjamin H. Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren, eds., Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction (Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner) (Leiden, 2000), 97 109; Gideon Bohak, “Towards a Catalogue of the Magical, Astrological, Divinatory and Alchemical Fragments from the Cambridge Genizah Collections,” in Siam Bhayro and Ben Outhwaite, eds., “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2010), 53 79; Gideon Bohak, “Specimens of Judaeo Arabic and Arabic Magical Texts from the Cairo Genizah,” in Marcela A. Garcia Probert et al., eds., Amulets and Talismans in the Islamic World (Leiden, forthcoming). For a detailed analysis of one such manuscript (formerly MS Sassoon 290, now MS Geneva Bibliothèque publique et universitaire 145; #39891 at the Institute for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts of the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem; early sixteenth century, 670 pages), see Meir Benayahu, “The Book Shoshan Yesod ha ʿOlam by Rabbi Yosef Tirshom,” in Israel Weinstock, ed., Temirin [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1972), 1:187 269. For a full edition of a similar manuscript (formerly MS Sassoon 56, now MS New York Public Library Heb. 190; #9347; written in the 1460s, 260 pages), see Gideon Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript of Jewish Magic: MS New York Public Library, Heb. 190 (Formerly Sassoon 56) Introduction, Annotated Edition and Facsimile [Hebrew], 2 vols. (Los Angeles, 2014).

magic 867 have stray finds from other parts of the Islamicate world that help us complement the “insider” data at our disposal.9 One of the striking features of the “insider” evidence is the recurrence of many specific recipes in manuscripts of widely divergent chronological and geographical provenances, a sure sign of the wide diffusion and extensive copying of this literature. Such parallel recipes often display many different textual variants, the result of constant transmission, translation, adaptation, and sheer textual entropy. Thus, in one fifteenth-century manuscript of an unknown provenance but produced by a scribe who was fluent in Arabic and well-acquainted with Muslim magical practices, we find three different versions of the same basic magical recipe intended to quell a storm at sea. The different versions of the recipe clearly reached the copyist of this manuscript at different times, and each time he found the recipe interesting enough to be copied into his own handbook, perhaps even without realizing that he had done so earlier.10 In the same manuscript, we also find an erotic magical recipe that calls for taking an unbaked piece of clay, inscribing an elaborate adjuration upon it (“Angel names + I adjure you + just as this clay burns in the fire, so shall the heart of X burn in love for Y,” etc.), and throwing the inscribed shard into the fire. This is a recipe that circulated in the Jewish magical tradition from late antiquity onward, and is documented in more than ten different copies. The earliest example is a group of burnt clay shards found in Ḥorvat Rimmon (between Hebron and Beersheba) in a layer dating to the fifth or sixth century ce, inscribed with an adjuration very similar to the one in our fifteenth-century manuscript.11 Finally, the same manuscript also contains an erotic magical recipe 9

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For two specific cases, see Shaul Shaked, “A Jewish Aramaic Amulet from Afghanistan,” in Károly Daniel Dobos and Miklós Köszeghy, eds., With Wisdom as a Robe: Qumran and Other Jewish Studies in Honour of Ida Fröhlich [Hebrew], (Sheffield, 2009), 485 94; Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern, “A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah,” Ginzei Qedem 10 (2014), 9* 44*. MS NYPL 190, at 110, 139, and 180 (Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:153, 182, 222). In other cases (for example, 100; Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:142), different versions of the same recipe were gathered together on a single page, and in many other cases the scribe corrected the recipes he had already copied with the help of other copies of the same recipes, all of which shows that he was well aware of the phenomenon of parallel versions of a single recipe. MS NYPL 190, 178 (Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:219); Naveh Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, A10; Naveh and Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae, G22 (= T S Misc. 27.4.11). The latest copy of this recipe currently known to me is found in a modern manuscript of Jewish magic bought from a Kurdish rabbi in the early twentieth century see R. Campbell Thompson, “The Folklore of Mossoul,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology 28 (1907), 166. I hope to edit all the versions of this recipe of which I am aware elsewhere.

868 gideon bohak that calls for inscribing a piece of cloth with an adjuration and some magic signs and using it as a wick, on the same analogy between the fire of a candle and the fire of love (see Figure 27.1). A piece of cloth with magic signs matching those of our manuscript almost to the dot was found in the Cairo Genizah, intended to make a certain Tarshakin son of Amat-Allāh burn in love for a certain Ghadab, daughter of Tuffaha (see Figure 27.2). _ to the twelfth or Though the Genizah piece is paleographically dateable thirteenth century, and thus predates our manuscript by two or three centuries, it was produced according to the same recipe, which itself was probably older, perhaps dating back to pre-Islamic times.12 Such examples show that we may speak of a Jewish magical tradition, with much of the knowledge transmitted in textual units – be they “literary” books of magic, such as Sefer ha-Razim (The Book of Mysteries), Ḥarba de-Moshe (The Sword of Moses), Sefer Raziʾel, or formless formularies with many different recipes loosely strung together and then copied from one cluster of recipes to another and from one practitioner to the next.13 Thus, while some of the manuscripts and Genizah fragments in question are hard to date, and their ultimate sources often cannot be identified, their sheer abundance facilitates the reconstruction of their transmission and diffusion. When we turn from the “insider” evidence to the “outsider” sources, we should point out the many discussions of magic and magicians by medieval Jewish halakhic authorities, biblical interpreters, polemicists, philosophers, mystics and historians, all of which shed much light on the Jewish magical texts and practices known to them.14 These sources range in scope and attitude from Hayya Gaʾon’s painstaking attempts to analyze the effectiveness and halakhic permissibility of different magical and mystical practices 12

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MS NYPL 190, 181 (Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:223); and Naveh Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, G1 (= T S AS 142.174). I am grateful to Dr. Edna Engel for dating the fragment. One wonders why this piece of cloth was not turned into a wick and burned in a candle perhaps it was abandoned in medias res, or maybe it was manufactured according to a variant recipe that did not prescribe burning. For Sefer ha Razim and the Harba de Moshe see below. Sefer Raziel was printed in Amsterdam in 1701, but is based on older Jewish magical texts, some of them demon strably originating in the Islamic world; see Reimund Leicht, Astrologumena Judaica: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Astrologischen Literatur der Juden (Tübingen, 2006), 187 257; Bill Rebiger, “Zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Sefer Razi’el ha Malakh,” Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 32 (2005), 1 22. Unfortunately, no attempt has ever been made to gather all this evidence or assess its usefulness for the study of Jewish magic. For useful starting points, see Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1935; reprint New York, 1972), 2:55 57, 75 83; Yuval Harari, “Leadership, Authority, and the ‘Other’ in the Debate over Magic from the Karaites to Maimonides,” The Journal for the Study of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry 1 (2007), 79 101.

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Figure 27.1 MS New York, New York Public Library Heb. 190, p. 181 (published in Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:223)

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Figure 27.2 CUL T S AS 142.174 (published in Naveh Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, G1)

to al-Qirqisānī’s or Maimonides’ or Abraham Abulafia’s detailed but indignant discussions of contemporary Jewish magical practices and alḤarīzī’s frivolous descriptions of the magicians he had met on his many journeys.15 And as we shall see below, the “insider” sources often help elucidate the “outsider” evidence, whereas the “outsider” sources often help us contextualize the magical recipes and practices we find in the “insider” sources. Together, both types of sources can help us reconstruct a detailed and nuanced image of medieval Jewish magic. It must be noted, however, that some types of magic, and especially those which were transmitted orally and performed in secrecy, are less accessible to us, which might mean, for example, that we know less about the magic performed by Jewish women than that performed by men. THE AIMS AND TECHNIQUES OF MEDIEVAL JEWISH MAGIC

One of the first impressions that strikes any reader of the “insider” sources for the study of Jewish magic is how repetitive their aims tend to be. Many 15

Hayya Gaʾon: see below. Qirqisānī: Leon Nemoy, “Al Qirqisānī on the Occult Sciences,” Jewish Quarterly Review 76 (1986), 329 67. Maimonides: Aviezer Ravitzky, “Maimonides and His Disciples on Linguistic Magic and ‘the Madness of the Writers of Amulets,’” in Avi Sagi and Nahem Ilan, eds., Jewish Culture in the Eye of the Storm: A Jubilee Book in Honor of Yosef Ahituv [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 2002), 431 58 (reprinted in Aviezer Ravitzky, ʿIyyunim Maimoniyim [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006), 181 204), both with much further bibliography. Abulafia: Moshe Idel, “Between the Magic of the Holy Names and the Kabbalah of the Names of R. Abraham Abulafia” [Hebrew], Mahanaim _ for 14 (2002), 79 96. Al Harīzī: Note the description of a qevisa type ritual but summoning snakes and vipers rather than demons in Sefer _Tahkemoni, maqama 44 (ed. Yahalom Katsumata); for additional examples, see maqama 28_ with S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 1:323 24 and 483 84, and maqama 24, with Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Al Harizi’s Astrologer: A Document of Jewish Islamic Relations,” Studies in Muslim Jewish Relations 1 (1993), 165 77.

magic 871 magical recipes are preceded by a title explaining their purpose (“For a woman having trouble giving birth,” “For love,” “To kill an enemy,” “To exorcise a demon”), and other magical texts explain what a certain practice can achieve (“If you use it in this manner, it is good for healing”), but a list of the different aims and their frequency would reveal a rather limited set of concerns. Magical recipes for medicinal purposes seem infinite, be it the fight against diseases and bodily pains or solving problems of infertility or assisting in pregnancy and childbirth. These are joined by numerous recipes for protection from demons, witchcraft, the evil eye, venomous creatures, robbers, and other threats. Next in frequency of appearance are interpersonal relations: making someone like you or desire you sexually, making someone be kind to you or submit to your will, separating lovers, or turning friends into enemies.16 There are other aggressive magical practices, including silencing, maiming, exiling, or killing one’s opponents.17 Just as frequent, perhaps even more so, are magical practices intended to divine the future or ascertain hidden facts, including frequent recourse to dream requests, oil and fingernail divination (one smears one’s thumb with a shiny liquid and asks a young boy to look at it and report what he sees), and various rituals for detecting thieves or discovering a lost or stolen object.18 Finally, some magical practices seek to assure personal or business success, including recipes for acquiring a good memory, mastering large bodies of knowledge, attracting customers to one’s shop, returning a runaway slave, or catching more fish at sea.19 These six main types of

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And see the detailed survey in Ortal Paz Saar, Jewish Love Magic: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages (Leiden, 2017). And see Yuval Harari, “If You Wish to Kill A Man: Aggressive Magic and the Defense against It in Ancient Jewish Magic” [Hebrew], Jewish Studies 37 (1997), 111 42. For the dream requests, see Alessia Bellusci, “The History of the She’elat Halom in the Middle East: From the Medieval Era Back to Late Antiquity” (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2016); for rituals for detecting thieves, see Gideon Bohak, “Catching a Thief: The Jewish Trials of a Christian Ordeal,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 13 (2006), 344 62. These divinatory magical practices join a much larger body of non magical divinatory techniques, such as astrological prognostications, dream interpretation, gorallot (sortes, or lot casting), geomancy (divination from patterns created by sand, pebbles, or ink marks), physiognomy, palmomancy (foretelling the future from the involuntary twitches of one’s body), and so on, all of which lie outside the scope of the present survey. And see Yuval Harari, “‘To Open the Heart’: Magical Practices for Gaining Knowledge, Understanding and Memory in Judaism in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages,” in Zeev Gries, Haim Kreisel, and Boaz Huss, eds., Shefa’ Tal: Festschrift for Bracha Zak [Hebrew] (Beersheba, 2004), 303 47; Yuval Harari, “Power and Money: Economic Aspects of the Use of Magic by Jews in Ancient Times and the Early Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 85 (2000), 14 42.

872 gideon bohak aims – the medicinal, apotropaic, erotic, aggressive, divinatory, and commercial – figure prominently in any Jewish magical recipe book. There is also a host of less-frequent aims, including magical recipes for “path-jumping” (instantaneous teleportation from one place to another), for becoming invisible, for finding water in a waterless place, and for reviving the dead.20 The entire list would probably look quite similar to one based on late antique Greco-Roman or medieval Christian or Islamic magic, with some adjustment to Jewish cultural preferences (as in the stress laid on memorizing the Torah), social realia (as in the dearth of agricultural magic, such as recipes for curing farm animals), or local conditions (as in the dearth of weather-related magic, such as recipes to avert hailstorms). Occasionally, one finds minor regional differences between different Jewish communities – such as the occurrence in Italian-Jewish magical manuscripts of recipes for winning in card games and at gambling, recipes that only rarely appear in the Cairo Genizah texts – but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.21 Like others, Jews used magic in areas in which they felt most helpless – and least assisted by their “normative” religious system. When we turn from the aims of the magical recipes to the techniques used to achieve these aims, Jewish magic is likewise not very different from the magical practices of other cultures. First and foremost, Jewish magic is characterized by its logocentric mindset: the two most common imperatives in Jewish magical recipes are “Write (the spell)” and “Recite (the spell).” These scribal and oral actions are often accompanied by other activities, including the manipulation of ingredients and implements, the observation of a schedule (certain hours were deemed conducive for specific aims), and the completion of preparatory rituals such as fasting and purification.22 The underlying assumption behind all these practices is that there are hidden powers all around us that can be harnessed for specific aims. Methods for doing so included adjuring angels or demons to perform certain deeds or abstain from others; using the powers of God’s secret names or biblical verses and Jewish prayers to coerce angels and demons into submission; using the occult powers of semantically meaningless words and signs; using the occult properties of certain mineral, vegetal, or animal substances; “bringing down” the powers of the astral 20

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For “path jumping,” see Mark Verman and Shulamit H. Adler, “Path Jumping in the Jewish Magical Tradition,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 1 (1993/94), 131 48. For recipes for gambling, see Ortal Paz Saar, “A Genizah Magical Fragment and Its European Parallels,” Journal of Jewish Studies 55 (2014), 237 62, esp. 251 53. For these instructions, see Michael D. Swartz, “‘Like the Ministering Angels’: Ritual and Purity in Early Jewish Mysticism and Magic,” AJS Review 19 (1994), 135 67.

magic 873 bodies in order to “charge” earthly objects (on which more below); using the powers of contagion (e.g., using a piece of a victim’s garment to bewitch him or her erotically), homeopathy (e.g., manufacturing a “voodoo” doll and stabbing it), and analogy (e.g., insisting that “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah were burnt,” or “Just as this shard burns,” “so shall the heart of person X burn in love for person Y”); and so on.23 Comparing this list of magical techniques and practices to those of other cultures, one does find some important differences. For example, Scripture is a major source of power for the Jewish magicians, but absent from the Greco-Egyptian magical tradition, and less frequent in the Christian magical tradition. And in some cases, we find specifically Jewish magical practices, such as those making use of Torah scrolls, synagogues, standard Jewish prayers and blessings, or circumcised foreskins. However, such examples are relatively rare. Because of the basic similarities of the Jewish magical tradition with those of other people and cultures, a phenomenological survey of Jewish magic in the Muslim world would be of relatively little interest. This is true within the medieval Jewish world as well, since magical texts and recipes circulated freely, so that the texts found in Ashkenazic manuscripts often are attested in the Cairo Genizah as well, and recipes found in the Genizah can help illustrate the descriptions of magical practices offered by Hayya Gaʾon (early eleventh-century Iraq), on the one hand, and Abraham Abulafia (thirteenth-century Mediterranean Europe), on the other.24 And as we shall note below, even the language barriers were not insurmountable: the magical texts that proved of greatest interest were translated from Arabic into Hebrew and thus were accessible even to the Jews of Western Europe, or from Arabic into Latin by their Christian users, and thence into Hebrew by European Jews. Thus, in what follows we shall focus less on the magical techniques and their classification than on the history of their transmission and actual practice. To do so, we shall try to analyze the “insider” sources not according to the aims their users sought to achieve or the magical techniques they employed, but according to the cultural origins of the different practices they describe and their transmission within the Jewish magical tradition as a whole.

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The recurrence of homeopathic and contagious magic in many cultures was famously noted by James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion (abridged edition, London, 1922), chapter 3. See Reimund Leicht, “Some Observations on the Diffusion of Jewish Magical Texts from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah and Ashkenaz,” in Officina Magica, 213 31.

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THE ORIGINS AND TRANSMISSION OF MEDIEVAL EASTERN JEWISH MAGICAL TEXTS AND PRACTICES

Looking at the “insider” evidence for medieval Jewish magic in the Islamic world, one can easily distinguish between two different origins of Jewish magical practices: late antique Jewish magic and medieval Islamic and Arabic magic.25 The distinction between these two types of texts is facilitated by language considerations, by textual comparisons, and by the nature of the practices involved. Older Jewish magical texts circulated among medieval Jews in the Islamic world both in their original Aramaic and Hebrew versions and in Judeo-Arabic translations, whereas texts with Islamic and Arabic origins circulated both in their Arabic originals and (more frequently) in Judeo-Arabic transliterations. Thus, texts written in the Arabic language and alphabet are almost certainly of non-Jewish origin, while those in Aramaic are almost certainly of late antique Jewish origin. In terms of parallels with known texts, many of the older Jewish magical works – most famously Sefer ha-Razim (which probably dates from the fourth or fifth century ce) and Ḥarba de-Moshe (which might date from a slightly later period) – circulated among medieval Jews; the former was available in numerous copies not only in Hebrew but also in Judeo-Arabic, and the latter was available in far fewer copies.26 Likewise, specific magical recipes already in use in late antiquity were still copied, and presumably used, in the Middle Ages, as with the recipe behind the Ḥorvat Rimmon shards to which we alluded above. Most of these parallels are between the magic of late antique Byzantine Palestine and that of later periods; the Jewish magical spells of Sasanian Babylonia, known from hundreds of late antique incantation bowls, are almost entirely absent from later Jewish magic.27 25

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In what follows, I focus more on the newer magical texts and techniques and less on the older ones, which were amply surveyed by Michael D. Swartz, “Jewish Magic in Late Antiquity,” in Steven T. Katz, ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume IV: The Late Roman Rabbinic Period (Cambridge, 2006), 699 720. For the Genizah fragments, and the Judeo Arabic versions, of Sefer ha Razim, see Bill Rebiger and Peter Schäfer, Sefer ha Razim I und II Das Buch der Geheimnisse I und II, 2 vols. (Tübingen, 2009); for Harba de Moshe, see Yuval Harari, Harba de Moshe (The Sword of Moses): A New Edition and a Study [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1997); and Yuval Harari, “Fragments of the Sword of Moses from the Cairo Genizah” [Hebrew], Ginzei Qedem 10 (2014), 29 92. See Gideon Bohak, “The Jewish Magical Tradition from Late Antique Palestine to the Cairo Genizah,” in Hannah M. Cotton, David J. Wasserstein, Jonathan J. Price, and Robert Hoyland, eds., From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East (Cambridge, 2009), 321 39. For a rare parallel between the bowl spells and those of the Cairo Genizah, see Dan Levene and Gideon Bohak, “Divorcing Lilith: From the Babylonian Incantation Bowls to the Cairo Genizah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 63 (2012), 197 217.

magic 875 Thus, medieval Jewish magical recipes and practices often seem like slightly or significantly garbled copies of older Palestinian Jewish magic, which in its turn was greatly influenced by the Greco-Egyptian magical tradition. Hence the recurrence of the charaktêres (meaningless magic signs that look like letters with small rings at their tips), of word-triangles (ʾFRWDYṬH, FRWDYṬH, RWDYṬH, etc.), of “magic words” whose origins are demonstrably Greek (Abrasax, Ablanathanalba, Aphrodite), and of magical techniques whose closest parallels are in the Greek magical papyri of the late Roman world.28 Babylonian Jewish spells and magical practices are much less common in medieval Jewish magic, although some Babylonian Jewish magical texts were still in circulation in the Middle Ages, including both the Pishra de-Rabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa and the Havdala de-Rabbi ʿAkiba.29 One more criterion for distinguishing between older Jewish and newer Islamic or Arabic magical practices in the “insider” sources – the nature of the practices involved – suggests that the Muslims and non-Muslim Arabs introduced a number of new magical techniques that became extremely popular among Jews in the Middle Ages. Sharing the same language as their neighbors and viewing Islam as a monotheistic religion that posed no threat to the basic tenets of Judaism, Jews had neither technical nor theological difficulties in borrowing many new magical practices from their neighbors, most notably, rituals for summoning demons and the “science” of talismanic, or astral, magic. Let us briefly look at each of these practices in turn, and at the texts in which they were transmitted.

rituals for summoning demons The Jewish infatuation with demons dates back at least to the third century bce and probably much earlier, and is extremely well-attested in

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For a detailed survey of this issue, see Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic, 227 90. For the Greek magical papyri, see Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells (Chicago, 1986; 2nd edition, 1992). For the Havdala and its Babylonian Jewish components, see Gershom Scholem, “Havdala de Rabbi Aqiva A Source for the Tradition of Jewish Magic During the Geonic Period” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 50 (1980/81), 243 81; and Hannu Juusola, “Notes on the Aramaic Sections of the Havdalah de Rabbi Aqiba,” in Hannu Juusola, Juha Laulainen, and Heikki Palva, eds., Verbum et Calamus: Semitic and Related Studies in Honour of the Sixtieth Birthday of Professor Tapani Harviainen (Helsinki, 2004), 106 19; for the Pishra, see the preliminary edition by Franco Michelini Tocci, “Note e doc umenti di letterature religiosa e parareligiosa giudaica,” Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli 46 (1986), 101 8.

876 gideon bohak the centuries preceding the rise of Islam.30 But in the Jewish amulets and incantation bowls of late antiquity, demons are a source of great danger, to be thwarted and bound by the force of the amuletic devices and the spells inscribed upon them, or to be unleashed back upon those who had sent them in the first place. In medieval Jewish magical texts, by contrast, we find not only magical recipes with the kind of anti-demonic adjurations that were used by Jews since the Second Temple period, but also a completely new genre of magical texts, with long and elaborate rituals for gathering demons into a single place, interrogating them, and obtaining their cooperation in performing various tasks.31 The desire to subdue the demons and then use their exceptional abilities is, of course, attested already in late antiquity – as may be seen, for example, from the rabbinic stories of Solomon’s subjugation of Ashmedai when building the Jerusalem Temple (Babylonian Talmud Gittin 68a–b), or from the __ Christian magical compendium known as the Testament of Solomon – but some of the techniques for actually achieving those aims were entirely new within the medieval Jewish magical tradition.32 As an example of these techniques, we may take a Genizah fragment in Cambridge that contains detailed instructions, accompanied by images illustrating the demons in question (see Figure 27.3).33 The ritual involves reciting complex adjurations that include both a direct appeal to the demons and long sets of magic words, interrogating the demons who appear in order to ascertain their identity, and conducting conversations (in colloquial Arabic, as against the literary Arabic of the rest of the text) with the demons’ rulers. The text also describes the various actions that must be taken in order to win their cooperation, including offering sacrifices and producing special seals that are described in great detail 30

31

32

33

And see Esther Eshel, “Demonology in Palestine during the Second Temple Period” [Hebrew], (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999); Jonathan Seidel, “Possession and Exorcism in the Magical Texts of the Cairo Geniza,” in Matt Goldish, ed., Spirit Possession in Judaism: Cases and Contexts from the Middle Ages to the Present (Detroit, 2003), 73 95. For the distinction between these two attitudes, see Gideon Bohak, “Expelling Demons and Attracting Demons in Jewish Magical Texts,” in Gert Melville and Carlos Ruta, eds., Experiencing the Beyond: Intercultural Approaches (Berlin, 2018), 170 85, with further bibliography. For the Testament of Solomon, see Chester C. McCown, The Testament of Solomon (Leipzig, 1922); for its Arabic version, see Juan Pedro Monferrer Sala, Testamentum Salomonis Arabicum: Edición, traducción y estudio (Córdoba, 2006). CUL T S Ar. 51.95. For one of the images, see Colin F. Baker and Meira Polliack, Arabic and Judaeo Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections: Arabic Old Series (T S Ar. 1a 54) (Cambridge, 2001), plate 21. This fragment was briefly described, but without the shelf mark, by Golb, “Aspects of the Historical Background,” 14.

magic

877

Figure 27.3 CUL T S Ar. 51.95 (P3) (unpublished)

and even illustrated on the manuscript. The text is written in JudeoArabic, and displays numerous signs of its origins in the Islamic magical tradition: the very practice of summoning demons; the names of the demons adjured; the special signs to be placed on the seals and the “gibberish” words to be recited; and even the iconography of the demons, which is quite different from that of earlier Jewish magic, as manifested on the incantation bowls from Sasanian Babylonia.34 There are more such texts in the Cairo Genizah, both in Judeo-Arabic and in Hebrew, proving the great popularity of this kind of magical texts.35 This genre clearly became popular all over the Jewish world, since it was available to the Jews of Christian Europe in Hebrew versions studied by Gershom Scholem and Raphael Patai.36 As one more example of this kind of 34

35

36

For the iconography of the Babylonian incantation bowls, see Naama Vilozny, Lilith’s Hair and Ashmedai’s Horns: Figure and Image in Magic and Popular Art, between Babylonia and Palestine in Late Antiquity [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2017); the iconography of later Jewish magic still awaits a detailed study. For published examples, see Naveh and Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae G17 (= T S K1.132), 8/8; Schäfer Shaked, Magische Texte I, 6 (= TS K 1.1); Magische Texte III, 62 (= TS K 1.3), 1a/1 2a/8. Gershom Scholem, “Bilar the King of Devils” [Hebrew], Jewish Studies 1 (1926), 112 27; Gershom Scholem, “Some Sources of Jewish Arabic Demonology,” Journal of Jewish Studies 16 (1965), 1 13; Raphael Patai, “The Love Factor in a Hebrew Arabic Conjuration,” Jewish Quarterly Review 70 (1980), 239 53. For the earlier sources of some

878 gideon bohak literature, we may note similar textual units found in a fifteenth-century manuscript of Jewish magic in which one finds the “seals” of the seven arch-demons of Islamic magic, with some of the names replaced by those of Jewish angels (see Figure 27.4).37 Such seals were extremely important in demon-summoning rituals, and both the names of the demons and the magic seals depicted here are obviously borrowed from the Islamic magical tradition. talismanic magic The use of talismanic, or astral, magic is entirely unattested among Jews in earlier periods but became quite popular in the Middle Ages. This technique came to the Jews through Arabic texts, but was soon made available in Hebrew versions as well. Astral magic was seen in the Middle Ages as a body of applied science and today is considered a primary example of “learned magic.” The technique itself is quite complicated and is based on the assumption that the heavenly bodies have powers (often called rūhāniyyāt) that can be “brought down” and used for magical ends. The _ magical praxis usually involved choosing an astrologically suitable moment, preparing a talisman or image from a specific material and in a certain form, burning incense, reciting adjurations and prayers, and sometimes even exposing the talisman to the open heavens in order to “charge” it with astral energies. The “charged” image was subsequently used in a manner determined by the desired effect – e.g., by pulverizing and drinking it in cases of medical magic, or by burying it in the victim’s courtyard in cases of aggressive magic. As a case in point, we may note the recent discovery of several Genizah fragments of two different copies (produced by the same scribe, in the late twelfth or the thirteenth century) of two long talismanic texts – one by Thābit b. Qurrah and one attributed to Ptolemy.38 Such texts show the wide diffusion of this kind of knowledge in the Arabic-speaking world: Thābit b. Qurrah was a Sabean of ninth-century Ḥarrān and a

37

38

of these texts, see Gideon Bohak, “Babylonian Jewish Magic in Late Antiquity: Beyond the Incantation Bowls,” in Yohanan Friedmann and Etan Kohlberg, eds., Studies in Honor of Shaul Shaked (Jerusalem, 2019), 70 122, esp. 95 98. MS NYPL 190, 155 56 (Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:198 99) and 163 65 (ibid., 205 7). See Charles Burnett and Gideon Bohak, “A Judaeo Arabic Version of Tābit ibn Qurra’s De Imaginibus and Pseudo Ptolemy’s Opus Imaginum,” in Felicitas Opwis and David Reisman, eds., Islamic Philosophy, Science, Culture, and Religion: Studies in Honor of Dimitri Gutas (Leiden, 2012), 179 200. See also Charles Burnett and Gideon Bohak, Thābit ibn Qurra On Talismans and Pseudo Ptolemy On Images 1 9, Together with the Liber prestigiorum Thebis of Adelard of Bath (Florence, 2021).

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Figure 27.4 MS New York, New York Public Library Heb. 190, p. 156 (published in Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:199)

well-respected figure in the history of Arabic science whose work clearly was appreciated by the Jews of Cairo in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. And while the origins of the text attributed to Ptolemy are unknown, it serves as an eloquent reminder that at least some of the Arabic magical

880 gideon bohak literature of the Middle Ages was of Greek origins, and that these texts, too, were avidly adopted by Arabic-speaking Jews.39 In its narrow, technical sense, the use of astral magic was probably restricted to small numbers of Jews in the Middle Ages. It required much prior knowledge, especially in the realm of astrology, knowledge not available to many of the humbler practitioners of Jewish magic. But talismanic magic often aroused debates between rabbis who saw it as nonsense and idolatry, those who accepted its scientific validity but considered it halakhically forbidden (especially as it involved manufacturing images and manipulating them in cultic ways, including fumigation and even sacrifice to or around them), and those who accepted both its scientific validity and the halakhic permissibility of its use. Some even insisted that it was a native Jewish art “stolen” by the Greeks in antiquity and then adopted by Muslims and Christians, or that the Golden Calf, the Desert Tabernacle, and even the Jerusalem Temple had been talismans intended to bring down the astral powers and utilize them for practical purposes.40 Thus, even if only some Jewish intellectuals practiced talismanic magic with great zeal, many more Jews were acquainted with its premises and practices. Many other elements of medieval Jewish magic can be shown to have been borrowed from the Arabic-speaking world. The use of (numeric) magic squares, for example, which is ubiquitous in medieval Jewish magic, was borrowed from the Arabs, who apparently borrowed it from Indian or Chinese sources.41 The citation of Qurʾānic verses and blessings is not uncommon in Judeo-Arabic magical texts.42 The use of the 39

40

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42

Similar texts circulated among the Jews of Europe as well, but this time in Hebrew, either the result of direct translations from the Arabic originals, or as Jewish translations of Latin texts (themselves often translated by Christian authors from Arabic originals); see the useful survey by Leicht, Astrologumena Judaica, 295 329. For the most important analyses of these issues, see Shlomo Pines, “On the Term Ruhaniyyot and Its Origin and on Judah Halevi’s Doctrine” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 57 (1988), 511 _ 40; Dov Schwartz, Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1999); Dov Schwartz, Amulets, Properties and Rationalism in Medieval Jewish Thought [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 2004); Dov Schwartz, Studies on Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought, trans. David Louvish and Batya Stein (Leiden, 2005). For magic squares of 3 x 3 (frequently used to aid women in childbirth), see T S NS 70.77; Joshua O. Leibowitz and Shlomo Marcus, Sefer Hanisyonot: The Book of Medical Experiences Attributed to Abraham Ibn Ezra (Jerusalem, 1984), 70 74, 316; Goitein Friedman, India Book III (below, note 55), 420. For their popularity in the Arabic magical tradition, see Georges C. Anawati, “Le nom suprême de Dieu,” in Atti del Terzo Congresso di Studi Arabi e Islamici (Ravello, 1 6 Settembre 1966) (Napoli, 1967), 7 58, esp. 35. For a fascinating example, see Israel Friedländer, “A Muhammedan Book on Augury in Hebrew Characters,” Jewish Quarterly Review 19 (1907), 84 103.

magic 881 “occult properties” (Arabic, khawāss; Hebrew, segullot) of numerous __ – well-developed in the Greek animal, vegetal, and mineral substances medical and magical texts of late antiquity and further developed in the Arabic-speaking world – is ubiquitous in medieval Jewish magical and medical texts, in Judeo-Arabic and in Hebrew.43 The use of magic signs of Islamic or Arabic origins (in addition to the charaktêres, which were mentioned above) is extremely common in medieval and later Jewish magical texts – and we have already noted the appearance of Muslim magical “seals” in Jewish magical texts (see Figure 27.4).44 Thus, it is quite clear that the process of Jewish borrowing of Arabic magical texts and techniques was pervasive and enduring, and had a profound impact on the Jewish magical tradition as a whole, both in Islamic lands and in the Christian world.45 In addition to magical texts and techniques that stemmed from older Jewish origins or were borrowed from the Islamic or Arabic traditions, Christian magical practices – whether of eastern or western Christian origin – also influenced the Jewish magical tradition in the Islamic world. Some elements from the Syriac and Coptic magical traditions entered into Jewish magical texts, either directly or via the Islamic or Arabic ones.46 Likewise, the Jews of medieval Europe occasionally borrowed magical texts and practices from their Christian neighbors, and these sometimes made it – in Hebrew versions – all the way to the Jews of the Islamic world.47 43

44

45

46

47

And even a complete rationalist like Maimonides could follow suit see his Pirqei Moshe 6.22, and cf. the Guide of the Perplexed, part 3, chapter 37. See Gideon Bohak, “The Charaktêres in Ancient and Medieval Jewish Magic,” Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 47 (2011), 25 44; for the signs of Arabic magic, see especially Hans A. Winkler, Siegel und Charaktere in der Muhammedanischen Zauberei (Berlin, 1930). Of course, the influences also went the other way around, and Muslim magical texts and practices display many Jewish elements, but this is an issue which lies outside the scope of the present chapter. For some useful studies, see Georges Vajda, “Sur quelques éléments juifs et pseudo juifs dans l’encyclopédie magique de Bûnī,” in Samuel Löwinger and Joseph Somogyi, eds., Ignace Goldziher Memorial Volume (Budapest, 1948), part 1, 387 92; Steven M. Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam (Princeton, 1995), 194 202; Yair Zoran, “Magic, Theurgy and the Knowledge of Letters in Islam and Their Parallels in Jewish Literature” [Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Folklore 18 (1996), 19 62. For a Coptic example, see Gideon Bohak, “Greek, Coptic, and Jewish Magic in the Cairo Genizah,” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 36 (1999), 27 44. See Reimund Leicht, “The Legend of St. Eustachius (Eustathius) as Found in the Cairo Genizah,” in Klaus Herrmann, Margarete Schlüter, and Giuseppe Veltri, eds., Jewish Studies Between the Disciplines/Judaistik Zwischen den Disziplinen: Papers in Honor of Peter Schäfer on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (Leiden, 2003), 325 30; Bohak, “Catching a Thief”; Katelyn Mesler, “The Three Magi and Other Christian Motifs in

882 gideon bohak But both types of examples are relatively rare, and their number certainly is dwarfed by that of the other two sources. To end our survey of the cultural makeup of medieval Jewish magic in Islamic lands, we should stress one more point. In medieval Europe, one finds a great resistance on the part of most Jews to influences from Christian magic, coupled with the fact that much of the Christian magical tradition was transmitted in Latin, a language inaccessible to most Jews. But one also finds in medieval Europe a growing Jewish tendency to develop new magical techniques, especially under the influence of Ḥasidei Ashkenaz and the early Kabbalah.48 In the Islamic world, by contrast, one sees constant borrowing of non-Jewish magical techniques, but not much intra-Jewish magical creativity. Kabbalah was quick to develop in Provence and in Christian Spain, but much slower in Islamic lands, and while Jewish mysticism did manifest itself in the Islamic world, its manifestations were not accompanied by the development of new magical techniques. This would change after the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the subsequent rise of the center of Kabbalah in Safed (Palestine), where magic was a central component and a major area of new creativity. In the period under consideration here, however, much of Jewish magic in the Islamic world may be seen as derivative rather than innovative – as both preserving older Jewish magical texts and practices and letting newer non-Jewish technologies enter the tradition, but not delving into the depths of Jewish theology and Scripture and generating hitherto unprecedented Jewish magical techniques.49 THE PRACTITIONERS AND THEIR CLIENTS

Who are the people behind all these Jewish magical texts – the producers of texts and the clients who used their services? The second group is much

48

49

Medieval Hebrew Medical Incantations: A Study in the Limits of Faithful Translation,” in Resianne Fontaine and Gad Freudenthal, eds., Latin into Hebrew: Texts and Studies (Leiden, 2013), 1:161 218; Saar, “A Genizah Magical Fragment and Its European Parallels.” See, for example, Moshe Idel, “R. Nehemia ben Shlomo the Prophet on the Star of David and the Name Taftafia: From Jewish Magic to Practical and Theoretical Kabbalah,” in Avraham (Rami) Reiner et al., eds., Ta Shma: Studies in Judaica in Memory of Israel M. Ta Shma, 2 vols. [Hebrew] (Alon Shevut, 2011), 1:1 76; Gideon Bohak, “Jewish Magic in the Middle Ages,” in David Collins, ed., The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West (Cambridge, 2015), 268 99, 711 19, esp. 286 91; Yuval Harari, “‘Practical Kabbalah’ and the Jewish Tradition of Magic,” Aries 19 (2019), 38 82. For a fuller elaboration of this point, see Bohak, “Specimens of Judaeo Arabic and Arabic Magical Texts.”

magic 883 easier to identify than the first, since many of the “finished products” found in great abundance in the Cairo Genizah mention the names of their clients, and in the case of aggressive or erotic magic often mention both the clients and the intended victims. A list of all these individuals mentioned in the Genizah magical texts runs to almost 150 entries. While most of these clients and victims are otherwise unknown, the corpus does allow some statistical generalizations.50 In marked contrast with the rabbinic stereotype that “most women engage in sorcery” (Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 67a), the number of men who authored or commissioned magical texts, or who sent and received them, is almost four times as large as the number of women. In some cases, we may even identify these people with much greater precision. The best example is an amulet prepared for Masliah ha-Kohen _ to_ have been Gaʾon, the head of the Jewish community who is known 51 executed by the Fātimid authorities in 1139 ce. That even one of the most important rabbinic_ Jewish leaders of his generation had amulets produced for him in order to protect him from his adversaries and from all dangers is clear proof that the use of amulets was not limited to women and children, nor to the lower strata of Jewish society. But most of the amulets from the Cairo Genizah – both those prepared for named individuals and the “generic” ones – were prepared for sick children, women in labor, shopowners in search of more clients, and ordinary people in search of a better social status. Thus far, we have focused on the contents of the magical recipes and on the persons for or against whom they were put to use, and in so doing made extensive use of the “insider” sources and little use of “outsider” evidence. But the “insider” sources are very limited in what they can tell us about the magical practitioners who copied and transmitted them. True, they can easily tell us that there were many different practitioners of magic, and that their intellectual and scribal abilities varied greatly, from the semiliterates who produced some of the cruder Genizah recipe books and amulets to the learned scribes who composed and used the wellproduced magical manuals that have reached us, or wrote elaborate and 50

51

For the list, see Gideon Bohak and Ortal Paz Saar, “Genizah Magical Texts Prepared for or against Named Individuals,” Revue des Études Juives 174 (2015), 77 110. The fragment in question is T S K 1.140, which I hope to publish elsewhere. For Masliah’s execution, see Mordechai A. Friedman, “On Judah Ha Levy and the _ _ Martyrdom of a Head of the Jews: A Letter by Halfon Ha Levi b. Nethanel,” in Y. Tzvi Langermann and Josef Stern, eds., Adaptations and Innovations: Studies on the Interaction between Jewish and Islamic Thought and Literature from the Middle Ages to the Late Twentieth Century, Dedicated to Professor Joel L. Kraemer (Leuven, 2007), 85 108, esp. 91 94.

884 gideon bohak professionally produced amulets.52 Some of these scribes had good knowledge of two or three languages (Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic), and had mastered a great deal of technical knowledge concerning the preparation of special inks, the casting of horoscopes, the performance of complex astrological calculations, or the use of special ciphers to encrypt their magical texts.53 In some cases, we even know the names of some of these scribes, including Moses b. Jacob b. Mordechai b. Jacob b. Moses, in the fifteenth century, or Joseph b. Elijah Tirshom, in the early sixteenth.54 In some cases, we know even more about the tradents and users of Jewish magic, as is the case with three medical and apotropaic recipes and two aggressive ones from the Genizah written on the back of another document by a hand that Mordechai Akiva Friedman recently identified as belonging to Abraham b. Yijū, one of the greatest India traders of the twelfth century.55 But such cases are unfortunately quite rare. Most of the Jewish magical texts that have reached us tell us nothing about the names, professions, or social status of their producers and users. To learn more about the actual practitioners, we need to see what the “outsider” evidence has to tell us. An excellent starting point for such a quest is provided by Karaite polemics against Rabbanite Jews, which contain numerous accusations of magic. Although such accusations, embedded in a literary genre characterized by its unabashed subjectivity, must never be taken at face value, in truth, what the Karaites accuse the Rabbanites of practicing often matches evidence in the Cairo Genizah.56 Moreover, evidence of the identity of magical practitioners is amply supplied even in rabbinic literature. In a responsum written around 1000 ce, Hayya Gaʾon (939–1038), gaon of 52

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And see Michael D. Swartz, ‘‘Scribal Magic and Its Rhetoric: Formal Patterns in Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Genizah,’’ Harvard Theological Review 83 (1990), 163 80. For ciphers, see Gideon Bohak, “Cracking the Code and Finding the Gold: A Dream Request from the Cairo Genizah,” in Juan Antonio Álvarez Pedrosa Núñez and Sofía Torallas Tovar, eds., Edición de Textos Mágicos de la Antigüedad y de la Edad Media (Madrid, 2010), 9 23. The former produced MS NYPL 190; the latter produced MS Sassoon 290. For a different example, this time from the Cairo Genizah, see Ortal Paz Saar, “Success, Protection and Grace: Three Fragments of a Personalized Magical Handbook,” Ginzei Qedem 3 (2007), 101 35. See S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Book III: Abraham ben Yijû, India Trader and Manufacturer [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010), 418 21. For specific examples, see Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies, 2:55 57, 75 83, 90 94; Mordechai Margalioth, Sepher Ha Razim: A Newly Recovered Book of Magic from the Talmudic Period [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1966), xv xvi, 36 37; Yuval Harari, “Leadership, Authority, and the ‘Other,’” 84 87.

magic 885 Pumbedita, asked by the rabbis of Qayrawān about the effectiveness and permissibility of powerful names and related techniques (and then asked the same question in greater detail following his initial response), left us a detailed discussion of Jewish magical and mystical practices as seen by a leading halakhic authority who was not himself a practitioner of magic.57 Hayya’s main point is that magic is mostly ineffective and that the stories of supernatural feats supposedly accomplished by way of it are false; but unfortunately “a fool will believe anything” (Proverbs 14:15).58 He also insists that all the claims that Natronay Gaʾon, the head of the yeshiva of Sura in the mid-ninth century, _had traveled to Spain by way of “pathjumping” and taught the Babylonian Talmud to its sages must be false; he explains that had Natronay been famous for such activities, he (Hayya) would have heard of it,_ and he had not. And yet, having absolved one gaon of Sura of practicing magic, he quickly implicates another, naming Moses ha-Kohen, gaon of Sura a generation before Natronay, as famous for _ “dealing with amulets, incantations, and similar things.” He adds that his own ancestors had checked the stories about the magical feats supposedly brought about by Moses ha-Kohen and found them to be simply impossible.59 In other words, the gaon of Sura may have practiced magic, but the geonim of Pumbedita viewed the claims that it actually worked as entirely false. To cap his discussion of this point, he adds that such activities were widespread at Sura because of its proximity to Babylon and the (ruined) palace of Nebuchadnezzar.60 Given Babylon’s fame – both in the Hebrew Bible and in Arabic literature – as a land of witchcraft and magic, Hayya’s explanation may have carried some weight with his addressees.61 We, on the other hand, must note that even when he employs the age-old technique of “othering” magic (“We don’t do such things, only

57

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59 61

For the text, see Simcha Emanuel, Newly Discovered Geonic Responsa [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1995), 124 46; for its contents and wider context, see Esriel Erich Hildesheimer, “Mystik und Agada im Urteile der Gaonen R. Scherira und R. Hai,” in Heinrich Eisemann and Jakob Landau, eds., Festschrift für Jacob Rosenheim (Frankfurt am Main, 1931), 259 86. Another useful source, the Scroll of Ahimaaz, will not be discussed here, since it pertains more to the Jews of Christian Italy; see Yuval Harari, “The Scroll of Ahimaaz and the Jewish Magical Culture: A Note on the Sotah Ordeal” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 75 (2006), 185 202, with further bibliography. See Emanuel, Newly Discovered Geonic Responsa, 128 31, and throughout this responsum. 60 Ibid., 130 31. Ibid., 130. For the biblical sources, see Isaiah 47:9, 12; Ezekiel 21:26 27; Daniel 2:2; 5:7, etc. For the Arabic sources, see Caroline Janssen, Babil, the City of Witchcraft and Wine: The Name and the Fame of Babylon in Medieval Arabic Geographical Texts (Ghent, 1995).

886 gideon bohak they do. . .”), he is in fact admitting that magic was deeply embedded in the world of the yeshivot (“not my yeshiva, of course, but the other one”).62 MAGIC AS A BONE OF CONTENTION

Like their Ashkenazic brethren, most Jews in the Islamic world had no doubt that magic works, and found the belief in the efficacy of magic to be taken for granted both by the Hebrew Bible and by talmudic literature. And yet, the entry, through Arabic religious-philosophical discourse, of a more philosophical and rationalistic mindset – whose origins lay in Greek philosophy – made some Jewish intellectuals doubt the effectiveness of magic, and even dismiss it altogether. To Hayya Gaʾon’s general skepticism of claims about the effectiveness of magic we may add Maimonides’ vociferous denial of any such claims, and his insistence that magic was sheer folly and a complete waste of time. However, as our “insider” evidence amply shows, such denials made very little impression on the actual practitioners and their clients, and the Jewish magical tradition proudly sailed on even after the rationalists had their say. But the real problem for the likes of Hayya Gaʾon or Maimonides, and for the practitioners themselves, was not whether magic worked or not, but whether Jews were permitted to dabble in such activities. After all, the Hebrew Bible is very explicit in stating that “A witch thou shall not suffer to live” (Exodus 22:17) and in listing all the magical and divinatory practitioners that abound among Gentiles but may not be found among the Israelites (Deuteronomy 18:10–11). And yet, the Mishnah and the Talmud already developed a distinction between “illicit magic” and “licit magic,” and insisted, for example, that anything which heals cannot be forbidden, that using secret knowledge to create living creatures was acceptable, and that using magic to fight magicians and heretics was quite 62

And cf. his insistence, further down the responsum, that he himself never studied magic (Emanuel, Newly Discovered Geonic Responsa, 138). For the Surans’ magical activities, see also the Story of Nathan the Babylonian (see Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Structure, Goals, and Content of the Story of Nathan Ha Bavli” [Hebrew], in Menahem Ben Sasson, Robert Bonfil, and Joseph R. Hacker, eds., Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben Sasson (Jerusalem, 1989), 137 96) which recounts how the Suran Nissi al Nahrawānī managed, with words alone, to open fourteen locks in a single night; this story is illuminated by a Genizah spell to open locks, for which see Gideon Bohak, “A Spell to Open All Locks and the Place of Magic in Medieval Jewish Society,” in Anders Klostergaard Petersen and Jesper Sørensen, eds., Manipulating the Divine (Leiden, forthcoming). For magical practices in the Surans’ world, see also the siddur of their gaon, Rav Amram, discussed below, note 66.

magic 887 laudable. For the rabbinic Jews of the Middle Ages, this meant that while specific magical practices could become a bone of contention, and even be forbidden outright, any attempt to classify all magical activities as “un-Jewish,” or as forbidden by rabbinic halakhah was a priori doomed to failure. 63

“MAGIC” AND “RELIGION” IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH SOCIETY

As noted at the beginning of this chapter, there is much in the Jewish religion that may be classified as “magic,” be it the use of tefillin, mezuzot, and Torah scrolls as apotropaic devices, the “transfer” of sins to hapless animals, or prayers for rain.64 One can also point to the extensive use within the Jewish magical tradition of materials taken from mainstream Jewish religion, be it the ubiquitous use of biblical verses and of the Tetragrammaton and other powerful names of God, the frequent recitation of liturgical formulae and blessings, the recurrence of instructions to perform certain magical acts “in the synagogue” or “while the priests are raising their hands to heaven in the priestly blessing,” and numerous other examples. But side by side with such elements, which point to a certain overlap between magic and religion, or to the “fuzzy borders” separating between them, one finds a host of texts and practices that moved from the realm of “religion” to that of “magic” or vice versa. As an example of the “magicalization” of Jewish religious practices we may look at the common practice, throughout much of the Middle Ages, of adding powerful divine names, angel names, and snippets of biblical verses and typical magic signs to standard mezuzot, a practice intended to increase the mezuzah’s apotropaic efficiency. The mezuzah itself was often viewed as an apotropaic device already in rabbinic literature, but adding elements of the kind usually utilized on amulets and other magical texts to the halakhically fixed contents of the mezuzah and then affixing it to one’s doorpost like any other mezuzah is a clear example of how magical technology was used to modify and “improve” a standard religious activity (see Figure 27.5).65 63

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For the rabbis’ halakhic distinctions between licit and illicit magic, see Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic, 356 86. For this view see, for example, Moshe Idel, “On Judaism, Jewish Mysticism and Magic,” in Peter Schäfer and Hans G. Kippenberg, eds., Envisioning Magic: A Princeton Seminar and Symposium (Leiden, 1997), 195 214. For a different perspective, see Peter Schäfer, “Magic and Religion in Ancient Judaism,” in Envisioning Magic, 19 43. See Gideon Bohak, “Mezuzoth with Magical Additions from the Cairo Geniza” [Hebrew], Dine Israel: Studies in Halakha and in Jewish Law 26 27 (2009 2010), 387 403, with much further bibliography.

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gideon bohak

Figure 27.5 CUL T S AS 142.245 (published in Bohak, “Mezuzoth with Magical Additions”)

magic 889 Likewise, obviously magical elements were inserted into the prayer accompanying the nightly reading of the Shemaʿ (the so-called recitation of the Shemaʿ on the bed) or into the prayer against forgetfulness to be recited during the havdalah ritual marking the end of the Sabbath, or a long formula used in many standard Jewish circumcision rituals but originally borrowed from a Babylonian Jewish magical text known as the Pishra deRabbi Ḥanina ben Dosa.66 Movement in the opposite direction is equally easy to document. Not only did Jewish magicians make extensive use of biblical verses and chapters (including, for example, the Shimmush Tehillim literature, with magical uses for each of the biblical Psalms). They also borrowed and “magicalized” many standard Jewish religious practices, including even the most basic rabbinic Jewish prayer, the Eighteen Benedictions (the ʿAmida), which was turned into the backbone of a set of magic spells.67 It must be stressed, however, that while Jewish magicians often incorporated religious practices into their magical traditions, they did not seek to subvert current religious practice, only to supplement it and enhance its inherent powers in order to use this power for specific ends. Magic, then, was widely practiced and widely accepted all over the Jewish world. Maimonides and his followers insisted that it did not work, but most Jews refused to accept this assertion. Some halakhic authorities forbade some magical practices, but often practiced many others. And while the Karaites polemicized against Rabbanite magic, the rabbis themselves did little to prove this polemic wrong. Thus, it comes as no surprise that of the roughly 300,000 fragments in the Cairo Genizah, more than 1,000 are magic-related (and another 1,500 have to do with divination, astrology, and alchemy).68 Even in Maimonides’ hometown, magical texts were far more popular than the works of their greatest detractor.

66

67

68

For the recitation of the Shemaʿ on the bed, see Daniel Goldschmidt, Seder Rav ʿAmram Gaon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1971), 54 55; for the adjuration of Pota, the “Minister (= Angel) of Forgetfulness,” see ibid., 82 83. For the prayer recited in circumcision rituals see ibid., 179, and see the Pishra spell in MS NYPL 190, 189 (Bohak, A Fifteenth Century Manuscript, 1:231); I hope to discuss this last example at greater length elsewhere. For Shimmush Tehillim, see Bill Rebiger, Sefer Shimmush Tehillim: Buch vom magischen Gebrauch der Psalmen. Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar (Tübingen, 2010). For the uses of biblical verses, see Shani Levy, “The Uses of Biblical Verses and Biblical Figures in Magical Texts from the Cairo Genizah” [Hebrew] (master’s thesis, Tel Aviv University, 2006); Dorothea M. Salzer, Die Magie der Anspielung. Form und Funktion der biblischen Anspielungen in den magischen Texten der Kairoer Geniza (Tübingen, 2010). For a fuller breakdown of these figures, see Bohak, “Towards a Catalogue,” 72 75.

890

gideon bohak SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bohak, Gideon. Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge, 2008). “Prolegomena to the Study of the Jewish Magical Tradition,” Currents in Biblical Literature 8 (2009), 107–50. “Towards a Catalogue of the Magical, Astrological, Divinatory and Alchemical Fragments from the Cambridge Genizah Collections,” in Ben M. Outhwaite and Siam Bhayro, eds., “From a Sacred Source”: Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif (Leiden, 2010), 53–79. Harari, Yuval. “Jewish Magic: An Annotated Overview” [Hebrew], El Prezente: Studies in Sephardic Culture 5 (2011), 13*–85*. Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah, trans. Batya Stein (Detroit, 2017). Leicht, Reimund. “Some Observations on the Diffusion of Jewish Magical Texts from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah and Ashkenaz,” in Shaul Shaked, ed., Officina Magica: Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity (Leiden, 2005), 213–31. Naveh, Joseph, and Shaul Shaked. Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem, 1985; third edition, 1998). Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem, 1993). Schäfer, Peter, and Shaul Shaked. Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza (Tübingen, vol. 1, 1994; vol. 2, 1997; vol. 3, 1999). Schiffman, Lawrence H., and Michael D. Swartz. Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Geniza: Selected Texts from TaylorSchechter Box K1 (Sheffield, 1992). Shaked, Shaul. “Medieval Jewish Magic in Relation to Islam: Theoretical Attitudes and Genres,” in Benjamin Hary, John L. Hayes, and Fred Astren, eds., Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communication and Interaction (Essays in Honor of William M. Brinner) (Leiden, 2000), 97–109. Vukosavović, Filip, ed. Angels and Demons: Jewish Magic through the Ages (Jerusalem, 2010). Wasserstrom, Steven M. “The Unwritten Chapter: Notes Towards a Social and Religious History of Geniza Magic,” in Shaul Shaked, ed., Officina Magica: Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity (Leiden, 2005), 269–93.

chapter 28

MYSTICISM sara sviri*

In the thirteenth century, Judaism and Islam gave birth to two monumental works which had a lasting impact on their respective mystical systems: within Judaism and the Kabbalistic tradition it was the Zohar, the Book of Splendor, “which was destined to overshadow all other documents of Kabbalist literature by the success and the fame it achieved and the influence it gradually exerted.”1 According to Yehuda Liebes, who has studied the method and process of its compilation and the identity of those who participated in this process, the Zohar seems to have been compiled by “the mid-thirteenth-century circle of ‘Gnostic Kabbalists’ in Castile.”2 Within the Muslim mystical tradition, it was the work of the Andalusian born Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 1240), in particular his Meccan Revelations (al-Futūhāt al-Makkiyya), in which “he was to express in writing that vast range_ of esoteric knowledge, which, until his time, had been transmitted orally or by way of allusions only.”3 That these two thirteenth-century mystical * While I have made every effort to include current research in this chapter, I initially submitted the chapter for publication in 2010. The reader may therefore find an unavoidable lacuna in the state of the research between the date of submission and the date of the volume’s publication. 1 See Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1961), 156. 2 See Yehuda Liebes, “How the Zohar Was Written,” in his Studies in the Zohar, trans. Arnold Schwartz, Stephanie Nakache, and Penina Peli (New York, 1993), 88; for further references to Kabbalah studies, see note 8. 3 Paraphrasing Ralph W. J. Austin, Sufis of Andalusia: the ‘Rūh al quds’ and the ‘al Durrat _ Gloucestershire, 1988), 46; al fākhira’ of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Ralph W. J. Austin (Sherborne, see also William Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al ʿArabī’s Metaphysics of Imagination (New York, 1989), x; also Alexander D. Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam (Albany, 1999), 1. The literature on Ibn al ʿArabī is probably as extensive as the literature on Sefer ha Zohar. For a good introductory list, the following works should suffice: Claude Addas, Quest for the Red Sulphur. The Life of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Peter Kingsley (Cambridge, 1993); Michel Chodkiewicz, Seal of the Saints: Prophethood and Sainthood in the Doctrine of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Liadain Sherrard (Cambridge, 1993); William C. Chittick, Sufi Path of Knowledge (Albany, 1989); William C. Chittick, The Self disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn

891

892 sara sviri works, which mark turning points in the history of Jewish and Islamic mystical traditions, were conceived within such temporal and spatial proximity is thought-provoking. The fact that both were compiled by mystics of Spanish origins raises the question of possible common roots. Indeed, although Kabbalah, geographically and temporally speaking, relates to post-Andalusian Jewish history, when one adds up the literary testimonies stemming from the tenth century onward, it appears that the question of Kabbalistic origins should be viewed with an Andalusian prehistory in mind.4 In spite of clear differences between the two – the Zohar was compiled in Aramaic in the later part of the thirteenth century within a Jewish circle from the north of Spain living under Christian rule; the Meccan Revelations was written in Arabic in the earlier part of that same century by an Andalusian Muslim (albeit after having left al-Andalus for the eastern Muslim world) – both the Zohar and the Meccan Revelations mark the culmination of an intellectual, mystically inclined process, which, for Andalusian Jews and Muslims alike, had started approximately two centuries before, that is, in the tenth century, when certain teachings were brought to al-Andalus from the East and inspired there a growing interest in the mystical dimension of the religious life. Rather than offering a list of medieval Jewish mystics in Muslim lands, in this chapter I shall chart the track and contents of these mystical teachings in order to trace and identify these “common roots.” Consequently, I will attempt to show that the main source of inspiration for the evolving medieval Jewish mystical culture came from versions of a Neoplatonic mystical philosophy, which, since the tenth century onward, had circulated in Muslim Spain in texts written in Arabic as well as in Judeo-Arabic (and subsequently also in Hebrew translations) and which, through a long line of Jewish and Muslim authors, contributed to the development of both Jewish and Islamic mysticisms in the Middle Ages. These texts belong mainly to the fields of philosophy (falsafa) and mystical philosophy (sometimes referred to in Arabic as ʿilm al-bātin or hikma), and _ only to a small extent to S ̣ūfism. By bringing mystical _philosophy to the forefront of the historical, comparative, and typological enquiry, I wish to draw typological distinctions between S ̣ūfī-type Jewish mysticism and the Kabbalistic type. Thus, I hope to put in perspective the tendency,

4

al ʿArabī’s Cosmology (Albany, 1998); Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sūfism of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1969). On this possibility and on the continuation of Judeo Arabic writings in fourteenth century Castile, see Amos Goldreich, “The Theology of the Iyyun Circle and a Possible Source of the Term ‘Ahdut Shavah,’” in Joseph Dan, ed., The Beginnings of Jewish _ Mysticism in Medieval Europe [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1987), 141 56.

mysticism 893 benevolent as it may be, to reconcile Judaism and Islam by emphasizing similarities, affiliations, and reciprocities between their commonly avowed respective mysticisms: S ̣ūfism and the Kabbalah.5 Lastly, my discussion concerns continuity rather than influences. The question of “influences,” to my mind, is overrated in scholarship and tends to be either biased or reductive. Furthermore, evidence concerning “influences” may be circular, especially in the context of cultural phenomena and processes in which cross-fertilization had been involved, as those which prevailed between Judaism and Islam in the Middle Ages.6 At this stage of the study of medieval Jewish and Muslim mysticisms, questions concerning influences should give way to more pertinent ones concerning literary connections, thematic continuities, and typological distinctions. Scholarly attention to Jewish mysticism in the Middle Ages has become, in the main, split between two research avenues, each one focusing on a particular component of medieval Jewish mysticism: concerning the Islamic East, scholars, in a growing number of studies, have focused on the movement named (inaccurately) “Jewish S ̣ūfism” or also – and more appropriately – “the pietistic movement” of medieval Egypt;7 as for the European West, Jewish mysticism has been associated particularly with the

5

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7

For one of the latest contributions to this discussion, which reflects current attempts at highlighting similarities between Judaism and Islam rather than differences, see Thomas Block, Shalom/Salām: A Story of Mystical Fraternity (Louisville, 2011). Such circularity can be seen, for example, in the context of letter speculations, where the direction of the influential flow is not at all clear: did it flow from Judaism (or other late antique systems) to Islam or, later on, from Islam to Judaism or perhaps it flowed both ways? For the possible imprint of Sefer Yesira in the work of the tenth century Muslim mystic Ibn Masarra, see Sarah Stroumsa, _“Ibn Masarra and the Beginnings of Mystical Thought in al Andalus,” in Peter Schäfer, ed., Mystical Approaches to God: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Munich, 2006), 107 9. For an overview of the so called Jewish Sūfism and its field of research, see Paul B. Fenton, “Abraham Maimonides (1186 1237): Founding a Mystical Dynasty,” in Moshe Idel and Mortimer Ostrow, eds., Jewish Mystical Leaders and Leadership in the 13th Century (Northvale, NJ, 1998), 127 54; Paul B. Fenton, “Judaism and Sūfism,” in Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge, 2003), 201 17; Paul B. Fenton, “Judaism and Sūfism,” in the introduction to Obadiah Maimonides, The Treatise of the Pool (= al Maqāla al Hawd iyya), trans. Paul Fenton (London, 1981), 1 71. For the pietistic movement _ in medieval Egypt and, in particular, for the figure of Abraham Maimonides (hasidūt) _ (d. 1237), the son of Moses Maimonides, and one of the leaders of this movement, see S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93), 5:474 94; also, recently, the excellent study by Elisha Russ Fishbane, Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt: A Study of Abraham Maimonides and His Times (Oxford, 2015).

894 sara sviri 8 Kabbalah. Openly or tacitly, these two scholarly avenues have mostly operated separately, reflecting their respective fields as autonomous and distinct from one another. While scholars of Kabbalistic lore draw mainly on Jewish studies and on texts in Hebrew and Aramaic, scholars of Jewish mysticism in the East draw on their proficiency in Arabic and JudeoArabic, in Islamic studies, and in the history of the Jews in Islamic lands.9 Very rarely are the two disciplines viewed in tandem.10 However, the cumulative material relating to the spiritual quest and the mystical trends among medieval Jews and, for that matter, also among Muslims, especially in al-Andalus, draws attention to historical and cultural processes which took place during the tenth to the twelfth centuries, processes which shaped the intellectual milieu in which both Jews and Muslims participated. This period, by and large, had preceded the Almohads’ (al-Muwahhidūn) _ _ event takeover of al-Andalus in the middle of the twelfth century – an which put an end to the Jewish existence there by forcing the non-Muslim communities of al-Andalus either to convert to Islam or to leave the Muslim regions. At the same time this historical calamity, ipso facto, heralded the consolidation of the Jewish settlement in Castile and Catalonia (Christian Spain).11 From this perspective, it is evident that even though in the late Middle Ages Jewish mysticism did mature into two The list of studies and monographs in this field is vast. Suffice it to mention here Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988); Liebes, Studies in the Zohar; Charles Mopsik, Chemins de la Cabale: vingt cinq études sur la mystique juive (Paris, 2004); Scholem, Major Trends. Ashkenazic forms of pietism lie beyond the scope of this chapter. 9 Note that not only Scholem’s comprehensive Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism lacks a chapter on Judeo Arabic mysticism, but also later, more recent general works, such as J. H. Laenen, Jewish Mysticism: An Introduction, trans. David E. Orton (Louisville, 2001), and Rachel Elior, Jewish Mysticism: The Infinite Expression of Freedom, trans. Yudith Nave and Arthur B. Millman (Oxford, 2007), leave out altogether the Judeo Arabic component of Jewish mysticism. 10 Among scholars who have shown interest in both Jewish Sūfism and the Kabbalah, one should mention Alexander Altmann: for example, his “The Delphic Maxim in Medieval Islam and Judaism,” and his “The Ladder of Ascension,” in Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism (Routledge, 2016), 1 72; Paul Fenton: for example, “La hitbodedut chez les premiers Qabbalistes en orient et chez les soufis,” in Prière, mystique et Judaïsme: colloque de Strasbourg, 10 12 septembre 1984, ed. Roland Goetschel (Paris, 1987), 133 58, and “The Hierarchy of the Saints in Jewish and Islamic Mysticism,” Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society 10 (1991), 12 34; Haviva Pedaya: for example, “‘Possessed by Speech’: Towards an Understanding of the Prophetic Ecstatic Pattern among Early Kabbalists,” Tarbiz 65 (1996), 566 36 [Hebrew]. 11 For the historical circumstances, see Sarah Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Princeton, 2009), 8, 53 59; see also Yitzhak Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1992), 1:76 77 et passim. 8

mysticism 895 distinct trends or even, as I shall show, into two types, both trends had germinated in a shared ground. When assessing and describing the nature and development of medieval Jewish mysticism, these origins should not be overlooked. Interestingly, the shared background, anchored in Neoplatonic mystical philosophy, is also relevant for better understanding the nature of Muslim mysticism in al-Andalus. Thus, although it is commonplace to identify “Muslim mysticism” at large with “S ̣ūfism,”12 it should be noted that in al-Andalus (and to some extent also in the Muslim East), a non-S ̣ūfī type of mysticism had been at work; notably, a Neoplatonic version of mystical philosophy.13 This type of philosophical mysticism had been present in al-Andalus since the tenth century and it can be witnessed profusely in the works of both Jewish and Muslim philosophers and mystics. As for the S ̣ūfī type of Jewish mysticism, it, too, had its offshoots in al-Andalus, as can be seen from the groundbreaking work of Bahya Ibn _ Paquda, The Duties of the Heart.14 However, around 1151, after the expulsion of the non-Muslim communities from al-Andalus by the Almohads, this S ̣ūfī-type mystical trend left al-Andalus and, with Maimonides’ family, emigrated to the East, finally settling in Egypt. In Egypt it flourished within the circles of the “pietists” (hasidīm), to whom, in modern times, _ applied.15 the designation “Jewish S ̣ūfīs” has been HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In spite of the long-standing fallacy that in the tenth century, S ̣ūfism was thriving in al-Andalus,16 the history of Andalusian S ̣ūfism still poses for the 12

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See, for example, Haïm Zafrani, “Mystique juive et mystique musulmane,” in his Kabbale, vie mystique et magie: judaїsme d’Occident musulman (Paris, 1996), 17 18. For the concept of “mystical philosophy,” see note 45. For the Sūfī nature of The Duties of the Heart, see Amos Goldreich, “The Possible Sources for the Distinction between ‘The Duties of the Organs’ and ‘The Duties of the Heart,’” in Teʿūda, Studies in Hebrew and Arabic in Memoriam Dov Eeron [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1988), 179 208; Diana Lobel, A Sufi Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya ibn Paqūda’s Duties of the Heart (Philadelphia, 2007); Sara Sviri, “The _ Emergence of Pre Kabbalistic Spirituality in Spain: The Case of Bahya Ibn Paqūda and Judah Halevi,” Donaire 6 (1996), 78 84; see also notes 19 and 106._ For a biographical description of Moses Maimonides and his family, see Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World, 8, and the references mentioned there in n26; for the development of the Sūfī type Jewish mysticism and the pietistic circle in medieval Egypt, see note 7; see also note 117. See, for example, Diana Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha Levi’s Kuzari (New York, 2000), 3; Michael McGaha, “The Sefer Ha Bahir and Andalusian Sūfism,” Medieval Encounters 3 (1997), 20 57, especially 32 and 45; note, however, McGaha’s reference to Fenton’s caution concerning

896 sara sviri scholars some open questions: when do we really find a “thriving” S ̣ūfī movement in al-Andalus; what was the nature of Andalusian mysticism during the tenth to the thirteenth centuries; and, in particular, can S ̣ūfism in al-Andalus be seen as a mirror-image of eastern S ̣ūfism?17 In fact, a tentative answer to the third question can be articulated: In the East, by the end of the tenth century, many of the classical S ̣ūfi compilations had been in circulation and use; several important centers of teaching, which drew many adepts and disciples, had by then been formed and established; a particular S ̣ūfī language and ethos had evolved covering and promoting an experiential mode of mystical life: S ̣ūfism and S ̣ūfī literature had indeed been thriving there. This cannot be said about the S ̣ūfi presence in alAndalus. The Andalusian heresiographer Ibn Ḥazm (d. 1064), in his book Kitāb al-Fisal fī al-Milal (Concerning Religions, Heresies, and Sects), does _ mention several (though by no means numerous) anecdotes relating to S ̣ūfis in his homeland: he saw them as mostly despised and outlandish figures; but he offers no discussion on S ̣ūfism as such nor does he mention any S ̣ūfi texts in particular.18 Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, the first work to have appeared in al-Andalus which can be qualified as S ̣ūfi was a book in Judeo-Arabic titled al-Hidāya ilā Farāʾid al-Qulūb (The Guidance to the Duties of the Heart). It was written by Ibn_ Ḥazm’s Jewish contemporary, Bahya Ibn Paquda.19 The first indigenous, Andalusian compilation written by _ a Muslim and fashioned on eastern S ̣ūfī-type works appeared much later: it was Mahāsin al-Majālis (The Loveliness of the Assemblies) by Ibn al-ʿArīf (d. 1141)._20 That S ̣ūfi teachings (though without explicit acknowledgment of their presence) are first attested to by a Jewish rather than a Muslim author can, perhaps, be explained by the fact that up until the reign of the Umayyad caliph al-Ḥakam II (r. 961–76), any pursuit of knowledge outside of the Qurʾān and the Sunna (i.e., the hadīth) was _ strictly forbidden by the intolerant jurisprudents of the Mālikī school, who

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the difficulty “to distinguish authentic Sufi themes from those common to general Islamic Neoplatonism” see ibid., 45 and n126. Note Addas’ comments in “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” in Salma K. Jayyusi, ed., The Legacy of Muslim Spain (Leiden, 1992), 909 29, and especially 912. See ʿAlī b. Ahmad Ibn Hazm, Kitāb al Fisal fī al Milal wa l Ahwāʾ wa l Nihal (Beirut, _ 143, 155, 160, 170. _ _ 1985), 4:21, 138, See also notes 30, 37, 79; interestingly, Lobel, who wrote on “Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha Levi’s Kuzari,” admits that “The Sufi is a background figure, an absent speaker whose presence we feel throughout the dialogue” see Between Mysticism and Philosophy, 4, 159; see also Sara Sviri, “Review: Diana Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Experience in Judah Ha Levi’s Kuzari,” Journal of Jewish Studies, 53 (2002), 177. Note that even in Bahya’s book, Sūfism as such is not mentioned. _ Arīf, ed. and trans. Miguel Asín Palacios See Ibn al ʿArīf, Mahāsin al Majālis d’Ibn al _ (Paris, 1933).

mysticism 897 21 had been supported by the early Muslim rulers of al-Andalus. Jewish communities may have been exempt from such restrictions. Although earlier in the tenth century al-Andalus did produce an indigenous mystic, Ibn Masarra al-Jabalī (d. 931), he and his disciples seem to have had to resort to convening in remote mountainous places (hence his name, alJabalī, “dweller of the mountain”) and, in any case, remained controversial and persecuted figures.22 Besides, as has become clear in a recent study, Ibn Masarra was no S ̣ūfī.23 Intellectual activities in al-Andalus took place energetically only after the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba in the eleventh century and against the background of a general relaxation in the authority of the religious legalists. Nevertheless, the beginning of an intellectual endeavor in al-Andalus can be traced to the reign of ʿAbd al-Rahmān III (r. 912–61).24 This was also the time when _ began, cultivated and encouraged by Ḥasday Ibn Jewish literary creativity Shaprut (d. c. 975), the leader of the Jewish communities and, apparently, _ an important courtier-diplomat in the service of the caliph.25 In terms of Jewish history, Ibn Shaprut’s diplomatic, cultural, and communal activities herald what became known_ as “the golden age.”26 The relative intellectual

21

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23

24

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26

See Miguel Asín Palacios, The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra and His Followers, trans. Elmer H. Douglas and Howard W. Yoder (Leiden, 1978), 16 26, and especially 24; also Sarah Stroumsa, “Al Andalus und Sefarad. Von Bibliotheken und Gelehrten im muslimischen Spanien,” trans. Christoph Cluse, in Arye Maimon Institut für Geschichte der Juden: Studien und Texte (Trier, 2010), 2:11 et passim. See Palacios, Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra; Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” 911 19; cf. Sarah Stroumsa and Sara Sviri, “The Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus: Ibn Masarra and his Epistle on Contemplation,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 36 (2009), 202. See Stroumsa and Sviri, “Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus,” 204, 209, 210; cf. Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” 911 19; see also notes 61 62 and 74. See William M. Watt and Pierre Cachia, A History of Islamic Spain (Edinburgh, 1977), 79, 128. See Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, trans. Aaron Klein and Jenny Machlowitz Klein, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1992), 1:155 227; José M. Millás Vallicrosa, “The Beginning of Science among the Jews of Spain,” in Joseph Dan, ed., Binah: Jewish Intellectual History in the Middle Ages (Westport, CT, 1994), 3:37 38; Ibn Hayyān al Qurtubī, _ Crónica del Califa ʿAbdarrahmân III An Nâsir entre los años 912 y 942 (= al Muqtabis V), trans. M. J. Viguera and Federico Corriente (Zaragoza, 1981), 350 51, 355; David J. Wasserstein, “The Muslims and the Golden Age of the Jews in al Andalus,” in Uri Rubin and David J. Wasserstein, eds., Dhimmis and Others: Jews and Christians and the World of Classical Islam (Tel Aviv, 1997 = Israel Oriental Studies 17), 184. See Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain; also Esperanza Alfonso, Islamic Culture through Jewish Eyes: Al Andalus from the Tenth to Twelfth Century (London, 2008), 61 62; Wasserstein, “The Muslims and the Golden Age of the Jews in al Andalus,” especially 182.

898 sara sviri relaxation meant that Muslims and Jews could now become more freely exposed to writings and teachings that arrived in al-Andalus from the East. Cultural openness of Muslim and Jewish societies continued with greater momentum after the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate and its breakdown into small and rival kingdoms. During the eleventh century, under the “Party Kings” (mulūk al-tawāʾif), this cultural growth produced great literary figures, Muslim as well_ as Jewish. Andalusian Jewish intellectuals, who had access to the various branches of Arabic literature – poetry, grammar, rhetoric, religious sciences, as well as science, philosophy, and mysticism – participated in the shaping of Andalusian culture. Although Muslim and Jewish authors produced their works within the boundaries of their own religious culture and for their coreligionists, they shared a common Arabic-based culture. The literary works which were imported from the East, in particular writings of philosophical, pietistic, and mystical orientations, responded to a spiritual and intellectual awakening in both religions. Of special significance were the Epistles of the Sincere Brethren (Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-S ̣afāʾ). In tenth-century Basra, these _ “Brethren” formed a group which, for all intents and purposes, had 27 inclinations toward Ismāʿīlī teachings and whose literary products, the Epistles, bear strong Neoplatonic features. They were brought to alAndalus, possibly to Saragossa, in the eleventh century (on Saragossa, see more below) or perhaps even earlier.28 That the last century of Jewish existence in al-Andalus – from the middle of the eleventh to the middle of the twelfth centuries – witnessed a growing interest on the part of Jewish intellectuals in spiritual issues can be discerned from the abundance of liturgical poetry as well as philosophical writings produced during this period by such authors as Solomon Ibn Gabirol (fl. first half of the eleventh century),29 Bahya Ibn Paquda (d. c. 1080),30 _ 27

28

29

30

See Palacios, The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra, 120; Georges Vajda, Introduction à la pensée juive du Moyen Age (Paris, 1947), 88; Samuel M. Stern, Studies in Early Ismāʿīlism (Jerusalem, 1983), 155 76; Shlomo Pines, “On the Term Ruhaniyyot and Its _ L. Kraemer, Origin and on Judah Halevi’s Doctrine,” Tarbiz 57 (1987/88), 515; Joel Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden, 1986), 165 78. For the question of the dating of the Epistles and of the manner of its arrival in al Andalus, see note 92. See Jacques Schlanger, La Philosophie de Salomon ibn Gabirol: Étude d’un néoplatonisme (Leiden, 1968), especially part 1, 1 157. Cf. Lobel, Sufi Jewish Dialogue, 2; also Bahya Ibn Paquda, The Book of Direction to the _ Mansoor (London, 1973), 1 2; cf. David Duties of the Heart, ed. and trans. Menahem Kaufmann, Studies in Medieval Hebrew Literature [Hebrew], trans. Israel Eldad (Jerusalem, 1962), 11.

mysticism 899 32 Moshe Ibn Ezra (d. c. 1135), and Judah Halevi (d. 1141), to name but a few. During this twilight period of the Andalusian Jewish golden age, the cultural center had shifted from the south to the north of al-Andalus. After the disintegration of the caliphate of Córdoba in 1031, many Jewish families emigrated to the north of the Iberian Peninsula, most of which was still under Muslim rule. Many migrants settled in Toledo and in Saragossa. After the fall of Muslim Toledo in 1085 to the Christian Reconquista, it was Saragossa on the Ebro Valley, the northernmost of the Muslim tāʾifa _ in kingdoms, which occupied the main political and cultural center Muslim Spain, until 1118 when it, too, fell to the Christian king Alfonso I.33 Under the rule of the Banū Hūd, Saragossa became one of the greatest and most prosperous of the Muslim city-states.34 As we have mentioned, it was probably to this city that the influential Epistles of the Sincere Brethren were brought from the East in the second half of the eleventh century or earlier.35 Two of the literary figures mentioned above lived in Saragossa: Bahya Ibn Paquda in the early part of the eleventh century and Solomon Ibn_ Gabirol in its later part. When Arabic lost its exclusivity as the language of culture and communication, it was in Saragossa that the first generation of Jewish translators from Arabic into Hebrew emerged. Moses Ibn Giqatilla (or Chiquitilla), a grammarian and Bible commentator who flourished in the third quarter of the eleventh century and a refugee from Córdoba to Saragossa, was the first of a long line of translators to commute between the two sides of the Pyrenees, transmitting Judeo-Arabic writings to the Jewish communities of the north.36 This project of translations from Arabic into Hebrew, which was to last for several generations, made the works of Bahya and Judah Halevi, written originally in Judeo-Arabic, available to _the Jewish communities in Castile and Leon, Navarre, Aragon, and Barcelona, as well as to their neighbouring Jewish communities of Provence.37 For these northern provinces, the eleventh century, 31

31

32 33 34 35

36

37

See Paul Fenton, Philosophie et Exégèse dans Le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn ʿEzra, philosophe et poète andalou du XII e siècle (Leiden, 1997), 12 22. See Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy, introduction, 8 9, and 181n1. See EJIW, s.v. “Saragossa” (Ángel Sáenz Badillos). See Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 2:253 54. See Joaquín Lomba Fuentes, La Filosofía Islámica en Zaragoza (Saragossa, 1987), 38; also Maribel Fierro, “Bātinism in Al Andalus. Maslama b. Qāsim al Qurtubī (d. 353/964), _ Author of the Rutbat_ al Hakīm and the Ghāyat al Hakīm (Picatrix),” Studia Islamica 84 (1996), 106 8. See Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 2:259 62; also EJIW, s.v. “Moses ibn Chiquitilla” (José Martínez Delgado). According to the testimony of Judah Ibn Tibbon (d. 1190), the translator of both the Duties of the Heart and of the Kuzari, he translated the former “at the instigation of

900 sara sviri and especially its second half, although replete with political upheavals after the fall of Toledo, was nevertheless a period of economic expansion, political consolidation, cultural flourishing, and a deepening of the spiritual quest. In this quest, eleventh-century Jewish intellectuals found inspiration from sources which came via two avenues: the one Islamic, especially in the form of texts – such as the aforementioned Epistles of the Sincere Brethren – relating to Neoplatonic and Aristotelian philosophy. The other avenue was Jewish, in the form of ancient or pseudepigraphic mystical texts in Hebrew, foremost among them the enigmatic Sefer Yesira (The _ These Book of Creation), but also the Merkavah and Hekhalot literature. texts, with their bold theophanic images, mystical verbal practices, and cosmogonic theories, had surfaced in different parts of the Jewish world during the late geonic period, aroused great interest, and instigated discussions, polemics, and commentaries.38 The range of commentaries to Sefer Yesira written by tenth-century theologians and philosophers such as _ Seʿadyah Gaʾon from Baghdad (882–942), Dunash b. Tamim from North Africa (fl. c. 950), and Shabbetai Donnolo from Italy (913–82) indicates the degree of interest which this intriguing book had produced. In al-Andalus, its profound impact can be seen in the works of two of the most creative and influential figures in Jewish medieval intellectual history: in the poetic and philosophic writings of Solomon Ibn Gabirol39 and in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari.40 In the Kuzari, written in the early part of the twelfth century, Judah Halevi dedicated a significant part of the fourth chapter to elucidating some of the mystifying theories contained in Sefer Yesira.41 Both Ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi – and they are only the most _

38

39

40

41

Rabad” (Rabbi Abraham b. David of Posquières), one of the early Kabbalists see Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, trans. Allan Arkush (Philadelphia, 1987), 221 and 223. For a survey of the scholarship concerning the provenance of the Hekhalot and Merkavah literature, see Elliot Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, 1994), 74 124; for “visionary experience in pre Kabbalistic sources,” see ibid., 125 87. For Ibn Gabirol and Sefer Yesira, see Yehuda Liebes, “Sefer Yesira in R. Salomon Ibn _ Gabirol’s Writings and a Commentary on the Poem ‘I have _loved you’” [Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 6 (1987), 73 123; cf. Moshe Idel, “Jewish Thought in Medieval Spain,” in Haim Beinart, ed., The Sephardi Legacy [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1992), 207 23; also Schlanger, Philosophie de Salomon ibn Gabirol, 105 et passim. For Halevi’s indebtedness to the Merkavah tradition, see Elliot R. Wolfson, “Merkavah Traditions in Philosophical Garb: Judah Halevi Reconsidered,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 57 (1990 91), 179 242. See Judah Halevi, Al Kitāb al Khazarī: The Book of Refutation and Proof on the Despised Faith, ed. David H. Baneth and Haggai Ben Shammai (Jerusalem, 1977), 174 85 =

mysticism 901 prominent examples – amalgamated in their works powerful cosmological and cosmogonic speculations together with phraseology and letter speculations which drew from earlier Jewish mystical texts. In forging fundamental concepts and ideas, which were soon to come forth in the Kabbalistic literature, they, and others, clearly point to the importance of the eleventh- and twelfth-century Judeo-Arabic products for Jewish spirituality and, in particular, for envisaging subsequent phases of Jewish mysticism in terms of continuity rather than mystifying leaps.42 Foremost among the imported Muslim sources which had been studied by Jewish as well as Muslim intellectuals were, indeed, the Epistles of the Sincere Brethren. But there were also indigenous Andalusian literary works by Muslim authors with which Jewish intellectuals were familiar. These included, inter alia, the pseudo-al-Majrītī’s Goal of the Sage (Ghāyat al_ Ḥakīm, known as Picatrix in the Latin world), al-Batalyawsī’s The Book of Imaginary Circles (Kitāb al-Dawāʾir, or al-Ḥadāʾiq, _known in Hebrew as Sefer ha-ʿAgullot ha-Raʿyoniyot), and Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy Ibn Yaqzān.43 All _ these works exhibit strong philosophical-mystical leanings with unmistakable Neoplatonic traits. It will be noticed that this short list does not include works by S ̣ūfīs. This is no oversight. In spite of the testimony of Bahya’s The Duties of the Heart, S ̣ūfīsm was not the main carrier of _ mystical teachings to inspire contemporaneous Jewish seekers after spiritual teachings. Moreover, envisaging S ̣ūfīsm as the agent of possible Muslim contributions to the prehistory of the Kabbalah is the main stumbling block for a valid appraisal of the process I am trying to highlight in this chapter. In fact, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, notwithstanding a strong Andalusian propensity for piety and asceticism (a propensity which, in itself, did not encourage engagement in either intellectual speculations or in individual mystical pursuits), Andalusian intellectuals had not been exposed so much to S ̣ūfī mystical teachings as to philosophical ones, which had a strong Neoplatonic-mystical flavor. These philosophical-mystical teachings in themselves had been touched by Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī adaptations of Neoplatonic texts. By assuming that S ̣ūfīsm was the main, if not the sole, manifestation of Muslim mysticism in alAndalus, and by underplaying the mystical nature and importance of

42

43

Hartwig Hirschfeld, trans., The Kuzari: An Argument for the Faith of Israel (New York, 1964), 228 40. On the Kabbalists, esteem for Sefer Yesira, see Moshe Idel, “Maimonides and _ in Maimonides (Cambridge, MA, 1990), Kabbalah,” in Isadore Twersky, ed., Studies 40; see also Wolfson, Through a Speculum that Shines, especially chapter 4, 125 87. See Mauro Zonta, “Influence of Arabic and Islamic Philosophy on Judaic Thought,” http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/arabic islamic judaic, section 3.

902 sara sviri Neoplatonic philosophy prevailing there, scholarship has seldom registered the straight line that connects this non-S ̣ūfī philosophical mysticism with the Jewish mystical tradition.44 MYSTICAL PHILOSOPHY, S Ū ̣ FI MYSTICISM, IBN MASARRA, AND IKHWĀN AL S A ̣ FĀʾ45

Medieval Neoplatonism, as is well known, is associated with several texts of late antique Hellenistic origin, which had circulated in Arabic since the ninth century. Foremost among these texts was the apocryphal so-called Theology of Aristotle,46 which, in the last resort, is a reworking of Plotinus’ 44

45

46

Note the pertinent observations made by Moshe Idel, “Kabbalah in Spain: Some Cultural Observations,” in Carlos C. Parrondo, Marcelo Dascal, Francisco M. Villanueva, and Ángel Sáenz Badillos, eds., Encuentros and Desencuentros: Spanish Jewish Cultural Interaction throughout History (Tel Aviv, 2000), in particular, his wonder “why none of the Spanish Kabbalists . . . quoted from these Hebrew translations [of al Ghazālī’s works]” see 54 and 70 71. In light of the cultural process and the typological distinctions which I propose (see also below), it is clear that, in order to reconsider the possibility of Islamic impact on the Kabbalah, one should speculate less about the role of Sūfism but rather consider the Neoplatonic Arabic and Judeo Arabic materials. Questions pertaining to Sūfī presence or absence from the medieval Kabbalistic lore should thus be rephrased. Against this background, cf. Idel’s comment on the probable Neoplatonic influence behind Rabbi Isaac the Blind’s notions of the sefirot; see Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 136; see also 138 and 342n213; see also note 56. For the term “rationalistic mysticism” “a very special type of mysticism which we tentatively will call mysticism of reason or simply rationalistic mysticism” see Philip Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness: Problems of the Soul in the Neoaristotelian and Neoplatonic Traditions (The Hague, 1963), introduction, 2 3 et passim. David Blumenthal, in his Philosophic Mysticism: Studies in Rational Religion (Ramat Gan, 2006), uses the term “philosophic mysticism” mainly in the context of the philosophy of Moses Maimonides; he writes: “I deal with the application of the concept of philosophic mysticism only to Judaeo Islamic philosophy” (see 26n11); the Kabbalah, therefore, seems to be left out of Blumenthal’s study. The same comment applies also to Blumenthal’s chapter “Philosophic Mysticism: The Ultimate Goal of Medieval Judaism,” in Benjamin Hary and Haggai Ben Shammai, eds., Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo Arabic Culture (Leiden, 2006), 1 18. For “philosophical mysticism in eleventh century Spain,” see also Diana Lobel, Sufi Jewish Dialogue, 21 34. There exists a vast literature on the pseudo Aristotle texts, their Neoplatonic affiliation, and their place in Arabic culture; see, for example, Jill Kraye, Charles B. Schmitt and William F. Ryan, eds., Pseudo Aristotle in the Middle Ages: The Theology and Other Texts (London, 1986); Peter S. Adamson, Arabic Plotinus: A Philosophical Study of the ‘Theology of Aristotle’ (London, 2002); Christina D’Ancona, “Greek into Arabic: Neoplatonism in Translation,” in Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge, 2005), 10 31; Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: the Graeco Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ʿAbbāsid Society (2nd 4th/8th 10th Centuries) (London, 1998), 141 50 et passim;

mysticism 903 Enneads IV, V, and VI. Two Arabic versions circulated in the medieval Muslim world: a shorter and a longer one.47 The longer version has survived in fragmentary manuscripts written in Judeo-Arabic from which, in the sixteenth century, a Latin translation was produced.48 This longer version, extant only in Judeo-Arabic, had clearly circulated among medieval Jewish intellectuals. Nevertheless, these Judeo-Arabic manuscripts must have existed alongside Arabic ones and its contents must have been shared by both Jews and Muslims. The longer version of pseudo-Aristotle’s Theology has been shown to portray Neoplatonic ideas and schemes in a mode close to Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī teachings.49 The Jewish familiarity with and adoption of ideas deriving from the nexus of Neoplatonic teachings and Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī conceptions, in particular in al-Andalus, have been assiduously studied by Shlomo Pines,50 Samuel M. Stern,51 Paul B. Fenton,52 as well as, more recently, in a number of doctoral theses produced by young Israeli scholars.53 These texts and studies help us draw a type of mysticism

47

48

49

50

51 53

Franz Rosenthal, “Ash Shaykh al Yūnānī and the Arabic Plotinus Source,” Orientalia, n.s. 21 (1952), 461 92; 22 (1953), 370 400; and 24 (1955), 42 66; reprinted in Franz Rosenthal, Greek Philosophy in the Arab World: A Collection of Essays (Aldershot, 1990), iii. The short version was published twice: first by Friedrich Dieterici in 1882 followed by a German translation in 1883 and again by ʿAbd al Rahmān Badawī, Plotinus apud Arabes _ (Cairo, 1955). It was translated into English by Geoffrey Lewis and included in Paul Henry and Hans R. Schwyzer’s critical edition of Plotinus’ Enneads = Plotini Opera (Paris, 1951 73), vol. 2; the longer version still awaits a publication and a critical edition. For a long list of references to the Theology in the writings of both Jewish and Muslim authors “from Persia to Andalusia,” see Paul Fenton, “The Arabic and Hebrew Versions of the Theology of Aristotle,” in Jill Kraye, William F. Ryan, and Charles B. Schmitt, Pseudo Aristotle in the Middle Ages, 259 60, n2. See Samuel M. Stern, “Ibn Hasdāy’s Neoplatonist: A Neoplatonic Treatise and Its Influence on Isaac Israeli and the Longer Version of the Theology of Aristotle,” Oriens 13 14 (1961), 58 120; Fenton, “The Arabic and Hebrew Versions of the Theology of Aristotle,” 241 64. See Shlomo Pines, “La longue récension de la Théologie d’Aristote dans ses rapports avec la doctrine ismaélienne,” in Revue des études Islamiques 22 (1954), 7 20; Daniel de Smet, “Les bibliothèques ismaéliennes et la question du néoplatonisme ismaélien”, in Christina D’Ancona, ed., The Libraries of the Neoplatonists (Leiden, 2007), 488 89 et passim. See Shlomo Pines, “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980), 165 251; also Pines, “On the Term Ruhaniyyot.” 52 _ See also note 48. See also notes 47 48. See Ehud Krinis, “The Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi’s al Kitāb al Khazarī and Its Origins in Shīʿī Imām Doctrine” (PhD diss., Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 2008); Ayala Eliyahu, “Ibn al Sīd al Batalyawsī and His Place in Medieval _ Muslim and Jewish Thought” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010); Michael Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy in al Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al ʿArabī and the Ismāʿīlī Tradition (Leiden, 2014), especially chapter 1; for medieval Jewish and

904 sara sviri which should be distinguished from S ̣ūfism. Whereas S ̣ūfism, by and large, focuses on an inward journey to the innermost regions of man’s being, identified as “heart” (qalb) or “secret” (sirr), mystical philosophy is interested in an upward, contemplative journey that would culminate in the conjunction (ittisāl) of the human “partial” intellect (al-ʿaql al-juzʾī) with _ the universal intellect (al-ʿaql al-kullī). S ̣ūfism describes a constant struggle between two opposing elements in man’s being: the “heart,” which, although hidden and veiled, contains the capacity to “know” God and to abide in God’s nearness; and, in polar opposition to it, the “lower-self” (nafs), a dark and lustful aspect in man’s makeup.54 As for Neoplatonic philosophical mysticism, its upholders regard the “soul” (nafs) or, at least, its higher parts, as a noble element in man, which, before attaching itself to the lower world, had belonged to the cosmic “universal soul” (al-nafs alkulliyya). Where S ̣ūfism charts a journey to the inner, concentric layers of the “heart,”55 Neoplatonic mystical philosophy envisages encompassing cosmic spheres, emanated from the transcendent One and circling in a hierarchical realm. In addressing “medieval Jewish mysticism,” these distinctions are significant: they help us elucidate that, in historical as well as comparative terms, the search for Muslim and Judeo-Arabic antecedents and precursors of the Kabbalah should not focus on S ̣ūfism. In other words, distinguishing between Neoplatonic mysticism and S ̣ūfism is necessary for observing, with greater clarity than hitherto proposed, how mystical speculations, which, in Provence, Catalonia, and Castile, were formulated in mystical texts written in Hebrew and Aramaic, had their roots in Neoplatonic and Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī mysticisms rather than in S ̣ūfism.56

54

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Muslim Neoplatonism and early Kabbalah, see Adam Afterman, “Intimate Conjunction with God: The Concept of ‘Devekut’ in the Early Kabbalah (Provence and Catalonia)” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2008). For the nafs in Sūfism, see Sara Sviri, “The Self and Its Transformation in Sūfism, with Special Reference to Early Literature,” in David Shulman and Guy Stroumsa, eds., Self and Self transformation in the History of Religions (New York, 2002), 195 215. See, for example, (pseudo?) al Hakīm al Tirmidhī, “A Treatise on the Heart Bayān al farq bayna al sadr wal qalb wal fuʾād wal lubb attributed to al Hakīm al Tirmidhī _ in Kenneth L. Honerkamp, ed., Three Early Sufi Texts (Louisville, (d. ca. 300/912),” 2003), 3 81. An interesting case in point is the work of the Muslim author Ibn al Sīd al Batalyawsī _ (d. 1127): his Arabic work The Book of the Imaginary Circles (Kitāb al Dawāʾir al Wahmiyya), immersed in Neoplatonic mystical philosophy, had enjoyed several Hebrew translations during the Middle Ages and up until the sixteenth century; that it had been read and absorbed by later medieval Kabbalists can be seen in the numerous citations in Kabbalistic literature see Eliyahu, “Ibn al Sīd al Batalyawsī and His Place _ For other examples in Medieval Muslim and Jewish Thought,” introduction et passim. and assessment of the indebtedness of early Kabbalah to medieval Neoplatonism, see

mysticism 905 It was this type of mysticism, rather than the S ̣ūfī type, which had occupied a central position in the intercommunal intellectual circles throughout the medieval world.57 Mystical philosophy is first attested to in al-Andalus in the works of the tenth-century Ibn Masarra al-Jabalī (“the dweller of the mountain”). He was born in Córdoba in 883, traveled to the eastern parts of the Muslim world as well as to North Africa, and died in his mountainous retreat in 931, where he had lived and taught, probably in some sort of secrecy, a community of disciples. His life span coincides with the reign of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Rahmān III al-Nāsir (r. 912–61), in whose service, _ Ibn Shaprut (c. 905–75) had as we have seen, the Jewish _courtier Ḥasday _ dynasty took been active. This is also the time when, in Qayrawān, a new power, posing rivalry and threat to both the Umayyad caliphate in alAndalus and to the ʿAbbāsid caliphate in the eastern Muslim world: this dynasty established itself as a caliphate/imāmate by its leader, the Fātimid/ Ismāʿīlī ʿAbd Allāh (or ʿUbayd Allāh) al-Mahdī (r. 910–34).58 It is_ noteworthy that Isaac Israeli, the early tenth-century Jewish Neoplatonist, was a physician at the court of this new Fātimid caliph/imām.59 Ibn Masarra’s _ till 1972, portray clear hallmarks two extant works, which were thought lost of Neoplatonic mystical philosophy in its medieval, monotheistic Muslim garb.60 In contrast to scholarly evaluations of Ibn Masarra as a S ̣ūfī,61 an analysis of his extant works has shown that there is nothing particularly S ̣ūfī in his thought and terminology; rather, they exhibit clear Neoplatonic affiliations.62 Ibn Masarra’s epistle titled the Risālat al-Iʿtibār (Epistle on Contemplation) sketches an upward contemplative journey through a Neoplatonic ladder whose rungs, from below upward, are Nature (al-t _

57 58

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60

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Sara O. Heller Wilensky, “Isaac Ibn Latif Philosopher or Kabbalist?” in Alexander Altmann, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 185 223; also Goldreich, “The Theology of the Iyyun Circle.” See also note 43. See EI2, s.v. “al Mahdī ʿUbayd Allāh” (Farhat Dachraoui); also Heinz Halm, The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids, trans. Michael Bonner (Leiden, 1996), esp. 121 22. See Alexander Altmann and Samuel M. Stern, Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century (London, 1958), “Biographical Notes,” xvii xxiii. On Ibn Masarra and the literature on him, see Stroumsa and Sviri, “Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus,” 201 3, especially nn1 and 5. For a detailed commen tary and analysis of Ibn Masarra’s works, see Stroumsa and Sviri, The Beginning of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus (forthcoming). See, in particular, Stroumsa and Sviri, “Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus,” 209n35; and Samuel M. Stern, “Ibn Masarra, Follower of Pseudo Empedocles an Illusion,” in Actas do IV Congresso de estudos árabes e islâmicos. Coimbra Lisboa. 1 a 8 de Setembro de 1968 (Leiden, 1971), 326 27. See Stroumsa and Sviri, note 61.

906 sara sviri abīʿa), the Universal Soul (al-nafs al-kulliyya), the Universal Intellect (alʿaql al-kullī) and, ultimately, the Lord (al-rabb), the Creator (al-khāliq), the One (al-wāhid). The image of a ladder, which frequently appears in _ and Jewish sources, was examined by Alexander medieval Muslim Altmann; the material gathered by Altmann makes evident the Neoplatonic connection of this image and its significance. According to Altmann, this image “is neoplatonic in character, and for this reason it made an impact on medieval Jewish philosophers and mystics.”63 Ibn Masarra’s use of the contemplative ladder imagery not only connects him with a long chain of mystical philosophers of Andalusian origin; it also, significantly, predates all of the medieval sources collected by Altmann. It thus helps us to point to the middle of the tenth century as the beginning of the so-called prehistory of both Islamic and Jewish mystical-philosophical systems in al-Andalus.64 The second extant work by Ibn Masarra is titled Kitāb Khawāss al-Ḥurūf _ (The Book of the Properties of Letters). As the title suggests, the _work deals with the power held by religious language and its components. In particular it deals with those Arabic letters which are designated as “isolated” (al-h urūf al-muqat taʿa): these are fourteen “mysterious letters” which appear at_ the beginning_ _of twenty-nine Qurʾānic suras (hence they are also known as hurūf al-fawātih, the opening letters).65 Likewise the epistle deals with _ _ letter combinations such as kāf and nūn, a particularly powerful combination as, traditionally, it signifies the divine creative command kun (Be!).66 It also deals with sacred formulae, mostly derived from the Qurʾān, such as bismi llāh al-rahmān al-rahīm (in the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate)_ and which,_ beyond their canonical sanctity, enclose also, according to our author, divine secrets and esoteric meanings. Ibn Masarra’s work is strewn with idioms and concepts such as “the universal intellect” (al-ʿaql al-kullī), “the universal soul” (al-nafs al-kulliyya), the “universal body” (al-juththa al-kulliyya), which are unmistakably Neoplatonic.67 In addition to the Neoplatonic background, the work 63 65

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64 See Altmann, “Ladder of Ascension,” 44. See note 4. See EI2, s.v. “al Ḳurʾān”, part 4d (Alford T. Welch); see also Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, s.v. “Mysterious Letters” (Keith Massey). See Sara Sviri, “Kun The Existence Bestowing Word in Islamic Mysticism: A Survey of Texts on the Creative Power of Language,” in Sergio La Porta and David Shulman, eds., The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign (Leiden, 2007), 35 67. It is worth adducing the entire passage where these notions occur (translated by Stroumsa and Sviri): “From the Godhead (al ulūhiyya, namely, the name Allāh) com bined with both ‘the Merciful’ (al rahīm) and ‘the Compassionate’ (al rahmān), you _ come to know that the universal intellect (al ʿaql al kullī) is immersed _ within the

mysticism 907 exhibits also the imprint of concepts, themes, and myths attested profusely in Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī sources, according to which letters are the primordial building blocks in the cosmogonic chain of creation and in cosmological schemes.68 Ibn Masarra, much like the earlier Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī materials and the subsequent letter speculations found extensively in the works of Ibn alʿArabī,69 combines philosophical speculations with traditional and mythical discourse concerning the divine secrets enclosed in sacred language.70 Such synthesis is often achieved by applying the method of analogy – either between philosophical concepts and letters, in particular the letters categorized as “mysterious,” or between philosophical concepts and traditional-mythical images. The graphic form of the letters is often also incorporated into these speculations. Of particular interest in this respect is the following passage, which bears also interesting comparative parallels: Some say that [the letter] hamza is the intellect (al-ʿaql), and that it is the [divine] will (al-irāda); [the letter] alif is the rational soul (al-nafs al-nātiqa); [the letter] _

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universal soul (al nafs al kulliyya), and that the universal soul is immersed within the body of the world (juththat al ʿālam) this is so according to the teaching of the philosophers and the ancients of the erring nations, people of the periods of interval [between prophets] who, without prophecy, attained the knowledge of God’s unity” see Muhammad b. ʿAbdallāh Ibn Masarra, The Book on the Properties of Letters (Kitāb khawās s_al hurūf), in Stroumsa and Sviri, Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus; __ hammad _ and Mu Kamāl Ibrāhīm Jaʿfar, Min Qad āyā al Fikr al Islāmī (Cairo, 1978), 315 _ _ (= f. 133). For letter speculations in early Ismāʿīlīsm, and in particular in the corpus associated with Jābir ibn Hayyān, see Paul Kraus, Jābir ibn Hayyān: contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiques dans l’Islam. Volume II: Jābir et la science grecque (Cairo, 1942), 223 70; Georges Vajda, “Les lettres et les sons de la langue Arabe d’après Abū Hātim al Rāzī,” Arabica 8 (1961), 113 30; Heinz Halm, Kosmologie und Heilslehre der frühen Ismāʿīlīya: eine Studie zur islamischen Gnosis (Wiesbaden, 1978), 38 52; see now also Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy, chapter 2 (on letters); for the possible influence of Sefer Yesira and its medieval commentaries on Ibn Masarra, see Stroumsa, “Ibn Masarra _ the Beginnings of Mystical Thought in al Andalus,” 105 10; for a striking similarity and between Ibn Masarra’s cosmogonic speculations and Ismāʿīlī ones, note the following passage (trans. Stroumsa and Sviri): “[The letter] hāʾ is the [primordial] dust (habāʾ), that is, the letters. From it He composed all things; it falls under the fiat (kun) and [the letter] yāʾ. Some say that it is Gabriel, while some say that it is the spirit by which the letters were composed” Ibn Masarra, The Book of the Properties of Letters, f. 141; for the primordial dust (habāʾ) identified with letters in the Jābirian corpus, see Ebstein and Sviri, “The So called Risālat al Hurūf (Epistle on Letters) Ascribed to Sahl al Tustarī and Letter Mysticism in al Andalus” (forthcoming). See, in particular, chapter 2 of the Meccan Revelations; see also Denis Gril, “The Science of Letters,” in Michel Chodkiewicz, ed., The Meccan Revelations (New York, 2004), 2:107 219; see also note 104. Cf. Stroumsa and Sviri, “Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus”, translation [29], 222.

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sara sviri

wāw is the animal soul (al-nafs al-hayawāniyya); and [the letter] yāʾ is the _ the alif is upright, the yāʾ reclines, and vegetative soul (al-nafs al-nabātiyya); for _ way you find these three faculties of the soul in the wāw prostrates. In the same created beings. This is so because the animal which possesses a rational soul stands upright, like alif; that which possesses an animal soul only, kneels down, like wāw; and that which possesses a vegetative soul, its shape is of something prostrating, for its head is near only to the earth, as [is the case with] all plants.71

Needless to say that, concerning the mystery of letters and divine names, a similar hermeneutical method is also profusely employed by the Kabbalists.72 The echoes of Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī teachings may explain why Ibn Masarra and his followers were accused, among other things, of being “esotericists” (i.e., bātinīs). This label could have pointed to an association with the Ismāʿīlīs, _ the latter were collectively named, pejoratively, al-bātiniyya.73 At the since _ same time, a distinction between “inner” (bātin) and “exterior” (zāhir) _ _ could have also been associated with S ̣ūfism, due to the latter’s emphasis on the “inner” mode of worship and its elevation over and above the “exterior.” In fact, the attribute bātin or bātinī, more than anything, has _ concerning the distinction become one of the sources for the_ confusion between Ismāʿīlī-type esotericism and S ̣ūfism, a confusion exhibited in modern as well as in medieval scholarship. In terms of Ibn Masarra’s religious affiliations, attempts at making out what the label bātinī signified _ Masarra’s led modern scholars to erroneous conclusions.74 In fact, Ibn 71

72

73

74

For a strikingly similar hermeneutical passage concerning the Hebrew letters ahwy, cf. Judah Halevi, The Kuzari, trans. Hirschfeld, 202 (al Kitāb al Khazarī, 150 = f. 97a). Cf. McGaha, “Sefer Ha Bahir and Andalusian Sufism,” 53 55, where McGaha points to the similarity between the graphic hermeneutics of Ibn al ʿArabī and that of Sefer ha Bahir. I would concur with McGaha that the points he makes could be comparatively valid, except that they hardly point to a Sūfī background, as he maintains. For a critique of the Ismāʿīlīs under the label of al bātiniyya by the famous Sūfī author, Abū Hāmid al Ghazālī (c. 1058 1111), see his Fad āʾih_ al Bātiniyya (“The Ignominies of _ _ 1964); _ see also Ignaz Goldziher, the Bātiniyya”), ed. ʿAbd al Rahmān Badawī (Cairo, _ Streitschrift des Çazālī gegen die_ Bātinijja Sekte, with introduction, Arabic text, and German analysis (Leiden, 1916); for_ a detailed discussion concerning the accusation against Ibn Masarra, see Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” especially 915 18. See, in particular, Stern, “Ibn Masarra, Follower of Pseudo Empedocles an Illusion,” especially 326, where Stern rejects Asín Palacios’ theory concerning Ibn Masarra as a follower of the “pseudo Empedocles” and accepts him as Sūfī; for a rejection of Stern’s theory concerning Ibn Masarra’s Sūfism, see Stroumsa and Sviri, “Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus”, 209 10nn31 39; on the possible confusion regarding ʿilm al bātin and those associated with it, see Amos Goldreich’s perceptive _ Unknown Treatise on Suffering by Abū al Qāsim al Kirmānī” comment in his “An [Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 7 (1980), 176 77.

mysticism 909 works do not show any exclusive S ̣ūfī characteristics. Neither do they show any adherence to the ideological tenets of Shīʿism or Ismāʿīlism. Ibn Masarra was neither Ismāʿīlī nor S ̣ūfī, but a Sunnī mystical philosopher, inspired by Neoplatonic ideas of the kind that, during his lifetime, started to permeate into the western parts of the Muslim world. Historical questions pertaining to the Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī presence in alAndalus have not yet been resolved in scholarship; nor are they, strictly speaking, within the scope of this study. It should be mentioned, however, that, in the tenth century, the political power of the Ismāʿīlī dynasty in North Africa, that is, the Fātimids, was a formidable threat to the _ 75 Curiously, the members of the Umayyad caliphate in al-Andalus. Andalusian intellectual milieu, although apparently detached from allegiance to this political and ideological power, were nevertheless avid recipients of the mystical and philosophical teachings that derived from the Ismāʿīlī lore.76 It can, perhaps, be suggested that within intellectual circles, this reception could have been facilitated by the proliferation of one of the most ecumenical and humanistic products of Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī thought, namely, the Epistles of the Sincere Brethren.77 That the influence of the Epistles, either directly or indirectly, was pervasive can be seen from the following list of writers whose works contain explicit or implicit allusions to them. Among the Andalusian Jewish writers mention should be made of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (fl. eleventh century),78 Bahya Ibn Paquda _ (c. 1040–1120),79 Moses Ibn Ezra (d. after 1138),80 Judah Halevi (d. 1141),81

75

76

77

78 79 80 81

See, for example, David J. Wasserstein, The Caliphate in the West: An Islamic Political Institution in the Iberian Peninsula (Oxford, 1993), 10 15. See Krinis, “The Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi’s al Kitāb al Khazarī”; Pines, “On the Term Ruhaniyyot,” 511 40; Pines, “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions,” 165 251; Ebstein, Mysticism_ and Philosophy. On these Epistles, their Ismāʿīlī background, and ecumenical and humanistic spirit, see the references given in Farhad Daftary, Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies (London, 2004), 166 73; Nader El Bizri, ed., Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: The Ikhwān al Safāʾ and Their Rasāʾil (Oxford, 2008), and the rich bibliography given in 279 98; for their intimate, “brotherly” approach, see especially Godefroid de Callataÿ, Ikhwan al Safaʾ: A Brotherhood of Idealists on the Fringe of Orthodox Islam (Oxford, 2005), 1 2; for their ecumenical spirit, see especially Daftary, “Foreword,” in Nader El Bizri, ed., Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, xvii. See Schlanger, Philosophie de Salomon ibn Gabirol, 94 97. See Lobel, Sufi Jewish Dialogue, 2 3 et passim. See Fenton, Philosophie et Exégèse, 77 81, 85 88 et passim. See Pines, “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions,” 184 89 et passim; Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy, 38.

910 sara sviri 82 Joseph Ibn S ̣adīq (d. 1149), and Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1164).83 Among the later Jewish intellectuals from Christian Spain who made use of the Brethren’s Epistles, one should mention the Kabbalist Isaac Ibn Latīf _ (c. 1210–80)84 as well as the thirteenth-century author and compiler Shem 85 Ṭov Ibn Falaquera (d. 1295). This list is not merely an inventory; it is a testimony to the impact and endurance of this particular Arabic Ismāʿīlī source and its esoteric teachings upon Jewish thought, from its appearance in al-Andalus sometime at the beginning of the eleventh century (or even earlier) up until the later Middle Ages and, in fact, well into the Renaissance.86 As for Muslim writers, one of the clearest examples of strong affinities with the Epistles is Ibn al-Sīd al-Batalyawsī (d. 1127). His indebted_ in a recent study.87 But alness to the Epistles has been diligently shown Batalyawsī is also a strong case in point for the link with late medieval Jewish _ spirituality: The acquaintance of Jewish Kabbalists throughout the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance with al-Batalyawsī’s mystical-philosophical _ work, The Book of Imaginary Circles (or The Book of Gardens) – in the Jewish tradition it was known as Sefer ha-ʿAgullot ha-Raʿyoniyyot – has long been known and incorporated into scholarly studies.88 During this period several Hebrew translations of this work had been produced, including one by Moses Ibn Tibbon (mid-thirteenth century) and a later, partial translation by Samuel Ibn Mutot (fourteenth to fifteenth centuries). The latter was _ t’s _ own work Meshovev Netivot.89 This is of particular included in Ibn Muto _ _ for links and continuities, for al-Batalyawsī’s interest in our search _

82

83

84 85

86

87

88

89

See Vajda, “La philosophie et la théologie de Joseph Ibn Saddiq,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 17 (1949), 93 181. See Dov Schwartz, Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1999), 16 18 et passim (also in English: Studies on Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought, trans. David Louvish and Batya Stein (Leiden, 2005)). See Heller Wilensky, “Isaac Ibn Latif Philosopher or Kabbalist?” 195 200. See Martin Plessner, “The Importance of R. Shem Tov ibn Falaquera for the Study of the History of Philosophy,” in Homenaje a Millás Vallicrosa [Hebrew] (Barcelona, 1954 56), 2:161 86. In compiling this list, I am indebted to Zonta, “Influence of Arabic and Islamic Philosophy on Judaic Thought.” See Eliyahu, “Ibn al Sīd al Batalyawsī and His Place in Medieval Muslim and Jewish Thought,” 67 68 et passim. _ See ibid., 174, 227; see also Schlanger, Philosophie de Salomon ibn Gabirol, 198; also Moshe Idel, “Man as the ‘Possible’ Entity in Some Jewish and Renaissance Sources,” in Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson, eds., Hebraica Veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia, 2004), 33 47. See Eliyahu, “Ibn al Sīd al Batalyawsī and His Place in Medieval Muslim and Jewish _ Thought,” 176 87.

mysticism 911 cosmological and cosmogonic theories, themselves inspired by the Epistles, were blended by Ibn Mutot into his commentary on Sefer Yesira.90 _ _ is exhibited by Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm_ (The Goal of Another link in this chain the Sage, known in Latin as Picatrix), a work on magic, alchemy, and astrology composed in al-Andalus as early as the mid-tenth century or as late as the middle of the eleventh century. An Andalusian mathematician, Maslama al-Majrītī (d. c. 1008), to whom the authorship of this book had _ also said to have brought the Epistles of the Sincere been ascribed,91 was Brethren to al-Andalus (perhaps to Saragossa) from the East.92 While the question of authorship of the book has been debated by scholars, the thematic and conceptual links between the Picatrix and the Epistles, as well as the Neoplatonic background of both works, have been commonly acknowledged. Also acknowledged is the impact of the Picatrix, especially of its talismanic language (to use Idel’s idiom), on late medieval and Renaissance Kabbalists, Jewish as well as Christian.93 The magical and theurgic elements contained in both the Picatrix and the Epistles, in particular in the context of the term rūhāniyyāt (Hebrew, ruhaniyyot; _ Pines. Greek, pneumata), have been studied and_ discussed by Shlomo Pines has shown that these esoteric elements, portrayed also in medieval Jewish works such as Judah Halevi’s the Kuzari, have their origin in late antique Neoplatonic teachings. In the Arabic world they have been adopted by esotericists such as those ninth/tenth-century scholars associated with the corpus of Jābir b. Ḥayyān and with the Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlīs.94 Thus, as we have already seen, discourse on magic, alchemy, astrology, theurgy, and letter mysticism had been prevalent in the Middle Ages among Muslim as well as Jewish authors who, particularly in al-Andalus, promoted the development of a Neoplatonic mystical-philosophical milieu in Arabic. Kabbalah scholarship shows that these themes and the practices associated with them endured well into the Renaissance.95 90 91

92

93

94 95

See ibid., 189 92, especially 191 92; on Sefer Yesira, see notes 6, 38 42, 68, and 104. _ in Al Andalus”; also David Pingree, For its dating and authorship, see Fierro, “Bātinism _ “Some of the Sources of the Ghāyat al Hakīm,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 43 (1980), 1 15. For the evidence of Sāʿid al Andalusī (d. 1069), see Fierro, “Bātinism in Al Andalus,” _ 107 and n115; for Saragossa, see also note 28. See Moshe Idel, “On Talismanic Language in Jewish Mysticism,” Diogenes 43 (1995), 23 41; also Moshe Idel, “Kabbalah and Hermeticism in Dame Frances A. Yates’s Renaissance,” in Richard Caron et al., eds., Ésotérisme, gnoses et imaginaire symbolique: mélanges offerts à Antoine Faivre (Leuven, 2001), 71 90. See Pines, “On the Term Ruhaniyyot,” especially the summary on 534. _ and Neoplatonic Interpretation of Kabbalah in the See Moshe Idel, “The Magical Renaissance,” in David B. Ruderman, ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in

912

sara sviri LETTER MYSTICISM: MISPLACED SPECULATIONS

I have already referred above to an article by Michael McGaha,96 who took upon himself the rather bold task of showing that “the Sefer ha-Bahir” – considered the oldest extant specimen of Kabbalistic writings – “can only be properly understood in the context of the S ̣ūfī ‘science of letters,’ which was the source of its Gnostic ideas and imagery.”97 Basing himself on secondary literature, McGaha first offers a summary of Ismāʿīlī (!) esoteric teachings associated with the “science of letters” (ʿilm al-hurūf) (32–39), then goes on _ Jewry” (39–48). McGaha, to show “the influence of Sufism on Andalusian and some of the studies on which he bases himself, reflect the pervasive confusion as regards Islamic mysticism in general and, in particular, as regards the question of its purported influence on medieval Jewish mysticism. This confusion, as has already been pointed out above, is due to the failure to observe two basic premises: firstly, that in the Middle Ages Islam produced two distinct mystical systems: S ̣ūfism, on the one hand, and Neoplatonic-type mystical philosophy, on the other; secondly, that S ̣ūfism in al-Andalus took a different developmental course and form than S ̣ūfism in the East. The question of the possible influence of Islamic mysticism on Jewish mysticism should, therefore, be tackled with finer analytical and comparative tools than has hitherto been done and with clearer typological, geographical, and historical distinctions. It is true that Ibn al-ʿArabī, the best-known figure Andalusian mysticism has produced, is conventionally regarded as S ̣ūfī. Moreover, there is no doubt that he himself, in spite of continually criticizing many of the previous S ̣ūfī teachers,98 considered

96 97

98

Renaissance and Baroque Italy (New York, 1992), 107 70; also Sara O. Heller Wilensky, “The Dialectical Influence of Maimonides on Isaac Ibn Latif and Early Spanish _ 289 306, especially Kabbalah” [Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 9 (1990), 296 and nn29 30. Note, however, Krinis’s comment concerning the scholarly neglect to take note of the direction at which Pines had pointed in his studies on Judah Halevi see Krinis, “The Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi’s al Kitāb al Khazarī,” 7 8 and especially n12. Interesting in this respect is Yehuda Liebes’s personal testimony of Pines’s wish to explore possible links between the Kabbalah and the Ismāʿīlīs and of Liebes’s own conjectures in this regard see Liebes, “Shlomo Pines and Kabbalah Research” [Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 9 (1990), 21. See note 16. See McGaha, “Sefer Ha Bahir and Andalusian Sūfism,” 32; on Sefer ha Bahir, considered the oldest Kabbalistic text, see Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, 49 198. For Ibn al ʿArabī’s criticism of Eastern Sūfīs, see Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” 909; for Ibn al ʿArabī’s polemical position against al Ghazālī, see Binyamin Abrahamov, “Ibn al ʿArabī’s Attitude toward al Ghazālī,” in Y. Tzvi Langermann, ed., Avicenna and His Legacy (Turnhout, 2009), 104, 112, 115; for his displeasure with al Hallāj, see, for example, Muhyī al Dīn Ibn al ʿArabi, al Futūhāt al _ _ Makkiyya (Beirut, 1994), chapter 73, 3:21.

mysticism 913 himself a member of the community of S ̣ūfīs. And yet, when one looks closely for Ibn al-ʿArabī’s intellectual sources of inspiration, one cannot but acknowledge the Neoplatonic strands in his mystical philosophy.99 This has been shown in the earliest phases of modern scholarship on Ibn al-ʿArabī by Abū al-ʿAlāʾ Affīfī, who wrote the first scholarly monograph on Ibn alʿArabī,100 but has since been largely disregarded. As for the Andalusian socalled S ̣ūfī authors prior to Ibn al-ʿArabī, only one can be said to have produced a work in a similar vein to the eastern S ̣ūfī compilations: Ibn alʿArīf and his book Mahāsin al-Majālis (The Loveliness of the Assemblies).101 _ Two early mystics mentioned by Ibn al-ʿArabī in his works form the basis for McGaha’s elaborate discussion on “S ̣ūfī letter speculations” and their purported influence on early Kabbalah: the Andalusian Ibn Masarra and the Basran Sahl al-Tustarī (d. 896). I have already referred to Ibn Masarra and_ to his two extant compositions. A detailed analysis of Ibn Masarra’s works shows that ideas, conceptions, and terms that he discusses and uses in his treatises reflect an intellectual background inspired by Neoplatonic mystical philosophy and not by S ̣ūfism. There is nothing in his writings which can identify him exclusively as a S ̣ūfī.102 This is despite the fact that in his Book on the Properties of Letters he does mention and cites Sahl al-Tustarī, a distinguished early S ̣ūfī master from the East. However, a study of an unnamed epistle, which was ascribed (erroneously) to Sahl al-Tustarī by Muhammad Kamāl Ibrāhīm Jaʿfar (who had discovered and published also _Ibn Masarra’s works), and which Jaʿfar (!) titled Risālat al-Ḥurūf (An Epistle on Letters), shows that, although Sahl is cited and referred to in this epistle, it could not have been written by him.103 This study also suggests that esoteric teachings, in particular those touched by Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī letter speculations, may have been embraced by Andalusian Muslim mystics and philosophers under the guise of teachings attributed to respectable figures of the eastern Sunnī tradition. Such precaution may have been necessary in view of the concern in al-Andalus vis-à-vis the Fātimid-Ismāʿīlī North African regime (on this see also above).104 Be that_ as it may, it is evident that, while Ibn Masarra represents an intellectual type of mysticism influenced by Neoplatonic and Shīʿī-

99 100

101 102

103

See Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy. See A. E. Affifi, The Mystical Philosophy of Muhyid Dín Ibnu ʿArabí (Cambridge, 1939), _ appendix, 184 88. See also note 20. See Stroumsa and Sviri, “Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al Andalus,” 210nn38 39. 104 See Ebstein and Sviri, “The So called Risālat al Hurūf.” See ibid.

914 sara sviri Ismāʿīlī esoteric teachings, the traditional and authentic Sahl al-Tustarī represents an altogether different type of a mystic (on this, see also above). The same, ipso facto, can be said about letter speculations. In medieval and mystical Islam two distinct types have evolved: on the one hand, there is the conventional acronymic, etymologically based hermeneutics of the meanings which Arabic letters enclose, especially those letters which are used in scriptural language; in particular, the fourteen “isolated letters” (al-hurūf al-muqat taʿa) at the beginning of twenty-nine Qurʾānic suras _ _ _ h). I have named this type as “type α.” This hermen(known as the fawāti _ prevalent in S ̣ūfī as well as in non-S ̣ūfī Qurʾān eutical type is profusely hermeneutics. But there is also a rather occult type of hermeneutics in which, by means of theosophical and mythical insights and analogies, the secrets contained in language are deciphered. I have named this type as “type β.” This latter type is characteristic of letter mysticism within the Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī tradition and, as we have seen, it is also attested to in alAndalus in writings by both Muslims and Jews. While “type α” recognizes the sacred, symbolic, and acronymic nature of the Arabic scriptural language, it lacks any conception of letters as building blocks of creation in a cosmogonic and cosmological scheme. It also underplays the sense of the magical, performative power that words and letters hold for the possessors of occult knowledge. Type β, on the other hand, emphasizes precisely these conceptions and powers. Type β is associated with ancient teachings: in Islam, with the Jābirian corpus which, in itself, exhibits the imprints of late antique Neoplatonism and Hermeticism; and in Judaism, with Sefer Yesira (it, too, may have drawn from Hellenistic sources) and in the _ speculations which it inspired in the medieval commentaries engaged with it. It is the latter type of letter speculations, type β, which pervades both Ibn Masarra’s Epistle on Letters and the short, unnamed epistle associated with Sahl al-Tustarī. In McGaha’s theory concerning the purported influence of S ̣ūfism on early Kabbalah, these typological distinctions are blurred and confused; they are likewise confused in the scholarship upon which McGaha bases himself.105 However, my intention is not to review McGaha’s thesis. Rather, I wish to offer McGaha’s paper as an example for the need to revise our acquaintance with and understanding of the Andalusian intellectual milieu during the tenth to the twelfth centuries and 105

See Gril, “Science of Letters,” 146; Addas, “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” 917 18 and 930n47; note Addas’s pertinent question on 918: “How . . . are we to . . . judge the doctrine which some regard as belonging to philosophy and others as belonging to mysticism?” Whereas Addas opts for “mysticism,” which, in her interpret ation, is identical with Sūfism, I opt for the option of the Neoplatonic type of “mystical philosophy.”

mysticism 915 beyond, in order to portray more coherently the chain which links Muslim and Jewish mystical systems in that part of the world. To conclude: the search for this chain points in Neoplatonic, Shīʿī-Ismāʿīlī directions rather than in the direction of S ̣ūfism. ANDALUSIAN JEWISH MYSTICISM: THE CASES OF BAH YA _ IBN PAQUDA AND JUDAH HALEVI

Having discussed the double nature of mysticism in medieval Islam, we now arrive at the question of the presence of an analogous binary typology in Jewish mysticism in the Islamic Middle Ages. Some years ago I offered a typological analysis of two pre-Kabbalistic Jewish spiritual trends in alAndalus: the one represented by The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart by Bahya Ibn Paquda, the other by Judah Halevi’s The Kuzari.106 As _ both works were written in Arabic (or Judeo-Arabic), one in is well known, the second half of the eleventh century, the other in the first half of the twelfth. Both were translated into Hebrew in the second half of the twelfth century, when the earliest groups of Kabbalists and their writings emerged in Provence and in the north of Spain. The aim of a typological approach was then, and is now, to offer a platform from which the nature and origin of later developments within Jewish spirituality can be better observed, especially against their Andalusian background. The present discussion allows me to take up this typology again in a finer resolution. ba h ya ibn paquda and the duties of the heart _ Bahya Ibn Paquda lived and flourished, most probably, in the northern part_ of Muslim Spain during the eleventh century (possibly about a generation after Ibn Gabirol). His work is not only proof of the cultural contacts between Jewish and Muslim spirituality and pietism, it is also a reflection of his individualistic and committed search into areas which he had found neglected by the rabbinic tradition. In this respect, The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart is a landmark in the history of Jewish spirituality. According to the explicit testimony of its author, he wrote it in order to fill a didactic vacuum in Jewish inner, devotional life.107 The fact 106

107

See Sviri, “Emergence of Pre Kabbalistic Spirituality in Spain.” I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Hilary Pomeroy, one of the editors of the 1996 issue of Donaire where my thoughts were originally published. I would also like to thank the Spanish embassy in London for publishing my paper in their now discontinued Donaire. See Bahya Ibn Paquda, Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart, 88 89. _

916 sara sviri that it became well known among Jewish communities, probably already in Bahya’s lifetime, shows that such a vacuum had indeed been experienced _ among his contemporaries. “[Bahya’s] book,” writes Amos _ Goldreich, “is often characterized as following the line of traditional pietism, but in fact it carries a bold and extreme innovation in Jewish religious thought. The main innovation is contained in the very title of the book, The Duties of the Heart, a term which has no resemblance or origin in previous works of Jewish sages.”108 Goldreich has convincingly shown that the paradigmatic and systematic distinction which Bahya makes – apparently for the first time in Jewish literature – between the_duties of the heart (farāʾid al-qulūb) and the duties of the organs (farāʾid al-jawārih), _ the predominance that Bahya assigns to the _inner (bātin) _ and especially _ _ religious life over and above the outer (zāhir) performance of the commandments, are ideas inspired by S ̣ūfism,_and especially by the writings of al-Muhāsibī, an early Muslim mystic from Baghdad (781–857).109 Bahya’s _ _ dependence in themes as well as in terminology on S ̣ūfī literature had been explored by eminent scholars such as Goldziher, Yahuda, and Baneth. What Goldreich has added is pinning down the ninth-century al-Muhāsibī as the possible direct source for Bahya’s inspiration. In The Duties _of the _ piety anchored in the Bible (espeHeart Bahyā skilfully interlaces Jewish _ cially in the Wisdom literature) and in the early rabbinic tradition with anecdotes and concepts articulated in early S ̣ūfī literature. Bahya never openly admits to his expansive borrowings from the S ̣ūfī lore,_ but his procedure is transparent to any student of early S ̣ūfī literature. Moreover, not only is Bahya’s use of S ̣ūfī material generally acknowledged – in _ terminology, and imagery – his book appears to be, themes, anecdotes, as we have already noted, the oldest extant S ̣ūfī-type work to be produced in the Western Muslim world during the eleventh century.110

judah halevi and the quest of the kuzari It is commonly accepted that, sometime between 1130 and 1140, Judah Halevi wrote his prose work as a polemical book aimed against contemporary intellectual and religious currents. Arguing against “Greek 108

109

110

This is my English rendering of Goldreich’s Hebrew text in “The Possible Sources for the Distinction between ‘The Duties of the Organs’ and ‘The Duties of the Heart,’” 179. On him, see Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdād: A Study of the Life and Teaching of Hārith B. Asad al Muhāsibī A.D. 781 857 (London, 1977); also Josef van Ess, _ hāsibī (Bonn, 1961). Die Gedankenwelt des Hārit al Mu _ _ See notes 14 and 19.

mysticism 917 Wisdom” – namely, Hellenistic philosophy – his main polemical arguments are designed to demonstrate that metaphysical knowledge cannot be derived from mental speculations and philosophic formulations. In view of the diversity of philosophical systems and schools, he argues, how can philosophers be a reliable source for the understanding of the nature of God and creation? Their knowledge is limited to the nature of the sublunar world; as for what is above the sphere of the moon, they can do no more than offer opinions, not a true vision of reality.111 Alongside these well-known arguments, however, other polemical lines can also be discerned in the Kuzari. As the subtitle suggests, Halevi wrote it as a Book of Refutation and Proof on the Despised Faith. By implication, therefore, the book aims at demonstrating the supremacy of Judaism over Christianity and Islam and at presenting it as the only true religion. Halevi demonstrates this supremacy by pointing to a special propensity of divine origin which is specific to the Jewish nation. He relates it to what he names “the divine matter” (Arabic, al-amr al-ilāhī; Hebrew, ha-ʿinyan ha-elohi): an innate propensity which is transmitted within the Jewish nation through a genealogical heredity. Judah Halevi’s doctrine is based on the understanding that among human beings, as well as among human societies, only a select number of individuals and groups exist who are destined by God to evolve in a way that makes them ready to receive the “divine matter.” These individuals and groups constitute a special, elevated human species which represents the “inner core” (lubb; lev) of humanity. In relation to it, the rest of mankind are like “outer husks” (qushūr; qelippot).112 Interestingly, for Judah Halevi’s thought, as for Bahya’s, the distinction _ However, unlike between inner (bātin) and outer (zāhir) is fundamental. _ _ Bahya, Halevi uses these polar concepts not in order to distinguish _ between two different modes of worship, but between two different types of individuals and communities. Whereas Bahya sees the inner worship – _ the worship of the heart – as the only means whereby God can be reached, 111

112

See Judah Halevi, The Kuzari, trans. Hirschfeld, 199, 213, 239, 268 74; Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism, trans. David W. Silverman (London, 1964), 120; Colette Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1985), 114; see also Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy, 68 75. On lubb (core) versus qushūr (husks) in the Neoplatonism of Isaac Israeli, see Altmann and Stern, Isaac Israeli, 184; for lubb or lubāb in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari, see Pines, “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,” 172, 190n168; see also Krinis, “The Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi’s al Kitāb al Khazarī,” 172, 175 76; on the concept of “husks” in early Kabbalah, see Alexander Altmann, “The Motif of the ‘Shells’ in ʿAzriel of Gerona,” in Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism (London, 1969), 172 79; On qelippot in Sefer ha Zohar, see Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, trans. David Goldstein (Oxford, 1989), 494 50.

918 sara sviri for Judah Halevi, “inner” is based on a particularistic understanding of the special characteristics of the select groups and individuals among the Jewish people, chosen by God to impart His will, either through prophecy or by means of divine inspiration. It is these outstanding chosen ones who become both the recipients and then the transmitters of God’s divine matter.113 From Halevi’s view of the supremacy and exclusivity of the Jewish religion and its law, another polemical line follows: the supremacy of the concrete, physical, ritualistic mode of worship over the interiorized one. The question that occupies the narrative of the Kuzari from the outset is a ritualistic one. In a recurring dream, an angel rebukes the king of the Khazars, the protagonist of Halevi’s book, saying: “Your way of thinking is indeed pleasing to the Creator, but not your way of acting.”114 Then, when the king interviews a philosopher in his search for the right way of acting, and when the latter draws a picture of a God who has no interest in man’s actions, the king responds: “There must no doubt be a way of acting, pleasing by its very nature, but not through the medium of intentions.”115 Judah Halevi thus prepares the ground for showing that inner intentions, as a spiritual means, are inferior to outer religious actions.116 His approach is, therefore, diametrically opposed to that of Bahya’s. For Judah Halevi, _ the ritual performance of the religious commandments is the key to activating the divine matter. His emphasis is on the efficacy of the ritualistic acts prescribed by God to His elect; on the mystery enclosed in them; and on the deep religious experience which they produce. Thus, explaining the mystical effects of the ancient sacrificial rituals performed in the days of the Temple, he writes: You slaughter a lamb and smear yourself with its blood, skinning it, cleaning its entrails, washing, dismembering it and sprinkling its blood . . . If this were not done in consequence of a divine command, you would think little of all these 113

114 115 116

On the “divine matter,” al amr al ilāhī, in Judah Halevi and on its Shīʿī Ismāʿīlī sources, see Pines, “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,” 172 78, 224 28; also Krinis, “The Idea of the Chosen People in Judah Halevi’s al Kitāb al Khazarī,” 164 207; cf. Ebstein, Mysticism and Philosophy, chapter 1; see also Diana Lobel, “Ittisāl and the Amr Ilāhī: Divine Immanence and the World to Come in _ the Kuzari,” in Benjamin Hary and Haggai Ben Shammai, eds., Esoteric and Exoteric Aspects in Judeo Arabic Culture (Leiden, 2006), 107 30, especially 108 9, 115 16, et passim. See Judah Halevi, The Kuzari, trans. Hirschfeld, 35 36 (emphasis added). See ibid., 39 (emphasis added). On the question of ritual versus intention in the Kabbalah, see Moshe Idel, “Some Remarks on Ritual and Mysticism in Geronese Kabbalah,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 3 (1993), 117.

mysticism

919

actions and believe that they estrange you from God rather than bring you near to Him. But as soon as the whole is properly accomplished, and you see the divine fire, or see true vision and great apparitions, you are aware that this is the fruit of the preceding actions, as well as of the great influence with which you have come in contact.117

Latent within Judah Halevi’s polemic against philosophy, Christianity, and Islam inheres, therefore, his unmistakable rejection of the Bahya-style _ inner worship – which, even if based on good intentions, is nevertheless devoid of the impact – the theurgic impact – which only the concrete deed entails.118 The works of Bahya and Judah Halevi clearly point to two polar trends _ Andalusian Jewish spirituality. Bahya Ibn Paquda within pre-Kabbalistic _ is not merely a Jewish pietist and moralist, as some scholars of Jewish spirituality would have it. He represents a type of mystical endeavor which can be qualified as psychological, introverted, and devotional. It is characterized by an inward rather than outward, spiritual rather than physical, outlook. In this S ̣ūfī-like type, the spiritual energy is engaged mainly in introverted practices such as self-observation (muhāsaba), withdrawal (iʿtizāl), and meditation (murāqaba). Temporary or _indefinite periods of seclusion (khalwa) and ascetic practices (zuhd) are seen as the means whereby a detachment from material and psychological ties can gradually be achieved. The central organ in the “physiology” of this type of mysticism is the heart, which is conceived of as the locus within man’s physical and psychological makeup where God, or God’s secrets, resides. This type of mysticism did not die out with Bahya. It continued within _ the descendants of the pietistic circles which became associated with Maimonides. In Egypt, where the Maimonides family settled after its expulsion from al-Andalus around 1165 (see above), the House of Maimonides constituted an uninterrupted line of community leaders up until the fifteenth century.119 Abraham Maimonides, Moses’ son, alongside his functions as a community leader and court physician, belonged to a Jewish mystical circle which engaged in practices inspired by S ̣ūfism.120 In his literary work Kifāyat al-ʿĀbidīn (literally: “What Suffices for the

117 118 119

120

See The Kuzari, trans. Hirschfeld, 183. On this, cf. Idel, “Maimonides and Kabbalah,” 50. See Eliyahu Ashtor, History of the Jews of Egypt and Syria under the Mamlūks [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1944), 300. See S. D. Goitein, “Abraham Maimonides and His Pietist Circle,” in Alexander Altmann, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 145 64.

920 sara sviri 121 Worshippers”), he outlines a devotional path which is similar to the one recommended by Bahya. Furthermore, Abraham openly mentions S ̣ūfī _ practices with undisguised applause.122 Other members of this distinguished family, too, wrote Judeo-Arabic works which show clear S ̣ūfī characteristics.123 Even Maimonides himself, in his philosophic work The Guide for the Perplexed, follows a spiritual line which shows, surprisingly for some, common traits with the Bahya-type introverted piety and devotion.124 This becomes visible when _we compare the above-quoted passage from the Kuzari on the effects of the sacrificial ritual with a passage on the sacrificial laws from the Guide for the Perplexed. Maimonides, in a statement which was to shock many, writes, as at that time the way of life, generally accepted and customary in the whole world and the universal service upon which we were brought up, consisted in offering various species of living beings in the temples in which images were set up . . . His wisdom, may He be exalted, and His gracious ruse . . . did not require that He give us a law prescribing the rejection, abandonment, and abolition of all these kinds of worship.

Alluding to other, more introverted, ways of worship, Maimonides continues: At that time this would have been similar to the appearance of a prophet in these times who, calling upon the people to worship God, would say: “God has given you a Law forbidding you to pray to Him, to fast, to call upon Him for help in misfortunes. Your worship should consist solely in meditation without any work at all.”125

Such a statement takes the inner path of worship to its extreme limit. No ceremony is, in fact, required; only a deep, introverted intent. In the eyes of most Kabbalists, the adoption of such an extreme introverted mode of the religious life could hardly have been envisaged.126 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Typologically speaking, Bahya can be seen as a model of a Jewish S ̣ūfī, a type which, after him, had _its continuation in subsequent generations of 121

122 124

125

126

See Abraham Maimonides, The High Ways to Perfection (= Kifāyat al ʿĀbidīn), trans. Samuel Rosenblatt, vol. 1 (Baltimore, 1927), vol. 2 (Baltimore, 1938). 123 See, e.g., ibid., 2:419, 423. See, e.g., Obadiah Maimonides, Treatise of the Pool. See Haim Kreisel, “Asceticism in the Thought of R. Bahya Ibn Paquda and Maimonides,” Daʿat 21 (1988), 5 22 [English section]. See Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago, 1963), part 3, chapter 32, 2:526 (emphasis added). On the Kabbalists’ rejection of Maimonides “rationalization” of the commandments and of its far reaching implications, see Idel, “Maimonides and Kabbalah,” 44 50 and especially 48 50.

mysticism 921 Jewish mystics, notably in the circles of the Egyptian pietists. Judah Halevi’s type of mysticism, on the other hand, with its emphasis on the theurgic and mystical effects of the religious rituals, had its continuation in the Kabbalah. For the Kabbalists, “the action of a man performing a rite” – to cite Gershom Scholem – “is the finite embodiment of something which is present in mystical substantiality in the pleroma of the sefiroth.”127 In other words, it is the religious act in itself, in its concrete actuality and physicality, which reflects and embodies God’s creative powers. By carefully performing the commandments, the worshipper, in a mysterious way, participates in God’s work and its influence in the cosmos. Moreover, man can even activate something which reaches far beyond the immediate, visible aspects of his act. This is so for Judah Halevi, and it is so also for the Kabbalists.128 Now, while typologies by their very nature are schematic, human phenomena, whether individual or collective, never are. It will be fruitless to argue that medieval Jewish mystics fall strictly into one or the other of these two types. A typological attempt, however, is a useful, if not an indispensable, tool for understanding Jewish mysticism in a wide historical and phenomenological context. Such typological distinctions, within an historical context, call for a broader definition of Jewish mysticism than has conventionally been adopted. By including the various types and trends of Judeo-Arabic spirituality within the major trends in Jewish mysticism, in particular those Judeo-Arabic trends which developed in al-Andalus, a finer, more nuanced and more comprehensive picture may be presented. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Addas, Claude. Quest for the Red Sulphur. The Life of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Peter Kingsley (Cambridge, 1993). Altmann, Alexander, and Samuel M. Stern. Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century (London, 1958). Asín Palacios, Miguel. The Mystical Philosophy of Ibn Masarra and His Followers, trans. Elmer H. Douglas and Howard W. Yoder (Leiden, 1978). Bahya Ibn Paqūda. The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart, ed. and _ trans. Menahem Mansoor (London, 1973). 127 128

See Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York, 1969), 123. On the theurgic trends in the rabbinic tradition and in the Kabbalah, see Idel, Kabbalah, 156 99; on the mystical aspects of the ritualistic action, see Idel, “Some Remarks on Ritual and Mysticism.”

922 sara sviri Corbin, Henry. Creative Imagination in the S ̣ūfism of Ibn ʿArabī, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton, 1969). de Smet, Daniel. “Les bibliothèques ismaéliennes et la question du néoplatonisme ismaélien,” in Cristina D’Ancona, ed., The Libraries of the Neoplatonists (Leiden, 2007), 481–92. Ebstein, Michael. Mysticism and Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra, Ibn al-ʿArabī and the Ismāʿīlī Tradition (Leiden, 2014). Goitein, S. D. “Abraham Maimonides and His Pietist Circle,” in Alexander Altmann, ed., Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies (Cambridge, MA, 1967), 145–64. Goldreich, Amos. “The Theology of the Iyyun Circle and a Possible Source of the Term ‘Ahdut Shava,’” in Joseph Dan, ed., The Beginnings of Jewish Mysticism_ in Medieval Europe, Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 6 (1987), 141–56. Judah Halevi. Al-Kitāb al-Khazarī: The Book of Refutation and Proof on the Despised Faith, ed. David H. Baneth and Haggai Ben-Shammai (Jerusalem, 1977). Lobel, Diana. Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi’s Kuzari (Albany, 2000). A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya ibn Paqūda’s _ Duties of the Heart (Philadelphia, 2007). Pines, Shlomo. “Shiʿite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi’s Kuzari,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980), 165–251. Stroumsa, Sarah, and Sara Sviri. “The Beginnings of Mystical Philosophy in al-Andalus: Ibn Masarra and his Epistle on Contemplation,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009), 201–53. Sviri, Sara. “The Emergence of Pre-Kabbalistic Spirituality in Spain: The Case of Bahya ibn Paqūda and Judah Halevi,” Donaire 6 (1996), _ 78–84.

chapter 29

BELLES LETTRES raymond p. scheindlin

The prominence of poetry and other kinds of literary work in which the skill displayed in the writing contends for attention with the work’s contents was an outstanding feature of Judeo-Arabic society in our period and one that distinguishes this society from all earlier and most succeeding Jewish societies until the nineteenth century. Arabic-speaking Jewish writers, in the period covered by this volume, produced literary works of lasting appeal not only because some were profound thinkers, sensitive souls, or linguistically gifted individuals, but because Arabo-Islamic society created institutions in which artistic writing played an important public role, thereby encouraging the cultivation of elegant language and literary craftsmanship among its subject peoples as well. Poetry and fine writing were first and foremost instruments of public life and secondarily of upper-class social life and entertainment. The literary forms cultivated for these purposes were vehicles for the expression of communal attitudes as well as individual writers’ personal views and even inner experience. The age of Judeo-Arabic ascendancy produced, for the first time in Jewish history, something we can recognize as literature, in the artistic sense of the word. Jews became familiar with Arabic poetry as part of the broad process of Arabization. As early as 772, a man reputed to be the son of the exilarch is reported to have belonged to a circle of Arabic poets in Basra, a circle that included two of the most prominent Arabic literary figures_ of the age. In the early tenth century, an exilarch composed (or commissioned) Arabic poems in honor of the caliph. A ninth- and tenth-century Karaite author complains of the Jews’ adopting Arab social practices, including practices associated with poetry.1 And when Jews began writing poetry in Hebrew, they soon adopted the conventions of the Arabic poetic tradition. Throughout the entire period covered by this chapter, cultivated Jews

1

Yosef Tobi, Proximity and Distance: Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Poetry (Leiden, 2004), 33 36.

923

924 raymond p. scheindlin were familiar with Muslim Arabic poetry, both classical and contemporaneous, as evidenced by the fact that they occasionally translated Arabic poems into Hebrew and often incorporated translated lines of Arabic poetry into their own Hebrew poems. Occasionally, some even composed poems in Arabic. All the extant Judeo-Arabic treatises on the composition of poetry incorporate quotations from Muslim Arabic poetry. By the tenth century, Jews in Islamic territories were writing poetry in Hebrew for functions similar to those filled by Arabic poetry among Muslims. Early instances of nonliturgical poems in Hebrew are the didactic verses found in Masoretic works of the eighth and ninth centuries: “The Song of the Vine,” by Moses Ben Asher (ninth century); polemical poems, such as the attack on the Bible by Ḥayawayh (Ḥīwī) al-Balkhī (ninth century) and the reply by Seʿadyah b. Joseph (882–942); the didactic poems of Nisi al-Nahrawānī (ninth to tenth centuries) and Seʿadyah in Iraq and of Adonim b. Nisim ha-Levi in Fez (tenth or eleventh century); panegyric poems, such as those by ninth- and tenth-century writers Nisi al-Nahrawānī, Ephraim b. Moses, and Abraham ha-Kohen; and the impressive compilation of rhymed proverbs of Saʿīd Ibn Bābshād (late tenth century), evincing a decidedly worldly perspective on religious questions. The period also saw the emergence of another literary institution closely related to poetry: the epistle – an official letter of a more literary type than an ordinary letter, couched in elegant language, rhymed in whole or in part, containing elaborate salutations and meant to be read in public. Related to this is the practice of beginning an ordinary letter with salutations in rhymed prose. An early example is the epistle of Aaron b. Meʾir, the Palestinian gaon, concerning the calendar. In form and diction, early medieval Hebrew poetry drew from the payyetanic tradition2 and, like the epistles, largely reflected the concerns and literary traditions of the yeshivot; yet these poems owe their existence not to the piyyut tradition but to _ the role of poetry as a vehicle of public discourse in Arabo-Islamic culture. As part of this trend, we may also see the elegant biblical Hebrew prose written by Seʿadyah in the introductions to a number of his works. The institutionalization of poetry in the East is further demonstrated by the existence of a dīwān (defined below): that of ʿAlwān b. Abraham (Syria, late tenth century).3 Although the Jews adopted these literary practices from Arabic and although they used Arabic for virtually all their other writing, they chose

2 3

For this tradition, see also Chapter 24 in this volume. Tobi, Proximity and Distance, 38 53.

belles lettres 925 to write their own poetry and epistles in Hebrew. This was probably because they had long been accustomed to write in their spoken language when the primary purpose was to convey information; and to use Hebrew mainly for writings of a ceremonial or liturgical nature. When Arabic replaced Aramaic in the East as the normal language of Jewish speech, the Jews wrote in Middle Arabic, a register of Arabic that was closer to the way that they actually spoke than the Arabic used for poetry. Given the public, ceremonial role of poetry, it would never have occurred to anyone to write it in vernacular Arabic. Thus, in adopting the Arabic functions of poetry for internal use within the community, they naturally chose their own ceremonial language, Hebrew. To the extent that Jews wrote poetry in Classical Arabic, they were writing for an audience of Muslim readers.4 Hebrew poetry at first employed rabbinic and payyetanic Hebrew vocabulary, with some admixture of Aramaic. THE HEBREW GOLDEN AGE

From the adoption of the Arabic functions of poetry, it was only a step to the adoption of Arabic prosody, genres, and themes. This breakthrough was accomplished in al-Andalus, where Dunash b. Labrat (mid-tenth century) arrived from Iraq and found a patron in Ḥasday _Ibn Shaprut (905–75), a courtier of ʿAbd al-Rahmān III. Ḥasday’s father had already_ _ sponsored a Hebrew poet, Menahem Ibn Sarūq (910–70), who then became Ḥasday’s protégé; Menahem’s extant panegyric poems and epistles composed for Ḥasday already reflect some of the functions and patterns of Arabic courtly writing. Dunash took the final step of introducing quantitative meters; the qasīda form; and specific themes, images, and figures of _ verse. He also engaged in a polemical exchange in speech typical of Arabic verse and prose with Menahem and his followers regarding the propriety of the use of Arabic metrics in Hebrew poetry and attacking Menahem’s lexicographical work. The controversy over the use of Arabic meters would flare up again from time to time, but the practice dominated versification of nonliturgical Hebrew poetry for centuries.5 Dunash’s innovations quickly took hold in al-Andalus and soon affected Hebrew poetry throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Early in the eleventh century, an Eastern poet sent a lengthy panegyric to a Jewish official 4

5

Rina Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000), 173 77; and Ezra Fleischer, Mishlei saʿid (Jerusalem, 1990), 20 25. For the controversy on metrics, see Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Baltimore, 1991), 30 32.

926 raymond p. scheindlin in Syria, using Arabic prosody and biblical diction. Similar panegyrics were composed by Abraham ha-Kohen to a wealthy Baghdad banker and by Hayya Gaʾon (in 1015) for a recipient in Qayrawān. To Hayya Gaʾon is also attributed a collection of proverbs in quantitative meter.6 At about the same time, the Andalusian poet Isaac Ibn Khalfūn (late tenth to early eleventh century) found patrons for his even more Arabized Hebrew panegyrics in Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia, as well as in al-Andalus; his collected poems were being read in Yemen by 1100.7 But it was in al-Andalus that these innovations and the concentrated presence of patrons and gifted writers produced a golden age of Hebrew poetry that would last about two centuries, until the disruption of the Jewish communities there by the Almohads.8 This literary school influenced Hebrew poetry throughout the Mediterranean world, at first in the Arabic-speaking territories, and then in Christian Spain, Provence, and Italy, for centuries thereafter. The poets of al-Andalus produced a body of work that expressed in memorable form the values and ideals of the social elite of their community. Though each of the great poets of al-Andalus wrote some poetry of a personal nature that does not fit easily into the standard genres, the Hebrew poetry of the age, on the whole, adheres fairly closely to the rather rigid Arabic system whereby most poems belong to well-established genres and are built up out of thematic materials commonly associated with each genre (there is, of course, a good deal of overlap in the distribution of these materials).9 For convenience, the genres may be divided into two large 6 7

8

9

Tobi, Proximity and Distance, 48 49. Ann Brener, Isaac Ibn Khalfun: A Wandering Hebrew Poet of the Eleventh Century (Leiden, 2003), 25. The fullest historical account of golden age Hebrew poetry is Hayim Schirmann, Toledot ha shira haʿivrit bi sfarad ha muslimit, ed. Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem, 1995), continuing into his Toledot ha shira ha ʿivrit bi sfarad ha noserit, ed. Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem, 1997), 13 92. Because Fleischer’s annotations to _Schirmann’s text provide thorough bibliographies on every aspect of this subject and on each of the individual poets, I will limit references to it to recent studies in English and to the most comprehensive and recent monographs in Hebrew. The fullest account of the generic, thematic, and stylistic aspects of golden age poetry is Dan Pagis, Shirat ha hol ve torat ha shir le moshe ibn ʿezra _ still oriented toward the literary u vnei doro (Jerusalem, 1970). Broader coverage, but character of the writings of the age, is offered by Pagis, Hidush u masoret (Jerusalem, 1976). Jonathan P. Decter, Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al Andalus and Christian Europe (Bloomington, 2007), is also strongly informed by literary considerations; though focused on the transition between the golden age and the poetry of Christian Spain, it is replete with excellent observations about the golden age itself. For an exhaustive account of genres and themes, see Arie Schippers, Spanish Hebrew Poetry and the Arabic Literary Tradition (Leiden, 1994).

belles lettres 927 categories: poetry of public life and poetry of entertainment. In the former category are panegyrics, poems of friendship, boasting, and reproach, eulogies of the dead, and, to some extent, poems of abuse.10 Such poems were important instruments of social cohesion among the Jewish elite. Panegyrics were sometimes written to order by professional poets – notably, Ibn Khalfūn and Solomon Ibn Gabirol – but in al-Andalus, most of the poems in this category were written to or about friends and family members by men who did not earn their living by poetry, such as Samuel Ibn Naghrella, Moses Ibn Ezra, Joseph Ibn S ̣adīq, and Judah Halevi. Exchange of panegyric poems in which the recipient replied to the sender with a poem in the same rhyme and meter was a regular formality of friendship. Related in function to panegyrics are poems of longing for an absent friend or patron; and poems of reproach in which the poet complains, sometimes seriously and sometimes only in a teasing manner, about some episode in the relationship. Poems also accompanied gifts and served as thank-you notes for gifts received. Poems of abuse are not nearly as common in Hebrew as in Arabic; Moses Ibn Ezra expresses regret for having composed them in his youth. Poems in this category are often in qasīda form (defined and described below), but themes associated with this _ category are also often treated in short monothemed poems in quantitative meter (qitʿa); panegyrics sometimes occur in muwashshah form _ _ (defined below). Poetry of entertainment, consisting of love and wine verse, descriptive verse, epigrams, and riddles, was written both by professionals and by cultivated amateurs to be exchanged among friends and recited at entertainments where wine was drunk and singers and dancers performed. Improvisation of poetry was a regular feature of such gatherings. These poems are mostly in qitʿa or muwashshah form; the latter were actually _ _ with themes of love or wine song texts that nearly always began and ended drinking, though they could also include panegyric themes.11 This category also includes gnomic poems: short poems or epigrams dealing with the brevity of life, the certainty of death, the arbitrariness of fortune, and so on. Several of the poets wrote poems on personal themes that fit only loosely or not at all into the Arabic genre system. Some of these poems are reflections on biographical events, written to explain or justify the poet’s behavior in given circumstances. Hebrew poets also wrote personal poetry 10

11

The fullest study of Hebrew panegyric is the magisterial work of Jonathan Decter, Dominion Built of Praise (Philadelphia, 2018). Raymond P. Scheindlin, Wine, Women, and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life (Philadelphia, 1986).

928 raymond p. scheindlin on religious themes – poems that were not intended for the liturgy but simply to express religious ideas. It must be remembered that in a religious age, even “secular” poetry was capable of embracing religious themes and motifs. Liturgical poetry was intensively cultivated in this period, largely by the same poets as those who wrote nonliturgical poetry. Written to supplement the synagogue service, such poetry generally employed patterns and treated themes that did not derive from Arabic but that had been customary in the synagogue since antiquity; the forms of liturgical poetry continued to develop organically in the period. But beginning with Ibn Gabirol, poets introduced, alongside the traditional genres and forms of liturgical poetry, entirely new genres and prosodic patterns, creating liturgical poetry of a radically new and distinctive type. Their innovations include the use of quantitative meter, muwashshah, and other new strophic _ patterns; and a new genre, the rashut. The last consists of short poems in quantitative meters designed to introduce the ancient prayers Nishmat, Qadish, and Barekhu; partly influenced by love poetry and partly inspired by philosophical ideas, the rashuyot speak in a distinctively personal voice as they meditate on the meaning of prayer and on man’s relationship with God. Such poems reflect a spiritualizing of Jewish prayer undoubtedly inspired by the Neoplatonism that provided the basis of religious theory among Jewish intellectuals in this period. Here and there, Andalusian poets also introduced cosmological information into their piyyutim, reflecting their engagement with Arabic philosophy and science.12 _ Poetry was often compiled into volumes of poems by a single poet, called dīwāns. Sometimes the poet saw to the collection of his own poetry, as in the case of Samuel Ibn Naghrella, who assigned the task to his sons; and sometimes it was posterity that saw to the creation of a poet’s dīwān, as in the case of Judah Halevi. Dīwāns often have introductions in Arabic and an Arabic rubric preceding each poem, indicating the poem’s contents and the occasion for which it was written. These rubrics sometimes have real value for the interpretation of a poem, as in the case of the detailed historical accounts preceding many of Ibn Naghrella’s war poems. But often the rubrics are merely the editor’s or a copyist’s précis of the poem, and therefore lack any literary-historical value. Frequently, the rubric consists merely of such fillers as wa-qāla (“and he said”) or ghayruhu (“another poem”). Besides fragments of dīwāns, the Cairo Genizah includes miscellanies – compilations of poems by various poets – and loose

12

Raymond P. Scheindlin, The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel, and the Soul (Philadelphia, 1991).

belles lettres 929 pages containing individual poems. Liturgical poetry was sometimes included in dīwāns but has mostly been transmitted in prayer books. Golden age Hebrew poetry is often said to be courtly poetry.13 The model for Hebrew poetry was indeed Arabic courtly poetry, and it was, to some extent, composed in the service of courtiers such as Ḥasday Ibn Shaprut and Samuel Ibn Naghrella. But not every poet had a Jewish courtier_ as his patron. Just as Arabic poetry was cultivated not only by courtiers but also by men of wealth and elegance, so Hebrew poetry was cultivated by members of the Jewish business and professional classes and sometimes even by the rabbinic elite. It is courtly not so much by virtue of its Sitz im Leben as by virtue of its style. The refined and cosmopolitan members of the Jewish elite who were responsible for the existence of golden age poetry wanted their Hebrew poetry to be, above all, elegant. Elegance meant for them the correct use of biblical Hebrew, with no jarring admixture of foreign or even nonbiblical vocabulary, no incorrect or unclassical grammatical forms, and no deviation from the correct prosody; and it meant the use of familiar themes, familiar turns of phrase, figures of speech, and conventional topoi. The poet’s skill consisted of the clever manipulation of these literary materials to produce correct, smooth, elegant, and witty verse. Hebrew poetry of the period strives for harmony and control. It abounds in descriptions of nature, for example, but the nature it describes is ordinarily the nature of gardens and palace patios rather than storms and raging oceans, and the rain it describes is ordinarily a gentle shower that fructifies a garden or makes a rose sparkle. It seeks balance between heaven and earth, between the animate and the inanimate, depicting a world in which everything is in place and everything echoes everything else. A delicate surprise is derived from small paradoxes, in which this harmony momentarily seems to come out of focus, only to fall back into place – the observation, for example, that a thing can be simultaneously red and green (an apple, or the cheek of a jealous lover); white and red (a crystal goblet full of wine); soft and hard (the breast of the beloved, physically soft but emotionally impenetrable); or hard as stone (a patron’s hand, in dealing with his enemies) but flowing as the sea (the patron’s hand, in dispensing benefactions to supplicants). Descriptions are never specific enough to permit the reader to imagine a particular object. This holds true even if the object described is a person – whether patron, friend, or beloved. The conventional imagery tends to relate patron, friend, and beloved to inanimate things. All beloveds

13

The original insight was aired in an influential article by Yosef Weiss, “Shira hatsranit _ vetarbut hasranit,” World Congress of Jewish Studies 1 (1947), 8 9. _ _

930 raymond p. scheindlin are represented by the same set of images; even their sexual identity is usually unmarked (except by grammatical gender). This reliance on conventional descriptions goes hand in hand with an idealizing tendency that favors the use of hyperbole. Entering the world of golden age poetry, one encounters a world in which everything is in the highest degree what it is supposed to be (or, in the case of invective, in the highest degree opposed to what it is supposed to be). The listener knows that this world is imaginary, yet its contemplation gives him pleasure. Not that the world of poetry lacks sorrows: it knows frustrated lovers, death of parents, loss of friends, the ups and downs of fortune, and the inevitability of death. These sorrows are put into perspective by stock gnomic themes couched in a comfortably doleful voice that only rarely lapses into cynicism. Sometimes the poet depicts himself sitting amid boon companions, contemplating the inevitable dissolution of himself, his friends, and their pleasures. He sometimes counters these solemn thoughts by summoning his companions to drink the more. All the aforementioned attributes were inherited from Arabic poetry. Given the conservatism of the thematic conventions, rhetorical and prosodic virtuosity were the spheres in which a poet ordinarily made his mark. But, less inhibited than the Arabic poets, individual poets also managed to turn the poetic tradition into a vehicle for expressing intensely held personal views and feelings, breaking through the thematic conventions, as we shall see, though only rarely breaching the formal ones. FORM AND STYLE

The poets of the golden age rejected the traditional idiom of Hebrew liturgical poetry (payyetanic Hebrew) and wrote biblical Hebrew as consistently as they could. They were attempting to emulate the ceremonial character of Arabic verse, which was written in Classical Arabic, a register of the language that was widely known to intellectuals but was not spoken. Biblical Hebrew was for them the functional equivalent of Classical Arabic, for under the influence of Arabic linguistic theory, the Jews had come to view the postbiblical registers of Hebrew (i.e., rabbinic and payyetanic) as debased forms of the language. Moreover, using the classical register of the language permitted the Jews to feel that they were creating a poetry worthy of vying with Arabic poetry and the implied notion of ʿarabiyya – the superiority of Arabic language and literature to that of the subject peoples. Most of the poems are monorhymed (and therefore have no strophes) and in quantitative meter. Rhyme involves the final consonant and vowel (if the word ends with an open syllable) or the last two consonants and the

belles lettres 931 intervening vowel (if the word ends with a closed syllable); stressed syllables may rhyme with unstressed syllables. Meter is entirely quantitative, with stress ordinarily playing no role. The short vowels are sheva naʿ, the three hatef vowels, and the prefix u-; all others are long. Because the _ great majority of vowels are considered metrically long, the Hebrew prosodic system is less flexible than its Arabic model, which is based on the contrast between grammatically long and short vowels, these being in a more reasonable ratio to each other. The paucity of short vowels was overcome by poetic license; by the revival of archaic prepositions of two syllables beginning with a sheva naʿ, such as elei and ʿalei to replace el and ʿal; and by a predilection for meters with a smaller ratio of short to long vowels. Long and short vowels are organized into meters based on those standard in Arabic. There were twelve basic meters, which had many variations, so that some sixty different prosodic patterns were available. Hebrew poets also used a meter containing lines of eight longs and no shorts. The origin of this meter has not yet been explained. Hebrew poets sometimes used a verse pattern with internal rhyme; the line is made up of four segments rhyming aaax, bbbx, and so on, where x represents the endrhyme that runs through the entire poem. The Hebrew names in use today to designate the meters are modern inventions. Lines of verse are made up of two hemistichs of similar metrical pattern, except that the second hemistich is sometimes one syllable shorter. The same rhyme and metrical pattern must carry through the entire poem, except in the muwashshah. Enjambment is rare. Since no strophic organization is possible in this _system, segmentation within a poem results from thematic shifts, often signaled by rhetorical devices. The poems that employ the prosodic system just described are of two broad types: the qasīda and the qitʿa. The qasīda is a formal ode of some _ _ the minimum _ length (Arab theoreticians said that number of verses is seven or ten) that has two thematically distinct parts. The second part contains the main point of the poem, whether panegyric, complaint, petition, or a combination of subjects. The opening, called nasīb, is on a lyrical theme, usually love, flower description, or gnomic pronouncements. A transition (takhallus) links the two parts by one, two, or three verses, in which the addressee is_ often named. As mentioned earlier, the first line of a formal qasīda ordinarily brings in the rhyme at the end of the first hemistich._ Toward the end of the period, it became common to end the qasīda with words that recall the opening; in Christian Spain, this procedure_ would become de rigueur. The qitʿa is a short poem, ordinarily from two to five verses, usually _ a single theme. This is the typical form of love poems, wine dealing with

932 raymond p. scheindlin poems, riddles, epigrams, gnomic verse, and miscellaneous poems of all kinds. There is also a strophic form, the muwashshah, ordinarily used for song _ composed of two parts: texts. These poems usually have five strophes, each a group of three or four lines with a single rhyme that changes from strophe to strophe; and a group of two lines with a different rhyme that remains constant throughout the poem. The poem may also begin with a pair of lines in the constant rhyme; the final couplet may be in Arabic or Romance (such last lines are called kharjas). The meters of muwashshahs _ are based on the quantitative principle but are in patterns of the poets’ own devising, often derived by modifying a classical pattern. Originating in alAndalus, the muwashshah was disparaged by some Arabic literati. Its secondary status may be_ reflected by the fact that until Halevi and Abraham Ibn Ezra, most Hebrew poets wrote but few.14 Just as normative as prosody for the Hebrew poetry of al-Andalus is the biblical register of the language. Nonbiblical words are uncommon in Andalusian Hebrew poetry, though roots occurring in the Bible are sometimes used in nonbiblical patterns. Thinking in Arabic and drawing heavily on Arabic poetic conventions, the poets’ syntax often resembles that of Arabic and often calques Arabic phrases. After the time of Halevi, Hebrew poets permitted themselves greater leeway in the use of rabbinic Hebrew vocabulary, but the biblical strain overwhelmingly predominates. Andalusian Hebrew verse also drew on the rhetorical tradition of Arabic poetry, which, in this period, experienced a vogue for rhetorical play. Similes and metaphors abound, with common metaphors sometimes becoming fossilized. The division of each verse into hemistichs was favorable to syntactic parallelism, with antithetical parallelism being much appreciated, especially when supported by paronomasia or assonance, as when words occupying the same syntactic function are similar in morphological pattern. Paronomasia appears in every possible variety; it even gave rise to a whole species of poetry consisting of epigrams and short poems whose rhyme words are homonyms. A major rhetorical feature distinctive to Hebrew poetry was the extensive use of biblical allusions. Arabic poets, of course, allude to the Qurʾān and to other classical works from time to time; but allusions to the Bible are so constant in Hebrew poetry that they shape the character of the literature as a whole. In part, allusions to the Bible were unavoidable, for the Hebrew poets consciously chose to limit their vocabulary to that of the 14

Tova Rosen, Leʾezor shir: ʿAl shirat ha ezor ha ʿivrit bi ymei ha beinayim (Haifa, 1985); and Tova Rosen, “The Muwashshah,” in Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, eds., The Literature of Al Andalus (New York, 2000), 165 89.

belles lettres 933 Bible, which they and their readers knew by heart. Every word they used was therefore potentially a biblical allusion, so that it is not always easy to tell when such allusions are significant. Hebrew writers were adept at exploiting biblical allusions for serious literary effects as well as for humor. Allusions are often intended to call to mind the biblical context from which they are taken, which may confirm or contrast ironically with whatever point the poet is making; sometimes the allusion is to a rabbinic tradition associated with the passage. The interpretation of golden age Hebrew poetry often necessitates careful evaluation of its biblical allusions to sort out which are relevant and what aspect of them the poet had in mind.15 Closely associated with the practice of poetry in this and later periods was the use of rhymed prose. Rhymed prose as a form was not an innovation in Hebrew, since it figured in certain types of ancient liturgical poetry; but it now acquired new functions based on Arabic models. Rhymed prose is not metrical but is rhythmic in that it is couched in rhyming groups of phrases of approximately equal length. The same rhetorical techniques used to organize verse – parallelism, antithesis, paronomasia, biblical allusions, and so on – are used in rhymed prose. The rhyme changes constantly, the number of rhyming clauses for each rhyming group being variable. This form was often used for the introductory salutations and blessings in letters, as well as for the introductions of books. Ordinary correspondence was usually conducted in Arabic, but some correspondents exchanged formal letters in Hebrew couched throughout in rhymed prose. Such epistles were often included in a poet’s dīwān and may be considered part of his literary production, a kind of ceremonial performance rather than a vehicle for conveying information. They were often accompanied by a qasīda, a practice that began in Hebrew _ with Menahem’s poem and magnificent epistle of complaint to Ḥasday Ibn Shaprut, and it carries on beyond the golden age to Christian Spain, _ when it developed into an even more elaborate literary institution, the “package” of writings customarily exchanged by dignitaries. THE MAJOR POETS

Little of Menahem’s verse is extant, but it already exhibits some of the characteristic features of the school. His poem to the king of the Khazars written for Ḥasday Ibn Shaprut, though not yet in quantitative meter and _ 15

See studies by David Simha Segal, especially his “‘Mahberet Neʾum Asher ben Yehuda’ of Solomon Ibn Zaqbel: A Study of Scriptural Citation_Clusters,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 102 (1982), 17 26.

934 raymond p. scheindlin though still employing some payyetanic diction, can be read as a kind of primitive qasīda. As a poem of greeting from one potentate to another, it is _ in every important sense of the word. Likewise, Menahem’s courtly writing epistle to Ḥasday is a courtly petition that employs sophisticated rhetoric and rhymed prose to beg redress for mistreatment. The poetry of Menahem’s nemesis, Dunash, includes full-fledged qasīdas replete with _ entertainment, descriptions of palace gardens, wine drinking, and musical addressed to Ḥasday and Jacob Ibn Jaw in al-Andalus and Shemariah b. Elhanan in Egypt. His handling of quantitative prosody is clumsy _ compared with the work of his successors. The verse pattern aaax, bbbx, and so on (mentioned earlier), though used occasionally by later poets, has come to be known as “Dunash’s meter.” Isaac Ibn Khalfūn, whose life straddled the tenth and eleventh centuries, also wrote for a living; he seems to have moved from patron to patron, even from country to country, carrying the Andalusian innovations with him to Qayrawān, Damascus, and perhaps Egypt and Palestine.16 But these were only precursors. Soon there arose a constellation of poets whose production gave the period its glamor in the eyes of their contemporaries and of later readers. Many other poets are named by contemporary authors, but not enough of their work has survived to permit us to evaluate them. Samuel Ibn Naghrella, often known as Samuel the Nagid (993–1055), was an energetic political figure in the tāʾifa (petty) kingdom of Granada who wrote works on rabbinic law and _Hebrew grammar but was also the first of the great poets of the Hebrew golden age. He produced three dīwāns of his own poems. Ben Tehillim (Son of Psalms), in its present form, contains the usual wine poetry, love poetry, riddles, and friendship poetry, but it is notable for a series of long poems commemorating events in Ibn Naghrella’s political career, especially the military affairs of Granada, in which he played some unspecified role. These are often referred to as “war poems,” and they do contain many descriptions – often sanguinary, sometimes macabre – of battle. The war poems are mostly couched as prayers of thanksgiving to God for having saved Ibn Naghrella from danger, but, like most of the poetry of the age, they probably were intended for a public function – in this case, promoting his own standing as head of the Jewish community. A few of these poems openly speak of, and attempt to relieve doubts about, the propriety of his public role. Ibn Naghrella’s other dīwāns are Ben Mishlei (Son of Proverbs), a collection of epigrams about human relations and a courtier’s 16

Brener, Isaac Ibn Khalfun.

belles lettres 935 life; and Ben Qohelet (Son of Ecclesiastes), epigrams on the brevity of life and the certainty of death.17 Solomon Ibn Gabirol (c. 1020–57) was a younger contemporary of Ibn Naghrella who wrote philosophical treatises on metaphysics and ethics, but he was also an innovative and original poet. He seems to have written paid panegyrics to a patron in Saragossa, to Ibn Naghrella, and to others. He was also a prolific author of liturgical poetry, into some of which he introduced philosophical themes that were the object of his speculations, including material on the nature of the soul. His lengthy penitential meditation, Keter Malkhut (Kingly Crown), even includes technical data from the field of astronomy. This work makes especially ingenious use of biblical quotations, their meaning distorted to yield something completely different from their original intent and suggesting that the doctrines expounded in the poem are somehow hinted at by the Bible. He also wrote a didactic poem on Hebrew grammar. Although Ibn Gabirol was capable of writing beautiful verse of a conventional type, and although much of his religious verse reflects a delicate sensibility, there is a dark streak to much of his poetry that hints at a troubled, perhaps even pathological, outlook on life and society. His little extant love poetry is always odd, and occasionally grotesque. A poem of invective against the people of al-Andalus climaxes in a tirade consisting of a series of imprecations in Arabic. Many of his poems couched in a personal voice express a thirst for fame and worldly success but also contempt for the whole idea of fame and worldly success; he sometimes rages at the failure of friends to understand him, while at other times, he pities himself for being lonely and friendless. He dwells on his physical ailments and his certainty – which was to be borne out – that he was destined to a short life. He sometimes employs a diction that was bound to shock and offend; in this regard, he resembles more a decadent Romantic or modernist poet than he does his fellow writers in an age that cultivated elegance in a rigidly controlled framework of convention.18 Moses Ibn Ezra (c. 1055–1140) was a member of a high-status family in Granada and, as such, had no need to live by his verse. Most of his poems are addressed to friends and family. Because of the turmoil attendant on the collapse of the Almoravid kingdom in al-Andalus and the Almohad takeover, he spent much of his life in Christian Spain, where there did not 17

18

Leon J. Weinberger, Jewish Prince in Moslem Spain: Selected Poems of Samuel Ibn Nagrela (Tuscaloosa, 1973); and Peter Cole, trans., Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid (Princeton, 1996). Raymond P. Scheindlin, Vulture in a Cage: Poems by Solomon Ibn Gabirol (New York, 2016); and Peter Cole, Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Princeton, 2001).

936 raymond p. scheindlin yet exist an intellectual community of a level to support his cultural proclivities. Though his dīwān contains the usual poems on love and wine, gnomic epigrams, and riddles, it also contains many poems expressing his nostalgia for Granada, his isolation from men of culture, and neglect, or even betrayal, by members of his family. More than the other poets of the Hebrew golden age, he hews to the models of Arabic poetry, including even occasional references to typical themes of pre-Islamic Bedouin poetry. Moses Ibn Ezra had a philosophical streak that led him to compose a major qasīda dealing with cosmology and an especially beautiful poem on the _ contemplative life. In his youth, he wrote a collection of short poems rhyming in homonyms. Known as the ʿAnaq (Necklace) in Hebrew and as Zahr al-Riyād (The Flower of the Garden) in Arabic, it is organized into ten _ thematic chapters, rendering it a kind of conspectus of the standard themes and motifs of the Hebrew poetry of the age. It became a model for many successors to imitate.19 Judah Halevi (c. 1085–1141) was the most prolific poet of the age. Like Moses Ibn Ezra, he seems not to have needed to write poetry for money, but mostly exchanged qasīdas with friends, among whom he numbered _ some of the most influential members of the Jewish community of this time. His dīwān includes literary epistles and the largest number of muwashshahs, with kharjas in Arabic and Romance, by any Hebrew poet _ He also wrote epithalamia, a genre that had little precedent up to his time. within the school, and a great many liturgical poems. He is best known today for the poems he composed in honor of the Land of Israel, especially in connection with his late-life decision to end his days there. His “Ode to Zion” was even incorporated into the Ashkenazic liturgy. These poems, combined with a legend (which they may have inspired) according to which he died as a martyr before the gates of Jerusalem, made him a folk hero. Halevi also wrote an influential theological treatise in Arabic, generally known as the Kuzari; apart from the importance of its theoretical content, this work stands out in the body of medieval Judeo-Arabic prose writing for its literary craftsmanship and imaginative form.20 Joseph Ibn S ̣adīq (c. 1075–1149) was the author of an important theological treatise. That he was also a major poet of the age is attested by Moses Ibn Ezra and Judah al-Ḥarīzī, and the few poems of his that have 19

20

Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Moses Ibn Ezra,” in Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, eds., The Literature of al Andalus (Cambridge, 2000), 252 64. Gabriel Levin, trans., Yehuda Halevi: Poems from the Diwan (London, 2002); Raymond P. Scheindlin, Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimage (New York, 2008); and Joseph Yahalom, Yehuda Halevi: Poetry and Pilgrimage (Jerusalem, 2009).

belles lettres 937 come down to us support this claim. His extant muwashshahs display _ particular virtuosity in wordplay and rhyme. Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092–1167) wrote nonliturgical poetry that, though true to the formal conventions of the school, is rather different from that of his predecessors. His dīwān contains few panegyrics and eulogies for the dead and only a few of the traditional wine and love poems. His wry epigrams depicting his own bad luck and haplessness are much quoted today, but these are a small part of his production. Innovative, within the framework of the school, are his poems of debate, in which inanimate objects contend for supremacy; and his didactic poems, which include poems on the rules of chess, calendrical intercalation, the activities and foods appropriate to the seasons of the year, and the order of the tractates of the Mishnah. His dīwān abounds in riddles and muwashshahs. He was a prolific liturgical poet. His career as a secular poet seems to _ have ended when he left al-Andalus around 1140 and embarked on a new career as the author of Bible commentaries and scientific treatises.21 Abraham Ibn Ezra also composed a philosophical allegory, Ḥay ben Meqis (The Living, Son of the Awake), in a newly popular form: rhymed prose_ narrative. A notable precedent for the use of this form – Sefer haYuhasin (The Book of Genealogy), by Ahimaaz b. Paltiel (c. 1055) – was _ written in southern Italy, territory that was under the control of the Byzantine Empire but that had economic contacts with the Arabic world. Beginning in the mid-twelfth century, rhymed prose narrative became an important field of Jewish literary activity. Around this time, Joseph Ibn S ̣aqbel composed a group of fictional narratives in rhymed prose, “Neʾum asher ben yehuda” (Quoth Asher b. Judah). This work, with its strong affinities to the Arabic genre of the maqāma, began a literary tradition that flowered on Christian soil – especially in Spain, Provence, and Italy – in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (for this reason, the genre is more fully described and discussed in volume 6 of this work), besides being cultivated in the East.22 HEBREW BELLES LETTRES IN THE EAST

Unlike Spanish Jewry, Eastern Arabic-speaking Jews did not have a common regional identity and therefore did not commemorate their productivity in a way that would have led modern scholarship to pay the 21

22

Leon J. Weinberger, Twilight of a Golden Age: Selected Poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra (Tuscaloosa, 1997). Aaron W. Hughes, The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought (Bloomington, 2004).

938 raymond p. scheindlin same degree of attention to their culture; and the study of their literary work could not benefit from the modern Jewish romance with Sephardic Jewry. Their literary heritage is therefore unfamiliar to all but specialists. Yet the Jews of the Arabic-speaking East, too, had a literary history, the germs of which were mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.23 In the twelfth century, literary writing in Iraq and Egypt began to take on an Andalusian coloration. Maimonides’ disciple Joseph b. Judah seems to have first come to the sage’s attention by addressing to him an allegorical piece in rhymed prose, a feat that Maimonides would recall in the epistle to Joseph at the beginning of his Guide for the Perplexed. Master and disciple exchanged epistles in rhymed prose, a correspondence in which Maimonides showed himself as adept as he did in the other spheres of intellectual endeavor to which he applied himself. Though Maimonides condemned erotic poetry – especially when written in Hebrew – he appreciated his disciple’s erotic allegory, and himself wrote occasionally in a belletristic manner, even writing occasional (nonerotic) verses.24 Nor should we attribute his admittedly marginal participation in belletristic writing only to his Andalusian origin; for in his time, a local writer named Abraham b. Hillel composed a polemical chronicle in rhymed prose – the “Scroll of Zuta” (1197) – in connection with a dispute over the office of head of the Jews of Fātimid Egypt.25 _ The adoption of Andalusian literary practice was probably encouraged by the arrival, in the twelfth century, of several prominent Western poets, such as Judah Halevi, who visited Egypt in 1140–41. He composed poetry for his acquaintances among the Jewish elite of Egypt, some of whom were themselves adept at writing poetry; a prominent businessman in Egypt questioned him as to which Arabic meters work best in Hebrew. 23

24

25

As there are hardly any studies in English of Eastern Hebrew literature in this period, the notes in what follows rely more heavily on Hebrew works. A quick overview with excellent bibliography is found as a digression in Fleischer’s contribution to Schirmann, Toledot hashira ha ʿivrit bi sfarad ha noserit, 444, though it omits one of the main poets, _ Moses Darʿī. On Maimonides’ attitude toward poetry, see Yosef Tobi, “Maimonides’ Attitude toward Secular Poetry,” in Between Hebrew and Arabic Poetry: Studies in Spanish Medieval Hebrew Poetry (Leiden, 2010), 422 66. On the writings exchanged by Maimonides and Joseph ben Judah, see Fleischer in Schirmann, Ha shira ha ʿivrit bi sfarad ha noserit, 273 78; and Joseph Yahalom, “‘Neʾum tuvya ben sidqiya’: Ha mahberet shel_ yosef ben shimʿon li khvod ha ram _ Megilat zuta, see Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonides: _ 66 (1996/97), _ bam,” Tarbiz 543 77. On The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds (New York, 2008), 261 68; and Herbert A. Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (New York, 2005), 51 52. These English works will direct the reader to the very extensive literature on the writings mentioned in this paragraph.

belles lettres 939 Halevi’s traveling companion, Isaac Ibn Ezra (the son of Abraham Ibn Ezra and a poet in his own right), went on to Baghdad after Halevi’s death; in Damascus, he wrote a rhymed epistle and panegyrics in the full-fledged Andalusian style (even including the typical erotic preamble). A substantial dīwān of his poems exists from his Eastern period.26 Later in the century, Anatoli b. Joseph (c. 1150–1213) settled in the 1170s _ become close to Abraham Maimonides. in Egypt, where he would Originally hailing from Provence, Anatoli had emerged as an important _ poet in Muslim Sicily, where, in the twelfth century, a circle of Hebrew poets cultivated the Andalusian style; indeed, Anatoli’s verse often echoes specific lines of his Andalusian predecessors. As _the poets of Christian Spain would soon begin to do, he often ends a poem by repeating its opening. He presents the rare case of a professional talmudist who was also a secular poet.27 Judah al-Ḥarīzī (1165–1225), though born in Christian Castile, produced some of his main literary works in the East, for after spending time in Provence, he traveled to Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq, and died in Syria. Al-Ḥarīzī translated philosophical works from Arabic to Hebrew. He was the first major Hebrew writer to devote himself extensively to the maqāma, producing a translation of the outstanding Arabic maqāma collection of the Muslim writer-scholar al-Ḥarīrī as well as a Hebrew maqāma collection of his own, the Tahkemoni. This work is one of the _ signal literary achievements of Judeo-Arabic Jewry. In Arabic, al-Ḥarīzī wrote a rhymed prose account of his travels and a cycle of odes on religious themes; in Hebrew, a collection of epigrams in homonym rhyme (to rival Moses Ibn Ezra’s ʿAnaq); a didactic poem on medicine; and panegyrics and lampoons about stingy patrons and rival poets. (His scorn for most of the poets he met on his travels in the East may partly reflect their not yet having adopted Andalusian poetic practices.) He wrote bilingual poems (Hebrew and Arabic) and even a trilingual poem (Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic). Uniquely among Hebrew poets, al-Ḥarīzī was also a professional Arabic poet, writing panegyrics for Muslim dignitaries and earning a place in a biographical dictionary of Arabic poets.28 26

27

28

Menahem Schmelzer, Yis haq ibn ʿezra: Shirim (New York, 1980); and Fleischer in _ _ haʿivrit bisfarad hanotserit, 71 92. Schirmann, Toledot hashira Samuel M. Stern, “A Twelfth Century Circle of Hebrew Poets in Sicily,” Journal of Jewish Studies 5 (1954), 60 79; and Fleischer in Schirmann, Toledot hashira haʿivrit bisfarad hanotserit, 440 52. Schirmann, Toledot ha shira ha ʿivrit bi sfarad ha noserit, 145 221; Yosef Sadan, “Rabi _ yehuda al harizi ketsomet tarbuti,” Peʿamim 68 (1995/96), 16 67; Joseph Yahalom and _ Masʿei yehuda (Jerusalem, 2002); and Joseph Yahalom, Joshua Blau, and Joshua Blau, Paul Fenton, Kitāb al Durar (Jerusalem, 2009), 9* 54* (English sec.). Older editions of

940 raymond p. scheindlin Early in the thirteenth century, a Castilian named Moses b. Sheshet came to Baghdad and taught aspiring poets the craft; one of his disciples was Eleazar b. Jacob ha-Bavli (1195–1250), who also met al-Ḥarīzī in Iraq. Eleazar wrote panegyrics in qasīda style, eulogies for the dead, and poems _ for other life-cycle events for members of the social and religious elite of Iraq and Egypt, both Karaite and Rabbanite, including a eulogy on the death of Abraham Maimonides. He also wrote light verse on love, wine, and related topics, sometimes employing a mannered alliterative style. Like Moses Ibn Ezra, al-Ḥarīzī, and several of his contemporaries, Eleazar wrote a collection of poems with homonym rhymes as well as bilingual poems mixing Hebrew and Arabic. Also like Moses Ibn Ezra, Eleazar composed a handbook for poets, with examples taken from Arabic and Hebrew. His allusions to competition among poets and his concern with plagiarism reflect a community in which poetry played a similar social role to what had obtained in al-Andalus.29 Native Eastern poets have left behind a substantial oeuvre that has been little studied to date. An unknown Eastern author in the thirteenth century attempted to rival al-Ḥarīzī’s Tahkemoni with a maqāma collection of his own, known today as Mahberot_ Eitan ha-Ezrahi. Though only _ fragments are extant, it contained _at least twenty-four maqāmas and was thus a major literary production; perhaps it originally had fifty episodes, like al-Ḥarīzī’s masterpiece.30 As long as Yemen was under the control of the Ayyūbid dynasty in Egypt (i.e., 1169–1250), its social world of cultured businessmen resembled that of Egypt itself, and Hebrew poetry played a similar role there to that of the other Arabic-speaking countries. Evidence for this comes mainly from the dīwān of Abraham b. Ḥalfon (currently thought to have lived in the thirteenth century). Collected by the poet himself, this dīwān was dedicated to a local patron, but its panegyrics are not in classic qasīda form. _ Rather, some are short poems in quantitative meters, others in muwashsha h form (with the last lines in Hebrew). Abraham also composed a didactic_ poem on the laws of slaughtering, a polemical poem decrying the Islamic institution of Ramadān, a poem in honor of the Torah, and – most _

29

30

the Tahkemoni have been replaced by Tahkemoni, or The Tales of Heman the Ezrahite _ ed. Yosef Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata _ _ [Hebrew], (Jerusalem, 2010). The Tahkemoni _ has been translated by David Simha Segal, Judah Alharizi: The Book of Tahkemoni (Portland, OR, 2001). See also Decter, Iberian Jewish _Literature, 157 63; and _Michael Rand, The Evolution of al Harizi’s Tahkemoni (Leiden, 2018). _ For his poetry, see Wout Jac. van Bekkum, The Secular Poetry of Elʿazar ben Yaʿaqov ha Bavli (Leiden, 2007); for the handbook, see below under the section “Medieval Theory.” Hayim Schirmann, Shirim hadashim min ha genizah (Jerusalem, 1965), 408 13. _

belles lettres 941 unusually – a poem describing an enormous fish. He was also active as a liturgical poet.31 Moses Darʿī (Egypt, active around 1200) collected his own poetry in a dīwān covering the whole range of genres treated by the Andalusian poets but innovating in the treatment of traditional themes and introducing some new ones. His love poetry is sometimes more sexually explicit than the work of his predecessors and sometimes approaches the fantastic, as when he speaks of wanting to kill his beloved so as to be united with her at the Last Judgment, though it will mean his condemnation to eternal hellfire. Among his innovative themes are a waterwheel; tautologies; a woman reading the Torah; a boy reading the haftarah in public for the _ on Moses (recalling first time; praise of Moses and Aaron; and two poems the Arabic genre of qasīdas in praise of Muhammad that became popular in his time). Though_ a Karaite, Darʿī also_ composed liturgical poetry (in theory, the Karaites permitted only the recitation of biblical texts in liturgy), even imitating the works of Andalusian Rabbanite poets, especially Judah Halevi. His secular poetry is in classical and muwashshah form and his liturgical poem in traditional patterns, yet his dīwān _shows prosodic innovations. His adaptation of a penitential poem by Halevi (expanding Halevi’s classical two-stich verses into nonclassical five-stich strophes) reflects a widespread practice of Arabic poets in his day. His dīwān includes poems in Arabic and poems that mix Hebrew and Arabic, as well as a Hebrew maqāma.32 Joseph b. Tanhum Yerushalmi (Egypt and Syria, 1262–after 1330) wrote _ David Maimonides, Nagid of Egypt, and the grandson poetry in honor of of Moses Maimonides; he may be considered a kind of court poet, writing panegyrics to the nagid and occasional poems on personal events in his life and those of members of his family. Joseph produced a collection of poems rhyming in homonyms, a dīwān of poetry on the usual subjects in qasīda, _ qitʿa, and muwashshah form, as well as a number of maqāmas. Of histor_ _ ical interest are his poems on the fall of Acre to the Crusaders and to David Maimonides on his restoration to the office of head of the Jews. His maqāma of the birds is a reworking of an allegorical work by Avicenna that was reworked by several other Hebrew poets in the course of the Middle Ages.33 31 32

33

Yosef Tobi, Shirei avraham ben halfon (Tel Aviv, 1991). _ in Muslim Egypt: Moses Darʿi’s Hebrew Collection Leon J. Weinberger, Jewish Poet (Leiden, 2000); see also the review by Raymond P. Scheindlin in Hebrew Studies 61 (2000), 343 47. Joseph Yahalom, “Tafqido shel sipur hamisgeret beʿibudim ʿivriyim shel maqamot,” in Reuven Tsur and Tova Rosen, eds., Sefer yisraʾel levin, 2 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1994), 1:135 54.

942 raymond p. scheindlin The works of these poets are firmly rooted in the soil of Andalusian creativity, but they expand somewhat the repertoire of poetic themes and are rather less rigid in restricting their diction to that of the Bible. Their production demonstrates beyond doubt that the social functions and literary style of golden age Hebrew poetry were shared by the Jews of the East and continued to be produced at least until about 1300. MEDIEVAL THEORY

The introduction of Arabic meters and themes aroused controversy from the start, leading to an exchange of polemical poems and treatises among Menahem, Dunash, and their followers. The main arguments were that Arabic meters did not suit Hebrew as well as they did Arabic; that they caused distortion of the language (a point fairly taken); and that secular themes, particularly erotic ones, were religiously objectionable. The linguistic argument was taken up by Judah Halevi in his Kuzari, amplified by the nationalist argument that Hebrew poets should be using native Hebrew verse forms, as found in the Bible, rather than those of foreign nations. The religious argument was taken up, at least with respect to erotic verse, by Maimonides, though he does not express objections to poetry as such. But he was not the first to object to erotic verse; Ibn Naghrella seems to have been attacked for writing erotic poetry, as both he and his son Joseph felt the need to explain away his love poetry as a continuation of the allegorical tradition of the Song of Songs. Various passages in the works of golden age poets attest to occasional feelings of discomfort with one or another aspect of their poetic work; yet even such golden age poets as expressed reservations continued to pursue the practice enthusiastically, as did their successors both in the Muslim East and in Christian lands.34 Both the enthusiasm and the reservations come through in the only major work about poetry to come down to us from the period: the treatise Kitāb al-Muhād ara wa-l-Mudhākara (Book of Discussion and Recollection), _ _ by Moses Ibn Ezra. This rambling and fascinating work written in Arabic deals with the origins of medieval Hebrew poetry, its relationship to biblical poetry and Arabic poetry, and the literary history of the Andalusian Jewish community. It is replete with anecdotes about poets and poetry and other kinds of literary and philosophical lore. The work seems to be partly a memorial to an age that seemed to the author, from his exile in Christian Spain, to be coming to an end, as well as a defense of 34

Brann, The Compunctious Poet; for the nucleus of the idea, see the article cited in note 35.

belles lettres 943 35 poetry against moralistic and philosophical detractors. Its lengthy last chapter contains practical information for poets, including a notable catalog of rhetorical figures that poets must master, with examples from the Bible, Arabic poetry, and Hebrew poetry. Moses Ibn Ezra also wrote a treatise in Arabic on the theory of figurative language: Kitāb al-Ḥadīqa fī al-Majāz wa-l-Ḥaqīqa (The Garden: On the Figurative and the Literal), but this work deals mainly with biblical usage.36 Only a handful of technical guides for the writing of Hebrew poetry have survived. Judah Halevi wrote a short treatise explicating the most suitable Arabic meters for use in Hebrew, and Abraham Ibn Ezra included an explanation of quantitative metrics in his treatise on grammar, Sefer S ̣ahot; written in Hebrew in Mantua after his emigration from al-Andalus, this_ work was, however, not designed for the intellectuals of his own cultural world. Finally, Eleazar b. Jacob composed a guide for Hebrew poets, in Arabic, dealing with meter, rhyme, poetic faults, and rhetoric.37 AFTERLIFE

The Jewish communities of the medieval Judeo-Arabic world were not the only premodern Jewish community to produce belles lettres. The Jewish intellectuals of Spain who scattered after the Almohad invasions carried their literary tastes and practices with them to Provence and Italy, and as the Reconquista advanced in the Iberian Peninsula, Jews of Judeo-Arabic culture were absorbed into Christian Spain. For a while, it seemed that the Judeo-Arabic literary spirit was being renewed in these Christian territories and that perhaps a new synthesis of Judeo-Arabic-type belles lettres with the nascent Romance literatures was coming into being. Christian Spain and Provence produced some interesting and beautiful works of literary art, even a few impressive large-scale works. But these impulses mostly devolved into epigonism and petered out. Speculation as to why this happened is beyond the scope of this chapter.38 But as Italian vernacular literature was beginning to bloom in the fourteenth century, Italian Jewish intellectuals, who knew and admired the greatest achievements of 35

36

37

38

Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Rabbi Moses Ibn Ezra on the Legitimacy of Poetry,” Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 7 (1976), 101 15. Paul B. Fenton, Philosophie et exégèse dans Le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn ‘Ezra (Leiden, 1997). Joseph Yahalom, Judaeo Arabic Poetics: Fragment of a Lost Treatise by Eleazar ben Jacob of Baghdad [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2001). See Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Secular Hebrew Poetry in Fifteenth Century Spain,” in Benjamin R. Gampel, ed., Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World (New York, 1997), 25 37, 301 7.

944 raymond p. scheindlin Judeo-Arabic belles lettres, did create a new synthesis, bringing together echoes of the Judeo-Arabic poets with literary forms that had originated in Italian to create the Hebrew sonnet, the Compositions (Mahbarot) of _ would Immanuel of Rome, and a spate of poetry. No one can say that this not have happened on its own, but the way in which it did happen justifies viewing it, at least partly, as a descendant of Judeo-Arabic belles lettres. The topic is explored more fully in volume 6 of this work. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brann, Ross. The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Baltimore, 1991). Brener, Ann. Isaac Ibn Khalfun: A Wandering Hebrew Poet of the Eleventh Century (Leiden, 2003). Cole, Peter. Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid (Princeton, 1996). Decter, Jonathan P. Iberian Jewish Literature: Between al-Andalus and Christian Europe (Bloomington, 2007). Dominion Built of Praise (Philadelphia, 2018). Drory, Rina. Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, 2000). Fenton, Paul B. Philosophie et exégèse dans Le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn ‘Ezra (Leiden, 1997). Fleischer, Ezra. Mishlei saʿid (Jerusalem, 1990). al-Ḥarīzī, Judah. Judah Alharizi: The Book of Tahkemoni, trans. David _ Simha Segal (Portland,_ OR, 2001). Pagis, Dan. Shirat ha-hol ve-torat ha-shir le-moshe ibn ʿezra u-vnei doro (Jerusalem, 1970)._ Ḥidush u-masoret beshirat hahol haʿivrit (Jerusalem, 1976). Hebrew Poetry of the Middle _Ages and the Renaissance (Berkeley, 1991). Rand, Michael. The Evolution of al-Ḥarizi’s Tahkemoni (Leiden, 2018). _ Menocal, Raymond P. Rosen, Tova. “The Muwashshah,” in Maria Rosa Scheindlin, and Michael Sells, eds., The Literature of Al-Andalus (New York 2000), 165–89. Scheindlin, Raymond P. Wine, Women, and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life (Philadelphia, 1986). The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel, and the Soul (Philadelphia, 1991). Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimage (New York, 2008). Vulture in a Cage: Poems by Solomon Ibn Gabirol (New York, 2016). Schippers, Arie. Spanish Hebrew Poetry and the Arabic Literary Tradition (Leiden, 1994).

belles lettres 945 Schirmann, Ḥayim. Toledot ha-shira haʿivrit bi-sfarad ha-muslimit, ed. Ezra Fleischer (Jerusalem, 1995). Toledot ha-shira ha-ʿivrit bi-sfarad ha-noserit, ed. Ezra Fleischer _ (Jerusalem, 1997). Schmelzer, Menahem. Yishaq ibn ʿezra: Shirim (New York, 1980). _ _ Distance: Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Poetry Tobi, Yosef. Proximity and (Leiden, 2004). Between Hebrew and Arabic Poetry: Studies in Spanish Medieval Hebrew Poetry (Leiden, 2010). van Bekkum, Wout Jac. The Secular Poetry of Elʿazar ben Yaʿaqov ha-Bavli (Leiden, 2007). Weinberger, Leon J. Twilight of a Golden Age: Selected Poems of Abraham Ibn Ezra (Tuscaloosa, 1997). Jewish Poet in Muslim Egypt: Moses Darʿi’s Hebrew Collection (Leiden, 2000). Yahalom, Joseph. Judaeo-Arabic Poetics: Fragment of a Lost Treatise by Eleazar ben Jacob of Baghdad [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2001).

chapter 30

JEWISH-MUSLIM POLEMICS haggai mazuz

INTRODUCTION

Jewish-Muslim polemics are as old as Islam. Many Qurʾānic verses challenge the Jews and Jewish ideas.1 The earliest debates between Jews and Muslims took place between the Jews of Medina and Khaybar, on the one hand, and Muhammad and his disciples, on the other. The only sources _ disputations between Jews and Muhammad are Islamic. that describe the _ For example, in several places, the Qurʾān criticizes Jewish ideas about the afterlife. Qurʾān 2:94 states: “Say: ‘If the Last Abode with Allāh is yours exclusively, and not for other people, then long for death – if you speak truly.’”2 This verse indicates that some Jews – like the talmudic sages – believed that the afterlife exists and is meant for the Jews alone. Elsewhere it is stated (3:77): “There shall be no share for them in the world to come” (lā khalāqa lahum fī al-ākhira) – a statement that appears to reject the talmudic perception expressed, inter alia, in Talmud Bavli Sanhedrin 90a: “All Israel has a portion in the Hereafter” (kol Yiśrael yesh lahem heleq la-ʿolam ha-ba). Other verses (2:80 and 3:24) criticize the Jewish belief_ that Jews who are sent to hell will spend only a few days there. While these verses do not specify the length of time that Jews must spend in hell, they do seem to clash with the talmudic belief in Talmud Bavli Shabbat 33b, that the maximum sojourn is twelve months. Another issue of Jewish-Muslim polemics that appears in the Qurʾān is the cessation of prophecy. Verse 5:19 reads: “People of the Book, now there has come to you Our messenger, making things clear to you, upon an interval between the messengers lest you should say, ‘There has not come to us any bearer of good tidings, neither any warner.’” This verse seems to attack the talmudic view expressed in several places that the prophetic era ended after the destruction of the First Temple and that upon the deaths of 1

2

See Haggai Mazuz, “Thoughts on Qurʾānic Evidence for the Religious Nature of the Qurʾānic Jews,” Revue des études juives 181, 2 (forthcoming, 2022). Translation taken from The Koran Interpreted, ed. Arthur J. Arberry (London, 1964).

946

jewish-muslim polemics 947 the last prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit deserted Israel (Talmud Yerushalmi, Sotah 45b; Tosefta Sotah 13:4; _ _ Talmud Bavli, Yoma 9b; Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 11a). Furthermore, several verses in the Qurʾān (2:75; 4:46; 5:13, 41) accuse the Jews of altering the words of the Torah, falsifying it, and taking its statements out of context.3 This accusation brings to mind the pattern that characterized the talmudic sages. They used the Oral Law (Torah she-be-ʿal peh) to interpret the Written Law, often revising a literal reading of the biblical text to derive laws that allegedly deviated from the literal meaning. In addition, the sīra and hadīth literatures describe many disputes concerning religious matters _ between Muhammad and the Jews of _ refused to acknowledge Medina and Khaybar, mainly because the latter 4 the former as a prophet. The strong rejection of Islam by the Medinan and Khaybarī Jews was also manifested in the following statement attributed to Muhammad: “If ten of the Jews would believe in me, the rest of _ believe in me [too]” (law āmana bī ʿashara min al-yahūd the Jews would la-āmana bī al-yahūd).5 Eventually, they were exiled and many of them were executed.6 EARLY WORKS

The earliest anti-Islamic polemical aspects in Jewish sources appear in three eighth-century works from the Land of Israel. The attitude of Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer (PRE) toward Ishmael – ancestor of Muhammad _ and the Arabs in Islamic and Jewish eyes7 – is ambivalent, alternately 3 4

5

6

7

See further, EI2, s.v. “Tahrīf” (Hava Lazarus Yafeh). See Hartwig Hirschfeld, _“Historical and Legendary Controversies between Mohammed and the Rabbis,” Jewish Quarterly Review 10, 1 (1897), 100 116; Haggai Mazuz, The Religious and Spiritual Life of the Jews of Medina (Leiden, 2014), especially chapters 2 and 3. Muhammad b. Ismāʿīl al Bukhārī, Sahīh al Bukhārī, 9 vols. (Cairo, 1950), 5:38. Cf. _ _ Muslim b. Hajjāj al Qushayrī, Sahīh _ Muslim, 5 vols. (Cairo, 1955), 4:2151 (section _ _ 50:3:31). On the exile of the Banū Qaynuqāʿ, see Muhammad b. ʿUmar al Wāqidī, Kitāb _ al Maghāzī, 3 vols. (London, 1966), 1:176 80; ʿAbd al Malik b. Hishām, al Sīra al Nabawiyya, 4 vols. (Beirut, 1987), 3:9 10. On the exile of the Banū al Nadīr, see al _ Wāqidī, al Maghāzī, 1:374 75. On the Banū Qurayza, see Meir Jacob Kister, “The Massacre of the Banū Qurayza: A Re examination of _a Tradition,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 8 (1986), 61 _ 96. On Ishmael as the progenitor of the Arabs and on the Arab genealogy and its problématique in tracing the historical origins of Ishmael and the Arabs in the biblical period, see Israel Ephʿal, “‘Ishmael’ and ‘Arab(s)’: A Transformation of Ethnological Terms,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 35, 4 (1976), 225 35.

948 haggai mazuz depicting him as a beloved son and as marginalized and rejected. PRE apparently takes the latter approach for anti-Islamic polemical reasons, to emphasize Isaac’s supremacy and in turn that of the Jewish religion over Islam. Thus it describes the Ishmaelites pejoratively.8 In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 22:1, there is a debate between Ishmael and Isaac regarding the succession of Abraham. While Ishmael claims the right of the firstborn, Isaac replies: “I am son of Sarah, his wife, and you are son of Hagar, the slave-girl of my mother.”9 This may be a counterattack against Qurʾān 3:67: “No; Abraham in truth was not a Jew, neither a Christian; but he was a Muslim and one pure of faith.” Polemical references toward Islam also appear in Pereq Rabbi Shimʿon ben Yohai, a Jewish text that presents the Arab conquest. Hosea 9:7 reads: _ of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come; Israel “The days shall know it: the prophet is a fool (Hebrew, evil), the man of the spirit (ish ha-ruah) is mad (meshugaʿ), for the multitude of thine iniquity, and _ the great hatred.” Pereq Rabbi Shimʿon ben Yohai associates the words _ of the spirit,” with “fool” (but uses the word shoteh) and “man 10 _ Muhammad. This association inspired many later Jewish authorities who_ debated with Islam, although they used the word meshugaʿ to describe Muhammad.11 _ 8

See Joseph Heinemann, Legends and Their Development [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1974), 196 99; Carol Bakhos, Ishmael on the Border: Rabbinic Portrayals of the First Arab (Albany, 2006), 96 128. On the polemical aspects of this composition, see Aviva Schussman, “Abraham’s Visits to Ishmael: The Jewish Origin and Orientation” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 49, 3 4 (1980), 325 45. 9 David Rieder, ed., Pseudo Jonathan: Targum Jonathan ben ʿUziel on the Pentateuch, Copied from the London Ms. (British Museum Add. 27031) (Jerusalem, 1974), 29. See further, Moise Ohana, “La polémique judéo islamique et lʼimage dʼIsmaël dans Targum Pseudo Jonathan et dans Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer,” Augustinianum 15 (1975), 367 87; Amnon Shapira, “Traces of an Anti Islamic Polemic in Targum Pseudo Jonathan to the Story of the Akedah” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 54 (1985), 293 96. For a different view, see Robert Hayward, “Targum Pseudo Jonathan and Anti Islamic Polemic,” Journal of Semitic Studies 34 (1989), 77 93. 10 Pereq Rabbī Shimʿon ben Yohai in Solomon Aaron Wertheimer, ed., Batei Midrashot, 4 vols. (Jerusalem, 1894), 2:25._Cf. Tefillat Rabbi Shimʿon ben Yohai in Adolf Jellinek, ed., _ Beit ha Midrash, 6 vols. (Jerusalem, 1967), 4:119. 11 The first was Sherira Gaʾon (906 1006) in his Epistle. See Benjamin Lewin, ed., Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon (Haifa, 1921), 100. On derogatory words for Islam and Muslim used by Jews, see Yitzhak Avishur, “Hebrew Derogatories for Gentiles and Jews in Judaeo Arabic in the Medieval Era and Their Metamorphoses,” in Yaakov Bentolila, ed., Hadassah Shy Jubilee Volume: Research Papers on Hebrew Linguistics and Jewish Languages [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1997), 97 116.

jewish-muslim polemics

949

COMMON ISLAMIC ARGUMENTS

Early Islamic writers made three common arguments against Judaism. Jewish authors did not respond to all Islamic polemical arguments in the same measure and frequency. 1. The Jews falsified and changed parts of their own scriptures (tahrīf/tabdīl).12 Notably, tahrīf has several forms and expressions. One of them_ is ascribing _ physical characteristics to God that is, anthropomorphism (tajsīm/tashbīh),13 although such imagery appears in the Qurʾān itself. Another is attributing sins to the Jewish patriarchs, who are considered prophets in the Islamic tradition.14 Jewish thought allows no possibility of a perfect individual; it regards all human beings, including the patriarchs, as prone to sin: “Surely there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not” (Ecclesiastes 7:20). By contrast, most Muslim theologians attribute to the prophets at least once they have begun their mission a characteristic that they call “infallibility” (ʿisma).15 Another _ argument related to tahrīf is that the chain of transmission of Jewish scriptures 16 _ is unreliable and had no sequence (tawātur). Along the way, changes (taghyīr) were made to the original text. 2. The Torah and the laws of Judaism have been abrogated (naskh) and replaced by the Qurʾān and the laws of Islam.17 3. The Bible alludes to Muhammad’s advent and Muslim polemicists referred to _ prophethood” (dalāʾil/aʿlām al-nubuwwa).18 These them as “evidence/signs of polemicists were specifically drawn to four biblical verses (Genesis 17:20, Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, and 33:2); one may find them or their paraphrases in almost every anti Jewish polemical Islamic tract: i. Muslim polemicists argue that the words bi-meʾod meʾod (“very very,” i.e., exceedingly) in Genesis 17:20 that refer to Ishmael allude to Muhammad’s _ 12 13

14 15

16

17

18

See Lazarus Yafeh, “Tahrīf,” 111 12. _ b. Ahmad b. Hazm al Andalusī, al Radd ʿalā Ibn al Naghrīla E.g., Abū Muhammad ʿAlī _ al Yahūdī wa Rasāʾil Ukhrā, ed._ Ihsān ʿAbbās (Cairo, 1960), 70. _ E.g., ibid., 66. Moshe Zucker, “The Problem of ʿIsmat al Anbiyāʾ Prophetic Immunity to Sin and _ Error in Islamic and Jewish Literatures” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 35 (1966), 149 73; EI2, s.v. “Isma” (Wilferd Madelung and Émile Tyan); Meir M. Bar Asher, Scripture and Exegesis in_ Early Imāmī Shiism (Leiden, 1999), 159 80. EI2, s.v. “Tawātur” (G. H. A. Juynboll). Note that this same word has a different meaning in the context of hadīth criticism. _ Hava Lazarus Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton, 2 1992), 35 41; EI , s.v. “Naskh” (John Burton). See Sarah Stroumsa, “The Signs of Prophecy: The Emergence of an Early Development of a Theme in Arabic Theological Literature,” Harvard Theological Review 78 (1985), 101 14. See further, Sabine Schmidtke, “The Muslim Reception of Biblical Materials: Ibn Qutayba and His Aʿlām al Nubuwwa,” Islam and Christian Muslim Relations 22, 3 (2011), 249 74; Haggai Mazuz, “Jerusalem vs. Mecca in Ibn Qutayba’s Kitāb Aʿlām al Nubuwwa,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 29, 2 (2018), 195 99.

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haggai mazuz

future advent because their gematria (the sum obtained by adding the numerical values of the Hebrew letters) is equal to that of Muhammad’s _ name (92).19 ii. Deuteronomy 18:15 reads: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet in your midst, from among your brethren like myself; him you shall heed.” Later on in the chapter, a similar verse appears: “I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto thee; [I] will put My words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him” (Deuteronomy 18:18). Muslim polemicists argue that the phrases “from among your brethren” and “from among their brethren” refer to Muhammad.20 _ 33:2 reads: “And he [Moses] said, the Lord came from Sinai, iii. Deuteronomy and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten tens of thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.” This verse, the Muslim polemicists claim, alludes to Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad: Sinai to Moses, Seir to Jesus, and Paran to _ Muhammad.21 Their explanation is that Paran is Mecca.22 _

In addition to these three arguments in the Islamic literature against Judaism, the doctrine of the inimitability of the Qurʾān (iʿjāz al-Qurʾān) should be noted, suggesting its primacy as the true divine revelation which all should follow.23 RABBANITES IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

From the ninth century onward, adherents of both faiths in the Near East (but not only) produced polemical and apologetic literature – though much more was produced from the Islamic perspective than from the Jewish. Interreligious debates continued throughout the medieval period and up to modern times – though my discussion here extends only from the rise of Islam to the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492. 19

20 21 22

23

E.g., Samawʾal al Maghribī, Ifhām al Yahūd Silencing the Jews, ed. and trans. Moshe Perlmann, Proceedings of the _American Academy for Jewish Research 32 (1964), 5 93 [Arabic], 33 74 [English], at 31 32 [Arabic] and 46 47 [English]; Samawʾal al Maghribī’s (d. 570/1175), Ifhām al Yahūd: The Early Recension, ed. Ibrahim Marazka, Reza Pourjavady, and Sabine_ Schmidtke (Wiesbaden, 2006), 26. E.g., Abū Hātim Ahmad b. Hamdān al Rāzī, Aʿlām al Nubuwwa (Tehran, 1977), 195. _ E.g., ibid. On the development of this idea and its Jewish origins, see Haggai Mazuz, “Tracing Possible Jewish Influence on a Common Islamic Commentary on Deuteronomy 33:2,” Journal of Jewish Studies 67, 2 (2016), 291 304. See EI2, s.v. “Iʿḏјāz” (Gustave E. von Grunebaum).

jewish-muslim polemics 951 Jews often focused on apologetic rather than polemical writing – focusing inward rather than outward.24 Further, writing is rarely devoted to polemical topics alone; references to polemic, explicit or implicit, are spread in literary texts in disciplines as varied as philosophy, theology, responsa, and poetry. It seems likely that anti-Islamic polemics were thin because Islamic law prescribes capital punishment for those who offend Islam and especially Muhammad.25 Thus, Jews refrained from public debates with Muslims _ in matters of faith.26 Two examples of this reticence may be found in the epistles of Moses Maimonides (1138–1204). In one, Maimonides wrote to Obadiah the Proselyte: “[The Ishmaelites’] error and foolishness is in other things that cannot be put in writing because of the renegades and wicked among Israel [i.e., apostates].”27 These “other things,” in all probability, were polemical issues and his reference to Jewish “renegades and wicked” suggests a fear of Jewish denouncers who might translate Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic texts that criticize Islam into Arabic and reveal them to the Islamic authorities. In his Iggeret Teiman (Epistle to Yemen), Maimonides warns Jacob b. Nathaniel al-Fayyūmī (twelfth century), the leader of the Yemenite Jewish community, against allowing the epistle to fall into the hands of apostates who might disclose its anti-Islamic contents to the authorities.28 Hava Lazarus-Yafeh notes: “This was probably the result not only of fear, but also of the simple fact that since the Qurʾān was a later Scripture than the Bible, it posed no real theological problem for Jews, in contrast to the problem the Bible posed for Muslims.”29 Seʿadyah Gaʾon (882–942) was the first Jewish thinker to engage in a systematic polemic with Islam, although he never wrote an exclusive treatise on the subject.30 In the third chapter of his Kitāb al-Amānāt 24

25

26

27 28

29 30

For exceptions, see David E. Sklare, “Responses to Islamic Polemics by Jewish Mutakallimūn in the Tenth Century,” in Hava Lazarus Yafeh, Mark R. Cohen, Sasson Somekh, and Sidney H. Griffith, eds., The Majlis: Interreligious Encounters in Medieval Islam (Wiesbaden, 1999), 137 61. On the punishment for denigrating Muhammad, see Yohanan Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations_ in the Muslim Tradition (Cambridge, 2003), 149 52. See Simon b. Semah Duran, Qeshet u Magen (Jerusalem, 1970), 25b. See further, Shaul _ Regev, “The Attitude towards Islam in the Yemenite Philosophical Literature” [Hebrew], Teima 7 (2001), 17 28, at 17. Moses Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Joshua Blau, 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1960), 2:726 (#448). Moses Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen: The Arabic Original and the Three Hebrew Versions, ed. Abraham S. Halkin, trans. Boaz Cohen (New York, 1952), 106. Lazarus Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 149 50. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Saʿadya Gaon” (Haggai Ben Shammai).

952 haggai mazuz wa-l-Iʿtiqādāt (Book of Beliefs and Opinions), Seʿadyah debated at length the doctrine of naskh and alleged contradictions in the biblical text.31 Within this debate he also refers to the aʿlām al-nubuwwa issue, asking how those who claim in favor of the naskh of the Torah can use its verses as a proof for the authenticity of their religion, referring to the Muslims without mentioning them by name. Then he immediately explains that Seir and Paran were additional names for Mount Sinai, refuting the claim that Deuteronomy 33:2 referred to the future advent of Muhammad and that Paran was Mecca.32 In addition, to sidestep Muslim_ criticism of anthropomorphic expressions ascribed to God in the Bible, he translates difficult phrases using expressions like nūr Allāh (the light of God).33 Samuel b. Hophni Gaʾon (d. 1013) dedicated a work against the claim of abrogation of Mosaic Law, titled Kitāb Naskh al-Sharʿ (Book of Abrogation of the Law).34 This ten-chapter work was a response to the query of a Muslim sage and Samuel confronts the argument of prominent contemporary Muslim theologians at length. One of the arguments that Samuel dismisses is that the Jewish tradition is not reliable since Nebuchadnezzar killed most of the Jewish people and burned all the copies of the Torah, and that the Torah as it exists now was written by Ezra the Scribe.35 Interestingly, a similar argument appears in ʿAlī b. Ahmad b. Ḥazm’s _ also goes to the (994–1064)36 al-Radd ʿalā Ibn al-Naghrīla al-Yahūdī.37 He 38 trouble of handling the issue of ʿisma. _ 31

32 33

34 35

36 37

38

Seʿadyah Gaʾon al Fayyūmī, Kitāb al Mukhtār fī al Amānāt wa l Iʿtiqādāt, trans. and annot. Yosef Qāfih (Jerusalem, 1970), 131 49. _ Ibid., 137. See further, Miriam Goldstein, “Saʿadya’s Tafsīr in light of Muslim Polemic against Ninth Century Arabic Bible Traditions,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 36 (2009), 173 99, at 183 93. For examination of some apologetic and polemical aspects in Seʿadyah’s commentary on the Bible, see Andrew Rippin, “Saʿadya Gaon and Genesis 22: Aspects of Jewish Muslim Interaction and Polemic,” in William M. Brinner and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., Studies in Islamic and Judaic Traditions II: Papers Presented at the Institute for Islamic Judaic Studies (Atlanta, 1986), 33 46; Joshua Blau, “Did the Gaon Intend His Translation of the Pentateuch for Muslims Too?” [Hebrew], Mesorah le Yosef 7 (2012), 475 87. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Samuel ben Hophni Gaon” (Roni Shweka). David E. Sklare, Samuel ben Hofni Gaon and His Cultural World: Texts and Studies (Leiden, 1996), 28 29; Sklare, “Responses to Islamic Polemics,” 146 50. On Ibn Hazm’s work, see EI2, s.v. “Ibn Hazm” (Roger Arnaldez). Ibn Hazm, al Radd ʿalā Ibn al Naghrīla, 77. On his accusation of Ezra in tahrīf, see Martin Whittingham, “Ezra as the Corrupter of the Torah? Re assessing Ibn _Hazm’s Role in the Long History of an Idea,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 1 (2013), 253 71. Zucker, “The Problem of ʿIsmat al Anbiyāʾ,” 153 56. _

jewish-muslim polemics 953 39 Judah Ha-Levi (1075–1141), in his Kitāb al-Radd wa-l-Dalīl fī al-Dīn al-Dhalīl (Book of Refutation and Proof in Defense of the Despised Faith), known also as the Kuzari, briefly debated with the concept of iʿjāz alQurʾān.40 In his poetry, Ha-Levi uses Sarah and Hagar to polemical intent.41 Sarah, the lady, represents the Jewish nation, while Hagar, the slave-girl, represents Islamdom. The purpose of this use was to humiliate and denigrate the Arabs’ origin. Abraham Ibn Daʾūd’s (1110–80)42 philosophical work, al-ʿAqīda alRafīʿa (The Exalted Faith), was lost. However, two of its translations into Hebrew remained and they carry the titles Ha-Emunah ha-Ramah/ Ha-Emunah ha-Nīśaʾāh. This work includes a long and detailed refutation of two of the aʿlām al-nubuwwa (Deuteronomy 18:18, 33:2), the tahrīf, and the claim that the chain of transmission of the Torah is _ 43 Ibn Daʾūd may also have responded to Ibn Ḥazm’s accusation weak. of Ezra the Scribe in falsifying the Bible after the Babylonian exile: he claims that the Jews had access to the Torah throughout the Babylonian exile in every place where they settled and even if Ezra had altered the Torah, he asks how the people could have agreed to these alterations – especially since Ezra was in Babylonia and the majority of the Jews lived far away. In addition, the universal Jewish agreement as to the exclusive version of the biblical text points to its accuracy.44 Ibn Daʾūd also speaks highly of Moses and his virtues;45 Moses, in Islamic tradition, represents the Jewish religion – often referred to as “the religion of

39

40

41

42

43

44

On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Judah (Abū ʾl Hasan) ben Samuel ha Levi” (Raymond Scheindlin). Judah Ha Levi, Kitāb al Radd wa l Dalīl fi al Dīn al Dhalīl (al Kitāb al Khazarī), trans. and annot. Yosef Qāfih (Qiryat Ono, 1997), 7 9 (part 1, sections 5 10). _ in Medieval Philology and Literature; Collected Papers IV: Nehemya Allony, Studies Hebrew Medieval Poetry [Hebrew], prepared for publication by Yosef Tobi, consulting ed. Shelomo Morag (Jerusalem, 1991), 20 28. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Ibn Daʾud, Abraham ben David ha Levi” (Lola Ferre). Yehuda Eisenberg, ed., Emunah Ramah: Hebrew Translation from the Arabic by Shelomo Lavi and Shemuel Motut [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1987), 39 51; Abraham Ibn Daʾūd, Sefer ha Emunah ha Ramah, trans. Solomon Ibn Lavi/Sefer ha Emunah ha Nīśaʾāh, trans. Samuel Ibn Matūt/The Anonymous Commentary to Ha Emunah ha Ramah, ed. and _ _ (Jerusalem, 2019), 562 77. See further, Theresia Anna Maria annot. Amira Eran Fontaine, In Defence of Judaism: Abraham ibn Daud. Sources and Structure of ha Emunah ha Ramah (Assen, 1990); Resianne Fontaine, “Abraham Ibn Daud’s Polemics against Muslims and Christians,” in Barbara Roggema, Marcel Poorthuis, and Pim Valkenberg, eds., The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Leuven, 2005), 19 34, 22 29, 32 33. 45 Emunah Ramah, 43 47. Ibid., 27, 135.

954 haggai mazuz 46 Moses” (dīn/sharīʿat Mūsā). By venerating Moses, Ibn Daʾūd indirectly rules out any other non-Jewish prophet. Maimon b. Joseph the Dayyan (c. 1110–66)47 wrote his Iggeret haNehamah (Epistle of Consolation) in 1160 when he escaped the Almohads _ in order to comfort the Jews forcibly converted to Islam. This work has a hidden polemical message. Maimon venerates Moses frequently in order to reject the claim of naskh. His logic is as follows: since Moses is “the best among creatures” (khayr makhlūq) and “the most respected among the messengers” (ajall marsūl), and received the Torah, it would not make sense for God to replace it48 – that is, to send another prophet or scripture (referring to Muhammad and the Qurʾān). Moses is also called, inter alia, _ stafā) among mankind” and “master of mankind” “the chosen (al-mu _ (sayyid al-bashar),49 _titles exclusively reserved for Muhammad in Islamic 50 _ prophets]” (alsources. He gives Daniel the title “the seal [of the 51 khātam), an additional title Islamic tradition reserved for Muhammad _ alone.52 These ideas were meant to disqualify the Islamic arguments regarding the superiority of Islam and its founder. Maimon devoted one sentence alone to tahrīf, explaining that there is no lie, doubt, or mixture _ the Torah).53 in what God sent (i.e., Having himself been a victim of forced conversion, Moses Maimonides gave significant attention to polemics against Islam.54 In the second half of 46

47

48

49 50

51 52

53 54

E.g., Moshe Perlmann, “‘Proving Muhammad’s Prophethood’: A Muslim Critique of _ Arie Tartakover, and Haim Ormian, eds., Ibn Kammūna,” in Menahem Zohori, Hebrew Thought in America: Studies on Jewish Themes by Contemporary American Scholars, 3 vols. [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv, 1974), 3:75 97, at 89. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Maimon ben Joseph ha Dayyan” (Judit Targarona). L. M. Simmons, “Maimun’s Letter of Consolation. Arabic Text,” Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 2/3 (1890), 335 68, at 25 (Hebrew pagination). Ibid., 16. E.g., Kitāb al Khabar ʿan al Bashar fī Ansāb al ʿArab wa Nasab Sayyid al Bashar by Ahmad b. ʿAlī al Maqrīzī (1364 1442). _ Simmons, “Maimun’s Letter of Consolation,” 3. On khātam al nabiyyīn/khātim al anbiyāʾ, see Hartmut Bobzin, “The ‘Seal of the Prophets’: Towards an Understanding of Muhammad’s Prophethood,” in Angelika _ The Qurʾān in Context: Historical Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx, eds., and Literary Investigations into the Qurʾānic Milieu (Leiden, 2010), 565 84; Uri Rubin, “The Seal of the Prophets and the Finality of Prophecy: On the Interpretation of the Qurʾānic Sūrat al Ahzāb (33),” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 164 _ S. Powers, “Finality of Prophecy,” in Adam Silverstein and Guy (2014), 65 96; David G. Stroumsa, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions (Oxford, 2015), 262 65. Simmons, “Maimun’s Letter of Consolation,” 2. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Moses Maimonides” (Joel L. Kraemer).

jewish-muslim polemics 955 the twelfth century, Jacob al-Fayyūmī, the leader of the Jewish community in Yemen, sent a letter to Maimonides to seek his guidance in the face of forced conversions imposed on his community. In response, Maimonides sent him an epistle known as Iggeret Teiman that addressed the vicissitudes that beset the Yemenite Jews, and refuted arguments by an anonymous Jewish apostate referred to by Maimonides as posheʿa (lit. criminal),55 in favor of recognizing Muhammad as a true prophet. This apostate chal_ lenged Yemenite Jews by presenting quotes from the Torah (Genesis 17:20, Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, and 33:2) that Muslims considered evidence of the future emergence of Islam and Muhammad.56 In Iggeret Teiman (as _ claim of tahrīf, saying that the elsewhere), Maimonides also attacks the _ Bible was translated into many languages centuries before the advent of Muhammad, whom here he calls “invalid” (pasul), and despite its wide _ distribution there are no differences in the text at all.57 The choice of the word pasul for describing Muhammad stems from a play on the Arabic word messenger (rasūl), one _of Muhammad’s appellations in Islamic _ derogatory madman (Hebrew, sources. Notably, Maimonides uses the meshugaʿ) in Iggeret Teiman several times to describe Muhammad.58 _ Islamic arguMaimonides also parries the claims of many polemical ments in part of his Commentary on the Mishnah where he discusses the thirteen principles of faith. His third principle undermines the accusation of tajsīm, stating that God is non-corporeal and that God is not affected by any physical events.59 The seventh principle is the superiority of Moses’ prophethood and its veracity,60 indirectly ruling out any other religion, thus rejecting the doctrines of naskh and tahrīf. In the eighth principle, Maimonides states: “All the Torah that we _have in our hands today is the Torah given to Moses, and all of it emanated from God – namely, all of it reached [Moses] through God” – in which he includes 55

56

57 59

60

The epithet posheʿa was the name given by other Jews to Jews who converted to Islam. See further, Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Maimonides, the Yemenite Messiah and Apostasy [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2002), 25 26. Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen, 40 54. From Maimonides’ polemical arguments, it seems that he believed the anonymous apostate to be none other than the Jewish convert to Islam Samawʾal al Maghribī. See Haggai Mazuz, “The Identity of the Apostate in the Epistle to Yemen,” AJS Review 38, 2 (2014), 363 74. Cf. Martin Schreiner, “Samauʾal b. Jahja al Magribi und seine Schrift Ifham al Yahud,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 42, 9 (1898), 407 18, at 412; Salo W. Baron, “The Historical Outlook of Maimonides,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 6 (1934 35), 5 113, at 11. 58 Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen, 38 40. Ibid., 14, 18, 36, 38, 80. Moses Maimonides, Commentary on the Mishnah: Seder Neziqin, trans. Yosef Qāfih _ [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1965), 211. Ibid., 212 14.

956 haggai mazuz 61 the Oral Law as well. This, of course, fends off the claim of tahrīf. The ninth principle, called al-naskh, confronts this Islamic doctrine._62 Maimonides also goes against tahrīf in his legal code Mishneh Torah. In his Hilkhot Melakhim u-Milhamot _(Laws of Kings and Their Wars) 11:3, he _ of the Torah are immutable and that one explains that the laws and rules may never add or take away from them; one who does such a thing or misinterprets the commandments is labeled evil (rashaʿ) and a heretic (apiqoros).63 Maimonides introduces the Mishneh Torah by saying that on the last day of Moses’ life, he wrote thirteen scrolls – one for each of the twelve tribes, and one which was deposited in the Ark of the Covenant.64 However, Moses did not write down the commandments that he received at Sinai that offer commentary on the Torah, rather he taught them orally to Joshua, the Elders, and the rest of Israel. Thus these commandments are called Torah she-be-ʿal peh. Then he lists the chain of transmission until the end of the geonic era (seventh to eleventh centuries)65 – that is, nearly up to his own lifetime. This responds to the claim that the Jewish scriptures have no ordered chronology. Like his father, Maimonides speaks highly of Moses and for the same very reason: undermining Muhammad’s status and thus refuting Islamic _ arguments against Judaism, especially the naskh. One of the expressions of this tendency appears in the second part of the Dalālat al-Ḥāʾirīn (Guide for the Perplexed) where he places Moses’ miracles above those of the other prophets.66 When Maimonides discusses false prophets, he mentions two biblical figures as an example (see Jeremiah 29:21–23). However, he closes the chapter with the words “Understand the intention!” for which the context here suggests a sotto voce allusion to Muhammad.67 _ 61

62 63

64

65 66

67

Ibid., 214. See further, Haggai Mazuz, “From ‘Moses’ Mishnah’ to Moses Maimonides’ Mishneh Tōrah: The Development of the Jewish Oral Law according to al Maqrīzī,” Journal Asiatique 306, 2 (2018), 201 7. Maimonides, Commentary on the Mishnah, 215. Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ed. Yohai Maḳbili, Yehiel Kara, and Hillel _ _ Gershoni (Haifa, 2002), 1000. See further, Hava Lazarus Yafeh, “Tahrīf and Thirteen Torah Scrolls,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 19 (1995), 81 88. _ Moses Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ed. Yosef Qāfih (Oiryat Ono, 1997), 35 48. _ annot. Yosef Qāfih (Jerusalem, Moses Maimonides, Dalālat al Hāʾirīn, trans. and 1977), 245 46 (II:35). See further, Yehuda Shamir, “Allusions to Mu_ hammad in _ Quarterly Maimonides’s Theory of Prophecy in his Guide of the Perplexed,” Jewish Review 64 (1973 74), 212 24. Maimonides, Dalālat al Hāʾirīn, 256 (II:40). See further, David Novak, “The Treatment of Islam in the Legal Writings of Maimonides,” in William M. Brinner and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., Studies in Islamic and Judaic Traditions II: Papers Presented

jewish-muslim polemics 957 Nathaniel al-Fayyūmī (d. c. 1165), the leader of the Jewish community in Yemen,68 stresses repeatedly in his Bustān al-ʿUqūl (Garden of the Intellects) that the Torah cannot be replaced, citing many biblical verses with promises for the salvation and perpetuity of the Jewish people, as well as several Qurʾānic verses to the effect that the Torah has not been abrogated.69 Saʿd b. Mansūr Ibn Kammūna (d. 1284) was a philosopher and physician who lived _in Iraq.70 In the second part of his Tanqīh al-Abhāth li-l_ _ invests Milal al-Thalāth (Examination of Inquiries into the Three Faiths), he much effort to reject Islamic arguments against Judaism; many of them are those of Samawʾal b. Yahyā b. ʿAbbās al-Maghribī (1125–75) in his Ifhām _ 71 _ al-Yahūd (Silencing the Jews). MUH AMMAD’S JEWISH COMPANIONS _

Some manuscripts found in the Cairo Genizah dating from the tenth to twelfth centuries reveal Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic stories describing Jewish sages reaching Muhammad, pretending to convert to Islam in order to save _ the Jewish people from Muhammad, and composing the Qurʾān. Some of _

68 69

70 71

at the Institute for Islamic Judaic Studies (Atlanta, 1986), 233 50; Albert Van der Heide, “‘Their Prophets and Fathers Misled Them’: Moses Maimonides on Christianity and Islam,” in Barbara Roggema, Marcel Poorthuis, and Pim Valkenberg, eds., The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Leuven, 2005), 35 46. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Nethanel Fayyūmī” (Marzena Zawanowska). Nathaniel al Fayyūmī, Bustān al ʿUqūl Gan ha Śekhalīm, ed. and trans. Yosef Qāfih (Jerusalem, 1953), 112 15. See further, Reuben Ahroni, “From Bustān al ʿUqūl to Qisat_ _ al Batūl: Some Aspects of Jewish Muslim Religious Polemics in Yemen,” Hebrew Union College Annual 52 (1981), 311 60; Reuben Ahroni, “On the Religious Polemics between Jews and Muslims in Yemen,” in Yosef Tobi, ed., Le Rosh Yosef: Texts and Studies in Judaism. Dedicated to Rabbi Yosef Qāfih [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1995), 395 408, at 402 6; Reuben Ahroni, “Some Yemenite_ Jewish Attitudes towards Muhammadʼs Prophethood,” Hebrew Union College Annual 69 (1998), 49 99, at 55 56. _ On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Ibn Kammūna, Saʿd” (Sabine Schmidtke). See Ibn Kammūna’s Examination of the Inquiries into the Three Faiths: A Thirteenth Century Essay in Comparative Religion, ed. Moshe Perlmann (Berkeley, 1967), 67 108; Ibn Kammūna’s Examination of the Three Faiths: A Thirteenth Century Essay in the Comparative Study of Religion, ed. and trans. Moshe Perlmann (Berkeley, 1971), 2 9, 100 157. See further, Barbara Roggema, “Epistemology as Polemics: Ibn Kammuna’s Examination of the Apologetics of the Three Faiths,” in Barbara Roggema, Marcel Poorthuis, and Pim Valkenberg, eds., The Three Rings: Textual Studies in the Historical Trialogue of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Leuven, 2005), 47 68; Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke, A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: ʿIzz al Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings (Leiden, 2006), 16 23.

958 haggai mazuz these texts use the word “disgrace” (Hebrew, qalon) for the Qurʾān. Some stories appear as part of larger polemic against Samaritans, Christians, Karaites, and of course Islam. This story is sometimes called “The Story of Muhammad’s [Jewish] Companions” (Qissat Ashāb Muhammad). The _ _ origin _ – is clearly idea in_ this story – that the Qurʾān is of__ human polemical, since according to Islamic doctrine it is the divine revelation to Muhammad (through Gabriel); this story appears to be a counterattack _ to the accusation of tahrīf.72 _ RABBANITE JEWS OF CHRISTIAN IBERIA

Up to the Expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, only two Jews dedicated a standalone polemical work attacking Islam. Both are of Iberian origin. The first was Solomon b. Abraham Ibn Adret (c. 1235–1310) of Barcelona, whose Maʾamar ʿal Yishmaʿel (Statement on Ishmael)73 seems to respond to some of Ibn Ḥazm’s anti-Jewish polemical arguments.74 72

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Arthur Marmorstein, “Die Einleitung zu David ben Merwans Religions philosophie wiedergefunden,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 66 (1922), 48 64, at 60; Jacob Leveen, “Mohammed and His Jewish Companions,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 16, 4 (1926), 399 406, at 402; Jacob Mann, “A Polemical Work against Karaite and Other Sectaries,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 12, 2 (1921), 123 50, at 139 40; Jacob Mann, “An Early Theologico Polemical Work,” Hebrew Union College Annual 12/13 (1937 38), 411 59, at 441 42. See further, Shimon Shtober, “Present at the Dawn of Islam: Polemic and Reality in the Medieval Story of Muhammadʼs Jewish Companions,” in Michael M. Laskier and Yaacov Lev, eds., The Convergence of Judaism and Islam: Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions (Gainesville, 2011), 64 88. Ibn Adret’s Maʾamar ʿal Yishmaʿel has been published in several editions. See R. Salomo b. Abraham b. Adereth: Sein Leben und seine Schriften nebst handschriftlichen Beilagen zum ersten Male herausgegeben, ed. Joseph Perles (Breslau, 1863); Teshuvot ha Rashba le Rabbenu Shelomo ben Rabbi Avraham ben Adret, ed. Haim Zalman Dimitrovsky (Jerusalem, 1990), 116 58; Maʾamar ʿal Yishmaʿel by Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham Ibn Adret, with Introduction and Notes [Hebrew], ed. Bezalel Naor (New York, 2008), 59 132. Recently, the work has been translated into Czech; see Daniel Boušek, Polemika judaismus islámem ve středověku: Šelomo ibn Adret a Šimon ben Cemach Duran (Prague, 2015), 127 74. See further, Martin Schreiner, “Die apologetische Schrift des Salomo b. Adret gegen einen Muhammedaner,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 48, 1 (1894), 39 42; Camilla Adang, “A Jewish Reply to Ibn Hazm: Solomon b. Adret’s Polemic against Islam,” in Maribel Fierro, ed., Judíos y musulmanes en al Andalus y el Magreb: Contactos intelectuales (Madrid, 2002), 179 209; Martin Jacobs, “Interreligious Polemics in Medieval Spain: Biblical Interpretation between Ibn Hazm, Shlomoh ibn Adret, and Shimʿon ben Semah Duran,” in Joseph Dan, ed., Gershom Sholem _ (1897 1982) in Memoriam II (Jerusalem, 2007), 37 57, at 40 52; Harvey J. Hames, “A Jew amongst Christians and Muslims: Introspection in Solomon ibn Adret’s Response to Ibn Hazm,” Mediterranean Historical Review 25, 2 (2010), 203 19; Yasin

jewish-muslim polemics 959 As mentioned, Muslim polemicists treat biblical accounts that attribute sins to the Jewish patriarchs as proof of the falsification of the Torah, since they have ʿisma. Ibn Adret refers to biblical accounts of such sins _ actually strengthen the veracity of the Bible since and argues that they no ruler would tolerate stories that besmirch his dynasty if he did not hold Scripture to be divine in origin.75 In regard to the accusation of unreliable chain of transmission, he answers in the same vein as Ibn Daʾūd and Maimonides.76 The text also confronts the doctrines of tahrīf and naskh.77 The second segment of Simon b. S ̣emah Duran’s (1361–1444) Qeshet _ u-Magen (Bow and Shield) is the most sharply worded polemic against Islam produced by any medieval Jewish author. Duran was born in Mallorca and passed away in Algeria. His family emigrated along with many others to Algeria after losing their fortune in the pogroms of 1391. In 1408, Duran became the rabbinic leader of Algerian Jewry. His halakhic authority and judicial rulings were recognized in Spain, North Africa, France, and Italy. In addition to his halakhic knowledge, he was highly proficient in many other fields such as philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences, astronomy, and medicine, and, as Qeshet u-Magen demonstrates, Duran was knowledgeable about Islam.78 Qeshet u-Magen, written in 1423 as part of the treatise Magen Avot (Shield of the Forefathers), assails Christianity in its first segment and Islam in its second.79 The text contains a multitude of original arguments and demonstrates its author’s command

75 77 78

79

Meral, “Yahudi Din Bilgini Şlomo İbn Adret’in İbn Hazm’a Reddiyesi: Maamar ʿal Yi¸smaʿel,” İslâm Ara¸stırmaları Dergisi 28 (2012), 45 59. 76 R. Salomo b. Abraham b. Adereth, ed. Perles, 1 2. Ibid., 2 3. Ibid., 3 18, 18 24. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Duran, Simon ben Semah” (Samuel Morrell); Isaac _ Aviv, 1959), 255; Israel Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain [Hebrew] (Tel M. Ta Shma, Talmudic Commentary in Europe and North Africa: Literary History: 1200 1400 [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2004), 92 93; Simon b. Semah Duran, Sefer ha Tashbes _ _ (Lemberg, 1890), 1:41a (#103). Duran, Qeshet u Magen, 16a 25b. The text was first edited and published by Moritz Steinschneider, who also translated it into German. See Moritz Steinschneider, “Setirat Emunat ha Ishmaeʿlim mi Sefer Qeshet u Magen le Rabbi Shimʿon b. Semah Duran” _ [Hebrew], Osar Tov (1881 82), 1 36; Moritz Steinschneider, “Islam und Judenthum: _ Kritik des Islam von Simon Duran (1423), aus dem Hebräischen übersetzt und erläutert,” Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 7 (1880), 1 48, and supplement (Beilage). Prosper Murciano prepared a critical edition and English translation of the full Qeshet u Magen; see Prosper Murciano, Duran, Keshet u Magen: A Critical Edition/ Simon ben Zemah (PhD diss., New York University, 1975). Recently, Boušek translated the second segment of Qeshet u Magen into Czech and described it generally. See Boušek, Polemika judaismus islámem ve středověku, 175 96, 197 241.

960 haggai mazuz of Arabic and Islamic sources such as the Qurʾān, hadīth, and tafsīr that he _ uses for polemical purposes. His claims include (1) “The founder of their faith [i.e., Muhammad] observed Moses’ perfect teachings, pondered them, and imposed _an imitation that would make [his own teachings] more perfect” with little change. Thus, Duran continues, he embraced laws such as not allowing a drunkard to pray; he shifted the day of rest; forbade his followers to partake of pork, blood, and carrion; observing ritual slaughter; prescribing that the Muslims should give one-fortieth of their wealth; as well as purity laws. Additionally, knowing that the most exalted day of the year for Jews for prayer and repentance is the Day of Atonement, when five prayer services are recited, Muhammad prescribed five daily prayers for the Muslims.80 _ the Qurʾānic periodization of Haman to criticize the (2) Duran uses Qurʾān: “They [i.e., the Muslims] say that Haman lived in Moses’ time; their book says, ‘And Haman said to Qārūn, who is Qorah . . .’” (cf. _ [i.e., the Qurʾān 29:39). He does the same in the case of Jesus: “They Muslims] say that Jesus was the son of Miriam, daughter of Amram, sister of Aaron, and all their multitudes believe, as it is written in their scriptures, that Aaron, brother of Moses our Teacher and brother of Miriam, was the mother of Jesus” (cf. Qurʾān 19:28–29).81 KARAITES IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Although early on relations between Karaites and Islamic authorities were positive,82 we also find negative attitudes toward Islam and Muslims in Karaite literature – sometimes even more vigorous than that of the Rabbanites. Clearly, they were more polemical rather than apologetic – that is, proactive in criticizing Islam and Muslims.83 In his Kitāb al-Anwār 80 82

83

81 Duran, Qeshet u Magen, 19b. Ibid., 16b. See e.g., Jacob Mann, “A Tract by an Early Karaite Settler in Jerusalem,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 12, 3 (1922), 257 98, at 285 86; Leon Nemoy, “The Pseudo Qūmisīan Sermon to the Karaites,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 43 (1976), 49 105, at 100 101. On the Karaites’ polemic against Islam, see Moshe Sokolow, “The Denial of Muslim Sovereignty Over Eretz Israel in Two Tenth Century Karaite Bible Commentaries” [Hebrew], Shalem 3 (1981), 309 18; Haggai Ben Shammai, “The Attitude of Some Early Karaites towards Islam,” in Isadore Twersky, ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, Volume 2 (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 3 40; Daniel Frank, “The Shoshanim of Tenth Century Jerusalem: Karaite Exegesis, Prayer, and Communal Identity,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity (Leiden, 1995), 199 245; Daniel Frank, Search Scripture Well: Karaite Exegetes and the Origins of the Jewish Bible Commentary in the Islamic East (Leiden, 2004), 165 247.

jewish-muslim polemics 961 wa-l-Marāqib (Book of Lights and Watchtowers), Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Ishāq al-Qirqisānī (early tenth century)84 invalidates the prophethood _ hammad (whom he calls pasul, as would Maimonides much later) by of Mu arguing_ that the Qurʾān and the Islamic oral tradition contain illogical and contradictory statements. He also countered the doctrines of naskh and tahrīf using Islamic sources themselves – to include Qurʾānic verses.85 _ Al-Qirqisānī also composed a work entitled Kitāb fī Ifsād Nubuwwat Muhammad (Book Nullifying the Prophethood of Muhammad), in which _ _ he refutes Muhammad’s claim to prophecy and repeats much from his 86 _ argument in al-Anwār wa-l-Marāqib. Daniel al-Qūmisī (d. 946),87 another early Karaite authority, writes with pejorative nicknames for Muhammad and criticism toward some Islamic rituals; this probably stemmed_ from difficulties suffered under the yoke of Islamdom. In his commentary on Hosea 9:7, al-Qūmisī explains that because the people of Israel hated and killed God’s prophets, they are ruled by the foolish prophet (Hebrew, evil ha-navi),88 referring to Islamdom. In the commentary on Daniel 8:25 he explains that the words “By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand” (ve-hisliah mirmah be-yado) refer to Muhammad’s false claim that he was sent_ by_ _ God. In his commentary on Daniel 11:37, al-Qūmisī says that the words “desire of women” (hemdat nashim) refer to the permission in Islamic law _ for one to have intercourse with slave-girls, arguing that this verse and the one following both refer to idol worship in Mecca in the pre-Islamic period.89 Salmon b. Yeruham (middle of the tenth century) sheds a great deal of _ in his commentaries.90 He also complains about ink criticizing Islam

84 85

86

87 88

89

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On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Qirqisānī, Jacob al ” (Fred Astren). Yaʿqūb b. Ishāq al Qirqisānī, Kitāb al Anwār wal Marāqib: Code of Karaite Law, 5 vols., _ ed. Leon Nemoy (New York, 1939), 1:292 301. See Israel Friedländer, “Qirqisānī’s Polemik gegen den Islam,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 26 (1912), 77 110. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Daniel al Qūmisī” (Barry Dov Walfish). Commentarius in librum duodecim prophetarum quem composuit Daniel al Ḳūmissi, ed. Isaac D. Markon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1957), 15. Jacob Mann, “Early Karaite Bible Commentaries,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 12, 4 (1922), 435 526, at 520 21. See further, Haggai Ben Shammai, “A Fragment of Daniel al Qūmisī’s Commentary on Daniel as a Source for the History of Eretz Israel” [Hebrew], Shalem 3 (1981), 295 307; Haggai Ben Shammai, “A Fragment of Daniel al Qūmisī’s Commentary on Daniel as a Source for the History of Eretz Israel,” Henoch 13 (1991), 259 81. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Salmon ben Jeroham (Sulaym ibn Ruhaym)” _ (Michael Wechsler).

962 haggai mazuz hardships in “the Ishmaelite exile” with derogatory nicknames for the religious institutions of Islam and its founder. In his commentary on Psalms 43:1, Salmon explains the words “deceitful man” (ish mirmah) as “the son of Hagar,”91 that is, Ishmael, who represents the Muslims. He sees in the phrase “he who curses” (meharef, Psalms 44:17) an allusion to the _ accusation of tahrīf (very likely because both have the same Semitic root _ hrf) because of the Qurʾānic claim that “The Jews say, ‘ʿUzayr is the Son of _ Allāh’” (cf. Qurʾān 9:30) and that they changed the letters of the Torah.92 ʿUzayr is a Qurʾānic figure that most Muslim and modern scholars identify as Ezra the Scribe.93 In the commentary on Psalms 69:8, Salmon writes that the fourth kingdom (i.e., Islamdom) “is the harshest of all [four] kingdoms” (asʿab al-mamālik).94 A similar interpretation appears in his commentary on _Psalms 64:5.95 In the commentary on Ecclesiastes 9:6, he complains that the Muslims “announce five times a day for the memory of idolatry (gilul) and a false prophet (nevi sheqer).”96 Salmon refers to the Islamic call to prayer (adhān), in which the Muslims state that there is no God but Allāh and that Muhammad is His messenger. Similar complaints _ Lamentations 1:7 and in a prayer that he appear in his commentary on composed for the Day of Atonement.97 The attitude of Japheth b. ʿElī (tenth century) toward Islam is the most vitriolic among the Karaites.98 He also dedicated much material in his commentaries to criticizing Islam. In his commentary on Daniel 8:24 he explains the words “He will cause astounding devastation” (ve-niflaʾot yashhit) as follows: “He railed against the Torah of God, exalted be His _ and against the words of His prophets, and took out of it what he name, pleased, of which he composed for himself a scripture called qalon, and

91

92 93

94 96

97

98

Lawrence Marwick, ed., The Arabic Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruham the Karaite on the Book of Psalms, Chapters 42 72 (Philadelphia, 1956), 6. Ibid., 9. For a summary of the classical attitude toward ʿUzayr, reviewing all the relevant literature, see Hava Lazarus Yafeh, “Ezra ʿUzayr: History of a Pre Islamic Polemical Motif through Islam to the Beginning of Biblical Criticism” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 55 (1986), 359 79; Viviane Comerro, “Esdras est il le fils de Dieu?” Arabica 52, 2 (2005), 165 81. 95 The Commentary of Salmon ben Yeruham on Psalms, 98. Ibid., 81. Moshe I. Riese, ed., The Arabic Commentary of Solomon ben Yeruham the Karaite on Ecclesiastes (New York, 1973), 449; Georges Vajda, ed., Deux commentaires karaïtes sur l’Ecclésiaste (Leiden, 1971), 92. Salomon Feuerstein, ed., Der Commentar des Karäers Salmon ben Jerucham zu den Klageliedern (Krakow, 1898), xxiii; Simhah Assaf, “A Prayer of Salmon b. Yeruham the _ _ Karaite,” Meʾasef Le Zion 3 (1929), 88 94. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Japheth (Abū ʿAlī Hasan) ben Eli” (Michael G. Wechsler).

jewish-muslim polemics 963 99 claimed that the rest [of the Scriptures] are abrogated.” In his commentary on Daniel 11:37 he uses the word pasul to describe Muhammad.100 _ Japheth also uses the term qalon for the Qurʾān in his commentary on Isaiah 47:9–10, where calls the Qurʾān “the book of their disgrace” (sefer qelonam).101 In the commentary on Nahum 1:14, Japheth claims that the words “out of the house of your gods will I cut off the graven image (pesel) and the molten image (massekhah)” refer to “the house of their prayer in which they pilgrimage every year,” that is, the Kaʿba and that in it there are idols (selamim).102 Criticism of Islam by Japheth also appears in his _ commentary on Psalms 14.103 But without doubt his harshest words against Islam appear in the commentary on Isaiah 21:2, in which he claims that the words “traitor” (boged) and “robber” (shoded) refer to Muhammad (with_ and “despicout mentioning him by name), calling him a false prophet 104 able” (nivzeh). Yūsuf al-Basīr (second half of the tenth century) wrote a manual for _ debating the Islamic argument that the Qurʾān is inimitable.105 He, too, uses the words pasul and qalon. The work’s title is unknown since the manuscript is not currently extant. He was motivated to write it after experiencing difficulties in a theological debate.106 ʿAlī b. Sulaymān (second half of the eleventh century and early twelfth century)107 also composed a manual for Jews who might find themselves in interfaith debate, using Qurʾānic verses to parry the claim that the Torah had been changed.108 99

100 101

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104

105 106

107 108

David Samuel Margoliouth, ed. and trans., A Commentary on the Book of Daniel by Jephet Ibn Ali the Karaite (Oxford, 1889), 87 88. Ibid., 113. Haggai Ben Shammai, “Edition and Versions in Yephet b. ʿAlī’s Bible Commentary,” ʿAlei Sefer 2 (1976), 17 32, at 23 24. Hartwig Hirschfeld, ed., Jefeth b. Ali’s Arabic Commentary on Nāhūm, with _ Introduction, Abridged Translation and Notes (London, 1911), 21. See Yoram Erder, “The Attitude of the Karaite, Yefet ben Eli, to Islam in Light of His Interpretation of Psalms 14 and 53,” Michael: On the History of the Jews in the Diaspora 14 (1997), 29 49. Aus der Petersburger Bibliothek: Beiträge und Documente zur Geschichte des Karäerthums und der karäischen Literatur, ed. Adolf Neubauer (Leipzig, 1866), 111 12 (nXI). On his life and work, see EJIW, “Yūsuf al Basīr” (Gregor Schwarb). David E. Sklare, ed., in cooperation with_ Haggai Ben Shammai, Judaeo Arabic Manuscripts in the Firkovitch Collections: The Works of Yusuf al Basir. A Sample Catalogue; Texts and Studies (Jerusalem, 1997), 100 103, 137 38. See further, David E. Sklare, “Yūsuf al Basīr: Theological Aspects of his Halakhic Works,” in Daniel _ Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity (Leiden, 1995), 249 70, at 258; Sklare, “Responses to Islamic Polemics,” 150 61. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “ʿAlī ibn Sulaymān” (Michael G. Wechsler). Hartwig Hirschfeld, “Ein Karäer über den Muhammed gemachten Vorwurf jüdischer Torahfälschung,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 26 (1912), 111 13.

964

haggai mazuz POLEMICS IN POETRY

“Polemical literature is only one aspect of polemics,”109 notes Moshe Perlmann. Indeed, one can find anti-Islamic references in other genres – including poetry. One such example is found in Yerivuni ʿAlei ʿOzvi Berit El (They Quarreled with Me for Leaving God’s Covenant), a poem written by a twelfth-century Jew of unknown identity who converted to Islam and later reverted to Judaism.110 Scholars are uncertain whether the author was Abū al-Barakāt Hibat Allāh b. ʿAlī b. Malkā al-Baghdādī al-Baladī (c. 1080–1165),111 a Jewish physician and philosopher, or Isaac b. Abraham Ibn Ezra (c. 1109–58).112 Whoever the poet was, Yerivuni abounds with cryptic apologetic messages directed at Jews – most likely those in the poet’s surroundings – as well as polemical messages against Islam. The poet begins and ends this work with apologetics. In between appear polemical messages spiced with apology – responses to arguments against the reliability of the Bible and against the truth of Muhammad’s _ mission – as well as one explicit apology.113 Another example is the third and fourth stanzas of the poem Yivasheʿun Qehaleikha ha-ʿOmedim ba-Leilot (May Your Congregations That Stand at Night Be Granted Salvation), attributed to the Spanish rabbi, philosopher, Bible commentator, and poet Isaac b. Judah Ibn Ghiyyāth of Lucena (1038–89).114 The poet refers to three themes that surface repeatedly in Islamic polemics against Jews and Judaism recurrent in Jewish-Muslim polemical discourse in his milieu – tahrīf, naskh, and that Muhammad was _ counter_ to them, however, avoid khātam al-nabiyyīn. The poet’s responses polemics; instead, they express his pain and his recourse to God for salvation.115 109

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112

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Moshe Perlmann, “The Medieval Polemics between Islam and Judaism,” in Shlomo Dov Goitein, ed., Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 103 38, at 103; Moshe Perlmann, “The Medieval Polemics between Islam and Judaism,” in Hava Lazarus Yafeh, ed., Muslim Authors on Jews and Judaism: The Jews among their Muslim Neighbors [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1996), 119 53, at 119. Isaac b. Abraham Ibn Ezra, Poems [Hebrew], ed. Menahem Haim Schmelzer (New York, 1980), 147. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Abū ʾl Barakāt al Baghdādī” (Norman Stillman and Shlomo Pines). On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Ibn Ezra, Isaac (Abū Saʿīd) ben Abraham ben Meʾir” (Aurora Salvatierra Ossorio). See Haggai Mazuz, “Apologetic and Polemical Aspects of Yerībūnī ʿAlei ʿOzbī Berīt El,” Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos. Sección Hebreo 66 (2017), 189 98. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Ibn Ghiyyāth (Ibn Ghayyāth), Isaac ben Judah” (Esperanza Alfonso). See Haggai Mazuz, “References to Polemical Islamic Arguments in Yivasheʿūn Qehaleikha ha ʿŌmedīm ba Leilōt,” Iberia Judaica 11 (2019), 127 34. For examination of anti Islamic polemical sentiments in medieval Hebrew poetry from the Iberian

jewish-muslim polemics 965 Moses b. Samuel of Damascus (fourteenth century), originally of Safed, was a Karaite appointed as chief secretary (kātib) to the local Mamlūk emir.116 In 1354, he was the victim of calumny when two Muslims complained falsely that he expressed contempt for Islam. To save himself from the death penalty he outwardly converted to Islam. After the emir’s death he returned to Judaism. In one of his poems he writes that the emir required him to join him for a pilgrimage (hajj) in Mecca and he mocks it and its rituals.117 _ CONVERTS TO ISLAM

Medieval Jewish-Muslim polemics include anti-Jewish tracts written by Jewish apostates. One cannot ignore their Jewish provenance and the possibility that their writers had spent much of their lives as Jews and belonging to Jewish communities. They must have absorbed something from this period. Thus, some of the contents they discuss may reflect something of the spiritual “cargo” of their former communities. If so, such contents represent a unique Jewish contribution to Islamic anti-Jewish polemics that in some cases received a Jewish response. The most famous Jewish apostate who wrote polemical works against his former faith was Samawʾal al-Maghribī, the author of Ifhām al_ Yahūd.118 Samawʾal was a Jewish scholar, mathematician, and physician 119 who converted to Islam in 1163, and immediately wrote a polemical

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Peninsula, see Norman Roth, “Polemic in Hebrew Religious Poetry of Medieval Spain,” Journal of Semitic Studies 34, 1 (1989), 153 77. See further, Norman Roth, Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict (Leiden, 1994), 221 23; Allony, Studies in Medieval Philology and Literature, 21 28; Ayelet Oettinger, “The Attitude towards Muslims and the Arabic Culture in Tahkemoni” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 138 (2014), _ 77 112, at 91 92, 95 96; Haggai Mazuz, “The Linkage of Ammon and Moab with Pre Islamic Arabs and Muslims in Jewish Sources Prevalence and Motives,” Revue des études juives 177, 1 2 (2018), 23 36. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Moses ben Samuel of Damascus” (Marzena Zawanowska). See Jacob Mann, “Moses b. Samuel, a Jewish Kātib in Damascus, and His Pilgrimage to Medinah and Mekkah,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1919), 155 84, at 161 64; Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. (New York, 1972), 2:222 28. On his life and work, see EI2, s.v. “Samawʾal b. Yahyā al Maghribī, Abū Nasr” (Reuven Firestone); EJIW, s.v. “Samawʾal al Maghribī, al ”_ (Sabine Schmidtke). _ On Samawʾal’s conversion, see Sarah Stroumsa, “On Jewish Intellectuals Who Converted to Islam in the Early Middle Ages,” in Daniel Frank, ed., The Jews of Medieval Islam: Community, Society, and Identity (Leiden, 1995), 179 97, at 192 96; Sarah Stroumsa, “On Jewish Intellectuals Who Converted to Islam in the Early Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 42 (1990), 61 75, at 70 73; Ryan Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic (Philadelphia, 2013), 180 92.

966 haggai mazuz anti-Jewish pamphlet, in which he tried to prove that leaving Judaism was justified and that the Jews were ignorant, unreasonable, and inconsistent. Ifhām al-Yahūd is harsh and the hostility toward the Jews is clear and it has a _broad distribution and influence in the Islamic and Jewish societies. Ifhām al-Yahūd drew the attention of Jewish scholars, such as _ Maimonides, who responded to some of its arguments in his Iggeret Teiman.120 Judah al-Ḥarīzī (c. 1166–1225)121 attacked Samawʾal in one of his poems with the epithets “evil,” “villain,” and “tyrant” (paris, rashaʿ, ʿaris).122 Ibn Kammūna and an anonymous Jewish author from _the four_ century dedicated efforts in order to refute Ifhām al-Yahūd.123 Joseph teenth b. Isaac Sambari (1640–1703), an Egyptian Jew living_in Cairo and the author of Sefer Divrei Yosef (Book of Joseph’s Sayings),124 summarized the arguments of Samawʾal (whom he calls Samuel b. ʿAzarya for an unknown reason) and describes him negatively, wishing him a miserable end.125 Among the claims in Ifhām al-Yahūd: (1) Samawʾal argues that the Jews slandered Lot, whom the _Islamic tradition views as a prophet, by asserting that he had intercourse with his two daughters and fathered Ammon and Moab in so doing (see Genesis 19:33–38). He further claims that the story of Judah and Tamar, mother of Perez and Zerah (see Genesis 38:12–30), is a falsification. The appearance of these two stories in the Bible, he claims, is a result of a plot by Ezra the Scribe, whom he accuses of falsifying the Bible. Samawʾal charges that as a priest, Ezra sought to delegitimize the kingship of the Davidic line because Moab, ancestor of Ruth, and Perez, ancestor of David, are products of incest. What is more, Samawʾal claims, Ezra succeeded in his nefarious scheme – after all, it was the priests (i.e., the Hasmoneans) and not David’s descendants who ruled Judea in the Second Temple period.126 120 121 122

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Mazuz, “The Identity of the Apostate,” 363 74. On his life and work, see EJIW, s.v. “Harīzī, Judah ben Solomon al ” (Jonathan P. Decter). Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata, eds., Tahkemoni or The Tales of Heman the _ Ezrahite by Judah Alharizi [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010), 113. _ Kammūna’s Examination of the Inquiries into the Three Faiths, 67 108; Ibn See Ibn Kammūna’s Examination of the Three Faiths, 2 9, 100 157; Bruno Chiesa and Sabine Schmidtke, “The Jewish Reception of Samawʾal al Maghribī’s (d. 570/1175) Ifhām al _ Yahūd: Some Evidence from the Abraham Firkovitch Collection I,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 32 (2006), 327 49. On his life and work, see EJ2, s.v. “Sambari, Joseph ben Isaac” (Shimon Shtober); EJIW, s.v. “Sambari, Joseph ben Isaac” (Benjamin Hary). Shimon Shtober, ed., Sefer Divrei Yosef by Yosef ben Yitzhak Sambari: Eleven Hundred Years of Jewish History under Muslim Rule [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1994), 146 49. Samawʾal al Maghribī, Ifhām al Yahūd, 15a 16b (60 65). See further, Haggai Mazuz, “The Story of Lot and_ His Daughters as a Topic of Muslim Jewish Polemics” [Hebrew], Daʿat 89 (2020), 59 64.

jewish-muslim polemics 967 (2) Samawʾal refers to several verses that appear on a list of anthropomorphic accounts in the Bible – accounts that, he claims, prove that the Bible has been falsified. He makes note of Exodus 24:10, “And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.”127 He also uses Genesis 6:6: “And the Lord regretted (va-yinahem) having made man on the earth, and was aggrieved (va-yitʿasev) in his_ heart.” Samawʾal cites additional verses in which the two roots _nhm andʿsv appear, such as _ uses Genesis _ Genesis 3:16 and I Samuel 15:11 and 35.128 He also 8:21: “And 129 the Lord smelled (va-yarah) a sweet savor.” _ second part of Exodus 22:30 to criticize Jews (3) Samawʾal employs the further: “Neither shall you eat any flesh that is torn of beasts (terefah) in the field; you shall cast it to the dog.” He argues that the Jews go_ too far in not partaking of Muslims’ food because Jews are enjoined only against consuming torn flesh. In this, he accuses them of inventing the laws of ritual slaughter; he then proceeds to discuss the Jewish dietary laws extensively.130 Saʿīd b. Ḥasan al-Iskandarī (thirteenth to fourteenth centuries) was born to a Jewish family in Alexandria and converted to Islam in May 1298, in response, he claims, to his miraculous recovery from a severe illness.131 In April 1320, twenty-two years after his conversion, he wrote Kitāb Masālik al-Nazar fī Nubuwwat Sayyid al-Bashar (Book of Paths of _ the Prophethood of the Master of Mankind) in Investigation concerning Damascus to prove that the Bible alludes to the advent of Muhammad _ with and that Islam is the supreme religion.132 Saʿīd had some familiarity 127 130 131

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128 129 Ibid., 11b (44 45). Ibid., 11b 12a (46 47). Ibid., 12a (47). Ibid., 19b (76). On his life and work, see David Thomas, “Saʿīd ibn Hasan al Iskandarī,” in David Thomas and Alex Mallett, eds., Christian Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History, Volume 4 (1200 1350) (Leiden, 2013), 775 77. On Saʿīd’s conversion, see Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative, 192 96. For a presentation of Masālik al Nazar in its _ Zeitgeist, see Daniel Boušek, “Saʿīd ibn Hasan z Alexandrie: Židovský konvertita k islámu a jeho dů kazy Muhammadova proroctví z hebrejské Bible,” Acta Fakulty _ v Plzni 12, 2 (2012), 52 73. filozofické Západočeské univerzity The first to address Masālik al Nazar was Ignaz Goldziher, who published it in part in 1895. See Ignaz Goldziher, “Saʿid_ b. Hasan d’Alexandrie,” Revue des études juives 30 (1895), 1 23. In 1903, Sidney Adams Weston published a thirty seven page critical edition of the entire work and added an English translation. See Sidney Adams Weston, “The Kitāb Masālik al Nazar of Saʿīd Ibn Hasan of Alexandria: Edited for the First Time and Translated with _Introduction and Notes,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 24 (1903), 312 83. Recently, Dennis Halft published a later recension of Saʿīd b. Hasan’s work that was written twelve years after Masālik al Nazar. See Dennis Halft, “Saʿīd b. Hasan al Iskandarī: A Jewish Convert to Islam: Editio_ princeps of the

968 haggai mazuz the Bible, the Qurʾān, the Gospels, and, possibly, Maimonides’ antiIslamic arguments in Iggeret Teiman.133 He was also exposed to rabbinic and midrashic sources such as Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer, tailoring them to his polemical purposes in at least five chapters of his treatise.134 Among the claims in Masālik al-Nazar: (1) As mentioned, Muslim polemicists argue that the phrases _“from among your brethren” (Deuteronomy 18:15) and “from among their brethren” (Deuteronomy 18:18) refer to Muhammad. Unlike previous polemicists, Saʿīd adds to the verse the words_ “from the children of Ishmael”: An additional proof from the proofs of his prophethood, peace be upon him, is an explicit text in the fifth book of the Torah, [in which] Allāh told to Moses, ‘Speak to the children of Israel in the Hebrew language: a prophet shall I appoint for them from among your brethren, the children of Ishmael’ (nābī aqīm lā hām miqārib ahī khām mi-banī Yishmāʿil). The meaning of these [words is]: We will send _ a prophet from your kindred, of the children of your brother Ishmael.135 unto you

(2) Saʿīd depicts Ishmael as Abraham’s favored son and as the son bound on the altar by Abraham by providing an altered transliteration into Arabic of the first part of Genesis 22:2. The biblical text reads: “And He said, take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and get you to the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” While the rest of the verse clearly refers to Isaac, Saʿīd argues that the words “your only son” can refer only to Ishmael because Ishmael is the elder son.136 By so doing, Saʿīd presents an alternative biblical narrative, according to which the bound son is actually Ishmael (and not Isaac) – who, his reader should infer, received the Abrahamic legacy. Saʿīd’s purpose is to show that Ishmael – ancestor of Muhammad and the Arabs in Islamic eyes – is the successor to Abraham, the _first man who returned to monotheism after many generations of idolatry, and that Isaac is not. By implication, Muhammad continues the Abrahamic legacy, making Islam and not Judaism _the true faith. Abū Muhammad ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Islāmī was an apostate Jew who _ in Ceuta in the late fourteenth century.137 He testifies to probably lived having converted to Islam at the age of forty and having convinced his

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135 137

Later Recension (732/1331) of His Biblical ‘Testimonies’ to the Prophet Muhammad,” Mélanges de l’Institut Dominicain d’Études Orientales du Caire 30 (2014), 267_ 320. Haggai Mazuz, “Saʿīd b. Hasan, Biographical Notes through the Prism of Masālik al Nazar,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 68, 1 (2015), 49 57. _ Haggai Mazuz, “The Midrashic Sources of Saʿīd b. Hasan,” Revue des études juives 175, 1 2 (2016), 67 81. 136 Weston, “Masālik al Nazar,” 327. Ibid., 337. On his life and work, see_ EJIW, s.v. “ʿAbd al Haqq al Islāmī” (Esperanza Alfonso).

jewish-muslim polemics 969 family to do the same. Sixteen years after that event, he wrote the polemical tract al-Sayf al-Mamdūd fī al-Radd ʿalā Ahbār al-Yahūd (The _ 138 ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Outstretched Sword for Refuting the Rabbis of the Jews). demonstrates familiarity with and use of Jewish sources and ideas for polemical use.139 Although some of ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq’s arguments appear to resemble those of Samawʾal al-Maghribī and Saʿīd b. Ḥasan, the former do not seem to have been inspired by the latter and his thinking was actually highly original and independent.140 ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq makes a number of polemical claims, among them that (1) the Jews are ungrateful. ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq claims that the words “reign of malice” (malkhut zadon), in the twelfth benediction of the core of the Jewish prayer service, refer to Islamdom. He adds that while the Muslims treated Jews better than others – they curse them in return.141 (2) ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq presents the second part of Exodus 22:30, “The flesh of a torn thing, do not eat it but throw it to a dog,” in Arabic transliteration and explains it as an antiIslamic slander, arguing that the Jewish sages regard the word “dog” as a metaphor for Muslims and see no difference between the former and the latter.142 In the year 1405, in the town of Pedrola (Aragon, Spain), Abū Zakariyyā Yahyā b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿUmar al-Raqilī (second half of the fourteenth century and_ the early fifteenth century)143 copied an anti-Jewish treatise entitled Taʾyīd al-Milla (Fortification of the Community).144 This work was originally composed in Huesca, in 1360. The possible converso origin of both al-Raqilī and the author of this work is disputed. What is for sure is that, whatever the author’s religious affiliation might have been at the time of 138 139

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142 143

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On ʿAbd al Haqq’s conversion, see Szpiech, Conversion and Narrative, 196 200. Haggai Mazuz, “Additional Contributions of ʿAbd al Haqq al Islāmī to the Muslim Jewish Polemic,” Al Qantara 37, 1 (2016), 111 28. See further, Moshe Perlmann, “ʿAbd _ Convert,” Jewish Quarterly Review 31 (1940 41), 171 91; al Haqq al Islāmī, a Jewish Hava Lazarus Yafeh, “Contribution of a Jewish Convert from Morocco to the Muslim Polemic against Jews and Judaism” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 42 (1990), 83 90. Haggai Mazuz, “ʿAbd al Haqq al Islāmī An Independent Minded Polemicist or a Mimic of His Predecessors?” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 107 (2017), 179 90. ʿAbd al Haqq al Islāmī, al Sayf al Mamdūd fī al Radd ʿalā Ahbār al Yahūd, ed. and _ trans. Esperanza Alfonso (Madrid, 1998), 109. Ibid., 111. On his life and work, see David Thomas, “al Raqilī,” in David Thomas and Alex Mallett, eds., Christian Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History. Volume 5 (1350 1500) (Leiden, 2013), 298 99. The share of al Raqilī in the transmission of the Taʾyīd al Milla has been a point of disagreement among scholars, who have brought different arguments about whether he was the author or its copyist.

970 haggai mazuz writing the Taʾyīd al-Milla – and unlike the above-mentioned converts – he lived under Christian rule.145 The Taʾyīd al-Milla is a manual spanning some five chapters; its author calls upon Jews to acknowledge Jesus and Muhammad as true prophets _ the New Testament to and uses verses from both the Hebrew Bible and prove his point. To provide further support for his agenda, he also writes about the virtues of Ishmael, the abrogation of the Torah, Muhammad’s _ miracles, and the transgressions of the Jews.146 Another contribution of alRaqilī to interreligious polemics is his copying of Kitāb al-Mujādala maʿa al-Yahūd wa-l-Nasārā (Book of Disputation with the Jews and the _ of an anonymous Mudéjar that is the only example Christians), the work known thus far of the circulation of philosophy and logic – mainly, Aristotle’s natural philosophy and its commentary by Ibn Rushd – among Mudéjars and Moriscos.147 Polemical works continued to be written after 1492 by Jews148 (and Jewish apostates149) although, as far as it seems, this continued on a 145

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See Mònica Colominas Aparicio, The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia: Identity and Religious Authority in Mudejar Islam (Leiden, 2018), 70 82. The first to address the Taʾyīd al Milla was Miguel Asín Palacios, who published it in part in 1909. See Miguel Asín Palacios, “Un Tratado morisco de polémica contra los judíos (El códice arábigo n. XXXI de la Colección Gayangos: ‫)ﺗﺎﻳﻴﺪ ﺍﻟﻤﻠﺔ‬,” in Gaston Maspero, ed., Mélanges Hartwig Derenbourg, 1844 1908: Recueil de travaux d’érudition dédiés à la mémoire de Hartwig Derenbourg par ses amis et ses élèves (Paris, 1909), 343 66. For a critical edition and translation, see Leon J. Kassin, ed., “A Study of a Fourteenth Century Polemical Treatise Adversus Judaeos” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1969). See further, Mònica Colominas Aparicio, “The Mudejar Polemic of the Taʾyīd al Milla and Conversion between Islam and Judaism in the Christian Territories of the Iberian Peninsula,” in Mercedes García Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, eds., Polemical Encounters: Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Iberia and Beyond (Philadelphia, 2019), 53 69. See Colominas Aparicio, The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia, 93ff., and the forthcoming critical edition of the work by this author. E.g., Zechariah b. Seʿadyah al Dāhirī, Sefer ha Mūsar: Mahbarōt R. Zachariah al Dāhirī, ed. Yehuda Ratzaby [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1965), 124 _ 29. See further, Martin Jacobs, “An Ex Sabbatean’s Remorse? Sambari’s Polemics against Islam,” Jewish Quarterly Review 97, 3 (2007), 347 78; Haggai Mazuz, “Aspects of Polemics with Islam in the Seventh Maqāma of R. Zechariah al Dāhirī’s Sefer ha Mūsar” [Hebrew], Teima 15 (2018), 67 80; Haggai Mazuz, “Maʿaseh Mehmet: Reexamination and Critical _ Edition” [Hebrew], Qoves ʿAl Yad 27, 37 (forthcoming, 2021). See e.g., Joseph Sadan, “A_ Convert in the Service of Ottoman Muslim Scholars Writing a Polemic in the Fifteenth Sixteenth Centuries” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 42 (1990), 91 104; Sabine Schmidtke, “Epistle Forcing the Jews [to Admit Their Error] with Regard to What They Contend about the Torah, by Dialectical Reasoning (Risālat ilzām al yahūd fī mā zaʿamū fī l tawrāt min qibal ʿilm al kalām) by al Salām ʿAbd al ʿAllām. A Critical Edition,” in Camilla Adang and Sabine Schmidtke, eds., Contacts and Controversies

jewish-muslim polemics 971 smaller scale than in the medieval period. Future research may change the current picture. CONCLUSION

The prominent scholar of Jewish-Muslim polemics Eliyahu Ashtor explained that: The religious polemics between Muslims and Jews captured the attention of our best scholars in the nineteenth century and important compositions about the topic have been written, but we have not yet been privileged with a comprehen sive book that would discuss it from a literary historical perspective.150

Indeed, such a work remains a desideratum. Only one extensive scholarly attempt to study the entire field has been made thus far, that of Moritz Steinschneider. The latter published Polemische und apologetische Literatur in arabischer Sprache in 1877, a seven-chapter work that examines different aspects of polemics and apology. His seventh chapter, 144 pages long, gives an overview of Jewish polemical references against Islam.151 As an accomplished bibliographer, Steinschneider strove to include every potential source of polemical treatment in his work. By doing so, he provides an excellent overview of, and a fine introduction to, Jewish-Muslim polemics for students and researchers of the topic. Indeed, many articles about polemics refer back to his work. However, his discussion of these sources, their contents, and their contexts is far from exhaustive; his analysis of the matter is not thorough. Hence further academic attention to the topic is essential. Although the study of Jewish-Muslim polemics requires further research, a few things are known with a high level of certainty: (1) Jews in the Islamic world were well-aware of Islamic arguments against their religion and they paid attention to them. The fact that such prominent Jewish figures took the trouble to treat this topic suggests that these arguments did pose, at least somewhat, a real theological challenge for Jews.152 (2) Not a few of those who engaged in polemics with Islam had a personal experience that may explain, inter alia, their motivation to do so.

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between Muslims, Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire and Pre Modern Iran (Würzburg, 2010), 73 82; Haggai Mazuz, “The Origin of the Author of al Risāla al Sabīʿiyya fī Ibtāl al Diyāna al Yahūdiyya” [Hebrew], Peʿamim (forthcoming, 2021). Eliyahu Strauss (Ashtor), “The Muslim Polemics” [Hebrew], in Memorial Volume of the Vienna Rabbinical Seminary (Jerusalem, 1946), 182 97, at 182. Moritz Steinschneider, Polemische und apologetische Literatur in arabischer Sprache (Leipzig, 1877), 244 388. Pace Lazarus Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds, 149 50.

972 haggai mazuz These experiences ranged from participating in interreligious theological debate to forced conversion. (3) Karaites had a much more belligerent attitude toward Islam than Rabbanites. While the latter were mainly apologetic, the former were mainly polemical. The reason for this is still unclear, and this is particularly intriguing in light of the positive relations between Islamic authorities and the Karaites. Rabbanites, as mentioned, were not blind to the challenge posed by polemical debates. Although Rabbanite Jews were integrated in the Islamic sphere, the boundaries between Rabbinic Judaism and Islam were clear, perhaps explaining why they chose an apologetic strategy. The proximity between Karaites and Muslims may have soured relations between the two or raised concern among the Karaite religious authorities of the risk of assimilation and the potential loss of their identity;153 in return, they chose harsh and uncompromising polemics. Future research may help answer some of these questions. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ahroni, Reuben. “From Bustān al-ʿUqūl to Qisat al-Batūl: Some Aspects of Jewish-Muslim Religious Polemics in_ Yemen,” Hebrew Union College Annual 52 (1981), 311–60. Ben-Shammai, Haggai. “The Attitude of Some Early Karaites towards Islam,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. 2, ed. Isadore Twersky (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 3–40. Friedländer, Israel. “Qirqisānī’s Polemik gegen den Islam,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 26 (1912), 77–110. Hirschfeld, Hartwig. “Historical and Legendary Controversies between Mohammed and the Rabbis,” Jewish Quarterly Review 10, 1 (1897), 100–116. Jacobs, Martin. “Interreligious Polemics in Medieval Spain: Biblical Interpretation between Ibn Ḥazm, Shlomoh ibn Adret, and Shimʿon ben S ̣emah Duran,” in Joseph Dan, ed., Gershom Sholem _ (1897–1982) – in Memoriam II (Jerusalem, 2007), 37–57. Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava. “Ezra-ʿUzayr: History of a Pre-Islamic Polemical Motif through Islam to the Beginning of Biblical Criticism” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 55 (1986), 359–79. 153

See further, Daniel J. Lasker, “Islamic Influences on Karaite Origins,” in William M. Brinner and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., Studies in Islamic and Judaic Traditions II: Papers Presented at the Institute for Islamic Judaic Studies (Atlanta, 1986), 23 47. Notably, Samawʾal argues that “most of the Karaites were little by little converted to Islam.” See Samawʾal al Maghribī, Ifhām al Yahūd, 21b (82). _

jewish-muslim polemics 973 Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton, 1992). Mazuz, Haggai. “Tracing Possible Jewish Influence on a Common Islamic Commentary on Deuteronomy 33:2,” Journal of Jewish Studies 67, 2 (2016), 291–304. “Maʿaseh Mehmet: Reexamination and Critical Edition” [Hebrew], _ 37 (forthcoming, 2021). Qoves ʿAl Yad 27, _ Perles, Joseph. R. Salomo b. Abraham b. Adereth: Sein Leben und seine Schriften nebst handschriftlichen Beilagen zum ersten Male herausgegeben (Breslau, 1863). Perlmann, Moshe. “The Medieval Polemics between Islam and Judaism,” in Shlomo Dov Goitein, ed., Religion in a Religious Age (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 103–38. Rabbi Simon b. S ̣emah Duran. Qeshet u-Magen (Jerusalem, 1970). _ in Hebrew Religious Poetry of Medieval Spain,” Roth, Norman. “Polemic Journal of Semitic Studies 34, 1 (1989), 153–77. Shtober, Shimon. “Present at the Dawn of Islam: Polemic and Reality in the Medieval Story of Muhammadʼs Jewish Companions,” in Michael M. Laskier and Yaacov Lev, eds., The Convergence of Judaism and Islam: Religious, Scientific, and Cultural Dimensions (Gainesville, 2011), 64–88. Steinschneider, Moritz. Polemische und apologetische Literatur in arabischer Sprache (Leipzig, 1877).

chapter 31

HISTORIOGRAPHY katja vehlow

Jews of medieval Islamicate lands were avid consumers and producers of historical writing.1 They constructed histories that strove to reflect on contemporary political and cultural developments. They considered both their history and that of others, and in some cases preserved rare information about periods from which few writings have survived. Included here are prose texts written by authors who spent all or parts of their life in Islamic lands, including general, universal, and local histories, individual and communal letters, travelogues, and the approaches to history implicit in the writings of some leading medieval Jewish scholars. Written in Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Arabic, or – rarely – Aramaic, most Jewish historical works originated in the central areas of Jewish settlement: Andalusia, North Africa, Syria-Palestine, and Iraq. For a long time, medieval historiography largely ignored the literature of Jews living in Islamic lands. In spite of Moritz Steinschneider’s impressive list of medieval historical writings, many twentieth-century scholars agreed that medieval Jews – among whom those of Islamic lands were tacitly included – failed to develop a historical consciousness.2 Salo W. Baron posited that medieval writers were more interested in storytelling than in history, a position somewhat nuanced by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, who agreed with the absence of historiographical writings in the Jewish Middle Ages, but posed that Jews remembered the past in ritual instead.3 Both 1

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The numbers of preserved manuscripts alone hints at this: Even leaving aside the complicated case of Yosippon, thirty two complete or partial copies of the Kuzari which I will discuss as a historical text below in Ibn Tibbon’s translation alone have been preserved, and seventeen complete or partial texts of Ibn Daud’s Generations of the Ages. By contrast, central European historiographical texts such as the Rhineland Chronicles have been transmitted in far smaller numbers. Moritz Steinschneider, Die Geschichtsliteratur der Juden in Druckwerken und Handschriften (Frankfurt, 1905), 1 86. Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols. (Philadelphia, 1976), 6:188 234; Yosef H. Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle, 1982) and a discussion of his oeuvre in Jewish Quarterly Review 98 (2007).

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historiography 975 arguments have been modified and revised in light of the sheer abundance of medieval Jewish historical works. Audiences perceived these texts, we now realize, in complex ways, and they often circulated in many versions and languages, attesting to widespread interest among readers.4 Still, hurdles abound: few texts are available in modern translations, while new material emerges constantly, such as the recent discovery of the Ben Daniel Archive in Afghanistan. The debate now includes genres long neglected as historiographical sources, such as exegesis, legal texts, and liturgical poetry. Several research trends are discernible: On the one hand, there is a return to manuscripts to tease out the interpretation of the texts themselves.5 In addition, the study of legal and literary texts is now often augmented by a turn to material culture that destabilizes the older focus on writing history from a European perspective.6 At the same time, the Cairo Genizah, a multilingual depository of secular and religious writings and ephemera that continues to provide insights into the lives of the people whose writings it preserved has undergone a reevaluation. The Cairo Genizah yielded some of the oldest fragments of Sefer Yosippon and the Kuzari and partial copies of important Arabic historical works such as the Kitāb al-Taʾrīkh al-Majmūʿ ʿalā al-Tahqīq wa-l-Tasdīq (The Accurate and Authentic Book of Universal History) by_ the Melkite _Patriarch of Alexandria Saʿīd Ibn al-Bitrīq (877–940).7 The Genizah’s original chief _ investigators, such as S. D. Goitein and A. L. Udovitch, thought that the material described a Mediterranean society in which Jews and Muslims interacted on an equal footing, even as they took into account the second-

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E.g., Saskia Dönitz, Überlieferung und Rezeption des Sefer Yosippon (Tübingen, 2014); Adam Shear, The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167 1900 (Cambridge, 2008). Ronny Vollandt, “Some Historiographical Remarks on Medieval and Early Modern Scholarship of Biblical Versions in Arabic: A Status Quo,” Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 1 (2013), 25 42. E.g., Peng Yu, “Revising the Date of Jewish Arrival in Kaifeng, China, from the Song Dynasty (960 1279) to the Hung wu Period (1368 98) of the Ming Dynasty,” Journal of Jewish Studies 68, 2 (2017), 369 86; Miriam Frenkel and Ayala Lester, “Evidence of Material Culture from the Geniza: An Attempt to Correlate Textual and Archaeological Findings,” in Daniella Talmon Heller and Katia Cytryn Silverman, eds., Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle East (Leiden, 2015), 147 87. Benjamin Outhwaite, “The Genizah as a Source for Jewish History,” in Dean Phillip Bell, ed., The Routledge Companion to Jewish History and Historiography (Abingdon, 2018), 380 88.

976 katja vehlow 8 class status of non-Muslims. The New Mediterranean Studies encourages students of the Jewish Middle Ages to recognize any bias they might have about the contemporary period and to prevent that bias from overshadowing their reading of the medieval period. Similarly, the idea of a Mediterranean unity has been challenged by the New Mediterranean Studies that criticizes Goitein and his school for the use of “Mediterranean” as an invented place and culture rather than an accident of circumstance. Instead, they argue, the Mediterranean was shaped by local, regional, universal, and confessional social and political dynamics and by human responses to the same.9 The Jewish past in Islamicate lands continues to fascinate scholars and popular readers alike, mostly in the form of the myth of a “golden age” and its lachrymose countermyth.10 The idea of a golden age originated among nineteenth-century German-speaking Jewish scholars who conjured up alAndalus in particular – al-Andalus being the contemporary term for the cultures that arose in medieval Islamicate Iberia – as an idyllic place of coexistence between Christians, Muslims, and Jews, when intellectual and artistic achievements went hand in hand with economic and political power.11 Authors who propagated this idea of a “golden age” focused on religious elements and pitted Islam against Judaism, ignoring sociopolitical tensions, on the one hand, and the many successful instances of Jewish acculturation throughout the Muslim world, on the other. Most academics have long distanced themselves from this rose-colored imagination of the past. Applying archaeological and anthropological methodologies with 8

S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols. (Berkeley, 1967 93). 9 For the historiography of Genizah scholarship, see Phillip I. Ackerman Lieberman, The Business of Identity: Jews, Muslims, and Economic Life in Medieval Egypt (Palo Alto, 2014), 1 48, esp. 1 4; Fred Astren, “Goitein, Medieval Jews, and the New Mediterranean Studies,” Jewish Quarterly Review 102, 4 (2012), 513 31. 10 See Raymond P. Scheindlin, “Merchants and Intellectuals, Rabbis and Poets: Judeo Arabic Culture in the Golden Age of Islam,” in David Biale, ed., Cultures of the Jews: A New History (New York, 2002), 313 86; Jonathan Ray, “The Jews of al Andalus: Factionalism in the Golden Age,” in Bernard D. Cooperman and Zvi Zohar, eds., Jews and Muslims in the Islamic World (Bethesda, 2013), 253 63; Mark R. Cohen, “The ‘Golden Age’ of Jewish Muslim Relations: Myth and Reality,” in Abdelwahab Meddeb and Benjamin Stora, eds., A History of Jewish Muslim Relations From the Origins to the Present Day (Princeton, 2013), 28 38. 11 Carsten Schapkow, Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation (Lanham, MD, 2016; first published in German in 2011); Miriam Frenkel, “The Historiography of the Jews in Muslim Countries in the Middle Ages Landmarks and Prospects” [Hebrew], Peʿamim 92 (2002), 23 61.

historiography 977 text-based studies, Andalusian history is now studied as a network of kinship and tribal structures, with Jewish historians stressing the Arabization of Iberian Jews and the impact of that process on literary history and cultural identity.12 And yet the golden age lives on. It appears in American political speeches and serves as a backdrop to graphic novels. The golden age fuels the imagination of those dreaming of an interfaith utopia under Islamic tutelage both in the West and beyond.13 In this context, nonspecialists often refer to works such as María Rosa Menocal’s immensely popular The Ornament of the World in 2002, a book that was geared toward a general audience and widely (mis)read as conjuring up such a mythical paradise of coexistence.14 But there is also a powerful countermyth that fears Islam as an invading foreign force; alt-right blogs, for example, see the Muslim presence in medieval Iberia as a foil for problems faced by contemporary Spain and the West in general.15 OLD AND NEW GENRES

Jewish historical works are not easily classified. There is no linear development in the use of genres or the appearance and disappearance of certain tropes – even if some genres, such as the “chains of tradition,” remained remarkably popular.16 Nonetheless, some general remarks are in order. Most works relied on the genres established by biblical, rabbinic, and eschatological literatures.

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David Wasserstein and Carlos del Valle Rodríguez, “Langues et frontières entre juifs et musulmans en al Andalus,” in Maribel Fierro, ed., Judíos y Musulmanes en al Andalus y el Magreb (Madrid, 2002) 1 11. Jonathan Shannon, “There and Back Again: Rhetorics of Al Andalus in Modern Syrian Popular Culture,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 48, 1 (2016), 5 24; Muneeza Shamsie, “Introduction: The Enduring Legacy of al Andalus,” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 52, 2 (2016), 127 35. María Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (Boston, 2002); with a different polemical slant: Darío Fernández Morera, The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise (Wilmington, DE, 2016). Sarah J. Pearce, “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: The Extreme Right and the American Revision of the History and Historiography of Medieval Spain” in Louie Valencia García, ed., The Extreme Right and the End of Historiography (New York, 2020), 29 68. Haim Hillel Ben Sasson, “The Trends of Medieval Jewish Chronography and Its Problems,” in Joseph R. Hacker, ed., Resef u temura: ʿiyunim be toldot Yisraʾel bi mei ha benayim u va ʿet ha hadasha [Hebrew]_ (Tel Aviv, 1984), 379 401. _

978 katja vehlow In the constantly reshaped memory of the biblical past, medieval Jews saw both a point of departure and a source of comfort for the present and future course of history. Many writers structured time through the four kingdoms in the Book of Daniel.17 The main players in this tightly scripted drama were grafted on biblical figures, with Israel, Edom, and Ishmael loosely standing in for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, although these identifications were not exclusive and were periodically updated.18 Postbiblical eschatological texts such as the seventh-century Sefer Zerubavel or the much-neglected Maʿaseh Daniʾel and Ḥazon Daniʾel provided additional models that often reverberated with eschatological currents in contemporary Islamic culture.19 Most texts regard the rise of rabbinic Judaism and the emergence of the Oral Torah as an extension of this sacred history. Karaites used historical argumentation in the context of anti-Rabbanite polemics or emphasized intellectual inquiry over arguments from history, but they, too, were frequently informed by Rabbanite material and methodologies.20 Many Jewish narratives, while either incorporating or departing from the established genres, adopted “Islamic” approaches to historical writing. Rabbanite and Karaite writers alike were intimately familiar with Islamic historiographical and religious traditions, and although medieval Jewish texts do not correspond to Islamic histories in genre, length, or literary beauty, they employ a number of methodologies developed by Islamic writers. For example, Jewish historians developed a Jewish variant of the isnād, the chain of transmission characteristic of Islamic oral traditions about the Prophet, his Companions, and followers known as hadīth. Such chains claimed an unbroken continuity of religious authority _leading back to Moses and were included in virtually every work detailing the emergence of Rabbinic or Karaite tradition.21 Jewish historians also divided 17

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A comprehensive reception history of Daniel has yet to be written. For Jewish interpret ations, see Günther Stemberger, “Die jüdische Danielrezeption seit der Zerstörung des zweiten Tempels am Beispiel der Endzeitberechnung,” in Mariano Delgado, ed., Europa, Tausendjähriges Reich und Neue Welt: Zwei Jahrtausende Geschichte und Utopie in der Rezeption des Danielbuches (Freiburg, Switzerland, 2003), 139 58. Gerson D. Cohen, Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures (New York, 1991), 19 48. Martha Himmelfarb, Jewish Messiahs in a Christian Empire: A History of the Book of Zerubbabel (Cambridge, MA, 2017); Dan Shapira, “‘Qissa ye Dāniyāl’ or ‘The Story of _ _ Sefunot: Studies and Sources on Daniel’ in Judæo Persian: The Text and Its Translation,” the History of the Jewish Communities in the East 7 (1999), 337 66; Robert Bonfil, “The Vision of Daniel as a Historical and Literary Document” [Hebrew], Zion 44 (1979), 111 47; 46 (1991), 87 90. Fred Astren, Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia, SC, 2004). Amram Tropper, “The Fate of Jewish Historiography after the Bible: A New Interpretation,” History and Theory 43 (2004), 179 97.

historiography 979 scholars into generations (tabaqāt), giving rise to periodizations of rabbinic history that in some cases_ remain conventional today. This methodology, too, had originally been developed by early Muslim scholars to establish the authority of individual sayings made by the Prophet Muhammad. _ Writers such as Maimonides and Ibn Daud stressed the importance of communal and doctrinal consensus, a notion similar to the Islamic principle of ijmāʿ, one of the major principles for the establishment of Islamic law.22 Finally, Jewish authors routinely made historical claims in rejecting the Muslim and Christian reproach of falsification (tahrīf), the _ idea that Jews had altered the Torah in order to excise or change references to Muhammad or Jesus. In a similarly historical vein, Jews made counterclaims _against the authority of Islamic and Christian texts, for example by in turn questioning their respective chains of transmission.23 Another popular argument cast doubt on the dating of Jesus and the New Testament and contrasted the flawed character of the latter with the ancient nature of the Torah. For reasons of space, I have omitted the reflections of converts such as Dāwūd b. Marwān al-Muqammis (d. c. 937) and al-Samawʾal b. Yahyā alMaghribī (c. 1130–80), although _the latter in particular has much _to say about his encounter with historical literature.24 What follows is divided into four sections: general histories, histories of specific events, travelogues, and the attitudes of individual thinkers toward history and historiography. GENERAL HISTORIES

General histories have the express purpose of relating information about a sequence of political, cultural, or religious events and are often accompanied by commentary shedding light on the meaning of these events. They can focus on specific periods such as the Hasmonean revolt or, as universal histories, attempt to encompass all of human history.

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E.g., Knut Vikor, Between God and the Sultan: An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford, 2006). Hava Lazarus Yafeh, Intertwined Worlds: Medieval Islam and Bible Criticism (Princeton, 1992), 19 49; Camilla Adang, Muslim Writers on Judaism and the Hebrew Bible from Ibn Rabban to Ibn Hazm (Leiden, 1996), 223 48. Sara Stroumsa, Dāwūd ibn Marwān al Muqammis’s Twenty Chapters (ʿIshrūn Maqāla) _ (Leiden, 1989); Sabine Schmidtke, Reza Pourjavady, and Ibrahim Marazka, eds., Samawʾal al Maghribī’s (d. 570/1175) Ifhām al Yahūd: The Early Recension _ (Wiesbaden, 2006).

980 katja vehlow The Scroll of Antiochus, for example, recounts the history of the Hasmonean revolt and the holiday of Hanukkah.25 It is loosely based on Seder ʿOlam (see below) and the extracanonical books of I and II Maccabees. Originally written in Aramaic in the sixth to eighth centuries in Mesopotamia or Syria, the scroll circulated in many Hebrew and Arabic versions and was also preserved in prayer books of the Sephardic and the Yemenite rites. The text presents a heroic view of the Hasmoneans and thus differs from rabbinic interpretations that tended to see the Hasmoneans in a much more negative light. The evolution of rabbinic authority up to the end of the tenth century is the topic of the Iggeret Sherira Gaon (Epistle of Sherira Gaʾon), head of the academy of Pumbedita in Iraq, composed in 986/87.26 Formally, it is a legal responsum sent to answer an inquiry from the Qayrawān Jewish community concerning how the Mishna and the Talmud were composed. The Iggeret synchronizes Jewish and general history and stresses the importance of Mesopotamia and especially Pumbedita as a center of Jewish intellectual and cultural life. The work gained immediate popularity among Jewish scholars and its straightforward chronology of rabbinic authorities remains a primary source for the academic analysis of rabbinic history just before and after the Islamic conquests (the saboraic and gaonic periods) and for rabbinic studies in general. The most influential work of medieval Jewish historiography is Sefer Yosippon (Book of Yosippon), a text that synchronizes Jewish and general history with a focus on the Second Temple period from the Babylonian conquest of Judaea to the fall of Masada to the Romans.27 First composed in ninth-century Byzantine Italy, Yosippon opens with a table of nations modeled on Genesis 10, followed by an account of ancient history focused on the Jews of Rome and southern Italy. Yosippon describes the Jews’ return from the Babylonian exile and the rise of the Maccabees as well as the Hasmonean era before focusing on the Jewish wars against Rome 25

26

27

Zeev Safrai, “Appendix: The Scroll of Antiochus and the Scroll of Fasts,” in Samuel Safrai et al., eds., The Literature of the Sages: Second Part (Assen, 1987 2006), 238 40. Margarete von Schlüter, Auf welche Weise wurde die Mishna geschrieben? Das Antwortschreiben des Rav Sherira Gaon mit einem Faksimile der Handschrift Berlin Qu. 685 (Or. 160) und des Erstdrucks Konstantinopel 1566 (Tübingen, 1993); Isaiah Gafni, “Ha historiographia ha talmudit be iggeret Sherira Gaon, beyn masoret le yesira,” _ Zion 73 (2008),_ 271 96. For a comprehensive introduction, see David Flusser, The Josippon [Josephus Gorionides]: Edited with an Introduction, Commentary and Notes (Jerusalem, 1978), 2:3 252. The Hebrew standard edition that was reprinted over the centuries can be found in Hayim Hominer, ed., Josiphon by Joseph ben Gorion Hacohen (Jerusalem, 1971); Flusser’s eclectic edition relies on different texts.

historiography 981 culminating in the fall of Masada. The book covers a wide range of late antique material and references the Aeneid and widely read historical works such as the writings of the Spanish historians Orosius of Braga (d. c. 418) and Isidore of Seville (d. 636), as well as the fourth-century Latin version of Josephus Flavius known as Hegesippus and even Latin additions to the Book of Esther. Medieval readers regarded Yosippon as an authority on the Second Temple period, not least because they (erroneously) associated it with Flavius Josephus, whose actual books remained unknown in Jewish circles prior to Azariah de Rossi (c. 1514–78). Yosippon circulated in both manuscripts and print, in at least three distinct Hebrew and several JudeoArabic and Arabic versions.28 Sefer Yosippon is not only a major literary testimony to ninth-century southern Italian culture, but was also absorbed by many other cultures and languages in the course of its long reception history. The book was popular among Rabbanite and Karaite Jews, Muslims, and Christians throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Already familiar to Seʿadyah Gaʾon, Yosippon appeared in liturgical poetry, in subsequent historiography, and in the Midrash Rabbi David ha-Nagid, a widely read Judeo-Arabic commentary on the Torah.29 By the eleventh century, the book was seen as a classical text and people went to great expense to secure reliable copies. As a supposed eyewitness to Jesus and perhaps thanks to the author’s association with the Fourth Book of the Maccabees in the Coptic tradition, Yosippon was, beginning in the thirteenth century, also revered by the Coptic and Ethiopian Churches. The Andalusian Muslim jurist and philosopher Ibn Ḥazm (944–1064) knew the work too, but it was only with the lengthy quotations in the writings of Ibn Khaldūn (1332–1406) and Ahmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī (1364–1442) that Yosippon found a broader _ audience.30 Recent scholarship has paid increasing attention to the Muslim many audiences that turned to Yosippon for orientation.31 Another universal history is Dorot ʿOlam (Generations of the Ages), a multipart work written by the Toledan historian and philosopher Abraham Ibn Daud (d. 1180) that also relies on a wide range of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources. Generations of the Ages reflects the transition 28

29 30

31

Shulamit Sela, The Arabic Josippon [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2009); Ronny Vollandt, “Ancient Jewish Historiography in Arabic Garb: Sefer Josippon between Southern Italy and Coptic Cairo,” Zutot 11, 1 (2014), 70 80. Abraham I. Katsh, ed., Midrash David Hanagid (Jerusalem, 1964), 168 201. Sela, Josippon, 1:33 34; André Ferré, “Les sources Judéo chrétiennes de l’histoire d’Ibn Khaldun,” Institut des Belles Lettres Arabes 176 (1995), 223 43. Katja Vehlow, “Fascinated by Josephus: Early Modern Vernacular Readers and Ibn Daud’s Twelfth Century Hebrew Epitome of Josippon,” Sixteenth Century Journal 48, 2 (2017), 413 36.

982 katja vehlow of Jewish communal and intellectual life from Andalusia to Castile and from Islamic to Christian lands. While each section of Generations of the Ages pursues individual goals, Ibn Daud saw them, together with his neoAristotelian treatise al-ʿAqīda al-Rafīʿa (The Exalted Faith), as a conceptual unit whose aim it was to define the ideal Jewish life.32 Two of its sections, Book of Tradition and the Brief History of Rome in particular, remained enormously popular among both Jewish and Christian readers.33 In 1480, the grammarian, poet, halakhist, and Bible scholar Seʿadyah b. Maimon Ibn Danan of Granada (c. 1430–93) composed Maʾamar ʿal Seder ha-Dorot (Tractate Concerning the Order of the Generations).34 Written in Hebrew and modeled on earlier, mostly Iberian, examples of Jewish historiography from Ibn Daud to Abraham Zacuto, this chronology closes with the generation of Maimonides and stresses the traditional character of the latter’s teachings, whom he greatly admired. Ibn Danan’s second chronicle, the Taʾrīkh Malkhei Yehuda u-Malkhei Yisraʾel (History of the Kings of Judah and Israel) responded to the Jewish yearning for sovereignty at a time of duress.35 Originally composed in Classical Arabic, this book recalls the generations of kings beginning with Moses and ending with Romulus, the grandson of Bar Kokhba, seventythree years after the destruction of the Temple.36

sefer yu h asin _ Since the Castilian astronomer Abraham Zacuto (b. 1450) was one of the first Jewish writers to reflect extensively on his methodologies and on his role as a historian, he is usually regarded as belonging to the postmedieval phase of Jewish historiography.37 He is included here because he 32

33 34

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Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer ha Qabbalah), ed. Gerson D. Cohen (Philadelphia, 1967); and Katja Vehlow, ed, Abraham Ibn Daud’s Dorot ʿOlam (Generations of the Ages): A Critical Edition and Translation of Zikhron Divrey Romi, Divrey Malkhey Yisraʾel, and the Midrash on Zechariah (Leiden, 2013). Vehlow, “Fascinated by Josephus.” Carlos del Valle and Günther Stemberger, eds., Saadia Ibn Danān: El Orden de las Generaciones. Seder ha Dorot (Alcobendas, 1997); Judit Targarona, “La transmisión de la Ley Oral según ‘El tratado sobre la sucesión de las generaciones’ de Seadyah ibn Danan,” Estudios Mirandeses 8 (1988), 141 67. Edited with Hebrew translation in Un recueil de textes historiques judéo marocains, ed. David Obadia and Georges Vajda (Jerusalem, 1979), 2:9 20, 22 29. Ibn Danan addresses here Jewish sovereignty in the widest sense. For the figure of Bar Kokhba’s grandsons, see Richard G. Marks, The Image of Bar Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (University Park, PA, 1994). The standard edition is still Herschell Filipowski’s heavily criticized Sefer Yuhasin ha Shalem (London, 1857); English translation in Israel Shamir, trans., The Book of_ Lineage,

historiography 983 completed Sefer Yuhasin (Book of Genealogies) in Tunis and because he explicitly continued_ the work of Ibn Daud, basing himself on a text also known to Joseph b. S ̣adiq of Arévalo and Abraham b. Solomon of Torrutiel, whom he did not know. Sefer Yuhasin is a universal chronicle from the creation to the author’s day; the first_ two parts cover the Second Temple period up to the emergence of talmudic literature, and the final part, dedicated to Iberian Jewry, integrates material on cosmography, mythology, astronomy, and astrology. The earlier parts of the work became pathbreaking for later generations of Jewish historians. HISTORIES OF SPECIFIC EVENTS

Many texts – far too many to mention here – deal with local events. Some narratives are accounts of conflicts within the Jewish community, while others address the arrival of Islam. One of the earliest works to focus on conflict within the Jewish community is the brief narrative of the otherwise-unknown Nathan the Babylonian, originally written in Judeo-Arabic in the mid-tenth century and preserved in several versions. Nathan describes the inauguration of an exilarch and the routine of a geonic academy in session, and though his version of events is often dismissed as anecdotal or exaggerated, it provides precious evidence of a series of altercations concerning leadership among the Iraqi Jewish elites.38 Likewise, Megilat Evyatar (The Scroll of Abiathar) is a commemorative scroll that recounts the controversy surrounding the office of the nagid (community leader) in Egypt that left a deep impression on the leadership circles. Written by the Palestinian gaon Abiathar ha-Kohen b. Elijah (fl. 1083–1108) in 1094, shortly after the events it recalls, the scroll promotes Abiathar’s priestly family as exclusive leaders of the Jerusalem yeshiva, a conflict in which Fātimid _ the authorities also became entangled. The scroll also addresses the right of Jerusalem gaon to proclaim the official calendar, probably directed against the supporters of Abiathar’s challenger, David b. Daniel.39

38

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or, Sefer Yohassin (Tel Aviv, 2005); Eleazar Gutwirth, “The Historian’s Origins and Genealogies: the ‘Sefer Yuhasin,’” Hispania Judaica Bulletin 6 (2008), 57 82. Edited and discussed in Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Structure, Goals, and Content of the Story of Nathan ha Babli,” in Menahem Ben Sasson, ed., Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1989), 137 96; and Robert Brody, The Geonim of Babylonia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture (New Haven, 1998), 26 30. Moshe Gil, “The Scroll of Evyatar as a Source for the History of the Struggles of the Yeshiva of Jerusalem during the Second Half of the Eleventh Century A New Reading of the Scroll,” in Benjamin Z. Kedar, ed., Jerusalem in the Middle Ages: Selected Papers [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1979), 39 106.

984 katja vehlow Into the category of local histories one can place the narratives collectively known as the Story of Bustanay, among the few texts that shed light on Jewish communities during and after the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Preserved in distinct versions dating from the ninth to twelfth centuries, this work recounts the story of Bustanay, the exilarch during the Islamic conquest of Iraq during the 640s, and a conflict between two groups of his descendants that probably occurred at the time of the ʿAbbāsid revolution and lasted throughout the first ten years of their reign. Some versions of the story deal with questions of the legitimacy of the exilarchic line; others focus on Bustanay’s career. These stories reveal historical information when read alongside contemporaneous Syriac and Muslim traditions. The version of the Story of Bustanay preserved in a responsum by Sherira Gaʾon, for instance, mentions that local Jews met with the fourth caliph, ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (r. 656–61). Seeing that ʿAlī indeed held the region around Nehardea and Pumbedita, homes to important seats of Jewish learning, this has been interpreted as an allusion to pro-ʿAlīd sentiment within the Jewish community.40 Some material addresses the question of whether Jews played a role in the emergence of Islam. A text called Ten Wise Jews from the late ninth or early tenth century tells the story of Jews who voluntarily converted to Islam to influence the emergence of the new religion in order to protect the Jewish community.41 Ten Wise Jews depicts these converts as teachers of Muhammad and coauthors of the Qurʾān. The work reflects Islamic _ traditions concerning the influential role that individual Christian and Jewish converts such as the Arab poet Kaʿb al-Ahbār played in the early Islamic period, but also seeks to deprive Islam of_ originality by claiming that it was essentially a Jewish sect. Similarly, a fragmentary tenth- or eleventh-century polemical treatise against Karaites, Muslims, and Christians alludes to the proximity between Judaism and Islam and suggests that Jewish scholars shaped Islam in decisive ways.42 In addition, a partially preserved eleventh-century JudeoArabic chronicle describes the Jewish participation in the clearing of the Temple Mount under the first caliph, ʿUmar b. al-Khattāb (r. 634–44), __ 40

41

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Moshe Gil, “The Babylonian Encounter and the Exilarchic House in the Light of Cairo Geniza Documents and Parallel Arab Sources,” in Norman Golb, ed., Judaeo Arabic Studies: Proceedings of the Founding Conference of the Society for Judaeo Arabic Studies [Hebrew] (Amsterdam, 1997), 135 73. Jacob Mann, “An Early Theological Polemical Work,” Hebrew Union College Annual 12 13 (1937 38), 411 59; Robert G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It (Princeton, 1997), 505 9. Edited in Jacob Mann, “A Polemical Work against Karaite and Other Sectarians,” Jewish Quarterly Review 12 (1921 22), 123 50.

historiography 985 and in locating the rock that would become the foundation of the Dome of the Rock.43 TRAVELOGUES44

Jewish merchants, pilgrims, and diplomatic emissaries left a number of records of their actual or imagined adventures. Written with a specific audience in mind, these records confirm their readers’ worldviews rather than reveal hard data about actual places and people. A number of texts address the activities of the mysterious ninth-century Eldad ha-Dani, who visited communities in Iraq, Qayrawān, and perhaps al-Andalus. Speaking Hebrew and claiming descent from the tribe of Dan, Eldad regaled his audience with tales of his adventures and spoke of the customs and halakhot of his (most likely invented) community. Some authorities regarded him as an impostor, but although the status of his halakhot caused some concern, they were frequently quoted throughout the Middle Ages. To this day, virtually nothing can be said about Eldad with any degree of certainty; the question of his identity, origin, and impact remains subject to lively discussion, partly thanks to a large body of literature in Hebrew and Arabic that developed around him.45 In the 960s, a Jewish writer named Ibrāhīm b. Yaʿqūb of Tortosa (whose exact origins and identity remain uncertain) traveled from alAndalus to central Europe, perhaps as a slave working for a merchant or in the retinue of a diplomatic mission to Otto the Great undertaken by alḤakam II (r. 961–76).46 He seems to have visited France and Germany and then Bohemia, Prague, and maybe Poland. The account of his travel is partially preserved in the Kitāb al-Masālīk wa-l-Mamālīk (Book of Routes and Kingdoms) compiled by Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh al-Bakrī (d. 1094) in Córdoba in 1068. Arabic geographers regarded Ibrāhīm as a central source 43

44

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46

Moshe Gil, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634 1099) (Tel Aviv, 1983), vol. 2, doc. 1; discussed with English translation in Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 449 51. For a survey, see Martin Jacobs, Reorienting the East: Jewish Travelers to the Medieval Muslim World (Philadelphia, 2014). First printed in Mantua, 1480. Edited in David H. Müller, ed., Die Recensionen und Versionen des Eldad Had Dani (Vienna, 1892); an English translation can be found in Elkan N. Adler, Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages (Mineola, NY, 1987; first printed in 1930), 4 21; a survey of scholarship can be found in David Wasserstein, “Eldad ha Dani and Prester John,” in Charles F. Beckinghan and Bernard Hamilton, eds., Prester John, the Mongols and the Ten Lost Tribes (Aldershot, 1996), 213 36. Tadeusz Kowalski, ed., Relacja Ibrāhīma ibn Jaḳūba z podróży do krajów słowiańskich w przekazie al Bekrīego (Kracow, 1946); Ivan Hrbek, “Ibráhím ibn Yá’qúb v Praze, Čechách a jiných slovanských yemích,” Ceský lid 6 (1898), 267 71.

986 katja vehlow for their knowledge of northern Europe. As one of the earliest texts to mention the kingdom of Poland, the text has elicited much interest among Slavic scholars. Kaftor u-Ferah (Bulb and Flower) is a halakhically motivated pilgrim _ report and cartography of the Land of Israel by Ashtori ha-Parhi _ (1280–1366), a Provençal physician who toured the Land of Israel for some seven years, two of which he spent in the Galilee. Ha-Parhi described cities, sites, and plants, listing their Arabic names alongside _the Hebrew and using the results of his inquiries to find solutions for halakhic problems. For instance, he identified the hot springs of Tiberias with the waters mentioned in the Talmud, making it permissible for Jews to visit the baths on the Sabbath, an otherwise forbidden pleasure.47 Obadiah di Bertinoro (c. 1450–before 1516), whose commentary to the Mishnah is still printed alongside traditional Mishnah editions, wrote three letters from his 1488–91 journey to Palestine that describe customs of the communities he encountered. Well-received in Cairo, he moved on to Jerusalem where he became the spiritual leader of the deeply divided Jewish community and lived temporarily in Hebron.48 INDIVIDUAL ATTITUDES TO HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

Some authors developed specific approaches to the past within the larger context of their writings, usually without discussing their motifs in greater detail. Instead of writing historical works, the leading intellectuals named here included their reflections on history in their philosophical, exegetical, or legal works. Jewish literature did not produce anything comparable to the massive world histories of the Islamic world, and this reluctance is frequently explained with the lack of Jewish sovereignty following the Jewish revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries. Islamic historiographies were expansive works that created coherent pictures of the past and, implicitly, explained the universal validity of Islam, a minority religion in many conquered areas. In order to do so, these authors had 47

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Avraham Y. Havaselet and Yerahmiʾel Dovroviser, eds., Sefer kaftor u ferah le rabbenu _ _ _ wa ferah: Eshtori ha Parhi (Jerusalem, 1998); discussed _ in Estori Ha Parhi, Caftor _ Introduction, traduction française, notes, trans. Bernard Zolty (Paris, 2003). Menahem E. Artom and Abraham David, eds., The Letters of Rabbi Obadaiah of Bertinoro from the Land of Israel [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1997); a more recent English translation can be found in Yaacov D. Shulman and Avrohom Marmorstein, Pathway to Jerusalem: The Travel Letters of Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura: Written Between 1488 1490 during His Journey to the Holy Land (New York, 1992).

historiography 987 to develop Islamic models of historiography. Jewish medieval writers in contrast could and did take recourse to well-established principles, as noted above. Seʿadyah b. Joseph al-Fayyūmī (882–942), head of the academy in Sura and an extraordinarily prolific writer, emphasized the importance of transmitted tradition as a quintessential source of knowledge. He reflects on history primarily in his long commentary on the biblical Book of Daniel and in his philosophical magnum opus, Kitāb al-Amānāt wa-l-Iʿtiqādāt (Book of Beliefs and Opinions).49 It seems that history interested Seʿadyah primarily in the arena of redemption and as an argumentative aid. Like many authors, he turns to the Book of Daniel in order to structure history; for instance, he refers to the early Islamic conquests in his definition of the precise nature of the fourth kingdom. His reflections on history include the concession that God had already fulfilled some key redemptive promises. He demonstrates that the Second Temple period, regarded by many Rabbanites as an ideal period because the Jews had political sovereignty, would be followed by a period of divine retribution. Bothered by contradictions inherent in the biblical text, Seʿadyah repeatedly calculated the precise date of the eschaton.50 Some Jews in fact expected the arrival of the Messiah in 968 or 970, perhaps following an argument of Seʿadyah. The Karaite Salmon b. Jeroham (mid-tenth century) rejected Seʿadyah’s calculation of the end and his interpretation of the Book of Daniel. Like many other Karaite authors, Salmon did not develop a coherent historiography. Explaining that Karaites were “newcomers” on the religious scene yet also akin to Muslims in their stress on true prophecy, he ridicules Rabbanite claims to antiquity and explains that rabbinic leadership emerged only after the rabbis had eliminated priestly opposition by destroying the priestly genealogical records. In an argument that reflects the Islamic concept of a chain of prophecy culminating in Muhammad, he _ 49

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Joseph Qafīh, ed., Daniel with the Translation and Commentary of Saadia ben Joseph al _ Fayyūmī (Jerusalem, 1981); Joseph Alobaidi, ed., The Book of Daniel: The Commentary of R. Saadia Gaon: Edition and Translation (New York, 2006); Robert Chazan, “Daniel 9:24 27: Exegesis and Polemics,” in Ora Limor and Guy G. Stroumsa, eds., Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews (Tübingen, 1996), 143 59; Eliezer Schlossberg, “The Nature and Exegetical Purpose of the Commentary of R. Saadia Gaon on the Book of Daniel,” Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 56 (1990), 6 17. Seʿadyah’s The Book of Beliefs and Opinions was first printed in Constantinople, 1562; Samuel Rosenblatt, trans., The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (New Haven, 1976). In Sefer ha Galui, the eighth part of the Book of Beliefs and Opinions, and in the commentaries on the Books of Genesis and Daniel, ad loc.

988 katja vehlow argues that the Karaites represented a link in such a chain and should therefore be seen as the only “People of the Book,” with all the legal rights this entailed. In Sefer Milhamot Adonay (Book of the Wars of the Lord), Salmon rejects the Davidic_ descent claimed by the Iraqi Rabbanite leadership and instead stresses the Davidic lineage of ʿAnan b. David, considered the founder of Karaism, and his descendants, who raised similar claims in his lifetime.51 While many Karaite authors did not develop full-blown historiographies, one of the central Karaite historiographies appears in the Kitāb alAnwār wa-l-Marāqib (Book of Lights and Watchtowers, 937–38) by Salmon’s contemporary Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī.52 The Book of Lights and Watchtowers is a Karaite law code, and, together with his still largely unpublished Kitāb al-Riyād wa-l-Ḥadāʾiq (Book of Gardens and Parks), _ forms a comprehensive commentary of the Pentateuch and in particular the Ten Commandments. The book is well known for its lengthy historical-theoretical exposition of Jewish “sects,” which seeks to acquaint the reader with the history and doctrines of the various Jewish movements, among which he counts Christianity. Al-Qirqisānī’s writings demonstrate familiarity with contemporary Islamic thought, in particular kalām, and with a wide range of Christian and pre-Christian thinkers. The impact of the Book of Lights and Watchtowers remains uncertain, but al-Qirqisānī’s historiosophy remains a subject of fascination. Bruno Chiesa has argued that al-Qirqisānī’s emphasis on the Decalogue revealed an interpretative pattern in Karaite literature that he traced from Philo to twentieth-century writings.53 Another work with a highly developed historiography is the Kuzari by the Spanish poet and physician Judah Halevi (1085–1141). Composed in the late 1130s, the work circulated in both Judeo-Arabic and a Hebrew

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Israel Davidson, ed., The Book of the Wars of the Lord (New York, 1934), 113; Joseph Algamil, ed., Milhamot ha Shem: Book of the Wars of the Lord, Containing the Polemics of _ ben Yeruhim against Seʿadyah Gaʾon [Hebrew] (Ramle, 2000); the Karaite Salmon discussed in Astren, Karaite Judaism, 79 84, 91 92. Leon Nemoy, ed., Kitāb al Anwār wa l Marāqib: Code of Karaite Law (New York, 1939 43); Bruni Chiesa and Wilfrid Lockwood, eds., Yaʿqūb al Qirqisānī on Jewish Sects and Christianity: A Translation of Kitāb al Anwār, Book 1 with Two Introductory Essays (Frankfurt, 1984). For discussion, see Geoffrey Khan, “Al Qirqisānī’s Opinions concern ing the Text of the Bible and Parallel Muslim Attitudes towards the Text of the Qurʾān,” Jewish Quarterly Review 81 (1990), 59 73. Bruno Chiesa, “A Note on Early Karaite Historiography,” in Ada Rapoport Albert, ed., Essays in Jewish Historiography (Middletown, CT, 1988), 60 61.

historiography 989 translation. The Kuzari consists of dialogues in the framework of theological debates between the king of the eighth-century Khazars, a kingdom by the Black Sea, and an Aristotelian philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim, and finally a rabbi, who convinces the king to convert to Judaism. Indeed, the elites of Khazaria are thought to have converted to Judaism. The existence of this Khazar kingdom was well known to medieval Jews and stimulated much speculation about the nature of Jewish sovereignty. Ostensibly written as a refutation of the Karaites, the Kuzari is primarily an apologetic-philosophical work, but it contains explicitly historical arguments. The rabbi’s first argument already proclaims the Jewish redemption story to be both historical and collective. To Halevi, deeply steeped in contemporary discourse, especially in Shīʿite and S ̣ūfī thought, Jewish history was the history of a prophetic elite beginning with Adam and passed on through the generations, and history served to underline this argument.55 The great Andalusian intellectual, physician, and community leader Moses Maimonides (1138–1204), who spent nearly four decades in Egypt’s Fustāt, often evoked the past in his writings. Well-read in an _ astonishingly_ wide range of Arabic scholarship, he also was familiar with Islamic principles of historiography, and probably with Iberian Jewish works such as the Kuzari and Ibn Daud’s Generations of the Ages. He, too, compiled isnāds, and he included substantial chains of tradition in the Mishneh Torah and his Commentary on the Mishnah. Maimonides saw Judaism as a religion born out of the struggle against polytheism – a point of view clearly indebted to Islamic histories of jāhiliya (the age of ignorance and polytheism that preceded the advent of Islam).56 Adam, the perfect man, was the first monotheist, but his knowledge was lost and subsequently rediscovered by Abraham and Moses. In fact, much could be learned from history, and every detail in the Torah had a pedagogic purpose that confirmed, explained, or called for specific behavior.57 Dietary laws, for instance, provided not only health benefits but had 54

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First printed in Fano, 1506; Hartwig Hirschfeld, ed., Das Buch al Chazarî des Abû l Hasan Jehuda Hallewi im arabischen Urtext sowie in der hebräischen Übersetzung des Jehuda ibn Tibbon (Leipzig, 1887). For the Judeo Arabic text with Hebrew translation, see Joseph Qafīh, trans., Sefer ha Kuzari: Meqor ve Targum (Kiryat Ono, 1997); Shear, _ _ Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity. Diana Lobel, Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha Levi’s Kuzari (Albany, 2000). Abraham P. Socher, “Of Divine Cunning and Prolonged Madness: Amos Funkenstein on Maimonides’ Historical Reasoning,” Jewish Social Studies 6 (1999), 6 29; Kenneth Seeskin, “Maimonides’ Sense of History,” Jewish History 18 (2004), 129 45. Shlomo Pines, ed., Guide of the Perplexed (Chicago, 1963), part 3, chapter 50.

990 katja vehlow originally been part of the struggle against polytheistic practice.58 Although Jewish prayer had once been spontaneous, he explained, this ability had been lost under Nebuchadnezzar, leaving the rabbis no choice but to institute formalized prayer to enable all to praise God once again in a truly monotheistic fashion.59 It is often argued that Maimonides had no sense of history.60 Indeed, in the Commentary on the Mishnah, he cautions his readers to avoid “books common among Arabs about history, the rule of kings, and genealogies . . . that do help in acquiring neither science nor corporal utility, but are sheer waste of time.”61 However, as Robert Bonfil has shown, Maimonides did not reject history, but rather made a distinction between profitable and irrelevant historical analysis. To the extent that information derived from the past supported an argument, its use was mandatory.62 Likewise, in his influential epistles to specific Jewish communities, Maimonides argues through examples from the biblical and rabbinic period. In the Epistle on Martyrdom, probably written in 1165 to advise forcibly converted Jews in North Africa, he notes that in the past, people had been forgiven far more grievous sins than outwardly professing another religion under duress.63 In the Epistle to Yemen, written in 1172 to equip the Jews of Yemen with a defense against the allure of a messianic pretender called Ibn Mahdī, Maimonides delineates a history of religion that connects Islam and Christianity to biblical and rabbinic literature.64 The appearance of both religions, Maimonides assures his audience, was already noted in the Bible, especially in Daniel, together with their demise.65 Though Maimonides otherwise rejects any calculation of the eschaton, here he dates the advent of the Messiah to 1210, probably to counter competing messianic movements. History and arguments derived from history were important to Maimonides, who was sensitive to issues of eschatology and in particular to the Jewish vulnerability to conversion that he combated in several of his works. Rabbinic conceptions of history were developed in the work of the Karaite Elijah ben Moses Bashyatchi (c. 1420–90), who spent most of his 58 60 61 62

63

64 65

59 Ibid., part 3, chapter 48. Ibid., chapter 49; Mishneh Torah, Laws of Prayer 1:4. Salo W. Baron, History and Jewish Historians (Philadelphia, 1964), 109 163. Maimonides, Commentary on the Mishnah, Sanhedrin 10:1:1. Reuven Bonfil, “Jewish Attitudes toward History and Historical Writing in Pre modern Times,” Jewish History 11, 1 (1997), 7 40. Abraham Halkin and David Hartman, eds., Epistles of Maimonides: Crisis and Leadership (Philadelphia, 1985), 13 90. Epistles of Maimonides, 91 207. Friedrich Niewöhner, “‘Terror in die Herzen der Könige’ vom Ende der weltlichen Welt im Jahre 1210 nach Mose ben Maimon,” in Jan A. Aertsen, ed., Ende und Vollendung. Eschatologische Perspektiven im Mittelalter (Berlin, 2002), 229 38.

historiography 991 life in Istanbul. Bashyatchi reflects on history in his code of law Aderet Eliyahu (The Mantle of Elijah), one of the first Karaite works to appear in print.66 Bashyatchi was unfamiliar with the main Karaite constructions of history, such as those found in Judah Hadassi’s Eshkol ha-Kofer (a comprehensive philosophical treatise on the Ten Commandments) and alQirqisānī, and turned to rabbanite material instead, especially the Kuzari and the Babylonian Talmud.67 Like many Karaites, he was not interested in establishing a Karaite chain of tradition, since the Karaites’ raison d’être was to question the authority of tradition. Instead, he posited that only one rabbinic sage had survived the destruction of the Second Temple, and Rabbanite tradition was therefore defective. CONCLUSION

Jews of medieval Islamic lands exploring biblical, rabbinic, and eschatological literatures were familiar with historiographical ideas that originated in Christian and Islamic writings, and increasingly so with the passing of time. While recording events and preserving historical memory, they were at least as interested in interpretation – whether remembering salvation from catastrophe in localized texts, conceptualizing universal history, or turning to the past in order to make a broader philosophical, exegetical, polemical, or eschatological argument. Only fragments of their libraries have come down to us, and new witnesses to this interest are constantly unearthed and call for interpretation. Many of these works do not exist in critical editions or modern translations. The reception history of some of these texts demonstrates the remarkable staying power of many of the historical works produced by the Jews living in medieval Islamic lands, and it is to be hoped that they will reenter the canon of medieval scholarship. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Astren, Fred. Karaite Judaism and Historical Understanding (Columbia, SC, 2004). Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel. “The Trends of Medieval Jewish Chronography and Its Problems,” in Joseph R. Hacker, ed., Resef u-temura: ʿiyunim _ 66

67

Also spelled Elijah Bashyazi or Bashyatzi, Aderet Eliyahu (Gozlow, 1835); Zvi Ankori, “Elijah Bashyachi: An Inquiry into His Traditions concerning the Beginnings of Karaism in Byzantium” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 25 (1955 56), 44 65, 183 201. Daniel Lasker, Johannes Niehoff Panagiotidis, and David Sklare, Theological Encounters at a Crossroads (Leiden, 2018).

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katja vehlow be-toldot Yisraʾel bi-mei ha-benayim u-va-ʿet ha-hadasha [Hebrew] _ (Tel Aviv, 1984), 379–401. Bonfil, Reuven. “Jewish Attitudes toward History and Historical Writing in Pre-modern Times,” Jewish History 11, 1 (1997), 7–40. Jacobs, Martin. Reorienting the East: Jewish Travelers to the Medieval Muslim World (Philadelphia, 2014). Pearce, Sarah J. “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: The Extreme Right and the American Revision of the History and Historiography of Medieval Spain,” in Louie Valencia-García, ed., The Extreme Right and the End of Historiography (New York, 2020), 29–68. Schapkow, Carsten. Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation (Lanham, MD, 2016; first published in German in 2011). Shear, Adam. The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900 (Cambridge, 2008).

chapter 32

MATERIAL CULTURE, ART, AND ARCHITECTURE v i v i a n b . m a n n † and s h a l o m s a b a r

Our knowledge of Jewish art and architecture in Islamic societies during the Middle Ages depends on a small corpus of surviving works: illustrated manuscripts, mostly those discovered in the Cairo Genizah; texts that describe artistic activity and works of art; isolated synagogue remains; and a few nearly complete synagogue buildings from medieval Spain – which were created under Christian rulers in the Mudéjar style of art, a style which perpetuated traditional Islamic forms and styles. The Islamic visual arts and material culture are likewise reflected in Hebrew illuminated manuscripts of Christian Spain, including important figurative miniatures in Sephardi Haggadah manuscripts. It is important to place the art made by Jews within the general context of Islamic art, which was the product of a multicultural society. As Oleg Grabar has written: “Islamic” [art] does not refer to the art of a particular religion, for a vast proportion of the monuments have little if anything to do with the faith of Islam. Works of art demonstrably made by and for non Muslims can appropri ately be studied as works of Islamic art. There is, for instance, a Jewish Islamic art, since large Jewish communities lived within the predominantly Islamic world.1

Further, Jewish artists often shared workshops with Muslim colleagues, as is indicated by the following query directed to Maimonides (1138–1204): Some people who are partners in a workshop are engaged in the same craft, some of them being Jews and some of them gentiles [i.e. Muslims]. The partners agreed that the Friday [proceeds] would belong to the Jew and Saturday’s to the gentile. The tools of the workshop are pooled, and the craft is either silversmithing or glassmaking.2 † 1 2

Professor Vivian B. Mann died on May 6, 2019. Oleg Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art, rev. ed. (New Haven and London, 1987), 1. Maimonides, Responsa, ed. Joshua Blau (Jerusalem, 1957 61), 2:360 (#204); for a transla tion, see Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1994), 95 96. See also S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish

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994 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar Maimonides allowed the partnership arrangement as long as the Jewish craftsmen did not benefit from revenues earned on Saturday. Another mixed shop mentioned in a Cairo Genizah document was that of a Jewish silk weaver who employed Muslims, a Jew, and a Jewish convert to Islam.3 These texts indicate that mixed ateliers existed at least as early as the twelfth century in North Africa, which would explain the commonality of style that allowed Grabar to posit the existence of a “Jewish Islamic art.” Another important point that informs our consideration of Jewish art created in the Near East is that Islamic art does not consist of the same categories as the art of medieval Christian Europe. Architecture and manuscript painting are common to both, but calligraphy, metalwork, knotted pile rugs, textiles, carved stucco, and wood carving were more important categories of art in Dār al-Islām than in European countries. The individuals who produced such works of art were considered at times artists, not only skilled craftsmen, and their work was therefore highly esteemed. The persistent use of Islamic architectural plans and decoration in synagogues and of Islamic designs on manuscript pages through the second half of the fifteenth century indicates not only that Islamic art was admired for its high standards of workmanship and beauty, but that it had become traditional for Jews commissioning synagogues or manuscripts. Finally, the migrations of Jews as the result of the Almohad persecutions in the twelfth century, the pogroms of 1391, and the Expulsions from Spain and Portugal of 1492 and 1497 thrust Jewish artists into the position of cultural intermediaries who transferred art forms, motifs, and iconography from one Islamic territory to another. When Jews were forced to leave a region, they took with them knowledge of artistic media they had practiced and they introduced those media to their land of refuge. When they left Christian Spain and Portugal, it was often the motifs of the Islamic period in the Iberian Peninsula that they preferred to carry with them to the new countries in which they settled. Sometimes, the popularity of the imported art forms lasted only a short time in their new home, because it was too strange and foreign for native tastes. Elsewhere, an art form took root and was produced for centuries. ARCHITECTURE

Only a few medieval synagogues remain from all those that must have existed in the Middle Ages, when most of world Jewry lived under Islamic rule. In certain cases synagogues built in earlier periods are known to have

3

Communities of the World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, Vol. 2: The Community (Berkeley, 1971), 296. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:297.

material culture, art, and architecture 995 been used but altered to fit new artistic and social trends. A noted example is the sixth-century synagogue of Naʿaran, which was decorated, as other synagogues in the Land of Israel of the Byzantine period, with a figurative floor mosaic including the zodiac cycle and a biblical scene of Daniel in the Lions’ Den. The Jews who continued to use this structure until the ninth century removed the figural representations – apparently under the influence of Islam – while they did not touch the sacred Hebrew words that were part of the original mosaic.4 In some cases, as with the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustāt, erected in the eleventh century, the medieval struc_ _ ture was hidden beneath one or more subsequent reconstructions. Most of these synagogues have not been the subject of the sort of careful archaeological investigation that revealed the original plan of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, a three-aisled rectangular building.5 In some cities such as Istanbul, recurrent fires erased traces of early synagogues. Yet at the western edge of the Muslim world, Islamic-style synagogues were preserved when they were transformed into churches after the Reconquista. The earliest remains of medieval synagogues are pieces of wood carved with Hebrew inscriptions and, in some cases, foliate motifs, that decorated the interiors of synagogues in Fustāt from the eleventh to the thirteenth _ _ been used to highlight important centuries.6 These carvings would have elements in the synagogue, such as the ark, the reader’s desk, or the chair on which the Torah was placed before or after the reading,7 just as similar carvings were used to ornament important elements in Muslim buildings.8 Due to their Hebrew inscriptions, the carvings were placed in the Ben Ezra Genizah when their supporting objects were no longer usable. One panel of a pair of doors from a fifteenth-century ark in the Ben Ezra survives, 4

5

6

7

8

On this issue, see Steven Fine, “Iconoclasm and the Art of Late Antique Palestinian Synagogues,” in Lee I. Levine and Zeev Weiss, eds., From Dura to Sepphoris: Studies in Jewish Art and Society in Late Antiquity (Portsmouth, RI, 2000), 183 94; and cf. Noa Yuval Hacham, “Fear of Images: Iconophobia and Iconoclasm among Jews and Samaritans in Late Antiquity,” IKON: Journal of Iconographic Studies 11 (2018), 239 48. Documentary evidence shows that a structure of the synagogue stood before it was torn down and rebuilt in 1039 41. For the history and architecture of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, see the selection of essays in Phyllis Lambert, ed., Fortifications and the Synagogue: The Fortress of Babylon and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo (second edition, Montreal, 2001); see esp. therein Charles Le Quesne, “The Synagogue,” 84. Cf. Menahem Ben Sasson, “The Medieval Period: The Tenth to Fourteenth Centuries,” in Lambert, ed., Fortifications and the Synagogue, 219 23. Maimonides mentions these three elements in his Mishneh Torah (Sefer Ahavah, Hilkhot Tefillin u Mezuzah ve Sefer Torah 10:4). Howayda al Harithy, “Charity and Piety: Sabil Kuttabs and the Conception of Water during the Mamluk Period,” in Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, eds., Rivers of Paradise: Water in Islamic Art and Culture (New Haven, 2009), figs. 103 4.

996 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar today (Figure 32.1).9 It was carved with a typical Mamlūk composition: a panel of inscription above a centrally placed medallion. Nearly complete medieval synagogues in the Islamic style exist only in Spain. The earliest, in Toledo, is known as Santa Maria la Blanca and may have been built by Joseph b. Meʾir Ibn Shoshan (Yūsuf Abenxuxen), finance minister to Alfonso VIII of Castile.10 It dates to the thirteenth century and consists of five parallel aisles separated by rows of piers with ornate capitals of stucco in high relief that support sharply curved horseshoe arches. Flatter stucco patterns consisting of architectural, vegetal, and geometric ornaments decorate the spandrels and walls above. In its plan, Santa Maria la Blanca resembles a twelfth-century mosque still standing in Tīnmal, Morocco, and is an example of the common Almohad architectural culture that developed in al-Andalus and the Maghrib that emphasized parallel aisles, sharply curved horseshoe arches, and flat stucco reliefs. A nearly identical synagogue existed in Segovia until 1899, when it was destroyed in a fire. That two examples of the same synagogue plan existed in major cities of al-Andalus suggests that other such buildings may have existed elsewhere on the Iberian Peninsula. Santa Maria la Blanca and the Segovia Synagogue are examples of the use of an Islamic architectural plan divorced from its original religious valence. In 1314/15, Isaac Mehab of Córdoba built a smaller synagogue with a vestibule that supports a women’s gallery and a sanctuary of a simple, almost square, plan (Figure 32.2). The simplicity of the plan is a foil for the elaborate stucco decorations in various patterns that cover the walls. Hebrew inscriptions fill bands that frame the designs: the schematized form of interlace known as ataurique that also appears in the fourteenthcentury Convento de Las Dueñas in Córdoba, and expanding star patterns like those found at the Alhambra. Other features also found in the Alhambra are the lambrequin or scalloped opening – used in the Córdoba synagogue to frame the ark – and the placement of inscriptions in bands framing the vegetal and star motifs. A synagogue in the Mudéjar style which came to be known as the Synagogue of El Tránsito was built in Toledo by Samuel Halevi Abulafia, 9

10

The door panel is jointly owned by the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, and the Yeshiva University Museum, New York. Cf. Joshua Holo, “Synagogues under Islam in the Middle Ages,” in Steven Fine, ed., Jewish Religious Architecture: From Biblical Israel to Modern Judaism (Leiden, 2019), 137 38. This discussion is based on Jerrilynn D. Dodds, “Mudejar Tradition and the Synagogues of Medieval Spain: Cultural Identity and Cultural Hegemony,” in Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn D. Dodds, eds., Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain (New York, 1992), 113 31. Cf. also Vivian B. Mann, “Synagogues of Spain and Portugal during the Middle Ages,” in Fine, ed., Jewish Religious Architecture, 151 68.

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Figure 32.1 Torah ark doors, Ben Ezra Synagogue (fifteenth century). Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, and New York, Yeshiva University Museum

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vivian b. mann and shalom sabar

Figure 32.2 Vestibule of Isaac Mehab Synagogue, Córdoba (1314 15) Source: Photograph courtesy of Shalom Sabar

treasurer to King Pedro IV the Cruel of Castile (r. 1350–69), in 1357. The prayer hall is a large rectangular space, which has a women’s gallery along one of the long sides. The walls were covered with an overlay of polychromed decorative stucco (Figure 32.3). Most of the designs are vegetal, laid out in formal, symmetrical panels. Bands of Hebrew inscriptions appear just below the artesonado ceiling and frame the ark. Similar stucco survives from the contemporaneous synagogue in Cuenca that became a church in 1391 to accommodate those who converted after the massive pogroms of that year,11 and from the synagogue of Lorca dated to the second half of the fifteenth century.12 The use of Mudéjar stucco decorations and lamps in this synagogue that was built more than a century after the Reconquista in the region underscores that carved stucco and Islamicstyle lamps had become traditional decoration for synagogues, unconnected to the rule of a particular religious power. 11

12

See Santiago Palomero Plaza, “Sinagoga de Cuenca,” in Isidro Bango Torviso, ed., Memoria de Sefarad: Catálogo de la exposición (Madrid, 2002), 252 53. Ángel Iniesta Sanmartín, Juan García Sandoval, Andrés Martínez Rodríguez, and Juan Ponce García, Lorca. Luces de Sefarad/Lights of Sepharad (Murcia, 2009), 306 19.

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Figure 32.3 Mudéjar decorations. Interior of the El Tránsito Synagogue, Toledo (1357) Source: Photograph courtesy of Shalom Sabar

On the two sides of the ark in El Tránsito are dedicatory inscriptions, interesting for Abulafia’s enumeration of the most important furnishings of the synagogue: [Left side] Behold the sanctuary that was sanctified in Israel, And the house which Samuel built And the wooden tower [migdal es] for the reading of the Written Law _ crowns thereto And the Scrolls of the Law and the And its lavers and lamps for lighting And its windows like the windows of Ariʾel [Right side] And its courts for them that cherish the perfect Law And seats, too, for all who sit in the shade of God So that those who saw it almost said, “This semblance Is as the semblance of the work which Bezalel wrought.” Go now, ye peoples, and enter into its gates And seek the Lord, for it is a house of God even as Bethel.

The biblical references compare Samuel’s synagogue to the wilderness Tabernacle designed by Bezalel and to Jacob’s experience of God’s presence in Bethel, expressing a sense of continuity with the past. From the point of view of architecture, the most interesting references are to the furnishings of the synagogue: the tower-like reader’s desk, the Torah scrolls ornamented

1000 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar with crowns, the lavers, lamps, seats, and the rabbinical court associated with the synagogue. The Arabic term for pulpit, minbar (pronounced mimbar), is the equivalent of Abulafia’s “wooden tower for the reading,” and actually was used in a variant form, almemor (derived from al-mimbar) by Ashkenazic Jews to connote the bimah, or the elevated platform for the reader in the synagogue.13 With the later transformation of these synagogues into churches, interior furnishings like the reader’s desk and the seats “for all who sit in the shade of God” were lost. Fortunately, an extant medieval minbar and several miniatures in fourteenth-century Haggadah manuscripts allow us to understand the reference to the reading tower in Abulafia’s inscription (Figure 32.4). Four Sephardic Haggadah manuscripts that were created between 1300 and 1370 bear depictions of reading of the Haggadah text that took place in the synagogue prior to the Seder service in the home. In the miniature of the so-called “sister” of the Golden Haggadah (British Library MS Or 1404, fol. 17v), the family sits in the foreground while the reader occupies an elevated desk that is reached by stairs (Figure 32.4).14 Silver pear-shaped finials adorn the corner poles of the desk whose enclosure is made of inlaid wood. An abbreviated image of the same furnishing appears in a synagogue scene of the Sarajevo Haggadah (National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, fol. 34r).15 Another miniature depicting a raised reader’s desk appears in the Barcelona Haggadah (British Library, Add. MS 14761, fol. 65v), but its style is Gothic, although the tiq or cylindrical case for the Torah scroll is made of inlaid wood and is topped with an Islamic-style crown.16 The fourth miniature is in the Kaufmann Haggadah, 13

14

15

16

The term already appears several times in Rashi’s commentaries to the Babylonian Talmud (Sukkah 51b, Sotah 41a, and ʿAvodah Zarah 16a); cf. Rachel Wischnitzer, The _ Synagogue (Philadelphia, 1964), 48; obviously this borrowing Architecture of the European points to contacts with the Jews of the Muslim lands (most likely Spain) and their understanding of its meaning in Arabic though the Jews of Islam in this period preferred an alternative term ambol itself derived from the Greek Latin term ambon, actually used for “pulpit” in the pre Islamic world and which remained in use in the Coptic church. See S. D. Goitein, “Ambōl The Raised Platform in the Synagogue” [Hebrew], Eretz Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies 6 (1960), 162 67; and Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:146 47. See Bezalel Narkiss et al., Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Isles (Jerusalem, 1982), 1:75; vol. 2, fig. 187. Shalom Sabar, The Sarajevo Haggadah: History & Art (Sarajevo, 2018), facsimile and text volume, 243 44. Narkiss et al., British Isles, 1:83; vol. 2, fig. 241. Note that according to other scholars, the Torah in this miniature is not placed in a wooden tiq (as has been the custom among most Jewish communities in the lands of Islam) but is dressed in a decorative piece of textile, as is clearly visible in the Sarajevo Haggadah. For the various opinions, see Sabar, The Sarajevo Haggadah, 178 80.

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Figure 32.4 Interior of a synagogue in medieval Spain, showing the raised wooden platform and oil lamps in Islamic style Source: From the “Sister Haggadah,” Catalonia (c. 1320–30). London, British Library, MS Or 2884, fol. 17 verso

the latest of the four manuscripts17 (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, MS A 422, fol. 42r). It resembles the previous miniature and in both, “mosque” lamps are suspended from the ceiling as they were in the 17

Gabrielle Sed Rajna, Kaufmann Haggadah (Budapest, 1990), 13.

1002 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar synagogues depicted in the miniatures of the “sister” and Sarajevo Haggadah.18 All four of these images reflect actual furnishings similar to the wooden reader’s chair of inlaid wood, reached by a flight of stairs, that was made in Córdoba for a mosque in Marrakesh during the twelfth century.19 The recent discovery of a cache of fifteenth-century glass in the remains of the synagogue at Lorca allows direct knowledge of the “mosque” lamps that are always depicted in manuscripts in the scenes of synagogues and homes20 (Figure 32.5). Out of numerous shards, researchers reconstructed forty examples of five different lamp types, one of them, the “mosque” lamps depicted in Haggadah manuscripts. The Lorca synagogue also helps in visualizing the seating arrangement referred to in the El Tránsito dedication. Its stone seats set along the walls of the synagogue are preserved, including a cathedra that may have been used to hold the Torah scroll between lections. Rabbinic responsa mention such stone seats, but also carpets used for seating.21 CARPETS AND TEXTILES

The principal motif of a long, narrow rug (now in Berlin) indicates its use in a synagogue. The overall composition is that of a tree but the “flowers” are shrines very similar to the Torah ark depicted in the mosaic of the synagogue at Bet Alpha, dated to the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justin I (r. 518–27 ce). Such a carpet could have provided seating for several individuals. A responsum of Asher b. Jehiel written between his arrival in Toledo in 1304 and his death in 1327 signals that prayer rugs with images

18

19 20

21

For a discussion of the four miniatures in the context of the synagogue, see Sabar, The Sarajevo Haggadah, 174 84. Jerrilynn Dodds et al., Al Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain (New York, 1992), cat. #115. Juan García Sandoval, “El resplandor de las lámparas de vidrio de la sinagoga de Lorca. Estudio tipológico,” in Ángel Iniesta Sanmartín et al., eds., Lorca: Luces de Sefarad/Lights of Sepharad (Murcia, 2009), 259 304. Stone benches appear already in the synagogues of late antiquity (e.g., Masada and Dura Europos); however, as mentioned in the Talmud, seating on wooden benches or mats was more common. Cf. Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven, 2000), 313 17. Maimonides makes a distinction between the synagogues of Christian lands and those of Islamic lands where seating was on mats spread on the floor (Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ahavah, Hilkhot Tefilah u Virkat Kohanim 11:5). For the seating in Sephardic synagogues based on rabbinic literature (and other features related to the Spanish synagogue), see Yom Tov Assis, “Synagogues in Medieval Spain,” Jewish Art 18 (1992), 6 29 (esp. “Seats and Seating Order,” 18 21). For the prayer rugs used as carpets, see the discussion on the sajjāda, below.

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Figure 32.5 Remnant of a synagogue lamp discovered in the excavations at Lorca. Luces de Sefarad/Lights of Sefarad

were also hung in the synagogue flanking the Torah ark.22 The case discussed involved a carpet with an image of the Kaʿba. A later responsum of Asher’s son Judah indicates the hanging of rugs with floral images in the 22

Asher b. Jehiel, Responsa, section 5, no. 2. Cf. Vivian B. Mann, Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts (Cambridge, 2000), 48.

1004 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar 23 synagogue. Jewish involvement in the production and distribution of rugs in North Africa and Spain is also attested to by documents in the Cairo Genizah; one concerned with the shipping of rugs from North Africa to Spain during the eleventh century contains the earliest known mention of a sajjāda or prayer rug.24 Given this documented involvement with prayer rugs in the West, it is not surprising that the Jewish immigration to the Ottoman Empire after the Expulsions should have led to the development of new imagery on Ottoman prayer rugs, and to the appearance of rugs with Hebrew inscriptions made for the synagogue, most of them curtains for the Torah ark. Produced in Ottoman Cairo, the earliest extant carpet dates to the early seventeenth century and has as its central motif a lamp with nine lights. Above, in the cross piece is the sentence from Psalms 118:20: “This is the gate of the Lord, the righteous will enter there,” which became a standard inscription on Ottoman Torah ark curtains.25 This coupled-column rug for a synagogue was made in the same workshops that produced sajjādāt with the coupled-column motif like the sixteenth-century Ballard Rug in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.26 Since prayer rugs were placed on the floor, their makers avoided inscriptions, but the three-domed building in the crosspiece of the Ballard Rug symbolizing heaven is the meaningful equivalent of the “gate of the Lord” on the Jewish rugs. The crossfertilization represented by the coupled-column rugs does not stop here. The hanging mosque lamp of a rug made in 1608, for the Seville Synagogue in Istanbul, is inscribed with the Tetragrammaton and is a striking illustration of a Qurʾānic passage (24:35): “Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth; a likeness of His light is as a niche in which there is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass and the glass is as it were a brightly shining

23 24

25

26

Judah b. Asher, Zikhron Yehuda, #21. Cf. Mann, Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts, 48 49. Richard Ettinghausen, “The Early History, Use and Iconography of the Prayer Rug,” in Prayer Rugs, Exhibition Catalog (Washington, DC, 1974 75), 17. The carpet is preserved at the Textile Museum, George Washington University, Washington, DC. Cf. Walter Denny, The Classical Tradition in Anatolian Carpets (Washington, DC, 2002), 108 9. For this carpet and other extant examples manufac tured or used among the Ottoman Sephardim, see Esther Juhasz, “Textiles for the Home and Synagogue,” in Esther Juhasz, ed., Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman Empire: Aspects of Material Culture (Jerusalem, 1990), 64 119. See, for example, Esin Atil,The Age of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (Washington, DC, 1987), 226 27, plate #159; cf. Vivian B. Mann, “Textiles Travel: The Role of Sephardim in the Transmission of Textile Forms,” in Federica Francesconi, Stanley Mirvis, and Brian M. Smollett, eds., From Catalonia to the Caribbean: The Sephardic Orbit from Medieval to Modern Times. Essays in Honor of Jane S. Gerber (Leiden, 2018), 56.

material culture, art, and architecture 1005 27 star, lit from a blessed olive-tree.” The labeling of the lamp with the name of God makes explicit the equation of the Almighty with a lamp in a glass within a niche from Islamic sources, although already in the Bible God is described as “my light and my salvation” (Psalms 27:1) or an “everlasting light” (Isaiah 60:20), and fire is a distinctive sign of the divine presence.28 A key element of the imagery on these Jewish carpets involves pairs of slender doubled columns that frame the center field; they are also found on Islamic prayer rugs made in palace workshops beginning in the second half of the sixteenth century. This architectural motif does not appear in Ottoman architecture, but copies columns built only in the Alhambra in Granada, and must have been brought to the East by Sephardic refugees.29 In the Ottoman Empire, the Jewish use of carpets as Torah curtains or covers for the reader’s desk continued into the twentieth century, although with the passage of time the iconography and compositions of these rugs deviated from contemporaneous Ottoman rugs and included new symbols like the Ten Commandments. Another Jewish use for carpets is exemplified by a surviving example made in 1789/90.30 Its green color recalls the textiles used in Muslim tombs and the border inscriptions refer to living a blameless life, to a bed, and other references to death. It must have been used as a bier cover and represents a Jewish adoption of a Muslim form and its investment with Jewish meaning by incorporating Hebrew inscriptions. The making of carpets is one aspect of Jewish involvement in the production and trade of textiles, which was the most important industry in the medieval Mediterranean world. Jews traded in textiles and were involved in their manufacture. Benjamin of Tudela, who traveled between 1159 and 1167, in 1172/73 wrote that Jews were engaged in the manufacture of silk in several cities including Constantinople and 27

28

29

30

Ibid., 56 58; Vivian B. Mann, ed., A Tale of Two Cities: Jewish Life in Frankfurt and Istanbul, 1750 1870 (New York, 1982), 159 60, #197. E.g., in the theophanies of the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:1 6) and the Pillar of Fire (Exodus 13:21 22, 14:24; Numbers 14:14, etc.). Cf. further the discussion of the verse “For, behold, the Lord will come in fire” (Isaiah 66:15) in Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 39a. Walter Denny, The Classical Tradition in Anatolian Carpets (Washington, DC, 2002), 50 53. The item appeared in an auction in Zurich in 1987, and is currently in a private collection. On it and its Hebrew inscriptions, including a reproduction, see Vivian B Mann, “Jewish Muslim Acculturation in the Ottoman Empire: The Evidence of Ceremonial Art,” in Avigdor Levy, ed., The Jews of the Ottoman Empire (Princeton, 1994), esp. 566 67 and fig. 8 (facing p. 561).

1006 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar Thebes, where they were preeminent.31 A responsum of Solomon b. Abraham Ibn Adret (1235–1310), rabbi of Barcelona, addressed the question of whether the Jewish women of Toledo, who wove deluxe silks that included motifs with crosses, were in error: Those images of crosses that women weave in their silks [made] for non Jews should be forbidden. Nevertheless, they can be deemed permissible because non Jews do not worship their deity in this way. The [women] make nothing with their looms but [designs] for beauty in the manner of drawings. Even though the same images are worshipped on other articles, since it is not customary to worship them in this manner, [the images are] permissible.32

There are a restricted number of medieval Iberian silk patterns; one of them appears to be the textile discussed by Ibn Adret.33 Other medieval patterns reappear in Morocco where they are used in the design of “Fez belts,” wide belts woven of silk and metallic threads. They were worn with ceremonial costumes by both men and women. Because of the nature of their use, no actual examples from the Middle Ages exist, but medieval motifs continued to be woven in Fez, as they were in Tétouan and Chefchaouan, through the twentieth century. The women’s costumes with which the Fez belts were worn were bridal dresses known as the keswa-el-kbira or grand costume, which is mentioned in travelers’ accounts as early as the seventeenth century.34 The dresses were made of silk velvet or taffeta, and were embellished with gold embroidery and the application of gilt ribbons and buttons. Wide silk sleeves were worn with it. The same costume elements are mentioned in a protocol of the Jewish communities of Castile who met in Valladolid in 1432. The ruling declared that only a bride or an engaged woman could wear costly dresses of gold cloth, or olive colored material or fine linen or silk or of fine wool. Neither shall they wear on their dresses trimmings of velvet or brocade or olive colored cloth . . . nor dresses with trains on the ground more than one third of a vara [“yard”] in measure . . . nor a dress of bright red color, nor a skirt of 31

32

33

34

Marcus Nathan Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (London, 1907), 10, 14. David Ibn Abi Zimra, Responsa Radbaz (Warsaw, 1882), vol. 4, #107. Translation from Mann, Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts, 57. The pillow cover of Maria de Almenar, dated c. 1200; see Dodds et al., Al Andalus, 322 23, cat. #90. E.g., in the work of the English writer and clergyman Lancelot Addison (1632 1703), who worked for seven years in Tangier. On the el keswa el kbira, see Esther Juhasz, ed., The Jewish Wardrobe: From the Collection of the Israel Museum (Jerusalem, 2012), 266 69; and cf. Shalom Sabar, “The Preservation and Continuation of Sephardi Art in Morocco,” European Judaism, 52, 2 (2019), 65 66 and 73nn23 24.

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bermeja [“vermilion”] thread . . . nor shall they make wide sleeves on the Moorish garments of more than two palms in width.35

The luxurious dress described in this regulation of 1432 became the standard bridal costume of Sephardim who immigrated to Morocco from Spain. To this day, the dressing of the bride is accompanied by the recitation of Spanish sayings by those who are present. When the family brings the bride from her father’s home to that of her bridegroom, the assembled say: Daimos a la novia que por ella venimos. Si no mos la dais, a la ley volveremos (“Give us the bride because we are here for her. If you do not give her to us, we will return to our holy studies”).36 Similar gold embroidery appears on Jewish wedding dresses from the Ottoman Empire, although the Ottoman dresses are not as complex as those used in Morocco. In both countries, gold embroidery was also used for Torah mantles. The employment of the same luxurious embroidery on mantles and wedding dresses lent sanctity to the costumes. In the Ottoman Empire, it became customary to will bridal gowns to the synagogue where they were made into mantles, reader’s desk covers, and Torah curtains, reflecting a concept of sanctity that linked mantles and bridal regalia.37 ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS

The earliest decorated Hebrew manuscripts are those from North Africa and the Land of Israel or Egypt dated between the tenth and twelfth centuries – that is, the Fātimid period (909–1171). They are contempor_ aneous with a body of Qurʾāns with which they share many common elements such as materials, page layout, and decorative motifs used to articulate the text (such as hexagrams, foliate motifs, and circles, all executed in gold). For example, a manuscript devoted to the fourth parashah (lectionary section) of the Book of Numbers (Shelah Lekha) _ 35

36

37

Louis Finkelstein, Jewish Self government in the Middle Ages (New York, 1964), 373 74; Alfred Rubens, A History of Jewish Costume (London, 1973), 184 85. Cf. Vivian B. Mann, “Memory, Mimesis, Realia,” in Vivian B. Mann, ed., Morocco: Jews and Art in a Muslim Land (New York, 2000), 134. For the Jewish wedding in northern Morocco and the usage of piyyutim in Haketia (the Judeo Spanish dialect of the North _ African Sephardim) in the wedding ceremonies, see Gila Hadar, “Jewish Weddings in the North of Morocco,” in Joseph Chetrit et al., eds., The Jewish Traditional Marriage in Morocco: Interpretive and Documentary Chapters [Hebrew] (Haifa, 2003), 307 50 see there, 345, for a slightly different version and translation of the above saying. Cf. Juhasz, “Textiles for Home and Synagogue,” 80 81, and figs. 18 22, 24, 25 (and see there for other textile domestic items donated to the synagogue for reuse as Torah ark curtains, Torah mantles, or other ritual items).

1008 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar probably copied in Egypt (or, perhaps, Persia) in 1106–7 (National Library of Israel MS Heb. 282238) has a horizontal format with only seven lines of text framed by gold bars with paisley terminals.38 Gold circles and other paisley forms appear in the margins. That this is a deluxe manuscript is signaled by the small amount of text on each folio of parchment, which was an expensive material. It resembles a seven-line Qurʾānic text dated to the same period such as those known from both North Africa and Iran.39 They have formats and decorative motifs similar to those of Hebrew Bibles. These commonalities suggest that some codices may have been produced in ateliers furnishing manuscripts for both Jews and Muslims, or that Jews and Muslims had knowledge of each other’s workshop practices. The ornamentation of columns of script by placing small gold motifs in the margins appears in the earliest Hebrew Bibles from Spain, including, for example, a fragment now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, dated 1197/98 (MS Hébreu 105).40 Another decorative scheme appears in the earliest Hebrew Bibles from the Land of Israel or Egypt and North Africa, dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries. Two compositions became standard, reappearing subsequently in Spanish Bibles until the Expulsion: carpet pages and pages of the implements of the Tabernacle or Temple. Early carpet pages appear in a Bible manuscript containing only the Prophets (Codex Cairensis – formerly in the Karaite Synagogue, Cairo) that was written, according to the colophon, by Moses Ben Asher in Tiberias in the year 827 after the destruction of the Second Temple (= 895),41 as well as in a number of 38

39

40

41

See Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (Jerusalem, 1969), 46 47, plate 3. Narkiss and other scholars claim the manuscript was produced in Egypt (most likely Cairo). However, researchers at the National Library of Israel suggest it was copied in Persia. See Rafael Weiser and Rivka Plesser, eds., Treasures Revealed: From the Collections of the Jewish National and University Library (Jerusalem, 2000), 20 21, #5. See the catalog details and digitized version of the codex on the National Library’s website. For similarly written and decorated Qurʾāns of the same period, see David J. Roxburgh, Writing the Word of God: Calligraphy and the Qurʾan (Houston, 2007), figs. 6 and 13; Johannes Pedersen, The Arabic Book, trans. Geoffrey French, ed. Robert Hillenbrand (Princeton, 1984), figs. 10 and 14. For a comprehensive study of these Bibles and their connect to Islamic art, see Katrin Kogman Appel, Jewish Book Art between Islam and Christianity: The Decoration of Hebrew Bibles in Medieval Spain (Leiden, 2004); and see there, 59, on the early Bible of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Formerly considered the earliest extant illustrated Hebrew manuscript, the Ben Asher Codex. The art of the Ben Asher Codex has been the subject of a detailed study: Leila K. Avrin, “The Illuminations in the Moshe Ben Asher Codex of 895 C.E.” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1984). Recent research has shown it was most probably produced in the eleventh century. Cf. Kogman Appel, Jewish Book Art, 38 39.

material culture, art, and architecture 1009 Bibles from the Firkovitch Collection from the Russian National Library that were copied in Cairo in the tenth and eleventh centuries (Figure 32.6),42 and selected other biblical manuscripts in the British Library.43 Carpet pages were miniatures whose compositions imitated those of textiles, possibly inspired by textiles that had been placed between folios to preserve illuminations. They bear geometric and vegetal designs that often incorporate intricate micrographic decorative notes on the biblical text – an original form of visual expression that became the hallmark of Jewish art that started in the Land of Israel and Egypt of this period and later carried and further developed in many Jewish communities, East and West.44 The representation of Tabernacle implements in the Bibles of Solomon b. Levi ha-Bouyaʾa, written in 929 in Egypt (Russian National Library MS Evr. II B 17), includes the menorah, the ark with the Tablets of the Law, an altar, an ewer of Islamic form with animal terminals, and lesser implements. In Sephardic manuscripts, this basic scheme expanded so that there are often two or more carpet pages, and implements of the Temple occupy two facing pages.45 These compositions are surrounded by bands of text in square Hebrew letters. Spanish carpet pages consist of designs commonly found in Islamic art, such as the flowering stalk seen in stucco or wood carvings or the expanding stars and interlocking geometric motifs common on stucco and textiles. An early example of this prototype of the Spanish carpet pages is found in a Pentateuch from Tlemcen, Algeria, dated 1225

42

43

44

45

The earliest of which is the so called First Leningrad Bible (RNL MS Evr. II B 17), dated 929 (see below). On these Bibles, see Bezalel Narkiss, Illuminations from Hebrew Bibles of Leningrad Originally Published by Baron David Günzburg and Vladimir Stassoff, 2 vols. [Hebrew and English] (Jerusalem, 1989). For the page from the Bible in Figure 32.6, which is known as the “Petersburg Codex” (formerly “Leningrad Codex”) or Codex Petropolitanus, see ibid., plates VII, VII*, and text volume, 50 53; and cf. Shimon M. Iakerson, Mivʼhar peninim Selected Pearls: Treasures of Jewish Culture in Saint Petersburg (Manuscripts, Incunabula, Ritual Objects) (St. Petersburg, 2003), no. 6, 60 61. In particular, a Karaite book of Exodus (British Library, MS Or 2540). For this and other early Hebrew Bibles in the British Library, see Ilana Tahan, Hebrew Manuscripts: The Power of Script and Image (London, 2007), 14 21. See, for example, Stanley Ferber, “Micrography: A Jewish Art Form,” Journal of Jewish Art 3 4 (1977), 12 24; Leila Avrin, Hebrew Micrography: One Thousand Years of Art in Script (Jerusalem, 1981). Kogman Appel, Jewish Book Art, esp. 131 40; and cf. Joseph Gutmann, “The Messianic Temple in Spanish Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts,” in Joseph Gutmann, ed., The Temple of Solomon Archaeological Fact and Medieval Tradition in Christian, Islamic and Jewish Art (Missoula, MT, 1976), 125 45.

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Figure 32.6 Colophon page of the scribe Samuel ben Jacob. Bible (“Petersburg Codex”), Cairo (1008 13) Source: St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Evr. B 19a

(National Library of Russia, MS Evr. II B 168).46 Some of these carpet page designs are also found in Qurʾāns, such as the interlocking squares page of

46

Narkiss, Illuminations from Hebrew Bibles of Leningrad, 67 68; color reproduction: Iakerson, Selected Pearls, 62 63, #7.

material culture, art, and architecture 1011 a manuscript dated 1304, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (MS Arabe 385),47 and the same design in a fifteenth-century Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, Trinity College Library, F. 12.106).48 Perhaps because of the importance of the Bible in Jewish life and its early tradition of aniconic decoration in Palestine and North Africa, the page decoration of Iberian Bibles remained tied to the Islamic tradition until the Expulsion. Very few biblical manuscripts produced in Spain, despite the dominance of Christian figurative art in lands reconquered from the Arabs, include figurative decoration.49 Aside from Bibles, manuscripts that were produced for events in the Jewish life cycle – primarily schoolbooks for children’s early education and marriage contracts (ketubbot) for the wedding ceremony – were often decorated as well. Being part of the documents discovered in the Cairo Genizah and products of the same societies and periods, they share the styles and patterns found in the aforementioned manuscripts. At the same time, they often have their own specific characteristics – especially highlighting the specific context for which they were produced. The Hebrew reading primers for children, usually preserved as fragmentary leaves (Egypt, tenth to thirteenth centuries), are characterized by displaying the Hebrew alphabet commonly vocalized with the various Tiberian vowels, and the letters of every line are interchangeably colored in red or black, with each letter outlined in the opposing hue.50 The most elaborate surviving schoolbook (CUL T-S K 5.13; Figure 32.7) opens with a carpet page featuring a large, reddish-brown seven-branched menorah and two colorful six-pointed stars; the menorah is set in an arch-like mihrāb, from _ monuthe center of which hangs a “mosque” lamp. While the decorative mental Hebrew letters evidently caught the attention of the child, the

47 48

49

50

Cf. Kogman Appel, Jewish Book Art, 38 and fig. 3. For this and parallel manuscripts with carpet pages of the late fifteenth century Castile, see ibid., 204 11 (esp. 205 6). Most notably the Cervera Bible of 1300 (Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, MS 72; Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, 52 53, plate 6), and the First Kennicott Bible, from La Coruña, 1476 (Bodleian Library, MS Kennicott 1; see Bezalel Narkiss and Aliza Cohen Mushlin, eds., The Kennicott Bible, facsimile and text volume (London, 1985)). For the two Bibles, see Kogman Appel, Jewish Book Art, passim. See Bezalel Narkiss, “Illuminated Children’s Books from Mediaeval Egypt,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 24 (1972), 58 71. Tablets with the vocalized Hebrew alphabet, often repeating the order and patterns of learning known from the Cairo Genizah documents, continued to be produced in the Jewish communities of Islamic lands until the modern era. See Ella Arazi, “Childhood: Traditional Education,” in Shalom Sabar et al., eds., The Life Cycle (“Jewish Communities in the East in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries”) [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2006), 92 137.

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Figure 32.7 Carpet page and decorative letters. Children’s alphabet primer. Egypt, Cairo Genizah Source: CUL T-S K 5.13, folios 1 verso-2 recto

carefully selected designs for the carpet page could be used to teach and exhibit Jewish ideals. Though most of the Genizah ketubbah fragments are undecorated, they provide a unique vista into the rich rituals, social life, items of jewelry and clothing, customs and halakhic issues related to the Jewish wedding as it was celebrated in the medieval period in the Land of Israel and Egypt, as well as neighboring countries (e.g., Syria and Lebanon).51 Most of these marriage contracts do not follow the standard textual formula of the 51

For studies employing the written materials in the Cairo Genizah for reconstructing issues of clothing and female attire in particular, see the following doctoral dissertations: Yedida Kalfon Stillman, “Female Attire of Medieval Egypt: According to the Trousseau Lists and Cognate Material from the Cairo Geniza” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1977); Ora Molad Vaza, “Clothing in the Mediterranean: Jewish Society as Reflected in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza between the Middle of the 10th Century and the Middle of the 13th Century” [Hebrew; English abstract i vii] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010).

material culture, art, and architecture 1013 familiar Babylonian ketubbah, in usage up to the contemporary period. Rather, they suggest a freer and more individual set of marital agreements, where the status of the bride is often revealed to be nearly equal to that of the groom.52 The importance ascribed to this document is also reflected in a new custom – reading aloud or chanting to the guests the contents of the ketubbah, including the long and detailed list of the items of the dowry – which apparently led to the desire to decorate the marriage contract.53 While the extant fragments feature mostly floral and micrographic designs, and at times also architectural (Figure 32.8), special attention is paid to the calligraphy and ornamentation of the superscription. This usually consists of a wedding poem written in elegant square letters (in contrast to the minuscule cursive of the ketubbah proper) that appear in spaced groups, resembling a brick wall, in accordance with the writing of festive poetry in Torah scrolls (cf. Babylonian Talmud Megillah 16b). This wall is evocative of the concept of establishing a new household, “building the house of Israel” (cf. Ruth 4:11), or the wish for the bridal couple to “build and prosper” (2 Chronicles 14:6), cited in the poem. Indeed, some fragments cite the verses from Ruth 4, narrating the wedding of Boaz and Ruth at the city gate, and some fragments depict architectural elements or arches alluding to the symbolic site of the wedding.54 All these artistic features started in the ketubbot of the Land of Israel and Egypt and became characteristic features of the practice of decorating the ketubbah, popular in many Jewish communities in both Christian Europe and the Lands of Islam – a practice still followed in modern times. Yemenite Jews similarly created Bibles whose decoration avoided figures but consisted largely of floral and geometric motifs as well as birds and fish. The earliest Jewish art to survive from Yemen is a series of fifteenthcentury illuminated Bibles. The most elaborately decorated of these was

52

53

54

See the comprehensive study of Jewish marriages in this period based on the ketubbot discovered in the Genizah: Mordechai A. Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine: A Cairo Geniza Study, 2 vols. (New York, 1980 81). On the art of the Genizah ketubbot, see Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, 1:96 97; cf. Shalom Sabar, Ketubbah: Jewish Marriage Contracts of the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum and Klau Library (Philadelphia, 1990), 6 8; Shalom Sabar, “Two Millennia of Ketubbot in Eretz Israel,” in Nitza Behroozi BarOz, exhibition curator, A Local Wedding: Ketubbot from Eretz Israel, 1800 1960 (Tel Aviv, 2005), esp. 14 15 [Hebrew] and 8 10 [English]; Shalom Sabar, “Words, Images, and Magic: The Protection of the Bride and Bridegroom in Jewish Marriage Contracts,” in Raʿanan S. Boustan et al., eds., Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of History and Anthropology: Authority, Diaspora, Tradition (Philadelphia, 2011), 102 32, esp. 105 11. Cf. the chapter “‘Praise Her in the Gates’: The Gate Motif,” in Shalom Sabar, Ketubbah: The Art of the Jewish Marriage Contract (Jerusalem, 2000), 17 41.

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Figure 32.8 Fragment of a ketubbah from the Cairo Genizah. Egypt (?) (c. twelfth century) Source: CUL T-S K 10.4

material culture, art, and architecture 1015 written in S ̣anʿāʾ in 1469 and includes two carpet pages at the beginning and two at the end, as well as text decorations.55 The most unusual carpet page has a star at the center surrounded by a circular band of fish; the circle is fixed in place by a mountain above and one below. All of these forms – in bistre (dark brown) on the parchment ground – are created through micrographic texts.56 The remainder of the page is filled with red, green, and blue arabesques. All of the motifs, except for the micrography, are commonly found on Yemenite metalwork. The colophon of this manuscript has two bands of elaborately calligraphed Arabic inscriptions, one at top and one at bottom, and a center filled with a lobed medallion and spandrels filled with the saz leaves that are a typical Islamic motif (Figure 32.9). The central motif, a circle within four half-circles, may represent the plan of a dome on pendentives.57 In conception, this page closely follows Islamic models; even the inscriptions naming its Jewish patron (Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Saʿīd [b.] Ibrāhīm al-Isrāʾīlī) and the date of completion are in Arabic (6 S ̣afar ah 874/August 15, 1469). This group of Bibles also features individual motifs of leaves or birds placed in the margins and between columns of text. The aniconic decoration of the Bibles produced in Islamic lands was not the rule in other types of texts. Jewish involvement in scientific discovery and transmission began under the Islamic rulers of Spain, but most of the existing illuminated manuscripts date after the Reconquista and sometimes include figurative motifs. A form of scientific work in which Jews excelled was the Portolan Chart, which recorded information on the coastlines of land masses for the use of sailors and often included vignettes similar to figural text decorations in manuscripts. Examples of liturgical texts that came under the influence of Christian art are a series of Haggadah manuscripts produced in Barcelona and its environs, which were furnished with elaborated picture cycles including biblical and genre scenes and figurative text illustrations.58 These manuscripts show the effect of Jews and Christians working together, but this subject lies outside the scope of this chapter. 55

56 58

British Library MS Or 2348. The classical study on the early Yemenite Bibles is still Richard Ettinghausen, “Yemenite Bible Manuscripts of the XVth Century,” in Eretz Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies 7 (1964), 32* 39*; see also Joseph Gutmann, Hebrew Manuscript Painting (New York, 1978), 40 43, plates 1 2; and Tahan, Hebrew Manuscripts, 22 27. 57 Psalms 119, 121, and 122. Gutmann, Hebrew Manuscript Painting, plate 2. See, for example, Katrin Kogman Appel, Illuminated Haggadot from Medieval Spain: Biblical Imagery and the Passover Holiday (University Park, PA, 2006); Marc Michael Epstein, The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination (New Haven, 2011); Sabar, The Sarajevo Haggadah, esp. 87 128, 185 237.

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Figure 32.9 Colophon page containing the patron’s name: Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Saʿīd [b.] Ibrāhīm al Isrāʾīlī. Pentateuch, Sanʿāʾ, 1469 Source: London, British Library, MS Or 2348, fol. 154 verso

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METALWORK

It has been suggested that the earliest extant metalwork by a Jew, now in the treasury of the Cathedral of Girona, is a wooden casket covered with silver that was made by a certain goldsmith supposedly named “Juden b. Bazla” for al-Ḥakam II, the Muslim ruler of Córdoba, who presented it to his son in the second half of the tenth century.59 The silver plates of this intricate work are gilt, and have inlaid silver and niello (a mix of sulfur, lead, and silver). The dedicatory inscription appears on the bottom edge of the lid, but its interpretation and association with Jews is most probably incorrect.60 Whether the maker was a Jew or not, there were apparently other Jews working at silversmithing. In most Islamic territories, metalwork was largely left to dhimmīs, non-Muslim minorities. Although the Qurʾān contains no direct prohibition against the profession, Muslim legal sources reveal hadīth traditions viewing those who work with metals as _ liars, counterfeiters, and swindlers. The Berber-Andalusian diplomat Leo Africanus (c. 1494–1554), who visited Morocco sixty years after the Expulsion from Spain, wrote in a work published in 1556 that most of goldsmiths in Fez were Jews.61 Inventories of the Babylonian and Palestinian synagogues found in the Cairo Genizah indicate the types of work made for Jewish liturgical use. The documents are receipts signed by the beadles of various synagogues, listing all of the items for which they were responsible.62 The following works used with the Torah scroll are enumerated in the inventory of the Babylonian Synagogue of Cairo of 1080:

59

60

61

62

See Vivian B. Mann, “The Unknown Jewish Artists of Medieval Iberia,” in Jonathan Ray, ed., The Jew in Medieval Iberia: 1100 1500 (Boston, 2012), 162; Marco Zuccato, “Gerbert of Aurillac and a Tenth Century Jewish Channel for the Transmission of Arabic Science to the West,” Speculum 80 (2005), 742. Cf. Norman Roth, “Review of Jonathan Ray, The Jew in Medieval Iberia. H Judaic, H Net Reviews,” January 2013, www.h net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=36090. As the author notes, the name “Juden” is misread and seems not to be of a Jew of Spain of this period. Cf. Ana Labarta, “The Casket of Hisham and its Epigraphy,” SVMMA: Revista de cultures medievals 6 (2015), 104 28 (and see there for the previous readings that identify the maker as a Jew). Cf. Jane S. Gerber, Jewish Society in Fez 1450 1700: Studies in Communal and Economic Life (Leiden, 1980), 143 44. For these lists (originally written in Judeo Arabic) and the experts from them quoted below, see S. D. Goitein, “The Synagogue Building and Its Furnishings according to the Records of the Cairo Genizah” [Hebrew], Eretz Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies 7 (1964), 81 97; and cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:149 52.

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Torah mantles, of black, white, and green Covers for the reader’s desk A curtain for the ark A pair of chairs for the reading of the Torah A reader’s desk

This, the earliest receipt, largely records textiles used with the Torah scroll. But a receipt from 1159 lists more expensive items for the Synagogue of the “Denizens of (Greater) Syria” (kanīsat al-shāmiyyīn – which is what the Ben Ezra Synagogue, home to the Genizah, was called in medieval documents). The beadle Mahfūz received: _ _ A silver Torah crown A gilt silver Torah crown A pair of gilt Torah finials Two pairs of finials inlaid with niello.

For the Babylonian Synagogue, he received: One tiq of silver [plating] over wood A second tiq of pure silver A gilt Torah crown A second Torah crown inlaid with niello Two pairs of gilt Torah finials Two pairs of Torah finials inlaid with niello . . . A gold finial with chains and a silver finial with chains.

Only in the lists of the mid-twelfth century are there numerous finials and crowns made of silver and gilt silver, as well as silver inlaid with niello and gold inlaid with bitumen. And, for the first time, the word tiq is specified as a rigid cylindrical container made of wood covered with silver or of solid silver.63 These two lists were written while Maimonides was living in Cairo, and confirmation of the existence of all these objects can be found in his legal code, the Mishneh Torah, in the section in which he discusses the laws pertaining to Torah scrolls: One acts toward a kosher Torah Scroll with additional holiness and great honor. A tiq that was prepared for a Torah Scroll . . . textile wrappers, and the ark and the reader’s desk . . . and also the chair prepared to rest the Torah Scroll on it, and it rested on it, are all implements of holiness . . . and the silver and gold 63

For the development of the tiq from the talmudic period through the Middle Ages and its form among the Jewish communities of Islamic lands in the last centuries, see Berakhah Yaniv, The Torah Case: Its History and Design [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1997) for the medieval period, see esp. 28 34.

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rimmonim and the like, that are made for the beauty of the Torah Scroll, are implements of holiness.64

To reiterate what we know from literary sources written in Maimonides’ lifetime (1138–1204), the Torah was protected by being covered by a cloth or housed in a tiq, and was placed in an ark closed by a curtain. Before or after the reading of the Torah on a special reader’s desk, the scroll was placed on a special chair. Scrolls were adorned with silver and gold finials. The later inventory, from 1159, that includes works in precious materials, is indicative of the donors’ greater prosperity, which allowed them to commission or make a gilt silver Torah crown, a gold finial with chains, a tiq or Torah case of pure silver, silver lamps, and textiles woven with gold threads. The existence of Jewish silversmiths in medieval Cairo in the twelfth century who lived near the Ben Ezra Synagogue or the Babylonian Synagogue65 suggests the possibility that they made the appurtenances for the Torah enumerated in the inventories, although there is no actual proof of this. The predominance of Jews in silversmithing in countries such as Yemen and Morocco in the modern period until their large-scale emigration to Israel is indicative of the influence of the hadīth on the choice of _ silversmithing opened trades by Muslims and Jews; the Muslim aversion to opportunities for Jews. The first synagogue inventory, dated 1080, mentions bowls. A deep silver dish inlaid with gilt decorations such as a rosette and geometric interlace in the Mudéjar style was discovered in Burgos in 1938 in the area of the Jewish cemetery. Similar bowls were found in a Jewish context in Briviesca (an area within Burgos), in 1985 and 1988. Two of these have hexagrams as their central motifs. The precious materials used for the bowls suggest that they were designed for special purposes either in the synagogue or the home. Secular metalwork found in Briviesca includes decorations for garments, silver buttons and rings, some in the Mudéjar style. Rings with Hebrew inscriptions were found near Soria, in the north of Spain. Objects similar to those from Briviesca and the region of Soria were also found in the Jewish cemetery in Teruel.66 64

65

66

Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ahavah, Hilkhot Tefillin u Mezuzah ve Sefer Torah, chapters 2, 4, and 10. Moshe Gil, ed., Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza (Leiden, 1976), 143n17 and 160n13. For the household finds from these cities (including bowls, rings, seals, harness orna ments, pendants, buttons, and ornamental items for clothing, etc.), see Bango Torviso, ed., Memoria de Sefarad, 99 157; cf. the abbreviated English edition of this catalog: Isidro Bango Torviso, ed., Remembering Sepharad: Jewish Culture in Medieval Spain (Madrid, 2003), 49 73.

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vivian b. mann and shalom sabar CERAMICS

Babylonia and Persia were home to some of the most ancient Jewish communities, but we know little of the visual culture of Babylonian and Persian Jewry during the period of its intellectual peak. The most important finds are hundreds of custom-made earthenware incantation bowls inscribed with lengthy spiral apotropaic inscriptions in Babylonian Jewish Aramaic and other dialects, for protection and healing individuals, members of their families, and their homes.67 Commonly dated from the fourth/fifth to the seventh/eighth centuries, these magic bowls are occasionally accompanied by schematic drawings, frequently in the center of the bowl, depicting hybrid male and female demons, often chained – expressing the wish that the bowl would protect the customers and their families.68 Large quantities of ceramics were found in the Teruel excavations. The techniques for making lusterware had been brought by Muslims to Spain after the conquest of 711. Lusterware, or tin-enameled, ceramics are characterized by glazing processes that result in wares with the sheen of gold and silver. The excavations in Teruel demonstrate the continuing practice of the craft after the Reconquista. Some of the finds from the judería are specifically Jewish in form: Hanukkah lamps formed as a series of pinched lamps with a raised servitor of the same form (Figure 32.10), and a plate for the symbolic foods eaten at the Passover Seder.69 The use of this Hanukkah lamp type seems to have been widespread in Spain and was 67

68

69

See Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem, 1985). For a detailed account of the art on the early incantation bowls, see Naamah Vilozny, Lilith’s Hair and Ashmedai’s Horns: Figure and Image in Magic and Popular Art: Between Babylonia and Palestine in Late Antiquity [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2017); Naamah Vilozny, “Lilith’s Hair and Ashmedai’s Horns: Incantation Bowl Imagery in the Light of Talmudic Descriptions,” in Markham J. Geller, ed., The Archaeology and Material Culture of the Babylonian Talmud (Leiden, 2015), 133 52. See also the selection of brief essays and images in the exhibition catalog, Filip Vukosavovic, ed., Angels and Demons: Jewish Magic through the Ages [English and Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 2010). Bango Torviso, ed., Memoria de Sefarad, 181 85, items 130 31 (Passover plates); and 191 92, items 139 42 (Hanukkah lamps); cf. Bango Torviso, ed., Remembering Sepharad, 102 5. On the fragments of the glazed ceramic Hanukkah lamps uncovered during the excavations of Plaza de la Judería of Teruel in 1978, see Purificación Atrián Jordán, “Lámparas de Hanukkah en cerámica popular turolense,” Teruel: Revista del Instituto de Estudios Turolenses 66 (1981), 175 80. Note that the silver plates and spoons of the Tesorillos de Briviesca are assumed to have been used on Passover plates (i.e., for the dinner service) due to their distinctive appearance, while the glazed ceramic Passover plate (i.e., for the traditional Passover foods) actually the earliest known “Passover plate” is discussed below.

material culture, art, and architecture

1021

Figure 32.10 Glazed ceramic Hanukkah lamp (reconstructed), fragmentarily discovered at the Jewish Quarter of Teruel, Spain (fifteenth century) Source: Teruel, Museo de Teruel

found in Burgos and Saragossa, for example. A few lamps of stone and metal, very different in shape, have been found in northern Iberia and southern France (under Spanish rule during the Middle Ages). They bear Mudéjar motifs such as horseshoe arches70 (Figure 32.11). Other ceramic types such as mortars and plates are identical to those found in the rest of the city. Teruel ceramics are usually decorated with black, blue, and green slips, although a few other colors are used as well. Decorative motifs include vegetal and abstract motifs, even figures and symbols. One other plate used on Passover is known. It is a common type 70

For the stone lamp, “discovered” in the 1980s in the basement of a private house in Gerona, see Bezalel Narkiss, “The Gerona Hanukkah Lamp: Fact and Fiction,” Jewish Art 14 (1988), 6 15. The authenticity of this object is, however, highly questionable. For a cast bronze Hanukkah lamp known from four extant copies in various public collections and that are generally attributed to Spain or France and dated to the fourteenth century, see Bezalel Narkiss, “Un objet de culte: la lampe de Hanuka,” in Bernhard Blumenkranz, ed., Art et archéologie des Juifs en France médiévale (Toulouse, 1980), 187 206. Other scholars consider these bronze lamps to have been products created for the market in the nineteenth century, when we hear of them for the first time, and “we have no reliable documentation for [their] medieval attribution”; see Joseph Gutmann, “On Medieval Hanukkah Lamps,” Artibus Et Historiae, 20, 40 (1999), 187 90.

1022

vivian b. mann and shalom sabar

Figure 32.11 A cast bronze Hanukkah lamp known in a few slightly different copies. Northern Spain or southern France (fourteenth century; suspected by some to be a nineteenth century forgery) Source: Jerusalem, The Israel Museum

of deep dish known as a brasero that was also used by Christians and Muslims. The braseros of each group are distinguished by the language of their inscriptions, many of which bear spelling mistakes. This is true of the Jewish-owned dish, the earliest known Passover Seder plate, now in the Israel Museum, which was probably also used by the head of a house, in accordance with the custom of the medieval Sephardim, to distribute matzah dough to members of his household71 (Figure 32.12). Another rare 71

This exceptional and large Passover plate (with a diameter of 57 cm), the characteristic work of a Hispano Moresque potter, was apparently produced in Manises (València), c. 1480. See Leila Avrin, “The Spanish Passover Plate in the Israel Museum,” Sefarad 39 (1979), 1 19; and cf. Shalom Sabar, “Seder Plate,” in Haya Bar Itzhak, ed., Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions (Armonk, NY, 2013), 2:477 79.

material culture, art, and architecture

1023

Figure 32.12 A Passover plate made in the Islamic ceramic style in Valencia just prior to the Expulsion from Spain. Ceramic lusterware, Spain (c. 1480) Source: Jerusalem, The Israel Museum

ceramic item is a Persian turquoise-glazed molded tile, possibly from twelfth-thirteenth century Kashan, with an inscription in Judeo-Persian written in elegant square Hebrew letters, that possibly decorated a synagogue or a Jewish home (Jerusalem, Museum for Islamic Art).72 A later, 72

The vocalized Hebrew inscription reads ‫“( צחיה הוד‬True God”). No other letters or decorations are preserved. On this tile and a Muslim silver goblet with a Hebrew inscription, apparently from eleventh or twelfth century Iran (London, private collec tion), see Rachel Hasson, “Hebrew Inscriptions on Islamic Objects from Medieval Iran” [Hebrew], in Shalom Sabar, ed., Between Judaism and Islam in the Mirror of Art: Proceedings of the Twenty Seventh Annual Conference of the Society for Jewish Art (Jerusalem, 1995), 38 43.

1024

vivian b. mann and shalom sabar

Figure 32.13 Ornamental and inscribed portion of a synagogue wall. Faience tile mosaic (264.2 x 472.4 cm). Isfahān (?), Iran (c. sixteenth century) _ Source: New York, The Jewish Museum

much more grandiose and richly ornamented portion of a synagogue wall, apparently from sixteenth-century Isfahān, is preserved in the New York _ of faience ceramic tiles, the attractJewish Museum (Figure 32.13).73 Made ive and colorful mosaic is inscribed with display gold Hebrew letters of two biblical verses (Psalms 5:8 and 118:20) that significantly associate the wall with a place of worship, and are similarly found on Torah ark curtains and textile covers for the reader’s desk from the lands of Islam. CONCLUSION: JEWS AS TRANSMITTERS OF ART

Not many materials pertaining to the Jewish visual arts and material culture from the lands of Islam in the Middle Ages have survived. In addition to the vicissitudes of Jewish life, the general attitude to the preservation of works of art and treasures of the past for posterity was, by and large, not as widespread or prevalent a tradition or a cultural principle as it was in the West. Many objets d’art, especially those of minority groups, were thus lost in time or neglected in favor of newer ones. Aside from precious books, the Jews of medieval Islam shared this general 73

See the entry on this ornamental wall by Vivian Mann in Norman L. Kleeblatt and Vivian B. Mann, Treasures of the Jewish Museum (New York, 1986), 38 39.

material culture, art, and architecture 1025 attitude and did not make special efforts to preserve or pass down Judaica treasures of former generations. Most visual materials that have come down to us have thus been discovered thanks to the Cairo Genizah – that is, items that were put away only because they had been worn out or discarded rather than intended to be admired, displayed, or used for cultural studies about the people who produced them. At the same time, the fragments of illustrated Bibles and other Hebrew manuscripts put for storage in the Genizah attest brilliantly to the formation of a new Jewish artistic tradition: the illumination of Hebrew manuscripts. These pioneering pages reveal which texts were selected for artistic enhancement, the Jewish approach to the visual arts in the Islamic world, the aesthetics of the time, the high appreciation of calligraphy and the Hebrew letter, and the strong influence and contacts with art and culture of the Muslim world. Aside from the artistic manuscripts, the written documents of the Cairo Genizah likewise contain invaluable information on material culture, arts and crafts, costume and jewelry, and ritual objects for home and synagogue. The surviving wooden panels from the Ben Ezra Synagogue and other items from this geographical region, confirm and enhance the evidence of the documents and the artwork. Many more artifacts survived from the Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula. In this case as well, very little is extant from the Islamic period of the various regions of Spain and Portugal, and the vast majority of works that have come down to us were produced after the Christian Reconquista. At the same time, numerous extant items demonstrate the predilection of the Iberian Jews for Islamic visual culture, its decorative vocabulary, and aesthetics. From illuminated Bibles and other manuscripts (even including the figurative Haggadah miniatures) to objects for the home and the synagogue, to the monumental synagogue buildings, their architecture and interior decoration, Islamic designs and styles were employed long after these regions returned to Christian hands. Moreover, after the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the persecutions in Portugal, exiled Iberian Jews carried their artistic traditions with them to the lands where they settled and emphatically maintained the Islamicinfluenced mode of expression. Thus, for example, in Sephardic ketubbot of early seventeenth-century Venice, eighteenth-century Thessaloniki, or nineteenth-century Tunisia, the typical two parts of the text (ketubbah proper and a set of conditions) were all set in a double Moorish arch, reminiscent of pre-Expulsion Jewish art of Spain.74 74

For a general introduction to the Sephardic book arts after the Expulsion, see Shalom Sabar, “Manuscript and Book Illustration among the Sephardim before and after the Expulsion,” in The Sephardic Journey 1492 1992 (New York, 1992), 54 93. For the

1026 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar The traditional arts and crafts of the Jews of Islam were thus enriched and enhanced by the newcomers throughout the expanded “Sephardic Diaspora.” The exiled craftsmen carried their artistic skills with them, at times introducing a new and unknown craft, such as book printing. Thus, the first books ever printed in the Ottoman Empire and Morocco were Hebrew books issued by Sephardic printers, who also employed the same decorative designs they used in Spain and Portugal. In other cases, the exiled craftsmen played a central role in transmitting new artistic techniques and designs, influencing at times even local Muslim (non-Jewish) arts: inlaid wood furniture and Qurʾān containers in the Ottoman capital followed a technique popular in Spain; textile designs were transferred from al-Andalus to North Africa; and Spanish carpet motifs to Istanbul and Bursa. All these are examples of the Jewish role in diffusing the culture of one center of Islamic art to another, and to the Jewish communities in the new lands. All in all, despite the paucity of extant artwork, the Jewish visual traditions that were created in the lands of medieval Islam continued to dominate for centuries to come. These traditions spread throughout the Jewish world. For example, micrography became a dominant form of Jewish art from Germany and Poland to Yemen and Iran. Likewise, the art of the ketubbah that came to characterize the joy of the Jewish wedding and its ideals from Christian Europe to the Islamic East, revived in modern times in the United States, Israel, and other lands, commonly employs the same artistic traditions that first appear in the documents of the Cairo Genizah. The Sephardim likewise preserved traditions from Islamic alAndalus; these traditions moved with them and continued to dominate Judaic art in some lands such as Morocco and Turkey till the twentieth century. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Avrin, Leila K. “The Illuminations in the Moshe Ben-Asher Codex of 895 C.E.” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1984). ketubbot in particular, see Shalom Sabar, “The Beginnings of Ketubbah Decoration in Italy: Venice in the Late Sixteenth to the Early Seventeenth Centuries,” Jewish Art 12/13 (1987), 96 110; and Shalom Sabar, “Decorated Ketubbot [of the Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire],” in Juhasz, ed., Sephardi Jews in the Ottoman Empire, 218 37. For another example of a medieval feature (women’s headdress) that persisted in Salonika till modern times, see Batsheva Goldman Ida, “The Sephardic Woman’s Head Dress in Spain and in the Ottoman Empire,” in Yedida K. Stillman and Norman A. Stillman, eds., From Iberia to Diaspora: Studies in Sephardic History and Culture (Leiden, 1999), 525 30.

material culture, art, and architecture 1027 Bango Torviso, Isidro, ed. Memoria de Sefarad: Catálogo de la exposición (Madrid, 2002). Dodds, Jerrilynn D. et al., eds. Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain (New York, 1992). Ettinghausen, Richard. “Yemenite Bible Manuscripts of the XVth Century,” Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies 7 (1964), 32*–39*. Ferber, Stanley. “Micrography: A Jewish Art Form,” Journal of Jewish Art, 3–4 (1977), 12–24. Goitein, S. D. “The Synagogue Building and Its Furnishings according to the Records of the Cairo Genizah” [Hebrew], Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies 7 (1964), 81–97. Holo, Joshua. “Synagogues under Islam in the Middle Ages,” in Steven Fine, ed., Jewish Religious Architecture: From Biblical Israel to Modern Judaism (Leiden, 2019), 137–38. Kogman-Appel, Katrin. Jewish Book Art between Islam and Christianity: The Decoration of Hebrew Bibles in Medieval Spain (Leiden, 2004). Lambert, Phyllis, ed. Fortifications and the Synagogue: The Fortress of Babylon and the Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo, second ed. (Montreal, 2001). Mann, Vivian B. Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts (Cambridge, 2000). Mann, Vivian B., Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn D. Dodds, eds. Convivencia: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain (New York, 1992). Molad-Vaza, Ora. “Clothing in the Mediterranean: Jewish Society as Reflected in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza between the Middle of the 10th Century and the Middle of the 13th Century” [Hebrew; English abstract i–vii] (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2010). Narkiss, Bezalel. Illuminations from Hebrew Bibles of Leningrad – Originally Published by Baron David Günzburg and Vladimir Stassoff, 2 vols. [Hebrew and English] (Jerusalem, 1989). Narkiss, Bezalel et al. Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Isles, 2 vols. (Jerusalem, 1982). Sabar, Shalom. “The Preservation and Continuation of Sephardi Art in Morocco,” European Judaism 52, 2 (2019), 59–81. “Words, Images, and Magic: The Protection of the Bride and Bridegroom in Jewish Marriage Contracts,” in Raʿanan S. Boustan et al., eds., Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of History and Anthropology: Authority, Diaspora, Tradition (Philadelphia, 2011), 102–32.

1028 vivian b. mann and shalom sabar Sabar, Shalom, ed. Between Judaism and Islam in the Mirror of Art: Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference of the Society for Jewish Art [Hebrew] (Jerusalem, 1995). Stillman, Yedida Kalfon. “Female Attire of Medieval Egypt: According to the Trousseau Lists and Cognate Material from the Cairo Geniza” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1977). Yaniv, Bracha. The Torah Case: Its History and Design [Hebrew] (Ramat Gan, 1997).

INDEX

Page numbers in bold refer to content in footnotes; page numbers in italics refer to content in figures. Aaron b. Asher, 640 Aaron b. Elijah of Nicomedia, 590, 595, 599 Aaron b. Joseph, 579, 590, 599 Aaron b. Mashiah, 362 _ Aaron b. Meʾir, 924 Aaron ha-Kohen, 462 ‘Abbād II al-Muʿtadid, 191 _ 16, 24, 110, 120, 181, 183, ‘Abbāsid dynasty, 14, 202, 227, 383–84, 614–18 ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq, 968 Abdullāh b. Muʿāwiya, 614, 617 ‘Abd al-Malik, 610, 613 ‘Abd al-Rahmān, 178 _ ‘Abd al-Rahmān b. ‘Awf, 275 _ ‘Abd al-Rahmān III, 24, 180, 183, 192, 656, 897, _ 905 Abhar, 338 Abiathar ha-Kohen, 468, 983 Abīkarib Asʿad, 317 Abraha, King of Ḥimyar, 320 Abraham b. Ḥalfon, 940 Abraham b. Hillel, 938 Abraham b. Nathan, 770 Abraham b. Yijū, 884 Abraham Bar Ḥiyya, 192, 627, 644, 649, 657–58, 840, 855 Abraham ha-Kohen, 926 Abraham of Tortosa, 663 Abrahams, Israel, 143 Abū Bakr, 286 Abū Barakāt, 836, 855 Abū Bishr Mattā, 835 Abū Dāʾūd, 838 Abū Dulaf, 233, 363 Abū Fadl Dāwūd b. Sulaymān, 857 _ Furqān b. Asad, 695 Abū Faraj Abū Faraj Hārūn, 601 Abū Ḥasan Siman-Ṭov, 342 Abū Ḥuqayq family, 273 Abū Imrān al Tiflīsī, 622–23

Abū Īsā al-Isfahānī, 77, 356, 383, 612–13 _ abarī, 41 Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭ Abū Karam al-Dārānī, 344 Abū Maʿālī ‘Abdallāh, 217 Abū Maʿālī Uzziel, 546 Abū Muhammad Ibn Qutayba, 41 Abū Nasṛ_ Judah b. Daniel, 342 Abū Rāfiʿ Sallām b. Abī al-Ḥuqayq, 273, 276, 283 Abū Sahl b. Moses, 461 Abū Saʿīd b. Dāwūdī, 356 Abū Sulaymān al-Qūmisī, 339 Abū Ubayd, 105 Abū Yūsuf, 102, 121 Abū Zayd Sīrāfī, 228, 364 Abū Zikrī ha-Kohen, 546 Abudraham, David b. Joseph, 770 Abūkarib Asʿad, 305 Abulafia, Abraham, 219 Abulafia, David, 213 Abulafia, Meʾir, 748 Abulafia, Samuel ha-Levi, 662 Abulafia, Todros, 653 Acre, 209, 215–16, 393 Adams, Hannah, 45 Addas, Claude, 914 ‘Aden, 227, 235–36, 239, 242, 244, 546 Aden and the Indian Ocean Trade, 243 Aderet Eliyahu (Mantle of Elijah), 511, 600 Ādharbayjān, 338 Adhriʿāt, 272, 290–92 Adhruh, 290–92 _ 294 Adiabene, adīb, 186 Adler, Elkan N., 52, 372 Adler, Joseph, 375 administrative operations, 155–56, 437, 456–57 adolescence, 517–19, 563–65 Afḍal Ibn Saladin, 217 Afendopolo, Caleb, 600, 861 Afghan Genizah, 13, 336, 342, 352, 355, 975

1029

1030 Africanus, Leo, 1017 afterlife, 311–13, 802, 946 aggadah, 505 Aghlabid dynasty, 203 agriculture, 19, 181, 382, 401, 427–30, 435, 439 Aḥai of Shabḥa, 510, 754 Ahimaaz b. Paltiel, 937 Ahmad al-Ashʿarī, 836 _ Ahwāz, 339 Aksūm, 298, 317–21 alchemy, 842–43 Aleppo, 206, 771 Aleppo Codex, 52, 692 Alexander Romance, The, 668 Alexandria, 111, 140, 397–99, 426, 480–81, 525 Alfaqui, Don Moses, 662 Alfaquim, Don Abraham, 662 Alfasi, Isaac, 149, 179, 246, 359, 503–4, 730–31, 733, 738, 740, 748 Alfonsi, Petrus, 657 Alfonsine Tables, 193, 828 Alfonso X, King of Castile, 661–62, 828 Algeria, 127–28 ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib, 381, 984 ‘Alī b. Dāʾūd al-Yahūdī, 838 ‘Alī b. Muhammad al-‘Alawī, 234 _ al-Ṭabarī, 41 ‘Alī b. Rabban ‘Alī b. Sulaymān, 588, 595, 598, 963 Almohad dynasty, 1, 10, 71, 73, 99, 114, 129, 165, 168, 196, 405, 408 Almoravid dynasty, 1, 10, 165, 168, 190, 195, 405, 408, 629 Altmann, Alexander, 906 ‘Alwān b. Abraham, 924 amān (security), 109, 115 Ambrosian Library, Milan, 51 Amidah prayer, 764, 768, 780, 782, 889 Amitai, Reuven, 348 ‘Amr b. Umayya, 280 Amram b. Mishoy, 462 Amram Gaʾon, 180, 182, 766 Āmul, 338 ‘Anan b. David, 15, 511, 571–74, 571, 619, 624, 702, 719, 750 Anan II, Karaite leader, 576 Anatoli b. Joseph, 939 _ Anatoli, Jacob, 659–60, 663, 861 Anbāʾ al-Zaman fī Akhbār al-Yaman, 234 ‘Anbasa b. Suhaym, 611 _ Andalus, 164–69 beginnings of Jewish life, 169–73 biblical exegesis, 706–7 breakdown of Jewish life, 10, 72, 194–97 demography and migrations, 406–9

index education, 17, 503–5 golden age, 178–82 historiography, 166–68 Jewish intellectual tradition, 182–85 languages, 639, 650 Muslim conquest of Spain, 173, 173–78 Muslim-Jewish relations, 89–90 mysticism, 892, 894–99, 901, 912–13 physicians, 844–46 poetry, 185–89, 790–94, 926–27, 932 tāʾifa period, 189–94 _ Angevin Empire, 219 Anjuvanam trade association, 231–33, 232 Annales historians, 4 annual cycle commercial seasons, 537 Day of Atonement, 531–32 everyday life, 527–28 feasts and festivals, 529, 531–34 High Holy Days, 530–31, 534 holy shrine pilgrimages, 534–37 Sabbath, 528–29 Ansār, 263, 267–69, 276 _ Anthony, Sean, 613 antinomianism, 625 Antioch, 203, 214, 387 Antiquitez judaiques ou remarques critiques sur la république des Hébreux, 44 Antiquities of the Jews, 45 anti-Semitism, 67, 94, 98, 115, 172, 438 apes-pigs motif, 98, 98 apocalypticism, 606–7 ‘Abbāsid dynasty, 615–18 Muslim conquest, 75–77, 111, 608–10 ninth century, 618–26 twelfth century, 626–32 Umayyad period, 610–13 Apollonius, 836, 853 apprenticeship, 544, 564 Arab Dress, 28 Arabian Nights, 668 Arabian Peninsula, 12–13, 107, 224, 227–28, 374–80. See also northern Arabia Jews; pre-Islamic Arabia Arabic language, 27, 40, 84, 88–89, 185–86, 189, 199, 219, 228–31, 229, 444, 486, 580, 636–37, 923–24. See also Judeo-Arabic language Arabic Papyrology Database, 142 Aramaic, 306, 325, 352, 580, 636, 650. See also Judeo-Aramaic architecture, 202, 993–1003, 997–99, 1001. See also art Arculf, 43 Arghun Khan, 347 aristocracy, notion of, 189–90

index Aristotle, 506–7, 656, 717, 799, 804, 807, 814, 818–19, 825, 835, 837 Arjomand, Said, 106 Arnau de Vilanova, 663 Arragel, Moses, 664 Arrajān, 340 art, 28, 993–94 architecture, 993–1003, 997–99, 1001 carpets and textiles, 1002–7 ceramics, 1020–23, 1021 illuminated manuscripts, 249, 669, 680, 1007–17, 1010, 1012, 1014, 1016 Jews as transmitters of, 1024–26 metalworks, 1017–20 artisanal sector, 430, 434–35, 439 Ascalon, 421 Asher b. Jehiel, 28, 511, 749, 1002 Ashīr, 405 Ashkenaz, 503, 505 Ashraf Ismāʿīl II, 247 Ashtor, Eliyahu, 160, 220, 371, 377, 389, 398, 403, 407, 971 Ashtori ha-Parḥi, 986 Ashur, Amir, 14, 156, 223–53 Asiatic Museum, St. Petersburg, 56 Assaf ha-Rofe, 831 astral magic, 878–82 Astren, Fred, 3, 40, 606–31 astrology, 831–32, 839–42 astronomy, 192–94, 828, 831–32, 838–39 Asturlābī, Maryam, 421 _ Austrian National Library, 51 authority. See communal organization; judicial authority; leadership Avendauth, 657 Averroes, 813, 819 Avesta, 108 Avicenna (Ibn Sīna), 812, 814, 836, 854 Ayla, 290–92 Ayyūbid dynasty, 1, 158–60, 244, 447, 478 Babylonian academy, 1, 14–15, 26, 183, 205, 241–42, 294, 316, 354, 381, 452–54, 460, 462–65, 732 education, 17 historiographical sources, 37 liturgy, 765–68, 785 Maghrib connections, 133–34 responsa, 20 Babylonian Talmud, 3, 14, 328, 352, 381, 454, 494, 500–2, 608, 619, 678, 730 Baer, Yitzhak, 408 Baghdad, 21, 24, 69, 181, 381, 384, 387, 459, 463, 473, 618, 752

1031 Bahya Ibn Paquda, 25, 72, 808–12, 851, 895–96, _ 915–16, 919 Bakhos, Carol, 84 Balādhurī, Ahmad, 392 _ of Jerusalem, 395 Baldwin I, King Balia, Isaac, 505 Ballard Ottoman Rug, 1004 Bāmiyān, 342, 351 Banū ʿAwf, 278 Banū Aws, 271, 281, 377 Banū Ḥāritha, 262 Banū Hilāl, 139, 403 Banū Hūd, 899 Banu Isrāʾīl, 260 Banū Jafna, 264 Banū Janba, 292 Banū Khazraj, 259, 269, 271 Banū Nadīr, 102, 104, 259–62, 266, 270, 273–74, _ 283, 378–79 279–81, Banū Najjār, 257 Banū Qaynuqā‘, 104, 261, 277–79, 378 Banū Qurayza, 101, 104, 259–62, 270, 281–82, 377–78 _ Banū Shutayba, 264 _ Banū Sughmār Family, 543 Banū Sulaym, 403 Banū Thaʿlaba, 264, 266 Bāqillānī, Abū Bakr, 41 Bar Hebraeus, Gregory, 347, 475 Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 ce), 201 Baradānī, Joseph, 786 Bareket, Elinoar, 144 Baron, Salo, 17, 66, 93, 408, 620, 974 Bashyachi, Elijah, 511, 599, 990 Bashyachi, Moses, 39 Basnage, Jacques, 44 Basra, 384 Bat_ Yeʾor, 109 Batalyawsī, Ibn al-Sīd, 910 _ of Badr (624 ce), 265, 276 Battle Battle of Khandaq (627 ce), 281, 283 Battle of Uhud (625 ce), 267 Baybars, 215_ bayt al-midrās, 269–70 beadles, 480 Bedouins, 129, 204, 273, 280, 283–84, 647 Beer, Peter, 45 Beeri, Tova, 26 Beeston, F. L., 318 Beinecke Library, Yale University, 52 beit din, 132–34, 738–39 beit midrash, 132, 134, 518 Beit-Arié, Malachi, 669, 673–74, 684

1032 belles lettres, 26, 923–25 form and style in golden age poetry, 930–33 Hebrew belles lettres in the East, 937–42 Hebrew golden age, 925–30 legacy of, 943–44 major poets, 933–37 medieval theory, 942–43 Ben Ezra Synagogue, Cairo, 55, 166, 335, 414, 995, 997 Ben Nissim family, 542 Ben Tehillim (Son of Psalms), 934 Ben Yījū family, 149 Ben Yijū, Abraham, 239, 243, 252 Ben Zvi Institute, Jerusalem, 52, 360 Benaiah b. Seʿadyah, 248 Benjamin of Tudela, 37, 206, 217, 234, 238, 336, 338, 340, 343, 346, 350, 354, 372, 379, 383, 385, 387, 389, 392, 398, 463, 473–74, 630, 1005 Ben-Sasson, Menahem, 9, 55, 127–62 Ben-Shammai, Haggai, 22, 571–604 Beraita de-Mazalot, 831 Beraita de-Shmuʾel, 831, 833 Berber dynasties, 11, 128, 180, 189, 402, 404, 651. See also Almohad dynasty; Almoravid dynasty Berger, David, 505 Bernard de Gordon, 663 betrothal ceremonies, 519, 549 biased sources, 35–36, 167 Bible, 9, 621 book production, 671, 677, 686, 692 education, 486, 504–6 Hebrew poetry, 932 illuminated manuscripts, 1008–11, 1010, 1013–16, 1016 language and translations, 359–60, 638–39, 649, 664 Bible of Arragel, 665 biblical exegesis, 23, 352–54, 493, 701–2 biblical linguistics and poetics, 708–14 idea of peshat, 720–25 Karaism, 80,_ 583–91, 702–5 midrashic forms, 59, 77 rabbinism, 705–8 rationalism, 714–20 Biblioteca Palatina, Parma, 51 Biblioteca Rosenthaliana, University of Amsterdam, 51 Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 50, 1008, 1011 Bilāl b. Jarīr, 239 birth, 514–15 Bīrūnī, Abū Rayhān, 41, 859 _ Blau, Joshua, 646–48 Bodleian Library, Oxford University, 50 Bohak, Gideon, 24, 864–89

index Bonfil, Robert, 990 Bonsenyor, Jafudà, 659 Book Intimating the Ensemble of Theoretical and Practical Components, 594 Book of Abrogation of the (Mosaic) Law, 952 Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 705 Book of Bliss, 592 Book of Comfort after Distress, 526 Book of Commandments, 596, 723 Book of Comparison between the Hebrew and Arabic Languages, 707 Book of Concealment, 594 Book of Daniel, 978, 987 Book of Definitions, 804 Book of Discussion, 707, 709, 712, 942 Book of Doctrines and Beliefs, 797 Book of Gardens, 584, 704, 988 Book of God’s Unity, 592 Book of Imaginary Circles, 910 Book of Knowledge, 491, 817–18 Book of Laws (Anan b. David), 572 Book of Laws (Japheth b. Eli), 597 Book of Laws (Nihāwandī), 349 Book of Lights and Watchtowers, 13, 573, 597, 703, 961, 988 Book of Precepts, 703, 731, 759 Book of Reflection, 599 Book of Remedies, 831 Book of Riches, 590 Book of Roads and Kingdoms, 181, 985 Book of Roots, 708 Book of Rules, 703 Book of Simples, 846 Book of Simplification and Elucidation, 856 Book of Testimony and Legal Documents, 753 Book of the Properties of Letters, 906 Book of the Wars of the Lord, 704, 988 Book of the Wonders of India, 228 Book of Tradition, 38 Book on Spirit and Soul, 805 book production, 21, 666–70 availability of books, 670–73 bindings, 696–98 book forms and structures, 687–91, 690 book prices, 676–79 contexts and modes of, 673–76, 675 copying and ruling guidelines, 693–95, 694 Hebrew script, 695–96 inks, 685–87 Karaism, 582 materials, 681–86, 686 scribes, 679–81 sizes and formats, 691–93 Books on Language, 504 Botticini, Maristella, 20, 376

index Brack, Jonathan, 349 Brann, Ross, 8, 64–90, 195 Braudel, Fernand, 4 Brethren of Purity, 710, 837, 855 British Library, 50, 357, 1009 Brody, Robert, 502 Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, 50 Bukhārā, 344, 359, 361 Bulb and Flower, 986 Bulliet, Richard, 180, 383 business partnerships, 432, 433, 441 Busrā, 272, 290–92 _ Bustanay b. Haninay, 473 Buzūrg b. Shahriyār, 228 Byzantium, 107, 111–12, 128, 147, 201, 203–4, 263, 387, 581, 603, 608, 829 Caesarea, 392 Cairo, 204, 398, 401, 415, 582, 774 Cairo Genizah, 3–6, 9–10, 66, 129, 143, 182, 975–76 art, 28, 994, 1004, 1011, 1017, 1025 book production, 667–71, 674, 677, 683, 688, 692, 695, 698 demography, 20, 20, 371 economic life, 19, 415–22, 426, 429, 435, 438, 446 education, 484–85, 497, 499 Egyptian Jews, 143–44, 147–48, 151, 160, 161, 399 family life, 561–62, 564, 566 India Book, 223, 234–36, 238 Islamic East, 336, 341, 349, 352, 355–56 life/annual cycles, 523–24, 528, 532, 534 liturgy, 776–77, 781, 783 magic, 865, 868, 876, 878, 883 manuscript collections, 50, 54–62 messianism, 78, 629 Muslim-Jewish relations, 87, 120 religious and communal organization, 60–61, 451, 453, 455, 461, 464–65, 467, 469, 479–80 science, 834, 837, 839–40, 842, 846 Sicily, 207–9, 212–13, 218, 403 Syria, 206, 216, 394, 397 Yemen, 239, 241, 243 calendars, 321, 466, 625, 838 caliphate of Córdoba, 169, 180, 189, 899 Cambridge University, 50 camel ownership, 274 cantors, 480 capital punishment, 171, 745, 951 caravan trade, 274 carpets, 1002–5 Carthage, 128 Castro, Americo, 168

1033 casus belli, 277, 279 Catherine the Great, 54 cemeteries, 244, 244, 282, 300, 305, 341, 526 censuses, 372 central Arabia, 327–28 Central Library, Zurich, 51 ceramics, 1020–23, 1021 charity, 400, 426, 448, 478, 481, 520, 524, 532, 543, 672 Chazan, Robert, 8 Chennamangalam, 251 Chetrit, Joseph, 651 Chiesa, Bruno, 988 childhood, 515–17 China, 13, 228, 362–66 Chinggis Khan, 344 Christian Spain, 748 Christianity, 93, 98, 152, 312, 317 Andalus, 171–73, 181 Crusades, 214–18 dhimma policy, 112 magical practices, 881–82 modern-period sources, 44–45 Norman rule of Sicily, 214 sources of Christian views, 43–44 Chronicle of 754, 611 Chronicle of Ahimaaz, 38 Chufut-Kale, 579 churches, 177, 320 Chwolson, Daniel, 54–55 circumcision ceremonies, 515 clothing, 17, 28, 175, 525, 529, 1005–7 Cochin, 252 codex form, 689–91, 775 Cohen, Gerson D., 186 Cohen, Mark R., 8, 18, 67, 70, 92–122, 144, 418, 477, 481 Cohen, Mordechai Z., 23, 701–26 Cola dynasty, 232 Columbia University, New York, 52 commensality model, 18 Commentary on the Mishnah, 73, 509, 730, 990 commerce. See trade communal organization, 132–33, 450–52 Egypt, 152–56, 470–72 exilarchate, 472–76 gaonate role and function, 452–60 geonim and local leaders, 460–62 Iraqi geonim, twelfth century onward, 462–65 Islamic East, 345 local communities, 479–82 Palestine geonate overview, 465–67 Palestine geonate’s personnel and functions, 467–70 territorial leadership, 476–79

1034 community of Israel, 303–4 Compendium of Chronicles, 348 Comprehensive Guide for the Servants of God, 737 conquest treaties, 108, 111, 118 Constantine VII, Byzantine emperor, 656 Constantinople, 578 Constitution of Medina, 13, 67, 103–8, 108, 262–65 contracts, 746–47 Controversy of the Karaites and the Rabbanites, 595 Convento de Las Dueñas, Córdoba, 996 conversion, 118, 171, 180, 226, 247, 297, 316–18, 447, 984. See also forced conversion Coplas de Yosef, 652 Copper Instrument, The, 193 copperplate inscriptions, 228–33, 229, 232 Copts, 161, 220, 477, 981 Córdoba, 166, 173, 179, 183, 628 court notebooks, 155 court systems, 217, 442, 455, 459, 477, 479, 742, 746. See also judicial authority courtiers, 417, 437, 503 crafts production, 431 credit relationships, 441 Crimean Peninsula, 578 Crone, Patricia, 104, 615 Crusader period, 61, 214–18, 393, 395, 630 Cuenca, 998 cultural assimilation, 65, 167, 185, 443 cultural historiography, 69 Cyrenaica, 130 Damascus, 154, 179, 204, 206, 217, 386–90, 410, 467 Damascus Document, 573 Dammūh, 535–37, 671 Dandān-Uiliq, 350, 362, 685 Daniel b. Azariah, 136, 470 Daniel b. Eleazar, 463 Daniel b. Ḥisday, 475 Dār al-Ḥikma, Baghdad, 673 dār ʿilm (house of knowledge), 577 Dār Simhah Synagogue, 335, 353 _ Darb al-Bakra, 325, 326 Da’ʾūd b. ‘Imrān, 676, 695 David (Aluel) b. Yesha, 859 David b. Amram, 588 David b. Boaz, 588, 590 David b. Daniel, 154, 155, 477, 531 David b. Seʿadyah, 735–36 David b. Zakkay, 459, 475 Dāwūd b. Abī Nasr, 857 Day of Atonement,_ 531–32 De Piera, Meshullam, 642 De Rossi, Giovanni Bernardo, 51

index Dead Sea Scrolls, 573, 625 death, 524–27 Della Pergola, Sergio, 377, 380, 385 demography, 20–21 Andalus, 165, 406–9 Egypt and North Africa, 397–406 Iraq and Iran, 380–87 Maghrib, 130–32 pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia, 374–80 sources and methods, 371–74 Syria and Palestine, 387–97 demon summoning, 875–78, 877 DePiera, Shelomo, 794 dhimma policy, 108–13, 122 dhimmī people, 18, 24, 60, 102, 752. See also Pact of ‘Umar Andalus, 176–77 dhimma policy, 108–13, 122 Islamic East, 346, 385 persecutions of, 114, 220 Yemen, 226 Dhū al-Jadr, 274 Dhū Nuwās, 375 dictionaries, 600, 648, 704 differentiation systems, 118 Dimyātī, al-Sadīd, 857 _ dina de-malkhuta dina, 743–44 Dioscorides, 24, 28, 192, 657 Diqduq (The Grammar), 705 divorce, 18, 551, 558–62 Divrei Yosef, 476 dīwāns, 928–29 documentary texts, 57, 68 domestic violence/abuse, 553–58 donations, 530 Donner, Fred M., 96, 105, 106 Donnolo, Shabbetai, 131, 655, 831, 833 dowry payments, 550, 553 Drory, Rina, 27 dualism, 313–14 Dubnow, Simon, 379 Dunash b. Labrat, 89, 184, 639, 641, 648, 706, 791, 925 _ Dunash b. Tamīm, 805, 833, 838, 934 Dunhuang, 363, 685 Duran, Simeon b. S ̣emah, 748, 758, 859 _ Duran, Solomon b. Simeon, 733, 748, 758, 860 Duties of the Heart, 808, 851, 895, 915–16 eastern Arabia, 328 Eber, Irene, 366 Eckstein, Zvi, 20, 376 economic life, 15, 19, 131, 177, 412–17. See also trade Cairo Genizah overview, 417–22

index early foundations, 443–47 Islamic attitudes, 422–27 Islamic East, 349–52 Islamic market, 440–43 late Middle Ages, 447–48 marriage, 553 Mediterranean Islamic economy, 427–40 Edessa, 215 education, 17, 21, 148, 434 accomplishments of geonim and rishonim, 510–11 Andalus, 183, 186 character education, 506–7 Ghazālī’s theory, 507–8 higher level, 497–501 instruction, 496 Jewish practice, 494–96, 516–17 Jewish theory, 487–90 Karaism, 511–12 Maimonides’ theory, 508–10 seven sciences, 492–94 sources, 484–86 subject matter, 490–92 Egron, 360, 504, 648 Egypt, 10–12, 18, 127 Ayyūbid dynasty, 158–60 biblical exegesis, 707–8 communal structure, 152–56 demography and migrations, 20, 134, 146–48, 397–406 Jewish relations with the state, 149–51 Jewish-Muslim-Christian relations, 151–52 Karaism, 578 Mamlūk dynasty, 160 Moses and Abraham Maimonides, 156–58 scholarship, 148–49 sources overview, 141–44 trade, 145–46, 445 transformation of, 140–41 El Tránsito Synagogue, 996–1000, 999 Eldad ha-Dani, 985 Eleazar b. Jacob ha-Bavli, 27, 940, 943 Elements, 835 Eli b. Israel, 601 Elijah b. Abraham, 39, 595 Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, 467 Elizur, Shulamit, 767 Elman, Yaakov, 505 emancipation, 167 embeddedness, 19, 418, 422, 446 encyclopedias, 854–55 Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, 6–7, 29 engagement, 549 England manuscript collections, 49–50 Ephraim b. Buyaʿa, 694

1035 Ephraim b. Saʿīd, 339, 350 Ephraim b. Zafrān, 848 Epistle of Consolation, 954 Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaʾon, 452, 474, 980 Epistle on Contemplation, 905 Epistle on Letters, An, 913 Epistle on Martyrdom, 990 Epistle to Yemen, 73, 246, 627, 630, 990 Epistles of the Sincere Brethren, 25, 898, 909, 911 epistle-writing, 924 Erder, Yoram, 625 Es Ḥayyim (Tree of Life), 595 _ Eshkol ha-Kofer (Cluster of Henna), 602–3 esotericism, 908 Ethiopia, 375 Ets Haim, Amsterdam, 51 Euclid, 835 Exalted Faith, The, 815, 982 excommunication, 470, 744 exilarchate, 18, 472–76 extended family, 552–53 Ezekiel ha-Kohen, 789 Ezobi, Joseph, 493 Ezra the Scribe, 953, 962, 966 Fadak, 273, 286–87 family life adolescence, 563–65 concept of family, 540–42 functional family units, 542–43 legal age and processes, 548–52 parent-child relations, 562–63, 565 polygyny, 559–60 role of marriage, 545–48 sibling relations, 565–67 slaves as kin, 543–45 spousal relations, 552–59 termination of marriage, 560–62 Fārābī, Abū Nasr, 716, 815, 817, 835, 854 _ Faraj Allāh b. Saghīr, 857 Fārisī, Abū Bakr, 859 Fārisī, Salmān, 273 Fārs, 340 Fāsī, David b. Abraham, 600, 704 Fātimid dynasty, 11, 18, 60, 99, 140, 149, 153, 160, _ 203–8, 234–35, 383–84, 400, 435, 467, 478 Fayyūmī, Nethanel, 78, 851, 957 Feast of Tabernacles, 530, 532, 535 Feast of the New Year, 531 Fenton, Paul B., 903 Ferrario, Gabriele, 24, 825–62 Festival of Lights, 533 festivals, 529 Fez, 130, 132, 404–5 Filastīn, 390 _

1036 Firestone, Reuven, 97 Firkovich collections, 53–56, 342, 583, 1009 Firkovich, Abraham, 54–55, 603 First Temple, 380 Fīrūzkūh, 351, 354 Fischel, Walter, 5, 16, 332, 340, 345, 351 Fityawn, Thaʿlaba King, 266, 271 _ flagellation, 744 Fleischer, Ezra, 781, 793 food, 28 forced conversion, 99, 110, 128, 130, 172, 196, 244, 631 Formation of the Fetus, 831 Foundation of the World, 857 Fount of Knowledge, 43 Four Captives story, 130, 183, 385, 406 France manuscript collections, 50 Franco, Abraham, 246 Frankel, Zacharias, 46 Franklin, Arnold E., 450–82 Franks, 214–16 Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, 215, 218, 395 Freidenreich, David, 28 Frenkel, Miriam, 17–19, 28, 153, 481, 498, 514–39, 540–67, 676 Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS), 59 Friedland, Moses Aryeh Leb, 56 Friedländer, Israel, 614 Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, 19, 157, 884 funerals, 524–26 Fustāt, 18, 134, 155, 157, 166, 240, 242, 399–401, _ 415, _ 467, 470–72, 477, 480, 547, 675 Gabès, 132 Gafni, Isaiah, 15 Galeano, Moses, 861 Galen, 843, 849 Galilee, 309, 314, 316 Gamliel, Ophira, 253 Gan Eden, 599 Gans, David, 38 gaon, office of, 17, 135, 452–54 relations with local leaders, 460–62 role and authority, 454–60 Garden of the Intellect, 77 Gedaliah b. Yahyā, 38 _ 46, 48, 95, 167 Geiger, Abraham, Generations of the Ages, 974, 981 Genoa, 433 geographic nisbas, 420, 446 Gerard of Cremona, 657 Gerber, Jane S., 10, 164–97 Germany manuscript collections, 50 Geschichte der Israeliten, 47 Geschichte der Jehudim, 46

index Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 65 Ghassānid tribe, 263–64, 289 Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid, 17, 489–90, 507–8, 813, 815 Ghazan Khan, 346–47 Ghaznī, 342, 351 Ghūr province, 337, 341, 344, 346, 354 Gil, Moshe, 5–6, 20, 105–6, 207, 332, 356, 375, 382, 386 Gindin, Thamar E., 335 girls’ education, 497, 517 Glaser, Eduard, 299 Goal of the Sage, The, 25, 911 God, names of, 298, 304, 313 Goitein, S. D., 3–5, 20, 66, 69, 75, 97, 144, 145, 150–51, 159, 208, 224, 376, 382, 389, 399, 476, 484, 495, 505, 975 Goldberg, Jessica, 19–20, 145, 206, 213, 235, 412–48 golden age myth, 65, 92, 169, 185, 976–77 Goldman, Brendan, 12, 199–221 Goldreich, Amos, 916 Goldschmidt, Lazarus, 51 Goodman, Lenn, 70 Gottheil, Richard, 390 governmental economic functions, 435–38 Grabar, Oleg, 993 Gracian, Zerahiah, 663 Graetz, Heinrich, 48, 64–66, 167, 379 Grammar of Early Judaeo-Persian, 335 Granada, 89, 114, 164–65, 169, 179, 195, 407, 409, 934, 936 Gratz College Anniversary Volume, 485 Great Revolt (66–73 ce), 375 Greek language, 110 Greek tradition, 2, 14, 23, 603, 656–57, 796, 829, 833, 843 Grégoire, Abbé, 45 Grief, Avner, 213 Guide for Physicians, 849 Guide for the Perplexed, 26, 28, 247, 465, 671, 679, 712, 818, 823, 851, 920, 956 guilds, 425 Guiscard, Robert, 211 Gunbad-i Mallaghān, 340 Gundissalinus, Dominicus, 657 Günzburg family, 56 Gurevich, Aaron, 70 habit, preeminence of, 508–10, 509 Ḥabshūsh, Hayyim, 299 Hadassi, Judah, 575, 598, 602–3, 617, 626 Hādī Zaydī Imam, 234 ḥadīth, 94, 102–3, 120, 122, 490, 501, 947, 978 Ḥadramawt, 227, 296 _

index Haggadah manuscripts, 1000 Haim, Ofir, 13, 332–66 Ḥākam II, 185, 985, 1017 Ḥākim bi-Amr Allah, 70, 114, 150, 383, 395 Hakkāri, 356 halakhic literature, 27, 47, 486, 599, 723, 728–35, 985 halakhic tradition, 3, 11, 38, 48, 59, 132–33, 139, 739, 741–42. See also Jewish law Halakhot Gedolot, 754 Halakhot Pesuqot, 691, 754 Halevi, Judah, 25, 86, 90, 189, 196, 522, 627, 650, 653, 707, 713, 717–18, 812–15, 851, 900, 916–19, 936, 938, 943, 953, 988 Halevi, Samuel, 996 Ḥalfon b. Nethanel, 146 Halicz, 579 Hamadān, 343 Hamdānī, al-Ḥasan, 309, 321 Ḥamīdullāh, Muhammad, 284 _ Ḥananel b. Ḥushiʾel, 133, 139, 729 Ha-Nasi, David, 789–90 Ḥanīfa, A., 15 Hannah bt. Israel, 339 Hanukkah, 533 Ḥarba de-Moshe, 868, 874 Ḥārith Abū Zaynab, 290 Ḥārith al-Muharriq b. ‘Amr Muzayqiyā’, 264 _ 319 Ḥārith b. Kaʿb, Ḥarīth Ibn Saʿīd, 610 Ḥarīzī, Judah, 27, 80, 87, 90, 395, 564, 650, 659, 661, 702, 939, 966 Harkavy, A., 54 Ḥarrān, 388 Hārūn, Abū Faraj, 587, 705, 711 Hary, Benjamin, 648 Ḥasan b. Sahl, 832 Hasday Ibn Shaprūt, 24, 71, 72, 89, 183–85, 192, 656, 845, 848, _897, 925 Ḥashsh Kawkab, 282 Ḥasī, 305 _ Ḥasidei Ashkenaz, 882 Ḥasnā, 269 Hayya Gaʾon, 24, 37, 138, 354, 359, 379, 455, 495, 522, 548, 572, 716, 733–34, 750, 753, 755, 789, 840, 884–86, 926 Ḥayyūj, Judah, 504, 657, 706, 708 hazzanim, 784–85, 789 _ Head of the Jews, 154, 156–58, 241, 476–79 Hebrew, 27, 46, 84, 241, 635–45. See also liturgical poetry (piyyutim) biblical exegesis, 353, 590,_ 713 book production, 695–96 Karaite writers, 580–81, 600–2 language of learning, 486, 493, 496, 504

1037 manuscript collections, 49–54, 56 poetry, 167, 185–91, 641–43 proto-scientific works, 830–31 Hebrew Bible, 45, 59, 88, 571, 583, 596, 638, 677, 709, 774 Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, 52 Hebron, 79 Heidenheim, Moritz, 51 Heikhal Shelomo, Jerusalem, 52 Hekhalot literature, 900 Henning, W. B., 341 Heraclius, Byzantine emperor, 388, 392, 608 Herbert D. Katz Center, University of Pennsylvania, 52 heresy, 40 Herman of Carinthia, 832 Hezekiah b. David, 475 Hiba b. Khalaf al-Shīnīzī, 340 hierarchy, 113–14, 119–20 High Holy Days, 530–31, 534 Ḥigrâ, 323 Ḥijāz Jews, 315, 322–27, 374, 376 Hilāl tribe, 129 Ḥimyar, 13, 225 characteristics of new religion, 297–304 end of the Jewish kingdom, 318–22 evidence of Judaism, 305–9, 375 history and conversion of, 295–97 royal inscriptions, 316–18 type of Judaism, 309–16 Hindus, 110 Hippocrates, 849 Hirschberg, H. Z., 5 Ḥisday b. Natronay, 474 _ al-Malik, 346, 611 Hishām b. ‘Abd Histoire des Juifs, 44 historiography, 22, 974–77. See also sources attitudes toward, 986–91 disciplinary perspectives, 68–71 events history, 983–85 general histories, 979–82 Jewish perceptions of Islam, 64–68 old and new genres, 977–79 travelogues, 985–86 History of Palestine, A, 5 History of the Jews (Adams), 45 History of the Jews (Milman), 45 History of the Jews in Egypt and in Syria under the Rule of the Mamluks, 160 History of the Jews of North Africa, 5 History of the Kings of Judah and Israel, 982 History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, 152 Ḥīwī al-Balkhī, 356, 622 Hofer, Nathan, 158

1038 holy shrine pilgrimages, 534–37 honorific titles, 461–62, 523 Horayat ha-Qore, 602 Horowitz, Elliott, 498 hospices, 524 hospitals, 847 Houghton Library, Harvard University, 52 Ḥudaybiyya, 284 Ḥujr, King of Kinda, 327 Hülegü Khan, 344, 347, 387 Ḥulwān, 354 Ḥumaydī, al-Saboni, 69 Ḥunayn b. Ishāq, 656 _ Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 51 Ḥusayka, 267, 271 Ḥuyayy b. Akhtab, 283 hymns, 772 _ Iberian Peninsula, 112, 652–54, 769. See also Andalus Ibn ‘Abbās, ‘Abdallāh, 266 Ibn ‘Abbās, Judah b. Samuel, 493 Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam, 397 Ibn ‘Abdūn, ‘Abd al-Majīd, 195 Ibn Abī ‘Aqīl, 391 Ibn Abī Usaybiʿa, 667 _ Ibn Abi Zimra, David, 252, 399 Ibn Abītūr, Joseph, 733, 791 Ibn Adret, Solomon, 770, 958, 1006 Ibn Amshātī family, 149 Ibn ‘Aqnīn,_ Joseph b. Judah, 488–91, 708, 846, 938 Ibn ‘Arabī, 891, 907, 912 Ibn ‘Arīf, 896 Ibn Aryeh, 628 Ibn al-Athīr, 210, 400 Ibn ‘Awkal family, 522, 542 Ibn Ayyūb, Solomon, 663 Ibn Bahrīz, Abdīshū, 835 Ibn Bājjah (Avempace), 819 Ibn Balaam, Judah, 706, 716 Ibn Barūn, Isaac, 707, 714 Ibn Battūta, 42, 251, 365, 397 __ _ Ibn Chiquitilla, Moses, 649, 657, 706, 716, 899 Ibn Danan, Seʿadyah, 982 Ibn Daud, Abraham, 15, 38–39, 90, 132, 149, 180, 183, 194, 385, 476, 627, 658, 815–17, 837, 953, 981 Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 26, 86, 193, 196, 358, 360, 504, 658 biblical exegesis, 23, 493, 702, 708, 712, 715–16, 718, 722 languages, 601, 644, 649 poetry, 937, 943 science, 839–41, 853

index Ibn Ezra, Isaac, 533, 939 Ibn Ezra, Moses, 90, 187, 196, 521, 707, 709, 712, 714–15, 852, 935, 942 Ibn Falaquera, Shem Ṭov, 805 Ibn Faqīh, 350 Ibn Fuwatī, 344, 465 _ Solomon, 85, 188, 650, 658, 791, Ibn Gabirol, 805–8, 852, 900, 928, 935 Ibn Ghiyyāth, Isaac, 179, 188, 650, 730, 769, 852, 964 Ibn Ḥasday, Abraham, 804 Ibn Ḥawwās, 209 Ibn Ḥazm, ‘Alī b. Aḥmad, 42, 896, 952 Ibn Isḥāq, 102, 104–6, 377 Ibn Jāma, Samuel, 139 Ibn Janāh, Jonah, 88, 504, 706, 708, 720–22, 845 _ , 121 Ibn Jarrāḥ Ibn Jawzī, 386 Ibn Jumay, 848, 857 Ibn Kammūna, 42, 856, 957, 966 Ibn Kaspi, Joseph, 713 Ibn Kathīr, 387 Ibn Khaldūn, 981 Ibn Khalfūn, Isaac, 926, 934 Ibn Khordadbeh, 227, 350 Ibn Killīs, Jacob, 429 Ibn Labi, Vidal, 664 Ibn Masarra al-Jabalī, 897, 905–9, 913 Ibn Migash, Joseph, 179, 503–4, 628, 730, 733, 738, 741 Ibn al-Muqaffa‘, 754 Ibn Muqammis, Dāwūd, 797 _ 193 Ibn al-Muthannā, Ibn Mutot, Samuel, 910 _ _ 830 Ibn Nadīm, Ibn Naghrella, Joseph, 114, 176, 194, 408 Ibn Naghrella, Samuel, 89, 176, 187, 190, 194, 408, 526, 706, 729, 928, 934 Ibn Nūh, Yūsuf, 587, 704, 711 _ Ibn Quraysh, Judah, 707 Ibn S ̣adīq, Joseph, 38, 812, 936 Ibn al-Sāʿī, 463 Ibn Saʿīd, Isaac, 193 Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk, 74 Ibn S ̣aqbel, Joseph, 937 Ibn Sarūq, Menahem, 72, 184, 187, 639, 706, 790, 925, 933 Ibn Sughmār family, 210, 547, 552 Ibn Taymiyya, 756 Ibn Thumna, 209, 211 Ibn Tibbon family, 659–61, 702 Ibn Tibbon, Moses, 659, 910 Ibn Ṭūlūn, Ahmad, 41, 393 Ibn Ṭūmart, 629 Ibn Ubayy, 261, 278

index Ibn Verga, Joseph, 38 Ibn Verga, Solomon, 195 Ibn Wāfid, 191 Ibn Waqār, Joseph, 856 Ibn Yaʿīsh, Solomon, 858 Ibn Zarzal, Abraham, 191 Ibn Zimra, David, 747 Ibrāhīm b. Yaʿqūb, 985 Ibrahīm b. Yūsuf, 248 Idel, Moshe, 902 Idrīsī Yahya, 404 _ hammad, 341 Idrīsī, Mu _ Ifḥām al-Yahūd, 965–67 Ifrāʾīm b. al-Ḥasan, 667 Ifrīqiya, 11, 138–39, 445 iftidā’ (ransom), 18 Iggeret Teiman, 955, 966 Ikhshīdid dynasty, 203 Ilan, Tal, 28 Īlkhānid period, 336, 346, 358–59 illuminated manuscripts, 249, 669, 680, 1007–17, 1010, 1012, 1014, 1016 Ilyās b. Ibrāhīm al-Yahūdī, 861 ‘Imād al-Dīn Zengī, 630 Immanuel of Rome, 643 Imperial Public Library, St. Petersburg, 54 Improvement of the Qualities of the Soul, 808 ‘Imrānī, 362 Imru’ al-Qays, 289, 327 In the Kingdom of Ishmael in the Geonic Period, 333 India, 1, 14, 110, 223–24 India Book, 234–36 material culture, 243–44 post-twelfth century, 251–54 rashut formula, 241–43 seventh to eleventh centuries, 227–34 trade, 236–39, 546 India Book, 4, 14, 224, 234–37 India Traders of the Middle Ages, 234 Indian Ocean, 145, 156, 217, 224–25, 228 inscriptions, 302, 305–6, 306, 310–14, 316–18, 320, 322–26, 326, 337, 342, 351 Institute of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg, 56 interconfessional sociability, 441–42 interfaith symbiosis, 66 interfaith utopia myth, 92 intolerance, 93–94 investment, 433–34 Iran, 13, 111, 343–45, 349–52, 387. See also Islamic East Iraq, 1, 14–17, 22, 146, 153, 294, 380–87. See also Baghdad Iraqi academy. See Babylonian academy Irving, Washington, 168 Isaac b. Abba Mari, 654

1039 Isaac b. Baruch, 672, 838 Isaac b. Jacob, 613 Isaac b. Samuel ha-Sefaradi al-Kanzī, 149 Isaac b. Sheshet Perfet, 748, 758 Isaac b. Simha al-Naysābūrī, 349 Isaac Israeli, _14, 141, 511, 803–5, 848–49, 857 Isaiah b. Joseph, 358 Isaiah di Trani the Elder, 139 Isaiah ha-Levi, 156 ‘Īsāwiyya, 386, 615–18 Isfahān, 386 _ Isfahānī, Abū Nuʿaym, 349 Is_hāq b. Qistār, 845 _ Ishmael (biblical), 84 Ishmael b. Ḥakmon, 149 Islām al-Samawʾal al-Maghribī, 42 Islam, Jewish perceptions of, 64 culture and consciousness, 87–90 disciplinary perspectives, 68–71 historiography, 64–68 messianism, 75–87 sources and their themes, 71–87 Islamic attitudes/policies Andalus, 174–76, 194–96 Constitution of Medina, 103–8 dhimma policy, 108–13 economic life, 422–27 ḥadīth, 102–3 Maghrib region, 129–30 myth and countermyth, 92 Pact of ‘Umar, 115–22 Prophet Muhammad’s background, 95–96 _ Qurʾān, 96–102 sociological factors, 113–15 source overview, 92–95 Islamic East Chinese world, 362–66 geographical distribution, 337–45 intellectual and religious history, 352–62 scholarship and sources, 332–37 social and economic aspects, 345–52 Islamic law, 9, 19, 121, 440, 442, 458, 502, 719, 751–60 Ismāʿīl al ‘Ukbarī, 620–22 Ismāʿīl b. Yaʿqūb, 231 Ismāʿīlī S ̣ulayhid dynasty, 235 _ 814, 903, 907–8 Ismāʿīlīsm, 586, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 52 Issuppu Irappan, 232 Istakhrī, al-Farisi, 383 Italy, 22, 51, 137–40, 147, 493, 643 Ivry, Alfred L., 23, 796–823 Jābir b. Ḥayyān, 843 Jacob b. Amram, 138

1040 Jacob b. Eleazar, 659 Jacob b. Elijah, 475 Jacob b. Makhir, 659, 661, 663 Jacob b. Moses Beirav, 747 Jacob b. Nethanel Fayyūmī, 246, 951, 955 Jacob b. Nissim Ibn Shāhīn, 132 Jacob b. Reuben, 705 Jacob b. Salīm, 242 Jacob b. Simeon, 594 Jacob of Gaeta, 860 Jacob of Nihāwand, 339 Jacoby, David, 336 Jacques (James) of Vitry, 43 Jāhiz, Abū ʿUthmān, 42 _ z, _ ‘Amr Ibn Bahr, 491 Jāhi _ _ 343 _ Jand, Japheth b. Bundār, 235–36, 239 Japheth b. David, 470 Japheth b. Eli, 83, 339, 572, 582, 585–87, 590, 592, 597–98, 617, 623, 701, 704, 710–11, 715, 962 Jarbā, 290–92 Jarrāhid Wars (983-1029), 204 Jehiel_ b. Joseph, 749 Jericho, 290–92 Jerusalem, 52, 79, 81, 111, 201, 204, 210, 214–16, 266, 393–96, 467, 578, 608 Jerusalem Temple, 531 Jesus Christ, 77 Jewish Education in Muslim Countries, 485 Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, 52 Jewish law, 18, 217, 219, 479, 728 communal regulations and local custom, 737–41 domains of legal activity, 742–47 economics, 19 extralegal influences, 747–51 halakhic decisors, 741–42 halakhic literature, 728–35 Karaism, 572, 596–600 legal theory, 735–37 marriage process, 549–52 relationship with Islamic law, 751–60 Jewish National Library, Jerusalem, 52, 56 Jewish Theological Seminary, Budapest, 51 Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, 52 Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, 6 Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam, 5, 16 Jews of Arab Lands, The, 6 Jews’ College, London, 50 Jin dynasty, 364 jizya. See taxes John of Damascus, 43 John of Nikiu, 111 John of Seville, 832

index John Rylands University Library, Manchester, 50 Jonah b. Biklārish, 845 Jonathan ha-Kohen, 749 Joseph (Yūsuf Asʾar Yathʾar), 317–20 Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder, 149 Joseph b. Menahem ha-Kohen, 135 Joseph b. Moses, 359, 747 Joseph b. Nimorad, 340 Joseph b. Nissan, 682 Joseph b. Solomon Ṭaitasaq, 861 Joseph ha-Kohen, 38 _ _ Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon, 469 Joseph Rosh ha-Seder, 676, 678 Josephus, Flavius, 45, 328, 981 Jost, Isaak M., 47 Judah b. Barzillai, 745, 747–48, 769, 840 Judah b. Daniel, 351–52 Judah b. Moses, 193, 662 Judah b. Seʿadyah, 477 Judah b. Solomon ha-Kohen, 836, 855 Judah b. Yaqar, 770 Judah Gaʾon, 354 Judah ha-Kohen b. Joseph, 149 Judeo-Arabic language, 27, 40, 58, 84, 353, 580–81, 584, 600, 645–50 Judeo-Aramaic, 300, 311, 650 Judeo-Berber language, 651 Judeo-Castilian language, 653 Judeo-Greek, 581, 602 Judeo-Italian language, 655 Judeo-Persian language, 333–35, 352–53, 357–62, 580, 650 Judeo-Provençal language, 654 Judeo-Romance languages, 653–55 judicial authority, 110, 133, 153, 455–56, 465, 468–70, 474. See also court systems Jund Filastīn, 11, 396 _ Jund Urdunn, 390, 396 Justinian, Roman-Byzantine emperor, 118 Juwaynī, 344 Kaʿb al-Ahbār, 227 _ Kaʿb b. al-Ashraf, 274, 276 Kaʿb b. ‘Amr Muzayqiyā’, 264, 289 Kabbalah, 25, 645, 772, 882, 892, 902. See also mysticism Kābul, 341 Kaffa, 579 Kāfī (Sufficient), 601 Kaganovitch, Albert, 333 Kāhina, Berber queen, 128 Kahle, Paul, 697 Kaifeng, 364–66 kalām ideology, 595, 796, 799, 801, 851 Kalila wa-Dimna, 669

index kallah assemblies, 500 Kāmil, al-Malik, 151 Kanzī, Isaac b. Samuel, 707 Kapustin, Antonin, 54–55 Karaism, 3, 12–13, 22 biblical exegesis, 23, 80, 702–5 education, 17, 511–12 Egypt, 147–48, 153, 155 Eshkol ha-Kofer (Cluster of Henna), 603 Hebrew language and Masoretic knowledge, 600–2 historiographical sources, 39–40, 55, 61, 978, 987–88 Islamic East, 356–58, 361, 385 Karaite diaspora survey, 574–79 languages and literature, 579–83 law and customs, 596–600, 750 literary and cultural legacy, 583–91 liturgy, 774–75 Muslim-Jewish relations, 80, 83 origins, 571–74 philosophy, theology, and polemics, 591–96 poets, 603 science practices, 854 Kedar, 84 Kelal Yisraʾel (Jewish collectivity), 134 Keralan Jews, 251 Keter Malkhut (Kingly Crown), 935 ketubbot, 550–51, 650, 746, 1012–13, 1014, 1026 Khan, Geoffrey, 335 Khanbaliq, 365 Khansā, 365 Khaybar, 107, 273, 282–86, 379 Khazar tribes, 72 Khazraj, 257 Khurāsān, 13, 332, 336, 341, 346, 354, 384 Khurramīs, 615–17 Khūzistān, 13, 336, 339 Khwāja Bukhārāʾī, 362 Kināna b. al-Rabī‘, 273, 283 Kinda tribe, 289 Kindī, Yaʿqūb b. Ishāq, 804 _ Kirmān, 341 Kīsh, 350 Kister, Meir J., 285, 379 Kitāb al-Anwār, 573, 584, 592 Kitāb al-Arayot, 594 Kitāb al-Bawl, 848 Kitāb al-Buldān, 351 Kitāb al-Kharāj, 121 Kitāb al-Luma‘, 708 Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik, 350 Kitāb al-Muhād ara wa-l-Mudhākara, 187 _ _ Kitāb al-Mushtamil, 705 Kitāb al-Muʿtabar, 836, 855

1041 Kitāb al-Talwīhāt, 595 Kitāb al-Tanqī_h, 708 Kitāb al-Umm,_ 121 Kitāb Jāmiʿ al-Alfāz, 704 Kitos War (115–117 _ce), 140 Kizilov, Mikhail, 55 Kochi, 231–33, 232, 251 Kodungallur, 231–33, 232, 251 Kollam, 228–31, 229 Kostandini, Joseph, 602 Kozodoy, Maud, 24, 825–62 Krakowski, Eve, 519, 545 Kramer, Joel, 74 Krochmal, Nahman, 46 Kuzari, 813, 851, 900, 916–19, 974, 975, 988 Lambourn, Elizabeth, 14, 223–54 Land of Edom, 139 Land of Israel, 10–12, 15, 134–36, 467, 616, 768, 771, 773, 781, 947, 986 land ownership, 429 Langermann, Y. Tzvi, 825, 828, 830, 842, 846 language learning, 496 languages, overview of, 634–37 Hebrew, 637–45 Judeo-Arabic, 645–50 Judeo-Aramaic, 650 Judeo-Berber, 651 Judeo-Persian, 650 Judeo-Romance, 651–55 Lasker, Daniel, 603 Lassner, Jacob, 87–88 law. See Islamic law; Jewish law Laws of Sanhedrin, 757 Lazard, Gilbert, 334 Lazarus-Yafeh, Hava, 70, 951 leadership, 176, 423, 448 Egypt, 154–55 Maghrib, 135–36 territorial, 476–79 leather scrolls, 682 Lebdī, Joseph, 146 Lecker, Michael, 13, 104, 106, 108, 255–92 Lectures on a New History of the Jews, 46 Lehmann family, 52 Leiden University Library, 51 Leningrad Codex, 680, 691, 692, 693, 698, 1009 letter mysticism, 912–15 Letters of the Brethren of Purity, The, 859 Levant, 217 Levi b. Japheth, 592, 597–99, 705 Levy-Rubin, Milka, 106, 109, 119–20, 121 Lewcock, Ronald, 225 Lewis, Bernard, 69 Libson, Gideon, 27, 728–60

1042 Libya, 128 Lieberman, Phillip I., 371–448 Liebes, Yehuda, 891 life cycle. See also annual cycle adolescence, 517–19 childhood, 515–17 death, 524–27 marriage, 519–22 old age, 522–24 pregnancy and birth, 514–15 Lithuania, 579 liturgical poetry (piyyutim), 9, 26, 84, 188, 528, _ 762–63, 768, 780–81, 928 Andalus, 790–94 decline of, 794 Jewish-Muslim relations, 95, 111 language, 640–41 late Eastern compositions, 788–90 late Eastern overview, 781–85 late Eastern poets, 785–88 pre-classical and classical East, 781–83 science concepts in, 851–52 liturgy, 26, 60, 762–63 Babylonia and Land of Israel, 765–68 bifurcation of rights, 768–71 Genizah sources, 776–77 Karaism, 774–75 mysticism and the Sephardic impact, 771–73 physical media, 775–76 Talmudic legacy, 763–65 women, 773–74 local communities, 479–82 local officials, 456–57, 460–62, 468, 479 logic, 834–35 London Beth Din, 50 Lorca, 998, 1002 Löwisohn, Solomon, 46 loyalties of category, 114 Lucena, 166, 179, 407, 628, 852 Luck (Volhinya), 579 Luria, Isaac, 772 Lutzki, Simhah Isaac, 40 Luzzatto, Samuel David, 48 Maʿallā, 244 MacKenzie, D. N., 334 Madāʾin S ̣ālih, 325 _ Madīnat al-Zahrā’, 189 Madīnī family, 208 Madmūn b. Ḥasan, 242 _ Madmūn b. Japheth, 239, 241, 522, 546 _ madrasas, 501 Maghrib, 10–11, 71 demography, economy, and social structure, 130–33, 457

index geopolitics, 127–28 intercommunal framework, 136–37 international connections, 133–36 migration, 137–40, 147, 406 Muslim-Jewish relations, 129–30 sources and scholarship, 127–29 magic, 3, 24, 864–65 aims and techniques, 870–74 contention, 886–87 demon summonings, 875–78, 877 origins and transmissions of, 874–75 practitioners and clients, 882–86 religious practices, 887–90 sources, 62, 865–70, 869 talismanic/astral magic, 878–82 Mahalla, 537 _ Mahberet, 648, 706 _ bi-llāh, 203, 615 Mahdī Maimon b. Joseph, 954 Maimonides, Abraham, 26, 81, 143, 154, 157, 246, 672, 708, 734, 738, 756, 772, 794, 919 Maimonides, David, 218 Maimonides, Moses, 26, 38, 141, 143, 148, 194, 246, 405, 423, 566, 666, 745–46 art, 993, 1018 biblical exegesis, 23, 707, 712–13, 715, 717–19, 723–25 education, 489, 491–92, 503, 508–10 Egypt political career, 156 historiography, 989–90 Jewish law, 729–33, 736, 740, 742–43, 748, 755–58, 756, 759 languages, 88, 352, 644, 660, 695 liturgy and poetry, 770, 938 marriage, 546, 551, 553, 556, 560 messianism, 607, 627, 630 Muslim-Jewish relations, 73–74, 81 philosophy and mysticism, 817–23, 920 polemics, 951–54, 966 science, 849–50, 853 Main Points of Difference and Agreement between the Two Teachers Abū ʿAlī and Abū al-Surrī, 598 Majrītī, Maslama, 911 _ 1, 231–32, 238, 243 Malabar, Malik al Ramlī, 623–24 Malkīkarib Yuhaʾmin, 297 Mamlūk dynasty, 1, 160, 215, 219–21, 397, 447, 478 Ma’mūn (caliph), 474 Maʾmūn of Toledo, 191 Mangup, 579 Mann, Jacob, 152, 341, 476, 612 Mann, Vivian B., 28, 993–1026 Mansūr, Abū Jaʿfar, 383, 613, 615, 832 _

index Mantabia, Joseph, 397 manufacturing professions, 419, 421, 431 maqāma, 27 Maqāma of the Astrologer, The, 87 Maqdisī, Abū Nasr, 41, 206 Maqnā, 290–92 _ Maqrīzī, Aḥmad b. ‘Alī, 981 Mar ‘Uqba, 475 Margariti, Roxani, 238, 243 Margoliouth, D. S., 318 Marīnid dynasty, 130 marketplaces, 113, 177, 181, 272, 274–76, 435, 440–43 marriage, 18, 237, 519–22 legal age and processes, 156, 548–52 polygyny, 559–60 role in family life, 545–48 spousal relations, 552–59 termination of, 560–62 Martin Buber Society of Fellows, Hebrew University, 140 Martyrdom of Azqīr, The, 317 Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, 269 Marwān b. Muhammad, 614 _ 967–68 Masālik al-Nazar, _ Basra, 832 Māsarjawayh of _ 24, 658, 831 Māshāʾallāh b. Atharī, Mashrabat Umm Ibrāhīm, 270 Māsika, 269 Maslama al-Majrītī, 657 Masliah b. Elijah,_ 208 _ h_ Gaʾon, 25, 150, 242, 883 Maslia _ _ tradition, 602, 621–22, 640, 648 Masoretic Massignon, Louis, 413 Masʿūdī, Abu al-Ḥasan, 41 Materia Medica, 24, 28, 192, 657 mathematics, 3, 193, 835–36 Mawhūb b. Rashīd, 259 Mazor, Amir, 447 Mazuz, Haggai, 9, 946–72 McGaha, Michael, 908, 912–14 Mecca, 96, 98, 106, 175, 256–57, 284, 376 Meccan Revelations, 891–92 Medici-Lorenzo Library, Florence, 51 medicine, 24, 62, 183–84, 829, 843–44, 857–58. See also physicians Medina, 96, 98, 175, 255, 257–62, 316 Constitution of, 103–8, 108, 262–65 Jewish population, 376–79 Jewish-owned weapons and fortresses, 270–71 Muhammad’s land in Zuhra, 265–69 _ Muhammad’s war against Nadīr, 279–81 _ exile of Banū Qaynuqā‘, _ 277–79 partial Qurayza massacre, 281–82 _ trade, 271–74

1043 Mediterranean Sea, 145–46, 224–25 Mediterranean Society, A, 4–5, 144, 484 Megillat Ahimaaz, 138 Mehab, Isaac, 996 Meʾirat ʿEinayim, 40 Meiri, Menahem, 743 Menahem b. al-Fawwāl, 845 Menocal, María Rosa, 977 Meqor Ḥayyim, 805–7 merchants, 19, 113, 145, 206, 208, 226, 417–18, 438. See also trade Andalus, 170, 178 apprenticeship, 564 representative of the merchants, 239–40 mercy, idea of, 298 Mérida, 170 Merkavah literature, 900 Meshullam da Volterra, 390, 399, 401 Mesopotamia, 380, 444 messianism, 22, 112, 244, 606–7 ‘Abbāsid dyṇasty, 615–18 Islamic East, 356 Muslim conquest, 608–10 Muslim-Jewish relations, 75–87 ninth century, 618–26 twelfth century, 626–32 Umayyad period, 610–13 metalworks, 1017–20 metaphysics, 851 Mevorakh b. Seʿadyah, 154, 477 mezuzoth, 887, 888 Michael the Syrian, 475 Middle Arabic. See Judeo-Arabic language Midrash Ḥokhmah, 855 Midrash Rabbi David ha-Nagid, 981 midrashim, 77, 84–85, 111, 360, 486, 505, 678 migration, 20–21 Andalus, 177, 180, 183, 196, 406–9 economic opportunity, 445–46 Egypt and North Africa, 131, 137–40, 146–48, 397–406 Iraq and Iran, 380–87 Jewish law, 747–49 pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia, 374–80 sources and methods, 371–74 Syria and Palestine, 387–97 mikrāb, 299–303, 310 Miller, Daniel, 121 Milman, Henry Hart, 45 Ming dynasty, 365 minting, 436 Miriam bt. Benaiah, 679 Mīshawayh al-‘Ukbarī, 624–26 Mishnah, 312, 502, 572, 678

1044 Mishneh Torah, 81, 246, 358–59, 489, 491, 551, 644, 730–32, 741, 745, 755–56, 770, 817–18, 853, 956, 1018 Mizrahi, Elijah, 861 _ 1, 13, 160, 344, 346–48, 358 Mongols, monographs, legal, 734–35, 754, 853–54 Montefiore College, London, 50 Montpellier, 663 Mordecai b. Eliezer Comtino, 860 Mordechai b. Nissan, 40 moredet (rebellious wife), 18 Morocco, 127, 129, 405 Morony, Michael, 381 Mosaic Law, 594, 822, 952 Moses (biblical), 97, 822, 953 Moses b. Aaron, 360 Moses b. Asher, 1008 Moses b. Enoch, 183–84, 733 Moses b. Isaac Alashkar, 747 Moses b. Samuel, 604, 965 Moses b. Sheshet, 358, 360, 940 Moses b. Yijū, 213 Moses da Salerno, 655 Moses Darʿī, 603, 628, 941 Moses ha-Kohen, 885 mosques, 177 Mottahedeh, Roy, 114 Mourners of Zion, 357, 575, 585, 616–17, 621, 625, 704 mourning, 526 Mudéjar art style, 993, 998, 1019, 1021 Muhājirūn, 267, 269, 276 Muḥammad b. ‘Abbād, 218 Muhammad b. Kaʿb al-Qurazī, 260 _ _ Ḥarith, 916 Muhāsibī, _ Muhtawī (Comprehensive), 593 _ Mukhayrīq, 267–68 Mukhtār al-Thaqafī, 631 Munk, Salomon, 805 Muqaddasī, 291, 339, 341 Muqtadir of Saragossa, 191 Murshid (Instructor), 599 Mūsā Darʿī, Cairo, 671 Mushkā (messiah claimant), 618 Mushtamil, 601 music, 28, 785 Muslim Spain. See Andalus Muslim textual sources, 40–43 Muslim-Jewish relations, 151–52, 174–77. See also Islam, Jewish perceptions of; Islamic attitudes/policies Muʾtamin, Yusuf, 191 Mutawakkil ‘ala Allāh, 110 Muʿtazilite philosophy, 593, 703, 714, 718, 736, 798, 801

index muwashshaḥ poems, 932 Muzaffar, Muhammad, 191 _ mysticism, 25, _62, 891–95 Bahya’s Duties of the Heart, 915–16 _ Halevi’s Kuzari, 916–19 historical background, 895–902 Ibn Masarra’s works, 906–9 Ismāʿīlīsm and Epistles of the Sincere Brethren, 909–12 liturgy, 771–73 Maimonides family, 919–20 Neoplatonism vs. S ̣ūfism, 902–5 Naʿaran Synagogue, 995 Nabataean language, 324–25, 326 Nadīr._ See Banū Nadīr _ role of, 136, 154, _ 476–79, 983 nagid, Nahāwandī, Benjamin, 574–75, 580, 591, 596, 624, 703, 720 Nahmanides, 216, 390, 702, 713, 717, 725, 748 _ Nahrawānī, 787 Nahray b. Nissim, 522, 677 Najrān, 121, 319–20, 320 names, of God, 325–27 names, personal, 228, 229, 322–25 Narayanan, Muttayil G. S., 232 Nathan b. Abraham, 135 Nathan b. Jehiel, 139 Nathan b. Samuel he-Ḥaver, 524 Nathan b. Solomon ha-Kohen, 524 Nathan Ha-Bavli, 37 Nathan the Babylonian, 341, 354, 453–54, 456, 474, 498, 501, 983 National Library of Russia, Moscow, 56, 357 Natronay b. Havivay, 407 _ Natronay b. Nehemiah, 611 _ Natronay Gaʾon, 500, 500, 572, 753, 766, 885 _ Nehemiah b. Kohen S ̣edeq, 463 Nehemiah b. Solomon, 787 neo-lachrymose school, 109, 115 Neoplatonism, 25, 804–5, 808, 812, 837, 892, 901–5 Nestorian Christians, 317, 319 Neubauer, Adolf, 50 Neusner, Jacob, 380 New Christians, 172 New Wisdom, The, 856 Nicomacus of Gerasa, 836 Nihāwand, 343 Nihāwandī, Benjamin, 349, 353, 356 Nile, 144 Ningbo, 365 nisbas, 420 Nissim b. Jacob Ibn Shāhīn, 38, 133, 139, 526 non-rabbinic religious movements, 3, 15, 606–7

index Islam’s rise and Muslim conquests, 609 ninth century, 618–26 twelfth century, 626–32 Umayyad and Abbāsid periods, 610–18 Normans, 209–14 North Africa, 397–406, 707, 769, 859. See also Egypt; Maghrib northern Arabia Jews, 255 Constitution of Medina, 262–65 Fadak, 286–87 Khaybar, 282–86 Mecca and Ṭāʾif, 256–57 Medina, 257–62 Muhammad’s land in Zuhra, 265–69 _ Muhammad’s trade enterprise, 274–76 _ Muhammad’s war against Nadīr, 279–81 _ exile of Banū Qaynuqā‘, _ 277–79 partial political assassinations, 276–77 Quff and bayt al-midrās, 269–70 Qurayza massacre, 281–82 _ seven Jewish-inhabited towns, 290–92 Taymā’, 289–90 trade involvement, 271–74 Wādī al-Qurā, 287–88 weapons and fortresses, 270–71 Northern Song dynasty, 364 Noth, Albrecht, 117, 119 Nuʿmān b. Abī al-Ridā, 857 _ Obadiah da Bertinoro, 246, 252, 399, 986 Obadiah the Proselyte, 73, 629 Occasionalism, 796 old age, 522–24 Öljeitü Khan, 346 Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith, 21, 666–98 onomastics, 228, 306, 315, 322–25 oppression, 67, 175 Orah S ̣addiqim, 40 _ vs. textuality, 501–6 orality Ornament of the World, The, 977 Orthodoxy, 47 Osar Nehmad, 590 _ _ 744 ostracism, Ottensosser, David, 46 Ottoman Empire, 391, 448, 860–62, 1004–5, 1007 Oxford University, 50 Pact of ‘Umar, 8, 67, 109, 115–22, 121, 174, 176, 447, 450 Pahlavi, 231 Palermo, 403, 446 Palestine, 201, 210 demography and migrations, 147, 387–97 Karaism, 578

1045 liturgy, 767, 771 Palestinian academy, 26, 61, 153, 155, 204–6, 204–6, 217, 242, 389, 458, 465–67, 783 appointments, personnel, and functions, 467–70 authority in Egypt, 153–54 relations with Fustāt elite, 470–72 _ _ panegyrics, 927 Pantalayini Kollam, 251 paper production, 684–86, 775, 829 papyri, 141–43, 681–82, 775 parchment, 683–84, 775 parent-child relations, 562–63, 565 Passover, 325, 533 Patai, Raphael, 877 Patshegen Ketav ha-Dat, 600 Paul, Ludwig, 335 Pearce, Sarah J., 27, 634–65 pedophilia, 18 Pentateuch, 358–59, 584, 587–89, 598, 704, 711, 719 Pentecost, 534 People of the Book, 97–98, 100–1, 107–8, 119 Perahyah b. Nissim, 149 Pereq_ Rabbi Shimʿon ben Yoḥai, 948 Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, 226 Perlmann, Moshe, 964 Persia, 111, 146, 321 Persian Gulf, 328, 350 Persian language, 580 peshat, 720–25 _ of Regensburg, 343, 355, 387, 395, 464 Petahiah Peter of Cluny, 43 Peters, Richard S., 506 Philo Judaeus, 796 philosophy, 3, 23, 186, 194, 796–97 Bahya Ibn Paquda, 808–12 _ character education, 506–7 Halevi, Judah, 812–15 Ibn Daud, Abraham, 815–17 Ibn Gabirol, Solomon, 805–8 Isaac Israeli, 803–5 Karaism, 593–95 Maimonides, Moses, 817–23 science concepts, 851 Seʿadyah Gaʾon, 797–803 translations of texts, 656 Phinehas ha-Kohen b. Jacob, 782 physicians, 145, 178, 832, 844–50 physics, 836–38 pilgrimages, 534–37 Pines, Shlomo, 903, 911 Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer, 77, 830, 947 Pirqoy b. Baboy, 667 Pitron Torah, 344, 361

1046 places of worship. See churches; mikrāb; synagogues Plato, 717, 800 Plato of Tivoli, 192, 657–58 pleasure marriages, 285 Plotinus, 821, 902 pluralism, 99–101, 113, 165, 347 poetry, 26–27, 60, 923–25. See also liturgical poetry (piyyutim) _ golden age poetry, 930–33 form and style in golden age of, 925–30 Hebrew, 167, 178, 185–91, 641–43 Hebrew poetry in the East, 937–42 Judeo-Aramaic, 650 Judeo-Persian, 361 major poets, 933–37 medieval theory, 942–43 polemics, 964–65 wedding poems, 521 polemics, 9, 69, 577, 946–47 common Islamic arguments, 949–50 converts to Islam, 965–71 early works, 947–49 Karaism, 590, 595–96, 960–64 Muhammad’s Jewish Companions, 957 _ 964–65 poetry, Rabbanites in the Islamic world, 950–57 Rabbanites of Iberian origin, 958–60 poll taxes. See taxes Pope Gregory VIII, 215 Pope Urban II, 214 Portolan Chart, 1015 Portugal, 654 positive reinforcement, 487 prayer rugs, 1002–5 prayers, 60, 182, 599, 640. See also liturgy Precision of the Accents, 640 pregnancy, 514 pre-Islamic Arabia, 294, 301 central and eastern Arabia, 327–28 characteristics of Ḥimyar’s religion, 297–304 demography and migrations, 374–80 end of Ḥimyar, 318–22 evidence of Judaism, 305–9 Ḥijāz Jews, 322–27 Ḥimyarite royal inscriptions, 316–18 history and conversion of Ḥimyar, 295–97 type of Judaism in Ḥimyar, 309–16 Preussischer Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, 51 priestly families lists, 308, 314 private security, 436 procreation, 562 Profayt Duran, 38, 493 professions, 206, 349 Prophet Muhammad, 9, 13, 77, 95–108, 255 _

index attitude toward Jews, 94, 107, 174 Khaybar, 283–86 Maqnā, 292 Mecca, 256 Medina, 257, 261, 263, 270–71 ownership of Zuhra land, 265–69 partial exile of Banū Qaynuqā‘, 277–79 polemics, 946–47, 957, 961 political assassinations, 276–77 Qurayza massacre, 281–82 _ trade enterprise, 274–76 Wādī al-Qurā, 287–88 war against Nadīr, 279–81 protected people. _See dhimmī people Protestantism, 40 Provence, 643, 654, 748, 770 Ptolemy, 839, 861, 878 Pumbedita, 181, 354, 381, 454, 456, 462, 498. See also Babylonian academy punishment, 744–46 Purim, 533 Qādī al-Fādil, 74 _ _ b. Qalonymus, 659 Qalonymus Qarqaʿot ha-Diqduq, 357 qasīda poems, 931 _ Qāsim b. Ibrāhīm, 42 Qaynuqā‘. See Banū Qaynuqāʿ Qaynuqā‘ market, 272, 275 Qayrawān, 129, 132, 138, 402–3, 446, 457, 495, 502, 518–19, 522, 547 Qayyāra, Simeon, 729, 754 Qeshet u-Magen (Bow and Shield), 959 Qillir, Elazar bi-rabbi, 782 Qimhi, David, 508, 702 _ Joseph, 661 Qimhi, _ Qirqisānī, Jacob, 13, 39, 77, 84, 340, 386, 596–97, 961, 988 biblical exegesis, 353, 584, 586, 703, 710–11, 713–14 Jewish sects, 574, 607, 617, 621–25 Karaism’s origins, 571, 574–75 law, 82, 620 magic, 864 philosophy, 592 qitʿa poems, 931 _ Qubā, 282 Quff, 269–70, 277 Qūmis, 339 Qūmisī, Daniel, 83, 339, 353, 361, 394, 573–75, 580, 583, 591, 624, 626, 703, 961 Qumrān, 573 Qurʾān, 8, 40, 78, 82, 298, 306, 424, 486, 501, 622, 760, 946–47, 950, 957, 963, 1010 dhimma (protection), 108

index Islamic attitudes/policies, 94, 96–102, 174 languages of, 88 Qurʾānic exegesis, 23, 272, 277 Quraysh tribe, 96, 105, 256–57, 284 Qurayza. See Banū Qurayza _ _ rabbinic movement, 22, 36–39, 148, 217, 240, 310, 354, 466, 485, 705–8, 978 Rādhānites, 350, 363, 382 Rādhāniyya firm, 181 Rahmānān, 298, 298 _ dān, 17, 97, 532 Rama Ramle,_ 12, 392, 396, 467, 480 Rapoport, Solomon J., 46, 48 Raqilī, Abū Zakariyyā, 969 Rashbam, 722 Rashi, 493, 509, 702, 722 Rashīd al-Dīn Fadlallāh, 338, 347–49 Rashīd al-Dīn Wa_ twāt, 343 _ 96_ Rashidun caliphate, rashut formula, 241–43 Rasūlid dynasty, 247 Rātij, 267, 271 rationalism, 714–20 rationalistic mysticism, 902 Rav Kook Institute, Jerusalem, 52 Ravitzky, Aviezer, 67 Rāwandiyya, 613 Raydān palace, Z ̣afār, 295 Rāzī, Muhammad b. Zakariyya, 833, 835, 842 Reccared, _Visigoth King, 171 Reconquista, 53 Reif, Stefan C., 9, 26, 35–62, 762–78 religious hierarchy, 113–14, 118 religious life. See also communal organization Cairo Genizah demonstrations, 60–61 Iraq, 15 life/annual cycles, 537–38 relation with economic life, 423–24 religious organization. See communal organization responsa, 1, 15, 20, 143, 161, 453, 455, 458, 469, 485, 500, 548, 611, 667, 732–34, 737 Revival of the Religious Sciences, 489 rhymed prose, 933, 937 Ricci, Matteo, 366 Richard the Lionheart, 215 Ricoldo da Monte Croce, 43 Rippin, Andrew, 318 Robin, Christian Julien, 12, 294–330, 320 Rōʾī, David, 356, 630 rolls (rotuli), 689–90, 690 Roman tradition, 2 Romaniote rite, 771 Romano, David, 662

1047 Romano, Judah, 655 Rome, 323, 375 Rosenthal, Leser, 51 Rossi, Azariah de, 38 Roth, Cecil, 43–44 Royal Library, Copenhagen, 51 Rubin, Uri, 105 Rudbār, 338, 343 Russian Ascension Convent, St. Petersburg, 56 Russian manuscript collections, 53–56 Russian National Library, St. Petersburg, 597 Rustow, Marina, 150 Rūzbih b. Masliah, 341 _ _ Saba’, 295–96 Sabaic language, 299–300, 311 Sabar, Shalom, 28, 993–1026 Sabbath, 528–29, 625 Saʿd al-Dawla, 347, 349 Sáenz-Badillos, Ángel, 27, 637, 644, 634–65 Safed, 397, 882 Saffrin, A. E., 251 S ̣afiyya bint Huyayy, 285 Sahl b. Bishr, 832 Sahl b. Masliah, 353, 588–89, 595, 598 _ _ 913 Sahl Tustarī, Sahlān b. Abraham, 461 Sāʿid al-Andalusī, 184, 828, 845 Saʿīd b. Ḥasan al-Iskandarī, 967–68 Saʿīd Ibn al-Biṭrīq, 975 Saladin, 158, 215, 395 Salāma b. Saʿīd b. S ̣aghīr, 674 Salmon b. Jeroham, 39, 80, 342, 574, 585, 595, 704, 961, 987 Salomon b. Buyaʿa, 694 Samarqand, 342–43, 359 Sāmarrā’, 618 Samawʾal al-Maghribī, 356, 630, 668, 965–67 Samawʾal b. ʿĀdiyā, 289 Sambari, Joseph, 39, 476, 966 Samhūdī, Nur al-Din, 269 Samuel b. Eli, 355, 463–64 Samuel b. Hophni, 83, 462, 510, 701, 706, 714, 721, 734–36, 753, 755, 852, 952 Samuel b. Isaac, 358 Samuel b. Jacob, 674, 677, 679, 685, 694 Samuel b. Joseph ha-Kohen, 135 Samuel b. Judah, 659 Samuel b. Moses de Medina, 773 Samuel b. Moses ha-Maʿaravi, 589, 599 Samuel ha-Kohen b. Daniel, 465 Samuel ha-Nagid, 650 Samuel ha-Shlishi, 787 S ̣an‘ā’, 320, 320, 1015 S ̣an‘ā’ Pentateuch, 248–49, 249, 253

1048 Santa Maria la Blanca Synagogue, Toledo, 996 Sar Shalom, 354 Saragossa, 899 Sarakhsī, 284 Sarjado, Aaron, 502 Sasanian dynasty, 119, 201, 226, 380, 472, 608 Sawda bint Zam’a, 258 Sayf b. dhī-Yazʾan, 321 Schechter, Solomon, 29, 52 Scheindlin, Raymond P., 26, 923–44 Schiffman, Lawrence, 375 Schiller-Szinessy, Solomon Marcus, 50 Schmidt, Anton von, 46 Schocken Institute, Jerusalem, 52 Scholem, Gershom, 771, 877 schoolbooks, 1011, 1012 schools. See education Schorsch, Ismar, 48 Schwarz, Arthur, 51 science, 3, 24, 184, 191–94, 825–29. See also medicine alchemy, 839–43 astronomy and astrology, 828, 831–32, 838–39 encyclopedias, 854–55 fifteenth century, 859–62 indirect sources of activity, 850–54 Karaism, 854 logic, mathematics, and physics, 834–38 physicians, 832, 844–50 pre-tenth century, 829–33 proto-scientific works in Hebrew, 830–31 tenth to twelfth centuries, 833–55 thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, 855–59 translations of texts, 656 Yemen, 858–59 scribes, 679–81 Scroll of Abiathar, The, 983 Scroll of Antiochus, The, 980 Scroll of Esther, The, 352, 359 scrolls, 687–89 Seʿadyah Gaʾon, 14, 26, 82, 141, 355, 435, 987 biblical exegesis, 701, 705–6, 714–15, 717–18, 720–21 communal organization, 459–60, 475 education, 487, 504, 510 Jewish law, 733–36, 753, 755 languages, 88, 647–48, 655 liturgy, 766, 787–88, 793 philosophy, 797–803 poetry, 640 polemics, 951 science, 828, 833, 840, 852–53 Seʿadyah Ibn Danan, 664 Second Temple, 310, 315, 624

index Secrets of Rabbi Simon ben Yohai, The, 76–77, 76 S ̣edaqah b. Shelomoh b. Yufay, 209 Sefer Ahavah, 359 Sefer Bahir, 912 Sefer Egron, 82 Sefer Halakhot Rabbati, 730, 755 Sefer Melisa, 344, 358, 360 _ 193 Sefer Mispar, Sefer Misvot, 580, 620 _ Sefer Qabbalah, 149, 183, 476 Sefer Raziʾel, 868 Sefer Razim, 868, 874 Sefer Ṭaharah, 359 Sefer Yesirah, 827, 831, 833, 900, 914 _ Sefer Yishuv, 79 Sefer Yosippon, 22, 974, 975, 980–81 Sefer Yuḥasin, 983 Segovia Synagogue, 996 Seljūq dynasty, 209 S ̣emah b. Solomon, 474 _ Sephardic Jews, 169–70 Sephardic mystique, 168 Sergius of Rēshʿāynā, 830 Serjeant, Robert B., 106, 225 Seroussi, Edwin, 29 service professions, 421 Seth b. Japheth, 360 Severus (messiah claimant), 610 Seville, 179 sexuality, 18 Shabbetay b. Hodaviah, 131 Shāfiʿī school, 757 Shāfiʿī, Muhammand b. Idris, 121 _ Shāhīn, Mawlānā, 361 Shahrastānī, 613–14, 618 Shaked, Shaul, 335, 342, 352 Shammar Yuharʿish, 296 Sharh al-Alfāz, 705 _ Sheʾiltot, 510,_ 754 Shem Ṭov b. Joseph Falaquera, 493 Shem Ṭov de Carrion, 652, 663 Shema prayer, 763, 767, 777, 780, 889 Shemariah ben Elhanan, 89 _ b. Nathan, 149 Shemariah ha-Kohen Shepherd (messiah claimant), 611, 617 Sherira Gaʾon, 37, 39, 85, 241, 246, 354, 379, 381, 452, 474, 502, 733, 753, 840, 980 Sheshna Gaʾon, 26 Shīʿism, 615, 814, 903, 907 Shīrāzī, Shāhīn-i, 651 Shurihbiʾīl Yaʿfur, 317 sibling_ relations, 565–67 Sicily, 10, 12, 199–201, 403, 446 decline of Jewish Sicily, 218–19

index Fātimid period, 203–4, 207–8 _ in early Islamic period, 201–3 Jews Norman period, 210–14 post-Fātimid invasions, 208–10 Sijilmāsa, _132 Siman-Ṭov b. Judah, 351 Simeon b. S ̣emah, 959–60 _ 596 Simeon b. Shetah, _ _ 51 Simonsen, David, S ̣inaʿāt al-Ṭibb, 670 Sind b. ‘Alī, 828 Sīnīz, 340 sīra, 377–79 Sīrāf, 340 Sirāt al-Hādī, 234 Sisebut, Visigoth King, 172 Sitt al- Ghazāl, 554–56 Skoss, Solomon L., 601 slavery, 6, 171, 543–45 Social and Religious History of the Jews, 17, 66 social status, 423–26, 448, 524, 528 Sogdian language, 363 Sokolow, Moshe, 17, 484–512 Solomon b. Aaron Troki, 40 Solomon b. David Nasi, 598 Solomon b. Elijah, 554–56 Solomon b. Judah, 135, 455, 462, 470, 479, 523 Solomon b. Levi ha-Bouyaʾa, 1009 Solomon b. Rūjī, 356, 630 Solomon b. Samuel, 358, 360 Solomon ha-Kohen, 135, 629 Song of Songs, 712, 789 sources, types of, 35–37 Cairo Genizah, 56–62 Christian views, 43–44 Firkovich and Russian collections, 53–56 Hebrew and Jewish manuscripts, 49–53 Karaitist historiography, 39–40 modern-period Christians, 44–45 modern-period Jews, 45–49 Muslim texts, 40–43 rabbinic historiography, 37–39 South Arabian writing system, 295 Spain. See Andalus Spitzer, Leo, 74 Sri Lanka, 14, 226, 228, 239 St. Augustine, 93 St. Jerome, 170 stationers (warrāqūn), 675–76 Stein, Aurel, 362 Steinschneider, Moritz, 48, 65, 971, 974 Stern, David, 622 Stern, Samuel M., 903 Stillman, Norman, 5–6, 18, 379, 400, 408 Stillman, Yedida, 28

1049 Story of Bustanay, 984 Straits of Gibraltar, 11, 112 Stroumsa, Sarah, 70 S ̣ūfism, 25–26, 82, 447, 628, 794, 808, 893–96, 901. See also mysticism Sukkot, 532, 535 Sulaym tribe, 129, 139 Sulaymān b. ‘Abd al-Malik, 611 Sulaymān, Solomon, 786 Sulkhat, 579 Sunbādh, 615 Sura, 181, 182–83, 454, 456, 462, 498, 752, 885. See also Babylonian academy Sūs, 343 Sviri, Sara, 25, 891–921 Synagogue of Moses, Dammūh, 534–35 synagogues, 132, 175, 177, 202, 396, 480, 516, 528, 582, 673, 993–1003, 997–99, 1001, 1002, 1003 Syria, 12, 199–201 Crusader period, 214–18 demography and migrations, 387–97, 444 Fātimid period, 204–7 _ in early Islamic period, 201–3 Jews Mamlūk period, 219–21 post-Fātimid invasions, 208–10 _ Ṭabarī, Ibn Jarir, 206, 346 Ṭabarī, Rabban, 832 Ṭabaristān, 343 Tabrīz, 358 Tāhertī family, 542 Ṭāhir b. al-Aʿwar, 832 Ṭāhirid dynasty, 248 Taḥkemoni, 939 Ṭāʾif, 256–57 tāʾifa kingdoms, 168, 189–94, 408 _Taʿiz, 247 Tales of the Alhambra, 168 talismanic magic, 878–82 Talmud, 27, 42, 294, 493, 502–3, 572, 719, 844 talmudic tradition, 37, 59, 183, 494 Tamyīz (Distinction/Discernment), 593 Tang dynasty, 364 Tang-i Azao, 337, 341 Tanhum b. Sulaymān, 350 _ Tanhuma, 830 _ Taqqanot, 653 Targum, 496 Ṭāriq b. Ziyād, 406 Tartessus, 170 Tatay, 537 _ Tavim, José Alberto da Silva, 253 tax farming, 150, 401

1050 taxes, 100–2, 109, 112, 122, 174, 227, 346, 371–72, 404, 408, 436, 456, 543 trade, 216 Taʾyīd al-Milla (Fortification of the Community), 969 Taymā’, 273, 288–90, 323 Tbilisi, 622 Temple Mount, 608, 984 Ten Days of Repentance, 531 Ten Wise Jews, 984 Teruel, 1020 textiles, 446, 1005–7 Thābit b. Qurrah, 835, 878 Thamad al-Rūm, 261 Thamgh, 267–68 Theodosius II, Roman-Byzantine emperor, 118 theology Bahya Ibn Paquda, 810–11 Ibn_ Daud, Abraham, 815–16 Karaism, 591–95 Maimonides, Moses, 820–22 Seʿadyah Gaʾon, 800–1 Theology of Aristotle, 902 Thessalonika, 627 Thiqqa, Mishael al-Shaykh, 546 Tiberias, 204, 396, 467 Timotheus, Katholikos of Baghdad, 574 Tischendorf, Konstantin von, 54 Tobi, Joseph, 223, 225–27, 234, 253 Tobiah b. Moses, 590, 593, 597, 705 Tokhahat Megullah (Open Admonition), 595 _ Tables, 193, 828 Toledan Toledo, 166, 172, 186, 196, 661, 996 tolerance, 93–94, 119, 167, 176 Tomb of Samuel, 578 tombstones, 244, 245, 251 Torah, 28, 146, 312, 352, 365, 486–87, 493, 547, 562, 649, 671, 710, 811, 822, 953 Torah scrolls, 1013, 1018 Torres Balbás, Leopoldo, 407 Trachtenberg, Joshua, 865 Tractate Concerning the Order of the Generations, 982 trade, 14, 19, 113, 235, 537 Andalus, 170, 177, 181–82 Egypt, 145–46, 156, 445 India, 228, 236–40, 546 Islamic East, 349–52 Maghrib, 127, 131–32 Mediterranean, 207, 428–29, 431, 435 Muhammad’s trade enterprise, 274–76 _ northern Arabia Jews, 271–74 Sicily, 207–8, 211, 213–14 Syria, 206 Yemen, 224–27, 243

index Trakai, 579 translations, 27, 192, 582, 586, 655. See also languages, overview of Bible translations, 664–65 early Middle Ages, 656–57 fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, 663–64 twelfth to thirteenth centuries, 657–63 Transoxania, 13, 284, 344, 346 travelogues, 20, 37, 43, 372, 409, 638, 985–86 Treatise of the Garden, 707, 712, 715 Treatise on Measures, 830 Treatise on the Art of Logic, 817, 835 Treatise on the Attainment of Legal Majority and Puberty, 735 Treatment for Healthy Souls, 488 Tripoli, 204, 206, 209 Tripolitania, 127, 130 tuition fees, 494 Ṭūlūnid dynasty, 203 Tunisia, 127–28, 138 Tustar, 340 Tustarī family, 346, 350, 383, 386, 542–43, 576 Tyre, 204–5, 209, 391–92, 467 ‘Ubāda b. al-S ̣āmit, 278 ‘Ubayd Allāh al-Mahdī, 803 ‘Udhra tribe, 288 Udovitch, A. L., 975 ‘ulamā’, 159, 194–95, 423 ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-Azīz, 115 ‘Umar b. ‘Alī, 247 ‘Umar b. al-Khattāb, 79, 115, 121, 201, 257, _ _ 287, 379, 388, 473, 984 267–68, 285, Umayyad dynasty, 14, 24, 72, 110, 120, 178, 183, 202, 227, 388, 390, 610–13, 909 United States of America (USA) manuscript collections, 52–53 University of Leeds, 50 ‘Uqba b. Nāfi‘, 129 urbanism, 422, 446 ‘Uthmān b. ‘Affān, 96 Vajda, Georges, 102 Vandals, 128 Vatican, 51 Vecchietti, Giambattista, 360 Vehlow, Katja, 22, 40, 974–91 Vernadsky Library, Kiev, 56 Visigoths, 112, 128, 164, 171–72 Wādī al-Qurā, 273, 287–88, 324 Waldman, Yedael, 251 Wāqidī, Muhammad b. ‘Umar, 378 _ warrāqūn (stationers), 675–76 Wasserstein, David, 384, 406

index Wasserstrom, Steven, 69 weddings, 550 widowhood, 562 Wieder, Naphtali, 772 William of Tripoli, 43 will-writing, 524 Wissenschaft des Judentums, 46–49, 55, 65 Wolfson, Elliot R., 25 women, 28, 424–25, 425, 433, 518, 528, 544–45, 563, 773–74. See also marriage Wonders of Countries, 233 workshops, 432, 441 al-Wuhsha al-Dallāla, 531, 543 _ Yahūdī, Asad, 857 Yahyā al-Yamanī, 234 _ b. al-Ḥusayn, 234 Yahyā _ b. Irmiyā, 291 Yahyā _ b. Emēd, 351 Yaʾir Yaʾir Nativ, 493 Yakkuf, Judah, 305, 306, 310 Yangzhou, 365 Yannai, 782 Yaʿqūbī, Ahmad, 41 Yāqūt al-Ḥa_ mawī, 405 Yashar b. Ḥesed, 594 Yathrib. See Medina Yaʿūq, 300 Yazīd b. ‘Abd al-Malik, 611 Yehoshua-Raz, Ben Zion, 332 Yehudai Gaʾon, 553, 691, 729, 733, 754 Yemen, 12, 14, 107, 147, 223–24, 302. See also Ḥimyar India Book, 234–36 India trade, 236–39 Jewish communal organization, 239–41 material culture, 243–44 post-Fātimid period, 244–49 _ period, 294 pre-Islamic rashut formula, 241–43

1051 scientific activity, 858–59 seventh to eleventh centuries, 224–27 Yerivuni Alei Ozvi Berit El, 964 Yeroushalmi, David, 333, 362 Yerushalmi, Joseph b. Tanhum, 941 Yerushalmi, Tanhum, 708, 853, 856 Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, 974 Yeshiva University, New York, 52 yeshivot, 24, 134–35, 139, 402, 448, 498–506, 737. See also Babylonian academy; Palestinian academy Yeshuʿa b. Judah, 588–89, 593–94, 598, 705, 720 Yivasheʿun Qehaleikha ha-Omedim ba-Leilot, 964 Yom Kippur, 17, 97, 531–32, 781 Yose b. Yose, 781 Yoshida, Yutaka, 363 Yuan dynasty, 365 Yūdghān of Hamadān, 356, 615, 617 Yūsuf al-Basīr, 83, 588, 592–94, 598–99, 705, 963 _ Yūsuf b. Bakhtawayh, 577 Yūsuf b. Tāshufīn, 628 Zacuto, Abraham, 38, 193, 860, 982 Z ̣afār, 295, 305, 318 Ẓāhir li-I‘zāz Dīn Allāh, 99 Zakkay b. Moses, 677, 679 Zand, Michael, 332, 343 Zanj Rebellion (869–883 ce), 384 Zayd b. Thābit, 269, 288 Zaydī Imamate, 234 Zaynab bt. Ḥārith, 103, 286 Zayton, 365 Zedekiah b. Abraham Anav, 139 zījes, 827–28 Zinger, Oded, 9, 125–62 Zīrid dynasty, 70, 89, 209, 403 Zohar, 891–92 Zoroastrians, 108, 112, 119, 228, 622 Zuhra, 259, 265–69, 274, 277 Zunz, Leopold, 46, 48 Zurʿa b. Ibrāhīm, 282