Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of the Head of the Jews, ca. 1065-1126 [Course Book ed.] 9781400853588

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Jewish

Self-Government

in Medieval

Egypt

Princeton Studies on the Near East

Jewish S elf-Government in Medieval Egypt The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065-1126 MARK R. COHEN

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright © 1980 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey In the United Kingdom Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from The Whitney Darrow Publication Reserve Fund of Princeton University Press This book has been composed in VIP Bembo Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

To my parents

Simon and Selma Cohen

CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURE PREFACE NOTE ABBREVIATIONS

ONE TWO THREE

VI11 XI XV11 XIX

3

The Problem of Origins Fatimid Realities and the Coptic Patriarchate

50

The Rise of the Headship of the few s Sociological Considerations

79

APPENDIX A Notables in Fustat-Cairo Supporting the Creation of the Headship of the Jews, ca 1060 to ca 1130 102 APPENDIX Β The House of Mevorakh h Saadya 132

FOUR FIVE six SEVEN EIGHT

The Headship of the fews Cautious Beginnings, to 1082

157

The Administration of David b Daniel, ca 1082 to 1094

178

The Second Administration of Mevorakh b Saadya, 1094 to 1111

213

The Administration of Moses b Mevorakh, 1112 to ca 1126

272

Conclusion Institutional Innovation in a Medieval Community

287

APPENDIX 1

The Geniza Corpus

295

APPENDIX 2

Selected Geniza Documents

309

WORKS CITED

339

INDEX OF GENIZA TEXTS GENERAL INDEX

361 371

LIST OF TABLES A N D FIGURE

TABLES

3.1 3.2 3.3 6.1

Notables in Fustat-Cairo Supporting the Creation of the Headship of the Jews, ca. 1060 to ca. 1130 Cosignatories Known Family Connections between Notables The Titles of Mevorakh b. Saadya

88 92 93 264

FIGURE

Family Tree of the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya

155

FRONTISPIECE Draft of a rescript issued by the Jewish chief judges of Fustat at the direction of Head of the Jews Mevorakh b. Saadya (document # 5 in Appendix 2).

Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter Collection, TS 20.125r. and v., printed with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

PREFACE

THIS BOOK is offered as a contribution to the political history of the non-Muslim communities in the medieval Middle East Though disenfranchised and largely excluded from participation in the political destiny of the Muslim state, the Jews and Christians did not lack political vitality Disenfranchisement earned with it as a corollary a large measure of autonomy, which Islam granted the dhimmi (protected) communities in the expectation that they would regulate their own religious affairs and see to their communal needs This dispensation necessarily involved the non-Muslim groups in a complex system of self-government that comprehended many areas normally associated with the state In this, as in so many other instances, Islam simply continued administrative procedures current in the conquered territories, for the Jews corporate autonomy meant a perpetuation of their situation under the pre-Islamic regimes of Byzantium and Sassanian Persia Nonetheless, when North Africa and southwest Asia were unified under Islam, Jewish self-government was expanded and modified In its general contours, this transformation is rather well known to readers of Jewish history Much detail has not yet been uncovered, however, and many facets of the historical process remain to be described Fortunately, detailed study of aspects of Jewish self-government under medieval Islam is possible through the records of the Cairo Gemza A treasure-trove of manusenpts preserved for centuries in the discard-chamber of a medieval synagogue in Old Cairo, the Geniza, mirroring the characteristic preponderance of literary materials among Jewish sources for the middle ages, contains primarily fragments from books In addition, however, it is a unique deposit of several thousand original documents of a nonhterary nature

xu

Preface

that shed light on the ambience of individual Jews and Jewish communities in the Mediterranean Islamic world during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Letters, legal records, and occasional polemical pieces composed in the heat of a dispute over communal leadership, provide abundant, though disparate and unwieldy, evidence about Jewish political life. Being firsthand documents and, for the most part, free of the selectivity and tendentiousness so characteristic of medieval historical chronicles, they offer a rich and unmediated body of source material for the history of the medieval Jewish community in the Arab world. The most significant contribution to this subject has been made by S. D Goitein. The second volume (1971) of his monumental A Mediterranean Society, subtitled "The Community," presents a richly detailed picture of the structure and functions of Jewish self-government under medieval Islam. The present book constitutes a study ofJewish administration in the country for which Geniza material is available in greatest abundance, Egypt. Its subject is the origins of the office of head of the Jews (ra'is al-yahud). Under the more commonly employed rubric of the "nagidate," a term derived from the Hebrew title of nagid associated with most holders of this office, the headship of the Jews has attracted the attention of Jewish historians since the end of the nineteenth century This attention has been well deserved. The head of the Jews served as the chief communal and religious authority over the Jews in Egypt and her Palestinian province under three successive Islamic dynasties: the Fatimids (969-1171), the Ayyubids (1171-1250), and the Mamluks (1250-1517). During the Mamluk centuries, when the great Jewish yeshivas of Iraq and Palestine led by the gaons, as well as the royal Davidic exilarchate of Baghdad, had long disappeared from the scene, the Egyptian office of head of the Jews constituted the most powerful institution of Jewish self-government in the Islamic world, if not in the world as a whole. To this day, however, scholars are divided over the question of the origins of this significant representative of medie-

Preface

χιη

val Jewish autonomy. Confusion stems, largely, from the tendency to focus upon the rise of the title of nagid rather than upon the more fundamental question of the evolution of polit­ ical power and authority. Employing the latter approach, the present work subjects the problem of the origins of the head­ ship of the Jews to comprehensive reexamination in an effort to uncover the actual, complex process by which the institu­ tion came into being. In addition to its principal relevance to medieval Jewish political history, our inquiry into the origins of the headship of the Jews in Egypt also touches on the general problem of institutional innovation in premodern societies For the mid­ dle ages, during which the constancy of religious tradition and the rigidity of social organization tended to moderate the rate of change, the elucidation of this question often involves a search for almost imperceptible alterations in the structure of society. One helpful method of research is that of the case study An analysis of the growth of an institution in a com­ munity for which a large volume of original sources is avail­ able can lead to conclusions having general validity. We hope that our reconstruction of the origins of a particular office of Jewish self-government in medieval Egypt will provide in­ sight into the more universal problem of the process of in­ stitutional innovation in the middle ages This book also touches on the question of the communal life of the Christians under Islam, a subject that has received scant attention. Attempting to overcome a methodological obstacle inherent in studies limited to the use of Jewish sources, ours draws upon Islamic and particularly Chnstian-Arabic sources in order to establish an external frame­ work for the unreconstituted Jewish data stored in the Geniza fragments. This comparative approach should be of interest to students of the other principal minority under Islam. An additional area of general interest upon which our study touches is the subject of Islamic administration. As is well known, Middle Eastern Jews were deeply acculturated to their Arabic-Islamic milieu. Though inner Jewish life has

XIV

Preface

seemed remote from the social matrix of Islamic society, and though it is certain that elements ofJewish communal life had their roots in pre-Islamic times in the Middle East, it nonetheless appears that to a considerable degree Jewish communal practice mirrored Islamic political mores. Islamic historians may find, for example, that an awareness of the relations between Jewish central authorities (the heads of the Jews) and their local dependents illuminates aspects of the structure and function of Islamic government. How much of this similarity was the result of Jewish imitation and how much the consequence of shared Middle Eastern patterns of political behavior can only be decided after more research has been done on both Islamic and Jewish administration in the middle ages.

IN THE COURSE of preparing this study I incurred debts of gratitude to many individuals and institutions: to Professor S. D. Goitein, who generously placed his Geniza research archive at my disposal, thereby enabling me to locate much of the source material upon which the book is based, to Princeton University's Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences for providing funds to purchase photostats of Geniza documents and to type the final draft; to the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, which provided a subvention that I used to travel abroad to verify transcriptions of Geniza texts; to the Librarians of University Library, Cambridge, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the British Museum (British Library), London, and the Jewish Theological Seminary Library, New York, and to the Keepers and staffs who preside over the Geniza manuscripts in those institutions, for their much appreciated assistance, in particular Dr. Stefan C. Reif, director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge, and Jewish Theological Seminary Librarian Dr. Menahem Schmelzer, who both personally facilitated my research in numerous ways; to Susan and Aaron Marcus, who advised me on the design of the tables and family tree; and to Mary Craparotta, who meticulously typed the final draft.

Preface

xv

The doctoral dissertation in which this book had its ongins was based on a corpus of 201 Geniza documents. Subsequently, while on leave from Princeton in 1977-1978 gathering material for further studies on Jewish self-government, I collected an additional 100 or so Geniza manuscripts pertinent to the origins of the office of head of the Jews. That research was supported by a Lady Davis Post-doctoral Fellowship in the History of the Jewish People at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and by a grant from the Joint Committee on the Near and Middle East of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council. In Jerusalem, the Hebrew University's Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts and the Institute's then director, Dr Malachi Beit-Ane, provided unstinting assistance Professor Ezra Fleischer, director of the Research Institute for Hebrew Poetry in Jerusalem, kindly allowed me to search through the Institute's card-index file for poems containing historical information relevant to my subject. While in Jerusalem I presented a summary of my work in progress at the Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East and again at the Ben-Zion Dinur Institute for Research in Jewish History, at the invitation of their respective directors, Professor Shaul Shaked and Professor Shmuel Ettinger, and benefitted greatly both from the criticisms and from the encouragement I received. Subsequently, the Ben-Zvi Institute published that Hebrew paper in its new quarterly, Pe'amim no 2 (Summer, 1979). Though responsibility for the book's contents is solely mine, I am indebted to several scholars who read all or substantial portions of the manuscript at various stages of preparation and made valuable criticisms and suggestions: Gerson D. Cohen, Moshe Gil, S. D. Goitein, Norman Itzkowitz, Ivan George Marcus, Raymond P. Schemdhn, Ismar Schorsch, A L. Udovitch, and Moshe Zucker. I am particularly grateful to Chancellor Gerson D. Cohen of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the supervisor of my doctoral dissertation, whose sage advice accompanied me through the stages

XVI

Preface

of supplemental research and revision for publication. I greatly appreciate the helpfulness shown by Margaret Case of Princeton University Press during the editorial and publication stages. Finally, my wife, Ilene, and my children, Hanan and Tamar, deserve unbounded thanks for the patience and understanding they exhibited while I labored to bring the project to its present form. Princeton, New Jersey December 1979

NOTE

IN THIS BOOK Arabic names and words are transcribed as in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition, except that dj and k have been replaced by j and q, respectively. Due to the frequent occurrence of Arabic and Hebrew words, their ltahcization has been omitted. In the transcription of Hebrew, the macron signifying long vowels has been eliminated since, unlike in Arabic, it has little grammatical significance. The Arabic title of ra'is, "head," is often written rayyis, following the dominant spelling employed in the Geniza documents, which reflects popular pronunciation. Fragments of Arabic text are quoted as if they were the beginmngs of sentences, even if in their original context they call for genitive or accusative case-endings. Commonly recognized Biblical names are spelled in the usual English manner. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses. Rarer Hebrew names are written phonetically, but without the macron: Evyatar, Mevorakh, Yefet. When a name has an Arabic form, it is transcribed with the macron: Ya'qub for Jacob, Musa for Moses The Hebrew names Saadya and Ahimaas are rendered without the symbol for the letter 'ayin, whereas the name Shema'ya is rendered with it. Arabic place names and dynasties are written without linguistic apparatus: Abbasids, Ayyubids, Baghdad, Fatimids, Fustat, Qayrawan, Seljuks, Mamluks. The name Old Cairo is used interchangeably with Fustat. Appendix 1 lists the principal Geniza documents employed in this study (the Geniza corpus), along with publication data where pertinent. In the notes a published Geniza text is given with bibliographical information at its initial citation only. Thereafter a superscribed plus sign is added after the shelfmark to signal the reader to consult Appendix 1 for the bibliographical reference A plus sign in parentheses means that the document has been published in part. A star (*) signifies that the text is included in Appendix 2 as one of the "selected Geniza documents "

ABBREVIATIONS

For abbreviations employed in citing Gemza manuscripts, see Appendix i. AIEO (Algiers) 'Annates de I'Instttut des Etudes Onentales (Algiers) AJSLL -American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures b. · ben, ibn ("son of") BIFAO 'Bulletin de I'Instttut Francais d'Archeologie Ortentale BJRL 'Bulletin of the John Rylands Library BSOAS 'Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies BSOS 'Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies EI1 'Encyclopaedia of Islam. First Edition. EI2 'Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second edition. f, ff. 'folio, folios Goitein, Letters «S. D. Goitein, Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders. Princeton, 1973. Halfon · Gershon Weiss, "Legal Documents written by the Court Clerk Halfon ben Manasse, . . . " Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1970. HUCA 'Hebrew Union College Annual Ibn al-Dawadari, Chronik, part 6 · Ibn al-Dawadari, Die Chronik des Ibn ad-Dawaddr'i, Part 6, edited by §alah al-Dm al-Munajjid. Cairo, 1961. Ibn Muyassar · Ibn Muyassar, Akhbar Misr, edited by Henri Masse. Pans, 1919. Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz · Ibn al-Qalanisi, Dhad ta 'rikh Dtmashq, edited by H. F. Amedroz. Leiden, 1908. Ibn al-Qalanisi, trans. Gibb · Ibn al-Qalanisi, The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, extracted and translated by H.A.R. Gibb. London, 1932. Ibn al-$ayrafi, Ishdra · Ibn al-$ayrafi, Al-ishara ild man ndla alwizara, edited by Abdullah Mukhhs. Cairo, 1924-1925.

XX

Abbreviations

Ibn Taghri Birdi, ed. Popper· Ibn Taghri Birdi, Al-nujum alzahirafi muliik Mm wa Ί-Qjxhira, vol. 2, part 2, edited by William Popper. Berkeley, 1909-1912 Ibn Zafir· Ibn Zafir, Akhbdr al-duwal al-munqati'a, edited by Andre Ferre. Cairo, 1972. IJMES 'International Journal of Middle East Studies India Book · A collection of Geniza documents on the India trade being prepared by S. D. Goitein for publication. JESHO 'Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient JJS 'Journal ofJewish Studies JNES 'Journal of Near Eastern Studies JQR 'Jewish Quarterly Review JSS -Jewish Social Studies 1., 11. -line, lines Mann· Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs, 2 vols. 1920-1922; reprint ed., 2 vols, in one with Preface and Reader's Guide by S. D. Goitein, New York, 1970. Mann, Text · Jacob Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols. 1931-1935; reprint ed. with Intro­ duction by Gerson D Cohen, New York, 1972. Maqrizi, Itti'az ' al-Maqrizi, Itt'az al-hunafi', edited byjamal al-Din al-Shayyal and Muh. Hilrm Muh. Ahmad. 3 vols. Cairo, 1967-1973. Med. Soc. · S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, vols. 1-3. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967-1978. Mediterranean People · An anthology of Geniza documents in translation being prepared by S. D. Goitein for publica­ tion as a companion to Med. Soc Megillat Evyatar · cited by page and line, designating the five folio pages of the manuscript (TS 10 Κ 7) as pages 1 through 10, as in the two printed editions. 1) edited by Solomon Schechter, Saadyana. Cambridge, 1903, pp 86-104; and 2) edited by Moshe Gil, "The Scroll of Evyatar as a Source for the History of the Struggles of

Abbreviations

χχι

the Yeshiva of Jerusalem during the Second Half of the Eleventh Century: A New Reading of the Scroll" (in Hebrew), in Peraqim be-toledot Yerushalayim bt-mei habeinayim (Jerusalem in the Middle Ages), edited by Β. Z. Kedar. Jerusalem, 1979, pp. 81-106. MGWJ' Monatsschrift fur Geschichte una Wissenschaft desjudentums Nahray -Murad A. Michael, "The Archive of Nahrai ben Nissim . . . " Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew University, 1963. PAAJR 'Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Patriarchs, II 3 , III 1 · Ibn al-Muqaffa', Sawirus, Ta'rikh batanka al-kanisa al-misnyya (History of the Patriarchs of the Egyp­ tian Church), vol. 2, part 3, and vol. 3, part 1, edited by A. S. Atiya, O.H.E. KHS-Burmester, et al. Cairo, 19591968. Qalqashandi, Subh · al-Qalqashandi, Subh al-a'sha, 14 vols. Cairo, 1913-1918. r. «recto REJ -Revue des etudes juwes Studies · S. D. Goitein, Studies in Islamic History and Institutions. Leiden, 1968. v. · verso ZDMG - Zeitschrtft der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft

Jewish

Self-Government

in Medieval

Egypt

CHAPTER O N E

The Problem of Origins

DURING the early Islamic centuries, as in late antiquity, Egypt maintained its position as a peripheral area of Jewish life. We do not find an institution of Jewish communal administration there after the Arab conquest. Spiritual and administrative guidance emanated from Babylonia (Iraq) and Palestine, where great yeshivas, or Talmudic academies, dating from pre-Islamic times, synthesized, interpreted, and disseminated Talmudic law, dispatched judges to administer this law in the far-flung communities of the caliphate, and appointed leaders of local communities. Iraq was also the seat of the ancient Davidic exilarchate. The caliph recognized the exilarch as head of all the Jews in the diaspora, which included the Jews οι Egypt, and confirmed his prerogative to appoint local judges. Demographic developments fostered Egyptian Jewry's orientation toward Iraq and Palestine. During the first three centuries of Muslim rule, streams of Jews wended their way from eastern Islamic lands to the Mediterranean. Many settled in Egypt, as did Jews from adjacent Palestine. Understanda­ bly, these immigrants cherished loyalties toward Jewish lead­ ership in their countries of origin. This allegiance found ex­ pression in diverse ways: in the establishment of separate Babylonian and Palestinian synagogues practicing the ntes and customs of the yeshivas of the respective countries, in the solicitation of responsa from heads of the yeshivas, known as gaons, and in financial contributions toward the upkeep of the institutions that the gaons directed. The ties to Palestine, dat­ ing back to Roman times, survived the Abbasid centralization of imperial authority in Iraq in the middle of the eighth cen-

4

Chapter

One

tury. This concentration of power helped elevate the two Iraqi yeshivas of Sura and Pumbedita over their Palestinian counterpart, but the academy in Jerusalem continued to exer­ cise influence over Egypt's Jews. Independent communal leadership over Egyptian Jewry did not emerge until the time of the Fatimids, who conquered Egypt in 969. The Fatimids, whose original power base had been in North Africa, were Isma'ili Smites, adherents of a religio-pohtical theory that denied the legitimacy and su­ premacy of the orthodox Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad. Their move eastward from al-Mahdiyya, Tunisia, to the newly built imperial capital of Cairo, coming on the heels of careful prior infiltration and dissemination of Isma'ili prop­ aganda, formed part of a sophisticated strategy aimed at chal­ lenging the flagging Abbasid caliphate's claim to political and religious hegemony With the subsequent annexation of adja­ cent territories in Palestine, Syria, and the Hijaz, the Fatimids elevated Egypt to the prestigious position of capital of an em­ pire rivaling that of the Abbasids The caliph al-Mu'izz (reigned 953-975) and his son and successor al-Άζϊζ (reigned 975-996), aided by astute government servants, many of them Jews or of Jewish origin, endowed Egypt with a substantial level of stability and prosperity and made it an attractive des­ tination for new settlers from the Abbasid domains * Buoyed by an influx of immigrants, Jewry under the Fatimids attained 1 On the rise of the Fatimids, their Isma'ili doctrine, and the establishment of Fatimid rule in Egypt (through the reign of al-Άζϊζ), see De Lacy O'Leary, A Short History of the Fatimid Khahfate (London, 1923), pp 1-122, Stanley Lane-Poole, A History of Egypt in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed ([1913], reprint ed , New York, 1969), pp 92-123, Gaston Wiet, L'Egypte arabe de la conquete arabe a la conquete ottomane 642-1511 de Vere chrettenne, vol 4 ofHistoire de la nation egyptienne, edited by Gabriel Hanotaux (Pans, η d ), pp 147-56, 179-95, F Wustenfeld, Geschtchte der Fatimtden-Chahfen (Gottingen, 1881), pp 3-164, Abbas Hamdani, The Fatimids (Karachi, 1962), pp 1-29, EP, s ν "Fafimids," pp 850-54 (M Canard), Μ Canard, "L'lmpenalisme des Fatimides et leur propaganda" A1EO (Algiers) 6 (1942-1947), 156-93, and esp pp 156-62,169-85,192-93 Med Soc , I, 32-34 See also more generally Bernard Lewis, "An Interpretation of Fatimid History," in Colloque interna­ tional sur I'htstoire du Catre (Cairo, ca 1970), pp 287-95, Gustav Ε von Grunebaum, "The Nature of the Fatimid Achievement," ibid , pp 199-215,

The Problem of Origins

5

economic well-being and a large measure of self-sufficiency. In the Fatimid period, the yeshivas of Iraq and Palestine found themselves increasingly dependent upon the Jews of Egypt for financial support. Not surprisingly, Jewish historians early found evidence suggesting a causal relationship between the Fatimid conquest and the ongins of Jewish communal leadership in Egypt. They focused their attention upon the rise of the title of nagid in that country. The epithet "nagid," a Biblical word having royal connotations, was accorded to a number of powerful Jewish communal leaders in Spam and North Africa dunng the eleventh century. Most famous among these nagids was Samuel lbn Nagrela (d. ca. 1056), the Spanish Hebrew poet and Jewish vizier of Granada. In Egypt, two literary sources place the appearance of the first nagid a century earlier. The principal account of the arrival of the first nagid in Egypt—a Hebrew story preserved in a seventeenth-century EgyptianJewish chronicle and, in an abridged form, in a sixteenthcentury responsum, or rabbinic legal opinion, from Cairo— states that he was appointed by the Fatimid caliph who ruled shortly after the conquest. A family chronicle completed in the year 1054 reports that an Italian Jew named Palfiel b. Shephajiah, who served as an influential courtier in the entourage of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz, held the title "nagid" and ruled over the Jews in the Fatimid domain. Based upon these two traditions, modern Jewish historians arrived at the hypothesis that the Fatimids created the "nagidate" (negidut in Hebrew) upon the occasion of their conquest of Egypt in 969. From his new capital in Cairo, the Fatimid ruler was believed to have resolved to designate a local sovereign over Jewish affairs. This official would receive the homage formerly paid by Egyptian Jewry to the Babylonian exilarch, an appointee of the Fatimids' rival, the Abbasid caliph. With the beginning of the scientific study of the documentary treasures of the Cairo Geruza at the end of the nineteenth Samuel Stern, "Cairo as the Centre of the Isma'fli Movement," ibid , pp 437-50

6

Chapter One

century, 2 a vast amount of new information about the early history of the office of nagid began to come to light. The Geniza materials, mostly routine letters and documents, have not provided an explanation for the origins of the institution. Rather, they convey disorganized data about the personal and public lives of leaders of the Egyptian Jewish community, including the all-important nagids. Vexingly, however, these sources are totally silent regarding the presence of a nagid or, for that matter, of any Egyptian-Jewish official exercising central authority over Fatimid Jewry, until the beginning of the second century of Fatimid rule. Nonetheless, the original thesis has continued to this day to reign supreme in Jewish historiography. It is worthwhile following the traces of that hypothesis through a century of Jewish scholarship, and seeing how it has resisted modification in spite of compelling counterevidence from the Geniza. Conceived as a histonographical case study, our analysis reveals the tenacity of long-held historical views when faced with challenging new data, and the difficulties that historians encounter when attempting to reconcile narrative literary sources with disparate data of a documentary nature.

THE SAMBARI-IBN ABI ZIMRA TRADITION

The critical narrative source describing the origins of the nagidate is the well-known passage in the Hebrew chronicle 2 On the Cairo Geniza, its discovery, and its importance for Jewish history, see Norman Golb, "Sixty Years of Gemzah Research," Judaism 6 (1957), 3-16; Med. Soc, I, 1-28; Alexander Marx, "The Importance of the Geniza for Jewish History," PAAJR 16 (1946-1947), 183-204; Shaul Shaked, A Tentative Bibliography of Geniza Documents (Pans, 1964). A lone dissenting view on the origins of the Cairo Geniza materials has been put forth by N. Allony. See his "The Ezra Synagogue and the Cairo Geniza Not Identical" (in Hebrew), Beth Mtkra 4(75) (1977-1978), 480-93, which also cites Allony's earlier publications on the same problem. Goitein's most recent statement on the question provides a plausible solution to the mystery of the origins of the permanent Geniza chamber in the Fustat synagogue· "Urban Housing in Fatimid and Ayyubid Times (as Illustrated by the Cairo Geniza Documents)," Studia Islamica 47 (1978), 5-6.

The Problem of Origins

7

of the Egyptian historian Joseph b. Isaac Sambari (1640-1703), whose history of the Jews, completed in 1672,3 was first pub­ lished in excerpt form by Adolf Neubauer in 1887 in volume one of his Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles. As this passage, which occurs at the very beginning of the Neubauer selection, has never before appeared in print in English, we present it here in translation. 4 In the year 363 according to the Muslim reckoning (A.D. 973/4), the caliph (al-khallfa) ΤΎΥ' came to power in Babylonia. He married his daughter to the caliph (melekh) of Egypt, whose name was '$R al-Dawla. s In the year 366 according to the Muslim reckoning (A.D. 976/7), which corresponds to the year 4745 since the creation of the world (A.D. 984/5), the queen arrived in 3 On Sambari and his historical works, see Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. "Sambari, Joseph Ben Isaac." 4 Adolf Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles (Oxford, 1887-1895), I, 115-17 Neubauer used Bodl. MS Heb. 2401/1. The account of the origins of the Nagidate occurs on f£ 21a-b. A marginal comment provides a rubric for the passage: " H o w the nagids came to Egypt, w(ith) God's (help)." The story follows immediately upon Samban's chronological list of the Fatimid caliphs, and appears to have been featured at that juncture in order to record what Sambari surely considered to have been the most significant Jewish event of the Fatimid period. Neubauer's extract from the Bodleian manuscript was reprinted with a new introduction by Abraham Berliner in his Queltenschrifien zur judischen Geschuhte und Literatur, I, Aus Joseph Samban's Chromic (Frankfurt a. M., 1896). 5

So MS The editor, Neubauer, emended: Nasr al-Dawla (Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, I, 115). However, in a later communication on the subject (A Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments,"_/Q#, n.s. 8 [1895-18%], 552, 561) he up­ held the manuscript reading. He concluded that it was an error for the name 'Adad al-Dawla, an Abbasid (!) caliph who married an Egyptian (!) princess in A.H. 369 (A.D. 979/80). Neubauer noted that the manuscnpt belonging to the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Pans reads "748 = 970 A.D." (A.M. 4748 actually corresponds to A.D. 987/8). Neubauer went on to state that "indeed the Pans MS of Samban has '$R both times." In fact, the passage in MS AIU Η 130A, f. 27a has T'YY' for the Abbasid caliph and 'SR for the Fatimid caliph, exactly as in the Bodleian manuscript that Neubauer had printed. Neubauer's poor state of health at the time (see ibid., pp. 559 f.) doubtless accounts for these inaccuracies.

Κ

Chapter

One

Egypt She asked whether the Jews of Egypt had a king or prince (nasi) as in Babylon 6 (that is, Baghdad), the cap­ ital of the Abbasid caliph, the Commander of the Faithful (khalifat amir al-mu'minin al-'abbasi), of the family of the Prophet, c(razed be that) m(an of) the (wind). 7 In that place lives Daniel b. Hisday, who is called resh galutha, and who possesses a document of his genealogy going back as far as King David, peace be upon him. The Mus­ lims call him "our lord, the Son of David" (sayyiduna lbn Da'ud). He has extensive dominion over all the Jewish communities by authority of the Commander of the Faithful. Jews and gentiles alike rise before him and greet him. Whoever does not rise before him receives one hundred lashes, for so the caliph (melekh) has ordered. Whenever he goes to have an audience with the caliph, he is accompanied by Muslim and Jewish horsemen who ride in front announcing in Arabic: "Make way for our lord, the Son of David." He himself is mounted on a horse, and wears an embroidered silk robe and a large turban on his head. From this turban is suspended a white scarf with a chain upon it. When he reaches the caliph's court, the royal eunuchs come forth to greet him and run ahead of him until he reaches the caliph's court. A servant of the nasi precedes him carrying a purse of gold coins (zehuvim) which he distributes in front of the nasi in honor of the caliph. When the nasi reaches the caliph, he prostrates himself, then stands up on his feet to show that he is humble, as a slave before the caliph. Then the caliph gestures to his eunuchs to seat the nasi on the chair closest to him on the left side, and solicits his petition When the nasi presents his petition, he again stands up on his feet, blesses the caliph with the proper blessing, and departs. 6 Bodleian MS reads she-bebavel, not she-bauel, as in the printed text The Pans MS (AIU Η 130A, f 27a, 1 15) also has she-bebavel 7 So Berliner successfully deciphered the rare acronym, m'h, that follows Samban's allusion to the prophet Muhammad, Berhner, Quellenschrtflen, pp ιχ-χ (referring to Hosea 9 7)

The Problem of Origins

9

The nasi levies upon the merchants of the land a fixed annual tax, in addition to the gifts that are brought to him from the ends of the earth. This is the custom that they follow in Babylonia. When the queen came to Egypt, she assumed that the same custom obtained in Egypt. However, the caliph (of Egypt) told her that the Jews (in his realm) have neither king nor nasi. Therefore she said: "In my father's kingdom there are many Jews. They have a nasi called alDa'udi—that is, a descendant of David—and my father derives honor from him, and in turn, shows great respect toward him on account of the nasi's royal and prophetic lineage. If, therefore, it pleases the caliph, send a request to bring someone from this family to Egypt." The matter pleased the caliph, and he sent letters with couriers to the city of Baghdad saying: "I have been informed that in the capital of your kingdom there are Jews descended from King David, peace be upon him. Therefore send me one of them, since your daughter desires this." So they sent him from there a wise and learned master So-and-So (mar peloni) from the family of the nasis in the capital. The caliph of Egypt placed him over the land of Egypt. From that time on the nagidate existed generation after generation in Egypt. Following a description of the nagid's prerogatives, Samban concludes his "history" of the office with an account of the controversy that led to its abolition some years after the Ottomon conquest of Egypt. 8 A simplified version of this narrative appears in a responsum of David ibn Abi Zimra (1479-1573), the chief rabbi of Cairo dunng the first half of the sixteenth century, regarding the juridical authority of the nagid. Ibn Abi Zimra omits names and dates, alluding only to "the king of Egypt whom they call the caliph" and, very vaguely, to a time "about the 8 On this portion of Samban's account see Abraham David, "The Termination of the Office ofNagid in Egypt and Biographical Data concerning the Life of Abraham Castro" (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 41 (1971-1972), 325-37

10

Chapter One

beginning of Ishmaelite rule." However, in language very similar to Sambari he relates essentially the same story about the Abbasid princess and her dismay over the absence of a royal Jewish personage, and about the Davidic "so-and-so" brought from Iraq to assuage her disappointment. 9 At least as early as the sixteenth century, then, Egyptian Jewry possessed a tradition that credited the Fatimid dynasty with initiating and establishing the nagidate shortly after its conquest of Egypt in 969. The same tradition incorporated the belief that the nagidate of Cairo, like the exilarchate of Baghdad from which it allegedly had drawn its first incumbent, had originally been a royal dignity. A cursory reading of the Sambari-Ibn Abi Zimra tradition reveals certain difficulties. Only the name of the Abbasid caliph al-TaT (reigned 974-991) seems to have been correctly reproduced. The name of the Fatimid caliph, whatever way it be deciphered, does not correspond with historical reality. Moreover, Sambari's dates are internally inconsistent. Nonetheless, the story, attested by two witnesses separated by a century and a half, provides a plausible explanation of the origins of the most important institution of Egyptian-Jewish self-government. Indeed, that is why so many modern historians were quick to take the Sambari-Ibn Abi Zimra account at face value. It is interesting that Heinrich Graetz, addressing himself to the Ibn Abi Zimra version in a note to the first edition of his History of the Jews (written before Neubauer published the Sambari chronicle), exercised his characteristic critical sense and summarily rejected the historicity of the saga.10 Other 9 David b. Solomon ibn Abi Zimra, She'elot u-teshuvot ha-RaDBaZ (reprint ed., New York, 1967), III, no. 944 (509). Cf also II, no. 622. 10 Heinrich Graetz, Geschuhte der Juden, IX (Leipzig, 1866), Supplementary Note 1, pp. m-iv. In editions published after the appearance of the Sambari chronicle, Graetz did not waver in his disbelief; cf. ibid., 3rd ed., IX (Leipzig, 1891), Supplementary Note 1, pp 493-94 For a rather unconvincing refutation of Graetz, see Salomon Rosanes, Dwret yemei yisrael be-Togarma, 2nd ed., I (Tel Aviv, 1930), 193 n. 38 (originally published in 1907), and Jacob Mann's critique thereof, Mann, II, 379.

The Problem of Origins

11

scholars, however, evinced less skepticism. Abraham Ber­ liner, who discussed the "nagid dignity," as he called it in an article printed just three years (1890) after the appearance of Neubauer's edition, unabashedly paraphrased the story in order to explain how the nagidate had been established in Egypt 1 X Thus, at this early stage, before the first Geniza reve­ lations, the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra tradition received the stamp of approval by the first Jewish historian to devote a scholarly paper solely to the problem of the early history of the nagidic office ENTER THE GENIZA

A few years later (1896), the very same Adolf Neubauer who had edited Samban brought some "Egyptian Fragments," as the Geniza documents were then called, to bear on a discus­ sion of the problem. 1 2 He published the now well-known "Scroll of Zutta," 1 3 a polemical treatise describing the il­ legitimate purchase of the office of nagid by a despotic evil­ doer named Zutta. To this interesting text Neubauer attached a short appendix of nine pages on the "Origin and Growth of the Nagid Dignity " From the point of view of future re­ search, the most consequential portion of this appendix was its five edited Geniza documents: two poems, a letter, a poetic preamble to a marriage contract (ketubba), and a liturgical fragment. These contained valuable new information about various nagids, including two not previously known and hence omitted from Berliner's list They were Judah, a physi­ cian, thought by Neubauer to have functioned in the eleventh century, and Mevorakh b Saadya the physician, whose pe­ riod of activity Neubauer was able to fix at around the begin­ ning of the twelfth century, with the aid of another Geniza 11 Abraham Berliner, "Die Nagid-Wurde," Magazxn fur die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 17 (1890), 50-58, esp pp 56-57 12 Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments," pp 541-61 13 Now Bodl MS Heb e 82 For bibliography, see Shaked, Bibliography, ρ 226

12

Chapter

One

document that he published the following year. 1 4 An appar­ ent reference in the Zufta scroll to a nagid named Mordecai (text: mordekhai ha-zeman, lit, "the Mordecai of Our Time") was soon shown by David Kaufmann to be merely the flowery epithet of Zutta's first victim, the nagid Samuel b. Hananya. The latter was identical with the well-known Egyp­ tian friend of the poet Judah ha-Levi. 15 By demonstrating the relevance of the Cairo Gemza docu­ ments to the nagidate problem at a very early stage of Gemza research, Neubauer's article constituted an important step forward in the reconstruction of the history of this institution. On the other hand, he introduced a new factor from outside the Gemza which, in the long run, proved to be an impedi­ ment to the objective evaluation of the emerging Gemza evi­ dence. He had just published, in the second voiume of his Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles (1895), the manuscript of the "Chronicle of Ahimaas/' (Megillat Ahimaas). This was a panegyric history of an illustrious southern Italian Jewish family, written by one of its descendants, Ahimaas b. Paltiel, in 1054. 16 In the extravagant portrayal of his tenth-century forbear Paltiel b. Shephatiah as a powerful personage in the 14 ULC Add 3335, ed Neubauer, JQR, ο s 9 (1896-1897), 29-36 Hereaf­ ter, this important document is cited by the page number in Neubauer's edi­ tion, which does not number the lines 1 have also checked the manuscript In a postscript on ρ 38, Neubauer cited, in the name of Solomon Schechter, another "Egyptian fragment," dated 1098, mentioning Mevorakh by name Neubauer expressed the hope that this document would soon be published That wish was partially fulfilled in the same volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review, see Solomon Schechter, "The Lewis-Gibson Hebrew Collection," ibid , ρ 116 (Westminister College, Frag Cairens 50) 15 David Kaufmann, "The Egyptian Sutta-Megilla," yQJi, o s 9 (18961897), 170-71, cf idem, "Der angebhche Nagid Mardochai," MGWJ 41 (1897), 503-505 The German article was triggered by Ε Ν Adler's resurrec­ tion of Mordecai Nagid in the same volume of the Monatsschrifi, "Aus einem Briefe Elkan Ν Adler's," ibid , ρ 424 The name of Samuel b Hananya had already been entered in Berliner's list of Nagids, Berliner, "Nagid-Wurde," ρ 51 On Samuel, see David Kaufmann, "Juda Halewi und seine egyptischen Freunde Samuel b Chananja und Ahron Alamam," MGWJ 40 (1896), 417-22 16 Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, II, 111-32

The Problem of Origins

13

entourage of the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz (reigned 953-975) and as a participant in the conquest of Egypt, Ahimaas. employed the epithet "nagid" in three places. 17 This philolog­ ical detail, coupled with Ahimaas's general description of Paltiel's lofty position at the Fatimid court and m the Jewish community, compelled Neubauer to conclude in the appen­ dix to his "Egyptian Fragments" article that Palfiel was the first, anonymous nagid who, according to Samban, had been appointed by the Fatimid cahph at about that time. 1 8 Inde­ pendently, David Kaufmann expressed the same opinion in his long analysis of the Ahimaa$ chronicle that appeared the same year. 19 Notwithstanding the fact that Ahimaas's distinguished an­ cestor lacked two basic qualities of Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra's "so-and-so"—Davidic lineage and Babylonian provenance— the equation of Palpel with the first Egyptian nagid appointed by the Fatimids quickly became part of the Jewish historical consensus. Dissenting voices were heard only from those quarters where Paltiel's identification with the Muslim gen­ eral, Jawhar, the Fatimid conqueror of Egypt, was advo­ cated. 20 In the year following the appearance of Neubauer's article, Elkan N. Adler published a Hebrew Geniza fragment that he imprecisely titled "The Installation of the Egyptian Nagid." Through a mistranslation, Adler made the unnamed author of 17 Ibid , ρ 125, 1 26, ρ 129, 1 9, ρ 131, 1 1, cf ρ 130, 1 4 In the edition of Benjamin Klar (1944, reprint ed , Jerusalem, 1974), ρ 31, 1 1, ρ 35, 1 22, ρ 38,1 19 18 Neubauer used cautious language "This seems to agree with Samban's Chronicle" (Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments," ρ 552) 19 David Kaufmann, "Die Chromk des Achimaaz von O n a , " MCWJ 40 (1896), 534-35 and 535 η 1 Cf also idem, "Beitrage zur Geschichte Agyptens aus judischen Quellen," ZDMG 51 (1897), 440 η 1 20 Alexander Marx, "Studies in Gaonic History and Literature,"_/Qi?, η s 1 (1910-1911), 78-85 ("Paltiel-Jauhar"), following Μ J de Goeje, "PaltielDjauhar," ZDMG 52 (1898), 75-80 More recent discussion of the problem Bernard Lewis, "Paltiel A Note," BSOAS 30 (1967), 177-81, critique by Goitein in Med Soc , 11, 575 η 9

14

Chapter

One

the narrative refer to "my father the nagid," identified the lat­ ter with Paltiel, and, in turn, identified Samuel, the son of Ahimaas's celebrated forbear, as the direct dynastic successor to the office founded by Paltiel. 21 Six years later, the Jewish Encyclopedia (1903) s.v "Egypt" listed Paltiel and his son Samuel as nagids in the tenth century, though, to be sure, the author of the section on the Islamic period, Richard Gottheil, registered his caution on the matter by placing question marks after their names. At the same time, Gottheil confessed that "the origin of the nagidship in Egypt is obscure," citing difficulties in the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra account as evidence. 22 In his encyclopedia article, Gottheil commented on the fact (already noted by Graetz in connection with Maimorudes) 23 that Arabic writers call the nagid "ra'is al-yahud" ("Head of the Jews"). Gottheil referred specifically to the epistolary handbook Al-ta'rif bi Ί-mustalah al-sharif by the fourteenthcentury qadi and Mamluk secretary Ibn Fadl Allah al-'Uman (Shihab al-Din) (d. 1349). Gottheil followed up this brief no­ tation in 1907 by publishing a large collection of Mamluk sources on the ra'is al-yahud and on other matters relating to the Jews. He had culled these primarily from the voluminous bureaucratic handbook Subh al-a'sha (completed 1412) of alQalqashandi (d. 1417), who, as Gottheil rightly noted, con­ sidered the ra'is al-yahud the Jewish counterpart of the Coptic patriarch. The excerpts formed an appendix to Gottheil's 21

Ε Ν Adler, " T h e Installation of the Egyptian Nagid," JQR, o s 9 (1896-1897), 717-20 Comments and criticism by David Kaufmann, "The Egyptian Nagid," ibid , 10 (1897-1898), 162-64 For other bibliography see Shaked, Bibliography, ρ 183 (ΕΝΑ *2) The shelf-mark of the document is ΕΝΑ 2697, fT 26-27, cf Ε Ν Adler, Catalogue of Hebrew Manuscripts in the Collection o/Elkan Nathan Adler (Cambridge, 1921), ρ 129 "Jewish Encyclopedia, s v "Egypt," pp 67-69 On the other hand, Gottheil freely cited Ahimaa$'s exaggerated reference to PalpePs vast scope of author­ ity as evidence that the nagid's power extended "even to the Mediterranean littoral on the west", ibid , ρ 68, cf Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chroni­ cles, II, 130 23 Graetz, Geschichte, 3rd ed , VI (Leipzig, 1894), 302 and η 2 there

The Problem of Origins

IS

analysis of "An Eleventh-Century Document Concerning a Cairo Synagogue" dated 1038, which, though not from the Geniza, turned out to be relevant to the history of the office of nagid It mentioned a certain Abu Ί-Imran Musa b Ya'qub b. Ishaq al-Isra'ili, court physician and ra'is 'ala ta'ifat al-yahud ("Head of the Jewish Community"). 2 4 Indeed, it was this ref­ erence that prompted Gottheil to publish the passages from al-Qalqashandi in this context 2 S Though almost all of them dated from the later medieval history of Egypt under the Mamluks, when the nagidate was a long-established institu­ tion, they formed a valuable complement to the ever-growing corpus of Geniza fragments belonging primarily to the Fatimid-Ayyubid era. The first systematic exploitation of Geniza material for his­ torical purposes, Jacob Mann's The Jews in Egypt and in Pales­ tine under the Fatimid Caliphs (1920-1922), dealt extensively with the origins and early history of the nagidate in the Fatimid empire. 2 6 Because of their central role in Jewish life, the nagids are mentioned with great frequency in the Geniza, and Mann was able to amass a considerable body of raw ma­ terial on their history. In the light of the new documentary evidence, Mann was forced to reject one assumption regard­ ing the origins of the office. In the hundreds of Geniza frag­ ments he had surveyed, he found no reference to a nagid 24 Richard J Η Gottheil, "An Eleventh-Century Document Concerning a Cairo Synagogue, " J Q R , o s 19(1906-1907),467-539 Gottheil had called at­ tention to the document, and had entered Musa's name in the list of nagids, in the above-mentioned Jewish Encyclopedia article 25 Ibid , pp 527-39 (Appendix III), cf pp 498-501 (translation of a few of the passages) On Qalqashandfs sections on non-Muslim dignitaries, see now, C Ε Bosworth, "Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries in Mamluk Egypt and Syria Qalqashandi's Information on Their Hierarchy, Titulature, and Appointment," IJMES 3 (1972), 59-74, 199-216, which includes translation and analysis of some of the passages published by Gottheil 26 Mann, I, 251-57 and passim For an appreciation of Mann's book, see S D Goitem's "Preface and Reader's Guide" to the reprint edition (New York, 1970) See also Gerson D Cohen, "The Reconstruction of Gaonic His­ tory," introduction to reprint edition of Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature by Jacob Mann (New York, 1972)

16

Chapter One

claiming Davidic descent. Consequently, he discarded the element of the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra tradition concerning the Davidic "so-and-so" brought from Iraq at the behest of the Abbasid princess. Mann had to concede, therefore, that "the origin of this office is still obscure." Similarly, he had to confess astonishment at the Geniza's silence regarding the "nagid" Paltiel. 27 Nonetheless, Mann went on to assert what was to become the characteristic formulation of the accepted hypothesis regarding the rise of the institution. According to him, the Fatimids "probably" created the nagidate shortly after their conquest of Egypt, in a political move to divest the Jews of dependence upon the Baghdad exilarch, who was ap­ pointed by the Fatimids' rivals, the Abbasids. Mann's "most likely" candidate for the first nagid was, of course, Paltiel b Shephatiah Mann's efforts at reconciling new Geniza findings with the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra and Megillat Ahimaas traditions yielded mixed results Since the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra story posited an uninterrupted succession of nagids, Mann at­ tempted to fill in the gap between Paltiel and the brothers Judah and Mevorakh b. Saadya with the aid of the Geniza. These two notables were identical with the nagids Judah and Mevorakh, already uncovered by Mann's predecessors But now Mann was able to locate them in time more precisely (ca. 1065 to ca 1110), with the assistance of dated documents from the Geniza. Mann bridged the century between Paltiel and the sons of Saadya with a Samuel Nagid and his son Yehoseph (Joseph) Nagid, who were mentioned together in a letter addressed to the latter 2 8 Since Paltiel in the Ahimaas chronicle had a son Samuel, the reconstruction seemed plau­ sible. Subsequently, however, Mann discovered that this 27 " it is remarkable that so far nothing has been found in the Geniza MSS which could shed light on the important and romantic personality of Paltiel" (Mann, I, 16) 28 Bodl MS Heb a 3 (Cat 2873), f 43, ed Mann, II, 221-22, analysis and identification, ibid , I, 184, cf also Mann, General Index, s ν both names (the reference s ν Yehoseph b Samuel to pp 221-22 should read II, 221-22)

The Problem of Origins

/7

Samuel and this Joseph were none other than the celebrated Jewish vizier of Granada and his son. 2 9 The decade-long inter­ regnum in the Egyptian nagidate from ca. 1082 to 1094, dur­ ing which David b. Daniel of the exilarchal family appeared as supreme Jewish authority in Egypt in place of Mevorakh b. Saadya, posed no real problem for Mann, since he had at his disposal a literary historical source from the Geniza—the fa­ mous "Megillat Evyatar"—which condemned David for usurping legitimate authority. 3 0 Lacking a similar framework for the whole history of the nagidate, however, Mann glossed over other startling gaps in the chronological sequence of the nagids. For instance, he could find no mention in the Geniza of a nagid between ca. 1126 and ca. 1141, that is, between the latest dated document he could locate bearing a reference to Moses Nagid, the son and successor of Mevorakh b. Saadya, 31 and the earliest allusion to Samuel Nagid b. Hananya. 3 2 Mann saw no significance in the fact that the same hiatus coincided almost exactly with the period during which the Palestinian gaon Mashah ha-Kohen b. Solomon issued legal documents in Egypt in his own name. 3 3 Instead, Mann 29 Jacob Mann, "A Second Supplement to 'The Jews in Egypt and in Pales­ tine under the Fatimid Caliphs,' " HUCA 3 (1926), 285-88 (included in re­ print of Mann, II, 459-62) Mann had considered and rejected this possibility in the earlier work, Mann, I, 184 η 2 so Megillat Evyatar (TS 10 Κ 7, ff 1-5) had been edited by Solomon Schechter, Saadyana (Cambridge, 1903), pp 80-104 Cf Mann, I, 187-90, conceding, however, that the Scroll "naturally represents one side of the pic­ ture " Cf also Mann, Texts, I, 255 Μ Gil recently published a new edition of the manuscript, with commentary (see below, Chapter Three η 1 and Chap­ ter Five η 1) Megillat Evyatar is discussed at length in Chapter Five, below 31 TS 8 J 32, f 1 [not 33, f 1 ], a ketubba fragment dated 1437 Sel (= 1125/6), cited in Mann, I, 229 η 1 This is still the latest dated reference to Moses Nagid known to me Another fragment of this document is found in Bodl MS Heb b 13 (Cat 2834, no 29), f 48 32 Bodl MS Heb c 28 (Cat 2876), f 16, e d Mann, II, 279-80, a letter dated Marheshvan (October/November), 1141, mentioning the arrival of a letter from "the nagid," identified by Mann as Samuel, ibid , I, 229 33 On Ma$hah, see Mann, II, General Index, s ν , and esp II, 274-77, 1, 196-97, 218 (correct dates to 1127-1138), 220-24 (enter same correction) Cf

18

Chapter

One

concluded that Moses must have died about 1140 and that Samuel b. Hananya must have been his immediate succes­ sor. 3 4 Further, Mann discovered that the Geniza was quite hazy about the nagidic administrations between Samuel b. Hananya and Abraham Maimonides (d. 1237). This was the period when the "Egyptian gaonate," as Mann dubbed it, boasted a series of authority-wielding representatives from the family of the gaon Sar Shalom ha-Levi. 3S And it was dur­ ing this half century interval, too, that Maimonides held sway over Jewish life in Egypt for a time, even though, as Mann insisted on the basis of the Geniza's silence, he never held the title of nagid. 3 6 Mann recognized that the picture of Jewish self-govern­ ment in Egypt emerging from the Geniza was complex, especially for the Fatimid and early Ayyubid periods Never­ theless, he failed to account for these comlexities in a satisfac­ tory manner. 3 7 He was far more comfortable with the period beginning with Abraham Maimonides, when, as the Geniza confirmed, the title of nagid once again reverted to one family for a number of generations. 38 Accordingly, in subsequent also Mann, Texts, I, 255-56 ("The Gaonate at Fustat in the 12th Century") Many legal documents issued under the authority of Mashah ha-Kohen were edited by Gershon Weiss, "Legal Documents Written by the Court Clerk Halfon ben Manasse (Dated 1100-1138) A Study in the Diplomatics of the Cairo Geniza" ( P h D dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1970) 34 Mann, I, 255, cf ρ 229 35 See Mann, II, General Index, s ν Moses b Netaneel Hallevi, Netaneel Hallevi Gaon, Sar Shalom Hallevi Gaon, and esp II, 292-95, I, 233-38 Cf also Mann, Texts, I, 256-62 36 Mann, I, 242 η 2, noting that the title "rayyis" given to him was not reserved for nagids, cf ibid , ρ 262 Cf also Mann, Texts, I, 416 37 "It is evident that there existed a division of authority in the community " (Mann, I, 233) "We find that though the Nagid was the chief political representative of the Egyptian Jewry, and as such is mentioned in the docu­ ments, other prominent scholars and readers were also granted the privilege of having their names inserted in the deeds issued by the courts over which they had authority" (ibid , ρ 218) "It is therefore evident that some of the prerogatives of the Nagid were also granted to other communal leaders of eminence, either of scholastic or political standing " (ibid , ρ 256) 38 Ibid , I, 255, cf ρ 248 and II, 326-31

The Problem of Origins

19

publications discussing the nagidate, he abandoned the early history of the office and concentrated his attention on the pe­ riod beginning with the dynasty of Maimonidean nagids. 3 9 This, of course, created the impression that little more could be added to what he had already written about the formative stages of the institution. Characteristically, too, Mann pro­ vided relatively little new insight into the actual administra­ tion of the office of head of the Jews during the period of its formation. Instead, in describing the nagid's functions he con­ tented himself with details contained in the late, Mamluk, Arabic sources assembled by Gottheil, practically quoting the latter's resume verbatim. 4 0 Mann's reluctance to abandon the historical conclusions dictated by the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra and Megillat Ahimaas traditions and to seek a new explanation for the origins of the office of head of the Jews is understandable in the light of methodological prejudices that dominated Jewish historical research during his time. Jewish historians such as Jacob Mann had long been almost entirely dependent upon literary materials. They were naturally reluctant to discard accepted literary testimony solely on the basis of haphazard informa­ tion culled from Geniza fragments. Henry Maker, for in­ stance, in his biography of Saadya Gaon (1921), hesitated to revise the gaon's birthdate as derived from the chronicle of Abraham lbn Daud (ca. 1160), when confronted with new and contradictory firsthand Geniza evidence contained in a copy of a document written only eleven years after Saadya's death, and by his own sons. 4 1 Similarly, Jacob Mann himself 39 Mann, "Second Supplement," pp 303-308 (in reprint of Mann, II, 47782), idem, Texts, I, 416-34 40 Mann, I, 255-56, cf Gottheil, "Eleventh-Century Document," pp 500501 41 Henry Malter, Saadiah Gaon His Life and Works (1921, reprint ed , Phila­ delphia, 1969), pp 421-26, The new date was based on a statement in the col­ ophon of "A Fihnst of Sa'adya's Works," edited and commented upon by none other than Jacob Mann himself, JQR, η s 11(1920-1921),423-28 Mal­ ter accepted other modifications dictated by Geniza disclosures with less re­ straint, Malter, Saadiah Gaon, pp 426-27

20

Chapter

One

went to absurd extremes trying to rationalize a Geniza letter by R. Hushiel of Qayrawan (d. ca. 1025) that controverted bi­ ographical details contained in the treasured "Story of the Four Captives" in the same late book by Ibn Daud. 4 2 Literary texts like the Ibn Daud, Ahimaas, and Samban chronicles place histoncal developments within narrative frameworks that appeal to the modern Jewish historian's intellectual tastes. Documents, and especially the fragmentary kind found in the Geniza, provide isolated bits of raw material that need a framework to be intelligible. Therefore, Jacob Mann tried to make the documentary data on the nagids fit into the frame­ work attested to by two literary witnesses: Ahimaas and Samban. 4 3 Mann's approach and theory met with the approval of J. L. Fishman, who even attempted to outdo Mann in reconciling discrepancies between the literary and documentary sources. In 1926-1927, Fishman published a long, serialized mono­ graph on the nagidate in the columns of his Hebrew weekly, Ha-Tor.44 His purpose was to raise the "nagidic period"—a term he coined to parallel the more famous gaonic period—to its rightful place in Jewish history, and to elevate the nagidate to a level commensurate with the royal origins that it al­ legedly shared with the two classical Davidic offices: the Palestinian patriarchate and the Babylonian exilarchate. 45 Though not devoid of original, or otherwise valuable, obser­ vations, 4 6 Fishman's essay used questionable means to defend 42 Jacob Mann, "The Responsa of the Babylonian Geonim as a Source of Jewish History," JQR, η s 9 (1918-1919), 160-71 43 Mann was encouraged to accept the Paltiel story at face value because he felt that elsewhere the Ahimaas chronicle had proved its general reliability— in spite of its "grotesque mixture of legends, mysticism, and supersti­ tion"—with regard to "the historicity of the persons and institutions men­ tioned", Mann, I, 55-57 44 J L Fishman, "The Nagidate" (in Hebrew), Ha-Tor 7 (1926-1927), no 6, pp 6-8, no 7, pp 8-10, no 8, pp 5-8, nos 10-11, pp 10-11, no 12, pp 7-9, no 13, pp 7-9, no 14, pp 8-10, no 15, pp 7-9, no 16, pp 7-9, no 17, PP 7-8 45 Ibid , no 6, ρ 6 46 Fishman emphasized the need to differentiate between the long-lived

The Problem of Origins

21

the accuracy of the literary sources. For instance, in spite of Mann's justifiable skepticism about the claim of Davidic ori­ gins for the nagidate espoused by Samban, Fishman mar­ shaled dubious new evidence in support of this thesis: Biblical passages using the word nagid in a royal context, 4 7 and royal imagery of Samuel Nagid b. Hananya in a poem by Judah ha-Levi. 48 He cemented the connection between Ahimaas and Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra by philologically conjuring up the idea that the anonymous "so-and-so" (peloni) of the latter was actually a scribal corruption of the name "Paltiel." 4 9 As "new" evidence of Paltiel's nagidic Stature he cited a passage from Sefer Hastdim that had already been published, trans­ lated, and analyzed by Alexander Marx some years earlier with quite opposite results. 5 0 He repeated the claim, advanced by Jacob Mann and by Elkan Adler before him, that Paltiel had been succeeded as nagid by his son, Samuel, in this con­ nection he reprinted Adler's "Installation" document and re­ hashed its editor's groundless assertion that Samuel b Paltiel was the author s l Furthermore, Fishman persisted in main­ taining, along with Mann's original theory, that the nagidic dynasty founded by Paltiel continued through his alleged grandson, Yehoseph, apparently unaware that Mann had just 52 retracted that contention in print. Fishman could hardly have been expected to contribute Egyptian nagidate and the ephemeral appearance of nagids elsewhere, refer­ ring to Spain, ibid , no 8, pp 7-8 He attempted to interpret the Zutta affair in the light of external political circumstances surrounding the fall of the Fatimid caliphate, ibid , no 14, pp 8-10 47 Ibid , no 6, pp 6-7 48 Ibid , no 13, ρ 7 η 1 49 Ibid , no 6, ρ 8 50 Ibid , no 7, pp 9-10, cf Marx, "Studies in Gaomc History," pp 78-85, citing the passage in support of the theory that Paltiel was the Muslim gen­ eral, Jawhar, and, hence, not a nagid, cf above, η 20 51 Fishman, "Nagidate," no 8, pp 5-7 David Kaufmann had already (in 1898) indicated the error that had led Adler to this erroneous assumption, Kaufmann, "The Egyptian Nagid," ρ 163 " Fishman, "Nagidate," no 8, ρ 7 Mann's revision appeared in the He­ brew Union College Annual of 1926, cf above, η 29

??

Chapter One

new insight into the problem or to go beyond the extant liter­ ary sources There was still no alternative framework into which to fit the mass of confusing data uncovered by Mann and others. Even Simha Assaf, in his fresh survey (1935) of Jewish life in Egypt through the twelfth century—based, again, largely on the documents edited by Mann—did little more than reiterate Mann's thesis about the nagidate. 5 3 THE HYPOTHESIS UNDER FIRE

The first effective challenge to the accepted hypothesis came from David Neustadt (now Ayalon) in 1939. 54 Ayalon vigor­ ously attacked the credibility of the historical details in both Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra and Ahimaas, using powerful liter­ ary, historical, and logical arguments. In doing so, he cast into serious doubt the dual assumption that the Fatimids had created the office and that Paltiel had been their first ap­ pointee. First, Ayalon ingeniously dissected the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra tradition and proved through literary analysis that many of its motifs came from Muslim and Jewish sources that had nothing at all to do with the appointment of an Egyptian nagid s s He showed that even Sambari himself had been hard pressed to find one example of a nagid with Davidic pedi­ gree. 5 6 Thus, Ayalon dealt a crippling blow to the legend, al­ ready seriously questioned by Mann, about the Abbasid princess and the importation of the first Davidic nagid from Baghdad. Second, he proved that the use of the title "nagid" 53

Simha Assaf, "The Jews of Egypt during the Time of Maimomdes" (in Hebrew), in Beoholei Ya'akov (Jerusalem, 1943), pp 87-91 (article reprinted from Moznayim 3 [1934-1935], 414-32) Assaf made some original contribu­ tions of his own to the later history of the nagidate "Contribution to the Lives of R Jonathan Nagid and R Isaac Nagid" (in Hebrew), Zwn 2 (19361937), 121-24, " N e w Documents Regarding the Last Negidim in Egypt" (in Hebrew), ibid , 6 (1940-1941), 113-18 54 "Some Problems Concerning the 'Negidut' in Egypt during the Middle Ages" (in Hebrew), Zwn 4 (1938-1939), 126-49 55 56 Ibid , pp 131-34 Ibid , ρ 130

The Problem of Origins

2?

by the chronicler, Ahimaas, constituted inconclusive evidence of Palfiel's elevation to that office, since the word is applied in the Geniza even to Muslim officials. Rather, Ayalon contended, Palpel was simply a low-ranking Fatimid government official, whose importance had been exaggerated by his descendants. With Paltiel removed from the picture, the whole concept of a nagidic dynasty among his descendants also had to be scrapped.57 In sum, Ayalon insisted, there was no hard evidence that the Fatimids, at the time of their conquest of Egypt, had created the office, or that the courtier, Palfiel, had ever held such a lofty position. Ayalon also disputed the logic ofJacob Mann's assumption that the Fatimids would have wanted to initiate a local central Jewish authority as part of their own political break with Baghdad. Pointing to the continued involvement of Babylonian gaons and exllarchs in Egyptian Jewish affairs long after the Fatimid conquest, Ayalon argued that the Fatimids evinced little concern about the internal political orientation of their Jewish subjects S8 THE HYPOTHESIS DEFENDED

Not unexpectedly, Jewish historians found Ayalon's critique insufficient cause to abandon the well-entrenched theory. To a large extent, this was because Ayalon had offered only negative proofs against the hypothesis without suggesting a positive or constructive alternative. He had skillfully dismantled the literary superstructure that a generation of scholars had credited as being an authoritative source on the origins and early history of the nagidate, but had not offered a better explanation to take its place. He did not, for instance, try to construct a new framework based on an objective examination of the available Geniza evidence. 59 Finally, Ayalon's assessment of Fatimid pohcy toward the Jews was not destined to find 58 " I b i d . p p 135-43 Ibid , pp 143-48 Ayalon speculated only that the office might have originated even prior to the Fatimid conquest, "Some Problems," pp 147-48 59

24

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favor at a time w h e n Jewish historians were stressing the influence o f general political history on internal Jewish developments. Eli Strauss ( n o w Ashtor) provides a case in point. In his history o f the J e w s in Mamluk E g y p t and Syria, Ashtor conceded the validity o f Ayalon's expose o f the fanciful elements in the Sambari-Ibn Abi Zimra tradition. Nevertheless, he insisted that the legend preserved a "kernel o f truth," namely, that the Fatimids had installed the first nagid—probably Palfiel—as a counterpoise to the Babylonian exilarchate, in accordance with their anti-Abbasid foreign p o l i c y . 6 0 In m a k ing this assertion, Ashtor remained faithful to his firm belief that the history o f the J e w s in the Middle East must be understood as an integral part o f general medieval Middle Eastern history. 6 1 R e v i e w i n g for background purposes the pre-Mamluk history o f the nagidate, for which the Geniza is the largest reservoir o f information, Ashtor summarized, eclectically, the findings o f his predecessors. 6 2 O n the other hand, for the Mamluk period, the main focus o f his book, he made constructive use o f late Jewish authors—including, for instance, Ibn Abi Zimra—and, especially, the Mamluk Arabic sources, in order to describe the structure, functions, and prerogatives 60 Strauss (Ashtor), Toledot ha-yehudim be-Misrayim we-Suria tahat shilton ha-Mamlukim, I (1944), 40; II (1951), 239. 61 Enunciated, for instance, in his "Prolegomena to the Medieval History of Oriental J e w r y , " J Q R , n.s. 50 (1959-1960), 55-68, 147-66; cf. pp. 156-57 (on the Nagidate). This philosophy also underlies his t w o major books about the Jews under Islam: the one on the M a m l u k period cited here, and the one on the Jews in Muslim Spain, Qorot ha-yehudim hi-Sefarad ha-muslemit (Jerusalem, 1960-1966). 62 From Jacob Mann, the chronological succession of early nagids: Palfiel, Samuel b. Pal{iel, Joseph (Yehoseph) b. Samuel b. Pal(iel (already deleted by Mann; cf. above, n. 29), Judah b. Saadya (ca. 1065-1079), Mevorakh b. Saadya (1089-1110), Moses b. Mevorakh (1110-1140); Toledot, I, 41. From J. L. Fishman, the claim that Samuel b. Hananya was of Davidic descent; ibid., I, 41; II, 240 (citing Fishman in n. 12). Adler's "Installation" document cited as evidence of dynastic succession in the office f r o m father to son: ibid., II, 24243; and 243 n. 31.

The Problem of Origins

25

of the office. He stressed the fact that the late, Muslim descriptions of the Jewish and Christian community heads reflect a basic uniformity in Mamluk policy toward dhimmi autonomy. 63 Methodologically, this suggested that the nagidate ought to be compared with the Coptic patriarchate of Alexandria for the earlier period, as well. 64 Like Ashtor, Salo Baron adhered to the prevalent hypothesis about the origins of the nagidate in his Social and Religious History of the Jews, while concurring with the results of Ayalon's well-spent efforts at literary criticism.65 Like Ashtor, too, and in keeping with his own philosophy about the impingement of external forces upon Jewish history, he rejected Ayalon's assumptions about Fatimid apathy toward Jewish connections with Baghdad. 66 However, Baron was more prudent than Ashtor on the knotty question of Palriel. In sympathy with Ayalon's caveat about the Ahimaas references, Baron considered it "very doubtful" that Palriel himself had borne the tide "nagid" or that he had founded "a permanent office of any kind." At the time of the conquest of Egypt the Fatimids simply "allowed" him to become "the main representative of Egyptian Jewry" since they "welcomed such independent Jewish leaders" in their realm. At best, Paltiel "may have indirectly laid the foundations for the Egyptian institution of nagid, as it gradually emerged in the eleventh century." 67 This formulation of the issue constituted 63

Ibid., II, 237-50. Such an inquiry is undertaken below, in Chapter Two 65 Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed , V (1957), 38-43, 308-11 (notes); cf Baron's earlier discussion in The Jewish Community (Philadelphia, 1942), I, 187-91, III, 43-44 (notes), for instance: "D. Neustadt. . . has subjected the sources concerning the rise of that institution [the nagidate] to renewed close scrutiny and shown the serious contradictions inherent in the accepted interpretation. Thus far his arguments are purely negative. Their validity will be tested only by his forthcoming attempts at positive reconstruction which will show whether a new theory might solve more difficulties than does the regnant hypothesis" (ibid., Ill, 44 n. 30) 66 Baron, Social and Religious History, V, 308-309 n. 45. 67 Ibid., pp. 40-41. 64

26

Chapter

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the first constructive effort to square the accepted theory with the Geniza data. In the face of the compelling Gemza evi­ dence, Baron conceded that "only a century after the Fatimid conquest there appears something like a dynasty of neg^tm" in the family of Mevorakh b. Saadya. 68 Furthermore, Baron confessed that during the centuries coinciding with the Fatimid-Ayyubid reigns, the nagidate had been anything but firmly established. 69 This implied that the whole formative era of the institution needed reexamination. Two subsequent statements on the problem, however, re­ verted to the original hypothesis with little sensitivity to the kinds of questions raised by Baron. One was Η. Z. Hirschberg's article on "The Salars and Negidim of Qayrawan" (1959). Hirschberg reaffirmed the hypothesis that Paltiel b. Shephatiah had been the first Egyptian nagid, citing details in Ahimaas's portrayal that realistically mirrored North African geography as well as Fatimid administrative practice. 70 The second vote of confidence came from Ben-Zion Dinur, in his multivolume anthology of primary sources on medieval Jewish history, Yisrael ba-gola.71 In selecting sources to illus­ trate the origins and early history of the nagidate, he gave precedence to the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra saga and credited it with preserving the proverbial "historical kernel." 7 2 He cited Ahimaas passages as evidence of the priority of Palfiel and his son, Samuel, in the office.73 He even quoted the abovementioned letter to the Nagid Yehoseph b. Samuel, dubious evidence at best, to show that Paltiel's alleged grandson had also been nagid. 7 4 Moreover, Dinur excerpted Adler's "Instal68

Ibid , ρ 41, but giving Mann's chronology ca 1065-1140 Ibid , ρ 43 70 Η Ζ Hirschberg, "The Salars and Negidim of Qayrawan" (in Hebrew), Zwn 23-24 (1958-1959), 166-67 71 Dinur, Yisrael ba-gola, 2nd ed. rev , I, part 3 (Tel Aviv, 1961), pp 12-19, cf pp 3-4, and 93-95 (notes) 72 Ibid , ρ 12 (nos 1-2), cf ρ 93 η 5 73 Ibid , pp 14-15 (no 7), cf ρ 94 η 12 Cf also ibid , I, part 1 (Tel Aviv, [1958]), ρ 87 (no 14) and ρ 109 η 37 74 Ibid , I, part 3, 15 (nos 8-9), cf ρ 94 η 13 69

The Problem of Origins

27

lation" document and, through questionable inference, made it testify to a link between the assumed nagidic dynasty of the family of Pal^iel and the documented nagidic family of Mevorakh b. Saadya. 7S In short, at the beginning of the 1960s the nagidate was still being represented in terms of the framework suggested by the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra and Ahimaas traditions, and almost no effort was being expended to deal seriously with the im­ portant questions raised by Ayalon and, in the latter's wake, by Baron. A new approach was clearly needed, but this could only be undertaken on the basis of an intensive study of the most obvious reservoir of new primary data: the Cairo Gemza documents A N E W FRAMEWORK. THE REVISIONIST HYPOTHESIS OF S. D. GOITEIN

In 1962, S. D. Goitein published the first of several articles, based on his thorough investigation of the documentary por­ tion of the Gemza, dealing in whole or in part with the rise and early history of the nagidate. His main paper on the sub­ ject bore the appropriately revisionist heading, "The Title and Office of the Nagid: A Re-examination." 7 6 In the second vol75

Ibid, pp 13-14 (nos 5-6), cf ρ 94 η 11 JQR, n s 53 (1962), 93-119 See also " N e w Sources Concerning the Nagids of Qayrawan and R Nissim" (in Hebrew), Zwn 27 (1962), 11-23, ad­ dendum, ibid , ρ 165 ("Who Was the First Nagid'"), "The Qayrawan United Appeal for the Babylonian Yeshivoth and the Emergence of the Nagid Abraham ben 'Ati' " (in Hebrew), ibid, pp 156-65 In subsequent publications, Goitein added some refinements, for instance, when editing "Three Letters from Qayrawan Addressed to Joseph ben 'Awkal" (in He­ brew), Tarbiz 34 (1964-1965), 162-82, esp pp 164-69 and 174-82 Later, his essay devoted to "The Nagids of Yemen" (in Hebrew), mBo'i Teman Studies and Documents Concerning the Culture of the Yemenite Jews, edited by Jehuda Ratzaby (Tel Aviv, 1967), pp 15-25, incorporated a full, updated summary of his thesis Important observations were also made in his article entitled "The Head of the Palestinian Academy as Head of the Jews in the Fatimid Empire Arabic Documents on the Palestinian Gaonate" (in Hebrew), Eretz-lsrael 10 (1971), 100-13 76

Chapter

28

One

ume of A Mediterranean Society (1971), devoted to the com­ munity of the Gemza period, Goitein incorporated an en­ larged and reworked version of that article, encompassing an updated formulation of his conclusions and point of view. 7 7 Taken together, his various offerings amounted to a frontal attack upon the theory of the origins of the institution that had dominated two generations of historical scholarship. According to Goitein, the office of head of the Jews, known generally as that of the nagid, arose as an internal Jewish de­ velopment and owed nothing to the impetus of Muslim rul­ ers. This thesis rests on several considerations. First, in Egypt, where the nagidate was created by the Fatimids in the tenth century, according to the prevalent view, the title of nagid does not appear in the Geniza papers until about 1065; moreover, it does not come into continuous use as the desig­ nation for the head of Egyptian Jewry until the thirteenth cen­ tury. 7 8 Second, during the first two-thirds of the eleventh century and especially during the years ca. 1025-ca. 1065, a period "particularly rich in documents and letters dealing with public life," many Fustat leaders appear in the Geniza, but none in an official capacity as chief central authority over the Jews in the Fatimid realm. 7 9 Third, no known Muslim source supports the assumption that the Fatimids invented such an institution in Egypt in order to divest their Jewish subjects of loyalty to Baghdad. 8 0 Quite to the contrary, Goitein showed that prior to the emergence of the first Egyptian nagid in the 1960s, the Fatimid government recognized the head (gaon) of the yeshiva of Jerusalem as arbiter of internal Jewish affairs in the empire 8 1 The gaon's area of competence, defined by Fatimid decree in accordance with specifications spelled out in Jewish 77

Med Soc , II, 23-40 Ibid , ρ 23, cf Goitein, "Title and Office," pp 93-94 79 Med Soc , II, 29-30, cf Goitein, "Title and Office," ρ 101 m Med Soc , II, 27-28, cf Goitein, "Title and Office," pp 98-99 81 Med Soc , II, 29-30, restated with accompanying supportive documen­ tary evidence—a petition to the Fatimid government (eleventh century), out­ lining the prerogatives and duties of the Palestinian gaon (Dropsie 354v )—in 78

The Problem of Origins

29

petitions, comprised the following prerogatives: (a) jurisdic­ tion over the Rabbanite community alone; (b) supreme reli­ gious authority, including the privilege of expounding reli­ gious law in public lectures; (c) supervision of all matters of marriage and divorce; (d) guardianship over the religious and moral conduct of his Jewish subjects, including their behavior toward Muslims; (e) imposition and removal of the ban (ex­ communication) (f) appointment and dismissal of preachers, cantors, and religious slaughterers; (g) definition of the com­ petence of judges and supervision of them as well as of the trustees of the rabbinical courts; (h) entitlement as ra's almathiba, "Head of the Yeshiva," with some powers delegated to his son, (1) exaction of the obedience of the Rabbanite community toward his legal decisions and administrative dis­ positions; (j) delegation of his authority locally or territorially to any person of his choosing. In the final third of the eleventh century, however, the Palestinian yeshiva went into decline as a result of internal political conflict and the Seljuk conquest of Palestine (1071). At that time, there happened to be in Egypt a distinguished family headed by the court physicians Judah and Mevorakh b. Saadya, who became the first Egyptian-Jewish notables to be accorded the title of nagid. Mevorakh b. Saadya, of whom sources expressly state that he was appointed by the Fatimid authorities, "is to be regarded as the initiator of the office of Head of the Jews in its double function as representative of the Jewish community before the Fatimid government and as highest legal and religious authority for the Jews them­ selves." 8 2 The most characteristic sign of this change in Jewish public life is that during the last third of the eleventh "The Head of the Academy of Palestine," pp 100-106, cf Med Soc , II, 16-17 See also S D Goitein, " N e w Sources on the Palestinian Gaonate," in Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume, edited by Saul Lieberman in association with Arthur Hyman (Jerusalem, 1974), English section, I, 523-25 82 Med Soc , II, 30-31, cf Goitein, "Title and Office," pp 101-102 See also idem, "The Head of the Academy of Palestine," pp 100-101, idem, "Nagids of Yemen," ρ 18 (states explicitly that the appointment as ra'is came from the government)

30

Chapter

One

century, Jewish judges and other communal officers appear in the Geniza as appointees, not of the Jerusalem gaon, but of the Egyptian head of the Jews or of his chief judges with his ap­ proval. 8 3 Critical in Goitein's theory was his conclusion that the problem of the origins of the office of head of the Jews in Fatimid Egypt must be separated methodologically from the question of the origins of the title of nagid. The title— appearing in the eleventh century in Tunisia, Spain, and Egypt, and sporadically in the twelfth century in Yemen 8 4 and Syria—originated as part of what Goitein calls the ecumenical-diocesan structure of the gaonate. The gaons strove to achieve worldwide authority over Jewry through the central appointment of judges and other local leaders, through the generous dispensation of honorific and academic titles to local alumni and contributors, and through the regu­ lar dissemination of responsa (legal opinions) Deference to­ ward gaonic religious leadership was substantiated by a regu­ lar (though all too often insufficient) flow of donations in support of the gaonic establishment. 85 "Nagid" was simply one—though, to be sure, one of the loftiest—of the Hebrew epithets bestowed by the gaons upon highly regarded Jewish notables in recognition of their local stature and in return for their loyalty to the yeshiva. The first known nagid, the Tuni­ sian court physician and communal leader, Abraham (Abu Ishaq Ibrahim) b. 'Ata', received the title, in the form of negid ha-gola ("Prince of the Diaspora"), from the Babylonian gaon Hay b. Shenra in 1015, as a reward for his staunch sup­ port of the Pumbedita yeshiva Goitein deduced this fact from two Geniza Letters. 8 6 Entitlement did not establish Ibn 'Ata' 's 83

Med Soc , 11,33,316-17 The existence of a nagidate in Yemen was first uncovered by Eh Strauss (Ashtor), "A Journey to India" (in Hebrew), Zwn 4 (1938-1939), 230-31 85 Med Soc, II, 5-23, 28 86 ΕΝΑ 2556 (Hay), ed Goitein, Zwn 27 (1962), 162-65, and Bodl MS Heb d 65 (Cat 2877), f 9 (Kislev [November/December], 1015), ed Assaf, Epstein Jubilee Volume (= Tarbiz 20) (Jerusalem, 1950), pp 179-84, and dis­ cussed further by Goitein, "Three Letters," pp 174-75, cf also idem, " N e w Sources concerning the Nagids of Qayrawan," ρ 23 84

The Problem of Origins

31

power in Tunisia. Rather, it acknowledged and reinforced the status and authority that he already possessed by virtue of his connections with the Tunisian rulers and his prominent role in Jewish communal affairs. In short, the title of nagid did not originate in Egypt out of a desire on the part of the conquer­ ing Fatimids to oppose Baghdad Instead, it arose in Tunisia in the early eleventh century out of the normal practice of the gaonic yeshivas of bestowing honorary epithets upon loyal backers 8 7 Moreover, in Egypt itself, where the title does not crop up in the Geniza papers until the 1060s, this sobriquet did not become permanently attached to the office of head of the Jews for a century and a half, that is, until the time of Abra­ ham, the son of Moses Maimonides (d. 1237). 88 Goitein's find­ ings indicated that any future investigation of this institution should focus on the office, rather than on the title, of nagid. THE O L D HYPOTHESIS DEFENDED

It is a measure of the tenacity of long-held views that Goi­ tein's plausible and well-founded analysis of the Geniza data went largely ignored by one earlier proponent of the old hypothesis—Η. Z. Hirschberg 8 9 —and evoked a vigorous demur on the part of another—Eli Ashtor. In 1965 Ashtor published a long article entitled "Some Features of the Jewish Communities in Medieval Egypt." 9 0 This was a critical re­ view of a series of monographs by Goitein on Jewish com87

Med Soc , II, 24, cf Goitein, "Title and Office," pp 94-95 See also idem, "Qayrawan Appeal", idem, "Three Letters," pp 174-82, idem, " N e w Sources Concerning the Nagids of Qayrawan" (with addendum, "Who Was the First Nagid'"), idem, "Nagids of Yemen," ρ 17 as Med Soc , II, 25-26, 32-33, cf Goitein, "Title and Office," pp 95-%, 105 89 Η Ζ Hirschberg, Toledot ha-yehudim be-Afrtqa ha-sefomt (A History of the Jews in North Africa), I (Jerusalem, 1965), 152-61 section on the nagidate, in­ corporating almost verbatim his 1959 article, "The Salars and Negidim of Qayrawan " The only change in this section in the revised and translated edi­ tion, A History of the Jews m North Africa, I (Leiden, 1974), 205 ff, concerns the identity of Palfiel (using the article by Β Lewis cited above, η 20) 90 In Hebrew, Zwn 30 (1965), 61-78, 128-57

π

Chapter

One

munal life as reflected in the Geniza, all of which have subse­ quently been incorporated into the second volume of A Mediterranean Society.91 In connection with the nagid, Ashtor objected to what he termed "the one thing" that Goitein had successfully proved in his 1962 article, namely, that the Geniza makes no reference to the nagid dunng the first half (Goitein had said first two-thirds) of the eleventh century. This Ashtor dismissed as inconclusive reasoning from silence. He then went on to argue that the appointment of a Jewish nagid in Egypt was as much a necessity of Fatimid policy in the tenth century as was the installation of non-Muslim community heads by any medieval Muslim state. In support he invoked the parallel example of the Spanish Umayyads, who appointed local Christian (Visigothic princes) and Jewish (the nasis Jacob lbn Jau and Hisday lbn Shaprut) leaders, "without a doubt" in order to advance their movement to­ ward independence from the Abbasids. If such was the con­ scious policy of the Umayyads, who maintained at least some semblance of outward loyalty to Baghdad before finally pro­ claiming an independent caliphate in the tenth century, how much more must it have been that of the Shnte Fatimid caliphs, who broke with Baghdad from the outset. 9 2 Though it is hard to see why Ashtor's a fortiori logic should in itself be any more compelling than Goitein's argumentum ex silentto, the real dividing line between the two has to do with 91 The main articles considered by Ashtor were "Jewish Community Or­ ganization in the Light of the Cairo Geniza Documents" (in Hebrew), Zwn 26 (1961), 170-79 ("a kind of blueprint" for Med Soc II, and "echoed" in the conclusion to that volume [Goitein's words, Med Soc , II, 519 η 5]), "The Local Jewish Community in the Light of the Cairo Geniza Records,"jf/S 12 (1961), 133-58 (the core of Med Soc , II, 40-68 ["The Local Community Its Composition and Organization"]), "The Social Services of the Jewish Community as Reflected in the Cairo Geniza Records," J S S 26 (1964), 3-22, 67-86 (the nucleus of Med Soc , II, 91-143 ["The Social Services"]), "The Title and Office of the Nagid A Re-examination," JQR, n s 53 (1962), 93-119 (revised and incorporated into Med Soc , II, 23-40 ["The Territorial Heads of the Jewish Community The Nagid " ] ) 92

Ashtor, "Some Features," pp 144-46

The Problem of Origins

33

more fundamental, philosophical differences. The debate between them over the Fatimid government's role in initiating the office of nagid has its roots in divergent perceptions of the character of the medieval Jewish community. Where Goitein sees internal, Jewish, continuity, 93 Ashtor sees adaptation to external, Muslim, models. 94 With respect to the origins of the 93

Goitein's point of view is best conveyed by quoting directly from the conclusion to A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, which echoes the methodological observations set forth in one of the articles reviewed by Ashtor. " . it is not easy to discern how much of the communal life described here was the fruit of long-standing tradition and inner strength and how much was due to outside pressures and models. Where pre-Islamic precedents, parallels from Christian countries, or definitely un-Islamic elements prevail, autonomous developments should be assumed. The yeshiva was pre-Islamic. . . Therefore, the ecumenical Jewish authority and all that is connected with it, in particular, the diocesan organization of the diaspora, which later gave rise to religious and secular territorial heads, must be regarded as essentially autochthonous. . . . The impact of the environment was strongest where the contacts were broadest: in the economic, legal, and political spheres." Med. Soc, II, 403-404 (emphasis added). Cf Goitein "Jewish Community Organization," pp. 177-79, and previous note. In stressing continuity, Goitein is in agreement with the approach taken by several prominent scholars. See, for instance, Salo Baron's The Jewish Community and Social and Religious History of the Jews, Yitzhak Baer's, "The Origins of the Organization of the Jewish Community of the Middle Ages" (in Hebrew), Zwn 15 (1950), 1-41, and Simha Assafs Tequfat ha-geomm we-sifrutah, edited by Mordecai Margohot (Jerusalem, 1955), esp. part 1. 94 In his above-mentioned review article, Ashtor joins issue with Goitein precisely on this point. "Scholars, including Goitein, who have dealt with the life of the Jewish community in the medieval Orient, have focused primarily on its continuity with Second Temple and Talmudic times In this article, however, primary emphasis will be placed on the influence of the Muslim state and city upon communal organization in Egypt during the period under discussion. Obviously, no one disputes the fact that such influence existed. However, the problem before us is whether communal organization was acculturated completely, or (at least) for the most part, to Muslim societal organization. . . . The similarities between the organization of the (Jewish) community and that of the contemporary Muslim state are greater than the vestiges of Jewish-Hellenistic tradition." Ashtor, "Some Features," pp. 61-62, 149 (translation mine). In a rejoinder to Ashtor, Goitein reiterated his thesis about the origins of the nagidate within the wider context of basic theoretical questions about influence versus parallel development, and about

Chapter

34

One

nagidate, Ashtor is methodologically disposed to find the motivating force in Fatimid policies, while Goitein is inclined to seek it within the Jewish community itself. To a certain extent, this dichotomy is more apparent than real. Neither Goitein nor Ashtor would deny that both inter­ nal and external forces acted in medieval Jewish history. The problem is that these forces interacted so subtly and in such a complex manner that the process often defies description. For a variety of reasons, however, Ashtor's argument against Goi­ tein and in favor of the old theory fails to convince. His ex­ planation for the silence of the Geniza is that during the first half of the eleventh century the nagids were simply over­ shadowed by the Palestinian gaons. 9 5 But, as Goitein points out in response, there are dated legal documents from practi­ cally every year of the eleventh century, but only in the time of Mevorakh b. Saadya do they begin to mention the nagid as the highest religious and communal authority in Egypt. 9 6 Ashtor refers, in one place, to documents showing judges ap­ pointed by the Palestinian gaon (instead of by the nagid) and cites this as evidence of a "fluidity" that permitted competing Jewish authorities to preempt each other's prerogatives. But this merely begs the main question, because the sources Ashtor cites date precisely from the period when, in Goitein's view, the nagidate did not yet exist 9 7 Moreover, Ashtor conthe role of the Muslim state in the life of the non-Muslim communities S D Goitein, "Fundamental Problems of Jewish History" (in Hebrew), in Proceed­ ings of the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies [1969], II (Jerusalem, 1972), pp 101-106 Cf also idem, "Minority Selfrule and Government Control in Is­ lam," Studia Islamua 31 (1970), 101-16, echoing and expanding upon the viewpoint voiced at the beginning and end of Med Soc II, idem, "Elhanan b Shemarya as a Communal Leader" (in Hebrew), in Joshua Fmkel Festschrift, edited by Sidney Β Hoenig and Leon D Stitskin (New York, 1974), Hebrew section, pp 117-18 95

Ashtor, "Some Features," ρ 144 The document TS 12 328 (ed Mann, II, 345) dates from the first half of the eleventh century, Ashtor, "Some Features," ρ 141 η 281, second refer­ ence 97 Med Soc , II, 31, a paragraph not presented in the 1962 Jewish Quarterly Review article 96

The Problem of Origins

35

cedes that the nagidate evolved into the central authority of the Jews of Egypt only after a protracted struggle with the Palestinian gaonate and the wandering Davidic exilarchs. 98 This would seem to imply that greater weight should be placed on internal development, in line with Goitein, than on external influence. Goitein's reconstruction, moreover, resolves several knotty problems and leaves no significant loose e n d s . " It explains the discontinuity of the nagidate during the Fatimid and early Ayyubid periods by focusing attention on the office of head of the Jews (ra'is al-yahud) and away from the title nagid. It makes sense out of the fact that the gap in the Geniza between the last reference to Moses Nagid b. Mevorakh (ca. 1126) 1 0 0 and the earliest reference to Samuel Nagid b. Hananya (1140) 101 coincides with Mashah ha-Kohen Gaon b. Sol­ omon's tenure in office as ra'is al-yahud (1127-1139).102 And it solves the mystery of how Maimonides, who is called ra'is al-yahud repeatedly in Muslim sources, 1 0 3 could have functioned as leader of the Jewish community of Egypt with­ out possessing the title of nagid. Finally, it provides a frame­ work into which to fit the confusing mass of Geniza data, namely, what Goitein refers to as the ecumenical-diocesan or98

Ibid , pp 146-47 An apparent loose end is the reference to the ra'is 'ala fa'ifat al-yahud in 1038, cf above, at η 24 Goitein seems to explain this piece of evidence away by questioning the authenticity of the language and style of the document, cf Med Soc , II, 526 η 30 We add that the phrase in the 1038 document is a purely descriptive one, reflecting the leadership status of the individual As a technical title, it would have been written in the construct form, ra'is alyahud, m keeping with the convention of Arabic titulature, as Professor Raymond Ρ Scheindhn kindly suggested to me 100 TS 8 J 32, f 1 (1437 Sel [= 1125/6]) Med Soc , II, 25 and 526 η 15 are corrected in Med Soc , III, 458 η 25 101 Ibid , II, 26 102 Goitein, "Nagids of Yemen," ρ 18, citing a letter (India Book 319) which refers to Ma?hah explicitly by this title 103 As shown by David Neustadt (Ayalon), "In Regard to Maimonides' Title of'Nagid' " (in Hebrew), Zion 11 (1945-1946), 147-48, cf Med Soc , II, 524 η 2 99

36

Chapter One

ganization of the Jewish community and its internal procedures for delegating authority and bestowing titles. Notwithstanding these considerations, however, literary evidence has triumphed over contradictory documentary data. Most Jewish historians still favor the Sambari-Ibn Abi Zimra and Ahimaas traditions over the silence of the Geniza regarding Egyptian nagids during the first century of Fatimid rule. 104 This preference should not be misconstrued as sheer obstinacy. It is borne of a valid conviction, one advocated by prominent Jewish historians over the last two generations, that external forces had considerable influence on Jewish life during the middle ages. One can easily understand why so many scholars have interpreted the Sambari-Ibn Abi Zimra story and Megillat Ahimaa§ to mean that the Fatimids established the nagidate. Given Fatimid imperial ambitions, it seems logical that the new rulers of Egypt should have wished to sever Jewish political contacts with Abbasid Baghdad by constituting a local organ of communal leadership.

REEXAMINING THE PROBLEM OF ORIGINS

Given these observations, it is necessary to explain why our reexamination of the problem of the origins of the office of head of the Jews does not take the traditional literary sources as its point of departure. First, Ayalon's expose of the borrowed and mythical elements in the Sambari-Ibn Abi Zimra story of the arrival of the first nagid in Egypt must be regarded as having largely denuded that account of its historic104

The article "Nagid" in the Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem, 1971), written by E[hezer] B[ashan], mirrors the current state of the problem when it comments· "Most scholars accept the view that the first nagid of Egyptian Jewry was Paltiel, an Italian Jew who was brought to Egypt by al-Mu'izz, the Fatimid conqueror of Egypt (969), and was part of the ruler's officialdom , it stands to reason that the Shi'ite Fatimids, who decreed themselves caliphs, did not wish to depend in any way upon the Sunmte Abbasid caliphs, preferring to appoint a separate head for the Jews under their ruler, rather than have them acknowledge the authority of the Babylonian exilarch, an official who was part of the Abbasid hierarchy."

The Problem of Origins

37

lty. Further consideration of the literary character of that nar­ rative strengthens our skepticism. The account is stereotypic, belonging to a genre of medieval Jewish legends whose exist­ ence has been pointed out by Gerson D. Cohen. 1 0 5 These "re­ ligious foundation stones" are based on the motif that a Jewish notable was once summoned from afar by a gentile ruler to reign over the Jews in his realm. Two other examples, cited by Cohen, are the legend of the arrival in Narbonne of the Babylonian nasi Machir as a result the request of King Charles of the Franks (Charlemagne) to the Baghdad caliph, 1 0 6 and the legend about the settlement of the illustri­ ous Albaha family in Menda, Spain, following the Roman governor's petition to the emperor Titus to send him some Judean nobles captured dunng the Roman-Jewish War 1 0 7 A fourth instance would appear to be the medieval Hebrew story of how "King Charles" (Charlemagne) imported Rabbi Moses b. Kalonymos of Lucca, Italy, to Mayence, Germany, where this well-born scholar became the spiritual progenitor of that flourishing northern European Jewish community. 1 0 8 It is extremely difficult to determine when the legend of the arrival of the first nagid in Egypt originated 1 0 9 However, it is possible to offer a reasonable explanation for its existence. Egyptian Jewry wished to "prove" to their Muslim neighbors that the office of nagid had been authonzed, indeed founded, 105 Abraham lbn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, edited by Gerson D Cohen (Philadelphia, 1967), pp 138-39 (supplementary note to line 297) 106 Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, I, 82 107 lbn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, ed Cohen, ρ 79 (English translation) 108 For two recent discussions of this story, see A Grossman, "The Migra­ tion of the Kalonymos Family from Italy to Germany" (in Hebrew), Zwn 40 (1974-1975), esp pp 174-83, and A David, "Tales Concerning Persecutions in Medieval G e r m a n y " (in Hebrew), in Shay le-heman mehqartm ba-sifrut ha'wnt she! yemei ha-beinayim (Papers on Medieval Hebrew Literature Presented to A Μ Habermann), edited by Zvi Malachi (Jerusalem, 1977), pp 71-75, 80-91 A literary-historical study of the genre of "religious foundation stories" is a desideratum 109 For two possibilities that have been suggested, see Neustadt (Ayalon), "Some Problems," ρ 134, Baron, Social and Religious History, V, 38

38

Chapter

One

by an Egyptian Muslim ruler. At the same time, they hoped to gain sympathy for the institution by comparing it with the Davidic exilarchate, knowing that Muslims bore special affec­ tion for descendants of the Jewish House of King David. 1 1 0 The evidence of Megillat Ahimaas. is similarly weak. There is no reason to reject Ahimaas's family tradition regarding the lofty position held by his ancestor Paltiel b Shephatiah in the Fatimid court and in the Jewish community. However, this constitutes no proof that the Fatimids had made him their first ra'is al-yahud Those scholars who combined the biography of Paltiel with the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra tradition in order to construct the hypothesis about the origins of the nagidate apparently did not see much significance in the fundamental discrepancy that their candidate for founder of the office was neither a Davidic nasi nor from Babylonia. The most critical piece of evidence in the Megilla, namely, the epithet "nagid" employed by Ahimaas, can be explained away without great difficulty. By the middle of the eleventh century, when Ahimaas compiled his family chronicle in Italy, nagids had been functiomng as Islamic court physicians and heads of the nearby Qayrawan Jewish community for four decades. Quite conceivably, Ahimaas selected a term from the neighboring Judeo-Arabic milieu that connoted the kind of power that his family tradition ascribed to an illustrious ancestor who had himself served a Muslim ruler in North Afnca and Egypt while exercising great influence over Fatimid Jewish affairs. It must also be kept in mind that the essence of the problem of origins is not the appearance of the title "nagid," but rather the creation of a new institution of Jewish self-government. 110 A letter of appointment for the ra'is al-yahud dating from the early thir­ teenth century and preserved by al-Qalqashandi, Subh, XI, 385-88 (printed also by Gottheil in his article "Eleventh-Century Document," pp 528-30, and discussed by Bosworth, "Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries," pp 211-14) stipulates (Subh, XI, 387-88, Gottheil, "Eleventh-Century Doc­ ument," ρ 530) that the head of the Jews must treat descendants of the family of King David with special deference Cf also Neustadt (Ayalon), "Some Problems," ρ 129 η 7

The Problem of Origins

39

There are instructive analogies from the Islamic environment of the loose attribution of a title prior to the establishment of the political institution with which that title came later to be associated. For instance, the prehistory of the Abbasid vizierate delineates a pattern in which the epithet "wazlr" was fluidly applied to individuals long before that title became identified with the characteristic Abbasid office.111 Similarly, the word "sultan," which connotes power, was ascribed periodically to Fatimid potentates generations before the Mamluks adopted it as the official designation of the ruler of Egypt. 112 Amongst the Jews, the title "nagid," drawn from the royal vocabulary of the Bible and applied in various contexts in post-Biblical literature, 113 was "bestowed" upon Jewish dignitaries who held no public office years before the "nagidate" as an institution took root in Egyptian soil. 114 111

See Dominique Sourdel, Le vizirat 'abbaside de 749 a 936 (132 a 324 de I'Hegire) (Damascus, 1959-1960), 1, chapter 2, esp. pp. 50-61, and S. D. Goitein, "The Origins of the Vizierate and Its True Character," in Studies, pp. 168-96 (originally published in 1942 and augmented by an appendix in 1961) Cf. also M. Canard, "Un vizier chretien a l'epoque fatimite: l'Armenien Bahram," AIEO (Algiers) 12 (1954), 84 n. 4 112 Ibid., p. 88 n. 15, citing Ibn Muyassar's use of "sultan" to describe alAfdal. Other sources, including the Geniza, make it clear that the epithet "sultan" was employed in an unofficial manner for high dignitaries even earlier in the Fatimid period. See below, Chapter Two n. 84 (Badr al-Jamali), and Mark R. Cohen, "New Light on the Conflict over the Palestinian Gaonate, 1038-1042, and on Daniel b. 'Azarya: A Pair of Letters to the Nagid of Qayrawan," AJS review 1 (1976), p. 34 n. 130 (the Fatimid Caliph, ca. 1039) On the title "sultan" see EI1, s.v "Sultan." 113 For instance, I Kings 1.35 and other verses listed in Solomon Mandelkern's Concordance to the Old Testament, s.v. nagid. In early medieval times the epithet "nagid" can be found in the apocalyptic Midrash, Sefer Zerubbabel, where, picking up on a passage in the apocalyptical Biblical book of Daniel (9:25), it is employed to designate the king-messiah. See Midreshei geula, edited by Yehuda Even-Shemuel, 2nd ed. (Jerusalem, 1954), pp. 75, 79 114 See, for instance, Mann, Texts, I, 164-65, and M. Cohen, "New Light," p. 10 n. 30. TS 10 J 22, f. 3v contains a Hebrew poem, written in 1046, and dedicated to a nasi, Abu Sa'Id al-Da'udi. In the second line the poet praises him as being descended from "the father of the royal house (that is, of King David) and from the dynasty of the assembled negidim." During the period

40

Chapter

One

Moreover, as Goitein has successfully demonstrated, the title of nagid did not achieve status as the official Hebrew designa­ tion of the Egyptian head of the Jews until the thirteenth cen­ tury. Thus, even if one were to concede that some admiring gaon or exilarch had honored Paltiel b Shephatiah with the epithet "nagid," perhaps in recognition of the fact that the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz had invested him with authority as chief representative of the Jews at the Egyptian court, that would hardly prove that the Fatimid conqueror of Egypt es­ tablished the office of ra'is al-yahud. Quite the contrary, the Geniza proves that, in the first part of the eleventh century, when, according to the popular theory, the "nagidate" had been in continuous existence since Palpel, the Fatimid government recognized the gaon of Jerusalem as suzerain over the Jewish commumties of Pales­ tine and Egypt. 1 1 5 This explains, why, at the very time that Qayrawan and Granada were achieving a considerable meas­ ure of political independence from the Babylonian gaons under illustrious courtier-nagids, the Jerusalem gaonate was powerful enough to prevent similar spiritual and political self-subsistence in Fustat As is well known, Shemarya b. Elhanan (d. 1010), one of the famous "four captives" whom the Andalusian Abraham lbn Daud credited with transferring rabbinic authority from the yeshivas of Babylonia to the west, 1 1 6 founded some sort of a Talmudic college in the Egyptian capital. This school was continued by Shemarya's son and successor, Elhanan In retaliation for various moves toward political independence by the latter, including the suc­ cessful solicitation of a Fatimid stipend for his school, the when Solomon b Judah was gaon in Jerusalem (ca 1026-1051), Elijah haKohen b Solomon wrote to the nasi David, son of the exilarch Hezekiah, calling the addressee "Nagid of the People of the Lord" (negid 'am adonay) (Mann, II, 123, 1 3, cf II, 347 Shelf-mark is actually BM Or 5546 See also below, Chapter Four, at η 11) 115 Cf above, at η 81 116 For lbn Daud's story and its political significance, see lbn Daud Sefer ha-Qabbalah, ed Cohen, pp 63 ff, and Gerson D Cohen, "The Story of the Four Captives," PAAJR 29 (1960-1%1), 55-131

The Problem of Origins

41

yeshiva branded Elhanan a troublemaker, put him under the ban, and denied his request to inherit his father's title of av beth din, which connoted a status in the yeshiva second only to the gaon. 1 1 7 The Gemza data indicate that, following Elhanan's death around 1025, the yeshiva of Jerusalem redoubled its efforts to maintain its sovereignty and succeeded in doing so until the mid-1060s. 118 There is ample justification, therefore, for beginning a reexamination of the ongins of the Egyptian office of head of the Jews in the middle of the eleventh, rather than in the mid­ dle of the tenth century, and with the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya, rather than with Paltiel b. Shephafiah. Accordingly, our book will comprehend the period from the mid-1060s, when the Palestinian yeshiva entered its decline and Judah b. Saadya emerged as communal leader of Egyptian Jewry, through ca. 1126, when his nephew Moses, the son of his brother and successor, Mevorakh, disappeared from the polit­ ical scene. Though we have allowed the Geniza, rather than the Samban-Ibn Abi Zimra and Ahimaas traditions, to dictate our chronological starting point, we shall nonetheless pay due attention to factors in the general environment that might have played a role in stimulating administrative innovation in the Jewish community. This inquiry will involve an attempt to discern and describe the subtle interaction between internal and external forces that effected this momentous change. In Chapter Two, we shall assess the impact of Fatimid realities upon non-Muslim self-government during this period by considering the case of the Coptic patriarchate. We shall show that political and social developments in the Fatimid state dur­ ing the latter third of the eleventh century fostered the cen117 On Shemarya b Elhanan, see S D Goitein, "Shemarya b Elhanan" (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 32 (1962-1963), 266-72, Shraga Abramson, Ba-merkazim uva-tefusot bi-tequfat ha-geomm (Jerusalem, 1965), pp 156-73, Med Soc , II, In­ dex, s ν On Elhanan b Shemarya, see Abramson, Ba-merkazim, pp 105-55, 175-79, Goitein, "Elhanan b Shemarya as a Communal Leader", Med Soc , 11, Index, s ν 118 See ibid , pp 29-30

Chapter One

42

trahzation of Coptic administration in the Egyptian capital, and we shall suggest that the Jewish community was indirectly affected by this innovation. In Chapter Three, we shall present a portrait of Egyptian Jewish leadership during the decades between the 1060s and ca. 1130 in an effort to delineate sociological factors underlying the emergence of the headship of the Jews. Our findings will demonstrate that a tightly knit coterie of Jewish notables promoted the innovation in order to replace the Palestinian yeshiva when, as a result of internal and external developments, that institution entered an eclipse during the latter third of the eleventh century. Finally, the book will trace in rather fine detail the evolution of authority in the new office during its formative period. This analysis, which forms the bulk of our study (Chapters Four through Seven), will disclose that the nse of the office of head of the Jews, measured by the growth of its prerogatives, occurred in a gradual, organic, step-by-step process. This important conclusion, based on a thorough investigation of a corpus containing over three-hundred Geniza documents, should put to final rest the still popular theory that the nagidate was created out of nothing a hundred years earlier by decree of an Islamic ruler.

THE GENIZA CORPUS

No comprehensive catalogue of the Geniza manuscripts exists, and the printed lists of Geniza fragments belonging to such collections as the Bodleian (Oxford), the British Museum (London), the Alliance Israelite Umverselle (Pans), the Elkan Nathan Adler of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York), and the Dropsie University (Philadelphia) are only partially helpful when it comes to histoncal documents. Shaul Shaked's A Tentative Bibliography of Geniza Documents deals only with fragments published, or mentioned in print (to 1963). The private Geniza index-card file of Professor S. D. Goitein constitutes the only adequate guide to the unpublished material, and I made valuable use of this bibliographical source when collecting shelf-marks of manuscnpts

The Problem of Origins

43

pertinent to this study. 119 At a later stage, I undertook a systematic survey of the entire documentary portion of the Geniza. Some 15,000 leaves were scanned in the process. Material was harvested both from the veteran collections, accessible to the scholarly community for decades, and from the less well-researched ones, made available only more recently. The latter include the mammoth Additional Series of Cambridge University's Taylor-Schechter Collection, which contains over 3,000 "historical documents," alone; 120 the New Series of the Jewish Theological Seminary's Elkan Nathan Adler Collection, in which I counted around 950 fragments of historical value; 121 and the collection of Jacques Mosseri and family (Paris), now accessible on microfilm at the Hebrew 119 Goitein has described his research archive in a published essay: "Involvement in Geniza Research," in Religion m a Religious Age (Proceedings of Regional Conferences Held at the University of California, Los Angeles and Brandeis University in April, 1973), edited by S. D. Goitein (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), pp. 139-46. For my purposes, I relied principally on the index called "Persons," specifically the group including rashe yeshivot (heads of yeshivas), negidim (nagids), and other important leaders (ibid., p. 144 [4.5 (a) ]). This section includes the cards for the four dignitaries who occupied the post of head of the Jews during the interval ca. 1065 to ca. 1126: Judah b. Saadya, Mevorakh b. Saadya, Moses b. Mevorakh, and David b. Daniel. Each individual's card (or set of cards) records the shelf-marks of those Geniza documents in which Goitein has found historically significant references to that person Usually, each citation is accompanied by a brief note indicating some significant aspect or aspects of the document. As Goitein did not intend to write a detailed history of the headship of the Jews (nagidate), but, rather, to leave it to a younger generation of scholars, his card indices for the nagids describe manuscripts in general fashion only and do not include every Geniza document mentioning them. 120 The sorting of the historical documents in the Additional Series was carried out by Professor Goitein. 121 Parts of the New Series historical fragments were sorted by S. D. Goitein and by Mordechai Friedman. I systematically examined all the bound volumes (nos. 1-63, as of July 1978) and counted approximately 950 documents out of the total of some 2100 News Series fragments, excluding many still awaiting binding. This represents an atypically high percentage, since in the Geniza as a whole the ratio of documentary to literary material amounts to no more than one to twenty Among the unsorted and unbound New Series fragments some documents are to be found (see, for instance, my forthcoming article in Shalem 3, cited below, Chapter Five n. 59).

Chapter One

44

University's Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, which has been found to contain approximately 900 letters and documents. 122 In total, 306 documents were identified through these procedures, including two dozen whose place in the corpus is subject to greater or lesser degree of doubt. Of the grand total, 48 have been previously published in full (8 of them by the present writer) and another 12, in part. In addition, scholars have cited many of the unpublished fragments in articles and books on various topics. This is because a single Geniza document may contain data on a wide range of personal, communal, or economic matters. 123 Nonetheless, every item in the corpus was carefully studied, including those previously used by others, and nearly all the documents were freshly transcribed. 124 CLASSIFICATION OF THE DOCUMENTS

For convenience and for purposes of description, the constituents of the corpus have been classified according to form and genre. 125 They fall into five categories: 1. letters; 2. legal 122 With the exception of some of the late material, most of the historical fragments have been examined and briefly described by S. D. Goitem in a hand list kept in the Institute reading room. 123 Shaul Shaked's Tentative Bibliography o/Gemza Documents and the "Index of Geniza Texts" at the end of Goitein's Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, reveal the polyvalent uses to which discrete Geniza manuscripts can be, and have been, put 124 Initially I copied manuscripts from microfilm or from photostats. It proved convenient to acquire a private library of photostats and xerox reproductions of most of the texts in the corpus, including many of those already appearing in print. In New York, Cambridge, England, London, and Oxford I checked transcriptions done from microfilm or photostat against originals The collections housed in these libraries comprehend the vast majority of the documents in the corpus. As expected, in many cases firsthand contact with the texts produced significantly better readings than either the microfilm copy or the photostat. A complete catalogue of the manuscripts forming the Geniza corpus will be found in Appendix 1. 125 See Goitein's description of the types of Geniza documents in Med Soc, I, 9ff

45

The Problem of Origins

documents; 3. lists; 4. poems; 5. literary pieces. Each class has properties requiring special methodological considerations. Letters (184 items)

For a communal study such as the present one, correspondence is the most valuable genre of Geniza documents. The head of the Jews stood at the very center ofJewish public life in Egypt. He received epistles incorporating petitions, reports on events, and complaints. In the form of letters, he issued decrees, instructions, and remonstrances. Because the Geniza was located in the capital, where the head lived, more incoming than outgoing mail has been preserved. The very opposite is true of the Jerusalem gaon, as Jacob Mann's books testify. In addition to official correspondence there are allusions to the head of the Jews in social and business letters. These range from requests to have a certain matter brought to the head's attention, to simple regards. When writing to someone close to the head it was de rtgueur to transmit best wishes to him through the addressee. Accordingly, the correspondence in our corpus includes: 1 letters to the heads, 2. letters by the heads or written in their name; and 3. letters mentioning the heads. Writers of Geniza letters rarely dated their correspondence, and this makes the historian's task of refining chronology arduous. With luck, and considerable time and experience, the date of a letter can be approximated on the basis of references to persons or events whose time frame is established by known Geniza data or by information gleaned from other sources. In the research for the present study, another tool proved useful. The Jewish proclivity for dispensing highsounding epithets in imitation of the Muslim rulers is common knowledge. 126 Judah b. Saadya, Mevorakh b Saadya, Moses b. Mevorakh, and David b Daniel all received lavish titles during their careers. In fact, many a document has been 126

See, for example, Mann, I, 254-62, 272, 277-80

46

Chapter

One

identified as belonging to our corpus solely on the strength of a reference to the characteristic by-names of one of these dig­ nitaries. From time to time, new titles were added to older ones, exactly as happened, for instance, when the Fatimid caliph wished to enhance the honor of his viceroy or one of his foreign vassals. A correspondent of a head of the Jews strove to address him by his correct titles, lest he insult his honor. Letter writers mentioning the head incidentally in cor­ respondence with a third party felt free to exercise less rigor about this etiquette. On the other hand, copyists of official legal documents adhered scrupulously to current titulature, which was evidently updated periodically in scribal for­ mularies Since legal documents were, by their very nature, dated, they provide the key to organizing chronologically the letters as well. As a result, we have been able to penodize the letters and, in turn, discern historical development, with some degree of precision. A similar method has been used by Gemza scholars to date letters relevant to the history of the Palestine yeshiva It relies upon the well-known change of title accompanying promotion in rank in the academic hier­ archy ("Seventh," "Sixth," . . "Third," "Av beth din," "Gaon") 1 2 7 Incidentally, a noted histonan of medieval Is­ lamic Egypt exploits in similar fashion the progressive ac­ cumulation of titles in dated Arabic inscriptions mentioning the vizier Badr al-Jamali (1074-1094) in order to trace the growth of that viceroy's power during his tenure in office. 128 A further methodological problem of Gemza epistology— aside from the paleographic and stylistic obstacles common to Gemza documents generally—stems from the fact that writers of letters and their addressees (then, as today) knew things of which we are ignorant. 1 2 9 Previous or even accompanying 127

For example, ibid, pp 185-87 Gaston Wiet, Materiaux pour un Corpus Inscrtpttonum Arabtcarum, Pre­ miere parlxe Egypte, II, in Memoires de I'Institut Franfats d'Archeologie Orientate 52 (1929-1930), pp 144 ff 129 Cf the apposite remarks of Albert Dietrich with reference to Arabic papyri letters, Arabtsche Brtefe aus der Papyrussammlung der Hamburger Staatsund Unwersitats-Bibltothek (Hamburg, 1955), ρ 3 128

The Problem of Origins

47

correspondence often clarified details furtively alluded to or left unmentioned. Whenever we find several Gemza letters re­ lating to one affair we realize the hazards of supplying missing details through guesswork. One characteristic of medieval let­ ter writing mitigates against this difficulty. Since the mails were frequently undependable, senders often repeated mes­ sages in subsequent communications in case a prior letter had failed to reach its destination. Another characteristic exacer­ bates the matter. As in the case of Fatimid diplomacy, much of the information in exchanges concermng Jewish public af­ fairs was probably conveyed orally by the letter carrier (if he was Jewish) or by some other reliable informant. 1 3 0 Hence, in some of the letters of a communal nature to and from the heads of the Jews, the message is more opaque than usual, even when the text is complete or fully restorable. Legal Documents (93 items) The legal documents of the Cairo Gemza, which form its largest single category, have long provided the data needed to establish the basic chronological framework of the history of the Gemza period. So, too, m our corpus, legal texts help refine the chronology of the early history of the headship of the Jews. They provide other valuable historical tidbits, as well. The documents in question consist of: 1. records drawn up in the rabbinical court of one of the heads; 2. records drawn up in a court appointed by a head; 3. records that bear the signature of one of the heads acting as witness or judge, either before or dunng his administration; 4. records of litiga­ tions mentiomng one of the heads as a party; 5. marriage con­ tracts bearing a superscnpture containing blessings for the 130

Cf Samuel Stern, "Cairo as the Centre of the Isma'ili Movement," ρ 448, commenting on the preserved letters from the caliph al-Mustan$ir (1036-1094) to the §ulayhids of Yemen, his vassals "It must not, however, be forgotten that the greater of the business was no doubt transacted orally with the envoys exchanged by the court of the Imam and that of the Yemen, and the letters had a largely ceremonial function " Letter carrier ΕΝΑ 1822 A, f 44, 11 13-14 Reliable informant TS 13 J 16, f 3, 11 23-24

48

Chapter One

reigning nagid; 6. documents lacking identifying information due to poor state of preservation but presumed on other grounds to belong to one of the above categories; and 7. one document, dated 1211, that is, a hundred years after the death of Mevorakh b. Saadya, but mentioning him by name. Lists (10 items) The Gemza abounds in lists of all kinds: lists of contributors to the community chest, lists of its beneficiaries, lists of income from communal properties, memorial lists consulted during synagogue prayers for the dead, genealogies, private business accounts, and others. 131 Our corpus contains: two memonal lists that include names of members of the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya; a memorial list of notables ending with a prayer for the commumty and for Moses Nagid, its head; a list of contributors to the community chest, including the rayyis, Mevorakh b. Saadya; a beneficiary list mentioning a donation by sar ha-sanm ("Pnnce of Princes"), one of Mevorakh b. Saadya's principle titles; a list of scholars, headed by a rayyis, having claim on public funds; a genealogical list of the family of David b. Daniel; another list of communal functionaries led off by "our lord the nasi," identical with the same David; a fragment of an account mentiomng the name of Mevorakh b. Saadya; and a column of signatures by a Mevorakh b. Moses. Poems (16 items) Court poetry patterned on the Arabic model was one of the earmarks of Jewish high society under Islam. Though not properly considered "documents," we have collected a number of poems having historical interest for the subject at hand. They include: thirteen pieces of poetry composed for the aristocratic House of Mevorakh b. Saadya on both happy 131 Cf Med Soc , I, 12 and Appendices A, B, and C in Med Soc II, which describe scores of lists pertinent to the community's social services For an example of the profitable use to which Gemza lists can be put, see Moshe Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundationsfrom the Cairo Gemza (Leiden, 1976)

The Problem of Origins

49

and sad occasions; a poem evidently written by the nagid Moses b. Mevorakh on the occasion of the death of his mother; a formulary for a eulogy for a nagid who succeeded his father, who may be identical with Moses, the son and successor of Mevorakh b. Saadya; a well-known panegyric dedicated by a Jewish judge of Fustat to the caliph al-Mustansir and his viceroy Badr al-Jamali in celebration of the defeat in 1077 of the Seljuk army that invaded Egypt. The lastmentioned item includes praise for a pair of Jewish courtiers, evidently Judah b. Saadya and his brother, Mevorakh. Literary Sources (3 items) The corpus includes the famous Megillat Evyatar: a complete manuscript of apparently late provenance and a fragment copied most likely in the twelfth century. Finally, a passage in a late Yemenite Midrash (fifteenth century), though not originating in the Geniza, quotes a contemporary of Mevorakh b. Saadya, who described an anecdote concerning the nagid. The following chart summarizes the description of the types of documents presented above. Appendix 1 at the end of the book lists the manuscripts by shelf-mark and includes publication data where relevant. Appendix 2 offers a selection from the corpus in English translation Type Letters Legal documents Lists Poems Literary pieces Total Published previously Unpublished, or published only in part

Number 184 93 10 16 3 306 48 258

CHAPTER T W O

Fatimid Realities and the Coptic Patriarchate

in this study upon Jewish sources from the Cairo Geniza and the acceptance of the periodization for the origins of the office of head of the Jews that the Geniza data dictate do not relieve us of the obligation to search for factors in the Fatimid environment that might have contributed to the rise of this new institution. Unfortunately, the characteristically fragmentary Geniza data fail to disclose what part the Fatimid context might have played in the origins of the headship of the Jews. This is one of the principal reasons why the revisionist hypothesis has met with resistance among adherents of the older theory, which places initiative in the hands of the Fatimid conquerors of Egypt in the middle of the tenth century. New light is cast on the question of external influences by considering Fatimid political and economic vicissitudes during our period, and by examining their impact upon the principal self-governing minority in Egypt, the Copts. This comparative approach to non-Muslim communal history can be fully justified, even though in doctrine and ritual Coptic Christianity has little in common with Judaism. 1 Muslim THE EMPHASIS

1 On Coptic Christianity in general see O.H.E. KHS-Burmester, The Egyptian or Coptic Church. A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical Services and the Rites and Ceremonies Observed m the Administration of Her Sacraments (Cairo, 1967), with bibliography; Otto F. A. Meinardus, Christian Egypt. Ancient and Modem (Cairo, 1965), with bibliography; idem, Christian Egypt- Faith and Life (Cairo, 1970); Adrian Fortescue, The Lesser Eastern Churches (London, 1913), pp. 160-290; Aziz S. Atiya, A History of Eastern Christianity (London, 1968), pp 11-145 (much literature is cited in the footnotes); John Mason Neale, A

The Coptu Patriarchate

51

sources on the status of dhimmis (that is, all non-Muslim pro­ tected peoples), in general, or of Christians, in particular, have long been exploited by Jewish historians to infer the position of the Jews in Islamic law. Indeed, this is a virtual necessity, since the Pact of 'Umar texts and kindred literature rarely single out the Jews. 2 Similarly, proper attention has been paid to the fact that such documents as the important caliphal char­ ter for a twelfth-century Nestorian catholicos, head of the principal Christian denomination in the eastern Islamic lands, shed light on the administrative relationship between the Is­ lamic state and the Jewish minority. 3 On the other hand, little consideration has been given thus far to the comparative value of sources relating to the com­ munity life of the Christian minorities living in the orbit of medieval Islam. To a large degree, this is because Jewish his­ torians, rightly convinced of the essential autochthony of Jewish communal institutions, have not deemed Oriental Christianity relevant. Perhaps, too, the knowledge that in History of the Holy Eastern Church. The Patriarchate of Alexandria (London, 1847); Ε L. Butcher, The Story of the Church of Egypt- Being an Outline of the History of the Egyptians under Their Successive Masters from the Roman Conquest until Now (London, 1897); B. Spuler, ed., Handbuch der Orientahstik, vol. 8, part 2: Rehgionsgeschichte des Orients in der Zeit der Weltrehgionen (Leiden and Cologne, 1961), pp. 269-308. My paper, " O n the Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews in the Fatimid Empire," AfS review 4 (1979), 27-42, under­ lies the second part of this chapter. My thanks to the editor of that journal, Professor Frank Talmage, for permission to use large sections of that pub­ lished lecture in this chapter. 2

Sources on the status of the non-Muslim minorities are collected and analyzed by A. S Tntton, The Caliphs and Their Non-Muslim Subjects A Critical Study of the Covenant of'Umar (1930, reprint ed., London, 1970), and by Antoine Fattal, Le statut legal des non-Musultnans en pays d'Islam (Beirut, 1958) See also EI2, s v. " D h i m m a " (by Claude Cahen) For some representa­ tive sources in English translation, see Bernard Lewis, ed., Islam From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople (New York, 1974), II, nos. 74 and 75. 3 Baron, Social and Religious History, V, 6-7. See A Mingana, "A Charter of Protection Granted to the Nestorian Church in A.D. 1138, by Muktafi II, Caliph of Baghdad," BJRL 10 (1926), 127-33.

Chapter

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Two

medieval Europe Judaism was subjugated by the church has obscured the fact that in the medieval Islamic world Jews and Christians were brethren in their minority status, enduring identical statutory disabilities and suffering more or less equally from periodic oppressive enforcement of these meas­ ures. It should be noted, too, that historians of Eastern Chris­ tianity, being primarily interested in questions of doctrine, faith, and liturgy, have not produced a significant literature on the internal politics of the Oriental denominations from which Jewish historians might have gained some comparative insight. 4 In fact, however, the broad autonomy that Muslim rulers conceded to the protected peoples encouraged the growth of comprehensive systems of Jewish and Christian selfgovernment with many parallel features.5 There is good rea­ son, therefore, to expect the comparative study of nonMuslim communities such as the Copts and Jews to yield fruitful results. As is well known, the Copts formed the principal nonMuslim group in Islamic Egypt. A source for the eighth cen­ tury, though admittedly suspect of exaggeration, speaks of approximately five million Copts who had to pay the poll tax. 6 Estimates of the Jewish population during the peak pe4 A survey of periodical series such as Oriens Christianas, Orientalia Chris­ tiana Periodica, Ostkirchliche Studien, Proche-onent chretien, and Revue de Vonent chretien turned up little m the way of communal studies. 5 One of the few scholars who has grappled with the subject of Christian self-government under Islam is Neophyte Edelby. See his "L'ongine des jundictions confessionnelles en terre d'Islam," Proche-onent chretien 1 (1951), 192-208, and "L'autonomie legislative des Chretiens en terre d'Islam," Ar­ chives d'histoire du droit oriental (Bruxelles) 5 (1950-1951), 307-51, about which Salo Baron properly comments that it "applies largely to the Islamic world's Jewish minorities as well" (Social and Religious History, V, 294) See also the apposite remarks in the Introduction to Med. Soc , vol. 2. 6

Cited by Adam Mez, Die Renaissance des Islams (Heidelberg, 1922), p. 34 n. 11 (note omitted in English version of book). According to Meinardus, Muslims gained the majority over Christians in Egypt by the tenth century, Christian Egypt Faith and Life, ρ 366.

The Coptic Patriarchate

53

riod in the twelfth century do not exceed forty thousand. 7 As dominant representatives of the dhimmi class in Fatimid times, Christians naturally played the major role in the interplay between non-Muslims and the state. Indeed, they dominated the vast pool of dhimmi public servants who ran the machinery of government. 8 Occasional glimpses of Fatimid policy toward the protected peoples indicate that the Jews suffered or benefitted only indirectly from decisions or acts aimed in the first instance at their Christian counterparts. For instance, it is now well documented that the infamous pogroms under al-Hakim (reigned 996-1021) spilled over into the Jewish quarters of Egypt only after they had wrought a tremendous toll in the Christian community. 9 More characteristic of the Fatimids' notoriously indulgent treatment of the religious minorities was their attendance at Christian festivals and financial patronage of Christian houses of worship. 10 This policy had a beneficial side effect for the Jews so long as the Fatimid treasury kept up its stipend to the Jerusalem yeshiva and to the short-lived college of Elhanan b. Shemarya in Fustat. 11 Char7

E. Ashtor, "The Number of the Jews in Mediaeval Egypt," JJS 18 (1967), 9-11 (surveying earlier views); 19 (1968), 12-13 (giving his own estimate of not more than 10,000 to 12,000 souls for the end of the twelfth century) Med. Soc , II, 140 (calculating the total Rabbanite population of Fustat around 1160 at about 3,300 persons). 8 Lane-Poole, Egypt, p. 170 The dominance of Copts in the Egyptian bureaucracy continued into the Ayyubid period That is why the Ayyubid qadi al-NabulusI, venting his spleen against non-Muslim functionaries, ranted almost exclusively against the Copts, dismissing the Jews with but a short paragraph See Claude Cahen, ed., "Histoires coptes d'un cadi medieval," BIFAO 59 (1960), 133-50. On Coptic government servants see also Atiya, Eastern Christianity, pp 87-89. 9 Med. Soc, II, 299-300; Mann, I, 32-38. One of the relevant Islamic accounts of the al-Hakim disturbances is available in English translation in Lewis, Islam· From the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, I, no. 13, pp. 46-59. 10 Wiet, Matenaux, pp 178-79. 11 Cf. above, Chapter One, at n. 117.

Chapter

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Two

actenstically, this allowance came to an end with the alHakim oppression, whereas grants to Christian religious in­ stitutions were revived, it would seem, by the repentant mad caliph himself, and maintained until abolished by the Ayyubids. 1 2 This apparent discrimination in favor of the Copts is quite understandable when we recall that the Fatimids needed to worry about Coptic allegiance much more than Jewish, since the Copts were coreligionists of foreign Chris­ tian powers whose potential enmity loomed large in the eyes of the Muslim rulers of Egypt. Methodologically speaking, therefore, the study of Coptic self-government within the framework of Fatimid history should have positive consequences for the history of Jewish autonomy under the same regime. Regarding the problem of the origins of the office of head of the Jews, such an inquiry proves to be highly suggestive and contributes toward the achievement of a partial synthesis between the conflicting theories outlined in Chapter One. FATIMID REALITIES. CRISIS AND RECONSTRUCTION

Crisis The political and economic florescence achieved under the first Fatimid caliphs in Cairo maintained its level well into the eleventh century, as the famous description of Egypt during the 1040s by the Isma'fli Persian traveler, Nasir-i-Khusraw, attests 1 3 Between approximately 1060 and 1074, however, Egyptian prosperity was threatened by a crisis of enormous 12

Lane-Poole, Egypt, ρ 170, Med Soc , II, 12, 202, Abu Salih, The Churches and Monasteries of Egypt and Some Neighboring Countries, edited and translated by Β Τ A Evetts (Oxford, 1895), pp 15, 182, 250 13 O'Leary, Fatimid Khahfate, pp 198-200, Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp 139-42 Fatimid commercial success is discussed by Bernard Lewis, "The Fatimids and the Route to India," Revue de la Faculte des Sciences Economtques, Umversite d'Istanbui 11 (1953), 1-5 Cf also Med Soc , I, 33, andE/ 2 , s ν "Fatimids," pp 860-61

The Coptic Patriarchate

ϊί

proportions that seemed at the time destined to spell the doom of Fatimid greatness. This decade and a half of internal and external misfortunes has left us several graphic designations in medieval Arab historiography, "the infamous calamity" (al-shidda almashhura); 1 4 "the ordeal" (al-fitna),15 "the anarchy" (alfasad), 16 "the time of calamity and dearth" (ayyam al-shidda wa Ί-ghala'), 1 7 "the breakdown of authority" (fasad aldawla) 1 8 Contemporaries undoubtedly felt the crisis all the more deeply since it followed the uplifting news of a remark­ able success in Fatimid foreign policy in 1059. For almost an entire year, with Fatimid encouragement, al-Basasin, the Turkish general and military governor of Baghdad under the last Buyids, had taken control of Baghdad and had required that allegiance to the Fatimid caliph be professed from the pulpits of mosques in the capital and in other cities of Iraq, as well as on Iraqi coins. Not surprisingly, in hindsight, many medieval chroniclers looked upon this event as the beginning of Fatimid imperial decline 1 9 The interrelated components of the Fatimid time of trou­ bles during the 1060s and early 1070s were: administrative chaos in Cairo; war between the Turkish and Black army reg­ iments, culminating in the tyranny of the general, Nasir alDawla lbn Hamdan, a breakdown of safety in the Delta owing to wanton attacks by Berbers; severe famine and mfla14

lbn Zafir, ρ 74 Ibid , ρ 76, lbn Muyassar, ρ 13 (s a 454/1062), Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 265 16 lbn Zafir, ρ 76, lbn Muyassar, ρ 34 17 Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 325 18 lbn al-Dawadari, Chrontk, part 6, ρ 382 (s a 458/1065-66) 19 "This great event was the last bit of fortune of this dynasty and the be­ ginning of its decline, similar to a lamp which blazes up just before it goes out" (lbn Zafir, pp 67-68), cf lbn Muyassar, ρ 11, Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 25657 See also lbn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz, pp 87-90, Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp 138-39, O'Leary, Fatimid Khahfate, ρ 201, Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, pp 232-35, Hamdani, Fatimids, ρ 48, EI2, s ν "Fatimids," ρ 856, Philip Κ Hitti, History of the Arabs, 8th ed (London, 1964), pp 474-75, Lewis, "An Interpretation of Fapmid History," ρ 292 15

se

Chapter

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tion, and the Seljuk invasion and conquest of Syria and Pales­ tine Following the long administration of the vizier al-Yazuri (1050-1058), Fatimid central government lost its stability. The turnover of viziers between ca. 1060 and 1074, as many as forty changes in all, was quite out of the ordinary. Chroni­ clers took special note of the large number of viziers who served al-Mustansir (twenty-four according to Ibn Muyassar, all but five of them after 1058), and of the fact that individuals occupied the office more than once—one man, seven different times. 2 0 This state of virtual anarchy in the vizierate created considerable unease in Egypt, and opened the door to various injustices and disorders 2 1 The absence of "fear of authority" (hayba) and of "administrative control" (tadbir) are singled out by one medieval reporter of the events in his litany of crises dunng the 1060s. 22 One consequence of this weakening of central authority was a renewal of hostilities between the Turkish and Black (Sudani) regiments of the Fatimid army 2 3 In 1062, a major 20 Ibn Muyassar, pp 31-33, Maqrizi, Ittt'az, II, 332-34 Cf Ibn Zafir, pp 78-81, Ibn al-Sayrafl, Ishira, pp 46-54 (lists nineteen viziers between the fall of Yazuri and the arrival of Badr al-Jamali in 1074) The vizier who served seven times, and also held the post of chief qadi, was Ibn Abi Kudayna He was the incumbent when Badr arrived on the scene, Ibn Muyassar, ρ 32, Maqrizi, Ittt'az, II, 333 Ibn Zafir (p 80, the MS reads Kurayna) credits him with five terms, as does Ibn al-Sayrafi" (Ishara, ρ 51) 21 Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, ρ 243, Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp 144-50, O'Leary, Fatimid Khahfate, pp 203-205, Hamdani, Fatimids, ρ 44, Maqrizi, Ittt'az, II, 262 22 Ibn al-Dawadari, Chrontk, part 6, pp 380 ('adam tadbir) (s a 456/106364), 382 (qillat al-hayba) (s a 458/1065-66), 387 ('adam al-tadbir) (s a 460/ 1067-68) 23 Hostility dated back to the 1040s, when the caliph al-Mustan§ir's mother, a former Sudani slave, went to great lengths to enhance the status of her countrymen at the expense of their rivals, the Turks, see Ibn Muyassar, pp 13-14 The queen mother was the famous lady who had elevated her former master, the Jew Abu Sa'd al-Tustari, to high office in the 1040s The latter's murder in 1047 at the hands of Turkish guards was, in part, a by­ product of bad blood between the Sudanis and the Turks See Walter J

The Coptic Patriarchate

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battle erupted between the two factions when a contingent of Black soldiers murdered a drunken Turkish guardsman who had antagonized them. 2 4 The final struggle for power, which took place in 459/1066-67, ended with the defeat of fifteen thousand Sudanis and their retreat to Upper Egypt. There they took control of the region, regrouped their forces, and posed an ongoing threat to the security of the capital. 25 The expulsion of the Blacks from Cairo, however, de­ stroyed the balance of power in the Fatimid army and allowed the Turks, under the leadership of their general, the Hamdanid Nasjr al-Dawla, to dictate their wishes to the caliph. From 459/1066-67 until 1073, the Turks dominated the capital and, indeed, all of Lower Egypt. Exorbitant demands on their part for higher wages were followed by the spoliation, in 460/1067-68, of the palace treasures and, in an excess of exuberance, of ornaments in Jewish synagogues as well. The caliph's riches, part of which flooded the markets at home while the rest was transported abroad by emigrating citizens, are lavishly described by the historian Maqrizi. 2 6 These events soon gave way (in 461/1068-69, according to Ibn Muyassar) to internecine conflict among the Turks themselves. 27 Nasjr al-Dawla was forced out of the capital by a faction of Turks who, resenting his highhandedness, sided with the caliph and his vizier. Nas.ir withdrew to Alexandria, where he estabFischel, Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Mediaeval Islam (1937; reprint ed., New York, 1969), pp. 84-85 24 Ibn Muyassar, p. 13; Maqrizi, Ittt'az, II, 265-67. 25 Ibn Muyassar, pp. 16-17; Maqrizi, Ittt'az, II, 273-74; Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz, p. 93; Muhammad Jamil al-Din al-Surur, Al-dawla al-fatimiyya β Misr ([Cairo], 1965-1966), p. 103; Lane-Poole, Egypt, p. 145 (source of his fig­ ure of 50,000 unknown to me), O'Leary, Fatimid Khahfate, p. 204; EI2 , s.v. "Fatimids," p. 858. 26 Ibn Muyassar, pp 19-20; Maqrizi, Ittt'az, II, 275-76, 278, 280-97; Ibn Zafir, p. 75; Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz, p. 95; Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp. 14749; O'Leary, Fatimid Khahfate, p. 205; Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, p. 241. Jewish synagogue ornaments: Med. Soc., II, 150, 151, and the fifth document in the first article cited in n. 1, p. 550. 27 Ibn Muyassar, p. 18.

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lished a power base supported by Delta Berbers and Arab tribesmen. It is said that he openly rebelled by instituting the recitation of the Abbasid caliph's name in the khufba (Friday sermon) in the mosques, and by entering into communica­ tions with the approaching Seljuks. 28 Finally, Nasir, betrayed in the capital by an erstwhile loyalist, attacked and burned part of Fustat in August 1071, and occupied Cairo in the fol­ lowing spring. 2 9 For about a year, Nasir kept the caliph in a state of penury and ruled Egypt (or, rather, Cairo) with an iron hand, until assassinated by resentful Turks in 1073. 30 Military unrest during the 1060s and early 1070s was com­ pounded by rampant violence on the part of Berber tribesmen living in the Delta. The chroniclers single out two groups as culprits: the Lewata and the Maghanba. 3 1 The former were Berbers from eastern North Africa, the latter, primarily Ketama Berbers from further west. These Berbers, especially the Ketama, had formed the backbone of the Fatimid army that had conquered Egypt in 969, though by the middle of the eleventh century they had lost their former significance.32 During the time of troubles, however, they reasserted them­ selves, wreaking havoc in the towns and countryside of Lower Egypt. According to a Christian account, about fortythousand Lewata horsemen and their attendants system­ atically looted the farmlands of Lower Egypt, pillaged monas­ teries, and massacred monks 3 3 28 Ibid , pp 19-20 (s a 462/1069-70), Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 302-303 (s a 462/ 1069-70), Patriarchs, IP, 313, 315 (Nasir al-Dawla's rule in Alexandria), Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, pp 242-43, O'Leary, Fatimid Khahfate, ρ 204 25 Ibn Muyassar, ρ 21 (s a 463/1070-71) and ibid (s a 464/1071-72), Maq­ rizi, Itti'az, II, 305 (s a 463/1070-71), 306-307 (s a 464/1071-72), Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp 149-50 30 Ibn Muyassar, ρ 22 (s a 465/1072-73), Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 309-10 (s a 465/1072-73), Patriarchs, IP, 315 (killed one year before the arrival of Badr alJamali [hence, end of 1073]) 31 IbnZafir, ρ 74, Ibn Muyassar, ρ 34 (see Corrigenda to ρ 34,1 1), Maq­ rizi, Itti'az, II, 299 32 Lewata EI1, s ν "Lawata", Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 300, editor's note 1 Maghanba Surur, Al-dawla al-fitimiyyafi Misr, pp 101-102 33 Patriarchs, IP, 314-15

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The impact these Berber raids had on daily life is graphi­ cally reflected in a Jewish legal document from Fustat dated September 1075, shortly after the disorders in the Delta had been quelled. Isaac b. Musafir b. Phineas, heir to his uncle Joseph's estate, registered a claim against Abraham ha-Levi b. Nusayr al-Maliji (from Malij, a town in the heart of the Delta), with whom his uncle had deposited some belongings. In the deposition before the Fustat tribunal, Abraham acknowl­ edged that he had stored the items in his house in Mali). How­ ever, "his house had been plundered dunng the pillage which affected Mali] and the whole region." Abraham had managed to rescue some of Joseph's possessions, "but Lewata had at­ tacked them on the road and stolen Joseph's clothing." 3 4 The years of military instability and Berber violence coin­ cided with one of the worst famines in medieval Egyptian his­ tory. It lasted from 1065 to 1072. 35 Al-Maqrizi, the chronicler of Egyptian famines, blames the protracted food shortage and attendant epidemics and atrocities on the anarchic forces per­ vading Egypt at the time. 3 6 An Egyptian Christian source states that a smallpox epidemic in Egypt a few years earlier (around 1062), had claimed the lives of twenty-one thousand young people in less than a month 3 7 The political, military, and economic crisis in Egypt cer­ tainly facilitated the Seljuk conquest of the Fatimids' northern 34 Bodl MS Heb d 66 (Cat 2878), f ΙΟν , 11 8-12 The case was settled, with Abraham paying compensation, before the court of the nagid Judah b Saadya On Malij, see, for instance, Med Soc I and II, s ν The incident re­ lated m Med Soc , I, 280, in which a man from Malij was attacked on the highway during the time of Samuel Nagid b Hananya (1140-1159), shows that overland insecurity in the Delta was hardly unique to our period How­ ever, the situation during the time of troubles was so acute that it took a puni­ tive expedition by Badr al-Jamali to restore order 35 Ibn Muyassar, ρ 34, compares these seven years to "the years of Joseph, peace be upon him", cf Maqrfzi, Itti'dz, II, 300 36 Al-Maqrizi, Ighathat al-umma bt-kashf al-ghumma, edited by Muh Must Ziyada and Jamal al-Din Muh al-Shayyal (Cairo, 1940), pp 24-27, French translation by Gaston Wiet, "Le traite des famines de Maqrizi," JESHO 5 (1962), 24-28 Cf also Ibn Muyassar, pp 33-34, Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 299 37 Patriarchs, IP, 290

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province, beginning in 1071. To be sure, Fatimid control over Syria and Palestine had deteriorated into nominal sovereignty even earlier. Aleppo had already been taken over the Arab Mirdasids in 1060, Tyre had become independent in 1070 under the qadi Ibn Abl 'Aqil, and Tripoli had revolted against Fatimid rule that same year. 38 The Seljuk conquest, which culminated in the fall of Damascus in 1076 following a fiveyear siege of the city, merely sealed the inevitable fate of Fatimid foreign policy in the region. 3 9 This final assault upon Fatimid imperial prestige carried particular significance, how­ ever, since it followed directly upon another blow from the Seljuks, namely, the termination of Meccan allegiance to the Isma'fli ruler in Cairo. A year before invading Syria, the Sel­ juk sultan, 'Adud al-Dawla Alp Arslan, aware that the Fatimid caliph was no longer financially able to make his an­ nual contribution to the Holy Cities, had sent a large gift to the emir of Mecca in exchange for the restoration of the Abbasid khufba 4 0 The news of the loss of Syria, following close on the heels of the defection of the Hijaz, undoubtedly had a disheartening effect on the people of Egypt and added to their sense of peril, though it is doubtful that, at the time, the long-range significance of the Seljuk advent was appre­ ciated 4 1 Later interpreters of the events, however, realized their deleterious impact on Fatimid fortunes and sought to settle blame upon one of the most worthy of scapegoats, the rebel Nasir al-Dawla, who allegedly had conspired with Alp Arslan to overturn the Fatimids by establishing homage to the Abbasids in Egypt itself.42 38

Ibn al-Qalanisi, trans Gibb, pp 17-18 (Gibb's introduction) Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed Amedroz, pp 98-99, Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp 160-61, Lewis, "An Interpretation of Fapmid History," ρ 293 40 Maqrizi, Im'iz, II, 303-304 (s a 462/1069-70), Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, ρ 243 41 "In the year [1071] al-Mahk al-'Adil Alp Arslan arrived from the east with a great force The lands were thrown into confusion and the King­ dom of Egypt was troubled", Patriarchs, II 3 , 304-305 Cf Med Soc , I, 39 42 Ibn Muyassar, pp 19-20, Maqrizi, Ith'az, II, 302, Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, ρ 244 39

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Reconstruction: The Dictatorship of Badr al-Jamali (1074-1094) In 1073, at the height of the time of troubles and shortly after the assassination of Nasir al-Dawla ibn Hamdan, the caliph summoned the powerful general Amir al-Juyush Badr alJamali from Syria to restore order in Egypt. An ex-slave of Armenian origin, Badr was at the time military governor of Acre. He had twice served al-Mustan$ir as governor of the re­ calcitrant city of Damascus, once from April 1063 to July 1064, and again, from July 1066 to July 1068. 43 Understanda­ bly, the caliph considered him a likely candidate for savior of the dynasty. The fact that he was Armenian rather than Turk­ ish, and commanded a regiment of loyal Armenian soldiers, enhanced his qualifications for the job. 4 4 Badr proved himself eminently capable. Through aggressive and skillful measures, he succeeded in ending strife, restoring authority, and inau­ gurating a new period of stability and prosperity. 4 5 43

Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz, pp. 91-92, 93. Badr's loyalty to the Fatimid caliph and his intense frustration at the news of Na$ir al-Dawla's tyranny are reported by the historian of Damascus, Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz, p. 95 (s.a. 460/1067-68). On Badr's Armenian militia, see Wiet, Matertaux, p. 140 and n. 7 there. 45 On Badr and his accomplishments, see EI2, s.v "Badr al-Djamali"; Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp. 150-54, 161, O'Leary, Fattmtd Khahfate, pp. 206-208; Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, ρ 245-54, idem, Matertaux, pp 132 f£, Hamdani, Fatimids, pp 45-47. Et. Quatremere, Memoires geographiques et histortques sur I'Egypte et sur quelques contrees voisines, II (Paris, 1811), 339 ff., esp. pp. 420-51. Medieval appreciation of Badr's achievements is nearly unanimous. See the lavish praise of him in contempor J ry official correspondence from the caliph al-Mustan§ir and members of his family to the Sulayljids of Yemen; 'Abd al-Mun'im Majid, ed., Al-sijillat al-mustansmyya (Correspondence de 1'Imam al-Mostancir) (Cairo, 1954), #32, p. 104 (dated 1074), #59, p. 195 (1080); #14, ρ 60 (1085); #28, p. 96 (1086); #16, ρ 67 (1087), #22, p. 80 (1089), etc., cf Husain al-Hamdani, "The Letters of al-Mustansir bi'llah," BSOS 1 (19331935), 307-24. Contemporary Jewish laudes: see the Hebrew poem from the Geniza celebrating Badr's victory over the Seljuk force that invaded Egypt in 1077; TS Misc. Box 36, f 174 [formerly TS Loan 174], ed. Julius H. Greenstone, AJSLL 22 (1905-1906), 144-75. Contemporary Christian hom­ age: Patriarchs, II 3 , 314, 318. Medieval Arabic chroniclers: Ibn al-Sayrafl, 44

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After arriving in the Mediterranean port of Damietta in December 1073, and in Cairo in January 1074, Badr moved swiftly to take control of the reins of government and to elim­ inate the sources of domestic anarchy. Within four years, he wiped out the Turks in Cairo, undertook a purge of Fatimid officials, including the vizier, certain disloyal qadis, and other notables, led a punitive expedition into the Delta to expel the refractory Lewata Berbers and Arab tribesmen; pacified Alexandria, the center of rebellion under Nasir al-Dawla, and finally (in 469/1076-77) conducted a campaign in Upper Egypt against remnants of the Sudanis and against rebellious Arabs. 4 6 By a streak of good luck, Badr's arrival coincided with a high Nile for the year 1073. Upon the restoration of security, land was restored to cultivation. 47 In order to encourage peas­ ants to raise bumper crops and thus relieve the famine, Badr declared a three-year moratorium on the land tax. 4 8 To accel­ erate deflation he ordered hoarders of surplus foodstuffs to sell their stores. 4 9 These measures evidently had their desired Ishara, ρ 56, Ibn Zafir, ρ 76, Ibn Muyassar, ρ 30, Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 329, Ibn al-Dawadari, Chromk, part 6, pp 399-400, Ibn Taghri Birdi, ed Popper, II, 276 Only the last has harsh words for Badr, on account of the viceroy's brutal repression of his enemies, the other chroniclers seem to have recog­ nized that violence was necessary to achieve peace Cf Wiet, Matertaux, ρ 133 and η 2 there for an explanation of Ibn Taghri Birdi's views Referring to the great famine and plague that preceded Badr's arrival, Goitein notes that "after 1075 a new chapter of history sets in for the people represented in the Geniza [which] was one of brilliant recovery", S D Goitein, "Changes in the Middle East (950-1150) as Illustrated by the Documents of the Cairo Geniza," in Islamic Civilisation 950-1150, edited by D S Richards (Oxford, 1973), ρ 32 46

Ibn Muyassar, pp 22-25, Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 312-17, Ibn Zafir, ρ 76, Ibn al-SayrafT, Ishara, pp 55-56, Patriarchs, II 3 , 314, Ibn al-Dawadari, Chromk, part 6, ρ 400, and the secondary sources cited at the beginning of η 45, above 47 Patriarchs, IP, 314 48 Ibn Muyassar, ρ 30, Wiet, Matertaux, ρ 133 49 Ibn al-Dawadari, Chromk, part 6, pp 399-400

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effect, for we hear no more of starvation in the following years. In order to revive commerce, severely curtailed during the crisis, he transferred numbers of merchants to Egypt (or Fustat), evidently to replace ones who had fled.50 Soon, in turn, the flow of imports resumed. 5 1 In a move to strengthen the defenses of the capital, Badr ordered the construction of a new wall around Cairo. 5 2 The viceroy's domestic accom­ plishments are perhaps best summed up by the appreciative commendation of a contemporary Egyptian Christian histo­ rian: "Abundance followed in the days of the Amir al-Juyush. The routes were put in a good state, and the arrival of the caravans in Egypt from the east and the west and from all lands was without interruption." 5 3 The overriding need to reestablish tranquillity and prosper­ ity in Egypt made Badr al-Jamali give priority to domestic affairs. In foreign relations, however, three areas occupied his attention: to the north, Syria, and to the south, Arabia and Nubia-Abyssinia. In Syria, Badr al-Jamali engaged in at least two unsuccessful attempts to retake the city of Damascus, one in 1077 and another in 1078. 54 Following the Egyptian defeat at Damascus in 1077, the Seljuk conqueror of Syria, Atsiz, in­ vaded Egypt. At the time, Badr al-Jamali was preoccupied in Upper Egypt putting down resistance to his authority. The 50

Ibn Muyassar, ρ 30 Ibn al-Dawadari, Chronik, part 6, ρ 400 52 Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp 152-53, Wiet, Matenaux, pp 156-58 ™ Patriarchs, IP, 318 54 Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed Amedroz, ρ 112 (s a 470/1077-78 and s a 471/107879) Ibn Muyassar (p 26) and MaqrizI (Itti'az, II, 320) report the second cam­ paign under the year 472/1079-80, but both chronicles lack the year 471, and, evidently, some confusion in the dates has occurred Ibn al-Athir records the latter siege under the year 471 (Al-kamtlfi 'l-ta'r!kh, X [Beirut, 1966], ρ 111) but does not mention the siege of 470 On the other hand, he reports, briefly, a siege of Damascus by Badr al-Jamali during the year 478 (1085) (ibid , ρ 145, cf Quatremere, Memotres, II, 446) However, neither the Damascus chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi nor the two Egyptian historians Ibn Muyassar and al-Maqrizi have any record of such a battle 51

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Armenian quickly ordered a counterattack and decisively routed the Seljuks in Lower Egypt. s s Upon his triumphal return to Cairo, the victor was greeted by various expressions ofjoy and gratitude, including the accolades of a Jewish judge in Fustat. 56 After 1078, however, Badr avoided major conflict with the Seljuks. Indeed, H.A.R. Gibb has characterized his foreign policy toward Syria as generally isolationist. According to this interpretation, Egypt under the Armenian dictator abandoned its Shiite expansionist dreams and became a "selfcontained kingdom," concerned primarily with domestic stability and with the cultivation of commercial links with the Far East and with the markets of Europe. 57 Gibb's thesis is substantiated by evidence describing Badr's activities in the foreign political sphere. 58 With the north no longer open to Fatimid expansionism, the vizier assiduously cultivated diplomatic relations with Arabia. In 468/1075-76, after a lapse of five years, the Fatimid mission (da'wa) was restored in Mecca and Medina through the reinsertion of the name of the Fatimid caliph in the khutba. Though the Fatimids were unsuccessful in retaining the permanent allegiance of the sacred cities, the Armenian vizier seemed satisfied to snatch it from the Abbasids and their Seljuk over55 Ibn Muyassar, p. 25; Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed Amedroz, pp. 109-12; Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 317-18; Patriarchs, II3, 343-44. 56 TS Misc. Box 36, f. 174+; cf. above, n. 45. " H . A . R Gibb, "The Caliphate and the Arab States," in A History of the Crusades, edited by Kenneth M. Setton, I, edited by Marshall W. Baldwin (Philadelphia, 1955), 94-98; cf. Ibn al-Qalanisi, trans. Gibb, pp. 16-17 (Gibb's introduction). Gibb's view is echoed in F. E. Peters, Allah's Commonwealth. A History of Islam m the Near East 600-1100 A.D. (New York, 1973), pp. 662, 698. 58 For a suggestion that Seljuk domination of the Fertile Crescent initiated a pause in the overland trade between Egypt and the eastern Islamic lands, lasting until about 1200, see George T. Scanlon, "A Note on Fatimid-Saljuq Trade," in Islamic Civilisation 950-1150, edited by D S. Richards (Oxford, 1973), pp. 265-74.

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lords as often as possible, hoping thereby to guarantee Fatimid freedom of the seas along the trade route to India S9 At the same time, and with the same objective, Badr nurtured the Fatimid alliance with the §ulayhids of Yemen. Most of the extant correspondence between the Fatimids and the Sulayhids dates from the reign of Badr al-Jamali. These letters show the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir bestowing lavish titles upon the Sulayhid rulers and their family. On the basis of what we know about Badr's absolute powers at this time, we may assume that this was done on his initiative, and with the purpose of holding tight rem over the India route, which passed through the Yemen port of Aden. 60 The other foreign region to the south that occupied Amir al-Juyush was the adjacent tributary kingdoms of Nubia and Abyssinia. These Monophysite Christian lands were tied to Egypt because, among other reasons, they fell under the ecumenical control of the patriarch of the Coptic church. In fact, our information regarding Fatimid relations with Nubia and Abyssinia derives mainly from a Christian source, the History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church. The overriding concern of Fatimid foreign policy toward these countries during the period of Badr al-Jamali was the protection of Islamic houses of worship and of Muslim merchant travelers. 61 In the context of general foreign relations at this time, the focus on Nubia and Abyssinia offers another indication of the turn away from Syria and in the direction of the regions to the south and to the Far East, and provides additional evidence in support of Gibb's theory about the domestic orientation inaugurated by the Armenian vizier. 59

Maqrizi, Itti'iz, II, 314 (da'wa restored, 467/1074-75), 315 (da'wa lost, 468/1075-76), 319 (da'wa restored, 470/1077-78), 320 (da'wa lost, 472/107980), 322 (da'wa lost, 478/1085-86, the years 473-476 are missing in the text) 60 Majid, ed , Al-sijtllat, passim, cf al-Hamdani, "Letters of al-Mustansir", Lewis, "An Interpretation of Fapmid History," pp 291-93, Stern, "Cairo as the Centre of the Isma'ili Movement," pp 447-48, Lewis, "The Fatimids and the Route to India " 61 For more detail, see below, this chapter

66

Chapter Two THE COPTIC PATRIARCHATE DURING THE PERIOD OF CRISIS AND RECONSTRUCTION

The decline of the Jerusalem gaonate and the appearance of the new office of head of the Jews coincided with the period of crisis and reconstruction in Fatimid Egypt. However, apart from the echoes in Geniza documents of hardships incurred by the Jews as a result of Turkish rapacity and Berber depradations in Lower Egypt, and other occasional allusions to deprivations, 62 our Jewish sources say nothing about the impact of external events upon the political transformation that was then occurring in the Jewish community. However, we are able to assess the influence of current events upon minority self-government in Egypt during this period, thanks to a source that has hitherto not been exploited for Jewish history: the informative Christian-Arabic chronicle of the lives of the Coptic patriarchs, Ta'rikh batarika al-kanisa al-misriyya (History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church).63 Begun in the late tenth century by the prolific bishop of Ashmunayn, Sawirus (Severus) ibn al-Muqaffa' (d. between 979 and 1003), who used a myriad of earlier sources to reconstruct the history of the patriarchs from the first century down to 880, the work was resumed in the eleventh century. 64 Information in this source for the second half of the eleventh and the early dec62

See Med. Soc, III, 207-208. The work is accessible m an excellent new edition by a team of learned scholars, which was published by the Society of Coptic Archaeology in Cairo. Relevant to our period are vol. 2, part 3, edited and translated by Aziz Suryal Atiya et al. (Cairo, 1959) (Patriarchs, II3) and vol. 3, part 1, edited and translated by Antoine Khater and O.H.E. KHS-Burmester (Cairo, 1968) (Patriarchs, III1). Citations below are to the pages of the English translation. Arabic passages are easily located by referring to the manuscript folio pages given by the editors in the margins. In quotations a few stylistic changes have been made where the printed rendition has appeared somewhat stilted. 64 On the work and its authors, see Meinardus, Christian Egypt Faith and Life, pp. 203, 211; Neale, Patriarchate, II, 191 On Sawirus ibn al-Muqaffa', see EP, s. v. "Ibn al-Mukaffa'," and F. R. Farag, "The Technique of Research of a Tenth-Century Christian Arab Writer: Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa'," Le Museon 86 (1973), 37-66. 63

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ades of the twelfth centuries is particularly valuable. The compiler of the vitae of Patriarchs Chnstodulos (1047-1077) and Cyril II (1078-1092) was a contemporary of theirs, an Alexandrian deacon named Mawhub lbn Mansur. Mawhub was a retainer of Chnstodulos, for whom he did favors and undertook missions. 65 In addition, he had other reliable in­ formants for both patriarchal reigns. 6 6 He worked on Chnstodulos's biography during the 1080s 67 and wrote Cyril's some time after the latter's death. Similarly, John lbn Sa'id al-Qulzumi, the compiler of the history of the regimes of Michael IV (1092-1102) and of Macanus II (1102-1128), was a contemporary of Cyril II and had conversed also with his predecessor, Chnstodulos. John copied a manuscript of the entire History prior to adding his original contribution, and inserted his own eyewitness testimony to certain occurrences during both of those patriarchates into the vitae compiled by Mawhub 6 8 Furthermore, John was intimately involved in church politics during the reign of Macanus II. 6 9 Taken as a whole, the information for our period is immediate, accurate, and rich in detail. To the credit of the compilers it should also be noted that descriptions of miracles, so characteristic of me­ dieval hagiography, have been kept carefully separate from the historical narrative itself. Through the eyes of Mawhub lbn Mansur, we learn that the period of crisis and reconstruction in Fatimid Egypt wit­ nessed the beginnings of an historic transformation in the rul­ ing institution of the Coptic church. The first stage involved the relocation of the seat of the patnarchal office in the Fatimid capital Until the middle of the eleventh century, the Coptic patriarch governed his flock from his ancient seat in Alexandria, the center of Egyptian Christianity. In the reign of Chnstodulos, however, the patriarch abandoned Alexan­ dria as a result of internal church conflicts and external pres65 66 67 69

Patriarchs, IP, 279-80, Neale, Patriarchate, II, 212 Patriarchs, IP, 298, 303, 313, 351 68 Ibid , ρ 248 Ibid , pp 285, 365-70 Patriarchs, IIP, 12, cf below, η 93

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sures. Early in his reign, Christodulos transferred his ecclesiastical entourage to the Delta village of Damru, following an unsuccessful attempt by some bishops to dethrone him. 70 Not long afterwards, he began to experience serious difficulties with the vizier al-Yazuri (1050-1058). First, he was arrested and temporarily imprisoned for having allegedly ordered his ecclesiastical subject, the king of Nubia, to suspend tribute payments to the Fatimid caliph.71 Then, in 1057, a general persecution of the Copts erupted when a vindictive qadi libeled the patriarch before the vizier, claiming that the new Coptic capital in Damru constituted an ostentatious affront to Islam. As a result, the vizier ordered Christodulos and some bishops detained—the arresting officer was Nasir al-Dawla ibn Hamdan, virtual ruler of Egypt a few years later—and the Christians of Egypt heavily fined. Finally, Yazuri commanded that all the churches in Egypt be closed. This distressing persecution lasted about four and a half months, from the end of May to the middle of October 1057, notwithstanding some help from sympathetic local officials.72 Yazurfs passage from the scene in 1058 did not lessen Christodulos' tribulations. During the Fatimid time of troubles, pressure on the patriarchate to move close to the center of Fatimid power mounted. During the Berber terror in the Delta, the Lewatis kidnapped and cruelly tortured the patriarch. Only an agreement by Na§ir al-Dawla ibn Hamdan to 70

Patriarchs, II3, 260-62. On Damru see E. Amehneau, La geographie de VEgypte a I'epoque copte (Pans, 1893), pp. 505-506. 71 Patriarchs, II3, 263-64 72 Ibid., pp. 267-71, 303-304 (dates the closure of the churches from 5 Baunah [= May 30] to 22 Babah [= October 19]), cf. the calendar of the Coptic church in Meinardus, Christian Egypt Ancient and Modem, pp. 38 ff Sympathetic local official: Patriarchs, II3, 270-71. On the persecution, see Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp. 143-44, O'Leary, Fatimid Khaltfate, pp. 197-98; Hamdam, Fatimids, p. 43. I know of no echo in Jewish sources of the persecution of 1057 Undoubtedly the crackdown was confined to the more visible Coptic population. We have, therefore, one more example illustrating the generalization that the Fatimids concerned themselves to a greater extent with Christians than with Jews m their relations with the non-Muslim minorities.

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put up the three thousand dinar ransom—which, of course, had to be repaid out of Christian pockets—secured his release.73 Instilled with an understandable sense of insecurity, the patriarch abandoned Damru for the relative safety of the Egyptian capital. On the basis of allusions to datable Islamic events in Mawhub ibn Mansur's segment of the History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, we may date this momentous event around 1070, during the tyranny of Nasir al-Dawla. 74 Mawhub describes an attempt to overthrow Christodulos by a monk named Jacob, who solicited and obtained the support of "his friend" Nasir al-Dawla ibn Hamdan. However, while awaiting the latter's arrival in Alexandria—we will recall that the rebel retreated to the port city about 1069—the would-be usurper died. The narrative goes on to recount how soon thereafter Ibn Hamdan reached Alexandria—where "his position became so great that he was addressed as our lord alNasir"—only to be grieved at news of the death of the monk Jacob. 75 Two paragraphs later, our Coptic informant writes: "As regards the father Christodulos, he went after the death of Abba Jacob, the monk, to [Old] Cairo and remained there a long time until the honoured Amir al-Juyush arrived in Egypt from Acre." 76 Since Badr al-Jamall reached Egypt at the end of 1073, we may confidently fix the date of the arrival in Cairo of the Coptic patriarch and his retinue around the year 1070. Mawhiib's account suggests that the change of venue was originally intended only as an interim expedient. We may well imagine that Christodulos considered Cairo a 73

Patriarchs, IP, 279. The move to Cairo during the patriarchate of Christodulos (1047-1077) is, of course, mentioned in the books I consulted. However, none of them attempts to pinpoint the date. See Neale, Patriarchate, II, 222; Butcher, Story of the Church of Egypt, II, 59; Fortesque, The Lesser Eastern Churches, p. 236; Atiya, Eastern Christianity, p. 144; Meinardus, Christian Egypt Ancient and Modem, pp 7-8. The editors of Patriarchs II3 come close to dating the relocation when they state that "the devastation of the Delta by the Lewatis, who also captured and tortured Christodulos, was doubtless one of the reasons for the transference of the seat of the Patriarchate to Cairo" (p. v). 75 76 Ibid., pp. 312-13. Ibid , p. 314 74

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temporary refuge and fully expected to return to the Delta, the heartland of Coptic Christianity, after safety was restored. Indeed, we shall shortly see that his successor, Cyril, made an unsuccessful attempt in that direction. Whatever Christodulos' intentions, external pressures during the regime of Badr al-Jamali forced him and his successor to remain in the Fatimid capital. A careful reading of the History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church reveals that specific needs of Fatimid administration during Badr al-Jamalfs authoritarian regime weighed heavily in favor of the permanent emplacement of the patriarchate in the Egyptian capital. The first recorded contact between the patriarch in Cairo and Amir al-Juyush concerned a report of trouble over the status of Muslim houses of worship in Nubia. During the Armenian general's campaign into Upper Egypt in 1076, he received word that the metropolitan of the Nubian church, an appointee of Patriarch Christodulos, had destroyed a mosque. In retaliation, the vizier had the patriarch incarcerated; he released him shortly thereafter when the accusation was proven false. After this ominous beginning, however, the patriarch and the vizier formed a warm friendship.77 During the reign of Christodulos' successor, Cyril II, Badr al-Jamali continued to interfere in church business when considerations of foreign policy so dictated. Evidently anticipating, or perhaps responding to, rebelliousness in Christian Ethiopia, Badr once pressured Cyril to consecrate as metropolitan of the Abyssinian church a candidate named Severus, who had promised the vizier that, if appointed, he would maintain a flow of gifts to the Fatimid court and encourage the Abyssinian king to be loyal to Cairo. 78 Subsequently, the brother of Metropolitan Severus arrived in the Egyptian capital with a present that failed to satisfy the vizier. Badr summoned Patriarch Cyril and held him accountable for this breach of good faith, notwithstanding the protestations of the patriarch's ecclesiastical secretary that the incumbent metIbid., pp. 316-18.

78

Ibid., p. 329.

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ropolitan had been installed in office by command of the vizier himself. Along similar lines, Badr al-Jamali demanded that the patriarch use his influence to put an end to attacks upon Egyptian merchants traveling through the Ethiopian realm, reports of which had reached the Fatimid court. 79 Badr's most startling intervention in purely ecclesiastical matters took place in 1086. Demands by the bishops of Lower Egypt and the archons (lay leaders) of Cairo that Cyril dismiss certain attendants of whom they disapproved initiated the affair. Broken promises by the patriarch to comply with their wishes led some of the bishops to apply to Amir alJuyush through his Christian gardener, "since he knew the things to which Amir al-Juyush would agree and those he would be inclined to accept." Their petitions provoked the unexpected. Badr commanded the patriarch and all the bishops of Egypt to assemble in the capital. In dutiful response, forty-seven bishops, from Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and the Cairo region, converged on Old Cairo and convened in what had the appearance of a veritable synod. Badr al-Jamali summoned the delegates to his residence outside Cairo on August 16, 1086, and upbraided them for quarreling among themselves. He then ordered the clerics to prepare canons for his perusal, evidently meaning to use them in adjudicating the dispute. Each of the rival factions, supporters or opponents of the patriarch, promptly withdrew to formulate its precepts. Each party, of course, hoped to win favor for its version. By the time the synod reconvened at the vizier's palace three weeks later, Badr al-Jamali seemed to have lost interest in the details of the dissension. Accordingly, he dismissed the churchmen with a curt exhortation to make peace among themselves and to abide by the canons they had just com79 Ibid., pp. 347-51. Concern of Egyptian authorities about connections between the Coptic patriarch and the Monophysite countries of Nubia and Abyssinia over which he had ecumenical control is reflected in a letter of appointment for a Coptic patriarch from the Mamluk period; cf. Bosworth, "Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries," pp. 207, 209-10.

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piled.80 A potentially dangerous intrusion into ecclesiastical business was thus averted, while, on the positive side, the church gained a set of new canons—the ones drawn up by the Patriarch Cyril—which were subsequently incorporated into Coptic Canon Law. 81 Badr al-Jamali's frequent intervention in patriarchal affairs needs explanation. 82 In part it derived from principles inherent in general Islamic policy toward the dhimmls. Respectful conduct toward Muslims and Islam was one of the key obligations that the Pact of 'Uraar imposed upon the protected peoples. 83 Indeed, long before Badr al-Jamali arrived on the scene, the Fatimid authorities had charged the gaon of Jerusalem with this responsibility by incorporating such a clause into his governmental letter of appointment. 84 At the same time, however, Badr's unusually direct intervention in ecclesiastical affairs doubtless had an immediate, pragmatic motivation. Following more than a decade of domestic anarchy and foreign crisis, the man who had singlehandedly restored order out of chaos was naturally anxious to seize every opportunity to discourage discord at home, even among his Christian subjects, and to exploit the ecumenical power of the Coptic patriarchate to check anti-Muslim sentiments in Monophysite lands to the south. A byproduct of the vizier's pragmatic politics was the permanent establishment of the Coptic patriarchate in the Egyptian capital. Mawhub ibn Mansur relates the following about 80

Patriarchs, IP, 332-40. O.H.E. Burmester, "The Canons of Cyril II, LXVII Patriarch of Alexandria," Le Museon 46 (1936), 245-88; Meinardus, Christian Egypt: Faith and Life, p. 86. 82 Referring to another such incident during the governorship of Badr alJamali, Meinardus has the following to say: "During the governorship of Amir al-Juyush, the involvement of the state in purely ecclesiastical affairs increased to the point that it was even the governor rather than the Patriarch who assigned churches to the Syrians and the Armenians in the Monastery of al-Khandaq (outside of Cairo)"; ibid, p. 354, citing Patriarchs, II3, 356-57. 83 See the texts included in Lewis's anthology, cited above, n. 2 84 See Chapter One, at n. 81. 81

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Patriarch Cyril II: "He used to long to live in the Rif [the lower Egyptian countryside] but was not able [to do so] on account of the many messengers traveling to and from the lands of Abyssinia and Nubia, and because the sultan [Badr al-Jamali] required that he should present himself to him at all times." 8 5 Elsewhere, Mawhub records that, before leaving the Egyptian capital to consecrate new churches m the Rif, Cyril had first to obtain the permission (istidhan) of the vizier 8 6 Mawhub's reliable testimony indicates that the permanent relocation of the patriarchate in Cairo had its roots in Fatimid policy and, at the same time, hints at the reason why. After arriving in Cairo around 1070, ecumenical contacts between the Coptic patriarch and his Monophysite daughter churches to the south increased. Badr al-Jamali encouraged this growth in diplomatic activity in the interests of Fatimid foreign pol­ icy. Evidently wishing to institutionalize this new-found pro­ cedure for negotiating with Nubia and Abyssinia, the vizier made the Coptic patriarch a regular member of the Fatimid court and thereby forced him to take up his permanent abode in Cairo. As a result, the patriarchal office became dissociated from provincial Alexandria and increasingly tied to the center of Egyptian government. Under Badr al-Jamali's son and successor, al-Afdal, the pa­ triarchate became irreversibly attached to its new domicile. The viceroy took steps to assure this development. In 1102, the newly chosen patriarch Macanus II was about to depart from Cairo for Alexandria to participate in the traditional consecration ceremony in the ancient patriarchal see. He ap­ es Patriarchs, II3, 327-28 "Sultan" is used explicitly of the vizier Badr alJamali, e g ibid , ρ 337 (cf ρ 33) This Coptic usage provides additional support to D S Richards's contention that the title "sultan" in a petition to the Fatimids from the monks of St Catherine's monastery in the Sinai penin­ sula refers to the vizier, rather than to the caliph, reflecting popular parlance, D S Richards, "A Fatimid Petition and 'Small Decree' from Sinai," Israel Oriental Studies 3 (1973), 145 86

Patriarchs, IP, 334

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Chapter

Two

peared before al-Afdal in the company of a prominent Coptic government official who, pleading poverty on behalf of the patriarch, received from the vizier an exemption for the holy father from taxes traditionally collected by the governor of Alexandria from each new patriarch. 87 Marcanus obviously felt entitled to this relief since he no longer resided in the port city. For his part, al-Afdal was doubtless inclined to grant the petitioner his request out of the same pragmatic considerations that had motivated his father to wean the patriarch away from his ancient seat. Like his father, al-Afdal intervened in ecclesiastical affairs when Fatimid foreign policy was at stake. In 1101, when the king of Abyssinia dispatched an emissary to al-Afdal requesting that a new metropolitan over the Ethiopian church be designated, the viceroy summoned Patriarch Michael IV and directed him to comply at once. When, shortly thereafter, the newly installed prelate fell into disgrace over some indiscretion and was sent back to Egypt by the Ethiopian king, alAfdal summarily threw the man into prison. 88 We may imagine that al-Afdal took this action in order to cool the anger of the Abyssinian ruler and prevent the kind of anti-Egyptian outbursts that had plagued the reign of Badr al-Jamali, and that certainly hovered before the eyes of the latter's son. To judge from the History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, the heads of the Coptic church offered little resistance to the radical innovation in their lives and to the new relationship with the Fatimid authorities. Presumably they recognized that direct access to the corridors of Islamic power had advantages. The Nestonan cathohcos and the Jewish exilarch had probably moved their respective seats of government from the Sassaman capital of Ctesiphon to the new Abbasid capital of Baghdad with these very considerations in mind. 89 Similar strategy probably induced the head of the yeshiva of Pumbedita to imitate their example at the end of the ninth 87 89

Ibid , IIP, 4-6 «»Ibid , II3, 394-95 Baron, Social and Religious History, V, 7

The Coptic Patriarchate

75

century, when the Abbasid caliphs returned to Baghdad after their half-century long sojourn in Samarra 9 0 So, too, with the Coptic patriarchs At a time when Fatimid central govern­ ment was being restored to vigor following years of impo­ tence, the heads of the Coptic church could hardly resist the invitation to become associated with the architects of Cairo's resurgence As the relationship between the patriarch and the Fatimid viziers grew closer, a significant restructuring of political power within the See of Cairo unfolded Because the pa­ triarch had always resided in Alexandria, the task of represent­ ing Coptic ecclesiastical interests before the Muslim au­ thorities had traditionally been shared by the bishop of Cairo and the Coptic katibs (civil servants) As a result, the bishop of Cairo boasted an exalted position within the episcopal ranks In a letter to the patriarch defending their special status among ecclesiastical districts, the Copts of Cairo protested "this see does not follow the same course as the other south­ ern and northern sees, because in it are the archons of Cairo and its leaders and the Coptic notables and chiefs (ru'asa') who are the scribes of the state (kuttab al-dawla) and their servants of the kingdom In addition, their bishop must at all times be present in attendance on the reigning king " 9 1 Once the patriarch became ensconced in the capital, assum­ ing his new role as guarantor of Christian loyalty to the Fatimid state at home and abroad, it was inevitable that the bishop of Cairo should lose his former prestige Indeed, John 90 This suggestion about the return from Samarra is made by Η Busse, Chahf and Grosskomg Die Buyiden im Iraq (945-1055) (Beirut, 1969) ρ 485, in his chapter on the Jews, noting that the head of the Nestonan church moved to Baghdad at that time (cf also ρ 455) As his source for the relocation of Pumbedita, Busse cites Jacob Mann, "The Last Geonim of Sura,"JQR η s 11 (1920-1921), 420, and idem, "Addenda to 'The Responsa of the Babylo­ nian Geonim as a Source of Jewish History ' " ibid ρ 435, wherein Mann comments only that "the reason for this change of residence is not known " Busse's plausible proposal demonstrates the usefulness of the comparative approach to non-Muslim communal history for solving problems 91 Patriarchs, III 1 , 13 (emphasis added)

76

Chapter Two

ibn $a'id al-Qulzumi describes from firsthand observation a protracted struggle for power within the See of Cairo, which ended in the triumph of the patriarch. During his reign, Patriarch Michael IV (1092-1102) forced the bishop of Cairo into political exile at least twice, and even attempted, unsuccessfully, to subvert the bishop's time-honored prerogative to serve as patron of the venerable Church of St. Sergius in Fustat. 92 Upon the death of the incumbent bishop of Cairo in May 1117, Patriarch Macarius actually delayed designating a successor for a year, rightly generating suspicions that he intended to abolish the bishopric altogether. 93 Though he was finally pressured into consecrating John son of Sanhut as Cairene bishop in 1118, the appointment had little practical significance. By the time of the reign of Macarius, the bishop of Cairo had forfeited to the patriarch all the trappings of office that had once rendered his position special. Symbolically, it was the patriarch and not the bishop who joined the Coptic katibs in paying homage to al-Afdal's successor as vizier in 1122.94 If, as appears to be the case, no voices of opposition were heard in 1134 when Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turaik failed to install a new bishop for Cairo upon the death of John son of Sanhut in that year, 95 it was undoubtedly because by then the patriarch had supplanted him. 92 Ibid., II3, 385-88, 395-97. On the Church of St. Sergius, see Meinardus, Christian Egypt- Ancient and Modern, pp. 188-90. 93 The correspondence between the patriarch and the Cairenes concerning this matter, from which the passage quoted above was taken, has been preserved in theHijiory of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church (IIP, 11-32). This is thanks to the happy coincidence that the compiler of Macanus's vita, John ibn Sa'id al-Qulzumi, was also the scribe who wrote the epistles on behalf of the Cairenes and received (and preserved) the patriarch's replies Together, these letters provide a fascinating glimpse of inner church politics, one that is reminiscent of the quarrels depicted in so many Geniza letters. Their data further attest to the possibilities inherent in the comparative approach to nonMuslim communal history. 94 Ibn Muyassar, p. 62 (top). 95 Patriarchs, HI1, 43.

The Coptic Patriarchate

77

The history of the establishment of the Coptic patriarchate in the Fatimid capital during the last third of the eleventh century presents a remarkable parallel to the contemporaneous shift ofJewish self-government from Jerusalem to Cairo. It is difficult to imagine that these two events are not related. Egyptian Jewry could not have been unaware of what was transpiring in the other segment of the non-Muslim community, for Jews in government had daily contact with their Coptic colleagues. A fascinating Geniza letter from the beginning of the twelfth century proves that the Jews kept abreast of pnvileges accorded the Christians of Egypt, and made every effort through Jewish government functionaries to duplicate Coptic successes.96 Quite conceivably, the Jewish katibs, along with Jews outside the halls of government, concluded that it was essential to have their own titular and administrative chief located in the Fatimid court, next to his Christian counterpart. At the very mimmum, it seems reasonable to assume that at a time when the ruler of Egypt was pressing the head of the Egyptian Christian minority to present himself regularly at court, his Jewish counterpart would have been subject to the same demand, and for similar reasons. The evidence we have examined in Islamic and Egyptian Christian sources points to a general trend toward centralization in Egypt during the last decades of the eleventh century, of which changes in minority structure were a part. The specific hypothesis that Fatimid realities influenced the creation of the office of head of the Jews must remain in the realm of speculation so long as positive evidence is lacking. But it would certainly help explain why the institution emerged in Egypt precisely when the Geniza data indicate it did. It is interesting that sources relating to the Armenian Christians in Egypt reveal that the first Armenian Catholicos was installed 96

TS 18 J 4, f 6, the relevant section of which is translated in Goitein, Letters, pp 253-55

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Two

in Egypt, with his seat in Cairo, in 1077 or 1078, and one highly respected scholar believes that Badr al-Jamali, the Armenian vizier, had a decisive hand in this innovation. 97 Similarly, our awareness of the part that the viceroy and his son played in altering the location and structure of Coptic central self-government should alert us to search for echoes of the operation of external forces, however indirect, upon the evolution of the parallel Jewish institution. 97 Manus Canard, "Notes sur les Armeruens en Egypte a la epoque fapmite,"AIEO (Algiers) 13 (1955), 143-57

CHAPTER THREE

The Rise of the Headship of the Jews: Sociological Considerations

from the Cairo Geniza reveals a startling change in the structure of Jewish self-government in the Fatimid empire. Up until the latter third of the eleventh century, the Palestinian gaon, head of the yeshiva in Jerusalem, ruled over the Jews of Egypt. By the year 1100, however, the principal prerogative that had defined the sovereignty of the Palestinian gaon—the appointment of judges and local communal officials—rested in the hands of the nagid and head of the Jews, Mevorakh b. Saadya, in the Egyptian capital. How and why this change in Jewish administration occurred has not yet been adequately explained. In the previous chapter, we saw that Fatimid political and social realities fostered the centralization of Coptic self-government in the Egyptian capital during the latter third of the eleventh century. Applying that finding comparatively to the case of the Jews, we suggested that there might be a connection. We did not suggest, however, that the Fatimid government created the headship of the Jews. External causes interacted with powerful internal forces for change. In order to achieve an understanding of this process, it is necessary to review, within the context of Fatimid realities, the circumstances surrounding the decline of the Palestinian yeshiva. Then we shall present a new perspective on the problem of the origins of the office of head of the Jews by analyzing Geniza data concerning Jewish leadership in Fustat-Cairo, including material on the important family of notables that provided three of the DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

Chapter

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Three

headship's first four incumbents: the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya. This survey will delineate sociological factors under­ lying the origins of the institution of central Jewish authority that arose to replace the Palestinian gaonate. We shall see that this innovation was promoted by a tightly knit coterie of in­ fluential leaders responding to the weakening of the tradi­ tional seat of Jewish sovereignty in the Fatimid domain. THE ECLIPSE OF THE YESHIVA

Many factors contributed to the Palestinian gaon's loss of au­ thority. Seeds of political decay were planted during the bitter struggle over the gaonate between the priestly Palestinian gaonic house of Joseph and Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, and the Babylonian nasi, Daniel b. Azarya. Daniel arrived in the Fatimid domain in the late 1030s and rapidly achieved enor­ mous prestige on account of his aristocratic lineage and great learning. In 1051, he ascended to the Palestinian gaonate, pushing aside the president of the rabbinical court (av beth din) of the yeshiva and heir presumptive to the gaonic throne, Joseph ha-Kohen b. Solomon. For a decade, the strong-armed Daniel upheld the religious supremacy of the gaonic office and ruled effectively over Fatimid Jewry. 1 However, after his death in 1062, during the administration of Joseph's brother 1

Mann, I, 178-83 (with attendant documents), II, 360-62, idem, "Second Supplement," pp 283-88 (in reprint of Mann, II, 457-62), Joseph Braslavsky (Braslavi), " O n the Conflict between R Daniel b Azarya and R Joseph haKohen over the Palestinian Gaonate in the Light of New Geniza Fragments" (in Hebrew), in Le-heqer arsenu 'avar u-seridtm (Studies in Our Country Its Past and Remains) (Tel Aviv, 1954), pp 113-21 (cf Med Soc , II, 168), Ezra Fleischer, " N e w Aspects of the Figure of Rabbi Daniel b Azarya, Nasi and Gaon" (in Hebrew), Shalem 1 (1974), 53-74, Μ Cohen, " N e w Light", S D Goitein, " N e w Sources on Daniel b Azarya, Nasi and Gaon" (in Hebrew), Shalem 2 (1976), 41-102, Μ Gil, "The Scroll of Evyatar as a Source for the History of the Struggles of the Yeshiva of Jerusalem during the Second Half of the Eleventh Century A New Reading of the Scroll" (in Hebrew), in Peraqim be-toledot Yerushalayim bi-mei ha-betnayim (Jerusalem in the Middle Ages), edited by Β Ζ Kedar (Jerusalem, 1979), pp 46-50 For the one-sided

Sociological Considerations

81

Elijah ha-Kohen (1062-1083), a precipitous decline in the yeshiva was set in motion. It reached its climax during the reign of Elijah's son, Evyatar, whose regime extended from 1083 until some time toward the close of the first decade of the twelfth century. At that time, the gaonate, seriously weakened, no longer exercised authority over Egyptian Jewry. 2 Fatimid realities contributed heavily to the eclipse of the yeshiva. The first decade of Elijah ha-Kohen's administration coincided with the stormy time of troubles described in Chapter Two. Anarchy, war, and deprivation, which had plagued Fatimid Palestine during most of the eleventh cen­ tury, 3 reached intolerable proportions during this period. The climax came with the onset of the Seljuk invasion in 1071, which seems to have evoked some appropriate Jewish mes­ sianic excitement in Palestine. 4 Masses of Jews were com­ pelled to flee, and many chose Egypt as the safest haven. During the following decades, considerable numbers of Palestinian Jews filled the relief rolls of the Egyptian commu­ nity, along with other Palestinian and European Jewish refu­ gees from the subsequent crusade. 5 The yeshiva also abandoned Palestine after 1071, but for the version of this story told by Elijah ha-Kohen's son, Evyatar, see below, Chapter Five 2 Mann, I, 185-201. Evyatar is referred to as deceased in a letter dated Marheshvan 1424 Sel. (November/December 1112). In Mann's edition of the document (ibid, II, 202), read be-marheshvan 'tkd. The shelf-mark of the document is now ΕΝΑ 2806, f. 8 3 Cf. Med. Soc, II, 96 and 389. 4 Mann, Texts, 1, 645, 11. 27-29, 663-64 n. 14 5 Refugees on relief in Egypt: Med. Soc, II, App. B, esp. nos. 17, 18, 25, 32 (documents dated by Goitein between 1100 and 1140 that contain names of Palestinians); cf. p. 128. Mordechai A. Friedman advances the plausible sug­ gestion that the surge of Palestinian immigrants into Egypt after 1071 may account for the concentration of Palestinian ketubbas in the Geniza m the last years of the eleventh century; Milton (Mordechai) Friedman, "Jewish Mar­ riage Contracts in the Palestinian Tradition: Documents from the Cairo Geniza" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1969), pp. 33-34.

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Syrian coastal town of Tyre rather than for Egypt. The pre­ cise date of the yeshiva's transfer is not known. A colophon from a Talmudic tractate that was copied for Evyatar haKohen b. Elijah in Jerusalem during the Jewish year 4832 (August 29, 1071-September 14, 1072) suggests that the yeshiva's officialdom held out in that city even after the pil­ lage of Ramie. The latter event is mentioned explicitly in a Jerusalem court record drawn up in the summer of 1071 by the incumbent gaon, Elijah ha-Kohen, and witnessed, among others, by his son, Evyatar. Thanks to M. Gil, we now know that Jerusalem did not fall to the Seljuks until the summer of 1073. Quite likely, therefore, the yeshiva did not make its move to Tyre at least until then. 6 Whatever the chronology, the transfer to Tyre seems rather inexplicable in the light of Fatimid developments described in the previous chapter. In 1070, the qadi of Tyre, Ibn Abi 'Aqfl, had thrown off the yoke of Fatimid sovereignty, and, with the willing assistance of the approaching Seljuk army, success­ fully defended his rebellion against a siege by the Fatimid general, Badr al-Jamali.7 From 1071 until 1089 the important seaport maintained its independence from Cairo, while pay­ ing tribute to the occupying Seljuk rulers. 8 Why, it seems ap­ propriate to ask, did the Palestinian gaon, chartered by the 6 Colophon: TS NS Box 298, f 26, ed. A. Scheiber, Studies m Jewish Bibli­ ography History and Literature in Honor of I. Edward Kiev (New York, 1971), p. 422. Reference to pillage of Ramie: ΕΝΑ 2557, £ 1,1. 3 (cf. also below, Chap­ ter Four n. 14). Conquest of Jerusalem in summer of 1073· Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," p. 43. Gil notes, p. 50, that the first dated attestation of the yeshi­ va's presence in Tyre comes from August 1079 7 Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz, p. 98, MaqrizI, Itti'az, II, 303, Ibn Muyassar, ρ 20, 11. 21-23 (text has sfd, probably a mistake for swr, "Tyre"; the details fit the battle of Tyre as described by Ibn al-Qalanisi, and the passage itself, with a few omissions, duplicates almost verbatim the account of Maq­ rizI). For a contemporary Jewish report from Jerusalem indicating that the Jewish leadership in that city was fully aware of the rebellion in Tyre and of Fatimid efforts so repress it, see below, η 54. 8 Ibn al-Qalanisi, ed. Amedroz, pp 112, 120. M. Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," p. 44, cites a chronicler (thirteenth century) who places the rebellion of Ibn Abi 'Aqil in 1063

Sociological Considerations

83

Fatimid government upon his accession as head of the Jews in their empire, elect to plant himself in a city that had re­ nounced Fatimid suzerainty? Why did he not follow the trail of other Palestinian Jews to Egypt and reestablish the yeshiva in Cairo, as his grandson, Ma§hah, actually would do five and a half decades later? As we have seen, the gaon's counterpart in Fatimid eyes, the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria, trans­ ferred his seat to the Egyptian capital around 1070 in the wake of the anarchy that rocked the Delta. No source provides an explanation of the gaon's unusual step. Goitein has suggested that there may be a connec­ tion—which he does not explain—between the yeshiva's ac­ tion and the simultaneous move to Tyre by the Jerusalem head of the Shafi'i school of Muslim law. 9 Additional pos­ sibilities also come to mind. Undoubtedly, Elijah ha-Kohen (and possibly also the Shafi'i lawyer) believed that Tyre would be relatively safe from Turkish violence, owing to friendly relations, cemented with tribute, between the family of Ibn Abi 'Aqil and the Seljuks. Moreover, since the gaon naturally would have preferred to remain as close to Palestine as possible, if only in order to exercise his prerogative to sanctify the New Year, he may have judged Egypt too dis­ tant In 1082 Elijah actually traveled to Haifa from nearby 10 Tyre for this purpose. M. Gil suggests an additional plausi­ ble factor influencing the selection of Tyre, namely, a favor­ able trading relationship between the qadi Ibn Abi 'Aqil and 11 Jewish merchants. Whatever the gaon's motives, for several reasons his choice of Tyre for the new home of the yeshiva proved to be unfor­ tunate For one thing, the Fatimids must have looked with disfavor upon the priestly gaonic family for resettling in a 9

Med Soc, II, 201 io Megillat Evyatar, ρ 2, 11 19-20 Cf Joseph Braslavsky (Braslavi), " O n the Appointment of R Evyatar as Gaon during his Father's Lifetime and on the Cave of Machpelah" (in Hebrew), Eretz-Israel 5 (1958), 220, and below, Chapter Five 11 Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," pp 45-46, 72

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Chapter Three

rebel city that paid tribute to the Seljuks. Moreover, gaonic strategy was remarkably out of phase with Fatimid policy regarding the location of minority administration, since the move northward to Tyre coincided approximately with Badr al-Jamali's efforts to bring the gaon's Christian counterpart, the Coptic patriarch, into closer geographical and political relationship with the seat of Muslim government in Cairo Finally, geographical distance and the interposition of the Seljuk domain helped loosen the yeshiva's ties with Egyptian Jewry, its bulwark for a century or more. This, in turn, further sapped the vitality of the yeshiva and made necessary the transference of its prerogatives to Cairo through the establishment of a new office of central authority. This transfer did not take place by a sudden decree of the Fatimid government, as the prevalent hypothesis holds. Rather, it was the consequence of a slow and organic process of evolution that occurred within the Jewish community of Egypt. In essence, the rise of the office of head of the Jews constituted an Egyptian-Jewish response to the political and spiritual vacuum created by the decline of the Palestinian yeshiva and by its detachment from the Fatimid domain during the crucial two decades following the Seljuk invasion. The architects of this innovation were not Muslim rulers, but, rather, Jewish communal leaders, specifically, the leading Jewish notables of Fustat-Cairo. In order to appreciate this fact, we need to turn our attention to a profile of local Jewish leadership in the Egyptian capital during the period under discussion

LOCAL LEADERSHIP IN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF THE EGYPTIAN CAPITAL

The change in Egyptian-Jewish political life occasioned by the supercession of the Palestinian gaonate by the office of head of the Jews was promoted by a large number of leaders in the Jewish community of the Egyptian capital, who included the new institution's first incumbents The members of the en-

Sociological Considerations

8S

tourage of the first heads of the Jews appear repeatedly in the Geniza documents as having political relationships with one or more of the four men who pioneered the office: Judah b. Saadya, Mevorakh b. Saadya, Moses b. Mevorakh b. Saadya, and David b. Daniel b. Azarya. Their collective activity spans some seventy years. With the aid of dated Geniza documents, it is possible to divide them into two partially overlapping generations, thereby delineating chronological distinctions that permit more meaningful historical conclusions. Profiles of these men 12 reveal that both as individuals and as a group, they wholeheartedly endorsed the momentous administrative innovation that the establishment of the office of head of the Jews entailed. Their support, however, did not constitute an act of defiance. Most of them, as we shall see, maintained close ties with the Palestinian gaonate. They did not rebel against its authority. Rather, as the gaonic office declined, they admitted a gradual transfer of its powers to the Fatimid capital and encouraged the organic growth of a political alternative on Egyptian soil. The first group of notables consists of men whose period of public activity can be dated as falling between ca. 1060 and ca. 1100, the decades dunng which the Palestinian yeshiva declined and the headship of the Jews rose to fill the void. Their attitudes toward the fledgling Egyptian office are especially significant for our assessment of local responses to the changing Jewish political scene dunng the last third of the eleventh century. They are: Abu Yahya Nahray b. Nissim, the prominent merchant-banker and rabbinic scholar from Qayrawan (dated documents: 1045-1096; d. ca 1097), Judah ha-Kohen ("the Rav") b. Joseph, the most highly respected rabbinic authority in Egypt during this period (dated documents. 10551090); the Tunisian-born banker and scholar, Abraham b Isaac the Scholar (ha-talmid) (dated documents. 1050-1093), Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph Av, a judge of Palestinian 12 Details with documentation will be found in Appendix A to this chapter The salient conclusions are extracted and discussed here

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Chapter Three

provenance and son of the unsuccessful gaonic contender in the succession dispute of 1051 (dated documents: 1077-1098); Eli ha-Kohen b Yahya, a prominent parnas, or social welfare officer, who appears to have been a Palestinian (dated docu­ ments. 1057-1107), Hillel b. Eh, the celebrated cantor and court clerk from Baghdad (dated documents: 1066-1108); Ezekiel ha-Kohen b. Eh, another scribe, and an immigrant from Palestine (dated documents: 1074-1105), Abu Zikri Judah b. Moses ibn Sighmar, a prominent merchant with wealthy and learned family connections in his native Tunisia (dated documents: ca. 1050-1098). The second generation (ca 1090-ca. 1130), partially over­ lapping with the first, comprises dignitaries who became leaders of the Egyptian community only after the gaonate had largely waned and the office of head of the Jews was well on its way to appropriating the yeshiva's characteristic functions. Together they constituted the political entourage that enabled the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya to institutionalize the ad­ ministrative innovation begun a generation earlier Most of them emerged into the limelight following Mevorakh b. Saadya's restoration to office in 1094. They are: Abraham b. Shema'ya, a judge descended from a Palestinian gaon who ruled at the beginning of the eleventh century (dated docu­ ments: 1092-1132); Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard (ha-sefaradi), a judge of exalted scholarly reputation (dated documents: 1091-1127); Abraham b Nathan Av, a Palestinian judge and the son of the rival gaon to Solomon b. Judah from 1038 to 1042 (dated documents in Cairo: 1098-1114); Abu Ί-Faraj Nissim b. Nahray, son of the illustrious Nahray b. Nissim, who served various judicial functions (dated documents: 1098-1115/6); the elder and overseas trader Abu Ί-Mufaddal, elevated to the judiciary by Mevorakh b. Saadya during our period and possibly identical with Mevorakh's own nephew, Abu Ί-Mufaddal Nethanel b. Yefet (the latter's dated docu­ ments: 1098-ca. 1121); Halfon ha-Levi b. Menasse ibn alQata'if, son-in-law of the aforementioned Hillel b. Eh and his

Sociological Considerations

87

successor as court scribe (dated documents: 1100-1138); the courtier Abu Ί-Facll Yakhin b. Nethanel, a confidant of the heads of the Jews (dated documents: 1085-1132/3); Abraham b. Nathan the Seventh, originally from Palestine, a lay notable with government connections and also a close friend of Head of the Jews Mevorakh b. Saadya. Table 3.1 lists all the notables along with salient informa­ tion documented in Appendix A of this chapter. The most striking feature about this roster is the fact that the notables who encouraged the evolution of the headship of the Jews were practically all immigrants. At least seven, if not all eight, of the dignitaries belonging to the critical first generation (ca. 1060-ca. 1100) had arrived in Egypt from abroad. Two, and possibly three, hailed from Palestine, three from Tunisia, one from Iraq, and one possibly from Italy. Among the public functionaries of the second group (ca. 1090-ca. 1130), two out of the total of eight were immigrants from Palestine, one from Spain, one the son of a Tunisian immigrant, one of Palestinian ancestry, and one a son-in-law of an Iraqi immi­ grant. The immigrant status of the majority of the most im­ portant Jewish public servants in the Egyptian capital dunng the period that witnessed the rise of the headship of the Jews tallies perfectly with the finding that most of the spiritual and communal leaders mentioned in the Geniza whose origin is documented were foreign-born. 13 This phenomenon was in part a consequence of the general population movement from eastern Islamic lands toward the Mediterranean in the high middle ages. 1 4 More immediately, it had its roots in the political and economic deterioration that touched the regions bordering Egypt during the eleventh cen­ tury. After a long period of economic and cultural florescence, Tunisia entered a precipitous decline in the middle of the 13

Med Soc , II, 70 Ε Ashtor, "Migrations de l'lrak vers les pays mediterraneens dans le haut Moyen Age," Annates economies, soaetes, civilisations 27 (1972), 185-214, Goitein, "Changes in the Middle East (950-1150)," pp 23-24 14

TABLE

31

Notables in Fustat-Cat ro Supporting the Creation of the Headship of the Jews, ca. 1060 to ca. 1130

Leader

Country of Origin

Dated Documents (in Egypt)

Palestinian Title

Other Facts

First Generation (ca. 1060-ca. 1100) Yes

1. Nahray b. Nissim 2. Judah ha-Kohen b. Joseph

Tunisia Italy?

1045-1096 1055-1090

3. Abraham b. Isaac the Scholar 4. Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph

Tunisia

1050-1093

Palestine

1077-1098

5. Eli ha-Kohen b. Yahya 6. Hillel b. Eh 7. Ezekiel ha-Kohen b. Eh 8. Abu Zikri Judah b. Moses lbn Sighmar

Palestine (probably) Iraq Palestine

1057-1107

Yes

1066-1108 1074-1105

Yes

Tunisia

ca. 1050-1098

Yes

Scion of priestly Palestinian gaonic family

Scion of priestly Palestinian gaonic family

Second Generation (ca. 1090-ca. 1130) 9. Abraham b. Shema'ya 10. Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard 11. Abraham b. Nathan Av

12. Nissim b. Nahray 13. Abu Ί-Mufaddal (Nethanel b. Yefet?)

(Palestinian 1092-1132 ancestry) Spain

1091-1127

Palestine

1098-1114

(Tunisian father)

1098-1115/6 1098-ca. 1121

Scion of Palestinian gaon Shema'ya

Yes

Son of Palestinian "counter"gaon Nathan b. Abraham Son of Nahray b. Nissim

Sociological Considerations

89

TABLE 3 1 {com)

Leader 14 Halfon ha-Levi b Menasse lbn al-Qata'if 15 Abu Ί-Fadl Yakhin b Nethanel 16 Abraham b Nathan the Seventh

Country of Origin

Dated Documents (in Egypt)

Palestinian Title

1100-1138

Other Facts Son-in-law of Hillel b Eh

1085-1132/3 Palestine

Yes

eleventh century, climaxing in the sack of Q a y r a w a n by Bedouin hordes dispatched from E g y p t in 1057 1 5 As a result of these depredations, E g y p t absorbed many displaced T u n i ­ sians T h e Tunisian Jewish businessmen a m o n g our Egyptian notables represent this wave of immigration into the Fatimid heartland T h e other eleventh-century upheaval that had a d e m o ­ graphic impact u p o n the J e w s was the constant state of war w i t h Bedouins in Fatimid Palestine, followed by the Seljuk invasion of 1071 and the crusader conquest of 1099 These crises sent large n u m b e r s of refugees pouring into relatively secure E g y p t T h e impressive Palestinian representation a m o n g the Jewish leadership in the Fatimid capital during our period should be attributed t o the increasingly inhospitable atmosphere prevailing in eleventh-century Palestine T h e r e is little d o u b t that this emigration undermined the political base of the Palestinian gaonate T h e galaxy of dig­ nitaries concentrated in Cairo during our period included learned and wealthy m e n w h o had formerly participated in Jewish c o m m u n a l life in Palestine, o r had supported the Pales­ tinian gaonate from afar Six of the notables (see Table 3 1) 15

S D Goitein, "Medieval Tunisia The Hub of the Mediterranean," in Studies, pp 310-13

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bore Palestinian titles, and this testifies to their loyalty and financial assistance to the Jerusalem yeshiva. Four descended directly from the Palestinian gaonic aristocracy. Two of these—Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph Av andJudah ha-Kohen b. Joseph—were from the very same priestly family that controlled the gaonic office after 1062. We understand, therefore, why the replacement of Palestinian gaomc rule by the regime of the head of the Jews in Egypt proceeded so effortlessly and with only occasional signs of resistance from the Palestinian establishment. The supporters of this administrative innovation included many one-time appointees and loyal adherents of the Jerusalem yeshiva, and even members of the gaon's own family. Settled in Old Cairo at a time when political and economic crises had begun to turn the Fatimids away from their previous imperialistic posture and toward a domestic, Egyptian orientation, these Jewish political leaders followed suit and focused their energies on an Egyptian approach to Jewish self-government. Whatever resentment the head of the yeshiva and his subordinates in faraway Tyre may have harbored, there was little they could do. An additional factor smoothing the transition from Palestinian to Egyptian administration is disclosed by our sociological survey. The data indicate that the notables of Egyptian Jewry who promoted the headship of the Jews participated in a complex informal network of personal relations. This phenomenon appears to have been a defining characteristic of medieval Middle Eastern society. Some scholars have suggested that informal webs of personal connection delineated the framework within which economic and social endeavors were effected in the medieval Islamic context. According to this theory, medieval Middle Eastern commerce operated efficiently through interwoven networks of personal relationships, and medieval Islamic government relied heavily for its effectiveness upon the element of personal interdependence among local, regional, and central administrators. 16 16 On the economic aspect, see A L Udovitch's review of S D Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol 2JESHO 17 (1974), 220, and idem, "Formalism

Sociological Considerations

91

Table 3.2 is offered as partial graphic evidence of the network of personal connections among the Fustat-Cairo Jewish leadership dunng the two overlapping generations profiled in Appendix A. It plots cosignatories to legal documents, and proves that each of the notables interacted with many of the others in at least one sphere of social activity. The heads of the Jews Judah b. Saadya, Mevorakh b. Saadya, and David b. Daniel have been included, since they were the principals during the formative period of the office. It must be emphasized that the graph draws upon documentation that is largely fortuitous. Certainly many more cosigmng combinations occurred than are indicated by the randomly preserved manuscripts of the Cairo Gemza. These instances of interplay in the public sphere could be supplemented with data regarding family connections, exchange of correspondence, or with references in letters or legal documents showing individuals interacting in a business, social, or educational relationship. These people all had multiple roles in society, and their connections with one another operated in several domains. Though these social linkages existed simultaneously, one or another of them may have predominated at a particular time or in a particular dyadic relationship. For example, Tunisian-born merchants Nahray b. Nissim and Abu Zikri Judah b. Moses lbn Sighmar necessarily interacted in the economic sphere In other relationships, however, scholarship predominated. The same Abu Zikri lbn Sighmar studied rabbinics with the illustrious Judah ha-Kohen ha-Rav b. Joseph, and Nahray b. Nissim also considered himself the latter's disciple. In the next generation, Abraham b. Nathan Av revered Nahray as his own teacher. and Informalism in the Social and Economic Institutions of the Medieval Islamic World," in Individualism and Conformity m Classical Islam, edited by Amm Banani and Speros Vryonis (Wiesbaden, 1977), pp 61-81 On the role of networks of personal relationships in the administration of the eastern Islamic provinces during the tenth and eleventh centuries, see R Mottahedeh, "Administration in Buyid Qazwin," in Islamic Civilisation, 950-1110, edited by D S Richards (Oxford, 1973), esp pp 42-44

Chapter

92 TABLE

Three

3.2

Cosignatories

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Libya), congratulating Mevorakh b. Saadya on the birth of a son. 1 6 0 The well-wisher opens by quoting the matriarch Sarah's embarrassed comment when she gave birth to her son, Isaac, in her old age (Genesis 21:6). In the body of the epistle, the dayyan refers to Mevorakh by four titles, includ­ ing sar ha-sanm but not nagid. In a different ink, and possibly a different hand, the title "Nagid of the Nagids" (negid hanegidim) has been added to the outside address. Quite possi­ bly the letter was penned in Barqa shortly after Mevorakh's restoration and investiture as sar ha-sanm, but before news of his acquisition of the title of nagid had reached the distant congratulator Either the judge of Barqa learned about this after sealing the letter and inserted the new title m the address, or someone in Alexandria, through which city the letter passed on its way to the court of the head (as the docket on the back proves), penned in the important addition. The infant, of course, was Nethanel rather than, like matriarch Sarah's Isaac, Mevorakh's wife's first-born son, Moses. To assume the op­ posite would mean that Mevorakh's son and successor was a mere teenager when he acceded to power in 1112, a highly un­ likely event, which is nowhere suggested by any of our doc­ uments. Furthermore, another letter to Mevorakh proves that during his father's last years Moses was well into his majority while Nethanel was yet a youngster. Since Mevorakh bears at least eleven (of his ultimate fifteen) titles, the letter in question has to be dated rather late in the latter's second administra­ tion, hence in the first decade of the twelfth century. Moses himself already has two titles of his own. The correspondent reports that the commumty prays for "His Excellency" (alhadra), namely, the nagid, and for his son (singular). This shows that Nethanel was still too young to be associated with his father politically. 161 Moses's first two hononfics, recorded in the letter just dis­ cussed, were "Favorite of the Nesiut" (hemdat ha-nesiut) and 16O 161

TS10Jll,f 2 TS 20 177, 11 18, 25

153

House of Mevorakh b. Saadya 162

"Crown of the Princes" ('aferet ha-sarim). The "Nesiut" title could have been bestowed by any Davidide. 1 6 3 "Crown of the Princes" may very well have been accorded by Mevorakh himself. Mann's suggestion that the epithet was equivalent to crown prince, that is, nagid-designate, is quite plausible. 164 As we shall see later o n , 1 6 5 Moses, in fact, re­ ceived the title of nagid during his father's lifetime. The latest dated document in our corpus referring to Moses Nagid as alive is a marriage contract from 1125/6.166 In 1127, Masliah ha-Kohen Gaon b. Solomon was already the new head of the Jews in Egypt. 1 6 7 6. The House of Mevorakh h. Saadya after Moses b. Mevorakh Moses b. Mevorakh named his own two sons Mevorakh and Judah, after his father and uncle, respectively. The letter from the haver and head of the community of Minyat Zifta, Abraham b. Shabbetay, to Moses Nagid (published by Mann) transmits regards to both of the addressee's sons and gives the standard wish that their father may "see their Torah and wedding canopy." They were thus still young at the time. Abraham honors them with the epithet sarim and gives them the title "Chiefs of the Nagidate," anticipating their courtier 168 careers and expected succession to the nagidate. In one of 162 Ibid Cf also TS 13 J 15, f. 10, 11. 7-84

Chapter Three, Appendix

Β

the memorial lists for the family, Mevorakh and Judah b. Moses both have the title sar attached to their names. 1 6 9 We may with some confidence conclude, therefore, that the cour­ tier tradition continued in the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya for at least four generations. Moses's cousin, Abu Ί-Mufaddal Nethanel b. Yefet, who died in or shortly after 1121, probably worked closely with his cousin Moses when the latter was in office. 170 Following their generation, however, the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya virtually disappears from the Geniza records, as far as can be determined. 1 7 1 It is possible, however, that Mevorakh's youngest son, Saadya, has left his signature on several legal documents from the middle of the twelfth century. 1 7 2 7. The Economic Base of the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya Along with noble lineage and a tradition of scholarship, the family of Mevorakh b. Saadya also possessed wealth. Like other physicians in the Geniza, those of this family engaged in business as a sideline. 173 Mevorakh, our central figure, oper­ ated a bee farm in Jazirat Qawsaniyya (the pronunaation of this place name varied), a province located between Cairo and Alexandria. 1 7 4 We find him on more than one occasion on trips that may well have had some connection with commer169

Dropsie 460, col 3, 11 3-6+ See above, η 83 171 Goitein assumes that a son of Saadya b Judah, named Menasse, is men­ tioned in the Geniza cf Goitein, "Tyre—Tripoli—'Arqa," ρ 83 η 37 172 See above, η 151 Goitein records the datum that a certain Saadya served as head of the Jews (rayyis) sometime before the spring of 1169, Med Soc , II, 32 η 47, and 528 η 47 Could this Saadya have been Mevorakh's son, serving m his father's and brother's post for a brief time during the anarchic last years of Fatimid rule' 173 Med Soc , II, 258 174 Two letters mentioning his bee farm TS 13 J 26, f 19 and ΕΝΑ 2743, f 4v , margin (verso is actually the beginning of the letter) Cf Norman Golb, "The Topography of the Jews in Medieval Egypt," ρ 135 The province of Jazirat Qawsaniyya appears in a tax-revenue list from very late in the reign of al-Mustansir, Abu Salih, Churches and Monasteries, pp 17-19, cf Lane-Poole, Egypt, pp 151-52 η 1 170

House of Mevorakh

b.

Saadya

155

Family Tree of the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya

cial interests. 1 7 5 A business letter addressed to M e v o r a k h includes a request that he purchase pearls and clothing for s o m e o n e . 1 7 6 In a legal document, w e encounter him issuing a writ o f agency (wakãla) for the collection o f s o m e j e w e l r y . 1 7 7 O n e business letter announces the arrival o f a shipment o f olives and figs destined for Mevorakh and his brother, the nagid; another inquires anxiously about a delayed parcel f r o m Mevorakh containing dinars and w a x . 1 7 8 Like other merchants, Mevorakh transacted business with suftajas (bills o f exchange). 1 7 9 H e also assisted both the Maghrebi merchants 175

Bodl. MS Heb. b 11 (Cat. 2874), £ 4, 11. 23-25 (Mevorakh is in Upper Egypt); TS 10 J 9, £ 33, 11. 10-11 (he has left Cairo for Fustat, but cannot be found even there). 176

Bodl. M S Heb. d 76 (no Cat.), £ 58, 11. 18-19 (al-lulu wa '1-thawb). TS N S J 401 (j), Halfon 238 (at the time that Weiss copied the document its shelf-mark was 401, no. 4). 177

178 179

T S 10 J 4, £ 1, 11. 7-9; E N A N S 39, £ 9, 11. 13-16. T S 10 J 4, £ 1, 11. 3-7; cf. Med. Soc., I, 244 n. 84.

156

Chapter Three, Appendix

Β

180

and the Jewish India traders in their fiscal ventures. Like other men of means, Mevorakh also shared some of his prof­ its with those in need by contributing to the community chest. 1 8 1 180

Maghrebi merchants TS 13 J 23, f 15, 11 5-8 (ca 1065 or a bit later) India traders DK 230 h-j (old number xix), India Book 217 (during the nagidic period) "The merchants" send regards to Judah b Saadya in a letter addressed to him which mentions Mevorakh, as well, BM Or 10652 (Gaster 1638), f 1, margin 181 TS Box Κ 15, f 5, cf Med Soc , II, App Β 19-22, ρ 443 (dates it in 1107) Bodl MS Heb c 50 (no Cat), f 16, cf Med Soc , II, App C 115, ρ 502

CHAPTER FOUR

The Headship of the Jews: Cautious Beginnings, to 1082

IN RECONSTRUCTING the origins of the office of head of the Jews we have chosen to focus our attention, not on the appearance of the title nagid, but rather on the institutional reality of who administered Jewish affairs in the Fatimid empire. We have seen that until about 1060, the Palestinian yeshiva still had nominal and in large measure actual control over Jewish communal life. Suzerainty over the Jewish communities during the first century of Fatimid rule rested in Jerusalem, not in Cairo. After about 1060, the prestige and authority of the Jerusalem gaonate waned, while a new constellation of political leadership emerged in the Egyptian capital to accept responsibility for the governance of Fatimid Jewry. During this same period, significant changes were occurring in the Fatimid state. Political and economic crisis, coupled with imperial contraction, were followed by a trend toward Egyptian centralization. As a byproduct, the minority communities experienced a centralizing pull on their own political institutions. It is apparent, therefore, that internal and external forces interacted during the last third of the eleventh century to bnng about the origins of the headship of the Jews. In the succeeding chapters we shall analyze the process of institutional growth. The goal of the inquiry is to plot the evolution of administrative and religious authority in the Egyptian capital. The careful chronological classification of the Geniza documents described in Chapter One furnishes our methodological tool. As we shall see, the resulting picture is one of gradual and organic evolution rather than one of sudden generation.

158

Chapter Four

And though external factors can be seen to have played a role, it will become clear that the political dynamics manifested themselves essentially within the Jewish community. Such a construction, supported as it is by hard and uncensored evidence from the Geniza papers, belies the hypothesis that the nagidate came into existence by government decree at the time of the Fatimid conquest. If it had, it would certainly have appeared to us in its fully institutionalized form by the beginning of the second century of Fatimid rule. The formative decades of the headship of the Jews can be divided into four periods: the early years, comprising the rule of Judah b. Saadya and the first, short, term of his brother Mevorakh (ended in 1082); the administration of the nasi David b. Daniel (1082 to 1094); the second administration of Mevorakh b. Saadya (1094 to 1111); and the administration of Mevorakh's son, Moses (1112 to ca. 1126).1 JUDAH B. SAADYA: THE FIRST EGYPTIAN NAGID 2

As we have seen earlier,3 the physician Judah b. Saadya assumed a role in Egyptian-Jewish public life no later than the 1050s. Well before receiving the title of nagid he had earned prestigious honorifics from both the Babylonian and Palestinian yeshivas—rosh kalla from the former and "Excellent Haver" (he-haver ha-me'ulle) from the latter—in recognition 1 In tracing the chronological evolution of the office of head of the Jews in this and subsequent chapters, care has been taken to exclude from consideration documents of uncertain dating. For example, where a Geniza text alludes to a head by a title that was shared by more than one of them, and we have not been able on other internal or external grounds to establish which individual is meant, we have thought it best to lay that source aside for the moment. 2 Judah b. Saadya is represented in considerably fewer Geniza documents than is his brother and successor—approximately 50 as compared with about 170, of which some 20 mention both. Statistics of preservation in the Geniza are usually meaningless. In this case, however, where we know from positive data that Judah's administration was less consequential than that of Mevorakh, there may be a correlation. 3 Chapter 5, Appendix B, Section 2.

Cautious Beginnings, to 1082

159

of his stature among Egyptian Jewry 4 In fact, an early letter, celebrating some sort of victory of Judah's against his enemies, indicates that he exercised the type of leadership that evoked political opposition. 5 In short, like his predecessors, the nagids of North Africa and Spain, Judah's entitlement as nagid did not establish his power, rather it acknowledged and reinforced the stature and authority he already possessed.6 His political ascendancy, like theirs, was that of a strategically placed courtier and communal leader, honored by a central Jewish authority that conferred a title commensurate with his regional prestige and power. Judah did not actually become "nagid" until about 1064—more precisely, between the end of 1062 and the mid­ dle of 1064 7 The terminus a quo is fixed by a business letter evidently sent from Alexandria to the Egyptian capital, since it mentions the arrival of ships from the west. The writer conveys special regards through his correspondent to "my master the elder Abu Zikri Rosh Kalla" and "my master the elder Abu Ί-Fadl the haver," that is, the brothers Judah and Mevorakh b. Saadya. Elsewhere he mentions Tumsian cur4

Bodl MS Heb c 28 (Cat 2878), f 70, 11 14 ff+ and cf Mann, I, 210 TS 13 J 24, f 7, 11 16 ff (Biblical verses regarding triumph over enemies) Only the end of the letter is preserved Regards are conveyed to Mevorakh, called Sagacious Leader only (1 6) Hence I conclude that the addressee is Mevorakh's older brother, Judah, and that the letter dates from the time when Mevorakh possessed only two titles (see below, Table 6 1) and Judah was not yet called nagid 6 See above, Chapter One, at nn 86-87 7 Mann gave circa 1065-1079 as the years of his nagidate, Mann, I, 255 Goitein originally followed suit, since the earliest datable document he had found naming Judah as nagid (TS 13 J 26, f 8) mentions that the Muslim year ending November 1066, hasjust passed Hence it was written in or after 1067 C{ Med Soc , II, 244 η 13 Elsewhere in Med Soc , Goitein gave circa 1065 as the date of the first appearance of the title nagid in Egypt, e g , ρ 30 In his more recent article, " N e w Sources on Daniel b Azarya," ρ 82, Goitein suggests that Daniel b Azarya (reigned 1051-1062) may have conferred the nagidic honorific upon Judah The chronological considerations presented here would appear to preclude that possibility Cf also Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," pp 46 and 48 η 14 5

160

Chapter Four

rency, including coins called tamimiyya. These must be the issues of the Zirid ruler of Tunisia, Tarnim b. al-Mu'izz, who came to power in 1062 following his father's death in Sep­ tember of that year. 8 Since Judah is not referred to as nagid in this letter, we conclude that as late as the end of 1062 he did not yet have that title. The terminus ad quern of 1064 is estab­ lished on the basis of a letter addressed to Abu Zikri Judah b. Sa'ada the physician calling him nagid, which is datable to Wednesday (night) May 5, 1064.9 8 ΕΝΑ NS 2,1, f. 13v., U. 13-15 (ships from the west), r , 11. 13-15 (regards to Abu Zikrf and the haver), v., 1. 17 (tamimiyya). The side currently marked verso is actually the beginning of this letter. On tamim! dinars, see H. R. Idns, La Berberie orientate sous les Zmdes X°-Xlle stecles (Paris, 1962), II, 542 On the date of death of Tamim's father, al-Mu'izz, see ibid., I, 240. Professor Goitem, who brought this letter to my attention while surveying the New Series of the Elkan Nathan Adler Gemza collection, indicated the significance of the tamimiyya reference for dating the document. 9 TS 8J 19, f. 12 The writer informs Judah that he has entrusted a packet of the nagid's (written: al-ngd) letters bound for al-Mahdiyya and for Tripoli (Libya) to a person who will deliver them as directed. He goes on to say: " I am writing this letter while passing the night on the qunbar (a common type of ship) of my master, the amir, Wednesday night (lit., the night of the fifth day), thirteen days remaining (baqin) in lyyar" (ibid., 11. 6-10; cited in Med Soc, I, 480 n. 6, in connection with the practice of embarking on board ship at least a day prior to sailing) The Jewish month of lyyar has twenty-nine days, so the letter should have been penned on a sixteenth of lyyar corresponding to a Wednesday night and its morrow, Thursday (theJewish, as the Muslim, day commences at sunset). However, by convention, the sixteenth of lyyar never occurs on a Thursday (see Eduard Mahler, Handbuch der jiidischen Chronologie [Leipzig, 1916], pp. 614-27). The problem resolves itself neatly thanks to a suggestion from Professor Roy Mottahedeh. In his extensive ex­ perience reading Arabic chronicles, he has found that, when designating the day of the month by nights "remaining" (baqin), writers frequently consid­ ered the month as having the round number of thirty days, even if it had twenty-nine Here, Judah's correspondent appears to have done the same thing. He composed his epistle on a Wednesday night, the seventeenth of lyyar, not the sixteenth. The seventeenth of lyyar fell on a Wednesday night/Thursday in 1057, 1060, 1064, and then not again until 1084 (ibid, ρ 559), that is, years after Judah's death. Since in 1062 Judah was still not yet nagid, 1064 becomes the necessary choice. Incidentally, if the writer com­ puted twenty-nine days correctly, we would have to say that the sixteenth day of lyyar was the Wednesday (that is, he counted Wednesday night among

Cautious Beginnings, to 1082

161

Jacob Mann's inference that Judah received the title of nagid during the gaonate of Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon (who took office in August/September 1062) can thus be considered a firm conclusion 1 0 Who, in fact, granted him the title cannot definitely be determined. Political logic makes it appear most likely that Elijah himself bestowed the honor upon Judah in recognition of the latter's de facto leadership of Egyptian Jewry. To be sure, as Goitein has shown, "nagid" was a Babylonian dignity Nonetheless, years before his elevation to the gaonate, Elijah ha-Kohen had freely employed the epithet in order to honor a son of the Babylonian exilarch Hezekiah who was visiting Palestine and Egypt n Moreover, Elijah's predecessor on the throne of the Jerusalem yeshiva, the Babylonian nasi Daniel b. Azarya, had added the title to the arsenal of prizes available for dissemination by the Palestinian gaons when he awarded it to Joseph lbn Nagrela of Granada, Spain. 12 Daniel b. Azarya's hesitation to honor nearby Egypt with the same distinction is politically explicable. To have in­ vested Judah b. Saadya or any other prestigious Egyptian Jewish notable with the title of nagid would have meant en­ couraging a split between Egypt and Palestine. This, in turn, would have jeopardized the political unity of Fatimid Jewry, which the learned Darnel b. Azarya so effectively maintained those still "remaining" in the month), but the results would be exartly the same 10 Mann, I, 254 Elijah succeeded Daniel b Azarya upon the latter's death in Elul (August 9-September 6), 1062, Megillat Evyatar, ρ 2, 1 15 11 The letter was published by Mann, II, 122-24 (see ρ 123, 1 3) and dis­ cussed ibid , I, 112-13 Elijah ha-Kohen is identified as the writer by Mann, ibid , II, 347 The correct shelf-mark is BM Or 5546 12 Mann, "Second Supplement," ρ 287 (in reprint of Mann, II, 461), cf Med Soc , II, 525 η 13 The title could have come from one of the contempo­ rary Babylonian central authorities, though I rather doubt it We do not even know the name of the reigning exilarch in ca 1065, though a contemporary Arabic source refers to a dispute over the exilarchate in Baghdad in the year 1069, George Makdisi, "Autograph Diary of an Eleventh-Century Historian of Baghdad," BSOAS 19 (1957), 43, no 92, cf Med Soc, II, 18 We also know precious little about the incumbency of the Babylonian gaonate in ca 1065, Mann, Texts, I, 204 ff

ί62

Chapter Four

from the gaomc throne in Jerusalem. After Daniel's death in 1062, things changed noticeably. His less scholarly successor, Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon, entered gaomc office from a po­ sition of weakness resulting from years of subordination to the strong-armed Daniel. Elijah lacked both the academic prestige and the political strength to perpetuate for long Egyptian Jewry's dependence upon the yeshiva. By awarding the title of nagid to Judah b. Saadya shortly after his own suc­ cession to the gaonate in Jerusalem, Elijah would have hoped to salvage as much of Egyptian loyalty as possible by cement­ ing politically the long-standing personal connection between the Palestinian gaonate and the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya. Some indirect evidence exists that Elijah took pains during his early years as gaon to preserve Egyptian allegiance. Elijah's son, Evyatar, visited Fustat a number of times during the years following Judah b. Saadya's investiture with the title of nagid. 1 3 Doubtless Elijah hoped that Evyatar's presence in the Egyptian capital would make it difficult for the new nagid to subvert the gaonate. Elijah's political strategy seems to have succeeded. Nothing in our sources suggests that Judah b. Saadya arrogated to him­ self the coveted prerogatives of the Palestinian gaon. We do not encounter him appointing judges. To the contrary, in a court record from Fustat dated March 12, 1066, a couple of years after Judah became nagid, the three-member panel of judges that validated the witnesses' signatures still charac­ terized itself as being "appointed by the high court" (beth din ha-gadol), namely, that of the yeshiva. The last signatory, and hence the presiding judge according to Palestinian conven­ tion, was none other than Mevorakh b. Saadya, who, as we 13 In 1067 TS NS J 17, ed Goitein, Kirjath Sepher 31 (1955-1956), 368-70 In 1071 TS 13 J 15, f 23 + , cf above, Chapter Three η 54 (the writer, in Jerusalem, asks Evyatar, in Fustat, to convey regards to the nagid and to Mevorakh, his brother [11 29-30]) In 1077 ULC Or 1080J 9 (Evyatar signs a legal document) In TS 13 J 17, f 5, 11 13-16, an Alexandrian Jew (see below, Chapter Six η 102) thanks his Fustat correspondent for representing his in­ terests "at the court (majhs) of my master the rayyis, the Fourth (al-revi'i) " This could very well be Evyatar, who is so referred to in the letter of 1071

Cautious Beginnings, to 1082

163

know, held his diploma as haver from the august Jerusalem supreme court. 1 4 The relative silence of the Geniza regarding Judah's super­ visory juridical functions, especially when compared with the abundance of data attesting to those of his successors, strongly suggests that during his time, central judicial admin­ istration for Fatimid Jewry had not yet shifted from Palestine to Egypt. Judah's juridical prerogatives were limited to the privilege of presiding over the local Jewish tribunal in Fustat. A law suit of September 1075 involving property lost during the Lewati Berber sack of Mahj, was tried before "our lord Judah . . . the nagid" in Fustat. 1 5 It may be significant, how­ ever, that we do not find reference to Judah acting as chief judge until so late in his administration. In 1073, the year of the only other dated court document we have found associ­ ated with Judah dunng his nagidate, he functioned in the normal role of a witness, validating along with two others the signatures on a deed that had been drawn up in Zawilat alMahdiyya, Tunisia, on July 8 of that year. There is nothing to suggest, however, that this confirmation was performed with Judah presiding over the bench. 1 6 Similarly, the authority that Judah wielded over Jewish 14 TS 20 83 Expression beth din ha-gadol = high court of the Jerusalem yeshiva e g Mann, "Second Supplement," ρ 279 (1055) (in reprint of Mann, II, 453), cf Med Soc , II, 9 and 521 η 8 Palestinian custom cf Chapter Three η 60, Mevorakh signed last again in TS NS J 19 Proceedings of a case heard by the "high court" (beth din ha-gadol) of the yeshiva in Jerusalem in summer of A Μ 4831 (1071) are preserved m the interesting legal document, ΕΝΑ 2557, f 1 It is signed by, among others, Evyatar ha-Kohen b Gaon ("Gaon"= the Palestinian Gaon Elijah ha-Kohen b Solomon), and by the gaon Elijah, himself, who, as expected, affixed his signature last even though he was the copyist The sack of Ramie (by the Seljuks) is mentioned (I 3) as having already occurred (see above, Chapter Three η 6) 15 Bodl MS Heb d 66 (Cat 2878), f lOv 16 TS 20 187 The manuscript reads Monday 1 Αν A Μ (4)833 (= Monday, July 8, 1073), correct accordingly Med Soc , I, 401 η 9 (in the second pa­ rentheses read TS 20 187, 1 5), and ibid, II, 601 η 22 Judah signed first, whereas on other occasions he signed last, like Mevorakh, ΕΝΑ NS 18, f 5 (cf Chapter Three η 60, date missing)

764

Chapter Four

communities outside the capital appears to have derived from his personal prestige rather than from the power to appoint local leaders In a stern official letter to the provincial community of Sahrajt, "Judah b Saadya the physician" responds to a petition complaining about the handling of a legal case by a local court 1 7 Addressed to the leader of the community, Yefet ha-mumhe b Eh, 18 and to the entire congregation, it concerns a widow, the sister of a prominent banker (jahbadh) whose in-laws were attempting to deprive her of rights to her late husband's estate Despite an earlier directive from Judah b Saadya to settle the dispute either by compromise or by an oath administered to the widow, nothing had been done Her brother had threatened to exploit his connections with the government by taking her case before the qadi, but Judah had requested that he forbear pending a new attempt to seek a satisfactory settlement The purpose of this letter was to goad the community, and particularly its appointed head, Yefet, into treating their benefactor, the banker, with greater deference by concluding his sister's case quickly and justly If anyone then refused to accept the local judgment, Judah wanted to be informed immediately by the mumhe and members of the community through an attested affidavit drawn up in a court (ma'ase [Heb ], for ma'ase beth din) Judah's letter was to be read aloud in front of the community The vigorous language in which it is couched bears witness to the fact that he exercised the kind of authority in Egypt that later became institutionalized in the office of head of the Jews On the other hand, the omission of any hint that Judah had appointed Yefet to office underscores an important distinction between Judah's position and that of Mevorakh and his successors 17

Bodl MS Heb b 11 (Cat 2874), f 9 cf Med Soc , II, 34, I, 249 So called in the address on verso Inside, however, his name is twice written Yefet b Yefet (11 1-3, 7-8) One or the other of these names is the mistake that caused this otherwise neatly written piece of outgoing correspondence to be discarded (and, to our fortune, to be preserved in the Geniza) Later on, someone used the back to copy a "Grace after meals for the Festival and Sabbath," and other sentences 18

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Judah did, however, boast the kind of personal stature and many of the trappings of authority that later heads combined with the legal and religious prerogatives originally invested in the gaons He had his own majhs (audience hall), where he undoubtedly held court and conducted important business. 19 Anticipating and, indeed, setting the tone for Mevorakh and subsequent heads, Judah received petitions, directly or through intermediaries, seeking his aid, 2 0 had poems com­ posed in his honor, 2 1 and, like his Egyptian Christian coun­ terpart, received gifts from admirers 2 2 In addition, like members of the Muslim ruling class, Judah had personal pages (ghulams) 2 3 The nagid and his brother would be notified of the impending arnval of visitors in the capital, and would be asked to look after their welfare 2 4 Individuals capitalized on popular fear of antagonizing Judah (and Mevorakh) 2 S A letter from him could be crucial in resolving a squabble in distant Alexandria 2 6 Indeed, Judah's prestige became so great that a correspondent, in an excess of ver19 TS Box Κ 6, f 36 (on the back) On the majhs of the head of the Jews during the period of the Maimomdean nagidic dynasty, see S D Goitein, "A Letter to Maimomdes and New Sources Regarding the Negidim of this Fam­ ily" (in Hebrew), Tarbtz 34 (1964-1965), 243 Majhs of Mevorakh b Saadya cf below, at η 62 Majhs of Palestinian gaon cf Μ Cohen, " N e w Light," η 13 20 Directly TS 10 J 27, f 8, ed. Mann, II, 364-65 (from a group of captive Jews brought from Byzantium to be ransomed m Egypt), ΕΝΑ NS 19, f 24 (a cantor in Gaza mentions that he had written earlier to the nagid with a cer­ tain request) Indirectly TS 13 J 15, f 23, 11 14-17+, DK 123/c+ 21 ΕΝΑ *38 [Shaked, Bibliography, ρ 187], ed A Neubauer, JQR, o s 8 (1895-1896), 556, TS Misc Box 36, f 174 [formerly TS loan 174]+, TS 24 53v , ΕΝΑ 4010, f 16 (only segments of the first hemistichs are pre­ served), TS NS Box 93, f 53 22 TS 13 J 26, f 8, margin, cf Med Soc , II, 39 and 529 η 76 23 His ghulam, Abu 'l-[Fad]l Yakhln Westminster College, Frag Cairens 51 v , 1 10 Ghulams of Muslim rulers Patriarchs, IP, 391 (ghulam ofBadr al-Jamali) Ibn Muyassar, ρ 60, 1 5 (ghulam of al-Afdal), Patriarchs, IP, 390 (ghulams of Nizar) 24 TS 10 J 16, f 13 The visitor's name was Sa'd b Daniel 25 TS 10 J 14, f 19, ed Mann, II, 254-55 26 TS 12 264, 1 19, margin, 11 15-16, ν , 1 27

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biage, could call him "Gaon of the House of Israel," while a poet could lavish royal praise upon him. 2 8 There is some question, however, about Judah's having re­ ceived a formal government letter of appointment endowing him with official status as head of the Jews, ra'is al-yahud. The only extant formulary for such a document bearing an indication of date is from the Ayyubid period. 2 9 The earliest reference to a head of the Jews in an Islamic chronicle is from the year 1122, 30 when Moses b. Mevorakh was the incum­ bent. For Judah b. Saadya, Mevorakh, and David b. Daniel, we are compelled to fall back upon the Gemza documents themselves, which unfortunately almost never employ the full title, ra'is al-yahud, but only the nebulous shorthand, ra'is, or, as it is usually spelled, rayyis. 31 Ra'is, head, was an extremely flexible term, due largely to its generic applicability to any individual in high position. In the Islamic East, ra'is was used as a title for leading katibs (government secretaries) at least as early as the beginning of the fourth century A. H./tenth century A.D. 3 2 According to al-Qalqashandi (d. 1417), who mirrors Egyptian usage, alra'is is "a title used by outstanding and most noble civilians whether of the secretarial classes or of the 'ulama' " (religious scholars). 33 In the Fatimid period, the head of the chancellery diwan (bureau) was called ra'is, among other designations connoting supervision. 34 Egyptian Christians and Jews, accustomed to the company of coreligionists who merited the title ra'is by virtue of their connections with the Islamic court, adopted the use of ra'is for « TS 13 J 8, f 16,1 7 ( + ) * 8 ΕΝΑ 4010, f 16 Cf Bosworth, "Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries, " p p 211-14 30 Ibn Muyassar, ρ 62 (top) 31 The spelling is acceptable also according to al-Qalqashandi, see refer­ ences in η 33 32 My thanks to Professor Roy Mottahedeh for this information 33 Bosworth, "Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries," ρ 73 η 4 Text wa-huwa min alqab arbab al-aqlam min al-'ulama' wa Ί-kuttab, Qalqashandi, $ubh, VI, 14 34 EI2, s ν "Diwan," ρ 328 29

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their own communal leaders Christian katibs were desig­ nated ra'is (plural ru'asa') 3 5 Jewish physicians, often aspiring chiefs of hospital departments, were similarly h o n o r e d 3 6 Among the Copts, rayyis (so spelled) occurs as a title of the bishop of Cairo and, in the appropriately superlative form, rayyis al-ru'asa' ("Head of the Heads"), as an honorific of the patriarch himself 3 7 His office, or rank in the church hierar­ chy, was termed riyasa (headship), as was that of the bishop of Cairo before the patriarch displaced him 3 8 Jewish judges, like Christian high churchmen, had ra'is attached to their names in the same way as did the Muslim 'ulama' 3 9 In fact, the term was employed in the Jewish community as a shorthand sub­ stitute for any communal title—head of the yeshiva, head of the diaspora, head of the community, and so on—which con­ tained the element rosh or ra's 4 0 Jewish laymen who earned the designation ra'is (or rayyis) because of their links with Islamic government were known 35

See, for instance, the passage quoted in Chapter Two, at η 91, and Atiya, Eastern Christianity, ρ 88 η 2 36 Med Soc , II, 246 37 Bishop of Cairo Patriarchs, III 1 , 18 (Arabic, ρ 11) Patriarch ibid, pp 12, 17, 26 (Arabic, pp 7 10, 16) (official church correspondence addressing Patriarch Macanus II, reigned 1102-1128) Rayyis had also to be included in Egyptian chancery letters addressed to the patriarch (as well as to the head of the Jews), cf Bosworth, "Christian and Jewish Religious Dignitaries," pp 73-74 38 Patriarchs, III 1 , 13 (Arabic, ρ 8), etc Bishop's riyasa ibid , ρ 20 (Arabic, ρ 12), etc 39 Med Soc , II, 537 η 10 40 Mann, I, 262 Here are a few examples to supplement the ones given by Mann A gaon, or ra's al-mathiba ("Head of the Yeshiva"), also called alrayyis Μ Cohen, " N e w Light," letter Β, ΕΝΑ 3765, f lOr , 1 27 (Solomon b Judah) A nasi (a would-be resh galuta, rosh ha-gola, ra's al-jalut) TS 10 J 22, f 3 (a poem dedicated in 1046 to a Davidide, given the title of al-raTs al-jalfl, "the Illustrious Head" [words written in Arabic letters]) Substitute for rosh ha-seder (?) Goitein, "Elhanan b Shemarya as a Communal Leader," ρ 134 Evyatar, the son of Elijah ha-Kohen Gaon, was called rayyis when he was still only "Fourth" in the yeshiva hierarchy (1071), but certainly already thought of as heir apparent to the headship of the yeshiva (TS 13 J 15, f 23,11 10, 28+)

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in Hebrew by the Biblical title of sar For instance, the letterbooks of the Babylonian gaons published by Simha Assaf contain an epistle to a notable who is addressed by the title shemesh ha-sanm in the Hebrew salutation, and called "the most illustrious rayyis and faithful person, shams al-ru'asa' " (which David Baneth faithfully translated: shemesh ha-sanm) in the Arabic portion containing the message. 41 Another mis­ sive in the same collection is addressed to a person styled, in Hebrew, ne'eman ha-malkhut hod ha-sanm, and in Arabic, "the most illustrious rayyis, arnin al-mulk jamal al-ru'asa," (clearly, the Hebrew is an exact translation of the Arabic). 42 The poetry diwan of Eleazer b. Jacob ha-Bavli (first half of the thirteenth century) includes numerous items dedicated to government officials who are styled rayyis in the superscnpture and, usually, sar in the verses. 43 The same correlation manifests itself in the eulogy for the rayyis Saadyahu, son of Judah Nagid b. Saadya. 44 In a responsum cautioning against attaching practical significance to the ubiquitous title of nasi in his time, Abraham Maimomdes (d. 1237), himself a second-generation court physician and rayyis al-yahud, brings an analogy that illustrates the synonomous relationship between the Hebrew title of sar and the Arabic title of rayyis: "It is analogous to the current practice of addressing a person who is the son of a sar or from a courtier family (mishpahat serara, or mishpahat sar [as one manuscnpt reads]), even though he never received any appointment over Israel (af 'al pi she-lo nitmanna miyyamaw 'al yisrael shum mmnui), by the name rayyis in Arabic, that is, according to his father's ti­ tle." 4 5 41

Assaf, "Letters of R Samuel ben Eli and His Contemporaries," Tarbiz 1, no 3 (1930), pp 41-42 (no 1) 42 Ibid , pp 49-50 (no 8) 43 For example, Mann, Texts, I, pp 272-73, no 9 (called sar sarim in 1 15), pp 273-74, no 11 (the individual was keeper of the mint, cf ρ 273 η 22), pp 282-83, no 22 (called sar in 1 2), ρ 284, no 26, ρ 301, no 51 (called sar shalom), ρ 304, no 54 (f) (called sar, ne'eman ha-melukha, etc ) 44 See Chapter Three, Appendix B, Section 3 45 Abraham b Moses b Maimon, Teshuvot rabbenu Avraham ben ha-

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In our corpus, the term rayyis is attributed to Judah b. Saayda in four instances. The first two cases definitely date from the period before he received the designation of nagid. In Saadya b. Nathan's letter to Mevorakh from Jerusalem, the writer calls Judah "the illustrious rayyis resh kalla" (he employs the Aramaic form of the Hebrew title). However, it is certain that rayyis here does not mean "head of the Jews." The correspondent gives Mevorakh an equivalent "status" by referring to him as "the illustrious rayyis" and "the Excellent Haver." Equally important, while the writer refers to Judah as "my master" (mawlaya), he carefully avoids attaching to him the technical term "our lord" (sayyiduna, or adonenu), called for when referring to central authorities (gaon, exilarch, nagid). 4 6 Rayyis, in the case of each brother, must mean either physician (we have seen that Judah was a doctor by 1043) or courtier (sar). 4 7 Similarly, in the second document, a frag­ ment of a letter sent to (Judah] b. Saadya, [rosh] kalla and haver of the Great Sanhedrin, the addressee is designated as "my master" (mawlaya) "the illustrious ray[yis]." 4 8 Rambam, edited by A. H. Freimann and translated by S. D Goitein (Jerusalem, 1937), p. 19. The phrase, "even though . . . Israel," should proba­ bly be understood as a reflection of the fact that most courtiers carried some weight in Jewish communal affairs. A similar phrase occurs in the Geniza de­ scription of al-Afdal's elevation of Mevorakh b. Saadya; cf. ULC Add 3335, ed. Neubauer, ρ 36 (4th line). On Moses Maimonides' sentiments about ti­ tles, which his son inherited, see his Commentary on the Mishna, Bekhorot 4:4 (Mishna 'tm perush rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon, edited by Kafih, Seder Qodashim [Jerusalem, 1967], pp. 244-45). 46 TS 13 J 9, f 3, 1 19 (Judah's titles), 11. 6, 16 (Mevorakh's titles). The writer was very precise. He calls the incumbent gaon (Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon) adonenu, "our lord" (11. 8, 10), but addresses both Mevorakh and Judah as mawlaya, " m y master" (11. 16, 19, 22, right margin). 47 Judah is styled sar in the poem edited by Neubauer and corrected by Kaufmann, who checked the manuscript: ΕΝΑ *38 [Shaked, Bibliography, p. 187] + , 7th line; cf. David Kaufmann, "Dedicatory Poem to Jehudah HaNagid,'7Qi?, o.s. 9 (1896-1897), 360-61. I could not verify the reading since neither scholar gave the manuscript's shelf-mark, if, indeed, it had one at the time. 48 BM Or 10652 (Gaster 1638), f 1.

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In the other two instances, Judah is obviously in a position of high authority among the Jews of Egypt, though we can­ not say definitely that the epithet of rayyis associated with his name stands for the Fatimid tide of head of the Jews. A docket inscribed on the back of a letter (no date) records its receipt at the majhs of "our lord (sayyiduna) the illustrious rayyis Abu Zikri son of our lord Saadya . may God perpetuate his strength and increase the splendor of his power " A letter from Alexandria describing a squabble in that community mentions a communication from the nagid (Judah b. Saadya)—also called "the great rayyis" (al-rayyis al-kabir)— that was supposed to help resolve the conflict.49 There is not sufficient material on Judah's administration to be able to decide whether the Fatimids inaugurated the title of ra'is al-yahud during his time. It is difficult to imagine, how­ ever, that an officially recognized new office, replacing the Palestinian gaonate as central authority over Fatimid Jewry, could have taken root in the Fatimid bureaucracy during the decade and a half of administrative anarchy between 1060 and 1074. Moreover, it seems only natural that some time would have elapsed between Egyptian Jewry's first gropings toward political self-subsistence, acknowledged by Judah b. Saadya's nagid investiture, and the formal admission by the Fatimids of a new basis of imperial Jewish administration into their own governmental structure. Factors other than Judah's prestige would have had to have come into play to produce such a momentous innovation As suggested earlier, it is quite conceivable that the centralization of the Coptic patriarchate in Cairo following Badr al-Jamali's installation as vizier in 1074 played a role. At the same time, it is reasonable to assume that the defection of the Palestinian gaonate to seditious Tyre, which probably occurred after the Seljuk conquest of Jerusalem in the summer of 1073, was a precipitant. The new vizier in Cairo, who had only recently suffered military defeat trying to repress the rebellion of Tyre, 49

Docket TS Box Κ 6, f 36v "The great rayyis" TS 12 264, 1 20

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would likely have been receptive to the idea of stripping the gaon of his Fatimid recognition. Conceivably, the Jews capitalized on Badr al-JamaTi's takeover in 1074 and initial re­ forming endeavors to petition the vizier and the caliph to have the title ra'is al-yahud ("Head of the Jews") substituted for the words ra's al-mathiba ("Head of the Yeshiva") in the Fatimid diploma that appointed the chief administrative official of the Jewish minority. The death ofJudah b. Saadya and succession by his brother, Mevorakh, to leadership in the Egyptian Jewish community, would have provided a logical occasion for making such a request, though it is not inconceivable that Judah could have been elevated to this stature before his death. 5 0 In either case, our hypothesis helps explain why Judah played a smaller role in the political growth of the office of head of the Jews than his younger brother. THE ADMINISTRATION OF MEVORAKH B. SAADYA: SUCCESSION AND FIRST TERM IN OFFICE, CA. 1078 τ ο

1082

Mevorakh b. Saadya was the natural choice as successor to his elder brother in the leadership of the Egyptian Jewish com­ munity; he had already been functioning as Judah's close counsel and assistant for years. Indeed, out of the approxi­ mately thirty letters and documents that provide glimpses into Judah's administration, both before and after he became nagid, roughly a dozen portray Mevorakh in a greater or lesser degree of cooperation. 5 1 The evidence goes well be50 It is tempting to regard the charactenzation of Judah m Solomon haKohen b Joseph's poem of 1077 (TS Misc. Box 36, f. 174 [formerly TS Loan 174]+, see Chapter Three, Appendix A, Section 4) as reflecting an elevation in the nagid's status. Solomon gives the highly placed Jewish subordinate of Badr al-Jamali the title zeqan ha-hod, "Elder of Splendor" (1. 20). Could it be that upon the occasion of some advancement (to ra'is al-yahud7) Judah ac­ quired a new Hebrew honorific, one held earlier, in a slightly different form, by the court physician, Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac lbn Furat, "Splendor of the Elders" (hod ha-zeqenim, see Mann, I, 86)? 51 The picture of adjutant status that emerges from the documents would tend to support Jacob Mann's interpretation, contra Julius Greenstone, of a

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yond the routine transmission of regards to the younger brother when corresponding with the older one or with a third party. 5 2 Petitions were submitted to the two brothers requesting joint action, 5 3 messages were conveyed to them both separately 54 and simultaneously, 55 appeals for redress of grievance were placed before the pair, 5 6 poetry dedicated to Judah would praise his brother, as well, 57 and gifts presented to the nagid would be accompanied by something of value for Mevorakh. 5 8 Various pieces of evidence suggest that, in some peoples' eyes, Mevorakh's prestige even exceeded that of his brother. For instance, a personal note to the haver Mevorakh b. Saadya concerning some merchandise honors Mevorakh with the title of "our lord" (sayyiduna), ordinarily reserved for gaons and nagids, and concludes with regards for R. Judah Rosh Kalla and with best wishes to "our lord and the haver" for the holidays. 5 9 This haver must be identical with Judah him­ self, here referred to by his second title. It is obvious, there­ fore, that Mevorakh's correspondent held him in even greater esteem than he did his elder brother. A query about a point of Talmudic law closes with the request that the addressee secure from "our master Sage of the Yeshiva, Grand Counsel," namely, Mevorakh b. Saadya, the approval of the opinion to be rendered by a certain rabbinic authority (whose name, un­ fortunately, is torn off in the manuscript). A few lines later the difficult line in Solomon ha-Kohen b Joseph's poem (see previous note) Mann took the words "like twin brothers" to be an allusion to Judah's being assisted by his brother, Mevorakh, Mann, I, 208 52 TS 13 J 24, f 7,1 6, E N A N S 2 , 1, f 13r , 11 13-15 " T S 10 J 16, f 13, TS 13 J 15, f 23,11 15-16+ 54 BM Or 10652 (Gaster 1638), f 1, margin (identity established via titles, cf above, η 48) 55 Bodl MS Heb c 28 (Cat 2876), f 70, 11 14 ff+ 56 TS 10 J 14, f 19,11 10-12+ 57 ΕΝΑ 4010, f 16, 11 22, 25 58 TS 13 J 26, f 8, right margin (two bowls for the nagid and two mats and one bowl for the haver Abu Ί-Fadl), cf Med Soc , II, 529 η 76 59 TS 10J 11, f 15

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writer registers his excitement over news that "our lord the nagid," namely, Judah b. Saadya, has sent his young sons (ghilman) to pray at the side of the addressee during the Purim festival. Clearly, the author of this letter treated Mevorakh. b. Saadya as a higher religious authority than his brother, the nagid. Otherwise he would have solicited the latter's confirmation of the halakhic ruling. 6 0 A letter to Mevorakh from Alexandria sheds additional light on his high capacity in his brother's administration. Many years after Judah's death, the Alexandrian judge Shela b Mevasser notified Mevorakh about a precarious situation facing the Jews in the port city, and petitioned him to organ­ ize a charity drive for the redemption of captives, as had been done in the past Shela assured the addressee that the local Jews would reward him with prayers of thanksgiving, "for they know of your compassion toward them, both in former times and more recently, and how you represented them during the lifetime of our lord the nagid—(may the) m(emory of the) r(ighteous) be b(lessed)—whenever they were taken by sur­ prise by the arrival of captives in Alexandria, by taking upon yourself their distress and their burdens." 6 1 This letter shows that the second largest community in Egypt regarded Mevorakh as their personal advocate in the nagid's entourage. As we shall see, this special relationship between Mevorakh b. Saadya and the important community of Alexandria, stem­ ming from the days of Judah Nagid, continued during his own years in office, and even during his political exile in that city The earliest dated document to depict Mevorakh exercising the functions of chief of the Jewish community of Egypt on his own is a court record from Fustat dated June 6, 1079 The plaintiff in the case requested that the court release its record (ma'ase) of a prior agreement between him and his adversary in litigation His request was met by the judges, who were «•TSBoxGl.f 27v.ll 1-13 61

TS Misc Box 27, f 19, 11 21-24, cf Med Soc , II, 587 η 28 (correct the shelf-mark accordingly)

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able to comply "since it is recorded in our archives," and because "we were in attendance at a religious court held in the presence of our master and teacher, our lord Mevorakh the haver, Sagacious Leader, Sage of the Yeshiva, Grand Counsel . . . following an official audience (majlis). Moreover, the complaint (mufalaba) was repeated . . . in a number of (subsequent) audiences (majalis)."62 By summer 1079, at the latest, then, Mevorakh had inherited his brother's prerogatives to preside over the local Jewish court in the Egyptian capital and to hear complaints in his majlis. A year later, he had already taken a significant step forward in fashioning an institution of central Jewish authority independent of the Palestinian gaonate. In Sivan 1391 of the Seleucid Era, which corresponds to May/June 1080, the Fustat court issued a duplicate of a document (ma'ase) which had originated "in the court permanently appointed (qevu'in) in Alexandria by (mippi) our lord Mevorakh the Excellent Haver, Sagacious Leader, Sage of the Yeshiva, Grand Counsel." 63 By 1080, therefore, Mevorakh b. Saadya had arrogated to himself the gaon's prerogative of appointing judges, which his brother had apparently not exercised. Significantly, this took place in Alexandria, a community with which, we have just seen, Mevorakh had close ties from the days of his brother's administration. In each of the court records just cited, Mevorakh carries the same three titles that he had acquired during Judah's lifetime, namely, haver, Sagacious Leader, and Sage of the Yeshiva, plus a fourth, Grand Counsel, which may have been added upon his accession to sole rule. 64 There are several other 62 TS 28.6, sec. A, 11. 5-10. There is some scribal editing in line 9. The title "Sagacious Leader" is written alluf binot. For some details about the case itself, see Med. Soc, I, 117 n. 4, 185 n. 6. On the reference to "archives" see ibid., II, 343 n. 52. 63 TS 8.251,11. 2-3, Nahray 25; c(. Chapter Three n. 138. In the normal role of a witness, Mevorakh also signed a get (divorce document) in Fustat on August 11,1081 (along with Eh ha-Kohen b. Yahya); TS Misc. Box 25, £ 13. 64 In 1071 he still did not have the epithet Grand Counsel attached to his name; cf. Chapter Three n. 138

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Geniza papers that characterize Mevorakh by his newest name, Grand Counsel, and in which he also appears to have authority. In one, a person named Yakhin b. Ibrahim, known as Thabit in Arabic, records the outcome of a litigation trans­ acted "in the presence of our master and teacher Mevorakh the Excellent reaver, Sagacious Leader, Sage of the Yeshiva, Grand Counsel." After the parties had reached a settlement, "our lord the haver had ordered Yakhin to perform the sym­ bolic transfer (qinyan) with t h e m . " 6 5 Another source is a let­ ter from a Spanish Jew in Egypt. In addition to Sagacious Leader, Grand Counsel, and Sage of the Yeshiva, this corre­ spondent also dubs Mevorakh "the Western Lamp" (ner ha-ma'aravi), a designation that he formally assumed late in his second administration. 6 6 A third source is an epistle ad­ dressed to "our lord" Mevorakh, haver and Grand Counsel, from the provincial community of Malij and its cantor, prob­ ably the local leader. Only the prefatory laudes and the address on the back have been preserved. 67 The titulature in these sources proves that Mevorakh did not inherit his brother's title of nagid during his first adminis­ tration. Therefore, when Megillat Evyatar gives Mevorakh the epithet nagid at the time of David b. Daniel's arrival in Egypt (ca. 1080), we should understand this as a case of ret­ roactive attribution. 6 8 Mevorakh's delayed acquisition of the 65

TS 10 J 7, f 7, evidently a draft since it ends with the place for the date left blank (margin). 66 TS 12.341, cf. Mann, II, 252; S Assaf, "Sources for Jewish History in Spain" (in Hebrew), Zwn 6 (1940-1941), 37 Cf. the table (Table 6.1) of Mevorakh's titles. The epithet ner ha-ma'aravi had been in use in Andalusia at least a generation earlier, cf. Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, ed. Cohen, p. 282 η 119. 67 TS 8 J 19, f. 17. Too little is preserved of Dropsie 404+ (cf. Chapter Three n. 138) to decide whether it says anything about Mevorakh's political standing. 68 The same holds true for the other two titles he bestows upon Mevorakh, namely, sar ha-sanm and "Strength of the House of Israel"; Megillat Evyatar, p. 3, 11. 5-6, 11-12 Mann, I, 188, 208; II, 251(6), accepts Evyatar at face value. See the table (Table 6.1) of Mevorakh's titles.

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title of nagid certainly has significance.69 We argued above that the Palestinian gaon Elijah ha-Kohen b. Solomon had awarded this dignity to Judah. We may hear some political overtones in his failure to do the same for Mevorakh. Undoubtedly the Palestinian gaon and his counselors in Tyre were angry with Mevorakh for appropriating one of the pivotal powers that the Fatimids had formerly vested exclusively in the gaon when he appointed judges in Alexandria. Possibly even Mevorakh had this prerogative ratified by the Cairo government in a letter of appointment as head of the Jews. Though such a letter is not extant, there seems to be little doubt that it existed. Unlike the case with Judah, Mevorakh is explicitly entitled rayyis al-yahud in our corpus. The relevant fragment of three truncated lines mentions the Muslim year 501 (began August 1107) and the words "[S]a'ada al-Isra'fli al-mutafabbib rayyis al-yahud." This can be none other than Mubarak (Mevorakh) b. Sa'ada (Saadya) the Jewish physician, head of the Jews. 70 It may be safely inferred that he had acquired his appointment during his first administration. In one of the letters referring to Mevorakh's return to office in 1094, the writer speaks of "the restoration of the headship (riyasa) to him." 7 1 We know, also, that the government issued a decree interdicting prayers over him as rayyis some time during the reign of David b. Daniel. 72 Since it is difficult to imagine that the Fatimids would have appointed him during his political exile, he must have achieved the headship prior to his ouster about 1082. At the time of his deposal, however, Mevorakh had been in office only four or five years, hardly sufficient time to build the headship of the Jews into a fully independent central au6 ' Med Soc, II, 32: "Obviously, the Jewish ecumenical authority that conferred this title was slow in recognizing him." 70 TS NS J 337v The other side contains what appears to be a rabbinic fragment. 71 Quoted below, Chapter Six, at n. 13. 72 TS 12.657, trans. Goitein, Letters, pp. 173-74.

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thonty. In 1082, the institution had only begun its cautious, organic growth. Its components were few, but significant. The personal prestige of the brothers Judah and Mevorakh b Saadya duplicated that of the Palestinian gaon. Certain titles and trappings of authority embellished their leadership in ways that symbolized the respect accorded gaons The honorific "nagid" bestowed upon Judah b. Saadya certainly lent an air of legitimacy to his leadership in Egypt. Mevorakh b. Saadya wove the centrally important gaonic prerogative to appoint judges into the fabric of the budding office. Finally, by 1082, the Fatimid authorities had recognized the innovation in Jewish public life by inaugurating the Arabic title of ra'is al-yahud, "head of the Jews." As we shall see, during Mevorakh's second term in office, following his restoration in 1094, he succeeded in bringing the new institution to full maturity. Between 1082 and 1094, however, David b. Daniel, the so-called usurper, occupied the newly instituted Egyptian headship of the Jews and established important precedents leading toward that goal.

CHAPTER FIVE

The Administration of David b. Daniel, ca. 1082 to 1094 T H E CONFLICT WITH DAVID B. DANIEL AND THE E N D OF MEVORAKH B. SAADYA'S FIRST TERM

FOUR OR FIVE YEARS after his succession, Mevorakh b. Saadya

lost his position as head of the Jews to the challenger from the Babylonian exilarchal family, the nasi David, son of the late nasi and Palestinian gaon, Daniel b. Azarya. Our main source, and the only narrative account of this episode, is the famous Megillat Evyatar ("Scroll of Evyatar") composed shortly after David's downfall in the spring of 1094 by Evyatar haKohen b. Elijah, the Palestinian gaon whom the nasi had simi­ larly persecuted. 1 Though the one-sidedness of Evyatar's 1 1 presented a sketch of my findings concerning Da vid b. Daniel in March 1976 at the Conference on Geniza Studies held at Tel Aviv University in a paper entitled "David b. Daniel b. Azarya in Egypt. A New Interpretation" (in Hebrew). Updated with new material collected as of July 1978, it appeared among the proceedings of that conference, Te'uda I Htqre gemzat Qahir (Te'uda I. Cairo Gemza Studies), edited by Μ. A. Friedman (Tel Aviv, 1980), pp. 139-48. The present chapter represents an expanded version of that paper In November 1978, I received from Professor Moshe Gil a xerox copy of cor­ rected page proofs of his new edition of and introduction to Megillat Evyatar (now in print; see above, Chapter Three η 1), wherein will be found some conclusions similar to my own plus other instructive historical clarifications of passages in the Megilla. Solomon Schechter, who discovered and pub­ lished the original edition of the Scroll (TS 10 Κ 7, ff 1-5, ed. Saadyana, pp. 80-104), also found and published (ibid., pp. 105-106) two leaves of a quire (TS 12.729) containing, on one side, the beginning of another copy of the text. This contains the all-important date of Evyatar's deliverance from the hands of his oppressor, Iyyar 1405 Seleucid Era, that is, April/May 1094. Schechter dated TS 10 Κ 7, ff 1-5 in the fourteenth century or later (ibid., p. 80). Indeed, the handwriting is in the same style as that of an early fifteenthcentury Spanish scribe (writing in Negroponte and in Salonica), two exam­ ples of whose work (dated, respectively, 1401 and 1403) are reproduced in

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embittered account has been widely recognized, modern schol­ arship has largely accepted his image of David as an opportun­ istic, violent usurper of legitimate authority and has treated the entire affair as one more contest between the gaonate and the exilarchate.2 A study of the office of head of the Jews, howfacsimile form in Manuscrtts medievaux en characteres hebrmques portant des indi­ cations de date jusqu'a 1540, edited by Collette Sirat and Malachi Beit-Ane, I (Pans and Jerusalem, 1972), 75 and 78. On the other hand, this style already existed among Spanish Jews in the twelfth century (cf. the well-known handwriting of Maimomdes). Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," pp. 39-40, suggests that the poet Judah ha-Levi, who sojourned in Egypt a half-century after the Megilla was completed, may have been the copyist. I find that hypothesis difficult to square with the not infrequent occurrence of poor readings in the text. These have caused scholars to propose emendations, or corrections based on TS 12.729, where the versions are parallel. In his critical apparatus, Gil faithfully notes the problem areas m the full manuscript and, in several instances, records proposed solutions. The fragment preserved in TS 12.729 betrays a script that was common in Egypt in the twelfth century. It bears similarities to, though is not identical with, the hand of the court clerk Halfon ha-Levi b Menasse lbn al-Qata'if (dated documents· 1100-1138 [see Chapter 3, Appendix A, Section 14]). One of the readings that is superior to those in the full manuscript is found in line 4 The phrase nin gaon (Saadyana, p. 105) is more appropriate than the second ben gaon in line 1 of the complete manu­ script (Megillat Evyatar, ρ 1, 1 1—I have checked the originals). I suspect that Megillat Evyatar was copied by Jews in subsequent generations for its halakhic matter and not on account of its historical interest. I find support for my suspicion in the fact that the page of the Megilla preserved in TS 12 729 originally formed part of a miscellany that contained at least one rabbinic work (see Saadyana, p. 105). Gil shows that the text of the Megilla reached the circle of Maimomdes, and that the latter was actually influenced by one of its halakhic interpretations (Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," pp. 40 and 90, note to line 11 of page 4 of the text). I doubt that Maimomdes, whose lack of enthusiasm for contemporary political history is well attested (see Salo W Baron, "The Historical Outlook of Maimomdes," PAAJR 6 [1935], 5-113), took much in­ terest in the details of the conflict between David b Daniel and the gaon Evyatar 2

Principal treatments. Schechter, Saadyana, pp. 80-104, W. Bacher, "Ein neuerschlossenes Capitel der jiidischen Geschichte. Das Gaonat in Palastma und das Exilarchat in Aegypten,"_|Q«, o.s. 15 (1902-1903), 86-91, Samuel Poznanski, Babylomsche Geomm im nachgaonmschen Zettalter (Berlin, 1914), pp. 99-101, 114-15; Mann, 1, 185, 187-92, in the chapter entitled "Nesnm and Geomm" (subsequently Mann was forced to concede that the document he

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ever, must consider David b. Daniel and his alleged tyranny within the context of the emergence of a new Fatimid-Jewish central authority in the Egyptian capital, and in the light of all available evidence. This requires synthesizing disparate data about David's political activities, culled from a large body of routine Geniza documents, and reevaluating Evyatar's ver­ sion in the light of this new information. Before attempting this task, however, it will be helpful to summarize Evyatar's narrative and to discuss it within the context of the literary character and actual purpose of the Megilla. This, in turn, will provide some criteria for assessing the historicity of Evyatar's version itself.

DAVID B. DANIEL IN MEGILLAT EVYATAR

The story told by Evyatar goes as follows in its essential de­ tails. Daniel b. Azarya from Babylonia maliciously seized the gaonic office from Evyatar's uncle, Joseph ha-Kohen. Joseph ha-Kohen died soon thereafter, on Hanukah 1053. Six years later, Daniel himself took seriously ill and finally succumbed in Elul (August/September) 1062. Evyatar's father, Elijah ha-Kohen, the brother of the ill-treated Joseph, took Daniel's place and ruled as gaon for twenty-three years. In 1081 Elijah appointed his son, Evyatar, to be gaon, elevated another son named Solomon to be av, or president of the high court of the yeshiva, and advanced a certain $adoq b. Josiah Av to the rank of "Third" in the yeshiva's hierarchy. These investitures took place in Tyre, where the yeshiva had relocated following the Seljuk invasion. The following year (1082),3 Elijah traveled to and others thought presented "the other side of the picture" [ibid , pp 19091 ], and which also gave the impression that David had established a rival gaonic academy in Egypt, did not emanate from David b Daniel after all, cf Mann, Texts, I, 255) For other bibliographical references to David b Daniel, see Ehezer Bashan, ed , Selected Bibliography of the Exdarchs, Nesttm, and the Negidim in the Middle East, vol 2 of Maftehot A Series of Research Aids, edited by Η Ζ Hirschberg (Ramat-Gan, 1974), ρ 161 (index) 3 This date and several other details have become clearer as a result of the improved readings in Gil's edition of the Megilla, for which ultraviolet il­ lumination was employed

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Haifa to sanctify the Jewish New Year (began August 27, 1082) and to renew the appointments he had made in Tyre. On the same occasion, the gaon promulgated an anathema against "encroachers." A year later he died—in Kislev (No­ vember/December) 1083—and was transported to the Holy Land and laid to rest in the hills of Galilee. Three years earlier, David b. Daniel had "descended" (from Palestine) into Egypt. He arrived in Damira 4 when he was about twenty years old, ill and bereft of all means of subsist­ ence. A Damascus notable living in Damira took him in and treated him royally, providing him with a tutor, a wife (his own daughter), food, clothing, and shelter. David stayed with his father-in-law for two years, after which the latter sent him off in great pomp to the capital. There David was received warmly by the nagid Mevorakh and by others, including David's own cousin, Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azarya. Soon, how­ ever, David divorced the wife he had espoused in Damira in order to marry a high-born local woman, and began to treat his erstwhile benefactors with malice. He even successfully intrigued to have Mevorakh deposed. The latter barely es­ caped death by fleeing, first to Upper Egypt, and finally to Alexandria. Once in power, David grew even more haughty, and pro­ ceeded to oppress all his subjects. He brought important communities like Alexandria, Damietta, and Fustat under his thumb, and imposed heavy taxes upon them. Then he ad­ vanced beyond the borders of Egypt against Palestine, annex­ ing Ascalon, Caesarea, and Haifa, and finally launched an as­ sault upon Tyre itself. The head of the yeshiva (Evyatar) was compelled to take to his heels, leaving his brother, the av, to fend off the attack of David's agents. A temporary remission, occasioned by the worsting of David's emissary in Tyre, "Abiram son of Dothan," was followed in 1093 by a new of4

Manuscript and printed editions (Megillat Evyatar, ρ 2, 1. 28) read: dmygh. Geographical considerations strengthen the case for accepting the emendation " d m y r h " suggested by others. The Delta town of Damira, lo­ cated on the eastern branch of the Nile, lay on the route normally taken by travelers from Palestine heading for the Egyptian capital via Damietta.

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fensive, which drove the av himself into exile. On the Jewish New Year (September 1093), it was announced in Tyre that David had been proclaimed exilarch (rosh ha-gola) in Cairo, and David's representative demanded that the Jews of Tyre submit to his authority. In response, Sadoq the Third b. Josiah, the highest-ranking officer of the yeshiva remaining in the city, assembled the community and preached a sermon challenging the right to designate an exilarch in Egypt with jurisdiction over adjacent Palestine. Miraculously, in lyyar (April/May) 1094, David was ousted from office in Cairo, and both Mevorakh and the gaon were restored to their respective positions. This, then, is the fascinating story of David b. Daniel's intrigue as transmitted to contemporaries by the author of Megillat Evyatar. There is no reason to doubt its essential historicity. Had Evyatar invented facts, his readers would immediately have recognized them as fictitious. Nonetheless, the historian who wishes to evaluate Evyatar's claim dispassionately must first consider the account within its total literary framework and in the light of the author's actual purpose in composing the Megilla. Evyatar did not write a work of history. His treatise was a letter, presented in the popular form of a commemorative scroll (megilla). Unquestionably, Evyatar meant his scroll, like its prototype, the Book, or Scroll, of Esther, to be read aloud in the synagogue, as were regular gaonic missives.5 5 For a discussion of Megillat Evyatar in the context of the genre of megillot, see Zvi Malachi, Sugyot ba-stfrut ha-'ivrit shel yemet ha-betnayim (Studies m Medieval Hebrew Literature I) (Tel Aviv, 1971), pp. 14-17. Malachi's observations support our characterization of Evyatar's Megilla in terms of its public function. Malachi imprecisely refers to David b. Daniel by the title of "nagid." For a reference to the public reading of a letter from Evyatar in Fustat and in Cairo around the time of his restoration (the Megilla itself?), see Bodl. MS Heb. d 66 (Cat. 2878), f. 27, 11. 13-15+. For other evidence of the reading of accounts of victories out loud, see Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, ed. Cohen, p. 277 n. 90. It would appear that Egyptian Christians also composed "scrolls" against officials they deemed unfit for church office; Patriarchs, IP, 348 (Arabic, p. 221, 1. 7: mdrj, rendered "scrolls" by the translators). The

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Significantly in this regard, the opening sentence of the text (in the full version) calls it a "letter" (mikhtav), while the ad­ dress at the end instructs the intended recipient, a judge named Parhon ha-Kohen b. Judah of Sijilmasa, to treat this "letter (lggeret) and scroll" as a "rememberance and as an ad­ vertisement of the miracle" (pirsume nisa) that God had wrought for the priestly family.6 The message that Evyatar's audience was meant to absorb was fundamentally a political apologia for the gaon's own family, clothed in the garb of a propagandists diatribe against the Davidic house. Structure and thematic unity disclose this quite clearly. The Megilla opens by invoking Biblical verses proving that God desires the eternal continuity of the priest­ hood on account of its loyalty to His covenant. 7 Next, it dis­ parages the royal house of David, the ancient kings of Judah, "Ahaz, Menasse, Amon, Jehoiachin, and their ilk," citing var­ ious examples of their iniquities. 8 From there, it makes the transition to the latest Davidic miscarriage of justice, Daniel b. Azarya's usurpation of the office belonging to Evyatar's own family.9 Finally, the lengthy, main section, about the evildoings of David b. Daniel, "the descendant of Ahaz, Menasse, Amon, and Jehoiachin," carries the story of royal in­ justice down to Evyatar's own time. 1 0 The climax of the treatise consists of two connected units The first is the public sermon of Sadoq the Third b. Josiah Av in Tyre, refuting the right of the nasi to declare himself exilarch in Egypt with au­ thority over Palestine. 11 The second is an argument, which "scroll" in question was written during the patriarchate of Cynl II, that is, between 1078 and 1092 6 Megillat Evyatar, ρ 10, 11 16-19 The word "Sijilmasa" was deciphered by Μ Gil in his edition of the Megilla (see the discussion on ρ 40 of his arti­ cle, "Scroll of Evyatar") 7 Megillat Evyatar, ρ 1, 11 1-24 (approximately) The entire section is badly effaced, and may have contained variations on this first theme 8 Ibid , ρ 1, 1 24 to ρ 2,1 8 9 Ibid , ρ 2, 11 8-26 10 n Ibid , ρ 2, 1 27 to end of manuscript Ibid , ρ 4, 11 4-21

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may, however, be too long to have formed a part of §adoq's speech, regarding the exclusive Palestinian privilege of inter­ calating the calendar 1 2 Exploiting a well-established Jewish and Islamic technique, the argument from tradition, 1 3 Evyatar traces the unbroken transmission of the divinely vested "secret" of intercalation (sod ha-'ibbur) from Adam, through R. Judah the Prince, with whom this esoteric knowl­ edge passed on to all the sages of the Sanhednn. At the end, Evyatar emphasizes that the head of the Sanhednn, "who is identical with the head of the yeshiva"—that is, the Pales­ tinian gaon—still retains the prerogative of formally sanctify­ ing the New Year, as, in fact, his father had done in Haifa in 1082. Evyatar stresses that no ignoramus who lacks the requi­ site initiation into the secret—that is, David b. Daniel—can perform this task. 1 4 Evyatar's primary purpose, then, was to convince his fel­ low Jews of the priestly Palestinian gaonic family's exclusive right to rule over them, by thoroughly discrediting the recent challengers from the Babylonian exilarchal anstocracy. Natu­ rally, therefore, in retelling the story of David b. Daniel, Evyatar selected only those facts that demonstrated the venal­ ity of his rival. In short, awareness of the Sitz tm Leben of Megillat Evyatar ought to temper our willingness to take its incriminating portrayal of the rule of the nasi at face value. Most importantly, the point of view of the aggrieved Pales­ tinian gaon should not be allowed to impose itself upon the objective evaluation of the purely documentary Gemza mate­ rial relating to the administration of David b. Daniel as head of the Jews. In fact, a reading of the relevant letters and docu­ ments indicates that Evyatar's "history" of this episode was 12 Ibid, ρ 4,1 21 to ρ 9, 1 20 The transitional word, "furthermore" (we'od, ρ 4, 1 21), may be intentionally ambiguous 13 Cf Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, ed Cohen, Introduction, pp L ff 14 The issue of the calendar was, of course, a traditional bone of contention between Palestinian and Babylonian Jewish authorities Cf Η J Bornstem, "The Controversy between R Saadya Gaon and Ben Meir" (in Hebrew), in Nahum Sokolow Anniversary Volume (Warsaw, 1904), pp 47-51, Mann, Texts, I, 232 η 67

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no more objective than his selective and biased account of Daniel b. Azarya, 15 and that Evyatar's bete noire was both less invidious and, in terms of Jewish political history, more sig­ nificant than his "biographer" wished us to believe. DAVID B. DANIEL'S ADVENT IN EGYPT

David, the youngest of the three sons of Daniel b. Azarya, 16 was about twenty years old when he arrived in Egypt, accord­ ing to Megillat Evyatar. 1 7 It appears that he made his debut on Egyptian soil in the year 1080/1, though, owing to an am­ biguity in the text of the Megilla, another view holds that he arrived in 1078. 18 15

See the references on Daniel b. Azarya cited in Chapter Three n. 1. For the most recent discussion of Daniel b Azarya's progeny, see Fleischer, " N e w Aspects of the Figure of Rabbi Daniel b. Azarya, Nasi and Gaon," pp. 55-57 Nothing is known about Jehoshaphat, the middle son, save his name That, along with the name of the eldest brother, Samuel, is re­ corded in the panegyric dedicated to their father (ibid., p. 73, 11. 228-34, and cf. ρ 57). David is not mentioned in that poem because he was obviously born later. Samuel, the first-born, attained the rank of "Third" in the Pales­ tinian yeshiva, and is to be found with that title in Damascus in 1074; Bodl. MS Heb. d 75 (no Cat), f. 11 That document bears the date Sunday 25 Tishre, 1386 Seleucid Era, which corresponds to Sunday October 19, 1074. Mann incorrectly copied 1396 Sel. (Mann, II, 221, I, 175, 185). 16

17

Megillat Evyatar, ρ 2, 11 27-28. I interpret the phrase "prior to that by three years," which introduces David's "descent" into Egypt, as referring to the immediately preceding event, namely, the death of Elijah Gaon in Kislev 1395 Seleucid Era (= November/December 1083) (ibid., 11. 22-26). So do Bornstem, "The Con­ troversy between R. Saadya Gaon and Ben Meir," pp. 48-49 n. 5, Fishman, "Nagidate," nos. 10-11, p. 11; and Dmur, Yisrael ba-gola, I, part 3, 75. Alex­ ander Marx, "Studies in Gaonic History and Literature," pp. 74-75, under­ stands the antecedent to be Elijah's demise, but emends the word "three" to "six" in order to arrive at 1078 (he refers to 1395 Seleucid Era as 1084) and thereby escape from a difficulty that does not exist. Jacob Mann, studiously avoiding Marx's misunderstanding on this point and hence his unnecessary emendation of the manuscript, comes up with the same year, 1078. He con­ siders the phrase as a whole to pertain to Elijah's appointment of his son, Evyatar, as his successor, in Tyre, in 1081, an event reported some ten lines earlier in the story; Mann, I, 185. Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," pp. 53 and 54 n. 21, attempts to provide documentary support for this solution. He cites a letter in 18

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The Megilla is unambiguous about the open arms with which the nasi's advent was greeted. 1 9 His first stop after reaching Egypt was the community of Damira. Evidently an important center of Syro-Palestinian immigrants in the which the sender announces his intention to travel to Fustat to renew ties with people there. This message was copied by someone else, but in his own hand the writer appended a postscript and signed with the motto, yeshu'a, "salvation." Goitein published the letter (Bodl. MS Heb. d 75 [no Cat. ], f 24, ed. Goitein, Shalem 2 [1976], p. 50), omitting the postscript, and attributed it to Daniel b. Azarya (who employed the motto yeshu'a). That is because Goi­ tein, like Jacob Mann before him (see Mann, II, 217 n. 3), read the date at the end of the letter as 18 Tammuz (1)361 Sel. Era (= July 1050), which fell dur­ ing Daniel b. Azarya's term in office as gaon in Jerusalem. Gil corrects the reading to 18 Kislev 1391 Sel. Era, that is, November 15, 1079, and identifies the writer by the handwriting of the postscript as David b. Daniel. He con­ cludes that David sent the letter on the eve of his departure from Damira for the Egyptian capital, and surmises that he had arrived in Damira about two years earlier, at the beginning of 1078, that is to say, "three years prior" to Evyatar's appointment to the gaonate in his father's lifetime. I have examined the manuscript on microfilm and, though the date is quite indistinct (which, as Gil concedes, explains Goitein's misreading [Goitein notes in the abovementioned publication that he did not have a photostat of the document on hand]), Gil's decipherment seems to me to be correct. However, comparing the handwriting of the postscript with the holograph signature of David b. Daniel on the legal document, TS 13 J 5, f. 2 + , I do not see a similarity war­ ranting Gil's conviction that David was the writer of the letter of 1079. Hence I must continue to prefer the explanation given at the beginning of this foot­ note, even though it leaves unresolved one chronological detail (see below, n. 26). I write 1080/1, keeping in mind that Evyatar, thinking in Seleucid chronology, would have been subtracting 3 from 1395, remembering that David had reached Egypt in 1392 If Evyatar was being exact and meant three full years prior to his father's death, then we should conclude that David reached Egypt around Kislev 1392 Sel Era, that is, November/December 1080. The point about Seleucid dating is not without significance for resolv­ ing yet another difficulty that bothered Mann. When Evyatar computed the length of his father's rule as 23 years (Megillat Evyatar, p. 2, 1. 16), he was subtracting 1373 from 1395 = 22, and counting 1373 as an additional regnal year, since Daniel b. Azarya had died in Elul 1373, that is, prior to the turn of the New Year, of 1374. This is a simpler explanation than the one offered by Mann, I, 185-86 n. 2. 19 Unless otherwise mentioned, the details in the narrative that follows are found in Megillat Evyatar, beginning on ρ 2,1 27.

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Delta, 2 0 Damira probably included many recent arrivals from David's native land. The Damascene notable who took the nasi under his wing and offered him his daughter's hand in marriage undoubtedly derived much honor from his patron­ age of the young nobleman. David was enthusiastically re­ ceived in Fustat, where his father-in-law subsequently sent him outfitted, like the Babylonian exilarch, with a chariot ac­ companied by runners. 2 1 The eagerness to pay tribute to David is fully comprehensible in the light of general admira­ tion for Davidides and of the special warmth that Egyptian Jewry felt for this son of the late gaon and nasi. 2 2 Mevorakh b. Saadya's welcome is understandable, too, given the fact that years earlier he had been a correspondent of David's father. 23 David's other principal local backer, Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azarya, son of one of the last gaons of Sura, was David's own first cousin. 24 When David resolved to divorce his wife in Damira, he took 120 dinars that had been collected for him on the initiative of these two patrons, and sent it to her as a "gift" along with her divorce document. 2 5 It was, in fact, his cousin, Josiah, who, shortly thereafter, 26 arranged David's marriage 20

Cf. Goitein, Sidre hinukh, pp. 103-104. Cf. Nathan the Babylonian in Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chroni­ cles, II, 84. For a similar honor accorded a Jewish newcomer to Cordova (Moses b Hanokh, one of the "four captives"), see Ibn Daud, Sefer haQabbalah, ed. Cohen, p. 66 22 Cf. the Andalusians' reception for the sons of the Babylonian exilarch and head of the yeshiva of Pumbedita, Hezekiah b. David, as reported by Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, ed. Cohen, pp. 61-62. On communal absorption of the costs of transporting nasis from town to town, see Med. Soc , II, 548 η 53. 23 Cf Chapter Three, Appendix B, Section 4. 24 Mann, I, 182. 25 Delete the question mark following the word get on p. 3, 1. 8 ofSchechter's edition of the Megilla. 26 According to Evyatar, David sent the get on Purim. Since David was (re)marned in Shevaf 1393 (January 1082), this must refer to Purim of 1392 (February 1081). I do not know how to square this with the two years Evyatar says David spent m Damira prior to his journey to the capital. This is the difficulty that forced Alexander Marx and Jacob Mann (see above, η 18) to date David's immigration to Egypt in 1078. 21

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to the daughter of a Fustat grandee. The latter's title, as given in Megillat Evyatar, was rozen ha-zeman ("Ruler of Our Time"). This epithet was one accorded Jewish government functionaries. 27 David's marriage contract of January 1082 shows that his new father-in-law was a Karaite patrician named Moses ha-Kohen, "Banner and Strength of the Jews and Joy of Their Pride," b. Aaron. 2 8 A memorial list of Karaite nasis and sanm confirms the courtier status of his fam­ ily. 29 From the handsome sums recorded in the ketubba, we may infer that the clan was quite wealthy. David's marriage into a wealthy Karaite courtier house is not unusual, neither from the standpoint of Jewish law nor from the vantage of medieval Jewish politics. Matches be­ tween Rabbanites and Karaites during this period were quite common in Egypt, where the Karaites, by virtue of their high socioeconomic position, still enjoyed the status of a denomi­ nation within Judaism rather than that of an ostracized heresy. 30 Megillat Evyatar implies that David's father had al­ ready established an alliance with the Karaites. Evyatar con­ demns Daniel b. Azarya for having attained office with the help of "the sect of calamity (kat sela', a Rabbanite pejorative for the Karaites) and other people and also the hand of the government." 3 1 There is more than one reason why the Karaite magnates in Cairo should have favored the Babylonian exilarchal family of Daniel b. Azarya and desired its rule. For one thing, the Karaites, as is well known, did not recognize the religious au­ thority of the Rabbanite gaons. In addition, they had a par27 Rozen is associated with Jewish courtiers in other contexts Mann, Texts, I, 273, no 9,1 15, 303, no 54 (a), probably also ibid , I, 165, 1 5 and Mann, II, 153,1 5 28 T S 2 4 1 + Cf Med Soc , III, 136 " M a n n , II, 211, cf I, 176-77 30 Med Soc , II, 7 31 Megillat Evyatar, ρ 2, 1 9, cf Mann, I, 178, 274-75, for the explanation and translation of kat §ela' By referring obliquely to "other people" (aherim) in this passage, Evyatar attempted to gloss over the fact that Daniel b Azarya had had the support of Rabbanites, as well

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ticular affinity with the Davidic house going back to their own "founder," Anan b. David. Third, they cherished Jeru­ salem, where they had helped install Daniel in office, as their spiritual center. 3 2 Quite likely, therefore, David's rise to polit­ ical prominence was facilitated by his connections with Karaites close to the Fatimid government. If the Fatimids needed special prodding, perhaps they were influenced by the nasi's royal lineage Muslim rulers, particularly those with genealogical ties to the house of 'All, the ancestor of the Shntes, took a particular fancy to lineal descendants of the Jewish House of King David 3 3 Speculation aside, the only source that actually describes David's installation in office in place of Mevorakh b Saadya is Megillat Evyatar According to this, David instigated a cer­ tain proselyte to denounce Mevorakh to the Muslim au­ thorities Because of this slanderous report, Mevorakh barely escaped from Cairo with his life 3 4 There is no reason to doubt that plotting and machinations accompanied David's rise to power. Court intrigue affecting members of the minor­ ity communities was an extremely common occurrence. 35 Moreover, Jews were not above using the rough tactics of medieval politics among themselves, as is amply demon­ strated by such celebrated instances of factional strife as those involving the Babylonian exilarch Uqba, 3 6 the Babylonian gaon Saadya, 37 the Andalusian scholar Joseph ibn Abitur and his allies, the brothers Jacob and Joseph ibn Jau, 3 8 and the Egyptian nagidic pretender Zutta 3 9 Even Mevorakh's initial 32

See, for instance, Mann, Texts, II, Section I Karaism in the Near East Cf Walter J Fischel, "The 'Resh Galuta' in Arabic Literature" (in He­ brew), in Magnes Anniversary Book, edited by F 1 Baer, et al (Jerusalem, 1938), ρ 183, Neustadt (Ayalon), "Some Problems," ρ 129 η 7, Med Soc , II, 17, Baron, Social and Religious History, V, 38 34 3S Megillat Evyatar, ρ 3, 11 8-15 Med Soc , II, 353-54 36 As reported by Nathan the Babylonian in Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, II, 78-79 37 Ibid , pp 80-83 38 See Ibn Daud, Sefer ha-Qabbalah, ed Cohen, pp 66-70 39 See Megillat Zuffa, cited in Chapter One η 13 33

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flight to the Fayyum district of Upper Egypt is in keeping with contemporary Egyptian custom. The beleagured bishop of Cairo who had to run away to escape the wrath of Patriarch Michael IV (1092-1102) fled to Upper Egypt, hiding out once in Fayyum itself and, another time, farther up the Nile in Asyut. 40 Mevorakh's eventual exile in Alexandria dovetails neatly with what we know of his special relationship with the Jews of that city. DAVID B. DANIEL AS EXILARCH IN EGYPT

Megillat Evyatar accuses David b. Daniel of encroaching upon the powers and prerogatives of the Palestinian yeshiva by establishing an illegitimate exilarchate in Egypt and Palestine. This view has been accepted by Jewish historians, who have construed David's reign in Egypt as a chapter in the traditional struggle between exilarchs and gaons. However, this approach to the episode yields only partial understanding. In order to arrive at a fuller historical appreciation of the affair, one must consider the events within their specific Fatimid context and as a chapter in the history of the rise of the office of head of the Jews. There has, for instance, been considerable misunderstanding about the circumstances surrounding David's proclamation as head of the diaspora (rosh ha-gola). For example, Samuel Poznanski thought that Evyatar had assigned Mevorakh b. Saadya and Josiah ha-Kohen b. Azarya the responsibility for declaring David exilarch immediately upon his arrival in Fustat. 41 Jacob Mann dated David's "exilar40 Patriarchs, IP, 387, 396. Other examples of flight to Upper Egypt: Patriarchs, III1, 49-50 (the Armenian Christian vizier Bahram flees to distant Qus, beyond Asyut [1137]); Goitein, "A Letter to Maimonides and New Sources Regarding the Negidim of This Family," pp. 240-43 (letter mentioning that the chief Jewish judge of the Egyptian capital has been forced into exile, some say to Qus, others, to Alexandria, while still others say he is hiding underground in Fustat itself [middle of the thirteenth century]). 41 Poznanski, Babylomsche Geomm, p. 114.

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chate" from 1082 to 1094, though he properly ignored Poznanski's misreading of the Megilla on the role of Mevorakh and Josiah. 4 2 Remarkably, however, the extant documents prove that David did not put forth his exilarchal pretensions before the end of 1089, at the earliest. I have collected a total of sixteen dated or datable legal documents and letters mentioning David by title. In addition to his ketubba of January 1082, there are: one court record dated at the turn of 1085; two from 1085 itself; two from 1088; one from Thursday, August 2, 1089; one from February 1092, and another probably from that same year; and five court records and one letter dated in 1093. 4 3 Finally, there is a letter written either in November 1087 or in November 1090. 44 The texts dated up to and including August 2, 1089, consis­ tently entitle David nasi. He appears under the rubrics "our nasi," "our lord the nasi," "the great nasi," and "the nasi of all Israel." Nowhere in these documents, however, is the title rosh ha-gola, "head of the diaspora" (that is, exilarch), at­ tached to him. On the other hand, all the sources from 1092 and 1093 designate David by the tide "head of the diaspora," 42

Mann, Texts, 1, 395 η 6; cf. Mann, I, 188. Ketubba of 1082: TS 24 1+ Turn of 1085: PER Η 84. 1085: Bodl. MS Heb. d 66 (Cat. 2878), f 5 (datable through comparison with a related docu­ ment, Bodl. MS Heb. c 28 [Cat. 2876], f. 11, dated 1085); TS 13 J 5, f. 2 + . 1088: TS 20.116; TS AS 145, f. 7 Thursday August 2, 1089: BM Or 5545, f 7, partly ed Mann, II, 220 (Mann transcribed 23 lyyar 1400 Sel. Era 14[= May 6, 1089]. Examining the manuscript in the British Museum Library, I con­ cluded that the month is to be read as A[v]. The 23d of lyyar did not fall on a Thursday in 1089, whereas the 23d of Av did [= Thursday, August 2]). Feb­ ruary, 1092: TS 20.31. Probably 1092: TS NS Box 320, f. 28 (the legal docu­ ment on the other side, in the same handwriting, is from May 3092; it does not contain David's name). 1093: TS Misc. Box 27, f 23, ed. Mordechai Friedman, Gratz College Annual of Jewish Studies 1 (1972), pp. 58-59; TS 13 J 2, f. 3; TS 8 J 34, f 6; Mossen A 13, series b (VII, 13.2); Dropsie 340; Bodl. MS Heb. c 28 (Cat. 2876), f. 65 + *. Reference to three of the last four documents cited here was omitted from n. 36 of my article, "David b. Daniel b. Azarya in Egypt." I added Dropsie 340 to the list more recently. 43

44

TS 18 J 2, f 3 + *.

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or "head of the diasporas of all Israel" (rosh galuyot kol yisrael). This change is too consistent and marked to be attrib­ uted to scribal caprice. In fact, two of the dated documents cited above were copied by the same person. In the earlier one (1087 or 1090) he referred to David b. Daniel as "our lord the nasi," and in the later one (1093), switched to "our lord the head of the diaspora." 4 5 Jewish scribes well knew that the title rosh ha-gola carried a political connotation quite distinct from nasi, the generic designation for all descendants of the Davidic family Rosh ha-gola was reserved for that one member of the dynasty who, theoretically, at least, ruled (in Baghdad) over all the Jews in the diaspora at any given time. Even David's more illustrious father, Daniel, had never arrogated to himself that title. He was variously called "nasi," "nasi of our dias­ poras," and "nasi of all Israel." 4 6 The escalation in David's titulature from the general designation nasi, inherited from his father, to the specific exilarchal rank did not come lightly. Nor did it come before the ninth year of his reign. Megillat Evyatar actually confirms and, m turn, is con­ firmed by, the evidence of our dated Geniza documents. Evyatar's opening rundown of David's ungrateful behavior upon arriving in Fustat, culminating in the overthrow of 47 Mevorakh, contains no hint of any exilarchal claims. The next, long section, detailing the nasi's encroachment on Pales­ tine and Syria, does not introduce the issue of David's exilar­ chal status until it comes to events that Evyatar dates on the eve of the Jewish New Year in the autumn of 1093. At that 45 TS 18 J 2, f 3, 1 13 + * and Bodl MS Heb c 28 (Cat 2876), f 65, 11 7, 12 + *, respectively 46 "Nasi of our diasporas" e g ΕΝΑ 3765, f lOv , 1 17, ed Μ Cohen, AJS review I (1976), ρ 21 "Nasi of all Israel", ΕΝΑ 3765, f 4 A supporter of David, conveying him congratulations from Tyre on the occasion of his ele­ vation to the rank of rosh ha-gola, emphasizes twice that David has now reached the dignity held by his "fathers" (plural), rather than "father" (singu­ lar) The well-wisher meant David's ancestors, the Babylonian exilarchs TS Misc Box 35, f 35, col HI, 11 1 and 3 [formerly TS Loan 35] 47 Megillat Evyatar, ρ 3, 11 5-15

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time, but not before, David's agent "Abiram b Dothan" an­ nounced to the community of Tyre that certain elders had proclaimed David rosh ha-gola in Fustat. 4 8 As noted above, Mann and others glossed over this fact. 49 This oversight largely derives from a failure to make the important distinc­ tion between nasi and rosh ha-gola. As our dated texts unequivocably show, however, David did not assume the title of rosh ha-gola until 1090 or 1091. This finding integrates well with the fact that Evyatar did not go into exile before the end of 1090, and probably not before the summer of 1091. s o Megillat Evyatar drops hints that lead us to believe that it was the power vacuum created by the yeshiva's retreat to Tyre, coupled with circumstances specific to the Fatimid mili­ tary and political scene in Palestine during the late 1080s and early 1090s, that precipitated this evolution. According to the Megilla, David first imposed his "terror" (hittito) s l upon the coastal cities of Ascalon, Caesarea, and Haifa, on the one hand, and of Benut and Jubayl further north, on the other. He delegated "unqualified" representatives over those com­ munities and, in the case of Beirut and Jubayl, imposed taxes on the local Jews, as well. Only afterwards did his agents begin their assault on Tyre. Fatimid developments probably contributed to the expan48

Ibid , ρ 4, 11 1-3 The story culminating in this event is introduced a number of lines earlier by the date 1404 Sel Era (1092/3), cf ρ 3, 1 25 (Schechter's emendation [Saadyana, ρ 91 η 6] is superfluous The copyist sometimes wrote the consonant d like his r, cf the word "nagid" in lines 11 and 12 on the same page of the manuscript In his edition, Gil correctly tran­ scribes 'td (=1404), cf also Mann, I, 189 49 Ibid "In 1093 the unscrupulous Abiram made a tour from one community to another proclaiming anew everywhere David's appointment as Exilarch" (emphasis added) 50 Evyatar was still in Tyre in October 1090 (Goitein, "An EleventhCentury Letter from Tyre," ρ 101 and η 5 there, cf ρ 100 η 4) and evi­ dently as late as the month of Tammuz 1091 (cf Mann, II, 228,1, 192 and Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," pp 62-63) 51 Megillat Evyatar, ρ 3, 1 18

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sion into Palestine that climaxed in the nasi's elevation to the exilarchate. In A.H. 482, which began on March 16, 1089, the Fatimid navy restored Tyre, Sidon, Jubayl, and Acre to Egyp­ tian control by force of arms. 5 2 Early students of Megillat Evyatar recognized from Evyatar's language that he con­ nected the initial and temporarily unsuccessful assault on Tyre by David's agent "Abiram b. Dothan" with that event 5 3 The mention of Jubayl just before T y r e 5 4 and of Acre a few lines later 5 5 suggests that David's control over those communities should also be correlated with the Fatimid reconquest There is yet another chronological coincidence that suggests a correlation between Jewish and Fatimid policy Evyatar introduces the account of David's final offensive against Tyre with an allusion to political events in that city: "God heard their (Evyatar's family's) cry and remembered His covenant. He mated servants against their masters in order to bring relief to them (Evyatar's family). . . . Then, in the year 1404 (Sel. Era = autumn 1092 to autumn 1093), Tyre was made secure once again" (hazra le-taqqana). 56 Informa­ tion in Arabic chronicles explicates Evyatar's elliptical refer­ ence. In the year A.H. 486 (began February 1, 1093), there was a rebellion in Tyre against Fatimid sovereignty, led by the Fatimid appointed governor of that city. A punitive expedi­ tion dispatched by Badr al-Jamali to quell the revolt com­ pleted its assigned task in July 1093. 57 Quite possibly David was encouraged by this very recent Fatimid show of strength 52

Ibn al-Qalamsi, ed Amedroz, ρ 120, Ibn Muyassar, ρ 28, Maqrizi, 7(ti'az, II, 326, cf Ibn al-Dawadari, Chronik, part 6, ρ 435 53 A Kahana, Sifiut ha-hstona ha-ytsraeht, I (Warsaw, 1922), 164 η 36, Dinur, Yisrael ba-goia, I, part 3, 77 See MegiUat Evyatar, ρ 3, 1 20 54 Megillat Evyatar, ρ 3, 1 19 55 Ibid , 1 30 56 Ibid , 11 24-25 Gil's reading, le-taqqana, represents an improvement over Schechter's reading, le-tiqva 57 Ibn Muyassar, ρ 29, Maqrizi, Ittt'az, II, 328, Ibn al-Qalamsi, ed Amed­ roz, pp 124-25 Gil, citing Arabic sources and reaching conclusions similar to mine, suggests that the rebellion quashed in 1093 may have begun as early as 1090, see Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," ρ 62

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in Tyre to make his own final attempt to take complete control of the home base of the yeshiva. Armed with the new title of rosh ha-gola, which he had acquired in 1090 or 1091 following his agent's retreat from Tyre, he undoubtedly hoped to succeed in the autumn of 1093 where hitherto he had failed. An incident related in contemporary Coptic annals also appears to reflect some sort of correlation between Fatimid foreign policy in Palestine at this time and the internal needs of the self-governing minorities in Egypt. According to the History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, Seljuk Jerusalem was administered during the 1080s by a local Jacobite Christian. This person, in turn, made it possible for his fellow Monophysites, the Copts of Egypt, to continue making pilgrimages to the Holy City during the Seljuk occupation. Early in 1092, at about the time that Seljuk power was beginning to wane, the Jerusalem prelate wrote to the Coptic patriarch in the Egyptian capital asking him to send a bishop to consecrate a refurbished church. The patriarch readily concurred, and dispatched a suffragan for the purpose in February/March S8 Badr al-Jamali would undoubtedly have endorsed this inroad by Egyptian Copts into a Palestinian city yet in Seljuk hands It would have been fully in keeping with his exploitation of the patriarchate to further Fatimid political aims in foreign dependencies of the Egyptian church, in the pursuit of which, as we have seen, the vizier restricted the patriarch's domicile to the Egyptian capital. Elsewhere I have suggested that David b. Daniel's successful domination of the Jewish community of Ascalon may very well have been aided by the Fatimid policy of nurtunng the loyalty of this outpost on the border of Seljuk-held territory 59 Similarly, Badr alJamali may have looked favorably upon the extension of Cairo-based Jewish authority into other cities on the SyroPalestinian coast crucial to the Fatimids At the very 58

Patriarchs, II3, 364-65 Mark R Cohen, "The Jewish Community of Ascalon Between the Palestinian Gaonate and the Office of Head of the Jews in Egypt" (in Hebrew), Shalem 3, forthcoming 59

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Chapter Five

minimum, we should conclude that David's claim over cities like Tyre, Jubayl, and Acre could hardly have been made without pnor conquest by Egyptian forces in 1089 and (m the case of Tyre) again in 1093. DAVID B. DANIEL AS HEAD OF THE JEWS

We see, therefore, that David b. Daniel's authority over Egyptian Jewry did not derive from his title of exilarch, since he did not even claim this dignity until late in his reign. In fact, his primary source of authonty was his appointment as head of the Jews, a commission that he received from the Fatimid government quite early. Evidence for this conclusion is to be found, for instance, in a letter of 1085, which contains an effaced line in the margin that should be restored to read (when translated) "[our] ljord] the [lllustnoujs [r]ayyis, the nasi, [nasi] of all Israel." 6 0 Since in 1085 David was still many years away from becoming rosh ha-gola, we cannot explain this occurrence of the title "rayyis" as an abbreviation for the Arabic exilarchal designation ra's al-jalut. Similarly, a report to "our lord David the nasi, nasi of the diasporas of all Israel," sent from Alexandria, addresses him as "my master the rayyis " 6 1 Here, too, the Arabic term must stand for the title head of the Jews. Equally convincing, the very extent of David's judicial and administrative prerogatives, to which the Geniza bears unequivocable witness, indicates that he must have possessed formal confirmation from the Fatimid chan­ cery of rights and powers formerly inscribed in the letter of appointment for the ra's al-mathiba in Jerusalem.

JURIDICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALIZATION

Like the gaons, David maintained a high court. Legal docu­ ments emanating from his reign refer to it repeatedly by the «>Bodl MS Heb d 66 (Cat 2878), f 5, margin, 11 9-11 s[ayyiduna alr]ayyis al-[jali]l al-nasi [nesi] kol yisrael For dating of letter, see above, η 43 61 ΕΝΑ 4096(g), 11 5, 8 A letter to Nahray b Nissim (d ca 10%) states

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designation beth din ha-gadol, in Hebrew, or be dina rabba, in equivalent Aramaic. 6 2 This was the traditional name of the supreme court of the gaonic yeshiva, which considered itself the continuator of the ancient Sanhedrin. Judah b. Saayda had refrained from employing the name "high court" for his own tribunal. The court record from Judah's nagidic period (March 1066), depicting Mevorakh presiding over a Fustat panel "appointed by the high court," refers to the tribunal of the Jerusalem yeshiva 63 and, thus, proves that the first Egyp­ tian nagid continued to acknowledge the judicial sovereignty of the Palestinian gaon. All available evidence indicates that Mevorakh himself did not appropriate the term until after his restoration (see Chapter Six). This strongly suggests that David b. Daniel had been the innovator and Mevorakh his continuator. David's high court performed the same two centralizing functions as did the yeshiva's beth din gadol: adjudication of appeals and designation of subordinate magistrates. With David presiding at the bench, we encounter it in session in Fustat. 6 4 Apparently David, like his counterpart the Coptic patriarch, resided in Old Cairo, rather than in the Fatimid administrative capital. 65 In a lawsuit from "the high court of our lord the nasi," 6 6 the three signatories do not actually in­ clude the nasi himself, but the judicial opinion rendered folthat a commodity has been forwarded "with the house of our lord the rayyis " This would refer either to Head of the Jews David b. Daniel or to Head of the Jews Mevorakh b. Saadya. See TS 6 J 4, f. 18, 1. 9, Nahray 213. 62 Beth din ha-gadol· e.g. BM Or 5545, f. 7,1. 3 (1089—before he was rosh ha-gola)l+»; be dina rabba- e.g. TS 20.31,1. 4 (1092). Cf. also Med. Soc, II, 18. 63 See above, Chapter Four n. 14. 64 For example, TS 20.116 (1088); BM Or 5545, f. 7 (1089) (+) ; BM Or 5566 B, f 7 (date partially torn off), ed. Gil, Documents (1976), pp. 214-17, TS Misc Box 27, f. 23, esp. 1. 19 (1093)+; PER Η 88 (no date), Dropsie 340 (1093). 65 There is no evidence to my knowledge that David held an official posi­ tion at the Fatimid court in Cairo, as did the court physicians of the House of Mevorakh b. Saadya. In this, too, David imitated the Coptic patriarch of his time 66 Represented by two extant court records, ΕΝΑ 4010, f 31 and TS 20 162.

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lows the style of a rabbinic responsum and may have been dictated by David. Though direct evidence of his learning is regrettably limited to the statement in Megillat Evyatar that a Palestinian scholar, a haver named Abraham, had tutored him in Scripture during his stay in Damira, 6 7 we need not hesitate to assume that, like his elder brother, Samuel, David had ac­ quired sufficient training to qualify him to serve as a judge. Like the high court of the gaonic yeshiva and the exilarch of Sassanian and early Islamic times, David's tribunal delegated some of its power to appointed judges. In one of the legal documents testifying to this function, the ten witnesses con67

Megillat Evyatar, p. 3, 1. 2. The suggestion that David b. Daniel was a liturgical poet (Mann, II, 224-25; Joseph Marcus, "Penitential Hymns of R. David Rosh ha-Gola" [in Hebrew] Horeb 6 [1941], 27-40; 7 [1943], 92-102; 8 [1944], 49-59) must be considered quite tentative until rigorous corroborative evidence of his authorship of the poems in question can be brought to sup­ port it. There were many nasis, Rabbanite and Karaite, named David m and around Egypt in the classical Geniza period, see, for example, Mann, Texts, II, General Index, pp. 1539-40. The rubric, "David, son of the rosh ha-gola," on a number of the specimens published by Marcus would seem contraindicatmg since, as noted above, David b Daniel's father had never assumed the title of exilarch (see above, at n. 46). M. Gil mentions ("Scroll of Evyatar," p. 58) the existence in the Geniza of six short letters containing the heading "son of the rosh ha-gola" (ben rosh ha-gola) and believes they were written by David b. Daniel. He assumes that David, who yearned to be called exilarch, had a certain amount of disdain for his father's title of head of the yeshiva. I know of two examples of David b. Daniel's signature. In a legal document dated 1085, he signed "David the nasi son of Daniel the nasi and gaon" (TS 13 J 5, f. 2 + ; cf. also Mann, I, 192 n. 1). On another court record he signed "David the nasi son of Daniel the nasi and gaon son of Azaryahu son of the rosh ha-gola" (TS 16.77,1. 17). Here he was referring, appropriately, to his great-grandfather, Solomon, who, in fact, had been exilarch in Baghdad (he is so mentioned in ΕΝΑ 3765, f. 10v., 1. 18+). The name of David b. Daniel re­ corded in TS 16.77 is not actually a holograph, but rather a transcription of David's signature as it had appeared in a copy of a legal document validated by David's court. However, the signature in TS 13 J 5, f. 2 + is his own I have compared it with the handwriting of the one letter among the six that Gil identifies by shelf-mark (ΕΝΑ 4009, f 11, ed. Goitein,Joi/ma Finkel Festschrift [New York, 1974], pp. 135-36; Goitein dated the letter in the early part of the eleventh century) and find them sufficiently dissimilar to question Gil's con­ viction that the "son of the rosh ha-gola" is identical with David b. Daniel.

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stituted as the "court appointed by the high court—may heaven guard him—of (his) ho(nor), gr(eatness, and) h(ohness our) ma(ster) our lord David the great nasi, head of the diasporas of all Israel" included some of the most influential scholarly and lay personalities in Fustat (Abraham b. Isaac the Scholar, Abraham b. Shema'ya, Ulla ha-Levi b. Joseph, and so on). 6 8 On another occasion, a tribunal of judges appointed by David's high court included Eli ha-Kohen b. Yahya, Ezekiel ha-Kohen b. Eli, and Abraham b. Isaac the Scholar. 69 In the delegation of judicial authority within Egypt, David was not the innovator. As we have previously noted, Mevorakh b. Saadya had already made judicial appointments in Alexandria during his first term. 7 0 Nonetheless, David's practice represented an expansion of authority because, in im­ itation of the gaon, he vested the delegatory function in his "high court." In order to establish his administrative control over Fatimid Jewry, David b. Daniel took another important step forward by appointing heads of local communities. With this act, he expropriated one more of the yeshiva's fundamental preroga­ tives. In addition to Fustat, where David based his regime, Megillat Evyatar lists Alexandria, Damietta, and al-Mahalla, in Egypt, and Ascalon, Caesarea, Haifa, Acre, Beirut, Jubayl, and Tyre, in the Holy Land, as communities in which David installed representatives. Of course, the particulars recorded in the Megilla are wholly condemnatory. David's delegates in Ascalon, Caesarea, and Haifa are unkindly described as "un­ qualified" (shelihim pesulim) and, to meet the exigencies of rhymed prose, as "impunfied by discharge" (zavim), "lep­ rous" (mesora'im), and "infected" (ne'elahim). Evyatar gives David's roving agent in Egypt and Palestine, Abraham b. Nathan Av, the pejorative nickname, Abiram son of Dothan, after two unscrupulous Biblical villains, in order to under68 TS 20 31 (1092) Validated below by "the high court of his lordship (Aramaic, marutha) David the exilarch " 69 70 TS 13 J 2, f 3 (1093) See above, Chapter Four, at η 63

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score his evil nature and designs. Of David's own administra­ tive procedures with the localities, Evyatar cites only tyrannical acts, such as the imposition of cruel fines to punish cantors, and the levying of oppressive taxes upon the Jews of Alexandria, Damietta, Fustat, Beirut, andjubayl 7 1 Regarding the last-mentioned claim, we hear of no other instances of the collection of revenues by a head of the Jews except for the case of the impostor Zutta, a half-century later, who exacted annual fees from appointees and squeezed dues out of the poor 7 2 David's fiscal innovation understandably caused heads to turn at Evyatar's yeshiva, which normally reaped the benefits of Egyptian Jewish wealth through dona­ tions. 7 3 The fact that the Coptic patriarch derived a regular income from his Egyptian sees, or that he engaged in simony, could hardly have made David's demands more palatable to the community, though some Jews may have rationalized David's taxation as simply an extension of the time-honored prerogative of the Babylonian exilarchs to collect dues from functionaries and from dependent districts. 74 On the other hand, routine Geruza documents cast Evyatar's allegation about David's tyranny into serious doubt A letter to the head (rayyis) David b. Daniel, written before the end of 1089, as the addressee's title of nasi proves, sheds interesting light on his relations with the community of Alexandria. The writer had arrived on Fnday in the port city following a harrowing ten-day journey from the capital by river (the Nile), and over the final land leg from Rosetta to Alexandria. He was on a mission for the head of the Jews, and bore a letter to the community from his superior in Fustat. When, on the Sabbath, the people assembled in the "large synagogue," namely, that belonging to those who worshiped 71

Megillat Evyatar, ρ 3, 11 15-30 ι « Med Soc , II, 39 Cf the Babylonian gaon Shenra's complaints about lack of adequate financial support for the yeshiva of Pumbedita Dmur, Yisrael ba-gola, I, part 3, 29-30 74 Cf Nathan the Babylonian in Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chroni­ cles, II, 85-87 73

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according to the Palestinian rite, and read the contents of the message, "they rejoiced over the blessings and praise con­ veyed to them." 7 5 A much-damaged letter from the Alexan­ drian judge Shela b. Mevasser (dated documents: 1074-1101) regarding a woman who had converted to Judaism, mentions that someone had recommended writing to the elders in Fustat, apparently to ask them to approach "our lord the nasi, rosh ha-gola," and other notables. 7 6 A court record drawn up in the large Jewish Delta community of "Greater al-Mahalla," through which David's venal ambassador "Abiram son of Dothan" passed in 1093 on his way to subdue Tyre with the announcement of his master's exilarchal claims, 77 was vali­ dated in the same place by a court of judges "appointed by the high court of his lordship (marutha) our lord David the great nasi, head of the diasporas of all [Israel]." 7 8 These uncensored sources, reflecting normal and routine administrative ties be­ tween David b. Daniel and two of the most important com­ munities in Egypt, paint a considerably more favorable pic­ ture of the nasi's regime than that conveyed by the biased Megilla of Evyatar. Concerning David's good relations with the pivotal com­ munity of Fustat, the evidence is overwhelming. Documents testify unequivocably to the fact that all the important Jewish notables living in that city during the early 1080s rallied around the nasi after he had taken office and enlisted in his entourage. Thus, early on in his regime, David gained the support of the merchant-scholar Nahray b. Nissim, the rab­ binic master Judah ha-Kohen the Rav b. Joseph, the parnas Eli ha-Kohen b. Yahya, the judge Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph Av, the cantor and court clerk Hillel b. Eh, the scribe and can75 ΕΝΑ 40% (g), 11 1-13 Bahr (1 10) = "sea," namely, the Nile River, ci Med Soc , I, 296 η 15 On the route from Fustat to Alexandria, which ordi­ narily took five to six days to traverse, see ibid , pp 298-99 76 TS AS 153, f 274 (reference to the nasi, rosh ha-gola, on line 10) 77 Megillat Evyatar, ρ 3, 1 30 78 Mossen A 26, series b (Vfl, 26) The validation at the bottom is in the same handwriting as the legal document at the top

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tor Ezekiel ha-Kohen b. Eli, the banker and judge Abraham b. Isaac the Scholar, and the prominent courtier Abu Ί-Fadl Yakhin b. Nethanel. 7 9 This crucial sociological fact, naturally glossed over by Evyatar, indicates that David's rule was not that of an autocrat, but rather of a leader surrounded by a network of sympathetic retainers who participated in his ad­ ministration. We are in an advantageous position to judge David's ad­ ministrative relationship with Palestine thanks to the fortu­ nate preservation of five letters concerning a dispute over the leadership of the community of Ascalon during David b. Daniel's term in office as head of the Jews in Egypt. 8 0 These valuable documents show much about the structure of David's governance of the local communities in general. David delegated his authority over the community of Asca­ lon to the cantor of the community. This individual (a succes­ sion of three cantor-executives appears in the letters) bore the Arabic title of muqaddam by virtue of his administrative function. Muqaddam, which means "one put at the head," is, like the title ra'is, another of the flexible terms that served a variety of purposes in the Islamic world. 8 1 In Muslim sources 79

Chapter Three, Appendix A, Sections 1, 2, 5, 4, 6, 7, 3, 15, respectively. Edited and interpreted in M. Cohen, "The Jewish Community of Asca­ lon." The manuscript shelf-marks are: TS 18 J 2, f. 3 + * ; Mossen L 126 (II, 124.1), ΕΝΑ NS 63, f. 16, ULC Or 1081 J 18 (previously ed. Goitein, EretzIsrael 6 [19601, p. 167; cf pp. 164-65), and Bodl. MS Heb. c 28 (Cat. 2876), f 65 + *. The first and the last are translated as documents no. 1 and 2 in Appen­ dix 2, below. A letter (TS 13 Ja 1) from an Ascalon Jew addressed to the Fustat judge Abraham b. Isaac the Scholar descnbes the case of a contested be­ trothal. The case was about to be submitted to "our lord" (sayyiduna; cf margin, 1. 3) m the Egyptian capital. I take this sayyiduna to be David b. Daniel, Abraham b. Isaac the Scholar's administrative superior (cf. above, Chapter Three, Appendix A, Section 3). About this interesting letter, see Med Soc, III, 75-76. Goitem calculates its terminus ad quern to be March 1085 (ibid., ρ 442 η. 22), which does not preclude the interpretation of the sayyiduna reference suggested here. 80

81 Cf. above, Chapter Four, at nn. 32-45. Most of the references listed below are cited in my Hebrew article, "David b. Daniel b. Azarya m Egypt," n. 53.

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we encounter muqaddam employed, for instance, to desig­ nate a general in the Fatimid army of Badr al-Jamali (muqad­ dam 'askar amir al-juyush), the leader of a Berber tribe living in Egypt, and the headman of a Palestinian village near Ramie (eleventh century). 8 2 In an Egyptian Christian source we find the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim (reigned 996-1021) quoted as calling the Coptic patriarch by the name of muqaddam, and Fatimid notables referred to variously as muqaddams of the state (muqaddamu al-dawla), muqaddams of the kingdom (muqaddamu al-mamlaka), and muqaddams of Fustat (muqaddamu Misr). 8 3 The Arabic-speaking Jews, well acculturated to their environment, applied the term muqaddam (and its verbal form qaddama; also taqaddama) equally flexi­ bly, for instance, to identify officers in a synagogue or persons who led the congregation in prayer. 8 4 Muqaddam in the sense of "prime" or "foremost," appears in a letter from the Babylonian gaon Hay (d. 1038), praising a prominent cantor as "the muqaddam of all the cantors in Babylonia." 8 5 Simi­ larly, the Hebrew poet Judah ha-Levi, who held no official communal appointment, was called by Muslims in Alexan­ dria "muqaddam of the Jews." 8 6 An unnamed physician enti­ tled muqaddam al-tibb was evidently a doctor holding some high appointment in the medical establishment. 87 The judge Eh b Amram, who was active during the middle third of the eleventh century, bore the designation "muqaddam" of the Palestinian congregation of Fustat, of which he was the spiritual leader. 88 "Muqaddam" was even used to describe the 82 Ibn Muyassar, ρ 28, 1 15 (1089) and ρ 24, 1 1 (1075), Maqrizi, Itti'az, II, 197, 1 12 and η 1 there 83 Patriarchs, II 2 , 136, 1 5 (in the Arabic text), II 3 , 245, 1 1 (in the Arabic text, the English translation of this passage [ibid , ρ 391, 1 6] is not precise), Π3, ρ 173, 11 9-10 (in the Arabic text), II 2 , 116, 1 4 (in the Arabic text) 84 Med Soc , II, 69 nn 6 and 7 85 Abramson, Ba-merkazim, pp 91, 98 86 Med Soc , II, 69 η 5 87 M o s s e n L 111 (II, 109 1) 88 TS 13 J 26, f 18v , 11 8-9, ed Goitein, Shalem 2 (1976), ρ 71, cf ρ 67 Goitein, "Ha-Rav," ρ 67

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Palestinian gaon in a petition meant to be submitted to the Fatimid ruler during the early part of the eleventh century. 8 9 Toward the end of the eleventh century, the term muqaddam came into regular use to designate the head of an entire local Jewish community. 9 0 Prior to that time, heads of local communities in the Fatimid domain had usually been chosen from among the havers. Such "members" of the Palestinian yeshiva possessed diplomas from the Palestinian gaon, whose charter as head of the Jews in the Fatimid empire included au­ thorization to delegate local leaders. 91 The circumstances sur­ rounding this important terminological switch have not yet been fully clarified. Goitein suggests, plausibly, that it is con­ nected with the rise of the office of nagid (head of the Jews) as a replacement for the waning Palestinian gaonate. 9 2 It is quite likely, in fact, that David b. Daniel, head of the Jews from about 1082 to 1094, was responsible for this innovation. The term muqaddam in its new, technical meaning, occurs nowhere in the Geruza documents emanating from the period of Judah b. Saadya or from Mevorakh's first term in office. Nor, indeed, is there any positive evidence that either of those brothers appointed heads of local communities. On the other hand, muqaddam in its new usage appears in the Ascalon let­ ters from the time of David b. Daniel mentioned above Fur­ thermore, the muqaddam of Ascalon is referred to in an en­ tirely different context in a court record dated December 1093. 93 During the formative years of the office of head of the Jews, it apparently became necessary to select a new title for communal executives, since the title haver could only be awarded by the yeshiva. However, the brothers from the House of Mevorakh b Saadya could not easily propose a new 89

Dropsie 354v , 1 11 + (cf above, Chapter One η 81) Med Soc , II, 70 91 Ibid , pp 8, 22, 212 and above, Chapter One, at η 81 At times we find Egyptian communal leaders bearing the parallel Babylonian title alluf, espe­ cially prior to the decline of the Babylonian yeshivas toward the middle of the eleventh century 92 93 Med Soc , II, 70 TS Misc Box 27, f 23, 1 8 + 90

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title. In the Islamic world, the bestowing of a title upon a local representative by a central authority symbolized that the former was loyal to and politically dependent upon the latter. Judah and Mevorakh were, themselves, havers of the Pales­ tinian yeshiva and, at least nominally, still delegates of that august body. David b. Daniel was in a different position. Lacking any appointment from the yeshiva, David was free of the inhibitions restraining his predecessors. Moreover, being consciously determined to undermine gaonic authority within the Fatimid empire, David had a very good political reason to initiate new titulature for the executives of local communities. Our hypothesis receives indirect support from Evyatar himself. The passage in Megillat Evyatar ridiculing David's appointees in Ascalon, Haifa, and Caesarea as "un­ qualified" and "leprous" should be understood as a virulent protest against the installation of leaders whose title (hence, authority) did not derive from the traditional source, the yeshiva of Palestine, but rather from a person considered to be a usurper. The letters from Ascalon and other sources in our corpus illustrate how central administration of local affairs operated under the rule of David b. Daniel. David would appoint the local executive (muqaddam) of a community, making him his political dependent. Local affairs would be the responsibility of this delegated headman, who, in turn, would report back to his superior in the Egyptian capital directly or through an in­ termediary in Fustat or Cairo. In order to ensure effective control over localities, David exploited existing networks of personal relations. His liaison in Fustat for Ascalon was the parnas Eh ha-Kohen b. Yahya, who had close ties with Pales­ tine and very likely was himself a native of the Holy Land. Eh was on intimate terms with the Ascalon judge, scribe, and cantor, Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, who served for a time as David b. Daniel's appointed executive in the Ascalon 94 community. Through Abraham b. Nathan Av, who ap94 See documents no 1 and 2 in Appendix 2, below, and Μ Cohen, "The Jewish Community of Ascalon "

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pears to have had family connections in Tyre, David suc­ ceeded in establishing his toehold in that prized city, as well 9 5 Like the gaons and exilarchs and even the Coptic patriarch, David carried on a diplomatic correspondence (mukataba) with his provincial subalterns, imitating the practice of the Is­ lamic rulers This procedure consisted of sending out orders and responses to petitions, and receiving, in return, letters filled with local intelligence and reassurances of loyalty and discipline. Since correspondence of this sort provided a tangi­ ble symbol of the good will of the central authority, its cessa­ tion instilled tremendous anxiety, as one of the Ascalon letters expressly states. 96 Like the gaons and exilarchs, too, David exercised his sovereignty through the use of the ban (herem) 9 7 We learn of his injunction against spiritual leaders who continued to recite prayers mentioning the name of the ousted rayyis (Mevorakh) from an epistle temporarily revoking that ban. 9 8 Prior to the Mamluk period, heads of the Jews made sparing use of this tool of coercion. 99 To be sure, Elhanan b Shemarya had employed the ban generations prior to the 1080s. However, at the time, the Jerusalem yeshiva had deemed him a troublemaker and an infringer upon its cherished prerogatives. 10 ° The gaon Evyatar in Tyre was un95

Cf Chapter Three, Appendix A, Section 11 ULC O r 1081 J 18, 11 5 ff+, cf discussion of this letter in Μ Cohen, "The Jewish Community of Ascalon " Mukataba as diplomatic corre­ spondence in the Fatimid setting in the eleventh century Ibn Muyassar, pp 6, 9 (parallels in other sources, such as, Ibn al-Sayrafi, Ishira, ρ 41) Mukataba as Jewish diplomatic correspondence is mentioned in letters of the Babylonian gaons e g Mann, Texts, I, 135, 1 7, 136, 1 11, 142, 1 8, 167, 1 16 Mukitaba with exilarch Assaf, Tequfat ha-geonim, ρ 287 (translation, ρ 288) Mukataba as diplomatic correspondence among the Copts Patriarchs, III1, 3 (Arabic, ρ 20,1 11) 97 On gaonic bans, see S Assaf, Ha-'oneshm ahare hatimat ha-talmud (Jeru­ salem, 1922), pp 49-51 For a ban by an exilarch, see Nathan the Babylonian in Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, II, 81 98 TS 12 657, trans Goitein, Utters, pp 173-74, cf Med Soc , II, 332 99 Med Soc , II, 35 » 100 Cf above, Chapter One, at η 117 96

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doubtedly distraught over David's usurpation of the yeshiva's coveted prerogative, which was written into the Fatimid pat­ ent for the head of the yeshiva. 1 0 1 As a central authority, David naturally received and re­ sponded to petitions for assistance. A Jew in distress, traveling in Lower Egypt without adequate clothing or food, wrote to Nissim b Nahray requesting a letter of recommendation from "the rav," namely, Nissim's father, Nahray, and from "the nasi," which would qualify the unfortunate writer for chanty in al-Mahalla and in Alexandria 1 0 2 A destitute woman with no family, suffering from a dreadful malady (leprosy, it seems), begs "our lord David the great nasi, head of the diasporas of all Israel" to help her. 1 0 3 A silk dyer from Byzantium, whose children had been seized as pawns follow­ ing an accusation that he had spoiled a valuable fabric, arrived in Egypt seeking Jewish help to ransom them. He writes that "our lord the nasi" had established the veracity of his story 1 0 4 Letters from Ascalon entreat the Fustat parnas and confidant of David b. Darnel, Eh ha-Kohen b. Yahya, to intercede on behalf of two local Jewish notables with "our lord the head of the diaspora," namely, David b. Daniel. 1 0 5 David's beneficence, mention of which Evyatar con­ veniently omitted from his account, was matched by the tre­ mendous homage the nasi received from his subjects. Respect and affection were manifested, not only in the loyalty of the local religious and lay leadership, but also in the gifts people offered the nasi, in the high-sounding epithets by which they addressed him, and in the emoluments which the community awarded him from its budget. 1 0 6 Even an envoy of the 101

Cf above, Chapter One, at η 81 TS Arabic Box 48, f 42 103 TS 13 J 13, f 16 104 ULC Or 1081J 9, cf Med Soc , I, 50 η 54 105 TS 8 J 39, f 1, Bodl MS Heb c 28 (Cat 2876), f 65, margin, 11 2025 + * The writer of both letters is Nathan ha-Kohenb Mevorakh of Ascalon (see Μ Cohen, "The Jewish Community of Ascalon") 106 Gifts ULC Or 1081J 18, 11 1-5 \ cf discussion of this letter in Μ Co­ hen, "The Jewish Community of Ascalon " Epithets ULC Or 1081 J 18, 1 102

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Jerusalem yeshiva (apparently, a roving cantor), paid remark­ able deference to "our lord the head of the diasporas of all Is­ rael" upon visiting Cairo. The nasi and exilarch recompensed the wanderer for his solicitude by inviting him to conduct Sabbath services in the Cairo synagogue 1 0 7 David naturally spent time in the Fatimid administrative capital where, like the Coptic patriarch, he must have been summoned peri­ odically into the presence of the Fatimid ruler. In addition to judges and communal executives, David may, like the Babylonian exilarchs and the gaons, have dele­ gated authority to subordinates to appoint lower-ranking functionaries, such as meat slaughterers and guardians of the fitness of meat 1 0 8 A pastoral letter preserved m two pieces, 1 0 9 and written by a Davidic dignitary, states that two officials, one, a courtier (sar) named Meir and the other, a judge (dayyan) named Isaac, have been ordered to travel to the commu­ nity addressed Their instructions regarding the community are " t o take care of all their needs, to appoint slaughterers of meat (tabbahim) and guards (shomenm, that is, over meat), and to impose upon the community our authority." 1 1 0 Elsewhere in the same letter the writer announces another of the prerogatives he plans to exercise over the community and, at the same time, justifies his authonty: "We shall select ten elders out of your notables and strengthen their arms so that they may lead the people, as it is incumbent on us to appoint elders, judges, and magistrates This is our inheritance and 10+ hacjratuhu al-bahiyya, "His Radiant Excellency " Emoluments Bodl MS Heb d 66 (Cat 2878), f 62ν , 11 1-5, cf Med Soc , II, App Β 15, ρ 442 Possibly also Bodl MS Heb c 28 (Cat 2876), f 6, ed Mann, II, 246, cf Med Soc, II, 565 η 4 107 TS 13 J 19, f 6r , 11 15-16, 21-23, ν , 11 1-2, cf Med Soc , II, 42 η 6 ιοβ Qf Nathan the Babylonian's account of the exilarch in Neubauer, ed , Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, II, 85-86 For these powers vested in the Pales­ tinian gaon, see above, Chapter One, at η 81 109 TS NS Box 324, f 17 (cf Med Soc , II, 59 η 109) and TS 8 J 13, f 25 (cf ibid , ρ 571 η 42, Goitein does not mention that the two fragments belong together) 110 TS 8 J 13, f 25,11 3-6

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that of our forefather King Jehoshaphat, as it is written m Scripture: 'And he set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah' (II Chronicles 19:5). " 1 1 X Because of the allusion to King Jehoshaphat's judicial reform, it has plausibly been suggested that David b. Daniel was the author of this missive. 1 1 2 It would appear, therefore, that the nasi felt it necessary to provide some theoretical underpinmngs for his restructuring ofJewish self-government m the Fatimid realm. Other sources do, indeed, point to the fact that the sup­ porters of David b. Daniel tried to formulate an ideological defense of their master's encroachment upon the prerogatives of the Palestinian gaon, and that the latter responded in kind. This theoretical dimension of the conflict is mirrored, for example, in a letter from a certain Shela "the Sixth" b. Nahum. 1 1 3 The title "Sixth" identifies the writer as one of the seven dignitaries who formed the governing board of the Palestinian yeshiva. Shela writes that he had pointed out to his gaon that some persons had claimed that Ascalon does not be­ long to the territory of Biblical Palestine because, among other reasons, it had been conquered by the Philistines. When the gaon got wind of this proposition, he responded with a series of counterproofs, argued dialectically in Talmudic style from Biblical verses. In particular, the gaon was worried lest people extend the theory to other coastal cities conquered by the Philistines—for example, Gaza. Shela b. Nahum adds an additional argument in the name of the gaon, one that is poht111

TS NS Box 324, f 17, 11 11-14, continued by TS 8 J 13, f 25, 1 1 The first half of this passage is translated into English in Med Soc , 11, 59 1,2 Med Soc , II, 571 η 42 Goitein is of the opinion that two halakhic rul­ ings in the same handwriting, and signed with the motto yeshu'a, "salvation" (ΕΝΑ 1822 A, f 23 and ΕΝΑ 4011, f 17), also stem from the pen of David b Daniel The chronological considerations cited by Goitein make this possible However, since the script does not appear to me to be the same as David's signature preserved in the legal document, TS 13 J 5, f 2 + , I hesitate to decide the matter See Goitein, " N e w Sources on Daniel b Azarya," pp 94-95, and Med Soc , III, 76 and 442 η 25 Possibly the documents were copied by David's scribe 113 TS 20 106, ed Mann, Π, 225-27

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ical rather than exegetical: "even if they were correct that Ascalon is not part of Palestine... we were in Ascalon before he arrived there." Jacob Mann righdy connected Shela's letter with the strug­ gle between Evyatar ha-Kohen b. Elijah and David b. Daniel for control of Palestine, and cited it as "an interesting example of how the followers of David attempted to bring these coastal communities under the authority of an Exilarch that resided in Egypt." 1 1 4 We would add that it shows that Jewish self-government, like other medieval political systems, gener­ ated its own political theory, and that this theory came to the fore especially during conflicts, when issues and principles usually dormant were awakened to be articulated, challenged, and defended. 1 1 5 The fact that Biblical texts and rabbinic ar­ guments constituted the substance and form of Jewish ideological theses of self-government should not obscure the fact of their existence. Exegetical thinking was simply part of the medieval Jewish mentality. During the conflict between David b. Daniel and Evyatar Gaon, the Egyptian party behind David's expansion as exilarch marshaled arguments drawn from Scripture to support their position. In order to justify David's domination over Ascalon, Acre, Tyre, and other Syro-Palestinian ports, they contended that the yeshiva's jurisdiction was restricted to Palestine, and that this geo­ graphical area could be construed to exclude the coastal cities. 1 1 6 In response, the legitimist establishment in Tyre, 114

Mann, I, 191-92. This methodological assumption underlies Karl Frederick Morrison's book, The Two Kingdoms Eccleswlogy in Carolmgian Political Thought (Prince­ ton, 1964) Morrison exploits documents stemming from the trial of a Frankish bishop that gave rise to a debate over the issue of royal vs papal sovereignty. O n the specific character of medieval political thought in Europe, see Ewart Lewis, Medieval Political Ideas (New York, 1954), I, viu-ix. 116 It is worthwhile mentioning that in an entirely different context Υ Sussmann has suggested that in the Tannaitic period Ascalon may have been considered beyond the borders of Palestine with respect to those command­ ments that apply only to the Holy Land, see Y. Sussmann, "The 'Boundaries of Eretz-Israel' " (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 45 (1975-1976), 256-57 115

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using classical Jewish texts, articulated an ideological defense. One of their theoretical statements was the speech of Sadoq the Third b. Josiah in Tyre, invoking Talmudic statements and reasoning to refute David b. Daniel's claim to the exilarchate and to authority over Palestine. 1 1 7 Shela b. Nahum's epistle to Fustat on behalf of the gaon Evyatar, with its textual proofs in favor of the geographical integrity of the Holy Land, constitutes a second example. A third is Evyatar's own Megilla, the political argument of which we have already analyzed. Shela b. Nahum's closely reasoned letter furnishes additional evidence that the gaon was fully aware of the ex­ tent of Egyptian and Palestinian acquiescence in David's exilarchal expansionism, and sheds further light on the con­ text, vindicative tone, and political-theoretical purpose of his Megilla. 1 1 8 DAVID B. DANIEL: USURPER, OR BUILDER OF EGYPTIAN JEWISH INDEPENDENCE?

Our assessment of the reign of David b. Daniel emerges from balancing Evyatar's biased version of the events of 1082 to 1094 against the uncensored testimony of the letters and doc­ uments of the Geniza. The resulting image of David and his administration differs markedly from the one of illegitimate usurper projected by the gaon in his Megilla In our opinion, the conclusion is inescapable: Evyatar's "impostor-usurper," supported by the key Jewish leaders in Egypt, played a deci­ sive role in the development of the office of head of the Jews and, with it, of Egyptian pohtical self-sufficiency The current theory about David b Daniel, based as it is on Megillat 117

Preserved in Megillat Evyatar, ρ 4, 11 4-21 Apparently another instance of a Palestinian attempt to discredit the re­ gime of David b Daniel is contained in TS 28 5, ed Μ Friedman, Dine Israel 5 (1974), 205-27 (see Friedman's discussion on ρ 208) Cf also Gil, "Scroll of Evyatar," ρ 67 (having compared the handwriting of the validation on TS 28 5 with David b Daniel's holograph signature on TS 13 J 5, f 2 + , I do not share Gil's conviction that David actually wrote the validation) 118

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Evyatar, has precluded consideration of this possibility. However, the fact is that between 1082 and 1094, David b. Daniel so significantly expanded the governing powers of the headship of the Jews that he enabled Egypt finally to shed its dependency upon the foundering Palestinian yeshiva. Most important, by establishing important precedents in the area of judicial and administrative centralization, he cleared the way for his successor, the restored Mevorakh b. Saadya, to bnng the fledgling office to its logical political culmination.

C H A P T E R SIX

The Second Administration of Mevorakh b. Saadya, 1094 to 1111 T H E RESTORATION OF THE HOUSE OF MEVORAKH B. SAADYA

MEGILLAT EVYATAR conveys the following information about the fall of David b. Daniel and the deliverance of Mevorakh b. Saadya and the gaon Evyatar from his "evil" grasp. The event is dated in Iyyar 1405 of the Seleucid Era, 1 and the circum­ stances leading up to it are descnbed as follows: "By virtue of his learning (zekhut torato), the Nagid of the People of God was saved from the snare of the fowler and the noisome pesti­ lence [cf. Psalm 91:3]. He was forced to go into exile in the province of al-Fayyum for an entire year and, thereafter, in Alexandria, until the time that his word came to pass [cf. Psalm 105:19]. Thereupon, the lord (ha-adon) grew angry with him [that is, David b. Daniel] on account of his libelous accusation and raised up the righteous one [that is, Mevorakh b. Saadya], restoring him to his office and to his medical posi­ tion." 2 At the close of the Megilla, the gaon's reinstatement is explicitly related to Mevorakh's triumphal victory over the usurper. 3 For purposes of historical evaluation, it is convenient to separate the data provided by Evyatar about the return of Mevorakh b. Saadya into four parts. 1. the statement that Mevorakh had been living in exile in Alexandna at the time of David's political demise, 2. the Jewish date on which David's dethronement occurred; 3. the statement that the Egyptian ruler (ha-adon) who brought about David's deposition re­ stored Mevorakh to his former office as well as to his medical 1 2 3

TS 12 729, 1 5 + (the second fragment of the beginning of the Megilla) Megillat Evyatar, ρ 3, 11 12-14 Ibid, ρ 10,11 8-15

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post; and 4. the statement that Mevorakh's rehabilitation and that of the gaon went hand in hand. This sparse but critical information assumes greater clarity when considered in the light of external data from both Jewish (Geniza) and nonJewish (Muslim and Christian) sources. MEVORAKH B. SAADYA IN ALEXANDRIA

When Mevorakh sought asylum in Alexandria from his polit­ ical foe in Fustat he was conforming to contemporary Fatimid practice. Alexandria and its Lower Egyptian hinterland served as a frequent rallying point for worsted Muslim political figures. Na§ir al-Dawla lbn Hamdan (assassinated 1073) re­ treated to Alexandria in the wake of his ouster from the capi­ tal and organized his rebellion from that port city. 4 During the succession struggle that followed the death of the caliph al-Mustansir at the end of 1094, Nizar, the eldest son and heir-apparent of the caliph, withdrew to Alexandria and col­ lected a following there for his abortive attempt to thwart plans to enthrone his younger brother, al-Musta'li. 5 Though we possess no evidence that in Alexandria Mevorakh b. Saadya engaged in activities designed to recover his office, several Geniza letters testify to strong support for the ousted 4

See above, Chapter Two, at nn 26-30 On Nizar's rebellion and its consequences, see the following Majid, ed , Al-sijtllat, #35, pp 111-18 (alerter from the mother of al-Musta'li, dated Feb­ ruary 10%, describing the events to the §ulayhids of Yemen, cf al-Hamdam, "Letters of al-Mustansir," ρ 318), Patriarchs, II 3 , 390-93 (the compiler of this section, a contemporary of the events, was susceptible to propaganda claim­ ing that al-Mustansir had designated al-Musta'li his successor on his death­ bed, ibid , ρ 389), lbn Zafir, pp 83-85, lbn Muyassar, pp 35-37, Maqrizi, Itti'az, III, 14-15, 27, lbn al-$ayra£I, Ishara, ρ 60, lbn al-Dawadari, Chromk, part 6, pp 443-47, lbn al-Qalanisi, ed Amedroz, ρ 128, O'Leary, Fatimid Khahfate, pp 211-15, Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, pp 255-58, Hamdani, Fatimtds, pp 50-51, 55, Asaf A A Fyzee, ed , Al-hidayatu Ί-Ammya (London and Calcutta, 1938), pp 1-16 (editor's introduction), Bernard Lewis, The Assassins A Radi­ cal Sect in Islam (New York, 1968), pp 34-36, 49, 107-108, and Index, s ν Nizar, Nizaris 5

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head of the Jews among segments of the Alexandrian Jewish community. The most revealing glimpse into Mevorakh's activities while in exile in Alexandria comes from a letter written there some years after the death of "the rayyis Abu Ί-Fadl." 6 It was sent by an Alexandrian notable named Nathan b. Judah to the judge (dayyan) Sason b. Meshullam, who was active in New Cairo during the middle of the twelfth century. 7 Nathan de­ scribes a bitter conflict that had been raging for some time be­ tween himself and the head of the Alexandrian community, a man named al-Dar'i (Abraham b. Jacob al-Dar'i). 8 In explain­ ing to Sason b. Meshullam some of the "roots" (usul) of his difficulties, Nathan traces the trouble back to the time when the rayyis Abu Ί-Fadl, that is, Mevorakh b. Saadya, came to Alexandria. He had been accustomed, upon completing his daily business (ashghal), to hearing young students recite their lessons. It so happened that the schoolhouse he frequented for the purpose was the very one in which the writer was then a pupil, and that he and a schoolmate were the ones their teacher always chose to perform. Thus the rayyis (Mevorakh) and the young Nathan b. Judah formed an attachment during Mevorakh's exile in Alexandria. Their relationship grew stronger after Mevorakh was restored to his position in Fustat and Nathan completed his studies with that teacher. 9 Mevorakh's favoritism toward Nathan after his return to the capital incited jealous al-Dar'i to various vindictive acts stretching over a long period of time. 1 0 Nathan's letter sheds interesting light on Mevorakh's ac­ tivities during the years of his political obscurity. His daily 6 TS 10 J 6, f 5 The blessing for the departed, ordinarily attached to the name of a person deceased, is missing (1. 7) However, such departures from convention exist—for instance, in a court record concerning the ketubba money collected by "the widow of the most illustrious rayyis Abu Ί-Fadl" (not identical with Mevorakh b Saadya), mentioned without the usual prayer for the departed ULC Or 1080 J 126, 11 7-8 7 Med Soc , II, App D 24, ρ 514 8 On this Abraham, see below, at nn 100-105 9 TS 10 J 6, f 5, 11 7-10 "> Discussed below at nn 100-105

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"business" in Alexandria was probably the practice of medi­ cine. His preoccupation with Jewish education reflects both his scholarly personality and his concern for the supervision of an important communal function. Alexandnan deference suggests that even in Mevorakh's political disgrace, members of that community remembered their decades-old special rela­ tionship with him, and continued to pay homage to the exiled head throughout the reign of his rival. Affection for and loy­ alty toward Mevorakh survived in other, smaller Jewish aggregates in the Lower Egyptian countryside. This would explain why David b. Daniel had been constrained to prom­ ulgate his ban against those who continued to mention the name of the rayyis in the synagogue prayers. 1 1 Among Mevorakh b. Saadya's Alexandrian allies, the Maghrebi Jewish merchants figured prominently. Mevorakh, it will be recalled, had maintained ties with the Tunisians as far back as the 1060s, when he ordered books from alMahdiyya. 1 2 This relationship endured. Around 1094, the merchant Nathan b. Nahray, who lived in Alexandria, wrote at the beginning of a business letter addressed to his cousin Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat, "We Maghrebis are experiencing indescribable joy over the news of the status (hal) of our lord the illustrious rayyis Mevorakh b. Saadya, Strength of the House of Israel—may his splendor be exalted." At the close of his epistle, Nathan returns to the same glad tidings: "When you meet our lord the most illustrious rayyis, Strength of the House of Israel—may his splendor be exalted—inform him of myjoy and pleasure, as well as of the joy of all Israel, over the restoration of the headship (nyasa) to him. May God make it an eternal and permanent headship." 1 3 Nathan penned his let­ ter "eight days remaining in Tammuz," 1 4 that is, most likely 11 TS 12 657, trans Goitein, Letters, pp 173-74 (the immediate concern of that letter was a violation of the order by the haver of the Delta community of Tinnis) 12 See Chapter Three, Appendix B, section 4 13 Bodl MS Heb d 66 (Cat 2878), f 79, 11 7-10 and ν , 11 1-4, Nahray 31 O n Nathan b Nahray, see Goitein, Letters, ρ 297 η 5 14 Line 2 of the letter cited in η 13

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during the month of Tammuz following the month of lyyar 1405 of the Seleucid Era, when Mevorakh's restoration took place A contemporary letter to Nahray from the leader of the Maghrebis in Alexandria, Benaya b Musa, hints that the exiled Mevorakh had been so intimate with the North Afri­ cans residing there that they looked upon him as their per­ sonal protector and savior when he returned to office.15 Be­ naya complains bitterly to Nahray about bad treatment the foreign Jewish merchants had been receiving from the Alexandrian community over the payment of the poll tax. 1 6 Near the beginning of the letter, referring to Mevorakh and his return to authority in the capital, Benaya writes, "Your fellow Maghrebis have for years now been incurring disturb­ ing difficulties with all the heads (rayyisa' [sic]) and leaders (mutaqaddimin) Lately, however, we have been thinking that things are about to become better for us than we ever could have imagined. That is on account of the long life of my master the most illustrious rayyis sar ha-sanm—may his splendor be exalted." 1 7 In the continuation, Benaya mentions Mevorakh several times in connection with the local dispute and its hoped-for favorable outcome. 1 8 His letter may be dated from the time of Mevorakh's restoration in 1094, and echoes the Alexandrian Maghrebis' pleasure over his return to a position from which he could render them assistance. The North Africans probably expected repayment from the rayyis for the loyalty they had shown him during his long political exile in the Egyptian port city THE DATE OF MEVORAKH'S RESTORATION

The month of lyyar in the year 1405 of the Seleucid Era, dur­ ing which, according to Megillat Evyatar, David b Daniel 15

16 TS 13 J 23, f 3, Nahray 71 For details, see Med Soc , 11, 67 TS 13 J 23, f 3, 11 6-10, Nahray 71 18 Ibid , 1 28 ("our lord the rayyis"), ν , 11 1 and 3 ("our lord sar hasanm"), and 13-14 ("our lord the most illustrious rayyis") The person called simply "our lord" (r , 1 13, ν , 1 8) may be someone else (the gaon? Cf Med Soc , II, 67) 17

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was deposed, began on April 20 and concluded on May 18, 1094. This date takes on critical significance against the back­ ground of contemporary Fatimid political developments. Be­ tween April 9 and 19, 1094, Badr al-Jamali, the vizier and ac­ tual ruler of the Fatimid state, who at the time lay paralyzed on his deathbed, transferred the reins of government to his son, al-Afdal.19 Nonetheless, despite this precaution to ensure a smooth transition of absolute power from father to son, a short struggle over al-Afdal's succession ensued when, shortly thereafter, Badr died. A faction evidently resentful of Badr's dictatorial regime attempted to put forth its own can­ didate, named Amin al-Dawla Lawun. Before long, however, the general Nasir al-Dawla Aftakin, governor of Alexandria and one of the loyal supporters of the deceased Badr, suc­ ceeded in having the pretender defeated. An inscription dating from this rocky transition period lists al-Afdal with as yet rel­ atively modest titles. This indicates that he was constrained to act prudently until his authority was fully established. 20 19

This detail, with the date, is provided by our Egyptian Christian source, Patriarchs, IP, 388: "In the second year of the reign of the aforesaid patriarch (Michael IV, reigned 1092-1102), the lord, the illustrious Amir al-Juyush be­ came ill and was paralyzed, owing to his great age. Before his death, the lord, the illustrious al-Afdal, his son, took charge of affairs, in the last decade of the month of Rabi' I in the year 487 (= April 9-19, 1094), which corresponds to the month of Baramudah of the tax-year 483," 20 Ibn Muyassar, pp. 30-31; Maqrizi, Ittt'iz, II, 331-32 Maqrizi (p. 332, 11. 2-3) has the affair of Lawun lasting until December 29, but this is the date of the death of al-Mustansir, which introduces the passage immediately follow­ ing the affair of Lawun in Ibn Muyassar (p 31,1. 14) Evidently some confu­ sion has occurred at this point in the text of Maqrizi, so that the caliph's date of death has been transferred to the end of the recitation of the previous event. Ibn Muyassar and Maqrizi state that Badr died in the year 487, either in the month of Rabi' (must mean Rabi' I, March 21-April 19, or Rabi' II, April 20-May 18, 1094) or in Jumada I (May 19-June 17, 1094), and that eight months separated his demise from that of the caliph al-Mustansir. Alternative dates for Badr's death given in some sources are, thus, to be rejected (Ibn alAthir, Al-kimtl fi Ί-ta'rikh, X, 245 gives Dhu Ί-Qa'da [November 12December 11, 1094], though a manuscript variant reads Rabi' I, suggesting one of the traditions transmitted by Ibn Muyassar and Maqrizi [see above, this note], Quatremere, Metnoires, II, 449, gives Dhu Ί-Hijja [December 12,

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We may not be far from the truth if we posit some sort of connection between these events and the change of adminis­ tration in the office of head of the Jews. The closely timed se­ quence of al-Afdal's succession, David b. Daniel's ouster, and Mevorakh b. Saadya's reinstatement cannot be dismissed as pure coincidence. Certainly, the "lord" (adon) whom Evyatar credits with effectuating David's fall and Mevorakh's ascent is to be identified with al-Afdal, rather than with his father, as Jacob Mann conjectured. 21 In lyyar 1094, the old Armenian vizier had been lying near death for months, and his son and successor had already taken command of the affairs of state. Quite possibly, David lost his position as a result of some court intrigue accompanying the stormy transition from the regime of Badr al-Jamali to that of his son. 2 2 MEVORAKH B. SAADYA AND AL-AFDAL

That al-Afdal should have preferred Mevorakh b. Saadya to David b. Daniel is quite understandable, given the close rela­ tionship that existed between the son of Badr al-Jamali and the prominent Jewish physician. A Geniza letter explicitly states that Mevorakh served al-Afdal as "a counselor since the days of his youth" and that al-Afdal "loved him very 1094-January 10, 1095]) For discussion of the inscription of 1094, see Wiet, Matmaux, ρ 153 21 Mann, I, 188 Mann's guess is repeated, for instance, by Joseph Ehash, " N e w Information on Palestine from the Eleventh Century" (in Hebrew), Sefunot 2 (1958), 12 η 29 22 Conclusions similar to those presented in this section were arrived at in­ dependently by Μ Gil, see his article, "Scroll of Evyatar," pp 66-67 The fate of David b Daniel and of his family following his deposition is not known Proof that he had children to carry on his name hinges on the doubt­ ful interpretation of a genealogical list that Jacob Mann explained in two different ways, TS 8 Κ 22, f 5, ed Mann, II, 357, and see also Mann, "The Exilarchic Office in Babylonia and Its Ramifications at the End of the Gaonic Period" (in Hebrew), in Lwre d'hommage a la memoire du Dr Samuel Poznanski (Warsaw, 1927), Hebrew section, pp 28-29 Late in David's administration, a correspondent wished him "male children to fill your place", TS 13 J 13, f 16, 11 6-7

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much." 2 3 Since Megillat Evyatar states that Mevorakh's Fatimid master restored him to his medical position as well as to his office as leader of the Jewish community, we may infer that Mevorakh had previously functioned as physician to alAfdal. Mevorakh may very well have made his patron's ac­ quaintance dunng his first term as head of the Jews, when al-Afdal, who was born in 1066, was in his early teens and Mevorakh was at least forty. Or, he may have entered alAfdal's entourage around the time the young prince first emerged into the political limelight. Badr al-Jamali designated the eighteen-year-old al-Afdal heir apparent (wall al-'ahd) in 1084, following an unsuccessful rebellion against his authority by another son named al-Awhad. 24 Al-Afdal's prestige grew rapidly after his father advanced him to the post of assistant viceroy sometime between 1086 and 1089. 25 At any rate, by the time al-Afdal came to power in April 1094, he already had a warm relationship with the venerable Jewish physician, Mevorakh b. Saadya. Because this relationship endured, "service to the Muslim ruler" (khidmat al-sultan) and "abun­ dant government duties" (kathrat ashghalihi buna yakhtuss bi Ί-melukha) continuously competed with Mevorakh's Jewish communal responsibilities during his second term in office.26 The important Geniza letter that attests to the intimacy be­ tween Mevorakh and al-Afdal also reports that al-Afdal "changed his (Mevorakh's) title to sar ha-sanm, making him sar over all the children of Israel in his realm." 2 7 Sar ha-sanm 23

ULC Add 3335, ed Neubauer, ρ 36 Wiet, Materiaux, ρ 152, Ibn Zafir, ρ 77, Ibn Muyassar, pp 26-27, Maqrizi, Itti'iz, II, 321, Patriarchs, IP, 341-43 25 In a letter to the Sulayhid ruler of Yemen dated April 1086, the caliph al-Mustansir announces that al-Afdal's name has been added to those of the caliph and Badr al-Jamali in the Friday prayer, and instructs his Yemenite vassals to follow suit, Majid, ed , Al-sijillat, #15, ρ 65, cf al-Hamdani, "Let­ ters of al-Mustansir," ρ 314 An inscription dated 1089 associates the name of al-Afdal with that of his father, and gives the son titles usually reserved for the assistant to a vizier, Wiet, Materiaux, pp 152-53 26 TS 13 J 28, f 10, 1 15, DK 230 h-j (old number χιχ), ν , 11 6-7 27 Cf above, η 23 24

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Saadya,

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("Prince of Princes"), of course, is a Hebrew honorific, not one bestowed by a Muslim ruler. The Spanish nagid Joseph ibn Nagrela (d. 1066), who succeeded his illustrious father Samuel as vizier of Granada, had borne the epithet earlier in the century. 2 8 Mevorakh, as far as can be determined, was the first Egyptian Jewish courtier to receive this lofty designation. The writer who credited al-Afdal with naming Mevorakh sar ha-sarim probably meant that the viceroy had elevated Mevorakh to a post in government higher than that held by any other Jewish courtier (sar). Indeed, a letter from Mevorakh's second administration styles him "deputy (mishne) of the king (melekh) of Egypt" (that is, the vizier alAfdal). 29 Quite likely, at the time of Mevorakh's restoration, al-Afdal honored him with the high-sounding Arabic title, ra'is al-ru'asa' ("Head of the Heads"), held by the Coptic pa­ triarch, and the Jews, taking cognizance of their leader's exalted status in the government, translated it into its Hebrew equivalent, sar ha-sarim. 30 Whatever the case, sar ha-sarim immediately became Mevorakh's most prominent honorific. In letters dating from his second administration, sar ha-sarim frequently displaces all other designations. 31 In other words, in contemporary Jewish eyes, Mevorakh's title of nagid assumed less signifi­ cance than his position as head of the Jews and the lofty new title, sar ha-sarim, conferred upon him when al-Afdal re­ stored him to that post. 3 2 28

Mann, "Second Supplement," p. 286, 1. 6 (in reprint of Mann, II, 460). TS 12.230, 1 13, partly ed. Mann, II, 251. 30 On the equation of sar and rayyis, see above, Chapter Four, at nn. 41-45 A Jewish dignitary with many lofty titles, including rayyis al-ru'asa', appears in DK 215. 31 Two examples: TS Box Κ 15, f 5, dated by Goitem in 1107; cf. Med Soc, II, App Β 19-22, p. 443; TS 10 j 11, f 25, address (sar ha-sanm) (in the body of the letter the title of nagid is also used [1. 2]). 32 After Mevorakh's reign, the title sar ha-sanm passed into general usage as an honorific of the nagids, both in Egypt and in the Yemen. Hence care must be taken not to associate letters mentioning sar ha-sanm with Mevorakh b. Saadya unless other evidence points in that direction. O n the 29

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MEVORAKH B. SAADYA AND THE PALESTINIAN GAON EVYATAR

Megillat Evyatar celebrates two deliverances: the return of the gaon to his throne in Tyre and the restoration of Mevorakh b. Saadya to his office in Egypt. These two events represented no conflict of interest in the eyes of Evyatar. He conveys the impression in the Megilla that Mevorakh was his delegate in the Egyptian capital and a loyal representative of gaonic inter­ ests. In fact, several Geniza letters confirm that Mevorakh demonstrated subordination to the gaon at the time of their respective restorations. Some months after regaining his own authority in Egypt, Mevorakh had the opportunity to celebrate Evyatar's return to Tyre. The merchant Musi ibn Abi Ί-Hayy wrote a letter to the most illustrious rayyis Evyatar Gaon b. Elijah congratulat­ ing him on his resumption of power, and describing reactions to the good news in the Egyptian capital. 33 Musa's letter bears the date "the beginning of Tevet," hence, most likely, De­ cember 1094. He reports that "our lord sar ha-sarim," namely, Mevorakh b. Saadya, had been overjoyed to learn of the gaon's good fortune, and had been praising the gaon at every majlis. When Musa read aloud a letter from the gaon 3 4 diffusion of the title sar ha-sarim, see Goitein, "Nagids of Yemen," p. 23; Nehemya Allony, "A Twelfth-Century List of Personalities and Their Ti­ tles" (in Hebrew), Sefunot 8 (1964), 131,1. 4; Goitein, "Qayrawan Appeal," p. 161 n. 14. The fact that a poet dubs Abraham b. Ά ρ ' "sar of all my sanm" (sar le-khol saray), or that another poet calls the famous Egyptian Jewish banker and government administrator, Abu Ί-Munajja b. Sha'ya, "sar of the sanm of Jeshurun" (sar sarei yeshurun) (Goitein cites Mann, I, 216) does not conclusively prove that these dignitaries actually held the title sar ha-sanm. By the time Eleazar b. Jacob ha-Bavh (early thirteenth century) composed his poems, this title had become so diffused that Eleazar could regularly invoke it (along with the title of nagid, with which it had originally been exclusively associated) when lauding Jewish courtiers, cf. Mann, Texts, I, 273, no. 9, 11. 15, 17; 281, no. 21, 1. 24; 303, no. 54 (a). 33 Bodl. MS Heb. d 66 (Cat. 2878), f. 27 + . The editor of this letter (Joseph Ehash, Sefunot 2 [1958], 12-14) miscopied the name of the sender as Musa ibn Abi Ί-Ghina'. 34 Could it have been a version of Evyatar's "Megilla"?

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in the Cairo synagogue and in the Palestinian congregation in Fustat on two different Sabbaths, the congregants also had re­ joiced. Mevorakh had even delivered a sermon lauding the gaon and his family 3 S In addition to demonstrating his pleasure over the revival of gaomc authority, Mevorakh b Saadya took an important step to restore Egyptian loyalty to the yeshiva following the deposition of David b. Daniel. Abraham ha-Kohen, head of a small Lower Egyptian Jewish community, wrote to "our lord the most illustrious rayyis Abu Ί-Fadl Sagacious Leader," namely, Head of the Jews Mevorakh b Saadya, offering his congratulations upon the latter's restoration. 3 6 Abraham haKohen's administrative authority stood in danger of collapse owing to local opposition, and he was anxious to obtain the head's support. He begs Mevorakh's forgiveness for having missed the opportunity to convey his good wishes personally during a recent visit by the head to nearby al-Mahalla, and blames that community for having neglected to alert him to Mevorakh's impending arrival. Some local youths claimed that the rayyis did not hold Abraham in esteem and had not appointed him to office. They harped on the fact that the rayyis was not in correspondence with Abraham—a clear in­ dicator, as we have seen elsewhere, 37 of administrative aliena­ tion. A local Jew had come to Abraham's defense, pointing out that "our lord" refrained from corresponding with him precisely because he knew Abraham to be upright (kasher) and in need of no special attention. In addition, Mevorakh was so busy that "he had not time to eat even a piece of bread." 3 8 Of special concern to Abraham was an accusation of 35

The av, namely, Evyatar's brother Solomon, is mentioned in the letter (1

11) 36

Westminster College, Frag Cairens 51 (Sagacious Leader is written in Arabic script in the address), cf Med Soc , I, App D 44, ρ 379 (al-Mahalla was not his, but rather a nearby, community) 37 See above, Chapter Five, at η 96 38 Westminster College, Frag Cairens 51,11 22-27, on the phrase placed in quotation marks, see Med Soc , II, 37 η 68

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disobedience toward the rayyis that some Alexandrians had recently leveled against him. "Some Alexandrians approached me and censured me for not praying be-hayye ("in the lifetime of"). They, who are admirers of our lord, said that you had ordered every locality to recite be-hayye, but that I wasn't complying. I replied that I represent the lord and am his servant. However, he never issued me any such command. Had he ordered me to recite 'in the life [time of] our fljord the head of t[he] yeshi[va],' I would certainly have complied." 3 9 This passage discloses the interesting piece of information that one of Mevorakh's first official acts following his return to the headship of the Jews was to reinstate the traditional be-hayye prayer for the gaon Evyatar in Egyptian syna­ gogues. During the Islamic period, it had become common practice to insert a phrase into the Kaddish prayer, asking God to bring the messianic era "in the lifetime of" the reigning gaon or exilarch. 40 This declaration, pronounced several times during the daily synagogue services, functioned as the Jewish equivalent of the prayer for the reigning caliph in­ cluded in the Friday sermon (khutba) in the mosque. The khutba proclamation symbolized loyalty to the incumbent monarch, and omission of his name signaled rebellion against his authority. Abraham ha-Kohen's testimony proves that the be-hayye formula carried the same political weight in the Jewish community. Undoubtedly, Jewish congregations in Egypt had switched the name of the gaon Evyatar for that of the nasi David b. Daniel, and Mevorakh sought to reverse that act of infidelity. 39

Westminster College, Frag Cairens 51. 1L 29-30 and margin For examples of the be-hayye formula, see: Nathan the Babylonian's ac­ count of the installation of an exilarch (Neubauer, ed, Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles, II, 84), S. Schechter, "A Version of the Kaddish" (in Hebrew), in Gedenkbuch zur Ertnnerung an David Kaufmann, edited by M. Brann and F. Ro­ senthal (Breslau, 1900), Hebrew section, pp. 52-54. The gaon in that version is our very Evyatar, though Schechter had not yet established his identity (he had not yet discovered the Megilla); Β. M. Lewin, "An Old Kaddish Prayer from the Gaonic Period" (in Hebrew), Gmze Kedem 2 (1923), 46-48; idem, "Old Fragments from the Mahzor of the Yeshiva of Pumbedita" (in He­ brew), Gmze Kedem 3 (1925), 50-56. 40

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Mevorakh's gestures of obeisance toward the Palestinian gaon following their respective restorations to office can be explained by the fact that, as a haver of the Palestinian yeshiva, Mevorakh derived his religious authority from the Jerusalem gaon. It appears, too, that Evyatar awarded Me­ vorakh new titles after the restoration, in token of the head's deference. Evyatar's Megilla is the earliest dated Gemza source that applies the title of nagid to Mevorakh. Around the same time, the cantor Hillel b. Eli wrote from Tyre con­ gratulating "our lord the most illustrious rayyis, Sagacious Leader, sar har-sarim, Sage of the Yeshiva, Nagid of the People of the Lord of Hosts" on his return to power. 4 1 In the Megilla, Evyatar also dubs Mevorakh "Strength of the House of Israel" (Όζ beth yisrael). 42 Like nagid, this epithet does not occur before the time of the restoration. Both honorifics, however, were added only after sar ha-sarim, the title that was accorded Mevorakh upon his reappointment as head of the Jews by al-Afdal.43 Actually, however, neither Mevorakh's nominal recogni­ tion of the gaon, nor the latter's belated decision to grant Mevorakh the title of nagid, meant a return to the old order, wherein the gaon directed the religious and administrative af­ fairs of the Fatimid Jewish communities from Palestine. In 1094, the office of head of the Jews had made considerable headway toward becoming the sole central authority for the Jews in the Fatimid empire. External factors contributed their share to this evolution. Beginning with the reign of Badr alJamali, the Fatimid government had pursued a policy of encouraging the emplacement of minority executive self41

TS Arabic Box 18(1), f. Ma, 11. 1-2. Megillat Evyatar, p. 3, 11. 5-6, 11-12; ρ 10, 11. 8-9. 43 Legal documents from Mevorakh's second administration, which tend to render titles according to protocol prescribed in formularies, almost invar­ iably list the three tides in the following order: sar ha-sanm, nagid (usually in the form negid ha-negidim, "Nagid of the Nagids," a variant distinguishing Mevorakh's title from that of his brother, Judah), and "Strength of the House" (alternatively: the "Whole House") of Israel. One example from among many: TS 13 J 2, f. 6r. (legal document dated March 1097). See also the table of Mevorakh's titles (Table 6.1). 42

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government in the capital With the Coptic community, centralization in Cairo was accomplished rather swiftly, since the change did not entail the replacement of one authority by another, but only a change of venue for the existing chief. As we have seen earlier, 44 the patriarch quickly undercut the power and prestige of his only rival, the bishop of Cairo, by seizing the latter's distinctive prerogatives for himself. In the case of the Jewish community, change occurred more slowly, owing to the fact that Judah and Mevorakh b. Saadya were nominally delegates of the gaon of Jerusalem. Naturally, this relationship inhibited them for a long time from usurping the essential prerogatives of Jewish central authority. When Mevorakh appointed judges in Alexandria during his first term, he may have so antagonized the Palestinian gaon that the latter deliberately withheld from Mevorakh the title of nagid held by his late brother. 4 5 When Mevorakh returned to the capital in 1094, therefore, he was still officially subordinate to the gaon. Nonetheless, in 1094 the yeshiva was only a shadow of its former self. Follow­ ing Evyatar's flight from Tyre around 1091 it had been leaderless. Moreover, after David b. Daniel assumed the title of exilarch, the yeshiva found itself locked in a desperate strug­ gle to hold the community of Tyre together under its banner. Only the accession of al-Afdal in the spring of 1094 and David's subsequent ouster and replacement by the yeshiva's old friend, Mevorakh b. Saadya, had removed the dire threat. 4 6 To Evyatar, returning triumphantly to Tyre in 1094, the elimination of David b. Daniel meant an opportunity to restore right order in the Jewish political structure. Clearly, he intended his Megilla as propaganda toward that end. Mevorakh's obeisance in 1094 may have buoyed the gaon's hopes, but political reality, human nature, and events mili­ tated against the preservation of the old order. Evyatar could 44 45 46

Above, Chapter Two, at nn 91-95 Cf above, Chapter Four, at η 69 Megillat Evyatar, pp 3-4, cf Mann, I, 189-90

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not easily cancel the effects of a decade or more of judicial and administrative autonomy under David b. Daniel. Mevorakh b. Saadya, for his part, could not ignore the precedents laid down during his predecessor's reign. Nor, after living in political exile for a dozen years, could he long have endured regression to subordination. Moreover, the scholarly and lay notables in David b. Daniel's local entourage could hardly have been expected to surrender their new-found power and independence. When, finally, the first crusade in 1099 spelled the crowning dislocation of the yeshiva, that august body had little authority and prestige left to surrender. Though the "high court" of the yeshiva was evidently still situated in Tyre in 1102, Evyatar moved to Tripoli soon thereafter, from all appearances without his school and tri­ bunal. 4 7 By 1112, and perhaps even as early as 1105, the gaon was dead. 4 8 His son, Elijah, never advanced beyond the rank of "Fourth," undoubtedly, as Mann conjectured, because the yeshiva in Tyre had dissolved in the wake of the Frankish in­ vasion. 49 When we next hear of the yeshiva, in the middle of the second decade of the twelfth century (1116), it is located in Hadrak, near Damascus, under the headship of Evyatar's brother, Solomon ha-Kohen b. Elijah. 50 It was, thus, the utter collapse of the Palestinian yeshiva during Mevorakh b Saadya's second term that created the conditions necessary for the final, unencumbered transformation of the headship of the Jews into an independent executive ruling authority for Fatimid Jewry. 47 1102 Goitein, "Tyre—Tripoli—'Arqa," pp 74-75 Evyatar in Tripoli A Neubauer, "Egyptian Fragments II," JQR, ο s 9 (1896-1897), 28, 11 8-9, cf Mann, I, 195, Bacher, "Ein neuerschlossenes Capitel," ρ 93 48 Mann, I, 195 (read Marheshvan 1424 Seleucid Era, ibid , II, 202[3]) In his chronological list on ρ 197, Mann gives Evyatar's year of death as ca 1105 49 Ibid , I, 170, 194, 195 The letter discussed on ρ 194 [read BM Or 5557 N, f 12], is addressed, not to Evyatar's son, but rather to his father, cf above, Chapter Three η 75 50 Mann, Texts, I, 249-50

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THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MEVORAKH B. SAADYA

An effective and methodologically sound way to clarify Mevorakh b. Saadya's role in bringing about the replacement of gaomc by nagidic central self-government involves isolating sources in our Geniza corpus that relate to his appointment and administrative practice. The functions he fulfilled may then be compared with the composite portrait of the office of head of the Jews drawn by Goitein on the basis of Geniza data emanating from the entire Fatimid-Ayyubid period. Goitein's survey 5 1 describes eight more or less distinct features of the institution during the classical Geniza period. They may be grouped under the following headings: 1. sources of author­ ity; 2. juridical and administrative centralization; 3. judicial function; 4. enforcement; 5. peacemaking role; 6. regulation of religious life, 7. protection of the weak; 8. intercession with the government on behalf of the Jews. These functions and prerogatives include the most important ones exercised by the Palestinian gaon in the eleventh century. S 2 This fact, among others, supports the thesis that the rayyis al-yahud took the place of the head of the Jerusalem yeshiva as chief legal and religious authority over the Jews in the Fatimid empire and as the official representative of the Jews before the Fatimid gov­ ernment. As we shall see m the pages that follow, in every re­ spect Mevorakh b. Saadya stands as the prototype of the in­ dependent head of the Jews, exercising full sovereignty over Fatimid Jewry without the proctorship of the Palestinian gaonate. Sources of Authority In order to be appointed head of the Jews, a candidate needed to obtain support from four sources: 1. the Jewish community of the capital, 2. the territorial communities, 3. the gaomc au­ thorities, and, of course, 4. the government Appointment was normally for a lifetime although, being partly a political 51 52

Med Soc , II, 31-40 See above, Chapter One, at η 81

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office, it was exposed to the vicissitudes of both Muslim and Jewish politics. 53 At the time of Mevorakh's restoration in 1094, many of the leaders in Fustat who had served the nasi-exilarch either were gone from the local scene or moved out of sight shortly there­ after. Nahray b. Nissim, who had been so prominent in the nasi's entourage, died within two or three years of Me­ vorakh's return. 5 4 The aging "rav," Judah ha-Kohen b. Joseph, does not appear in the Geniza after 1090. 55 The latest datable document of David b. Darnel's judge, Abraham b. Isaac the Scholar, is from ca 1094. 56 Solomon ha-Kohen b. Joseph Av, a magistrate on David b. Darnel's high court, per­ formed his last dated judicial act in the Egyptian capital in Oc­ tober 1098 5 7 Those carry-overs from the nasi's regime who remained ac­ tive during Mevorakh's second administration undoubtedly had to manifest excessive loyalty in order to dispel any suspi­ cions or resentment the new head might have harbored. The instance of the cantor Hillel b. Eli provides insight into the delicate dilemma that former servants of the nasi had to re­ solve At the time of Mevorakh's restoration, Hillel b. Eli was sojourning in Tyre, discharging some unspecified communal tasks In his long letter, mentioned earlier, 58 he opens by pro­ fusely congratulating the nagid m two pages of Arabic rhymed prose. He then proceeds to lament the difficulties he had encountered "in this a t y . " Next he tells how, after he completed his business there, a notable named Abu Ya'qub Joseph al-Hayfi (of Haifa) the shofet had arrived m Tyre Hillel had interrogated him concerning what had transpired (with Mevorakh) and had rejoiced over the details. In the midst of his report, the visitor mentioned that Mevorakh had censured Hillel about some matter, but did not elaborate "Med So< , 11,31-33 54 See Chapter Three, Appendix A, Section 1 55 Ibid , Section 2 se ibid , Section 3 " Ibid , Section 4 58 TS Arabic Box 18(1), f 34 Cf above, at η 41, and Chapter Three, Ap­ pendix A, Section 6

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Hillel expresses his puzzlement to Mevorakh. "I know of nothing that would give you cause to censure your servant," he writes, and, going on, adds, "I have never flagged in serv­ ing y o u . " 5 9 The local Jews had been similarly shocked to hear of the head's displeasure, since they knew "of my former service to you—may God perpetuate your exaltedness—and of my prayers for you following every service and whenever opening up the [Torah] scroll, both in the past and n o w . " 6 0 Hillel's earnest defense of his own constancy reflects the apologetic protest of one who had served Mevorakh's rival all too well. As a cantor in Fustat, he naturally had had to execute the injunction against pronouncing the name of the head, Mevorakh, in the synagogue prayers. Indeed, the letter an­ nouncing David b. Daniel's excommunication of transgres­ sors of this order states exphcitly that "the cantor Hillel" (that is, b. Eh) had had responsibility for implementing that ban. 6 1 At the end of his letter to Mevorakh, Hillel invokes his former service to "our lord the late nagid," namely, Judah b. Saadya. 62 He obviously wished to remind Mevorakh that his long-standing allegiance to the head's family antedated the in­ terregnum under David b. Daniel. Quite clearly, Hillel suc­ ceeded in convincing Mevorakh of his loyalty, since we find him serving in vanous capacities under the latter's regime: for instance, transcribing a legal ruling authored by Mevorakh. 6 3 Communal functionaries of the generation that came to the fore during the final decade of the eleventh century—the judges Abraham b. Shema'ya, Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard, Abraham b. Nathan Av, Nissim b. Nahray, Abu Ί-Mufaddal (Nethanel b. Yefet?), the court clerk Halfon ha-Levi b. Menasse, the lay notable Abraham b. Nathan the Seventh— were relative newcomers to the local political scene. 64 Obvi59

TS Arabic Box 18(1), f 34c, 11 13-16 Ibvd , f 34d, 11 19-21 61 TS 12 657, trans Goitein, Letters, ρ 174 (cf η 4) " TS Arabic Box 18(1), f 2Ad, 11 24-25 63 TS Misc Box 28, f 182 64 See Chapter Three, Appendix A, Sections 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 60

Mevorakhb

Saadya,

1094-1111

231

ously, their primary loyalty was to the reinstated head of the Jews, Mevorakh b. Saadya. The support that Mevorakh b. Saadya enjoyed in his local community at the time of his restoration was duplicated elsewhere in the Fatimid domain. After the crusader invasion of 1099, little of Palestine remained in Fatimid hands. Pales­ tinian Jewry, insofar as it did not flee to Fatimid territory, ceased to constitute a segment of the head of the Jews' subject population. Nonetheless, in Ascalon, the last Fatimid garrison standing between the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Sinai Desert, and the base of Fatimid operations aimed at fore­ stalling a crusader advance upon Egypt, 6 5 Nathan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh kept in close contact with Mevorakh b. Saadya, as he had previously with David b. Daniel. 6 6 In Egypt itself, Alexandria harbored a powerful pro-Mevorakh faction (the Maghrebis) throughout the reign of David b Daniel. 6 7 AlMahalla paid homage to the rayyis personally on his visit there shortly after returning to office.68 Local communal heads such as Abraham ha-Kohen curried favor with Mevorakh and scurried to demonstrate their fidelity to him immediately after his reappointment. 6 9 Thus Mevorakh achieved recognition among Jews throughout the Fatimid empire, the second requirement that the head of the Jews needed to meet before secunng his position. Gaonic assent in the form of the title of nagid, which Mevorakh had failed to acquire at the time of his brother's 65

Joshua Prawer, "Ascalon and the Ascalon Strip in Crusader Politics" (in Hebrew), Eretz-Israel 4 (1956), 231-40 66 TS 10 J 5, f 21, 1 3 and margin, 11 15-18 (reference to Jewish captives and to absence of peace in God's city [margin, 11 8-10] fixes this letter chronologically after the crusader invasion), ULC O r 1080 J 114, 11 19-21 (describes Ascalon in line 11 as having "only paupers and beggars remaining in it," which I take to be an allusion to the flood of Jewish refugees and cap­ tives for ransom that poured into Ascalon following the crusader conquest of Palestine, cf S D Goitein, " N e w Sources on the Fate of the Jews during the Crusaders' Conquest of Jerusalem" [in Hebrew], Zion 17 [1952], 130-31) 67 Cf above, at nn 12-18 68 69 Cf above, at η 37 Cf above, at nn 36-39

2M

Chapter Six-

death, was largely meaningless by Mevorakh's second term Around 1094, when Evyatar was beginning to make his last, desperate attempt to restore the yeshiva's power and prestige, he rushed to put the nagidic stamp of approval on Mevorakh, perhaps realizing in retrospect that his family had contributed to its own political decline by failing to throw its weight be­ hind Mevorakh a decade and a half earlier Ironically, how­ ever, the yeshiva had become so debilitated by 1094 that the belated investiture meant little In fact, Mevorakh obtained from al-Afdal government recognition, the fourth pillar upon which the headship of the Jews rested, without gaomc con­ firmation at all In the spring of 1094, Evyatar undoubtedly still sat in exile and needed Mevorakh's intercession with alAfdal to regain his own position in Tyre Juridical and Administrative Centralization The most conspicuous of the official duties of the head of the Jews was his role as highest juridical and administrative au­ thority in the community. He designated the chiefjudges and, directly or indirectly, chose other community functionaries (muqaddams, for instance) in and outside the capital. The ap­ pointment and supervision of officials outside the capital "must have been one of his main concerns." 7 0 Mevorakh b Saadya continued and further expanded the juridical and administrative centralization in Cairo begun by David b. Daniel. Mevorakh's "high court" (be dina rabba) appears for the first time in documents emanating from his 71 second administration. Like David b Daniel's supreme tri­ bunal, that of Mevorakh appointed deputy magistrates. All of the post-1094 documents show Mevorakh's high court, or the head himself, delegating judicial authority. The appointment formula in legal documents specifies that such-and-such a case (or testimony) was heard before "the permanent (qavu'a) 70

Med Soc , 11,33-34 TS 13 J 2, f 6r , 1 1 (March 12, 1097—earliest dated reference in our cor­ pus) Cf also ΕΝΑ 4010, f 17, 1 2, India Book 197 (August 3, 1097) 71

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court in Fustat (or Cairo) appointed by the high court of his honor, greatness, and holiness our master and teacher, our lord Mevorakh," followed by his characteristic titles. 72 Alter­ natively, the clerks wrote: "permanent court in Fustat ap­ pointed by" (mippi) Mevorakh. 7 3 Mevorakh's judicial appointees in the capital during his second administration were Abraham b. Shema'ya and Isaac b. Samuel the Spaniard, who functioned as his chief judges in Fustat, and Abraham b Nathan Av, who held the same posi­ tion in Cairo. 7 4 Each received from Mevorakh the designa­ tion "permanent" (qavu'a), granted earlier in the century by the Palestinian yeshiva to the distinguished Fustat judges Ephraim b. Shemarya and Eh b. Amram. 7 5 Though this tech­ nical term is found about 1080 in connection with Mevorakh b. Saadya's judicial appointments in Alexandria, 76 it does not appear in our corpus in the formulary employed in court re­ cords of cases heard by David b. Daniel's high tribunal. Only weeks after Mevorakh's restoration, however, court clerks reinstated it. In the earliest dated document from Mevorakh's second term in office, a draft of a court record drawn up on July 13, 1094, the scribe jotted down the opening formula as follows: " O n Thursday, 26 Tammuz [1]405, according to the dating which we use in Fustat, which is situated on the Nile River, we held a session in the permanent (qavu'a) court in Fustat appointed by (mippi). . . " 7 7 It would appear, there72

For example, ΕΝΑ 4010, f 17, India Book 197 (1097) This version of the formula occurs previously, in connection with Mevorakh's first-term judicial appointments, when he did not yet use the term "high court", cf above, Chapter Four, at η 63 From his second term, see Westminster College, Frag Cairens 50r (1098)