A History of Palestine, 634 1099 0511004397, 9780511004391

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A HISTORY OF PALESTINE, 634–1099

Moshe Gil

Cambridge University Press

"

This is the first comprehensive history of Palestine from the Muslim conquest in 634 to that of the Crusaders in 1099. It is a translation and revised version of volume I of Palestine during thefirst Muslim period which was published in Hebrew in 1983 and presents an authoritative survey of the early mediaeval Islamic and Jewish worlds. Professor Gil begins by reviewing the political and military events in Palestine before and after the Arab invasion. Later chapters explore the Abbasid, Tiiliinid, Ikhshidid and Fatimid periods, during which time Palestine was an almost perpetual battlefield for states, armies and factions. Against this backdrop of conflict and administrative changes, the author portrays the everyday life of Palestine and its inhabitants. He looks at the economic history of Palestine - its agriculture, transport facilities, exports and systems of taxation - as well as the religious status ofJerusalem, the nature of Islam's tolerance towards Jews and Christians and the status, leadership and customs of the Christian populace. Specific attention is paid to the history of Palestinian Jews under Muslim rule. Professor Gil details their topography, economic activities and religious life; he explores the Karaite and Samaritan conimunities and discusses the role of the most prominent Jewish institution, the yeshiva. A history of Palestine, 634-2099 is based on an impressive array of sources. Professor Gil has carefully read the more than 1,000 documents of the Cairo Geniza collection and these are paralleled by Arabic, Syriac, Latin and Greek material. This monumental study will be read by students and specialists of mediaeval Islamic and Jewish history and religious studies and by anyone interested in the history of the Holy Land.

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A history of Palestine, 634-1099

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A

HISTORY OF

P A L E S T I N E634-1099 , Moshe Gil

5E

Translated from the Hebrew by Ethel Broido

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Buil&ng,Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 40 West 20th Street, New York, N Y 1 0 0 11-421 1,U S A 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia This is a revised edition of Palestine During the First Muslim Period ( 6 3 4 1 0 9 9 ) Originally published in Hebrew by Tel Aviv University in 1983 First published by Cambridge University Press, 1992 as A history of Palestine, 6 3 4 1099 English translation

0 Cambridge University Press, 1992

First paperback edition published 1997 Photoset and Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Books, Trowbridge This book was published with the assistance of grants from the following: The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, the Louis and Minna Epstein Fund of the American Academy for Jewish Research, and the Taylor-Schechter Geniza Research Unit, University of Cambridge

British Library cataloguing in publication data Gil, Moshe A history of Palestine, 634-1099. 1. Palestine, 640-1 9 17 I. Title 956.9403

LiOrary of Congress cataloguing in publication data Gil, Moshe, 1921[Erets-YiSra'el ba-tekufah ha-Muslemit ha-rishonah (634-1099), 1, Iyunim historiyim. English] A history of Palestine, 634-1099 / Moshe Gil. p. cm. Translation of v. 1 of: Erets-Yiira'el ba-tekufah ha-Muslemit ha-rishonah (634-1099). Includes bibliographical references and index. I S B N 0 521 40437 1 (hardcover) 1.Palestine - History - 638-1917. 2. Islam - Palestine - History. 3. JewsPalestine - History. 1.Title DS 124.G5513 1992 956.94'03 - dc2090-20807CIP I S B N 0 521 40437 1 hardback I S B N 0 521 59948 9 paperback

eISBN 0 511 00439 7 virtual

RB

CONTENTS %F

Preface Abbreviations Glossary of H e b r e w and Arabic terms

p a g e xiii

xx1 xxv

Introduction

3

1 The conquest

11 11 12 16 21 24 25 26 28 31 32 38 40 41 43 45 48 51 57 60

Muhammad and the vision of the conquest The causes of the Great Jihad The tribes and the populationof Palestine The first incursions; Dhit Atlih, Mu’ta Muhammad and the Palestinian tribes D h i t al-Salisil Tabiik The treaties with towns in the southof Palestine The expeditionof Usima b. Zayd The great invasion The expeditionof ‘Amr ibn al-‘AS The expeditionof Khilid ibn al-Walid Ijnidayn Additional conquests The battle of the Yarmiik The dismissal of Khilid ibn al-Walid The capitulation of Jerusalem The completionof the conquest The attitude of the population towards the conqueror The episode of the Temple Mountand the return of the Jews to Jerusalem

2 Islam strikesroots Events in Palestine to the endof Umayyad rule Natural disasters vii

65

75 75 89

CONTENTS

The religious status of Jerusalem The achievements of the Umayyads The administrative division Muslim personalities in the Umayyad period The tribes

3 The local population and the Muslims The protected people The taxes The responsibility for,*thelife of the dhimmi Dress regulations Freedom of worship and its limitations Professions and offices Matters of inheritance; Muslim courts The population and localities 4

The economy Land and agriculture Occupations Book production Exports Internal trade Imports The representative of the merchants Seafaring Commercial methods Measures and coins The Maghribis The economy ofJerusalem

5 Palestine from the beginning of Abbasid rule to the Fatimids From the revolution to al-Ma'mun The days of al-Ma'miin and his successors The Abbasid caliphs and Jerusalem The sixties of the ninth century More about Muslimpersonalities during the Abbasid period The period of theTiiliinids The Isma'ilis: Qarmacis and Fatimids The Invasion of Tiberias by the Qarmatis and the return of the Abbasids The Ikhshidids Muslim personalities in Palestine during the period of the Tiiliinids and Ikhshidids

...

Vlll

90 104 110 114 130 139 140 143 158 158 160 161 163 169 224 224 229 232 236 241 242 248 249 252 257 260 277 279 279 294 297 299 301 306 310 312. 316 328

CONTENTS

6 The Fatimid conquest: thewar of sixty years and other events during the eleventh century advanceFatimid northwards (a) retreat Fatimid (a) Fatimid advance (b) northwards Ya‘qiib ibn Killis (b) retreat Fatimid advanceFatimid northwards (c) retreat Fatimid (c) Renewal Byzantine of the offensive Fatimid advance (d) northwards retreat Fatimid Fatimid advance350 northwards (e) The attitude of the Muslims in Palestine towards the Fatimids the of Events year 979 al-Qassim of The episode in Events Palestine 981-983 Jewish personalities in the Fatimid administration: Manasseh b. Abraham al-Qazziz; Palii’el Bakjiir, The of episode 983-988 The events of 996-997; internal war in Palestine al-Hikim The cruelties of (1011-1014) Jarrihids the First of war Second warJarrihids of the (1024-1029) Forty years ruleof Fatimid The invasion Turcomans of the The situation in Palestine during Turcoman rule in Events Tyre chronological Brief summary Muslim personalities during the last generations the of period 7 TheChristians The Christian leadership after the conquest Christendom in Jerusalem Christianity in other Palestinian localities Christian sects The patriarchs and other personalities in the Church of Jerusalem Ritual and customs The authorities and the Christians ix

335 335 337 339 340 342 343 343 344 348 349 352 354 355 358 359 364 366 370 381 385 397 409 414 418 420 42 1 430 430 435 442 447 454 464 469

CONTENTS

478 482

Aid and reconstruction Christian pilgrimage

8 The Jewish population and its leadership The problematics of Jewishleadership in the Middle Ages The Palestinian yeshiva in ancient sources Palestinian customs The organisation of theyeshiva and itstitles The status of the yeshiva and its prerogatives Peace-making The judicial prerogative Excommunication Aid for individuals ‘Palestinians’ versus ‘Babylonians’ The exilarchs Relations between the Palestinian yeshiva and the communities inPalestine and the diaspora The Jewish leadership and the Fatimid authorities Calendrical matters Yeshiva and community Communal leaders in close contact with theyeshiva The negldirn Aid for the yeshiva and the Jewish population of Jerusalem ‘Aliyii (immigration to Palestine) and pilgrimage Burial in Palestine The Jewish quarters of Jerusalem The geonim of Palestine The affair of David b. Daniel The yeshiva, last pages

490

9 KaraitesandSamaritans The house of ‘Anan and the beginningof Karaism Karaism in Palestinein the tenth century The Karaite rzesl’h Beliefs and opinions The social structure of the Karaites The Karaites and their leaders in the eleventh century The Samaritans

777 777 784 790 794 807

X

490 495 501 505 508 511 516 522 525 527 540 545 549 562 569 575 595 601 609 631 635 653 750 774

809 820

CONTENTS

10 The Crusaders' conquest and the fate of Palestinian Jewry

826 839 862 912

Chronology Bibliographical index General index

xi

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PREFACE %If

These studies are based mainly on the sources left to us by the three communities living inPalestine between the Arab conquestand the Crusades: the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims. Among the Jewish sources, the Cairo Geniza documents occupy first place, owing to both their quantity and their authenticity, for these were actually written by contemporaries of the period, some of whomplayed important roles in the eventsI am dealing with. These documents,referred to in this book as ‘my collection’, are printed in two additional Hebrew volumes, in their Judaeo-Arabic original, with translationsinto Hebrewand commentaries. The reader who wishes to examine these original textsand is familiar with Hebrew and Arabic, will find them in vols. I1 and I11 of my Ere? isvi’d bu-teqij@ ha-muslimrt ha-ri’shijni. Accordingly, references are made in the present book to the ‘Hebrew Index’ of those volumes, by which the indexes at the end of vol. 111 of my above-mentioned book are meant. A supplementto these volumes was publishedin T e ‘ d u , vol. 7 (1991), containing twenty-five additional texts. In the footnotes of the present book, references to these Geniza documents are indicated by numbers in boldface type, using the same numbers as those of the documents in the above-mentioned collection. In referring to the supplement inTe‘trdu, the number is accompanied by the letter a or b, also in boldface. My collection comprises 643 documents in all. More than a third were edited earlier in their entirety and 43 in part. The text of thepresent volume is arranged by numbered sections, each consisting of oneor more paragraphs. The reader will find that footnotes generally correspond to entire sections rather than to smaller pieces of text. Entries in the bibliographical and general indexes refer to section numbers rather than page numbers. A detailed description of the Cairo Geniza can be found in the first volume ofGoitein’sA Mediterruneon Society. I have read most ofthe Geniza xiii

PREFACE

documents in my collection in the original but was unableto doso in a few instances, suchas those locatedin theUSSR and some of those kept in the Dropsie University Library in Philadelphia. Many of these manuscripts were examined by me by means of ultra-violet rays and with the aid of special photographic facilities. The Muslim sources of the Middle Ages are first and foremost the chronicles; following them are the biographies, geographical literature, monographs, and so on. I also used many texts which are still in manuscriptform.The interestedreader may find details concerningthese Arabic texts in the bibliographical index at the end of this book, and further information regarding the authors and their works is available in the well-known books by Brockelmann and Sezgin, which deal with the history of Arabic literature. Most of the information on political and military events,as well as on Muslimpersonalities of the periodwho lived in Palestine,is derived fromthese Arabic sources, whereas the chapters on the localities, the conditions of the dhimmis(especially on the subject of taxes) and on the economiclife of the period, are based to a large extent on information culled from Geniza documents. As to the Christian sources,these include Byzantine writers,especially Theophanes, and Syriac literature (i.e. Christian Aramaic), which contributed its share on somevital points in the description of the political and military events. The Arabic writings of Christian chroniclers, e,specially Sa'id ibn Bitriq and Yahya ibn Sa'id, are important from both the overall historical point of view and that of the history of the Christians in Palestine. The Greek sourcesof the Jerusalem Church,especially those comI piled by Papadopoulos-Kerameos,providetheinformation(which regret is rather poor) on the history of the Church and the Christians in Palestine during this period. The reader will undoubtedly note thatthese historical studies are mostly discussions focusing on the sources a t the researcher's disposal. This applies to any period or subject dating from antiquity or the Middle Ages, for the student cannot presume that he is presenting a complete or continuous history,as it is obvious that wherever there is an absence of sources, there will be a void. Research literature on Palestine - including the period under discussion - is very rich, but it is not the purpose of this book to serve as a bibliographical guide. In the following studies,I have madea point of referring to those research works which provide essential explanations and meaningful opinions. Complete details on these sources can be found in the bibliographical index. There have been attempts in thepast to sum up the historical information on the period, such as M. Assafs book on the history of Arab rule in Palestine, and Goitein's article on Jerusalem during the Arab period. Among the more specific studies, there are those of xiv

PREFACE

De Goeje (theM i m o i r e ) and of Caetani (Annuli) on theArab conquest.The papyri ofNessana, published by Kraemer, shed additional and significant light on the early Muslim period, and the works, of Lammens and Shaban on the early caliphs arealso worthy of mention. In the area dealing with geography, Le Strange and the collection of sources in his Palestine under the Moslems are considerably helpful, as are Avi Yonah's work on thegeographical history of Palestine, Dussaud on the topography of Syria, and the encyclopaedic enterprise of Z . Vilnay (Ariel).

In the context of the study on status theof the dhimmis, the comprehensive article of Ashtor (Straws) in the Hirschlevlubilee Volume should be mentioned, as well as Tritton's work. Withregard to having recourse to the Muslim courts, one should mention, in particular, the pioneering work of J. Mann, within the framework of his series of articles on the Responsa of the Geonim, in addition to the works of Hirschberg and Goitein. The study on the masoretes of Tiberias is, to a large extent,based on the works of earlier students: Mann, Kahle, Klar, Dotan and others. Referring to thestudies on the localities of Palestine, one shouldnaturally mention the workof Braslavi and Sharon. In the chapter dealing with economics, one should take note of the works of Cahen on matters oflanded property in early Islam andof the extensive work of Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, which sums up the economic data contained in the Geniza.As to the identification of plants and condiments, I relied on the works of Meyerhof (the editor of Maimonides' book on medicines), Ducros, and of Zohary. With regard to textiles, the work of Serjeant should be noted. In the new book by Lombard on textiles in the Muslim world, the reader will find additional material which I have used here only minimally. In the episode concerning Charlemagne and his connections with the caliph of Baghdad and with the Christians in Jerusalem, I had extensive research literatureat my disposal which I have documented in chapter5, note 13. As to Egyptian rule in Palestine, from Tiiliinid times until the end of the period being described here, the books by Wiistenfeld and Lane Poole are still authoritative on thesubject, helping and serving as a serious basis forresearch into the events, though they do not go into detail concerning what was happening in Palestine. For enquiry into the Ismi'ilis - the Qarmatis and the Fatimids - the studies of Ivanow, B. Lewis and Madelung, are important. Attention should also be drawn to the recent works of Bacharach in thefield of monetary history and the history of the Ikhshidids. Particular importance can be ascribed to the profound studies of Canard and especially his book on the Hamdiinid dynasty and his xv

PREFACE

articles on the Fatimids. The works of Wiet and the recent work of Bianquis also merit attention. O n questions concerning the Christians in Jerusalem, the works of Riant areworth mentioning: the methodical listing of sources dealing with the Crusaders, in which there is also a sectionon theperiod preceding the Crusades,and his research on thedonation of propertytotheHoly Sepulchre; VailhC, and especially his articles on the monastery of Mar Saba and on the graptoi brothers; also Pargoire, in his book on the Byzantine Church; Janin, and his essay on the Georgian Church in Jerusalem and a number ofJerusalem patriarchs; Amann, for his exhaustive article on the Jerusalem Church; Peeters and his articles on the Persian conquest, some of the important sources he edited and his book on the Oriental background toByzantine hagiography;Leclercq, for his articles on holy places in Palestine, as well as his comprehensive article on Palestine. It is now over a century since the finest students ofJewish history began probing into theGeniza documents. Were it not for these documents and the dedicated work ofthese researchers, we would knowvery littleabout the Jews of Palestine during this period. Foremost among them was A. Harkavy, with his notes and additions to Graetz, the Geniza sources which he edited in various places, and his outstanding contribution to the research on Karaism. Also A.Neubauer,withthesources he edited, particularly the Scroll of Ahima'as. Similarly notable is his Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in Oxford, which served as a guide to researchers, as did the Catalogueof the British Museum, published by G. Margoliouth. These were followed by S. Poznanski in his many articles, notably those on the Karaites and the Geonim of Palestine. S. Schechter, who rescued the Geniza, edited important texts from Palestine or relating to Palestine, in his Saadyana and elsewhere. H. J. Bornstein brilliantly collected the information available on the dispute of the calendar between Babylonia and Palestine in his articles and edited related fragments from theGeniza. R. Gottheil, whoa t the beginning of the century had already begun todeal with texts from the Geniza, collaborated with W. H. Worrell in 1927 to editthe collection of Geniza documentskept in the Freer Gallery in Washington. H. Hirschfeld edited Geniza documents, his major contributionbeingstudieson a number of Karaite personalities. In the mid-l920s, Jacob Mann, the most important student of Geniza the in his time, began to publish his stldies.Apartfrom his many articles, he compiled two volumes of extensive material from the Geniza pertaining to Palestine, accompanied by profound historical studies. The majority of those documents in my collection which were edited previously were mainly edited by Mann. Until today, his works form a firm basis for any additional research on the subject. A contemporary of Mann was xvi

PREFACE

A. Marmorstein, who dealt mainly with the history of the Gaonate in Palestine and also edited documentary material from theGeniza, although unfortunatelytherewereconsiderablemisinterpretationsandimprecisions in his work, which to a large extent justified the sharp criticism which came from thepen ofJacob Mann. At the same time as Mann, S. Assaf was extensively editing Geniza documents, among themtexts relating to Palestine, and one must note in particular the various kinds of deeds and letters which he included inhis writings. In the framework of his articles,he also editeddocuments written in Arabic, whereas the scientificwork this involved- that is, the deciphering and translation - was done by his colleagues at the Hebrew University, Baneth and Ashtor. The American Jewish scholar J. Starr, who died at an early age and was known primarily for his research on Byzantine Jewry, edited in1936 a number of lettersof the MaghribiIsrael b. Nathan(Sahliin). E. Ashtor (having earlier published undername the of Strauss) worked mainly on Geniza texts touching on Egypt, but also included a number of documents from Palestine inhis writings, where one can find important material pertaining to the history of Palestine and its Jewish population during the period under discussion. Mention should also be made of B. Chapira, whoedited documents from Palestine in some of his articles in Hebrew and French. S. M. Stern, an important scholar of Islamic culture, contributed a notable article to this special field of research, in which he edited texts dealing with the dispute of Nathan b. Abraham. Since the 1950s, the foremost among thescholars of our day has been S. D. Goitein. Asis evident fromthe listof works includedinthe bibliographical index, he studied various aspects of the subject under discussionhere. He identifiedmanytextsrelating to Palestine,and although he did not edit them all, he dealt with themin his many writings. Paramount in importance are the volumeshis ofMediterranean Society and a collection of merchants’ letters.He was the first of the Geniza students to base his studies on a large number of the Geniza documents written in Arabic,eitherin Hebrew or Arabicscript(thelatterbeinggenerally extremely difficult to decipher). He was also the first to organise the Geniza documents into coherent groups according to their writers, paving thewayforcontinuousandsystematicresearch ofthedocumentary material in the Geniza. The significant systematic research work he carried out for many years on the history of the Jewish population in on Palestine the basis of the Geniza documents, a work which was dispersed and housedininnumerable places, is now assembledin a comprehensive collection, Ha-yishuv . . . Among his students, one should noteJ. Eliash, who in1957/8edited someimportantdocumentsfrom Palestine; xvii

PREFACE

N. Golb, who dealt mainly with Egypt, thoughhis works serve to clarify details in letters from Palestine; M. A. Friedman, who in his articles and his great book on the Palestinian marriage deeds revealed their peculiarities and continuity, discussing in great detail the various terms, as well as places and personalities in Palestine, mentioned in those marriage deeds;and M. R. Cohen, who published some important articles on Ascalon, on aspects of the negrdut (including information relating toPalestine), on the dispute of Nathan b. Abraham (including a Geniza letter which sheds lighton theaffair), andalso a comprehensive book on Jewish self-government in Egypt, with a discussion c n several important topics relating to Jewish personalities in Palestine shortly before the Crusaders’ conquest. Among the contemporary students of this period, one must mention A. Scheiber, who published a number of important studies, including Geniza documents relating to Palestine, chiefly from the David Kaufmann collection in Budapest. These studies were later assembled in one book, his GerzizaStudies. O f considerablesignificancearethe worksof S. Abramson on the Geonim of Palestine andon Elhanan b. Shemaria, which also includeGeniza documents. E. Fleischer, whose majorarea ofresearch is that of poetry and thepiyyut, including naturally the Palestinian poets, has in one of his articlesrenderedan importantcontributiontoour knowledge of thepersonality of Daniel b. Azariah, theNasi and Gaon. Concerning the discussion on the Karaites, apart from Harkavy and Poznanski, whom I have already mentioned, one must pointto the work of S. Pinsker, who more than 130 years ago editedimportant Karaite texts which he copied from manuscripts, accompanied by detailed commentaries. His bookLiqqlrtZ qadm6niy6t has served as an important tool for any researcher investigating the history of Karaism in Palestine; and naturally one must mention the second volume ofMann’s T e x t s and Studies, entirely devoted to the history of the Karaites, a substantial part of which deals with the Karaites in Palestine before the Crusaders’ conquest. Among today’s scholars, there are L. Nemoy, N. Wieder, and Z. Ankori, whose on the Karaites, each in outstanding worksI have mentioned in the chapter his own right. One must also mention in connection with the work on the Geniza documents in this book four important reference books: one is that of J. Blau, on theJudaeo-Arabic grammar of the Middle Ages, which today enables us to consider the language in which most of the documents in my collectionare written, as a separate dialect with known anddefined characteristics. Such matters as the turning of the Arabic tanwin into a separate word, or the addition or dropping of the mater Zectionis, and many other such points, are clarified and explained his book. in The second book xviii

PREFACE

is the bibliography of S. Shaked, which was of considerable help in the initial assemblingof thematerial from theGeniza and in tracing the studies that had been made until the early 1960s. The third, the Hundbtrch der jiidischen Chvonologie by E. Mahler, which helped me, by the use of its tables, to reckon the equivalentsto the Hebrewdates. The fourth, G.S. P. Freeman-Grenville’s small booklet, with its conversiontables of Muslim dates. The transcription of the Arabic names and words in this book is in conformity with accepted scholarly usage. Hebrew titles and names are transcribed in a less ‘orthodox’ manner; bothBiblical and later names and terms are transcribed according to the usage in current research, as for example in the Encyclo~uediaJtrdaica. Naturally there is a certain lack of uniformity in this, which I hope will be accepted by most readerswith a degree of tolerance. I am indebted to the directors and trustees of the libraries in which the Geniza documents and the Arabic manuscripts are preserved, for permission to studyand edit the texts. Foremost among themis D r S. C. Reif, Director of the Geniza Research Unit of the Cambridge University Library (where the bulk of the Geniza materials are found), who together with his staff and other personnel of the library there helped me immensely. My gratitude goes to Professor M. Shmelzer, the Librarian of the Jewish Theological Seminary of NewYork, where the large collection in the name of E. N . Adler is kept; I was also rendered a great deal of assistance by him andhis staff. I am also gratefulto all those directors and trustees of the other libraries in which I worked and was welcomed and aided in every respect: the Bodleian Library Oxford; in theBritish Library; the Library of the Alliance isratlite universelle in Paris; the Library of Dropsie University in Philadelphia; the Freer Gallery in Washington; the LibraryofWestminsterCollege,Cambridge;and Merton College, Oxford. Special gratitude is due to the late Professor A. Scheiber, who went to the trouble of sending me excellent photographs of documents from the David Kaufmann Collection in Budapest; Dr Helena Loebenstein, also for excellent photographs of documents from the Erzherzog Rainer Collection in Vienna; and further,my thanks go to the University Library in Heidelberg for its supply of excellent photographs; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and theDepartment of Manuscripts of the National Library in Jerusalem. My special gratitude goes to the personnel of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the National Library in Jerusalem, where I was able to examine most of the texts from the Geniza and elsewhere, by microfilm. The writing ofthis book would not have been possible without the assistance of this institution. Also, I express my thanks in particular xix

PREFACE

to the staff of theLibrary of the TelAviv University, whereI wrote this book, amidst friendly people who were always prepared to help. I am much indebted to ProfessorS. Simonsohn, Head of the Diaspora Research Institute, Tel Aviv University, who initiated and very devotedly dealt with the Hebrewedition of this book. And last, but certainly not least, I would like to offer my heartfelt gratitude to my late teacher, Professor S. D. Goitein, who guided me towards this work and gave me his support - both by his words and his writings. As regardsthepresentEnglishversion, I am verygrateful tothe translator, Mrs Ethel Broido, who heroically supported all my remarks and inquiries; to Mrs Sheila Bahat, of TelAviv University, who read the manuscript and offered very valuable remarks; to Miss Ora Vaza, who prepared the general index; andto Dr Gill Thomas and Dr Susan Van de Ven, of the Cambridge University Press, for their devoted and skillful editorial work. Thetranslation work was made possible by the assistance of Tel Aviv University, through the Haim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, the Diaspora Research Institute, and the Joseph and Ceil Mazer Chair in the History of the Jews in Muslim Lands.

xx

c

ABBREVIATIONS

AA SS AESC AH AHR AI

AIBL A IEO AIU AJSLL AJSR AM Antonin A0 AOL b. BE0 BGA BIFAO BIRHT BJPES

BJR L BM BNG,J Bod1 MS Heb

Acta Sanctorurn Anttales: tconomies, socittts, civilisations

hijra year American Historical Review Avs Islamica

AcadCmie des inscriptions et belles lettres Annales de l’lnstitut d’e‘tudes orientales (Alger)

Alliance israelite universelle, Paris American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Association for Jewish Studies Review

anno mundi, era of the creation The Antonin Geniza collection, Leningrad Ars Orientalis Archives de I’Orient latin.

ben, bin, ibn, bat, bint = son or daughter of Bulletin d’ktudes orientales Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum Bulletin de l’lnstitutfvan~ais d’avchkologie orientale Bulletin de l’lnstitut de recherches et d’histoire des textes Bulletin of the Jewish Palestine Exploration Society (Hebrew; = Yedt‘ot ha-hevrii la-haqcrat ere: isrZ’21) Bulletin of theJohn Rylands Library

BT

British Museum Byzantinisch-neugviechischeJahrbiicher The collection of Hebrew(and Judaeo-Arabic) MSs a t the Bodleian Library, Oxford Bulletin of the School of Oriental and Afvican Studies (London) Babylonian Talmud

BZ

Byzantinische Zeitschr13

BSOAS

xxi

ABBREVIATIONS

CCM CCSL Consist. isr.

csco CSHB DACL DHGE DK Dropsie

DTC ECQ EHR EI

Cahiers de civilisation mtditvale Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina

The Geniza collection of the Consistoire isradite, Paris Corpus scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium Corpus scriptorum historiae Byxantinae Dictionnaire d’archtologie chrttienne et de liturgie Dictionnaire d’histoire et de gtographie ecclbiastique

The David Kaufmann Collection, Budapest The Geniza Collectionof Dropsie University (at the Annenberg Institute, Philadelphia) Dictionnaire de thtologie catholique Eastern Churches Quarterly English Historical Review Encylopaedia of Islam

ENA

The Elkanah Nathan Adler Collection, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York

EO f. Firkovitch GAL GCAL HTR HUC HUCA IC IEJ IFAO IJMES

Echos d’Orient

WJ

IOS IQ JA JAH JAORS JEA JESHO JHS JJGL JJS JNES JNUL

folium The Geniza collection of A. Firkovitch, Leningrad Geschichte der arabischen Literatur Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur Harvard Theological Review

Hebrew Union College (Cincinnati) Hebrew Union College Annual Islamic Culture Israel Exploration journal

Institut franqais d’archeologie orientale International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Israel NumismaticJournal Israel Oriental Studies Islamic Quarterly Journal asiatique Journal of Asian History Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Journal of the Economic and Social Historyof the Orient Journal of Hellenic Studies Jahrbuch$r judische Geschichte und Literatur Journal ofJewish Studies Journal of Near Eastern Studies

Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem xxii

ABBREVIATIONS

JPOS

JQR JRAS JSAI

JSS JTS MAIBL

MGH M G WJ MIE Mosseri

MPG MPL MS

M USJ M WJ OLZ PAAJR PEFQ

Journal ofthe Palestine Oriental Society Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam Jewish Social Studies

Jewish Theologial Seminary Mtmoires de l’acadtmie des insrription.s et belles lettres Mon.umenta Germaniae historica Monatsschrl$@r die Geschichte und Wissenschaji des Judenthums M t m o i r e s p r t s e n t b h l’lnstitut d’Egypte

The Geniza Collection of the Jewish Community in Cairo, kept by the Mosseri family Migne, Patrologia, series Graeca Migne, Patrologia, series Latina Manuscript Mtlanges de 1’Universitt St Josep h Magaxin$r die Wissenschaj desJudenthums Orientalistirche Literatur-Zeitung Proceedings of the American Academy forJewish Research PaZestine Exploration Fund QuarterZy

PER

The collection of MSs named after Erzherzog (Archduc) Rainer, Vienna

PO POC PT PW

Patrologia Orientalis Proche-Orient chrttien

QDAP

RAAD RB REB REI

REI RH RHC RHGF

RHR RIDA RMI

ROC ROL RS O

Palestinian Talmud Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumwissenschaji Quarterly ofthe Department ofAntiquities in Palestine Revue de l’acadtmie arabe de Damas Revue biblique R e v u e des ttudes byxantines R e v u e des ttudes islamiques R e v u e des ttudesjuives Revue historique Recueil des historiens des croisades Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France Revue de l’histoire des religions Revue internationale des droits de l’antiquitt Rassegna rnensile di Israel R e v u e de I’Orient chrttien Revue de 1’Orienf latin Rivista degli studi ovientali

xxiii

ABBREVIATIONS

SBB Sel. SI TLZ TS ULC ZA Z AW

ZDMG ZDPV ZfhB

Studies in Bibliography and Booklore

Seleucid era Studia Islamica Theologische Literaturxeitung

The Taylor Schechter Collection, University Library, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge Zeitschr$$v Assyriologie ZeitschriJ2fu’r die alttestamentliche Wissenschaj Zeitscht-13 der deutschen. morgenlandischen Gesellschaj Zeitschrzjl des deutschen Palastirza- Vereins Zeitschvl$fir hebraische Bibliogvaphie

xxiv

G L O S S A ROYF H E B R E W AND ARABIC TERMS

w ‘alima, a specific word, or formula, used by notables at the end of their correspondence. a h J a scholar appointed by the yeshiva, generally to serve as judge and leader in his community, but also ahonorific title, grantedbythe Babylonian yeshivot. amii., a military commander. av-bet-din, head of the court. dayyan,judge. gaon (pl. geonim; exact spelling: gi’on), head of the yeshiva. hadith, Muslim oral tradition, generally ascribed to the Prophet. hauZr (pl. havZrim), a scholar appointedby the yeshiva as leader and judge in his community, a title granted mainly by the Palestinian yeshiva. heqdzsh (also: qodesh), the Jewish pious foundations, for the benefit of the synagogues, the poor, and so on. ktrnya, the byname beginning with Abti (fathero f . . .). n m r r l i , has several meanings; inthe early period: anon-Arab who accepted Islam and was under the protection of an Arab tribe or clan. meZammZd, teacher. midrash, traditional interpretation of a Biblical passage (often in an anecdotal style). mumhi?, a person authorised by the yeshiva to assist the local judge. nagid (pl. negidim), in the period under discussion: leader, title granted by the yeshiva to a Jewish notable who was close to the caliph’s court. nasi (pl. nesl“im),in the period under discussion: a member of the exilarchic family, which claimed descent from King David. pamiis, a community official in chargeof charity, financial matters, maintenance, and so on. piyyuf (pl. piyy@im), religious poem. r6sh (Hebrew) or ra’is, ~uyyis(Arabic), head, chief, leader. rash ha-gola, head of the Diaspora, exilarch. xxv

GLOSSARY O F H E B R E W A N D A R A B I CT E R M S

v6sh ha-shiinii, the Jewish New Year’s day. sijill, a decree issued by the highest Muslim state authority (usually the caliph). talrnd, title of a scholar, correspondent of the yeshiva;less than @vZv. yeshiva (pl. yeshivot), main institution ofJewish communal leadership and learning.

xxvi

t

INTRODUCTION

w [l]As we shall see, the Muslim conquest of Palestine was not an expeditious event, at any rate not in present-day It terms. was evidentlya process which began before the death Muhammad of and at first, its principal aim was to draw the Arab tribes living under Byzantine rule into the Islamic camp - a process which lasted some ten years until the capture of Ascalon, which held out until 644. The Muslim conquest of Palestine opened an entirely new page in Palestine’s history.The newelement in the situation was thefact that the nomadic tribes, which for many generations had been kept at a distance from thecultivated lands and their cultures by the rulers of those lands, were now forcefully spearheading into these lands and becoming their masters. A new society was born. While the subdued population, Jews and Christians, continued to form the majority in Palestine during the period under discussion, the Bedouin constituted the ruling class under the Damascene caliphate; whereas for generations after 750, the year of theAbbasid revolt, the Muslimofficials, the military, the religious personalities and legalists, ruled thecountry. The most characteristic feature of this period was the undermining of of generations(or more precisely, 465 internalsecurity.Thesescores years), witnessed almost unceasing warfare. The Muslim camp, which first appearedon thescene in an amazingly disciplined and united fashion, soon disintegrated. Behind the faqade of the Islamic state, which stubbornly pursued its war against enemies from without, ancient inter-tribal differences arose, adding to the struggle for leadership. These quickly extended beyond the boundariesof verbal argument and political conniving and moved into the field of war and bloodshed. Later on, we shall discover, these wars took on a special significance for Palestine after the process of fragmentation of thecaliphatewascompletedand Egypt assumed independence, ridding itself of the yoke of the central Muslim rulethenlocatedinBaghdad. The circumstanceswhichprevailedin Palestine in ancient times were then renewed with even greater vigour, I

INTRODUCTION

when adversaries from the North, East and South each sought to dominate it in orderto prevent the likelihood of its being used as a springboard for attack by the opposing side. At the same time, Palestine once again became a permanent theatreofwar between the belligerent camps, with an intensity and persistence of a kind unknown in antiquity. Thisled to the uprooting of the populationand the destruction of the flourishing economy handed down by the Byzantines. Apart from some ninety years during which Palestine was subject to the rule of Damascus, thecountry was far from thecentre ofgovernment. The Damascenerulersviewedit as a region of Syria, :art ofal-Shim, a comprehensive term with more than one meaning which was used to denote both Syria and Palestine. True, they did not have the power to prevent inter-tribal warfare within Palestine’s borders, but they did carry out building projects and attempted to improve the roads and irrigation systems. The rulers who succeededthem,however,inBaghdadand afterwards in Egypt,considered Palestine to be a neglected outlying area of interest only because of the taxes which could be extracted from the countryand also formilitarypurposes. TheChristianworld was interested in Palestine - particularly in Jerusalem- for religious reasons, expressing this interest in the form ofpilgrimage,which continued despite difficulties and the enormous distances, as well as concern for the churches and monasteries. Nevertheless, it appears that the Christians’ hold gradually declined, except in Jerusalem, and even there the Christian population became increasingly destitute.O n the eve of the Crusades it was ina very sorry state indeed. Only in the Jewish mind did Palestine continue to occupy a central position. When Jews used the expression al-Sham at this time, the intended connotation was generally Palestine. The Jewish population residing in the country at the time of the Muslim conquest consisted of the direct descendants of the generations of Jews whohad lived there since the days of Joshua bin Nun, in other words for some2,000 years. During the more than four hundred years of Muslim rule, the Jewish population continued to exist despite difficulties. As to theconquest itself, of the city ofJerusalem it marked an important turning point in the annals and the history of the Jewish population in Palestine, the return of the Jews to Jerusalem and the establishment of a Jewish quarter within its confines. From a more general outlook,as the Muslim world allowed for comparatively greater freedom of movement from country to countryand from region to region, we shall witness the phenomenon ofJews immigrating to Palestine from theEast and the West. This immigration, which bore no ideological earmarks apart from a pure and simple attachment to the country, would at times be caused by hardship, such as the immigration from Iraq, while that of the Karaites forms a special chapter of its own. As far back as Byzantine rule, the Palestinian sages were already arguing

INTRODUCTION

over the question ‘whether most of Palestine is in the hands of the gentiles’ or ‘whether the greater partof Palestine is in the hands of Israel’,’ that is to say, to whom the major portion of the land of Palestine belongs. We may reasonably state that at the time of the Muslim conquest, a large Jewish population still lived in Palestine. We do not know whetherthey formed the majority but we may assume with some certainty that they did so when grouped together with the Samaritans. An important sourceregarding Palestine’s demographicstructure during Byzantine rule are the storiesof the Christian monk Bar-Sawma. In the biographyof this fighting monk, who was born in Samosata in Asia Minor and active in Palestine in the fifth century AD, it is told that the Jews, together with the heathens, constituted the majority in Palestine, Phoenicia and Arabia (which included the south of Palestine).There were as yet few Christians. The Jews and the Samaritans virtually governed the land and were persecuting the Christians. In the campaign against the Jews and the idol-worshippers, a band of forty monksled by Bar-Sawma, and evidently with the assistance of the Byzantinearmy, came up against the opposition of 15,000 armed Jews. Among the synagoguesthatBarSawmi destroyed was one (the source refers atosynagogue as 6eyt sha6e) in the city Reqemof Gaya (Petra) ‘which couldbear comparison only to Solomon’s temple’. In about the year 425, the Jews of theGalilee and its surroundings applied to the empress Eudocia to permit them to pray on the ruins of Solomon’s temple, as Constantine had forbidden them to reside in the Jerusalem area. The author of the biography also cites the letter written by the Galilean Jews to Jews Persia in and Rome after they had received the empress’ permission: To the great and elevated nation of the Jews, from the Priest and Head of Galilee, many greetings. Ye shall know that the time of the dispersion of our is at people an end, and from now onwards the day of our congregation and salvation has come, for the Roman kings have written a decree to hand over our city Jerusalem to us. Therefore come quickly to Jerusalem for the coming holiday of Succoth, for our kingdom is established in Jerusalem.

And indeed103,000Jews came and gatheredin Jerusalem but were stoned from the sky, ‘something that cannot be doubted’, whereas the Jews complained to Eudocia claiming that it was themonks who had attacked them. [2] The relative strength of theSamaritans is evident in their rebellions, 2

PT Demai, ii, 22 c. The stories of Bar-Sawmk Nau, ROC, 18 (1913), 19(1914);RE], 83(1927); and Honigmann, Le couvetlt, Louvain 1954, 17f, who thinks that the stories of Bar-Sawm5 are not credible, certainly with regard to the Jews mentioned there; seeshe them as figments of the author’s imagination,as he lived100 years later. But this is a veryfacile way of dismissing ancientsources.Wemust not disregard or refutetheircontentseven if theyappear legendary in character; theystill retain a germ of historical truth.

INTRODUCTION

which broke out generation after generation, in 484, in approximately 500, in 529, and in 555. An anti-Jewish polemical tract written at the beginning of the Muslim invasion of Palestine, entitled ‘The Didaskalia [doctrine] of Jacob, the Recently Baptised’, is indirect evidence of the large number of Jews in Acre and Sykamona (Haifa) at the time. SufPalestine ficiently clear reference to a dense population ofJews in southern has been preserved in Arabic sources whichtell of the covenant made by Muhammad in 630 with a number ofJewish settlements. Eilat (Ayla) is also described in Arabic sources as a city with many Jewish inhabitants. Procopius of Caesarea, writing in the middle of the sixth century,mena tions the Jewish population in Eilat and its surroundings, which enjoyed kind of autonomy thereuntil Justinian’s day.3 [3] The period preceding the conquest by the Muslims of important parts of the Byzantine Empire, was undoubtedly a period of decline and even of internal disintegration of the empire. Thedeath of Justinian was followed by eras of anarchy, poverty and plagues. The chronicles describing the days of JustinI1 speak of the approaching end of the world. The prevailing and central event during this period was the with war Persia. In addition, the emperors were forced to wage wars against Slavs theand the Avars in the Balkan Peninsula, and also against the Longobards - Arians by creed - in Italy, which only came to an end in 568 with the latter’s victory. Justinian reached a settlement with the Persians 561 in or 562 for a fifty years’ peace.4 The subject of Acre and Haifa: Maas, BZ,20(1911), 576f;see also Procopius in the First Book of theWars, ch. xix,3-4. Many interpret his textas applying to theisland of Iotabe which he mentions. But in saying ‘there the Jews lived’, he means the entire neighbourhood ofAila-Eilat, which he mentions at the beginning of thatnarrative. Eilat (Etzion Gaver) is ‘Asya, or Asya, in the Talmudic sources. See Klein, FreimannJubilee Volume, 116fc Alon, Studies, I, 320. Eusebiusalreadyidentified it inhis Onomastikon, seethe Klostermann edition, p.62. O n the Jewish character of certain localities in Palestine, such as Tiberias, Kefar Nahum,Sepphoris and Nazareth, see what is written according to the sources of the ChurchFathers in: Couret, L a Palestine, 5f. He stresses that the Jews were part of the agricultural population of the country, as he puts it, together with the Greeks, the Samaritans and the Arabs.(See ibid., 82, and his sources in n.1 of that work.) Thefact that Sepphoris was inhabited by Jews in the sixth century is recognisable from theMuslim tradition about Umayya, father of the family of the Damascus caliphs. He stayed in Palestine for ten years and lived with a captive who was kept by the Banii Lakhm, who was a ‘Jewess from the people of Sepphoris’, and hadleft behind a husband. She gave birth to of thedescendants of thefamily, ‘Uqbab. Abi Dhakw4n, whosekunya was Abii ‘Amr; one on Mu‘ayt, madean attempt on Muhammad’s life near theka‘ba in Mecca and was executed the order of the Prophet,after having been captured during the battle of Badr; when he claimed that he was a tribesman Quraysh, of the Prophet retorted: ‘You arebut a Jew of the Sepphoris people’; see Tabari, Ta’rFkh, I, 1186, 1336f; Ibn Qutayba, Ma‘irij 319; Bakri, 837; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, V, 90 ( 5 . v . Abii ‘Amr). Mas‘iidi,Murii’, IV, 257f, has an additional tradition, in which al-Walid, the son of this ‘Uqba, was governor ofKiifa at the time of Caliph ‘Uthmin, when ‘Aqil(‘Ali’s brother), shoutedat him that he was but a foreigner, of the people of Sepphoris. Vasiliev, History, 169fC details of the peace settlement,see Menander, CSHB, XI1 (1829), 346ff; cf. Bury, History, I, 467ff; 11, 120 ff.

4

INTRODUCTION

[4] Justin 11 (565-578) violated the treaty and refusedto pay the annual tribute to the Persians which was one of its conditions (30,000 gold nomismas,orthe equivalentof ca. 130 kilograms).Thenegotiations conducted between Byzantium and the Turkish tribes on the northeastern borders of the Persian empire addedto the tension. Meanwhile the Byzantines were busy in Italy with the Longobards' attacks, and long, drawnout battles were waged against the Persians, continuing into well theera of Tiberius (578-582) andMauricius(582-602). Onlyduringthe latter's reign did the scales tip down on the side of the Byzantines, principally because of internal quarrels within the Persian royal family. The Persians were obliged to sign a new peace agreement which involved the loss of largetracts of landinArmeniaand northernMesopotamia,andthe cancelling of the annual tribute mentioned earlier. The declining security along the bordersof Byzantium brought about by attacks from theBarbarian peoples, gaverise to achange in the internal governing order; new administrative bodies were formed, such as the exarchates and themai, in which the rulingpower lay in the hands of the army commanders. Finally, the army took over the capital itself, Mauricius was assassinated, and the army commander, Phocas, ascended the emperor's throne (602-610). During his reign, Byzantium was torn by internal dissension, which developed into a cruel civil war between the aristocrats (the blues) and the populist party (the greens). Some sources ascribe an important role to the Jews these in events,especially the Jews of Anti~ch.~ [5] In 610, Heracliuswascrownedemperor. The chroniclesspeak highly of him and admit to his being able and well intentioned. Many world-shaking events took place during his reign: the Persian victories, which also led to their temporary conquest of Palestine, changes within the empire, and the Muslim conquests, which deprived Byzantium of much of its Mediterranean lands. The Persian offensive had already begun in 611, and in the course of seven or eightyears the Persians conquered Antioch, the major city of the Byzantine East, Damascus andall of Syria, Palestine,Asia Minor and also Egypt. The Persian campaign brought to light the existence of connections - a t least emotional and possibly also one-sided - between the Jews andthePersians.Mutualinterestshadalreadybeenevidentabout a hundred years earlier, during the war in Himyar, the southern part of the Arabian peninsula. Jews and Persians then shared interests although no evidence has been preserved of actual contactor collaboration, unlike the affiliation between Byzantium and the Ethiopians and the local Christians j

See: Demetrius Martyr, in MPG, vol. 116, 1261ff; Isidor Hispalensis, in MPL, vol. 83, 1056A; Sa'id Ibn Bitriq (Cheikho), 589fc Theophanes, 269; Chronicon Puschule, in MPG, vol. 92, 980; Mahbub (Agapius), 189 (449).

5

INTRODUCTION

of Himyar. The Jews evidently enjoyedan important status in the Persian kingdom owing to their large numbers and also to the role occupied by Jewish merchants inPersia’s international trade. Jewish soldiers served in the Persianarmy, and ifwe are to credit the account of Michael the Syrian, they even caused Persian commanders to puta halt to fighting on Jewish holidays. [6] There seems to be considerable exaggeration, however, in the accounts of those who describe the Persian conquest of Palestine as if it were an era of squaring accounts for the Jews; a sort of Messianic era. The Chvorzicon Puschule describes the death and destruction inflicted by the Persians in Jerusalem,without mentioning the Jews in this connection at all. 7 [7] Antiochus Eustratios (his name dwindled to Strategios), a monk captured by the Persians in Jerusalem, describes the conquest of the city in greater detail. The patriarch Zacharias apparently intended to hand over Jerusalem peacefully but as its inhabitants opposed a settlement, it was conquered aftera siege of twentydays. Antiochus places the blame for the murder of many of the city’s Christians on the Jews; according to him Christians were murdered due to their refusal to accept Judaism. also He accuses the Jews of destroying the churches. Theophanes repeats Antiochus’ remarks in his own chronicle, adding the story of a wealthy Jew called Benjamin of Tiberias, whom the Christians accused of having attacked them before the Emperor Heraclius when he passed through Tiberias after the Byzantine victory. Benjamin admitted his guilt and justified his actions as grounded in Jewish hostility towards Christians. He was saved from punishment by being baptised on the emperor’s orders.* [8] Other mediaeval chronicles merely copied and elaborated on these accounts, such as the anonymous Syriac chronicle which adds a story about the scheme which the Jews (‘sons of thecrucifiers’) proposedto the Persian commander, namely to dig underneath the grave ofJesus in order to find the gold treasures lying underneath.From other sources it is clear that after the Persian conquest, Jerusalem and its inhabitants enjoyed a spell of serenity. Modestus, abbot of the monastery named for the Holy Theodosius, who was the locum tenens for the exiled Zacharias, began to rebuild the city out of its ruins with contributions which poured in from the entire Michael the Syrian (Chabot), 11, 1 . Chronicon Paschale, in M P G , 92, 988. See the story ofAntiochus in Couret, R O C , 2 (1897), 147-154 (MS Paris, Ar. 262);see also Peeters, MUS], 9:3,1923-4;Clermont-Ganneau, P E F Q , 1898:44; Conybeare, E H R , 25:502, 1910;Peeters, Ami. Boll., 38:144, 1920; Milik, MUS], 37:127, 1961; see more details concerning Antiochus in Peeters, Trtifonds, 210; Graf, G C A L , I, 411;see Theophanes, 300f, 328.

6

INTRODUCTION

Christian world,especially from thepatriarch ofAlexandria.In 619, while the country was still in Persian hands, Sophronius, who was to become patriarchinthe autumn of 633, returnedto Palestine. It is not clear whether Zacharias managed to return to Jerusalem as well, and there is conflicting information on the subject. A useful survey of sourcesdealing with the situation of the Jews in Palestine under Byzantine rule in the seventh century and with events which took place during the Persian conquest, including the Emperor Heraclius’ policy towards the Jews,can be found in Nau’s edition of the above-mentioned ‘Didaskalia of Jacob’, although the sources are treated by him with equal consideration and little critical discrimination. The same approach can be found today among some scholars dealing with the history ofthis period and its sources. Thus Stratos, whosees the Jewsas responsible for whatever occurredin Jerusalem during the Persian conquest, produces an undiscerning mixture of sources together withpresent-day literature. For we have seen that those sources which are nearest in time and place to the events, do not mention the Jewsat all. In the same manner, Hage repeats the ‘information’ that the Jews used to buy Christiancaptives in order to hand them over to be killed by the Persians. Pertusi writes in a similar vein.9 [9] While still engaged in the waragainst the Avars, Heraclius beganto organise his forces for waragainst the Persians. It seems that an important aspect of his preparations was the pacts he concluded with tribes and peoples who were thePersians’ enemies, particularly those of the Caucasus and the Khazars. Meanwhile the Persians were busy strengthening their alliance with the Avars. This war lasted some six years, from 622 until 628. One of its significant results was the defeat of theAvars in 626, when they were attempting to attack Constantinople in the wake of their collaborationwiththe Persians. One year later,towardsthe end of 627, the Persians suffered their greatest defeat near the ruins of ancient See the translation of the Syriac chronicle: Noldeke, Sitzungsb. Wien, 128 (1892), No. 9, 24ff. The information regarding the Jewish revolt in Antioch that was supposed to have taken place in 610,with the approach of the Persiansto the city, in Avi-Yonah, Rome and Byzantiurn (Hebrew), 1, 189, isbasically erroneous.Mahbiib(Agapius),189(449), has information regarding this revoltas having taken place during the reign of Phocas, and it does not belong here. The town ofCaesarea which the Jews handed over to thePersians, according to Sebeos (whose information is generally not correct) is not the Caesarea of Palestine, as assumed by Sharf,49, but Caesarea in Cappadocia;cf. Avi-Yonah, ibid., 224. See also Sa‘id Ibn Bitriq, I, 216, who repeats the account of the Jews’aid to the Persjans. These sources served as a pretext for a violently anti-Semitic article by VailhC, Echos d’oriertt, 12:15, 1909. ‘The popular belief he says, ‘disseminated almost throughout the entire world, which sees the handof the Jews in the great calamities which spilled the blood of mankind, is not only the product of our times, and it is not only now thatthis strange race is ascribed a frightening role in the tragedies that befall a city or a nation . . .’; see Schonborn, 71, on the agreement and rehabilitation; see Nau, Didascalie, 732ff, Stratos, Byzantium, I, 109ff; Hage, Syrisch-jakobitische Kirche, 86; Pertusi, Persia, 619.

7

INTRODUCTION

Nineveh, in the northern part of Mesopotamia. The Byzantine army plunged into theheart ofPersia, Khusraw was dethroned and assassinated, and his heir, Kawad Sheroe, enteredinto negotiations with Heraclius.The Byzantines thus recovered all their lost lands and the Persians returned to the Byzantines the ‘holy wood’, a relic of thecross on which,according to Christian belief, Jesus was crucified. During his triumphal journey,Heraclius visited Jerusalem and together withhis wife, Martina, participated in the ceremonyof returning the ‘holy wood’. This victory is hinted at in the Koran, in sdrat a l - r t k ~(the chapter on Byzantium) xxx:l: ‘The Byzantines were subdued in the nearby country, after but their defeat, they will be the victors in a few years time.’ During the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in 614, Muhammad was already deeply engagedin his struggle against his townsmen, thepeople of Mecca, in an attempttowinthemovertothe small community of believers gathered round him. In 622, while he was fleeing to Medina with his followers, the Byzantines unleashed their war against the Persians. At the time, the latter were still reigning in Palestine, not far from Medina, and it seems that their influence was considerably felt in the Arabian Peninsula. In 628, with the return of Byzantine rule in Palestine, Muhammad had already managed to arrange thetruce in Hudaybiyya which prepared the ground for his conquest of Mecca. According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet was informed of the Byzantine victory on ‘Hudaybiyya Day’ and was pleased when he learned of the event. By summer’s end of thesame year, he organised his campaign against the Jewish farmers living in Khaybar, north of Medina. One can assume that this campaign was in some wayconnected with thedefeat of the Persians, assumedto be the defenders of the Jews. TheByzantine victory was accompanied by a wave of persecution of the Jews throughout the Christian world. Both Christian and Muslim sources speak of Heraclius’ edict of apostasy, intended to force all the Jews in his kingdom to convert to Christianity. This edict evidently suited the policy of centralisation and religious unity which Heraclius was resolutely trying to achieve, now that he was crowned with the laurels of victory. He undertook vigorous negotiations withthe Monophysites in order to formulateunified a framework for the Church, for which purpose hewas prepared to forego certain dogmatic precepts. They were tomaintain the principle ofJesus’two natures (the divine and the human), but as a concession to the Monophysites, the Orthodox Church would have to recognise the unityof action andwill (hen thelerna) fromwhichstemsthenameofthenew creed, Monotheletism. The patriarch of Constantinople,Sergius,supportedthe plan, as didthe Monophysite patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria. Even the pope Honorius was inclined to accept the reform and was persuaded to authorise it in 8

INTRODUCTION

his letters to Sergius. It wasthePalestinian monkSophronius, later patriarch in Jerusalem,who emphatically objected to the emperor’s plan. When Heraclius made public his plan for a new religious reform in 638, there was already another pope seated in Rome, Severin, who rejected it altogether. What was worse, the Christians in the East, whom the emperor had hopedto bringback into the arms of the Church onscore the of his reform, had already been or were about to be conquered by Islam. During this period of efforts to arrive at the centralisation and maximal administrative and religious unificationof the empire, the persecution of the Jews becamea fixed and fundamental principle of state policy. The Romanian historian of Byzantium, Brztianu, has described the situation very aptly in1941: One should stress a noteworthy fact, which sheds particular light on the similarity between the totalitarian, or at least authoritarian, regime in Byzantium in the seventh century, and those states which had, or still have today, a similar form of of political parties and the advent of absolute power, government: that the decline were in that period accompanied by a wave of acute anti-Semitism. There was nothing unusual in this,as the feeling of hatred toward the Jews was a commonplacefeatureoftheMiddleAges,inByzantiumandelsewhere.Butweare concerned here with planned and systematic persecution, which is not restricted to the Byzantine empire but attempts and also succeeds in dragging along with it the other Christian states on the Mediterraneancoast.’O

[lo] Heracliusdemanded of Dagobert, king oftheFranks,thathe compel all the Jews in his kingdom to convert to Christianity. Thiswas indeed carried out, as it was in the rest of the empire, according to the chroniclerFredegarius. He, as well as Muslimwriters,speaksofthe portent revealed to Heraclius by his own reading of the stars, that a circumcised peoplewould destroyhis kingdom. As he was convinced that this portent referred to the Jews, he then issued decrees against them, unaware that the Muslims shared the tradition of having sons circumcised. Ibn Khaldiin givesa specific report about the fate of the Jews Palestine: of at first Heraclius promised theJews security; afterwards he learned from the bishops andmonks what the Jews had done to thechurches, and even saw some of the destruction himself, and learned of the slaughter. He then decreed that theJews shouldbe killed;no one was saved except for those who hid or escaped to the mountains and deserts.As for the slaughter of the Jews of Palestine, thiscan also be inferredfrom thefact that one of the official fasts of the Coptic Church, which goes on fora week after the first 10

See Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 1009; Qurtubi,]imi‘, XIV, 5; the Prophet was pleased because the Byzantines were ‘people of the Book’ unlike the Persians; BrZtianu, Revue historique du sud-est europien, 18(1941), 55c on thereturn of the ‘Holy Cross’, see Schonborn, 86, according to whom the cross was returned only on 21March 631, and not on 14 November 629, as was generally assumed.

9

INTRODUCTION

day of the Carnival (that is, the great fast before Easter),is intended to beg God’s pardon for the emperor Heraclius for having permitted the slaughter of theJews ofJerusalem in 628. l 1 [ l l ] In thelight of these facts, whichareundoubtedlybutavery insignificant part of what actually occurred, it is not surprising that the Jews abhorred Byzantium, the kingdom known as Edom the Wicked. Daniel al-Qiimisi, the KaraiteBible commentator, writes towards the end of the ninth century AD, expounding on what is written in the Book of Daniel (xi: 30-31): . . . (therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. And arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength, and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate): And he will discriminate [here the Arab root-fin is used], and think about the uncircumcised that are in Jerusalem ... the daily sacrifice is that of the uncircumcised . . . the glTb [cross] and niqtis [the pieces ofwood usedas a bell by eastern Christians] and the Nea church . . . ;he will turn their worship into infamy and lessen their kingdom.

What Daniel al-Qiimisi meant was that the abolish Christian rule over Jerusalem. l2 11

kingdom of Ishmael would

See Fredegarius, 153, 409; see also Mabillon, Book XI, par. 39, pp. 323ff, who speaks of the forced baptism (‘which is not the thing to do’) in the year 624, and ibid., par. 62, on forced baptism in 627, after Dagobert submitsto pressure on the part of Churchcircles. Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 1562; Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 473; Isbahiini, Aghini, VI, 94; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, IV, 265c Ibn Khaldfin, ‘Ibav, 11, 457; Goffart, Spectrltrm, 38(1963), 237, brings the story from Fredegarius as pure legend, ignoring the Muslim sources. Again, however, the historian should not belittle the significance of sources, evenif they seem to be legendary incharacter; on the Coptic fast: Le ryrlnxaive arabe jaccobite, 562; cf.DTC, X, 2296. According to Ibn al-Rahib, 121, Heraclius’ decrees required the apostasy bothof Jewsand Samaritans. The Tdidi, the Samaritan chronicle, however, tells of the crucifying of ‘a great number of people from among the Samaritans’ precisely by ‘Khuzray [corrected reading] King of Assyria’, and thereit appears to have taken place four years prior to the renewed conquest of Palestine by theByzantines, thatis apparently in624; seeNeubauer, Chvonique sarnnvitaine, 23 (in the original text); the dates in the Samaritan chronicles are completely confused and shouldnot be taken into account. Thus one chronicle mentions that when ‘the Ishmaelites came and conquered the land of the Philistines’, the great priest was Nethanel; but on the other hand, it states that the death of Abfi Bakr (which happened prior to the conquest of Palestine) took place during the time of Nethanel’s successor, Eleazar; see the chronicle in Adler et Seligsohn,RE], 45(1902), 241; see Birmester, 13, on the Coptic fast. See TS 10 C 2 (no. 2). f.lv edited by Mann, J Q R , N S 12(1921), 518, quoted hereon the No. basis of whatI read at the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, film 19687, which is differentinsomeinstances from what Mann has read.Mann, Texts, 11, 9, assumed that this commentary was written by one of the pupils of Daniel al-Qfimisi. Cf. Ben Shammai, Shalem, 3(1981/1), 295, who shows that the commentary is by Daniel al-Qiimisi.

IO

I

T H EC O N Q U E S T %E Muhammad and thevision of the conquest

[12] Towards the end of September 622, an event occurred w h c h is known in Islam as the hijra. Muhammad escaped from his tribesmen, the Banii Quraysh, who refused to accept theauthenticityof his divine revelation and even persecuted him and his clanon this score. He fled from Mecca to Yathrib, which became known as al-Madina (Medina). There, he and his followers, the Muhsjiriin, found refuge with their allies, the Arab tribes who lived in this city. Muhammad already had contacts with these tribes on an earlier occasion, when they were on their pilgrimage to Mecca and he had even concluded an agreement with them to terminate their endless violent feuding and abolish theirbond with the Jews of that city. The Muslim sources speak of the town of Yathrib as having been a Jewish city, and are quiteclear that its founders were survivors from the revolt against theRomans. While agriculturalpursuitswere far from being the province of the Arab tribes, the Jews were the farmers par excellence in the northern part ofArabian the peninsula, cultivating the land in theoases. The Arab tribesof Medina had come there from the southern part of the peninsula, settling alongside the Jews, and evidently undergoing a process of transition to permanent sedentarylife. The new order introduced by Muhammad, establishing a covenant between the tribes which imposed its authority on every clan and its members, soon enabled him to attack the Jews and eventually wipe out the Jewish population of the town. Some were banned from the town, others wereexecuted, and their property - plantations, fields and houses - was distributed by Muhammad amonghis followers, who were destitute refugees from Mecca. He also used the former property of the Jews to establish a war fund, setting upa well-equipped army corps ofcavalry troops, thelikes of which had never before been seen on the Arabian peninsula. Muhammad evidently believed in the capacity of this army, imbued with fiery religious belief, to perform great and sensational feats of valour. I1

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THE C O N Q U E S T

When Muhammad reached Medina in 622, Palestine was under Persian domination. The events of the Persian and Byzantine wars werestill alive in the minds of the inhabitants of the peninsula and Muhammad was certainly aware of what had occurred; these events are mentioned in the Koran (sfivat al-vim). He understood only too well that the two major powers, Persia and Byzantium, were gradually being weakened by their continuous warring.In one ofthe mostdifficult moments endured by the young Muslim ~ m m a(community), when an expeditionary force from Mecca laid siege to Medina and the Muslims were compelledto surround themselves by a ditch (something that had never happened in Bedouin experience) and were complainingof the laborious digging, Muhammad declared that he sawin the sparks that flew from the diggingshovels, the palaces of Kisr5 (Khusraw), as they called the Persian king, and Qaysar (the Byzantine emperor), as the future patrimony of the Muslims. Both the Prophet and theearly Muslims professed these ideas and intentionsas part of a religious outlook according to which the Day ofJudgment was at hand and the end of the world, that is the world of the wicked, was imminent. Muhammad thought of himself as bringing the Word of God, a God whohad chosenhim tocarry Hismessage to the righteous, thatis, the Muslims, and hehad no doubtin his mind that the Muslims would shortly inherit the earth. Towards the end of his life, he began his first raids into Palestinian territory, which in the meantime had returned to Byzantine rule. His goal, at this stage, was evidently to induce the tribes on the Palestinian borders to join him, as we shall see below. The major conquests only began two years after his death. The causes of the Great Jihiid

It is usually assumed that the religious fervour of the Muslims was the major impetus of the conquests. isIt true that initially, Islam was imbued with an ardour ofan extreme and uncompromisinglyfanatical nature. As I have mentioned, the Muslims viewed their war as a war of the End of Days, the realisation of an apocalyptic vision. The objective onlooker, even if reared the in school ofthought whichsees a socio-economicmotive behind every political and military act, will have to admit that this religious zeal played a veryimportant role. There is little doubt though that while it may not have been the chief cause, it was certainly one of the remarkable and principal determinants in the Arabs' success in their series of offensives against the Byzantines and the Persians. They invaded the territories of these two kingdoms in Asia and Africa with the brazen determination to carry out the Prophet's orders and ultimately to impose the masteryof the newreligion on the entire world. This religious fervour I2

THE C A U S E S O F T H E G R E A T J I H A D [ S E C S . 12-17]

turned the Muslim into a courageous fighter, contemptuous of death. The war was seen as the supreme effort bihad, a well-known term meaning firstly ‘effort’), to go the way dictated by God fi sabil Allah). Whoever falls on the way is promised a place in Paradise, and shall there enjoy the most sumptuouspleasures of this world. This belief proved that it could turn the dispersed masses of the Arab tribes, who were occupied with constantfeudingamongstthemselves,into a single,relativelyunited camp. [ 131 The role of the new religion in such a tremendous historical eventas the conquest of a large part of the world by the Arab tribes was keenly stressed in a lecture by the British student of Islam, Watt, in 1953. In opposition to those who point to the significance of the economic and social circumstances prevailing in Mecca at the beginning of the seventh century, he drew attention to the fact that the adverse conditions of the times could have found an outlet in exploitsof a fleeting or simply local nature. There were many situations in the ancient history of Islam in which the slightest weighting of the scales to the other side would have prevented the rise of an Arab empire or the continued existence, to this very day,of a world ofbelievers in Islam numbering hundreds of millions. One can cite various battles between Muhammad and his adversaries, which were more in the nature of experiments feelers orwithout any final outcome, and it is difficult to decide whether fate or morerealistic factors were what finally determined the development of events. Beyond any doubt,however,one can justifiably say thatwithoutthe conceptual system known as Islam, those developments would have remained outis solely what gave the side the realmof possibility. The ideology of Islam Arabs the unitedstrength to subdue their overwhelming opponents. Even if there were many who were motivated mainly by the attraction of booty, one must remember that if these were bands of marauders who were merely interested in spoils and naught else, they couldnot have stood up in battle as did the Arabs. One cannot see in this ideological moment, a fasade grafted upon deeper motives but rather an essential factor in this historical process.* [14] One can put forwardvarious objectionsto the point of view which stresses the religious moment. It is possible to claim that in fact, the true and faithful followers of Muhammad, whogenuinely and sincerely identified with Islam, werebut asmall group ofpeople. This becomes evident in O n the relationship of Muhammad with the Jews of Medina, see M. Gil, ZOS, 4:44, 1974 and idem., JSAZ, 4:203, 1984. Watt, IQ,1(1953), 102, lecture held at theUniv. of Manchester; see Bousquet, Levi della Vida Presentation Volume, I, 52-60, who has relevant remarks on the importance of the religious moment and also his article in SI, 6:37, 1956.

THE CONQUEST

the traditional Muslim texts, particularly those describing what happened after the Prophet’s death. Many of the sa@ba, the Prophet’s disciples and the first followers of Islam, did not take any part in the battles in Palestine, Syria and Persia. The Bedouin, devoid of any religious inclination, were the mainstay and composition of the Muslim battalions, and they could only learn about Islamfrom hearsay. All they asked for was material gain and the worldly goods they saw around them - but no religious creed. Simply speaking, they merely looked for opportunities to plunder and pillage the subdued populations. Now we are only one move from the opposite approach, which sees the genuine reasons for the uninhibited Muslim offensive from inside the Arab peninsula as being purely materialistic. The Arabian peninsula, andespecially Hijsz, was farfrom being a paradise. It had few natural resources and produced insufficient crops to satisfy the immediate needs of theBedouin population, which throughout this period lived ina state of near-starvation. Indeed there wasa jihid, an effort on the part of the Bedouin, thisbutwas merely an effort to extricate themselves from thehardship of desert life. The quality of theland in the peninsula and the economic deprivation that resulted from it, claims one scholar, would eventually have brought about the migration masses of of Bedouin northward in the seventh century, even if a Prophet had not arisen in their midst who preached the unityof God and heralded theDay of Reckoning. [ 151 Facts of this kind show uphere and there in the Muslim traditions, and the virtual starvation of the Muslims at the ofoutset their campaignsis not concealed. One of the chief Muslim commanders duringthe invasion of Palestine, ‘Amr ibn al-‘AS, who was later to head the army which conquered Egypt, met a Byzantine commander in the Gaza area. The latter tried to convince him of the so-called ‘family ties’ that existed between the two camps - the Christians and the Muslims. ‘Very well’, ‘Amr replied, ‘thenwe shall take halfyour rivers andtowns and in return, give you halfof ourthistles and stones’.4 [16] Apart from the religious and economic motives, there are some among contemporary Arab savants who perceive an ethnic motivation behind the conquests. They see Arabs everywhere: even the Canaanites and the Philistines were Arabs, according to their theories. This applies to an even greater degree to the population of Palestine and Syria in the seventh century, who were certainly Semites. Thus, according to their claims, the conquering Arab forces in the courseof their battles, actually

See Snouck Hurgronje, Selected Studies, 30. See Ibn ‘Asakir, I, 461.

T H E C A U S E S O F T H E G R E A T J I H A D [ S E C S13-17] .

encountered their own people or at least members oftheir own race who spoke the samel a n g ~ a g e . ~ [17] This is of course a very distorted view: Semitismis not a race and only relates to a sphere of language. The populations met along the route of battle, living in cities or the countryside, were not Arabs and did not speak Arabic. We do know ofBedouin tribes at that time who inhabited the borderlandsand the southern desert ofpalestine, west of the Euphrates (Hira) in the Syrian desert, Palmyra, and elsewhere. But the cultivated inner regions and the cities were inhabited by Jews and Christians who spoke Aramaic. They did not sense any special ties to the Bedouin; if anythingit was thecontrary.Theirproximityandthedangerof an invasion from that quarter disturbed their peace of mindand this is amply reflected both in the writings of the Church Fathers and in Talmudic sources. The remarkable success of the Arab wars of conquest is more than comprehensiblewhen seen against thebackgroundofthedisastrous internal conditions that prevailed within the two great powers that were the object of attack. For our purposes, it is worthwhile to consider the declining state of affairs within the Byzantine empire, whichto a certain extent explains its overwhelming defeat. O n this subject we have data from Egypt, where documents have beeil preserved, relating mainly to the circumstancesin the army, which undoubtedly also apply to therest of the realm, includingPalestine. Though numerically strong, the armywas very badly organised. It was divided according to geographic regions and lacked a unified command. Atits head stood theduces (dux in the singular, which is the dtrkis in Talmudic literature), who divided the authoritative power amongstthemselves and whose military status allowed them many rights ofpossession to the inhabitants’ property.A universal characteristic was their indifference to matters for which they were responsible. The conditions prevalent in thearmy were also mirrored, to a large extent, in the social and general administrative conditions of Byzantine Egypt. A study of papyri dating from the period before the Muslim conquest shows that the status of the landed aristocracy entitledthem to many privileges and they were actually not answerable to the central authorities,. O n the one hand, some of the Christian scholars have exaggerated the importance of this factor, trying to emphasize the degeneration and corruption which existed throughout the Byzantine empire, and clearly intending to prove that basically, this was not the victory of Islam over Christianity but the downfall of a weak and crumbling government. The Arabs themselves were well aware of this state ofaffairs.In this context, the remarks of ‘Amr Hitti, History, 143: ‘The native Semites of Syria and Palestine as well as the Hamites of Egypt lookedupon the Arabian newcomers as nearerof kin than their hated and oppressive alien overlords.’ Cf Vasiliev, History, I, 209, and see the discussion below.

THE CONQUEST

ibn al-‘AS in a letter in which he tries to convince the caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khat&ib to permit him toset forth on an expedition to conquer Egypt, are typical: ‘For it [Egypt] is foremost in the way of possessions and weakest in battle and warfare’.6 A balanced approach to this subject should take into consideration a fusion of all these factors, for we shall find the most genuine explanation for the success of theArab conquerorsin a combination ofinfluences: the military power that derived from their unity and their attachment to the new religious vision; their strong desire to bring about a basic change in their living conditions by dominating the nearby cultivated regions; and the internal weaknesses of their enemies. The tribes and the population of Palestine

[18] There has always been a profound contrast between the permanent inhabitants, the, cityand town dwellers,andthenomadictribes. The ancient kingdoms were generally concerned with the welfare and security of the inhabitants livingclose to their borderand in the deserts.They built fortifications along the borders for this purpose, and kept a sharp and constant watch inorder to prevent nomads from penetrating and attacking the country. The reservations expressed by thelocal inhabitants, and one may even ventureto say the fear of the Bedouin, are amply reflected in the sources, both in the Talmudic writings and in those of the ChurchFathers. At the same time, we are well aware that the borders were not hermetically sealed. There is evidence of substantial andlesser incursions, and what is more, trading relations did exist, with the camel caravans from Mecca regularly making their way northward year by year in order to carry on their trading activities. According to Arab sources, the Prophet’s ancestors had close contact with certain areas of Palestine, particularly Gaza. It is told thatHishim, the grandfather of the Prophet’s father, ‘Abdallah, died in Gaza (in the latter half of the sixth century) while staying there to conduct his business affairs. O f the Prophet’s father as well, it is said that he used to trade in Gaza, travelling with the caravans of the Qurashites.’ Yaqiit, BuZdZn, 111, 893. I(1), 46, 61; also IV(l), 12, in a traditionattributedtoAbii‘Abdallah (evidently Muhammad b. ‘Aziz) al-Aylisayingthat the Bishop ofGaza came to the Prophet when he was in Tabiik (see on the Tabiik expedition below) and told him ‘In my town [Gaza] Hashim and ‘Abd Shams [Hashim’s brother] died when they on came business, and here are their moneys’ (or property). See also Baladhuri, AnsZb, I, 58, 63€, 92, who also adds that Hashim was twenty-five-years-old at his death; some say twenty. As to ‘Abdallah, he took ill in Gaza but was brought to Medina and there he died at the age of twenty-five or twenty-eight. Ibn Qutayba, Ma‘ZriL 71; ISbahani, AghZnf, VI, 94: the people of Mecca had to stop their trading because of the Muslim attacks. When an armistice was

’ See IbnSa‘d,

T H E T R I B E S A N D T H E P O P U L A T I O N O F P A L E S T I N E [ S E C S . 18-26]

[19] Some of the writings of the Church Fathers who were active in Palestine describe Arabraids in the period before Islam and the murdering and marauding they carried out. These accounts are particularly concerned with the monasterial estates. For instance, Ioannes Moschus (who fled from Palestine because of thePersians, lived in Rome towards the end of his life and died in 620), writes about what happened to Gerontius, father of the monastery of St Euthymius.was Hestaying at the time in the mountains near the Dead Sea (evidently in the neighbourhood of EinGedi) together with two other monks, and they witnessedan attack on a monk whichled to his death on the shoresof theDead Sea at the handsof Saracens, during which one of the attackers even beheaded the monk. Gerontius adds that the Arab was punished immediately after the murderous act by the hand of God, when an enormous bird snatched him in his beak, carried him aloft and thenthrew him to the ground. also He tells the story ofFather Nicolaus from a monastery along the banks of the Jordan, where theSaracens carried out a raid in the days the of emperor Mauricius (582-602). These were the Saracens of Names (evidently Nu‘min). He saw a group of three Arabs holding a young captive whom they had meant to have sacrificed by their priest(hieveus). A heavenly miracle occurred and the three began to fight among themselves until all were dead, and the captive remained in the monastery.8 arrived at with Muhammad (spring, 628), trading was resumed. Abu Sufyin ibn Harb (father of the Umayyads) then went to Palestine, precisely when Heraclius conquered Jerusalem again and returned the cross. Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibar, I, 61, quotes these comments as having been made by a poet from Gaza, Ibrihim b. Yahyi (born in 1049/50), and points out that it is not known in Gaza where Hishim is buried,althoughhe is buriedthere. Concerning trade relations betweenMecca and Medina and Palestine,see also Couret, L a Palestine, 219f and the sources helists there. * See Ioannes Moschus, Pratum spirituale, MPG, 87(3), chs. 21, 155; ch. 99 also contains the story ofthe monkattacked by Arabs(p. 2958); see additional detailson attacks by Arabson monks, in Couret, L a Palestine, 92f, 144f; Justinian decided to build the monastery of St Catherine after pleas from the monks in the who Sinai, suffered immenselyfrom Arabraids (see ibid., pp. 1870. Gregorius, who followed as abbot of the monastery at the time of Justin I1 (565-578; apparently around 575) had to withstand aheavy siege imposedon the monastery by the Arabs called SkEnetai(‘dwellers in tents’), according to Euagrius, MPG, 86(2), 2804; seethe apologetic remarks ofEdelby, POC, 6(1956), 101, to theeffect that the (!) and that the Arabs bore early foraysinto Palestine, Arabia and Syria were peaceful ones no resentment towards the empire and didnot disturb thelocal population.To his credit, however, onehas to note that he did add the remark: ‘except when they went out onraids’ (‘sauf quand ils se mettaient5 razzier’). As opposed to this, see the many detailed statements gathered by Constantelos, Byzantion, 42(1972), 327-332, from ancient Christian sources: Nilus points out that the Arabs are not interested in production, in commerce or in farming, but onlyin plundering and wars, like blood-thirsty wild beasts. See his remarks on the Arabs on pp. 639ff; Narrationes, MPG, 79, 627f. Methodius, Bishop of Patara (in Asia Minor) also describes the Arabs in dark colours, and points out do that notrespect they either educationor social institutions.The apocalypse of pseudo-Methodius also mentions that they have no respect for the elderly, for orphans, for pregnant women or priests.

THE CONQUEST

[20] One ofthe means by which the Byzantine ruler hoped to prevent the nomadic tribes' invasion into Palestinian territory was to form alliances with those tribes who inhabited regions along the borders. These tribes assumed responsibility for the security of the area in exchange for certain benefits and subsidies. Thus in theearly stages of Islam, the tribes served as a serious deterrent, as we shall soon see, in the face of the a t penetration northward. The Muslims, Muslims' first attempts however, placed great emphasis on forming tribal alliances and tried to attract these tribes to their own camp.9 [21) The principal tribe occupying the desert area south ofPalestine was that of theBanii Judhiim. According to Arab sources, their land was called Madyanand its largest town was Hismii. AntoninusPlacentinus(of Piacenza, Italy), who visited the region in ca. 570, mentions Arabs whom he calls Midianites, encountered in Eilat en route to Sinai. According to him, they claimed descent from Jethro,Moses' father-in-law, as it is also said, in Arab traditions, of Banti the Judham, thatthey were the kinsfolk of Shu'ayb, whom somesources identify with Jethro. An importantbranch of this tribe were the Banii Wa'il (etymologically the equivalent of the Hebrew name Yo'el), a certain part of which was inclined towards Judaism, as were otherclans of theBanii Judham. A fewactually converted. O n the other hand, there was an element of Christian influence among some sectors of the tribe as a result of their connections with Byzantium. lo Antonius of Chozeba, in his study on the life of St Georgius of Chozeba (who was his teacher), describes the slaughter of the monks in Chozeba. See VitaS. Georgii Chozebitae, A m l . B o l f . ,7:95, 1888, 129f. Maximus Confessor: 'They behave like beasts of prey though they look like human beings. ' But even Constantelosfeels the needto insert reservations in his article from time to time, when he points to a fact which is an exaggeration or to another which in reality applies to the Persians and not to the Arabs. is anexample This of the reading of ancient texts in accordance with contemporary considerations. See further discussion of the subject in Christides, Balkan Studies, 10:315, 1969. See Cheira, 18f, 30. lo See Antoninus, 113f (MPL, 1, 72, 9120. See Hamadiini, JuzTru, I, 129C Bakri, 289, 446, 1122, 1214, 1247. Ysqiit, BuldZn, I, 212, 267, 919C 11, 794; Ya'qiibi, Buldifi, 33; Waqidi, 28, 555f, 990, 1032. Hieronymus (Jerome) and his commentary on Ezek. xxv:l-3,MPL, 25, 244, stresses that the Midianites are 'Ismaelitai et Agareni qui nunc Sarraceni appellantur'. In his commentary on Jer. iii:2 (Lift up thine eyes . . . as the Arabian in the wilderness), MPL, 24, 699f, he pointsout that the verse refersto athief or a raven, but it is also possible to use Arab as the interpretation: 'potest et Arabes significare quae gens latrociniis dedita usque hodie incursat terminos Palaestinae et descendentibus de Jerusalem in Jericho obsidet vias' ('for these people, who are occupiedwith thieving, untiltoday stealthrough the borders ofPalestine androb those who go down from Jerusalem to Jericho').See my article inJSAI,4:203, 1984, in which I point out that the image Shu'ayb of developedfrom that of the Biblical Balaam, prophet of the Moabites and the Midianites. There I also uphold the parallel between the traditions on the spreading ofJudaism amongst the Banii Judh5m and some of the Talmudic traditions which speak of the proselytes, 'the sons of Jethro' or ;the children of the Kenite, Moses' father-in-law'. See PT, Bikkurim, i,64a; BT

18

T H E T R I B E S A N D T H E P O P U L A T I O NO F P A L E S T I N E [ S E C S . 18-36]

[22] Farwa b. ‘Amr, one of the Bani Judham and the governor in southern Trans-Jordan on behalf of the Byzantines(‘in ‘Amman, whichis in the land of the Balqa”), accepted Islam and even sent a special messenger from his tribe with a gift for the Prophet, consisting of a mule, an ass, and expensive robes of fine linen and samite embroidered in gold thread. Eventually he was arrested by the Byzantines and crucified by order of the emperornear the ‘Ifra River in Palestine. l 1 [23-241 Both the Banii Judhiim andthe Banii Ghassan, a large federation of tribes living in Northern Palestine and Syria, were the major Byzantine bulwark in their battle against the Arab tribes, and some of them were constant in their resistance to the faith of Islam. After the battle of the Yarmiik, records one source, the Banu Ghassan were asked to pay a land tax and a poll tax (ktzarij and j i x y a ) , because they evidently preferred to remain Christians. Their leader, Jabala b. al-Ayham, absolutely refused to do so, claiming that theywere Arabs, that is to say Bedouin, and therefore exempt from paying taxes. They even threatened to move to Byzantine land. The caliph ‘Umar ibnal-Khattrlb, had to give way. Athird alliance of tribes should be mentioned inthis connection. The BaniLakhm, whose majorstrength wascentredin the region of the northern Euphrates but who also had branches within Palestinian territory, mixed with the Banii Judhim. According to tribalgenealogical records, Lakhm were the brothers ofJudhim. From the Arab sources, we get the impression that these tribes, allies of theByzantines on the eve of the Islamic conquests, roved about thePalestinian border lands and concentrated in Arabia, that is Provincia Arabia, the separate administrativearea established by Trajan in 106 and also known later by the name of Palaestina tertia (the third). In an Arab source, this region is called al-Takhiim, a loan-word from Hebrew, as it undoubtedly was also called by the Jews. In Dinawari, we

l1

Sanhedrin,104a, 106; Pesiqiti of R . Kahana (ed.Mandelbaum), I, 36; Si32 Z u t a (ed. Horowitz), 263f; Mekhilta de R. Shirnon (ed. Hoffmann), 92; Mekhilta de R. Ishm. (ed. Ish Shalom), 60a;see additional sources in Ginzberg,T h e Legends offheJews, VI, 113f, in nos. 782, 783. According to certain Arab sources, the Banu Nadir and the Banu Qurayza, the major Jewish tribes in Medina, were descendants of the Ban6 Judhim. See my aforementioned article for a detailed discussion and sourceson the entiresubject of the Banii Judhim. Ibn Sa‘d, VI1 (2), 148, Ibn Hishim, 958. Ya‘qubi, Ta’vdzh, 11, 160f, 168. The prophet negotiated with the Banii Ghassan and even sent an emissary, Shuj,‘ b. Wahb of the Banii Asad, to ‘theKing of the Balq5’ in Palestine’ (thelandofal-Shim), who was Hirith b.AbiShamir,theGhassini. See Nawawi, Tuhdhrb, I, 35. See the opinion of Ashtor, whoclaimed that the Byzantines set up a real buffer state for the Banu Ghassin, which covered the whole of the Hawrin, Phoenicia, northern Trans-Jordan and other parts ofpalestine: Ashtor, A Social and Economic Histovy, 12.

THE CONQUEST

find the expressiontakhiim avd al-‘arab, or ‘the Takhiim, which is the land of the Arabs’. l3 [25] Talmudic writings do not often praise the Arabs. Reservations regarding them and their customs are perceptible number in a ofinstances intheBabylonian Talmud and theMidrashicliterature.Perhapsthe sharpest expressionis to be found in the Babylonian Talmud in connection with the daughter of Naqdimon ben Gurion ‘who was picking barley grains in the dung of Arabcattle’, one of thestories of the destructionof the Temple, whose moral is that ‘when they do not do will the of God, He delivers them into the hands of a base people, and not only in the hands of a base people but into the power of the beasts of the base people’. There is also condemnation of the Arabs’ treatment of refugees of therevolt (either the Great Revolt or that of Bar Kokhba) who fled from the Romans to Arabia. l 4 [26] Some scholars view the stories of the Church Fathers as well as some comments in the Talmudic literature with a critical eye or assume them to be unbalanced, one-sided or exaggerated, and so on. But this approach bears some bending of thehistorical truth. In fact, such episodes reflect the attitude of the towns and villages in Palestine quite accurately; the attitude ofa sedentary population, of farmers and craftsmen, toward nomads whose source of income is the camel and who frequently attack the towns, pillage and slaughter the inhabitants and endanger thelives of the wayfarer. These sources completely contradict the argument mentioned earlier on, to theeffect that thevillagers and townsmenin Palestine accepted the invasionof those tribes bearing the banner of Islam with open arms because of their so-called racial affinity. I have already described the political and military troubles endured by the Byzantine empire following the death of Justinian and afterwards. There is no questioning the fact that these difficulties contributed considerably to thesuccess of the Muslim wars of conquest. The local Byzantine administration was inefficient as was its military command. Quite detailed information regarding this state of affairs has been preserved in Egyptian papyri and one can undoubtedly assume that there was little difference between Egypt and Palestine in terms of administration and military matters. The Arab traditions are familiar with the image of the bitriq, i.e. patricius, the Byzantine estate owner, who also served as commander in the army, whether in Egypt, Syria or Palestine. O n hearing the news of the approaching Muslim army,dux theof theprovince of Thebes l3 l4

See Dinawari, 8: Sodomis situatedbetween the landof Urdunn (Jordan) and theTakhiim, land of the Arabs. BT, Ket., 66b, PT, Taaniot, ii, 69b; Lam. Rabbi (Buber), 108; see also BT, Ket., 72b, about an Arab woman who spun in the market place, which is not fitting for a woman. The Talmudicsources dealingwith Arabs were collated by Krauss,ZDMG, 70:321, 1916. 20

t

T H E F I R S T I N C U R S I O N S [ S E C S . 27-30]

hastily collected whatever sums he was able to gather in taxes, and ran off with the money, leaving the region without leadership or protection. l 5 The first incursions:Dhit Atlsh, Mu’ta

[27-281 In the eighth year of the hijra, 629, Muhammad decided to of penetrating increase his military activities and examine the possibilities the Byzantine domain. At the of endtheprevious summer, in theyear 628, the Muslims had taken controlof the Khaybar region, situated 150 miles north of Medina - an agricultural region inhabited by Jews. Now those Jews occupying the land became tenants of the Muslims and had to hand over half the date crops.The palm trees, which were formerly theirown property, now became the assets of the Muslim community. The same fate also lay in store for the Jews of Fadak, another farming region near Khaybar, and this also applied to the inhabitants Wiidi’l-Qurii of (Valley of the villages)on thePalestinian border. At the same time, older members of theIslamic community who had fled from Mecca to Ethiopia some thirteen years earlier, in 615, now came and joined the Muslim camp. In the interim, Islam had accumulated considerable strength and Mecca itself would soon fall into Islamic hands. The Prophet could not ignore Byzantium’s inherent weakness, despite the fact that it had just regained controlof Palestineand was celebratingitsvictoryoverthe

15

See MaspCro, Organisation, 119-132; Gelzer, Studien, 97fC Bell,JEA, 4(1917), 106; Vasiliev, History, I, 210. An area on which wehave little genuine information with regardto Palestine is the attitude of various Christian sects towards the conquerors, whether they were influenced by the hatredfelt towards the official, that is the Byzantine Church and towards Byzantine rule itself. In this area, too, one can assume that there was some similarity to what was happening inEgypt. For this, today we have at our disposalJarry, BIFAO, 62:173, 1964;Annales islamologiques,6:1, 1966.He points out in his studies that the descriptionsintheMuslimchroniclesaresimplistic.According tothem,theCopts supportedtheconquerors, as theyhadsuffered from religiouspersecution,while their opponents, apart from the soldiers, were the Greek-speaking collaborators of the Byzantines, as well as the Melkites, followers of the Byzantine Church. The conqueror of Egypt, ‘Amr ibnal-‘As, requited the Copts by handing over to them the churches of the Melekites. Actually, he contends, there is a difference in attitudes to the Muslims within each of the twoparties, the aristocrats (the blues) and the populists(the greens). But it was precisely the blues, who had a great deal of influence at court, who asked for a policy of withdrawal, at least temporarily, in order to organise their forces properly, as Heraclius did in his war against the Persians. Apart from this, the blues were more oriented towards the West, that is, they wanted to come to some agreement with Rome inparticularandwere less interestedintheEasternregions. It wasthe greens whowantedto organiseforcefulopposition to theMusliminvaders,which led, according to Jarry, to the wholesale annihilation of the greens’ towns by the Muslims. 21

THE CONQUEST

Persians. l 6 Muhammad still hoped to lure the Arab tribes dwelling along the Palestinian borders to his side. At this stage, the Muslims’ reconnaissance raid into Palestine is mentioned at a site called Dhit Atlih (apparently ‘the place of the acacias’). Leading this foray stood Ka‘b b. ‘Umayr al-Ghifiri. This attempt ended bitterly for the Muslims: everyone taking part in the actionwas killed except for one wounded manwho was taken for dead and afterwards succeeded in reaching the Prophet. Muhammad wanted to despatch an expeditionary force to that site to punish the tribes who had slain his men, but whenhe learned that in the meantime they had evacuated the place, he abandoned the project.” [29] Some weeks later, in September 629, Muhammad again sent his cavalry to raid Palestine, this time to aplace called Mu’ta. The account of this action is to be found in its most complete form in Wiqidi. As he records it, the Prophet sent al-Hirith b. ‘Umayr al-Azdi with a letter to ‘the king o f B q r i ’ . O n arriving in Mu’ta, he found his way barred by Shurahbil b. ‘Amr, aman of theBanii Ghassin, who asked him where he was heading. O n being told thathis goal was Palestine and that he was an emissary from Muhammad, he was ordered to be tied up, bound and beheaded - a fate never before endured by one of Muhammad’s messengers. When Muhammad was informed of whathad befallen his messenger, he quickly organised a force of3,000 Muslimcavalry troops, led by Zayd b. Hiritha. Should he fall in battle,Ja‘far b. AbiTilib (the brother of ‘Ah), would replace him, and if he too should be killed, he was to be replaced by ‘Abdallah b. Rawiha. Shurahbil b. ‘Amr soon learned of the Muslim army’s advance. They camped for some days in Widi’l-Qura (whose inhabitants wereJews). At that point, Sadiis, Shurahbil’s brother, attacked the Muslims but was killed in action. Shurahbil took fright and decided to entrench himself against the probable onslaught. Then the Muslimsadvanceduntil Ma‘an, whereupontheywereinformedthat Knowledge of the Byzantine victory and the death of thePersian king on 29 February 628, reached Muhammad as already mentioned, at the time of the agreement of Hudaybiyya. The Persian defeat also spelled the weakeningof the status of the Jews of north Hijiz, in Khaybar, and in other places near the borders of Palestine. The agreement signed by Muhammad with the people of Mecca in which the latter benefited by various concessions, was aimed at giving the Muslims a free hand in subduing this Jewish region. In the Muslim sources, there is mention of an anti-Muslim pact between the Jews of Khaybar and the people of Mecca, but this became invalid with the signing of the Hudaybiyya agreement. See in this connection the article by M. Lecker, JSAI, 5:1, 1984. Ibn Ishiq, in Ibn Hishim, 983; Waqidi, 752f; Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 1601 (calling the leader of the raid: ‘Arnr b.Ka‘b,and noting that he had a total offifteen men with him. According to him these were the same Arabs who attacked the Muslims of theBanu Qudi‘a and their leader named Sadiis. The Banii Qudi‘a were made by the Muslims the target of their attack at Mu’ta, as we shall see below. Even before that, evidently in the summer of 628, there were Muslim actions against the BanuJudhim in southern Trans-Jordan (see below); cf. Caetani, 11, 79. 22

T H E F I R S T I N C U R S I O N S [ S E C S . 27-30]

Heraclius (Wiqidi evidently refers to the Byzantine army rather than the emperor himself) had moved southward and was encamped in ‘Moab, which is the land of theBalqi” with a force of some 100,000 men of the Bahra, Wi’il, Lakhm andJudhim tribes, headed by a member of the Bali tribe namedMilik b. Rifila. The Muslims waited two days beforewriting to the Prophet to inform him of these new circumstances. In order toraise their spirits, ‘Abdallah b. Rawaha reminded them how they had withstood, a handful againstmany, in their earlier battles. With the onset of the battle, the Muslim commanders Zayd b. Haritha and Ja‘far b. Abi T d i b were killed one after the other, and subsequently the third commander, ‘Abdallah b. Rawiha, also fell. According to some traditions, Khilid b. al-Walici was put in command, eventually becoming one of the most important commanders in the campaign of the conquest of Palestine. He had only joined the Muslim ranks a short time earlier. Withdrawal was inavoidable.Returning from Mu’ta to Medina,theyweregreetedby shouts of derision and wereaccused of desertion. But Muhammad stood by them, stating that they had withdrawn their forces (in order to reorganise their troops) and had not deserted. As we have seen, the battle took place in the neighbourhood of Moab, and there are sources which claim that it was fought in mashZvifal-balqi’, or the hills of Moab.’* [30] The assault on Mu’ta is also described by the Byzantine writer Theophanes. He speaks of four commanders appointed by Muhammad to lead the attacking forces. He also mentions the place Moukheon Kame, which may mean ‘Village of the Moukhaians’ with Theodore in charge (bikavios). In thisversion, Theodore learnswellinadvancethatthe Muslims are about to attack (a similar account can also be found in Arab sources) from someone named Koutaba, who was a ‘Korasenos’. Evidently the person mentioned was an Arab named Qutayba of the Quraysh tribe,whoknew andcouldenlightenthem as totheexacttimethe Muslims were intending to launch an attack, and thus Theodore stole a march on the Muslim forces and took the offensive at a site called 18

See Wiqidi, 755-769. He tells here of the incident of al-Nu‘mZn, son of Pinhas the Jew, who was in the presence of the Prophet when he appointed the three commanders, and told him that if he was indeed a prophet, the three would be killed; for when the prophets of the children ofIsrael appointed commanders and designated ‘if so-and-so is killed’, all the commanders were killed, even if a hundred had been appointed. Ibn IshZq, in Ibn HishZm, 791-802, adds that apart from the 100,000 unbelievers, tribesmen, there was a similar number of regular Byzantine soldiers. Tabari, Ta’rlkh, I, 1610-1618; Ibn Sa‘d, II(l), 92; IV(1), 27: Ja‘far b. Abi TZlib was killed in the battle of Mu’ta, in the Balqa’; Mas‘iidi, Tanblh, 265; IbnSayyid al-NZs, ‘Uyfin, 11, 153; Nawawi, Tahdhib, I, 265: ‘Abdallah b. Rawaha was killed in the battle of Mu’ta andnot didleave any heirs. Suyiiti, Khasa’is, 11, 7&72; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, IV, 244. The BalqZ’, it appears from thesources, is a from southern Trans-Jordan.Ya‘qGbi quotes a tradition indicating that this name derives man namedBZliq, who met Joshua bin Nun there. See Ta’rlkh, I, 47; on Ja‘far b. Abi Talib see Ibn Sa‘d, IV(l), 27. Cf. on the raid on Mu’ta: Caetani, 11, 80-90.

THE CONQUEST

Mothous. We learn further from Theophanes that the Muslims intended to wield their swords against the Arab tribes on that very spot. Those tribes were about to offer up a huge sacrifice in honour of their gods on that very day. Which goes to prove that Christianity had taken only a marginal and superficial hold on these tribes who lived under Byzantine rule. l9 Muhammad andthe Palestinian tribes

[31] The Mu'ta affair stresses thefact that Muhammad'sgoal during his last years wasto compel thetribes along the Palestinian bordersto accept Islam and consolidate around him. He decided to adopt towards those tribes outside the Arabian peninsula, particularly those under Byzantine control, the same policy that he had successfully applied to the Arabian peninsula; that of cruel campaigns accompanied by rebuke and chastisement while proposing peace and security to those who joinedhis ranks. However, this policy didnot produce notableresults during his lifetime, andthesetribes,such as the Ghassiin, Qudii'a,JudhZmandothers, remained loyalto their Byzantine masters. It was only after Muhammad's death that his vision of taking over thepalaces of Byzantium and Persia materialised. 2o [32] The firstcracks in the surfaceof these tribes' loyaltyto the ByzanAs we tines had apparently begunto appear during the Prophet's lifetime. have seen, the traditions preserved the memory of Farwa b. 'Amr of Judhiim, whom the Byzantines had placed in a position of authority and who lost his life by converting to Islam. Evidently Islam had infiltrated into his tribe here and there, on butthe whole it was rejected by ofthe most tribesmen. Rifa'a b. Zayd, a member of the clan of Dubayb, who belonged to the JudhZm, appeared beforeMuhammad in the summer 628 of (after the armisticewith Qurayshand before the campaign against Khaybar), bringing the Prophet the gift of a slave and accepting Islamwith all In Mas'iidi, TunbTh, 265, the name of the commander is Thiadux (see there different versions in the notes, but it seems that the original version had Theodoros and this was evidently takenfrom Theophanes). This is one of the rare occasionsin which the Muslim chronicles (at least Mas'tidi) compared their own information with that found in the Byzantine sources,just as Theophanes alsoknew whatwas said in the Muslim sources,in addition to his own. See Theophanes, 335; cf. De Goeje, Mimoire, 4-8, who speaks of the interpretation of the name of the place in Theophanes and mentions that he possibly intended Ma'Pn. See what thetraditions say about the Prophet during the digging oftrench the in Medina (the khandaq): when his pickaxe strikesa stoneand the sparks fly, he sees in them the future conquests in Yemen, in Byzantine and Persian regions (Ibn Hishim, 673; WPqidi, 450; Tabari, Tu'rikh, I, 1469). In Tabari, the version is that the Prophet saw in these sparks the red palaces or fortresses of Byzantium, resembling the teeth of dogs (red, perhapsbecause of the nameapplied to Byzantium by the Jews- Edom).

M U H A M M A D A N D THE P A L E S T I N I A N T R I B E S [ S E C S . 31-32]

his heart. In return the Prophet gave him a letter addressed to his tribesmen, confirming that he was being sentcall tothem to join with God and His Messenger, and to inform them that they had an interim of two months toconsider the matter.In the meantime, it seems that Muhammad sent additional emissariesto the tribes in Palestine. One of these, Dihyab. Khalifa al-Kalbi, on his return from the Palestinian area (according to the traditions, it was on his return from Qayzar, the Byzantine emperor, but theintentionhere is obviouslytothe place he returnedfrom,i.e.a Byzantine domain, and isit certainly unlikely that he would have on been a mission to the emperor), was attacked by tribesmen of Judham. The Prophet then sent Zayd b. Maritha to attack the area inhabited by the Judhim tribe, which is Hisma in southern Trans-Jordan. The Muslim force consisted of 500 cavalry troops, and they took captives and spoils. Afterwards the two sides made peace and the captives and spoils were returned, but this does not mean that the tribe converted to Islam, for as we shall see in subsequent events, this, the largest of the tribes living along the Palestinian borders, was stillon the side of the Byzantines." Dhiit al-Saliisil

[33] The defeat at Mu'ta may have placed the Muslim camp in an inferior position,as a result of the humiliating military setback. In order to prevent a decline in the prestige they enjoyed among the tribes, Muhammad hastened to organise a new force made up of300 cavalry troops and attack thesouthern region of Trans-Jordan. In general, his target was Dhat al-Salisil, which was in the hands of the Banii'Udhra, abranch of the Judham. This force was meant to attack the Banii Bali and the Banu Quda'a specifically ('Udhra was also the name of the place, and is frequently mentioned as belonging to the Judhiim area. As to Bali, they were partof Quda'a; but the sources are sometimes inconsistent, and the placing of the tribes is not always clear). 'Amr b.al-'Az was appointed to head the force. He had been one of the most important figures in and commanders of Mecca, and in the past had participated in actions against the Muslims; but some time prior to this he had converted to Islam. Through his grandmother, he had family connectionswith the Banii Bali, and the Prophet's intention was, apart from the military operation, that he would try to induce the Palestinian border tribes to come over to Islam. O n reaching Dhat al-Salasil, 'Amr sensedthat his forceswould not withstand the . . opposition and he asked for assistance. The Prophetsent 200 more cavalry troops tohis aid, under the commandAbii of 'Ubayda ibnal-Jarrah. These . . .

21

Ibn Hishim, 962c 975fcTabari, Ta'rikh,I, 1740-1745; Wiqidi, 557-560; Watt, Muhammad at Medina, l08C changes the order and places the campaign of Zayd b. Hiiritha before the visit ofRifa'a b. Zayd.

.

..

..

.

.. .

THE CONQUEST

two armies contained some of the most important personalities in the Muslim camp, such as Abii Bakr, ‘Umar ibn al-Kha$ib, Sa‘d b. Abi Waqqik, and others. The local tribes fled in panic as the Muslim forces advanced. It appears that there was much in this campaign to encourage those who had joined Islam; andat the same time there was in this almost unbridled advance into Byzantine territory evidence of the unusual military deterioration of the empire.22

Tabiik

[34] At the beginning of630, Mecca was in the hands of the Muslims. This was the most important stage in the consolidation of the Arab tribes and their unification under the Islamic banner. Tribes which for generations had fought with one another were now under a single leadership and shared a common awareness of a mission conferred on themby God: to inherit the earth from the wicked, or in other words, from Byzantium and Persia. The presence of constant tension from the increasing preparations for war was a vital necessity in the Muslim camp a t the time.If the enormous quantity of contained energy implanted in the armed cavalry troops, members of the tribes, standing at the ready for Muhammad’s command, were to be consumed andwastedonlocalinfightingand trivialities, it would quicklylead to thedivision of the camp and thereturn of civil wars. And so Muhammad started energetic preparations for an enormous campaign against Byzantium. This expedition was afterwards known as the Tabukcampaign. The developmentof eventsis described in Wiiqidi as follows. There were close connections between Medina and the region of Palestine, thanks to the farmers (the Nabateans, as the source calls them), who used to come toMedina to trade. It was from them that the Muslims learned what was happening in Byzantine territory. On orders from the Byzantines, evidently, the farmers began to spread rumours of large concentrations of the Byzantine army, who also had the support of the Arab tribes (Lakhm, Judhim, Ghassan, ‘Amila), and that Heraclius was also stationed nearby in Him?. The Prophet started on a large scale recruiting exercise among the tribes who had joined Islam through loyal envoys sentto each tribe. While formerlyhe would conceal his intentions,making a secret of the target of the nextassaultand spreading a smokescreen over his actions for this purpose, this time he changed his usual practice and openly declared his intention and even demandedthatthetribescontributeappreciablesumstofinancethe 32

Ibn Hisham, 984f; Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 1604f; Wiiqidi, 76%774; see a survey of the expedition to DhHt al-salad in Caetani, 11, 1OOf.

26

T A B U K [ S E C S . 34-35]

campaign. Abii Bakr wantedto serve as an example to others and donated 4,000 dirhams, which he claimed was two-thirds of his fortune. Other heads of the Muslim community also contributed generously, both in money and food,especially dates. The women, too, donated sometheir of ornaments, expensive finery and precious jewels. There were Muslims who wept at the thought thatthey could not armthemselves at their own expense to join the campaign and others had to supply them with what was needed.The traditionsspeak of an army of30,000-strong goingout to battle. O n their route, they passed through the Jewish settlements of Wiidi’l-Qura, whohonouredtheProphetby servinghim with their typical dishes, according to the Muslim sources, which was the havrs (or ha6.a); only that according to the traditions of the descendants of these Jews (and they continued to dwell there for many generations), the Prophet imposed on them an annual tax of 40 wasqs of dates (a wasq is ca. 200 kilograms, or theload that a camel can bear).23 [35] The Prophetand the Muslims remained in Tabiik for twenty days; theentirecampaignlasting twomonths,fromapproximately midOctober tomid-December 630. Taking into consideration that Heraclius hadabandonedhis plans to attack, the Prophet decided to return to Medina as well, on the advice givenhim by ‘Umar. Onecan assume that the withdrawal was really caused by the low morale that was spreading through the Muslimcamp, hints of which onecan sense in the traditions that have been preserved. At this juncture, it should be pointed out that there were individuals within the Muslimcamp itself who from thevery outset were opposed to the expedition into Byzantine territory. The texts describe the reservations, evasiveness and even open opposition to this campaign.24 The people of Wadi’l-Quri (written Wadi al-qry, as in Arabic) are mentioned ina list of books from the Geniza: ‘Queriesfrom people of Widi’l-QurZto Sherira Gaon and Hayy Av (= father of the court), of blessed memory’, i.e. sent towards the end of the tenth century. See: Ginzberg, Geonicn, 11, 54, 61; similarly in Harkavy, Responsa, 94: ‘These were the queries asked by the people Wadi’l of Q u r i of our Master Sherira, Head of the Yeshiva, of blessed memory, and of Av, of blessed memory.’ The opening of thefirst query has been preserved. It is interesting that agricultural matters are being discussed, from which we learn that the Jews of area the were still living on their own land (the query referred to the possession of date palm trees, a matter dealt with in the Mishna, Bava Batra, v:6; in thePT, ihid., v, 15a; inBT, ihid., 81a-82a, 124a). In a letter from Solomonb. Judah written in around 1020, a certain Isaac from WIdi’l-Qura is mentioned, who ‘has to be excommunicated for what he has done to his family in Rabbat Bene ‘Ammen (‘Amman), for he deserted his wife, like a living widow for some four years now’: this same Isaac supplied the finances for commercial ventures, travelled to Egypt and returned ‘to his land’, thatis to Widi’l-Qurii, and since then, there is no trace ofhis whereabouts.See 58, a, 11. 20-25; on the wasq, see: Hinz, 53. Wiqidi, 989-1022; Ibn Hisham, 893-906; Tabari, Ta’rikkh, I, 1692-1705.See a detailed review of the TabGk campaign in Caetani, 11, 238-253, 257ff.

THE CONQUEST

The treaties with towns in the southof Palestine

[36] Muslim tradition associates the Tabiik campaign with an important turning point in Muhammad’s attitude towards the Jewsand the Christians. While previously the Prophet had adopted a hard line towards the Jews inMedina - which was expressed in dispossession, eviction and even annihilation (Banti Qurayza), dispossessing the Jews in the towns in the northern part of theArabian peninsula, depriving themof their property and turning them into tenants -he nowaltered his policy. During his own stay along the borders of Palestine, on land populated by Jews and Christiatls, he seems to have sensed that a wiser policy would be to convince them, toacquiesce, to relinquish any intention of maintaining a military \ force and to rely on Muslims for their personal security and that of their possessions in exchange for the paymentof taxes laid down according to special treaties. Letters of protection have been preserved which Muhammad issued tofourtownsduring his stayinTabiik,oneinthe northern Hijiiz on thecoast of the gulf Eilat, of Maqnii, and three others in Palestine: Eilat, Jarba andAdhruh. The following is the version of the letterto the people of Eilat: To Yuhanna b. Riiba and the worthies of Ayla, Peace be with you! Praised be have no intention of fighting you before writing Allah, there is no God save IHim. to accept Islam, or pay the tax, and obey God and His Messenger to you. Thou hast and the messengers of His Messenger, and do them honour and dress them in fine clothing, not in the raiment of raiders; therefore clothe Zayd in fine robes, for if you satisfy my envoys, you will satisfy me. Surely the tax is known to you. Therefore if you wish to be secure on land and on sea, obey God and his Messenger and you will be free of all payments that you owed the Arab [tribes] or non-Arabs, apart from the payment to God [which is] the payment of his Messenger. But be shall not accept anything from you, careful lest thou do not satisfy them, for I then as captives and slay the elderly. IFor am the but I shall fight you and take the young true Messenger of God; put ye your trust in God and his books and his messengers and in the Messiah son ofMaryam, for is this God’s word and I too, put my trust in Him, for he is the Messenger of God. Come then, before a calamity befalls you. As for me, I have already given my envoys instructions with regard to you: give Harmala three wasqs of barley, for Harmala is your well-wisher, for if it were not for God and if it were not for this, I would not be sending you messengers altogether, but rather you would be seeing the army. Therefore if you obey my messengers, you will have the protection of God and of Muhammad and all that stand at his side. My messengers are Shurahbil and Ubayy and Harmala and Hurayth b. Zayd who is one of the sons of the Banii Tayy’. All that they decide with regard to you shall be according to my wishes, and you will have the protection of God and of Muhammad the Messenger of God. And peace will be with you if you obey me. And the people of MaqnZ thou shall lead back land.Z5 to their *5

Ibn Sa‘d, I(2), 28-29, see also p. 37: Yuhanni was king and bishop. According to Wiqidi, 1031, YuhannP was son of Ru’ba, king of Ayla. Tabari, Tu’rfkh, I, 1702: ‘the owner of 28

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T R E A T I E S W I T H T O W N S I NSOUTH P A L E S T I N E [ S E C S . 36-40]

[37] And this is the wording of the letter to the people of Adhruh, as Waqidi copied it: In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate. From Muhammad the Prophet to the people of Adhruh; They [will live] securely by virtue of the letter of security from God and from Muhammad. They are due to pay100 dinars, good and weighed, on every Rajab. And if one [of flees them] from the Muslims, out of - fortheyfearedtheMuslims - theyshalllivesecurelyuntil fearandawe Muhammad will visit them before he leaves.26

[38] And the letter to the peopleof Maqna: To the sons of Hanina, who are Jews of MaqnH, and the people of MaqnH, near Ayla. Your request has reached me [which was sent] whenyou returned to your village. With the arrivalof this letter your securityis ensured and you are granted God’s protection and that of his Messenger; God’s Messenger forgives you the wickedness you have done and for all the sins you have committed. Therefore you are granted God’s protection and that of his Messenger; no one will do you injustice or harm, for isitthe Messenger of God himselfwho gives you protection from what he himself will not do to you. Your arms belong to the Messenger of God; as well as all the slaves that are with you, and the rings, apart from what the Messenger of God, or the envoy of the Messenger of God, will allow you to keep. And from now onwards you will owe a quarter of your date harvest and a quarter of your fishing yield, anda quarter of the yarn spun by your women. Except for these you will be free of any levy or impressment. If you will listen and obey, the Messenger of God will respect the honourable amongst you and forgive the sinners amongst you. And for the information of the believers and the Muslims: anyone coming to the people of MaqnH who is concerned with their well-being will benefit; and anyone who intends doing them harm will suffer harm. There will be no chief over you other than one of you or one of the Messenger of God’s people. And peace.27

26

27

Ayla’ [siihib], similarly also Balidhuri, Ftrttih, 60. According to Wiiqidi, the tax leviedon the people of Ayla was 300 dinars annually, for there were 300 men there. See also Ibn Sa‘d, ibid., 377; Ibn Hishim, 902; Mas‘iidi, TanbTh, 272 states thatYuhannZ was bishop of Ayla. See furtherAbii‘Ubayd, Amwd, 200; Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, I, 331. The letter of protection was preserved by the people of Ayla, as was the Prophet’s coat, which he gave them as a gift. The first of theAbbasid caliphs,al-Saffh, bought them for the sum300 of dinars; Diyiirbakri, 11, 127; Ibn ‘Asiikir,I, 421; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, 11, 280; that Ayla was the seat of a bishop at the beginning of the seventh century is evident from a letter preserved among the papyriof Nessana, from M6usb(Moses), the Bishop of AilanE (the district of Ayla)concerningVictor,theson of Sergius, of Nessana. Theletter accompanied a package sent to the churches of St Sergius in Nessana and its environs: Nessana, 146 (51). Wiiqidi, 1032; the editor corrected the version, so that it was given the opposite meaning, that is, ‘if someone would flee from the Muslims to them’ (to the people of Adhruh), which belies common sense. A similarly distorted versionis to be found also in Ibn Sa‘d, I(2), 37, and this served as the basis for the ‘correction’. See also Mas‘iidi, Tanblh, 272. Ibn Sa‘d, I(2), 28. Certain expressions were already unfamiliarin Ibn Sa‘d’s time, and he of the treaty, not quite accurately. tried to explain them in the continuation to the version See the subject of the treaty in Balidhuri, Ftrttih, 59f; who states that he was told by an Egyptian that he had seen the letter of protection to the people of MaqnZ in the original,

THE CONQUEST

[39] It is distinctly statedof the peopleof Maqna,Jarba andAdhruh that they were Jews. As to thepeople of Eilat, itappears that Yuhannab. Ru’ba represented the Christians as well as the Jews living there. One should especially note thephrase in the letterof security (towards the end)to the people of Maqn5 in which they are promised a leader from amongst themselves, although the matter is qualified by the possibility mentioned there that theirleader could be an envoy of Muhammad. We find in these treaties the paradigmof letters of security that theleaders of the Muslims were toissue during thegreat conquestsas well. Here can be found certain key words for thefirst time: letterof security (aman or amana); tax (jizya; this word afterwards took on a specific meaning, that ofpoll-tax); protection (dhimma);giver ofprotection (~ZY).One should notethat the root ’mn in Arabicexpresses the idea of security, and that the meaning of the word mu’min, which is translated aboveas believer and whichis characteristic of the Muslims, at the time was linked to theidea of security, something like ‘the participantsof the securitypact [under the protection] of God and his Messenger’. Only at a later stage did it acquire the meaningof the Hebrew word rna’am5znTrn (believers). The new policy towards the Jews and the Christians wasalso evident in the Koran. In chapter ix (siirat al-thawba, the repentance, verse 29): ‘Fight ye those who were given the Book, who do not trust God nor the Last Day, and do not forbid what God and his Messenger have forbidden,since their religionis not thereligion of truth; [fight them] until they are lyingdown and pay the tax accordingto their ability’ [or their profits].28 [40] From such precedents, the basic legal outlook of Islam towards non-Muslims developed, becoming an integral part of Muslim martial law. They were obliged to (1) accept Islam (although theoretically Islam

28

written onred parchment, with the script already faded; it was hewho copied the version and dictatedit to BalZdhuri, who has the version: Banii Habiba, while that inSa‘d Ibnwas: Banu Janba. See the matter of the treaties (letters of protection) also in: Halabi, 111, 160; DahlZn, 11, 374c Ibn Kathir,BidZyn, V, 16f. See also Hirschberg.Israel Ba-‘arZv, 152ff, on the subject of the treaties, and also the parallel noteson p. 304. As to the name ofJewish inhabitants of MaqnZ, the versions have been interchanged: Janba, Habiba, Hanina, all clearly one name which was distorted because of the similarity of the letters in Arabic writing; this has already been noted in: Sperber,DieSchreiben Muhammads an die Stamme Arabiens, Mitteilungen des Seminars fiir orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin, 19(2):1, 1916. The version I;-lanrnais also found in a fake letter ofprotection preserved in theCairo Geniza, whose author most certainly copied the names from an Arabic source. O n this subject, see the article by Goitein, K S , 9:507, 1931-33. Ibn Sa‘d, I(2), 38: The people of MaqnZ were Jews who lived on the coast, and the people of Jarba and Adhruh were Jews as well. O n the passage from the Koran, see: Kister, Arabica, 9:272, 1964.It is said of this passage that ‘it was brought down’,meaning thatGod revealed it to the Prophet, before the Tabiik campaign, See ibid., 278. However there is also a tradition that ascribes it to a period after Tabiik. See Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Martcir, 102f. 30

T H E E X P E D I T I O N O F U S A M A B . Z A Y D [ S E C . 411

does not recognise forced Islamisation), or (2) accept the status of protected people (defined for the first time in letters such as those quoted above), or (3) be killed (with the exceptionof women, childrenand slaves). Arabs, that is tribesmen, were in principle left with the choice between the first and third possibilities (though in practice there were exceptions) .29 The expedition of Usiima b. Zayd

[41] The two raids across the Palestinian border which followed the defeat in Mu’ta, the attacks on Dhital-Salasil and on Tabiik, didnot seem to the Prophet sufficient to erase the shame and loss of prestige eyesin the of the northerntribes. The tribes of thePalestinian border region had still not learned their lesson. Some two and a half years after the attack on Tabiik, in May632, Muhammad invited Usima b. Zayd b. Hiritha to the mosque and ordered him toact as commander of the army whichwas to invade Palestine again, and in words the of Ibn Ishiq ‘to spur his on horses to the Takhumof al-Balqi’ whichis in Palestine’, that is, the borderarea of Moab. Zayd b. Haritha, the father ofUsama, a man whowas veryclose to the Prophet(his freed slave) had commanded the armyin the campaignof Mu’ta, as we have already seen, andwas slain in battle. In addition to the Balqii’, he was also ordered to descend upon the Diiriim. Some weeks later, the Prophet began to suffer from the disease which was to end his life. Already ill, he again announced with stubborn determination from his seat (the minbav) in the mosque that Usama should head the expeditionary force, and rebuked those who thought that he did not merit this honour as being too young for the appointment, while the bestcommanders of the Muslim army, from Mecca and from Medina, were available. And thus Usama did set up the expeditionary forces camp in Jurf, about four miles from Medina. The Prophet’s orders to Usima wereunequivocal: he was to go out to the very place where his father had fought and fallen together with the other Muslim commanders: ‘Attack the people of Ubna early in the morning and destroy them by fire!’ He stipulated that children and women were not tobe killed (they wereto be taken captive) andhandedhimthebattleflag.Thisraid also attractedtheforemost Muslims, among them ‘Umar ibn al-KhattZb and Abii ‘Ubayda b. alJarrah. Usama managed to visit the Prophet before going into battle. He was exceedingly weak and even unable to speak, but he was still able to lift his hand to the heavens, afterwards pointing to Usima, as a sign that he was praying for him. The following day, as the army was preparing to leave, the Prophet 29

See Schacht, Introduction, 130.

THE CONQUEST

died.Itwas a Monday, towards evening, on 8 June 632. AfterMuhammad’s death became known, rumours were heard of the first tribal secession from Islam. The Muslims began to hesitate as to thenecessity of setting out for Palestine. Abii Bakr, however, insistently repeated the Prophet’s last instructions: carry out the campaign of Usima’s army! He also ordered ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib not to join the campaign as planned because he needed him in Medina, and Usima agreed. And so Usima went outat the head of an army of3,000 men, of whom some 1,000were cavalry troops. Abii Bakr, the caliphwho had just taken up his position, accompanied them part of the way. a distance At of twodaysjourney from Ubna, Usima learned from a spy he had sent there that the inhabitants were relaxed and had no suspicion whatsoever of the approach of the Muslim army. Usima therefore hurried to reach Ubna and launched a surprise attack, with the Muslims shouting their war cry:Yu mun;fir amit (Oh ye victor, kill!). They slaughtered the local population mercilessly, destroying, burning, and taking as many captives as they could. At the same time, Usima rode astride his father’s horse and succeeded in slaying his father’s killer. Ibn Hishim and Wiqidi’s versions of what occurred at Ubna differ. Tabari relates thatUsima was’ordered that the attack should take place in the region of Trans-Jordan (al-Urdunn), at Abil al-Zayt (Abil of the Olives). One may assume that the attack took place somewhere in the neighbourhood of Moab and it is certainly unlikely thatUbna (probablya distortion), can be identifiedwith Yavne, as some have asserted.Nor is the actual site of Abil al-Zayt known.30 The great invasion

[42] Abii Bakr’s absolute determination to fulfil the Prophet’s orders and carry out the planned attack in the Moab area no matter what the outcome, indicates that he perceived, clearly and correctly, that Islam would stay alive only if the mo,mentum of war continued. There were already troublesome signs of,disintegration which were becoming increasingly blatant. Even in the circles of the mostfaithful - the people of Medina andMuhammad’s allies and his first disciples- there was growing bitterness and rancour, particularlyas none of them had been chosento be Ibn Hishiim, 970, 999, 1,006; Wiqidi, 1117-1127; Tabari, Tu’rrkh, I, 1794f, 1797,1810, 1845-1851. Muqaddasi, AqdTrn, 174: Diriim means the region around BaytJubrin. See the discussion on the site of the attack: De Goeje, Mirnoire, 17ff;Ya‘qiibi, BulEn, 329, and Mas‘iidi, Tanbih, 273, who identify Ubna with Yavneh, and the latter also adds that Usima attacked Ashdod (Azdiid) apartfrom Yavneh (Yabni). See the detailed survey in Caetani, 11, 490fc 587-591.

T H E G R E A T I N V A S I O N [ S E C S . 42-48]

the Prophet’s replacement(khalgu), but rather a man from theMuhajiriin people of Mecca, of the Quraysh tribe. It was therefore helpful for Abii Bakr to keep the unsatisfied elements out of town for a certain time by keeping them absorbed in the war effortled by U ~ P m a . ~ l [43] The process of secession, theridda, consisted mainly of thedissolution of the Muslim alliance and the forfeiting of obligations it had imposed on the tribes. Also, in various corners of the peninsula, local prophets were appearing on the scene and in this way, religion and politics were interwoven. In practical terms, the secession was expressed by the refusal to pay the~adaqa,the tax levied on the tribes as a contribution tothe war fund, and non-compliance to the dictates of the envoys from Medina. After the army returned fromits campaign in Palestine,a large force was organised under the command of Khalid ibn al-Walid, and he put down the centres of insurgence one after the other and achieved his principal victory in routing Maslama (Musaylima, as the Muslims called him, a pejorative diminutive), a prophet who had emerged in the centre of the peninsula. There are various opinionswith regard to thefinal suppression of the secession, but it seems that this happened in the main before the spring of 633; some centres of rebellion continued to exist for about another year.32 [44] Once he had restored the tribes to compliance and renewed the rule of Islam on the peninsula, Abii Bakr decided that the time had come to invade Palestinian territory. This occurred when he returned from his pilgrimage in the year12, that is, February-March 634. T w o large forces weresent to Palestine. The firstwasunder‘Amrb. al-As, who was ordered to pass through Eilat by the rnu‘raqa (by way of the mountains; which appears to be the correct interpretationof this word) to thecoastal region. Thesecond force was under a triad of commanders: Khalid Sa‘id b. b. al-‘As, Abii ‘Ubayda b. al-Jarrah, and Shurahbil b. Hasana. Khalid b. Sa‘id belonged to the clan of Umayya, from which the caliphs of Damascusweredescended. He was one of the first to join Islam. Abii ‘Ubayda was also a veteran of Islam, from the clan of Balhzrith, of Quraysh, and participated in the first hijra (to Ethiopia). He was one of Abii Bakr’s most loyal adherents,as he was of ‘Umar, while Shurahbil b. Hasana belonged to one of the ‘southern’ tribes(as isalso indicated byhis name, which was typical of the south), and itis not clear to which of them he belonged - perhaps Kinda, Tamim or Lakhm.Hasana was thename of 31

32

See De Goeje, Mimoire, 20; a very detailed surveyof the outset of the invasion, including 11, Khilidb. al-Walid’s expedition fromtheEuphrates to theHawriin.SeeCaetani, 11 19-1236. See the articleAbG Bakr, inEP (by W.M. Watt); the storyof the ridda can also be found in any history of early Islam.

33

THE CONQUEST

his mother, while ‘Abdallah washis father’s name. He too was one ofthe first followers of Islam and took part in the hijru to Ethiopia. The second force was under orders to charge through theTabiik region into Moab(al-Balqi’). Eachof thethree commanders stood at the head of a force of 3,000 fighters (some say 5,000). Khilid Ibn Sa‘id was the first to wield success in battle, when advancing according to Abii Bakr’s orders through Tayma. He had to recruit additional fighters en route, on condition that they did not take part in the secession. Indeed, many groups of warriors joined him. The Byzantines were informed of the approach of this army and organised an opposing force amongst the Bahri, Kalb, Salih, Taniikh, Lakhm, Judhim, and Ghassin tribes. Khilid wrote and informed Abu Bakr of this but the latter answereda letter with ofencouragement and demanded that he continue to advance. And in fact as he advanced, the tribes in the Byzantines’ service dispersed, while his own strength was being reinforced by these very tribes en route, many ofwhom joined Islam. In the neighbourhood of Abil (evidently Abil al-Zayt), he was attacked by a Byzantine commander (bitrlq), named Bihin. In one version Khilid overcame and slew him (but this is not correct, as we shall meet up with Bahin [or Mihan] later on), and scattered his army to the winds.Whereasinanotherversion, Bihin delayed Khilid b. Sa‘id’s a serious setbackat a place called advance considerably and even dealt him Marj Suffar (the valley of birds), east of the Sea of Galilee. Khalid’s son Sa‘id was killed in this battle. Reinforcements sentby Ab6 Bakr, mostly tribesmen from Yemen and the centreof thepeninsula, under the charge of ‘Ikrimab.Abi Jahl and al-Walid b. ‘Uqba, succeeded, with great difficulty, in preventing the complete collapse of the Muslim offensive. Another factor which helped to improve the situation at that moment was the advance of the forces under Shurahbil b. H a ~ a n a . ~ ~ 33

Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 2108f; Baladhuri, FutJb, 107f; see Gibb’s article on Abii ‘Ubayda b. al-Djarrah inEP; on Khilidb. Sa‘id seeIbn al-Athir, Usd, IT, 90ff; on Shurahbil b. Hasana, see ibid., 11, 391f; Balidhuri, Ansiib, I, 214; Ibn Qutayba, Mo‘irif; 325. Baladhuri, Ftrtih, 118ff, discusses the battleat Marj Suffar as if it were a later occurrence, and accordingto him, it was Khalid b.Sa‘id himself who was killedon the morning after his betrothal, and not his son; andit seems that Tabari’s version is more reliable. De Goeje, Mimoire, 78-81, defends Baladhuri’s chronology, and assumes that the battle at Marj Suffar indeed i‘ook place after the conquest of Bet Shean, Pehal (Pella), and Tiberias, during the advanceto Damascus.Noldeke, ZDMG, 29(1876), 425f, n. 3, tries to prove thatMarjSuffar is relatively near Damascus. Cf. also Dussaud, Topogr., 318-322. This argument, however, does not contain enoughto deny most of the Muslim sources which place this campaign in the days of Abii Bakr, and one cannotdeny the possibility that a Muslim cavalry unit may have advanced, atan earlier date, to theHawran region.Ibn Kathir,Bidrip, VII, 10, refers to a source according to which Mahin, the Byzantine commander, tried to handle the Muslims diplomatically: he says thatMihan knew they were driven into their campaign by suffering and hunger; he offered each ten dinars and food and clothing, adding the promise that in the future he would treat them similarly - all on conditionthat they return

34

T H E G R E A T I N V A S I O N [SECS. 42-48]

[45] Atthesametime,AbiiBakrdecided to accept ‘Umaribn al-Khattiib’s advice, who for some time had been askinghim toget rid of Khalid b. Sa‘id in the command. The reason for this, according to the sources, was that ‘Umar doubted his loyalty, especially as it had takenhim two months to swear his allegiance tothenew caliph. It appears that already at this stage, the Umayyads had set their hearts on achieving the central role in the leadership of the Muslim camp, and this is precisely what ‘Umar hoped t o prevent. Nevertheless, in place of Khalid b. Sa‘id Abii Bakr appointed Yazid b. Abi Sufyan, who came from another branch of the Umayyads, and who seemed more trustworthy (thiswas Yazid thebrother ofMu‘awiya, whoafterwards became caliph).34 [46] AbiiBakr was particularlyattentiveto Yazid b. Abi Sufyan, recently appointed by him to lead the major force intended to go into action in Palestine. He accompanied him part of the way on foot, while Yazid rode on his horse. Sources ascribed to Abu Bakr the issuing of an order of the day to the forces going out to conquer the north, but there are no identical viewsas to whomthe order was given; whether to Usiima b. Zayd or to Yazid b. Abi Sufyan. Some ascribe similar instructions to the Prophet; these are as follows: ten precepts have I for you, remember them in my name.Do not betray. Do n o t embezzle or behave craftily. Do not disable.Do n o t kill a small childor an elderly person or a woman. Do not uproot palm trees and do not burn them. Do n o t fell a fruit-bearing tree. Do not slaughter sheep, steer, or camel, unless it be for eating. When on your way, you will encounter those who have shut themselves up

34

to their homes. TheMuslims naturally rejected his offerwith contempt. Cf.ibid., VII, 5: Heracliuswrites to hisadministratorsinPalestineandsuggeststheycometosome compromise with the Arabs, by which the latter will receive half the taxes of al-Sham (Syria and Palestine), while the mountainous regions (?Jibil al-Rim) will remain in the hands of the Byzantines. Mahiin’s name is written in various forms, such as Ahan, Bihin, cf. Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 452; in a Byzantine source from the first half of the fifteenth century: BlanEs,see Klein-Franke, B Z , 65(1972), 5 (1.5). De Goeje, Mimoire, proposes Baanes (Bahin). Perhaps thisis the name Makhaon,see: Preisigke, Namenbuch, 210. According to Sa‘id Ibn Bitriq,11, 13, Mahin was the commander appointed by Heraclius over the Arab tribes, such as Ghassin, Judham,Kalb, Lakhm, etc.; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, VII, 6 states that Mihiin was an Armenian. See the discussion (comparatively recent) in Stratos, 64, who claims that his name was Vahanor Vaanes, and that he wasa Persian, son of Shahrbaraz, the Persian commander who led a rebellion in 630 and wanted to become king of the Persians; Vahan escaped and fled to Heraclius after his father was killed. See also a further note, ibid., 209. Shaban, Islamic History, 25, tries to emphasise the fact that at the head of the great invasion Abii Bakr appointed mainly people Quraysh of (‘Amr b.al-‘As, Khilid b. Sa‘id, Yazid b. Abi Sufyin); these were peoplewho knew southernPalestine well, and also northof thisregion,duetothewidespreadcommercialtransactionstheyhad conducted previously. O n the subject of the oustingof Khalid b. Sa‘id, see Tabari, Ta’rM, I, 2079f; Balidhuri, Artir(z, 108.

35

THE C O N Q U E S T

in monk’s cells, do themno harm and permit them to devote themselves to their chosenpaths. You willencounterpeoplebearingvessels,offeringyouall kinds of foods. Invoke God over every dish. When you meet people who have shaven their heads in the middle and lefta sort of halo around, strike them with spears.

A remnant of these instructions turned up in the Muslim traditions, and wasincludedinthe hadTth collectionsinthe form of a taboo (in the Prophet’s name) on qaz‘ - this being the name given this type of tonsure. 35 [47] Considerable contradictions in the sources appear regarding the time when the conquests began. But it appears that in principle, we have to accept the description which places the drive northwards immediately his after the suppressionof the attempted secession. While Abii Bakr and aides and the entire Muslim camp were still basking in the auraof victory and prestige which had spread far and wide as a result of putting down the rebels, the caliph wantedto take immediate advantage of the situation by invading the region which would confront them with the least opposition, and that was thearea of which the Arab tribes were in charge. Indeed we have seen how the tribesof Trans-Jordan recededwith the approach of the

35

Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 1850; the Prophet’s words to Usiima b. Zayd, according to Wiqidi, when charging him with themission of revenging the death of his father, aresomewhat similar in contentbut not precisely the same.See WZqidi, 11 17; cf. the shortened version of Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 82; and see in the anonymous Syriac chronicle, 240, a version translated from the Arabic original, in which the killing of the ‘people of the haircut’ is omitted. See De Goeje, Mimoire, 23, the discussion on the significance of the last two passages. There is no doubtthat the intention wasto orderthe killingof people with these particular haircuts, who were, according to De Goeje, ibid., Christian priests, differentiating them from the monks. But it ispossible that the referencehere is to the Manichaean priests, who were especially abhorred by the Muslim leadership.Hinting at the circle (hair? or band?) around thehead, see in the pictureofMani, with the Manichaean seal, in Adam, Texte, 105, and others which are similar,ibid., in continuation, 108. O n the other hand, the type ofhaircut described here was indeedcommon among theChristian priests; although from the decisions of the fourth Council in Toledo (which met at precisely the same time as the events described here, in 633), one can understand that there was also a ‘haircut of the heretics’:‘Omnes, clerici vel lectores sicut levitae et sacerdotes, detonso superius toto capite, inferius solam circuli coronam relinquant’, that is, all the priesthood, readers, the Levites and the Priests, should shavethe upper partof their pates, leaving a roundcircle of hair, in order to differentiate themselvesfrom the: ‘ritus haereticorum: qui. . . in solo capitis apice modicum circulum tondent’ (‘a custom of the heretics who . . . shave the tops oftheir heads and nothing else’); see Mansi, X, 630; cf. the detailed discussioninLeclerq, Tonsure, DACL, XV (2), 2430-2443. Mahbiib(Agapius), 179 (439), mentions the decree issued by the Emperor Mauricius in the eleventh year of his reign, 593, that the Jewsof Antioch, who were tobe evicted from thecity, should shave their heads in the middle, in order to have some mark of identification. The matter is therefore complex, and there is no way of identifying these tonsured individuals to whom the caliph is referring. Q a z ‘ , see, for instance, in Bukhari, Sahih, k. al-libis, bib ai-qaz‘; cf. Goldziher, MG WJ, 29(1880), 356.

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T H E G R E A T I N V A S I O N [ S E C S . 42-48]

advancing Muslim army’and how many of them joined the ranks of the Muslims. 36 [48] This is completely in accordwith what Theophanes and Nicephorus, the patriarch of Constantinople, tell us from the Byzantine angle. According to these writers, the Byzantine governor delayed the payment of thirty gold livres which he owed the Arabs who were responsible for the security of the desert borderlands. When they came to ask for their due, the eunuch in charge of finances replied, ‘My master has dificulty enough in payinghis own soldiers; how then can he pay such dogs?’ This led to the Arabs’ abandonment of the Byzantines and joining of the Muslims descending on Gaza. Similar information is conveyed by Sa‘id Ibn Bitriq, who mentions that Mahiin, Heraclius’ governor of the Arab tribes, wrote to Mansiir, the governor of Damascus, that he should pay thetribes’envoyswhateverwas owing to them. Whentheseenvoys arrived in Damascus, Mansfir told them: ‘The emperornot does wantsuch a large army, for the Arabs are onlygood forforays, and if they will have to contend with an army that will force them to do battle, their entire armies will be slain. And this is an army which requires large sums of money and Damascus does not have enough to give them.’ There were those who claimed that ManSfir said this intentionally, so that the loyal tribes would disperse and Damascus would fall to the Muslims. Behind this incident, one can also discern the weakness of Byzantiurn. Although the Byzantines had just then defeated the Persians, their treasuries had been emptied as a result of the ceaseless wars. One can also discern the shifting trend in the Arabs’ state of mind, concurrent with Islam’s early victories in the border area of Palestine. However, when the Muslims actually first encountered the Byzantine army on the battlefield, somewhere in central Trans-Jordan, and headed by BZhiin, they suffered an overwhelming defeat which the Muslim sources tend to make light of or do notalways mention. This was the reversal at Marj Suffar, and it appears to have occurred in thesummer of634.37

36

37

See De Goeje, Mimoire,.25-29, and his noteson theconflicting texts.He himself doubted the veracity of the description in Tabari (according to Sayf;this is most of the description given above): heis inclined to accept the traditions in Baladhuri, which shift the battle of Marj Suffarto Muharram,in the yearAH 14 (March AD 635), and claim thatKhilid (and not his son), was killed in that battle. But it seems that precisely the somewhat unusual versionofSayf is thecorrectone, while the others tried to lend greater stature to personalities who later became more accepted in Islam, particularly AbG ‘Ubayda b. al-Jarrih. Theophanes, 335. Nicephorus, 26f. Cf. DeGoeje, Mimoire, 29,and see Sa‘idIbn Bitriq,11, 114; cf. also Caetani, 11, 1113f.

37

THE C O N Q U E S T

The expedition of ‘Amr ibn al-‘As

[49] The right wing of the Muslim offensive which pushed eastwa.rd in Trans-Jordan was forced to come to a standstill, and perhaps even to withdraw southward to the border region, having evidently been repulsed. At the same time, the leftwing advanced under ‘Amr ibn al-‘A$, via the ‘ArZv5 intothe coastalregion.According tothetraditionin Baladhuri, ‘the first battle between the Muslims and their enemies was of Gaza called Dathin, against the fought at a village in the neighbourhood governor (bitvrq) of Gaza. A battle raged untilGod gave the victoryto His followers, routing His enemies and disbanding their troops’. But prior to this, it seems that there was an encounter in the ‘AravZ region, when six Byzantine commanders with 3,000 men opposed the Muslims. O n that occasion the Muslims overcame the Byzantines. One ofthe latter’s officers was killed, and the Muslims pursued them until Dubya, or DZbya, as Baliidhuri puts it.Tabari says inhis parallel version that the pursuit lasted until Dathina, and he is evidently correct.38 [50-511 This battle is described in an anonymous Syriac chronicle as follows: In the year 945, on Friday the 4th of Shevat (the of February fourth 634 was actually a Friday), at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Byzantines and the Arabs of Muhammad in Palestine, 12 miles from the town of Gaza. The Byzantines fled and abandoned the commander (the patricirrs, in Arabic sources:6itriq) in the Jordan, and the Arabs slew him. Some 4000 poor villagers from Palestine were killed,Christians,JewsandSamaritansandtheArabsdestroyedtheplace completely.

The fact that the Samaritans fought alongside the Byzantines against the Muslims is mentioned in other Syriac chronicles as well. According to these, the forces opposing the Muslim army consisted of 5,000 fighters, recruited by the patricius Sergius from among the Byzantines and the Samaritans (Shamra’e).The Muslims were victorious and firstof all killed 3*

See Balidhuri, Ftrtiih, 109. Diibya is certainly a distortionof the name Dathina.The name Diithin (or Diithina) is parallel etymologically to the Hebrew Doshen,and this may have been the nameof the place. For we find dcshnih she1 Yer$6 (see SijZ on Num.,par. 81 [ed. called Doshna near Jericho is Horowitz, 771 and its parallels). It is not unlikely that a place intended, despite the fact that the Arab sources itsay is in the vicinity of Gaza; hence one can assume that ‘Amr advancedthrough the ‘Ariivs until the regionof the Dead Sea and from thereveered westward. This assumptionis supported by the Syriac source which is quoted below, according to which the Muslims captured the Byzantine commander ‘in the Jordan’. The meaning of the word‘aribii (in the Arab sources) was clear not to Yaqiit, the Muslim geographer of the Middle Ages, and some modern scholars are also puzzled by it, but it is merely the ‘Arivii whose meaning we have become accustomed to. See De Goeje, Mimoire, 30f. Cf. Tabari, Td’rikh, I, 2108; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, VII, 4.See in Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, 11, 10, instead of Diithin: ‘Tidun, a village in the Gaza area, near Hijiiz’. In Theophanes, 332: Dathesmos.

T H E E X P E D I T I O N O F ‘ A M R I B N A L - ‘ A S [ S E C S . 49-52]

all the Samaritans.The patricius Sergius managedto escape, but the Arabs caught him and had him executed. We find contrary information about the Samaritans in Baladhuri, according to whom the Samaritans served as spies and informers to the Muslims.39 The Byzantine commander alsowas called Sergius, according to Theophanes; he went out ofCaesarea to face the Arabs at the head of a small force, some 300 strong, but the Arabs defeated him and he was killed. The Arabs already dominated Heraat the time (it is not clear where this is) as well as the entire Gaza district (khovu GUZ~?~).~~ [52] The expedition of ‘Amr ibn al-‘Az is reflected also in a Christian source I havealreadymentionedabove,which it seems is actually a product of the time, that is, the Didaskalia of Jacob. Justus of Acre (Ptolemais),sonofSamuel,argueswithJacob;whilesettingout his arguments, he recalls that he received a letter from his brother Abraham from Caesarea, telling of a false messiah who has appeared among the Arabs (en meso SavukZn6tz) and that they have killed Sergius, candidatus. the According to Justus, the Prophet who appeared within the ranks of the Arabs is an omen of the true Messiah who has yet to come; but one of the sages of Sykamina (whichis Haifa), denied this, for isit not the manner of prophets to come mountedand with the sword.41

j9

KI

41

B M O r14, 643, fol. 50v, printed in Land, A n . S y r . I, 17, and see his Latintranslation, ibid., 116, and its copy in De Goeje, Mimoire, 30. Itis possible that in writing ‘Yarden’ the chronicler who apparently already wrote underIslam, meant northernPalestine, i.e., jund Urdunn. DeGoeje’s assumption that therewas a distortion here of the Syriac text has no basis; nor has that which Caetani,11, 1144, n. 2, writesin hiswake. The anonymousSyriac chronicle, 241f, contains a long description of the battle with Sergius, according to which most of the fightersin the Byzantine forces were Samaritans, in all, 5000 men. A similar version can be found in Michael the Syrian (Chabot), 11, 413 (French translation; 411f, in the original). See also Bar Hebraeus (Bedjan), 99C see Budge’s English translation, 93. And see further Balidhuri, Fut$l, 158, and cf. Lammens, Y a z i d , 385. Theophanes, 336. Caetani’s assumption, in 11, 1143, that HEra is perhaps Hira, and that the subject being dealt with is the war with the Persians and Khiilid ibn al-Walid, is not convincing. See the description of the raid on Gaza (within the contextof the first raids): Pernice, Eraclio, 272ff; this description is arbitrary to a large extent, and is evidently not based on a study of the sources themselves. See the words of Justus, in the Bonwetsch edition, 86; cf. Krauss, Zion (ha-me’assEf), 2(1927/8), 30; Crone and Cook, 3fC Constantelos, B y a n t i o n , 42(1972), 351C Maas, BZ, 20(1911), 576; the ‘candidate’, a Roman administrative position, was in this period the catldidati in the same commander of a Byzantine elite military unit; Liudprand mentions the breath as the spatharii; see Leclercq, Candidator, DACL,II(2), 1842; seevarious interpret. also the list ofspatharokandidatoi: Benezevit, ations of this term: D u Cange, Gloss., s . ~See BNG]. 5(1926/7), 133; see also Bury, Zntperial Administration, 22; The candidate wore a special gold chain; see ibid., 113. It is obvious that they were a select body, apparently commanders in the cavalry units. See what is saidin Procopius, Wars, VII, xxxviii, 5(Loeb V, 20-22) on Asbadus, who succeeded in becoming one ofJustinian’s guardsmen because he was considered a candidate and was the commander of the cavalry units which served as a garrison. The word ‘candidatus’ is derived from the white colour oftheir dress.

39

THE C O N Q U E S T

The expeditionof Khiilid ibn al-Walid

[53] Until now, we have seen how the Muslim tribes pushed forward towards southern Palestine, largely owing to theweak defense put up by the oppositionled by those Arab tribes which were faithful to Byzantium, as well as by a small Byzantine garrison which could not withstand the onslaught of the Muslimcavalry. But it seems that both the army in the field as well as the caliph knew well that this advance was insufficient to conquer all of al-Sham, or Syria and Palestine. They estimated accurately that in order to fortify and consolidate theirinitial achievements, they had to gather additional forces and try to finally overthrow the Byzantines’ power ofresistance. With this necessity in mind, and particularly in view of the increasing rumours that were reaching them about the concentration of Byzantine forces and their preparations to go into action, the Muslim leadership headed by the caliph Abii Bakr decided to enter on a ratherunusualcourse,averydaringanddangerousone.AbiiBakr ordered Khilid ibnal-Walid, the commander of the major Muslim forces who at that time were fighting the Persians in Iraq, to go to theassistance of thetribes struggling inPalestine. This moveindicated that priority was being given to the Byzantine front, and this would clearly endanger the Persian campaign. There was also the risk to the forces that were to move from Iraq to Syria through ‘the desert, without any pause to prepare themselves adequately for such a campaign, something which had never been attempted before. According to the description of Ibn Ishiq, Abii Bakr wrote to Khilid, who was stationed in Hiranear the Euphrates, ordering him to depart for al-Shim with thepick of his men andleave the weaker elements behind in Iraq. Khilid thoughtthis a plot connived atby ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib (who harboured resentment towards Khalid, as we shall see below), in order that he should notbe recognised as the conqueror of Iraq. Despite what he had been told of thedifficulties awaiting him en route, particularly the lack of water, Khiliddid not give way, and using thebest methods ofpreparing the camels for long treks without water, according to the extensive experience of the Bedouin inthese matters, he managed to bring his men through the desertsuccessfully as far as Buy5 in theHawrin, via Tadmur, in a pattern formingan arc whose outer curve faced northward. The traditions contradict one another as to the number of fighters, fluctuating from 500 to 3,000; one of the versions even mentions 9,000. BuSr5 was taken aftera siege and submitted voluntarily (byzulh), and a tax (jizyu) was levied on its inhabitants. ‘And this was the first city taken in al-Shim in the days of Abii Bakr.’ In the region of Damascus, Khiilid first met up with the great tribe, Banii Ghassin, who were Christians. He found them near Marj RahiF, celebrating Easter, which that year fell on

T H E E X P E D I T I O N O F K H A L I D I B N AL-WALID;

IJN~DAYN [ S E C S . 53-55]

24 April. It ensues that Khilid’s forces penetrated into Palestine through the Galilee at the beginning of May634.42 Ijniidayn

[54-551 According toBalidhuri,the Byzantine army atthisstage totalled 100,000 men. Arab sources mention the names and ranks of some of the Byzantine commanders. Sergius, governor of Caesarea; Theodore (or Theodorikos), the brother of the emperor (and the sources stress that he was a full brother on both the mother’s and the father’s side) who was the chief commander; Georgios son of Theodore; Artabiin, which is evidently a distortion of tvibtrntrs; a man who held the title of qinqiliv, or qubqtrliv (evidently cubiculuvius);_ftqir, or vicaritrs; and drtrnjav or dvungurius. Bahan, who has already been mentioned at the start of the war, is mentioned again. As to theMuslims, their numbers were farless than those of the Byzantines. The right wing was situated eastwards of Trans-Jordan, withthe threecommanders I havealreadymentionedabove,Abii ‘Ubayda, Shurahbil and Yazid, and they seemto have moved westward. ‘Amr ibn al-‘AS was then somewhere in the south, between the neighbourhood of the DeadSea and somewhere south of Gaza, while Khilid, it seems, was based in the Galilee. One can estimate that the entire Muslim

42

See Caetani, 11, 1193-1236, especially the table, ibid., 1222f; see the description of the desert crossing in Tabari, Ta’rrkh, I, 2122ff; Ibn al-Athir, K i m i l , 11, 408; the campaign through the Syrian desert was led by a man of the Banii Tayy’, RPfi‘ b. ‘Umayra, who hesitated atfirst, and claimed that even a single horseman would not dare to take this route across the desert let alone an entire army with the logistics involved. The fighters were ordered to provide themselves with enoughwater for five days; twenty choice she-camels were deprivedof water and then permittedto drinkas much as they could, and every day, en route, four of them were slaughtered and the horses were then allowed to drink from the contents of their bellies. O n the fifth day, the people and the horses were left without water, and then, in an almost miraculous way, Rifi‘ managed to discover a spring which he remembered from childhood, under a zyzyphus tree, although this very tree had already beenfelled by someone.See in De Goeje, Mimoire, 37-50, a detailed discussionon the various contradictory versions concerning the details KhPlid’s of route and the number of fighters he had with him. On the conquest of BuSrP, see Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 2125; his version according to which Khilid had already met the three commanders of the army fighting in Palestine, Abii ‘Ubayda, Shurahbil and Yazid, in BusrP and they all participated in the siege on the town,is not really credible. At the time, these three were far off in the south of Palestine. Discussion of the dates: De Goeje, ibid., 39f. Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 2109, has another version in which Khilid left Hira on Rabi‘ 11, but Rabi‘ 11, in the 13th year started on 4 June, and this contradicts the fact that the raid on the Ban6 Ghassiin occurred during Easter. Evidently there id some error here, and the correct version would be thatKhilid arrived from Hira at the beginning ofJune634. See also Ya‘qGbi, Ta’rikh, 11, 151, who within the framework KhPlid’s of exploits (also found in other sources), tells of taking captive twenty young Jews from the synagogue, in an undefined place on the Euphrates. See further: Pernice, Eraclio, 275f.

THE CONQUEST

army numbered no more than 40,000 fighters. The decisive battle took place on the28th ofJumada I in the yearAH 13, whichis the 30thofJuly, AD 634, or two months after Khilid reached Palestine, in a place called Ijnidayn, which most of the Muslim sources say is situated between Ramla and Bayt Jibrin.The site has still to be identified. One explanation is that the name Ijnadayn, which seems to mean ‘two armies’, is the equivalent of legionurn, that is Lajiin, or Megiddo. In favour of this supposition is the fact that Megiddois a critical point strategically and it is reasonable to assumethattheunitedMuslimforces,whosecolumns advanced from the north (Khilid) and the south (‘Amr, Abii ‘Ubayda and the rest) actually met up with the Byzantines at this crucial juncture, which the latter had to defend with all their might. However, we do not have enough data to take a definitestandonthematter.Atanyrate,the Muslims scored a smashing success which now enabledthetribes to dominate all of Palestine. Heraclius at the time, was stationed in Him?, according to Arab sources, and when he learned of the defeat he hurried towards Antioch, as if he wished to avoid the dangerous site.43 After the 43

As to the date, some place it earlier and some later, but thepreferable versionis 28Jumidi I; see De Goeje, Minroire, 51. Also see ibid., 52-60, the discussion on the site of Ijnidayn and his assumption, which seems unfounded, that the Arab sources confused the battle of Ijnidayn withthat of the Yarmik, for Ijnidayn.according to one source, is near Hebron and Hebron is near Yarmiit (a Biblical locationuarmuth] mentioned also by Eusebiusin his Onomastikan; see de Goeje,ibid., 59, n. 2). See Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 2087 who gives the name of the emperor’s brother as Tadhiriq. TheByzantine army concentrated in Jilliq (or Jallaq?), in northern Palestine. Jurja b. Tidhra was sent to opposeYazid b. Abii Sufyin. The duriqus (droungarios?) was sent against Shurahbil b. Hasana; theJqiir (vicarius?) ibn NastGs was sent against A b i ‘Ubayda. See ibid., 2125: Qubqulir (perhaps it was qunqulir). As for the date, see ibid., 2126. See also Balidhuri, Fut$z, 113f; Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 150f; Khalifa ibn Khayyit, I, 103f; Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 478ff, Ibn Kathir, Bidiiyu, V, 54f; Ibn took place twenty-four days Hubaysh, 127, points out explicitly that the battle of Ijniidayn before the deathof AbiBakr (22Jumida 11) and this confirms the date mentioned above. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, I, 375: Ijnadayn is situated between Ramla and Jarash. Ibn Kathir, Bidiiyn, VII, Sf, mentions among theByzantine commanders Jurja b. Biidhiha (evidently he isTudhrii, whichis Theodore, in Tabari), who was in charge of the central sector of the army, according to him. The name of the cubicular, who was oneof Heraclius’ eunuchs, was Nastiras. See further on the date, Ibn al-Athir, Usd, I, 37 (s.v. Ab5n v. Sa‘id); Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Istr’ib, I, 64 (as mentioned); on the battle, see also: MawSili, IVusZ’i2, 217; Yiqiit, BuldZtl, I, 136. O n the Byzantine offices mentioned in Muslim sources in the account of this battle: Droungarios, see Bury, ImperialAdnrinistrution, 41f; BeneYeviC, BNG], 5( 1926/7), 125,who explains that he was a commander of moivu, a which is a unit of some 1000 to 3000 men; cf. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon, s.v.; also Ibn Khurdidhbih, 111, who says that the taranjiir (droungarios) commanded over 1,000 men. See also Guilland,I, 563-587: ‘Le drongaire et le grand drongaire dela Veille’ (anarticle of the same name was first printed in BZ, 43 [1950], 340-365), according to whom the droungarioswas one of the commanders of one of the four army corps of the Byzantine army, namely that which was called vigZZ, vigiliue. There werealso the droungarios of the navy, see ‘Ledrongaire de la flotte’: ibid., 535-562; BZ, 44(1951), 212-240; it is difficult to tell to which droungarios the Arab sources are referring (Guilland does not mention them).As to the cubicularios, see ibid., 269-282, Titres des eunuques (REB, 13, 1955, 50-84); the bearers of the rank

A D D I T I O N A L C O N Q U E S T S [ S E C S . 56-58]

victory at Ijnidayn, the Muslims conquered most of cities the in Palestine one after the other; Gaza, Sebastia, Nabulus, Lod, Yavne, Emmaus, Bet Guvrin, Jaffa and Rafiah.44 Additional conquests

[56] O n the 23rd of August, 634, the caliph Abii Bakr died and ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib, his right-hand man andclosest aide throughout theperiod of his caliphate, became caliph in his place. Towards theend of the summer, as we have seen, the conquest of most of thecities of Palestine had come toan end. Evidenceof this could be heard in thesermon held by the Jerusalem patriarch, Sophronius, on Christmas Day that year. In his words, the Arabs (‘the Saracens’) ‘plunder cities, despoil the fields, burn the villages, destroy holy monasteries’. Out of fear of the Arabs, the Christians celebrating in Jerusalem were not permitted to visit Bethlehem, as was their annual custom on this day, and they remained shut securely behind the city walls.45 [57] Remnants of the Byzantinearmy concentrated in the Jordan Valley in the neighbourhoodof Bet Shean after their downfallin Ijniidayn. There they attempted to stave off the Muslims’ advance northward and eastward, towardsTiberias and the northern Trans-Jordan. They dammedoff the irrigation canals with the intention of creating large quagmires, but despite the difficulties and the losses suffered while trying to cross the marshes with their horses, the Muslimssucceeded in breaking through to the east and taking overFihl (Pella) after a battle, evidently in the middle of January 635. Immediately afterwards, Tiberias capitulatedto theMuslims together with all the townsin the area. The conditions of the surrender of these localities (such as Tiberias and Bet Shean) were that half the inhabitants’ houses should go to the Muslims, they would pay a dinar poll-tax annually and theywould hand over to the Muslims a quantity of wheat or oats equivalent to the number of seeds planted on each unit of land.

44

45

were eunuchsconsidered of high status, even of nobility, whoaccompanied the emperor on his military expeditions; and he mentions (based on Nicephorus of Constantinople) Marianus the cubicular appointed by Heraclius to halt the advance of the Arabs into %Y Pt. Balidhuri, Futiilz, 138. He points out thatSebastia and Nibulus were taken on conditions of amin, that is, personal and property security in exchange for the payment oftaxes. In Bet Guvrin, ‘Amr took over an estate called ‘Ajlih, named after a client whom he had there. Emmaus was called by theByzantines Nikopolis, and the fact that theArabs called it ‘Imwis, proves that it was called by itsancient name by the people of Palestine. It appears that later on it was the main base of theMuslim army in Palestine, which wecan surmise from thefact that the name was also used for thegreatest plague that broke out among the Muslim army, @%tr ‘Imwis. See: Vincent et Abel, Emmaus, 356f. See Sophronius’ sermon: De Goeje, Mlmoire, 174f, and also Schonborn, 90f.

43

THE CONQUEST

Concurrently, Shurahbil conquered all the towns of Urdunn (which is Palaestina secunda in the Arab sources) and their citadels, including Siisita (Siisiya), Afeq (Afiq), Jarash, Bayt Ra’s, Qedesh (Qadas), and all of the Golan, Acre, Tyre, and Sepphoris ( S a f u r i y ~ a ) . ~ ~ (58) At about the same time, Him$, in Syria, was captured and Damascus lay under siege. Panic was rife in Damascus when the taking of Tiberias and the other cities in northernPalestine, in the Hawran and in the Golan, became known. The siege on Damascus began on the 16th of Muharram of the year AH 14, the 12thof March AD635, and continued for halfa year, until the 10th of September. We shall not go into the many details of the victory over Damascus, but it will suffice to point to the fact that there are hints of betrayal within the city itself, apart from thepressure exerted by the Muslims, and in this connection the name of ManSiir b. Sarjiin (Sergius), thegovernor of the town, is mentioned, for he seems to have secretly hoped for the Muslims’ triumph. Here too, the name of Mahan, or Bahan,arises, as thechiefByzantinecommander;Nast5s (Anastasius) is also mentioned, as is Theodore theSakellarios. There is an interesting episode concerning the great church of St John in Damascus; according to the terms of settlement, thechurch was divided in half and 46

De Goeje, Mthoire, 70fc SuyUti, Tu’rikh, 131; Ibn Sa‘d, IV(1), 144; the battle of Fihl occurred in Dhii’l-Qa‘da of the year 13 (December 634 -January 635). According to Tabari, Ta’rikh, 1,2158, the people of BetShean were preparedto fight the Muslim army, commanded by Shurahbilb. Hasana, but in the meantime, theylearned of thesetback in Fihl. Although a few of them put up some resistance to the Muslimsand lost theirlives in the process, the remainder of the inhabitants Bet of Shean surrendered to the Muslims aby peace pact (scrlh);see the samealso in Ibn Hubaysh, 138. For the termsof the surrendersee Tabari, ibid., 2159; on the opening of the damsin the Bet Shean valley, ibid., 2145: Bet d h d ul-radgha). It should Shean from that time was given the cognomen ‘the marshy (one’ be noted that the traditions on the conquest of Fihl and the eventsin the Bet Shean area are recounted in the name of Ibn Humayd, by Salama and Ibn Ishiq, and that these are traditions taken from a very early commentary on the Koran Sa‘id by ibn Jubayral-Asadi, a man from Kiifa who was one of thefirst commentators, and who was killed by al-Hajj5j in 714 (see Sezgin, I, 28ff). According to Khalifa ibn Khayyat, I, 117, all the townsin the area were taken in battle, with the exception ofTiberias, which surrenderedwillingly by sultl; see also ibid., 103f. Seealso Ya‘qiibi, Buldin, 328; Tiberias yielded to Abii ‘Ubayda of its own accord, whereas the remainderp f towns in the Urdunnhad been captured earlier by Khalid b. al-Walid and ‘Amribn al-‘As. See Ya‘qiibi,Tu’rikh, 11, 159C cf. Ibn Hubaysh, 138c Ibn ‘Asakir, I, 486, 525; Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, I, 377; 11, 10; see also Ibn al-‘Imid, I, 28. Balidhuri, Flrtiih, 116, notes that the condition laid down for the peaceful surrender of Tiberias was that houses unoccupied because their owners had fled, would be handed over to the Muslims and that a site would be allotted to the Muslims for a mosque; but the people of Tiberias afterwards defaulted on the contract with thehelp of remnants of the Byzantine army, and then Abii ‘Ubayda sent ‘Amr ibn al-‘As to them, along with4,000 men and they surrendered for thesecond time, under the same conditions. Some say that this occurred under the commandof Shurahbil. See also Yfqiit, Buldin, 111, 509. Modern scholars speak of the Dekapolis conquest; whereasactually in the list of captured towns (the most completelist is contained in Baladhuri), onlya few are towns of the Dekapolis.

44

T H E B A T T L E O F T H E Y A R M U K [SECS. 59-62]

the west side was allotted to the Christians while the east side was g‘ lven to the Muslims.47 The battle of the Yarmiik

[59] The emperorHeraclius, who according to the Arabsources wasin Antioch at the time(635),began with supreme effort to organise a counter-attack. According to IbnIshiiq, Heraclius firstof all gathered together those Arab tribes who were opposed to Islam - the Eakhm, Judhiim, Balqin, Bali, ‘Amila, Qudii‘a and Ghassiin - in addition to which he also had army units of Armenians. Heading the army stood ‘Heraclius’ eunuch’, the SakellariosTheodore. Georgios (Jurja) was in command of the Armenians, while Jabala b. al-Ayham,of theBanu Ghassiin, led the Arab tribes still loyal to the Byzantines. This army numbered 100,000 men; some claim that it comprised as many as 200,000 men. Some sources mention that Bahiin was still in chargeof the army. Opposing themwas the Muslim army, with a mere 24,000 fighters. Although it is not mentioned specifically, there must havebeen Aramaic-speaking recruits from the local populations and Greek-speaking Byzantine soldiers in this conglomerate armyof the Byzantines, for itis clear that it wasnot marked in any way by its uniformity or its unity.48

48

De Goeje, Mimoire, 82-103; Ibn ‘Asakir, I,493-526; see ibid. on p. 501, the tradition according to which ‘a monk’ (here certainly meaning ManSClr) handed over the town to Khalid ibn al-Walid, while another section of the Muslim army broke into the town forcibly. See Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2351ff, on the siege; accordingto one ofhis versions, the siege lasted only seventy days; but ibid., 2155, the tradition according to Wiqidi mentions that the siege went on for six months. Afterwards members of the family of Mansiir b. Sarjiin acted as chief administrators for the Umayyad caliphs; his son, Sergius (Sarjiin), was a major official of ‘Abd al-Malik, see Balidhuri, Futtih, 193; cf. Tabari, Ta’rTkh, 11, 205,228,239,837. The anonymous Syriac chronicle,248, callshim John the diakonos, son of SargCln. See also on ManSiir b. Sarjiin, Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, 11, 14f, according to whom Mi hi n became a monk on Mount Sinai out offear of punishment for fall theof Damascus, and who wrote a commentary on the chapter sixth of psalms (al-rnazmdr, zabiir Da’iid). See a short summary ofthis family’s matters in Stratos, 61, n.214. See a fragment from MS BM Add 14461, edited by Noldeke, ZDMG, 29(1876), 77f, from a Syriac chronicle, which has the date on which the Byzantines fled Damascus as 10 August (Av), whichis earlier by month a from that given in the Muslim sources. See also Theophanes, who 337f, mentions Bihin and the Sakellarios as those who stood at the head of the defence of Damascus. O n the church of Damascus, see De Goeje, ibid., 96f; cf. in addition to the sources he refers to: al-Badri, 53. See Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2347, and cf. ibid., 2389f, an unclear description ofa trial attack by the Byzantines in an unknown place which he calls Marj al-Riim (valley of the Byzantines), evidently north of Damascus, under the command of the Byzantine Shanas (or Shanash), who fell in battle. See Balidhuri, Futiih, 135ff, where he speaksof a Byzantine army of 200,000 men, ‘Byzantines, people of al-Shim (Syria and Palestine), people of al-Jazira (northern Mesopotamia) and Armenia’; see in Caetani,111, 553, traditions on 300 Khayyit, I, 118; Ibn ‘Asikir, or even 400 thousand Byzantine fighters.See also Khalifa ibn I, 529, 531;Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, 11, 10; Ibn Kathir,BidZya, VII, 7. The Sakellariosis described

45

THE CONQUEST

[60]In view of the tremendous concentration of forces organised by the Byzantinesinpreparationfortheirgreatcounter-attack,theMuslim leaders decided to shorten their front. After consultation with the caliph through letters, they executed a complete withdrawal and actually left Syria, both in the north (Him?) and in the south (Damascus). According to the tradition preserved by Baladhuri, itis told that the Muslims returned the taxes which they had leviedon the inhabitants of Him?, saying:‘It is impossible for us to be your helpers and defenders, therefore take careof yourselves.’ Then the people of Him?are said to have retorted: Your protection and sense of justice are preferable to injustice and violence; therefore we shall stand together with your leader and protect the town from Heraclius’ armies. The Jews of Him5 even swore on the Torah that they would not permit Heraclius’ governor to enter Him?, and even locked the gates of the city, placing a guard at the gates. This was how the Christians and the Jews behaved in the cities which had submitted earlier to the Muslims.

The narrator adds that after the Muslims were triumphant and defeated the Byzantines, they were again receivedby the inhabitants of the towns with great joy and song. Adversely,we have the Syriac Chronicle telling of the destruction of Him? and its environs by the Muslims.49 [61] The Muslims then concentrated their forces in the southern part of the Golan and to the east of the Sea of Galilee while the Byzantines advanced from the region of Antioch southward. According to Theophanes, the first confrontation between the armies at the start of thebattle

49

in the sourcesas the person in charge of the emperor’s personal affairs, and he frequently bears the title praepositus sani cubiculi, and was principally in charge of the emperor’s treasury, thesacellurn, from which the name ofoffice the derives.See in Guilland,I, 357, in the chapter Le prCposite (= Byzantinoslavica, 22[1961], 241-301); cf. Benes’eviC, BNGJ, 5 (1926/7), 117, where the patrikios sakellarios is mentioned (ho patrikios kai sakellarios); Sophocles, Greek Lexicon, s.v., translates it: bursar; cf. also Bury, Imperial Adrninistratiotl, 41f, 76-85, Du Cange, Gloss, s.v.: an officer in charge of the treasury@sei custos). Balidhuri, FutSI;I, 137; Abii Yiisuf,81. The marked difference between the strength of the Byzantines and thatof the Muslims,is mentioned by the Karaite commentator Yefet ben ‘Ali (in the middle of the tenth century) in his commentary on Dan. xi:25-26: ‘and he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south’, etc.; in his view, the Bible speaks of the battle between ‘Umar ibn al-Khatt5b and the Byzantines who were in Palestine, at Marj ‘Imwis near Jerusalem, and although the Muslim army was also large (‘with a great army’), the Byzantine army was still greater (‘a very great and mighty army’); the Byzantine king’s men betrayed him when they saw the Muslims advancing (‘for they shall forecast devices against him’) and a great many of them were killed (‘and many shallfall down slain’). Then Palestine was capturedfrom theByzantines bythe sahib See hiscommentary onDaniel, 124. See De Goeje, Mirnoire, al-Zsliim - ‘until this very day’. 108-1 18, the discussion about the problem of whether the capture of Damascus occurred before the battle ofthe Yarmiik or afterwards. He demonstrates that the Muslims captured Damascus twice, as is also described here.The Syriac source: in the MS BM Add14, 461, Noldeke, ZDMG, 29(1876), 77f, see lines 8-9. See further on theevacuation of Syria by the Muslims: Ibn Hubaysh, 143f.

. . . .

...

T H E B A T T L E O F T H E Y A R M U K [ S E C S . 59-62]

of theYarmiik wason Tuesday the 23rd ofJuly 636. While that part of the Byzantine forces under the Sakellarios suffered a defeat, the army commanded byBaanes (Bihin) rebelled against the emperor and crowned the Sakellarios in his place. There was a general withdrawal and the Arabs used this opportunity to launch an attack in the midst of a sandstorm brought on that day by a wind from the south,and therefore the Byzantines, who came from the north, were unable to see the enemy facing them. Most of theByzantine army was wiped out in theregion’s valleys and ravines during their flight, together with their commanders. The date of the event, according to Muslim sources, is Rajab in theyear 15. Ibn al-Kalbi cites the 5th as the date, but there are also other versions, less reliable, which place the battle of the Yarmiik much earlier, even in the year AH 13 (AD 634), apparentlyconfusing this battle withthat of Ijnidayn. If we accept Ibn al-Kalbi’s date, we find that the battle took place on the 13th of August, 636, that is three weeks after the date given by Theophanes. A Syriac source tells of a Byzantine defeat in Gabitha in which 50,000 soldiers were killed on the 20th of August. As Theophanes speaks at one and the same time of the battle in Gabitha and theother in Iermoukha (Gabithais Jibiya in theGolan, which evidently was concena tration point for the Byzantines), Noldeke assumed, quite correctly, that the Syriac source was actually referring to the battle of the Yarmiik. We see, therefore, that the dates ascribed to the battle of the Yarmiik move between the 23rd ofJuly (Theophanes)and the20th of August (theSyriac source). 50 50

Theophanes, 332, 338; one can surmise that what heis describing was an uprising of the Armenians; cf. Ya‘qiibi, T n ’ r i k k , 11, 160; Balidhuri, Frrt$z, 135: 70,000 Byzantines and others who had joined forces with them werekilled; Muslim women also participated in the battle. Tabari, Tn’rikh, I, 2347ff; Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 528f, 533, 537; on pp. 538-545 he includes traditions that describe the course of the battle. Bihin gave a hearteningaddress to his men and then ordered his left flank to launch an attack, under the command of the droungarios (dirn+ir). Opposing them weremainly the tribes of Yaman, which made up theright flank oftheMuslims, and thoughthe pressure onthem was heavy,they withstood it. But they eventually had to withdraw towards the centre in view of the tremendous waves of Byzantine soldiers attacking them, apart from some 500 fighters who stubbornly continued tofight until those who had withdrawn returnedand replaced them. Finally, the outcome of the battle was decided by the Muslims’ left flank, under Khilid ibn al-Walid. See more versions in Ibn Kathir, BidGya, VII, 4-16; in hisaccount, the battle of the Yarmiiktakes place in the days ofAbii Bakr; cf. Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2155; see also his story of the unusual tactics of Khilidibn al-Walid, who dividedhis cavalry in two, one half to the left flank and the other to the right flank, in order to strengthen both of them. See the Syriac source, as in the previous note, from line 20; cf. Noldeke, ibid., 79; Theophanes, 332.See also Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, 11, 14: the Byzantines under Mihiin were stationed in a large wadi called Wadi Ramid in the Golan, known also by the name al-Yaqiisa (this name, Yaqiisa or Waqiisa, is also mentioned in other sources) thinking that the wadi protected them, while the Arabs wereensconced opposite them. At this point, Manstir, the governor of Damascus, betrayed the Byzantines by coming totheir position

47

T H E CONQUEST

[62] Heraclius, who was awaiting the results of the battle in Antioch, sailed to Constantinople as soon as he learned the bitter truth, and accordingtoMuslim sourcesexclaimed: ‘Peace be withyou, 0 Syria! My beautiful country [meaning the land ofal-Sham] from now on you belong to the enemy!’ Damascus, Him? and all the other Syrian cities were now again in the hands ofthe Muslims, who recaptured them immediatelyafter the victory of thebattle of theYarmiik and the devastationof Byzantine power. 51 The dismissal of Khdid ibn al-Walid

[63] Afterthebattle of the Yarmiikthere was widespreadinternal dissension within the Muslim camp whichled to the dismissal of Khiilid ibn al-Walid from the command of the army which had fought in Palestine. The traditions vary and contradict one another with regardto this affair: some describe Khalid’s dismissal as having occurred at the beginning of ‘Umar’s caliphate. These traditions speak of ‘Umar’s resentment towards Khalid because of the latter’s behaviour during the riddu battles, whereas the more reliable traditions stress the central role which Khdid played during thebattle of the Yarmiik. It is not likely that ‘Umar would oustsuch an accomplishedandexperiencedwarrior from thecentral command before knowing whether the final outcome was entirely in favour of the Muslims. Apparently thereal reason behind his discharge lay in differences over the spoils, and the traditions refer to this very frankly. According to one of thetraditions quoted in Tabari, for instance, ‘Umar learned (for nothing was hidden from him) about a gift of 10,000 dinars at the head of a great number of people from Damascusat night, bearing torches, and the Byzantines thought thatthese were Arabs and that they were being attacked from the front and from the rear, so they took to their heels in panic, and thus met their end. Furiih (ascribed to Wiqidi), I, 205f: the traitor to the Byzantines was Abii Ju‘ayd, one of the leaders of Hims,who lived in a town called Ziri‘a. The Byzantine soldiers mistreated his wife and murdered his children; for which he took his vengeance on themby provoking a stampede within theranks of the Byzantine army stationed in Wadi Yaqiisa. Later on, we find Abii Ju‘ayd mentioned also in connection with the capture of Jerusalem. See the comprehensive discussion and survey of the sources relating to the battle ofthe Yarmiik in Caetani, 111, 549-613. See appreciation of Khilid ibn al-Walid’s strategic talents in Canard, Settimane-Spoleto, 12(1964), 50fc thestrategic withdrawal in the face ofHeraclius’ forces, the evacuation of southern Syria and Damascusandthecounter-movement on the Yarmiik areevidence ofhis excellent organising ability and his skill atmanoeuvring on the battlefield. Khilid’s qualities as an outstanding commander were already evident during his march from Iraq to Syria through the desert,a feat which has no parallel. See also the interesting discussion ibid., 309-335. j1 Balidhuri, Fcrtuh, 137. Various versions of the farewell speech in Ibn Hubaysh, 142c cf. Tabari, Tu’rikkh, I, 2395f; Sa‘idibn Bifriq,11, 16. The anonymousSyriac chronicle, 251: he said: riiri s i r i y i (= sCsor~Syria).

C

.

T H E D I S M I S S A LO F K H A L I D I B N A L - W A L ~ D[ S E C S . 63-64]

which Khdid had given Ash‘ath Qays, b. leader of theKinda, tribe. At that moment, ‘Umar orderedhis dismissal, evenif what he had given Ash‘ath came out of his own pocket. This action is understandable against the background of ‘Umar’s general policy of struggling with intense energy against corruption in the division of the spoils. He also exerted considerable effort in trying to restrict occurrences of theft and the abuse of local populations. To pursue this policy, he travelled from Medina to Jabiya, where the headquarters of al-Sham was stationed. In place of Khalid, he appointed Abu ‘Ubayda ibn ai-Jarrah to the high command. Khdid expressed his disappointmentandbitternesson his dismissal‘now that al-Shim was as quiet as a camel’, but did not dare to rise up against ‘Umar.52 [64] One can mention three focal points associated with the internai struggle echoed in the issue Khalid’s of dismissal. Firstis the frictions and contradictions between the various tribes of the peninsulawho had been 52

Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2526; see ibid, 2148, the versions of Sayf ibn ‘Umar and of Ibn Ishiq, which antedate Khalid’s dismissal and relate it to ‘Umar’s grudge against him;ibid., 2401f: ‘Umar came to al-Sham four times; he was shocked on coming to Jiibiya to see Kh5lid ibn al-Walid’s cavalry wearingsilk. He descended from his horse and started throwing stones at them and reprimanded them severely.Ibid., 2149: after he was summonedto Medina, ‘Umar demanded of Khilid, ‘Oh, Khalid, take the money of God from under your bottom’, and confiscated40,000 dirhams, of which half he found on his person. Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 168: ‘Umar ordered the spoils to be divided equally betweenall the tribes, with the exception of Lakhm and Judham (that is, inhabitants of Palestine), and said, ‘I shall never admit of any equality between those who have gone throughall the hardshipsof the road and those who have merely stepped outside their doorway’. See also Ibn al-Athir, Kiirnil, 11, 500f; Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 556; Nawawi, Tahdhib, I, 201: Zayd b. Thiibit (who had been the Prophet’s secretary) was appointed to take charge of the division of spoils taken in the battle of the Yarmiik; Ibn Kathir, BidZya, VII, 44, on ‘Umar’svisit to al-Shim,and see ibid., 58, other versions, according to which he only visited J5biya three times, but some say, only twice. Ibid., 16: immediately after the ousting of Khalid from the command, Abii ‘Ubayda took over arranging matters concerning the spoils, the main object being to deduct the fifthdue to theMuslim treasury accordingto lawand sendit to Medina. Ibid., 12: a version which describes the dismissal Khilid of as having occurredat the height of the battle of the Yarmiik. ‘Abd al-Jabbir, Tathbit, I, 230: ‘Umar’s policy aroused opposition among theMuslims. See Ibn al-Athir, Usd, I, 53: They heard ‘Umar ibnal-Khaty7b say in Jiibiya in a sermon: ‘I herewith apologise to you for what Khilid ibn al-Walid did. I ordered him to dedicate this property to the welfare of the Muhijirun (the Muslim refugees from Mecca), but he gave it to the evil-doers, to the notables and to those of slick tongues. I therefore discharged him and appointed Abii ‘Ubaydaal-Jarrah’. ibn Lammens, Mo‘iiwia, 5, explains the deposing of Khilid after the battle of the Yarmiik by fact the that he belongedto the Ban6 Makhziim, wealthy peopleof Mecca (who wereloyal allies of the Umayyads), andtherefore ‘Umar mistrusted him andplottedagainst him. O n Abii ‘Ubayda, see ‘Azizi, I, 492f; 11, 13, 16, 245: his name was ‘Amir b. ‘Abdallah b. al-Jarrah; the Prophetsaid about him that he is the most loyal in this urnma (that is, of the Muslims). the Muslims and took part in See the article Abii ‘Ubayda EP in (Gibb); he was one of first all the battles. It is possible that‘Umar sawin hima suitable successor.See a comprehensive discussionon thequestion of Khalid’s dismissal: De Goeje, Mirnoire, 65-70, 124-133; Caetani, 111, 937.

49

THE C O N Q U E S T

gatheredtogetherwithintheMuslimcamp.Thesetribeshaddiverse origins and previously had had little in common. A large portion of the army which fought in Palestine and Syria consisted of tribes who came from every part of the Arabian peninsula, but the main core consisted of men from Mecca, Medina, T 2 i f and members of the tribes of northern Hijaz. There were also those tribes, or clans from the northwest of the peninsula, which were Yamanis (southerners) by extraction, such as Bali, and those assembled around ‘Amr ibn al-‘As in particular. The second focal point is the animosity between all these tribes, the Muslims who came from afar, and the local Arabs in the conquered lands, who enjoyed the fruits of victory, while those who had come from some distance were concentrated in Jibiya, the central camp of the Muslim army. The third focal pointis arguments concerning attitudesto and the treatment of local populations. There were those who wished to exploit the victory until the very end, to confiscate all property, completely enslave the population, and distribute the houses and lands among the Muslims. These were the aspirations in a setting of vandalism, plunder and massacre. ‘Umar intended to solve these problems at their very roots and thus dismissed Khdid, who according to the traditions, typified the craving for spoils andrichesandevendiscriminatedbetweentheMuslimsthemselves, apparently showing a partiality for the local tribes and his own retainers. The man who influenced ‘Umar withregard to restraining the Muslims and changing their approach to the local populations was Mu‘iidh b.Jabal,who according toMuslimtradition,was a man of understanding and a sort of expert on the economy and finances. He said to ‘Umar: if the land shall be divided [that is to say, become the private property of the Muslims, including the local population], the portion meted out to people [to each of the Muslims] will be tremendous and they will waste it, and everything will become the property of one man or woman [that is, willfall into the hands of a few]; afterward the successors of the Muslims will follow [that is, their descendway that will satisfy ants] and they will find nothing. Consider the matter in asuch the first and the last generation.

Thus ‘Umar arranged living conditions of the population under Muslim rule in such a manner as to preserve their personal liberty and property, according to conditions to be discussed further j3

Abii ‘Ubayd, Amwd, 59; BalHdhuri, Futd.2, 1Slf; Abii’l-FidH’, MukhtaJar, I, 160: ‘Umar ibn al-KhattHb was thefirst to organise a census of the tribes andto fix the allowances of the Muslims, in the year AH 20 (AD 641). Abii Zur‘a (MS),1If: ‘Umar came to Jibiya in the year 18 [AD 6391, and arranged a general convention at which all the commanders handed over to himall the propertythey had collected; he introduced order into the army units and bases and fixed the allowances and payments; cf. Shaban, Islamic History, 26, 41.

T H E C A P I T U L A T I O NO F J E R U S A L E M [ S E C S . 65-69]

The capitulation of Jerusalem

[65] In the autumn of theyear 636, Palestine was under Muslim control, with the exception ofJerusalem and Caesarea. The latter was thecapital of Palaestina prima, a fortifiedport witha large army stationed there. Hence the Muslims delayed attempting to capture it for a further five years. Jerusalem was also a stronghold and the approaches to it were difficult. It was manned by a Byzantine garrison and armoured units made up of the local inhabitants. The twocities were virtually in a state of siege although nowhere is it stated specifically that the Muslims had actually encircled them. But the roads wereall cut offand impassable and while Caesarea still maintained its sea lanes, Jerusalem was completely severed from therest of the country after the battle of the Yarmiik. We have already seen how Sophronius,thepatriarchofJerusalem,complainedin his Christmas sermon in the year 634 that the people of Jerusalem could not reach Bethlehem for fear of the Arabs. The Muslimtraditions contradict one another with regard to the date on which Jerusalem was captured. In Tabari, at one point, the year AH 15 (AD 636) is mentioned and in another, the year 16 (637). Balidhuri says that the city surrendered in the year 17 (638). This information complies with the account of Theophanes, who says that the city was under siege for two years (that is, after the battle of the Yarmiik). Further evidence that the city was indeed taken in638 is the fact that the patriarch Sophroniusis said to have died of sorrow shortly after the surrender of the town. Sophronius was appointed patriarch in the autumn of633 and it is said that he kept the position for fouryears. He died in March 638.54 j4

O n the presence of the Byzantine army in Jerusalem, see Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 2398: Ariabun stationed an immense army in Ramla (he probably meant Lod, as Ramla had not as yet been founded), and also an immense army inJerusalem (Iliya). O n the question of the date see Tabari, ibid., 2406: the year AH 15 (in the version of the treaty, tobe discussed below, according to Sayfb. ‘Umar); ibid., 2360, he mentions a date which is not clear, perhaps the end of the year AH 15 (evidently according to Ibn Ishiq: see ibid., 2346, and 2350 at the bottom of the page); Khalifa ibn Khayyit, I, 124: the year 16; Baladhuri, Futuh, 139; Theophanes, 339; Ibn al-Athir, K i d ,11, 501: some say that Jerusalem was conqueredin the year AH 16. O n Sophronius, see Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, I, 12f: Sophronius was active in Alexandria against the patriarch Cyrus who supported the Monotheletism (seesec. 9 above) of Heraclius (in the words of Sa‘id, he was a Miruni, accepting the stand of Marin). Afterwards, he left for Constantinople and there met thepatriarch Sergius, who eventually decided to support Cyrusrather than Sophronius. Sophroniusleft for Jerusalem; he won the support of the monks and the populationin the city and they elected him patriarch, for therewas no patriarch in Jerusalem in those days; that is, in the second year of ‘Umar’s caliphate (635). Cf. also Couret. ROC, 2(1987), 126f; see Schonborn, 83ff: Sophronius reached Jerusalem in the autumn of 633 and was immediately appointed patriarch, for the postwas available. He was eighty-eight when hedied (born in Damascus in January 550), see ibid., 54; but see also Le Quien, Oriens Chistianus, 111, 278, and therein various opinions regarding the year of Sophronius’ death, ranging from 636 to 644; and see further details on Sophronius, ibid., 264ff, 272 (the letter in which he complains of the

THE C O N Q U E S T

[66] The sources do not provide us with many details on the fall of Jerusalem. They generally stress that the siege lasted a long time and that the inhabitants ofJerusalem were prepared to hand over the city only to the caliph himself.Thus ‘Umarcame and received its capitulation.Other sources state thata delegation ofJerusalemites came to Jabiya and that the details of the surrender were finalised there. Others point out thatwas it not ‘Umarhimself who took on the task, but that he sent an army unit to Jerusalem headed by a man from al-Shim, Khalid b. Thibit b. Ta‘in b. al-‘Ajliin al-Fahmi. This force started to assail the people ofJerusalem, but immediately afterwards, negotiations began and ‘Umar, in Jabiya, confirmed the conditions of the treaty determined by Khalid b. Thiibit.55

55

Arabs’ assaults). See also A n d e s Cuvenses, 186, which has an impossible date for the conquest ofJerusalem- 633. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, 11, 20 tells usthat in the year AH 16 ‘Umar FutGh (ascribed to Wiqidi).I, 216f,claims that came to al-Shim and conquered Jerusalem. the siege ofJerusalem took place in the winter and lasted for four months; Bar Hebraeus, Chronicle (Bedjan), 103(cf.Budge, 96)says that in the year AH 15, ‘Umar came to Palestine and Sophronius, the bishop ofJerusalem, cameout to greet him; Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibur, 11, 949 reports the year AH 15, and some say AH 16. See the discussion on this subject in De Goeje, Mimuire, 154ff, and Caetani, 111,920-959. See Ya‘qiibi, Ta’vikh, 11, 167: AbG ‘Ubayda wrote to ‘Umar about the prolongedresistance of the Jerusalemites while some claim that it was the people ofJerusalem themselves who demanded that‘Umar grant them the sull!. ‘Umar camefirst to Jibiya and from there to Jerusalem and arranged the matter of the srrlh. Khalifa ibn Khayyit, I, 124, has a similar version in the name ofIbn al-Kalbi, according to whom Khilid ibnal-Walid also participated in the campaignagainst Jerusalem, at the head of theMuslim avant-garde. O n Khilid ibn Thibit see Balidhuri, F~rtGh,139; Ibn ‘Asikir, V, 29; he was called al-Fahmi, evidently because he wasa client of the Banu Fahm, a tribe that lived along the shoresof the Red Sea, see Caskel, 11, s.v.: and see Ibn al-Athir, Lubab, 11, 229: al-Fahmi, since he belonged to a clan of Qays ‘Aylin, andsee on this tribe Caskel, 11, S.V. Qaisb. an-Nis; Yifi‘i, I, 73; Subki, Shifi’, 47; see the long and very elaborate description of the taking of Jerusalem: Futfih (ascribed to Wiqidi), I, 213ff:see also Constantinus Porphyrog. (Moravcsik), 82: ‘Umar captured Jerusalem craftily by promises given to Sophronius, bishop ofJerusalem,a wise and zealous man, that thechurches would not be harmed; and this occurred after a siege which lasted two years. Goitein, Yerushalayim,4(1952/3); 83 (= Ha-yishuv, 7) treats the information doubtfully withregard to ‘Umar’s comingto Jerusalem. In his opinion, one should regard this information in the light of the tendency to enhance and elaborate on the circumstances ofthe taking ofJerusalem; he also assumes that one could find certain Jewish influences in these sources, such as the midrash to Is. x:34, ‘and Lebanon shall fallby a mighty one’. Jerusalem will only be surrendered toa king, who is worthy ofbeing called ‘a mighty one’ (BT Gittin 56b).Busse, ]uduism, 17(1968), 444f suggests thepossibility that ‘Amr ibnal-‘As was the true conqueror ofJerusalem, but that it was ascribe$ to ‘Umar. This he deduces from a passage in Balidhuri which says that ‘Amr ibnal-‘As stopped thesiege of Caesarea in order to conquer Jerusalem. There is some logic totheassumptionthatthe traditionists exaggeratedthe role of ‘Umar in the surrender ofJerusalemin order to glorify the event; however, this is an insufficient reason to utterly invalidate the historical value of these traditions, especially in view of the fact that ‘Umar’s visits to Palestine and Syria are described in these traditions not merely in connection with the conquest ofJerusalem, as hasalready been mentioned. See the opinion of Noth, Quellenkvitisrhe Studierr, 161, who suggests giving credence to the tradition on ‘Umar’s involvement in the matter of thetreaty, although there is place for doubt as to whether the fact that the refusal of the people ofJerusalem to surrender to any other but him is what brought him fromMedina to Jibiya.

T H E C A P I T U L A T I O NOF J E R U S A L E M [ S E C S . 65-69]

[67] In 638 Islam had already reached the heights of its victories and now had only to bring events to a successful conclusion.The man whoserole it was to stand at the headof these tremendous happenings came to receive the surrender ofJerusalem, the city of David, the capital of the Children of Israel, the city which Christianity had chosen as the living symbol of its victory. Muslim tradition takes great pains to present ‘Umar’s coming to Jerusalem as a demonstration of humility, modesty and austerity, evidently witha didactic purpose in mind.The caliph didnot lose his head in the wake of the manyvictories and triumphs; he behavedas an orthodox Muslim should behave, disdaining the vanities of this world and exhibiting those simple habits in keeping with thebest of Bedouin tradition. He entered the city riding on a camel, wrapped ina cloak madeof camel-hair. Men of the Muslim army, tribesmen, who had now spent four years in settled and cultivated lands, in Palestine and in Syria, were embarrassed by the sight of their supreme commander appearing in a manner such before a conquered people. They demanded that dress he in clothes suitableto the circumstances and that he ride on a horse, and not on a camel. ‘Umar refused the first request but accepted the second and entered Jerusalem on a horse, but held onto thereins of a camel. ‘For this makesme into another person’ he said; ‘I fear lest I grow too great in my own eyes and nothing favourable will come out of such a change.’ Theophanes’ description of ‘Umar’s entry into Jerusalem evidently is influenced by thisstory, but it took on a derisive and hostile tone. The caliph’s entrance wearing worn clothing made of camel-hair appeared to himlike the wearing of a pretentious, hypocritical, mask. ‘Umar asked to see the temple built by King Solomon in order to turn it into a prayer site for his own ‘blasphemies’. The patriarch Jophronius cried out when he saw him: ‘So here is the abomination of desolation prophesied by Daniel and here he stands in the holy place . . . this knightof righteousness’, continues Theophanes, ‘wept over the Christian people’. In Theophanes’ version, it was the patriarch who suggested that ‘Umar change his clothes and asked him to accept a cloak and garmentsof linen. But ‘Umarrefused to wear them. After much convincing, he agreed, but only until his own apparel would be washed. Then he returned Sophronius’ garments and continued to wear his own clothes. 56 [68] In Tabari, in the context of a passage concerning the conquest of Jerusalem which he copied from Sayf ibn ‘Umar, a version of a letter of 56

See Maqdisi, Muthir (Le Strange), 297: ‘Umarentered Jerusalemthrough the gate of the Prophet Muhammad (i.e., from the south). In Tabari, Tu’rNz, I, 2407f, there is a similar story whichspeaks of a horse and a mule (or just any beast o f burden). Theophanes,339; Constantinus Porphyrog. (Moravcsik), see the previous note (as in Theophanes), cf. De Goeje, Mimoire, 157c Busse, Judaism, 17(1968), 447.

53

THE CONQUEST

protection (aman or ;u&) had been preserved, which ‘Umar gave to the people of Jerusalem, who wereall Christians. According to Tabari, this document was written in Jabiya. Thisis what the letter says: In the name of God the merciful and compassionate. is the Thiscovenant given by God’s slave ‘Umar, commander of the Believers, to the people ofJerusalem: He grants them security, to each person and his property; to their churches, their crosses, to the sick and the healthy, to all the people of their creed. We shall not station Muslim soldiers in their churches. We shall not destroy the churches nor impair any of their contents or their property or their crosses or anything which belongs to them. We shall not compel the people of Jerusalem to renounce their No Jew shall live among them in Jerusalem. beliefs and we shall do them no harm. The people of Jerusalem are obliged to pay the same tax we impose on the inhabitants of other cities. The inhabitants ofJerusalem must rid themselves of the Byzantine army and any armed individuals. We ensure the safety of these people on their departure from Jerusalem, both of their persons and of their property, To those who wish to remain in Jerusalem, we until they reach their asylum. ensure their safekeeping but they are obliged to pay the same tax that the other inhabitants ofJerusalem must pay. To those inhabitants ofJerusalem who wish to join the departing Byzantines in person and with their property, to vacate their of their churches and abandon their crosses, we pledge to ensure the safetypersons and that of their churches and crosses, until they reach their destinations. Those villagers who are present [in Jerusalem] since the murder of so-and-so, should depart with the Byzantines, if they wish to do so, or return to their families; nothing will be collected from them before the harvest.

An analysis of this version of the ‘covenant’reveals certain general principles in common withthose which theProphet contracted with the Jews during the Tabiik expedition, which we have mentionedearlier, but italso reveals other distinctive principles. The recurring principles may be summarked as follows: (1) security of person and property, (2) security of the houses of worship, their property and contents; as well as freedom of worship, and (3) the obligation to pay taxes to the Muslims. The distinctive principles appearing in this covenant are (1) the ban on Jews’ residing in Jerusalem,(2) assurance of thepersonal safety of Byzantines or other armedindividuals, and also that of any inhabitant ofJerusalem who decides to leave the city, until theyreach an area under Byzantine dominion, (3) permission to members of the Byzantine army or Byzantine officials to remain in the cityon condition that theypay the same taxes as the remainder of the city’s inhabitants, and (4) the safety of refugees currently living in Jerusalem should they wish to return to their villages, and the promise that they would notbe obliged to pay thetaxes until after the harvest.57 j7

Tabari, Ta’vikh, I, 2405f. The letter of protection in theoriginal is called amc?tz.Jerusalem is called IliyP; ‘the sick and the healthy’ are not tobe understood literally but as a figure of speech meaning, ‘to everyone without exception’. The tax is calledjizya, a term which as yet didnotmean specifically poll-tax, as itdidlater;‘armedmen’ is a liberal and

54

T H E C A P I T U L A T I O N O F J E R U S A L E M [ S E C S . 65-69]

[69] Goitein claims that this version of the covenant is not plausible and that one cannot relyon thesource in which ithas been preserved, namely the account of Sayf ibn ‘Umar, from which Tabari copied. Goitein questions Sayf s authenticity on othersubjects as well, wherehis versions show bias and differ from those of other traditions. He goes on to mention a number of other traditions dealing with the surrender ofJerusalem, which contain no trace of a covenant with its inhabitants, or a ban on Jews’ abiding in the city. We shall examinea number of other sources which tell of the surrender of Jerusalem. The traditions about Khiilid b. Thiibit in Baliidhuri and in Ibn ‘Asiikir portray him as the conqueror of Jerusalem and make reference to an agreement which was reached (according to Baliidhuri in exchange for payment and only referring to within the walled city) and which ‘Umar authorisedafterwards.Elsewherein his chronicleIbn‘Asakirquotes another and strange version from,Wiiqidi, according to which the agreement was made with the Jews who were in Jerusalem, twenty in number, their leader being Joseph bin Niin (!). According to this agreement, the inhabitants of Jerusalem had to pay j i r y a and in return were promised security of their persons, property and their churches, on condition that they would not revolt nor harbour rebels. Apparently the idea of the twenty Jews relates to another matter, which is that of the twenty Jews who later served on the Temple Mount. Theophanes, in his account of ‘Umar’s visitto Jerusalem, mentions the fact that Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, handed over the city in exchange for a logos, which in this context, undoubtedly meansa promise. Ya‘qiibi evidentlyknew the story found in Ibn ‘Asakir, and the substance of the covenant he mentions is similar, but he claims that there was a difference of opinion with regard to the strltl in Jerusalem. Some say it was made with the Jews, but the prevailing opinion is that it was made with the Christians. The Christian Sa‘id ibn Bip-iq, who elsewhere relates that it was forbidden for Jews to abide in Jerusalem from the time of Constantine and afterwards, brings up the subject of the covenant and a version of it, in which the safety of person, property and the churchis included, without mentioning the ban on Jewsliving in Jerusalem at all. Wefind in Musharraf information about approximate translation of the word IrrsJt, evidently identical with the Hebrew word listim, both taken from the Greek: listgs, robber. But it is not likely that the Christians in Jerusalem would ask for a clause to be included in the pact giving protection to robbers, therefore the meaning here is evidently: inhabitants who are not in the army but who participated in the defenceof the city. Villagers (literally: people of the soil) were apparently refugees from the villages who sought refuge in Jerusalemwhen the Muslims took large stretchesof Palestine. The letterapparently mentioned some murderthat frightened the population and drove many of them seektorefuge in Jerusalem, but thecopyist of the letter was not interested in copying the name of the victim (or victims) and wrote, the murder of so-and-so ( f i l l a n ) .

55

THE CONQUEST

a letter sent by Abii ‘Ubayda to the people ofJerusalem in which he tries to convince them to turn toIslam. Mutahhar b. Tiihir al-Maqdisi notes that ‘Umar concluded the sulk with the people ofJerusalem, which according to him entailed the security of the churches and the assurance that the monks would not be exiled. Ibn al-Athir, who generally copied from Tabari, points out with regard to Jerusalem only that ajizya was imposed on its citizens. The same applies to al-Makin, and although Tabari is also his principal source, he only mentions the beginning of a version of the agreement and does not mention the Jewish matterat all. The Christian chronicler Agapius (Mahbiib) of Manbij tells how the patriarch Sophronius goesout to greet ‘Umar his on arrival in Jerusalemfrom Medina and receives a covenant from him, bearing his seal, but only mentions the Jewish aspect: that of 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. Similarly Michael the Syrian indicates only ‘that no Jewis permitted tolive in Jerusalem’, as is the case with Bar Hebraeus. Although there is some doubt as to the authenticity of Sayfs information (which was copied by Tabari), and although contradictions appear in his accounts, it appears that we cannot disregard him altogether. The version itself seems to be reliable;it is possible that the passage in which the year (15) is incorrect, was added by Tabari, or perhaps by Sayf himself. The names of the witnesses mentioned therein, all of whom were important figures in the Muslim command, seem artificial; but the language of the covenant and its details appear authentic and reliable and in keeping with whatis known ofJerusalem at that time.We have seen that most of the Muslim sources ignore the details of the pact, apart from the fundamentals - security and taxes. O n the other hand,as one mightanticipate, the subject of the Jews appeared important to almost all the Christian chroniclers, for here was a ban forbidding the Jews to live in Jerusalem. The question still remains as to howthis Jewish aspect could be adapted to the historical fact (proven by a number of sources) that the Jews indeed settled in Jerusalem shortly after the conquest. I shall attempt tofind some 58 explanation for this contradiction. 58

Goitein, Melila, 3 4 (1949/50), 158fc see also his article Yerushaluyim, 4(1952/3), 84ff. An important argumentagainst the reliability ofSayf ibn ‘Umaris his inaccuracywith regard to the year of theconquest of Jerusalem. See on this matter theremark of Noth, Quellenkritische Studien, 57, that the chronological frameworks are generally thework of editors (in thiscase, Tabari); thereforethe essential valueofthe genuine tradition remains intact even though the chronological sequence is not correct. See Balsdhuri and Ibn ‘Asskir, above in n. 55; cf. also Ibn A‘tham, I, 296: the sulh was attained through the mediation of atribesman of Palestine (certainly this is what he meantby mustu‘riba) sent by ‘Umar whose name was Abii’l Ju‘ayd. The agreement contained a stipulation on the payment of thejizya and permission to remain in the city. The Jewsare not mentioned

T H E C O M P L E T I O N O F T H E C O N Q U E S T [ S E C S . 70-741

The completionof the conquest

[70] The mostdifficult areas to conquer were principally thecities along the coast, which were surrounded by walls on all sides facing the land. The Muslims were unable to attack them from sea,the having only land forces. This refers mainlyto Tripoli,Caesarea and Ascalon. Apparently,Hebron also held out longer than the other cities in the country. We have no information about Hebron from Muslim sources, but from a comparatively later Christian source, contained ina manuscript from thefifteenth century, is the story of two monks from Hebron at the time of the Crusades. Most of the text is concerned with thediscovery of thegraves of the patriarchs, which occurred (as we know from Arab sources) in the year

here. According to him, theamin is still with the Christians in Jerusalem ‘until this very day’. Cf.theanonymousSyriacchronicle, 225: theagreementwasmade with Abu Ju aydad (!), who was one of the twoheads of the city ofJerusalem, the other being the bishop Sophronius. See also Fut$z (ascribed to WZqidi), I, 226: Abu Ju‘ayd (who was involved in the battle of the Yarmiik) was the one who advised the Christians not to rebel against the Muslims. He proved to them that it was the Muslims who were truly the righteous mentioned in the Bible and theNew Testament (injil) - as after the Christians displayed the valuables in their possession, on his advice, noneof the Muslims laid a hand on them. See a similar story in al-Himyari, 151; in connection with the valuables, Stratos, 134ff, points to thefact that during the taking ofJerusalem, mostof thechurch treasures were no longer in their place, but had been removed after the battle of the Yarmiik via Caesarea to Constantinople, together with the Holy Cross, and he notes the fact that they were displayed in the Church ofSt Sophia in Constantinople during the last three days of Easter week.See Maqdisi, Muthir, 298: ‘Umar sent a manofthe Banii Jadhila and it was he Ibn ‘AsZkir, 11,323; Theophanes, who conquered Jerusalem;see the additional tradition in 339; Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 167f; Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, I, 133, and 11, 17; Musharraf, fol. 18; Maqdisi, Bad’, V, 185; Ibn al-Athir, K i m i l , 11, 501; Agapius (PO VIII), 215; the anonymous Syriac chronicle, 255: ‘that no Jew shall live in Jerusalem’; Michael the Syrian (Chabot), 419, text; 11, 425, translation; Bar Habraeus, Chronicle (Bedjan), 103, cf. the translation (Budge),96; ‘Ulaymi, 224, has an exact copyfrom Tabari; De Goeje, Mimoire, 155, finds it only natural that a ban on living in Jerusalem should have been applied to the Jews at that time. Logically, this was probably a concession, obtained by negotiations, to the Christians’ demands and their hatred of the Jews. An atmosphere of conciliation towards the Christians was also noticeable, in his opinion, in the fact that the covenant had no clauses to humiliate or restrain the Christians, such as are found in other letters of surrender of that time. Meinardus, Copts, 11, gives information from an anonymous source about the ‘Umar pact, in which Latins, Copts, Syrians, etc. are mentioned; of course, this information lacks any foundation whatsoever. Tabari has another tradition, also taken from Sayf ibn ‘Umar, in which the commanders of the army fighting in the battles around Jerusalem were: Abii’l-A‘war, who was active in the north (‘in charge of Urdunn’), ‘Alqama ibn Hakim, Masriiq b. ‘so-and-so’ (evidently he was not of Arab origin), Abii Ayyiib al-AnsZri, who is Khalid b. Zayd b. Kulayb. Abii Ayyiib was an important figure in the Prophet’s day, see Ibn al-Athir, Usd, V 143f; he was from the family of the Banii al-NajjZr, one of the first to adhere to Islam, and afterwards a retainer of ‘Ali. It is said that he wasof thelineage of ahabr (aJewish sage), see Samhiidi, I, 189, cf.; Kister, IOS, 2 (1972), 233, n. 141; Gil,JSAZ, 4(1984), 211. As to Abii’l-A‘war, heis ‘Amr b. Sufyan al-Sulami,who received the surrender of Tiberias,see Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2093, 2159; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, IV, lOSf; V, 138:

THE CONQUEST

AH 513, that is AD 1119-1120.In this Christian manuscript there is a passage dealing with the Muslimconquest of Hebron: When they [the Muslims] came to Hebron they were amazed to see the strong and handsome structures of the walls and they could not find any opening through which to enter; then Jews happened to come, who lived in the area under the former rule of the Greeks [that is, the Byzantines], and they said to the Muslims: give us [a letter of security] that we may continue to live [in our places] under your rule [literally - amongst you] and permit us to build a synagogue in front of the entrance [to the city].If you will do this, we shall show you where you can break in. And so they did.59

[71] As to the cities of the coast, according to Baliidhuri, ‘Irqa, Jubayl and Beirut were easily taken shortly after the conquest of Damascus, evidently at about the end of the year 636. Baliidhuri has it that the Byzantines attacked and took over the coastal cities again towards the end of ‘Umar’scaliphate, or at the beginning of ‘Uthmiin’s time, is that in 644; Mu‘iiwiyareturnedandrecapturedthem,rebuiltthemandstationed garrisons which lived off the taxes from the neighbouring countryside. Only Tripoli remained a hard nut to crack. In the days of ‘Uthman (ca. 645), Mu‘awiya decidedto capture it(Baliidhuri explains thatit was a city .made up of three cities). He cut it off from the sea, put up a fortress a number of miles from the town and called it Sufyiin, and completely blockaded the city.The entire population concentrated inone of the city’s citadels. They wrote to the emperor requesting that he send ships to evacuate them toareas under his dominion. Theships actually arrived and embarked with the population incourse the of one night. According to Ibn ‘Asiikir, the inhabitants of the city set fire to theascity they were leaving. Only one Jew who had managedto escape the fire remained, and it was he who told the Muslims what had occurred. According to Ibn ‘Asakir, that is, the Mu‘iiwiya then placeda large number ofJews from al-Urdunn, north of Palestine, in the city’s citadel (which according to Baladhuri’s interpretation served as a port in his time).60 59

See the treatise of the Canonicus Hebronensis in RHC (Occ.), V,309; seethe introduction ibid., LXIII; see the discussion on this source in Riant, AOL, 2(1-1884), 411-421. This story is further proof that thereactually was a synagogue in Hebron during theMuslim occupation. This synagogue existed until the Crusaders’ conquest, and this is also confirmed by the Geniza documents, see below; the storyis attributed to two monks, Eudes and Arnoul. See also Vincent, Hebron, 159, 167f, 178. The fragment was also edited by Assaf and Mayer, Sefer ha-yishrrv, 6, which has a literal translation. Circa regionern illam morati fjrerant does not mean: ‘who had remained under Greek rule in that area’; portam facere does notmean ‘to erect the gate’ but is an idiom. Vincent translates here: ‘indiqutrent aux conqutrants le point i dtgager pour se crter uneentree’. See Bahdhuri, FtrtCh, 126f; Ibn ‘Asakir, V, 183ff. A‘fihum al-qafi’i‘, I translate: he allotted them (the garrisons) the income from the landtaxes. Afterwards, these sources say, the Christians were given permission to return to andsettle in the townagain, under thebitrrq

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[72] Caesarea was under siege more than once, evidently already in the year 13, Jumadi in I, or July634. But the Muslims despaired of capturing it at the time and this persisted until Mu‘iwiya finally took it in Shawwil of the year 19, or October 640. According to the tradition in Baliidhuri, Mu‘iwiya found in Caesarea 700,000 mercenaries, 30,000 Samaritans, 200,000Jews, 300 markets, and 100,000men guarding the walls of the city nightly. The town was captured with the help of a Jew calledJoseph, ‘who came to theMuslims at night and showed them how to creep in through an underground trench in which the water reached up to one’s knees’; for this, he received anaman (letter of security), for himself and his for ahl (an expression that has various meanings: perhaps‘his family’, or ‘his people’ or perhaps meaning to say ‘the Jews’). is It quite possible that the sources, in referring to the capture of Caesarea, are influenced by the information on the conquest of Caesarea in Cappadocia by Maslama b. ‘Abd al-Malik in 729. He tookcaptive the inhabitantsof thecity and soldthem as slaves; the exception was the Jews, as they were the ones who handed over the town to him.61

61

(putricius), whose name was Buqantar, and these Christians undertook to pay taxes. But some fifty years later, in the days of ‘Abd al-Malik, they rebelled, killed the governor, took prisonersamong the Muslims and theJews, and took flight aboard ships. Afterwards they returned with Byzantine reinforcements and attempted to capture the town but their plan failed.They were subdued and their leader was crucified by ‘Abd al-Malik. Thereis also (ibid.) the interesting information that the Muslims usually kept a full garrison in the town only on days when it was possibleto sail, whereas when the‘sea was closed’, thatis to say, during the winter months, it would be taken away from there. C f alsoIbn al-Shaddad (MS Leiden 3076),IOOb, who copied from Baladhuri and Ibn ‘Asikir. BalZdhuri, Futirh, 141; the date is confirmed by Abii Ma‘shar (died in 786), who was a contemporary of Ibn Ishaq (younger than him) and a Medinan who later moved to Baghdad; see on him Sezgin, I, 291f; Wiqidi (quoted by Tabari) also gives this date.See the account of Abii Ma‘shar in Tabari, Tu’rfkh, I, 2579, who also citesother opinions: of Ibn IshZq - the year20 (641), and of Sayf ibn ‘Umar - the year 16 (637). It seems thatif we divide the numbers in Balidhuri into a hundred, shall we arrive at numbers near the actual ones. Ya‘qiibi, Tu’rikh, 11, 172: there were 80,000 fighters in Caesarea, and he has the year as AH 18 (AD 639). See further, Khalifa ibn Khayyit, I, 134; Sa‘id ibn Bitriq,11, 20. In the seventh year of ‘Umar’s reign (641); according to YZqiit, Buldin, IV, 214, the siege of Caesarea lasted seven years less one month. The man who showed the Muslims how getto a Jew), and the in was a certainLintZk, who was their hostage(it does not say that he was event occurred on Sunday when everyonewas in church. Bar Hebraeus (Bedjan), 104b; (Budge), 97: the siege lasted five months (from Decemberuntil May). A totalofseventytwo shooting machines bombarded the attackers from the walls. Only after penetrating the walls while others were scaling the battlements on ladders, did the Muslims succeed in overcoming the defenders, who had been unable to descend from the walls into the town for three days. Seven thousand Byzantine soldiers (one-hundredth of the number given by Baladhuri), fled from Caesarea by sea. Caesarea in Cappadocia: Chabot, HE], 29(1894), 292, following an anonymous Syriac chronicle which he ascribed to Dionysius of TelMahrE, patriarch of the Jacobites (died in 845); Noth, Quellenkritische Studien, 24, 150, points to the uniformity of pattern (‘typology’) in the descriptions of theconquest ofcities in Islamic traditions: Damascus, Caesarea, Babel (Babylon) of Egypt(afterwards Fustat), Alexandria, Tustar, Qurtuba: (a) the traitor reveals the weak spot in the defence, (b) the

59

THE C O N Q U E S T

[73] There is a difference of opinion with regard to Ascalon, as to whether it was taken by ‘Amr ibn al-‘A? or Mu‘iiwiya. Here too the resistance lasted longer than usual due to theassistance lent by the Byzantines to the town’sdefenders from thesea. The traditions are generally in accord that the city was conquered only 644. inBalZdhuri has it thatat first Ascalon was captured by‘Amr ibnal-‘A?, but there was an uprising with the help of theByzantines and Mu‘iiwiya conquered it anew and stationed a garrison there.62 [74] During this period of the consummation of the conquests in Palestine, the Muslims suffered a cruel blow in the form of an undefined plague, known by the name of ‘The Emmaus plague’. Many people died as a result, among them some of the most important of the Muslim commanders, Abii ‘Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, Mu‘adh b. Jabal, Yazid b. Abi Sufyiin (Mu‘iiwiya’s brother) and others.The plague occurred in the year AH 18 (AD 639). ‘Umar tried to save Abii ‘Ubayda’s life, and in a letter ordered him to return to Medina, but the latter, understanding his intention, refused to go. When ‘Umar learned of the deaths of Abii ‘Ubayda and Yazid, he appointed Mu‘iiwiya, Yazid’s brother, as commander in charge of the province (jund) of Damascus, and Shurahbil b. Hasana in charge of the province of Urd~nn.~~ The attitudeof the populationtowards the conqueror

[75] We have already discussed the episode of Him?and the conflicting accounts of this episodein the Muslim traditions and the Syriac-Christian

62

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population is occupied with something, such as a festival, etc., (c) the vanguard storms ahead on ladders; (d) the sounding of thetakbir (alliihu akbar) to proclaim victory, (e) the entrance gates are opened to the Muslim army from within. According to Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam, 76, Caesarea was conquered in the same year Heraclius died, which was the year’20 (641), and see the year ofhis death in Vasiliev,History, I, 193; Stratos, 150ff, argues that the exact dateof Heraclius’ death was 11 February, 641.In Suyiiti, Ta’rikh, 132, the date of the conquest of Caesarea is the year AH 19 (AD640). Baladhuri, Futtih, 142ff; Tabari,Ta’rikh, I, 2798 (according to Sayf ibn ‘Umar): Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rNz, 11, 170: Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, 11, 20; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, 111, 77. Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2516ff; Balidhuri, FuttSh, 139f, mentions the ages of the dead: Abii ‘Ubayda, fifty-eight,Mu‘idh b.Jabal, thirty-eight (he died in the vicinity Uqhuwina of in the Urdunn region); Shurahbil b. Hasana (contraryto the information in Tabari concerning his appointment by ‘Umar), sixty-nine. Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 172: 25,000 died; Ibn Qudama, 140, Mu‘adh b. Jabal died after he was appointed commander to replace Abii ‘Ubayda in a town between Ramla and Jerusalem, at the age of thirty-three; Tha‘ilibi, Thimiir, 546f, hasa sort ofplay on words on the subject - saying that the people of al-Sham are famous for their submissiveness to the rulers (tii‘a-ti‘iin) andtheplagues (@‘tin). Vincent et Abel, Emmaus, 357, point out that from the fact that the famous plague was named after Emmaus (whileit was known that it raged throughout Palestine and Syria), one can understand that this place must have been the major concentration point for Muslim troops at the time.

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chronicles. We have also seen the description by a Syriac source of the slaughter of thelocal population in this region. In addition, wehave taken note of the Muslim sources that speak of theaid rendered by Jews the to the Muslims in the conquest of Hebron and Caesarea, and the episode of the Jews in Tripoli. One should take note that the latter sort of information is found only in the Muslim traditions. Naturally, it is impossible to learn the real truth in this case, but one can assume that the local population suffered immensely during the courseof the warand it is very likely that many villages were destroyed and uprooted in the frontier regions, and that the lot of these local populations was very bitter It appears indeed. that the period of the conquest was also that of the destruction of the synagogues and churchesof theByzantine era, remnantsof whichhave been unearthed inour own time and are still being discovered. This assumption is based both on whatis said in a few Christian sources I have mentioned and on Muslim sources describing ‘Umar’s visitsto al-Sham. There is no doubt that one ofthe main purposesof these visits wasto establish order and put an end to the devastation and slaughterof thelocal p o p ~ l a t i o n . ~ ~ [76] One should recall that the Muslim invasion of Palestine occurred only some five or six years after the tremendous upheaval of the wars between Persia and Byzantium, that is, after the defeat of the ‘kingdom of Edom’ and then its victory. One can assume that great messianic hopes were aroused among the Jews of Palestine and that theywove what was happening into the pattern of eventsof thedays of redemptionas foretold by the prophets ofIsrael and the book of Daniel. The Muslims certainly did not appear to them as the instruments of salvation, but only as its harbinger. The Muslim conquests were perceived as an essential stage determined in advanceby Providence for the coming of the Messiah. Evidence of these moods can be found in ‘The Mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai’; though written some generations after the conquests, it contains some basic ideas which were perhaps prevalent among the 61

As to the attitude of the Jews towards the Muslims, the Arab sources themselves were inclined to laudthemselves on the good relationshipbetweentheMuslimsandthe subdued population, and the Christian sources attempted, for their own reasons, to describe theJews as allies of the Muslims; we can seean element of this in story the of the taking of Hebron as related by monks of the Crusaders’ period; cf. GhCvond, 2; this Armenian chronicler who lived in a distant land, some ten generations after the Muslim conquest, claims to know of the Prophet’s command beforehis death that the Muslims should ask for theaid of the Jews, and that the latter would show them the way to conquer the world. The Jews welcomed this idea, for God had promised Abraham’s heirs that they would dominate the world.As they themselves had transgressed and were excluded from ruling, then at least the Arabs, themselves also of the seed of Abraham, would gain supremacy. TheArmenian bishop Sebeus also describes a sort of cabal between the Jews and the Arabs against the Christians, see his chronicle in a French translation (Macler), 102ff. One need not ascribe any historical significanceto this kind of story.

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THE CONQUEST

Jews ofPalestine during the conquests. The kingdomof Edom was seen as the kingdom of the wicked. Thesecrets were revealed to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai ‘when he was hidden from the emperor, king of Edom, in a cave’. One is speaking here, naturally, of ‘Mysteries of the End’. At the beginning one finds a homily based on ‘and he looked on the Kenites’ (Num., xxiv:21): As soon as he saw the Kingdom of Ishmael was coming, he began to say: Was it not enough for us what the wicked Kingdom of Edom has done to us; now [there sav ha-pinitn comes] also the Kingdom of Ishmael? Immediately Matairon, the [PrinceofthePresence (?)I, retorted,sayingtohim:donotfear,man,the of Ishmael in order to save you of this wicked Almighty only brings the Kingdom a prophet of His wish, and will conquer the Land one, and he appoints over them a great for them; they will restore it to its grandeur; and fear will befall the Children of Esau.

This idea, the perception of Muhammad as a prophet sent by God to the Arabs, merits some attention,particularly ifit also reflected the attitude of the Jewsat the time of the conquest, something whose truth can never be ascertained. The archetype of the prophet sent to the gentilesis, of course, Balaam. In the midrash it is also stated: ‘just as He [the Almighty] placed angels and sages and prophets in Israel, so did he do similarly for the nations of the world’. The treatise on the argument between Jews and Christians in Palestine (the Didaskalia of Jacob the recently baptised), speaks of the rumour that spread among the Jewsof Palestine about the rising of a prophet from among theArabs. Arab sources alsotell ofJews who agreed thatMuhammad was really the messenger of God, but only to the Arabs.65 [77] This midrash of the ‘Mysteries of Shimon Bar Yohai’ sees the 65

See the midrash in Jellinek, Bet ha-midrash, 111, 78ff, edited from theSalonika edition,1743, 187ff (aversion adapted by the editor, re-edited by Even Shemuel; see MidreshZge’trlla;?, his which deprives it of any scientific value). See the introductions to these two editions. Parallel versionscan be found in ‘The prayer of Rabbi Shimon Ben See Yohai’. in Jellinek, ibid., IV, 117ff, and in Even Shemuel, 268ff; also in ‘The Midrash on the TenKings’ edited by H . M. Horovitz,BZt ‘eqed ha-agadot, 38ff (and see the parallel fragmenton pp. 510. The Kenite,Jethro’stribe, is identifiedinthe Targum with Ben?Salmi’a,which was a by-name for the Arabs in the Byzantine period; see Urbach, Eretz Israel, 10(1970/71), 60, n. 13; Gil,]SAI, 4(1984), 217f;it is natural that the midrash identifies the Kenite here with Ishmael. Crone and Cook, 37, surmised that in the passage from ‘The mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai’ where the Kenite is mentioned, a different source was inserted into the midrash, therefore one mustdifferentiate between Kenites and Ishmaelites; but this hasno foundation. The nature and timingof the midrash has been extensively treated in research literature, see thebibliographyinBaron, SRH], 111, 274, n. 27;see particularlythe opinions of Graetz (Hebrew), 111, 433, n. 16; Baer, MGW’, 70(1926), 162f, n. 6; Steinschneider, ZDMG, 28(1874), 636f, 639,642, draws attention to Byzantine elements in the midrash; Lewis, BSOAS,33(1949-51), 309; see pp. 321ff, where he claims that the Kenite means Rome and Byzantium, and in its later sections, the Crusaders; but this is not correct. See also his article in A. Abel Memorial Volume: 197, where he tries to prove that G i n a Schechter, 11, 310ff refers to the the piyyiit, ‘On that day’, edited by Ginzberg, 62

T H E A T T I T U D E O F T H E P O P U L A T I O N [ S E C S . 75-80]

mission of Islamas the disabling and elimination of the Byzantine empire. But later on, it compares this mission with that of the Messiah himself, and has an interpretation of Is., xxi:6-7 (‘And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels’), as ‘why does heput before a chariot of camels, a chariot of asses? [It should]not [be] a chariot ofasses, a chariot of camels but: a chariot of camels a chariot of asses. Once he started he rides a camel; when his kingdom has grown underhis rule, he rides an ass;in other words:since he rides an ass, the conclusionis that they are a salvation for Israel, equal to the salvationof the one who will ride an ass’ (i.e., the Messiah). Interestingly enough, echoes of this Jewish exegesis reached Muslim writers. Thus Biriini says in the eleventh century, Such or similar to this is the interpretation of the saying of Isaiah [kha‘yii] the prophet: God ordered him to place a scout ona watch-tower who shallsay what he observes [‘what he shall see he will say’]; and he [the scout]I see said: a rider on an ass and a rider on a camel; and one of the two stood up and shouted: Babylon has fallen and all its wooden idols are broken (Is., xxi:9). And the interpretation of these tidings is [the comingofl the Messiah [thatis to say, Jesus] who is riding the ass, and Muhammad, who is riding the camel.&

[78-791 The manner of viewing Islam can be seen in the term ‘little horn’, which theJews customarilyapplied to the Muslim rule, according conquest of Palestine by the Muslims. The contents of the piyyiit: the coming of the Messiah, sonof David;cosmic changes; thewar between the east and the west; the west is victoricus; King Joktan wages war and wins; the Jews are redeemed, ‘the kings of Edom disappear’; Antioch rebels; Tiberias (Maaziah) and Samaria ‘will be consoled’; Acre and the Galilee ‘will meet mercy’; war in the Acre valley; ‘Gaza and its surrounding towns will be stoned’; Ascalon and Ashdod will panic; the Jews leave the city; for forty days ‘they will not have a grain to eat’; the Messiah arrives. In my opinion, this p i y y i t has no reliable foothold on which to determine its date. See further on the midrash under discussion: Ashtor(Strauss), Zion, 4(1938/9), 51 (on‘theprayerofRabbiShimonBarYohai); Urbach, Eretz Isrnel, 10(1970/71), 58-63.O n Balaam and his metamorphosis in the Arab tradition see Gil,JSAI, 4(1984), 215ff. The midrash on the prophets of the nations, see in Bn-midbar Rabba, xx (at the beginning). The Didaskalia, see the Bonwetsch edition, 86; in fact, the source calls the prophet of the Arabs plnnos prophFt2s (false prophet); see ‘Abd al-Jabbir, Sharh, 577; Tihswi, Sharh, 111,214: it is not enough for aJew declare to that there is no God butAllah, and thatMuhammad is his messenger, in order to become a Muslim, for it is possible that he is attached to the view which says that Muhammad is God’s messenger only to the Arabs. O n the readiness of some Jewish sects (Abii ‘Is5 al-ISfahini, ‘Anan) to admit Muhammad’s divine missionto the Arabs, see QirqisZni,I, 52 (Book I, 11.2), 111, 283f (Book 111, 13.2); Maqrizi, Khitat, 111, 372; cf. Poznanski, REI, 44(1902), 178. 66 Biriini, 19, see also Karijili, 91; Ibn Zafar, Khayr al-bishu, 17; Ibn al-Jawzi, Waji’, I, 61. Another interpretation is found in a letter attributed to the emperor Leo111 (717-741) to caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (717-720): the riders are but one person. The ass is the Jewish nation (and the reasons for this are provided there,but they are self-evident); the camel is the Midianites and the Babylonians,who make frequent use of this animal.The writer hints that the rider is actually Satan himself, who in the course of riding these animals (that is, the Jews and the pagans) instilledfalse belief (that is, Islam) among the Arabs. See a version of the letter as in Gh&ond, the Armenian chronicler (ca. 900), in Jeffery, H T R , 37(1944), 327ff. Cf. Von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam2, 17f.

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I

to Daniel, vii:fL6’ Between the horns which symbolise in this book the gentile kingdoms, thisis the lasthorn before ‘the Ancientof Days’ will sit on the seat of judgment; that is to say that Muslim dominion was conceived as the last stage before the Day of Judgment and salvation. The Christians saw in ‘Umar on his entry intoJerusalem ‘the abomination of desolation’,also based on the book of Daniel. On the other hand, a Muslim traditiontells how ‘Umarasked the bishop ofJerusalem:‘Do you really findme in the book?’ and the bishop replied: ‘yes’. ‘And how doyou find me?’ The answer came: ‘I find you a horn, a horn of iron, trueand strong’ (perhaps suggested by Mic., i ~ : 1 3 ) . ~ ~ [80] It seems that the atmosphere of the End of the Days which the Muslim forces felt in Palestine is reflected in the tradition of thedujjcil, a sort ofapocalyptic creature who must be killed before the comingof the Day ofJudgment. Some traditions attribute the victory over d u j jthe d and his slaughter to Jesus, and others to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattiib. He abides in Palestine near the gates of Lod. In the tradition of Tabari, a Jew foretold to ‘Umar, whenhe met himnear Jiibiya, thatGod will grant him Jerusalem and that the Arabs underhis command will kill thedqjcil, who is located less than ten cubits from gates the ofLod. The dujjcil belongs to the tribe of Benjamin. In another version of the tradition, Tabari relates, in continuation, that the Jew was from the JewsDamascus. of This other version also mentions that the Jews said of the d q j d that he was from the tribe of Benjamin. The explanation of thegate of Lod can be found in the work of al-Musharraf b. Murajj5, a Jerusalemite of the eleventh century, who explains that it does not mean ‘the gate of the church near Ramla’ (St George ofLod) but the western gate of thecity ofJerusalem (David’s gate, the western one, whichis near rnihvcib Du’ud). The termd u j j d is evidently borrowed from the Syriac, rneshT.2 duglci, a false messiah; as for example in theSyriactranslation of Mat., xxiv:24;intheGreekoriginal it is pseudokhvistoi.69 This expression is found mainly in Karaite writings, which apply ‘the little horn’ to the number of hijra years. See, for instance, the fragments of the Karaite calendar, ed. Gil, ha-Ttrstarim, 86ff, and the Hebrew Index. See Ibnal-Athir,]imi‘, IV, 482; al-Tabari al-Muhibb, 11, 38, attributes these words not to the bishop but to Ka‘b al-Ahbir who even interprets the meaning of the iron horn as always being innocent in the eyes of God. See also Halabi, Sira, I, 239; Zamakhshari, Khasii’is, 61, who ascribes these words to ‘Abdallah b. SalPm, a Jew of Medina who accepted Islam. 69 Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 24026 cf. Tayilisi, 170; in which the killing of the daj$ is ascribed to Jesus, and is told in the name of Mujammi‘ b. JPriya, one of Muhammad’s opponent_s in Medina; see Musharraf,79b-80a. Musharraf s version contradicts what Muqaddasi,AqiIim, 176, wrote some two generations earlier: ‘[in Lod] there is a magnificent church, where alongside its gate Jesus will kill the dujjiil. See also: Biriini, 212; Ibn al-Faqih, 95, 117, who quotes a conversation between a Muslim and thepeople of Lod: the Muslim (al-shayiiti‘n) claims that the church of St George was built for King Solomon by the devils 67

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The episode of the Temple Mount and the returnof the Jewsto Jerusalem

[81] TheMuslimtraditions ascribe special significance toCaliph ‘Umar’s visit to the Temple Mount. Most ofaddthem to his entourage on this visit Ka‘b al-Ahbar, a Jew from the southern part of the Arabian peninsula who joined the Muslims, turned to Islam and was considered an authority on matters of the Jews andtheir Torah. According to the Muslim tradition (and there is no reason to doubt it), the Byzantines turned the Temple Mount into Jerusalem’s refusedump from the time of Helena, themother of Constantine. One should remember that Jerusalem was not foreign to the consciousnessof the Muslim conquerors.The first qiblu (the direction turned to in prayer), taken by Muhammad in Mecca was towards Jerusalem, and even during his stay in Medina, he continued for some time(it is generally thought to be sixteen months but there are different versions) to turn towards Jerusalem while praying, until God ‘sent down’ the order to turn the qiblu in the direction of Mecca (Koran ii:139); he then evenmade changes in his mosque in Medina, which since while the people of Lod (that is, the Christians) reply that everything that seems sumptuous to the Muslims,they ascribe to the devils; obviously this building was constructed much earlier than the birth of Solomon by many generations. Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 215, 217, 606-619; Yiqiit, Btrldijn, IV, 592f; Ibn al-Athir, K i m i l , 11, 501; Qurtubi, Tadhkira, 232; the tradition ofJesus killing the dajjil in his text is linked by him with the war of the End of the Dayscarried on by ‘Urwa al-SufyHni (with the hope of regaining the glory of the Umayyads) whowill be defeated. His army will be dispersed and he will be found on the highest tree alongside the Sea of Galilee; cf. Sha‘rini, Mukhtasar, 197; Qurashi, 508; Ibn Hajar al-Haythami, Sawi‘iq, 165; Samarqandi, Bustiin, 100: the dajjil has still not been born; he will appear at the End of the Days, masses ofJews will follow him, until Jesus will arrive andkill him at the gate of Lod in Jerusalem. See the collectionof traditionsrelating to Jesus’ struggle with the dajjd in Suyiiti, in the supplement to Tabarini,Mu‘jarn, 11,210f; in Samhiidi, ibid., I, 87, who quotes from Ibn Zabila (who finished his book in 814, see Samhiidi, ibid., 7, 252), the killing of the dajjil will take place in the vicinityof thebasalt plateau (!tarra) east of Medina; ‘then theirfaces will shineon the Day of Resurrection like the light of the full moon’; these words are attributed to Ka‘b al-Ahbir as he found them in the tawrcih (there is perhaps some influence of Zech.,xiv:4-7); ‘Azizi, 111, 246, 485; Jesus will kill the dajjijl at the gateof Lod. Modern scholarship relates this tradition to the church of St George in Lod, where this saint who killed the dragon was venerated. Gutschmid, 184, attempted to prove that this veneration had ancient roots, going back to the time of Persianrule. Cf. Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, 136; Couret, La Palestine, 235; Steinschneider, ZDMG, 28(1874), 343: a tradition onJesus and the dajjil which mentions the eastern tower nearBib Jayriin in Damascus (The Gate ofJayrtin is also mentioned in ‘The Mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai’). See the discussionon theda,iJd and the church of St George in Lod, in Noldeke, Sitzungsberichte (Wien), 128(1893), 27, n. 2, who quotes Muqaddasi and Ibn al-Faqih. It is possible to point to a certain parallelism between the tradition of the killing of the dajjil at the gate ofLod and the Talmudic tradition of the stoning of Ben Stada in Lod; see Tosejia. Sanh. i:l1 (Zuckerm, 431) and in thePT, ibid., vii, 25d; see Nau, ROC, 6(1901), 525,531, and the parallels he mentions on the origin ofJesus and the matterof Pantir, withregard to the letter ofJacob of Edessa which he edits there (without linking it to the Muslim tradition of thedajjd); cf. Bell, Origin, 202.

THE CONQUEST

then has been called also the tnasjid al-qiblatayn, the mosque with two directions of prayer. Accordingto the story Raja’ of b. Hayawa (one of the most important Palestinian personalities in the daysof the Umayyads, a t the beginning of the eighth century), as Tabari has copied it, ‘Umar ordered Ka‘b to be brought to him whenhe was approaching theTemple Mount. Afterwards he came to the rnihrtib Da’iid (apparently meaning the Temple Mount).As it was already night, he beganto pray there; atdawn he prayedwith his men and read thesiirat $id (xxxviii), andstrrat bani Isri’il (xvii); in the first one thereligions which preceded Islam are mentioned, as are David, whom God made caliph over the earth, Solomon, Abraham, Isaac,Jacob and Ishmael. The otherchapter tells of the nightjourney of the Prophet, and this is known as siirat al-isri’ (of the night journey).Afterwards he consultedKa‘b as to the question ofwhere the suitable most place to pray should be.Ka‘b told him that it should be behind the rock (that is, north of the ;akhra) so that the prayer facing Mecca would at the same time face the rockas well. ‘Umar immediatelyrejected this suggestion, censuring Ka‘b on trying to imitate the Jews. ‘For I have noticed that you have already removed your shoes’, to which Ka‘b replied: ‘I wanted to stick to the ground with myfeet.’ ‘Umar decided then to put up the prayer house in front of the rock,as the most proper place, ‘for we were not directed about the rock but about the ka‘ba’. In what follows, Ka‘b explains to ‘Umar that the entrance to the place and the evacuation of the refuse from the Temple Mount, is the fulfilment of the five-hundred-year-old prophecy which foretold of the rise ofJerusalem and fallthe of Constantinople. According to Muhallabi’s version, written two generations after Tabari, it was the Jews (and not only Ka‘b) who came to ‘Umar and the ‘rock’because Constantine’s mother, informed him of the actualofsite Helena, turned it into the outlet for the town’s sewage and refuse.‘Umar ordered the Muslims toclean up theplace and the Jews helped them to do so. A Muslim tradition also accredits to Muhammad a similar position of principle with regard to Jerusalem:‘Some say that when he was in Mecca, he would pray in thedirection ofJerusalem thus, that theka‘ba would be behind his back . . . but others claim that he always [also]faced the ka‘ba . . . and that when he was inMecca he would face both qiblas [at the same time] for the ka‘ba was between him and Jerusalem’. In Ibriihim b. ‘Ali al-Wasiti’s words: ‘When the Prophet prayed while he was still in Mecca, he wouldface in the direction ofJerusalem in such a way that theka‘ba was in front of him as well.’ Theophanes, the Byzantine chronicler, confirms this in principle;on his arrival in Jerusalem,‘Umar went into the question of where Solomon’s temple stood, and on thatspot, built a prayer house for his abominations. 66

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The subject of the Temple Mountbeing turned into a refuse dump is also mentionedinthecommentary toLam., i:17 (‘Jerusalem is as a menstrous woman among them’) by the Karaite Salmon b. Yeruhim: ‘That is, what Edom have done when they destroyed the second temple, for all thedays of theirstayhere [in Jerusalem]theywould discard thereupon [the siteof the temple] the menstrual clothsand the refuse and all kinds of filth.’ The subject of the refuse disposed of on the site of the Temple Mount spoken of by Salmon b. Yeruhim is also mentioned in Musharraf. The Byzantine women would send their menstrual cloths to Jerusalem in order that they be thrown on the 70

The matter of changing the qibla appears in all the biographies of the Prophet. See for instance Ibn Sa‘d, 1(2), 3f; III(2), 146f;Balidhuri, Ansib. I, 271: Muhammad changed the qibla at noon, on Tuesday the 15th of Sha‘ban of the 2nd year of the hijra (1 1 February AD 624) but some say: sixteen months after the hijra. Samhiidi, I, 240, 259; see the story of ‘Umar and Ka‘b on the Temple Mount in Tabari, I, 2408ff, and a fuller version in Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 557; Wiisit.i, 45f;Muhallabi, 54; Himyari, 149f; an amended version is found in the work of the Christian chronicler Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, 11, 17f; the patriarch Sophronius suggests to ‘Umar to pray in the church ofSt Constantine but ‘Umarrefuses in order not to give the Muslims a pretext anda precedent for confiscating it from the Christians; and it was the patriarch who suggested building the mosqueon the rock itself, the place where Jacob spoke to God andcalled it the gateof heaven (Gen., xxviii: 17), and the Children of Israel calledit the Holy Holies of and the centre of the earth; as to the matter of the refuse on the Temple Mount,it is perhaps also possible to relate to what was said in Bereshit Rabba xxxii (ed. Theodore and Albeck, 296), about Rabbi Jonathan whoma Samaritan told that it was better for him to pray with them in Shechem than in that Beyti qiqalti; and it is possible that by qiqalti, he meant refuse: cf. Safrai, in: Periqim, 388f, and see his parallel versions. More detailed information is to be found in Jerome in his commentary on Is. 1xiv:ll (Our holy and our beautiful house, where ourfathers praised Thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste): ‘et Templum in toto orbe celebratum in sterquilinium urbis novae quae a conditore appelabatur Elia (sit)’ (‘and the Temple which earned reverence throughout the world has become therefuse dump ofthe newcity whose founder called it Aelia [that is, Hadrianus, Aelia Capitolina]’). See MPL, 24, 626; CCSL, A73, 740; cf. Prawer, Cathedra, 17(1980/81), 51. Sa‘id ibn Bitriq does notconceal the fact that theplace was madea refuse dump by Helena and explains it in the desire of the Byzantines to fulfil the words of the New Testament on the destruction of the Temple. According to him, Sophroniuswas the onewho helped ‘Umar clear away the refuse: and he continues: ‘and there were people who said: let us fix it (the prayersite) thus, that the qibla, but ‘Umarrefused and said: we shall fix the prayer siteso that the rock should be the rock will be behind it’. See also:Bakri, 827; Muqaddasi, Muthir (Le Strange), 297, quoting Shaddsd b. Aws, one of the early Muslims who settled in Jerusalem (I shall speak of him below): the patriarch wished to show him the Church of the HolySepulchre which he claimed was the site where David prayed (masjid Da’iid), but ‘Umar did not believe it. Afterward heclaimed that the church of Zion was the site where David prayed, but ‘Umar still refusedto believe him. The rock wascovered with refuse which theByzantines placed there to annoy the Jews. ‘Umar took offhis outer clothing and started to work oncleaning up theplace together with all the Muslims;see similar versions in Musharraf,21a. O n the manner ofMuhammad’s prayingsee Ibn Sayyid al-NSs, ‘ U y i i ~I,, 236; seethese traditions also in Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Bndii-’i ‘, IV, 168; on p. 171 he includes a tradition that Moses wouldalso pray near the rock,facing ‘the Holy House’ (i.e., Mecca), with theka‘ba as hisqiblu while the rockis infront ofhim.See also what hesays regarding the Samaritans of his time (thefirst half of the fourteenth century),who claim that the Jewsfalsified the

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[82] Thesedescriptions of ‘Umar’s visit to the Temple Mount are related to a question I shall deal with below, and that is the sanctity of Jerusalem toIslam. At this point I shall concentrateon the presenceof Ka‘b together with ‘Umar on the Temple Mount, according to certain traditions, and also on the presence of the Jews. These traditions, though they are legendary in the main, undoubtedly preservedbasic thefact of expressing the Jews’ involvement and interest, to the extent that it enabled them to reach some understanding with the Muslims with regard to everything concerning the situation ofJerusalem and the status of the Temple Mount. The Jewish point, that is, the connection between the Jews and figures from the past, such as Moses, David, and Solomon on the one hand,and the specifically Jewish character of the place on the other, was certainly present in the Muslims’ mind during the conquest, and thereafter also generated the traditions surveyed above.The Jewsfelt that the injunction against their entry into Jerusalem, not to speak of their settling there which was maintainedmore orless consistently for slightly more thanfive

j

true qibla, which is the mountain in Shechem.See further: Ibn Kathir,Bidiya, 11, 96; VII, 54fC who speaks of ‘Umar’s and Ka‘b’s visit on the Temple Mount, and adds: ‘the throwing of therefuse on the Temple Mount was the Byzantine reprisal against the Jews for throwing refuse on the site of the crucifixion, hence the place (of theChurch of the Sepulchre) is called al-qumima (the refuse) and the church was also called thus. Abii ‘Ubayd, Amwil, 154;Wiisiti, 17; and following him, Ibn Fadlallah al-‘Umari (Cairo 1924), 139: Ka‘bbribed a Jewish scholarto show him the site of the rock and afterwards prayed near bZb al-asbit (‘gate ofthe tribes’ in the north-eastern corner ofthe city), for according to him, King Solomon faced the whole of the Temple Mount; see other parallels in the editor’s note 4, in WZsiti; cf. also Silafi, Fadi’il, 41b-43b. In al-Subki, Shiji’, 47, Ka‘b became a Muslimat that very time.Cf.: FutSh a2-Shim (ascribed to Wiqidi),I, 227f; Abii.’ 1-FidZ’, Buldin, 241; ‘Ulaymi, 226c Abii’l-FidZ’, Mukhtapr, I, 38, who quotes al-Muhallabi (see above): Ka‘b turned to Islamduring‘Umar’stimeandearnedrespectand attention from ‘Umar because of his knowledge of the matters of the isri’diyyat (the traditions relating to the Jews) but many of the traditions ascribed to him are inaccurate and full of sin; hisfull name wasKa‘b b. Mati‘, and hiskunya was AbiiIshiq; hewas from Himyar, from theclan of Dhii Ra‘in.He had a stepson, the son of his wife, whose name was Tubay‘ b. ‘Amir al-Himyari, who settled in Palestine and diedin AHthe 101year (AD 720) in Alexandria.O n Ka‘b himself,it is told that he said that if it were not for his love for Palestine, he would have settled in Egypt. He studied with a certain Abii Muslim the Galilean, from the mountains of the Galilee, about whom itwas said by some that he was a Jew and by others that he was a Christianmonk. See Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, 111, 100, 220; IV, 95; Tabari, Muntakhab, 116: Ka‘b died in the year AH, 32or 34 (AD 65213 or 65415). See Theophanes, 339; and copiedfrom him, Constantine Porph. (Moravcsik), 82 (ch. xix); the Syriac chronicle (Baethgen), has a similar versionamong events of the yearAH 16; also Bar Hebraeus (Bedjan), 103 (Budge), 96; Salmon b. Yeruhim,Commentary on Lamentations (Feuerstein), XLIV: see also what Sahlb. Masliah says in his introductionto his Book of Precepts, edited by Harkavy in MW’, 6(1879), 181 (omitted from the version of the He did not introduction in Ha-mdi: because of censureship, see below): ‘By God’s grace, hand over His Temple touncircumcised the [i.e., the Christians], order in not to have idols put in them, so the Jews should not be ashamed. Sinceit is not right to bowbefore a site where foreign gods [version: id&] are placed’. See some of the traditions about ‘Umar’s uncovering of the rock, on Ka‘b, etc., in Vogt,Biblica, 55(1974),57f. Musharraf, fol.21a; cf. Busse,JSAI, 5(1984), 89.

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hundred years (AD 135-638) - had come to an end. That embargo was certainly close to the heart of theChristians for it suited their viewsof the waning ofJudaism andits debasement. For theFathers of the. Church, the . . separation of the Jews from Jerusalem and the obliteration of any remnant of their earthly temple became an integral part of their creed’s body of law. The most genuineexpression of this viewpoint was that ofJerome, who wrote towards the end of the fourth century, in a manner reflecting the actual situation as well as the satisfaction and exultation at thedisappearance of the Jews, who were considered the enemies of Christianity. This is included in his commentary on Zeph., i: 15 (‘That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble anddistress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness’): Until this very day those hypocritical tenants (coloni) are forbidden to come to (servorum), and the last of them Jerusalem, because of the murder of the prophets the Son of God; unless [they come] to weep, for then they are given permission to lament over the ruins of the city in exchange for a payment. Just as they purchased the blood of the Messiah, now they are purchasing their own tears; therefore even the lamentationis not given them for naught. On the day that Jerusalem was taken and destroyed by the Romans, one could see this people, women dressed in rags and the old bearing their tatters and their years, gather for a time of mourning, proving by their bodies and their dress the meaning of the wrath of the Lord. Then a rabble of the wretched gathers, and while the wood of the crucifix of the Lord shines and glows and celebrates His resurrection, and the symbol of the cross is topmost on the Mount of Olives, the children of this wretched nation are bemoaning the.destruction of their temple, but are not worthy of compassion.71

[83] Karaite commentators of the tenth century mention in a number of instances the drastic change effected by the Muslims in their capture of Jerusalem. Thus Daniel al-Qiimisi writes at the end of the ninth century in his commentary on the Book of Daniel, xi:32: ‘For before he came [the king of Ishmael, who defeated the king of the south,that is the Byzantine emperor] they could not come to Jerusalem; and they would come from the four corners of the earth to Tiberias andGaza to see the temple; but now withhis coming he brought them to Jerusalem and gavethem a place and many of Israel settled there; and afterwardsIsrael come from the four corners of the earth toJerusalem to preach and to pray. . .’ In this same strain, Sahl b. Masliah writesintheintroductionto his Bookof Commandments:

. . . and after they left the place, it was more than five-hundred years in ruins, 71

See MPL, 25,1418f; quoted also in Schurer,I, 699,703f. Cf.what the pilgrimofBordeaux (333) has to say about the piercedstone on the Temple Mount, whichthe Jews visit every year, anoint it (with oil) and howl and wail and tear their clothing: Tobler et Molinier, I, 17: on the perforation in the sakhra see Wisiti, 75, and the corresponding references in editor’s note 3; on the ban on Jewsresiding in Jerusalem, see also Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, I, 133; according to whom the ban was imposed by Constantine.

THE CONQUEST

inhabited by hyenas, and not one of Israel could come. There were Jews from the east who came to the city of Maaziah [Tiberias] to pray there. From the west they would come to the of city Gaza. From the land of the south they would come to the city of Zoar. And in the days of the little horn, God opened the gates of his compassion to His people and brought them to His Holy City and they settled there and they built places to read and to interpret and to pray atall times and to keep watchers therein at night.. .

Similarly, his contemporary Salmon ben Yeruhim, in his Arabic commentary to Ps. xxx: wrote ‘. . . as we know, the temple remained in the hands of the Romans for more than 500 years and they didnot succeed in entering Jerusalem; and anyone who did and was recognised [as aJew] was put to death. But when the Romans left it, by the mercy of the God of Israel, and thekingdom ofIshmael was victorious,Israel was permitted to come and to live. . .’72 [84] Until now we have seen that the Karaite commentators confirm what we know from the Christian sources, thatit was forbidden to Jews to enter Jerusalem, and they point out that the Muslims changed this situation when they captured the city. The author of the ‘Mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai’ also writes: ‘The second king who will rise from Ishmael [that is to say, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib]will be a lover of Israel and will repair their cracks and the cracks of thetemple’. A Jewish chronicle, a fragment of whichis preserved in the Cairo Geniza, also confirms thatit was ‘Umar whogave permission to the Jews settle to in Jerusalem and on the basis of his decision seventy Jewish families camefrom Tiberias and settled there. This was preceded by bargaining between theJews and the 72

Daniel al-Qumisi, see TS 10 C 2 (No. 2), f. l v (see above, chapter 1, n. 12). See the of Precepts edited by Harkavy inHa-mdi?, introduction by Sahl b. Masliah to the Book 1879, p. 640 (= Me’assFjfiddihim No. 13) and see the reprint of that series, 199. ‘Little horn’ means the kingdom ofIslam (see above, note 67). Harkavy edited the introduction on thebasis of manuscripts which he found in the Firkovitch collection and out pointed in the above version somevariae lectiones: Holy boundary (instead oE Holy city); they built houses (instead of: they built places;places as parallel to the Arabic word mawidi‘ which means places,but also dwelling places). O n the particular meaningof ‘night watchers’see: Wieder, JudeanScrolls, 96-103, see especially his comments on the three foundations: Miqri, Deri5hi (= to interpret!),T e j l l i , ibid., 103. Salmon b. Yeruhim:see the manuscript from the Firkovitch collection, 11, No. 1345, edited by Neubauer, Aus derPetersburger Bibliothek, VII, 109, and following him, Mann,Jews,I, 46, n. 1, and his corrected reading in Texts, 11, 18. Writing about the period in which the Byzantines ruled and the ban on Jews to reside in Jerusalem Salmonb. Yeruhim uses the expression 7 ’ J 1 ~ h The . Arabic word nayyifmeans an addition to round numbers,and this can generally be any number from three to nine. The historical number is 638 (the Muslim conquest), minus 135 (the suppressing of the Bar-Kokhba revolt), equals 503; cf. Sahl b. Masliah: ‘more than five hundred’ (this seems to be a translation from the Arabic, which was in the original as in Salmon). This expression 1-3 1 ) h shortened to 3 1 ~ h is, evidently what produced the information of the alleged 550 years of Byzantine rule, mentioned in some piyyii@n, including that of Samuel ‘the third’b. Hosha‘na, and this, it seems, is the solution to this problem, which was discussed by Fleischer, Zion, 36(1971), 110.

THE EPISODEO F THE TEMPLE MOUNT (SECS. 81-87]

patriarch,inthe presence of the caliph; the Jews requested residence permits for Jerusalem for two hundred families while the patriarch was only ready to agree to fifty, until‘Umar decided on the number he thought fitting. Also in a letter from the yeshiva ofJerusalem to the communities in the diaspora [evidently those in Egypt], written in the middle of the eleventh century, we find the passage: ‘And from our God there befell His mercy upon us before the kingdom of Ishmael; at the time when their power expanded and they captured the Holy Land from the hands of Edom, and came to Jerusalem, there were people from the Children of Israel with them; they showed them the spot ofthe temple and they settled with them until this very day. . .’73 [85] In these latter sources, we not only find the confirmation of the information in the Karaite commentaries with regard to the renewed settlement of Jews in Jerusalem shortly after the conquest, but also an interesting point found also in the Muslim traditions on the participation of the Jews in disposing of the refuse on the Temple Mount and the appointment of a number ofJewsbetoresponsible forits cleanliness. The fragment of the letter quoted above and the fragment of the Jewish chronicle also confirm the episode ofthe Jews assisting in uncovering the rock. It is worth adding the words of the Jewish chronicle on how the cleaning of the Temple Mount proceeded:‘Takingpartwere all the Muslims in the city and in the district and participating with them awere group ofJews;afterwards they were orderedto evacuate the rubbish from thesanctuary and to clean it;and ‘Umar watchedthem all the time. Whenever a remnant was revealed, he would ask the elders of the Jews about the rock, namely theeven shetiyya (‘the foundation stone’), and one of the sages would mark out the boundaries of the place, until it was uncovered. . .’ Indeed these statements correspond to whatwas said in the Muslim chronicles, in which that ‘one of the sages’ was Ka‘b al-Ahbar, as we have seen above. In addition, the letter from the yeshiva mentions afterwards that those Jews who came to Jerusalem immediately after the Muslim conquest ‘tooka pledge upon themselves’, that is, they promised to be responsible for the cleanliness: ‘to clear away its refuse and to clean its drains’ . . ’74 73 74

Jellinek, BZt ha-midudrh, 111, 79; cf. ‘the prayerof Rabbi Shimon BarYohai’, ibid., IV, 120, and see 1, a, lines 11-19; b, lines 1-10, 16-17; 420, 111, lines 10-13. See 1, a, lines 1-9; naturally it is possible that the Jewishchronicle and the letter from the yeshiva drew on what was said in the Muslimsources, just as it is possible that the Muslim tradition was influenced by what was common knowledge among the Jews. See in the letter from theyeshiva, 420,111, line 34. One cannot conclude from these sources that there were Jews in the ranks ofthe Muslim army, as does Dinur,Irrd’d ba-gold, I (l),22, n. 22, to which hehas already been replied by Assaf, MeqGrGt. 17; also Crone and Cook,156, n. 29, exaggerate inseeing here proof ofgeneral Muslim-Jewish collaboration.

THE CONQUEST

[86] This matter of the responsibility for cleanliness is confined in the Muslim sources to the area of the Temple Mount. According to these sources, the Mosque al-AqSi had ten, and later twenty Jewish servants, who were exempt from paying the poll-tax; they were in charge of the sanitation until the Caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (717-720) replaced them withslaves from the Muslim treasury (khurns). Salmon ben Yeruhim evidently meant exactly the same thing when he wrote that at the time of the renewed settlement in Jerusalem, theJews were allotted ‘buildings in God’s House’, and they even prayed there during this period. Afterwards, however, there were complaints against them to the ‘King Ishmael’ of for their vile actions, and he ordered them to be evicted from there andplaced near one of thegates of the Temple Mount;elsewhere he complains that the Muslims placed servants in the house of God who were of foreign nations. 75 [87] One mustadd Theophanes’ story to the information I have given, with regard to the renewal ofJewishpresence in Jerusalem during ‘Umar’s time, after an absence of morethan 500 years. According to Theophanes, the shrine (naos) which ‘Umar began to build in Jerusalem would constantly collapse. They could not discover the reason for this until ‘Umar asked the Jewsand they told him that his temple was only collapsing due to the cross that was standing opposite the temple, on the Mount of Olives. Actually after the cross was removed, the shrine no longer caved in. For the same reason, he adds, the enemies of the Messiah have removed many crosses. Theophanes was one of the sworn enemies of the Iconoclasts. His story is intended to prove the power of cross, the though ina roundabout manner we also learn that there were Jews in Jerusalem at that time. According to him, these miraculous events occurred during the reign of Constantine 11, who ruled after Heraclius for only a fewmonths in 641. As I have already mentioned above, there is a clear contradiction between the information that I have summarised until now with regard to the renewed settlement ofJews in Jerusalem shortly after the conquest, at 75

See WPsiti, 43f; Muhallabi, 54; see Musharraf, 24b, whotells that the Dome of theRock had 300 servants who were bought (by ‘Abd al-Malik) from the khurns of the treasury. Whenever one of themdied they would replacehim. Therewere also ten Jewish servants who were exempt frompoll-tax, and when their offspring increased, their number grew to twenty, and they would clean up after the people who came to visit there when the caravans came, in winter and summer. They would also clean the pool of purification outside. Further on,he tells that the Jews were also taking careof the glass panes of the lanterns andthe otherglass objects, of the candlewicks, etc. In continuation, he again tells (fol. 88b) that the Jews were in charge of lighting thecandles on the Temple Mount.See also ‘Ulaymi, 250. According to Himyari, 151, anbit (farmers, _villagers)from Palestine were given the task of cleaning the TempleMount. Muqaddasi, Aqilirn, 171, explains that slaves of the treasury (akhmcis) had been on the Temple Mount from the time of ‘Abd al-Malik. See also Maqdisi,Muthir (Le Strange), 303ff; Abu ‘Ubayd, Amwd, 154; Salmon MS Paris 295,55b. b. Yeruhim, in Mann,Texts, 11, 18; his commentary on Lamentations,

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any rate, during the days of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib, and the wording of ‘Umar’s treaty with the Christian population ofJerusalem, in which is it specifically stated that Jews are not permitted to settle in Jerusalem.We have seen how Goitein, in his attempt to overcome this contradiction, expressed doubt as to the authenticity of the treaty’s version as transmitted by Sayf ibn ‘Umar. Butthere seems to be little justification for this very stringent attitude towardsa source thathas been preserved formore than a thousand years. ‘Umar’s guiding line appears to have been to adopt the most decent attitude possible towards thelocal population and enable it to continue to pursue its customary mode oflife and to earn its living in its own fashion andfrom then on,also to nourish the Arab tribes. It was then natural that, at a time when he wished to persuade Jerusalem to surrender, he would submit to the demands of the Christian inhabitants of the city to maintaintheformerlegalstatus with regard to the’Jews. However, perhaps three years laterwe (ifaccept the presence of Jews the according to Theophanes, in641), ‘Umar acknowledged the importanceof the Jews in Palestine, comprising stilla sizable population and economically the most important, and their request to settle again in Jerusalem was granted. In his own fashion, he secured the Christians’ agreement to change that situation, despite the treaty. Herewe mustattach considerable importanceto the information thathas been preserved in the Jewish chronicle, according to which ‘Umar decided on this new step only after he consulted the opinion of the patriarch as to the number ofJews that shouldbe permitted to reside in Jerusalem. In the end,his decision was something of a compromise between the opinions of both sides. From the point of view of the Muslims’ specific interest, he certainly not did see any fundamental reason to deny the Jews’ request in this matter. And why was he obligedto give preference to the Christians with regard to permission to live inJerusalem and to carry out their religious duties and precepts there? O n the contrary, hewascertainlyawarethat itwouldbemoreastutetopreventthe Christians from being the sole non-Muslims living in this city, whose significance was very obvious to him. For the Jews’ claim to their prior historical connectionwith the holy places was in conformity with Muslim tradition; to them the city was that of the ancient Children of Israel, of David and of Solomon, their kings and prophets. The presence of the Jews in the city would serve to weaken the validityof theexclusive hold which the Christians had achieved in the course of the three hundred years in which they ruled the Holy City. As we shall see further on, the Muslims, at the time, still did not attribute any sanctity to the city from their own standpoint, and at any rate, didnot see it as a centre of Muslimritual, and all they wanted was to lay the foundations of their rule and strengthen it, in Palestine generally andin Jerusalem in particular. For this purpose, it was 73

THE CONQUEST

worthwhile to draw the Jewscloser, to reduce the Christians’ exclusive tighthold on the city, andto lessen the strength of their claims to historical rights in it, for the Christians saw the ousting ofJews the fromJerusalem as a victory and an additional justification for theircreed. The treaty with the Christians and the permission granted to Jews reside to in Jerusalem are not then historically opposed,nor dothey excludeone another,in spiteof some time difference between them; and both should be considered historical facts. 76 76

Theophanes, 342; to be more precise, it was Constantine 111 (‘the Second’ was generally applied to the son of Constantine the Great); see Schwabe, Zion (ha-rne’ass?j) (1926/7), See the story, copied from 102f,and ibid. also a Hebrewtranslationofthepassage. Theophanes, in Michael the Syrian, book9, ch. 8 (Chabot, 11, 431); cf. Vasiliev, History, 193; Ostrogorsky, History, 130. The passage belongs to events which Theophanes describes under the year 6135 of the creation. Theophanes used the era of Panodoros, an Egyptian monk, who counts from the creation to the death of the archbishop Theodoros (AD 412) i.e., 5904 years.His era starts on 29 August 5493 BC; however Theophanes accepted the correction of Anianus, according to whom theera started on 25 March, 5493 BC; see on Theophanes’ era: Realencyclopaedie@rprotestantische Theologie und Kirche, XXI, 923f; Dolger, B Z , 31(1931):350; Breyer, Bilderstreit’, 17; an interesting parallel to Theophanes’ story is to be found in the Karaite Sahlb. Masliah’s introduction to his Book of Precepts (see Harkavy, Me’m?J 199): ‘and we heard that in the days of Hadrian the wicked, God made a sign when he was building the temple to place an image in the temple, and the buildingfell. And they returned and built it a second time and when they brought the image into the building, it fell again. And they built it a third time andit fell after its completion; a reminder of the words:they shall build butI will throw down (Mal., i:4); and so he abandonedit and took Zion and the house of the forest of Lebanon’ (lKi., vii:2; 2 Chr., ix:16,20. The house of forest the of Lebanon was the house ofKing Solomon; with these words he meanttwo centres of Christianityin Jerusalem: thearea of the Church of theHolySepulchreand Zion, which is theNea;for it is notlikelythathecould discriminate between pagan Rome and Christianity). ‘And he built altars within and put up images and their abominations just as one did in the generation of Jeremiah in the temple. . .’ (this motif, ofJews by whose initiative Christian ritual objects are destroyed, repeats itself in Theophanes again elsewhere, 401f: a Jew of Laodicea in Phoenicia came to Caliph Yazid and promised him forty yearsifhe rulewouldrid the churches of theimages. But with thehelp ofJesus and that of the Mother of Christ, Yazid died in that same year [723; see more of this below, sec. 971).

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Events in Palestine to the end of Umayyad rule It1

the days of Mtr‘ciwiya

[88] We have little knowledge of what went onin Palestine during the rule of the ‘rightly guided’ caliphs or ‘al-Rashidiin’: Abii Bakr, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib (killed in 644), ‘Uthmin ibn ‘Affan (killed in 656), and ‘Ali ibn Abi Tilib (killed in 661). During‘Uthmin’s rule, seri.ous schisms appeared in the Muslim camp, and open rivalry between the Hishimids from which Muhammad stemmed,and who were centred round ‘Ali ibn Abi Tilib, andthe Meccan aristocracy,whichcentredroundthe Umayyads. A rebellion developed which led to the assassination on 17 June 656, of the caliph ‘Uthmin, whosupported the Umayyads.‘Ali was declared caliph and was immediately forced to fight those who conspired against him. Opposition to ‘Ali was led by two veterans and leaders of Islam, Talhaand Zubayr, together with ‘A’isha, thebeloved wife of Muhammad and daughter of Abii Bakr. ‘Ali’s victory over the rebels at the ‘Battle of the Camel’ near Basra in Iraq on 9 December 656 did not restore stability to his reign. Mu‘iwiya ibn Abi Sufyin of the Umayyads, who as we have seen above was appointed military commander in alShim and governor of the area on behalf of the caliph ‘Umar (after the plague of Emmaus), refused to recognise the new caliph or to pledge loyalty to him. ThusPalestine was in fact under the governorship of the person who was considered thehead of the uprising- Mu‘iwiya. Alongside him stood ‘Amr ibn al-‘As, who had been governor of Egypt and had been dismissed by ‘Uthmin. During therebellion against ‘Uthmin, with the help of tribes in Egypt, ‘Amr foundrefuge in Palestine, in the neighbourhood ofSab‘ (which is Beersheba), on ‘Amr’s estate in ‘Ajlin. He and Mu‘iwiya met in Jerusalem and formed an alliance, and indeed ‘Amr fought alongside Mu‘iwiya in the battle of Siffin at the end ofJuly 657. It was his idea to hold leaves of the Koran on the lances, an act which convinced ‘Ali’s followers, who were close to victory, to agree to an armistice and arbitration. This took place at Adhruh in Trans-Jordan (in the neighbourhood of Petra). ‘Amr represented Mu‘iiwiya and actually 7s

ISLAM STRIKES ROOTS

managed to get rid of ‘Ali as caliph. Afterwards, ‘Amrseized Egypt while the war between Mu‘iwiya and ‘Ah resumed; only after another armistice did thewar of the tribes come toan end withan attack on ‘All’slife, and his death on 25 January 661 from the woundsinflicted during the attack. Half a year earlier, Mu‘iwiya had been proclaimed caliph by his followers in Jerusalem. He was given complete supportby the tribes in Palestine, both by the Urdunn tribes under the command of Sufyin b. ‘Amr al-A‘war al-Sulami andbythetribesof jund Filastin headed by Maslama b. Mukhlid. The sources enumerate the tribes in Palestine and their commanders: leading the infantry of jund al-Urdunn was ‘Abd al-Rahmiin b. Qays al-Qayni, and over the people of jund Filastin was al-Harith b. Khiilid al-Azdi. The Banii Quada‘a, who lived in Urdunn, also supported Mu‘swiya and were headed by Hubayshb. Dalaja (or Dulja) al-Qayni; the Banii Kiniina of Filastin were headed by Shurayk al-Kinani; the Madhkhij tribe of Urdunnwas headed by al-Mukhariq b. al-Harith al-Zubaydi; the tribes ofLakhm and Judhim, thenin Filastin, were led by Nitil b. Qays al-Judhami; the Bani Hamadan of Urdunn wereled by Hamza b. Malik al-Hamadani (Tabari and Baladhuri report him as Hassin b. Malik b. Bahdal), and the tribe of Ghassan from Urdunn was led by Yazid b. al-Hiirith b. Abi’ 1-Nams. The father of Sufyin (thehead of the Urdunn tribes), ‘Amr b.Sufyan, that is Abii’l-A‘war al-Sulami (we have seen above that he participated in the battles of conquest in Palestine),was the one whoaccepted the surrender of Tiberias and was afterwards in charge of the army in Urdunn,an appointment he received from the caliph ‘Uthmiin.According to the chronicle of Michael the Syrian, it was he who introduced the systematic payment of taxes (in the year 669 or 674; it seems that the former is probablycorrect)imposed on theChristian villages. According to Ya‘qiibi, it was the father who was the commander during Mu‘awiya’s war against ‘Ali, so it appears thatboth father and son functionedon behalf of Mu‘Zwiya during this period.’ [89] O f those mentioned above, the two outstanding figures among the

*

The Mu‘?iwiya-‘Amr pact in Jerusalem: Ibn Sa‘d, IV(2), 2 c Dhahabi, Siyar, 111, 94c tribes of Palestine: NaSr b. Muzihim, 206C 226; Dinawari, 172 (who has Maslama b. Khilid instead of b. Mukhlid);Khalifa ibn Khayyst,I, 222 (who has: Shurayt al-Kinsni, instead of Shurayk; al-Hirithb. ‘Abd, instead of b. Khilid. We have confirmation that heindeed was called al-Hirith b. ‘Abd in the papyri of Nessana, for in some of them he is mentioned between October 674 and February 677; see Nessana, 33); Ibn ‘Asikir, 111,439, points out that some say b. Khilid and some say b. ‘Abd. O n p. 451 he calls him: al-Hirith b. ‘Abdallah. O n Abii’l-A‘war see: Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2159, 2398, 3057cIbn al-Athir, Kimil, 111, 186; Michael the Syrian, 11, 450, and in the Syriac source: 433 (the translation refers to 435 by mistake). Cf. Lammens, Mo‘iwia, 48fC who also has details on thetribeof Abii’l-A‘war, Sulaym, a large andrich tribe based in the regionof the holycities in Hijsz,

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leaders who supported Mu'iwiya in Palestine were Hubaysh b. Dulja of the Qud5'a tribe and Nitil b. Qays, leader of Judhim. Considering the relatively important place these figures occupy in the sources one can conclude that both tribes, the QudZ'a and the Judhim, held central positions in the Palestinian arena. Hubaysh b. Dulja played a leading role later, as well, incommand of the army which Caliph Marwin sent against the rebelsled by 'Abdallah ibnZubayr in the year 684. As to Nitil b. Qays, leader of the Banii Judhim, he was evidentlyomnipotent in Palestine and dominateditsfinancialadministration. He afterwardsbetrayedthe Umayyads and went over to 'Abdallah b. Zubayr, causing a split in the tribe, as we shall see. He was killed in the year 66 of the hijra, which is the year AD 685/6.2 [90] While the tribes in Palestine were loyal to Mu'Zwiya, there was danger looming from the south as Milik b. al-Harith, also called alAshtar, one of the most fanatical of 'Ali's supporters, was en route to Egypt. The chances that al-Ashtar would dominate that country were very likely. Thus Mu'iwiya bribed the dihqiin (a Persian term, which is used in Arab sources to mean 'owner of the place', that is, the local leader) of al-'Arish, promising him exemption fromtaxes for a period of twenty years. The dihqiin then poisoned al-Ashtar,who was,as I have said,on his way to EgyptS3 [91] The extent to which the tribes in Palestine were deeply involved in the struggle between 'Ali and Mu'iwiyacan be perceived from the story told by al-Ash'ath(who is Abii Muhammad Ma'dikarib b. Qays), head of theBaniiKinda, one of the moderate tribes among 'Ali'sfollowers, concerning the outcome of thebattle of Siffin: 'indeed I saw the tents and the courtyards in Filastin; not a tent nor courtyard nor building nor camp of tents but had tied to them a man's hand or leg' (in place of pegs).4

2

3 4

Mecca and Medina. Ya'qiibi, Tu'rikh, 11, 226; Hassin b. Milik: Tabari, Tu'rikh, 11, 468; Balidhuri, Ansib, V, 125. In the same war, Mu'iwiyapromised Ayman b. Khuraym, the leader of the Banii Asad, that he will appoint him governorofjund Filastin, if he would come over to his side together with his tribe and 'Ali; fightbut Ayman refused.It is said that Ayman was a poet and also an outstanding war-lord. See Ibn Sa'd, VI, 24C Ibn Abi'lHadid, I, 435. O n Hubaysh b. Dulja: Tabari, Tu'rlkh, 11, 579; Ibn Habib, Muhubbur, 481; according to Ya'qiibi, Tu'rikh, 11, 298f, he took part afterwards in the famous battle at Medina, the battle of the Harra, in 682, at the head of 1000 fighters. See about him also in Ibn Qutayba, Mu'iriJ; 416; Khalifa ibn Khayyit, I, 329; Ibn 'Asikir, IV, 40fC Ibn al-Athir, Kimil, IV, 190f; Nitil b. Qays, Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 11, 468; Mas'iidi Tunbih, 307; idem, Muriij, V, 225: N4til b. Qays was killed in Palestine in the battle ofIjnidayn, between the caliph's army and the tribes loyal to.'Abdallah ibn Zubayr. See also Ya'qiibi, Tu'rikh, 11, 304ff, 321; Khalifa ibn Khayyat,I, 332; Ibn Hazm,]umhuru, 420f; Isbahini, Aghinl, XVII, 111;Sib1ibn al-Jawzi, Kunz,5: Nitil (see versions: Ni'il, Nabil) ruled in Filastin, in the coastal area and in Jerusalem; Ibn al-Athir, Kimil, IV, 145. Mas'iidi, Muriij, IV, 422; cf. Wiistenfeld, Statthulter, I, 24. Nag- b. Muzihim, 339.

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ISLAM S T R I K E S ROOTS

[92] The followers of Mu'awiya pronounced him caliph in Jerusalem in the year AH 40, or AD661, according to the Arab sources. ASyriac source states that Mu'awiya then came to the Church of the Golgotha Jerusain lem, and also visited Mary'sgraveinGethsemane.According to this source, the event occurredduring Safar-Rabi' I of the year A H 40, that is July AD 660, while 'Ali was still alive; whereas according to the Arab sources, it occurredafter his assassination. It appearsthatMu'awiya visited Palestine quite oftenbecause its tribes were reliable a buttress to his rule. He chose to settle in al-Sinnabra (evidently south of the Sea of Galilee, near the mouth of the Jordan - Khirbat al-Karak). Later caliphs would also come there. Following the period of severe warfare which had raged within the Muslim camp, seems it that Palestine enjoyed a periodof comparative serenity in Mu'iwiya's time. Oneindication of this may be the relatively high taxes which werecollected during those daysof the two junds of Palestine: in Filastin, 450,000 dinars were collected and in Urdunn, 180,000 dinarswere collected annually.Mu'awiyaand his son Yazid evidently visited Jerusalem frequently. ThreeIraqis made attempts on Mu'awiya's life in the mosque in Jerusalem but is not it knownexactly when. Yazid, Mu'awiya's son and heir to thecaliphate, stayed in Jerusalem at the time ofhis father's death, in April 680. Two orthree years later, it is stated that he was staying in Tiberias. This was at the height of a bitter struggle which he had to conduct against his enemies, for the tribes in the north of Palestine (Urdunn) were thenhis loyal supporter^.^ The war of the Zubayrids

[93] One can undoubtedly speak of a special connection which both Mu'iwiya and his son Yazid, who reigned after him, enjoyed with the 5

Tabari, Ta'rlkk, 11, 4; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, VIII, 16; Chronicon Maron., 71: this source tells that while the Muslims were gathering in Jerusalem to pronounceMu'5wiya caliph, there was a severe earthquake during which Jericho and a large number of churches were destroyed, among them thechurch of St John the Baptist on the Jordan. Much harm was also suffered by the monastery of St Euthymius. According to Syriac sources, the earthquake occurredon 9 June659; according to Theophanes,347: in the month of Daisios in the 346, onit page year 6150, in the second indiction, in the 17th year of Constans. Before that, is mentioned that 'Uthmanwas murdered in the 14th year of Constans, iswhich AM 6147. 'Uthman was assassinated in AD 656; hence AM 6150 here is actually AD 659 while 661. Cf. also Nau, ROC, 4(1899), 324; Noldeke, Mu'5wiya was pronounced caliph in ZDMG, 29(1875), 85; see ibid., p. 91 the text,and p.95 the translation. Noldeke pointsout there the difference in times between the Arab sources and the Syriac one. Al-Sinnabra, see YaqGt, Bulditl, 111, 419: it is situated opposite theAfeq pass ('aqabat AJq) three miles from Tiberias. Al-Sinnabra is Sennabris in Greek sources, Sinnabri in the Talmudic sources. See Lammens, Mo'iiwia, 380; Mayer, Eretz-Zsrael, 1:169, 1950/1:Bar-Adon, Eretz-Zsrael, 4:50, see 1955/6. The taxes: Ya'qiibi, Ta'rlkh, 11, 288; theattemptedmurderinJerusalem, Dhahabi, Siyar, 111, 94f; Yazid in Jerusalem: Damiri,HuyawZn, I, 105; cf. Qaramiini, I, 119.

78

b

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tribes of Palestine. They were themajor political and military support of the Damascene ruler, and this was certainly reflected in the caliph’s attitude towards them, expressedin the form ofsubsidies and regular allowances. The tribes expressed their loyaltythrough the participationof5,000 fighters of the BanuJudhim, under the command of Rawh b. Zinbi‘, and of 1,000 fighters from theBani Kinina,under the command of Hubaysh ibn Dulja in the battle of the Harra, which was the slaughter of the regime’s opponents in682 in Medina. The almost continuous struggle for power within the caliphate left its mark on the tribes in Palestine and atrocious inter-tribal battles frequently took place on its soil. In ‘680-692 the tribes of Palestine actively participated in the war between the two brothers, ‘Abdallah and Mus‘ab, the sonsof al-Zubayr (al-Zubayr was the Prophet’s cousin and one ofhis closest aides) and the Umayyads. The two brothers succeeded in capturing Hijizand also parts of Iraq. These events developed rapidly immediately after the assassination of Husayn, the son of ‘Ali ibn Abi Tilib, in Karbali’ on 10 October 680. ‘Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr thenplaced himself at the head of the opposition to the Umayyads, and started preaching against them from his base in Mecca. After the submission of Medina, Mecca became the centre of opposition to the reigning caliph and the siege which Yazid’s army imposed on Mecca almost succeeded in obtaining its surrender, when the news of Yazid’s deathin November 683arrived.Fromthatpoint onwards, ‘Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr met with increasing success and he enjoyed the support of importantsectors of the Muslimworld, including Egypt. The Palestinian tribes played a fateful role in the courseof events within this context. The Bani Hamadin, led by Hassin b. Milik b. Bahdal, succeeded in organising a strong alliance of tribes, which called themselves ‘southerners’ or Banii Kalb; and these stood staunchly by the Umayyads and were the major factor in their victory over al-Zubayr’s ibn ‘Syrian’ champion, al-Dahhik b. Qays al-Fihri, head ofthe rival alliance of the ‘northerners’,or Ban5 Qays.Al-Fihri had been appointed governor of Damascus on ibn al-Zubayr’s behalf. This victory was achieved by the ‘southerners’ after a hard and gory battle in MarjRihit, east of Damascus, in July684. In these events, the Bani Judhim fulfilled an important role. At that time, they movedfrom jund Urdunn to jund Filastin, that is, they moved southward, under the leadership ofRawh b. Zinbii‘, and replaced the Banii Hamadin, whoseem to have weakenedsomewhat and movedto Urdunn in place of the Judhiim, andwho were led by Hassiin (or Hamza)b. Milik Tiberias: Tabari, Tu’rTkh, 11, 492. See in Lammens, YazTd, 107, n. 2, references to more sources, some of which claim thatat the time of his father’s death, he was in Him5 or elsewhere.

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b. Bahdal. Hassan was the uncle of the new caliph Yazid (his mother’s brother). Both tribes, together with theirleaders, remained faithful to the Umayyads and pledged their loyalty to Yazid, son of Mu‘iwiya, on the death of his father. But within the Banii Judham a radical change was taking place undertheleadershipof Nitil b. Qays; he had snatched command of the tribe and went over to the side of ‘Abdallah ibn alZubayr, while Hassan b. Malik, head ofthe Urdunntribes, remained loyal to Yazid although the tribes there had stringent complaintsagainst Yazid’s two sons, ‘Abdallah and Khalid, who had been appointed by him to take charge of Urdunn. Hence a rupture was created between the tribes of the two junds - Urdunn and Filastin. The tribes of jund Filastin sided, together with the Banii Judhim led by Nitil b. Qays, with ‘Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr. When in the course of the struggle the scales began to come down in favour of the Umayyads, in the days of the caliph Marwsn, Nitil b. Qays (the source refers to himas sahib Filmtin, the chief of Filastin), fled from Palestine to Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca. Another point of dissension arose with the death of Mu‘iwiya 11, son of Yazid, who was caliph from November 683 until June 684. The tribes of Palestine, especially in Urdunn, under theleadership of Hassan b. Malik, favoured the appointment of Khalid b. Yazid inoppositionto Marwin b. al-Hakam, who was pronounced caliph after Mu‘iwiya 11. When Khilid’s mother (the widow of Yazid and later married to Marwin) murdered Marwin, the tribes renewed their support of Khilid, but to no avail, and ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwin became caliph in April 685. At that time, however, the sons of al-Zubayr were still a serious threat to the Umayyadsand although most of thetribes of al-Sham supported the Umayyads, the tribes of Filastin, led by Nitil b. Qays, werea worrying exception. At this point, ‘Abdal-Malik enjoyed thehelp of Rawh b.Zinba‘ andhis son Dib‘an, leaders of a branch of the Banii Judhim who had remained faithful to the Umayyads. ‘Abd al-Malik wasthen also forced to defendhimself against aByzantine offensive initiatedbythe emperor Justinian I1 Rhinothmetos,son of Constantine IV Pogonatos (Mas‘iidi calls him Liwiibn Flant). But ‘Abd al-Malik succeeded in maintaininghis composure, managed to appease the (1,000 dinarsperweek)andgifts,and emperor by grants of money defeated the tribes of Filastin led by Nitil b. Qays; according to Mas‘iidi the defeat took place at Ijnidayn. Natil b. Qays was killed in that battle. ‘Abd al-Malik then sent a force of 6,000 fighters under Tiriq b. ‘Amr (a client or rnawlZ of thecaliph ‘Uthmin b. ‘Affan), who had formerly been the governor ofMedina, to set up a temporary line of defence against the sons of Zubayr in the region between Eilat and the border of Hijaz (Widi’l-Quri). Evidently the information regarding the Byzantineraid on Caesarea and Ascalon belongs to the beginning of ‘Abd al-Malik’s rule 80

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(ca.686; Baliidhuri states that this occurred during the time of Ibn Zubayr). The Byzantines destroyedthese two ports andexiled their inhabitants, and it is quite possible to conceive of this as pertaining to that war which was initiated by Justinian 11. Afterwards, ‘Abd al-Malik stationed two special garrisons on permanent alert inthese two cities6 [94] Rawh b. Zinbi‘ the Judhimite became one of the favourite companions of the victorious ‘Abd al-Malik. Some sources mention that he was much younger than his rival Nitil ibn Qays, the supporter of ‘Abdallah ibn Zubayr. It is said that Rawh was very gifted and that his rank was like that of a .wazir (an office that was as yet non-existent). ‘Abd al-Malik said ofAbii Zur‘a (thatis Rawh) that in obedience he was a Shimi (a man of al-Sham), in shrewdness hewas an Iraqi, in knowledgeof legal matters @qh) he was a Hijiizi, and in calligraphy he was as good as a Persian. He died in the year AH 84, or AD 703. We shall find his sons, Dib‘in and Sa‘id involved in later events.’ Muhammad ibn al-Hanafyya

[95] While the struggle between the Zubayrids and the Umayyads was at its height, a strong movement of thefollowers of the ‘Alids was afoot which had its centre inKiifa in Iraq, under the leadership of Mukhtir.This movement centred round the personality of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, the son of ‘Ali from another woman (not from Fitima,‘Ah’s wife and the daughter of the Prophet, but rather from Khawla, whom the Muslims captured from theBanu Hanifa), despite thefact that he himself did not take an active part in the movement’s actual leadership. Muhammad ibnal-Hanafiyya almost fell victim to thesuspicions of ‘Abdallah ibn Zubayr, who ruled Mecca at the time, that he was setting himself as up a rival. An armysent by Mukhtiirfreed Muhammad from theprison into 6

7

See note 2 above; on the BaniiJudhim and Banii Hamadin, see Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 468f, 474,481, 577; Ya‘qiibi, Tu’rikh, II,298f, 321; Mas‘iidi, Muriij, V, 224c Tunbih, 307; Khalifa ibn Khayyit, I, 332; Sib5 ibn al-Jawzi, Kunz,5; Isbahini, Aghinj, XII, 80; XVII, 111; Ibn ‘Asikir, VII, 40c Ibn al-Athir, K i m i l , IV, 145, 151; Ibn Abi Hadid, 11,368. Hass5nb. Milik was not the only member of the Banii Kalbwho had relations,through marriage with the Umayyads, which continued for several generations. See on this: Lammens, Mo‘iwiu, 310fc and ibid., 286ff, on the family of Bahdal (ibn UnayQ and on Hassin, his grandson, important personalities in the Banii Kalb. See there alsoon the speciallink they had with the Ban6 Qudi‘a, another important tribe which joined the supporters of the Umayyads. The destruction of Caesarea and Ascalon: Balidhuri, Futiih, 143 (garrisons: ruwibit). Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 1164; Balidhuri, A n s i b , I, 36f; Yifi‘i, I, 175; Tha‘ilibi, Luli’ij 61, 159 (praise of Abii Zur‘a); Dhahabi, ‘Ibur, I, 98 (Head [suyyidj of the Judhim; commander [umir] of Filastin); Ibn Kathir, Bidiyu, IX, 55; Ibn ‘Asikir, V, 337f, who adds that Rawh had a house in Damascus and that his father, Zinba‘, was ofsahlbu, the that is, of the Prophet’s circle; Ibn al-‘Imid,I, 95; Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibur, 111, 126. See also Lammens,Mo‘tiwiu, 214, n. 8 (dzhiya,.a term used frequently at that time, meaning astute). See on the conflict between Rawh and Nitil b. Qays also: Lammens, Yuzid, 310ff.

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which ‘Abdallah had thrown him. Apparently, this occurrence caused Muhammad toleave the peninsula.He then reached Eilat accompanied by a large group ofhis partisans. The people of Eilat welcomed him gladly. ‘Abd al-Malik, when news of Muhammad’s arrival in Eilat reached Damascus, wasuneasy about his proximity. After consultation with Rawhb. Zinbi‘ the Judhamite and Qabiza b. Du’ayb, he wrote him a letter in which he demanded that Muhammadeither leave the place or pledge his loyalty to him. In returnforadeclarationofloyalty, he promised togrant Muhammad a hundred ships, which would await him at the port of Qulzum(today, Suez) laden affluently. Muhammadibn al-Hanafiyya thenpreferred to leave thecity,for he wantedto maintainabsolute neutrality between the camps who were still fighting at that time, that is the Umayyads and the Zubayrids. He moved to Medina and there he remained until ‘Abdallah ibn Zubayr’s final downfall in October692. He died three months later. According to an anonymous chronicle of the ninth century AD, Muhammad’s base in Palestine was in Kudad, a distance of some twomiles from Humayma(in the region of Moab), which was also the base of the Abbasids.* The sons of al-Muhallab

[96] In the days of al-Walid b. ‘Abd al-Malik (705-715), his brother Sulayman ruled in Palestine. It was here that the sons of al-Muhallab, who inthe service ofthe had been one of theimportantcommanders Umayyads, found refuge. After the death of al-Muhallab, the sons were hounded angrily by al-Hajaj ibn YUsuf, against a background of intertribal rivalry. They and their retinue were taken in by Wuhayb b. ‘Abd al-Rahman and Sufyin ibn Sulayman, both notables of the Banii Azd, a distinctly Yamani tribe, similarto the sons of al-Muhallab, who were also Yamanis.These two wereretainers of Sulaymanibn‘Abd al-Malik. Al-Hajij ibnYiisuf accused the sons of al-Muhallab of embezzling money and obtained anorder from Caliphal-Walid to his brother Sulayman that he should send them toDamascus. And so Sulayman sent them (it is not clear whether he sent both brothers or merelythe eldest Yazid), accompanied by his own son, all three inchains. Then al-Walid took pityon them, however, and released them.9 See the articleMuhammad b. al-Hanafiya (byF. Buhl) inEl1;here the episode ofEilat is not mentioned at all. Seeabout this matter: Ibn Sa‘d, V, 79C on p. 85 he mentions another date ofMuhammad’s death: the yearAH 81, whichis AD 700; Akhblral-dawla al-‘abisiyya, 107, 197; Dinawari, 309; Kudid, see another version: Kur5r humayma (status constructus); Tabari, Ta’rrkh, 11, 1975. Tabari, Ta’rrkh, 11, 121lf;according to himthis takesplace in the yearAH 90, whichis AD 709; in Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibar, 111, 140: the year AH 86 (AD 705): in the long run, the sonsof 82

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Religious unrest

[97] The twenties of the eighth century were stormy ones as far as inter-faith relations were concerned. Within the Byzantine empireduring the reign of Leo the Isaurian (714-717), the Iconoclastic movement was astir. The sources of the period contain claims that it was the Jews who incited the emperor toact against the worship oficons and crosses. O n the other hand, it is stated that in the days of Leo there was an edict of forced baptism against the Jews. I have already mentionedthatTheophanes wrote that aJew ofLaodicea came toYazid and proposed to him torid the Christian churches under his dominion of all images, and that as a result, he would enjoy undisturbed rule for forty years. According to Theophanes this occurred in the seventhyear of Leo’s reign, that is 723, during the days of Yazid 11, son of ‘Abd al-Malik. Yazid actually issued decrees against the worship of icons. According to other information in Theophmes, a man of Christian origin named Beser was taken and held in captivity in Syria by the Muslims (that is, the Umayyads), and accepted Islam. After he was freed from captivity, he returned toByzantium, became a Christian again, andinfluenced Leo to introduce decrees against the worship of images. Another Christian source,on the other hand,tells the name of the Jew who swayed Yazid to order the destruction of all images worshipped by Christians throughout his domain. He was the a magician and seer, leader of the Jews in Tiberias (‘leader of the mad Jews, a toolofthesoul-destroying devils’) called Tessarakontapekhys ([the man] of forty cubits). But Yazid died in the sameyear and didnot manage to achieve the destruction of the images. It is difficult to guess who is behind this description; it should be remembered that Tiberias was then still the centre of the Jews of Palestine and the seat of the Sanhedrin. It would be interesting to juxtaposeagainst it the story froman anonymous Muslim chronicle, according to which one said that the bitriq (patvicius) who represented theemperor Leo in negotiationswith the Muslims, was a clever man known by the nickname ‘the man of forty cubits’. At the same time, there was evidently considerablereligious turbulence within theIslamic world itself. According to somesources, a false prophet appeared in Jerusalem during the ruleof ‘Abd al-Malik, a certain al-Hiirith b. Sa‘id (or b. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Sa‘id), who was said to be a mawla (client) of Marwin b.al-Hakam (the fatherof ‘Abd al-Malik). He attracted many followers in Jerusalem. ‘Abd al-Malik sent a special unit of forty men from Farghana (a district on the river Sir-Darya in Central Asia) to Jerusalem, led by a man of Bazra; the composition of the unit perhaps al-Muhallab did notescape the verdict of fate - they rebelled and wereexecuted in August 720.

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indicates that ‘Abdal-Malik did not trust thelocal people for this purpose. Al-Hirith was caught, brought to Damascus, and there crucified.I0 The uprisitlg of the tribes in Palestine it1 744

[98] Serious events closely related to inter-tribal affairs began to occur in the Umayyad caliphate during the spring of 744. It is important to note, in connection withour subject, thatPalestine served as the principal arena for these events. The storyas it appears in Tabari, told by Raji’ ibn Rawh ibn Salima, who was the great grandson of Rawhibn Zinbi‘ the Judhimite, runs as follows. At the head of the tribes in the Filastin region stood Sa‘id and Dib‘in, the sons of Rawh ibn Zinbi‘. After the murder of Caliph al-Walid I1 (who was the grandsonof ‘Abd al-Malik and the son ofYazid 11) by Yazid his cousin (sonof al-Walid I and grandsonof ‘Abd al-Malik), in April 744, Sa‘id b. Rawh wanted to dismiss Sa‘id b. ‘Abdal-Malik, who was the governor of Filastin, on behalf of the assassinated caliph, Walid. Despite the fact that Sa‘id behaved well as governor of the region, the tribes preferred Yazid b. Sulaym5n b. ‘Abd al-Malik, who was the leader of the Sulaymin family. This family lived within the domain of jund Filastin andenjoyedthe affection ofthe local tribes. Sa‘id b. Rawh then wrote to Yazid b. Sulaymin onbehalf of the tribes and proposed that he come (evidently from Damascus to Palestine) in order to be made lo

O n the forced baptismsee Theophanes, 401; on the Jew fromLaodicea and on Beser, ibid., 402. I t appears to be an Arab name, Bishr. Cf.: Becker, Islamstudien, I, 446, and see the parallel in Tabari,Ta’rlkh, 11, 1463f. A Jewprophesied to Yazid ibn ‘Abdal-Malik that he would reign forty years; some say that the name thatJew of was AbiiMiwiya: anotherJew said about him that he lied, insince fact he saw (in a dream?) that he would reign forty reeds ( q a g b a ) each reed beinga month, and insteadofthat he said: years.It is interesting that this number - forty - is also woven into traditions and information on ‘the man of forty cubits’. O n the forced baptismcf. also: AgapiusofManbij (Mahbiib),244; Elias ofNisibis, in Baethgen, to the year 101 (= 719-720); Michael the Syrian, IV, 457;-Cedrenus, MPG, 121, 869. Thisis also the time of the appearance ofJewish sects, of Abii ‘Is5 al-Isfahini and ofseverus; which is a topic ofits own, and it is not known whether it has any connectionto the history of Palestine. The Jew from Tiberias: Mansi XIII, 197ff (Council of Nicaea, 787). The parallel between the sources was first discerned by Brooks, J H S , 19(1899), 26-30, who added also the information in Theophanes regarding the brother-in-law of the empress Irene(799) whose name was Serantaplkhos, which is the nameofthe TiberiasJew in the Latin version of the proceedings of the council of Nicaea Mansi, ibid.in(Sarantapekkos). See in Brooks, ibid., also the Muslim source (from al-‘uytrn tuu’l-!mfZ’iq). Starr, Speculum, 8:500, 1933 excludes any possibility of historical truth in the Jewish aspect of the story and assumes that onlyis there the tendencyto ascribe to theJews theanti-Christian decrees in the Muslim world. This view is perhaps too extreme. Crone,JSAI, 2(1980), 76ff, tries to proveby these sourceson Bishr, etc., the existence ofJudaeo-Christian sects; but the matter is very obscure and the sources themselves say nothing it. about The matter ofal-Hirith b. Sa‘id: Ibn‘AsZkir, 111, 442fC Dhahabi, Ta’vikh, 111, 147f, notes the time: the year AH 79, whichis AD 698; according to Ibn Kathir,Bidiya, IX, 27, he wasa zindiq, an appellation given generally to Manichaeans, but sometimes, in orthodox Islam to schismatics of any description.

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governor in jundFilastin, while to Sa'id ibn 'Abd al-Malik he wrote that he should vacatehis position since the tribes preferred another. Sa'id ibn 'Abd al-Malik was then in Beersheba.In order to lend greater cogency to his letter, Sa'id ibn Rawhmobilised the tribes.Sa'id ibn 'Abdal-Malik was taken aback at the size of the force facing him andfled to the newcaliph, Yazid ibn al-Walid, to be followed by the tribes, led by Yazid ibn Sulaymiin, going out to fight the caliph. This rebellion, which as mentioned began injund Filastin, quickly spread to jund Urdun. The tribes there took on a new leader, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik, and at the head of the tribes of Filastin there stood, as mentioned, Sa'id and Dib'in, the sons of Rawh ibn Zinba' the Judhiimite. The caliph Yazid sent an army against them under the command ofhis cousin, Sulaymiin ibn Hisham ibn 'Abd al-Malik. Sulaymiin preferred to negotiate, and with the help of envoys and mediators he succeeded in convincing the brothersSa'id and Dib'an, the sons of Rawh,to submit to the caliph Yazid's authority and to pledge their allegiance to him. Muhammad ibn 'Abdal-Malik, the leader of the Urdunn tribes, also agreed to accept the new caliph's authority. It seems that the most convincing argument was the distribution of benefits and various offices to the tribesmen. For instance, Dib'an was promised that he would be appointed governor ofjund Filastin for life. One can say in summation that there was an outbreak of general rebellion within the Palestinian tribal framework and their refusal to accept the authorityof the new caliph lasted until they were promised, on his part, various favours and benefits for their leaders. But the atmosphere among the tribes continued to be antagonistic to thecaliph. The official responsible forcollecting taxes in Urdunn onbehalf of the new caliph, Muhammad ibnSa'id ibn Hassiin, encountered opposition when he requested that people come to his office in Tiberias. He was obliged to ask for help from Sulaymiin ibn Hisham in that he should place an armed force athis disposal to overcome the opposition of the local tribes. Sulaymiin hesitated to his fulfil request, and only after Muhammad applied to the new caliph and obtained a written order to Sulaymiin, did the latter comply with his request. He then placed a force of 5,000 men at his disposal, under thecommand of Muslim ibn Dhakwiin.The armyset forth at night and quartered its men in villages in the neighbourhood of the Sea of Galilee, while Muhammad ibn Sa'id ibn Hassiin went out witha group offighters in the directionof Tiberias. This time the tribesmen realised that there was no point in prolonging their opposition, with the army beginning to dominate the area and to treat the tribes' property as if it were their own. Theyexpressed their anger with the two leaders of the rebellion against the new caliph, Yazid ibn Sulaymiin and Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik by robbing their homes, and eventook their mounts and their arms. Afterwards they dispersed and 85

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each man returned homeward to his family. From then onward, Sulayman ibn Hisham felt that he controlled the situation and that there were many roads opento him. He advanced with his army toal-Sinnabra south of the Sea of Galilee and the tribesof Urdunncame there and pledged their loyalty to the new caliph Yazid before Sulayman. From there, Sulayman sailed with his men to Tiberias and they all prayed together, for it was Friday, and there too all those present swore an oath ofloyalty to Yazid. Despite the fact that itis not clearly stated or spelled out in anydetail, it appears that one of the reasons for the rupture between Yazid and the tribes was the problem of the Jews and the Christians. Evidently Yazid strongly objected to the tribes’ extortion of non-Muslims and told them quitedistinctly, ‘I will not tolerate your behaviourwhich causes the poll-tax payers to exile themselves from their country and see no future ahead of them.’ The tribesmen saw in this a favouringof the non-believers and Yazid was accused openly of being qadarr and ghaylinT, that is to say, one of the disciples of Abu MarwanGhaylan, a Jerusalemite who was one of the chief heralds of the school offree will and seemed to be under the influence of Christianity.’l l1

See Tabari, 11, 1831fc Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, V, 294. When these sourcesuse the term alzl or thetribesarealwaysintended. See also:IbnKathir, Bidciyn, X, 13;Abii’l-Fidi’, Mtrkhtarar, I, 206; Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibar, 111, 232; on the loyalty of the Palestinian tribes (especially Sa‘id b. Rawh b. Zinbi‘) to Sulaymin b. ‘Abd al-Malik and his son Yazidsee the comments of Bosworth, I Q , 6(1972), 47f. The treatment of non-Muslims: Tabari, Ta’rikkh, 11, 1834f; Yazid accusedof being ghaylini and qadari: Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, IV, 289; V; 179; similar criticism of the attitude to the dhimmis can be found in whatwas said by &aliph Marwin ibn Muhammad; he points his finger at the tribes (evidently the tribes of Palestine): ‘You only want rob to the property of every dhimmi you encounter’. See also, Ibn al-Athir, KZmil, V, 309. Ghaylin, of theleaders of the qadariyya in Damascus, was executed inHishim ibn ‘Abd al-Malik’s day (724-743; see Tabari, Tn’rikkh, 11, 1733), aftera kind of religious disputation between him and Maymiin b. Mihrin. ‘Abd al-Malik’s grandson, Marwin b. ‘Abdallah, and the latter’s son, fell victim to the anger of the Damascene crowd and were murdered after being accused of belongingto theqadariyya, who iavourfree will.The caliph Yazid was also accused ofhaving appointedofficialsfrom among thefollowers of Ghaylin, among them ManSiir b.Jumhiir, made governor Iraq of (seeTabari, ibid., 1828,1874);Dhahabi, Trl’rikh, IV, 289,calls Ghaylin:Ghaylin alQudsi, that is, hewasaJerusalemite.According to him therewas a sortofcrossexamination going on in the presence of the caliph Hishim ibn ‘Abd al-Malik, by the cadi al-Awzi‘i: Ghaylin refused to repent despiteall the warnings, andso he had his limbs torn Tu’rikh, V, 289, points out that Yazid was probably off and was crucified. Dhahabi, inclined to Ghaylin’s views (he does not refer to Ghaylin the man, for Ghayllnhimself was executed before this).See also Ibn Sa‘d, V, 395; according to ‘Ubida b.al-Ssmit (see on him below), the Prophet himself had already foretold the appearance of Ghaylin, who See ibid., will create a schism among the Muslims, worse than that created by Satan. VII(2), 177f,on Maymhnb. MihrHn, who was one of theofficials of the caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, and it appears that the disputation between him Ghaylin and was conducted in letters;it seems thatGhaylHn admonished Maymiin for being in the service ofthe caliphs (‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and Yazid ibn ‘Abd al-Malik), and Maymhn expressed his regrets aboutit. See also the articleGhaylin b. Muslimin E12 (by C. Pellat), and the article on Ghaylin’s movement by Van Ess, SI, 31:269, 1970. rtcis

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T h e uprising of the tribes in Palestine in 745

[99] About halfa year later, Palestine again erupted, this time during the reign of Marwin11, ibn Muhammad ibn Marwin, who became caliph at the end of November 744. At the same time, a t the head of the tribes of Urdunn stoodhis cousin, al-Walid ibn Mu‘awiya ibn Marwiin, andat the head of the jund Filastin tribes stood Thabit ibn Nu‘aym al-Judhiimi. The latter had been appointed on behalf of the former caliph, Ibrahim ibn al-Wahd, to be responsible for the dTwin Filastin, that is, to handle the registration of the tribes and to execute the payment of allowances and subsidies. The Palestinian tribes at that point joined the uprising which broke out in northern Syria, in Him:. Leading the rebellious tribes in Palestine was the same Thabit ibn Nu‘aym. He descended on Tiberias but al-Walid ibn Mu‘awiya managed to hold his ground; after a battle that lasted a few days, the caliph sent reinforcements under Abii’l-Ward Majzih b. al-Kawthar, of the tribal federation of the BaniiKilib, to help the beleaguered fighters in Tiberias. The population of Tiberias (apparently the non-Muslims) also went out to fightagainst Thabit ibnNu‘aym, and his men were scattered to the winds. His three sons, Nu‘aym, Bakr and ‘Imran, were caught, while he himself managedto escape. His sons were executed and the same fate awaited when him he was later caught together with another son, Rifa‘a. Marwsn then appointed a man from the Banii Kinana as governor of jund Filastin, al-Rumahis ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. The disturbances evidently continuedthroughout the winter until the summer of 745. Immediately afterwards, another insurrectionbroke outin northern Syria, this time headed by Sulayman ibn Hisham. This rebellion, drowned inrivers of blood,once again included the tribes of Palestine, and during its course,as Theophanes tells us, Marwan destroyed thewalls of Jerusalem, as he did in Him:, Damascus and other cities.I2 Hz~mayma- the end of the Umayyads

[loo] Only

some five years separated these events from the end of the reign of the Umayyads. Feverish activities were already underway in the Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 1892,1894; 111, 46; Baliidhuri, FutCh, 209; Mas‘iidi, Tunbih, 326; Ibn al-Dumiihin al-Athir, Kiimil, V, 330f; al-Rumiihis - evidently the correct version, and not as in theeditor’s note in Ibn al-Athir, ibid.; Dhahabi, Tu’rlkh, V, 32; Ibn Kathir, Bidiyu, X, 23; Abu’l-Fidi’, Mukhtasar, I, 207; Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibau, 111, 244; Theophanes, 422; Breyer, 64; on Thiibit ibn Nu‘aym see also: Jahshiyiiri, 71; on al-Rumiihis see also: Firiizibiidi, Mu&?, 11, 220: al-Rumiihis b. ‘Abd al-‘Uzzii; he was in charge of the police (shurtu) of the caliph Marwiin ibn Muhammad. Ibn ‘Asiikir, V, 328: he moved afterwards (thatis, after the Abbasid coup) toAndalus and was in theservice of the Caliph ‘Abd al-Rahman. These events were the result of the serious polarisation which occurred among the tribes after the murder of al-Walid, between ‘north’ and ‘south’. The tribes of ‘the north’ (Mudar) supported Marwiin while the tribes of ‘the south’ (Yaman) opposed him. Cf. Nagel, Unfeusuchungen, 150.

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underground of both sides of the revolution, Khurisin in the east and Humayma in Palestine, in the region of Moab. Humayma was situated some fifty kilometres southeast of Ma‘in in Trans-Jordan. ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdallah, the grandson of ‘Abbis, the uncle of the Prophet, settled there in the year690 or thereabouts;he fortified theplace and it became a centre for the descendants of the Abbasids. According to the tradition (which undoubtedly has no historical authenticity), AbiiHishim ‘Abdallah, the son of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya, transferred his rights as imZm and leader of the Muslim world, while he was onhis deathbed, to Muhammad ibn ‘Ah of the Abbasids, the son of theabove-mentioned ‘Ali.From that time, Muhammad ibn ‘A11 was the leaderof the Abbasids; he was the fatherof the two firstAbbasidcaliphs:Abii’l-‘Abbis al-Saffah andAbii Ja‘far al-Mansiir. l3 [loll As is known, the centre of the insurrection movedto Khurasiin, under the leadership of Abii Muslim, whounited all the streams and the sects of the Umayyads’ enemies into one movement. From Khurisiin the rebelling armies spearheaded westward; on 2 September 749 they conquered Kiifa. In the meantime, the Abbasids joined the revolution under ‘Ali. MarwZn sufferedhis Abii’l-‘Abbas, the elderson of Muhammad ibn final defeat in January 750, on the Great Z i b river, to theeast of the Tigris. The last act took place in Palestine, at Abii Futrus, which is Antipatris (R6sh ha-‘ayin), where the Umayyads were slaughtered. The sources generally speak of the killing of eighty of the Umayyads, the execution being supervised by ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Ali, Abii’l-‘Abbis al-Saffah’s ~ n c 1 e . l ~

I3

I4

See: Akhbir al-dawlaal-‘abbisiya, 185; Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, IV, 475f (on the circumstancesof the arrival of ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya to his cousin the Abbasid, Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Abdallah ibn‘Abbis at Humayma); Ibn Khallik5n,111, 278; VI, 315; Ibn al-Athir, K i d , V, 53; cf. Lammens, Mo‘iwia, 127f; he points to the fact that Humayma was near Adhruh and the villagers who lived in Adhruh were mawili, converted to Islam, who were clients of the Hishimids, and thisis perhaps why theAbbasids settled just in Humayma. That Adhruhwas inhabited by Christians we can learn from the colophon ofan Arabic manuscript in the Monastery of St Catherine in the Sinai, from the year AH 288 (AD 901), saying that theatzbi (father) Mus5 b. Hakim al-Qasis (the priest) al-Adhruhi ordered the book (a collection of religious sayings). See Oestrup, ZDMG, 51(1897), 453, and see also in Lammens, ibid. See further Shaban, Abb. Rev., 150f; the article Humayma (by D. Sourdel) in EF. Tabari, Ta’rikh, III,47ff (he writes that the governor and official of the treasury at the time in jund Filastin was a man of the Ban6 Judhim, an offspringof Rawhb. ZinbH‘, al-Hakam ibn Dib‘Zn); Ya‘qiibi,Ta’rikh, 11, 425f; Mas‘iidi,Muriij, VI, 75f; al-‘Uyin wa’l-hadii’iq (De Goeje), 2036 IbnQutayba, Ma‘drij 372; Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, V, 297; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, V, 425; Ibn al-‘Adim, Zubda, I, 54; Ibn ‘AsZkir, 111, 134; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, X, 45 (92,000 men were killed in one day near ‘a river in Ramla’); Ibn Taghri Bardi, I, 258, 324 (‘a large group of the supporters of the Umayyads were imprisoned in Egypt by Siilih b. ‘Ali, another uncle of the Abbasid caliph, governor of Egypt, and in the end, they were executed in ‘Qalansawain theland of Filaslin’); seealso ibid., 11, 7; IbnKhaldGn, ‘Ibar, 111,

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Natural disasters

[lo21 Until now, we haveseen to what extentPalestine was involved in the military and political events of the Umayyad period. The tribes living in Palestine during that era and who were an important element in the military and political system set up by the Umayyads werea permanent and active factor in these events. Before dealing with otheraspects of life in Palestine during this period, we must outline some of the misfortunes and disasters that befell Palestine that were not ofman's doing. I have already mentioned above the earthquake that occurred in 659, some two years before Mu'awiya was pronounced caliph in Jerusalem, evidence ofwhich has been preservedinTheophanesandinSyriac sources. In the year AH 80, or AD 699/700, a severe plague hit al-Sham, which prevented the usual summer raid on Byzantine areas. One year later, we are toldof the Dome of Rock the havingbeen hit by lightning. In AH 86, or AD705, a calamitous plague once again brokeout in al-Sham, known as the plague of the girls, because its first victims were women. Further plagues were recorded in AH 115, AD 733, and in AH 116, AD 734. A Christian source (and there are no parallels in Muslim sources) informs us of a severe earthquake which affected all of Palestine (including lordanz) and Syria, in which myriad people were killed and many monasteries destroyed, particularly in Jerusalem. A very devastating earthquake occurred in the year AH 130 (beginning 11 September AD 747), during which the eastern and western sides of the Dome of the Rock collapsed. Many of the ansir (people of Medina), who wereliving in Jerusalem, were killed during this earthquake,especially as a result of thecaving in of the house of Shaddad b. Aws.All his sons were killed in that earthquake. The people of Jerusalem fled from thecity and remained in the fields for forty days. We also have information about this earthquake from Christian sources. According to Michael the Syrian, Tiberias was then completely destroyed, with the exception of the home of one man whose name was ' k . Thirty Jewish synagogues in the town were also laid waste and the Jewish bath-houses were also destroyed. According to Ibn Muqaffa', the quake took place on the 16th of January, and Agapius also mentions the month ofJanuary.Kedrenos mentions the 18th ofjanuary, but he is off the mark withregard to theyear. It is possible that this earthquake determined the setting of a fast called 'the fast of theSabbatical year'. Indeed, the year of the earthquake, AM 4508, was a Sabbatical year. It is possibly to this earthquake that the poem y@Zr ra'ash shevT7, written by a poet named Samuel, refers. It recalls the earthquake and its disastrous effects in Ti271, 283. See also Moscati, Archiv Orientalni, 18(3): 88, 1950 (who does not say anything new).

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berias and Ramla(‘in the Shefela, in theValley of the Sharon’).Many were drowned at the time, and itis not clear where ‘little children and women, teachers of the Bible and the Mishna’suffered this fate. Its superscription reads the 23rd of Shevat, which in that year (AD 748) fell on the 28th of January (Sunday), and this differs from what is stated in some of the Christian sources.The difference is not great andit possibly stems from a mistake in the copying of the Christiansources.15

The religiousstatus ofJerusalem

[lo31 A most important development in the status ofJerusalem occurred duringtheUmayyadperiod, and this was its transformationinto a Muslim holyplace. We haveseen that there was a different relationship to the city at the time of its conquest, when ‘Umar decided that the Muslims would pray with theirbacks towards the rockon the Temple Mount, so as not tobehave in the manner of the Jews. Even if we assume that there is no historical truth inthis story, itat any ratereflects the basic approach of the Muslims during thefirst generationsof the occupation. Thisqibla, Jerusalem, was the first direction which the Prophet faced, but hehimself ruled it out after the hijra. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, his heir and the fulfiller of his testament, loyally continued the tradition laid down by the Prophet, l5

The plague in the year 80: Khalifa ibn Khayyiit, 11, 360; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, IX, 27 (who Ta’rikh, 111,227. ‘The plague has: in the year 79). The incidence of the lightning: Dhahabi, of the girls’: Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, IX, 61 (@‘in al-jutiyit); and on other plagues: ibid., 309, 312. The earthquake in 738: Papadopoulos-Kerameos, 111, 4 (he is perhaps mistaken; actually it is the earthquake of the year 747/8 which is meant); the earthquake in 747/8: Wasiti, 84; Maqdisi, Mutlzir (Le Strange),304; Dhahabi, Siyar, 11, 330; Ibn Taghri Bard?, I, 311. Pseudo-Dionysios (Chabot), 47 (text), 42 (translation), points out that theearthquake occurred in1059 Sel., whichis AD 747/8, ‘in the landof thewest’; Agapius,521 (he claims that more than a hundred thousand people died in Tiberias then); Elias of Nisibis, 171 131;a village in the neighbourhood of (text); 82 (translation): the quake was in the AH year Mount Tabor moved fromits place four mileswithout any damage havingbeen caused; Severus (Evetts),393f: the quake occurred on the 21st of Tuba, the day of the death of St Mary (the Dormition, i.e., 16th of January, cf. DTC, X, 2302), and Egypt was not affected apartfrom Dumyat (Damietta); it was felt from Gaza to the border of the Persian regions. Theophanes, 651, and following him Cedrenus, 11, 7, set the time of the earthquake in the sixth year of ConstantineV (Copronymus), which is 746, and pointed out that it was felt in Palestineas far as the RiverJordan, andin all of Syria; thousands of people were killed and many monasteries and churches were destroyed, particularly in the desert region around Jerusalem. Cf. ZonarAs, 111, 268; some of the above references are mentioned by Creswell,Early Muslim Architecture’, 374, n.3. Michael the Syrian,11, 510 (p. 466 in the original), does not mention an exactdate, but the quake is mentioned in the framework ofevetits that took place after 740 (contrary to what is saidin Assaf and Mayer, S e j r ha-yishrv, 10, n. 8). The piyyiit: Zulay, Yedi‘ot, 3(1936/7), 156-162; the connection between the piyyiit and the earthquake of748 was first suggested by Margaliot, BJPES, 8(194@/41),97-104, and see there the fragment from the poetPinhas, who also mentions ‘the fast of the earthquakeof the sabbatical year’. See also idem, Tarbiz, 29:339, 1959/60.

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signifying that Jerusalem wasnot holy to the Muslims, and that only the Jews were still wholeheartedly attached to its sanctity. The new status ofJerusalem and the renewed recognitionof its sanctity were not the result of scholarly discussions or new theological interpretation. They were born with the Dome of the Rock, an idea conceived by the ruler, Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik, and translated by the best architects and builders of the time into alanguage of pillars and arches bearing all the splendour that the imagination could possibly envision. ‘Umar built his first mosque onlyas a place of prayer (and the meaning of the Arabic word masjid is place of prayer for the Muslims) on the Temple Mount out of respect and recognition of the tradition of the Children of Israel, which linkedthis place with the memory of ancient the prophets, the predecessors of Muhammad andhis heralds. We have seen that the view attributing the building of the Mosque to ‘Umar is confirmed both in the Arab traditions and by Theophanes, the Byzantine of ‘the Mysteries of Rabbi chronicler; whileon the other hand, the author ShimonBarYohai’wasimprecisewhen he attributedto‘Umarthe achievement of ‘Abd al-Malik two generations later. ‘The second king who will arise from Ishmael’ will, according to his words, ‘hollow out Mount Moriah and make it entirely into a plain and build therea place of bowing down on the foundation stone,as it is said: and thou puttest thy nest in the rock.’ Arculf, a Gallic bishop (it is not clear whether he was from the south of France or fromWales), who visited Palestine one or two generations after the conquest, gives us a description of the mosque put up by ‘Umar. In his words, this is what the Muslims built on the Temple Mount: ‘. . . quadvangulam orationis domum quam subvectis tabulis etrnagnis tvabibus super quasdam veliquias construentes, vilifabvicati sunt opere . . .’ (they built a house of prayer in theform ofa square madeof woodenplanks and large beams which they constructed over the remnants [of ruined buildings], a work ofinferior quality). Itis obvious that this structure was aof type similar to that of the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet, when he first decidedto build a mosque in Medina,askedthatthebuildingshouldbesimple,likethe‘booth of Moses’ ‘avidz Miisi, for in anycase the end of the worldwas imminent.16 16

‘The mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai’: Jellinek,Bet ha-midrish, 111, 79; the Biblical quotation is from the verse ‘And he lookedon the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock’ (Num., xxiv:21). Arculf: in Tobler et Molinier, I, 145. O n the Prophet’s mosquesee the traditions gathered and interpreted by Kister, BSOAS, 25:150,1962. O n the resemblance of the ancient mosque of ‘Umar on the Temple Mount, according to the description of Arculf and the mosque of the Prophet in Medina: Abel, DACL, VII(2), 2304; on the parallel between Arculfs description and the Muslim traditionson thebuilding of the mosque in ‘Umar’s days (or according to his orders): Riess,ZDPV, 11(1888), 208. Musharraf, 23a, says that ‘Umar appointedSaliim b. Qaysarto pray at the head of the believers in Jerusalem (in other

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[lo41 It was during his reign as caliph that ‘Abdal-Malik had the Dome of theRock constructed, a building that was in complete contradiction to the modesty of the period of the conquest. The work of construction evidentlybeganin 688. ‘Abd al-Malik appointedthreepeopleto be responsible for putting up the structure: Raji’ b. Hayawa, Yazid b. Salim and his son, Bahi’ b. Yazid. The last two were clients (maw&) of ‘Abd al-Malik (theywere,possibly,originallyChristians).‘Abd al-Malik informed all the districts under Muslim rule of his decision to build the mosque, and all his subjects consented to the plan. He gathered expert builders from all over his domain.Beforetheystartedontheactual a model for the caliph according to their designs, construction, they set up near the building site.The income from thecollection of taxes (khavij) in Egypt for the course of seven years was invested in the building. In the building process, the caliph was represented byhis son Sa‘id, called Sa‘id the Good. The building work lasted four years, from 688 to 692. The Christian chronicler Sa‘id ibn Bitriq‘attributes the construction of the Dome of the Rock to ‘Abd al-Malik’s son al-Walid. In his version, the latter ordered the removal of the dome of the church in Ba‘labakk, a dome of gilded brass, and its replacement on the buildinghe put up in Jerusalem. But itseems that this informationis not credible, and the Muslim sources are reliable in ascribing the erection of the Dome of the Rock to ‘Abd al-Malik. It is possible, however, that the information with regard to al-Walid refers to the building of the al-Aqsi mosque. A Jewish midrash tells that ‘Abdal-Malik b. Marwin ‘. . . shall build the house of the God of Israel’, a version that appears somewhat strange to us today, but is certainly intended to say: ‘shall build on thesite where the house of theofGod Israel stood’. The clearest proof that it was indeed ‘Abd al-Malik who built the Dome of the Rockis the passageon the upper rim ofcentral the arches, on the outer southeastern side, where the date AH 72 (AD 692) is inscribed, even though the name‘Abd al-Malik was replaced by thatof the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mtin.l 7 sources: Salima). From the above-mentioned descriptions in the Muslim traditions it emerges that thefirst mosque on the Temple Mount was built to the south, evidentlyon the site where the al-AqS5 mosque was subsequently erected. Wisiti, Slff;Musharraf, 23b; Maqdisi,Muthrv (Le Strange), 297ff; ‘Ulaymi, 240ff(according to him, one started to build in the year AH 66, that is AD 685/6); Ibn al-‘Arabi, Muhi&ra, 11, 366fe Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, II,42;Ibn Khaldiin,‘Ibav, 111, 148; he probably copied from Ibn Bitriq and shortenedit: he built theDome of the Rockon thesite of a Christian church which he destroyed. Donner, ZDPV, 93(1977), 4, did not understand Sa‘id ibn Bitriq correctly, as if he said that ‘Abd al-Malik ‘enlarged the mosque by including the rock withinit’; actually he merely says that he built a magnificent mosque with therock at its centre. The midrash: Bod1 MS Heb f24 (Cat. Neubauer 2642), in Wertheimer, Butt2 midriishot, 11, 30 (Jerusalem1893/4); cf. Levi, RE], 67(1914),178. The Arabsources mentioned above note that ‘Abd al-Malik also ordered a treasury building to be constructed (apparentlyto house the money intended for the Dome of the Rock), and perhaps

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[lo51 In establishing this splendid building, ‘Abd al-Malik undoubtedly wished to convey a message to the Muslims as well as to non-believers. Since he considered Palestine, and within it, Jerusalem, part of the area which served as the principal and most loyal base of his reign, he devoted considerable attention to the place and most certainly wished to emphasise, first of all, the religious significance of Jerusalem in theeyes of the Muslims. Arab sourcesof the MiddleAges tried to attribute to him radical and far-reaching tendencies.As the Hijiiz was in the hands of the Zubayrid rebels, ‘Abd al-Malik wanted to divert the hearts of the believers from Mecca and substitute theDome of theRock for the Ka‘ba. O n the other hand, however, the same sources point out that it was the magnificence of the Christian churches in Jerusalem that motivated ‘Abd al-Malik to construct a building which would supersede them in beauty and splendour and demonstrate the superiority of Islam. According to Muqaddasi, when he asked his uncle whether al-Walid would not have done better if the Muslims’ money spent on buildinga mosque in Damascuswas spent on the buildingof roads and publicworks and defence,his uncle explainedto him thatal-Sh2m was a Christian country with beautiful churches, attractive to the eye and which have become famous, like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, or the churchin Lod and the church in al-Ruhii (Edessa). So the Muslims put up a mosque which would put these in the shade and attract Muslim attention- one of the wonders of the world: ‘For is clear it that when ‘Abd al-Malik saw the beauty of the Dome ofTomb the [in the text: qubbat aI-qumiima, dome of therefuse] and itsform, he was afraidlest it arouse respect in the hearts of the Muslims and he erected this dome on the rock’. The tradition whichcrystallised in the time of the Umayyadsis interesting, according to whicha true caliphis only one who governs over the two mosques of Mecca and Jerusalem.’*

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it is the building whichis still standing to the east of the Dome of the Rock, which is the qubbat al-silsila. The inscription ‘Abd al-Malik: Kessler, JRAS, 1970, 9; Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture*,69; regarding the date it is worth noting seventeenth a century source: the Italian Franciscan Morone da Maleo, who was the appointee(custos)of the HolySee in Palestine (1651-1657), and in his book Terra Santu nuovumente illustratu, 1669-1670, I, 81, quoted in Italian an inscription from the Dome of the Rock, according to which the mosque was built by ‘the great king, son of Marwgn (il regrundejglio de Mesum[!])in the 65th yearofthe hijra (de’ Saruceni)’,that is AD 684/5, whichis, ofcourse, an error, for only in that year (towards the end) did ‘Abd al-Malik becomecaliph. See theversionin Clermont Ganneau, Rec., 11, 400, and see a detailed discussion in Sharon, Baneth Memorial Volume: 245. Muqaddasi, Aqilim, 159; Ibn Taymiyya, Mujrnii‘a, 11, 61: ‘Abd al-Malik wanted to attract people to a religious visit (ziyira) to Jerusalem instead of the hajj to Mecca. See also Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 311; and so also the Christian Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, 11, 39: ‘Abd al-Malik forced people to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and did not permit them to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, because of ‘Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr. The tradition on the two mosques: ‘Ulaymi, 213c cf. Hirschberg, Rocrnik Orient., 17(1951/2), 319f (in Hirschberg’s opinion the story of ‘Umar’s visit to Jerusalem his interest and in the Temple Mount

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[lo61 The Dome of the Rock has caught the attention of many of those who deal with the history of Muslim art, hoping discover to the identity and ethnic kinship ofits builders andto clarify the architectural traditionto which they adhered. Different and conflicting opinions have been expressed on this subject. Some attribute the building to Romantradition, but mostscholars ascribe it to the Byzantineart ofbuilding and claim that the executors were architects and craftsmen brought from Byzantium, pointing to the architectural similarity to the group of buildings of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in particular.O f the mostrecent studies on the subject, thatof Grabar is the most outstanding, particularly in terms of his analysis of theartistic motifs that appear in the interior ornamentation. These represent, according to Grabar, images of authorityand conquest, especially the crowns; in this he finds parallels in Persian and Byzantine art, and also explicit examples of the use of the symbolism of the victor. Both these symbols and theverses from the Koraninscribed on thewalls of thebuilding are directedto a non-Muslim population and express three basic ideas: the principlesof the Muslimcreed; the stature of Muhammad and the universal nature of his mission; and the reverent standing Islam also reserves for the earlier prophets -Jesus and the others. Therefore, Grabarfindsin all thisadirect appeal to the ‘peoples of the book’. Profound and exhaustivediscussions on these questions can also be found in the writings of Creswell,who in 1924 already defined the connections between the Dome of the Rock and Christian-Byzantine architectural concepts found chiefly in three structures: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives, and the interlinked with the need to maintain Mecca’s stature expresses a similar tendency). Goitein challenged the view that was common to many scholars which gave too much credit to the alleged intention of ‘Abd al-Malik to establish a holy place which would competeinsanctitywiththe kn‘bn due to politicalcircumstances(therevoltofthe Zubayrids); see his article:]AORS, 70:104, 1950, and also the chapteron the sanctity of Jerusalem and Palestine in ancient Islam: Studies, 135-148; opposing him Caskel, Felsendom, 24ff, maintained the contrary opinion, arguing that what Muqaddasi wrote on the competition with the Christiansonlyreferstothebuildingstyle,thesplendour;the motivation? however, was political, that is the domination ofMecca by the Zubayrids; but the verse he quotes, p. 28, does not prove anything, and contrary to his opinion, one cannot interpret the name Quraysh as meaning the Zubayrids, being a rather poetic parallelism to the Umayyads mentioned in continuation. Crone and Cook, 19, see the placing of the Dome of Rock the on theplace of the Jewish temple as an expression of the severance of the connectionbetweenIslamandJudaism (a very strong connection, according to the view they are tryingto prove). Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture2, 66f argues fervently in favour of the argument that the buildingDome of the of the Rock, was indeed motivated by political reasons. Whereas Baer, OLZ, 68(1973), 12Of, in a critical review on Creswell’s book, goes to the defence of Goitein. Poliak, DintdwrgJubilee Volume, 165, maintains the far-fetched supposition, that does not seem well-founded, that the special statusof therock was the resultofJewish propaganda. It was mainly theJews who had converted to Islam, who, in his opinion, had spreadidea the that the foundation stone was the centre of the world and therefore obviously the most holy places. of

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Cathedral ofBusrii. He expressed and developed his views in detail in the second editionof his book onancient Muslim architecture. A wide canvas ofcomparisons withChristian buildingswithcenturiesoftradition behind them is discussed by Echouard in an article he published in 1972. He refers to buildings intended to be used in the rituals of the saints, generally built around the grave of that saint and intended to receive the masses who came to pray to him, and he gives comparative descriptions of various churchesof this type, such as the church of St Simeon (Stylites) in northern Syria, of St Vitale in Ravenna, and others.I9 E1071 A central point in all of these architectural discussions on the Dome of the Rock is its octagonal form. An attempt was made, with some justification, to compare this aspect of the mosque to Christian structures, but it seems to me that the basis of this type of building is, in this case, a specifically Muslim concept. It is a description of Paradise, which the Muslim tradition claims (in the name of the Prophet) has eight openings. Indeed, the tradition attributed to the Prophet declares that the rock (on the Temple Mount) belongs to Paradise.20 [lo81 Another important step in the process of investing Jerusalemand the Temple Mount with holiness was the building of the al-Aqs5 mosque. The Muslim sources have not generally preserved any detailed information on its construction. Some of them attribute it to 'Abdal-Malik and others to his son al-Walid (705-715). It now appears that the time of its construction can be determined more precisely with the aid of papyri preserved in Egypt (in Aphrodito, upper Egypt) which deal with shipments of workers and the supplies from Egypt for the building of the mosque in Jerusalem. These papyri, to the extent one can discern from the dates listed in them,are from a periodof aboutten years, from 706 to 717, which is the period of Walid and Sulaymiin, the sons of 'Abd al-Malik. One can surmise, therefore, that the buildingof the mosquebegan in the days of Walid (and itis not unlikely that building had already begun during 19

20

See the brief summary of various views on the architectural tradition which canbe revealed in the Dome of theRock in Briggs, 36f; and see Grabar, AO, 3:33, 1959; Creswell, Origin; idem, Early Muslim Architecture*,67-123, and see especially his survey of the various approaches, 101-109. See also the article on the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock by M.Van Berchem in Creswell's book, 213-322; Ecochard, BEO, 25:37, 1972. A somewhat unusual approach is that of Strzygowski, Der Islam, 2:79, 1911, who tried to prove that the building styleis basically Persian. The tradition on the eight openings ofParadise occurs in many places, for example: Ibn Mija, I, 512 (no.1604); Muslim, I, 227; Nasi'i, Sunan, I, 78;'Azizi, 11, 216. The rock belongs to Paradise: it seems that the more ancient form of the hadith refers to what the Prophet said of a species of dates from Medina, aL'ajwa, that they are from Paradise; afterwards the rockwas added; al-'ajwa wa'l-sakhra; see Ibn Mija, 11, 1143 (no. 3456); Ibn al-Athir, Nihdya, 11,254. At the End ofthe Days, Paradise the will move to Jerusalem: see Jakhra and Yiqiit, Buldiin, IV, 592; and see more traditionson the connection between the Paradise in Wisiti, 67ff, 78.

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the reign of ‘Abdal-Malik, who died inOctober 705). Unlike the Dome of the Rock, which despite its many renovations has been preservedbasically as it was built,with most of the ancient inscriptions intact, there have been many alterations in theal-Aqsii mosque and nothing remains thatcan tell us of its early history.21 [lo91 The construction of the two magnificent mosques on the Temple Mount was contrary to the spirit of early Islam, which denied the sanctity of theplace on the one hand, and considered thatmore modest structures should suffice, on the other. This was evidently the turning point in determining the religious status of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. ‘Abd al-Malik and his sons turned the Temple Mount into a magnet which drew thousands of visitors from the Muslim world who were theironway to Mecca, and this is where the process of sanctification began, a process which increasingly produced its own momentum. These caliphs laid the physical foundations which, from then on, alent renewed spiritual aurato the Temple Mount,and around which traditions were created and these, in the manner of Muslim traditions, naturally related to the commentaries of the Koran and the hadrtth, and were rumoured tohave come from the Prophet himself. A kernel of the tradition brought about thisin way can be found insikat al-isvii’ (the chapterof the night journey) which is xvii, verse 1: ‘Praised beHe who tookhis slave for a night journey, one night, from the holy rnasjid [i.e. the ka‘ba] to the furthermostrnasjid whose surroundings Weblessed [it is God speaking here, pluralis], in order to show to him [to theslave, i.e. Muhammad] some of Our signs’. Accordingto thehadith traditions that developed around this verse, it was the angel Gabriel who carried Muhammad, mounted on al-Buraq, a winged beast of burden, from Mecca to Sinai, from there to Bethlehem (some say to Hebron as well), andfrom there to Jerusalem. There Gabriel put him down alongside the gate of the mosque, and tied al-Buriiq to the iron ring that all the prophets had always, from time immemorial, tied their horses to. Even older traditions interpret the expression al-rnasjid al-aqsii (‘the furthermost mosque’): the houseof prayer in heaven, and they tie in isvii’, the the night journey, with the rni‘riij (the ladder), that is the ascensionof the Prophet to heaven. There MuhammadpTayed in the company of the other prophets: Abraham, Moses, Jesus andall the rest. The Koran itself contains nothing specific, in this chapter, which links 21

The papyri were originally edited by Bell DerinIslambetween 1911 and 1928, and they are included in his publication: Greek Papyri in the B M , IV (The Aphrodito Papyri);see No. 1366 (of 710); 1403 (the palaceof the caliph[auk toii amiralmoumnin] and the mosque in Jerusalem [masgida HierosolymZin] are mentioned therein); 1414 (as the previous one); 1433 (706/7); 1435 (715/6); 1439; 1441 (706); 1451 (701/2 or 716/7). See an analysisof the of al-Aq$i: Hamilton, Structural History ofthe Aqsa Mosque; Creswell, Early art and mosaics Muslim Architecture2, 373-380.

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the idea of 'the furthermost mosque' with Jerusalem in particular.There is no doubt that the identification of the furthermost mosque with the mosque at the south of the Temple Mount was born relatively later, after the two magnificent buildings were built there. It is interesting that the Koran itself, when speaking of Palestine, calls it adna al-urd, the very close land, the nearby(xxx:l), and this certainly doesnot fit inwith theplacing of the furthermost mosque in Jerusalem. A profound study of the development of the interpretations of the term al-masjid al-aqsa has been written by Guillaume. He points to fact the that thisterm is to be found in an ancient tradition on the pilgrimage journey of Muhammad from Medina to Mecca, in the eighth year of the hijra (when Mecca, of course, was already in Muslim control). While passing through al-Ja'rana (between the two cities, some fifteen kilometres from Mecca) 'he was in the state of purification' ( i k r i m ) between 'the furthermost mosque' and 'the nearby mosque'; evidently speakingof the two mosques in Ja'rana. Naturally isit impossible to reach solid conclusionson such an obscure subject, and there is more than onepossible explanation for the birthof theexpression 'the furthermost mosque'. In my view, reasonable a assumption would be that the expression was already essentially theological on its first appearance, in the Koran.It seems to me that isitconnected with one of the basic ideas of Islam as expressedby Muhammad, namelytheidea of the chain of prophecy,or successiverevelation. Muhammad sawhimself, as we know, as the last link in a chain, sealing the prophecy. This idea is not Muhammad's invention, anda number ofearly Christian sects subscribed to theidea in their way, for they saw Jesus as the last of the prophets. So did the Manichaeans,who saw Manias the seal of prophecy. The Manichaean theology (which had considerable influence on Muhammad's views; is this a subject which shouldbe dealt with separately) connected theidea of the last link in the chain of prophecy and divine revelation with the 'congregation at the very end' in which the revelation occurs. Saint Nilus, at the beginning of the fifth century, ridicules the Manichaeans and accuses them of inventing silly stories: epi tZs ekklZsias tZs en tZ eskhatia ('on the congregation at the furthermost end'). It would appear that isthis thefons et origo of 'the furthermostmosque' in the Koran and the meaningof the 'night journey', which was to bring Muhammad into that framework (which was the Muslim community,Arabs) the in which the Word of God would be revealed to him as it was revealed to the former prophets, his predecessors; a revelation whichwould be final and the last of its kind and would occur in 'thefurthermost mosque', the end of thechain. T o an Arab traditionist who lived two generations after the erection of the Masjid al-Aq$i, Damra b. Rabi'a (died in 817), it was already clear that the isri' wasnecessarily to Palestine(al-Sham,in his language),for Goddid 97

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not send any prophetbut fromthere, andifhe was from some other place, he wouldbe brought there during a nightjourney. Mas‘iidi, writing in the first half of the tenth century, no longer has any doubt thatrnasjid aI-aq$i in the Koran is the temple built by Solomon, ‘whose neighbourhood was blessed by God’.22 [110] The circle of sanctity widened and included the whole ofJerusalem. A rich literature of traditions attributed to the Prophet was created, containing praise ofJerusalem, and known as thefadii’il al-quds: eulogies of Jerusalem. The datewhen these traditionswerefirst collected is not known, but it is not unlikely that it was in approximately the second quarter of the eighth century, although the first work knownto us dates from the beginning of the eleventh century.23 [ l l l ] The praises for which Jerusalem warranted that every Muslim should comeand visit it and theTemple Mount, touch on the great value of the prayers said in this place. Masjid al-AqS2 is the firstof themosques in the world after the ka‘ba mosque in Mecca, and later than it by only forty years (the intentionis to Solomon’s temple). One prayer in Jerusalem is worth five-hundred times more than inany other place (and there are other estimations). One should note all that of Palestine merits praise. In the Koran itis called al-urd al-muqaddasa (v:24), the sanctified land. The Koran was ‘handed down’ (by God) in three places, said the Prophet: in There is a verb in Arabic which means ‘to travel by night’; its root is sty, and theword isvi’, nightjourney, derives from it. See Guillaume, Andalus, 18:323, 1953. Inthe same article he also quotes traditions which assert that thetni‘rij, the ascension to heaven, took place in Mecca on the roof of the Prophet’s house andnot in Jerusalem. The tradition on Ja‘rina, see: Waqidi, 858f; Samhiidi, 11, 184. According to another tradition the location of the mi‘rij was Kiifa; see al-Buraqi,68. Seeon thesubject ofthe chain ofprophecy: Friedlander, JQR, N S 3(1912/3), 246-254; Andrae, 98; Buhl, 212C on theclaims of Mani that heis the Nilus: MPG 79, seal: Biriini, 207; and see also Polotski,PW, Suppl. VI, 266f. The letter of 357. Damra ibn Rabi‘a: Ibn ‘Asskir, I, 154 (quoted also in Goitein, BJPES, 12 [1945/6], 124, n.43); Hirschberg, Rocmik Orietlt., 17(1951/2), 341; see Mas‘iidi, Mtrriij, I, 111. O n Ja‘rina see also Zarkashi, A‘lim, 63, 180; Caskel, Felsendom, 19f, challenges the views of Guillaume and of otherswho agree with him,and claims that the furthermost mosque in the Koran meant Jerusalem from the very outset. See the comprehensive discussion on the various Muslim traditions relatingto the furthermost mosque: Kister, Le Musion, 82:173, 1969. According to the diary ofal-Hasanb. Ahmad al-Banns’,ofBaghdad (in the eleventh century), the followers of Abii Hanifa in Baghdad (in1069) claimed that the three holy places (to whichthey go on pilgrimages and religiousvisits), are Mecca, Medina and ‘that place’, meaning the grave of Abii Hanifa. The Hanbalis shouted at them: ‘You have forgotten that there is a place in the world called Jerusalem!’ See al-Banns’, 290, and the translation, 302. See a general discussion on the matter of the sanctity of Jerusalem to Islam, in the article of Lazarus-Yafeh, HerzogJubilee Volume, 117. a See a general survey of this literature offadz’il nl-quds: Sivan, IOS, 1:263, 1971, and see there additional references. The manuscript of Ab6 Bakr Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Wssiti was edited byI. Hasson, Jerusalem,1979. Two other treatises written before the Crusades are of al-Musharraf b. al-Murajjs ibn Ibrshim al-Maqdisi (mid-eleventh century), and of his pupil, Abii’l-Q%im Makki b. ‘Abd al-Salsm al-Rumayli al-Maqdisi, which was not completed (see on these personalities below). 22

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Mecca, Medina and in al-Sham, and one of thetraditionists adds: thatis to say, in Jerusalem. Jerusalemis the localeof Abraham, Lot, Jesus; isit one of the places in which God permitted the creation of buildings for His name tobe mentioned, Fromthere, He lifted Jesusto heaven andit is there that he will be put down again. At theEnd of theDays, all the mosques in the world (including the ka‘ba) will gather together and come to Jerusalem. ‘The rock’ in Jerusalem is the place where onewill blow thetrumpet on the day of the resurrection of the dead, just as it was the firstplace to appear above the water after the flood; it is the place closest to heaven. The d q j d and other apocalyptic creatures have no access to the rock. Adam, Isaac, Abraham (in this order!)commanded thatthey be buried there, and for that purpose, Jacob and also Joseph were broughtthere. In Jerusalem people would be separated in terms of those who were to go to Paradise and those who were to go to thefires of Hell. It is interesting that mostof these traditions are conveyed in the name of Muqatil b. Sulayman, a native of Khurasan (Balkh) who lived in BaSra and Baghdad. It is said that he incorporated intohis commentaries on the Koran many Jewish and Christian traditions. He died in 767, and was therefore living at about the time the two mosques were being built on the Temple Mount. There is also another passage of the Koran which according to its commentary recalls Jerusalem, in thesiirut a k i n (‘the chapterof the figs’), xc:l: [God swears by] ‘the figs, the olives, the Mount Sinin, and this the secure city’. It is said that ‘olives’ is an appellation for Jerusalem.24 [112] A tradition attributed to Muhammad Ka‘b, b. one of the offspring 24

Shibli, Wusi’il, 25a-34b. See in Zarkashi,I‘lirn, 286, a collection of traditions on the value ofprayers in Jerusalem. A man who performshis needs should not doso in the direction of Mecca nor in the direction of the sakhra (a tradition attributed to the Prophet, ibid., 293). ‘AjlUni, 11, 282: he who dies in Jerusalem,it is as if he died in heaven. The value of the prayer in Jerusalem: ibid., I, 291; seea similar collection of hadithsNuwayri, in I, 325-339; praises of the holy land; of al-masjid al-Aq$i; ofJerusalem; of thereligious visits(ziyiru) there; of prayers said there; ofthe houses, ofthe sojourn and the passing away in Jerusalem; the gravesof the Prophets, mihrab Da’iid, the Silwan (Siloam) spring; the traditions on the ascent of the Prophet from Jerusalem to heaven, etc.The number of prayers in Jerusalem and their relative value according to thefada’il literature has its parallel in ancient Eastern Christianity: tovisit seven times theQarfimin monastery is like going toJerusalem; see Voobus, History of Asceticism, 11. 319. ‘Azizi,111, 343: The advantage of visiting Jerusalem before the pilgrimageto Mecca; ibid., 388: the Prophet said: Whosoever does not come to Jerusalem to pray, should send there oil for lighting. Subki, Shif;i’, 49, complains (middle of the fourteenth century) that few come to Jerusalem, although its praises are famous and prayers there are doubly valued. ‘The descent’ of the Koran in three places: Ibn ‘Asakir, I, 154, and see the supplementary fragment in the old edition (Badran), I, 36 (omitted by the editor ofthe new edition, al-Munajjid). Ibn Sa‘d, I (l),107; the Temple Mount is the site of Jacob’s dream, see: al-Maqdisi, Bud’, IV, 87; andsee the collection of traditions in Yaqiit, Buldin, IV, 591c and the treatise of Ibn al-Firkah, Bi‘ith ul-nufiis (which also contains a collection of praises of Jerusalem). Muqatil b. Sulayman, see: Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, X, 279-285, cf. Sezgin, I, 36f. StSrut ul-ti#: see Ibn al-Jawzi, Muwdii‘it, I, 249; Silafi, Fudi’il, 113; Ibn Babawayh, Mu‘ini, 350 (this Shiite writer gives Jerusalem thehonour of being

99

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of theBanii Qurayza, of the Jews of Medina, tells that God promised Jacob that some ofhis descendants would become kings and prophets untilHe would send the harurni Prophet (that is, from the haram, or Mecca), who will be the last of the prophets (the seal), whose people would build the sanctuary (haykal) of bayt al-rnaqdis; hence the building of the mosque on the Temple Mountis the realisation of the word of God. It appears thatduring subsequent generations, special a feeling of reverence developed among the Muslims in Jerusalem, as described by one of the city’s inhabitants, Muqaddasi, at the end of the tenth century: ‘You have no more honourable than the people ofJerusalem, because ithas no breach and no outcry. They do not drink wine in public, there is no drunkenness, it has no house of abomination, either hidden or apparent, and its people are God-fearing and honest. And there was once anurnir [a governor of the city] about whom rumourhad it that he used to drink; so the people broke intohis house and dispersed thosewho were assembled there. ’ The ideas of sanctity were extended, apparentlytowards theend of the Umayyad period, to other parts of Palestine as well. First wasHebron, the site of thegraves of thepatriarchs, and primarily the city of Abrahamand his place of prayer - Masjid Khalil Allah, for Abraham was called a friend (khald) in Muslim tradition (as in the Jewish tradition, ‘theseed of Abraham, thy friend’ [2 C h . , X X : ~ ]‘the , seed of Abraham my friend’, [Is., xli:2], and also in the Talmuds and Midrash), and hence the name of the city among the Arabs, (madinat) al-Khalil, the city of the friend. Eventually other traditions developed, such as the one saying that Adam, who was also a prophet according to Islamic tradition, he, too, is buried in Hebron, as are Joseph and another forty anonymous saints. According to some traditions, the Prophet alighted in Hebron duringhis night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem- there even was a shoe of the Prophet kept in the mosque at H e b r ~ n . * ~

25

‘the olives’; but Mount Sinin, which the traditions generally ‘say is Mount Sinai, he interprets as: Kiifa; Ibn ’Asiikir, I, 205f. See a collection of praises of Palestine also in Shazari,26fcSuhayli, loa: ‘thesanctifiedland’(intheKoran) is Jerusalemand its environs; theqibln: Muqaddasi, A q i h , 151. Muqaddasiis proud of thefact thatal-Sham was the first qibla. Muqaddasi, Aqilltn, 7; ibid., 34, again notes that Jerusalem is the place worthy of Godfearing people. On the graves of the patriarchs, see the traditions in Tadmuri,65 (in the name ofMuqiitil ibn Sulaymiin,see the previous footnote). Despite his doubts, he arrives at the conclusion thatone has to believe that Abraham and the other patriarchs are buried there, as tradition (naql) states. Accordingto him,ibid., 61a, thefirst to be buried there was Yarid (thatis, Jared); he also tells the story ofEphron the Hittite, and astory from the time of al-Riidi, the Abbasid caliph (934-940), on the discovery of a Greek inscription on Rachel’s tomb containing details of the gravesin the cave, whose each one was, see 63b, and in the Matthews edition:18lc according to him onehad to use the servicesof oneof the elders of Halab, the only one who was able to read the inscription, See also Ibn IO0

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[ 1131 Ascalon also won a certain aura of sanctity by a tradition ascribed to the prophet, according to which it was one of the two bridal cities (al-‘ariisayst),the second being Damascus (though somesay Gaza). Itis said that the Prophet promised Ascalon that it would enjoy peace and prosperity throughout the rule of Islam. It was allotted a special role in the resurrection of the dead: 70,000 people would rise up again there who would have togive no account of their deeds. Jerichois also mentioned in the hadith literature. The traditions interpret the saying in the Koran ‘Enter this city’ - so the Children of Israel were ordered;siivat al-baqara (the chapter of the cow) ii:55, as having been aimed at Jericho,though most of the interpreters say it was Jerusalem, and otherssay it was Bet Shean. A hadith conveyed in the name of Ka‘b al-Ahbir says that whoever wishes to earn his livelihoodand be well-off andGod-fearing,shouldsettle in Bet Shean. Its dates are mentioned in the hadith attributed to Tamim al-Dari; it is said of the place that it is the ‘tongue’ of the country. Its spring, ‘Ayn al-fuliis, comes from Paradise and is one of the two springs mentionedin suvat al-RahmZn (lv:50);the other is theSiloamspring (Silwin).26 [ 1141This processof lending special godliness to certain locationsis well known in the Islamic world. There is an extensive literature offa&’il (praises) containing traditions, generally ascribed to the Prophet,concerning the special holy qualities of certain places. With regardto Palestine, we can follow an interesting course of development, from the denial of the sanctity of the sakhra (the rock) and of Jerusalem to the bestowing of special sanctity upon them.It is quite possibleto envision the stages of this process as well as its principal motivations. Without going so far as to deny the primacy of Mecca and the ka‘ba and of Medina, a religious aura

*6

al-Faqih, 101; Subki, Shif;i’, 111: the Prophet descended during the isri’ also near Abraham’s grave, and also near Jesus’ grave (in Bethlehem!); ibid., 106, he vigorously defends in Palestine. the customof visiting the graveof Abrahamand those of the other prophets O n the shoe of the Prophet see also: Dozy, Vttements, 421ff; accordingto one tradition the shoe was found in Damascus, together with the original versionof the Koran from the days of ‘Uthmin (Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, 11, 362f; Mez, 327). See also the article al-Khalil (by M. Sharon)in EP, who has more references. In ‘Ulaymi, 64f, it is said of Muhammad b. ‘Ali alabout IbrZhim ibn Ahmad al-Khalanji (perhaps a relative Khalanji, see below) apparently the appointeeover Palestine on behalf of the Abbasids, that the concubine (jiriya) of the caliph al-Muqtadir(908-932) requested of him, during her stay in Jerusalem, to look after Joseph’s grave; he went there with a number of workers, and they dug until they uncovered Joseph, and arranged his grave alongside those of the otherpatriarchs, behind Solomon’s courtyard(?), opposite Jacob’s grave; see the English translation of this fragment inLe Strange, Palestine, 325. See the tradition on the ‘artisayn in ‘Azizi,11,313;Ibn ‘Asikir,I, 86; YZqGt, Buldin, 111,674; cf.: Gruber, 61; and the article ‘AskalZn (by R. Hartmann) in EP. Jericho: MawSili, N i h i y a , 53a; Suhayli, Ta‘r33b. Bet Shean: Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 211; II(l), 125;see also: Sam‘Zni, 11, 396; ‘Imid al-Din, Tadhkira, 46: Bet Shean is one of theplaces in which there areabdil IO1

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emerged around Jerusalem and Palestine during the second half of the Umayyad era, to be distinguished from the periodof conquest and the first generations thereafter. This aura of sanctity was the direct consequence of the great building enterprise‘Abd of al-Malik and his sons, who turned the Temple Mount into a centre of attraction to visitors from all over the Muslim world. It is interesting to note that there was an awareness of thischange among the Muslims of theMiddleAges,theclearest reflection being the antagonistic and disrespectful remarks openly expressed bymore than one of the Muslim men of letters about the process of sanctification, in which they saw a dangerous innovation and perversion from the truecreed. Reservations of this kind could also be found in the description, mentioned above, contained in some Muslim chronicles of ‘Abd al-Malik’s decision to build the Dome of the Rock, as if it sprang from a wicked desire to deny the sanctity of Mecca. Ya‘qiibi makes some veryexplicit commentsonthe subject,which he attributesto‘Abd al-Malik ‘. . . the mosque in Jersualem will take the place for you of the ka‘ba mosque, and this rock, which according to the tradition the Prophet put his foot on as he was ascending to heaven, will take the place of the he addsthattherefore‘Abd ka‘ba’ (a stonefor a stone!).Furtheron al-Malik built a dome over the rock, hung silk curtains therein, placed servants there and demanded that people encircle it (carry out the [ a w i just as they encircle the ka‘ba. Refuting the holinessof thesakhru evidently continued fora long time. Even after theDome of theRock was already standing on its site, we find that one of the greatest scholars of al-Sham in the middle of the eighth century, ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Umar al-Awza‘i, used to pray in Jerusalem with his back to thesakhva. True, everyone praying in the al-Aq$i mosque has his back to the sakhva, which is to the north, as he is facing southward to Mecca. But thefact that this has been recorded is evidence that this was a demonstrative act. Unfortunately it is impossible to determine whether this happened after the Abbasid revolution or earlier, during the days of Umayyad rule. Ibn Taymiyya, writing in about 1300, argues that it is impossible to perform the[awiifaround the rock in Jerusalem, and that it is unacceptable to turn the rock into a qibla due to thepresence of a naskh (uprooting, that is, the heavenlycommand tochange theformer rite of facing Jerusalemto that offacing Mecca). He even provides evidencefrom theact of ‘Umar, who refused to take advice to build the mosque to the north of the rock, (something like the ‘lamed-waw’, the thirty-six Jewish righteous; in Bet Shean there are two, and some say four). I02

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and builtit to the south in order that the Muslim facing Mecca would stand sanctity of thesakhva with his back to thesakhva. This whole matter of the began, according to him, from theperiod of ‘Abd al-Malik’s war with the Zubayrids, when he wished to divert the attention of the Muslims from Mecca and attractthem to thexiyiva (visiting of holy places) in Jerusalem. All the alleged traditions, he writes, dealing as it were with the footsteps of the Prophet or thecradle of ‘Is5 (Jesus), are merely deceptions.The only place fit to pray in Jerusalem is the mosque of ‘Umar (that is, al-Aqsa); and he stresses in particular theban on visiting Christian churches, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (al-qumama- ‘of the refuse’) and churches in Bethlehem, Mount Zion and elsewhere., Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, shortly after IbnTaymiyya, also denies absolutelythe holiness of the sakhva. All the traditions about it, he states, are lies and inventions. The sakhva is merely the qibla of the-Jews,and to them, its statusas a place is like the status of the s-abbath with regard to time. Among the learned Muslims in the Middle Ages, there was cognisance of the fact that the extensive publicising of the traditions about the sanctity of Jerusalem could be ascribed tothewarwiththe Crusaders,whenthe whole Muslim world was trying to awaken the sympathies of people towards Jerusalem. Opposition to the idea of the sanctityof Ascalon or Hebronis also to be found in the writings of these two learned men. Another scholar, Ibn al-Jawzi, decided that all the traditions ascribed to the Prophet and which speak in praise of Ascalon were false. The famous cadi and writer ‘Iyad, who lived during the first half of thetwelfth century, claims that none of the s&ba (the Muslims contemporaries of the Prophet), nor anyone of the subsequent generations, either before or after the conquest of Palestine, would customarily perform the ziyara of Abraham’s grave nor of any other prophet’s grave in Palestine. Ibn Taymiyya also looks back at the first generations and points out that nothing of the kind existed; that there was no precedent for praying over graves or building mosques over them. Abraham’s grave, he writes, was closed and enclosed and it would not have occurred to anyone to pray there, and whoever came to Jerusalem would pray in the al-Aq$i mosque and returnto his home withoutvisiting the maghavat at-khalil (‘the cave of Abraham’, i.e., of the patriarchs). Only with the Crusaders’ dominationof the cave, Ibn Taymiyya adds, was the gate opened and the place turned into a church, and when the Muslims recapturedthe place, some of them turned it into a mosque, but the scholars (ahl al- ‘ilm) deny this, and all the traditions thattell of the Prophet descending during theisra’ (the night journey) on any otherplace than the al-Aqsii mosque are fake. However, reliable sources from the tenth and

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eleventh centuries give evidenceof thefact that Hebronattracted Muslim visitors even before the Crusaders’ period.*’ The achievementsof the Umayyads

[115] We have already found that there was a special relationship between the Umayyads and Palestine, and that the tribes ofPalestine were an important foundation of Umayyad power and the governmental system it established. Shreds of information that were preserved in the chronicles speak of caliphs and their families visiting Jerusalem and other places in Palestine. Yazid 11, son of ‘Abd al-Malik, lived in Irbid in Trans-Jordan (Arab sources: in the Balqi’) at the end ofhis days anddied there in January 724. His predecessor, Sulaymiin b. ‘Abd al-Malik, was very attached to Palestine. When hewas proclaimed caliph, he was staying Palestine in and bay ‘a). delegations cameto Jerusalem to pledge their loyalty (to convey the Before he becamecaliph, while still governor ofjundFilastin, he wouldsit in one of the domed buildings on the Temple Mount, near the ~ a k h r a and , there he would receive people in audience and there his orders would be written. When he became caliph, he had it in mindto makeJerusalem his official seat.** [ 1161Sulaymin b.‘Abd al-Malik is also the caliph to whomthe building of Ramla is attributed. Apparently, the building of the town started before he became caliph, for it is said that at the time of the deathhis of brother, 27

28

Ya‘qubi, Ta’rikh, 11, 31 1; on al-Awzi‘i see: ‘Ulaymi, 259; Ibn Khallikin, 111, 127ff (he was an inhabitant of Beirut);see the article al-Awzi‘i (byJ. Schacht) in EP, which has more sources about him. Al-Awzi‘i is also mentioned in a Samaritan chronicle: ‘‘Eved harahiim [the slave of the Merciful i.e., ‘Abd al-Rahmin] ha-Wazi‘i[!], the judge of Damascus, who lived in Beirut’, etc. see in Adler et Seligsohn, RE], 45(1902), 244. Ibn Taymiyya, Mnjmti‘a, 11, 61fCcf. Kister, Le Musion, 82(1969), 195f. Ibn Qayyim alJawziyya, al-Munir, 86-91; ibid., 99, he adds somethingto the list of aberrations from the right customs of the proper Islam: the prayer in mid-month Sha‘bin is an innovation introduced after the year 400 (that is, in !he eleventh century); it was introduced in Jerusalem; this is confirmed by Muqaddasi,Aqiilim, 183, who counts among the things for which Jerusalem excels the night which ends the reading of the Koran in the al-Aqsi mosque and‘also the nightof the middleof Sha‘bin in Iliyi’; Zarqashi,Z ‘ l i i m , 296, quotes a to Mecca with the ziyira and notes: hadith ascribed to the Prophet, which links the ‘some say they only have heard about this hadith after the victory of the Sultan Salih al-Din (that is, after Jerusalem was reconquered from the Crusaders); Zarqashirecalls in contrast to this another hadith in favour of the ziyira to Jerusalem, in the name of Musharraf ibn Muraji, of the generation before the Crusaders conquest. See what Ibn al-Jawzi hasto say on the traditions about Ascalon: Mawdii‘il, 11, S2fCthe opinion of ‘Iyad, see: Subki, Shi‘’, 106 (who argues with him and speaks in favour of this ziyira); see Ibn Taymiyya, Tqfirr, 167; similarly also Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-h!funiv, 94. For sources on religious visits to Hebron, see chapter 3, note 80. Yazid: Mas‘iidi, Muriij, V, 446; Ibn aL’Adim, Zubdn, I, 47; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, IX, 231; Sulaymin: Maqdisi,Mtrthir (Khilidi), 45; ‘Ulaymi, 249; Ibn al-Athir, Kiimil, V, 11. ‘Umar I1 ibn ‘Abdal-‘Aziz acted in the same way,and was sitting on the Temple Mount,see Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, ‘Zqd, IV, 434.

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the caliph al-Walid (on 24 February 715), Sulaymiin was in Ramla. The city achieved quitea reputation in the Muslim world. According to Koran a haven and has a commentators, it is possible that ‘the hill that was spring’, to which God brought Mary and Jesus(siivat ul-mtl’minTtz, xxiii:52) was Ramla. It is interesting that the Muslim traditionson theconquest of Palestine sometimes mention Ramla, although the city was not founded until some three generations later. Possibly this is the result of some confusion in defining dates or in the use of the name Ramla instead of Filastin (for Ramla was the capitalofjund Filastin); but it is also possible that a town called Ramla (by the Arabs) actually existednear Lod before the Muslim era. It is perhaps the &lit ha-me@x (h6l meaning sand, like Arabic vaml), mentioned in the Toseja, ‘Ariikhin, ii:8. A Christian chronicle which describes the renovation of the Christian churches after the Persians devastated them tells that the monk Modestus, who collected money for the renovations, also went down to Ramla to obtain money. From the Muslim traditions, it evolves that the Muslims did not maintain regional administrative institutions in Caesarea, which was formerly capital of Pulaesfina p i m a , evidently out of fear of Byzantine attacks from the sea. The tradition I have mentioned earlier on the stay of Sulaymiin b. ‘Abd al-Malik, when he was governor of jund Filastin, on the Temple Mount, teaches us that the affairs of the region were at first handled in Jerusalem. However, it seems that the genuinely non-Muslim surroundings werenot congenial to the Muslims;on the other hand, they undoubtedly wishedto dominate the coastal roads, and when they realised that Lod was also not suitable as capital of the region, again because of the nonMuslim population, it was decided to lay the foundations of (or develop) Ramla. The building of thecity beganwith its fortress. Afterwards they erected a building known by the name ofdZr al-$abbighitz (the house of the dyers, and the meaning hereis: textile dyers) which also contained a pool. They also built a canal known as bavada (‘middle of theeye’?) and also dug wells for drinking water. Then they built a mosque there andat the same time, permitted anyone whowished to do so, to build himself a house. Sulayman b. ‘Abd al-Malik, who was then governor ofjund Filastin, as aforementioned, appointed one of his officials, a Christian whose name was al-Bitriq b. Naka, or Bakiir, to supervise the building work. Until about 840 the Umayyad caliphs, and after them the Abbasids, maintained the wellsand canals attheir own expense,untiltheAbbasidcaliph alMu‘tasim (833-842) transferred this responsibilityto the governors of the province. The founding of Ramla led to the decline of Lod, for Sulaymiin began to destroy Lod and forced its people to move to Ramla in its place. Those

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who refused were punished and prevented from receiving supplies. One chronicle reveals the reason for this; it was an act of revenge for the people of Lod refused to permit his adviser, Ibn Bip-iq, to build himself a house (meaning, probably: an administrative building) on land which was the property of the church of St George. SulaymPn also considered transferring the pillars of the church from Lod to Ramla, for the building of the mosque, but thepatriarch appeased him. With thehelp of theByzantines, Sulayman was induced to use pillars in building the mosque in Ramla, which were specially hewn for this purpose in the samecave in al-Dlirzim from which the pillars in Lod were hewn, and this was a secret cave known only to the Byzantines. Muqaddasi writes, towards the end of the tenth century, that Ramla could be considered one of the best of thecities of Islam, if it were not for the quality of its water, which was poor owing to the saltiness of the wells. He also points out its central position for commerce, due to its proximity to both the Mediterranean and theRed Sea, and to its connection to them by adequate roads. According to him, Ramla served as a warehouse for the Egyptians, and the sources state further that was the city a vib& like other seaports along the coast of Palestine, that is, a military base for units in a stateof permanent readiness. In May 789, during the days of the Abbasid caliph HZriin al-Rashid, a pool was built in Randa whichexists until this very day, known particularly for its very unusual pointedarches. The ancient residential section of the city was apparently built around the mosque, known as the ‘white mosque’. Many central figures in the political life of the Muslim world chose to live in Ramla, especially at the time when Palestine became subject to Egypt; that is, in the ninth century. The building of Ramla created a new administrative cehtre. It became the capital ofjund Filastin and actually the most important city in Palestine. One can assume that the Jewsof Lod moved to Ramla, as did the rest of the population, and they formed the basis for the relatively large Jewish population living in Ramla afterwards, according to the sources from the eleventh century.29 29

Sa‘id ibn Bitriq, I, 217 (Modestus in Ramla); ‘Azizi, 11, 323: some say that the hill (in the Koran) is Ramla, some say Damascus, some Fustat; Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 200f: some say it is Ramla and some say it is Jerusalem. Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2399: ‘Amr sendsan army (during the conquest)against Ramla, under the command ofal-Tadhiriq; ibid., 11, 1281: on the day of al-Walid’s death loyaltyto Sulaymin ibn ‘Abd al-Malik was sworn, and he was then in Ramla (Saturday, the24th of February,715). See in: Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 351; Balidhuri, Futub, 143; Ibn al-Faqih, 102; Shazari, 29a, the traditions on the building ofRamla and the ruin of Lod. Dimashqi, 201: in the long run, Ramlawas destroyed by earthquakes while Lod was rebuilt. Yiqiit, Bulditz, 11, 817ff, mentions alongside thetraditions on the building of Ramla, the reason for Sulaymin’s anger with people the of Lod; he also has the name ofthe one who refused to hand over the land he wanted:Ibn al-Bitriq. Jahshiyiri, 48: I 06

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[ 1171 Fragmentary information, of considerable importance however, informs us that the Umayyads took pains to reclaim the ruins of the country and persevered inits settlement and development enterprises, in addition to theaforementioned construction works on the Temple Mount and Ramla. An impressive remnant from thedays of their reignis Khirbat Mafjar near Jericho, a splendid unfinished palace attributed to the caliph Hisham ibn 'Abd al-Malik (724-743), though it is impossible to pinpoint with any certainty the identity of the builder. The Umayyadsinvested great efforts in developinga Muslim fleet and in renovating seaports in Palestine and Syria. Restoration and fortification works were carried out in Tyre, Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa and Ascalon. Arab army units were garrisoned at these ports. Mu'awiya stationed carpenters and artisans and set up shipyards in the coastal towns. Acre became the chief naval base in his day and it was from here that thearmy set out in 647 to conquer Cyprus. Acre was also the site of the shipyard of the jund Urdunn but during'Abd al-Malik's time, the shipyard was transferred to Tyre, which then became the majornaval base. Mu'iiwiya also adopted a policy of settlement in the ports. In the year AD 662/3, he moved Persian army units who had come overto the Muslim camp during the conquest of Persia and who were stationed inBa'labakk, in Him?and in Antioch, to the seaports of jund Urdunn: Tyre, Acre and others. The Umayyads viewed the coastal cities as urn$&- (singular m i y ) that is, fortified frontier towns;their collective appellation was al-saw2hil (from sihil meaning coast), and their inhabitants enjoyed special privileges, such as granting rights to the tribesandindividualssettledthere to collect taxes. The fortified towns along thecoast and other vital places were called rawZ6it or ribitit (singular: ribit), and the army units stationed there were called r n u ~ i b a ~ afrom , a root meaningtobind, an expressionforpermanent it was Ibn Bitriq who asked for the land for himself and was refused, and then advised Sulaymin tobuild Ramla; and see there also the story of thepillars. See also: Ibn Taghri Bardi, I, 240; Furti1.1(ascribed to Wiqidi), 6,and there the information thatRamla already existed in the days of the Children of Israel. See on the antiquity of Ramla, Ish-Shalom, HaJrot, 195ff. Muqaddasi, Aqiliin, 36, 164f, describes Ramla. He mentions some of its streets (durib):Bi'r af-'asknr (the well of the army), and rnasjid ' a m b o and also roads leading to Jerusalem, toLod, to Jaffa, to Fustat. and to D5jiin, and called by their names. See also: Sam'ini, VI, 169. O n the white mosque and the supposed residential quarter see: RosenAyalon, I€], 26(1976),119; on the pool of Ramla: Creswell, Short Accorrnt, 228ff. He quotes the inscription saying that the pool wasbuilt in Dhii'l-hija 172 (May 789), that is, in the days of Hiiriin al-Rashid. According to him, what makes it singular is the great number ofsharply pointedarches, the mostancient known tous. See also El'ad, Cathedra, 8(1977/8), 165 and n. 64; the conjecture on the Jews moving from Lod to Ramla, see: Ramla was a new city: Assaf, MeqGrGt, 10;a Samaritanchronicle, the TdidZ, points out that 'in his days (of the great priest 'Aqbiin) a new city was built, called al-Ramla'. See Neubauer, Chrorlique samaritaine, 23. As to the date in this chronicle: the earlier date it to years, that mentions is 634. Afterwards it counts terms ofpriesthood which amount 155 is, the building ofRamla should have been in 789, which makes no sense.

I S L A M S T R I K E S ROOTS

readiness. We know that theMuslims launched raids on Byzantine areas, and it appears that these seaports served as their departure points. Less is knownaboutthe Byzantines' contra-raids, thoughundoubtedly they happened quite often, an example being the aforementioned occurring during the insurrection of the Zubayrids. Palestine advanced in the development of its seaports and ship-building compared with the state of these matters during the Byzantine period, when Alexandria was evidently the major supplier to the empire's navy. According to a tradition in Balidhuri, there was a SinZ'u (ship-yard) only in Egypt, until the year A H 49 or AD 669. Then Mu'iiwiya ordered the artisans (ship-builders) and carpenters to be assembled and have them placed in the s e a - p ~ r t s . ~ ~ [ 1181 AsPalestine was close to the centreof government, it appears that the Umayyads were accustomed to using it as a place of exile for tribes and leaders who caused them trouble in other parts of thecaliphate, particularly in Iraq. It is said that Mu'5wiya purged Kiifa of 'Ali's supporters, including Qa'qi' b. 'Amr b. Milik, ofBanfi the Tamim, oneof the heroes of the war against the Persians who participated alongside 'Ali in the 'Battle of the Camel' andwho was exiled to Jerusalem. The transfer of the Jews, who were then considered loyal, was undoubtedly a similar course of action, and they were encouraged to settle in Tripoli on the Syrian coast.31 [119] We learn of the Umayyads' concern for the agriculture of the country from thecanal they dug in jund Urdunn. No details are available concerning the canal or its site, except that it was in the north. It was excavated in the days of Walid 11, in around 743, as is evinced in Tabari. Tabari quotes a witness of Walid's last hours before he was killed; alMuthanna b. Mu'iwiya tells: '. . . I came to al-Walid; I came in through the back entrance of the tent-camp. He ordered a meal and it was brought to him . . . Then he addressed someone who sat alongside him and spoke to him, butI could not hear what he said. I asked the man sitting between us what they had spoken of,and he said he was enquiring about the water See a summarising review of Khirbatal-Mafjar: Hamilton, Khivber al-Majar. The author assumes that thepalace was built by the caliph Walid ibn Yazid (February 743-April 744), but tribal wars and inner dissension prevented its completion. See: Baramki, QDAP, 5:132, 1936; 8:51, 1939; Schwabe, QDAP, 12:20, 1946. Baramki describes inhis article (the second) an Arabic inscription written by 'Abdallah b. 'Umar for thecaliph Hishim; Schwabe describes ten inscriptions he found in the digs there, and which include many Greek names, among them that ofTheophilos, in who hisopinion may have been aJew (a name mentionedalso in the Ahima'a? Scroll), but ofcoursethis is only aconjecture. See on the building works of the Umayyads also: Strika, Rendiconti, ser. 8, 23:69, 1968, and the bibliography therein, especially on p. 69, no. 1. O n the ports and the transfer of the Persians: Balidhuri, Fcrtiilj, 117f, 126ff, 143f. See also: Fahmy, 52fC Eickhoff, 130; El'ad, Cathedra, 8(1977/8), 156-163. The purge of Kufa: Tabari, Ta'rikh, I, 1960. On Qa'qi' see: Ibn al-Athir, Usd, IV, 207. I08

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canal he is digging in Urdunn, to know how much still hadto be excavated there’. The ‘Mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai’ speak of‘. . . a great king who will rule for nineteen years [undoubtedly ‘Abd al-Malik] . . . who willplantorchardsandrebuildruined cities [thecoastal towns mentionedabove]andwilldigditchesforwaterwaystoirrigate his plantations’, and further, ‘another king will make way for the water of the Jordan and bring workers from afar to dig and make conduits for the water of the Jordan and irrigate the land and the earth they have dug will fall upon themand kill them; and their chiefs, when they heardof it,will come . . .’ Walid was indeed killed by Yazid, who to the king and kill him became caliph in his stead. The reason given by the midrash for Walid’s murder is interesting - suggesting that it was due to the catastrophe that occurred during the digging. As Braslavi has shown, it is possible that there is a hint ofthis inYazid’s sermon after he became caliph, in which he promised that he would be thrifty with thestate’s money and refrainfrom waste and disparity in the distributionof allowances to the tribes; he also pledged not to continue with building projects or the digging of canals.32 [120] That the Umayyads were responsiblefortherenovationand improvement of theroads in Palestineone can see from somemilestones that have been discovered to date which bear the name of Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik. T w o were found in the neighbourhood of Abii Ghosh and Bab al-Wad; on onethe distanceof seven miles from Jerusalem was inscribed, and on the other, eight miles. A third stone, discovered in Koziba in the Judaean hills, indicated the distance from Damascus (although only the number 100 was preserved). The stones are of white marble, 39 x 57 centimetres. A fourth stonewas found in theSea of Galilee, near Semah, and it commemorates the paving of the roadpass in ofthe Afeq, in the days of ‘Abdal-Malik,underthesupervision of Yahy5 b.al-Hakam(the caliph’s uncle, brother of Marwan).33 [121] During the reign of the Umayyads, the Muslims began to mint 32

33

Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 1803, 1834;Ibn al-Athir, K i n d , V, 292;Jellinek, Bet ha-midrib, 111, 79, see Graetz (Hebrew), 111, 436; Steinschneider, Z D M G , 28(1874), 638; Graetz and Steinschneider did not know the passage in Tabari. The connection between whatis said in the ‘Mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai’ and the passage in Tabari was first noted by Braslavi: Braslavski,]POS, 13:97, 1933. See the Hebrewversion: Braslavi, Le-heqer, 53ff; contrary to Braslavi’s opinion (following Graetz), there is nothing in the ‘Mysteries’ that can serve as proof for the time of its writer, for all those details could havebeen found in the Arabic chronicles; the bitterness against Walid was not necessarily born out of the caving-in of the trench, as Braslavi believed, but was caused by his policy towards the tribes and his prodigality on building projects; and not as Braslavi would have it, the nesi’ftn in the ‘Mysteries’ were not the Umayyad leaders but the heads of the Yamani (Kalb) tribes which joinedYazid in his war against Walid. See Lagrange, RB, 3:136,1894 on the stone marking eight miles from Jerusalem; he proves that the Arabic mile was 2,500 metres long (3,000 cubits) and similarly in Samhiidi, 11,358, and this is missing in Hinz, Masse, 63. See also Lagrange, RB, 6:104, 1897, and the

ISLAM S T R I K E S R O O T S

their own coins, which replaced the Persian and Byzantine coins which had been used until that time. According to the informationon this in Ibn al-Athir, the mintage of coins began in the year A H 76, or AD 695. Previously the Muslims exported papyrus from Egypt which was exchanged for dinars from the Byzantines. The papyrus would be stamped with a cross and Christian sayings for the Byzantines, but later they began to be imprinted with Muslim versions. The Byzantine emperor threatened that if they would continue to dothis, the Byzantines would mint coins stamped withinsults to Muhammad.It was at this point that the Muslims began to mint their own coins, at first in Iraq (Wasit), at a mint whose operation was committed byal-HajZj ibn YGsuf to aJew named Sumayr. The finds of coins indicate that there was an intensive production of coins in Palestine in the followingplaces: Jerusalem, Bet Guvrin, Ramla, Ascalon, ‘Amman, Gaza, Lod,Yavne,Tiberias, Bet Shean,Sepphoris,and Tyre. Some of these mints were already in existence during the Byzantine era, and it appears that they were again in use during the days of the Damascene caliphs after ‘Abdal-Malik. The inscriptions on the coins were Iliya Filastin, ‘Asqal5n Filastin, and the like. From the mint ofBet Shean, coins were found withGreek inscriptions, but appearto have been gradually replaced by Arabic. There were among those coins from Bet Shean some with the Greek inscription ‘Skythopolis’ together with the Arabic, ‘Baysan’, or ‘ B a y ~ a n ’ . ~ ~ The administrative division

[ 1221The administrative division ofPalestine was determinedgeneral in terms immediately after the conquest and it was developed during the Umayyad period. By and large, this division followed along thelines that existed in the days of the Romans and the Byzantines. During the Byzantine era, Palestine was divided into three parts: Pulaertina prima, Palaestina s e c t d a , Palaestinaterfia. These are explicitly mentioned in an imperial order of 23 March 409, included in the Theodosian Code. The first part

34

inscription on the stonesaying: ‘the building of this road was ordered byamir ai-mu’minin ‘Abd al-Malik, of blessed memory; from Iliyi tothis mile there are eight miles’. See there also on the stone from the monastery of Koziba. See Vincent, RB, 12:271, 1903, on the stone marking seven miles from Jerusalem; see also Rippertoire d’ipigraphie arabe, nos. 15, 17; Van Berchem, M I € , 3(1900), 418f. O n the stone in the Sea of Galilee see: Sharon, BSOAS, 29:367, 1966; Sharon finds here proof that theroad from Damascusto Jerusalem passed to the south of the Sea of Galilee. Cf. also Bjorkman, Der Islam, 15(1926), 97: the Crusaders used all the milestones they could find, for their buildings. See Ibn al-Athir, Kimil, IV, 416; Ibn Taghri Bardi, I, 177; Walker, Catafog~re(1956), I, xviiif, Ixxiii-lxxvi; Ixxixf, 22, 23f; 11, lxviii; If, 203, 205, 240, 266; see also a coin from Ascalon from the time of the Umayyads: Stickel, Z D M G , 39(1885), 40; 40(1886), 81; and coins from Tiberiasand Gaza, evidently from the timeof Walid: Monete crrjche (Museo di Milano), 37, and see also Nassar, QDAP, 13:121, 1948. I IO

T H E A D M I N I S T R A T I V E D I V I S I O N [122-1351

included the coastal area, Judaea and Samaria, and its capital under the Byzantines wasCaesarea. This sectorwas calledjund Filastin shortly after the Muslim conquest and its capital undecided until Ramla was built. The second sector contained upper and lowerGalilee, and the western part of Peraea (the land stretchingeast of the Sea of Galilee); this would shortlybe called jund Urdunnafter the conquest, and capital its was transferred from Bet Shean to Tiberias. The third sector, which included areas of Edomand Moab (Palaestina Salutaris, Arabia Petraea) and the entire‘Ariivi, no longer existed as a separate region and was partly absorbed into the jundFilastin and partly into the jund Dimashq. Jund Filastin covered the stretch from Rafiah (Rafah) to Megiddo (or Lajjun; theByzantineshad called it Maximianopolis), and from Jaffa (Yafa) to Jericho (Riha, or Ariha). According to some sources, Bet Shean also belonged to jund Filastin. Jund Urdunn included the Jordan valley (which is the g h a w r ) along its entire length, to Eilat in the south and up until Bet Shean in thenorth (somesay: including Bet Shean), thatis to say, also So‘ar and Jericho, also including the Galilee, northern Samaria, the entire area of theSea of Galilee and part of coast the from ‘Atlit northward, Hijiz and Palestine was the including Acre andTyre. The border between place called Wadi’ 1-Quri, ‘valley of the villages’. The Muslim sources emphasise the point that the Jews were not evicted from there when ‘Umar ibnal-Khattiib evicted all the Jews from the Hijaz, as this valley was part of al-Sham and not Hijiz. In the ninth century, jund Filastin included the districts( k u w a r ; singular: ktrra) of Ramla, Jerusalem (iliya), ‘Imwas, Lod, Yavne, Jaffa, Caesarea, Nabulus(Shechem), Samaria (Sebastia), Bet Guvrin(BaytJibrin; in the days of the Byzantines - Eleutheropolis), the Dead Sea (Bahr Ljut), Ascalon, and Gaza. In the eleventh century,we find that thechief administrator of Muslim rule, the governor, was still stationed in Ramla, which was the capital of Filastin, while Jerusalem was under one of his subordinates;theGaonSolomonben Judah refers tohim (at theendof 1042) as ‘the governor in the holy city’, whereas he uses the following formula when writing about the governor of Filastin: ‘. . . and over all, the great governor in Ramla’. Daniel ben Azariah mentions (ca. 1055) ‘the al-qis+z [the chief, the commander] who is in Jerusalem’ (perhaps he meantthecadi). The district, kl?ra, was dividedintosub-districts, which were called iqliin (pl.: i q d l m ) . One should take note that these terms were a direct heritage from the Byzantine administration, as the papyri found in the excavations of Nessana go to prove, for in them we find r u i n k i r a ghnzza min iqlim al-khalus as against klimatos ElousZs khoras Gazes.

As tojundUrdunn,

itincludedthefollowingdistricts:Tiberias, I11

ISLAM S T R I K E S ROOTS

Samaria, (Simira - one part of Samaria; the other part,Sebastia, belonged to jund Filastin, as aforementioned), Bet Shean, Fihl, Bayt Ra’s, Gader (Jadar),Avel, (Abil), Siisita (Susiya), Sepphoris (Safuriyya),Acre, Qedesh Naphtali (Qadas), and Tyre.35 [123] As one can see from these lists, the Arabsapplied their own names to places in Palestine, some of which weregenuinely Arabic but most of which were born out of different pronunciations of the original names. Palestine was part of al-Sham. Muqaddasi speaks of iqllm al-Shim. The term undoubtedly originated in Hij,z, and referred to the large area that stretched to the north of the Arabian peninsula. Sometimeswe find expressions of the fact that in al-Shim there were actually two different units, Syria and Palestine, and then the dual Shiman is used. Salmon ben 35

Codex Theodos., VII-4, 30; there is a clear reminder of the Byzantine heritage in the expressions al-shim al-Sli (the first), al-shim al-thiniya (the second), that is, jund Filastin and jund Urdunn, as explained by Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, VI, 251. He adds that Bet Shean is between the two. See Ibn Khurdidhbih, 78C Ya‘qiibi, Buldin, 327C Ibn Hawqal, 168fC IStakhri, 55fc Muqaddasi, Aqilirn, 154f, 186; Ibn al-Faqih, 103, 116. cf. Abel, G i o g r . , 11, 171-178;Le Strange, Palestine, 28-35; Grohmann, HirbetMird, XLIIIff.See also Ibn Shaddid, Barq, 107a; Mas‘hdi, Muriij, 11, 395: the border of Filasyin starts at the place known by the name ‘al-Shajara’ (the tree), which is the tip of the land of Egypt and the border between it and al-Shim, and is a well-knownplace between al-‘Arish and Rafah; cf. Ibn Taghri Bard?, 37: the southern border of Filastin - two trees between Rafah and al-‘Arish; ibid., 57: Egypt begins atEilat (written in the fifteenth century). One must remember that many of the Arab chroniclers lived far from Palestine and were not always precise; thus forinstance Ibn Sa‘d tells:I(l), 21, about Abraham who settled in Beersheba, which isSab‘, a place between Jerusalem and Filastin. Possibly in saying Filastin, he intended Ramla,as is also noted by Nisir Khusraw, 19 (text), 65 (translation): the town of Ramla is called Filastin, both in al-Shim and in the Maghrib (and vice-versa, one can assume that not infrequently when meaning jund Filastin, they said Ramla). Widi’l-Qura, see for instance: Balidhuri, Futuh, 34; Samhiidi, 11, 388f-389. Solomon b. Judah: 132, 11.12-14; Daniel b. Azariah: 357, b, 1. 21. See: Nessana, No. 60, lines 2-3 of the Arabic part (p. 180), of the year 674 (October-November); No. 61, lines 2-4 (p. 182) of the year 675 (August); No.62, lines 2-4 (p. 184), of the year 675 (October). At a later period, the term iqlim was used, meaning a much widergeographical area and instead of the termjund one used sarutik see for instance: Maqdisi, Bad’, IV, 73,: Jerusalem is in the smui~dof Ramla.As to Bayt Ra’s, in Gilead, it is Beyt Reyshi, i.e. Kapitolias (see Avi-Yonah, Ge’6grijju hislGrit [Hebrew], 161); Gider, see ibid., l59f; Avd, ibid., 157f, and see the mapibid. facing p. 150. Yiqiit, Buldin, I, 776,in the entry Bayt Ra’s,says it is the name of a villagein Bnyt al-maqdis, by which he may have meant either Jerusalemor Palestine. And he continues ‘and some say it is a district (kuru) in Urdunn’. Thelatter is undoubtedly correct, and one should not deduce from him that there was at some time a village by this name near Jerusalem. I t is worth mentioning in particular some border regions described by the Muslim geographers and which are part of what hasbeen assembled by Le Strange, Palestine on pp.30-35: the ‘Jifar’ isthe area ofnorthern Sinai, from lake Tinnis in the Delta, to the border of Palestine; the ‘Ghawr’,its main city was Jericho, is the area of ‘the people of Lot’ and the DeadSea, being thevalley which starts from the Sea of Galilee southward, and as we have seen, part of it belonged to jundFilastin and another part (from Bet Shean northward) to Urdunn; ‘al-Hula’ is according to Yiqiit the region between Tyre and Biniyis; ‘al-Balqi’, is the region of Ammon and its main city, ‘Amman;‘al-Sharih’, is the region of Moab, and its main city Adhriih. So‘ar (Zughar, Zoar) was considered the border of the Sharih, which stretched between Moab (Ma’ib) and Zoar, see Bakri, 699. II2

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Yeruhim explains in his commentary on Ps., xlviii:2 (Beautiful for situation [niifl, the joy ofthe whole earth,is mount Zion, on thesides of the north): Zion is on the sides of the north, thatis to say northward (shim) from NGf (or Memphis, which is in Egypt) since inhis words, from Egypt one goes to al-Shiim, northward, for Palestine (balad bayt al-maqdis) is to the north of Egypt.36 [124] It is already clear from the foregoingdiscussion that by thename Filastin the Muslims meant only a part of Palestine.The nameis naturally not an Arab one,but a distortion of the name of the country in Greek and Latin. To the ancient writersit was obvious that this name was taken from that of the Philistines, who were the inhabitants of the coastal strip in Biblical times. As they were ethnicallyclose to theGreeks, the Philistines were well-known to them, unlike the Israelites,who lived in the interior. Epiphanius, one of the writers of early the Church (whodied in May402) could explain that: ‘the seed of Abraham is widespread in the land of Canaan, that is, in the Jewish land [Ioudaia] and in the land of the Philistines [Philistiaia], that which is now called Palaistine’. Also among the Jews there was the awareness thatFilastin is none other than that‘land of the Philistines’, and sometimes we find this expression, land of thePhilistines, in letters from the Geniza, in the eleventh century AD, when the writer is referring to jund Filastin. An Arabic translation of the Bible renders Gen., xxvi:15: For all the wells . . . the Philistines had stopped them: ‘Sadhi al-filastiiniyiin’. A Samaritan chronicle, in speaking of the 36

Muqaddasi, & d i m , 151E one says al-Shim because it is the beauty spot (rhZma) of the ka‘ba; some say because those who go there turn left (that is, going from Hijiz, facing eastward) - tashi’um; some say because of the spots(shimit) on its earth: red, white and black. The Iraqis call al-Shim everything beyond the Euphrates. al-Faqih, Ibn 92: al-Shiim is the region betweenKiifa and Ramla, and between Bilis (a city on the Euphrates,see: Le Strange, Lands, 107) and Eilat. Badri, 13ff, quotes a series of explanations for the name, and among them thatit was the name of one of the sons of Canaan. Mas‘iidi, Muriij, 111, 139fE becauseit is to theleft of theka‘ba; some sayit is because ofits bad luck (shtim), etc. Some say: after Shem, the son of Noah. See Dimashqi, 192: after Shem, the son of Noah, is calledSim); Sijistini,Gharib (MS India Office), la. 11 as the sin became shin (in Arabic he ShZmin, see for instance: Sib! ibn al-Jawzi, Mir’ih (MS BM O r 4619), 189b; Jawiliqi, Kha@’, 146, emphasises that the spelling is al-Shim, without a hamza, the alifbeing a mater lectionis. See SalmonbenYeruhim, Commentary on Psalms, ad locum; cf, K i t i b al-sab‘in laf~a, ed. Allony, Goldziher Memorial Volume, 11, 27: ‘beautiful for situation the joy ofthe whole earth . . .’ (i.e., that Palestine is [like] the most beautiful boughs of atree in the world); the‘Ariiklr,VIII, 97b, referring to the expressionBT, in Men. 33b:pitl.t~shima’~ (a kind of door that is exempt from themeziizi: according to Rabba):‘in Arabic, one says balad al-Shiim, which is the Land ofIsrael’; cf. Osar ha-ge’6nim to Erubin, p. 86. From this and from many other places, it is clearthat among the Jews the most common meaning of al-Sh5m wasPalestine. Cf. Bacher, JQR, 8:564,190516; Vilnay, Zion, 5(1940),75; Goitein, Leshonenu, 30(1965/6), 211. And see TS AS 161.69, a fragment from an Arabic commentary on the Talmud, line 6: al-talmiid nl-shimi, that is, the PalestinianTalmud; and against this, line 9: f;talmudna - in our Talmud- that is, the Babylonian.

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Muslim conquest, says that ‘the Ishmaelites came and captured the land of the philistine^'.^^ [125] As to Jerusalem, we find that its ancient name among the Arabs in -the period preceding Islam and also in the first generations of Islam, was the city after Iliya. This name undoubtedly came from the Roman of name the rebellion of Bar Kokhba, beingcalled after Hadrian:Aelia Capitolina. It seems that the Arabs began to use the name iliyiat a very early period. Under later Byzantine rule we do not find it in Greek sources. Theophanes, who wrote atthebeginning oftheninthcentury, does not mention this nameat all, whereas Muslim writers were still using it in the tenth century. Indeed, Muslim writers tried to interpret the name in many ways, such as that it derived fromElijah (Ilyas), or that its meaning was ‘the house of God’; or that it was the name of the woman who built Jerusalem. But there were those who knew that it was the name of a Romanemperor.Sometime aftertheconquest, also the name Bayt al-Maqdis began to come into use, a name which could be taken for a shorter versionof Madinat Bayt al-Maqdis, city of thetemple. Only later, principally starting from the eleventh century, do we find that the name al-Quds was inuse, supplanting all the other names. It was at that time that the claims were first heard that it was forbidden to use the name iliyi,as it was a heathen name. Other names were .also known to Arab writers: Yeriishalayim,Urshalim,Shalem,and Zionor Sahyiin,whichBakri emphasises should be written Sihyiin. The term bayt al-rnaqdis became open to various other meanings. Sometimes it meant the Temple Mount and sometimes (in mostcases) the city ofJerusalem, but at timesalso the whole ofPalestine. The Karaite Sahib. Masliah evidently means Palestine when he says inhis letter to Jacob b. Samuel: ‘Know that I came from the beyt ha-rniqdcish to warn’. Ibn ‘Asikir says of ‘Ubidab. al-Samit: ‘he died in bayt al-rnaqdis in Ramla’.38 Muslim personalities in the Umayyad period

[126] We can now examine more closely the figures who actually held the reins of government in Palestine in the political field, that is the 3’ 38

Epiphanius, MPG, 41, 209; see the fragment of the Arabic translation: TS AS 70.1 19;the Samaritan chronicle: Adler et Seligsohn, RE], 45(1902), 241. Mas‘iidi, T a n b h , 128: after the nameofIliy5 Adhriyiniis,and this is what itis called to this day; in Murtsj, 11, 305 he points out that the city was built by Antoninu? (in the printed version: Abtiilis) and itis he who first called it Iliy5. Bakri, 217, 235,844: Iliy5 = the house in Syriac (the languageof Adam) of God;so also Suhayli, Tu?$ lob; KhaEiji, 11,293: Iliyii means the houseof God;Abii’l-Fid5’, Mukhtasor (following al-Muhallabi): Jerusalem was rebuilt gradually after Titus destroyed it-and called it Iliyii, which means: House of the Lord. Wisiti, 21: it is forbidden to say Iliy5, only Bayt al-maqdis (in the name of Ka‘b al-Ahbar), and see in the notes2 and 4 on p. 22, additional references listed by the editor.

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administration and the army (though it is generally difficult to differentiate between them), in the legal arena and in the religious and spiritual spheres. In the first rank, we find the caliph’s families. Naturally, the Umayya clan, both the Sufyiinids (Mu‘iiwiya’s branch) and the Marwanids (the branch of Marwin ibnal-Hakam and of his son ‘Abd al-Malik), preferred their brothers and sons to others and entrusted to them the governing of Palestine. Themoststriking case, whichwe came across duringthe discussion on thebuildingofRamla,wasthatof Sulaymiin b.‘Abd al-Malik, who even before he became caliph was already governor of Palestine, at firston behalf of his father ‘Abd al-Malik and afterwards on behalf of his brother al-Walid. Similarly, we find ‘Abd al-Malik’s grandsons occupying positions in Palestine and involved in the wars of the tribes in 744-745. The last Umayyad caliph, Marwan, also appointed his relative al-Wahd b. Mu‘awiya b.Marwan as governor to jund Urdunn,accordin ance with thetribes’ wisheshowever. ‘Abd al-Malik himself appointedhis brother, Abii ‘Uthman Abdn as governor ofjund Urdunn (at the same time as he appointedhis own son Sulayman to govern Filastin). jund ‘Abd al-Malik’s son, al-Walid, left his brother Sulayman inhis position injund Filastin, and appointedhis own son, ‘Umar, to govern over jund Urdunn. In the former branch of the Umayyad dynastyas well, the Sufyinids, we find Caliph Yazid b. Mu‘iiwiya appointing his son Khalid to govern the two junds ofFilastin and U r d ~ n n . ~ ~ [127-1301 Apart from the members of the caliph’s families, the sources

39

See also: Ibn al-Faqih, 96, who adds that it is the name of the woman who built Bayt al-maqdis; Maqdisi, Bad’, IV, 87: Iliyi, thatis to say, al-Khidr (a figure in Muslim tradition identified with Elijah). Ibn ‘Asakir, I, 13, also knows that i_t is the name of a Roman emperor. Yiqiit, Buldiin, IV, 592: one must notcall Jerusalem Iliyi, because it is the name of the woman who built the city; one should say Bayt al-maqdis (in the name of Ka‘b al-Ahbir). Jawiliqi, Khatii’, 155: one should writean a l i f ( h a m z a ) at the end of the word: Iliyi’; and he quotes for this purpose a verse by al-Farazdaq. Zarkashi, A‘liirn, 277f, has a lengthy discussion on the names of Jerusalem, and adds: Bayt al-quds, Urshalim. and other strange names which are evidently distortions of distortions, such as Bibiish, evidently Yibiis (=Jebus) in the original. See Sahl b. Masliah, in Pinsker, LiqqUy2 qadrnoniyot,11, 30. Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 110, also uses the term al-Quds for Palestine when, in the name ofKa‘b al-Ahbir, he says that thebest part of God’s world is al-Sham, and the best part of al-Shim is al-Quds. and the best partof al-Quds is the mountain of Nibulus;see examples of the use of ‘Bayt al-maqdis’, or ‘Bet hamiqdish’, in the sense ofJerusalem or Palestine, in Assaf, Meqordr,4Of, n. 53. For names of Jerusalem see Goitein’s article, Zlotrrik Jrrbilee Volume, 63; see on the matter of Arabic names for placesinPalestine: Vilnay, Zion, 5: 73, 1940. O n ‘Ubida ibn Simit, see Ibn ‘Asakir, VII, 208. Khalifa ibnKhayyat, 11. 394,417 (onthegovernorsof‘Abd al-Malik andWalid); Balidhuri, Ansiib, IV(B), 65. O n Abin b. Marwin, see also: Ibn Qutayba. Mo‘iirif, 354. See: Shaban, Zrlarnic History, 1 l5fC who deals with this policy in appointing governors, particularly with referenceto the Marwini branch. These Umayyads who were appointed governors were mostly under theaegis of al-Haijij ibn Yiisuf and his favourites, and the offices which they held served those who eventually became caliphs as anexcellent school for their future careers.

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mention otherswho filled governing roles in Palestine. These weregenerally heads of tribes who took part in the conquest, or who lived (or had settled) inPalestine. It seems that the first of those mentioned was a certain ‘Ubayd, who was the governor of Jerusalem on behalf of ‘Umar, and occupied this position when the plague of ‘Imwas was raging (639).‘+O Evidently he was put in chargeof what was afterwards jund Filastin. The man responsible for governing jund Urdunn was apparently residing in Bet Shean in the period immediately after the conquest. To this post, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab appointed Abii’l-Harr HuSayn b. Malik ibn alKhushkhash Abii’l-QaliiS, a man of the Banii Tamim, from the ‘Anbar clan. He seems to have maintained this position for forty years4’ Another governor placed in office in jund Filastin by ‘Umarwas ‘Uwaymir b. Sa‘d, a Medinan of the Banii Aws, of the clan of ‘Amr b. ‘Awf. He settled in Palestine and died there. ‘Uwaymir was one of themostimportant Muslim commanders during the warsconquest. of Most sources mention that he governed the junds Him? and Qinnasrin (northern Syria). One source stresses’his decent behaviour towards the dhimmis: on seeing a group of dhimmisbeing taken into custody for notpaying the khariij, he ordered them to be freed.42 In the daysof Caliph ‘Uthmin, ‘Alqama b. Hakim, of the Banii Kiniina, governed jund Filastin. While in Urdunn, Abii’l-A‘war ‘Amr b. Sufyan, of theBanii Sulaym, aclan of theQays ‘Aylan, was in charge. Responsible for the remainderofjund Filastin, after the deposalof Khilid ibn al-Walid, was ‘Alqama b. Mujazziz (or Muharriz), who was one of the highest commanders during theconquest. ‘Umar appointed him governor of Jerusalem and also responsible for half ofjund Filastin, while ‘Alqama b. Hakim was in charge of the other half and was stationed inRamla (which had not yet been founded; the intention may possibly be Lod). ‘Alqamab. al-Mujazziz came of the Banii Murra, and they too were a branch of the Banu Kinina. 43 [131-1331 The next governor ofjundFilastin was Maslama b. Makhlad. 4o 41

42

43

Ulaymi, 253. Ibn ‘Asikir, IV, 371; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 81; Ibn Hazm,jamhara, 209, calls him Husayn b. al-Harr and mentions that hewas governor ofMeyshan (Maysin) for fortyyears, and one can easily seethat this is a mistakeand that itis Bet Shean which is being spoken of, and not Meyshan, which is in Iraq. See Ibn Hazm,Jarnhara, 334; perhaps Baliidhuri was referring to him in Ansib, IV(A), 137, when speaking of the Ansiri (that is, one of the first Muslims in Medina) ‘Amrb. Sa‘id, whom Mu‘iwiya appointed governor ofjund Filastin. See also:Ibn al-Athir, Usd, IV, 144f (called also ‘Umayr); Sahmi,86. Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2526, 2866, 3058; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, 11, 501, 535; Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 545; Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibar, 11, 949; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 36, 44. see ibid., 11, 154 (‘Alqama b. Muharriz). Ibn al-Athir, Usd, IV, 14, quotes thelineage of ‘Alqama b. al-Mujazziz and the tradition that hewas killed in a campaignagainst the Ethiopiansorganised by ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib. I 16

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(Nasr b. Muzahim speaks ofahl FilastFn; by ah2 he andother writers always mean the tribes. The governor was appointed primarily to stand at the head of thetribes, which implicitly meant at the headof the army stationed in the area and in this way, was in fact, the ruler of the place.) This appointment was apparently connected mainly with the organisation of the tribes in Palestine during the war against ‘Ali, when these tribes and theirleaders stood staunchlyby M u ‘ a ~ i y a Afterwards, .~~ in the year AH 38, or AD 658/9, Mu‘awiya appointed Shumayr al-Khath‘ami as governor of jund Filastin, while in jund Urdunn, he left the aforementioned Abii’l-A‘war, that is ‘Amr ibnSufyan al-Sulami, in the position he occupied.45The local governor in Jerusalem during Mu‘awiya’s time was Salama (or Salma) b. QaySar, andit is said that his descendants continued to live in Jerusalem.& [134-1371 In 682, during Yazid b. Mu‘iiwiya’s reign, before the campaign against Medina (the battle of al-Harra), the caliph appointed Tarif b. Hibis, known by the nickname Ibn Khushkhssh al-Hilali, to stand at the head of the tribes ofjund Fila~tin.~’ At about the same time, in 683-684, a governor is mentioned in the papyri of Nessana by the name of Abii Ri~hid.~ Coming * originally from Palestine, Sa‘id b. Yazid of the Banii Azd, began to govern Egypt in 682. It was said that he was not very effective there and that ‘Abdallah ibn Zubayr removed him from his post in less than two years.49 Afterwards, in the days of ‘Abd al-Malik, we come across a position that is generally not mentioned, sahib al-Balqa’, which means the governor of Balqa’, southern Trans-Jordan. This may possibly indicatenot onlyan administrative division in geographical terms is not clear to us. That but also the formation ofa local tribal grouping that governor was ‘Umar b. Muhammad, of the Banu Thaqif, who was an uncle of al-HajZj b. Yii~uf.~O 44

45

4 47

48 49

Nasr b. Muzihim,206; Khalifa ibn Hayyzt,I, 222. According to Ibn Abi’l-Hadid,I, 649, it was ‘Ah who appointed Maslama b. Makhlad, and not Mu‘iwiya. Dinawari, 172: Maslama b. Kh5lid. It is likely that this Maslama b. Makhlad is the same as Meslem, the governor mentioned in the papyri of Nessana, between 682-689 (see: Nessana, 33,170, line 10: Meslem despotos). But perhaps that governoris Muslim b. ‘Uqba. Ibn Hazm,Jarnhara, 435: he wasone ofMu‘iwiya’sretainers, and wasa descendant of the familyofHimyar b. Sabi, that is, from Yaman (from those who claim descent from Qahtin). The Banii Khath‘am clan, a southern tribe, see Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 224. Ibn al-A‘war was from the Banii Sulaym, a clan of the Qays ‘Aylin, see Ibn Hazm, Jarnhara, 264; Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 226. Ibn al-Athir, Usd, 11, 326; Maqdisi, Muthir (Khilidi), 34. Ibn ‘Asikir, Ta’rikh, VII, 57. From the Ban5 Khushkhish we later on find Khilid b. Yazid, who was cadi in Trans-Jordan (in BalqH’), see: Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 111, 125f. Nessana, 33. Ibn Taghri Bardi, I, 157; cf. Lane-Poole, History, 46. Akhbiir al-dawla al-‘abbasiyya, 156; cf. Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 118. Khalifa ibn Khayyit, 11, 394, turns things around and calls him: Muhammad b. ‘Umar.

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[13&139] The leaders of the Ban6 Judham also governed in Palestine at that time. These were Nitil b. Qays and Rawh b. Zinba‘ andhis sons, who have already been mentioned in describing the political and military events of the time. In the days of Marwin b. Muhammad, the last Umayyad caliph, the names of the following governors of Palestine appointed by him are mentioned: al-Rumahis b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz of the Banii K i n h a , in jund Filastin; Tha‘laba ibn Salama,of the B a n i ‘Amila, injund Urdunn. They later fled together with the caliph when the Abbasid army pursued him.51 Al-Hakamb. Dib‘an b.Rawh, of theBanii Judham, remained head of the tribes of Filastin instead of al-Rumahis, but after a short time was also obliged to flee, to Ba‘labakk; where the people of the new regime caught him and had him put to death.52 [140] In addition to the people I have already mentioned and whom of it is explicitly told that they were appointedto governin Palestine and over the tribes living there, the names of somepersonalities who were involved in the political life of Palestine and who were active in various administrative positions are known to us. At the head of the Christian tribe Ghassan, one of the most important oftribes the in Palestine,stood Jabala b. al-Ayhamof theJafna clan.He fought on Byzantine the side in the battle of the Yarmiik. Afterwards, he requested that the tribe Sadaqa, pay like the rest of the tribes, but ‘Umar demanded that the tribe pay the poll-tax. Some say thatJabalaconverted to Islam, butafterwardsreturnedto Christianity and went with 30,000 his of tribesmen to join the Byzantines in Cappadocia, and there his descendants were known of for some generations. According to one version, Jabala went over to the Byzantines because Abii ‘Ubayda refusedto have a man executed or to have his hand cut off, for having slapped Jabala in the market-place of Damascus after Jabala’s horse had injuredhim.53 [141-1441 The first cadi of Palestine was Abii’l-Walid ‘Ubada b. alSamit. He was one of thefirst to turn toIslam in Medina, andtook part in the two meetings in ‘Aqaba and also in the battle at Badr. He belonged to the very respected clan of Banii Ghanm b. ‘Awf, of theKhazraj tribe. In ‘Aqaba, the Prophet made him naqib, or one of the Twelve. According to Ibn Sa‘d and many others, he died in Ramla in the year AH 34, or AD 654/5, at the age of seventy-two (once again we are faced with the Ramla problem, as it had not yet been built). Duringhis stay in Palestine, he quarrelled with Mu‘awiya (who was then commander of the army on behalf of‘Umar),for he thoughtthat Mu‘awiyawas not behaving j1

5: j3

Tabari, T a ’ r l k h , 111, 46. Tabari, ibid., 47; Ibn‘Asakir, IV, 393. Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 193, and see ibid., 11, 248; Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 161, 168; Ibn Qutayba, Ma‘irif; 107, 644; Ibn Hazm, Jarnhara. 372.

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honestly as the man in charge of al-Sham. He complained to ‘Umar, who after listeningto his complaints ordered him to return to al-Sham. At first he resided in Him? and afterwards moved to Palestine. It was said that It is noted that ‘Umar sent him toal-Sham to teach the Muslims the Koran. he was very tall, ten spans in height (m.2.40 metres).54 His son-in-law, Abii Muhammad (there are some who say he was Abii Nu‘aym Muhammad b. al-Rabi‘ b. Sursqa al-Madani), who was also of the Banii Khazraj and had settled in Jerusalem, died there in718 at the age of93.55 Another Jerusalemite was ‘Ubayda’s step-son, Abii Ubayy ‘Abdallah b. ‘Amr (who is perhapsthe‘Abdallahb. ‘Umar, oftheinscriptionin Khirbat Mafjar). His offspring were also known in Jerusalem for some generation^.^^ ‘Ubayda’s brother, Aws b. al-Siimit, who was also one of the veteransof Islam and participated in the battles alongside Prophet, the also settled in Jerusalem. Itis said that he died in Ramla(!) in 652.57 [145-1491 After ‘Ubada, the namehisofsuccessor to therank of being in charge of legal affairs in jund Filastin, thechief cadi, is known tous as ‘Abd al-Wahhab b. ‘Abdallah. He was a man of Quraysh, of a branch of the Banii Jumah, from the family of Mas‘iid b. Umayya. Helived in Palestine (it is not known where)and died there.58 Following him, the chief cadi in jund Filastin was ‘Abdallah b. Mawhib, from thetribes of Yaman; some say from the Hamadan and others say from Khawliin. He served in this position during the days of ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. Khazraji calls him amlv Fil~stln.~~ From Mu‘awiya’s time, the name of al-Mukhariq b. alHarith al-Zubaydi is mentioned; he was one of Mu’awiya’s most loyal followers. The clan of Zubaydwas affiliatedto theBanii Madhhij,a large tribe which was actually an alliance of tribes, who hailed from Yaman. One ofits important branches settled in Trans-Jordan after the conquest. 54

55 56

5’ 58

Ibn Sa‘d, I(1), 147; VII(2), 1336 Balidhuri, Ansib, I, 239, 251f (he also claims he died in Ramla);Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 2960; Muqaddasi, Muthir, 25c Ibn Hishim, 311: ‘Ubida participated inall the battlesof the Prophet. He was an allyof the Jews of Banii Qaynuqii‘, and after the hijra, he announced that the alliance was annulled and invalid. ofhim Because and‘Abdallah b. Ubayy, the order was‘handed down’ in the Koran forbidding the Muslims to makepacts with the Jews or the Christians (siirut ul-nisi?, iv:143). IbnQudima, 190: his graveis in Jerusalem and its site is known. Somesay he died in Ramla, and others Jerusalem. Ibn Habib, n/lt~ubbur,270; Ibn Qutayba, Mu‘irs 255; Ibn ’Asikir, VII, 208ff; Maw:&, Wusi’il, 244; Ibn Kathir,Bidiya IV, 4; Dhahabi, Siyuv, 11, 1; idem, Tu’vikh, 11, 118; Busti, 51 (No. 334); Ibn al-Athir, Usd, 111, 106f; Ibn Taghri Bardi, I, 93; Khazraji, 159: a hundred and eighty-one hadiths are told in his name which he heard from the Prophet, and he was oneofthose whoalready knew the Koran by heart in the Prophet’s day. Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, V, 11If; ‘Ulaymi, 253. Busti, 28 (No. 137); Khazraji, 317; Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IV, 52; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, X, 63. Ibn Sa‘d, III(2), 57; VII(2), 123. Nawawi, Talzdhib, I, 129f; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, I, 146: he lived in Jerusalem together with Shaddad b. Aws. Ibn Hazm, Jurnhuru, 160. Khazraji, 183; Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IV, 139; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, VI, 47.

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Mu‘iiwiya appointed Mukhiriq head of thetribesmen in jund Urdunn.60 At the same time he placed Shurayk (or Shurayt) at the head of the tribesmen in jund Filastin. T o the Banii Ghassiin, whose leader Jabala b. al-Ayham deserted to the Byzantines, as we have already seen, a new leader was appointed, Yazid(or Zayd)b. al-Harith. This tribe afterwards settled in Urdunn.61As I have already mentioned, the commander of the army whichYazid sent in682 to suppress the insurrection against his reign in Medina was one of theheads of the tribes in jund Filastin, Muslim b. ‘Uqba. Hecame from theBanii Murra, of theGhatafan tribe, andhe had 5,000 tribesmen from jund Filastin under his command headed by Rawh b. Zinbi‘, and 1,000 from Urdunn, headed by Hubaysh b. Dulja.62 [150-1521 In the days of ‘Abd al-Malik’s sons, we know the name of a client (mawli) of Sulaymiin, who is Abii ‘Ubayd al-Hijib. He was asort of privy councillor (probably similar to theByzantine cubicular) evidentlyof Jewish or Christian origin. Sulaymsn brought him from Palestine to Damascus when he became caliph. When ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz took over as caliph, he senthim back to Palestine, and there he died inca. 740. According to somesources, he wasknown as al-Madhhiji, that is, he was evidently a client of theBanii Madhhij,who lived in Palestine.The reason for his dismissal was that he was arrogant to the tribesmen(al-‘imma, the plebs, and certainly the tribes are meant).63 Another client of ‘Abd alMalik’s clan was Nu‘aym b. Salama, who acted as a sortof chief secretary (responsible for the&win al-khitim - ‘the officeof theseal’) of Maslama b. ‘Abd al-Malik, the commander of the Umayyad army in first the quarter of the eighth century AD; he also fulfilled this position under Caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. It was said of him thathe was a Palestinian by origin, a client of the Yaman tribes there.64We also know the identity of the man responsible for taxes (kharij) in jund Filastin under ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz; he wasAbii’l-Qasim‘Abdallah b.‘Awf,ofthe Banii Kiniina. He died around 730.(j5 60 61

62

63

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Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 270; Nasr b. Muzahim,206; Khalifa ibnKhayyit, I, 222; according to Dinawari, 172, he was the leaderof the Banii Quda‘a, which is incorrect. Nay- b. Muzahim, 207; KhalifaibnKhayyat, 222: Shurayt;Dinawari, 172: Zayd b. Harith. Ibn al-Kalbi, 127, and see ibid., 11, 437; Ya‘qiibi, Tu’rikh, 11, 298f; Ibn Habib, Muhubbur, 303; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, 111,294, points outthat in the year AH 37, which wasAD 657/8, that is twenty-five years earlier, Muslim b. ‘Uqba was appointed head of the infantry corps in Damascus. See the subject of the governor Meslem mentioned in the papyriof Nessana, above. Khalifa ibn Khayyat,I. 432. and ibid. the editor’s note: on the margin ofthe manuscript is it written that he was called Hay, and some say: Huyay, and some say: Hamid; Ab6 Zur‘a, 92 (MS); Ibn Habib, Muhubbur, 259; Khazraji, 383; Dhahabi, Tu’rlkh, V, 24; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, XI, 158. Tabari, Tu’rrkh, 11, 838; Khalifa ibn Khayyit, 11, 468. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IVY138. I20

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[153] A central figure during the reign of ‘Abd al-Malik and also during the reigns of other caliphs who succeeded him was Abii‘l-Miqdam (some say: Abfi Nasr) Raja’ ibn Hayawa. He first resided in Tiberias (some say: in Bet Shean) andfrom there seems to havemoved toJerusalem and then to Damascus,where he hadconsiderableinfluenceinthecourt ofthe Umayyads. In thedays of ‘Abd al-Malik hewasresponsibleforthe treasury. He earned quite a reputation for his knowledge of Muslim law. Raja’ was of theBanii Kinda and claimed descent from theclan of the heads ofthe tribe,Banii ‘Amr,fromwhichthefamous Imra’l-Qays also stemmed. He filled a central and decisive role in the appointment of ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz as caliph, since he was the chief adviser to ‘Umar’s predecessor, Sulaymiin, and persuadedhim toproclaim his cousin ‘Umar as his heir. In the days of Hishimb. ‘Abd al-Malik he was known by the title of ‘head of the tribes in jund Filastin’. I have already mentioned the role he played in the building of the Dome of the Rock. He also had considerable sway over ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, and it is possible that under his influence, ‘Umar introduced his innovations in the matter of taxes. Raja’ b. Hayawa earned unusual praise in the Muslim sources, itand appears that the reason for this is that the appointmentof ‘Umar ibn‘Abd al-‘Aziz as caliph (who was considered the only righteous one of the Damascene caliphs)is attributed to him.Raja’ died in theyear AH 112, or AD 730/1.66 [154-1571 In the year AH 119 (AD 737), the tribes ofjund Filastin are recalled as having participated in the campaign underAsad ibn ‘Abdallah against theTurks incentral Asia. At the head of the Palestinian tribes stood Mus‘ab ibn ‘Amr of the Banii K h ~ z a ‘ aDuring .~~ thesame period,we find another outstanding personality from the Banii Kinda,a position in simi-

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Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 238 and see ibid. 11, 484; Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 161f; Ibn Hazm,]umhuru, 429;Khalifa ibnKhayyit, 11, 504; Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 1341-1345; Khazraji, 99; Ibn Qutayba, Mu‘iirij 472; Ibn ‘Asikir, V, 312ff; Ibn al-Athir, Kiimil, V, 39ff, 172; Busti, 117 (No. 901); Ibn Kathir, Bidiiyu, IX, 304; Abii Zur‘a, 42 (MS); Nawawi,Tuhdkib, I, 190; Ibn Khallikin, 11, 301ff; Ibn al-Jawzi, $ifa, IV, 186f; Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IV, 261f; Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibur, 111, 161; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, 111, 266f: as to the name ofhis grandfather (thefather of Hayawa) it is said that he was called Jarwal, and somesay: Handal, but Ibn Hajar saw an exact writing ofhis name: Khanzal. See also:Caskel, Felsendom, 23 andsee also the article dedicated tohimbyBosworth, IQ, 16:36,1972; and ibid., theinformationfrom a manuscript that the origin of his family was from Mayshin inIraq, which according to Bosworth may indicate that his origin was from the Nabatis who spokeSyriac, or perhaps Persian, and that actually he was a client of the Kinda tribe. This is not even hinted at in the Arab sources. In the original seen by Bosworth, Mayshin is probably a distortion of Baysin (Bet Shean). Cf. also above, note 41. Bosworth also attributes to Raj5’ decisive influence on the decision of Sulaymin b. ‘Abd al-Malik to build Ramla, following the quarrel with the church about the parcel of la_ndin Lod (see above). See-also Shaban, T h e ‘Abbiisid Revolution, 76f. The son of Raji’, ‘ASim, is also mentioned. ‘ASim died around 770, see Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, VI, 86. Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 1609. I21

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lar to that of Raja’ b. Hayawa, namely A b i ‘Amr ‘Ubada b. Nussay; but whereas the formerwas active mainly injund Filastin (before transferring to Damascus), the latter was appointed by ‘Abd al-Malik chief cadi injund Urdunn, and in the daysof ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz he becamegovernor of the region.He resided in Tiberias andwas designated ‘head of the tribes of Urdunn’ (similar to the status of Raja’ b. Hayawa in jund Filastin). ‘Ubida died in AH 118 (AD 736).68 There werealso quite a number ofwell-known Muslim figures living in Jerusalem immediately after the conquest, or who came to settle there in succeeding generations, in the days of the Damascene caliphate. Among those whom the Muslim tradition links with Jerusalem we find Abii Yisuf ‘Abdallah b. Salam, a Jew of the B a n i Qaynuqa‘, who turned to Islam with the arrival of Muhammad Medina. in According to Wiqidi,he took part in the conquest ofJerusalem with ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib, and died in Medina in the year AH 43 (AD 663).69 Another Jew, Slzam ‘lit? (Simon), from the Bani Nadir, whois Zayd (or b. Zayd)the father of Rayhana (a a concubine after captive from among the Jews whom Muhammadas took he killed her husband, who was from the Banii Qurayza), settled in Jerusalem according to the Muslim tradition and preached sermons on the Temple Mount.7‘’ [15&161] Ab6 Ya‘la Shaddad b. Aws also settled in Jerusalem; he was the nephew of thepoet Hassan b. Thabit, who had been one of the retainers of the Prophet. His father, Aws b. Thabit,was a notable figure among the An$ir, the first Muslims in Medina. They were of theclan of the Banu al-Najir, the closest to Muhammad, which belonged to the Banii Khazraj. Shaddid died a t the age of ninety-five in Jerusalem in the year AH 58 (AD 678), towardsthe end of Mu‘awiya’s reign (but somesay that he died in the yearAH 64,AD 683/4). Of his offspring arementioned Ya‘li, who passed on ancient traditions in the name ofhis father; and also a daughter whose name was Khazraj, married to a man of the Bani Azd, with three sons,Muhammad, ‘Abd al-Wahhab and Mundhir. I have already mentioned that Shaddad’s house, which he built for himself in Jerusalem, collapsed in the earthquake of748. It is saidthat the building’s collapse buried many Muslims, including Shaddad’s sons, withthe exception of Muhammad, whosurvived but lost a leg. One should remember, however, that seventy years passed between Shaddad’s deathandthe h8

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Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 162; Khalifa ibn Khayyat, 11, 3636 Khazraji, 159; Ibn al-Athir, Kiimil, V, 199; Busti, 180 (No. 1428); Dhahabi, Ta’rikkh, IV, 261c Ibn ‘Asiikir, VII, 2146 Ibn Hajar, Tnhdhi6, V, 113. Muqaddasi, A4tltlzir, 23; Ibn ‘Asiikir, VII, 443; Nawawi, Tahdhi6, I, 270; Dhahabi, Siyar, 11, 296. Ibn Habib. Muhnhhar, 93f (his full name: Sham‘un b. Zayd b. KhunZfa); Balidhuri, A n s i b , I, 453f; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, 111, 4;cf. Goitein, Yenrsllnlayirn, 1953/4, 87f. I22

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earthquake; and one must therefore conclude that is probably it his grandsons or great-grandsons that are being spoken of rather than his s o n ~ . ~ ’ Among the Muslims who lived in Jerusalem during ‘Umar’s time we find Uways b. ‘Amir al-Qarani, of the Banii Madhhij, a Yamani tribe, who is described as one of the first righteous souls of Islam.72Another Jerusalemite was the adopted son of Ka‘b al-Ahbar (the son of his wife), Tubay‘ b. ‘Amiral-Himyari, that is to say that he stemmed from Himyar in Yemen.He died in720 in A l e ~ a n d r i aAnother .~~ Yemenitewho lived in Jerusalem was Ab6 ‘Abdallah Thawban b. Yamrud, who was one of Muhammad’s freedmen. It is said that he settled in Jerusalem by the Prophet’s own decree, in order that he beget heirs (however he did not succeed). He died in 674.74Among the founding fathers of Islam who settled in Palestine, mention should be made of Murra b. Ka’b al-Sulami al-Bahzi, who belonged to the Sahaba, of whom it is said that he settled first in Basra, moved afterwards to Palestine, and died in Urdunn in the year 677. He was said to have taken part in a convention of Muslim preachers which took place (evidently in Palestine) after the assassination of Caliph ‘Uthman and that he quoted praise of the murdered caliph, ascribed to the Prophet.75 [162-1681 One who was considered as having laid the cornerstone of Arab historiography, Abii Bakr Muhammad b. Muslim b. Shihab alZuhri (of theBanii Zuhra, a clan of Quraysh)lived in Palestine, and it is said that he had an estate in a place called Shi‘b Zubda (as in Ibn Kathir; according to Ibn Khallikan: ‘Adiimi or Adam?, a place situated behind Shighb and Bada, which two are valleys or twovillages between Hijaz and 71

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Ibn Sa‘d, III(2), 63, notes thefact that the offspring of Aws b.Thibit live in Jerusalem;and see ibid., VII(2), 124. See: Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), I, 186;11, 522; Balidhuri, Arzsib, I, 243f: he was aged seventy-five when he died.IbnQutayba. Ma‘irjf; 312; Ibn Qudiima, 54; Khazraji, 139; Ibn al-Athir, K i n d , IV, 174; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, VIII, 87c Ibn Hajar, Iriba, 111, 196; some say he died in AH 41 or 42 (AD 661,662);idem, Tuhdhib, IV, 315f: his grave is in Jerusalem; Ibn al-‘Imid, I, 64; Dhahabi, Ta’riklt, V, 39; idem,Siynr, 11, 328-333; Nawawi, Tahdhib, I, 242 noted that onecan see his grave until today (around 1250) before Bib al-Rahma. Ibn Sa‘d, VI, 111-1 15;on his stay inJerusalem see ‘Ulaymi, 253; see about him further: Ibn al-Athir, Usd, I, 151f. He was one of the followers of ‘Ali and was killed in Siffk. Abii’l-Hitim al-Rizi wrote about him in his book (in manuscript) Zuhd al-tkaminiya rnirz af-tibi‘in, see Sezgin, I, 179 (No. 7: about eight people whose sayings form the basis of Muslim mysticism. Cf. Sezgin, ibid., 632). See also Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), I, 271, 11, 580. Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, IV, 95. Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 140; Ibn Qutayba, Ma‘Zvif; 147, claims that Thawbin settledin Him?, and similarly Balidhuri, Ansib, I, 480; Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 1778: some say he lived in Him? and others in Ramla; Ibn ‘Asikir, 111,378ff:he lived in Ramla and hada house there, but died in Egypt; somesay he lived in Him:. Dhahabi, Siyar, 111, 11; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, I, 249: he had houses in Ramla, Him? and in Fustat; see also Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, V, 314. and there different opinions on his origin. O n Murra b. Ka‘b, see: Ibn al-Athir, Usd, IV, 351. Goldziher, ZDMG, 50(1896), 493. 123

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al-Shim; somesay: Nu‘f, in the same neighbourhood’). He was oneof the retainers of ‘Abd al-Malik and of his successors, especially of al-Walid. He died in AH 125 (AD 742) (but there are other versions) .76 ‘Abdallah b. Muhayriz,of theBanii Jumah, of Quraysh, was one of the important settlers in Jerusalem. He earned much praise forhis piety and his knowledge of the Koran. He participated in the battle against the Byzantines in707, under the command ofMaslama b. ‘Abd al-Malik, and died in AH 99 or AD718.77Two ofhiscontemporaries were brothers who settled in Jerusalem: Abii Nasr Ziyidand ‘Uthmin, the sonsof Abii Sawda.They were originally Palestinians and it is said that their father was a mawla, a client of ‘Abdallahibn ‘Umar(‘Umarthe caliph), butsomesay,of ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Amr ibnal-‘As. Their mother was a mawhh of ‘Ubida b. al-Simit.78 ‘A@’b. Abii Muslim (who is ‘Abdallah, and some say MaySara), was a man of KhurisZn who settled in Jerusalem. His father wasa mawla of al-Muhallab. According to al-Khatib al-Baghdidi, he was from Jurjin (to thesoutheast of theCaspian Sea).He died at the ageof eighty in AH 135 (AD 752/3), in Jericho, and was brought to Jerusalem to be buried. He was a learned man andmany traditions ascribed to the Prophet are quoted in his name, taken from contemporaries of the Prophet.79 Ibrahim b. Abii ‘Abla (who is Shamir b. Yaqzin al-‘Uqayli, evidently from theclan of ‘Uqaylb. Ka‘b of theBanii Kilib, of the tribal federation of ‘Amirb. Sa‘sa‘a) was a poet. He lived in Jerusalemduring theAbbasid revolution and died inAH 151 (AD 768).80 The governor of Ramla during the days of ‘Umar ibn al-‘Aziz ‘Abd was Abii’l-Yaman Bashir b. ‘Aqrabaal-Juhani, that is of theclan ofJuhayna, of the BaniiQudi‘a.81In the middle of the eighth century, Abii Zur‘a Yahya b. Abii ‘Amr al-Saybini, of the clan of Sayban (who originated from Himyar inYemen) lived in Ramla.He was a cousin of thecadi al-Awzi‘i; 76

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Ibn Kathir,Bidciyu, IX, 340-348; Ibn Khallikiin, IV, 177ff. See further: IbnSa‘d, II(2), 135f; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 20, and seeibid., 11,424; Ibn Hazm,Jumhuru, 130: he died in Shaghba near Badii; Yiiqiit, Buldcirz, 111, 302: Shaghb; Abii Nu‘aym, Hilyu, 111, 360-381; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, IX, 445f; and cf. the article al-Zuhri (by J. Horovitz),in EP; Sezgin, I, 280ff, and more references in these two places. See also Duri, B S O A S , 19:1, 1957. Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 1192; Ibn Hazm,]umhura, 162; Ibnal-‘Imiid, I, 116; Khazraji,181; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, IV, 531; Dhahabi, ‘Ibur, I, 117; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, VI, 22f. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IV, 251; Busti, 117 (No. 903); Khazraji, 106; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, 111, 373f; ‘Ulaymi, 254f. Dhahabi, To’rikk, V, 279; Khazraji, 126; al-Khatib al-Baghdiidi, MUdi!t, I, 156; Nawawi, Tuhdhib, I, 334f; Sulami, Turghib, 9; Abu Zur‘a, 44 (MS); Ibnal-‘Imiid, I, 192c Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, VII, 212ff: from Balkh in Khurisin; Ibn al-Athir, Ltrbib, I, 351. Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, I, 142f; ‘Ulaymi, 257; he is possibly the author of Kit& al-NuwZdir attributed toAbii Shanbal al-‘Uqayli, mentionedby Sezgin, 11, 86, No. 9. Ibn Hajar calls him: al-Ramli while ‘Ulaymi: al-Maqdisi (the Jerusalemite); Ibn ‘Asiikir, 11, 215-227: Ibrihim b. Shamir al-Filastini al-Ramli. Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 144; Ibn ‘Asiikir, 111, 266f.

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some say that he participated in the campaign against the Byzantines under the commandof Maslamab. ‘Abd al-Malik. He died inAH 148 (AD 765), in the days of the Abbasids.s2 [169-1741 O f those Muslims who lived in Tiberias,a number have been mentioned: Ka‘b ibn Murraal-Bahzi, of theBanii Sulaym. He lived at first in Basra andfrom there moved to Palestine. He died inAH 57 (AD 677).s3 ‘Abdallah b. Hawala,of theBanii Azd, died AH in 58 (AD 678). A number of hadith traditions ascribed to the Prophet in praise of living in al-Shim are transmitted inhis name.84T w o generations later, thename of another man living in Tiberias is recalled: Abii Muhammad Sdih b. Jubayr alSuda‘i al-Tabarani, of the Banii Azd, who was responsible for the lists (diiuiin) of taxes (khaviij) and the allowances to thetribes (thearmy - al-jund) in the days of ‘Umar 11, ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. He died around 740.s5 A number of people who settled in Ascalon are recorded in the sources: Khalid b. Durayk, who died in around 740.86His contemporary in Ascalon was Abii Bakr Aban ibn Sdih ibn ‘Umayr ibn ‘Ubayd,of the Banu K h ~ z a ‘ aIn . ~the ~ following generation in Ascalon, we find the son of the great-grandson of Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib, ‘Umar ibn Muhammad ibn Zayd ibn ‘Abdallah ibn ‘Umar ibn al-Khattiib. He carried ‘Umar’s shield, flaunting it in public all the time. He had four brothers living in Ascalon: Abii Bakr, ‘Asim, Zayd and Waqid. He was among the transmitters of the traditions of Malik b. Anas. ‘Umar ibn Muhammad was one of the army commanders in Ascalon, andhis offspring continued to live in that city. He made a journey to Baghdad and afterwards to Kiifa as well, and everywheremasses ofpeople came to meet him. Hedied in about760, under the rule of the Abbasidss8 [175-1781 Some Muslim personalitieswho lived in Eilat are mentioned in the sources of the period. Eilat was particularly connected with the Umayyads, from the days of the caliph ‘Uthman (who also came of the Umayya clan), for at that time intown the there werea group ofrnawiilT, or clients. One can assume that they were either Christians or Jews whohad 82

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Tabari, Tu’rikh, I, 1864; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, V, 589; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, XI, 260. Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 133; Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, IstPib, 111, 1326; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, IV, 248C Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, VIII, 441. Ibn Sa‘d, ibid.; Dhahabi, ‘Ibur, I, 62;Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Isti‘ib, 111, 894; Ibn ‘AsPkir, I, 52; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, 111, 148; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, V, 194. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IV, 258; Ibn ‘AsZkir, VI, 366; Khazraii, 144; Ibn Haiar, Tuhdhib, IV, 383f. SudP, a clan from Madhhilj. Otherwise called al-Aidi. See Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), I, 265; 11. 539. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IV, 246: al-‘AsqalZni. Some say he was called al-Dimashqi, and others say al-Ramli. Khazraji, 85; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhi6, 111, 86f. Ibn Sa‘d, VI, 234; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, I, 94f, he was a tnuwli of Quraysh. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, VI, 104; idem, ‘Zbur, I, 215; Khazraji, 242; Ibn al-‘ImPd, I, 229: one ofthe most honourable of his generation; al-Khatib al-BaghdZdi, Tu’rikh, XI, 180C Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, VII, 495f.

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accepted Islam and became clients of the caliph. They weregiven the task of caring for pilgrims, in particular supplying themwith drinking water, forEilatwas an important way-stationontheroad to Mecca. This position rendered Eilat a certain importance and developed it economically; commerce flourished and there were many markets. Those converted clients were known for their erudition in everything concerning a centre of knowledge of the beginnings of the traditions and Eilat became Islam as well as in matters of law. The guideand the living spirit of this group was Ibn Shihiib al-Zuhri, who lived in that region,as we have seen. Also mentioned as having settled in Eilat was a kinsman of the Caliph ‘Uthman, Abiin b. Sa‘id b. al-‘As; he settled in Eilat, because he desired ‘solitude and relaxation’. He evidently died in the year AH 29 (AD 650; some say it was earlier,during theconquest of Palestine; howeverit seems that these other sources may be speaking of his grandfather, also called Abiin b. Sa‘id). Some say that he was the person who dictated to Zaydb. ‘Thiibit the final version of the Koran, as it was set down in the days of ‘U.thmiin.89Two orthree generations later,we find the offspringof those mawilt of the Umayyads.Abii Khalid ‘Uqaylibn Khalid ibn ‘Uqayl died in about760. From him, AbiiYazid Yiinus b.Yazid b. Abii’l-Najad heard and learned traditions; he died some fifteen years his after teacher. It is said of ‘Uqayl thathe was a favourite of al-Zuhri and his friend.90 AbiiYazid Yiinus b. Yazid was a pupil of ‘Uqayl ibn Khiilid and of al-Zuhri. His brother, Abii ‘Ali (Khiilid?)is also mentioned,as ishis nephew, ‘Anbasab. Khiilid b. Yazid. Ibn Hajar notes that Yiinus had a weak memory; he therefore had to write everything down and kept a notebook.9* Another personality in thisgroup was ‘Abd al-Hakam ibn A‘yiin ibn al-Layth, who lived at the same time as the aforementioned.It is said that he and his father emigratedfrom EilatandsettledinAlexandria. If we considerthis together with the fact that the aforementioned Yiinus is said to have died in Egypt,we mayassumethatthewhole group waspersecutedunder Abbasid rulebecause of their close connections to the Umayyads, and isit possible that because of this some of them fled to Egypt, where perhaps they felt more secure than in their native city.92 [179-1861 Apart from these personalities, there are some thirty other 89

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Maqrizi, Khitat, I, 325; Isbahini, AghZni, X, 62; Ibn al-Athir, Urd, I, 35ff. Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 206f, mentions several people who lived inEilat, among themthis ‘Uqayl; Sam‘Zni, I, 410; Ibn al-Athir, Kirnil, V, 528; ‘Uqayl died in AH 144, that is AD 761/2; but see idem, Lublb. I, 79: in AH 141 or 142, that is, AD 758 or 759; Busti, 183, No. 1454. Ibn Sa‘d, ibid.; Sam‘Ini, ibid.; Ibn al-Athir, Klmil, V, 608; Busti, 183,No. 1452; Yiinus b. Yazid b. Abi’l-Mukhiriq; Khazraji, 380; Khafiji, 267; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, XI, 450ff; XII, 174; according to him this family were mawlliof the caliph Mu‘Zwiya. ‘Iyid, I, 313. I 26

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figures recorded in the sources who were active during theUmayyad rule in Palestine, or who had some connection with Palestine. Abii Yahya ‘Abdallah b. Sa‘id, ibn Abi Sarh, of the Banii ‘Amir, of Quraysh, who was governor of Egyptafter ‘Amr ibn al-‘A?, lived in Palestine and died there around 657. It was said of him thathe was the scribe of theProphet and that he would change what was dictated to him. When this was discovered, he abandoned Islam and fled to Mecca. ‘Uthman managed to obtain the Prophet’s pardon for him and when ‘Uthman became caliph, he appointed him governor of Egypt. He played an important role in the conquest of Africa. He built himself a house in Egypt, probably in646. After the murder of ‘Uthman, however, he moved to jundFilasiin, and died in Ascalon or in Ramla.93 The poet al-Rabi‘ ibnMataribnBalkh,oftheBaniiTamim,was involved in Palestinian affairs, took part in the conquest, and wrote poems about Tiberias and Bet Sheamg4 Abii Muslim ‘Abdallah b. Thawb, of the Banii Khawlan, accepted Islam in the days of Mu‘iwiya. He lived at first in Bazra and from there went toPalestine (al-avd al-mtrqaddasa), where he died during the time of Caliph Y a ~ i dAb6 . ~ ~ Muhammad‘Abdallah b. al-Sa‘di, ofthe clan of ‘Amir b. Lu’ayy oftheQuraysh, livedin Urdunn. It was said that he was one of theProphet’s retainers. He died in AH 57 (AD 677).96Jubayr b. Nufayr (or Nusayr) lived at first in Him? and afterwards in Palestine. He stemmed from Hadramawt (of the Kinda?) and 75 (AD 694/5; converted to Islamat the time ofAbii Bakr. He died in AH later dates are also menti~ned).~’ ‘Abd al-Rahman b. Ghanm, who was considered outstanding inhis generation for his knowledge of traditions, came of theYemenite tribeof Ash‘ar, and settled jund in Filasiin. He died in AH 78, or AD696/7. He was close to Marwanb. al-Hakam and visited Egypt with him.98 Amongthose who settled in Jerusalem, we find Abii Qirdifa Wathila b. al-Asqa‘ of the Banii Kiniina. He died at the age of ninety-eight in Jerusalem in AH 85 (AD 704); other sources say that he died at the age of 105 in AH 83 (AD 702/3). In Ibn al-Athir and in Ibn Hajar, he is entered under a different name (and it is not certain which 93

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96 97 98

Baladhuri, 14tlstib, I, 358 (points out that some say he died in Ifriqiys - in the region of Tunis - but he denies this); Ibn Qutayba, Mu%$ 300ff (ascribes him to Madhhij); Ibn Tiiliin, Umuri’, 10; Ibn ‘Asakir, VII, 432; Nawawi, Taltdhib, I, 269; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, 111, 351: he died suddenly in Ascalon during his prayers; Busti, 53 (No. 358); Ibn Taghri Bardi, I, 82 (on p. 94 he says that he was murdered in Palestine, and somesay in Ramla). See the article ‘Abd Allah b. Sa‘d in EI2 (by C. H. Becker). Ibn ‘Asakir, V, 306f. Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 157; Abii Nu‘aym, HiIyn, 124f; cf. Goitein, B’PES, XII(1945/6), 123. Baladhuri, Ansib, I, 219; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, 111, 175; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, V, 235. Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, 11, 64; ‘Ulaymi, 257. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, 111, 188f; Nawawi, Tuhdhib, 1, 302; Ibn al-Athir, Kimil, IV, 449; Khazraji, 197; Busti, 112 (No. 851); Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, VI, 250f; ‘Ulaymi, 257.

ISLAM STRIKES ROOTS

version of the nameis distorted): Jandara b. Khayshana; itis said of him that he was of &iba, the the circleof the Prophet, and somesay he lived in Siniijiya, a village in the neighbourhood of Ascalon. Ibn Hajar notes in the name of Ibn Hiban that he is buried in A s ~ a l o n Another .~~ settler in Jerusalem was Abii Bishr, or Abii Bisr ‘Abdallah ibn Fayriiz, a Persian by birth, who died in the year AH 90 (AD 708).loo [187-1931 In the following generation, we find Abii Sinan Humayd b. ‘Uqba of Quraysh, who lived injund Filastin after Damascus and Him:. It is said that he achieved greatsuccess in the daysof Mu‘iiwiya.lol Sharik b. Judayr, a man of the Banii Taghlib (who were Christians in the time of the conquest) who was close to ‘Ali ibn AbiTalib, fought alongside him and wasinjuredinoneeye.After Mu‘Zwiya becamecaliph,hesettledin Jerusalem and also participated in the rebellion of Mukhtiir.lo2 Farwa b. Mujahid was a man of Palestine, a nruwlii of the Ban5 Lakhm. He lived in Kafr ‘An5 in Palestine and died in about 720.1°3HZni b. Kulthiim b. ‘Abdallah b. Sharik, wasalso of theBanii Kiniina (though somesay Kinda) and lived in jund Filasiin. ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz proposed that he become governor of the jund, but he refused. He died in around 720, in Safariyya, a village mentioned byYiiqiit as being ‘near Ramla’. He is also known by the name Ibn Hibb5n.lo4 Al-Qiisim b. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Abdallah b. Mas‘iid, of the Banii Hudhayl, who lived in the region of Mecca, was cadi in Kiifa, appointed by ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and moved afterwards to Jerusalem, where he was noted for three qualities: praying at great length, frequently keeping silent, and giving to charity. He died inAH 120 (AD 728).lo5 AbiiSaliim Mamtiir al-Dimashqi al-A‘raj (the lame) al-Aswad (the black) al-Habashi, was called al-Habashi because he belonged to a clan in Himyar (Yaman), who were so-called, and not because he was an Ethiopian. He lived in Palestine and was one of the 99

100 101

102 103

104

105

Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 129; Ibn ‘Asikir II(1), 14: while in Damascus he met Ka‘b al-Ahbir who showed him a place in the city where one prays as if praying in Jerusalem; cf. on this matter: Gruber, 68, and see there further references; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, I, 307; V, 276;Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, 11, 119, YZqiit, Buldntz, 111, 154f. Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, 111, 269; Khazraji, 177; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhi6, V, 358; ‘Ulaymi, 254. Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, IV, 109; Ibn ‘Asikir, IV, 461f; Ibn al-Athir, Lubib, 11, 221. Tabari, Ta’rikh, 11, 714; Ibn al-Athir, K i n d , IV, 264. Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, IV, 44; Khazraji, 262; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhi6, VIII, 264, quotes Bukhari with regard to Kafr ‘Ana. BukhZri, Ta’rikh, VII, 127 (No. 572) has: Farwa b. MujZlid(!), and in the printed version, Kafr Ghami; there is no way of knowing the place with certainty. Dhahabi, Tcl’rikh, IV, 94; in Bukhiri, Ta’rikh, IX, 230 (No. 2823): Hani b. Kulthiim b. Sharik; Khazraji,350; Busti, 118 (No. 917: sets the timeofhis death in the daysof ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib, which is certainly an error); Yaqiit, B d d i n , 111, 12; Ibn Hajar, Talzdhi6, XI, 22; ‘Ulaymi, 254. Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, V, 105, 228; Dhahabi, IV, 293; Khazraji, 266; Busti, 106 (No. 803); Ibn Khaldiin, ‘Ibar, 111, 297; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhib, VIII, 321f.

128

”

I

M U S L I M P E R S O N A L I T I E S U N D E R T H E U M A Y Y A D S [ S E C S . 126-261 J

pupils of ‘Ubada b. Samit. He died around730. lo6 Sulayman b. Sa‘d was a Palestinian from jund Urdunn (Tiberias?) who converted to Islam and became a rnuwlZ of the Ban6 Khushayn,a clan of theQudii‘a. He was the scribe of ‘Abdal-Malik and afterwards also of al-Wahd, of Sulayman and of ‘Umar ibn‘Abd al-‘Aziz. He was the first to transcribe the lists of the diwiin (the collection of taxes and the distribution of allowances to the tribes) from Greek into Arabic, and was the first Muslim to manage the affairs of the diwiins. lo7 [194-2001 In the generation which experienced the Abbasid revolution, we find Abii’l-Walid Rudayh b. ‘Atiyya, of Quraysh, who lived in Palestine anddied there inabout 765. He served as mtr’udhdhin in Jerusalem. Abii Umayya ‘Abd al-Rahmiin al-Sindi lived in Niibulus, was one of the Palestinians who accepted Islam, was a maw15 of Sulaymiin b. ‘Abd al-Malik and afterwards served as secretary to ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz. He died in 760.1°’ Masarra b. Ma‘bad, of the Banii Lakhm, who was learned in the traditions, lived in Palestine in Bet Guvrin and died in around 760. 110 Ab6 Siniin ‘ k i b. Siniin was a Palestinian, one of ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz’s retainers, who stayed as a guest in‘ki’s house in Jerusalem whenever he visited there. He emigrated fromPalestine to Basra a t some unknown date, perhaps after the Abbasid revolution, settled there with the al-Qasiimil clan of the Banii Azd and was thus known by the name al-Qasmali; he was also called al-Hanafi, as he evidently belonged to the clan of theBanii Hanifa of theBanii Bakr b.Wa’il. He died around76O.ll1 ‘Abbad b. Kathirwas an inhabitant of Ramla,who died in around770.*12 His contemporaries were Sawwar b. ‘Ammara, who lived in Ramla and was a pupil of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sindi,l13 and al-Walid b. Jamil, apparently of theBanii Kinina.l14 [201] Special note shouldbe taken of Abii Ruqiyya Tamim al-Dari. He was an Arab of the Banii Lakhm, who lived on the Palestinian border before the advent ofIslam. According to the Muslim traditions,he joined the Prophet and became his follower during thelatter’s stay in Medina.He is credited with an astonishing knowledge of the Christian (or perhaps the Manichaean) sources andas a result had influence over the Prophet.It was he who introduced thegreatinnovationintheProphet’smosque by proposing the use of oil for lighting instead of the palm tree branches 106 107 108 109 110

Ill 111

113 114

Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, IV, 205; Ibn Ijajar, Tultdkib, X, 296. Ibn ‘Asakir, VI, 276. Busti, 184 (No. 1467); Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhfb, 111, 271. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, VI, 94. Busti, 181 (No. 1436); Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, X, 109. IbnSa‘d, V, 280; Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, VI, 112; Ibnal-Athir, Ltrbiib, 11, 263; IbnHajar, Tuhdhib, VIII, 21 1. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, VI, 207; Ibn Hajar, Tuhdhib, V, 102f. Bukhiri, Tu’rikh, IV, 169 (No. 2362); Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, VI, 94. Dhahabi, Tu’rikh, VI, 314; Bukhari, To’rikh, VIII, 142 (No. 2490).

ISLAM S T R I K E S ROOTS

which were set alight there previously. He was promised by the Prophet that after conquering Palestine, he would receive Hebron and Bayt ‘Aynun (some sources mention also Bethlehem). In Ibn Sa‘d a version has to Tamim, which been preservedof the bill of rightsgiven by the Prophet was copied by ‘Aliibn Abi Tilib. When Palestine was conquered,so it is told, ‘Umarfulfilled the Prophet’s promise and gave that region to Tamim al-Dari. Actually it appears that he was collector of land taxes (khavij) there. It is said that ‘Umar warned himagainst enslaving the local population or selling their property, and to be content solely with collecting taxes. The chroniclers andother writers of the Middle Ages maintain that those areas are occupied by the descendantsof Tamim al-Diri ‘until this very day’. Among the traditions Tamim al-Dirirelated to the Prophetis the badith al-jasiisa (an apocalyptic creature), who asked its companion details about thedates of Bet Shean, about the Sea of Galilee and the spring of Zoar.Il5 The tribes

[202-2211 From the above description of Muslim personalities, one learns that during this period mostof them were tribesmen, apart from a comparatively small number of clients, the rnawiili. The latter evidently served in administrative positions which undoubtedly involved writing 115

Ibn Sa‘d, I(2), 75, tells of thedelegation of the Tamimclan, al-Diriyin, whocame to the Prophet at the time of the Tabiik campaign, bearing gifts, and the Prophet immediately sold these gifts to a Jew for the sum of 8,000 dirhams. Tamim al-Dari had rights of possession (orso it appears) given him by the Byzantines on those two places (qaryatnyn, two villages: Ijibri wa-bayt ‘ayniin).Ab6 Bakr renewed the letter of rights after the death ofthe Prophet; see further ibid., VII(2), 129f. Tabarini, Mtrljanr, I, 14, describes himas the prototype of a Bedouin fighter, who knew take how good to care of his horse, and quotes a hadith in the nameof the Prophet on the virtue of feeding one’s horse during the holy war. Bakri, 289; Ibn Hazm, jamhara, 422; Tayalisi, 229. Ibn ‘Asakir, 111, 344-357, notes that he himself saw the document of the Diris ascribed to the Abbasid caliph al-Mustanjid bi’llih (1160-1170), and quotes the version in which Bayt ‘ayniin and Bayt Ibrihrm are spoken of, and points out that they are in Hebron ‘until this very day’ (around 1170), and they are a large group, called al-Diriyya. (One must remember that heis writing at a time when Hebronwas in the handsof the Crusaders.)Ibid., p. 345, he mentions that in 1092, in the days of Ghazili (thatis, when he stayed in Jerusalem), the cadi ofJerusalem Abii Hitim al-Harawi al-Hanafi, refused to recognise the validity ofDiris’ the document,and then Ghazili said that the cadi was a heretic. See also: Suyiiti, Khatii’i;, 11, 177f; 111, 289; Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, 11, 188ff; Suhayli, Tu‘$ l l b ; Samarqandi, Bustin, 100; Busti, 52 (No. 353); Khafiji.111, 301: the al-Dar clan came from Yaman; Nawawi, I, 138f: some say his name was al-Dayri, from the word dayr (monastery), because before Islam, he was in a monastery; Qalqashandi, $464, XIII, 120ff has the version of the letter of rights given to Tamim by the Prophet and which ‘Umar renewed; Maqrizi, his treatise on Tamim al-Dari, in Matthews,]POS, 19:150, 1939/40; and its Cairo edition, 1972; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, 11, 243; Maw& Wasii’il, 23b-24a (according to kitib al-madina of ‘Askari); Ibn al-Jawzi, Wafi’, I, 156; Halabi, 11, 88; ‘Ulaymi, 428f; Shibli, 42b; Ibn Hajar, Tahdhi6, I, 511c idem, I$iba, I, 183f.

THE TRIBES [SECS. 202-2351

and keeping accounts, drafting official documents, and so on. Some of theseconvertedMuslims,likemanysimilarly placed peoplein other regions of the Muslim world, were among those who laid the foundations of historical writing and of the new Arabic culture,especially in the sphere legal literature. The fact that there were a large number of tribesmen among the Muslim notables who settled in Palestine should not surprise us, for the Muslim conquest was in its essence the conquest of cultured countries by the Arab tribes.The number ofclans and tribes from which these personalities stemmed was about thirty. It should be remembered that the ancient Arab sources preserved only the memory ofthose people who played active roles in the political and military life of the period. Many were forgotten, which was intentional, because in later generations, during Abbasid rule,a hostile attitude was adopted towards people of the Umayyad administration,apart from thefact that many of thechroniclers identified with the‘Alids and werefilled with antagonism towards Mu‘% wiya and his heirs and circle of followers, regardedas the usurpers of the Prophet’s family. The possibility of being included in biographical compilations was mainly the of lot thosepersonalities in the Umayyad era who provided information on the days of the Prophet or who taught others hadith traditions attributed to the Prophet. Many of these traditions were not authenticat all and reflected attitudes prevalent during the lifetimeof the conveyors or the desires and interests of various groups. In the lightof these facts, there is little to glean from the rather archival list of names I have recorded above, with regard to the status of the tribes and their comparative influence, for not every tribe had talented individuals who could fill central political roles or take on military commands. Furthermore, not every tribe had sufficient connections with the Damascene court to enable people of their rank to merit major governing positions, nor dideverytribehaveenoughpeople whodevoted themselves to collecting or inventing traditions. One can undoubtedly assume that in addition to those clans and tribes whose few members merited renown, at all, there were many others in Palestine about whom we know nothing and the tribes’ relative numerical strength and the extentof their authority cannot be surmised from biographical lists of Islamic personalities. We havealreadyencounteredtheinter-tribalwarsandwitnessed something of the split between the north and the south, as conveyed in tribal traditions from generation to generation. We are sufficiently aware of the fact that thisso-called geographical division did not comply with the reality as it existed at the time ofthe appearance of Islam, when a whole series of tribes which the traditions describeas having stemmed from the south, that is from theregion of Yaman, wereactually to be found in the area of Mecca and Medina or even farther north, along the Palestinian

I S L A M S T R I K E S ROOTS

border. A marked exampleof this is the Ansirtribes in Medina, theAws and the Khazraj (the Qayla tribes or Banii Hiritha), whoaccording to their tradition (and thereis no reason to doubt it), emigrated in the distant past from Yaman northward. The following are the ‘southern’ tribes whose offspring we find among the inhabitants of Palestine during this period: Khath‘am;l16Judham (I have already elaborated on this tribe); ‘Amila;ll7 Ghassan;ll8K h a ~ l a n ; ~ ~ ~ Madhhij,andthe clan withinit,Zubayd;lZoHimyar(alsoYamanin general) and the Saybin clan;121 Kinda, and the clan of Banii ‘Amr.122 K h ~ z i ‘ a ; Azd;124 l ~ ~ Qudi‘a and the clan of Juhayna within it;125 Ash‘ar; according to Ya‘qiibi, writing in892, this southern tribe were the majority (evidently among the Bedouin)in Tiberias (probably meaning the Tiberias region);lZ6 Lakhm,as the Judhiim, was to be found on the Palestinian border before the adventof Islam.127 Among the ‘northern’ tribes, we find the following represented: Kiniina and its clan,Murra;12*the Sulaym clan of Qays‘Ayliin, which apparently lived injund U r d ~ n n ; Thaqif, ~’~ whose centre wasTii’if in theHijiiz, was certainly represented in the administration of Palestine during the time when H a j i j ibn Yiisuf, who was a member oftheir tribe, ruled the state; but we know that members of this tribe also lived in Trans-Jordan, in the Balqi’;130 Banii Ghatafan and the clan of Murra within it;131 Kiliib, and 116

See Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 45f.

117

Ibid., 53ff; it seems they were located mostly injund Urdunn.

118

See Watt, 112ff; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 35ff. They, too,seem to have lived mainly in jund Urdunn. 119 Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 56f. 120 Ibid., 61ff. 121 Ibid., 66ff. 122 Ibid., 47ff. 123 Watt, 83ff; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 39ff 124 Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 41ff. 125 Watt, 1lOf; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 73ff. 126 Ya‘qiibi, Buldin, 327; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 66. 127 Watt, 111; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 53ff. After some two-hundred years, we still find one of the important Muslim personalities in Palestine, of Tiberias, the writer Sulayman ibn Ahmad al-Tabarini (see below), claiming descent from the Banii Lakhm; see Ibn alJawzi, M u n t a ~ a m ,VII, 54 (sec. 73), who mentions that Lakhm is a tribe that lived in Yaman and in al-Sham, andits name is linked with that of Bethlehem (Bayt Iakhm), the birthplace ofJesus. Similarly in Ibn Taghri Bardi, IV,59, the name of the place is not Bayt lahm but Bayt lakhm, lest doubts should arise about the connection between Bethlehem and the Lakhm tribe. 128 Watt, 83ff; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 6. 129 Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), llff. 130 Ibn Khallikan,VU, 110, in the article on Yiisufb. ‘Umar al-Thaqafi, the sonof acousin of Hajaj; when Yazid ibn al-Walid became caliph, after al-Walid b. Yazid was murdered, this Yiisuffled to the Balqi’, where his tribe were living; see about this tribe Watt, 1Olff; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 16f; see also Kister,JSAI, 1:1, 1979. 131 Watt, 91ff; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 19ff.

T H E T R I B E S [ S E C S . 202-2351

Banii ‘Uqayl within it, from the federation of tribes ‘Amir b. Sa‘+a‘a;*3’ Tamim;133 Taghlib, the tribe that was Christian during the time of the conquest and lived on the border ofPalestine;134 Hudhayl.135 [222-2231 At first glance, it seems as if Palestine was equally divided between northern and southern tribes. But according to the evidence in Tabari it appears that at least by the end of the Damascene caliphate the Yamani tribesmen had the upper hand. According to the same source, most of the Umayyad army in al-Sham (and one shouldbear in mind that army meant tribes) were the Yarnaniyya, the southerners.136In the foregoing lists, two important elements are not included and these are the Banii Quraysh on the one hand and the descendants of the An$ir of Medina (Aws and Khazraj)on the other.In theory, the first were ‘northerners’ and the others ‘southerners’. Banu Quraysh were naturally involved in administration, and when we find them (particularlyclan theof Jumah) in Palestine, they are generally there more as individuals who have been given ruling positions, or who have come there for religious reasons. One should note the small number of the An@r; they are almost unmentioned among the eminentfigures in Palestine. Ya‘qiibi, who as has been mentioned, wrotehis book in 892, notes that in jund Filastin there was a mixture of tribes - Lakhm, Judhsm, ‘Amila, Kinda, Qays and Kinina - one can imagine that thisis copied from an old version, which was correct at the time of the Umayyads. At any rate, this list conforms to the one (a much more extensive list) presented above, which was the result of a study of the names of personalities. That Ya‘qiibi’s list can be considered limited and does not entirely reflect the real situation, not even in the days of the Umayyads, is proven by the papyri of Nessana from thesecond halfof the seventh century, in which no less than 59 (!) clans, as well as two tribes, the Judhiim (Goudam), and Qays, are mentioned. The tribes evidently found Palestine very profitable, preferring to settle there rather than in Iraq. This may have been enhanced by the benefits enjoyed by the people of al-Shim, which was borderland country subject to Byzantine raids and whichalso served as a base forraids into the latter’sterritory.ThuswefindinTabarithat 132

133

IJ4 135 136

Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 13ff.In the tenth and eleventh centuries, we find information about their political and military rise. Watt, 137fC Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 7fC and see Kister,JESHO, 3:113, 1965. Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 27f. Watt, 90; Ibn al-Kalbi (Caskel), 7. Tabari, Tu’rikh, 11, 1775; and see also two unidentified manuscripts printed by Hinds in Abhith, 3:24, 1971, containing lists (partial; speakingof participants in the battle of Siffin on Mu‘awiya’s side) of tribes in Palestine. To the list of ‘northern’. tribes who lived in Palestine the Taym (al-Ribib) must also be evidently added,who claimed descent from theancientfederationoftribesofKhuzayma-Asad.IbnHazm, Jumhuru, 175, 180, mentions two clans who belonged to theBanG Khuzayma (Asad): Ja‘wana b.Shaytin b.

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pressure was put on Caliph Marwanb. al-Hakam to fulfil his promise to the Banii Kinda inal-Sham to allow them tosettle in Trans-Jordan (in the Balqa’), and that thisarea should be the source of their livelihood. 13’ [224] The period of the Umayyadswas undoubtedly the golden age of the Arab tribeswho penetrated into Palestine with the Muslimconquest. The leaders of Islam tried to protect the tribes from assimilating to the local populations and to maintain their traditional way of life, with the addition of the new Islamic element. These Arab tribes, both those who had formerly lived on the borders of Palestine and those who came to it within the framework of the Muslim army, were a separate entity of the population of the country. One must remember that the‘avab term during the Middle Ages meant Bedouin, people of the tribes. These tribes had a common homeland, the Arabian peninsula, even if their ancestors had emigrated from there manygenerations earlier. O n the other hand,there was alsoa non-Arab population living in the Arabian peninsula, who were neither nomads nor lived in tribes, and who were not of tribal origins. They were farmers, merchants,craftsmen; Jews, Christians, Persians and members of various sects. Religion was anot sign of being non-Arab, for there were Arab tribes who had taken on Christianity, such as the B a n i Taghlib, but under Islamic rule they were not considered ah2 al-kitd (people of the book). It is well known that for generations prior to Islam, a process of Arab settlement and abandonmentof the nomadic way oflife began and an urban Arab population grew up, such as that in Mecca and Medina. They wereconsidered Arabs, however,because of their nomadic past. Another identifying factor, naturally, was their common language, Arabic, which despite the differences between various dialects was quite uniform and understandableto the members ofall the tribes and spoken by them. But their chief characteristic was nomadism - the culture of the camel. Under Islam,nomadismwasconsideredthemostnaturaland common state of the Arabs, and as I have said, the word ‘avab meant Bedouin. Thus wefind in the first century of Islamic rule almost complete synonymity between the terms Muslim, Arab, nomad, tribesman and horseman in the service of Islam; although there are exceptions to this rule, it applies inmost cases. To be an Arab at that time meantto belong to the ruling class, enjoying privileges that were bequeathed to successive generations. Alongside the prerogatives, however, there was also the obligation

137

Wahb, and ‘Amr ibn Kinina, wholived in jund Filastin. About the latter, he notes that they are very few. See on Khuzayma: Watt, 87ff. Ya‘qiibi, Bulditl, 329; he also mentions Judhim, whoaccording to him lived in the region of Bet Guvrin,in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. Ncssana, 340f. O n the questionof the Greek transliteration of Arabic names see: Isserlin, Attnual, Leeds Univ. Oriental Society, 7:17, 1975; on the preference of al-Shim, see: Shaban, Islamic History, 74, 125. Tabari, Tn’rlkh, 11, 487 (HuSayn b. Nimr’s request); according to Baladhuri, Ansijb, V,

T H E T R I B E S [SECS. 202-2351

to serve the creed that brought all this about and to fight for it, forit was this belief that gave the Arabsthe dominion of an enormous empire.138 [225] Therefore it is possible to conceive of a tolerant attitude towards non-believers who were notArabs, such as the Persians, even if there was some doubt as to their being ‘people of the book’and even if they could actually be considered almost idolaters. For the Arabs, however, Islam was absolutelymandatory. If these Arabs were from among the ‘people of the book’ (speaking mainly of the Christians), it would be possible to compromise, and they would be given time to accept Islam, if not in this generation thenin the next.The Arabs who wereidol-worshippers, on the other hand, were given only one choice - Islam or death - ‘a choice dictated only tothe Arab idolaters’,in Abii Yiisuf s words. Alongside the constraint to accept Islam, the leaders of Islam also launched an educational campaign among the tribes, evidence of which is found in the account of the offspring of the b. Qurayza, the Jews of Medina, Muhammad b. Ka‘b al-Qurazi: Five men of the Ansir already knew the Koran by heart in the days of the Prophet: Mu‘iidh b. Jabal, ‘Ubida b. al-Siimit, Ubayy b. Ka‘b, Abii Ayyiib and Abii’lDardii’. In the days of ‘Umar, Yazid b. Abii Sufyin [Mu‘awiya’s brother, who was the commander of the Muslim army in Palestine and Syria until he died of an illness] wrote: in al-Shim there are many tribes and they need someone to teach them the Koran and the laws. So ‘Umar requested three people to help him in this matter . . . andMu‘idh,‘UbidaandAbu’l-Dardi’volunteered.And‘Umar commanded them: Start in Him?, and if you are satisfied, one of you shall go to Damascus and one to bund] Filastin. ‘Ubida remained in Him? while Abii’lDardii’ went off to Damascus, and Mu‘idh to Filastin; but Mu‘idh died in the year of the ‘Imwis plague; and so ‘Ubida went afterwards to Filastin [and remained there] until he died.139

[226-2291 The Arabs were the military, the horsemen, and they had no responsibilities towards any other sectors of the population. They were not farmers, which they considereda demeaning profession only taken up by the Nabat (a collective term for Aramaic-speaking villagers, and this does not refer to theNabateans, who lived insouthern Palestine in

138

139

128, the episode regarding the Balqi’ referred to the clan of Sakiin, of Kinda, their spokesman being Mdik Ibn Hubayra. See on the matter of the Bani Taghlib: Abii Yiisuf, 144: the Banii Taghlib, who were Christians, had a tax imposedon them,unlike on theah1 nl-kitd but like on the Muslims, that is gdaqa, but double the sum which the Muslims paid. Mazyid b. Hudayr, thefirst whom ‘Umarsent to collect the sadaqa (an yu‘nduhiva) from theBanii Taghlib, reported: ‘he ordered me to putpressure on the Christians, theBanii Taghlib, saying: they are an Arab tribe, not of thepeople of the book, and shouldaccept Islam’. According to him, ‘Umar imposed on the Christian Taghlib tribe the condition that they would not be permitted to raise their children as Christians; andsee also Ibn Abi Shayba. 111, 197fc and see the comprehensive discussion in the excellent article by Poliak, REI, 12:35, 1938, which has served as the basis for the discussion here. Abii YUsuf, 81; Ibn ‘Asikir. VII, 210f.

I S L A M S T R I K E S ROOTS

previous generations). Their approach to farming is expressed in a hadith attributedtotheProphet,brought in thenameof Thawbin, one of Muhammad's freedmen, who settled in Palestine: 'do not settle in the villages, for he who abides in villages it is as if he abides in graves'. 140 There is no doubtthat at the outset, theleaders of Islam, starting with 'Umar ibn al-Khattiib, did not approve of imitating the urban and village customs of the subdued populations, whether in the economic or in the religiouscultural spheres. There was a tendency to avoid anything which would involve real settlement. In KGfa, for instance, at the military and urban base set up by the Muslims in Iraq, tribesmen were not permittedto build themselves proper houses; onlyreed ( q a p b ) huts were allowed.Only after an enormous fire broke out and destroyed everything were they allowed to build houses of bricks - on condition however that they did not build more than three rooms per person (thatis, per family). 141 In Jerusalem, the Arabs were forbidden to enter churches, particularly those in the Kidron valley; it is said that 'Umar prayed at first in the Church of St Mary but regretted it afterwards.14? Particularly strict was the rule that Muslims should not take on the praying customs of the infidels. It is told that 'Ubiida b. Simit, when he was in Jerusalem, saw a man praying in the mosque and putting his shoe on the right side (or perhaps theleft side), and he castigated him for behaving like ah1 ul-kitib, people of the book (?).143 [23&232] Nevertheless, we hear of considerable interest on the part of theUmayyad caliphs andtheirretainers on estates in Palestine. Of 'Amr b. al-'AS, one of the commanders of the invasion of Palestine and Egypt, weread that he had an estate (day'a) in jund Filastin, in Sab', that is in the region of Beersheba, where he stayed when the war between 'Ali and Mu'iiwiya began, in his palace in a place called al-'Ajlin.144 Mu'iwiya also had estates in Palestine. It is told that when 'Abd alMalik became caliph, he bought the al-Khadrii (the green palace), from Mu'iiwiya's grandson, Khiilid b. Yazid, a buildingwhichhousedthe

I4l 142

143

l-14

See the saying in Bukhiri, Adub, 85; Suyijti, Lu'Ili, I, 478; 'Ajlijni, Kushf; I, 262; 11, 355 (and see there: the people of the villages are people of catastrophe); 'A&, 111, 461. Buriqi, 103. See Musharraf,90b;Wisiti, 21; howeverthisban can beinterpretedin two ways; forbidding the Arabs to mix with the local population and preventing damage to the protected peoples' holy places. A hadith in the name of the Prophet forbids entry to the dhimmis' homesor houses ofprayer withouttheir permission,or tooffend their wives, as long as they pay the taxes as due - see 'Azizi, 11, 124. 'Ulaymi, 253C see a hadith which forbids ikhti@r, i.e., placing hands on the hips during prayer in the manner of the Jews(?), in 'Azizi, 11, 128; and censure of people who pray alone loudly andlift up their hands in the manner of the Jews,a custom called tuqlij in Turtijshi, 59, in the name of Abij 'Alial-RahmPn 'Abd b. al-QPsimal-'Utaqi (who died in Egypt in 191/807, see GAL S I, 299), who was citing Abii Salma b. 'Abd al-R&mSn b. 'Awn (who died in 94/713 in Medina- see Ibn Sa'd, V, 115ff). Tabari, Tu'rikkh, I, 2967, 2972; Dinawari, 157. In the Middle Ages, the region of Beer-

136

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T H E T R I B E S [ S E C S . 202-2351

administration, and for which he paid forty thousand dinars. Apart from this, he bought four other estates in the four junds of al-Shim; in jund Filastin, he chose ‘Imwis and in jund Urdunn he chose ‘QaSr Khilid’ (evidently apalace which had belonged to that Khilid). ‘Abd al-Malik also pursueda policy of confiningunits of tribalhorsementothe cities, particularly the coastal towns, and it seems that this involved the grant of rights to these tribes to a part of the incomedervied from taxes.145 This type of right was called ma’kala, and was evidently expressed inthe authority to collect taxes due fromthe inhabitants (non-Muslims) of that place. These arrangements were evidently introduced shortly after the conquest by ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, when he regulated the relationship between the Muslims and the local populations. He initiated the lists of taxes and subsidies to be paid and determinedhow much each clan or tribe would receive. 146 [233-2351 One can surmise, when speaking of estates that were ‘bought’ by the Umayyad rulers, that the possession right on these estates was passed on with thechange in leadership, and that just as the Abbasids had taken overwhat had formerlybeen held by the Umayyads, theyalso took possession of their estates. We find that in the tenth century AD, ‘estates of the Ikhshidids’ in Palestine are mentioned, as well as their manager Ibn al-Hirith; also Abii ‘Ali al-Husayn b. Ahmad b. Rustum al-Midhara’i, who was responsible for the taxes (kharZj) in Egypt on behalf of alMuqtadir (from 8 April 919) had a Ijay‘a named Munyat Hishim, near Tiberias. One can assume thatthese, and others which arenot mentioned, were some sort of permanent ‘government property’. 14’ We have seen that the Muslim chroniclers have left us important information concerning the involvement of thePalestinian tribes in the internal sheba wasknown by the name widi’l-sub‘of see Tadmuri, 61a (quoting Musharraf), and in the edition of Matthews,JPOS, 17 (1937), 136. Ibn ‘Asikir, II(l),133; VI, 185. Mu‘Pwiya acquired two estates for himself,al-BatnPn, in the Ascalon area, which he said was a place of moderate rains, and not arid like al-Diriim nor wet like Caesarea, see Jahshiyari, 26; cf. Kister, Wiet Memorial Volume, 43f, n. 51. Tabari, Ta’rikh, 11,487: the Banii Kinda(the Sakiin clan) request for themselves as ma’kala southern Trans-Jordan (the Balqi’), see above. Abii’l-Fidi’, Mukhtasar, I, 160: ‘Umar introduced thelists: duwiwin. It appears that when the sources speak of ‘acquiring’ estates they are actually referring to buying thepoSsession rights. It is possible that these rights were also linked with living in the place, and onecan surmise that the purchaser would then proceedto build himself a house, or apalace, according to his rank and social status. O n the other hand,it is told that Talha ibn ‘Ubaydallah bought land in Bet Shean in the days of the Prophet - see HassZn b. Thibit, 11, 279; Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Isti‘ib, 11, 764: therefore the Prophetcalled him al-fayyid, the spendthrift, a word which does not indicate very strong objections. Ibn KhallikPn, 111, 136; the estate of al-Midhari’i: Tha‘Plibi, LatZ’ij 231f: there was a famous spring on this estate which habitually gushed forth for seven consecutive years, then stopping for seven consecutive years. This same story is found in Qazwini,‘Aji’ib, 270.

ISLAM STRIKES ROOTS

strife within the caliphate. Less is known of the participation in external struggles. But there is no doubt that the tribes did take a part in the wars which were conducted in distant lands, such as in Central Asia. From the little that is known to us about this, I would reiterate the fact mentioned above, that of the participation of the tribes from jund Filastin, under the command ofMuz'ab b. 'Amr ofthe Banii Khuza'a, in thewar against the Turks in Central Asia in AH 119 (AD 737).lJ8One can imagine that the tribes took an active part in the campaignsagainst the Byzantines as well. Concerning the active participation of thetribes of al-Sham in the North African wars we learn from Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, speaking of the days of the last Umayyads (al-Walid b. Yazid, Yazid b. al-Walid, and Marwan b. Muhammad). At that time, tribes of the two junds,Filastin and Urdunn, also settled in Spain. Tribesmen of Urdunn settled in Riyya (Reiyo), which was then named after them, as Urdunn, while the tribesfrom jund Filastin settled in Shadhiina (Sidonia) and this too was named after them, as Filastin. 149 14*

Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 11, 1609. Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, 223c Ibn al-Athir, K i h i l , V, 491 (under the year AH 139/AD743), cf. Levi-Provenqal, Histoire, I, 44f; Shaban, Islamic History, I, 152.

IJ9

3

T H EL O C A L

POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

3F

[236] Until now, we have followed the course of the conquest and the events of the first century of Muslim rule in Palestine. These have been described in chronological order, with the exceptionof afew issues, such as the question of the religious status ofJerusalem, or the administrative division of thecountry.Thesesamequestions,thoughtheyextend beyond the chronological framework ending with the year 750, warrant discussion in the context of the first hundred years, when the principal foundations were established, to remain valid until the end of the period we are dealing with. Therefore atthis point, before discussing the political and military events that occurred in Palestine after 750, it is appropriate that we pause to discuss in general terms the question of the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, that is, between the rulers and the ruled, in Palestine. We shall try to make our way through thesources, which are at times very sparse, dealing with the composition of the population and the status ofthe cities ofpalestine. Although mostofthe facts in this sphere werealso determined in the first hundred years, during the Damascene caliphate, we shall have to go beyond the confines of this period andstudy these matters as they appear over the course of our entire chronological framework. An important incentive in choosing this path lies in the fact that the information available to us gradually increases the further we approach the eleventh century AD. Due to the'conservativecharacter of the social and administrative patternof those times, thefacts and findingsof theeleventh century can shed lighton the entire period, beginning with the conquest. In choosing this path, I also bear in mind the example of distinguished Muslim historians of the early Middle Ages, who did not hesitate to interrupt the continuity of the chronological account in order to devote

T H E L O C A L P O P U L A T I O N A N D T H E MUSLIMS

space and effort to the writing of a separate discourse on a subject they considered important. The protected people

We have seen above how the attitude ofIslam towards the subjugated population was first expressed,particularlytowardstheJews and the Christians, according to precedents established by Muhammad duringthe Tabiik expedition.We have seen a further expression of this in 'Umar ibn al-Khattib's treaty with the inhabitants ofJerusalem. With regard to the status of the Jews ofPalestine, no significant change tookplace. Within the context of theByzantine Christian empire, they were considered inferior to the Christian inhabitants. Fromnow on, they would be inferior to the Muslims. The new element naturallywas the changed statusof the Christians, who were in this respect now equal to the Jews. The wholepopulation of Palestine now became the protected people of the Muslims; in other words, the Arab tribes who made up the Muslim army were the rulersoftheurbanandruralpopulations of Palestine. This was the situation until the Abbasid revolution, when the role of the tribes was taken over by the battalions of the Caliphate, in which the Arab element would gradually give way to the Turks, thePersians and other Muslims who were not Arabs. The governing body and its administration would gradually pass into the hands of those elements as well, and religious personnel, men learned in law and judges would no longer be exclusively Arabs, as was generally the case during the period of the Umayyads. In theory, the Muslims did not discriminate between Jews and Christians. If in the events described below we find that at times there existed collaboration and affiliation of Muslims with Jewsagainst the Christians, or vice versa, this would notbe the outcome ofprinciple but theresult of politico-historical .circumstances which we shall discuss separately. The Muslim traditions are mixed in their attitudes towards protected people. There are those which praise justice and tolerance towards protected people and others which are steeped in contempt - particularly towards the Jews. For example, there is the story of the governor who exiled the protected people of Mount Lebanon because they did not pay their taxes, and even killed some of them. The cadi al-Awza'i criticised these deeds harshly in writing and promised the perpetrator that he would suffer severe punishmenton the Day ofJudgment,in accordancewith the words of the Prophet who warned against using aheavy hand against 'the people of the agreement'. O n the other hand,there is atraditionin Dhahabiwhich relates thattheangelGabriel refused to shakeMuhammad's hand before he washed it, because he had touched the hand

T H E P R O T E C T E D P E O P L E [ S E C S . 236-2401

of a Jew. There are sayings attributed to Muhammad, or to ‘Ali, to the effect that the Jews and the Christiansdo not deserve to be greeted.’ [237] However, the general approach in Muslim religious literature is that the rights of the protected people should be respected as determined by theprecedents and sayingsof the Prophetand the early caliphs, which religious law recognises as legal and sanctified by God. Compared with what was happening at the same time in the Christian world,find wehere a climateof decency and legality. In the early period we are dealingwith, the caliphs were well aware of the fact that protecting the rights of the dhimmis was of importance to the Muslims, first and foremost from the economic point of view.As stated by ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz to one of his governors: do not destroy a synagogue or church (kartlsa, br‘a) nor a house of Zoroastrians whose existence has been ensured by the peace treaty; but also no synagogue [or church] or house of Zoroastrians shall be built anew. The sheep should not be dragged to the slaughterer and one must not sharpen the slaughtering knife on the head of the cattle thatis being slaughtered.2

[238] At a comparatively later stage the traditional rules relating to the dhimmiswere collected intoonedocument called ‘theconditionsof ‘Umar’. Thereis no doubtthat the intention here is to thecaliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khaattiib (and not ‘Umar ibn‘Abd al-‘Aziz, as claimed by some scholars whose opinions are today accepted by many). Thebasic principles of these traditional rules were decided upon according to precedents from the days of ‘Umar ibnal-Khattab, and we find them in treaties of surrender which were preserved in Arab historical writings. I have already mentioned above the treaties that were signed in Tabiik and Jerusalem. It is worth noting some other documents that are characteristic of the early Muslim period and are stamped with the mark of authenticity: the surrenSee comprehensive discussions with references to sources on the state of the protected people in Islam: Goitein,Jews and Arabs, 62. Strauss (Ashtor), Hirschler Memorial Volume: 73; Goldziher, REJ, 28(1894): 75. Abel, R I D A , 2:1, 1949. See Balidhuri, FtrtrSh, 162; Dhahabi, Miziin, 11, 232; Naysibiiri, Rawda, 458 (‘Ali said that it was not worth while greeting aJew). See the tradition which recommends that a portion of sadaqa and khurns go to the poor of the dhimmis: Ibn Abi Shayba, 111, 178; ‘Azizi, I, 127: ‘if you wish to bless a Jew ora Christian,bless him: may God multiply your money, because his money is useful to us through the j i z y a , or after he dies without heirs’. Ibid., I, 384, in the name of the Prophet: ‘clean your courtyards,and be not like Jews the whoare dirty and their courtyards are dirty’. And counter this, the story of the cadi, ‘Abdallah al-RahmZn b. ‘Abd b. Hujayra al-Khawlini, who was cadi in Egypt from 709 until August 717, with intervals: after ‘Umar ibn‘Abd al-‘Aziz dismissed himfrom his post, the Jews made a claim against him of money he had borrowed from them, and ‘Umar forced him to pay because he had no written confirmation of clearance of the debt. Fortunately for him, he succeeded in bringing witnesses that he had paid the debt. See Kindi, 332C Ibn Hajar,Ray, 284. One can cite further instances in both directions, the good and the bad. 2 Tabari, Ta’rlkh, 11, 1372. 1

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

der agreement of Najran (of the Prophet’s time), the surrender agreement of Damascus, and ‘Umar’s pact with the people of al-Sham andthe surrender agreement of LO^.^ [239-2401 The underlying concept of Islam regarding the Jews and the Christians is that they are ‘people of the Book’, ah1 al-kit&. The meaning is not simply thattheyare peoples with a book. The intention of this by-name was that each of the tworeligions is an umrna, that is, agroup of people to whom, in earlier generations, God ‘handed down’ through the medium of messengers (the prophets) the Book, a book which is in its essence one and the same, and identical with the Koran.T o these people the Koran promised that the Muslims would no longer fight them, on condition that they submit and pay their taxes, as we have seen above.4 Non-belligerence, or the right to survive, was bound up,according to this ideology, with foregoing all means of self-defence and the acceptance of protection from or under the aegis (dhimma) of the Muslims. Thiswas the condition under which they would receive protection, aman. Security was given to men who paid the tax, to their dependants and property. In addition, they wouldhave to be submissive, that is to consider themselves inferior to Muslims and to act accordingly. They would have to differ from the Muslims in their outward appearance and some other aspects They wouldbe permitted tofulfil the which I shall explain in detail below. 3

See doubts as to the attribution of the conditions of the dhimmis to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib (and evento someone from the Muslim army command in his time):Tritton, Caliphs, 10, 12. See the articles Dhimma (by C. Cahen) and Amin (by J. Schacht) in EP and the references in these two articles. Finkel, J Q R , NS 23(1932/3), 271 is of the opinion that ‘Umar ibn‘Abd al-‘Aziz wished toact on the example of ‘Umar I and hence he was the first of the Umayyadcaliphs who renewed the decreesof the latter, particularly with regard to dress. The treaty of Najran:Balidhuri, FutrS!t, 63-65. The treaty of surrender of Damascus (in the name of Abii ‘Ubayda): Ibn ‘Asikir, 504f. ‘Umar’s treaty with the people of al-Sham: ibid., 563f. The treaty of Lod: Tabari,Ta’rrkh, I, 2407. The documentcalled ‘The conditions of ‘Umar’,a compendium oflaws relating to the legal status of the dhimmis, is certainly comparativelylate, and its earliest versionis evidently that in Shifi‘i (died in 820), Utnm, IV, 118ff (see the English translation: Tritton, Caliphs, 12ff); see the version of Qalqashandi, Subh, XIII, 378; see also Shayzari, Nihiya, 106f and the supplement ibid., 120; a Hebrew versionof 38 ‘conditions of ‘Umar’, as translated by Jacob Skandari, the Rabbi of Alexandria, from an unidentified Arabic source,is included in Joseph Sambari’s chronicle (the second half of the seventeenth century), see in Fischel, Zion, 5(1940) 209ff. As to ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, it seems that the major innovation he introduced was equality between the Arab and the non-Arab Muslims; nevertheless the non-Arabs still had to pay land taxeson their estates, because their land wasfay’ (agij from God the to Muslims) and the owner of property, thatis the Muslim state, was entitledto compensation;see: Gibb, Arabica, 2(1955), 3. ‘Fay’ means whgt they [the Muslims] obtain bypeace treaties, namely thejizya and kkarijj’, see Yahyi b. Adam, 23. The expression ‘an yadin, in that verse was explained by Kister, Arabica, 11:272, 1964, as being: according to their ability, or their profits. This explanation is preferable to others, because it suits the accepted policy afterwards(though it was not always enacted), which introduced three categories for the payment of the poll-tax: three to four dinars per annum for the rich,two for middle-range incomes, and one dinar for the poor (or their equivalent

T H E T A X E S [ S E C S . 241-2651

obligations of theirreligion,undercertainrestrictedconditions;they would have no military or political duties, nor servein publicor governmental posts. Subsequently, inheritance regulationswould also d e ~ e l o p . ~ The taxes

[241] Taxation policy had not yet been formulated in the days of the Prophet, not even during the great conquests. At the time, the Muslims would impose a global sum in oneplace, and in another collect a certain portion ofthe income agricultural in produceor textiles. Each place had its arrangements, as we have seen in the Prophet’s covenants and have learned from the treaty with Jerusalem. The termsjixyaand klzarcij still indicated a tax in general, and only in the following generations would the former mean a head-tax and the latter a land-tax.6

6

in dirhams). See for instance Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam, 152ff, who mentions these sums in the name of Aslam, ‘Umar’s freedman; cf. Stern, Byznrttion, 20(1950), 239. We havealready come across the demand to hand over arms and horses in the discussion of the Prophet’s treaties. Certainly the two are tied together inan inseverable knot: the acceptance of the Muslims’ protection and the rightto survive in exchange for the payment of a tax on the one hand, andrelinquishing the of anymeans of self defence on the other. See also the treaty of Najrinin Balidhuri, F u t d . ~ 64; , there it saysthat thepeople of Najrinwill submit their arms, horses and all riding beasts; and see the treaty ofDamascus (al-Shim), in make any Ibn ‘Asikir, I, 505: ‘we shall not ride on saddles and weshall not keep any arms or in our houses, and shall not wear swords’. See also another version (’for the Christians in the land of al-Shim’), ‘we shall not keep arms nor swordsand will not bear them at home nor on journeysin the land of the Muslims’. It appears that theearliest stage in the development of tax laws in Islam after Muhammad’s death isreflected in the events of the tribes’ first raid beyond the Euphrates, when a surrender treaty (&) was signed between Khilid ibnal-Walid and the Jewish population of Babylonia. According to Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 121, this sul!r was signed with ‘Saliibi ibn Busbahri, who lived on the banks of the Euphrates, in exchange for the paymentof one thousand dirhams’. The time: Safar, of the year A D 12, or May AD 633. According to Tabari, the tax was ten thousand dinars, and this in addition to klrarza of thePersian king (Kisri); this sum would have to be collected chiefly by the imposition of a poll-tax of four dirhams; see Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2018f, 2049f, 2165f,2182f; Balidhuri, FutGlt, 242f, 253,457; JHhiz, ‘Uthrniniya, 212; Ya‘qiibi, Ta’rikh, 11, 176; Yahyi b. Adam,34f; Dhahabi, Ta’rikh, 11, 5; Ibn Kathir, Bidiyn, VI, 343; Ibn al-Athir, K i d , 11, 384,392; Yiqiit, Blddin, I, 484, Buriqi, 140. Cf. Caetani, Annuli, II(2), 971, n. 4, who compares the kharza and the kharij k i w i in the chronicle of the ninth century ofIbn Khurdidhbih, and see also Caetani, ibid., 173. See the detailed discussion on the identityof Saliibi (= Silbv2, a Syriac-Aramaic word meaning crucifier) in Gil, Tarbiz, 48(1978/9), 52f. One can assume that theArabic kharij is none other than the Persian-Aramaic kargi, and notkhovegia as isexplained in E F , IV, 1030, and as was also believed by Henning,Orientalia, NS 4:291, 1935. It is interesting thatin the neighbourhood of the eleventh century, an Iraqi source is still using the term fasq (fasqi in the Talmud) as meaning a land tax, and not the term kharij; see: al-kitib af-biwi fil-a‘rnil al-sultitriyya (MS Paris, Ar. 2462), in Cahen, A I E O , 10(1952), 333. As to j i z y a , which meant in later generations specifically poll-tax, I believe that this too is Aramaic in its origins, from the rootg x y , .which is found also in the Talmudicsources and its meaningis income, payment, and not from the Arabic root jzw (to recompense) asis commonly believed. The paymentsmadebythe Byzantines to theMuslims according to peace settlements (or armistice) between them were also calledj i z y a . This was money paid by the

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

[242-2431 In those areas thatwereunderByzantine rule (Palestine, Syria, Egypt) wefind a clause relating to taxes in all the letters of protection and surrender agreements which have been preserved in the sources; but we generally do not find any specific details as to how the payments would be made, and one can discern the tendency to collect a global sum from each town. In this connection it is worth noting the tradition preserved in Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam: if a man died in a village on which a global tax has been imposed, rather thana tax on each individual (jizya rntrsammih ‘nli’l-qavya), the dead man’s land would be given tothe village. If, however, the j i z y a was a certain sum imposed on each head, the land would be givento the Muslims. In the continuation, itsays that ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz introduced a law that thejizya wouldbe imposed onevery head and not on the land. Here the chronicler comments that the intention was to the ah1 al-dhimtna (that is to the protected people, Jews and Christians); and he continues by saying essentially that the methodof collecting taxes from the Egyptian population (al-QibF, the Copts) remained as it was under Byzantine dominion - they would collect taxes according to the size of the population in every village. The elders (‘trvafi’, marut [read: tnaziit, from theGreek meizones], ru’asi’) would be called together to estimate the area of land cultivated by the inhabitants of the village. Afterwards a general assemblyof the district(kiira = klzora) would be held; at this stage they would deduct the donations to the churches and other public institutions and the expenses for housing ofthe unitsMuslim army. Then they would decide on the extent of the tax to be imposed on the craftsmen and the hired people who lived in those villages, according to their ability to pay (i(ztim2l) and the tax to be imposed on the jiliya (literally: the exiles; the expression is undoubtedly parallel to xenoi, aliens), the mature and the married living in these villages, according to their ability to pay. The remainder of the khariij would be imposed on the villagers themselves, corresponding totheir sowing plans and their ability to pay (‘ala qadri tiqatihim).’ This traditionclearly implies that inthe main they would imposea general tax on the town,and the organisation of the distribution of this sum would have to be carried out by the dhimmis themselves. emperor when hefelt too weak to fight;cf. what happened in the days of theFatimid caliph al-Mu‘izz: Stern, Byzantiorz, 20 (1950), 239. Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam, 152f. The termjdiya, intended to be applied to people living in a village who are not locally born, has in the course of generations become a synonym of jizya, in its later meaning, that of poll-tax; see what is saidin the version of the conditions in Sambari, Fischel,Zion, 5(1940), 212: ‘and whoever dies of them in the same year a portion ofhis inheritance shall be taken as the part which has passed ofthis year’ (thatis, they would “pay for the months during whichhe was still alive); strangers whocame to a town ‘may stay there four monthswithout having topay any tax’. This version evidently also reflects

T H E T A X E S [ S E C S . 241-2651

The Byzantine tradition in the matter of taxation, as preserved in the first generations of Muslim rule in Palestine, can be seen in the papyri of Nessana. The poll-tax is called there epikephalion, and the landtax is called the dZmosia, which is the dTmiisya in Talmudic literature. O n the other hand, in one place there is mention ofa payment of six solidi, the equivalent of the Muslimdinar which appeared later (some4.2 grams of gold). I am inclined to believe that it was a payment on account of the general sum imposed on the town. As to the roots of this system of lump payments, one can indeed be impressed byits continuity fromByzantine timesonward, as described by Ibn ‘Abdal-Hakam and as is perhaps discernible in the papyri of Nessana. But we have seen this system also in the treaties of the Prophet himself, and onecan add what was said of theagreement with theChristians in the city of NajrZn in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula: ‘The master of the townand thejudge (?) in it (al-sayyid wa’l-‘iqib) came to Muhammad, both on behalf of the people of Najriin, and made peace for 2,000 hullas, 1,000 in Safar and 1,000 in Rajab, each hulla weighing one ounce.* [244-2451 Direct evidence of thecollection of land taxes in Palestine is supplied by adocument fromNessana, which is a receipt for the land tax, dating from about the end ofthe seventh century. Apparently the Muslims carried out a new measurement of the land in ordercalculate to the taxes, and in that document it was said that the taxwas imposed accordingto the measurement of the land carried out by the Arabs. There are also eight orders regarding supplies for the Muslim army fromthe people of Nessana in the years 672-677. Palestine was, during the entire period we are dealing with, a sort of gold mine for the central government, whether headquartered in Damascus, Baghdad or Cairo. O n the basis of data preserved by Muslim chroniclers and geographers is it possible to reconstruct the sumscollected in the treasuryat various times from the two junds, Filastin and Urdunn. Naturally,thesecuritysituationhada noticeable influence on the amounts, but one can easily deduce that inall the periods it was a matter of hundreds of thousands of dinars. If we take into account that the average monthly wage then was sometwo dinars, we can say that it was a matter of hundreds ofthousands of monthlywages, as Table 1 indicates. Contrary to what we are inclined to believe today, the question of taxes did not have only asecular and financial character. Indeed, we know that the money from the poll-tax was consideredas a kind ofsacred money. In 8

an ancient Egyptian tradition, as bequeathed by the Byzantines. See Nessana, 33, and document No. 55, ibid., 172f. The editor, Kraemer,assumes that the payment ofsixsolidi was a tax imposed on theindividual. The treaty of Najrln: Balldhuri, Ft@, 63. It is noted there that they are speaking of anofounce forty dirhams, and thus the 2,000 hullas were some 250 kilograms of gold. Cf. Hinz,35.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

Incomejom non-Muslim taxes, in dinars Source (rounded) Total Urdunn Filastin Time 670 780

800 820 840 (?) 500,000 300,000 259,000

860 890 895

450,000 310,000 310,000 195,000 175,000

180,000 97,000 96,000 109,000 175,000

630,000 407,000 406,000 304,000 350,000

350,000 100,000 170,000

850,000 400,000 429,000

Ya'qiibi Ibn Khallikan Jahshiyari Qud5ma ISfahini (in Ibn Khurdidhbih) Ibn Khurdidhbih Ya'qiibi Muqaddasi9

general, a cadi was in charge of collecting this tax and he was obliged to keep it separate from the rest of the treasury's income. As Maqrizi once said, this was 'thegood and pure money', and it would be indecent to mix the money from the jiliya ( = j i x y a , poll-tax) with the income from port taxes. Among the documents in the Cairo Geniza, a payment order has been preserved written by Abraham Maimuni to the effect that a sum of 81 dirhams had to be paid urgently to thecadi Shams al-Din, for this was the remainder of whatis owed for thejiliya for the year 614 of the hijra (AD 1217/8).1° [246-2471 The collection of the j i x y a was generally called istikhriij,

which means collectionor income.In an inscription discovered in Jerusalem, near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, evidently dating from the thirties of theeleventh century (i. e. from theFatimid period), itis written that no dhimmimay come into the mosque, even ifhe comes in mattersof the istikhriij. It is reasonable to assume that the dhimmi would usually come to the mosque to pay the cadi the poll-tax, and this is what the founder of the Jerusalem mosque wished to prevent (and we have no details concerning him or the mosque).l1 See the document from Nessana in Bell, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 89:531,1945; another documenttells of a delegation of twentypeople appearing before the governor of Gaza in order torequest a decrease in taxes. Cf. Lewis,PEQ, 80(1948), 114. Table 1 follows that of Le Strange, Palestine, 45fC see the detailed references therein.The figures relating to 670 (Mu'awiya's time) are according to: Ya'qiibi, Ta'rikh, 11, 288. T o the taxes of780, one mustadd: 300,000ratls (= pounds) ofolive oil per annum, from jund Filastin. See Maqrizi, Khitat, I, 187; Gil, Documents, 107f and see ibid., 416, the payment order of Abraham Maimuni (no. 114,TS Box K 25, No. 240 [ll]). To the Shiites, the poll-tax, the jizya, was considered a direct debt of the unbelievers to the imirn (that is, the legitimate ruler) of the Muslims, like the payment owed by the slave to his master, for the dhimmis are slaves (mamilik) of the imim. See Ibn Biibawayah, ' I l d , 541. See the termistikhrij clearly meaning the collecting of thepoll-tax inYahyii Ibn Sa'id,239; Maqrizi, Itti'&, I, 146: Ya'qiib IbnKillis and 'Asliij forbade the useof dinars which were

T H E T A X E S ( S E C S . 241-2653

The question of taxes in Jerusalem is a very special one. We have seen above theclause in ‘Umar’s treaty with people the ofJerusalem, who were Christians, according to which they had to pay the j i x y a just as did the inhabitants of othercities; but there are nodetails in that treaty about the conditions of other cities’ payment of the j i x y a (there are some details relating to Tiberias, as we shall see). Here the CairoGeniza comes to our assistance; although it dates relatively late - the eleventh century, it evidently reflects customs thathad continued from the time of the conquest, for some four hundred years. The circular letter comingfrom theyeshiva ofJerusalem, evidently in 1057, appeals to the Egyptian communities for help,pointing to ‘thetaxandtheregularpaymentsimposed on us, whether we are many or few; every year we have to borrow with interest in order to fulfil it’. From this we can assume that the Jews of Jerusalem had to pay a regular lump sum annually; and it is very likely that this continued from the days of the caliph‘Umar. It seems that in the course of of sum among the Jews of generations a form of internal distribution this Jerusalem evolved.The Gaon Solomon b. Judah, writing from Jerusalem in ca. 1034 on the subject of Farah b. Dunash, a man of Sijilmissa, notes that this man settled in Jerusalem, married a woman ofJerusalem, begat sons, became a Jerusalemite and paid ‘the tax as the great do, which is a dinar (xdzfiv) and a quarter’. We learn that the ‘great’, undoubtedly the well-to-do, paid a dinar and a quarter in Jerusalem (and this was not much compared with the four dinars was that asked ofthe rich in otherplaces).’’ [248] Although the information in the CairoGeniza documents is not explicit, one can nevertheless learn from them what was the regular annual sum that hadto be paid.The Gaon Solomonha-Kohen b. Josephmentions in his letter thathe wrote from Jerusalem in the springof 1025 to Ephraim

12

not thecoinage of al-Mu‘izz for the purpose of istikhrij; the and see further exampleson the same page and on the following page. The Jerusalem inscription, see: Bjorkman, Der Islam, 15(1926), 97; Ripertoire ckrutdogique, No. 2149 (vol. VII, 804; Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil, 11, 308; Hirschberg, BJPES, 13(1946/7), 163, and a drawing of the inscription ibid., 162. Hirschberg assumed that istikhrij meant theclearing of refuse and related this to the information on the Jews engaged in cleaning work on the Temple Mount in the period after the conquest. The question of whether it is permissible altogether for dhimmis to enter the mosque is discussed in Muslim legal literature and sometimes the answer is positive, such as the opinion of Mujahidin Ibn Abi Shayba, 11, 526; cf. Tritton, J R A S , 1942, 37: (generally) it was forbidden to dhimmis to enter mosques, but they entered nevertheless, for a person could not be asked what his creed was on entering a mosque (according to Ghazdi); see also Lazarus-Yafeh, Tarbiz, 51(1981/2), 219. The clause in ‘Umar’s treaty with Jerusalem promising people from the towns and villages (who evidently foundhaven a in Jerusalem) is also worth noting, thatif they would return to their homes, they would only be asked to pay taxes after the harvest.The circular letter: 420, d, lines 15-17. The letter of Solomonb. Judah: 118, a, lines 9ff. Solomon b. Judah asks Abraham that he save the aforementioned ‘from the hands of the Egyptian oppressors’ for he is going there (Goitein, Mediterranean Society, I, 49, writes that it was a matter of marriage to a woman of Tiberias, but this is not what is written in the letter; see 1. 10).

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

b. Shemaria, leader of the Jerusalemites inFustat, that theJews ofJerusalem had to pay 100 dinars. In about 1030, his successor to the seat ofGaon, Solomon b. Judah,in a letter to thesame, confirms thereceipt of twentynine and one eighth dinars, sent by diyoqne (in Arabic: s u j a j u ) with an Egyptian Jew whocame on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He continues: 'and we obliged ourselves to take from this diyoqne 20 dinars (xehtrviwz) for the debt wehave to pay each year', that is they had to use most ofthat amount to pay the regular global annual tax. Further details regarding this annual sum are gathered from a letter written in about 1060 by 'Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, who was the pavnis of the community,that is the man in charge of money matters, in Jerusalem. In this letter, he mentioned that the community was asked to pay 150 dinars everyyear as a regular tax ( v i t i b ) , of which70 were thekhaviij, 40 for the armed guards (ahdith), and a further 40 for municipal expenses there. We may assume thatout of the100 dinars mentioned,70 were considered khavij, the tax of the Muslim authorities, and the last 30 were evidently intended for the local securitypeopleandthecity's needs. Theseare specified in detail in a letter of theyeshiva ofJerusalem fromthe year 1057 which I have already mentioned above: '. . . the needs of the city: to clear its refuse, clean its drains, repair its walls and pay its watchmen, please its governors, etc. ', in contemporary terms: to collect the refuse, maintain the sewage system, maintain thewalls and pay the watchmen who guard the walls, and bribe those in official positions.13 [249-2521 We have learned that the regular annual amount which the Jews inJerusalem had to pay on the basis of a custom thatbegan immediately after the conquest, was 70 dinars. With this payment, the right to enter Jerusalem as a pilgrim was 'acquired'. Entrance to the city was evidently linkedto the payment of a iftax, the personwho came to thecity was a dhiwzmr. We know of asimilar tax inAlexandria from aletter from the Geniza written in 1026 by Joseph ha-Kohen, the judge (dayyan) of Alexandria, to Ephraim b. Shemaria. This was a tax of two and a half dinars per head: 'We gave the master of the gate two and a half gold asked to pay one dinar coins'. l 4 We also know that Christian pilgrims were (auveus) on their arrival in Jerusalem for the right to enter thecity.15In the l3

l4 l5

Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph: 49, line 16c Solomon b. Judah: 112, lines 12-13; TS 20.115, a very faded fragment that remained from anotherletter of Solomon b. Judah, signed also by Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon and Tobiah 'the third', in which the 'fixed tax' to be paid to the governor and to the 'boys' is mentioned: 'and to the boys a fixed payment' (1.15); 'and to satisfy thegovernor and the boys'(1.8). The letter of'Eli ha-Kohen: 443, a, lines 8-10. Expenses of the city ofJerusalem: 420, c, lines 34-35. TS 24.29, 11. 29f, edited by Mann, Texts, I, 367ff; cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, I, 62c sha'ar shel-ha-yam as against the Arabic thaghr, which means both gate and port. William of Tyre, 30; De prima inst., RHC,Occ., V, 402.

T H E T A X E S [ S E C S . 241-2651

above letter, Solomonb. Judah explicitly mentions that the regularlump sum which the Jews ofJerusalem paid was also intended to ensure that the Muslims would notharass the pilgrims; that theJews ofJerusalem would have permission to encircle the gates of the Temple Mount together with the pilgrims,to pray alongside them, andto pray - even out loud! - on the Mount ofOlives.16 The subject of taxes is frequently mentioned in letters of the yeshiva, generally urging theaddressee to try to aid or organise aid for the people of Jerusalem; the impression is clear that they were unable to bear the heavy financial burden. Someletters of Solomonb. Judah mention thereceipt of the dlyoqnZ sent from Fustat in order to help pay the tax. Appeals of this natureweremorefrequently repeated during times when additional special taxes were imposedon the Jewish population. Frequently the istax called ‘onesh (punishment), or in Arabic, gharirna, which means both a debt and a fine. Thus for instance, in a letter of Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph, written in the spring of1025: ‘the living had to be guarantors for the dead and those who remained were guarantors for those who fled, until theypaid the ‘oneshand then they were obligedpay to a further tax.If you would have seen who paid all these sums, you would have been amazed and deplored them, and said: how did suchpoor people pay such a big ‘onesh?’ And in another ofhis letters: ‘since ‘onishlrn were imposed on us, which exhaust thebody. . . which we would not have thought that we would be able to bear even partly; (the more so) as such an ‘onesh as that which was imposed on the city’. The preoccupation of thepeople of the Jerusalemyeshiva with taxes can be seen in a fragment of a letter in the handwriting of Abraham b. Solomon b. Judah in which the main subject is the tax burden, and in which thereis mention of a’christian ( ‘ i r d ) secretary’. This perhaps hints at collaboration between the Bedouin rebels headed by the Banu Jarrah and the Christian tax officials, as the description of the rebellion may suggest (see pp. 384f below). In this passage ‘people who do notpay tax’ are mentioned and there was something about thekeneslyot (synagogues), apparently in connection with the destruction of the synagogues in the days ofal-Hakim; theaddressee (perhaps Ephraim b.Shemaria, thehivZr), is warned about revealing things to ‘the Christian secretary’.*’ [253] Letters written byJoshiah b. Aaron, Head of the Jerusalem yesh16

‘7

105, lines 13ff. A similar version: 109, lines %lo, his letter to Ephraimb. Shemaria, torn on the rightside: ‘for there remained therebut few of themany [and they hadto pay the dues] fixed,to therulers of the city and its boys so that they shouldnot harm the people of Israel . . . in their going up to (Jerusalem) and coming and going about on the gates of [the temple], saying qidcssh, and bird&, and going up to the Mount [of Olives]’. See for example147, lines 5-22, written inca. 1045;165, the remnant of a letter written by Abraham, the son of Solomon b. Judah, and one cay. still read there ‘they are eating us alive

T H E L O C A L P O P U L A T I O NA N D T H E M U S L I M S

iva, in the first quarter of the eleventh century, speak of ‘anisha, that is the a special tax heavy taxes imposed by the authorities of the day, mentioning of 2,500 dinars. One of the letters also describes the bargaining with the authorities. The representative of the Gaon,Abii Nap- b. ‘Abdiin, warns the governor ofJerusalem that if they will demand such sums, ‘half the population will flee and the city will be destroyed in front of your eyes; and you yourself will haveno security against a change of governors’. In this same letter, ‘an enormous gharima’, an especially large tax is mentioned. Also in another letter, written by a number of people from Jerusalem, evidently in 1024, there is a hint of extraordinary taxes; and one of the pantZ~iinofJerusalem went onan urgent mission to Fustat in order toget special heip to pay the tax.18 [254] At approximately the same time, we are informed about an‘onesh imposed on the entire city of Jerusalem, to the extent of 15,000 dinars, certainly an enormous sum. This apparently occurred during the war against the Bedouin tribes, and it appears that it was the Fatimid army, then fighting onPalestinian soil, which imposed the tax.To that amount, another sum of 6,000 dinars was added, tobe paid.by the Jews; half by the

18

. . . on which thedues are inscribed . . . and the ‘cinesit to be paid. . . (to the governor) of the city and all his servants . . . since to satisfy them oneneeds pieces of silver’; pieces of silver, rms? keseJ is a play of words on Ps., lxviii:30 (31), and one should read instead of rag?: rid5 in Arabic, satisfaction by silver, i.e. bribes. See a similar text in 420, d, lines 1-3, on the Muslim authorities: ‘The Children of Kedar [i.e., the Bedouin] oppress us very much, they area company of spear-men who submitthemselves with pieces of silver [Ps., ibid., the Hebrew version may be interpreted differently from the King James version], their throat is an open sepulchre’ (Ps., v:9[10]). Similar things were written by the Karaite Salmon b. Yeruhim (in the middle of the tenth century): ‘Submit himself with pieces of silver, means to say that Israel who are amongthese gentiles are tread underfoot, bring the poll-tax and special tax at any time. Some say: with pieces of silver, broken(resusitn, same root as rag?) by silver, by depriving themof their money’(kesef; both silver and money). See his commentary to Ps. (Marwick), xcvi. See also: 45, a letter from Sicily written in around 1020, in which ‘omishitn, meaning taxes, is used: ‘the ‘onishim . . . since several years . . . they have topay a fixed tax on everyhead, being 4l/2 faris, being a totalof more than 17 [aris, a big debt. . .’; the [oriwasl / 4 of a dinar, whichwas legal tender in Sicily, see: TS 16.133, lines 13, 20, 23, 27, ed. Assaf, Meqorot, 140fC TS 13J 16, f. 11, line 12, ed. Goitein, Finkel Jubilee Vobrme, 122; idem, Mediterranean Society I, Index. The letters of the Gaon Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph: 49, lines 18-19; 50, lines 10-12; 89, lines 10, 11, a letter from Solomon b. Judah to Ephraim b. Shemaria: ‘what they collected was not the rest’. 383, line enough topay the ‘cineshwe oweannually, so we were forced to borrow 10, written around 1060 by the scribe of the yeshiva: ‘and the regular dues and the ‘omishitn’: The fragment of Solomon b. Judah’s letter: 165a. See 36, line 13: ‘For two years, prior to the heavy tax imposed on our brethren, we were no longer able to request aid from the kingdom’; in other words, the subvention given by the Fatimid rulers to the yeshiva was interrupted for two years (he mentions the subvention in this letter); now even moreheavy taxes are imposed,37, b, line 18 (gizar5ma kabiru) and see the story of the bargaining in lines llff. Theletter of theJerusalemites: 33, lines 8ff ‘the 120 dinars . . . and this year we still owe 30 officials of the tax [demanded] the remaining dinars . . . and we wereforced to borrowthese dinars with interest. . . and as our emissary came back empty-handed . . . the lenderscame and demanded wesell the sacred objects’.

T H E T A X E S [ S E C S . 241-2651

Rabbanites and half by the Karaites. The Jews succeeded in collecting 5,000 dinars andthe two communities had to borrow money at exorbitant rates of interest from rich Muslims, on promissory notes for double the sums they had actually borrowed. Afterwards learn weof some Jews who were imprisoned because they were unable to defray the heavy debts. Some were forced to sell or mortgage their houses or whatever other property they possessed. Many died from the terrible torment of being required to pay the tax and some in cases, of subjection to physical torture. Fifteen thousand gold coins and add to that some six thousand fell on the . . .Jews three thousand on us, and against that, the same on our brethren (that is, the Karaites); and we gave two thousand and five hundred gold coins until we went out of everything we had empty, naked, sad, poor, and nothing remained to a man in his house, even a dress for himself or houseware; some of us mortgaged their houses with interest in order to pay and some sold them completely. Many died of this suffering; for there were those who put blame on them, and struck them without pity, but nothing was found on them; some hid in pits because of the strength of the blows and the force of the afflictions and all with that (we did not arrive at) more than two thousand and five hundred, with the tax twice doubled, and we were forced to take the rest, five hundred for nearly a thousand (that is, obliged to return almost one thousand for five hundred dinars) from the rulers of thecity,andlikewisetheinhabitantsofthe sela' (thatis,theKaraites),also t o o k . . .19

[255] A very typical document, which is so important for an understanding of the question of the istax, a draft of a petition from the Jews of l9

See 49, lines 20-30. See also Solomon b. Judah's letters, for instance 88, lines 12-16: 'our burden is heavy and everyone eatsus with all his mouth and the dues added uponus . . . and we were forced to take on interest the dues imposed on us'. In 84, a, lines 3-14, Solomon b. Judah mentions the prisoners held in jail because of thesame debt and insists on the urgentneed to get the moneyfrom therich ofEgypt, the Tustari brothers, 'for the debt is more than nine hundred dinars, how can we possibly defray Out it? of the barnfloor or out ofthe winepress?' (2 Ki., vi:27). The Karaites, though they receive considerable support from Zoan (= Fustat), they, too, still owe 800 dinars and hope that their ttesi'im (that is, people from theexilarchic familiesamong theleaders of theKaraites, see below) would get them the money. TheRabbanites in Jerusalem expect that Solomon b.Judah will act in this matteras the nesi'im of theKaraites do, andclaim that he mustshow more initiative in this matter because he was not included as one of those responsible for the debt, as happened to one of the Karaites' neri'im (from which one can deduce that the same Karaite leader was also imprisoned becauseof the debt).See also 89, lines 9-15;, and also 405, a letter written by Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon, almost at the same time, in the time of the tax, in addition to which he states 'for of forty dinars we borrowedatnine the special debt[neshe] which is known to you, our mightyone'; by 'our mighty one' he evidently meant Ephraim b. Shemaria, and the intention of the writer was apparently that out of fortydinars sent (to help the poor ofJerusalem?) they were forced to take nine for paying the tax, apart from the debt incurred by the special tax (this is evidently how one should understand the word neshe, from the root nshh). See also 210, lines 40f:Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi explains (in about 1029) why he went down from Jerusalem to Ramla, because Jerusalemis 'torturous and breaks every body. . . and the burdenis too heavy to bear . . . the fleshes and the middu (the tax of theBabylonian king, Neh. 5:4) of captivity, and the compulsion of the ledgers, which is worse than anything'.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

Tiberias concerning their taxes. From this we can deduce that in Tiberias as well, it was customary, apparently from very early times - perhaps since the Muslim conquest, to imposea lump sumas tax on the Jews of the city. One should bear in mind that Tiberias was the capital of jund of the city Urdunn. It seems that the division of the sum between the Jews was determined by their ability to pay. A new governor who was appointed to the city demanded from the leaders of the community that they should put pressure on the rich to increase their share, in order that the global sum shouldalso be larger.The representative of the Tiberian Jews was Sibii‘ b. Faraj. If he is the same as Hillel he-haver b. Joshua, it doubles the importance of a letter writtenby this Hillel, evidently to Ephraim b. Shemaria in Fustat, in which also he refers to theheavy pressureplaced on the Jews ofTiberias with regard to taxes: ‘they have imposedon theman ‘onesh, and now this elder, thegixbiiv (treasurer) is in the hands of wicked cruel people, who wish to end his life’. The reference hereis to Abraham the treasurer, a man known for his charity and certainly a rich man. His son,Joseph,cameespeciallyfromAleppowherehewasstaying,to Tiberias, to look after the affairs of his father, and went to Fustat for the same reason. The matter of the people of Khaybar mentioned in that draft of the petition is also of considerable interest.Some Jewsclaimed that they were of Khaybar stockand thus exempt from paying taxes. According to what is said in the Muslim traditions, the Jews of Khaybar were ousted from their place in the days of ‘Umar, after the Muslims had overrun their villages during the time of the Prophet and made them into tenants. The offspring of the Jews of Khaybar (or whoever claimed to be their offa spring) used to claim that they were exempt from paying tax by virtue of special letter of rights granted themby the Prophet, and they wouldalso display this document. Certain collectors of Muslim traditions have provided evidenceof the fraudulent nature ofclaim the and haveaccused them of forgery.Several versionsof the letter of rights (which is indeed forged) have been preservedin Hebrew writing.It is worth noting thataccording to Yahya ibn Sa‘id, even the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, known for his destruction of churches and synagogues and for issuing other restrictive of Khaybar from the laws against the dhimrnis, exempted the people restrictions placed on the Christians and the Jews. Here we see that in Tiberias there were alsoJews whoclaimed to have originated in Khaybar and as a result were exempt from paying [256] As I have said above,‘Umar’streatywiththeChristiansin 20

See 249 and 251: it seems that they were both in the hands of Ephraim b. Shemaria, the hk+r from Fustat; this isproven by the fact that on the back ofthe sheet on which 249is written, there is a draft of a deed of attorney, written byEphraim. This apparently takes

T H E T A X E S [ S E C S . 341-2651

Jerusalem did not include any details of thejizya which theyhad to pay, except for the general statement that it would be the same as in the other cities. We already have more exact information about Tiberias and we have seen that at the time of the conquest (January 635) its inhabitants (and one can assume that the majority were Jews) wereobliged to pay one dinar per person annually.It isstated there that similar conditions were imposed on the inhabitants of Damascus as well. That the original sum was one dinar per person in Jerusalem is suggested by the tax on Christian pilgrims entering Jerusalem, which, as noted above, was also one dinar. How did this payment of one dinar per head becomea global tax? It is likely that both sides, Jews and Muslims, were interested in it being so, in order to avoid modifications; andon thepart of theMuslims, to ease the collecting process. If indeed the tax in Jerusalem wasone dinar per adult head of a family, then thesum of70 dinars that theJews ofJerusalem were asked to pay annually is also understandable, considering thefact that seventy was the number of families at first permitted to settle in Jerusalem after the conquest. Here it is worth noting the information found in the list of Christian holy places De casis Dei, according to which the Jerusalem Patriarch pays the Arabs (ad Sarraceutos) 580 dinars annually. This was apparently the global sum imposed on the Christians in Jerusalem, and was possibly statutory since the time of the conquest. One can deduce from this thatat the time of the conquest there 580 wereChristian families living in Jerusalem.21 [257] This special tax regime that existed in Jerusalem, as well as in other

21

place in 1048, after the killing of Abraham the Tustari (see 251: ‘due to our manysins, the helping hand of the old man was done away with’) when the imposing of oppressive decrees against the Jews became frequent; see Gil, ha-Tustarirn, 41ff. As to theKhaybaris, theirbanishment is recalledinmanysources,seeforinstance:IbnSa‘d, II(1), 203; Samhiidi, I, 229; 11, 388f. O n al-HHkim: YahyH ibn Sa‘id, Ta’rikh (PO),508; the matter is also mentioned in Ibn Khallikan, V, 293. De Slane in the English translation of the aforementioned evidently read [tayibira instead of khayibira and translated: their doctors (that is: of the Jews;meaning that the Jewish scholars were exemptfrom the decrees, an unheard-ofpossibility); and see also Maqrizi, Itti‘iz, 11, 93 (the editor read habibiru instead of khayibira). Braslavi and others were inclined to believe all sorts of late sources with various stories about the Khaybaris; while Goitein adopted a more critical approach, and brought up the conjecture that those Khaybaris were Jews who came from Iraq. See Braslavi, Le-heqer, 1-52; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 386f; Muslim complaints with regard to the fraudulent letters of the Khaybaris, see for instance: Ibnal-Jawzi, Muntazarn, VIII, 265; Subki, Tabaqdt IV, 35; Safadi, al- Wifi, I, 44f; Ibn Kathir,Bidiya, IV, 219; cf. also Mez, 326, n. 4, and more references therein; see the copy of theletter-of-rights inHebrew script from theGeniza printed and interpreted by Goitein, Kiryat Sefer, 9:507, 1932/3. For the sake of comparison, see the discussion on a similar forged document, an alleged agreement between the Prophet and the Christian Bedouin Banii Taghlib: Abel, SI, 32(1970), 8f. We have seen above that the Jews who served in the cleaning and maintenance on the Temple Mount in the seventh century were exempt (as were their descendants) from paying poll-tax; thatis, the Jewish communityin Jerusalem evidently didnot impose on

THE L O C A L P O P U L A T I O N A N DTHE MUSLIMS

cities in Palestine, created circumstances that could be thought advantageous in comparisonwith those of cities in other countries in the Muslim world. In the Geniza documents, there is information on matters of the poll-tax inEgyptwhich could be comparedwith the tax regimeof Jerusalem. We find Israel b. Nathan (= Ibn Sahliin), a Maghribi merchant who was the cousin of the better-known Nehorai b. Nissim, writing to Nehorai fromJerusalem ten years after leaving Fustat. He had married a woman in Byzantium and remained there for a few years. We have no precise details about his life at that time, but his letters reveal that his marriage was a failure. He had also sat in a Byzantine prison, maybe because he was an alien. While in prison, he pledged that he would live in Jerusalem for a long time if he succeeded in being released. Upon his release he stayed in Jerusalem for year a and then decided to remain there, explaining the reasons for this to Nehorai. In Fustat, he was registered with the tax office (ft'l-khavij) - as a qitirz, that is, a permanent resident, after having previously been registered as fir;, i.e. new or temporary (certainly after he arrived there from the Maghrib). From what he writes, it appears that he if returned to Fustat after an absence of ten years or more, he would have to pay all that he owed the tax office for the years he was absent. We can learn from this that as long as he remained in Jerusalem, he was not required to pay any personal tax at all, owing to the special conditions that existed in Jerusalem." [358] The documents from Palestine and its surroundings contained in the Geniza provide us with information about additional kinds of taxes, especially those imposedon imports.Taxes ofthis kind werelevied chiefly on foreigners. A quite clear picture of this state of affairs evolves from a deed of partnership written in Fustat. The death of one of the partners brought to light the matter coming before the court of the yeshiva of Palestine under the Gaon Daniel Azariah. b. Concerning the matter we are discussing here, one detail of the transaction is important, namely that a large shipload of various goods sent to Sicily was registered in its entirety in the name of a certain Moses b. Judah, who was not the owner of the shipment, but who as an inhabitant of the island was exempt from import tax, that is the wzaks, called in this document al-'issiir min isshmi'd (the tithe of theIshmaelites). In around 1055, Nissim b. Halfon,one of theagents of thegreat international merchant Nehorai b. Nissim, writes from Tyre about flax sent from Egypt. Theletter is full of complaints about theport authorities in Tyre and the clerks of the khavij (here meaning taxes in general). The

?*

them participation in the annual sum it had topay. De cask Dei,see: Tobler et Molinier, I, 305. See 469, b, lines 7-10 (evidently writtenin 1059), and see the discussion o n the poll-tax in

T H E T A X E S [ S E C S . 241-2651

letter written by the Maghribi merchant AvonSedaqa b. on 11 November 1064 in Jerusalem is similar; apart from all kinds of grievances about the hazards of maritime commerce,and especially commerce with Sicily, he too had complaints about the maks. He also mentions thehead of theoffice of the maks, the sahib al-maks. A letter from Abraham, son of the Gaon Solomon b. Judah, also mentions the maks d - k h u ~ i j . ~ ~ [259] One should notethat accordingto Muslim law maks meant a tax of which thereis no hintin the sourcesrecognised by theshavr'a, the religious law. The Muslim sources repeatedly mention precedents of rulers who cancelled the maks, and this alone goes to provethat these cancellations did not last long. However, it appears that with regardto the dhimmis, there was no intention whatsoever to cancel the maks, as we have seen in the instance of Sicily, and certainly not with regard to those dhimmis who were not permanent residents of the port city in which itwas imposed.24 [260] Three letters written in about 1060 by 'Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, one ofthe leaders of the Jews in Jerusalem, contain evidence of a special tax on shops. The writer asks his relative in Fustat to try to get him a reduction in the tax pays he on his shop in Jerusalem, which amountsseven to dinars. The year prior to that, succeeded he in getting a reduction ofnot morethan half a dinar, and for this, he had to bribe the 'Samaritan', evidently the tax official, with a quarter ofa dinar. He asks that the tax be reduced by two dinars, at least. Approximately two hundred years earlier, themonk Bernard testifies that every merchant who owns a stand in the marketplace alongside the Latins' hostel in Jerusalemis obliged to pay two a w e i (dinars) annually to the overseer.25 [261] We have seen that one of theadvantages promised to the Jews of Jerusalem in exchange for the global tax payment was an exemption for pilgrims of the paymentof an entrance tax.The Gaon Solomon b. Judah

23

2J

25

the light of the Geniza documents: Goitein, J E S H O , 6:278,1963; idem. Mediterranearl Society, 11, 380-394. The question posed to Daniel b. Azariah: 395, line 19, and see also 394 and 396, dealing with the same matter. The letter from Tyre: 489; Avon b. Sedaqa: 500, a, lines 30-31; Abraham sonof the Gaon: 170. There are more instances of rnaks mentioned in this region; see for instance 487 in the right-hand margin, line 2, a letter from Jacobb. Joseph b. Ismi'il al-Itribulusi, written in Ascalon, in which there is a detailed description of import and export matters;495, line 11, written at approximately the same time in Tyre, by Jacob b. Ismi'il al-Andalusi, dealing with sundry wares exportedto Egypt. See editor's note in Maqrizi, Dhohab, 88; Maqrizi, Khitat, I, 184C Qalqashandi, $ubh, 111, 470C and see the article Maks (by W. Bjorkman) in El'. According to 'Azizi, 11, 41, the 'z&r (meaning here maks) is only legitimate when imposed on Jews and Christians but not on Muslims; maks on Muslims is harim. See the discussion on 'ushr in the days of the Prophet in Kister, JSAI, 1(1979), 10f and more references ibid., n. 38. See 446, from line 24f; 447, from line Sf; 449, from line 18. Bribery was self-understood, particularly in the ports; see for instance 494, a, line 13: Jacob b. Isma'il, writing from Tyre, mentions that he spent all hismoney onbribes (in around 1060).Bernard, see Tobler et Molinier, I, 314.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

distinctlymentionsthatthepeople of Jerusalemmadeextraordinary efforts in order that the authorities should not affect another right of the pilgrims, namely that they should not be asked to show the bavii’a. A traveller was obliged to carry the bavii’a, namely the confirmation that he hadpaidthepoll-tax,forif it wasfoundthathedidnothavethis confirmation, he would be in for a great deal of trouble. The Jews of Jerusalem endeavoured to be punctual in paying the global tax imposed on them: ‘We are few, we cannot stand up to a small part of it; and the remainder every yearis taken in interest: in order that the pilgrims to the holy city should not be caught and required to show the tax-notes’.26 [262] From other evidence, we learn to what extent the obligation of settling the tax affairs affected the traveller. Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, leader of the Jews of Ascalon, in his letter of 26 October 1093, recommends to the parnis ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyimin Fustat,a respected Jewish scholar, Abii Sa‘d b. Pinhis of Damascus, who is travelling to Egypt on business on his first trip there; therefore he asks the parnis of Fustat to help him find his way in thisalien situation. His particular worry is tax matters, despite the fact that he is carrying with him the bavii’a dtwiiniyya, the receiptfrom the tax authorities confirming that he hadpaid the poll-tax (in his language: dayn [ = debt of] al-jixya). A similar request we findinaletter written in around 1065 by Judah b.Abraham, a Maghribi living in Jerusalem, to the head of the congregation of Jerusalemites in Fustat, ‘Eli he-haver b. ‘Amram. He asks him to help a certain Saadia, a teacher travellingto Fustat, who needs nothing besides assistance with the tax arrangements of the ‘masters of the jali~a’.~~ [263] At times, we find the Jerusalem Gaon expressing anxiety about tax matters in Egypt.In a letter he wrote on 29 November 1042, Solomon b. Judah mentions a census that was taken in Fustat with the intention of inscribing all the poorand demanding of them taxes, and he expresses fear lest similar decrees are imposed in Palestine as well: ‘. . . [the letter from Fustat] saddened us, as it mentioned the matter of our poverty-stricken brethren, who were counted in order to collect taxes from them just as from the rich . . . and we fear . . . lest it extends from there to this country’. 28 26

27

105, lines 18-20, written around 1035. We see that the termpitiq (fromGreek:pittnkion)is used to mean bari’a. Cf.Goitein, MediterraneanSociety, 11,384fC 612, n. 46; healso mentions another Arabic synonym,ruq‘a (pl. riqi‘). See 586, lines 19fC 456, b, line 6 (this part is written in Arabic script, unlike the beginning of the letter: one can still read a&b and apparently it is to be completed: al-jdiya). 133, lines 2-4. It is interesting to compare this with what Sahl b. Masliah wrote some eighty years earlier to Jacob b. Samuel about the Rabbanites, that they ‘boast and subject them (the Karaites) to bans and excommunications and with the of help the rulers of the to aliens, and‘oni5hirn(which as we already know meant special taxes, fines) forcing them borrow on interest and give it to them’; see in Pinsker, LiqqiifZ qndrnCniyCt, 11, 31f.

T H E T A X E S [ S E C S . 241-2651

[264] It is not surprising that the Gaonpraises Ephraim b. Shemaria, the haver from Fustat. In one ofhisletters he writes thathe is 'concerned about all public affairs, to save those caught for taxes', while another leader whom he does not mention by name,is 'impatient, and has no time to go into the law, and he does not know how todeal with the police and the governor and scribe [official clerk] and tax official'. Solomon b. Judah's heir to theseat of Gaon,Daniel b.Azariah, also had atrustworthy helping hand in tax matters in the person ofAbraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac b. Furit,a physician with considerable influence. In a letter to the latter written in Arabic in around 1055, the Gaon writes that 'our people, may God help them, bless His name, are ingveut trouble [Hebrew in the original: be-sa'ar g&l] abouttheirtaxin each and every city, especially in Damascus. Therefore perhaps, Sir, you would find it possible to 'champion their rights; act, and God will double your reward.. .' At about the same time, the Jews Damascus of themselves writeto theyeshiva and mention among their other difficulties, the fact that they are being asked to pay the tax before paymentis due. They demand the possibility ofpaying thetax once a year, on Muharram. On the other hand, there were Jews who co-operated with theauthorities with regard to thetax, as one of the Gaon Solomon b. Judah's circle describes a Jew 'whosat many years serving theclerks of the tax and inheritance'; he would serve as a sort of mediator between the Muslim tax officials and the Jews and determine the extentof the tax.29 [265] We have seen that the principle of submission and inferiority of 'the peopleof the book' towards the Muslims is already to be found in the Koran. We find it again in a new version in thetreaties of surrender. The following is the version as it appears in the Damascus treaty: the Muslims are permitted to enter churches by day or night; the Christians may not raise pigs in the neighbourhood of Muslims and shall not sell wine to Muslims; theyshall not try to convert Muslims to their belief and may not prevent members of theirown religion from turning toIslam; they shall treat the Muslims with respect wherever they are located (or in their councils - j rnujdisihirn); they must stand aside and make way for them; they must stand up before them and giveup their seats for them; they may not enter Muslims' houses but are obliged to host and feed a Muslim ina reasonable manner for a period of three days; they may not curse a Muslim and whoever hits a Muslim, his blood be on his own head (jiu-qud khuli'a 'uhdutzu, literally: the treaty of his [defence] became invalid).30 29

30

95, lines 15-18; 355, b, in the margin.The letter from Damascus: 285, lines 10-12; the Jew mediator: 84, b, 11, lines 19f. Ibn'Asakir, I, 505,563f Cf. Avon b. Sedaqa'sletter,writing from Jerusalem on 28

August, 1065, to Nehorai b. Nissim, which mentions that Farah ibn Sahliin, the latter's uncle, lives in Muslims' houses, and no one comes or goes there (lidikhil wa-li khirij

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

The responsibility for the life of the dhimmi

[266] Muslimreligiouslawdid not reach aunanimousconclusion concerning the extent ofits responsibility for the lives of the dhimmis, that is, whether a Muslim who kills a dhimmi is endangering his own life or not (orwill pay the same ransom as for thekilling of a Muslim). There are hadith traditions ascribed to the Prophet in which thereis condemnation of the killingof a dhimmi, butat the same time, 'Ali was credited with the opinion that a Muslimwho had killed an unbeliever shouldnot be put to death. The genuine belief of Muhammad was in fact expressed in 'the constitution of Medina' whichwas drawn up a short time after the hijra, where it is clearly stated thata Muslim is not tobe killed for the murder of an unbeliever, and this is clearly and specifically echoed in the Muslim corpus of traditions. Actually itwas accepted that ransom payment for a dhimmi was half that ofa Muslim.As to the customin this matter during Mu'awiya's time (evidently also during the entire period of Umayyad rule) we can learn from the instance of Ziyad, Mu'awiya's step-brother, who was governor of Iraq. He refused to allow the execution of an Arab of the Banu Asad who had murdered a dhimmi (a Nubuti, that is a villager who spoke Aramaic) and imposed on the murderera ransom to the family of the murdered man, but they refused to accept it and claimed that according to the existing law on this matter, there was equality not only between Muslims amongst themselves but also between 'Arabs and nonArabs. Hujr b. 'Adi, one of the main followers of 'Ali and afterwards leader of the opposition to Mu'awiyain Kiifa, then killed thatArab murderer, an act which Ziyad and Mu'iwiya considered to be a guilty one, and on this basis had him arrested.31

Dress regulations

[267] The truest indications of the inferiority of the dhimmis were the prohibitions regarding dress and the rest of theregulations differentiating them inappearance from the Muslims. The principal motive behindthese regulations was the desire to preventsocial contact between Arabs and the local populations. Perhaps at first there mayalso have been some security considerations, but there is no evidence of this. At any rate, the Muslims

31

'alayhi); apparently he wants to say that no one dares to break the custom which bans entering there: 501, b, lines 8-12. 'The constitution of Medina', see Ibn Hishim, 342; Ibn Sa'd, I(2), 172; cf. Gil, IOS, 4(1974), 52f, and ibid. in n. 62 further references. See the discussion on ransom money for a dhimmi and the responsibility for his murder: Tritton, Caliphs, 178ff. See the story of Ziyid in Balidhuri, AnsZb, IV(A), 220.

DRESS REGULATIONS [SECS. 267-2681

saw in these regulations a symbol of the superiority of Islam and its adherents. The dhimmis on the other hand saw it as evidence of their humiliation and it is not surprising that they tried to avoid those distinguishing marks whenever possible. The prohibitions regarding dress aregenerallyascribed totheAbbasidcaliphs, especially to Harun alRashid (786-809) and al-Mutawakkil (847-861), who imposed the wearing ofyellow dresson the Christians and Jews (later, there awas differentiation between Christians and Jews, the colour of the Christians being blue). Additional marks were added, such as the interdiction on women with regard to silkengirdles, as onlycottonwasallowed;distinctive marks while entering a public bath-house; and so on. These restrictions were imposed by the rulers in Palestine as well, but to the best of my knowledgethere is nothinginthesourcesindicatingtheirparticular application in Palestine.However thereis no doubt that they were theoretically imposedin Palestine. Except that here,as elsewhere in thecaliphate they were not rigorously observed; whichis the only explanation for the fact that they had to be renewed from time to time.32 [268] An even more important question is whether these decrees really began only in the Abbasid era, that is in the days of Harunal-Rashid. A more careful examination of the earliest pacts, from the time of the conquest, will reveal that the embryo of these decrees exists in the early agreements with local populations. According to Ibn 'Asiikir's versions of the pacts with the local people of Damascus and al-Shim, they were obliged to shorten their forelocks in the front and leave the hair loose; to wear girdles (xuninF~); they must not resemble Muslims in theiroutward appearance, nor in their dress or their saddles. In addition, they had to differ from the Muslims in matters of culture and language; they could not insert Arabic in the inscriptions on their seals (there are some distorted versions on this matter which say the contrary), nor be called by Arab by-names,andtheymust notstudytheKorannor teach it to their children. 33 32

33

See the recommendations of Abii Yiisuf, 76, to Hiiriinal-Rashid: lest they resemble the Muslims in their dress, in their riding, and theiroutward appearance; the girdle(zunnir) shall be made of roughthreads; they shall wear tall headgear (qaldnis)with holes; they shall place on their saddlesa piece ofwood resembling a pomegranate; they shall make a double knot in the laces of their shoes, and more. On the decrees regarding dress of al-Mutawakkil (in 850) see Tabari, Tu'ri-kh, 111, 1389; Mawsili, Wusi'il, 36b, quotes from al-Siili of honey ( 'asall), details of Mutawakkil's decrees: the obligation to wear clothes the colour to ride in a special way, to attach coloured patches to the hats and the dress, to attach painted distinguishing signson theentrances of the houses, and more; because of this, he says, many turned to Islam (and he mentions names). Sib!Cf. ibn al-Jawzi, Mir'dh (BM Or 4618), 93b; the drawings over the doors to had be ofimages of devils (shnydtii~); on similar decrees in 907/8 (the days of al-Muqtadir), see Ibn al-Jawzi, Munta+m, VI, 82. Ibn 'Asiikir, I, 505, 563c see also Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, 151.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

Freedom of worship and itslimitations

[269] The formulae of the principle of freedom of worship, with various restrictions, also date from thevery earliest times.As early as in the treaty of Najran it is stated: ‘there shall be no disturbance to their religion and their way of life’. All the treaties I have surveyed above contain a clause enabling the protected people to maintain their houses of prayer, but not to build new ones, and accordingto certain versions, evento renew the old ones which had fallen into disrepair. The Christians had to take it upon themselves to practise their religious customs modestly, for example,not to intone thentiqiis in public but only within the churches; not to conduct noisy processions holding the cross on high;also to be quiet and modest at funerals,which mustnot beaccompaniedbytorches when passing through Muslim quarters. It appears that at the time of theconquest many churches and synagogues were destroyed by the invading tribes. Apparentlythe timeofthedestructionofthe synagoguesandByzantine churches, whose remnants were and are still being discovered in various parts of Palestine, was thatof the Muslim conquest or shortly afterward. Clear evidence of this has been preserved regarding the region of Damascus and the Ghawta (the valley surrounding the city), in a source saying that in the days of ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, not a single undamaged church was found in the entire area. It seems that the fate of the synagogues, in the large cities at any rate, was a better one, for the Muslim rage to destroy churches was fed to a large extent by their hatred of the Byzantines, against whom they waged perpetual war. There is evidence of widespread destruction of the dhimmis’ houses of prayer in the ninth century. In 807, Hariin al-Rashid decided to demolish all the housesof prayer of theunbelievers, but it is not clear to what extent this decree was carried out. It is quite possible that the intention was to destroy only those places of worship that were built after the Muslim conquests (in whichcase, in Baghdad for instance,all the housesof prayer would have been destined for destruction,as would those ofJerusalem and Ramla). In 850, we are again told,a decree was issued by al-Mutawakkil to destroy all the new places of worship of theunbelievers (and also to take over a tenth oftheir homes for the Muslims); old churches and synagogues which were still functional would become mosques, or at any rate, had to be evacuated.We have no knowledge of whether, or to what extent, these decrees were carried out in Palestine. With regard to the Christians, it appears that similar acts of destruction took place,alsointhesucceedinggenerations. As to the outcome of al-Hakim’s decrees to that effect at the outset of the eleventh century, the synagogues in Palestine were also destroyed. There was certainly a gap I 60

F R E E D O M O F W O R S H I P ; P R O F E S S I O N S A N D O F F I C E S[ S E C S . 269-2701

between the laws and what actually took place. A notable fact is the existence of the synagogue in Jerusalem, confirmed by the Geniza documents from the eleventh century, although there is no doubt that no synagogue existed there at the time of the Muslim conquest in638. There were also synagogues in Ramla which were built after the conquest.In the middle of theeleventh century, we find an episode in connection with the Christians, in some unidentified place (but it seems to refer to a city in Palestine) who did not take into consideration the existing prohibitionsat all and built their church even higher than the mosque, and so the church was demolished. (In addition, the noise of the knockingon the naqiis was disturbing and anuisance to the Muslims.)34 Professions and offices

[270] The religious autonomy given to the Jews and the Christiansis an issue on its own, and which wasexpressed in the relationship between the Muslim authorities and the institutions of leadership of the two communi34

Ibn 'Asakir, I, 504f, 563f; Balidhuri, Futtih, 64 (Najrin). See on the destruction of the churches in Damascus and the whole area: 'Imiid al-Din, Tadhkira, 21ff; see ibid. also a story of negotiations between the Christians and 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, regarding compensation for their church in Damascus (which was destroyed by the Jews according to Caliph al-Walid's decision); Badri, 34f. Tabari, Ta'rikh, 11, 1372, cites'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz's order, which says: 'do not destroy any Jewish or Christian house of prayeror any templeof the Zoroastrians, if the peace treaty permits them to maintain it, do but not allow themto build new ones'.One should note that the Byzantines had a similar asview, can be seen by a regulation found in the code ofJustinian is(itfound in: Starr,]ews, 145[no. 831):it is permitted torepair synagogues butnot tobuild new ones;cf. Krauss, Melila, 3 - 4 : 77, 1949/50. See on thedecrees of HZrhnal-Rashid: Tabari, Ta'rikh, 111, 713; Ibn al-Athir, 52. O n Kitnil, VI,206. al-Mutawakkil: Tabari, Ta'rSkh, 111, 1390; Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, VII, the order of destruction ofHirhn al-Rashid it is said that houses of worship in the ports (al-thugtrr)were intended;as to al-Mutawakkil, included in his decrees is the destruction of cemeteries of the unbelievers (taswiyat qubtirihim ma'a'l-urd, whose correct interpretation seems to be destruction, although Tabari adds: so that they shouldnot be like the Muslim graves, that is, allegedly the intention was that the graves should not rise above the ground). See further Abii YUsuf, 141: 'Umar ordered Abh 'Ubayda not to disturb the Christians whenthey are taking the crosses out on theholidays, if thisis done outside the town, but withoutdisplaying their banners, and only on oneday in the year;but they are not allowed to take out thecrosses inside the city, among the Muslims and their mosques. The law prohibiting the dhimmis to put up buildings (and certainly houses of worship) which were taller than the Muslim buildings was apparently introduced in later generations; see Mez, 47- in his opinion, this idea was taken by thefrom westtheMuslims (one need not necessarily believe him), such as the complaintofPope Innocent 111, that the Jews of Sens built a synagogue taller than the church its in neighbourhood. See his remarks in of synagogues his letter, in: Grayzel, The Church, 106. Such a law prohibiting the building is first mentioned (as far as we know) in 423, see the Theodosian Code, xvi-8, 25; it appears that Zen0 the bishop ofVerona (362-380) hinted at such a law, earlier than the aforementioned by nearlytwo generations; see: MPL, 11,354ff. Cf.Juster,/u$, I, 469, n. 2; Baron,]ewish Community, 111, 20f; the affairof thechurch which was muchtoo tall, see: 404, letter to Abrahamha-Kohen b. Isaac b. Furat, lines14-19, according to the version in Gil, Te'uda, 7(1991), 332.

161

T H E L O C A L P O P U L A T I O N A N D T H EM U S L I M S

ties in Palestine. A basic fact was the uninterrupted existence of these institutions for almost the entire period, with a varying degree of intervention on the part of the authorities in their affairs. Although the Muslim law did not impose any restrictionson the economic affairs ofthedhimmis - on thecontrary,theMuslimswere interested, as soon as their reign was established, that the dhimmis should continue to pursue their occupations, as we have seen- there was a distinct opposition to thedhimmisholdinganypublicposts, as outlined in Muslim law. True, this is not formulated in any of the early sources in which legal principles with regard to the dhimmis are to be found, and dealing with otherareas, from the Koran onwards, but one can rely on the approach of the caliph ‘Umar ibnal-Khattab in this matter. It was natural that at the beginning of the conquest, the Muslimshad to continue to employ officials who served in the former administration, for they had no people of their own who could fill administrative posts, particularly with regard to finance. It is said that ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib himself appointeda number of thecaptives of Caesarea as administrative officials. One can also assume that Jewish and Christian physicians were called upon to serve at the courts of the caliphs in their professional capacities. O n the other hand, isittold that‘Umar oneday requestedfrom Abti Mus5al-Ash‘ari to bringhis secretary to him to read him someletters from al-Sham, and that Abti Miisi replied that he could not bring the secretary into the mosque.When ‘Umar asked him the reason for this, he disclosed that the secretary was a Christian. This roused ‘Umar’s wrath and he read him the words from the Koran(strvat al-ma’ida, v:56) ‘Oh, ye believers, do not take Jews or Christians as your aides, for they aid one another’. It is known fromthe Egyptian papyri, however, and even from Muslimsources,thatthe Umayyadsemployeddhimmis, particularly Christians (from families that had formerly been Byzantine officials) in administrative posts. We have already seen a few such instances above, particularly the family of Sarjtin b. Manstir of Damascus. Some of them converted to Islam, and certainly since they were mawali; their advance would have been much more rapid than if they had maintained their former religion. In the Abbasid periodas well, we find Christians serving in administrative positions despite the fact that, from time to time, the caliphs issued orders prohibiting their employment, such as al-Muqtadir’s order in 908/9. The participation of both Christian and Jewishdhimmis in various administrative roles was particularly marked in the days of the Fatimids. In this sphere, we have considerable information from both Arab sources and from theGeniza documents, and below we shall encounter central figures in the Fatimidpolitical scene who were Jews (some of whom convertedtoIslam),and who wereinvolvedinthe affairs of I 62

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Palestine, such as Manasseh ibn Abraham al-Qazziiz, Jacob ibn Killis, the Tustari brothers and others. There was even a governor in Jerusalem who was a Karaite (Ibn ‘Allfin) and agovernment official in Jerusalemwho was a Samaritan, for example.35 Matters of inheritance; Muslim courts

[271] Another sphere in which Muslim law influenced the life of the dhimmis was thatof the property of the family,I refer and here to thelaws of inheritance. In general, the lawrecognised the rightofJews and Christians to deal with matters of inheritance accordingto their own laws as the leaders and judgesof the communityinterpretedthem.There was, however, an inclination toconfiscate dhimmis’ property when they died without male heirs, although they first allotted to the widowsand daughters what was their due in Muslim law (according to which the women and daughters have a share in the inheritance). According to a hadith, the Prophet said that a Muslim doesnot inherit from theunbeliever nor does the unbeliever inheritfrom the Muslim, a rule whichis in keepingwith the basic Muslim approach whichplaces considerable weight on the religious partnershipin human relationships - an emphasiswhich gives them priority over family relationships. This approach is very objective on the surface, for accordingly Jew a whoconverts to Christianity loses his rights of inheritance as well, as does one who converts to Islam. However, at variance with this is another hadith of the Prophet whichsays that Islam only brings about profit and not loss ( a l - d Z m yuzid wn-la p ~ r ~ q t r s ) . ~ ~ [272] In the Muslim law of inheritance there was a loophole, which Caesarea: Balidhuri, FtrtMh, 142, the case of Ab6 Musi: Ibn Qutayba,‘UyrTn, I, 43; Ghizi ibn al-Wisiti, 387fC cf. Belin,JA, 4e sCr., 18(1851), 428; see also Tritton, Caliphs, 18, and see there on pp. 19ff many additionaldetails on the employment of Christians in administrative posts in various places of the Muslimworld during the period under discussion. See Nuwayri, VIII, 198C according to him Greek was no longer being used in financial management in the days of ‘Abd al-Malik, since the year AH 81, that is AD 700, after a Greek official urinated into the ink. The caliph then ordered Sulayminb. Sa‘d to introduce Arabic script;itwasfirst used in matters of taxes in jund Urdunn. Afterwards he transferred him to Damascus, where he was put in theplace of the Christian Sarjun.The employing of local administrative officials isshown by the Egyptian papyri; instance, for dux, while the Arabs call him ‘the honourable the case of a Christian who still bore the title nmir’, see: Lewis, PEQ, 80(1948), 112. Al-Muqtadir’s order: Ibn al-Jawzi, Mtrntazam, VI, 81. See also the survey in Goitein, Mediterraneart Society, 11, 374ff on this subject: ‘NonMuslim government officials’ (and see ibid. the corresponding notes), based on Geniza documents. See a comprehensive discussion of this subject: Schreiner, RE], 29(1894), 208, and the supplement ibid., 212. The hadiths are cited in many places; see, for instance, Milik, 255 (No. 728); Tayilisi, 77, 87; Ibn al-Athir, Jimi‘, X, 366ff. There werelegists who accepted the first hadithas it stands and rejected the authenticityof the other, thatis, they claimed that the Muslim cannot inherit from theunbeliever; see Ibn al-Jawzi, Mawtji‘it, 111, 230; Tritton, Caliphs, 136.

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allowed for appeal to the Muslim court, in the hopethat the cadi would grant the claimant advantageshe could not have obtained at the hands of the Jewish court, particularly when speaking of women. Also with regard to divorce, we know that when the husband refused to grant a divorce, there were some women who applied to the Muslim court. O f this, we have the evidenceof Sherira Gaon,who points out in onehis ofresponsa, that a short time after the conquest of Babylonia by the Muslims, when Rabba was the head of theyeshiva in Pumbedita, and Hiin2 in Sura (about 650), an amendment (taqqina) was decided upon, named after the daughter-in-law of Rav Zavid; this amendment prescribed that the husband must give the wifea divorce immediately, on condition that she renounce what is written in the marriage deed (ketubba), because ‘the daughters of Israel were relyingon thegentiles to get their divorce by force’. Naturally, at such an early date, there wasno still clear-cut Muslim law with regard to divorce, and onecan only view this informationas incidental evidence of the Muslim authorities’ intervention in instances in which the woman succeeded in convincing them that she had been mistreated and that the Jewish decision had been contrary to their sense of natural justice.37 [273] This tendency to apply to the cadican be seen in Jewish sources of the period. One can assume that similar processes occurred among the Christians, but we have no specific knowledge of this. The Jewish public, for whom the authority of their court was the very nerve centre of religious-nationaluniqueness,opposedthistendencybyemphasising again and again the ancient prohibition on appealing to the gentile law courts. The common attitude was that one could apply to them in commercial and financial matters but not with regard to property(‘. . . we only admit deedsof purchase and the like; but we do not admit deeds of gift and the like’).It was accepted thatone needed a special authorisation from the Jewish court in order to give evidence in the gentile courts; they would also find a way to permit this when speaking of ‘robbery’ (gexel, like non-payment of a debt), on condition that it was ‘a gentile court which does not accept bribes andis non-biased’. A verdict or deeds acquired by the coercionof the Muslim court, or the Muslim authorities, were usually considered absolutely invalid. There is mention of a conflict concerning a woman whohad converted; the husband considered estates belonging to her as good as dead and that he was her heir, while her paternal family 3’

See the letterof Sherira (Lewin),101 and ibid. in the note the text his of responsum to the scholars of Qayrawan and more references of the editor. Neverthelessin certain instances Muslim law was prepared to acknowledge the right of the women to receive a divorce even without the agreement of husband; the andsee the articleTaliik (byJ. Schacht) inEP (whomentions thispossibility, but does notgointo detail);and see alsoSchacht, Introdtiction, 165f.

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demanded her property for themselves and the Babylonian Gaon decided in favour of her family. The opinion of thePalestinian Geonim was also that the marriage deedof the woman who had converted belonged to her family. The Geonim permittedthe decisionto rest with the Muslim court and with its help, invalidated the right of inheritance ofa Jew who had converted, for 'the Muslims, according to the law of Ishmael, do not allow a convert to inherit the properties his of father; thereupon our Sages relied so as to deprive sucha man of his father's inheritance. . .'38 [274] The realitythatemerges fromthe Geniza documentsinthe eleventhcentury AD is of a strongJewish legal autonomy, andthe Palestinian Gaon is ready to assert his authority vigorously in thosecases in which one party appeals for help from the Muslim court; thiscan party expect excommunication.O n the otherhand, the habit ofregistering deals of estates with the Muslim courtas well as with the Jewish court became widespread, evidently because of demands from the tax authorities and also, perhaps,because of theneed to feel more secure in the face of pressure and expropriation. A document written in Arabic and signed by the cadi certainly made the required impression on the authorities. As to Palestine, apart from the information mentioned above concerning the attitude of its Geonim in the matter of the marriage deed of the woman who had converted, all our knowledge of this matter is derived from the Geniza, that is, from the eleventh century. The first source is from the days of Josiah Gaon b. Aaron, in around 1020. This is a letter from the Gaon to the community of Rafiah (Rafah): 'A'isha (a distinctly Arab name), daughter ofJoseph b. Sudayq (a pet name for Sadaqa), had died. Her cousins on her father's side, Moses and Abraham, the sons of Mansiir, sonof Sudayq,applied to the local dayyin, who was Solomon b. Saadia, and he decided that they were the heirs of their cousin. 'Amram b. Fudayl (a pet name from Fadl) and his sisterandhersonKhalafb. Mukarram claimed that the legacy was theirsis not (it clear what degreeof family relationship there was between them and the deceased; perhaps they were the brother and sister and nephew of her husband, who undoubtedly died before she did). It seems that we have here an instance of difference between the paternal family and that of the husband, though this is merely an assumption. They applied to the Muslim court, to the cadi, and he made the same decision as the dayyin. Then theyapplied to 38

See Hark_avy,TeshJvCt, 51 (No. 82); Ge'onP mizriih J-ma'aviiv,53a-53b (No. 199);A special permit: O y r ha-ge'znim, BQ, 99(No.290, Hayy Gaon). Actsof coercion: the responsum of Saadia Gaon, Ge'one mizriih tLma'arZu,8a-8b (No. 22). The woman whohad converted 20b (No. 87):theview of the (evidently toChristianity): Ge'onemizriihJ-ma'ariiu, Palestinians ('the Westerners'): Sha'arP @eq, 63b; depriving a convert from inheritance: Ge'one mizriih ti-ma'ariiv, 4b (No. 11); Osar ha-ge'znim, Qidd., 30f (Nos. 78-90); see the

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the qii’id, thegovernmentauthority (apparentlyaTurkish or Berber commander, in charge of affairs on behalf of the Fatimids) and they managed to get part of the legacy with his help. The Gaon pronounced them excommunicated; Sahl, the aforementioned ‘Amram 6. Fudayl’s brother (it is not clear why ‘Amram himself was not indicated) was obliged to appear together withhis sister before the great court (that is, the yeshiva in Jerusalem) and hand over what they had taken. If he refused, he too would be excommunicated. At about the same time there occurred theaffair of Mubaraka, in which a memorandum of the court complained that shehad evaded the verdict of thecourtand applied to the Muslim court, to the ‘Judge of Judges’ (qii&”l-q~&h). She demanded her share of herfather’s legacy through the medium of the‘gentile laws’ (for,as mentioned above, Muslim law grants a share of a legacy to daughters as well). Because of her, the infantry (probablythe vijiiln, soldiersinthe service of theExecutionOffice) arrested her brother, who escaped, however. Clearly the appellants rely on the Gaon’s opposition to applications to the gentile court. Solomon b. Judah writes, probably in 1028, to Ephraim b. Shemaria in Fustat, mentioning a man of Jerusalem who was reduced to poverty and went to Egypt. In spite of the very poor state of the manuscript, it can still be understood that this person fell victim to someone who did not hesitate to apply to a Muslim court, and caused him tolose all his property, including of his son-in-law, andlandinherited from his ‘his houseandthat forefathers’. In August 1030, Abraham, son of the Gaon Solomon b. Judah, is in Fustat, when the court there examines the complaints of a certain Sulayman, a smithofJerusalem, against Salman b.Shabib al-Ashqar (the redhead), who owes Sulayman four dinars. Salmanlives in Fustat and the claim against him is brought by Yefet ha-Levi b. Tobiah, who holds ‘a deed of attorney validated by the signature of his honour, the great and holy Lord and Master, Solomon, head of the yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov’. When the court found in favour of Sulayman the Jerusalemite, Salman began ‘to complain and curse andstorm against the laws of Israel and its judges; and this Salman swore that he would not accept but the gentile laws . . .’; the judge in Fustat, Ephraimb. Shemaria immediatelydecreed a ban on him ‘until he agreed to accept the verdict’. In around 1030 Solomon b. Judah writes to Abrahamha-Kohen b. Isaac fiance of the b. Furat about a deposit demanded by Samuel b. ‘Ezrun, the Gaon’s granddaughter, froma man called Nissi (the deposit was left with Nissi bySamuel’s mother). Nissi demanded to be judged by the cadi, but discussion on these questions: Mann,]QR, N S 10(1919/20), 140f; 11(1920/21), 457; see also Hirschberg, Herzog Memorial Volume: 493. I 66

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his wife sharply objectedto this. Although Solomonb. Judah refused to sit in judgment on this dispute, as he was Samuel's relative, the family of Shuway', that is the family of Joshua b. Simhiin, rivals of the Gaon, accused him ofsiding with one of thecontestants, and the Gaon requests Abraham ha-Kohen, a respectable physician who lives in Ramla,to get the support of the amlv (the governor of Ramla) who should write to his colleague (the governor of Jerusalem) notto pay attention to these accusations. Some time afterwards, perhaps from1035, we find another letter from Solomon b. Judah toRamla, to the same Abraham ha-Kohen, also dealing with the Shuway' family. This time the Gaon writes in their favour, although theyare people who 'oppose anything done by someone else'. He asks Abrahamtotrytointervenewiththe cadi inRamla, Abii'l-Ma'ili (evidently he is al-Musharraf b. al-Muraji b. Ibrihim alMaqdisi, author of thefadi'il, a work mentioned occasionally in this book) concerning the house of the Shuway' family. The house was confiscated on the basis of false evidence in favour ofan old Muslim named al-Shami, a malicious person who was co-owner of the house. The Gaon and all the other Jews of Jerusalem know the truth, that the house is in fact the property of the Shuway'family. In Jerusalem, one wouldproclaim a ban on the seventh dayof theFeast of Tabernacles, at the gathering on the Mount of Olives, on people who a letter in ofcomplaint applied to a Muslim court. We have evidence ofthis written by the orphan daughters of a certain D&Z. The eldest daughter turns to the public on her own behalf and that of her younger sister, complaining that they were deprived of their shareof their father's legacy by their two married sisters, andher remarks include the following phrase: 'you use to proclaim a ban, on the Mount of Olives,against anyone who obtains an inheritance in a Muslim court'. Solomon b. Judah reveals in one ofhisletters that the influence ofthis act of excommunication did not have much effect; expressing his opposition tothe annualexcommunicationofthe Karaites, as was the accepted customoftheRabbanites in Jerusalem, he states (in a letter written apparently in 1035, whose addressee we do not know):

. . . (you say) let us excommunicate who desecrates the Sabbath of God! but the as is prescribed? And majority do desecrate it;is there anyone keeping the Sabbath of God; but they [the Karaites] say that it is we anyone who desecrates the holidays of the gentiles and who desecrate them; and anyone who applies to the laws whoever obtains an inheritance by their laws; nevertheless, many whom our laws do not favour, apply to the lawsof the gentiles. . . Indeed, in the Geniza documents there is clear evidence that in Palestine Jews did not hesitate to turn to the cadi when it seemed useful or necessary. A deed of attorney writtenin Tyre at the end of 1036 or the beginning of 167

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

1037, validated in Fustat,ofwhich only a fragment is preserved, includes a power of attorney given byhis mother and two sisters to Josephha-Levi b. Saadia to collect money owing to the deceased father of thefamily. Itsays there that he was also provided with a letter ‘to the elders of the Ishmaelites, so that no one would hinder him and that no one wouldexpress doubts in thematter’. Apparently it refers to a confirmation intended for the Muslim courts. In a draft of evidence regarding the sale of a shop in Tiberias, a transactioncarried out in1023, it is noted that the draft is a copy according to al-rnah&r d ‘ a r a b i , that is according to the document of the court which was in Arabic script, and such a document could only have been written in the Muslim court. In a draft ofdeed a of attorney written in Tyre, apparently in 1041, we find an accounting between partners after the death of one of them, Manasseh b. Isaac. It mentions that he received goods according to a list ‘in hagavi [Arabic] writing’, and that they used ‘documents of the gentile courts’drawn up by‘thejudge wholives in the city of Tyre’. Avon b. Sedaqa, the Maghribi merchant (of the circle of Nehorai b. Nissim), who lived inJerusalem,writesfrom there on 17 March 1055, to Hayyim b. ‘Ammiir in Alexandria. His letter is filled with complaints about conspiracies and judgmentsagainst himself, without clarifying the matter- accusing Hayyim, forinstance, of ‘gobbling up the money of the Maghribi gentleman’. His opponentspour abuse on him in the Muslimlegal institutions, ‘and things have cometo such a pass that if a governor [‘irnil] or supervisor ofbequests [sahib mawirith] were to be appointed every week, they would approach him [every week] in this matter’.39 See the discussion on applications to Muslim courts and the relationship between the two legal systems, in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 395-402, and the correspondingnotes. The Rafiah episode: 43; Mubiraka: 44; it seems that the applicants are members of the Karaite community(oroneofthe Karaite communities) in Fustat, andamongthe witnesses we find the signature ofJoseph b. Israel al-Dustari, that is of the family of the Tustaris, who were Karaites. Here thereis proofapparently that the Gaon ofPalestinewas considered by the authoritiesas being responsible for allJewish matters, including those of the Karaites in the Fatimid caliphate; cf. Gil, ha-Tustarlm, 45, 49fc Solomon b. Judah’s the 102; the debtor Salmin b. letter: 75, b, lines 20fc the episode of SulaymanJerusalemite: Shabib, is mentioned in the deed TS 13 J 9, f. 5, dated Thursday, 19th of Tammuz, AM 4807, or 16July AD 1047, drafted in Mahdiyya and validated in Fustat by Ephraimb. Shemaria and others. The episode of Samuel b. ‘Ezrih: 101; the house of the Shuway‘ family: 117; on Abu’l-Ma‘ali al-Musharraf b. al-Muraji, see below; the orphans’ complaint, apparently from the beginning of the eleventh century: 217; Solomon b. Judah on the ban: 121, lines 5fc one should note thathis comments on thegentile courts have no direct connection with the matter of Karaites, the he says this only to exemplify the lack of logic in the proclamations of excommunication.I t is worth noting that theKaraites also emphasised the ban on having recourse to Muslim courts; see the marriage deed of the Karaite woman wedded to a Rabbanite, Bod1 MS Heb a3, f. 42 (partly edited by Mann, Jews, 11,212, and in full: Texts, 11, 177ff) from 1428 Sel.(AD 1117; there is an error in Mann on this matter and see Goitein’s corrections ibid. in the preface), and ibid. the passage ‘and they shall not apply to judgments ofthe gentiles in exchange for the judgments of the

j9

I 68

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The populationand localities

[275] Undoubtedly, one of the most obscuresubjects concerning this period is that of the populationand localities. The basic fact that should serve as a starting point in this discussion is that at the time of the conquest, Palestine was inhabited by Jews and Christians. The Arab tribes were to be found in the border areas, in keeping with arrangements made with the Byzantine rulers. There is no doubt that many of the small towns and villages were destroyed during the conquest, and can one imagine that the war andtheslaughter ofthepopulationconsiderablydecreasedits numbers. It appears that the map of localities was no longer what it had been even after ‘Umar ibn al-Khatt5b introduced order in the relations between the Muslim tribes and the local population. We now know that out of ninety-three towns in the Sharon of which a geographical survey providesevidenceduringtheRoman-Byzantineeras,onlyfifty-two remained at the end of the Crusader period. Townsin the western strip and the central strip (the region of thered sandhills and the swamps) in the Sharon, decreased from fifty-eight to seventeen! It is estimated that the erosion of the soil from the western slopes of the Judaean mountains reached - as a result of the agricultural uprooting during the Muslim period - the gigantic extent of 2,000 to 4,000 cubic metres. In a survey made byGuy in1938 on theregion of Rehovot-Ramla-Lod-Ramallah, he found that out of 293 towns, 193 were abandoned, apparently mainly because of soil erosion. We find direct evidence of the destruction of agriculture and the desertionof the villages in the fact that the papyri of Nessana are completely discontinued after the year 700. One can assume that at that time the inhabitants abandonedplace, the evidently because of the inter-tribal warfare among the Arabs which completely undermined the internal security of the area.4o

40

Torah’; see the same saying also in the Karaite marriage deed which precedes this by some hundred years, from January 1028: 305, lines 32-33. See also Benjamin al-Nihiiwandi,3a: ‘and it is not permitted toapply to a court of the idolaters in a difference with someone of Israel, even when they judge according to thelaws of the Torah,as it is said: these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them (Ex., xxi:l); Israel may judge Israel’. See a slightly different version in Mann,Jews, 11, 156, n. 3; the power-of-attorney from Tyre: 274, line 8; the shop in Tiberias: 245, line 14; power-of-attorney deed: 276, a, lines 6 , 1&13; Avon b. Sedaqa:497, lines 12-17. See also 84, b, 11, lines 20ff, about theJew who mediated with the Muslim authorities with regard to taxes and legacies, until ‘anyone whose relative died had to go to him to write petition a for himto the government officials in charge of inheritances [this is certainly what is meant here by asbib al-mawiwrith] certifying that the deceased had heirs’. Guy, IEJ, 4:77, 1954; Karmon, BJPES, 23: 111, 1959 (and especially the tableon p. 130); cf. Ashtor, Social and Economic History, 52fC see also Kochavi (ed.),Yehiidi, 24, data on the state of the towns in Judaea(in the mountains and in the S h e j l i ) in the Byzantine period, when the density of the population reached its peak. O n Nessana see: Nessana, 35; the assumption of the editor that the destruction was caused by the Abbasid revolution has no

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[276] There is no reason to assume that the proportions in the structure of the population varied drastically in the period in question, although is it very likely that the population diminished. In other words, one should not assume that the Muslims were the majority during this period. Al-Iztakhri mentions in 951 that in all of jund Filastin there were approximately twenty mosques, as against some sixty Christian houses of worship at the beginning of the ninth century. During thedays of the Umayyads, the Muslim element consisted, as we have seen, mainly of tribes who derived their livelihoodfrom taxes from the subdued population. It seems probable that in this early period the Muslims did not implant real roots in the towns Palestine, of and certainly not in agriculture. We have already seen above that at the time of the conquest, the inhabitants of Tiberias had to give up part of their dwellings in order to house the Muslim tribesmen. One can assume that the same conditions were imposed inother cities in Palestine as well, and thatfrom then on, thetribes constituted certain a part ofthe population; but wehave no way of knowing the size of that part. During theAbbasid andsuccessive periods, when Palestine was ruled from Egypt, there was certainly a marked decrease in the importance of the tribes and place theirwas largely taken by the prominent element of non-Arab Muslim military personnel and government officials, as well as religious personnel. This latter element certainly didnot reach impressive demographic proportions and its numerical weight was very marginal, although naturally isit this element on which details are preserved in the Muslim sources.I have summarised above whatis known of Muslimpersonalities in Palestine, and of menof religion and officialdom, during the period of the Damascene caliphate. Below, I shall deal with personalities who were active subsequently, until the Crusaders’ conquest. One should remember that in this field of the demographic portrait of the population, we are almost entirely dependant on Arab sources, while the attention which these sources paid to the dhimmis was negligible. This fact lends singular significance to those scraps ofinformationwhich have somehow reached us throughthe medium of these sources. Thus, for instance, we find in Ibn ‘Asikir the foundation,forthedocumentsstop

two generationsearlier. Cf. also Lewis, PEQ,

80(1948), 1lSf, who also points out that thedistress of the inhabitantsbecame acute after

the year 700 and conditionsbecame unbearable, partly due to the general political situation and partly because of the worsening attitude to the dhimmis, and the Negev became a wasteland. The Karaite commentator Yefet b. ‘Ali expresses awareness of the fact that there was great destruction in Palestine andthattherewere places whichremained uninhabited while there were other places to which people returned and settled. See his interpretation ofIs., 61:4 (And they shall build the oldwastes, etc.), Ms. Paris 287, fol. 2a: ‘the places which were completely destroyed so that no memory of them remains, like Samaria . . . and the secondpair are theplaces which havebeen destroyed and ruined, but despite this there are guards and people living there, such as Hebron and others’).

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information about theJew Yahyib. Irmiyi (that is, ‘the son ofJeremiah’) who in the days of Hiriin al-Rashid (when Ibrihim b. Muhammad alMahdi was governor of Damascus,inabout 800) joined two of the partisans of the Umayyadsand together theypractised highway robbery. From theaccount of their adventures and capture,would it appear as if this was akind of resistance movement against theAbbasids,and I shall describe the matter in greater detail below. O f particular interest is the passage which states that Yahya was ‘from the Jews living in the Balqi” (win y a h d al-balqa’) and so we learn that at that time, there was still a Jewish population in southern Trans-Jordan. With even greater justification, we can assume that there were relatively large Jewish communities in placesless distant from the centres of government, in the cities of Ramla, Tiberias, Tyre, Acre, Haifa, Ascalon, Gaza, Hebron, Rafiah and Eilat; the Jewish community ofJerusalem is a subject on its own. As to the rural population, in the main it was still Christian on the eve of the Crusaders’ conquest, and here we have the explicit evidence of the distinguished Andalusian writerIbn al-‘Arabi, who is Ab6 Bakr Muhammad b. ‘Abdallah al-Ma‘ifiri al-Ishbili (man of Seville), who stayed in Jerusalem in the years 1093-1095, and who states very clearly that: ‘. . . the country is theirs [the Christians’] because it is they who work its soil, nurture its monasteries and maintain its churches’.41 [277-2791 Jerusalem was certainly inhabitedmainly by Christians during the entire period. We have thespecific evidence of the Jerusalemite Shams al-Din al-Muqaddasi, writing at the end of the tenth century, the outset of Fatimid rule in Palestine, that there were few learned Muslim religious personalities (‘trlarni’) in Jerusalem. According to him, most of the inhabitants of the city were Christiansand Jews.j2 The strength of the Christians in Jerusalem is also borne out by the events occurring during the first two generations ofthe Fatimid reign, when the Christians (mostly but not only the Jerusalemites) collaborated with the Bedouin in their struggle against the Fatimids and indirectly against the Jews as well, as Karaite sources indicate. At the beginning of the eleventh century Samuel b. Isaac ha-Sefaradi (the Spaniard) writes from Jerusalem, apparently, to Shemaria b. Elhanan, leader of the ‘Babylonians’in Fustat (the letter was 4*

42

The number of mosques:Istakhri, 58; cf. Mez, 388; Yahy5 b. Irmiyi: Ibn ‘Asikir, 11, 267, see Ibn aL‘Arabi, Ribla, 81 : dl-hiliid lahrrrn ya’krrrfina diyi‘ahrrnr wa-yaltazimfim adyiirahi wa-yu‘ammiriirra karrii’isahi. According to Prawer, Ha-salvinim, I, 129, most of theinhabitants of Palestine on the eve of the Crusaders’ conquest were Muslims; but he does not indicate his sources. The information concerning the extent of the Muslim population in Palestine during the Crusaders’ period is not unequivocal,and at any rate one cannotlearn from it about theperiod under discussion. See on this question thearticle by Cahen, Syria, 15:351, 1934,-and especially pp. 356f. Muqaddasi, Aqiilirn, 167; copied from him by Yaqiit, Buldiin, IV, 596.

T H E L O C A L P O P U L A T I O N A N D THE M U S L I M S

written before 1011, the year of Shemaria’s death). In the letter he describes the affairs of aproselyte who abandoned Christianity and fled from his home in Damascus inorder tobe among Jews. He came from a notable family and influential Christians were trying to persuade him to return to his former faith,but even an offer of moneydid not entice him to return to Christianity. Samuel b. Isaac found this proselyte in Jerusalem together with Jewish pilgrims from Damascus, and was told by him thathe wished to leave Jerusalem and go to Fustat, for in Jerusalem the Christians were persecutinghim:‘the ‘ a d i w [theuncircumcised]curse him again and again all the time’. Their influence is considerable, because they have ‘most of the secretaries governing the lands’ (that is: many government off i c i a l ~ ]Studying .~~ the sources of the period, one is inevitably impressed by the considerable proportion of Christians in the population. Cahen notes that at the end of the eleventh century there was evidently numeric equaiity between Christians and Muslims in Palestine and Syria. One must bear in mind thatthis eminent scholar was not familiar with Jewish sources, particularly the Geniza documents, for he would then have been impressed by the number ofJews as well.44 [280] As to the Muslims in Jerusalem, from the little we know, these were mostly religious personalities or people who came to gather in the shadow of the Sakhra in the belief that the place had a holy character; it appears that most of them were immigrants from distant lands. Shams al-Din al-Muqaddasi himself states that his mother’s family (his a k h w d ) came from BiyZr in the region of Qiimis, and he points out that quite a number of the Muslims from Qiimis living in Jerusalem camefrom BiyZr. (It is interesting that at about the same time, the beginning of the tenth century, a central figure from among the Karaites arrived in Jerusalem from Qiimis, Daniel al-Qiimisi.) Further on, we shall encounter many Muslim personalities who lived in Jerusalem who were immigrants from various parts of the Muslim world.45 [281] N5zir Khusraw points out that many Muslims came to Jerusalem because they could not reach Mecca. According to him, more than 20,000 men assembled (that is, inDhii’l-hija)inJerusalem,but onecannot ascertain whether he meant thenumber ofpilgrims or all the Muslims then See ULC Or 1080 J 115, printed by Golb, &¬, 8 (1963/4), 88ff. Cahen, Past ayd Presetlt, 6(1954), 6f. 4 j Muqaddasi, Aqilinr, 357; on Biyir, which is Biyir Jumand, see Le Strange, Lands, 366; Muqaddasihimself, ibid. 356f,describestheplace: a small town, which has no major mosque ( j i t n i ? and its people make their living from plantations and raising sheep and of the Caspian Sea,on the edge of the great desert (see camels; the place is to the south-east Maps V and VI11 in Le Strange, ibid., opposite pp. 185, 335). Also the old Muslim who deprived theShuway‘ family of their house in Jerusalem (see above), was an immigrant, as can be seen from his name - al-Shiimi - probably from Syria.

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found in the city (Niisir Khusraw stayed in Jerusalem in the spring of

1046).46 [282] We have some information on the population of Ramla, which was founded by the Muslims, as mentioned above, and incorporated the inhabitants of Lod. Authentic written evidence of the Muslim part of the population of Ramla is the dedicatory inscription ( w a d of an inn @ m l u q ) , from theyear 913. We can presume that there werealso Christian inhabitants in Ramla,the outcome of the transfer of Christians from Lod to the new city. The only remaining written evidence (as far as we know) of the existence of Christians in Ramla is a funerary inscriptionof a certain Jabiir, dated 14 April 943. According to Ya‘qiibi (writing in around890) tribesmen and non-Arabswere living in Ramla side by(akhlit side min al-nas min al-‘arab wa’2-‘ajam), and he adds that the dhimmis there were Samaritans (wa-dhimmatuhasamira).This additionis undoubtedly distorted, for we are well aware that many Jews lived in Ramla and there were certainlyalso Christians there, but it seems that Ya‘qiibi, after the opening sentence, had a list of what he calls ‘ajum, and from this list, only the word Samaritans remains, and this was at the end of the list.47 [283] Later on we shall see that Ramla is frequently mentioned in the Geniza documents. For the time being, it will suffice to point to thefact that as it was on the highway toJerusalem it served as an assembly point for pilgrims. Apparently the Jewish population of Ramla was greater than that of Jerusalem, and some of theheads of the Jerusalem yeshiva built themselves houses in Ramla, and visited the city frequently. Solomon b. Judah stayed there at the beginning of the winter of 1040, and as he hadno house of his own in Ramla, he stayed with a Jew of Ramla, whose daughter was an abandoned wife (‘agiinl). He states that he could no longer bear her weeping and complaints and therefore decided to cut short 46 47

NiSir Khusraw, 20 (text), 66 (translation). See the waqfinscriptionin Ramla: Sharon, Arabica, 13:77, 1966. The funerary inscription: Sharon, Shalem, 1:1, 1974, and a comprehensivediscussion therein, in which he explains that al-sabt al-kabir, the great sabbath, was among theEastern Christians the sabbath before Easter; this fact and thefact that the inscription is inArabic script exclude the possibility of its being a Jewish inscription. See anextended version ofhis discussion: Sharon, Arabic and Islamic Studies (Bar Ilan), 2:31, 1978; Ya‘qiibi, Buldin, 328; cf. Ashtor, AESC, 27(1972), 188; contrary tohis opinion, the meaning ‘ajam of here is not Persians, though it frequently does mean this, but the initial meaning of this root is: non-Arab, see for instance: Ibn al-Athir,]imi‘, 111, 354; Ibn ‘Asikir, VI, 185; Tabari, Ta’rikh, I, 2374C Muqaddasi, Bad’, V,33. Apart from this, one should note thatYa‘qijbi himself, when hewishes to speak of Persians in Palestine, uses the word Persians (al-J;lrs). See for instance what he writes about Itribulus and Jubayl, ibid., 327; see what he writes about NZbulus, ibid., 328C ‘rua-biltii nkhl& rnin nl- ‘arclb wn’l- ‘ainm wn’l-sZmird (‘they live there side by side - the tribesmen, the non-Arabs and the Samaritans’); also here, as in reference to Ramla, words have been deleted from the list after the expression ‘ajam. O n the other hand, see what he says on Egypt, ibid., 340: wa-‘ajam miyjami‘uhi al-qibt, all the ‘ajam of Egypt are Copts, which shows that herehe is using the word tomean Christians.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

his visit to thecity. In another letter, Solomon b. Judah mentions Solomon b. Semah al-‘Attar (‘the perfume dealer’) who would render services to every learned man who came to Ramla. In the middle of the eleventh century, the influential Jewish physician Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac b. Furat lived in Ramla. He was a man of considerable influence with the authorities, who shall be spoken of further. In about 1035, Abraham b. Samuel ‘the third’,asks Abraham ha-Kohen to use his influence to rid the area around the synagogue ofAbti ‘Ali b. Ayyfib (perhaps a Muslim,one if is to judge by the name Ayyiib, which was very rare among Jews), who built himself a little house near the miqwe, the ritual bath-house, and an upper story opposite the entrance hall of the synagogue, and was growing vegetables on the plotof a ruined house which belonged to the synagogue. Abraham is asked to try topersuade him at first in a gentle manner, and to get him to demolish the buildings that were set up illegally. There were three Jewish communities in Ramla: the Jerusalemites, the Babylonians and the Karaites. From theexpression al-kanisa al-wusti, the synagogue in themiddle, one learns thatintheeleventhcenturytherewerethree synagogues. As one can deduce from the documents,it was customaryto state ina deed: ‘Ramla, the city near Lod’, a reminder of the days when Lod was the major centre and Ramla insignificant. In a letter written inFebruary 1039by Nathan b. Abraham, SolomonJudah’s b. rival, it is mentioned that some400 people gathered in the main hall in Ramlaon Purim- more than thatin the qi‘a (entrance hall) - among them some 200 Karaites. From this we may learnthattherewereapproximatelyathousandJewish families, that is about 5,000 souls, of whom20 per cent were Karaites.4* [284] Tiberias was the capital ofjund Urdunn, as we have seen, and it appears that in the eleventh century it was still the centre of northern Letters of Solomonb. Judah see: 130, lines 7-1 1; 159, lines 20-21; from this letter as well it appears that the Gaon used to stay in Ramla for a long time. The letter of Abraham b. Samuel: 228; it is possible that the ruined house he mentions was the result of the earthquake in 1033; see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 155; 552, n. 31 - he emphasises that one cannotlearn from this letter that the ritual bath(miqwZ) was actually attached to the building of the synagogue, and points out that in Egypt there is no hint of a rniqwi? before 1200; but see document No. 11 (TS Ar, Box 44, f. 223), a, line 19, from the year 1139, in Gil, Docurnants, in which the rniddh, mikwi?, is referred to. The synagogue in the middle: 306, lines 25-26. Ramla near Lod: apart from the documents my in collection, see: TS AS 151.47, a very faded fragment of a deed, dated ‘the first year of theweek (i.e. of the sabbatical cycle of seven years) in the year four thousand andseven hundred and seventy and five years ofthe creation ofthe world(1014/5) . . . in Ramla thecity near Lod’. One can discern thesignatureofSolomon ha-Kohen b.Joseph (?). The letter of Nathan b. Abraham: 183, lines 15ff. See Dropsie 364 11, a fragment of a marriage deed from Ramla printed in: Friedman,Marriage, 11,359; Abraham b. Sedaqa (his name is found in 425, line 19; 1065), marries the daughter of Pinhas b. Levi (the name of the bride has not been preserved) in the sixthyear of thesabbatical cycle and this can be 1062 or 1069. TS 12.480 (Friedman, ibid., 362), also a fragment of a marriage deed; the name of the groom: Menahem ha-Kohen b. Isaiah; here tooAbraham b. Sedaqa signed, and others: Mevorakh

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Palestine and the northern coastal cities of Acre and Tyre (and evidently also Sidon, and Tripoli- Itriibulus) were subordinate to it. With regard to its Jewish population, we know that Tiberias was the major Jewish city and site of the Sanhedrin. The yeshiva of Palestine, which was the direct outgrowth of the Sanhedrin, still remained in Tiberias after the Muslim conquest for many generations. Despite many political and military vicissitudes, itseems that Tiberias remained a Jewish city to a large extent, even as late as the eleventh century AD, when we find some references to the city in the Geniza documents. Bishop Willibald, who visited Tiberias in 723, found ‘many churches and a Jewish synagogue’ there. Michael the Syrian, on the other hand, speaks of thirty synagogues which were destroyed in the earthquake in Tiberias (in 748). Some eightyyears later, in about 810, we find details in a Christian source: thecity is the seat of the bishop (Theodoros at the time), andhas a monastery for virgins as well as five churches. As totheMuslims,wehave seen abovethatTiberias became a centre for the Urdunn tribes and that Ya‘qiibi mentioned particularly the Banii Ash‘ar. Muqaddasi mentions favourably its jzmi‘, the principal mosque, which unlike mosques in othercities has its courtyard covered in gravel.Niisir Khusraw (1047) mentions another mosque in the western part of Tiberias, the ‘Jasmin mosque’, because of the jasmin growing there.Briefevidence in Mas‘iidi mentionsthe fact thatthe descendants of converts to Islam, mawilr of the Umayyads from the days of the caliph ‘Uthmiin, lived in Tiberias. When he visited Tiberias in AH 324, or AD936, he saw a book they kept, containing theannals of the Umayyads as well as their -fidi’il (praises). One can surmise that these mawdr were descendants ofC h r i ~ t i a n s . ~ ~ [285] As to the Jews ofTiberias, there seem to have been two communities, one of Jerusalemites and the other of Babylonians, and this can be deduced from theflowery language of entreaty in one of the letters in the Geniza: ‘to the holy communities who sit in Hammath and Rakkath’ (the

49

ha-Kohen b. Joseph;‘Eli ha-Levib. Aaron;Azhar ha-Levi (b.) Shabbat;Mansiir ha-Levi b. Solomon; Khalaf b. Mansiir; Moses b. ‘Amram. Willibald, see: Tobler, Descriptiones; the translation in Sefr ha-yishuv, 11, l_O,is not correct; and see De Cnsis D e i , in Tobler et Molinier,I, 304; thejiiwli‘:Muqaddasi, Aqiilitn, 161, 182. Muqaddasi mentions there the unbearable heat in the city; they say of the people of Tiberias, he writes, that‘for two monthsthey dance, for two monthsthey nibble, for two months they bang, for two months they go about naked, for two months they blow on canes, for two monthsthey sink; that is, they dance because of thefleas, nibble on the fruit of the jujube, they bang on pans to chase away thewasps from themeat and the fruit,they go naked because of the burningheat, suck on sugar cane, and sink in mud’. Michael the Syrian, see above, sec. 103, n. 15. See further fragments from Muslim writersdescribing Tiberias: Le Strange, Palestine, 341ffi Nasir Khusraw,17 (text), 56 (translation). Mez,324, finds in these jasmin bushes remnants of the worship ofBaal, which seems an exaggeration. The fact that Tiberiaswas a centre of non-Muslim population is reflected ina hadith according to which it is one of the four cities of hell (madi’in al-nir) together with

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latter according to Joshua, xix:35, undoubtedly a by-name for Tiberias), and also from the language aof letterfrom Nathanha-Kohen he-haver b. Isaiah, of Tiberias: (receive. . .) ‘much peace . . . from the two parties living in Tiberias’. However wealso find the singular: ‘To thegreat holy community in Tiberias’ (using the ancient form, Tiberia, Tiberia, which was common a t that time), in a responsum of a gaon which was sentto Tiberias, perhaps the Palestinian Gaon addressed ‘his’ community, that is the Jerusalemites, in the singular.relatively A ancient document (probably from theend of the tenth century AD) being deeda of attorneyconcerning property in Tiberias, from the son of a deceased to the father’s partner, Moses b. Samuel b. Sahl- contains among thesignatures of the witnesses a number of uncommon names which are of typical Palestinian heritage, such as: Hashmanai, Pashshit, Makhir. Some deeds deal with transactions in estates in Tiberias. A very old and important documentis the copyof a deed drawn upin Tiberias in the year A H 328 (AD 939/40). According to the fragment which has been preserved, one can see that the copy was made from a deed of the sale of estates and fields, etc., drawn up in the presence of a cadi. The copy was requested by R. Elhanan, apparently Elhanan b. Shemaria, and ifthis is the case, it shouldbe dated about 1020. The seller is Hillel b. Nissim and the purchaser is Benjamin. In the original deed (written in Arabic script) there were the signatures of six Muslim witnesses. The copy was brought toFustat by‘Joshua ha-Kohen ha-mumhe (specialist in law) b.Ya’ir he-haver’, and from this we learn that thejudge, the local havev, inTiberiasinaroundthe year 1000, was calledYa’ir ha-Kohen. Another signature was that of Abrahamb. Salman, the scribe, evidently. In 1023 Musifir b. Yish‘i b. Isrri’il bought a shop inthe western row of the Jewish market ( a L ~ u f f a 2 - g h a r bmin ~ siiq al-yahiid) in Tiberias for the orphan (ul-fzyal-yahtrdi) Mus5 b. Hiba (Moses b. Nathan) b. Salmiin. In another document, a deathbed will of Khalaf b. Yeshii‘a of 30 August 1034, it appears that the testator was the owner of a large compound (ha@v) in Tiberias, in the market called strwayqat (little market o f ) al-. . .du (perhaps al-ruwda, the garden).50 [286] Tiberias was also a centre ofJewish spirituallife during theperiod

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Constantinople, Antiochand San‘i. see Suyiiti, Lu’di, I, 459; ‘Ajliini, I, 450; on the rnuwdi see Mas‘idi, Tunbih, 336. Hamrnath and Rakkath are vocalised with upper punctuation, see: ENA 223, f. 1, lines 18-19, printed by Mann,Jews, II,60f. Theletter of Nathanha-Kohen, 263,lines 6-7. The responsum: Mosseri VI11 421 (R19), printed by Assaf, Mi-sijut ha-ge’onim, 92fc the query, dated approximately 1000, whose main content is brought at the end of the responsum, dealt with matters of the inheritance of Nu‘minha-melamrned (the teacher) b. Abu NaSr; mentioned are Mayrniin b. Hasan, who was the uncle of the deceased, the brother ofhis father Abii NaSr; Hassin b. Manasseh, a relative of thedeceased on his mother’s side (son of her sister) and another man namedYahyi, who brought withhim a letter, apparently from thehead of the community, thelocal haver; the Gaonrecognises the father’s side of

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under discussion. Mas‘iidi mentions that he personallyknew Abii Kathir Yahyii b. Zakariyyii’, ‘the Tiberian scribe’ (al-k&ib al-tabariini); scribe in the sense of a book copyist. According to him, the latter was one of the Jews whotranslated the Bible into Arabic, andSa‘id b. Ya‘qiib al-Fayyiimi (should be b. Yiisuf that is,Saadia Gaon) learnedfrom him.Hence we find that Saadia Gaon stayed in Tiberias onhis way from Egypt to Babylonia, and possibly that his stay there lasted ten years (evidently fromca. 910). Yahyii b. Zakariyyii’ died according to Mas‘iidi in the twenties of the fourthcenturyofthehijra,that is, after 932. Pinsker,andafter him Steinschneider, triedto identify Yahyii ibn Zakariyyii’, the sage of Tiberias mentioned by Mas‘iidi, with Judah b. ‘Alliin of Tiberias mentioned by Judah Hadiisi in Eshkd ha-kofer: ‘We also found in Judah b. ‘Alliin of Tiberias, my learned man’, and so on, and elsewhere he mentions: ‘the grammarian of Tiberias, inhis book Me’6r ‘eynayim’ (‘light of the eyes’). O n the basis of his use of thephrase ‘my learned man’, which is one of the favourite expressionsofJudah Hadiisi, one can see that he considered him a Karaite, though this is not proven in any way. Levi b. Yefet ha-Levi mentioned ‘the @On [commentary] of our Lord and Master Judah b. ‘Alliin the Tiberian, headof the Jerusalem yeshiva, mayGod have mercy on him’. Pinsker pointsout in his LiqqtstZ qadm. that he found in an ancient Karaite prayer-book (written in around 1300),a dirge by Judah b. ‘Alliin. Undoubtedly similar, thoughnot identical,arethe words of David Qimhi, who mentions the quire of ‘Ali b. Judah [that is, not Judah b. ‘Ali-‘Alliin] the ascetic (ha-niizir),in which he says the people of Maaziah, which is Tiberias, pronounced theY and the doubler differently from one another. One can see that we are dealing here with very obscure sources and it is difficult to decide either way. We have no information about a the family’s right to inherit and negates the mother’s side. Assaf read the names of the people involved a little differently; on p. 93, line 24, one should read: ke-dahwin (like a table, cf. Abramson, Ba-merkazim, 162). The formTiberia can be found on deeds,see, for of Moses the cantor b. Husayn al-Duliiki, example, the marriage deed of Ni‘ima daughter ofThursday, 12 NisanAM 4795,22May AD 1035, weddingIsaac b.Abraham: ‘in the city of Tiberia Colonia’ (written qlwtty), 246, line 3. O f the existence of Babylonians in Tiberias one can perhaps learnfrom adeed of attorney written in Malij Egypt in in 1047, concerning a deposit belonging to the Tiberian woman Rayyisa, daughter of Mansiir, and bearing the signatureof the central figure of the Babylonian community in Fustat, Sahlin b. Abraham;see TS 24.73, printed byAssaf, Yerushalayim, 1952/3, 115f: Rayyisa gives her brother, Asad b. Mansiir, a power-of-attorneyto go to Fustat and there receive her dowry which was depositedby her uncle, Joseph b. Asad al-Tabarini, with Hesed al-Tustari. Cf. Gil, ha-Tustarim, 35. The deed of attorney: 12, probably written in Fustat, see Friedman, Ribbiiy nishim, 195f. The ffagment of thecopy of the deed: 244. The shop in the Jewish market: 245. Muqaddasi, Aqdim, 161, notes that the market in Tiberias covered thearea between two streets (wa-siiquhi win al-darb ili’l-darb). If we combine the two shreds of information, we can imagine that the market (perhaps the ‘Jewish market’) continued parallel to the Sea of Galilee between two parallel streets, and the shop which MusZfir purchased wason theside of the street farther from thesea. The testament of Khalaf:253.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

head of the Jerusalem yeshiva by this name, nor have we information about aKaraite community in Tiberias. Allony returns to thesubject again and proves that the Me’Or ‘eynayim of the‘Tiberian grammarian’ cannot be thesame as the O r ‘eynayim mentioned by Abrahamibn Ezra in the introductionto his commentary on the Pentateuch.Allony , like his predecessors, didnot stress the fact that actually no ancient source referred to either of the two books as being thework ofJudahb. ‘Alliin. He quoted additional sources in which the names Judah ha-nixir b. ‘Ali and Judah b. ‘Alliin arementioned. Also, he printed a page from a treatise on the foundations of Hebrew, foundin the Geniza, which he ascribed to ‘Ali b. Judah h a - n i z i ~and , ~ ~appended a detailed study on the linguistic issues included there. At any rate, seems it that thattreatise was written by a man of Tiberias, for apassage refers to his sitting in the squares of Tiberias and listening to the speech of its inhabitants. As to the identity of Mas‘iidi’s Yahyii ibn Zakariyyii’, however, .we are still in the dark.It should be added that Mas‘idi’s remarks were made in the context of a short survey on translations of the Bible, in which he praised the translation by Hunayn ibn Ishiiq. 52 [287] Among the group of ancient Palestinian poets: Yose b. Yose, Yannai, Eleazar ha-Kallir, Yehoshii‘i, and Pinhiis, the latter (from Kifri near Tiberias) was a man of Tiberias living in the Muslim period, in the eighth century. This we learn from his acrostic, and from the poem he wrote about thefast of the earthquake of thesabbatical year, meaning, as we have seen above, the earthquake of the year 748. His full name was Pinhis ha-Kohen b. Jacob, and he is not to be confused with Pinhis, head TS Arabic Box 32, f. 17. Mas‘iidi, Tanbih, 112f. He defines Yahyi ibn Zakariyyi’ and Sa‘id(Saadia) - as Ashrnn ‘ntlzls, of course meaning: Rabbanites (the expression is also used in other Arab sources). The origin of theexpression is evidently Babylonian-Aramaic, nshrnu‘ta - ‘on a tradition’, that is, in the sense oforal law.See: Vajda, BIRHT, 15(1969), 144. Abu Kathir al-Tabarini is mentioned (apparently followingMas‘iidi) also in Ibn Hazm, M i l d , 111, 171, who places mutakallirntitz; cf. Friedlander, JQR, NS 1(1910/1),187; seeHadisi, him among the Jewish Eshkol, 98c (No. 257); 69b (No. 173). He mentions the book Me’irat ‘eynayim also on fol. 63b.; Levi b. Yefet, in Pinsker, LiqqiitZ qadrncjniyot, 11, 64; the prayer-book, ibid.. 139. The idea of the identity with Abu Kathir Yahyi ibn Zakariyyi’, ibid., I, 5. And see David Qimhi, Sefer Mikhld (Lyck 5602/1842), 81b; on the matter of‘Ali b. Judah ha-nizir see: Dukes, Qun[rZs, If, n. 1; Geiger, QevtiZat ma’arnirirn, 232f, suggested identifying him with Judahb. ‘AllZn, and assumed that the book ascribed to him, Me’or ‘eynayirn, is identical with Or ‘eynayirn mentioned by Abraham ibn Ezra. See _theeditor’s note (Poznanski)ibid., 233 (n. 2),who denies this and points out that the book Or ‘eynayim was writtenby Meir of Kastoria, a pupil of Tobias b. Eleazar (author ofLe& ~ f i v )and , that the whole matter of the book Me’ijr ‘eynayim is a sort ofpuzzle, if it actually existed, and if it did, whether its author was a Karaite as Judah Hadisi claims. See Steinschneider, J Q R , 13(1900/1), 315. Harkavy, Zikkircjn, V, 115, denies thatJudah b.‘Allin was a Karaite. See Allony, Leshotrenu, 34(1969/70), 175f, and see also Alder, Alei Sefer, 12(1986),59ff, who denies the assumption of Allony concerning the Geniza fragment which he edited.

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j2

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of the yeshiva mentioned in Seder ‘darn ztcti, for the latter was not a k~hen.~~ [288] Tiberias was also the centre of the masoretes andvocalisers and it was here that the masorah and vocalisation were finally formulated. There is a list of ancient masoretes and vocalisers whose centre was Tiberias, which is to be found in the manuscripts of diqdiiqe the ha-te‘iimlm by Aaron b. Moses b. Asher - manuscripts that were kept by the Karaites in Crimea (Tshufutkaleh) and whoseparallels were foundin the Geniza. O n the basis of these sources, Mann reconstructed the following list of masoretes from Tiberias: (1) Riqit and Semah b. Abi Shayba, who lived at the end of the eighth century; (2) Abraham b. Riqit, Abraham b.Furat, Pinhis the head of the yeshiva, and Ahiyahii ha-Kohen (‘the haver from the city of Maaziah’ that is, Tiberias, who is perhaps the same as Abii’L‘Umaytar in a parallel version); Haviv b. Pipim (the Greek name Pippinos); Asher b. Nehemiah; Moses Miihi; Moses of Gaza; Semah ibn al-Siyira (who is Semah Abii Sliitiim), who lived in approximately the first quarterof the ninth century; (3) Nehemiah b. Asher (ca. 825-850); (4) Asher b. Nehemiah ca. 850-875); (5) Moses b. Asher (ca. 875-900); (6) Aaron b. Moses (ca. 900-925). 54 [289-2901 Another source of names of masoretes is thededicatory colophon in the famous keter aram-~6uZ(the Bible codex of Aleppo). This colophon was first copied by Jacob Zeev for Jacob Saphir, who printed this copy in his book Even Saphir. It is noted there that this book of the Bible is dedicated to the congregation of the Rabbanites in Jerusalem; and further thatit was ransomed from the spoils ofJerusalem (that is, from the Crusaders) and given to the synagogue ‘of the Jerusalemites’ in Fustat. Another note mentions that the copyist was Solomon b. Biiyii‘i, and that See: Saadia Gaon in the introduction to the Agron, ed. Allony, text, 154, translation, 69f: al-shu‘nri’ al-awwalitl (the ancient poets): Yose b. Yose, Yannai, Eleazar, Yehoshii‘a, and Pinhas; and see the editor’s introduction,79, and n.315; Qirqisiini, 609, mentions threeof them, Yannai, Eleazar, andPinhas. Seealso: Zulay, Yerushalayim, 1952/3, 51;cf. Fleischer, Sitlai, 61 (1966/7), 31ff, who finds support for the opinion of the relatively late date of Pinhas (the Muslim period)in the expressions: ‘Qediir and Edom’; ‘Ishmaelites and Edomites’; idem, Se+r T e v z r y i , 368ff. j4 See Mann,Jews, 11, 43ff. and there details also on earlier studies. See: Bod1 MS Heb, Cat. 2862, e 74, f. 59, in Mann ibid. on p. 43; it is to be notedthat the MS. has Abraham RiqZt (and not b. Riqit) and further: ‘and Riqiit his father before him’ (in Mann’s version the words ‘his father’ areomitted). BMO r 5554A, f. 29v. Here onehas to correct the reading of Mann, ibid., 44, line 4- w’hyyhtu, read: w’hyhw; line 12- ’khtyfw, read: ’ k h t v u (and n. 1 in Mann, ibid., is superfluous); line 13 - wthlthyn, read wthlthh; lines 15-16 - the word allidhi a t the beginning shouldbe deleted and the meaningwill be: ‘asto this rule whichI am discussing, what I say about them is that they read’, etc.; also there is no need to read qtrr’in instead of qiniin as suggested by Mann. As to Abii’l-‘Umytar, see Ibn al-Athir, Kitnil, VI, 249; this was the by-name of the ‘Sufyini’ ‘Ali b. ‘Abdallah, leader ofthe revolt in 811 in Damascus; it may have been writteu in theoriginaltextthatthisAhiyahu ha-Kohen lived a t the time of the revolt. j3

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

its vocaliser and masorete was Aaron b. Asher, and that the book was dedicated to Jerusalem by a man of BaSra, Israel b. Simha b. Saadia b. Ephraim, anddeposited with the(Karaite) nesF’i’rmJosiah and Hezekiah, the sons of David b. Boaz (here there was an error in copying and Jacob Saphir noticed it). It was to be takenout for the meetings(mujdis of the Karaites, their houses of prayer, which Jacob Saphir did not understand, and this shallbediscussedbelow)andtheKaraitecommunities on Passover, Shavuoth and Succoth in Jerusalem, and the Rabbanites should also be permitted to read it. Jacob Saphir mentions that he was assisted by Abraham Firkovitch, who examined the colophons for him when he visited Aleppo, but in general he did notaccept his corrections, for he wrote ‘b. Yeruham’instead of ‘b. BuyZ‘ii’. Saphir believed that this was done because he wanted to getcloser to Salmon b. Yeruhim, the Karaite writer. Harkavy, who visited Aleppo in 1886, examined the colophon, reprinted it, and arrived at the conclusion that what was said there about Aaron b. Asher was a forgery and a later addition of the Karaites. Kahle mentions another dedicatory colophon in the same Bible: ‘qodesh before God; for Israel, the Rabbanites who dwell in the Holy City. Not to be sold nor redeemed for ever and eternity’. This colophon had also been copied by Joseph Saphir (although Kahle brings it from another source). In Kahle’s opinion, the inscription indicates that this Bible was firstly in the hands of the Rabbanites in Jerusalem and only afterwards, somewhat before the middle of the eleventh century, did theysell it to Israel b. Simhaof BaSra, who dedicated it to the Karaites. The permission given to the Rabbanites to examine was it apparently oneof the conditions on which it was sold. A leaf with a copy of the colophon from Aleppo was found by Gottheil in a manuscript of the Biblein the Karaitesynagogue in Jerusalem. He recognised that this was a copy in modern script, but he could not make out what that copywas. Undoubtedly what Gottheil found was a pageof the copy which Firkowitch prepared forJacob Saphir, in which b. Yeruham is written instead of b. Buya‘ii (as noted by Jacob Saphir), that is, it is the correction made by Firkowitch. Gottheil believed that that Bible had been dedicated to the Karaite synagogue in Fustat, when in fact it was first dedicated, as we have seen, to the Karaites in Jerusalem, andfrom there, after it was in the hands of the Crusaders,it reached the synagogue ‘of the Jerusalemites’ (Rabbanites) inF u ~ t a tAs . ~to ~ Solomon ha-Levi b. Biiyi‘a, jj

See Even Saphir, I, 12aff (read ifiikiik instead of ijiikiiq); kanisat Yeriishilayitn is the synagogue ‘of thePalestinians’ in Fustat (to bediscussed below), the synagoguein which the Geniza was kept; seeespecially notes 2 on fol. 12b and 5, on fol. 13a.See Harkavy, Hadishim (reprint) 104ffi Kahle, Masoreten des Westens, I, 9. What Baron writes(SRH], VI, 447, n. 16) that the Rabbanites (in Jerusalem) on no account called themselves Israel ha-rabbinitn except when they wished to make a distinction between the Karaites and themselves, is erroneous; as can be proven from manyGeniza documents, they commonly I 80

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he is also mentioned in other manuscripts of the Bible which were in the hands of theKaraites in Tshufutkaleh. He was a pupil Sa‘id of b. Farjaway, nicknamed Balqiiq (= Abii’l-Qiiq), and evidently both were Tiberians and lived at the endof the ninth centuryand the beginning of the tenth. Ephraim b. Biiyi‘i is also mentioned, and was apparently the brother of Solomon. 56 [291] As we know, thePalestinian Tiberias school differed from that of the Babylonians, both in their versions of the Bible and in their pronunciation, and evidenceof this can be found in the account of Qirqisini, who cites examplesof these differences.The Karaites saw in this a proof of weakness on the part of the Rabbanites, as the latter were also divided amongst themselves concerning vocalisation, which they didnot view as having been ancient but rather as something decided by the scribes, whereas the Karaites believed that the Bible had been vocalisedfrom the outset.57 [292-2931 Nevertheless, we find an anonymous Karaite writer, evidently a Palestinian, speaking in praise of the learned ofmen Tiberias who had determined the correct manner of reading, which is the Palestinian (‘the reading of al-Sham’). He writes this in a commentary to Genesis, xlix:21 (Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words), and he mentions Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, who formulated this manner of reading,andnotesthatthis is the good Tiberian trait. It is not clear whether he wished to imply that’the creators of this correct reading were Karaites. If he thought so, it is likelythat he would have said The good accent of Tiberias is mentioned in a number of places in the Middle Ages. Jonah ibn Janih’sS. ha-viqmci, for example, states that the people of Tiberias are the most distinct (ajah) in their Hebrew, while the account attributed to Diinash b. Tamim, who quoted Isaac b. Solomon, who is Isaac Isri7ili, also speaks of the Tiberias accent: ‘. . . for there is in the language of the Hebrews of Tiberias thetci’ (should be: the +xi’) and the$id

56

57 58

referred to themselvesas Rabbanites, and it suffices tosee, for instance, whatis written in 420, b, line30: ‘we, the congregation ofRabbanites’. See: Gottheil,]QR, 17(1904/5), 650f. Gottheil was indeed led astray by Firkovitch’s correction, and on 651p.he notes that the manuscript was written by Salmon b. Yeruhim! He also did not understand what synagogue in Fustat was being referred to (see ibid., 651, and n. 3). See also: Ben-Zvi, Sinai, 43(1957/8), 1lf, and there a new copy of the dedicatory inscriptions and also comments on Firkovitch’sforgery(hedoesnotmentionGottheil);thesameinEnglish:Ben-Zvi, Textus, 6(1960), 12ff. O n Sa‘id b. Farjaway and his pupil Solomon b. Biiya‘i and his brother Ephraim, see: TS Arabic Box 35, f. 394, Allony, Textus, 6:106, 1968, who discusses the Geniza fragment in which the name (fragmented) of Sa‘id b. Farjaway is found; see also in Allony,ibid. all the references to the sources. QirqisZni, I, 31, 135ff. Cf. Klar, Mehqiirlm, 294f, 320ff; see Hadisi, Eshkol, 60b (written in 1148). See MS Firkovitch, 11, No. 4633, in Mann, Texts, 11, losf, and see ibid. the discussion on p. 69. See the scroll of Abiathar: 559, c, lines 2-3. 181

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(should be: did) . . . and he would read ajino’ (instead of: afdino’. Dan., xi:45) . . .’59 [294] At this point,one must bring up question the discussedat length in research concerning the Ben Asher family, whichis whether they belong to the Rabbanites or to the Karaites. The view that they were Karaites is based on the fact that the Karaites possessed most of the manuscripts of the Bible which have been preserved until the present day; manuscripts which have colophons whose masorah and vocalisation are attributed to Moses b. Asher and his son Aaron. Thereare instances in which Aaronis called ‘Aaron ha-rnelarnrned’ (the teacher), particularly in the colophon in the Book of Prophets in Leningrad, in which ‘the teacher Aaron b. Moses b. Meir b. Asher’ is mentioned. Some saw in the by-name ‘the teacher’ something characteristic of the Karaites, as is the case in the use of the adjective rnaskil. Another proof of his being a Karaite was seen in the heading on the title page of Saadia Gaon’s Essi M e s h i l E al-rudd ‘ala ben A s h a r ‘ibrini (‘the responseto Ben Asher, in Hebrew’); as Essa M e s h i l i was written against the Karaites, it was assumed that Ben Ashera Karaite. was Further evidence of this can be seen in the poem ofMoses ben Asher on ‘Israel who are likened to a vine’. The most outstanding of the scholars who claimed that the Ben Asher family were Karaites were Graetz and Klar. More recently, A. Dotan concluded the discussionwith evidence of Ben Asher belonging to the Rabbanites and that Saadia Gaon’s opponent was not Aaron b.Asher but Abii’l-Tayyib Samuel b. Asheral-Jabali, one of the leaders of the Karaites in Saadia Gaon’s generation. Another important fact is that we know nothing of theexistence of a Karaite community in Tiberias at any time. The immigration of Karaites that evidently began in the secondhalf of the ninth centurywas directed towards Jerusalem,as we shall see below. Also, it does not seem reasonable to assume that at a time when they were justbeginning to arrive in Palestine, one wouldfind an old and established schoolof Karaite learned linguists, grammarians and Masoretes in Tiberias.60 j9

Jonah ibn Janih,Sefr ha-riqmi (Derenbourg ed.), 29; cf. ed. Wilensky-Tenne, I, 39; see Dukes, Qunfrps, 73; in thelist ofbooks TS10 K 20. f. 9, fol. l b , lines 11-20, the kit& al-zi’ wa’Z-nidis mentioned; see: Mann, RE], 72(1921), 170; Vajda,RE], 107(1946/7), 109C and see also Pitriin TiirZ. 343: ‘Tiberias uses a clear language in theTorah morethan anyone in the world,since they have a graceful speech, as blessed by Jacob their father’, See etc.notes 91-93 of the editor andhis introduction, p. 20. As to a j i n i j , this is difficult to understand; he might have understood it as being similar to the wordfa&’, courtyard, empty space, and would read qf~i-an(because they did not differentiate between 4 and g). It is worth noting that the documents in my collection, 243-284 (Tiberias, Tyre, Tripoli),are almost all written in Hebrew. See: Kahle, Cairo Geniza, 110, n. 2.An important colophonwas copied by Jacob Saphir: ‘I Moses b. Asher wrote this nlahzor of theBible accordingto the goodhand of Godon me, well explained, in the city of Maaziah, which is Tiberias, the renowned city. . . written at I 82

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[295] T o this question of the Masoretes, one should add the subject of ‘the book of Jericho’, recalled by the Masoretes and which I have seen mentioned in someplaces as belonging to the Muslim era. It appears that the Masoretesknew this manuscript of the Bible which wasbrought from Jericho,butthiscannotserve as evidenceconcerningitsdate,which cannot be known precisely, especially as we have no information on the Jewish population in Jericho during the period we are dealing with (apart from the Muslim tradition according to which some of the exiled Jews of Medina went to Palestine, namely to Jericho).61 [296] A sad affair revealed to us by the Geniza documents is that of the Jewish lepers living in Tiberias. There are ,seventeen documents dealing directly with this subject, apart from others which mention these lepers incidentally. Sixout of the seventeen documents are in the hand-writing of the &vi+ Hillel b. Yeshii‘a the cantor al-Jiibari, who was the judge and leader of the Jews of Tiberias in the thirties and forties of the eleventh century. We find at first a letter of recommendation for the lepers’ emissaries written by Hillel b. Yeshii‘ii, leaving empty spaces for the names of the emissaries, which were still unknown to him. Onecan deduce from this that there may have been prepared forms for this purpose in the community of Tiberias, and that they would frequently send emissaries to obtain help for theseill-fated beings. From the ‘alima: yesha‘ yu@sh, one can deduce that the dateof the letteris 1025, when Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph, whose ‘alima it was, was head of the yeshiva. The lepers call themselves ‘the tormented’(ha-meyussirTm) and add rhyming descriptions about their condition, suchas: ‘from boils there’s no release, with eczema they decrease . . . some are deaf, some are blind, some lack a limb, and some are lame. . .’ and the like.An unsigned letter (apartfrom thephrase ‘your tormented brethren in the city of Tiberias’) addressed to Samuel b. Ezra containsnot onlya description of the writer’s personal distress caused by the illness but also details of the general suffering, particularly the gnawing pain of hunger: ‘from great expense and terrible hunger and a pittance to live on’. These were more painful than the disease itself. In the endofeight hundredand twenty seven years after the destruction ofthe second temple’ b. Aaron. See Even Saphir, 14b, a (895) - this gives usclear evidence of the time of Moses JQR, version copied after him in many places. Read and printed anew by Gottheil, 17(1904/5), 639; Essii meshiili was edited by Lewin, SaadiaMemorialVolume, 481 (MS Westminster College, Liturgica, vol.3, fol. 40). The correct readingofthe Arabic title was suggestedbyKlar, Mehqiirim, 276fC ‘thepoemofthegrapevine’, ibid. 310c see the discussion there in the continuation. See: Dotan, Ben Asher, who has full details on the history of the argument and references;see his previous publications: Sinai, 41(1956/7): 280, 350; see also Zucker, Tarbiz, 28(1957/8): 61. See: Ginsburg, Introdtrction, 433, 718; idem, Massorah, 111, 135; Margoliouth,Catalogtre, no. 179 (= O r 2696). See about the emigration of the Jews from Medina to Jericho: M. J. and

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another letter, itis said thatamong thediseased there were‘heads of cities’ (that is, peoplewho had been community leaders in their home-towns)as well as ‘family heads’. A building had been placed at their disposal in Tiberias, but itwas demolished, evidentlyas a result of theBedouin wars fought in thatarea in 1028-1029. The warsalso led to thediscontinuance of letters and the help they had formerly received from Egypt. With the victory of the Fatimids over the Bedouin, tranquillity was restored and requests foraid were renewed.It seems that it was customary to announce the arrivalof an emissary in the synagoguesso that the public could come to theiraid. Fromsome letters,itappearsthat two emissarieswere sometimes sent, onea leper and theother a healthy person. Money would be deposited with the ‘merchants’ representative’ in Tiberias, Saadia haLevi b. Moses, and he would distribute it to the sick. Indirectly we learn from these letters that in Tiberias there were two havZrim, people of thePalestinian yeshiva,who undoubtedly acted there as judges and community leaders, for apart from Hillel b. Yeshii‘ii, Nathan ha-Kohen he-haver b. Isaiah is also mentioned. Interesting information as to the manner in which the money was transferred is found in the letter of Samuel he-haver b. Moses, of Tyre, to the leader of the community in Fustat, ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, written in about 1050. He confirms having received a diyoqnz from Fustat for 14 dinars less 2 qirats, which Solomon b. Saadia b. Saghir brought with him from Egypt to Tyre. The had to diy6qnZ be collected from Samuel ha-Levi b. Shemaria b. Ra‘biib. This was done and the money given to a merchant travelling ‘to Tiberyi’, to be distributed to ‘our tormented brethren’, ‘in the presence of the haverim and elders’; that is to say that the distribution was carried out publicly and in the presence of the communityleaders. From the text of the letter,also it appears that the money was collected in Fustat by means of a special campaign (‘may the Almighty double the reward of thehaver, [that is ‘Eli b. ‘Amram] . . . also of everyone who gavesomething’).Hence,the money would first reach Tyre from Egypt by sea, and then be sent to Tiberias (as Tyre was part of jund Urdunn, of which Tiberias was the capital).62

62

M. Kister, Tarbiz, 48(1978/9), 235,and their suggestion that in fact these Jews returned to Jericho, because thatis where they came from originally. See lettersrelatingtothelepers: 252fC andalsothesupplementary:262a,265a, 266 (revised). Al-Jiibari, see the signature of Hillel b. Yeshii‘9on 254 and thenote there.Letter of recommendation: 252, and see the ‘al9ma (the concluding formula)on p. b; 254,255, in which there is mention of the death of one of the envoys of lepers, the a manof Aleppo (SOv9) whose name was Khalaf(ha-melammed, the teacher) ha-SGvi b. Yeshii‘ii, who was himself ill of leprosy(fromwhich we learnthatpeople with thisdiseasewere not prevented from travelling and being in contact with the public;onsee thesubject oflepers in Islam: Lazarus-Yafeh, Tarbiz, 51[1981/2], 215); the death-bed will of this Khalaf has been preserved, and it appears from this will that he was a man of means who dealt in 1 84

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[297] The lepers’ purpose in coming to Tiberias wasto ‘get healed by the water and the air’. As early as the late sixth century, Antoninus of Piacenza (Placentinus) tells us of the springs of Hammat-Gad&, called ‘the baths of Elijah (the prophet)’ which cured the lepers. There was also an inn there (xenodochium) supported by public funds. In the evening, the baths were filled; towards thefront of the pool there was a basin which was filled, and thenthedoorswerelocked.The sick entered through a small door carrying lamps and incense and sat there the entire night, falling asleep. A sign of healing wasa certain dream which the sick person would describe. Afterwards he would not come to the bathhouse any longer and in the course of seven days(so one should understand) he’would be healed. This tradition has evidently been preserved for generations and the place to which the lepers of Tiberias went tobe healed in the springs was indeed Hammat-GadEr. Actually, the text of one of the letters confirms this: ‘Your tormented brothers, who live outside Rakkath’. That is - in plain terms - the lepers lived outside of Tiberias. Around 1045, Samuel hehaver b. Moses of Tyre wrote to Ephraimb. Shemaria in Fustat, asking him to clarify the matter of certain money deposits inEgypt, among them those of ‘Moses b. Semah, known as al-Azraq (‘the blue-eyed’) the magician, who died some years ago’, which concern Na‘ima b. Moses alDuliiki (from Duliik in northern Syria), ‘who sold wares in front of the Jadariyya baths’. Jadariyya is- undoubtedly Hammat-Gader. However, one can also assume that these lepers would go toget healed in the springs of Tiberias proper. Muqaddasi mentions that there were eight unheated baths in the city as well as ritual pools (rniy$) of hot water. The baths received their waterthrough canals from the hot springs. also He describes the springs of Hammat-GadEr (aI-I;-lamrna)which apparently could heal various diseases within three days.63

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textiles and perfumes, and even bought himself a &#r, that is a compound, in Tiberias (evidently after coming there from Aleppo because ofhis illness). See253. The name of the healthy envoy was Obadiah, see 262, line 9. Samuel b.Ezra, who is addressed in this letter, 262, is evidently Samuel b. ‘Ezriin the Jerusalemite, and from this we learn thatappeals for help were also made to Jerusalem.‘Heads of cities’: 265. That there were women among Letter of the lepers one can learn from 266: ‘and we fell, limb by limb, men and women’. Samuel the haver b.Moses: 283. Mann,Jews, I, 168, assumed thatthis Samuel b. Shemaria b. Ra‘bub was a man of Tiberias, but actually he was from Tyre. The letter from Solomon b. Judah, 72, written in about 1026, includes an appeal to help ‘the tormented. . . the exiles from their homes’ etc.; isit clear that this refers to thelepers of Tiberias, and not refugees from the earthquake of 1033 as assumed by Mann, Jews, I, 133. 262a has an additional detail, and that is that the sick were obliged to pay to the people who laundered their clothes. 265a is a fragment of a letter carried by two of the lepers’ envoys, one named David ha-Kohen ha-me‘ulk ba-haviiri (the excellent one of the yeshiva, an honorific title), and the other whose namewas not preserved, only the name of his father, Abraham. The purpose of theirarrival: 263, a, lines 11-12. Antoninus: Tobler et Molinier,I, 946 cf. Couret, la Palestine, 236, and more references there; Avi-Yonah, Ge’5grcifa historit, 159f and references in n. 1. ‘Outside Rakkath’:265, line 18. Moses al-Duliiki: 278, lines 31-32;

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[298] The port ofjund Urdunn, and actually the most important port in all of Palestine and Syria was Tyre. According to Ya'qiibi, people of different origin lived there alongside one another. Niisir Khusraw, who visited Tyre in February 1047, writes that most of the Muslims there were Shiites while the cadi, Ibn Abi 'Aqil was a Sunni. We have no further details about the Muslims in city the nor about the Christians (if there were any). About the Jewish communityliving there, we have a good deal of informationfromtheCairo Geniza. Fromthe Geniza documents,it appears thatTyre had a relatively large Jewish population, which lived on local industries and maritime trade. The special ties with Tiberias andAcre can be seen in a fragment from a court deed written in Tyre in around 1015 which deals with thelegacy of a woman who died in Tiberias, and one of the heirs, who lived in Acre.In around 1020 we find the marriage deed of Haziyya (the root of the namemeans: luck) b. Nathan, written in Tyre. The groom, ManSiir, was a man of Acre and the young couple were to move toAcre aftera year of marriage, where theywould be given a house by the father of the bride, Nathan.The bride's parents and their children had the rightto stay in the housewhen they cameto Acre, either as guests or else permanently. Tyre wasthe home of the Baradanifamily,an important and well-known Babylonian family who had apparently immigrated fromIraq at the endof the tenth century.In approximately 1060 we find Joseph and Nahum, sons Sahl of al-Baradiini, in Tyre, withtheir trading ventures covering the entire area: Gush (which is Gush Hiilav), Tiberias, Tripoli and Aleppo.64 on Duliik, the ancient Dolikhe, see: Dussaud, Topographic, Index, and see also the article Duliik (byD. Sourdel) in EP. It is now a village which belongs to Turkeynear the Syrian border. Muqaddasi, Aqilirn, 161, 185; see the subject of the hot bathsin Tiberias also in Ya'qiibi, Buldin, 115. Sam'ani (ed. Margoliouth), 366a,tells of visiting Tiberias (in around 1130); he stayed there for one nightand visited the bath-house; see further: Idrisi (Cerulli), 364; Ibn al-Shaddad, Barq, 106a, who notes the springs outside the city of Tiberias (certainly Hammat-Gad&-) to whichall kinds ofsick people come to be healed; see more sources: Le Strange, Palest., 334f. O n the close ties between Palestine and Tyrein the consciousness of people living at that time onecan learn from 212, lines 29-30 (Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi, around 1030):'For there are no people in all of Palestine as helpful as the people of Tyrealone'. Ya'qubi, Btrldin, 115; Nasir Khusraw, 14 (text), 47 (translation); see below, sec. 360. The matter of the legacy: 270; Mansiir: 279; Assaf, Eretx Israel, 1(1950/51), 140, n. 8, interpreted the matter Sahl of the house incorrectly. The Baradanis: 492, the letter ofJoseph and Nahum, sons of (who is Yannai) al-Baradani, from Tyre, to Nehoraib. Nissim in Fustat; Israel b. Nathan (Sahliin), who writes to Nehorai b. Nissim on 29 November 1061, mentions that 'the Baradanis are living in Tyre (see 479, b, line 3). The father was Joseph the cantor, al-BaradZnT; Joseph's son, Nahum the cantor, ha-Baradani, is mentioned in a poem in honour of Abraham 'rabbenu' (our master), TS 8J 1, see inSchechter, Sandyann, 66; seeon him: Mann,]QR, NS 9(1918/9), 154f, and ibid., also a comprehensive discussion on the see about the Baradanis, 150ff; the sons of Nahum were: Baruch, Yannai, Solomon; and Baradanis also in: Scheiber Acta Orientnlin (Hung.), 30(1976), 342. A letter from Nahum al-Baradani to Samuel b. Hofni,head of the yeshiva of Sura, writtenin Qayrawan on 33 I 86

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[299] Tyre is mentioned frequently in merchants’ letters printed inmy corpus of Geniza documents. Moreover, we have no less than sixteen Geniza documents written in Tyre during the first half of the eleventh century and another four from the end of the century and the beginning of the twelfthcentury.. It was at this time that thePalestine yeshiva moved to Tyre, as we shall see below. At anearlier period, it is Joseph ha-Kohen b. Jacob ha-s6@r who was head of the Jews in Tyre. In a deed of attorney written in Tyre on 25 January 1011, he is still not called haver; similarly in another deed of attorney from 1012, nor in aclearance deed (receipt) from 24 November 1019 (in his handwriting). Evidently he became hiivi? in about 1025, as can be deduced from a power-of-attorney written at that time; in his handwriting, there is also a record of evidence relating to a house in Aleppofrom 18 October 1028. In a power-of-attorney written in Tyre by Solomon b. Semah, the scribe of the yeshiva of Palestine, evidently at the end of 1036 or the beginning of 1037, Joseph ha-Kohen of Av 1310 Sel., 7 AugustAD 999, was among the documents of the Geniza and was edited by:Goldziher, RE], 50(1905),183ff(Goldziherreceivedthemanuscript,written on vellum, fromSchechter, but it was lost later on;see Shaked, 49).Nahum writes there that he is delaying his departure from the Maghrib because of some matters of business in Spain; he mentions a letter he had written a year earlier, which shows that he was already in the Maghrib for more than a year;see this letter in Mann, Texts, I, 151f. See further: TS 30.100, lines 31-32, the letter of Hayy Gaon,in Mann, ibid., I, 122, in which he mentions ‘our treasured beloved friend,our Lord and MasterNahum the cantor.. . son ofour Lord andMasterJoseph,thegreatcantor’;theGaonrequeststheaddressee(evidentlyin Qayrawzn) to inform him as to thewell-being of the sameNahum. This shows that from 1006 (when this letter was written), the family was already in the Maghrib. See the fragment of the letter together with another fragment, in Abramson, Ba-rnerkarim, 95fc see ibid., 91, the comments on Nahum al-Baradini and his poems, and more references. The Nahum whosettled in Tyre was the grandson of thisNahum; the generation order: Joseph (Baghdad)- Nahum (Qayrawin)- Yannai (Sahl) and his sons: Nahum and Joseph (Tyre); three generations of Baradanis are mentioned in 426, which is a court document issued in about 1065: Nahum the cantor al-Baradhi (who settled in Qayrawin); his son Yannai (Sahl) and the sons of Yannai: Joseph Nahum. and It says therethat Nahum came from the Maghrib and brought books with him, the Talmudand other books, and also ktrhl; Mann, J Q R , NS 9(1918/9), 151, assumed that the court document stemmed from Baghdad and was sentto Egypt, buthe was mistaken: the document was from Jerusalem and the defendant wasfrom Ramla (Mann repeats the above-mentioned opinion Texts, in I, 153, as well). It seems that Yannai and his sons moved from Qayrawin to Tyre when the sons were already grown, as is shown by the request of the Jerusalemite Abraham B. ‘Amram from Nehorai b. Nissim in Fustat that he urgently obtain the evidence of the youngest son, Joseph, in the matter of the rights of a Jerusalemite woman to alegacy in Qayrawan (see 513). See also on the Baradinis: Goitein, A4editerrarrecln Society, 111, 300f; 493, n. 107, with alist of Geniza documents in which they are mentioned. ENA NS70, f. 19 includes three fragments, written- it seems - by the ‘Rav’,who is Judah ha-Kohen b. Joseph. leader of the Maghribis. At the beginning of one of the fragments, the Baradanis are mentioned, as an example of people ‘of decent ways’. The name Baradinis evidently Bihridhan (Be-Ridhan), as I have shown in]ESHO, 71(1974), 320, n. 106; this was a province which stretched east of Baghdad along the Tigris, alsocalled Ridhin (in Arab sources and also in Jewish sources: Jikhi), homeland of the Radhini merchants.

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Tyre signs: ‘thefourth in thehavivi?, which shows that he becameone of the central figures in the Palestinian yeshiva.65 [300]Together with Josephb. Jacobha-siiJi;v, we find another leader of the Jews of Tyre, Samuel he-hiver b. Moses he-hivFr b. R. Elhiiniin. Six documents written in his handwriting are included in my corpus of Geniza documents. He survived Josephha-Kohen and is mentioned as a witness in a power-of-attorney on 12 December 1050. We know the name of his grandfather by the small letters surrounding his signature, in cryptography (atbash) meaning: b. R. ElhinZn. His Arabicname was Mawhiib, as he indicates in his letter to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, the haver of Fustat in the middle of the eleventh century. It appears that he had friendly relations with thehaver of Aleppo, Jacob b. Joseph. From his letter to the latter, we learn that he visited Buzi‘a (some40 kilometres east of Aleppo), and the people of that community were very interested that he remain with them. We are also informedof an impending visit from this Jacob in Tyre. Some of these letters concern personal matters in which the letter-writers were in need of assistance from thepeople of Fustat, and indeed Samuel writes for them to Ephraimb. Shemaria andto his heir to the leadershipof the Fustat Jews, ‘Eli b. ‘Amram. It is also evident that he served as a scribe for his community, as there are two marriage deeds from Tyre from the Geniza written in his characteristic handwriting. It seems that in the days of Samuel b. Moses, Tyre was a livelycentre of social intercourseand regional communal activities for the Jewish communities in northern Syria, Aleppo and other cities.66 65

66

Documents from Tyre from the first half of the eleventh century: 268-283; later documents: 600-603; deeds of attorney:268,269; deed of compensation: 271; first appointment as haver: 272; record of evidence: 273. See alsoJNUL, 4’577.4 No. 98, in his handwriting, of 28 November 1023, Tyre, edited by: Friedman, Marriage, 11, 38ff; see also the Geniza letter, MS Reinach (which was in the possession of Theodore Reinach) edited by Schwab, RE], 70(1920), 59ff, whichis a copy of a letter sent to Josephha-Kohen the haver b. Jacob in Tyre, evidently by Ephraim b. ShemariainFustat,concerningthemoneyorders (diy6qnFs, sufkljas) signed by b. Rabi‘ (Solomon b. Rabi‘, an important figure in Tyre; mentionedintheyears 1010-1015) thedeceased,whichHasan(Yefet) b.Isaac was supposed to have cashed in Fustat; cf. Mann, Jews, 11,355.Joseph ha-Kohenis calledin the florid introduction to the above-mentioned letter (line 18), ‘whose title is haver, like the scholars ofJabneh’. It is worth noting thesignatures ofJoseph ha-Kohen, surrounded by tiny letters, evidently a code which I have not managed to decipher as yet. The letters of Samuel b. Moses: 278-283. Witness to the power of attorney: see 307 (a Karaitemarriagedeed),line18. See theletterssurroundinghissignature: 273,278. Mawhub, see 283, lines 24-25. His letter to Jacob, haver: the 281; Buzi‘a, see the articleby this name (byJ. Sourdel Thomine)in EP,and references there; add Ibn Khallikan, I, 145, who says thatit is ‘a large village, in the middle of the road between Aleppo and Manbij’. Marriage deeds in the handwriting of Samuel b. Moses: 279, 280. As to Aleppo, some information on it from this early period has been preserved in the Geniza. The aforementioned Jacob, the haver, was on friendly terms with Solomon b. Judah, theJerusalem Gaon, even before he became Gaon. See 54, Solomon b. Judah’s letter to him, and then he was still not titled hZvEr, but ‘Jacob the candidate(ha-me‘uttid) b. Joseph he-Hasid’;see 55,

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[301] Acre, another port in jund Urdunn, was apparently neglected during the first part of our period, until the last quarter of the ninth century, when Ibn Tiiliin decided to reactivate its port. We have some slight knowledge of the Jewish community in Acre.The oldest piece of information exists ina colophon from a commentary onIsaiah by Saadia Gaon, in which is it written that the book had formerly belonged to Jacob he-haver b. Ayyiib and was purchased from him by Josiah he-&ver b. Aaron ha-rne‘ulle b. Josiah, av of the court in Acre in the year AM 4791 (AD 1031). In that year, Josiah was granted the title of hiivcr. It was at about the same time that he visited Fustat, and in a letter written by Solomon b. Nethanel ‘the banker’, we find expressions of regret at his having to leave Fustat. Afterwards, Josiah became av of the court of the Palestinian yeshiva. His son,Zadok, also lived in Acre, evidently until the seventies of the eleventh century. We come across him in Tyre, in the retinue of Abiathar Gaon, and he is then ‘the third’ in the yeshiva. The grandfather of this Josiah was not Josiah Gaon, of whom we shall hear more below, but Josiahthe av of the court, b. Abraham Gaon.His brother, Isaac b. Abraham, was ‘third’ of the yeshiva, and apparently they flourished at the end of the tenth century. Thedescendants of this Abraham Gaon, it seems, settled in Acre where we also find the nephew of Josiah he-haver, Elijah b. Aaron b. Josiah, who signs his name and notes the year AM 4800 (AD 1040), on the last page of the book a l f t ~al-miqri, a Biblical dictionary which he copied for his own use. It appears that this family were descendantsof Palestinian Geonim of the tenth century, that is, those who preceded the aforementioned Abraham Gaon, Meir Gaon and his son Aaron. There is a hint of truth in this (apart from memorial lists, which arenot clear on this point),as can be seen from a letter written by Elijah b. Aaronto Ephraim b.Shemaria in Fustat, in which he confirms the receiptof a money order (sz4jaja) for Isaac he-&ivt?r. This Isaac he-hiver (who is Isaac he-hiver b. Solomon he-hivZr, of the descendants of Meir Gaon) also livedinAcre. Isaac he-hivzr, itstatesinthesameletter, requested Elijah, who is evidently a young relative, to cash the money order, but Abii’l-Fad1 Meshullam (the banker) claimed that the gold (the dinars) has not yet arrivedfrom Tiberias and thatit will arrive shortly; but also from Solomon to Jacob,and here he is already called h4vEr. At the same time, there was another leader inAleppo, namely Tamim, the hivEr, b. Tobias, see: ULC Or 1080 J 96, a power-of-attorney from 1037 written ‘in the city of SOvi, situated on the river Qiiqiybn’ (Qiiqiybn = Quwayq). The importance of the Jewish population in Aleppo is borne out by-the fact thatone of its gates, the northern gate, was calledBib ul-Yuhtid: see Muqaddasi, Aqilrm, 155; Ibn aL‘Adim,Zubdu, I, 135, 188; Ibn al-Shihna (copied from Ibn 36 (translation). Towards the endof the 11th century, the leader ofthe Shaddid), 44 (text), Jews of Aleppo was Baruch b. Isaac, some of whose letters have been preserved in the Geniza; it is also known that he wrote a commentary to the Talmud. See on himand the Aleppo community: Mann, Hutequji, 24 (1926/7), 352fC Assaf, Turbiz, 19:105, 1947/8.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

merely a week after the writing of this letter, at the end of Adar, Isaac he-havev informed him that he has received the money. This matter connects up with the appeal of Moses ha-sijv, the son of the same Isaac he-&vi?, to Abraham al-Tustari, to help him travel (to Palestine) to visit his sick father. Hence it seems that Isaac he-&vev, who was Meir Gaon’s grandson, was receiving financial help for himself andhis family from the people of Fustat, both from the ‘Palestinians’ (Ephraim b. Shemaria) and the Tustaris. In Acre, a power-of-attorney was written in the name of Radiya, the widow of Abrahamb. Nathan (not the son of Nathan the av of the court, who will be dealt with below) and given to Mevorakh b. Ezekiel, to handle the property left her by her deceased husband in Ascalon with people who came from Acre, who were all from one family: Wahban, Sedaqa and Hulda, the mother of the two. The signature of Joseph he&vev b. Eleazar appears there, and he was evidently another haver who lived in Acre, apart from the above-mentioned Josiah and Isaac. Another personality among the Jews of Acre was Saadia b. Israel the cantor, who was granted the title of haver on behalf of the Palestinian yeshiva on v6sh ha-shZni, [a. 1045, which Abraham, son of Solomon Gaon b. Judah, mentions in a letter to Sahlrin b. Abraham. Preserved in the Geniza is a letter written bySaadia ha-lahid we-ha-sijv (student andscribe; that is, prior to his appointment as haver) to Samuel b. Shelah in whichhe asks him to‘come down onthe sabbathto his synagogue to hear the words of the Torah’.One may assume thatthis is probably an invitation to come to the synagogue inAcre. Some thirtyyears later, Saadia ‘the haver of the great Sanhedrin’ writes a responsumto a certain sayyidial-lmziitz concerning the calendar of the year AM 4838 (AD 1077/8). There appears to have been a centre of learning in Acre, as can be inferred from theletter from a refugee from Acre writingto Alexandria (in about 11 15), apparently a manclose to one of the families of the geonim of Palestine, to judge by the ‘aliima yesha‘ yeqiivev which used to be that of Nathan nv b. Abraham. In this letter, ittells that there wasa sort of colony of people from Tiberias inAcre. The family of the correspondent was also originally from Tiberias, for his father, Jacobtza-rntrrn&, came from there. He says that he prays for the well-being of the addressee with a group of the elite, that is, made up of refugees from Palestine, not of Alexandria, whose praying is not heard (and with whom he evidently is on very bad terms). In about 1060, the parnas of theJerusalem Jews, ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, stayed in Acre. He mentions in his letter to ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim in Fustat thathe prayed there(as he also did inTyre) for the health of the Nagid in Egypt, Judah b. Saadia, and his brother Mevorakh. During the latterhalf of theeleventh century, theSpanish commentator Moses b. Joseph ibnKashkil settled in Acre after wandering fromSpain to Sicily, on

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to Egypt, and from there to Mahdiyya. He appears to have lived there together withhis brother and they stayed in Jerusalema certain for time,as one learns from a letter of Isma‘il b. Isaac al-Andalusi from Jerusalem to Yeshii‘i b. Samuel in Fustat, written in around 1065. The latter wanted some information about the Ibn Kashkil family, and he mentions that he sees them very infrequently because there are certain reservations about them on the part of ‘the head’, evidently the Gaon Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon. These reservations may be connected with Moses b. Joseph’s method of interpreting the Bible. O n 28 November 1099, slightly more than four monthsafter the fall of Jerusalem, we come across a record of evidence, written in Fustat, concerning the legacy of a certain Isma‘il al-‘Azizi al-Halabi, who died in Acre. As the nameindicates, he camefrom ‘Aziz, a fortified town which was the capitalof a district north ofAleppo, a day’s travel from there. We have here a family from northern Syria who came to Acre in Palestineat first, where the father of the family died, while the rest of the family escaped to Egypt, apparently in the wake of theCrusaders’ invasion.T w o of the heirs still remained in Aleppo with their families, whereas three witnesses, alsoof Aleppo,appeared before the court in Fustat. It should be noted that Acre was still under the control of the Muslims at the time, for it was only conquered in 1104. We have already seen above the letter of another refugee from Acre, who settled in Alexandria (written toJoseph b. Yahyi in Fustat, himself a refugee from Acre), in which he speaks of the strained relations between the refugees and the people of Alexandria. Nathan ha-Kohen b. Solomon, whois himself one of therefugees from Biiniyis and who became a judge in Fustat, writes to his father-in-law Tobiah ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli, also from Biniyis, whohas become a leaderof the community in Bilbays. He speaks highly to him of another refugee from Acre, a modestman of noble extraction, who at first settled inone of the towns in the Delta, hiding from the tax collectors. After he and his family reached Fustat, they were in great distress and their arrival became known to the authorities. It appears that the family wished to move to Bilbays, perhaps because the refugees had greater chances of coming to somearrangements concerningtaxesintheprovincial cities. Bilbays seems to have been such a haven, not only for the people of Acre but also for people from other cities in P a l e ~ t i n e . ~ ~ 67

The colophon: 221. Letter of Solomon b. Nethanel: 215.See in ‘the Scroll of Abiathar’, 559, b. line 18: Zadok b. Rabbi Isaiah Av was appointed ‘third’ by Elijah Gaon, on the Feast ofTabernacles in 1081, in Tyre (he was ‘fourth’ before that), see hissermon ibid.; see also 574,b, lines 2-3: Zadok b. RabbiIsaiah, av-bet-&, ‘of saintlyblessed memory’ (perhaps he wasmurdered, as zekher qiidcsh, ‘saintly memory’, may indicate). The refugee from Acre who lived in Alexandria (in the days of the Crusaders) mentions Zadok ‘the third’ who lived in Acre, see599 (notas in Braslavi, Le-heqer, 86); this is a letter to another

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[302] Another coastal city in jund Urdunnwas Haifa. Niisir Khusraw, who visited Haifa in1047, noted the existence ofa shipyard there, where ships of thejiidi type were constructed. Ibn Hawqal notices the fortresses in itsarea and Yiiqiit also speaksof theHaifa citadel. Hereit becomes clear both fromGeniza letters andfrom the history of the Crusaders’ conquest, that the fortress of Haifa (that is, that part of the town surrounded bya wall) was inhabited by Jews. A fragment ofa deed survived in the Geniza in which ‘the people of the citadel of Haifa’ are mentioned; it is also mentioned in the description of the earthquake of the year 1033 a letter in written by Solomon b. Semah. Elijah Gaon held an assembly in Haifa in 1082, when the Palestinian yeshiva was already in Tyre, and there he inaugurated the year, reassumed the leadershipas Gaon and renewed the appointments to the ‘meeting house’ (bet ha-wa‘ad, a euphemism for the yeshiva). Naturally Haifa was chosen for this purpose because it was within the boundaries of Palestine according to thehalakha, unlike Tyre where the yeshiva was then located. This was explicitly stated in the refugee, a manfrom Acre who lived in Fustat, Joseph b. Yahyi; and he also has the other 2443) b 11, details, memoriesof Acre. The lineage ofJosiah,av-bet-din, Bodl MS Heb (Cat. f. 24, edited by Poznanski, RE], 66(1913), 62;MS Firkovitch 11, 157A, fols. 9-10, edited by Harkavy,Hamagid, 21(1877), 134; this is a list at the end ofa midrash, see film no. 10280 at the Institute of Micro-filmed Hebrew Manuscripts in the National Library, Jerusalem; cf. Mann,]ews, II,53; see also ENA 2592, f. 118v, ed. Marmorstein,]QR, NS 18(1917/8), 3 (a very torn and faded fragment) in which on line 11 can be found Josiahb. Abraham Gaon. The colophon of Elijah b. Aaron:223. Confirmation of the money order: 222; this has regards to Joseph ha-s&r (the scribe), Ephraim’s son-in-law. Joseph died in 1035, hence the letter was written before that year. The letter of Mosesha-s&r: 224. Ridiya’s deed: 225. Saadia b. Israel (Sa‘id b. Isri’il): 141, line 5; this is a letter of Abraham, the Gaon’s son, andsee: Goitein, BaronJubiIee VoIume, 512f, who assumes thathe is the same person as the Saadia b. Israel praised in64 by the Gaon Solomon b. Judah on the fact that his house i,nJerusalem is wide-open to the needy; but that Saadia is evidently Saadia b. Israel al-Tustari; see Gil, Tusturis, in the Index. Saadia’s letter: 226. Samuel b. Shelah is perhapsSamuelb.Sahl, ofKhuriisin,whose arrivalinJerusalem is announcedby Solomon b. Judah (in a letter written by his son Abraham) to Ephraim b. Shemaria in about 1040, see 138, lines 19-20. The responsum: H U C 1007, edited by Assis, HUCA, 49(1978), Hebrew section, 1-4;see the photostatibid., pp. 2f. The handwritingis the same as in 226. The letter of‘Eli ha-Kohenb. Ezekiel: 446, lines 3, 19-20. O n Moses b. Joseph ibn Kashkil see: Mann, Texts, I, 386fc see there a fragmentof his commentary toI Sam., ch. xxviii (in which he criticises Samuel b. Hofni), pp.389f; this fragmentis included in the commentary of Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard, who says he obtained it when he was in Acre, where Moses b. Joseph died; he mentions that Ibn Kashkil was a man of considerable knowledge of philosophy and an accomplished linguist. See also Ashtor, Shazarlubilee Volume, 492 and n. 9. The letter of Ismi‘il b.Isaac: 511, in the upper margin. Khalaf b. Isaac of Acre (‘Akkii) is mentioned in a copy of the protocol of the court in Fustat dated Monday, 15 Shevat AM 4788, 15 January AD 1028, dealing with matters ofhis inheritance. The name ofhisheiress: Nijwa: BodlMS Heb d 66,f. 121, edited by Assaf,Turbiz, 9(1937/8), 213, cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society 111, 196f. Minutes of witnesses from the year 1099: 598. ‘Aziz, see: Yiqiit, Buldin, 111, 667; Dussaud, Topogruphie, 195: it is Azetas in Plinius, Hist. nut., V:23. Refugees from Acre: 599. The letter of Nathanha-Kohen b. Solomon: TS 12.789. See also the letter 609, to be discussed below. The deed of partnership: TS 6 J 2, f. 13.

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surviving draft of a letter fromShelah ‘the sixth’ b. Nahum, who apparently writes from Tyre, and is naturally oneof the supporters of Abiathar ha-Kohen and thePalestinian yeshiva in their sharpconflict with Davidb. Daniel: ‘and we went to Haifa andatthetime of the prayerI was proclaimed ‘the sixth’; there was unanimity that Haifa belongs to Palestine. . .’ The Jewish character of Haifa is most marked in the account of Albert of Aachen of the Crusaders’ conquest, in which it emerges that apart from regular Muslim units (of the Fatimid army), it was the Jews who defended the city, as we shall see.68 [303] There is a relatively large amount of information preserved on Ascalon, especially in the CairoGeniza. This can be explained not only by the accidental nature of thesurvival of theGeniza documents, butalso by the fact that the city was thechief connecting link between Palestine and Egypt, owing to the relative proximity of Egyptand to its fortified port, which made it a transit point for goods travellers, and though Muqaddasi held that theport was not amongthe best. The period we are dealing with ends in Ascalon more than two generations after its conclusion in therest of Palestine, for the Crusaders conquered it only in1153. It appears that the most ancient information we have of Ascalon after the period of the Umayyads is the building inscriptionof the mosqueand the mtr’adhdhin’s tower, which attributes it to al-Mahdi, who became caliph at the death of his father al-Mangiir in AD 775, but who ordered the mosqueto be built in Muharram in the year AH 155, that is, at the beginning of AD 772. Al-Mufaddal b. Salam al-Namari and Jawhar b. Hisham al-Qurashi were in charge of its construction. The next information on Ascalon is in the year AH 237 (AD 851/2), when a great conflagration consumed the houses of Ascalon as well as the plantations surrounding it. There was also a Christian population there and I shall discuss this and the subject of its church, which was burnt down in 939/40, in the chapteron theIkhshidids below. 69 [304] A very unusual episode connected with Ascalon is the matter of 68

69

NiiSir Khusraw, 17 (text), 58 (translation);Ibn Hawqal, 166: (al-qu:Gral-mudlfa i l i hayfa); Yaqiit, Buldijn, 11, 381. The fragment of a deed: 220, line 1 . The letter of Solomon b. Semah: 209,line 13. The assembly in Haifa: the Scroll of Abiathar: 559, b, lines 19ff. The bzt ha-wa‘ad, ‘meeting house’ is perhaps the synagogue in Haifa and the author of the scroll uses here an image from Talmudiclanguage, and one should not take it literally, as does Assaf, M e q M t , 11; one can easily see that the poet does not apply ziqne ‘agJll, that is the people of the Palestinian yeshiva, to Haifa in particular (see in the dirge he edited ibid., 14, line 38 [TS Loan 511). The letter of Shelah; 550. See on the subject ofHaifa and the borders of Palestine: Braslavi, Eretz-Zsrael, 5(1958/9), 220 and notes 8 and 9 for more references. See on the subject of Haifa during the period under discussion also the article of El‘ad, Mehqlrim (Ha_ifaUniv.), 5:191, 1979/80. Muqaddasi, Aqllim, 174; evidently biased in favour of the port of Acre, which he claims was builtbyhis grandfather (see ibid., 1620. The inscription: Ripertoire cltronologiqrrc, I, 312f. (No. 42); the fire: Ibn Taghri Bardi, 11, 290.

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the mosque where Husayn’s head was preserved. Muslim writers, evidently beginning with Harawi(ca. 1200), mention that therewas a memorial (mashhad) in Ascalon in which the head of Husayn was kept. Ibn Muyassar, writing some two generations later, notes that in 1098, when the army ofal-Afdal conquered Jerusalem andAscalon from theSaljiiqs, al-Afdal moved thehead of Husayn from the modest place in whichit was formerly kept, to the most impressive building in Ascalon and built a mosque above it. However, according to him some claimed that it was al-Afdal’s father, Badr al-Jamali, who actually built the mosque and that al-Afdal only finished it. Afterwards, at the time of the Crusaders’ conquest ofAscalon, thehead was transferredto Fustat, on Sunday, the 9thof Jumada I1 in the year A H 548, that is 31 August A D 1153. The Spanish traveller al-‘Abdari mentions the building of the mashhad in Ascalon when describing the tomb of thehead of Husaynin Fustat. He depicts it as the most magnificent building in Ascalon. Mujir al-Din al-‘Ulaymi, writing towards the end of the fifteenth century, discusses this when he describes the minbar situated near the mihviib in Hebron, in the Cave of Machpelah. He tells that the rninbav had been made of superb and beautiful wood during the rule of the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir, on the order ofBadr al-Jamiili, for themashhad Husayn inAscalon. According to its inscription, it was made in A H 484 (AD 1091). He imagines that Saladin, when he conquered Palestine, moved this minbav to Hebron, since Ascalon was in ruins and because he wanted to add splendour to Hebron. He mentions that theminbar was still there ‘untilthis very day’. Indeed, it remains there today. Van Berchem published the inscription in1915 and it is indeed as al-‘Ulaymi described it four hundred years earlier. He was perhaps right in assuming that therewas a Shiite sanctuary there many generations before the building of this mosque. It seems that during the struggle over Palestine, the Fatimid rulers wanted to enhance the religious significance of Ascalon, and particularly itsShiite aspect, and therefore builtthis magnificent building.70 [305] Letters in the Geniza from the eleventh century, especially letters of merchants,mention Ascalon frequently.Aletter from Ascalon in mid-century contains a reproach against a group of thecity’s inhabitants for conducting a campaign of slander against the letter-writer and his ’O

O n the mosque ofHusayn’s head, see: Harawi, 32; Ibn Muyassar, 38; Ibn Khallikan, 11, 450;al-‘Abdari, 149, 232; Ibn Kathir, B i E y a , VIII,204, writing in the middle of the fourteenth century and claiming that Husayn’s head is in Damascus; Maqrizi, Khiyat, 11, 283; Itti‘iz, 111, 22; ‘Ulaymi, 56f; see Van Berchem, Festschr. Sacharr: 298; Vincent et al., Hebron, 219-250. The inscription on the rninbav can be read also in Rippertoire chronologique, VII,-259f (No. 2790; see also the inscription after that, No. 2791, a similar matter). ‘Arif al-‘Arif, Muyaz, 26, has no doubt about the fact that the head of Husayn was indeed brought to Ascalon after he was killed.

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household. The letter is written to aJerusalemite, Abu’l-Faraj Shemaiah he-&vZv b. Yeshti‘a, the great-grandson of Shemaiah Gaon. The writer is evidently one of the community leaders in Ascalon, and he points out that aspersions are cast notonly against him,but also against Shemaiah’s cousin, Mevorakh. Earlier complaints did not help and no one, neither their relatives nor even the physician b. al-Azhar (b. Meir?) reprimanded the slanderers. The only way to put an end to the slander was that the yeshiva should pronounce the slanderers excommunicated, particularly as they were seeking help from Muslims and Christians (‘the uncircumcised’, ‘gentiles’, ‘worshippers ofthe cross’, mtr’ahddhins). A colophon toa commentary of Saadia Gaon on the prayer of Shem6ne ‘e&, copied in Ascalon in 1061 by Azariah b. David, has been preserved. There is a fragment of a letter from one of the family of the priestly geonim of Jerusalem, addressed to Ascalon, evidently written in around 1070, in which the writerexpresses satisfaction at the fact that Halfon ha-Kohen b. Eleazar reached Ascalon safely. Another letter has been preserved from ‘the community of Ascalon’ to ‘the two holycommunitiesliving in Misrayim’ (that is in Fustat) warmly commending the governor of Ascalon appointed by the Fatimids, Ab5 Hari‘, and also the ‘elder of thecity’, perhaps thelocal cadi, Abii Hurayz, onthe score of their good treatment of the Jews of the city. The Ascalon correspondents ask the leaders of the Fustat communities to recommendthese two Muslim personalities to ‘our elders’, i. e. the Karaiteelders, meaning of course the Tustaris. Tojudge by the ‘&ma: yesha‘ ytlbash (‘a swift salvation’) one can surmise that the letter was written in1025, the periodof theGaon Solomonha-Kohen b. Joseph. Mann wanted to deduce from this letter the existence of a Karaite community in Ascalon and even assumed thatit had been written by Karaites. However, he was mistaken in this, and we have no information as to whether there was in fact a Karaite community in Ascalon at that time.71 [306]During the period of Turcoman dominion over Palestine, Ascalon remained under Fatimid control, and it underwent difficult times because of the lack of security that existed in Palestine. At that time, the Ascalon community was involved to a large extent in the conflict between Abiathar ha-Kohen and David b. Daniel. We find hints of the difficult 71

The letter toShemaiah,the haver: 526; he is frequentlymentioned in letters in my collection, in which there is a letter of his and letters addressed to him; see the Hebrew Index (his brother Solomon is also occasionally mentioned). His son, Abraham b. Shemaiah, was one of the judges in Fustat and his name appears on many of the court’s of the eleventh cehtury. See on him:Goitein, documents,beginningfromtheend Mediterrmtan Society, 11, 512. The colophon: 528. The letter from Jerusalem: 529. The letter from 1025: 314. See Mann, Jews, I, 159; cf. Baron, SRHJ, V, 413, n. 75; 415, n. 82: Baron finds here evidence of the absence of any sharp struggle between the Rabbanites and the Karaites in Palestine in the eleventh century, but itis impossible tospeak of evidence from something whose very existence is in doubt.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

situation in a letter from Nathan ha-Kohen ha-Mumhe b. Mevorakh to ‘Eli ha-Kohen ha-parn5s b. Hayyim in Fustat: ‘. . . we remain at this time empty from everyside’. From this letter, onecan also learn abouta Jew of Ascalon who preferred to go down to Egypt, Yefet b. Kiilev, and who took with him books whichbelonged to Mevorakh ha-Kohen, father of Nathan, the writer of the letter. It seems that the same Yefet b. K%v (who is Yefet b. Halfon, orHasan b. Kulayb) is mentioned in the deathbed will ofMaymiin b. Khalfa al-Maghribi, dated Tammuz 17 1383Sel. (5July AD 1072) in Fustat. It says there that in a sack that belonged to the testator, there were also three books (ma$zrf> of theBible and Prophets of Hasan b. Kulayb al-‘Asqal?ini, whichwereevidentlythesame as thebooksof Mevorakh ha-Kohen mentioned above. Mevorakh, the father of Nathan ha-Kohen, was still alive when this letter was written, for the writer signs: Nathan ha-Kohen ha-mumhe b.R. Mevorakh s. t. ( s l j h @v, ‘may he have a good end’). A vivid portrayal of the conditions in Ascalon in the eighties of that century, can be found in a letter full of the personal problems of Joseph b. Manasseh (apparently a Maghribi) fromAscalon to Abrahamb. Isaac ha-tulrntd in Fustat, a letter I shall referto below, in the discussionon the Saljiiq period.72 [307] After the conquest of Jerusalemand the rest of Palestine by the Crusaders, Ascalon remained under Fatimid control until 1153. During from Palestine who fled from the this time, it served as a haven for refugees Crusaders andas a way-station for captives redeemed from the Crusaders. A moving letter written by Hillel b. ‘Elito ‘the holycommunity living in the cityof Ascalon’ describes the first reactions of the Egyptian Jews after the news reached them of fall theofJerusalem to the Crusaders. In Ascalon itself, relatively normal conditions of community life prevailed until it, too, fell to the Crusaders, fifty-four years after the taking ofJerusalem. is It amazing to see how the Jewish community in Ascaloncarried on a relatively orderlyway oflifewhile under the shadow of the constant threat from the Crusaders, its sworn enemies. A court document of Fustat contains a copy ofa marriage deedwritten in Ascalonon 23 January1100, some six months after the fall ofJerusalem. This is the marriage deed of Sitt al-Dall51 b. ‘Ullii, nicknamed Thiqa al-Dawla, who married a certain Shelah(perhapsShelahb.Halfon).Towardstheendoftheeleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth, the descendants of the aforementioned Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh were the leaders of the Ascaloncommunity: his son,Mevorakh, his grandsonNathan and his great-grandson,Mevorakh. The grandson, Nathan ha-Kohen,writes, evidently in the eighties, a letter of recommendation for Solomon b.

’*The letter of Nathanha-Kohen ha-mumhe b. Mevorakh: 581, lines 8 ff. The testament of Maymiin b. Khalfa:TS 18J 1, f. 10; ed. byGolb,JJS, 20(1958), 41. The letter ofJoseph b.

196

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Benjamin, who was ‘of good stock, one of the respected men of rank, whose table was ready and whose door always open, but on the decline and impoverished due to many misfortunes, and forced ask for to aid from his fellow men; and finally after he escaped death by the sword, he intends to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem . . .’ The letter was addressed to Nathan’s relative, the parniis of Fustat, ‘Eli ha-Kohen b.Hayyim, and its aim wasto get financialaid for this Solomon b. Benjamin, who apparently wished to accumulate some money before settling in Jerusalem. O n the other hand, ‘Eli ha-Kohen would on occasion also ask his Ascalon relative to look after people from Fustat who came to Ascalon, as we see in the instance of Sedaqa ha-Levi ha-haziin b. Solomon whohad to reach thaghv ‘AsqalZn (thefortified portof Ascalon) but according to Nathan haKohen, had not arrived yet. It appears that the Ascalon community was considerably helped by the Jews of Fustat in matters of welfare, and the extent of the grants to the needy was determined in Fustat.This welearn from a letter from thesame Nathan ha-Kohen to Abraham b. Eleazar in Fustat, written in 1130, with the request that he intervene on behalf of a blind man from Hamiih in Syria, whose monthly allowance has been decreased. Hiscase had already beenbrought before al-majlis ul-‘Zl, apparently the courtof theyeshiva, which was already in Fustat. Another letter from Nathanha-Kohen, to one of the important figures in Fustat, contains a request that he use his influence with Abii’l-Hasan ha-Kohen, who is undoubtedly the same‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim (it is interesting that this time he does not write to him directly) to help the son of al-Mufawwakh al-Zajiij, the son-in-law of Sa‘d b. Mansfir, the husbandof Thumiima b. Sa‘d, who had fled to Fustat because heowed ten dinars. If help couldnot be obtained in this manner, the Nagid mustbe approached and he would undoubtedly know how todeal with someone insuch a situation, justas he had helped Abii’l-Tayyib(who is evidently Khalaf b. ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel). The remarkhe makes is interesting, thatat the time the letter was written none of the Jews of the town remained in Ascalon, save some poor wretches @qarii’sha&idhin). In around 1135, a woman ofAscalon staying in Fustat writesa letter to the Fustatjudge,Yahyii, who is Hiyyii b.Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard, introducing herselfas the daughter ofHiliil, who is Hillel, who had been ‘the elderof the Jews in Ascalon’. In the letter she asks the judge touse his influence to help her two brothers in Ascalon, oneof whom, Sa‘d, is khZdim al-yahzid, i.e. beadle in the synagogue, and he was evidently dismissed and thus their livelihood was gone. She was also in need, for they had supported her and her children, and twice she stresses that sheis a refugee. The backbone of thewelfare activities in Ascalon was Manasseh: 593. Abraham b.Isaac ha-talmid, a personality in Fustat, a Maghribi, who had a special connection with Ascalon; see on him below.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

the community heqdZsh. We do not know the extent of its assets; we only know about a flat leased at a quarter of a dinar annually to Solomon ha-Ziiriz b. Halfon. In addition to a fragment of deed the of lease, receipts for the rent, from the twenties of the twelfth century through October 1146, written on theverso of the deed, have been preserved. Each of these receipts is signed by two judges; receipts with the signature of Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh- from theyears 1132,1134,1135,1139,1142 and 1143 have been preserved; and with the signature ofhis son Mevorakh from theyears 1140, 1145 and 1146. It appears thatNathan ha-Kohen died in 1144, as in 1145 his son’s signature appears (on the 8th of Shevat: or Thursday, 4 January):‘Mevorakhha-Kohenb.R.Nathanha-Kohen ha-me‘ulle ha-dayyiin ha-muflii, may the memory of a righteous and holy man be blessed, may he rest in paradise’; from the word ‘holy’ we can assume that Nathan his father had been murdered. Nevertheless there werealso wealthy people among the Jews Ascalon of at that time. Abraham b. Sedaqa al-‘Attar (the scent dealer) who was called ‘friend of the yeshiva’ (that is, he was oneof the donors) writesa money order, written in the form of a letter, for the sum of five dinars for his relative Abii’l-Hasan Raja’ of Ascalon, who was travelling to Fustat in August-September 1116. Rajii’ would collect the money from Nethanel ha-talmid b. Sedaqa Sar Meniihii al-‘Attiir. One is speaking here of relatives, cousins (the father of the writerwas the brother of the addressee’s mother). This was a family of scent dealers, and we learn from this that there was still commerce in scents going on through the port of Ascalon. The concerns of theheqdcsh was the thrustof an argument which broke out within the Ascalon community at the beginning of the twelfth century. Most of the communitywished to use the money of the heqddz to repair the synagogue, while the cantor wantedto buy mats to sit on. The communityprotestedthat matsshould be boughtfromcommunity funds. The cantor andhis brother organised theirown coterie, with theaid of the local parniis and the khaliliyin, or people of Hebron, sixteen in number, who were clearly Jews who had fled from Hebron and found refuge in Ascalon after the Crusaders’ conquest.The communitycalled a sort of strikeand did not appear in the synagogue for several weeks. The letter describes the parnas as an overbearing person and describes how matters almost came to blows; the judge, an emissary of the Nagid (from which we understand that there was no permanent judge in Ascalon at the time), succeeded in becalming the atmosphere while the people of the community managed to extort some concessions concerning the prayer routine in which the son of parniis the had formerly enjoyed priority over others of the same age (in saying the nishrnaf koI ( z q , for instance). The writers continue to complain (evidently to the Nagid in Egypt) that the 198

T H E P O P U L A T I O N A N D L O C A L I T I E S[ S E C S . 275-3341

parnas does not stand by what was agreed upon. From the letter it emerges that there were about one hundred Jewish families in As~alon.’~ [308] Atthetime of theCrusaders’conquestin 1153, the Jews of Ascalon escaped to Egypt. A fragment of deed a of sale written byHalfon 73

Hillel b. ‘Eli’s letter: 573. Copy ofthe marriage deed: 594; Shelah b. Halfon b. Solomon is mentioned in 421, letter of Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon (when hewas still av-bct-din, see note 72) to his father Halfon in Ascalon. ENA NS 38, f. 11 is a fragment of an illegible letter in the handwriting of Nathanha-Kohen b. Mevorakh (the grandson), writtenin his name and that of Yeshii‘a b. Yefet; his son Mevorakh is a signatory theretoas well; their ‘alijma: yeshn‘ rnv(‘a great salvation’ like that of the Gaon Solomon b. Judah). Yeshii‘5 ‘the excellent (haver), the judge’ b. Yefet was also one of the scholars in Ascalon at the beginning of the twelfth century, and it seems that he was a partner of the Nathan ha-Kohen family in managing the affairs of the Ascalon community (see: 588, upper margin, line 7; 589, upper margin, line 6). His sonYefet was also involved in community affairs in Ascalon (see: 592, where his signature appears a number of times). The letter of recommendation to Solomonb. Benjamin: 582; written perhaps in 1098,after the Fatimid conquest ofJerusalem, and perhaps during arelatively peaceful period during the Turkomans’ rule. In 583, Nathan ha-Kohen signs his letter to ‘Eli ha-Kohen, the parnis ofFustat: ‘Your hamud [endeared, i.e. son] Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, may he have a good end.’ Thisseems to have misled Braslavi, Le-lzeqer, 45, into thinking that hewas addressing his father; but see 586, where it says in the upper margin, lines 5ff, that Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh’s sister was married to ‘Eli ha-Kohen’s son, that is, he was the brother of ‘Eli’s daughter-in-law and hence addressed him as a father. Braslavi was also mistaken in thinking that ‘Eli ha-Kohen was apparently a new figure in the Geniza findings; actually he is often mentioned in documents edited by Mann,Jew3 - see in the Index, ‘Ah b. Yahyi Hakkohen and also ‘AIT b. Ya‘ish Hakkohen, which are merely the names of the same‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim. TS 8 J 4, f. 4, which bears his signature, is mentioned in Mann, Jews, 11, 240 (see a correction ofan error on p. 385, ibid., in the left column); see the Hebrew Index. ‘Eli ha-Kohen is mentioned in Geniza documents from 1057 to 1107. Cf. Goitein, Mediterrmenn Society, 11, 78, 83, 129, who has details of his functions in the Fustat welfare system; Chapira,REJ, 82(1926), 329, n. 1, tried to identify him with ‘Allfin, mentioned in a letter of HayyGaon to Sahl5n b. Abraham, but theyare not identical, cf. Mann,]eu)s, 11, 254, in the MS; Nathan ha-Kohen (the first) is the writer of 581. From 582, line 12, it appears that the permanentaddressee of thefamily in Fustat, the aforementioned‘Eli ha-Kohen, was the grandfather’s brother (on the mother’s side) of Nathan (the second) b. Mevorakh (grandson of the first). The genealogy would be as follows: Mevorakh (1) ‘Eli (the parnas)

The grandfather Nathan of

(2)

Mevorakh daughtera

I

Nathan (1)

(2) Nathan (2)

The matter of Sedaqa ha-Levib. Solomon: 583, a, lines 9-11. The matter of the blind man: 590, see especiallyline 16; cf. Mann,]ews, 11,339. Abraham b. Eleazar ismentioned in BM

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b. Manasseh shows that people from Ascalon had lived in Bilbays even before the Crusaders conquered their city (for Halfon b. Manasseh, the scribe of the community in Fustat, died before that). It mentions ‘the Ascalonians who now live in Bilbays’. Some fifteen years after the Crusaders’ conquest, Benjamin of Tudela visited Ascalon and he found there ‘some two hundred Rabbanite Jewsheaded by R. Semahand R. Aaron and R. Solomon, some forty Karaites andsome threehundred Kiittm [=

samaritan^]'.'^ [309] O n Gaza there is little information in the works of the Muslim geographers apart from shortand insignificant descriptions. The Frankish monk Bernard, who visited it in 867, notes its tremendous wealth, by which he certainlymeans the lush plantations in the neighbourhood. In the Geniza documents there is some information about the Jews of the city. During the Byzantine era, Gaza was a way-station for pilgrims coming from Egypt. From about800 we hear about Moses the Gazan (ha-‘aziitq grammarian and hence one can assume that therewas some sort of centre for study and learning there. In the eleventh century there was still a community in Gaza despite the constant wars raging in the area, but it seems that the Jews began to leave the city during the last quarter of the tenth century. Ephraim b. Shemaria, the leader of the Jews of Fustat during the first half of theeleventh century, generally signed his name as ‘ben Shemaria ha-melammed (ben YabyZ) ha-‘AzZtf (andin Arabic: ibn Mahffi? al-Ghazzi). It seems therefore thathis father arrived inEgypt after he left Gaza. The family dealt in perfumes, and apparently laid the foundations for this enterprise while still in Gaza, through which hetransacted business. A letter from ‘the community of Gaza and the displaced’ contains an appeal to the courtin Fustat in which there was severe criticismof

74

O r 5856, a letter containing a request for aid directed to him by Joseph ha-Kohen b. 591. Abraham b.Sedaqa al-‘Attir, see: 596. The Eleazar. The matter ofb. al-Mufawwakh: daughter of Hilil: 597. The heqdZsh: 592, in the handwriting of Nathan b. ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh (the grandson) and that ofhis son Mevorakh in the continuation.The signature of Mevorakhis surrounded by tinyletters which when read alternately from the top and the bottom say; ‘great-grandson of Aaron; my Holy, for thysalvation I hope’; see ENA 4011, f. 8, a fragment which is the beginning of a letter from Mevorakh ha-Kohen b. Nathan to ‘Eli b. Yefet (Abii’l-Hasan ‘Ali b. Husayn) and therein also the same formula. The dispute in the synagogue:595. From thefact that many Hebroniteslived in Ascalon, one can undoubtedly assume that the letter was written after 1099.588a has evidence ofthe commerce carried on between Ascalon and Egypt at the beginning of the twelfth century while Palestine was already mainly in the hands of the Crusaders. letter This also mentions the manwho was thecentral figure inAscalon at the time, the judge (‘the excellent haver’) Yeshii‘a b. Yefet. See T S 6 J 2, f. 13: 154 (?) dinars is being spoken of as owing to the people of Ascalon residing in Bilbays; also mentioned there is Yahyi b. Najm(evidently Hayyim b. Hillel) al-‘Akkawi, that is a man ofAcre who also found refuge inBilbays; Benjamin of Tudela (Adler), 28f. 200

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the decision taken byEphraim b.Shemariaconcerningthe claim of Mevorakh b. Nathan, of Gaza, who asked for the legacy of his brother 'Amram, whodied 'in the landof Pithom',that is, evidently in the region of the Fayyiim in Egypt. The date of letter the is apparently about1030and it seems likely that Jews from the villages and hamlets in southern Palestine sought refuge in Gaza, and are 'the displaced' mentioned in the letter. No less than fifteen people signed the letter, the most important signing last: Yeshii'Z he-&vZv be-s.g. (in the Great Sanhedrin)b. R. Nathan (surrounding his name in tiny letters which when read upwards and downwards alternately made up the words: great-grandson of Gur Arie [lion's cub]). Yeshii'i b. Nathan is the author ofa piyyiit (qedtrshti) on the death ofhis son Josiah;it seems that Yeshii'a was theleader of the Jews of Gaza at that time. One can assume that the entire Jewish community in Gaza was uprooted at the time of the Crusaders' conquest, and it seems that part of it moved toAscalon. This emerges from the letter from the Gazan Eleazer ha-Kohen ha-mumhE, the judge,b. Zechariah, apparently from Ascalon, to 'Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim in Fustat, perhaps arelative of the writer.Eleazar asks 'Eli to help him out with obtaining a prayer shawl, or the money. to buy one. It seemsthatthis Eleazar wasthe son of Zechariah ha-Kohen b. Kulayb (a diminutive from Kalev = Khalaf = Aaron; hencehis entire Hebrew name: Zechariah b. Aaron) signed in the aforementioned letter of theGazans. In the letter, 'the community of our people of Gaza', that is, the Gazans who found refuge in Ascalon are mentioned. The people of Gaza who live in Ascalon are also mentioned in a letter from Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, the Ascalonite, who also wrote to'Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim in Fustat- they are suspected of having spoken derogatively of someof the public figures inAscalon to the nasi, David b. 75

Geographers: see forinstanceMuqaddasi, Aqiliin, 174, whomentionsthe beautiful mosque and the mashhad of 'Umar ibn al-KhattPb; they also mention that Gaza is the location of the grave of Hishim ibn 'Abd Manif (oneforefathers of the of Muhammad); see: Le Strange, Palestine, 442. Bernard, in Tobler etMolinier, I, 314, (= MPL 121, 571); Moses ha-naqd5n: Harkavy, fladashim (reprint), 20 (= No. 2, p. 8); Mann, Jews, 11, 47; Assaf, Meqorot, 30. Ephraim b. Shemaria, see for instance: 35, b; 413, lines 3 - 4 ; b6smin ('spicemerchant')in 46, line16; see on the origin of Ephraim b.Shemariaandhis signatures: Assaf, Yerushalayim, 1952/3, 104. n. 9; Gil, Documents, 154, n. 9. The letter from theGazans: 219. Fragments from theqedtkhti of Yeshii'5 b.Nathan wereedited by on one of the colophons: Yeshii'i thehPvh b. Zulay, Yedi'ot, 3 (1936/7), 176; his signature R. Nathan, great-grandson of GurArie, and similarly 219, in line 64; Zulay (ibid.) assumed that this perhaps hints at his being a descendant of thehead of the exilarchic family; see also his note inYedi'ct, 5(1938/9), 170, that the handwriting of these fragments and of that the Gazans' letter are identical; see also Assaf,ibid., 34; Fleischer, Halkin Jubilee Volume,lSSff, edited additional fragments from the aforementioned qedijshti; his signature in the qed k h t i : Yeshu'a the Judge b. R. Nathan, and as he was as yet not called hZvEr, one can assume that it was written relatively early; his son Josiah died at the age of six (see in Fleischer ibid., p. 184, nn. 5, 7); see on Yeshii'a the h5vEr b. Nathan also in: Goitein, 20 I

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[310] In the month of March, AD1052, a group ofKaraites, consisting of both Jerusalemites and Gazans, visited the fields in the Gaza area in order to test the iiviv, that is, the degree ofripeness of the growinggrain, and to decide whether they could declare that year a leap year. From this account we know that there were also Karaites in Gaza. The visit took place in a field on the land of siiq rniizin (‘alii tzaql bi-urd siiq mZzin w i n ktrra ghazxa); 376 years earlier, in February676, a similar expression is recorded inthepapyriof Nessana: KlZvna Sykomnz6n khoras GazCs; andinthe Targum ofJerusalem (to Num., xxxiv:15) we find: ‘. . . it fell in their lot [the area] to Rafiah and ShiiqmazZyZ, until one reaches the border of the salty sea’ [yiirnii de-rnil&’; it is possible that by yZmZ de-unilhi the Mediterranean is intended, like in Arab sources of the MiddleAges]. During the Byzantine period Sykomazon was an important town and the seat of a bishop.76 [311] The Muslim geographers have little to say about Jerichoas well. It seems that the city wason the decline and nothing is known ofits Jewish population; atleast there is no mention of in it theGeniza, apart from one man whose name was al-Rihani, who lived cn. 1040 in a dwelling of the Jewish waqf (qodesh) in Fustat, and as his name indicates, he came from Jericho. The Muslim sources dealingwith the Dead Sea region particularly mention the date palms which growthis in area in abundance, andalso the indigo. The most importantcity in the region of the DeadSea was So‘ar (Zoar), in Arabic Zughar, or Sughar, near the southern part of the Dead Sea. Frequently in Arab sources, the Dead Sea is called‘the sea of Zughar’.

76

Mediterrarzenrl Society, 111, 234; 476, n. 76.The letter ofEleazar ha-Kohen: 619; it is possible that Halfon ha-Kohen b. Eleazar, about whom it is said in 529, line 15, that he went to Ascalon ‘as ordered’, was the son of this Eleazar, thejudge fromGaza, and this emigration from Gaza to Ascalon is apparently being hinted at here. The letter from Nathanha-Kohen b. Mevorakh: 587 (autumn 1093), lines 6-7: ‘people from among theGazans who are not inhabitants of the city [that is, Ascalon] and do not know the real situation of the community. . . ’ The visit of the Karaites: 302. See: Nessana, 189 (No. 64, line 8); the Targum, see in the Miqrii’6tgedd6t; also Neophyti (ed. Diez Macho, Madrid,1974), IV, 323: ‘it fell in their lot [the area] to RJiwrz and Slliiqnraziy? and to thecave of ‘Eyn Gedi until reaches one the salty sea’ (thus in the photocopy, theNeophyti, Jerusalem, 1971, fol. 351), and we can see that the scribe distorted the names and mixed up the order. O n the Byzantineperiod: Hierocles, Synecdemrrs, 44; Georgius Cyprius, Descriptio, 52 (where EukGmaz6n is printed); according to Musil, Edorn, 222, who visited the ruinsof Siiq Miizin on 29 March 1898, the Bedouin of Banii Sheyla built a village for themselves out ofthese ruins; he points out that Syk6maz6n is also marked on the Madaba map. In 1906 the land of Siiq M5zin (as the Bedouin called it) was in the hands of the Banii Sheyla and Banii’l-Niijira, who were constantly fighting one another over them, see: Jaussen, RB, 3(1906), 607;cf. Klein, ZDPV, 33(1910),33; Abel,]POS, 4(1924), 117. Siiq M5zin, five kilometres southeast of Dayr al-Balah;cf. further: Alt, Puliirtinajahrburh, 29(1933), 76;see also ClermontGanneau, Recueil, V, 120, nn. 3, 4; Avi-Yonah, Ge’Cgrifia hist6rit, 74 and n. 10; 118 and n. 13, and more references there; see Bar Deroma, Gevul, 512, 636f and n. 740, who has details that need correcting in the light of what wassaid above. 203

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In a letter fromthe Geniza from ca. 1065, written by Avon b. Sedaqa, it is mentionedthat indigo and wasma seeds (also a kind of indigo) were brought from Zughar, but the road from there was dangerous and one of the Maghribi merchants, Josephb. ‘Ali Kohen Fasi, who considered going there from Hebron, changed his mind and forwent the journey. O n the other hand, itseems thatin the middleof the tenth century there were still Jews living in So‘ar, as is proven by a copy of a court document, whose original is said to be preserved in Granada (GharnaCa), and which deals with the legacy of a man of Alisana (Lucena), Abraham b. Meir (whose nickname was b. Qdiis). The court documentwas made a t the request of the son of the deceased, Samuel. The father had left property, merchandise and moneyin Egypt and Palestine. Joshua b. Nathan (who is Abii’l-Suriir Yamani al-Andalusi) was appointed trusteein charge of the property; in a list of the details, property with so-and-so living in SG‘ar in Palestine is also mentioned (the man’s name has not been preserved). In a letter from Jerusalem written by Hayyim the haver b. Solomon to Isaac b. Jacob the haver in Fustat,dealing with the collection of a debt owing to this Isaac, it says that the debtorlived in So‘ar (spelled Zughrar; evidently this error in spelling was caused by the difficulty of pronouncing theghayin together with therii’). To sum up, itseems that the region of SG‘ar, and the region of the Dead Sea in general, was more active during the period under discussion than later on. It is likely that Jews lived in So‘ar, though we have no knowledge of a Jewish community there. However, Jewish merchants were particularly interested in this region because of the indigo plant, which was used for extracting dyes for textile^.'^ 77

Jericho: see Muqaddasi, A q d i m , 175. Al-Rihini: Gil, Documents, 195, n. 9 (see documents No. 22 [TS 20.1681, line 33; No. 24 [TS BoxK 25, f. 841, b, line 5). Muslim traditions on S6‘ar (connecting it with Lot and his daughters) see: Le Strange, Palestine, 287ff. Arculf calls the place Zoaroi Arabiae, see in Tobler et Molinier I, 179; ‘the sea of Zughar’: see Istakhri, 13; according to Muqaddasi,Aqilim, 185, youth (aljdith) and sick people gather at the sea of Zughar, thatis, the DeadSea (apparently at its southern end), during the month of Ab (August);Idrisi (Cerulli), 354f, describes the region, mentions Sodomand Gomorrah and ‘the people of Lot’ (these details are also found in other Muslim geographers),and he mentions that there are small sailing ships moving about on the Dead Sea, carrying passengers and goods, mainly dates; see Daniel the Russian, 47: Sigor, where the graveof Lot and his two daughters is situated. The sources also mention the regionin connection withthe cultivation of indigo;Salmonb.YeruhimmentionsZughar in his Arabic commentary on Ecclesiastes, B M O r2517, fol. 92b (The labour of thefoolish wearieth every one of them,because he knoweth not how to go to city; the x:15) ‘like a man who leaves Ramla for Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis), which is quite a famous road;if he wantsto make a short-cut, he will pass through ‘Imwisand Qaryat al-‘anab; but he [thefool] will not gothis way but will go towardsGaza and turn towards Bayt Jibrin and from there to Zughar and afterwards return to ‘Eyn Gedi and from there to Jericho and from there to Jerusalem . . .’ Indirectly we havelearned that S6‘ar was situated to the south of the Dead Sea, a fact which was disputed for some time (see: LeStrange, Palestine, 2861). The letter of Avon; 503, lines 15ff. The copy of the court document: BMO r 5561A, f. 1, upper part, vellum. The deceased, Abraham b. Meir al-Andalusi,is mentioned in 159, a letter of

.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

[312] We have detailed evidence of the Jewish community in Raftah (Rafah in Arabic), about which the Muslim sources tell us practically nothing,merelythatit had aprosperouspopulationandamarket,a mosque and also inns. The city was considered the frontier of Palestine, that is, the last city before entering Egypt.In about 1020, the Gaon Josiah writes to the Rafiah community concerning the division oflegacy, a which caused one of theparties to apply to the Muslim courts.In 1044, Karaites went there to examine the state of the fields with regard to the i i v i ~ . ~ ~ [313] During the Muslim period Eilat became an important station on the way to Mecca for pilgrim caravans. We have already seen the treaty between the Prophet and the population of Eilat,as well as the matter of people converting to Islam, them a w d i (clients) of the Umayyads (still in the daysof ‘Uthmin), who lived in Eilat, including number a ofimportant figures in the development of ancient Muslim literature. It is not known whether these mawili were former Jewsor Christians. Lammens claimed that Eilat was a Christian city, basinghis argument particularly on the fact that the inhabitants’ representativein their negotiations withMuhammad during the Tabuk campaign, Yuhanni, is said in some sources to have been the bishop of Eilat. Further proof he found in a tradition according to which Marwin ibn al-Hakam was aided by 200 Christians(!) of Eilat to organise a police force in Medina when he was still governor of Medina before he became caliph, but the source he mentions does not refer to Christians at all, merely to ah! ayla, a term which undoubtedly means

70

Solomon b. Judah to Abrahamha-Kohen b. Haggai in Fustat; speaking there of a large debt left by the deceased, mentioning also Joshua b. Nathan (his name is found in my Geniza collection,see the Hebrew Index), who was the trustee for the legacy together with Abrahamha-Kohen b. Haggai; cf. Goitein, EretzIsrael, 12(1974/5), 200, andn.7 (= ha-Yishuv, 201); however, TS 1314,J f. 24, a court document dated 7 Teveth 1344 12 Sel., December AD 1032, which Goitein edited there,is not from S6‘ar but from Hanes (as is written in line 14). which is Tinnis; in the original: ‘Hanes the island near the Salty Sea’ of Hanes is Tinnis; ‘the (lines 14-15); cf. Golb,]NES, 33(1974), 143; the city of the island Salty Sea’ meant, in the Arabic of the Middle Ages the Mediterranean - cf. Goitein, MediterraneanSociety, I, 296;474, n. 15; ibid. he cites ENA 1822, f. 7, line 21: al-bahr al-mdlih, theMediterranean. See forinstanceIdrisi(Cerulli), 370: al-bahral-milh (the Mediterranean). See also theqerijvi for the eighth day ofFeast the of the Tabernacles edited by Zulay, Yerushalayim, 1952/3, lines 42-43, where the salty water of ‘theGreat Sea’ isput in opposition to the malodorous one of ‘Sea the of Sodom’.See also: Friedman,Marriage, 11, 316f for an opinion similar to mine. (The court document from H a n b confirms the receipt of money fromHasana, daughter of Nahum, through Sar Shalom b. Joseph, and signatories there are: Mevasser ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli; A[aron(?)] the scribe b. Nahum; Abrais hamb.Mevasser;Aaronthehaver b. R. YahyZ.) The regionofS6‘ar(Zughar) of the avii, (the first crops) there mentioned in301, line 31: The Karaites examine the state in 1044. The Jerusalem letter: 463, a, line 22. See YZqiit, 11,796,who cites al-Muhallabi (endof the tenth century); he mentions that the place is inhabited by tribesmen from Lakhm andJudhim, and that security thereis at its lowest (it is difficult to know whatperiod he is talking about). The letter ofJosiahGaon: 43. The Karaites: 301, line 30.

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tribesmen from Eilat. O n the other hand, the Muslim tradition found in the commentaries to the Koran states that Eilat was a Jewish city in the period before Islam and identifies it with thecity mentioned in the Koran, vii:163-169 (strrat al-a‘rcif) ‘ask them about the city near the sea, whose [inhabitants] desecrated the sabbath when thefish [in the sea] there cameto them . . . for since they had the nerveto do this evil which was forbidden for them to do, We [i.e. God] told them: be outcast monkeys’; this is evidently the metamorphosis of a Jewish legend about Jewish fishermen who became monkeys on God’s orders because they desecrated thesabbath. The commentators generally claim that Eilat (Ayla) is intended, although there are hadith traditions which point to places. other The truth in this case isevidently somewhere in the middle, namely that Eilat in the Prophet’s day wasa city with a mixed populationofJews and Christians. In the period we are discussing here, however, we have no information regarding Christians in Eilat; and altogether isthere very little information about the city. Maqrizi mentions that in the days of Khumirawayh b. Ahmad ibn Tiiliin, works were carried out in the mountain-pass of Eilat, the ‘aqaba (‘aqabat ayla - hence its name for later generations), in order to widen it; thework was supervisedby his mawla, Fa’iq, for it was formerly impossible to pass through theroad mounted (in ca. 860). A house belonging to a Jewish woman in Eilat is mentioned at about the same time.79 [314] Hebron is almost never mentioned in Muslim literature before the tenth century, which indicates that it was not rated highly. This is also suggestedbythe fact thatitsname is notmentionedintheMuslim traditions of the conquest.In the tenth century, the Muslim geographers Igakhri, Ibn Hawqal and Muqaddasi, mention Hebron and we find in their writings descriptions of the patriarchs’ graves. isThis especially true in the account of Muqaddasi, who also quotes praises of thearea for its excellent fruits. He furthermore mentions the inn ~ n d t r q in ) Hebron, open to strangers, which boastsa cook, a baker and servants,who serve a meal of lentils (‘adas) with olive oilto the poor and to pilgrims,and evento the rich, should they want it. This inn, together with its services, was supported by revenue from the waqfs, which were founded by Tamim al-Dariandothers, among them rulers of distantcountries who left property in their wills for this purpose - all this to maintain Abraham’s traditional hospitality to strangers. N5zir Khusraw, who visited Hebron in 1047, describes the graves of the patriarchs, especially the mashhad of Abraham (al-Khalil). He also describes the hospitality according to 79 Lammens, Mo‘iwiu, 433c who quotes from Isbahani, A g h i n i , IV, 156; see what is said there. Commentary: see for instance Tabari, T u j i r , XIII, 180ffi some say the intention is to Maqn4 or Madyan; c f rbn al-Jawzi, Tu&, fol. 30; Ibn Hayysn, IV, 410; in Mawsili, N i h i y u , 57b, Aylabecame Iliy4,that is Jerusalem; see Maqrizi, Khitut, I, 325. The houseof the Jewish woman: Ibn Sa‘d, VII(2), 206; Ibn al-Jawzi, Sif, IV, 305.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

Abraham’s tradition: the strangers are given bread, olives, lentils in olive oil and raisins. He also mentions the gifts given to the masCzhad by the Fatimid rulersof Egypt. Apart from these literary sources, the inscription on the grave ofa man named Husayn al-Ahwal should also be noted, in which it says that fell he in battle, inSafar in AH 390, or January/February AD 1000. There is evidently an indication here that the Muslims (like the Jews) saw some advantage to being buried in Hebron.80 [315] It is interesting to note that in the Geniza documents pertaining to this book, the name ‘Hebron’ is not mentioned, only ‘the graves of the patriarchs’. The documents showthat there was an organised community in Hebron with a &vZv at its head, and that they were largely occupied with the pilgrims whocame to the ‘gravesof thepatriarchs’. O n visits to Hebron for religious purposes, we find some detailed evidence. Around 1060 ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, the parnis of Jerusalem, writes toAbii’lHasan ‘Alliin b. Ya‘ish, who is ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, the pamas in Fustat, informing himin the opening sentences of the letter that he went to the ‘gravesof thepatriarchs’, together with some otherpeople, and said a special prayer there for the haver Zikri Abii and his son (AbiiZikri is Judah b. Saadia, the Egyptian Nagid), for ‘the prince [MY] of thecongregation’ (it is difficult to know whohe is referring to, perhapsAbraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac b. Furit), and for the addressee.He swears by Jerusalem that he did so, and all this before the approaching Days of Awe. He points out that he prayed for them while the Torah was open, proofindeed that there was a synagogue in theplace - the synagogue near the graves of the patriarchs. The Maghribi merchantBarhiin b. Miis5 (Abraham b. Moses) al-Tihirti writes from Jerusalem tohis relative and partner Nehorai b. Nissim and mentions that he intends to visit the ‘graves of the patriarchs’ together with his father. Another Maghribi merchant, Avon b. Sedaqa, writes on 28 August 1065, complaining that his partner went to the ‘graves of the patriarchs’ and made an unsuccessful deal there in buying wheat. From this we learn that Hebron was also a meeting-place for Jewish merchants. In another letter, Avon complains that the same partner made this deal with money which he had loanedto him, in order to go So‘ar to (Zughar), but he was afraid to go there and remained stuck at the ‘graves of the patriarchs’. Some of the letters from Hebron are from the Saljiiq period and it can be seen from them that the Jewish community there continued to exist. At the head of the community stood Saadia the haverb, Abraham b. Nathan, whocalls himself ‘thehiver ofthe graves of thepatriarchs, of blessed memory’. In a letter written in ca. 1080 to Yeshii‘i b. Yakhin in Istakhri, 57; Ibn Hawqal,113; Muqaddasi, Aqilrm, 172; N5sir Khusraw,33f (text), 99-105 (translation). Ibn al-‘Arabi (about 1095) tells ofMuslims performing the ziyzru in Hebron, see: Rihlu, 82; also al-GhazUi testifies to having performed a ziyiru in Hebron himself 206

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Fustat, he mentions thathis son Abrahamcarries Hebron cheese to Egypt. From the letter, it sounds as if this Hebronite is a relative of the Egyptian Nagid Mevorakh, and he sends his regards to him and to the widow of Mevorakh’s brother, Judah b. Saadia, and to Saadia, the son ofJudah. In anotherletter he wrote to Abiathar ha-Kohen Gaon b. Elijah atthe beginning of the year 1082 (the date emerges from the contents), Saadia the haver expresses his joy and congratulations on the appointment of Abiathar ha-Kohen as Gaon(which is described inthe ‘Scroll of Abiathar’). He mentions that the Hebronites pray for him ‘at the graves of the patriarchs’ every day, as they didon the last Day of Atonement. From the letter, it appears that Abiathar sends the people of Hebron financial support and mentions thathe sent a dinar through a certain Samuel. Their situation is difficult, Saadia himself has been ill for the past two months, they lost an ass worth fifteen dinars on the way from Hebron toAscalon, and they have nothing to wear nor bread to eat. A Catholic monkalso wrote aboutthe synagogueclose to thegraves of the patriarchs in 1119. After describing how the Jews helped the Muslims take Hebron (by showing them where it was possible to break into the town), on condition that they are permitted to build a synagogue a t the entrance to the graves of the patriarchs, he adds that ‘it is impossible to describe in whatreverence that people ofunbelievers held the place; no one would enter it without taking off his shoes and washing his feet; that prayer-house was splendidly decorated, with gold and silver and silken fabrics. After many years the Almighty Creator and Saviour of the Universe took that whole region from these unbelievers and gave it to the Latin Christians’. As in his story he speaks of bothMuslims (theSaracens) and Jews, it is not very clear to which of them prayer-house the refers, but in view of theclaims of the Muslimsources that the rituala t the graves of the patriarchs only began after the Crusaders,as we have already seen, and in view of theexplicit evidence ofthe letters from Hebron in the Geniza, wemay assumethatthatChristiansource was also speakingofthe synagogue. It seems that the community in Hebron was liquidated not long after the above-mentioned letters and isitnot clear whether it existed during the whole period between 1082 (the letterof Saadia the haver) and the Crusaders’ conquest ofJerusalem (when Hebron was also taken). We have found above that there was a large group of Jews from Hebron in Ascalon, but it seems that most of the Hebron community fled to Egypt, particularly to Bilbays, and we have letters from the Hebronite Abraham b. Saadia the haver, who became the head of the community in Bilbays, but whostill maintained contact with the people of Hebron. He (after 1090),see: ul-Mtrnqidh, 75 (I am grateful to Prof. H. Lazarus-Yafeh for bringing this to my attention). Grave inscription: Rippertoire chronologique, VI, no. 2078 (p. 37).

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occasionally speaks of ‘the gravesof thepatriarchs’. We also have a letter from one ofhis relatives, Joseph b. Jacob b. Josephha-mumhe (specialist in law) ha-Hebroni b.Saadia ‘the haverin the Great Sanhedrin, the servant of the eternalfathers’. It seems that the Hebronitesdid not see eye to eye or live in complete harmony with other people. Tobiah ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli, of Biniyis, and also a refugee from Palestine, writes in around 11 15, evidently from Bilbays, of the troubles inflicted on him by the people ofHebron - ‘wicked qawm yahiid khaldlyln’ (Jewish people from Hebron).*l 8’

‘Eli b. Ezekiel: 452, a, lines 3-6. Al-Tihirti: 458, b, line 10. Avon: 501, a, lines 15f; 503,a, lines 28f. The letters of Saadia, the hiver of Hebron: 613; Yeshii‘i b. Yakhin (Thibit), perhaps the son of Yakhin b. Nethanel ‘Head of the Communities’ (see some details on him: Gil, Documents, 214, n. 7); the story of theunclear scheming in this letter is perhaps connected with the Abiathar ha-Kohen - David b. Daniel conflict; it is obvious thatSaadia was among the supporters of Abiathar and of the NagidMevorakh and it seems that the letter was written before the deposal ofthe Nagid (1082); seeon this conflict below. Saadia was evidently appointed haver by Abiathar, for in the following letter, 614,b, lines 6-7, 17, he calls himself ‘a plant of yourhand’; see ibid., a, line 10, the matter of the prayers at the graves of the patriarchs; they also prayed for Abraham b. Halfon (b. Nahum), of Ascalon, who conducted business in Tyre and was in Abiathar’s circle; they prayed during ‘the Day of Atonement in the Holy Cave’ (b, lines 12-13); it seems that part of thefamily had already left Hebron at that time, foron p. b, line 14, he mentions the ‘rumours about his mother and his sister’s daughter’(evidently meaning that they had died in Egypt); in the letter there is also mention of the death of Abiathar’s brother, Eleazar. The story of the monk, see: RHC (Occ.), V, 309,315;cf. Dinaburg(Dinur), Zion (ha-me’assef), 2(1926/7), 55; Assaf, MeqCrGt, 43. Prawer, Zion, 11(1945/6), 52f, tried to prove that the reference is to Muslims and not to Jews, for from the text of the Latin monk one learns only thatin the seventh century (mistakenly printed: the sixth)aJewish communitysettled there, witha synagogue in the vicinity of the Caveof Machpelah. He learns from 617 that there was no longer a synagogue in the place at the end of the tenth century; butletter the 617deals with matters concerningBilbays and not Hebron,and its date is the beginning of the twelfth century,as will become clear below. The Hebronites in Ascalon: 595,a, line 9. There are four letters written by Abraham, son of the aforementioned Saadia the haver, of Bilbays: 615-618; evidently he did not return to Hebron from his journey to Egypt mentionedabove;he had relatives in Egypt,oneofwhom was hisson-in-law (or brother-in-law? sihr) Abii’l-Suriir Perahia b. Bunaym, and the other:Moses ha-Kohen b. Ghilib (Ghulayb);it seems that the firstlived in al-Qihira and the other in Fustat. In the first letter,of which onlya small fragment has been preserved (615). the address of Moses ha-Kohen remains in the body of the letter he addresses Perahia; in the second letter (616), written before Passover to Moses ha-Kohen, the three sons of thelatter are mentioned, Josiah, Saadia and Yeshii‘i, and members of the family of Abraham b. Saadia himself: Abii’l-Husayn (probably ‘Ali), Abii Sa‘id, U m m Abi’l-Bayin (evidently Abraham’s mother), Bayin, Sittit (evidently Abraham’s daughter); the letter contains details on an epidemic of chicken-pox in Bilbays and someinstances of the deaths of Hebronites there. Abraham b. Saadia evidently suffers from an eye disease and heasks for kuhl (antimony) to be sent him; an important personage (/rn&ntuhu nl-siimiycr, probably the Nagid, who was a relative) visited Bilbays and hadalready left. The third letter,617, isto Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard, one of leaders the of the communityin Fustat; we learn that the writer, Abraham b. Saadia the Hebronite haver,achieved the status ofa kind ofleader, muquddum (appointee) overthe Bilbays community. In themeantime,apparentlyMoses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb movedto Bilbays and boughta parcel ofland from the local cadi,Hiriin. O n that land, they intended tobuild a new synagogue and the lettercontains a description of the 208

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[316-3171 Another town in the south of Palestine mentioned in our sources is ‘Aqir, which is Akron, or ‘Aqir according to Muqaddasi. He describes it as a large village with a main mosque &imi9, and hepraises its demolition of the old and onethe building of the new, and particularly the difficulties they had with the Muslim authorities, after the cadi explained to them that one cannot build a (new) synagogue in the days of Lord ‘our al-Afdal’ (the wazir of Egypt). Nevertheless the community collected the money needed and continued to build despite the disturbances (from Jewish neighbours as well); the letter also contains complaints about the writer’s situation and financial distress. The community does nottreat him as they should and do not give him any psi@ (regular allocation). Assaf, MeqGrCt, 45f, considered the letter as having been written in Hebron. and in S e f r ha-yishuv, 7. explained that the letter dates from the end of the tenth century, and his view was accepted by othersas well; but itcan be seen that Abraham b.Saadia the hZvEr, who was a Hebronite, nowlives in a new place; nor does it stand to reason that this whole affair would take place in the year between the re-conquest of Palestine by the Fatimids (July 1098; for al-Afdal, the Fatimid wazir is mentioned) and the Crusaders’ conquest; Isaac, ‘the great Rabbi, rZsh bZ rabbinzn ‘Zzer ha-nesl’ut (‘head of the house of learning’, ‘aide of the exilarchate’) can only be Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard. contrary to Assafs opinion, ibid. Also in 553, a, line 20, Abiathar ha-Kohen Gaon calls him the ‘great Rabbi’; see on him: Mann, Tarbiz, 6(1934/5), 75f; idern, Texts, I, 388; Goitein, Mediterrctnean Society, 11, 567, n. 29; his name is mentioned in the Geniza documents from 1088-1127. In this letter of Abraham b. Saadia (617) his two sons are mentioned (line 7). The fact that the writer is in Bilbays is also proved in the fragment ofa letter 618, in which Abraham b. Saadia, the HebronitehZvEr, writes in the name of theBilbays community, to Solomonb. Shelah (who is in Fustat, it seems); itis quite clear there that after he left Hebron, Saadia was given the status of leader in the community of Bilbays. As to Moses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb, it appears that he too wasa refugee from Hebron. One could not say with certainty that there was a family connection between him andMoses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb, of Fustat, who died in 1026, and whose legacy matters are dealt with in 61 and 76, b, line 3. It is clear that Assaf s explanations in MeqCrGt, 44; Yenrshalayint, 1952/3, 113, are mistaken.The idiom of the oath ‘by the graves of thepatriarchs’ which we find in 616, b, line 1, is interesting - wa-turbat al-ha-avot(!). The letter ofJoseph b. Jacob, great-grandson the of Saadia the hivEr ofHebron: TS 10J 10, f. 20 (cited in Mann, Jews, 11, 203); he writes to Shelah the cantor, ha-murnbP (see above: Solomon b. Shelah, to whomAbraham b. Saadia writes) apparently in Fustat. The letter was evidently writtenin the latterhalf of the twelfth century.deals It with theburial of his brother, David, about whom there are rumours that he was not buried a Jewishingrave. The following is the geneaology ofthis Hebronite family:

U m m Abii’l-Bayan

Joseph

Jacob

A

David Joseph

The letter of Tobiahha-Kohen: TS 12.113. 209

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bread.8’ O f the cities of Samaria, Shechem is mentioned, a city of the Samaritans. According toYa‘qiibi, writing in892, it is an ancient city with ‘two holy mountains’, and underneath the city there is a city hewn out of therock. In his words, its inhabitantsaremixed,including Arabs (= tribesman)andnon-Muslims (‘ajam), namelySamaritans.Muqaddasi writes that Shechem excels in its olive groves. It is situated between two mountains which close in on it; its market stretches from gate to gate and there is another market in the centre of the Ittown. has a jitni‘inthe town’s centre and is a clean city with paved roads. The Andalusian scholar Abii Bakr Ibn al-‘Arabi, who, as we have seen, stayed in Palestine inthe nineties of the eleventh century, admires the modesty of the women in Shechem; one does notsee them in the streets except on Friday when they go to and from the mosque. Shechem is mentioned occasionally in the Geniza documents pertaining to this book. It is told that Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaontravelled there inca. 1030, perhaps in orderto evade the authorities, evidently at the time of the disturbances connected with the dispute with the Karaites. It was a junction fortravellers to Jerusalem from Damascus. Daniel b. Azariah passed through Shechem on coming from Damascus, and thus did not have to go through Ramla. A merchant’s letter mentions that its writer stayed 3 Baysin wa-Nibulus, that is in Bet Shean and S h e ~ h e r n . ~ ~ [318]Of the towns in Trans-Jordan, Muslim sources mention ‘Amman. Muqaddasi says that it lies on the edge of the desert and is the capital of al-Balqi’, and that the region is rich in grain. He notes that its jimi‘ is situated alongside the market and that its courtyard is paved with mosaic. The fortress of Goliath (qasvjilit) looks down on it from the mountain and there is also the tomb of Uriah, over which a mosque has been erected. It also boasts of the theatre (mal‘ab) of Sulaymiin (King Solomon). Muqaddasi notes that the prices are low and the fruit plentiful, but he is disappointed by its inhabitants, who he says are people with no culture Guhhil). He also complains that the roads leading to the city are in a bad state. Abii Zakariyya’ Yuhanna (or Yahya) ibn Misawayh al-Jundi Shabiiri, a Nestorian writer of the latter half of the ninth century, mentions that in ‘Amman there is a market day annually on the 10th of August. There is apparently evidence of a Jewish population there in a letter from Solomon b. Judah, writtenin about1020, to Abraham b.Sahliin in Fustat, 82

83

Muqaddasi, Aqilim, 176. IStakhri, 58: city of the Samaritans ‘who claim thatthetemple is Nabulus,andthe Samaritans haveno othercity on earthexcept that’ (undoubtedlya distortion ofa tradition which said that it was the holy city of the Samaritans). Ibn Hawqal, 172: ‘the people of Bayt al-Maqdis [the intentionis apparently Palestine] claim that all Samaritans come from there originally; [but]in Ramla there are some500 of them whopay jizya’. Muqaddasi, Aqditn, 174. Ibn al-‘Arabi, A(lkinz, 1523. Elijah ha-Kohen travelled there: 433, a, line 6 ( i l i 210

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in which hedeals with theaffairs of Isaac of Widi’l-Qura (northern Hijaz) who was living in Fustat after having left his wife ‘as a living widow in ‘Amman some four years ago’; this Isaac was a merchant and it appears from the letter that the mainstay ofhis tradewas in‘Amman. He deserved to be excommunicated ‘for his behaviour towards his household in ‘Amman’ (Rubbut ber~?‘umrn6rt). Solomon b. Judah mentions ‘Amman again in a letter he wrote on 19 December 1029 to someone in Fustat. It seems that he deals with the purchase of grain and the source of is ‘Amman. supply In the middle of the eleventh century, a Geniza letter mentions a Maghribi merchant, Abii Sa‘id Khalfa, who was travelling to ‘Amman onbusiness, evidently, or perhaps on family matters, for it is stated that he was the son-in-law of a man from ‘Amman:Yahya al-‘Amm5ni.84 [319-3201 ‘Amta, which is east of the Jordanvalley, is mentioned only by Yaqiit, a relatively late writer, whosays that the graveof Abii ‘Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah, one of the commanders of the Muslim conquest, is situated there. He cites Muhallabi in praise of the spices grown in that region. In two documents, in my Geniza collection, the Jerusalemite Mevasser has6Gr (thescribe) son ofShelah ‘the teacher of the orphans’,aL‘Amtani, is mentioned, and one can discern from this that indeed there was a Jewish community in ‘Amti.In about 1030 the sameMevasser signs a letter from the people of Jerusalem to Fustat concerning assistance for the Jewish population ofJerusalem. In theyear A M 4805, which is A D 1045, we find a deed of receipt from Jerusalem, signed by the Gaon Solomon b. Judah and Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon; the receipt is given by the same Mevasser b. Shelah al-‘Amtani and his wife Ghaliya, daughter of Ashlimiin al-Daliti (= from Daltiin), whois also called al-Biniya~iyya.~~ Of the regions of Trans-Jordan, Ya‘qiibi mentions especially the areas of Fihl and Jarash and notes that Arabs, meaning tribesmen, and nonArabs (‘ujum) live there side-by-side.86 [321-3271 O n Bet-Shean, apart from being mentionedin the traditions

S4

85

86

nibu/lls). Daniel b. Azariah: 468, b, line 1. The merchant: 527, line 14 (but see the introduction LO this document, it may be of a much later period). Muqaddasi, Aqilitn, 175; Ibn Masawayh (Sbath), 255. The matter of Isaac: 58, a, lines 20-24. The wheat: 83, b.lines 7-8. AbtiSa‘idKhalfa: 525, a, lines 18-19, and in the

margin, line 6. A Fatimid commander is also mentioned; he was from ‘Amman, ai-amir al-‘Ammsni- see 381, line 11 (a fragment from Daniel Azariah’s b. letter); itseems that the expression ‘may God pay him similarly to what he did’ which the Gaon adds after he mentions that same arnir, is not necessarily in his favour; possibly the intention is to the governor of ‘Amman. Yaqtit, Buldin, 111, 722; cf. Braslavi, Le-/!eqev, lOOf, who points out that ‘Amti is ‘Amtii, which is Hamatin in the Talmudic sources. The Jerusalemites’ letter:405, see lines24-25; The deed: 564, see lines 1-2, 13-14. Ya‘qtibi, Buldin, 327f; he mentions the region of the s a w i d as well, but there seemsto be of some sort of distortion here, fors a u d means (in Ya‘qiibi’stime) district, and the name the district is missing. 21I

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

of the conquest, as we have already seen, we have very little further knowledge. Ya‘qubi includes it among the regions with mixed populations, tribesmen and non-Muslims. Muqaddasi mentions its abundant dates and the growing ofrice, which is supplied to the two junds,Filastin and Urdunn. Itsjiimi‘ isin the market place, and itspeople are righteous.In what has been said of Shechem above, we found that Bet-Shean was mentioned in a Geniza document, in a merchant’s letter.87 Kafr Kana is mentioned by Nisir Khusraw, who visited there in 1047; he recalls the beautiful monastery situated to the south ofthe village as well as its strong gate. Willibald, who visited it in ca. 725, points out the large church in thevillage, where one of thesix jugs wherein Jesus turned the water into wine, is pr:served.88 Arbel is also mentioned by Nisir Khusraw, whopassed through it on his way fromAcre to Tiberias. He says that hewas shown there the graves ofJoseph’s four brothersand the grave of‘Moses’ mother’.89 Gush H i l i v (Jashsh) was at the time still a comparatively large town. Muqaddasi says that the place looked almost like a qasaba, that is, the capital of a jund. In the Geniza sources, the town is mentioned in a letter written fromthere (from GGsh)by Israel b. Nathan(Sahlun) in about1060; the addressee is Nehorai b. Nissim, and from the contents of the letter it emerges that the writerstayed in the place and was busy copying books. a Jewish population there. Joseph b. Sahl Hence it appears that there was al-Baradini, who writes at about the same time to Nehorai b. Nissim from Tyre, mentions thathe passed through Gush onhis way fromTiberias to Tyre and therehe metIsrael b. Sahlfin, and it seems from his remarks that he found him in great distress. We know from other letters of Israel b. Sahliin that he moved from Gush Hilav to Tyre and Damascus andfrom there returned to Jeru~alem.~@ 87

88 89

Ya‘qfibi, ibid.; Muqaddasi, & d i m 162, see another version there under note f. NiiSir Khusraw, 18 (text), 59 (translation). Willibald, in Tobler et Molinier, I, 260. N5Sir Khusraw, 16 (text), 53 (translation). TS 10 K 16, f. 20c, contains fragments from Josippon, and has, on the last line, the name of the writer: Shemaria b. Abraham, of blessed memory, from thecity of Sepphoris;judging by the handwriting it appears to be from the eleventhcentury. (I amgratefulto Dr Simon Hopkins, who brought this manuscript to my attention.)As to Sepphoris, one should also mention the colophon in Mann, Jews, 11,357: ‘[it has matters concerning] the cemetery,the SiddUq ha-din [theodicy], and the funeral oration. Written by me, Yefet, the cantor, b. ‘Amram ha-mumhe, b. Moses, cantor and rnurn& [may they rest in Eden, the garden of God], known as b. al-Jazfini, from thecity of TirSa, called Safuriyya, the town of our holy Rabbi’ (thatis R. Judah ha-nisi). The shelf-mark in Mann: TS 8 K 13, f. 14, was evidently mistaken. In the copy of Mann’s book in Cambridge, this is crossed out but no other shelf-mark was inserted; in other words, that particular colophon is still missing, and we have only Mann’s version. Muqaddasi, A q i h , 163. The letter from Gush; 474. Joseph b. Sahl’s letter: 492. See also: al-hazZn al-Jiishi, in a list of names, apparently from the last quarter of the eleventh century, from Fustat: Bod1 MS Heb c 28, f. 6, line 8, in Mann, Jews, 11, 246. Braslavi’s 212

b “

THE POPULATION AND LOCALITIES [SECS. 275-3341

The townDalttin or Dalata, which I still have not found mentionedin any Arab source from early the Middle Ages, is mentioned in the ‘Scroll of Abiathar’. It says that itis the place where the father of Abiather, the Gaon Elijah ha-Kohen, is buried on top ofthe mountain, together ‘with R. Yose ha-Gelili, and around him Jonathan b. ‘Uziel, and Hillel, and Shammai, and Eleazar b. ‘Arakh, and Eleazar b. Azariah, his ancestor, and all the righteous’. In ca. 1030 Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph of Daltiin writes a letter to Hillel the haver b. Yeshii‘a the cantor, in Tiberias, dealing with the copying of books, which is his source of income. I have already mentioned above Ghiiliya, daughter of Ashlimtin al-Dalati. The Karaite commentator Sahl b. Masliah mentions disparagingly (about the middle of the tenth century) the custom of the Rabbanitesto visit the graves of the righteous; in Palestine they go to Dalata and to ‘Araba (and there theylay out their requests at the foot of the grave R.ofYose and R. ~o-and-so’).~~ At the end of the ninth century, Ya‘qiibi mentions the kiiva, that is the district, of Qadas, or Qedesh-Naphtali, which according to himis a very important one. Writing some hundred years later Muqaddasi notes that Qadas is a littletown. Hementions the bathhouse there, thejzmi‘ situated in themarket-place and the manufacture of mats and ropes from which the inhabitants derived their income. He points out that many of them are dhimmis, and itis clear that he is referring to Jews. Qedeshis mentioned once in a letter written by Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph, of Daltiin, who mentions that he sent there a quarter of a dinar.92 Fir6d (Faradhiya) is another Galilean town which gains Muqaddasi’s attention. According to him, itis a large village with a mosque (literally: seat of the preacher, rninbav). Safed is not explicitly mentioned in the sources of the period. However, Miis5 b. Hiba (= Moses b. Nathan) b. Salmtin al-Sefati is mentioned in a draft of evidence written in September 1034, relating to a transaction which took place in 1023 before a Muslim court. About this Mtisi, it says there that he is al-tJI al-yahiidi, that is, a Jewish boy. O n Thursday, the twelfth of Kislev, AM 4784 or 28 November AD 1023, the marriage deed of Nathan ha-Kohen ha-Sefati b. Solomon’s wife was written, evidently in Tyre. There is no doubt, therefore, doubts, Le-heqer, 63f as to the time of thelist, do not seem to be founded. Theletters of Israel b. Sahliin, see from 475 onwards. See Braslavi, Le-heqer, 66ff; 274f (on the synagogue in Daltiin, in Byzantine times); 313-318; the scroll of Abiathar:559, b, lines 24-25; cf. Benjamin of Tudela(Asher) I, 45f: ‘Meron . . . and there are the gravesof Hillel and Shammai. . . ; Qedesh Naphtali . . . and there is the grave of R. Eliezer b. ‘ArPkh and R. Eleazar b. Azariah . . . and R. Yose ha-Gelili,; cf. the Adler ed.29f: ‘ ‘Alma . . . and there is the graveof R. Eleazar b. ‘Arakh’; Seder Hod. (Warsaw 1877),54,62. Theletter from Daltiin: 250, and see see also in Heilprin, the discussion in Assaf, M e q c X t , 38ff. See a fragment of the commentary of Sahl b. MaSliah to Exodus: MS. Firkovitch, 11, No. 4129, in Mann, Texts, 11, 87f. Ya‘qiibi, Buldiin, 327; Muqaddasi, Aqilim, 161. See mention of Qedesh in250, a, line 12.

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

that there was a Jewish community in Safed, but we have no further information on the subject.93 [328] Baniyis was considered thecapital of the Golan and was also called mudinat ul-asbiit (city of the tribes). According to Ya‘qiibi, writing at the end of the ninth century, the majority of its inhabitants were ofBanii the Murra (a tribe considered northern), butthere was also a small number of ‘southerners’ whose names he does not specify. It is quite possible that he copied this informationfrom an oldersource, fromthetimeofthe Umayyads. According to Muqaddasi, Biiniyiis was a town lyingbetween the Hula and the mountains and was the sourcesupplies of for Damascus. It served as a haven for refugees from the coastal cities ‘when Tarsiis was captured’, by which he undoubtedly meant the Byzantine conquest in the summer of 965, which I shall discuss below. These refugees were, in his words, a large part of the population of Baniyas, which was growing constantly. We may assume that these refugees were Jews and Muslims who fled from the Byzantine conqueror. The Geniza has preserved some details about Baniyas. We have already encountered Ghiliya, the daughter of Ashlimiin, al-Baniyiisiya; this certainly is evidence of a Jewish population there in the firsthalf of the eleventh century. Naturally we cannot expect to find earlier evidence in the Geniza documents, forgenerally there was no special connection between Baniyas and Fustat as Baniyas was nearer to Damascus. Nevertheless, we find a letter dated 8 May 1041, written by Joseph b. Kulayb in Ramla to Nathan b. Abraham, who was then in Tyre apparently. Joseph b. Kulayb mentions ‘the son of the hZv2v who is in Biiniyas’, who reached Ramla andasked the followersof Nathan b. Abraham to grant him a title, even stating the title he desired - v6sh ha-sedev. It appears thatNathan b. Abraham visited Biniyas himself, or so ‘the son of the haver’ seems to have claimed. We also have a power-ofattorney written in Biiniyas, on the 6th of Tammuz, AM 4816 (11 July A D 1056). Husayn b. Hillel, known by the name QitGs, gives Joseph b. Mahfii? (MahfGz: evidently his Hebrew name was Shemaria) the rightto act on his behalf and receive the dinar and three-quartersof a dinarowing to him from Jacob b. al-Jabban (the makerof cheese). The deed was made out in rnedtnat dun hu-qeviiyiipitnts (the city of Dan namedPamis) like the name of this town in Talmudic literature.Piimis is defined there as being di-sharne‘ii Ze-darnesseq, meaning ‘which is subordinate to Damascus’. O n the deed and its validation (in a court of three) there are the signatures

93

Cf. Braslavi, Le-heqer, 69E Braslavi did not heed the important sentence in,Muqaddasi, that Qadas has many dhimmis. Muqaddasi, ibid., 162. The intention is to Talmudic Farod, see Avi-Yonah, Ge’ogriifia Izlstorlt, 143, and n. 5 . At a later date, the grave of Nahum of Gamzu is mentioned; see Braslavi, Le-heqer, 216. Musi b. Hiba: 245, lines 5-6, 10; Nathanha-Kohen: JNUL 4O577.4, No. 98, ed. Friedman, Marriage, 11, 38ff; see what he writes there,34f, on Safed.

T H E P O P U L A T I O N A N D L O C A L I T I E S [ S E C S . 275-3341

of seven local people. The last, Boaz the cantor b. David, we encounter three months laterinRamla,wherehe is one of the signatories(the signature is identical with that appearing in the aforementioned deed) ain power-of-attorney in the court of Daniel b. Azariah. From here onwards, we do not hear anything of Biniyas until the days of the Crusaders. In a letter sent (perhaps from Damascus) by Eleazer ha-Levi b. Joseph to BZniyas, to ‘Eli ha-Kohen the haver ha-me‘ulle b. Abraham (thefather of Tobiah, whom weshall encounter below), he tells him about two brothers (one named Jacob) who succeeded in freeing themselves from captivity ‘in the hands of Ashkenaz’, that is from the Crusaders. The crux of the letter deals with a matter of divorce and mentions the acquiring of an unspecified object for the synagogue, evidently in BZniyZs. The date of theletter is shortly after 1100, apparently. In the same period, we find two personalities from BZniyiis in the Geniza, they are Tobiah ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli and his son-in-law, Nathan ha-Kohen b. Solomon. The latter was inTyre in 1102, and there he signed a deed of alimony- an agreement made between Sitt al-Bayt and Hasan, her father-in-law, while her husband was not in the city. When some years later, the family emigrated to Egypt, the first of themwas Tobiah. A letter has been preserved which hewrote tohis father, ‘Eli ha-Kohen the haver, on 28 May 1112, about halfa year after he arrived Egypt, in after travelling there by sea from Tyre onan exceedingly unpleasant voyage (which was understandable, considering that it was wintery weather, being November or December).In the letter, he mentions ‘the two communities living in the fortress of Dan’ (that is, Biiniyiis), including the names of some Jewish personalities in BZniyas. Afterwards, Tobiah settled in Bilbays, where he stood at the head of the community, while Nathan, his son-inlaw, settled in Fustat and became a judge there. We note then that the emigration from Baniyiis took place in the second decade of the twelfth century and was perhaps linked with the attack and siege imposed by the Crusaders on Damascus in 1111, which ended unsuccessfully for the Crusaders but undoubtedlycaused great panicamong the Jews BZniyZs of and probably their flightas well. In ‘the scroll of Obadiah theProselyte’ there is information concerning a Karaite messianic movement, led by a ‘messiah’ namedSolomonha-Kohen,whose disciples congregatedin BZniyas inabout 1120. ApparentlyBZniyisatthattimewasalready untenantedby a permanent Jewish community. That same group of Karaites was possibly liquidated when BZniyZs was taken by the Ismii‘ilis the hashishiyya (the Assassins) - in 1126, led by Bahram. In September 1129, BZniyiis fell to the Crusaders.94 94

Ya‘qiibi,Buldin, 326; Muqaddasi, &dim, 160; Ibn al-Jawzi, Muntazam, IX,69, mentions Biiniyis, which in his words is a town in the Ghawr (the Jordan valley) where in 398

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

[329] From the descriptions above, with the limited information preserved onthetownsinthe Galilee, one gets an impression,though somewhat faded and fragmentary, of urban centres and villages which still retained their ancient character. The Jewish Galilean population still existed in towns and villages, and it is certainly possible to draw a parallel with what we found such in places as Daltiin, Qedesh, Dan (Baniyas), and other Galilean towns, records of which have not been preserved in the Geniza. In the period we are dealingwith, the Muslimelement, that is the tribesmen, was added to the Jewish population, and they are mentioned here and there. And then there were the Christians, of course, about whom wehear very little.To such questionsas what therelative numbers of the three elements were, how they lived alongside one another, and (1007/8) Milik b. Ahmad al-Biiniyisi, a collector of traditions, was born. (See ‘Ali ibn 485 in (1092);Ibn al-Athir,Lubib, I, al-‘Imid, 111, 376);he died in the great fire in Baghdad 93, quotes Sam‘ini and stresses that Biniyis does not belong to jundFilascin, nor to jund see in Sam‘ini,ibid. Son of the Urdunn, buttojund Dimashq. The term‘city of the tribes’, hivEr of Biniyis: 195, b, lines 11-16. The Deed: 609. Biniyis is Paneas (after the Greek god Pan), called Caesarea Paneas in the daysof Herod and afterwards Caesarea Philippi afterHerod’s son Philip. See Avi-Yonah, Ge’cgriifyihistcrit, 150. The nameQitbs, obviously ofGreek origin(608, line 4), perhaps confirms Muqaddasi’s remarks about the origins of the inhabitants of Biniyis fromcoastal the towns ofSyria, where the tradition from Byzantine times was perhaps stronger, particularly in thesphere ofterms andnames. The deed from the court of Daniel b. Azariah: 391, see lines 21, 27 (Boaz ha-hazPn b. David). The two deeds 608 and 391 follow one anotherin the volume of Geniza documents in the Taylor-Shechter collection (TS 13 J 1, fols. 13, 15) and possibly this is not entirely coincidental and they may have been at one timeofpart the archivesof this Boaz ha-hazan. The letter to Biniyis: 609; Goitein, Eretz-Israel, 4(1955/6), 149, assumed that the Eleazarha-Levi, writer of the letter, is the sameas Eleazar ha-Levi b. Joseph to whom Manasseh b. R. Judah, ‘great-grandson of theGeonim’ (the great-grandsonof Shemaiah Gaon) dedicated a piyyiit.See Mann, Jews, 11, 336, n. 2; one can recognise that this letter was sent to Biniyis by the names of the people mentioned there and also in the letter discussed below, 610; see notes to 609. The deed of Tyre: 606; Tobiah’s letter: 610; there are about a dozen of Tobiah’s letters in the Geniza, written when he was in Bilbays, generally to his son-in-law, Nathan. Nathan signed some thirty court documents in Fustat, some of them written in his own hand, until about the year 1150, see Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 513 (No.17); see: B M O r 5536 IV, Nathan’s letter to Tobiah, from Fustat to Bilbays, from which it clearly emerges that Tobiahis Nathan’s father-inlaw. ENA 4020, f. 28 is a letter from Tobiah to Nathan before he settledin Bilbays, while he was visiting communities in the Delta region;Bod1 MS Heb d74, f. 45 is also a letter from Tobiah, in which he mentions Shii‘a, i.e. Yeshii‘H (the B4niyisi); the letter was written from Mali and not from Palestine, as assumed by Braslavi, Le-heqer, 73, and Caesarea is not mentioned there, but in using the word qaysiriyya, the reference is to the flax market; also the reading ‘Akk6 is not certain, and it seems that a certain al-‘Akkiwi, i.e. a man ofAcre, is being spokenof, and the writer mentions the refugees from Palestine, 1111, see from Biniyisand Acre, living in Egypt. O n the Crusaders’ offensive in the year Prawer, Ha-qalviinim, I, 188. The scroll of Obadiah: ENA 3098, in Mann, Hatequfa, 24(1927/8), 336, and see the discussion in the continuation; and in Golb, Goiteinjubilee Volume, 102f, and the discussion, ibid., 89f; Braslavi, Le-heqer, 73, mentions documents from theGeniza in which he believes Biniyis is mentioned, but the correct reading in these is Bunyim, as for instanceBunyim walad (= son 00 Abti Nazr in TS 8 J 21, f. 15; Buny4m is none other than Benjamin (cf. Goitein, Letters, 235, n. 14), a name found in many other

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what was their source oflivelihood, we have no unambivalent answers. The Jewishcommunitiesin these localities wereevidentlygradually wiped out during the Fatimidwarsin Palestine, andthe final blows inflicted by the Turcomans who invaded Palestine and their successors, the Crusaders. One becomes aware of the branching out of theGalilean Jewish population also from the locative by-names of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants mentioned in various lists preserved in the Cairo Geniza. An instance of such a by-namewe find in 1065:Abraham b. David al-Kafrmandi, recorded in deed a of attorney drawn upRamla in by the Gaon Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon; the intentionis to Kafr Manda in the Lower Galilee. This man became an inhabitant of Ramla, as one can assume from the formulation of the deed. Evidently,we have here some evidence of the exodus fromthe towns and villages to the urban centres. People from Gush Hiliiv are mentioned a number oftimes in the lists from Fustat, such as Da'iid b. Hasan al-Jashshi al-Kohen, and others; and there are also al-Daliiti, 'the man from Daltiin', the by-name of Abii'l-Hasan al-Nahhiil (the beekeeper); al-I'billiini, 'the man of I'billin; al-Tabariini, people of Tiberias; al-'Amqawi, of 'Amiiqa, near Safed; and also people of Acre and Haifa.95 [330]I should also mention certainlocalities in thecoastal area. Caesarea declined in the period we discussing. are Muqaddasi describes only general aspects and he mentions the citadel which encompasses the over-populated residential areas, as well as its beautifuljimi'. NZzir Khusraw visited Caesarea some twogenerations after Muqaddasi, in 1047. He adds littleto the description of his predecessor, apart from information on a lovely marble vessel preserved in the jimi', which looks as if it was made of Chinese porcelain and can hold 100 manns (approximately 90 litres). In the Geniza documents, Caesarea is sometimes called Hagor (also HaSeriya, in poetry). Thereis a letter in the Geniza from theyeshiva to the community of Hazer dealing with a dispute over the prayer routine in the synagogue,

95

Geniza documents. Biiniyiis in the hands of theAssassins and Crusaders, see Lewis, in A History ofthe Crrrsades (ed. Setton), 116f; cf. also Prawer, Ha-pluiinlm, I, 218f. Abraham b. David al-Kafrmandi: 425; cf. Braslavi, Le-heqer, 169. Gush Hiliv: Goitein, Metiiterranem Society, 11, 440 (Nos. 4-5), Ashtor, Shazar Jubilee Volume, 495. Al-Daliti: ibid., 496; see also Goitein,Mediterranean Society,11,467 (No. 108); al-I'billiini, see: Mansfir b. Josephal-I'billiini, in 280, lines 3 4 , 14; see also in Ashtor,ibid., 497. See on I'billin: Le Strange, Palestine, 382, following Niisir Khusraw: it is close to Diimiin and the prophets Hiid and'Uzayr are buried there.See further mention ofI'billin (people called al-I'billini) in Friedman,Marriage, 11,284. Tiberias: Ashtor,ibid., 499. And see thelists printed by him in the supplement,ibid., 501-509. There is some doubtas to theidentification of'Anini as the manfrom Kfar Hananyaas in Braslavi,ibid., 78. It is more likely that he was a follower of 'Anan, i.e. he was a Karaite; al-'Amqawi Bod1 MS Heb c28, f 6 (from the latter half of theeleventhcentury),line 14, inMann, Jews, 11, 246. See theproposedcorrection (al-'Amqawi and not al-'Asqawi as in Mann's reading) in Braslavi, ibid., 71. See also the locative ha-Gelili, the letter written by Yeshii'a ha-Kohen b. Abraham ha-Gelili, 201 (ca. 1010).

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

apparently dated 1025. The letter is addressed to ‘the entire holy community living in thefortress of Hasor’ and several personalities are mentioned there, among them acertain son of Halfon of Ramla, and also the ‘head of the community’ and the cantor, and a man named Joseph, entitled ‘beloved of the yeshiva’. The term‘fortress of HaSGr’ reminds us of what Muqaddasi and NZ$r Khusraw had to say on the fortress and walls. In merchants, Mosesb. Jacob, makes mention June 1053one of the Maghribi in a letter sent fromJerusalem to Nehorai b. Nisim, of Sedaqa al-Qaysarani (of Caesarea), who lived in Jerusalem.The synagogue ofCaesarea is mentioned in a letter from another Maghribi, Jacob b. Salman al-Hariri (‘silk merchant’) who writes from Ramla, also to Nehorai b. Nissim, in about 1060. The ship in which Jacob sailed, and whose destination was Jaffa, was almost wreckednear the coast of Caesarea and he was obliged to remain inCaesarea. As he did not find a place to stay there,he remained in the synagogue forfive days, and only afterwards reached Ramla. Caesarea (Qaysarin) is mentioned in the‘Scroll of Abiathar’,as one of the cities that wasdominatedbyDavid b. Daniel, duringthe early nineties ofthe eleventh century. In around 1099 the !zivi?rof Caesarea, Joshua b. ‘Eli, the great-grandson of Samuel ‘the third’ b. Hosha‘na, wrote to the Nagid of Egypt, Mevorakh b.Saadia, stating that the Jews of city the are ‘drowning in sorrows’ due to ‘poverty and constant fear’; ‘our souls are in fear and trembling from too many rumours’, he says. He asks the Nagid to send a letter of recommendation to the local cadi to help him to move to Ascalon, ‘for it is better fortified and maintained than HaSor’, and the intention is that the cadi should speak ‘to the governing p e @ (governor) there (in Hasor) thathe should notforce nor detain me’.In addition to theconstant dread, he also suffers from the local population, who ‘are not good for anything and they do not bring me [any income] butanguish’.96 %

Muqaddasi, A q i l h , 174; NaSir Khusraw, 18 (test), 61f (translation); he also stresses the strength of the city walls and mentions its iron gate; on the tnurztz, see Hinz, 16. A. Reifenberg, Caesarea, ZEJ, 1(1950/1),23, interprets Muqaddasiinaccurately, as ifit werea matter ofa densely-populated suburb situated outside the town; butrubad in Muqaddasi means the unfortified part of the city. O n p. 29, Reifenberg pointsoutthatwhile Muqaddasi only refers to wells and reservoirs, N5Sir Khusraw mentions that the city’s water also came via watercourses, and from this he assumes that during the intervening period between the lives of the two, the more ancient lower conduit may have been repaired. The letter to the community of Hasor: 48. Moses b. Jacob, see 460, a, line 7. Jacob b. Salman: 507, a, lines 3-8. The scroll ofAbiathar: 559, c, line 18.Joshua he-haver’s letter: 569, his signature: Joshuahe-haver b. R.‘Eli he-haver, great-grandson ofHosha‘na: this Joshua signs a marriage deed in 1051, in Ramla: Joshua ha-hazan b. R. ‘Eli he-haver, see 566, line 20; in 1076 he signed a deed contracted in Ramla: Joshua he-haver b. R. ‘Eli he-haver, see 568, line 11; it is clear that he is the son of ‘Eli b. Abraham b. Samuel (‘the third’) b. Hosha‘na. ENA NS 16, f. 6, a small fragment remaining froma marriage deed, contains the version: ‘Hasor, which is situated on the coast of the Salty Sea’,see in Friedman, hlurriuge, 11, 317f. Here too, Ha@r is Caesarea, on the coast of the ‘Salty Sea’,

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[331]Jaffa (which is Yifa or Yiifa) was not very developed in our period. Ya‘qiibi notes only that it was a transit stop ofRamla, in other words, the port ofjund Filastin. Muqaddasi only mentions that it wasa small town, but a place for conveying goods abroad and the portof Ramla and jund Filastin. He mentions its strong fortress, its iron-clad gates, its sea-gate wholly wrought of iron, and its convenient port. He also mentions the jZmi‘, which overlooks the sea. Evidently in 1064, the port of Jaffa is mentioned by Ingulph, prior of the Croyland monastery in England. A fleet of ships from Genoa arrived there in the spring; he sailed back to Europe in one of them. In the Geniza documents, Jaffa is mentioned much less frequently than Ascalon or Tyre, although the Maghribi merchants, from whom most of the information on the portsPalestine of is derived, would visit Jaffa as well. Abraham b. David b. Sughmir, writing evidently in 1038, from Fustat to Jerusalem, mentions that Jaffa was one of the cities to which letters dealing with the conflict of Nathanb. Abraham were dispatched, and from this it is clear that there was a Jewish community there. The Karaite Mahbiib b. Nissim depicts a journey in Palestine on his way to Liidhiqiyya (Laodicea). At the end of the month of Tishri, he decided to stopJaffa in and therefore he bribed the captain of the Jaffa’ (wa-nazalt al-yii$). ship to drop anchor there:’. . . and I went down in In a letter written by ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel in Jerusalem in April 1071, he warnshis son-in-law not to import flax via Jaffa but rather via Ascalon, for inJaffa the authorities seize the goods being imported for the Fatimid army’s benefit. In about 1060Jacob b. Samuel ha-Andalusi ofJerusalem writes to Nehorai b. Nissim that he carrie.da cargo of oil to Jaffa (ili @fa), evidently forexport to Egypt. Jacob Salman b. al-Hariri,as well, wrote at approximately the same time to Nehorai; he wrote fromRamla, andI have which is the Mediterranean. While Mann, Jews, 11, 200, wrote that he could not identify the site of Hasbr, the idea that Hasbr is Rafiah hasbecome accepted (see, for instance Se$r ha-yishuv, 9);but we havetheevidence of Tanhum ha-YerushalmithatHasbrwas Caesarea; see his commentary on the book ofJoshua,27; ‘Hasor, which is Caesarea’; see also al-Harizi, Tahk., ch. XY, p. 206 ‘and from Tyre toHasbr’; and also ch. xxxvii, p. 299: ‘I went from Tyreuntil Hasbr with a group’, the intention here undoubtedly being: from Tyre to Caesarea (cited in Mann, ibid.). Benjamin of Tudela (Adler ed.), 32, says: ‘and from there (that is, from Hamma, whichis Hammiih) thereis half a dayto Shayza, which is Has6.r’. Clearly heis speaking of Shayzar, whichis Larisa, which was also referred as to Caesarea. See William ofTyre, 481 : (urbs) quae vulgo appellatur Caesarea, and ibid., p. 849, it is calledCaesara and not Caesarea; and on p. 1013: Caesar, quaevulgo dicittrr Caesarea magna; it is clear that the Arabic Shayzar is but a distortion of the ancient name. See doubts about of William of Tyreand this in Dussaud,Topographie, 199f. Dussaud dismissed the opinion quoted what Stephen of Byzantium said, that the ancient name of Shayzar was as a Sizara, counter-argument; and in his wake, Ben Horin as well, Kiryat Sefr,24(1947/8), 112; but it is quite obvious thatSizara is also a distortion of Caesarea; Benjamin of Tudela confirms the version of William of Tyre, on the one hand. While on the other hand there is confirmation here thatit was common among the Jews refer to to Caesarea as Hasbr (and as is known, there were a number ofcitiescalled Caesarea); cf. Vilnay, Zion, 5 (1940), 84,

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

already described the venture when he was forced to stop in Caesarea, when his intention was to reach Jaffa and thence to Ramla. Clear evidence of theexistence of a Jewish community Jaffa in even in the troubled of days the Turcomanrule in Palestine is to be found in a deed of divorce written in Jaffa on the 18th of Sivan AM 4837 (12June AD 1077):Yefet b. Abraham divorcesSittal-Husndaughter of Abraham,andithas two witness' signatories, Yefet thecantorb.Abraham(inwhosehandwritingthe document is written) and Aaron b. Mevorakh. The deed was written 'in the city ofJaffa, which is situated on the Great Sea, in the portion of the tribe of Dan'.97 [332] Muqaddasi also mentions Arsiif (Apollonia), which according to him is smaller than Jaffa, but well fortified and densely populated. In its mosque there is a handsome rninbar which was originally intended for Ramla but was afterwards thought too small and was moved to Arsiif. He also mentions Kafrsiibi and notes thejiirni' there;also and Kafrsalam in the neighbourhood of Caesarea, whichalso had a j a ~ z i ' . ~ ~ [333] The Islamisation of the population is a question which is rather obscure. As I have already said, the impression gained from thesources is

97

98

who has further evidencebased on amap of Palestine attachedto the MS Moses of Basola (1552). Ya'qiibi, BuId;in,'329; Muqaddasi, & d i m , 174. See Ingulph, 149; quoted also in Ashtor, Shnzar]rddee Volume, 490f, copiedfrom Schaube. As to thechronicle of Ingulph, which I also mention in connection with the Jerusalem patriarch, Sophronius I1 (in& sec. 699)and (iHjia sec. 726), one cannot say it is a fake, thoughone the pilgrimageof the Gunther group can perhaps call it"pseudo-Ingulph'. Although, according to students ofBritish history, this is a compilation from the middle of the fourteenth century evidently, they still do not hesitate to call it the chronicle of Ingulph. Essential claims of forgery were directed towards the texts of charters which are included there, butdothese notaffect our subject. Searle, who studied the chronicle thoroughly, remarked that it contained 'some curious points of accuracy'. Ingulph, himself,is not an invented character and he was actually the prior of a monastery, and also made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It seems, then, that in precisely those matters related to his biography, whichI have mentioned, the information is genuine, and one can assume that it was copied from an earlier chronicle, truly written by Ingulph, and included in that compilation. At any rate, by whatevercall name it, the we use of this sourceis certainly legitimate.See Liebermann, 25,33; Searle,11, 137; 192f, 195; 206ff, 208. Ashtor also relied on this chronicle in what he wrote on the coastal towns of Syria and Palestine and he calls it: a Latin treatise written in about the year 1085, and mentions naturally, Ingulph's pilgrimage (Shazar]ubilee Volume, pp. 490f). True, there are sometimes contradictions in biographical data, such as that Ingulph met the emperor Alexius (Comnenus), who reigned from 1080-1118 in Constantinople. The Jerusalem patriarch Sophronius 11, however, was in office when Ingulph was in Palestine (contrary to Searle's assumption, p. 137). The letter of Abraham b. David b. Sughmir: 190, a, line 10. Mahbiib, 292, line 12, 'Eli ha-Kohen: 455, lines 26-28. Jacob b. Samuel: 493, line 9. Jacob b. Salmin: 507, a, line 3. The divorce: see MS Mosseri, VIII.482, edited by Semah, Mizrah rr-ma'arav, 1(1920),358,andcopied from therein Seferha-yishuv, 15, andin Margaliot, Hilekhcit ere? isri'zl, 122. It seems that Jaffa was thenin Fatimid hands. Arsiif: Muqaddasi, A q i l i m , 174, cf. Avi-Yonah Ge'cigriijju historit 128. Kafrsaba, Kafrsalam:Muqaddasi, ibid., 176f; cf. NisirKhusraw, 18(text), 62 (translation)according to whom these are two names of the same place. To the survey of the localities one 220

THE POPULATION AND LOCALITIES [SECS 275-3341 .

that during the period under discussion the Muslims were ainminority. The Muslimelement was made up of tribesmen, and in the course of time, immigrants and settlers who came from abroad, even from distant lands, Aqiliin, who such as the familyof the mother of Muqaddasi, author of the came from the regionof Qiimisin CentralAsia. Below we shall encounter other famous Muslim personalities who lived in Palestine, and whose origins werein other countries (andwe have already seen, there were such personalities even during the rule of the Umayyads, such as ‘Ata’ alKhurasini). However, one can assume that there was also a degree of Islamisation, especially among that segment of the population whose communal organisation was weak and in which the individual couldnot withstand the pressure and enticements of the Muslim world. This is probablytrueparticularlywithregardtotheChristianpopulation, especially in the small rural localities. At the time of al-Hakim there was forced conversion among the Christians, and although these decrees were later abolished, one may assume that a part of those forced converts were lost to Christianity. The Christian population in Palestine was in the main Monophysitic. T o a large extent due to the fanatical religious policy of the emperors, the Christians became submissive and came to terms with their fate, as it were, to live under the rule of the Muslim As tribes. will be evident below, the rulers did not conducta policy of religious coercion, and their principal demand from the population was the payment of taxes. Only at a later stage did the animosity between the Christians and the Muslims become acute. Christian sources in the first century of reflect Islam a liberal attitude towards the Muslims. An anonymous Spanish chronicle which covers the period until 741, has no expressions of animosity to Islam when it is mentioned there. Ishii‘yhab111, the Nestorian catholicus, writes in about 660 that there is no point in converting to Islam, for the Muslims themselves revere the church. Ananonymous Nestorianchronicle also reflects the positive attitude to the Arabs and Muhammad, the ‘Messenger of God’. Among the Christians, especially the sects which branched out from the main church, there was the belief that the appearance of additional prophets during the Christian era was astill possibility - prophets who would be sent to nations who had not risen to the heights of Christianity, which is how they viewed Muhammad. The nature of Islam, which absolutely negates certain basic Christian views, was not clear even to the learned among the Christiansat first, and they were inclined to see must also addOno, mentioned in a fragment of a deed written onvellum: TS NS 320.99, edited by Friedman,Yarqcn, 81. See its facsimile ibid., p. 80.Judging by the script, it seems to be one of the mostancient Geniza documents, perhapsfrom the tenth century. 22 I

THE LOCAL POPULATION AND THE MUSLIMS

Islam as another defecting Christian sect, as was the view of John of Damascus, for instance. Naturally in the course of time, nota fewheated situations arose, as we shall see, and pressure was put on the Christians. Nevertheless,apart from thedays of al-Hakim, we have no explicit evidence of mass conversion of Christians toIslam.99 [334] Similarly, we have no evidence of Jews converting to Islam, except for apassage in Dhahabi, whoclaims that in the days of Mu‘awiya, under the influence of Ka‘b al-Ahbar, forty-two Jewish scholars (a[zbZr) turned to Islam, andMu‘awiyagavethemgrantsand subsidies. This information, which is not found elsewhere, has a fictional character and seems to have derived from a distortion of the traditions on the Jewish services on the Temple Mount. Evenif it has a grain oftruth, itis still no proof ofmass conversion among the Jews Palestine. of The validity of the opinion common here and there concerning the Jewish origin of the Arabs of Palestine is dependent on justsuch a conversion. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Ben Gurion and Ben Zvi tried to provide some foundation forthis idea by claiming thatbecause of the pressing tax burden, the population of Palestine, which was to a large extent Christian, had converted toIslam. They cited as evidence thefact that at the time of the Arab conquest,thepopulationof Palestine wasmainlyChristian,andthat during the Crusaders’ conquest some four hundred years later, it was mainly Muslim. As neither the Byzantines nor the Muslims carried out any large-scale population resettlement projects, the Christians were the offspring of the Jewish and Samaritan farmerswho converted to Christianity in the Byzantine period; while the Muslim fellaheen in Palestine in modern times are descendantsof those Christians who were thedescendants ofJews, andhad turned toIslam before the Crusaders’ conquest.The scholar A. N . Poliak attempted to find evidenceof such amass conversion of the Jews of Palestine in the commentary of Saadia Gaon to the book of Daniel, xi:30-31 (‘and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant, etc. ’): ‘these are theIshmaelites in Jerusalem, and thereafter they desecrated the sanctuaryof strength’; and furtheron, verse xi:36 (’. . . and shall speak . . . things against the God of gods. . .’): ‘words which would anger the King of the Worlds, until His rage against Israel will cease; and then the Creator will completely destroy the wicked of Israel’; and further: xii:2 (‘and many of them thatsleep in the dust of the earth shall awake’): ‘this is the resurrection of the dead of Israel, whose fate is to live forever, and those who will not be resurrected are those who deserted God; they The Spanish chronicle: Dubeer, Andulus, 11(1946), 300f; cf. Cahen, RHR, 166(1964), 54; see Yeshii‘yhav’s letter to Simon, bishop of Rewardashir: in CSCO, ser, 11, t. 64, 251 (see its Latin translation, ibid., 181); cf. Cahen, ibid., 55. The Nestorian chronicle: CSCO, t. 4, 31. Michael the Syrianalso finds it advantageous tobe free of Byzantine tyranny;see the Chabot ed., 11, 413, cf. Cahen, ibid., 56f. 222

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will descend to the bottom of Hell and every living creature will curse them’. Andfurther: ii:43 (. . . they shall mingle themselves with theseed of men’. . .) ‘since people of the seed of Israel intermingle with them (i.e. with the Muslims) and stay with them, just like the Persians and Zoroastrians and pagansof several types;but they do not stick each to other, just as iron and smithdo not mixso as to become one and the same tool’. Such quotations cannot serve as sources for the history of Palestine, with whichthey havenothing to do. They bear absolutelyno proof of the Islamisation ofJews inPalestine. From thelast passage one may deduce, if anything, quite the contrary.loo 100

See Dhahabi, Ta’rlkh, 111, 101; D. Ben-Gurion and I. Ben-Zvi, Eretz Israel in Fergangenh a i t . . ., NY 190718.43; Poliak, Molad, 24~297,1966168.Seethe convincing counterarguments of Brawer, ibid., 424; but he also has a statement that is insufficiently based: ‘when the Muslims conquered Palestine in 636, the Jews carried no political or demographical weight there’; see further comments by Poliak, ibid., 427ff

4

T H EE C O N O M Y

w [335] In the Arab sources and in the sources in general, information about the economy of Palestine during the centuries from the conquest until the eleventh century AD is very sparse. The little that is known is mainly derived from the Muslim geographers, first and foremost among them beingMuqaddasi, who washimself a Palestinian fromJerusalem. However, there are dozensof letters from the CairoGeniza, mostly from Maghribi merchants, which contain a wealth of detail concerning the economy and trade in the eleventh century AD. Within the contextof the historical sources of the period, the details contained in these letters are unique and also extremely valuable for the study of thelifeeconomic of the Middle Ages. Despite the close connections between Palestine and the neighbouring countries and its political dependence upon them - firstly on Syria and later on Egypt - Palestine was a relatively self-contained economic unit at the time. Palestine's wealth camefrom its natural resources,especially its excellent crop of fruits and also,as we shall see, from thevarious types of craftsmanship that developed there, from its network of ports and not a little, from its influx of pilgrims.

Land and agriculture

We have little knowledge concerning the ownership of land during this period. I have already reviewed the available information about estates belonging to the Umayyad rulers and their immediate circle. We have seen that the tribes, when the Muslim conquest opened up Palestine to them, lived off thelocal populations by collecting taxes directly from whatever area they occupied, naturally allotting a certain portion to the central authority. Theseareas were called ma'kala. This did not imply, as a matter of course, that the tribe was given the rights of ownership to the land. Those estates ( h y ' u , pl. diyd'), which according to the sources were held by different rulers at different times, were apparently the property of the

LAND AND AGRICULTURE [SECS. 335-3381

state or of the rulers, even priorto the Muslim era, or were the property of public institutions, such as the Church. After the Abbasid revolution, it was the army commanders, generally Turks, who enjoyed the privileges formerly held by the tribes during the Umayyad period. Discernible changes occurred in the use of terms; we find insteadof ma’kala the iqti‘. Essentially we are still speaking of the right to collect land taxes that were intended to maintain the military unit under the command of the holder of the iqti‘. With regard to Palestine, these rights are mentioned in the sources, especially during the period of the Fatimid wars, and they were a contested issueamong theBanii Jarrih and the Arab leaders in Palestine, as well as others, during that period. We shall also encounter in this chapter the episode of the seven villages or estates (diyi‘) which the Fatimid caliphal-Hiikim gave to the rulers of Aleppo in ard Filastin, and thereis little doubt that this meant the right to collect taxes from theinhabitants. Tobiah b. Moses stateswith a touch of pride, in one of his letters, that heis in chargeof the estatesof theFatimid rulers (wakd Zi-diyi‘al-sul@in) in Palestine.One cannot knowin this instance whether he is speaking of the estates of the central government or of the (Turkish) army commander, butat any rate it seems that heretoo, the collection of taxes is intended. Although things are not explicitly stated, as I have already mentioned, we can understand the situation in Palestine from .what we know in general about the iqti‘ system. As Cahen has shown in his studies on this subject, it was basically a method ofallocating the incomefrom thetaxes. Only at a later stage, under the Ayyubids, does one hear of the rulers dispossessing farmersof their property rightsand turning themgradually into tenants. Through the Geniza documents, we knowthat the non-Muslim population maintained the right to ownland duringall the generationsfrom the time ofthe conquest until the eleventh century. We also have evidenceof houses which were the propertyof local inhabitants, andone can assume that the inhabitants owned the land on which the housesstood as well..In,a deed from the Geniza, we find a certain Mu’ammala giving her husband Mevasser b. Sahlan b. Shelah al-‘Amtani‘all my lands in the city of Ramla which is near Lod’ (ca. 1030). In one of his letters written about the same time, the Gaon Solomon b. Judah mentions the case of a man who‘sold a field inherited from his parents’. Also about the same time, mention is made in a fragment of a letter from the court in Tiberias to the court in Fustat, of evidence abouta legacy dueto the daughters of Hillel b. Nissin, and the witnesses were questioned ‘about the fields’. In a, fragment of a marriage deedfrom Tyre, from the end of theeleventh century, a bride is

THE E C O N O M Y

mentioned who owns property and is part-owner of a third of a new house in western Tyre,evidently in the vicinity of the port. [336] Palestine seemsto have been self-sufficient in grains andbread - at any rate, there is no evidence in the sourcesof any import of wheat. The Gaon Solomonb. Judah, at the end 1029, of enquires about buying wheat from ‘Amminin Trans-Jordan. We find wheat-trading in Palestine mentioned in a letter from Avon b. Sedaqa to Nehorai b. Nissim in around 1065. In another letter, he tells of thepurchase of wheat in theHebron area and in Jerusalem itself; wheat which is ‘real gold’, as he puts it. Jacob b. Salmin al-Hariri, preparing to sail from Tripoli to Tyre, transports wheat (but his voyage is disastrous and he ends up in Caesarea minus his entire cargo), and he also shipped wheat to Fustat.’ [337] Al-Muqaddasi enumerates in great detail those fruits for which Palestine was noted. He particularly stresses the etrog, almonds, dates (vatab, fresh dates), nuts, figs and bananas. Elsewhere he lists olive oil, dried figs, the raisins of ‘Aynun and Diir, apples, cherries, indigo plants from Jericho and BetShean, the datesof Zoarand Bet Shean, the almonds of Moaband therice from Bet Shean. In Trans-Jordan, they excelled in the cultivation of wheat, sheep-farming and the production of honey. Further on, he points to thirty-six products grown in the Filastin district (kiva) which are not be to found growing together elsewhere, seven of whichare rare in any other area and twenty-two of which are not found together in any other area (these arehis comments and it is difficult to understand him completely, though perhapsthere is an error in thetext); he further recounts the various types of nuts,apples, raisins, plums, figs, sycamore fruit,carobs, olives, dates,shaddock (utrq’j, etrog), indigo, sugar-cane, jujube fruit, mandrake, sumach, lupin, and so on. Bakri, in the latter half of the eleventh century, praises Bet Shean in particular on its good wine and its dates. Idrisi, writing in 1154, compliments the dates of al-Diriim (his form: al-Dara), Zoar, Jericho and the entire Jordan Valley. Grapes are mentioned in a letter from Avon b. Sedaqa, from Jerusalem to Nehorai b. Nissim; he and his partners had prepared grapes for the pilgrims (evidently to sell them) and each one

*

See Cahen, AESC, 8:25, 1953;JESHO, 15:163, 1972, and his articles inE12:Day‘a; Iqti‘; of the see alsoDuri, AbhZth, 3:22, 1969,an article which deals with the early development iqfZ‘. See below (section 585) the matter of the tax officials of al-Dizbiri, the Fatimid army commander, who wanted tocollect taxes in the iqfi‘of Hassin the Jarrihid; and the matter ofthe iqfi‘it, which the head of the Banii Kalb, Rifi‘ b. Abi’l-Lay1 b. ‘Ulayyin, wanted to keep for himself (sec. 592). Mu’ammala: 216; Solomon b. Judah: 75, b, line 30; the letter from Tiberias: 244; the Tyre marriagedeeds: 601. Solomon b. Judah: 83. Avon: 501, a, lines 15-16,20;503. Jacob b. Salman: 506, a, lines 8.9; 507, b. lines 1,7. It appears that the supply of wheatEgypt in was muchmore problematic than it was in Palestine; Israel b. Nathanhis inletters to Nehoraib. Nissim, enquires about also writing the price of wheat in Fustat, see 469, a, line 21; 478, b, line 4;Nissim b. Halfon, 226

L A N D A N D A G R I C U L T U R E [ S E C S . 335-3381

invested five dinars. A shipment of figs to Alexandria is mentioned by Jacob b. Salman al-Hariri, writing to Nehorai from Tripoli in Nisir Syria. Khusraw also mentionsat the very sametime theexcellent figsof Ramla (he meansjund Filastin), which were being exported far and wide.From another letter, it appears that one of the reasons for the same Jacob b. Salmin's goiriig to Palestine wasto purchase fruits forexporting to Egypt. A fruit product mentioned in Geniza the documents is rose-petal preserves - mentioned by Miisii b. Ya'qiib in some of his letters written in 10571058. A shipment of these preserves was apparently via sentTyre and the writer is anxious as it had not yet reached Fustat - and when it finally arrives, he is again concerned as to howwell it would sell.He also speaks of a shipment of plums (or peaches?Izhawkh) of which five camel-loads were loaded aboarda boat in Acre, and he is enquiring whether thereis a demand for them in Fustat and whether it would not be preferable to transport this sort of merchandise by In land. a letter from Ascalon written by Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh shortly after the Crusaders' conquest ofJerusalem, they are still dealing with the essence of acacia (three Shami [Palestinian] vatls, apparently 2.5 kilograms each, thatis approximately 8 kilograms inall). Consignments ofhoney sent from Palestine to Egyptare also mentioned. Theapples of al-Sham (Palestine and Syria) were praised, as were their olives, according to Tha'dibi at the outset of the tenth century. As to sugar cane, we have seen above that it is mentioned in Muqaddasi; both Istakhriand Ibn Hawqalalso refer to its beinggrown in the area of Tripoliand Beirut in Syria,as does also Niisir Khusraw, who observed the production of sugar syrupwhile visiting the area. Jacob b. Joseph b. Isma'il writes to Nehorai b. Nissim from Ascalon in around 1060, saying that he intends buying sugar (evidently meaning syrup); he had alreadybought acertain quantity but it was of an inferior quality as it was reddish in colour.He sold it at a dinar per fiveratls and lostmoney on the sale. There is an interesting detail here, namely thatit was sugar from 221,that is Akhziv, and thus one may assume that there was a sugar refinery there. Joseph b. Sahlal-Baradani, writing from Tripoli in ca. AD 1060, also seems to have been involved in the purchase of sugar, and he mentions the price of 19.5 nixavl dinars the qintar, while Jacob b. Ismii'il, writing ca. 1060 from Tyre, points outthat he has sold sugar in the same region (for Nehorai). It is not likely that this was sugar imported from Egypt; rather onecan assume that it camefrom local stock stored inTyre by the writer of the letter. Nehorai b. Nissim himself, writing from Fustat to Joseph ha-Kohen b. 'Ali al-Fiisi, who was purchasing commodities in to Nehorai,reminds him thathe must buy wheat in good time(he writesfrom Tyre):489, b, line 3.

THE E C O N O M Y

Palestine, mentions the price of sugarat 6 l / 2 dinars, without specifying the unit of weight, ina list of market prices in F ~ s t a t . ~ [338] Wheat and bread and their prices are frequently mentioned in Geniza letters. A woman who emigrated Palestine to and decidedto settle in Tiberias writes to her brother in Fustat, who is also contemplating the possibility of settling in Palestine. She speaks of life in Tiberias as being cheaper thanin Ramla, the priceof bread there being one dirhamper rut1 (a rather high price for those times - apparently this was a period of scarcity). Nathan b. Abraham points outthat the price of wheat (in Egypt)is three dinars per t i l h (at about the same time), four times as much, being four dirhams the rutE. It is not surprising, then, thatIsrael b. Nathan, living in Jerusalem, is anxiously concernedwith theprice of wheatin Egypt, which was sky-high, especially in those years of drought which were constantly recurring whenever the waters of the Nile did not rise sufficiently. At such times, the prices in Palestine would soar as well, for there were veryclose Muqaddasi, A q i l i m , 166, 180c he lists some otherplants and their meaningis not clear; cf. Le Strange, Palestine, 16f, who has an English translation and some comments. Cherries: qadm quraysh; apparently this is the correct interpretation. Cf.qarashiyya, in 394, b, line 7; 395, line 9; in the dictionaries: qarisiy;, which is borrowed from the Greek. Cf. also the editor's notes in: Maimonides, 'Uqqir, 165 (No. 330); see below note 12. See also the definitions in De Goeje, Glossarium, BGA IV; and see Bakri, 292; the wines of Palestine acquired a reputation and Mas'iidi even quotes a verse (from the of time the Umayyads) in praise of 'the wine goldenlike saffron, which thesea brings us from Ascalon'; see Muriij? VI, 7, and cf. many references to the wine of Gaza and Ascalon in pre-Islamic times in: 354 f. GrCgoire et Kugener (eds.), Marc le Diacre. Vie de Porphyre, 124fc see Idrisi (Cerulli), Avon: 503, a, lines 5-7; figs: 506. NiiSir Khusraw, 19 (text), 65 (translation). The other letter ofJacob b. SalmPn: 507, in the upper margin,lines 14-15: 21 'pieces' (qif'a and it is difficult to know what packaging is being hinted at by this term), of figs; b, line 2, two baskets of raisins (zabib)and there the figs are again mentioned. Rose-petal preserves: 515, line 12; 516, lines 5f. 517, b, lines lOf., 17; in 514, margin, he requests that the rose-petal preserves should be sold in the order in which they are received,so that they should not turn black. Plums: 517, b, lines 18-21; cf. Goitein, Letters, 95, n. 16, on the meaning of khawkh. See also theMishna Commentaryascribed to Nathan,av ofthe yeshiva, Zera'im, 30 (to Kil'ayim ch. i): khawkh means hafarseqim - peaches); essenceof acacia: 588, margin; rat1 shimi, see Hinz, 29f. Tha'ilibi, T h i m i r , 531f; Istakhri, 61 (line 4); Ibn Hawqal, 176; Nisir Khusraw, 12 (text), 40 (translation). Jacob b. Joseph b. Ismi'il: 487 b, lines 2-4,lO. Zib,see sources on it (beginning from the twelfth century):Le Strange, Palestine, 555f. Joseph b. Sahl: 491, line 10; Niziri dinars, cf. also 517, b, lines 16-17: Miis5 b. Jacob wants to know ( a l - k e s i j m ) ;it is difficult to know whether the rate of the Niziri dinars minted in Damascus he means coins in general, or specifically silver coins. Goitein, Letters, 94, p. 15, quotes the al-'Aziz, student ofMuslimcoins, G. C. Miles, that in the days ofNiziir, the Fatimid caliph only gold coins were minted in Damascus;cf. 503, a, lines 6-7: the Niziri dinars were at that time, in the greatest demand, and a grape-seller would only sell his wares for Niziiri dinars. As to theqinfir, we can assume that the Egyptian qintPr is being spokenof, as he is writing to Egypt, thatis one of100 ratls of 1 4 4 dirhams each, i.e. about45 kilograms. See Hinz, 25 (qintir jiljili is the Egyptian qintir; as explained also by Abraham Maimuni, Commentary, 493); from this we learn that the price of sugar was in this deal approximately waraq type (40 in a dinar) rafl. per Jacob b. Ismii'il: 494, a, line 7. Letter eight dirhams of the of Nehorai: 508, a, line 8; cf. on theraising ofsugar cane in Palestine: Ashtor,]AH, 4(1970), 5. 228

OCCUPATIONS [ S E C S . 339-3411

links with Egypt in tradingrelations. Israel b. Nathan notes in one ofhis letters that one bought a qaJz of wheat in Jerusalem for 3 - 3 l / 2 dinars, whereas Avon b. Sedaqa boasts of having acquired 2 qafizs of excellent wheat for3 l / 4 dinars, that is, at the cost of 14 dirham perratl. As these were the prices demanded during a period of drought (Israel b. Nathan specifically mentions that hunger is rampant in Jerusalem), it appears that they are speakingof a small q a j , (the 4aJz can indicate anything from 4 to 201 litres). It is interesting to note the composition ofa month’s food supply with which a woman stocks her larder at the time, when her husband is away on a long journey (Tyre, 1102): three waybas (some 35 kilograms) wheat and the cost of milling it into flour; a rat1 of Shamioil (Palestinian oliveoil); woodfor heating,andapart from these, a bitmorethan three-quarters of a dinar in cash.4

Occupations

[339] We have but a trickle of information onthis subject. Muqaddasi, writing at the end of the tenth century, attempts to provide us with a general pictureof theoccupations of the Jewish and Christian inhabitants (to distinguish themfrom theMuslims, who were tribesmen, or military, religious or administrative personnel). According to him, the Jews were the majority among the money-changers (jahibidha), the dyers (meaning textile-dyers), the bankers (zayiirif) and the tanners; while the Christians The letter from Tiberias: 247, lines 16-17. Nathan b. Abraham: 176, a, line 18. The tillis, a large s_ack,see Sobhy, 6; Abraham Maimuni, Commentary, 169; but according to Muqaddasi, Aqcilim, 204, it had a specific capacity and in wheat it was 15 manns, i.e. 30 ratls. Both Nathan b. Abraham and the Tiberian woman undoubtedly refer to the waraq dirham, which was40 to a dinar, common at that time, in Egypt at any rate. Israel b. Nathan: 469,a, line 21; 478, b, line4. The price of wheat: 480, b, line5 ; on theqafiz, see Him, 48% cf. Isaac b. David b. Sughmir’s letter fromFustat, from ca. 1045, mentioning the price of wheat in the Maghrib: 4 athmcin per dinar, i.e.‘ / 2 a dinar which was20 dirhams perratl, a price that was only likely during a period of severe drought, as the writer points out in his letter, see 485, b, line 11. Avon: 501, a, line 20. Alimonies in Tyre: 606, lines 4-6; on the wayba, see Hinz, 52f; cf. Suyiiti, Muhcidara, I, 145;Jonah ibn Janih,S . ha-shorashim, 40, 116E it is the e y f i , i.e. 4,800 dirhams when dry. These wheat priceswhich we findintheGeniza documents apply, as noted, during periods of unusual dearth, and are many times the normal prices, which were about a l / 4 of a dirham(waraq) per ratl; see Hinz, Die Welt des Orients, 2(1954), 53, 61, 50; Ashtor, ] A H , 4(1970), 9; Ashtor, Histoire des p r i x , 50; cf. SawirGs, 456: when al-Jarawi put Alexandria under siege (ca. 825), the price of a wayba of wheat there reachedtwo dinars and a dirham, i.e.one and a third dirham (waraq) per raft but there were even much greater increases in prices. See Bianquis,]ESHO, 23(1980), 74ff; he gathered dataon the prices of wheat and bread inEgypt between September 1023 and February 1025, according to Musabbihk arat1 of bread cost from 0.06 dirham in times of a drought. Atillis of wheat, which cost 0.80 abundance, andas much as one dirham during dinar in timesof abundance, reached4.33 during shortages.It seems thatit was not clear to Bianquis that they were speakingof dirhams of the waraq type.

THE E C O N O M Y

constituted most of thephysicians and the scribes (i.e. the clerks, kataba). In my collection of Geniza documents, we do not come across Jewish tanners at all, nor dyers (but see:div al-pbbighin, the aforementioned house of the dyers in Ramla). Dealing in currency matters and banking activities, however, is often mentioned there, particularly inreference to theMaghribis.Many of theJewsandtheChristianswereevidently engaged in agriculture,especially in the smallerlocalities. Information on other occupations we find mainly in the Geniza documents; it is not extensive. There is evidence of the production of pottery in the remains of a workshop from the eighth century discovered during excavations in Ramla in1965 in the south-western partof thepresent-day city, in an area covering ca. 250 square metres, 2 metres deep. In Haifa, Nizir Khusraw found ship-yards building the so-calledjiidiships, duringhis visit in 1047. The same writer-traveller also speaks of the many craftsmenand artisans in Jerusalem. Another branch whichwas certainly developed in Palestine was that of the production of building materials, although we have no information apart from what we have been told by Muqaddasi about the marbleproducing quarries in Bet Guvrin (Bayt Jibril) and the white-stone quarries in jund Filastin. Tiberias was known for the floor-mats produced there, among them also the sajidas (the prayer-mats used by the Muslims, called also rirniniyyamats). Evidently occupations involvingtextiles were mostly the domain of the Jews. A Jerusalemite who fled to Fustat contracted a partnership with a financier from Fustat; the Jerusalemite was Nethanel (his Arabic name was Hibat Allah) b. Yeshii'a al-Maqdisi and the man of Fustat was Sedaqa he-haver b. Muvhir. This Nethanel was a qualified weaver; he invests 15 dinars in the partnership and Sedaqa invested 50. The products supplied by Nethanel are to be sold to the baxzixin, the textile merchants in the qaysiviyyas (markets) and the profits or losses are to be divided equally. Sedaqa can decide at any moment to dissolve the partnership. Among thecraftsmen in Jerusalem, there were also skilled spinners. Jacob b. Samuel the Spaniard(al-Andalusi), when buying in Jerusalem, writes to Joseph b. Nahum (evidently of the Baradani family) in Fustat, andmentions that hehas bought spunyarn. From theletters of Manasseh b. Joshua (in the middle of theeleventh century) we learn that it was customary to buy spun yarn in Jerusalem and send it to Tyre for finishing before the weaving process. In one of his letters, Manasseh confirms that the q h a x l (threads, spun yarn),has arrived and that he has handed it over to a reliable Jewish craftsman, after going into the various professional aspects with other craftsmen. This is also an opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the names of the various types of threads. Qaqili, apparently a sort of

O C C U P A T I O N S [ S E C S . 339-3411

elaborate dress in demand among the Christian pilgrims, are also supplied together with the threads. Payment was by ‘the heedle’, the meaning of which is not clear, at three-quarters of a dinar per unit. Additional payment was asked for [avx, i.e., the embroidery along the hem. There was also a charge forqa@a (a term also found in Talmudic texts, which means the launderingand bleaching of the flax) and for daqq (pre-shrinking). The bleaching process could onlybe performed after Passover, for thesummer bleaching was more effective than that of the winter.If the spun yarnhad been sent amonth or twobefore the holidays(i.e. before Tishri), it would have been possible to start on time, he writes. Evidence of theextensive Jewish occupation with textiles, both in their production and merchandising, can be found in a clause in an ancient formulary ofa deed of sale in Palestine, still preserved in receipt a from the year AD 1026, in the handwriting of Abraham b. Solomon b. Judah: Turayq,. daughter of Abraham,confirms that Muhassin b. Husayn (‘the representative of the merchants’), is no longer indebted to her; ‘not even ’stm nor ptr’i’, i.e. ‘neither for fabric nor for dye’.5 [340] Evidence of theexistence of a flour mill in Jerusalem is apparent in a letter from Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon from Jerusalem to Ephraim b. Shemaria in Fustat (ca. 1050). In the margin is a note asking that his correspondence be sent to the following address: The mill of so-and-so (the namehas not been preserved), the miller. Soap was manu5

Muqaddasi, A q i h 183; speaking of Syrian and Palestinianareas. The potter’s workshop: Rosen-Ayalon and Eitan, IEJ, 16:148,1966.NZsir Khusraw, 18 (text), 60 (translation); craftsmen in Jerusalem: 20 (text), 68(translation). Quarries: Muqaddasi,ibid., 184. Despite the silence in the sources, the Jews evidently also engaged in tanning: in 460, Moses b. Jacob, writing from Jerusalem, wishes to knowthe prices of untanned leather and whether it is possible to ship it from Fustat to Jerusalem without damage.It seems that the sumach and gall-nuts mentioned in some letters in my corpus, were used in tanning. And despite the silence in those letters, Jews also seem to have been engaged in textile dying as well. According toJahiz, theJews were the sole possessors of the secret of the crimson worm (the qivmix); see Serjeant, AI, 15-16 (1951), 35. Mats ofTiberias: Nasir Khusraw,17 (text), 58 (translation); simirziyya, called after a quarter of Isfahan known for its weavers; see Ibn Taghri Bardi, II,95; see on a Tiberian matpreserved in the Athens Museum: Combe, Mi/. Dusmud: 841; the deed of partnership between Sedaqa and Nethanel: 541, from the year 1086. Sedaqa the haver is apparently ‘Yesod [foundation ofj ha-yeshiva’; see T S 135 15, f. 4 in Mann, / n u s , 11, 254; see also Gil, Documents, No. 43 (TS NS J 342v), line 6: ‘rabbenu yesod ha-yeshiva’ (our Master, the foundation of the yeshiva), in the accounts of the income of theheqdesh from the beginningof the twelfth century. Spun yarn:493, a, line 16. Manasseh b. Yeshu‘ii: 522, a, lines 6f. See ibid. the note on the q o q d r . In 523, there is information on the same subject; thefabrics were already in the market for a monthor so, and it seems that he intends to send them to Jerusalem when someone reliable turns up; left-overs of the yarn remained in hand and he earned a quarter o f a dinar on these, and awaits instructionsas to what to do with the money; ’s!mpii’ii:62, line 26, see the note there. During the Geonic period, they no longer knew the meaning of ’stm. as implied in MS Antonin 891, 3a, lines 19-30: ‘Eslerni is a kind ofjewel’ etc.; see Assaf, Teslttiv6f (1 928/9), 159; see the commentary of R. Hananel to BT, Shabbat, 57b: k i p y i (headgear); Goitein, Torbiz, 36(1966/7) 370, assumed that ’sfm meant indigo.

THE ECONOMY

factured in Ramla and there is mention ofRamla’s soap storages.Avon b. Sedaqa, writing fromJerusalem to Nehorai b. Nissim in Fustat(ca. 1065) speaks of ajourney to Ramla to purchase soap.In around 1040, Palestinian soap was sold in the marketsof Fustat at four dinars per qintar evidently, while in the 1060s, it seems that the price went down to 22/3dinars. Nehorai stresses in his letter,which contains this detail, that this is the price of Palestinian soap (2ibtcn sharni) whereas for the soap from the Maghrib (2ibiin rnaghvibi) there is no demand at [341] In one document, we come across a certain Sulaymin ‘who was skilled a t forging iron’- a claim for payment dueto himcame before the Jerusalemites’ court in Fustat in thepresence of Abraham b. Solomon b. Judah, in August 1030. It is likely that this Jewishblacksmith was a Palestinian. In Tyre, ca. 1040, a man is mentioned named Solomon b. al-Ghalliq, meaning son of the locksmith. In a letter from Tyre, there is mention of a man from Hammat-Gider (Jadariyya) called Moses b. Semah, better known by the name al-Azraq the Magician; al-axvaq - the blue-eyed; by magician (q5sZi.n) they undoubtedly meant an astrologer, which is the mtlnajjirn, one of the occupations the Jews excelled in.’ Book production

[342] Book production evidently provided many of the Palestinians with a livelihood. A large number of letters in my collection contain details concerning scribes or bookcopyists. The grandson ofJosiah Gaon, Josiah b. Aaron, was one of those engaged in this craft and some of his letters have been preserved from his stay in Sahrajt in Egypt. He writes that he expects the arrival of a shipment of quires (kavavis), evidently empty ones, and asks to be sent ink ((zibr.) - even sending an ink-well to Fustat forthis purpose. It seems that he was assisted in his work by another scribe, a Riiml, meaning a Byzantine. At about the same time, we find Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph in Daltiin in the Upper Galilee occupied in the same profession. Israel b. Nathan (Sahliin), Nehorai’s Maghribi cousin, who had formerlybeen involved in commerce (and evidently still had a hand in this pursuit), was busy copying books during his stay in Palestine. O n the score of this craft, he succeeded in saving the cost of Joseph ha-Kohen’s letter: 409; this request evidently stemmed from the wish that the contents of this correspondence remain known only to themselves, and it seems that the 503, a, lines 31-32. The price of soap: 176, same miller was a confidant of the writer. Avon: right margin; one cannot be certain that theqin@r is being referred to. Nehorai:508, b, line 5 ; cf. Ashtor (Strauss), Zion, 7(1942), 152Csee also 494, a, line 7,Jacob b. Ismii‘il (apparently in Tyre) also deals with various types of soap (al-asibt7n). Sulaymiin: 102, lines 9-10. The locksmith: 276, b, line 17; at that time, locks were made of wood; see on this: Goitein. Mediterraneart Society. I, 109;Gil. Documents, 179 n. 9; the magician: 278, lines 32-33,cf. Gil, ibid., No. 16, n. 3 (p. 185).

B O O K P R O D U C T I O N [ S E C S . 342-3441

travelling from Byzantium toPalestine even before startingon the work, by receiving an advance amounting to one dinar. Avon b. Sedaqa also speaks of Israel b. Nathan, a copyist living in Jerusalem, and he also mentions another Jerusalem scribe, Yeshu‘a (b. Samuel?). At approximately the same time, Joshua he-hZvEr b. ‘Eliof Ramla writes to Judah b. Saadia (who was later granted the title ‘Nagid’ in Egypt) asking him to find some copying work for him among the people of Fustat, for ‘the scholars of this city [probably Ramla] arefew’. A colophon in the manuscript of the introduction to the Talmud by Samuel b. Hofni indicates that this copy was finished in Jerusalem on 10 Marheshwan AM 4796 (Wednesday, 15 October AD 1035). Israel b. Nathan, in 1059, copies the Mishna orders Nushim and Neziqivt and is prepared to copy anything for Nehorai, such as commentaries (tujiisl~),inordernot to beidleand to earn something ‘until the Lord looks upon him and sees him from heaven’. In September 1060 he has finished copying the abovementioned Mishna. orders and wants to know whether anyone in Fustatis interested ina copy of t a f i s l ~or Mishna, or hulilehot (evidently Sefer Halikhot Gedolot), or Talmud. When in Giish Halav, he promises that during his stay in Damascus, he will copy the order Qodishiin (for he seems to think that he would find a good copy thereto work from), from the ‘Iraqi Talmud’; he is prepared to copy one of the notebooks (dujav) of the head of the yeshiva (evidently heis referring to acollection of responsa). In another letter, he againmentionscopyingthefollowingtreatises(fromtheBabylonian Talmud): QodZshlm, Mij‘ed, Berikrhot. In a letter dated November1061, he acknowledges receiving the copyists’ ruler (qiyiis)used for the length of the sheets, and he also requests a ‘width ruler’, without which he will be unable to finish the chapter he is copying. Also he asks the addressee to find out whether someone is interested in having him copy the treatise NZzir, and if so, he must be sent quires for this purpose. After Passover, he intends to copy only the booksof thePentateuch, for the demand is mainly for volumes (masiihif) of the Bible. Reliable manuscripts which are worth copying can be found in al-Mahdiyya, he writes (evidently brought there from Iraq in the tenth century) and Labrat(judge of al-Mahdiyya, of the Sughmarfamily)andAbii Sa‘id, who livethere,should be urgedto acquire a leather-bound Bible (n-ttzjullad) for him. Even if itis expensive, they should send him the volumes of the Talmud (mugiihiful-tulmud). In another letter writtenon 14 March1062, he promises that after Passover, he will start work on copying the Midrash Tehillim (ugzdut tehilllm). Books are also mentioned in letters from Ascalon at the end of the eleventhcentury. Nathan ha-Kohenb.Mevorakhrequeststhateight books of the Prophets, unproofed, that had been left behind in Fustat, be sent to his father. It seems that the family was involved in producing 233

THE E C O N O M Y

books,or perhapsthey used to buyunproofedbooks,whichwere cheaper, which they would then correct themselves. In another letter, Nathan mentions that he holds as deposit quires belonging to a certain Sibii‘ b. Mufarrij, known as Ibn al-Kiiziruni, which contain an old copy (nuskha qcldima) of HcllZkhot Gedolot in a small, reddish script, somewhat faded. Mention is made of selling some of thequires in Ascalon, and the writer is prepared to pay one and a half to two dinars for the HalZklzot Gedolot. In another letter, hesays that there areno longerany books of the Talmud left in Ascalon (meaning that the books which the refugees had brought with them when fleeing from the Crusaders had disappeared). Most of the Bibles have been sold but he found four complete Bibles at the home of a widow, daughter of b. Saghir (b. Saghir - undoubtedly Solomon b. Saadia), in good condition, except for the bindings, which were damaged; one volume(nzu&zj) of the Pentateuchhad its titlepages somewhat obliterated; the volume which contains the four books of the first Prophets has some of its firstand final pages piled, but the volume containing the four booksof the last Prophets and thescrolls is in a good state, apart from the binding. Some people are prepared to pay her 12 dinars for them and he awaits instructions as to how toproceed,. It seems that this was the usual price for a completeBible, as we can deduce from Joseph b. Sahl al-Baradhi’s letter to Nehorai b. Nissim in which thesale of a new Bible for theprice of 13 dinars is mentioned, evidently the work of Israel b. Nathan. We find interesting details concerning payment for book-making in a letter from Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph of Daltun, mentioning the fee for copying per quire; for one type, they paid 2 / 3 qiriit per quire, whereas for another type, 11/6 of a qiriit, apart from the cost of the paper. According to the writer, it appears that in fixing the price, the number of letters per page in the original manuscript (from which the copy was being made) was taken into consideration.8 [343] From book-copying we move on to thesubject of paper and its 8

Josiah b. Aaron:202 (cn. 1030). Solomon ha-Kohen: 250. Israel b. Nathancopies books: 465 (lines 1Off.); advance payment: 466; the MaghribiIsrael b. Nathan can be seen as a pursuer of the tradition of the scribes of the Maghrib(and in a more distant past: of Babylonia) in Palestine; on Labrat b. Moses ibn Sughmiir (and onhis brotherJudah) see below, n. 42. In the colophon written in the MS of the first Prophets, Joseph b. Jacob ha-Ma‘arivi (‘the Maghribi’) says that he wrote, he vocalised and inserted the mnsoroh, ‘according to the proofed booksvocalised and provided with the masorah by Aaron b.Moses b. Asher’; and this he did in ‘Jerusalem the holy city . . . in the year 1300’ (Sel.; = 989); see the complete version: Kahle, Masoretetz des Westem, I, 65, cf. Hirschberg, Evetz-Israel, 5(1959), 216. Avon: 498, a, lines 13f; b, lines 2f; Joshua b. ‘Eli: 567, lines 21ff. Introduction to the Talmud: TS Loan 108. The worksof Israel b. Nathan:469, b, lines 1Of; 470, a, margin; 474; 475, a, lines lZfc 479, a, lines Sf, 16f, in the margin and the continuation in b, lines 6f, 11. Ascalon: 581, a, lines 12-17; 583, lines l2f; 588, lines 7f. Joseph b. Sahl al- Baradani’s letter: 492, a, lines 6-12. Cf. Beit-Arie. Te‘rrdLl, 1(1980), 197; on theBibleinAscalon, the property of the widow, daughterof Saghir, it is interesting to note TS 10J 5, f. 15, written in the 23 4

B O O K P R O D U C T I O N [ S E C S . 342-3441

supply. Parchment (riqq and in the pluralruqUq, in Arabic; cf. rOq, ~ O q i i z in , the Talmudic sources) was still very much in use. Israel b. Nathan sends Nehorai instructions regarding the purchase and manner of shipping ruqGq. Due to the lack of parchment,he has wasted thesummer. Abiathar, writing on 14 November 1070, from Jerusalem, mentions letters written by his father, head of the yeshiva; one on a long roll of parchment (riqq kabfr) and others on red paper. The Karaite Mahbiib b. Nissim gives the captain of aship a package of parchment leaves (shalziira ruqiiq) as a bribe to persuade him to deviate from his usual route.9 [344] In the eleventh century, however,most of the writing was already being done onpaper, and this can easily be seen from theGeniza, in which the various kinds of parchment are rather rare. Paper is mentioned in a number of documents in my collection. The scribe from Daltiin, Solomon ha-Kohen, writes about a bookcopied on excellent paper (waraqjayyid) in ca. 1030. Maghribi merchants also traded in paper and its transport. Israel b. Nathan, who copied books when in Gush Halav, awaits money for purchasing paper. Daniel b. Azariah writes to 'Eli b. 'Amram and asks to have notebooks copied in Fustat containing geonic queries and responsa (he mentions the Gaon Samuel, apparently referring to Samuel b. Hofni). He would like to have them copied by an expert scribe and on goodpaper not on Egyptian paper but on Andalusi or Itribulusi (from Spain or Tripoli), and on a large galley. Each quire should be carefully examined and proofed upon completion. From this we learn that the Gaon maynot have relied upon the work ofthe Palestinian scribes (or perhaps they had too much work), and that paper from Spain and Tripoli,was preferable to Egyptian paper. Indeed, Nasir Khusraw points out that the paper manufactured in Tripoliis similar to that made in Samarqand and is of an even finer quality. Miis2 b. Jacob, who was based in Tyre, dealt in paper on a rather large scale and there are four of his letters includedin my collection which were written between August1057 and January 1058 from Damascus andTyre. They speak ofbuying paper in Damascus in hundreds ofdinars- mentioning 15 loads of paper (at least two tons). He shipped more than twenty

9

middle ofSha'bPn412, i.e. 24 November 1021: Samuel b. Jacobreceives twenty-five dinars for copying eight books of the Prophets for Ab6 Nasr SalPma (who is Solomon) b. Sa'id (Saadia) b. Saghir, according to the nanlcdaj (Persian: model) owned byAbii Ishiq Ibrahim b. Hujayj (Abraham b. Haggai); for this Solomon b. Sa'id is the father of the abovementioned widow, and perhaps they are also referring to the same book; cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 239; 574, n. 53 See 469, b, line 3; 472 a, in the upper margin; b, line 1. Abiathar: 547, a, lines 40-43. Mahbiib b. Nissim:292, a, line 11. O n the use of parchment,see the quotationin Pirqoy b. Baboy, from the opinion ofR. Yehudai Gaon concerning thediscussion on whatis banned and permitted in using riqq (see Mann, RE], 70 [1920], llSf, and see the version on p. 137 where the main contention of the Gaonis that it is permitted to use riqq only if it has been

THE ECONOMY

parcels (evidently rolls are intended here) of paper to Ramla and they arrived safely. We gather from his letters that paper was sold’in Fustat either by wholesale weight or byretail sheets. When the paper arrived at its destination, it had then to be sold quickly, before it darkened. The paper is brought from Damascus (or perhaps also from Tripoli) to Tyre, byland on camels. Special identification marks (‘alima) impressed on the paper by the manufacturer are mentioned, these probably being water-marks; the paper he purchased had the ‘aZ&nu of Ibn Imam, evidently a Damascene paper-maker. It seems therefore that there was no local paper manufacturer in Palestine in the eleventh century and paper was imported from Damascus or Tripoli, although Muqaddasi mentions paper (kzghid) being made in Tiberias. A possible explanation may be that its manufacture gradually came to an end in the course of the generations from Muqaddasi’s time at the turn of the tenth century that of to theGeniza letters in the mid-eleventh century. lo

Exports

[345] In this section, we mustgive pride ofplace to oil, that is olive oil, an important Palestinian export in antiquity. At the start of the ninth century, acertain mawla (client) of the Umayyads, a Jew orChristian who became a Muslim, by the name of al-Hakam b. Maymiin, is mentioned. He dealt in the export of oil from Palestine, and would transport it by camel caravan to Medina. Niisir Khusraw speaks of the production of olive oil; he notes trees which rendered 5,000 muz~ztz(some 3,500 litres!) each. The oil was kept in containers in hollows in the earth and was exported all over the world. He adds that owing to its bread and oil, al-Shim (Palestine and Syria) never suffered from starvation. In the Geniza documents from the mid-eleventh century, there are also references

lo

treated with gall-nuts); see also Goitein, Mediterranean Society, I, 422, nn. 83, 84; and see ibid., 11, App. B. (No. 32, p. 447), the nameal-Ruqiiqi, maker of(or dealer in) parchment. Solomon ha-Kohen: 250, b, lines 3 - 4 . O n the matter of the Maghribis, see the affair of the partnership which came upbefore the court ofDaniel b. Azariah: 394, line 12. Egyptian paper was called Mansiiri paper. It was made in vats (matiibikh: literally boiling places) in Fustat (not in al-Qihira), see al-Mughrib, V, 29, quoting al-Karni’im of al-Bayhaqi (who is apparently Ismi‘ilb. Husayn al-Bayhaqi, who wrotein ca. 1010, see Sezgin, I, 451, not as in Brockelmann, GAL, S I, 558); Maqrizi, Khilat, 11, 183-186, quotes a long fragment from theMughrib, also referring to Mansiiripaper (p. 185). Israel b. Nathan: 474, a, line 10; in 480, a, lines 7-8, he confirms that he has sent eleven sheets of paper from his stock in Jerusalem to Nehorai in Fustat, with a certain R. Isaac. Daniel b. Azariah: 371. Nisir Khusr_aw, 12 (text), 41 (translation). Miisi b. Jacob:514-517. Paper in Tiberias: Muqaddasi, Aqiilitn, 180, cf. Le Strange, Palestine, 19, according to whom paper was made of cotton there; see also Mez, 440; Goitein, Mediterratwan Society, I, 81; 410 and n. 2; Ashtor, CCM, 18(1975), 119.

E X P O R T S [SECS. 345-3511

to theoil tradeof Palestine. Israel b. Nathan dealt in oilvia Ascalon, andit seems that he met with losses in this sphere. Jacob b. Samuel informs Nehorai fromJerusalem that he has acquired a quantity of twoqiribas of oil (some66 litres) for him, undoubtedly for export, and deliveredit toIbn al-Tuffahi (apparently a ship-owner) in Jaffa.* l [346] I have already mentioned commerce in fruit and rose-petal preserves. Dried rose-petals and rose-hips were another export item and mention is made of a shipment of this kind1037 in from Tyre.Fruit syrups ( s h a d )and sumach (sumiq) were goods which Joseph b. Sahl al-Baradani supplied from Palestine through Tyre. Jacobb. Isma'il also sends Nehorai cinnamon via Tyre which evidently first reached Palestine from the Far East and Nehorai is to sell it in Egypt and buy other merchandise there from theproceeds. There were47 units of cinnamon inall and they were shipped on board b. Shibliin's vessel. Joseph b. Yeshii'a al-Tarabulusi, a sort of partner agent or of Barhiin b.Miisi al-Tiihirti, writes ofa shipment of 17 units of myrobalan (halllaj) and a shipment of sabir (aloe, frankincense) strqutvL.l2 [347] Another item of Palestinian export was salt produced from the l1

12

Al-Hakam: Isbahini, A g h i n i , VI, 64. Nasir Khusraw, 20 (text), 67 (translation); on the excellent olives and olive oil ofpalestine, see also Ibn al-Faqih, 117; Tha'alibi, T h i m i r , 532. Israel b. Nathan: 482, a, lines 12f. Jacob b. Samuel: 493, a, lines 8-9; the capacity of the qiriba is assumed, see Gil,]NES, 34(1975), 68. n. 43. The oil occupied a prominent place in Maghribi merchants' trading, as can be seen from the table, ibid., 68ff. See the matter of marketing indigo in Qayrawin and the purchase of 60ziqqs (evidently = qirba, see Gil, ibid.) of oil, i.e. approx. two tons: 493, a, lines l5f; the oil was sent to Sicily. Roses: 275 (the payment for the shipment was deposited in Tyre with Moses b.Isaac 'the Spaniard', perhaps a Karaite, whom welater find in Jerusalem). Joseph b. Sahl: 491, lines 8-9. Cinnamon: 495, b, lines 2f. Joseph b. Yeshii'a: 496, b; the halilaj (myrobalan) is the Phyllantur emblica fruit (see Zohary, 293); the Maghribi merchants dealt in this product extensively, see the HebrewIndex. There weredifferent varieties: black, yellow and kibili (from Kabil, today the capital of Afghanistan), see Shazari, N i h i y a , 45 and there, the editor's note 8; a hadith ascribed to the Prophet recommends the use of black halilaj, see 'Azizi, 11, 454; al-Ghifiqi, 552: the yellowhalilaj is the best remedy for diarrhoea,see also ibid., p. 549; Ibn Mammati,362, points out that thekabili halilaj isweighed bymantls, like saffron; see al-Mu'izz b. Badis, 94: how ink is made from halilaj; see further: Ducros,8, see also ibid., 80, on the snbir suqupi (Aloe Succotrina) from which a concentrated syrup is prepared which energises, warms and dries; this is the l e u h i (Boswellia), see the Hebrew Index; see also Maimonides, 'Uqqir, 157f (No. 318); this sabir was brought from the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean, on the eastern side of the Bay of Aden. See the article Sokotra (by J. Tkatsch) in EI'. Related to this is the balrlaj which is the Indian myrobalan mentioned in 394, line 6, and in 395, line 8, and this is the Belleriamyrobalatl or the Terminalia bellerica, see Ghafiqi, 262fc this myrobalan wasused as a medicine for diseases of the intestines, but was also considered helpful for ailing sight, headaches and the vapours.Wefind in 394 that considerable tradingwas carried on bytheMaghribi merchants in perfumes and essences which they exported to Sicily and here there is mention of(1) bamboo crystals (fabishir), a product also called 'snake ashes'; it was made from the lower parts of the bamboo stalks and contained silicon, calcium and organic material; they would produce an imitation byusing ivory or bone meal; this was used as a medicine forinflammations, intestinal diseases andother illnesses;see Maimonides,

2 37

THE ECONOMY

Dead Sea. Wax also figured among the products which were concentrated in Tyre for export.Yefet b. Meshullam, a Karaite from Jerusalem living in the Karaite quarter, the Samareitike, ships30 rcltls of ‘cheese made on the Mount of Olives’ including339 te$siin (moulds).13 [348] Tyre was famous for its glass and evidentlyso was Acre.The Jews of Palestine and Syria were expert a t making glass which contained lead and would export it to various countries, including those of Europe, where it became known as ‘Jewish glass’. Specific evidence of this can be found ina power-of-attorney deed made out in Tyre on 25 January 1011, in which Khalaf (Halfon) b. Moses b. Aaron, whose nickmane was Ibn Abi Qida, the ‘representative of the merchants’ in Tyre, authorises his father-in-law Solomon b. Rabi‘, who stayed in Fustat,to collect from the ‘representative of the merchants’ in Fustat, Caleb b. Aaron, what is due him for 37 mishydot (baskets, parcels) of glass, which were partly his property and partly in partnership with Abraham b. Habashi and Aaron b. Jacob, who is Ibn Abi Rujayf.I4 ‘Uqqir, 171 (No. 84); Ducros, 84; (3) aloe (‘id); see Maimonides, ibid., 145f (No. 396): r (zufw;see Maimonides, ibid., 169 (No. 338); kinds ofAqrrilonia; (3)sweet resin, ( q ~ f oqust, which is the kosros of the Greeks; and in Persian: bustaj or bustag; in Aramaic: k i s h l i ; produced from Ztztrla Helerlitrrn L. = Atrcklnndic Costus Falc.; made mainly in Kashmir, where at the beginning ofthis century, its production was still a state monopoly;it is the Satrssrrrea hypofeuca Spr.; a remedy for coughing and asthma; see Maimonides, ibid., 169 (No. 338); Ducros, 106; ‘Azizi, 11, 159, 442; there aretwo kinds ofqrrst, the Indian, which is black and the marine, whichis white, the Indian being the stronger of the two;see Jonah ibn Janih,S . ha-shonlshirn, 642: this is Biblical qesi‘ct, according to Saadia Gaon’s interpretation; (4) balilqi, (5) saffron; (6) cinnamon( q i r f ) . In 470, b, lines 3-4, Israel b. Nathan asks Nehorai b. Nissim to send him, apart from half a qlril of aniseed, a qlrif and a half of good quality cinnamon, groundfinely, red and sharp. Nehorai himselfasks on behalfofanother Maghribi, Abraham b. Isaac ha-Talmid, of Joseph ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli al-Fasi, who is in Tyre, to sell the cinnamon for him bi’l-qisttt wa’l-rizq (see on this below); see Solomon b. ha-Yitom’s commentary on Mashqin.65: ‘cinnamon in the language ofIshmael is qirf’; (7) myrrh (rmrr), was used for stimulation, as an astringent, for coughs etc., see Ducros, 133; (8) yellow myrobalan (halilqi nsjir); cardamom ( h i l ) is the Eleftaria Cnrdarnornurn, see Maimonides. ibid., 58 (No. 116). Cf. Zohary, 441;(9) aloe juice ( y b i r ) ; (10) water of camphor (knfiiir). Apart from these, mention is also made there of qorashiyya. cherries perhaps, see Maimonides, ibid., 165 (No. 330). The value ofthe entire shipment,including packing and storage, was close to 169 dinars, undoubtedly a very large sum. Salt: Baumstarck, Paliirtirmpiker, 73; the export ofsalt is not mentioned in my corpus of Geniza documents and the purchase of salt is only referred to once, for household use, in Jerusalem: 501, a, line 33. Wax: 276, b, line 11.Cheese: 309. Possibly theJerusalem rat/, i.e. 2.5 kilograms is meant (Hinz,29) and then it is a shipment of75 kilograms and each mould of cheese weighs ca. 320 grams; at this juncture, we shouldperhaps refer to what appeared to be evidence of the export of butter from Palestine: the responsum of an anonymous Gaon quoted by the Maharam, who notes that in Africa they would permit the use of butter from ‘the pagans’, ‘but since they began to bring them the butterof Hammiit and Gush Haliv, and adulterate it with helev. (animal fat),we ban’, etc.; see Poznanski, H ~ ~ r k a v y j u b i l eVolurnc e 218; Ginzberg, Georlic-a, I, 31ff, 218; but this is not a source on export fromPalestine, as Abramson has proven, ‘Itzyirziit, 236f, and it seems that theuse of Palestinian names here is merely symbolic. Praise of al-Shim glass: Tha‘alibi, Thinzzr, 532; ldrisi (Cerulli), 365; cf. Ashtor, CCM,

E X P O R T S [SECS. 345-3511

[349] Indigo, which also grew in Palestine, was in demand on the world markets a t the time. It grew mainly in the regionof theDead Sea and the Jordan Valley. In one ofhis letters, Avon b. Sedaqa mentions purchasing indigo and grains of wastna, another variety of indigo.A record written in Nathan b. Abraham’s court in Fustat in 1040, contains details of a litigation between indigo merchants concerning large shipments of indigo to Sicily and Mahdiyya, apparently referring to shipments of indigo from Palestine. Daniel b. Azariah, in one ofhis letters written from Tyrebefore he became the Palestine Gaon and was still engaged in trade, notes the going price of indigo in Tyre:‘the prices are rising, approximately nine . . .’ (no details of the currency or unit of weight remain). A deed of partnership relating to export toSicily from 1058, mentions large quantities of indigo as well. Nehorai b. Nissim speaks of the rising price of indigo (in ca. 1067) because it was in great demand in Palestine itsele and the merchants (evidently Maghribis) preferred to put their money into indigo rather than flax, which was scarce and expensive. There was also considerable demand for this product in the Maghrib. Acertain R. Maymiin, located in Fustat, is worried about the fate of a shipment of indigo belonging to him which was to have arrived by ship from Palestine.15 [350] Various types of weaving and textiles made inPalestine were also in demand on foreign markets. Fine linen, shish is mentioned, as having been produced mainly in Palestine - shish stzirni- (also in Cyprus: shrsh qtrbrusi, and it seems that it was exported from there via Palestine). I have already mentioned the linen yarn sent from Jerusalem to Tyre for finishing. Josephb. Samuel al-Andalusi, writing fromJerusalem to Josephb. Nathan al-Baradani in Tyre,also mentions having bought his spun yarn in Jerusalem, and hence we assume that there was a demand for Jerusalem yarns and that they were exported. Jacob b. Ismi‘il al-Andalusi writes from Tyre to Abii’l-Walid Y h u s (Jonah)b. Da’tid, in Egypt orperhaps in Spain, stating that hebought 40 piecesof qazz fabric in Tyre. Qazz was a kind of silk, evidently mixed with rabbit-wool. In another letter to Nehorai b. Nissim, he also mentions a cargo of qazz which he is loading on board a ship. A loadof qazz sent to Egypt through Tripoliin Lebanon is

15

18(1975), 119; Lamm, Gliser, 15; Heyd, Hist., I, 179f; Power-of-attorney: 268; Halfon b. Moses is mentioned in a number of documentsin my corpus;his wife Dara b. Solomon and hisbrother-in-law ‘Eli b. Solomonare alsomentioned; see the HebrewIndex; see also Consistoire isra6lite VI1 D 78, a fragment of a marriage deed from Tyre, in which apart from the aforementioned Khalaf b. Moses b. Aaron, several other inhabitants of Tyreare mentioned. Printed by Friedman, in Mdrriuge, 11,384and see detailsabout Khalafb. Moses ibid., 387. See on indigo: Muqaddasi, &dim, 7, who mentions the indigo ofJericho;cf. Mez, 440; Serjeant, AI. 11-12 (1946), 143. Avon: 503, a, line 15; the court record: 193. Daniel b. Azariah: 347, b, line 2; the deed of partnership: 394, line 1; 395, line 7. The matter was brought before the courtofDaniel b.Azariah. Nehorai’sletter, 508, a, lines 6-7, b, line 10.

2 39

THE E C O N O M Y

also mentioned in Jacob b. Salmin al-Hariri’s letters, speakingof red q a x x fabric. Idrisi,writing in the mid-twelfth century, refers to the costlywhite fabrics made in Tyre which are exported everywhere. Other goodsbeing sent via Tyre to Egypt by Jacob Isma‘il b. were the fabrics of Tustar (thiyab Tustar), but we do not know whether textiles of the Tustar variety were actually manufactured in Palestine or whether fabrics wereexportedwhichcamefrom elsewhere, or perhaps from Tustar itself. Abraham b. Isaac al-Andalusi, writing in Jerusalem to Nehorai b. Nissim in Fustat, mentions the possibility of exporting coloured fabrics, apparently through Ascalon, and asks him to take stock of the market conditions in Fustat. Ascalon was itself a centre for the manufacture of textiles and the Ascaloni fabric, thawb ‘asqalini, is spoken of.We find a long list of exports from Ascalon in Jacob b. Joseph b. Ismi‘il al-Itribulusi’s letter to Nehorai b. Nissim. He purchased sumach (strmiq), gall-nuts (probably for tanning), cedarresin, sugar from Zib(see above), cotton (qutn) which was sold in Ascalon at four ratls and ten ounces per dinar, which he had intendedsell to on the spot but for which he could not a similar list of commodities bought in Jerusalem find customers. We find by Avon b. Sedaqa: plums (sabastin), glue, almonds and soap.16 l6

Shish shimi, qtrbrtui, see 507, a, lines 9-10, the letter from Jacob b. Salmin al-Hariri to Nehorai b. Nissim fromca. 1060; he is staying in Ramla and has with him shish made in Cyprus, whichsells attwo dinars per small ratl, and the writerwishes to knowwhether he should sell it in Ramla or bring it toFustat. if theselling price there is higher; see ibid., also lines 13, 15; margin, right; b, line 3; also in another of his letters, written from Syrian Tripoli, he mentions the trading in shish, see 506, a, margin, right. It is customary to interprettheword shish (more common in Arabic: shish) - Mosulweave (English: muslin), which is a fine cotton fabric; but it seems that in the period under discussion, it meant fine linen cloth, for cotton was not commonlyused at the time;see also Jonah ibn Janih, S e f r ha-shorashim, 692: Shesh, linen. See also Nissim b.Halfon’s letter to Nehorai b. Nissim: B M O r5566 B, f. 20, lines 10-1 1 , containing a request from Nehorai to inform him of the price of nl-shish nl-shimi al-khdis wa’l-manqiid(evidently he means two kinds, according to thequality, the pureas against the inferior). Jacobb. Salmin: 493, a, line 10. Jacob b.Ismi‘il: 494, line 8; 495, a, lines15-16;Jacob b. Salmin:506, a, line 10;507, b, lines 1-2; A coat of k h a z z is also mentioned in the dowrylist in the Karaite marriage deed from Jerusalem, 305, line 23(1028), and it seems that the meaning thereis: rabbit-wool. See on k h n z z : Gil, J E S H O , 17(1974), 312; see Idrisi (Cerulli), 365. Tustari fabric: 495, a, lines 14-15; on tustari (or dustarc also dibiij, silk, tustari) fabric, see Gil, ha-Tustarim, 21, and ibid. further references. Coloured weavers: 505, line 12. T h a w b ‘asqalini, see TS N S J 127, a, line 5, cf. Goitein, Letters, 288, n. 7.Jacobb.Joseph: 487, lines18f: he loads three shipments of sumachand notes that one shipmentremained with him because he did not have a container for it; cedar-resin - see inthe upper margin:kathiri’: in Aramaic: kesharti, see BT, Berakhot,43a: h. Ada b. Ahava said: on thekesharti one has to say the blessing:. . . who created trees of scents. O n the matter of the knthiri’-keshnrti, Geonic sources say it is qusl (resin). In the name of Hayy Gaon it is said: keslrarti isghiliyu which is several scents mixed in oil. Till, 98, according to the Copticmedicinal tradition, defines kathiri’: a resin from various kinds of tragacanth,used to cure skin diseases, rheumatism, spitting blood and more, whileghiiliya (see above), is defined by Kazimirski, s.v., as a perfume, whichis blade, being ablend of musk, ambergris,and other scents. See Epstein, Commentary, 144, n. 17; Hayy: OZar ha-ge’6nitn Ber., Comment., 61; ‘Artrkh, qst, kshr (in the supplementary

INTERNAL TRADE; IMPORTS [SECS. 352-3581

[351] In theeleventhcentury,most of Palestine’s exportswentto Egypt, as is clearly indicated in the Geniza documents andespecially in the letters of the Maghribi merchants. This was understandable, partially because of Palestine’s political dependence on Egypt and also because Egypt was the major commercial centre in the Mediterranean basin at the time. However, exports from Palestine reached other countries as well. There is the somewhat doubtful evidence of export to Europe in the story of the Jewish merchant who used to visit Palestine and bring precious objects from there, the likes of which had never been seen before. Charlemagne ordered himto fool the Archbishop Richulf of Mainz in orderto humiliate him, so the Jew sold him a mouse. In view of the widespread connections maintainedthroughout theMediterranean area by the Maghribi merchants- Sicily, Spain,North Africa, Byzantium- apparently such Palestinian items as the glass mentioned above, did reach all these countries by virtue of their mediation.17

Internal trade

[352] Not much has been preserved in the sources on the subject of internal trade. The existence of ‘Jewish markets’ in Jerusalem, Ramla, and Tiberias is evidence of the central role of the Jews in commerce. I have already mentioned‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel’s shop in Jerusalem and below I shall referto shops in Ramla which were dedicated to the Jewish waqfin Jerusalem. Jews were also engaged in commercial activities in smaller localities, suchas the aforementioned tradingof goodsin Hammat Giider. There is the episode of theJerusalem Karaite of Spanish origin who was persecuted byhis fellow-sectarians. He went over to the Rabbanites, who set upa shop for him in a village near Jerusalem. Much of the internal trade was conducted on market days, at the large fairs in places throughout Palestine.According to the Book of the Times byIbn Misawayh, the Nestorian author of the first half of the ninth acentury, market day jund in Filastin (undoubtedly referring to Ramla) was held on the 23rd of April. He also mentions other market days in Idhra‘it on the 13th of October, in BuSrZ in the Hawran on the 14thof July, and in ‘Amman on the 10th of August. O n the 14th of September, there wasa fair which he refers to as ‘the Feast of the Church of the Resurrection’ in Jerusalem,a holiday more commonly known as the ‘Feast of the Cross’ (‘id al-glib). Biriini lists it among the Nestorian holidays, occurringon the 13th of September,hebut vol.). Cotton: 487, b, lines 7f (one ratl = 12 ounces). Avon b. Sedaqa: 501, a, line 38, cf. Hirschberg, Eretz-Israel, 5 (1958/9), 219. See the story of the Jewish merchant, in Aronius, No. 75.

THE ECONOMY

refers to it as being the day Helena, mother of Constantine, discovered the cross (on whichJesus was crucified, of course); andon the morrow,it was displayed before the people. The Christians were divided on this issue: some celebrated the day itwas found (the 13th) and others celebrated it on the day itwas displayed (the 14th). Arculf tells of a grandfair taking place in Jerusalemprecisely on the 15th of September, when countless peopleof various nations come to Jerusalem in order to trade. Israel b. Nathan mentions the‘dal-sal3 in a letter he wrote inJerusalem on 14 March1062. The text is not very clear but it seems that he wants to say that trading in silk and oil is not successful after the (idu l - ~ u l i l ~that , is after the Jerusalem fair, a fact which some ofthe Ascalon merchants experienced inperson.18 Imports

[353] We haveseen that Palestine was self-sufficient with regard to food and that there was even some exporting of surplus food commodities. Similarly, certain products known for the quality of their workmanship were also exported. O n the other hand, it seems that there was also a thriving importtrade, atleast during relatively peaceful times. The import trade was apparently directedto a large extent towards the pilgrims of all creeds who filled Jerusalem and wanted to buy such items as perfumes, jewellery, clothes and various textiles. It seems that therewas considerable consistency in the list of imported items dating frompre-Islamic times, about which we have not a little knowledge. Expensive goods, such as perfumes and spices, a variety of fabrics and weaves, especially silks, jewellery and precious stones, and so on, would reach the country. Lively trading in importsalso continued throughout theIslamic period in such wares as perfumes and medicaments. We have seen above that Palestine also served as a way-station for tradingcertain goods, suchas the hallluj (myrobalan) and others. One should also add here the kuhl (antimony, ytrkh in Hebrew). Abraham the Fourth b. Samuel the Third (b. Hosha‘na) writes from Ramla to Solomonb. Judah in Jerusalem andasks him to send him ‘a bit of kuhl to remove the white film in his small daughter’s eye’; from which we understand that in Ramla the kuhl had been sold out. It was imported fromthe Maghrib; Nehoraib. Nissim tried

18

The Jewish market in Jerusalem: 1, b, line 12; 92, a, line 36. Ramla: 213, line 30. Tiberias, 245, lines 6-7; 247, line 23; see the episode of Ibrahim ibnFadanj: 457, b, lines 8-9. O n market days see: Ibn Misawayh, 253ff; cf. Graf, Geschicte, 11, 113f(erroneously there: the market day ofjund Filastin was on the 13th of April; should beon the 23rd);Biriini, 310. Arculf, it1 T&ler et Molinier, I, 144: ‘diversarumgentiumundiquepropeinnumera multitudo . . . ad commercia’; Israel b. Nathan: 482, a, lines 13-14.

I M P O R T S [SECS. 353-3581

to market it in Jerusalem but was sorely disappointed to find the selling price so low. Another item mentioned in the Geniza documents is the baqarn, brazilwood, referred to in a letter from Ascalon. It appears that the writer is interested in importing some, if the price is reasonable. The baqarn is the dalbergia, brought from India and used for red colouring and also as a remedy for diarrhoea, apart from being used in carpentry. Traders were also interested in purchasingstrlt ‘anxartrt, which is sarcocolla, from which a medicamentforhealing wounds and eye-infections was derived.A shipment of dried clove bark - qivfa qaranjhl - was requested from Palestine, and the supplier in Fustat warns the interested merchant thatis ita very expensive item. In Ramla, a box of khiyir shanbar, ‘senna pods’ i.e. cassia, a remedy for constipation imported from Egypt, is offered for sale. The Jerusalemite ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, whom we know as the owner of a shop, asks Abiathar ha-Kohen (on 15 April 1071) to bring him two manns (slightly more than l’/zkilos) of t i n k i r (Persian, borax)from Fustat. Zadok ha-Kohen b. Elijah, writing in 1056 from Jerusalem to Fustat, evidently to his brother Abiathar, asks him to make every possible effort to sort out with the‘representative known as b. Sha‘ya’, that is, with the person who was apparently the ‘representativeof the merchants’in Fustat, the matter of the shernen rnejittarn which was oil combined with perfume essences, evidently awaited in Jerusalem. Qafir, sea-tar, though found in abundance on the shores of theDead Sea, is requested by Israel b. Nathan from Egypt, particularly the kind produced in Alexandria, for his sickly eyes. It was apparently the accepted practice to call it q a j al- Yatztrd, i. e. the Jews’ tar. Another import in the category of scents was the ‘trd, the aloe, which I have already referred to above. Isaac b. David b. Sughmar writes about this item (ca. 1045) to his partner Abu Sa‘id Makhliif b. Azariah in Jerusalem, after selling part of their stock ofaloe, while retaining partof it in Fustat; it appears from the letter that it is not worth exporting from there, as there is an enormous demand for it among the Byzantines, who even purchase its saw-dust. l 9 [354] Various jewels are mentioned in the Geniza letters from Palestine. 19

See Couret: La Palestine, 219ff on imports to Palestine before the Muslim period, and references therein. Abraham ‘the fourth’:230, line 12; in the continuation, lines 19-20, he recalls something else: ‘. . . and if you, our Gaon,will remember to send a bit of haldaj, for it cannot be found here’. Klrlt1 from the Maghrib: 426, lines 22, 4, 9 (’pckh, known as k~rhl’),Nehorai: 500, a, lines 25c see on ku(z1: Goitein, Parejajrrbilee Volrrme, I, 349 n. 1. The letter from Ascalon: 487, upper margin; see on baqarn: Zohary, 264: the genus of the Dalbergieae; Ducros, 5 5 , Hematoxylon Carnpechianrrnl L.; Goitein, Mediterrartear~ Society,I, 45. Inthe Mishna Commentary ascribed to Nathan, nv ofthe yeshiva, to Sukka,4, itis said of the eshkero‘a that it is baqnm; strlt ‘awzartit: 485, a, line 17, and see ibid. in the footnote. ari$ qararlfirl, ibid., b, lines 1-2, 8, and also the footnote. Khiyar shnbar: 445, lines 15fi see Maimonides, ‘Uqqiir, No. 387, and p. 194: Cassia-fistula (senna). The term in the letter is

243

THE E C O N O M Y

Israel b. Nathan indicates in his letter to Nehorai b. Nissim that the demand for rnivjiin, little pearls, is limited butnevertheless he advises him to bring some to Jerusalem with him (from which we may assume that Nehorai intended to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem), where he might come across some ‘ajam who would buy it - undoubtedlywiththe pilgrims in mind. The pearls.were apparently imported from the Maghrib, as one can surmise from another Israel of b. Nathan’s letters, in which he blames Labrat (of the Sughmir family) for the marred colour of the pearls he supplied.It is implied that hewas returning them to Fustat and he asks that theybe sold there and in exchange, to buy‘aqiq, carnelians, on his behalf. According to al-JZhiz, and also Suyiiti, who cites al-Kalbi, the meaning of rnivjan is little pearls, and the Yemen excelled in them. The carnelians were usually set in rings. Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, while still av-bet-din, wishes to invest money in carnelians and he asks Avon b. Sedaqa, who lives in Jerusalem,to write to Nehorai b. Nissim andask him to buy carnelians for him in Fustat. In the year 1057, we have an order from Fustat for sixty lined boxes madeof fine gold, to be sent to Tyreas soon as possible. We also find evidence of trading in zinc (tiitiya), which was imported from Fustat.*O [355] Whereas olive oil (xayt tayyib), as we have seen, was among the products exported fromPalestine, lighting oilwas imported from Egypt, where it was extracted from the seeds of radiciflorous plants, particularly from the Cruciferae; indeed it was actually called zayt bixv - ‘seed oil’. Musi b. Ya‘qub in 1057 orders a jar of this oil from Fustat. In a letter written by Moses b. Jacob in Jerusalem in June 1053, we come across an order for Egyptian products. asks He for a quarter ofa rnithqd (a little more than a gram) of myrobalan (halllaj Kibili) to be used as a medicine, rush mats (samiiv) which should be bought in Alexandria and are intended for the maghiiva, the synagogue in Jerusalem. In Fustat, one should buy five vatls of qivrniz shadiini, which is the crimson produced in Shadhuna in Spain. He also orders seven vatls of fine coloured silk made in Constantinople (hariv qtrsfantini mar in in the afternoon prayer for the 9th of Av;Pesiqata in Rabbati; in the book h a - y i s h ~ v 115f: , Halikhot qeZtrv6t ascribed to Yehudai Gaon. See the discussion in Zucker, Albeck Jubilee Volume, 378ff. What he wrote on the positive attitude of the Rabbanites towards the Karaite ‘mourners of Zion’ is not proven, and the sources he quotes use this designation without referring tothe Karaites atall. Similarly unfoundedarethecommentsof Grossman, Cathedra, 8(1977/8), 143, who also attempts to prove that there were also Rabbanite‘mournersofZion’.Nathanb. Isaac: 297; the letters of Moses b. Isaac: 298-301, in the firstof which the matter of the brothers from Warjliin figures; see Assaf, Meqorot, 49, on Warjliin and on the Karaites there (ata later period). The fragment TS AS 167.129 is also in the handwriting of Moses b. Isaac; it is possible to decipher there the expression devir nwquddish (‘the sanctified Temple’) and other expressions he was wont to use in his letters, such as: qrddirn hadhi’l-bayt al-mubirak(‘in front of this blessed house’); means twice al-tiGialjalil (‘the noble nisi‘) is mentioned there, by which he undoubtedly the rzisiof the Karaites in Egypt. In 300a, there are the usual ornate phrases about praying in Jerusalem and on the gates of the Temple,and he complains ofhisdistress which is due to thefact that he does not work earn to a living but prays all the time.300b, is also in his handwriting and was written for a certain Abraham b. Jacob, evidently also a Karaite living in Jerusalem, to the latter’s son in Fustat. Abraham ibn Ezra’s mention of ‘the heretics in Warjlan’ is interesting: (as it shouldbe read: to Ex.,xii:lO); cf. also Hirschberg, SirtaiJubilee Volume, 344f. Simon b. Saul: 457, a, lines 29ff. Cf. Ashtor, Qorot, 11, 141, 622

' A L I Y A A N D P I L G R I M A G E [ S E C S . 819-8341

ning of the eleventh century (before l O l O ) , incidentally describing his meeting with a proselyte in Jerusalem: 'and after coming fromDamascus to Egypt,I went to the Holy City, where I found him, for he had gone up to it withourbrethrenwhowentfrom Damascus to carry outthe pilgrimage (lah6g) there'. The first to 'go up' toJerusalem in the month of Tishri were naturally the Palestinians themselves. It seems that during one such pilgrimage, a quarrel broke out in the synagogue between people fromTyre and Tiberias, which is described by Hasanb. Mu'ammal ina letter written for him by 'Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, on 27 September 1052. They had to bring the @bib al-shuvta (the police commander) to the synagogue. People from distant Khurasiin also reached Jerusalem, as can be seen from Abrahamb. Solomon b. Judah's letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria, in which he asks for help for a man ofKhurasan,Samuel b. Sahl; the latter havingbrought with him a letter from Saadia b. Moses, of Seville, whom he evidently met somewhere en route. Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi writes about Rawh ha-Kohen the cantor b. Pinhas, who 'was exiled from the exile of Babylonia [! undoubtedly a distortion: gala (went intoexile) instead of 'ala (ascended, i.e. immigrated) to Palestine] to prostrate himself in Jerusalem and was lucky to go on pilgrimage a in the previous year'. There were those who came to Palestine in order to make a pilgrimageto Jerusalem and to pray and to conduct business, all at the same time. Ramla was their base for conducting business affairs, and from there theywould go up Jerusalem to for the Days of Awe and theFeast of theTabernacles. This is described in detail by Abraham, son of the Gaon, who refers to the most important of the Maghribis to have come from Ramla to Jerusalem: Abii'l-Khayr b. al-Tahirti, who is pronounced haver (heis Moses b. Abraham - Miisi b. Barhiin). Masliah b. Eliah, who is MaSliah b. Basaq, dayyin of Sicily, is involved with claims of theBaradani brothers of Tyreand stays inRamla in this connection, and seems to have been on a pilgrimage at the time, although he may have actually settled in Palestine after the disturbing events in Sicily in the mid-eleventh century. We also encounter Karaite pilgrimages. David b. Hayyiin, a Karaite from Tripoliin Libya was such a pilgrim andhe writes to the Karaite leader there and thankshim for theaid sent him through the writer's nephew Ismi'il, and promises to pray for him onthe Mount of Olives and on the Gates of Mercy and sends greetings to the entire congregation. Mahbiib b. Nissim the cantor, a Maghribi Karaite, describes his pilgrimage in a letter to a certain Abii'l-Faraj in Fustat. After portraying the vicissitudes of the journey and his losses, he referring to the Ibn Fadinj family, which is mentioned in the thirteenth century: documents signed by Solomon b. Fadinq (1205); a matter of property belonging toIsaac b. Fadinq (1254).

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

announces that he has decided to stay in Palestine when his ship reaches Jaffa. He stayed in Jerusalemfrom 1 Kislev until the middle of Tevet.lol [829] NiiSir Khusraw notes that many Christians and Jews come on pilgrimages to Palestine from regions of Byzantium and other countries, in order‘to visit ‘the church’ (kalisi) and the synagogue (ktrnisht). I have already mentioned the advantage the Jews had over the Christians, in that they did not have to pay a tax in order to enter Jerusalem, for taxes thepaid by the Jews ofJerusalem also gave the Jewish pilgrims the toright enter the city. There were undoubtedly Jewish pilgrims from Europe as well, though little has reached us on the subject. Above, I have referred to one such pilgrim, Yeda‘yi of Narbonne. What Jonah ibn Janiih writes in the first half of the eleventh century in the S e f r ha-riqrni about a Jerusalem book which ‘Mr Jacob ha-bogeg hlywny brought us from Bet ha-rniqdish Uerusalem] which was in his own handwriting’ should actually be read ha-liiuini, that is, ‘the pilgrim, theLevite’, for thisis what they usedto call the Levites. Hence he was not a man from Leon in Spainor fromLyons in France. There is also a letter of recommendation from the communityof Salonika to a man ‘from the community of Riisiyah’, evidently Russia, who wanted tomake a pilgrimage, probably from the thirteenth century (as opposed toMann’s assumption that it was ‘certainly’ from the eleventh century). It was common practice in times of distress to make a vow to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and pray there for deliverance. A pilgrim in similarcircumstances,evidently from a Christianland,writestothe community inAlexandria afterhis ship sank near the coast of their city; he was miraculously saved, and was in hidingfrom the authorities who had imposed a high tax on him: hence ‘I have madea vow to go Jerusalem’. to 101

The scroll of Ahima‘as (Klar), 15. Samuelb. Isaac: ULC O r 1080 J 115. Hasanb. Mu’ammal: 436. Another such Palestinian pilgrim was evidently Boaz the cantor b. David, of Biniyis, who signed as witness on a deed in Ramla on 17 October1056, at the court of Daniel b. Azariah; see 391, lines 21, 27 (his signature in Ramla), and608, line 34 (his signature in Biniyis, on 11 July of the same year); cf. Braslavi, Le-heqer, 74, n. 5. Khurisin: 138, line 20; Mann read Khayriwin and assumed that it wasQayrawin, see: Jews, I, 102; and following him Hirschberg,Eretz Israel, 5(1958/9), 217, n. 35, who finds here an example of the connections between Palestine and the Maghrib. Rawh ha-Kohen: 212, lines 26f. Moses al-Tihirti: 141, lines 2, 4-5. There seems to be some truth in a ‘go up’ to Jerusalem fragment ofSefer hasdim (169, No. 630) on Hayy Gaon, who would on the Feast of Tabernacles (every year! - which is undoubtedly highly exaggerated), and would participate in going round the Mount of Olivesseven times, and preceding him were the k5hanrm (of the family of the Gaon Samuel ha-Kohen b. Joseph?); ibid. also contains a strange story on a conversation in Jerusalem between Hayy Gaon and a criminal; cf Epstein, MGWJ, 47(1903), 342f. Ben-Sasson, Zion, 51(1986), 396-399, finds in this story andin the mention of the kohatzim, echoes of the epistle ofHayy Gaon ‘tothe unruly k5haniin of Ifriqiyi’(see: Lewin, GinzZqedern, 4[1929/30], 51-56). He assumes that the source of the story lay in Hayy Gaon’s opposition to the family of k5hunim who took over the Palestinian yeshiva in the eleventh century,descendants ofJoseph ha-Kohen b.

' A L I Y A A N D P I L G R I M A G E [ S E C S . 819-8341

Above, we have seen the story of Israel b. Nathan, who made a vow to stay in Jerusalem should he be saved from a Byzantine jail. A calamity befell Moses b. Abraham(the aforementionedMiisa b. Bahiin) al-Tahirti, a relative of Nehorai b. Nissim, when the son offamily the died.In view of this tragedy, Moses he-haver b. Jacob he-haver, a Maghribi ofJerusalem, writes to Nehoraib. Nissim that the days of mourning would be the most appropriate time to come on a pilgrimage. In another letter, the same Moses b. Jacob tells of how much of an effort-he is making to prepare properhousingfor Miis2 b. Barhiinal-Tahirtiinanticipation of his pilgrimage. He considered renting the same apartment for him in which he had stayed himself when hehad comeon pilgrimage previously, but in the meantime it had been let to someoneelse. Hence, he has rented another apartment forMiis5 and keeps it for himeven though he is tarrying so long and the apartment stands empty. Barhiin al-Tahirti assures Nehorai, after he arrives in Jerusalem, that he carefully fulfils his promises to himevery day- by which he means that he says prayers for him, particularly that a son shouldbe born to him,and for this reason, he also intends to go to the 'graves of thepatriarchs', that is to Hebron. Some hundredyears earlier, Sahl b. Masliah ridiculed the Rabbanites for a similar practice: 'they are idolaters . . . sitting at the graves. . . pleading with the dead and saying: Oh, Rabbi Yose ha-Gelili! heal me, make me pregnant.'lo* [830]At times, the pilgrimswould describe in their letters something of their experiences and life in Jerusalem. Solomonb. Moses Safaqusi writes enthusiastically to Nehorai b. Nissim on 26 December 1059 about the view of the Holy City; he also mentions the snowstorm they encountered on the way to Jerusalem. To judge by his description, itseems to have been a particularly hard winter that year, with endless rain and snow. Healso says that in order to get chickens, he had to go down to Ramla. It is

IO2

Menahem; cf. also Bornstein, Sokolowjubilee Volume, 175f. Masliah b. Eliah: 426. David b. Hayyiin: 290. Mahbiib: 292. Nisir Khusraw (text), 20; (translation), 66C cf. Starr, Jews, 197 (No. 142). Jonah ibn Janih, Sefer ha-riqm5, I, 338; cf. in the Hebrew Index: 'Eli b. Joseph, al-parnis al-Liwini; and Sefer ha-yishuv, 39, n. 29. The Russian: Bod1 (Cat.) 2862 No. 26, fs. 71b-72a, edited by Marmorstein, REJ, 73(1921), 94f and by Mann, Jews, 11, 192, and see the note of b. Judah Goitein in the Preface, ibid.; also 'the placard of aJerusalem pilgrim' of Abraham the Spaniard 'from the city of Ji'in', TS Box K 21,f. 9, edited by Eliash, Sefirnot, 2(1957/8), 24, in a handwriting thatseems to be from the thirteenth century, and not from the eleventh century, as stated ibid., 10. The vow:403; also edited by Assaf, Meqcircit, 59f, see line 3; this pilgrim requests aid from the Alexandria community, and it is not clear why Assaf assumed that it was referring to a locality near Alexandria; see ibid., lines 16-17: 'I wrote this letter to be my mouth, for I do not know your language', from which one may assume that he was from a Christian country (as Assaf also assumed). Moses he-hiver: 460, a, lines 22fc 461, lines 16ff uuly 1053). Barhiin al-Tihirti to Nehorai:458, a, lines 25fC b, line 10. Sahl b. Masliah: Pinsker, LiqqiiF qadmciniycit, 11, 32.

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

interesting to note that some of pilgrims’ the letters, suchas this latter one, show that pilgrimages were not restricted to the holiday season but that pilgrims went up to Jerusalem at any time the possibility arose, even during the winter. This may also have been due to the fact thatthe merchants were less occupied with their business during the winter, as there was no possibility of travelling by sea then. Nehorai b. Nissim also made a pilgrimageto Jerusalem, which we learn of in the letter from Salsma b. Nissim b. Isaac, writing to him from BiiSir, the flax centre in Egypt: ‘and you noted [in your letter] the matterof your return from Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt. . . and your coming toFustat . . . may the Almighty God gladly accept your pilgrimageand show you and us Jerusalem rebuilt’. In a fragment ofa letter whose writeris unknown, addressed to a cousin (on the mother’s side: ‘daughter of my mother’s sister’, hint k h d a t i ) we read: ‘Almighty God may grant that you go up to Jerusalem and see the tomb of Eleazar [?I, thegates of mercy and theplace of the altar and the Mount of Olives and Rachel’s tomb, may she rest in peace, and the graves of our ancestors, may they rest in peace’, and so on. lo3 [831] The Mount of Olives was the centre for congregating and praying during pilgrimages in themonth of Tishri. Some thought that the reason for this was the gradual exclusion of the Jews from the Temple Mount. However, it seems that the practice of gathering on the Mount of Olives had earlier roots. In Talmudic literature, we already find the descriptionof the passing of theShekhina (DivinePresence) from the Temple Mount to the Mount of Olives: ‘R. Yohanan said: for three years and a half the Shekhina stayed continuouslyon the Mount Olives, of and was crying out three times a day, and proclaiming as follows’, and so on. The idea of considering the Divine Presence as residing on the Mount of Olives is anchored in the homilies of Talmudicliterature concerning verse xi:23 in the book ofEzekiel: ‘And the gloryof theLord went up from the midst of the city, andstood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city.’ In Karaite commentaries as well, we find similar interpretations. This is how Salmon b. Yeruhim interprets the verse: ‘this means that from the eastern gate it movedto the city andfrom thecity to the Mount of Olives and from the Mount of Olives passed to the gates of Paradise, as it is written: I will go and return to myplace’ (Hos., v:15). During the period under discussion,we findthe mostancient evidence ofJews prayingon the Mount ofOlives in the letter of the Palestinian Gaon to the Babylonians, at the time of the dispute over the calendar: ‘and we blessed you on the Mount of Olives opposite God’s Temple’; ‘we pray for you very often, lo3

Solomon b. Moses: 490. Salima: TS 12.793, lines 5fc the formula of the blessingis certainly influenced by what wasaccepted among the Muslims. Theletter to the cousin:

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and also for your honoured elders, on the Mount of Olives, opposite God’s Temple, the place which served as the foot-stool for our God’. In the same vein,Josiah Gaon writes,to Nethanel b. Aaron, about a hundred years later: ‘our prayers and blessings are alwaysfor youin Jerusalem and on the Mount ofOlives during the holidays among all the congregations of our brethrenIsrael’. In around 1029, Solomon b. Judah writes that in Jerusalem they would persevere in mentioning the communitiesin Fustat (Miyayirn), and especially in mentioning the name of Ephraim b. Shemaria ‘among the entire congregation and on every holiday and on the Mount of Olives’. In a letter to Sahlin b. Abrahamin ca. 1035, he mentions going up to the Mount of Olives ‘singing’, as well as the gathering thereduring the holidays: ‘and their ascent to the Mount of Olives in song, and their stance there facing the Temple of God on the holidays, the place of the Divine Presence, his strength and footstool’.In another letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria, he notes that benedictions were said for Ephraim (on the Mount of Olives) on ‘the day of hosha‘na’, and in yet another letter the ascent to the Mount of Olives on hosha‘na vabba (the seventh day of the Feast of Tabernacles) is described. lo4 [832] In a letter from the yeshiva, evidently written in 1057, we find similar details: the tax which the Jews of Jerusalem pay entitles them ‘to encircle the gates and standon the Mount ofOlives prayingout loud’;‘also in the lesser temple [undoubtedly the synagogue] also on the Mount of Olives in the congregation of our brethren of the House of Israel in the month ofTishri’; ‘this is the place we pray inon the holidays facing God’s Temple on theday of hosha‘na and there benedictions are said for all the House of Israel’; the contributors to the welfare ofJerusalem shall merit being mentioned during the gathering on the Mount of Olives. In the letter itsays that at the time ofthe Muslim conquest(‘when they stretched out their hands andtook Palestine from the Edomites’) the Jews came ‘and bought the Mount of Olives, where the Divine Presence stood, asis written: And the glory of the Lord’, etc. ‘For three years it has been proclaiming as follows: turn, 0 ye backsliding children (Ez., iii:l4), but they turned a cold shoulder and did not hear or listen; and then He said: I will go and return to myplace’ etc. This matter of‘buying’ the Mount of Olives should naturallybe understood as acquiring theright, orobtaining an agreement. A fewyears after this letter, ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel writes TS AS 162.167, lines 8ff. There is no absolute certainty that it is from the eleventh century; on the verso, one can see the nameAbu’l-Fad], perhaps the name of the writer. Cf. the article of Hirschberg, BJPES, 13(1946/7): 156. See the saying of R. Yohanan: Pesiqiti de-R. Kahana (Buber?), 103a. and see the notes to the text ibid., Nos. 10S105; (Mandelbaum),234; BT, Rosh hash. 31a; cf. Urbach, Sages, 54f, and n.65; see Avotde-R. Narltan (Schechter),ch.xxxiv(p. 102) andthe editor’s notes 33 and 38. Salmonb. Yeruhim, Commentary to Lamentations (Feuerstein), XXI.See the letterof thePalestinian

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from Jerusalem to ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim in Fustat, that he prays for him while goingaround thegates of the Temple Mount and on the Mount of Olives, theplace of the DivinePresence. There is no question but that the month of Tishri, the timepilgrimages for and gatheringon the Mount of Olives, was the most important time of the year, and a month of considerable activity and bustle for the people of theyeshiva. Evidenceof this can be seen in a letter fromIsrael b. Nathan to his cousin Nehorai b. Nissim, written from Jerusalem in October1059, in which he apologises Gaon on a query on a for not having been ableto get a responsum from the halakhic matterfrom Nehorai; theGaon wasnot free during the month of Tishri, ‘becauseall his activities are in that month’. As one could see from the commentary of Salmon b. Yeruhim quoted above, the Karaites also maintained the custom of going up to the Mount of Olivesand indeed, Sahl b. MaShah also mentions the ascent. I have already mentioned the cheese made by the Karaites ‘produced on the Mount of Olives’. In his letter, the Karaite David b. Hayyiin speaks ofhis prayers while going up to the Mount of Olives. I have already discussed the matter ofthe proclamation of the calendrical order and the fact that this was done on the Mount of Olives, the first mention of which find we in the literature dealing with thequarrel over the calendar. The custom of the gathering of the Jews on last the day of the Feast of Tabernacles was well known. Al-Biriini, who was a contemporary of Solomon b. Judah, knew that ‘the last day of the holiday of Succoth, that is the seventh day of the holiday and the 21st day of the month, is called ‘aviifi (he means, of course, ‘aviivii), on the day the quails were over the heads of the banii isva’d in the desert and on which the holiday of the congregationfalls, because on that day theJews gather on the hiir havii in Jerusalem as pilgrims and they walk around the iiviin [the ark]which is intheirsynagogues,which is likethe minbav [ofthe Muslims]’. Mas‘iidi, who lived about a hundred years earlier, during the first halfof the tenth century, also notes that the Mount of Olives faces the qibla (the directionfaced during prayers) of the Jews, exactly in the way it is described in the writings of the Jews, that itis ‘opposite the Temple’. Contrary tothis, Ibn al-Faqih (in the latter halfof the ninth century) does not mention Jewsin connection with the Mount of Olives, but does state that situated on its peak is a mosque built by ‘Umar at the time of the conquest (whichis not mentioned in any other source) aand church, from whichJesusascended to heaven. As to AbiiBakribn al-‘Arabi, the Spaniard who stayed in Jerusalem but a few years before the Crusaders’ conquest, the thing which he found interesting there was the ‘table’, that Gaon in Bornstein, S o k o Z o ~ J ~ b i l eVolume, e 63, 107. JosiahGaon: 32. Solomon b. Judah: 89, lines 23-25; 105, lines 16-17; 112, lines 13-14; 122.

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is, the very hard rock on which heusually ate, for itemerges that helived on the Mount ofOlives. This rock was formed, accordingto the Muslim traditionists, ‘whenits owners became monkeys and swine’ (here there is a clear hint at the Jews, see the Koran: vii: 163-169, the aforementioned story which Muslim tradition relates to Eilat). Accordingto him,people’s dwellings on the mount were hewn into the stone and the dust which accumulated, would also turn into stone, and frequently the dust surrounding a door would petrify to the extent that the door could no longer be opened from withinand would cause someone’s death. He was always careful to leave a stone thesize of an eighth ofa dirham at the entrance, in ordertopreventthedoorfrom closing altogether.Mujir al-Din al‘Ulaymi, who wrote close to the year 1500, notes that at the top of the Mount of Olives is the grave of U m m al-Khayr, who was Ribi‘a, daughter of Ismi‘il, a woman from Basra who converted to Islam and was a client of the ‘Aqil family. She died in 185, that is, 801, and her graveis near the site ofJesus’ ascent to heaven, to the south.lo5 [833] A favouriteplace of prayer in Jerusalem, apart from the Mount of Olives, was the gates oftheTempleMount. Daniel b. Azariah, for instance, notes inone ofhis letters that he prayed ‘at the gates of theLord’s house’ and at ‘the resting place of my forefathers’, that is, alongside the tombs of the houseof King David. We are not aware of whichsuch site was indicated at that time. Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon‘prostrates himself before thegates of His sanctuarywith supplications, falls down at the gates, caresses the stones [and prays]at the spot where theshelzhrnii of God stood [thatis, the Mount ofOlives]’. Av6n b. Sedaqa would usually pray near the gates, and it seems that he preferred themto the synagogue. Shemaiah he-haver, writing to Nehorai b. Nissim, mentions thathe prays for himdaily ‘at the gates of the Temple . . . and on the Mount of Olives’. It was the customto pronounce the excommunication of Karaites the on the Mount ofOlives during the gatheringthere. Concerning this excommunication, Abraham ibnDa’iid tells us: ‘when the Jews used to celebrate the festival ofTabernacles on the MountOlives, of they would encamp on themountainingroupsandgreetoneanotherwarmly. The heretics would encamp opposite them, like two little flocks of goats. Then the Rabbanites would take out a scroll of the Torah and excommunicate the heretics by name right to their faces, while the latter remained silent like lo5

420, c, lines 8-21; d, lines 3 - 4 , 32-33; cf. also the statement of Salmon b. Yeruhim above. ‘Eli ha-Kohen: 451, a, line 12. Israel b. Nathan: 469, a, lines 22-25. More interesting

evidence: Miisi b. Abi’l-Hayy Khalila, of the Maghribi merchants, writes in 1059 to Nehorai b. Nissim and notes that he rode up to the mount (the Mount of Olives);see: Bod1 MS Hebd 75, f. 20,a, lines 8-9; cf. Udovitch, in Ztufividuulism etc., 67, n. 13; Sahl b. Mazliah, in Harkavy, Me’ussZJ No. 13, 204. David b. Hayyiin: 290, line 8; Biruni, 277. Mas‘iidi, Tunbi‘h, 143. Ibn al-Faqih, 172. Ibn al-‘Arabi, Al;tkim, 523f. ‘Ulaymi, 258.

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

dumb dogs’. As I have already mentioned, this custom was the sourceof serious quarrels which even caused a division among the Rabbanites and brought about the intervention of the authorities, and the arrest and exile of some of people the of theyeshiva. The Mount of Olives was also the site of proclaiming the yeshiva’s appointments and the of titles honour granted to the devotees of the yeshiva in the communities. O n the Mount of Olives, there wasa stone, ten cubits in length and two cubits wide, which was called ‘the chair of the cantors’. It was believed that this seat was lying where the Divine Presence had stood for a period of more than three and a half years (according to Ezekiel and the homily I quoted above), and where it would return in the future. This was the site where the head of the yeshiva would preach during the gathering. Solomon b. Judah writes: ‘so I stood upon the chair’.” [834] There is no doubtthat the pilgrimages were of great significanceto the statusof the Palestinian yeshiva, its material and spiritual influence and strength. Hence, we naturally find repeated calls from the Palestinian yeshiva to awake and ‘come to Jerusalem’, that is, to come ona pilgrimage. In the autumn of1039, at the height of the quarrel betweenhim and Solomon b. Judah, Nathan b. Abraham writes to ‘the yedtd (friend) of the yeshiva’, undoubtedly one ofhis followers, and he reminds him that the holidays are approaching, that ‘all of Israel’ would be shortly coming on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It would be a good thing if many ofhis true and genuine supporters would be prominent among the pilgrims, and the addressee should make every effort to recruit a large number ofhiscircle in order that ‘they should make up the majority and not the lesser part’. He asks that the people of his faction should convene a general assembly to discuss organisational arrangements for this purpose,to composea list of participants, and to try to make propaganda to attract the largest number of people. Daniel b. Azariah, in one of his letters, expresses satisfactionat the success of the mass pilgrimage at the beginning of his office as Gaon and particularly at the calm andpeaceful atmosphere among those taking part. ‘Not a bad word was spoken between two Jews. The pilgrims ascendedin song andprayerandwent to theirtentshappyand good-tempered. ’ lO6

Daniel b. Azariah: 379, line 8. Josephha-Kohen: 411, lines 35-36. Avon b.Sedaqa: 503, b, lines 27ff. In the same letter, he says that he also intends visiting ‘the graves of the patriarchs’, that is, Hebron. Shemaiah he-haver: 519. Abraham b. Da’iid, Seferha-qabbda, 68, see the editor’s notes there, 94, 127 (in the English part); see also Mann,]ews, I, 135f; on the excommunication see mainly: 85, 122, 182;the latter source contains a lively desholidays, cription of the ascent to the Mountof Olives in Tishri, in order to proclaim the with the blowing of the shofar, when Abraham, sonof the Gaon,leads the pilgrims;and also a description of the pronouncing of the excommunication of Karaites. the The ‘chair of the cantors’: 2,a verso,lines 8ff. Solomon b. Judah: 85, line 13; the customof thehead of the yeshiva preaching on the Mount on Hosha‘na rabba (standing on

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The pilgrimages involved greatdifficulties and innumerable hardships, partly because the sea-ways were risky, and this was the major means of reaching Palestine. It seems thatpilgrimsseldom travelled by camel caravan - partly due to the dangers encountered while travelling by land, for the roads were frequently troubled by troops or brigands. Hardships of the kind encountered by the Christian pilgrims, especially the caravan of pilgrims led by Gunther, Bishop of Bamberg, who were attacked near Ramla in March1065 (see above), were evidently not fate the of the Jewish pilgrims. The latter were generally inhabitants of the Muslim worldand were well acquainted with the conditions of the region. Many of them used to traveland visit Palestine regularlyforcommercialpurposes. However, weare aware of the fact that the number ofpilgrims decreased in insecure times. Solomon b. Judah writes to Sahliin b. Abraham, leader of the Babylonians in Fustat, saying, ‘I will not conceal from youthat even those pilgrims who came everyyear have stopped comingbecause of the warring troops and the impassable roads.’ There is also a complaint about the straitened circumstancesof the ‘pilgrims [who] this year were mostly takers [and not givers]; this is their way in their folly’ - as Solomon b. Judah writes to Ephraim b. Shemaria. In the letters from the eleventh century in my collection, we do nothear of local Christians mistreating the Jewish pilgrims in Jerusalem. However, the Karaite Sahl b. Mazliah wrote about this in the tenth century in his Hebrew introduction to his Book of Precepts: ‘and when the women gothere, the ‘ a d i t n [the uncircumcised] come out . . . to damn, offend and curse’. To sum up, one may say that at the time of the period under discussion, from the Muslimconquest until the Crusaders’ conquest, Jewish pilgrimage went on continuously,as long as external circumstances permitted. It was one of the major expressions of the continuity of Jewish life in the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. Pilgrimage was also an oft-repeated practical expression of theJews of thediaspora’s deep spiritual ties with Jerusalem.lo’ Burial in Palestine

[835] The Jewish custom of bringing thedead to be buried in Palestine was already common in antiquity, as exemplified by the graves of the

lo7

‘the chair’): Abraham son of the Gaon, 141, lines 9-10; an Arab source mentions thektrrsr sulaymiin, Solomon’s chair, on the Mount of Olives,see al-Musharraf, Fadii’il, 47b. See the call of Solomon b. Judah (ca. 1035): 121, lines 24-28. Nathan b. Abraham: 187. Daniel b. Azariah: 365, lines 12ff Solomon b. Judah: 88, a, lines 14-15. The majority are poor: 112, lines 11-12; Mann,jews, I, 164, did not grasp the significance of the letter and saw init an expression of the division between factions; what seems ato be description of the hardships suffered by a pilgrim, can be found in the letter of ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel to Abii’l-Suriir Farah b.Isaac, 447. See also 403, the story of the difficultiesa pilgrim of -

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fathers of the nation and borne out by the cemetery in Bet Shearim. It seems that in those generations, they adhkred to a distorted version of the saying of R. Meir, thetanni of thesecond century, who said that whoever lives in Palestine ‘is certain to 6e resurrected in the world to come’. The sages of Palestine even treatedwith contempt those who lived abroad and were broughtafter their death,t Q defile the soil of Palestine. However, we know that a verydifferent attitude evolvedat the same time,especially in Babylonia, which was that burial in Palestine was akin to being ‘buried under the altar’. The Karaite ‘Ali b. Sulayman, in the latter half of the eleventh century, confirms the existence of the custom of burial in Palestine in his time. Muslim writers also bear witness to the fact. Al-Jahi? attributes this custom to the descendants of Aaronand David (that is, the priests and the exilarchs) specifically, and he goes into detail and says that they are taken outtheir of graves after one year andbrought somewhere in al-Sham for another year and from there, they are taken to the Bayt al-Maqdis (meaning Jerusalem). An inscription on a tomb in Venosa in southern Italy, of acertain R. Abraham, who died in theyear 753 from the destruction of the Temple, that is 821, ends with the words:‘and whoever shall carry him to the Temple will be inscribed among those destined to live in Jerusalem’. In a Karaite memorial list of an unidentifiable date, mention is made of‘his great sanctity Aaron the physician,who is buried in the Holy Land, may God have mercy on his soul’. He had been a member of the al-Kaziriini family(from Kaziriin in Persia), well known in Fustat, and was evidently takento Palestine to be buried there. In 1006, a childless woman in Fustat bequeaths in a death-bed testament, two qirits (that is, one twelfth) a of compound belonging to her, to ‘be sold and used to bring my bones to Jerusalem, the Holy City’. In around 1020, the Nagid of the Maghrib, Abraham b. ‘Atii’, thanks the merchant Joseph b. Jacob ibn ‘Awkal in Fustat for having dealt with the transfer of his brother’s remains from Qayrawan to Jerusalem, and he asks him to compensate Abii Ibrahim Ishaq b.al-Sahl, evidently a Jerusalemite, for his efforts and expenses in connectionwith this burial. A woman ofFustat authorises an emissary to spend up to seventeen dinars to ‘uncover the bones’ of her husband Nathan (Hiba) ha-Levi and move them to Jerusalem. One can assume that wills requesting the transfer of bones to Jerusalem were generally executed, because this matter was treated with awe, as emerges from a responsum ofan anonymous Gaon to a query regarding a certain Jacob, who appointed overhis two sons ‘trustees . . . and ordered his two sons to take his bones to Palestine’. The Gaon replies that ‘thisis the law of the Torah, thathis sons should carry outhis wishes . . . it is imperative to evidently from aChristian country- who was stuck in Alexandria,as mentioned above. Sahl b. MaSliah, in Harkavy, Me’assZjNo. 13, 204.

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carry out thewishes of thedead to take his bones to the Temple’ (that is, to Palestine, as it was commonly used by the Arabs as well), and so on. A letter from the communityGaza, in written by Josiahhe-haver b. Nathan, to the court in Fustat, mentions Mevorakh b. Nathan of Gaza, who is travelling to Egypt in, connection with the inheritance of his brother ‘Amram, who died in the Fayyiim, and also in order to ‘carry his coffin’. Apparently thereis an indication here that he intends to buryhis brother in Palestine. In the succeeding centuries,Hebron was the city whereJews wished to be buried; but burials in Hebron are not mentioned in the sources of the period under discussion. Thus it says in the commentary of Solomonb. ha-Yitom to the tractate Mashqin (apparently in the first half of the twelfth century):‘as isdone still todayin all the neighbourhood of Hebron . . . sending their deadto Hebron’. This informationis qaes6onable as the Crusaders controlled Palestine at the time, and it is possible that an earlier tradition is reflected here. Moses Nahmanides writes ain letter tohis son in 1267, that he now travels to Hebron ‘the city of the graves of our forefathers, to prostratemyself before them and to diga grave for me there’. lo* [836] Muslim tradition adopted the idea of the preference of being buried in Jerusalem. Nisir Khusraw, the Persian traveller who visited lo*

The saying ofR. Meir: ‘Everyone who lives permanentlyin Palestine’:PT, Shabbat, i, 3c; see ibid., Kil’ayim, ix, 32d, where they speak of the dead of the diaspora who are buried in Palestine (according to Jer. ii:7): ‘ye defiledmy land, andmade mine heritage an abomination’. Toseja, Av. Z., v:3 (Zuckerm. 466); BT, Ket. 1lOb-llla. See also ‘the most Babylonian’ version: ‘Whoeveris buried in any other country is like buried in Babylonia, and whoever is buried in Babylonia is like buried in Palestine’, in Avot de-R. Nathan (Schechter ed., 82); cf. Urbach, Sages, 998, n.87,and more references ibid. ‘Alib. SulaymZn, hisCommentary on Genesis, 156. JShiz,Rasl’il 11, 411; on the Jewish custom of burying their dead in Palestine see also Tadmuri, MS BM O r 1284, 74b (They do so according to the precedent of the burial ofJacob); Ibn Bibawayh al-Qummi, ‘Zlal, 296f (according to theprecedent of the burial ofJoseph); he speaks of ahl al-kitcib, ‘people of the book’, but it is clear that he means the Jews and not (also) the Christians, as believed by Mez, 372. The Venosa inscription: S e j r ha-yishuv, 40 (according to U. Cassuto’s reading). The Karaite memorial list: Mann, Texts, 11, 281, MS Firkovitch 11, No. 1464, fol. Fustat: 18a, andcf. on Kaziriin andKZziriinis: Gil, Documents, 286, n. 3. The woman from Document No. 1, ibid. (edited earlier by Assaf, Tarbiz, 9[1937/8], 206ff). Abraham b. ‘Ati’: TS 10 J 9, f. 26, lines lOff., see in Goitein, Tarbiz, 34(1964/5), 166f. The wife of Nathan ha-Levi: ULC O r 1080J 262, quoted by Goitein, SeJirnot, 8(1963/4), 107, n. 5. The letter of a Maghribi merchant to his son in Fustat, deals among otherthings, with the burying of the bones of a deceased in Jerusalem. We find there a passage in which he informs him that he intends sending him ‘the bones. Go to with Jerusalem, them mayi_tbe rebuilt’, etc.It was writtenca. 1050. See TS 8J 18, f. 16. The responsum of the Gaon: Osar (BZt haha-ge’onlm, Gittin, No. 56 (p. 25)see ibid., quotations in which the Temple miqdiish) means Palestine;cf. further onthis: Assaf, Tarbiz, ibid., 19; andsee also MaimoGazan, 219, lines 5-6. The Commentary on nides, Responsa I, 200. Mevorakh b. Nathan the Mashqln of Solomon b. ha-YitGm, p. XIII; cf. Hirschberg, Tarbiz, 42(1972/3), 385. See the letter of Moses Nahmanides according to a Munich manuscript, in Kedar, Tarbiz, 41(1971/2), 93.

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Palestine in 1047, mentions that many (Muslims) come to Jerusalem, because they believe that the resurrection of the dead will start from the ‘rock’ and that the Muslim cemetery is thus tobe foundat the edge of the plateau, on the Mount of Olives. According to al-wasiti, writing in ca. 1020, the cemeteryis situated in Mamilla (he has: xayttcn al-rnilla, ‘the olive trees of the religion’, a commonly used distortion of the name Mamilla, as is also another version: bab nl-milla). He also goes into detail over the advantages of being buried in Jerusalem. Accordingto al-Zarkashi (writing in the fourteenth century), person the being buried in Jerusalem is not (fitnut al-qabv), and if he subjected to the purgatorial torments of the tomb was buried in theraytuvz ul-rnillu, it wouldbe as if hewas buried in heaven. It is attributed toKa‘b al-Ahbar that for whoeveris buried in Jerusalem,it is asif hehas already gone down the straight road,Jerusalem for is the land resurof the resurrection (al-mahshar, ‘the gathering’, the by-name for the rection of thedead at the End of Days). And for whoever dies in Jerusalem, so said the Prophet, it is as if he died in heaven. Apart from the many Muslim personalities buried in Jerusalem,whom we have seen in thelists of personalities above, thedesire to be buried there was most marked among theIkhshidids. Even before their time, Takin, who had been governor ofDamascus and afterwards of Egypt,was buried there. He died in Egypt in AH 321, that is AD 933, and was brought to Jerusalem to be buried. It is told thatthis Takin quarrelled with one of the leaders of the Sufis, the ascetic Abii’l-Hasan ‘Ali b. Muhammad b. Sahl al-Dinawari, who was a silversmith by profession (he died in AH 331, that is A D 942/3). Takin ousted him to Jerusalem. Some timelater, exactly as foretoldbyal-Dinawari,Takin’s coffin arrivedinJerusalem,and on reaching the city, it fell from theback of the mule, and the animal urinated on it. The Ikhshid who died in Damascus on Dhii’l-HijaAH 334 (JulyAD 946)’ was also brought to Jerusalem and buried there. His brother, alHasan ibn Tughj, was also buried in Jerusalem (he died in Ramla inA H 342, that is AD 953/4), as were the Ikhshid’s sons, Antijfir, on 7 Dhii’lQa‘da A H 347 (20January AD 959)’ and ‘Ali, on 11 Muharram AH355 (8 January A D 966), and the regentof Egypt, Kaffir, in AH 356, that is AD 967. NiSir Khusraw (text), 20, (translation), 68; it seems that his intention is al-sihira, the plateau on the northern part of the Mount of Olives; cf. Le Strange, Palestine, 218ff. Wisifi, 46f, and see the editor’s note there. Zarkashi, I‘lirn, 294.In Mujir al-Dinal‘Ulaymi’s time, the cemetery wasnear bib al-rahma, that is, east of the Temple Mount, apparently in the Kidron Valley, for heindicates: under thewall of al-Masjid al-Aq$i (see ibid., 233, 413). Takin: Dhahabi, ‘Ibar, 11, 186. The storyof the Sufi: Suyiiti, MuI@dara, I, 514; Ashtor, A n d e s ESC, 27(1972),187, n. 14, sees in this evidence thatthe Sufis preferred to live in Jerusalem; but this is not stated there, nor even hinted at; more on Takin: Ibn Taghri Bardi,111, 21 1:Takin died on 16 Rabi‘ I, 321, 16 March AD 933. The Ikhshid: Yafi‘i, 11, 315; Dhahabi, ‘Ibar, 11, 186; IbnSa‘id, Mtrghrib, 44 (accordingto him he

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[837] The burying of Muslims on the Temple Mount its environs or was undoubtedly very painful to the Jews of that time, as must have been the presence of many Christian graves from pre-Islamic times. This is confirmed in Karaite Bible commentaries of the tenth century. Salmon b. Yeruhim complains about ‘the graves of theuncircumcised and theKedalarge number ofunclean rites’ to be seen in Jerusalem; there are in the acity things, ‘and women and men with issues, and menstruating women and lepers and uncircumcised ones, camels and asses and coffins of the dead, and male prostitutes and homosexuality, and blaspheming and cursing, and pronouncements of idolatry and of the false prophet, and the eastern gate, the place of Meshelemiah, the porter [l Chr., xxvi:l],has become a latrine for the Ishmaelites, and all the monuments of the House of God have become graves of the wicked’. And in the same commentary: ‘The House of God.. . lo, it is now an altar for the sonsof Hagarinstead of the sons of Aaron, its servants; lo, the uncircumcised and the unclean enter there insteadof sacrifice and altar. . . and within they proclaim the name of a statue anda false prophet five timesa day . . . lo, they bring the coffins of the dead within and pray over them every day . . . and lo, there are in their stead, cemeteries at thegates’. Elsewhere, he speaksof ‘the ‘ur&n and the unclean, and the images, and people with issues, and lepers, and adultery, and man lying with man, and privies, and they pray over the dead in its courtyards, and proclaim in the memory of an idol a false andprophet five times a day’. Sahl b. Masliah, inhis introduction to his Book ofPrecepts, also speaks of the heart-break of ‘the mourning brethren’ on ‘seeing the coffins of thedead beingbrought into the place where the holy ark stood’. In the same vein, Yefet b. ‘Ali also has his say: ‘the castrated and the unclean and the coffins of the dead and the sodomites and those who commit abominable acts, are instead of the ark of God’. In the eleventh century wefind such complaints only on oneoccasion, ina letter from the yeshiva written in1057: ‘and the unruly people came and defiledplace, the its gatekeepers are alien, its neighbourhood graves’.110 The Jewish quarters of Jerusalem

[838] The followingdiscussionfocuses on threecentralissues: (1) Whether there was oneJewish-Rabbanite quarter in Jerusalem; or whether

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wasburiedinJerusalemaftercamphor [ki&r] was not found inDamascusforhis embalming and rats ate the ends of his fingers and ants his eyes; black slaves bore his corpse on theback ofa blind camel); Ibn Kathir,Bidiyn, XI, 215; Safadi, uZ-WZJ, 111, 171; Maqrizi, Khi[at, 11, 438. AI-Hasan ibn Tughj: Ibn ‘Asakir,IV, 186; Ibn Taghri Bardi, 111, 310; Aniijiir: Maqrizi,Khitat, 11, 17; IbnTaghri Bardi, 111, 293, 326;Kafir: Ibn Khallikan, 111, 270; Ibn Taghri Bardi, IV, 10. (The sources arenot unanimouson the dateof Kafir’s death.) Salmon: Cornmerttnry to Lnnletltatiorls (MS Paris 295), 48a,54a. (Feuerstein), XXIII-

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there were two, one in the southern part of the city and the other in the north; (2) whether onecan define the site of the southern quarter precisely; and (3) what was the site of the Karaite quarter? We have seen above the fragment from the Jewish chronicle containing a description of the meeting of the Jews with the caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattiib, and how the Jews requested and received from him permission to settle in the southern part of Jerusalem, near the gates of ‘the qodesh’, that is, of the Temple Mount and the Siloam. According to the chronicle, the region was covered with theruins of manygenerations and it is the Jews who undertook to restore that area. It emerges that this was the Jewish market, and it remainsso at the time thechronicle was being written. They built their houses in the same neighbourhood, using building materials which they found there among the ruins. An indication of theresponsibilities which the Jews took on themselves when they received permission to settle in Jerusalem can be found in a letter of the yeshiva written in 1057, and we have already seen that it included the obligation to clear away its rubbish, toclean its sewerage, to repair its walls andto take care of thecity’s guardians. It would be rather far-fetched to assume that these obligations on the part of the Jews to maintain cleanliness and repair and guard the wall applied to the entire city, and they were undoubtedly applicable merely to the section in which they lived. At any rate, we learn from this that their quarter was located within the walls. We find confirmation of thefact that there was a Jewish quarter in the southern part of thecity from Mujir al-Din al-‘Ulaymi, writing in 1496. According to him, the Zion Gate wasknown by the nickname ‘the Gate of the Jewish Quarter’. Avon b. Sedaqa, inhis letter to Nehorai b. Nissim, written on11 November 1064, states that ever since the funeral of Daniel b. Azariah, theJews have not been permitted topass in front of the ‘house of the community’ (day al-jamti‘a) with their dead unless they pay two dinars for every corpse. They are only allowed topass through the Zion Gate or through the Gate of Siloam (Silwan), that is, the two gates that were in the southern wall of the city. At any rate, we understand from this as well that the quarter was situated in the southernofpart thecity, within the walls. [839] The idea that there existeda Jewish quarter in the northern part of XXIV; Commentary to Ecclesiates (ToEccles. ix:6; BM Or2517), fol. 83, in Vajda, Deux cornmentaires, 92. Sahlb. MaSliah, in: Harkavy, Me’asscf No. 13, 199. Yefet b. ‘Ali: Commentary to Psalms (MS Paris 289), 48a. The letter of theyeshiva: 420, c, lines lff. and the various readings there: ‘the Jews’ market’, See 1, the fragment of the chronicle, see sJq al-yahud, mentioned in the letter of Solomon b. Judah - see 92, a, line 36; it is not mentioned in some of the Muslim sources which contain details on the markets of Jerusalem; al-Musharraf, 23b, mentions the s9q Sulaymln (should perhaps be: Silwin),

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the city was first proposed by Le Strange. He suggested that a Jewish quarter existed there at the time of the Crusaders’ conquest, a detail he mentions incidentallywhen quoting the fragmental-‘Ulaymi of about the Zion Gate mentioned above. Evidence to sustain the assumption of the presence of a Jewish quarter in the north of the city was put forward by Prawer, namely: (1) the part played by the Jews in defending the city according to a Crusaders’ source, and it is known that the latter’s major efforts were in thenorth of thecity; (2) the nameJuiuerie orJudearia given to the north-eastern quarter of the city during the Crusaders’ period;(3) Jewish inscriptionsfound in the madrasa al-Sa‘rdiyya in the northern part of the Temple Mount, where some Jewish names were found; and (4) a quotation from aGeniza letter (mentioned earlier), from Avon b. Sedaqa to Nehorai b. Nissim. Let us examine these argumentsone byone. We read about the participation of the Jews in the city’s defence during the Crusaders’ conquest in the rhymedchronicle of Gilo of Paris. He had first beena monk in Cluny, him and afterwards becamea bishop and thena cardinal, and the pope sent on a mission to Palestine in about 1130. He says: “ox gentilis adest, Judaeus, Turcus Arabsque,missilibus,jaculisobsistiturigne,veneno’ (‘then, the local people came, Jew, the the Turkand the Arab, they fought with spears and arrows, even with fire and poison’). Prawer concludes from this and from the fact that most of the Crusaders’ pressure and breakthrough took place in the northernsector of thecity, that the Jewish quarter was in the north. No other source mentions the participation of the Jews in the defence ofJerusalem, though this does not discredit the validity of thechronicle. Indeed,it is known that the greater partof theCrusaders’ effort and breakthrough was in the northern part of the city, but what evidence do wehave that the Jews weredefending thisarea in particular,or that it was impossible for them to come from the city’s southern part to defend the northern sector? The matter oftheluiverie (other versions:Juderie,Juerie, luerie,]udairia, Judearia) is mentioned in a treatise from theyear 1187 (the year Jerusalem fell to Saladin), La citez deJerusalertz, which says that this was the name of the street thatled from the street ofJehoshaphat to the left, leading to the Jehoshaphat Gate (bib al-asbit). This was where most of the Syrians (that near Mount Zion;perhaps it is theone called stiq al-yahtid; ‘Ulaymi, 401 , mentions the stiq al-qattinin, al-‘attirin, al-khadrawit, al-qurnish (cotton, perfume, vegetable, and textiletraders), but this at is the endof the fifteenth century.See on the Jerusalem markets: El‘ad, Cathedra, 24: 31, 1981/2. The letter of the yeshiva: 420, c, lines 34-35. ‘Ulaymi, 406. Avon’s letter: 500; d i r al-jarni‘a is mentioned also in 141, a letter of Abraham son of the Gaon, line 17: Abii’l-Khayr Sdih b. Mu‘ammar is given the task of going up to dir al-jarna‘a; one should notethe expression ‘to go up to’, but we do notknow which ascent is being referred to.

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is, the local Christians) livedin Jerusalem; the monastery of Mary Magdalene was also situated there - this refers, as I have already explained,to the monastery of the Jacobites and to the Jacobites themselves. As we have seen, one can assume that the namejuiverie was used for thisplace because the smallnumber ofJews who lived in Jerusalem at the time lived there, or perhaps it derived from the habit of Christian sects to call one another :Jews’ in a pejorative sense. One should also bear in mind that this fact pertains to a time which is almost a century later than the period being discussed here. The Jewish inscriptions to the northof the Temple Mount do not offer evidence of a Jewish quarter in the northern part of Jerusalem. They contain names of Jews, some of which are in fact Arab names, such as Mwsy (Miisi), Sulaymiin and ‘Imrin, and others of which are Greek names, such as Theophilactus, Sisina, and Anastasia.The following sentence is also found there: ‘May the Lord God ofhosts build this house. ’ As the editor of the inscriptions,L. A. Mayer notes, this only goesto prove that Jews werepassing and praying near the gatesof the Temple Mount (in this instance:b i b al-‘atm, ‘the Gate of Darkness’, which in the Middle Ages was called b i b sharuf al-nnbiyii’, the ‘Gate of the Honour of the Prophets’). As to Avon b. Sedaqa’s letter, he writes from Jerusalem to Nehorai b. Nissim in Fustat, telling him that after considerable efforts, has rented he a small room (or:a small apartment) in the house a Jewish of woman for two dinars for a period of five months. The house stands in ‘our people’s vicinity’ (that is,ofJews from the Maghrib)and has all the conveniences: the bath-house is not far and the house is situated in the Jewish quarter, near the synagogue. In the continuation, the writer adds that he does not have the strength totell how much troublehe went to with regard to the rubii‘Tya, thequarterdinars;therewasnot a singleperson - grocery merchants nor wooltraders nor clothingmerchants - to whomhe did not offer the money. He succeeded in selling39, weighing 8 l / 2 dinars, for 20 dirhams per dinar, when the rate was thirty-six a half. and The first editors of the letter erred in two places: they interpreted KenZsiyii as meaning a Christian church instead aofsynagogue. This term,Izenesiyi, can be found in my collection, and is included in the Hebrew Index. Secondly, as they were not familiar with the term rubi‘lya (quarter dinars), they assumed that a square was being referredto (in Arabica square is called mu~abba‘a), and Prawer addedhis interpretation that they were speaking of qtradrithe vium, or quarefor, in the French of the Crusaders’ time, the crossroads at the street leading from the Niibulus Gate (Solomon street) with the street parallel to the via Dolorosa, which allegedly was the borderline between the Christian quarter to the west and the Jewish quarter to the east. 63 8

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In addition to the above arguments, which we haveseen are generally invalid, Prawer quotes the fragment of the aforementioned Jewish chronicle as the basis for his view, according to an incorrect reading in the first edition, in which it is said that the Jews‘built their quarter [consisting]of buildings, the remnants of which have remained for generations’. In this passage, Prawer finds evidence that the southern quarter ceased existing at some unknown date in the eleventh century and that ‘at any rate, the southern quarter no longer existed on the eveof theCrusaders’ invasion’; but as we have seen, the meaning of that passage is quite different. The Jews built their quarter (in thesouth) from materidtaken from oldruins. As we have already seen from the decree concerning Jewish funerals described by Avon b. Sedaqa in his letter,the Jews still lived in the southern partof the city in1064, that is, nine years before the Turcomans’ invasion. There is no reason to believe that they evacuated their quarter so in the and established a new onein the course of nine years, andlesseven twenty-six years betweentheTurcomans’conquestandthatofthe Crusaders. The matter of thecave of Zedekiah is also relevant at this juncture. In a letter from Ramla to Jerusalem, written by Salama ha-Kohen b. Joseph to Shema‘ya he-haver b. Yeshii‘a, in May 1054, the address in Jerusalem was 6a6 ul-mughikz, the Gate of the Cave. The first editor of the letter, B. Chapira, says that this is ‘without doubt,a streetnear the cave of Zedekiah within proximity of the Nabulus Gate’. Thus we return to the north. The cave of Zedekiah is not mentioned inany sourcesof the period, however, nor is it the only underground structureJerusalem. in And as we shall see further on, the‘cave’ was a by-name which the Jews ofJerusalem used for their synagogue.t12 112

Le Strange, Palestine, 215; Prawer, Zion, 11(1946),42, 46c ibid., 12(1947),147ff. See: Gilo, 794, lines 159-160, cf. the introduction there, CXLIII.O n this point, the defence of Jerusalem,BenHorin hasalreadycommented onPrawer’sview, see Kiryat Sefer, 24(1947/8), 111; see there doubts as to the possibility of a Jewish quarter existing in the northern part of the city altogether. La citex delerusalem: Vogue, Eglises, 443; Tobler, Dercriptiones, 219; see: Kyrillos Skythopolitanus, 128: the Nestorians are called Jews because they would not acknowledge that Mary is the mother of God; in the year 512, Marinos, adviser to the emperor, claims that the inhabitants of the city ofJerusalem are Nestorians, who are like the Jews (so one is given to understand), see ibid., 146; cf.: Festugicre, Moines, III(2), 53, n. 81, who quotes similar expressions. See also the discussion above, section 678. Dinur, in his article on the Jews in Palestine during the Crusaders’conquest,Zion (ha-me’assZfl, 2(1926/7),53, n. 3, already deals withthe possibility that the quarter was calledJudearia because the Crusaders permitted the Jews to live there, and he denied this possibility, just as he denied the veracity of Benjamin of Tudela’s statement thathe found 200Jews in Jerusalem, ‘living under David’s tower on the edge of the city’, and preferred the version: four Jews (the Rome MS). One must add to the sources that mentionJudearia, a document by which William,who is in charge of the Holy Sepulchre, donated a bakery to the church of St Mary in the Kidron Valley; that bakery was in that part of the city called by the special nameJudearia (in illa urbis parte

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[840] Braslavi attempted to locate the site of the Jewish quarter on the Mount of Olives, at or least at its base. He tried to supporthis assumption by such expressionsas ‘it(the Rabbanite congregation)is situated opposite the Temple’, repeatedly found in the letters of thePalestinian yeshivafrom the days of the calendrical dispute in the tenth century and in the abovementioned letter of the Palestinian yeshiva, but it is clear that such expressions would apply to anywhere in Jerusalem, for can onealways draw a direct line (‘opposite’) betweentwo points, one of whichis the Temple Mount. We have alsoseen that the Jewish quarter was situated within the wall, and therefore the assumption that it was located on the Mount of Olives or onits slopes is out of the question. Corroborating evidence of thelocation of the Jewish quarter is the sha‘ar ha-kohen, the ‘Priest’s Gate’. The documents of the period mention in a few instances, a gate on the Temple Mount which is so called (see the Hebrew Index),and it emerges that the Jewish quarter was in its vicinity: ‘the Rabbanite sect which lives at the Priest’s Gate’. In the letters of the Palestinian Gaon atthetimeofthecalendricaldispute,wealsofind . . on the Mount of mention ofthis gate: ‘our prayers for you constant. are Olives . . . and at the Priest’s Gate andat the gates of God’s Temple . . .’; ‘and we blessed you on the Mount of Olives . . . and at the Priest’s Gate’. There were some who assumed that it was self-evident that the Priest’s Gate wouldbe to theeast ofthe Temple Mount. Thus, Luncz assumed that the Priest’s Gate and the Eastern Gate were one and the same, as did Yehuda, who decisively claimed that the Priest’s Gate and the Gate of Mercy were identical; but thetwo did not elaborate on their arguments. Braslavi also assumed that the Priest’s Gate was the eastern gate of the Temple Mount, by comparing the text of the midrash in Shiv ha-shirim vabbii (to the Song of Sol., ii:9 ‘Behold, he standeth behindour wall’): ‘the Priest’s Gate and the Hulda Gate were never destroyed’, and the ofthe text MishnZ (Middot, i:3): ‘the High Priest, who burns the cow, and the cow and all its care-takers, go out to the Mount ofOlives’. It is quite easy to understand that there is no real proof in this.l13 [841] Prawer also establishes a connection between these two sources,

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positutn que specialiter Judearia nuncupatur). See Delaborde, Notre Dame, 43. See Mayer, Zion (ha-me’assi?J, 3(1928/9), 24. Avon’s letter: 501; Vilnay, Zion, 5(1980), 75f, interprets keni?siyi as the Holy Sepulchre or some other church,and assumes that the rubi‘iya was perhaps a square courtyard at the edge of the Jewish quarter; see further the discussion on Avon’s letter in Goitein,Mediterranean Society I, 378 (No. 35), and ibid. his remark on the error of the editors; one must take into consideration that the first editors, Gottheil and Worrell, did pioneeringwork in their publication (in 1927); see the view of Prawer, Zion, 12(1947), 147f. The fragment of the chronicle: 1. The letter from Ramla: 525, see the introduction to that letter. Braslavi, BJPES, 5(1936/8), 28ff, and the sources there; ‘the Rabbanite congregation’, etc.: 49, line 11; the letters of the Gaon: Bornstein, Sokolow Jubilee Volume, 63, 107.

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and adds Christian sources on the everlastingness of the Eastern Gate or the Gates of Mercy, or theGolden Gates, as well as the account of Niisir Khusraw (1047), who notes that the Eastern Gate of the Temple Mount was built by King Solomon, and that of Estori ha-Parhi on the Shushan Gate and the Gates of Mercy. He quite rightly claims that the Priest’s Gate could not be the same as the Gatesof Mercy(as was the opinion of Yehuda, it will be recalled). This he gleaned from a Geniza document Salawit al-abwiibfll-quds (‘prayers at the Gates of Jerusalem’), where the Priest’s Gate and the Gatesof Mercyare mentioned separately. Hence, he identifies the Priest’s Gate with the ‘Gate of the Funerals’ ( b i b al-jatzti’iz) mentioned in al-‘Ulaymi,who says that this gate was to the south of the Gates of Mercy. However, one must bear in mind that the accounts of the a theologiChristian sources,as well as of thePersian traveller, had mainly cal meaning andone cannotlearn from them about actual the eastern gates, just as one certainly cannot identify the Priest’s Gate on the basis of these sources. O n the other hand, isitthe text of the Midrash about the Gates of Hulda and the Priest’s Gate, which reflect a real situation even though they deal with theperiod before the Muslim conquest. We should note that the Bornstein, whowas very careful in his statements, notes ibid., 63, n.6, in connectionwith the Priest’s Gate: it is not known; Luncz, Yemshalayim, 10(1913/4), 9; Yehuda, Zion (ha-me’assef),3(1928/9),113,nn. 6,9; andalsoinhiswake,Hirschberg, BJPES, 13(1946/7), 159, and n. 16. Braslavi,ibid., 27; in his article: Eretz-Israel, 7(1963/4), 72, he uses his first article as documentation for the renewed decision that during the period under discussion, the Eastern Gate was called by the Jews ofJerusalem, Priest’s the Gate. See Shir ha-sh. rabbi (VilnaPress), 37a. Hirschman, Tarbiz, 55:217, 1985/6,edited supplements to the Midrash Ecclesiastes rabba which were preserved in manuscript. It says there (p. 220, lines 20ff): ‘When we stood on the Mount of Olives Hosha‘na on rabba, although people came from all the communities of the world one could see but 200, whereas they were 12,000 from the Hulda Gate until the Priest’s Gate’. Indeed, this is interesting evidence of the pilgrimages, in addition to whatI have already quoted,supra, secs. 831 and 832. The intention of the writer (if he indeed wanted to say that those pilgrims were seen by him when actually standing on the Mount of Olives, although he does not say this explicitly; he may have mentioned the congregation on the last day ofthe Feast of Tabernacles merely to define the time): hewho stood on the Mountof Olives merely saw 200 people out of the masses. That is, he saw thosewho were standing near him, approximately until the Hulda Gate to the south, but from there onward, westward to the Priest’s Gate (in the Western Wall) there were thousands more whom someone standing on the Mount of Olives could not see, naturally, because they were hidden by theTempleMount. Strangely,Hirschman turns thesesimplewordsaround;that whoever stands on the Mount of Olives sees the Hulda Gate as well as the Priest’s Gate (p. 221). However, the Priest’s Gate was situated in the Jewish quarter, which was in the south and not in the east. Similarly, he tries to prove that a certain MS of Shir ha-shirim rabba is earlier than the others, inorder toconclude that thereis no connection between the Western Wall and the Priest’s Gate.There is no basis to his arguments, nor can one learn anything from them about the ofage the manuscript. Thereis also no foundation to his claim that the name ‘Priest’s Gate’ came into use only after the Muslim conquest. His assumption that the Elijah b. Menahem mentioned there, was a member of the family of the priestly Geonim( i n j a secs. 853,858)is also groundless, forin thegenealogical treeof this family,we onlyfind Menahem ha-Kohenb. Elijah (or: b. Solomon b. Elijah). It was

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Midrash mentions the Priest’s Gate together with the Western Wall and the Hulda Gates; the latter were certainly situated in the south, according to the Mislzni (Middot i:3). O n the Priest’s Gate, it is said in Shir ha-shirim rabbi (to the Song of Sol., ii:9, behold, he standeth behind our wall): ‘behind the Western Wall of the Temple, why? For the Lord has sworn that it will never be destroyed; indeed, Priest’s the Gate and the Hulda Gate have never been destroyed’. In Ntrnz. rabbi (xi:3): it is ‘the western wallof the Temple’ whichhas never been destroyed; and also in Larn. rabbi. The version in ShTr Ita-shTrTw rabbi should therefore be viewedas an interpretation, as if it intended to say: the western wallhas never been destroyed, the proof beingthatthe Priest’s GateandtheHuldaGatewere not destroyed. The ‘guide of Palestine’ in my collection does not mention the Priest’s Gate atall in its description (preserved almost itsinentirety) of the eastern wall, andwe wouldexpect itto be mentioned ifit was there. It says that the south-western side existed ever since it was built by Solomon, and here one feels the influence of the aforementioned Midrash (‘it has never been destroyed’). The passage preceding the Hulda Gates has not been preserved there, and we may surmise that the gates of the western side were mentioned there, including the Priest’s Gate. It seems that the writer of the‘Prayers at the Gates’ also lists the gates, starting from the southern corner of the western side of the Temple Mount with Priest’s the Gate, and ending with bib David and bib Shelorno, that is, the western wa11.114

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not customary to omit the designation ha-Kohen in those times, and apart from this, the names Elijah and Menahem were frequently used. Prawer, Zion, 12(1947), 139fc Braslavi was of the same opinion as Prawer, see Kinnds xxv, 135-140. ‘The prayers at the gates’: TS Box K 27, f. ’a, edited by Mann, Texts, I, 459; it is most likely that the mediaeval scribe who copied this document was not very familiar with what he copied; it seems that theabwib al-khamsn in this list, are in fact the n b m i b al-nkhmis in 2, I, a, lines 6-7, i.e. the gates of the slaves of the akhmis, that is the plural of khwns (fifth part) of the spoils, the property of the Muslim community; these were the slaves who were charged with cleaning the Temple Mount, and this entire matter has been discussed above in relation to thefirst settlement ofJews in Jerusalem. According to 2, a, recto, lines10-14, the twoGates of Mercy(bibayn ai-ruhma) in the east are identical with the Gatesof Nikanor, that is, they are not identified with the Priest’s Gate; see in that document the description of the eastern wall in which the Priest’s is Gate lacking, whereas the description of the south-western side has been lost in the main. I t is worth noting that the name‘Gates of Mercy’ ( n b w i b [or bibayn] al-vuhma) is of Muslim origin. It may have been copied from theProphet’s mosque in Medina. There bib nl-vuhma served as the placeto pray for rain,and its location was at the western end of the mosque. b. Mu‘iwiya, for It was alsocalled b i b ‘Atikn, after ‘Atika, daughter of ‘Abdallah b. Yazid it was opposite her house. Prior to that,it was called bib al-sdq, for the market-place of Medina was alongside it to the west. See Samhiidi, I, 503; Ibn Jubayr, 172; the name is connected to a verse in the Koran, lvii:13 (siirat al-hadid, of the Iron): between the a gate; inside will be mercy, believers and thosewho are undecided a wall will raise, with mhma outside castigation. According to one of the interpretations, the meaning of is rain: al-Jawzi, Tujiir (to thesziru ofthe Heights, vii:56), 28b; Suyiiti,Duvr. VI, 174, who quotes traditions according to which theverse in the Koran relates to thegate in the eastern wall of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; other traditions of commentators, for instance:

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[842] One could also try to identify the site of the Priest’s Gate by comparing the lists of gates on the Temple Mount as they figure in the worksof earlyMuslimwriters,Ibn al-Faqih, Ibn‘AbdRabbihi, alMuqaddasi, NZSir Khusraw, and in two Jewish sources. We would note the absenceof the western and northern gates in the remaining fragment of the list in the ‘guide of Palestine’; on the other hand, names the of thegates of the south and theeast are preserved there. Also, it seems thata comparison with thelist in the ‘Prayers at the Gates’ helps to solve the mysteryof the Priest’s Gate, byshowing its proximity to theb i b &[[a in the Muslim 1i~ts.l~~

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al-Zajjij, Ma‘ini.(MS BM O r 8248), 238b, do not mention geographical details. The Koranic background to the nameb i b al-rahma for the gate in Jerusalem has already been noted by Vincentet Ab;el,]6rusalern, 11, 840; the Jews of the period were not aware of this fact and used to visit the gate and pray alongside it, and write about it, mentioning its name (in the sin,gular or plural) in letters; see 198, line 44 (ca. 1042); 469, a, line 17 (7 October 1059); the account of theKaraite in 290, line 8. See Larn. rabbi, the Buber edition, fol. 35a. Ibn al-Faqih, 101; Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, VI, 264; Muqaddasi, Aqillm, 170; NaSir Khusraw (text, 24-28; (translatibnj, 83-87. The list in Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi was copied by al-‘Ulaymi, 248 (he attributesit,to al-Qurtubi, who is Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, of Cordova). There remain gates, with uncertain locations, which may have had more than one name. Thus in the west: al-Khidr (a personality of the early Muslim tradition, who was commonly identified with Elijah); Umm Khalid; al-Saqar (‘the fire of hell’, the name brings to mind al-Baqar in the ’Prayers at the Gates’); al-Sakina (the Divine Presence, like the Hebrew sizekhirzb). In the south, it is possible that bib mihrib Maryam was the sameas al-akhmis in the Jewish sources.In the east,it is likely thatb i b al-widi (the Gateof the KidronValley) and bib al-fawba are the sanie.n I the north,there is little certainty concerning the Hanna, Isaac, ai-Baqar andJudah Gates in the list that is found in the ‘Prayersat the Gates’, nor concerning their identity with the gates in the Muslim sources, nor is there any clarity concerning the comparison of the latter to each other, as there are notable differences in the names that are mentioned. In the story of the miracle that occurred in Ramla: 313, line 15, it says that theygo to pray at bib Yehtrdi. Yefet b. ‘Ali, in his commentaryto Psalms [MS Paris 284),fol. 106 (Ps., cxxii:2) says that the City of Godhas twelve gates, three on each side.In the north: Reuben’s gate, Judah’s gate, Levi’s gate; in the east: Joseph’s gate, etc. At any rate,we have here some confirmation that Judah’s gate was in the north; the hilltrq ha-qiri’lmwe-ha-rabbittiin in Pinsker, Liqqtrt? qadmikiy&, 11, 104, also mentions that the Karaiteswho emigrated from Babylonia to Jerusalem ‘settled there at Judah’s Gate’. As to theal-baqar Gate in the ‘Prayers at the Gates’: in Mann, Texts, I, 459, and also in Gill Shalenr, 2(1975/6), 26f, the reading is incorrect: Bab Elqini; according to Salmon b. Yeruhim, in his Commentary to Lamentations, (Feuerstein), XVII ff, in his explanation of the wordparbiir(1 Chr., xxvi:18), which accordingto himis derived fromparberzbiqir (‘a b i b al-baqar, on the western young bullock’), this gate‘is known tothis day’ by the name side of the sanctuary (al-quds; the parbir of the Bible is in the west); through this gate they It is not clear whether by quds he means the TempleMount would bring in the sacrifices. or Jerusalem; and possibly heis speaking ofone of thecity gates, and not of the Temple Mount. As to bib n2- Walid and a2”ishirnin, see the information in Ibn Khallikan, I, 234ff, on the gates built by ‘Abd al-Malik and al-Hajjij ibn YUsuf, which I have mentioned above. As to b i b al-Nabi or bib Muhammad, Gildemeister, ZDPV, 4(1881), 91, n. 20, mistakenly identifiedit with today’s Gateof theMaghribis. It is true thatbib Buriq, which is the Barclay’s Gate beneath the Gate of the Maghribis (see more on this below), was

643

v)

0

B

In

Y

d

rd

A

3E

2

c,

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[843] It should be noted that a special place was accorded to the Hitta Gate in Muslim sources,in conjunction with what was said about it in the Koran instrvat al-baqava (ii:58):'Since God said: enter this city and [ofits eat fruits] in comfort, as much as you like, but enter the gate prostrating yourself, and saying:hitfa [atonement!]. Then, I shall forgive you for your sins and reward the virtuous [among you]'. Muslim tradition interpreted these words of the Koran (addressed to the Children of Israel) as meaning Jerusalem, and the gate through which the Children Israelofwere ordered to enter is none other than bZb hitta. The word hitfa was not a common Arabic word and the commentators tried to explain its meaning as a plea for atonement and forgiveness. The gate waslow and whoever wished to enter had to bend down, and the gate would press down onthose guilty of wicked deeds. In this way, the criminals were identified.The Children of Israel were ordered tosay hitfa (atonement!) on entering butthey tried to outwit the orderby saying hitta(!) sumqitZ (red wheat),or habbaJsha'ra (a grain in a hair) and the like. This gate was thus set apart from all the other gates of the Temple Mount, for Muslim tradition accorded it 2 special role in the atonement requested by the Children of Israel.'l6

sometimes called b i b al-NubC see Schick, Beit al-Makdas, 119f. Schematically, one can present the assumed locations of the gates as follows:

Ibriihim al-Khidr U m m Khalid al-saqar Da'iid SulaymPn hitta ha-Kohen

r I I I I I I

al-asbgt al-abwPb bab

" " " " "

mihrPb Ya'qiib

1 I I

I I Maryam mihriib I al-'ayn I L- - - - - - - - - - J

al-rahma

al-tawba al-wPdi

Muhammad al-Nabi al-akhmas Hulda 116

See on blb hitta: Tabari, Tujir, I, 299; Mawzili, N i h l y a , 53ff; Ibn Qutayba, Gharib, 50; idem, al-Qurtayn, I, 43; Abii'Ubayda, Majlz, I, 41; Turtiishi, Hawldith, 21ff; Silafi, Fadl'il (MS CambridgeOr Qq 91, part 2), fol.78; 'Ulaymi, 381ff;Ibn Hajar al-'AsqalPni, Tujir, 71; idem, Futl;r, IX,374; Ibn Kathir, Bidlya, I, 324; Musharraf,Fadl'il, fol. 23b, (according

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[844] It is difficult to answer the question as to whether the Priest’s Gate and the bib hitfa of Muslim tradition were one and the same, and how the latter stood in relation to the Hulda Gate in the south, mentioned in the Mishni. All the indications, however, point to the fact that the Priest’s Gate was in the west. While the Jewish sources viewed the Priest’s Gate as the most outstanding and important site in the environs of the Jewish quarter and the favoured place of worship of the Jews ofJerusalem apart from the Mount of Olives, we find that the Western Wall is almost not mentioned a t all. The only source that mentions the wall during this period is the Scroll of Ahima‘az according to which Samuel b. Palti’d donated money also for the ‘oil for theTemple in the Western Wall for the altar within’.In other sources, we find no mention of the Western Wall for the simple reason that the area of theWestern Wall was called after the gate in the wall within it, which was the Priest’s Gate. In the above-mentioned quotation from the Scroll of Ahima‘az, Dinur tried to find a confirmation ofhis view that there wasa synagogue on the Temple Mount. Actually,thisquotationseemsmerely tojustifythe assumption that the synagogue (‘the altar’) was indeed close to the Western Wall. As to Dinur’s assumption concerning the synagogue on the Temple Mount, ithas no real foundation in the sources. Thereis also no reason to believe that the Muslims would have permittedJews the toerect a synagogue on the Temple Mount. What was said in Solomon b. Judah’s letter to Jacob ha-me‘uttadb. Joseph, towards the end of1015, in which to him, the gate was in Jericho at first and the Jews transferred it after the town was conquered and destroyed);see ibid. also 51b; Abii’l-Su‘iid, T u j i r , I, 179 (the Jewsused to say in Nabati, that is, Aramaic: hitfa surnqiti, red wheat, instead of hitfa, pleading for atonement); Ibn HayyZn, T a j i r , I, 224; al-KhZzin, Lubib, I, 56; Suyiifi, Mu‘tarak, 11, 76; HammZm b . Mdnabbih, Sa?l$~, 448;al-NaysZbiiri al-Qummi, T a j i r , I, 293fc Ibn al-‘Arabi, Mzrhidara, 11, 371; Ibn al-Jawzi, Zid, I, 86; Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, VI, 264; a Shiite source attributesthis saying to Miis5 al-KZFim, one of the Shiite Imams: ‘Indeed I am for you [the believers] like bib hitta to the Children of Israel’, see WarZm, Tanbih, 291. The source ofthese Muslim traditionshas not yet been identified; cf. Rudolph, Abhiingigkeit, 198; scholars have not given it much thought; Gildemeister, ZDPV, 4(1881), 91, mentions them; seealso; Leszynsky, Juden, 32, n. 1, who finds here a Jewish homiletic tradition referringto Deut.,viii:8 (A land of wheat,and barley, etc . . .). In the opinion of Hirschfeld, N e w Researches, 107, there is in the Koranicverse, an echo ofthe description of the highpriest entering the Holy ofHolies (Mishnii, Yoma v:l),and the term(litlahints at the confession of the priest (ibid., iii:8, iv:2, vi:2). It is indeed a topic that still needs probing. It is worth noting the etymological proximity of the names Huldaand Hitta; from the semantic point of view, the root [ild in Aramaic is similar to the Arabic kt[. In Aramaic (particularly in Syriac), it also means to creep, to stoop, also hcrldat ha-mdiin in the PT (Yoma i, 38c, middle; Meg. iv,75c, bottom) whichrequires a rneziizi, apparently means a sort of low entrance, as meant by bib I d f a (speaking of thewicket in the gate, the nlesauliorl which was distorted there to nwlint, see Gil, Tarbiz, 44[1976/7], 27, n. 33). Cf. also: ‘God maiJid (i.e. opensa wicket) for theminside the earthand they roll likejars . . . to Palestine’ (speaking of the Babylonianscholars after they die); see PT, Kil’ayim, ix, 32c,

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Dinur also tried tofind proof ofhis assumption, is to be understood very differently fromhis interpretation. Solomon b. Judah (who became Gaon only ten years later) states his disappointment that Jacob did not return to Jerusalem from Fustat, not forthe ‘ q e v e t (Shavuot) nor onthe 9th of Av, and also ‘the holidays’ (of Tishri) passed without his appearance, and he wishes: ‘may our Rock.. . hasten my encounter with you in His Temple’, by which he was naturally referring to the days of the Messiah. In the continuation, he says ‘the splendid building built on it (on His Temple) collapsed’. This occurred, according to him, on Sunday, 17 Elul; as we have seen above (in sec.580) he is referring to the earthquake which occurred on 4 September 1015, and caused the caving in of the Dome of the Rock,an event thatis also recorded in Arab chronicles. Clearly itis the Dome of theRock to which Solomon b. Judahreferred in his letter, and l7 not a synagogue.’ [845] O n this question, that of thesite of the synagogue of the Jews of Jerusalem and its alleged proximity to the Western Wall, as it emerges from the text of the Scroll of Ahima‘as, it should be noted that the synagogue is mentioned in letters in my collection. Solomon b. Judah writes about a pronouncement of excommunication: ‘and he was excommunicated in the synagogue’.He explicitly mentions the synagogue in his description of the collapse of thewall, and says that thepeople were then in the synagogue(‘and children andwomen were comingand going’), and it was thetime forthe readingof the Torah. Abraham, son of the Gaon, calls the synagogueal-kanls (or perhaps: al-ktrnays) in Arabic. He, together with the av-b?t-dii.l, goes down there,and so does the head of theyeshiva. Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon also writes about going down to thekanlsa. TheJerusalemite ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel writes to a relative in Fustat, ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, that he prays for everyone onvOsh hddesh (the first day of the month) ft’l-kanis, in the synagogue. Avonb. Sedaqa writes in two of his letters aboutal-knysyii, and we have already seen that we are to read kenzsiya i. e.,the synagogue.

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top (theparallel version ibid., Ket., xii, 35b is an ‘improved’ one).One can also learn from this that there was no connection between Hulda the Prophetessand the Hulda Gates. One should note that the Misltni (Middot iii:l) speaks of only one gatein the west, the Kiponos Gate, while Josephus. Antiquities, XV, 410, says there were four gates in the western partof the Temple Mount. Hence this question remains something of a mystery. It strikes one, thoughat this stage it cannotbe proven, that thePriest’s Gate is the sameas the HuldaGates and bib @(a in Muslim tradition.It ispossible that theMishrti meant that the Huldagates were in the southern partof the westernside. As to the Muslim tradition, it may have absorbed some remnants of a Jewish traditionregard with to the Hulda gates. (Today b3b (1iffais shown in the north of the Temple Mount, and the ancient traditions have been forgotten, according to which it was in the south, as one can see from the sources quoted above. ‘Ulaymi, 383, claimed that it was close to mihrib Mnryant in the south-eastern corner of the Mount.) See Megillat Alfmn’us, 37; Dinur, Zion (ha-me’assef), 3(1926/7), 62, 67ff. O n the use of ‘altar’ meaning synagogue, cf. Klar, Megillnr Ahitn‘n?,

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

In that same letter,Joseph ha-Kohen mentions alongside the synagogue (al-kanisa), al-maghira, the cave. Despite the letter’s poor condition, it is easy to discern that ‘the cave’ is used as a synonym for the synagogue. Indeed, ‘thecave’ is frequently mentioned in the sources as the place where the Jews ofJerusalem congregate, and it is clear that they are referringto the synagogue. Solomon b. Judah writes to Ephraim b. Shemaria that on the morrow after receiving his letter, they hastened to declare his rival excommunicated in Jerusalem:‘On Monday, weand a large public gathered in the cave and we took out thescrolls of the Torah and banned all those ‘that decree unrighteous decrees’ (Is., x:l). After mentioning the collapse of a wall which caused damage to the synagogue, he writes, following the work of reconstruction,‘the cave was restored’. As to the collapse, it occurred on thefirst dayof Passover, when the synagogue was full of people, but no one was injured. It seems that he is referring to the collapse of part of the Temple Mount wall, that is, the Western Wall. According to the Gaon, wall the collapsed along a stretch ofsome 15 cubits (about nine metres) and some 20 or more layers. Apparently, this was written in1034, and from this we understand that the caving inof thewall perhaps occurred on Passover of the same year, 7 April. T w o further letters of the Gaon contain detailsof the reconstruction work, clearing the debris from the road, and the beginning of laying the foundations, with many Jews ofJerusalem lending a helping hand to clear away the remains of thewall along a stretch of30 cubits (some 18 metres) nearly 20 cubits (12 metres) wide. The thickness of the wall is also mentioned: l-ll/z cubits. They used 62 beams, 600 planks, and ‘mosaics’ (stone slabs?). Financial assistanceforthis work came from Fustatand Tyre. This collapse is explicitly mentioned in Ibn al-Jawzi, who links it with the earthquake which occurred on 5 December 1033 (described above in sec. 595), and notes that part of the wall of bayt al-maqdis fell in (it is difficult to know whether he means the wall of the city or the wall of the Temple Mount, though the latter seems most likely) and a large part of mihrib Da’iid, meaningthe area of the Temple Mount. Apparently what the Gaon describes is correct, that is that some months after the earthquake, the collapse of the wall occurred, as a belated consequence. The Maghribi merchantMoses b. Jacob, writing in June 1053 to Nehorai b. Nissim, requests that he buy ‘dark mats in Alexandria’ that he send them to Jerusalemas soon as possible, ‘for they are a donation (mtrqaddasa) to thecave’. Abraham b. David b. Sughmar blames his rivals in Fustat for wasting money belonging to ‘the cave’ (mil al-maghira) and it is obvious 173, who quotes a similarusagein a poem of ha-Kallir, cf. alsoYehuda, Zion (hame’assef), 3(1928/9), 121, n. 5. Solomon b. Judah’sletter: 54, lines 27-30; cf. Mann, Texts, I, 313ff; 11, 20, n. 35.

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that he is again referring to money donated to the synagogue in Jerusalem. In the willof Wuhsha, a stout-heartedwoman ofFustat, she bequeaths 25 dinars lil-magham, to the cave, and the intention is the same as above.*’* [846] One may assume that al-Muqaddasiis referring to the synagogue of the Jews ofJerusalem when, towards the end of the tenth century, he describes ‘a cave under the rock’ with room 69 forpeople. A more reliable version, preserved in Y5qfi-t (who copied from al-Muqaddasi), speaks of 960 people. As in many othersimilar instances, the Muslim writers,or the scribes who copied the manuscripts, did not take the trouble to mention that they were speaking ofJews, as this description would seem to call for. Apparently, in the late Middle Ages, this underground hall was called masjid Da’iid and evidently this ‘cave’, used as a synagogue by the Jews of Jerusalem, is the underground hall behind Barclay’s Gate, measuring 12 by 6 metres, called by recent generations of Muslims masjid al-Buriiq. It is also worth noting whatSamuel b. Samsonwrote in 1211 about the gate of the Western Wall which had appended to it a large hall in the ‘foundation of theTemple’. The priests would go, he writes, via this gate of the WesternWall through a tunnel to ‘Eyn ‘Eytim, where ‘the house of immersion’wassituated. The name‘Eyn ‘Eytim in this tradition is puzzling, and Tobler considered it void of any credibility, but this text is evidently influenced by the Babylonian Talmud (Zev. 54b), about the spring ‘EynEytim which was at a higher altitude than the Temple, and it is implied that this is the source ofits water supply. Evidently, Samuel b. Samson’s story (a little more than 100 years after the annihilation of the Jewish population of Jerusalem) hints at a tradition which aimed at explaining thedesignation‘the Priest’s Gate’. Possibly that hall ‘in the foundations of the Temple’ is none other than the ‘cave’, that is, the synagogue. Earlier I quoted Avon b.Sedaqa concerning the fact that the authorities 11*

The excommunicationinthesynagogue: 78, a, line 29. The collapse: 118, line 14. Abraham son of the Gaon: 141, lines 3 , 6 , 8 ; see also 182, line 4: Abraham son of the Gaon goes to al-kanis. Joseph ha-Kohen: 409, lines 10-1 1 . Avon b. Sedaqa; 500, b, line21; 501, a, lines 26, 31. We have seen above that the synagogue ofJerusalemis mentioned in the episode of the argument between the Jews and the Christians which came before the church council in Erfurt (932);there theycall the synagoguesacellum, which in Mediaeval Latin means approximately‘a little prayer-house’; also in the letter of theyeshiva, 420, c, line 8, it is called ‘the little temple’. The letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria: 79, lines 27-29. The restoration of ‘the cave’: 120, a, line 23; the collapse I interpreted somewhat differently elsewhere (mainly the date): Gil, Slzalem, 2(1975/6), 30,n. 41. The restoration work: 119, 120; Ibn al-Jawzi, M u n t a ~ a m VIII, , 77, copied from him by Ibn Kathir, Bidciya, 12, 36. Moses b. Jacob: 460, b. Wuhsha’s will: TS Arabic Box 4,f. 5, a, lines 13-16, edited by Goitein,J Q R Anniversary Volume, 239fc he assumed that the cemetery in Fustat was being referred to;see also idem, Mediterranean Society,111,349. If my interpretationis correct, the will was written before the Crusaders’ conquest, whereas Goitein assumed that it was written after that.

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did not permit Jewish funerals to pass in front of dir al-jami‘a, demanding instead that they go through the ZionGate or theSiloam Gate,or pay two dinars for every funeral. Indeed, the writer continues, the Jews feared to pass through these gates because of thedanger of being cursed or stoned. So great was their fear that they decided to burya deceased woman in one of her own houses or shops. Finally, they bribed the guard and took the corpse out at night to theSarnaritiqi, where the communitycongregated; through theSamaritiqii, they took thedeceased to thegraves. I shall try to interpret what emerges from Avon’s account. It is implied that the usual funeral route was as follows: it moved northwards, passed in front of the Priest’s Gate (that is, the Western Wall) and dir al-jami‘a, and in order to reach the graves, which were in the Kidron Valley or on the Mount of Olives, passed through the Christian quarters in the north of the city, thereby circumambulating the Temple Mount and itsgates, and perhaps leaving through the Sheep Gate (which is bib al-asbit, the Tribes’ Gate, that is St Stephen’s Gate, or today’s Lions’ Gate). One can imagine that the incident during Daniel b. Azariah’s funeral, hinted at in the same letter, was connected with passing through the Christian quarter, and it is also possible that the two dinars were intended to provide proper protection when they were passing through, or perhaps this was a toll for passing through thewall built around the Christian quarter, which was completed in 1063, that is one year prior to our letter, and a year or more after the death of Daniel b. Azariah. From then on, the Jews were asked to turn southward, through one of the southerngates. From there, they had to reach the Kidron Valley and turn northwarduntil they cameto the burial site. 119 [847] One should remember that evidently the southern gates of the city, theZion Gate (the western) and the Siloam Gate (the eastern) were, in the period under discussion, very much to the south oftoday’s wall, for it emerges thatEudocia’s wall was still standing at the time. This wall passed through thearea of Mount Zion and turnedon its slope eastward until the Siloam pool and from there to the south-eastern corner of the Temple Mount. We have seen that according to Theophanes, the caliph Marwan destroyed the walls ofJerusalem in 745; hence we must assume that they were rebuilt after that, but we have no details pertaining to the matter. Tsafrir has tried to prove that Eudocia’s wall no longer existed in the period under discussion here. He based his argument on passages about Ii9

Muqaddasi, Aqditn, 171;Yiqiit, Buldin, IV, 594, 598; on the underground structure near the Western Wall, see also: Clermont-Ganneau, ArchaeologicalResearches, I, 165f. The Iggarot, 78; later Middle Ages: KhaGji,11, 296. See Solomon b. Samson’s letter in Yaari, cf.: Tobler, Topographie, 11, 865. The matter of the funerals, see 500, lines 7ff. The deceased was the sister-in-law of the Gaon, Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon (see ibid., lines 4, 14).

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the Silwin spring inMuqaddasi, Nisir Khusraw and Yiqiit,and claimed that these passages proved that the pool Siloam of was already at that time outside the city. However, these writers do not refer to the poolof Siloam itself. Muqaddasi notes that Silwinis a place in the vubad ofJerusalem and that beneath it runs the spring which waters the gardens in the neighbourhood. It is clear that he is not referring to thepool but to the spring. The literal meaning of the word vabad is that area beneath the fortressof a town, its open surroundings. Yiqiit also speaks of a spring beyond the city, int.uZdfJahnart1, that is, the Kidron Valley. Nisir Khusraw also writes of a spring welling from a rock on the slopeof the mountain, half afarsaklz (some three kilometres) south of the city, called the Silwin spring. It is obvious that these three writers did not mean the pool of Siloam but the bi’v Ayytrb (‘Eyn Rogel). Today,there is no way of determining thepoint from which ‘Eyn R6gEl was issuing at that time,nor can one knowexactly Nisir Khusraw’s point of departure at the time, whether he estimated the distance from the city wall or from the Temple Mount. At any rate, as these writers were not referring to the Siloam pool, it is difficult on the basis of theiraccounts to arriveat any conclusionwith regard to Eudocia’s wall. We have no idea why the Jews were afraid of going to the burial site through the southern gates. Perhaps there were Bedouin tents there. It is nevertheless clear from the text of the letter that the Jews preferred a third route with less danger (though still at night); this being through the Sarnaveitike, the Karaite quarter discussed above (sec. 668). This means that instead of turning northward or southward, they preferred to turn eastward and pay bribes in order that the gate of the city wall would be open to them at night. We do not know the name of that gate, but onecan assume that it was at the southern corner of the eastern wall of the city. Hence we learn that the Jewish quarter evidently stretched from the proximity of thesouth-western sector of the Temple Mount southward, until the Zionand Siloam Gates of that time,and the southern section of the eastern city wall was the eastern border of the quarter. [848] As to the Karaite quarter, it emerges that it was outsidethe wall. 1x1

See: Crowfoot, PEFQ, 77(1945), 67ff, 77. O n the enterprise of Eudocia. Theodosius’ wife, see: Evagrius, 2483; Nicephorus, 146, 1240. This latter source says that Eudocia widened (and not onlyrestored) the walls ofJerusalem: e l r r y m s u kai unune5rusa. See also Antoninus Placentinus (in Tobler, Itinera, I, 105) who says that the Siloam pool was then also within the city (irztru civitutern incllrru est) and one can learn from this that it was included within the wall. Cf. on theenterprises of Eudocia in Jerusalem and otherplaces in Palestine, and the restoration of the walls ofJerusalem: Couret, La Palestine, 11_9f,and see the sources listed there in nn. 1-3. See Tsafrir, ZE], 27(1977), 157; Muqaddasi, Aqilint, 171; Yaqiit, Buldin, IV, 594; Nasir Khusraw, 21. The meaning of rubad may be understood from many literary sources ofthe Middle Ages; in Tabarani, Mtrfjurn,11, 16 the term is clearly explained as the opposite of u‘li (the upper part). An Arabic commentary

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As we have seen above, the Karaites were indeed ‘new immigrants’ in Jerusalem. Theybegan to arrive in Jerusalem more than 200 years after the return of the Jews tocity the commenced, and there was no room for them within the wall. In the sources, it says that the Karaite quarter was in the sela‘ ha-elefha-yeviisi’, the Karaites’ version of Josh., xviii:28: (‘Zelah, Eleph and Jebusi which is in Jerusalem’,etc.). (Sela‘ means rib, and also the slope of a mountain.) This obviously refers to the area of the ‘city of David’, south of the Temple Mount. This is also the view of the commentary to Megillat Ta‘anit, evidently written in theMiddle Ages, on the passage in the Megilla: ‘on the 23rd (of Nisan), the of people the Haqrii left Jerusalem’; here the commentary says: ‘as it is written: David took the strong hold of Zion, the sameis the City of David(2 Sam., v:7). Thisis now the place of the Karaites’. A fragment from the commentary of the Karaite Salmon b. Yeruhimto Lam., ii:20, where it speaks of the murder of Zechariah b. Jehoiada in the Temple (2 Chr., xxiv:25), points to the shared identity of the Samareitike, the sela‘, and the &rat al-rnashiiriqa (the easterners’ quarter): ‘and this Zechariah, may he rest in peace, is buried in Noble Jerusalem,in Samaritiqa, whichis the sela‘ ha-elefha-yeviisr, known today as the quarter of the easterners, as Mevorakh b. Nathanb. Nisan, of blessed memory, said; for this Mevorakh, may God have mercy on his soul, said in one ofhis dirges: and I wept opposite the grave Zechariah of son ofJehoiada, whose graveis known, in the sela‘ ha-elef, etc. The same verse of Mevorakh b. Nathan was also quoted by another Karaite commentator, Yefet b. ‘Ali. We have a number of supporting arguments whichhelp us define the location of theKaraite quarter: the City of David, Zechariah’s grave, and the Samareitike. The sites of Zechariah’s grave and the Samareitike are known to us from the discussion on the Christians (sec. 668). In the above-mentioned fragment of Avonb. Sedaqa’s letter, wehave seen that the funeral passed into the Karaite quarter at night, apparently througha gate in the eastern wall of thecity. It appears, then, that the Karaite quarter was outside the wall, on the eastern slope of the Ophel, at the place commonly called ‘the city of David’ even today. The wall separated the Rabbanite quarter from that of the Karaites. Against this background,we can more easily understand the verses of the poet who wrote ‘the ancient of my congregation,and questions’: ‘indeedI was zealous for the sanctity on the Bible could also add to one’s understanding of the word rubad: ha-perizim was interpreted as al-rabadiyin, as Moses said:‘all these cities were fenced with high walls,. . ., beside unwalled towns’ (‘iri? ha-perizc Deut., iii:5). See DK 207g, line 4 from bottom. Goldziher alsowrote onrubad, and according to himit means: outside the inhabited part of the city (a not very precise definition) and he quotes an example from the A g h i n i , concerning a woman whowas menstruating and they excluded her to the rubad, see RE], 28(1894), 86.O n bi’r Ayytrb see Hecker, Sefer Yemshalayim, I, 198f. Farsakh, see Hinz, 62. 452

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my wrath was kindled, against the ‘limping one’ (@lP‘i, from the root zela‘, a pejorative nickname for the Karaites), who sits joining me on the opposite side’, etc. Thus wefind that thetwo congregations wereadjacent to one another, with the wall of thecity dividing them.’’’

The geonim of Palestine The elder geonim

[849] The most ancient genealogical tree of the Palestine geonim is found in the Seder ‘olim z@a. Mar Ziitrii, son of the exilarch Mar Ziitrii, emigrated toPalestine from Babylonia and became ‘head of the Sanhedrin’ in the year 520. The Hebrewversion of the chroniclelists his descendants, and it is not clear whether all, or only some of them, succeeded to the position of Gaon: Guriyii, Ziitrii, Jacob, Shemaiah, Nina, Migas, Miss, Nehemiah,Avdimi,Jacob(and his brotherPinhas) and Haziiv. In lzl

See the Megillat Ta‘anit: Lichtenstein, HUCA, 8-9 (1931/2), 327; cf. Munk,J A , 4e sCr., t. 15(1850), 310, n. 3; Poznanski, Yerushalayim (Luncz), 10(1913/4), 96, 98; Mann, Jews, I, 274ffi idem,Texts, I,317,n.20; Braslavi, BJPES, 5(1936/8), 27ff. O n Mevorakh b. Nathan cf.: Pinsker, LiqqitZqadmoniyot, I,105; Poznanski, Yerushalayirn (Luncz), 10(1913/4), 96: Salmon b. Yeruhim took the passage from the dirge beginning: ‘gather ye from everywhere, every woman and every man,wail to with me (at theplace) facing the grave of a prophet killed on a day of calamity’ (see in Pinsker, ibid., 11, 139). Poznanski questions whether this Mevorakh was a Karaite, because in the Karaite prayer book (where there are some ofhis piyyiitim) is called he Mevorakh b. Nathan b. Nisan ha-Levi he-hZuZr; and one ofhis poems is basedon the aggidi from Pesiqiti Rabbati. See the names of his poems in Davidson, OZar. One should note thatin a letter from theyear 1100: 577, b, lines 11-12, a Karaitenamed Abii’l-Khayr Mubirak (= Mevorakh) b.Hiba (= Nathan) b. Nisan is mentioned; and Nathan(his father, evidently) b. Nisan ha-Levi ha-melammZd is mentioned in a Karaite marriage deed drawn up in Jerusalem: 305, line 37. For documentation on theKaraite quarter, one shouldadd the formulae ofa Karaite marriage deed in florid Hebrew, in the handwriting ofthe abovementioned Moses b.Isaac, where theplace is noted: ‘in the sela‘ ha-elefin Jerusalem, the Holy City’. See ULC OrBox 13, No. 52. The al-mashiriqa quarter still existed in the 13th century and was then inhabited by Christians; see Ibn al-Qifti, 379 (the article ‘Ya‘qiib b. Siqlin al-NaSrini al-Maqdisi al-Mashriqi [‘the eastern Christian Jerusalemite’; he died in AH 626, that is AD 12291): ‘The eastern Christians in Jerusalem come from the Balqi’ region (southern TransJordan) and from ‘Amman and they are called easterners because they are in the area which is to theeast ofJerusalem, called the quarter of the easterners’. Drori, Periqiin, 172, quotes a passage from ‘Ulaymi on the quarter of easterners the in his time (ca. 1500), when this name was applied to the north-eastern part of the city, inhabited by people from Persia and Central Asia. His notethere: ‘M. Gil is of another opinion’,etc., is not to the point, for nowhere have I mentioned this source; and one should note the enormous differences in time: theKaraites, in the tenth century; Ibn al-Qifti, the 13th; ‘Ulaymi, the end of the fifteenth century. See ‘the ancient questions’: Schechter, JQR, 13(1901), 364. Prawer, Zion, 12(1947), 143ff, arrives at the conclusion that theKaraite quarter wason the slope of the Temple Mount. One should also note Simon b. Saul al-Tulaytuli’s letter, which says: ‘they went up to Samaritiqi’ when speaking of Karaites who arrived in Jerusalem, see: 457, a, margin right, lines 7-8.

65 3

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

addition, three sons of Abiye (Avdimi?) are mentioned, Jacob, Pinhas and Azariah. According to one version, Hasiiv was the son of Jacob, and according to another, he was the son of Pinhas. This latter Pinhas was possibly the Pinhas who was head of theyeshiva, one ofthe masoretes of Tiberias (mentioned insec. 288). In all, ten generations arelisted after Mar Ziitrii, and taking an average of twenty-five years per generation, this would add up to some250 years, which brings us roughly to theyear 800. After this period, of which only names have remained,we can compose an assumed list of thenames of geonim only fromthe mid-ninth century onwards, thanks to a tiny fragment preserved from a treatise or letter, written by Sahliin b. Abraham, leader of the‘Babylonians’ in Fustat. The chronological departure point for fixing the times of the geonim mentioned in this list is the affair of the calendrical dispute which I have reviewed above.Today, we know the name theofsonof Meir, the rival of Saadia Gaon - he was Aaron. ‘Meir andhis son Aaron Gaon’ mentioned in that fragment are thus undoubtedly the father and son who were the geonim during thedispute. It seems that the father, Meir Gaon b. Aaron, was head of the Palestinian yeshiva and his son Aaron would make the public pronouncements and act as chief spokesman. This emerges from what Saadia Gaon wrote:‘and he sent (thePalestinian Gaon) his son in the seventh month of theyear two [hundred and thirty]-three and he came to .Jerusalem’. That is to say that Meir Gaon sent his son Aaron (he is Ben Meir in the polemical literature) to Jerusalem (evidently from Tiberias). We find the following quotation in the account Saadia of Gaon, from‘the copy of theletter sent by the scholars (i.e. the Babylonians) to him (tothe Palestinian Gaon), from the place of their gathering, that is Babylonia: greetings to the head of the I~nviivii,to your son, and brother, andall that are inyour retinue: we could hardlybelieve the rumour whichreached us, that your sonfixed the holidaynot as prescribed by the law; even ifyou say that your son made mistake, a lift up youreyes to our Holy one, and have mercy on us and on yourson’, etc. Here too he is referring to Meir Gaon and his son Aaron. The other letter from Babylonia to Palestine onthe samematter, claiming that the scholars of Babylonia had the rightto decide on the order of the calendar, also mentions several times the ‘head of the yeshiva’, referring, one may assume, to Meir Gaon. However,in all the sources on the subject of thecalendar dispute, one cannotfind Ben Meir being called head of theyeshiva or Gaonand it is now obvious why this was so. Meir Gaon is evidently also the author of the letter to Babylonia in which he mentions the journey of the Palestinian Gaon to Babylonia in order toask for aid for his yeshiva against the ‘progeny of ‘Anan, theenemies’, and it is possible that it is he who helped the people of the Pumbedita yeshiva of

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Mevasser Gaon's faction in their struggle against David b. Zakkai, the exilarch, and against Kohen Sedeq ('against those who plotted against you,).These contactscould have occurred after 917, the year which marked the death of Judah, the Pumbedita Gaon [grandfather ofSherira Gaon]. Meir Gaon is evidently the one who describes the suffering his forefathers endured at the hands of the descendants of 'Anan, and he mentions R. Muss, whowas killed in the 'aziirii (the synagogue?)and 'our fathers R. Meir and R. Moses'. We shall soon see that these latter three lived during the mid-ninth century. l z [850] One should note that Sahlin b. Abraham, the compiler of thelist, draws our attention to the fact that two of the geonim mentioned there 'have already been dealt with above': and likewise, refers to 'Aaron b. Moses b. Meir mentioned above'. This refers to the description of the lineage of Joseph ha-Kohen, in which this Aaron is mentioned, and in writing 'Meir and his aforementioned son Aaron Gaon', he refers to that part of the manuscript which is missing. One of course cannot discern why he would have mentioned Aaron b. Meir's name in the missing part of the document;this may have had some connection with the transfer of the yeshiva from Tiberias to Jerusalem. O n this matter, itis worth looking into the following genealogical tree based on the list from which wecan get some idea of the time ofJosephha-Kohen Gaon b. Yohai, son of the sister of Aaron b. Moses b. Meir, whom he places at the head of the list. Although one should perhaps place IsaacGaon betweenAaron (I) Gaon and Meir (11) Gaon, the document does notsay that there was any family relationship between them. At any rate, we see that Joseph ha-Kohen Gaon b. Yohai was more or less a contemporary of Meir(11) and his son Aaron (11) Gaon, that is, the geonim who held office during the calendar 12:

Seder 'oltirn zirtii, in Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Clrrorlicle, I, 178; 11, 73, 76, and cf. the discussion in Mann, Jews, I, 58f., and the references there to some earlier studies. The fragment in the handwriting of Sahlan: 3. Aaron b. Meir is mentioned in a letter of Sherira Gaon: MS Strasbourg, Cat. Wickersheimer, No. 4038, f. 6v, line 4, edited by Mann, H U C A Jtrbilee Volrrme (1925), 248. See above, sec. 784, and: Bornstein, Sokolow Jrrbilec Volume, 63, 74,l05fC Mann, Jews, I, 63, n. 1, assumed that the son of Ben Meir was being referred to and drew the conclusion that Ben Meir himself stayed in Ramla and sent his son to Jerusalem; but the more credible view is that of Bornstein (ibid., n. 3), that the Palestinian Gaon still stayed in Tiberias at the time. Thus one must attribute the letters from Palestine remaining from the time of the dispute period to thewhen Meirheld office as Gaon, though some of them were written by his son, according to Saadia Gaon, in Bornstein, ibid., 116: 'we therefore ordered a gathering of the heads and altjfirn . . . and took advice how to overcome this enormous obstacle caused by Ben Meirand thwart his plot. Theysaid: we cannot destroy all the copies written by Ben Meir aboutthis matter to all localities. Moreover, his letter may have been copied amongst the people. However, they recommended writing this epistle to you . . . to inform you of the deed of this Ben Meir . . . as Ben Meir has invented.' As to the contacts with Babylonia which preceded the calendar dispute, see Mann, Tarbiz, 5(1933/4), 148-157, and especially 151, 154. See also the sources in Guillaume,JQR, NS 5(1914/5), 552-555; cf. also Mann,]euu, I, 57. n. 1.

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THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

Meir (I)

I Moses Father of Yohai (a Kohen)

A

Aaron’ssisterAaron

(I) Gaon

I

Meir (11) Gaon

Yohai (ha-Kohen)

I

I

Joseph ha-Kohen Gaon

Aaron (11) Gaon

Genealogical tree of the early geonim

dispute. Joseph ha-Kohen’s status as Gaon still remains something of a puzzle for the time being. One cannot identify himwith Joseph ha-Kohen b. ‘Ezriin, for their fathers’ names were differentit does and not seem to be chronologicallyconsistent.Perhapstherewas a riftinthePalestinian yeshiva at the time of, or due to, the calendar dispute and a rival Gaon appeared on the scene. The major account of the affair was undoubtedly included in the first part of themanuscript, which is not available, andit is in connection with this account thatSahlan went onlisting the geonimof Palestine. It is possible that the priestly geonim found in the list beginning with Aaron ha-Kohen, were members of the family of that same Joseph ha-Kohen b. Yohai, but as we shall see below, the dynasty of priestly geonim which we find in the eleventh century did not stem from this family. 123 [851] We know little about Meir Gaon and his son Aaron, apart from their involvement in the calendar dispute. It seems that in the period under discussion, a quire containing queries and responsa was known and attributed to Ben Meir. A number of Geniza documents from theeleventh century mention offspring of the family of Meir Gaon: Solomon he-haver b. Meir r6sh ha-seder, great-grandson of Meir head of the yeshiva Ge’6n Ya‘aqiiv; Solomon, son of Isaac great-grandson of Meir Gaon; Isaac b. Solomon he-haver b. Meir Gaon; Moses ha-Siifer (‘the scribe’), son of Isaac he-haver, son of Solomonhe-haver, son of Meir Gaon. The genealogical treeof thefamily according to the data in the Geniza is outlined as follows: 123

This discussion is based on the abovementioned fragment, 3. Abramson, Ba-merkazim, 32, proposed identifying Joseph ha-Kohen b. Yohai with b. ‘Ezriin. See further (sec. 852) the assumed list of the Palestinian geonim,based on 3. The fragment TS N S 194.92 also confirms the fact that the Palestinian Gaon during the calendar dispute was Meir, and it has interesting evidence on the division between Meir Gaon and the priestly family who were his rivals over the leadership of the Palestinian yeshiva. Fleischer, in his article in Zion, 49(1984), 385, is right in assuming that the family ofJoseph ha-Kohen b. Yohai is meant.

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Meir Gaon

I he-haver Solomon

Isaac

Gaon

I

I

I

I

Aaron

I Abraham he-haver Isaac Solomon poet) Gaon (the

I Moses the scribe

Gerzealogical tree of Meir Gaon’s offspritlg

We do not know who was the father of Meir r6sh ha-seder, father of Solomon he-haver, from among thosementionedhere.Solomon hehaver b. Meir r6sh ha-seder was Ephraim ‘b. Shemaria’s rival within the ‘Palestinian’ congregation inFustat. Solomon b. Judahwrites to Ephraim b. Shemaria: ‘For Solomon b. Meir has made peace with the band of plotters’. Nathan b. Abraham, Solomonb. Judah’s competitor, writes to Beriikha b. Rawh and expresses his anger aboutaZ-sabf(theyouth) b. Meir, who evidently joined the opposing faction in the struggle for the seat of the Gaon, but then changedhis mind and joined him again, as we shall see in the discussion on that dispute.124 [852] As to Semah, the tziisi and head of the yeshiva, it is clear that he stems from theexilarchic family, as one can see from thetitle niisi. He and his brother Jehoshaphat are the first whose names are known tous after the dynasty of Mar Zutra, knowledge of ceased whichat one point,as we have seen above, andwe know of no uninterrupted family connection between 1*4

Responsa of Ben Meir: see TS 10 K 20, f.9, fol. 2a, verso, lines 8-9; Mann understood it as a responsum to the queries of Ben Meir, perhaps answeredSaadia by Gaon, but it seems that his interpretationis not correct. Solomon he-haver b. Meir rash ha-seder: TS 8 J 14, f. 24 (the beginning of a letter to Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furit); 604 (a deed, Solomon b.Isaac great-grandson of Meir Gaon signedits validation); cf. Mann, Jews, 11, 54f. Solomon b. Isaac he-haversignedthepiyyiit: Bod1 2708/1 fs. 36-37, in Zulay, Yedi‘ot, 5(1938/9), 175ff.Isaac he-haver b. Solomon he-haver: see a colophon from 1001 edited by Assaf, Mi-sifiut ha-ge’onitn, 206. Mann, Jews (MS), 11, 52: MS Harkavy R No. 67, two leaves which contain the end of kitib al-shari’i‘ (Book of the Laws), in the he rest in Paradise,wrote this colophon: ‘I Isaac b. Solomon he-hiver b. Meir Gaon, may for me’ etc.; ‘finished Monday in the month ofIyar in the first year of thesabbatical cycle, which is 4761ofthe creation’ (28 April AD 1001). The Isaac (the fatherofMoses ha-Sofer) evidently lived in Acre, see 222, lines 8, 10: al-hivZrR. Isaac. Moses ha-SGfEr signs in224, which is a letter to Abraham b. Sahl al-Tustari, whose help he requests in order to be able to travel to his father,Isaac he-hiver, evidently in Acre; heis mentioned also inTS 8J 8, f. 6, in Mann,]ews, I, 54; see alsoTS 10J 26, f. 6 (ibid., 11, 55), where the name of ‘Ishaq (thus it is written, as Mann assumed, ibid.) he-hivZr great-grandson of Meir Gaon’ has been preserved (whatI have written onthis matter inTarbiz, 44 [1974/5], 149,n. 31, has 129, margin. Nathan b. Abraham:183, to be emended). The letter of Solomon b. Judah: line 9; ‘al-haver b. Meir’ is also mentioned in a document of the heqdesh in Fustat, from the end of 1039, see document no. 11, a, line 17, in my book: Gil, Documents, 168.

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them. We find thelineage of ‘Semah thenisi and head of theyeshiva’ in the Geniza; his name and titles are exactly identical with what we find in Sahlin b. Abraham’s list. From this list, we learn that this Semah was the son ofJosiah b. Saul b. ‘Anan b. David b. Hasdai b. Bustanai, that is, he was a descendant of Bustanai, exilarch at the time of the Muslim conquest, through his son Hasdai (who was not the son of the Persian wife of Bustanai but the son of the Jewish wife), and was the great-grandson of ‘Anan, considered the founder ofKaraism. On the other hand, we have ofJosiah father before us Karaite lists ofexilarchs, mentioning another son of Semah, Jehoshaphat; and this Jehoshaphat, Semah’s brother, is also called there ‘the great nisrJehoshaphat, head of the yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov’. We may assume that Jehoshaphat was the elder and preceded his brother Semah. H o w are we to understand the surprising fact that people of the exilarchic family who wereconsidered Karaites and were descendants of ‘Anan, headed the Palestinian yeshiva? Poznanskiwas of the opinion thatthe Karaites had a yeshiva, which theycalled ‘yeshivat Ge’on Ya‘aqov’, despite their hatred for the Rabbanite yeshivot of Babylonia. Mann transferredtheevents to Jerusalemandassumedthat the two brothers, Jehoshaphat and Semah, sons ofJosiah, set up arival yeshiva in Jerusalem, and that this was the background to the quarrel between the ‘progeny of‘Anan’ and the forefathers of Meir Gaon and his son Aaron, the quarrel described in theaforementioned lettersof thePalestinian Gaon at the time of the calendar dispute, that is, the murder of Musi and the persecution ofMeir and Moses.Owing to the fragment from Sahliin’slist, however, it is now clear to us what was not clear to those eminent scholars, namely that indeed these two were heads of the Palestinian yeshiva. The only rationalsolution to this puzzle is that duringthe period when these descendants of ‘Anan headed the Palestinian yeshiva, the final split between the Rabbanites and the sect of the Karaites had not yet occurred, and at any rate, this branch of the exilarch’s family descending from ‘Anan had as yet not been drawn intothis rift, and stillheld a strong position among the Jews of the diaspora. Naturally, this conclusion has a special significance with regard to Karaite history, and I shall return to it further in the discussion on theKaraites. Here it will suffice to note the fact that from the mid-ninth century until close to its end, descendants of ‘Anan headedthe Palestinian yeshiva. The end of the ninth century is also the supposed date for the beginning of Karaite immigration toJerusalem. Jerusalem became the arena for the struggle between the twocamps: the offspring of ‘Anan, heads of the Palestinian yeshiva and the newly immigrated Karaites, on the one hand, and the head of the family of Meir Gaon (evidentlyhis grandfather) Aaronb. Moses, on the other. The end of that struggle is clearly accounted for in Sahlin’s list, that is, the sons of 65 8

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Semah dissented and were ousted. The division only began with those sons of Semah (their names are known us; to one being Asa and the other [with no certainty] Yefet. We also know that the name of the son of Semah’s brother Jehoshaphat was Boaz).It would notbe accurate, then, to describe the sons ofJosiah,Jehoshaphat and Semah, as Karaites. In Sahlin’s list, it explicitly states with regard to Semah: ‘And he was of theberlZ vubbinirl, that is, he was one of theloyal and apt scholars of the yeshiva, unlike his sons. It does not say in that list that in that strugglein Jerusalem, Aaron b. Moses, the rival of the sons of Semah (and the Karaites) was helped by any personalities from Baghdad. This help, mentioned in a letter of the Palestinian Gaon at the time ofthe calendar dispute (‘and we came to you [in Baghdad] to be helped’, etc.) was rendered two generations later. Further, it is worth noting thatthe descent from Bustanai was a recognised fact among theRabbanite exilarchs, andthe fact thatSemah stemmed from this family is not to be questioned. However, this lineage was the subject for slandering the exilarchic family in the eleventhcentury, both in the responsa ofthe geonim and in a story in Arabic about Bustanai, ascribed to Nathan b. Abraham and copied by Sahlin b. Abraham. It seems that Sahlan wrote his genealogical list of geonim and copied the story of Bustanai not only for their purely historical value. Rather, he seems to have been motivated bya degree of tendentiousness whichis not clearly definable as yet. The story ofBustanai went so far as to claim that all the exilarchs in Baghdad stemmed from Bustanai and his Persian wife (who the story claimed was his only wife, and not proselytised), that is, that Semah also belonged to that slandered family. In the continuation of our discussion, we shall find another offspring of the exilarchic family, Daniel b. Azariah, called ‘nisi and Gaon’ because he became head of the Palestinian yeshiva. He was even praised in a piyyut as being ‘a spark of Bustanai’s’, that is, that he too was ofBustanai’s progeny. If we assume, somewhat arbitrarily, that the fourteen years in which Meir Gaon and his son Aaron Gaon held office, began in912 (ifwe place in the middle of these years the period of the contacts and the dispute with Babylonia, from 917-921)’ we arrive at the following chronological table of thePalestinian geonim, in which there may be differences of a few years (up to five), forward or backward: (1) Jehoshaphat b. Josiah (2)Semah b. Josiah(31years) (3) Aaron b. Moses (17 years)

(4) Isaac (two years) (5) Meir (6)

Aaron b. Meir

}

(14 years)

before 862 862-893 893-910 91&912 9 12-926

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(7)Aaron Abraham b.

ha-Kohen

(7 years) Aaron (9) Joseph ha-Kohen b. ‘Ezriin (2 years) (10) ‘Ezriin (b. Joseph?) (30 years) (11) Samuel (ha-Kohen b. Joseph b. ‘Ezriin (8)

926-933 933-[?I

[853] Above we have seen the obscure matter ofJoseph ha-Kohen Gaon b.Yohai, who was a relative of MeirGaon,andthat his timewas somewhere in the first half of the tenth century. Another Kohen in the list of thePalestinian geonimis Aaron ha-Kohen(Number 8 in the list above), whose time wasclose to the middle of that century. In the continuationof the list, we find Joseph ha-Kohen b. ‘Ezriin (Number9); another Gaon whose name mayalso have been ‘Ezriin (Ezra), perhaps son of the former 125

See: TS 12.138 (Semah the Nasi and head of the yeshiva b. Josiah b. Saul b. ‘Anan) in Mann, Texts, 11, 131. Seethe discussionibid., 44f. The lists ofKaraite exilarchs:see mainly in Lewin, the Letter ofSherira Gaon, 136; and in Pinsker,LiqqiCZ qadm6niy&, 11, 53, in the footnote; cf. Poznanski, Babylonische Geonirn, 127f;see also Mann,JeuJs, II,210f, 453-457; cf. Sahlan’s list, 3. Regarding ‘Anan’s descendants who headed the Palestinian yeshiva: Mann, Yearbook, 44(1934),229, wrote that with the Tiiliinid regime in Palestine (according to him from 868, but actually from 878) easier conditions were created for the Karaites and that the establishment of the exilarchic family from descendants of ‘Anan (he calls them: thenesr’im of the Karaites, a designation not yet in use then) was in the interest of the new regime in Egypt. As against this, he stresses the fact that 905, afterwhen the Abbasids returned to rule Palestine, the family of b. Aaron Meir (more precisely: the family ofMeir Gaon) were assisted by the rulers of Baghdad and one of the wealthy men of Baghdad (Aaron b. ‘Amram) is called in theirletters, the ‘saviourof thegeneration’. However, we know today that the sons of Semahwereousted during the Tiiliinidperiod.Klar, MehqZrim, 189, n. 20, comments on the sentence ‘until the soul would expire because of the ransom money- ha-kippirim’ (thus he reads in Guillaume,JQR, NS [1914/5], 555; cf. Schechter, Saadyana, 22; Bornstein, SokolowJubileeVolume, 107, n. 1, suggeststhe reading: ‘until the souls of theunbelievers [ha-koferim] would expire’) under the enemies (ha-s5rte’im), the progeny of‘Anan’, and expresses the opinion that theword hn-scine’im (the enemies)is a pejorative distortionof the wordha-neri’im, an interesting idea. Baron, SaadiaJubilee Volume, 39, sees the dispute in Jerusalem between ‘the progeny of ‘Anan’ and the family of Meir as a division between Karaites and Rabbanites, in which the Karaites exploited their considerable influence with the Muslim authorities against Ben Meir, who was saved only by the intervention of the people of Baghdad. Abramson, Ba-merkazim, 27ff, presents the matter differently, mainly by differentiating between the status ofJehoshaphat and that of Semah, and on the other hand, he considers them both Karaites and reaches the conclusion ‘athat Karaite nbiand head ofthe yeshiva stoodat the head of the Jewish community, evidentlyin its relationship to the authorities,for thirty-one years (referring to Semah); and the Rabbanite Jews could not but accept the power of its authority’.The sources on Bustanai, see Gil, T a r b i z , 48(1978/9), 36-45.See TS 12.358: ‘then2si and Gaon of Tiberias, head of theyeshiva whichis in Jerusalem, the House of God, our Lord Daniel’. The piyyiif (qasida): BM Or 5557 K, f. 8, line 10, is mentioned in Mann, Jews, 11, 220; edited by Fleischer, Shalem, 1(1973/4), 62-74; as one can clearly see from theacrostic, the author of this piyyiifhonour in ofDaniel b. Azariah was ‘Eli (not Eliah, as Mann has it) ha-Kohen; hewrote it on ‘Friday, 13 Nisan (the date in Mann and Fleischer should be corrected) i.e. 21 March 1057(AM 4817). 13 Nisan fell on Friday that year, and then again in 1060 (4820). What I have written here on Jehoshaphat and Semah the sons ofJosiah is an addition to what I wrote elsewhere: Gil, Tarbiz, 44 (1974/5), 148f. The list of geonim is based mainly on 3, as mentioned.

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(Number 10); Samuel ha-Kohen b. Joseph (Number 11). In the eleventh century, we find thepriestlyfamily, someofwhose sons served as geonim: Solomonha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph and his descendants. Some of the genealogical lists of these kohanim, the progeny of Solomon haKohen b. Joseph, are found in the openings of letters of MaSliah haKohen, head of thePalestinian yeshiva Ge‘iin Ya‘aqiiv when it had already moved to Fustat, in the twelfth century. In these openings, the lineage of earlier generations is: (a) Aaron ha-Kohen ‘the chief priest’ (ha-kohen ha-rash) Joseph ha-Kohen av-bet-din Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon, etc.

while inMasliah ha-Kohen’s memorial list (not the opening aof letter!) the lineage is: (b) Mordecai (ha-Kohen) Gaon Elijah (ha-Kohen) Gaon Menahem ha-Kohen Joseph ha-Kohen av-bet-dln Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon, etc.

and in another memorial list of thesame: (c) Elijah (ha-Kohen) head of the yeshiva of the diaspora Solomon (ha-Kohen) head of the yeshiva of the diaspora Menahem head of the yeshiva of the diaspora Mordecai ha-Kohen Joseph ha-Kohen av-bet-dln Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon, etc.

Another type of this family’s lineage lists are thoseof Eleazer ha-Kohen b. Solomon, who lived in the twelfth century in Fustat. Here we find: (d) Aaron ha-Kohen Elijah ha-Kohen head of the yeshiva of the diaspora Menahem ha-Kohen head of the yeshiva of the diaspora Mordecai ha-Kohen Joseph ha-Kohen av-bet-dln Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon, etc.

As we can see, there are differences betwee,n the lists, both in the names and the titles. A fragmentof a letterfrom theyeshiva to a community, evidently from the latter half of the tenth century, contains the signatures of Joseph ha-Kohen, head of the yeshiva Ge’iin Ya‘aqiiv; of Samuel ha-Kohen ‘the third’ in the havtrri (the yeshiva); and of Aaron ha-Kohen ‘the fourth’ in the bavtrri, who calls himself: great-grandson of a Gaon. At the top of this letter, the latter’s signature with the words‘avdi behirf,‘my servant, mine elect’ are written. It would not be far from the truth to say that the Joseph 66 I

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ha-Kohen, whosesignature is foundhere, is theabovementioned b. ‘Ezriin (Number 9 in the list; for in no list is there anyone else named Joseph who was the Gaon at that time) and that Samuel (who later became Gaon) and Aaron,who are mentioned here, arehis sons. Also, we find no support forthose lineage lists in which one of the forefathers of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph (1025) is said to have served as Gaon before the eleventh century. There is therefore a distinct contradiction between Sahliin’s iist and the lineage lists of the priestly geonim of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Confirmation of the lineage of thelatter is only to be found withregard to the names of the father and grandfatherof Solomonha-Kohen, who was Gaon in 1025. His father’s name was Joseph and his grandfather’s, Menahem. This we gather from the fragments ofa letter of Josiah Gaon, but nowhere does it state that they wereheads of the yeshiva. The incidence of Elijah ha-Kohen, Solomon ha-Kohen and Menahem ha-Kohen being called heads of the ‘yeshiva of the diaspora’ is strange, their time, according to the lineage lists of the family, being approximatelythemid-tenthcentury.We know thatitwastheBabylonian yeshivot which were in the habit of calling themselves yeshiva of the diaspora. This puzzle does not seem to have any solution for the time being. An address written on the back of a piyyiit (which is faded and illegible) says: ‘its waters fail not (Is., 1viii:ll); receive ye many greetings from the gateof theyeshiva of the Aaronids(i.e. the priestly one), which is aided by the name of the God ofJacob, and also from all our party and our assemblies’, etc. Perhaps the appellation ‘the yeshiva of the Aaronids’ suggests thata separate yeshiva was set up bythis priestly family. Another matter worth looking into is the claim of the priestly geonim of the eleventh century, that they were the offspring of the tanmi Eleazar b. Azariah (around AD 100). Abiathar ha-Kohen writes in his scroll that his father, the GaonElijah ha-Kohen, is buried in Daltiin‘close to . . . Eleazar b. Azariah his ancestor’. Another personality who claimed descent from Eleazar b. Azariah was Aaron ha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph (Gaon of Pumbedita from 943 to 960, the rival of Saadia Gaon. He was also called Khalaf b. Sarjiida).116 See the lineage lists 4-9, 11; in 9 (MS Sasson), line 3, there is the editor’s doubtful reconstruction, with an additional name: Solomon ha-Kohen, between Elijah and Menahem. Another lineage list of Masliah Gaon:TS BoxK 6, f. 139; seealso the fragment TS N S J 605, and similar fragments with Masliah ha-Kohen’s lineage list, from the David 7-8. The letter ofJosiahGaon: 38, b, Kaufmann collection in Budapest, edited by Weisz, line 3. In a memorial list: TS Box K 6,f. 118, edited by Mann,Jewr,11, 58 (cf. ibid., I, 66), Samuel ha-Kohen headof the yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov and his son Yose ha-Kohen of head the yeshiva Ge’dn Ya‘aqdv are mentioned.doWenot know anything about the latter (the list is in the handwriting of Samuel b. Saadia, and as Mann not assumed; andis dated 1452 Sel. (AD 1141)). The Aaroniteyeshiva: TS Box K 16, f. 69, edited by Mann,Jewr, I, 21,

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[854] There is no doubt, then, that wehave here two priestly families, one mentioned in Sahlin’s list, of which there is documentary evidence with regard to the existence ofJoseph ha-Kohen (b. ‘Ezrun, apparently) and his son Samuel. The other family is mentioned in the list of priestly geonim of the eleventhcentury, of which there is evidence of theexistence of Joseph (Yehosef) ha-Kohen b. Menahem, who was av-bet-din of the Palestinian yeshiva. Joseph ha-Kohen of thefirst family, is mentioned in a letterdealing with a legacy of a freedman named Bundir, of Palermo. He bequeathed a quarter ofhis property (the sum of some thirty-five dinars) to ‘the poor of Jerusalem, may it be rebuilt soon . . . to Rabbanites only’. Samuel b. Hosha‘na, of the Jerusalem yeshiva, then visited Sicily, and arranged to n. 1. O n the ‘yeshiva of thediaspora’ in the priestly lineage lists, see Poznanski, REJ, 51 (1906), 55f; in his opinion, this appellation proves that thosepersonalities lived in Egypt. The Scroll of Abiathar, see: 559, b, lines 23-25; cf. also in ‘the ancient questions’ the matter of the descent of thehead of thePalestinian yeshiva from Eleazar b. Azariah, see in Rosenthal, HUCA, 21(1948), 45, lines 29-30: ‘so he counted me among his flock, the [zavtrrij of righteousness (i.e. thePalestinian yeshiva), and his own generation, andEleazar b. Azariah’. Cf. also Assaf, Kiryat Sefr, 5(1927-29), 46, who also noted the matterof the descent from Eleazar b. Azariah; the claim of descent of the abovementioned Aaron ha-Kohen b. Joseph from Eleazar b. Azariah emerges from his responsum, edited by Assaf, Jeschunrn, 5/6(1925) 45ff, and re-edited in: Made‘? ha-yahadtrt, 11, 72ff. See on the entire matter: Gil, Sefirnof, NS 1(1979/80), 22f, n. 19, and some assumptions there as to the origins of the Palestinian priestly geonim (Mr Aaron Nahlon draws my attention to the fact that these mentions of Eleazar b. Azariah were evidently dueto his status in the Sanhedrin, wherehe had the rank ofrtcisi). Apparently, thepeople ofthat generation were aware of the fact that a nisineed notnecessarily have to stem from the house of David; as Abraham Maimuni says in one ofhisresponsa; ‘as was thecase with R.Eleazar b. Azariah, who was ncisialthough he was a Kohen’. (See BT, Ber.27b: Eleazar b. Azariah was about tobeappointed instead of Rabbin Gamliel, ‘as hewas a scholar, and rich, and a tenth-generation offspring ofEzra’.) See the Responsa of Abraham Maimuni,20. We have seen that at the end of some of liststhe‘the grandson of Aaron the priest’ is written, or ‘the grandson of Aaron, the chief priest’ (according to Ezra, vii:5) and also ‘the grandson of Aaron thepriest, the Saint of the Lord’ (see Ps., cvi:16). There are contradictions between the lists, butElijah ha-Kohen ‘head of the yeshiva of the diaspora’ is found inall of them, and it is said of him that he was the grandson of Aaron ha-Kohen ‘the head’. True, common sense tells us that the reference is to Aaron, the brother ofMoses, but it is not impossible that the above-mentioned Aaronha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph, the head of the Pumbedita yeshiva, is meant. O n the outset of the involvement ofJoseph ha-Kohen b. Menahem’s family (and after him, Solomonha-Kohen Gaon, his sons Josephand Elijah, etc.) in the Palestinian yeshiva, we have an important additional detail in 3a. This is an b. Abraham wrote on the geonim Palestine of and it additional fragment of what Sahlin emerges that that family of geonim stemmed from Sijilmissa in the Maghrib (Joseph ha-Kohen, father of the family, is called there Sijilmissij. This fact is linked with the matter ofJudah ha-Kohen b. Joseph, ‘ha-Rav’. Above I wrote that he was perhaps the person of the same name mentioned in a Geniza document, whose father’s designation was: ‘his honourable Sanctity, our Lord and Master Joseph ha-Kohen SijilmZssi’ ( s q m , sec. 378); if this is the case, one can assume that the ‘Rav’, leader of the Maghribis in Fustat, was indeed a member of thatpriestly family who headed the Palestinian yeshiva, and the brother of Solomonha-Kohen Gaon. However, the fact that the ‘Rav’ was still active towards the end of the eleventh century, speaks against this assumption, for

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THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

transfer themoney toJerusalem through a certain Joshua al-Halabi. Part of the money went to ‘Joseph Gaon head of theyeshiva’. Although the letter does not specifically state ‘ha-Kohen’, there is no doubt thatJoseph ha-Kohen, the fatherof Samuel, is being spoken of. According to Sahlin’s list, he was succeeded by ‘Ezriin (Ezra), who was Gaon for thirty years.If this is correct, it means that Joseph ha-Kohen became Gaonat about the onset of the Fatimid period (970). About ‘Ezriin, we have no further information. A‘list at the end ofa midrash manuscript says: ‘his honourable Sanctity, our Lord and Master Joseph ha-Kohen, head of theyeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov, andour MasterJosiahav-bet-din, and our Master Isaac, his brother,‘thethird’,andourMasterSamuelb.‘Ezriin,of blessed memory’. Itis difficult to determine which Joseph ha-Kohen this refers to; perhaps it is the grandson of the above-mentioned Joseph ha-Kohen and the son of ‘Ezriin, who succeeded We him. have seen that in one of lists the Yose ha-Kohen Gaonis mentioned, and Samuel b. ‘Ezriin, in the continuation of the list, was evidently his brother. If indeed there was another Gaon by thename ofJoseph ha-Kohen, it sems that the extent his office of was very short. As to Samuel ha-Kohen b. Joseph, we know that he occupied the Gaon’s seat at the end of the tenth century. Josephb. Isaac ibn Abitiir’s letter to him from the year 989 has been preserved, in which Joseph ibn Abitiir requests that he support him in his struggle against Hanokh b. Moses, who had appealed to Shemaria b. Elhanan for support. In my collection, there is a fragment ofa marriage deed of a woman named Sutayt, written during thedays of ‘our Lord and Master Samuel ha-Kohen Gaon’. We also know thatbefore he became Gaon, Samuel ha-Kohen was av-bet-din of the yeshiva, which is explicity stated in the fragmentof a letter dealing with the distribution of money to the people of the Palestinian yeshiva. Sherira and Hayy wrote to him on13 Av 1300 Sel., or 18 July AD989. Samuel ha-Kohen’s brother, Hanania, was av-bet-din of the Palestinian Sel., 1 yeshiva. He is mentioned ina court record in Fustat,of I6 Elull318 September AD1007, when before ‘the council of theav-bet-din Hanania b. Joseph Gaon’, none other than Ephraim b. Shemaria and his rival Solomon b. Pashshat, cameto be judged. A poet fromAleppo dedicated three piyyiitim to Hanania; in one of them he expresses his joy onHanania’s visit to Aleppo (he thanks ‘God who brought you to me, to Sijva’), and ends with ‘greetings . . . to our Master Hanania av of theyeshiva’. Elsewhere he writes: ‘Our MasterHanania who is called thefather of all andthe excellent’. Apparently, Hanania was already av-bet-din at the time of his brother Samuel’s term ofoffice as Gaon and continued in this role during Solomon Gaon died in 1025. Then perhaps the ‘Rav’ was the grandson of that Judah ha-Kohen, the assumed brother of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon.

T H E G E O N I M O F P A L E S T I N E [ S E C S . 849-9011

the terms of the succeeding geonim, Shemaiah and Josiah. He is mentioned in the draftof a court record in Fustat concerning the dispute over slaughtering, mentioned above, and which is to be found in my collection. It mentions in the past tense, ‘Shemaiah Gaon, ofblessed memory’, as well as Hanania: ‘Our Master Hanania ha-Kohen, may God preserve him, his av-bet-diiz’, who was still alive then.O n the same subjectof slaughtering, Hanania wrote a letter which is also to be found in my collection. The letters from the people of Sicily to the yeshiva are also addressedto him. We also have a letter from the Gaon Samuel ha-Kohen b. Joseph to Shemaria b. Elhanan, which besides containing explicit confirmation of my conclusions concerning the existence of two priestly families who headed the Palestinian yeshiva,reveals considerable hostility between the two families in around 990. The letter is an appeal from the ‘veteran’ kiihanim at the headof theyeshiva, to thepeople of Fustat, asking themto refrain from supporting theirrivalJosephha-Kohen b.Menahem. It seems that the latter managedto gain the support of thecentral figure of the day among the Jews of Fustat, Shemaria b. Elhanan, and promisedto give him the status of au-bet-dEz of the yeshiva. Samuel b. Hosha‘na and Josiah b. Aaron, who later on was to become Gaon, were among those who took issue with the Gaon. Ben-Sasson finds in Joseph b. Abitiir’s letter to theGaon Samuel ha-Kohen tracesof anxiety and anger towards those who try to undermine the Gaon, while in the remnant of a letter written by Sherira Gaon andhis son Hayy toSamuel ha-Kohen, he finds an expression of support for the Palestinian Gaon.(The date of the letter is 18 July 989.) In addition, he assumes that the letter, ascribed to Hayy Gaon, ‘to the unruly kijhanim of Ifriqiya’, was directed against the ‘new’ priestlyfamily, who challengedthePalestinianGaon.Hisviewsare supported by thefact that indeed the ‘new’ priestly family stemmed from the Maghrib (Sijilmassa). The ‘elders of Ramla’ supported the ‘veteran’ family, while thetwo sides tried to obtain theauthorities’ assistance. The letter of theGaon Samuel ha-Kohen mentions ‘the ruler of thebidiya’ (the Bedouin),meaning,itseems,Mufarrijb.Daghfal,theleaderofthe Bedouin, who ruled at that time in Palestine (see secs. 562, 563).12’ 12’

BundZr: TS 16.133. The list at the endofthe midrash: MS Firkovitch 11,157 A, fols. 9-10, hacf. Abramson, Ba-merkazim, 31. Samuel b. ‘Ezriin, perhaps grandson of Samuel Kohen Gaon,is mentioned in a letter of Solomon b. Judah, 101, lines 6-7; and it is to him letter ofJoseph (Samuel b. Ezra) that the lepers of Tiberias are appealing 262. for The help: Ibn Abitur: ENA 4009, f. 15, see in Mann, Tarbiz, 6(1934/5), 84fc see on Joseph ibn Abitur and his struggles: Mann, Tarbiz, 5(1933/4), 282-286; Ashtor, QGrCt, I, 233-247. The marriage deed of Sutayt: 14. Samuel ha-Kohen av-bZt-dFn: 13. Sherira and Hayy: Mann, Tarbiz, 6(1934/5), 84. Hanania ha-Kohen: see Mann, Jews, 11, 440, with a fragI a 9; as to Solomon b.PashshHt: PashshZtb. Samuel is ment of the court record, Mosseri mentioned in 12, line 19, in a deedfrom Fustat (dealing with property in Tiberias)from the end of the tenth century; and also TS 12.462, which relates to a deed from the year

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[855] In about theyear 1000, it appears that the Gaonwas Shemaiah; he was evidentlyaMaghribibyorigin. As I havementioned,Hanania ha-Kohen b. Joseph remained av-bZt-dii? and continued in this role after Shemaiah, but there were no more geonim of this first dynasty of the priestly geonim. Shemaiah Gaon is mentioned in a court record in Fustat dealing with theabove-mentioned slaughtering dispute. A memorandum written in Fustat concerning Ephraim b. Shemaria notes that Ephraim received the first appointmentas bZt-dm from Shemaiah Gaon. In fact, the name of Shemaiah is not preserved there, for a part of the document is torn, but one can safely assume that it was included, for the document mentions Josiah Gaon in the continuation. The name ofShemaiah Gaon is mentioned in the lineage of his descendants, who lived in Palestine and Egyptinthe eleventhandtwelfthcenturies. We find his grandson,the above-mentioned Shemaiah he-haver b. Yeshii‘ii, among the Maghribis in Jerusalem, and this makes it appearlikely that Shemaiah Gaon originated from the Maghrib. The great-grandson of Shemaiah Gaon, Abraham b. Shemaiah he-haver, was dayyan in Fustat, andhis name is to be found in the city’s court deeds dating from between 1092 and 1132. Shemaiah he-haver had another son, Josiah, and the latter’s son (that is, the nephew of Abraham thedayyiin b. Shemaiah), Joshua,is mentioned in documents from Fustat in around 1140 and thereafter, and his signature is ‘Joshua b. Josiah great-grandson of Shemaiah Gaon’. Below we shall see that evidentlySolomonb.Judah was also a descendantofShemaiahGaon. Mention should also be made of the son ofShemaiah’s sister, Tobiah b. Daniel. In Josiah Gaon’s day, he was one of the people of the yeshiva and he held the title of haver, like his father Daniel. This was also the case in Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph’s time, whenSolomon b. Judah was already ‘third’. The twosons of Tobiah,Aaron and Solomon, arealso mentioned in the documents in my collection. 128 ]osidl b. Anrorl

[856]Josiah Gaon, who replaced Shemaiah, stemmed from a different family. No lineage list indicates any family connection between the two. 1277 Sel., that is AD 965/6; perhaps he is the father of this Solomon; see Solomon b. Pashshat in 271, line 40 (Tyre 1019); and in TS 16.191, a deed whose exact time is not known. The piyyiitim: TS Loan 9, edited by Davidson,jQR, NS 2(1911/2), 227-231; see 20, line 12; 23; the letter from Sicily: 45. See the letter to Shemaria b. Elhanan: 38 (Gil, Te‘lrdtz, 7 [1991],311ff);thefragment of the letter by Sherira and Hayy to Samuel ha-Kohen: ENA 4009, f. 15;Hayy’sletter‘tothe priests’: ed. Lewin,Ginze qedenz, 4(1930), 51fC see also 3a; see Ben-Sasson, Ziorl, 51(1986), 386ff. The memorandum: 324, line 13; see Mann,]ews, 11, 342. On Abraham b. Shemaiah see Goitein, n/ledirerrurzeon Society, 11. 512. Joshuab.Josiah: see Mann, 11, 232; Goitein, Mediterrmenn Society, 11, 268, 584, n. 53. Tobiah b. Daniel and his sons: see the Hebrew

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The lineage lists which include thelineage ofJosiah’contradict one another and are not at all trustworthy, for those of the Gaon’s forefathers whose names arelisted there, such as Josiah and Abraham, didnot exist at all, or at any rate, were not geonim. In a few of the lists, the name ofJosiah’s father, Abraham, is included, but we know forcertain that his name was Aaron. We recognise from the lists that the descendants ofJosiah wished to be recorded as members of the family of Meir Gaon, but they were not familiar with its lineage. This, however, does not mean that the lineage is not genuine in the main. Josiah’s father was Aaron, of which we have proof in the openingphrase of a letter sent to him, in which heis called: ‘Josiah head of the yeshiva Ge’ijn Ya‘aqijv, son of his great honourable Sanctity, our Lord and Master Aaron, haver in the Great Sanhedrin’. From this, we also learn that his father was haver, and not more than that, contrary to what was stated in thelineage lists. It seems that the‘alima, the formula adopted by Josiah to end his letters, was yeshd tGv (good deliverance). The time ofJosiah’s death can be clearly arrived at from letters of Solomon b. Judah. In a fragment of a letter in his handwriting, he notes that the Gaonwho preceded him, Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph, died six days before Rijsh ha-shana. As we shall see below, Solomon b. Judah became Gaon in AM 4786; 23 Elul AM 4785 fell on 21 August AD 1025. He complainstherethatsomethingsimilaroccurred‘duringthe past holidays’. What he meant by this was that a Gaonalso died ‘during thepast holidays’. He did not mean the holidays of Tishri of theyear before, for Josiah Gaonwas still alive in themonth ofAdar 1336 Sel. (AM 4785, that is February AD 1025), as we can clearly see from a regulation adopted by the ‘Palestinians’in Fustat during that month. Solomon b. Judah thenrefers to Passover and Shavuot, thatis to say that Josiah Gaondied in the spring of 1025. There are more than thirty letters in my collection written by Josiah Gaon himself, or by some of his retainers, during the period in which he held office. Some of themdeal with disputes in which he was involved. A quarrel involving Hanania ha-Kohen b. Joseph, who was uv-bZt-dk in Josiah’s day, is immortalised in a letter in which Hananiatells that he was ill, but has recovered since. His letter wasdelayed because of his illness. In the continuation, he writes about events in Tiberias, which I have mentioned above, when a man wanted to revolt against the yeshiva, and for this purpose, was in contactwith two brothers in Fustat who helped him it emerges - to have the slaughtering taxes paid to him rather than to the Index, andsee especially34, a, line 12 (where he is called !tiivEr);199;the name of his father: Daniel he-haver; see 181, line 2:Tobiah son of Daniel he-hivk, son of Shemaiah Gaon’s sister. What Mann writesinJews, I, 143; Texts, I, 326f., on Tobiah b. Daniel,is not exact. ‘The third’ mentionedin 147 is Elijah ha-Kohen b.Solomon Gaon, not Tobiah b. Daniel.

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yeshiva. I have also mentioned the letter which speaks of the quarrel with someone from the exilarchic family, and another letter in the handwriting of the yeshiva’s scribe, from which it appears that there was a dispute within the yeshiva.It seems that Josiah was taking issue with the av-bet-din who succeeded Hanania, Joseph ha-Kohen b. Menahem (father of the priestly dynasty of theeleventh century), and here too, people of Tiberias are involved. Josiah may have risen to the office of Gaon as a result of disputes, and it is not fortuitous that his rise was connected with the ousting of the earlier priestly familyfrom theoffice of Gaon. There seems to have been a very strong faction which opposed that priestly family, and Josiah hints in one of his letters that he actually tried to elude the office imposed on him.Perhaps his appointment was intended to putan end to that ongoing dispute. In some ofhis letters, Josiahdeals with aid, particularlyas a result of the tax decrees. One should bear in mind that Josiah was Gaon during a very difficult period for the Jews of Palestine, that of the disturbances and battles of 1011-1014 and the greatwar of the year 1024. In one ofhisletters written to Ephraim b. Shemaria, he mentions a man, evidently a Palestinian who livedin Egypt, Samuel b. ha-Rijqeah, who helpedthe Jerusalem population with considerable sums of money ‘so that they should notbe afflicted’. He compares Ephraim with‘Joseph [of the Bible] for his father’s house’ and confirms the receipt of 30 durkemonim k6khbayye (dinars with a star, and it is not clear what he means by this) which have been distributed to the Jerusalem poor. He mentions Abii’l-Tayyib ‘Alliin b. Sahl and his father Sahl b. Aaron favourably. He describes the sad situation of the people of Ramla (undoubtedly as the resultof theevents of 1011-1014), ‘who have been motionless under the weight of calamity and distress’, while formerly it was they who supported the poor ofJerusalem. In his letter to the community of Dumyit,he also deals with matters of aid. A tremendous cry for help emerges from another letter, in which he mixes complaints about the external situation with bitter remarks about some among the Jewish leadership. The Palestinian Jews are in great distress, many had died and others were dying of starvation; ‘people of the cities were shattered and people of the villages dispersed, and poverty surrounded them’. ‘The daysof the Turk’ are mentioned in the letter, and the suffering then endured by the Jewish population (we do not know who he is referring to). Acertain Kohen (‘the Aaronite’) helps the authorities on matters of taxes; also helping them is a certain Ibn Garmin (perhaps a Christian: b. Germanus?). B. al-‘Akki, the son-in-law ofJoseph ha-Kohen (b. Menahem) av-bet-din was forced to flee the city. Owing to theletter’s poor state, it is impossible tofully understand the writer’s intention, but 668

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the impression given is one of extreme distress and sharp internal quarrels. In another letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria, the people who were imprisoned because of theirheavydebtsarementioned;thisproblemalso troubled the geonim who succeeded him.*29 [857]Josiah hada son called Aaron. Although it states in the lineage lists mentioned above that Aaron was av-bet-din, we have no proof of this. O n the contrary, the appellation used for Aaron’s son - ‘the grandson of geonim’ - clearly means thathis father, Aaron, did not serve in that high office, nor is he mentioned in the documents my in collection exceptwith reference to his son, Josiah.We find Josiah the grandson in about 1030 in Sahrajt inEgypt. It seems that he did not reach a high rank in the yeshiva either; it is possible that he merely attained the rank of ‘fourth’. His letter 129

See the lineage lists compiled by Mann, Jews, 11, 50ff. Poznanski, REJ, 66(1913), 71, composed a family tree ofJosiah which includes his forefathers and descendants, who lived inEgypt, until the 13th century. lineage The is basedon Bodl MS Heb11,bf. 24, see also ENA 2592, f. 18v; cf. Mann,JQR, NS 9(1918/9), 409. Seealso the lineageof Samuel ha-Nagid b. David (Egypt, the thirteenth century),in MS Merton College, Oxford, in which the early generations are entered on an imaginative basis, undoubtedly from someone’s needto boast (the shelf-mark ofthe MSis Or No.6, which is a commentary by the abovementioned, to Genesis; cf. Poznanski, ibid., 62; Mann,Jews, 50, mentioning this MS according to Neubauer’s Catalogue, Bodl 2443. This MS is from the year 1821 Sel., 1509). Josiah’s father’s name: see 39. Yesha‘ t5u: 32, line 22; 33, b. The deaths of the geonim: 56. The regulation of the Fustat community: 319, see lines 24 (‘our Lord and MasterJosiahGaon,may God preservehim’), 37-38 (the date). See alsoGoitein’s discussions onthechronologyofthegeonim: Shalem, 1(1973/4),16, 21c in ibid., 2(1975/6),102,he withdrew the opinions expressed in the first place; see also his: ha-Yishuu, 82; what he writes there on David b. Shekhania, thatstill healive was in Kislev, 1338 Sel., according to TS 32.2, is based only on the fact that his son Yefet mentioned David, his father’s name, without the addition of a blessing for the dead, which is no prooc similarly, there is no foundation to his opinion that there was another Gaon at the same time whose name was Zadok, based on his completion of324, see in the notes to the version of this document.The letters ofJosiah Gaon and his yeshiva: 16-47; also 315, 319, 324. The letter of Hanania ha-Kohen: 23. The matter of the man from the exilarchic family: 29. The quarrel with Josephha-Kohen b. Menahem:38. Josiah on his unwillingness to be Gaon: ‘28, a, line 11. The letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria: 31. (Samuel b. he-RGqEah is perhaps Samuel ha-Kohen b. Avtalyon.) T o the community ofDumyit: 36. The cry for help:37. The other letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria: 46. As regards the situation in Palestine in the days ofJosiah Gaon, the complaints contained in the letter of the sons of Berekhiashouldalsobetaken into consideration, TS 16.64,ed.Goitein, Tarbiz 38(1968/9), 22-26. The writer is the elder brother, Joseph b. Berekhia,who writes from Qayrawin to Joseph b. Jacob ‘Awkal ibn in Fustat, evidently in or 1015 somewhat later. A state of iltiyith, a complex situation, is mentioned there, referring either to the tough conditions caused by the Bedouin revolt or tosome internal difficulties. He learned about the situation from a letter which was brought by Abii Ibrahim b. Sahl, apparently from Jerusalem. Due to theletter’s poor stateof preservation, not all the details are clear.The son ofDaniel is mentioned there, probably Tobiah b. Daniel, and the banker Sha‘ya. On Tobiah b.Daniel, see i n j a , secs. 855,872. Abii Ibrahim (Isaac) b. Sahlis also mentioned in b. ‘Ati’ toIbn ‘Awkal, in which he asks TS 10J 9, f. 26, the letter of the Nagid Abraham him torepay Isaac b. Sahl’s expenses when dealingwith thesending of theremains of the Nagid’s brother for burial in Jerusalem, see Goitein, Tarbiz, 34(1964/5), 166f. See also supra, sec. 835. ,

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to Abraham b. Haggai in Fustathas been preserved, as well as a fragment from a letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria. A notable personality at the Palestinian yeshiva at the beginning of the century and during the period of Josiah Gaon, was the poet Samuel b. Hosha‘na. He rose to the rank of ‘third’ of the yeshiva. His letter to Shemaria b. Elhananin Fustat has been preserved,with a warm recommendation for Nathanb. Abraham, when he set out onhis way to the Maghrib via Fustat (as mentioned insec. 795). A letter evidently written at the beginning of1002 describes, as we have already seen, the distress and calamities suffered by the communities of Palestine at the time. In that letter, hestill calls himself ‘the fourth of the (zavtlvi’. Before that,in ca. 990, he is mentioned in a letter dealing with the distribution of money to the people of the yeshiva, without any title attached to his name. In the fragment touching on whatoccurred during his visit to Egypt toparticipate in the funeral of Shemaria b. Elhanan (1011) (which I have mentioned in sec. 572) he is spoken of with a blessing of the dead following his name, and as that fragment was undoubtedly written shortly after the events (also described in the ‘Egyptian Scroll’),he apparently died soon after the death of Shemaria b. Elhanan and those events inEgypt. His status in the yeshiva is also confirmed by a promissory deed drawn up in Jerusalem before the ‘Grand Court’ on 10 November 1004, in which Samuel ‘the third’ b. Hosha‘na is the last of the signatories, thatis, the most important among them. Evidently, he travelled to Fustat frequently, and to other places as well, on behalf of the yeshiva. Letters have been preserved written by Samuel’s son, Abraham, who became ‘fourth’ in the yeshiva and who called himself ‘son of the third’; there are also letters from his grandson, ‘Eli ha-mumhe b. Abraham. Thelatter hadgone through many hardships, and had been imprisoned but managed to escape to Egypt, where he hoped to get help from Hesed al-Tustari, but when he arrived, Hesed was no longer alive. We also encounterthegreat-grandson of Samuel ‘the third’, Joshua he-haver b. ‘Eli ha-Mumhe. O n 10 August 1076, he writesa deed in Ramla, whenthis city hadalready been under the Turcomans’ rule forsome time,and a fragment of the deed is preserved in the Geniza. Afterwards, he moved to Caesarea, and from there wrote to Mevorakh the Nagid b. Saadia in about 1098, asking him to help him move to Ascalon.130 l30

‘Grandson of geonim’:210, lines 27-28. ‘The fourth’:238, line 9; his letters from Sahrajt: 202,203. The fragment ofa letter ofJosiah b. Aaron, grandson ofJosiah Gaon: 203a; from which it emerges that he madehis living by copying books.A commentary of212 masse% (Num., xxx-xxxvi) is mentioned (in 202 he mentioned a commentary of 212 ha-deviiritn, Deut., i-iii). Samuel b. Hosha‘na’sletter: 18; the letterfrom the beginning of1002:MS of the Berlin community: 4A; the letter from ca. 990: 13; the Jerusalem deed:17. TS 16.14 contains evidence concerning a Damascene promissory deed which Moses b. Shahriyar

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[858] As we have seen, Josiah Gaon died in the spring of 1025, and Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph b. Menahem succeeded him. We have already discussed the family’s origins and how we suddenly found the family amidst the Palestinian geonim. This family had widespread connections by marriage,some of them with outstanding personalities. I have already marked their family relationship (cousins)to Abrahamha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furit, the influential physician of Fustat who spent many years in Ramla.They werealso related to anotherpriestly familyof the wealthy of Fustat, the brothers Ephraim and Manasseh ha-Kohen, sons of Abraham. Manasseh, the younger of the two,was the son-in-law of Solomon b. Judah, and I shall speak of him again. Solomon ha-Kohen was also related by marriage to Solomon b. Judah, and although this is not quite clear, we may assume that Solomon b. Judah married the sister of Solomon ha-Kohen, for itwas said ofJoseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon that he was the cousin of Abraham b. Solomon b. Judah. Evidently, there was also a marital connection between Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon and Ephraim b. Shemaria, for Ghilib ha-Kohen b. Moses, Ephraim’s son-in-law, calls Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon ‘our cousin’. One can assume that Joseph ha-Kohen also had a son whose name was Moses: Menahem ha-Kohen

I I \ Ephraim b. Shemaria Moses Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon daughter - Solomon daughter I - Ghalib / Joseph / Elqah / \ a son who died \Abraham / b. Judah ,Joseph

ha-Kohen

The special connection with Ephraim b. Shemaria is also obvious from of Samuel b. Hosha‘na, to Ephraim, in which he advises him how to maintain his correspondence with the two priestly brothers, Joseph andElijah. The connection is also confirmedbytheletters ofJoseph ha-Kohen b. SolomonGaonto a letter of ‘Eli ha-Mumhe,thegrandson

made out to the credit ofJoseph b. Jacob r5sh knlli (evidently Ibn ‘Awkal); this Moses remained owing 164 dinars after the death ofJacob, the father ofJoseph. The deed was in the dated Tuesday, 6 Tammuz 4767, 24 June 1007, in the court of Samuel ‘the third (tnvi?rii’ (the evidence on the deed was givenin Fustat, and was written by Yefet b. David). O n the piyyiitim of Samuel b. Hosha‘na see: Halper, Hnteqtrfa, 18(1922/3), 187; Schirmann, Slrirlrn l.dishiin, 63-69 (who assumed thatSamuel was the author ofthe ‘Egyptian this); see there details on his piyyiitim which were Scroll’ but I have notseen any proof of published, on research about him, and some additional piyyiitim; Fleischer, Ha-sifrtrt, 4(1972/3), 344, and n.64, and morepiyyiitim there, 350-353. See in Schirmann,ibid., 77f, a dirge written by Sahlan b. Abraham on the death of Samuel ‘thesee third’; further: ENA 4007, f. 4v: ‘a widdfiy (confession) by R. Samuel the third b. Hosha‘na, of righteous blessed memory’. Theletters of Abraham:227-230. The letters of his son ‘Eli: 231-240. Joshua b. ‘Eli: 567-569.

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Ephraim, in which the family relationship is felt. I have already mentioned (insec. 790) thesecretcorrespondence used bythe two brothersto maintain contact with Ephraim, in order to give him information about events in Jerusalem and its yeshiva, which can be clearly discerned from the letter sent him by Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon. Av-bet-din in Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon’s time was Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi, clearly stated in the document relating to Ephraim b.Shemaria. The ‘alirna (theformulaforgreetingandendingin a letter) ofSolomon ha-Kohen is known tous as yesha‘ ytrhirh. Six letters written by Solomon ha-Kohen have been preserved, much of their contents naturally dealing with the distress prevailing in Palestine, and especially in Jerusalem, for the waragainst the Bedouin was still at its peak, although itmoved had to the north ofPalestine. A letter written byhis son Elijah, of whicha draft has been preserved, also belongs to theperiod of his holding office.This is a recommendationto‘Samuelb.Semahthecantorknown as b. alLadhiqi’ (that is, from Ladhiqiyya in Syria), of whom it was said that he was the ‘court scribe’ of theyeshiva, and that‘he was givena seat with us in the city of Ramla’. This man seems to have gone to Egypt to secure financial aid for his heavy family burden: his old mother, abandoned by her husband, and his two sisters.131 Solomon b . Judah

[859] The outstanding figure in accounts of the Jewish population in Palestine during theperiod under discussion was SolomonJudah, b. partly due to the long stretch of time during which he held office, and also because it was during his time that the synagogue of the ‘Palestinians’ in Fustat was rebuilt and its repository of theGeniza was constructed. When the timecame forhis letters andother documents written during his day to be removed and ‘hidden’, they were placed in that repository and hence 131

Manasseh ha-Kohen: 76, lines 54-56. Joseph ha-Kohen and Abraham son of the Gaon were cousins: 182, line 5. GhZlib ha-Kohen b. Moses:418, in the upper margin, lines 9ff. Solomon ha-Kohen had three sons, andwe shall encounter Joseph and Elijah below; the third son must have died at a young age, for we hear no more of48, him; see ends which with greetings from the Gaon’s three sons.The letters ofJoseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon: 407, 408. Elijah ha-Kohen:413. O n Ephraim: 49, line 7; see also: 324; it seems that also in TS 13J 6, f. 23 mention is made of Ephraimb. Shemaria: thisis a court record written by Yefet b. David, dealing with a quarrel over a burial plot; there we find the phrase: ‘appointed by the authority of the Kohen, our Lord and Master Solomon head of the yeshiva, of blessed memory’, see lines 14-15. Zadok ha-Levi av-bZt-din, see: 324. Yesha‘ yu&sh: see the HebrewIndex. In a small fragment of a letter written by Yefet b.onDavid behalf of Ephraimb. Shemaria to Qayrawin, thesender’s namehas been preserved: ‘the son ofal-Ghazzi(= the Gazan),yesha‘ yuhlish’; this letter was undoubtedly written during the year Solomon ha-Kohen held the office of Gaon, 1025: see ENA 2735, f. 4. The letters of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon: 47-52. Samuel b. Semah: 412; he is also mentioned in22, line 28, where he is signatory as witness.

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have been preserved until this very day. His many letters and others in whichhe is mentioned, as well as documentsoftheperiod,quickly attracted the attention of the first Geniza students. When Schechter published one of Solomon b. Judah’s letters to Ephraim b. Shemaria in his Saadyana, he stillhad no idea who the author of the letterwas,and assumed that it was Solomon b. Elijah ha-Kohen (the Gaon), the brother of Abiathar. Gottheil and Worrell, who edited a collection of Geniza documents from theFreer Gallery in Washington in1927, still could not positively identify him. Similarly Assaf, who in that same year wrote a review of their publication, still had doubts as to whether Solomon b. Judah or his predecessor Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph was the writer. The first publicationof aGeniza document in which Solomon b. Judah is mentioned was that of a draft aofletter written to him by Ephraim b. Shemaria. This document was published by Muller and Kaufmann in 1892. In 1903, Abraham Epstein noted that this document was related to Seder ‘oliimxiitii and Seder tannii’tm we-am6rii’im, published by Neubauer, in which there is mention of ‘our Master Solomon b. Judah head of the Jerusalem yeshiva . . . who is head of the yeshiva now in the year 4807’ (and there are other dates which are not consistent with one another; around 1045). A. Epstein was the firstto discriminate decisively between Solomon b. Judah and Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph. At the very same time, Bacher had still not discriminated between the two, and assumed that Solomon b. Judah was the grandfather of Abiathar ha-Kohen, the main figure of the scroll of Abiathar. Poznanski supported this idea (opposing Epstein), andrealised his error onlya decade later. Some years afterward, in 1918, Marmorstein attempted to survey the subject in an article devoted to Solomonb. Judah andhis generation. However, itwas only thirty years after the first scientific publication on this figure that the personality of Solomon b. Judah was described in the round, by Mann, firstly ina sharp article reviewing Marmorstein’s article, 1919, in and later in his books. O f the more recent studies, the comprehensive article by Goitein on the history of the geonim in Palestine should be noted in particular, in which many additional letters of the Gaon were edited by him, and accompanied by a comprehensive discussion on the various questions they evoke.132 132

See:Schechter: Saadyana, l l l f f (79); Gottheil and Worrell, No. 5 (54); Assaf, Zion (ha-me’assef), 2(1926/7),114. Ephraim’sdraft: 334, seethe introduction there.See: Epstein, M G W J , 47(1903), 341C Neubauer, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, I, 178; Bacher, J Q R , 15(1903), 81; Poznanski, Z@B, 7(1903), 180, n. 2; Worman, J Q R , 19(1907), 725f followed Bacher andconnected Solomon b. Judah with the priestlyfamily, assumingthat he was the father ofJoseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon. Poznanski,RE], 66(1913), 68, already suggested that there was no such family connection,but only explained his view

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[860] The origins of Solomon b. Judah are enshrouded in mist, to a certain extent. In his signature, he generally called himself birrubi, which means ‘son of a scholar’. At times,his signature wouldbe encircled by tiny letters, which when read alternately at the top and at the bottom, stated, ‘But I am a worm, and no man’ (Ps., xxii:6). In one of his letters, he mentions his appointment as Gaon and says: ‘not by virtue of my father was I appointed norbecause of myfamily was I called and not nowwas I confirmed, but by the will of God and through Him have I reached this name’. Apparently, the stress here is on his modest origins. However, it seems that one should interpret these words somewhat literally, that is, that his appointment did not derive either from his family or lineage, but from thewill of God, howeverthis does not mean that he did not have an honourable background. O n the contrary, there is evidence that he was apparently one of the descendants of Shemaiah Gaon. Firstly, it is worth noting the letter he evidently wrote before becoming Gaon to someone in Egypt, inwhichhementionstheGaon‘ourMaster’,andsigns:‘the younger Solomon b. Judah’. Solomonspeaks there of letters to a certain ‘Awkal, and it seems that he is speaking of an important international merchant who was famous at the time, Joseph b. Jacob ibn ‘Awkal. The also mentions a query put by Joshua letter deals with a matter of law, and he-haver, who mayhave been Joshua ha-Kohen he-haver b. Joseph, duyyiin of Alexandria. Attached to this letter was one to Ascalon, which the recipient is asked to send to Ascalon for a shetrit (diiniq, a sixth of a dirham) which had been paid in advance, and the letter-carrier coming from Jerusalem is to take it toAscalon on his way back. He is to deliver it to the son-in-law of Solomon b.Judah’s brother. Solomonb. Judah asks that a certain Manasseh should carry out this request. Common sense leads us to conclude that Manassehis the brother of Solomon b. Judah and the father-in-law of the man in Ascalon. Indeed, among the Geniza documents wefind a receipt signed by number a ofpeople, among themSahliin b. Abraham,and also Manasseh hu-mishne (thedeputy) brvrubi (as in Solomon b. Judah’ssignature),andaroundthename,intinyletters: ‘great-grandson of Shemaiah, of blessed memory’. There is also a letter written by ‘Manasseh, the younger [Solomon b. Judah also calls himself ‘the younger’ in his signatures] birrubi, great-grandson of Shemaiah, of in a book published in 1914, see his Babylorlische Geonirn, 87ff. Marmorstein, J Q R , NS 8:1, 1917/8; in an article published a few years earlier, Marmorstein still assumed that Solomon b. Judahwas the grandson ofJoseph ha-Kohen (father of the Gaon Solomon ha-Kohen) see RE], 68(1914), 40. See: Mann, J Q R , NS 9(1918/9), 412fC idern, Jews, I, 75-152, and the corresponding documents in vol. 11, and the supplement there, 445fc see also idem, Texts, I, 310-345. See Goitein, Shalem, 1: 15, 1973/4(= hn-Yishuv, 82ff). TS AS 147.58, a small fragment, also belongs to the remaining letters of Solomon b. Judah, being partof aleaf in his handwriting, from which it is only possibleto discern thata hFrern setarn (an anonymous excommunication) intended to obtain the rightsof a certain man named Yahy5, is being spoken of.

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blessed memory’. He asks the addressee, a cantor, brother of Zadok the scribe, to write a letter of recommendation to Alexandria for him, to be signed by Sar Shalom, ‘head of the community, bet-dm and alif of the yeshiva’, and the letter was apparently written from Sahrajt. Evidently it refers to people of the Babylonian (alif and [av]-b&-dliz) communities, although the Shemaiah mentioned there is undoubtedly the abovementioned Palestinian Gaon. This Manasseh composed a piyyiif inhonour ofa certain Eleazar b. Joseph ha-Levi: ‘composed by theslave of your honour, Manasseh b. Judah, great-grandson of geonim’. Thus apparently we have here evidence thatSolomon b. Judah was of Shemaiah Gaon’s lineage. The name ofhis grandfather, Berekhia,is found in the signature of the Gaon’s son, Abraham: ‘[Abrahamhe-haver in the great Sanhedrin] the son of R. Solomon head of the yeshiva Ge’Gn Ya‘aqG[v son of R. Judah]’ and tiny letters around the name,re2d alternately at the topand at the bottom:‘ben Berekhia’. This is also confirmed in a piyyiit, in which it states among other things: ‘our Master Solomon son of R. Judah great-grandson of Berekhia’. The family was from the Maghrib, as I assumed with regard to Shemaiah Gaon, the father of Solomon b. Judah’s grandfather. Solomon b. Judah’s hometown ofFas is still mentioned, as for example whenhis rival Nathan b. Abraham calls him ‘al-Fasi’. It is likely that the familyleft Fas towards the end of the tenth century. This city fell to the Fatimids in Sha‘ban A H 368, that is March AD 978 (according to another source, it had already fallen in 959). In AH 389, that is AD 999, there was bitter fighting in thetown andits vicinity, andit is very likely that these events were whatled the family to leave the region and wander eastward until it came to Palestine. 133 [861]As stated,there was evidentlyamaritalconnectionbetween Solomon b. Judah and the priestly family; that is, he married the sister of 133

Bfrrubf,probably the singular of berz.? ruv, scholars who were not counted with the main rows of the yeshivotin Babylonia; this clearly emerges from the account of Nathan the Babylonian, see in Neubauer, A4ediaevul]ewishChronicles, 11, 87; see the detailed discussion on this term in the Talmudicsources: Friedman, Marriage, 11, 411fC and as noted there, Solomon b. Judah did not use this term in the accepted sense, but wished to say that his father was a scholar. We do not know why hein the washabit ofnot mentioning the name ofhis father.In 58, b, in the address, he calls himself ‘Solomon son ofJudah the head’, and this was a letter he wrote before he became Gaon. Perhaps his father was granted a Babylonian title,r6sh kallii, and the sonrefrained from using it because of the rancor of the Palestinian yeshiva towards the Babylonian yeshivot, particularly after he became Gaon. As to the events in F5s which may havecaused the family to emigrate eastward towards the end of the tenth century, is worth it noting the responsum of Sherira Gaon to ‘queries asked of Sherira by the transferred community of Fas’, while in the responsum it said, ‘who nowlive in Ashir, after having been moved fromFas’, which is explicit evidence of the flight of the Jews from Fas, and their settling in the town of Ashir. The queries reached place in the yeshiva ‘during thekalli (gathering of the Babylonian yeshivot, which took Adar and Elul) of Adar in the year 1298’, i.e., February AD 987. See Lewin, Juhrbudz 7(1909), 254. How he became a Gaon: 128. The letter to Alexandria: 108. It is interesting

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Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph. It is possible that another link was established, if indeed Abraham son of the Gaon married the daughter of Solomon ha-Kohen (that is,his cousin on his mother’s side).The opening of a letter may perhaps provide evidence of this (only the has opening been preserved), in the handwriting of Abraham, son of the Gaon, to Isaac ha-Kohen ibn Furat, in which the ‘aliima of Solomon ha-Kohen, yesha‘ ytrhish, is to be found.We find a similar instance in another of theletters of Abraham son of the Gaon, to Abraham and Jacob, sons of Mevasser, and to Halfon b. Jacob, all people of Fustat. This letter is headed by the name of the writer: ‘Abraham he-haver, son of the Gaon’, whereas we find in the signature: ‘yesha‘ ytrhiish’. I have already spokenof thedates of thedemise of Solomonb. Judah’s predecessors, Josiah and Solomon ha-Kohen. There is no doubting the fact that Solomon b. Judah became Gaon after the death of Solomon ha-Kohen, that is in TishriAM 4786, that is September AD1025. A short timeafterhebecameGaon,Solomonb. Judah wrote to Ephraim b. myself and over such a time thatis in need of Shemaria: ‘I am weeping over me. I am not the right man for the peopleof these times;but what is there to be done,as the titlehas been called upon me, andto reject what our God has invested me withis out of thequestion’. In the same letter mentionis made ofElhanan b. Shemaria, who was still alive at the time, for we know that he died in 1026. Further evidence that Solomon b. Judah was already Gaon in 1026 can be found ina court record written byhis son Abraham, in Fustat, on 8 December 1026, signing there ‘Abraham son of R. Solomon Ge’on Ya‘aqov’. Apparently the document closest to the outset his of holding the office of Gaon,was the letterof his son Abraham to David b. Aaron in Fustat, concerning affair the of Sedaqa b. Menahem, in which we find the ‘alima of the Gaon Solomon ha-Kohen, yesha‘ ytrbish, and also the formula ‘our Master the Gaon’, undoubtedly referring to his father,

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that a letter being sent from Jerusalem to Ascalon had to go via Egypt, which would seem to indicate that the roads were impassabledue tointernal warfare. The receipt: TS 16.191. The letter of Manasseh: TS 16.267, edited almost in its entirety inMann,]ews, 11, 336, see there also: I, 249, where he expresses the (correct) opinion that the letter is from the eleventh century; see ibid., 11, 336, n. 2, on the piyyiif; cf. Goitein, Mediterranean sonoftheGaon: 114. The piyyiif Society, 11, 596, n.30. TheletterofAbraham, (great-grandson ofBerekhia): Bod1 MS Heb f29, f. 71r, cf. Mann,]ews, I, 75. One can say that the sources complied with Halper’s opinion, who without any documentary basis wrote that Solomon b. Judah ‘inherited the seat of Gaon from his forefathers and strongly believedthatthisofficeshouldbehanded down from father to son’, see Hatequfa, 18(1922/3), 194. Poznanski already noted that Solomon’s grandfather’s name was Berekhia (Poznanski, Babylonische Geonim, 87), but did not mention his source. Nathan b. Abrahbm: 183, a, line 21; seealso the letter of one ofNathan’s followers:198, line 13.See also the petition to the authorities concerning the confirmation of the appointment of Joseph ha-Kohen as dayyZn in Alexandria, 315, line 4: Sulayman b. Judah al-Fasi. The

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to Solomon b. Judah, who had written to Sahlin b. Abraham on the matter of Sedaqa b. Menahem, and signed‘head of the yeshiva’.*34 [862] Record of Solomonb. Judah’s widespread and continuous activity has been preserved in the Geniza in 120 letters and fragments of letters written by himor his son, and additional letters sent to himor in which he is mentioned. Let us not forget that this correspondence was centred almost exclusively in Fustat, but his activities certainly encompassed a large number of communities, large and small, in Palestine and elsewhere. It seems that while he was Gaon, he was not in the habit of visiting communities, and his visit to Egypt, which he mentions in one of his letters, certainly took place before he became Gaon. He even explains in one of his letters that he refrains from travelling because of his age, speaking of a trip to Damascus on behalf of the Jerusalemite prisoners (jailed because of their debts, as we have seen). Itis difficult for himto go to the market without a helping hand and even writing is impossible due to the frailty of his hands, and he is consequently dependant on others to write for him.In a letter to Sahlin b. Abraham, he complains of weakness and pains: ‘myeyes are dimmed’, he writes like a pupil ‘learning to write’, his lines are not always straight (‘sometimes they are crooked’), and he thinks that his end is approaching. An actual exampleof this can be found in a fragment ofa letter of recommendation, evidently written by him in 1048, for a man who asked that the recommendation be written by the Gaon himself, and one can indeed see that it is written by a trembling hand. Abraham, the son of the Gaon, confirms there that this is the a similar confirmationis made bySahlin b. handwriting of the Gaon, and Abraham. Indeed, some of the letters in my collection are written his by sonAbraham, or bySolomonb.Semah,orbyJosephha-Kohenb. Solomon, and signedby the Gaon. In another letter, he also writes that his strength is ebbing and that his eyes are dimmed ‘with the burden of years’. Apparently, Solomon b. Judah spenta great deal of time inRamla, and we find him there in 1029, during the terrible times of distress shortly before the end of the war against the Bedouin.In his letter, he describes the state of scarcity and poverty which he himself endures, the very hard winter, and the assistance he requires from Jistis al-Maghribi during his visits to Jerusalem, though his family do not want that help. If he stayed in Jerusalem throughout the entire period, his situation would be much 134

events in F4s: Ibn‘IdhPri, 231, 249f; Ibn Zifir (printed), 22: F b was already taken by al-Mu‘izz’ army, under thecommand ofJawhar,on 20 Ramadan 348.24 November 959. The opening of the letter:162, cf. Goitein, Baronlubilee Volume, 522, n. 37; idem, Tarbiz, 45(1975/6),75. The letter to Fustat: 87. The letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria: 67, and Elhanan ismentioned there in line29. The court record63. The letters concerningSedaqa b. Menahem: 59 (see line 18: ‘our Master the Gaon’, 60).

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worse, for the people of Jerusalem are not to be relied upon (apparently because of their own destitution). His stay in Ramla was evidently the result of pressure on the part of the ‘elders of Ramla’, who asked him to remain there, for ‘they were like a herd of sheepwithout a shepherd’.Also there was a serious internal disputein the city, which ‘was corrupted by the betrayalof evil men’. The nature of these evil men is not madeclear to us. Finally he had no choice but todeclare them excommunicated. In later years, when he had already made his home inJerusalem, he would continue to stay in Ramla from time to time. At the outset ofhis holding office, Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi continued as his av-bet-dfn, and he, too, lived in Ramla and had a house there. Rawh ha-Kohen b. Pinhas, the Baghdadi cantor, writes at the end of 1029 to Ephraim b. Shemaria that he arrived in Tyre at first, after having been attacked and robbed by Bedouin of everything he possessed, and is now in Ramla and living with ‘our Master the av-bZt-dfn’. From this we may perhaps understandwhy Zadokha-Levi wrote to Ephraim b. Shemaria in an effort to help Rawh in Fustat, where he was trying to raise the money needed to return to Baghdad. Despite the sojourns in Ramla, the Gaon spent most of his time in Jerusalem, and thereis no doubtthat this was the seat of the yeshiva,from which theyeshiva’s letters and thoseof mostof its personalities were sent. There is a passage in one of Solomon Judah’s b. letters apparently alluding to his move fromRamla and the settlinginto the newhouse in Jerusalem. In the letter to Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furat concerning help for the Muslim Qayn b. ‘Abd al-Qidir, mentioned earlier, he notes that ‘the family [Qayn’sl’came to theplace where I am nowliving’. Elsewhere the Gaon describes thebeginningof his settlinginJerusalem,before he became Gaon. This was when he returned from Egypt and the Jerusalemites persuaded him tobe their cantor, and he notes that: ‘I would pass thetime,sometimes full, sometimesempty.’Then he addsthatthe Jerusalemites have still not paid him anything, although the payment is now due for two years, for they have no money.135 [863] Solomon b. Judah was unquestionably a man of considerable moral and spiritual stature.He was imbued with a sense of mission, as if 135

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The visit to Egypt: 154, line 5 . The matter of old age and frailty: 90, lines 17-20, 33-34; 150, lines 9-10; 86, lines 22-23. The letter of recommendation: 144; see the letter in the handwriting of Joseph ha-Kohen: 173; see also 79. a, lines 8-12; where it says that Ephraim b. Shemaria’s letter was read to him by ‘the third’ (‘he read for me what was written there’); it emerges that he was unable to read it himself because of his weak eyesight. The distress in Ramla: 80, a, lines 18-31; Jasiis = Jasiis, see on him in Goitein, Shalem, 1(1973/4), 40, n. 37 (= Ha-yishzrv, 99); it seems that Hillel b. al-JasGs, mentioned in 559, c, line 26 (the scroll of Abiathar)is hisson. Pressure from the people of Ramla:94, lines 8-15. The sojourn in Ramla: 116; in 159, the letter to Abrahamha-Kohen b. Haggai, he mentions that he wrote three letters from Ramla before this, and itseems that he was

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the hand of God had placed him on theseat of the Gaonand charged him with standing guard over the Palestinian yeshiva and the Jewish population of Jerusalem. Together with his spiritual and moral qualities, one could also add that he was modest in his needs and ways, honest, restrained and peace-loving. Some years before becoming Gaon, perhaps in 1015, in a letter to Isaac ha-Kohen ibn Furat,who had suffered a setback in a courtcase with theheirs of his partner, he consoles him by extolling the eternal values: men must obey the moral order ‘they for are only trustees, appointed [by God] over everything theypossess’. Perhaps one can most truly judge Solomon b. Judah, the man, by what he wrote to his son Abraham, for ina personal letter of this kind there is less likelihood that a person would write things that do not reflect his genuine inner feelings. In his letter, we find him rejecting proposals to behave as former geonim did and to accept additional income on the side from the communities- as he hints in the letter, his predecessors did this by way of improper actions on thepart of appointees of the communities. He does not intend to be caught perpetrating a transgression, for in the future he would have to make his account with God. In a later letter, however,underthepressureof his direstraitsand his heavyfamily burden, he enquires of Ephraim b. Shemariaaboutthe possibility of receiving from ‘the payments that were for our Master Gaon and for the Av, may they rest in Paradise’ (he undoubtedly refers to Solomon haKohen, his predecessor, and Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi), on condition that there is no transgression involved, however. In another letter, we hear complaints about his difficult plight - people think that ‘one can live on air’ and since his appointment as Gaon, ‘a peck of troubles from heaven’ have fallen upon him, by which he is certainly referring to family troubles, as we shall see. The forgivingand restrained character of Solomonb. Judah is revealed in a number ofletters. He writes a letter of recommendation fora certain Sedaqa b. Menahem despite thefact that this man did himharm in thepast. He stresses his own modesty at every opportunity, as one sees from theuse ofsuch termsas ‘the young’ or ‘the humble’ in his signatures, or the phrase ‘and I am a wormand not a man’ which sometimesembellishes them. In one of the signatures he adds: ‘the humblest ofthe Rabbanitesect living in the Holy City’. To Ephraim b. Shemaria, he also preaches restraint and advises him how to behave with his entourage ‘and leave them a way to respect you’. He also speaks of himself as peace-loving, despising quarrels, and he doesnothing withoutfirst consulting with the ‘au and the third’.He is also very critical of those scholars whose letters request benefits for there for relatively a long stay.The letter ofRawh: 211. Zadok’s letter:212.Qayn b. ‘Abd al-Qidir: 99, lines 16-17. The letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria: 84, lines 20ff.

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themselves but not for others, unlike the lettersof merchants, which seek reciprocity inbenefits. Hence he does not write muchhimself. In the same letter, he speaks in favour of giving; it is the giver who comes closer (rnitqivev) to God (here it is worth noting the Muslim term of the same root, quvba, whichmeans closeness to God, pietyandawe)whilethe receiver of gifts moves awayfrom Himand lessens his merits. His respect for his fellow-man is shown in Solomon b. Judah’s reactionto Joseph ibn al-Sijilmassi’s dream, in which Moses, Aaron and Samuel, came to him and warned him of an imminent and atrociousdecree. The Gaon certainly did not believe in miracles or dreams, but he nevertheless thought it proper totell Joseph that he, too, had had this very dream for three nights. This characteristic moderation which he cultivated was evident in the stand he adopted in the dispute with Karaites. the He demanded, although unsuccessfully, that the yearly practice of declaring a ban on the Karaites on the Mount of Olives be discontinued. Hisson Abrahamand thelatter’s cousins, Joseph andElijah, sons of Solomonha-Kohen, were stubbornly fanatic and proclaimed the excommunication,with very bad results, and I shall return to the subject in the chapter on the Karaites. His son, Abraham, also showed thesame zeal to act against the Karaites in Fustat and the Gaon, who knew his son only too well, seriously warned him not to intervene in the quarrel between the Rabbanites and the Karaites there.136 [864] Solomon b. Judahhad endless family troubles.In one ofhis early letters, written beforehe became Gaon,he mentions three sons: Abraham, Mansfir and Yahya (the latter was then in Baghdad studying with Hayy Gaon), while later on, we only hear about the one son - Abraham. We know nothing of thefate of the other two. Therewas also the difficulty with his son-in-law, Abii Sahl Manasseh ha-Kohen b. Abraham.In a letter to Abraham b. Sahlan, written in around 1020, that is before he became Gaon, he notes that Manasseh went to Fustat and that he sent two letters with him.It seems that fromthat timeonward, Manasseh did not return to Jerusalem and the Gaon’s daughter remained an abandoned wife (‘agl?nii) in her father’s house, maintained by her father.Manasseh was the brother of Ephraimha-Kohen, who was a man ofconsiderable importance in the Fustat community. Thereseems to have been double marital connections between them and the family of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon. Manasseh’s 136

The letter of Isaac ibn Furit: 53, lines 15-16. The letter to his son: 80, a, lines 32ff. T o Ephraim b.Shemaria: 84, a, lines 16ff.The additional letter: 158, a, lines 2fc he writes that he prays to God thathe shall not fail ‘inany matterofthe law, ofpermitted and forbidden, kosher and non-kosher; I trust that He whoprovides for everyonewill provide for me’. The recommendation for Sedaqa b. Menahem: 60, lines 15ff. ‘The humblest’: 105. T o Ephraim: 122, a, lines 6-1 1. Hatred of disputes: 152, lines 25ff. O n the letters of the 313. The excommunication of the scholars: 137. The episodeofthedream:

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first wife was evidently thesister of Solomonha-Kohen b. Joseph, Solomon b. Judah’s predecessor, whereas the sister of these two brothers was married to Solomonha-Kohen. Manasseh ha-Kohen married Solomon b. Judah’s daughter (who was much younger than her husband) after the death of his first wife. Afterwards, Manasseh beganto send money to his wife, the daughter of the Gaon, in Jerusalem; andhis inletter to his son, the Gaon mentions a letter that arrived from Manasseh containing a money order. What followed onthis is very obscure. Solomonb. Judah writes to Abraham his son (in Tyre) and sendshim greetings from Abii Sahl, who is Manasseh. Did he return to his wife? Moreover, the Gaon writes that Abraham’s sister, that is, his daughter andManasseh’s wife, gave birth to a son in the seventh month of herpregnancy, but that the child had died. Later on, in one of his letters, he again complains about his son-in-law, who he claims, left his wife ‘threeyears ago’. The Gaon’s son discussed the matter with him whenhe was in Fustat in his brother Ephraim’s presence and also separately, for the Gaon could no longer bear his daughter’s weeping. Solomon b. Judah mentions here the great difference in age between Manasseh and his daughter. At one time, he submitted to the entreaties of his brother-in-law, the Gaon Solomon ha-Kohen, without worrying, for he was aware of the kind mannerin which Manasseh had treated his first wife - that is, ‘she was much respected and was not in want’. Now his daughter cries all the time, as stated, and she claims that her father takes the trouble to impose lawand justice on strangers but is not concerned with justice for his own daughter. Solomon b. Judah, it emerges from that letter,also sent a personal letter to Manasseh, warning him thatif he doesnot return,it will be necessary to appointa trustee over him, by which he probably meant that one of the travellers to Fustat At would be given a power-of-attorney to sue him there before the court. long last, peace evidently prevailed - as emerges from a letter the Gaon wrote in about 1048 to Ephraimb. Shemaria, in which he asks him tohelp his son-in-law Manasseh with regard to a compound which had been ‘stolen from him’. He is referring to a house in the name oftheir mutual brother-in-law,Solomon ha-Kohen b.Joseph,theformerGaon,but which actually belonged to Manasseh ha-Kohen and his sister, the wife of Solomon ha-Kohen. In the days of bet1 habtrrii, that is, the period of the Bedouin revolt (the Banii Jarrah, which has been discussed in sec. 590), a large fine was imposed on Manasseh which he was unable to pay, andso he borrowed 100 dinars from a certain Khalaf b. ‘Alliin. The latter died, but his widow was not content withthe return of the money and claimed that she had a deed of purchase on the house, drawn up before a Muslim, and Karaites: 85. The warning aboutFustat: 80, b. The restrained approach to the Karaites is also reflected in 122, the letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria.

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that she had promised the house as her daughter’sdowry. It is implied that the case had been discussed in Ramla (evidently before the cadi), but the opposing side had no proof. One can assume that the case was about to come up before a higher instance, in Fustat, andthis was the reason why the Gaon asked Ephraim b. Shemaria to help. Apparently, Solomon b. Judah had other family troubles as well. Five women ‘withouta man’sit around him,he complains in oneof his letters, undoubtedly referring to his abandoned daughter, his two other daughters, and perhaps also to his daughter-in-law (for his son was frequently travelling about), and perhaps to his granddaughters, for he mentions there thatone ofhis daughters is a widow with one son andtwo daughters. It seems that his daughter, the wife of Manasseh ha-Kohen (who in the meantime has become a widow) calls herself, in a letter to Nehorai b. Nissim from Bilbays: ‘your relative, daughter of thehead of theyeshiva, of blessed memory’. She was evidently related to Nehorai through his wife, who was a member of the priestly family, the relationship being evidently through Manasseh and Ephraim, sons of Abraham ha-Kohen. Thus, the reference may be to Solomon b. Judah’s daughter, who was perhaps Nehorai’s sister-in-law. 13’ [865] Apart from personal and family problems,it emerges from Solomon b. Judah’s letters that his eminent status attracted considerable dismay. Even before he became Gaon, in about 1020, he complained that Jerusalem did not receive him graciously, and that the city was full of slander and envy. It is a small town and called ‘a threshold of poison’ (Zech., xii:2). And when he occupied the office of Gaon, his major com137

The sons of Solomonb. Judah: 53, lines llff. Manasseh goes to Fustat: 58, b, margin;see further on Manasseh: 75, a, lines 34fc 80 (the letter to his son Abraham),a, lines 9-10; in 81, line 36, the Gaon mentions Manasseh, who ‘went to Zoan [Fustat] to his brother’ (Ephraim ha-Kohen); and indeed he ‘looked after her a little’, that is, sent her some money; 83, b,lines 3ff, where thereis a strong complaintagainst him; because of him the Gaon has many hours of anguish (mihnu);Manasseh still owed thebridal money; ibid., on recto, lines 14ff, the Gaon rejects the rumours being spread by the brothers Ephraim and Manasseh that it was due to them that his status in the yeshiva rose during the former Gaon’s period, until he was made nv-bet-dirz; in 94, line 18, he mentionsa personal letter he wrote to Ephraim ha-Kohen, Manasseh’s brother, and there too, heseems to have spoken about Manasseh. The matter ofthe birth: 115. The story ofthe marriage and other details: 119, lines 15ff. The reconciliation and the matter of the house: 147, a, marginand further. The ‘third’, whom Solomon b. Judah criticises there for not dealing with this matter properly (‘he wants others to make the effort while he sits still’), is evidently Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon, and not as in Mann,]ews, I, 131, who writes thatit refers to Solomon ha-Kohen’s nephew. ‘Thefive women’: 81,line24. ‘The daughter ofthe head of the yeshiva’: 486;it is difficult to see any otherhead ofthe yeshiva who could be thefather of this woman;Goitein, Tarbiz, 45(1975/6), 71f, assumedthatthewriterwasthe daughter of theGaon Solomon ha-Kohen, and that she was married her to cousin, Judah ha-Kohen b. Joseph, ‘ha-rav’; the matter of theruv has been explained above (sec. 378), and this possibility seems to be excluded; the purpose ofher letter was to obtain the sum of forty dinars owed toher from Nehorai’sfamily, which means, Nehorai himself, and Abii

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plaint was that the people did listen not to him.‘I am left without authority and I am merely a name’. Indications of the opposition that was beginning to form only a few years after he became Gaon,can be seen in the letterof the av-bet-din Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi, written in 1029. Ideas about opposition already occurred to Zadok, orso it is implied in a letter writtenby him at the beginningof Solomonb. Judah’s office as Gaon ‘when the head of theholy yeshiva, may God preserve him, began his rule’. O n the basis of the greetings Zadok wishes to convey through the addressee and the personalities he mentions, one can recognise his supporters: Josiah b. Aaron, grandson ofJosiah Gaon,who lived in Sahrajt; Farah v d z ha-peveq b. Mu’ammal b. Perahia the judge;Abii Nasr Aaronb. Ephraim he-haver b. ‘Eli b. Tarasfin; the Tustari brothers; David ha-Levi b. Isaac; Haggai ha-Kohen b. Joseph (the father of Abraham ha-Kohen b. Haggai). Evidently, some ofthese formed the nucleus which later became a faction of supporters of Nathan b. Abraham in his struggle against Solomon b. Judah - which we shall deal with in due course. The feeling that everywhere he was surrounded by censure and even slander undoubtedly accompanied Solomon b. Judah at all times. In one of his letters, he stresses that he does not complain of the criticism directed against him but of those who are angered by his legal decisions, for in matters of law,he prays that the Lord should ‘guide him in the way of the law, in what is permitted or forbidden,in what is proper and improper’. One can understandthatthemajorpretextforrivalry was his legal decisions, in which he evidently tried to be consistent and uncompromising. He regrets that God has made him Gaon; ‘I wish he would have released me’ (of the office),he writes, ‘so that there would not have been those who curse me inmy lifetime andafter my death’. Many enviedhim, believing he enjoyed many benefits, and some raised false charges against him. Indicationsof this unpleasant atmospherecan also be foundin a secret letterwritten by Joseph ha-Kohen b. SolomonGaontoEphraimb. Shemaria, where it implied thatcertain individuals aredisrespectful to the Gaon. The letter describes a gathering (of people of the yeshiva?) in the rnajlis (apparently meaning the receptionhall) of the home ofthe writer’s brother Elijah, to discuss the impending atrocious decree on the Jews of Jerusalem on the part of the‘boys of thecity’, that is, the authorities. The two communities declared a public fast and they all went to ‘the cave’, that is the synagogue, where someone (the cantor?) insulted the Gaon. This man was forbidden to enter the synagogue,but theparties were reconciled afterwards. O n the sabbath, neither the writer (Joseph ha-Kohen) nor ‘the third’ (his brother, E11Jah) went to the synagogue. Only Abraham,son of &‘id, who is evidently Joseph b. Moses b. Barhiin al-Tahirti, Nehorai’s cousin and partner.

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theGaon,‘thefourth’,wentthereandpronouncedahomily on the pericope ‘and it came to pass on the eighth day’ (Lev., ix:l; read in Adar I1 or Nisan). Thus an atmosphere of depression and internal dissension prevailed. An affair of a special order was that of a sum of money from the yeshiva’s funds, nineteen dinars in all, which the Gaon pocketed for his private use. In a letter to Abraham b. Sahlin, Solomon b. Judah explains what happened. He was forced to help himself to the money because of ‘the hardtimes’; his letter was evidently writtenwhen the war Palestine in was at its height, towards the endof 1028. In Fustat, they assumedat first that the money went astray duringits transfer, and a certain Abraham b. Isaac (evidently: IbnFurit) even brought with hima letterfrom Abraham son of the Gaon, whowas staying in Fustat at the time, ‘about the loss’; that is, the loss of the money. TheGaon gave that Abraham b. Isaac five dinars andalso a talrt (prayer shawl) and a suit of clothing to his takeson to to sell for five dinars in Fustat- in this way, accounting for ten dinars.He received a confirmation of this from Abraham b. Isaac and also from a certain person called Levi. However, in the meantime, the man who had donated the nineteen dinars began pressing him and the Gaon received letter after letter concerning the matter and he feared that the outcome would be a quarrel. He solemnly promises to repay the remainder to the Jerusalemites and it is not clear whether he means the ‘Jerusalemites’ in Fustat or the funds for the poor ofJerusalem. In the continuation, the Gaon mentions in detail various sums which were sent to Jerusalem and how they were received and handled. Evidently Ephraim ha-Kohen b. Abraham and his brother Manasseh (the son-in-law of the Gaon) are among the leaders of thoseagitating against him in the financial affair. Many similar details are to be found in a letter he wrote at the same time to his son Abraham in Fustat, and there too, he writes of the money he tookhow and he intends to return it. It is likely that the matter of the nineteen dinars grew like a snowball and we find a letter written from Qayrawan to Ephraim b. Shemaria in1035, that is, six and a halfyears later, in which the sum had grown to sixtydinars - though perhaps this was just a rumour. That letter mentions letterson the matter being sentto the Nagid (of the Maghrib, Jacob b. ‘Amram) in Mahdiyya, stating that sixty dinars were sent by the man in charge of funds ‘in order that all the people of the yeshiva should enjoy it but the head of the yeshiva took the money for himself and everyonewas left empty-handed’. The writer doubts whether there is any truth in the rumour buthe intends to clarify the matter during his impending meeting with the Nagid.138 13*

The complaints: 58, b, lines7ff; they do notlisten to him: 86, line 21. Zadok’s letter: 210, lines 26ff. Criticism ofhisdecisions: 158. Regret on his being Gaon:137, b, line15. Joseph

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[866]Just how marked was the tension betweenSolomon b. Judah and his rivals, which found its main outlet in the division with Nathan b. Abraham, as we shall see below, can be observed in the episodeof 'Eli b. Joshua al-Lidhiqi. The episode is mentioned incidentally in a letterfrom some anonymous follower of Nathan b. Abraham, who explains his point of view after the dispute. This 'Eli was the uncle of the writer on his mother's side,and was ateacher and permanent cantor in Raqqa, and came to settle in Jerusalem. Here,he apparently offended the Gaon (perhapshe is the cantor mentioned in the previous section, about whom Joseph ha-Kohen wrote to Ephraim b.Shemaria). Solomon b. Judah drove him out ofJerusalem and he was forcedto go to live in Ramla.In his testament, he requested thathe should not be buried in Jerusalem because Solomon b. Judah lives there. The writer himself, who is an old man andsees himself as learned in theTorah, also cannot live in the same citywith Solomonb. Judah. An unusual accumulation of bitterness and grievance amassed around the Jerusalem family, named in letters 'the children of Shuway", thatis, thechildren of Yeshfi'i(Shuway'being an Arabicdiminutivefor Yeshii'ii). We do nothavemuchinformationabout them. These adversaries of Solomon b. Judah were evidently of the family of Semah (called Sabgha) b. Yeshii'i. The elder of the family was Mevorakh b. Yeshii'a, and he was probablytheonlymemberofthe family who maintained good relations with the Gaon, whowrites in oneof his letters that it is thanks to Mevorakh that he refrains from acting against the family. In the same letter, addressed to Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furiit, the Gaon complains that these people make his life a misery and incite the public in Jerusalem and even in Ramla against him. They vilify him, andespecially his son Abraham, in letters. They also try torecruit the Karaites against him and even speak to their n&T, Abii'l-Hasan Josiah (Josiah b. Solomon b. David b. Boaz). Apparently, the Gaon fears that they may influence the Tustari brothersagainst him, and therefore he has already appealed directly to 'the great, mighty and tremendous elder', that is, to Hesed al-Tustari. Solomon b. Judah reaches the height of aspersion in another letter he sent to the same Abraham ha-Kohen, to Ramla. He describes there the matter of a court claim in which both he and the Jerusalem cadi are involved, andaccuses the Shuway' family of intervening on behalf of one ofthe parties. Apart from this, they are mistreating ha-Kohen's letter: 409; the matter of thedecree and the public fast is perhaps connected with the description of the affair ofJoseph b. al-Sijilmassi and his dream, see 313. The letter to Abraham b. Sahlan: 76; [slit may also evidently mean some piece of clothing worn on the body, which hecalls in Arabic in his letter to his son, badart; see the letter to his son Abraham,80 (badan in verso, line 16). The letter from Qayrawan:330, lines 18ff.

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the Gaon's family, and he asks Abraham ha-Kohen to obtain a letter from the arnii. (of Ramla) to his colleague (Sahib, who is the amtr of Jerusalem) with the request that he take actionagainst them and prevent them from behaving inthis manner. However,it seems thatthese adversaries became reconciled afterwards, as can be understood from a letter in the handwriting of Abraham, son of the Gaon, signed by the Gaon,and addressed also to Abraham ha-Kohen. He is asked to get the cadi of Ramla, Abii'lMa'ali, to act in the matter of the house of the Shuway' family, which had been taken from them on thebasis of false evidence given at the Muslim court in favour of an old Muslim,an affair which I have already described. True, the Shuway'family deservethis punishment, he writes, for they are forever at odds with what others do, butthis is a public matter, and this must be the first consideration in such a case. It seems that the Shuway' family were also active in the disputewith Nathan b. Abraham,naturally siding with the Gaon's opponents. We haveseen that the Gaon expressed fears that peoplewould curse him even after his death, justas they do duringhis lifetime. It seems indeed that this fear was justified,as there weresome whocontinued to hate him after he died. One such instanceis immortalised in a letter written from Jerusalem by Hayyimhe-haver b. Solomon, someyears after the passing of the Gaon. He mentions there a certain 'Imran, who vilifies the memory of Solomon b. Judah, and the writersharply takes exception to this.139 [867] Solomon b. Judah's letters are illuminating evidence of the rich quality of his personality and activities. Generally, it is not difficult to identify his own characteristic handwriting and the elegant handwriting of his son Abraham. The 'alima, the distinguishing phraseof his letters, was yesha' YUV (a 'great deliverance'). His style was also typical, both in letters written in Hebrew and in Arabic, and it is interesting and merits special study. Apart from letters, there are also a number of piyyiitim in the Geniza written by Solomon b. Judah, many of which have been recorded in works of students of Hebrew poetry, and some of which have been edited. As to responsa on matters of law, one has been preserved on the laws concerning inheritance, written in Arabic; this was the case of a fatherwho 139

The episode of 'Eli b. Joshua: 198. The letter to Abraham ha-Kohen: 142; cf. Goitein, Barorl Jubilee Volume, 51 1fi idem., Mediterranean Society, 11, 243. In a letter from Qayrawan to Ephraimb. Shemaria, 330, which contains the matter of the rumours about the Gaon who took for himself sixty dinars intended for the yeshiva, a certain Mawhiib is mentioned, the in-law of b.Isaiah (hn-mit!~abbt?r,see line 9, not: who travels together, as translated in Mann, Jews, I, 124); perhaps the reference is to an in-law of the Shuway' family; also mentioned there is 'the known representative' b. Sha'ya (see in 432, lines 15-16), of Fustat, of a well-known family of merchants; perhaps they are also of the Shuway' family. The other letter to Abraham ha-Kohen: 101. The matter of the house: 117. Hayyim he-haver: 463.

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bequeathed his property to one of his two sons and left nothing to the other. In a brief responsum, lucidly phrased, the Gaon decided that the witnesses had to be interrogated with regard to the expressions which had been used by the deceased when he was dictating his will (undoubtedly dealing from thedeath-bed). We also have a fragment (in poor condition) with the discussion on the food of thegentiles, in which he also includes laws of impurityand purity, and of conversionto Judaism. O n the latter, he comments on whatis said in the book of Ezra. The end of a responsum has also been preserved which he wrote about a woman's marriage deed which hadbeen drawn up on the intermediate daysof afeast, and it seems that the querywas whether this was a transgression.The Gaon proves that this is a case for leniency. In aletter to Sahlin b. Abraham,Solomon b. Judah expresses his reservations about themidrishim, thehuggidc?t, as he calls them. Theseare merely personal opinions, and whoever has some intelligence can invent homilies on the Bible 'different from what is said' (inthemidrash). Nevertheless, here and there, he did introduce phrases from midrishim into his letters. 140 [868] The son of the Gaon, Abraham, enjoyed a special status in the yeshiva. He was his father's right-hand man, writing his letters (and also court records) forhim and travelling on various missions on behalf of the yeshiva. This was not an unusualphenomenon,andwe find similar instances in the Babylonian yeshivot as well. In the Palestinian yeshiva, we have already encountered the pair Meir Gaon and his son Aaron, and below we shall meet Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon and his son Abiathar. There were certainly others but we onlyhave sources on those mentioned here. Among the missions which the Gaon imposed his on son Abraham, that of the latter'sjourney toFustat in 1026 is clearly evident. In Iyar 1337 Sel. that is, April or May 1026, Abraham writes a deed of trusteeship in his handwriting, in which he appoints 'Eli b. Yefet to be trustee over the orphans of Moses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb, who are Ghulayb, the eldest, a daughternamedMulk and a little boy aged four. One mayassume that they wererelatives of the priestly familyof geonim in Jerusalem. The son (here named Ghulayb, a diminutive) is evidently Ghilib (Joseph?) l*'

Yeslza' rav was also the 'aliirna of Sherira Gaon, see: Bod1 MS Heb c 28, f.49, in Mann, J Q R , NS 8(1917/8), 359. Marx, PAAJR, 16(1946/7), 195, wrote on 'more than fifty letters' of Solomon b. Judah, but as one can see in my collection, th_eir number is more than twice that.The poems of Solomon b. Judah, see in Davidson, Osnv; see also: Zulai, Sitzai, 25(1948/9), 48-52; Scheiber, Tarbiz, 22( 1950/5l), 171ffi Habermann, Sinai, 53(1962/3), 186fc E N A NS 18, f. 4 v contains two fragments of a piyyiit of Solomon b. Judah in his handwriting. The responsum concerning thelegacy: 157; the fragment of a responsum: 160; the matter of the marriage deed: Mosseri Ia 20 (formerly L 290); cf. the introduction to 83. The matter of the midriislziin: 146, lines 24-25; sayings from the

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ha-Kohen b. Moses, who afterwards became theson-in-law of Ephraim b. Shemaria, while Abraham, son of the Gaon, was a relative by marriage, and it is possible that the latter’sjourney to Fustat was made in order to participate in the funeral of that Moses ha-Kohen.A receipt from thesame year written by Abraham the son of the Gaon in Fustat, has been preserved. In it, Turayk, daughter of Abraham ibn Qurdusi, extends credit to the merchants’ representative Muhassin (Mevorakh) b. Husayn, known by the nickname Ibn ukht Sham‘in, ‘the son of Simon’sInsister’. the same year, there is another court deed, of 8 December 1026, written by the Gaon’ssoninFustat,inwhichheandEphraim b. Shemariaarethe signatories. This is a receipt crediting the Fustat parnas Jacob b. Mevasser. Abraham also usedhis stay in Fustat in orderto deal with the problem of the imprisoned Jerusalemite debtors, and the Gaon asks Ephraim b. Shemaria not to detain Abraham in Fustat needlessly and to see to it that he does not enjoy any benefits from his stay. Another mission occurred apparently in the summer1029, of when the son of Gaon the wentto Tyre, and it seems that from there hewent toSova, whichis Aleppo. According to what wefind in his father’s letterto Sahlin b. Abraham,he went there to ‘bring back some objects which had been left there’, perhapsfrom the time the family lived in Aleppoelse or he had fled there during the events of 1024-1029. Thejourney toAleppo was undoubtedly only possible after the victory of theFatimid army in Uqhuwana(12 May 1029). In around 1030, Abraham, son of the Gaon, again paid a visit to Egypt,and we have information that he also visited such country towns as Munyat al-qi’id and Sahrajt. In Fustat, in Elul 1342 Sel. (beginning 23 August AD 1031), he wrote a court record in which Salmin b.Shabib, known as al-Ashqar (‘the red-head’) was found tobe the losing party. This led to an outburst of temper against Abraham, son of the Gaon,and thejudges, on the part of Salmin b. Shabib. The result was that Ephraim b. Shemaria declareda ban on him until he repented. Apparently, at about the same time as this incident, a huge scandal took place in the synagogue of the ‘Palestinians’ in Fustat at thehourthetwocongregations(the ‘Babylonians’andthe ‘Palestinians’) assembledto listen to the homily of Abraham, son of the Gaon. Some participants seem to have insulted him, and Abraham wrote a letter to his father, on his own behalf and on behalf of thepeople of Fustat, asking him to excommunicate the trouble-makers. O n the same trip, he apparently visited Alexandria as well. The people of the Alexandrian community wrote to the ‘Palestinians’ in Fustat and explained that they wereunable to deal with collectingransom money for the prisoners because ‘the community was busy sup,plying the needs of his honourable midrishim in Solomon b. Judah’s letters can be located with the help ofthe marginal notes in my collection, with the help of the Hebrew Index.

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great Sanctity, our Lord and Master Abraham he-haver, son of ourLord theGaon,mayHeavenpreservehim’.That was during the week of Passover,in 1031. In anotherletter,Abrahamevidentlyinformsthe people of Fustat that ‘weare coming to you on this week; may our Rock . . . bring about our encounter with you with a good outcome’ (3 December 1031). O n 27 June 1033, he is in Tyre and Solomon b. Judah writes a letter to him from Ramla, from which we understand that Abraham is about toleave there in order totake some merchandise to Damascus. The letters addressed to him were sent to Moses he-haver of Tyre (the fatherof Samuel). 141 [869] Abraham, son of the Gaon, was well-placed in the scale of the yeshiva’s titles, and reached the ‘fourth’. In the draft of a letter from Ephraim b. Shemaria to Abraham’s father, the Gaon, he calls Abraham the 141

In the Pumbedita yeshiva, Sherira and his son Hayy, were outstanding and there were other fathers and sonswho stood out;see for instance the epistle of Samuel ha-Kohen b. Hofni: Bod1 MS Heb f 34, fs. 39-46, edited by Cowley,JQR, 18 (1906), 401ff, fol. 45, top, where he mentions as a special category among the important figures in theyeshiva, the ‘sons of geonim’ (who were in the Sura yeshiva with him, such as D6s5 b. Saadia); a leading place isgiven to his own son,‘Israel, the scribe of theyeshiva, our son’; cf. Mann, Tests, I, 150f. The deed oftrusteeship: 61; Consist. isr.VI1 D, f. 4v is a courtdeed written by Yefet b. David one year later, on 18 Av 1338 Sel., 24 July AD 1027, in which the abovementioned Ghulayb ha-Kohen b. Moses appoints as trustee ofhis father’s inheritance, a certain Joseph b.Yeshii‘ii (who is alsomentioned in 201, lines 8-11 and in 331, line 26). The receipt: 62. The letter to Jacob b.Mevasser: 63. The matter of theprisoners: 66. The mission to Tyre: 79, lines 8ff. Aleppo: 86. The journey in 1030: 70. The case of Salmiin: 102. The commotion in the synagogue: 164; see a similar complaint: 332: a Spaniard went upto the podium topreach on thesabbath without mentioning therayyis, that is, the Gaon. Such instances teach us to what extent the synagogue was the centre of community life, where all its innerquarrels were expressed. The fact that theprayers were interrupted when there were serious grievances, can be seen in the case of Eleazar the teacher b. Samuel, ofwhom it was said that ‘twice, he stopped thereading in the presence of the congregation and of the court’, and demanded that justice be accorded him after he was falsely charged (according to him);see 331. This customthey called istighatha.O n this matter see also the complaints of D6si’s orphans, 217; Assaf, Butt2 h - d m , 25f, and also T e s h k d (1942), lOSf, quotes onthis matter what was said in PT, Pe’a, 15d: the saying of R. Yonathan to a man whose son refused to support him: ‘go and close the synagogue before him so that he be ashamed’ (different from Assaf’s interpretation); wealso have a responsum of Babylonian a Gaon, that onedoes not behave in this way in Babylonia, for carrying out the law is the responsibility of the courtand not the public. For the purpose of comparison, itis worth noting theepisode of a woman of Spain, who interrupted the prayers in thesynagogue for several days ‘in orderto get her marriage deed’; see document No. 18, from the documents of the Catalonian Jews, edited by Millis y Vallicrosa, Institut d’Estrrdis Cntalans, Menz6ries, I (3), Barcelona 1927; cf. the review of F. Baer, on Finkelstein’sJewidz Self-Governmerzt, in M G W,’ 71(1927), 393; see also on the custom of interrupting the prayers: Baron, SRHJ, V, 66f; 321, n. 81, and more references there; see on this custom in Islam: al-Siili. 66(cf. Canard’stranslation, 116): the Hishimite s h r $ (the offspring of‘Aliand ‘Abbis) who were in difficulties becausetheir allowances had been delayed, ‘painted their faces black and prevented the irnim of the westernbank [in Baghdad] from praying’. Only after great efforts, was the praying resumed, but he shortened the kku&~ (the sermon). Theletter from Alexandria: TS 24.29, line 35ff. The letter from 1031: 114, The letter to Tyre: 115.

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

‘sixth’, when Abraham was in Fustat. In a deed of trusteeship which he wrote in ‘the city of Ramla near Lod, in the patrimony of the tribe of Judah’, he signs ‘Abraham, the fourth of the Imviiv2’. In a letter writtenby Solomon b. Judah to Nethanelha-Levi b. Halfon, he also calls his son ‘our son, the fourth’. Apparently, Abraham became ‘the fourth’ some time after 1045, in the aftermath of the death of Nathan b. Abraham, when Joseph ha-Kohen became av-bet-&, and his brother Elijah became ‘the third’. It seems that unlike his father, Abraham was not characterised by his modesty. In a letter to a friend in Fustat, of which only a fragment is legible, there is a list of objects thathe asks to be boughtfor him, among them precise instructions for a head covering (ghitdra) and other things. We havealso seen that the Gaon himself asked Ephraim to see to it that his son should not benefit from any favours.In one ofhisletters to Ephraimb. Shemaria he expresses his frank displeasure at his son’s mission in Fustat (evidently in 1026), for instead of lamenting the fate of the ‘indebted prisoners’ of Jerusalem, he spends his time enjoying himself: he ‘dresses and covers himself and gets involved in public disputes by visits and investigations. It is not surprising then, in the words his of father, that he has become the object of slander and plots. As he was a facile scribe and had an elegant handwriting, Abraham engaged in copying piyyutim and various other writings. Hewas preoccupied with the matter of calendar, the and it seems that hecopied a treatise on the principles of thecalendar, in rhyme, orperhaps wrote it himself; it is written there seder ha-‘ibbtrv (the order of intercalation). A fragment of the Passover Haggadah whichhe copied has been preserved, as have been some fragments of theBabylonian Talmud, a responsum in Arabicconcerning the slaughtering laws and something from a Bible commentary (on Saul and David). In my collection there is a fragment of a letter he wrote (toFustat, evidently) regarding the formulae of thedeed of divorce and especially the passage which begins,‘and this shall be the divorce letter from me’. Abraham also wrote whatcan be considered theoldest version, in Judaeo-Arabic, of the Jewish story of Bahiri, the monk who met the prophet of Islam. Solomon b. Judah died in Iyar 1362 Sel., April AD 1051, or shortly before that. We know this from the seZi& written in his memory by Ephraim b. Shemaria, which is dated the middle of Iyar 1362; but he certainly died earlier than that and the date conforms more or less to the time his death became known in Fustat. As to his son Abraham, from what wecan construe froma letterwritten byIsrael b. Sahliin, it is implied that afterhis father’s death, helived in Ramla and was involved in quarrels over ‘the market’, thatis, over the slaughtering there. In connection with

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this, a certain Maymiin al-Dawla is mentioned, perhaps a Muslimofficial who intervened in that affair, which is utterly obscure. In a letter written later on, in March1062, Israel b. Sahliin mentions theda$tir (the quires) of ‘the fourth,of blessed memory’, which, he writes were no longer for sale, since his sister’s son had taken them and had no intention ofselling them. From this we learn that Abraham died some ten years after his father.14’ The affair of Nathan b. Abraham

[870] Nathan b. Abraham was the scion of a family of geonim. The colophon in the Arabic story of exilarch the Bustanai attributes the story to him, on the basis of what had been handed down to him fromhis forefathers, ‘the holy[heads ofJthe yeshivot’. We know the name ofhis grandfather, Saul, and that Nathanwas ‘the son of the sister of b. Yohai av’,

av-bet-din

Thegenealogy of Nathan 6 . Abraham

It seems that theav, that is av-b?t-dGz, was the sonof Yohai and the uncle of Nathan on his mother’s side, for itwas said that Nathan was appointed to theoffice of av-bet-din in theyeshiva, which had previously been held by his mother’s brother (’we gave him the place of his maternal uncle’). We may venture to assume what as yet cannot be proven, namely that the claimed descent from geonim was through the mother, and thatthe reference is to the earlier priestly dynasty, the descendants of Samuel ha-Kohen Gaon. This is to say that Yohai, grandfather of Nathan on his *4?

‘The sixth’: 334, a, line 12; b, lines 7-8. The deed from Ramla: 169, line 20. The request for goods: 163. The complaints of Solomon b. Judah: 66. The object of slander: 142, lines 18, 24-25. Writings in hishandwriting: ULC O r 1081J 3811 (apparently a qedrrshta, a fragment beginning: nisgelot qOl ‘al ha-mayim); ENA 3184,f. 3, containingthematterofthe calendar, in rhyme; see a qer6ui by ha-Kallir copied by him: PERH 8, whichis a leaf from an entire quire he evidently copied. The Haggadah ofPassover:ULC Add 3366. From the BT: TSAr. Box 30, f. 171: Yev. 77b. The responsum and theBible commentary: TS Ar. Box 22, f. 13. The formulary of the divorce: 168. The story of Bahiri: TSAS 161.32, is a fragment in his handwriting, evidently which I shall discusselsewhere. TS AS 125.74~ the opening of a letter. Also preserved in the Geniza, written by Abraham b. Solomon Gaon, is a leaf from a quire with partof an enumeration of the precepts, which, I believe, are unlike anything known tous in this area; the precepts preserved are from the fourth (the prayer) to the tenth (the interdiction of robbery,or illegal acquisition); see DK 242 e-f. The selihi written by Ephraim b.Shemariah: 335; Israel b. Sahlan’s letter: 472, b; the matter of thequires: 482, b, line 9.

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mother’s side, was the descendantof this family. Indeed,we have seen that the name Yohai is to be found in the lineage of this family. The fact that the name of his uncle on his mother’s side was included in his appellation, speaks in favour of this assumption, whichgoes to show that the mother’s side was considered the more illustrious. If they had traced the descent from geonim on father’s the side, we wouldhave comeacross some sign of this and would have found the appellation ‘great-grandson of the Gaon so-and-so’, as was the case in other instances. One can add another detail here, and that is Nathan b. Abraham’s ‘aliitnu, the formula used at the end of letters, which was yeshu‘ yeqivev (may He hasten deliverance, as against Solomon b. Judah’s yesha‘ Y U V , ‘a great deliverance’).We find this ‘ulirna in Salama (Solomon) ha-Kohen b. Joseph’s letter, written from Ramla to Shemaiah he-haver b. Josiah, the grandson of the Shemaiah Gaon mentionedearlier. Apparently this ‘ulinlu was commonly used by the priestly family. also It seems that this Solomon ha-Kohen of Ramla was an offspring of the family of priestly geonim known to us from the tenth century. Naturally, this has nothing to do with thepriestlyfamily ofgeonimfromthefollowingcentury,for members ofthis family were the main adversaries of Nathanb. Abraham. As we have seen, the earlier priestly family of geonim was related by marriage to the family of Meir Gaon, which may be a partial explanation for the stance of one of Meir Gaon’s offspring in the be dispute describedto below. 143 [871] The first knowledge we have of Nathan b. Abraham is from a letter of recommendation which Samuel the Thirdb. Hosha‘na wrote on his behalf from Jerusalem to Shemaria b. Elhanan in Fustat. It states that Abraham b.Saul died and thathis son Nathan is setting out on his way ‘to see that his inheritance is not lost’. Abraham, the father, evidentlydied in Egypt and not in Palestine, for it says there: ‘we have heardrumours that R. Abraham b. Saul has died’. Evidently the journey in search of his inheritance, undoubtedly in pursuit of people who were still indebted to the deceased, took Nathan to the Maghrib. This we learn from what Solomon b. Judah writes, that Nathan ‘went (when he was young) to the west to look for theinheritance of his father’. According to him, Nathan stayed there for ‘many years’ and studied Torah with ‘Hushiel ha-Rav’. Nathan musthave left Palestine before 1011, for Shemariab. Elhanan died See the fragmentsofthe Bustanai story grouped togetherin Gil, Tarbiz, 48(1978/9), 65ff, and the colophon there(in E N A 4012), 69: ‘ashe had transmitted fromhis forefathers, the holy heads of theyeshiva’; see there furtherreferences; on the use of the wordy e r h G t in the sense of ‘heads of the yeshiva’ see ibid., 70, n. 74; see also Goitein, Mediterronean Society, 11, 595. n. 17, with a Muslimparallel. The name of his grandfather, Saul, see: 18, line 17. The son ofb. Yohai Av’s sister: 127, line 8. ‘The place ofhis maternaluncle’, ibid., line 15. The letter of Salima (Solomon) ha-Kohen: 525. The affair of Nathanb. Abraham

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in that year. Samuel b. Hosha‘na signed the letter as ‘the third’, and we know that he was ‘the third’ from at least 1004; hence Nathan’s journey could have taken place even seven years before 1011, or perhaps more. If we take a mean time, for example 1007, and say that he was at that time fifteen years old, he would havebeen born in around990-995, and during the dispute (1038-1042) he would have been in his mid-forties. We do not have any details regarding Nathan b. Abraham’s stay in the Maghrib, butit seems that he had a faction of friends there. Thisis implied in his letter,written inFustat, toMevorakh b. David,aBabylonian scholar who lived in Qayrawan. In this letter, he praises a certain Abraham the physician b. ‘Eli, and another man from Qayrawan, Hanania. As we shall see, when he left Qayrawn to go eastward to Egypt, hewas given warm letters of recommendation by the Nagid of Qayrawan, Jacob b. ‘Amram. From Nathan’s stay in Fustat, on his way to Palestine, we have a letter which he sent to a certainAbfi YfisufEleazar b. Samuel (Isma‘il), to Q f i in ~ Upper Egypt.We recognise the fact that the letterwas from Fustat by his mention ofHesedal-Tustari (AbiiNaSr al-Dustari) there. One can see that during his stay in Fustat, in the thirties of the century, Nathan was perhaps engaged in trade for a stretch ofa number ofyears, and one can assume that his connections with that merchant in QUs, which was a junction for goods en route to India, point to his participation in this trade. He devotes much ofthe letterto theaffair of Abraham b. David ibn Sughmar, which I shall discuss further. In the second part of the letter, most of which is written in mirror-writing fqr fear of the evil eye (of his competitors, evidently), there aredetails about the price of various kinds of merchandise for the addressee’s information. It seems that Nathan dealt in supplying tar andgypsum, probably forbuilding construction in Qiis.There are also details there of the price of wheat, pepper, brazilwood, almonds, 22 camphor,musk, copper,soap, ntrqru dirhams(whichwereworth dirhams per dinar). We also find echoes of his journey from the Maghrib and his stay in Fustat in the letter which Nathanwrote to Nethanelb. Rawh in Fustat. He addresses him as ‘our pupil’. Evidently the letter was written in the spring of 1038. He mentions thefarewell-taking and notes thathe had hoped that in Fustat he wouldearnsome rest, after the‘burdenoftrading and traversing the desert and sailing the seas’, that is, after his journey fromthe Maghrib. From the letter, it seems that he was reduced to poverty, and was left owing money to various people. His creditors treated him with extreme severity, whichwas not in accord with the laws of the Jews. Even was discussed by Mann, Texts, I, 323ffi as one can see, the discussion here differs in various details.

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his father-in-law seems to have been angrywithhim,owingto his failures, and didnot permithis wife andson toaccompany him from then on. A Christian is also mentioned, evidently a business partner of his father-in-law. The latter, Mevorakh b. ‘Eli, was to be one of his chief supporters during the dispute. The letter was evidently from Dumyi! (Damietta), and he mentions that on Monday, he intends to set out for HanEs (which is Tinnis). He probably meant to sail to Palestine from there. In the interim, he is occupied with the affairs of the local community, who received him in a friendly manner (probablybecause of his learning and lineage).He stays with his good friend Husayn b. ‘Allan and he asks his pupil,the addressee, togathertogetherthecommunity, without fearing his father-in-law. 144 [872] The quarrelinJerusalembroke out half a year after Nathan reached Palestine. Solomon b. Judah relates in his letters, some of which were written during the dispute and others afterwards, how the dispute began. According to him, the people of yeshiva the received Nathan onhis arrival in Jerusalem with considerable courtesy and respect: ‘we called him rijssh le-Israel’. They assumedthatthe wisdom andlearningwhichhe acquired from Hushiel, his Master, would be reflected in his behaviour. However, hebegan to organise afaction in Ramla(‘. . . and beganto make himself the more important and his fellow-men insignificant’). Riish-leIsrael, it appears from a number of places, meant that he was appointed av-bet-dCn in theyeshiva, as his uncle on his mother’s side had been. He was given this title because the previous av-bet-dfn had died, and thereafter The letter of Samuel ‘the third’: 18; in this letter, thereis no hint that Nathanwill go to the Maghrib, and it is implied that his destination is only Fustat: he was certainly very young then, forin the letter it says that heis ‘a tender innocentchild, grown byus in purity and in exaltation of our Torah, and from day today his learning increases’; he was then still a bachelor, although he has had matches proposed to him:‘he has not tried what has been proposed to him’. The letter of Solomon b. Judah: 127. There is no firm basis to the Texts, I, 323, that thefather died in Qayrawan. I do not understand assumption of Mann, of the how Abramson,Ba-mevkazim, 32f, finds in Nathan’s journeyto the Maghrib proof fact (correct initself) that he stemmed from a family of geonim. As to Hushiel of Qayrawiin, he is undoubtedly Hushiel b. Elhanan, father of Rabbenii Hananel, see the discussion on him in Poznanski, Harkavy J~rbilee L’olume, 192ff, and in Mann, Tarbiz, 5(1933/4), 286ff; Hushiel’s great learning is confirmed by the words ofHayy Gaon in his letter: ‘we were told that there is in your place a man of great learning, a mountain of Torah, our Lord and Master Hushiel b. Elhanan’. etc.; see the complete version of the letter in Abramson, Ba-mevkazirn, 95ff. and the abovementioned passage in lines 36-37. O n Mevorakh b. David: 178; see on this Mevorakh: Poznanski, ibid., 209; we do not know whoHanania ofQayrawan was. Hanania b. Berekhia in Poznanski, Havknvy Jubilee L’olrrme, 3 87, is a misreading.In TS 8J a 2, f. 1, b, line 7, Nissim (notHanania) b. Berekhia is mentioned. It seems that Mann, Texts, I, 329, was correct in writing that the letter evidently was written at the time Nathan was on his way back from the Maghrib to Palestine and stayed in Egypt, for in the address he is still called Nathan b. Abraham, without any title. The letter to Eleazar b. Isma‘il: 76, where in line 11 the name of the Tustari is mentioned; on the mirror-writing, cf. Goitein, Meditevrunean Society, I, 218.

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forty of the elders met for the purpose of granting the title. There is no certainty as to the identity of nv-kt-ditz, the who died when Nathanarrived in Jerusalem. Solomon b. Judah says: ‘the rumour has reached us about [the death]of thea v , may God have mercy on him’,from which we learn - that that he died in some distant locality. According to what he says Nathan received the position of his uncle - one can assumethathis mother’s brother, b. Yohai, about whom we know nothing,is intended. Perhaps what he meant to say was, the position that at some time in the past was held by Nathan’s uncle. Hence it is possible that the av-bet-drrz, who died before Nathan’s arrival, was someone else and not Nathan’s uncle. Tobiah b. Daniel, who was then ‘third’ in the yeshiva, relinquished the to the advancement office of av-bct-drn to whichhe was entitled according usage of theyeshiva. When he was asked, he immediately agreed after he was told: ‘The place [you hold] is yours, stand in your place, and let the man who arrived be called av, and there will be peace among [the people of) Israel and quarrelling will stop. So he did as he was told’. Solomon b. Judah was not entirely pleased with this decision, thinking that those who had made it ‘destroy the netiid’; that is, that theyhad violated the accepted advancement order of the yeshiva by giving the office of av-bet-diiz to Nathan and not to Tobiah b. Daniel. ‘And those who forbade me to call him‘, called him themselves’, that is, at first everyone objected to the appointment of Nathan by Solomon b. Judahanto office of such high rank in the yeshiva,but afterwards they appointed him despite his opposition. ‘And I was then like a deaf person’, that is, failed he and blames himself for it. The Gaon saw Nathan as the source of thedispute: ‘the land was quiet from theday his maternal uncles passed away [from which we understand that he was speaking not only ofb. Yohai]; from the momenthe arrived, the quarrel started’.As to the ‘third’,Tobiah b. Daniel, we have seen that he was the son of Shemaiah Gaon’s sister. Apparently, we have here a sort of offensive of followers of the early priestly family, who ruled the Palestinian yeshiva formore than a generation before that, insupport ofa scion of this family and against the descendants of Shemaiah Gaon, Solomon b. Judah himself and Tobiah b. Daniel, as well as against the other priestly family of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph. The family relationship was not the only motivation of this quarrel however.*45 [873]As to the two priestly brothers, they were at first vigorously opposed to Nathan. Thiscan be understood if we take into consideration

145

The letter to Nethanel b. Rawh: 180; what Mann wrote inJews, I, 147, that duringhis stay in Fustat Nathan had ‘a sort of school’ hasno foundation. See the lettersof Solomon b. Judah: 126, lines 44ff; 127, lines 7ff; 133, lines Sff; 136, a, lines 2-32; 137, b, lines 10ff.

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the fact thatwe have here two priestly familieswho were continuouslyat oddswithoneanother, evidently fromthe days of ShemaiahGaon onwards. After the death of Solomon b. Judah, when the struggle for succession was at its height, Daniel b. Azariah writes disparagingly about his rival Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon. He notes that many people of Ramla (where Daniel then lived) are hostile to the two priestly brothers, while he himself had made every effort to pour oil on troubled waters. Joseph was not only ungrateful began but to slander him in every possible way. Here Danielrecalls forgotten incidents from the days of the dispute with Nathanb. Abraham and blames the two priestly brothers, Joseph and Elijah, for having been the main instigators of the dispute.O n the other hand, he sees evidence ofJoseph ha-Kohen’s fickleness in the fact that he eventually came to terms with Nathan, after having promised that ‘he would go [against him] to the end of the world’.In his opinion (revealed rather late in the day), Nathan was the offended and not the offender, which everyone now knows (that is, in ca. 1051, nine years after the dispute), and he suggests that this was also the opinion of Solomon b. Judah. One of Nathan Abraham’s b. supporters, writing in the autumn1038 of and describing the eruptionof thequarrel, also emphasises the part played by Joseph ha-Kohen, but also that of the Shuway‘ family. Solomon b. Judah, in fact, suggests in one ofhis letters that it is the priestly brothers who tried to prevent him from dealing with appointments,and thus make him incapable of appointing Nathan b. Abraham as av-bet-din. It seems that the matter of the appointments wasa major issue in the dispute. We lack clear and precise details but the impression is that a large part of the bitterness that spread among the public and which supplied Nathan b. Abraham with supportersand followers, can be ascribed to the arbitrary fashion in which people were appointed to communal offices. As we shall see, one of Nathanb. Abraham’s obvious activities was the appointment of his supporters to such offices. Financial matters werealso undoubtedly at the core of the dispute,particularly the struggle over the funds of the heqdzsh. One explicit accusation against Solomon Judah b. was thathe had sold property of the heqdzsh, but it is not clearjust whathe had sold and for what purpose (we have seen above that he considered the expenses of restoring the synagogue as a legitimate use of the heqdesh funds). As against this, in a complaint brought before the caliph against Nathan b. Abraham’s supporters, Solomon b.Judah’sfactionclaimedthatthey ‘destroyed the foundations’. In addition, his adversaries also claim that Solomon b. Judah is a Maghribi, from which it is to be understood that Nathan b. Abraham was a Palestinian: ‘It isunacceptable that a man from 494

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the peopleof theWest should be appointed head and it is unacceptable that he who ascends to this seat is any but a man from thepeople of Palestine'. This claim the supporters of Solomon b. Judah ascribe to Nathan b. Abraham's followers (in a letter to the Maghrib!). The followers of Nathan b. Abraham then decided to proclaim him Gaon instead of Solomon Judah. b. Onecan see that this matter was not to be taken lightly, andisitnot surprising thatsplit it the Jewish communities in Jerusalem and Ramla, in Fustat and Qayrawan, and undoubtedly in many other places of which wehave little know1edge.l46 [874] A first-hand account of the dispute's eruption can be found in a letter of one of Nathanb. Abraham's followers, of which unfortunately only a fragment, the middle section, has been preserved. It contains a description of the events of Tishri AM 4799, October AD1038. It appears that with the first signs of dissension and manifestation of rebellion, the son of the Gaon, Abraham, hastened to Damascus, and returned with a tawqf', an official order, confirming the status of Solomon b. Judah. The community gathered in the synagogue in Ramla, where the son of the Gaon pronounced a homily, in the presence ofJoseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon, who was then 'fifth' of the yeshiva. From there, the entire community went up toJerusalem headed by the two. It seems that they went up to the Mount of Olives, where they blew the shofavs in the presence of Solomon b. Judah and Joseph ha-Kohen. Afterwards, they declared a ban on 'all those whoprofaned the holydaysof theLord', which was a new formula of excommunicationnever heard of before (presumably a new formula for the excommunication of the Karaites). The family of Shuway' (who were even earlier enemiesof the Gaon,as we have seen) opposed this and voiced their claims against the Gaon. At this point, Solomon b. Judah's supporters became violent, they struck the father of the Shuway' family and even gnawed one his fingers of to the bone. These incidents occurredon Hosha'na rabba (23October 1038). O n the morrow, the eighth day of the Feast of Tabernacles, the excommunication of the Karaites was proclaimed in the usual manner, that is, the ban was placed on thosewho mixed 'vessels for meat withvessels for milk'. Accordingto the writer, the public opposed this and hence the pilgrims (almost all of whom, it is implied, were on Nathan's side) gathered at the house of the Shuway'family,andproclaimedNathan b. Abraham Gaon, a record being written tothis effect, and signed all bythose present. Hence, the date on which Nathan b. Abraham was proclaimed Gaon was 24 October 1038. Afterwards,onthesabbathafterthe Feast of Tabernacles (28 1%

The letter of Daniel b. Azariah: 363. The supporterof Nathan: 182. Solomon b. Judah's letter: 136, lines 26-27. The property of the heqdesh: 182, line 16; 197, c, line 20. The Palestinian origin: 192, lines 15-16.

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October 1038), the pilgrims in Ramla congregated in the rnujlis (it is not clear whether they mean the reception hall or whether he had set up an office in his house) of ‘ourMaster Nathan Gaon’ and,at the requestof the assembly, Nathan pronounceda homily, and by doing so pleased all those present (’no one remained in the synagogues’). We read the parallel story from the otherside ina letter from Solomon b. JudahtoSolomonthe physicianb. ‘Eli, sent toTripoliin Syria. According to the Gaon, he received a warning fromhis loyal supporters in Ramla (’the eldersofRamla . . . wrote tous’) that Nathanb. Abraham was planning to pronounce himself Gaon (‘he laid his hands on everything’) and therefore hurried to Ramla together with Elijah ‘the sixth’ (who is ha-Kohen, b. Solomon Gaon), intending to place Elijah in charge of the community ofRamla (‘to seat him in Ramla’). In the meantime,he writes, Nathan organised a large faction of supporters (’empty and irresponsible people, whom he bought with money and clothes and food and drink’). And thisis how he describes the events of the sabbath bevZshft (the first after the Feast of Tabernacles) in Ramla (above we have seen the version of the opposingside). In his words,Nathangathered his supportersinthe synagogue. When he saw that a skirmish was about to take place (‘each of them wanting to fight the other’), Solomon b. Judah left the synagogue in order to prevent the intervention of the authorities. Then Nathan pro. claimed himself head of theyeshiva to his supporters (‘the hired rose . .up and he prayed on himself head of the tii‘Zv3’; abomination, instead of yeshTv3). Solomon b. Judah and his followers moved over to the other synagogue(it is not clear whichone)andthereheexcommunicated Nathan and his assistants: ‘the sonof the thirdand his cousin, and Masliah his pupil, and the Shuway‘ family, and ‘Ammar the physician’. The Gaon asks that a similar ban be proclaimed in Tripoli as well, as he evidently requested from all the communities that were connected with the Palestinian yeshiva.14’ 14’

The fragment of a letter: 182; ‘the fourth’ of the yeshiva was then Abrahamb. Samuel b. Hosha‘na, see 230, line 26, and ‘the third’, Tobiah b. Daniel, as we have seen above; Elijah, Joseph’s brother, was ‘the sixth’. The writer speaks of ‘the Shii‘a b. Simhiin family’, and there is almost no doubt that he is referring to the Shuway‘ family. The passage concerning the holidaysarouses second thoughts. Did Nathanb. Abraham have in mind makingchanges in the calendar in order to comecloser to the Karaites? We have no proof of this, and perhaps this was part of the counter-defamation of Solomon b. Judah’s side, though it may have contained a grain of truth. The letter to Solomon the physician b. ‘Eli: 127. Tripoli is called here ‘the fortress of Sinim’. As noted by Mann, Texts, I, 337, n. 4, Saadia Gaon translates ‘and the Sinite’ (Gen., ~ 1 7 )al-fnrZbulusCyin; : and see David Qimhi, to Is., xlix:12 (from the Land of Sinim): ‘Rav Saadia interpreted it: i@btrZusCyin’ (this is the correct reading). It issurprising that Mann himselfbrought up the assumption that Aswin in Egypt was being referred to. Assaf, Tarbiz, 3(1931/3), 345, already objected to it, also quoting scholars of later generations, who say that ‘theSinite’ is Tripoli in Syria; and it is worth seeing also Bereshit rabba xxxvii, the Theodor and

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[875] The next item of information is dated four months later, when Nathan b. Abraham wrote toAbii’l-Barakiit Berikhii b. Rawh of Fustat. The letterwas evidently sentwith Beriikhii’s mother, whowas perhaps at that time in Palestine. The letter is dated: after the night of the eve of Purim, AM 4799 (12 February AD 1039); and it containsa description of the reading of the megill2 in Ramla. It was attended by more than 800 people, 400 in the rnujlis and more than that in the qii‘u. Rabbanites and Karaites took part together and, so did ul-g5yiw, that is, Muslims. The illumination was very impressive: 30 ‘daylight’ candles, more than 200 ordinary candles, some 30 lamps and chandeliers (and who can tell what was precisely the natureof these forms of lighting). Themegillii was read from approximately 30 books and the reading was beautiful. N o one remained in the Babylonian synagogue, in the Palestinian synagogue there were some20 souls andwith al-F2si (that is, Solomon b. Judah, evidently in his home) less than ten. Nathan b. Abraham emphasises in particular that the Karaites were also present at his synagogue, perhaps200 of them, including all their notables. He describes the gay ambiance and adds that such aPurim had not been seen since the daysof (Manasseh b. Abraham) Ibn al-Qazziz. Apparently, not long after that, towards Passover, Nathan tried to establish contactwith Abrahamha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furit, the physician with considerable influence with the authorities in Ramla. From a brief letter he sentto him, it emerges thathe had already senthim an emissary, who had not succeeded in finding him, and thus Nathan was unable to carry out his intention to come to him to offer his salutations for the holidays.It is possiblethatthisfailure to establishconnections with Abraham ha-Kohen wasnot accidental, considering that the latter was one of Solomon b. Judah’s most loyal supporters. Later on, we find a letter from Tammuz 1350 Sel., June or July AD 1039, with the heading ‘Nathan head of the yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov’. This was a letter written by Nathan to ‘Amram b. Yefet in Fustat. The latter had gone over to Nathan’s camp, as Nathan had been informed by Mevorakh ‘head of the communities’, evidently Mevorakh b. ‘Eli, Albeck ed., 348: (the Sinite) Artiisiyya; see also in the Targums: Artisa’e (Neofiti) and various other distorted versions. This is Orthosia, some 15 kilometres north-east of Tripoli. See also: Hippolytos, Khronikon, 72, who interprets ‘the Sinite’ - Orthosiastai; see the entry Orthosia (by E. Honigmann) in PW, vol. 36, 1494ff.; cf. Gildemeister, ZDPV, 8(1885), 135, line 29: artiisiya; themanuscript ibid. has armtrsiya, which is certainly a distortion; this was a citadel, and considered the citadel of Tripoli; the old Tripoli was abandoned and the inhabitants set up acity called TarZbulus, four miles from the sea; see Idrisi (Cerulli), 372c see Canard, Hamdartides, 208: Arethusa is al-Rastan, south of the Orontes; see further: Wild, Libanesische Ortsnamen, 343, and further references there (he does not mention the Jewish references). The subject of Nathan b. Abrahams’s supporters will be discussed below.

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Nathan’s father-in-law. The lettermerely contains greetings and praise in very ornate language. In that same month, Tammuz 1350 Sel., Nathan wrote another eloquent letter probably (he wrote many letters of this kind, to many communities), to Nethanel b. Rawh, also of Fustat. He calls him ‘the holy scion, descendant of holy ones . . . who sanctifies the name of God [;.e. is endangering his own life] and is undergoing any risk for the study of the Torah’.We are not aware of thereason for all these phrases. He even grants him the title: ‘aid of theyeshiva’. (We have seen above that Nathan sawthis Nethanelas his own pupil and wrote to him when he was en route to Palestine, evidently in the spring of 1038.)14* [876] In the summer of 1039, the Jewish world around the Mediterranean was ina ferment. The first evidence, explicit and aroused, concerning the involvement of Fustat and Qayrawiin in the dispute, can be found in two drafts of letters intended to be sent from Fustat to the Nagid of Qayrawan, Jacob b. ‘Amram - one in Hebrew, written by Abraham b. David ibn Sughmiir and the other in Arabic, written by Ghalib ha-Kohen b. Moses, son-in-law of Ephraim b.Shemaria. In the first letter, thereis a complaint that it was the people from the Maghrib who were behind Nathan b. Abraham and who encouraged him at the outset ofhis activities. The Nagid is asked to intervene and write to Nathan to mend his aberrant ways and try to persuade the authorities to intervene and put a stop to the dispute. The people of Fustat, the letter states, suffer immensely from theactivities of Nathan’s relatives and supporters there. In the other letter as well, the subject of thepressure in Fustat is spoken ofand in a careful and polite style, the people of the Maghrib are blamed for backing Nathan’s actions. In order to make a greater impression on the Nagid, they quote Nathan b.Abraham’s claim, that it is not conceivable that a Maghribi (Solomon b. Judah came from Fas, as we have seen), should stand at the head of the yeshiva of Palestine. is a repetition There of the request that the Nagid intervene to putan endto thedispute, mainly by appealing to the authorities in Fustat, to whom he evidently had special access. Thus the mood became increasingly overwrought, especially with the 148

The letter to Berikhab. Rawh: 183; rnujlis and qi‘u were large halls characteristic of that time, and it seems that the writer is referring to a private house, as was the opinion of Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 591, n. 39; it is interesting that Nathan mentions four public centres; naturally this could not have happened in Jerusalem, fordowenot know of a ‘Babylonian’ synagogue there.The letter to Abrahamha-Kohen: 185. To ‘Amram b. Yefet: 188; a year earlier,1 August 1038, ‘Amram b. Yefet was among the signatories to a record, 331, in favour of Eleazar ha-melammed b. Samuel,who was accused of cursing Solomon b. Judah; Mann, Jews, I, 146 commented on Nathan’s custom of writing his name and histitle at the head of his letters, as Josiah Gaon and Elhanan b. Shemaria were also wont to do. TO Nethanel b. Rawh: 186; this Nethanel is a signatory to a Karaite marriage deed, see 309, line 7; in a letter he wrote to Ephraim b. Shemaria in Fustat,

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month of Tishriand the time of pilgrimage approaching. In the wake of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, an unusual atmosphere of expectation prevailed among the Jewish communities. It was clear that the congregation on the Mount of Olives would turn into a demonstration of the power of each of the two camps and that it would be possible to correctly gauge whose force was the stronger of the two. It is therefore not surprising that Nathan b. Abraham was anxious to recruit his followers in view of the imminent pilgrimage, as can be seen in his explicit letterto a certain ‘yedid [friend] of the yeshiva’, whose identity and location is not known tous. This letter contains a request to recruit as many supporters for the pilgrimage as possible, as I have already mentioned. We shall see that we have some indications that the pilgrimage and the congregation on Hosha‘na rabbii on the Mount of Olives was a success (however passing) forNathan b. Abraham. In this letter, there are also further echoes of the flaring of passions. The letters of ‘the friend’ didnot reach him, writes Nathan, and he suspects that Solomon b. Judah’s supporters (‘a congregation of hypocrites’, Job, xv:34) obtain them by deception. Nathan b. Abraham appointed people to hold community offices and distributed titles to his followers. For instance, MevassEr b. Jesse is mentioned as ‘head of the communities’ and heis also called ‘faithful of theyeshiva’. ThisMevassEr visitedRamlaandreceivedwritings fromNathanfor his followers. Nathan also appointed Abraham b. Shelah haver, and he explains in detail how important it is that there should be ‘an ordained man’ in every community, meaning of course, someone loyal to Nathan. According to his statements, he enjoyed notable success in Ramla. The authorities were pressed lest they agreed to the demands of Solomon b. Judah’s backers: they even warned the local ruler that would they approach thernishni!, that is, the wazir.The ‘sixth’ (itis not clear who this wasat that time)went over to Nathan’s side, and even banned one ofhis rivals. It seems, then, that an optimistic mood prevailed in Nathan b. Abraham’s camp in thesummer We have no and autumn of 1039 and that he had the upper hand in Ramla. information about the recruiting of supporters for Solomon b. Judah in anticipation of the month of Tishri and the pilgrimage,but it seems that in his camp, too, there were considerable preparations for the impending events. We find indications of what was happening in Ramla in the fragment of a letter evidently sent from Fustat to Jerusalem mentioning figures involved in the dispute who belonged to the faction of Ab6 Sahl, that is Joseph ha-Kohen b. SolomonGaon intended to propose that Nethanel become trustee to the heirs of a certain Suriir ha-Levi, buthe erased his name and wrote that of Nihiimi b. Samuel instead, see: 407, line 8; this erasure may have been connected with the struggle between the factions in the yeshiva which preceded the dispute described here, and in which we find Nethanel in the opposite camp to that ofJoseph ha-Kohen.

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Nathan b. Abraham. Somewhat moreextensive information, thoughalso very obscure, is to be found in a letter from Abraham b. David ibn Sughmar, who wrote fromFustat to ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel in Jerusalem. One can see that these two were followersof Solomon b. Judah. The writer mentions a long letter fromb. Meir (evidently Solomon he-haver b. Meir v6sh Izn-sedev, who was also one of Solomon b. Judah’s supporters this letter, which at first, andI have already mentioned him above). From was sent to Nathan b. Abraham (he calls him al-zdrzdv, ‘the tail’, for Nathan calk himself ‘the head’), copies were made and distributed to every country in the east and the west, says Ibn Sughmiir; he anticipates that ‘Eli ha-Kohen will also copy it and show it to all his friends. He assumes that the copy he sent to ‘Eli went astray and regrets the fact. Indirectly, we learn that a letter arrived in Fustat from ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel with details of theincidents of the dispute in Ramla, and that also, ashiibmi (our people, thatis the Maghribi merchants) already wrote about it from Ramla to Fustat. From Nathanb. Abraham there arealso letters and copies of letters arriving in Jaffa and Tyre, and according to the writer, they are full lies. of Nathan lies to his followers and they in turn, lie to him - apparently about the extent of the support enjoys. he According to Ibn Sughmar, similar things occurred in Fustat. Working there for Nathan’s side is a certain ‘Alltin, who even proclaimed an excommunication in the synagogue (apparently against the supporters of Solomonb. Judah). The backers of Nathanb. Abraham ‘the sons of the Kohen’ (we do not know who they are), and b. al-Sippori @dah ibn al-‘Usftira?) are active against the followers of Solomon b. Judah in Fustat - they bribe people with money and offer them wine (nabiddh), and use for this purpose the money set aside for ‘thecave’, that is, the synagogue in Jerusalem. This refers to a sum of400 dinars collected by that b. al-Sippori for ‘thecave’, and now it was being spent on the dispute. Ibn Sughmar wrote about this to ha-v6sh av-bet-dit2 (perhaps he means Nathan b. Abraham, although he was aware that no good would come of it, but we do not know of anyone being appointed to theoffice of av-bet-din during the course of the dispute).He received a long letter from him in response, and even was given the title ‘banner of theRabbanites’, but Ibn Sughmar would have preferred itif he had gone down to Ramla instead and resolved the dispute there.*49 The letters to the Nagidof Qayrawiin: 191, 192. The letter to the ‘friend of the yeshiva’: 187; the ‘sixth’ mentioned there is according to Mann, Jews, 149, Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, also in: Texts, I, 330, but this is impossible, for we have seen the extent of the rivalry between Nathan and the priestly brothers. Mann himself(Jews, ibid., in the MS) noted that this should be corrected. The fragment from Fustat: 189. The letter of Ibn SughmZr: 190; Moses b. Jekuthiel, physician and merchant of Fustat, originating from Spain, who requests validationof a deed from theJerusalem yeshiva,at the time he came there from his stay inTyre, mentions in his letter personalitiesof the yeshiva: the Gaon,

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[877] EvidenceofthesituationinRamla is found in a letter from Abraham ‘the fourth’ b. Samuel ‘the third’ b. Hosha‘na, written from Ramla to Solomon b. Judah in Jerusalem after Passover, apparently AM in 4799, that is AD 1039. In his words ‘most of the authorities in the city support our enemy;he deludes the people withhis lies, like Absalomson of Maachah’. In Fustat, the friction between the two camps, and the clashes which undoubtedly accompanied it, led to the closing of the synagogue of the ‘Palestinians’.It ispossible that the immediate reason for the closing of the synagogue was the fact that the majority of the congregation were loyal to Solomon b. Judah, andas we shall see, the aggressive individuals among Nathan b. Abraham’ssupportersputpressureontheauthoritiesand convinced them toclose the synagogue.We learn from a heqdesh account written in Fustat 1041, in that the synagogue was closed towards the end of Marheshwan 1351 Sel., that is, approximately mid-November AD 1039. Solomon b. Judah mentions the closing of the synagogue in Fustat in a number of letters written during the dispute, and in other letters written when it was over. It seems that the synagogue remained closed almostto the end of the dispute, or perhaps even until the very end, that is, almost three whole years.In research works written on the dispute, there is some confusion between the synagogue in Fustat and that of Ramla. The latter was only closed for a few days, on PurimAM 4801, that is February AD 1041. We gather further details of what happened in the autumn 1039of from a draft written in Arabic script on the margin of a court record in the handwriting of Ephraim b. Shemaria. The draft was intended to form a petition to the caliph, and onecan assume that it was written by Ephraim b. Shemaria himself, or by one of his assistants. According to this draft, the dispute was a result of the deterioration in the status of the Jewish leadership during thepast two years (that is,from about thebeginning of 1038). Leading the offenders was a man who came from thewest, Nathan b. Abraham, who attempted to oust Solomon b. Judah fromhis office. It was he who obtained the closingof the synagogue of the ‘Palestinians’ in Fustat, two monthsbefore thewriting ofthis letter. Nathan b. Abraham is now inFustat for a month, organising his supporters, with thebacking of his many influential relatives and the Karaites. It emerges that in December 1039, Nathan b. Abraham was staying in Fustat, and he was still there in Adar I Sel. 1351, that is February-March AD 1040, as is proven by a deed drawn up in his court that met in Fustat. ‘the third’ Tobiahb. Daniel, and others; butnot the av-bZt-din, Nathan b. Abraham. The reason for this is clear- it was the dispute - but fromthis we also learn that no oneelse was appointed in Nathan’s stead,see 243.

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We have no precise or dated details on the events of theyear 1040 and the beginning of1041. We find interesting material ina letter from Josephb. Kulayb (a diminutive from Biblical Kalev, which is a transformation of Khalaf, which is Halfon, which is usually Aaron), a follower and intimate of Nathan b. Abraham, who writes from Ramla to his Master on 8 May 1041. He notes that the synagogue (of the ‘Palestinians’) was closed on Purim (20 February) for a few days. A meeting of the two factions was held and there were negotiations concerning the appointment of a certain b. ‘Eli to some office (cantor?). At that gathering, it was decided tocall a meeting of the entire community regarding Judah the cantor, who was loathed by the followers of Nathan b. Abraham (he was probably Judah ‘the western cantor’ b. Abraham b. Faraj). It was decided that Judah himself should go to Nathan (who was then somewhere outside of Palestine, apparently Tyre) in order to clarify his situation. From this it emerges that Nathan’s followers dominated Ramla; they were the majority and decided on the management of communal affairs. They were also ableto dismiss a cantor whoevidently wasnot an ardent supporter of Nathan. Their own man,b. ‘Eli, waited to be appointed in his stead, and although he had been waiting since Purim (February20, that is, for two months), he was persuaded to be patient until the matter of Judah was finally decided.From this letter, wealso have information concerning the opposing side, the people of Solomon b. Judah. They apparently abandoned the synagogue, at least in part, and rented a house for themselves. Abraham, son of the Gaon, was in Ramla at the time but was on the verge of leaving after his unsuccessful attempt to persuade people to go over to his father’s camp. Nathan continued to appointhaverim from among his supporters and distribute honorary titles. This is illustrated in the episode of the son of the haver from Biniyis whoarrived in Ramla, claiming that he was one of Nathan’s supporters and asking to be recognised as a @vi? or as a v5sh sedev; however the communityrefused to accept his status until he could produce a written confirmation from Nathan. At the time, Nathan behaved in the traditional manner of geonim and was busy writing responsa to queries on matters of the law, and even duringhis absence from Ramla,suchqueriesweresenttoTyreandtheirresponsawere anticipated. 150 [878] T o a large extent, the letters of Solomon b. Judah reflect the emotional pressure under which he laboured as a result of the success of his 150

The letter of Abraham ‘the fourth’b. Samuel ‘the third’(identified by his handwriting): 230; he writes to ‘rabbenii Gaon’ about the division of an inheritance between Moses, Mawhiib (Nathan) and Isaac the sons of MevassEr, a matter dealt with by Solomon b. Fustat; even from the comparison of the Judah in 125, his letter to David b. Aaron, adversary with Absalom, isit obvious that Abraham writes to Solomon b. Judah and that he is one of those who oppose Nathan. Mann, Texts, I, 325, n. 2, assumed that the‘son of

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rival and the widespread support which the latterenjoyed in Palestine as well as in the communities outside of Palestine, if we can judge by what occurred in Fustat. He calls Nathan b. Abraham all sorts of disparaging names, suchas ‘head of Peor’, andso on. Hecalls down curses onhis head, such as ‘evil shall not depart fromhis house (Prov., xvii:13), to make him pay’, or ‘to deprive him of anyone that pisseth against the wall’, and others. Nathanis over-ambitious, arrogant, and behaves likehis deceased uncle, his mother’s brother, recruiting supportersfrom among those who were formerly his rivals, distributing numerous writingsfull of lies and being helped by the Karaites (‘the other sect’). He has a great dealof money and is assisted by the authorities. His influence has reached as far as the Maghrib,‘for his handwasstretched outtowardsthem’.TheGaon emphasises that heis himself an old man: ‘and I am at the end of mydays and do not know how long shallI live’. In a letter writtenafter the dispute, on 29 November 1042, he points out that itis already three years that he has been ill, and ifwe assume that he was being accurate, the onsetof his illness (the natureof whichis not known -he lived for another nine years) began in the autumn of 1039, when Nathan b. Abrahambegan to dominate Fustat and evidently succeeded in recruiting a large number of pilgrims to go up to Jerusalem. These facts were especially disturbing to Solomon b. Judah, andheevenpoints outtheexactdate:‘fromthe the of Tabernacles’. morrow after Hosha‘na vabbii or the eighth day of Feast We can assumethenthatthegatheringonthe Mount ofOliveson Hosha‘na rabbi AM4800 (12 October AD 1039) turned into a successful demonstration of support and victory for Nathan b.Abraham.151

151

the third’ mentioned as one of Nathan b. Abraham’s supporters was this Abraham, son of Samuel ‘the third’, but this opinion is invalid in the light of this letter: 230. The closing of the synagogue: Document No. 12 (Bod1MS Heb b 11, f. 5 ) in Gil, Documents, 175f, see lines 31-32; despite its closure, it appears from that account of heqdEsh expenses, they continued to light the oil lamps there. Solomonb. Judah on theclosing of the synagogue in Fustat: 131, b, lines 5-6 (assumed reading);130, lines 21ff ‘in order that one listensto what hesays . . . that a houseof prayer should be closed. . . and to reduce a congregation to a wilderness’; 133, line 8 (happy at the reopeningof the synagogue);135, lines 19-20: much of his anxiety during the dispute was that people would say that he was the cause of the synagogue being closed. The draft of the petition to the caliph: 196. The deed in Nathan b. Abraham’s court: 193. Joseph b. Kulayb’s letter 195, see the matter of the date in the notes to this document; b. ‘Eli is perhaps Mevorakh b. ‘Alliin b. Moses, signed on the ‘peace agreement’: 199, b, line5 . The closing of the synagogue in Ramla on Purim was evidently the result of a scandal which broke out on thequestion of Judah the cantor’s dismissal,andaccording to Goitein, Eretz-Israel, 10 (1970/71), 106f, therewasthe problem of mentioning the rZshGt, that is, mentioning the name of the Gaonduring public prayer. Stern, RE], 128 (1069),204, and following him Cohen,AJSR, 1(1976), 7, n. 18, of the synagogue applied assumed that this information concerning the extended closure to Ramla, but this is not so; it is the synagogue of the ‘Palestinians’ in Fustat; and the discussion inCohen, ibid., on thedate of theclosure of the synagogue is irrelevant in the light of theclear date as we know it, mid-November1039. The complaints of Solomon b. Judah, see: 126 and also 128:‘who lurkslike a beast’, etc.

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[879] In order to thoroughlyunderstand the procession of events in the course of thedispute, which I have surveyed in the main, we should direct our attention to the forces and factors which helped each side. They may be divided into two categories, Jews and non-Jews, the latter being the authorities. Most of Nathan b. Abraham’s supporters remain an anonymous element, although some of them are mentioned by name in my collection of Geniza documents, only in connection with the dispute. There are possibly two reasons for this: one is that obviously those who were active on Nathanb. Abraham’s side werenew to public affairs, and their thirst for novelty (for we have no precise information as to their characters), led them to pursue these activities. The other reason was that, working inhis favour, as we shall see, were people outside the framework of the ‘Palestinian’ communities, that is, people of the ‘Babylonian’ and even the Karaite communities. Again, these people are naturally unknown to us, for most of the documents which reached the Geniza were from the ‘Palestinian’ congregation in Fustat. As we haveseen, Solomon b. Judah counted among thefirst supporters of his rival, the son of ‘the third’ (whose identity we do not know); MaSliah, ‘his pupil’ (it is not clear whose pupil); his cousin (as aforementioned);‘Ammarthe physician; andtheShuway‘family. We are familiar with the latter and I have already surveyed the available information on them,and we have seen that they were evidently identical with the familyof Shii‘a b. Simhiin, who werekeen followers of Nathan when the dispute erupted.Abii’l-Hasan ‘Ammar thephysician is mentioned in a number of documents, not only in connection with the dispute, but we have no further details about him. What is most impressive is the mass support described in Nathan’s letters. Although we have seen that his opponents accused him of distributing lies about the extent of that support, the general impression is that they were not correct and that Nathan b. Abraham’s spontaneous and enthusiastic description of the reading of the megilla, for instance, was certainly true in the main. He had heard from Damascus, he says in that letter, that 400 people there have already signed a court record (mahQav) recognising his authority. Apparently, Nathan b. Abraham had sway over the masses due to his lineage and his reputation as a scholar, but he also seems to have been knowledgeable and experienced in public relations and in nurturingfriendships. A letter hewrote toa certain Halfon, who left the city (Fustat), can serve as an example. Nathan expresses his regrets that he did not manage to take leave of him properlybecause he was too ill to be and the matter of the Maghrib there; 130, with his thoughts on the approaching of end his life, and remarks about the large sums of money at Nathan b. Abraham’sdisposal and on the fact that he bribeshis supporters with money (lines 21ff). His illness: 133.

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able to walk or even to ride to see him. From the letter, it emerges that Halfon was one of his financial backers. Perhaps the reference here is to thisHalfon(his Hebrew name wasAaron)b.Ephraimb.Tarasiin, a veteran and central public figure in Fustat. Also, we already know of a number ofpeople of Fustat with whom Nathan had friendly relations and was in the habit ofwriting to: Nethanelha-Levi b. Rawh and Berakhii b. Rawh (perhaps thebrother of the former), both evidently Karaites; Abii'lSuriir Perahia (Farah) v6sh ha-peveq b. Mu'ammal b. Perahiathejudge, who may also have beena Karaite, for he had a special relationship with Tobiah b. Moses, one of theKaraite leaders; 'Amram b. Yefet, to whom Nathan b. Abraham wrote in Tammuz 1350 Sel., July AD 1038; Solomon b. Nathan, to whom there is a fragment of the opening of a letter from Nathan b. Abraham in my collection, and who may have been identical withSolomon b. Nethanel,themoneychanger,whoselettertothe av-bet-diiz Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi has been preserved. T o this subject of Nathanb. Abraham's supporters in Fustat, we must also addthe deed datedAdar I 1351 Sel.,February-March AD 1040, already mentioned above. The deed was drawn up in Fustat, before 'the Grand Court of our Master Nathan head of theyeshiva Ge'on Ya'aqev'. It deals with a quarrel between indigo traders. This court at met the home of Nethanel he-haver b.Yeshii'ii. Nethanel apparently received the title hiivev from Nathan b. Abraham, for he is not mentioned anywhere else as having this title. Another signatory to the deed was Eleazar b. Samuel, that is,Eleazar b. Ismii'il, who was involved some year and a halfearlier in a scandal and wasaccused of cursing Solomon b. Judah,as we have seen. He was the man who had conducted business with Nathan b. Abraham from QUs in southern Egypt, when the latter was in Fustat, before coming to Palestine. Strangely, the handwriting on the deed resembles that of Ghiilib ha-Kohen b. Moses, Ephraim b. Shemaria's son-in-law, and these two were the most loyal supporters of Solomon b. Judah. A letter froman anonymous supporter of Nathanb. Abraham arouses particular interest, and it is difficult. to discern whether it was written shortly before the dispute or after it ended.He praises Nathan in the letter, for according to the writer, he acquired a reputation for piety, learning, and knowledge of people and also because of his distinguished lineage (julilat al-baytu). His devotion to Nathan b. Abraham can be seen from the fact that he concludeshis letter with the latter's 'uliima, yeshu' yeqavev. We learn of other followers of Nathan b. Abraham in Jerusalem from this letter: theShii'a family (whichis the Shuway' family), Abii'l-SuriirJoshua (Yiisha') b.Nathan al-Andalusi, oneof the Maghribis who lived in Jerusalem and who is mentioned in their letters. O n the Shii'a family and the aforementioned Joshua he says that they support him (the writer), from

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which we understand that they share his attitude towards Nathan b. Abraham. Their supportis especially meaningful, he writes, for Solomon b. Judah’s people are persecuting him and they demand he swears that not to pray for Nathan b. Abraham, from which understand we that the man was a cantor, and that he was referring to the mention of the rishtSt of Nathan b. Abraham during public prayers. He went tovisit Solomon b. Judah to resolve the differences, but the visit, which he describes in the letter, did nothelp him at all, and hehas some hard thingsto say about the Gaon. It is interesting to note that despite all this, the writer still thinks he merits the appointment of d a y y i n or h i v e v . One of the mostdistinguished of Nathan b.Abraham’s supporters was his father-in-law, Abii’l-Fad1 Mevorakh(ha-Kohen?)b. ‘Eli b.Ezra (Zur‘a). He was one of the wealthy men of Fustat and belonged to the ‘Babylonian’ community. Solomon b. Judah mentions him in two of his letters to Sahlan b. Abraham, leader of the ‘Babylonian’ community in Fustat: ‘Mevorakh ha-sir [‘the prince’] b. ‘Eli; ha-sir, our Master MeVorakh b. ‘Eli ha-sir b. Ezra’. It was he who pressed for the appointmentof his son-in-law Nathan b. Abraham as av-bet-din, as we have seen.The title ‘head of the communities’ was evidently granted him his by son-in-law. In a receipt drawn up inFustat on a Monday, 26 Iyar 1381 Sel., 10 May AD 1070, it states that Sedaqa (Zadok) b. Mevorakh r5sh ha-qihil (b. ‘Eli) collected money for his sister’s son, Abraham b. Nathan (b. Abraham), that was owed to him by a certain Hillel b. Manasseh. Hencewe have clear evidence of the family connection. 4800, July AD 1040, the exilarch Hezekiah b. In the month of Av AM David wrote to the ‘Babylonian’ community in Fustat. This was at the height of the dispute, but there is no direct referenceto itin the letter.He asks the entire community toaccept the authority of Sahlin b. Abraham, ‘for his words are our wordsand he is not to be disobeyed’, and threatens the excommunication of those that oppose him. The letteralso contains special greetings for Abii Nap-, whois Hesed al-Tustari. In the first partof the letter, he speaks in praiseof someone’s virtues. This partof the letter has been preserved only in shreds and is difficult it to make out the name of the man to whom he is referring, although it is not unlikely that it is Nathan b. Abraham. The latter notes, we have seen, that on the first Purim of the dispute, all the ‘Babylonians’ in Ramla came to participate with him in the reading of thernegilli (according to him, no one remained in the synagogue of the ‘Babylonians’). Apparently, Sahlin b. Abraham, leader of the Babylonians in Fustat, was also on Nathan’s side. Thiscan be discerned from the colophon of the story Bustanai, of mentioned earlier. The storywas copied bySahlan himself, whose handwriting could hardly be mistaken. He notes there that it is the work of ‘our Lord and Master

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Nathan Gaon,as he received it fromhis forefathers the holy [heads of the] yeshivot and from his teacherHushiel, ri%h be rubbiiniin [head of the learning house of scholars], of blessed memory, copied in Fustat in the year 1352 Sel.’ This means, that in AD 1041, when the dispute was still raging,Sahlindistributed a lampoonwritten by Nathan againstthe exilarchs of the Bustanai house. This was undoubtedly one ofresults the of Nathan’sstay in Fustatforafew monthsduringtheprevious year. Naturally,itmaybearguedthatbydoing so, Sahlan wastryingto besmirch Nathan’s reputation among the ‘Babylonians’ and other devotees of theexilarchic family; that is to say, it could have been interpreted as an act in favourof Solomonb. Judah. O r perhaps Nathan had written this story quite some time before the dispute and probably regretted it when trying to get the support of ‘Babylonians’ the and the Karaites. The truthis that we have no explanation for this action and can arrive at a number of assumptions, suchas that the story was directed against Daniel b. Azariah, who also stemmed from the family of the exilarchs, thatis the descendants of Bustanai. Daniel was staying in Fustat at the time and was one of Solomon b. Judah’s supporters. O n the face of it, it seems possible to assume that Sahlan was indeed one of Nathan b.Abraham’s supporters, since he took the trouble to copy the story, whilecalling Nathan Gaon, and the latter’s forefathers: heads of the y e s h i v ~ t . * ~ ~ l5*

‘Ammir the physician: see: 127; Chapira, Yerushalayinr, 1952/3, 119, states- though I do not know on what basis - thathewasaKaraite. The Megillii, andthe support in Damascus: 183; the letter itselfis from Ramla, not fromDamascus. The letter to Halfon: 179; possibly from the time of Nathan b. Abraham’s stay in Fustat in December 1039; I have already discussed Aaron b. Ephraim b. Tarasiin above. 183a, is a fragment of a letter to Abii’l-Barakit b. Rawh; it seems that the letter contained details on the dispute; someone is compared toa ziqiqen rnarnrt? (‘a rebellious elder’,who disregards the decision of the Sanhedrin), perhaps referring to Solomon b. Judah; in line 14, one can read: almnhl6qet (the dispute); the writer notes that he visited ‘the graves of the eternal fathers’, that is, Hebron. Farah b. Mu’ammal signs a letter of complaint (to Josiah Gaon), 44, about Mubiraka who applied to a Muslim court; Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi, av-bet-dtn of the 210: Perahia Itn-r6sh (1029); heis a signatory toa Palestinian yeshiva,calls him in his letter, deed from the year AM 1329, or AD 1018, in Fustat: TS 28.3. The letter to ‘Amram b. Yefet: 188. T o Solomon b. Nathan:194, and see the letter of Solomonb. Nethanel: 215. The deed in Nathan’s court: 193. The anonymous letter: 198. Mevorakh b. ‘Eli in the letter to Sahlin:90, line 16;136, lines 11-12; ‘head of thecommunities’: 188, line 15. The receipt: Antonin349 (Prof. Goitein was kind enough to send me a photograph ofa copy of the deed made when he was in Leningrad); cf. Goitein, Tarbiz, 36(1966/7), 62, n. 16. In 196, line 6, there is explicit mention of ashiir lahu min al-‘iriiqiy%z, that is, relatives on his 192, wife’s side,from among the‘Babylonians’, who helped Nathan b. Abraham; also in the letter to the Nagid of Qayrawin, Jacob b. ‘Amram, relatives of the family are mentioned (line 6), Nathan b. Abraham’s father-in-law and brothers-in-law (lines 4849),who support himand approach the authoritieson his behalf;cf. Mann, Texts, I, 326, n. 4, mentioning a marriage deed from the Bodleian collection, in which there is the signature of Mevorakh ‘Eli b. b. Ezra (Zur‘a) ha-Kohen.The letter of Hezekiah b. David: TS Loan 40. The ‘Babylonians’ in Ramla:183, line 21. The colophon,see the text (ENA ibid., 73; cf. Mann, Texts I, 4012) in Gil, Tarbiz, 48 (1978/9), 69, and the translation

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[880] The Karaites were unmistakable supporters of Nathan b. Abraham; this was especially true of the Tustari family (who probably represented a sect of their own called by this name among the Karaites). The Karaites took parten m u e in that aforementioned reading of themegillii in Ramla. In the anonymous draft an ofappeal to the caliph, which I have also mentioned, it was stated explicitly that they were supporters of Nathan. Solomon b. Judah also wrote explicitly of ‘people of the othersect’ who side with his rival; ‘many of them assist him secretly, while pretending that they are withme’. And we have seen that some of those withwhom Nathan carried on a correspondence were evidently Karaites. As to the Tustaris, to whom Solomon b. Judah would appeal for support for the Jewish population in Jerusalem and the yeshiva in its struggles, he hoped that they would stand by him on this occasion as well. From what he wrote to Ephraim b.Shemaria, it appears that he indeed expected Hesed al-Tustari to back him. The fact that the Tustaris decided to support his rival disheartened him immensely, and he accuses Nathan of making overtures at ‘the doors of the great’. Fromhis one letters, of it emerges that someone was even attempting to bribe the people of the yeshiva200with dinars in orderto get them to go overhis torival’s camp, perhaps referring here to the Tustaris. In the drafts of the petition to the caliph, written by Solomon b. Judah’s followers incu. 1041, there is a clear reference to the Tustaris’ support of Nathan. In the petition, they ask the caliph to make amends and tosee to it thata person who does not belong to their religion should not be permitted to intervenein the dispute, and they specifically mention ‘Fad1 b. Sahl al-Dustari’, who intervened inthedisputeand opened the synagogue (in Fustat) for the followers of Nathan.153 [881] One can assume that theJews in the entire disapora, and not only in Fustat, were involved in the dispute, and the rift probably split and divided many communities. We have some information on Qayrawan. According to Solomon b. Judah, the Maghribi Nagid, Jacob b. ‘Amram, did his best to curb the followers of Nathan in Qayrawan; he was ‘of some help.’ In another of Solomonb. Judah’s letters,it is again implied that the Nagid of the Maghrib supports him, and even sent a warning from the Maghrib to Nathan b. Abraham ‘not to touch me’. This fact deserves specialattentionconsideringthatweknowofNathanb.Abraham’s prolonged stay in the Maghrib, and also that he had close friends there.

153

333-336, whose translation of the colophon should be corrected; the explanation for the story which belittles the exilarchic house written by Nathan, is sought by Mann in the tradition of the Palestinian yeshiva and its rivalry with the Karaite nesf’im, see ibid., further thoughts on the possible aim of the story; also see on this matter: Gil, ibid., 4Of. The episode of the reading of the Megillii: 183. Mention of the Karaites: 196; ‘the other sect’: 126, lines 24-25. Solomon b. Judah on theTustari: 128, lines 15-20; 130, lines 25ff. The bribery: 131, b, lines 9-10. The Tustarisin the drafts: 197, b, lines 11-12, 19, 23-25.

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The two letters written from Fustat by Abraham b. David ibn Sughmar and Ghalib ha-Kohen b. Moses, to the Nagid of Qayrawiin, indicate that they expected him to exert greater efforts on behalf of the old Gaon.We find there the information that Nathan b. Abraham’s supporters claimed that the Nagid was on their side, the writer anticipating a very staunch denial of this claim. It also says that from the outset, Nathan b. Abraham left the Maghrib with two letters of recommendation from the Nagid to the wazir in Fustat, in order to help him get closer to the Fatimid court. They also ask the Nagid to write toFustat and to Palestine and state their support for the excommunication which the Gaon pronounced against Nathan b. Abraham. In addition, they sent to the Nagid letters written to him by Solomon b. Judah, in two copies, one by camel caravan and the other by sea. One of Solomon b. Judah’s major followers was Daniel b. Azariah. Most of the available information about him shall be discussed in the continuation, as he later became the Palestinian Gaon. As I have already mentioned, he wrote a number ofletters some years after the dispute about his backing of Solomon b. Judah and the priestly brothers (which he regretted). Thisis also clearly implied in the above-mentioned letter to the Nagid written by Abraham b. David ibn Sughmir,in which he precedes his comments on the dispute withexpressions ofjoy and enthusiasm on the arrival of Daniel b. Azariah in Fustat, which in fact have no corinection with the affair of thedispute, but for all that,confirmthe closeness betweenDanielandSolomon b. Judah’s supporters,the ‘Palestinian’ congregation in Fustat. This congregation, led by Ephraim b. Shemaria and his son-in-law Ghilib ha-Kohen b. Moses, was the major bastion behind the old Gaon, and the arrival of Daniel b. Azariah, the scionof the exilarchic family, certainly addedboth weight and prestige. O n the other hand, there were some members of this congregation as well who went over to Nathanb. Abraham’s side, such as Solomon he-haver b. Meir v6sh ha-seder, who at first was loyalto Solomon b. Judah and afterwards moved over to the opposition. Abraham b. David ibn Sughmir, whose letters I have discussed and about whom I havedescribedwhateverinformation we have at our disposal (see sec. 750), was undoubtedly oneof the most active of the old Gaon’s followers in Fustat. Solomon b. Judah insisted that the letter he was sending to Ephraim b. Shemaria should also be sent to the rniis5s so that he could sendthem on to the Maghrib. There is no question then that the ‘vtziisOsboy] ofthe yeshiva’, Abraham b. David ibn Sughmar, who was a sort of intermediary between the Maghrib and the Palestinian yeshiva, Here there is clear proof that the Tustaris were Karaites, cf. Stern, REJ, 128 (1969), 211; Gil, ha- Tustarim, 59-63.

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was active on. behalf of the Gaon. In another fragment of a letter of Solomon b. Judah which has been preserved from thedays of the dispute, the m i s 6 s and his correspondence with him are mentioned, and he may have been referring to him when he writes there that‘his grandfather was one of the righteous of Israel’, ‘and they belong to the great of thecity of Fas’. It seems that the antagonism between Abraham ibn Sughmir and Nathan began when the latter was staying in Fustat. In his letter from there, Nathan describes how Ibn Sughmar became implicated inan affair with ‘a gentile prostitute’, that is, a Muslim. He depicts the affair in his letter to the above-mentioned Abu Yusuf Eleazar b. Samuel (Isma‘il). There mayhave beena certain amount ofexaggeration and slanderin this description. From another letter, written (or copied) byGhilib ha-Kohen b. Moses, it appears that the congregation sided with Ibn Sughmir, and decided that the Gaon (Solomon b. Judah) should be asked to cancel the excommunication on him (an excommunication declared by Nathan b. Abraham, as is implied from the above-mentioned letter). We have an additional document connected with this subject, which consists of two parts. The first is a fragment ofa letter from theJerusalem parnas ‘Eli b. Ezekiel. It contains accusations against Nathan b. Abraham’s camp for persuading the Karaites in Fustat to support him;those supporters vilify Ephraim b. Shemaria and the Karaite personalities who, it seems, stand behind Solomon b. Judah. Evidently this letter was written inRamla, and it says that attachedto itare lettersfrom one of the personalities of Ramla, Hayyim he-haver b. Solomon he-haver, written to Abii Ishaq Abraham al-Andalusi, whose identityis not clear to meat the moment, but who was certainly one of the leaders of the Maghribis. Abraham b. David ibn Sughmar, whocan be recognised by his handwriting, affixed another leaf with a copy of a letter, also from Palestine, to ‘Eli b. Ezekiel’s letter. The anonymous writer, probably one of the loyal supportersof the Jerusalem Gaon and perhaps oneof the priestly brothers aoseph and Elijah, sons of Solomon Gaon), turns to one of Fustat’s notables and asks him to use his influence with thecaliph to obtainan official order in favourof Solomon b. Judah (he calls him: Abii Da’iid Sulayman b. Judah al-Fasi). The spirit of the letter is similar to what wefind in letters to the caliph and also in the memorandum on the prerogatives of thehead of theyeshiva. Here too, the role played by Abraham b. David b. Sughmar in the dispute is stressed, as well as that of the mediator withthe authorities, Abii’l-Qasam (‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz), Ibn al-Ukhuwwa. In Palestine itself, there were certainly many followers loyalto the old Gaon, despite thefact that thescales were at first inclined to come down in favour of his rival. Their names have not been preserved, with theexception of a man whoseArabic name was Rawh. Nathan b. Abraham men-

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tions him in his letter to the anonymous ‘friend of the yeshiva’: ‘why should Rawh and his relatives force us to have a man appointed over us, whom we do notwant’. This Rawh was apparently one of the wealthy men of Ramla. Solomon b. Judah mentions him in connection with the transfer of money in money orders from Fustat to Jerusalem, but we cannot identify him more precisely. Perhaps, he is sur mentiha, whom the Gaon praises in a letter written after the dispute, alluding perhaps to the Arabic wordRawh,which corresponds totheHebrew mentiha, rest, relaxation. 154 [882] As to appeals to theauthorities, this was a central and obviousfact in the course of the dispute. At first, the authorities in Palestine favoured the old Gaon and supported him against the youngrival who had appeared on the scene. We have already witnessed Abraham, son of the Gaon, hastening to Damascus when the dispute brokeout, whencehe brought a tuwqi” (order), probably from the Fatimid army commander in al-Sham, which confirmed the status of Solomon b. Judah. Nathan b. Abraham and 154

‘Some help’: 128; Hirschberg, History, I, 214, mistakenly assumed that the reference was to some trouble experienced by the Jewsin the Maghrib.The warning: 131, a, line 19; b, line 2. The complaint that the Nagid supported Nathan, and they whatasked ofhim: 191, lines 33ff; 192, lines 19fC the Gaon’s letters to the Nagid,ibid., lines 41ff. Seeon Jacob b. ‘Amram: Mann,]QR, NS 9(1918/9), 162f; idem,Jews, I, 144; seeTS Loan 40, Part 11, the opening ofa letter to him from the exilarch Hezekiah b. David,cf. Goitein, Mediterratlean Society, 11, 24f; 525, nn. 6-10. The connection between Abrahamb. David ibn Sughmar and the Nagidis also shown in Mosseri I1 150 (formerly L 151), in the handwriting ofIbn Sughmar (see above, in the note to section 750). The additional document: 192a; the letters to the caliph: 196, 197;the memorandum on the head of theyeshiva: 311. Another interesting item:on the reverse side ofthese attached letters, 192a, Abraham b. David ibn SughmZr affixed a fragment from theLetter of Sherira Gaon (written by theGaon some sixty years earlier). This fragment is a parallel to what is printed in the Lewin edition, p. 109, line 13, to p. 114, line 12, and on the whole, the version resembles what Lewin calls ‘the French version’. It seems that the copyist was especially interested in that passage of Sherira Gaon’s Letter, because it describes the disputes and divisions that occurred in the Pumbedita yeshiva, when there weretwo geonim, and howRav Joseph withdrew and was satisfied with the rank of uv-bzt-din. Also further (what was preserved): the split between Rav Menahem and Rav Matityahu. See ENA 1490, f. 70; in comparison with theedited version of Sherira Gaon’s Letter, there are some omissions. An interesting reading (Lewin, p. 110, line 3: line 6 in the MS):mi-sefar ‘urishz, i.e., one has to leave place(for the prophet Elijah) on the rightside of the sitting place. Mann, who did not know the letters 191 and 192 in their entirety, was undecided about the identity of the Nagid, to whom the fragments he knew were written, and assumed at first that the reference was to Joseph b. Samuel, the Spanish Nagid; see hisletus, 11, 352; and also in Texts, I, 328, he could not identify him. The joy at the coming of Daniel b. Azariah to Fustat, see the beginning of 191. Solomon b. Judah on the mZsCs; 126, line 27; the other fragment: 129, lines 8, 27-28; Mann, Jews, I, 132f, was mistaken in thinking that the fragment dealt with a dispute in Fustat, for in the margin itsays there: ‘it was said indeed that Solomon b. Meir made peace with the band of plotters’, referring to Solomon he-haver b. Meir rCsh ha-seder, whose support for Solomonb. Judah I have mentioned above; and he seems to have changed his mind. Nathan on Abraham b. David ibn SughmZr: 176. The Fustat congregation on Ibn Sughmar’s side: 177. Rawh and his relatives: 187, lines 19-20. The transfer of money: 116, line 13. Sar menu&: 132, line 14; Mann,]ews, I, 146, n. 1, assumed that he was David ha-Levi b. Isaac.

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

his faction then started to put pressure on the local authorities not to stand by Solomon b. Judah. Nathan describes this situation in a letter to the anonymous ‘friend of the yeshiva’. The pressure consisted mainly of the threat (accompaniedby an oath inthe name ofr?zazuldni, that is, the life of the caliph) that they would approach the tnishrzi?, that is, the wazir. Indeed, this pressure waseffective and Nathan’s followerstook control of Jewish communallife in Ramla unhindered. The wazir at the time ofthe dispute wasAbii’l-Qa’im ‘Ali b. Ahmad al-Jarjara’i, who became wazirin AH 418, that is AD 1027, and who remained in this post seventeen years, until his death on 7 Ramadan AH 436, that is 28 March AD 1045. It seems that considerable weight was added to Nathan b. Abraham’s camp by the support of the Tustaris, which was lent special substance as a result of the appointment of Hesed al-Tustari, in the very midst of the dispute, to theposition of katib al-nmir, that is, the official in charge of the army onbehalf of theFatimid rulers. Weknow this from a fragment ofa letter writtenby Nathan b. Abraham himself, in whichthis information is preserved. The termal-anrir is probably a shorter version of arnir al-juytrsh, the title of Aniishtakin al-Dizbiri, commander of the Fatimid army. Nathan b. Abraham adds there that Hesed al-Tustari ‘looks after us and listens to what we tell him’. The addressee, whose identity we do not know, is asked to writeHesed al-Tustari a letter of thanks, in which heis to be congratulated on his appointment. The authorities’ intervention is reflected also in letters written by supporters of Solomon b. Judah to the Nagid of Jacob Qayrawan, b.‘Amram, in the summer of 1039. He is asked to apply to the authorities. Something which it seemsis not mentionedat all in the Arabchronicles, is implied in these letters; namely theclose contact between thelocal Zirid rulers in the Maghrib and the central Fatimid rule inEgypt, and the influence exercised by the ruler of Qayrawan on the central authority. From first, or the so the writers of the letter claim, Nathan b. Abraham wantedget tothe assistance of the authorities and forthis purpose used the two letters of recommendation that he received from the Nagid of Qayrawin to ‘the elder Ibn al-Ukhuwwa’, asking him to intervene his onbehalf with the caliph. N o w they ask the Nagid to makehis amends and obtain a letter fromsayyidni amir nl-llmnrii’ (our Lord the commander of the commanders) slzarnf aldatvla and tij al-milla (the glory of the kingdom and the crown of the religion), who is Mu‘izz b. Bidis, ruler of Qayrawin, to the (Fatimid) wazir, SLJF nmir al-rnrr’vnitlin tun-khdisatlzu (which is something like: ‘the true and chosen friendof thecaliph’), and to Abii’l-Qasim (or al-Qasam) ‘Aliibn‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Ukhuwwa (who is theaforementionedIbn al-Ukhuwwa) that they should support Solomon b. Judah. We do not know any furtherdetails concerning this Ibn al-Ukhuwwa, but he seems

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to have been a sort of representative of the ruler of Qayrawin at the Fatimid court. The importance of the roleplayed by the authorities’ intervention in the dispute can also beseen in the petitions to the rulers, written by the supporters of Solomon b. Judah in Fustat; for instance, the draft of a petition to thecaliph evidently written by Ephraim b. Shemaria. We find here a description of the disputebrought aboutby ‘a man who came from the Maghrib’, noting thefact that the synagogue of the ‘Palestinians’ was closed as a result of the disputebecause the relatives and intimate friends of Nathan hadexertedtheir considerable influence. Finally, the caliph is asked to send an order to one his of subordinates to openthe synagogue. In this draft, there is also a request relating to al-Dizbiri (Muntakhab alDawla, ‘theexcellent of the kingdom’); we do not knownature the of this request though we can assume that it touched on the dispute, that is, the affairs of thePalestinian yeshiva. From the draft, we also learn of another interesting detail, namely that the caliph had already entered into thethick a reconciliof the dispute and appointed a mediator to try to bring about ation of the two sides. This was David b. Isaac, one of the notables of Fustat, who was close to the Fatimid rulers, and on whom I have enlarged above. Here, Davidb. Isaac isaccused of actually doing nothing toresolve the quarrel.We encounter Davidb. Isaac again in the drafts written by one of Solomon b. Judah’s supporters,as well as in part of the final outcome of these drafts - a petition to the caliph. The time of the drafts and the petition is towards the end of 1041. Here, too, it is stated that David b. Isaac did nothing to putan end tothe dispute and thathe failed to fulfil his mission. In the final version, we first find a general summary of the dispute, where it clearly states that itis a division over leadership,between two authorities (viyisatayn); whileinthe continuation there is also the matter of the synagogue in Fustat and its closure. Apparently, close to the date of the writing of the letter (perhaps during the holidays in Tishri, that is, the autumn of 1041) the people of Nathan b.Abraham’s faction suceeded in opening the synagogue with thehelp of the regime’s soldiers (al-rajjila); they also made use of the foundations (heqdesh) in Fustat as they saw fit. We gather further details from the drafts, which were omitted from the final text because they were evidently thought to be too sensitive. In the drafts, itsays that thecaliph should no longer suffer the domination ofone faction over another. It is also stated that the person behind the forceful takeover of the synagogue was Fad1 (Hesed) b. Sahl al-Tustari, with the help of thekitib 02-sini‘cl’, the chief official of the Nile harbour Fustat, in a certain Abii’l-Mand. These people used their high rank and large sums of money in order to obtain what they wanted. In the final draft, the arnir Muntakhab al-Dawla, that is al-Dizbiri, is also mentioned, and the caliph

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

is requested to order him to treat both factions with impartiality with regard to the synagogues and that neither faction should dominate the other and that no one shouldenforce religious matters by sending armed units to the synagogues on the sabbath and holidays.155 [883]Apparently, itwas the intervention of the authorities which finally put an end to the dispute. Solomon b. Judah explicitly says as much in a letter written immediately after a reconciliation was arrived at and at which he expresses his pleasure. Peace, he writes, whichreally meant the capitulation of Nathan b. Abraham, was obtained through the efforts of the governor of Jerusalem; by what God has put ‘in the heart of the governor of the Holy City’ and thanks to the other grandees of the city (‘the big ones of thecity’), by order of the governor ofjund Filasiin (‘and over everyone the great ruler in Ramla’); and on the basis of the order issued to the latter by the caliph and the wazir (‘the great king’, ‘the rnishni?). The letter also mentions several figures who also evidently put pressure on the rulers in this matter, such as ‘the splendid prince, say menfil;li, whom I have already tried to identify with that anonymous Rawh whosupportedthe Gaon;Mawhiib b. Yefet; thefather of Mawhiib (evidently) Yefet ‘head of the congregation’; and Abraham, who is apparently Abraham b. Mevasser. The nature of the peace itself becomes clear to us from a very special document in the form of a memorandum written in Jerusalem.The main points of the agreement wereas follows: (1) Nathan b. Abraham would forego the titles he bestowed on himself and others; in other words, he would no longer be called Gaon and his appointment of judges and haverim and other titles which he conferred during the dispute wouldbe invalid. (2) He would not grant any titles in the future(literally: he would not pray over anyone) unless it was with the agreement of the four: the Gaon, Tobiah ‘the third’ b. Daniel, Joseph and Elijah sons of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon (‘the fourth’and ‘the fifth’). O n the other hand, the 155

The taw@‘: 182, at the beginning. The letter to ‘thefriend of theyeshiva’: 187, lines 16ff; Mann,]ew$, 11, 171, n. 1, understood mawl2nii (our master)in whose name they take the oath - as God, but itis clear that they mean the caliph, cf. Goitein’s note in the Preface to the aforementioned book by Mann. Al-Jarjarii’i: Ibn al-Sayrafi, 37f; Ibn al-Qaliinisi, 84; Ibn Khallikiin, 111, 408; cf. the article al-Djardjara’i (by D . Sourdel) in EP. The matter of Hesed al-Tustari: TS AS 157.231, 232. Apparently, itis impossible to be certain whether the reference is still to al-Dizbiri, since at this time, someone else may have held the position ofarnlral-jtryGsh;but in the drafts ofthe petition addressed to the caliph, they refer to an order to be given by the caliph to Muntakhab al-Dawla al-Dizbiri. The Nagid of Qayrawiin: 191, lines 33-35; 53; 192, lines 24-31, 40, see also in the notes tothese letters; Mu‘izz b. Badis, head of the Banii Sinhaja, who rose to prominence in the days of al-Hiikim, and received from him the title shard-faf-dawla, see Ibn al-Athir, Kiimil, IX,258; cf. Idris, La Berbtrie, I, 149; Cohen, AJSR, 1(1976), 16f; 32, nn. 118, 119; Goitein, Letter$, 309, n. 16. The first draft:196; the seven drafts and the petition: 197, and see the notesto these documents.

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appointments made by Solomon b. Judah would remain in force. Nathan b. Abraham promisesto supportactions against those who take on titles or appointments without the agreement of thefive (that is, himself and the aforementioned four), whichform the only authoritative body to confirm appointments, and noother person is to be appended toit. (3) The prerogative of sitting in judgment and of supervising the foundations (heqd2shim) and the ritual slaughter in Ramla will rest with Joseph haKohen ‘the fourth’.If another of theyeshiva’s personalities happens to be in Ramla, he will only be able to receive the right to makedecisions with Solomon b. Judah’s agreement.(4) If Nathan is moved to another position in the yeshiva - a hint that after Solomon b.Judah’s death,he will become the Gaon - he will not be able to change the accepted order of advance in the yeshiva; that is, he would not be able to appoint additional people to the ranks of av-bet-din, ‘the third’, etc. (5) Nathan can sit in judgment in Ramla only if the people tobe judged have not been formerly judgedby Joseph ha-Kohen; in other words, thoughhe is av-bet-din of the yeshiva, cases which Josephha-Kohen had already begun to deal with would not be passed on to him. It is stressed there that this clause only applies to him, that is to say that anyone appointed by the Gaon would have the sit right to on such court cases. The date of the agreement is Hosha‘na rabbi AM 4803, that is 8 October AD 1042 (a Friday). The agreement was then signed on the seventh dayof theholiday, perhapsduring themass congregation on the Mount of Olives. Thus the dispute which had lasted for four whole years came to an end. The signatories totheagreementwere Solomon b. Judah, who naturally signed‘head of yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov; Nathan, whosigned: ‘av-bet-din of all Israel’; Tobiah ‘the third’b. Daniel; Joseph ‘the fourth’ andElijah ‘the fifth’, sons of Solomon Gaon; and apart from these, Hezekiah thenirlb. Solomon (the Karaite nisi) and Mevorakh b. ‘Alliin b. Moses, about whom wehave no further information. A few dayslater, on Marheshwan 1354 Sel.,October-November AD 1042, Solomon b. Judah writes to Ephraimb. Shemaria, and after summing up the motives which led to the dispute, he points out that there were still some who would not-agree to the peace, for selfish reasons (‘who only quarelled for their own needs’). It emerges that hehad written a letter on the subject of the reconciliation to theFustat congregation before that, but as the letter was addressed to Ephraim b. Shemaria, the congregation would notaccept it and he was obliged to write another letter, which was explicitly addressed to the ‘Palestinian’ congregation. He also considered having Nathan sign the letter, with his title ‘Nathanav-bet-din of all Israel’ andevensentit to Ramlafor this purpose, but Nathan had left for Damascus in the meantime.156 156

Solomon b. Judah’s letter: 132. The Jerusalem agreement: 199. There will be a separate

T H E JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

[884] It is clear that the dispute ended in Nathan b. Abraham’s downfall. Although he retained his status as av-bet-diiz, thesecondrankinthe yeshiva, all his actions and decisions made during the dispute were totally invalidated, and the position of the priestly brothers, Joseph and Elijah, was strengthened by their becoming ‘the fourth’ and ‘the fifth‘ in the yeshiva. The name of Abraham ‘the fourth’ b. Samuel b. Hosha‘na is missing, which may be due to thefact that he did not remain loyal to the winning side, or that he may been haveill or had even died around the time of the conclusion of the dispute. Tobiah b. Daniel, the son of Shemaiah Gaon’s sister, continued, as formerly, as ‘third’ in the yeshiva. He died a short time afterward,evidence of whichcan be seen in drafts of lettersof condolence written inFustat by Ephraimb.Shemaria toNathanb. Abraham and toElijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, on21 February 1043. In the letter of condolence addressedto Nathanb. Abraham, Ephraim b. Shema(shirnnliish) which was valiria added something about a court document dated in Jerusalem,an indication that Nathan b. Abraham was once again engaged in legal affairs. After the death of Tobiahb. Daniel, the priestly brothers Joseph and Elijah became ‘third’ and ‘fourth’ in yeshiva, the as we have seen. Indeed, we have the signatureof Elijah ha-Kohen as ‘the fourth of thelzavfivZ, son ofa Gaon, of righteous memory’a deed on from theyear 1045. From this, we can also conclude that in 1045, Nathan b. Abraham was still alive and active as av-bet-dit2 in theyeshiva. It appears that he died some time shortly afterward, for letter in a written by Abraham son of the Gaon (when Solomon b. Judah was still alive) to SahlZn b. Abraham, about what had happened during the month of Tishri in the Jerusalem yeshiva, he mentions theav-b&d% and his brother ‘thethird’. These could only have been the priesty brothers, Joseph and Elijah, the one having become av-bFt-d% andthe other ‘thethird’,which wouldonly have of Nathan b. Abraham, which occurred become possible after the passing sometime between 1045 and 1051. discussion on the Karaite nesi’im; at any rate, the signature of the Karaite Nasi is something ofa puzzle, although itis clearthat in the eyes of the Fatimid rulers the head of the Jerusalem yeshiva was the representative of all the Jews, including the Karaites. Nathan also wrote on the peace: 200, lines 7-8; the letter was intended evidently for Fustat, and he writes of his intention to visit there, ‘to enjoy seeing you and renew the covenant of yourlove’; Isaiah Nufisi, who is mentioned there, is perhaps the father of Joseph b. al-Nufid, a Karaite of Fustat, mentioned in ULC O r 1080J 167 in the upper margin, line 2; see Udovitch, in: Individualism, etc., 77 (aletter fromMiisi b. Abi’l-Hayy Khalila to Nehorai b. Nissim). Thatis, it is possible that Nathan continued to maintain friendly relations with the Karaites. The additional letter of Solomon b. Judah: 133; see also 134, with remaining details on the dispute after it ended;and his letters toSahlan b. Abraham, also written about the same time:136, 137. To the letters Solomon b. Judah wrote after the dispute one should also add 137a, which is perhaps a fragment ofa letter to the ‘Palestinian’ congregation in Fustat. All he hoped for was ‘Israel’s peace’, he writes there of himself; further on, hespeaks of ha‘ataqat avot and it is difficult to know whether

718

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Nathan b. Abraham is credited with an Arabic commentary on the Mishna, which is included (all or partly) in a manuscript preserved in Yemen, copied by Yahyi and Joseph b. David (the grandson of the former) Qiifih, and which is now in printed form. Itmainly deals with the meaning of words. Formularies of letters in Nathan’s handwriting have been preserved in the Geniza - letters intended to be sent on behalf of the yeshiva and which he seems to have prepared for his own use during his reign as head of the yeshiva. An elegy in his handwriting has also been preserved. Below we shall encounter his only son, Abraham, who was also involved in the enormous dispute between Abiathar ha-Kohen and David b. Daniel.157 Daniel b. Azarinh

[885] The successor to Solomon b. Judah was Daniel b. Azariah, who was a descendant of theBabylonian exilarch. After Mar Ziitrain the sixth century, and Jehoshaphat and Semah, the nesi’im and heads of the yeshiva in the ninth century, he was the fourth to unite in his person the two supreme ranks, that of nasr and Gaon. He was an offspring of Zakkai,the father of David, theBabylonian exilarch during the first half of the

157

he meant by this the tradition of the forefathers, or perhaps he was referring to the avdt bit-dit1, that is the inclination (that had existed) to oust Nathan b. Abraham from his post. Tobiah b. Daniel was not a cousin of the priestly brothers, Joseph and Elijah, as Mann assumed, basing his assumption on 147, b (Solomon b. Judah’s letter), where the ‘third’ is mentioned; see his Texts, I, 326; and following himalso Gil, Periqitn (1979), 65, n. 38; the ‘third’ mentioned there is Elijahha-Kohen, and thus therelationship did notexist. Letters of condolence: 333 (Gil, Per&@, ibid.: ‘in the handwriting of Yefet b. David’ which should be emended); Mann,Jews, I, 193f, erred in his interpretation ofthese letters; see the introduction and notes of 333; the matter of the shimmiish there, lines 19ff; Ephraim calls himself (ibid., line 9) Nathan’s pupil; Nathan is ‘the voluntary teacher of whoever he meets’ (line 6 ) . 341 is a note in Sahlin b. Abraham’s handwriting, in which heasks Aaron thecantorb.EphraimtotendtoAaron he-haver b. Tobiah, ‘the third, of blessed memory’, hence we understand that his son, Aaron, went to Egypt sometime after the death ofhis father; and he was also mentioned by Manasseh b. Joshuain his letters from Tyre toShemaiah he-haver b. Joshuain Jerusalem (a relative of Tobiah‘the third’, from the family of Shemaiah Gaon); see the Hebrew Index.Elijah ha-Kohen ‘the fourth’:564, line 22. The letter of Abraham son of the Gaon:141. The Mishni Commentary:Supplement to the Mishni in the edition el ha-tneqGrdt, Jerusalem 19545; see Assaf, Teqiijit Ira-ge’dnitn, 294ff (printed before that in Kiryat S e j r , 10, 1932/4); in the footstepsofMann, who was mistaken about thedescendants of Nathanb. Abraham, and inventeda grandson named Nathan b. Abraham,Assaf placedthe Commentary at the end of the eleventh century, but we have seen that Nathan b. Abraham died in about the middle of the century. It is therefore evident that it is not likely that his commentary would have included the sayings of a number of geonim and scholars to be found in the aforementioned manuscriptand listed by Assafin his article. It emerges, then, thatonly a part (and perhapsa small part)ofthe Commentaryis, in fact, thework ofNathan b. Abraham, and the matter requires further study. The formularies of the letters, ENA 223, can be recognised as being in his handwriting, and here andtheretheyhave supra-linear vocalisation, with which he would amusehimself. The elegy: ENA 2924, f. 9.

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tenth century, from the branch of the son of Zakkai, Josiah (Hasan), brother of David, as can be seen from their lineage tree in sec. 774. As we have seen, Daniel’s grandfather, Solomon b. Josiah, was exilarch, but after him, this branch of the family was excluded from the exilarchateandHezekiah,thegrandson of David b. Zakkai,became exilarch. Nevertheless, Daniel’s father, Azariah, still called himself ‘the exilarch of all Israel’. Apparently, the family was prouditsof descent from Bustanai, the exilarch at the time of the Muslim conquest, despite the aspersions against him for having had children by a Persian captive (the fact that she was the Persian king’s daughter meant little to the Jews of that time). Daniel’s lineage, however, continued to Baradai b. Bustanai, who according to the geonic responsa was the son of Bustanai by his Jewish wife. In a qqdda written in his honour bya certain‘Eli ha-Kohen, Daniel is called shevTv Btrstlirzi, (‘a spark from Bustanai’). His ‘alimn was yeshiZ‘li (deliverance; like that of Saadia Gaon). Daniel b. Azariah’s brother Zakkai was involved in Daniel’s affairs to a certain extent. During the latter’s period as Gaon, he stayed in Fustat, wherehequarrelled with the local haver, ‘Eli b.‘Amram. In one of Daniel’s letters, he expresses his satisfaction over the fact that the quarrel has ended. One feels that he is very critical of his brother, who had evidently tried to organise a sort of separate authority within Fustat and who enjoyedtheincome from ritualslaughter (‘he madehimselfa market’) and set up his own faction. Daniel stood aloof from all this and points out that although most peopleknow that he is not involvedin this matter, it creates a great deal of slanderous gossip. At the same time, he warns ‘Eli against any abuseof his brother, ‘for he is my brother and the son of myfather and mother’.In the same letter, Daniel mentions that his brother has crossed the Euphrates (apparently not long before), that is, he seems to have arrived in Fustat from Iraq after Daniel became Gaon. Daniel’s attitude to his brother is also revealed in a letter he wrote to the rn&cTs, who is evidently Abraham b. David ibn Sughmar.In this letter, he thanks the mlisik for caring for someone very close to him during the latter’s illness, of whom he says ‘for heis my brotherand flesh and blood’; obviously speaking ofhis brother Zakkai. Apparently,after his arrival in Egypt, Zakkai was in the habit of travelling from Fustat, perhaps to Palestine, as one gathers from a letterof Daniel b. Azariah and also from a letter of Israel b. Sahliin fromJerusalem, written on 29 November 1061, in which he mentions the return of ‘Zakkai nlisi the and his son’ to Fustat. 158 [886] Daniel b. Azariah evidently had four sons.The youngest, David, 158

See the family treeofthe offspring of Zakkai, above on p. 545. In my collection, there are some sixty letters and fragments ofletters and court documents, etc. written by Daniel b. Azariah and his scribe,or written toDaniel. For earlier surveysof information on him,

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was born in 1058, four years before the death of his father. In some of the letters to him,the writers mention his three sons and send them greetings. In the qarlda mentioned above, written on 22 March 1057, it appears that only two of his sons are mentioned, Samuel and Jehoshaphat. Samuel’s name is also found in a deed drawn up on25 Tishri AM1386, 19 October AD 1074, in Damascus. The court of ‘Samuel the nisT the third of the haviira son ofR. Daniel m i s l and Gaon, ofblessed memory’ is mentioned see Mann, Jews, I,182-185, and see his Geniza sources pertaining to Daniel, ibid., 11, 218-221; 457-461; Goitein, Shalem, 2 (1975/6), 41ff, edited in full or partly, 25 additional documents, and discussed the information they contained; he ascribed 356 to Daniel’s brother Zakkai, which was written by Daniel, a matter onwhich I disagree with him; cf. ha-Yishuv, 132ff, where he added another six documents. See Dropsie 462, which contains the lineage ofZakkai, Daniel’s brother, written by Abraham ha-Levi b. Tamim al-Rahbi (evidently atthe beginningof the twelfth century), cf. Mann, Poxnnnski Mernorinl Volume, 19f; Mann read in the aforementionedlist: b. Dadoy, and commented there, n. 9, that it should be- Baridoy; but this is in factwritten this way in the MS.One should note that it emerges from thelist that Baridoy (thecorrect spelling should be ‘Bariidai’) hada son named Hasdai, whereas according to the responsum of the Gaon, Bariidai and Hasdai were brothers, sons Bustanai of from his Jewish wife. (The nesi’im of theKaraites, whom I shall discuss below, claimed descent from Hasdai, unlike Daniel’s family, who claimed descent from Baridai,as mentioned above.)See details on the geonic responsa concerning Bustanai in: Gil, Tarbiz, 48 (1978/9), 36f, and the table ibid., 44. The family tree in T S 8 K 22, f, 5, edited by Mann, Jews, 11, 357, is not credible, as Daniel’s grandfather is called thereJoseph, while we know for certain that his name was Solomon, see 191, lines 15-17, where he is mentioned with this lineage; see also Goode,JQR, NS 31(1940/1), 163f. See the qasida B M O r5557 K, f. 8, edited by Fleischer, Shalem, 1(1973/4),70, line 162; in the Hebrew version of thepresent book thereare a few completions to this edition, see vol. I, 584, and in thenote. One verse apparently praises Daniel forhaving restored the Damascus community to the rishiif (authority) of the Jerusalem yeshiva. TS Box K 16, f. 36 is written in the same handwriting as that of the aforementioned qasida, and it is interesting that there is an anti-Babylonian verse there. We have no further information on Zakkai, Daniel’s brother. Something of a myth was created around him- that hehad settled in Mosul. Actually we have no proof of this; this grew out of what Mann said as an assumption, relying mainly on a Geniza fragment with the opening of a letter, ‘from Zakkai b.Azariah Nasi of the diaspora of all Israel’to theelders of Damascus.While there is some basis to believe that the writeris the brother ofDaniel b. Azariah and belongs to the branch ofJosiah b. Zakkai, one must bear in mind that thenesi’im of Mosulare only mentioned at the end of the twelfth century (1174). Thus, what I have written in the Hebrew version of thepresent book, has to be rectified. See also Assaf, Teqiijit ha-ge’otlitn, 35. Goode,JQR, 31(1940/1), 166, circumvented this problem, making Samuel of Mosul (1174-1 195) a nephewof Daniel b. Hasdai, that is, of the branch of David b. Zakkai, and ignoring what Mann writes in the Poznatlski Jubilee Volume,23, on thebasis of thelineage lists, that he was the descendant of the other branch, that ofJosiah b. Zakkai. Bod1 MS Heb e101, f. 18 is a fragment of letter a ‘from Zakkaib. Azariah, nisrof thediaspora of all Israel, to all the mightyelders, our friends, in the city ofDamascus’; Mannassumed Uews, I, 175c 11, 208) that it is from the second half of the twelfth century; but ibid., MS, he corrected this, noting that it was probably written by Zakkai, the brother of Daniel. Daniel on his brother: 356, a, lines 5fc b, lines llff. The letter to the miscs: 378. TS NS 338.94, a small fragment, written by Daniel b. Azariah, also contains thanks to someone who treated his brother (mawli’ial-nasi) well. In the continuation he says as usual: ‘since his honour is my honourand his rank is my rank’. The letter of Israel b Sahlun: 479, b, line 17.

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

there. Possibly Daniel’s third son died before 1057, when the qasTdu was written. As to David, he was born a year later. Daniel’s son-in-law (or perhaps his brother-in-law? - sihv) Abu’l-Sari (or: Abti’l-Surri) Barhun (Abraham) is also mentioned, but we have nodetails about him, except for the fact that after Daniel’s death, he is to be found in Damascus. Daniel hailed from Baghdad. This is clearly statedinthe Scroll of Abiathar: ‘He came up above them [‘above’ Joseph and Elijah, sons of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon] from Babylonia’. A letter written by Daniel from al-Mahdiyya to Sahlan b. Abraham, on Tuesday 11 Tishri AM 4799, 12 September AD 1038, has been preserved. One can discern from the letter that there was an earlier correspondence between the two and that Daniel has been writing to him since they parted. Fromthis we understand that before his arrival in the Maghrib, in the autumn of 1038, Daniel had stayed in Fustat. He notes in his letter, the marriage of Sahlin, whichwe know took place on 9 September 1037. Hence we may assume that his earlier arrival in Fustat probably occurred around 1036. In this letter, Daniel expresses his sorrow over the troubles which befell the Fustat community,notinghoweverwith satisfaction thatthingshad now changed for the better, thanks to Ab6 NaSr, that is Hesed al-Tustari. Naturally, he is referring to the‘Babylonian’congregationinFustat, where there seems to have been some tension related to the dispute which had begun to develop at that time between the Palestinian yeshiva and Nathan b. Abraham. From al-Mahdiyya, Daniel returned to Fustat. We findhim there in the summer of 1039, when Abraham b. David ibn Sughmar beginshis letter to the Nagid of Qayrawan withenthusiastic comments on Daniel’s personality and his activities in Fustat. His arrival there has produced a real change in the life of the community. He has restored the congregation, issued regulationsconcerningfamilymatters(relationswith female slaves), forbidden the participation in sensual parties with musicians. This may havebeen where the relationship between Daniel and‘Palestinian’ the congregation first began, and as a result,his support for Solomon b. Judah (as evidently shown by most of this congregation), while the ‘Babylonians’ were then in favour of Nathanb. Abraham, which created a certain distance between Daniel and the latter congregation. Daniel remained in Fustat until after 1045, that is at least for six to seven years. This we learn from the letter written by ‘Eli ha-Mumhe - the son of Abraham ‘the fourth’, the grandson of Samuel ‘the third’b. Hosha‘na - to Ephraim b. Shemaria, in which he asks for news of ‘Daniel al-Nasi’, and ‘Eli sends regards on behalf of ‘the nv and his brother’, that is Joseph ha-Kohen and

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his brother Elijah. As we have seen, Joseph ha-Kohen became nv-bet-dit2 some time after 1045, upon the death of Nathan b. Abraham.159 [887] At this point, we are dealing with the period prior to Daniel b. Azariah’s becoming Gaon. Apart from his communal activities, we now find him engaged in trade. A letter concerning his commercial ventures has been preserved,evidently written from Damascus to someone in Fustat. He speaks there in detail about various merchandise which he purchased and the payment of rather large sums, generally tens of dinars, to different people. He also deals in silk. His business connections are centred in Egypt. Tinnis, the port in the Delta, andFustat, are mentioned there. Despite the fact that his commercial ventures are not on a small scale, he complains of his straitened circumstances. Apparently, at the same time he wrote atomember ofhisfamily (at any rate, someone from the exilarchic family), deploring thelimited means with which he and his large household mustcontend. In a fragment ofanother letter, he speaks of a deal of 200 dinars executedby a certain Abii’l-‘Ali al-Mubirak b. Ishaq, and Daniel asks the addressee to pay him 50 dinars for a s u j u j n (money order), which was evidently his own share of the partnership with this man. Another letter which he wrote from Tyre contains details of prices there and discusses textiles, oil, timber, and indigo. The addressee is a Palestinian staying in Fustat, who is about to return to his family in Palestine. Daniel encourageshim onhis objective and promises that too he will come to Ramla to enjoy himself in his company. The two people closest to Daniel b. Azariah were Abii Sa‘d Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azariah, lS9

The three sons ofDaniel: 386, line 3; 397, line 5; 400, a, line 8; cf. Mann,Jews, I, 175, 185; 11,219-221. The qasldn: B M O r5557 K, f. 8, lines 228-234; Cohen, Se!f-Governmenr, 185, in the Damascenedeed there: Bod1 MS Hebd 75, f.11; n. 16, with a correction of the date see in Mann, ibid., 11, 221 (who read there 1396 instead of 1386). Mann, Jews, 11, 221, speaks about Daniel’s third son, who was allegedly called Josiah, but in the MS ibid., I, 185, he emended and wrote: Azariah; but what he wrote there is based on the incorrect reading of 181, which speaks of Tobiah b. Daniel, ‘theson of theGaon’s sister’, whereas Mann followed Schwab, RE], 64 (1912), 120 (1934) who read Ahwath instead of ahor (sister), hence the incorrect interpretation. AbG’l-Sari: see the Hebrew Index; David in Damascus: 500, margin right. From Babylonia: 559, b, line 9. The letter to Sahlin: 344, see the notes there; Goitein, Shnlem, 2 (1975/6), 47 ( = ha-Yishrrv, 137), assumed that the exilarch mentioned therewas Zakkai, Daniel’s brother. Ibn Sughmir: 191, lines 13ff. ‘Eli ha-mumhe: 231. Goitein, ShaIem, 2 (1975/6), 55f ( = ha-Yiskuv, 143), assumed thatin 565 there wasevidence that Daniel settled in Palestine in 1046;but theletter speaks of someone from an important family in a distant country (Spain?) who came to Jerusalem and died there after some time; Daniel b. Azariah would not have been written about in this manner. Mann,]ews, 11, 360, ascribes TS 16.128 to Daniel b. Azariah, which is a letter of recommendation, evidently from a Babylonian personality, for someone travelling to Palestine, dated 1031; probably because of the ‘alima - yeslziiii. For the same reason, he even suggested correcting the date there in order toplace this document in the time when Daniel was still in Iraq; but the handwriting is not Daniel’s, contrary to what Mann claims, and this was already realised by Goitein in Shafem, 2 (1975/6), 43 ( = ha-Yishuo, 133).

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the son ofDaniel's sister, and Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furat. Josiah ha-Kohen was the son of the head of the Sura yeshiva; his father Azariah ha-Kohen, Daniel's brother-in-law, was the son of Israel ha-Kohen b. Samuel b. Hofni (the brother of Nehemiah) b. Kohen Sedeq. Israel and Samuel had also been geonim in Sura, while Kohen Sedeq and his son Nehemiah, the brother of Hofni, had been geonim in Pumbedita. One can assume that Josiah was to be found together with Daniel when the latter was Gaon in Jerusalem, for his signature is found on a deed written in the court of the yeshiva. Israel b. Nathan, writing from Jerusalem in the summer of1060, asks Nehorai b. Nissim to arrange something for Josiah in Fustat, indicating that he was staying in Jerusalem at the time. Apparently Josiah ha-Kohen moved to Fustat in the autumn of1061, and this, too, we learn from one ofIsrael b. Nathan's letters to Nehorai. A letter that evidently contains a description ofJosiah ha-Kohen's flight from Iraq and his journey to Palestine was written by Daniel b. Azariah before he had become Gaon.Josiah's name is not mentioned, but from the tone of theletter it can be seen that he is speaking of someone very close, and one senses that it is Josiah. Owing to the custom sometimes practised by the people of those times, of summarising in their letters the major points of the letter they are answering, we can understand what Josiah wrote (if indeed it is Josiah to whom he is writing) to Daniel about the vicissitudes of his journey. Josiah's letter was sent from Tripoli inSyria, where he arrived after managing to escape from al-Ma'arra (which is Ma'arrat Nu'man) and from wicked men whohad taken him fromAleppo (where he was in 'the hands of the enemy'- perhaps the Byzantines?) to Famiya. From there, he succeeded in getting away and reached Saluq, whence he also escaped and somehow madehis way through theimpassable mountains. Knowledge of his arrival in Tripoli reached (Jerusalem?) during afast day (we do not know which one) and aroused rejoicing in the community. Everyone came to congratulate Daniel and even the fast was discontinued. 160 [888] As toAbraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibnFurat, I have already surveyed his special connections with the Fatimid rulers general, in and in 160

The business letter: 345. The letter from a member of the exilarchic family: 343, lines 4-5. The fragment: 346. The letter from Tyre: 347; the addressee is perhaps Abraham haKohen b.Isaac ibn Furit.Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azariah,see the HebrewIndex. The deed of the yeshiva:392, line 36. Israel b. Sahliin:473, b, lines 4-5. Josiah arrived in Fustat: 479, b, lines 17ff. The description of the journey: 348. See on Ma'arrat Nu'min: Dussaud, Topogryhie, 188c Saliiq is Seleucia, see: Yiiqiit, Buldin, 111, 126; Fiimiya is Apamea of ancient times,see the entry Afamiya (by H. A. R. Gibb) inEF. Josiah'sjourney evidently went from Aleppo, some 50 kilometres to the southwest to Ma'arrat Nu'min, and from there still going southwest to Fiimiya, and from there some fifty kilometres northwest (through the mountains) toSeleucia on the Orontes (whichis the 'Asi) and from there, evidently by sea to Tripoli.

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particular with the governor ofjund Filastin, whose seat was in Ramla, where Abraham ha-Kohen was a physician and lived for manyyears. The close relationship with Solomon b. Judah has also been reviewed, as have other similar relations with Daniel b. Azariah. We find a note written by Daniel in Ramla, apparently, in which he invites Abraham ha-Kohen to honour him with his presence and to pray in the synagogue of the‘Palestinians’, andhe asks that he should not be forced to come and get Abraham fromhis house. Daniel even grantedhim an additional title, that of hod ha-zeqZnItn, ‘splendour of the elders’. In his letter, he informs him that since the title was bestowed on Abu ‘Ali b. Fadlin in Baghdad, no other person had been granted this honour. It is implied that the granting of thetitle was announced in the synagogueand that a prayer was said ‘in memory (tavhIm) of his forefathersthe princes’; andthatafterwards, benedictions were said for him.Daniel continued to display consideration for Abrahamha-Kohen even after he went down to Egypt. The latter had a financial claim against someone in Palestine, and Daniel (when he was already Gaon) suggests that he have someone appointed trustee to apply to the court and see to it that justice is carried out. Daniel also wrote from Damascus to Abrahamha-Kohen in Fustat. Eleven letters out ofDaniel b. Azariah’s documents were written to Abraham ha-Kohen, and it seems that one of Abraham’s letters to him was also preserved in the Geniza. Abraham ha-Kohen’s move to Egyptsaddened the Gaon immensely,and he expressed this in one of his letters. He turned to Abraham ha-Kohen when one ofhis intimate circle (’the best of men’) travelled to Egyptand needed help there. The only letter which is evidently in Abraham haKohen’s handwriting, to Daniel b. Azariah, contains expressions of extreme loyalty and promises of collaboration and assistance. It confirms having received Daniel’s letter, in which there was information aboutthe death of an important woman in Jerusalem,andcontinues with expressions of condolence and much praise for Daniel for having dealt with her burial, which he likens to the care ‘the two masters took for our mother, theirsister Miriam’, that is Moses and Aaron. Belowwe shall see how Abraham ha-Kohen exerted all his influence on the authorities in order tohelp Daniel b.Azariah obtain the appointment of Gaon, throughout his struggle with Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon, even though there was a family relationshipbetween Abraham and Joseph (they were cousins). 161 161

The note from Ramla: 349. ‘The splendourof the elders’: 354; Abii ‘Ali b. Fadlan was one of the wealthy men of Baghdad, who refused to lend moneyto the amirBaha’ al-Dawla in 998, which aroused anti-Jewish riots, see Fischel, Jews, 33, n. 1; Goitein, Mediterranearl Society, 11, 525, n. 6; that is, Daniel here cites a precedent from some two generations earlier. Ibn al-Jawzi, Mtrnta~am,V, 190, mentions Abii ‘Ali ibn Fadliin al-yahtidi, in the events of 450, in Ramadan of that sameyear, that is, October 1058; there were then riots

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[889] I shall now discuss the affair of the disputeover the office of Gaon following the death of Solomon b. Judah. Thehistorical sequence in the Scroll of Abiathar begins with this affair. Daniel was backed bythe Karaites (‘and was strengthened by the sect of thesefa”; see sec. 848) and other elements whosenature cannot be defined, and also by the authorities (‘the hand of therulers’). He did not hesitate to use soldiers (gdlyZvlm), ‘in order to seize houses of learning and completely close them’ (that is, arrange for the closing of the synagogues of those who did not support him), ‘on any holiday [rniqrciqodesh],sabbath and [rosh] hodesh’ (first ofthe month), and bring about the arrest of the priestly family (Joseph and Elijah, sons of Solomon Gaon, who‘were hastened to the dungeon’). Indeed, this dispute over the office of the Gaon between Daniel b. Azariah and Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon,who was the olderof the two priestly brothers,is confirmed by a number ofsources. It seems clear that Daniel indeed made every effort to achieve the status of Gaon in Jerusalem and that this aspiration was already implanted during the lifetime of the former Gaon, Solomon b. Judah. have seen Wethat Daniel was one of the leaders of theGaon’s supporters during the dispute with Nathan b. Abraham, and one can assume that there existed both understanding and friendship between Solomon and Daniel. Apparently, still in Solomon b.Judah’s day, Daniel had already expressed his anger towards Joseph ha-Kohen, whotook every opportunityto malign him.One cannot doubt that this was indeed the case, for even then, Joseph saw in Daniel a potential rival for the longed-for office. To a large extent, the dispute was carried on with the active involvement of the authorities,and Daniel resortedto their help frequently, with the support of his good, friend Abraham ha-Kohen. T h e cImir Husam al-Dawla, who maintained contact with Daniel through anemissary, and the qci’id Abu Shuja‘, are explicitly mentioned in the course of the dispute. The wazir,al-hadra al-siimiya (his majestic honour) inDaniel’s letters, was evidently one of Daniel’s supporters. He even mentions that with Abraham’s help, hereceived an official robe (khal‘a) from thewazir. However, there was also strong pressure against him. Daniel requested that Abraham be his champion and advocate, that he uncover whatever his rivals against the Jews and the Christians (ah2 al-dhinrnza) and an attempt to oust them from positions in the administration. This Ibn Fadliin seems to have been the grandson of the one mentioned by Daniel b. Azariah, and it says that he was the secretary (katib) of Khatiin, probably the wifeof the Saljiiq ruler of Baghdad (Tughril Beg). The matter of the claim: 355, a, lines 2-16. The letter from Damascus: 357.The letter from Abraham ha-Kohen is (evidently) 399, and see there the note to line 9. The regret at Abraham ha-Kohen’s leaving: Palestine is like a deserted place after his departure, see: 355,a, lines 19-25. The request for help: 360 (although Abraham’s name is not mentioned there, it appears that the reference is to him).

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were plotting against him and that he broadcast his virtues. Indeed, the wazir also issued a manshiir in Daniel’s favour, thatis, an official document of appointment, which was publicly proclaimed. Daniel also asked that, with the help of these eminent connections, he should be guaranteed a friendly attitude on the part of ‘al-qiziiz (the chief) who is in Jerusalem’. Abii Muhammad, the cadi mentioned in the letter,is none other than the wazir Abii Muhammad al-Masan ibn ‘Ali b. Abd al-Rahman ai-Yaziiri (whom I have discussed in sec. 598). He seems to have been a friend of Abraham ha-Kohen, for they both lived in Ramla for manyyears. In one of his letters to Abrahamha-Kohen, Daniel writes that thelocal umir, the aforementioned HusZnl al-Dawla, was trying to scheme against him in spite of themanshiir ofappointment whichwas already in his hands. Daniel wrote to him, attaching to his letter another from one of the important intimates of the am%, as well as a copy of the manshiir. Nevertheless, the rayyis, evidently his rival Joseph ha-Kohen, at the very time this letter was being written, was being invited by a number of notables to Dijiin (Bet Dagan today; evidently the headquartersof theFatimid army in Palestine was stationed there). It appears that the local authorities were inclined to support Joseph, preferring him to Daniel. Hence, Daniel asks Abraham ha-Kohen to intervene urgently, implying that ishevery much afraid that H u s i m aI-Dawla will discriminate against him, thelatter’sjudgment also being highly thought of by the wazir. Indirectly, we learn that the other party, the priestly faction, did not hesitate to use the same means, trying hard to gain the Muslim rulers’ support. TheScroll of Abiathar naturally does not touch on this aspect of the affair.162 [890] Furtherinteresting allusions to theinternalJewish aspects of the dispute are to be found in letters fromDaniel b. Azariah himself, and from his contemporaries. In December 1051, Daniel wrote a letter to one of the personalities of the Maghrib whichreveals something of theideological background to his struggle, with its rancour directed against the priestly family. It is the exilarchs who are worthy ofleading ‘our western 162

The Scroll of Abiathar: 559, b, lines 8ff. Goitein,Shalem, 2(1975/6), 51-55 ( = Ha-yishuv, 139-143), tried to find proof in 213 that Solomon b. Judah was the one who appointed Daniel as his successor; but this document is inthe handwritingof Zadok ha-Levi b. Levi and hence was written in ca. 1030 and has no connection to our present matter, which occurred some twenty years later. Daniel’s anger with Joseph ha-Kohen: 363. Hints on the approaching struggleare evidently to be found also in 350, a fragment of a Ietter to Abraham ha-Kohen, which speaks of some decision to be taken on the sabbath; Daniel does not dare do anything in the absence ofAbraham. Hudm al-Dawla and the rest: 352, 353, 355, b, lines 3-19; 357, b; Goitein, Shalem, 2(1975/6), 81ff (Ha-yishuv, 163) assumed b. Saadia. Above we have seen that this figure - al-hadra al-simiya - was the Nagid, Judah that in one ofhis letters, Daniel speaks of the cadi Abii Muhammad, whois evidently the ship-owning cadi of Tyre,Ibn Abi ‘Aqil; but thereis no certain evidence of this, and it is possible that thereference is to the wazir al-YZziiri, as they both had the samekunya: Abii Muhammad.

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brethren’; it is they who ‘possess the authority over them and who are leading them’; thisis a prerogative received from the Bible, ‘and we have not seen in the Torah or the Prophets or the Hagiographa any command on authority butof our forefathers’. Therefore, thereis no validity to any leadership of the Jews unless it stems from the House of David,that is, from theexilarchic family. In the same letter, Daniel extols thesuccess of the pilgrimage in that year, which goes to prove that the authority over the Jews ofJerusalemwas infact already inhis hands. At about the same time, Israel b. Nathan, Nehorai b. Nissim’s cousin, wrote from Jerusalem. He lived, as we have seen, in Jerusalem, and his letters to Nehorai were at times interspersed with descriptions of public events there.We have seen above that Solomon b. Judah died in April 1051. O n 20 December 1051, that is, when eight months had gone by without a Gaon heading the yeshiva, Israel wrote that onthat very day,two emissaries had comefrom Ramla to al-vayyis al-Da’iidi (the Davidian chief, who was Daniel, for the exilarchs claimed they originated from the House of David) and to almyyis R. Joseph, totake them to the governor in Ramla in order to settle the dispute between them. Daniel had only arrived in Jerusalem four days earlier, on 16 December, and on the 23rd there was to be a meeting in Ramla with the governor. Othernotables were to accompany the two to Ramla: Elijah ha-Kohen, Joseph’sbrother, Mevorakh ‘the sixth’ b. Solomon; the haver Abii’l-Munaja, the physician, and the haver Hayyim (b. Solomon). Joseph ha-Kohen claimed that all he wanted now was to be appointed av-bet-diiz, while his brother Elijah was a lover of peace and wanted no rank at all, promising to pray for both Daniel and Joseph. It seems that afterward, however, Joseph became stubborn and was not satisfied with the role of av-bet-din, demanding that they both be called heads of the yeshiva - the title of Daniel would be ‘head of the yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov’, whereas he would be called ’head of theyeshiva’. Daniel rejected this proposalout ofhand and wasnot prepared to compromise in any way. While writing the second letter, on 11January 1052, attempts were again being made to mediate, but these met with no success. It is implied in that letter that the Maghribis on were Daniel’s side, conducting fervent discussions in Jerusalem, with the participation of people who came from various cities. O n 24 August, we find Israel writing again about the main protagonists of the dispute. Sayyidna al-vayyis, that is Daniel b. Azariah, arrived in Jerusalem via Nabulus (perhaps comingfrom Damascus),andElijahha-Kohenwent towelcomehim. Not so his brother Joseph, who was then staying in Ramla.is It implied that the letter was written after an agreement had already been reached between the parties. This is in keeping with a letter written by the Jerusalem parnas, 728

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‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, on 27 September 1052. The letter is in ‘Eli’s handwriting but it was written on behalf a certain of Hasanb. Mu’ammal, of Ramla, to Abii NaSr al-Ahwal (‘the cross-eyed’) in Fustat. The date noted in the letteris the last day of Tishri, and Hasan depicts therewhat happened in Jerusalem Tishri in during the pilgrimage. According to him, ‘the Davidian’, that is, Daniel b. Azariah, enquired about the addressee ( A b i Nasr), and Hasan explained that he could not come because of the dispute. It is obvious that the writer is not one of Daniel’s admirers. He describes the events in Jerusalem in a disparaging manner; things were done that should not have been done anda squabble broke out between people from Tyre and the Tiberians, and they were obligedto call in the chief of police. Evidently, in the face of such hooliganism and humiliating occurrences, the two sides came to the conclusion that the dispute must come to an end. Thus, during the congregation on the Mount of Olives ‘Joseph ha-Kohen prayed for Daniel, head of the yeshiva, while Daniel prayed for Joseph, uv-bet-difi, father of the court and of the rnethiva“ (the Aramaic word fur yeshiva). One can understand from this that the two camps reached an agreement in principle in August 1052, while theofficial announcement of the agreement took place on Hosha‘na rabbi& that is, 18 September 1052. Hence, the yeshiva had been without a Gaon for sixteen months, from April 1051 until September 1052.163 [891] The rise of Daniel b. Azariah to the rank of Gaon was anot simple matter. O n the contrary, it was an unusual event, for according to the regulations for advancing in the yeshiva, this position was dueto Joseph ha-Kohen, who was av-bZt-dtn, that is, he occupied the place which was second in importance when the former Gaon died. In fact, Daniel’s ascendancy to this office was the resultof a well-planned campaign. Apparently the initiative for this campaign came from among the Maghribi 163

Daniel b. Azariah’s letter: 365, lines 5ff. The letters of Israel b. Nathan: 466, a, lines 8fC 467, a, lines 11-17; b, line 6; 468, a, lines lOff and margin top;bylines 1-2. Before this, I had a different viewof the datesof these letters and hence about the length of the dispute altogether; see Gil, PeriqTnl, 45, 74, see the introductions and notes to these letters in my collection. It is clearthat the dispute was not ended before the winter of4812 (1051/2), for the lettersof Israel b. Nathan dealing with the matterwere written in Tevet and Shevat, and the third was written in Elul. Hasan b. Mu’ammal:436; ibid., in line 14, it says that Daniel prayedon Joseph‘father of the court and the nrethivi’; it seems therefore that after all there was some concession on Daniel’s part regarding Joseph’s title. A document from the interim period in which the dispute over the office of Gaon was is a marriage in process deed from Ramla, 566, written on29 December 1051; it lacks the customary signatureof one of the people of the yeshiva, the most important signaturethere being apparently that of Joshua the cantor b. ‘Eli he-haver. It is possible that a fragment of a letter from Jerusalem, 563, belongs to the same period; the Jerusalemites complaining there of the mismanagement of Jewish affairs in Jerusalem; the writer expresses his loyalty to the ‘House ofDavid’, which here means his loyalty to Daniel b. Azariah. One can assume that Ab6 Ishaq, whom the writeris addressing, is Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furat; but naturally this is only an assumption.

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circles in Fustat. They mayhave been striving toachieve a sort of mixture of the authority to which they belonged, is, thatthe Palestinian authority, to which the Egyptian Jewrywas also subordinate, with the authority to which they had a special emotional link, the family of the exilarchs. This special relationship was undoubtedly a legacy going back for ages, from the forefathers of these merchants who had come from Babylonia. Allusions to this campaign, particularly to its outset, are to be found in the letter of some unnamed person in Fustat, writing to Daniel b. Azariah; one may guess that it is Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furit. The writer recalls Daniel’s arrival ‘in this land’, and the meeting which took place at it the houseof a certain ‘al-Damsisi’. Even then, the writer knew thatwas Divine Providence which sent Daniel (that is, from Baghdad to Egyptand to Palestine). It seems that the writer had experienced some sharp opposition and bitter altercations in the past, with one of the notables of the community in Fustat, probably ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, he-hivev ha-me‘ulle, the successor to Ephraimb. Shemaria’s status and office. ‘Eli credited himself with all the achievements of Daniel b. Azariah’, but itwas the writerwho made the effort and struggled. It was ‘the Rav’, the leader of theMaghribis (whom we know well from sec. 378)’ who persistently supported Daniel. He was theman who should have succeeded Ephraim b. Shemaria as head of the ‘Palestinians’ in Fustat, and the writer regrets that he did not back him insteadof his rival (that is ‘Eli b.‘Amram). N o w ‘Eli behaves arrogantly, abuses the people of the congregation, and even the memory of his predecessor, Ephraim b.Shemaria, which upsets the latter’s son-inlaw, Ghalib ha-Kohen b. Moses. He also offended some of the eminent Maghribis in Fustat, such as Abii’l-Suriir (strviiv = sitn?zi, joy, and he is evidently the mis5x Abraham b. David ibn Sughmir).N o w ‘Eli fears that he will be oustedfrom his post and that the‘Rav’ will be appointed inhis stead, so he has started to scheme together with Hunayn,his brother-inlaw (Abu’l-Tayyib Hanania ha-Levi, the father-in-law of Abraham b. Isaac ha-tnlnlld). They are impugning the ‘Rav’ with false charges, that of allegedly having converted toIslam @Ad)when he was inPalestine, and then presenting himselfas aJew when he came to Fustat. These are strange accusations which give us some indication of the persistent tense atmosphere of local community quarrels, and also of the influence of factional plotting on the central institution of leadership, the Palestinian yeshiva. An echo of this can be heard from Jerusalem, in a letter from Avon b. Sedaqa to Nehorai b. Nissim, written two years after the death of Daniel b. Azariah, in which he charges Nehorai’s cousin, Israel b. Nathan, with some sortof madness: that he goes about and complains to whoever will listen to him that Nehorai is busyin Fustat makingpropagandaand 730

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collecting money for ‘the Rav’ (perhaps in order to install him in ‘Eli b. ‘Amram’s place?It is difficult to know the truereason for this).164 [892] The period during which Daniel b. Azariah heldoffice the ofGaon was a difficult one; it was marked by economic distress and the political instability of theFatimid regime.It was during this time that the Jerusalem wallwasconstructedwiththefundsofitsinhabitants,andthatthe Christians were enclosed ina wall within their part of the city, an episode that has been discussed earlier. Daniel b. Azariah mentions this event in one ofhis letters, speakingof thewall as if it werea decree imposed on the Jews ofJerusalemas well, in about themid-fifties. A notewhich he wrote at the same time also contains mysterious hints at severe difficulties in Ramla and inother places. Indeed, he was visiting Ramla inMay 1054, as emerges from the letter of Saliima ha-Kohen b. Joseph from Ramla to Shemaiah he-haver b. Joshua in Jerusalem. The writerhad asked Daniel to assist in some .matter relating to Shemaiah, but Daniel evadedso doing out of fear. The same ambiance of vicious decrees and fears pervades Daniel’s letter to one of the personalities of Fustat relating to some decree, about which we know nothing. According to the Scroll of Abiathar, Daniel b. Azariah ill took some six years after the death of Joseph ha-Kohen (who died on Hanukkah 1365 Sel., that is mid-December, AD 1053), thatis at the end of 1059. He ‘was taken [tzikhy?] every year for six months’. This expression was usually interpreted as meaning that he wasan epileptic, but this is not certain. The regular cycles pointtosomekindofemotionaldisturbance,such as depression, and according to the Scroll, this was but one of the ills he suffered from towards the end of his life. There is no indication of illness in his letters, however. ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel mentions in two letters, evidently written in about 1060, Daniel b.Azariah’s visit to Fustat. Only in the third letter does he mentionDaniel’s return to Jerusalem. During his absence, Jerusalem was ina sorry plight: merchants did not arrive and the poor ofJerusalem were suffering from severe distress, for they hadnot received their allowancefrom Fustat. In addition, the burden of taxes was very heavy.In 1059, Israel b. Nathan is engaged in passingon queries - put by his cousin Nehorai b. Nissim- to Daniel b. Azariah. He notes that Danielis very busy, for most ofhis responsibilities fall in Tishri. Later, on 14 March1062, Israel returns to the matter of the queries to the nisi. Danielb.AzariahwasstayinginRamlaand Israel has sent him The letter ascribed to Abrahamha-Kohen: 399, a, lines 18fc see thenotes to this document. O n Hunayn see Gil, Michael, 7(1981/2), 247, n. 5. Avon’s letter: 500, b, lines b. 21ff. O n the struggles in Fustat during this period,see also the letter of ‘Eli ha-Kohen Ezekiel: 444, lines 13-15 (cu. 1060), in which the writer expresses concern for ‘my Master andson Joshua are helping them; the miis& and his son’; he hopes that D6s5 al-Lidhiqi his evidently he is referring to Abraham b. David b. Sughmar.

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Nehorai’s letter via a messenger. He promises that Daniel will send the responsum to Fustat with a shipment of mail he is sending to Abu Sa‘d (who is Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azariah, Daniel’s sister’s son). The people of theWest, who from the outsethad a positive attitudeto Daniel for his extraction from the House of David, the exilarchic family, undoubtedly deriveda great deal of satisfaction from his elevated status as Gaon. This was expressed by Samuel, the Spanish Nagid, in one of the poems he sent toDaniel: ‘tell anyone askingofDaniel, that he is a widesea, with noshores . . ..since the dayhe took over rule Truth stepped in instead I of Lie . . . like acedar of wisdom. . . O h that I had wings, for then would fly to the House of God, to look at the scion of David’. There was evidently a very strong link between Daniel b. Azariah and the Spanish negidim, Samuel, andSamuel’s son Joseph, and Daniel even granted them titles (it is not clear which titles) on behalf of theyeshiva. It is possible that it was Daniel who granted Josephb. Samuel the title Nagid that was also held by his father. We do nothave much knowledgeofwhat went on at the yeshiva during Daniel’s term of office. An interesting document is an anonymous letter informing Daniel that a certain Nathan ‘the money-changer’ and his son are about to arrive,suggesting that Daniel receive them with great courtesy and try to wintheir approval, because they are his devoted followers and the important thingis that ‘they are loaded with dinars [xelll?vFrn]’. We know whowas the scribeof theyeshiva in Danielb. Azariah’s day Abii’l-Faraj Semah b. Eleazar. Daniel calls him ‘Semah, our scribe’ (siijii dFlina). ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel recommends this Semah to ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, theFustat parnas, inone ofhis letters. He is expected to arrive in Fustat, and to fulfil certain expectations that are not clarified in the letter. He will stay with sayyidna al-nisT Abii'l-Rids, that is, a member of the exilarchic family whose name is Abii’l-Rida. We do not know who bore this by-name and it is not unlikely that it was Daniel himself, for he was also staying in Fustat at the time. It is also worth noting that during Daniel b. Azariah’s time, we find a number of Jerusalem Maghribis suddenly bearing the title havi!~,which seems to have been granted to them by Daniel, as in the case of Shemaiah he-haver b. Yeshii‘a, Abraham he-haver b. ‘Amram and Moses he-haver b. Jacob.165 [893] To what extent Daniel b. Azariah was involved in the life of the 165

The matter of the wall: 357, b, lines 9-10. The note: 364. Salima’s letter: 525, a, lines 11-15 (he calls him ‘thehead’ there, clearly speaking ofDaniel). Thedecree: 381. Daniel’s illness: 599, b, lines 12ff. ‘Eli ha-Kohen’sletters: 442, a, lines 13-15 (implying thatDaniel - ‘our Master the Nisi’is inFustat); 443, a, lines 7, 14, 18-19; 444, a, line 5. The letters of Israel b. Nathan: 469, a, lines 22-24; 482, a, lines 5-8. Document 353a is a fragment of a letter from Daniel, evidently to Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furit, written shortly after the end of the dispute over office the of Gaon, thatis, towards the end 1052; of the av,

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communities underhis jurisdiction, wecan learn from the information we have on Fustat. The letters to Fustat in particular (apparently similar letters weredespatched to therestofthecommunities)reveal Daniel’s true character, the decisiveness and cleverness with whichhe managed affairs qualities which were suitedto a man who was probably a shrewd man of business before he became Gaon. The changes in the personnel of the yeshiva which tookplace after the deathof Solomonb. Judah were more or less parallel in time to the changes in Fustat, when both Ephraim b. Shemaria, leader of the ‘Palestinians’, and Sahliin b. Abraham, leader of the ‘Babylonians’ died apparentlyat about the same time (we do nothave the dates of their deaths). Owing to the Geniza, we know what was occurringamongthe ‘Palestinians’,whose new leaderwas ‘Eli b. ‘Amram. Above, I have already mentioned the letter of condolencefrom Daniel b. Azariahto Ghiilib ha-Kohen b. Moses, on thedeath ofhis father-in-law, Ephraim b. Shemaria, whichhas been preserved. We have also noted the meeting in the house of al-Damsisi, and how Daniel’s supporters were organised in the Egyptian capital.In general, one gets the impression that there were factions amongst the ‘Palestinians’ inEgypt, but ‘Eli b. ‘Amram’s position seemsto have beenespecially solid and the Gaon preferred himtothe Maghribisandtheirleader,the ‘Rav’. Some reservations concerning local appointments are revealed in the above-mentioned note, that is, uv-b&dfn, who is Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon, intends leaving for Ramla; an order arrivedfrom thecaliph, containing the appointmentof the new Gaon, but as it was written in the midst of the dispute, when the matter was still undecided, the nameof the Gaon was lacking. Hence, Daniel requests that a new andsijill proper be sent. Apartfrom ornately framed claims of friendship for Abraham ha-Kohen, similar to those Daniel had used in other letters to him, the copying of aprayer book for Abraham is also mentioned. TheJerusalem paper, writes Daniel, is not good enough, and paperhas been ordered from Tyre; the workhas been assignedto the best of copyists.A poemin the handwriting of ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, of which only a small part can be made out, was written in honour of Daniel b. Azariah, containing a new element, mention of ‘the fourth’ of the yeshiva, Mevorakh, and ‘the fifth’, Abraham. We have no further details on them nor do we have any further sources on the subject of titles of this kind in the yeshiva during Daniel’s day, for the time being. See TS NS 149.43, to which Prof.E. Fleischer drew my attention. Samuel ha-Nagid, see the Diwln, Sasson ed., 103c Yarden ed., 139-142. O n the connection between ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, the Fustat h4vEr, and the son of Samuel the Nagid,Joseph, see: Mann, Jews, I, 183C 11, 221f, 459-462(Mannerredat first in identifying Joseph, but afterwards realised that it was the Spanish Nagidwho was being referred to);Texts, I, 386, n.2; in the letterENA 3765, f. 8 (Mann, ibid., 4600 it is implied that Joseph received ‘the proper nametitles andcalled and applied byour Lord Daniel’: cf Ashtor, Qorot, 11, 82C Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 525, n. 13, where the conclusion is that it was Daniel b. Azariah who granted Joseph the title Nagid, and on the same page there are further references. Moses ibn Ezra wrote, some eighty yearslater, on the link between Samuel ha-Nagid the Spaniard and ‘the leaders of Babylonia and the scholars of Palestine’, see al-Mu&&ra, 62.Nathanthemoney-changer: 386. ‘Eli b. Ezekiel on Semah: 441, see also 443, b, Danielon him:374, line 10. I have already discussed above the matter of theMaghribis entitled haver, see in particular: 519.

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which speaks of ‘our honourable R. Samuel he-haver ha-me‘ulle, who may be Samuel ha-Kohen b. Avtalyon ofFustat, certainly a very old man by this time, or perhaps Samuel b. Moses of Tyre. TheGaon mentions in the note that he has refrained from going to the synagogue for twodays because someone was demanding acertain rank which he opposed. From another letter, we learn that ‘Eli b. ‘Amram was a t a certain stage apparently tired of the tension and assaults on him, and resigned from his position. In a fragment remaining from this letter, itappears that Danielis requesting the addressee to intervene in the division.Daniel’s frank letter to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram is particularly interesting - it is a supportive letter in which hetries to appease him and promises thathe will stand behind him, in terms of affection and respect. He recalls the support he has received from ‘Eli and pledges to repay him for this in full. Also, the time would come when thosewho had been insolent towards him would be called to account. We have seen in the discussion on the relationship between Danieland Abraham b. Isaac ibn Furat that the latter was considered a figure of the greatest importance in Fustat and that in fact, Daniel asked the Fustat haver, ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, to obey him. Evidently this was also a source of ‘Eli’s bitterness. Owing to the scarcity of information at this point, we cannot say anything precise about ‘Eli’s character but it seems that he knew how to defend his position in a restrained and almost diplomatic manner. We find a shortletter he wrote to Abrahamha-Kohen, in which after some flowery opening phrases, as was common among learned and honourable men (‘Abraham, prince of the congregation . . . son of his great honourable Sanctity, our Lord and Master Perat, like Porat’) he writes that he regrets that he cannot accept the invitation to visit him, because he cannot be absent fromhis shop (dtrkkan). The letter mentions ‘the synagogue of our Lord, the lightof Israel, Daniel the great nisi and head of the yeshiva Ge‘on Ya‘aqov’. 166 166

The letter of condolence: 362. In 356, b, margin, Daniel writes about a house that had belonged to Semah,a matter connected with theold sister of Abii Kathir, who is perhaps Ephraim b. Shemaria (whose kcrr7yn it was). We also find in this letter details on the ritual slaughtering in Fustat, from which one can sense Daniel’s determined attitude in such matters, see b, lines 19ff. The meeting in al-Damsisi’s house: 399. The note: 364; cf. ‘Amram resigns: 366. Goitein, Goitein, Mediterraneorl Society, 11, 51 1, sec.5.‘Elib. Shnlern, 2(1975/6). 63 ( = ha-k’ishuv, 119) interpreted the account as speaking unfavourably of ‘Eli, concluding that failed he in his office asleader of the congregation, and that he was among theharshest opponents ofDaniel; my owninterpretation is otherwise, as can be seen above. The letter of support: 368; see also the beginning of a letter to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, 369, where some dispute is implied and there are condolences on someone’s death. The letter of ‘Eli to Abraham ha-Kohen: TS 13J 31, f. 5, cf. Goitein, Stznlem, 2 (1975/6), 64 ( = Ila-Yirhw, 93, nn. 18, 19, 157, n. 84), who assumed that an uncle of Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furat was intended there, but abandoned this idea; indeed, it was only natural call to Abraham in a shortened fashion: Ben Perat or Ibn Furat.

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[894] The main focusof thedivision in Fustatat this time, seemsto have been Yefet b. David, of whom I have already spoken in some detail. He evidently headeda sort of rebellion against ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, andas a result, Daniel empowered ‘Eli to proclaim the excommunication of Yefet, and even triedto convince ‘Eli that he should not hesitate to doso. Daniel also wrote harsh things about‘Eli b. ‘Amram’s other rivals. Nevertheless, we have seen that Yefet succeeded in obtaining part of the income from slaughtering in Fustat, with the help of Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furat, who approached the Gaon on this matter. Apart from these stormy instances, Daniel b.Azariah’s letters to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram generally dealwith routine matters. Thereis no doubt thattheir relationship differered from that of Daniel b. Azariah with Abraham ha-Kohen b.Isaac ibn Furat.This is displayed even in fact the that whileall of Daniel b.Azariah’s letters to the latterare in his own handwriting, the letters to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram (with theexception of two) are written by the scribe of the yeshiva, Semah b. Eleazar. We find a letter in which heasks ‘Eli to try to help to collect funds for someone from a family of geonim (the nameis not preserved), who was forced to come to Egypt(evidently from Palestine) becauseof theharsh poverty and certain ‘heart-breaking’ matters. In another letter,‘Eli is asked to help Marwin b. Suqayr to obtain money owed him by a certain Joseph b. Jacob, because this Marwin is about toarrive in Fustatfrom Palestine. The link between ‘Eli b. ‘Amram and the Gaon seems therefore to have been a working relationship, concerned with everyday affairs. ‘Eli b. ‘Amram was the representativeof the Fustat community towards the Gaon,and vice versa - the Gaon’s representative towards the community. The affair of a @rima built by some unknown person is characteristic, and the problem involved is not clear, as I have already mentioned. This person hadwritten a letter to theGaon in which he answered all the claims against him,but he seems to have given the letter to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram first of all, out of a sense of loyalty, in order that ‘Eli should know whatis being discussed, but ‘Eli kept the letter and worded it anew, which angered the owner of @rima, the who subsequently wrote to the Gaon.167 ‘6’

The matter of the excommunication: 342, 370, 371;additional dataon theaffairs of Yefet 355-358; 342 opens with florid phrasesof friendship to the are to be found in the letters: addressee, who is evidently ‘Eli b. ‘Amram; afterwards he goes over to Yefetb. David’s affairs: ‘the damnable actionsof b. Shekhaniah’. Daniel notes that he wrote a letter to the community, in which he censured these actions and even announced ban ona himand the prohibition on eating the meat of his slaughtering. Goitein, ha-Yishuo, 182, 183, 187, attributes the quarrels on slaughtering to Manscr, Yefet’s brother, basing this mainlyon 319, line 15, whereYefetb.Davidwaswarned nottoinvolvehisbrotherinthe slaughtering affairs; but we find that Yefet is constantly in charge of the slaughtering and the affair of the excommunication and the sharp quarrel was apparently merely a passing episode, explained by his bad relations with ‘Eli b. ‘Amram; and perhaps there were

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[895] Money from the slaughtering in Fustat due to the Palestinian yeshiva is mentioned in another letter to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram. He is asked to give a certain emissary of the Gaon, a certain b. Moses, ‘all that was collected in the market from the beginning of Elul until the Kislev, end of such is the account’. Evidently the dire straits drove Daniel to send another emissary to Fustat, on this occasion the veteran parnas ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel. According to the Gaon his in letter to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, this mission was successful. A letter arrived from ‘Eli ha-Kohen, giving details of the help promised by the people of Fustat, ‘a righteous act which our honourable he-haver ha-me‘ulle has done tous and theelders ofJerusalem, telling that [our]letter was read out [publicly] and also of his recommendation’. Apparently, ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel and ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, who was evidently a familyrelative in Fustat, were a kindof advisers and mediators on behalf of Daniel b. Azariah inmattersconcerningthe financial matters and accounts with the yeshiva as well, on which we have insufficient data. The matter of the help: 372. Marwin: 373; on him and his father, we do have information: his father Suqayr (diminutive of Saqar, or Saqar) received a ceremonial robe (khal‘n), was led mountedon a mule through the streets as a signofhonour, received large grants, and was appointed physician to the caliph al-Hikim instead of the Christian Ibn Nastis, who diedinRabi‘ I1 400, December 1009;see Maqrizi, Itti‘ii?, 11, 73,83;in Muglzrib, V, 62, he is called Shuqayr al-Yahudi; al-Hakim bought him a house that cost 4,000 dinars, equipped with the best of furnishings and housewares; he would receive 10,000dinars forone hour, money which al-Hikim confiscated from the Christians (all of whichshouldbetakenwith a degreeofscepticism,naturally). Marwin himself is 11, No. 1283, see: Kahle, Masoreten des Westeru, mentioned ina colophon in MS Firkovitch I, 70: ‘This rnahzor was bought, containing the last four books . . . by the elder Marwin . . . son of Siiqayr . . . in the city ofJerusalem. . . in the year4818’, that is AD 1058 (i.e., during Daniel b. Azariah’s day); histwo sons are mentioned: David and Solomon.The tirirnu: 397. The matter of queries sent from Fustat (Nehorai b. Nissim) to Daniel b. Azariah (sec. 892) is again repeated in468a. It appears that Daniel b. Azariah,whom we found so occupied in Tishri,is still as busy inTammuz. For general informationon what was happening in Jerusalem towards the end of life the of ‘theNisi and Gaon’(ibid.), one 1060, and is should add what is contained in 449a. This letter was written close to preserved in a very poor state. One cannot discern with any certitude the nature of the dispute described there. The writer is evidently in Alexandria and he is writing to a Jerusalemite who is visiting Fustat together with his family.The writer wouldstay with this family during his visitsto Jerusalem and he intends doing so in the future. The main subject of the letter is a certain Suriir ibn Sabra, who slanders the writer and other notables of Fustat in every possible manner. This Suriir ibn Sabra is a Maghribi by origin and the writer accuses him of converting to Islam when he was still in the Maghrib. The writer and his faction are about to appeal to the av-bet-din in Jerusalem (Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon?) and demand that he is banned. The Gaon is not mentionedin the letterat all, and perhaps thisis a confirmation of what is saidin the Scroll of Abiathar about Daniel’s illness during the last years of his life. There is additional information concerning the relationship between Daniel b. Azariah and the people of Fustat, particularly ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, in 377a. It deals with a court case concerning the collection of a debt, mentioning a certain b. Mukhtir, who is evidently Sedaqa b. Muvhir ( = Mukhtir), noted a number of times in my collection. He seems to have been a financier from Tyre, who moved to Fustat, who had special ties with Daniel b. Azariah (see also i t t j u , secs. 903, 905).

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communityin Fustat.These two parnasimcarried on a constant correspondence andone can see that they tried to do their best to maintain proper order andpeace in Fustat. During the late fifties,a quarrel arose in Fustat between two haverim: Abii Zikri Judahhe-haver b. Saadia (afterwards known by the title Nagid) and Joshua he-haver b. D6sa. A reconciiiation was achievedthrough theefforts of ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, when Daniel b. Azariah was also staying in Fustat. ‘Eli ha-Koen b. Ezekiel writes of the joy the people ofJerusalem felt about this peaceful outcome, and also that ‘the nisi’ (Daniel b. Azariah) was extremely happy.We also findDanieldirectlyapproaching‘Eli,theparnas of Fustat,referring undoubtedly to the above-mentioned‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, concerning aid for a poor man, Wahb of the cityof Raqqa.16* [896] Some of Daniel b. Azariah’s writings in thefield of law havebeen preserved. His interest in the writings of the early geonim can be discerned from one of his letters to ‘Eli b. Amram, from which it emerges that he sent quires of thequeries and responsa of several geonim to Fustat. From these geonim only the name of ‘Rabbenii Samuel Gaon’ remains, who we may assume was Samuel ha-Kohen b. Hofni, head of theSura yeshiva, the grandfather of Daniel’s brother-in-law Azariah sister’s (his husband). The reason for sendingthem toFustat wasto have them copied there.It seems that Daniel hadborrowed them from one that of priestly family, perhaps from his sister’s son Josiah ha-Kohen (the great-grandson of Samuel b. Hofni). We have alreadyseen that the people of Fustat - as we know from the instance of Nehorai b. Nissim - were directing queries to Daniel on matters of law and were anticipating his responsa. We find AbiiSa‘dJosiah ha-Kohen,theGaon’snephew,and his son-in-law AbiiSariBarhiin, occupied with a legacy of books he had bequeathed. There was a complaint that the tractate Baua qamma was missing,but they found the Gaon’s tadhkira, a sort of diary, where it waswritten that themissing book was in Jerusalem, with Israel b. Nathan. In addition, we find instructions to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram on matters of law; outlininghow to summon people to court, as I have mentioned above. I have also noted the shimmtrsh which Daniel wrote on the matter of Hayyim b. HZriin of Sahrajt and thevow madeby this Hayyim, to pay a fine shouldit be found that he had a wife in Fustat before marrying another.In my collection, there are ten documents which are remainsof Daniel’s responsa and deeds written inhis court. Thereare four queries and one responsum copied by the Gaon in his own handwriting, and it is not clear whether they are the work of one of his 168

The money fromslaughtering: 374. The mission of ‘Eli ha-Kohen: 376; mentioned ibid. is also the matter of a deserted wife,but no details have been preserved. ‘Elib. Ezekiel on peace in Fustat:440,443. Help for Wahb:385; see also 382, a fragment fromthe opening of a letter, evidently alsoto Fustat, in which thanks fora gift have been preserved, and a beginning of expressions of anxiety overan unclear subject.

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forefathers or whether they arehis own. Onequery deals with theguarding of an orphan’sinheritance,andtheresponsum is also preserved. Further, there are queries about the promise of money without a written deed; about aman whocast aspersions onhis wife and abouthow totreat her son; on a vow to dedicate property to the heqdesh and whether the responsibility to carry it out applies to the heirs. Deeds and fragments of deeds drawn up in his court have also been preserved. As I have already noted, these deeds were formulated according to the Babylonian tradition andgenerallyconformed totheformularyofHayyGaon’sBookof Deeds. In one of his letters, Daniel sharply criticises a responsum on a matter of law,and expresses disdain for its author; perhaps a Babylonian Gaon, the Gaon of Pumbedita, whose identity we do not know (Israel, according to Mann), or Hezekiah, the exilarch b. David. The Scroll of Abiathar notes the dateof Daniel’s death, Elul 1373 Sel., August 1062. His funeral is mentioned in one of the letters of Avon b. Sedaqa, the Maghribi merchant who lived in Jerusalem, to Nehorai b. Nissim,dated 11 October 1064. A recordofevidencein a courtin Alexandria, from 14 May 1079, speaksof twomen upon whomDaniel b. Azariah had placed a ban, for some reason unknown tous, and says that they cursed ‘our Master Daniel u3sihead the of theyeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov, of blessed, holy [qid6sh] and pure memory’. Are we to understand from this formula (qid6sh) that he wasmurdered? Thispossibility is hinted at in a passage ina letter written by Daniel b. Hasdai, the Baghdadi exilarch, in the yearAM 4922 (AD 1161). Accordingto him,there wasan interruption in the chain of ordination after the death of ‘our Master ournasi Daniel head of the yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov of blessed holy (q3d6sh) memory’. However, we do not know whether those generations were in the habit of using theterm ‘holy’ for someonewho was murdered by the gentiles. The passage ina dirge written onhis death ‘alas for heailed and was exiled’,is as we do also unexplained.As to his illness, wc do not know its nature, just not know how to understand the passage in the Scroll of Abiathar quoted above, regarding the sickness from which he suffered during the last four years of his life. As to exile, it seems that he apparently had to leave Jerusalem for some unknown reason, although from Avon b. Sedaqa’s letter, we are aware that he was buried in Jerusalem. Daniel b. Azariah was Gaon for nearly ten years. He encompassed inhis personality two ideals that were close to the hearts of the Jewish masses: the heritage of the Palestinian Sanhedrin with that of the legend of the House of David, from which the exilarchs claimed descent. He was the first protagonist of a new kind ofdivision among the Jews,between the House of David and the House of Aaron, as exemplified by the propaganda he used during the dispute over the office of theGaon against Joseph 73 8

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ha-Kohenb.SolomonGaon.Althoughrelativecalmreignedafter Daniel’s victory, the division was likely to break out with even greater vigour, and this time, in utter opposition to the idea of the Palestinian Sanhedrin, when Daniel’s son David, reached maturity. Today,isitrather difficult to grasp the significance of the antagonism between the two Houses, andit seems somewhat trivial to us, but the writings of the period prove to what extentpeople’s feelings were divided andhow great were the storms aroused by this antagonism.169 The priestly geonim: Joseph, Elijah and Abiathar, the yeshiva i n exile

[897]Joseph ha-Kohenb. Solomon Gaon did not last long after the victory of his rival. He died abouta year and a half after the end of the dispute, on Hanukkah, that is, in mid-December 1053, after he was obliged to be content with therole of av-bet-din under Daniel b. Azariah. The Scroll of Abiathar, which provides us with these details, calls the two brothers Joseph and Elijah, ‘Joseph ha-Kohen and Elijah ha-Kohen, two geonirn’. These were only words used for their effect, and it is clear that Joseph ha-Kohen never rose to the seat of Gaon at all. The writer of the Scroll drops rather broad hints to the effect that Joseph’s death was caused by Daniel b. Azariah, both because he was excluded from the gaonate and because of the suffering and persecution he endured as a consequence of the dispute.Towards the endof his life, Joseph sought revenge: ‘The Lord will see and judge’, and therefore theillness of Danielb. Azariah described there in the continuation was - it implies - a sort of punishment from heaven. There is no doubtthat the priestly family saw it as such and there l69

Quires of responsa: 371. Queries to Daniel from Fustat: 469. Daniel’s books: 500, a, margin, right. A summons to court: 375. Hayyim b. Harun:389, cf. Friedman, Tarbix, 43 (1973/4), 176; Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 111, 148. Daniel’s responsa and legal deeds: 387-396. O n the Babylonian characterofthe deeds, see: Assaf, Tnrbix, 9(1937/8), 17. The criticismofaresponsum: 356, b,lines 24ff, margin;Goitein, Shalem, 2(1975/6), 68 ( = hn-Yiskrrv, 148), who ascribed this letterto Zakkai,Daniel’s brother, assumed that the criticism was aimed at ‘Eli ‘Amram, b. butthis does not seem likely. Cf. on the matter of the Babylonian geonim during the fifties: Mann, Texts, I,202ff. T o the deeds from Daniel’s court, one should add the deed of release of a slave-girl edited by Blau, D i e judisclteEhescheidung, 102 (No. 11):inJerusalem,onFriday, 28 Tishri 1369 Sel., 29 September AD 1057,Abrahamb. R. Isaac, nicknamed‘thecousin’ releases the slave-girlZara’if.SignedbythescribeSemahb.Eleazar,thewitnessbeing‘Daniel ha-Nasi head of the yeshiva Ge’bn Ya‘aqbv’. The reading and the date in Blau’s version should be corrected. The ‘cousin’ there is none other than Abraham b. Isaac ibn Fur?it, whose nickname was ibn al-‘atnnl inArabic; we havehereevidencethathevisited Jerusalem in that year, 1057; he certainly made a pilgrimage in Tishri; the editor could not identify him, of course, nor could Poznansksi,RE], 65 (1913),45. The death of Daniel: 559, b, line 15. Avon’s letter: 500, a, lines 7-8. The passage of Daniel b. Hasdai: Assaf, Tarbiz, 1 (3;1929/30), 69. Cf. Mann, Texts, I, 230f. The dirge: Assaf, Zlotnik Jtrbilee Volrrme, 166f.

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was blazing hatred between thetwo sides, despite thefact that they had to settle their differences with one another andeven work together. A letterof condolence has been preserved, written by Daniel b. Azariah upon the death of ‘his honourable great Sanctity, our Lord and Master to members Joseph ha-Kohen av-bet-dlrz of all Israel’.It was apparently sent of the latter’s family,that is from Jerusalem to Ramla, evidently, or perhaps Daniel was staying in Fustat and wrote to them fromthere. He points out thatit was he who eulogised the deceased. Evidently the letter quoted a passage (only preserved in part) from the Babylonian Talmud (Mo‘ed qatan, 25a): ‘whoever weeps and mourns over a proper man will be forgiven all his transgressions for the honour paid him’ (i.e., to the deceased). Although these are expressionsof courtesy, they seem to imply a very slight admissionof guilt. We do not know much about Joseph ha-Kohen. For manyyears, he was active together with Solomon b. Judah and his son Abraham, for they were related and worked jointly on matters ofyeshiva. the There is a letter from Solomonb. Judah remaining in the Geniza, written onbehalf of the Gaon inJoseph’s handwriting. He was taken to jailin Damascus together with his brother Elijah as a consequence of the episode of the excommunication of the Karaites described above. I have also surveyed his special connections with Ephraim b. Shemaria. At times, Joseph would use the ‘alinra which was characteristicof his father - yesha‘ yuhislz. It seems that he was an extremist both by nature and his aspirations in and was it he who banished the cantor ‘Solomon who is called Sabiq’, as I described earlier. Evidently, Solomon b. Judah suffered immensely from Joseph’s fanaticism and contentiousness andhe writes aboutthis in one ofhis letters, written apparently near the end of his life. Joseph ha-Kohen was then av-bet-din, andaccording totheGaon,he automatically rejected his opinions. One can feel the Gaon’s marked reservation regarding Joseph’s character and he seems to be trying to explain to theaddressee the reasons for his aversionto Joseph.It seems then thatSolomon b. Judah had a hand in creating the conditions which led to Josephha-Kohen being deprivedof the longed-for status ofhead of theyeshiva, mainly, it seems, by drawing Daniel b.Azariah nearer, and perhaps by preparing the ground among the peoplefor his advancement. O n the other hand, he expresses avery positive opinion of the younger brother,Elijah ha-Kohen, who, he says, does not follow inhis elder brother’s footsteps. In the affair of Nathan b. Abraham, Joseph ha-Kohen also played a major role and added fuel to the fire by his fanaticism. This was also connected, evidently, to his uncompromising attitude to theKaraites, and we have seen how he initiated the pronouncement of a twofold excommunication on them, on thelast two days of Succoth, both on the matter 740

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of the holidays and on the matter of meat and milk. ‘Eli ha-mumhe b. Abraham wrote to Ephraim b. Shemaria in ca. 1045 about a personal matter concerning Joseph ha-Kohen. Joseph was staying in Jerusalem continuously, because the ruin he had bought his near house in Ramla was being renovated. When he was still av-bZt-dGz, in Daniel b.Azariah’s day, he seems to have maintained personal contact with the people of Fustat. A letter of the emissary of theyeshiva appearsto be evidenceof this, as it containsa most ‘Palestinian’ congregadepressing accountof what is going on among the tion in Fustat and the dispute there. It seems that the mission of the writer was to a large extent a mission of the priestly family and not necessarily that of the yeshiva or the head of the yeshiva, Daniel b. Azariah. After the death of Josephha-Kohen, Israel b. Nathan, in a letter from Tyre to Nehorai b. Nissim, mentions quires left by the deceased. The writer met with Elijah ha-Kohen, Joseph’s brother, and discussed the matter with him.It transpires that the sonsof thedeceased wanted to sell the quires. There is a fragment in theGeniza in his handwriting, of what seems to be his commentary to the tractate Ketubbot (17b), in which he deals with the chapter on the woman whobecame a widow. We have information on Joseph ha-Kohen’s son, Abii’l-Bay5n Solomon, who emigrated to Egypt in about theyear 1060, some seven years after the death of his father. ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel enquires after him and asks whether heis still in Alexandria or whetherhe has already arrived in Fustat. Afterwards,‘Eli writes that in the meantime he has learned of his safe arrival in Fustat, and that the haver Ab5 Zikri, who isJudah b. Saadia, afterwards called the Nagid, is looking after him, as I have already mentioned. Another Jerusalemite, the Maghribi Israel b. Nathan, was also interested in learning at the time whether it was true that Solomon b. Joseph bet-din had married.”O [898] A fewfacts about Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon can be found in the Scroll 170

The Scroll of Abiathar: 559, b, lines 8-12; his brother, Elijah ha-Kohen, did not try to describe Joseph after his death, as if he had been Gaon; in his letter to a trustee of the yeshiva (whose name and place we do not know),he speaksof acertain person who has something in writing from ‘our Master Joseph av (bet-din) our brother, of blessed memory’, see 419. The letter of condolence: 384. The letter written by Joseph for Solomon b. Judah: 173;he alsowrote 405, on behalf of the Jerusalemites, on thesubject of aid for the poor of Jerusalem, to Ephraim b. Shemaria; also 406411 are letters in his handwriting, and they all deal with public affairs and matters concerning the court. by Joseph ha-Kohen b. Document 410a is a fragment of the ending of a letter written Solomon Gaon when he was already av-bgt-drn in the yeshiva, at the beginningof 1048, still during the gaonate of Solomon b. Judah. As in two otherletters (411, 420), we also find here ornate phrases based on verses in the Bible. Yesha‘ yuhish, see 407, b. The excommunication of the cantor: 334. Solomon b. Judah onJoseph: 149. There is also an apologetic tone here and the Gaon points out that he is grateful to Joseph’s father, Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon. In another letter, much earlier than this, Solomon b. Judah

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

of Abiathar. After the deathof his brother Joseph,he became nv-b&ditl of the Palestinian yeshiva, until the deathof Daniel b. Azariah. According to the Scroll, the period of his gaonate lasted for twenty-three years. Actually, Elijah served for twenty-oneyears and three months:from August 1062 until November 1083, but inhis Scroll, Abiathar reckoned from Elul AM 4822, until Kislev AM 4843, and as was custonlary in those early times, he added the marginal years as well. Abiathar completely overlooks those years in which the yeshiva was still located in Jerusalem, when his father Elijah was Gaon(beforeitmoved toTyre).Somedocuments preserved in theGeniza round out our information Elijah on ha-Kohen. In my collection, there are eleven documents in his handwriting, and he is mentioned frequently in the letters of his contemporaries. In a deed written when hewas in Damascus, on 5 May 1031, he signed: Elijah ha-Kohen he-haver in the Great Sanhedrin’, etc. He apparently stayed there after he and his brother were released from jail,after having been involved in the affair of the excommunication of the Karaites.In a deed written by Solomon b. Judah, on 31 October 1036, Elijah is mentioned when hewas already ‘the sixth of the haviirii’. We have already seen that during the dispute with Nathan b. Abraham, he was ‘fifth’, as was also laid down in the conditions of the agreement after the dispute. After the deathofTobiah b.Daniel, Elijah became ‘the fourth’, and after Nathan b. Abraham’s demise, ‘the third’. We have found one of his letters from that time, written to the exilarch David b. Hezekiah. Ephraim b. Shemaria’s letter, written near the end of his life in cn. 1055, when Elijah was av-b~t-&~z. is of particular interest. During this period, he also wrote a letter to Abii Sa‘d Halfon b. Solomon (whose father, Solomonb. Nathan, was one of Nathan b. Abraham’s supporters), in which he describes the rumour that Abraham b. Isaac ha-Talmid took a second wife inAscalon. O n the face of it, it is an innocent letter, in which he disengages himself from the rumours that were spread about,but oneshould note that Halfon b. Solomon(or perhaps his father)and also Abraham b. ha-Talmid expresses a critical opinion ofthe two priestly brothers: theyare only preparedto makean effort when there is something they could gain from it (hence they do not come to Ramla). See 80, a, lines 8-9. Joseph and the ban on the Karaites: 182. Restoration of the ruin: 231. Letter of the emissary: 398. Israel b. Nathan’sletter: 475. The fragment of the commentary: TS Arabic Box 18(1), f. 58; where there is a sentence also used by Hayy ‘Eli ha-Kohen: of Gaon in his book ‘of purchases and sales’, end of ch. xxxviii. The letters 450, line 15; 451, a, lines 2ff; in 452, a, line 8, ‘Eli ha-Kohen sends regards to Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph and asks what is happening to him.Israel b. Nathan: 479, b, line 12. O n Passover of theyear AM 4819, AD 1059, Solomon was still in Ramla, see the letter of Avon b. Sedaqa, 498, a, lines 11-12. It seems that he visited Palestine in 1065, when he signed a deed drawn upin_thecourt of the yeshiva: 425, line 18. TS NS J 379 is a fragment of a deed relating to ‘Eli (‘Ula) ha-Levi b. Joseph, with the signature, ‘Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph nv great-grandson of Solom[onGaon]’.

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belonged to the faction opposing the priestly family and were partisans of their rivals, at first of Nathan b. Abraham and afterwards of David b. Daniel, as we shall observe in the continuation. When he became Gaon after the death of Daniel b. Azariah, Elijah evidently managed to establish good relations with the Maghribis, who stood by Daniel b. Azariah during the dispute over the gaonate, and afterwardssupported Daniel’s sonDavidin his struggle against the priestly family. Avon b. Sedaqa describes in one ofhis letters a visit with 1064. Avon reminded him that Nehorai b. Nissim (to the Gaon in October whom he writes) was fondof himeven before he became av-bZt-diiz. It is implied there that the Maghribis exercised their influence with theFatimid authorities and managed to get him a sijill, certainly meaning here an official appointment. Elijah thanked him for this, although the sijill had not arrived in Jerusalem as yet. At the same meeting, Avon told him about the suffering endured by the Maghribi merchants who are being mistreated, and especially about thefire which destroyed their ships. Another Maghribimerchant, Isma‘il b. Isaac al-Andalusi, also mentions Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon. According to him, the Gaon expressed his dissatisfaction with thecontacts maintainedby Isma‘il with two members of Kashkil the family, Spanish scholars who settled in Acre. I have already noted the difference between the two brothers, Joseph and Elijah, and we have seen that Solomonb. Judah pointedout that he did not find in Elijah those faults of character which he found in his older brother. However, thetension and rivalryseem to have hardenedElijah as well and he treatedhis rivals vigorously and harshly. A letter written in his name by his son Abiathar in about 1065, warns the Fustat parnas, ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, that a certain Shemaria b. Meshullam is about to arrive there. It seems that this man offended the priestly family in some manner, and the Gaon demands that they make his life a misery - ‘to reward him accordingto his wickedness and to unveil his disgrace’ - and also to bring this to the attention of the two brothers, Judah and Mevorakh, sons of Saadia: ‘Judah, the dear haver, r65h kalli, ha-rne‘ulle of the havtrri, and his brother, aliifha-birz6t’ (Judahis still not called Nagid here), and also ‘to the attention of all our brethren in Egypt’. The last deed written by Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon in Jerusalem (to the extent that deeds were preserved) dates from the summer of 1O71.l7l 171

The Scroll of Abiathar on Elijah ha-Kohen: 559, b, lines 15ff. Documents written by Elijah: 412-422. The deed from Damascus:415; this is a receipt from Khibii’, daughter of Abraham al-Hazzim al-Riishtiibi, to Solomon b. Musifir; signed by nine witnesses; al-HazzSm al-Riishtiibi- ‘the rustic packer’ ( r t r d i , in Persian, rustic); h u z z i m , see Dozy, s.v., and also Qisimi, 1, 96f. Solomon b. Judah’s deed: 124; see also 127, line 18, where Elijah is still ‘thesixth’. In one ofhis letters written when he wasstill young, which is a letter of condolence to his cousin Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac b. Furat on the deathhis of father, Elijah writes around his signature the formula:‘he-‘usCr mi-pen2 shu’otz’, probably

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[899] We now turn to the transfer ofyeshiva the to Tyre. Above, have I described the Turcomans’ conquest of Palestine and their conquest of Jerusalem in 1073. We have no exact information about thetransfer of the yeshiva to Tyre, nor do we know whether this took place before or after the conquest ofJerusalem. Apparently, itis not fortuitous that isitto Tyre that the yeshiva moved from Jerusalem. Firstly, Tyre was close to the border ofPalestine. Secondly, it had a large and organised Jewish congregation, which for generations was both attached and subordinate to the Palestinian yeshiva. Thirdly, as aportcity,it offered possibilities of maintaining contact with Jewish communities living in other countries on the shores of the Mediterranean, Egyptinparticular,whenoverland routes wereendangered by warfare. Fourthly, as we have observed, Tyre had its own local ruler, from whom one could expect amore tolerantand even benevolent approach.We do not know how things really were, as for twenty years, beforethe Turcomans’ conquestand afterward, almost nothing was said of these matters in the letters of the yeshiva. We find a fragment of a letter written by the Gaon Elijah ha-Kohen, from which only a request from the addressee to help the congregation in Ascalon could be read, and two fragments from another letter, which speaks of ‘repairing the house’ and ‘the courtyardsof the Lord’s Temple’. Ezekiel ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli left for Fustat (like his father, he was frequently on journeys on behalf of the yeshiva, and we shall find him on a similar mission below, during the gaonate of Abiathar ha-Kohen). He was entrusted with the task of explaining the situationof the yeshiva and collecting money due to the Jerusalemites from the income of the heqddz and from donations from people in Fustat. Wecan only assume that the letters were written in Tyre, in about 1080. The first hint of the yeshiva’s beingsituated in Tyre is perhaps a fragment from a power-of-attorney deed drawn up in Tripoli.A certain Yeshii‘ii, ‘pride of the congregation’, appoints ‘Ula ha-Levi as trustee. Signatories to the deed are Solomon b. Isaac, who calls himself ‘greatgrandson of MeirGaon’; Nahum b. Yannai, of the Baradini family (who lived in Tyre, as we have seen), anda further six witnesses. The deed was meaning: ‘who avoids uproar’: 414, and see also the note there. The letter to David b. Ezekiel: 416. To Ephraim b. Shemaria: 418, of which I have already quoted the main points above. Avon’s letter: 500, a, lines 18ff. Ismii‘il b. Isaac: 511, upper margin. The matter of Abraham b. ha-Talmid: 421, an episode already mentioned above. O n Elijah ha-Kohen’s visit to Ascalon, when heis already Gaon, welearn from TS Box Misc. 27, f. 23, see: Friedman, Grafz College Anrtual, 1 (1972), 58 f; this is a court deed from Fustat (15 December 1094) concerning ‘Eli b. Yefet who had bought a Nubianslave-girl in Ascalon at one time, set her free, married her and had a daughter by this marriage; the ntuqaddarn (the appointee over the community) in Ascalon and Elijah ha-Kohen, head ofthe yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov, who was then stayingin Ascalon, dealt with the matter of this marriage. The matter ofShemaria b. Meshullam:423. The deed from 1071: 428. O f much interest is

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written on Monday, 9 Sivan AM 4839, that is 13May AD1079. We find a more explicit confirmation in a marriage deed written in Tyre on Thursday, 7 ElulAM 4839, that is 8 August AD 1079. Halfon b.Aaron marries Ghiliya, daughter of Mussfir. Among the signatories, we find ‘Amram ha-Kohen b. Aaron, theson-in-law of Abiathar, sonof the Gaon. At about the same time, another marriagedeed was written by ‘Amramha-Kohen himself, from whicha fragmenthas been preserved. Wefind that a third of a new house in the western partof Tyre (evidently in the vicinity of the port) was included in thebride’s dowry. T w o years before his death in AM 4842 (AD 1081) Elijah ha-Kohen organised a large assembly of community representatives (‘all Israel’) in Tyre, onSuccoth. This was in line with thetradition of assembling on the Mount of Olives Hosha‘na on rabbii, which thatyear fell on 28 September. The rulers of Tyreat the time were Nafis and his brother, the sons of the cadi Ibn Abi‘Aqil. They mayhave succeeded in maintaining a positionof neutrality towards the two opponents, the Fatimids and the Turcomans. At any rate, it seems that people from communitiesin the various regions were able to reach the assembly despite the fighting. It was this at gathering that Elijah ha-Kohen proclaimed Abiathar as his successor as Gaon; Abiathar’s brother Solomon ha-Kohen, was appointed av-kt-diiz on the same occasion, and Zadok b. Josiah, the ‘third’ in the yeshiva. It was said ofJosiah (b. Aaron b. Josiah b. Abraham), thefather ofZadok, thathe had been av-bi!t-din, probably under Elijah ha-Kohen. Be that as it may, the members of this family were not the offspring ofJosiah Gaon b. Aaron. Abiathar points out in his scroll that this was the accepted and normal advancement,for he hadserved as av-bet-din before this, his brother Solomon was the ‘third’, and Zadok was the ‘fourth’.The pronouncement of these appointments is confirmed in a letter from Saadia he-haver b. Abraham, of Hebron, toAbiathar. He calls Abiathar ‘head of theyeshiva Ge’Gn Ya‘aqov’ (when his father, Elijah Gaon, was still alive), and expresses his happiness on the fact that‘ourLordtheGaon,may God preserve him’ was lucky to live long enough ‘tosee his son occupyinghis seat’; they ‘pray for Abiathar every day in the Cave of Machpelah’, and on the Day of Atonement they did this even before they received confirmation of his appointment. The writerlearned of the appointment from a letter he received from Abiathar himself, who had sent it to him together with a gift of onedinar (evidently it was the custom toallocate money to the Hebronites). Abiathar himself was then in Fustat, it seems, and thus the letter reached the Geniza. The letter itself does not make the impression of having been written in Tyre. the very special formula used by Elijah Gaon in his signature (andalso by his offspring), ‘called the Gaon of God’; see the discussion on it: Friedman, hfuwiuge, 11, 153ff.

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One year later, probablyagain on Hosha‘na rabbi& that is, 18 September 1082, an event occurred which made a tremendous impression at the time. This was an assembly on actual Palestinian soil, in Haifa. There the year was ‘sanctified’ and the gaonateand the ordination renewed,‘in the house of the congregation’ (bet ha-wn‘ad, by which the local synagogue was meant, apparently). The little that Abiathar tells us of this gathering is enough forus to understand its real intention - to alert the Jewish congregations against the seizure ofleadership by David b. Daniel b. Azariah. He writes of appointments of haverim being ordained by the yeshiva (or the Great Sanhedrin, as they called themselves) from among the notables of the communities in order that they may serve as judges intheir localities. We read between the lines that certain suitable figures were appointed, whose loyalty to the Palestinian yeshiva and the priestly family were not in doubt. Thisassembly was in fact a familiar ceremony, except that this time it was not held on the Mount of Olives but in Haifa. As the yeshiva and its head were already under considerable pressure from David b. Daniel’s faction, which had by this time achieved a certain foothold in Egypt,it is not surprising that Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon pronounced an excommunication in Haifa ‘on anyonewho opposes and differs and on every usurper and trespasser’, and it is clear who this was aimed at. The ban was also legally entered in‘a book’, thatis, a deed,as were thedecisions concerning appointments, ‘signed by the hand of all the scholars therein’. In other words, all those present signed that deed,or at any rate, the most notable among them did so. One should bear in mind that these events occurred one year before the deathof Elijah ha-Kohen. He died inKislev 1395 Sel. (which began on 14 November AD 1083). Direct evidenceof one of the participants in the assemblyHaifa in can be found in a letter-treatise written by Shelah ‘the sixth’ b. Nahum, which deals with the question of which coastal towns belong to Palestine, a subject which assumedspecial significance during the struggle with David b. Daniel. He writes there, among other things: ‘and I came to Haifa, where they also prayed over me [that is, appointed me] as ‘‘sixth”’172 [900] Elijah ha-Kohen was buried in Daltiin in the Upper Galilee, and 17?

The fragments relating to Tyre:429,431; see the details on matters relating to Tyre above, secs. 298-300, in the discussion on the city itself, on events there, and on the cadi Ibn Abi ‘Aqil and his family and connections with the Jewish Maghribi merchants.The deed of trusteeship: 604; Solomon b. Isaac great-grandson of Meir Gaon is perhaps the son of Isaac he-!ziverha-r6sh who was listed abovewiththeoffspring of Meir&on. The deed: 601; ‘Amram ha-Kohen marriage deed from Tyre:600. The fragment of a marriage this priestly family, as canbe b. Aaron, Abiathar’s son-in-law, was the sonof a branch of seen from his signature in TS 28.5 (edited by Friedman, DirzP Israel, 5[1973/4], 211-216): “Amram ha-Kohen b. R. Aaron, may he have a good end, b. R. ‘Amram of blessed memory, great-grandsonof Elijah ha-Kohen . . . grandson of Aaron the Chief Priest, the Saint of God, of blessed memory’. The assembly in Tyre: 559, b, lines 16-19; Josiah and

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how this was achieved while the Turcomans controlled the entire surrounding area we do not know. Perhaps one of their commanders was bribed, or perhaps it was made possible owing to the good relationship between the Turcomans and the rulers of Tyre. Abiathar inherited his father’s seat and saw himself appointed to this high office by Divine Providence. As the yeshiva was cut off from the source of its vitality and prestige, situated outside of Palestine and no longer in Jerusalem, Abiathar and those around him clung principles to the of the ideology of consanguinity, of the vocation of k6lzarzlln the and of the centrality of the Sanhedrin in Palestine. This was the focus of their selfconsciousness. Abiathar refers to himself in his Scroll and also in other documents as ‘Abiathar ha-Kohen called by the name of God, son of a Gaon great-grandson (thus it should be read) of a Gaon’. Abiathar Gaon was one of the four sons of the Gaon Elijah ha-Kohen. Apart from Solomon, whom I have already mentioned as having now become atr-bCt-dh in the yeshiva, Elijah had two other sons, Zadok and Eleazar. A letterfrom Zadok written Jerusalem in on 28June 1056has been preserved, evidently to his brother Abiathar, who was then staying in Fustat, concerning a debt due to their relative Mevorakh for a shipment of scentedoil.Zadok died in 1094, probably, and a draftof a letter of condolence on his death written to his brother, the Gaon Abiathar haKohen, by Halfon and Joseph, evidently from Ascalon, has been preserved. As to Eleazar, his name is clearly written on the reverse sideof a Geniza fragment, evidently a commentary to thebook of Hosea: ‘Eleazar ha-Kohen son of Elijah ha-Kohen of holy blessed memory; his brother Abiathar ha-Kohen, called by the name of God, son of a Gaon greatgrandson of a Gaon, blessed of holy memory’. The aforementioned letter from Saadia he-haver of Hebron to Abiathar ha-Kohen, contains expressions of sympathy on the death ofEleazar,and it is now clear to us that he meant this brother. It is also clear, therefore, that he died at about the Zadok, his son, evidently livedin Acre earlier on, see 599, line 28.574is a letter written by Zadok b. Josiah after the Crusaders’ conquestof Palestine, concerning members of the family who had been taken captive; from whichit is possible to understand thathis family may have continued to live in Acre, while he himself lived in Tyre; see above, sec. 301. Contrary to what was written Mann,Jewr, by I, 193f, Zadok never became nv-bH-din, and what he wrote was based on an error regarding document 568 (ibid., 11,200f). of which he assumed that it was from 1096, whereas actually it was from 1076;as to Abraham b. Nathan ‘av of the yeshiva’, he was not uv-60t-dit1, and thetitle ‘av of theyeshiva’ relatesto his father, Nathan b. Abraham. The letter from Hebron: 614, a, lines 7ff. The alarm caused by David b. Daniel can be seen in the above-mentioned letter (614) of Saadia he-haver the Hebronite. to Abiathar, who is in Egypt, in the opening ofhisletter, where he wrote in praise of Abiathar and his priority over someone who is not of priestly descent, clearly referring to Davidb.Daniel, as was also understood by Braslavi, Evrtz-Israel, 5(1958/9), 221. Shelah b. Nahum: 550, b, line 39, where the reference is certainly to this assembly in Haifa.

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same time as his brother Abiathar was proclaimed Gaon, towards the end of 1081.173 [901] The first information we have on Abiatharha-Kohen dates from the period when his father was already Gaon. O n 16 July1067, he was in Fustat signinghis name ona colophon written entirely his in own hand, on the first page of a quire containing Hayy Gaon’s commentary to the sefev ha-diiz% (book oflaws) of Rabbenii tractate Hagiga, together with the Hananel and with ‘gleanings and queries’ which he copied for himself in Fustat. There he calls himself: ‘Abiathar ha-Kohen the fourth of the havtn-5’. If we assume that he was then twenty-five years old (this is an assumption that has no further foundation than that he was relatively young at the time), then he was born in 1042. After some three years or more, on14 November 1070, Abiathar wrote a letter from Jerusalem, to theparniis ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, in which he speaks mainly of a man who came from ‘the landof the Franks’ and of the affairs ofJudah b. Saadia, ‘the Nagid’. From this letter, it appears that Abiathar is still very young and he treats the addressee as if he were his father, forhe insists that he should notbe addressed as ‘your servant’ in his letters. He also apologises for having written letters to ‘Eli b. ‘Amram, he-haver ha-tne‘ulle, and not to the addressee, but these were merely deeds of trusteeship. It was his father, the Gaon,who wrote to the congregation in Fustat and to the me‘ull2. Here too, Abiathar is still calling himself ‘the fourth’. Apparently, a t about the same time, Abiatharbecame his father’s chief aide, which was customary - as we have seen - with regard to the eldest son of a Gaon. O n 15 April 1071, ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, the Jerusalem parniis, wrote to Abiathar, ‘the fourth of thehavfira’. The latter was then in Fustat, and from the deed I shall forthwith mention, it emerges thathe was about to return home. I have already mentioned this letter, which contains news of the Turcomans’ invasion of Palestine, the disrupted 173

The burial of Elijah ha-Kohen: 559, b, lines 23ff; we find here the expression ‘Eleazar b. Azariah his ancestor’ (alongside whose grave Elijah was buried), apparently being evidence that this priestly family claimed descent from Eleazar b. Azariah, a matter I have already mentioned above. As to the burial of the ancient Jewish sages mentioned in the Scroll of Abiathar, there are similar accounts some seventy-five years later in Benjamin of Tudela: ‘Meron . . . where there are the graves of Hillel and Shammai . . .; Qedesh Naphtali . . . where there are the graves of R. Eliezer b. ‘Arikh and R. Eleazar b. Azariah . . . and R. Yose the Galilean’. ‘Abiathar whois called by the name of God’: 559, a, line 1; as he also signs in other places. Mann, Jews, I, 187, speaks only of three sons of Elijah ha-Kohen: Abiathar, Solomonand Zadok. Theletter ofZadok ha-Kohen b. Elijah: 432; it seems that heis also mentioned in the colophon:221, line 9; in both places he calls himself: ‘the smallest of the pupils in Shalem’ (i.e. Jerusalem). The letter of condolence on the death of Zadok ha-Kohen: 554. Eleazar ha-Kohen: ULC O r 1081 Box 1. f. 24; the condolences of Saadia he-haveron thedeath of Eleazar ha-Kohen: 614, b, lines 1-6; see the doubts of Braslavi, Eretz-hael, 5(1958/9),221.

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roads, the rulers’ mistreatment of thepeople in Jaffa and the rebellion in Tyre. Abiathar is staying in Fustatwith Judah the Nagid Saadia b. and his brother Mevorakh. ‘Eli asks Abiathar to look into the affairs (in Fustat) of his son-in-law Hiba (Nathan) b. Israel (or perhaps he meant his brotherin-law, sihr) who abandoned his wife and children in Jerusalem two years earlier (that is, in 1069).From this letter we also learn thatAbiathar’s k m y a was Abii’l-Fadl. In Jerusalem in Tammuz AM 4831, that is, May or June AD 1071, Abiathar is a signatoryto a deed referring to aclaim of alimony, written by his father Elijah Gaon.Alongside his father’s signature, he signed: ‘Abiathar ha-Kohen son of the Gaon’. There is a similar signature in a fragment of a deed evidently written at about the same time, also in the handwriting of Elijah Gaon.Abiatharcollaborated with his fatherin writing the responsa to the queries of Meshullam b. Moses of Mainz, where itis possible to read his signature: ‘Abiatharha-Kohen the fourth in the haviira.’ Apparently at the same time, in 1071, he wrote his letter to Mevorakh, evidently b. Saadia, that is, the brother ofJudah, who became the Nagid on the death of thelatter. The letter describes the ill-treatment of the owners dukkiirz of al-harlv (the silk shop) in Alexandria. We also find a colophon in Abiathar’s hand, written on what was the title-page of the Talmudic tractate Bava qamma, dated AM 4832, that is AD 1071/2, in Jerusalem. It seems that even before the yeshiva moved from Jerusalem, Abiathar hadrisen to the statusof ‘third in the yeshiva’, as is evidenced by a fragment of a court document written in Fustat inwhich a letter is mentioned as having been received from ‘our Master, his great honour, our Lord and Master Abiathar the third of the haviiri’. It speaks of alegacy of one ofFustat’s notables who was also a parniis, Abraham ‘knownas b. al-Zayyiit’ (dealer in oil). Thus we learn that Abiathar was in Fustat on a mission forthe yeshiva during the Turcomans’ invasion and that he succeeded in returningto Jerusalem safely, despite the considerable danger encountered on the roads. In 1077 we again find him in Fustat, where he is a signatory on a court document written by Abraham b. Nathan, concerning an inheritance which mentions ‘the trustworthy parnas b. Ya‘ish’, who is undoubtedly ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim. Apart from ‘Abraham b. R. Nathan av of the yeshiva, of blessed righteous memory’, we also find there the signatures of Abraham b. R. Isaac of blessed memory (whois ‘b. ha-Talmid’) as well as of ‘Abiathar [son of the Gaon great-] grandson of a Gaon of blessed memory’. Thedate is Thursday, 3 Nisan 1388 Sel., 30 March AD 1077. It should be noted that the date is a little more than a month after the warding offof the Turcomans’offensive in Egypt (19 February 1077). At aboutthe sametimethatAbiathar was stayinginFustat, Atsiz carried out the 749

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massacre in Jerusalem, mentionedearlier. We do not know to what extent the Jews of Jerusalem were affected by this, nor do we know whether Abiathar reached Fustat via Jerusalem orvia Tyre - in other words, we do not know where theyeshiva was situated at the time.174

The affair of David b. Daniel

[902] Once again, the Jewishworld was shaken by the fury ofa dispute over its leadership, andthis lasted for somefifteen years. This time, it was not a dispute over the position of head of the Palestinian yeshiva, but a struggle between theyeshiva and a new force, which called for a renewed exilarchate, this time with its centre in Egypt. In principle, this struggle was made possible by thedecline in the status and vitality of the yeshiva, as a result of having to leave Jerusalem and thus losing muchof its prestige and attraction for the Jews of the diaspora. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem were undoubtedly interrupted and what remained was a mere shadow pastofits glory. The income of the yeshiva had certainly been considerably reduced. 174

The colophon: 545. Abiathar’s letter to ‘Eli ha-Kohen: 547 a, lines 13,31ff. ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel: 455; the deed of alimony: 428; Hiba b. IsrZ’i1 (Nathan b. Israel) is perhaps identical with Hiba al-Basrial-A‘raj who, according to 425, asked to bring his wife al-Hasana from Egyptto Ramla. The other fragment: 427. The responsa to Meshullam b. Moses: Bod1 MS Hebc 23, f. 42.The matter of Alexandria: 548. The colophon: 549. The courtdocument: T S Box K 24,f.25. Cohen, Self-Government, 162, writeswith an inexplicable amount ofcertainty: ‘Doubtless Elijah hoped that Evyatar’s presence in the Egyptian capital would make it difficult for thenew nagid to subvert the gaonate’ (referring to the suspicion that Judah b. Saadia may have intended to compete with the Palestinian yeshiva). This has no foundation, however; for we haveseen that it was the Gaon who granted title the Nagid to the brothers,Saadia’s sons, oneafter the other; and in what follows, we shall realise that there was cooperation and solidarity between them, and during the dispute with David b. Daniel, theGaon and the Nagid even shared the same fate, whichI shall describe below. The court document from1077: U L C O r1080J 9, and cf. Cohen, ibid., 108,122, 162. A poem written by Abiathar contains expressions of longing for Jerusalem, while he was staying in Egypt, first Fustat, in then inAlexandria, where he was warmly received by ‘Westerners’ who were his faithful followers. I t is not possible to determine the time of its writing, it may have been written when he was already Gaon (this may be thereason why he does not call himself ‘fourth’ or something similar, in the signature).The yeshiva was then in Tyre and his yearning for Jerusalem is therefore understandable; itis also possible that he came to Egypt on behalf of theyeshiva at a much earlier stage. The nature ofhis embroilment in Egypt mentionedin the poemis not explained either. See the poem, TS N S 193.32, ed. Fleischer, Zion, 49(1984), 396f. Abiathar is also mentioned in a letter from Hayy (?) b. Sa‘ida to Abii Nasr Judahb. . . . al-Dimashqi who was then in the port of Tyre; the writer paid, as requested, nineteen dinars whichhe had from theaddressee, fourteen forsayyidna ra’s al-mathih (head of the yeshiva; evidently: Daniel b. Azariah) and five for rayyidni au 6Pt d m . The payment was made through Abii ‘Ali Husayn b. Muslim. The writer was asked to welcome ‘al-rayyis Abii’l-Fadl, son of ourMaster av-bct-din’, that is, Abiathar b. Elijah, in Tyre; but times were hard and the writer tries to avoid it. This letter: T S l O J 13, f. 21,mentioned also by Goitein, Mediterranean Society, I, 268, who assumed that it was written in Ascalon.

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This was the background to appearance the of a young and vigorous man, a descendant of exilarchs, one of the rzeSi’Tm, bearing the insignia of the House of David. Most of the information on the outset of David b. Daniel’s route is drawn from the Scroll of Abiathar. It begins with the data on his genealogy, which infact goes back to the House of David, though those to of its bad kings, suchas Ahaz and his ilk. He was also related to thefamily of blSh na‘ur, which is unexplained, but one can assume here that Bustanai was perhaps written in the original, a matter whichI have discussed. The copyist of the Scroll evidentlywas not acquainted with the story of Bustanai and Daniel’s relationship to it. Therefore, he could not decipher the name, or there may havebeen a play on wordshere which we cannot fathom. In my collection there is a letter from David b. Daniel to some unidentified personality in Fustat, which sheds light on the chronological aspect of David’s history. In this letter, he announces that he is about to arrive in Fustat ‘to renew the alliance with its people’. He asks that the reply to his letter be sent to Tinnis (the port city) in order that reach it him more quickly, which implies that he intended to come from Damiga, as it is called in the Scroll, which is Damira (where he was staying), to Fustat via Tinnis. The date of the letteris 18 Kislev 1391 Sel., that is 15 November AD 1079. The letter was written by someone else (probably his scribe) and at the end of the letter, David added regards to the son addressee of the in his own handwriting, the date,and the ‘ahma, his identifying formula (which was also that of his father, Daniel b. Azariah): yeshfi‘i. We now return to the Scroll’s version, with the words ‘and three years before that’, by which Abiathar means threeyears before what he considered the most important event of all those described by him until then, that is, the pronouncement of his succession to the seat of Gaon by his father, in September 1081. From this we understand that Davidset out onhis way in 1078. Abiathar tells us further that David was then twenty years old, which means that he was born in 1058, a year before his father tookill, and that he was four when his father Daniel b. Azariah died, in 1062. Hence, when he was about to arrive in Tinnis (15 November 1079), David was twenty-one. 175 [903] We have no information about David’s childhood and The Scroll of Abiathar: 559, b, lines 27ff, and continued on c; Bornstein suggested that bish na‘ar should be read: be-shirt‘iv, i.e. in Babylonia, see the SokolotvJubilee Volume, 48, n. 5. David’s letter: 532; Marx, JQR, NS 1 (1910/1), 74ff refers the interval of the three years to Elijah ha-Kohen’s death (November1083) mentioned in the Scroll shortly before that, andconcludes that Davidset out (fromIraq!) in 1081, arriving inEgypt onlyin 1083 (two years after his emigration, according to the Scroll); here he finds a contradiction between whatis said inthe Scroll and the marriagedeed of David’s wife, which hasbeen

THE JEWISH POPULATION AND ITS LEADERSHIP

adolescence. As we have seen, he was four when his father died, and we can surmise that it was his older brothers who raised him. We already know that Samuel b. Daniel, the eldest, was one of the leaders of the congregation inDamascus, according to a document dated October 1074, when David was sixteen.O r perhaps he was reared by his sister, for we know that Abii’l-Sari Barhiin, Daniel b. Azariah’s son-in-law, evidently lived in Damascus as well. It is therefore likely that David grew up in Damascus, and left there, as we have seen, in 1078, at the age of twenty. Palestine was then under Turcomanrule, as was Damascus. It appears that the yeshiva was already in Tyre then.We haveno idea whether, on setting out on his way, David already harboured the intention of struggling for the leadership of the Jewish diaspora. One could assumefrom the fact that he spent two years in a comparatively out-of-way place such as Damira, that this was not the case, and that onlyin the course of his stay in Egypt did this ambition awaken within him, the impulse being in aroused him by others as well. David remainedin Damira fortwo years after reaching it in 1078, probably close to thebeginning of the year. He stayed with a Damascene who had settled there (undoubtedly one of the close friends of David’sfamilyin Damascus), Masliah b. Yefet b. Zub‘a.Davideven became engaged to his host Masliah’s daughter, Abiathar tells us. We know that Masliah was one of two brothers,sons of Yefet, and that his brother’s name was ‘Uthmiin. In November 1079 David left the home ofhis benefactor (and also of his fiancee) and abandoned Damira. We may assume that his departure was preceded by asort ofcampaign to winover the devotees of thehouse of the Ilesi’im, as well as those who cherished the memory ofhis father,Daniel b. Azariah. There is some indication of this in a record of evidence before a court in Alexandria from 14 May 1079, written by Hillel b. ‘Eli, who afterwards became one of David’s chief supporters. We find here the evidence of Muvhir (nlukhtiv in Arabic) the elder b. Sedaqa, who is apparently identical with Mukhtir al-‘AFtZr (perfume dealer), father of Sedaqa (i.e., the grandson of the former Sedaqa), apparently one of the wealthy men of the time, who conducted business in Tyre, Fustat and preserved, in which it says that they were married in Fustat in 1082! He tried to extricate himself from this complication by suggesting reading ‘six’ instead of ‘three’ in the Scroll, that is, that he set out on his way in 1078 and reached Egypt in 1080. Bacher claimed (illogically) that if David really set out in 1081, and was then aged twenty, as the Scroll states, he could not have been Daniel b. Azariah’s son, for thelatter died in August1063: Bacher, j Q R , 15(1902/3). 86. n . 6; there he differs utterly with the (correct) opinion of Schechter, the first editor of theScroll, that the Davidof theScroll was theson ofDaniel b. Azariah, see Snadynna, 81; see also the reservations ofCohen, Se!f-Governrnerzt, 186, n. 18. regarding my chronological reconstruction,reservations which I consider unjustified, as they arefounded on the (incorrect) claim that it was not DavidDaniel b. who wrotethe additional part in 532.

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Palestine, and was afterwards granted the title ‘haver’ by David. MuvhZr states inhis evidence that ‘Imran and Ezra, sons of Bashir b.Nahum, who were adversariesof Daniel b. Azariah and had even been excommunicated by him previously, were having a stormy argument with Muvh5r in the foyer of the house of a certain Za‘im al-Mulk, pouring vile curses on Daniel’s head. We may assume that this evidence (seventeen years after the death of Daniel b. Azariah!) was somehow connected with the manner in whichDavid, his son,organised his followers,andperhapseven expressed the desire to win his approval.176 [904] David reached Fustat near the close of theyear 1079, and therehe was warmly welcomed by Mevorakh b.Saadia (the Nagid)and the sonof David’s aunt (his father’s sister), whom we already know as Abii SZ’d Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azariah. The Scroll of Abiathar mentions the breaking off of David’s engagement to the daughter of Masliah b. Yefet.Thisoccurred on Purim, evidently in the year AM 4841, or 26 February AD 1081. At the instigation of his cousin Josiah ha-Kohen, he afterwards married ‘the daughter of the prince of thetime’. The marriage deed of thiswoman has been preserved in the Geniza and we learn from it that her name was NZshiya, that she of Moses came from a Karaite family, and that she was the daughter ha-Kohen b. Aaron. The date ofthe marriage deed: 23 Shevat 1393 Sel., Sunday 15January AD 1082, that is, less than a year after breaking offhis engagement with his fiancee from Damira. Fourteen people signed the marriage deed, among them Ezekiel ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli (who is ‘Eli haKohen the Jerusalemite, b. Ezekiel, the well-known parnas); the cantor and scribe Hillel b. ‘Eli; Abraham b. Isaac ha-Talmid; and of particular interest, Abiathar’s cousin, Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph av-bZt-dCz, who afterwardswas also a signatoryon a documentfrom David’scourt. Apparentlytherelationshipbetweenthe two cousins,Solomonand Abiathar, was marred for some reason. As to the father of the bride, Moses ha-Kohen b.Aaron,‘princeofthetime’,hewasoneoftheKaraite notables and wealthy men of Fustat. In his daughter’s marriage deed,he is 176

O n Masliah b. Yefet, the Damascene in Damira, see: Goitein. Eretz-Israel, 8(1966/7), 288f. The document fromAlexandria: 531; Sedaqa he-haver b. Mukhtar, see the deed of partnership to which he is a party, in the handwriting of David b. Daniel: 541, autumn 1086; seeSedaqa b. Muvhar in the HebrewIndex. O n the life of Davidin Fustat, see the Scroll of Abiathar: 559, c, lines 5ff. A special relationship may have grown between David and the‘Babylonian’ congregation in Fustat, as one can deduce from whatis said inT S 10 J 7, f. 10, a document whichcontains a description of theaffair of Wuhsha,a woman who gave birth out ofwedlock, see: Goitein,]QR Atlrliversary Volume, 241f; in lines 10-11 it is said that she went to the synagogue of the ‘Babylonians’ on the Day of Atonement, and when the nislsaw her, he threw her out. This occurredin about 1080, probably Davidb. Daniel being referred to, as isalso assumed by Goitein, A4editerrunean Society, 111, 280, 489, n. 19.

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called ‘banner of the Jews andjoy oftheir splendour’. In a Karaitememorial list,he is called ‘our crown, diadem of our heads . . . the honourable, mighty and noble prince’. This marriage seems to have been contracted with an eye to thepublic. Apparently there was support for the exilarchic family among theKaraites. As we have seen, similar thingswere also said in the Scroll about Daniel b. Azariah, ‘he thatwas supported by thesect of the ,-ela”, and it seems that the marriage of his son was an indicationof this same connection. David’s marriage thus took place slightly more than two years after his arrival in Fustat.Inthecontinuation,Abiathar’sScroll describes briefly the quarrel which broke out between David b. Daniel and his cousinandbenefactor,Josiahha-Kohen. It is not accidental that David’s rival, Abiathar, speaks respectfullyofJosiah ha-Kohen and ofhis father Azariah as well. There could be no more likely reason for this quarrel than Josiah’s rejection of the idea of a rebellion against the Palestinian yeshiva.’l [905] The riftbetweenDavidandtheNagidMevorakhb. Saadia becomes understandable when seen against the same background, that is their attitude towards the Palestinian yeshiva, for the physicians sons of Saadia were closely connected with the priestly family which headed the Palestinian yeshiva at that time. The dispute between David ,and Mevorakh first brokeout,itemergesfromthe Scroll,after 1082, andit immediately took on a severe turn, with the consequent need for the intervention of the rulers. In his Scroll, Abiathar points to three stages in the dispute: the expulsion of Mevorakh to the Fayytim for one year; the permission granted him to return to Lower Egypt, to Alexandria; his and return tohis post. Thereis not theslightest hint in the Scroll as to thecause of the dispute; to the reader of the Scroll at the time, however, this silence in itself was proof of the fact that the dispute stemmed from the struggle 177

The breaking-off of the engagement and the marriage: 559, c, lines 7fc according to what is saidthere, Davidsent theget, the deed ofhis breaking offthe engagement, via Sedaqa b. Nufay‘, who is evidently the son of Solomon (Salama) b. Saadia (Sa‘id) b. Saghir b. Nufay‘, mentioned in letters in my collection, see the Hebrew Index;see the appellation of b. Nufiy‘ in 602, b, and cf.: Goitein, BJRL, 54(1971/2), 100, n. 1. Document 602 is a letter from Sedaqa. writing from Tyre tohis father on 28 October 1090. We finddetails about Sedaqa b. Nufay‘, the envoy of David b.Daniel, and about his father, in a short letter in the handwriting of Hillel b. ‘Eli, saying that they were people who needed aid from the charity chest. Hillel writes to ‘a/-pnrnis al-rte’ernin re,ttry (the trustworthy and beloved one) of the yeshiva‘ asking for help for the two, ‘since they are of the town’s poor people’. See: TS NS J 294. Also Abii’l-Khayr ha-yer (the proselyte; Abii’l-Khayr, which is correct, not Benal-Khayr, as in the Scroll of Abiatharin its extantversion), is mentioned there in the continuation (see irtfia, sec. 905), and also in the Geniza fragment: TS 8J 24, f. 7, a, lines IOff: ‘As soon as you read my letter, give Zayn b. Abii’l Khayr ha-gzr forty rnmns of cedar resin’. It is a fragment ofa merchant’s letter dated ca. 1100. The marriage deed: TS 24.1, edited (in part) by Schechter,JQR, 13(1900/1), 220f. O n Moses ha-Kohen b. Aaronsee: Mann,Jews, I. 176f, 187,n. 2, 188; see alsothe memoriallist:TS 8 K 22, f. 2, b, illid., 11, 21 1; see also Goitein, hlediterranenn Society, 111, 136, 456, n. 95,who notes that

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for the leadership of the diaspora which had begun to forge ahead. The man whohelped David getthe Nagid Mevorakh out of his way is said to have been a certain Ben al-Khayr nl-gev (the proselyte). We have noidea who this proselyte was. As noted above, his correct by-name was Abu’lKhayr, afrequent k t q a among the Jews during period. that The family of Saadia, who wereclose to therulers, probably had quite a few opponents and even enemies. Abiathar had already written to theFustat parnas ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, some ten years before the dispute began (14 November 1071)’ telling of his anxiety for the Nagid (then Judah Saadia): b. ‘Let there be deliverance for our Nagidand may theLord’s will save him distress which hadbefallen from all terror’. Herethere is a clear hint of the Judah b. Saadia. From here onward, AbiatharenumeratesDavid b. Daniel’s deeds, aberrant in his opinion, in the period from 1082 through 1094, twelve years in which he apparently enjoyed the unwavering support of the Jewish leadership in Fustat and the other communities of Egypt and its surroundings, and apparentlyalso that of the authorities. Many letters and documents written by David Daniel b. havebeen preserved in the Geniza. A formula which is repeated in some of them is, ‘and may your wellbeing, our dear one[or,ourhonourable one] increase’ [or, ‘increase forever’], together with the ‘alirna, yeshii‘i. Some ofthem bear the heading ‘son of the exilarch’. In others, he calls himself ‘David the nisi b. Daniel the nisi and Gaon’. According to the Scroll, he was given to bullying the cantors and even punishing them by flogging. Some letters also provide evidence of David b. Daniel’s manner ofimposinghis dominion over the cantors and the slaughterers, such as his Arabic letterto Aaron the cantor, who is evidently ‘Aaron the rn~mhZand cantor b. Ephraim of Zoan’, that is, of Fustat. He informs himthere of the banning of a father and son (the father’s name is Saul) for some sin they committed with regard to the slaughtering; the cantor is therefore asked to publicise the matter and to renew the ban until they mend their ways. David ruled in Alexandria (N6’ Amm6n), in Tinnis (‘the Isle of VarlZs’), in Damietta (‘the Isle of Ka$Ov’) and in Fustat (Shajiv niliis), and collected taxes from all these communities, apractice previously unheard of. These taxes, mentionedbyAbiathar in his Scroll, evidentlycame from the money for the slaughtering which previously had been set aside for the Palestinian yeshiva. We are well aware of the fact that David dominated the legal system and established his own court. A draft of a deed of partnership in his handwriting, datedElul AM 4846, that is AugustSeptember AD 1086, has been preserved. The deed deals with a partthe dowry amounted to an enormous sum, some 900 dinars. The quarrel with Josiah ha-Kohen: 559. c, lines 9-1 1. and see also ibid., line 6.

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nership between Sedaqa he-haver b. Muvhar (Mukhtar) and the Jerusalemite Nethanel HibatAllah b. Yeshii‘a, an expert weaver.178 [906] Another letterwhich bears witness to David’sauthoritative 178

The rift with Mevorakh:559,c, lines 1lff. Abu’l Khayr, see the previous note.Abiathar’s 559, letter: 547,a, upper margin,lines 10ff. The process of dominating the communities: c, lines l5fc d, lines 1-4. The letters of David b. Daniel are collected in my corpus, 532-543; amongthewritingsinthe Geniza, thereare additional documents in the handwriting of David b. Daniel. Also in 532 is the characteristic greeting ‘and your well-being, dear one, shoudincrease’, this being further proof that Daviddictated it and added some lines, which are certainly in his handwriting. Cohen, SelflGovenzment,191, notes thathe assembled sixteen documents which mention David, calling him by thetitle nasi, see ibid.,in the note. The deed written by David Daniel: b. 541.To Aaron thecantor: 538.Cohen, ibid., 198, hastened to reject the identityI suggested (Gil, Peviqir-n,58) for the writer of six of theletters (included in my collection), namely David b.Daniel; he bases his claim on the comparison of the signature of in David 540 and the writing 538, of which in his opinion are not from the same hand; but he is undoubtedly mistaken, evidently because ofthe difference in the shapeoftheghmel. Onecannot makedecisions on matters ofhandwriting on the basis ofsignatures alone, for these are sometimesdifferent from the usual handwriting; as to thegimmel, David was in the habit of writing inittwo ways, and both can be seen in his letter 536;the influence of thepen on the handwriting shouldalso be taken into consideration,and David used pens of varyingthickness. To the documents written by David, TS 20.162 should be added, which is the draft (or copy) of a court document concerning an inheritance, in which the first nineteen lines are in David’s handwriting (a hurried and careless handwriting), after which Hillel b. ‘Eli continued (evidently due toDavid’s obvious nervousness).David’s identity can also be felt from the contents and style ofhis letters: 533,an invitation to one of people the of Fustat to take the trouble and appear before him; 534, in which he agrees to meet with some unidentified person, whilehe himself is staying withAbii’l-Barakat. who swears he will not let him go out ofhis house; 535,advising someone not tobe bitter; 536,an episode of twogirls, one too young to marry who is an orphan, and the other also too young, but her father married her off, hence the marriageis valid; 537, instructions to a par& to execute the payment of alimony to the divorcee a certain of Abu’l-Baqi’ Samuel, fortheir daughter; the payment will be made by Abii’l-Ridi Solomon b. Mevorakh (cf. on him: Goitein, Slzalern, 3[ 1975/6], 95 [ = ha- k’ishuo, 173). The matter of 542 is very clear, which is a fragment from the opening ofa letter in the handwriting of David b.Daniel; the style is lofty: ‘wewish you much peace, we, our scholars and our judges whosit before us, and the Cherethites and Pelethites (2 Sam., xv: 18; meaning - according to the midrash- the Sanhedrin!), for, by the grace ofthe God ofDavid, our father (i.e. King David),we are at peace’. He further thanks God, ‘who lifted up our heads against our enemies, to smite through theloins of them who rise against us, to beam down ourfoes‘ and see the notes to this fragment, cf. Scheiber, Ada Ovierztalia (BP), 17(1964), 219, n. 5; 539, to vabbi%i (Nehorai b. Nissim?), abouta family quarrel between Mufarrijb. Sulaymin and his wife, with the brother-in-law intervening. The two consider divorcing and David asks the addressee to summon them to the court; from line 4, it emerges that David livesin al-Qihira, not in Fustat; 543 is a letter of condolence from David toAbu’l-Munii, on the death of his uncle, his father’s brother; this Abii’l-Muna is perhaps David’s aide and representative, mentioned in the letter of Tobiahha-Kohen b. ‘Eli of Biniyis,Bod1 MS Heb b. 13, f.15, margin: ‘we have learned from Muslims who arrived from Ascalon that Abii’l-Muni, the servant of our Master, has arrived in Ascalon’. Another letter with the heading ‘Davidsonofthe exilarch’ was preserved in the Geniza collection in Paris (Consist. isr. VI1 A 39). but it has been lost (according to information from the Director of theLibrary of theAlliance israClite universelle in Paris, from 18 April, 1978); see: Schwab, RE], 64(1912), 120. Two brief letters written by David b. Daniel, 536a, in characteristic style, addressed to Nehorai b. Nissim, deal with 536b, his

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methods is from the‘Rav’, Judah ha-Kohen b. Joseph, the spiritual leader of the Maghribis in Egypt, to Nehoraib. Nissim. The writer tells Nehorai that David b. Daniel had demanded that the cantor Hillel b. ‘Eli inform Nehorai that an excommunication ofJoseph b.Eleazar al-Hariri (‘the silk merchant’), of Tinnis, who calls himself haver, was to be proclaimed. The reason for this was that David had learned that this man has been calling for prayer for the well-being of someone whom the authorities havenotrecognised as ‘head’. Obviously,themaninquestion was Abiathar ha-Kohen; his name was being mentioned in the prayer, as was customary in the synagogues in Egypt with regard to the Palestinian Gaon. This was a custom which David b. Daniel naturally tried to root out, for he was the ‘head’ from then on and it was his authority that should be mentioned in prayer. For the time being, various people intervened in the matter and obtained David’s agreement to postpone the excommunication until Josephb. Eleazar answered the warning letter that was written to him. Therefore, the‘Rav’ writes, the proclamation of the excommunication had to be postponed. Indirectly, we learn how great was David b. Daniel’s influence on mucholder, experienced and respected men, such as ‘the Rav’ and Nehoraib. Nissim, despitehis youth and lack of experience. This undoubtedly expressed their adherence to theideal David stood for, as they saw it: the unification of the entire nationand the entire diaspora, around a scion of the House of King David. We have a comparatively largeamount of information fromAscalon, which ties in with the details quoted by Abiatharin his Scroll. According to the Scroll, David controlled the communities of Ascalon, Caesarea, Haifa, Beirut, and Jubayl. And here we find Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, leader of the community in Ascalon, writing (in Arabic) to ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim inFustat,askinghim to find some fine fabric, woven ofsilkand cotton, for special a outfit for the nasi. The weave would cost 42 dinars. Two dinars had been received from thepeople of Fustatas their donation; the remainder would be collected from donations from the people of Ascalon. Nathan prays to God‘that he glorify the leadership of the nation by [lengthening] his days [ofDavid] and enabling himto see the days of Redemption’. This seems to be more than theusual ornate phraseology. In another letter, written by Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh for another Ascalonian, Abraham b. Halfon, on 3 November 1090, one can feel, beyond the compexities of local politics, the extent ofDavid’s influence on the communities. It is he who appoints dayyanim and cantors or help for twoneedy people, one whose nameis Wahb and theother’s Samuel the cantor and mcvin (probably court assessor). From these we can also see to what extent David controlled his followers in Fustat.

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dismisses them without much ado. It seems that in the fervour of his control over Ascalon and the other coastal cities mentioned above, David and his tetainers also used the pretext that Ascalon was actually not part of Palestine. The answer to this claim was written by Shelah ‘the sixth’ b. Nahum, in a draft of a letter to Ephraim Abii’l-Khayr. He has discussed the matter with the Gaon,he writes, who utterly refutes this opinion, on the basis of specific passages from theBook ofJudges and Chronicles and by analogy with the other coastal cities and even with Jerusalem, which was only conquered in the days of King David. 179 [907] In another letter, apparently written in the autumn of 1092, for Daniel is already called there ‘our Master the Exilarch’ (the timing of this title shall be discussed below),Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh mentions two notables in Ascalonwho sent giftsto sayyidni vOsj2 ha-gda: 4l/3 vu& of wax and green dates. David did not confirm their receipt; therefore the donors are worried, as is the community, for they assumed that he had refrained from writing to them because he believed the Gazans living in Ascalon, evidently refugees from the Turcomans’ invasion, who were slandering them. The communitythreatened to remain in their homes and not to go to the synagogue (a form ofprotest which was customary among the Jewish communities, and in Ascalon in particular; there are characteristic examples of this in the Geniza). In another fragment in the handwriting of Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, the appointment of a cantor from among theGazans is mentioned, Ibrahim b. Khalaf, who was not at all suited to this position, hence they asked ofthesayyidnaal-ncisito appoint another. This appears to be the onset of the enmity between the Gazans and the local people. In another fragment written by Nathan, he also mentions the sayyidni al-nisi, and there he speaks of the closing of the synagogue, evidentlyas a result of this internal quarrel. In a letter hewrote on 26 October 1093, to ‘Eli ha-Kohenb. Hayyimin Fustat, Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh apparently began to rid himself of some of his public functions. It is obvious from the letter that he had been David’s most trusted retainer in Ascalon for some years, but he had had to endure many hardships, while many hated him because ofhis status. Evidently, in order to embellish the phrase, he adds that he bears no grudge against The letter of ‘the Rav’: TS 12.657; see the Englishtranslation in Goitein, Letters, 173f; see idem, Mediterranean Society, 11, 332. Cohen (ibid., 108, 176) assumes that it refers to public prayers for the persecuted Nagid, Mevorakh b. Saadia. The domination of Ascalon and other communitiesin the coastal area: 559, c, lines 18-20. Nathan ha-Kohen’s letter: 585; see the prayer in the margin right, lines 7ff. Abraham b. Halfon: 584. Shelah b. Nahum: 550; Abc’l-Khayr is perhaps identical with the person the surviving version of the Scroll refers to as ‘Ben al-Khayr the proselyte’, see 559, c, line 12, and note 177, above.

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David; on the contrary he is convinced that he has done his best for his communities. 180 [908] From what has been said, it is clear that David had no desire to replace Abiathar in the leadership of the Palestinian yeshiva, which was then in Tyre. From the very outset, he denied the superiority of this institution and its authority. The status of exilarch was what seemed to him the appropriate status for the leadership of the diaspora, now that it was decreed that the Palestinian yeshiva was to be in exile, and the Jewish population in Palestine was being threatened with extinction because of of both the Turcomans and the the unceasing warfare and the ruthlessness Arabs. It was the exilarch, the embodiment of the regal concept of the exiled House of King David, from the time of Jehoiachin and onward, who would inaugurate changes in the nation’s conditions in the diaspora and perhaps evenlead to theawaited complete redemption. David did not start to call himself exilarch immediately. For some twelve years after his arrival in Egypt, he was content with the title nasi which his father had borne, while at times (apparently mainly during the first years) he called himself ‘sonof theexilarch’. A letter dealing with the transfer of money to the Jerusalemites from the rent from the house in Fustat, which was a foundation (heqdesh) for their welfare, dated 4 Adar I1 AM 4845, that is 3 March AD 1085, bears the signature ‘David the nasi b. Daniel the nisi Gaon’; in Tammuz 1399 Sel., July AD 1088, in the court of ‘our Master David ha-nasi the great niisi of all Israel’ a deed of evidence wasdrawn up; on 23 Iyar 1400 Sel., thatis 6 MayAD 1089, in a court document written in Fustat, David is called ‘. . . our nislDavid thenisi of all Israel’. In the draft of a record of evidence concerninga divorce, written by Abraham b. Isaac ha-Talmid and bearing the date Monday, 26 Marheshwan 1403 Sel. (10 November AD1091), itis stated: ‘David the great nZsiv6shgiiliiy6t [head of the diasporas] of all Israel, may our God destroy his foes, son of his honour, his great Sanctity, our Lord and Master Daniel, the great niisi, head of the yeshiva Ge‘on Ya‘aqov, may he rest in peace’. In a record of evidence written on ‘Monday,25 Kislev’, a date which in that period was possible only in AM 4852, that is 8 December AD 1091, it says it was written in ‘the council of the Grand Court sayyidnii of ha-niisiha-@do2 nesi gdtcyot (our Lord the greatrzasi, niisiof the diaporas)of all Israel, may his glory increase’. ‘80

The gifts from Ascalon: 587; cf. also what is said in the letter of another Ascalonian, Abraham b. Halfon: 584 a, lines 20-21, that the communitythreatens to remain in their homes if a certain appointment is imposed on them; also 595, lines lOff; cf. Goitein, Mediterrurzearz Society, 11, 65. The appointmentof the cantor: MosseriI1 124.1 (L 126), see in Cohen, Shulem, 3(1980/81), 103f.The closing of the synagogue:ENA N S 63, f. 16, in Cohen, ibid., 105. Giving up public functions:586. Another fragment in the handwriting

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The next document at our disposal is dated 12 February 1092. It isa deed written by David’s aide and scribe, the Maghribi Abraham b. Isaac haTalmid, and drawn up in the court ‘appointed by the Grand Court, may Heaven preserveit, ofhis honour, his great Sanctity,our Lord and Master David, thegreat nisi, v6sh gilfiyot of all Israel, son of our Lord and Master Daniel the great nisi, head of the yeshiva Ge’Gn Ya‘aqGv, may he rest in peace’. The validation of thedeed waswritten by Davidhimselfi ‘this deed was validated before us in the Grand Court ofLord our David the exilarch, son of our Lord Daniel, Gaon and rziisiof all Israel’. Among thesignatories, we find Abraham b. Shemaiah he-haver, great-grandson of Shemaiah Gaon, and ‘Ula ha-Levi b. Joseph (the parniis from Fustat). Again, curiously enough, we find Abiathar’s cousin, Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph av-het-dFn, signing this deed, in the company of Abiathar’s rival, David. At this point, I may summarise and say that David’s decision to be called exilarch was made in theautumn of1091. Close to that time, apparently, Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh alsowrote his letter dealingwith thegifts to sayyidni v6sh ha-gdi, which I have already mentioned. This was also how he addressed David in a letter written about a year anda half later, on 26 October 1093, while on 13 November 1090 he was still calling David sayyidrzi a l - t ~ i s l . ’ ~ ~ [909] In the autumn of1093, David triedto extendhis authority to Tyre. In theScroll of Abiathar, we aregiven to understandthat a sort of assembly of Rabbanites and Karaites (bene ‘Cnenii) took place jointly in Tyre on theeve of RGsh ha-shana, 23 September 1093. Near this date,we find a deed of betrothal written in Fustat on Sunday, 12 Kislev 1045 Sel., that is 4 December AD1093. It is written by Abraham b.Isaac ha-Talmid ‘in the court which was appointed by the House of the vZsh giltrti, may of Nathan ha-Kohen of Ascalon,has been preserved: TS 8 J 39, f. 1, in which he sends regards to ‘his excellency, our Lord the Exilarch’, see in Cohen, ibid., 114. The letter from March1085:540. The record of evidence: TS 20.116; on the verso thereis a list of chattels and other details of a marriage deed, in the handwriting of David. The matter of the divorce: ENA 4020, f. 47r. Another fragmentfrom theGeniza in which heis called, ha-nasi ha-gad61 r6shgiiltry6t kol Israel, etc. is TS 8J 7, f. 4,the opening of aletter to him, in which the writer informs him that he has arrived in Alexandria. The court document: BM O r 5545, f. 7. Cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society,11, 523, n. 48. The record ofevidence: ENA 4010, f. 31 -dealing with the collectionofajoint debt in the nameofthe daughter of a deceased partner; the deed of partnership had been validated by ‘ra’s al-mathiba (head of theyeshiva)’Elijah ha-Kohenof blessed memory’, and was written in Tyre on apiece of paper that was cut from a letter dated 14 Kislev (that is eleven days earlier), whichwas sent from Alexandria and mentioneda shipment of ajarra zayt hula1 (a jar of kosher oil), perhaps for David b. Daniel. TS 20.162 is also connected with this matter, cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 111, 280, 489, n. 19. The deed from 12 February 1092: TS 20.31; a fragment of which was edited by Schechter, Saadyana, 81, n. 2 (the formula of the validation there is the usual one in deeds of the period, containing a confirmation of the identity of the witnesses, and there was no reason for Schechter’s amazement, ibid.); the form m i n i t i (Master) so-and-so was evidently commonly applied to the exilarch. Cf.: ‘at the gate (i.e.court) ofrniirtrtii David r6shgiiliitii’ (who is David b.

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Heaven guard him’. Apartfrom that of the writer, signatures the there are of Ezekiel ha-Kohen he-haver b. ‘Eli he-haver, of blessed memory (the fatherwas ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel, theJerusalem parniis), and ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. YahyZ (b. Hayyim, the Fustat parniis). Abraham b. Isaac ha-Talmid also wrote a court document dealing witha case of the marriage to a Nubian slave-girl in Ascalon, which was written on 23 Kislev, of the same year (that is eleven days after the former document), that is 15 December, where the formula is as follows: ‘David, [the great nisr, r6sh gZlfiy6t of all Israel, son of his great honour] and Sanctity, our Lord and Master Daniel’, etc; the reconstructionis beyond doubt.In the same hand, that of Abraham b. Isaac ha-Talmid, there is also a deed of dedication of a house in Damascus, to the synagogue there.The deed was also written in Fustat ‘in the Grand Court. . . of his great honour and Sanctity, our Lord and Master, David the great nisi-r6shgalfiy6t of all Israel’;however the date has not been preserved. In a letterof complaint sentfrom Tyre to David b. Daniel, to which weshall return below, he is called ‘our Lord, niklofthis nisr, v6sh ha-goli’; generation, r6shgZlfiy6t’; ‘our Lord and Master, the great and there is also a prayer that ‘he may be granted a worthydescendant’, from which we understand that David was still childless, after ten years of marriage. The formula sayyidni ha-nasi-ha-gidd r o s h g i l ~ y 6kol t Israel is also to be found ina letter from theJerusalemite Josephb. Moses, writing from Fustat to Yefet b. Eleazer in al-Mahalla. It is now quite clear that what weare witnessingis the formation oftwo competing centres of leadership struggling with one another - the exilarch in Egypt (whichhad not existed until then) and the Palestinian yeshiva, in exile in Tyre. If we look at the generalpolitical scene at the time,we shall find a strong connection between the political and military events and those dramatic developments occurring within the Jewish context and dividing the Jewish communities.The Scroll of Abiathar also hints at this link without saying anything explicit. states It the facts one after the other: ‘and Tyre was conquered’, which is clearly a hint at the Fatimid conquest of the city and the liquidation of the rule of the sons of thecadi Ibn Abi ‘Aqil in A H 482, which began on 6 March AD 1089. Jubayl, Sidon and Acre were also conquered at the time by the Fatimid army, bringing an end to Saljiiq control overthese cities. As David was dependant largely on the patronage of the Fatimid rullers,both he and his followers once again had great hopes that it would be easy to degrade the yeshiva, which had enjoyed the protectionof thecadi’s family inTyre. Thesehopes increased towards the end of 1091, and we have seen that at that time, David was already called exilarch. In Tyre itself, however, an entirely new situation Zakkai), see Harkavy, Teshfiv~jt,No. 555, p. 296. Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, the gifts: 587. October 1093: 586, a, lines 7, 12. November 1090: 584, a, line 13.

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arose for the time being, when theFatimid army commanderthere, Munir (or NaSir) al-Dawla al-Juyiishi, shook off the yoke of the central authorities, to thedissatisfaction of the local population. Only on12July 1093 did the Fatimid army suppress this local uprising, and it seems that as a consequence, David’s authority in Tyre was strengthened and he was pronounced exilarch thereas well, on the eve of RGsh ha-shana.lS2 [910] As to Abiathar ha-Kohen, who had now served as head of the yeshiva for someten years, it was certainlynot pleasant for him toremain in Tyre under Fatimid rule, and the same applied to all the people of the yeshiva. Nevertheless, it seems that the Fatimid authorities not did heavily interfere in public Jewish affairs in this region. As we have seen, contact with Egyptwas again discontinued as a result of therebellion of thelocal commander. On 4 July 1091, Abiathar was still in Tyre, writing letters from’there, from which it emerges that he was still holding on to his status. One of his letters was written toIsaac b. Samuel the Spaniard,one of thedevotees of the Palestinian yeshiva in Fustat.The bearer of the letter was Ezekiel ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli, of Jerusalem, whom we have already encountered. He travelled to Egypt in order to get help on behalf of the yeshiva: ‘weare all obliged to help those who areimpoverishedand destitute, the more so in the City of our Lord’. Jerusalem then became a key-word in Abiathar’s counter-propaganda. Indeed, Ezekiel left for Fustat immediately after reaching Tyre fromJerusalem. Another letter was sent to Baghdad in which the writer describes himself and his circle as ‘the geonic refugees of theland of Palestine’, referring to his brother Solomon ha-Kohen b. Elijah, Abiathar’s two sons, Elijah and Zadok, his son-in-law ‘Amram ha-Kohen b. Aaron ‘he-haver ha-me‘ulle the foundation of the yeshiva, ofJerusalem’. The letter deals with a matter ofhal@i and contains some details on thestate of insecurity. A largearmy is said to bestationed around Tyre. Thedistress returned with even greater severity, according to the Scroll, when ‘Tyre returned to normality’, ‘in the year 1404 Sel., that is AD 1093, when the Fatimid army suppressed the rebellion, in the summer, and resumed its dominion over the city. The link with Egypt was renewed, and with it, the oppression of the yeshiva, this time with greater vigour. N o w (presumably August1093) the emissaries of David arrived inTyre

*

The assembly in Tyre:559, d, lines 1-3; the year, 1404 Sel., is mentioned ibid., c, line 25. The deed of betrothal: TS 13J 2, f. 3; cf. Goitein, Mediterrarlean Society, 11, 528, n. 51. The Nubian slave-girl: TS Box Misc. 27, f. 23, edited by Friedman, Gratz College Annual, l(1972). 58f. Thedeed ofdedication: BM Or5566 B, f. 7, edited in Gil,Dorurnents, 214f. (No. 33, where I erroneously stated that it is the handwriting of Abraham b. Nathan), of The letter ofcomplaint: 603, a, lines5-6; c , lines 1-8; see in this letter the florid praises David and his forefathers, and the expression ofjoy that ‘he was prayed onas exilarch’. Joseph ha-Levi: TS 13J 19, f. 6.

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with the intention of inaugurating an order preferable to him among the communities of Palestine and Syria. The Scroll calls them ‘bums, vagrants,peoplewithissues,lepers, vile’. In Tyre,one of theenvoys attacked Abiathar directly: ‘and he dismissed the headof theyeshiva and put him under heavy pressure’. Abiathar calls him n6gZsh (oppressor). This emissary evidently exploitedhis master’s influencewith theFatimid authorities ‘and turned over the Lord’s people to the rulers’. These are very blunt statements, indeed. In addition, ‘he misinterpreted the Torah and was biassed in his judgment’, expressionswhichperhapshint at the connection between David’s emissary and the Karaites, a subject to which we shall return. This emissary also took over the court; ‘he pointed his tongue against many honourable people’ thatis, he acted as an informant to the authorities. He ‘put the children of the av of the yeshiva under pressure’, speaking of the family of Solomon, Abiathar’s brother, ‘until they were forced to flee their homes, to desert their nest, he made their Creator angry, prevented them from studying the Torah, and it was found that some of them met their death’ (this seems to be a reference to the confiscation of a house belonging to the family, placing severe blame on that emissary, as if he were responsible for a fatal incident within the family of Solomon, Abiathar’s brother. It also speaks of preventing the priestly family from teaching the Torah, which apparently meant from earning their living). A confirmation of these claims can also be found in the letter of ‘Amram ha-Kohen b.Aaron,Abiathar’sson-in-law, written in Damascusand evidently addressed to Zadok b. Josiah, which implies that they were undergoing terrible financial hardship. He intended to stay in Damascus in order to earn some money from the community there (apparently as a cantor, orscribe, or by collecting donationsor thelike), but the people of Damascus were under pressure because of the Jewish captives who fell into thehands of the Saljiiqs.Forthefirst four months, his incomewas minimal,buthedecidedtoremaininDamascus because ofthedire situation in Tyre and the dispute,as well as the straitened circumstances of his father-in-law, the Gaon. The letteralso includes the matter of a family squabble between the writer andhis wife and her father, concerning their son (the eldest, apparently).The family’s situation was very bad for they were obligedto sell the entire contentsof their house inTyre and ‘Amram had to see to the maintenanceof six souls. He demands that his eldest son come to Damascus,so that they may both set out for Egypt and from there to Ascalon, to find some means of livelihood. If his son is not sent to him, he will leave fora distant land and this will mean the end of the family. *83 183

Abiathar’s letters: 553; see especially a, lines 8-13; b, lines 17-21; c, lines 15-16. See the Scroll of Abiathar: 559, c, lines 19-25. On Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard,see what is said

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[911] We can identify the most eminentof Davidb. Daniel’s emissaries and even enlargeon some of their activities. ‘The oppressor’ of which the Scroll speaks (in its words) is Aviram b. Dathan. One can easily see who is behind these Biblical names: Aviram is none other than Abraham, Dathan is Nathan, hence he is Abraham b. Nathan, the son of Nathan b. Abraham, Solomon b. Judah’s rival, known to us from the dispute over the gaonate in Jerusalem. We know that this Abraham was the only son of Nathan. In a letter which he wrote to Nethanel b. Rawh, probably 1038 in while en route to Palestine, Nathan mentions him, implying that he was still a baby a t the time. In a letter he wrote from Jerusalem fourteen years later, in theautumn of1042, he mentions ‘our son Abraham’. We first read about himagain ina letter written some twenty years afterward by Labrat b. Moses ibn Sughmar of al-Mahdiyya, to Nehorai b. Nissim, in August 1061. We understand from the letter that among the Maghribicircles in Fustat, there is great admiration and respect for Abraham’s erudition and talent. We already know thatAbraham’s grandfatheron his mother’s side, Mevorakh b. ‘Eli, was one of the heads of the ‘Babylonian’ congregation inFustat,andhewouldstaywithhimwhenhevisitedEgypt,thus becoming acquainted with the Maghribis, whose notables (suchas Nehorai) wereamong the most eminent of ‘Babylonian’ the congregation.We find a deed of sale written in Jerusalem on 8 March 1066in whicha woman named Sittuna, daughter of Yefet, sells a quarter of twoshops, evidently in Ramla,to Abrahamb. Nathan. Thedeed of sale is in the handwritingof Abiathar ha-Kohen b. Elijah Gaon; the validation of thedeed was effected in Fustat, perhaps already after the Turcomans’ conquest ofJerusalem, and this is in the handwriting of Hillel b. ‘Eli, and also signed ‘Eli by he-haver b. ‘Amram. In 1076, Abraham was in Ramla and there signed a deed written on Wednesday, 8 Elul 4836, 10 August 1076: ‘Abraham b. R. Nathan av ha-yeshlvi, of blessed righteous memory.’ As we are aware, Palestine was then in the hands of the Turcomans. Some half a year later, Abraham is in Fustat, andon Thursday,3 Nisan Sel. 1388, that is 30 March AD 1077, we find him there signing a court document together with Abiathar ha-Kohen. It seems thatwhen David b. Daniel started to organise his faction, Abraham b. Nathan was among thefirst to join him,a fact we can easily understandwhentakingintoconsiderationtherivalry between his late father and the priestly family, whose son Abiathar was now head of the yeshiva in Tyre. The Scroll notes Aviram b. Dathan’s mission to Tyre to establish David’s authority there. We have also seen how, according to the Scroll, he maltreated the family of the Gaon. Some above, sec. 315, in the note. The letter of ‘Amramha-Kohen: 552; it is interesting thqt he wants to travel to Ascalon, which was definitely David b. Daniel’s sphere of influence, which may have been the source of the dispute between him and his wife’s family.

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of Abrahamb. Nathan’s letters from that period have been preserved. In one of them, written from Tyre to Nehorai b. Nissim, evidently, he complains about someone named b.Elhanan and heasks that the manbe excommunicated, as he is hindering him and causing his pesTq6t (the allowances) to dwindle. He has already complained about him tosayyidnti (our Master), undoubtedly meaning David b. Daniel. He also asks that letters of recommendation be sent from the central authority in Egypt (ktrttrb strlttiniyya). In another letter, evidently also written in Tyre, to the ‘Rav’, he complains about thetroubles caused him in the districts in which he is staying at the time (certainly Tyre and its surroundings), and cites an episode concerning a shop and the apartment above -itperhaps referring to therequisition hinted at in the Scroll at Abiathar. The thirdletter is also from Tyre, and was sent to Nehorai, evidently only in 1094, after the downfall of David b. Daniel. Abraham describes there his difficult circumstances after having backed the wrong side. He expresses his unhappiness at the resulting hardship he is enduring and his fear that there will be more to come. He also depicts in detail his economic distress and how he was forced to sell some ofhis quires and to squander money that had accumulated from rent (perhaps from the aforementioned houses in Ramla) whichhe had been receiving for a number of years. He asks about the possibility of moving to Egypt in order to find a livelihood there. There is also veiled news of gory events inTyre (probably in1093) and of the bitter fate of the Karaites (bene ha-sde‘ti) there, of whom only three remain. Further lightis shed on the eventsin Tyre and theactivities of Abraham b. Nathan there, in a letter from one of David b. Daniel’s followers, writing to David from Tyre, evidently in1093. The writer resents the fact that he has received no backing from al-vayyis Abii Ishaq; Abii Ishaq is a common kunya for Abraham and there is almost no doubt that he is referring to Abraham b. Nathan. O n the other hand, the writer complains, he helps the ‘Riim, the Ifranj (that is, the Jews who come from Byzantium and from Western European countries, whom he calls the Franks), and the proselytes’ (evidently Christians who converted to Judaism in Christian countries and found refuge Tyre). in Heprovides them withfasti’iq (the plural form in Arabic of theHebrew wordpes@, which means a regular allowance) and food, and even appoints them to posts. Eventually Abraham b. Nathan was reconciled with the adversaries of David b. Daniel, that is, Abiathar and the Palestinian yeshiva, and the Nagid. This is apparently borne out by a fragment of a letter from the Nagid, Mevorakh b. Saadia, to Abraham, from which it 1s only possible to make out that he is speaking of people from the Fayyiim and the mediation of some quarrel. It seems that through support from Nehorai and other eminent Maghribis, Abraham was given the positionofdayyan 765

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in al-QZhira, and he remained at this post until his death in cu. 1115. He merited a number of excellent titles: ‘yesod (foundation of) the yeshiva’, r&tz be rabbiinin (probably, head of the house of learning), v6sh hu-seder. 184 [912] According to the Scroll, Abraham had to flee from Tyre during the uprising of Munir (orNaSir) al-Dawla, and he returned there in 1404 Sel., thatis 1093, evidently in August,when ‘Tyre returned to normality’, that is when the Fatimid army suppressed Munir al-Dawla’s rebellion. Before returning to Tyre, Abraham managed to be active on behalf of David b. Daniel in N6’Amrn6n, which is Alexandria, and in al-Mahalla. When he returned to Tyre, he obtained a foothold in Acreas well and, as we have seen, he afterwards organised the great assembly in Tyre, at which he informed the people of Tyre of the decision taken in Fustat to proclaim David b. Daniel exilarch.In this connection the Scroll mentions his special relationshipto the‘sons of ‘onenii’, the Karaites. Above we have seen a description of their end inTyre according to Abrahamb. Nathan’s own letter. The proclamation of David as exilarch was made, according to Abiathar,withthe consent of two notables:Ibn Sa‘d (whichshould perhaps be Abii Sa‘d) al-RazzZq and Abii Nasr b. Shu‘ayb. For the time being, we do not know the identity of this al-Razzaq (or his son). If his kunya was AbiiSa‘d, it shouldbe noted that Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azariah, a relative of David b. Daniel, had thiskunya. However, we should bear in l*4

Aviram b. Dathan:559, c, lines 21, 25,29; Marx. PAAJR, 16(1946/7), 198, n. 71, already understood the meaning of these Biblical names in the Scroll, but did not attribute it to this Abraham b. Nathan,cf.: Cohen, SelfGoventmerzt, 123, n.76. Theletters ofNathanb. Abraham: 180, line 7; 200, line 3. Labrit’s letter: INA d55, f. 13, lines35-36; cf. Goitein, Tarbiz, 36(1966/7), 62f. The deed of sale: 544. The deed from Ramla: 568. Fustat in1077: ULC Or1080J 9. The letters of Abrahamb. Nathan:555-557. The complaint from Tyre: 603. The Nagid’s letter: TS NS J 131. 610, the letter of Tobiah ha-Kohen of Biniyis, contains informationon the plague inAH 505, AD 1111, when Abraham b. Nathan also fell ill but recovered (the Nagid, Mevorakh b. Saadia, alsofell ill of the plague and died from it); see on this plague Ibn al-Qalinisi, 181. For further details on Abraham b. Nathan, see: Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 11, 512 f. He was probably about eighty when he died. InTS 18J 1, f. 18, written in March 1116, Abraham b. Nathan’s widow confirms having received what was due to herfrom her husband’s property; cf. Goitein, Mediter‘aliima of ranean Society,111, 483, n. 45. In TS 8J 38, f. 11, a fragment ofa letter, we find the Nathan b. Abraham (and ofhis son Abraham), yesha‘ yeqiirzv, and ‘Abraham b. R. Nathan av-&&-dinof all Israel, of blessed memory’, is mentioned there;TS AS 145.8is a deed in the handwriting of Abraham b. Nathan, bearing his signature; ULC Or 1080 J 131is a fragment from the opening of letter a from Mevorakhb. Isaac, of Aleppo, to ‘the council of the splendour of the Torah and the arm of its magnificence, his great honour and sanctity, ourLord and Master Abraham, glory of the scholars, top of thelearned, son of his greathonour and sanctity, our Lord and Master Nathan, av-bet-dirt of all Israel’. TS 13 J 6, f. 21 is a letter from Manasseh b. Saadia, to ‘the council of our Master, crown and its deputy, diadem of our heads, the excellent Master, foundation of the yeshiva and great-grandson of his great honour and sanctity, our Lord and Master Nathan b. Abraham, ofblessed righteous memory’;cf. Mann, Jews, 11, 232 (its shelf-mark there:TS 13J 5, f. 21); nit1 here means son. TS 6 J 11, f. 8 is a fragment of a deed in the handwriting of Abraham with the remnant ofhis signature and also yesha‘ yeqirzv; TS 8 J 7, f. 11, is a

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mind that a quarrel brokeout between David and Josiah. As to Abii Nasr b. Shu‘ayb, also called Muslim (Meshullam) b. Shu‘ayb, heis mentioned in a letterof Daniel b. Azariah,from which it emerges that he was one of the eminent figures of the community in Tyre. Perhaps is ‘Meshullam, he known as ibn Shurayq al-Dimashqi’, who dedicates his house in Damascus to theheqdzsh before the courtof David b. Daniel in Fustat. When they learned that David b. Daniel was proclaimed exilarch, the devotees of the Palestinian yeshiva in Tyre organised an assembly of opponents, at which Zadok b. Josiah preached a sermon, which is preserved in the Scroll. Another emissary of David b. Daniel to Tyre was Hillel b. al-Jasiis (jasiis: spy).LikeAbraham b. Nathan,he also ill-treated Abiathar’s brother Solomon, and even tried to kill him! Only that: ‘the Lord saved him from his hands’ and ‘they [only] dispossessed him of his house and grounds’. Solomon andhis family had to flee to thedistricts of Asher and Naphtali (apparently Haifa and Tiberias). The ‘third’, Zadok b. Josiah, was also abused by this Hillel. We know ofthe latter that he was a pupil of Rabbenu Nissim. Maimonides mentions him in one ofhis responsa (not by the name ofHillel) and mentions ‘thebook he wrote onprayer’. At the same time,Sedaqa b. Nufay‘ is also to be found in the region of Tyre. TheScroll mentions himas having been helpful to David b. Daniel (he was thebearer of theget, the deed breaking off David’s engagement to his betrothed in Damira). In a letter written to his father on 28 October 1090, Sedaqa informs him that heis about to be granteda post in Jubayl, evidently on behalf of David b. Daniel. He intends to travel to Acre to collect a debt and then to return to Tyre, where he will wed an orphan from a poor family,whom hewill thenbring with him to Fustat. (Apparently the Fatimids still ruled Tyre in the autumn of 1090, and Munir al-Dawla had not yet rebelled against them.) Hillel b.‘Eli was also a member ofDavid b. Daniel’s retinue, apparently having become his scribe; he was staying there at the time the Fatimids took over Tyre. A draft of a letter has been preserved, which he wrote from Tyre to Mevorakh b. Saadia, the Nagid,after the victory ofAbiathar and Mevorakh, that is, apparently in the summer of 1094. It is obvious from the letter that Hillel had stayed in Tyre for some months prior to the victory. He describes the difficult days he endured in Tyre, where he witnessed a great deal of bloodshed. The major burden of the letter consists of his joy at Mevorakh’s return to his former status and vindicaa tion of his own behaviour, as he attempts toconvince the addressee that he had neverbeen one of David b. Daniel’s followers. H e calls the ruleof the confirmation that cheese being sent for sale is kosher, in his handwriting and with his signature, and yesha‘ yeqiirzv is also added here.

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Fatimids, the rule of righteousness, whereas the rebels were the forces of evil. Nevertheless, he admits to a modicum of error, ‘for is there a man who has not erred?’ and intends to come to Fustat and serve Mevorakh [which indeed occurred] - as he had promised his late brother, that is, Judah b. Saadia.185 [913] The subsequent events and the complete reversal in the statusof the Palestinian yeshiva and of Abiathar ha-Kohen, its head,is described at the end of the Scroll. The turnabout was naturally the result of Divine intervention, and the man who executed theofwill God was Mevorakhb. Saadia, the ‘Nagid of God’s nation, prince of princes, the might of the House of Israel’. ‘He assembledall of Israel’; in other words, it seems that indeed, an assembly of representatives of all the communities convened, which ‘restored thecrown toits original condition like in the days of Ezra their forefather, to be maintained in the hands of his progeny’. (That is to say, this priestly family claims descent from Ezra the scribe and priest, who was also one of the greatest sages of Israel.) Palestine and all the countries to its west returned to the authority of the yeshiva, including Syria apparently, although the name was not preserved in the manuscript. The change for the better in Mevorakh b. Saadia’s standing is already described in the first part of the Scroll. The ruler changed his mind and Mevorakh was reinstated in his former position: that is, he once more became, the physician at court. We may assume that both events, the return of Mevorakh the Nagid his to former high rank and ‘the restoration of the yeshiva’s crown to its former condition’ (and the deposal of David b. Daniel, aboutwhom wehave no detail from this point onwards), occurred within a very shortspan of time,as Mann also assumed. The date of what the Scroll calls ‘the miracle’ is Iyar 1405 Sel., that is, approximately May 185

The flight of Abraham b. Nathan from Tyre and his return, and the other matters concerning Tyre: 559, c, lines 25-30; d, lines 3 - 4 . Daniel b. Azariah’s letter: 347, a, line 10. The document of the heqdesh: BM Or5566 B, f. 7;perhaps that Meshullamis the sameas Meshullam b. Solomon, mentioned in the letter written by Daniel b. Azariah’s scribe: 383, line 8. ‘Naphtali’: see Mann, Texts, I, 249, n. 3: Rakkath in the portionof Naphtali, Joshua, xix:35; BT, Meg. 5b, 6a; ‘Asher’, see Joshua, xix:26: Carmel, the portion of Asher; on Hillel ibn al-Jasiis see Poznanski, Ht~rkavyJrbileeVolume, 183c Maimonides, Responsa, 11, 582, and see editor’s note 25; Jasiis al-Maghribi, evidently his father, is 1037. See further mentioned in80, a, line 24, whichis a letter of Solomon b. Judah from mention of the nameJisiis (Gasus) in Abramson, Nissirn Guon, in the introduction, 25; idem, ‘InyitlSt, 267. It should be read Gasiis in every instance, not Gasijm. The letter of Sedaqa b. Nufay‘: 602; it seems that the ruyyis mentioned there is not Abiathar as is the viewofGoitein, BJRL, 54(1971/2), 101, n. 5, but Abraham b. Nathan, for Sedaqa belonged to Davidb. Daniel’s camp.The late G.Weiss wrote his Master’s thesison Hillel b. ‘Eli, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1967, which includes fifty-seven documents written by ‘Eli in his own handwriting. Another Hillel, evidently his grandfather, was called ‘thegreatcantor,crown ofthe cantors,al-Baghdadi’. See: TS AS161.45, a fragment of a letter from the daughterof this Hillel (i.e., the auntof our Hillel) to her brother ‘Eli; the letter of Hillelb. ‘Eli: 558.

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1094. Evidently the change of heart is connected with the illness of Badr al-Jamdi, who handed over the affairs of state to his son al-Afdal in March or April, 1094. The friendship between the latter and Mevorakhis known from one of Geniza texts: ‘Mevorakh . .’. a Hebrew righteous and pious and physician and scholar and advisorto the king (thatis, to al-Afdal) . . . since his youth . . . and he gave him the title: prince of princes, and made him prince over all the children of Israel in his kingdom, and he cherished him enormously, and he becamelike a fortified wall for Israel’. Thus, the period of the worstdistress for Abiathar andthe priestly family lasted for some twenty months, from June 1093, when the Fatimids conquered Tyre, until April 1094, when al-Afdal became wazir in Egypt. A very interesting document has been preserved, which begins shortly before Davidb. Daniel’s downfallandends after it. This is evidence concerning the despatch of a deed of divorce, written in ‘al-Qahira, near Zoan of Egypt’, on Tuesday, 18 Shevat 1405 Sel., 7 February 1094, or two-and-a-half months before the collapse of David b. Daniel. The statement of evidence is followed by the validation, which is undoubtedly in the handwriting of David b. Daniel, without a signature, but with his ‘alama, yeshtr‘a. Further on, on the same sheet, we find an assessment written by ‘Amram ha-Kohen b. R. Aaron s.!. (s5jFlz tdv, ‘may he have a goodend’,indicatingthat his father is still alive) b.‘Amram greatgrandson-ofElijah ha-Kohen bet-dk. This ‘isAbiathar’s son-in-law ‘Amram, who,as we see, returned fromDamascus andwas reconciled with his family. He ridicules the formulation in which the evidence was written, especially the validation that figures there. Thiswas undoubtedly written a short time after the deposal of David b. Daniel in the summer of1094. Hence, we have a document which clearly reflects the Jewish public’s change of heart at that time. The reins of leadership and judgment were once again in the hands of thePalestinian yeshiva. 186 186

The reversal: 559, j , lines 7ff. Mevorakh b. Saadia returns to his former status: ibid., c, lines 14-15; see Mann, Jews, I, 187-193. AI-Afdal and Mevorakh, see ULC Add 3335, edited by Neubauer,JQR, 9(1897), 35C on al-Afdal’s appointment see: Ibn Khallikin, 11, 450: in the month of Rabi‘ I, 487, March-April 1094; Sawiriis, 11, 243 (and see the translation on p. 389); Ibn al-Sayrafi, 57f; Ibn Zifir, 17. The renewal of the connection between the house of the negidim and the Palestinian localities is obvious from 569, the letter from Joshua he-haver b. ‘Eli, who is in Caesarea from m. 1098, to Mevorakh b. Saadia, in which he asks for his help with the local rulers in order that he may move to Ascalon: ‘Ite-hiivCr ha-me‘ulli, sathedrii rtlbbii, alGjI1a-biit6t, Nagid ofGod’s nation, prince of princes, full of all wisdom, banner ofGod’s nation’. Also mentioned is his late brother ‘Judah the Nagid of God’snation’. The record of evidence: TS 28.5. T o the documents from the period shortly after David’s downfall, one should also add a court document which is torn into two fragments: Bod1 MS Heb b 13, f. 19, and .ENA 2805. f. 15. Abraham b. Isaac ha-Talmid is still writing court documents in his own hand; apart from his signature, there are those of Nissim b.R. Nehorai the Rav; Isaac ha-melammed b. R. Hayyim

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[914] O n 1 Tevet, December 1094 (apparently), eight months after the reversal, Miis2 b. Abi’l-Hayy Khalila, a business partner of Nehorai b. Nissim, wrote a letter of congratulations to Abiathar, in which he expresses his joy at the renewal of Abiathar’s status and appreciationof the backing he getsfrom the majorfigures in Fustat: the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saadia, Nehorai b. Nissjm and his son Nissim. Apart from the usual ornate phrases, such as ‘may God grant a crown to the nation through [preserving] your life’, and the like,we find details of thepraises which the Nagid pours forth regardingAbiatharand his brother,Solomon,the av-bet-dfrz. The letter, which was sent by Abiathar to al-Qahira, was read out in the synagogue there and in the synagogue of the ‘Palestinians’ in Fustat, and the congregations were delighted with it. The writer of the letter was one of the Maghribi merchants, and this also serves as evidence that the Maghribis had gone over to Abiathar’s side and had completely abandoned David b. Daniel. Evidently, the draft of a letter of condolence written two by people of Ascalon, HalfonandJoseph,to Abiathar’s son, Elijah ha-Kohen ‘the fourth’, in Tyre, also belongs to this period. The expression of condolence was over the death ofhis uncle, his father’s brother, Zadok ha-Kohen b. Elijah Gaon. In the letter, not only Abiathar is mentioned but also his grandson, son of Elijah ‘the fourth’, as well as ‘Amram ha-Kohen ‘the seventh’, Abiathar’s son-in-law. O n the verso, Abiathar’s brother, Solomon ha-Kohen, av of the yeshiva, is also mentioned. At about the same time, a query was addressed to Nehorai b. Nissim, evidently from Mal@, in which he is asked to give his opinion on the matterof a deed ofdivorcethat has goneastray;inthemeantime, however, the divorcer has died. The letter mentions applying to the aliif ha-binof (the Nagid Mevorakhb. Saadia), and to thehead of the Palestinian yeshiva, and suggests that they should look for documents on thedivorce in thearchives of the yeshiva; the archives are inTyre, however. The court in Acre is also mentioned in the letter. The events surrounding ‘themiracle’ are very inadequately explained in the sources at our disposal and the matter is still extremely obscure. We would particularly liketo know whether the change of heart was only due to the change of rulers or whether there was some internal factor which brought about thereversal. Did David b. Daniel fail as the result of some crude mistake, or did something happento him?Perhaps he was forced to flee from Egyptand seek refuge in one of the Christian countries, perhaps Byzantium? For the time being, we have no answers to these questions, Nufisi; ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. R. Yahy5. David b. Daniel is not mentioned any longer. The date is Tishri, 1406 Sel., that is, September-October AD 1094.

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for David has utterly disappeared from the sources, at the age of about thirty-six. [915] I shall now summarise the major points of the dispute surveyed above and try to give some meaningto their contents, principally on the basis of that extraordinary document, the Scroll of Abiathar. Naturally, this document reflects the spiritual and ideological world of its author, Abiathar ha-Kohen. The target of his fire is the exilarchic house. They are unsuited to serve as the leaders of the Jews. We find this idea at the beginning of theScroll, presenting the membersof that family as ‘sons of ‘onenii’, a hint of their linkage with ‘Anan and the Karaites, ‘forbidden idols’, ‘wicked people’ ‘disobeying the Torah’, ‘transgressors’, etc. The House of King David, from which theexilarchs claim descent, has profaned its tradition and majesty. This decline of the House of David had already occurred in the days of thecorrupt kings ofJudah, such as Ahaz, Manasseh, and thelike. The true son of David, the King Messiah, and was already born on the dayof the destruction of Jerusalem. Contrary toall this, the position of the priesthood is preserved in the leadership of the nation, according to the highest tradition. These arguments, with various additions, are repeated in the Scroll in the homily of ‘the third’, Zadok b.Josiah. Egypt is not agola (exile), and was never called gola, and there was never an exilarch in Egypt. The only place where the terms gola and vOsh goli were used was Babylonia, andthis has been true since the days of Nehemiah. This is followed by a homily on the verse: ‘the sceptreshall not depart from Judah’. The exilarch, true who is in Babylonia, has no authority in Palestine. Proof ofthis is the story of Rabba bar-bar Hana. Palestine is no gdii and it is impossible to ordain an exilarch there, evidently a hint that Daniel, David’s father, could not have ’8’

The letter of Miisi b. Abi’l-Hayy: 551; he is ‘Abii ‘Imrin, our Lord and Master Moses segullat ha-yerhlvi, sonof our MasterAbii’l-Hayy,ofblessedmemory’,in a court documentfrom 1089,inDavid b. Daniel’scourt: BM Or 5545,f.7. The letterof condolence: 554. The query to Nehorai:560; it seems that TS 13 J 8, f. 19 belongsto this matter (also in the view of Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 111, 1960, which is a letter containing complaints of Hayfa’ daughterSulaymin, of ofAcre, appealingto the hiver in Malij about her husband Sa‘id b. Mu‘ammar (Saadia b. Hayyim) al-Qazziz (the silk merchant), who abandoned her and their children; she was forced to flee from Acre to Jaffa, whence she reached Egypt, whereshe learned that her husband was in with Malijhis brother; but on arriving in Malij, she found thathashereturned to Palestine; her request is that the haver in Mal$ write toPalestine and demand that her husband either return to her and their son, or give her a divorce.A piyytrf ascribed to ‘David the Nisi’is perhaps the work of Davidb. Daniel, see Bod1 MS Heb f 56, f. 35v: ‘Woe to my soul, forI have so many complaints . . . therefore, instead of elevating me, He changed my honour into a of shame, and prescribed bitterness for ofa me,harsh kind, witha style ofiron, with pen ‘my anger is overcome by flint’, etc., verses of bitterness and disappointment; which end: pain, for I was inclinedto conflict’;cf. Mann.]ews, 11, 224c Davidson, Ogr, IV, 377; also belonging to David b. Daniel, are perhaps three piyyiitim from the Yemenite manuscripts edited by Razhabi, Tarbiz, 14(1942/3), 204ff.

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been an exilarch, because he sat in Palestine, in its yeshiva. There is also a hint here that it was improper for David to call himself ‘son of the exilarch’. The rtisi in Palestine is the one who has the right to decide on the calendarorder. T o prove this, ‘the third’ takes the trouble to survey in his homily the history of intercalation from the creation of the world on 25 Elul, and from the creation of the luminaries on the night before Wednesday (the fourth day), 28 Elul. The tradition of intercalation continues, inhis words, from Adam- Enoch - Noah - Shem (who is also the first of the priests, Melchizedek)- Abraham - Isaac. Jacob was at first not permitted the intercalation, as he was staying outside’palestine. Whenhe returned to Palestine he intercalated. Joseph and his brothers also intercalated, in Palestine. When they went down to Egypt, the intercalations diminished. Between Nisan and Tishri, Moses appointed the Sanhedrin. Moses, head of the Sanhedrin, knew the secret of intercalationpassed and it on: Moses -Joshua - the elders - Othniel b. Kenaz - Pinhas - ‘Eli Samuel - Gad - Nathan - Ahiah of Shiloh - Elijah - Elisha - Amos - Isaiah -Joel -Jeremiah and Zephaniah- Ezekiel and Baruch - Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi(who is Ezra the scribe,head of theGreat Assembly)- Simon the Righteous- Antigonos of Sokh6 - Y6se b. Y6’ezer ofSerEd5 -Joseph b. Yohanan ofJerusalem -Joshua b. Perahya and Nitai of Arbel -Judah b. - Shemaiah and Avtaly6n - Yohiinan b. Tabai and Simon b. Shattiih Zakkai, in whose day the temple was destroyed, in the year AM 4000 minus 172 (that is, AD 68). From Moses untilRabbiin Yohanan b. Zakkai, the secretof intercalation was only held by the head of the Sanhedrin, and so it has been up until the days of our holy Rabbenii (i.e. Judah ha-Nasi). For instance: Joshua b. Hanania didnot know thesecret of intercalation, although he wasav-bet-din of Rabban Gamaliel. In his desire to sum upall thatwassaid,Zadokagainstressesthe fact thatthecomputationof intercalation stretches from thesix daysof thecreation, from Adam. The nisi in Palestine is the one who decides on matters of intercalation, and Zadok explains: the nesi’im of Palestine but are the heads of its yeshiva. It was only since the scattering of the nation toa diaspora caused so many divisions, and the appearanceof ‘trespassers and ignorant youths’ (such as David b. Daniel, he implies), that the secret of intercalation had to be of our holy passed on to ‘all the sages and the Sanhedrin’, in the days Rabbenii; it is nevertheless the headof theyeshiva, that is, the headof the Sanhedrin, who maintains the prerogative to sanctify the year. a direct attackon theideas by which David The homily of ‘the third’ was b. Daniel sought to achieve the status of world leader of the Jewish communities everywhere, namely: (1) the unification around the living descendant of King David, during a period when Palestine was at a low ebb due tomilitary events and theSaljuqs’ domination of the Holy City; 772

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and (2) the depreciationof thePalestinian yeshiva and its special status, and the removal of thepriestly family from the leadership. The attack of the ‘third’ focuses on the prerogative to intercalate and to sanctify the year publicly, which symbolisesmore than anythingelse, the legitimacyof the Palestinian leadership. The claim of descent from the Houseof David, on the other hand,is absurd, for the entire dynasty of the exilarchs is utterly invalid and the true son of Davidis being kept with God until the right moment. The Karaites were another objective of the attack. Things weresaid not specifically but by implication. The Scroll mentions the connections between Danielb. Azariah and the‘sect of the +-eZa‘ ’; his son Davidproclaims himself exilarch in collusion with ‘the sons of ‘onens’, and with their support. Morethan that, David married the daughter of one of the Karaite leaders. It would not be too far-fetched, then, to assume that his aspirations were to bring the Karaites closer and that they already sided with him. He may even havebeen inclined to make seriousconcessions in their favour.Hisemissary,Abraham b. Nathan, who seems to havehada special relationship with the Karaites, ‘misinterpreted the Torah’. David himself is ‘an illiterate, who does not know the secret behind what hetried to take upon himself. . . nor does he know of what he is plotting to eradicate, whether itis a fundamental principleon which the entire Torah is depending or,as seen in the eyes of the fool and ignoramus thatis,he it is something trivial’. It seems that the reference is mainly to the calendar order, that is determining the beginning of the month according to the sighting of the new moon, and the leap year according to the aviv (the ripeness of the grain),as was the Karaite custom.This mayhave been the reason why the ‘third’ devoted a considerable part of his homily to this subject. In the main, hediscusses the matter forits own sake, as stated, and not only to establish proof of the authority of Palestinian the yeshiva. It is obvious that implicitly he sought to deny the Karaite argumentation on the subject of the calendar, and indirectly also to stifle the tendency to compromise with theKaraites in these matters. There is no doubtthat the extentof the dispute was very widespread and that it enthralled many communities. Today, it is difficult to envisage its extent and significance. The subject of theexilarchic house, of the strong feelings for thealleged scion of the House of King David and the struggle against the priestly family who happened to stand at the head of the Palestinian yeshiva at the time, all these had no meaning to subsequent One can still detect echoes of the generations - from then until the present. principles and ideologicalessence of the dispute in the twelfth century, but the matter ended there. Contraryto other subjects of principle pertaining to the religion of the Jews, which were entirely relevant throughout the 773

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generations,thesesubjectswerecompletelyerased fromthe nation’s conscience and even the researcher who studies theseworn pages needsto make aspecial mental effort in order to fully grasp theirenormous significance in those days. Although we must not hasten see the to movementled by David b. Daniel as a messianic one, there were in the struggle raging around it, the major elements of the polemics between messianism and anti-messianism, especially in the claim to the crown of the House of King David and in the denial of this claim. However,dowe not know whether the followers of Davidb. Daniel attributed messianic qualities to him or whether they believed that he was destined to bring about the redemption of the Jews in those times of war and sweeping changes. As we have seen, it seems that at any rate the outcomeof the struggle was not decided by ideological argument orsuccessful propaganda, but by entirely mundane circumstances. 188 The yeshiva, last pages

[916] Apparently, Abiathar ha-Kohen Gaon and the Palestinian yeshiva eventually had to leave Tyre behind, close to the time of the Crusaders’ conquest. Their move from Tyreis perhaps connected with the events of the autumn bf 1097 mentioned above. Afterwards, we find Abiathar in Tripoli. In a letter dealing with the messianic movement that was stirring in Salonika during the first crusade, a letter written by Abiathar to the community in Constantinople is mentioned. Was David b. Daniel perhaps involved in this movement? Unfortunately have we no details concerning it. A financial account written in Fustat in Shevat 1416 Sel., JanuaryFebruary AD 1105, recorded the transfer to Abiathar of ninety dinars, of which seventy-five were from goods which were sold, and fifteen from the income from the house in Fustat which was h e q d d z for the Jerusa188

See 559, a; b, lines 1-8. The homily: ibid., from d, lines 4ff, and see the notes there. The connection with the Karaites: ibid., b, line 9; d, line 1; the innovations of Abraham b. Nathan: c, line 22; innovations of David: 9, lines 20-21. The intercalation: d, lines 21fcf, lines 7ff. A delayed echo of thepolemics on the authority of the Palestinian yeshiva can be found in the letter of Daniel b. Hasdai, the exilarch in Baghdad, written in Tishri AM 4922 (AD 1161); according to him, there was an interruption in the chainof ordainings since the death of ‘our Master, our Nasi Daniel head of the yeshiva Ge’bn Ya‘aqbv, of blessed holy[qidbsh!]memory’;‘thekbhanimappointedafterhim[that is: Elijah, Abiathar] behaved light-heartedly in their ways’. His view is based on the claim that ‘since our ancient forefathers’ time, the Palestinian yeshiva had no rights in the land ofEgypt, for Egyptis foreign land, exactly like Babylonia’. Unlike Daniel b. Azariah, who was ‘in his generation like our holy RabbEnii’, those who followed him were intruders; see in Assaf, Tarbiz, 1 (3;1929/30), 68-77; cf. Mann, Texts, I, 230c idem, Jews, I, 190f, ascribed seeit, Texts, I, 255. It isinteresting these remarksto David b. Daniel, but he later rectified on that this disputestill continues in the ideological arena, in the twelfth century, whereas the other hand we see that they werestill copying the Scroll ofAbiathar at the time (see the introduction to 559).

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lemites. This documentis evidence of howextensive the financial aid was that was being sent to theyeshiva. The money was intended for‘his great honour and Sanctity, our Lord and Master Abiathar ha-Kohen, head of the yeshiva Ge’6n Ya‘aqov’. It is not clear where a deed for alimony dated September 1102 was written, except for the fact that it was ‘in the council of the Grand Court’,which is in thehandwriting of ‘Amramha-Kohen, Abiathar’s son-in-law. The name ofthe city has not been preserved, only the words ‘thecity situated on the shore of Great the Sea’, and one can fill in Tyre or also Tripoli: Sinim). We do not know the date of Abiathar’s death. But we do know that he died before the end of 1112, for in a letter to his son Elijah, written on ’13 Marheshwan 1424 Sel.’, Monday, that is 4 November AD 1112, it refers to him ‘of blessed righteous memory’. From this point onward, news of the yeshiva shrinks to what is contained in two letters. The one, from which a fragment remains, is from Abiathar’s successor to the gaonate, his brother Solomon, son of Elijah. It deals with the affairs of an abandoned wife. It is dated 23 February 1116, and was sent to ‘Ula ha-Levi b. Joseph in Fustat. This ‘Ula, who was a well-known parniis in Fustat, was appointed a sort ofrepresentative of the yeshiva in Fustat. The other letter was written byMeir ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli to his brother Tobiah in Egypt. This was a family from Biiniyis, known usto mainly from the letters of Tobiah ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli. The date of the letter is the beginning of September 1127, that is eleven years after the former letter.WelearnfromitthattheGaon (who isMazliah ha-Kohen b. Solomon) is in Fustat (‘our Master Gaon’ is mentioned in the letter a number of times); possibly this is the first mention ofthe Gaon stayingin Fustat, indicatingthe transfer of theyeshiva. Both lettersspeak of Hadrak: Solomon ha-Kohen marks the end of his letter with the words ‘Hadrak Syria’, indicating thathe writes from there and thatthe yeshiva was then in Hadrak. Meir ha-Kohen b. ‘Eli also ends his letters with ‘Hadrak,Syria’, from which we learn thatthe yeshiva moved from Tyre to Hadrak. Where is Hadrak? It is mentioned in the Bible: ’. . . the land of Hadrack and Damascus’ (Zech., ix:l), and in the Sifre on Deuteronomy, thesaying of R. Yose b.Dormasqit: ‘Heaven andEarth are my witnesses that I am from Damascus and that there is a place there named Hadrak.’ The riddle is solved with the help of Meir ha-Kohen’s letter, for the writer says explicitly thathe is stayinginDamascus (where he has no livelihood), whereas at the end of the letter he states, as aforementioned, that he writes from ‘Hadrak Syria’. We therefore understand that Hadrak is merely a nickname for Damascus. Implicitly, the view that there was a locality named Hadrak where the yeshiva was located, becomes void. The yeshiva was situated in Damascus and remained there until ca. 1120. We find Masliah ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon Elijah b. Gaon headingthe yeshiva in 77 5

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Fustat in the twenties of the century. We have witnessed then, from the beginning ofthe seventies of the eleventh century, the decline and fall of . the Sanhedrin of Palestine, the central institution of Jewishleadership in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean. This process was the unavoidable result of the destruction and annihilation of the Jewish population in Palestine as a result of the political and military events of the period. O n foreign soil, the Palestinian yeshiva could not continue to preserve its status for very long. Apart from Egypt, thediaspora discontinued its connections with it.It is also possible that itsdecline was caused by the quality of the people at its head, the sons of the priestly family, whose annals I have surveyed here.189 1*9

Abiathar’s letter: Bod1 MS Heb a 3, f. 27, edited by Neubauer,JQR, 9 (1897), 38, and re-edited by Mann, Hotequji, 23 (1924/5), 253-259. The account: 561, and the matter has already been mentioned above.The deed from 1102: 606.At about the same time, TS 131 2, f. 7 was written, a fragment from arecord of evidence signed by ‘Abiathar ha-Kohen called by the name of God, son Gaon of a great-grandson of a Gaon’, and ‘Uli ha-Levi b. Joseph, parniis ofFustat (whois Sa‘idb. Munajjii) who hailed from Damascus,see on him Goitein. Illediterratzeatz Society, 11, 78, 81; it was he who is the addressee of611, discussed herebelow.Abiathar, of righteous blessed memory: 589. Abiathar’s daughter, Sitt al-Sida, is mentioned in TS 10 J 4, f. 17, lines 16-17, a deed dated Shevat 1439 Sel., January AD 1118; she was marriedto a certain Abii’l-Makiirim, in Fustat. The twoletters from Damascus: 611, 612.SeeSifre on Deuteronomy (Ish Shalom), 65a; (HorowitzFinklestein), 7; Neubauer, Lagiographie, 297, translated with his own interpretation: une localitt pres de Damas qui s’appelle Hadrakh; ‘there’, not ‘near‘, was what R. Yose said, that is, in Damascus. Meir ha-Kohen in Damascus: 612, a, line 31. See further discussion on these letters: Poznanski,Rivista israelitica, 7(191l ) , 222, n. 3; idern, Babylonisclze Geonirn, 103, n. 2.Mann,Jews, I, 196, says that Solomonha-Kohen fled, according to the Scroll of Abiathar, to the ‘estate of Asher and Naphtali’, and concluded that the intention was Hadrak; see also the formula in Samuel b. ‘Eli’s letter: ‘the holycommunity who live [in the city] ofDamascus Hadrak’,in Assaf, Tarbiz, 1 (2- 1929/30), 80 (fol. 18a, lines 16-17); ibid., (l), 115, 117. Assaf interprets: he speaks about the communities (plural) of Damascus and Hadrak’, for he himself completed the missing part of the formula by ‘in the cities’ instead of ‘in the city’, also adding ‘and’.

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The houseof ‘Anan and thebeginning of Karaism

[917] The Karaites have left a rather substantial recordin the sourcesof the period, considering that they were a numerically small segment within the Jewish population of Palestine. From the moment theybegan to arrive in Palestine and build their quarter in Jerusalem, they were a constant challenge to the Jewish population which preceded them, in Jerusalem and in Palestine as a whole. Their drive to convert others to theirplaced viewsthe Rabbanite leaders ina defensive position to suchan extent that they were annuallyexcommunicatingthem on the Mount of Olives (as I have described in sec. 833). O n the other hand, however, despite the sharp differences, therewascollaboration on mattersofsharedinterest, especially those relating to taxes. There were also mixed marriages between Rabbanites and Karaites. As to the Palestinian yeshiva and the Jewish population of Jerusalem, they had to turn for political and economic aid to eminent Karaites in Egypt, who were close to the rulers, especially the Tustaris. The origins of the Karaites and their early development shrouded are in obscurity. The sources which describe these beginnings single out the figure of ‘Anan, who is considered the founder of Karaism. He is first mentioned in apassage of Natronaib. Hilai, Gaon of Sura (around 865), which is included in theSeder of ‘Amram Gaon b. Sheshna, written some time after Natronai Gaon’stime,and quotedinconnectionwiththe Passover Seder.It speaks thereof rnfniwz (heretics), the pupilsof ‘Anan and the pupils of his grandson Daniel, who (it is not clear which of them: ‘Anan or Daniel, but weshall see in what follows thatseems it to have been Daniel) induced them to relinquish the Mishna and the Talmud for a Talmud whichhe himself compiledfor them. Theexistence of a Book of Precepts (by ‘Anan?) is quoted there in the name of a certainEleazar altij In some of theversions of the Letter of Sherira Gaon, we find that ‘Anan’s 777

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defection occurred during the days of Yehudai Gaon b. Nahman, that is 757-761; it was then that ‘ ~ w f a q‘Anan’, meaning that ‘Anan made his appearance, which is about a decade after the Abbasid revolution. Abraham ibn Da’iid, who wrote during the middle of the twelfth century, added that ‘Anan stemmed from the exilarchic house and his defection came about because he was denied the office of exilarch. As to the Karaite sources thenlselves, Qirqisini says that ‘Anan lived in the daysof the second Abbasidcaliph, the founder of Baghdad, Abii Ja‘far al-ManSiir (754-775), which fits what has been said above. He stresses the conformity between the teachings of ‘Anan and thoseof theRabbanites, even when hewrote things not based ‘in the teachings of the Rabbanites’, that is, in the Mishn5 andthe Talmud,and it wasfound thathe had taken them from the!zixirla (that is, theyiyytitlm) ofYannai. Heemphasises that ‘Anan had been exilarch and mentions thatthe Rabbanitestried to kill him. Late Karaite tradition preserved ‘Anan’s memory as the founder of Karaism and notes that he had been an exilarch. Ibn al-Hiti, in the fifteenth century, makes such statements about ‘Anan as: he was the first to reveal the truth, and exilarch of all the House ofIsrael. We find a more detailed account by a Rabbanite included in theKaraite treatise, it is ‘the !lilltiq [controversy] between the Karaites and the Rabbanites’, written by the Karaite Elijah b. Abraham in the first half of the twelfth century. Here we learn that ‘Anan was excluded from the exilarchate infavour ofhis younger brotherHanania because of his wayward views. This Rabbanite ascribes ‘Anan’s views and thoseofhis followers to Zadok and Baitos. His faction recognised him as exilarch. The rulers then had him imprisoned and he was to be executed, but a fellow-prisoner, a Muslim who was jailedbecause of his deviation from Islam, advised him to proclaim thathis movement was a separate religion and hencehe would not be considered a rebel against the laws of the realm. He followed this advice, even resorting to the claim that his computation of the calendar was similar to that ofthe Muslims (thefirst day of the monthdefined by sighting ofthe new moon). This, in addition to an enormous saved bribe, his life. A fragment from an anonymous Karaite treatise also adds the name of thatMuslim who advised ‘Anan so shrewdly: Abii Hanifa, al-Nu‘man b. Thiibit, the famous Muslim jurist, the founder of the rite of Muslimlaw called by his name.Indeed,there is one principle in his teaching, the importance of the YU ’y, that is, individual judgment, based on analogyand common sense, which isalso oneofthe principles of Karaism. 1

See: Sedev ‘Attlrcznr Gaon, 11, 206f. See the matterof the Rabbanite sourceson the beginning ofKaraism: Poznanski, REJ, 45:176, 1902; seeibid., 191ff, thesupplement with thesources: Natronai Gaon, Saadia Gaon, Dunash b. Labrat, Sherira Gaon, Samuel Gaon b. Hofni, and

T H E H O U S E OF: ‘ A N A N A N D E A R L Y K A R A I S M [ S E C S . 917-9101

[918] That there was a strongMuslim influence on thebeginnings (attributed to‘Anan) ofearly Karaism is not in doubt. M. Zucker points to a number of common grounds: prayer that was entirely benedictions and readings from the Pentateuch and the Psalms, containing no prayers of supplication or personal requests foroneself or others;the abolitionof the idea of impurity of the deadin the diaspora(although later Karaite personalities objected to this),as compared with the Muslim belief that a Muslim does not defile in his lifenor in his death; the prohibitionon the drinking of wine and other alcoholic beverages in thediaspora;similarityinthe commandments against incest, in the laws of inheritance and other such matters. These indications of Musliminfluence provoke theneed to examinethe question more profoundly. Did Karaism develop out of the schismatic sects which preceded it, with their ancient ideological principles being adopted by the Karaites and the Muslims simultaneously, or was this a new departure, influenced by the Muslim environment but withmotives which were intrinsic to Jewish society? This latter view was held by I. Friedlander, who considered the upholdersof the early Jewish dissident sects to be naive and uneducated peoplewho wereeasily taken in by false Messiahs and influenced by the non-Jewish environment, while Karaism evolved from learned circles and was essentially an internal Jewish movement, although it was also influenced by the zeitgeist of Muslim society, others. From the lists of Karaite ncsi’iin (to be discussed below) we knowthat Daniel was ‘Anan’s grandson and that he had a son named ‘Anan. Mann,JQR, NS 10 (1919/20), 354, has shown that NatronaiGaon refers to the sameheretics also in his responsum in Sltn‘nr? teshtrvii, No. 34: mintrll who on Saturday do not eat ! l m z i r z (stew cooked and preserved for the sabbath). See the Letter of Sherira Gaon in Neubauaer. MedinevalJewirh Chronicles, I, 37; Lewin, 107 (‘Anan is tnissing in theNeubaueredition): see Harkavy. in Graetz (Hebrew). 111, 186f., Abraham ibn Da’ud (Cohen). 37f. Qiryisani, I, 2. 14. See the Siddcr (Karaite), I, 399. Ibn al-Hiti, 432. The hillcq, in Pinsker, Liqql’!? qdmorziydt, I. 103; Pinsker, Harkavy, and also Zucker assumed that this account was by Saadia Gaon; see: Poznanski, J Q R 10(1898), 242; Zucker, Tnrytrm, 147. See the matter of AbCi Hanifa: Harkavy.]JGL. 2(1899), 109fi Goldziher, Ziilziriterl, 3f; idem, M~rhamrnedorzishrStudi.cn, 11, 76f. See the anonymous fragment: MS Firkovitch 11, No. 3799, fol. 2a, in Mann, Texts, 11, 108. Utter reservation regarding thesources on ‘Anan is espressed by Nemoy, Liiw A/icmorinf I,,’ofurne. 239; here are his main points: it is difficult to view it as accidental that neither Natronai Gaon nor Qirqisani tnention that ‘Anan was esilarchor even from the esilarchic family; the account about himin the /!ill174 is not bySaadia Gaon. butby a contemporary of the writer of the treatise, in the twelfth century. The stories about ‘Anan’s arrest. about his brother Hanania, and similar stories, are merely fiction and illogical; Abraham ibnDa’iid’s account is based preciselyon these stories in hisSe$r hn-qabbili; see especiallyNemoy’s reservations may contain towards Qirqisani, ibid., 248 and n. 42; according to him the only source that some real evidence concerning ‘Anan is the Book ofprecepts ascribed to him; from which it is only possible to learn that ‘Anan demandedasceticism and radical austerity but thereis nothing in hisviews directed against the Rabbanites; nevertheless ‘Anan’s teachings are not entirely in accord with the thinking of yeshiva the scholars, therefore Nemoy assumes that this was the reason why the Karaites adopted him and made him’father of their creed’.

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especially by its inclination to scepticism and excessive separatism. Poznanski, in particular,opposed this claim andargued onthe basis of Qirqisiini’s account, that ‘Anan was but a link in a chain, preceded by people of earlier dissenting sects, such as the messianic movement in Isfahiin, and by Abii ‘is5 (in ‘Abd al-Malik’s time: 685-705) and his pupil, Yudghan. They recognised Jesus and Muhammad as prophets sent to the gentiles, and theArabsourcesstatethat ‘Anan also followed in their footsteps in this respect. Here we must take a closer look at the Muslim sources. A Muslim writer who was a contemporary of Qirqisani, Mas‘iidi, spoke of the ‘Ananites as variants of Mu‘tazilites among the Jews, people of al-‘ad1 wa’I-tnw!zid; that is, they stood for theprinciple of Divine justice (God is good andjust,whereas evil stems from man, who is responsible for it) and the principle of theabsolute unity of God. They only accept the Bible (the tauwih and the Prophets and al-ztlbl-i~[Psalms], which constitue twentyfour books). He also knows that a faction of the ‘Ananites - who are the followers of ‘Anan, one the of exilarchs in Babylonia- and theKaraites as well, are setting the date of Passover accordingto theripeness of the grain, which they call abib. Some of them also accept a partial ripening of the factions, grain. Here wealready find a distinction between diverse Karaite and especially between ‘Ananites and Karaites. Biriini, writing in ca. 1000, informs us that the Karaites are also called milZdiyya (people of the new moon) ashrna‘iyya or (people of the tradition) for they are meticulous about starting the month with the appearance of the new moon (he meant: on sighting the new moon) and because they only obey the text of the Bible (al-rzusiis). Among them, there is a faction called the ‘Ananites, after ‘Anan the exilarch, who lived a little morethan a century earlier. Here Biriini quotes ‘Anan’s lineage: b. Daniel b. Saul b. ‘Anan b. David b. Hasdai b. Qafnai b. Bustanai, etc.; hewas therefore of the sixth generation after Bustanai. (Qafnai, whois Kafnai, was, according toall exilarch lists, the fatherof Bustanai, and not his son.) BirGni also does not know anything substantial about‘Anan’s beliefs except that he adhered to Muslim custom withregard to the months (the sighting of the moon) andintercalated according to theab&. He furtheradds details about the gravity with which ‘Ananites the keep the sabbath, which accordingto them, takes precedent even over circumcision. In Shahrastiini (who wrote in thefirst half of the twelfth century but used older sources) there are details on ‘Anan the exilarch, concerning the differences in the calendar and the laws regarding food. In addition, he describes the way the ‘Ananites slaughter: bykilling the animal at the back of theneck. He also mentions their attitude to Jesus, whom they consider a righteous man but not a prophet; further, they deny that the Gospels were 780

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books that were handed down from Heaven, as they were compiled by four ofJesus’ own disciples. Maqrizi, who wrote his great book on Egypt at the beginning of the fifteenth century, knew the Karaites in Egypt, but he also had before him the writingsof his predecessors, hence his account is a mixtureof personal knowledge and information copied from earlier sources. The essence of his account can be summed up as follows: The Karaites do notaccept the Talmud but only the Bible, as they were taught by ‘Anan the exilarch. They are called people of theBible as well as ‘people of thebeginnings’ (he seems to have read rnab2diyya instead of m i l d i y y a , people of the new moon, as in Biriini); and also ‘people of the tradition’ (al-awra‘iyya, as in Biriini). He presents the ‘Ananites, undoubtedly under theinfluence ofhis early sources, as a sect which differs from theKaraites. They are so-called after ‘Anan, the exilarch,who lived at the time of al-ManSiir (754-775; the same information is found in Qirqisani).He argued that the beginning of the month should be fixed by the sighting of the new moon, and the intercalation, according to the state of thebarley grains; he spokewell of Jesus and recognised Muhammad as a prophet sent to the Arabs; he states that the ‘Ananites are people of ‘ad1 and tuwkTa’ (like the Mu‘tazilites, as Mas‘iidi also writes) and they reject anthropomorphism (tashbdz). One may sum up the information in the Arab sources ten main in points: (1) in general, they speak of ‘Ananites, not of Karaites; Mas‘iidi and Maqrizi divide them into two separate sects altogether; (2) ‘Anan was exilarch, and Biriini even sets the time during which he held office; (3) they only recognise the Bible; (4) they resemble the Mu‘tazilites ( ‘ a d , tnw&f); (5) they fix the beginning of the month only according to the sighting of the new moon; (6) they intercalate according to the state of the abib; (7) they have theirown laws regarding food and slaughtering; (8) they have a positive attitude towards Jesus, but he is not a prophet in their view; (9) they recognise Muhammad as a prophet sent to the Arabs; and (10) they reject anthropomorphism.2 2

O n the common elements of Islam and Karaism: Zucker, Torgrrm, 144ff; idern., Srrro, 2(1954/6), 324-331, where there is a discussion on theKaraite use ofthe Islamic to’ud and qiyiis; Poznanski, RE], 44(1902), 178; Friedlander,]QR, NS 1(1910/1),214; see Mas‘iidi, Tanbih, 112f, 219; Biriini, 58f, 283; perhaps the ‘Anan he mentions, whohe says lived in the ninth century,is ‘Anan 11, b. Daniel, the great-grandsonof ‘Anan I. ‘Anan I1 was the cousin (and contemporary) of the nesi’im Jehoshaphat and Semah who headed the Palestinian yeshiva. See the genealogical list below, in the note tosec. 927. See Shahrastini, 167; his account was copied by Abii’l-Fidi’, Mukhta:ar, I, 86f. Maqrizi, Khilat, 111, 326, mentions the dayyiin (qadi) of the Karaites in his day: Ibrihim b.Faraj Allah b. ‘Abd al-Kifi; he was (Do’idi), i. e. belonged to theexilarchic house, being a descendant from the House of David of ‘Anan (‘Anani);he mentions these details in thechapter on the mosque of Ibn al-Banni’, near the Zuwayla Gate in al-Qihira, which according to theKaraites had formerly been their synagogue, but al-Hikim had confiscated it during the persecution; the synagogue was called after Shem the son of Noah, who according to Karaite tradition, was buried

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[919] Above we have seen the continual distinction between the‘Ananites and the Karaites in the Muslim sources. A similar distinction is also adopted in Qirqisani’s account. He states that there were Karaites who called ‘Anan ‘head of the fools’ ( I z e s i h - a pun on the Hebrew word for learned: n m k & ~ n )and viewed his teaching as if it were the same as that of the Rabbanites. Not only was he not a prophet, but he was mistaken in many things; from the very outset, his path was that of the Rabbanites. This is said more explicitly bySalmon b. Yeruhim inhis commentary to Psalms (lxix: 1). According to him, the Karaites appeared on the scene only after Benjamin al-Nihawandi, that is, more than a century after ‘Anan. Harkavy has already pointed out that theonly Gaon (as far as writings of the geonim have been preserved) who mentions ‘Anan, before Saadia Gaon, is Natronai Gaonin the latterhalf of the ninth century, more than a hundred years after ‘Anan. T o this Biriini’s account should be added, that ‘Anan lived somewhat morethan a century earlier, that is, in the latter half of the ninth century; as well as the fact that (accordingto our information) two of ‘Anan’s descendants, Jehoshaphat and Semah, sons of Josiah, headed the Palestinian yeshiva until some 100 years after ‘Anan (until the sons of Semah were deposed). conclusion The one may arrive at at,least in the form ofa working hypothesis, is that the formative stage of theKaraite movement onlybegan in the latter half of the ninth century and that it was only during that period that theKaraites and the descendants of ‘Anan, the nesi’im, became associated with one another. Fromthen onward, things were projected backwards, the new movement discovering an early founder in ‘Ananwho may havebeen a deposedexilarch of the eighth century. This crystallisation was preceded by thesecession ofanother descendant of ‘Anan’s family, Daniel, mentioned by Natronai Gaon, evidently ‘Anan’s grandson, wholived in thefirst half of the ninth century. Apparently,is he the same Danielof whomSherira Gaon says in his Letter that he was the rival of David over theoffice of exilarch, the latter being the victor. He is also the Daniel of whom Dionysius of Tel MahrZ (copied by Michael the Syrian and Bar Hebraeus) says that theBabylonians wanted as exilarch, in opposition to David, whowas supported by the Palestinians (the ‘Tiberians’); and further thatDaniel stemmed from the ‘Ananites, who sanctified there; Maqrizi notes that this is a folk legend which is not true. The mosque of Ibn al-Banns’ and its Karaite connections also drew the attention ofGoldziher. even He notes in one of his articles that this mosque wasa relatively late structure, built in around 1800; the Jews of Cairo did not know, writes Goldziher, that there a Karaite was synagogue thereat one time; see his paper in Globzrs, 71(1897), 235C see in Maqrizi, on the Karaites and ‘Ananites, Khitat, 111, 370ff, 375. Different information on the Karaite attitude to Muhammad is found in Abii Bakr ibn aL‘Arabi, who took it from his contemporary, a member of the Tustari family, who was evidently Sahl b. Fad1 (YishZr b. Hesed), the Karaite writer who described it to him in Jerusalem, ra. 1095; it emerges thatSahl denied that Muhammad was a prophet altogether; see Ri/da, 81f.

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Wednesday instead of Saturday. I t was due to this dispute, according to him, that al-Ma’mun decreed that the Jews (and the Christians and the Zoroastrians as well) be permitted to secede from the main body of their persuasion and establish a separate congregation, even if this consisted of only ten souls. Apparently, one cannot rely on the account of Dionysius concerning the division between the two camps (Palestine versus Babylonia) or the sanctification of Wednesday which he attributes to the ‘Ananites. We shouldalso bear in mind that my present discussion is necessarily brief and that there remains ample reason to probedeeeper into furtherand more detailed aspects of the subject, such as the matter of the Book of Precepts ascribed to ‘Anan, for i n ~ t a n c e . ~ [920] If indeed Karaism - as it is known to us from tenth and eleventh century sources - was born out of the fusion of twoelements, a dissident sect which held different views from those of the majority of the Jews, and a branch of the exilarchic family, the question is still unanswered as to what was the nature of this dissenting sect and where did it begin.This is a subject that is still clouded and this is not the place to enlarge on it. It is worth noting, however, that the early formulation of Karaite teaching took place in the Persian areas of the caliphate. Some hundredyears after ‘Anan, Benjamin al-Nihawandi (Nihawand, some forty miles south of Hamadan), wasactive. It isthis period, the latterhalf of the ninth century, which was evidently the genuine periodof Karaite formation. One should recall that this was the period in which the Jewish population of Palestine was struggling over the gaonate and the forefathers of Aaron b. Meir 3

Qirqisini, 3, 5, 624. Salmon b. Yeruhim (Marwick), 98. The matter of the history of the Karaites and the place occupied by ‘Anan hasbeen widely discussed in the research literature. See Harkavy, RE], 5(1882),209; idem in Graetz (Hebrew),111, 187f; Poznanski, RE], 45(1902), 50, and see ibid., 191; where he quotes examples from an anonymous polemical anti-Karaite treatise on the conformity between the view of ‘Anan and Rabbanite halakha. See also: Markon, FestschriJZ M . Schaefjcer: 130, and see there references to earlier studies; Klar, Tarbiz, 15(1943/4), 36ff, who also has a discussion on ‘Anan’s Book of Precepts; on the same matter, see Epstein, Tarbiz, 7(1935/6): 283; see the discussion in Mann, Texts, 11, 129-132. The matter of the dispute between David and Daniel: Sherira Gaon, Letter, 1l0f; Dionysius,copied by Michael the Syrian,517 (text); III,65 (translation); andby Bar Hebraeus(Abbeloos), 366.See supra, sec.732. Biriini, 283,ascribes the sanctification of Wednesday to ‘the sect of the caves’ (dl-maghiriyya, which is the correct reading) which is also mentioned by Qirqisiini, see his Index. Cf. Ben-Sasson, Zion, 15 (1950), 42fc who also stressed the difference between ‘Anan and the Karaites, but his view of the four stages of development of Karaism is somewhat shaky, as the Arabic source (Salmon b. Yeruhim) which he quotes, does not use ‘revealed’ asdistinct from ‘appeared’, the distinction being only the product of Pinsker’s Hebrew translation; the original text says throughout: q h a r t r . A book which is a monograph on Karaism was written by R. Mahler: Di Karainw (Yiddish), N.Y. 1947, also extant in Hebrew: Izn-qiirii’im, Merhavia 1949; a thorough and basic work of research, however, which should carry on a more profound study on the Karaites, must bebased as far aspossible on a thorough knowledge of the Arab sources, both of the Karaites themselves and of the Muslims. Information on sources and research on Karaism and on Karaite personalities can befound

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fought with 'the sons of 'Anan', that is Jehoshaphat and Semah, sons of Josiah, and the sons of Semah, who as we have seen were deposed. This was also the juncture at which theIsmi'ili movement in Islam was formed and in whichthe Qarmatisand the Fatimids first appeared on thehistorical horizon. I have already reviewed (secs. 462466) the rise of these two dissident movements, particularly during the last decade of the ninth century. Evidently it was also the period which witnessed the rise of the Karaites in Palestine.J Karaism in Palestine in the tenth century

[921] The central Karaite figureat that time was Daniel al-Qiimisi. This was the period of flourishing Karaite propaganda, which tried to make converts everywhere, arousing opposition to the point of being excommunicated. It seems that following the example of the Ismi'ilis, there evolved the figureof the preachertrying to convert souls to the true path. Among the Ismi'ilis,these missionaries were called dii'i, and it is reasonable to assume that the designation Karaites had a similar meaning, for q i v i (nomen agentis) is the translation of di'i, 'the caller'. Ismi'ili influence on Daniel al-Qiimisican be clearly seen in apassage from his commentary on Leviticus: 'know ye, that God's Torahis likened to water,and those who taught knowledge (ntaskdnn) were the prophets, who possessed knowledge, knowing theBible in all its aspects, why such athing is written as it is, and not otherwise. Therefore, it is to them that God gave the Torah, some of whichis overt and explicit, but someis hidden and unseen'. This is in fact the very theory xiihiv of and bitin, the overtand the covert, which the Ismi'ilis held with regard to the Koran. Very few details are known about Daniel al-Qiimisi. He was born in Dimghin, a city in the district of Qiimis, in the Tabaristiin province of northern Persia (the area of the Caspian Sea). He apparently stayed for some time in Khurisin and afterwards emigrated to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. His commentary to theBook of Daniel contains a description of the events of the latter half of the ninth century, especially those connected with the Saffarid dynasty, which ruled Khurisan and other parts of Persia. These events occurred before 875. He also mentions Qirin, in Ankori, Knrnites in Byznntiutn, using the detailed Index at the end of the volume. See the total reservations concerning 'Anan's Karaism: Nemoy, Low Memorial Volume: 239. O n Nihiiwand, see: Le Strange, Land3, 196. Yefet b. 'Ali speaks in his commentary to the Song of Sol., ii:15 (little foxes), on new Muslim rulers who would arise in the realm of Islam, who will send dt4'cih - 'callers', i.e. preachers, missionaries; these rultrs would decimate the Children of Israel - by which it seems that means he the Karaites; see B M O r 2520, 60a. Seealso Hirschfeld, in his introduction to the commentary on Nahum by Yefet b. 'Ali, Sff, who points to the messianic hopes expressed by Yefet, evidently in connection with the rise of the Qarmatis.

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a local ruler in Tabaristan,who was involved inthese events. O n the basis of these facts, H. Ben-Shammai assumes that Daniel al-Qiimisi arrived in Palestine in about the year 880. It was Daniel al-Qumisi who rendered Karaismthecharacteritassumed from then onward,which can be summed up in three principles,as M. Zucker proposed: the utter exclusion of all Rabbanite teachings, the actual return to Palestine, and accepting ways of asceticism and mourning. Mas‘iidi mentions a Jewish scholar named David al-Qiimisi,who lived in Jerusalem anddied there in AH 334 (which began on 13 August AD 945). If we assume that David is Abii Sulaymin (which is almost certain) we shall find thesameDavid alQiimisi mentioned in two Karaite Bible commentaries (one of them by Yefet b. ‘Ali). He may have been Daniel’s son. Daniel al-Qiimisi is worth recalling here in particular, because of his propaganda for emigrating to Palestine, which expressed the aspiration to establish and consolidate a KaraitesettlementinJerusalem (a matter I have discussed in secs. 824-827). It is likely that theclose contact with Palestine, and the formation of the Karaite sect there, had a very profound influence on the ideo-theological contentsof Karaism.According totheassumptionproposedbythe French scholar, P. AndrC, the first Karaites who came to Palestine were deeply affected by the writings of the Judaean Desert sect which they found in Jerusalem. We learn about the finding of these writings at that time in Jerusalem, from a letter of the Nestorian catholicus of Baghdad, Timotheus, to Sergius, the priest in charge of the Elam area, from about 815. In that letter,he tells about a discovery‘ten years earlier’ of books ina cave near Jericho. A Bedouin hunter’s dog was chasing after some animal, followed it into a cave and did not return. Its owner followed it into the cave and found a little room hewn out of the rock, containing many books. The hunter told this to the Jews ofJerusalem, whocame there en masse and found books of the Bible, as well as other books written in Hebrew script. The Jew who told this to Timotheus was a learned and erudite man and Timotheus was in the habit of questioning him about passages in the New Testament which are said to be in the Bible, but which are not tobe found there, either in the Christian version, or in that of the Jews. The Jew would tell him insuch instances, that suchpassages were to be found in the writings discovered in the cave. From this story, one can understand that the Jews of Jerusalem rejected those writings, which were evidently part of the literature of the Judaean Desert sect, which is now known tous. One may assume that with the arrival of the first Karaites inJerusalem,theyfound these books, which they then adopted, copied and distributed. In particular, they seemto have taken the book of the Damascus Covenant for their own, and it was evidently

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through the Karaites that this treatise, found in the Judaean Desert, reached the Cairo Geniza. This may be the possible explanation for the presence of ideas and concepts from the literature of the Judaean Desert sect in the writings of Daniel al-Qumisi and other early Karaite writers, like the use of such expressions andterms as: covert and overt Torah (we have seen that this idea may have stemmed from the Ismii‘ilis), dovt?sh tza-t6vZ, shiiv el tovat MoshZ, maskif,tnovt?sedeq, devekh etnet, ‘aniyZ ha-so’n, the two messiahs, temlmt? devekh. These and other analogies are mentioned in the studies of N. Wieder, especially with regard to the attitude to adversaries: si@ ha-derekh, doveshe hafiiqot, massigZgevd, mate% Isvii’Zl, and so on. 5

See the detailed survey on Daniel al-Qiimisi and his writings in Mann, Texts, 11, 8fC see Ben-Shammai, Sltulern, 3 (1980/81), 295-305; Zucker, Albeck Jubilee I/’olrrme, 378ff. See Mas‘iidi, Tanbih, 113; Abii Sulayman: Poznanski,J Q R , 8(1896), 681. See fragments from Daniel’s commentaries: Markon, Koresportdenzblatt, 1927, 26-29; see Daniel al-Qiimisi’s Pitron; see the article on Daniel al-Qiimisi’s propaganda, by Zucker, Targtctn, 168ff. See ibid., 176ff, Daniel al-Qiimisi’s Arabic letter from the Geniza, which contains mainly the themes of the uniqueness of God, reward and penance, and the matter of ‘ad1 theand tawhld, the principles of the Mu‘tazilites; and ibid., 184ff, fragments of Daniel al-Qiimisi’s commentaries. Concerning the matter ofovert and covert Torah, see a fragment fromDaniel’s commentary to Leviticus, in Wieder, JIrdean Scrolls, 59f. (TS Loan 199, edited earlier by Ginzberg, G i n z ? Sclzecltter, 11, 471ff, and see ibid., 4730; see arguments against ascribing the Pitrot] to Daniel al-Qiimisi: Marwick, SBB, 5(1961), 42ff, and the answer:Wieder, Judean Scrolls, 265fc and see on Daniel al-Qiimisi also: Nemoy, Karaire Anthology, 30-41. His letter which urges the Karaites to emigrateto Palestine, was first edited by Mann, JQR, NS 12(1921/2), 257-298, where he did not identify the author at first, but after studying Daniel’s Pitron, he recognised that he was the author of the letter, see idem, Texts, 11, 5. Timotheus’ letter: Braun,Orierts Christianus, 1(1901), 299-313; cf. Paul, Ecrits, 94fC and on this matter, of early discoveries of the writings of the Judaean Desert sect, seealso: Eissfeldt, TLZ, 74(1949), 597ff, who, apart from the matter of Timotheus’ letter, also quotes a fragment ofEusebius’ Ecclesiasticae ltistoriae (IV, 16), relating to the year AD 217 and referring to thetranslation of Psalms which Origenes appendedto his Hexapla, which was foundin an urn in Jericho. See also:De Vaux, RB, 57(1950), 417ff (I shall not enter into a detailed discussion here on the question of the ‘sect of the caves’ [al-tnagh2riyya] mentioned by Qirqisani and some Arab writers, which is an important subject on its own). Regarding the matter ofthe impact of the Judaean Desert scrolls on the moulding ofKaraite thought in the ninthand tenth centuries, there are some remote echoes in this passage of the Rabbanite Moses b.Hasdai Taku, written about the middle of the thirteenth century: ‘and we havealready heard from ourscholars that ‘Anan the heretic and his friends were writing heretic things and lies and burying themin the earth and afterwards they would dig them up andsay: this is what we foundin ancient books’. It is impossible to identify the channels throughwhichsuch accounts- moveddownthe centuries, but at any rate, theyare noteworthy. See Kirchheim, O ~ n ne!tmid, r 3(1859/60), 62. Rabin. Qrrrnran Stlrdies, 112, totally rejects the informationin Timotheus’ letter,because the matter of the books in the cave isnot mentioned in any Jewish source; obviously this kind of argument cannot stand up to criticism. Some years before the publication of Paul’s book, Naphtali Wieder wrote in his book T h e Jrrdenn Scrolls arzd Karaisrn similar things about the analogous views and concepts in the writings of the Judaean Desert sect and inKaraite literature. Although itis clear from Paul’s bibliographical notes that hewas acquainted with Wieder’s book (which was published in 1962, while Paul’s book was published in 1967)’ he does not mention it in his discussion on the analogies.

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[922] Daniel al-Qiimisi, on occasion, mentions in his writings that the Muslims help the Karaites and that it was due to them that the Karaites were given the opportunity to rise and go to establish a foothold in Jerusalem. One should perhaps take these words at their face value; with the view thatwhereas this was not possible during thereign of the former rulers, the Christians, Jerusalemwas now open to them: ‘the kingdom of Ishmael . . . always helps the Karaites to keep [the precepts] as in the Torah of Moses, thereforewe have to say benedictions forthem’; ‘they love those who guard [the custom of] fixing the months according to the moon; why, therefore, should you fear the Rabbanites?’. Mann assumed that one can learn from these sayings,that Karaite propaganda to establish a community oftheir own in Jerusalem moved forward at full swing with the advent of the Tiiliinids’ control of Palestine, for it is they who were willing to help the Karaites. These arethings that are difficult to prove or deny, however. Mann adds that afterwards, when the Abbasids returned and once again took over Palestine, the people of the Palestinian yeshiva hastened to apply to Baghdad in order to obtain the caliph’s backing in their opposition to the Karaites,being assisted by the Jewish notables in Baghdad, as mentioned in the letter of the Palestinian Gaon during the calendar dispute. In this matter, it is also impossible to find confirmation in the sources of any real connection between the political and military changes in Palestine and the ‘Jewish wars’ waged at the time. Moreover, according to the information at our disposal concerning similar situations during theeleventh century, it seems that both sides were all too familiar with the ways and means of influencing the rulers, both in Egypt and in Baghdad.6 [923] In the tenth century,there were a number of Karaite personalities who lived and were active in Palestine, becoming famous mainly for their Bible commentaries. The first of these was Salmon b. Yeruhim (Sulaym b. Ruhaym). Thefact that he was an inhabitant ofJerusalem is conspicuous in a number ofpassages in his commentaries, especially in his reactions to the scheming of the Byzantines and the Arabs and his complaints against the defilers ofJerusalem. According to the chronicleof Ibn al-Hiti, however, he was one of the Karaite scholars of Babylonia and lived in Aleppo, where heindulged intheological controversies with Saadia Gaon. Ibn al-Hiti also mentions that Saadia Gaon participated in his funeral and that his grave is well known in Aleppo ‘to this very day’. Poznanski and Mann treated this information concerning Aleppo and Saadia Gaon very sceptically; but Mann was prepared to accept the possibility that Salmon 6

See in Daniel al-Qiimisi’s letter: Mann, J Q R , N S 12 (1921/2), 285c see Mann’s assumptions regardingtheTulunids: Jews, I, 62f. The Gaon’s letter:Guillaume, JQR, N S 5(1914/5), 554c Bornstein, Sokolow Jrrbilee Volume, 63.

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had lived in Aleppo towards the end of his life. Apart from his Bible commentaries, Salmon wrotea polemical work against Saadia Gaon - in rhyme - known as the Book of the Wars of theLord. His commentaries also contain sharp attacks on Saadia Gaon, and he speaks of him disdainfully: ‘I knew in the days of my life a man known by the nickname al-Fayyiimi’.’ [924] AbuSurri Sahl ha-Kohen b. MaSliah wasa contemporary of Salmon b. Yeruhim, though somewhat younger. He also wrote Bible commentaries, a book of precepts, remnants of which have been preserved, especially the introduction written in Hebrew, a book of laws (which has been lost), and a grammar. His ‘epistle of rebuke’, also in Hebrew, is of particularsignificance. This is a disputatious treatise against Jacob b. Samuel, who may have been a pupil of Saadia Gaon (Sahl calls him: ‘Your MasterSaadia the Pithomite’, but onecannot say whether he meant an actual pupil). In this epistle Sahl twice stresses that he stemmed from bFt-ha-rniqdZsh, meaning Palestine. Apparently he came to Fustat to convert people to Karaism: ‘to cautionmy nation’. Evidently thatJacob b. Samuel wasone of the Jewishleaders in Fustat. Apart from the latter, Sahl came up against the resistance of anotherFustat personality whosename is not mentioned, merely: ‘the enemy who angers’. Sahl was evidently the author of ‘the answers to Jacob b. Samuel, the obstinate’, a treatise in rhyme which the Karaite copyist ascribes to Yefet b. ‘Ali; a fact which Mann has proven by the similarity expressions of in the‘epistle of rebuke’ and in this work.* [925] Yefet ha-Levi b. ‘Ali, who is Abii ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali al-Basri (that is, he hailed from Basra in Iraq), wrotein the latter half of the tenth century, and also mainly produced Bible commentaries. He was the most O n Salmon see: Poznanski, Encyclopaedia O J a r Isrci’il, s.v.; idem,Yertrshalayim (Luncz), 10(1913/4), 95; Ibn al-Hiti, 434, 441; Mann, Texts, 11, 18ff.; see Feuerstein’sintroduction to the editionof Salmon’s commentary on Lament.; see further Steinschneider, Polemische urd apologetische L i t . , 346; Harkavy, ZAW, 1(1881), 157; Poznanski, JQR, 8(1896), 689 (he shows that Salmonwas much younger than Saadia Gaon, thus suggesting that it was not likely that Saadia was his pupil, as some Karaite sources claim). His knowledge of the surroundings of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, which I mentioned (on the basis of his commentary on Eccl., above, in sec. 31 1) also goes to prove that he was a denizen of Jerusalem. O n his writings see: Poznanski,JQR, 18(1905/6), 220; hisBook qfthe Ways ofthe Lord was edited by Davidson, N Y 1934, see ibid., in the introduction, some details on Salmon’s life. The piyyiitim at the beginning of the book are defined by Fleischer, Settinrune (Spoleto 1978), 840, as being of the musumma! type. See on Salmon also: Nemoy, Kavaite Anthology, 68. O n Sahl b. MaSIiahseePomanski, Yerushalayim (Luncz), 10(1913/4), 97-100; Mann, Texts, 11, 22-29. His introduction to the Book ofprecepts was edited by Harkavy, Me’assCJ I, No. 13. The ‘epistle of rebuke’: Pinsker, LiqqiitF qadm6niy6t, 11, 24ff; seethe detailed discussion on the epistle: Harkavy, ZAW, 1(1881), 157;seealso: Poznanski, JQR, 18(1906), 238; On ‘the enemy who angers’, see the discussion in Nemoy, PAAJR,3%39:145,1972.

. “

t

K A R A I S M I N P A L E S T I N E I N T H E T E N T H C E N T U R Y [ S E C S . 921-9251

prolific of the KaraiteBible commentators. His worksalso include a literal Arabic translation of the Bible, and a book of precepts, which has not been preserved. O n the basis of the colophonat the beginning of a manuscript containing his commentaries of the Song of Solomonand Ruth, Nemoy assumed thathe was still alive in theyear 1005. This colophonstates that it is the work ofAbii ‘Ali al-Hasan (Yefet) b. ‘Ali al-Basri, and adds after his name the blessing ‘May the Lord givehim His support’ (ayyadahtr A l l a h ) , indicating that he wasstill alive. The date was read as 395 but it seems to me thatit should beread as wa-sab‘k (not wa-tis%), that is AH 375, which is AD 985/6. Another of Yefet’s treatises was a polemical work against Saadia Gaon, a work he mentions in his commentary to Exodus, X X X V : ~ . Apparently Yefet lived in Jerusalem most of his life and one can assume that he also died there. His son,Abii Sa‘id Levi ha-Levi, also lived injerusalem. He too wrote a book of precepts, which has been preserved in a Hebrew version. We know the names of his three sons, Isaiah, Azariah and Hananiah. Levi b. Yefet lived and worked at the beginning of the eleventh century. year The 397 ‘of the little horn’, that is, of the Muslim era, which began on 27 September 1006, is noted in his book of precepts. His name is also to be found inseveral colophons in his father’s Bible commentaries, stating that his son Levi dedicated them to the Karaite congregation (in Ramla or Jerusalem),andthey also mention Sha‘ya b. Salah (Salih?) b. Azariah (perhaps the great-grandson of Levi b. Yefet). Other contemporaries ofYefet b. ‘Ali and his son Levi were the Bible commentators Joseph b. Bakhtawayh and his pupil, the grammarianSa‘id Shiran. Joseph b. Bakhtawayh was evidently one of the heads of the Karaite congregation in Jerusalem; he was a wealthy man, and there is mention of his h@Zr, that is a housing compound, which he owned in Jerusalem. From whathas been said until now, it emerges that from the end of the ninth century, with the arrival of Daniel al-Qiimisi in Palestine, until the end of the tenth century, Palestine served as a spiritual centre for the Karaites. Apparently this was where the fundamental principles of their teachings and viewscrystallised. The greatest and mostimportant oftheir spiritual leaders, Bible interpreters and grammarianslived and worked in Palestine. There is no doubt that this fact proves that the Karaites succeeded in reaching the target they set for themselveswhen first advocating emigration to Palestine - to set up a strong Karaite community there, particularly in Jerusalem. This community was indeed established, with Mann, Texts, 23, n. 42. The treatise in rhyme: Pinsker, LiqqtStF qadm6niyCt, 11, 18-24; Mann, Tests, 26f.

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the best of the Karaite figures centred there. It was from Jerusalem that their teachings went forth to the entireKaraite d i a ~ p o r a . ~ The Karaite n e s i ’ k

[926] We have seen that in the latter half of the ninth century, a schism developed between the branchof the exilarchic familywho were‘Anan’s descendants, and the yeshivot, particularly the Palestinian yeshiva. From then onward, the Karaites adopted this branch as their own, considering ‘Anan their founding father. Wehave seen the lineageofJehoshaphat and Semah, who were both ylesi’lln (that is, they were counted among the exilarchic family) and geonim of Palestine. The first systematic list of Karaite rlesl’nn was compiled by Poznanski. As we have already takennote ofJehoshaphat and Semah, sonsof the ninth century,I shall recount what we know about those who followed them. Jehoshaphat’s son was Boaz. He is mentioned in the story of Bustanai found in the Geniza and ascribedto Nathanb. Abraham, whichdisparages the exilarchs, claiming that they all stemmed from the Persian princess given to Bustanai by the caliph. The text there speaksof all those named See: Nemoy, Karaite Attthdlogy,83, n. 1; the commentary to the Song of Solomon: BM Or 2554, see:Margoliouth, Cataloglre, I, 223f (No. 301);microfilm No. 6330 atthe Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew MSS, at the National Library, Jerusalem; Assaf, Sefer ha-yishuv, 63: ‘the year 395’ which he says was the year AM 4844, AD 1084 (it is not clear why), which would take us as far as the Saljiiq period! See the description of this MS: Horning, S i x Karaite Mmuscripts, viii; see ibid., in the previous pages, details about Yefet’s other Bible commentaries,and see ibid., 21,37;see further:Harkavy. ZAW, 1(1881), 228. The Commentary to Exodus:Pinsker, LiqqGtF qadm6niyGt, 11, 20. O n Yefet’s writings,see also: Neubauer, Am derPetersburger Bibl., 15ff. The sons of Levib. Yefet: Pinsker, LiqqiQi? qadm6niy6t, 106; see Mann, Texts, 11, 32f, and ibid., also the information on a treatise he wrote, which lists the differences between Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali (thisis TS Box K 27, f. 36). Hananiahb. Levi b. Yefet is mentioned in302, a, line 20; Salahb. Azariah, who is mentioned there in line is 23evidently the grandson of Yefet b. ‘Ali. The book ofprecepts of Levib. Yefet: MS Leiden, O r 4760, and at the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew MSS at the National Library, Jerusalem: microfilm No. 28065; it can be seen from the language that it is a translation from theArabic; see the date there: fol. 34a. Seecolophons withLevi’s name: BM O r 2556, fol. 87a; BM Or2558, fol. 166a, cf. Horning, Six Kmaite Manuscripts, 35. O n Joseph b. Bakhtawayh and his pupilSa‘id Shirin see: Mann, Texts, 11, 29f. Joseph ibn Noah and Abii’l-Surri ‘Ali(?) ibn Ziiti (or Ziti)were also contemporaries of Sahl b. Mazliah and Yefetb. ‘Ali. A Karaite source (a commentary on the Book of Samuel, by ‘Ah b. Israel a h j ) calls them the teachers of the Jerusalemites (mu‘aZlimT al-maqddisa). As to see Abii’l-Surri ibnZiit5, Mann has shown that hesettled in Jerusalem evidently after 942, Texts, 11, 33, and more references there. In the Karaite marriage deed,305, line 35, Joshua ha-Kohen b. ‘Ali b. Zit5 signed, perhaps his son; another of his relatives was perhaps Sedaqa b. Silih b. Sahl b. Zit5, who is the first of the signatorieson arecord on thestate of the nvtv, see 302, a, line 19; after the Crusaders’ conquest (Summerl l O O ) , we find Shelah ha-Kohen b. Zadok b. Masliah b.Ziti, who is certainly the sonof the former,see 577, b, margin. The familyofb.Zit5wasthenapparently an eminentandwidelyramified Jerusalem Karaite family. See further on the commentaries ofYefet: Ben-Shammai, Alei S e f r , 2:17, 197516.

T H E K A R A I T E N E S i ’ i M[ S E C S . 976-9771

Boaz and ‘the sons of Zakkai’; the entire dynasty of ‘Anan on the one hand and the entire dynasty from which Davidand Josiah, the sons of Zakkai and their descendants (amongthem Hezekiah and his son David, andalso Daniel b. Azariah- contemporaries of Nathan b. Abraham), all ofthem, it claims, are not properJews but the offspring of the Persian woman who had not converted to Judaism. In fact, we know that‘Anan’s descendants claimed descent from Hasdai,whiletheoffspringofZakkai claimed descent from Bariidai, the two sons of Bustanaifrom his Jewish wife. We know of two sons of Boaz, Abii Sa‘id David and Josiah. A fragment from a polemical work written by the Gaon of Pumbedita, Aaron ha-Kohen b. Joseph (who is Khalaf b. SarjZda) against Saadia Gaon, lists the ‘sons of Boaz’, that is (as it should be understood) David and Josiah, as supporters of Saadia. It therefore becomes clear that they lived in the firsthalf of the tenth century. According to Ibn al-Hiti, David b. Boaz wrote a commentary on Ecclesiastes in A H 383, that is, in 993, which means that he was probably in his eighties at the time, butit is also possible that therewas an error in al-Hiti’s version. David b. Boaz is credited with having written a commentary to the Pentateuch and a book on the principles of the religion (kitiib d - ~ q d )In . his commentaries of the Pentateuch, there are arguments with Saadia Gaon, written with restraint and to the point. Apparently Davidlived in Jerusalem, andhe was possibly an adversaryof Meir Gaon and his son Aaron, because of whomand against whom they had to appeal to the notables of Baghdad and ask for assistance in the period before the calendar dispute. It is also possible (as Mann assumed) that it was his animosity towards the Palestinian Gaon which caused David and his brother Josiah tolater side with Saadia Gaon, the tenacious adversary of Meir Gaon and his son Aaron in the calendar dispute. One may even assume that thePalestinian Gaon sided at that timewith David b. Zakkai, Saadia Gaon’s rival. However, wehave no evidence thatduring these complicatedevents,the Karaites tookpartinthestruggles. All sources merelyrefer to the descendants of ‘Anan, a branch of the exilarchic family, the nesl’iin, the extent of whose connections with the Karaites cannot as yet be determined, although thelater Karaite sourcessee David b. Boaz as a distinctly Karaite personality.’O 10

See Poznanski. Babylonische Geoninz, 128ff. The nesi’im in the story ofBustanai, see Gil, Torbiz, 48 (1978/9), 67. The matter of Hasdai and Bariidai: ibid., 44,62f, based on the geonic responsa. O n David b. Boaz see: Poznanski,]QR, 18(1906), 226f. The supporters of Saadia: in Harkavy, Zikkiircjtl. V, 227 (line 13); Khalaf b. Sarjiida adds the following nicknames for the sons ofBoaz: ‘the children of slave girls and camel flesh’, meaning the same claim about their Persian ancestress, and also a hint (unexplained and certainly not true) at some descent from Arabs. Apparently their support of Saadia contradicts the polemics conducted by David (in his old age?) against him in his commentaries of the Pentateuch, in which he is called hiidhi al-rajrrl (this man); see Harkavy, Z A W, 1(1881), 157, and also Poznanski (above in thisnote). See on David b. Boaz,Mann, Texts, 11, according

KARAITES AND SAMARITANS

[927] The son of David b. Boaz was Solomon, who was an inhabitant of Jerusalem, as is shown by an inscription of dedication at the head of a manuscript of the Bible in the Firkovitch collection. Husn (or Hasun), daughter ofJacob b. Joseph b. Kiishnim, dedicated the Bible to the Karaite congregation in Jerusalem ‘through our Master the nisiSolomon b. David b. Boaz’. It also containsa blessing for Solomon’stwo sons, Hezekiah and Josiah. The date of the dedication is Monday, 5 Tishri 1328 Sel., 10 September AD 1016 (the Karaite R6shha-shins that year fell on thesame day as that of theRabbanites). Josiah and Hezekiah evidently lived most of their lives in Fustat, but they were in contact with thePalestinian yeshiva.The Karaite rankof nisi was preserved for the offspring of Semah b. Josiah (of ninth the century,as we haveseen)whileJosiahandHezekiahstemmed from his brother Jehoshaphat b. Josiah.It seems that after the deathof David b.Semah (b. Asa b. Semah b. Josiah), however, when Fustat remainedwithout anasi, it is Hezekiah b. Solomon b. David b. Boaz b. Jehoshaphatwho succeeded to this rank, as did his offspring after him. The two brothers, the nesi’imJosiah and Hezekiah, the sons of Solomon, are mentioned in the colophon of Keter the of Aleppo,dedicated byIsrael of Basra b. Simha b.Saadia b. Ephraim to theKaraites ofJerusalem, with the provision that it be kept by the ‘two nesl’im’, Josiah and Hezekiah, the sons of Solomon.Hezekiah b.Solomon maintained a relationship with the Jerusalem Gaon Solomon b. Judah. In a letter written for him byhis son Abraham but which he himself signed, inca. 1026, the Gaon expresseshis desire that thenisr come to Jerusalem before R6sh ha-shana, and he hopes that the tzisl will bring with him a letter from the authorities in Egypt (implying that he will obtain this letter with the help of the Tustaris), which will reinforce the prerogative ofnist: the ‘to strengthen him against the provokers of quarrels’. Solomon b. Judah also expressed his willingness to grant the nisia very high rank in Jerusalem, ‘to bea captain over God’snation’(2 Sam., v:4). In a letterwrittensomeyearslater,he mentions that the nisi was a guarantor for large sums of money (a matter probably related to the Jerusalemites imprisoned because of their debts an affair that has been enlarged on above). It seems that considerable sums of money were at the disposal of these nesi’im, for in another letter the Gaon notes that while the Rabbanites stillowe 900 dinars, some of them having been taken to prison, the Karaites (‘the sect of thesela‘ ’) owed 800, despite the fact that they are given considerable help by the nesr’im. At about the same time, the Gaon wrote a letter to Sahlin b. Abraham, in to the index,particularly 132ff, andibid. also on the support of the sons of Boaz for Saadia Gaon. One can also get an ideaof David b. Boaz’ attitude to the Karaites and their views, from his opposition to the theory rikkiiv, of that is, the extensionof theincest regulations

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which he mentioned the nasi by name: ‘our nasi, his honour, our Master Hezekiah’. In the days of these nesi’rm Josiah and Hezekiah, marriage ties were contracted between the nesi’im and the Tustaris: Yefet (Hasan) the son of Abii Sa‘d Abraham b. Yashar (Sahl) al-Tustari, became betrothed to the daughter of one of the nesi’itn. In the deed of betrothal, only the name of the grandfather, Solomon b. David, has been preserved. The deed was written in the presence of the Karaite nasi in Fustat, ‘the greatnasi David . . . son of Semah the nasi’, who is David b. Semah b.Asa b. Semah, from the other branch of the familyof thenesi’im. It is also likely that theuncle of Yefet al-Tustari, Abii ManSiir Aaron (Harun), the youngest of the Tustari brothers, married the daughter of one of these nesi’lm, for Solomon b. Judah mentions ‘Aaron, the son-in-law of thenisi’ who happens to be in Jerusalem, perhaps referring to the Tustari. The relationship with the Tustaris is also evident from a letter of complaintwritten by Solomon b. Judah to Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac ibn Furat,with claims against people who are scheming against him andhis son Abraham. These people(pernisi haps the Shuway‘ family) wrote letters incriminating him ‘to our Abii’l-Hasan Josiah’, before his meeting with ‘my Master, the grandee’ (ha-gevir) that is, with Hesed b. Yashar the Tustari. Possiblyrelated to this matter is another letter from the Gaon, perhaps written to the nasidirectly, which speaks of the appointment of a haver inyeshiva the from among the people of Fustat, also containing his reaction to complaints about the Gaon, which reached the addressee from some unworthy person: ‘but how can such a person worthy be of writing to your honour’. all From that has been said above, one may conclude that during Solomon b. Judah’s day, friendly and collaborative relations developed between the Palestinian yeshiva and the Karaite nesi’im ofJehoshaphat’s family. The Tustari family, who, as we have seen, were connected by marriageto thenesi’im, comprised a third party to this relationship, while a fourth party was the ‘Babylonian’ congregation in Fustat and its leaders, Abraham b. Sahliin and his son Sahlin. They were the bond which linked this alliance by virtue of their special connections with the Tustaris.This four-sided alliance disassembled during the dispute with Nathan b. Abraham. The ‘Babylonians’ in Fustat and the Tustaris sided with therival Gaon. O n the other hand, it seems that the nesi’im of the house of Jehoshaphat maintained their friendship and relations with the old Gaon. One may even assume that dueto their relationshipwith the otherparties, theyplayed an important role in the settlingof thedispute, hence it is not accidental that we find the signature of‘Hezekiah the nisib. Solomon the niisi b. David to all relatives of the mate, where there are n. 290, and see also p. 1470.

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no blood-relations. See Mann, ibid., 140,

KARAITES AND SAMARITANS

Bustanai

I

Hasdai

I

David

/ \

Hananiah ‘Anan

(?)

I

Saul

/ \

Daniel

Josiah

I \

\

‘Anan Jehoshaphat Semah

I

/ \

Yefet Asa Boaz (Abii Sa‘id) David Josiah

I

I

David

Solomon

I\

Josiah Hezekiah

Fnmily free oj-the Karaitetlesi’im

the rziisi, of blessed memory’ in the written agreement whichput an end to the dispute.l 1 Beliefs and opinions

[928] I shall now discuss something of the views of the Karaites on various subjects,especially as they areexpressed in the writings of some of See the colophon: Kahle,Masoreten des Westens, I, 67, and in Mann, Texts, 11, 134f, and see the notes there; the writer of the colophon signed atbashin(a system of cryptography), and he is Nissi b. Aaron b. Bakhtaway; see also: Poznanki, Babylonische Georzirn, 129; Mann (ibid., 46) assumed that Solomon b. David b. Boaz is the mysterious figure(‘son-in-law of Sheshach’) against whom Josiah Gaon came out in his epistle, 29; the two msl’lln in the colophon: Harkavy, VadZshim, 104ff. Solomon b. Judah on the niisi: 64; cf. Mann, Texts, 11, 46. The guarantee: 82, lines 16ff.The aid: 84, lines 12-13. ‘Our Nasi’: 86, line 15. The deed of betrothal: TS 16.50, cf. Goitein, h4editerranenn Society, 111, 135; 455, n. 93; this family relationshipis also implied in ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel’s letter, from 17July 1060, in which he asks the people of Fustat to obtain a reduction in his taxes for his shop in Jerusalem, suggesting that for this purpose, they ask ‘our Master, the honoured Nisi Hezekiah, may God preserve him, to speak to our Master Abii Mansiir’, etc.; it is quite clear that they are referring to the Nisi Hezekiah b. Solomon? and evidently to Abii Mansiir Aaron the Tustari, his son-in-law.See 446, lines 27-28. David the Nasib. Semah (b. Asa)is also mentioned in307, lines 11, 16 (the yearis 1051, when heis still the Karaite Nasi in Fustat); cf. Gil. Ita-Tustarlm, 58. Aaron the son-in-law of the Nasi: 120, a, line 9; there,too,moneyneededtoransomtheJerusalemiteprisoners is mentioned.The

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those figures who lived in Palestine, and in letters from the eleventh century, for this is not intended as an all-inclusive and comprehensive survey of the historyof the Karaites and their ways of thinking, but mainly as a discussion focusing on the Palestinian sources. One of the prominent issues in the lives of the Karaites, from which there were important projections with regard to their relationship with the Rabbanites,wasthat of thecalendar. As they used to determinethe beginning of the month by the actual sighting of the new moon, and the intercalation by an examinationof the state of the grain in Palestine, itis understandable that there weredifferences between them and the Rabbanites over the days on which the holidays should be celebrated. Observance of the moonis mentioned in Karaite marriage deeds as one of the characteristic principles of the sect. Whereas from a passage in Benjamin al-Nihawandi, one gets the impression that the matter of fixing complaints to Josiah: 142, line 31. The letter to the Nasi(?)Josiah (?): 152; my view of this letter is merely an assumption; Mann, Jews, I, 131f, assumed that it was written to the nv-bZt-din of the yeshiva who was then in Egypt. The record of agreement:199, b, line4; in 1043, Solomon b. Judah wrote to Sahlan b. Abraham and expressed interest in ‘the two books yitrorl qdzelet (commentary on Ecclesiastes) of Nasi, the of blessed memory’, which Solomon b. Judah had sent to Fustat, see 137, b, lines4-80. We know thatHezekiah liveda long time, until the sixties ofthe century, whereas Josiah is mentioned ina court document in Fustat, datedThursday, 15 Tammuz 1366 Sel., 13July AD 1055;hence we learn that the late niisi mentioned in Solomon b. Judah’s letter cannot be Josiah, contrary to Mann’s assumption, and not even Hezekiah. See Mann, Texts, 11, 48; Mann himself edited a fragment froma court document from1055, in which Josiah is mentioned, see hislews, 11, 453. ‘Hezekiah the great Nasi, Nasi of the Land of Israel and Judah . . . son o f . . . Solomon the great Nasi, blessed of memory’, is mentioned ina fragment of a Karaite marriage deed, TS 20.42, dated Thursday, 9 Adar (‘Shevat according to the Karaites’; thusit says in the deed) 1373 Sel., 21 February AD 1062, see in Mann, Texts, 11, 173f. To this subject of the rzesi’itn, 288 should also be considered, a letter from aKaraite who was requested ‘togo up to the bet hn-rniqdiish (i.e. Jerusalem) and meet with my Master the Nasi’. The letter also contains newsof thearrival of Abu Nasr Davidb. Isaac ha-Levi,one of the Karaite leaders inEgypt(discussedabove), at thewriter’splace(Ramla?);Abii Sulaymin David b. Bapshad was also staying there then; he was probably the son of Babshiid ha-Kohen b. David, mentioned by Mann, Texts, I, 151 (ibid., in n. 7 one should read: Abii Sulayman b. instead of Sulayman); ibid., 163f, thereis a fragment of a letter from the Gaon Samuel Hofni, with regards to Abii Sulayman b. Babshid in the margin; see ibid., n. 44b, on Bibshad ha-Kohen b. David and on the name Bibshad (Bapshid). See: Justi, Iruaisches Numenbuch, 55: Babshadh. The Karaite of Fustat Davidb. Bipshad evidently convertedto Islam, according to information about a personality who was evidently his son, mentioned by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tn’rikh, VII, 307:al-Hasanb. Da’iid b. Babshad b. Da’iid b. Sulayman; whose by-name was AbiiSa‘id al-Misri. He was from a family who came from Persia. He arrived in Baghdad, and studied law according to Abii Hanifawith the cadi Ab6 ‘Abdallah al-Saymari.He was a very gifted pupil and particularly excelled in his knowledge of the Koran by heart in various reading versions; he was also learned in literature, mathematics and grammar. He also possessed a profound knowledge of traditions (hadith), which he both studied and taught. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi knew him personally and studied withhim, and he praises his keen mind; his father, he writes,a was Jew whoconverted to Islam, a genuine conversion. The son(Abii Sa‘id) lived in Baghdad until the end of his life, and diedon Saturday,14 Dhii’l-Qa‘da AH 439 (1 May, AD1048).

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the first dayof the month on the basis of theappearance of the new moon only related to Nisan and Tishri, Daniel al-Qtimisi explicitly stateshis in book of precepts that it is forbidden to compute on the basis of the movement of the celestial bodies: ‘we are not permitted to deduce [the fixing ofJ the months of God and his holidays from the computation of sorcerers and astrologers’. In the same passage in which he speaksof the fixing of thenew month,Benjamin al-Nihawandi also formulates the rule relating to the intercalation:‘if the barley grainis ripe enough for harvesting in the monthNisan of to be used for the‘omer offering during the seven days of Passover, theyear is normal. Butif the grain is not ripe enough for harvesting . . . that entire year is a leap year’. Later, we find Qirqisani basing this rule on ‘observe the month ofAviv’ (Deut., xvi:l), which,he says, is referring to the ripenessof thegrains - of barley, not wheat. Some say, he writes, that it is permissible to take moistears for the‘owzer, but this contradicts ‘and you shall reap the harvest thereof’ (Lev., xxiii:lO), one for did not harvest the ears when they were wet. Salmon b. Yeruhim blames the Rabbanites: ‘they do notsay anything of sighting the moon or looking foraviil’. the Evidently, ascertaining the leap year on thebasis of theavTv was an innovation introduced by the Karaites from the time they settled in Palestine, as we are clearly told by Levi b. Yefet in his book of precepts: ‘the Karaites living in the land of Shin‘& [which is Babylonia] and other remote places, were imitating the Rabbanites, since they saw that their [computationof the] leap years is, inmost cases, perfect’; that is, as long as the Karaites lived in Babylonia and Persia, and so on, they abided by the calendar of the Rabbanites, which seemed to them good enough at the time; ‘but the people [living] in Palestine contradicted them, for in their opinion, it sufficed to see the state of the avrv in order tofix [a leap year]’; that is, when they settled in Palestine, the settlers had the possibility of observing the state of the grain there, and this was sufficient for them to know when to fix a leap year. He continues with detailing the signs (of the avfv): the barley must be ‘strong and hard’; the upper part must be dark green and the lower part, yellow, and so on. He also discusses the borders of Palestine with regard to azlTv, thefor example, ‘Gaza isthe extremity ofpalestine,as it is said: . . . as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza’ [Gen., x:19], by which he meant that Gaza is the border. The proper avlll should appear all over - in the Galilee and the Dir5nz and the Sea of Galilee. The sighting of the moon:304, c, line 14; 305, line 31; 308, line 3 (reconstructed); Saadia Gaon ascribes to ‘Anan the matter of fixing the new month by sighting the new moon; according to him, after‘Ananwasexcluded from the exilarchate,hewashelpedby Muslims and imitated their customs in order to gain their good will, such as fixing of the new monthby sighting the new moon;first hemade his decision and then sought for proof in the scripture,see Zucker, Targum, 144ff. It should be noted here that whereas the fixing

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[929] N o w we can easily understand what is written in some of the documents in my collection. The Karaite Moses b. Isaac writes from Jerusalem, apparently in 1044, to one of the leaders of the Karaites in Fustat, informing him of the state of the nvTv. He points out that at the beginning of Sha‘bin, which is when the letter was written, the grain in the al-d&iim region was mostly a mottled green (mujubbar~),by which he evidently means yellowish, while less of it was dark green: dajn~z.In the regions of Rafah (Rafiah), the Ghawr (Jordanvalley), Zughar (Zoar), and the surrounding areas, the situation was similar. The examination was being organised by mawla’i al-rayyis, ‘my Master the chief, who is not known to us. In a document written in March 1052, we find a record compilcd by a Karaite delegation, made up ofJerusalemites and Gazans. They went out to Siiq Mizin (described in sec. 310), near Gaza. The survey was partly carried out on the property of the cadi Salima b. Mahmiid, and they also examined a plot of land belonging to Ibrahim b. al-Khiifyani, and apparently still another - that of the cadi al-Sabgha (his name is not preserved in full). They established the stateof thegrain on the basis of the evidenceof thefall&n. The delegates remained in the fields for two days, Thursday andFriday, and examined number a offields. Apparently, the delegation consisted of twelve participants, who signed at the end of the document. This documentis evidently a copy of the original, for apartfrom somesignatures which arenot clear, the remainder is in the handwriting of the scribe. Apparently it was the Y ~ S I ’ T I I Zwho made thedecision when to fix the leap year, andthis may havebeen the purpose of the letter from Moses b. Isaac of Fustat, that is, to inform thetzesi’im of thefacts, in order that they may decide how to proceed. O n this matter we have no clear information, however, and it is possible that in fact the decision would be made in Jerusalem and sentfrom there to all the Karaite congregations,as we learn from theletter ofEliah of Salonika, in which expresses he bitterness at the fact that the Karaites ‘desecrated the sacred feasts of the Lord and celebrated R6sh ha-shini in the eighth month, for theyhad received letters from Palestine that theavTv was not tobe seen in Nisan, andPassover was held in Iyar’. Muslim writers were also aware of the Karaites’ method of determining a leap year. Mas‘iidi mentions that the ‘Ananites fix Passover accordingto of the month according to the sighting of the moon and not according to computation, seem’edto the Karaites a meansof gaining the favour of the Muslims, we know that the Fatimids used to fix the new month by computation, not by sighting the moon. See: Canard, AIEO,10(1952),376. See Benjamin al-Nihiiwandi in Harkavy,ZikkirCrl, 8, 176; Daniel al-Qiimisi, ibid., 189. Qirqisani, 836, 843,850. Salmon b. Yeruhim, Sefer Milharnof, 82. Levi b. Yefet,MS Leiden Or 4760,22a-b; 23b; 24a; 26a, ff. From the language, not know it is obvious that thisis a translationfrom theArabic, and that the translator did

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the ripeness of thegrain; thereare even those forwhom a partial ripeness is sufficient. Biriini writes in the same vein: the fixing of the new month according to the sighting of the new moon, and theleap year according to the stateof thebarley in Iraq (!) and inPalestine. If the grainis easily husked and is ready for harvesting and the awns developed, leapayear is not in the offing. Their people go out to examine thefields for this purpose when there are still seven days left in the month of Shevat. Some add another month ofShevat (11) while others add Adar (11), but mostprefer Shevat, in order tobe different from theRabbanites. Biriini addsa critical remark to the description of this method, namely that it is unstable and lacks uniformity, and that it would be advisable to have such things regulated by law (qzniin). There weredifferences of opinion and varied calendar systems amongst the Karaites themselves. Wenow know of one faction among theKaraites whose calendar system was different from that ofrest theof the Karaites that of the Tustaris. This can be seen in fragments ofan eleventh century Karaite calendar, apparently belonging to the Tustaris, in which the dates of the Rabbanites, theKaraites and the Tustaris are listed side by side. This can also be observed in a Karaitedeed from 26 July 1032, relating to a deal between Abii’l-Hasan Da’iid b. al-Faraj and ‘Imriin b. Levi’ha-Kohen, where wefind in Arabic script:‘Wednesday eve, the 15th of Av, whichis Av for most of Karaites the and Elul for some of them, isand the month of Sha‘biin for the gentiles, in the year one thousand and three hundred and forty-four of Alexander’s era. ’ As to the use of eras, we find in Karaite deeds and even letters, the frequent use of the Muslimhijra year. Sometimes theSeleucid era is used. An unusual method is their computation from the exile ofJehoiachin. We find this in fragments of a Karaite formulary, and also in one of the Karaite marriage deeds inmy collection. An explicit clue to this era can be found in that same formulary, in which the year 1321 Sel. is listed as against 1484 of the exile ofJehoiachin, that is, the year was AD 1009/10, which shows that according to their reckoning, the exile ofJehoiachin occurred in 435-434 BC. It is also worth quoting what Salmonb. Yeruhim says in his commentary to Lam.,iii:6 (He hathset me in dark places, as they that be dead of old): ‘as isknown, 1385 years have now passed from the exile of Jehoiachin, and885 from the destruction of second the Temple’.In view of what has been said above, this was, according to the era of the exile of Jehoiachin, A D 951. We must therefore deduce from this that they reckoned the date of the destruction of the secondTemple as having occurred how to translate thewords relating to the detailsof the avlv discussed above; cf. Pinsker, Liqqiil? qadmoniyot, 11, 90.

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in the year 66, and not 68, which was the year generally accepted by the Jews. l 3 [930] Another domain in which the Karaites had their own laws, was that of food. One mayfind evidence of this in Daniel al-Qumisi’s commentary to Hosea, viii:ll (Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin): ‘altars mean the basins of the slaughterers’; ‘basins of the butchers’; and further, to Hosea,x:l (he hathincreased the altars): ‘to buy meat from the altars of the slaughterers and idol-worshippers’; andto Hosea, xiii:12 (the iniquity of Ephraim is bound up) ‘[these are] the altars in [the period ofl the exile, basins of thebutchers, to eat meat at a time when there are no sacrifices’. This clearly implies that the writer sees it as a sin to eat meat when there are no sacrifices, and in his book of precepts, Daniel says: ‘know ye now that it is not permitted to any God-fearing person to eat fowl, but doves . . . until the teacher of righteousness will come’. Qirqisani cites the Karaite banon eating meat in Jerusalem and this was deduced from the expression ‘without the camp’ (Ex., xxix:14 and elsewhere); Jerusalem is the camp, hence consuming ‘meat for lust’ is only permitted outside Jerusalem. In an anonymous Karaite halakhic treatise we find: ‘the more so, when the City of your Holy Mountis destroyed, nor do you have your priests, while dumb and blind dogs are observing ‘3

Moses b. Isaac: 301. The record: 302; a remnant ofa similar recordis TS AS 158.147;it has a seriesof similar terms; it speaks there oftwo surveys,in Dhii’l-Qa‘da and Dhii’l-Hija, and of the varied hues of theears; see alsoibid. evidence ofthe exact timeofthe new moon (on the fourth hour on the . . . day of Dhu’l-Hjja). The letter of Eliah from Salonika: TS 20.45, edited by Mann, Texts, I, 48f, lines 32ff.See Mas‘iidi, Tartbih, 219; Biriini, 59,283. Hrltequ@, 14-15 (1921/2), 365ff, on the matter ofintercalaSee the discussion in Bornstein, tion in Karaite sources. Fragments of the calendar: TS NSJ 609; ENA 4010, f. 35; 4196, f. i ~ ~ ,The deed from 1032:TS Box J 3,f. 47v (formerly TS 13J 32), 15, in Gil, h u - T ~ ~ s t u r86ff. in Assaf,KlutrsrzerJubilee 1’obrme, 230; seewhat Assaf quotesfrom Aderet Elipihti (relating to 1336/7), andfrom theletter of Obadiah of Bertinoro,with evidence on thedifferences between the Karaites themselves regarding the calendar in later generations. Ankori, Kuruites in Byzuntitrrn, 317, n. 51, refers to this matter the passage of Levi b. Yefet quoted above, about the Karaites‘in the land of Shin‘ir and other remote places’, who followed the Rabbanite calendar, unlike their brethren in Palestine; but as I have stated above, this was how the Karaite writer described the process of detachment from the Rabbanite calendar after the establishment of the Karaite community in Palestine; in other words, in early Karaism, they followed the Rabbanite calendar; once they had established their community in Palestine, they adopted new calendar regulations. The era of Jehoiachin, see: 303, 1 (a), lines 6, 14; 304, I, lines 2-3; Salmon b. Yeruhim: MS Paris 295, 71a; cf. Mann, Texts, 11, 158, who assumes that this reckoning from the exile ofJehoiachin was peculiar to the people of Ramla, see in the document he edits, ibid., 191 (BM Or 2538, f. 89v); the date of the copy he quotes there, 192, is 1334/5, not 1424, for‘of the little horn’ means AH, not Sel. We have evidence from the tenth century regarding the difference (which we do not find in the eleventh century) in the reckoning of the years since the creation; Qirqisiini, writing in AM 4697 (AD 937) notes that according to the Karaite reckoning, that year was 4724 of the creation, that is, a difference of 27 years; see this passage in Neubauer,lLledinevn1Jewish Clworlicles, 11, 249, and cf. Mann, Text$, 11, 78, n. 33 (where there is a misprint, apparently, 997 instead of 937).

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you, and menstruating women, and men with issues, and lepers, and uncircumcised Christians enter the shrine of the elevated ‘Ofel . . . it is forbidden to eat meat and to drink wine’. There he also adds the ban on slaughtering pregnant animals, which he deduces from ‘whether it be a cow or ewe, ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day’ (Lev., xxii:28), and concludes: ‘whoever slaughtersor eats of a pregnant animal in the [during the] exile [!I is a transgressor and wicked person’. Sahl b. Masliah complains inhis ‘letter of rebuke’ that the Rabbanites buy - after reading the megilli - in the ‘gentile market’, ‘all sorts of sweets that are made from their [the gentiles’] fat and sweetened by them’; apart from this, ‘they eat the animals they immolate after alien gentiles flay them’; ‘and the essence of all this is: it is forbidden [to eat] meat of cattle or sheep in exile . . . cooked with the forbidden fat-tail . . . they eat stew which is placed on theeve of the sabbath aon kindled fire’. Apart from the matter of the fat-tail of the sheep and the stew kept warm from Friday, which is clear, it seems that the matter of ‘it is forbidden in exile’ needs interpretation; it probably means: when there is no Temple, and is not ,meant to discriminate between Palestine and other countries. They were also pedantic about baking m a g t i from barley flour, not wheat flour, which they attributed to ‘Anan, who interpreted it from the expression ‘the bread of affliction’ (Dt., xvi:3). What we have not found stated explicitly in the writings of the Karaite figures I have mentioned here, is the permission to eat meat with milk. Karaite evidence of this exists only in comparatively later sources, but in the eleventh century Solomon b. Judah explicitly wrote in one his of letters that the Karaites ate meat with milk.He claimed that thisis no reason to excommunicate them. In another of his letters, however, it emerges that a quarrel broke out in Ramla between the Rabbanites and the Karaites because of the latter’s refusal to accept the Rabbanite supervision of their slaughtering. The Karaite customs in the eleventh century with regard to meat arenot made quite clear in theGeniza documents. While on the one hand, we hear about the eatingof meat with milk, on the other hand, also we read abouta total ban on the eating of meat, in Jerusalem,at any rate. A Karaite marriage deed from Jerusalem,dated January 1028, contains the following prohibition: ‘and without eating beef and mutton in Jerusalem’; which implies that they only ate fowl. As against this, the Karaite Mahbiib b. Nissim writes: ‘I did not eat [in Jerusalem] either meat or fowl, of fear outof God’. Another document specifically relating to dietary laws of the Karaites at that timeis a Rabbanite recordof evidence concerningcheese made by the Karaites (of Samaritiqi) ‘produced on the Mount of Olives’, which was kosher. Three witnesses are signatories there, among them Aaron ha800

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Kohen b. ‘Amram (undoubtedly the in-law of the Gaon Abiathar haKohen b. Elijah, the father ofhis son-in-law ‘Amram). The confirmation of kashrl?t is only grantedafter ‘we acquired itfrom himaccording to their ways of purchase, which is from hand to hand’ (that is, with a handshake), ‘and we made him take an oath on the Holy Torah’.14 [931] There is a very interesting document in my collection dealing with Karaite matrimonial laws andincest regulations, which is a letter written by Simon b. Saul of Tulaytula (Toledo) from Jerusalem, to his sister Balliita in October 1057. He writes to her of the case of Abraham b. Fadiinj, who arrived inPalestine with his wife and childrenafter a difficult journey from Spain, via Byzantium, and was in very reduced circumstances. The Karaites learned that he had married the sister of his late first wife after her death. The writer tried at first to keep the matter from the Karaites but the women from Tulaytula who lived in Ramla could not restrain from telling the Karaites about it.In the continuation, hedescribes the tragic situation that developedafter the family settled in Jerusalem, in Samareitike. The Karaite elders demanded that the couple separate. The writer intervened in the matter, holding forth on the case of one of the heads of theKaraites, Jacob, evidentlyalso from Tulaytula, who also had a wife who shouldbe forbidden to him, because he was oneof twobrothers who had married two sisters. Indeed, as a result of this claim, Jacob divorced his wife. Simon b. Saul, the writer, then went to the trouble of applying to ‘our Master av-bet-&’ (Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, at the time), who intercededinthematterand insisted thatJacobreturn the bridal money to his wife, because their marriage had been concluded before a Rabbanite court (the woman may have been a Rabbanite l4

See Daniel al-Qiimisi, Pitrijtl, 13; The Book ofPrecepts, in Harkavy,Zikkiriin, VIII, 187ff; gortli, certainly the Arabic jurtt, which means basin. Qirqisini, 1243f. The anonymous: JTS Schechter Geniza,5, 17a-18b; a similar ban on theeating of meat and drinking wine was declared by Abii ‘Is5 al-Isfahini, who did this on his own, basing the ban on the prophets and not on the Pentateuch;see Qirqisini, 51; Shahrastini, 168. Sahl b.MaSliah, in Pinsker,LiqqtStP qndrnCniyCt, 11, 32; see similar things also Levi in b. Yefet, inhis book of precepts, MS LeidenO r 4760, 109a, ff; see in Poznanski, RE], 45(1902), 181, a passage by an unknown Karaite, referring the ban on meat ‘in exile’ to ‘Anan, who followed the ways of the Pharisees, deducing it from ‘thou shalt eat it within thy gates’ (Deut., xv:22). Tobiah b. Moses, in the eleventh century, complains in O5nr rzehmid about the Rabbanites, who permitthe ‘defiled foods’ (see Poznanski, ibid., 186).It is worth notingthe opinion of Friedlander,]QR, N S 3(1912/3), 296, who assumes that the origin of the prohibitions on eating meatis in Manichaean influence, especially of the Persian Manichaean movement of Mazdaq. The matter of the rna5:i: Levi b. Yefet, Book of Precepts, in Harkavy, Zikkirijn, VIII, 133. Solomon b. Judah: 121, lines 9-10, 12; see Karaite sources on this matter in Mann,]ews, 11, 156, n. 4 (fromE s h k d ha-kofer and others). Thequarrel in Ramla:122, line 27. The marriagedeed: 305, lines 31-32. Mahbiib: 292,a, lines 17-18. The cheese: 309. Cf. on the matter of dietary laws and the banon eating meat also in Mann,Texts, 11, 65f; and on the banon eating meat in Jerusalem, from the fourteenth century, which see the treatise he edited ibid., 108ff.

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originally). As to Abraham ibn Fadanj, he and his wife and their four children, through the efforts of this Simon, were received back by the Rabbanites, although atfirst the latter were reluctant do to so because they had lived within the Karaitefold for two years, although they were Rabbanites by origin.A livelihood was even arranged for them in the form of a shop in one of villages the (in the neighbourhoodofJerusalem). In the letter, thereis a descriptionof theKaraite principleof the v i k h v : ‘they have a law prohibiting marriage with a sister of a deceased wife, for which none of their learned peoplecan find anyreference, except that theysay that this is what they received from ‘Anan, the chief and founder ofthe Karaites’. Finally, he writes, the Karaites learned their lesson from the episode of Abraham ibn Fadanj and gavein toJacob, that is, they compromisedwith him and agreedthat he should not divorce his wife but he had to swear not to have intercourse with her. This, too, aroused the writer’s gall. It is difficult to say - perhaps the tragic situations described here and their outcome is what influenced the spiritualleader of the Karaites a t the time, the Jerusalemite Yeshii‘a b. Judah, to formulate his amendments to the rikkiiv. These amendments and concessions aroused some opposition a generation later, on the part of one of offspring the of the Tustari family, Sahl b. al-Fad1 b. Sahl (Yashir b. Hesed b. Yashar), who lived in Jerusalem. In the spring of 1096, he felt the need to express his arguments in favour of the vikkGv in writing, rebuking Yeshii‘i b. Judah (Abii’l-Faraj Furqin b.Asad) for marryinga woman whowas a relative of thefamily of his brother-in-law, his sister’s husband. l5 l5

The letter of Simon b. Saul: 457. We find this matter oftwo sisters in the ‘book ofprecepts’ of Daniel al-Qiimisi, according towhom the sister of thewife, if she is a half-sister (that is, from another father or mother), is forbidden to her brother-in-law during the wife’s lifetime, but permittedafter her death; but ifthey are full sisters ‘they are forbidden bothin life and indeath’; ‘Anan is not mentioned there at all,and this seems to be one of the Karaite innovations introduced during their settlement in Palestine, evidently initiated by alQiimisi himself, asis also stated by Qirqisiini, 1144. See the statements of Daniel alQiimisi in Pinsker, LiqqNt? qadm5niyGt, 11, 188f., and in Harkavy, Z i k k M t z . VIII, 190f; which arean interpretation of Lev., xviii:l8, ‘a wife toher sister’. See the matterofthe ban on marrying twosisters to two brothers, inQirqisiini, 1145f. See Sahl b. Masliah’s ‘letter of rebuke’ in Pinsker,11, 33; Sahl boasts that many of the Rabbanites ‘at theHoly Mount (i.e. Jerusalem) and in Ramla’ behave in the Karaite manner both regarding the dietary laws (they do not eat mutton or beef in Jerusalenz) and in the prohibitions ofincest, and particularly do not marry daughters oftheir brothers sisters; or we do not have documents which would confirm his statements. Friedman, Te‘uda, I, 76, n. 82, deduces from the Damascus Covenant and from the Qumriinic‘Scroll of the Temple’, which contain the ban on such marriages, thatthis is an ancient ban, and that theKaraites took it from ‘the Qumriinic Rabbanite ‘mn ha-ares in Palestine’; but I do not think that the writingsreflect any Rabbanite view, not even of the lay people but merely the attitudes of the Judaean Desert sect, by whom the Karaites were evidently influenced, as stated above. See the passage of Sahl b. Fadl b. Sahl al-Tustari. MS Firkovitch11, No. 3950, in Mann, Texts, 99f; see on him:Gil, ha-TustavTm, 65f; it seems tha, it is this Sahl b. Fadl with whom the Spanish Arab writer Abii Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi met and argued, as mentioned ibid.

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[932] Therewere also differences betweentheRabbanitesandthe Karaites in matters ofinheritance, especially with regard to the rights of the daughters. According to Daniel al-Qumisi, the daughter should receive a third of inheritance, the for onlyon landed property in Palestine did the Torahrule that the son precedes the daughter. Qirqisani attributes this approach to ‘people of the‘Ananites’. There is no doubtthat this view was not acceptable to all the Karaites, perhaps borne out by a fragment of a court document from Fustat, from Josiah Gaon’s time,which I have mentioned above. It refers to a woman named Mubaraka, who applied to the Muslim ‘judge ofjudges’, that is the qdi’l-qu@h, demanding that she receive the partof her father’s inheritance which hadbeen appropriated by her brother. The matter was forwarded to the Jerusalem Gaon, who was the representative of the Jews recognised by the authorities and whose opinion was considereddecisive. It is not unlikely that this woman was a Karaite, a possibility supported by the fact that we find Josephb. Israel the as Tustari (al-Dtrstari) among thesignatories (the Tustaris being Karaites), well as Farah b. Mu’ammal, who was perhaps a Karaiteas well, or whoat least had special connections with them. We also find Karaite customs regarding inheritance in Karaite marriage deeds, such as in the marriage deed which stipulates thatif the woman Husn should die childless, all the property she brought withher to her husband’s house (thatis, her dowry) must be returned to her paternal family. Thisis indeed consistentwith the ancient Jewish halakha,as it is recorded in thePalestinian Talmud (Ket. ix, 33a), but different from the usage among the Rabbanites in the period under discussion, to apportion only half the woman’s property to her paternal family.l6 16

See what Jacob b. Reuven says about Daniel al-Qumisi on this matter in Pinsker, Liqqfiti? qadrn5niy5t, 11, 85: ‘this he has taken from the Arabs’ and see the fragment fromDaniel’s TS Loan 199. See Qirqis?ini,1269-1272; as to him, he rejects the commentary on Leviticus: view that the daughter inherits at the same time as the son. Mubaraka: 44. The marriage deeds: 304-306. The matter of the dowry is extensively discussed in research, see references: Assaf, Tnrbiz, 9(1937/8), 29, n. 1; Friedman, Marriage, I, 400, 415ff. The Karaite 303-308 are undoubtedlyan interesting source for the study formulary and marriage deeds of the Karaites. The deeds there mention‘Jerusaof the deeds, especially marriage deeds,

lem the Holy City’ and ‘Ramla in the Sharon, which is near Lod’, from which we may deduce that these were the main Karaite congregations, or perhaps the only ones in Palestine in that period. One should also take note of the formula of ‘the 50pieces ofsilver, bridal money for virginity’, which we also find in the Karaite formulary, as well as in marriage deeds; of the term darkem5nirH, dinars, common in these documents (also used by the Rabbanites, however:see the Hebrew Index); of the matter of mtrqdim the (early) and me’u!zcir (final) bridal money, also customary among them;and of the note at the endof the divorce form (303,3), that the divorce document has to be givento thewife in the presence of two witnesses, and that among the Rabbanites, the wife’s confirmation was required (here they evidently were thinking about mixed marriages). Generally, it can be seen that theKaraitedeedswereimitationsofRabbanitedeeds,translated from Aramaicto Hebrew, with certain improvements, mostly in a not polished language; they do not display a high standard of learning or knowledge of the language. One should alsonote the

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[933] The Karaites held themselves in great esteem. This was undoubtedlylinked with theirmissionarycharacterandtheirefforts to make converts to their beliefs among theRabbanites. Their major claim was that they weremnskili? ha-rabbitn (instruct the many) and maSdiq2 ha-rabbim (turn many to righteousness), expressionstaken from the book of Daniel, which were interpreted, naturally,as meaning imparting knowledge and guidance (maskd being understood as the participle of the causative pattern, and notas it is meant today).As we have already seen, they referred to themselves as shiishinim from the ‘chief musician on the shoshanim’ in the Psalms, chapter 45. Daniel al-Qiimisi and the Bible commentatorsof the tenth century, suchas Salmon b. Yeruhim, Sahl b.Mazliah and Yefet b. ‘Ali attached these labels to the Karaitesas tokens of self-esteem. Sahl b. Masliah, in his epistle, expounds on the ‘threescore valiant men’ of the Song of Solomon(iii:7), referring to the Karaites: ‘they are the sixty wise men . . . maskditn, who admonishand teach Israel’. Yefet b. ‘Ali expounds on thema&e ha-rabbim as relating to theKaraites (though he does not call them by name, it is impossible to mistake his meaning) as those who would replace corruption with faith, as it is said in Malachi, ii:6: ‘and did turn many away from iniquity’; those who mourn over the exile while others feed the people with al-khurZ$t (fairy tales). He also interprets the ‘threescore valiant men’ of Solomon as the sixty maskllrtn, that is, the Karaites who would come from the diaspora to Jerusalem, who are the pride and glory of the nation. In his commentary to Isaiah, lv:2 (‘hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good’), Yefet divides the nation into four categories: (1) the exilarchs, who claim that they are the ‘people of knowledge’; (2) the ignorantmasses who ‘lack knowledge’ and do not want to know, and all they know and have reverence for is coming to the synagogue on the sabbath and saying amen and shema‘ isri’el; (3) those people who want to learn but seek knowledge from the exilarchs, who stuff them with fiction from the Talmud and magic, while taking considerable sums of money from them but not teaching them anything useful; (4) the rnaskilim and them a ~ d i q ha-rabbiwz e who are absorbed in their studies and do not accept payment; whoare the Karaites, of course. In principle, the Karaites were primarily ‘hasteners of the coming of the Messiah’, assuming that by increasing their activities, they would bring about the redemption. From this aspect, it appears that there was actually some kind of continuity between them and the messianic sects mentioned in earlier generationsof the Muslim period. In this respect, the statements appointment of a trustee, thatis, a representative of the bride, found in Karaite marriage deeds, and this seems to be the result of Muslim influence (the wali);cf. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 111, 104, who also raises the possibility that this is an ancient Palestinian custom, which is less likely; see on this matter also: Friedman, Marriage, I, pp. 229ff.

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of a Karaite Bible commentator of the time are particularlycharacteristic, according to whom‘the breakeris come upbefore them’ (Micah,ii:13), is intended as breaking out of theprison, which is the exile, by virtue of the m a s k i h , the shdziininz, who would bring about salvation through their piety and endless prayers. To this end, the Karaites made their computations of the End of Days, such as the computation of one Karaite commentator on Psalms, who evidently wrote at the beginning of the year 1335/6 Sel., that is, the autumn of AD 1024. This computationis based on Psalms, X C : ~ .The copyis faded and it is impossible to make out the details of his computation; only the principleis discernible. True, nine years had passed since the anticipatedyear of redemption, but one has to increase the number of years because of the length of ‘the night watches’, and in any case, redemption is at hand, owing to the prayers of the maskdim. The Gaon Solomon b. Judahwas infuriated by the vain pretensions of the Karaites, clearly expressing the accepted opinion of the Jewish public at the time. They consider themselves lilies (shdziinitn) and their fellowmen thorns, calling themselves maskiliw, even though ‘there is no agreement among them as to who is a maskd’. Actually, the Rabbanites were also given to applying to themselves such termsas maskdim and ma$lqlm. This is the case, for instance, in Abrahamb. David ibn Sughmar’s letter to the Nagid of Qayrawan, Jacob b. ‘Amram. Solomonb. Judah himself, in a letter to Ephraim b. Shemaria,writesinfavour of scholars who are content with little: ‘and they should be considered as belonging to the maskfliin and i-mqdiqim in the eternal nation, and made to shine as the brightness of the firmament’ (Dan., xii:3), etc. Daniel b. Azariah calls someone he is writing to, evidently one of the notables of Fustat, ‘the elder, the tnaskil’. In a letterfrom theyeshiva written (evidently) byElijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, wefind him complaining that ‘there are no more any maskdim or maSdiqim, those who recognise the truth’. Also, someone addressing a queryto Daniel b. ,Azariah wishes that God ‘may makeyour face shine, like the light of the ma&e ha-rabbiin, like the stars’. There is nothing surprising in this, for all these terms are taken from the Bible, from Isaiah and from Daniel, and the Rabbanites did not refrain from using them even though theywerecertainlyaware of their peculiar semantic usage by the Karaites.17 See the matterofthe maskdirn: Wieder,Judean Scrolls, 105-177. Shoshanim: see for instance Zion Salmonb.Yeruhim, S e f r MiIharn5t, 57-65;Danielal-Qiimisi,inMarmorstein, (ha-me’assef), 3(1928/9), 37,39,40; and see in Schechter, Saadyatla, 41ff, TS 8 K 3, which is evidently a fragment of a polemical work of Saadia Gaon against Daniel al-Qiimisi, which mentions the book the latter wrote ‘le-huskil [to teach] the nation about inheritance’. Sahl b. MaSliah, in Pinsker, LiqqGfE qadrn5niy5t, 11, 36. Ben-Sasson, Shalem, 2(1975/6), 3, tried to deduce from the homily on the ‘threescore valiant men’, that there was indeed such a group of60 Karaites, but thisis obviously merely theological construction. Yefet b. ‘Ab, Comrnentury or1 Daniel, 140; see also his commentary on Psalms, x1ii:l

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[934] Whereas they were familiar with the Islamic world, having come from the East, principally from Persia, the Karaites’ first encounter with the Christians in Jerusalem must have been something of a novelty to them. We come across indications of this here and there, particularly during theByzantines’ drive and advance in the tenth century, as we have seen above (sec. 550) in thediscussion on the eventsof thatperiod. We find Salmon b. Yeruhim complaining about theChristians’ claim that the time of the Jewshad passed, that God had had enough of them,and that from then onward, theChristians were the chosen and anew era had come. In his comments on the parable of thechariots in Zechariah,vi:1-7, he states that the first represented idol-worshippers; the second, the believers in two authorities, the light and the darkness, who are the Zoroastrians (al-mZjjtis) - called ‘the black’; the third, the philosophers seeking knowledge, while the fourth represented those who deny everything, i.e. Ishmael, the Muslims,who pretend to believe in the unity of God, and Edom (the Christians), who believe in the Trinity. As to Islam, while we find Daniel al-Qumisi relying on its favours, thereis an attitude ofbitterness and resentment among the Bible commentators of the mid-tenth century. Salmon expresses this inhis comments on Ps.,xliii: 1 (deliverme from the deceitful and unjust man): ‘by which he means the realm of the son of Hagar, as it is said “through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand” [Dan., viii:25] . . . the kingdom of the son of the slave-girl, which is the mostsevere and depressingamong all of them,as is said in the scripture: “dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly” [Dan., vii:7]; (as the hart panteth after the water brooks): ‘thesemoskilirn are thethat camefrom theexile’ etc.; and his commentary to Zech., xi:4-14, in Wieder, JIdearz Scrolls, 119, n. 1 (BM Or 2401, f. 214b), and see Wieder’sdiscussionthere,andtheparallelinPinsker, LiqqtStF qndmoniyot, 11, 36. Yefet’s commentaryon Isaiah: Neubauer, Ar4s der Prtenbrrrger Bibl. 112, n. XII;it is somewhat strange that Yefet, who lived in Jerusalem, speaks ofthe exilarchs as representing the sages ofIsrael. but it seems that he wrote it when he was still in Babylonia; cf. Klar, Tarhiz, 15(1943/4), 43ff,who has a comparison between Yefet’s statements and the Damascus covenant: ‘and the sons of Zadok are the elect of Israel . . . and they will cause the righteousto be righteous’(yasdlqi), etc. See the chapter ‘Messianism’ in Wieder, Jzdearr Scrolls, 95ff and see the quotation from the commentary ibid., 102, n. 2, BM O r 2401, f. 29b. See the commentary on Psalms, MS FirkovitchI, No. 587, in Mann, Texts, 1OOff. See also what I have said above, sec. 328, about the Karaite messianic movement which hadits centre in Biiniyas in the twenties of the twelfth century. Solomon b. Judah: 92, a, lines 18-19; to the Nagid of Qayrawan:191, line 26. Solomon b. Judah to Ephraim: 68, lines 11-12. Daniel b. Azariah’s letter: 343, line 19; however the addressee may have been one of the Karaite nesl’im. The letter of the yeshiva: 420, b, line 27. The query to Daniel b. Azariah:396, line 41. (Seein the BT,Bava batra, 8b: ‘and ntardiq? ha-rabbim; they are thosewho teach little children’.) See the viewof Mann onthis matterin:]ews, I, 49, n. 2, who goes as far as to claim that there is no reason to assume that rnaskd became a peculiarly Karaiteterm, basing his viewon an incorrect readingof theScroll of Ahima‘as (ka-tmskillm instead ofha-miskFtZm),which I have already pointedout above; see also what he writes in J Q R , NS 9(1918/9), 162, n. 156, where he quotes TS 12.194, b, lines 20-21 (the responsum of Elhanan b. Hushiel which he prints there, 174): ‘our Rock shall have

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and it also says: “woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech” ’ (Ps., C X X : ~ ) . Expressions of disdain for the Christians and the Muslims can also be found in Yefet b. ‘Ali, such as in his commentary toPs., v:5 (the foolish shall not standin thysight):‘thefoolisharethe Christians who are addicted to eating and drinking and constant merriment and as it is also said of them, “of mirth, what doeth it?” (Eccl.,whereas ii2); the workers of iniquity are Ishmael, people of deceit and depravity’. O n the other hand, he still recalls the benefit of legitimacy which Islam accorded Karaism, unlikeformer regimes, ‘and it is to this period that the scripture was referring, I will rise now and go about thestreets’ (Song of Sol.,iii:2).18 The social structureof the Karaites

[935] This subject of the Karaite social structure came to the fore with the publication of Raphael Mahler’s book on theKaraites. In his opinion, the Karaites could be regarded, over a period of several centuries, as a national and social liberation movement. The abysmal situation of the Jewish masses living in the lands of the caliphate, the taxes and tithes demanded of them by the authorities on the one hand, andby their own institutions of leadershipon the other, the wrongs done by the exilarchs, the geonim and the upper class of the learned to the masses - all the oppression and discrimination they were subjected to, were in his view what nurtured the messianic movements at the beginning of the eighth century, and their heirs, the Karaite sect, as well. Counter to Mahler’s view was that of Ben-Sasson, who raised certain objections in a critical review of Mahler’s book. He pointed to thesevere set of laws of the early Karaites, especially those of Benjamin al-Nihiwandi, derived from the very nature of Karaism,includingits social nature, which was influenced by the Muslim Weltuzrzsdzmurzg. This set of laws is innoway consistent with the ideas of those whom Mahler considered the precursors of socialism and democracy among Jews. It is a legal system whichessentially respects property and property-owners. As to Karaite society in general, it consisted of varied elements; there were substantial merchants and slave-owners, perhaps even slave-traders (in this respect, Ben-Sasson was correct, the proofof which are the Tustaris), shop-keepers and craftsmen, and also the poor. They also imposed taxes and tithes on their people, even a tithe on the women. They were very

18

mercy on us and make us ntnskilitn, to teach truth, and equitable justice’; and see also Zucker, Albec-kJrrbiler I,’cllunw, 385, n. 26, with counter-arguments to Mann. Salmon b. Yeruhim:see hiscommentary oflamentations (MSParis 295), 51a; the parable Bible: Marwick), ofzechariah, in his Cortwlerztary ot1 Psalms, lsv:31 (according to the Heb. 95; on the realm of Ishmael: the commentary on Lamentations (MS Paris 295), 75b. Yefet b. ‘Ali: MS Paris 286, 32a; the Commentary on the Song of Solomon, BM O r 2520, 65a.

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strict about loans and their repayment - the lender preceded orphans in theirright to havedebtsrepaid,and was evenpermittedto enslave someone who did not repay his debt. It is possible that the ascetic way of life that developed among the Karaites created the impressionof a new direction insocial thinking, from the days of Daniel al-Qiimisi onward, which found its expression in demonstrations of mourning customs and refraining from eating meat or drinking wine .(at least in Jerusalem). It is clear, however, that these customs were not observed byall the Karaites, andit is doubtful whether they were kept outside of Jerusalem altogether. Hand in hand with advancing the cause of asceticism, Daniel al-Qiimisi set himself against the charitable system created by the Rabbanites, which was based on the foundations of the IzeqdZsh. In his commentary on Hosea, viii:13 (the sacrifices of mine offerings) he explains that it means gifts which (the Rabbanites) inexile (that is, after the destruction of the Temple) give to the poor, seeing them as replacing the sacrifices, something which 'the Lord accepteth them not'. Salmon b. Yeruhim praises the 'poor of Israel' who seek the protection of God, according to Ps., 1xxi:l (In thee, 0 Lord, do I put my trust). However, this is merely a theological construction based on passages in theBible, the likes of which we find in theNew Testament and the literature of the Judaean Desert sect. Andyet we can recognise, to a certain extent, the influence which the actual living conditions of the first Karaites in Jerusalem had on these writings. Some of the Karaites did indeed live in conditions of poverty and distress, after having left their homes and property behind, as Sahl b. Masliah says in his letter, and were subjected to persecution on the part of the Rabbanites in Jerusalem (probably because of their eagerness to win them over to Karaism). Sahl is particularly vehement against the leaders of the Jewish population in Jerusalem,theRabbanites, who wantedthe Karaites, eventhe poor among them, to participate in paying the tax imposed on the Jews of Jerusalem (a question I have dealt with indetail in secs. 246-254): 'and they force them to take [money] against interest and give it to them, and they take it from them and give it to the rulers, so that they givethem support [;.e. to the Rabbanites], against them'. It emerges from whatSahl himself says, however, that most of the Karaite immigrants came from the merchant class. In Egypt, there were some enormously wealthy people, as well as some who were also close to the rulers, among theKaraites who left Persia and Iraq; most outstanding among these were the Tustaris. There were others, too, however. Goitein states that the Karaites, on the basis of what we know about them from the Geniza, were in general wealthier than the Rabbanites. Two of their marriage deeds from Palestine, which are in808

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cluded in my collection, are evidence of great riches. O n the other hand, we also find in the documents of the period, Karaites who were making cheese on the Mount of Olives, a Damascene weaver whom the authorities had enslaved inaworkshop, andMoses b. Isaac, the Spanish immigrant who lived in Jerusalem on the bounty ofdonations from his congregation in Spain. l9

The Karaites and their leadersin the eleventh century

[936] I havealready discussed extensively the matter of the immigration of the Karaites and their settlementin Jerusalem, as well as of the Karaite quarterthere, theSamareitike (secs. 824-827; 848). The onlyKaraite congregation we have some substantive knowledge of, apartfrom that of Jerusalem, was the congregation in Ramla. We have already encountered a ofplaces, in Solomon the mention of the Karaite congregation innumber b. Judah’s letters, in the letters relating to the dispute with Nathan b. Abraham, and elsewhere. There is aninteresting colophonin a book ofthe Bible found by a certain ‘Azriqam the scribe in the synagogue ‘of the Prophet Samuel’, ‘kept by our brethrenthe Karaites . . . and dedicated by him to the Karaite congregation in Ramla’. It is dated 407 ‘of the little horn’ (AH407 began on 10April AD 1016), on Monday, the first of ‘the first month’, evidently meaningNisan, and hence, they are referringto the spring of1017. That book of the Bible was left with a certain Mevasser b. Isaac. In another colophon, the library of a certain Abu’l-Faraj Ya‘qub is l9

Mahler, Kgraimer, 21 (and in Hebrew: 17); Ben-Sasson, Ziorl 15(1958), 42-51. Daniel al-Qiimisi. Pitror], 13. Salmon, Cornnrcntary on Psalms (Marwick), 107. See ibid., 117. his the to the exiles commentary to Ps., lxxii:4: ‘these good tidings were brought by prophets ah1 al-jdiyd, the poor and destitute. . . know ye that theMessiah, when he comes,will seek justice for these poor’; it is clear that here he is calling the entire Jewish nation ‘the poor’. O n the matter of‘the poor’ in Karaite writings, cf.:Wieder,Judenn Scrolls, 121f, 125ff. 204. The letter of Sahl b. Masliah, in Pinsker, LiqqfifL;qadnldniydt; 11, 31f; see also what he says, in Harkavy. hle’osscf; No. 13, 198: ‘they left their business, forgot their families, rejected their homeland’. See on the economic status of the Tustaris and their circle: Gil, IznTustarim, 29ff;see Goitein, hleditt-rrarmrz Society, 11, 7; 111, 52, 101.See the RabbaniteKaraite marriagedeed from Fustat dated Elul 1428 Sel., August AD1117, Bod1 M S Heb a 3, f.42: the Rabbanite Yahy5 son of ‘the important physician Abraham’ marries the Karaite widow Rayyisa daughter ot^Saadia b. David; her dowry is worth 719 dinars, an enormous sum by any standard. Also in the Karaite marriage deed 304, from the year 1009, Ramla, the summentioned is 200dinars, a very pretty sumindeed; the details of the dowry have only been partly preserved, but it contained a number of very valuable objects, and also two houses in Ramla worth 400 dinars. Similarly 305, from Jerusalem, 1028, in which the amounts are more modest, yet also greater than was customary. An interesting addition to all this is the fragment 305a. We learn from this that the Karaite David ha-Levi b. Isaac also hadahouse in Tyre. where the document was written. Another ofhisdaughters was marriedto ‘Adi b. Manasseh b. al-Qazziz (see on the father, Manasseh, and on the son: slryra, sec. 560).

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mentioned, for whomYefet b. ‘All’s commentaries on Ruth a n d on the Song of Solomon were copied, mostlikely in cn. 1000. It isuncertain whether the Karaites had a synagogue in Jerusalem during this period. In the sources, only a rnajlis is mentioned, which may have been a hall in the home of one ofKaraites. the In a colophon ainBible from the Firkovitch collection mentioned above, it says that theBible would be kept in ‘the compound ofJoseph Bakhtaway’. b. Nathan b. Isaac, a Karaite who lived in Jersualem, mentions the rnajlis of the Karaites there and whenever he passes it, he writes, he is stricken with yearning. In this rnajlis, the lessons of Yeshu‘a b. Judah (Abu’l-Faraj Furqiin b. Asad) were held. It was also the address to which Karaites sent money for Jerusalem, or so it is implied from what he writes. There seems to have been a difference between the rnujlis and a synagogue, for there is mention of a Karaite synagogue in Ramla and we also know of their synagogue in Fustat. At the same time, Solomon b. Semah writes from Ramla about rumours concerningpeople who abandon the synagogue of the Palestinians in Fustat and go over to the rnujiilis al-qarii’iyin, and one must admit thatthis matter is not at all clear. Nor do we find among the Karaites during this period, those titles that were customary among the Rabbanites, suchas r d z yeslziui, au-bet-drtz, r0sh kullii, and so on. I ascribed above the mention of such titles in earlier generations to the fact thatthey preceded the final secessionof the houseof ‘Anan (such as the matter of the heads ofthe yeshiva, Jehoshaphat andSemah); one cannotconsider anyone bearing these Rabbanite titles as Karaites; they were merely descendants of the exilarchic family, the progeny of‘Anan.’O 2o

At this juncture, one should note that the letter: JNUL 4’577.3, No. 1 1 , edited by Yellin, Kiryar Sefer, 1(1924), 56-59; and also in his article in English:]POS, 4(1924), 124-127, is from the fourteenth century and itis difficult to understand how the editorascribed it to the 12th century, when there were almostno Jewsin Jerusalem; and there is certainly no foundation to what is said in the St@ ha-yishuv, 47, n. 39, that it is from the eleventh century. Aaron (Hiriin)ibn Saghir of al-Qihira, whois mentioned thereon verso, line 1, is mentioned in a memoriallist - TS 8 K 22, f. 2: ‘Aaron the honouredprince’, etc.; hewas a contemporary of the Karaite writer Yefet b. Sa‘ir (perhaps his brother) known from the fourteenth century; see Mann, Texts, 11, 21 1 , n. 20. Another assumption lacking any foundation is that ofKook, G i m P q e d e m , 4(1930), 107-1 10, about threeKaraite localities in the Jerusalemarea: Giv‘i, Rama,Barqa. Only thetitle of his article: ‘Anunknown Karaite centre’, is correct. The dedication in Ramla: from a Bible MS which belonged to Firkovitch, in Poznanski, k’erushalayirn (Luncz), 10(1914), 115. The Karaite synagogue ‘of the Prophet Samuel’ was evidently in Ramla; in this colophon thereis also the date AM4373, but itis not consistent with that of the AH, and it seems that the Karaites in Ramla used a different era of thecreation (the differences in the computation of the era of thecreation I have already dealt with above); aMevass.Fr b. Isaac is mentioned in a marriage deed edited has not been by Assaf, Tarbiz, 9(1937/8), 26ff, from alocality in Egypt. the name of which preserved; it is very doubtful whether he is the same person to whom Poznanski is referring there; see the marriagedeed (with theaddition of some related fragments which were unknown to Assaf): Friedman, Marriage, 11, 5-1 1 and see ibid., 2f. The library of Abii’l-Faraj Ya‘qiib: BM O r 2554, in Horning, Six Karaite Manuscripts,27. The compound

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[937] We have already witnessedsomething of the relationship between the Karaites and the Rabbanites, in the discussion on their contacts with the rulers, for as we have seen, both communities were requesting the intervention of the authorities in their quarrels. Obviously, theKaraites’ attitude to the Rabbanites was critical in the extreme. Possibly the most apt expression of this attitude can be found in Sahl b.Masliah’s ‘letter of rebuke’; apart from his denouncement of their worshipping graves and their consumption of forbidden foods, whichI have already mentioned, he claims that they pretend they are the Sanhedrin; they desecrate the sabbath and pay mutual visits ‘to eat and to drink’ on the sabbath; they invite gentilesto sharetheir meals; they ‘carry thecoffins of the dead in the gentile fashion, nor do they sit the proscribed seven days in mourning’. True, there were some Rabbanites in Ramla,he writes,who learned from the Karaites, by which he may have meant that their propaganda had borne fruit and they hadsucceeded in winning them over to theirteachings, a situation whichenables us to understand the sharp reactionof the Rabbanites. The traditionists among the Rabbanites (those engaged in tu@, a term taken from the Muslims),such as Saadia Gaon (al-Fayyumi) and others ‘had brought perdition on Israel’, saysYefet b. ‘Ah, in his commentary onPs., xxv:14 (The secret of the Lordis with them thatfear him). Comparatively early evidence of the Palestinian Rabbanites’ attitude to all this can be found perhaps in the Scroll of Ahim‘a?, in thestory of the excommunication of Silano, a man of Venosa in southern Italy who ridiculed the preacherwho came to the town. The people ofthe Palestinian yeshivacancelled theban,however, because of an innovationwhich of b. Bakhtaway, see in Kahle, Masoreten des Westens, 67, and in Mann. Texts, 11, 134; Ankori, Karaites irl Byzantiwn, translates IqZr: courtyard, which is not correct. Nathan b. Isaac: 297.Solomon b. Semah:205. Pinkerfeld, Luncz Mernorial Volume, 215, assumed that there werehints that theKaraite synagogue in Jerusalem was built in the eleventh century or the beginning of the twelfth.As to the firstpossibility, this is not likely, as there is no information on Karaite a synagogue in Jerusalem during that period; second the possibility is out of the question, because the Crusaders then controlled Jerusalem. What is said here about the lack of Rabbanite titles among the Karaites contradicts the view of Wieder, Judeon Scrolls, 90E Goitein, A4editerranean Society, 11, 166; 555,n. 44,assumed that thentajlis of the Karaites was actually a synagogue, but that they preferred not tocall it so in order to evade the Muslim ban on erecting places of prayer on sites where they had not existed before the Muslim conquest. It is worth quoting here Sahl b. Masliah’s epistle, where he mentions as one of thechanges for the better brought about by Islam, the permission to ‘His nation’, that is the Karaites, to build ‘places’ inJerusalem for‘reading and expounding and praying at any time and setting up night-watches’; see in Harkavy, Me’assZJ No. 13, p. 199, and see the commentary of Wieder, ibid., 103, n. 2. It is also typical that in the colophons of the Bible belonging to the Karaites ofJerusalem which have reached us, it says in general, that the Bible is dedicated ‘to the Karaite congregation’ or only ‘to the Karaites’, not to the synagogue.See for instance the colophon in the Bible in the Karaite synagogue in Cairo: Gottheil,JQR, 17(1905), 639f, No. 34: ‘to the Karaites in Jerusalem the Holy City’;and only in a later period is it inscribed: ‘in the synagogue of al-Qiihira’.

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Silano had introduced into one of theyiyyiitiw, which were evidently part of theprayers for the Dayof Atonement. These werechanges in praise of the Rabbanites, placing blame on the rnii.llm, possibly meaning the Karaites. This seems to have occurred towards the end of the ninth century, when the Karaites were arrivingand settling in Jerusalem. More basic information concerning the conflict between theRabbanites and the Karaites in Jerusalemis to be found primarily from thebeginning of the thirties of the eleventh century, after the continuous warfare between the Fatimids andthe Palestinian tribes had ceased. A strong faction in the yeshiva, headed by thepriestly brothers, Josephand Elijah, sons of Solomon Gaon, tried to renew the tradition of proclaiming a ban on the Karaites on Hosha‘na rabba,during theassembly on the Mount Olives. of The formula of the ban was apparently: ‘on the eaters of meat with milk’. Solomon b. Judah objected to the renewal of this custom, undoubtedly because he was a restrained and peace-loving man, but probablyalso out of concern for thedistressingstatethat existed at thetime, and the dependence on the goodwill of the Tustari brothers, who wereKaraites. The question of the ban held the masses spellbound,andtheyeven refrained from throwing their contributions ‘on the robe’ as was customary, for they were too occupied with the thought of the excommunication. ‘The third’, Tobiah b.Daniel, also tried to influence the people to accept the Gaon’s opinion, but to no avail. The two priestly brothers, together with Abraham,the son of the Gaon, proclaimed the ban, and the rest is known: the two brothers were arrested and taken to prison in Damascus. The resentment and rivalry led to theKaraites libelling the Rabbanites, saying thatsome of them had made three figures (evidently drawings) and burnt them. There wereconsultations over this matter in the rmjlis situated in the Jewish market (apparently they are referring to the site of the yeshiva in Jerusalem, probablymeaning: ahall); those present pressed the Gaon to declare a ban on the libellers and he was forced, it is implied, to submit to their demands.Solomon b. Judah displays agreat deal of restraint in the letter in whichdescribes he this, and although he has much to complain of in terms of the Karaites’ behaviour and their arrogance, he does not think they should be excommunicated and cut off from the Rabbanitesentirely. He also stresses the fact of the mixedmarriages between the two communities, which aremainly to the advantage of the Karaites. They multiply, says the Gaon, withthe help of the Rabbanites, who give theirdaughters in marriage to them;and he recalls that this was how the tribe of Judah had behaved, when they did not prevent their daughters from marrying into other tribes of Israel, even when the latter worshipped idols.Indeed, these mixed marriageswere an indication of the 813

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link that still existed between the two communities despite the differences. (There are quite a few documents in the Geniza which give evidence of mixed marriages;we have seen above the matter of marriage the of David b. Daniel to the daughter of a Karaite, for instance. Generally, the ‘mixed’ marriage deed contained provisionabout the mutual respect for theother’s customs with regard to holidays and foods, such as the fragment of a marriage deed in which the woman undertakes not to feed her husband meat‘notslaughtered bythe Rabbanites’ and not‘to desecrate his holidays’.) In the continuation of his letter, Solomon b. Judah mentions serious the affliction caused by the custom ofproclaiming these excommunications, for it brings about the intervention of the authorities, as we have seen. Strained relations between Rabbanites andKaraites are also felt in the letter of theDamascene weaver, who complains that the Rabbanite Jews (who dominate the entire branch of weaving) denounced himtheto authorities. O n the other hand, there was also a certain degree of collaboration. Solomon b. Judah tells how he fulfilled the roleof cantor for Karaites the in Ramla - before he became Gaon, naturally - and that he would pray on one day with the Rabbanites and on the other, withthe Karaites. He himself treats this information jestingly. The ties and the mutual involvement are mainly revealed during the internalstruggles in the yeshiva, when each of the parties tries to attract the Karaites to their side. We have seen that Nathan b. Abraham succeeded in this, owing to his personal contacts, particularly with the Tustaris. This also applies to Daniel b. Azariah in his struggle with Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon, and also to David, the son of Daniel, in his struggle against the Palestinian yeshiva and its head, Abiathar ha-Kohen.” Sahl b. Masliah, in Pinsker, LiqqlSlF qadnr6tliy6t. 11, 32f. Yefet b. ‘Ah, Cornmerztary on Daniel, 141; see the Scroll of Ahima‘a2, 16f; see the original piyyi!: Marcus, P A A J R , 5(1933-4),85-91,see also Davidson, Oqv, I, 31 1 (No. 6844). Cf. Starr, J e w s , 102. The matter of the ban: 85.The burning of the images: 92,a, lines 30fc the matterof the libel is not clear; what these three images depictedor represented, wedo not know, but it seems to have been clear to the people at the time, for Solomon b. Judah, writing about it, does not think it necessary to go into details. See the matter of the excommunication of the Karaites also in 122. Also 327,to the extent thatit can be read, speaks of theopposition of it mentions that theKaraites desecrate the Gaon to the excommunication of Karaites; the the Dayof Atonement (byfixing its date differently from theRabbanites), andalso speaks of matters concerning meat with milk. The ban and its dire results are also described in 433. The letter ofthe Damascene Karaite: 291.Solomon b. Judah as cantor: 75,a. lines 2-6. A general survey of the points on which the early Karaite leaders attacked the Rabbanites can be found in Mann, T e s t s , 11, 49ff. He covers there matters of ritual, folk customs, dietary rules, superstitions and mystic beliefs.See what Solomon b. Judah writes on marriage with the Karaites: 92,a. lines 21ff. See the fragment of the marriage deed: T S 8.223; itis signed by ‘‘Eli ha-Kohen the cantor b. R. Hezekiah ha-Kohen he-haver in the Great Sanhedrin’; from which we learn that it is a Jerusalem marriage deed, dated about the mid-eleventh century. Cf. Golb, in Jewish Medieval a d Renaissance Studies, 11; see dis-

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[938] Jerusalemcontinued to be the most important centre for the Karaites in the eleventh century as well. Their major figure at the start of thecentury wasAbii Ya‘qiib Joseph ha-Kohen b.Abraham, who is al-Basir (‘the seer’; this is of course of a euphemism; in Hebrew: ha-RG’e; that is, he was blind). He had a house inJerusalem, where he expounded his teaching. Joseph al-Basir was one of the pupils ofJoseph ibn Noah.He wrote many treatises, among them a book ofprecepts (kitib nl-istibsaiv), which he completed, according to Ibn al-Hiti, in A H 428, that is AD 1036/7; as well as philosophical works, such as ‘the comprehensive book’ (al-muI~tawi),which was translated by his pupil Tobiah b. Moses as sefev tza-ne‘Ir?z6t7 of which we know of a chapter entitled sefev Ita-rn6‘adim; the book of discrimination (kitib al-tnmyiz), also translated by Tobiah and entitled mahkimat p e t l (‘making wise the simple’, Ps., xix:7); and other writings which have notbeen preserved. In his book of precepts, Joseph al-Basir, was thefirst to oppose the excessive severity of theKaraites with regard toincest regulations. According to Poznanski, hedied in ca. 1040. A contemporary ofJosephal-Basir was Abii’l-Faraj Hiiriin b. al-Faraj, a grammarian and Bible commentator, mentioned by subsequent grammarians as ‘theJerusalemite grammarian’. His major work: ‘The comprehensive book of roots and derivations in the Hebrew language’, was completed in Rajab A H 417 (July AD 1026). Apart from this, he wrote al-kitib al-ki$(‘the sufficient book’), which was considered continuation a (the eighth part) of the former work. T w o pages of another ofhis grammatical works have been preserved and editedby Hirschfeld, namelyfrom ‘the book of strings in Hebrew usage’. He also wrote a book on the Aramaic of theBible. He was stillalive in 1048, aswe can see from Tobiah b. Moses’ letter. Tobiah b.Moses was evidentlyone ofJosephal-Basir’s pupils. He came from Constantinople toJerusalem to study with the Karaite personalities there, and was known by the nicknames ha-ma‘atiq (‘the copier’; because of his translations and beinga scribe), ha-biiql(‘the erudite’), ha-‘6vd, (or:hn‘eve4 ‘the worshipper’, or: ‘the slave’). We findreferences to him in Eshk6l Izn-kofev, where itis said that Tobiah hn-mskil, and other Karaite scholars fromConstantinople addressed queries to theJerusalemite Karaite scholars,the n v d ? rrzaskil? (‘the mourners among the rnaskill~ll’)of the Holy City of Jerusalem. From what is known from Karaite sources, he went up to Jerusalem and studied there, and above we have seen that he translated some treatises of his master, Joseph al-Basir, from Arabic into Hebrew. He also wrote a number of cussions on the subject in Assaf, Be-oholi? ya‘aqSv, 182fC Friedman, Marriage, 11, 3. 290f, notes that he has identified fifteen marriage deeds and other documents which relate to marriages between Rabbanites and Karaites.

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books: O @ v ne!zrnZd, which is a discussion on the book of Leviticus, in which he also included quotations from other writers, such as the nisr David b.Boaz and Yefet b. ‘Ah; Yehirne’6v6t, a treatise which has been lost and about which we know nothing; and yiyytrtlm, two of which were known and included in the Karaite prayer book. He is also credited with having written a philosophical work, Meshuat rzefesh, but Vajda has established that it is not Tobiah who wrote it. Following on an account by Elijah Bashyatchi, inhis epistlegd h a - ~ i s h e , there were some whoassumed that Tobiah was the pupil of Yeshii‘i b. Judah (Abii’l-Faraj Furqin b. Asad), for theaforementioned speaks of ‘our Master Tobiah the copier’ who went to ‘our Master Yeshii‘i and studied there and transcribed his books from the Arabic language to the holy tongue and brought them to Constandina’ (which is Constantinople). The Geniza documents show that Tobiah was a contemporary of Yeshii‘i, and perhaps even somewhat older.” [939] As E have mentioned, there arewritings in the Geniza by Tobiah b. Moses whichshed light on the periodofhis stays in Palestine and Egypt. It seems that he spent a considerable amount of time inthe Muslim lands, and one can go even further and assume that he came from a family which had emigrated from a Muslim country to Constantinople, because of the distinctive Arabic influence which is very obvious in his Hebrew letters, and also because he wrote in Arabic. Out ofthe four letters which havebeen preserved in theGeniza, the first is in fact written in Arabic. He wrote it Jerusalem in in the spring of 1040 or thereaboutsandit is addressed to his daughter. And therein lieshis 22

O n Joseph al-Basir: Poznanski, Yertrsldayim (Luncz), 10(1913/4), 102ff; idern, JQR, 19(1906/7), 43ff; seeHirschfeld,JQR, N S 8(1917/8), 167ff. who quotes a fragment dealing with thedefence ofthe method ofanalogy(qiyar):B M O 2580, r fs. 44ff, which he ascribes to Joseph al-Basir; see Skoss, in his edition ot‘ ‘Ali b. Sulaynxin, 7, n. 35; see further references: Ankori, Karaites irz Byzantitrm, 81, n. 65; and see idern,J J S , 8:71, 1957,where he defends Poznanski’s opinion that Josephal-Basir died in ca. 1040, not in 1048 as Alexander Mars claimed; his reliance on the silence of Tobiah b. Moses in his letter, 295, does not support his claim, for theletter dates from 1048, not 1041 as he assumed. It is possible that Joseph al-Basir is identical with Joseph b. Abraham ha-Kohen, who was appointed trustee by the Karaite marriage deed 305, dated January 1028; and it is also possible that acertain ha-Kohen b. Joseph in the fragment of the marriage deed 308, line 9, is the son ofal-Basir. O n Abu’l-Faraj Hiriin: Harkavy, 2’4 1 (1881), 158; Poznanski, Yertrshalayirn (Luncz), 10(1913/4), 104fc Poznanski, REJ, 3324, 197. 1896; ibid., 56:42. 1908; Hirschfeld,-JQR, NS 13:1, 1922/3; idem, Literary History, 50-53; see further references: Ankori, Kunlifes i n Byzantiurw, 185, n. 44. On Tobiah b. Moses see Erltkd ha-kqfer, 74a (alphabetically, 187); the version is not atallclear, and one may also understandthat it i_s the sages of Constantinople who asked Tobiah; see Poznanski’s article in Erzcyclopaedia Osar IsriFl s. v., and details there on his writings and piyyiitim; see Vajda, Bmerlz Metnorial L’olurne, 103; see notes on his piyyiqim in Neubauer, Airs der Petersbur~er Bibliothek. 147; Ankori, S. W. Baron Preserztation T’cllumr: 1; idem, Kuraites in Byxarztitrrn, according to the Index. See Eliljah Bashyatchi, Aderet, at the beginning of the book. O n the matter of the time of Tobiah, see also Ankori, Ttrrbir, 25(1956/7), 44ff.

W.

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singular personalstory. Hehad marrieda Christian woman who bore him a daughter, to whom he is writing this letter. The daughter is having a difficult time, he says, and suffers and is evenbegging for her bread because of the mother. His own situation is excellent, with amplefinances, in view of his post as supervisor of the state’s estates in Palestine (it seems that this is how we are understand to his text). As we know from his other letters abouthis contacts with the Tustari brothers, we may assume that it was due to the latter that he obtained such a post. He ponders over his daughter’s state of mind - does shesee herself as a Jewessor as a Christian? In the letter,his wife’s sister is also mentioned. He expresses the desire to ransom his daughter, and it is naturally difficult to understand what he means by this; it is possible that both his wife and his daughter were enslaved to someone. He writes that he is intendingto travel to his Byzantine homeland, ‘to theByzantine lands, to my countryand family’. The next letter is to Abii Sa‘d Abraham al-Tustari, in which Tobiah calls himself ‘your servant Tobiah, thethin’. He writes out of distress, for he has undergone many troubles. Apparently his relationship with theTustaris has deteriorated, but he nevertheless turns to them. This letter was written in Egypt, thatis (it seems) hehas lost his post in Palestine, which need not surprise us, as such things must have been everyday occurrences as a result of theconstant reversals within theFatimid court. He has with him in Egypt another two people, members ofhisfamily evidently,but he does not go into any detail about them. A certain Abii’l-Faraj Hiba, apparently one of the intimates of the Tustaris, told him that Abraham al-Tustari is angry with him ‘because I dwelt among you’; he therefore surmises thathis coming toFustat was a burden tohis benefactors and that his presence is not wanted. He thusdecided to return ‘to my country and homeland and family’ (exactly as he wrote to his daughter in the abovementioned letter). The only reason for his coming toFustat washis fear of the tax authorities. Therefore asks he the Tustari to obtain an authorisation ( k e t i v ) for him,in order that he should not experience once again what he had suffered in Tinnis (Harzi?s), when he needed the intervention of the Tustaris after he was put in prison. Then he still had the money to pay bribes, but now had he none. Wemay assume thatthis is how herecalls his arrival in Egypt for thefirst time, perhaps as many as fifteen years earlier, when hewasgreeted with thereception usually reserved for people coming to Egypt from one of the Christian countries (see sec. 721, the story of the Christian traveller, the monk Bernard). Here too we find evidence of his Byzantine origin. He expresses gratitude and adds greetings to Abraham al-Tustari for ‘everything that was done with me and with everyone inall the congregations of theland of Edom,near and far’. He also promises that he will see to it that blessings are said over the 816

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Tustari in the synagogues (in Byzantium) on every Monday and Thursday, whichis an indication thatTobiah occupied a respected status among the Byzantine Karaites. He notes that he spent a ‘whole year in the service of my illustrious master’ - perhaps referring to his former position of supervisor of estates in Palestine. He sees himself as a priest (‘ordained to be a priest: ha-husnziikh lilzyot ntuzzi?)among the Karaites, probably not meaning a priest by virtue ofhis lineage, but a spiritualleader, due tohis teaching, unlike those claiming descent from Aaron, who are like the idol-worshippers, and in order to differentiate him from those claiming descent from the House ofKing David. In 1048, Tobiah writes from Jerusalem to Perahia b. Mu’ammal, in Fustat, formerly one ofthe followers of Nathan b. Abraham.We find in this letter echoes of the terrible events occurring in Egypt, the internal wars during which Abrahamal-Tustari was murdered. Indeed, Abraham is referred to in this letter with the expression ‘May God have mercy on him’, and Tobiah speaks of the terrible calamity (‘a breakdown for all of Israel’). Inaddition, Tobiahsuffered a number offamilytragedies and he is in great distress. N o one cares for him apart from a few Byzantine (?) people who happen to be in Jerusalem. TheKaraites do not support him, except for Abii’l-Faraj Aaron, who sometimes shows some interest; he probably means Abii’l-Faraj Hiiriin, the aforementioned grammarian and Bible commentator. Money arrived from Ramla but Tobiah was not given any ofit.Substantial sumsof money(duvkemonTm) also arrived from the Tustaris, from Hesed b. Yiishir andYefet b. Abraham; it was distributed to everyone but only he wasdenied any part of it. I n this letter, too,he writes about setting off on a journey he intendsto make, ‘to my home and patrimony’ and with this in mind, he asks Perahia to inform him as to whom he can leave money which he owes him, before he sets out on his way. He also mentions his daughter in the letter, who ‘will not leave my heart’, and who is still with her mother, his Christian wife; it would be better that the daughter die than to stay ‘with that adulterous woman’. The background to Tobiah’s family affairs and his status among the Karaites in Jerusalem, who deprived him ofall support, as we have seen, becomes clear from a fragment of one ofhis letters, to an addressee not known to us. In the interim, there had been dramatic developments - his Christian wife (‘the daughter of Edom’) returned to him after cutting off her ties with the Church. She left behind her motherland and moved toa Muslim landin order tobe able to become a Jewess. God musthave had a hand in the matter, for her family tried to molest her and even to kill her. They even slandered and fabricated libels against her. ‘And now she is bereaved’, he writes, apparently speaking of the death of the daughter. This tragedy is the apparent explanation for her conversion and devotion

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to Judaism; she was prepared to sacrifice herself, despite coaxing and threats on the part of her family and the authorities.She then returned to Tobiah (‘myfirsthusband’), to hn-shS$lS (the low city: Ezek., Heb., xxi:31), that is, to Jerusalem. At the end of the fragment, it is implied that oneofthe Christian priests (inJerusalem?)triedtoconspire against Tobiah. If we summarise the information supplied in these letters, we can say that: (1) Tobiah married a Christian Byzantine who bore him a daughter; (2) this woman abandoned him; perhaps for this reason or perhaps because of plots against him in Byzantium, he came to Palestine (and not only because of his thirst for knowledge); (3) on his way to Palestine he was assisted by the Tustaris (in Tinnis),established a relationship with them, and apparentlyobtainedtheappointment as supervisor of the state’s estates in Palestine through them; (4) his ties with the Tustaris, and also with theKaraites in Jerusalem, were ambivalent, and there were moments of anger and rupture, perhaps because of the Christian wife orhis opposition to the Karaite nesi’im, which is implied in one ofhis letters; and (5) after some time, evidently after the death of his daughter, his wife returned to him, coming to Jerusalem after converting to Judaism. Fromall this we can conclude that Tobiah did not return to Byzantium, forhis proselyte wife had fled from there.23 [940] One of Tobiah b. Moses’ contemporaries was Abii’l-Faraj Furqin b. Asad, who is Yeshii‘i b. Judah, also a pupil of Joseph al-Basir. Ibn al-Hiti mentions his Bible commentary; hesays he was the pupil ofLevi b. Yefet ha-Levi and ofAbu’l-Faraj Hiriin. Abrahamb. Da’iid also mentions him in his Sefev Ila-qnbbSlS, implying that he was the leader of the Karaites in Palestine and the teacher and friend of Ibn al-Taras (or Abu’l-Tarss), who, together withhis wife (‘the teacher’ - nl-nrls‘allirncz) were the leaders of the Karaites in Castile. Under Yeshii‘i b. Judah’s guidance, he writes, Ibn al-Taris wrote ‘a book of incitement and misguidance’ and took it The letters of Tobiahb. Moses: 293-296. Arabic forms of syntax, see for instance: 294, b. line 19; he considers himself a priest: 294, a, lines 21-23, see in the notesibid. Echoes of the events: 295, lines 10-14; the death of Abraham al-Tustari: ibid., lines 6-8, 25-27; his distress: ibid., 18-21; money from Ramla and Fustat: ibid., 21-22, 24-27. Mann. Tests, I, 373. and also Ankori, in his abovementioned article (in the Baron Preserltntiorl Volumt.), did not identify Abu ‘Ali Yefet b. Abraham al-Tustari, mentioned therein line 25, although it in the same is quite clear, cf. Gil, ha- Tustaritn, 436 the moneyand starting on the journey: letter, 30-34; in the margin thereare additional greetings for Abii ‘Ali Hasan, who is Yefet b.Abraham al-Tustari; see on him Gil, ibid., 58. The abovesummary is essentially different from thatof Ankoriin his aforementioned article; also what he writes thereon the schism among theKaraites does not have sufficient foundation. Tobiah evidently made his living also by copyingbooks, and indeed he had a fine square script, comparatively easy to identify. He is the onewho copied ‘the ancient questions’, the rhymedtreatise, mentioned above several times, as noted also by Fleischer, and see his article: Kiryat Sefr, 55( 1979/80): 183. See also the article of Scheiber, Kirpt S e j r , 55:791, 1979/80, where he

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with him to Castile. Yeshii‘a b. Judah was the most outstanding and important ofthe Karaite spiritual leaders at that time.Apart fromhis Bible commentary, healso translated the Bible into Arabic and supplementeda short commentary to it. He wrote a treatise of a philosophical homiletic nature on the two first pericopes of Genesis, entitled Beri?shit rabbi. In the sphere of the law, his book on incest regulations has been preserved, which mayhave been part of a more comprehensive work, which he called S e f r ha-yishiir. He tried to abolish the severe laws of the Karaite rikkGv mentioned earlier. Those of his works which have been preserved in Hebrew aretranslations from theArabic, carried out byhis contemporary Jacob b. Simon, who stemmed from Byzantium, and they contain a great many Greek expressions. Yeshii‘i b. Judahis mentioned in some Geniza documents in my collection. The Karaite Nathan b.Isaac, writingin Jerusalemin cu. 1050, mentions ‘the lesson of Master Abu’l-Faraj b. Asad’, who is none other than Yeshii‘a b. Judah In November 1064, Avon b.Sedaqa mentions him, implying that theGaon Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomonsent a letter to Nehorai b. Nissim via Abii’l-Faraj b. Asad(that is,he included his letter in a package of letters sent by Abii’l-Faraj to Fustat). This is apparently evidence of the ties between the Gaon and the man who was then unquestionably the mostimportant figure among the Karaites ofJersualem. In August 1065, in another letter fromJerusalem, Avon again mentions the letters of Abii’l-Faraj and it seems that here, too, Yeshii‘a b. Judah is meant. Abii’l-Faraj happens to be in Tyre, accompanied by the $ubi (a youth orclerk) Asher (or perhaps one should read: Asad, with a‘left-hand’ sTn, often replacing a samekh; if this is so, perhaps heis referring to the son of Yeshii‘ii, probably called Asad, after his grandfather). From what has been said until now, it is clearthat Yeshii‘ii was a contemporary of Tobiah b. Moses and apparently outlived him. We also have to mention Abii’l-Hasan ‘Ali b. Sulaymin, who lived in Jerusalem towards the end of the century. He introduced into his treatises parts ofthe works ofKaraite writers who had preceded him. He wrotean abridged version ofthe Egran ofAbii Sulaymiin David b. Abraham al-Fisi, on the basis of an earlier compendium by Levi b. Yefet ha-Levi. He also wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch, which is merely an adaptation based on the abridged version of the commentary ofJoseph ibn Noah, a compendium written by Abii’l-Faraj Hiiriin, in which we find extracts of the commentaries of the nZsiDavid b. Boaz. Remnants ofhis commentary to the book of Psalms have been preserved, which he compiled from the commentaries of the nasi David b. Boaz and Abii’l-Tayyib al-Tinnisi (a edited TS Box K 17. f. 6. a fragmentin Tobiah’s handwriting, dealing with Karaite prayer customs (during persecution?).

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man of Tinnis in Egypt). Another contemporary who lived in Jerusalem until close to the Crusaders' conquest was Sahl b. Fadl al-Tustari, who is Yashar b. Hesed b. Yiishar b. Hesed, the great-grandson of Hesed alTustari,Abraham'sbrother.Wehave seen that his stayinJerusalem during the nineties of the century is confirmed by Abii Bakr ibnal-'Arabi, the Spanish Arab writer. Sahl b. Fadl wrote a commentary to the Pentateuch and also halakhic and philosophical treatises. Abu Sa'd, a youth who was said to be 'the son of the Tustari'swife', apparently Sahl's wife, was one of the Karaite Jerusalemites taken captive by the Crusaders, ofwhom I shall speak in due course.24 The Samaritans

[941] There is no doubt that considering their assumed share of the population of Palestine during this period, the Samaritans areworthy of a chapter of their own. Unfortunately the sources on them are few and far between, and the history ofthe Samaritan populationis almost unknown. In the Samaritan chronicles themselves, very little has been preserved concerning the period under discussion, apart from lists of high priests, which are very inexact and which contribute nothing toannals the of this community. According to a Samaritan chronicle, the high priest at the 24

See Harkavy, 2'4 W , l(1881). 158, who notes that Abraham ibnEzra mentions Yeshii'ii b. Judah frequently in his Bible commentary. See Ibn al-Hiti, 434; Abraham b. Da'iid, S . ha-qubbdi, 69; Poznanski, J Q R , 19(1906/7), 65ff; MS Leiden O r 4779 is a collection of Karaite writings, where Yeshu'ii's book on incest regulations is included, and also: 'The responsa of fundamental law of R. Yeshii'ii h+melammt;d, of blessed memory, on restrictions concerning incest.' The book on incest regulations was edited byI. Markon, Dm Buch vo~zden verboterzen I..'ertl~undschu~s~r[~den (St Petersburg 1908); cf. Mann, Texts, 11, 39. A comprehensive studyof Yeshu'ii b. Judah's works and thought: M. Schreiner, Stlrdierz iiber.Jeschu'n bet1 Jelzzrdu (Berlin 1900); see a chapter on him: Husik, History ofhlediaeval Jewish Philosophy, 55-58, based mainly on the aforementioned work of Schreiner; also Guttmann, l ~ a - F i l & - L ~77-80. n, Nathan b. Isaac: 297. line 8. Avon b. Sedaqa: 500, a, line 24; 501, b, lines 16-17. See further on Yeshii'i b. Judah: Ankori, Koroites in Byzontiurrt, according to the Index, especially pp. Slf, on the rikkllv. O n the preservation of the commentary to the Pentateuch of Yeshii'ii b. Judah in a Samaritan commentary see: Loewenstamm, Ttwbix, 41 :183, 1971/2; ibid., 187, she mentions the Samaritan Abii Sa'id (the twelfth century), whocalled Yeshii'ii 'the greatest of the Karaite commentators'; on the matter of Tobiah b. Moses and Jacob b. Simon, one finds there the usual error. that they were allegedly pupils of Yeshii'i b. Judah, whereas in fact they were his contemporaries. On 'Ah b. Sulaymin see Mann, Texts, 11, 41, and see Skoss' introduction to his edition of the commentary to Gen. of the aforementioned, and the account of his life: Turbir. 2(1930/31), 510-513. where he proves that 'Ali was active from 1072-1103. O n Yiishiir b. Hesed al-Tustari, the Karaite writer, see: Poznanski, J Q R , 19(1906/7), 70fc Mann, T e x t s , 11, 39f; Gil, hn-Tustnrfm, 63fc there I still hesitated whether to identify him with the Tustari who was met by Ibn al-'Arabi, but this now seems to be almost certain; see the textofY5shiir in MS Firkovitch 11, No. 3950, inMann, ibid., 100: 'Sahl b. al-Fad1 b. Sahl al-Tustari concluded the copying ofthis his treatise in Muharram oftheyear 489', i.e. January AD 1095; the contents of the fragment imply that itwas written in Jerusalem, a t the very time Ibn aL'Arabi was staying there.

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time of the Muslimconquest was Nethanel (when ‘theIshmaelites came and took over theland of thePhilistines’). The priest who succeeded him was ‘Eleazar, in whose day . . . Abii Bakr died’, which is an indication of the reliability of this chronicle, for Abii Bakr died a short time after the beginning of the Muslim invasion. According to Baladhuri, whom I have already quoted, particularlyheavy taxes were imposed on the Samaritans, from the time of Yazid b. Mu‘iwiya onward. In Urdunn (that is, the region of northernSamaria), they hadto pay a poll-tax of twodinars per male, apart fromthe landtax (khaviij), whereas in Filastin (probably referring to the neighbourhood of Shechem), poll-tax a of five dinars was collected from every Samaritan male. Ya‘qiibi, who wrote during the latter half of the ninth century, notes that Yavne was a locality whose inhabitants were Samaritans. He notes that in Ramla the dhimmis were Samaritans, and as has already been stated above, it is clear that there is some distortion in this version; however it does imply that there was indeed a Samaritan population in Ramla. Ibn Hawqal, who wrote in the mid-tenth century, mentionsa Samaritan populationin Ramla amounting to some500 tax-payers; that is to say, Ramla had a Samaritan population of some2,000 to 3,000 souls. The Samaritan centre, however, was obviously Nibulus, whichis Shechem; ‘the people ofPalestine claim that every Samaritan in the world hails from there’, says Ibn Hawkal. A very close relationship seems to have developed between the Samaritans and the Muslims, and the process whereby the Samaritans lent themselves to theinfluence of Muslimculture was swifter than that of the rest of thepopulation. T o a certain extent, evidence of their influence can be seen in Islamic tradition. The Koran mentions the Samaritans in the sura - t. h. (xx:90-97), noting the fear of defilement as one oftheir marked characteristics. They had taken part in the episode of the golden calf, and were therefore punished by constantly havingto say ‘do not touch me’ (la misnsa). Ibn al-Jawzi, towards the end of the twelfth century, mentions that the Samaritans who were left in Palestine say this ‘until today’. A tradition in the name of the Prophet, ascribed to Ka‘b al-Ahbar says: ‘The place most beloved by God is al-Shim;themost beloved by God in al-Shamis Palestine (d-Q~~d.s;heremeaning Palestine); andthe most beloved by God in Palestine is the Mount Gerizim’ (jabnl Niibtrlus, the mountain of Shechem). According to al-Dimashqi (writing in ca. 1300) ‘some say that if a Muslim anda Jew and a Samaritan anda Christian meet on the road, the Samaritan will join the Muslim’. The Muslim writers mention that the Samaritans are divided into two sects, the Dositheans (D~dstirziyya)and the Kiishanis, evidently information which theyfound in pre-Islamic sources. ThenameKiishinis can onlybe found in Arab writers; it seems to be a transformation of the HebrewKIitLm. According 82I

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to the Samaritan chronicle of Abii’l-Fath, it seems that there were still synagogues of the Dositheans in the ninth century. One should bear in mind that the name Dositheus corresponds to the Hebrew name Nethanel, which was the name ofseveral of their high priests. Mas‘iidi, as well as other Muslim writers, mention the Mount Gerizim, which is the sacred mountain of the Samaritans, and we know that the Samaritans called it !fir her& (distorted in some versions). Mas‘iidi also notes their custom of blowing onsilver slzofa~sin their prayers. Biriini informs us that inhis time (thefirst half of theeleventh century) the Samaritans werecalled Iinzisisiyya, which wasbased on the version of ‘do not touchme’, la rnisisa of the Koran.According to him,their religion was a mixture ofJudaism and the Persian religion. Maqrizi has a passage which explains that the Samaritans are not really related to the Children of Israel and that their origin is in fact Persian. to terrible As I have already stated,thesamaritansweresubjected persecution in the days of the Abbasids, according to the chronicle of Abii’l-Fath, which containsa general surveyof their history in that period. It states the following details: many were forced to leave their homes, some converting to Islam. It was said that during al-Amin’s day, their synagogues were burnt down in Zaytii, in (Kafr) Silim (evidently Kafr Salim), and in Arsiif. The governor ofShechem, Masriir ibn Abi ‘Amir, sided with the Samaritans, and the Muslims executed him as a result, in [a. 815. In 818, al-Ma’mun sent Khilid ibn Yazid to fight the rebels in Palestine, and after him ‘Abdallah ibn Tihir, in 822. The latter came to Palestine heading a large army, and defended the Samaritans against the rebels. When he went on his way and moved to Egypt, however, the Samaritans wereleft without anyone todefend them, and theleader of the rebels, Ibn Firisa, tried by force to get them to convert to Islam. Many then went into exile in order to evade persecution. After the insurgents assassinated the governor ofJericho, the caliph himself came to Palestine. The caliph’s brother Ibrahim (?) then conquered Bet Guvrin and caught the leader of the rebels. After the suppression of the rebellion, however, there followeda period of great hardship for the Samaritans because of the heavy taxes which the governor Abii’l-Jiriid imposed on them. In alMu‘tasim’s time (833-842), the unbelievers (thatis, the rebels) again took control of Shechem, setting fireto the synagogues of the Samaritans and the Dositheans. The twocommanders sent by thecaliph, Silih and Ja‘far, overcame the insurgents in the Valley of Ji’ib (?), and once again, the Samaritans were secure, except for the heavy burden of taxes. Pinhas b. Nethanel and Dartha (?) then restored the synagogue in Shechem. As I have already mentioned, Shechemwas taken by therebels of TamimAbii Harb and the populationfled. The high priest was wounded on the way to 822

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Hebron and died of his wounds. At the same time,the division between the Samaritans and the Dositheans became very acute. After the suppression of the uprising of Abii Harb (842), the Samaritans returned to their homes. In thedays of al-Mutawakkil (847-861) the Samaritans again suffered severe persecution; the tomb of Nethanel, the high priest, was destroyed and the Samaritans had to abide by dress regulations imposed by Islam. Ja‘far (evidently the governor of the area) tried to prohibit Samaritan rituals altogether, but Joseph ibn Dasi, the governor of Palestine, limited this to the Dositheans only, exempting the rest of the Samaritans. The IkhshidIbn Tughj also tyrannisedtheSamaritans harshly. An important detail concerning the background to the difficult conditions under which the Samaritans laboured in the ninth century, as described by Abii’l-Fath, is added by Balidhuri.According to him, Hiriin al-Rashid (786-809) turned Samaritan lands into a caliph’s estate. It is not clear from his text whetherthis meant that they were completely deprived of their property, or whether the caliph merely appropriated their land taxes (khm?i‘j’). Evidently the latteris correct, for if he was referring to the confiscation of land, we should have found some indication of this in Abii’l-Fath, when he is markedly complaining about the heavy taxes, which wascertainly true of the situation. The caliph needed large sumsof money and his appointees undoubtedly laid their heavy hands on the Samaritans, being a rural population whose taxes went straight into the caliph’s treasury from then on. According to Baladhuri, who lived close to that time (for he wrote towards the end of the ninth century), the Samaritans’ complaintsbore fruitand al-Mutawakkileased the burden oftaxes on them; at any rate, he reduced the poll-tax from five to three dinars, mainly as a result of the complaints of the Samaritans who lived in Bet M i m a (the exact place is not identified). The Samaritan chronicles tell us that Kafiir was favourably inclined towards the Samaritans. They also tell of a certain Abii ‘Abdallah (probably his name, not ‘Abdallah) of the sameperiod, who came from a city called Qnt (?), and who dealt very fairly with them. There was a man his in service ‘from thehouse ofEphraim’, thatis, a Samaritan, whose name was ha-Taqwi b. Isaac, whom his Samaritan contemporaries called ‘the saviour’. Itis not unlikely that they are describing here the rule of the Qarmatis in Palestine, while Abii ‘Abdallah is perhaps Abii ‘Abdallah Muhammad b. Ahmad ibn al-Nibulusi, a retainer of the Qarmatis and an enemyof theFatimids (mentioned in sec. 555). This Abii ‘Abdallah afterwards moved ‘to the city of Pastin [or Pastiin, i.e. Filastin] which is Ramla’ - which is also consistent withwhatweknowabout Ibn

KARAITES AND SAMARITANS

al-Niibulusi. This isall very unclear, however, and any interpretation would be based merely on assumptions. The chronicles also say that the base of this al-Taywi was Sepphoris,andthey also mention his son, Rawh. Musabbihi, whoserved in the Fatimidcourt, tells in his chronicle of an incident in Ramla inthe spring of 1024, that is, shortly after its conquest by al-Dizbiri, between a certain Abii Sa‘d, who was the official in charge of the Fatimid army’s administration, and a Samaritan named Sayf, who had received an official order (sijill) from the caliph, reprimanding Abii Sa‘d (the reason is not explained).After Abii Sa‘d refused to listen to the Samaritan’s complaints, despite his efforts toconvince him, the Samaritan stabbed him with a knife while they were arguingin one of the streets of Ramla. The Samaritan fled, taking Abii Sa‘d’s horse with him. He was caught, and al-Dizbiri had him imprisonedand the details of the incident were passed on to thecaliph, who ordered the Samaritan to be executed, and this was done. We also know ofaSamaritan who was inthe service of the Fatimid authorities, perhapsas a tax collector,whom ‘Eli ha-Kohen b. Ezekiel mentions ina letter written inconnection with taxes on his shop, in which he describes the bribing of ‘theSamaritan’. The sources do not tell us anything aboutlinks between the Jewish and the Samaritan populations, and we get the impression that there was no contact between them - unlike the continuous co-existence marked by rifts and quarrels that was maintained between the Rabbanites and the Karaites. Apparently, the attitude of the Muslim rulers towards the Samaritans was also ambivalent, and they certainly had doubts as to their genuinely being what was called nlzl nl-kitoh (people of the book). This attitude was probably influenced by the Jews and their claim that the Samaritans were notgenuine Children ofIsrael but Persians by origin, and we find indications of this in Muslim literature, as we have seen. It is possible that the authoritiesused this as a pretext for, and possibly also the background to, the persecution referred to in Abii’l-Fath’s chronicle, in which the main targetwas probably theDositheans, a sect of whichthere are no remnants. Apparently,the Crusaders’ conquest did not displace the Samaritans, but we have no information about what happened to them during the Crusaders’ rule. However, the Samaritan chronicle written in 1149, the T6l&i, is in itself evidence of their survival. This chroniclealso speaks of Samaritans in Gaza, all of them belonging to the tribe of Benjamin,except forone person whostemmedfrom thetribeof Ephraim. Mas‘iidi already noted the fact of theSamaritans’ dispersal throughout Palestine, apart from their centres in Samaria and Shechem. He mentions ‘Av2 in particular, and he apparently means the present-day 824

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'Ara. (Mas'iidi notes that he writes these things inA H 332, which began in September AD 943.)25 25

See the anonymous chronicle: Adler et Seligsohn, REJ, 45(1902), 241; Baliidhuri, Ftrtiik, 158; Ya'qiibi, Bllfditz, 328.329; IbnHawqal, 172; Ibn al-Jawzi, Zid, V, 319;Ka'b al-Ahbiir: Ibn 'Asiikir, I, 110; al-Dimashqi, 201. The division into sects: Balidhuri, ibid.; Mas'iidi, MwGj, I, ll4f; T~rrbFh, 313; Abii'l-Fidi', hlukhta,trzv, I, 88 (according to him, the difference between the two was that the Dositheansdo notaccept the idea of the world to come and of reward and penance. unlike the ktislziirriyytr); see Maqrizi, Klzitd, 111, 372ff, who has a history of the Samaritans starting from the Biblical period, and what he copied from Mas'iidi and Biruni; see Birtini, 21; Shahrastini, 170f. Fragments from the Arabic sources inan Englishtranslation: Isser, The Dosithenns, 69-73. See thechronicle of Abii'l-Fath (Vilmar), pp.l s s s ff; there is a grain of truth in this chronicle but muchof it is incorrect. The matter of taxes: Baliidhuri, ibid.; cf. Lammens. Ynzid, 391; Yiiqiit, BrrIdZtr, I, 781: al-Mutawakkil decreased the tax from ten dinarstothree;ha-Taqwi: see the chronicle edited by Neubauer (the Tdidii), 24; Adler et Seligsohn, ibid.. 253, cf. Mann, {ews, I, l8f, n. 2. The matter of Sayf the Samaritan: Musabbihi, 94. 'Eli ha-Kohen: 446, line 31. Samaritans in Gaza: in Neubauer, ibid., 26.

IO

T H EC R U S A D E R S ’ C O N Q U E S T A N D THE FATE OF PALESTINIA J ENW R Y “9i

[942] In 1099, the curtain fell on the period of Muslim rule in Palestine, which had lasted for 465 years. For the Jewishpopulation, the Crusaders’ conquest was a mortal blow; it wasalmost completely uprooted and this marked the end of an uninterrupted history ofa continuous Israelite and Jewish entity in Palestine for a period of some hundred generations, starting fromJoshua bin Nun. For other sectorsof the population as well, it was also a revolutionary change in every sense of the word. A new society arose, the kingdom of the Crusaders, whichaltogether was different from whatPalestine had known hitherto. The major setting for circumstances the whichenabled the Crusaders to make headway in thispart of the worldis to be sought inthe weaknessof the Muslim worldand its schisms. We have seen some of the facts above, in connection with the Turcomans’ conquest. One must add something about the conditions in Egypt, the country which ruled Palestine at the time of theCrusaders’ invasion. After the death of al-MustanSir in 1094, Egypt was torn by the war betweenhis two sons, al-Musta‘li and Nizir. Al-Musta‘li was declared the successor to the throne, while Nizir aimed at replacing him. He fled to Alexandria, where N5sir al-Dawla Aftakin, the governor of the city and leader of his faction, was in control. Thelatter’s intention was to succeed to thepost of al-Afdal, son of Badr al-Jamili, and become wazir and chief commander of the army. The people of Alexandria stood behind him and Nizar. Al-Afdal, however, hastened to besiege Alexandria, with littlesuccess at first, butafter tightening thesiege by organising additional forces, he managed to conquer the city. Nisir al-Dawla was executed, and Nizir was also caught and condemned to death. Together with a group of his supporters, he was put into a wall which was then sealed and built over. T o this civil war which enfeebled Egypt’s power, was added a terrible plague in 1097, which cost the lives of 826

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an enormous number of people.Nevertheless, al-Afdal succeeded in gathering together an army which tookPalestine from the Saljiiqs, as we have seen. O n 26 August 1098,Jerusalem was oncemore under the control of the Fatimids- for a periodof less than ayear before the Crusaderstook it.' [943] In the same year,as we know, the Crusaders took Antioch. From there, they launched an advance southward, along the coast, via Beirut, Sidon (Sagitta in theLatin sources), Tyre, Acre, Haifa and Caesarea. They avoided the fortified towns in the coastal area, and only Caesarea was taken at this stage, where they celebrated Pentecost in 1099. Immediately afterwards, the Crusaders entered Ramla, which they found empty its of inhabitants, who had all fled. They installed a bishop there, and gave the lands of the area to the Christians. From a description of the events, it seems clear that the Crusaders were impatient to get to Jerusalem. According to Ibn al-Athir, they tried to attack Acre but were driven back, and gave up the attemptfor the time being. Jerusalem came under siege at the beginning ofJune. Ibn al-Athir tells that the Crusaders put up two towers for the siege, one to the southin the direction of Mount Zion, which the Muslims succeeded in settingon fire and killing the soldierswho manned it. According to Ibn al-Qalanisi, the Crusaders conquered the city by trickery. They attacked during the day but withdrew towards evening, announcing loudly that they intended to return on the morrow to launch another attack. The defenders then scattered to rest for the night, but on that same night, the Crusaders attacked again when the wall was undefended. This time they succeeded in penetrating the city.The siege lasted for somesix weeksand the city was conquered on Friday, 23 Sha'banAH 492 (15 July AD 1099). Apparently, most of the Crusaderforces entered the city in the afternoonof that same day. Their major breakthrough was in the northern partof the city, in the neighbourhood of b i b al-asbit. All the sources, Muslim, Christian and Jewish, agree on the unprecedented amount ofbloodshed that accompanied the conquest of thecity. The principal Christian sources on this subject are the texts of Balderic, bishop of Dol (Baudry de Bourgueil), who wrote atreatise entitled The History ofJerusalem a t the beginning of the twelfth century, thatis quite near the time these events occurred, and Albert of Aachen, in his treatise on the conquest ofJerusalem. According to Balderic, most of the inhabitants of Jerusalem escaped to the area of the Temple Mount (templum Salomonis). The Christians violated their promise to the inhabitants that they would be left alive, and slaughtered some 20,000 to 30,000 people, a number which may be an exaggeration, although the Muslim sources 1

The civil war: Ibn al-Qalanisi, 128f; Ibn al-Athir, KGmil, X, 238; Ibn Taghri Bardi, under the year 487; Maqrizi, Kltitat, 11, 164f (which also discusses the plague), 276f.

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speak of even 70,000. One musttake into account that Jerusalem, which normallyhadamuch smaller population,was then evidently full of refugees who had fled from other places. Apparently, the Fatimid army stationed in the city left unharmed, after their commander, Iftikhiir alDawla, agreed to surrender, oncondition that he and his forces would be permitted toleave the city without armsand without food. Theyactually did leave for Ascalon, and were accompanied by some of Jerusalem’s inhabitants who managed to leave. Abii Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi, a contemporary who remained in Jerusalem for a few years, until 1095, and who evidently also had reliable information on the conquest, notes that the Muslims allfled to the nli(wib D n ’ d , obviously meaning the Temple Mount. According to him,they all remained alive and unharmed, on the condition that they surrender and hand over the citadel. Apparently Ibn al-Athir also copied these details from him.Later Arab sources, beginning with Ibn al-Jawzi, as mentioned, speak of the slaughter of 70,000 people and the plunder of the mosques on the Temple Mount. From the Dome of the Rock, some 40 or more silver lamps were robbed, each of which weighed 3,600 dirhams (apparently cn. ten kilograms), a lighting fixture made of silver which weighed40 vntls shiirni (cn. 67 kilograms, evidently), gold lamps, and innumerable pieces of clothing, fabrics andprecious objects. In addition, according to the Muslimsources, they destroyed the Cave of the Machpelah. The Arab sourcesstress in particular the killing of Abii’l-Qisim Makki b. ‘Abd al-Saliim al-Maqdisi al-Rumayli, the Muslim writer mentionedabove. As to the fate of the Jews, version the in mostof the Muslim sources is that the Jews were gathered together in the synagogue, whichwas then set on fire. The Christiansources differ; they say that most of the Jews were taken captive, which is also borne out inthe Geniza documents tobe discussed below. According to Balderic, the Jews were forced to participate inclearing away the corpses, together with the local Christians (only the latter were paid for their labours). Afterwards the captives were sold on Tancred’s orders, at the rate of thirty per nurel4s (dinar). A great many were taken bysea to southernItaly (Apulia); some were drowned in thesea and others were beheaded. Both a Christian and a Muslim sourcetell ofthe plague whichbroke out immediately after the conquest. According to the Christian source, this was caused by ‘the Barbarians’, who poisoned the wells and other water sources. There are also those who say, according to the Christian source, that the plague broke out because of the many corpses that remained unburied.’ [944] As to Hebron, wehave seen that according to the Arab sources, it On the matter of the conquest ofJerusalem see the detailed description in Ibn al-Qalanisi, 137; Ibn al-Athir, Kiimil, X, 283f; Ibn Taghri Bardi, V, 150; Ibn Khallikiin, I, 161f (the 828

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was taken at about the same time as Jerusalem, for they mentioned the destruction in the Cave of Machpelah. Albert of Aachen, however, says that Hebron was conquered in the summer of the followingyear, that is 1100, by Godfrey of Bouillon. The Crusaders turned the synagogue in Hebron into a church, as described by the Hebronite monk in his story quoted above (sec. 315) in the discussion on Hebron, which is also confirmed by Benjamin of Tudela, who notes that the church in Hebron, which was called ‘the church of St Abraham’ when he visited there ([a. 1170), had been a synagogue during the period of Muslim rule. Haifa was taken two years later, in August1100 or June1101, according to Muslim sources which contradict one another. Albertof Aachen does not mention the date in a clear manner either. From what he says, it appears that itwas mainly the Jewish inhabitants of the city who defended the fortress of Haifa. In his rather strange Latin style, he mentions that there wasa Jewish populationin Haifa, and that they fought bravely on the walls of thecity. He explains that the Jews there were protected people of the Muslims (the Fatimids). They fought side by side with units of the Fatimid army, strikingback at Tancred’s army from above the walls of the citadel (. . . Jtrdaei cives commixtis Savval-enorurn tuvwis) until the Crusaders overcame them and they were forced to abandon the walls. The Muslims and the Jews then managed to escape from the fortress with their lives, while the rest of the populationfled the city en masse. Whoever remained was slaughtered, and huge quantities of spoils were taken. According to the Muslim sources, the Crusaders also entered Arsiif at the same time, after granting an a m d n (a letter of s e c ~ r i t y ) . ~

3

article on Abii’l-Qiisim Ahmad al-Musta‘li b. al-Mustansir); Sibt ibn al-Jawzi, Mir’ih, MS Leiden O r 88, fols. 56a-57b; Yiiqiit, Bddin, 11, 824; IV, 599 (ibid. on the breakthrough in the north of the city); Ibn al-Jawzi, Mtirltngmn, IX, 108; Ibn Kathir, Bidiya, XII. 106; Dhahabi, ‘Ibar, 111, 332; Baldricus Dolensis, 102; Albert of Aachen (Albericus), 482f, and see version G of Balderic (MS Paris 5513). 103; Ibn al-’Arabi, A&jtn, 1586; on the surrender ofIftikhiir al-Dawla see also:Petri Tudebodi,Historia, 109f. O n the matter of the date, there are contradictionsin the Muslim sources, but as all are agreed that it was on a Friday, it is clear that 15 July is intended. Only one source, Gilo of Paris, lists the Jews among thedefenders ofJerusalem against the Crusaders, whichis not confirmed inany of the Muslim sources, nor in the Jewish sources. In Tudebotus abbreviatus in the Gesta Franmrwz, 161, it states that only Muslims (Sarraceni) were forced to clear awaythe corpses. O n the price of thecaptives, see below what itsays in the Geniza sources. O n the plague, see Annalista Saxo, 733; Maqrizi, Khital, 11, 165; according to him the plague spread to Egypt as well and a great many people in Fustat succumbed, which is borne out by a letter in theGeniza, quoted below.A description of the First Crusade and the conquest ofJerusalem can be read in any book dealing with the history of the Crusades;cf. Dinur, Ziorl (ha-me’asssf), 2(1926/7), 40-54; Grousset, I, 157-163; Runciman, I, 279ff; Prawer, Tdediit, I, 134ff; idem, Ha-salvinim, 31; and Goitein’s articles: Zion, 17:129 1952;]]S, 3:162, 1952; Yer~rrhnlayirll,1955:54;Eretz-Israel, 4:147, 1955/6; see these articles, together with a general introduction and various additions: idern, Ha-yishtrv, 229-305. Hebron: Albert ofAachen (see previous note), 523; Benjamin of Tudela (Adler), 26f; cf. Dinur, Ziorl (ha-me’assef), 2(1925/6) 54fc Vincent,Hibron. 163f, n. 5, who quotes a source

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[945] From here onward, I shall be referring to data contained in the Geniza documents belonging to the period of the Crusaders’ dominion over Palestine. These documents can naturally serve as a source of information, particularly with regard to the fate of the Jewish population, although here and there they contain details on the general events of the time, and it is always interesting to compare them with the information we have gathered from Christian and Muslim sources. Roughly about the same time that the ofthe news fall ofJerusalem to the Crusaders reached Fustat, evidence is to be found in two fragments of drafts of a letter intended for theAscalon congregation, on behalf of the three congregations - the two congregations of Fustat, the ‘Palestinian’ and the ‘Babylonian’as well as the congregation ofal-Qahira. The writer of thedrafts is the cantor and scribe Hillel b. ‘Eli, who can be recognised by his handwriting. From what has been preserved from the drafts, we read about an emergency assemblyheld by theJews ofFustat and al-Qihira at which says that in 1100 assistance is already being requested for thecartrum Sntlcti A b r d w r , ‘the citadel ofSt Abraham’. Haifa: Albert ofAachen, 521ff; he describes theJews ofHaifaas citizens (fives) who lived in the city by favour of and with the agreement of the King of Babylonia (rexis Babylonine), in exchange for the payment of taxes - this was in fact the status of every Jew of Muslin1 the world (Babylonia there meant Egypt),and nothing out of the ordinary. See Dhahabi. ‘Zbnv, 111, 338: Haifa was conquered in AH 494 (AD 1101) together with Arsif; Ibn Khallikan, I, 179: in Shawwal AH 493 (August AD 1100); and similarly Ibn Zafir (print), 83 ( = MS 75a); whereas Maqrizi, Ztti‘G?, 111, 261: the end of Rajab AH 494, that is, the beginning ofJuneAD 1101; cf. Prawer, Tdedi?t, I, 169f; in n. 15, the reference to Albert of Aachen has to be corrected: it shouldread vol. IV, also in EF, in the article Hayfa (by the editor) where there is also an incorrect interpretation of Albert of Aachen’s passage about the statusof the Jews,as if he werespeaking of somespecial grant given them by the caliph, which is not said there; nor does itrefer to any ‘special privilege’ (as assumed by Prawer,Lutirr Kitlgdonr, 236). Albert writes: ‘cives ex genere Judaeorum qui hanc inhabitabant dono et consensu regis Babyloniae in redditione tributorum’, ‘citizens of the Jewish nation, who lived there by the favour and with the agreement of the King of Babylonia [as they called the ruler of Egypt at the time], in exchange for the payment of taxes’. Common sense tells us that this is merely Albert’s style and that all he wished to say was that the Jews of Haifa were nltl nl-dhirnmn, i.e. protected people. It is worth adding some references to Arab sources: Ibn al-Shaddad (MS), 107a: Bet Shean was conquered at the same timeas Jerusalem. The conquest of Caesarea: Ibn KhallikZn, ibid.: in AH 494, that is AD 1101. Acre: Dhahabi, ‘lbnv, 111. 345: in AH 497, Le. AD 1104 (which began on 5 October 1103); and also in: Ibn Khallikan, V. 300; Ibn Taghri Bardi, V, 170; on p. 188 he says that Acre was attacked by Baldwin (Baghdawin) on land, and from the sea by more than ninetyships. He laid a siege on the city from everyside. The governor, Zahr al-Dawla al-Juytishi, asked for a pact for himself and the Muslims, but the Crusaders refused, for they knew thatno one would come to their aid from Egypt; thecity was then taken ‘by the sword’. in Ramadan AH 497 (June AD1104). Baniyiis: Ibn Taghri Bardi, V. 170: in AH 502, which began on 11 August AD 1108; similarly in Ibn Khallikan, V, 300; there is no information on the situation in Baniyas from this date onward, and according to what I wrote above in sec. 328, it seems to have changed hands a number of times before the Crusaders finally took itin 1129. As to Tyre. theaccepted date is Tuesday, 23 Jumada I AH 518, 8July AD 1124, see: Ibn al-Athir, KGnril X, 621f; Ibn Khallikan, V, 300; according to the surrender agreement, the population was permitted to leave the city with whatever they could carry, and indeed whoever was capable of it, left.

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the home of Mevorakh b. Saadia, the Nagid. Mevorakh himself adopted mourning customsand when thepeople assembled there, they foundhim ‘in torn clothes, sitting on the ground, weeping over that’ (which had happened). Themain subject dealt with at that meeting was the ransoming of the scrolls of the Torah and the captives (the Torah came before the captives!). A sum of 123 dinars was collected on thespot for this purpose and the money was sent with an emissary to Ascalon. The name of the emissary was Mansfir. At the time the drafts were written, they did not know the name of his father, only his by-name, ‘b. al-Mu‘allima’ (the woman teacher)..I [946]We also finddetailsrelatingtotheperiod of the Crusaders’ conquest in a letter written by a Maghribi merchant to his cousin. After years of tradingandeventuallylosing his fortune,the writer’sonly remaining ambition was to go ona pilgrimage to Jerusalem. En route, he first stopped in Alexandria, where he remained for some time. In the meantime, winter had set in, accompanied by storms at sea, while in Palestine, wars were raging and the country was completely disrupted by the armies. All roads leading to Jerusalem were hazardous. There were also riots inEgypt at the time; Alexandria was besieged time and again and partly destroyed in the process. Eventually it was taken by ‘the Sultan’ who imposed a regimeofjustice. Inhis description,thewriterwas obviously referring to the events which took place after al-Mustansir’s deathandthewarbetween his two sons, Nizar and al-Musta‘li. The benign Sultan was naturally al-Afdal. The writer was now hoping for better times, which would enablehim toreach his destination, Jerusalem, in safety. Indeed, al-Afdal’s army conquered Jerusalem, but only for a very limited time (in the autumn of1098, when travelling on thehigh seas was impossible due to storms; in the spring of1099, the Crusaders were already in Palestine).He refers to the invasion of the Crusaders(nl-Ift-anj) and the conquest ofJerusalem, andto thefact that the Muslim andJewish inhabitants were all killed, except for the few who were taken captive, some of whom were stillincaptivityinvarious places or hadbeen ransomed in the interim.T o the writer,these events seemed an ephemeral episode and he expresses thehope that thewheels of fortune would soon turn and that al-Afdal would shortly, in that same year, take Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Then he would go up to the Holyand Cityafterwards returnhome. In continuation, he mentionsthedreadful,drawn-out plague which claimed so many victims - as we have already heard. Zadok b. Josiah, known tous as the ‘third’ in the Scrolls of Abiathar, 4

The drafts: 573; Goitein, MediterraneanSociety, 111, 356, assumed that this Mansfir was identical to Ab6 Mansiir, to whom the letter (requesting aid): ENA NS 2, f. 17, was written; Goitein writes that the letter wastosent karzlsat al-mrr‘allitna (‘the synagogue of the

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writing to Joseph /za-sh6$‘f (‘thejudge’) b. Abraham in Fustat,also deals at length with the matter of captives. the He speaks of family memberswho are in captivity.In order todeal with therelease of members ofhis family, he seems to be in a place we cannot identify,near the area under Crusaders’ occupation, while members of his family are in captivity in Antioch. His daughter was the only one he managed to redeem, while his son and son-in-law were still in captivity. Apparentlythis son-in-law was a man of considerable status andlineage, for herefers to himas ‘his excellency, our mighty prince, our son-in-law, theprince oftheHouse of Israel’. Although he has evidently arranged the ransom payment forhis son, it is actually the son-in-law about whom he is most concerned. We do not know howmembers of Zadok’s family weretaken captive by the Crusaders, as they lived in Tyre, which was only conquered in 1124. They may have been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalemafter the Fatimids took it in1098. What is clearly evident from the letter is that the writer had also approached the Nagid, Mevorakh b. Saadia, about the ransom money and that he anticipates his active support in the matter ofhis family’s redemption. As Goitein points out, although the writer held an important position in the Palestinian yeshiva, the letter itself is highly personal and his anxiety for his family overrides his concern for the othercaptives. Apparently from the same time, there is a letter which some member of the Palestinian yeshiva, staying in Tyre, wrote to one of the followers of the Nagid in Fustat. The writer wants to come to Fustat, hoping the Nagid would provide him with livelihood. a He cannot leave for Fustat himself, as he does not want to leave his family in Tyre in such uncertain conditions, referring to ‘the child who was left behind’. Evidently, here too he was speaking of a son in ~ a p t i v i t y . ~ [947] A letter from a group of Karaite refugees from Jerusalem is of particular interest. They are staying in Egypt, evidently Alexandria, and the letter is written to theKaraite congregation in Fustat, less than a year after the fall ofJerusalem. The letter deals mainly with the ransoming of captives. The writers acknowledge the receipt of a money order - and with woman teacher’), but I read it: kanisatal-Mal;talla (‘the synagogue in al-Mahalla’), and it was sent: i l i al-shaykh nbi Mansiir btzi’l-mj‘allirn (to Mr. Abii Mansiir, son of the teacher’); therefore it seems that these were two different people. The letter of the Maghribi: 575. The letter of Zadok b. Josiah: 574, and see Goitein’s assumption, in Evetz-Israel, 4(1956/7), 147 ( = Ha-yishuv, 2830, that his son-in-law was ‘the son of the wife of the Tustari’ mentioned in 577; which does not seem to be based on sufficient evidence, for this was a child of eight to ten,and see below. Zadok b. Josiah did not become nv-bet-&, contrary to what Mannsays injews, I. 193f, and also what he writes there on Nathan b. Abraham who was allegedly the grandson of Nathan av-bFt-dir1 (the rival of Solomon b. Judah) and became av-bet-dft1 after Zadok, is incorrect, as I have shown above; and also what Goitein writes in his wake on this matter in the aforementionedplace. The letter from Tyre:576, and see the matter of the son in line 10.

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the money they received for it they have already redeemed some of the captives. The letter also includes a description of the conditions in which the ransomed Karaitecaptives live; they stay in Ascalon for the time being, in dire straits,and from day to day, some of them die of hunger.As to the captives who are still in the hands of the Crusaders, distressing news is arriving about them, telling of cruel executions, and they fear that the Crusaders intend to wipe out all the captives. Some of the Karaite refugees escaped from captivity, mostly with the help of Abii’l-Fad1 Sahl b. Yiisha‘ b. Sha‘ya (evidently a Karaite from Ascalon) who had good connections with the Sultan (that is: al-Afdal), and due to these connections, he had considerable influence in the port ofAscalon, succeeding in freeingmany of the captives in ways which were only known to him. Among the captives still in the hands of the Crusaders is a child of eight to ten years of age, named Abii Sa‘d, ‘son of the wife of the Tustari’. This ‘wife of the Tustari’wasevidentlythewidowoftheKaraitewriter Sahl b. Fad1 (Yashar b. Hesed) al-Tustari, the great-grandsonof Hesed al-Tustari. We have seen that this Sahl lived in Jerusalem in the nineties, and we do not know the circumstances of his death; perhaps he was killed during the Crusaders’ conquest. Nor do we know why the child is called ‘the son of the wife of al-Tustari’ and not ‘the son ofal-Tustari’, and naturally there may be many explanations for this. His captors, the Crusaders, are trying to persuade himto convert to Christianity but he refuses and claims that it is unheard of for a priest to become a Christian. It appears that they are hoping to receive a particularly large sum in ransom money for him, as they are aware ofhis lineage. Some of thecaptives were taken to Antioch (we have seen confirmation of this also in Zadok b. Josiah’s letter). We have heard, notes the writer, of noinstances of ‘the cursed Ashkenaz’ (it is not clear which Crusaders were being referred to, nor who were the Crusaders who were holding thecaptives) raping the womenin captivity. Another important detail that he mentions is the fact that some of the Jerusalem Karaites succeeded in leaving Jerusalem togetherwith thegovernor, on the basis of an urnan. This corresponds to what I have written above concerning Iftikharal-Dawla, who handed over theTemple Mount (wihnib Dn’Gd) to the Crusaders by a capitulation agreement. Some of the ransomed captives moved to Egypt withoutsufficient means to maintain themselves or adequate clothing, and many died on the way from the bitter cold and starvation. Many of those wholeft by sea also died. As to the cost of ransoming a captive, although they did not speak of thirty captives per dinar as in the Crusader sourceI quoted above, it does say in this letter, that it is fortunate for the captives that the Crusaders did not know what was the usual price, which was three Jewishcaptives for 100 dinars, and therefore, it implies, the ransom price was much lower than 83 3

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that. An account of the expenses, up until the writing of the letter, had reached 700 dinars, of which200 was a debt.More moneywas needed, it says in the letter, to ensure the lives of some twenty ransomed captives who were left in Ascalon and to move them to Egypt. special A instance was that ofAbii’l-Khayr Mubarak b. ha-melammed Hibab. Nisan (MubZrak = Mevorakh; Hiba = Nathan; that is, Mevorakh b. Nathan), who pledged an oath not to take any public money except that which the donors had specifically intended for him personally. In the continuation of the letter, thereis an appeal that money frompledges and the incomefrom the heqdesh foundations be reserved for the rescuing of captives and of thoseredeemed from captivity. The redemption of books is another matter: 230 Bibles, 100 quires, 28 Torah scrolls were redeemed; all are considered qdeslz (= IzeqdZdz) and are being kept in Ascalon, and money must be found in order totransfer them to Egypt. Thereis no doubt that this letter is of a purely Karaite nature, as can be seen by its writers, its signatories, and its contents. Thus, even in these terrible hours of destruction and annihilation which befell the Jews ofPalestine, it is obvious that theKaraites acted on their own and not together with the Rabbanites.‘j [948] O n the matter of redeeming the books from the Crusaders, it is worth noting the Karaite colophon copied by Harkavy in 1875 from a Torah scroll kept bya Karaite in Petersburg(received from Firkovitch),in which it says that God brought ‘our master Solomon the niisiinto grace and favour and tender love in the sight of the Master Balduwin who reigned after his brother . . . and they returned to us all our holy books, among themthis Torah scroll . . . on Friday, the fast of 10 Av, the first day of theyear 1037 of the destruction of the second [Temple], 1416 Sel. (that is, in the summer of A D 1105). It also says there: ‘we assembled in the synagogue of our n i s i ‘Anan’. Firkovitch claimed (quoted by Harkavy) The letter of theKaraites: 577, and see there in the note to a, line 28, remarks about where it was being written. As to Abii’l-Fad1 Sahl b. Yeshii‘a b. Sha‘yii, Goitein, ha-Yishuv, 236, assumed that heis identical with Shelah, who married Sittal-Dallal in Ascalon in January 1100 (misprinted thereas 11lo), see 594. O n the matter ofAbii Sa‘d, son of the wife of the Tustari, cf. Gil, ho-Tustavim, 65. Goitein,JQR, NS 45 (f954/5), 36f, n. 1, already stated his opinion thatthis boy was the son ofYiish5r b. Hesed (should be: Yiishiirthe great-grandson of Hesed), and deduced fromthis that Yishiir, the Karaite writer, lived in Jerusalem until the Crusaders’ conquest. As we have seen above, the fact that he lived in Jerusalem has additional proof. O n the subject of the identity of the ‘Ashkenaz’. see Kedar, Tovbix, 42 (1972/3), 407, n. 36; Goitein. Zion, 17 (1952), 133. n.16 ( = Ha-yishuv), 235, n. 17): ‘probably meaning the Lotharingians’. See the discussion in Goitein, ha-I’ishuv, 235, on the huge number of booksand quires, compared with the inventorylists from the Geniza of books which belonged to the synagogues in Fustat in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Baron, SRHJ, IV, 111f made a comparison between the matter of the ransom payment for the books of the Bible and the colophonsof Bible manuscripts which werepreserved and provide evidence that they are frotn Jerusalem,and correctly concluded that theletter was a Karaite one. Not so Prawer, in Iro-&lvinivr, 268, n. 42, who expresses his feeling that the letter is ‘not Karaite but Jewish’(meaning: Rabbanite, naturally).

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that this proves that the Karaites were not affected by the conquest of Jerusalem and that even their synagogue in Jerusalem remained The intact. first statement is completely contradicted by the above letter. As to the synagogue, wehave already seen that thereis no information on a Karaite synagogue in Jerusalem during this period, hence the synagogue in the name of ‘Anan (ifthis is not one ofFirkovitch’ forgeries) was apparently the name of theKaraite synagogue in Fustat, or perhapsin another city, such as Damascus. The colophon in a commentary to the book ofIsaiah written by Josiah b. Aaron he-haver of Acre (which I have already mentioned above, sec. 301, and which is included in my collection) is also evidence of the redemption of books taken as spoils in Jerusalem and Palestine. The Latin inscription in this colophon is an indication that the book was taken as spoils by the Crusaders, who took the trouble to discover its value; only then could it be redeemed by the Jews. Similarly, the Ketev of Aleppo mentioned above,is said to have been redeemed from the spoils of Jerusalem. [949] Another letter dealing with the captives is from one of the Palestinian refugees, sent from somewherein the neighbourhood of Tyre or Damascus. He escaped to this place and was making every effort to free his family from captivity. With singular difficulty, he managed to redeem his mother, his brother, and youngsister. The letter only providesus with the name of the writer’s father, R. Kokhav, who he says died seven years earlier. One of his relatives is also mentioned, ‘Petahia b. al-mu‘allim Mahasin’,that is, the son of a teacher, who asked thewritertoadd something inhis name as well. It is obvious that the writer is a young man, for he writes that whenhis father died, ‘we, the children remained’. One of the daughters of the family is still in captivity and they need a largesum of money for her redemption. The writer refrains from asking for money directly but seems to harbour resentment towards his relatives in Egypt who are well-off but who do not seem to care about the terribledistress of their relations. He calls Egypt ‘the kingdom you live in’, for apparently everyone hoped that it would be the source their of salvation.The refugees saw themselves as ‘a posterity in the earth’ whichGod had left in order to ‘save your lives by a great deliverance’ (Gen., xlv:7); which again goes to show that they considered what had occurred to be a passing episode. Abii Sa‘d b. Ghani’im wrote fromAscalon to his brother Abii’l-Bahi’ in Bilbays, about a womancaptive who had been released from captivity. Goitein, the first editorof the letter, assumed that it was written after the See Harkavy, ha-SeJri, 187415, 47f;the datingis according to the Karaitecalendar, and we do not know when their month of Av beganin that year. Solomon the Nasi is evidently the son ofEzekiel b. Solomon b. David; cf. Mann,]ewj, I, 199f, and n. 1 (he copied 1417 Sel. instead of 1416). The colophon in the book of Isaiah: 221.

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Crusaders’ conquestof Ascalon (1153), for we know that a remnant of the community remained there. His opinion probably stemmed from the supposition thatthere was no possibility of maintaining contact between Ascalon and the region seized by the Crusaders, as long as Ascalon was under Muslim control. It seems tome thatthis supposition is not necessarily so, however, and we may assume that the letter dates from the beginning of the twelfth century. Thissame Abu Sa‘d writes in his letter that he visited Shechem (that is, the region occupied by the Crusaders) together with a certain Muslim ( = Meshullim) ibn AbiSahl, where they ransomed the latter’s sister from the Crusaders’ captivity. Muslim still owed sixtydinars from this transaction (twice theusual price for ransoming a prisoner).Abii Sa‘d had succumbedto Muslim’s entreaties and stood as hisguarantor with ‘the Frank’, probably one of the Crusader commanders with whom hemaintained contact. Quite some timehas passed since then and the Frank is putting pressure on him to pay the money. The writer therefore asks his brother to obtain the money from thecaptive’s father, who it is implied also lives in Bilbays. If he has no money,he will return thesister (this soundslike bluster), and ifnecessary, he would even get a decision from the judges. The writer cannot obtain the money he has despite all hisefforts, forno one is ready to lend itto him, although offered interest and even his son as deposit (thisalso seems ratherexaggerated). It is also worth noting Muslim’s argument that if his sister is free, she will be able to recruit some of the ransom money herself. A direct appeal to the congregation from a woman captive (evidently after she was redeemed)can be seenin a version ofa request from a woman ‘from among the captives of Palestine’. She has just reached Sunbit in Egypt, and inher appeal says she has no clothing and that she has a small child to care for. She asks for help, andblesses those that would help with God’s granting them a double reward, adding: ‘may He not dislodge you from your retreat’. Another woman captive whose redemption is being dealt with at about the same time is also mentioned in a letter from the Jewish leader of Ascalon, Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh to the parnis of Fustat,‘Ula ha-Levi b. Joseph.He promises himthatthe people of Ascalon are lookingafter the affairs of the woman, ‘may our Godunchain her fetters and thecaptives of His nation Israel’.Y [950] And so ends the period whichbegan with the suffering attendant on the conquestofPalestine by the nomadictribes which unitedround the vision of Islam. This period brought aboutan essential change in the status of Palestine. Jerusalem became a holy city to the Muslims, while at the same time a Jewish community returned to the city, which became the The refugee’s letter: 578. The letter from Ascalon: 579, see Goitein, T0rbir, 31(1961/2), 287ff ( = ha-Yishuv, 306f). The captive’s appeal: 580. Ascalon: 588, margin, top.

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centre of the diaspora and the seat of the yeshiva Ge’on Ya‘aqov. The Christians, the former rulers of Palestine, became dhimmis lacking political rights, like the Jews.To the two ancient components of the population in Palestine, anotherwasadded:theMuslims - theirtribes,armies, theologians and scholars, and their mosques. At the end of this period, Islam could no longerhold Palestine, as a result of theinternal division and unceasing warfare which it experienced, and it slipped out of its hands. The outcomewas the destruction of the Jewish population Palestine in by the Crusaders. At the outset of this period, the Jews Palestine of heard the footsteps of the Messiah in the stamping of the horses’ hooves of the Muslim conquerers; the finale of this era marked their annihilation and destruction. Some indication of what had occurred can be found in a letter of the leader of the Aleppo Jewsat the time, Baruch b.Isaac. In a letter whichis mainly a recommendation for Obadiah,a Norman proselyte, he included rhymed expressions of mourning (mostly in Biblical terms) on the destruction ofPalestine and Jerusalem, on the slaughter, on captivity, and on the total annihilation of the Jewish population. He writes about ‘the daughter ofJeshurun [whose] . . . restorers who were strengthening her [house] became powerless’; about ‘their despairing of the soulbecause of the fury of the oppressor’; ‘the terrible famine’; about Jerusalem - ‘it became abhorred by the nation’; ‘for a child to be hired out and a girl tobe given for aprice’; ‘those who dwell in’the midst of theland were defiled’; ‘their blood was shed like rivulets’; ‘their houses were handed over to those who despoiled them’; ‘they were thrown away from a holyplace, to breathe the dust of a foreign land’. He sums up the annihilation of the entire Jewish population of Palestine by saying that ‘everyone who believes in the uniqueness of God, was banished from every corner of the holy soil’. 9

Baruch b. Isaac’s letter: Bod1 MS Heb a 3,f. 1, edited by Wertheimer, G i r ~ iYevlrshilayirn ? 2(1901), 16f; its verso was quoted by Mann, Jews, 11, 236, andthe last part,which Wertheimer did not edit, with details on Obadiah, was edited by him in RE], 89 (1930), 247ff; cf. Dinur, Z i o n (ha-me’assEf) 2(1926/7),51; see the correctionsand discussion on the letter in Golb, GoiteinJubilee Volume,9G94, and his new edition of the entire letter,ibid., 103-106, and also references to all earlier discussions on Obadiah the proselyte.

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w 610 61 1 61 4 619 622-628 622, end of September 628, end of summer 629, September 630, OctoberDecember 631, 12 March 632, 8 June 633, spring 633, autumn 634, February-March 634, beginning of May 634, summer 634, 30 July 634, 23 August 634, 25 December 635, 12 March 635, 10 September 636, 23 July (or 13 August) 638

‘Imwis of plaguethe

Heraclius is crowned emperor of Byzantium the Persians start their offensive against Byzantium Jerusalem is conquered by the Persians Sophronius arrives in Palestine the Byzantines fight back against the Persians the hijra conquest of Khaybar raid on Mu’ta the Tabiik expedition the Holy Cross is returned to Jerusalem death of Muhammad suppression of theviddcl Sophronius is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem the invasion of Palestine begins Khilid b. al-Walid arrives in Palestine defeat of the Muslims a t Marj Suffar battle of Ijnidayn death of the caliph Abii Bakr; heis succeeded by ‘Umar ibn al-Khattib sermon of Sophronius in Jerusalem siege of Damascus begins conquest of Damascus battle of the Yarmiik

Emperor Heraclius proclaims his new religious programme (monotheletism) conquest of Jerusalem 638 (probably a t the beginning of the year) 639 October 640,conquest Caesarea of 641 ‘Umar al-Khattiib ibn introduces the new order ina grants for the Muslims

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644. N o v e m b e r 647 652 65415 65819 659, 9June 661 674 677 677 678 680, April 680, 10 O c t o b e r

682 68314 683, N o v e m b e r 684 684, J u n e 684, July 685, April 68516 686 (?) 688 ca. 690 691 692 692, October 695 69617 6991700 700 704 705 705, 14 September

murder of the caliph ‘Umar; he is succeeded by ‘Uthmin b. ‘Affan the Muslim fleet sets sail from Acre to the conquest of Cyprus death of Aws b. al-Samit, in Ramla (?) death of ‘Ubida b. al-Simit, in Ramla (?) Shumayr al-Khath‘ami is appointed as governor of j u n d Filastin earthquake in Palestine Mu‘iwiya is proclaimed caliph in Jerusalem death of Thawban b. Yamrud death of Ka‘b b. Murra al-Bahzi, in Tiberias death of Abii Muhammad ‘Abdallah b. al-Sa‘di death of ‘Abdallah b. Hawsla, in Tiberias death of the caliph Mu‘iwiya; Yazid b. Mu‘iwiya succeeds him, coming from Jerusalem murder of al-Husayn b. ‘Ali ibn AbiT a b , i nKarbal5 Tarif b. Hibis, who is Ibn Khushkhish al-Hilali, is appointed as chief of the tribes in jund Filastin mention of Abii Rishid, governor of Nessana death of Yazid b. Mu‘awiya; Mu‘iwiya 11, b. Yazid, succeeds him as caliph death of Hubaysh b. Dalaja, chief of the Ban6 Qudi‘a in Palestine Marwin b. al-Hakam becomes caliph victory of the supporters of the Umayyads at Marj Rihit ‘Abd al-Malik b. Marwan becomes caliph death of Nitil b. Qays, chief of the Banii Judhim destruction of Caesarea and Ascalon by the Byzantines and deportation of their populations beginning of the construction of the Dome of the Rock ‘Ali b. ‘Abdallah b. ‘Abbis settles in Humayma Anastasius is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem the construction of the Dome of the Rock is completed final defeat of ‘Abdallah b. al-Zubayr first Muslim dinars are minted death of ‘Abd al-Rahmin b. Ghanm severe plague in Palestine the Dome of the Rock is hit by lightning death of Abu Qirsifa Withila b. al-Asqa‘ plague ‘of the girls’ death of the caliph ‘Abd al-Malik; heis succeeded by his son, al-Walid

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706 708 713, 13 January

ca. 714 715, 24 February

717, September 718 71 91729 720, February 723 724 728 7301 1

ca. 732 73314 736 737 738, 18January 742 743 743, February 744, spring 744, April 744. October 744, November 745 748, 28 January 750, January 751, 4 March 75213 753, 8 October

John (V) is appointed patriarch ofJerusalem death of Abii Bishr ‘Abdallah b. Fayruz, in Jerusalem Petrus of Capitolias (Bayt Ra’s) is executed by the Arabs foundation of Ramla death of the caliph al-Walid; heis succeeded by Sulayniin b. ‘Abd al-Malik, who is brought from Ramla death of the caliph Sulayman; he is succeeded by ‘ U m a r b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz death of Mahmiid b. al-Rabi‘ b. Suriqa al-Madani, in Jerusalem the church in Mi‘inis reconstructed death of the caliph ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz; he is succeeded by Yazid b. ‘Abd al-Malik Willibald visits Tiberias death of the caliph Yazid b. ‘Abd al-Malik; his brother Hishim succeeds him death of al-Qisim b. ‘Abd al-Rahmin b. ‘Abdallah b. Mas‘iid death of Raji’ b. Hayawa John of Damascus joins the monastery of Mar Saba plagues in Palestine death of ‘Ubiida b. Nussay the tribes ofjund Filastin fight the Turks in Central Asia earthquake death of Muhammad b. Muslim b. Shihab al-Zuhri an irrigation channel is dug in the Jordan Valley death of the caliph Hishim b. ‘Abd al-Malik; he is succeeded by al-Walid b. Yazid b. ‘Abd al-Malik beginning of wide-spread mutinies against the Umayyads the murder of the caliph al-Walid b. Yazid, heis succeeded by Yazid b. al-Walid b. ‘Abd al-Malik the murder of the caliph Yazid; he is succeeded by Ibrahim b. al-Walid b. ‘Abd al-Malik the caliph Ibrahim is defeated; Marwan b. Muhammad b. Marwan becomes caliph Theodore (I) is appointed as patriarch ofJerusalem a strong earthquake, mainly in Tiberias defeat of the Umayyads, on the Great Zib Silih b. ‘Ali is appointed governor ofjund Filastin ‘Ati’ b. Abi Muslim dies in Jericho Silih b. ‘Ali’s appointment is extended also to TransJordan

CHRONOLOGY

754, 9 June 758 764 765 768 770 770 77 1 772, beginning 773 775 775, October 778 778 780 780 785, 4 August 786. 13 September 78617 787 788-790 789, 14 April 789, May 792/3 793, 29 December 796 796, 13-20 March 79617 797 797 797

death of the caliph Abii’l-‘Abbis al-Saffah; he is succeeded by his brother Abii Ja‘far al-Mansiir Jerusalem is visited by the caliph al-MansGr Theodore, patriarch of Jerusalem, proclaims a ban against Cosmas, the iconoclast death of Abii Zur‘a Yahyi b. Abi ‘Amr al-Saybani, in Ramla death of the poet Ibrahim b. Abi ‘Abla (Abii ‘Abla: Shamir b. YaqzZn), in Jerusalem Elias (11) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem death of Thawr b. Yazid Jerusalem is visited by the caliph al-Mansiir al-Mahdi orders a mosque to be built in Ascalon death of ‘Abdallah b. Shawdhib death of ‘Abd al-Wahhab b. Ibrahim, the governor of jund Filasfin death of the caliph al-Mansiir; heis succeeded by his son, al-Mahdi Ibrahim b. Adham falls in battle with the Byzantines death of Raja’ b. MihrZn the caliph al-Mahdi visits Jerusalem Ibrahim b. Salih, the governor ofjund Filastin, is removed from office by the caliph al-Mahdi death of the caliph al-Mahdi; he is succeeded by his son, al-Hidi death of the caliph al-Hidi; heis succeeded by his brother, Hariin al-Rashid death of the Ascalonian Abii Ghassin Muhammad b. Mufarrif Ibrahim b. Silih is reinstated as governor ofjund Filastin instead of Rawh b. Hitim the rebellion of Yahya b. Irmiyi Christoforos, a Muslim who converted to Christianity, is executed inscription in the pool of Ramla war between the tribes in Palestine end of the war of the tribes Harthama b. A‘yun is removed from his office as governor of jund Filastin Arabs attack the monastery of Mar Saba death of Abii Shihib Ahmad al-‘Aqrabani, in ‘Aqraba George is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem embassy of Charlemagne to Hiriin al-Rashid death of Hafs b. Maysara, in Ascalon

842

CHRONOLOGY

797. N o v e m b e r 798 799 801 801 ca.

805

806, December 807 807 807 807 809 809, March 810 810 811, September 812, 20 September 813 813, April 813, September

814 (?) 814, January ca.

815

817 817, March 819, 25 August 820

death of ‘Abd al-Rahnfin ‘Abdallah b. al-MubZrak b. Wiidih al-HanTali al-Tamimi, in Eilat death of al-Walid b. Muhammad al-Muwaqqari, in Trans-Jordan a monk from Jerusalem visits Charlemagne embassy from Hiiriin al-Rashid to Charlemagne death of Ribi‘a b. Isma‘il, U m m al-Khayr, in Jerusalem writings of the Judaean Desert sect are found aincave near Jericho death of ‘Abd al-RahmPn b. al-Qiisirn al-‘Utaqi, Ramla T h o m a s (I) is appointed patriarch ofJerusalem Caliph Hiirtin al-Rashid orders the destruction of the non-Muslim prayer houses; destruction of the church of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem exchange of embassies between Charlemagne and Hiiriin al-Rashid rebellion of Abti’l-Nidi’ rebellion of the tribes in jund Filastin death of the caliph Hirtin al-Rashid; he is succeeded by his son, al-Amin; his struggle with his brother alMa’miin starts in the same year decree of Charlemagne regarding gifts for Jerusalem rebellions in Palestine, lead by ‘Urnar anti-Abbasid rebellion in Damascus death of Abti Sufyin Waki‘ b. al-Jarrah b. Miilih alRawisi in Jerusalem Christians in Palestine are attacked; many flee the country death of Abii Kharbaq Salima b. Rawh, in Eilat murder of the caliph al-Amin; his brother al-Ma’miin becomes caliph; victory of the ‘northern’ tribes over the ‘southerners’; beginning of the rebellionof NaSr b. Shabath famine, caused by locusts, in Palestine death of Abii ‘Uthmin ‘Anbasa b. Kh5lid b. Yazid b. Abi’l-Najjid, in Eilat Masrtir ibn Abi ‘Amir, governor of Nibulus,is executed for having sided with the Samaritans death of Abti Zakkariyyi’ Yahyi b.‘Isii b. ‘Abd alRahmin al-Nahshali, in Ramla death of Abti ‘Abdallah Damra b. Rabi‘a al-Qurashi, in Ramla death of Ab6 ‘Abdallah Muhammad b. Idris al-Shiifi‘i Basil is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem

843

CHRONOLOGY

ca. 820 824, April ca. 825 827 ca. 830 83011

,

831, May-June 833, August 835 835 835 835, June 836 837 838 841 842, January 842 842 847 847 (?) 850 851 12 852/3 853,January 855 855, October 85617 858

repair of the church of the Holy Sepulchre death of Abii Ya‘qiib Ishiq b. Ismi‘il b. ‘Abd al-A‘li b. ‘Abd al-Hamid, in Eilat severe dispute over the exilarchate ‘Abdallah b. Tahir, the Abbasid commander, is in Jerusalem torture of the Graptoi brothers in Constantinople al-Ma’miin stays in al-ShHm during the war with the Byzantines; his visit in Jerusalem(?) al-Ma’miin’s name is inscribed in the Dome of the Rock death of the caliph al-Ma’miin; he is succeeded by his brother al-Mu‘tasim a Nestorian bishop is appointed in Jerusalem the exilarch’s letter on mattersof the calendar death of al-Hasan b. WHqi‘, in Ramla death of Abii’l-Hasan Adam b. Abi Iyis, in Ascalon Basil, patriarch ofJerusalem, convenes a council of the Church in Jerusalem in order to combat the iconoclastic policy death of KhHlid b . N i z i r b. al-Mughira b. Salim, in Eilat John (VI) is appointed patriarch ofJerusalem ‘Ali b. IshZq b.YahyZ b. Mu‘Zdh al-DZrikZni rebels against Raj2’ b. Abi’l-Qahhik, the governor of Damascus and Urdunn death of the caliph al-Mu‘tasim; he is succeeded by his son, al-Withiq Sergius (I) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem the rebellion of Abu Harb Tamim al-Mubarqa‘ death of the caliph al-Withiq; he is succeeded by his brother, al-Mutawakkil death, in Ramla, of A b i K h i l i d Y a z i d b . K h i l i d b . Yazid al-Hamadini the caliph al-Mutawakkil orders the destruction of the non-Muslims’ prayer houses a big fire in Ascalon death, in Ramla, of Abii’l-Asbagh Muhammad b. Simi‘a death, in Ascalon, of Muhammad b. al-Mutawakkil b. Abi’l-Surri Solomon is appointed patriarchof Jerusalem revolt of the Christians in Him? earthquake in Palestine Frotmund, a French aristocrat, makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem

844

CHRONOLOGY

859, December

cn. 860

860 ca. 860

861, December 862 862 864 866, end 866, February (1) 866-868 867, 16 March cn. 868 868, 1 July 868, September 869 869, June

869, 16 December 870, January

870, June 871, May 87213 874, 7 February 876, February 877, December

878

death ofthe cadi Abu Sa‘id ‘Abd al-Rahmin b. Ibrahim b. ‘Amr b. Maymtin al-Qurashi (who is Duhaym b. al-Y atim) works of broadening the mountain passage, ‘Aqaba, near Eilat Theodosius is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem death ofJehoshaphat b. Josiah, mixiand head of the Palestinian yeshiva; he is succeeded by his brother, Semah murder of the caliph al-Mutawakkil; heis succeeded by his son, al-Muntasir death of the caliph al-Muntagir; he is succeeded by his cousin, al-Musta‘in b. Muhammad b. al-Mu‘tasim the deacon Theodore copies an uncial codex in Tiberias death of the cadi Abii Bakr Muhammad b. al-Hiirith b. al-Nu‘miin al-Iyidi the caliph al-Mu‘tazz appoints ‘is5 b. al-Shaykh as governor in Ramla the caliph al-Musta‘in is removed from the throne; he is succeeded by al-Mu‘tazz b. al-Mutawakkil the Bedouin are in control of Palestine death of H i r t i n b. Sa‘id b. al-Haytham, in Eilat the monk Bernard visits Palestine death of Abii ‘Abd al-Rahmin Mu’ammal b. Ihib, in Ramla Ahmad ibn Tiiliin arrives in Egypt Elias, the Jerusalemite synkellos, isat the Council of the Church in Constantinople the caliph al-Mu‘tazz is murdered; he is succeeded by al-Mu‘tamid b. al-Mutawakkil death of Abii ‘Umayr ‘Is5 b. Muhammad b. Ishiq ( w h o is Ibn al-Nahhis) death of Muhammad ibn Karriim, in Jerusalem the caliph al-Muhtadi is murdered; heis succeeded by al-Mu‘tamid b. al-Mutawakkil ‘ki b. Shaykh leaves Palestine; the Turk Amiijiir becomes its governor Haninii b. Yannai, of Baghdad, divorces his wife, in Jerusalem death of Abii Sulaymin Ayyiib b. Ishiq b. Ibrahim b. Safari, in Ramla death of Abii ‘Imrin Miisii b. Sahl b. Qiidim, in Ramla Stephen ibn Hakam completes the copyingof a treatise by Theodore Ab6 Qurra, in Ramla Elias (111) is appointed patriarch ofJerusalem

CHRONOLOGY

Ahmad ibn Tiiliin enters Ramla, at the head of his army Pope John VI11 writes to Elias 111, patriarch of 879, May Jerusalem Daniel al-Qiimisi arrives in Palestine ca. 880 death of Abii ‘Abdallah Muhammad b. ‘Aziz b. 880181 ‘Abdallah b. Ziyiid b. Khiilid b. ‘Uqayl b. Khiilid the appointment of a Christian governor in Ramlais 881 mentioned by the patriarch Elias death of Ahmad ibn Tiiliin; he is succeeded by his son, 884, May Khumiirawayh death of Muhammad b. Hammiidal-Riizi al-Tabarsni, 884, 16 October in Ascalon Ibn al-Muwaffaq enters Damascus 885, February battle of al-Tawiihin, between Khumiirawayh and Ibn 885, 5 April al-Muwaffaq death, in Ramla, of the Jerusalemite Ahmad b. 887 Zakariyyii’ b. Yahyii death of Ahmad b. Mas‘iid al-Khayyiit, in Jerusalem 88718 Khumiirawayh visits Ramla during his military 888, June expedition to Syria Ahmad b. ‘Abdallah al-Lihyini stays in Acre and 88819 teaches there 892, January-February death of ‘Abd al-Rahmiin b. Hiiriin b. Sa‘id b.alHaytham, in Ramla death of the caliph al-Mu‘tamid; heis succeeded by his 892, October brother’s son, al-Mu‘tadid b. al-Muwaffaq Abii ‘Abdallah, the emissary of the Fatimids, arrives in 893 North Africa the Nestorian bishop of Jerusalem is appointed 893 metropolitan of Damascus Aaron b. Moses b. Meir becomes head of the ca. 893 Palestinian yeshiva death of Abii Hsmid Hamdiin b. Ghiirim al-Zandi 893, November death of Abii Shu‘ayb Siilih ibn Yiisuf (al-Muqanna‘), 895 in Ramla Stephen ibn al-Hakam copies the four gospels, in 896 Ramla Harun b. KhumZrawayh appoints Abii Zur‘a 897 Muhammad b. ‘Uthmiin as chief cadi of Palestine anbZ Miisii b. Hakim al-Qasis does copying work in 90 1 Adhruh death of the caliph al-Mu‘tadid; heis succeeded by his 902, 5 April son, al-Muktafi ‘Ubaydallah the Fatimid rnahdiand his retinue watch 902, July falling stars, in Ramla

878, May

CHRONOLOGY

death of Ahmad b. ‘Amr, al-Bazziir al-‘Ataki, in Ramla 904, end of December Khumirawayh the Tiiliinid is murdered al-Khalanji conquers Ramla 905, June 905. December Ahmad b. Kayghalagh is defeated by al-Khalanji, near al-‘Arish 906, 4 April Elias, the patriarch of Jerusalem, annoints Christodulos of Aleppo, as patriarch of Alexandria 906, April-May (?) Tiberias is conquered by the Qarmatis al-Khalanji is defeated by the Abbasid army 906, May 906, 16 June the Qarmatis raid Hit (on the Euphrates), after their retreat from Palestine death of ‘Abd al-Samad b. Muhammad b. Abi ‘Imrin 90617 (Ab6 Muhammad al-Hamadini), in ‘Ayniin Sergius (11) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem 908 908, August death of the caliph al-Muktafi; he is succeeded by his brother, al-Muqtadir Isaac becomes head of the Palestinian yeshiva ca. 910 Leo (I) is appointed as patriarch ofJerusalem 912 Meir b. Aaron b. Moses becomes head of the ca. 912 Palestinian yeshiva; he 1s assisted by his son Aaron, who succeeds him after his death (date unknown) Wrlqfinscriptions of a ji~ndtrqin Ramla 913 the caliph al-Muqtadir appoints his son Abii’l-‘Abbiis 91314 as governor of al-Shim death of Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Shu‘ayb al-Nasi’i, in 91 415 Ramla death of Abii Zur‘a Muhammad b. ‘Uthmiin, former 91415 chief cadi of Palestine, in Damascus death of Ab6 Bakr Yamiit b. al-Muzarra‘, in Tiberias 91516 Funerary inscription on the Temple Mount: Hiba b. 917, October Sulaymiin and Salima b. Hiba death of Abii’l-Hasan M a n y i r b. Ismi‘il al-Darir, of 918, October Ramla death of Abii ‘Abdallah Ahmad b. Yahyii, Ibn al-Jalli’, 9 18, December in Ramla the Abbasid army passes through Palestine on its way 91 819 t o EgY Pt death of Abii ‘Abdallah al-Tawwazi, in Tiberias 920 beginning of the calendar dispute between Babylonia 921, summer and Palestine Meir Gaon sends his son Aaron to Jerusalem, to 922, September proclaim the calendar order for the next year Saadia Gaon writes his third letter on the calendar 923, 3 January dispute 904, February

847

CHRONOLOGY

ca. 926

927 928 929 cn. 930 931, July

932. 31 October cn. 933

933, March 934, 24 April 935, July 935, 9 December 936 936, February 937 937 937 937 937, 26 March 939, January 939, 4 March 939, 17 October 939, end M. 940

940, 24 June 943, 14 April 945

Abraham b. Aaron b. Meir becomes headof the Palestinian yeshiva death of Abii’l-Qiisim ‘Abdallah b. Muhammad b. Ja‘far al-Qazwini, cadi of Ramla Muhammad ibn Tughj (the Ikhshid) becomes governor o f j u n d Filastin Athanasius (I) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem Abii’l-Hawii’ Nasim b. ‘Abdallah is appointed governor of Jerusalem Muhammad ibn Tughj (the Ikhshid)is appointed governor of Damascus; al-Rashidiis appointed as g o v e r n o r o f j u n d Filastin in his stead the caliph al-Muqtadir is murdered; he is succeeded by his brother, al-Qiihir Aaron ha-Kohen becomes head of the Palestinian yeshiva funeral of Takin, governor of Egypt, in Jerusalem the caliph al-Qiihir is removed from his throne; he is succeeded by al-Riidi b. al-Muqtadir Muflih the black is appointed as governor ofJerusalem instead of Nasim b. ‘Abdallah death of Abii’l-Qiisim Muhammad ibn al-HasanalNakhii‘i, Ibn Ka’s, in Ramla al-Mas‘iidi visits Tiberias death of Ab6 Bakr Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ‘Umar (al-Darir), in Ramla the Ikhshid writes to Emperor Romanus boasting about his control of the holy places Christodulus (I) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem death of Ismii‘il b. ‘Abd al-Wiihid al-Raba‘i al-Maqdisi, in Ramla death of Abii Bakr al-Khidr b. MuhammadalTaniikhi, in Acre the church of the Resurrection is burnt down by Muslims; more churches in Jerusalem are attacked death of Abii Nu‘aym Muhammad Ja‘far b. al-Kharii‘iti death of Fad1 b. Ja‘far ibn al-Furat, in Ramla Ramla is conquered by Ibn Rii’iq battle of al-‘Arish, between Ibn Rii’iq and the Ikhshid Ikhshidid pressure on Byzantium, through the patriarch ofJerusalem, to stop the maltreatment of Muslim prisoners the battle of Lajiin, between Ibn Ri’iq and the Ikhshid funerary inscription of Jabiir, a Christian of Ramla death of David (b. Daniel?) al-Qiimisi, in Jerusalem

848

CHRONOLOGY

946, July 946, July 946, August 946, 22 December 947 948 950 95 1I2 952, February 95314 95819 959, 20 January 960 961 I2

962 962 962, 5 December

963 964 964, May cd. 965 966, 8 January 966, e n d o f M a y 966, June (1) 967 967, 30 July 968 968, April

Palestine is invaded by Sayf al-Dawla, the Hamdanid funeral of the Ikhshid, Muhammad ibn Tughj, in Jerusalem the emperor's emissary to jund Filastin travels to Egypt in the company of Kifiir the battle of Iksil; the Ikhshidid army defeats the Hamdinid Sayf al-Dawla description of the Paschal fire by Nicetas, a Byzantine official death of the cadi of Ramla. Abii'l-Tayyib Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Hanzali Agathon is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem inaugural inscription of a building in Jerusalem: Ahmad ibn Abi Karisa death ofthe grammarian Abii'l-Qisim 'Abd alRahmin ibn Ishiq al-Zajjiji al-Nihawandi death of al-Hasan ibn Tughj, the Ikhshid's brother, in Ramla death ofal-Hasan b. Hajjij b. Ghilib (Abii 'Ali ibn Haydara al-Zayyit), of Tiberias funeral of Anijiir, son of the Ikhshid, in Jerusalem query of the communities of the Rhineto the Palestinian yeshiva inscription of the Temple Mount, about the building of a wall to the order of 'Ali, son of the Ikhshid, and Kifiir conquest of-Aleppo by the Byzantines rebellion in Trans-Jordan, lead by Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Sulami Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Sulami, leader of the rebellion in Trans-Jordan, is exhibited before the people of Fustat death of the Jerusalemite Abii'l-Husayn Ahmad ibn M a h m i d al-Shama'i John (VII) is appointed as patriarch ofJerusalem Tiberias is raided by the Qarmatis death of the cadi of Ramla, 'Uthmin b. Muhammad b. Shidhin funeral of 'Ali, son of the Ikhshid, in Jerusalem anti-Christian riots in Jerusalem Christodulus (11) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem al-Hasan al-A'Sam, leader of the Qarmatis, is in Ramla Ya'qib ibn Killis' conversion to Islam conquest of Tarsiis by the Byzantines death of Kafir, ruler of Egypt; his funeral takes place in Jerusalem

849

CHRONOLOGY

968, 28 October 968, 23 December 969 969, 22 (or 24) February 969, 5 August 969, OctoberNovember 970 970, beginning of summer ca. 970

battle (in Ramla?) between the Qarmatis and the Ikhshidids; defeat of al-Hasan the Ikhshidid death of Christodulus 11, patriarch of Jerusalem, in EgY Pt T h o m a s (11) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem al-Hasan b. 'Ubaydallah the Ikhshidid leaves Egypt for Ramla the Fatimid army enters Fustat Ramla is besieged by the Qarmatis Judith, grandmother of the emperor Henry11, makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem the Fatimid army is sent to Palestine

'Ezriin ha-Kohen becomes head of the Palestinian yeshiva conquest of Ramla by the Fatimid army 970, 24 May 970, middle of October conquest of Damascus by the Fatimid army Sa'ida b. Hiyin is appointed as governor of Ramla by 971, August Jawhar conquest of Damascus by the Qarmatis and the Banu 971, August'Uqayl September conquest of Ramla by the Qarmatis 971, 5 September death of the Tiberian writer Abii'l-Qisim Sulaymin b. 971, 12 October Ahmad al-Tabariini is repelled by Jawhar 971, end of December the Qarmati invasion of Egypt conquest of Nisibis by the Byzantines 972 al-Hasan al-A'sam becomes the exclusive leader of the 97213 Qarmafis Ahmad b. al-Musawwir, governor of Damascus, is 973, April removed from office by the Fatimids al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid caliph, arrives in Egypt 973, May 973, summer Palestine and southern Syria are again conquered by the Fatimids Ya'qiib ibn Killis is entrusted by the caliph al-Mu'izz 973, October with the internal affairs and the taxes 974, spring the Qarmatis and their allies attack Egypt 975, end of the winter the northern coastal area of Palestineis attacked by Alptakin Damascus is conquered by Alptakin 975, April death of al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid caliph; he is succeeded 975, 24 December by his son, al-'Aziz 976, May a Fatimid army sets out northwards and conquers Palestine

8 50

CHRONOLOGY

976, 1 July 977, January 977, 12 March 977, 17 March 978 978, beginning of April 978. June 978, 15 August 978, 31 August 978, 28 October 97819, winter 979, 3 May 979, August 979, 29 August 979, end of August 980, July 980, 29 November 981, June 981, summer 98313, s u m m e r 983 983, 5 July 983, autumn 983, December 984 984

ca. 985 98718 988 988

the Fatimid army reaches Damascus retreat of the Fatimid army from Damascus Ramla is conquered by the Qarmatis death of al-Hasan al-A‘sam, leader of the Qarmatis, in Ramla Joseph (11) is appointed patriarch ofJerusalem Jawhar and the remnants of his army hand over Ascalon to Alptakin al-‘Aziz leads a huge army into Palestine battle of al-Tawahin, between the Fatimid army and Alptakin with his allies; victory of the Fatimids Alptakin is caught by al-Mufarrij b. Daghfal al-‘Aziz arrives in Egypt after the victory Fadl b. Silih conducts negotiations with Abii Taghlib, the Hamdanid Abii Taghlib the Hamdinid is informed that he is invited to Egypt, by al-‘Aziz Abii Taghlib the Hanldanid sets out to attack Ramla Abu Taghlib the Hamdanid is defeated by the Fatimid army commanded by Fadl b. Salih, near Ramla an expeditionary army is sent by al-‘Aziz to Damascus death of Ahmad b. ‘Ati’ al-Riidhbidi, in Tyre a marriage deed from Damascus, apparently the marriage of ‘Adi b. Manasse ibn al-Qazziz: TS 8.129 Damascus is besieged by a Fatimid army under the command of Subuktakin rebellion of the Bedouin in Palestine, led by the Banii Jarrah death of Abu Bakr Muhammad b. al-‘Abbis b. Wasif, in Gaza (?) Agapius is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem conquest of Damascus by the Fatimid army al-Mufarrij b. Daghfal takes part in the Byzantine siege of Aleppo the Fatimid administration hands over Damascus to Bakjiir Orestes is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem death of ‘Abd al-Rahim b. Muhammad al-Fiiriqi, a preacher, in Ramla Shams al-Din al-Muqaddasi writes his book on the Muslim lands death of Abii’l-Husayn Muhammad b. AhmadalMalafi, in Ascalon (?) Fadl b. Sdih suppresses a rebellion in the Delta region pilgrimage to Jerusalem of Gontier, abbot of the monastery of St Aubain in Angers

851

CHRONOLOGY

988, May 988, 39 October 989 989 989, 18July 990 99 1

991, 24 February 992 993 993 993, May 993. 29 October 994 995 996 996, 14 October 997, March 997, April 997, summer (?) 998, May 998, end (?) 999 999 1000, 14 January 1001, 28 April

a Fatimid army sets out to conquer Damascus andis encamped in Ramla Bakjiir leaves Damascus Joseph b. Isaac ibn Abitiir writes to Samuel ha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph Joseph b. Jacob ha-Ma‘ariivi in Jerusalem copies the book of the first prophets Sherira and Hayy write to Samuel ha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph Adalpert, bishop of the Slavs, performs a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ‘Amid al-Dawla Abii Muhammad al-Hasan b. Silih al-Riidhbidi is appointed commander of the army in al-Shim death of the wazir Ya‘qiib ibn Killis pilgrimage to Jerusalem of Adso, abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Lotharingia Fad1 b. Silih is put in charge of the finances of the Fatimid regime David b. Boaz b. Jehoshaphat, a Karaite rlnsi, writes a commentary on Ecclesiastes ‘Isi b. Nestorius is appointed wazir Hugo of Tuscany donates property to the Holy Sepulchre death of Abii’l-‘Abbis ‘Ubaydallah b. Muhammad al-Busti Orestes, patriarch ofJerusalem, sends an embassy to the Pope Rebellion in Tyre, led by ‘Alliiqa, a mariner death of the caliph al-‘Aziz; he is succeeded by his son, al-Hikim ‘Is2 b. Nestorius is put to death, on the orderof alHikim the battle of Ascalon, between the Berber and the Turk unities of the Fatimid army; victoryof the Berbers Jaysh ibn SamSima attacks the Bedouin in Palestine a Fatimid army takes control of T y r e a Byzantine embassy arrives in Egypt for negotiations Fatimid victory over the Byzantines Barjawiin is put to death, on the order of al-Hikim Bishira is appointed as governor of Tiberias by alHikim Isaac he-haver b. Solomon he-haver b. Meir Gaon completes the copying ofsefev Ita-&in1 (book of laws), in Acre (?)

852

CHRONOLOGY

1002 1002, beginning 1002, 8 July 1003

1004 cn. 1005

1006 1006, 18 July

1007 1007, spring 1007, 24 June 1007, 1 September 1008 1008, 15 November

1009, 17 July 1009, 28 September ca. 1010

1010/11

1011, 21 January

1011, February 1011, end 1011, 31 December 1012 1012, April 1012, 13 September 1013, July

Stephen, king of Hungary, founds a monastery in Jerusalem Samuel b. Hosha‘ni describes the sufferings of the Palestinian Jewish communities a Christian funerary inscription in Jerusalem first persecutions by al-Hikim; the church of St Mark in Fustat is destroyed Sahl ibn Killis (Ya‘qiib’s brother) is put to death, on the order of al-Hiikim Abii’l-ZZhir Malpniid b. Muhanunadal-Nahwi, a high official of the Fatimids, is put to death on the order of al-Hiikim the rebel Abii Rakwa is defeated by Fadl b. Silih ‘Ali b. Mufarrij, the Jarrihid, is given a ceremonial dress by al-Hiikim al-Hiikim hands over seven villages in Palestine to the ruler of Aleppo conflict among the Christians in Egypt and in Palestine over the date of Easter Samuel ‘the third’ b. Hosha‘niis in Damascus Hanania ha-Kohen av-bit-& b. Joseph Gaon is in Fustat Foulque Nerra, Count of Anjou, goes on pilgrimage to Jerusalem death of Abii Ahmad ‘Abdallah b. Bakr, in Tiberias (?) Fadl b. Silih is put to death on the order of al-Hikim destruction of the church of the Resurrection death of ‘Abdallah b. al-Walid al-An$iri, in Jerusalem flight of Abii’LQ5sinl al-Husayn b. ‘All al-ulaziv almoghribi, from Egypt to Palestine Ismi‘il b. Silih (Fadl’s brother), al-Husayn b. Jawhar, and ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. al-Nu‘miin, are put to death on al-Hikim’s order uprising of the Bedouin in Palestine begins death of Shemaria b. Elhanan Jews in Fustat are attacked during the funeral of the cantor Palti’el beginning of al-Hikim’s oppressive decrees against Christians and Jews al-Mufarrij b. Daghfal appoints Theophilus patriarch of Jerusalem Abii’l-Futiih al-Hasan b. Ja‘far is proclaimed caliph by the tribes of Palestine (al-Rishid bi’llih), in Ramla a Fatimid army under ‘Ali b. Ja‘far ibnFalliih sets o u t for Palestine

CHRONOLOGY

1014/5 1014/5 1015, 4 September 1016, 10 September 1016/7 1017, spring

1018/9 1019/20 1020,January 1020, 10July 1020, NovemberDecember 1021, 13 February

1021, September 1021, 24 November 102213 1033 1023, 10 February 1023, 21 August 1023, 28 November 1024

1024, April

1024, 18 May 1024, May-July (September?) 1024, June 1024, 12 June

destruction of the synagogues in Fustat a fragment of a deed from Ramla earthquake in Palestine; the dome of the Dome of the Rock collapses Husn, daughter of Kiishnim, dedicates a Bible to the Karaite congregation in Jerusalem Mukhtir al-Dawla ibn Nizil al-Kitimiis appointed by al-Hikim as governor of Tripoli ‘Azriqim the scribe dedicatesa Bible to the Karaite synagogue in Ramla death of Abii’l-Fath Muhammad b. Ibrahim al-Bazziz al-Tarsiisi (Ibn al-Basri), in Jerusalem Abii Bakr al-Wisiti writes his book on the praises of Jerusalem death of Theophilus, patriarch of Jerusalem Nicephorus is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem a decree regarding the protection of churches and monasteries is issued by al-Hikim the caliph al-Hikim is murdered; he is succeeded by his son, al-Zihir al-Karijili meets Abii’l-Qasam ‘Is5 b. ‘Ali al-‘Umari in Ramla Samuel b. Jacob receives payment for copying the books of the prophets inscription on the Temple Mount: construction works ordered by the caliph al-Zihir Aniishtakin al-Dizbiri is appointed as g o v e r n o r o f j u n d Filastin David ha-Levi b. Isaac is put in charge of the Fatimid finances a son of al-Mufarrij the Jarrihid visits Fustat and is received with great honours the marriage deed of the wife of Nathan ha-Kohen ha-Sefati b. Solomon (Tyre?) Abii’l-‘Assif al-Kabbishi becomes cadi of Ramla the pilgrims’ caravan from Khurisin passes through Palestine Muhassin b. Badiis is appointed to supervise the revenue from Palestine Ramla is taken by the Bedouin ‘Abdallah b. Idris al-Ja‘fari and the Bedouin raid Eilat Abii Tilib al-Gharibili is appointed collector of the khaviij in Ramla, instead of ‘Ubaydallah b. Yiinus

854

CHRONOLOGY

1024, 24 October 1024, November 1024, November 1024, 26 November 1024, end 1024/5, winter 1025, beginning 1025, January 1025, 16 January 1025, 24 January 1025, February 1025, 14 February (10 Dhii’l-Hija, ‘id

Muhassin b. Badiis, the Fatimid treasurer, is executed for his ties with the tribes of Palestine al-Hassan b. al-Mufarrij the Jarrihid writes to the Fatimid caliph about his conditions for peace battle between Aniishtakin al-Dizbiri and al-Hassin the Jarrahid, near Ascalon Aniishtakin al-Dizbiri receives the titlenlnlv nl-rrrnnni’ Aleppo is attacked by Silih b. Mirdas severe famine in Egypt the Bedouin abscond with a transport of apples from the Lebanon to Egypt al-‘Arish and al-Farami are attacked by the Bedouin Aleppo is conquered by Silih b. Mirdis the road to Eilat is obstructed and the Egyptian pilgrims are forced to return home beginning of al-Dizbiri’s offensive in Palestine Aniishtakin al-Dizbiri prays in the Ramla mosque

al-n&i) 1025, end of February 1025, spring 1025, spring

1025, 13 March 1025, 21 August 1026 1026 1026, 11 March 1026, April-May 1026, July 1027 1027, March 1028, 15 January 1028, July 1028, 20 December 1029, 12 May

Ramla is retaken by al-Hassin the Jarrahid death ofJosiah Gaon b. Aaron liquidation of remaining Jarrihid units in Palestine, by al-Dizbiri; al-Hassan the Jarrahid flees to the Byzantines the fortress of Aleppois conquered by Silih b. Mirdis death of Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon b. Joseph; he is succeeded by Solomon b. Judah Aniishtakin al-Dizbiri is imprisoned in Ascalon death of Elhanan b. Shemaria death ofJosiah, the son of the hivt?v of Gaza Yeshii‘i b. Nathan Abraham b. Solomon b. Judah is in Fustat Abii’l-Faraj Hiriin completes his book al-rntrslttarnil, in Jerusalem armistice agreement between the Fatimids and the Byzantines William of Angoulcme and a group of pilgrims arrive in Jerusalem the court in Fustat deals with the inheritance of Khalaf b. Isaac, of Acre death of Sinin b. ‘Ulayyin, leader of the Ban6 Kalb, allies of the Jarrihids arrival in Palestine of a Fatimid army, under al-Dizbiri the Bedouin of Silih b. Mirdis (the Banii ‘Uqayl) are defeated by the Fatimid army at Uqhuwana

CHRONOLOGY

1029, summer 1029, 9 June 1030

1032

1032 1033, 5-6 December 1034 1034 1034, 3 April 1034, 7 April 1035 1035, 6 October 1035, 15 October 1036 1036 1036, June 103617 1037 1037, 9 September 103718 1038, 18 April 1038, autumn 1038, 23 October 1038, 24 October 1039, 12 February 1039, spring and summer 1039, summer

Abraham b. Solomon b. Judah travels to Tyre and Aleppo a ban is proclaimed in ‘the cave’ in Jerusalem, against the (‘Babylonian’) adversary of Ephraim b. Shemaria Nicephorus (I) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem inscription in the Dome of the Rock: the reconstruction was completed on Caliph al-Zahir’s orders death of Ab6 Muhammad Isma‘il b. Raji’ b. Sa‘id, in Ramla earthquakes in Ramla and various regions of Palestine inscription on the Temple Mount: construction works ordered by the caliph al-Zihir pilgrimage to Jerusalem of Adhemar de Chabannes a decree in favour of the Karaitesis issued by al-Zihir collapse of a wall close to ‘the cave’, the synagogue of the Jerusalem Jews death ofJoseph the scribe, son-in-law of Ephraim b. Shemaria inscription on the Temple Mount: completion of a dome, on the order of the wazir al-Jarjara’i a copy of the introduction to the Talmud by Samuel b. Hofni is completed, in Jerusalem Ioannikos is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem the church of the Resurrection is reconstructed death of the caliph al-Zihir; he is succeeded by his son, al-Mustansir Joseph ha-Kohen al-Basir finishes the writing of his ‘book of precepts’, in Jerusalem power of attorney from Aleppo marriage of Sahlan b. Abraham an armistice is agreed between the Fatimids and the Byzantines death of Hayy Gaon Daniel b. Azariah is in the Maghrib beginning of the conflict between Solomon b. Judah and Nathan b. Abraham Nathan b. Abraham is proclaimed Gaon by his followers mass gathering of Nathan b. Abraham’s followers in Ramla, during the reading of themegillii news of the strength of Nathan b. Abraham’s followers in Ramla Jacob b. ‘Amram, the Nagid of Qayrawan, is requested by the followers of Solomon b. Judah to intervene in the conflict

CHRONOLOGY

1039, 12 October

1039, middle of November 1039, December-1040, March cu. 1040

gathering on the Mount of Olives, onhoshu‘ni rubbi, with many of Nathan b. Abraham’s supporters taking part; Solomon b. Judahis taken ill the synagogue of ‘the Palestinians’ in Fustat is closed Nathan b. Abraham is in Fustat

Hesed b. Sahl al-Tustari is appointed chief official of al-Dizbiri 1041, 20 February the synagogue of ‘the Palestinians’ in Ramla is closed for several days 1041, 27 March a r5slt kulli from Mosul arrives in Ramla 1041, 8 May Joseph b. Kulayb writes an account on matters related to the conflict, from Ramla, to Nathan b. Abraham, w h o is (probably) in Tyre the synagogue of ‘the Palestinians’ in Fustatis opened 1041, autumn by Nathan b. Abraham’s faction, for themselves 1041, end (?) a petition to the caliph, by the supporters of Solomon b. Judah al-Dizbiri quarrels with the wazir al-Jarjara’i and flees 1042 (?) to Aleppo agreement concluded between Solomon b. Judah and 1042, 8 October Nathan b. Abraham death of Tobiah b. Daniel, ‘the third’ of the yeshiva 1043, beginning 1044 Georgius Mtzamindeli, one of the saints of the Church of Georgia, visits Palestine 1044, summer Abraham b. Sahl al-Tustari is appointed as wisita NaSr Khusraw is in Jerusalem 1045, spring NaSr Khusraw is in Tyre 1047, February NaSr Khusraw visits Ramla 1047, 1 March murder of Abraham b. Sahl al-Tustari 1047, 25 October the reconstruction of the church of the Resurrectionis 1048 completed an order of Georgian monksis founded at the church 1049 of the Holy Sepulchre a Fatimid army under Rifq is encamped in Ramla, on 1049, summer its way to Damascus 1049 (or 1050), summer Hesed b. Sahl al-Tustari is executed 1049,September (1) rebellionoftheBedouininPalestine 1050, 1June the cadi Abii Muhammad al-Hasan b. ‘Ali is appointed wazir 1051, April death the of Gaon Solomon Judah b. 1051, 20 Decembereffortstoreach a compromisebetweenDanielb. Azariah and Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon

857

CHRONOLOGY

1052, March 1052, 19 April 10S2. August 1052, 18 September 1053 1053, middle of December 1055 1055, December 1055-1 059 105516

1056 1057, 21 March 1057, May 1057, September 1057, November 1057, 17 December

1058 1058 1058, March 1059 1059 1059 1059 1059, end 1060 1062 1062. March 1062, August 1063 1063

a Karaite delegation examines the stateof the grain in the Gaza region beginning of the tribes’ taking controlof Q a y r a w i n agreement between Daniel b. Azariah and Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon gathering on h o s h ‘ t l i rabbi on the Mount of Olives; Daniel b. Azariah is proclaimed Gaon Odilus of Rouergue dedicates property to the church of the Holy Sepulchre death ofJoseph ha-Kohen nv-bet-din b. Solomon Gaon Conquest of Baghdad by theSaljiiqs death of Abii’l-Faraj ‘Abd al-Wahhib b. al-Husayn al-Ghazzil, in Tyre drought and plagues in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Iraq conflict between the Fatimids and the Byzantines; confiscation of propertyof the church of the Resurrection Georgius Mtzamindeli visits Palestine again ‘Eli ha-Kohen writes a piyyiif honouring Daniel b. Azariah death of Muhammad b. ‘Ali al-Karijiki, in Tyre Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac b. Furit is in Jerusalem destruction of Q a y r a w i n Miisi b. Jacob writes from Damascus on business matters, to Abii’l-A‘li Joseph b. Da’iid b. Sha‘yi in Fustat Menas is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem birth of David b. Daniel b. Azariah execution of Abii Muhammad al-Yiziiri Israel b. Nathan (Sahliin) copies the mishni orders nZshiwz and rleziqitl, inJerusalem Sophronius (11) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem death of Judah ibnal-‘USfiira long stay of Daniel b. Azariah in Fustat beginning of Daniel b. Azariah’s illness collapse of the lighting systemof the Dome of the Rock Makin al-Dawla al-Hasan b. Mulham is appointed governor of Tiberias and Acre by al-Mustangir queries from Fustat to the Gaon Daniel b. Azariah death of the Gaon Daniel b. Azariah the wall around the Christian quarter ofJerusalem is completed the cadi Abii Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Abi ‘Aqilis in control of T y r e

CHRONOLOGY

1064 (?) 1065-1 072 1065 1065, 15 March 1067, s u m m e r 1067, N o v e m b e r 1068, 18 March 1068, 29 May 1070 1070, s u m m e r 1071 1071 1071, spring 1071, end 107112 1072, 5July 1073 1073,June-July 1073/4 1074 1075, April-May 1076, 10 August 1076, 2 October 1077, 22 January 1077, 19 February 1077, March 1077, 12June 107718 1078 1078 1078

ccl.

Ingulph visits Jaffa drought in Egypt the head of the Nestorians in Jerusalem gets the rank of metropolitan the pilgrims headed by Gunther, bishop of Bamberg, are attacked by Bedouin Abiathar ha-Kohen b. Solomon Gaon is in Fustat the Turks in the Fatimid army raid Ramla Eilat destroyed by earthquake severe earthquake in Palestine Mark (11) is appointed patriarch ofJerusalem a Fatimid army under Badr al-Jamili attacks Tyre Saljiiq victory ovcr the Byzantines at Manzikert Tahir b. Muhammad b. Salima al-Quda‘i al-Misri teaches traditions in Jerusalem Abiathar ha-Kohen b. Elijah Gaon is in Fustat the Turcomans invade Palestine, under Atsiz b. Uwac; death in Damascus of Ahmad b. Muhammad alKattani, of Ramla deathbed will of MaymCin b. Khalfa al--Maghribi death of the cadi Abii Muhammad ibn Abi ‘Aqil, master of Tyre conquest of Jerusalem by the Turcomans death of Abii ‘Abdallah Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Taliqini, in Tyre (?) conquest of Acre and Tiberias by the Turcomans Shukli is driven out of Acre by the army of Atsiz, which also conquers Tiberias, and slaughters its inhabitants Abraham b. Nathan is in Ramla beginning of Atsiz’ expedition against Egypt Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph nv-b?f-d% writes a piyyiit on the events in Palestine defeat of Atsiz in Egypt Abiathar ha-Kohen b. Elijah Gaon and Abraham b. Nathan are in Fustat deed of divorce from Ramla: Yefet b. Abraham divorces Sitt al-Husn Saadia Ize-hiver b. Israel writes a responsum on calendar matters, in Acre rebellion of the Muslims in Jerusalem against the Turcomans death of the nagid Judah b. Saadia David b. Daniel b. Azariah departs for Egypt

CHRONOLOGY

107819 (?) 107819 107819 1079, s u m m e r 1079, 13 May 1079, 15 N o v e m b e r 1079, end 1080 1081, 28 September 1082, 15January 1082, 18 September 108213 1083, N o v e m b e r 1084 1085 1085, April 1086 1087 108718 1089 1091 1091 1091, a u t u m n 1092 1092-1 095 1093 1093

the Palestinian yeshiva is transferred to Tyre Abii'l-Fath Nasr b. Ibrahim al-Maqdisi al-Nibulusi, leader of the Shifi'ites, leaves Jerusalem to live in Damascus execution of Atsiz; Tutush and Artuq take control of Palestine first evidence of the Palestinian yeshiva being in Tyre Solomon and Isaac, great-grandchildren of Meir Gaon, sign as witnesses a court document in Tripoli (Syria) David b. Daniel writes that he intends to set out from Damira to Fustat David b. Daniel arrives in Fustat Abii Muhammad Hiyij b. 'Ubayd, of Hittin, is killed in Mecca gathering in Tyre, on Hosha'ni rabbi David b. Daniel marries Nishiya, daughter of Moses ha-Kohen b. Aaron gathering in Haifa, on Hosha'ni rabbi; sanctification of the year, proclamation of the calendar order Jerusalem is handed over to Artuq, by Turmush, Atsiz' appointee (1) death of Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon b. Solomon Simon (11) is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem Solomon b. Hayyim, 'the seventh', in Fustat, is paid back 20 dinars which he had transferred to the Rabbanite Jews remaining in Jerusalem the Saljiiqs try to conquer Ascalon from the Fatimids Palestine is handed over by Tutush to Artuq death of Salima b. Isma'il al-Maqdisi al-Darir, in Jerusalem pilgrimage of Urso, archbishop of Bari Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Jubayl, Acre, are conquered by a Fatimid army under Munir (or: Nasir) al-Dawla alJuyiishi, who rebels against the Fatimids death of Artuq the Saljiiqid Abii 'A11 Jamil b. Yiisuf b. Ismi'il al-Mardini, of Biniyis, dies in Damascus David b. Daniel starts calling himself exilarch Milik b. Ahmad al-Baniyisi is killed in Baghdad (in the big fire) Abii Bakr ibn al-'Arabi stays in Jerusalem Muslims in the coastal cities of Palestine bar Christian pilgrims from entering the country Abii 'Ali al-Hasan b. 'Abd al-Samad b. Abi'l-Shihna, of Ascalon, is killed

860

CHRONOLOGY

1093, 12 July 1093, August (approximately) 1093, 23 September 1094 (?) 1094, 19 January 1094, March 1094, May 1095, January 1095, 26 February 1096 1096 1096, 26 December 1097, AugustSeptember 1097, 21 October1098, 2 June 1098 1098, 26 August 1099, May 1099, 15 July 1104 1105, beginning

1110/11 1111 1111, 2 December 1112, December 1124 1124, 8 July 1126 1129, September 1130 1144 1153, 31 August

suppression of Munir al-Dawla’s rebellion in Tyre Abraham b. Nathan and other emissaries of David b. Daniel arrive in Tyre a gathering of Rabbanites and Karaites in Tyre joins the acceptance of David b. Danielas exilarch rebellion of al-Katila, governor of Tyre, against the Fatimids death of Abii’l-Faraj ‘Abd al-Wihid b. Ahmad alShirizi al-Ansari, in Damascus Badr al-Jamili is taken ill; he is succeeded by his son, al-Afdal Mevorakh b. Saadia is reinstated; end of the affair of David b. Daniel Yashar b. Hesed al-Tustari finishes the copying ofa treatise on incest regulations Tutush is killed in battle al-Ghazili arrives in Jerusalem Euthymius is appointed patriarch of Jerusalem death of Abii’l-Fath Nasr b. Ibrahim al-Maqdisi alNibulusi, in Damascus suppression of Katila’s rebellion in Tyre by a Fatimid army siege of Antioch by the Crusaders death of Samdiin b. Husayn, in Biniyis al-Afdal captures Jerusalem from the Saljiiqs conquest of Caesarea by the Crusaders conquest ofJerusalem by the Crusaders conquest of Acre by the Crusaders revenue of the heqdesh for the poor of Jerusalem is transferred from Fustat to Abiathar ha-Kohen in Tyre death of Abii’l-Hasan Idris b. Hamza, who had been head of the Shafi‘ites in Jerusalem, in Samarqand siege of Damascus by the Crusaders death of the nagid Mevorakh b. Saadia death of the Jerusalemite cadi Muhammad b. al-Hasan al-Balishi‘iini, in Damascus death of the Shifi‘ite scholar Abii’l-Fath Sultan b. Ibrahim, of Jerusalem conquest of Tyre by the Crusaders t h e !znrlzirl~iyyn(the Assassins) conquer BZniyZs conquest of Biniyiis by the Crusaders Abii Ishiq Ibrahim b. Yahyii b. ‘Uthmiin, of Gaza, dies in Khurisin death of Nathan ha-Kohenb. Mevorakh, of Ascalon the head of al-Husaynb. ‘Ali is transferred from Ascalon to Fustat

86 I

B I B L I O G R A P H IIC ND AELX %if

Entries are indexed by section numbers (inclusive of the notes) rather than page numbers Hebrew,

A r t ~ t m i ~S,y r i x , J~rdaco-Arubic

Abraham Ibn Da’iid, Scjir ha-qabbiilZ (the Book of Tradition), ed. G. D. Cohen, Philadelphia 1967 773, 833, 917 Abraham Ibn Ezra, Cqrrzrrzerltq (as printed in the editions of the Hebrew Bible) 827, 940 Abraham b. Moses Maimonides (Maimuni) Corrzrwerztrzryon Genesisand Exodzrs, ed. E. Wiesenberg,London1959337,338 Abraham b. Moses Maimonides (Maimuni), TesltGvfit (Resyor~sa).ed. A. H. Freimann,transl. S. D.Goitein,Jerusalem1937853 AbrahamZacuto, Sefir hrz-y~r/~zt~sit~, ed. H. Filipowski,London1857729 Abramson, S . , Bn-merkiixirlz rr-va-fcfii@f, Jerusalem1965298,572,784,795, 796, 798, 800, 850, 852, 854, 871 ‘IrzyZrzfit he-sz’fiif lz~~-ge~’&Tm, Jerusalem1974347,810,912 Qeta‘ hadishminha-seferessimeshili, Trzrbir, 32:160,1962/3733 R m Nissirrl Gmtz, Jerusalem1964/6384,912 Abii’l-Fath. The Clzrorzicle, ed.E.Vilmar,Gotha1865410-414,941 Ahima‘as of Oria, ha-Megilli2, ed. B. Klar, Jerusalem 1974 561,734, 741, 776, 809, 827-828. 844, 937 Alder.I.,Ha-omn5mnimse’iiba-genizi, Alei S ~ f i y ,1 2 5 1 , 1986286 ‘AliIbnSulaymin, The Corrzrnerztnry 012 Genesis, ed. S. L. Skoss, Philadelphia 1928 835, 938, 930 Allony. N., ‘Ali b. Yehiid3 ha-nizir we-hibbiro, Leslrorzerzzr 34:75, 187, 1969/70 286 Dunashwe-adonim, Sitzni, 43:385, 1957/8 13 K i t i b al-sab‘in lafia, I . Goldziher Mtworinl Vollrrrze (Hebrew part), Jerusalem 123 1958:l Shetereshimijt, Kiryrzt Sqfir, 38:531,1962/3378 Allony. N. and Scheiber, A., Reshimat sefarim, Kirynt Se@r, 48:152, 378 1972/3 2 Alon, G.. Stzrdies (illchqiirirn), TelAviv1957

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

‘Amramb.Sheshnii, Seder‘amrtimgti’ijn, ed. L. Frumkin,Jerusalem 1912917 Ankori, Z . , EliahBashiyatsi (I), Tarbiz, 25:44,1955/6938 AnonymousSyriacChronicles, M S S B MA d d 14,461; O r 14,46350,58,

60-61 T h e ‘Artikh of Nathan B. Yehi’el, ed. A. Kohut, Vienna Ashtor, E., Q a w i m li-demfitah shel ha-qehflla, Ziort,

1878/92123,350 30:61, 128, 1965 792,

809 Q6rotha-yehudim bi-sejiirad ha-muslimit, Jerusalem 1966827,854,892 Sefer ‘aravi, Tarbiz, 30:209, 1960/61 617 Yedi‘ijt ‘a1 ha-yehiidim bi-sefon E. I., Z . ShazarJubileeVolume,

Jerusalem

1973:489 301, 329, 331 Zion, 4:51,193976,340 Tded6t ha-yehtidimbe-misrayimu-ve-siiriya‘, Jerusalem 1944 et sqq. 746,790 Assaf, S., ‘Aviidimwe-sahar‘aviidim, Zion, 5:271,1940372 Butte ha-dinwe-sidrzhem, Jerusalem 1924868 Be-ohole ya‘aqcjv, Jerusalem 1943937 E. I. bi-theshiivijtge’ijnebiivel, Zion (ha-me’assef), 1:21,1925/6737,739, Ashtor(Strauss),E.,Kibbiisheha-mongijlim,

741 MeqZrZt i-me(?qiri;rI,Jerusalem 1946

85, 116, 125,252,302,309,315,325,

564, 772, 775, 796, 827, 829 Mi-siJi.ut ha-ge’onim, Jerusalem 1933285,384,738-739,754,851 Mi-teshiivotha-ge’onim, Jeschurutt (Berlin), 5/6:45,1925853 Periish.shishshiisidremishnii, KiryatSejr, 10:381,1932/4884 Qinot, /. L. ZlotnikJubileeVolume, Jerusalem 1950:162896 Qoves shel igerijt rabbi shemii’el b. ‘ali, Tarbiz, 1(1):102; (2):43; (3):15,142, 1929/30;also quoted from its separate print:Qoves, Jerusalem 1930 728,801,

896, 915-916 Review of Mann’s Texts and Studies I, Tarbiz,

3:340,1931/2478

S e f r ha-yishuv, see S e f r ha-yishuv Seridimminha-geniz5, /. KlausnerJubileeVolume, TelAviv 1937226 929 Shetarot‘atiqim, Yerushalayim, 1952/3:104 285, 309 Shetarotyiriyim, EretzIsrael, 1:140,1950/51298 Teqti>t ha-ge’onim we-sijtitih, Jerusalem 1955773,884-885 Teshiivii ii-mikhtiiv, Tarbiz, 19:105, 1947/8 300 Teshtivotha-ge’onim, Jerusalem 1942383,784,798,868 Teshtivot ha-ge’otzim mi-t6khha-genizti, Jerusalem 1929339 Te‘iidijthadashot, Zion (ha-me’assef), 2:112,1927813,859 Avi-Yonah, M., Bim2r6miu-vizanfyon, Jerusalem 19708 Ge’6grZhahisforit, Jerusalem 1962/3122,297,310 Avigad, N., Ketijvetbeniyii, Qadmoniyot, 10:8,1976/7668 Ayalon, D. (Neustadt),‘Inyenenegidiit, Zion, 4:126,1939809 Bar-Adon,P.,Sinabereii-vetyerah, EretzIsrael, 4:50,195692 BarDeroma,H., We-zzgevtil ha-ares, Jerusalem 1958310 Gregorius Bar Hebraeus, Chroniconecclesiasticum, ed. J. B. Abbeloos, Louvain

1872 678, 732, 919

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

T h e Chronicle, ed.Bedjan1890;ed.andtransl.E.A.W.Budge,Oxford 193250,65,69,72,81,376,410,414,420,482,550,560,565,571,597,606, 701, 716 Barekct, E., Elhinin b. shemaryi we-sahlin b. avriham (MA thesis), Tel Aviv Univ. 1979/80 795, 806, 808 Tnrbir, 5217,1982/3795 Sahlinb.avriham, Te'trdl~,1:193,1980193, Beit-Arie,M.,ha-Pale'ografiyashelqit'eha-genizi, 342 Ben Horin, Review of Prawer's Mutrzlekhet Yerlrshiilayirn ha-gnlvirtit, K i r p t Sqfer, 24:108, 1947/8 330, 603, 839 Ben-Sasson, H . H., Demiitih shel 'adat ha-shoshinim, Shlem, 21, 933 1975/6 Ri'shoneha-qira'im, Zion. 15:43,1950919,935 Zion, 51:379,1985797, Ben-Sasson,M.,Ge'oniitoshelshemii'elha-kohen, 828, 854 Ben-Shammai, H., Ilini'el al-qiimisi we-tolodet E. I., Shnletn, 3 2 9 5 , 1980/81 11, 669, 921 Ha'aliyyale-E. I., Cathedra, 8:145,1977/8824 Mahadiirii we-nushi'ot mi-perushe yefet ben 'ali, Afei Sqfkr, 2 1 7 , 925 1975/6 Ben-Zvi, I., Keterha-tori, Sirtai, 43:5,1957/8289 Benjamin b. Jonah of Tudela, Sqfer rnnssii"5t, ed. Asher, London 1840; ed. Adler, London1907308,325, 330, 360,746,790,900,944 Benjaminal-Nihiwandi, Masse'ntberlyirnfrt, Eupatoria1835274 Blau, J., Diqdiq ha-'nrivlt ha-yehtrdit, Jerusalem 1961 Bornstein, H . J., Divre yeme ha-'ibbiir, Hatequji, 14-15:321; 16:228, 1931/2 785-788, 929 N. Sokolow Jubilee Volume, Warsaw Mahaloqet rav se'adya gi'on, 1904:19738, 784-789, 828,831,840,849,852,902,922 Braslavi, J., 'Aliyot regilim, Ha-kirzniis (xxv), Yertrshilayirn le-dor5tZhii: 841 120 Le-heqer nr@nlr, TelAviv1954119,255,301,307,319,324,325-329,828 Le-minniiyoshelrabbievyitir, Eretx-Israel, 5220,1959302,899,900 Li-meqomotha-yishiivha-yehiidi, BJPES, 527,1936/8840,848 MadrikhE. 1. minha-genizi, Eretz-Israel, 7:69,1963/4840 Q i n i 'a1 rabbiSidoq, Tarbiz, 3 2 1 74,1962/3772 J., Ha-yesod ha-yehiidi she-be-'arviye E. I., M o l d , 24:424, Brawer, A. 334 1966/8 Cassuto, M. D., 'A1 manehlequ,etc., Se_fer rnv se'crdyii gii'5tt: 333, Jerusalem 7871942 Chapira, E. D. (B.), M i k h t i v mE-ramliiliriishilayim, Yertrshnlayinl, 4:118, 1952/3 383, 879 Chrotzicorz arzonyrntrrn ud A . C . 1234pertirzens, ed. J. B. Chabot, CSCO (Syri) nos. 36, 37 (transl. by J. B. Chabot, further by A. Abouna, ibid., nos. 36. 154) 46, 58, 62, 69, 607

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

C o h e n , M .R., Qehillat ashqelon ben ge’oniit ere? isri’el le-ven rashiit ha-yehiidim be-migrayim, Shaletn, 3:93, 1980/81 907 Daniel al-Qiimisi, The Commentary on the Book of Daniel (= T S 10 C 2) 11, 83 Pitrot1 sherzeym ‘isiv, ed. I. M a r k o n ef al., Jerusalem Daniel al-Qiimisi, 1958 921, 930, 935 DavidQimhi, S e f v Mikhlol, Lyck1842286 Davidson,I., Girtxt? Schedtfer, vol. 111, NewYork1927/8821 OSarha-shiriwe-ha-piyyut, N e w Y o r k 1924-1933848,867,914,937 Dinur,B., Isri’t?l ba-gola, TelAviv1961-6985,599,746,774 Dinur (Dinaburg), B., Bet tefilla ii-midrash la-yehudim ‘a1 har ha-bayit, Ziotl (ha-me’assef), 3:55, 1928/9 774, 844 Le-toledot ha-yehiidim be-ere? isra’el bime massa‘ ha-selav ha-ri’shon, Ziort (ha-me’assef),2:38,1926/7315,839,943-944,950 Dotan,A.,Ha-omniimhay5benasherqiira’i? Sinai, 41:280,350,1957294 Periqiin be-toledot yevushilnyim Drori, J., Yerushiilayim ba-tequfi ha-mamliikit, bimt? ha-beyrtayim, ed.B. Z . Kedar,Jerusalem1979:148848 Dukes,L., QuntvZs ha-rnassovet, Tubingen1845/6286 El‘ad,A.,‘Areha-hof, Cathedra, 8:156,1977/8 116-1 17 He‘arot, Me!zqivim, HaifaUniversity,vol.V:191,1980302 Massoret‘aravit, Cathedra, 8:156,1977/8406,838 Eleazarb.Judahb.Kalonymus, Ma‘ase v5qt?a14 Sanok1911/2777 Elias of Nisibis, T h e Chvotticle (text and translation), CSCO (Syri), vols XXI, 102, 417-418, 786 XXIII Eliash,J.,Yedi‘ot ‘a1 ere?isra’el, Sefittof, 27, 1957/8 360, 829 EliyahiiBashiyatsi, AderetEliyihll, Eupatoria1834938 Epstein, A., ha-Mahaloqet, Hagoven, 4:118,1905/6736,784 Epstein, J. N., Der gaortuische Kornmentav xur Mischnaovdrzung Tehnvoth, Berlin 3501924 Qeta‘imhadashim, Tavbix, 7:283, 1935/6 919 EvertSappiv =J.Saphir’s Diary, Lyck1866289,294 EvenShemuel,J., MidreshZge’ulli, Jerusalem1953/476 . . ., Ziorr, 5:204,1940238,242 Fischel, W. J., Pereq mittokh ha-khroniqa Fleischer,E.,Hiddiisheha-askola . . ., Hcl-sifi.ut, 4:334,1972/3857 ‘Inyenepiyyutwe-shira, S . HalkitzJubileeVoltrme, Jerusalem1973:183309 ‘Iyyunim . . ., Sefunot, N S 1:25,1979/80776 Le-zihiiyma‘atiq‘hashe’elotha-‘atiqot, Kivyat S e f r , 55:183,1976/80745, 939 Le-Sivyon ’ha-she’elot ha-‘atiqot. . ., HUCA, 38:1, 1967 (Hebrew part) 745 Massoretyehiiditqediimii, Zion, 36:110,198183 Paytene!every2ha-qedumim,in 0. Avisar,ed., Sefev tevZvyi, Jerusalem 2871973 Qawim hadashim. . . , Shnlem, 1:53,1973/4852,885 Shivat ha-qodesh ha-‘ivvit bimt? ha-beytzayim, Jerusalem1975733 Te‘iidotsifriitiyot . . ., Ziorz, 49:375,1984784,901

865

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Shiv'atothadishot. . ., Sinai, 61:30,1966/7287 Frenkel, J., Hadiritim shel ha-badawim le-ere? isri'el, Cathedra, 11:86, 1978/9 589, 591 Ha-saljiiqimbe-ere?isri'el, Cathedra, 21:49,1981/2603,609 . . ., Te'lrda, 1:57,1979/80 Friedman,M.A.,Ha-ketubbotha-ere?-isre'eliyot 93 1 'Ha-sari eyn be-miqrayim' . . ., Dine isrli'el, 5:205,1973/4899 Hilekhot ishut, etc., Tarbiz, 50909, 1980/81 '&I 'a1 'ittur' . . ., Erbiz, 49:202, 1979/80 779 Ono, yedi'ot hadishot. . ., in: D. Grossmann,ed., Beyn yarqiin w n - a y a h , Ramat Gan 1983:75 332 Poligimiya . . ., Tarbiz, 43:166,1973/4896 Ribbtry nlishlm be-isri'd, Jerusalem1986285,754 Ribbiiynashimbe-mismekheha-genizi, Tarbiz, 40:320,1980/81823 Sheneqeta'immi-seferha-ma'asim, Sitlai, 74:14,1973/4823 Gartner, I., Hashpa'atim . . . Bar IlanUniv.Annual, 20:128,1983826 Geiger,A., Q e v t i g t rna'ntnirim, Warsaw1910286 Ge'iirl? mizriih 11-ma'arliv, Responsa, ed. J. Muller,reprint1958/9273,739 Gil, M.,'Aliyiwa-'aliyila-regel, Cathedra, 8:124,1977/8823 Ere?isri'el . . ., Te'uda, 7:281,1990269,779,797 Megillat evyitar . . ., Periiqlm be-toledot yerllshilayim bime ha-beynnyim, ed. B. Z. Kedar,Jerusalem1979:39811,884,890,905 Xrbiz, 4 6 : 1 7 , 1 9 7 6 / 7 843 ha-MokhCrethe-hiisPr, Le-toledotge'oneere?isri'el, Tarbiz, 44:144,1974/5851-852 ha-Mifgishha-bavli, Tarbiz, 48:35,1978/9241,774,806,852,870 Mikhtivshelisri'elb.nitin, Michael, 7:244,1981/2376,891 Shalern, 3:1,1980/81564 Milhemetshishshimha-shhim, Ravaharon@'onb.yosef, Sejrnot, N S 1(16):9,1979/80488,797,853 Shalern, 2:19,1975/6668,842,845 Shekhiinotha-yehiidimbiriishilayim, ha-Tustarim, TelAviv198178,255,274,285,350,357-358,364,370,560, 590, 598, 609, 764, 773, 780, 803, 880, 927, 929, 931, 935, 939, 940, 947 Ginzberg, L., GinzZ Schechter, New York 1927/9 76, 808, 821, 826, 921, 932 Goitein, S. D., 'A1 shemotehi ha'arviyim shel yeriishilayim,]. L. Zlotnickjrrbilee Volume, Jerusalem 1950:62 125 Arba'ketubbot, Leshonenu, 30:197,1965/6123,775 Eretz-Israel, 8:288,1966/7903 Batteyehiidimbe-'irimdamesseqwe-sor, Betha-kenesetwe-siyyiido, Eretz-Israel, 7:81,1963/4769 Dini'elb.'azaryi,nasiwe-gi'on, Shalem, 2:41,1975/6738,773-774,779, 801-802, 809, 822, 857, 885-886, 889, 893, 896, 905 ha-Hitmodediit beyn bet-ha-keneset le-veyn ha-qehilli, H . Schirrnann jubilee Volume, Jerusalem 1970:69 767 Ha-omnim isar ha-khalifa 'umar 'a1 ha-yehiidim la-shevet biriishilayim, Melila, 3 - 4 : 156,1949/5069 Tarbiz, 36:59,1966/7376,879 Iggeretlabratb.moshe, Kitibdhimmatal-nabi, Kiryat S&, 9:507,1931/33255

866

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L INDEX

Le-toledotha-ge’oniit,

Shalenl, 1:15,1973/4742,753,793,802,857,859,

862 Ma‘asebet-din, Eretx Israel, 12:200,1974/5311 Meqorot hadishim a1 goralha-yehiidim, Zion, 17:129,1952943,947 Mikhtivim mE-eres isri’el, Yerushdayim, 1955:54 943 Misharha-yehiidimba-yamha-tikhon, Tarbiz, 36:366,1966/7339 ‘Olilot . . ., Tarbiz, 38:18,1968/9856 Pe‘iilito ha-sibbiirit shel r. elhinin b. shemaryi,]. FinkelJubilee Volume, N e w 252,795,796,798 York 1974 (Hebrewpart):117 Pidyonsheviiyibe-nibulus . . ., Tarbiz, 31:287,1961/2949 Qediishitih shel ere$-isri’el ba-hasidiit ha-muslimit, BJPES, 12:120,1945/6

109, 181, 389 Ha-rav,beriirparishisetiimi, Tarbiz, 45:64,1975/6374,378,861,864 Roshyeshivatere?-isrii’el . . ., Eretz-Israel, 10:100,1970/71877 Sawwa’otmi-misrayim, Sefirnot, 8:107,1963/4598,835 Shiloshiggirot, Tarbiz, 34:162,1964/5835,856 Shemaryibirrabielhinin, Tarbiz, 32:266,1962/3795,798 Yedi‘ot hadishot ‘a1 ere?isri’el, Eretz-Israel, 4:147,1955/6328,943,946 Yedi‘othadishot ‘a1 negideqayrawin, Zion, 27:11,1962809 Yeriishilayimba-teqiifaha-‘arivit, Yeriishilayim, 4:82,1952/366,69,105,

157, 414, 456, 624 ha-Yishiiv be-ere; isri’d . . ., Jerusalem 1979/8066,31 1, 609,624-626,634, 773-774,779,793,822,856,859,885-886,889,893-894,896,905,946-947,949 Golb,N.,Gersedeqshe-birahle-misrayim, Sefirnot, 8:85,1963/4278 Megillat‘ovadyiiha-ger, S. D. GoiteinJubileeVolume, Jerusalem

1981:77

328, 950 Toledot ha-yehtrdinz ba‘ir Rouen birnt? ha-beynayim, TelAviv 1976777 Grabois, A., ha-Salyiniit ha-nG,serit. . ., Ha-yam ha-tikkhon tr-meqomo . . ., (kenes ha-hevraha-histtkit),Jerusalem 1969/70:68 719 1890 et Graetz, H. H., DivrZ yemeisri’d (transl. S. P. Rabbinowitz), Warsaw sqq.

76, 119, 728, 732

Grossman,A.,ha-‘Aliyile-ere$-isri’el, Cathedra, 8:136,1977/8821,827 Hakhmeashkeniiz hn-ri’sh6nim, Jerusalem 1981777 Ziqitihshelyahadiitashkeniz . . ., Sltalem, 3:57,1980/81574,777 Guttmann,J., Ha-Jhs5jju she1 ha-yahadtrt, Jerusalem 1951940 Habermann,A.M.,Qerovile-hanukki, Sinai, 53:183,1962/3810,867 Hadisi,Judah, Eshkolha-kofer, Goslow 1836286 Halper, B., ‘Alimbilim(v), Hatequji, 20:261,1922/3786 Ha-yehiidim tahat shilton ha-khalifim ha-fatimiyim, Hatequfa,

18:175,

1922/3560,779,808,857,860 Hamagid, 21:134,1877301 Hadcishim gam yeshiinim, reprint,Jerusalem 1969/70289,309,927 He‘irot iimillii’im, in: Gratz,DivrZ yeme isri’el (transl. S. P. Rabbinowitz), vol. I11 917, 919

Harkavy,A.,Divreavrihim,

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Me’assq niddd!?ir?-z,reprint, Jerusalem 1969/70 83, 87, 824, 826, 832, 834, 837,924,935

Teshijvor Ita-ge’onim (Responsa), Berlin188734,273,728,770, 800, 908 Zikkiirort la-ri’shonim, V, Berlin1891286 Zikkirort la-ri’rlt6nim, VIII,Petersburg1903286 Hecker, M., Haspiqat mayim . . ., S e f r Yerushiilayim, 1:191,1955/6847 HayyGaon, Sefer ha-meqqahwe-ha-mimkiir, Venice1602897 Heilprin, Y., Seder ha-dor6f, Warsaw1877325 Heinemann, J., Yahasoshe1 rav Se‘adyii gii’on. . ., BUY-IlarzU H ~ Arrnual, V. 1( = P. CIturgir~Memorial Volurne): 220, 1962/3820 Hirschberg,H. Z., ‘A1 r.zekharyiiaghmiiti, Tarbiz, 42379,1972/3835 ‘Arkhii’ot she1 g o y i m . . ., 1. Herzog Memorial Volume, Jerusalem 1961 /2:493 273 ‘Inyeneharha-zeytim, BJPES, 13:156,1946/7246,771,831,840 ‘Iqevot ha-mashiah be-ere? ‘arav, Viertna Rabbittical Setllitlnry Memorial L’olume, Jerusalem1946: 112730 Isrii’el bn-‘nriiv, TelAviv194638,730 Qehillot isrii’el . . ., SinaiJubileeVolume, Jerusalem1958:344827 Ha-qeshiirimbeynyehiideha-maghrib . . ., Eretz-Israel, 5:213,1958/9342, 350, 795, 828 Hirschman,M., Sha‘arha-kohen . . ., Tarbiz, 55:217,1985/6840 76 H o r o w i t z ,H .M . , BTt ‘eqed ha-ngiidot, Frankfurt 1881 IshiiqIbnGhayyiith, SItn‘nr~sitnhii, Furth1860/62739 Ibn al-Hiti, The Chronicle, ed. G. Margoliouth, Arabic Chronicles, JQR, 9:429, 1897 917, 923, 940 IshShalom,M., ‘A1 yishshiiveha-shefelii,in: I;ia_firot ij-mebqirirn, TelAviv 1161973 Masse‘Z rz64eritll, TelAviv1966664 ISG‘yahb Patriarchae I11 Liber epistulnvurn, CSCO (Syri). ser.2. t. 64, ed.R. D ~ a l , Leipzig 1905 679 Jellinek,A., Bet Ita-midrish, Leipzig1853/776,84,103,119,412 Jonah Ibn Janiih, S e f r ha-riqmii, (1) ed. J. Derenbourg, Paris 1886, (2) e d . M . WilenskyandD.Tenne,Jerusalem1964293,829 S e j r ha-sltorishiwr, ed.A.Neubauer,reprint,Amsterdam1968338,346, 350, 368 Joseph b. Judah Ibn ‘Aqnin, PTrijsh shri. ha-shiritn, ed. A. S. Hakin, Jerusalem 7761964 Judahal-Harizi, TaIjkem6ni, ed.J.Toporowski,TelAviv1952330 Karmon, Y . , ha-Tenii’imha-fisiyogriifiyim . . ., BJPES, 23:111,1958/9275 Kedar, B. Z., Le-toledot ha-yishiiv ha-yehiidi be-ere? isra’el bime ha-beynayim, Tarbiz, 42:401,1972/3309,564,947 ha-Yishiivha-yehiidibiriishilayim . . ., Tarbiz, 41232, 1971/2835 Keriivi de-himyare, ed.A.Moberg,Lund1924730 Kirchheim, R., Sefer ketivtamim, O$nr nehmid, 354,1859/60634 Kister, M. J. and M., ‘A1 yehiide‘arav, Tarbiz, 48231,1978/9295 Klar,B.,Ben-asher, Tnrbiz, 14:156, 1942/3; 15:36,1943/4734,745,919,933 Me?lqiirim we-‘iyyGzim, TelAviv1954291,294,852

868

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Klein, S., Asiya(‘asiya), /. Freimann]ubileeVolume, Berlin1937:1162 Yehudi shomron we-golin, Jerusalem1972275 Kochavi,M.,ed., Ginz? qedem, 4:107,1929/30936 Kook, S. H., Merkiz qiri’i bilti yidii‘a, Krauss, S., ha-Tehuqqiha-noserit . . ., Melila, 3-4:77,1949/50269 Wikkiiahdati. . ., Zion (ha-me’assef),2:28,1926/752,731 Lazarus-Yafeh, H . , Abu hirnid al-ghazili, ha-pod? . . ., Tel Aviv 1965 633 Beynhalikhiba-yahadiitla-halikhiba-islim, Tarbiz, 51:207,1981/2246 Qediishat yeriishilayim . . .,/. Herzog Memorial Volume, Jerusalem 1979 109 Levi (Abu Sa‘id) b. Yefet ha-Levi, Sefer ha-miswot, MS Leiden 4760 (Cat. Warner no. 33) 925, 928-930 Lewin, B. M., Essi meshili, Sefer YUV se‘adyigi’on, Jerusalem1942:481294 Ma‘asimlivneere?isri’el, Tarbiz, 1(1):79,1929/30367 Tarbiz, 2:383,1930/31728,82i Mi-serideha-genizi, Teshiivotansheere?isri’el, Ginz? qedem, 4:50,1929/30736,828,854 O S U Y hillufminhigim, Jerusalem1944739 LewinB.M.(ed.), Linder, A., Yerushilayim ke-moqed shel ‘immiit, Periqirn be-toledot yerushilayim bime ha-beynnyirn, ed.B. Z . Kedar,Jerusalem1979665,700 Loewenstamm, A., ha-Qiri’i yeshii‘i bar yehiidi, Tarbiz, 41:183, 1971 /2 940 Yerkhilayim (Luncz), lO:l, 1913/14840 Luncz,A.M.,Kotelha-ma‘arivi, Mahler, R., ha-QZri’lm, Merhavia1949919,935 Mahzor witvi, ed. S. Hurwitz,reprint,Jerusalem1963733,777 Mann, J., ‘Inyinim shonim . . ., Tarbiz, 5:148,1933/4741 S. Pozltartski Memorid Kdwtre, Warsaw Misrat r6sh ha-gda we-hista‘affitiih, 1927(Hebrewpart): 18 7 7 3 , 8 8 5 Ha-tenii‘otha-meshihiyot . . ., Hatequji, 24:335,1925/6300,916 Margaliot, M., Hilekhot ere2 isri’el miH ha-genizi, Jerusalem1974331,821 Ha-hilluqim . . ., Jerusalem1938739 Li-qevi‘at zeminoshel ra‘ashshevi‘it, BJPES, 8:97,1980/81102 Te‘iidihadishi ‘a1 ?omha-ra‘ash, Tarbiz, 29:339,1959/60102 Zion (ha-me’assef), 3:26, Marmorstein, A., Derishot dini’el al-qiimisi, 1928/9 807, 826, 933 Midrash has?rot wftterot, London1917807 Marmorstein,A.,ed. /. L. MagnesJubilee Mayer,L.A.,‘Emdatha-yehiidimbimeha-mamliikim, 1938 238 Volume, Jerusalem Ketovotyehiidiyot, Zion (ha-me’assef),3:22,1928/9839 As-sinnabra, Eretz-Israel, 1:169,1980/8192

Megillnt A!tilm In?, see Ahimn‘as Michael the Syrian, T h e Chronicle, ed. J. B. Chabot, Paris 1899-1910 5,50,69, 87-88, 97, 102, 333, 414, 550, 678, 919 Michaeli, M. A., Arkhiyono shel Nahrai b. Nissim. . ., (PhD dissertation), the HebrewUniv.,Jerusalem1968371,372 MosesMaimonides, Resporzsa, ed.J.Blau,Jerusalem1957/61835,912 Shnrh nsmi’ al-uqqar, ed.M.Meyerhof,Cairo1940337,346,353 Moses Ibn Ezra, Kitib al-rnuhidara wa’l-mudhikara, ed. A. S. Halkin, Jerusalem 8921975

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Nathan b. Abraham, PZvish la-rrzishnii (ascribedtohim),suppl.tothe mishnii edition,el-ha-meqorot,Jerusalem1955337,353,884 Neubauer,A., MediaevalJewish Cltvotzicles, Oxford 1888-93728-729,732, 741-742, 773, 849, 859-860, 929 Neubauer, A., ed. The Tdlidii (Cltvoniqzre sarnavitairze), Paris1873 10, 116,941 O g v ha-ge’dttim, ed. B. M. Lewin, Haifa 1928 et sqq. 123,273,350,735,739, 741, 777, 835 Ha-PnvdFs (ascribedtoRashi),ed.Ehrenreich,Budapest1924777 A . lil. Ltrrzcz Pinkerfeld,J.,Betha-kenesetla-‘adatha-qiri’imbirushilayim, Metnorinl Volume, Jerusalem1928205936 Pinsker, S . , Liqqlrte qndrtldtziydt, Vienna1860 125, 263, 286,741,786, 824-825, 829, 842, 848, 852, 917, 924, 925, 928, 930-933, 935, 937 Pirqt? r. eli‘ezer, ed. M.Higger. HGrZv, 8:82;9:94;10:185,1943/48739,784 Pitvdrz tdvii, ed.E.E.Urbach,Jerusalem1978293 Poliak, A., Even shetiyi, B . Dinabtrvg (Dinur) Jubilee V o l m e , Jerusalem 1949:165 105, 418 Mosi’im shel ‘arviye ha-ares, M o l d , 24:297, 1966/8 334 Ziorz, 124,1936746 Ha-yehiidimu-vetha-mitbi‘otbe-misrayim, Poznanski, S., Anshi;: qayrawin, A . Huvkuvy Pveserztntiorz V o l w l e , Petersburg 1909:175 347, 376, 741, 871, 912 ‘Inyiinimshonim. . ., Hnkedern, 1:133,1906-1908; 2 2 4 , 29,1907/8763 Yerushiilayirrl (Luncz), 10:83, Reshit hityashviit ha-qiri’im biriishilayim, 1913/4 825, 848, 923-924, 936, 938 Salmonbenyeriiham, Ettcyclopnedia O g v isvii’Zl. VI1208923 Tuviyihiibenm6sheha-ma‘atiq, Encyclopaedia O ~ a isvii’d, v V:12938 Prawer, J., Ha-autobiyogrifiya shel ‘ovadya ha-ger ha-normini, Tuvbiz, 45272, 727 1975/6 Zion, 12136,1947839,841,848 Gilgiileha-shekhiiniha-yehiidit, ha-Salvinitrt, Jerusalem1975360,677,947 Tdleddttrlamlekhef ~ t a - ~ a l v i i r ~Jerusalem im~, 1971276,328,553,943-944 Zion, 11:38,1946315, ha-Yehiidimbe-malkhiityeriishilayimha-salvinit, 839 Yerushilayim bi-tefisat ha-nasriit we-ha-yahadiit bime ha-beynayim ha-muqdamim, Cathedra, 17:40, 1980/81 81 al-Qirqisini,Ya‘qiib, Kitiib dl-anwiir uu’l rnaviiqib, ed. L. N e m o y , N e w Y o r k 1939/4376,287,291,367,740,826,917,919,928-930,931 Rapoport, S . , He‘iiri g e d d i . . ., Kevern I!erned, 4:204,1838/9728 Razhabi, J., Gimel piyyiitim le-rabbi dawid ben nisi, Tuvbiz, 14204, 914 1942/3 Saadia Gaon, Commentary on the Bookof Isaiah, ed. J. Derenbourg, reprint, in: Qove; pevlsslzirrz, Jerusalem1981,820 I T h e Siddlsr, ed. I. Davidson et al., Jerusalem1981820 Ha-egvdn, ed.N.Allony,Jerusalem1969287 Safrai, S . , ha‘Aliyi la-regel . . ., Periiqirzt be-tdeddt yerishdayirzt Dime bnyit slleni, ed.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

A. Oppenheimer et al. ( = A . Schalit Memorial Volume) Jerusalem 1981:376 81 Ha-mdi? Sahlb.MaSliah,IntroductiontoSeferha-miswot,ed.A.Harkavy, 1879 = Me'assZfniddihim No.1381,83,87 Salmon Ben Yeruhim, Commentary on the Book oflamentations, (1) ed. S. Feuerstein, Krakau 1898; (2) MS Paris, Biblioth2que nationale, 295 86, 825, 837, 829, 934 Commentary on the Book ofPsalms, ed.L.Marwick,Philadelphia1956123, 252, 728, 825, 919, 934-935 C o m m e n t a r y o n t h e B o o k o f Q o h e l e t , M S B M O r 2517 311, 825, 837 Sefer milhamot, ed. I. Davidson,NewYork1934825,923,928 al-Sam'ini = J . S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Roma 1719-28679 Samuel Ibn Naghrila, ha-Nagid, The Diwin (1) ed. D. S. Sassoon, London 1934; (2)ed.D.Yarden,Jerusalem1966 773-774, 892 Schechter, S., ed. Saadyana, Cambridge1903298,793,852,859,902,908,933 Festschrij A . Berliner, Frankfurt Main, am Genizah Manuscripts, 1903: 108 773 Scheiber,A.,Iggdrtdsheleliyahiiha-kohen, Tarbiz, 32:273,1962/3380 HUCA, 27:291,1956745,827 Leavesfromshe'elot'atiqot, Kiryat S e j r , 55:791,1979/80939 Li-fe'iliitoshelfuviyaha-qara'i, Shirtehilla . . ., Sejbzot, N S 1 :59, 1979/80298 Schirmann, H . , Shir 'a1 meSiiqitan shel qehillot, Yedi'ot ha-mikhonla-heqer ha-shira ha'ivrit, 7:157, 1957/8 564 Shirimhadishimminha-genizi, Jerusalem1966808,857 Schwabe, M., Ha-yehiidim we-har ha-bayit, Zion (ha-me'assef), 2:90, 1926/7 87 Sefer ha-eshkol (of Abraham b. Isaac of Narbonne), Halberstadt 1868 763 Sefer ha-hasrdim, ed. J. Wistinetzki,Frankfurt1924353,561,828 S e j r ha-yishtiv, ed. S. AssafandL.A.Mayer,Jerusalem194470,102,284, 330-331, 599, 780, 827, 829, 835, 925, 936 ha-keneset be-nisrayim, Mirv$ u-mn ' m j v , 1:358, Semah, M., Batte 1919/20 331 SIza'ari sedeq (Responsa),ed.H.Modi'i,Salonica1792 273, 823 Sha'ari teshiivi (Responsa),NewYork1946917 Sharon, M., Shabbit ha-gad61 . . . , Shalem, 1:1, 1973/4282 Sherira Gaon, The Letter, (1) ed. A. Neubauer, MediaevalJewish Chrotzicles, I; (2) ed. B. M. Lewin,Haifa1921773,789,821,852,917,919 SiddGr ha-tefllot ke-mirzhag ha-qclri'im, Wilno1890192917 Skoss, S. L., Li-qevi'at . . ., Tarbiz, 2:510, 1930/31 940 Slouschz, N., ha-Hafirot . . ., Qoues (JPES), I (2):5,1924/5668 Solomonbenha-yatom, PZrGsh massekhet mashqin, ed. H. P. Chajes,Berlin 1910 346, 773, 835 Spiegel, S . , Le-farashat ha-pulmiis, Wo!fion Jubilee Volume, Jerusalem 1965:243 821 Starr,J.,Le-toledotneh6rayb.nissim, Zion, 1:436,1936376 87 1

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

Stern,M.,Memorbuchha-yishin . . ., A . BerlinerJubileeVolume, Berlin 1903:113 733 Melila, 5:133,1954/5797 Stern, S. M.,Qeta‘hidishmi-seferha-giliiy, Ta‘amzeqertim (ed. E. Ashkenazi),Frankfurt1915741 Tanhiim Ha-yeriishalmi, Commentary on the Book ofloshua, ed. T. Haarbrucker, Berlin 1862 330 Toledano,J.M.,Mi-serideha-genizibe-misrayim, Mizrih u-ma‘ariv, 1:344, 1919/20 805, 813 Urbach, E. E., Midrash ge’iilii, Eretz Israel, 10:58,1970/7176 . . ., D. H . BartethMemorialVolume, Jerusalem Vajda,G.,ShenEqissiirim 9381979 Vilnay, Z., Shemot ‘arviyim. . ., Zion, 5:73,1940123,125,330,839 Wertheimer, S., Batti! midrishot, Jerusalem1894,1953,1968104,412,596 GivtzE yerislzdayim, 11, 1901; 111, 1902950 Yaari, A . , Iggerot ere; isri’Zl, RamatGan1971846 Yefet b. ‘Ali, Commentary on the Book ofDaniel, ed. D. S. Margoliouth, Oxford 1889 60, 933, 937 Commerttnry otz the Book ofNuhum, ed. H. Hirschfeld, London 191 1 481, 920 Commentary on Psalms, MS Paris, Bibl. nat., 286-289275,551,824,837, 842, 934 Commentary on the Song of Solomon, MS BM Or 2520,2554826,920, 925, 934 Yehuda,Y.,Ha-kotelha-ma‘arivi, Z i o n (ha-me’assef),3:95,1928/9840,844 Yellin,A.,Mi-ginze bEt ha-sefarim, KiryatSejr, 1:55,1923/4936 Zohary,M., ‘ O h m hn-semihftn, TelAviv1963346,353 Zucker, M., ‘AI tnrgitrr rasag la-tori, New York 1959 917-918,921,928 Mi-periisho she1 rasagla-tori, S t m , 2313,1954/7918 Neged mi katav rav se‘adyi gi’on et ha-piyyiit ess5 meshili? Tarbiz, 27:61, 294 1957/8 Tegiivot li-tenii‘at avEle siyon, H . Albeck Jubilee Volume, Jerusalem 1963:378 827, 921, 933 Zulay, M., Ere? isri’el we-‘aliyat regilim. . ., Yerushalayim, 1:51, 1952/3 287, 31 1 Le-toledot ha-piyyiit be-ere? isri’el, Yedi‘ot ha-mikhon le-heqer ha-shfri ha-‘ivrit, 5:107, 1938/9 309, 851 Maqorwe-hiqqiiyba-piyyiit, Sinai, 25:32,1948/9867 Piyyiitim le-zekher me’ori‘ot shonim, Yedf‘ot ha-mikhon le-heqer ha-shrriha‘ivrft,3:153, 1936/7 102, 309, 564

Arabic, Persian

‘Abd al-Jabbir b. Ahmad al-Asadibidi, Sharh al-usiil al-khamsa, Cairo 1960 76 Tathbit dnlii’il a/-mubuwwa, Beirut138663,465,482,702 ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdidi, Muwaffaq al-Din, Kitib al-if;da wa’l-i‘tibir, ed. SilvestredeSacy,Paris1810561

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

al-‘Abdari,Muhammadb.Muhammad,

al-Rihla al-maghribiyya, Rabat 1968

304 Abii’l-FidP’, ‘ImHd al-Din IsmH‘il b. ‘Ali, al-MukhtasarJ akhbir al-bashar, Cairo

132564, 81, 98-99,125,232,388,393,422,424,460,463-464,473-474, 522, 545, 548, 550, 552-553, 557-558, 560, 592, 918, 941 Akhbir isbahiin, Leiden

Abii Nu‘aym al-IsbahHni, Ahmad b. ‘Abdallah,

1931/4 492, 513 Hilyat al-awliyi’, Beirut 1387162, 181 AbiiSilihal-Armani, Kitib al-diyciriit, ed.Butler,Oxford 1895561 Abu Shuji‘, Muhammad b. al-Husayn al-Rudhdrzwari, Dhayl tajirib al-umam, in The Eclipse ofthe ‘Abbcisid Caliphate, H. F. Amedroz andD. S. Margoliouth eds., Oxford 1920/21, Vol. I11 549, 560, 563-564, 577 Abii’l-Su‘iidb.Muhammadal-‘ImPdi, Tujir, Riyid 1974843 Ab6 ‘Ubayd, al-QHsimb.SallHm, Kitib al-amwil, Cairo 135336,64, 81, 86 Abii‘Ubayda,Ma‘marb.al-MuthannH, M a j i z a1-qur’in, Cairo 1954/5843 Abii Yiisuf, Ya‘qiib b. Ibrahim al-AnsHri al-Kiifi, Kitib al-kharij, Cairo

1346 60, 224-225, 267, 269 Abii Zur‘a, ‘Abd al-Rahmin b. ‘Abdallah al-Dimashqi, Ta’rikh, MS Muhammad 4210, in: L. Mansiir(MAthesis),Bar-IlanUniv. FHtik (Istanbul) no.

1976 64, 150, 153, 165 Agapius, see Mahbiib al-‘Ajliini, IsmH‘i1 b. M u h a m m a d , Kashf al-khafi’ wa-muzd al-ilbis, Cairo

135112 111, 226, 284 Akhbcir al-dawlaal-‘abbisiyya, Beirut 197195, 100, 137 ‘Arib b. Sa‘d al-Qurtubi, Silat ta’vikh al-f.ubuv5,Leiden 1897 468, 473 ‘Arifal-‘Ari< al-MtSjaz_F tu ’rikh ‘asqalin, Jerusalem 1362304 al-Azdi,Yazidb.Muhammad, Ta’rikh al-Mawsil, Cairo 1967418 al-‘A?imi: C. Cahen, La chronique abrCgCe d’al-‘Azimi, ] A , 230:353, 1938 602-603, 606-608, 610-611, 727 195763,80,107, 11 1, 113, ~ , 2 2 6 , 2 2 a 2 2 9236,259,346 , al-Azraqi, Muhammad b. ‘Abd Allah, Akhbcir makka, ed. F. Wiistenfeld, Leipzig 2 1858 al-‘Azizi,‘Ali b. Ahmad, al-Sirijal-munlr, Cairo

al-Badri, ‘Abd Allah b. Muhammad al-Misri al-Dimashqi, Nuzhat al-inZm J mahisin al-shim, Cairo 134158,123,269 al-Bakri, ‘Abd Allah b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, Mu‘jam ma’sta‘jama, ed. al-SaqqH’, Cairo

195981,122,125,

201, 337

al-Balidhuri, Ahmad b. YahyH, Ansib al-ashrij I, ed. M. Hamidullah, Cairo1959; IV (A) ed. M. Schloessinger, revised by M. J. Kister, Jerusalem 1971;IV (B) ed. M. Schloessinger, Jerusalem 1939; V ed. S. D. Goitein, Jerusalem 1936 18,

44, 81, 94, 126, 129, 141, 157-158, 161, 179, 182, 266 al-Balidhuri, Ahmad b.

YahyH, FuttSh al-buldin, Leiden 1866

50,54-55,57-62,64-66,69,71-74,93,99, 243, 269-270, 411, 941

36,38,44-45,49,

116-1 17, 122, 236, 238, 240-241,

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L INDEX

al-Banns’, Abii ‘Ali al-Hasan b. Ahmad, Autograph Diary of Baghdad, ed. G . Makdisi, B S O A S , 18,19(1956,1957)109,602 al-Barghiiti, al- Wazir nl-ylizirl, Cairon.d. 598 Baybars al-Mangiiri, Rukn al-Din, Zubdat al-fikra fi ta’rikh al-hijra, MS Bodl H u n t 198476-477,481,552,559,562,566 al-Bayhaqi,‘Alib.Zayd, Ta’rlkhhukami’al-islim, Damascus 1360478, 701 al-Biriini, Muhammad b. Ahmad, al-khir al-biqiya ‘an al-qurin al-khiliya, ed. E. Sachau,Leipzig 192777,80,109,352,700,832,918-919,929,941 al-Bukhsri,Muhammad b. Isms‘il, al-Adabal-mujad, Cairo 1349226 Sahlh, quotedbychapters 46 al-Ta’rlkhal-kabir, Haydarabad 1941189,190,199,200 al-Buriiqi,al-Husaynb. A b a d al-Najafi, Ta’vikh nl-kii&, Najaf 1968109,

227,241 al-Busti, Ibn Hibban Muhammad, Maslziihir ‘ulnntii’al-ant;liv, Cairo

1379

141,

142,155,164,176-177,179,184,190-191,194,201,389,400 Cheikho,

L.,

al-Nsr al-‘ajiba fi’l-qabr al-muqaddas,

al-Mashriq, 16:188,

7011913 DahlHn, Ahmad b. Zayni, al-Siru al-nabawiyya, on margin of Halabi’s Insin al‘uyin, Cairo 1320 38 al-Damiri,Muhammadb.Miiss, I j u y i t al-hayawinal-kubrz, Cairo 138392 al-Dhahabi, Muhammad b. Ahmad, al-‘Ayn, MS Bodl Digby Or 15 482 Duwalal-islam, Haydarabad 1919513,549,555,563,602 al-‘Ibarj khabar manghabar, Kuwayt 196094,163,170,174,388,389,407,

1, 513, 408, 409, 428, 434, 439, 443, 445, 454, 460, 464, 475, 477, 491-492, 51 516, 522, 524, 529, 553, 569, 580, 602, 603, 624, 654-656, 836, 943-944 Mizinal-i‘tidil, Cairo 1963236,510,511,513,527 Siyar a‘lim nl-nubali’, Cairo 195688,92,102,141,156,158,161 Tadhkirat al-hl$$z, Beirut 1969 (reprintofHaydarabadedition) 629-631, 635, 643, 653, 656 Ta’rikh al-islim wa-tabaqat al-mnshihir wa’l-a‘lim (1) Cairo 136719; (2)M S Paris, Bibliothequenationalefondsarabe 158136,54,57,59,65,81,97-99, 101-102,141-142,146, 150, 152-153,155,158,160,164-165,171-172,174, 184,186-187,189-192,195,197-201,241,334,389,417,488,577,821 al- ‘Ultiw lil-‘alial-glra~r,al-Madina 1968492,624 al-Dimashqi, Muhanunad b. Abi Talib, Nuklzbnt a l - d a h v ~ 5‘ajz’ib al-bavv wa’l-ba!zv, ed.A. F. Mehren,Petrograd 1866116,123,941 al-Dinawari,Ahmadb.Da’ud, al-Akhbiral-tiwil, Cairo 196024,88,95,131, 147-1 48, 230 al-DiyHrbakri, al-Husayn b. Muhammad, Ta’rlkhal-khnmis jahwil anfas najs, Cairo 1302 36 al-FHsi, Muhammad b. Ahmad, al- ‘Iqd al-thaminj ta’rikh al-balad al-amln, Cairo

5771965 Shtf2i’ al-gharimbi-akhbiral-balad

al-harim, Cairo 1956577

874

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L INDEX

al-Firiiziibiidi,Majdal-Din

Muhammadb.Ya‘qiib,

al-Qimiis al-muhlt, Cairo

99 1371 Futiih al-shim (ascribedtoal-Wiiqidi),Beirut 196661,65-66,69, 81, 116 al-Ghsfiqi, Ahmad b. Muhammad, al~imi‘ft’l-tibbft’I-adwiyaal-mujuda, ed. M. Meyerhofand G. P. Sobhy,Cairo 1937346 al-Munqidh min al-Ghaziili, M u h a m m a d Muhammad, b.

al-dalil,

Cairo

314 1973 Ghizi Ibn al-Wiisiti, Radd

‘ala ah1 al-dhimma, ed.

R. Gottheil, JAOS, 41:389,

1921 270, 569 al-Halabi,Niiral-Dinb.‘Ali,

Insin al-‘uyGn f; sirut al-ami’n al-ma’miin, Cairo

1320 38, 79, 201 al-‘avab, Leiden al-Hamdini, Sifautjazirat al-Harnadhini, Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Malik,

1884/9121 Takmilat ta’rikh al-tabari,

Beirut

1961 475-476, 482, 552 Harnmiim b. Munabbih, Sahifa

(3), ed.M.Hamidullah,

RAAD, 28:443,

843 1953 al-Harawi, ‘Ali b. Abi Bakr, al-Ishirit ili ma‘rifat al-xiyirit, ed. J. Sourdel Thomine, Damascus 1953 304, 668 Hasan, I. H . , Ta’rikh al-islim al-siyisiwa’l-dini wa’l-thaqaJ wa’l-ijtimi‘i, Cairo

422 1964/8 al-Diwin, London 1971232 Hassiinb.Thibit. Hiliil al-Siibi’, K i t i b al-wuzari’, ed. H. F. Amedroz, Leiden 1904357,470 al-Himyari, Ibn ‘Abd al-Mun‘im, al-Rawd al-mi‘tiir fi khabar al-aqtir, ed. S. K. Hamarneh, Folia Orientalia, 11:145,196969, 81, 86 Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr al-Ququbi, Yiisuf b. ‘Abdallah, al-Intiqi’ Jfadi’il al-thalitha al-a’imma al-hqahi’, Cairo 1350 451 Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr al-Quryubi, Yiisufb. ‘Abdallah, al-Zsti‘ibJima‘rifat al-a&b, Cairo

1957 54, 169-170, 232 Ibn‘Abdal-Hakam,‘Abdal-Rahmiin,

Futiih m i y , Leiden 192072,235,239,

242, 255, 268 Ibn ‘Abd Rabbihi, Ahmad b. Muhammad,

al-‘Iqd al-farid, Cairo 1953/6$

100,

115,122,842-843 IbnAbi’l-Hadid, Sharh nahj al-baligha, Beirut 1963 88, 93,131 IbnAbiShayba,AbiiBakr‘Abdallahb.Muhammad, al-Mu~annafJi’l-ahidith wa’l-itha‘r, Haydarabad 1967/71 224, 236, 246 Ibn Abi Usaybi‘a, Alpnadb. al-QZsim, ‘Uyfina/-anbi’fi fnbaqiit a/-atibbii’, Cairo

1882 556, 702, 720 IbnAbi

Ya‘lii, Muhammadb.‘Umar

al-Farrii’, Tabaqital-hanibila,

Cairo

1952 433, 492, 625 Ibn al-‘Adim, Kamiil al-Din Abii’l-Qisim ‘Umar, Zubdat u l - h d u b j ta’rikh halab, Damascus 1951/4 101, 115,300,460,476-477,482,548,553,560,564,567,

585, 592, 603, 610 Bughyatul-[ulubJi ta’rikh halab, ed.‘AliSuwaym,Ankara

1976606

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L INDEX

I. ‘Abbas, alAbhith 21:59,1968276,314,609,623-624,627,629,632,918 Ibn aL‘Arabi, Muhammad b. ‘Ah, Muhidarat al-abrir wa-musimarat al-akhyir, Ibn al-‘Arabi, Abii Bakr Muhammad b. ‘Abdallah, al-Rihla, ed.

Cairo 1388 104, 843 Ibn ‘AsPhr, ‘Ali b. al-Hasan,

Ta’rikl? mafimt dimaslzq, vols. I and I1 ed. S a l P h

1951 et s44.; theothervols:ed.Badran 1329 et sq4. 10, 15,36,44,54,57,59,61, 63,66,69,71, 80-81, 88-89,93-94,97,99,101,109, 111, 113,116,125, 128, 130,134,139,141,153,155-156,161, 166167, 17&171, 179-180, 185, 187,193,201,225,231,238,240,265,268-269,276,282,388-389,391, 393, 408, 423, 431, 433, 437, 443, 481, 492, 494, 501, 511, 515, 526, 533, 548, 550, 553, 558-559, 562, 603, 606, 622, 635, 640, 644, 648, 650, 658, 659, 660, 704, 836, 941 IbnA‘thamal-Kiifi,Ahmad, Kitib al-&tfih, Haydarabad 196869 Ibnal-Athir,‘Alib.Muhammad, al-Kimilft’l-ta’rikh, Beirut 196536,53,63, 65, 69, 73, 80, 88-89, 93, 98-101, 115, 119, 121, 130, 149, 153, 155, 158, 163, 168, 176-1 77, 179, 184, 188, 191, 235, 241, 269, 288, 376, 384, 387, 388-389, 393-394, 399, 410-411, 414-420, 422, 424, 439, 456-457, 460-461, 468, 469, 472,475-476,482,488,491,496,545,550,552-553,555,557-561,564-565, 569, 571, 580, 592, 595-597, 600, 602-603, 605, 607, 610-611, 624, 635, 642, 654, 700, 882, 943 al-Lubib J;tahdhib al-ansib, Cairo 135766,165,187,197,328,402,426, 439-442, 491-492, 503-504, 513, 516, 520, 522, 526, 530, 539, 542, 630 Usdal-ghiba, Cairo 1384/72,44,54,63,69, 118, 129-130,133, 141,144, 157, 159, 161, 169, 170, 175, 182, 185, 201 Ibnal-Athir,al-MubPrakb.Muhammad,]imi‘al-usd,Cairo 1949/5579,271, 282 al-NihiyaJ;ghavib al-hadith wa’I-athar, Cairo 1311 107 Ibn Babawayh al-Qummi, Muhammad b. ‘Ali, ‘nul al-slzari’i‘, Najaf 1966 245, 835 Ma‘ini al-akhbir, Tehran 1379 111 T h a w i b al-a‘mil, Tehran 1379 354 al-Dinal-Munajjid,Damascus (al-Ta’rikhal-kabir), Damascus

Ibn al-DawidPri, Abii Bakr b. ‘Abdallah, al-Durra al-madiyya J;akhbdr al-dawla al-J;i[imiyya, Cairo 1380468,482,486,544-545,547-548,550,552,555,

557-559, 562, 566, 585, 592, 596, 602 Ibn Duqmiq, Ibrahim b. Muhammad. Kitib al-intisir li-wisiya ‘iqd al-amsir, Cairo

805 1309 81 Ibn Fad1 Allahal-‘Umari, Masilik ul-ub@rJ mamilik al-amsir, Cairo 1924 Ibnal-Faqihal-Hamadhani,Ahmadb.Muhammad, Kit& al-buldin, Leiden

1885

80, 112,116,122-123,125,345,465,629,832,842

Ibn al-Firkih, Ibrahim b. ‘Abd al-Rahmin, BP‘ith al-nufiis al-mahriis,ed.C.D.Matthews,JPOS, 15:51,1935 Ibn Habib, Muhammad, Kitib al-muhubbar, Beirut n.d.

388, 393

ila ziyaratal-quds 111 89, 141,149,150,157,

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

IbnHajar,Ahmadb.‘AliaL‘Asqalini, Fath al-Biri, Cairo 1959/63843 al-Z@ba_F tamyiz al-sahiba, Cairo 1328158,201 R a y al-iSr ‘an qudih m i y , Cairo 1958/61236,561,598 Tujirgharlb al-badith, Cairon.d. 843 Tahdhibal-tahdhih, Haydarabad 1326/7111,134,141-142,146,150,153-

154,158,162-166,168-174,177,182-186,189-192,194,196-198,201,388400, 402-405, 407-409, 425-430, 432, 435, 439, 441-452, 454, 510 Ibn Hajar al-Haythami, Ahmad b. Muhanunad, al-Sawi ‘iq al-v)lr.t!triqa~’l-r~dd‘alii ah1 al-bida‘ wa’l-zandaqa, Cairo 1965 80 Ibn Hawqal, Muhammad b. ‘Ali, Kitib ~ J r a al-urd, t Leiden 1967 122, 302, 314, 317, 337, 941 Ibn HayyZn, Muhammad b.

YGsuf al-Gharnati, Tafsir al-ba!zr al-r?lu!?it, Cairo

1328 313, 843 al-Fa$ J’l-mild

Ibn Hazm, ‘Ali b. Ahmad,

wa’l-ahwi wa’I-nihal, Cairo

1317/21 286, 424 Jamharat ansib al-‘arab, Cairo 196289,

12S129, 131,132,140,145,153,

162-163, 201, 222, 467, 487 IbnHishim,‘Abdal-Malik,

28-29, 33, 35-36, 41,

al-Siru, ed. F. Wustenfeld,Gottingen

185822,

141, 266

Ibn Hubaysh, ‘Abd al-Rahmin b. Muhammad, Kitib dhikr al-ghazawit, MS Leiden O r 88554,57,60,62 Ibn ‘Idhiri, Ahmad b. Muhammad, al-Bayin al-mughrib f; akhbir andaluswa’l561, 860 maghrib, Leiden 1948 Ibn al-‘Imid, ‘Abd al-Hayy b. Ahmad, Shadharital-dhahab, Cairo 1350 57,94,

158,163,165,174,328,388,407,409,428,454,492,555,577,624,630,645,651 IbnIyis,Muhammad b. Ahmad, Ta’rikh mi+r, Cairo 1311560 Ibn al-Jawzi, ‘Abd al-RahmPn b. ‘Ali, Akhbir al-bamqi, Najaf 1966357,642 Kitibal-mawdti‘it, al-Madina 196611 1, 114,271,424 al-Muntazam, Haydarabad 1358/9213,255,267,270,328,368,456,468,

481, 484, 488, 490, 492, 496, 515-516, 569, 576-577, 580, 595, 602-603, 608, 615, 634-635, 643-645, 654, 702, 821, 845, 888, 943 Sifat al-safiua, Haydarabad 1355/7153,313,423,439,449 Tafsirgharibal-qur’in, MS Bod1Marshall 551313,841 al- Wufii’ bi-ahwdal-mugufii, Cairo 196677,201 Z i d a l - m a s i r j ‘ilmal-tajir, Damascus 1964/5843,941 IbnJubayr,Muhammadb.Ahmad, al-Ribla, Beirut 1964841 Ibn al-Kalbi, Hishim b. Muhammad,

Jamharat al-nasab, ed. W. Caskel, Leiden

1966128,130,132,137,140,147,149,153,158-159,162,171,202-221 IbnKathirAbii’l-Fidi’,IsmP‘ilb.‘Ali, Shami’il a l - r a d wa-dali’ilnubuwwatihi wa-khqij’i;ihi, Cairo 1967 417, 555 IbnKathir,Isma‘ilb.Muhammad, al-Bidiyawa’l-nihiya, Beirut 196610,29,

38, 44,49,54,59,

61, 63,81,92,94,97-99,101-102,115,141,153,158, 161-162,241,255,304,389,391,393-394,414,416-417,424,460,468,476, 481,545,548,550,552-553,558,569,580,592,595,602-603,606,611, 701-702, 836, 843, 845, 943

877

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L INDEX

K i t i b al-‘ibar, Cairo 1284 10, 18,65,94,98-99,101,104,130,153,191,393-394,414,422,456,457,459-460,

IbnKhaldiin,‘Abdal-Rahminb.Muhammad,

463, 475-476, 545, 548, 550, 552, 565, 603 1969 100, 114, 153, 162, 216, 233, 255, 300-304, 387, 390, 402, 409, 417, 473-474, 476, 481, 486, 490-492, 496, 514, 544-545, 549, 553, 557, 561, 571, 577, 588, 592, 596, 607,629,632, 653, 836,842, 882, 913, 943-944 IbnKhurdidhbih, Kitibal-masilikwa’l-mamilik, Leiden 188954,122,241 IbnMija,Muhammadb.Yazid, al-Sunan, Cairo 1953107 IbnMPkUli,‘Alib.HibatAllah, Ikmil al-ikmil, Haydarabad 1962/7447 IbnMammsti,As‘ad, Qawinina!-dawiwin, Cairo 1943346,353 IbnManziir,Muhammadb.Mukarram, Lisin al-‘arab, Beirut 1955606 Ibn Miskawayh, Ahmad b. Muhanunad, Tqjiivib d - ~ r m m in: , The Eclipse of the 1933 352, 700 Ibn Khallikin, Ahmad b. M u h a m m a d , Wafayit al-a‘yin, Beirut

Iba Miskawayh, Ahmad b. Muhammad, Tajirib al-umam, in: The Eclipse ofthe S. Margolioutheds.,Oxford ‘AbbisidCaliphate, H . F. AmedrozandD.

1920/21 476, 481, 557 Akhbiir misr, ed. H. Masse, Cairo 1919304,549,564,596,598-599,603,605,607,610-61 1, 650 Ibnal-Qalinisi,Hamza, Dhayl ta’rikhdimashq, ed.H. F. Amedroz,Beirut 1908550,553,557-560,562,564-565,568-569,577,584,592,596,599, 600, 603, 605, 608, 610-611, 625, 701, 811, 882, 911, 943 Ibn Muyassar, Muhammad b. ‘Ali,

IbnQayyimal-Jawziyya,Muhammadb.AbiBakr, Badi’i‘ al-fawi’id, Cairo 81 n.d. al-Manir al-munijj$’l-sahi$ wa’l-da‘ij, Halab 197039,114 Ibnal-Qifti,‘Alib.YUsuf, Ta’rikh al-hukami’, Leipzig 1903 393,556,561,720,

848 Ibn Qudima al-Maqdisi, ‘Abdallah b. Ahmad, al-Istibsir al-ansiir, Beirut 139274,141,158 Ibn Qutayba, ‘Abdallah b. Muslim, al-Ma‘ir$ Cairo 1969

fi nasab al-sahiba min 2, 18, 89, 101, 126,

140-141, 153, 158, 161, 179, 389-390, 439 al-Qirtayn, Cairo 1355 843 Tajirgharibal-qur’in, Cairo 1958 843 ‘Uyiin al-akhbir, Cairo 1943/9 270 Ibnal-Rihib,Butrus, Ta’rikh, ed.L.Cheikho,Beirut 1903 10, 576 Ibn Rajab, Abfi’l-Faraj ‘Abd al-RahmZnb. Shih5b &Din Ahmad. Dlzuyl titbaqiit al-hanibila, Damascus 1951 625 IbnRusta,Ahmadb.‘Umar, al-A‘liq al-nafisa, Leiden 1891455 Ibn Sa‘d, Muhammad, Kitib al-tnbaqit, Leiden 190518,22,29, 3639, 57,81, 88, 95, 98, 111, 122, 141, 143, 153, 155, 158-159, 161-162, 167, 169-170, 173, 176-177,181,185,197,201,229,241,255,266,313,405,425,428,440,443, 446, 448-449, 452 IbnSa‘id,‘Alib. MiisH, al-Mughrib j hulaal-maghrib, IV,Leiden 1899473, 475-476, 484, 487-488, 500, 836

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L INDEX

Ibn al-Sayrafi, ‘Ali b. Munjib,

al-lshira ilii man nila’l-wixira, Cairo 1924549,

561, 577, 594, 598, 803, 882, 913 Ibn Sayyid al-Nis, Muhammad b. Muhammad,‘Uyiin al-atharfr&niin al-maghiizi wa’l-shami’il wa’l-siyar, Cairo 135629,81 Ibn al-Shaddid, Muhammad b. ‘Ah al-Halabi, Barq al-sha’m fi mahisin iqlim al-sha’m, M SL e i d e nO r 307671,122,297,260,467-468,470,476,565,

602, 610, 944 Ibn al-Shihna, Muhibb al-Din al-Halabi, al-Durr al-muntakhab ji takmilat ta’rikh halab, (1) ed. J. Sarkis 1909; (2) transl. J. Sauvaget, Lesperleschoisies, Beirut

300 1933

ft

Ibn Taghri Bardi, Abii’l-Mahisin Yiisuf, al-Nujiim ul-zihiru muliik m i y wa’lqzhira, Cairo 1929156101-102,116,121-122,136, 141,179,213,303,339,

387, 388, 393-394, 410, 414, 417-418, 420, 433, 456, 460-461, 469-470, 475476, 477, 481, 491-492, 496-497, 545, 548, 552-553, 560, 580, 588, 592, 595596, 599, 602-603, 606-608, 610-61 1, 645, 700, 836, 942-944 Ibn Taymiyya, Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Halim,Majmii‘at al-rasii’il al-kubri, Beirut

1972

105, 114 Tafsrr sikat al-ikhlis, Cairo 1323114 Ibn al-Tayyib, Commentaire sur lagenhe, ed. J. C. J. Sanders, CSCO 274, Louvain

679 1967 al-FakhriJ’l-idiibal-sultiiniyya, ed. H. DerenIbn Tiqtaqi Muhammad b. ‘Ali, bourg, Paris 1895 399 IbnTiiliin,Muhammad, Umari’ miJrj’1-isliim, Beirut n.d. 179 Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli, Muhammad b. ‘Ali, Khayr al-bishrfr khayr al-bashar, Cairo

771280 Ibn Zifir, Jamil al-Din ‘Ali al-Azdi, Akhbir al-zamiinft ta’rikh ban~’l-‘abbZs( = a1 duwalal-munqati‘a), (1) MS B M O r 3685;(2) ed. A. Ferri, Paris 1971,357,

552, 561, 577, 592, 598, 860, 913, 944

ft

al-Idrisi, M u h a m m a d b . M u h a m m a d , Nuzhat al-rnushtiiq ihtiriq al-ijiq, ed. E. Cerulli et al., Neapoli 1970 et sqq. 297,31 1, 337,348,350,606,874 ‘Imid al-Din b. Muhammad al-Hanafi, Tadhkirat al-‘imSd fi fadi’ildimashq wa’l-shim, MS C a m b r i d g eO r 742269 ‘Inin,Muhammad‘Abdallah,al-Hikimbi-amri’llih,Cairon.d. 569 al-IgbahZni,Abii’l-Faraj‘Alib.al-Husayn, Kit& al-aghini (the Bulaq edition), Beirut 1970 10, 18,89,93,175,313,345,399, 418 Maqztil al-tilibiyin, Cairo 1368 460 al-Ishbili, Muhammadb.Khayr, Fahrasa, Saraqusta 1894/5492,513,624 al-Igakhri, Ibrahim b. Muhammad, Masilik al-mamilik, Leiden 1967122,276,

311, 314, 317, 337 ‘Iyid (al-qidi) b. Miisi,Tart8 al-madirik wa-taqrib al-masilik li-ma‘rifat a‘lim madhhub milik, Beirut 1387178,400,402,481,555 al-Jihiz,‘Amrb.Bahr, Kit& al-hayawiin, ed.‘Abdal-SalimHinin,Cairo

1938145 701, 757, 797 ed. Hasan Husni ‘Abd al-Wahhab, A h j d a f majrna‘ al-‘ilmial- ‘arabi bi-dimashq, 12:321,1932354,355 al-Jihiz,‘Amrb.Bahr, Rasi’il, Cairo 1964/5835 &tab al-tabaspr bi’l-tijara,

879

171-

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INDEX

aL‘Uthminiyya, Cairo 1955 241 al-Jahshiyari,Muhammadb.‘Abdus,

Kit& al-wuzari’, Cairo 135799,231,

388, 399 al-Jawiliqi, Mawhiib b. Ahmad, Khati’ aL‘awimm, ed. H. Derenbourg, Festschrij H . L. Fleischer, Leipzig 1875:107123,125 al-Jazari, Muhammad b. Muhammad, Ghiyat al-nihiyafi tabaqiit al-quwi’, Cairo

1351492,496,504,520,525,647 al-Karijili, M u h a m m a d b.‘Ali, Kanz al-fawii’id, Mashhad 132277,639 al-Khafiji,Ahmadb.‘Ah, Nasimal-riyid j i sharh shifii’ al-qadi ‘iyid, Istanbul

1312/5125,177,201,513,846 al-Khilidi,Ahmad, Ahl’al-‘ilm wa’l-hukmfirij’jilasfin, ‘Amman 1968353,390,

401, 440, 520, 539, 658 Ta’rikh, Najaf 196754,57,59,65-66,72, 88-89,93, 102,126,131,147-148,150-151,153,155,394 al-KhaSSif,Ahmadb.‘Umar, Ahkam al-awqiiJ Cairo 1322815 KhalifaIbnKhayya!al-‘A$iri,

al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ahmad b. ‘Ali, Mtidihawhiim al-jam‘ wa’l-tajiq, Haydarabad 1959 165, 388, 439, 538 Ta’rikh baghdid, Cairo 1931 174,360,386,388,399,405,409,428,433,442,

453-454, 470, 496, 498, 506-507, 512-513, 515, 517, 519, 522, 547, 635, 644, 655, 927 al-Khazin al-Baghdadi, ‘Mi b. M u h a m m a d , LdZb al-fa’wilfi m a ‘iini a!-tarzzTI, Cairo 1328 843 al-Khazraji, Ahmad b. ‘Abdallah, Khuliisat tahdhib al-kamilfi asmi’ al-rijil, Cairo

1322141-142,146,150,153,155,158,163-165,171-172,174,177,184, 186, 189-191, 388, 400, 407, 428, 439, 442, 449, 454

R.Guest, Leiden 1912236, 406, 422, 453, 456, 460, 473, 475-477, 479, 489, 51 8, 521, 529 Mahbiib al-Manbiji ( = Agapius), Kitib d ‘ u n w i n , PO VI11 (2)4,8,69,102 Mijid, ‘Abd al-Mun‘im, Zuhtir khili&t al-fitimiyin, Cairo 1928561,569,596, 598, 603 al-Kindi, Muhammad b. Yiisuf, Kitib al-qudih, ed.

al-Makin, ‘Abdallah b. Abi Iliyis, ibn al-‘Amid, Ta’rikh al-muslimin, ed. Erpennius, Leiden 1625 710 al-Malati, Muhammad b. Ahmad, al- Tanbih wa’ 1-rudd ‘afi ah1 al-ahwii’ wa’l-bida‘, Baghdad 1968 463 Milikb.Anas, af-Muwa&i, Cairo 1967271 al-Maqdisi, Ahmad b. M u h a m m a d , Muthir al-gharimbi-fadii’il al-quds wa’I-shim (1) ed.al-Khilidi,Jaffa 1946;(2) ed. G . Le Strange,TheNobleSanctuaryat Jerusalem,]RAS, NS 19:247,188767,69,81,86,102,104,115,133,141,

156, 509 al-Bad’ wa’l-ta’rikh, ed. C. Huart, Paris 111, 122, 125,282,424,665 al-Maqqari,Ahmadb.Muhammadal-Tilimsini, N a f i af-tib, Beirutn.d. 355 al-Maqrizi, Ahmad b. ‘Ali,Daw’al-sirili-ma‘rifat khabar tamimal-diiri, (1)e d . C . D . al-Maqdisi, Mutahhar b. Tihir,

189969,

Matthews,]POS,

19:147,1939/40;(2)

al-Dhahab al-masbiik f; dhikr man

Cairo

~UJJU

1972201

min al-khulafii’ wa’l-multik, Cairo 1955

259 880

B I B L I O G R A P H I C A L INDEX

Itti'ii? al-hunaji', Cairo 1967/73255,304,463,545,547,548-549,550, 552-553,555,557-558,560-561,564-566,576,585,587-588,592,595-596, 598, 600, 602-603, 607, 610-611, 811, 894, 944 al-Mawii'izwa'l-i'tibirbi-dhikral-khifatwa'l-iithir, Beirutn.d. 76,175,245, 259,304,313,344,364,422,460,469,47-76,483,549-550,552-553,564, 566, 569, 571, 576-577, 585, 592, 598, 702, 709-710, 836, 918, 941-942, 943 al-Muqaffa,ed. T. Bianquis, BEO, 26:185,1973550,552,553,558 Miri b. Sulaymin, Kit& al-majdal, akhbiir fatiirikakursial-mashriq, ed. H. Gismondi, Roma 1899 746 al-Mas'iidi, 'Ali b. al-Husayn, MurGj al-dhahab, ed. C. Barbier de Meynard, Paris

1861/772,89-90,93, 667, 700-701, 941

101, 109,115,122-123,

125,337,458,460, 488,661,

al-Tanbihwa'l-ishrdj Leiden 189429-30,36-37,41,89,93,99,125,284, 286, 399, 412, 468, 701, 832, 918, 921, 929, 941 al-Mawsili, Ismi'il Hibat Allah b. Abi'l-Ridi, Ghiyat al-wasi'il ili ma'rifat ala w z ' i l , M S C a m b r i d g e O r O q 3354,141,201,267 al-Mawsili, al-Mu'ifa b. Ismi'il, Nihiyat al-Bayin fi tafsir al-qur'in, MS B M O r

2981 113, 313, 843 al-Mughrib ji huli al-maghrib, V (al-nujtim al-ziihira ji huli hadrat al-qiihira), Cairo

1970344,561,564,568,594 al-Muhallabi,al-Hasanb.Ahmad,al-MasZlikwa'l-mamilik,ed.Salihal-Din al-Munajid, Qit'a min kitib mafqiid, Majallat ma'had al-rnakhtiitiit al-'arabiyya,

4~43,1958

81, 86

al-Mu'izz b. Bidis, 'Umdat al-kuttib wa-'uddat dhawi al-alibba', ed. A. al-Haliiji,

Majallat ma'had al-makh@it al-'arabiyya, 17:43, 1971 346 al-Muqaddasi, Shams al-Din Muhanunadb. Ahmad, A!zsnn al-faqa'simfl YIM'rijif al-dqdlim, Leiden 190641, 80, 86,105, 111-1 12, 114, 116, 122-123,277,280,

284-285, 297, 300, 303, 309, 31 1, 314, 316-317, 321, 324, 326-328, 330-332, 337-339, 344, 349, 362, 367, 418, 424, 624, 669-700, 778, 842, 846847 al-Musabbihi,Muhammadb.'UbaydAllah, A k h b i rm i p , Cairo 1978577, 581, 582, 583, 585, 586, 587, 588, 637, 638, 803, 941 al-Musharraf, Abii'l-Ma'ili b. al-Muraji al-Maqdisi, Fadi'il bayt al-maqdis, MS TiibingenMaVI 2769, 80-81, 86, 10S104, 228,520,833,838,843 Muslimb.al-Hajij, al-$ahih, Cairo 1960107 al-Nasi'i,Ahmadb.Shu'ayb, Sunan, Cairo 1383107 NisirKhusraw, Safarndme, ed.C.Schefer,Paris 1881 122,281,284,298,302,

314, 322-323, 330, 332, 337, 339, 344-345, 360, 362, 566, 593, 595, 668, 829, 836, 842, 847 Nasr b. Muzihim al-Minqari, Waq'at anan, Tyre (see also: Samuel he-hciver b. Moses he+iv?r; Elhanan b. Moses Ize-&v?r) 868 Moses (Miisi) b. Eliezer, physician at the Fatimid court 561 Moses b. Ghilib, see: Ghilib b. Moses Moses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb (1) Fustat (see also: Ghulayb ka-Kohen b. Moses b. Ghulayb; Mulk daughter ofMoses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb) 802, 868 Moses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb (2; see also: Saadia ha-Kohen b. Moses b. Ghulayb) 315 Moses b. Hasdai Taku 921 Moses (Miss) b. Hiba b. Salmiin al-Sefati 285, 327 Moses the cantor b. Husayn al-Duliiki, father of Ni'ima (see also: Ni'ima daughter of Moses)794 Moses b. Isaac, a Karaite 346, 827, 939 Moses b. Isaac, a Karaite from Warjlin 827 Moses b. Isaac b. Nissim al-'Abid 816 Moses ka-sijfir b. Isaac he-haver b. Solomon Ire-!tavFr b. Meir Gaon 301, 85 1 Moses (Miisi)he-haver b. Jacob he-!uivFr, brother of Nissim, Jerusalem 330, 344, 355, 360, 374, 375, 383, 384, 596, 816, 820, 829, 845 Moses b. Jekuthiel al-Andalusi, Fustat, Tyre 752, 816, 876 Moses b. Joseph b. Kashkil301 Moses b. Judah, the cantor(see also:Judah the cantor b. Abraham) 258, 365 Moses the cantorb. Khalaf 799 Moses (Miisi) b. ManSur, Rafiah (brother of Abrahamb. Mansiir) 274 Moses b. Meir, see: Aaron b. Moses b. Meir; Meir Gaon b. Aaron b. Moses Moses b. Mevasser, brother of Mawhiib (Nathan) and Isaac, in Egypt 753, 877 Moses b. Samuel b. Sahl, Tiberias 285 Moses b. Semah al-Azraq the magician, Tyre 297, 341, 794 Moses b. Shahriyir, Damascus 857 Moses b. Sughmir, see: Judah b. Moses; Labrit b. Moses Moses (Miisi) b. Ya'qiib 337, 364, 596 mosques, see also under: masjid mosque of Constantinople 569, 576, 598 mosque, 'the white', Ramla 116 Mosul394, 435, 477, 548, 557, 565, 772, 773, 779, 885 Mount Hermon 558 Mount Lebanon 236, 588

Mount of Olives 83, 87,106, 107, 251, 274, 396, 666, 667, 669, 680, 681, 770, 783, 784, 789, 814, 818, 828, 830, 831-833, 836, 840, 844, 846, 863, 874, 876, 883, 890, 899, 917, 930, 935, 937 Mount Paran 675 Mount Sinin 111 Mount Tabor 102, 550, 551, 673, 680 Mount Zion 87, 114, 680, 712, 838, 847, 943 mourners of Zion824-827 rnu'addal, notary 495, 756 Mu'idh b. Jabal 64, 74, 225 (Abii 'Abd al-Rahmin) Mu'ammal b. Ihib b. 'Abd al-'Aziz 428 Mu'ammala daughter of Samuel b. Manasseh b. Abraham al-Qazzaz 335, 560 Mu'iwiya b. Abi Sufyin, caliph 45, 71, 72, 73, 74, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 102, 117, 118, 126,129, 131-133, 141, 147, 148, 158, 177, 181, 187, 188, 202, 222, 230, 231, 244, 266, 334, 389, 664 (Abii 'Abdallah) Mu'iwiya b. Yishir, wazir 399 Mu'iwiya b. Yazid, caliph 93 al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-din al-Shirizi, Fatimid preacher 598 Mubirak Uews), see: Mevorakh Mubirak al-dawla, see: Fath Mubiraka 274, 879, 932 al-Mubarqa', see: Tamim Mudallala, daughter of Wahbin,Fustat 823 mudi, measure of volume 367 al-Mufaddal b. Salim al-Namari 303 Mufarrij al-Fisi (brother ofIsaac the cantor) 821 al-Mufarrij b. Daghfal b. al-Jarrah 550, 553, 557, 559, 562, 563, 577, 578, 581 Mufarrij b. Sulaymin, al-Qihira 905 Mufarrij b. Yefet b. Shu'ayb haDarmashqi 756 Muflih the Black, governor ofJerusalem 470 Muflih al-Wahbini, Fatimid commander 559 Muhrijirtin 63 al-Muhallab 96, 165 Muhammad, the prophet 1, 2, 9, 12, 18, 27-4 1, 42, 46, 68, 76, 77, 81, 88, 93, 94, 98, 103, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 141, 158, 161, 165, 170, 179, 182, 201, 202, 225, 226, 228, 232, 236, 237, 240, 241, 243, 255, 266, 313, 333, 346, 402, 417, 430, 463, 547, 575, 702, 869, 918

948

INDEX

(Abii Bakr) Muhammad b. al-‘Abbis b. Wasif, Gaza 651 Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-Malik 98 (Abii ‘Abdallah) Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. Muhammad al-‘Umari (Ibn al-Wisiti) 432 Muhammad b. ‘Abdallah b. ‘Umayr al-Yifini, Jaffa 542 Muhammad b. ‘Abdawayh 415 (Abii ‘Abdallah) Muhammad b. Abi Bakr al-Banni’, Shams al-din al-Maqdisi (who is al-Muqaddasi, see also in the bibliographical index: al-Muqaddasi) 612 Muhammad b. Abi Hishim, ruler of Mecca 645 Muhammad b. Abi Rifi‘, governor of Ramla 456, 457 (Abii Bakr al-Ramli) Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Nibulusi, who is Ibn al-Nibulusi 555, 941 Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Najdi 541 Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Sulami, leader of rebels 480 Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Wisiti, (see also: ‘Umar b. Muhammad) 460, 470 (Abii’l-Husayn) Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ‘Abd al-Rahmin al-Malati, Ascalon 647 Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ‘Absiin, Ramla 525 (Abii Ja‘far) Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-‘Aqari al-Ramli, ‘Aqir, Ramla 539 (Abii Bakr) Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Wisiti, preacher (khat&) in Jerusalem617 (Abii ‘Abdallah)Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Sa‘id al-Tamimi, a physician, Jerusalem 556 (Ab6 Bakr) Muhammad b. Ahmad b. ‘Umar, al-Darir, Ramla 520 Muhammad b. ‘Ali al-Karijiki, Shiite leader 656 Muhammad (Ibrahim) b. ‘Ali al-Khalanji (or al-Khaliji) 112, 468, 469, 695 (Abii Bakr) Muhammad b. ‘Ali alMidhari’i 473, 488, 521 Muhammad b. ‘Ali b. ‘Abdallah b. ‘Abbis 100 Muhammad b. ‘Ali b. Yahyi b. Silwin al-Mizini 630 (Abii ‘Abdallah) Muhammad b. ‘Aziz b. ‘Abdallah b. Ziyid b. Khilid b. ‘Aqil b. Khilid, Eilat 445 Muhammad b. Ghunaym al-Sa‘di 424

Muhammad b. Hammid al-Rizi alTabarini, Ascalon 442 Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya 95, 463 (Abii Bakr) Muhammad b. al-Hirith b. al-Nu‘min al-Iyidi, cadi 453 (Abii’l-Qisim) Muhammad b. Hasan al-Nakha‘i, Ibn Ka’s, Ramla 519 Muhammad b. Hasan b. Miisi b. ‘Abdallah al-Balishi‘iini al-Ashqali, cadi in Jerusalem628 (Abii’l-‘Abbis) Muhammad b. Hasan b. Qutayba 426, 529 (Abii ‘Abdallah) Muhammad b. Ibrahim, Jerusalem 507 Muhammad b. Ibrahim, son of the caliph al-Mansiir 388 (Abii’l-Fath) Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. Muhammad b. Yazid al-Tarsiisi (who is Ibn al-Basri), Jerusalem618 Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. Qarwazi, Ramla 636 Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. SZriya, Acre 532 (Abii ‘Abdallah) Muhammad b. Idris al-Shifi‘i401, 409, 450, 516 (Abii’l-‘Abbis) Muhammad b. Ishaq al-Sirij al-Naysibiiri 507 Muhammad b. Isma‘il al-Siniji, governor of Jerusalem485, 545 (Abii Nu‘aym) Muhammad b. Ja‘far al-Khari’iti al-Simiri, Ramla 522 Muhammad b. Ja‘far al-Mimisi624 Muhammad b. Ka‘b al-QuraSi 112, 225 (Abii ‘Ubaydallah) Muhammad b. Karrim 424, 624 (Abii’l-Munajjim) Muhammad b. Makki b. Muhammad b. Ibrahim al-Diri, poet, Ramla 641 (Abii Nasr) Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Firibi, philosopher 478 (Abii’l-Tayyib) Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Hanzali, cadi of Ramla 517 (Abii ‘Abdallah) Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Tiliqini, Tyre 657 Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Naysibiiri, Tiberias 643 (Abii Bakr) Muhammad b. Muslim b. Shihib al-Zuhri 162, 175, 176, 177, 401, 444 (Abii Ghassin) Muhammad b. Mutarrif b. Da’iid al-Laythi 400 Muhammad b. al-Mutawakkil b. Abi’lSurri 441 Muhammad b. al-Muwallad, Turkish commander 422

949

INDEX

(Abu 'Abdallah) Muhammad b. Nasr b. Saghir b. Khilid al-Makhziimi, a poet (who is Muhadhdhib al-din, or 'Uddat al-din, ibn al-Qaysarini) 653 (Abii Muhammad, or Abii Nu'aym) Muhammad b. al-Rabi' b. Suriqa al-Madani 142 Muhammad b. Rudayh b. 'Atiyya alMaqdisi 430 (Abii'l Faraj) Muhammad b. Sa'id, Tiberias 498 Muhammad b. Sa'id b. Hassin 98 (Abii'l-Asbagh) Muhammad b. Simi'a al-Qurashi 427 Muhammad b. Shaddid b. Aws 1158 Muhammad b. SulaymZn 393 Muhammad b. SulaymZn al-Withiqi, army commander 467, 469 (Abii'l-Fadl) Muhammad b. Tihir b. 'Ali b. Ahmad al-Maqdisi al-Shaybani, who is Ibn al-Qaysarini 634 Muhammad b. Takin, governor of Tiberias 500 Muhammad ibn Tughj, theIkhshid 367, 473, 479, 487, 488, 500, 702, 710, 836 Muhammad b. 'Ubayd b. Adam, Ascalon 527 Muhammad b. 'Ubaydallah al-Kurayzi 422 (Abii Zur'a) Muhammad b. 'Uthmiin 460, 489 (Abii Bakr) Muhammad b. al-Walid b. Mahmiid (or: Muhammad) alTurtiishi al-Qurashi al-Fihri 629 Muhammad (Haniniyi?) b. YahyZ (alSirij) leader of a rebellion 479 Muhammad b. Yazdid, aide of the governor, Ramla 469 (Abii Ya'li) Muhammad b. Zuhayr, Shiite cadi in Eilat636 Muhassin b. Badus, Fatimid keeper of the treasury 587 al-Muhtadi, caliph 422 al-Mu'izz, Fatimid caliph 241, 246, 367, 486, 543, 544, 545, 549, 550, 551, 552, 561, 563, 589, 809, 860 al-Mu'izz b. Biidis, ruler of Qayrawin Mujiihid 246 (Abii'l-Ma'Zli) Mujalli b. Jami' b. Naj5 al-Makhziimi, Jerusalem 632 Mujammi' b. Jiiriya 80 al-Mukhiriq b. al-HZrith al-Zubaydi 88, 147 Mukhtir, leader of a rebellion 95,188 Mukhtir b. Solomon (Salama) alDimashqi 822 Mukhtir al-dawla ibn Nizal al-Kitimi, governor of Tripoli564 al-Muktafi, caliph 467, 469, 470, 696

Mulayk daughter of Samuel b. Manasseh b. Abraham al-Qazziz 560 Mulk, daughter of Moses ha-Kohen b. Ghulayb, Fustat 868 Mundhir b. Shaddid b. Aws 158 Munir, Fatimid commander 562 Munir al-dawla al-Juyiishi, Fatimid commander 611, 909, 912 Mu'nis, Abbasid commander 470, 472 Munjib al-dawla, anzir 782 Munyat Hishim, near Tiberias 233 Munyat al-qi'id, in Egypt 561, 868 rnuqaddurn (= appointee) 315, 733, 792, 898 al-Muqanna', see: Silih ibn Yiisuf Muqitil b. Sulaymin 111, 112 al-Muqtadir, caliph 112, 267, 270, 470, 472, 475, 696, 710 n~zrrubba'atal-'iitfiirirz, Fustat 801 Muraji, Jerusalem 590, 620, 781 mtr'raqn, mountain pass 44 n w r , myrrh 346 Murra b. Ka'b al-Sulami al-Bahzi 161 Murtad5 al-dawla, see: Mansiir b. Lu'lu' Miisi (Jews), see: Moses Miisi, a friend of Ya'qiib ibn Killis 549 MiisZ al-Ki?im 843 Miisi al-Muzaffar, governor of al-Shim 470 Miisi b. 'Abdallah b. MiisZ, (who is Abii 'Imrin al-Qaritisi) 454 (Anbi) Miis2 b. Hakim al-Qasis, Adhruh 100, 674 Miisi b. 'Is5 al-Baghdidi, Ramla 435 Mus'ab b. 'Amr 154, 234 Mus'ab b. Zubayr 93 Mus& b. Yish'i b. Isri'il, Tiberias 285 (Abii 'Imrin) Miis5 b. Sahl b. Qidim 430 mtr&~f; book (especially: the Bible) 764 (Abii'l-Ma'ili) al-Musharraf b. al-Muraji b. Ibrahim al-Maqdisi (see also: Abii'l-Ma'ili, and in the bibliographical index) 110, 114, 274, 590, 620, 630, 781 Mushayya', cousin of al-Mufarrij b. Daghfal557 musk 871 Muslim (Jews), see: Meshullam the Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem 836 Muslim (= Maslama b. Makhlad? Muslim b. 'Uqba?) 131 Muslim b. Abi Sahl949 Muslim b. Dhakwin 98 (Abii Ja'far) Muslim b. 'Ubaydallah b. Tihir b. YahyZ, Ramla 487 Muslim b. 'Uqba 131, 149 al-Musta'in, caliph 421, 422, 694

INDEX

al-Musta'li, caliph 942, 946 al-Mustanjid, caliph 201 al-Mustansir, caliph 304, 367, 594, 597, 598, 603, 607, 610, 712, 716, 718, 746, 780, 946 (mother 00 al-Mustansir 598. 780 Mu'ta 28. 29, 30, 31, 33, 41 al-Mu'tadid, caliph 460, 809 al-Mut.ahhar b. al-Mutahhar (or: al-Tihir) al-Maqdisi 613 rnutakullirnr?rt 286 al-Mu'tamid, caliph 422, 460, 695 al-Mutanabbi, poet 474, 478, 479 al-Mu'tasim, caliph 116, 411, 414, 419, 473, 691, 702, 941 al-Mutawakkil, caliph 267, 269, 41 1, 415, 420, 693, 941 al-Mu'tazz, caliph 432, 456 Mu'tazz al-dawla, governor ofFilastin 783 al-Muthanni b. Mu'iwiya 119 al-Muti', caliph 697 al-Muttaqi, caliph 476 Muvhar b. Sedaqa, Alexandria 903 (Abii Ahmad) al-Muwaffaq, brother of the caliph al-Mu'tamid 460 al-Muwaffaq, leader of rebellion 422 (stronghold) al-Muwaqqar, in southern Trans-Jordan 401 al-Muwaqqari, see: al-Walid b. Muhammad (Abii'l-Fath) Muzihim b. Ibn Ri'iq 476 Muzihim b. Khiqin, Turkish commander 42 1 Na'amin) (or Nu'min?) ha-melarnn2d, Tiberias 285, 738, 753 (Nabat) Nabateans (= Aramaic speaking villagers) 34, 86, 153, 226, 266, 843 Nibulus, see: Shechem al-Nibulusi, see: Nasr b. Ibrahim Nafis al-Riimi, Acre 531 Nafis b. 'Abdallah (son of the cadi Ibn 'Aqil, Tyre) 61 1, 899 Nafisa daughter of 'Ubaydallah 410 Nagid 747, 790, 809-811, 892, 905, 913 Nahrwin 728 Nahum b. Abraham, see: Nehemiah b. Abraham Nahum the cantor, b. Josephal-Baradiini 298 Nahum b. Sahl the cantor, al-Baradini 298 Nahum b. Yannai, of the Baradinifamily 899 al-Nahwi, see: Mahmiid b. Muhammad Ni'ima, daughter of Moses the cantor b. Husayn al-Duliiki, Tiberias, Tyre 285, 297, 794 Najih al-dawla, emir 600

al-Najdi, see: Muhammad b. Ahmad Najrin, in the Arabian peninsula 238, 240, 243, 269, 730 al-Nakha'i, see: Muhammad b. Hasan al-Namari, see: Mufaddal b. Salim rliqiir (pieces of wood used as a bell) 11, 269, 700 Narbonne, see: Yeda'yi Nasi, in Khurisin 430 al-Nasi'i, see: Ahmad b. 'Ali al-Nashi'i (see also: Abraham b. Sunbit) 806, 872 Nishiya, daughter of Moses ha-Kohen b. Aaron, wife of David b. Daniel 904 nisi, rmi'im (see also: exilarch) 254, 289, 773, 774, 783, 799, 809, 852, 866, 883, 885, 902, 903, 905, 907, 908, 91 5, 91 7, 919, 926-927, 929 al-Nasibini, see: 'Abd al-'Aziz b. Ahmad (Abii'I-Hawi) Nasim b. 'Abdallah alSharibi, governor of Jerusalem 470 Nasir al-dawla, see: Munir al-dawla Nisir al-dawla Aftakin. governor of Alexandria 942 Nisir al-dawla the Hamdinid 367, 488 Nisir al-din, see: Hasan b. 'Ali (ul-.zilt:iya) al-Nisiriyya (al-Ghaziliyya), Jerusalem 624 (Abii'l-Fath) Nasr b. Ibrahim b. Nasr b. Ibrahim b. Da'iid al-Maqdisi alNibulusi 609, 623, 624, 631, 642, 652 Nasr b. Muhammad b. al-Ash'ath 388 (Abii Ghinim) Nasr ('Abdallah) b. Sa'id, Qarrnaci commander468 (Ab6 Kimil Shibl al-dawla) Nasr b. Silih b. Mirdis, governor of Aleppo592 Nasr (b. Sayyir) b. Shabath, leader o f a rebellion 41 1 Nasr Allah b. Nizil, governor of Ramla 585 Nathan al-Andalusi 359 Nathan the Babylonian 728, 741, 742, 745, 786, 828, 860 Nathan he-&vZr, Fustat 760 Nathan (Hiba) ha-Levi, Fustat 835 Nathan the money-changer 892 Nathan av-bFt-din b. Abraham 283, 301, 328, 331, 338, 349, 383, 560, 749, 750, 752, 764, 769, 772, 775, 780, 792, 795, 808, 822, 834, 851, 852, 857, 860, 865, 866, 869, 87G884, 886, 889, 897, 898, 899, 911, 926, 927, 936, 937, 939, 946 Nathan b. Isaac, a Karaite, Jerusalem 827, 936, 940 Nathan ha-Kohen he-hZvFr b. Isaiah, Tiberias 285, 296, 594 Nathan b. Mevasser, see: Mawhiib b. Mevasser

INDEX

Nathan ha-Kohen ha-mtrrnhZ b. Mevorakh, Ascalon 306, 307, 309, 342. 821 Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, Ascalon 262. 307, 337, 358, 906, 907. 949 Nathan (Sahlun) b. Nehorai, father of Israel 376 Nathan b. Nisan ha-Levi ha-rrwhrnrnd, a Karaite, Jerusalem (see also: Mevorakh b. Nathan) 848 Nathan b. Samuel 'the Spaniard' 365 Nathan ha-Kohen b. Solomon, Baniyas (see also: Tobiah ha-Kohen b. 'Eli, his father-in-law) 301, 328 Nathan ha-Kohen b. Solomon, Safed 327 Nathan he-Levi he-[liv?r b. Yeshii'a 805 Nathan (Hiba) b. Zechariah 754 N5til b. Qays, leader of the Banu Judham 88, 89, 93, 94, 138 Natronai Gaon 917, 919 the Niwakis, a Turcoman tribe603 Nawe (= Nawa) 557 Nayriiz, the Persian New Year's feast 463, 700 Naysabur 368, 405, 507, 537, 614. 619 al-Naysaburi. see: Ja'far b. Muhammad; Muhammad b. Muhammad Nazareth 2, 550, 674, 706 hd-tlzzir, see: 'Ali b. Judah Neharde'a 777 Nehemiah, descendant of Mar Zutri 849 Nehemiah b. Abraham, brother of Sahlan 154, 806, 807 Nehemiah b. Asher, masorete 288 Nehemiah ha-Kohen b. Kohen Sedeq, Gaon of Pumbedita 887 Nehorai b. Nathan (brother ofIsrael) 376 Nehorai b. Nissim 257, 265, 274, 298, 315, 324, 330, 331, 336, 337, 340, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 349, 350, 353, 354, 356, 359, 360, 361, 363, 364, 366, 369, 371-385, 755, 816, 820, 823, 829, 831, 832, 833, 838, 839, 845, 864, 887, 890, 891, 892, 897, 898, 905, 906, 911, 914, 940 neshZ = tax 254, 591 Nessana 36, 88, 122, 131, 135, 149, 223, 243, 244, 275, 676 Nestorians 333, 352, 569, 570, 661, 676, 679, 700, 746, 757, 839, 921 Nethanel, high priest of the Samaritans 10, 94 1 Nethanel b. Aaron, money-changer, Fustat (?) (see also: Solomon b. Nethanel) 573, 831 Nethanel b. Abraham b. David b. Sughmar 750

Nethanel ha-Levi b. Halfon, Fustat 761, 818, 869 Nethanel b. Meshullam 776 Nethanel ha-Levi b. Rawh, Fustat 591, 871, 875, 879, 91 1 Nethanel b. Sedaqa Sar Menuha, Fustat 307 Nethanel (Hibat Allah) b. Yeshii'5 alMaqdisi 339, 879, 905 rwtivi 744, 872 Nicaea 97, 687 Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople 709 Nicephorus, patriarch of Jerusalem569, 576, 683, 699, 716, 746 Nicephorus Phocas, commander and emperor 482 Nicetas, Byzantine official 697, 701 Nicholas (= Agathon), patriarch of Jerusalem 696 Nicolaus, abbot of a monastery 19 Nihawand 491, 920 al-Nihawandi, see: 'Abd al-Rahmin b. Ishaq; Benjamin Nihiima b. Samuel b. Nihiima 875 (the river) Nile 543, 564, 588, 596, 721, 882 al-Nili, see: Yefet ha-Levi b. Tobiah Nina, one of Mar Ziitra'sdescendants 849 Nineveh 9 Nisan ha-Levi ha-nrelarnmi!d, a Karaite, see: Nathan ha-Levi b. Nisan rzishrewirl 589 Nisibis 475 Nissi 274 Nissi b. Aaron b. Bakhtaway 927 Nissim b. Berekhia, Qayrawiin 762 Nissim son of 'thefifth' 777 Nissim b. Halfon 336, 350, 356, 359, 361, 380 Nissim al-nm'allirn b. Jacob he-haver (brother of Moseshe-&ui+) 275, 383 Nissim b. Nehorai (see also: Nehorai b. Nissim) 372, 914 Nizar b. al-Mustansir 942, 946 Noah, bishop of Tiberias674 ttornismn, the Byzantine gold coin 11 Normans 723 North Africa 235, 721, 728, 790, 810 Nu'aym b. Salama 151 Nu'aym b. Thibit 99 Nufay', see Sedaqa b. Nufay'; Solomon b. Saadia al-Nufusi, see: Isaiah Nufusi

952

INDEX

Nu‘min (Names, chief of a tribe?) 19 Nu‘min, Abbasid commander 391 al-Nu‘min, Fatimid cadi 561 Nu‘min b. Abii Nasr, Tiberias 285 Nu‘min b. Pinhas 29 Niishri b. Tijil, governor 422 nuts 337 Obadiah, envoy of thelepers of Tiberias 296 Obadiah the proselyte 328, 950 Odilus son of Rudolph,of Rouergue 717 oil (zap)201, 245, 314, 331, 337, 345, 352, 355, 372, 407, 558, 585, 815, 844, 877, 887, 908 olives 317, 337, 345, 603 ‘cittesh= extraordinary tax 252, 263, 589, 812 Ono 332 Orestes, patriarch of Jerusalem566, 569, 677, 683, 699 Origenes 661 Orontes (which is the ‘Asi) 874, 887 Palermo 377, 561, 776, 803, 809, 854 Palti’el ha-hazZn b. Ephraim b. Tarason, Fustat 572 Palti’d b. Shefatya 560, 561, 809 Pantaleon, Church personality 663 Pantaleone, son of Maurus, ofAmalfi 718 paper 343-344, 364 paper, Egyptian (mansiiri) 344 parnrSsTm of the poor,Jerusalem 817 partnerships 258, 274, 339, 344, 356, 360, 361, 363, 365, 371, 377, 380, 385, 903 the Paschal fire 569, 579, 608, 697, 701 Pashshit b. Samuel, Tiberias 285, 854 pitiah, first step in excommunication 757 Patrikios, of Caliph ‘Abd aI-Malik’s court 704 Paul, Nestorian bishop inJerusalem 679 Paulinus, patriarch of Aquilaea 681 pearls 354, 385, 441 Pelagia, Nestorian nun(?) inJerusalem 679 Pelagius of Rome,leader of a schismatic movement 661 PCpin, Charlemagne’s grandfather 395 pepper 371, 871 (Abii’l-Suriir) Perahia b. Bunaym, son-inlaw of Abraham b. Saadia the Hebronite 315 (Abii’l-Suriir) Perahia r6sh ha-pereq, b. Mu’ammal b. Perahia (see also: Farah) 742, 865, 879, 932, 939 Persia, Persians 1, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 19, 26, 31, 34, 48, 51, 53, 76, 94, 102, 106, 117, 118, 121, 186, 224, 225, 236,

241, 282, 355, 357, 370, 383, 386, 424, 462, 492, 497, 507, 516, 577, 603, 615, 625, 626, 643, 661, 662, 667, 668, 669, 687, 728, 757, 762, 780, 806, 816, 824, 826, 848, 920, 921, 928, 930, 934, 935, 94 1 pesiq;, allowance 315, 761, 799, 805, 91 1 Petahia b. nl-mu‘allirn Mahisin 949 Peter, abbot ofMar Saba 687 Petra (also: Reqem of Gaya) 1, 19, 88, 661 Petrus, appointee of the Church in Palestine 663 St Petrus, of Capitolias 705 Philippicus, emperor 685 Phocas, emperor 4, 8 Phoenicia 1, 23, 550 Photius, patriarch of Constantinople 694 physicians 339 pilgrimage, pilgrims 83, 175, 249-251, 256, 261 281, 283, 314, 335, 353, 354, 361, 372, 385, 388, 396, 398, 405, 464, 484, 559, 582, 588, 590, 596, 608, 634, 655, 695, 701, 717, 718, 719-727, 771, 783, 793, 815, 818, 828-832, 834, 874, 876, 878, 890, 902, 946 Pinhas ‘head of the yeshiva’, masorete 287, 288, 849 Pinhas, a descendant of Mar Ziitri 849 Pinhas b. AbiyE, a descendant of Mar Ziitri 849 Pinhas ha-Kohen b. Jacob, the poet 102, 287 Pinhas b. Levi, Ramla 283 Pinhas b. Nethanel, high priest of the Samaritans 414, 941 Pisa, Italy 396 plagues 55, 74, 88, 102, 225, 572, 588, 596 plums 337, 350 the poor ofJerusalem 579, 596, 812, 815, 817, 854, 856, 865, 892, 897 Prochore, Georgian monk 680 Procopius, Nestorian emissary to Jerusalem 679 Pumbedita 488, 728, 732, 745, 762, 765, 767, 774, 785, 789, 790, 795, 797, 807, 809, 849, 853, 868, 881, 887, 896, 926 qZ‘a 283, 875

qabb, measure of volume 367 Qabisa b. Du’ayb 95 Qadaris (school of free will) 98, 389 Qadas, see: Qedesh Qidisiyya 468 qa$r, sea-tar 353, 376 qaJz, measure of volume 338, 367, 385, 596

953

INDEX

al-Qihir, caliph 470, 475 al-Qihira 244, 315, 344, 549, 568, 725. 778, 905, 911, 913, 918, 936, 945 qii'id 274, 758 al-Qi'im, Abbasid caliph 598 al-Qi'im, Fatimid caliph 466, 547 al-Qal'a, Spain 821 Qalansawa 101, 553 Qal'at Bani Hammid, in the Maghrib 383 Qa'qii' b. 'Amr b. Malik 118 qaqiili; sort of elaborate dress 339 qarashiyyn. cherries (?) 337, 376 al-Qaritisi, see: Miisi b. 'Abdallah b. Miisi Qarmatis 462-463, 467-468, 471, 481, 482, 487, 544, 545, 546, 547, 548-557, 941 Qartaway, see: Barakit b. Hillel Qaryat al-'anab 31 1 qasiira, laundering, bleaching and shrinking of the flax 339. 357 al-Qisim b. 'Abd al-Rahmin b. 'Abdallah b. Mas'iid 191 al-Qisim b. Khattiib, Sidon 410 al-Qisim b. Muzahim b. Ibrahim alJandinini, itniirn of Jerusalem 614 qiiriir, see: Yeshii'i b. Moses ho-qiisov qa"r Ibn al-Sarh, near Ramla 553 qasr Jiliit, in 'Amman 318 qazr Khilid 231 qasr al-Sham', Fustat 750 al-Qassim, ruler of Damascus 557, 558, 559, 562, 775 qiilin (permanent resident, who has to pay the tax) 257 Qatr al-Nadi', the daughter of the Tiiliinid Khumarawayh 460, 809 Qayn b. 'Abd al-Qidir, Jerusalem590, 781, 862 al-Qayni, see: 'Abd al-Rahmin b. Qays; Hubaysh b. Dalaja Qayoma, Nestorian scribe in Jerusalem 679 Qayrawan 298, 345, 360, 370, 374, 376, 380, 381, 382, 384, 549, 728, 741, 762, 770, 790, 801, 802, 809, 820, 821, 835, 858, 865, 871, 873, 876, 879, 881, 882, 886, 933 al-Qaysarini, see: Sedaqa al-Qaysarini qaysiiviyya, a market building 328, 339 qaz', type of tonsure 46 al-Qazwini, see: 'Abdallah b. Muhammad qazz, sort of silk 350 al-Qazzaz, see: Manasseh b. Abraham; Saadia b. Hayyim Qedesh (Naphtali), Qadas 57, 122, 326, 329

qibld. direction turned to in prayer 81, 103, 111, 114, 463, 771, 832 Qinnasrin, in Syria 129, 477 qintiir, 100 ratls 337 qiriiba, measure of volume 345 qiriit 367, 835, 860 qirja, cinnamon 346 q i r j qaranfirl, clove 353 qirmiz shadhtrrli 355 al-qism tva'l-rizq 346, 365 al-Qitimi, leader of a rebellion 421 Qitos, see: Husayn b. Hillel qiyiis, copyists' ruler 342 qtrbbnt al-silsila 104 al-Quda'i, the chronicler (see also: Tihir b. Muhammad) 460 al-Quds, Jerusalem 125. 830, 842 Qulzum 95 al-qtrrniitna ('the refuse', nickname of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) 81, 105, 114 Qiimis 280, 281, 333, 416, 612, 921 Qiiqiyon (= Quwayq), the river of Aleppo 300 al-Qurashi, see: 'Abd al-Rahman b. Ibrahim; Damra b. Rabi'a; Jawhar b. Hisham; Muhammad b. al-Walid; Muhammad b. Simi'a Qiis, in Egypt 871, 879 qutn, cotton 350, 376, 380, 906 Qurlii, Turcoman commander 610 Qurtuba (which is Cordova) 72 qtrst (qusf), resin 346 Qutayba, of the Banii Quraysh 30 Quwaysma, near 'Amman 674 847 Rabih, governor of Gaza 552, 546 al-Raba'i, see: Isma'il b. 'Abd al-Wihid Rabbanites 254, 263, 274, 289, 291, 294, 305, 308, 325, 352, 589, 596, 746, 771, 778, 783, 785, 792, 794, 803, 804, 812, 815, 819, 824, 825, 827, 829, 833, 840, 848, 852, 854, 863, 875, 917, 921, 922, 927, 928, 929, 930, 931, 932, 933, 935, 936, 937, 941, 947 al-Rabi' b. Matar b. Balkh, poet 180 (Abii'l-Fadl) al-Rabi' b. Yiinus, wazir of al-Mansiir 387, 390 (Umm al-Khayr) Ribi'a, daughter of Isma'il 832 Rabib, client of Caliph al-Muqtadir's mother 470 Ra'biib, see: Samuel b. Shemaria b. Ra'biib Ridhin aukhi) 370 al-Radi (Abii'L'Abbis b. al-Muqtadir), caliph 112, 365, 470, 475 rdad

954

INDEX

337

Ridiya, Acre 301 al-Raqqi, see: David b. al-Raqqi r a y , superior silk 358 al-Rishidi, governor 473 Rifi‘ b. Abi’l-Lay1 b. ‘Ulayyin, chief of Rashiq al-‘Azizi, Fatimid commander, the Banii Kalb 335, 592 brother-in-law of Ya‘qiib ibn Killis Rifi‘ 559 b. ‘Umayra 549, 53 Radah (Rafah) 55, 122, 274,276, 310, 312, the Rastan river 477,874 rastiq (= district) 577 330, 758, 577, 775, 929 ra!l sltarni 337 tribesman aRihib, 553 Rainard, monk aofJerusalem 682 Ratzeburg 725 ra’is al-yahtid 809 746, the ‘Rav’, see: Judah ha-KohenJoseph b. raisins b. Eleazar (Abii’l-Hasan) Raji, of Ascalon 307 Ravenna 682 Raji’ Abi’l-Dahhik b. 443 raw hides 355 Raj5’ b. ‘Ali, Baghdad 815 riwand, rhubarb 379 Ayyiib Raji’ b. 414 Rawh,also: see Berikhi Rawh; b. Malka (Abii’ 1-Miqdam, or: Abii Nasr)Raji’ibndaughterofRawh;Nethanel ha-Levi Hayawa (b. Handal, or: Khanzal, or: b. Rawh Jarwal) 81, 104, 153, 155, 389 Rawh, Ramla 881, 883 (Abu Miqdim) Raji’ b. Mihrinal-Filastini Rawh b. Hitim, governor 393 389 Rawh b. Yazid al-Saniji 440 Raji’ b. Rawh b. Salima, great grandson Rawh ha-Kohen b. Pinhas, the Baghdadi of Rawh ibn Zinbi‘ 98 cantor 591, 775, 819, 828, 862 Ramallah 275 (Abii Zur‘a) Rawh b. Zinbi‘ the Judhimite Ramla 54, 65, 74, 101, 116, 117, 121, 122, 93, 94, 95, 101, 138, 149 125, 126, 130, 141, 144, 153, 161, 167, Rayhina, daughter of Sham‘iin 157 168, 179, 198, 199, 254, 269, 274, 275, Rayy (near Tehran) 442, 626 276, 282-283, 298, 311, 317, 328, 329, Rayyisa, daughter of Mansiir, Tiberias285 331, 332, 335, 337, 338, 339, 340, 341, Rayyisa, daughter of Saadia b. David, 342, 350, 352, 353, 355, 356, 357, 359, Fustat 935 360, 361, 365, 367, 371, 380, 381, 383, al-Rizi, see: ‘Abd al-Jabbir b. Ahmad; 385, 389, 392, 402, 403, 407, 408, 410, Muhammad b. Hammid 415, 422, 425-435, 440, 454, 456, 457, Razin al-dawla, see: Intisir b. Yahyi 458, 461, 464-466, 469, 473, 474, 475, the Red Sea 66, 116 476, 479, 481, 483, 486, 487, 490, ha-rehiivi (= the Torah) 734 504L525, 539, 544, 545, 546, 548, 549, Rehovot 275 550, 552, 553, 555, 556, 557, 558, 560, representative of the merchants(peqid 562, 563, 568, 569, 575, 577, 578, 579, ha-soharim; wakil al-tujjir (See also: 582, 583, 585, 587, 588, 589, 590, 591, Abu’l-A‘li b. Mevorakh ha-Kohen; 594, 595, 598, 599, 602, 603, 604, 605, Halfon ha-Levi b. Yefet; Halfon b. 609,610, 615, 624, 635-642, 648,674, Moses; Husaynb. Yiinus; Khalaf b. 697, 701, 710, 711, 720, 726, 738, 741, Joseph; Mevorakh b. Husayn; Sibi‘; 744, 752, 753, 756, 762, 763, 771, 772, Saadia ha-Levi b. Moses) 296, 353, 774, 775, 779, 781, 782, 783, 794, 796, 359, 360, 580, 609, 809 803, 804, 815, 820, 821, 822, 823, 827, Reuven b. Isaac 777 828, 830, 834, 836, 839, 849, 856, 857, Rheims 682 858, 862, 864, 866, 869, 872, 873, 874, the Rhine 736 875, 876, 877, 879, 880, 881, 882, 883, ribit, muriibata, garrison, or its base 73, 93, 887, 888, 889, 890, 892, 897, 901, 911, 116, 117, 174 925, 927, 929, 930, 931, 932, 935, 936, .rice 321, 337 937, 939, 941, 943 Richard 11, Norman count 723 al-Ramli, see: Barakit b. Hillel; Richulf, Archbishop of Mainz351 the ridda 43, 44, 47, 63 Muhammad b. Ahmad ransoming of captives 611, 630, 766, 794, Ridwiin b. Tutush b. Alp Arslin 606 868, 946, 947, 949 the Rif 758 Raqqa (also: Kalne) 410, 460, 464, 481, Rifa‘a b. Thibit 99 562, 738, 740, 750, 774, 790, 866 Rifa‘a b. Zayd 32

INDEX

Saadia b. Ephraim (Sahlin b. Abraham’s uncle on his mother’s side) 754, 770, 806 Saadia (Sa‘id) b. Hayyim (Mu‘ammar) al-Qazziz 914 Saadia b. Israel al-Tustari 301, 803 Saadia (Sa‘id) b. Israel (Isri’il) the cantor, Acre 301 Saadia b. Judah 315 Saadia Gaon b. Joseph 273, 286, 294, 301, 305, 346, 471, 488, 728, 733, 738, 773, 784,786,787,797, 810, 820, 849, 851, 853, 885, 917, 923, 924, 925, 926, 928, 933, 937 Saadia b. Moses, Seville 828 Saadia the physician b. Mevorakh, father of thenegidim 810 Saadia b. Moses, Seville 828 Saadia ha-Levi b. Moses, representative of the merchants, Tiberias296, 359 Saadia ha-Kohen b. Moses b. Ghulayb, Bilbays 315 Saadia ha-Kohen b. Nathan 811 Saba, emissary of the patriarch of Jerusalem 682 sabbatical year 102, 283, 739 Sabgha, cadi, Gaza 929 Sabgha b. Yeshii‘i he-hiver, Ramla 753, 866 Sibiq, see: Solomon the cantor sabir, frankincense 346 sibfin maghribi 340 sibiin shcimi 340 Sa‘d (Sa‘id) al-A‘sar (or: al-Aysar; or: Abii’l-Ma‘ishir) 460, 461 Sa‘d al-dawla the Hamdinid, who is Abii’l-Ma‘ili Sharif 482, 559 Sa‘d b. Abi Waqqis 33 Sa‘d b. Hillel, Ascalon 307 Sa‘d b. Mansiir, Ascalon 307 sadaqa, Muslim tax 43, 224, 236 Sadaqa b. Bishr, synkellos 699 Sadaqa b. Yiisuf al-Fallihi, wazir 598 Sa‘diin b. ’ Suhayl, Acre 534 Sadus (b. ‘Amr), chief of the Bani Qudi‘a 28, 29 Safaqusi, see: Solomon b. Moses Sifariyya 190 Safed 327, 329 (Abii’l-‘Abbis) al-Saffah, caliph 36, 100, 101, 388, 707 saffron 346 sahciba, the companions of the Prophet161 25hib al-khabar (= in chargeof intelligence), Ramla 568 . al-Sihira, on the Mount of Olives836 Sahl b. Aaron (see: ‘Allin b. Sahl) 817, 856758 Sahl b. Fudayl, Rafiah 274,

Rifq, a Fatimid commander 599 al-Rihini (= man ofJericho) 31 1 rikkiiv, extension of theincest regulation by the Karaites 926, 931, 940 Riqit, masorete 288 riqq, ruqUq, parchment 343, 344, 741, 791 ritual slaughterers, slaughtering (shol!a[im) 760, 768, 774, 792, 794, 805, 814, 854, 856, 869, 883, 885, 893, 894895, 905, 918 Riyin, Fatimid commander 550 Riyya, in Spain 235 Robert, a monk 574 Robert Capet 677 Roculphus, monk of Jerusalem 681 Rodbertus, Charlemagne’s envoy to Hlriin al-Rashid 396 Romanus I, emperor 484, 702 Romanus 11, emperor 482 Romanus I11 (Argyrus), emperor 597 Romanus IV, emperor 603 Rome, Romans 1, 12, 83, 106, 122, 484, 661, 663, 681, 682, 685, 686, 715, 741, 776 rose-petal preserves 337, 346 r6sh kallci (also: ra’s al-kull) 359, 728, 733, 742, 770, 796, 807, 810 rash ha-pereq 729, 742 rosh ha-qihil763 r6sh ha-qehillot (‘head of the communities’; see also: Isaac ha-Kohen b. Furit; Mevorakh b. ‘Eli; Mevasser b. Jesse) 779, 879 r6sh hn-seder (see also: Asaf) 328, 796, 797, 798, 807 Rouen (Rdwm) 777 Rudayh b. ‘Atiyya 194 al-Riidhbidi, see: Ahmad b. ‘Ati’; Hasan b. Silih al-Rumihis ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz (‘Abd al‘Uzzi?), governor 99, 138, 139 al-Rumayli, see: Makki b. ‘Abd al-Salim Ruqi al-Saqlabi, see: Wifi al-Saqlabi ruqiqi, maker of parchment343 al-Riishtiibi, see: Khibi’, daughter of Abraham al-Hazzim Riisiyah 829 Riiya, brother of Levi, from Byzantium 823 Ruzayq b. Hakam, Eilat, governor 446 ruzma, parcel 356 sl‘, measure of volume367

Sa‘ida b. Hiyln, governor ofRamla 548 Saadia the teacher-262, 761 Saadia he-hivZr b. Abraham b. Nathan, Hebron 315, 609, 899

956

INDEX

Sahl b. Hitim, Raqqa 750 Sahl b. Israel al-Tustari, see: Yishir b. Israel al-Tustari (Abii'l-Fadl) Sahl b. Joshua b. Sha'yi, a Karaite (see also:Joshua b. Sha'yi 353, 947 Sahl ibn Killis (brother ofYa'qiib) 549 (Abii Surri) Sahl ha-Kohen b. Masliah (see also in the bibliographical index) 125, 263, 325, 741, 786, 789, 824, 826, 829, 832, 834, 837, 924, 925, 930, 931, 933, 937 (Abii'l-Fadl) Sahl b. Salima 366 Sahl b. Ziti, see: Sedaqa b. Silih Sahlin b. Abraham (see also: Abraham b. Sahlin, his father; Nehemiah b. Abraham, his brother; Saadia b. Ephraim, his uncle) 285, 307, 591, 751, 752, 754, 761-770, 772, 773, 774, 780, 783, 790, 796, 798, 805-808, 809, 817, 818, 821, 831, 834, 849, 850, 852, 854, 857, 860, 861, 862, 868, 879, 884, 886, 893, 927 Sahlawayh b. Hayyim, a Karaite, Fustat 364, 560, 780, 812 Sahrajt 342, 596, 814, 857, 865, 868 al-Sahrajti, see: Hillel b. Sahl the Sa'id 750 Sa'id the p a m i s , see: 'Ali ha-Levi b. Joseph Sa'id b. 'Abd al-Malik, governor ofjund Filastin 98, 104 Sa'id ibn Bitriq, patriarch of Alexandria (see also in the bibliographical index) 746 (Balqiiq, Abii'l-Qiiq) Sa'id b. Farjaway 290 Sa'id b. Ghayyath, Fatimid supervisor 568 Sa'id ibn Hishim ibn Marthad al-Tabarini, Tiberias 499 Sa'id ibn Jubayral-Asadi 57 Sa'id b. Khilid b. Sa'id 44 Sa'id b. Raw$ b. Zinbi' 94, 98 Sa'id Shirin, pupil of Joseph b. Bakhtawayh 925 sokellarios 59, 61 the sakhra (the rock) 81, 82, 85, 103, 107, 111, 114, 115, 280, 836, 846 Saladin (Salih al-Din) 114, 304, 553, 678, 839 Salim (Salima) b. Qaysar 103 Saliima vu's al-kull (= r6sh kalli) 359 Salima b. Hiba, Jerusalem 505 Salima b. Isma'il b. Jami'a al-Maqdisi al-Darir, Jerusalem 621 Sal5ma b. Joseph, Ramla, Sicily 365, 369, 839, 870, 892

Salima b. Mahmiid, cadi, Gaza 920 Salima b. Nihid al-Tiryiqi, Jerusalem502. Salima b. Nissim b. Isaac 372. 830 Salima b. Qaysar, governor 133 (Abii Kharbaq) Salima b. Rawh, Eilat 444 Salamiyya, in Syria 463, 466 salaulZt a l - a b w i b f l - q u d s 841 Salawayh b. Banin, physician 702. salibiyya 700 Silih, Abbasid commander 415 Silih b. 'Ali, governor of Egypt101, 387, 388 (Abii'l-Fadl) Silih b. Bishr b. Salima, Tiberias 437, 495 (Abii Muhammad) Silih b. Jubayr alSudi'i al-Tabarini 171 Silih b. Mirdis, chief of the Banii 'Uqayl 585, 586, 588, 592, 599 (Abii'l-Khayr) Silih b. Mu'ammar 838 Silih b. Sulaymin, Abbasid commander 394, 941 Silih b. Yahyi 419 (Abii Shu'ayb) Silih ibn Yiisuf alMuqanna', Ramla 509 Silim 410 Saljiiqs (see also: Turks) 304, 306, 307, 315, 598, 600, 603, 606, 609, 61 1, 678, 727, 909, 915, 942 (Abii Tamim) Salmin b.Ja'far al-Fallih, Fatimid commander 558, 563 Salmin b. Shabib al-Ashqar 274, 758, 868 Salmon b. Yeriihim (see also in the bibliographical index) 289, 484, 551, 825, 827, 923, 933 Salonika 566, 829, 916 salt 347, 372 Saliibi b. Busbahri 241 Saliiq (= Seleucia) 887 siminiyya, a kind of mats339 Samareitike, the quarter of theKaraites in Jerusalem (also: the Sela') 347, 589, 668, 846, 847, 848, 930, 931, 936 Samaritans 1, 2, 9, 50, 72, 81, 270, 282, 317, 334, 410, 411, 414, 940, 941 Samarqand 344, 642, 646 Samarra, in Iraq 450, 522 Samdiin b. Husayn, Biniyis 660 Samonas, bishop of Gaza 674 Samosata 1 Sams5m al-dawla, see: Sinin b. 'Ulayyin Samuel b. Abraham b. Sunbit 806 Samuel ha-Kohen b. Avtalyon 763, 766, 803, 805, 893 Samuel b. Daniel b. Azariah 886, 903 Samuel ha-Nagid b. David (the 13th century) 856 Samuel b. 'Ezriin (= Ezra) 274, 296, 854

957

INDEX

Samuel b. Hofni, Gaon of Sura 298, 301, 342, 344, 868, 887, 896, 917, 927 Samuel ‘the third’ b.Hosha‘na 83, 330, 564, 572, 609, 761, 795, 808, 854, 857, 87 1 Samuel b. Isaac, the Spaniard 278, 828 Samuel b. Jacob,Fustat, copyist 342 Samuel ha-Kohen Gaon, b. Joseph Gaon b. ‘Ezriin (?) 852, 853, 854, 870 Samuel b. Manasseh b. Abraham alQazzaz 560 Samuel b. Moses ha-Kohen, Damascus 560 Samuel (Mawhiib)he-hiver b. Moses he-hiver b. Elhanan, Tyre (see also: Elhanan b. Moses he-&vZr; Pdoses he-&vZr b. Elhanan) 296, 297, 300, 794, 893 Samuel ibn Naghrila, Spanish Nagid 773, 774, 809, 822, 892 Samuel b. Palti’E1.561, 827, 844 Samuel b. ha-RGqeah 856 Samuel b. Saadia 853 Samuel b. Sahl of Khurisin301, 828 Samuel b. Samson 846 Samuel b. Semah the cantor al-Ladhiqi 575, 858 Samuel b. Shelah 301 Samuel ha-Levi b. Shemaria b. Ra‘bClb 296 Samuel ibn al-Tahirti 763 San‘a 284, 388 Sanhedrin (= Yeshiva) 729, 737, 742, 745, 762, 772, 776, 784, 790, 896, 899, 900, 915 Saphir, Jacob289 al-Saqlabi, see: Wafi Sar Shalom rkh ha-qihd, (av)-b&dlrz and aliifof the yeshiva 860 Sar Shalom b. Joseph 311 Saracens 19, 52, 56, 484, 574 Sarafa, in Trans-Jordan 392 Saragossa 681 Sarakhs, in Khurasan 425 Saul, grandfather of Nathan b. Abraham 870 s a w i d , administrative region (= jund) 122, 320, 562, 577 Sawartakin, governor 467 Sawwar b. ‘Ammara, Ramla 199, 389 Sayf the Samaritan,Ramla 941 Sayf al-dawla al-Hamdani, see: ‘Ali b. Hamdin Sayf al-khilafa, see: Aniishtakin b. ‘Abdallah Sayf ibn ‘Umar47, 63, 65, 68, 69, 72, 73, 88 al-Saymari, see: Abii ‘Abdallah al-Saymari

the Sea of Galilee 61, 80, 92, 98, 130, 122, 201, 285, 545, 557, 592, 674, 928 Sedaqa, Acre 301 Sedaqa al-‘Attar, see: Abraham b. Sedaqa Sedaqa al-Qaysarini 330 Sedaqa Sar Meniiha, see: Nethanel b. Sedaqa Sedaqa b. ‘Ayyish 382 Sedaqa al-Bawardi b. ‘Eli al-Dimashqi 823 Sedaqa b. Menahem, Jerusalem 761, 819, 861, 863 Sedaqa b. Mevorakh, see: Zadok b. Mevorakh Sedaqa he-hivh b. Muvhar (Mukhtar), Tyre, Fustat 339, 905 Sedaqa b. Nufay‘ (b. Solomon b. Saadia?) 912 Sedaqa b. Silih b. Sahl b. Ziti, Karaite 925 Sedaqa ha-Levi ha-hazin b. Solomon 307 Semah 893 Semah, Ascalon 308 Semah b. Abi Shayba, masorete 288 (Abii’l-Faraj) Semah b. Eleazar, Jerusalem 892, 894, 896 Semah b. Joshua, father of Mevorakh(see also: Sabgha b. Joshua; Mevorakh) 866 Semah the nisi and head of theyeshiva b. Josiah 729, 773, 774, 852, 885, 919, 920, 926, 927 Semah ibn al-Siyara, Abii Sliitiim, masorete 288 Sergius, bishop ofJaffa 663 Sergius, Byzantine commander 50, 51, 52, 54 Sergius, Nestorian priest 921 Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople 9, 65 Sergius I, patriarch ofJerusalem 683, 696 Sergius 11, patriarch of Jerusalem 683, 696 Sergius (Sarjiin) b. Mansiir, Damascus 58, 269, 270, 672, 704 Serifim (Sarafand) 392 the settlement ban (herem ha-yishshuo) 777 Severin, Pope 9 Severus, founder of a sect 97 Severus, Monophysite leader 661 Seville 609 Shaddad b. Aws 81, 102, 144, 158 Shadhiina, in Spain 235, 355 al-Shifi‘i, see: Muhammad b. Idris Shifi‘ites 609, 623, 624, 626, 630, 631, 632, 642, 647, 652 Shafrir nilus (= Fustat) 761, 790, 905 Shahrbaraz, Persian commander 44 al-Shiim (= Palestine) 1, 23, 109, 111, 123, 292, 359, 553, 596, 835

INDEX

al-Shim (Syria and Palestine) 1, 44, 53, 59, 62, 63, 65, 74, 75, 88, 93, 94, 102, 105,114,122, 123, 125, 141, 170,213, 222, 223, 225, 231, 235, 238, 240, 268, 270, 337, 345, 386, 393, 394, 416, 417, 467, 470, 475, 553, 558, 700, 702, 821, 882 al-Shama'i, see: Ahmad b. Mahmiid al-Shimi 274 Shams al-din, cadi 245 shamtii, beginning of excommunication 757 Sham'iin b. Zayd b. Khunifa, father of Rayhina 157 Shanas (Shanash), Byzantine commander 59 al-Sharibi 372 al-Sharih, the region of Moab 122 Sharik b. Judayr 188 the Sharon 275, 932 Sha'yi 856 Sha'yi b. Salah (= SZlih) b. Azariah, great-grandson of Levi b. Yefet b. 'Ali, Karaite scribe 925 Shaybin the Tiliiriid469 al-Shaybiini, see: Ayyiib b. Suwayd; Muhammad b. Tihir Shayzar 330 Shechem, Nibulus 55, 81, 122, 125, 195, 282, 317, 321, 365, 401, 411, 414, 465, 555, 585, 586, 595, 624, 674, 890, 941, 949 ha-she'dcit ha- 'atlqct, versified tract on Bible difficulties 745, 827, 848, 853, 939 sheep 337 Shefeli, Ramla(?) 753 Shekhania (Sakan), grandfatherof Yefet b. David 805 Shelah, Ascalon 307, 947 Shelah, cantor, Fustat 315 Shelah he-hZvb b. Mevasser, Alexandria 372, 378 Shelah the cantor b. Moses, Alexandria 751, 807 Shelah 'the sixthBb. Nahum 302, 899, 906 Shelah ha-Kohen b. Zadok b. Masliah b. Ziti, a Karaite, Tyre 925 Shemaiah, a descendantof Mar Ziitri849 Shemaiah Gaon 305, 793, 802, 854, 855, 856, 860, 872, 873, 884 (Abii'l-Faraj) Shemaiah he-hZvb b. Yeshi'i, great grandson of Shemaiah Gaon (brother of Solomon b. Yeshii'i) 305, 365, 375, 383, 759, 833, 839, 855, 870, 884, 892 Shemaria b. Abraham, Sepphoris 323

Shemaria b. Elhanan (see also: Elhananb. Shemaria) 278, 572, 795, 796, 798, 800, 828, 854, 857, 871 Shemaria b. Meshullam 810, 898 (Abii'l-Wafa') Shemaria (Haffaz) ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, Ascalon 609 shemetl me$t[&n 353, 811, 900 Sheraia, the elder 792 Sherira Gaon 34, 273, 745, 770, 788, 849, 854, 867, 868, 881, 917 shetut (= dZniq) 860 Shibl b. Ma'riif, leader of the Banii 'Uqayl 550, 557 Shiites 298, 304, 389, 394, 462, 465, 466, 477, 482, 487, 490, 516, 577, 636, 645, 656 the Shilijah (Siloam, Silwin) 111, 113, 680, 838, 847 shimmfish, deed, court diary 752, 884, 896 Shin'ar = Babylonia 786, 928, 929 al-Shirizi, see: 'Abd al-Wihid b. Ahmad; al-Mu'ayyad fi'l-din shish (fine linen; also:shush) 350, 586 Shomrijn, Samaria (also: Sebastia)55, 122, 275, 674 shijshiitlitn (the Karaites) 825, 933 Shii'i b. Simhiin, Jerusalem, 274, 874, 879 Shu'ayb, the prophet 21, 645 Shuji' b. Wahb 23 Shukli, a Turcoman commander 603 Shumayr al-Khath'ami, governor 132 Shurahbil, messenger of Muhammad 36 Shurahbil b. 'Amr 29 Shurahbil b. Hasana 44, 53, 57, 74 Shurayk (Shurayt) al-KinZni 88, 148 (Family of) Shuway' (see also: Shii'i b. Simhiin) 779, 781, 866, 873, 874, 879, 927 Sibi', Ramla 359 Sibi' b. Faraj, Tiberias 255 Sibi' b. Mufarrij (= Ibn al-Kiziriini) 342 Sicily 252, 258, 301, 345, 346, 349, 351, 355, 356, 361, 365, 369, 377, 384, 561, 695, 721, 723, 776, 778, 779, 803, 806, 809, 810, 818, 828, 854 Sidon 284, 410, 512, 560, 565, 592, 610, 611, 648, 909, 943 Siegfried, bishop of Mainz 726 Siffin 88, 91, 159, 222, 389 Sigimund, envoy of Charlemagne to Hiriin al-Rashid 396 Sihillin (Sijillin), in the district of Ascalon 530 sijill557, 589, 699, 746, 778, 783, 898 Sijilmassa 247, 378, 813, 821, 853, 854 al-Sijilmissi, see: Joseph b. al-Siljilmissi

959

INDEX

Sijistin 424, 613 Silano, of Venosa 734, 937 silk (see also:dibij; harir; ibvrsam; siqliffirz) 352, 355, 357, 358, 371, 377, 816, 887, 901, 906 Simeon 11, patriarch ofJersualem 608, 683, 699 Simha b. Diinash, emissary of the yeshiva 247, 813, 821 Simon, of Byzantium 823 Simon Siqilli 776 Simon of Syracuse 723 Simon b. Saul b. Israel, Toledo, Jerusalem 822, 827, 848, 931 Sinai 21, 58. 100, 109, 122, 577, 680, 723 al-Siniji, see: Muhammad b. Isma‘il Sin5jiya, in the neighbourhood of Ascalon 185, 440 (SarnSim al-dawla) Sinin b. ‘Ulayyin b. al-Bann5’ 585, 586, 592 al-Sindi, see: ‘Abd al-Rahmin al-Sinnabra 92, 98, 557 SippOri (Safiriyya, Tirsa, Sepphoris) 2, 57, 121, 122, 323 siqlitlrn 357 Sitt al-Dallal, wife of Shelah, Ascalon; daughter of ‘Ulli,nicknamed Thiqa al-dawla 307, 949 Sitt al-Dir b. Hanania, wife of Abraham b. Isaac h a - f a h i d 380 Sitt al-Husn, daughter of Abraham, Jaffa 331 al-sitt al-khadri (or, sittnii al-khadri) 483 Sitt al-Mulk, sister of al-Hikim 568, 569, 576, 577 Sitt al-Mun5, daughter of Nathan, wife of Nehorai 372 Sitt Muruwwa, al-kabira 372, 374 Sitt al-Sida, daughter of Abiathar haKohen Gaon 916 Sittiina, daughter of Yefet, Ramla(?) 91 1 Slavs 3 snow in Jerusalem830 soap (Sibin, ariibiin) 340, 350, 377, 379, 585, 871 S6‘ar (see also: Zughar) 83, 122, 201, 321, 315, 337, 365, 366, 377, 424, 929 Sodom 24 Solomon, Ascalon 308 Solomon (S5biq) the cantor 741, 759, 897 Solomon ha-Kohen, ‘messiah’ of the Karaites, Biniyis 328 Solomon, patriarch of Jerusalem683, 693 Solomon b. Abraham b. Meir al-Andalusi (see also: Abraham b. Meir alAndalusi) 31 l , 365

Solomon b. ‘Adi b. Manasseh al-Qazziz 560 Solomon b. Benjamin, Ascalon 307, 821 Solomon b. Biiyi‘i, copyist 289, 290 Solomon he-hivZr b. David 754 Solomon b. David b. Boaz, Karaite nisr 774, 927 Solomon b. David al-‘Arishi, a Karaite, Jerusalem (see also: Davidb. Solomon) 827 Solomon the physicianb. ‘Eli, Tripoli 874 Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon b. Elijah haKohen Gaon 859 Solomon ha-Kohen av-bZt-din (later Gaon) b. Elijah ha-Kohen ‘the fourth’ (in Fustat, 12th century) 899, 900, 910, 912, 914, 916 Solomon b. Fadfnq 827 Solomon b. al-Ghalliq, Tyre 341 Solomon b. Halfon, Ascalon 307 Solomon the nisi b. Hezekiah b. Solomon b. David 948 Solomon b. Isaac, great-grandson of Meir Gaon 851, 899 Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph, Daltiin 325, 326, 342, 344 (Abii’l-Bayin) Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph av-bet-& b. Solomon Gaon, Ramla, Fustat 603, 609, 811, 897, 904, 908 Solomon ha-Kohen Gaon b. JosephhaKohen 248, 252, 283, 296, 305, 385, 583, 589, 590, 742, 753, 792, 793, 802, 803, 812, 828, 853, 855, 856, 858, 860, 861, 863, 864, 872, 897 Solomon the exilarch (fatherof Azariah) b. Josiah b. Zakkai 773, 885 Solomon b. Judah, the Gaon 34, 122, 247, 248, 251, 252, 254, 261, 263, 264, 274, 283, 300, 307, 318, 319, 335, 336, 353, 356, 364, 383, 560, 579, 580, 588, 590, 620, 741, 742, 743, 746, 748, 749, 750, 752, 753, 754, 757, 758, 759, 761, 762, 763, 764, 765, 766, 767, 768, 769, 770, 772, 773, 774, 776, 779, 780, 781, 782, 783, 784, 792, 793, 795, 796, 800, 802, 803, 804, 806, 807, 808, 809, 810, 812, 813, 814, 815, 817, 818, 819, 823, 833, 834, 838, 844, 845, 851, 855, 856, 857, 858, 859-884, 885, 886, 888, 889, 890, 893, 897, 898, 911, 912, 929, 930, 933, 936, 937, 946 Solomon b. Khalaf al-Barqi 754, 823 Solomon b. Marwin b. Suqayr 894 Solomon b. Meir (see also: b. Meir) 851 Solomon he-hivZr b. Meir Gaon 851

960

INDEX

Solomon h e - h i v h b. Meir rcish ha-seder, great-grandson of Meir Gaon851, 876, 881 Solomon b. MevassEr b. Sahl he-'Ani 764 (Abii'l-Ridi) Solomon b. Mevorakh 905 Solomon (Sulaymin) b. Mevorakh (Mubirak), Fustat 764 Solomon (Salima) b. Moses b. Isaac Sat3quSi 356, 380, 598, 830 Solomon b. Musifir, Damascus 898 Solomon b. Nahum al-Baradini 298 Solomon b. Nathan 879, 898 Solomon b. Nethanel, money-changer, Fustat 301, 793, 879 Solomon b. Pashshit, Tyre, Fustat 854 Solomon b. Rabi', Tyre 299 Solomon b. Saadia, Rafiah 274 (Abii NaSr) Solomon b. Saadia b. Saghir (see also: Sedaqa b. Nufay') 296, 342, 359, 364, 812, 818, 904 (Abii Bishr) Solomon (Sulaymin) b. Semah al-'Attar, Ramla 283, 299, 302, 365, 595, 753, 769, 779, 804, 862, 936 Solomon b. Shabbit (Sunbit), one of Sahlin b. Abraham's ancestors 806 Solomon b. Shelah, Fustat 315 Solomon b. Tobiah 'the third' b. Daniel, Ramla 855 Solomon b. Yefet (b. David?) 805 Solomon b. Yeshii'i, Jerusalem (brotherof Shemaiah b. Yeshii'P) 305, 393 Sophronius I, patriarch ofJerusalem 8, 9, 56, 65, 66, 67, 69, 81, 661, 662, 663, 683, 684, 718 Sophronius 11, patriarch of Jerusalem 683, 699, 717, 726 ha-SCvi, see: Khalaf b. Joseph; Khalaf ha-melammFd b. Yeshii'i Spain (see also: al-Andalusi), Spaniards 235, 301, 379, 382, 574, 596, 728, 752, 773, 774, 778, 792, 810, 816, 822, 827, 829, 886, 931, 935 the Spaniard, see: Azhar b. Jonah;Jonah b. Judah; Isaac b. Samuel (see also: al-Andalusi) St Hilarion, central figure of the Georgian Church 680 St Simeon 699 Stephen, bishop of Dor 663 (the father) Stephen, Georgian translator 680 Stephen, king of Hungary 717, 724 Stephen, the 'miracle maker' 672, 687 Stephen, a monk from Mar-Saba 392 Stephen ibn Hakam, Ramla 674 'stm 339

Subayna, in Syria 550 Subuktakin, a Turkish commander in the Fatimid army 558, 562 Siifk 389, 634, 654, 657 sujiaja 248, 299, 301, 364, 366, 816, 817, 887 Sufyin b. 'Amr al-A'war al-Sulami 88 SufyPn b. SulaymPn 96 al-Sufyini, the expected redeemer of the Umayyads 414 sugar 337, 350, 379, 380 sugar-cane 337 Sughd (the Sogdiana)405 SughmPr, see: Abraham b. David; Isaac b. David; Judah b. Moses;Labrit Sukmin ibn Artuq 606, 607, 609 al-Sulami, see: Sufyin b. 'Amr Sulaymin, Jerusalem 839 Sulaymzn, smith ofJerusalem 274, 341, 758 Sulaymin b. 'Abd al-Malik, caliph 96, 98, 108, 115, 116, 126, 150, 153, 193, 195, 427, 706 Sulaymin b. Abii Ja'far (Abii Ja'faris the caliph al-Mangiir), governor 410 (Abii'l-Qisim) Sulaymin b. Ahmad b. Ayyiib al-Lakhmi al-Tabarini, Tiberias 213, 492, 493 Sulaymin b. Hishim b. 'Abdal-Malik 98, 99 Sulaymin b. Sa'd 193, 269 sult 'anrariit 353 (Abii'l-Fath) Sultin b. Ibrahim b. alMuslim, Jerusalem 631, 632 sumiq, 337, 339, 346, 350, 361, 380 Sumayr 121 Sunbit 949 siiq al-'at[iirin (perfumers), Jerusalem838 siiq hammim al-fa'r, Fustat 805 siiq ul-&abfr, Fustat 805 stiq al-khadrawdt (vegetables), Jerusalem 838 stiq al-qattinin (cotton traders), Jerusalem 838 siiq al-qumish (textiles), Jerusalem838 stiq Sulayman, Jerusalem 838 siiq al-yahtid, Tiberias 285, 352 Siiq Mizin 310, 929 Suqayr (see also: Marwinb. Suqayr) 894 Sura 298, 471, 728, 735, 741, 745, 774, 787, 868, 887, 917 +urra, pouch of coins 364 Suriir ha-Levi 875 Suriir b. Sabra, a Maghribi 894 Susita (Siisiya) 57, 122 Sutayt, Jerusalem 854

INDEX

Fustat 805 sycamore fruit 337, 362 Sykamina (= Haifa) 2, 52 Sylvester 11, Pope 682, 699 (the pilgrim) Sylvia (also called Aetheria or Egeria) 676 Synagogues: Acre 301 Ascalon 907 of the Babylonians, Damascus775 of the Babylonians, Fustat 750, 769, 796, 903 of the Babylonians, Ramla 875, 879 of Bilbays 315 of Caesarea 330 of Damascus 558, 821, 909 of Haifa 302 of Hebron 70, 315, 944 of Jerusalem (see, also: ha-me‘irci, ‘the cave’) 355, 372, 375, 484, 818, 832, 839, 844-846, 865, 873 of the Jerusalemites, Fustat 289, 589, 750, 755, 756, 767, 769, 778, 801, 804, 805, 859, 868, 877, 880, 882, 914, 936 of theJerusalemites, Ramla 283, 595, 874, 875, 877, 888 of Jubayl573 of the Karaites, Ramla (‘of the Prophet Samuel’) 936 ‘in the middle’, Ramla 283 of al-Qahira 914 of the Samaritans, Shechem414, 941 of Tiberias 284 Syracuse, Sicily 723 Syria, 1, 5, 19, 23, 44, 53, 58, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 74, 97, 99, 102, 117, 123, 242, 279, 298, 300, 301, 328, 335. 339, 348, 356, 370, 410, 416, 455, 456, 460, 463, 470, 480. 481, 482, 488, 491, 492, 519, 545, 546, 547, 548, 550, 553, 557, 560, 564, 566, 572, 576, 578, 592, 596, 598, 599, 603, 610, 612, 644, 653, 701, 738, 750, 774, 775, 776, 778, 780, 797, 799, 800, 803, 818, 910, 913, 916 s l r l ~ a y q n tal-yalzlrd,

Iabaqa, upper storey 755 al-Tabarini, see: Abii Kathir; Muhammad b. Hammid; Sulayman b. Ahmad; Salih b. Jubayr Tabaristan 357, 921 tabaslzir, bamboo crystals 346 Tabgha (= Tabha), near the Sea of Galilee 674 Tabiik 18, 34, 35, 36, 41, 44, 68, 201, 236, 238, 313 Tadmur 53, 479

al-Taghlibi, see: Hiriin b. Zayd al-Tahhan, see: Ahmad b. ‘Amr (Abii’l-Tayyib) Tihir b. ‘Ali b. ‘Abdiis, cadi of Tiberias436, 494 Tahir b. Husayn, Ramla 487 Tahir b. Muhammad b. Salima al-Quda‘i al-Misri, Jerusalem 622 Tahirt, in North Africa 374 Tiihirtis 371, 374, 375, 380 al-Ta’i‘, caliph 550, 809 Ti’if, in Hijiz 64, 216, 402 Tij al-dawla, see: Tutush al-Takhiim 24, 41 Takin, governor of Egypt473, 836 Talfita, village in the area of Mount Hermon 558 Talha b. ‘Abd al-Malik, Eilat 448 Talha b. ‘Ubaydallah 232 al-Tiliqani, see: Muhammad b. Muhammad Tall al-Sifi 553 ha-talmid, see: Abraham b. Isaac Tamar, divorcCe of Hanini b. Yannai 821 (Abii Ruqiyya) Tamim al-Diri201, 313, 547, 641 (Abii Harb) Tamim al-Mubarqa‘, leader of rebellion 414, 941 Tamim ha-Kohen b. Jacob b. Ya‘ish 378 b. Tobiah, Aleppo 300 Tamim a&“ al-Tamimi, see: ‘Abdallah b. al-Mubarak; Muhammad b. Ahmad tatzisukk, transmigration of souls 463 Tanta, in Egypt 760 ha-Taqwi b. Isaac, a Samaritan personality 941 Taranto 721 Tarasius, patriarch of Constantinople 687 Tarasiin, see: Aaron b. Ephraim b. Tarasiin; Ephraim b. Tarasiin fir?, new, or temporary resident 257 Tarif b. Hiibis (who is Ibn Khushkhash al-Hiliili)134 t“irirtm, wooden structure 755, 894 Tiriq, governor of Damascus599 Tiriq b. ‘Amr 93 Tarsiis, in Syria 328, 416, 482 al-Tarsiisi, see: Muhammad b. Ibrahim tashb?h, anthropomorphism 424 Tatai 760, 804 al-Tawahin 434, 460, 461, 553 tnwqi‘ 874, 882 Tawwaz, in Persia 497 al-Tawwazi, see: Abii ‘Abdallah tax, taxes (see also:jizya, kharij, rzesslti?, ‘mesh, @ri, ‘ushr) 86, 88, 92, 98, 104, 152, 153, 201, 224, 228, 231-232, 236,

INDEX

238-264, 333, 360, 399, 410, 411, 412, 415, 422, 456, 548, 549, 550, 553, 559, 567, 568, 576, 585, 588, 589, 590, 591,

599, 601, 638, 707, 721, 728, 746, 761, 775, 776, 777, 778, 782, 803, 804, 812, 818, 819, 821, 823, 829, 856, 892, 905, 917, 941 Tayma, in the Arab peninsula 44 (Abii Zayyin) Tayyib b. Zayyin al-Qisiti 440 Tehran 626 the Temple Mount 81, 82, 85, 86, 103, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114, 115, 117, 125, 157, 246, 251, 256, 334, 470, 487, 505, 508, 594, 595, 609, 629, 669, 712, 818, 827, 831, 832, 833, 836, 837, 838, 839, 840, 842, 844, 845, 848, 943 textiles 339, 349, 350, 355-358, 379, 380, 38 1 Thibit, Jerusalem 366 (Abii'l-Qisim) Thibit b. Ahmad, Ascalon 650 Thibit b. Mufarrij b. Daghfal b. Jarrah 585 Thibit b. Nu'aym al-Judhimi, 99 Thibit b. Thibit, see: Yeshii'i b. Yakhin Tha'laba b. Salima, governor 138 thaw6 arjishi 358 'asqalini 350 'attibi 357 dabiqi 357 mu'allam 357 mujham 358 munammaq 355 muqarran 358 muthaqqal581 tustari 350 Thawbin b. Yamrud 161, 226 Thawr b. Yazid b. Ziyid al-Kula'i alRabbi al-HimSi 389 Theodora, empress 680 Theodore Abii Qurra 672, 674, 696 Theodore, archbishop of Egypt 677 Theodore, bishop of Heshbon (surrogate patriarch) 663, 684 Theodore, head of the monastery of the Studites 689 Theodore, Nestorian leader in Jerusalem 679 Theodore, patriarch of Alexandria 686 Theodore I, patriarch of Jerusalem 683, 686, 704 Theodore I, Pope 663 Theodore, Tiberian deacon 674 Theodoricus, a German count 726 Theodorikos, or Theodore, the Sakellarios, Byzantine commander (brother of the emperor) 30, 54, 58, 59

Theodosius, emissary of the patriarch of Jerusalem 682 Theodosius, patriarch of Jerusalem 682, 683, 686, 694, 702 Theophanes, bishop of Mount Tabor 673 Theophilus, emperor 689, 690 Theophilus I, patriarch of Jerusalem578, 579, 683, 699, 716, 746 Thimil b. Silih b. Mirdis, ruler of Aleppo 599, 609, 780 T h i m d al-Khafiji, leader of the BanG 'Uqayl480, 481 Thinyat al-'Uqqib, near Damascus 461 Thiqa al-dawla, cadi 782 Thomas, metropolitan of Tyre694 Thomas I, patriarch ofJerusalem 396, 681, 683, 687, 688, 689, 714 Thomas 11, patriarch of Jerusalem 683, 698 Thumima. daughter of Sa'd b. Mansiir, Ascalon 307 Tiberias (see also: Maaziah) 2, 7, 44, 58, 76, 83, 84, 88, 92, 98, 99, 102, 121, 122, 153, 155, 169-171, 180, 193, 212, 213, 233, 247, 255, 256, 274, 276, 284-297, 298, 301, 323, 324, 325, 329, 335, 338, 339, 344, 357, 358, 359, 364, 367, 376, 389, 399, 4 3 H 3 8 , 465, 466, 467-468, 471, 476, 477, 481, 487, 491-501, 545, 547, 550, 552, 553, 557, 558, 559, 562, 563, 564, 568, 577, 585, 588, 591, 592, 594, 595, 600, 603, 609, 643-644, 674, 687, 729, 730, 731, 732, 738, 753, 762, 774, 775, 799, 804, 823, 849, 850, 852, 854, 856, 912 Tiberius, Byzantine emperor 4 the Tigris 101, 298, 370, 477, 728 tillis, a big sack; measure of volume(?)338 Timotheus, catholicus 757, 921 tin 380 tinkir, borax 353 Tinnis (also: HinCs) 122, 311, 356, 357, 710, 721, 746, 761, 871, 887, 902, 905, 906, 939, 940 tiriz, tarz 339, 358 i i r y i q , medicine for stomach disease 503 al-Tiryiqi, see: Salima b. Nihid al-Tizi, cadi, Jerusalem 779 Tobiah, 'prince of the congregation', Baghdad (see also Raji' b. 'Ali) 815 Tobiah b. Daniel he-hivgr (the son of Shemaiah's sister, see also: Aaron hehiver b. Tobiah; Solomon b. Tobiah) 248, 752, 795, 855, 872, 874, 876, 883 884, 886, 898, 937 Tobiah b. Eleazar, writer 286 Tobiah ha-Kohen b. 'Eli, Biniyis, Fustat 301, 315, 328, 357, 811, 905, 916

963

INDEX

Turmush, appointee of Atsiz 606 Tobiah b. Moses, karaite writer 745, 827, al-Turtiishi, see: Muhammad b. al-Walid 879, 930, 938, 939, 940 Tustar, in Persia 350, 357, 780 tomb of theBene Hezir, in the Kidron Tustaris 254, 270, 305, 364, 560, 589, 590, Valley 668 591, 598, 764, 778, 780, 782, 803, 804, Toledo (also: Tulaytula) 46, 382, 681, 822, 808, 809, 812, 817, 865, 866, 880, 882, 827, 931 917, 927, 929, 931, 932, 935, 937, 939 tomb ofJacob, son of Alphaeus 668 tGtiy2, zinc 354 tomb ofJohn the Baptist, Sebastia 674 (Tij al-dawla) Tutush b. Alp Arslin 606 tomb of Ornan the Jebusite 668 Tyre 57, 117, 121, 122, 258, 260, 274, 276, tomb of Rachel 830 284, 296, 297, 298-300, 301, 302, 315, tomb ofSt Joseph668 324, 327, 328, 331, 335, 336, 337, 338, tomb of St Simeon 668 339, 340, 341, 344, 346, 347, 348, 349, tomb of Uriahin ‘Amman 318 350, 355, 356, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, tomb of Zechariah 668, 848 363, 364, 366, 367, 371, 374, 376, 379, tombs of the House of David 833 380, 381, 382, 383, 422, 465, 550, 560, Tortosa 629 564, 565, 566, 569, 579, 580, 591, 596, Tower of Tancred712 604, 605, 609, 61&611, 624, 654657, tragacanth 350 658, 660, 694, 721, 752, 757, 772, 775, Trajan, emperor 23 777, 784, 790, 791, 794, 799, 805, 812, Trans-Jordan (see also: al-Balqi’) 23, 28, 814, 815, 816, 818, 819, 821, 828, 845, 32, 33, 41, 47, 48, 49, 54, 57, 88, 100, 862, 864, 868, 876, 877, 884, 887, 897, 115, 116, 122, 134, 137, 216, 223, 276, 898, 899-901, 903, 904, 908, 909-916, 318-320, 336, 387, 388, 391, 392, 393, 394, 401, 473, 480, 603, 705, 848 940, 943, 944, 946, 949 the tribe of Benjamin 80 tribes, see under: Banii ‘Ubida Nussay b. 155 Trier 723 (Abii’l-Walid)cadi al-Simit, ‘Ubida b. 98, [rirnis 367 125, 141-145, 164, 229192, 225, Tripoli(Taribulus)of Libya 356,752,828 ‘Ubayd, governor 127 Tripoli(Taribulus) Ofal-Shzm (see also:‘Ubaydallahal-Mahdi, first of theFatimid fortress of Sinim) 70, 71, 75, 118, 282, caliphs 464,466 284,298, 336, 337, 344, 350,380,381,