Texts in Transit in the Medieval Mediterranean 9780271077987

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Te xts in Transi t in the Medieval Medite r r an e an

Te x t s in Tran sit in t he

Medieval Mediterr anean Edited by Y. Tzvi Langermann and Robert G. Morrison

The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania

This book has been funded in part by the Minerva Center for the Humanities at Tel Aviv University and the Bowdoin College Faculty Development Committee. Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Langermann, Y. Tzvi, editor. | Morrison, Robert G., 1969–  , editor. Title: Texts in transit in the medieval Mediterranean / edited by Y. Tzvi Langermann and Robert G. Morrison. Description: University Park, Pennsylvania : The Pennsylvania State University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “A collection of essays using historical and philological approaches to study the transit of texts in the Mediterranean basin in the medieval period. Examines the nature of texts themselves and how they travel, and reveals the details behind the transit of texts across cultures, languages, and epochs”— Provided by Publisher. Identifiers: lccn 2016012461 | isbn 9780271071091 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Transmission of texts—​Mediterranean Region—​History—​ To 1500. | Manuscripts, Medieval—​Mediterranean Region. | Civilization, Medieval. Classification: lcc z106.5.m43 t49 2016 | ddc 091​/​.0937—dc23 lc record available at https://​lccn​.loc​.gov​/2016012461 Copyright © 2016 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802–1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-​free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—​Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ansi z39.48–1992. This book is printed on paper that contains 30% post-consumer waste.

Contents

Acknowledgments  vi



Introduction 1 Y. Tzvi Langermann and Robert G. Morrison

one

The Role of Oral Transmission for Astronomy Among Romaniot Jews Robert G. Morrison

two

Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on Ezekiel’s “I Heard”: A Case Study in Byzantine Jews’ Reception of Spanish-​Provençal Jewish Philosophical-​Scientific Culture Ofer Elior

10

29

three

Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites: Two Theories and Their Role in Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s Scroll of the Revealer 47 Y. Tzvi Langermann

four

Cryptography in the Late Medieval Middle East: From Mosul to Venice? Leigh Chipman

67

Remembering, Knowing, Imagining: Approaches to the Topic of Memory in Medieval Islamic Culture Leonardo Capezzone

85

five

six

seven

eight

Riccoldo da Montecroce’s Epistolae V commentatoriae de perditione Acconis, 1291 as Evidence of Multifaceted Textual Movement in the Eastern Mediterranean Brian N. Becker

101

The Wheat and the Barley:
 Feminine (in)Fertility in Eve and Adam Narratives in Islam Zohar Hadromi-​Allouche

116

Shiite Underground Literature Between Iraq and Syria: The Book of Shadows and the History of the Early Ghulat Mushegh Asatryan

128

nine

ten

Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts: The Reception of Greek Uroscopic Texts in the Hebrew Book of Remedies Attributed to Asaf Tamás Visi The Transmission of Sephardic Scientific Works in Italy Israel M. Sandman

eleven New Medicine and the Ḥikmet-​i Ṭabīʿiyye Problematic in Eighteenth-​Century Istanbul B. Harun Küçük List of Contributors   243 Index of Manuscripts cited   245 Index  247

vi Contents

162

198

222

Ackn ow l e d g m e n t s

Our deepest gratitude is extended to the Minerva Center for the Humanities at Tel Aviv University, where Tzvi Langermann led a group on “Migrating Knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin During the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods” under the aegis of Professor Rivka Feldhay’s project, Migrating Knowledge. Ofer Elior and Leigh Chipman participated in this group. The Minerva Center’s generous grant helped make the publication of this book possible. Our thanks as well go out to Bowdoin College for its support of Robert Morrison’s manuscript research and for its financial contribution to this volume’s publication.

Introduction Y. Tzvi Langermann and Robert G. Morrison

The present volume originated in conversations between us as we had both been working, individually, for several years on the exchange of knowledge in the medieval Eastern Mediterranean. Because these intellectual exchanges crossed borders, languages, and modern academic specialties, we realized that teamwork and international collaborations might yield insights that would otherwise escape our own specialized fields of interest. We assembled the contents of the volume from a call for papers; the volume’s focus on the history of science and its intersection with religious thought is the result of our own research interests and networks. In our earlier research, we have done much to bring to light previously unknown texts that add depth and dimension to our understanding of the exchange of knowledge along the Mediterranean rim. Still, we know all too well that there remains a wealth of texts that are unstudied—​or at best inadequately integrated into general appraisals. While there have been other studies of the intellectual history of the medieval Mediterranean, there is plenty of room for the contents of the studies contained in the present volume.1 We have chosen to describe the location of these intellectual exchanges as the medieval Eastern Mediterranean, but we recognize that the presentation of the Mediterranean as a unified region that facilitated commercial activity—​this is Goitein’s portrayal—​has been questioned.2 The present volume presumes neither that the Mediterranean (or Eastern Mediterranean) was a unified cultural space nor that intellectual exchanges always went smoothly. After all, the Mediterranean has proven harder and harder to define for recent scholars,3 and political instabilities in parts of the Mediterranean have been found to shift merchant networks to other parts of the region.4 Still,

2 Texts in Transit

“Mediterranean” is an apt descriptor, because the intellectual exchanges found in this volume—​exchanges that include elements of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian cultures—​are characteristic of the Mediterranean region. Our choice of the term “Mediterranean” does not imply that other regions of the premodern world were less cosmopolitan, but it suggests that the (Eastern) Mediterranean appears to be cosmopolitan in a particular way.5 Our knowledge of the ideas developed, discussed, and debated in times past comes principally from writings that have reached us. These writings may be long books or short treatises, comprehensive volumes or highly focused monographs. They may still be accessible to us because generation after generation saw in them substance and value and continued to copy and, later, to print them; alternatively, they may by chance have survived in some obscure collection. At times only segments of a text have endured, often embedded in other, more appreciated texts, as quotations or allusions. The text may survive in its original language, or in a translation, or in a translation from a translation; it may be extant in both original and in translation, or in translation alone. At one or more stages in its journey, the text may have been transmitted, in part or in whole, orally. That is to say, a human became a text on legs, and a text with a mouth, whose reporting (and interpretation) was heard by a pair of ears and set down again in writing. Then again, we may have nothing but a translation embedded as a quotation, or as a paraphrase, in a different text. Sometimes, only the memory of a text remains. Texts, the repositories and mouthpieces for the entire spectrum of human culture, have transited the centuries, the oceans and continents, and the variety of human languages, in all of these modalities. Texts, then, play a critical role in the preservation of human cultures, most especially their intellectual achievements. In addition, we can learn from them about communication between different cultures—​their efforts to learn from, or to impose ideas on, one another. Texts are also the key instruments for communicating a shared heritage among scattered communities belonging to the same faith or ethnos; texts are the medium for preserving knowledge for future generations. The study of all of these themes in the production, preservation, and communication of knowledge begs for theoretical formulations, models that apply to a wide variety of historical instances. As in the natural and exact sciences, theory must be grounded in close observations of a sufficient number of cases. We are conscious of how, in the social sciences and humanities, theory sometimes must be reined in by the evidence, and influential theoretical models can cause scholars to overlook important evidence. Hence, as historians, we prefer weak versions of theories. We approach the data with theoretical considerations in mind, but do not allow existing theories to assert full hegemony over all of the data. Above all, we aim for insights about the nature of the texts themselves and of their transits. History is not an exact science; the available evidence must be read not only with philological rigor but also with imagination. Judiciously applying creative historical interpretation to new or forgotten texts, we hope to make a significant contribution to the history of texts, their contents, and their transits.

The present collection aims principally to carry out philological and historical studies on the transit of texts in the Mediterranean basin, but theoretical considerations are not ignored. The various ways in which these transits occur do call to mind models that are now very much in vogue. For example, having an earlier text embedded as a quotation or paraphrase in a later text is a form of intertextuality. When texts transit, they are read with new subtexts and contexts. The transits of texts give rise to new texts linked to the prototext through metatexts. Perhaps some may detect paratexts in some of the case studies we present. However, it remains to be seen just how much new and useful knowledge is created or revealed by adding more Greek and Latin prefixes to the term “text.” No less important is the risk that these terms may elide very significant questions about textual transit. By delving deeply into the storehouse of unstudied texts, focusing mainly on content and context, this collection presents new evidence that broadens how we think about texts and their transits. Because this volume does not aim to define the Mediterranean rigidly, the region’s nuances and complexities provide an ideal locus for investigating this volume’s central concern, the understandings, movements, and exchanges of texts. The numerous case studies in the volume show that the texts themselves were more fluid and had complex sources. As bifurcations between Christian and Islamic societies as well as Western and non-​Western science are otherwise tempting, the volume’s focus on the Mediterranean forces the reader to resist such facile classifications. In the Mediterranean, the paths of texts’ transits were neither the most direct nor unidirectional. Older conceptions of textual transmission implied a telos or directionality that is, really, the result of hindsight; the concept of transmission also suggested a fixed, discrete text. The contributions presented in this volume reject the naïve presumption that texts simply travel, easily detected, without transforming in transit. As Brian Becker has found, reports of texts’ transit themselves had metaphysical import. And even when written texts played the dominant role (Tamás Visi, Israel Sandman), separating out the strands of the prototexts in the transited text has required impressive work. Some contributions (Robert Morrison) note the distinct role of oral texts, and the related valorization of memory (Leonardo Capezzone), in oral exchange. Mushegh Asatryan reminds us of the importance of the piecemeal transit of early texts, embedded as quotations or paraphrases in later ones. Others (Brian Becker, Ofer Elior) have found correspondence to be the only extant record of texts’ transits. If communications were encrypted (Leigh Chipman), then the correspondence would transmit the contents of a text on encryption. Finally, Harun Küçük has found that the transit of Paracelsian medicine from Europe to the Ottoman Empire was heavily determined by human and contextual factors. A similar point is made by Zohar Hadromi-​Allouche, in her study of Qurʾanic passages, and Tzvi Langermann, in his investigations into the theories of light and paired opposites. But there is far more to each contribution than the abovementioned way(s) in which each author disrupts easy assumptions about texts’ transits.

3 Introduction

4 Texts in Transit

Robert Morrison’s contribution describes and analyzes the understudied Hebrew version, produced during the reign of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (1432–1481), of an important Arabic astronomy text composed in the first half of the thirteenth century. The author of the Hebrew version, Moses ben Elijah Galeano, explained that the text was transmitted to him orally, predominantly in Turkish. The result was a text that corresponded neither to the Arabic original nor to one of the commentaries on the original. In fact, neither the author’s name nor the title (al-​Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-​hayʾa by Jaghmīnī) is reproduced accurately in the Hebrew version. Moreover, Galeano included in his Hebrew book a list of planetary apogees that is not to be found at all in Jaghmīnī, and transited to Galeano from some other source. Citing an old Hebrew proverb, Galeano indicates that he held oral testimony in higher regard than written testimony. Thus, even in this case where excellent written evidence exists, the historical actors themselves looked beyond the written record to oral accounts, which, in turn, shaped the surviving written record. Another contribution on an exchange of texts for which the extant written record is excellent is Ofer Elior’s study of the correspondence of Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh, a figure associated with the island of Rhodes, with Rabbi Michael Balbo of Candia, then capital of Crete. Their correspondence concerns Maimonides’s interpretation of Ezekiel’s visions. In effect, Rakh reopens the question of whether the heavenly spheres emit sounds. Maimonides, relying ultimately on Aristotle, rejected that notion in his Guide for the Perplexed (2.8). While Rakh appreciated Maimonides’s Aristotelian interpretation, he ultimately rejected it, preferring instead to offer an explanation for how sounds could be produced in the heavens. From Rakh’s correspondence, we  learn more about how Byzantine Jews received material from coreligionists in the Iberian Peninsula and Provence, which, as Elior observes, are the points of origin of the sources to which Rakh refers. Measured against the science arriving in the Byzantine zone from Iberian and Provençal Jews, Rakh’s account was not that sophisticated. Nonetheless, his correspondence is an important source for the intellectual history of Byzantine Jewry, more specifically the Jewish community on Rhodes during the fifteenth century. Here the original versions of the texts are known; it is their transit that is complicated by the intellectual milieu into which they were received. Elior has shown how important individuals are to the transit of texts, an insight confirmed in the studies of Harun Küçük, Tzvi Langermann, and several others in this volume. Tzvi Langermann’s essay studies the presence and combination of two arcane theories in Scroll of the Revealer (Megillat ha-​Megalleh), an eschatological work by Abraham Bar Ḥiyya (Barcelona and environs, eleventh century). One theory posits gradations of light, from near-​divine metaphysical light down to the visible light sensed here on earth. The other views all of reality grouped into pairs of opposites. Both of these theories have their pedigrees in Greek philosophy, and both have known various instantiations and occasional combination in early medieval texts. Langermann finds much in common between Bar Ḥiyya’s theory of light and a statement in Philo of Alexandria, or some obscure but unmistakable allusions to

theories of light in Maimonides. Similarly, Bar Ḥiyya’s theory of paired opposites bears striking resemblance to an early (and perhaps sectarian) Jewish text, Midrash Temurah, as well as a text by the earliest writer of the Ismailiyya, a Shia sect. Solid lines of transmission cannot be drawn, but this is not necessarily a fault of the historical record. Rather, the ways in which these theories took shape in Bar Ḥiyya’s book reflect the ways in which texts, or certain ideas contained within texts, transited in Late Antiquity and the early medieval period. Bar Ḥiyya, like many or most writers of his time, took the texts that transited his way, in whatever form they may have reached him (as a written book, a passage in a book, or simply an idea passed on orally) as belonging to the inventory of ideas, to be drawn upon and adapted as needed. A creative writer working before the basically Aristotelian outlook of Jewish philosophy had been fixed by Moses Maimonides, he produced his own combination of the two abovementioned theories. The texts, even when extant, can be cryptic. Leigh Chipman traces migrations of cryptographic techniques through the Middle East into Europe. First, Chipman examines how theories about cryptography found in twelfth-, thirteenth-, and fourteenth-​century Mamluk cryptography treatises in a Süleymaniye codex appeared in encryptions of poetry and prose. In a way, the encryption of poetry, though lacking in practical applications, was no surprise, as premodern cryptography required a great sensitivity to language. One cryptologist studied by Chipman discussed encipherment in languages besides Arabic, including Mongolian, Armenian, Latin, French, Turkish, and Hebrew. More generally, cryptography was a means by which texts could transit undetected, and Chipman speculates that cryptography served diplomatic purposes, particularly in multilingual Mosul. Chipman proposes a number of ways in which this knowledge could have spread west, where identical cryptographic techniques emerged later. These techniques would not have to travel via a text on cryptography, but only through an enciphered text, just as science and technology could be transmitted through instruments and diagrams (in addition to scientific texts). Memory, the subject of Leonardo Capezzone’s chapter, played an integral role in conceptions of what a text had been in the past. Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ’s text on memory from al-​Adab al-ṣaghīr shows how the emergence of a culture of the written text affected the valorization of memory. Intellectual histories produced within premodern Islamic societies depended on memories of what earlier civilizations had contributed, and, as such, these histories could be vehicles for political vindication. As memory was a topic of medical investigation, passages from Rufus of Ephesus’s work on memory were quoted by Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ al-​R āzī in Kitāb al-Ḥāwī; subsequently, a source for the activities of the mind was Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis, and these ideas were developed within the circle of Jābir ibn Ḥayyān. Post-​Antique debates about memory effected the inclusion of memory within the activities of the soul. But some of these changes were also a result of choices of terminology as Late Antique texts transited into new languages. Thus

5 Introduction

the re-​presentation of ancient texts on memory informed the Jabirian corpus’s view about how one came to know. It is not surprising, then, that memory became a virtue. In addition, Capezzone shows how remnants of texts’ transits can take centuries to emerge; a similar point is made by Mushegh Asatryan. Capezzone’s point about the mediating role of memory is relevant as well to Moses ben Elijah Galeano and his comment about the superiority of oral testimony, discussed by Morrison. Brian Becker’s study of textual transit in Riccoldo da Montecroce’s Epistolae investigates not only how these letters are an important source for cultural exchanges in the medieval Mediterranean but also what these letters tell us about the movement of books around the Mediterranean. Thirteenth-​century Italy saw a flowering of interest in Arabic and Islamic culture; Riccoldo’s mission was shaped by Arabic and Islamic knowledge that had already traveled west. He was able to consult the Qurʾan in the original Arabic. Becker argues that the study of texts is a pilgrimage in itself. Thus, it was all the more tragic when Christian texts fell into non-​Christian hands, something Riccoldo observed particularly amid the loot taken by Muslims to Nineveh after the fall of Acre. Getting the texts back was akin to ransoming slaves. The loss of the texts paralleled the loss of territory. The physical text, its integrity, and its possession took on religious significance.

6 Texts in Transit

Many themes and narratives in the Qurʾan and its satellite literature bear unmistakable resemblances to parallel themes in Jewish and Christian texts, and it has long been—​and, after all is said, still remains—​a basic working assumption of academic scholarship that texts, at the very least oral versions of them, transited from the heartlands of the older “Abrahamic” traditions to the Hijaz, where they then found their way into the Islamic tradition. However, some glaring differences between the traditions call for a different explanation. Zohar Hadromi-​Allouche homes in on a few significant points, found in Shia literature in particular, where no convincing parallels are evident. These are (1) the identification of the “forbidden fruit” as wheat; (2) barley as a degenerate form of wheat, its baseness due to its origin in the very place of the “tree” from which the wheat was taken; and (3) a very gendered account of authority and transgression, with Eve’s sin consisting in disobeying Adam (rather than God) and trespassing in the male-​dominated spheres of fertility and nurturing. These three themes are by and large absent from ancient Jewish and Christian sources. It is most plausible that the themes found in the Islamic sources are polemical responses to Greek or Zoroastrian traditions, or both. In Greek myths associated with Demeter, wheat and nurturing are governed by female goddesses; the Islamic traditions, which connect them to the Fall, seem thus to be a polemic repudiation of the Demeter myths. Demeter rituals were common enough into the sixth century to make this interaction a historical possibility. In the Dēnkard, barley is a divine gift—​a blessing, not a punishment. However, the gender element is not found in the Zoroastrian sources. Still, the Islamic tradition may be responding in part to Zoroastrianism as well. The wheat/barley motif appears (in different forms) in a Jewish text from the Tosafists of northern France as well as in a Welsh poem; both date

approximately to the thirteenth century. This odd case may just possibly indicate a transit northward and westward of the theme that appears in Shia traditions. Older texts—​or the pieces which, at times, are all that remains of them—​transit within other, later texts, which have been fortunate enough to survive in their entirety. Such was the fate of The Book of Shadows (Kitāb al-​Aẓilla), one of the earliest writings appertaining to the subgroup within the Shia known as the Ghulat (“extremists,” so called because of their “extreme” views on the divine nature of the imams). The Book of Shadows, along with the rest of the foundational corpus of the Ghulat, was written in Iraq sometime around the turn of the ninth century, but perhaps even earlier. The carriers of its textual remains were writings of the Nusayris, another Shia splinter group that settled (and remain to this day under the name ʿAlawi) in northern Syria. In the first part of his study, Mushegh Asatryan painstakingly identifies the fragments of this text embedded within other texts and establishes the relationship between The Book of Shadows and other early Ghulat texts. Asatryan then identifies a number of themes in The Book of Shadows that are useful for connecting these early texts with other traditions, within the Shia and beyond: the shadow, which is actually a luminous body and first created being; Muhammad as a near-​divine being; and a dialogue between the deity and “intellect,” the first hypostasis. Taking another step backward, Asatryan observes a large-​scale movement of texts from Iraq to Syria, as well as a nonpolemical relationship with Christianity. Some of these texts have resurfaced only recently, in nonacademic editions prepared mostly by Lebanese scholars, some of whom belong to the Ismailis; others take pains to conceal their identity. Texts transit, fragment, are embedded in other texts, are swallowed up within closed communities; their vestiges resurface after a millennium, allowing modern scholars to piece them together—​the texts themselves as well as the histories of their transmission, and their interactions with texts from other traditions, too. Tamás Visi studies the formation of a specialized literature by the transit of texts. The specialization is uroscopy, an important diagnostic tool in premodern medicine; the texts are early Greek and perhaps ancient Semitic ones as well. Portions of different texts that all deal with the same subject transit into new texts that are entirely devoted to the topic. These new texts in turn engender further research and theoretical formulations—​for example, in the theory of colors. They then transit into other languages and cultures. Visi’s very erudite study has much to say on the micro level as well. Select passages from the medical writings, especially from the Hippocratic corpus, are examined closely. Significantly, some of the passages transmit variant versions that were rejected by Galen in his authoritative commentary to Hippocrates’s Aphorisms. Moreover, Visi offers strong evidence, the first of its kind, for the direct translation of scientific texts from Greek into Hebrew; the dating is uncertain but the movement certainly occurs before the ninth-​century mass translation movement from Greek to Arabic. Syriac sources, so important yet so neglected, are also scrutinized. What happens after a text transits into a particular locale and gains an audience there? In a painstaking study of the Italian copies of a Hebrew calendrical text,

7 Introduction

Israel Sandman adduces weighty evidence for “community coordinated” production. Although there is no institution, such as a scriptorium, responsible for the manuscripts, close inspection of the extant manuscripts belonging to the Italian family, especially analytical and editorial glosses, reveals a conscientious effort at producing texts of the highest quality. Sandman’s study offers a bold corrective to accepted models of transmission, which grouped those responsible for writing manuscripts into “copyists,” that is, scholars interested in personal study of the text, and “scribes,” hired hands who had no interest in the content of the text. The former would have felt free to intervene in one way or another, thus producing copies that are markedly different from one another. The latter had no cause to interact deliberately with the text, but may have unwittingly introduced or perpetuated errors. Sandman introduces now a third category, “communally organized” copying: copying not done by scholars, but which nonetheless produced standardized texts of a very high quality. Much more painstaking work remains to be done in order to see how common or rare this model was and whether different genres (say, speculative religious texts, touched upon by Sandman in a brief section) tell different stories. The spread of Paracelsian medicine, or, as it was called in Ottoman realms, “the new medicine” or “chemical medicine,” has attracted much scholarly attention of late. However, there is much more to this story than the transit of some European books to Istanbul and points beyond and their translation and subsequent incorporation into Turkish and Arabic literature. Harun Küçük serves up a panoramic account, dealing with the transit of people (Europeans who knew how to prepare the new chemical compounds, and who relocated to Istanbul), the transit of medicine within the curriculum (moving upward to the highest ranks, concomitant with the valorization of the new medicine), the falling in and out of favor at court of the new treatments, and the makeup and financial rewards of the medical profession. The processes are interrelated and nonlinear. Hence Küçük’s study, for all of the wealth of detail and new hypotheses it offers, remains an exploration in the problematics of this story, rather than the final word—​if there is such a thing.

8 Texts in Transit

This is a collection of pathbreaking research. The authors feel obliged to reveal the full details behind the transit of texts from one language, geographical locale, cultural or religious group, or epoch to another. The studies do not presuppose knowledge of any language other than English, and they provide translations of texts in other languages (yet another transit, from the sphere of working knowledge to that of historical inspection and reflection). But the close analysis of the texts, without which no firm grasp on the transits is possible, takes the reader at times into philology as well.6 This necessary complexity makes this collection no easy read, but it rewards the reader with findings about the depths at which the transit of texts could take place. Explanations and, where appropriate, theoretical justification for a certain explanation are provided, but they are all rooted in the texts under study. Conclusions of wider import are offered with all the caution necessary.

Notes 1. See, e.g., Words, Texts, and Concepts Cruising the Mediterranean Sea, ed. R. Arnzen and J. Thielmann (Leuven: Peeters, 2004); Sarah Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Thomas Burman, Reading the Qurʿan in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007); and Exchange and Transmission Across Cultural Boundaries: Philosophy, Mysticism, and Science in the Mediterranean World, ed. Haggai Ben-​Shammai, Shaul Shaked, and Sarah Stroumsa ( Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2013). 2. Jessica L. Goldberg, “On Reading Goitein’s A Mediterranean Society: A View from Economic History,” Mediterranean Historical Review 24, no. 2 (2011): 171–86, at 176. 3. See Nicholas Purcell, “The Boundless Sea of Unlikeness? On Defining the Mediterranean,” Mediterranean Historical Review 18, no. 2 (2003): 9–29. 4. Jessica L. Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Geniza Merchants and the Business World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 324. 5. Cf. David Nirenberg, “Double Game,” review of Maimonides in His World by Sarah Stroumsa, London Review of Books, September 23, 2010, 31–32. 6. We have simplified the transcriptions of Hebrew words (no long or semi-​vowels); full transcriptions are given for Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Syriac. However, a fuller transcription of non-​ indexed Hebrew words has been given in the contribution by Israel Sandman, as this is needed for fine points in his analysis.

9 Introduction

On e The Role of Oral Transmission for Astronomy Among Romaniot Jews Robert G. Morrison

Both the National Library of Israel (8°3167, fols. 1–36)1 in Jerusalem and the Bibliothèque nationale (BnF Hébreu 1061, fols. 106a–137b) in Paris contain manuscripts of a curious text entitled Sefer Mezuqqaq (The purified book). The author’s name is given as Moses ben Elijah the Greek (ha-​yewwani), and the author of the Arabic original was reported to be ʿUmar ibn Maḥmūd mi-Ṣagmān. This text was the subject of a brief but informative article by Georges Vajda in 1959, but Sefer Mezuqqaq deserves additional attention not just for its contents but also for its mode of passage.2 Moses ben Elijah explains that he has produced a Hebrew copy (zeh ha-​sefer heʿtaqti oto) of an originally Arabic text on astronomy (tekunah = Ar. hayʾa). In this chapter, I aim to point out some notable features of Sefer Mezuqqaq’s contents, origins, and technical terminology and to use these observations to formulate some tentative conclusions about the oral character of the exchange and its ramifications. Recognizing that the Arabic original passed into Hebrew orally lends insight into the intellectual life of the court of the Ottoman sultan and the Jewish community in Istanbul at the time of Sefer Mezuqqaq’s production. Thus, the text’s mode of transit is as significant as its contents.

Introduction Moses ben Elijah reported that he produced Sefer Mezuqqaq with the assistance of a certain Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ, a figure who Vajda suggested was associated with the court of Mehmed the Conqueror (d. 1481). Aḥmeṭ was the judge of Verria who translated Gennadios Scholarios’s (d. ca. 1473) attack on Western Christianity from Greek into Turkish.3 According to Adıvar, Aḥmeṭ was the father of the better-​known

Maḥmūd Çelebi.4 Before the Ottomans recognized a chief rabbi, sometime between 1453 and 1455, Gennadios Scholarios was probably the administrative intermediary between the sultan and the Jewish community in Istanbul.5 Details about Moses ben Elijah’s motivation for producing Sefer Mezuqqaq emerge from the text’s introductory paragraphs:

‫אמר משה היווני בן ֹכרֹ אליא ֹנ ֹע‬ ‫ אחרי הודיע השם‬.‫ אחמט‬6]‫זה הספר העתקתי אותו מפי חכם ישמעאל ששמו [מולאנא‬ ‫ גודל חשיבותו [ומפי סופרים ולא‬8]‫ להעתיק אותו [מפני‬7]‫אותי את כל זאת [הואלתי‬ ‫ ואף כי באמת שמעתי [שזה הספר מועתק בלשונינו מפי שקדמני אכן‬9.]‫מפי ספרים‬ ‫ ולו הנחתי אותו מלהעתיקו‬.‫הצורך הביאני לעשות כן מפני שההעתק לא היה נמצא אצלנו‬ ‫ ואפשר‬.‫הייתי מפסידו כי השכחה מצוייה וכוונתי לתועלתי ובתועלת מי שיחפץ בתועלתו‬ ‫גם כן כי בחלוף ההעתקות יודעו דברים מה שלא יובט מהעתק אחד וזה ממה שיש בו‬ ‫ ואם היות שיהיה ההעתק ההוא יותר‬.‫ הוכן העמיק הרחיב‬.‫תועלת למתלמדים למלך‬ .‫ ומהשם אשאל העזר‬10.]‫מבואר ויותר רחב לא הפסדנו דבר ונחשוב שלא עשינו כלום‬ .‫אמר עומר בן מחמוד מצגמאן‬ ‫אחרי השבח‬ ‫ הואלתי לעשות קצור‬.‫והתהלה לאל י ֹת וההודאה לנביאיו ֹע ֹה אשר נתן להם מחכמתו‬ .‫מחכמת התכונה אודיע בו כללים רבים עד שלא יהיה חסר מאומה מן החכמה הזאת‬ ‫ וחלקתיו אל הקדמה ואל‬11.]‫וקראתי שם הספר הזה מזוקק לפי שהוא מזוקק [שבעתים‬ ‫ ההקדמה ידבר בכללות הגשם המוחלט והשני חלקים חלקתי החלק האחד‬.‫שני חלקים‬ .‫שהוא מדבר בגבוהים אל חמשה שערים‬ Moses ben Elijah the Greek said: This book I translated from the mouth of a Muslim scholar named Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ. After God caused me to know all this, I undertook to translate it, due to its great importance, from the mouths of scholars, but not from the mouth of books.12 Even though I heard, in truth, that this book had been translated into our language before by someone who preceded me, the need has come to me to do it because that translation is not to be found with us. Had I desisted from translating it, I would have caused it to be lost, since forgetfulness is commonplace. I intended [it] for my own benefit and for whomever desired. It is possible, as well, that with the differences between the translations there might be made known things that are not observed in one translation, these being from among the things that it would behoove students to possess; they are prepared deeply and broadly. If that [earlier] translation be clearer and more encompassing, we still have not lost a thing. So let it be [lit. let us think that] as if we have done nothing at all. From God we ask for help. ʿUmar ben Maḥmūd mi-Ṣagmān said, after praise and adoration to God and thanks to his prophet, upon him be peace,13 who has given them of his wisdom.

11 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

And I have agreed to make an abridgment [qiṣṣur] of astronomy, in which I make known many basic rules so that it will not lack anything from this science. I have called the name of this book Mezuqqaq, since it is purified many times over. I have divided it into an introduction and two sections. The introduction speaks about the generalities of complete bodies. And of the two parts, I have divided the part that talks about the upper world14 into five chapters. Moses ben Elijah’s introduction notes the complex and diffuse history of Seper Mezuqqaq, and he indicates that no similar text was available at the time. Another translation of toʿelet la-​mitlammedim limlok (behoove students to possess) is “of use to those students studying at the sultan’s court.” That there were Jews present at the sultan’s court is well known, but the implication of Moses ben Elijah’s comment, that these Jews knew Turkish and Arabic, affirms that they participated in the court’s multilingual cultural milieu.15 There is direct evidence within Sefer Mezuqqaq that places the composition of the text within the reign of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. This evidence comes from chapter 5 of the first section (23b) and is clearly an insertion by Moses ben Elijah:

‫ בשנה‬.‫ש ֹע שנה‬ ֹ ‫ואולם בערך אפדת המזלות הוא בתאריך אסכנדאר שהוא היום אלף ו ֹת‬ ‫ ושל שבתי‬.ֹ‫ הגובה של שמש במזל תאומים יֹ ֹח מעלות ושבר ֹא שניים ֹנה‬16]‫ההיא [היה‬ .‫ ושל צדק בבתולה ֹכ ֹט מעלות יֹֹו שברים ֹנ ֹה שניים‬.‫בקשת יֹ מעלֹו ֹכ ֹט שברים ֹכ ֹא שניים‬ ‫ ושל נֹגה בתאומים יֹ ֹט מעלות יֹֹו שברים‬.‫ושל מאדים באריה יֹֹו מעלות ֹו שברים ֹכ ֹה שניים‬ ‫ וכל גובה מהגֹבהים‬.‫ ושל כוכב במאזניים ֹב מעלות ֹנ ֹא שברים ֹכ ֹב שניים‬.‫ֹכ ֹב שניים‬ ‫המהלך של כל אחד מהם כפי משך המזלות אם תוסיף ֹנ ֹה שניים בכל שנה על מקומו‬ ‫ ובאותו התאריך היה הגוזהר של שבתי בסרטן יֹ ֹט‬.‫תמצא מהלכו עד זה היום ועד העולם‬ ‫ הגוזהר שלו בסרטן יֹ ֹט מעלות‬18]‫ ֹכ ֹט שברים יֹ ֹא שניים ושל צדק גם כן [היה‬17][ ‫מעלות‬ ‫ ושל נֹגה היה‬.‫ ושל מאדים היה בשור יֹֹו מעלות ֹו שברים ֹכ ֹב שניים‬.‫יֹֹו שברים ֹנ ֹה שניים‬ .‫ ושל כוכב היה בגדי ֹב מעלות מֹ ֹא שברים ֹכ ֹב שניים‬.‫בדגים יֹ ֹט מעלות יֹֹו שברים ֹכ ֹב שניים‬ ‫ ועתה תחשוב מהתאריך ההוא ועד זה היום כמה הלך גלגל הכוכבים הקיימים מאז‬ ‫ ותמצא היום הראש‬.‫) ֹנ ֹה שניים‬24‫ועד עתה ותוסיף אותו כי חשבונו הוא בכל שנה (א‬ ‫והזנב של כל אחד מהכוכבים הקיימים היכן הוא כי מהלך גלגל הכוכבים הקיימים שוה‬ .‫למהלך הראשים כאשר אמרנו למעלה‬ 12 Texts in Transit

Indeed, with respect to the ecliptic, it is on today’s date, the year of Alexander, which is year 1770. In that year, the apogee of the Sun was in 18°; 1' 55" of Gemini. Saturn’s was in 10°; 29' 21" of Sagittarius. Jupiter’s was in 29°; 16' 55" of Virgo. Mars’s was in 16°; 6' 25" of Leo. Venus’s was at 19°; 16' 22" of Gemini. Mercury was at 2°; 51' 22" of Libra. For each apogee, its position [mahlak], in the direction of the signs, is that you add 5519 seconds each year to its position, you will find its position on that day and forever. On the same date, the nodes of Saturn were in 19°; 29' 11" of Cancer, and Jupiter’s nodes, as well, were in 19°; 16' 55" of Cancer. Mars’s were in 16°; 6' 22" of Taurus. Venus’s were in 19°; 16' 22" of Pisces. Mercury’s were in 2°; 41' 22" of Capricorn.

Now you may calculate, from that day until this day, how much the orb of the fixed stars has moved from then until now, and you add it because it is calculated that each year (24a) [it moves] 55 seconds, so that today you find the head and the tail of each of the fixed stars to be thus, for the speed of the orb of the fixed stars is equal to the speed of the heads as we said above. The importance of this passage comes from Moses ben Elijah’s mention of the date on which he composed this portion of the text, 1770 of the epoch of Alexander the Great (-311). That date converts to about 1459 c.e., and, taken together with the mention of Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ and the presence of Ottoman terminology, strongly supports placing the composition of Sefer Mezuqqaq during the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror. The parameter for precession, 55 seconds per year, is a rounded value for the figure given in Ḥabash al-Ḥāsib’s zīj.20 Just before the translated passage (on 23b) from Sefer Mezuqqaq, Moses ben Elijah explains that Saturn’s apogee was 50 degrees beyond the midpoint between the two nodes. Since the parameters given for Saturn in the text do not meet that criterion, it is likely that the parameters were corrupted. Additional research will be necessary to find the source of these parameters.21

Sefer Mezuqqaq and Jaghmīnī’s Mulakhkhaṣ The central conclusion of Vajda’s article was that Sefer Mezuqqaq was a Hebrew version of Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar Jaghmīnī’s (fl. 1206)22 al-​Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-​hayʾa (Epitome of plain hayʾa).23 Although Vajda’s article and its results have escaped the notice of more recent scholarship,24 Vajda’s conclusion was correct, and the parallels go well beyond those he found. They begin with Sefer Mezuqqaq’s organization. One is struck by how Sefer Mezuqqaq includes five chapters on the heavens and three chapters on the earth, an arrangement that mirrors that of Jaghmīnī’s Mulakhkhaṣ.25 Moreover, of the five chapters on the heavens in both texts, the first is about the configuration of orbs for each planet, the second is about the motions of the particular orbs, the third is about the circles imagined on the surface of the orbs, the fourth is about the arcs, and the fifth is about the anomalies. Within the second section on the cosmography of the earth in both texts, the first chapter is about the seven climes, the second chapter is about the equator and its properties, and the third is about special properties of the particular inclinations. There are, too, overwhelming parallels in the specifics, all of which support Vajda’s 1959 conclusion that Sefer Mezuqqaq represented a Hebrew version of Jaghmīnī’s Mulakhkhaṣ. Jaghmīnī’s Mulakhkhaṣ was perhaps the most widely studied text in the history of Islamic astronomy—​and certainly in the Ottoman madrasas of Moses ben Elijah’s time.26 It presented a summary of the Almagest that resembled Kharaqī’s Tabṣira, though unlike the Tabṣira and Ṭūsī’s (d. 1274) later Tadhkira, there was no section on the sizes and distances of the planets in the Mulakhkhaṣ. Like the Tadhkira, the Mulakhkhaṣ spawned numerous commentaries and supercommentaries; the most voluminous of the latter was Birjandī’s (on Qāḍī Zādah’s Sharḥ al-​Mulakhkhaṣ).

13 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

An important distinction between the commentaries on the Mulakhkhaṣ and those on the Tadhkira was that the commentaries and supercommentaries on the Mulakhkhaṣ did not analyze the non-​Ptolemaic models developed by the astronomers associated with the Marāgha observatory who worked after Jaghmīnī wrote. In contrast, innovative original models appeared in commentaries on the later Tadhkira.27 More advanced texts, such as Shīrāzī’s (d. 1311) Nihāyat al-​idrāk and al-​Tuḥfa al-​shāhiyya, adopted the format of the Tadhkira, though they were not organized as commentaries.28 Still, the Mulakhkhaṣ was part of this hayʾa tradition—​and some commentaries and supercommentaries on the Mulakhkhaṣ, though not the Mulakhkhaṣ itself, pointed out the problems with Ptolemaic astronomy that led to the production of new models. At the beginning of Sefer Mezuqqaq, Moses ben Elijah comments that similar hayʾa texts were not available to his community at the time.29 The works of Elijah Mizraḥi (d. 1526) and Mordekhai Khomṭiano (d. 1459) on the Almagest, which include some interesting reflections on the physical nature of the heavens, show that some Jews of Istanbul did study astronomy at a fairly high level.30 But Mizraḥi’s Almagest commentary ended after book 5 on the second lunar model, so there may have been little available about planetary theory, as well as a paucity of introductory summaries of astronomy suitable for teaching.31 Because manuscripts of the Mulakhkhaṣ proliferated (and because there were many commentaries on it), this chapter presumes that a commentary on the Mulakhkhaṣ such as Qāḍī Zādah’s (d. after 1440) would have been the most likely means by which Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ and Moses ben Elijah encountered the Mulakhkhaṣ. As Vajda pointed out,32 one of the more lengthy word-​for-​word parallels between Sefer Mezuqqaq and the Mulakhkhaṣ is the definition of the qibla (samt-​i qīblā in the text’s transcription). Not only is this passage evidence for the connection between Sefer Mezuqqaq and the Mulakhkhaṣ, but it also reflects the history of the qibla’s being a topic of discussion between Jews and Muslims. Moses ben Elijah writes (19b),

14 Texts in Transit

‫ומהקשתות קשת נקרא סמת קיבלא וקיבלא קורים ]![ הישמעאלים את בית‬ ‫ סמת קיבלא הוא קשת מעגלת האופק‬.‫אברהם אבינו יראה לי שהוא בית אל‬ ‫בין עגלת חצי היום במקום חתוך האופק ובין עגלה שתעבר נכח ראשנו והעוברת‬ ‫ הנה הקשת אשר בין חתוך‬.‫נכח ראשי היושבים בקיבלא ותחתך האופק לשנים‬ .‫זאת העגלה וחתוך עגלת חצי היום יקרא סמת קיבלא‬ And from among the arcs is that called samt-​i qīblā and the qibla is what the Muslims call the house of our father Abraham; in my opinion it is the house of God [Bet El]. The qibla direction is an arc from the circle of the horizon between the meridian arc, where it intersects the horizon, and between a circle that passes through the local zenith and the zenith of the inhabitants of the qibla, bisecting the horizon. Indeed, the arc that is between the intersection of this circle and the intersection of the meridian [with the horizon] is called samt-​i qīblā.

The corresponding portion of the Mulakhkhaṣ quoted in Qāḍī Zādah’s Sharḥ reads, “samt al-​qibla li-ʾl-​balda qaws min al-​ufq mā bayn dāʾirat niṣf nahār al-​balda wa-ʾl-​dāʾira al-​mārra bi-​samt ruʾūs ahlih wa-​samt ruʾūs ahl Makka.”33 With the exception of not translating “ahl Makka” as “inhabitants of the qibla” (Heb. ha-​yoshbim ba-​ qīblā), the language is the same.34 Moses ben Elijah’s equation of the qibla (the Kaʿba for Muslims) with the house of God (Bet El) is fascinating and reflects his position as a transmitter, even if he was just reporting Islamic belief. It may also be that Moses ben Elijah had in mind the biblical toponym from Genesis 28:19. Shimon Shtober has written on Jewish-​Islamic debates over the qibla, which was, for a time, identified with Bet El.35 Other evidence that Vajda cited for the relationship between Sefer Mezuqqaq and the Mulakhkhaṣ included the similarity between Jaghmīnī’s name and the Hebrew transcription of the name of the author of the Arabic original, specifically that Ṣagmān was a Hebrew rendering of Jaghmīn or Čagmīn,36 and what he held were broad similarities between the incipits of Sefer Mezuqqaq and the Mulakhkhaṣ, particularly how the incipit of Sefer Mezuqqaq bore an Islamic influence (e.g., aḥarei ha-​shebaḥ).

Technical Terms Glosses on the Mulakhkhaṣ were translated into Persian and Turkish,37 and the transcriptions of the technical terms suggest that they were conveyed to Moses ben Elijah in Turkish, though Moses ben Elijah constantly refers to the language of the original as lashon Yishmaʿʾel (the language of Ishmael).38 These Turkish versions of Arabic words are excellent evidence for the orality of the transmission (and the complexity of the textual history of the Mulakhkhaṣ), as the transcriptions indicate both that Moses ben Elijah’s oral informant pronounced them in Turkish and that Moses ben Elijah barely knew Arabic, if at all. For example, the tāʾ and dal at the end of Arabic words are transformed into a ṭet (e.g., Aḥmeṭ, athīriyyāṭ), reflecting Turkish pronunciation. Likewise, the kāf at the end of falak is transformed into a qāf. Vajda noticed a yod at the end of the first word in many of the technical terms, reflecting the Ottoman/Persian iẓāfet.39 Sometimes the Arabic wāw is transcribed with a Hebrew b, reflecting how the wāw was pronounced as a v, as in Turkish. There are a few places where Moses ben Elijah’s transcription of even the Turkish version of a term is imprecise (e.g., the transcription of al-​dhirwa al-​marʾiyya), which indicates that Moses ben Elijah was not completely familiar with Turkish and/or that he wrote down the words as he heard them. In at least one case, Moses ben Elijah provides an equivalent in Greek, suggesting that that language remained a medium of scientific communication for the Jewish community and, perhaps, that Greek was also a medium of communication between Moses ben Elijah and Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ.40 While some Jews must have become fluent (or proficient) in Turkish in order to engage with the Muslim community, Romaniot Jews of Moses ben Elijah’s era did not speak Turkish among themselves, and there is evidence of prominent Sephardic Jews (e.g., Almosnino) never learning Turkish.41 A detailed list of some of

15 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

the technical terms follows. Having restricted the list to those terms with a nonstandard orthography, I have provided both the literal transcription and a transcription corrected for standard Arabic orthography.42 athīriyyāt (lit. athīriyyaṭ) = the celestial bodies ʿunṣuriyyāt (lit. ʿunṣuriyyaṭ) = elemental bodies falak-​i aṭlas (Ar. al-​falak al-​aṭlas) = the uppermost orb (without stars)

16 Texts in Transit

mumaththal (lit. mūmaththal) = the parecliptic meḥadded ha-​iṣṭiwana, meḥuddad (lit. meḥūddad) ha-​iṣṭiwana = the thinnest point of a complementary body mudīr (lit. mūdīr) = dirigent mumaththalāt (lit. mūmaththālaṭ) = parecliptics ḥāmila (lit. ḥamīlla) = deferent niṭāq (lit. neiṭaq)46 = sector mashriq-​i iʿtidāl (lit. mashrīq-​i īʿtīdal) calque for siʿat al-​mashriq (combined with a transcription error)48 = ortive amplitude samt al-​qibla (lit. samt-​i qībla) = qibla direction muʿaddil al-​masīr (lit. mūʿadīl al-​masīr) = equant al-​dhirwa al-​wusṭā (from a mistranscription of the Turkish zirve-​i vusṭā)49 = mean apogee al-​dhirwa al-​marʾiyya (from a mistranscription of the Turkish zirve-​i marʾiyya) = visible apogee al-​quṭr al-​mārr bi-ʾl-​buʿdayn al-​awsaṭayn (lit. qūṭr-​ i marr bi-ʾl-​būʿdayn absīṭayn) = the diameter passing through the mean distances ʿarḍ al-​iltiwā51 (lit. ʿard-​i ilṭeibā) = the twist al-​madār bi-ʾl-​wāqiʿ53 (lit. meidar-​i bī-​bakiyāʿ) = real path qūbaṭ al-ʿarḍ (for quṭb al-arḍ) = pole of the earth miqyās (lit. mīqiyyās) = measure ajzāʾ (lit. azzā) = degrees

‫ אתירייט‬:‫א‬2 ‫ענצרייט‬ ‫פלקי אטלש‬43 :‫ב‬2 ‫ובלשון יון אנשטרוש‬ 44 ]‫[אורנוש‬ ‫ מומתל‬:‫א‬3 45 ,‫ [מחדד] האצטוונא‬:‫ב‬3 ‫מחודד האצטוונא‬ ‫ מודיר‬:‫א‬5 ‫ מומתאלט‬:‫א‬8 ‫חמיללה‬:‫ב‬8 47 ]‫ [נטק‬:‫ב‬16 ‫ משריק איעתידל‬:‫א‬19 ‫שעות המזרח‬ ‫ סמת קיבלא‬:‫ב‬19 ‫ מועדיל אלמשיר‬:‫א‬21 ‫ דידברי אושטא‬:‫ב‬21 ‫ דידבירי מראיא‬:‫א‬22 ‫ [קוטרי מר בלבועדין‬:‫ב‬22 50 ]‫אבשיטין‬ ]‫[ערדי אלטיבא‬ ‫מידרי ביבכיאע‬

52

54

‫ קובט אלערד‬:‫ב‬27 ‫ מיקייס‬:‫א‬33 ‫אזזא‬

On 3b, Moses ben Elijah introduces the term meḥuddad/meḥadded ha-​iṣṭiwana, initially in the midst of his description of the orbs of the sun. This term does not appear in the corresponding section of Qāḍī Zādah’s Sharḥ.55 This point is the thinnest point of a complementary circle (ʿiggulat ha-​matmim) or body. The fact that this term is not found in the manuscripts of Qāḍī Zādah’s Sharḥ available to me (Michigan 1611 and Tunis 7145) illustrates the extent to which the transmission was oral and depended on what Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ deemed worthy of inclusion. Another

distinctive technical term that also points to the pronounced role of oral exchange in the commentary tradition on the Mulakhkhaṣ is al-​madār bi-ʾl-​wāqiʿ. Again, this is not a term that appears in the Mulakhkhaṣ or frequently in Arabic literature on ʿilm al-​hayʾa, the common terms being al-​taqwīm or al-​madār al-​marʾī. Thus it may have entered Sefer Mezuqqaq either as a result of Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ’s trying to explain something to Moses ben Elijah, an explanation perhaps informed by a Turkish translation of the Mulakhkhaṣ. The latter possibility would, in itself, tell us much about the diffusion of the Mulakhkhaṣ.

The Identity of the Author Moses ben Elijah’s family name is not mentioned in either manuscript of Sefer Mezuqqaq, but there is reason to identify Moses ben Elijah the Greek (ha-yewwani) with Moses ben Elijah Galeano. Moses ben Elijah Galeano produced a Hebrew translation, entitled Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim (The judgments of the aspects) from an Arabic original, and one copy of Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim is in the same Jerusalem codex as Sefer Mezuqqaq.56 Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim focuses on the implications of conjunctions of the planets for the terrestrial realm, including for the fate of non-Jews. The text considers conjunctions of pairs of the planets at the critical aspects (but not in the various zodiacal signs or houses). Historical astrology also does not arise. Like Sefer Mezuqqaq, the Hebrew translation of Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim was prepared with the assistance of a Muslim scholar, who remains unnamed.57 A passage from the Bodleian manuscript of Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim reads: ‫והעתקתיו אני הנזֹ משה מספר‬

‫ ותוגר אחד חכם בזאת החכמה מהם היה מלמד אותי וקורא בלשונם‬.‫אחד כתֹו בלשון ישמעאל‬ ‫( ואני הייתי מעתיק מפיו בלשון קדש‬I, the aforementioned Moses, copied it from one book written in the tongue of the Muslims. A Turkish scholar of this science was teaching me and read it in their language, while I was copying from his mouth into the holy tongue). Moses ben Elijah Galeano adds that he could not find an equivalent book among the books of his predecessors. He knows that Abraham Ibn Ezra had written about conjunctional astrology, but remarks that Ibn Ezra’s work was too difficult.58 This comment recalls the one at the beginning of Sefer Mezuqqaq that a similar work on astronomy was not to be found. We do know that Abraham Ibn Ezra’s work had been the subject of serious study by Jewish scholars in Istanbul such as Khomṭiano, who commented on Ibn Ezra’s Yesod Mora, so Moses ben Elijah Galeano’s interest had a context. Evidence from Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim, such as Moses ben Elijah Galeano’s transcriptions of terms like muqārina (lit. mūqārīna) and muqābil (lit. mūqābīl), suggests, again, a lack of familiarity with Arabic. It is the similarity of the introductions of Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim and Sefer Mezuqqaq, describing their oral transit, that has led Vajda and Steinschneider to posit the identity of Moses ben Elijah the Greek of Sefer Mezuqqaq with Moses ben Elijah Galeano of Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim.59 If Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim and Sefer Mezuqqaq are indeed the work of the same scholar, then Sefer Mezuqqaq’s concern with computing planetary positions would also suit the applications found in Mishpeṭei ha-mabbaṭim.

17 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

Moses ben Elijah Galeano also produced a book on physiognomy, Toledot Adam, which became his best-​known work and was printed in Istanbul in 1515. There is a 1546 edition from Cremona.60 Therein he cites, inter alia, the tenth-​century physician ʿAlī ibn ʿAbbās, whose work on medicine does not survive in Hebrew translation, though such a translation may have existed at one point.61 Another likely source for Toledot Adam was the Pseudo-​Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum.62 A discrete text, Ḥokmat ha-​yad, has also been attributed to Moses ben Elijah Galeano, but Bodleian Neubauer 1603 presents Ḥokmat ha-​yad within Toledot Adam.63

Intersections of Mathematical and Physical Astronomy There is a long passage in Sefer Mezuqqaq containing some interesting intersections of mathematical and physical approaches to astronomy. This chapter breaks the passage down into three sections. The first section describes lines as the movers of orbs. The second section describes the centers of orbs’ mean motion as points of the lines’ alignments, observing similarities between the equant and alignment points. The third section notes that the number of centers in the Mercury model has changed.

18 Texts in Transit

20a ‫ לשמש נאמר כי שאר הכוכבים זולתי השמש יש להם‬64]‫ואחר שבארנו החלוף [הנקרה‬ ‫חלוף באֹרך וברחב וזה מפני הקו הסובב את גלגל ההקפה כי כאשר יהיה הכוכב בקדקד‬ ‫ב) ממרכז העולם נעשים אחד ואין‬20( ‫גלגל ההקפה או בשפלותו השני קוים היוצאים‬ 65 ]‫ ואולם כאשר יצא הכוכב [מגבהותו‬.‫שם חלוף בין הוסט לתקוים כאשר בארנו בנטק‬ ‫או משפלותו השני קוים היוצאים ממרכז העולם אינם נעשים אחד אבל יתחייב שיחתך‬ ‫ והיותר גדול‬.‫ ויתחייב מפני זה שיעשה תקון בין וסט לתקוים והוא החלוף שלו‬.‫זה את זה‬ ‫ כוכב וכוכב מגלגלי ההקפה‬66][ ‫שימצא בחלוף הוא שיהיה חצי קוטר גלגל ההקפה של‬ ‫ובתנאי שגלגל ההקפה לא יהיה לא בגבהותו ולא בשפלותו לפי שאז יראה גדול וקטן‬ ‫ ושל צדק‬.‫ והחלוף של שבתי היותר גדול ֹו מעלות ול ֹ שברים‬.‫אבל שיהיה במרחקו השוה‬ 68 ]‫ הנה [זה‬.ֹ‫ ושל ירח ֹו כ‬.ֹ ‫ ושל כוכב ֹכ ֹב ל‬.ֹ‫ ושל נגה מֹ ֹג ה‬.ֹ ‫ ושל מאדים ֹל ֹט ל‬67]ֹ ‫יֹ ֹא [ל‬ .‫יקרא החלוף הראשון והוא התקון הראשון שבתקוים‬ ‫ ואולם החלוף השני הוא כשיהיה גלגל ההקפה בגבהותו והוא נראה מאד קטן או‬ ‫ והנה אז אינו‬.‫ לשני עשו תקון והוא החלוף השני‬69]‫בשפלותו והוא נראה יותר גדול [וגם‬ ‫ והנה היותר גדול שבחלוף אשר‬.‫שוה החצי קטר של גלגל כי בגבהותו קטן ובשפלותו גדול‬ .‫ וזה יקרא לו החלוף השני‬.‫ לו כפי מקומו הוא כחצי קטר גלגל ההקפה כפי מקומו‬70]‫[יקרה‬ After we have explained the anomaly that occurs for the sun, we say that the rest of the planets, besides the sun, have an anomaly in longitude and latitude, and this is due to the line that rotates the epicyclic orb, because when the planet is at the apex of the orb of the epicycle or at its perigee, the two lines extending (20b) from the center of the world become one, and there is no difference between the mean and true positions as we showed with regard to the sectors.71 When the planet leaves its apex or perigee, the two lines extending from the center of the world are not one; rather they necessarily intersect.

On account of that it is necessary that an equation be made between the mean and true positions and that is its anomaly. The largest value found for this anomaly is the radius of the orb of each epicyclic orb for each planet on the condition that the epicyclic orb is neither at its apex nor at its perigee, since at that time it is observed to be either larger or smaller; rather [it is when it is] at its mean distance. Saturn’s largest anomaly is 6; 30°, and Jupiter’s is 11; 30°. Mars’ is 39; 30°. Venus’ is 43; 5° and Mercury’s is 22; 30°. The Moon’s is 6; 20°. This is called the first anomaly; it is the first equation [tiqqun] for the true position [taqwīm]. The second anomaly is when the epicyclic orb is at its apex, and there it appears very small or at its perigee it appears larger, and for the second they made an equation, the second anomaly. At that time it is not equal to the radius of an [epicyclic] orb because at its apex it is small and at its perigee it is large. The largest that this anomaly can be at any position is like the radius of the epicycle for that position. And this is called the second anomaly. The first notable point is that Moses ben Elijah’s description of the models blends physical and geometric descriptions, beyond using circles as placeholders for orbs, such as when he writes, “this is due to the line that rotates the epicyclic orb.”72 There are a couple of other cases of astronomers in Istanbul combining physical and geometric approaches to astronomy. ʿAlī Qushjī’s (d. 1474) al-​Risāla al-​Fatḥiyya, a text Qushjī presented to Sultan Mehmed in 1473, recognized the need to presume the orbs’ uniform motions as a foundation for calculation.73 Subsequently, Elijah Mizraḥi, in his commentary on Ptolemy’s Almagest, described one of the problems with the Ptolemaic lunar model in terms of variations in the length of the line that rotated the epicycle.74 This passage from Sefer Mezuqqaq also cites parameters, which are closer to those of Farghānī’s Jawāmiʿ than to the parameters found in the Mulakhkhaṣ, for the maximum of the first anomaly.75 Moses ben Elijah describes the second anomaly as an additional correction (i.e., equation) of the planet’s position in longitude related to the planet’s size.76 The next section takes up the third anomaly:

‫ויש חלוף שלישי והוא כשיהיה גלגל ההקפה בגבהותו או בשפלותו אז קטרי גלגל‬ ‫ לפי שהקו ההוא חותך את גלגל ההקפה‬77]‫ההקפה הם אחד עם הקו העובר [במרכזים‬ ‫ והקו ההוא נעשה להם קטר אבל כשאינם בגבהות או בשפלות אז לא יהיה אחד‬.‫באמצע‬ ‫ אבל הוא נעשה נכחי עם קו של נקדה אחת שהנקדה‬.‫א) העובר במרכזים‬21( ‫עם הקו‬ ‫ ואולם בחמשת הכוכבים הנבוכים‬.‫ההיא נקראת בצורת גלגל הירח הנקדה הנכחית‬ ‫ עם קו של נקדה אחת שהנקדה ההיא נקראת נקדת מרכז משוה‬78]‫עוד נעשה [נכחית‬ .‫התנועה ובלשון ישמעאל מועדיל אלמשיר‬ ‫ והנקדה הנכחית בצורת גלגל הירח הנה מקומה בין מרכז העולם ובין מרכז הסובל‬ ‫ והנקדה הנכחית לצד הש�פ‬.‫ לצד הגובה למעלה ממרכז העולם‬79]‫[שיהיה מרכז הסוב]ל‬ ‫ והעגולה המתחדשת‬.‫ מרכז הסובל ממרכז העולם‬80]‫לות למטה ממרכז העולם [ברוחק‬ ‫בפנים מאלו השני מרכזים והנקדה הנכחית תקרא סובל מרכז הסובל וכאשר יתנועע‬

19 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

‫ וכאשר יתנועע גם גלגל הסובל הוא מניע‬.‫גלגל הנוטה הוא מניע את הגלגל הסובל עמו‬ .‫ גלגל הסובל סביב מרכז העולם‬81]‫את [מרכז‬ There is a third anomaly and it is when the epicyclic orb is at its apex or perigee; at that time the diameters of the epicyclic orbs will be one with the line passing through the centers because that line cuts the epicyclic orb in the middle. That line becomes a diameter for them, but when they are not at the apogee or perigee they will not be one with the line (21a) passing through the centers. Rather it will become aligned with a single point on a line, that point which is called, in the configuration of the orb of the moon, the alignment point. With the five planets, however, it is aligned with a single point on a line, this point being called the equant point, and in the language of the Muslims: mūʿadīl al-​masīr [i.e., muʿaddil al-​masīr]. The position of the alignment point in the configuration of the orb of the moon is between the center of the world and between the center of the deferent82 in the direction of the apogee, above the center of the world. The alignment point [when it] is toward the perigee is beneath the center of the world on the distance of the center of the deferent from the center of the world. The circle created internally from these two centers and the alignment point is called the deferent for the center of the deferent and when the inclined orb moves it moves the orb of the deferent with it. And when the orb of the deferent moves as well, it moves the center of the orb of the deferent about the center of the world.

20 Texts in Transit

This passage explains the relationship between the alignment point in the lunar model, namely, that it is the reference point for measuring the epicycle’s mean motion, and the equant point in the planetary models, as well as the reference point for measuring the epicycle’s mean motion. Sefer Mezuqqaq notes, too, that the alignment point moves, but not specifically that the motion of the alignment point is a problem to be solved. The passage hews closely to Jaghmīnī’s Mulakhkhaṣ, but the existence of this passage in Hebrew does indicate that readers of Hebrew in Moses ben Elijah’s milieu could have read about these difficulties of Ptolemaic astronomy.83 In the following passage, Moses ben Elijah points to the similarities between the Ptolemaic Mercury model and those for the four other planets and the moon.

‫ואולם בצורת גלגל כוכב חמה נקראת נקדת משוה התנועה ומקומה הוא בין מרכז העולם‬ ‫ובין מרכז מקיף הסובל הנקרא מודיר בלשון ישמעאל ומרחקו ממרכז העולם כמרחק‬ ‫ הנה אלו‬.‫משוה התנועה ממרכז הסובל וכפי מרחק מרכז מקיף הסובל ממרכז הסובל‬ ‫ וכאשר יתנועע‬.‫ מרכזים עם מרכז משוה התנועה מרחקם זה מזה מרחק שוה‬84]ֹ‫[הג‬ ‫ ולכן כאשר יהיה‬.‫גלגל המקיף הסובל הנה הוא יניע את גלגל הסובל ויניע את מרכזו‬ ‫ מרכז הסובל ומרכז מקיף‬:‫ב) הגובה הנה יש בכאן ארבעה מרכזים‬21( ‫מרכז הסובל לצד‬ ‫ ואולם כאשר יניע המודיר את הסובל לצד‬.‫הסובל ומרכז משוה התנועה ומרכז העולם‬ ‫ המודיר ויתחבר עם מרכז משוה‬86][ ‫ הנה אז מרכז הסובל יתנועע סביב‬85]‫[השפלות‬

‫ ואז לא יהיה כי אם שלשה מרכזים והם מרכז המודיר ומרכז‬.‫התנועה ויהיה עמו אחד‬ .‫משוה התנועה ומשוה העולם‬ ‫ ואולם בארבעת הכוכבים הנשארים בשבתי צדק מאדים ונגה הנה הנקדה ההיא היא‬ ‫שכתבתי בצורתם מרכז קו המניע והיא בין נקדת מרכז הסובל שיהיה מרכז הסובל לצד‬ .‫הגובה ובין מרכז העולם שהוא לצד השפלות ומרחקה משני המרכזים מרחק שוה‬ In the configuration of the orb of Mercury, however, it [the alignment point] is called the equant point and its position is between the center of the world and the center of the [orb] encompassing the deferent which is called mūdīr [dirigent] in the Muslims’ language. Its distance from the center of the world is equal to the distance of the equant from the center of the deferent and according to the distance of the center of the circumference of the deferent from the center of the deferent. These three centers, along with the center of the equant, their distance from one another is an equal distance. When the orb that encompasses the deferent moves, it moves the deferent orb and its [the deferent’s] center. Thus, when the center of the deferent is in the direction of (21b) the apogee, then there are four centers here: the center of the deferent, the center of the [orb] encompassing the deferent, the equant center, and the center of the world. When the dirigent moves the deferent, however, in the direction of the perigee, then the center of the deferent moves about the dirigent and combines with the equant center and is one with it. Then there will be but three centers, they being the dirigent center, and the equant center, and the center87 of the world. With the four remaining planets, however, with Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and Venus, that point is what I wrote in their configurations; it is the center of the mover line that is between the point of the center of the deferent, which is the center of the deferent in the direction of the apogee, and between the center of the world which is in the direction of the perigee. Its [the point’s] distance from the two centers is an equal distance. In this passage, Sefer Mezuqqaq again describes the equant as the center of a line that moves the epicycle center. Jaghmīnī had written, “the imagined circle that is traced through the rotation of this line by the epicycle center is called the equant orb.”88 A  line was a geometrical abstraction that could not play a physical role. Although Sefer Mezuqqaq’s description of the location of the equant point is convoluted at best, the equant point, which was mathematically derived, takes on a more physical role. This combination of mathematical and physical approaches makes sense in the context of the history of astronomy in the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century. İhsan Fazlıoğlu has commented that the Mulakhkhaṣ itself presented both the mathematical and physical approaches, whereas Qāḍī Zādah’s commentary seemed to favor a mathematical approach.89 Fazlıoğlu saw in Qāḍī Zādah’s statements of regret for the passing of true mathematical schools the seeds of ʿAlī Qushjī’s agenda of moving astronomy away from falsafa. At the end of the third chapter of the first

21 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

part of his commentary, Qāḍī Zādah explained that limiting oneself to circles (al-​ iqtiṣār ʿalā al-​dawāʾir) was sufficient for someone interested only in the mathematical proofs.90 Because the introduction to Sefer Mezuqqaq explains that there are no other available works in the same vein, and Sefer Mezuqqaq does pay attention to solid orbs (what Qāḍī Zādah called hayʾa mujassama), Sefer Mezuqqaq’s own position on how the models might be physicalized is worth investigating. In Sefer Mezuqqaq, Moses ben Elijah writes that only two circles could not stand in place of the cincture of a solid orb.91 One is in the lunar model, and it causes the center of the eccentric to rotate; Moses ben Elijah calls it ha-​sobeil et meirkaz ha-sobeil. The second such circle rotates about the center of the circumference of the deferent: naʿaseh sabib meirkaz meiqip ha-​sobeil. Corresponding sentences are not found in the manuscripts of Qāḍī Zādah’s commentary available to me (Michigan 1611 and Tunis 7145). The text reads (13b–14a):

‫ האחת העגלה הסובבת בחוץ שדברנו גדהרה והשנית המ�ת‬.‫ העגלה שני מינים‬.‫והבן זה‬ ‫ העגולה שבאפדה ההיא‬92]‫ והנה בהתנועע כדור [העגלה‬.‫א) בפנים מהכדור‬14( ‫חדשת‬ ‫רֹל ֹ אפדת הכדור ההוא יקרא בשם הכדור כי בהיות העגולה יוצאת המרכז נקראת גם‬ ‫ כי בהיות בו גלגל הקפה יקרא בשמו‬.‫האפדה ההיא יוצאת המרכז וכך לכל גלגל וגלגל‬ ‫ וככה נקרא גלגל הסובל והסוף כי האפדה נקראת בשם הגלגל‬.‫יאמר שהוא גלגל ההקפה‬ ‫ האחת היא בכוכב חמה והשנית היא בלבנה‬.‫ והעגולה שאיננה מחוץ הן שתים‬.‫ההוא‬ ‫אותה שהיא מתחדשת בלבנה היא סביב מרכז העולם והיא [נעשת לסבב את מרכז גלגל‬ ‫ ואולם העגלה השנית‬.93]‫הסובל ואותה העגלה קוראים אותה הסובל את מרכז הסובל‬ .‫ סביב מרכז מקיף הסובל‬94]‫שבכוכב הוא [נעשת‬

22 Texts in Transit

And understand this. The circle is of two kinds. The first is the circle that rotates on the outside [of the sphere], of whose definition we have spoken,95 and the second is that created internally (14a) from the sphere. Indeed, in the motion of the sphere, the circle that is in that cincture, that is to say the cincture of that sphere, is called by the name of the sphere. For as the circle is eccentric, then that cincture is also called eccentric, and thus for every orb. For with there being an epicyclic orb in it, it [the circle] is called by its name [the epicycle]; it is said that there is an epicyclic orb. And likewise it [the cincture of the deferent] is called the orb of the deferent and so on; the cincture is called by the name of that orb. And the circle(s) that are not [found] externally, they are two. The first is that which is in Mercury and the second is that which is in the moon. That which is created in the moon is that rotating about the center of the world and it is there to rotate the center of the orb of the deferent. That circle we call the deferent for the center of the deferent. The second circle which is in Mercury, however, is produced about the center of the [orb] encompassing the deferent. That there are mathematical constructs that could not exist as orbs would be a problem worth investigating for a scholar interested in solid-​sphere astronomy. Still,

he does not describe these disjunctures as difficulties (ishkālāt) or imaginary, as had the Mulakhkhaṣ and Qāḍī Zādah’s commentary upon it. Whatever the motivation for the inclusion of this information, the existence of Sefer Mezuqqaq is evidence that a number of Jewish scholars would have had access to a version of the Mulakhkhaṣ, the gateway to a deeper study of theoretical astronomy. There is evidence that some Jews in the Ottoman Empire knew about theoretical astronomy, namely, texts by ʿUrḍī and Ibn al-​Shāṭir, and the existence of Sefer Mezuqqaq explains how these Jews might have come to more advanced texts.96 In the explicit of the text, Moses ben Elijah recommends that anyone interested in knowing more should consult the Almagest as well as the other longer books that were available. This could be a reference to Khomṭiano’s Almagest commentary. Presuming that the reference to longer books is not to azyāj or to texts about instrumentation, this remark indicates that Moses ben Elijah had become aware of works on astronomy that were as sophisticated as the Almagest and the accompanying commentaries. This was all before the Expulsion.

Conclusion Several conclusions are possible, three of which are beyond doubt. Of those, the first is that Vajda’s description of Sefer Mezuqqaq as a “version” of the Mulakhkhaṣ is correct; Sefer Mezuqqaq is not a translation of the Mulakhkhaṣ, even while taking into consideration the complexities of establishing the text of the Mulakhkhaṣ.97 The second clear conclusion is that the author of Sefer Mezuqqaq, Moses ben Elijah, did not know Arabic; thus, Moses ben Elijah’s statements about the orality of the translation process and the role of Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ should be accepted. Third, Sefer Mezuqqaq is evidence for the importance of oral exchange. Moses ben Elijah’s reliance on Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ meant that his informant could modify the contents of the text and that Moses ben Elijah could ask questions and receive clarifications. It is because of these modifications that Sefer Mezuqqaq is an early indication of curiosity about the disjunctures between the physical and mathematical approaches to astronomy. Two more tentative conclusions about the state of astronomy in the Jewish community are also possible. These conclusions follow from ascertaining, as Vajda did on the basis of references to Greek technical terms, that Sefer Mezuqqaq dates from the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror. First, we see a Jewish scholar becoming aware of the issues involved with a solid-​sphere approach to astronomy, an approach that differed from the mathematical approach (i.e., Almagest, tables) that prevailed under Byzantine rule. Second, Sefer Mezuqqaq provides some context for the activities of Moses ben Elijah’s younger contemporary, Moses ben Judah Galeano (a.k.a. Mūsā Jālīnūs). Since Moses ben Judah Galeano mentioned in Puzzles of Wisdom that he had a grandfather named Elijah Galeano, Moses ben Elijah Galeano was probably a relative.98 Another Jewish scholar who was not a leading rabbi (e.g., Mordekhai Khomṭiano, Elijah Mizraḥi) managed to have extensive contact with a Muslim

23 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

scholar. The interests that Sefer Mezuqqaq reflects help explain why Moses ben Judah Galeano became interested in other astronomers, such as Ibn Naḥmias, Ibn al-​Shāṭir, and Levi ben Gerson.99 As much as this chapter has focused on why Moses ben Elijah sought out Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ, another relevant question is why Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ decided to help Moses ben Elijah. Though Moses ben Elijah did not provide specific information, the broader context suggests that the Ottomans felt they had something to learn from Jewish scholars. The court physicians themselves were members of the Hamon family.100 We know, too, that Mordekhai Khomṭiano donated an astronomical instrument to the chief military judge.101 But Jews who did not necessarily occupy fixed positions also mattered. Under Bayezid II, a later chief physician, Ahi Çelebi, commanded Mūsā Jālīnūs to write a treatise on the degrees of heat, cold, dryness, and moistness of various medical cures.102 One of Jālīnūs’s sources was the medieval European scholar Arnaldo da Villanova, whose works were translated into Hebrew, but not into Arabic.103 He also cited a Jewish physician, Isaac Israeli. Thus medical practice at the sultan’s court was not confined to texts available in Arabic; Jālīnūs’s command of Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin made him a valuable mediator of knowledge unavailable in Arabic and Turkish. The level of astronomy at the Ottoman court under Mehmed II and Bayezid II outshone that in the Romaniot Jewish community, but when the context is broadened beyond astronomy, the Jews’ position as scholarly intermediaries appears even more valuable. Notes

24 Texts in Transit

1. All of the folio references in this article are to the Jerusalem ms unless otherwise noted. The process of editing portions of Sefer Mezuqqaq showed the Jerusalem ms to be more reliable, as 111b in the Paris ms skips from 7b in the Jerusalem ms to partway through 9b. 2. Georges Vajda, “Une version hébräique du Mulaḫḫaṣ fī l-​hayʾa de Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-​Čaġmīnī,” Journal Asiatique 237 (1959): 471–78. Vajda relied on the Paris ms. 3. Ibid., 474. On Qāḍī Aḥmad as the translator of Gennadios Scholarios’s polemic, see Gyula Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica: Die byzantinischen Quellen der Geschichte der Türkvölker (Budapest: Görög Filológiai Intezet, 1942), 1:156. The text by Gennadios Scholarios was entitled Akāid-​i hıristiyaniye. 4. On Aḥmad’s son, see Abdülhak Adnan Adıvar, Osmanlı Türklerinde İlim (Istanbul: Maarif Matbaası, 1943), 26–27. 5. Steven B. Bowman, The Jews of Byzantium, 1204–1453 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985), 187. Bowman approximated the date of this appointment as 1453–55, but it is also possible that it was under Bayezid II. On the latter possibility, see Aryeh Shmuelevitz, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire in the Late Fifteenth and the Sixteenth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 18–19. This latter possibility makes the role of Gennadios Scholarios and Mevlānā Aḥmeṭ more significant. 6. .‫ מבלונא‬:‫ירושלים‬ 7. .‫ והואלתי‬:‫פריס‬ 8. .‫ ל‬:‫פריס‬ 9. .- :‫פריס‬ 10. ‫ שיש מי שקדמני בהעתקתו לא ראיתיו עד הנה וכונתי להועיל לי ולמי שחפץ בתועלת אף שלחלוף‬:‫פריס‬

‫ ואם יהיה העתק זולתינו יותר מבואר ורחב‬.‫ההעתקות מהמעתיקים יודעו איזה דברים יותר ויהיה כזה מה שאין כזה‬ .‫אחשוב למצאו שלא הזקתי אם לא הועלתי ומ ֹה אשאל העזר‬ For a French translation of this variant, see Vajda, “Une version hébraïque,” 473. 11. .‫ שבעתיים‬:‫פריס‬

12. Judah Halevi, The Kuzari: An  Argument for the Faith of Israel, trans. H.  Hartwig, intro. H. Slonimsky (New York: Schocken Books, 1964), 126. 13. We see Moses ben Elijah translating the reference to Muhammad, preserving the Islamic overtones in the original. 14. The Hebrew word that I have rendered “upper world” is ‫בגבוהים‬. 15. Julian Raby, “East and West in Mehmed the Conqueror’s Library,” Bulletin du Bibliophile 3 (1987): 297–321. 16. .‫ היא‬:‫פריס‬ 17. .‫ שברים‬:‫פריס‬ 18. .- :‫פריס‬ 19. This works out to one degree every 65.46 years. Jaghmīnī’s own value was one degree every 66 years. See Sally P. Ragep, “Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-​Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ fī al-​hayʾa al-​basīṭa: An Edition, Translation, and Study” (Ph.D. diss., McGill University, 2014), 387. 20. E. S. Kennedy, “A Survey of Islamic Astronomical Tables,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., 46, no. 2 (1956): 123–77, at 153. 21. For possible sources for the parameters, see José Chabás and Bernard Goldstein, Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula: Abraham Zacut and the Transition from Manuscript to Print (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2000), 82–83. 22. S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 33. 23. For scholarship on Jaghmīnī’s Mulakhkhaṣ, see the references listed in Sally P. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī: Sharaf al-​Dīn Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-​Jaghmīnī al-​Khwārizmī,” in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey et al. (New York: Springer-​Verlag, 2007), 1:584–85. See also S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ.” 24. Mauro Zonta, “Medieval Hebrew Translations of Philosophical and Scientific Texts: A Chronological Table,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. Gad Freudenthal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17–73, at 72. 25. For an outline of the contents of the Mulakhkhaṣ, see S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī.” On the place of the Mulakhkhaṣ in the curriculum of Ottoman madrasas, see Cevat İzgi, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim (Istanbul: İz yayıncılık, 1997), 1:370–92. 26. S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī,” 584–85. See also S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ.” 27. For an argument about how the presence of innovative models in Tadhkira commentaries means that the commentaries played the role of modern scientific literature, see George Saliba, “Writing the History of Arabic Astronomy: Problems and Differing Perspectives,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116 (1996): 709–18, at 714. 28. F. Jamil Ragep, Naṣīr al-​Dīn al-Ṭūsī’s “Memoir on Astronomy (al-​Tadhkira fī ʿilm al-​hayʾa),” with introduction, translation, and commentary (New York: Springer-​Verlag, 1993), 59. 29. On the genre of hayʾa basīṭa, see ibid., 29–46. 30. For an interesting discussion of theoretical astronomy in Elijah Mizraḥi’s Almagest commentary, see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Science in the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Cultural Orbit: New Perspectives,” in Freudenthal, Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, 438–53, esp. 446–49. 31. On the pedagogic function and value of Jaghmīnī’s Mulakhkhaṣ, see S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 119–37. 32. Vajda, “Une version hébraïque,” 477. 33. S.  Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 223. With the exception of al-​balad for al-​balda, Jaghmīnī’s text was the same. 34. As a point of comparison, one should note how another Jewish scholar, working a few decades later, known as Moses Galeano/Mūsā Jālīnūs, was commissioned by the chief Ottoman military judge to translate the canons of the Almanach Perpetuum from Latin into Arabic. A significant difference between the Latin original and the Arabic translation is that Galeano/Jālīnūs added a section on qibla computation where none had previously existed. On this translation, see Julio Samsó, “Abraham Zacut and José Vizinho’s Almanach Perpetuum in Arabic (16th–19th C.),” Centaurus 46 (2004): 82–97, at 83. See also Chabás and Goldstein, Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula, 163 and 170. 35. On Bet El as a Jewish qibla, see Shimon Shtober, “Lā Yajūz an yakūn fī al-ʿālam li-​llāhi qiblatayn: Judaeo-​Islamic Polemics Concerning the Qibla,” Medieval Encounters 5 (1999): 85–98, at 95. I thank Tzvi

25 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

26 Texts in Transit

Langermann for bringing this article to my attention. See also Shtober, “Judaeo-​Islamic Polemics,” 93, for the possibility of the stories of disputations between Jews and Muslims about the qibla direction actually reflected in in-​person debates between Jews and Muslims. 36. I would add that mezuqqaq is a translation of mukhallaṣ, a transposition of mulakhkhaṣ. 37. Sally P. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī, Sharaf Al-​Dīn Mahmūd Ibn Muḥammād Ibn ʾUmar Al,” in New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Noretta Koertge, vol. 4 (Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons/Thomson Gale, 2008), 20–22, Gale Virtual Reference Library, accessed 13 September 2013. 38. And if Sefer Mezuqqaq is a faithful translation of a Turkish translation of the Mulakhkhaṣ, then the variants from the Arabic original would indicate the prominence of this material in Ottoman madrasas. Vajda noted (“Une version hébraïque,” 475) the overwhelming likelihood of a Turkish intermediary. 39. Vajda, “Une version hébraïque,” 476. 40. On the use of Greek by Romaniot Jews, see Cyril Aslanov, “Judeo-​Greek or Greek Spoken by Jews,” in Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures, ed. Robert Bonfil, Oded Irshai, Guy G. Stroumsa, and Rina Talgam (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 385–98, at 394–95. Hebrew was the language of Jewish culture, but Greek was the spoken medium. Indeed, Langermann’s survey article on science in Byzantine Jewish communities makes no mention of scientific texts being composed in Greek. But Elijah Mizraḥi’s commentary on the Almagest (to which Langermann draws our attention) occasionally referred to Greek mss of the Almagest in order to clarify obscurities in the Hebrew translation. Langermann has also found examples of a reader of Qalonymos’s translation of Nicomachus’s Introduction to Arithmetic. See his “Studies in Medieval Hebrew Pythagoreanism: Translations and Notes to Nicomachus’ Arithmological Texts,” Micrologus 9 (2001): 219–36, at 228. See also Bowman, Jews of Byzantium, 164–68, for how Greek had been incorporated into Jewish texts, particularly during the Paleologan Renaissance. 41. Minna Rozen, A History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul: The Formative Years, 1453–1566 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 281–83. 42. In the list, the numbers indicate the manuscript page; if no number appears, then the term falls on the page listed above it. 43. See Vajda, “Une version hébraïque,” 478. In Greek, the term is ἅναστρος ουρανος. 44. .‫ אורונוש‬:‫פריס‬ 45. .- :‫פריס‬ 46. .‫ ניטק‬:‫פריס‬ 47. The ms includes the short vowels. 48. Vajda, “Une version hébraïque,” 476. 49. Ibid. 50. .‫ קוטרימרי בלבועדין אלאבסינטין‬:‫פריס‬ 51. Cf. F. Ragep, Tadhkira, 194–95. Iltiwāʾ is a form of latitude particular to the lower planets. 52. .‫ ערדי אילטבא‬:‫פריס‬ 53. Moses ben Elijah defined this term as the path that the planet takes. 54. I could not find a corresponding term in the mss of Qāḍī Zādah’s commentary available to me (Michigan 1611 and Tunis 7145). 55. Qāḍī Zādah, Sharḥ Jaghmīnī, ms Michigan 1611, 18–20. 56. Steinschneider’s Hebräischen Übersetzungen attributed Mishpeṭei ha-​mabbaṭim to Moses ben Elijah Galeano. See Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1956), 595. There are four complete mss of Mishpeṭei ha-​mabbaṭim: Bodleian 2518 (Neubauer), Moscow Günzburg 414/3, Jerusalem NLI 8°3167, and Jerusalem Benayahu O 131. Although the translation in the Jerusalem mss is attributed to/ claimed by Ibn Ṣahl, it matches the text contained in the Bodleian ms, which is attributed to Moses ben Elijah Galeano. Jerusalem NLI 8°3167 contains other texts translated into Hebrew, perhaps from Arabic (given the Judeo-​Arabic jottings on the flyleaves). 57. Jerusalem NLI 8°3167, 43b. 58. Ibid. 59. Vajda, “Une version hébraïque,” 472. 60. Steinschneider, Hebräischen Übersetzungen, 578. See also Marvin Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus (Leiden: Brill, 2011).

61. For more information, see Steinschneider, Hebräischen Übersetzungen. 62. On the first page of text (aleph) of the 1546 printed edition of Toledot Adam, Galeano cited Sefer ha-​shalem ba-​malʾakah, a Hebrew translation of ʿAlī ibn ʿAbbās’s Kitāb al-​Kāmil fī al-ṣināʿa. Galeano also mentioned (Pseudo-) Aristotle’s work on physiognomy, probably Kitāb Sirr al-​asrār. 63. See also ms Moscow Günzburg 162/4 of Ḥokmat ha-​yad, where Moses ben Elijah said that he was choosing excerpts from Toledot Adam. 64. .‫ הנקרא‬:‫ירושלים‬ 65. .‫ שגבהותו‬:‫פריס‬ 66. .‫ כל‬:‫פריס‬ 67. .- :‫פריס‬ 68. .- :‫פריס‬ 69. .‫ גם‬:‫פריס‬ 70. .‫ יקרא‬:‫ירושלים‬ 71. For Sefer Mezuqqaq’s explanations of a sector (niṭāq), see National Library of Israel ms 8°3167, 17a. See a full definition of sectors in Kennedy, “A Survey,” 143. The sectors are defined by four points, the first and third of which are the apogee and perigee. The second and fourth points are where the planet or its epicycle center is at its mean distance from the center of the cosmos. 72. Jaghmīnī’s own description of the first anomaly did not use lines to move the orbs. See S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 335–36. In ms Michigan 1611 (p. 64) of Qāḍī Zādah’s commentary, there was also no discussion of a line moving the center of the epicycle. 73. Qushjī, al-​Risāla al-​Fatḥiyya, ms Aya Sofya 2733, 20a. 74. See Robert Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary Between the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe,” Isis 105 (2014): 43. 75. S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 378. 76. Jaghmīnī (see S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 336) identified the same second anomaly, which Ṭūsī (see F. Ragep, Tadhkira, 172) called the anomaly of the nearest and farthest distances. 77. .‫ במרכים‬:‫פריס‬ 78. .‫ נכחי‬:‫פריס‬ 79. .- :‫פריס‬ 80. .‫ בריח כך‬:‫ירושלים‬ 81. .‫ המרכז‬:‫פריס‬ 82. I have translated this phrase following the Paris ms, but I do not understand how the alignment point can be between the center of the world and the center of the deferent. 83. S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 336. 84. .‫ השלשה‬:‫פריס‬ 85. .‫ שפלות‬:‫פריס‬ 86. .‫ מרכז‬:‫פריס‬ 87. The text reads meshawweh, but this does not make sense. 88. S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 337. Qāḍī Zādah’s commentary (ms Michigan 1611, 66–67) held, as had the Mulakhkhaṣ, that the line, though it moved the epicycle center, was conjectural/imaginary (li-​tawahhumihim idāratah markaz al-​tadwīr). 89. İhsan Fazlıoğlu, “The Samarqand Mathematical-​Astronomical School: A Basis for Ottoman Philosophy and Science,” Journal for the History of Arabic Science 14 (2008): 3–68, at 30–34. 90. See Qāḍī Zādah, Sharḥ Jaghmīnī, ms Michigan 1611, 44. 91. Sefer Mezuqqaq, National Library of Israel ms 8°3167, 14a. This statement is not found in the parallel section of Qāḍī Zādah’s commentary. 92. .- :‫פריס‬ 93. .‫ נעשית לסבב את מרכז העולם והיא נעשית לסבב גלגל הסובל‬:‫פריס‬ 94. .‫ נעשית‬:‫פריס‬ 95. That is, great circles. 96. Sefer Mezuqqaq, 36b. “He whose heart is full to come closer to the work of astronomy should look into the book of the Almagest and in the rest of the long books.” On Jews’ knowledge of the work of Ibn al-​Shāṭir, see Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary.” On Jews’ knowledge of the work of Muʾayyad al-D ​ īn al-ʿUrḍī, see the Hebrew notations on the flyleaf of the Konya ms of ʿUrḍī’s Kitāb al-H ​ ayʾa. George

27 Oral Transmission Among Romaniot Jews

Saliba, ed. and intro., The Astronomical Work of Muʾayyad al-​Dīn al-ʿUrḍī: A Thirteenth Century Reform of Ptolemaic Astronomy, “Kitāb al-​Hayʾah” (Beirut: The Center for Arab World Unity Studies, 1990), 11–13. 97. On these complexities, see S. Ragep, “Jaghmīnī’s al-​Mulakhkhaṣ,” 156. 98. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “A Compendium of Renaissance Science: Ta‘alumot ḥokmah by Moshe Galeano,” Aleph 7 (2007): 283–318, at 287. 99. For more on Moses ben Judah Galeano’s interests in astronomy, see ibid. and Morrison, “A Scholarly Intermediary.” 100. Elli Kohen, History of the Turkish Jews and Sephardim: Memories of a Past Golden Age (Lanham: University Press of America, 2007), 27. Kohen writes, “A rumor, perhaps originating in the apocryphal stories about Mehmed II’s Galenus, Hekim Yakub, attributed to the Elder Hamon a leading role in the poisoning of Bayezit II, masterminded by his son Selim.” On the Hamons’ provenance, see also S. Rozanes, Dibrei yemei Yisraʾel be-​Togarmah (Husiatyn: Kawalek, 1907–14), 1:59–60. Yakub converted to Islam, but some future court physicians were Jewish. See Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, “Some Remarks on Ottoman Science,” in Science, Technology, and Learning in the Ottoman Empire: Western Influence, Local Institutions, and the Transfer of Knowledge (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 45–73, at 64–65. See also Rozanes, Dibrei, 61. Note that Abraham De Balmes’s grandfather was the personal physician of Ferdinand of Aragon. Joseph Hamon’s father, Isaac, had been the physician of King ʿAbdallāh of Granada. See Simon Marcus and Leah Bornstein-​Makovetsky, “Hamon,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed., vol. 8 (Detroit: Macmillan, 2007), 311–12, Gale Virtual Reference Library, accessed 13 December 2012. 101. Mordekhai Khomṭiano, Sefer Tiqqun kli ha-​neḥoshet, Munich Hebrew ms 36 (IMHM 1166), fols. 195b–203b. See also Paris, BnF, ms Hébreu 1085, fols. 34a–48a. Khomṭiano explained that he was driven to write a text describing a particular instrument because he had given his own example of that instrument to the Ottoman chief military judge. 102. Adıvar, Osmanlı Türklerinde İlim, 53–54. I am preparing a translation of this brief treatise. 103. Arnaldo da Villanova was cited in Puzzles of Wisdom, indicating that the author of the brief medical treatise was also the author of Puzzles. The translator of one of Arnaldo’s books on astrology noted that the book would attract those interested in medicine. See Arnaldo da Villanova, “Panim ba-​mishpaṭ,” trans. Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor, Bodleian Neubauer 2028 (IMHM F19313), fols. 77a–82b, at fol. 77a. I am exploring Mūsā Jālīnūs’s wider intellectual world in a book in progress.

28 Texts in Transit

T wo Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on Ezekiel’s “I Heard” A Case Study in Byzantine Jews’ Reception of Spanish-Provençal Jewish Philosophical-​Scientific Culture Ofer Elior

Introduction From the thirteenth century up to the fifteenth century, Hebrew philosophical and scientific texts produced in the Spanish and Provençal Jewish cultures were continuously transmitted to the Byzantine zone. These texts comprised original treatises as well as translations, mostly from the Arabic into Hebrew. Once transmitted into the Byzantine Jewish sphere, they were disseminated and copied among local readers.1 During the past three decades, considerable light has been thrown onto this process of transmission and reception.2 Here, I seek to contribute to this growing body of research. I will analyze some parts of letters authored by a fifteenth-​century Byzantine (probably Rhodian) Jewish scholar, Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh. By means of this examination, I will demonstrate and give further evidence to conclusions already reached by scholars concerning two themes. The first theme is the influence of the Spanish-​Provençal tradition on philosophical-​scientific reading and discourse in the Byzantine I wish to thank Haim Kreisel, Gad Freudenthal, and Robert Morrison for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. The research on which the paper is based was carried out as part of my work with the research group “Migrating Knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin During the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods,” at the Minerva Humanities Center at Tel-​Aviv University. I am grateful to my fellows in this group, Y. Tzvi Langermann (group leader), Leigh Chipman, and Roni Weinstein, as well as to the members of other research groups that constitute the Migrating Knowledge project at the center, headed by Rivka Feldhay. The joint meetings of these groups during the past years and especially comments at a presentation of preliminary results of the research, given in The Migration of Knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin seminar held at the center (September 2010), have been most influential in shaping my views on the migration of knowledge in general and in the Jewish world in particular.

Jewish context. From the work done so far it appears that the latter was based to a large extent on philosophical and scientific literature produced in the Spanish and Provençal cultural orbits. In addition, current scholarship shows that Byzantine intellectuals inherited, discussed, and sometimes debated many of the philosophical and scientific issues raised by their coreligionists in Spain and Provence.3 The second theme is Byzantine Jews’ appropriation of a central current in Spanish-​ Provençal Jewish thought, namely, philosophical rationalism, specifically that promoted by Maimonides and his Provençal disciples. As noted by Dov Schwartz, “most Byzantine-​Jewish thinkers . . . recognized the achievements of rationalism and venerated Maimonides.”4 Many of them wholeheartedly and unreservedly accepted Maimonides’s rationalistic approach. Nevertheless, in Jewish Byzantium “the ‘average’ rationalist held moderate views and shunned the philosophical and antinomian radicalism found in much of the writing of Spanish and Provençal scholars of the time.”5 As I will show, the portions of Rakh’s letters at the center of this chapter are devoted to an investigation of a famous radical biblical interpretation introduced in the thirteenth century in circles of Maimonides’s Provençal students. According to this interpretation, a testimony given by the prophet Ezekiel about hearing celestial sounds is false, because Aristotle rejected the possibility that sounds are produced in the heavens.6 Both Rakh’s acquaintance with this interpretation as well as his analysis of it relied solely on texts produced in the Jewish philosophical and scientific traditions of Spain and Provence. In his discussion, this Byzantine scholar defended the philosophical soundness of (what he considered to be) Maimonides’s interpretation. However, preferring to endorse a conservative reading, Rakh in essence rejected this interpretation by suggesting that Ezekiel’s testimony was not false after all.

The Context: Rakh’s Correspondence with Michael Balbo

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All (or almost all; see below) the information we have about Yedidyah Rakh stems from the correspondence he had with Rabbi Michael ben Shabbetai ha-Cohen, alias Balbo (1411–after 1480),7 the well-known leader of the Jewish community in Candia.8 Balbo names his correspondent as “Yedidyah Rakh” (‫)ידידיה רך‬,9 adds to this name the geographical area “from Rhodes” (‫)מרודוס‬,10 and also provides the name of Yedidyah Rakh’s father: “Joseph Rakh.”11 The latter may very well be a person by the same name who is known to have copied, in Rhodes, sometime in the fifteenth century, a codex containing ten of Averroes’s commentaries (in their Hebrew translations).12 It should also be noted that the colophon indicates the name of the copyist’s father as “Samuel Sefardi” (‫)שמואל ספרדי‬.13 If indeed the copyist was Rakh’s father, then it may be speculated that Rakh belonged to a family that immigrated to Rhodes from the Iberian Peninsula. At any rate, it should be noted that if Yedidyah Rakh corresponded with Balbo while residing in “The Island of the Knights,” the correspondence assumes a special importance, as very few sources about the intellectual life of the Rhodian Jewish community during the fifteenth century and prior to the Turkish siege of 1480 are extant.14

According to Rakh’s testimony, one day he was studying in a place he calls the “place of the wisdom” (‫)מקום החכמה‬. Rakh does not elaborate upon the nature of this place. From the sources to which he resorts in his letters to Balbo, it is clear that this place contained a library with a philosophical-scientific bookshelf. On the day in question, Rakh was reading texts that deal with Maimonides’s interpretation of the story of the conversation between Moses and God at the Cleft of the Rock. Several objections to this interpretation occurred to him. He decided to share these objections with Balbo. Rakh had not previously communicated with Balbo. Nonetheless, having heard of the latter’s stature as a “man of true beliefs and true opinions,” Rakh outlined his objections in a letter and sent it to Balbo, asking for his views on the matter.15 This letter sparked a rather long correspondence, which included at least two more letters from Rakh and three replies from Balbo.16 In the framework of this correspondence, Rakh presented to Balbo his views on a host of philosophical and exegetical issues, most of which relate to the phenomenon of prophecy.17 Rakh’s deliberations on those issues are made primarily in the context of discussions about Maimonides’s interpretation of the Cleft of the Rock story and about another interpretation Maimonides appears to have advanced. According to the latter interpretation, verses in Ezekiel in which the prophet testifies to having heard celestial sounds demonstrate his false belief that sounds are produced in the heavens (discussed in more detail below). It was Balbo who, in his first letter to Rakh, pointed to this interpretation, while raising several objections to it. Closing the letter, he asked for Rakh’s advice as to the correct path he should pursue in order to resolve these objections.18 Rakh acceded to Balbo’s request and analyzed the interpretation in detail. He presented his conclusions in his second letter, and in part again in his third.

Maimonides’s Interpretation At the heart of the investigation that Rakh carried out following Balbo’s request lies an interpretation that Rakh (and Balbo) ascribed to Maimonides. Apparently, Rakh’s knowledge of this interpretation and of its ascription to Maimonides was based mainly on two sources. The first source is the eighth chapter of the second part of Moses Maimonides’s The Guide of the Perplexed. This chapter was known to Rakh through a Hebrew translation of the Guide, which was completed in Arles in 1204 (revised 1210) by the Jewish Provençal philosopher and translator Samuel Ibn Tibbon (d. ca. 1232).19 Reading the chapter, Rakh discovered that Maimonides there discusses an “opinion” (‫)דעת‬ according to which sounds are produced in the heavens.20 Maimonides presents two different versions of this opinion and indicates its sources and supporters. According to him, the latter include the Sages of Israel, who “describe the might of the sound produced by the sun when it every day proceeds on its way in the orb.”21 Maimonides also notes that those who adhere to the opinion provided a “proof for this belief.” “Their proof [‫ ]ראיתם‬. . . consisted in their saying that when the small bodies that

31 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

are with us move with a rapid motion, a great clatter and disturbing boom are heard to proceed from them. In consequence this should be all the more the case with respect to the bodies of the sun, the moon and the stars, having regard to their size and velocity.” In addition, Maimonides refers in Guide 2.8 to the question of the opinion’s validity. He reports that Aristotle, in his On the Heavens, denied that opinion. In addition, he informs his readers (or, to be more precise, opens the door to an understanding of his remarks as arguing) that the opinion should be rejected, since it is based on a “belief ” (‫ )האמנה‬that the celestial orbs are fixed and the stars revolve in their orbs. This belief is false, because it was demonstratively proven (by Aristotle) that the orbs revolve and the stars are fixed in their orbs. Therefore, the opinion that the heavens produce sounds is also false. Rakh’s second primary source of knowledge of this interpretation was a commentary on the Guide authored by the fourteenth-​century Provençal Jewish philosopher Moses Narboni (d. after 1362).22 Specifically, Rakh relied on passages found toward the end of Narboni’s commentary on Guide 3.7. Narboni there presents the following interpretation of Guide 2.8: The divine sage the Master [‫ ]המורה‬wrote [in] chapter eight of the second part that “one of the ancient opinions that are widespread among the philosophers and the general run of people is that the motions of the orbs produce very fearful and mighty sounds,” and that “this opinion also is generally known in our religious community,” and that “this opinion is consequent upon the belief in a fixed orb and in stars that return.” And all that the Master, may his memory be blessed, wrote in those chapters is intended for the interpretation of The Account of the Chariot. And the Master implied in this that the Sages of Israel [including the most] ancient believed this opinion, and that what Ezekiel said in his account about the sound is indeed consequent upon this opinion, as when he said: “And the sound of the cherubim’s wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh” [Ezekiel 10:5].23

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According to Narboni, Maimonides’s concern in Guide 2.8 does not lie in scientific issues. Rather, Maimonides meant this chapter to be an interpretation of verses in the Account of the Chariot, where Ezekiel reports that he heard sounds. Narboni argues that Maimonides was of the opinion that Ezekiel’s testimonies were but declarations of his belief in the opinion rejected by Aristotle in his On the Heavens. Ezekiel, like the Sages of Israel, held this mistaken opinion because he falsely believed that the orbs are fixed and the stars revolve in their orbs. Rakh accepted Narboni’s ascription of this interpretation to Maimonides (accordingly, I will henceforth refer to it as “Maimonides’s interpretation”). It served Rakh as the necessary background for understanding and investigating Balbo’s objections.

Balbo’s Objections In his first letter to Rakh, Balbo presented three objections to “the sayings of Maimonides of blessed memory in what he wrote in chapter eight of the second part of the book The Guide of the Perplexed, . . . that the prophets and those who spoke through the Holy Spirit said [things] whose contrary was demonstratively proven.”24 All these objections aim to show that Maimonides’s interpretation should be rejected, since it contradicts his theory of prophecy. Objection M1  According to Maimonides’s interpretation, the false knowledge on which Ezekiel testified could have two possible origins. The first is “received knowledge and hypothesis” (‫)המקבל והנחת דעת‬. Assuming that the latter was the source for Ezekiel’s belief, then Maimonides’s interpretation argues in effect that prophecy, unlike intellectual investigation, follows received and hypothesized knowledge, even when the latter is false. The result of this is that prophecy is inferior to intellectual investigation. This is impossible. Moreover, it contradicts “the sayings of Maimonides” himself.25 Objection M2  Let us assume instead that the false knowledge about which Ezekiel testified originated solely in his revelation. This is also impossible, because the “substantial differentia” (‫ )הבדל עצמי‬of a prophet consists in his attainment of true and perfect intelligibles. In addition, future events foretold by a prophet originate in true intelligibles, and his revealing of such events is dependent on his attainment of true intelligibles, either from God or accidentally. But “if the root from which he [the prophet] derives his predictions of the future is invented (‫ )דבר בדוי‬and has no reality” (namely, if false knowledge was intimated to the prophet from prophecy), “then how can that which follows thereupon, namely information regarding future events, be true?”26 Objection M3  Balbo formulates this objection in his first letter as follows: “I would like to know the difference between Ezekiel, peace be on him, and the people of the third group, discussed by Maimonides in Guide 2:38.”27 The “third group” to which Balbo refers is described in Guide 2.37–38 as consisting of diviners and rulers, who are non-​prophets and non-philosophers, have a weak rational faculty, and receive an overflow of the divine emanation only to their imaginative faculty.28 In his second letter Balbo specifies the nature of the similarity between Ezekiel, as portrayed in Maimonides’s interpretation, and the people of the third group, as discussed in the Guide. He argues that Ezekiel, just like those who belong to the third group, erroneously considered knowledge to originate from “outside” when in fact it did not. Furthermore, in this regard Ezekiel is inferior to the people of the third group, because in contrast to the latter, he had a perfect rational intellect.29 To his attack on Maimonides’s interpretation Balbo appended another attack, directed against a thesis which presumably solves one of his objections. He focuses

33 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

on a version of this thesis advanced by Narboni in his commentary on the Guide 3.7 (henceforth called “Narboni’s thesis”).30 Narboni, following his presentation of Maimonides’s interpretation, turns his attention to a problem stemming from this interpretation: in his revelation, Ezekiel presumably reported knowledge that he gained by means of his vision. Now such knowledge must be true. How can the false knowledge that he reported be accounted for? Narboni proposes the following thesis: Know that the prophet is Truth, and his teachings are Truth, and what he receives is true, and not mixed with falsehood at all. . . . The prophet does not perceive [in his visions] anything but Truth. However, revelation does not shed light on that about which the prophet does not enquire. For that which the prophet seeks and about which he received prophecy is true. . . . However, if the prophet’s belief concerning a thing is at variance with what [the thing] really is, and his mind rests content regarding it, [and] he does not think about it and does not enquire about it, . . . [then in this case] we are not obliged to say that . . . [revelation] solved that about which he had no doubts, and let him know that about which he did not enquire. To my mind, if Ezekiel was in doubt whether the orb is fixed and the star revolves or [whether] the opposite [is true], then he would have been informed [lit. would have seen] in his prophetic visions that the orb revolves and the star is fixed. But since he believed that the orb is fixed and the star revolves and did not enquire about it he heard the sounds of the wings of the cherubim.31

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According to Narboni’s thesis, it is only when a prophet has doubts in respect to a certain issue, or does not have any opinion whatsoever regarding it, that true knowledge concerning that issue is communicated to him through prophecy. This was not the case with Ezekiel’s belief that the orbs are fixed and the stars revolve. Ezekiel had this belief prior to his revelation. More importantly, he did not doubt this belief. Therefore, revelation did not transmit to Ezekiel any knowledge, be it true or false, concerning this belief. Consequently, Ezekiel believed in the production of celestial sounds and testified about hearing such sounds. It appears that Balbo took Narboni’s thesis as a basis for settling his second objection, most probably because this objection is based upon the premise that the knowledge of the sounds was communicated to Ezekiel in his visions. In rejecting this premise, Narboni’s thesis presumably solves objection M2. Balbo, however, was of the opinion that Narboni’s thesis was unacceptable and therefore could not be used in solving his objections. To support this stance, he advanced two objections to the thesis. Objection N1 Narboni maintains that prophecy does not communicate to a prophet knowledge about which he did not enquire. Therefore, revelation in fact follows received knowledge and hypothesis. This, as already explained

(see objection M1), has the impossible result that prophecy is inferior to intellectual investigation.32 Objection N2 Several considerations contradict Narboni’s claim that prophecy did not emanate to Ezekiel his false knowledge. In his first letter Balbo introduces two such considerations: A. It cannot be adequately explained why Ezekiel would testify during revelation about hearing sounds, given that he attained his knowledge about the sounds from received knowledge and hypothesis. Indeed, one could argue that the hearing of which Ezekiel testified should be interpreted according to the third sense ascribed to the word “hear” in Guide 1:45, namely, as “the apprehension of science.”33 But such interpretation is very doubtful.34 B. According to the thesis, Ezekiel’s false belief that sounds are produced in the heavens was not corrected in revelation since he had no doubts in this belief. But why shouldn’t we assume instead that Ezekiel in fact had doubts concerning that about which he enquired, and that revelation showed Ezekiel the truth of the matter, by making him hear sounds?35 In his second letter, Balbo repeats the first consideration and presents a third one: C. The prophet Isaiah also testified about hearing celestial sounds: “And I heard the voice of the Lord saying: ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us?’ ” (Is. 6:8). Why then should his “I heard” be considered as reflecting knowledge transmitted in revelation, whereas Ezekiel’s “I heard” should be interpreted as referring to knowledge whose source was different from revelation?36 These objections, Balbo submits, made him “very much perplexed intellectually” (‫)נבוך הרעיונים מאד‬. In his view, they are “great and unavoidable in any way.”37 In his second letter he expresses his “amazement” (‫ )תמיהה‬that Maimonides chose to promote such a problematic interpretation, instead of one which “saves” Ezekiel from erring.38

Rakh’s Defense of Maimonides’s Interpretation We may now turn to examine the fruits of Rakh’s investigation of Maimonides’s interpretation and of Balbo’s objections. As already indicated, these are presented in his second and third letters. At the end of his third letter, Rakh answers, somewhat vaguely, Balbo’s surprise at Maimonides’s choice to advance his problematic interpretation. According to Rakh, Maimonides, aside from the positive considerations

35 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

which led him to advance this interpretation, also wished to avoid difficulties which an interpretation of Ezekiel’s testimony not according to its literal meaning would have raised.39 In respect to Balbo’s objections, Rakh states in his second letter that he found them “wonderful” (‫ )נפלא‬and difficult to solve.40 Rakh strived to show, however, that all three objections can be settled and that Maimonides’s interpretation is therefore philosophically sound. Rakh employed one set of arguments in his solutions to objections M1 and M2, and a different set in his solution to objection M3.

Solutions to Objections M1 and M2

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Despite Balbo’s objections to Narboni’s thesis, Rakh chose to put the latter at the core of his solutions to objections M1 and M2. Objection M1,41 he points out, is based on the premise that in the case of Ezekiel’s testimony on hearing sounds, revelation followed a false knowledge that originated in received knowledge and hypothesis. Yet since Ezekiel possessed this knowledge prior to his revelation, one cannot conclude from his testimony about it that prophecy is inferior to intellectual investigation. As for objection M2, the premise on which it is based, namely, that Ezekiel’s false knowledge originated in revelation, is groundless too, because that knowledge in fact was not communicated to Ezekiel during his visions.42 Rakh did not rest content with that, but rather took care to answer Balbo’s attack on Narboni’s thesis attentively. First, he justified his reliance on the thesis, arguing that it conforms to a view that Maimonides outlines in Guide 2.38. Rakh points to a passage found toward the end of that chapter, where Maimonides explains that what the people of the third group apprehend are, “perhaps,” “merely opinions that they once had and of which traces have remained impressed upon their imaginings together with everything else that subsists in their imaginative faculty. Accordingly, when they void and annul many of their imaginings, the traces of these opinions remain alone and become apparent to them, whereupon they think that these are things that have unexpectedly occurred to them and have come from outside.” To clarify this argument Maimonides presents the following parable: “To my mind they may be compared to a man who had with him in his house thousands of individual animals. Then all of them except one individual, which was one of those that were there, went out of that house. When the man remained alone with that individual, he thought that it had just now entered the house and joined him, whereas that was not the case, that individual being the one among that multitude that did not go out.”43 According to Rakh, the lesson of this parable also holds true for a prophet who is confident regarding a certain false belief he has (and is therefore not informed in revelation about this opinion being false), and thinks that he received it “from outside.”44 Rakh also answered Balbo’s objections to Narboni’s thesis. His reply to objection N1 is essentially the same as that he gave to objection M1: Ezekiel did not receive the false knowledge during his revelation, and therefore prophecy does not follow received knowledge and hypothesis, nor is it inferior to intellectual investigation.45

In order to reject considerations A and B adumbrated in objection N2, Rakh developed an account which to his mind satisfactorily explains why Ezekiel’s testimony about the sounds, despite being made during his prophesizing, was not transmitted to him in his visions. Rakh grounds this explanation in two premises. The first premise concerns the imagination’s role in prophecy. Rakh drew this premise from the following passages, which he found in Guide 2.36:46 You know, too, the actions of the imaginative faculty that are in its nature, such as retaining things perceived by the senses, combining these things, and imitating them. And you know that its greatest and noblest action takes place only when the senses rest and do not perform their actions. It is then that a certain overflow overflows to this faculty according to its disposition, and it is the cause of the veridical dreams. This same overflow is the cause of the prophecy. . . . [T]he imaginative faculty achieves so great a perfection of action that it sees the thing as it were outside, and that the thing whose origin is due to it appears to have come to it by the way of external sensation. . . . It is known that a matter that occupies a man greatly . . . while he is awake and while his senses function, is the one with regard to which the imaginative faculty acts while he is asleep when receiving an overflow of the intellect corresponding to its disposition.47 In Rakh’s reading of these statements, Maimonides argues that the imagination of a prophet can, during revelation, conceive (‫ )לצייר‬knowledge that he had attained prior to his revelation, much the same way as it can conceive such knowledge during a dream.48 According to the second premise, nonexisting accidents can be perceived in the imagination, but not in the intellect. Rakh extracted this premise from several passages which appeared originally in Ruaḥ Ḥen, an anonymous Hebrew introduction to science, composed in the Tibbonid Jewish milieu of the first half of the thirteenth century. According to Ruaḥ Ḥen, between the apprehension of the imagination and the apprehension of the intellect there is a great difference. Inter alia, the intellect apprehends only ideas which are real in their existence. By contrast, the imagination sometimes errs and conceives things which do not exist at all, or it conceives the apprehension of things that do exist in a manner that is contrary to their true characteristics. Another difference consists in that the intellect does not conceive accidents at all, but rather constructs proofs required to demonstrate the truth of those ideas. Subsequently, the imagination conceives and stores them.49 Building on these two premises, Rakh puts forward the following explanation for Ezekiel’s “I heard.” When Ezekiel began prophesizing, he already believed that “the motion of the orbs produces very fearful and mighty sounds,”50 and this belief was conceived and stored in his imagination. More precisely: prior to revelation, the sounds of the orbs, which are accidents of the latter, were conceived in his imaginative faculty. As perceptions which are conceived in imagination, they can be, and

37 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

were, false. Nevertheless, Ezekiel was convinced of his belief in the sounds. During revelation he received, by means of the divine overflow, first to his “rational faculty” (‫ )הכח הדברי‬and then to his imagination, both information about future events and true knowledge concerning the supra-lunar world. Simultaneously, his imaginative faculty became stronger (‫)התחזק‬, imagined, and conceived the knowledge stored in it regarding celestial sounds. Ezekiel then imagined that he heard celestial sounds as if he had received them by his external senses, “from outside.” In addition to reporting the new knowledge concerning the orbs which was communicated to him, he therefore also reported his pre-revelation, false knowledge on celestial sounds.51 In Rakh’s view, this accounts for Ezekiel’s testimony about the knowledge he attained from received knowledge and hypothesis, and he dismisses Balbo’s suggestion, in consideration B of objection N2, that Ezekiel’s “I heard” was a result of his doubts in the belief about which he enquired. Finally, Rakh addressed consideration C outlined in objection N2. For the purpose of rejecting it, he accounts for the difference between Ezekiel’s “I heard” and that of Isaiah. According to Rakh, Isaiah must have attained his knowledge of the sounds during his revelation, because he explicitly stated that the voice he heard was “the voice of the Lord.” By contrast, Ezekiel did not provide any information about the origin of the sounds that he allegedly heard. Therefore, “it is not proper” (‫אין‬ ‫ )ראוי‬to assume that the knowledge of the sounds is a “communication” that Ezekiel received in his vision.52

Solution to Objection M3

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As indicated above, Balbo does not explain in his first letter what he means in arguing that Maimonides’s interpretation implies that Ezekiel is not different from the people of the third group. Reading that letter, Rakh, it would seem, understood objection M3 in light of a description of those belonging to the group, which he found in Guide 2.37: “they bring great confusion into speculative matters of great import, true notions being strangely mixed up in their minds with imaginary ones.”53 Balbo, Rakh most likely assumed, claimed that according to Maimonides’s interpretation, in Ezekiel’s perception—​as in the case of the perception of the people of the third group—​false knowledge is intermingled with true knowledge. Relying on a notion and terminology borrowed from Averroes’ Middle Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge, in its Hebrew translation made by the Provençal Jewish scholar Jacob Anatoli (completed in Naples in 1232), Rakh replies that there is a “specific differentia in the most proper sense” (‫ )הבדל מיחד מן המיחד‬between Ezekiel and the people of the third group. This difference “produces a new species” (‫)המין מחדש‬, namely, it effectively makes Ezekiel of a different species than that of the people of the third group.54 Rakh found corroboration of this argument in Maimonides’s statements concerning the differences between prophets and people of the third group, presented in the Guide, as well as in Maimonides’s The Book of Knowledge and in his Introduction to the Commentary on the Mishnah (Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s translation, completed ca. 1202).55

Rakh summarizes these statements and also points to the following difference, which is not explicitly indicated by Maimonides: as a rule, the intellectual knowledge of a prophet is true. In the event that he has false knowledge, this knowledge constitutes only a small fraction of his entire knowledge. On the other hand, most of the knowledge of the people of the third group is false.56

Rakh’s Objection to Maimonides’s Interpretation In his second letter, while discussing Balbo’s objections to Maimonides’s interpretation, Rakh refers to one of the premises of that interpretation. According to this premise, the “opinion” discussed in Guide 2.8, namely, that sounds are produced by the motions of heavenly bodies, was demonstratively proven as false on the basis of its reliance on a false belief in fixed orbs and revolving stars. Turning to his correspondent, Rakh remarks in passing, “truth is on your side [‫ ]והאמת אתך‬if this opinion [about celestial sounds] indeed follows the opinion about fixed orb and revolving stars.”57 The meaning of this statement remains unclear throughout most of Rakh’s discussion. However, the last few paragraphs of the letter reveal that it was a preview to a presentation of an objection to Maimonides’s interpretation, different from those suggested by Balbo. Opening that section of his letter, Rakh writes as follows: I do not understand how the subject of the sounds of the orbs follows from that of fixed orbs and revolving stars. For one might argue that even on the [assumption that] the star is fixed and the orb revolves [it follows that] sounds [are produced], namely on account of the might of the orb and its velocity. [But] even then [i.e., if this is true] it is not the case that the contrary of [Ezekiel’s prophecy] was demonstratively proven. I do not understand what necessity compelled Maimonides to assert that this view [i.e., that sounds are produced] is consequent upon [the opinion] that the orb is fixed [and the planets revolve]. And indeed many and great [scholars] have explained how the sounds of the orbs are consequent upon [the hypothesis of] a revolving orb. [This way] the visions of Ezekiel are reinstated [i.e., shown not to be at variance with science].58 Rakh’s objection is directed against Maimonides’s premise that Ezekiel’s statement “I heard” is false. According to Rakh, “many and great” scholars have shown that sounds are produced in heavens, as a result of rotations of orbs. Therefore, the fact that the belief in revolving stars and fixed orbs is false is not in itself sufficient for attributing error to Ezekiel. The rest of Rakh’s presentation of his objection is primarily aimed to argue, against Aristotle and Maimonides, that the production of celestial sounds is possible according to science.59 Rakh presents what he considers to be, as he puts it, “evidence” (‫ )ראיה‬for this argument. Rakh established this evidence on his readings in a discussion of the hearing faculty of the sensitive soul, which he found in Moses

39 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

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Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation of Averroes’s Compendium of Aristotle’s De Anima (Provence, 1244). Averroes there argues that sound is produced when a hard body strikes another hard body and causes the intermediary air to forcibly escape. 60 Specifically, he claims that the motion of hollow bodies causes air to escape and the production of sounds. Furthermore, according to the Commentator, the volume of the sound is proportional to the width of the striker (‫ )מוקש‬body. On the basis of these arguments, Rakh puts forward the following “evidence”: the heavenly orbs, as hollow bodies, can be involved in the production of sounds. In fact, in the heavens there are (at least) two hard orbs, one of which revolves around the other in fast motion that creates friction, and, consequently, causes air to escape and the production of sounds. Following Averroes and Guide 2.8, Rakh also argued that being produced by large bodies, these celestial sounds must be “great.”61 I have examined this evidence in detail elsewhere.62 Here, I wish to summarize briefly two of my conclusions, which are significant for the present discussion. First, Rakh does not provide adequate scientific evidence for most of the conditions for the alleged production of celestial sounds, and primarily for the friction between celestial orbs and the existence of empty space between orbs (implied by the inflation of air in the celestial realm)—both rejected in contemporary Aristotelian science.63 Indeed, in his discussion he tries to validate his arguments that fast rotation of orbs produces sound and that friction exists between celestial orbs, and there too he does not rely on scientific arguments. To support the first argument, Rakh refers to the a fortiori evidence, based on analogy, given in Guide 2.8 as proof for production of sounds by the rotation of stars. The second argument Rakh “proves” on the basis of religious authority: since the Sages of Israel argued that friction is possible between rotating stars, then there can also be friction between rotating orbs. Moreover, in an attempt to further justify his claim that friction between celestial orbs is possible, Rakh misinterprets the fourteenth-​century Provençal Jewish philosopher, scientist, and biblical commentator Rabbi Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides, 1288–1344). According to Rakh, Gersonides assumed that such friction is indeed possible. This, he affirms, is why Gersonides argued in his Wars of the Lord in favor of the existence of the quasi-​body, different from the ordinary bodies in the supraand sublunar worlds, which prevents contact between orbs. Gersonides, however, clearly rejected the possibility of friction between orbs.64 The second conclusion concerns the question of the sources of Rakh’s evidence. As we saw, in endorsing the thesis that the motions of celestial orbs produce sounds, Rakh relied on “many and great” scholars. I cannot determine with certainty who these scholars are. Still, it may very well be that Rakh refers to texts authored by earlier Jewish scholars who employed similar arguments in their attempt to show that Ezekiel’s testimony was true; some of these texts were produced in or influenced by the Spanish-Provençal culture. From these sources, Rakh could have also borrowed some parts of his evidence, as well as the implicit view upon which it is based, namely, that scientific principles and arguments which hold in the sublunar world apply also in the supra-​lunar world.65

Summary and Conclusions The preceding discussion presented a case study in Byzantine Jewish readers’ reception of the Spanish-​Provençal philosophical-​scientific culture. The reader under discussion was a fifteenth-​century Byzantine, and very probably Rhodian, Jew. As I noted, Yedidyah Rakh may have been a descendant of a family that immigrated to the island from Spain. If this was the case, then it can be speculated that Rakh’s identity as a scholar was hybrid: on the one hand, it was established on the intellectual and cultural baggage imported by his family from Spain. On the other, it was molded by ideas and theories with which Rakh became acquainted as a learned man active (and perhaps growing up) in the Byzantine Jewish culture. With this hybrid identity, Rakh approached and analyzed in detail a philosophical problem that emerged and advanced in the circles of Maimonides’s Provençal students. All (or almost all) of the philosophical and scientific sources used by Rakh in his discussion of Ezekiel’s “I heard” were produced in Spain or Provence. These included Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s translations of Maimonides’s Guide and Introduction to the Commentary on the Mishnah, Narboni’s commentary on the Guide, Jacob Anatoli’s translation of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge, Moses Ibn Tibbon’s translation of Averroes’s Compendium of Aristotle’s De Anima, Gersonides’s Wars of the Lord, and Ruaḥ Ḥen (or Gershom ben Solomon’s The Gate of Heaven). It is possible that he also had access to Ibn Kaspi’s commentary on the Guide and to Moses Ibn Tibbon’s translation of Averroes’s Compendium of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia. Copies of at least some of these were found in the place where he studied. If this “place of the wisdom” was attended by other readers in his intellectual milieu, then it is possible that the latter, too, had access to these texts. As we saw, some of Rakh’s discussions attest to a limited understanding of his sources. This impression concerns primarily those parts of his letters where he rejects Maimonides’s interpretation, and especially his comprehension—​or, better, incomprehension—​of fundamental principles of Aristotelian science. His misunderstanding of Gersonides’s position regarding the possibility of friction between orbs is also illuminating in this respect. One may argue that we have here a demonstration of Dov Schwartz’s general observation regarding Byzantine Jewish thought, namely, that it “was frequently detached, lacking in philosophical precision and real scientific depth.”66 In his discussions of Ezekiel’s “I heard,” Rakh shows himself to be an adherent of a moderate approach to rationalistic biblical interpretation. As we saw, Rakh endorsed a twofold approach to Maimonides’s interpretation. On the one hand, he presented in his letters arguments that, to his mind, resolve all of Balbo’s objections. In essence, Rakh defended Maimonides’s philosophical coherence in advancing his interpretation, at least in respect to Maimonides’s statements regarding prophecy. On the other hand, Rakh was not willing to accept the interpretation. In utilizing and complementing Narboni’s thesis, Rakh partially took the radical sting out of the interpretation, claiming that the source for Ezekiel’s false belief in the sounds was not divine

41 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

emanation. This modified thesis he considered to be still too radical, because it permitted the possibility that the words of a prophet given during revelation might be false. Rakh therefore advanced an argument to the effect that Ezekiel was not wrong after all, because scientifically, sounds can be produced in the heavens. Although it cannot be ruled out, it is difficult to assume that Rakh was not aware of the weakness of his scientific “evidence” for the production of celestial sounds. The fact that he nevertheless chose to use it attests—​somewhat paradoxically—​to his conservative views regarding the question of which authority should prevail in the case of a contradiction between Torah and science. Further appreciation of Rakh’s reception of Maimonidean rationalism and of Spanish-​Provençal philosophical and scientific thought in general will benefit from an examination of other parts of his correspondence with Balbo, especially those where he deals with Maimonides’s interpretation of the story of the Cleft of the Rock. This must be left for a future study.67 Notes

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1. On Byzantium as a center for Jewish transmission of knowledge, see the illuminating article by Micha Perry, “Byzantium’s Role in the Transmission of Jewish Knowledge in the Middle Ages: The Attitude Toward Circumcision,” in Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures, ed. Robert Bonfil, Oded Irshai, Guy G. Stroumsa, and Rina Talgam (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 643–57. 2. A complete bibliography of these studies cannot be given here. Many are referred to in Dov Schwartz, “Conceptions of Astral Magic Within Jewish Rationalism in the Byzantine Empire,” Aleph 3 (2003): 165–211; Eric Lawee, “Maimonides in the Eastern Mediterranean: The Case of Rashi’s Resisting Readers,” in Maimonides After 800 Years: Essays on Maimonides and His Influence, ed. Jay M. Harris (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 2007), 183–206; Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Science in the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Cultural Orbit,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. Gad Freudenthal (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 438–53; and Ofer Elior, “Rabbi Shalom Anabi’s Pri ha-​Gan,” Kovetz al-​Yad 21 (2012): 206–8 [Hebrew]. See also Dov Schwartz, “Understanding in Context: R. Mordekhai Comtiano’s Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed,” Peʾamim 133–34 (2013): 127–83 [Hebrew]. On the influence of Spanish and Provençal thought on Byzantine Karaite thought, see Daniel J. Lasker, “Byzantine Karaite Thought,” in Karaite Judaism: A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources, ed. Meira Polliack (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 505–28; idem, From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Medieval Karaite Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 3. See the studies mentioned in the previous note. 4. See Schwartz, “Conceptions,” 172 and 178. 5. See ibid., 184. Schwartz also notes, “none of the material I have examined reveals the existence of . . . a continuous radical tradition.” Cf. ibid., 172–74, 180, 182. Schwartz’s conclusions were reaffirmed by Eric Lawee. Comparing the attitudes of Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin to those of Maimonides and Rashi, Lawee noted that “in the east,” as in Spain, “there were Maimonidean admirers . . . who . . . accepted philosophy but rejected its more radical incarnations.” See Lawee, “Maimonides in the Eastern Mediterranean,” 204. 6. For discussions of the interpretation and its reception, see Charles Touati, “Le problème de l’inerrance prophétique dans la théologie juive du moyen âge,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 174 (1968): 169–87; Shalom Rosenberg, “On Biblical Interpretation in the Guide of the Perplexed,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 (1981): 143–51 [Hebrew]; Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Hebrew Astronomy: Deep Soundings from a Rich Tradition,” in Astronomy Across Cultures: The History of Non-​Western Astronomy, ed. Helaine Selin and Sun Xiaochun (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000), 555–84, esp. 558–66; Dov Schwartz, “Maimonides’ Philosophical Methodology: A Reappraisal,” in Maimonides: Conservatism, Originality, Revolution, ed. Aviezer Ravitzky, vol. 2 ( Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2008), 413–36 [Hebrew];

idem, Music in Jewish Thought (Ramat Gan: Bar-​Ilan University Press, 2013), 61–62, 172–77 [Hebrew]; Howard T. Kreisel, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001), 163–64, 290–91; idem, “From Esotericism to Science: The Account of the Chariot in Maimonidean Philosophy till the End of the Thirteenth Century,” in The Cultures of Maimonideanism, ed. James T. Robinson (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 21–56, esp. 48–49; Ofer Elior, “ ‘The Conclusion Whose Demonstration Is Correct Is Believed’: Maimonides on the Possibility of Celestial Sounds, According to Three Medieval Commentators,” Revue des études juives 172, nos. 3–4 (2013): 283–303; idem, “Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen Investigates the Sounds of the Spheres,” Jewish Studies 49 (2013): 131–55 [Hebrew]; idem, “Ezekiel Is Preferable to Aristotle: Torah and Science in Four Medieval Interpretations of Ezekiel’s ‘I Heard,’ ” Peʾamim 139–40 (2015): 55–80 [Hebrew]. 7. On Balbo, his family, and his writings, see A. Ch. Freiman, “Palestine Emissaries and Pilgrims: 15th Century Documents from Candia,” Zion 1, no. 2 (1936): 185–207 [Hebrew]; Zvi Malachi, “The Balbo Family—​Scholars of Hebrew Literature in Candia (15th Century),” Michael 7 (1981): 255–70 [Hebrew], repr. in idem, Pleasant Words: Chapters from the History of Hebrew Literature (Lod: The Habermann Institute for Literary Research, 1983), 249–66; Ephraim Kupfer, “Concerning the Cultural Image of German Jewry and Its Rabbis in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” Tarbiz 42 (1973): 113–47, 126 [Hebrew]. Balbo is notorious for his role in the controversy that raged in Candia during the 1460s regarding the doctrine of metempsychosis. See Efraim Gottlieb, “The Transmigration Debate in 15th Century Candia,” Tzfunot 11 (1969): 45–66 [Hebrew], repr. in idem, Studies in the Literature of Kabbala, ed. Joseph Hacker (Tel Aviv: The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1976), 370–96; Aviezer Ravitzky, “The God of the Philosophers and the God of the Kabbalists: A Controversy in Fifteenth Century Crete,” in History and Faith: Studies in Jewish Philosophy (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1996), 115–53; Brian Ogren, Renaissance and Rebirth: Reincarnation in Early Modern Italian Kabbalah (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 41–101. 8. A copy of the correspondence, probably written by Balbo, is extant in a single manuscript. See ms Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica, ebr. 105, 116b–143b (henceforth referred to as “Correspondence”). An edition of the entire correspondence is forthcoming in a paper by Dov Schwartz (to be published in Alei Sefer 24). In it Schwartz explores Balbo’s and Rakh’s views regarding various philosophical issues as well as their general attitudes toward philosophical rationalism, as presented in parts of the correspondence not examined here. I wish to thank Professor Schwartz, who generously shared his work with me. 9. See Correspondence, 116b (in the heading to Rakh’s first letter), 129a, 130a, 143a. In scholarly literature the name is sometimes transliterated as “Rak” or “Rach.” 10. See ibid., 116b. 11. See ibid., 129a (the heading to Balbo’s third letter), 130a, 143a (the heading to Anabi’s letter to Balbo; see below, note 18). 12. See ms St. Petersburg, IOS B 390 (= IMHM F 53600), 361b. 13. See ibid. 14. As far as I can see, these sources include, besides Rakh’s letters and the manuscript copied by Joseph Rakh, a poem authored by Balbo, which he sent “to the Sage k‫״‬r Ezra of Rhodes on his journey to Venice” (‫)לחכם כ״ר עזרא מרודוס כשהלך בונזיא‬. See 165a in the manuscript of the Correspondence. In addition, a few manuscripts copied in Rhodes are extant. See Michael Rigler, “The Jews of the Eastern Mediterranean as Suppliers of Books: Colophons Found in Thirteenth–Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Manuscripts,” Alei Sefer 21 (2010): 75–90, 82–83 [Hebrew]. For the history of Rhodian Jewry, see Joshua Starr, Romania: The Jewries of the Levant After the Fourth Crusade (Paris: Éditions du Centre, 1949), 85–91; Marc D. Angel, The Jews of Rhodes: The History of a Sephardic Community (New York: Sepher-​ Hermon Press and the Union of Sephardic Congregations, 1980); Isaac J. Levy, Jewish Rhodes: A Lost Culture (Berkeley, Calif.: Judah L. Magnes Museum, 1989); Esther F. Menascé, Gli ebrei a Rodi: Storia di un’antica comunità annientata dai nazisti (Milano: Guerini, 1996). 15. See Correspondence, 116b. 16. See ibid. (Rakh’s first letter), 116b–118a (Balbo’s first letter), 118a–123a (Rakh’s second letter), 123a–129a (Balbo’s second letter), 129a–143a (Balbo’s third letter). In his third letter, Balbo cites parts of Rakh’s third letter. We have no evidence to suggest that Rakh received Balbo’s third letter. 17. Inter alia, Rakh referred to the questions of the substantial differentia of a prophet, the differences between a prophet and a sage and between knowledge attained in revelation and knowledge

43 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

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attained by rational investigation, Mosaic prophecy, and the possibility of errors in prophecy. In addition, Rakh debated with Balbo concerning certain linguistic-​exegetical issues, some of which have philosophical import. See Correspondence, 128a, and 140b–141a. 18. See ibid., 117b–118a. Balbo transmitted the same request to another of his contemporaries, Rabbi Shalom Anabi of Constantinople. The latter’s response was copied in the same manuscript which documents the correspondence between Balbo and Rakh. See in the leaves following Balbo’s third letter, 143a–146b. On Anabi, see Elior, “Rabbi Shalom Anabi.” 19. On Samuel Ibn Tibbon, see The Online Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. “Samuel Ibn Tibbon” (by James T. Robinson), http://​plato​.stanford​.edu​/entries​/tibbon​/ (accessed 30 January 2015). On Ibn Tibbon’s translation of the Guide, see Carlos F. Fraenkel, From Maimonides to Samuel ibn Tibbon: The Transformation of the Dalālat al-Ḥāʾirīn into the Moreh ha-​Nevukhim ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007) [Hebrew]. 20. For more detailed discussions of Guide 2.8, see Langermann, “Hebrew Astronomy,” 557–63; Elior, “The Conclusion”; idem, “Rabbi Yom Tov,” 136–40. 21. See Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. from the Arabic, with intro. and notes, by Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 267. All English quotations from the Guide are from Pines’s translation, occasionally modified according to Samuel Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation, as published in Moses Maimonides, Moreh ha-​Nevukhim, ed. Yehuda Ibn Shmuel ( Jerusalem: Rabbi Kook Institute, 2000), 272–73. 22. On this commentary, see Gitit Holzman, “R. Moshe Narboni’s Commentary to Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed,” Daat 73 (2013): 197–236 [Hebrew]. It may be that Rakh had in front of him further sources about the interpretation. These include Gersonides’s Commentary on Job. See note 30 below. Two other possible sources are Joseph Ibn Kaspi’s Candelabra of Silver (Menorat Kesef), a commentary on the Account of the Chariot (Provence, first half of the fourteenth century), and Hanoch ben Solomon al-​Konstantini’s Visions of God (Marʾot Elohim) (Spain?, end of the fourteenth century). See Joseph Kaspi, Amudey Kesef u-​Maskiyot Kesef, ed. Salomon E. Werbluner (Frankfurt a. M.: J. F. Bach, 1848), 93–95; Colette Sirat, “The Marʾot Elohim of Hanokh b. Solomon al-​Constantini,” Eshel Beer-​Sheva 1 (1976): 187–89 [Hebrew]. Passages from the two latter works, which do not directly refer to Maimonides’s interpretation of Ezekiel’s “I heard,” are cited by Balbo in his second letter. See Correspondence, 124b–125a, 126a–b. In his third letter, Rakh discusses these citations (see ibid., 138a–b). It is not clear, however, whether he had access to the works from which the citations are taken. 23. See Moses Narboni, Commentary on the Guide of the Perplexed, ed. Jacob Goldenthal (Vienna: K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1852), 49a. See also 28a for Narboni’s interpretation of the Guide 2.8. For discussions, see Rosenberg, “On Biblical Interpretation,” 148–49; David Ben-​Zazon, “The Commentary of Don Isaac Abravanel to the Guide of the Perplexed” (Ph.D. diss., Ben-​Gurion University of the Negev, 2009), 220–21 [Hebrew]; Tamás Visi, “On the Peripheries of Ashkenaz: Medieval Jewish Philosophers in Normandy and in the Czech Lands from the Twelfth to Fifteenth Century” (habilitation thesis, Palacky University Olomouc, 2011), 212–17; Holzman, “R. Moshe Narboni’s Commentary,” 211–13. For other verses in which Ezekiel testifies about hearing sounds, see Ezekiel 1:24–25, 3:13. 24. See Correspondence, 117b. 25. See ibid., 118a. Balbo does not cite statements by Maimonides to the effect that a prophet is superior to a sage. He may have relied on passages scattered throughout the Guide, and especially in chapter 38 of the second part. See Howard T. Kreisel, “Sage and Prophet in the Thought of Maimonides and His Followers,” Eshel Beer-​Sheva 3 (1986): 149–69 [Hebrew]; idem, Prophecy, 250–57. 26. See Correspondence, 118a. In his second letter, Balbo adds that a “branch” (‫ )סעיף‬is of the same species as its root, unless it is accidental. Balbo conceives this statement to be “a first intelligible, whose truth does not need to be demonstrated.” See ibid., 127a. 27. See ibid., 118a. 28. See Maimonides, Guide, 374, 377–78. 29. See Correspondence, 127b. 30. Balbo alludes in passing to a “similar” (‫ )כמו זה‬interpretation, given in Gersonides’s Commentary on Job. See Correspondence, 118a. Specifically, his reference is to Gersonides’s interpretation of Job 29:18–21. Gersonides there remarks, “[I]t happens . . . that prophets . . . perceive a thing falsely during a prophetic vision; . . . this comes not because of the prophecy, but because of their previous

opinions on the matter. Thus, Ezekiel perceived that the wheels of the Merkabah emit sounds in their movements, because he really believed that in regard to the Merkabah, as mentioned by Maimonides.” English translation quoted with slight changes from Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides), The Commentary of Levi ben Gersom (Gersonides) on the Book of Job, trans. from the Hebrew, with intro. and notes, by Abraham L. Lassen (New York: Bloch, 1999), 244. 31. See Narboni, Commentary on the Guide, 49a. Narboni briefly refers to the sources of Ezekiel’s and the Sages of Israel’s false belief in his commentary on Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān. See Moses Narboni, Commentary on Ibn Ṭufayl’s Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, Paris, BnF, ms héb. 916 (= IMHM F 26871), 35a–b. 32. See Correspondence, 118a. 33. See Maimonides, Guide, 96. 34. See Correspondence, 118a. See also in the third letter, ibid., 137b. 35. See ibid., 118a. See also in the third letter, ibid., 137b. 36. See ibid., 127b. See also in the third letter, ibid., 137b, and in Guide 3.6, which may have served as an inspiration for this objection. 37. See Correspondence, 117b–118a. 38. See ibid., 127b. Cf. Balbo’s third letter, ibid., 137b. 39. See ibid., 139b. It is possible that Rakh is referring here to Maimonides’s interpretation of the ofanim in Guide 2.9. Balbo, in his second letter, suggested that Maimonides may have had this interpretation in mind when he advanced his controversial interpretation of Ezekiel’s “I heard.” See Correspondence, 127b, and cf. Balbo’s third letter, 137b. 40. See Correspondence, 119b. 41. See ibid., 122b. Rakh addresses this objection indirectly, while replying to one of Balbo’s objections to Narboni’s thesis (objection N1). See below. 42. See Correspondence, 120b–121b. 43. See Maimonides, Guide, 377–78. 44. See Correspondence, 120a, and cf. 120b. 45. See ibid., 122b. 46. Rakh may have implicitly relied here also on the fourth chapter of Ruaḥ Ḥen, which could have been his direct source for the second premise (see below). See Ruaḥ Ḥen (Warsaw: Baumritter, 1865), 12–14; for a scientific edition, see Ofer Elior, “Ruaḥ Ḥen as a Looking Glass: The Study of Science in Different Jewish Cultures as Reflected in a Medieval Introduction to Aristotelian Science and in Its Later History” (Ph.D. diss., Ben-​Gurion University of the Negev, 2010), 243–44 [Hebrew]. 47. See Maimonides, Guide, 370. 48. See Correspondence, 120a. According to Rakh, most dreams convey knowledge conceived during wakefulness. “This,” Rakh relates, “was explained in the Book on Sense and Sensibilia (‫ספר החוש‬ ‫)והמוחש‬.” He might be referring to Moses Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation of Averroes’s Compendium of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia (Montpellier, 1254). See Averroes, Compendia librorum Aristotelis qui Parva naturalia vocantur, Hebrew trans. from the Arabic by Moses Ibn Tibbon, ed. Harry Blumberg (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1954), 43–44. 49. See Correspondence, 120a; Ruaḥ Ḥen, 14–17 (Elior, “Ruaḥ Ḥen,” 243). On Ruaḥ Ḥen’s dissemination among Byzantine Jews, see Elior, ibid., 173–90. Besides Ruaḥ Ḥen, Rakh’s source for this passage could have been its citation in Gershom ben Solomon of Arles’s The Gate of Heaven (Shaʾar ha-​Shamayim; completed in Provence between 1275 and 1300). See Gershom ben Solomon, Shaʾar ha-​ Shamayim (Warsaw: Isaac Goldman, 1875), 77a (74). 50. Rakh explains Ezekiel’s acceptance of this belief as a result of the “imperfection of the speculative matters in those times.” See Correspondence, 120a. 51. See ibid., 120a–b; cf. 121b, 122b, 137a. 52. See ibid., 139b. 53. See Maimonides, Guide, 374. 54. See Averroes, Commentarium medium in Porphyrii Isagogen et Aristotelis Categorias, Hebrew trans. from the Arabic by Jacob Anatoli, ed. Herbert A. Davidson (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1969), 12; English trans. in idem, Middle Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge, trans. from the Hebrew and Latin versions by Herbert A. Davidson (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1969), 13.

45 Rabbi Yedidyah Rakh on “I Heard”

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55. See Correspondence, 121b–122b. 56. See ibid., 120b, 122a. 57. See ibid., 121b. 58. See ibid., 122b. 59. In Rakh’s view, if sounds are indeed produced in the heavens, then the source of the sounds heard by Ezekiel is the rotation of the “ninth orb,” that which “has no star.” See ibid. On the history of this orb, see Shlomo Sela, “Maimonides and Māshāʾallāh on the Ninth Orb of the Signs and Astrology,” Aleph 12, no. 1 (2012): 315–53. 60. See Correspondence, 122b; Averroes, Epitome of Aristotle’s De Anima, Hebrew trans. from the Arabic by Moses Ibn Tibbon, Paris, BnF, ms héb. 918 (= IMHM F 31960), 490b. For medieval discussions of the production of sound, see Charles Burnett, “Sound and Its Perception in the Middle Ages,” in The Second Sense: Studies in Hearing and Musical Judgement from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century, ed. Charles Burnett, Michael Fend, and Penelope Gouk (London: Warburg Institute, 1991), 43–70, esp. 52–54. 61. See Correspondence, 122b–123a. 62. See Elior, “Ezekiel Is Preferable to Aristotle.” 63. On the other hand, the question of whether the orbs are hard was debated in medieval astronomy. See Edward Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200–1687 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 324–70. And see, for example, Elijah Mizraḥi’s discussion of sponge-​like orbs, pointed to in Langermann, “Science in the Jewish Communities of the Byzantine Cultural Orbit,” 448. On the medieval rejection of celestial friction, see Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs, 591–95, and cf. 549–50. 64. See Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides), The Wars of the Lord (Leipzig: Carl B. Lorck, 1866), 193–94 (V.2.2), 362–68 (VI.1.17), 424–27 (VI.2.7). For a discussion, see Ruth Glasner, “The Early Stages in the Evolution of Gersonides’ The Wars of the Lord,” JQR 87, nos. 1–2 (1996): 35–39. 65. See Elior, “Ezekiel Is Preferable to Aristotle,” where I presented inconclusive considerations in support of the possibility that Rakh relied on a discussion of Maimonides’s interpretation found in Sefer ha-​Eshkol (completed in 1413?), a treatise by Rabbi Yomtov Lipmann Mühlhausen, an important scholar and leader of Ashkenazi Jewry at the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth century. To these considerations I wish to add here the following. It may be that a copy or copies of Sefer ha-​Eshkol were brought to Byzantium by Ashkenazi immigrants who had arrived there during the fifteenth century. One such agent who had carried Mühlhausen’s works to the region may have been Moses ha-​Kohen Ashkenazi, a rabbi of Ashkenazi origin who played a prominent role in the controversy about metempsychosis that erupted in Crete in the 1460s. In his study of this controversy, Aviezer Ravitzky discovered that Ashkenazi may have been familiar with one of Mühlhausen’s works (not the Sefer ha-​Eshkol). See Ravitzky, “God of the Philosophers,” 136. Robert Morrison kindly suggested to me the possibility that in presenting his evidence for the existence of celestial sounds, Rakh was influenced, either directly or through secondary sources, by Muslim discussions. For example, he may have been aware of Islamic astronomical research and theorizing that were not based on Aristotelian physics. See F. Jamil Ragep and Alī al-​Qūshjī, “Freeing Astronomy from Philosophy: An Aspect of Islamic Philosophy,” Osiris 16 (2001): 49–71. The question of Islamic parallels to and/or sources of Rakh’s discussion deserves further study. 66. See Schwartz, “Conceptions,” 166. 67. As noted above, such an examination is carried out in Schwartz’s forthcoming paper on the correspondence between Balbo and Rakh.

Three Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites Two Theories and Their Role in Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s “Scroll of the Revealer” Y. Tzvi Langermann

Introduction In this chapter I propose to investigate two ideas that figure prominently in Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s eschatological treatise, Megillat ha-​Megalleh, or  The Scroll of the Revealer.1 Abraham Bar Ḥiyya (ca. 1065–ca. 1136) is one of the earliest writers in Hebrew on science and philosophy—two interlocking fields of knowledge that are both covered by the Hebrew term ḥokhma.2 Grosso modo, Bar Ḥiyya is wrestling with the same bundle of beliefs that occupied Jewish thinkers throughout the medieval period and beyond: creation, the end of days, the authority and elasticity of the biblical text. These and other notions have to be understood properly, and a credible Jewish stance must be formulated—​and, if  need be, defended—​ in light of the available offering of scientific literature. But science is not necessarily a foe to overcome; more often than not, it is seen to be a useful tool. Some science promises to be of help in fleshing out the deeper layers of meaning in the Hebrew Bible and assisting the Jewish exegete to uncover the ingenuity of the biblical text in all its details: choice of words, repetition of words, ordering of words, cross-​references, and more. But it is not just the elasticity of the Bible that is tested. Just how malleable were the scientific doctrines, or the texts in which they were expounded and with which they were often identified? Bar Ḥiyya, like those mostly anonymous writers who preceded him in producing Hebrew texts of a scientific bent, allowed himself a great deal of leeway in adapting non-​Jewish source material to his own purposes.3 His work stands in stark contrast to that of Maimonides and the Maimonideans, the school that dominated Jewish philosophy

from the thirteenth century on. For Maimonides, Aristotle—one should add, what Maimonides avers to be the true, pristine Aristotelian teaching, rather than the incorrect reading of Aristotle given by some of his later commentators—set forth a true doctrine that must be reckoned with. Thus, for example, Plato may be a convenient alternative for the knotty issue of creation, but Maimonides will not avail himself of this alternative, since the scientific community has rejected the Platonic account. Bar Ḥiyya, for his part, recognizes no towering authority akin to Maimonides’s Aristotle. As it seems to me, he views the entire corpus of scientific literature as one pool of ideas from which he can draw whatever notion or theory may suit a particular need, modifying it if necessary, and combining it with other ideas. Moreover, scientific texts are not sources whose identity must be disclosed to the reader and whose integrity must be preserved. They are instead reservoirs or warehouses of information whose contents are at the disposal of any author, to be tapped, transformed, and amalgamated as the author sees fit, in line with his goals of the moment and his composition as a whole. In this chapter I will look at two ideas that Bar Ḥiyya drew upon, modified, and connected to each other: the notion of gradations of light (in particular, a quasi-​ divine “metaphysical” light and a weakened, degraded, sensible celestial and atmospheric light) and the idea that the fundamental constituents of the universe group themselves into pairs of opposites. Though Bar Ḥiyya will be the main focus of my discussion, I will cast my net beyond his Scroll for further evidence for the transit of these ideas in the early medieval period, especially among Jewish thinkers. Bar Ḥiyya was likely not the first to put together these two ideas, but that is of no concern to me. Texts transited through the Mediterranean constantly, crossing temporal, cultural, religious, and linguistic boundaries. But, more than that, their contents, in the form of ideas, theories, concepts, and even raw data, were continually transformed: by translation, which always entails a reinterpretation; by their relocation in different social settings, because knowledge may be in some sense socially constructed; and by their mixing with other ideas, as the case may be. In my view, the social factor is a weak variable. The strong variable in their transformation is the creative force of authors like Bar Ḥiyya, who put ideas to work, and it is this originality that attracts me to the Scroll. 48 Texts in Transit

Zohar and the Theory of Light The Scroll makes use of some interesting theories of light—​most famously, a discussion of five worlds or gradations of light described in chapter 2, in a passage not overlooked in the scholarly literature.4 Some of the names that Bar Ḥiyya gives to these worlds are clearly homonyms for Arabic terms; in table 3.1, I suggest Arabic correlates for all of them. Moreover, Bar Ḥiyya gives alternate Hebrew names for these worlds. It should be noticed that only three of these alternates are called “light.” It is clear enough that Bar Ḥiyya has drawn upon at least two sources for his scheme: a philosophical source for the five worlds, and a rabbinic or Jewish source

Table 3.1  Bar Ḥiyya’s five worlds Hebrew name for “world”

Suggested Arabic correlate

Translation

ʿOlam nurani ʿOlam ha-​ravravanut ʿOlam ha-​madaʾ

Nūrānī Rabbānī ʿAql, or perhaps ʿilm Nafs Khalq

Luminous world Numinous world World of intellect (or knowledge) World of soul World of creation

ʿOlam ha-​nefesh ʿOlam ha-​yesira

Alternative name in Bar Ḥiyya

Translation of alternative

Or ha-​nifla Qol Or ha-ḥokhma, or ha-​sekhel Ha-​nefesh Or ha-​ganuz la-​ṣadiqim la-ʿ​atid la-​vo

Marvelous light Voice (or echo) Light of wisdom, light of intellect Soul Light hidden away for the righteous, for the future

for the alternative name. However, Bar Ḥiyya’s exposition is not simply reproducing whatever he found in the sources at his disposal. Instead, the exegesis of the biblical text demanded by the eschatological theme of the Scroll directs Bar Ḥiyya’s teaching here. The five occurrences of the Hebrew word or, “light,” in the Genesis story of Day One (Genesis 1:1–5) motivate Bar Ḥiyya’s quest for pentads that can serve as helpful analogues. In addition, the eschatological tug of the book leads Bar Ḥiyya to rearrange the worlds or grades from a simple hypobasis, which he is likely to have found in whatever philosophical literature was at his disposal, into a scheme ending with the final reward of the righteous. Therefore, the five worlds listed in the first column—​those which, I suggest, derive from a source outside rabbinic tradition—​ display a descent, whereas the Hebrew alternative correlates have both a descent and a return. The alternative names, especially the last, paradoxically call to mind notions of the “return” that were so important to the Neoplatonists. Now let us have a closer look at the passage. To begin with, Bar Ḥiyya repeatedly remarks that two terms are operable here: worlds (ʿolamot) and gradations (maʿalot). Though he tells the reader, “you may call them either of the names, as you wish” (Scroll, 22:6–7), Bar Ḥiyya clearly prefers the second, whose names for the five items, as we have noted, are closer to traditional Jewish concepts. After the description of each gradation, he gives the “scientific” appellation, that is, the one used by ḥakhemei ha-​meḥqar, which, loosely translated, means “rational investigators.” They always speak of worlds. All five of the worlds or gradations are said to be “above the raqiʿa.” Raqiʿa, usually translated by the quaint English word “firmament,” is a very problematic term, which, depending both on the author and the context, can refer either to the earth’s atmosphere or to the celestial realm.5 In Bar Ḥiyya’s astronomical writings, raqiʿa refers to the heavens, the seven or more orbs into which the heavens were schematically divided.6 Hence in the passage under discussion here, I take “above the raqiʿa” to mean hypercosmic; the light of the cosmos (including the sun and the heavens) comes into play only on Day Four. As noted above, the five “worlds” fit a pattern of hypobasis, or descent. In medieval Neoplatonism (to use a term I feel a bit uncomfortable with), the usual scheme is

49 Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites

50 Texts in Transit

intellect—​soul—​matter. The final two worlds in Bar Ḥiyya’s pentad fit this perfectly. There are three “worlds” above soul; whether Bar Ḥiyya found this precisely in a source that he saw, or whether he constructed this triad so as to fill in his scheme, is a question that I cannot answer.7 It is interesting, though, that in the letter of Ḥai or Ḥamai Gaon, a central document for the so-​called ʿIyyun circle, there are three kinds of light above the sefirot.8 When we turn to the alternative names (fourth column), we notice two significant differences. First, only three of the grades are called “light.” Moreover, though the first four worlds follow a clear and common pattern of descent, the fifth looks to be an ascent, even a return.9 Its luminous correlate constitutes the highest reward for humanity—that which the midrash already says is “stored up for the righteous in the Messianic future.”10 May we then infer that the worlds close in on themselves, forming the circular pattern so well known in the Platonic traditions, and present as well in Sefer Yeṣira? There is no shortage of pentads in Jewish and non-​Jewish thought, but most have no bearing at all on our topic. Such is the case with the five worlds discussed in the Talmud and given a philosophical reading by R. Asher ben Meshullam, or the five “presences” known to Sufis (and possibly known to Maimonides).11 As far as I know, the only tradition to teach specifically “five worlds of light” is the Manichean one.12 Points of contact between Manicheism and ancient Jewish sources, or non-​ Jewish sources that may have come to the attention of Jewish writers such as Bar Ḥiyya, are not unheard of; still, I would not jump to claim a Manichean influence here.13 Pentads play a major role in Manicheism. For Bar Ḥiyya, they appear only in connection with the five worlds of light. On the other hand, one can identify five gradations of light in Neoplatonic sources. The emperor Julian, a devoted disciple of Iamblichus, appears to recognize these five: noethos, noethos-​noeros, noeros, hypercosmos, and eisthatos. These names, however, do not correspond to the terms given by Bar Ḥiyya.14 Moreover, there is no available path of transmission from Julian (or from his teacher, Iamblichus) to Bar Ḥiyya that is known to me. Finally, there is an intriguing and subtle occurrence of five grades of light in a minor work by the great Muslim thinker and Bar Ḥiyya’s older contemporary Abū Ḥāmid al-​Ghazālī (1058–1111). The passage is intriguing because al-​Ghazālī first states that six “things” (ashyāʾ) are called light, but in the numbered list that follows, only five items appear. If I understand correctly, one arrives at six by adding the metaphorical usage—​for example, calling the Qurʾan light.15 It seems, then, that in the philosophical sources at his disposal, al-​Ghazālī learned of five grades of light. I think it highly unlikely that Bar Ḥiyya had access to this obscure epistle. The tentative conclusion must be that both the Jewish and Muslim thinkers drew upon a common source. A few more observations are in order. Ḥokhma and sekhel appear together in Bar Ḥiyya as alternative names for the third world. Madaʿ (synonymous with ḥokhma) and sekhel, according to Gershom Scholem, are “artificially separated” in the letter by Rabbeinu Ḥai, the ʿIyyun circle text already referred to above.16 The early mystical texts associated with the ʿIyyun circle list many more kinds of light, but I see no

meaningful or obvious connection between most of their appellations and those of Bar Ḥiyya, bar one: note that Ḥammai’s first light, like Bar Ḥiyya’s first grade (in the alternative terminology), is called “marvelous.”17 Though it is certainly fascinating, important, and deserving of the attention that it has received, the doctrine of five worlds or grades of light features only once in the Scroll, in the passage that we have been discussing. But there is much more to the theory of light in the Scroll that has not been touched upon in any academic study that I know. A simpler theory, recognizing two types—​which Bar Ḥiyya calls or and zohar—​has a much stronger presence in the Scroll. One can point to a similar pair of terms in Arabic (nūr and ḍawʾ) and Latin (lux and lumen). In the case of some thinkers—​those most closely studied, such as Ibn Sīnā—​the two types of light are a subject for physics alone.18 In others (e.g., Robert Grosseteste), the pairing extends to metaphysics.19 As we shall see, the same pair of concepts—though named by different Hebrew words—may well lurk beneath the surface of other Hebrew texts. I am not ready to offer a history of this idea and to propose a clear path of transmission. Instead, my aim here is to clarify the usage of or and zohar in Bar Ḥiyya’s Scroll and to call attention in a very preliminary way to possible linkages with other texts. Let us begin with zohar. The Hebrew word, meaning light, resplendence, shining, and so forth, is well known, but what must be determined is its precise meaning in our text. For Bar Ḥiyya, zohar means derivative, attenuated, degraded, or reflected light, and it takes its place in a theory that teaches successive reflections, hence progressively weaker manifestations, of a primordial light. For convenience, in the following I will translate or as “light” but leave zohar untranslated. Light was created on Day One, but it illuminated only the supernal or hypercosmic world until Day Four, when the raqiʿa—​which, if Bar Ḥiyya is being consistent, ought to mean here the celestial realm (though in this passage one could make a reasonable case for having it refer to the earth’s atmosphere as well)—was strong enough to accept illumination by zohar: You find that for those three days entirely, from Day One to Day Three, the light did not illuminate the earth. Rather, it was above the raqiʿa, while there was darkness below the raqiʿa. The supernal world shone with the light that was created on Day One. However, it did not illuminate the earth, because the raqiʿa lacked the strength and thickness to receive the zohar of the light from above. The rays of supernal light (nitzutzei ha-​or ha-ʿ​elyon) did not illuminate the raqiʿa, nor were they diffused upon it or on the surface of the earth, until God strengthened them by his marvelous edict (maʾmar), which is [the same as] His will, as it says, “Let there be luminaries in the celestial raqiʿa.” By means of this edict the raqiʿa was illuminated. Afterwards it says, “Let there be luminaries in the celestial raqiʿa so as to illuminate the earth.” By means of that edict they illuminated the earth. You cannot say that the light created on Day One illuminated the earth. Were that the case, it would not have said [in connection with Day Four],

51 Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites

“to illuminate the earth,” as it would have been already illuminated. Instead, on the first three days the raqiʿa was devoid of light, which was not seen in it; instead, it flows over (mefiṣ)20 it and passes over its body, just as is the case with the night air in our world. It is known that the light of the sun gushes over it. The eye is incapable of controlling that light as long as it gushes over the air of the raqiʿa that is far from the earth. When the dawn rises, at the time [scil. and at that time] the light of the sun reaches the thick air that surrounds the earth, the pillar of dawn, which is the zohar of the light of the sun, is seen inclining to rise over the earth. So was the raqiʿa thin and rarefied like the air that is distant from the earth, but even thinner than it.21 The light from above was incapable of being seen in it, even though it gushed over its body, until God, on Day Four, strengthened it and gave it the thickness requisite for the light gushing over it to be seen on it. (Scroll, 25–26)

52 Texts in Transit

Note that unlike most other interpreters of the Genesis story, who assign the thickening of the raqiʿa to Day Two (whose entire activity concerns the raqiʿa), Bar Ḥiyya locates the thickening of the raqiʿa on Day Four. He has scriptural proof and an optical argument, but, more than that, he needs to have it occur on Day Four for the purposes of his eschatological history, where each day of creation corresponds to a millennium of human history, and Jewish history in particular. The illumination of the earth corresponds to Cosmic Day Four, that is, the fourth millennium, when the Torah—which is light, according to Proverbs 6:23—was given to Israel. The fourth world of light corresponds, in the five-​worlds scheme, to soul. In the Genesis narrative it pairs with Genesis 1:4, the verse in which God differentiates light from darkness. Bar Ḥiyya writes, “The light [in the verse just cited] hints at the souls of the righteous. The light of knowledge and fear of God overflows onto them, and their souls shine22 on its account and illuminate.” So a higher light emanates onto the souls of the righteous, which then shine and emit what must be a less luminous and pristine light. This presumably refers to the role and capacity of the righteous to instruct and otherwise illuminate the common folk. In this connection, we sorely miss the section on optics in Bar Ḥiyya’s encyclopedia, which has survived only in part.23 Another clue—and another possible link to Neoplatonism—is the pairing of light with life in this interesting passage concerning the life of plants: “[God] gave to the earth permission and the capacity to produce herbage and grass, and she [the earth] produced it by means of the capacity that was given to her. . . . [Scripture] did not have to say ‘And God made [va-y​ aʿas]’ nor ‘And God created [va-y​ ivraʾ],’ because things growing from the ground have no share in the shining of the light [zohar ha-​ or] nor in the spirit of life [ruʾaḥ ha-ḥayyim]. But you find ‘and He made’ [the verb va-​yaʿas] in the Genesis story throughout only in connection with thing[s] whose body24 possesses the shining capable of receiving light25 or of receiving the spirit of life” (Scroll, 52 [bottom]).

Bar Ḥiyya uses two construct formations here: zohar ha-​or, the shining of the light, and ruʾaḥ ha-ḥayyim, the spirit of life. In a construction of this sort, the first element takes on the meaning of a lesser grade of the second element. There is light, and there is something that is merely the shining of the light. The same sort of ranking, I submit, obtains in the second couple as well: there is life, and there is something that is merely the spirit of life. This passage is interesting also in that it may allow us to rule out the influence of certain sources. Additionally, it may help to flesh out some creative adaptations on the part of Bar Ḥiyya. The author of Doresh Reshumot, a commentary on the Torah written in Christian Spain in 4995 a.m. = 1234/5 c.e.—that is to say, someone working approximately in the same cultural region as Bar Ḥiyya, but a little over a century later—reports that “some of the investigative scholars say that the rest of the animals and plants received some of the residuum and dregs of the power of the light of the orb of the intellect, each according to its level.”26 This author, who cites a different philosophical work of Bar Ḥiyya, Higgayon ha-​Nefesh (Meditation of the soul), knows of a theory in which some metaphysical light is absorbed by plants and animals, thus accounting for their sensation, odor, taste, and therapeutic properties. In his scheme, then, plants and animals have some small share in metaphysical light. Much earlier, the pagan Neoplatonist Proclus spoke of the heliotropic plants following the light as a form of prayer “accompanying the lights of the cosmos as far as possible.”27 Does this mean that there were two separate traditions, and Bar Ḥiyya tapped into the one that denied plants any share in metaphysical light? Or was there only one idea in circulation, and Bar Ḥiyya’s account of the creation of vegetation thus testifies to his creative approach, in which the contents of texts function as pliable raw materials rather than as firm, unbending doctrines that must be inserted by an author into his book exactly as he found them in his “source”? Bar Ḥiyya continues, “In connection with whatever has no body nor is connected to [nimshakh el] a body, such as the light created on the first day, the word yehi [‘let it be’] alone sufficed. But that which has a body, but neither emits light [meʾir] nor reflects light [mazhir], nor does it have life, and ‘making’ was not mentioned in connection with it—its existence had to be by some other means; for example, the creatures of the third day that we are talking about [and which were brought about the earth]” (54). The vegetable kingdom was created on Day Three, before visible light took hold in the heavens and on earth. God is not said to have made them directly; that formula is reserved for those beings that can shine in some sense of the term, and which, for that reason, are really alive (in line with the intimate connection between light and life). Instead, God merely allowed the earth to produce vegetation. The linking between light and life is significant. Plotinus connects light and life in Enneads 4.5.7, where he compares light to a soul that can endow a body with life.28 Of special interest here is the following passage from Philo’s On the Creation: Special attention is accorded by Moses to life-​breath [pneuma] and to light [phos]. The one he entitles the “breath” of God, because breath is most

53 Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites

life-​giving, and of life God is the author, while of light he says that it is beautiful pre-​eminently [huperballontoskalon, referring to Genesis 1:4]: for the intelligible as far surpasses the visible in the brilliancy of its radiance, as sunlight assuredly surpasses darkness and day night, and mind, the ruler of the entire soul, the bodily eyes. Now that invisible light perceptible only by mind has come into being as an image of the Divine Word Who brought it within our ken: it is a supercelestial constellation [huperouranios aster], fount of the constellations obvious to sense. It would not be amiss to term it “all-​brightness,” to signify that from which sun and moon, as well as fixed stars and planets draw, in proportion to their several capacity, the light befitting each of them: for that pure and undiluted radiance is bedimmed so soon as it begins to undergo the change that is entailed by the passage from the intelligible to the sensibly discerned, for no object of sense is free from dimness.29 (29–31)

54 Texts in Transit

Jewish thinkers of the medieval period are not thought to have had direct access to Philo.30 However, in the passage just cited we encounter two ideas that reemerge in the Scroll: a hypercosmic or “supercelestial” light, which (in its descent) is responsible for the illumination of the heavenly luminaries, and the intimate connection between light and life, as evidenced by the Genesis account. I suspect that Sefer ha-​Bahir recognizes a similar distinction between primal and secondary light.31 However, ha-​Bahir calls the derived light nogah rather than zohar, in keeping with the language of Habakkuk 3:4: “In the future, the nogah that was taken from the primal light [or rishon] will be like or.”32 Indeed, in one place Bar Ḥiyya describes the primal light as bahir: “The light [or] that came to be on the first day did not illuminate the earth, because that resplendent [bahir] light had neither body nor matter . . . for neither matter nor body had been created yet” (Scroll, 22).33 But what is the connection between Sefer ha-​Bahir and Bar Ḥiyya? According to the most recent research, Bar Ḥiyya is the earlier writer, and ha-​Bahir made use of Bar Ḥiyya’s ethical tract, Higgayon ha-​Nefesh.34 The theory I am interested in, to briefly recap, describes grades of light, which become increasingly physical, visible, and even tangible as they move down the chain of being. The higher or highest grades are divine; the theory is related in a religious dimension. Let me now introduce evidence for its circulation among the Jews of the Mediterranean basin in texts unrelated to Bar Ḥiyya. This survey, which seems to me to be exhaustive, reveals traces of the theory in a number of unrelated settings. Bar Ḥiyya’s exposition looks to be the most elaborate of the Jewish versions. Of the other instantiations we have only vestiges, some of which must be excavated from beneath layers of text. I will first take brief notice of two short passages, then present more involved discussions of two more; the problematic form in which these two texts have reached us necessitates a lengthier discussion in order to uncover the theory. Three of the four texts are by Maimonides.35 Maimonides’s philosophy, for all the sundry “influences” that can be detected (some of which, indeed, we will herald in what follows),

is basically in line with Aristotelianism, especially the variety developed by Abū Naṣr al-​Fārābī, whom Maimonides openly admired.36 The success of the Maimonidean achievement fairly did in the other philosophies that Jews had entertained, such as the thought of Bar Ḥiyya; we historians must thus work harder to uncover the earlier brands. A powerful, eventually victorious rival to Maimonideanism did emerge in the Kabbalah, especially the varieties developed in the various regions of Iberia. Our fourth text, mentioned only briefly, comes from a major Spanish Kabbalist, who had indeed long been thought to have been the author of the Zohar, but it is intimately connected to the writings of the ʿIyyun circle. Light plays an extremely important role in the Kabbalah that postdates Bar Ḥiyya, but I will limit myself to the one passage discussed below, which directly relates to the theory of interest here. First, an example of the degradation of lights that features in Maimonides’s own system in an important way. In his Guide, Maimonides describes a critical transformation of “lights”—from the context, intellectual or metaphysical lights are intended—into “forces” or powers. The move is critical, because the transformation removes from the celestial orbs that emit these forces any capacity to “influence” (“overflow” or emanate upon, in a quasi-​divine fashion), reducing their role to one of the physical effect of the force one body exerts upon another. The passage is found in book 2, chapter 11: “It is further to show that governance overflows from the deity, may He be exalted, to the intellects according to their rank; that from the benefits received by the intellects, good things and lights overflow to the bodies of the spheres; and that from the spheres . . . forces and good things overflow to this body subject to generation and corruption.”37 Light overflows from the intellects down onto the spheres, which transmit it further on down, only in the form of physical forces. Moses de Leon (Spain, 1240?–1305) makes use of ha-​or ha-​muskal (intelligible light), which he contrasts with ha-​or ha-​murgash (sensible light). He may also equate intelligible light with ha-​or ha-​bahir. The higher light is like the light of the sun and the lower light like the light of the moon; the lower light is also called or ha-ḥayyim (the light of life).38 These types of lights have matches in the sefirot, but these are not of concern to us here. They reflect a later instantiation, and transformation, of the concepts deployed by Philo, Bar Ḥiyya, and undoubtedly other thinkers over the course of centuries. Now for the two more complicated pieces of evidence. I believe that there is an oblique reference to a forgotten Jewish version of the theory of gradations of light in Maimonides’s Guide, in the final chapter of the first section. The concluding chapters of that section contain Maimonides’s arguments against the speculative theology known as kalam. Although Maimonides engages Islamic kalam, for the most part, his conception of the kalam encompasses non-​Muslim thought as well.39 To the best of my knowledge, no one has noticed the Jewish theology embedded in a Maimonidean polemic against the kalam that I shall now describe. The topic is the “second method” of the mutakallimūn for refuting God’s corporeality (Guide 1.76), which is based on the “impossibility of resemblance,” that is to say, the impossibility of God’s resembling anything else. The argument, simply put,

55 Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites

is this: were God a body, He would resemble other bodies. In order to show just how weak this argument is, Maimonides presents some theologies that maintain that God is a body unlike all other bodies and, for that reason, cannot be refuted by the mutakallimūn. The second of these theologies looks to be Jewish: On the contrary, he [the corporealist] says that God is the creator of all these bodies and they differ in respect of their substance and true reality. And just as he holds that the body of dung is not identical with the body of the sphere of the sun, so he says that the body of created light—I mean the Shekhinah— is not identical with the body of the heavenly spheres and of the stars; and that the body of the Shekhinah or the created Pillar of Cloud is not identical with the body of the deity, may He be exalted, in his opinion. On the contrary, he says that this body is the perfect and noble essence, which was never composed or changed and which cannot possibly be changed.40

56 Texts in Transit

This theology posits a gradation of bodies, which, moving upwards, are: dung, sphere of the sun (equivalent to the body of the heavenly spheres and of the stars), created light (Shekhinah or Pillar of Cloud), the deity. Two of these, at least, are certainly luminous or at least transparent: the sphere of the solar body and the created light. But there are several variants for the Arabic translated as “dung,” most of which point to its being a type of light rather than filth. Salomon Munk reports that Oxford, ms Uri 359 exhibits al-​nūriyyāt, an unattested form but one that clearly is built upon nūr, “light.” Munk further suggests that this reading connects to the “erroneous” reading of the printed editions of Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation, which exhibits nitzotzot, “sparks” or “flashes.”41 In his edition and Hebrew translation, Rabbi Yosef Qafih lists two manuscripts that use al-​anwār, “lights.”42 All of these readings—which have been unanimously rejected by editors of the Guide—would have some, presumably low-​grade, light at the bottom of the scheme, thus giving three types of light, and on top of them all, the deity. The Guide, we must remember, was written in Judeo-​Arabic; when Maimonides uses Hebrew names and terms, he is likely to be alluding to Jewish traditions. Maimonides gives Hebrew names, both biblical, for the created light: shekhinah (“indwelling”; Exodus 25:8) and ʿamud he-ʿanan (“pillar of cloud”; Exodus 33:9). I see no reason for his doing this, unless he knew of some Jewish theology that identified those biblical objects with the created light. Although I cannot point to any known cosmogony that matches Maimonides’s “constructed” rival, such a cosmogony would not be at all surprising. Recall that the “pillar of cloud” is mentioned prominently in Sirach 24:4, in a passage whose intertextuality with Genesis 1 has been noted.43 In view of the anti-​kalam context in which this argument is deployed, we are justified in concluding that this theology would have recognized gradations of light, culminating in a material deity. Though Maimonides does not hint at this, these ancient theologians may well have identified the deity, too, with light; such notions were not unknown in antiquity.44

The last passage I would like to present in this section comes from Guide 1.72, where Maimonides provides a schematic account of the workings of the cosmos. He names light and motion, both deriving ultimately from the heavens, as the two factors responsible for the mixing and compounding of the four elements on earth. In his exposition, Maimonides uses two different Arabic words, thus distinguishing between two types of light. The distinction between the two terms is maintained in the translation by Shlomo Pines: “All this takes place through the intermediary of the illumination [ḍawʾ] and the darkness [on earth] resulting from the light [nūr] in heaven and from heaven’s motion round the earth.”45 Pines unfortunately provided no note. Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation (which has been far more influential in spreading Maimonideanism than the Judeo-​Arabic original) is mangled in the common printed editions. However, even in the good manuscripts (as noted by Salomon Munk in his French translation; see below), the same Hebrew word (or) is used to render the two different Arabic terms. In his translation, al-​Harizi also uses the same Hebrew word for both.46 Though he is careful to record the terminologies, Munk says nothing about their significance. The only Maimonidean scholar to do so, as far as I am aware, was Rabbi Yosef Qafih, who observes in a note to his Hebrew translation that Maimonides clearly distinguished between the two terms, the one referring to the light reaching us from the sun, the other to the “reception” of this light by the atmosphere. Moreover, Rabbi Qafih finds that the different terms serve to emphasize that light and darkness on earth are not independent or self-​subsisting, “but rather a product of the sun’s light in its orbit.”47 Finally, there is a real problem in Maimonides’s original Judeo-​Arabic text with regard to the pronomial suffix -hā appended to nūr; being feminine, it must refer back either to a feminine singular or to a plural of either gender. Unfortunately, the only antecedent available is falak, “orb,” which is masculine singular. Salomon Munk, ever alert, addresses the issue in a long note, but there is no grammatical solution available.48 It seems to me, however, that Rabbi Qafih and commentators such Efodi (who glossed Ibn Tibbon’s translation) took the implied invisible antecedent to be the sun. Maimonides apparently does not assign any metaphysical distinction to the two types of light. Indeed, the absence of any metaphysics of light in Maimonides, as well as the lack of interest in the metaphorical usages of light in biblical texts, is noteworthy.49 Let me sum up this section. Bar Ḥiyya is an important terminal in the transit of texts across cultural and linguistic borders. Earlier disquisitions on different gradations of light, very likely coming ultimately from Hellenistic philosophy but perhaps from other sources as well, were worked by him into a very Jewish exposition of the Genesis story, directed by both the biblical text and a clear eschatological agenda. Traces of related theories can be found in proto-​Kabbalistic writings, such as the Bahir and the ʿIyyun writings, as well as in some passages from Maimonides’s Guide. All of these give evidence for the diffusion of the theory in Mediterranean communities.

57 Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites

Temurah

58 Texts in Transit

Let me now proceed to the second scientific theory that plays an important role in Bar Ḥiyya’s eschatology. In the second chapter of the Scroll, Bar Ḥiyya states that scripture has divided time into two parts: one correlates to light, and thence to peace and benefit for the world, while the other matches up to darkness, and from there to evil. He elaborates: “Each element of these pairs [zugot], which are peace and evil, and day and night, corresponds to its counterpart from the other pair. Thus peace, good, prosperity, wisdom, and everything that benefits the world correspond to day, which is the time of light. War, evil, poverty, corruption, and whatever brings no benefit to the world, correspond to night, which is the time of darkness” (Scroll, 16). This idea, that all of creation exists in pairs, recurs frequently throughout the Scroll. Israel Sandman has found the same theory described briefly in Bar Ḥiyya’s treatise on intercalation.50 I consider it to be fundamental to Bar Ḥiyya’s natural science and worldview. The Hebrew term most often employed by Bar Ḥiyya in connection with this theory of opposites is temurah, a biblical and Mishnaic term meaning “substitute” and used in connection with animal sacrifice. Should someone pledge an animal for sacrifice, but afterward—in contravention of biblical law—declare that another animal will take its place, both the original pledge and its temurah, or substitute, are sanctified. (See Leviticus 27:9–10.) The notion that creation is made up of pairs of opposites is found in a number of early medieval texts. Looking at them serves to establish that texts conveying this concept transited the Mediterranean before Bar Ḥiyya or contemporaneously with his literary activity. With this background we are in a better position to appreciate Bar Ḥiyya’s creative adaptations. Temurah is mentioned at the very end of one version (that commented upon by Saadia Gaon) of Sefer Yeṣira, one of the seminal cosmological texts studied by medieval Jews. Its dating is very controversial, but all agree that it antedates Bar Ḥiyya.51 The final chapter tabulates the twenty-​two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the components of the cosmos that correspond to each one. For nineteen of them (the first three having a special status, in line with the teaching of Sefer Yeṣira), these include pairs of opposites—​for example, life and death, peace and evil, wisdom and ignorance. The penultimate passage explains, “This is the rule. Some of these join with each other, while others join with others; these with those, those with these; these substituting for [temurat] those, and those substituting for these.” Though much has been published on Sefer Yeṣira, the passage just cited, which, as noted, appears in just one version, has drawn hardly any attention at all. The idea of pairs or opposites substituting one for the other is the central doctrine of another Hebrew text, Midrash Temurah. The reception history of that tract (also known as Sefer Temurot) is not well known.52 It may even antedate Sefer Yeṣira, but its impact was certainly far less; its diffusion, or perhaps more likely, its suppression, may well be connected to the Albigensian heresy and Provençal Jews’ fear of getting caught up in that bloody episode.53 As far as I know, only one scholar, Adolph Jellinek,

who worked over a century ago, tried to make historical sense of Midrash Temurah.54 He detected influences of both Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Pseudo-​Galenic dialogue on the soul, and he concluded that Midrash Temurah was written in the first half of the thirteenth century. That dating cannot be upheld any longer, in my view.55 Midrash Temurah is related to Sefer Yeṣira; it may have emerged out of the same milieu, and it may well have been one of the sources exploited by Bar Ḥiyya. Characteristically for a midrash—and in contrast to the scientific and philosophical literature of the thirteenth century—Midrash Temurah reports dicta in the name of ancient sages, such as Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Aqivah,56 and a goodly portion of it is a homily on the list of opposites found in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. The fundamental cosmological principle is enunciated in the first chapter: “Every single thing has a partner [shutaf], and it has a substitute [temurah]; without the one, there would not be the other.” The same first chapter continues with a discussion of life and death—a pair of opposites if there ever was one. In elaborating upon the biological processes responsible for life and death, Midrash Temurah makes use of humoral theory; blood, phlegm, and the two biles are mentioned explicitly, and so also the qualities and relationships of the four classical elements. The remainder of the midrash is far less scientific in its idiom. Just how the textus receptus evolved, and the independent circulation some of its components may have enjoyed, is an intriguing issue whose investigation lies beyond the purview of the present study. Pairs of opposites play an important role in the Source of Wisdom, one of the treatises associated with the ʿIyyun circle; recall that this “circle” also held to a doctrine of different forms of metaphysical light. Scholem describes the function of these pairs as follows: “The name of God—​so the book begins—​is the unity of the movement of language branching out from the primordial root. This movement grows out of the primordial ether, in the form of the thirteen pairs of opposites that are at the same time the thirteen middoth of divine government.”57 The theory of opposites is expounded as well in an early Arabic treatise, Kitāb al-​Rusūm waʾl-​izdiwāj waʾl-​tartīb (The book of norms, pairedness, and rankings), attributed to ʿAbdān (d. 899), the earliest author of the pre-​Fatimid Ismailis, and recently published by Wilferd Madelung and Paul E. Walker.58 The literary form, and, of course, the covenantal frame of reference are totally different from both Sefer Yeṣira and Midrash Temurah, but the fundamental doctrine is very much the same. Kitāb al-​Rusūm offers a very clear expression of the very same theory taught by Midrash Temurah and hinted at by Sefer Yeṣira: All things seen and unseen have of necessity two aspects: coarse and fine; and every thing coarse and fine is of necessity of two kinds: alive and inanimate, one of which is the contrary of the other, and its partner and mate. All things exist in their paired relationship, joined to the other, mutually contrary, one in need of the other. One is an indication of the other, so that from the mate its mate can be deduced, and by the contrary its contrary, and by the like its like. Each partner is unrecognizable except through its partner.59

59 Gradations of Light and Pairs of Opposites

60 Texts in Transit

In my estimation, the theory deployed in the texts that I have just surveyed is idiosyncratic, very different from the major competitors in the realm of natural philosophy (such as hylomorphism or atomism), and, for that reason, it is fitting here to posit a common source.60 The theological trajectories of the texts, however, as well as the literary forms in which they are embedded, are very different. As monotheistic texts, they naturally contrast the duality inherent in the cosmos with the singularity of the deity. Beyond that shared feature, however, the texts have little, if anything, in common. Kitāb al-​Rusūm is a Shiite text, and the possible connection between Bar Ḥiyya and the Shia is worth exploring further, though, I must add immediately, Kitāb al-Rusūm is as yet the only Shiite text (indeed, the only Islamic text) to teach the theory of conjugate opposites. Bar Ḥiyya’s account of the transmigration of the unique “pure soul” from its initial infusion by God into Adam, until its diffusion through a community constituted by Jacob’s twelve children (Scroll, 72), calls to mind Shiite doctrines of the transmigration of the soul of the Mahdi or messiah; these in turn play an important role in the thought of a later Hispano-​Jewish thinker, Judah Halevi.61 Bar Ḥiyya may have learned of the theory of paired opposites by way of Kitāb al-​Rusūm. It is equally possible, however, that he borrowed the theory of paired opposites from Midrash Temurah, or even from the Saadia version of Sefer Yeṣira. There is no reason a priori why he could not have made use of two or all three of these texts. In any event, Bar Ḥiyya certainly expanded the theory and made other modifications, so as to adapt it to his own cosmological ideas. The importance he attaches to this theory is manifest, I submit, in his positioning it at the beginning of the Scroll, in a passage that I will take up next. In this passage (Scroll, 5), Bar Ḥiyya tells us that there are two kinds of temurah, or, if you wish, that temurah is used in two senses. It refers in the first instance to pairs of entities, or, better said, to pairs composed of an entity and its counterpart nonentity. Entities possess form (ṣura) and existence (qayyama) or reality (ḥashshasha),62 and they bring benefit to creatures of this world. None of the above applies to nonentities. Examples of the first group are life, light, and wisdom, their temurot being death, darkness, and ignorance, respectively. In the second instance, one speaks of the temurah of qualities (aikhuyot), such as red taking the place of black, or the bitter changing into sweet; note that Bar Ḥiyya mentions one of the Aristotelian categories, quality. In this second case, both members of the pair of opposites are real and sensible. As we have already seen, these concepts taken from Greek medical theory are all noted in Midrash Temurah.63 Near the end of the Scroll, Bar Ḥiyya states that he has discovered, or succeeded in proving (ʿalah bi-​yadeinu), “that God counts the years and days for the wicked in this world by the reckoning of the moon, but He counts the years of the righteous by the reckoning of the sun.” It seems likely that this odd idea—odd because Jewish thought traditionally associates lunar calendars with the Jews, hence they ought to be good—is also related to the idea that everything comes in pairs. This same theory gives Bar Ḥiyya insight into a key image of the Genesis story, “the tree of knowledge

of the good and the bad.” Since all change in the world is due to the existence of pairs of opposites, and all are subsumed under the pair of categories good and bad (so we must conclude), knowledge of the good and the bad brings with it knowledge of all processes. Thus whoever has access to that very special tree will know all change and alteration in the world (Scroll, 61): “ ‘the tree of knowledge of the good and the bad’: Whoever attains [zokheh] this tree and connects to it will understand and sense [ḥoshshesh] all the alteration in the world [temurei ha-ʿolam] by which they change, which are good and bad, life and death, and the like.” But temurah does not apply to all things; some are unchanging, having no opposite. In the Genesis creation story, God is said to “make” (va-​yaʿas Elohim) only those things to which temurah—and the related, or synonymous, terms ḥilluf and gilgul— applies. The light created on Day One, which is “the light of the supernal world,” is not susceptible to temurah, and so God is not said to have “made it.” Does this mean that the light mentioned in the third verse of Genesis is uncreated, as Philo maintains? Or does this mean that its coming-​into-​being was by a different means than those things that God is said to have “made”? Bar Ḥiyya may be finessing a very delicate point here! Later on (Scroll, 28), Bar Ḥiyya adds that the word va-​yaʿas establishes gilgul ha-ḥiddush, the recurrent or cyclic coming-​to-​be, on whatever was created on that day. Once again, Bar Ḥiyya refers not only to the beings created on a given day, according to Genesis, but also to what I call the “cosmic day,” that is, the millennium corresponding to the creation day.64 In this way Bar Ḥiyya can explain why the verb va-y​ aʿas does not appear in the story of Day Five; instead, one finds the verb va-​yivraʾ. The reason for this is not the creatures introduced on the fifth day of the Creation, but rather the defining event on the cosmic scale: the destruction of the Second Temple, which took place in the fifth cosmic day. The absence of va-​yaʿas in this case indicates that the destruction will not recur. A nice combination of the ideas of pairs of opposites, their intermixing, and the seven “days,” referring here both to the seven days of Creation as well as to the seven cosmic days, is found in this passage from the second chapter (Scroll, 35): when “the sin of the Amorites was complete” [cf. Genesis 15:16], and our forefathers inherited the land [of Israel], three cosmic days [yimot ha-ʿolam] were completed [as well]; they were the days of darkness. There remained four cosmic days, from Day Four through Day Seven. Three days had a mixture of light and darkness, as it was written about each one of them, “And there was evening and there was day.” For this reason, they were fit to have a mixture of good and bad, of good deed and crime. These three days were divided into two parts: one and a half days of good, and one and a half days of bad and exile. The fourth day was nothing but good, wisdom, and Torah. And for this reason we say that from the fourth day from the giving of the Torah, which is the seventh cosmic “day,” redemption and rescue will come, with the help of God, just as the Torah was given on the fourth “day.”

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In sum, then, theories about the progressive degradation of light, from quasi-​ divine metaphysical light to the light perceived by our eyes (and even lower, according to some schemes), as well as the pairing of all components of the universe, circulated in different versions around the Mediterranean. Abraham Bar Ḥiyya feasted upon this rich variety of source materials. However, by no means did he merely paste selections from his “influences” into his Scroll. Instead, he creatively adapted the theories and data at his disposal, combining them and mustering them for the interpretation of biblical verses and, ultimately, for the production of a highly original work of Jewish eschatology. Notes

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1. Cited as Scroll hereafter. I use the edition of Adolf Poznanski, Sefer Megillat ha-​Megalleh von Abraham bar Ḥiyya, rev. and intro. Julius Guttmann (Berlin: Mekiza Nirdamim, 1924). A Catalan translation with introduction and very helpful notes was published by J. Millàs i Vallicrosa, Llibre revelador: Meguil·lat Hamegal·lè (Barcelona: Editorial Alpha, 1929). All citations in this article are my own translations from the edition of Poznanski-​Guttmann. Mention must also be made of the recent dissertation by Hannu Töyrlä, “Abraham Bar Ḥiyya on Time, History, Exile, and Redemption” (Ph.D. diss., Åbo Akademi University, Finland, 2012). 2. One can find lists of Bar Ḥiyya’s scientific writings in encyclopedia entries, including the Wikipedia entry on him (https://​en​.wikipedia​.org​/wiki​/Abraham​_bar​_Hiyya), which should not be dismissed out of hand. I will be concerned here mainly with Bar Ḥiyya as philosopher. Again, most histories of medieval Jewish philosophy give Bar Ḥiyya a chapter or subchapter; see, most recently, Colette Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 97–104, and the literature cited there. However, for the most part the themes to be taken up in this chapter have not been taken up anywhere else. One recent paper worth noting here is Jonathan V. Dauber, “ ‘Pure Thought’ in R. Abraham bar Ḥiyya and Early Kabbalah,” Journal of Jewish Studies 60 (2009): 185–201. 3. On these anonymous or pseudonymous early Hebrew authors, see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “On the Beginnings of Hebrew Scientific Literature and On Studying History Through Maqbilot (Parallels),” Aleph 2 (2002): 169–89. 4. The passage is found in Scroll, 22. See most recently Sirat, History of Jewish Philosophy, 101–2. The most extensive discussion is that of Gerhard [Gershom] Scholem, “Reste neuplatonischer Spekulation in der Mystik der deutschen Chassidim und ihre Vermittlung durch Abraham bar Chijja,” Monatschrift für die Wissenschaft und Geschichte des Judenthums 75 (1931): 172–91; though toward the end of his study Scholem does examine the text of Bar Ḥiyya, his attention is mostly focused upon the way the five worlds figure in the thought of the so-​called Ḥasidei Ashkenaz. My suggestions for contextualizing Bar Ḥiyya’s teaching are not those of Scholem. In his attempt to understand these terms, Israel Efros, “Studies in Pre-​Tibbonian Philosophical Terminology: I. Abraham bar Ḥiyya, the Prince,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s., 17 (1927): 323–68, at 342–43, is grasping at straws. 5. The problems are especially evident in the attempts to understand some hints that Maimonides drops in his discussion of the creation in Guide 2.30; see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “ ‘The Making of the Firmament’: R. Ḥayyim Israeli, R. Isaac Israeli, and Maimonides,” Shlomo Pines Jubilee Volume, part I [= Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 8] ( Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1988), 461–76 [Hebrew]. 6. References to Bar Ḥiyya’s book on the calendar (Sefer ha-ʿIbbur) and on astronomical computations (Heshbon Mahalakhot ha-​Kokhavim), where raqiʿa can only be understood to refer to the heavens, are cited by Elieser ben Iehuda (Eliezer ben Yehudah in modern spelling) in his Thesaurus Totius Hebraitatis et veteris et recentioris, vol. 14 ( Jerusalem: Talpiot, 1951/1952), 6732. See also Efros, “Studies,” 357; Efros translates raqiʿa as “sphere” and, far less felicitously, “sky,” though Efros too is aware that Bar Ḥiyya always has in mind the heavens rather than the atmosphere; hence Efros chooses odd-​ sounding phrases such as “eight skies” and “the highest all-​encompassing sky.”

7. Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1973), 127, suggests that Bar Ḥiyya “expands the traditional Neoplatonic scheme of a tripartite intelligible world into a five-​level model by superimposing above the intellect a world of light and a world of dominion.” 8. Gershom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, trans. Allan Arkush (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1987), 351. 9. This is even clearer if we combine the first two, leaving us with just four gradations. As I understand him, Bar Ḥiyya says that the rabbis have done just that, and I think that he has in mind here Sefer Yeṣira. 10. Midrash Rabba, Genesis (part 1), trans. H. Freedman (London: Soncino Press, 1939), 22. 11. Gad Freudenthal, “A  Twelfth-​Century Provençal Amateur of Neoplatonic Philosophy in Hebrew: R. Asher b. Meshullam of Lunel,” Chora 3–4 (2006): 155–82; William Chittick, “The Five Divine Presences from al-​Qunawi to al-​Qaysari,” The Muslim World 72 (1982): 107–28; Y. Tzvi Langermann, “A New Look at the ‘Treatise on Unity’ Ascribed to Maimonides,” Tarbiz 65 (1996): 109–28 [Hebrew]. 12. Bayard Dodge, ed. and trans., The Fihrist of al-​Nadīm: A Tenth-​Century Survey of Muslim Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 2:777 and n. 152. 13. See, for example, Scholem, Origins, 96 n. 77, where Bar Ḥiyya and a Manichean text are proposed as alternative sources for the “form of light” mentioned in Sefer ha-​Bahir. 14. I am grateful to Gabor Buzasi for sharing with me a copy of his fascinating paper, “The Sun in Proclus’ Theology,” which he presented at the Proclus in the Abrahamic Traditions conference (Istanbul, December 2012), and for additional information that he provided me in our electronic correspondence. The main reference in Proclus on the gradation of light is H. D. Saffey and L. G. Westerink, eds., Theologia Platonica (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1974), 2.4, p. 33 (cf. 2.7, p. 45). There he lists only intelligible, intelligible-​intellectual, intellectual, and visible light, but in 6.12, p. 59 of the same work, he seems to add a fifth phase of light as well, which is between the intellectual and the visible, called hypercosmic. In general, he says (2.4, p. 33, lines 19–21) that there are as many phases of light as the levels of reality that they illuminate. See further John Dillon, “The Theology of Julian’s Hymn to King Helios,” Ítaca: Quaderns catalans de cultura clàssica 14–15 (1999): 103–15. 15. Abū Ḥāmid al-​Ghazālī, Miʿrāj al-​Sālikīn, in Majmūʿa Rasāʾil al-​Imām al-​Ghazālī, ed. Ibrāhīm Amīn Muḥammad (Cairo: al-Tawfīqiyya, n.d.), 83–84. 16. Scholem, Origins, 350 and n. 302, which refers to infra, 357. 17. Slightly different forms of the Hebrew adjective are employed by Bar Ḥiyya (niflaʾ) and Ḥammai (muflaʾ). The connection between the two texts was noted by Mark Verman, The Books of Contemplation: Medieval Jewish Mystical Sources (Albany: SUNY Press, 2012), 43 n. 29. 18. A good recent discussion can be found in Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Avicenna’s “De Anima” in the Latin West (London: The Warburg Institute, 2000), 108–19; on the Latin tradition in particular, see also Edward Grant, Planets, Stars, and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200–1687 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 392–393. 19. Robert Grosseteste, On Light (De luce), trans. and intro. Clare C. Riedl (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1942). Cf. Adeena Krentzman-​Ossi, “The Implications of the Metaphysics of Light of Abraham Bar Ḥiyya,” Granot 2 (2002): i–xvii, which is mostly devoted to possible links between Bar Ḥiyya and Pseudo-​Dionysius and does not bear directly upon the issues we are raising here. 20. Like its Arabic homonyms (from the root f.y.ḍ), the Hebrew means literally “to overflow” but also (following a metaphor employed in other languages as well) “to emanate.” 21. Medieval cosmologists agreed that there is no vacuum in the heavens, but they did not or could not say much about the matter that fills them. 22. Correcting zehirot to zoharot, if zehirot is not a printer’s error. 23. José Millás Vallicrosa, La obra enciclopédica Yesodé ha-​Tebuna u-​Migdal ha-​Emuna de R. Abraham Bar Ḥiyya ha-​Bargeloni (Madrid and Barcelona: n.p., 1952). 24. Hebrew guf, usually “body,” but here it seems to mean “matter.” 25. This may mean “shiny enough to be reflective,” as in the widely diffused simile of the burnished mirror; perhaps the text is corrupt and should be emended to “possessing the capacity to receive the shining of the light.” 26. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Cosmology and Cosmogony in Doresh Reshumot, a Thirteenth-​Century Commentary on the Torah,” Harvard Theological Review 97 (2004): 199–228, esp. 216–17.

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27. De sacrificio, cited from R. M. van den Berg, Proclus’ Hymns: Essays, Translations, Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 20; see also 21. 28. John Finamore, “Iamblichus on Light and the Transparent,” in The Divine Iamblichus: Philosopher and Man of Gods, ed. H. J. Blumenthal and Gillian Clark (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1993), 57–64, at 58 and references in n. 8. 29. Philo, On  the Account of the World’s Creation Given by Moses (De  Opificio Mundi), trans. F. H. Colston and G. H. Whitaker (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929), 22–25. 30. See, however, Langermann, “Beginnings,” 181–83. 31. On this most seminal work of early Jewish mysticism (for lack of a better word), see Daniel Abrams, The Book Bahir: An Edition Based on the Earliest Manuscripts (Los Angeles: Cherub Press, 1994). 32. Ibid., 183 (passage 98). The translation is my own. The two types of light are briefly noted by A. Pirtea, “Divine Light, Plotinus, Sefer ha-​Bahir,” Studia Hebraica 9–10 (2009–2010): 294–314, at 302 and n. 32. Nogah is also found in a work ascribed to Ḥai or Ḥammai (Verman, 43), and it not primordial, but “generated from ʿarafel.” Verman (189–190) worries quite a bit about this term, especially how nogah, a type of light, could be generated from ʿarafel, “fog,” and decides (with some hesitation; the reader must study his entire discussion and especially note 80) that nogah is really a mistaken transcription of the Spanish noche, “night.” However, Verman has not noticed the usage of Sefer ha-​Bahir, nor has anyone noticed the afterlife of the Sirach’s understanding of the biblical “pillar of cloud,” which I will bring to light (pun intended) below. See also Cheryl Taylor, “Paradox upon Paradox: Using and Abusing Language in The Cloud of Unknowing and Related Texts,” Parergon 22 (2005): 31–51, at p. 47: “When . . . The Cloud attains its redefinition of the darkness of the via negativa as a superabundance of spiritual light, the affective content is transformed but the visual content stays formless and unbounded. The cloud-​darkness-​light imagery central to The Cloud’s organization reworks traditional elements from the Bible and writings of the via negativa.” Taylor studies the use of language in the writings of fourteenth-​ century English “contemplatives”; it seems, however, that they were not the first to transform the cloud into a source of light. 33. In Bar Ḥiyya’s Higgayon ha-​Nefesh, ed. E. Freimann (Leipzig: n.p., 1860), 3, the raqiʿa is said to be immersed and hidden within the surrounding resplendent (bahir) light that was created on Day One. A systematic comparison of Bar Ḥiyya’s views on light and the heavens in all of his writings would be very worthwhile, but it lies beyond the purview of the present study, which is limited to the Scroll. 34. Joseph Dan, History of Jewish Mysticism and Esotericism, vol. 4, The Gaonic Period and the 11th–12th Centuries ( Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 2008–12), 282. 35. There may be an oblique reference to Bar Ḥiyya and light in a passage from Maimonides’s Guide, 1.2, where Maimonides sarcastically refers to a sinner who is rewarded by being transformed into a star in heaven. Maimonides may be mildly mocking Bar Ḥiyya’s Higgayon ha-N ​ efesh (ed. Freimann, 5), where the person who is wise but evil is elevated to the celestial realm, above the lower, earthly realm, but is incapable of reaching the highest world. 36. Lawrence V. Berman, “Maimonides, the Disciple of Alfārābī,” Israel Oriental Studies 4 (1974): 154–78. 37. Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 275; emphasis added. For further discussion, see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Maimonides’ Repudiation of Astrology,” Maimonidean Studies 2 (1991): 123–58, repr. in Maimonides and the Sciences, ed. Robert Cohen and Hillel Levine (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000). 38. Elliot R. Wolfson, “Hai Gaon’s Letter and Commentary to ʿAleynu: Further Evidence of De Leon’s Pseudepigraphic Activity,” Jewish Quarterly Review 81 (1991): 365–410, at 387. The texts named in the title belong to the ʿIyyun circle discussed above; in the manuscripts, Ḥai and Hammai are often interchanged. 39. See, for example, the exposition of the twelfth premise of the mutakallimūn at the end of Guide 1.73. In a note to the passage in his justly acclaimed modern Hebrew translation (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2002), 1:223 n.119, the late Professor Michael Schwartz remarks that the kalām books do not adopt the position that Maimonides attributes to them, namely, that the senses cannot be relied upon. But at the very end of the passage, Maimonides himself discloses that his source is not the Muslim theologians but Galen.

40. Guide (trans. Pines), 229, slightly modified. 41. S. Munk, ed., Le Guide des égarés (Paris: n.p., 1856), 1:455 n. 1. 42. Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon, Moreh Nevukhim, Dalālat al-Ḥaʾirīn, ed. and trans. Yosef Qafih ( Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1972), 1:249 n. 9 to the edition. 43. Crispin H. T. Fletcher-​Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 75–77. 44. Adherents of the late antique cult of theos hypsistos worshipped light; though the precise nature of the connection of this cult with Jews and Judaism remains a matter of controversy, strong links certainly are in evidence. The affinity with Judaism and the worship of light is recorded by Gregory of Nazianus, cited by Stephen Mitchell, “The Cult of Theos Hypsistos Between Pagans, Jews, and Christians,” in Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity, ed. Polymnia Athanassiadi and Michael Frede, 81–148 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 95. Some faint traces of this ancient cult may have reached Maimonides. One may also wonder whether there is any connection between the vestiges of this cult and a controversial issue in Jewish liturgy. Saadia Gaon (882–942) omits the phrase, “May You shine a new light on Zion, and may we all merit to see by means of its light,” from one of the blessings of the daily morning service. Saadia explains that “we do not recite a blessing over the light that will be in the future, in the messianic era, but rather over the light that we see each morning.” See Naphtali Wieder, “Fourteen New Genizah-​Fragments of Saadya’s Siddur Together with a Reproduction of the Missing Part,” in Saadya Studies, ed. Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, 245–83 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1943), 262. The phrase is omitted by Maimonides and in several other rites as well. Perhaps these authorities, in an effort to suppress vestiges of light-​worship, wished to confine ritual references to light to visible light alone. 45. Guide (trans. Pines), 187. 46. I checked the unique manuscript, ms Paris, BnF héb. 682, fol. 69b. 47. Qafih, Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon, 1:201–2 n. 38. 48. Guide (trans. Munk), 1:362 n. 2. 49. That Maimonides might have said more is illustrated by a chapter from Joseph Albo’s Book of Principles (Sefer ha-ʿIqqarim) on light (or) as a multivalent term. That chapter is a calque on many chapters from the first part of the Guide that are devoted to the multiple meanings of Hebrew words. Why did Maimonides choose not to devote a chapter to this key word for religious imagery? I take up this question in a book now in progress on Maimonides. 50. Israel Sandman, “Biblical Hermeneutics in Abraham Bar Ḥayya’s Book of Intercalation,” in Pesher Nahum: Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature from Antiquity Through the Middle Ages, Presented to Norman (Nahum) Golb, ed. Joel L. Kraemer and Michael G. Wechsler (Chicago: Oriental Institute, 2012), 203–13. (Whatever reasons Sandman may have for preferring the spelling Ḥayya, it introduces unnecessary confusion into the field.) 51. See Langermann, “Beginnings,” as well as the article by Steven Wasserstrom in the same issue of Aleph. 52. For the most recent discussion, see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “A Different Hue to Medieval Jewish Philosophy: Four Investigations into an Unstudied Philosophical Text,” in Studies in the History of Culture and Science: A Tribute to Gad Freudenthal, ed. Resianne Fontaine, Ruth Glasner, Reimund Leicht, and Giuseppe Veltri (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 71–89, esp. 79–82. 53. This explanation was suggested by the late Israel Ta-​Shma; see Langermann, “Different Hue,” 82. 54. Adolph Jellinek, Bet ha-​Midrasch, part 1 (repr., Jerusalem: n.p., 1938), xx. The Pseudo-​Galenic dialogue has been studied most recently by Ermenegildo Bertola, “Un dialogo Pseudo-​Galenico sui problemi dell’anima,” Rivista di filosofia neo-​scolastica 60 (1968): 191–210. 55. Langermann, “Different Hue,” 79–82. 56. See here ibid., especially 79–80. 57. Scholem, Origins, 332. 58. Wilferd Madelung and Paul E. Walker, “The Kitāb al-​Rusūm waʾl-i​ zdiwāj waʾl-​tartīb, attributed to ʿAbdān (d. 286/899): Edition of the Arabic Text and Translation,” in Fortresses of the Intellect: Ismaili and Other Islamic Studies in Honour of Farhad Daftary, ed. Omar Alí-​de-​Unzaga (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), 103–66.

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59. Ibid., 113. 60. One may trace the theory of opposites back to the pre-​Socratic philosopher Anaximander. See Charles Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960; repr., Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 159; Gad Freudenthal, “The Theory of Opposites and an Ordered Universe: Physics and Metaphysics in Anaximander,” Phronesis 31 (1986): 197–228. 61. The connection between Halevi and Bar Ḥiyya on this point, and the possible Islamic source for the teaching, was pointed out already by B. Ziemlich, “Abraham b. Chijja und Judah Halewi,” Monatschrift für die Wissenschaft und Geschichte des Judenthums 29 (1880): 366–74; see the summary of his study in Poznanski’s introduction to the Scroll, xxi–xxii. The classic study is now Shlomo Pines, “Shīʾite Terms and Conceptions in the Kuzari,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980): 165–251, reprinted in The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, vol. 5, Studies in the History of Jewish Thought, ed. Warren Zev Harvey and Moshe Idel ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1997), 219–305. 62. This is the correct translation of ḥashshasha; this same translation is found in Scholem, Origins, 63 n. 24 as well. Efros, “Studies in Pre-​Tibbonian Terminology,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s., 17 (1926): 129–64, at 159, notes correctly that the term is “unusual,” but his translations—“impression,” “perceptibility”—are infelicitous. 63. It may be relevant to add in this connection that one of the titles of Aristotle’s Meteorology reported by al-​Kindī may be translated “Treatise on extremes, that is, things that are opposed to one another.” See Peter Adamson and Peter E. Pormann, The Philosophical Works of al-​Kindī (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 283 and n. 15. 64. On these cosmic days, see Scholem, Origins, 471.

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Fou r Cryptography in the Late Medieval Middle East From Mosul to Venice? Leigh Chipman

Description The Mongol/Mamluk period was one of cultural efflorescence, even under the constant threat of warfare among various powers and empires. Despite this hostility, knowledge moved across the borders, in both directions, between the Islamic and non-​Islamic worlds. This knowledge was transferred by travelers, traders, soldiers, diplomats, and spies. The last two groups made much use of secret writing.1 The term “secret writing” comprises many different things, from the use of lemon juice as invisible ink through the enciphering of diplomatic dispatches to the occult books of alchemists. Secret writing has been used in diplomacy since antiquity, but scholarly research on cryptology seems to be somewhat limited; perhaps most research is classified. Within Islamicate culture, the main study still remains Bosworth’s 1963 article on the section on codes and ciphers in al-​Qalqashandī’s Ṣubḥ al-​aʿshā (see below),2 which formed the basis for the historian of cryptology David Kahn’s claim that “cryptology was born among the Arabs. They were the first to discover and write down the methods of cryptanalysis.”3 This may be so, but the rest of his book expresses a point of view according to which cryptology was raised and reached maturity in Europe, as Kahn—​and most other historians of cryptology—​focused on developments in the chanceries of Renaissance Italy, and then in France.4 This point of view changed in 1980, following the discovery by a group of Saudi scholars of a manuscript containing several cryptological treatises in the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul.5 This majmūʿa, ms Aya Sofya 4832, holds works attributed to various scholars active in the vicinity of the Abbasid court, including the philosopher and mathematician

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al-​Kindī (d. 260/873), as well as several treatises dating to the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. The cryptological methods recorded there are more sophisticated than had been hitherto suspected, predating (by several centuries) the European usage of such methods as letter frequency, polyalphabetic substitution, and messages with no word-​dividers. These findings led Simon Singh to suggest that “Islamic discoveries in science and mathematics strongly influenced the rebirth of science in Europe, and cryptanalysis might have been among the imported knowledge.”6 This chapter will concentrate on the ways and means of encrypting poetry and prose collected in the writings of three medieval Arabic authors whose works were found in the Süleymaniye majmūʿa and whose lives span the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk periods: Ibn Dunaynīr (d. 627/1229), Ibn ʿAdlān (d. 666/1268), and Ibn al-Durayhim (d. 762/1368). The abovementioned al-​Qalqashandī (d. 821/1418) was a legal scholar and a secretary in the Mamluk administration in Egypt. His Ṣubḥ al-​aʿshā fī ṣināʿat al-​inshāʾ provides a detailed overview of the theoretical and practical knowledge required of a secretary, together with copies of actual documents as a guide to official correspondence. As noted above, the section on codes and their decipherment is one of the few sources on Arabic cryptography to be widely known, thanks to Bosworth’s article. Al-​Qalqashandī relies to a great extent on Ibn al-​Durayhim, and in the following discussions, his remarks will be noted mainly where they differ from the latter’s. I should point out, however, that al-​Qalqashandī appears to be the only author of the period to discuss secret writing in the form of invisible inks, of which he gives a list.7 Before I deal with these three authors and the methods proposed by them, some remarks about the technical terms I shall use are in order. Cryptography is the science or study of techniques of secret writing, such as codes and ciphers, and especially the processes and methods of making and using such secret writing, while cryptanalysis is the science of translating or interpreting (colloquially, “breaking”) such secret writings whose key is unknown. A cipher is a method of encrypting the plaintext by substituting letters/signs for the original letters of the message. A code is a method of encrypting the plaintext by substituting a sign or signs for each word or expression in the original message. Steganography refers to methods of hiding the existence of a secret message (as opposed to cryptography, which merely hides the meaning of a message). Finally, two important forms of ciphers: monoalphabetic substitution, in which each letter of the alphabet is replaced by a certain other letter or symbol, and polyalphabetic substitution, in which each letter of the alphabet is replaced by more than one other letter or symbol. Most of the ciphers reported by our authors are steganographic or substitution ciphers of one kind or another. The Authors Turning now to the biographies of the cryptologists, certain interesting parallels appear. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad Ibn Dunaynīr al-​Lakhmī was born in Mosul in the second half of the seventh/twelfth century and was executed at Ṣubayba (Qalʿat Namrūd) in 627/1229 by al-​Malik al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān. A cipher clerk in the service of the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt and Syria, he was celebrated in the biographical

dictionaries of his day as a poet, critic of poetry, and cryptologist. The Saudi editors quote this information from the entry in al-​Aʿlām,8 itself based on data from a manuscript held by one Aḥmad ʿUbayd of Damascus, and that gentleman’s further reading in Ibn al-​Sāʿī’s Tārīkh Dimashq, the relevant volume of which is yet unpublished. All that I have been able to find so far in direct primary sources is the entry in al-Ṣafadī’s Wāfī, as follows: Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī, the honourable imam [al-​imām al-​fāḍil] Sharaf al-​Dīn Ibn Dunaynīr, the diminutive of dīnār. He has a book [called] al-​Kāfī fī ʿulūm al-​qawāfī [The sufficient in the sciences of versification] and a book [called] al-​Shihāb al-​nājim fī ʿilm waḍʿ al-​tarājim [The fiery comet in the science of composing ciphers] and a book [called] al-​Fuṣūl al-​mutarjama fī ḥall al-​tarjama [The clarifying chapters on the solution of ciphers]. He lived at the time of al-​Malik al-Ẓāhir Ghāzī, son of the sultan Ṣalāḥ al-​Dīn Yūsuf b. Ayyūb.9 In addition, al-​Aʿlām reports that he was descended from the pre-​Islamic kings of Lakhm and that he served first the amīr Asad al-​Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh al-​Mihrānī and then, from 614/1216, the sultan al-​Malik al-​Kāmil Nāṣir al-​Dīn Muḥammad b. Ayyūb, composing poetry in praise of them. According to his dīwān, he is supposed to have begun composing poetry around 606/1208. Furthermore, al-​Aʿlām claims—​without going into detail—​that Ibn Dunaynīr was a heretic and a freethinker (mulḥid wa-​zindīq) who drank wine. Quoting Ibn al-​Shāʿir’s ʿUqūd al-​jumān fī shuʿarāʾ hādhā al-​zamān (The strings of pearls of the poets of this period),10 Ibn Dunaynīr is described as a beautiful youth with a ruddy complexion (shabb ashqar jamīl al-ṣūra) who knew grammar well and understood cryptography. He travelled in the service of princes in this capacity, but his heresy was his downfall, as papers in his hand expressing unorthodox views were shown to al-ʿAzīz ʿUthmān, who executed him. Unfortunately, the specifics of these unorthodox views are unknown, but we certainly have a connection here between cryptography and court intrigue. Our second author, ʿAfīf al-D ​ īn ʿAlī Ibn ʿAdlān, was also born in Mosul, in 583/1187. He studied in Baghdad and taught in the mosque (jāmiʿ) of al-​Salāḥ Ẓāhir in Cairo, where he died in 666​/1268​.11 He served the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus, al-​Malik al-​Ashraf Muẓaffar al-​Dīn Mūsā (d. 635/1237), and it is to him that Ibn ʿAdlān dedicated his treatise al-​Muʾallaf lil-​Malik al-​Ashraf fī ḥall al-t​ arājim (The composition for al-​Malik al-​Ashraf on the solution of ciphers), in the hope of becoming a member of court.12 In addition to his cryptological writings, Ibn ʿAdlān is noted as an adīb, specifically as a student of Abū al-​Baqāʾ al-ʿUkbarī (d. 616/1219), the grammarian and Ḥanbalī jurist, and is often given the title of al-​naḥwī. He seems to have been particularly renowned for solving verse ciphers within a given period of time, as much of his biography is devoted to such anecdotes (see below). Tāj al-​Dīn ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ibn al-​Durayhim was a third native of Mosul, born there in 712/1312. A wealthy orphan, Ibn al-​Durayhim received the

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finest education his mother could buy, studying Qurʾan reading (qirāʾāt) and Shāfiʿī jurisprudence, grammar, and hadith. He was considered a prodigy in both rational and received sciences, described as “fording the oceans of traditional sciences and crossing the expanses of the rational sciences” (khāḍḍ biḥār al-​manqūl wa-​qatʿ mafāwiz al-maʿqūl), particularly in mathematics and its various branches. As an adult, his career as a merchant saw him traveling between Cairo and Damascus. According to the biography recorded by his contemporary Khalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī, Ibn al-Durayhim composed over eighty treatises, of which some twenty were devoted to cryptography and other occult subjects, such as the meaning of the mysterious letters at the beginning of some chapters of the Qurʾan (asrār al-ḥurūf allatī fī awāʾil al-​suwar). He was sent from Cairo as the emissary of the sultan al-​Malik al-​Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn to the king of Ethiopia, but died at Qūs, on the way, in 762/1362. In his biographies, he is occasionally compared to the elusive Ibn Dunaynīr,13 and it is perhaps worth noting that both men bear obscure names that are diminutives of coins—​dīnār and dirham. The significance of this is uncertain. As can be seen, all three men were known not only as cryptographers, but for their skill in language generally, and especially in grammar and poetry. This is not surprising, for although today university courses on cryptography will be found in departments of computer science or mathematics, this is due to technological advances. In the past, sensitivity to language was one of the cryptologist’s most vital tools, and knowledge of the intricacies of grammar was particularly helpful. In fact, it seems that combinatorics developed in the Islamic world from the ninth century on the basis of al-​Khalīl b. Aḥmad’s phonological analysis of the Arabic language, and cryptographers made use of his theories in order to calculate letter frequencies and the frequencies of permutations, substitutions, and combinations.14

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The Methods: Prose Let us proceed to the books themselves. Ibn ʿAdlān divides his treatise into three sections: a preface, rules, and a conclusion. In the preface, he sets out the requirements for a cryptanalyst. These include intelligence; linguistic ability and experience; knowledge of prosody, rhymes, letter and word frequencies; practical experience; and knowledge of the methods of enciphering. Despite this last requirement, al-Muʾallaf lil-M ​ alik al-A ​ shraf contains only methods for cryptanalysis and no discussion of methods of cryptology. The preface contains only a very basic description of how to encipher: “To encipher, you inscribe the plain letters of any language, under which you draw agreed signs. Then you write using these signs, and when you reach the end of a word, you put a sign for a space.”15 The twenty methods or rules (Ar. qawāʿid) of cipher-​breaking that Ibn ʿAdlān proposes involve letter frequency (single letters, bigrams, trigrams, and even quadrograms), the structure of the enciphered text (its length, probable words such as stock opening and closing phrases), and the structure of the Arabic language (finding the initial al- and the likely adjacent letters, which letters may be repeated twice at the beginning or end of words, and so on). He also gives rules for finding whether the

cryptogram makes use of a spacer symbol dividing letters into words. Two rules (16 and 17) are devoted to deciphering encoded poetry, which will be discussed further below. The book ends with a practical example of an enciphered message, using a cipher where names of birds substitute for letters of the alphabet. Ibn ʿAdlān takes the reader step by step through his algorithm: 1. Counting the different “symbols” appearing in the cipher text. In this case, there were nineteen; i.e., the cryptanalyst has to find nineteen different letters. 2. Establishing the frequency of the different letters. This ranged from eighteen times to once or twice. 3. Establishing the cipher for spaces between words (if it is used), checking and dismissing possibilities according to the length of the words created. 4. Deciphering bigrams, such as min, thumma, ʿan, inna, etc. 5. Finding the definite article al-, which can be preceded only by certain letters. 6. Deciphering longer words, checking constantly for coherence. As more and more bird names are replaced by letters, it is sometimes necessary to go back and change the decipherment, if the plaintext does not make sense. As words appear, the context may change and make something that was previously meaningless able to be understood. At no point does Ibn ʿAdlān discuss the reasons for enciphering and/or deciphering messages. He boasts of his cryptanalytical skills; perhaps to him, the necessity of enciphering is too obvious to be mentioned? According to Schwartz, during the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods, cryptology became increasingly militarized. She views Ibn ʿAdlān’s references to his work for various members of the Ayyubid ruling family and to messages “intercepted . . . from some frontiers” as evidence for his appealing to cryptology’s military significance in order to boost the likelihood of his in fact receiving a post at the court of al-​Malik al-​Ashraf Mūsā.16 Alternatively, of course, Ibn ʿAdlān can be viewed as part of a tradition of linguistic virtuosi going back to the Abbasid court in Baghdad and even earlier. Ibn Dunaynīr’s major work on cryptology is Maqāṣid al-f​ uṣūl al-​mutarjama fī ḥall al-​tarjama (The purposes of the clarifying chapters about the solution of ciphers; fols. 54a–80a). The emphasis here is on cryptanalysis, and Ibn Dunaynīr quotes his sources, some of which are other treatises in the Süleymaniye majmūʿa, such as al-​Kindī’s Risāla fī istikhrāj al-​muʿammā (Epistle on cryptanalysis) and the “Two Essays” by an anonymous author. Furthermore, Ibn Dunaynīr divides his book into two parts, the first dealing with the cryptanalysis of prose ciphers, and the second with the cryptanalysis of poetic ciphers. In both cases, he discusses the principles and tools of cryptanalysis, types of enciphering, and algorithms of cryptanalysis. Like the other authors, he ends the book with practical examples. As noted above, Ibn al-​Durayhim composed some twenty treatises devoted to cryptography and other occult subjects. Until the discovery of the Süleymaniye majmūʿa, it appeared that none of these works was extant. Here I will discuss only

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Miftāh al-​kunūz li-​īdāḥ al-​marmūz (The key to the treasures that make clear what is hidden). This treatise (fols. 47b–59a) seems to be the most comprehensive of all those preserved in the Süleymaniye majmūʿa, dealing with the qualities required of a cryptanalyst, eight types of enciphering, a discussion of the morphology of Arabic, and an algorithm for breaking messages enciphered by substitution. It concludes with two practical examples. Ibn Dunaynīr’s and Ibn al-​Durayhim’s treatises have many points of similarity and will be discussed together. Both begin, as noted above, with a list of the cryptanalyst’s tools. Ibn Dunaynīr opens his treatise by stating the two aspects of successful cryptanalysis: acquaintance with letter frequencies and thorough knowledge of the possibilities of combination and noncombination. Furthermore, the cryptanalyst must be familiar with methods of enciphering and should himself be endowed with intelligence, intuition, and an inherent flair for the subject, “otherwise he would never stand to benefit by any of the methods conducive to cryptanalysis. Nay, some may have the plaintext already right under their very nose, yet they are not well-​guided to read the cipher message contained therein.”17 In his discussion of letter frequency, Ibn Dunaynīr points out the importance of knowing what language the plaintext was composed in, as frequency changes from language to language. Because of this, he says, he will limit himself to methods of enciphering in Arabic. Ibn al-Durayhim makes no such explicit statement; however, he points out the necessity of a thorough knowledge of the language and grammar of the cryptogram and discusses the numbers of letters and their possible combinations in a variety of languages, including Mongolian, Armenian, Latin, French, Turkish, and Hebrew.18 The first five speak to cryptography’s importance in diplomacy and foreign affairs, while the last seems a throwback to its past as a learned recreation at the caliphal court.19 As we saw earlier, enciphered poems—​of which more below—​continued to be a source of amusement into the Mamluk period. Ibn al-​Durayhim divides ciphers into four general categories: transposition (e.g., writing words backwards), substitution, augmentation or reduction of the number of letters, and the use of cipher devices.20 Ibn Dunaynīr, in contrast, divides enciphering into simple and composite. Simple enciphering comprises letters changing their forms (substitution ciphers of various kinds) and letters retaining their forms (transposition ciphers), while composite ciphers are combinations of various simple ciphers. He begins by enumerating simple ciphers and their methods of decipherment. The first method is a simple monoalphabetic substitution, along the lines of Caesar’s cipher, where a given letter of the alphabet is merely replaced by another one.21 Naturally, letter frequencies remain the same, as is true also of the second method, where letters of the alphabet are replaced by symbols: “If encipherment is done by maintaining the forms of letters but changing their relative positions in relation to the surrounding letters, it is very easy to cryptanalyse. Observing the incoherence of the connection, you realize that letters have been interchanged. You try to restore their original arrangement time and again, and you are in line for hitting

the mark.”22 In both cases, guessing the opening and/or closing formulae of letters will solve the cipher quite quickly. Ibn al-​Durayhim expands on this, noting that the letters of the alphabet form a circle—​thus laying the theoretical groundwork for the cipher disk (a circular device comprising two circular and concentric plates, one fixed for plaintext and the other movable for the cipher text), used as late as the American Civil War, and previously thought to have been invented by Leon Battista Alberti in his De cifris (1466/7). He also points out that many cipher alphabets may be created by substituting the following or preceding letters at various distances for the plaintext letters: Using the numerical alphabet order [i.e., abjad-​LC], by substituting for each letter the one immediately following; thus the letter bāʾ is substituted for alif, and jīm for bāʾ, and so on until the end. The letter alif is substituted for ghayn. This is because letters are like a circle [i.e., they are viewed as located on a circle circumference or a disc—​eds.], in that the last letter is replaceable by the first letter as if to follow or precede it. Example: MḤMD (clear text); NṬNH (cipher text). You may substitute for each letter every third letter next to it, so that MḤMD (clear) becomes SYSW (cipher), and ʿLY becomes ṢNL; or every fourth letter, so that MḤMD becomes ʿKʿZ and ʿLY—​QSM, and so on and so forth till the end of letters. This results in 28 cipher alphabets.23 If this idea is converted into tables, we end up with something that looks very like the sixteenth-​century Vigenère tables.24 Something even closer is created by Ibn al-​Durayhim’s proposal to use a keyword or key sentence to form a polyalphabetical cipher—​this would have been unbreakable at the time.25 The steganographical ciphers reported by both authors include hiding the words of the message among “null” words that create a story or plausible letter,26 or embroidering the distance between various holes representing the letters of the alphabet on a length of cloth.27 In another method, used by Ibn ʿAdlān in his practical example as well, each letter is encrypted by a word on a particular theme, such as the name of a bird, or a derivative of such a word.28 These, too, could be made to form a story. Additional cipher devices included chessboards and the use of colored beads. In the first case, each square is allotted a letter and the message is spelled out by the placing of the chessmen.29 In the second, each letter of the alphabet is assigned a bead of a different color and the beads are strung so as to spell out a message.30 Both Ibn al-​Durayhim and Ibn Dunaynīr deal quite briefly with transposition, in which the plaintext is enciphered by changing the order of the letters, a huge methodical anagram, as it were.31 This is the very first method to be mentioned by both, but of course it is the least secure cipher. Ibn Dunaynīr’s parallel to Ibn al-Durayhim’s third class is enciphering by the addition of null letters (which should not be vowels) to the plaintext or by the omission of letters in order to create the cipher text.32

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The Methods: Poetry We turn now from the cryptanalysis of prose to that of poetry. The first reaction of anyone familiar with Arabic poetry to the idea of encrypting it may very well be, Why would anyone bother? Is poetry not hard enough to understand in plaintext? Despite this, there appears to have been an established tradition of poetry encryption, as the treatise attributed to al-​Kindī in the Süleymaniye majmūʿa already discusses this. Indeed, the majmūʿa contains several treatises devoted solely to the cryptology of poetry: that of Ibn Ṭabaṭabā (d. 322/934; fols. 48a–53a), that of the “Author of Adab al-​shuʿarāʾ” (dates unknown, but after Ibn Ṭabaṭabā and before Ibn Dunaynīr; fols. 119b–133a), and two treatises of al-​Jurhumī (dates unknown; fols. 80b–81b, 83a–86b). These works, which will not be dealt with in detail here, are the sources of the discussion of the cryptanalysis of poetry in the writings of the Ayyubid and Mamluk authors under consideration. They are evidence for the importance of poetry in the recreation of the learned bureaucrats of the Abbasid court and its successors; from the twelfth century, poetic cryptography appears to have been discouraged on the grounds of field security.33 According to Schwartz, “poetic cryptology’s popularity encouraged a bureaucratic backlash, which attacked poetic cryptology for its uselessness and indiscretion, and fostered prose cryptology’s official use.”34 Despite this, as shown by the anecdotes in the cryptographers’ biographies, the former continued to be a source of amusement for the learned. For example, much space in Ibn ʿAdlān’s tarjama is taken up by anecdotes about his cipher-​breaking and riddle-​solving abilities. Two such tales, reported by al-Ṣafadī, follow. The first is told by a certain al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-​Salām: Muḥammad b. al-​Jahm wrote to me in code (fī al-​muʿammā): fī al-​qawāfī fa-​taltawī wa-​talīnun rubbamā ʿālaj al-​qawāfī rijālun ṭāwaʿathum ʿayn wa-ʿayn wa-ʿayn wa-ʿaṣathum nūn wa-​nūn wa-​nūn   Often men have dealt with versification    and versification became intricate and easy by turns   ʿAyn and ʿayn and ʿayn are obedient to them   and nūn and nūn and nūn are disobedient to them

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He [= Ibn ʿAdlān] translated these two verses for me with difficulty and wrote: “ʿayn and ʿayn and ʿayn like that, and this was hard for me, and it took me two hours to translate them.” I said to him: “How do you manage to understand ciphers and make words of satire in place of these words, as Allāh the Exalted said: “layer upon layer of darkness” [Q 24:40, Pickthall trans.]?” So he said to me: “Had you not heard this poem before?” And I said: “No, by God,” and he said: “. . . the meaning of the two verses: that the material should be understood and not brought in prose or verse or criticism, so that the first ʿayn stands for ʿarabiyya, and that is grammar proper, and the second ʿayn stands for ʿarūḍ, prosody, and the third ʿayn stands for ʿibāra which is the best-​chosen expressions.”

The second tale is told by Ibn ʿAdlān himself: . . . Ismāʿīl al-​Masmūl, who belonged to al-Ṣalāḥ b. Shaʿbān al-​Irbilī, made these verses for me to interpret for al-Ṣalāḥ: wa-​mā nabtun lahu fī kulli ghuṣnin ʿuyūn laysa tunkiruhā al-ʿuqūl wa-​in qabaḍūhu tabsiruhu idhā basaṭūhu talqāhu qaṣīran yaṭūl It has no growth in any branch; eyes that the minds do not acknowledge When spread, it will meet it shortly and if grasped, its gaze will lengthen I said to him: This is a frame [shabaka] for hunting birds. He began to revile me, so I said to him: I have already taken it down, and I need nothing more of it, and he stopped reviling me. Surprisingly, in both cases the questioners’ response to receiving the correct answer is not satisfaction or pleasure, but anger and vilification. I am not sure what to make of this, but apparently telling riddles was not a mere harmless pastime, but rather one with definite consequences, at least in terms of prestige. In the works under discussion here, poetic cryptography appears briefly or as the second part of the book. Ibn ʿAdlān devotes qāʿida sixteen and seventeen of al-Muʾallaf lil-​Malik al-A ​ shraf to cryptanalyzing poetry. As this requires knowledge of prosody and rhyme, each qāʿida deals with one or the other. Beginning with prosody, Ibn ʿAdlān points out the importance of introductory formulae, such as qāl al-​shāʿir, indicating that the next few words are poetry rather than prose. Knowledge of prosody, especially of the number of letters in a line of verse, or better, a hemistich, can help find the end of a poetic section embedded in prose, and divide those letters into possible words. Rhyme is even more important a tool, as the existence of “surplus” letters helps indicate that the rāwī is in fact the previous letter and thus the surplus must be a long alif, wāw, or yāʾ, with the last being the most frequent. These principles are not new. Ibn ʿAdlān does not name his sources, however, and for a more detailed treatment we turn now to Ibn Dunaynīr. Ibn Dunaynīr devotes chapters 35–57 of his book Maqāṣid al-​fuṣūl to the cryptanalysis of poetry ciphers. According to his editors, in this section he relies mainly on al-​Kindī, Ibn Ṭabaṭabā, and the “Author of Adab al-​shuʿarāʾ.”35 Beginning with a reiteration of the tools of the trade common to the cryptanalysis of both poetry and prose (i.e., letter frequency, possible letter combinations, and the frequencies of the latter), Ibn Dunaynīr then sets forth the specific requirements for one who would cryptanalyze poetry. These are knowledge of prosody, rhyme, and metrical structure; being appreciative of poetry, both having the ability to write verse himself and having committed a great deal of poetry to heart; and extensive cryptological

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experience. Despite what Ibn al-​Durayhim and al-​Qalqashandī seem to imply (see below), as far as Ibn Dunaynīr is concerned, cryptanalysis of poetry is not a matter for beginners. After briefly discussing the five metrical circles and sixteen poetical meters, Ibn Dunaynīr moves on to what he and the “Author of Adab al-s​ huʿarāʾ” call being “insightful in writing” (baṣīr an bil-​kitāba), that is, understanding the rules and principles of writing in Arabic. The topics covered here include the use of the definite article aland the word patterns related to it; bigrams and their frequency; the relation between a verse’s meter and the number of letters in it; orthography (letters pronounced but not written and vice versa); wāw, yāʾ, and hamza and how they help or hinder the cryptanalyst; and prefixes and suffixes. Ibn Dunaynīr also discusses problems less often encountered, such as very long words without the al-; nonsense verse of sound meter, and its opposite, unsound meter and language, due to the poet’s inferiority; and the verse’s being too short to allow for frequency analysis. Despite the last-​ mentioned problem, it is agreed that enciphered verse is usually much shorter than enciphered prose. Finally, two practical examples allow Ibn Dunaynīr to demonstrate his algorithm of poetical cryptanalysis. Starting with a series of apparently unrelated words, beginning with saʿd, fahd, fahd, ward, he describes the process of cryptanalysis:

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Having found thirty-​four letters, I concluded that the verse belongs to al-basīṭ al-​makhbūn metre. It also came home to me that the last word involved the rhyme, which was of the overlapping type as it consisted of three vocalized letters lying between two neutral sukūns. I further perceived that the final letter of the second hemistich is identical with the final letter of the first hemi­ stich. Sorting out the letters according to their order of frequency, I elici­ted first and foremost the name of God (allāh), utilizing the repetition of the letter lām in it and the fact that His name all-​often goes in front position. I thus labeled the letters alif, lām and hāʾ. Then I checked the form of the letter mīm and found it repeated six times, i.e., exceeding in frequency the form of the letters alif and lām. Therefore I held it would probably be mīm. Switching over to the next frequent form of the letter yāʾ, I found it recurring three times, and I made it yāʾ. Thereupon I took up the tetragram (four-​letter word) following the name of God, with the letters lām, yaʾ and mīm already known, and sampled such words as: yaslam, yaʿlam, yaẓlam, etc. to reserve judgement on it for a while. I now sought the next word—​a trigram [three-​ letter word] the middle letter of which was still covert, the initial and terminal letters being alif and yāʾ respectively. By sampling words such as ummī, abī, annī, the following got out as possibilities: allāhu yaẓlamu ummī/abī/annī, which I immediately dismissed as out of the question. Of these words I had my heart set on annī, promptly turning my assumption to the word yaʿlam instead of yaẓlam by extension, and thus sounding meaningful and poetical. The next word was another tetragram beginning and ending with the letter

mīm. I guessed at words such as mughram, mughzam and the like, but the context soon lent credence to mughram as the apposite choice, and so the word-​group read: allāhu yaʿlamu annī mughramun. Now I looked into the next word which was a trigram ending with the letter mīm. Experimenting with letters in the light of contextual connection, the word bi-​kum developed. It was along these lines that cryptanalysis was carried out.36 The end result, the verse allāhu yaʿlamu annī mughramun bi-​kum / wa-​kullu jāriḥatin minni tuḥibbukumu—​roughly, God knows how much I am besotted with you, heart and soul—​was found using the following steps: 1. Calculating the number of letters in the verse in order to determine the meter; 2. Inferring from this the type of rhyme; 3. Assuming that the rhyme letter at the end of the first hemistich is the same as that at the end of the entire verse; 4. Sorting letters according to frequency and thus eliciting letters such as alif, lām, hāʾ; 5. Checking the next high-​frequency letters, such as mīm and yāʾ; 6. Experimenting with probable words, based on letters so far discovered; 7. Composing a group of words of sound meter and sense; 8. Repeating until the plaintext of the verse is revealed. Comparison with Ibn ʿAdlān’s algorithm for cryptanalysis of prose above shows them to be basically the same. “Counting symbols” is equivalent to “calculating the number of letters in the verse in order to determine the meter.” “Establishing frequency” is identical to “sorting letters according to frequency and thus eliciting letters such as alif, lām, hāʾ,” and the like. “Deciphering bigrams” and “Finding al-” parallels “experimenting with probable words, based on letters so far discovered,” while “Deciphering longer words” is the last stage, “composing a group of words of sound meter and sense” and “repeating until the plaintext of the verse is revealed.” Only “finding a spacer” has no real parallel; it appears that Ibn ʿAdlān is helped by the fact that he assumes a spacer cipher to be the most frequent form, while Ibn Dunaynīr seems to assume no spacers, making an initial identification of word length impossible. The poetic meter and the common forms of Arabic words have to replace the spacer, in this case. Unlike Ibn ʿAdlān and Ibn Dunaynīr, Ibn al-​Durayhim mentions poetry only in passing, saying that when a beginning cryptanalyst is given enciphered poetry to decipher, “poetry should be written to him in such a way as to enable him by the aid of meter to solve some letters,” such as hāʾ and tāʾ that denote the feminine, or long vowels. This same passage, as well as the expression al-​manẓūm wal-​manthūr (poetry and prose) in another, is quoted by al-​Qalqashandī, who makes no other references to enciphering poetry.

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Significance and Speculation We have seen how ciphers were used; why and when was this done? This is a question difficult to answer—​at least at this stage—​without speculation. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, little research has been undertaken on cryptography in the Islamic world. Even in Adam Silverstein’s Postal Systems in the Pre-​Modern Islamic World,37 which devotes much space to intelligence, there is no mention of the use of codes and ciphers. The chapter on espionage in Reuven Amitai-​Preiss’s Mongols and Mamluks38 is similarly devoid of any reference to secret writing. Very few state documents from this period have survived, so we have no actual examples of cipher texts, as far as I know. At the present state of our knowledge, it seems that David Kahn’s question, “Did the Arabs have black chambers?,” is still unanswerable.39 However, it may be that the diplomatic stage of the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods in the Middle East encouraged the use of ciphers. With a number of Crusader states, Ayyubid successor states throughout the Fertile Crescent, and then the Mongols to the north and east, the fragmented Middle East shows certain similarities to the many Italian city-​states at the time of the Renaissance—​a time usually considered a golden age for cryptography. Perhaps similar political situations caused similar flourishing of secret writing?

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The Mosul Connection Let us return to the common characteristics of Ibn ʿAdlān, Ibn Dunaynīr, and Ibn al-​Durayhim. All three were interested in language and served the Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers of Syria and Egypt—​in the context of the period, it is unlikely that anyone but courtiers would have written on codes and ciphers, as only at court would espionage and entertainment have mingled with learning. To my mind, the most interesting characteristic that our three authors have in common is their origin outside the Ayyubid/Mamluk realm, in Mosul, under the rule of either Badr al-​Dīn Luʾluʾ or a Mongol epigone. What, then, was happening in Mosul in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries? We are quite well informed about political history for the first half of the thirteenth century, thanks to Ibn al-​Athīr and Bar Hebraeus, and enough objets d’art have survived to indicate a prosperous and beautiful material culture, but—​as in so many other times and places of the Islamic Middle Period—​not very much is known about the social and intellectual history of the city. A spot of detective work, however, brought me to the figure of the polymath Kamāl al-​Dīn Mūsā b. Yūnus (d. 639/1242), who, despite being a major attraction for wandering scholars in thirteenth-​century Mosul and an important teacher of the famous mathematician and astronomer Naṣīr al-​Dīn al-Ṭūsī, has been denied an entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (first and new editions) and thus remains obscure to the majority of scholars. For the purpose of this chapter, he is significant as an example of the intellectual context in which our authors grew up, in which mathematics and language skills were intertwined.

Kamāl al-​Dīn Abū al-​Maʿālī (or Abū al-​Futūḥ) Mūsā b. Yūnus al-​Mawṣilī al-ʿUqaylī is described in the most glowing terms by Ibn al-​Fuwaṭī, who provides a pedigree going back eleven generations. Students flocked from east and west to study both manqūlāt and maʿqūlāt with him.40 Ibn Abī Usaybiʿa reports that he answered questions on astronomy and other sciences posed to Badr al-​Dīn Luʾluʾ by the “emperor of the Franks,” Frederick II.41 According to Ibn Khallikān, himself a student of Kamāl al-​Dīn, the latter studied Shāfiʿī fiqh at the Niẓāmiyya madrasa in Baghdad for a few years, but otherwise spent his life in Mosul. Kamāl al-​Dīn succeeded his father and taught in a mosque originally founded by the amir Zayn al-​Dīn, lord of Irbil, but which became known as the Kamāliyya madrasa after him. Ibn Khallikān calls him unparalleled in combining of all the sciences (wa-​jamaʿa min al-ʿulūm mā lam yajmaʿhu aḥad), listing—​in addition to substantive fiqh, in which he was consulted by Ḥanafīs as well as Shāfiʿīs—​exegesis (tafsīr), hadith, jurisprudence (uṣūl al-​fiqh), theology (uṣūl al-​dīn), Arabic grammar and literature, and history, on the one hand, and logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, medicine, geometry, astronomy, music, and mathematics, on the other hand. Ibn Khallikān goes into great detail with regard to Kamāl al-​Dīn’s mathematical skills. In addition to algebra and arithmetic based on the Greeks, he was familiar with a Chinese method (ṭarīq al-​khiṭāʾiyyīn); Ibn Khallikān also notes that Kamāl al-​Dīn used to study the Torah and the New Testament with Jews and Christians, and even to interpret these scriptures with them.42 In short, a true polymath, and apparently an open-​minded one, too. Unfortunately, due to the wording of the biographies of Ibn ʿAdlān, Ibn Dunaynīr, and Ibn al-​Durayhim, it is impossible to draw up an orderly list of their teachers, especially in the maʿqūlāt. In their day, Mosul had obviously become a center for mathematical studies, and it seems highly unlikely that they would have been unaware of Kamāl al-​Dīn. The only direct connection I have found so far, though, is that Ibn al-​Durayhim studied al-Ḥāwī al-ṣaghīr, an important manual of Shāfiʿī jurisprudence by ʿAbd al-​Ghaffār al-​Qazwīnī, with the qāḍī Sharaf al-​Dīn ʿAbdallāh Ibn Yūnus, according to the commentary (sharḥ) of the latter’s father, the Kamāl al-​Dīn under discussion.43 This “Mosul connection,” the fact that all three authors were born and at least partially raised in a frontier town that has been described as “caught on an uneasy middle ground between Mamluk Islam and the Islam of the Ilkhanids, suffocated in a waste land roamed by petty princelings, mercenaries, and brigands; and whatever cultural production there might have been soon floundered in a babel of languages and dialects. In the absence of one single dominant—​and thus orientating—​language, intellectual output dwindled into insignificance and sank into oblivion,”44 immediately draws attention. I obviously do not agree with this description, and certainly further research on the cultural and intellectual history of Mosul after Badr al-​Dīn Luʾluʾ is needed, perhaps through the prism of biographical dictionaries—​what Wadad al-​ Qāḍī has called “the alternative history of the Islamic community”45—rather than the more political point of view of the chronicles. Furthermore, it is precisely the

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multilingual and multiethnic composition of the city that may be significant for the history of cryptography. In contradiction to the author I have just quoted, it is quite possible that the so-​called babel was instrumental in turning scholars’ thoughts to encryption, since even writing a known language in an unknown alphabet—​the case of Judeo-​Arabic comes readily to mind—​is a form of secret writing. I might add that it is just around this time, or slightly later, that the use of chronograms—​verses the sum of whose letters according to the abjad alphabet equals the hijrī year—​to date public inscriptions becomes popular. This popularity seems to increase over time, to the extent that almost all late Ottoman-​period inscriptions use this method.46 Using chronograms rather than simply writing the years, be it in words or in numerals, can perhaps even be considered a special form of enciphering poetry.

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From Mosul to Venice? Furthermore, another important issue for the history of cryptography is the fact that Mosul was a station on the Silk Road, as shown by Marco Polo’s route to China.47 Venice, Polo’s homeland, was the first to establish a cipher bureau in 1145 or 1226, well before any other Italian city-​state, just as it was beginning its rise to commercial supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. During this time, Venice’s principal trading partner was the Mamluk sultanate. “Consuls were appointed to serve in the principal ‘colonies’ in Mamluk lands . . . in addition to the frequent dispatches, they had to write a full report or relazione on their return giving all details of the history, geography and customs of the locality,”48 which conceivably could have included the Mamluk use of ciphers. Venetian contact with the Islamic world shifted its focus to the Ottoman Empire after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and even more so after the Mamluks’ defeat in 1517. The bailo of the Venetians in Constantinople, a combined consul and ambassador who oversaw the merchant community there, was considered to hold the most senior foreign posting in the Venetian diplomatic service, and the highest paid one, too.49 Surviving dispatches from this period include cipher texts.50 Early Venetian ciphers left consonants en clair and enciphered only vowels—​ a method that suited Latin and Italian, but would have been meaningless in Arabic. Later, from the fifteenth century, diplomatic ciphers made use of special symbols, in addition to the letters of the alphabet, in monoalphabetic and polyalphabetic substitutions. A common feature was a single symbol that enciphered two identical letters, perhaps as a result of the many double letters found in Italian spelling. Nulls were common, and this was also meant to make decipherment more difficult.51 Theoretical works on cryptology and cryptanalysis appeared in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, most famously the Venetian Leon Battista Alberti’s De cifris (On ciphers, 1466/7), where the cipher disk is described for the first time in a European language, and the Neopolitan Giambattista della Porta’s De furtivis literatum notis (On the writing hidden in books, 1563), which describes a polyalphabetic substitution cipher that was a forerunner of Vigenère’s “undecipherable cipher.” So far, the question of the sources of Italian cryptological knowledge has not been researched in depth, and

most studies have been content to describe the theories. However, given the fact that even within Europe, it is difficult to trace precise and definite connections between the Italians mentioned above and a near contemporary in Germany, such as Trithemius (d. 1514)—leading to rhetorical questions of the type “Was this indeed a creatio ex nihilo, an invention by a stroke of genius, as so often suggested . . . ?”52—tracing such connections between theoretical cryptological writings in Arabic and in Latin seems an almost impossible enterprise. On the contrary, it is sometimes baldly stated that a certain writer on ciphers “was ignorant of the Arab treatises existing at the time.”53 Despite the possibility that similarities between methods of enciphering and cryptanalysis in the Islamic world and in early modern Europe may simply be a case of convergence, that is, similar environments giving rise to similar solutions to problems, I think that the case for migration of cryptological knowledge cannot be dismissed out of hand. It is now quite widely accepted that scientific knowledge in Arabic, particularly in astronomy, was transferred to Renaissance Europe via routes different from those of the Arabic to Latin translation movement of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, routes that involved the oral, rather than written, translation of manuscripts: “their contents, which were originally Arabic and Persian could now be directly assimilated into the Latin texts, without having to translate the whole text into Latin. This method of transfer of knowledge constitutes by itself a new phenomenon that is rarely acknowledged by all those who study the transfer of knowledge across cultures.”54 In the last decade, this picture has been complicated further with the addition of the Hebrew tradition. The links between Venice and Italy in general with the Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire included Jews who travelled between the Christian and the Islamic realms for purposes of trade, learning, and pilgrimage, just like the Gentiles.55 Evidence of knowledge of late medieval Islamic astronomy in Hebrew has been found in the notebooks of Mordecai Finzi of Mantua (d. 1475),56 and especially in the Taʿlūmot ḥokhma by Moses b. Judah Galeano (Mūsā Jālīnūs), a Jewish polymath who had close connections at the court of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), visited Venice around 1500, and completed his book in Candia, the capital of Venetian-​ruled Crete, in 1536.57 Furthermore, some of the active proponents of the new science in Italy were fascinated by codes and ciphers,58 such as the abovementioned Giambattista della Porta, who, according to Saliba, was also interested enough in Arabic to plan to have his Magia naturalis (Naples, 1559; English translation Natural Magick, 1685) translated into Arabic. Indeed, della Porta used a praise poem in Arabic prefacing his 1610 book on meteorology, De aeris transmutationibus, to indicate the book’s worthiness.59 Oral transmission of knowledge is notoriously problematic for the historian, since the argument from silence can, of course, be made to prove anything. This being said, we do know that oral transmission of hadith continued to be important in Islamic culture well into the Mamluk period, despite the continuous rise in literacy and in writing.60 Early modern Europe shows various methods of circulating

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scientific knowledge: “from oral communication, the writing of letters, lectures at the university, and manuscript dissemination, to . . . formal publication.”61 In other words, both in the Islamic world and in Renaissance Italy, a living tradition of knowledge migrating orally, as well as in writing, was available. We are hampered by the loss of pre-​Ottoman archives in which the records of Middle Eastern “black chambers” may have been preserved; the differences between Arabic—​as a language and as a script—​and Latin will have caused some differences in usage, but the rise of cryptography in Italy precisely in times and places that had the most extensive connections with dār al-​islām remains suggestive. The hints and clues mentioned above may be all there is. We may never be able to state conclusively that there was an Arab influence on Italian cryptology, but the possibility should not be ignored. Notes

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This chapter is the fruit of research originally begun in 2009 under the auspices of the Working Group on Migration of Knowledge at the Minerva Center for the Humanities, Tel Aviv University, headed by Rivka Feldhay. My research led me in various different directions, and versions of this paper have been presented a number of forums, most importantly at the conference on “Egypt and Syria under Mamluk Rule: Political, Social and Cultural Aspects,” held at Haifa University (April 2011) and as the Sixth Ulrich Haarmann Memorial Lecture at the Annemarie-Schimmel-Kolleg “History and Society in the Mamluk period (1250–1517),” Bonn University (September 2012). I thank my audiences for their enthusiastic and useful comments. I am especially grateful to the members of the subgroup on “Migration of Knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin in the late medieval and early modern periods”—Tzvi Langerman (group leader), Ofer Elior and Roni Weinstein—for fruitful discussions, and to Keren Abbou-Hershkovits and Michal Biran, who read drafts of this paper. Robert Morrison’s suggestions much improved the final version of this paper. 1. For the transfer of knowledge between Venice and the Mamluks, see Deborah Howard, “Venice and the Mamluks,” in Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797, ed. Stefano Carboni (New Haven: Yale University Press; New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 80, and references there. Mention of the importance of codes and ciphers for military and diplomatic purposes abounds in the treatises under discussion in the present article; for more on Italian cryptography, see note 4 below. For a later example of the use of codes in Venetian diplomacy, see C. Villain-​Gandossi, “Les dépêches chiffrées de Vettore Bragadin, baile de Constantinople (12 juillet 1564—15 juin 1566),” Turcica 9–10 (1978): 52–106. 2. C. E. Bosworth, “The Section on Codes and Their Decipherment in al-​Qalqashandī’s Ṣubḥ al-​aʿshā,” Journal of Semitic Studies 8 (1963): 17–33. 3. David Kahn, The Codebreakers, 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 93. 4. Ibid., 106–24. 5. This manuscript has been edited and translated by M. Mrayatī et al., The Arabic Origins of Cryptography (Riyadh: KFCRIS & KACST, 2004), 6 vols. The findings there have been studied in Ibrahim al-​Kadi, “Origins of Cryptology: The Arab Contributions,” Cryptologia 16, no. 2 (1992): 97–126, and Kathryn A. Schwartz, “Arabic Cryptological Treatises from the 9th to the 14th Centuries” (undergraduate thesis, Cambridge University, Faculty of Oriental Studies, 2008); idem, “Charting Arabic Cryptology’s Evolution,” Cryptologia 33, no. 4 (2009): 297–304. I thank Kathryn Schwartz for providing me with copies of her work. 6. Simon Singh, The Code Book (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 28. 7. Abū al-ʿAbbās al-​Qalqashandī, Ṣubḥ al-​aʿshā fī ṣināʿat al-​inshāʾ (Beirut: Dār al-​kutub al-ʿilmiyya), 9, 229. 8. Khayr al-​Dīn al-​Ziriklī, al-​Aʿlām (Beirut: Dār al-ʿilm, 1990–2011), 1:62. 9. Khalīl b. Aybak al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī al-​wafāyāt: Das biographische Lexikon des Ṣalāḥaddīn Ḫalīl ibn Aibak aṣ-Ṣafadī (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-​turāth, 2000), 6:126 (no. 2561).

10. This work has been published but is unavailable to me. 11. Al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī, 21:308–18; cf. Muḥammad b. Shākir al-​Kutubī, Fawāt al-​wafāyāt (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1972), 2:106–8; Shams al-​Dīn al-​Dhahabī, Taʾrīkh al-​islām (Beirut: Dār al-​kitāb al-ʿarabī, 2004), 57:221–22; al-​Qāsim b. Muḥammad al-​Birzālī, al-​Muqtafī ʿalā kitāb al-​rawḍatayn al-​maʿrūf bi-​tārīkh al-birzālī (Sidon: al-​Maktaba al-ʿaṣriyya, 2006), 1:179–80. 12. Mrayatī et al., Arabic Origins, 3:38 [English]. 13. Al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān al-​naṣr wa-​aʿwān al-ʿaṣr (Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic-​Islamic Science, 1990), 2:355. 14. See Roshdi Rashed, “Combinatorial Analysis, Numerical Analysis, Diophantine Analysis, and Number Theory,” in Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, vol. 2, Mathematics and the Physical Sciences, ed. Roshdi Rashed (London: Routledge, 1996), 377. 15. Mrayatī et al., Arabic Origins, 3:43 [Arabic]. 16. Schwartz, “Arabic Cryptological Treatises,” 39–40. 17. Mrayatī et al., Arabic Origins, 4:72. 18. Ibid., 3:52. 19. See the section on “The Abbāsid Court: Pairing Cryptology and Poetry for Amusement and Its Effects,” in Schwartz, “Charting the Evolution of Arabic Cryptography.” 20. Mrayatī et al., Arabic Origins, 3:56–68. 21. Ibid., 4:98–99. 22. Ibid., 3:82–83; 4:98–99. 23. Ibid., 3:62–63. 24. These are the invention of Blaise de Vigenère (d. 1596), who based them on the work of his Italian predecessors. The Vigenère table, or tabula recta, consists of the alphabet written out twenty-​six times in different rows, each alphabet shifted cyclically to the left compared to the previous alphabet. The encrypter makes use of a key to choose which row to use for each letter of the plaintext. See Singh, The Code Book, 46–51. 25. Mrayatī et al., Arabic Origins, 3:62–65. 26. Ibid., 3:74–75; 4:110–15. 27. Ibid., 3:68–69; 4:132–33. Bethany Walker suggested, in the discussion after the Bonn lecture, that this cloth may have been that used to wrap diplomatic dispatches, thus sending an open and a hidden message simultaneously. 28. Mrayatī et al., Arabic Origins, 3:104–13, 74–75; 4:136–37, 140–41. 29. Ibid., 3:66–67; 4:120–121. 30. Ibid., 3:82–85; 4:134–35. 31. Ibid., 3:56–61; 4:100–101. 32. Ibid., 3:66–67; 4:102–3, 106–7. 33. Schwartz, “Arabic Cryptological Treatises,” 21, 27. 34. Schwartz, “Charting Arabic Cryptology’s Evolution,” 301. 35. Mrayatī et al., Arabic Origins, 4:48. 36. Ibid., 4:182 [English]. 37. Silverstein, Postal Systems in the Pre-​Modern Islamic World, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 38. Reuven Amitai-​Preiss, Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-​Īlkhānid War, 1260–1281 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 139–56. 39. David Kahn, “The Future of the Past—​Questions in Cryptologic History,” Cryptologia 32 (2008): 57. 40. Ibn al-​Fuwaṭī, Majmaʿ al-​ādāb fī muʿjam al-​alqāb (Tehran: Muʾassasat al-ṭibāʿa wa-ʾl-​nashr; Wizārat al-​thaqāfa wa-ʾl-​irshād al-​islāmī, 2006), 4:264 (no. 3816). 41. Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyūn al-​anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-​aṭibbāʾ, ed. Niẓār Riḍā (Beirut: Dār maktabat al-ḥayāh, 1970), 410–411. 42. Ibn Khallikān, Wafāyāt al-​aʿyān (Beirut: Dār al-​thaqāfa, 1968–1972), 5:311–318. 43. Al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī, 22:67. 44. Percy Kemp, “Power and Knowledge in Jalili Mosul,” Middle Eastern Studies 19 (1983): 201.

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84 Texts in Transit

45. Wadad al-​Qadi, “Biographical Dictionaries as the Scholars’ Alternative History of the Muslim Community,” in Organizing Knowledge: Encyclopaedic Activities in the Pre-​Eighteenth Century Islamic World, ed. Gerhard Endress (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 23–75. 46. See, e.g., Moshe Sharon, Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum Palaestinae, vol. 1: -A- (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 8, 10, 12, 36, 39, 41, and passim. 47. The Travels of Marco Polo (New York: Orion Press, 1958), 24. 48. Howard, “Venice and the Mamluks,” 82. 49. Julian Raby, “The Serenissima and the Sublime Porte: Art in the Art of Diplomacy, 1453–1600,” in Carboni, Venice and the Islamic World, 92. 50. See note 1 above. 51. This paragraph is based on information from Aloys Meister, Die Anfänge der modernen diplomatischen Geheimschrift (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1902). I thank Alexander Boxer for providing me with a copy of this book. 52. Gerhard F. Strasser, “Ninth-​Century Figural Poetry and Medieval Easter Tables—​Possible Inspirations for the Square Tables of Trithemius and Vigenère?” Cryptologia 34 (2010): 22. 53. The reference is to Cicco Simonetta (1410–1480), chancellor of Milan, in Augusto Buonafalce, “Cicco Simonetta’s Cipher-​Breaking Rules,” Cryptologia 32 (2008): 64. Buonafalce also points out that “his elementary observations had been well known for more than a century by the cipher makers” (ibid.). 54. George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007), 95. 55. An example of relevance is the Soncino family’s printing business, which moved from Venice to other Italian towns, and thence to Istanbul and Salonika. See M. Marx, “Gershom (Hieronymus) Soncino’s Wander Years in Italy (1498–1527),” Hebrew Union College Annual 11 (1936): 427–501, esp. 441, 477. 56. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Medieval Hebrew Texts on the Quadrature of the Lune,” Historia Mathematica 23 (1996): 34–35. 57. Y. Tzvi Langermann, “A Compendium of Renaissance Science: Taʿalumot ḥoḵhma by Moses Galeano,” Aleph 7 (2007): 285–318; idem, “Medicine, Mechanics, and Magic from Moses ben Judah Galeano’s Taʿalumot Ḥokhma,” Aleph 9 (2009): 353–77. 58. For a full discussion of the connections between cryptography and the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century in Italy and England, see Kristie Macrakis, “Confessing Secrets: Secret Communication and the Origins of Modern Science,” Intelligence and National Security 25 (2010): 183–97. 59. George Saliba, lecture given at the 2010 Festival della Scienza held in Genoa, Italy, online at http://​www​.festivalscienza​.it​/archivio​-live​-2010​/Home​/News​/articol09704​.html (accessed 8 July 2013). 60. On the hadith culture of Mamluk Cairo and Damascus, see Jonathan Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), and Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), respectively. 61. The reference is to Isaac Newton. See Koen Vermeir, “Openness versus Secrecy? Historical and Historiographical Remarks,” British Journal for the History of Science 45 (2012): 170.

Five Remembering, Knowing, Imagining Approaches to the Topic of Memory in Medieval Islamic Culture Leonardo Capezzone

If we can speak of humanism in Islamicate history and define a set of historical-​cultural experiences along the so-​called classical age of Islam (second/eighth to seventh/thirteenth centuries), it means that a system of cultural values produced a texture of cultural relationships and of transmission of knowledge through issues that persisted over time and worked out a relationship with the past. Memory seems to be the connection point of that relationship, especially when memory of the past is nurtured and fostered by an effort (and by its own rhetoric) to discover and translate written sources in order to conceive of a set of unprecedented answers to ancient questions.1 The theme of memory will be analyzed here in varied ways. We shall follow memory, its persistence, and its transition from being a moral virtue to a human faculty located in a specific part of the brain. Along this transition, shifting epistemological approaches measured the new extent of “what’s to be known” and “how to know.” The authors here engaged in a transit of texts and contexts (as well as in discussions inherited from the past and projected into “modern” perspectives) are Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ, the theologian ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, Rufus of Ephesus, al-​Fārābī, and Nemesius of Emesa, up to the “science fiction” of Pseudo-​Jābir ibn Ḥayyān and his artificial creature whose brain must learn to know. In the article devoted to Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ for the Encyclopédie de l’Islam, Francesco Gabrieli stated that the Adab al-​kabīr is one of the few texts whose authenticity is generally acknowledged by scholars. He also I would like to thank Robert G. Morrison for his suggestions and remarks, which I have taken into consideration.

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noted that the worldview offered by the Adab al-​kabīr would be more appropriate for a man of the Renaissance than for a man who was living in the Islamic Middle Ages.2 With this statement (which mirrors an Orientalist attitude heavily criticized a few decades later by Edward Said), the Italian Arabist raised a question of analogy between different historical experiences in time and space. In other words, even without having a clear awareness of it, Gabrieli’s statement arises from the deep ambiguity that lies behind the issue of periodization (on which Marshall G. S. Hodgson would have commented with pleasure). A comparative approach that sees, in classical Islamic culture, the “anticipation” (in a premodern frame) of themes and issues generally taken to belong to Western modernity often causes discomfort: the historian of classical Islam faces the ambivalence of a world in which modalities and categories of Late Antique thought still persist, and at the same time, from that world, questions come to light—​and ways to ask questions—​that could hardly be placed within the Middle Ages, a period actually borrowed from Western historiography. The historian of the Islamic “Middle Ages” constantly feels exposed to a disturbingly anachronistic methodology, as outlined by Nicole Laroux.3 In other words, the Zeitgeist or—​in Foucauldian terms—​the disposition of the epistème recognized by Gabrieli as “Renaissance” in Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ’s secular view seems to confirm, on the one hand, the discomfort of resemblance as a descriptive resource, and on the other, the limits of a periodization applied to a historical texture that actually never experienced a “Middle Age” (at least according to the original meaning of the label given by traditional Western historiography). That occasional historical-​cultural definition of the Renaissance has been replaced with a more articulated and more motivated definition of humanism, one certainly more appropriate for synthesizing the values embodied by adab culture.4 Beyond the fact that such a definition better translates a particular feature of classical Islamic culture into an interdisciplinary concept common to historians, its consistency as a valid comparative description of a change could be verified by observing the way in which some concepts, or some issues, persist as phenomena of longue durée in an in-​between zone that has experienced (and experimented with) the passage from Late Antiquity to a never-​ending (pre-)modernity. The topic of memory (ḥifẓ), along with the complex of meanings it conveyed during the formative period of classical Islamic culture (the first/seventh to the fourth/eleventh century), is strongly persistent. It is more visible in the field of religious-​traditional knowledge and, consequently, in scholarly competence focused on sciences epistemologically founded on revelation and language—​on the one hand Qurʾan, traditions, and jurisprudence, and on the other philology, rhetoric, and grammar.5 In narratives about the transmission of these forms of knowledge, memory seems to play a structural role within a probably false dichotomy between orality and writing6—both intended not as real practices of documenting knowledge, but rather as cultural representations of the constitution of a perfect text and its preservation. The reference to memory is the cornerstone of a perceived ambivalence between the ideal authoritativeness of an oral text and the great abundance of written texts, between the living voice of the master

and the silence of an urban landscape filled with libraries. Not by chance, narratives about the transmission of knowledge often give an account of an underlying distrust of memory and its reliability, which makes verification of the text necessary in any case. The text is, however, the unavoidable referent: we see the recurrent topos of a learned man who is said to have never had recourse to a book.7 If memory is related to oral transmission (especially in its cultural aspect), this is not the case in the constitution of an oral text; this is perceived as perfect only through the performance of the master’s reading. The master can dictate a text by memory, but the text has always been established previously. There is indeed a network of intersections between memories and writing, where memorization is often the last step of an already achieved process, generally through the writing of a text to which the student has listened.8 Within a similar view of transmitting knowledge, and within its ethics, memory is not conceived as the subject of an autonomous discourse, but according to its functionality. Thus, it seems to be a twofold device for preserving and learning knowledge.9 Furthermore, memory is regarded as a moral virtue: this particular feature has been pointed out by T. L. Librande in an article devoted to the biographies of 143 learned men whose names include the honorific title of ḥāfiẓ.10 It is just this ethical value, according to which memory is perceived, that will be transferred, and confirmed, from the realm of religious-​traditional knowledge to that of adab secular culture. Memory becomes an intellectual virtue that helps define the portrait of the man of letters (or the humanist, if you prefer).11

Pseudo-​I bn al-​M uqaffaʿ: The Historiographer’s Knowledge and the Memory of the Subdued The short handbook known as al-A ​ dab al-ṣaghīr attributed to Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ is probably the most explicit example of a text on the topic of memory from the cultural boundaries of the transmission of religious knowledge toward a field in which a modern historiographical sensitivity could easily recognize a humanistic air de famille. The main element for such a comparison is the secular tenet of the work; memory here is detached from the implicit connection that usually bonds it to a text, and from those representations of knowledge and its continuity in time that emanated from the forms of religious learning and education.12 The question of whether a false Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ could hide behind the Adab al-ṣaghīr has been raised on philological grounds by Gerhard Richter and Francesco Gabrieli;13 more recently, Mohsen Zakeri has provided fresh evidence in favor of a different, later authorship.14 If one assumes the pseudepigraphic status of al-​Adab al-ṣaghīr, this text appears doubly exemplary: the path along which a humanistic topic particular to the Abbasid age is treated—​ethics (tahdhīb al-​akhlāq)—comes across an older, persistent motif of memory, which entrusts its authority to the authorship of a classic (emblématique, just to recall ʿAbdalfattah Kilito’s terminology)15 and borrows the constitutive elements of a contemporary claim (third/ninth–fourth/tenth centuries), from a speech able to sound deliberately and likely ancient (first half of the second/eighth century).

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The handbook is addressed to a typical educated reader who lives in the adab courtly culture. The main issue throughout its pages is the preservation of knowledge, perceived as a necessary reflection, common to the whole history of mankind, and conceived within the metaphor of a heritage to be managed. This heritage is to be gathered, classified, and then fruitfully used, making it consonant with the historical period and functional to whoever wants to draw upon that treasure: the motif becomes an introduction and a frame to the whole treatise. The humanistic discourse carried out by adab culture, founded in this text upon the strong image of recovering the past, puts orality and writing, teaching and reading, and teacher and book (min kalām aw kitāb) all on the same level.16 The first step to taking advantage of the ancient legacy is the preservation of its speech (ḥifẓ qawl [var. kalām] al-muṣībīn), learned from the wise men of the past (wuffiqa liʾl-​akhdh ʿan al-ḥukamāʾ), in order to increase knowledge.17 The author places his own speech at the confluence of three currents: religion, knowledge, and ethics (al-​dīn waʾl-ʿilm waʾl-​akhlāq).18 Within this space, a courtly disposition must adopt six virtues. The fifth is the virtue of a good memory (ḥusn al-​waʿī, where memory is rendered with al-​waʿī), strictly connected (as we will see below) with the sixth one, namely, the care, defense, and safeguarding of what is believed to be right and of that upon which convictions are founded (al-​taʿahhud li-​mā ukhtīra wa-​uʿtuqida).19 If the order chosen for the virtues aims to represent a progressive refinement of character, the author places at the top of such an ethical portrait two synonymous virtuous attitudes—​al-​waʿī and al-​taʿahhud, a lexical distinction usually unified by the term ḥifẓ. Yet in this case the distinction wants to signal a demarcation between remembering/learning and preserving/transmitting; that is to say, to signal the conceptual distance that separates memory as a physical faculty from memory as an intellectual virtue. Both the physical faculty and the intellectual virtue are merged into a single image of knowledge and its practices: “Memory and preservation are both the goal of any path to knowledge, because on man, by his own nature, oblivion is always incumbent. So it is necessary that when he recognizes a speech or an action carrying the good, his mind must be able to retain them in order to make them fruitful at the right time.”20 Here, the classical image of the memory archive, also familiar to the Latin world, is evoked (although in classical Islam, a mnemonic technique has never been described). Alongside this speech about virtuous memory that claims to be ancient, we always find the silent presence of a text—​a book, a document, a monument—​behind the memory function and its functionality. Pseudo-I​ bn al-M ​ uqaffaʿ meaningfully adds to the powerful concepts of qawl and kalām (speech, or better, à la Foucault, discourse) aw kitāb. If we grasp the “premodern” resonance of the terms qawl and kalām, we can fully realize the cognitive image that those terms convey. The discursive power of the past is set around these two terms, and only when they are brought back to the apprehensible form of a (written) discourse can they rescue the past from oblivion. In fact, the two terms seem to suggest an enlargement of transmission models traditionally based on the khabar—​a piece of information representing the fundamental

constituent of a text, supported by a chain of transmitters that are able to guarantee its historicity. Melting two concepts like al-​waʿī/al-ḥifẓ and al-​taʿahhud in a unique intellectual construct, Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ’s virtuous memory surely encompasses that model of “textualizing” knowledge, but confronted with a body of knowledge founded on a wider although ineffable relationship between knowledge and history, it also reveals a suspicion—​if one might say so—​regarding the inadequacy of the khabar model of making history. In this context, the memory virtue is still bound to a view of education conceived as a summation of texts, but it begins to raise the question—​in a germinal way—​of a different model of producing, gathering, and transmitting knowledge, one able to leave aside the traditional techniques of orality. We are therefore faced with a concept of memory particular to the written text culture and to its technical apparatus,21 which claims a different cultural status within a broader, underlying reflection on what a source is. Actually it is possible to see, behind the profane virtue of memory, the premises of a historiographical view that aims to overtake the imperfect device of an individual memory. Not by chance, the classifications of knowledge that since the third/ninth century have been intended as a programmatic knowledge plan place the akhbār historiographical genre (founded on the systematic comparison of manifold individual memories) among those sciences epistemologically inherent to the tradition, while taʾrīkh, being devoted to universal history, is placed within the intellectual boundaries of adab. Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ’s virtuous memory is still an individual memory, empowered by an explicit component of subjectivity that meditates in front of the heritage of a world history: the wise man (al-ʿāqil) should be concerned with the wisdom coming from the nations of the past, preserving its memory, enumerating it, classifying it (an yuḥṣiyahā), and processing it in practice (an yaṣnaʿa fī tawẓīfihā).22 Preserving the memory of knowledge is never separate from a weighted use of reason (lā ḥifẓ bi-​ghayr ʿaql).23 Memory and understanding, al-ḥifẓ waʾl-​fahm, are placed within a single rhetorical formula that makes them complementary to one another and subordinates them to reason: misusing reason represents, in fact, a bad use of preserving and understanding.24 It is clear that, given the perspective from which Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ speaks about memory as a virtue, he is alluding to a historical memory: namely, from his own point of view, the memory of people and cultures subjected to Arab dominion. From the point of view of the conqueror, it is the memory of a foreign knowledge, an alien wisdom. Highlighting this point, Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ’s alleged text can be better understood following two interpretations. The first one gives a glimpse of the political use of memory and its discursive power, whereas the alien knowledge represents ancient Greece and pre-​Islamic Iran: in this profane treatise, memory seems to imply vindication of a historiographical aspiration after defeat. In order to enhance its view with a surplus of authoritativeness which comes from the past, both its author and his vindication are backdated. The virtue of memory—​that is, the crucial point of this little adab discours sur la méthode, so conceived and projected backward to Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ—is also the supreme virtue particular to the historiographer. It is no coincidence that this meaning of history similarly inspires, in Islamic medieval

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culture, the genre of the “history of knowledge,” where every attempt to give knowledge a history (from Ibn al-​Nadīm’s Fihrist to Mīskawayh’s Jāwidān-​i khirad, or Ṣāʿid al-​Andalusī’s Ṭabaqāt al-​umam) enters the subject matter with an account of the previous civilizations included within the Islamic boundaries and absorbed into the ideological frame of a legacy. Consequently, the historical memory to be preserved, as it is outlined by Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ, is the self-​representative vindication of a foreigner. Speaking about self-​representation, in fact, allows us to grasp, behind Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ’s shade and his alien knowledge, another reading entirely based on subjectivity. As an Iranian subdued, he writes texts (whose authorship is undisputed, like al-​Adab al-​kabīr or al-​Risāla fī ʾl-ṣaḥāba) in which he teaches the conqueror how an empire should be ruled; as a crucial figure of early Islamic humanism, he makes his otherness the key element in a sociocultural view that cannot do without him. When a false text—​emanating from a strong literary convention according to which textual authorship is always bound to the most representative among the authors related to a specific genre25—is conceived to communicate a plea for preserving and transmitting a conquered knowledge, the alleged author can only be the most representative among the subalterns of his time. Such an attribution brings with it just one aspect of the manifold ways—​not yet wholly explored—​in which the historical tension between Arabs and Persians was expressed in cultural terms.26 The true Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ is translating memories from an alien language into the language of empire; the false Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ, who would meditate on the meaning of the past, becomes a historian of those memories. Even without referring to historical psychology,27 the memory actually treated by Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ is different from memory as it was intended by the practices of transmission of religious-​traditional knowledge. From this difference, an example of subjectivity in making history (and in our seeing the making of history) comes to light. It is something that defies any formalization, yet it marks the unfolding of history; it is the je ne sais quoi de l’histoire. . . . Perhaps the author’s absolute will to integrate the otherness of his own memory to the universal memory of the empire is a clue for the right reading of a forgery.

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Is Knowing Remembering? Greek Sources and the Philosophical-​S cientific Reflection of the Fourth/Tenth Century At the end of the fourth/tenth century, the qāḍī ʿAbd al-​Jabbār al-Hamadānī (d. 415/1025) gives an example of how memory has a relevant role in knowledge theories. In some short passages of his main works (the Mughnī, a theological treatise, and the Sharḥ al-​uṣūl al-​khamsa, a commentary on the five principles of the Mutazilite theological school), ʿAbd al-​Jabbār shows the role played by memory (ḥifẓ and tadhakkur, defining the twofold human faculty of retaining and remembering) within the process of knowledge acquisition. The epistemological frame of knowledge (ʿilm) to which the author refers is that of certain knowledge, ascertained and

acquired through the theoretical exertion of naẓar.28 Memory as tadhakkur (remembering), being a mode of acquiring knowledge, can be confused with this tool in the service of reason. But whereas theoretical reasoning is in search of knowledge about something provided with qualities, tadhakkur recognizes something that has already been acquired.29 The author acknowledges a capacity to distinguish and to process knowledge in retentive memory (al-ḥifẓ), seeing in such an attitude another mode of knowing, probably connected with the establishment of the premises of a demonstrative syllogism: knowing the way a speech has been reported and arranged (al-ʿilm bi-​kayfiyyat waṣf al-​kalām wa-tartībihi).30 Here, within a wider theory of the relationship between knowledge and language, the author highlights a relevant point: retentive memory has recourse to language structures in order to arrange knowledge. This is inferred by the interaction, pointed out by ʿAbd al-​Jabbār, among orality, writing, and memory (kalām, kitāba, ḥifẓ): whereas the distinguishing quality (immediately receptive) of speech is one of a phonetic kind (ṣawt), and that of writing is one of a signic kind (amāra), memory is recognized as having a quality of a cognitive kind, in that it is knowledge (maʿrifa) of how speech is constituted and arranged. Elsewhere, the author comes back to these issues and writes, “Knowledge is only called memory when it is possible for us to re-tell (al-​ḥikāya) what we know; consequently the knowledge we have about a person is not called memory. Therefore, in memory there is not speech, but memory makes it possible for us to produce speech.”31 ʿAbd al-​Jabbār’s reflection on the constitutive quality of knowledge held by retentive memory is refined, though fugacious; as a theologian, he shares the investigation of knowledge with philosophers, since both kalām and falsafa draw upon the body of Greek knowledge and its methods that made the medical and physiological dimension of memory familiar to the Islamicate intellectual horizon. At the end of the fourth/tenth century, while ʿAbd al-​Jabbār circumscribes remembering within the semantic field of dhikr and places the twofold function of memory—​cognitive-​ reproductive and recognitive-​reproductive—​into the semantic field of ḥifẓ, Ibn al-Nadīm’s Fihrist witnesses the presence, in Baghdad libraries, of Rufus of Ephesus’s medical treatises (late first century) in Arabic translation. Among them, the most famous bookseller of the city names a Kitāb fī waṣāyā ḥifẓ al-ṣiḥḥa (that is to say, on health care), and then a Kitāb al-​dhikr.32 The second title shows a lexical choice by the translator, which over time would be perceived as archaic: Ibn al-​Qifṭi and Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa (both fl. seventh/thirteenth century) will quote this book, lost in Arabic, with the changed title of Maqāla fī al-ḥifẓ.33 Some fragments of Rufus’s text on memory quoted by Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ al-​R āzī in his Ḥāwī (or Continens) still remain.34 Rufus’s textual presence in Islamicate territories between the third/ninth and the fourth/tenth centuries is rather relevant.35 The dissemination of his work, as shown by the rich list of translated books given by Ibn al-​Nadīm, goes beyond Iraq’s borders: it seems to be the basis of a medical interest in memory (related to melancholy) in another Islamic area—​North Africa—​during the same period. It is an interest apparently connected, judging from the titles, with the diffusion of Rufus’s De memoria and De melancholia (another lost text of his).36 Memory (al-ḥifẓ) appears

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among the rational-​soul motions in a Maqāla fī al-mālīkhūliyā written by Isḥāq ibn ʿImrān (d. fourth/tenth century), a physician who moved from Baghdad to the Aghla­ bite court of Ziyādat Allāh in Ifrīqiyya.37 The treatise was translated into Latin by Constantine the African during the eleventh century; in his translation, ḥifẓ is rendered as ratio memoria retinendi, along with cogitatio (fikr qawwī), investigatio rerum incomprehensibilium (al-​faḥṣ ʿan maʿānī al-​umūr), suspicio (tawahhum), spes (taẓannun), imaginatio (takhayyul), perfectum et imperfectum rei arbitrium (al-​raʾy al-​ muṣīb).38 It was Constantine who brought, from the Maghreb to the Christian West, another medical text on memory, lost in the Arabic original edition: the anonymous De oblivione (or De memoria et oblivione), attributed to Ibn al-​Jazzār (d. 395/1004).39 This kind of interest evidenced in a peripheral zone like North Africa is but a reverberation of a general intellectual attitude toward memory as a topic of medical investigations. Coming back to our main focus, we find memory among the topics of philosophical reflection. In a renowned passage of his al-​Madīna al-​fāḍila, al-​Fārābī (d. 338/950) points out the progressive order according to which faculties are developed, and he then presents the well-​known tripartite brain theory: three separate zones rule the functions of imagination (al-​quwwa al-​mutakhayyila), of logical-​discursive thought (al-​quwwa al-​nāṭiqa), and of memory and remembering (al-ḥifẓ waʾl-​dhikr). The passage is a good illustration of how linguistic work on concepts like representation and imagination had undergone a process of semantic refinement, probably perceived as a need by the translators from Greek.40 This process seemingly does not concern the usual double definition of remembering/ memory. Actually, the distinction between dhikr/tadhakkur and ḥifẓ reveals—​in a more obvious way in al-​Fārābī than in ʿAbd al-​Jabbār—​an ever more marked conceptual difference in progress during the fourth/tenth century.41 On the one hand, the concept of ḥifẓ maintains its broad significance, on which Pseudo-​Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ had built the foundation of a new concept of memory, one capable of connecting Islamic historical culture to a wider meaning of history, just having recourse to an archaic word like waʿī in order to distinguish its sense from the “mere” function of dhikr. On the other hand, the scientific-​philosophical use of ḥifẓ can overcome the heuristic limits of a univocal definition of dhikr when this notion helpfully names the mnemonic perception, as it occurs in the Arabic versions of sources, on which the philosophical quotation of tripartite brain physiology depends.42 A relevant source seems to be the basis for the philosophical treatment of the threefold activity of the mind in the fourth/tenth century, for it reports a discussion neglected by al-​Fārābī43 but accepted by the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and developed by the scientific community gathered under the name of Jābir ibn Ḥayyān: it is Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis (fourth century), whose full Arabic version was completed by Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn (third/ninth century). An early and incomplete version survives incorporated in a famous esoteric treatise, Kitāb Sirr al-​khalīqa, attributed to Pseudo-​Apollonius of Tyana, which played an important role in the development of alchemical science.44 In this version, the three soul faculties (to phantastikòn kai dianoetikòn kai mnemoneutikòn), whose activities are placed into three ventricles of

the brain, from the outside to the inside, are rendered with al-​tawahhum, al-​fahm, al-​dhikr.45 The long discussion on the nature of memory is as follows: The faculty of memory consists of bringing into existence [ījād] what the soul elaborates through imagination and understanding. If the soul were not able to remember [qādira ʿalā al-​tadhakkur], its memory [al-​dhikr fīhā] would not have any motion, nor would it retain what the soul had reached as a result of the activities of imagination and understanding. That is possible only if the soul remembers; hence the faculty of memory [quwwat al-​dhikr] is acting in the soul: in this sense memory brings into existence. This faculty may or may not be active; but if it is active, then there is, within it, the motion produced by that activity. That motion is the outcome of memory, the source of every recollection [tadhakkur]. According to Origen, memory is retention [imsāk] of what the soul senses [taḥissu] and imagines; however, this is a mistake, for he confuses understanding with the senses, and it is not so. According to Plato, memory is retention of what the soul perceives and understands, but he too is wrong, as he makes mention of the senses while neglecting the imagination. According to A.n.qūr.s46 the soul grasps the manifold sensations, so producing a presumptive knowledge [ẓann]; then it apprehends the intelligible through the intellect, and this is an act of reason. When the soul retains [ḥafiẓat] the representations of what it supposes or of what it knows, then we say of a man: he remembers [innahu dhākir]. Plato considers the intellect and the intelligibles as the very place of understanding and concepts, but in doing so he is wrong, since one thing is intellect, and another thing is understanding. This version of Nemesius’s treatment of memory, in the previous passages as well as in the following, largely differs from the original in expanding the extent and the terms of a discussion disguised as “ancient.” In fact, the inclusion of memory among the motions of the soul, and the consequent reflection on the soul’s capacity of memorizing—​having a memory of its own—​probably depends on contemporary debates (and contemporary theories) raised by the first translations of Aristotle’s De anima as well as the Theology of Aristotle.47 Moreover, compared to the original text, the imagination is granted notable relevance to the way memory participates in the construction of knowledge. The translation goes on thus: Actually we remember what is related to perception through the experience we have had from it, and we recall a concept thanks to what we previously have understood; as for the intelligible, we do not remember it through something we have previously experienced, or previously understood. Actually we have knowledge of the intelligibles through our own natural disposition [min ṭabīʿatinā] owing to the faculty of remembering what has been [bi-q​ uwwat al-​ dhikr li-​mā qad kāna]. Per se, the intelligible is not something that previously

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existed, and then is forgotten: indeed, it is permanent and everlasting. Therefore we will say: the intelligible is memorization [tadhakkur] although it is known at the moment it exists. For this reason A.n.qūr.s is misleading when he argues that a definition of memory [ḥadd al-​dhikr] could be retention [ḥifẓ] of the imagination and of the understanding. As for recollection, we have it when [momentarily?] we forget what we have previously memorized [al-​madhkūr]: it is in the very nature of recollection that it may fall into oblivion. . . . Knowledge is memorization of single parts [tadhakkur al-a​ jzāʾ], and memorization is not affected by oblivion of perceptions and concepts; actually, it depends on the very nature of the intelligible concepts. It does not come from apprenticeship, but rather, it is a component basically inherent to one’s disposition toward knowledge. It is as when you say: sky is a reality. You do believe such a reality, and you can distinguish between reality and its own memorization, because intellect cannot be forgotten. This is made possible by its being memorized [inna hādhā bi-tadhkīrihi]. He who imagines [al-​mutawahhim] is someone who gets knowledge from the sensibles, and knowing them reaches [their] understanding. As for understanding and thought, when they apprehend the sensibles coming from imagination and turn them into knowledge, they entrust that knowledge to memorization. Memory [al-​dhikr] is placed in the rear part of the brain. . . . 48

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The discussion presented in this passage of the De natura hominis is reported—​ although in a shortened version—​by the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ in their epistle On Opinions and Religions, where they outline theories related to perception and to the acquisition of the intelligibles. Their treatment follows Nemesius’s. What changes is the lexicon: al-​quwwa al-ḥāfiẓa is the key definition for memory/memorization. Much space is devoted to imagination and its creative power, and to logical thought (here, respectively, al-​quwwa al-​mutakhayyila and al-q​ uwwa al-m ​ utafakkira). Just within the context of these faculties, the authors deal with the subject of memory. They consider it as an autonomous faculty (as inherent to ḥifẓ) and at the same time as a tool (as inherent to dhikr), thus establishing a parallel between language and memory: the discursive power of mind is made possible by the interaction between the cogitative faculty and the logical faculty, thanks to the tool of language, and in the same way the semiotic properties of knowledge, permanently acquired, are carried out owing to the interaction (fa-innahā mushtarika) between thought and the faculty of memory (al-​quwwa al-ḥāfiẓa), whose tool is placed in the frontal part of the brain.49 The discussion of the role played by memory in acquiring knowledge is paraphrased by the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ as an explication of the ancient opinion that what we know through reason becomes firmly embedded in the body.50 Hence, memorization of acquired knowledge is a necessary consequence (fa-​hiya taḥtāju ilā al-tadhkīr). Therefore, they write (quoting the Platonic locus in a more precise way), “learned men call knowledge memory, and they refer to Plato’s word that knowledge is remembering (al-ʿilm tadhakkur).” Thus it is clearly explained that what makes it

possible for the soul (nafs) to pass from the cognitive potential to the cognitive act is the learning process, and only in this sense is knowledge remembering.51 The problem of memory as it had been set down in De natura hominis is placed and developed by Pseudo-​Jābir ibn Ḥayyān in a more problematic perspective. As is known, the Jabirian community of alchemists flourished in Iraq in the tenth century. It entrusted its own scientific production, and its consequent authority, to the alleged pupils of the sixth Shiite imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, considered to be the father of Arabic alchemy.52 Here the fictional device of attributing a statement to a source of knowledge coming from the past is working: the ancient is the authoritative basis for a modern issue (in this specific case, as innovative as it is heterodox). Being faithful to the postulate that alchemical art is the translation of philosophical knowledge into the domain of practice, the Jabirian community members grasp not only an epistemological issue in memory but also a problem of an operative kind. Their field of investigation is actually the realm of the body, and their reflection is focused not so much on the mind (intended as an abstract entity) as on the brain, since they conceive the latter as the locus of the matter on which their science has to work. In the Kitāb al-t​ ajmīʿ, a treatise devoted to the artificial creation of an individual (shakhṣ) endowed with a natural disposition to law (nāmūsī al-ṭibāʿ),53 the artificial creature’s memory is a crucial point of the Jabirian project. It appears set (although in a more problematic way) following the range of dilemmas reported by Nemesius. Jabirian authors obviously share the tripartite brain theory; regarding this issue, they rely on Pseudo-​Porphyry’s authority.54 Intending to use the brain as a matrix in order to generate (tawlīd) a human being, they pay special attention to how intelligence should be produced, and to which of the three parts would be the most appropriate to realize it: the part in which imagination (khayāl) has its seat, the part where thought (fikr) resides, or the part deputed to memory (dhikr).55 A further discussion, registered by the Jabirian authors according to the “symposium” model (ijtamaʿū al-falāsifa, thus pretending to face an ancient issue), presents three arguments about the origin of this creature’s knowledge. The first considers the creature capable of acquiring knowledge thanks to his maker’s teaching; the second assumes that knowledge is inborn and spontaneous; and the third ambiguously states that there is neither teaching nor innateness. According to this last argument, the creature is essentially ignorant: that is proven by the fact that the creature (or better, the part of the brain used to generate him) does not remember anything of its previous state at all.56 The Jabirian community of alchemists do not present their own theory; nevertheless, when they report the opinion of a group of philosophers who are inclined to use the rear part of the brain designated for memory, they show this opinion within the rhetorical equation “knowledge = remembering”: “A third group argues that the third section [of the brain] is the best one; that is the seat of memory (bayt al-d​ hikr). It must necessarily be—​so they state—​the best one, because when the human being knows, he accomplishes a mnemonic act (al-​insān fī al-ʿilm mutadhakkir). Actually, all the cognitions involving thought activities are nothing but knowledge previously acquired.”57

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The Heterodox Desire: Is Knowing Imagining?

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A point remains unclear: when transferring ancient ideas into a new language evidently contemporary to that utilized by al-​Fārābī and Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, the Jabirian community never resorts to the term ḥifẓ. While the first two authors clearly choose this semantic field to expand the view of a memory intended as a faculty of the soul, the third one remains tenaciously anchored to the use of dhikr. This use can hardly be defined as archaic,58 if we compare it to the terms khayāl and takhayyul, used instead of the older and unanimously overtaken wahm and tawahhum, for “imagination” and “imagining.” Perhaps there might be a will to differentiate their own scientific discourse from pure philosophical discourse. Could this will be aimed at giving an account of a diverse epistemological disposition, expressed by those who—​like this premodern scientific community—​were searching for a verification of the theories about mind faculties onto bodily matter? However, the Jabirian authors conclude their review of theories in a quite ambiguous way: “As to the first [amma al-​awwal], they [fa-​innahum] consider it as if it were the whole brain [jaʿalūhu min al-​dimāgh bi-asrihi].”59 What do the authors mean by “the first”? It is not immediately clear, but if we come back to the text, we can find the section of the brain in which imagination has its seat named as the first, connected with a first group (ṭāʾifa) of philosophers who choose this section to use it as the matrix. I do not see any other translation that may be in accordance with the next passage: “if this is the case, thus this would be the best one among the sections [hādhā al-qism idhan ajwad al-​aqsām], because it would contain what all the others have in potency [kāna qad yajmaʿu mā kāna fī quwwat ūlāʾika].” If my interpretation is correct, the intelligent creature desired by the Jabirian community seems to be perfectly aligned with the global revolutionary project to refound the world, a project cherished by its members throughout the pages of their anonymous alchemical political corpus. The creature would have no need to retain any memory of a previous state because—​according to those who choose the seat of imagination—“thanks to it [that section of the brain] the human being can imagine everything.”60 Perhaps this is the last frontier of a desire linking al-​Fārābī, Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, and Pseudo-​Jābir ibn Ḥayyān.61 From different perspectives, the politician, the pure philosophers, and the scientists are imagining a future world. Next to theory, the interaction between knowledge, imagination, and memory of what is known (and of what can be known) is verified on an intellectual ground able to produce a social view: the classification of knowledge. This is an intervention in reality, where each of the three cases aims to plan an organization model of knowledge and of how to know. Notes 1. See in general Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 2. Francesco Gabrieli, “Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ,” in Encyclopédie de l’Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954–), 3:883–85.

3. Nicole Laroux, “Eloge de l’anachronisme en histoire,” Le genre humain 27 (1993): 23–40. 4. To name but three examples: Mohamed Arkoun, Contribution à l’étude de l’humanisme arabe du IVe/Xe siècle: Miskawayh philosophe et historien (Paris: Vrin, 1970); Joel L. Kraemer, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: The Cultural Revival During the Buyid Age (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986); Lenn E. Goodman, Islamic Humanism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). See also the Orientalist debate on humanism (and the alleged lack of humanism) in Islam as reported in Joel L. Kraemer, “Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: A Preliminary Study,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 104 (1984): 135–64. 5. Still in the tenth/sixteenth century, al-Ṣuyūṭī, al-​Muzhir fī ʿulūm al-​lugha wa-​anwāʿihā, ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm (Cairo: n.p., 1325/1907–8), 2:18, writes that ḥifẓ is required in adab studies (here in the strict meaning of philology) as well as in Qurʾan and Tradition studies. 6. A well-​known passage reported by al-​Dhahabī is apparently a cultural myth: during the year 143/760, writing becomes an official practice of transmission of knowledge, that, meanwhile, changes the conditions of preserving knowledge: “qabla hādhihi al-ʿaṣr kāna al-​aʾimma yatakallimūna min ḥifẓihim wa-​yarawna al-ʿilm min ṣiḥaf ṣaḥīḥa ghayr murattaba.” The passage is quoted by al-​Suyūṭī, Taʾrīkh al-khulafāʾ, ed. ʿAbdallāh Masʿūd (Aleppo: Dār al-​qalam, 1411/1991), 250. On orality and writing, see Gregor Schoeler, Écrire et transmettre dans le débuts de l’Islam (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2002), especially 57–107. See also Abdesselam Cheddadi, “À l’aube de l’historiographie arabo-​musulmane: La mémoire islamique,” Studia Islamica 74 (1991): 29–41. 7. A number of examples are given by George A. Makdisi, The Rise of Humanism in Classical Islam and the Christian West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990); see also Antonella Ghersetti, “L’utilità della scrittura e la lode del libro: Testimonianze di alcuni scrittori arabi medievali,” Annali di Ca’ Foscari 33, no. 3, Serie Orientale 25 (1994): 67–76. 8. Let us think of the master’s gift of a text to his pupil at the end of the course. See Georges Vajda, “De la transmission orale du savoir dans l’Islam traditionnel,” in Vajda, La transmission du savoir en Islam (VIIe–XVIIIe siècles) (London: Variorum Reprint, 1983), 1–9. 9. The sociocultural functionality of memory is well represented, along with the topic of longevity, in the role of the centenaries (muʿammarūn) within a transmission of oral knowledge whose authoritativeness was founded on the transmitters’ continuity in time. They filled the chronological gap—​because a tradition could be in danger of being lost—​and provided the historiographical construction with a knowledge pattern that proceeds in the most linear manner. See G. H. A. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance, and Authorship of Early Ḥadīṯ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), especially 206–217; Juynboll, “The Role of muʿammarūn in the Early Development of Isnād,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 81 (1991): 155–75. 10. Leonard T. Librande, “The Scholars of Ḥadīth and the Retentive Memory,” Cahiers d’onomastique arabe 1 (1988–92): 39–48. The article sheds light on the way retentive memory was considered a virtue analogous to piety. It was considered a requisite by the ethics of knowledge, whereas moral qualities and more “technical” attitudes related to transmission—​prudence, accuracy, precision—​were to establish a reliability criterion. 11. The relationship between humanism and the élite of secretaries is the focus of Tarif Khalidi’s discussion of the influence of adab on historical writing in his Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 83–130. 12. (Pseudo-) Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ, al-​Adab al-ṣaghīr, in M. Kurd ʿAlī, ed., Rasāʾil al-​bulaghāʾ (Cairo: Dār al-​kutub al-ʿarabiyya, 1913), 19–54. 13. Gustav Richter, “Über des klein Adabbuch des Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ,” Der Islam 19 (1931): 278–81; Francesco Gabrieli, “L’opera di Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ,” Rivista degli studi orientali 13 (1932): 197–247. Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist al-ʿulūm, ed. Riḍā Tajaddud (Tehran: Marwī, 1391/1977), 132, has no doubt in attributing authorship to Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ; this might raise some reflections on the plausibility of this forgery. The problem does not seem relevant at all, either, to Paule Charles-​Dominique, “Le système éthique d’Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ d’après deux épitres dites ‘al-Ṣaġīr’ et ‘al-​Kabīr,’ ” Arabica 12 (1965): 45–66, or to Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought, 92–95. Nevertheless, see also Iḥsān ʿAbbas, “[al-] Adab al-​ṣaġīr,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985–), 1:446–47. 14. Mohsen Zakeri, “ʿAlī ibn ʿUbaida al-​R aiḥānī: A Forgotten Belletrist (Adīb) and Pahlavi Translator,” Oriens 34 (1994): 76–102.

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15. Abdelfattah Kilito, L’auteur et ses doubles: Essai sur la culture arabe classique (Paris: Le Seuil, 1985). 16. (Pseudo-) Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ, al-​Adab al-ṣaghīr, 20. 17. Ibid., 21–22. 18. Ibid., 28. Religion, needless to say, in this context is meant as a social bond encompassing the relationship between ruler and subjects, and as a counterpart of dawla, according to the Persian Fürstenspiegel formulation. 19. Ibid., 22. The other virtues are to act with kindness, to not be afraid to exaggerate in searching for knowledge, to be firm and resolute in one’s own choices, and to strongly believe in the good. The noun al-w ​ aʿī actually is unusual and may have been chosen because of its etymology—​less generic than ḥifẓ, as it is connected with the meaning of preserving, retaining, or remembering something that has been heard, and so establishing a direct inference between retaining and learning. See Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿarab (Būlāq, n.d.), vol. 9, s.v. 20. (Pseudo-) Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ, al-​Adab al-ṣaghīr, 23: “ammā ʾl-ḥifẓ waʾl-​taʿahhud fa-​huwa tamām al-​darak li-​anna al-​insān muwakkil bihi al-​nisyān waʾl-​ghafla fa-​lā budda lahu idhā ijtabā ṣawāb qawl aw fiʿl min an yaḥfiẓahu ʿalayhi dhihnuhu li-​awān ḥājatihi.” 21. See Giuliano Lancioni, “Sull’ordinamento dei dizionari classici arabi,” in In memoria di Francesco Gabrieli (1904–1996), supp. 2, Rivista degli studi orientali 71 (1997): 113–27. 22. (Pseudo-) Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ, al-​Adab al-ṣaghīr, 28. 23. Ibid., 45. 24. Ibid., 52. 25. Again, see Kilito, L’auteur et ses doubles. 26. On this topic, see Hamilton A. R. Gibb, “The Social Significance of the Shuʿūbiyya,” in Studies on the Civilization of Islam (Boston: Beacon Press, 1962), 62–73; Roy P. Mottahedeh, “The Shuʿūbiyya Controversy and the Social History of Early Islamic Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 7 (1976): 161–82; Jamsheed K. Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Élites in Medieval Iranian Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 27. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Ibn al-​Muqaffaʿ’s could be the case for such an approach, resembling more than one aspect of the picture offered by Pierre Vidal-​Naquet, Flavius Josèphe ou du bon usage de la trahison (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1977). 28. ʿAbd al-J​ abbār al-H ​ amadānī, al-​Mughnī fī abwāb al-​tawḥīd wa-ʾl-ʿadl (Cairo: n.p., 1380–89/1960– 69), 12:34–36, 67–68. The passages have been studied by Johannes R. T. M. Peters, God’s Created Speech (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), 388–92. See also Marie Bernard, “La notion de ʿilm chez les premiers Muʿtazilites,” Studia Islamica 36 (1972): 23–45; 37 (1973): 27–56. 29. Peters, God’s Created Speech, 388; ʿAbd al-​Jabbār al-​Hamadānī, al-​Mughnī, 12:7, 62. 30. ʿAbd al-J​ abbār al-H ​ amadānī, Sharḥ al-​uṣūl al-​khamsa, ed. ʿAbd al-​Karīm ʿUthmān (Cairo: Maktabat Wahba, 1384/1965), 191–92. 31. ʿAbd al-J​ abbār al-H ​ amadānī, al-M ​ ughnī, 12:204; the passage is translated in Peters, God’s Created Speech, 389; on this theory about language and sign, 390–91. 32. Ibn al-​Nadīm, Fihrist, 350. 33. Ibn al-​Qifṭi, Taʾrīkh al-ḥukamāʾ, ed.  Julius Lippert (Leipzig: Dieterich’sche Verlags-​ buchhandlung, 1903), 185; Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyūn al-​anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-​aṭibbāʾ, ed. August Müller (Cairo, 1882; repr., Farnborough: Gregg International, 1972), 1:33–35. 34. See Charles Daremberg and Émile Ch. Ruelle, Œuvres de Rufus d’Ephèse (Paris: J. B. Baillière, 1879), vi, xxxvii, no. 50. The passage quoted by al-​R āzī is given in Latin translation at 459–60. 35. Moritz Steinschneider, Die arabischen Übersetzungen aus dem Griechischen (Graz: Akademische Druck-​u. Verlagsanstalt,1960), 468–74; Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (henceforth GAS) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1970), 3:64, 68. 36. Daremberg and Ruelle, Œuvres de Rufus d’Ephèse, xxxiii, no. 11. 37. On this physician and his travels, see Ibn Juljul, Les generations des médecins et des sages (Ṭabaqāt al-​aṭibbāʾ waʾl-ḥukamāʾ), ed. Fuʾād Sayyid (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1955), 84–86. On his knowledge of Rufus’s works, see Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, and Fritz Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural Philosophy, Religion, and Art (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1964), 82; Stanley W. Jackson, Melancholia and Depression: From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 57–59.

38. Isḥāq ibn ʿImrān, Maqāla fīʾl-​mālīkhūliyā und Constantini Africani Libri duo de Melancholia, ed. Karl Garbers (Hamburg: Buske, 1977), 102–3. 39. Heinrich Schipperges, Die Assimilation der arabischen Medizin durch das lateinische Mittelalter (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1964), 46, according to whom Ibn al-​Jazzār would have written a book, lost in Arabic (and never mentioned in the medieval repertoires), surviving in De oblivione under Constantine the African’s authorship. Furthermore, this text would depend exclusively on Greek sources like Galen, Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Paul of Aegina, and would fail to show any Arabic influence; see Sezgin, GAS, 3:304–6, and Gerrit Bos, “Ibn al-​Jazzār’s Risāla fīn-​nisyān and Constantine’s Liber de oblivione,” in Constantine the African and ʿAlī ibn ʿAbbās al-​Majūsī: The “Pantegni” and Related Texts, ed. Charles Burnett and Danielle Jacquart (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 203–32. 40. Al-​Farabi on the Perfect State: Abū Naṣr Al-​Fārābī’s Mabādiʾ Ārāʾ Ahl al-​Madīna al-​Fāḍila, rev. with intro., trans., and commentary by Richard Walzer (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 205–11. While in al-​Fārābī phantasia is rendered with takhayyul, in al-​Kindī the loan translation fanṭasiyā is attested along with tawahhum and quwwa muṣawwira. See the pre-​Farabian sources discussed by Walzer in his commentary to this passage. 41. An example of such lexical and conceptual distinctions between dhikr (memory), tadhakkur (recollection), and ḥifẓ (retentive memory) at work during the ninth and tenth centuries comes from the Arabic translation, adaptation, and transmission of Aristotle’s Parva naturalia (many thanks to the anonymous reviewer who has recalled the relevance of this text to our context). Actually, the Arabic version, Kitāb al-Ḥiss waʾl-​maḥsūs, deals with memory in book 2, Fī al-dhikr waʾl-​tadhakkur (On memory and recollection). Nevertheless, on the wide range of problems surrounding the Arabic transmission of the Parva naturalia, see Rotraud Hansberger, “The Arabic Adaptation of the Parva Naturalia (Kitāb al-Ḥiss waʾl-​maḥsūs),” Studia Graeco-​Arabica 4 (2014): 301–14 (reference to the passages on memory at 304–5). 42. Some examples of the treatment of the Greek theory on the three parts of brain designated, respectively, for imagination, logical thought, and memory, are al-​Kindī, Rasāʾil al-​Kindī al-​falsafiyya, ed. M. ʿA. Abū Riḍā (Cairo: Dār al-​fikr al-ʿarabī, 1369/1950), 1:297–98; Ibn Sīnā, Kitāb al-N ​ ajāt, as edited and translated by Fazlur Rahman in Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitāb al-​Najāt, Book II, Chapter VI (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 3; Ibn Sīnā, De anima, ed. Fazlur Rahman (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 267; Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, Rasāʾil (Beirut: Dār ṣādir, 1957), 3:406–7 (where they speak about al-​quwwa al-ḥāfiẓa along with al-​quwwa al-​mutakhayyila and al-​ quwwa al-​mufakkira). 43. Al-​Fārābī does not include memory among the virtues of the ruler of a virtuous city. Rather, as is well known, a great emphasis is given to imagination. The philosopher can rationalize the phenomenon of prophecy, and its predictive power, as the consequence of an imaginative faculty developed to the maximum extent. In this view, the domain of imagination as an intermediate hermeneutical plane bridges the dichotomy between the transcendence of reason and materiality of sensibility. 44. The Kitāb ṭabīʿat al-​insān edition I am referring to here is that included in Balīnās (Pseudo-​ Apollonius), Kitāb Sirr al-​khalīqa: Buch über das Geheimnis der Schöpfung, ed. Ursula Weisser (Aleppo: University of Aleppo, 1979). The passage related to the soul’s motions (chap. 13 of the Greek text, reasonably placed between chaps. 7 and 8 by the Arab translator) is at 578–83. The Greek text is published in Patrologia Graeca, ed. Jacques-​Paul Migne, vol. 40, cols. 483–844. A recent English translation is Nemesius, On the Nature of Man, trans. with intro. and notes by R. W. Sharples and P. J. van der Eijk (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008). See also Khalil Samir, “Les versions arabes de Némésius de Ḥomṣ,” in L’eredità classica nelle lingue orientali, ed. Massimiliano Pavan and Umberto Cozzoli (Rome: Acta Encyclopedica, 1986), 99–151; on textual criticism related to this work, see Moreno Marani, “Traduzioni orientali e filologia greca,” in La diffusione dell’eredità classica nell’età tardo antica e medievale: Il “Romanzo di Alessandro” e altri scritti; Atti del Seminario Internazionale di Studio (Roma–Napoli, 25–27 settembre 1997), ed. Rosa Bianca Finazzi and Alfredo Valvo (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1998), 175–87 (especially 181–87). 45. Greek text: col. 632; Arabic text: 578. 46. I cannot identify this name. He does not appear in the Greek text. 47. See Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories, 5–14, about Plato on memory, and 328–62 for Nemesius and his Arabic translation as a source of Avicenna, in the general context of Arabic and Jewish

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transmission of the classics, and of the idea of “classic.” We should also consider the influence of the Syriac version of Nemesius on this Arabic translation: see Mauro Zonta, “Nemesiana Syriaca: New Fragments from the Missing Version of the De Natura Hominis,” Journal of Semitic Studies 36 (1991): 223–58. 48. Greek text: cols. 659–666; Arabic text: 583–85; English translation: 118–23. Henceforth, the text goes on with the location of the other faculties of the brain. 49. Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ, 3:421. 50. Such an embedding is rendered here by the term markūza, while the Arabic translator of De natura hominis uses maghrūs (Kitāb ṭabīʿat al-​insān, 585). 51. Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ,3:424. 52. Toufiq Fahd, “Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq et la tradition scientifique arabe,” in Le shiʿisme imamite: Colloque de Strasbourg (6–9 mai 1968) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970), 131–41; the standard reference for Jābir ibn Ḥayyān is still Paul Kraus, Jābir ibn Ḥayyān: Contribution à l’histoire des idées scientifiques dans l’Islam, vol. 1, Les Catalogues, in Mémoires de l’Institut d’Egypte 64 (1943); vol. 2, Jābir et la science grecque, in Mémoires de l’Institut d’Egypte 63 (1942). 53. That is to say, according to the Shiite heterodox view particular to the Jabirian community, an individual who, giving the city a nomos, could be able to fill the void caused by the concealment of the imam—​the only real interpreter of the sharīʿa. On the political-​philosophical debate around the double level of nāmūs and sharīʿa and the Jabirian community response, see L. Capezzone, Fuori dalla città iniqua: Legge e ribellione nella filosofia politica dell’Islam medievale (Rome: Carocci, 2010), 79–132. 54. (Pseudo-) Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, Kitāb al-​tajmīʿ, in Mukhtār Rasāʾil Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, ed. Paul Kraus (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1354/1936), 374. The passages related to the modes of instilling knowledge in the creature’s brain, and to the discussions of the varying relevance of the three parts of the brain, are at 369–80. See Paul Kraus’s commentary to this text in Kraus, Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, vol. 2, Jābir et la science grecque, 116–19. 55. (Pseudo-) Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, Kitāb al-​tajmīʿ, 370–73. 56. Ibid., 375–78. 57. Ibid., 372. 58. The argument for an intrinsic archaism could represent evidence for a supposed early dating of the Jabirian corpus. I have discussed this issue elsewhere, proposing a dating of Pseudo-​Jābir ibn Ḥayyān’s work based on an evaluation of its political-​philosophical views as a heterodox minority response to the intellectual debates in a specific Shiite context (the absence of the imam) that emerged during the fourth/tenth century: see L. Capezzone, “Jābir ibn Ḥayyān nella città cortese: Materiali eterodossi per una storia del pensiero della scienza nell’Islam medievale,” Rivista degli studi orientali 71 (1997): 97–144. 59. (Pseudo-) Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, Kitāb al-​tajmīʿ, 372. 60. Ibid., 371. 61. I am obviously referring to al-​Fārābī, Catálogo de las ciencias, ed. and trans. Angel González Palencia (Madrid: Consejo Superior de  Investigaciones Científicas, 1953), and to the treatise on speculative arts and practical arts in Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ,1:258–95; eventually, to the Kitāb al-ḥudūd, in Mukhtār Rasāʾil Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, 97–114. 100 Texts in Transit

Six Riccoldo da Montecroce’s Epistolae V commentatoriae de perditione Acconis, 1291 as Evidence of Multifaceted Textual Movement in the Eastern Mediterranean Brian N. Becker

The fall of Acre, on May 18, 1291, was an extremely sorrowful event for Christendom. It brought an official end to the Crusader States’ two centuries of existence in the East and evoked great lamentation in the Christian West. Indeed, many Christians were beside themselves with grief after learning of Acre’s fall, but perhaps few of them expressed and documented their grief as well as the Florentine Dominican Riccoldo da Montecroce. He had journeyed to the Levant in 1288 both to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and to missionize to Mongols and Muslims, initially preaching his way through the Mongol Ilkhanate and eventually arriving in Baghdad, where he studied Arabic and read the Qurʾan. It was also in Baghdad that Riccoldo received the distressing news that Acre had been lost to the Mamluks, which moved him, in his intense sorrow, to pen his remarkable Five Letters on the Fall of Acre, 1291. In these letters, which read much like lamentations or prayers, Riccoldo expresses his surprise and despair resulting from recent Muslim victories over Christians in the East, imploring God, the Virgin Mary, and an assortment of saints and martyrs to explain this turn of events to him. Riccoldo’s Five Letters offers a unique opportunity to advance scholars’ understanding of many aspects of ethno-​religious interaction during the Middle Ages, including insight into the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of a thirteenth-​ century Western missionary in the East.1 Yet, on a macro level, we can also learn much about larger narratives, such as Western missionary activity in the East and interconfessional interaction. In the specific context of this volume, Riccoldo’s Letters also offers literary scholars and historians valuable insight into the movement of both physical and intellectual goods within the East and across the Mediterranean.

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Nearly nothing is known about Riccoldo da Montecroce’s (ca. 1243–1320) early life,2 other than a single admission made by the man himself when he begins to address Saint Francis in his third letter: “O blessed Francis, to whom I have been devoted continuously from my infancy to this day . . . I cry out and groan mournfully to you.”3 But it is not until his early twenties that information about his life begins to appear in greater abundance. He joined the Dominican order in 1267, showing such an aptitude for academics that, by 1272, he had been appointed lecturer in the Dominican convent of Pisa. His ascendency in the order continued in 1287, when he was appointed leader of the Dominican convent in Prato. Riccoldo probably entered his order with at least a decent education in letters, but it was during this twenty-​year period of living in and around Florence that he blossomed as a scholar. As an aspiring intellectual from the increasingly influential popolo,4 Riccoldo was fortunate enough to be born in Florence, a city whose financial and educational prestige was growing rapidly during the second half of the thirteenth century. A significant amount of the credit for Florence’s growing reputation as a center of learning belongs to Riccoldo’s home priory, Santa Maria Novella, which by 1300 housed ninety-​six friars, making it one of Europe’s largest Dominican houses.5 The priory was also a well-​established center of learning by this time, serving the whole of central Italy as a Dominican studium generale since at least 1305, and it possessed a sizeable library.6  Stefano Orlandi, one of the pioneering historians of Santa Maria Novella, has noted that by 1338 the size of the priory’s library had warranted the construction of a larger building, which in turn required expansion in 1421.7 These dates fall slightly after Riccoldo’s lifetime, but it is safe to say that even in his time at Santa Maria Novella he had access to one of the largest libraries in central Italy. The library was home to numerous collections of scripture, biblical exegesis, sermons, the works of ancient scholars and the Church Fathers, and the like.8 This was certainly an atmosphere in which a young scholar would thrive, and all indications are that Riccoldo took full advantage of his surroundings. There are many instances in his Five Letters in which Riccoldo shows himself to be widely read in scripture, exegesis, and scholasticism.9 It is no surprise that he makes numerous direct and implicit references to biblical passages throughout the Letters, but he also shows a familiarity with the Proslogion of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, when he echoes the last lines of chapter 1 in his first letter: “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe, but I believe so that I may understand. And I believe this because unless I believe, I will not understand.”10 It is also not surprising that he demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the works of fellow Dominican Thomas Aquinas. In his second letter, which he addresses to the Virgin Mary, Riccoldo describes Muhammad’s recent successes by saying that he was sent by God “in virtute armorum,” or “in the force of arms,” which mirrors Aquinas’s use of phrases very similar to this in his Summa contra Gentiles to describe Muhammad’s advance.11 Riccoldo again makes an implicit reference to Aquinas’s Summa contra Gentiles in his third letter, when he complains to the Holy Spirit that Muhammad’s “power and pestilential doctrine are now beginning to be confirmed by miracles.”12 Here, he is clearly referencing

Aquinas’s claim that Islam is inferior to Christianity because Islam had not been confirmed by miracles, whereas Christianity had.13 Riccoldo even evinces some familiarity with Hebrew literary form, as he includes a Latin transliteration of Hebraic onomatopoeia in his fourth letter: “for me, the word of the Lord has been fulfilled: ‘Order upon order, order upon order, rule upon rule, rule upon rule, a little here, a little there.’ ”14 Riccoldo had thus used Santa Maria Novella’s library to great effect during his first twenty-​one years as a Florentine friar. He had engrossed himself for decades in the study of scripture along with the writings of the Church Fathers and scholastics, and presumably in other literary genres as well. It is unknown what he read in detail, but perhaps at least some of this literature inspired him to pursue missionary activity, because in 1288 the master general of the Dominican order, Muño de Zamora, granted his request to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and missionize among the Mongols and Muslims.15 It would henceforth be these peoples on whom Riccoldo would bring his literary education to bear—​especially scripture, of course, but also other useful works of a Christian nature. Riccoldo himself would therefore become, in a sense, a transmitter of textual ideas on his pilgrimage/mission as he spread his book-​based knowledge far and wide across the Middle East. It was indeed with his education that he hoped to convert Muslims to Christianity, as he admits in his first letter: “And I myself, just like a presumptuous man, thought for a long time that I could bring him down through your strength and rid us of his pernicious doctrine. This is why I voluntarily accepted this mission out of my obedience to your vicar and came to these remote parts of the East.”16 Perhaps it was Muhammad’s “pernicious doctrine” itself and the cultural milieu that produced it that had motivated him to go on pilgrimage. The late thirteenth century in Italy was in fact a time of great interest in the study of all things “Arab,” such as Arabic language, literature, science, philosophy, and so on.17 It was at this time that the University of Bologna, having always been a great center of learning in many fields, added the study of Averroes to its curriculum and soon became a leader in this field as well.18 Frederick II of Sicily was famously interested in Arabic culture and proficient in the Arabic language, even to the extent that he was able to converse with those envoys of Muslim leaders who visited his Sicilian court.19 The popularity of the Arab world in the West also greatly influenced Riccoldo’s hometown of Florence. Miguel Asín Palacios has argued that many Florentine authors of the thirteenth century were influenced by Arabic and Islamic literature, including Dante Alighieri, who, in his Divine Comedy, describes both Heaven and Hell in terms reminiscent of the miʿrāj, the traditional Islamic story of Muhammad’s journey to heaven.20 Other scholars, such as Jean Richard and María Rosa Menocal, have demonstrated clearly the influence that the scuola siciliana (Sicilian Arabic poetry) had on early Italian vernacular literature, remarking that many Italian intellectuals of the time “were Arabized and Arabizing.”21 The intellectual climate of Florence during the second half of the thirteenth century was thus one in which an engaged scholar such as Riccoldo could have learned much about the Arab world. This was

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an opportunity made possible by the frequent movement of Arabic texts of many genres from East to West, many of which were translated into Western languages and widely disseminated.22 This certainly was the case in Riccoldo’s Florence, and it is probable that at least some of his desire to go East grew from his desire to fill out what he read in these Eastern books with his own personal experiences. It is also possible that Riccoldo’s immersion in Florence’s intellectual climate, combined with his training as a Dominican missionary, instilled in him the belief that it was necessary to read texts in their original languages in order to capture more accurately their intended meaning. Thomas E. Burman has indeed demonstrated that Christian translators of the Qurʾan in the Middle Ages frequently referred directly to Muslim sources to inform themselves about its meaning. It was in fact common for these translators to base their translations on, and even directly incorporate into them, Muslim Qurʾan commentators’ views on difficult passages.23 While this philological approach certainly previews that of modern translators, medieval translations of the Qurʾan, perhaps unintentionally, often suffered from their creators’ substandard philological ability.24 This would certainly be an argument for learning the languages needed to read texts in their original forms, especially for a Dominican missionary like Riccoldo, whose charge was to win converts to Christianity by proving the irrationality of other faiths as described in the writings of their adherents. This was one half of the two-​pronged missionary strategy adopted by the Dominicans from very early in their history, with the other being the defense of the faith.25 The Dominican emphasis on missionaries’ need to learn foreign languages was well established by the 1280s, when Riccoldo received his approval to embark on an Eastern mission. As early as 1236, the general chapter had recommended the study of local languages by missionaries, and by the 1240s the order had established schools both in the East and West for the express purpose of teaching foreign languages to missionaries.26 Riccoldo’s own writings echo the preoccupation of his order with foreign language study. He acknowledges the necessity for missionaries to become proficient in the local vernaculars of their targeted areas of activity, and he demonstrates a sincere personal dedication to this task. In his Liber peregrinationis, he notes that he passed six months at the beginning of this journey in Tabriz preaching with the aid of an interpreter, which was presumably difficult enough to convince him to take up the study of Arabic.27 Riccoldo began his language study in Baghdad, which is also where he wrote his Five Letters not long after learning of the fall of Acre. In fact, he makes many references in these letters to reading the Qurʾan, and on several occasions he states specifically that he had read it in Arabic.28 It is certainly not necessary for Riccoldo to state that he is reading the Qurʾan in its original language, but he seems to be doing so as an effort to convince his readers that the Qurʾanic passages he cites as evidence of true Islamic beliefs can be trusted because he is taking them directly from the source, and thus preserving their intended meaning. If he can establish this point, then his refutation of the irrationality of Islamic beliefs will thus carry more authority. It is also interesting to note that Riccoldo makes very clear that his reading of scripture, especially one line in particular, had both inspired and was a primary

motivation for his desire to become a missionary. The purpose of his second letter is to express to the Virgin Mary his despair at not having received a divine response to his first letter. During the ensuing discussion, he acknowledges the hardships he has suffered on his mission: “It has occurred to me before now that during the many years ‘I have reflected upon my ways and turned my feet’ toward the testimony of your son, the enemy of the human race has stood in my way so as to divert me, setting up along my pilgrimage route many, very grave dangers which, in my frailty, have been unbearable.”29 Riccoldo’s reference to Psalm 119 is rather subtle here, but he reveals much more openly how this passage affected him in the first chapter of his account of his Eastern travels, Liber peregrinationis, when, after citing the same phrase from the psalm, he states, “I tell you, I realized that it was not prudent for me to sit and be idle for so long and to not try some of the hardships of poverty and a long pilgrimage, especially considering the long and laborious pilgrimages I had undertaken up to that point in order to study the secular sciences which are called liberal.”30 This admission by Riccoldo is interesting for many reasons, but especially because of the direct link he makes between this psalm’s line and pilgrimage. A pilgrimage need not be limited to the undertaking of a physical journey, for Riccoldo; a pilgrimage can also be undertaken through book-​based study, wherever that happens to take place.31 It is a fascinating insight into the mind of this particular missionary, who certainly evinces a deep admiration for texts as instillers of motivation, inspiration, and revelation in those who seek these things. It makes a good deal of sense that Riccoldo would include the study of texts as a form of pilgrimage, because the written word was considered to be an integral part of travel for most Dominicans when, for whatever reason, they left their home priories. The training of Dominicans for missionary activity, as discussed above, was clearly a program that emphasized the rigorous study of appropriate texts to aid them in their task of disproving other religions through reason. The texts chosen for this curriculum are not necessarily important here, but it is important to note that this curriculum instilled textual content in Dominican missionaries, which they then carried and disseminated to their target areas of activity. We thus see Dominican missionaries transmitting textual content far and wide through their work, but clearly one could not memorize all of this content; it does not appear that the missionaries even tried, because they frequently carried texts with them in the field. In fact, Riccoldo remarks that it was an altogether common practice for Dominicans to take multiple volumes with them while traveling. In the midst of explaining to Dominic himself that, despite his best efforts, all of his searching among those returning from the fall of Acre had yielded no one who could tell him if any of his fellow Friar Preachers remained alive, he continues, “But indeed I am worried, searching among the captives if by chance to find a few of my Brother Preachers, and I have found none. Yet, I have found habits and vestments, and also books and breviaries, in the hands of the Saracens. O Friar Preachers! Where have you gone without your habits and breviaries? For it is not customary for your brothers to go on a long journey without their habits and breviaries.”32 It must have been a rare thing indeed for Dominicans to

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become separated from their traveling libraries on long journeys, because Riccoldo expresses more than once his astonishment that this very thing had happened to the Friar Preachers at Acre. For example, he returns to this same theme a little later in his fourth letter, writing, “How very bewildered I was to find garments, tunics, books, and breviaries, but no brothers, for I knew that it is not our custom for friars to journey without tunics and breviaries.”33 It is thus clear that those Dominicans who traveled in Riccoldo’s day were regular participants in the widespread movement of texts within Europe, between East and West, or wherever their business took them. This is not at all surprising, considering the emphasis on book-​based study in Dominican education, missionary training, and the like. A good indication of just how deeply the order fostered this connection between its members and texts is Riccoldo’s sincere astonishment that a Dominican who was abroad would be found without those books he had brought with him on his journey. It would appear that he was only able to reconcile himself to this unfathomable situation by taking comfort in the fact that his brothers’ martyrdom had made further study, and therefore their books, unnecessary to them. After acknowledging those Dominicans who had been killed by the Mamluks at Acre as martyrs, he concludes, “I am not surprised that you have abandoned your breviaries, books, and tunics; indeed, you no longer need them, because in all things you have become rich in Him, in all words and in all knowledge, just as the witness of Christ has been confirmed in you.”34 Riccoldo’s Letters also offers a window onto just how widely disseminated Christian texts were, physically and linguistically, in the late thirteenth-​century East. In letter 3, while chiding the patron saints very harshly for being unwilling to help Christians in the East against the advance of the Muslims, Riccoldo lists a series of Qurʾanic statements concerning Jesus. He seems to take issue with one of the statements in particular: that the name of Muhammad is written in the gospel and that Jesus prophesied about him. Riccoldo cites the Qurʾan itself on this point: “I have read in the sixty-​first chapter of the Qurʾan that Jesus, son of Mary, said: ‘I am the messenger of God, O children of Israel, and I am a truthful messenger; I declare to you that an ambassador will come after me, and his name is Muhammad.’ ”35 He is then quick to doubt the existence of this statement, however, admitting that “in truth, I have not found this in the gospel, not in the Latin, the Chaldean, or the Arabic texts, even though I have searched most diligently for it throughout the East.”36 Riccoldo may have had trouble finding this statement in the gospels, but it is evident that he did not have much trouble finding multiple copies of this text (and in a number of languages as well). It is also clear that the wide dissemination of Christian texts among non-​Christians could result in certain unpleasant experiences for Christian missionaries such as Riccoldo, who expresses to Saint Paul just a little later, in letter 3, that “[y]our epistles have been scattered among the Saracens, and they mock them contemptuously because you said that Jesus Christ is God and son of God. For they have introduced as an effective argument in the Qurʾan that God can in no way have a son, because he does not have a wife. And in saying this, they prevail against us, or rather they say that this is the reason that God afflicts us, because he considers it

wrong that we give him a son.”37 This is not to say that the ready availability of these texts is in any way surprising, given the widespread popularity of the gospels and the writings of Paul, but it is if nothing else good evidence for their reception and perception among non-​Christians in the Levant. Riccoldo considered it a significant enough disgrace for Muslims (or anyone) to mock the gospels and other texts sacred to Christianity, but he had also witnessed them express their disrespect for the religion in other, even more injurious, ways. He describes this sad state of affairs to the Virgin Mary at the beginning of letter 2, which he feels is necessary to write because Divine Wisdom had never responded to the pleas of his first letter. He had come to the East to preach Christ, baptize, and join to the Church those very people whom he now sees being captured by the Muslims and sold as slaves all the way to Baghdad. In addition to this, he continues to hold out hope that he will find some of his fellow friars among the groups of captives with whom he comes into contact, but instead he sees that “the chalices, vestments, and other ornaments of the altars which had been consecrated by spiritual ministers have passed from the table of Christ and from service to the body and blood of the Lord to the tables of the Saracens. The books of the prophets and the gospels have been thrown to the dogs.”38 Riccoldo had witnessed some of these atrocities, but he had also heard of many others inflicted on Christians by Muslims. He makes this clear in his third letter, when, in his address to the Apostles, he remarks that “Christian churches have been torn down and Saracen mosques have been built. The books of the holy evangelists have been burnt up and tossed into the sea, while the law and perfidy of the Saracens has been exalted to the skies.”39 This statement may be more for effect than a reference to a specific event, but Riccoldo does seem intent on conveying his belief that, compared with the Qurʾan, Christian texts have lost all respect in the East. As if to prove the point, he continues the same paragraph by relating one of his personal experiences, in which he came across a Christian prayer book that had been desecrated by Muslims. After declaring that the gospel is now reckoned as nothing throughout the East in comparison with the Qurʾan, Riccoldo records, “Oh, if only the gospel were revered among the Christians as much as the Qurʾan is among the Saracens and Tartars! For, in the great city of Nineveh, I found a missal, captured as though it were a slave, among the loot taken from the Christians of Acre; it contained the epistles and the gospels. The Saracens have forbidden this book; they want to destroy it, and have scratched off [the writing on] its pages in order to make skins for drums and tambourines, of which eastern peoples make great use.”40 He thus offers yet more evidence of the lowly state to which Christians and the texts associated with them have fallen in Eastern lands. The examples above provide good evidence that there was intense textual transmission in the late thirteenth-​century Middle East among diverse peoples and confessions. In some ways, this was beneficial to a Christian traveler/Dominican missionary/avid reader in the East such as Riccoldo, because he found many texts readily available for purchase at local markets. There was, however, the possibility that the Christian texts circulating so widely, and valued so greatly by Riccoldo,

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would fall into the hands of local non-​Christians who were more likely to abuse than revere them. As the above evidence attests, this is something Riccoldo describes as occurring many times throughout the course of his Letters, and he certainly considers it a tragedy. It is interesting to note the particular way in which Riccoldo describes the conveyance of these Christian texts through Eastern lands by Muslims: he overtly refers to these volumes as Muslim “slaves” or “captives.” It seems clear, then, given the evidence, that Riccoldo on some level considers those Christian texts in the possession of Muslims to be suffering from the same affliction as human Christian captives. This is a theme he wishes to emphasize, because he returns to it multiple times in his Letters. There was, of course, Riccoldo’s discovery of the missal at Nineveh among the loot taken from the Christians of Acre, “quasi sclavum portatum,” as described above, but in this city he also discovers other Christian writings in the same predicament. One in particular seems to have gained his notice, which he makes clear in an address to Gregory the Great in letter 3. Riccoldo specifically mentions coming across Gregory’s Moralia in Job, which had been brought by the Muslims all the way to Nineveh after the fall of Acre, “as though it were a captive slave who had been separated from Christianity by more than a fifty-​day camel journey in every direction.”41 Beyond this, it is worth noting that he describes not only Christian texts in these terms, but also the very clothes his brother preachers had worn at the time of their capture. Finding Christian texts (and the habits of his fellow friars) in such a deplorable state was certainly a moving experience for Riccoldo, one that appears to have evoked many of the same feelings he expresses when describing Muslims reducing his fellow Christians, of whatever station, to captivity and slavery. It is perhaps for this reason that he takes such an active role in reclaiming these items when the opportunity presents itself. Riccoldo does not merely see these habits of his fellow friars and Christian texts in the markets of Nineveh and abandon them; he instead purchases them with his own money. For example, after observing in the market those habits, vestments, books, and breviaries that had been taken by the Muslims as loot after the fall of Acre, Riccoldo reports in letter 3 that “then those returning from the destruction offered me a habit pierced by a lance or sword, which was also red with a little blood. Thereupon, wailing and weeping, I said: ‘this is the habit of my brothers; this is the habit of my order!’ I bought it for a small price.”42 He admits doing the same thing after he had found the abovementioned copy of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in Job. After this volume had been taken from Acre to Nineveh by Muslim merchants, Riccoldo informs Gregory himself that he “ransomed” the book in Nineveh.43 The image of Christian texts and possessions as Christian captives is conveyed clearly here by Riccoldo, but he adds yet another layer of meaning to this image through the language he chooses to employ. In both of the above descriptions, Riccoldo uses the Latin verb redimere (buy back, redeem, ransom, rescue), thus making a clear association between his act of reclaiming these Christian items from their Muslim owners and the act of ransoming slaves. He is thus evincing his desire to take possession of these items, not necessarily for his own personal benefit, but to restore them to their rightful place with a Christian owner.

The association Riccoldo makes between the reclamation of these items and slave ransoming also has a clear symbolic significance, given his personal experiences in the East. The Letters repeatedly invoke his heartbreak and sorrow over the territorial losses of Christian warriors in the East, such as at Acre, and it was especially difficult for him to bear the suffering that his fellow Christians endured along with these losses. Riccoldo had seen items removed from the altars of Christian churches and put up for sale in local markets. He had heard accounts of Muslims scattering all the Christian books throughout the world. Much worse for Riccoldo, however, were the many horrific reports he had heard concerning Christians who were at Acre when it fell to the Mamluks: many of them had been slain, including a large number of fellow friars, while others had been taken away as slaves. He had personally searched through the markets of the East in hopes of finding even a few of these unfortunate souls, but to date he had been entirely unsuccessful in this regard. He was, however, successful in discovering a number of Christian-​related items in local markets, including some habits, vestments, books, and breviaries for sale by Muslim merchants.44 If he were to buy some of these items, he would be rescuing them from their Muslim owners, much as he wished to rescue those Christians who had been enslaved by the Mamluks after Acre had fallen. He had been unable to find and ransom any of the human captives from their Muslim masters, but he could at least ransom those texts and items that they held sacred as Christians. These purchases were thus symbolic acts of redemption for Riccoldo, in that they gave him the chance to reestablish Christian ownership of these items, perhaps they somewhat assuaged his guilt for being unable to help Christian captives. The very existence of Riccoldo’s Letters is proof of the insurmountable setbacks the Crusader States had suffered by the second half of the thirteenth century, but their real value is in documenting the trials and tribulations suffered by one particular Dominican pilgrim/missionary in the East, as well as his response to these devastations. The most personal of Riccoldo’s five letters is the last, in which he explains the long-​awaited divine response to all of the questions he had asked the respective addressees of his previous four letters: God the Father, the Virgin Mary, the Church triumphant and the celestial court, and Patriarch of Jerusalem, Friar Nicholas, and the other Friar Preachers who were killed at Acre. He asks numerous questions of each addressee, but they all essentially have the same theme: Why has God allowed Christian communities in the East, presumably both indigenous Christians and those who came to the region from the West, to suffer unending hardships and even massacres? Riccoldo writes, “I, above all, desired to hear why the Lord was striking us with so cruel a punishment as this plague of our enemy, and to know both how long this harsh oppression would last, as well as for what reason the Lord struck us using the Saracens, people of such a perfidious faith, who blaspheme the entire celestial court so flagrantly.”45 He has yet to receive a response to his queries, and Riccoldo decides to change strategies by turning his attention to the “holy books for an answer from God concerning my astonishment.”46 He now has, unopened on the table before him, the same copy of Gregory the Great’s Moralia in

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Job which he had earlier ransomed from the market of Nineveh. He prays to Gregory: “O Saint Gregory, since you do not want to respond to me either through a trustworthy messenger or new letters, I ask you to show me through your ancient teachings why God does not respond to me, especially since I am in a state of such bitterness and also anxious on account of the divine response.”47 Riccoldo’s answer was quick in coming, for he hears a voice in his heart that exhorts him to “[t]ake up and read! Take up and read!”48 He then opens Gregory’s Moralia to a random page, places his finger down on a passage, and falls upon the following words from Job: “Why do you speak out against him that he did not respond to all your words? God speaks for himself one time, and then a second, but does not repeat.”49 Riccoldo continues by citing at length much of Gregory’s explanation of this passage, which has as its conclusion that God does not respond to every individual plea made to him, but instead divulges the Holy Scripture to humanity as a way to instruct and answer every plea collectively. This response appeases Riccoldo in the end, and he thanks God for it, although he cannot help but inform God that this has only been a response in words. He still eagerly anticipates God’s response in deeds: “In the end, I give thanks for your theoretical response, but nevertheless wait affectionately and ceaselessly for your practical response.”50 There are, for our purpose here, two important points to note in the context of Riccoldo’s fifth letter. First, when Riccoldo beseeches Gregory the Great for an answer to his pleas, he asks for the response through his ancient texts (my emphasis). Second, after Riccoldo receives his response, he thanks God for his help through his servant Gregory (again, my emphasis). In many ways, this letter exemplifies the extent to which texts and the ideas contained therein flowed from group to group, culture to culture, and confession to confession in the late thirteenth-​century Middle East. Riccoldo makes abundantly clear just how long he had sought a reply to his questions, and when the reply finally comes, it is not particularly surprising that Riccoldo finds what he seeks in a Western theological text. What is interesting here is that this particular copy of the Moralia in Job had a Western, Christian author but had been in the East at the time of Acre’s fall and was then transported as Muslim booty to Nineveh, where it was put up for sale by a Muslim merchant and purchased by a Dominican missionary. There is no reason to assume that Riccoldo’s copy of the Moralia had a unique journey; it is very probable that many other volumes shared the same fate in a region of such cultural and confessional diversity. It is also worth noting, although admittedly somewhat more fancifully, that Riccoldo’s response from Gregory exemplifies not only the physical movement of texts over distance but also how the ideas contained within those texts are transmitted over time. Indeed, when an answer finally came to Riccoldo’s pleas for understanding, this anxious Christian soul found solace in the words of a pope who had lived seven hundred years before. In conclusion, Riccoldo da Montecroce’s Five Letters on the Fall of Acre, 1291 offers scholars an excellent opportunity to study the movement of both texts and the ideas contained within them in the late thirteenth-​century Mediterranean. Texts played an important role early in Riccoldo’s life, beginning with his Dominican education at

Santa Maria Novella in his hometown of Florence. At this priory, he had the opportunity to read widely in scripture, exegesis, and scholasticism. Indeed, there is much evidence in his Letters attesting to his proficiency in these areas. A new phase of Riccoldo’s life began in 1288, when he departed for the Middle East on a pilgrimage and mission. It is impossible to know exactly what inspired him to embark on such a journey; perhaps it was the popularity of the study of Arab texts that coursed through Florence’s intellectual climate at the time, or perhaps his reading of scripture, especially one particular line in Psalm 119. Whatever the case may have been, Riccoldo’s Dominican education and missionary training made him a transmitter of textual ideas as he spread his book-​based knowledge far and wide across the East. Yet he did not only transmit textual content through his missionary work, for Riccoldo himself states that it was a common practice for Dominicans to take multiple volumes with them while traveling, thus also making them physical conveyers of texts on their journeys. Riccoldo’s Letters also attests to intense textual transmission, both physically and linguistically, in the late thirteenth-​century Middle East among diverse peoples and confessions. He does not appear to have had much trouble at all finding multiple copies of the gospels in a number of languages, although he does note that the ready availability of Christian texts increased the opportunities for non-​Christians to mock and abuse them publicly. It is also clear that the maltreatment of Christian texts, whether personally witnessed or not, alarmed and deeply saddened Riccoldo, but it was much worse if these texts ended up in Muslim hands. In fact, a theme to which he frequently returns in his Letters is that having Christian texts in the possession of Muslims is tantamount to their enslavement; these texts are Muslim slaves, just like the Christians who have fallen into Muslim captivity. Therefore, Riccoldo shows himself to be quite motivated to “ransom” these captive texts from their Muslim owners when he can, buying them with his own money when he comes across them at local markets. Finally, it is not surprising that a well-​ traveled Christian text whose ideas had been transmitted across great distances and time played an important role in responding to Riccoldo’s desire to understand God’s reasons for allowing Christian communities in the East to suffer unending hardships and even massacres. The Five Letters makes clear that texts were a very important part of Riccoldo’s life, but it is equally clear that they were a major influence on his experiences as a pilgrim and missionary in the East. Notes 1. Scholars examining interfaith relations traditionally turned to Riccoldo’s most popular work, an anti-​Islamic polemic entitled Contra legem Sarracenorum, but have more recently expanded their inquiries to include his other important works as well: Liber peregrinationis (a combination itinerary detailing his experiences while on mission/pilgrimage in the Middle East and ethnography of the different peoples he encountered there); Libellus ad nationes orientales (a treatise describing the Christian sects found in the East); and, of course, his Epistolae ad ecclesiam triumphantem. 2. What is known of Riccoldo’s early life comes from his own references in his works, the necrology of his home priory, Santa Maria Novella, and a small number of charters, all of which have been gathered together by Emilio Panella, “Ricerche su Riccoldo da Monte di Croce,” Archivum Fratrum

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Praedicatorum 58 (1988): 5–85. For Riccoldo’s biography, also see Johann Christian M. Laurent, “Liber peregrinacionis,” in Peregrinatores medii aevi quattor: Burchardus de Monte Sion, Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, Odoricus de Foro Julii, Wilbrandus de Oldenborg (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1864); Reinhold Röhricht, “Lettres de Ricoldo de Monte-​Croce,” Archives de l’Orient latin 2 (1884): 258–96; Antoine Dondaine, “Ricoldiana: Notes sur les oeuvres de Riccoldo de Montecroce,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 37 (1967): 119–70; Jean-​Marie Mérigoux, “L’ouvrage d’un frère prêcheur en Orient à la fin du XIIIe s. suivi de l’édition du Contra legem Sarracenorum,” Memorie Domenicane 17 (1986): 1–142; René Kappler, ed., Riccold de Monte Croce, Pérégrination en Terre Sainte et au Proche Orient: Texte latin et traduction; Lettres sur la Chute de Saint Jean d’Acre (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997); Thomas E. Burman, “Riccoldo da Monte di Croce,” in Christian-​Muslim Relations: A Bibliographical History; Volume 4 (1200–1350), ed. David Thomas and Alex Mallett (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 678–91, esp. 678–79; and Rita George-​Tvrtković, A Christian Pilgrim in Medieval Iraq: Riccoldo da Montecroce’s Encounter with Islam (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 2–4. 3. “O beate Francisce, cui ab infancia mea et usque nunc fui devotus . . . ad te clamito et flebiliter ingemisco.” Riccoldo’s Five Letters on the Fall of Acre survives in a single fifteenth-​century manuscript, located at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (ms Vat. Lat. 7317, fols. 249r–267r). The only complete Latin edition of Riccoldo’s text is that of Röhricht, “Lettres,” 258–96. I will thus identify all following references to the Latin text of his Letters in terms of Röhricht’s edition (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 278). 4. Popolo refers to the non-​noble working classes, which gained a great deal of influence in thirteenth-​century Italian towns. Over time the category was divided into two groups: the popolo grasso, those wealthy and influential professionals and guild members who controlled civic administration and trade, and the popolo minuto, those laborers, craftsmen, and artisans who were forbidden to organize into guilds. Guild membership was a prerequisite for political office in many communes, so the popolo minuto were effectively excluded from participation in civic government. 5. George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 4; Daniel R. Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence: The Social World of Franciscan and Dominican Spirituality (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989), 64; also, for more general information on Santa Maria Novella and its milieu, see M. Michèle Mulchahey, “First the Bow Is Bent in Study”: Dominican Education Before 1350 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998), xi, 34–35, 184, 185, 276, 323, 338, 424–25, 433, 435–36, 442, 471–72, 538, 547. 6. M. Michèle Mulchahey, “Education in Dante’s Florence Revisited: Remigio de’ Girolami and the Schools of Santa Maria Novella,” in Medieval Education, ed. Ronald B. Begley and Joseph W. Koterski (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 143–81, esp. 144–46. 7. Orlandi’s edition of the house’s 1489 inventory also reveals that the library housed nearly 950 volumes at that time. See Stefano Orlandi and Tommaso di Matteo Sardi, La biblioteca di S. Maria Novella in Firenze dal sec. XIV al sec. XIX (Firenze: Ed. Il Rosario, 1952), 10 and 13. 8. For a summary of the holdings of Santa Maria Novella’s library at the time of the 1489 inventory, see ibid., 15–24. 9. Scholars generally accepted that Riccoldo composed the Letters in the East, and not long after the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, thus making it the earliest of his five extant texts. See John V. Tolan, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval Imagination (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 245–46; Burman, “Riccoldo da Monte di Croce,” 678; George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 34. 10. Compare with the following: “For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe even this: that unless I believe, I shall not understand.” Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion, trans. Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson (Minneapolis: The Arthur J. Banning Press, 2000), 93. 11. Riccoldo’s text reads, “ipse Machometus mendacissimus dixit se missum esse a Deo in virtute armorum” (the most deceitful Muhammad himself said that he had been sent by God in the force of arms), while Aquinas expresses the following in book I, chapter 6 of his Summa contra Gentiles: “dixit se in armorum potentia missum” (“He [Muhammad] said he was sent in the power of his arms”), and also “alios armorum violentia in suam legem coegit” (“He [Muhammad] forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms”) (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 272; Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, trans. Anton C. Pegis, vol. 1 (New York: Hanover House, 1955–57), 6. 12. “[S]ua potentia et doctrina pestifera iam incipit confirmari miraculis” (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 287).

13. “Yet it is also a fact that, even in our own time, God does not cease to work miracles through His saints for the confirmation of the faith. . . . On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this, the point is clear in the case of Muhammad. . . . He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth” (Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles, 1:6). 14. Isaiah 28:13, as noted by Kappler (Kappler, Riccold de Monte Croce, 248). Onomatopoeia is a literary form often used in many languages, including biblical Hebrew, by which a written phrase, when spoken aloud, is meant to embody the sound of the reality it communicates. In this case, Riccoldo is referring to a verse in which Isaiah prophesies that, because the people of Judah responded contemptuously to his message, God’s message will henceforth reach them through prophets speaking strange, foreign words. These words will sound like gibberish to the people, and thus will not be understood and go unheeded: “Tsaw latsaw tsaw latsaw, qaw laqaw qaw laqaw, zeʾer sham, zeʾer sham’ ” (“Order upon order, order upon order, rule upon rule, rule upon rule, a little here, a little there”). Riccoldo’s implication here is twofold. First, the invasion and downfall of the Crusader States at the hands of Muslim forces have fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy that a foreign power speaking a foreign language will be God’s judgment upon a Christian people who spurned clear and straightforward calls to repentance. Second, Riccoldo’s own insensitivity to God’s message must explain why his personal prayers for heaven’s aid against the Muslims in the East remain unanswered; in other words, the prayers of people deemed unworthy in the eyes of God must sound like unintelligible gibberish, and thus do not warrant a response. 15. Tolan, Saracens, 245. His superior’s approval of Riccoldo’s request to missionize among the Ilkhanid Mongols in particular is not unusual, because they had a history of changing religious affinities. Ilkhan Öljaytü (r. 1304–16), for example, was raised as a Nestorian Christian. 16. “Et ego sicut presumptuosus intra memetipsum longo tempore cogitavi, quod possem illum in tua virtute deicere et eius doctrinam pestiferam evacuare. Quamobrem assumpta voluntate commissa michi a tuo vicario obediencia veni ad profundas partes istas orientis” (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 268). 17. For a brief but very good discussion of Italy’s “Arabophilia” at this time, see George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 5–6. 18. María Rosa Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 121–22; George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 6. 19. George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 6. One indication of Frederick’s proficiency in Arabic is the relationship he developed with Emir Fakhr al-​Dīn al-​Shaykh, who led Sultan al-​Kamil of Egypt’s 1227 embassy to Frederick’s court in Sicily. The emir quickly became impressed with Frederick’s ability to discuss with him, in Arabic, a wide range of topics such as politics, warfare, and falconry, which led to a fast friendship. See Richard F. Cassady, The Emperor and the Saint: Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Francis of Assisi, and Journeys to Medieval Places (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011), 237. 20. Miguel Asín Palacios, Islam and the Divine Comedy, trans. Harold Sunderland (London: Cass, 1968); George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 6. 21. Jean Richard, “The Eastern Mediterranean and Its Relations with the Hinterland (11th–15th Centuries),” in Richard, Les Relations entre l’Orient et l’Occident au Moyen Âge (London: Variorum, 1977); Menocal, Arabic Role, 116, 121–22, as quoted in George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 6. 22. This seems also to have been the case with the Qurʾan itself, which was translated into Latin in its entirety at least three times between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, and also survives to this day in some forty Latin and Arabic manuscripts known to have been read by Latin-​Christian scholars. See Thomas E. Burman, Reading the Qurʾān in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 1. For the assertion that a work surviving today in more than thirty manuscripts was a great success, see Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l’occident médiéval (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1980), 249–58. 23. Burman, Reading the Qurʾān, 8. 24. Burman notes that there is surprisingly little evidence to suggest that Latin translators of the Qurʾan intentionally distorted the text for polemical ends, and that any problems with their translations were more likely the result of their lacking the skill to create an accurate and effective translation (ibid., 8).

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25. For discussions of the Dominican approach to mission, see Mulchahey, “First the Bow Is Bent in Study,” 344–50; George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 8–11. 26. George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 9. 27. “Ibi substitimus per medium annum et predicabamus eis per turchimannum in lingua arabica” (Kappler, Riccold de Monte Croce, 118, as quoted in George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 9 n. 44). Yet it is unclear exactly why Riccoldo would have thought Arabic to be the best language for a missionary in the city of Tabriz, where Persian predominated. 28. Riccoldo boasts that he has read the Qurʾan in its original language no fewer than nineteen times over the course of his five letters. 29. Psalm 119:59: “Et prius michi occurrit, quod cum ex multis iam precedentibus annis cogitavi vias meas et converti pedes meos in testimonia filii tui, obstitit inimicus humani generis, ut me retrahere obiciens multa et gravissima pericula in tali peregrinacione, que importabilia essent fragilitati mee” (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 271). 30. Riccoldo da Montecroce, “Liber peregrinationis,” in George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 176. 31. He clearly means “pilgrimage” in both instances, because he uses the same word, “peregrinatio” (George-​Tvrtković, Christian Pilgrim, 146 n. 19). 32. “Set eciam sollicitor circumspiciens inter captives, si forte aliquos ex meis fratribus predicatoribus invenirem, et nullum invenio. Invenio tamen tunicas et paramenta, libros eciam et breviaria inter Sarracenos. O fratres predicatores, quo ivistis sine tunicis et breviariis? Non est enim vestre consuetudinis, ut fratres vestri sine tunicis et breviariis vadant in viam longinquam” (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 277–78). 33. “. . . mirabar quam plurimum, quia inveniebam paramenta, tunicas, libros et breviaria et non inveniebam fratres. Sciebam enim nostri moris non esse, quod fratres vadant absque tunicis et breviariis” (ibid., 289). 34. “. . . non miror, si breviaria et libros et tunicas dimisistis. Non enim amplius indigetis, quia in omnibus divites facti estis in illo, in omni verbo et in omni scientia, sicut testimonium Christi confirmatum est in vobis” (ibid., 290). 35. “Ita enim legi in alchorano capitulo lxi dicit Iesus, filius Marie: ‘Ego sum nuncius Dei, o filii Israel, et sum nuncius verax, ego evangelizo vobis, quod legatus veniet post me et nomen eius Machometus’ ” (ibid., 282). Riccoldo is here referring to Qurʾan 61:6, which states, “And when Jesus son of Mary said, ‘Children of Israel, I am indeed the Messenger of God to you, confirming the Torah that is before me, and giving good tidings of a Messenger who shall come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad.” See The Koran Interpreted, trans. A. J. Arberry (New York: Macmillan, 1955), 2:274. It is interesting to note that Riccoldo’s version of this passage varies from the Qurʾan’s actual text in two significant ways. First, he fails to include the phrase in which Jesus says that the Qurʾan confirms the Torah. Second, he also substitutes “Muhammad” for “Ahmad,” which is the name clearly stated in the Qurʾanic text. These errors are indeed puzzling, considering the pride Riccoldo took in his knowledge of Arabic and his ready access to a copy of the Qurʾan; indeed, he makes a point of recording many times in his Letters that he has read the preceding passage in the Qurʾan in Arabic. It is of course impossible to conclude with certainty why Riccoldo altered the above passage as he did, but it may very well be an example of his self-​expressed and well-​documented ambivalence about the Qurʾan. In his works, Riccoldo evinces both sincere admiration for the rhythm, verse, and poetic language of the Qurʾan and sincere disdain for its message. It is possible that here he is demonstrating his command of the Arabic language to his readers while shielding them from a Muslim claim that he found particularly objectionable, namely, that Jesus would admit that the Qurʾan confirms the Torah. The reason for Riccoldo’s substitution of “Muhammad” for “Ahmad” is equally elusive, but, given that Ahmad means “one who is highly praised” in Arabic, perhaps he is choosing to deploy Muhammad’s actual name rather than acknowledge the complimentary manner in which Jesus refers to him. 36. “Ego vere ista non invenio in evangelio, nec in latino, nec in caldeo, nec in arabico, quod quidem diligentissime in oriente perlegi” (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 282). 37. “Disperse sunt epistole tue inter Sarracenos et eas contemptibiliter dividunt quia dixisti, quod Iesus Christus est Deus et Dei filius. Nam ipsi pro efficaci argumento in alchorano inducunt, quod Deus nullo modo potest habere filium, quia non habet uxorem. Et hec dicens prevalent contra nos, ymmo dicunt, quod hec est causa, quia Deus affligit nos, quia habet pro malo, quod damus ei filium” (ibid.).

38. “Calices et palle et alia ornamenta altarium spiritualibus ministeriis consecrata de mensa Christi et de ministerio corporis et sanguinis Domini transeunt ad mensas Sarracenorum, libri prophetarum et evangeliorum canibus exponuntur” (ibid., 272). 39. “Ecclesie christianorum destruuntur et meschite Sarracenorum edificantur, libri sancti evangelii comburuntur et proiciuntur in mare et lex et perfidia Sarracenorum exaltari cernitur usque ad nubes” (ibid., 280–81). 40. “O utinam vel in tanta reverencia esset evangelium apud christianos, in quanta est alchoranum apud Sarracenos et Tartaros! Ego autem librum missale inveni quasi sclavum portatum de spoliis christianorum de Accon in Nynive, civitate grandi, ubi erant epistole et evangelia. Quem librum interdicebant Sarraceni, volebant destruere et cartas eius radere ad faciendum cartas pro tympanis et tamburis quibus orientales multum utuntur” (ibid.). 41. “Et postquam destruxerunt Accon, librum tuum Moralium portaverunt usque prope Ninivem, civitatem grandem. Ibi enim librum tuum quasi captivum sclavum redemi, qui distabat a christianitate ex omni parte plusquam quinquaginta dietas cameli ” (ibid., 280). 42. “Tunc vero a redeuntibus de exidio michi oblata est tunica lancea vel gladio perforata, que eciam modico cruore rosea erat. Et tunc eiulans et plorans dixi: ‘tunica fratrum meorum est, tunica ordinis mei est!’ Redemi eam modico precio” (ibid., 278). 43. See footnote 41 above for the Latin text (ibid., 280). 44. It is unclear exactly how these merchants had acquired this merchandise, but, presumably, Eastern Christians had originally owned much of it. 45. “. . . et maxime cum desiderarem audire, ex qua causa percusserit nos Dominus plaga inimici tam crudeli castigatione, et ad quem finem perducet ipsa dura oppressio, et qua ratione percusserit nos Dominus per Sarracenos, per homines habentes tam perfidam fidem, qui totam curiam celestem tam manifeste blasphemant” (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 295). 46. “Et cum non responderent michi per alium certum nuncium, cogitavi de Dei bonitate confisus, de libris sanctis a Deo michi responsionem mee admirationis expetere” (ibid.). 47. “O Sancte Gregori, postquam non vultis michi per certum nuncium respondere aut per novas literas, rogo te, ostende vel per antiquam doctrinam tuam, quare Deus michi non respondeat, maxime cum sim in tanta amaritudine anxius etiam divine responsionis” (ibid.). 48. This references the famous phrase “Tolle, lege” from chapter 12 of Saint Augustine’s Confessions. 49. Job 33:13–14. 50. “Pro responsione denique theorica gratias ago, practicam vero nichilominus affectuose atque indesinenter expeto” (Röhricht, “Lettres,” 296).

115 Riccoldo da Montecroce’s “Epistolae V”

Seven The Wheat and the Barley Feminine (in)Fertility in Eve and Adam Narratives in Islam Zohar Hadromi-​A llouche

According to Alan Dundes, a myth is a “sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form.”1 The present chapter aims to explore how certain such sacred narratives came to be in their present form. Modern scholarship tends to identify many of the Islamic religious texts as corresponding to the Judeo-​Christian milieu, in which Islam emerged and developed. This chapter argues that alongside such developments, correspondence with other Near Eastern traditions should also be considered, such as Greek and Zoroastrian texts. An intertextual reading of works from these two traditions reveals an additional—​and so far hardly noticed—​level of meaning to the Islamic texts. In what follows, I aim to demonstrate the possible advantages of such a reading through the analysis of a motif that is unique to Islamic texts concerning Eve, Adam, and the fruit of Paradise. The first part of this chapter begins with a short presentation of the Eve and Adam narratives in the context of medieval Islamic sources. It will then focus on the unique identification of wheat/barley as the fruit of Paradise. The second part will discuss the limited value of parallels from Jewish and Christian sources for understanding the origins and role of this motif. The last part will then suggest possible links between the Islamic narratives and other Near Eastern traditions, namely, Zoroastrian texts concerning the first human couple and Greek texts concerning the goddess Demeter. I will argue that these texts can be helpful alternatives for appreciating the polemical role of barley and wheat in medieval Islamic narratives concerning Eve and Adam.

Wheat and Barley in Medieval Islamic Narratives of Eve and Adam Eve and Adam in Medieval Islam In the Qurʾan, the Expulsion from Paradise is related in three chapters. According to Q 2:35–38 and Q 7:11–24, Adam and his spouse, whom the Qurʾan does not name, were tempted simultaneously by Satan (whom the Qurʾan substitutes for the biblical snake). According to Q 20:115–27, Satan only tempted Adam. In all three references the same consequences are related: Adam and his spouse concurrently consume the forbidden fruit, and as a result, they are expelled from Paradise. These concise narratives neither name Adam’s spouse nor consider her a main cause for the Fall. Extra-​Qurʾanic literature, on the other hand, such as tafsīr (commentaries to the Qurʾan), hadith (compilations of prophetic traditions), or qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ (stories of the prophets’ collections), tends to elaborate on the Adam and Eve theme. These sources often include motifs that are not part of the Qurʾanic Paradise narratives but can be paralleled with the Paradise narratives of Genesis 3 and post-​biblical literature. For example, all of these sources give the name Ḥawwāʾ (Arabic for the biblical Ḥava, or Eve) for Adam’s spouse.2 Similarly, Muslim sources tell us that immediately after God created Eve, He married her to Adam (thus keeping her under a continuous male domination). Only then did God put the couple in the Garden. This motif can be found in Genesis Rabba.3 The Islamic sources also refer to Eve’s excessive punishments for eating the forbidden fruit and feeding it to Adam,4 a theme that exists in the Talmud and midrash sources as well.5 Wheat and Barley in and out of Paradise However, other motifs that are found in the Islamic sources in relation to Eve and Adam are hardly known from earlier Jewish or Christian sources. This is the case with wheat and barley. In the extra-​Qurʾanic Islamic sources, wheat, barley, and the production of bread constitute a recurring motif in the Eve and Adam narratives. As shown elsewhere, in these narratives wheat and barley constitute one of many motifs which together serve to maintain the myth of superior fertility potential for the male.6 So far this motif has attracted little scholarly attention. Barbara Stowasser briefly notes that wheat is among “some speculation on the species of the tree” in al-Ṭabarī’s Tafsīr, before her discussion turns to the question of temptation. Jane Smith and Yvonne Haddad also mention wheat-​related texts, but do not treat it as a theme. Denise Spellberg and Catherine Bronson do not refer to wheat (or barley).7 Here, I will focus first on the wheat/barley motif and its use within the Islamic narratives of Eve and Adam. Possible backgrounds for the emergence of this motif in Islam will then be examined. Muslim sources often identify the forbidden fruit of Paradise as wheat. Although Islam also knows other identifications for the forbidden fruit, wheat remains by far the most prominent among these.8 As will be discussed below, this identification

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of wheat as the essence through which the first feminine transgression took place, by means of the stalks that Eve unlawfully took from the forbidden tree, is rarely found in Judaism or Christianity. It thus remains a particularly Islamic trait of the Paradise story.9 Islamic texts also regard the transgression in Paradise as explaining the origin of barley. A report that is recorded in Ibn Bābawayhi’s (d. 381 a​.h​.​/991 c.e.) Maʿānī al-​Akhbār informs us that wheat as we know it originated from the tree of Paradise. However, the place from which Eve and Adam took the forbidden fruit was transformed; instead of wheat, this part of the tree started growing barley.10 The origin of barley is thus regarded as a mutilation of the divine creation, emerging from Eve and Adam’s disobedience to God. The inferiority of barley is also evident from a report that regards its origins in the bran that was left after Adam had sifted flour for the first time.11 Indeed, the cultural perception of wheat’s superiority over barley is also demonstrated through the Arabic idiom “They present us with wheat and sell us barley” (yaʿriḍūna ʿalaynā ḥinṭa wa-​yabīʿūnahu shaʿīr). Another report, recorded in al-​Kisāʾī’s (d. sixth century a​.h​.​/eleventh century c.e.) Qiṣaṣ al-​Anbiyāʾ, adds the theme of stealing. Here it was Eve alone who approached the wheat tree, from which she picked seven stalks. One stalk she ate, another one she kept for herself, and the remaining five stalks she gave Adam to eat.12 Eve’s transgression had a double impact: by taking the fruit, she disobeyed the divine command and appropriated to herself the authority of fertilization (sowing). The theft and hiding of the stalk represent the acquisition of a more general potential of nourishment, beyond the private case of her feeding the stalks to Adam. This potential, while rejected in the narrative as illegitimate, can also be understood as Promethean, since Eve’s theft transfers essential knowledge from the divine realm to the human sphere. Other reports combine the couple’s stealing with the origin of barley. Ibn Bābawayhi records a report that dates the origin of barley after the Expulsion from Paradise. Since God commanded Adam to cultivate the earth, the angel Gabriel brought Adam some wheat grains to sow. Eve, unlawfully, took some of these. Adam forbade her to sow them, but she did so anyway. The grains sowed by Adam produced wheat, whereas Eve’s grains produced barley.13 The prohibition in this report on Eve’s sowing might reflect an attempt to prevent her from engaging in nurturing activities, such as the one that resulted in the Expulsion. Indeed, the transition of dominance over wheat (fertility and nourishment) from Eve (in Paradise) to Adam (on earth) might be considered the moral of the incident in Paradise. Just as in Paradise, here too Eve’s illegitimate activity results in the mutilation of God’s creation. Eve’s activity as a fertility agent is thus regarded as inferior, forbidden, and transgressive. Even when legitimate, Eve’s activity as a fertility agent remains inferior. A report recorded in al-​Thaʿlabī’s (d. 427 a​.h​.​/1035 c.e.) Qiṣaṣ al-​Anbiyāʾ informs us that after the descent from Paradise, the angel Gabriel gave Eve and Adam wheat grains for sowing, so that they wouldn’t starve. But whereas Adam received two grains, Eve only

received one.14 Other reports tell us that the grains were given to Adam alone.15 Eve’s deficient nature and inferiority are indicated here through quantity. In the context of the post-​Expulsion period, the wheat/barley motif in the Islamic Eve and Adam narratives also serves to portray fertility and nourishment as masculine domains. Food production, especially the production of bread, is related to Adam alone, from ploughing to baking.16 Baking, in particular, is traditionally considered a feminine task, and its ascription to Adam is not self-​evident. A single report that is recorded in al-Ṭabarī’s (d. 310 a​.h​.​/923 c.e.) Taʾrīkh relates baking bread to Eve, among other “things that women do.”17 This last phrase emphasizes the singularity of Adam’s dominance over the production of bread in the aforementioned reports. Furthermore, al-Ṭabarī records these details as part of a narrative that describes Adam’s death. It is thus not clear whether these were Eve’s chores throughout her post-​Fall life, or only after Adam has died. Collecting stalks after the harvest is also perceived as a traditionally feminine task (see, for example, Ruth 2:1–8). According to a report recorded by al-​Kisāʾī, Adam took care of most phases of bread production, whereas Eve gathered the stalks after the harvest.18 This act emphasizes that the feminine activity of nurturing is only legitimate as long as it remains within the prescribed limits: the collection of preharvested stalks depends on and is governed by the harvester, Adam. This depiction of Eve is an antithetical parallel to her unauthorized activity in Paradise, where it was she who picked the wheat (forbidden fruit) and fed it to Adam. In the current context, Adam is in the lead, harvesting and feeding (producing the bread). The significance of domination over the wheat grains is further emphasized through reports that use the above descriptions—​such as Gabriel’s giving Adam two grains for sowing and Eve only one, or Adam’s consuming more grains from the tree in Paradise—​in order to legitimize Muslim inheritance law, which only allows women half the share afforded to men.19 Such reports also demonstrate the significance of the Eve and Adam narratives in the shaping of gender hierarchy and relationship in societies that are familiar with such stories. In light of the above reports, medieval Muslim sources seem highly interested in wheat, barley, and gender in the context of Adam and Eve. Notably, barley is unique in that it is only referred to in Shiite sources, such as Ibn Bābawayhi and al-​Jazāʾirī, and always in a negative manner. In what follows I will examine the use of the wheat and barley motif in other Near Eastern traditions, to which the above Islamic texts might respond.

Wheat, Barley, and the Jewish and Christian Sources 20 In the Bible, barley’s inferiority to wheat is evident. For example, in 2 Kings 7:1, Elisha prophesied that “tomorrow a seah of finely-​sifted [wheat] flour [will be sold] for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel.” Maimonides (d. 1204 c.e.) extends this hierarchy to gender by arguing that a “man’s offering precedes a woman’s offering; an offering of wheat precedes an offering of barley.”21

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Still, very few references to wheat or barley exist in Jewish and Christian narratives regarding Paradise. Although Ibn Kathīr (d. 774 a​.h​.​/1373 c.e.) notes that the identification of the Paradise fruit as wheat was made by the Jews,22 only one identification of the tree of Paradise as wheat (alongside other possibilities, such as fig and wine) is related in the Babylonian Talmud.23 Among the Sages, fig is the common identification of the Paradise tree, possibly in linkage with Genesis 3:7.24 The Apocrypha contains descriptions of angelic agricultural guidance to Adam after the Fall, but these descriptions are not judgmental in their view of wheat and its use, or abuse, by Eve and Adam.25 Certain similarities to the corrupted wheat motif do exist in Jewish and Christian sources. In Midrash Tanḥuma (fifth–ninth centuries c.e.), we find that, following the transgression in Paradise, for many generations after Eve and Adam’s time the sowing of wheat would only produce thistles. It was not until Noah was born that the natural order was reestablished, and people would harvest whatever they had sown: the sowing of wheat would produce wheat, and the sowing of barley would produce barley.26 This narrative relates to the corruption of sown grains in connection with the transgression. However, the transformation into thistles (probably reflecting Genesis 3:17–18) is of cereals in general, and not limited to wheat. Other elements of the Islamic narratives, too, such as the unlawful plucking (or sowing), the theft, the angel, and the personal responsibility of Eve, are not present here. A later Jewish text is recorded by Louis Ginzberg, who narrates from Baʿalei ha-​ Tosafot (twelfth–thirteenth centuries) the view that, due to the curse on the earth (Genesis 3:17–18), from Adam’s time until Noah was born, the sowing of wheat would produce oats. This text does appear to refer to wheat as being transformed into an inferior kind of grain (as in the tenth-​century Islamic narratives). However, Ginzberg comments that the text’s verification and origin are problematic.27 It is indeed possible that this is a misinterpretation of the above midrash, with its references to the mutilation of crops during the Adam–Noah period, and to wheat and barley as symbols of the reinstatement of the natural order. In a Christian context, a closer parallel to the idea of wheat turning into barley in the context of the Paradise transgression is found in a Welsh poem that Andrew Breeze dates to the late twelfth century.28 This poem, which relates to Eve, Adam, and the corruption of the paradisiacal wheat, describes how the angel Michael brought Eve some wheat grains, so she gave them to Adam. But Eve kept one-​tenth of the grains for herself and secretly sowed them. Adam, too, sowed his grains. Adam’s grains grew as wheat; Eve’s stolen grains were turned into black rye. Brian Murdoch sees this poem as a warning against theft, whereas Andrew Breeze suggests that it is a warning against the nonpayment of tithes.29 The similarity of this poem to the abovementioned Ibn Bābawayhi report is quite straightforward. Both texts tell more or less the same story of the unfavorable consequences of Eve’s stealing and sowing grains from an angelic source. At the same time, other than this obvious similarity, the poem is of little help in terms of further understanding the meaning of the wheat/barley motif in the Islamic context.

Chronologically, the suggested dating of the Welsh poem is significantly later than Ibn Bābawayhi (d. 991 c.e.), who records the Islamic version of this narrative. One can perhaps imagine that this story had travelled between the Near East and Europe, during or following the Crusades. The variations in detail between the two texts do not seem to have a significant effect on the message of the story. The angel’s name (Gabriel/Michael) can be explained: in Islam, Gabriel is the angel of Revelation; in Western Christianity, Michael is associated with crops and harvest.30 Barley and rye are both considered second-​rate cereals: in medieval Europe, barley and rye bread were peasant food, whereas wheat was preserved for the upper classes. As in the Islamic text, in the Welsh poem, the transformation of the divinely originated wheat grains into rye confirms the destructive outcome of Eve’s transgressive fertility initiatives. It can therefore be concluded that there is some correspondence between the Islamic and Christian, or Jewish, texts in regard to the wheat/barley motif. This correspondence, however, is of limited value in explaining the motif and understanding its function in the Islamic context, where the motif seems to have first appeared. One is therefore encouraged to look further, into the realms of other Near Eastern traditions.

Barley in Other Near Eastern Traditions Zoroastrianism: Barley and the First Human Couple One possible reading of the above Eve and Adam narratives would be as an Islamic polemic against the Zoroastrian tradition. In the Dēnkard, a ninth- or tenth-​century work that summarizes earlier Zoroastrian texts, barley is described as a gift from God (Ohrmazd) to the “parents of the entire world,” Mashī and Mashiyānī. According to the text, Ohrmazd showed both of them how to sow barley, but Ohrmazd’s words are directed at Mashī (the male) alone: “This, Mashī, is your ox, and this is your barley, and these are your other tools, which from now on you should know well!” Ohrmazd then sends the guardian spirit Hadish to bless the bread that was made of barley, that “this barley go out from you to your descendants, to keep off the Adversity coming from the demons.”31 The parallels and contrasts between this myth and the Islamic text are quite evident. Barley is a divine gift to the first couple—​parents of humanity, who are commanded to sow it into the ground. Barley is regarded as a blessed, rather than mutilated, cereal. Although chronologically it is given to Mashī and Mashiyānī after their fall (due to their declaration that the world was created by the Evil Spirit),32 the two events are not presented as related to each other, and no causal linkage is made between them. Keeping in mind that in the context of Eve and Adam, barley is only referred to in Shiite sources; the strong Shiite presence in Persia; and that the date of the Dēnkard corresponds to that of Ibn Bābawayhi’s work (tenth century c.e.), it seems likely that the Shiite tradition emerged as a polemical response to the Zoroastrian myth.

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At the same time, it is also notable that the gender element, which is highly prominent in the Islamic texts, is quite minor in the Zoroastrian myth. Although sowing instructions are only given to Mashī, the male, the narrative presents no explicit hierarchy between male and female. Thus, whereas a parallel between the Zoroastrian and Islamic texts explains the negation of barley, the strong antifeminine element in the Islamic texts might nevertheless reflect a response to another tradition—​that is, the Greek myth of Demeter, where both gender and barley play a prominent role. Grapes and Pomegranates, Eve and Persephone The Demeter rituals were highly dominant around the Near East from the tenth century b.c.e. to the sixth century c.e., and paganism was still active throughout the sixth-​century Near East and later, in particular in the Sassanid Persian Empire, soon to become Islamic territories.33 According to Averil Cameron, Greek was still an important language throughout the Near East during the sixth century. This enhances the probability of Greek themes being present in early Islamic literature. Indeed, both Suleiman Mourad and Walid Saleh argue for parallels between particular Greek and Qurʾanic narratives.34 The discussion below will highlight the parallels, and antithetical parallels, between certain Eve and Adam narratives in Islam and the Demeter myths. It will also demonstrate how the wheat/barley motif in the Muslim texts could have emerged as an Islamic polemical reaction toward the Greek myths. A linkage between the Demeter myth and the wheat/barley motif in the Islamic tradition is indicated through the following report, recorded by al-​Kulaynī (d. 329 a.h./941 c.e.). At first glance, this text might not seem highly relevant for the current discussion. However, a closer reading discloses additional implications, connecting the Eve and Adam stories in (Shiite) Islamic sources to the Greek Demeter. The text reads as follows:

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After the Expulsion from Paradise, God commanded Adam to plough and gave him plants of fruitful trees from the Garden. Satan asked Adam to feed him some of these fruits, but Adam refused. Satan then came to Eve, saying that he was dying of hunger and thirst, but she said that Adam had forbidden her to feed him. Satan asked that she squeeze some juice into his palm, but Eve refused. Eventually she agreed to let him suck a grape in his mouth, which she then took away from him. The following day, the same happened with a date. After Adam died, Satan urinated on the roots of the grapevine and the palm tree. It is thus that God forbade the consumption of intoxicating drinks made of grapes and dates, since the juice of these fruits has become mixed with Satan’s soul and urine.35 At first glance, it seems almost evident that in its current Islamic context, this story serves as an etiological myth that aims to explain the prohibition in Islam on the consumption of intoxicating drinks.

Further, from a biblical (as well as Islamic) perspective, it also parallels the midrash about Noah, Satan, and the vineyard that they shared.36 In relation to the biblical Paradise story, there seems to be a reverse parallel: Adam is here the lawgiver; Satan, the consumer of the forbidden fruit; and Eve acts as herself, disobeying the divine and masculine commands as she feeds a forbidden fruit to a masculine being. Her illegitimate nurturing activity abuses the divine fruit and causes irreversible damage to humanity as a whole. It is also notable that Islamic (as well as Jewish) sources sometimes identify the tree of Paradise as a grapevine.37 Moreover, the depiction of Satan as sucking the fruit serves as a rather obvious sexual symbol, which correlates to the role of the snake and the forbidden fruit in Paradise; it is also reminiscent of the midrash regarding Cain as the offspring of Eve and Satan.38 The granting of divine plants to Adam following the descent is also known from the Jewish and Christian sources.39 However, these sources do not relate to the corruption of the fruit, as is evident both here (divine fruit turns demonic, due to Eve) and in the wheat/barley traditions (supreme grain becomes mutilated by Eve). On another level, this report is highly reminiscent of a text from a different religious tradition—​namely, the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (goddess of fertility and crops). Hades, god of the underworld and of the dead, abducted Persephone and made her his queen. In response, Demeter went down to the earth. She stopped fertilizing the earth and would not resume it until her daughter was returned to her. Eventually, Zeus asked Hades to send Persephone back. Hades agreed, but tricked Persephone into eating one grain of a pomegranate before she left. As a result, each year she must spend some time in the underworld. During this period, nothing grows, as Demeter awaits her daughter’s return.40 Like the aforementioned Islamic tradition, here, too, a single grain of a forbidden fruit is enough to cause an irreversible, though not total, transformation: some of Persephone belongs to Hades, and some of the fruit belongs to Satan. The line between the upper and lower worlds is blurred and transgressed—​divine and human, this world and the underworld (or the fruit above the ground and the roots under the ground), life and death, Paradise and Satan. Like grapes, pomegranates, too, symbolize fertility. Through the above report about Eve and Satan, a parallel between the Eve and Adam stories and the Persephone myth becomes visible. Such a relation has been detected, for example, by Tamar Ben Shoshan, who suggests a psychological analysis of the parallels between Persephone and Eve in terms of the development of self-​ consciousness.41 However, I would like to suggest a further relationship between the two episodes, which are connected both on the textual and intertextual levels. This relationship is mediated through the figure of Persephone’s mother, Demeter. Wheat and Barley, Eve and Demeter In Greek mythology, most great gods are Olympians, such as Zeus, Hera, Athena, and so on. Only two of the terrestrial gods are as significant as the Olympian gods, and these are Demeter and her brother Dionysus, god of wine.

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The story of Demeter is related in the Homeric hymn to Demeter, dating back to the seventh century b.c.e.42 Demeter was the goddess of crops, earth, and bread. Her name was derived from gê mêtêr (Mother Earth) or from the Cretan word dêai (barley)—mother, or giver, of barley (or food in general). Her sanctuaries were the crop fields and threshing plots. Stalks had a major role in the worship of Demeter, which came to be known as the Mysteries of Eleusis, a place northwest of Athens where her main temple was situated. Dionysus, too, was part of these rituals. Barley drink was considered Demeter’s holy drink, and part of the rituals of her mysteries. The major celebration of Demeter took place every five years in September. Women had a major part in her worship. According to the hymn, once Demeter learned what had happened to her daughter, she disguised herself as an old woman and started wandering among the humans. Metaneira, the wife of King Keleos of Eleusis, and her daughters invited the old woman into their home, where she refused to consume anything but water mixed with barley and mint leaves. This drink became part of the Demeter rituals in Eleusis. Demeter then became the nanny for Queen Metaneira’s new baby. In gratitude for the kindness of her hosts, she decided to make the child immortal; she would thus put him in the fire to burn his mortality off him. But one night Metaneira saw Demeter do that, and she started screaming. The irritated goddess dropped the baby to the floor; he survived, but never became immortal. Demeter then revealed her true identity and required that a sanctuary be built so as to appease her. Demeter stayed in the sanctuary until her daughter returned from the underworld. As a sign of grace, she gave the king’s other son, Triptolemus, a stalk and sent him in a winged chariot to teach humans how to cultivate the land.43 In this myth we find a feminine goddess of crops and nurturing who gave wheat to humanity. Her rituals, which were quite popular, were dominated by women and involved stalks of grains, barley, cultivation, and bread. Another element was wine, the symbol of Dionysus. In the context of the Paradise story, it is also notable that her granting humanity the stalk and the knowledge of cultivation was a sign of grace, done out of pity for human ignorance rather than as a punishment resulting from the human quest for knowledge, as in Genesis 3 and the related literature in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Indeed, all these Demeter-​related elements are present in the Islamic literature of Eve and Adam. Muslim tradition, however, turns land from a symbol of a fertility goddess into a symbol of male dominance. It depicts elements such as feminine control over productivity as negative. Barley is presented as the mutilated form of a divine fruit, the result of feminine disobedience and unlawful acts of fertilizing (sowing) and transgression, rather than a sacred crop that is dedicated to a feminine deity. Crops and cultivation are only legitimate as long as they are dominated by men. Read in light of the Greek myths, the wheat and barley motif in the Islamic Eve and Adam stories seems to reflect a polemical discourse with the Greek tradition, through a reverse transformation of the wheat/barley motif and its broader gender-​ related context of domination over land and fertility. Although it is possible to argue

that these sources reflect the result of knowledge transmission—​that is, that the Greek myths were simply misinterpreted—​the multiple cases in which this motif occurs in the Muslim sources, always reinterpreted in the same negative manner, suggest that this was indeed a defiant reaction toward the Demeter tradition.

Summary This study of Islamic traditions concerning Eve and Adam has identified a certain motif in the texts—​that of wheat and barley—​apparently unique to the Muslim tradition (in the case of barley, it is typical of Shiite sources). This motif hardly appears in the Jewish and Christian Paradise narratives, but Greek and Zoroastrian texts seem to suggest other possible parallels. Both religious traditions regard barley as meaningful and positive. It thus seems that the negative presentation of this cereal in the Islamic (mainly Shiite) Eve and Adam texts is likely to reflect a polemical discourse between Islam and earlier Near Eastern traditions. Notes 1. Alan Dundes, “Introduction,” in Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth, ed. Alan Dundes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 1–4; see 1. 2. The name Ḥawwāʾ is found in sources as early as Muḥammad Ibn Isḥāq (d. 150 a​.h​.​/767 c.e.), Al-​Mubtadaʾ fī qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ, ed. Muḥammad Karīm al-​Kawwāz (Beirut: Arab Diffusion Company, 2006), 61–62, and Muqātil b. Sulaymān (d. 150 a​.h​.​/767 c.e.), Tafsīr Muqātil bin Sulaymān, ed. Aḥmad Farīd (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2003), 1:213 (sūra 4). 3. Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh al-​Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ, ed. Isaac Eisenberg (Leiden: Brill, 1922), 31; Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī , Tafsīr al-Ṭabarī (Beirut: Dār al-​fikr, 1405 a​.h​.​/1984 c.e.), 1:230 (sūra 2:35). For a similar idea in Jewish midrash, see Genesis Rabba 18:1, 18:12, quoted by Mishael Caspi and Mohammad Jiyad, Eve in Three Traditions and Literatures: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005), 54 and 137. 4. Abū Isḥāq Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-​Naysābūrī al-​Thaʿlabī (d. 427 a.h./1035 c.e.), Qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ al-​musammà ʿArāʾis al-​majālis, ed. Muḥammad Sayd (Cairo: Dār al-​fajr li-ʾl-​turāth, 2001), 48–52, 64–65; al-​Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 42–43; Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh al-Ṭabarī, ed. Ṣadīq Jamīl al-ʿAṭṭār (Beirut: Dār al-​fikr, 1998), 1:78, 93–94; al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 1:235 (sūra 2:36). 5. Eric Ottenheijm, “Eve and ‘Women’s Commandments’ in Orthodox Judaism,” in Out of Paradise: Eve and Adam and Their Interpreters, ed. Bob Becking and Susan Hennecke (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2010), 160–61, quoting Aboth de-​Rabbi Nathan, version b 9; Midrash Tanḥuma ʿim perush ʿEtz Yosef ve-ʾAnaf Yosef (Vilnius, 1833), http://​www​.hebrewbooks​.org​/14123​, accessed 24 June 2013, parashat Noaḥ (beginning), Yalquṭ Shimʾoni, 3.31 [Hebrew]. 6. Zohar Hadromi-​Allouche, “Creating Eve: Feminine Fertility in Medieval Islamic Narratives of Eve and Adam,” in In the Arms of Biblical Women, ed. John T. Greene and Mishael M. Caspi, Biblical Intersections 13 (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2013), 35–72. 7. Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Women in the Qurʾan, Traditions, and Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 29; Jane I. Smith and Yvonne Y. Haddad, “Eve: Islamic Image of Woman,” Women’s Studies International Forum 5, no. 2 (1982): 135–44; Denise A. Spellberg, “Writing the Unwritten Life of the Islamic Eve: Menstruation and the Demonization of Motherhood,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 28, no. 3 (1996): 305–24; Catherine Bronson, “Imagining the Primal Woman: Islamic Selves of Eve” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2012). 8. The Paradise tree produced wheat: Ibn Isḥāq, Al-​Mubtadaʾ, 62; al-​Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 39; al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 46; Niʿmatallāh al-​Jazāʾirī (d. 1112 a​.h​.​/1701 c.e.), Al-​Nūr al-​mubīn fī qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ wa-ʾl-​mursilīn (Beirut: Dār al-​Andalus, n.d.), 39; Muqātil, Tafsīr, 1:42 (sūra 2), 1:386 (sūra 7:19); Abū al-​Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl

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Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ (Beirut: Dār al-​fikr, 1992), 21; al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, 1:88; al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 1:231–232 (sūra 2:35); Muḥammad Fakhr al-​Dīn b. Ḍiyāʾ al-​Dīn ʿUmar al-​R āzī (d. 606 a​.h​.​/1209 c.e.), Tafsīr al-​Fakhr al-​R āzī (Beirut: Dār al-​fikr, 2005), 3:7 (sūra 2); Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abū Bakr b. Faraḥ, Abū ʿAbdallāh al-​Qurṭubī (d. 671 a​.h​.​/1273 c.e.), Tafsīr al-​Qurṭubī, ed. Aḥmad ʿAbd al-ʿAlīm al-​Bardūnī (Cairo: Dār al-​Shaʿb, 1372 a​.h​.​/1952 c.e.), 1:305 (sūra 2); Abū al-​Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr (Beirut: Dār al-​fikr, 1401 a​.h​.​/1980 c.e.), 1:80 (sūra 2). According to another version, the tree produced both wheat and grapes—​another symbol of fertility. Quṭb al-​Dīn Saʿd b. Hibatallāh Al-​R āwandī (d. 573 a​.h​.​/1178 c.e.), Qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ, ed. Ghulām Riḍā ʿIrfanyān al-​Yazdī (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-​mufīd, 1989), 44; al-​Jazāʾirī, Qiṣaṣ, 39. Other suggestions include, for example, camphor (al-​Jazāʾirī, Qiṣaṣ, 39, and al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 46), fig (al-​Jazāʾirī, Qiṣaṣ, 39; Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, 21; al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 1:232 [sūra 2]; al-​R āzī, Tafsīr, 3:7 [sūra 2]; al-​Qurṭubī, Tafsīr, 1:305 [sūra 2]), or vine (al-​R āzī, Tafsīr, 3:7 [sūra 2]; al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 1:232 [sūra 2]; al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 46; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, 1:80 [sūra 2]; al-​Qurṭubī, Tafsīr, 1:305 [sūra 2]). 9. Al-​Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 39. 10. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ibn Bābawayhi al-​Qummī, Maʿānī al-​akhbār, ed. ʿAlī Akbar al-​Ghaffārī (Beirut: Dār al-maʿrifa, 1979), 109. See also Muḥammad Bāqī al-​Majlisī (d. 1110 a​.h​.​/1698 c.e.), Biḥār al-​anwār (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-​anwār, n.d.), 26:321–322; Al-​Jazāʾirī, Qiṣaṣ, 42. 11. Al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 57–58. 12. Al-​Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 39. 13. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ibn Bābawayhi al-​Qummī, ʿIlal al-​sharāʾiʿ (Beirut: Dār al-​murtaḍá, 2006), 2:560; al-​Jazāʾirī, Qiṣaṣ, 27. 14. Al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 57. 14. E.g., al-​Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 64–65. 16. Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, 1:87; al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 58. 17. Al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, 105–106; Smith and Haddad, “Eve: Islamic Image,” 140. 18. Al-​Kisāʾī, Qiṣaṣ, 65. 19. Maḥmūd Abū al-​Faḍl al-​Alūsī (d. 1044 a​.h​./​ 1634 c.e.), Rūḥ al-​maʿānī fī tafsīr al-​Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīm wa-ʾl-​sabʿ al-​mathānī (Beirut: Dār iḥyāʾ al-​turāth al-ʿarabī, 1270 a​.h​.​/1853 c.e.), 4:217; al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 58; al-J​ azāʾirī, Qiṣaṣ, 40 (where also another version is recorded, which speaks of eighteen grains, twelve eaten by Adam and only six by Eve). 20. I would like to thank Prof. Brian Murdock and Dr. Andrew Breeze for their valuable advice in tracking down barley and other cereals in the granaries of Jewish and Christian sources. 21. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, ed. Yoḥay Maqbili et al. (Haifa: Or Vishua Torah Centre, 2009), Sefer ʿAvodah, Hilkhot Temidim u-​Musafim, chap. 9, sec. 16 [Hebrew]. 22. Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, 1:80 (sūra 2); Ibn Kathīr, Qiṣaṣ, 21. 23. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 8:70b; see also a reference to the same saying, related to Rabbi Yehudah, in Berakhot, 6:40a. See also Kristen E. Kvam, Linda S. Schearing, and Valarie H. Ziegler, Eve and Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 90 (giving a reference to Sanhedrin, 70a). 24. Caspi and Jiyad, Eve in Three Traditions, 61. 25. In the Life of Adam and Eve literature, there are several references to Adam’s tilling the ground so as to grow food. However, these references are mostly general and do not refer to specific kinds of cereals. See Michael E. Stone, Adam’s Contract with Satan: The Legend of the Cheirograph of Adam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 26–33. 26. Midrash Tanḥuma, Genesis, sign 11. 27. Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, trans. Henrietta Szold and Paul Radin (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2003), 2nd ed., 1:134. In note 6 to this narrative, Ginzberg cites the thirteenth/ fourteenth-​century Daʿat Zeqenim and Hadar Zeqenim as its sources. However, Ginzberg also adds that, whereas the Hadar gives Pesiqta de-​Rabbi Eliʿezer as its source, neither Pirqei de-​Rabbi Eliʿezer nor the Pesiqta de-​Rabbi Tobiah b. Elīʿezer contains this text. Ginzberg, Legends, 1:135, note 6. 28. Breeze attributes this poem to Master John of St. David’s, who was active in the third quarter of the twelfth century. Andrew Breeze, The Mary of the Celts (Leominster, Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2008), 131.

29. Brian Murdoch, The Medieval Popular Bible: Expansions of Genesis in the Middle Ages (Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2003), 62; Breeze, Mary of the Celts, 131. Breeze believes that Master John, the supposed author (who was also a canon of St. David’s cathedral), would have had an interest in the payment of tithes. 30. For example, the Western Christian celebration of Michaelmas on 29 September. 31. Prods O. Skjærvø, The Spirit of Zoroastrianism (New Haven: Yale University Press, in association with the International Sacred Literature Trust, 2011), 11–13. David Winston indicates parallels also between the Mashī and Mashiyānī story and 2 Enoch, both texts considering the sin of the primal couple as being an “error of judgement” rather than disobedience. David Winston, “The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha, and Qumran: A Review of the Evidence,” History of Religions 5, no. 2 (1966): 198–205. 32. John R. Hinnells, Persian Mythology (New York: Hamlyn, 1975), 60. 33. See, for example, Edward Watts, “Justinian, Malalas, and the End of Athenian Philosophical Teaching in a.d. 529,” Journal of Roman Studies 94 (2004): 168–82, http://​www​.jstor​.org​/stable​ /4135014, accessed 26 June 2013; Jonathan P. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 37; R. Hoyland, Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2004), xiii–xiv. 34. Suleiman A. Mourad, “From Hellenism to Christianity and Islam: The Origin of the Palm Tree Story Concerning Mary and Jesus in the Gospel of Pseudo-​Matthew and the Qurʾān,” Oriens Christianus 86 (2002): 206–216; Walid Saleh, “The Etymological Fallacy and Qurʾānic Studies: Muhammad, Paradise, and Late Antiquity,” in The Qurʾan in Context, ed. Angelika Neuwirth (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 649–98; Averil Cameron, The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, ad 395–600 (London: Routledge, 1993), 184. 35. Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-​Kulaynī, Al-​Kāfī: al-​Uṣūl, al-​Furūʿ, al-​R awḍa (Beirut: Manshūrāt al-fajr, 2007), 6:246; al-​Jazāʾirī, Qiṣaṣ, 51. 36. Midrash Tanḥuma, Noaḥ, 13. Indeed, al-​Kulaynī gives both narratives (Satan and Eve; Satan and Noah) consecutively: Al-​Kāfī, 6:246. 37. For example, Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrīn, 8:70a–b; al-​R āzī, Tafsīr, 3:7 (sūra 2); al-Ṭabarī, Tafsīr, 1:232 (sūra 2); al-​Thaʿlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 46; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr, 1:80 (sūra 2); al-​Qurṭubī, Tafsīr, 1:305 (sūra 2). 38. “Ba eleyha rokhev naḥash ve-ʿibrah, ve-​aḥar kakh Ba eleyha Adam ve-ʿibrah et Hevel.” Pirqei de-​ Rabbi Eliʿezer—“Ḥorev,” 21:4–5; Zohar, 1:28b; J. L. Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 86–87; Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, Publications of the Perry Foundation in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ( Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1983), 147 [Hebrew]. 39. For example, the Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve. Stone, Adam’s Contract, 31. 40. Edith Hamilton, Mythology, trans. Ella Amitan (Tel Aviv: Modan, 1996), 37 [Hebrew]. 41. Tamar Ben Shoshan, “On Education and Initiation: Demeter and Persephone,” New Acropolis, http://w ​ ww.​ newacropolis.​ org.​ il/​ site/​ articleDetails?​ articleId​=H ​ GR23U7J061A​, accessed 24 June 2013 [Hebrew]. 42. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, ed. N. J. Richardson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 6. 43. The Homeric Hymns, trans. Jules Cashford (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 5–26; Sir William Smith, ed., A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (London: James Walton, 1870), 959–61; Hamilton, Mythology, 35–40; Gerhard Fink, Who’s Who in der Antiken Mythologie, trans. Hana Livnat (Or Yehuda, Israel: Sifriyat Maariv, 1998), 105 [Hebrew].

127 The Wheat and the Barley

E ig h t Shiite Underground Literature Between Iraq and Syria “The Book of Shadows” and the History of the Early Ghulat Mushegh Asatryan

The Early Ghulat and Their Literature In the early history of Islam, the eighth century was the time when a distinct Shiite religious identity emerged.1 It was mainly centered on the idea of the divinely bestowed right of some representatives of the Prophet Muhammad’s family, the imams, to be leaders of the Islamic community. This basic tenet found numerous modifications and interpretations, some of which later acquired the status of religious orthodoxy while others, gradually pushed to the margins of the religious mainstream, were branded as heterodox and heretical. One of the chief disagreements between various factions within Shiism was the nature of the imam. While some of the Shiites viewed the imams as merely learned men who, due to their knowledge, could be the community’s spiritual guides, others saw them as divinely inspired superhuman beings, or even God’s manifestations in human flesh. As a reflection of their theological differences, the two factions named each other, respectively, muqaṣṣira, that is, “those who fall short” (of comprehending the imams’ true divine nature—​henceforth “moderates”), and Ghulat (ghulāt), that is, “extremists,” who take their devotion to the imams to the extreme.2 The two groups were by no means homogeneous theological entities; along with the general orientations toward the imams’ nature, they held numerous other beliefs. The extremists, for example, believed in the transmigration of souls I am grateful to Hermann Landolt, Saïd Arjomand, Hussein Abdulsater, and Bella Tendler for their careful reading of an earlier draft of the paper and for their incisive comments; my thanks go to Matthew Melvin-​Koushki for his help with rare books, to Shah Hussain for his help in procuring manuscripts, and to Evyn Kropf, Dagmar Riedel, and Julia Bray for their advice regarding research materials.

(tanāsukh), the transformation into subhuman forms (maskh, masūkhiyya), the idea of God’s manifestation in human flesh (ḥulūl), and the notion that humans could in their turn attain the divine realm, becoming free of formal religious duties.3 Despite the theological differences, the two factions were not distinct socially, and in the eighth century, representatives of the Ghulat freely mixed with their religious opponents, while the imams had followers from both groups. Tensions did exist, to be sure, and the excessive veneration of some of the extremists could at times cause the imams a great deal of anxiety, leading them to curse or banish some of their most fervent followers.4 During the ninth century, the tensions were exacerbated as each group tried to overcome its opponents, declaring them unbelievers.5 The line of the twelve imams ended in 874 with the death of the eleventh imam, Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī, and the disappearance of his infant son and twelfth imam, Muḥammad. The ensuing crisis of leadership was solved by electing his representatives (safīr, “deputy”) to govern the community on behalf of the hidden twelfth imam.6 The authority of some of these deputies (four in all) was disputed by several representatives of the Ghulat.7 The best known among them, and the most relevant to this study, was Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr (d. after 868), who for his claims to be a representative of the hidden imam was excommunicated in a letter allegedly sent by the hidden imam himself.8 Still, despite the opposition from the moderates, in the late ninth–early tenth century, several high-​ranking Shiites had Ghulat tendencies, such as members of the family of Banū l-​Furāt or the family known as Karkhiyyūn, whose several members held high governmental posts, while one of them served as wazīr in the courts of caliphs al-​R āḍī (d. 940) and al-​Muttaqī (d. 968).9 Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s figure gave rise to a separate group of followers, called after him Nuṣayriyya. Perhaps due to mounting pressures, one of the successors of Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr and the alleged founder of the Nuṣayrī sect, Ḥusayn b. Ḥamdān al-​Khaṣībī (d. 957 or 96910), transplanted it to Syrian soil, where it enjoyed the patronage of the Ḥamdānid ruler Sayf al-​Dawla (d. 967). Here the Nuṣayrīs firmly established themselves as a religious minority with a distinct religious worldview. They preserved many elements of the teachings of the early Iraqi extremists, further elaborating on their theological themes in their own literature, but also preserving some precious remains of original Ghulat writings. The paucity of original Ghulat texts has hitherto been the main obstacle in understanding their worldview. The reports of the heresiographers, Shiite as well as Sunni, have been often viewed as polemically skewed,11 while the historical reports contain only small fragments of their teachings, largely focusing on their political activity.12 What little survives of original Ghulat works is extremely difficult to date and contextualize, all the more so in that some of them appear to be compilations of many textual layers. One of these works is the Umm al-​kitāb, a multilayered text whose main part probably dates back to the late ninth or early tenth century, surviving in a Persian translation.13 Two other works form part of the “Mufaḍḍal tradition,” a number of writings of diverse contents and origins attributed to a companion of the sixth and seventh imams, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 765) and Mūsā al-​Kāẓim (d. 799).14

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One of them is Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ, a work written somewhere toward the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century.15 Along with other themes, it elaborates on the sevenfold hierarchy of believers and on the possibility that the believers might ascend this path and become close to God. The second work, titled variously as Kitāb al-h​ aft wa-l-aẓilla or Kitāb al-​haft al-​sharīf, is a multilayered compilation written between the eighth and eleventh centuries in Iraq and Syria.16 Along with topics already found in Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ, it also discusses the idea of “shadows” and “phantoms” (aẓilla wa-​ ashbāḥ), which are most relevant to this study and will be discussed later in more detail. The third text, finally, is Kitāb al-​usūs, probably written during the time of ʿAlī al-​Riḍā (d. 818)17 and discussing such topics as God’s manifestation on earth and the seven degrees of the spiritual hierarchy of believers. The Ghulat have no doubt written much more, but most of it has been lost. The Shiite bio-​bibliographic collections list a number of individuals of extremist tendencies who composed books, which do not survive.18 Some Ghulat material has made it into the Shiite hadith collections.19 Still, despite the survival of these hadith and the several original texts, the study of the theology and cosmology of the Ghulat has been a daunting task due not only to the paucity of textual remains but also to the fact that what survives is often of uncertain authorship and dating. A new avenue for studying the literature and teachings of the early Ghulat has been opened by the publication of the twelve-​volume series of primary Nuṣayrī sources entitled Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī. It was published in Lebanon during 2006– 13 by Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā, and along with several previously known Nuṣayrī and Ghulat works, such as al-​Khaṣībī’s al-​Hidāya l-​kubrā and the aforementioned works attributed to Mufaḍḍal al-​Juʿfī, it contains a wealth of hitherto unpublished Nuṣayrī texts.20 What makes them valuable for the study of early Shiite “extremism” is that many of them are replete with quotations from earlier Ghulat writings, including passages from ones that have been published (such as Pseudo-​Mufaḍḍal’s Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla21), ones that are known only by their title (such as Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar al-​Nakhaʿī’s Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ22), and ones that have been altogether unknown.23 The extremist Shiites and their literature thus followed similar routes. Having become prominent on Iraqi soil in the eighth century, the Ghulat were initially part and parcel of the Shiite population, freely mixing with their theological opponents as well as with the imams while producing works such as Kitāb al-​haft. Stiffening opposition during the next century forced one part of the Ghulat, the Nuṣayrīs, to leave Iraq and establish a community in Syria. Their literature followed a similar trajectory; during the eighth and ninth centuries, the extremists wrote works that did not make it (but for a few exceptions in the form of hadith) into the Twelver Shiite canon. The Nuṣayrīs, however, preserved much of this literature, took it along with them to Syria, and made abundant use of it; hence the numerous quotations of earlier Ghulat writings in the works of tenth- and eleventh-​century Nuṣayrī authors. Some of these works, furthermore, survived in their original forms in the private collections of Syrian Ismailis,24 who had had extensive contacts with the Nuṣayrīs in the Middle Ages and thus acquired many of their manuscripts.25

Still, the use of the Ghulat material found in these sources presents certain difficulties. First, the authorship and dating of the quoted passages are often problematic. Second, quotations from one and the same text are sometimes scattered throughout different works, or even appropriated by still other Ghulat texts without acknowledgment, which in their turn are quoted in the Silsila. Therefore, finding the identity of the Ghulat fragments preserved in Nuṣayrī literature requires extensive philological groundwork. This chapter is a study of one such text, entitled Kitāb al-​aẓilla (The Book of Shadows, henceforth KA), which, written in the Ghulat milieu of Iraq in the eighth and ninth centuries, has partially survived in several passages and is scattered around four different Nuṣayrī works. Its study is interesting from several points of view. It is, first of all, a genuine piece of Ghulat literature, thus providing a firsthand account of the teachings of the extremists and allowing us to complement what we already know from other texts. Secondly, KA is textually related to other Ghulat writings and may help us shed light on the history of other Ghulat texts. Finally, the history of KA presents a snapshot of the Ghulat literature in miniature, and its study, viewed in the context of other Ghulat texts of similar fate, can provide valuable insights into the transmission and circulation of Ghulat texts among the Ghulat and Nuṣayrīs in the ninth to tenth centuries. In the following pages I will study KA from several angles, beginning with a close philological study of its fragments, and with each following step broadening my perspective and putting it in a larger historical context. I will first reconstruct, to the extent possible, KA’s initial text from the surviving fragments, determining its relationship to Kitāb al-​kursī—​the intermediary text into which it is anonymously embedded. I will then discuss its possible dating and authorship. Next I will situate the theological themes it discusses in the broader context of early Shiite Ghulat thought. I will conclude by viewing it in the context of the movement of Ghulat texts from Iraq to Syria, and, still more broadly, of the early history of the Syrian Nuṣayrī community.

The Chronology of Kitāb al-​a �illa’s Fragments KA is scattered throughout four different texts. Only in two of these are its passages quoted independently, that is, under the title Kitāb al-​aẓilla; some of them are also anonymously embedded into yet another Ghulat text entitled Kitāb al-​kursī (The Book of the Throne), which is quoted fragmentarily in all four works. In what follows, I will discuss the chronology of KA’s fragments and its relationship to Kitāb al-​kursī, arguing for its primacy over the latter. The earliest work that quotes KA—​both under its own title and anonymously, as part of Kitāb al-​kursī—is Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra,26 attributed to Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr.27 It next occurs almost a century later, in a treatise attributed to the Nuṣayrī author Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-​Jillī, who probably died after the year 1008–9.28 In his Ḥāwī al-asrār, the author quotes both versions of KA, the one occurring independently

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under its own title, and the one incorporated into Kitāb al-​kursī.29 Next, a larger number of passages of KA, both under its own title and as part of Kitāb al-​kursī, occurs in Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn, attributed to al-​Jillī’s younger contemporary Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī.30 Finally, in Ḥujjat al-ʿārif, ascribed to Ḥasan b. Shuʿba’s relative31 ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī, it is quoted as part of Kitāb al-​kursī only.32 Establishing the authorship of early Ghulat and Nuṣayrī texts is a difficult task, as their self-​attributions leave much room for speculation. Despite Friedman’s rather trusting attitude toward the nominal authorship of many of the Nuṣayrī works published in the Silsila,33 the attribution of many of them is far from certain, and the authorship of each individual text must be carefully examined. Still, the relationships among the four texts that quote KA allow for a reconstruction of its chronology and, moreover, show that their authorships can largely be trusted. The oldest of the four texts to make mention of KA is Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra. In this case, the book’s self-​attribution can be trusted, as it is quoted in two of the other three works, Ḥāwī al-asrār34 and Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-dīn35— both naming the author as well as the work. Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s alleged work itself contains reference to the famous tenth-​century extremist Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar al-Nakhaʿī,36 who died in 899. If all of this does not prove that Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr wrote Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra, at least it squarely places this work in the second half of the tenth century, the period when its alleged author lived. It is impossible to determine which one of the two texts that quote Kitāb al-mithāl wa-l-ṣūra was written first, as neither quotes the other. But it is certain that both Ḥāwī al-asrār and Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn were written no earlier than the tenth century, as they mention al-​Khaṣībī,37 the famous Nuṣayrī leader who died in 969. Furthermore, the fact that the relative (and probably younger contemporary) of Ḥaqāʾiq’s alleged author, ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī, mentions Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn as Ḥasan’s book38 makes his authorship likely—​despite the absence of this title in later Imami sources. We do not know the exact dates of Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī’s life, but he was a contemporary of Ibn Bābūya (d. 991), which places him and his work roughly in the second half of the tenth century.39 Interestingly, the longest passage of KA both in al-​Jillī’s and Ḥasan b. Shuʿba’s texts is followed with the same passage from Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla. This could indicate that either one of the two authors copied the passage of KA from the other, together with copying the fragment from the mentioned book. It is also possible, however, that they both copied from yet another intermediary text, which had the fragments from both books copied in the same order. The youngest text of the four, finally, is ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī’s Ḥujjat al-ʿārif. The only clue in the text as to its dating and attribution is the mention of Ḥasan al-Ḥarrānī’s book, setting a terminus post quem. However, if the editors of the text are to be trusted, it can be attributed and dated with much more certainty than the remaining three texts. In the usual fashion of the Silsila, the text is prefaced with a short introduction by the editors stating that the book was written by ʿAlī b. Ḥamza

b. ʿAlī b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī in the year 408 of the Hijra​/a​.d. 1017, and was dedicated to Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Jaʿfar.40 If the attribution of all four texts quoting KA can more or less be trusted, their dating is even more certain. For the purposes of this analysis, I will therefore treat their authorships as firmly established. What remains is to find out the relationship between KA and Kitāb al-k​ ursī—​namely, which of the two is earlier and which copies the other. While there are no firm indicators, two small passages in the two texts show that the “thief ” is the author of Kitāb al-​kursī, who incorporated a passage of KA into his book without acknowledgment. Let us first see how the two texts overlap. Both the longer fragment of KA (summarized in the appendix) and the surviving fragment of Kitāb al-​kursī tell a creation story. The overlap between the two texts begins when the process of creation in KA is well under way; thus, after a chain of transmitters ending with Yūnus b. Ẓabyān’s name, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq begins telling how God began the process of creation. Nearly half a page later,41 the overlap with Kitāb al-​kursī begins. After another page,42 the two texts part ways, and each continues its own story.43 Although the overlapping part of the two texts is not identical—​with differences in the phrasing and in the order of some of the sentences—​the similarities are such that the identity of the two fragments is beyond doubt. The differences, then, provide clues as to the relationship between the two texts. There are two passages that in KA are more coherent with the larger context of the text and make more sense than they do in Kitāb al-​kursī, which suggests that the latter’s author tried to copy the former but could not flawlessly incorporate those parts into his narration. Let us compare how both passages read in KA and Kitāb al-​kursī:44 KA:

،‫أقام األظلة قددا وجعلها لنفسه نسبة وجعل نفس األظلة التي عقلوا بها نفخة منه‬ .‫واألظلة التي أجريت فيها النفخة األوىل سبع طرائق وسبعة صفوف‬ He made the shadows into factions and made them related to His breath;45 He then made the breath of the shadows—​by which they became known [?]—a breath [coming] from Him; and those shadows through whom the first breath blew are [divided into] seven types and seven ranks.46 Kitāb al-​kursī:

‫ “أحد صمد مل يلد ومل يولد ومل يكن‬:‫وأقام به األظلة وجعلها لنفسه نسبة فقال‬ ‫ وأشهد األظلة عىل نفسها ثم قال يف تفسري النفخة األوىل أنها سبع‬،”‫له كفوا أحد‬ .‫طرائق وسبع صفوف‬ He made the shadows by it47 and made them related to Himself;48 then He said “One, eternal, He begot no one nor was He begotten, no one is comparable to Him.”49 He made the shadows testify upon themselves, then said in

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the interpretation of the first gust that it [the gust] consists of seven types and seven ranks.50 Comparing the two versions, the one from KA appears to be more logically coherent, while the passage in Kitāb al-​kursī does not make much sense. In KA, God creates intelligence (ʿaql), then makes the shadows, then divides those shadows “through whom the first breath blew” into seven types and seven ranks; a description of these types and ranks then follows. In the Kitāb al-k​ ursī version, the passage is also preceded with the creation of intelligence, but its ending is incoherent. The “first gust” is not mentioned earlier and appears here out of the blue; more puzzlingly, this one first gust is then said to consist of “seven types and seven ranks,” a point that is never addressed later. In the KA version, meanwhile, it is the multiple shadows that are divided into seven types and ranks, and the identity of the shadows with the ranks is confirmed later in the text.51 The second passage shows similar inconsistencies and automatic copying on the part of Kitāb al-​kursī’s author. KA:

َ ،‫فأقام سبعة صفوف‬ ‫كل صف قام يف كل يوم بكلمة حتى متت سبعة صفوف يف‬ ‫ بني األول والثاين نعسة وبني الثاين والثالث سنة وبني‬،‫سبع كلامت يف سبعة أيام‬ ‫الثالث والرابع فرتة وبني الرابع والخامس نسية وبني الخامس والسادس غفلة وبني‬ .‫السادس والسابع سكرة‬ He made seven ranks, each rank was made in each day with one word, until seven ranks were completed with seven words in seven days; between the first and the second days there is swoon, between the second and the third slumber, between the third and the fourth drowsiness, between the fourth and the fifth oblivion, between the fifth and the sixth ignorance, and between the sixth and the seventh inebriety.52 Kitāb al-​kursī:

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‫ فأول يوم إىل الثاين غشوة وبني‬،‫بغواش‬ ‫ثم أغىش الطرائق السبع والصفوف السبعة‬ ٍ ‫الثاين والثالث سنة وبني الثالث والرابع نعسة وبني الرابع والخامس نسيان وبني‬ .‫الخامس والسادس غفلة وبني السادس والسابع سكرة‬ Then He sent calamities upon the seven types and seven ranks; from the first day to the second there is swoon, between the second and the third slumber, between the third and the fourth drowsiness, between the fourth and the fifth oblivion, between the fifth and the sixth ignorance, and between the sixth and the seventh inebriety.53 In the KA version, the passage follows the enumeration of the seven types and logically complements it by showing the number of days in which the types were

Table 8.1  A chronology of the attestations of Kitāb al-​aẓilla in later literature Period

Place

Author and work

Second half of the ninth century

Iraq

Second half of the tenth century

Syria

Second half of the tenth century

Syria, Ḥarrān

Second half of the tenth century (after Ḥasan b. Shuʿba)

Syria, Ḥarrān

Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr, Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra (as KA and as part of Kitāb al-​kursī ) Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-​Jillī, Ḥāwī al-asrār (as KA and as part of Kitāb al-​kursī) Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-dīn (as KA and as part of Kitāb al-​kursī) ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥujjat al-ʿārif (as part of Kitāb al-​kursī)

made, and by describing what separates the seven days from one another. It is then followed by a description of the seven ranks. In Kitāb al-​kursī the passage is pasted slightly after the description of the ranks, with no logical connection to the preceding; they appear out of place, immediately following the mention of the calamities sent upon the seven ranks and types. One wonders whether Kitāb al-​kursī’s author chose to insert them here for the lexical (and acoustic) affinity between the Arabic ghawāshin (calamities) and ghāshiyya (swoon). After establishing the relationship between Kitāb al-​kursī and KA as well as the chronology of the latter’s physical manifestations in later literature, the following picture emerges: sometime before the second half of the ninth century, the author of Kitāb al-k​ ursī copied part of KA54 into his book, without acknowledging his source and trying to make it look as if it were an organic part of his text. In the latter part of the ninth century, Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr had access to both KA and Kitāb al-​kursī, quoting them in his Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra. Nearly a century later, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-​Jillī incorporated a passage from the original KA (the one quoted by Ibn Nuṣayr as well as a shorter one) into his Ḥāwī al-asrār. And around the same time, but perhaps slightly later, the same two passages of KA, together with several others, cropped up in Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī’s Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn. Finally, Ḥasan al-Ḥarrānī’s relative ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-​Jillī quoted a shorter version of the same fragment of Kitāb al-​kursī in his Ḥujjat al-ʿārif, which he probably wrote in 1017.

Dating and Authorship Four out of the five fragments of KA quoted in Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn, and both fragments quoted in Ḥāwī al-asrār, are related on the authority of Yūnus b. Ẓabyān from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. A contemporary of the sixth imam and a well-​known extremist of his time, Yūnus is described in al-​Najāshī’s bio-​bibliographic compendium as an unreliable transmitter of hadith whose books are full of “confusion.”55 Al-​Najāshī does not name any of his books; however, he lists four other individuals who have written books with the title Kitāb al-​aẓilla. Two possibilities thus present themselves here: either Yūnus is indeed the author of KA, and the other four books with the same

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title are distinct from it, or KA is one of those four, while Yūnus is merely a (real or imaginary) narrator of some of its passages. Yet a third possibility would be to reject both of the above. Let us begin with the first possibility. The only real indication of Yūnus’s authorship of KA is the attribution of some of the fragments to him. His image as presented both in Imami and Nuṣayrī literature is quite in keeping with who KA’s author would be. Yūnus was indeed known for his extremist views56 and mixed with other Ghulat, such as Mufaḍḍal al-​Juʿfī,57 from whom he narrated numerous traditions.58 He was also held in high esteem by the Mukhammisa Ghulat and was considered by them as one of the aytām of Mufaḍḍal,59 a high rank in the Ghulat spiritual hierarchy.60 An interesting point worth mentioning is that the Shiite theologian Faḍl b. Shādhān al-​Naysābūrī (d. ca. 874–75) called Yūnus—​together with Abū l-​Khaṭṭāb, Muḥammad b. Sinān, and two others61—“the famous liars.”62 Faḍl b. Shādhān was known for his polemics against the Mufawwiḍa and other Ghulat,63 and specifically against a group in Nishapur who ascribed supernatural abilities to the Prophet. He even wrote a book titled Kitāb al-​radd ʿalā al-ghāliyya al-muḥammadiyya (The book of refutation of the Muḥammadiyya extremists).64 KA, on the other hand, contains elements of the teachings of the so-​called Mufawwiḍa or Muḥammadiyya Ghulat, who extolled the Prophet and attributed to him a quasi-​divine role (discussed in more detail below). If Yūnus were indeed the author of KA, this would explain Faḍl’s dislike for him; at present, however, this is impossible to prove. The second possibility—​that KA is one of the four Kutub al-​aẓilla mentioned by al-​Najāshī—​is even less provable. All of them were written by Kufans who lived in the eighth and ninth centuries. ʿAbd al-​R aḥmān b. Kathīr al-​Hāshimī (d. 802) was a mawlā who is said to have invented hadith, while his Kitāb al-​aẓilla is reportedly “of corrupt doctrine.”65 Abū Ṣāliḥ Muḥammad Abū l-Ḥasan, nicknamed Buzurj, was a Kufan66 who probably lived during (or slightly after) the lifetime of Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq.67 Al-​Najāshī wonders whether he himself was the author of this book or whether he only transmitted it, which seems likely since the list of his books includes another one also common with ʿAbd al-​R aḥmān al-​Hāshimī’s.68 The youngest of the authors to write a Kitāb al-a​ ẓilla was the Kufan Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā, a contemporary of the imams Muḥammad al-​Jawād (d. ca. 835) and Abū l-Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (d. 868).69 The fourth Kitāb al-​aẓilla, which has some chance of being our KA, finally, is by Muḥammad b. Sinān al-Ẓāhirī (d. 835). He was also Kufan and a well-​known extremist whose name frequently appears in the isnāds of Ghulat traditions.70 Incidentally, his name appears in the transmission chain of KA in Ḥasan b. Shuʿba’s variant.71 This could, of course, be a coincidence, and the two books could be unrelated. Otherwise, two possibilities arise; if Yūnus were the author of KA, this would indicate that Muḥammad b. Sinān had a copy of it in his possession, which became known as his own to al-​Najāshī, but was also transmitted down to the Nuṣayrīs who preserved its true transmission chain. It might also mean that our KA is Muḥammad b. Sinān’s work. With the current state of knowledge, none of the three hypotheses regarding Muḥammad b. Sinān’s authorship is better than the others. Nor is the authorship of

Yūnus b. Ẓabyān, or the other three (or two) authors of Kutub al-​aẓilla, any more plausible. The picture becomes even more complicated with the existence of the well-​known Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla of Pseudo-​Mufaḍḍal and Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-laẓilla surviving in two manuscripts and partially cited in al-Ḥarrānī’s Ḥaqāʾiq and al-​Jillī’s Ḥāwī.72 Rather than trying to solve this puzzle, then, a more fruitful approach is to situate KA in the broader religious milieu in which it was composed and initially circulated. To do this, I will trace three of its main ideas to their parallels in early Shiite beliefs. “KA” and the Early Islamic Milieu KA’s surviving fragments contain three main ideas that bear clear traces of earlier Islamic teachings, while echoing the doctrines of other religious groups of the Late Antique Near East. The most prominent is the notion of “shadows” (aẓilla), both appearing in the title and figuring in the longest surviving fragment.73 The second is the image of the Prophet Muhammad, who in one of the shorter fragments appears as a creator figure entrusted with the welfare of the world. (In the longer fragment, a rather cryptic passage refers to him as God’s first creature.) The third idea to be discussed, finally, is the story of the creation of intelligence (ʿaql), widely attested in Sunni as well as Shiite hadith. The shadow image has antecedents in the teachings of the Platonists, Gnostics, and Zoroastrians,74 while in Islam its earliest recorded instance dates from the earlier half of the eighth century. It is attributed to extremist Mughīra b. Saʿīd al-ʿIjlī, who rebelled in 737 in Kufa but was defeated and killed. Mughīra taught that in the beginning, God, who was a man of light, was alone with nothing else in existence; when He decided to create the world, He uttered His greatest name (another Ghulat motif with possible Gnostic roots75), then wrote with His finger on His palm men’s deeds of obedience and disobedience, and he was angered by the [deeds of] disobedience and he sweated, and two seas were formed from His sweat, one salt and dark and the other bright and sweet. He then gazed into the sea and saw His shadow. And He went forth to seize it, but it flew away. He then plucked out the eye of His shadow and from it created the sun. He then annihilated the shadow and said: “There should not be another God besides me.” He then created all creation from the two seas. He created the unbelievers from the salt, dark sea and the believers from the bright, sweet sea. And He created the shadows of men. The first shadow he created was that of Muhammad. . . . He then sent Muhammad who was [still] a shadow to all mankind.76 The first shadow (ẓill) that appears in this passage, the one which God saw in the sea and annihilated, is used in the conventional sense. It is the second mention of shadows that echoes its usage in KA. Here, the shadows appear to be spiritual entities that are later to assume the physical bodies of men to populate the material world;

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this idea comes across more clearly in the description of the Mughīriyya’s teachings by al-​Baghdādī, who states that according to them, God “created men before their bodies, and first among them—​the shadow [ẓill] of Muhammad.”77 Several years after al-​Mughīra, ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya staged in Kufa a more successful but short-​lived rebellion. His followers, who came to be known by the term Ḥarbiyya or Ḥārithiyya, also believed in the aẓilla.78 The teaching about shadows is amply attested in Shiite hadith literature, where the term aẓilla is used with a similar meaning, denoting luminous spiritual entities that were created before the material world.79 They are sometimes said to stand for all people,80 but more often just for the believers81 and, still more specifically, for the Prophet and the imams.82 According to a saying attributed to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, the latter, when still aẓilla, “were near our Lord—​with no one else near Him—​in a green tent, praising, worshipping, glorifying, and extolling Him, with no angel drawn close to him83 and no living being apart from us nearby; until He decided to create the things, and He created whatever He wished and however He wished, angels and others, then gave the knowledge of that to us.”84 In another hadith, his father, Muḥammad al-​Bāqir, says that while still aẓilla “they were light before God, before He had created the creation.”85 In some cases, the discussion of aẓilla appears in the context of the primordial covenant (mīthāq) that God took from the Shiites (or from Adam’s progeny). In the beginning of creation, the story runs, while they were still shadows, God took a covenant from them, mandating that they should believe in God, be faithful to the imams, and accept Muhammad’s mission.86 Closely connected with the notion of aẓilla is that of ashbāḥ (sg. shabaḥ, “phantom”). The terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but sometimes with a distinct, though similar, meaning. Thus, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq allegedly once told one of his associates that “the first thing that God created is Muhammad and his rightly guided and guiding family; they were phantoms of light [ashbāḥ nūr] before Him.” When asked about what the phantoms were, the imam said, “shadow of light [ẓill nūr], luminous bodies.”87 The hadith material presented above is difficult to date, but some of it was recorded as early as the end of the ninth century, with possible origins in a much earlier period. The belief in aẓilla and ashbāḥ was still alive among some groups in the tenth century. Writing in the late ninth to early tenth century, Shiite heresiographer Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-​Qummī stated that the Mukhammisa Ghulat believed that God had become manifest in five phantoms (ashbāḥ): Muhammad, ʿAlī, Fāṭima, Ḥasan, and Ḥusayn.88 Around half a century later, this same belief was held by members of the aforementioned Karkhiyyūn family.89 In the twelfth century, finally, Abū l-​Fatḥ al-​Shahrastānī wrote that the Nuṣayrīs and the Isḥāqīs believed that the imams were “shadows at the right hand of [God’s] throne.”90 Nothing is known of the writings of the Isḥāqīs, with only several excerpts from the works of their leader Isḥāq al-Aḥmar available to us, and they probably ceased to exist in the thirteenth century. The Nuṣayrīs, on the other hand, preserved the teaching about shadows and phantoms along with many other Ghulat ideas.91

All the different teachings about shadows and phantoms discussed to this point either come from outsider (heresiographic) accounts or from hadith, where the presentation is brief and sketchy. There are, however, two surviving texts that discuss the idea in much greater detail, both bearing titles suggestive of its centrality for their authors. One is the abovementioned Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla and the other is Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla. And although the discussion of the shadows and phantoms in the two works is not identical with that of KA, there are enough similarities to suggest a common religious milieu. As mentioned earlier, the former text consists of several textual layers spanning in their chronology anywhere from the eighth century to the eleventh, and widely attested in fragments in Nuṣayrī literature.92 The shadows and phantoms are discussed in its first (and possibly earliest) layer, which could have been composed as early as the eighth century (although a later date is also possible). The story proceeds as follows:93 the first thing that God created from His will was a shadow (ẓill), which He made after His own image. He then divided it into numerous shadows (aẓilla); then He praised Himself, and they praised Him for seven thousand years. From their praise God created the highest veil (ḥijāb)—one of the human forms that He assumed to appear to His creation—​and the phantoms (ashbāḥ). This is followed by the creation of the world, comprising seven heavens, seven Adams, and the progeny of each of these Adams, and concludes with the creation of the devil from the transgressions of the believers. Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla survives in its entirety in two twentieth-​century manuscripts and is partially attested under its own title in Ḥasan b. Shuʿba’s Ḥaqāʾiq and al-​Jillī’s Ḥāwī, and anonymously in the selfsame Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla.94 Its appearance in al-​Jillī’s and al-Ḥarrānī’s works shows that the text was among the Ghulat books circulating among the Nuṣayrīs; the terminology and ideas, however—​ comprising, like Kitāb al-​haft, the teaching about the seven Adams, seven heavens, and transformation into nonhuman forms—​might take its origin back well into the eighth century. As in the Kitāb al-​haft, but in a reverse order, God here first creates the believers in the form of ashbāḥ, then praises Himself and they praise Him, and afterward He makes the aẓilla. Then He praises Himself and the ashbāḥ respond to Him, while the aẓilla respond to the ashbāḥ and not to the Lord, which becomes their transgression. Then follows a lengthy discussion of the creation of the devil and his progeny, the seven heavens and Adams, and so on.95 In many of the abovementioned instances, the belief in aẓilla came hand in hand with belief in ashbāḥ. The surviving fragments of KA contain no mention of the latter term, but the lost fragments might very well have also touched upon the ashbāḥ as well as on the aẓilla, for one of the passages of KA is quoted under a longer title of Kitāb al-​aẓilla wa-l-ashbāḥ.96 Let us now turn to the second major theological theme of KA, namely, the superhuman role of the Prophet Muhammad. In a passage in KA, Muhammad is explicitly called God’s first creature, to whom He delegated (fawwaḍa) the affairs of the world.97 The same is stated in a rather cryptic way in the passage

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that opens the creation story: “The first thing that He created are the names of letters, invisible, whose sounds cannot be heard, in a person who cannot be perceived by the senses, with a will [mashīʾa] that is not spelled out [manṣūṣ], and in a color that is uncreated; he has no boundaries and no borders. He is hidden from the senses; he [can only be] imagined [mutawahham], and is hidden from all hidden things. [God] made him into a complete word [kalima] of four letters, none of which comes before the others.”98 That “the first thing that He created” is Muhammad we learn first from the mentioned fragments, which openly state this. Second, this is implied by the internal clues found in the passage: Muhammad’s name, as spelled in Arabic, does consist of four letters, as the last sentence of the passage states; and it is apparent that the “first created thing” in the author’s mind was masculine singular, despite the fact that the grammatical object of the first sentence is plural (names of letters, asmāʾ al-ḥurūf). After stating that God first created the “names of letters,” the author uses all the adjectives and pronouns referring to them in the masculine singular, which “Muhammad” would grammatically require, instead of the feminine singular, as would be required by the inanimate plural.99 The lettrist symbolism of the passage is hard to trace with any precision to earlier precedents. In the context of the early Abbasid Iraqi religious milieu, it calls to mind the ideas of Jewish letter mysticism100 and the teachings of the eighth-​century Shiite extremist Mughīra b. Saʿīd, who taught that God is a man of light whose limbs correspond to the letters of the alphabet.101 Furthermore, chapter 59 of Kitāb al-​haft states that God’s first creation consisted of the letters of the alphabet. (Interestingly, the chapter is almost identical with the fourth epistle of Kitāb al-​kashf, a treatise which is attributed to the tenth-​century Ismaili Jaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-​Yaman, but has possible Ghulat origins.)102 The description of Muhammad as the first being created to whom God delegated the affairs of the world is easier to connect to a broader milieu. It closely dovetails with how the heresiographers have described the beliefs of the Mufawwiḍa Ghulat. Rather than deifying the imams or the Prophet, they are said to have taught that God created the world and delegated to them the care for the world and its affairs.103 The Mufawwiḍa were probably not a unified group and variously believed the delegated person to be either ʿAlī, Muhammad, or these two plus Ḥasan, Ḥusayn, and Fāṭima (the usual pentad of the Mukhammisa). In eighth-​century Kufa, Mufaḍḍal b. ʿUmar al-​Juʿfī is said to have held views reminiscent of Mufawwiḍa teachings, claiming that the imams “determine the sustenance of men.”104 In the tenth century, Muḥammad b. al-​Muẓaffar Abū Dulaf al-​Azdī al-​Kātib is portrayed by al-Ṭūsī as a madman who adhered to the teachings of the Mufawwiḍa and the Mukhammisa.105 Some of the Mufawwiḍa believed only in the delegation of the Prophet.106 In a telling passage from his Kitāb al-​tanbīh, Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s contemporary and rival Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar says, “al-​makān is the creator of things, he is His servant, listening [and] obedient to God, who created him unlike He created men, nay, He created him from light.”107 The identity of Muhammad with al-​makān—​both a creature of

God and the creator of things—​becomes apparent in the abovementioned passage of KA; the only difference is that in KA, Muhammad is only delegated with the management of the world, while creation is still God’s work. The motif of Muhammad as God’s first creature brought forth to create the world on His behalf, together with his moniker al-​makān, is amply attested in Nuṣayrī writings. The tenth-​century epistle Risālat al-​fatq wa-l-ratq,108 for example, is entirely dedicated to the explanation of Muhammad’s special role in the creation. It presents him as light made of God’s essence, who by virtue of this is coeternal with Him. The author writes an entire paragraph explaining why Muhammad is called al-​makān, alluding to his role as a creator on God’s behalf.109 The third topic that connects KA to a broader early Islamic (and indeed Neoplatonic110) context is the description of the creation of intelligence (ʿaql): having created Muhammad, the names, the throne, and its pillars, God creates intelligence.111 What follows is a peculiar scene, where God commands it to turn toward Him, to turn away from Him, and then addresses it by saying, “by you I reward and by you I punish.”112 The motif of the creation of ʿaql in the early Islamic religious milieu and its later trajectories have been studied by Douglas Crow. According to Crow, one of the most widespread narratives, dating from the seventh century and with its various iterations recorded in hadith collections in the ninth and tenth centuries and later, is what he calls the “aqbil! adbir! Report,”113 the description of the creation of ʿaql as God’s first creature. In almost all of its versions, it consists of four parts, which Crow calls (1) the “setting,” (2) the “testing” of ʿaql, (3) the “encomium,” and (4) God’s “listing” of the reasons why He values it so much. A typical example of such a report would thus be the following hadith recorded by al-​Barqī:114

‫ وعزيت‬:‫ ثم قال له‬.‫ أدبر! فأدبر‬:‫ ثم قال له‬،‫ أقبل! فأقبل‬:‫إن الله خلق العقل فقال له‬ .‫ لك الثواب وعليك العقاب‬،‫أحب إ ّيل منك‬ ّ ‫وجاليل! ما خلقت شيئا‬ (1) Truly, God created al-ʿaql, (2) and then He said to him, “Come forward!” so he drew near. Then He said to him, “Go back!” so he retreated. (3) Then He said to him, “By My power and My majesty! I did not create a thing dearer to me than thee. (4) The reward is thine and the penalty is against thee.” The KA passage about the creation of intelligence reproduces, almost verbatim, parts 2 and 4 of the report: “fa-​qāla lahu bi-l-amri: aqbil! fa-​aqbala, thumma qāla adbir fa-​adbara” and “thumma qāla lahu: bika uthību wa bika uʿāqibu.” Despite these close similarities to the report, the rest of the story is completely different. Parts 1 and 3 are missing, and the story begins with the creation of ʿaql from four things: “thumma khalaqa bi-l-amri l-ʿaqla min al-ʿilmi wa-l-qudrati wa-l-nūr-i wa-l-mashīʾati” (then [God] created by His command intellect, from knowledge, power, light, and will). It ends with the following: “fajaʿalahu ḥayyan bi-l-māʾi qāʾiman bi-l-ʿilmi dāʾiman bi-l-malakūti,” that is, God made it “live with water, possessed of knowledge,115 eternally in the realm.”116 Thus, KA’s author seems to have “plagiarized” the well-​known

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hadith on ʿaql and woven parts of it into his narrative. Woven into it is another narrative of the creation of ʿaql, reflected in a single hadith recorded in Ikhtiṣāṣ, which is attributed to Shaykh Mufīd (d. 1032):117

‫ من العلم والقدرة والنور واملشيئة باألمر فجعله‬،‫خلق الله العقل من أربعة أشياء‬ .‫قامئا بالعلم دامئا يف امللكوت‬ God created intelligence of four things by [His] command: knowledge, power, light, and will; He then made it possessed of knowledge, eternally in the realm.118

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Given the popularity of the aqbil adbir report in the eighth and ninth centuries, as demonstrated by Crow, it is highly unlikely that the urtext of the ʿaql tradition would have been KA’s version, with the two separate versions then branching off from it. It is more likely that KA’s author took the two different narratives about intellect then current in the Shiite milieu and blended them together to create his own story. The passage on the creation of ʿaql contains several more elements missing in the original versions of the two traditions, such as the ḥayyan bi-l-māʾ i (live with water) passage missing in Mufīd’s hadith. While some of them could be of the KA’s author’s making, some of them could very well be remnants of their alternative variants existing before the end of the ninth century. The ʿaql story in KA thus amalgamated two stories current in the early Islamic milieu. Dating from the first century of Islam, one of them, the aqbil adbir report, underwent considerable editing in the second and third centuries in various Islamic circles, including the Iraqi Shiite milieu, where KA’s author must have heard it.119 The narrative continued to circulate and be recycled later on, and in the tenth century found its esoteric interpretation in al-​Jillī’s Risālat al-​fatq wa-l-ratq.120 The second narrative, about the creation of ʿaql from four things, is attested, according to Crow, in just one hadith around a century later than the earliest fragment of KA. What its occurrence there demonstrates, then, is that Mufīd’s variant goes back to a much earlier story circulating in the Iraqi Shiite environment. As discussed in the previous section, it is impossible to determine the exact time and place of KA’s composition at this stage; it is possible, however, to situate it in its religious milieu within a broad historical time frame by looking at the geography of the beliefs and religious motives that it absorbed. Both the idea of shadows and the teaching about divine delegation are products of the Iraqi Ghulat milieu of the eighth and ninth centuries, chiefly centered in Kufa but spread in the main Shiite centers of the time in Iraq and Iran. The earliest recorded instance of the teaching about shadows goes back to the early eighth century, the rebellions of Mughīra and ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿāwiya in Kufa. The rich hadith material containing references to shadows and phantoms is difficult to date with any precision. Some of it might likewise go back to the eighth century, but some of it might be later; the near absence of hadith with multiple strands of transmission121 does not allow for the application of the isnād criticism

techniques developed in the recent decades.122 However, the places and dates of the authors who compiled these traditions can tell us when and where they circulated. Aḥmad al-​Barqī (d. ca. 894), Ṣaffār al-​Qummī (d. 902–3), and ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī were all from Qum and wrote in the second half of the ninth and early tenth centuries; their contemporary Furāt al-​Kūfī probably lived in Kufa, and al-​Kulaynī (d. 941) wrote his major compendium in Baghdad in the early decades of the tenth century. These Iraqi scholars supply the majority of traditions, while a much smaller number are recorded in eastern Iran by al-ʿAyyāshī around the same period,123 and much later by Ibn Bābawayh al-​Qummī (d. 991), who wrote his Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh in Balkh toward the end of the tenth century.124 Further, Saʿd b. ʿAbdallāh al-Qummī wrote about the belief in phantoms among the Mukhammisa in the late ninth to early tenth century, while a few decades later the same belief was attested among the Karkhiyyūn, hailing from Basra’s Karkh quarter. Finally, al-​Shahrastānī in the twelfth century mentioned the belief in aẓilla among the Syrian Isḥāqīs and Nuṣayrīs. Mufawwiḍa beliefs were spread in the same geographical area. In the eighth century, the Kufan Mufaḍḍal al-​Juʿfī is reported to have held delegationist beliefs, followed a century later by another Kufan, Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar, and there are reports showing the existence of Mufawwiḍa in eastern Iran.125 The so-​called aqbil adbir report had its origins, according to Crow, among the seventh-​century followers of Muhammad. It broadly circulated in various Muslim circles and Iraq and Syria. It is among Shiites, however, that one should expect the author of KA to have heard it, and all of the Shiite renditions of this report lead us to Kufa and Qum,126 the main Shiite centers of the eighth and ninth centuries. The study of the religious ideas attested in KA shows clear traces of the eighthand ninth-​century Shiite Ghulat teachings. A look at the geographic distribution of these beliefs points, unsurprisingly, chiefly to Iraq, but also to the Shiite town of Qum, and to a smaller extent to Iran’s eastern frontier. As such, then, KA is the product of the eighth- and ninth-​century Ghuluw (“extremism”), mainly centered in Kufa but with representatives in other parts of Iraq and in parts of Iran. It creatively blended Islamic symbols with elements from Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, and Jewish esotericism.127 It is this religious environment that produced the aforementioned Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla, the earliest layers of Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla, and other works with similar titles. By the second half of the ninth century, KA was already “plagiarized” by the author of Kitāb al-​kursī, and both works were known to Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr. They continued to circulate independently in Nuṣayrī circles for at least another century, and perhaps even longer. It is to this part of KA’s history that we now turn.

Men and Texts Between Iraq and Syria in the Tenth Century Having reconstructed (as much as possible) the form and content of KA, and having situated it in the context of the early Shiite religious milieu, let us step back and look

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at the story of KA within the broader context of the movement of men and texts from Iraq to Syria in the tenth century. KA was not alone in its wanderings; together with it, a plethora of other texts on similar themes were initially in circulation in the Ghulat milieu of Iraq in the eighth and ninth centuries. Many of these texts were lost, but many were also rescued by the Nuṣayrīs, who left Iraq in the early tenth century for a more tolerant north Syria. They kept these books in their private collections and read and circulated them until at least the eleventh century, and perhaps even later. Hence the scores of fragments from Ghulat texts preserved in the works of tenth-​century Nuṣayrī authors. The earliest textual fragment of KA, as discussed earlier, is found in the work of Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr, who died in the second half of the ninth century. It is quoted here under its own title and anonymously, as part of yet another Ghulat treatise titled Kitāb al-​kursī. Its later attestation in works of Nuṣayrī authors indicates that it was well known among Ibn Nuṣayr’s contemporaries and later Ghulat, along with the many other extremist writings he quotes. The titles and fragments that he mentions in his Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra reveal a rich religious literature in circulation among the Ghulat of his time. A fragment from his contemporary Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar’s Kitāb al-tanbīh, for example, speaks about al-​makān’s creator role, harking back to the Mufawwiḍa’s teachings, while Kitāb al-​marātib wa-l-daraj elaborates on the notion of God’s asmāʾ (“names”) and the seven degrees of belief and unbelief,128 both themes widely attested in Ghulat writings.129 A passage from Kitāb al-​tawḥīd, attributed to the well-​known Ghali Muḥammad b. Sinān (d. 835), speaks about God’s names, qualities, and His veil (ḥijāb),130 and a fragment from a Risālat al-t​ awḥīd speaks about God’s purpose in creating the letters of the alphabet.131 Another book attributed to Muḥammad b. Sinān is mentioned in Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s other alleged work, Kitāb al-​akwār al-​nūrāniyya wa-l-adwār al-​rūḥāniyya.132 Its title, Kitāb al-​kawr wa-ldawr, is the only thing that survives, but it in itself is suggestive of its Ghulat provenance, pointing to the Shiite extremists’ ideas of cyclical history, described in terms of “turns” (akwār, sg. kawr) and “cycles” (adwār, sg. dawr). In the first half of the tenth century, Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s followers established their center in Syria, taking with them the Ghulat books that they had inherited, including the KA. While some of these texts are only preserved in fragments in Nuṣayrī texts, others have resurfaced in their original forms. The Nuṣayrī community of Iraq did not cease to exist, and proselytizing activities continued in other regions as well, but Syria henceforth remained as the main Nuṣayrī center.133 The rather thin source material does not reveal why this happened, but comparison of the religious situations in Iraq and Syria in the late ninth century and throughout the tenth may suggest their motives. After a period of a more or less peaceful coexistence, in the ninth century the relations between the extremists and the moderates were becoming increasingly strained. The tensions between the two camps, which in some places became violent, are described in detail by Hossein Modarressi, who notes that scholars of Qum tried to banish transmitters who spread reports containing Ghulat material, while actual

belief in such ideas could even be punished by death.134 And although the Ghulat remained influential throughout the ninth century and later, the moderate tendency during this period was becoming crystallized into a Twelver orthodoxy with its centers in Qum and Baghdad, gradually marginalizing the extremists.135 Meanwhile, in north Syria, far from the centers of the emerging Shiite orthodoxy (and from the Abbasid center of power), Ibn Nuṣayr’s followers found a safe haven in the Ḥamdānid principality of Aleppo. Their leader, Ḥusayn b. Ḥamdān al-​Khaṣībī (d. 969), became an esteemed member of the circle of scholars and poets in the court of the Ḥamdānid ruler Sayf al-​Dawla al-Ḥamdānī (916/9–967). Himself a Twelver Shiite, Sayf al-​Dawla apparently had no scruples regarding divisions within Shiism,136 and throughout his reign the Nuṣayrīs were able to flourish in his domain. Even after the decline of the Ḥamdānids in the second half of the tenth century, and during the Fāṭimid hegemony over the region, the Nuṣayrī community did not decline and continued to grow and produce religious literature. The pro-​Shiite policies of the Ḥamdānids were followed by the tolerant attitude of the Fāṭimids, whose chief beneficiaries were the Christians but included other minorities as well.137 In fact, it is from among Christians (and Jews) that the Nuṣayrīs recruited a large number of their followers in this region,138 and proximity (and perhaps dialogue) with Christianity has echoes in Nuṣayrī literature. Most notably, al-​Jillī—​in whose Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra we find one of the fragments of KA, and who was active in this very period (d. after 1009139)—has written an entire epistle called al-​Risāla al-masīḥiyya (The Christian epistle), where he describes the nature of Christ using both Islamic and Christian imagery.140 Al-​Jillī further engages Christian ideas in his al-​Risāla al-nuʿmāniyya, where he states that Christ’s apostles (al-ḥawāriyyūn) are in reality the nuqabāʾ (sg. naqīb),141 which is one of the degrees in the Ghulat spiritual hierarchy. Christian imagery is used in the work of his disciple Maymūn b. Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī (d. 1034–35), who in his collection of legal responses accords them a high value.142 Finally, an eleventh-​century anonymous work discusses why the Christians are closer to being believers than the Jews are.143 KA’s fragments are next attested in the works of al-​Jillī and Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī. Let us begin with the former. A look at the titles quoted in al-​Jillī’s work alongside the KA and its encircling Kitāb al-​kursī reveals a rich Ghulat literature in the possession of this Nuṣayrī leader. Four of these, Kitāb al-t​ awḥīd, Risālat al-tawḥīd, Kitāb al-​marātib wa-l-daraj, and Kitāb al-​tanbīh, already occur in Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra, which in turn is also quoted by al-​Jillī.144 There are fragments from seven other works, however, which do not appear in works of earlier authors; three of these have survived in their original forms. The best known among the latter three is Kitāb al-h​ aft wa-l-aẓilla.145 Next is Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla, which thematically is closely related to Kitāb al-h​ aft.146 Finally, Ḥāwī quotes several passages from Kitāb al-​usūs, which tackles such Ghulat themes as transformation into nonhuman forms, the seven Adams, and God’s manifestation in human form.147 The previously unquoted fragments in al-​Jillī’s work are from Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ, which because of its divergence from Pseudo-​Mufaḍḍal’s work with the same title,

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is probably Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar’s, and speaks of the truth of God’s unicity in Ghulat terms.148 Three other works are Kitāb maʿrifat al-bāriʾ, Kitāb ādāb al-​dīn, and Kitāb al-​maḥmūdīn wa-l-madhmūmīn, and they all address Ghulat ideas, such as the evil of the moderates (muqaṣṣira), and God’s veils (ḥujub) and names (asmāʾ), and use Ghulat terminology, such as calling God with the term al-​maʿnā (the meaning).149 The next incarnation of KA, both under its own title and as part of Kitāb al-kursī, occurs in the writings of two members of the Nuṣayrī family of Banū Shuʿba of Ḥarrān. During Abbasid times, Ḥarrān was an important center of culture and scholarship and home to the famous Ṣābians of Ḥarrān.150 During the Ḥamdānid dynasty’s heyday, it was under their influence and had a sizable Shiite population.151 The Ḥamdānids’ patronage for the Imami Shiites as well as the Nuṣayrīs, discussed earlier, could account for the establishment of the family in this town.152 Several of its members produced theological writings, some of which demonstrate high levels of sophistication. First and foremost, however, the Ḥarrānīs were keepers of the Ghulat and Nuṣayrī heritage and possessed a sizable library of their writings, as demonstrated by the inventory of titles they quote, along with a testimony by Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī. Ḥasan b. Shuʿba was highly valued by the Imami authors for two of his works written in the mainstream Imami tradition,153 but his Nuṣayrī heritage has remained unknown to outsiders. Meanwhile, his Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn reveals his good command of Nuṣayrī and Ghulat literature and his adherence to Ghulat ideas. In  a revealing paragraph in the opening section of his book, he states that in his library he had around 150 titles154 of Nuṣayrī books, and around 250 books of “pentadism” (takhmīs), “divine delegation” (tafwīḍ), “moderation” (taqṣīr), and “exoteric knowledge” (ʿilm al-ẓāhir).155 The types of books that al-Ḥarrānī enumerates are rather telling. As  one would expect, the largest group were Nuṣayrī works; then there were books by the Mukhammisa and Mufawwiḍa Ghulat (note the words takhmīs and tafwīḍ), abundantly quoted in the Ḥaqāʾiq. With Ḥasan b. Shuʿba’s Twelver writings in mind, the books on taqṣīr probably refer to Twelver Imami ones. And by the “books of exoteric knowledge,” he must have referred to works of nonreligious sciences, whose existence in Ḥasan’s library probably accounts for the references to Aristotle and other Greek sages in the works of some other members of his family.156 When Ḥasan b. Shuʿba spoke of the collection, he used the expression “reached me” (intahā ilayya), which does not clarify whether he personally owned the books or had access to them on some kind of communal basis. In any case, given that most of them were Nuṣayrī and Ghulat works, the collection was unlikely to have been used outside the Nuṣayrī community, and some contemporary and later figures suggest that it was of considerable size for its time. Against the nearly 400 titles in al-Ḥarrānī’s collection, an eleventh-​century Būyid wazīr’s private library had 10,000 volumes;157 in the thirteenth century, the mosque library of Qayrawān had 125 titles, 1,500 titles were in the collection of a scholar from Baghdad, 761 were in the collection of a Damascene, and the library of the Ashrafiyya Mausoleum held 2,100 titles;

in the sixteenth century, a Cairene endowment had 182 titles, and the endowment of a wealthy scholar had 263.158 The quotations in the Ḥaqāʾiq show that Ḥasan made good use of the Ghulat part of his collection. Thus, aside from the abovementioned Kitāb al-​haft, Kitāb al-ashbāḥ, and Kitāb al-​usūs,159 Ḥaqāʾiq contains quotations from several works cited by al-​Jillī, three works by Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar,160 numerous passages from Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr’s Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra,161 a certain Kitāb al-​risāla by al-​Khaṣībī,162 and a number of previously unmentioned texts of likely Ghulat provenance.163 Ḥasan b. Shuʿba’s library must have been shared by the entire family, as some of its younger representatives also cite passages of a number of Nuṣayrī and Ghulat works. It is in the work of one of them, ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī, that the latest attestation of KA as part of Kitāb al-​kursī, along with passages of other Ghulat and Nuṣayrī works, is found. Together with the author of Kitāb al-​uṣayfir and Risālat ikhtilāf al-ʿālamayn, Muḥammad b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, he also quotes fragments of several Ghulat and Nuṣayrī works.164

Summary In the foregoing, I studied the origin and later trajectory of a text written in the Ghulat milieu of the eighth and ninth centuries in Iraq, transported to Syria by the Nuṣayris, and preserved in fragments in their writings. Through the study of this text, I sought to understand the larger picture of the transmission of Ghulat literature from Iraq to Syria by the survivors of the Iraqi Ghulūw, the Nuṣayrīs. I further tried to show that this transmission and the later preservation of Ghulat literature by the Nuṣayrīs illustrates a larger process still, that of the migration of the survivors of the Ghulat to Syria—​and their ability to preserve their written heritage and to build upon it.

Appendix: Translation of the Surviving Passages of KA 165 [Creation Myth] [1]166 The first thing that He created are the names of letters, invisible, in a person unperceived by the senses, who has no sides [aqṭār] and no boundaries. He is hidden from the senses. God made him into a complete word of four letters. From it He then manifested three Names [asmāʾ, sg. ism] for the creation’s need for them, hiding one of them which is concealed and hidden in these three names. [2]167 Each one of the Names has four pillars, hence there are twelve pillars. For each of the pillars He created thirty Names. ʿAlī is related to them [i.e., the pillars?], he is the Compassionate, the Merciful [al-​raḥmān al-​raḥīm], the Creator [al-​khāliq], the Maker [al-bāriʾ]. These names, and whatever there is of God’s most beautiful names [al-a​ smāʾ al-ḥusnā] add up to 360 names; they are related to those three names. These

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three names are the pillars and veils [ḥujub] of the one first name which is hidden in these three names. [3]168 Then He created a word of four letters, four boundaries, and four parts, and these parts are: truth [ḥaqq], justice [ʿadl], truthfulness [ṣidq], and mercy [raḥma]. Then your Lord’s name became complete [tammat] with truthfulness and justice in the first name. Then He created seven more words, until the eighth word was completed, then He said: {on that Day, eight of them will bear the throne of your Lord above them} (Q 69:17).169 The concealed name is hidden in the eighth complete word, and the seven words are veils [ḥijāb] for each other. [4]170 He then created His throne on water, and made His words into His signs [āyāt], His covenant [mīthāq], His agreement [ʿahd], His wishes [amānī, sg. umniyya], His protection [dhimma], His decision [ʿazm], His command [amr]. He made four spirits as pillars for His throne: the Holy Spirit [rūḥ al-​qudus], the faithful spirit [rūḥ al-​amīn], the spirit of he who ascends [rūḥ dhī l-​maʿārij]171—who descends and ascends—, and the spirit of command [rūḥ al-​amr]. His names became equal172 [istawat] in His words, and His words became173 in the spirits [arwāḥ, sg. rūḥ] above His throne. [5]174 Then God spread His light, and from that light He created an image. Then from knowledge [ʿilm], power [qudra], light [nūr], and will [mashīʾa] He created by His command intelligence [ʿaql]. He then commanded, “turn toward me!” and intelligence turned toward Him, then He commanded “turn away!” and it turned away. God then told it, “by you I reward and by you I punish,” and made it live with water, possessed of knowledge, eternally in the realm.175 [6]176 Then He made the shadows [aẓilla] in factions and made them related [nisba] to His breath.177 He then made the breath [nafas] of the shadows—​by which they became known [?]178—a breath [nafkha]179 [coming] from Him; and those shadows through whom the first breath blew [nafkha ūlā180 ] are [divided into] seven types and seven ranks; the first type is light, the second air, the third is darkness, the fourth is fire, the fifth wind, the sixth water, and the seventh is the breath [nafkha]. 148 Texts in Transit

[7]181 He made seven ranks, each rank was made in each day with one word, until seven ranks were completed with seven words in seven days; between the first and the second days there is swoon, between the second and the third slumber, between the third and the fourth drowsiness, between the fourth and the fifth oblivion, between the fifth and the sixth ignorance, and between the sixth and the seventh inebriety. [8]182 The first rank of shadows, and the closest to God, are the rank of apostles [rusul], the second rank are the prophets [anbiyāʾ], the third rank are the angels [malāʾika], the fourth rank are the believers [muʾminūn],183 the fifth rank are the

unbelievers [kuffār], the sixth rank are the Pharaohs [farāʿina], and the seventh rank are the devils [abālisa] and demons [ṭawāghīt]. [9]184 They stood in rows, then God dispersed them and made them into sects and groups [ṭarāʾiq wa-qidad], of which He has said, {we follow different paths} (Q 72:11). The prophets, messengers, and the legatees [awṣiyāʾ, sg. waṣī] stand to the right hand of the throne; then stand the shadows of the believers among the jinn. [For each of them He created] two shadows, which are alike and similar. God created the shadows in twos for He is one, and it is unbecoming of His greatness that something else should also be one. Then God created two accursed shadows to the left of His throne. After them [He created] the shadows of tyrants [jabābira], then the shadows of idolaters, then the shadows of devils [abālisa] and satans [shayāṭīn], and after them the shadows of the unbelievers among the jinn. And all these shadows He created in pairs, which are alike and similar. [10]185 God placed the shadows at the top [dhurw]186 of creation;187 He then made likeness in the first shadow and similarity in the second, making them related in their birth—​birth after birth; He said in His book: {And We created you in pairs} (Q 78:8), meaning “alike and similar,” likeness in the first, similarity in the last. God also said: {and We created pairs of all things} (Q 51:49), the pair to be saved on the right hand of the throne, and the pair that is doomed on the left hand of the throne. And God spoke of the believers thus: {they and their pairs—​seated on couches in the shade} (Q 36:56); and of the unbelievers He said: {gather together those who did wrong, and others like them, as well as whatever they worshipped beside God, lead them all to the path of Hell} (Q 37:22–23). By the “pairs” He means the ones that are alike and similar. [11]188 When God wanted to create Ādam, he sent Jabraʾīl, who took a handful of soil from each of the heavens with his right hand, and took a word [kalima?] from the earth with his left hand, and kneaded them. Then God told him, “divide the earth into two halves,” then He created something from the earth and something from the heaven189 and told them: “Obey My word and My command”; these words were addressed to those who stood to the right of His throne, such as the prophets, the apostles, and all those upon whom God had bestowed His grace and to whom He had given His love. He then told the second half, whom Jabrāʾīl had divided from the first following His command190—those who stood to his left, such as the tyrants, the idolaters, the unbelievers, the devils, and all those whom God wishes to disgrace: obey me in what I say to you; He says:191 {[It is God who] splits open the seed and the fruit stone}(Q6:95). The “seed” is the clay [ṭīna] of which the believer in made, upon which He has cast His love, while the fruit stone [nawā, sg. nawātun] is the clay of the unbeliever, who is removed from any good and from Him.192 [12]193 When God created Ādam and when the soul [nafs]—which is the spirit of life—​entered him, He made him sleep for a thousand years before He would breathe

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His spirit [rūḥ] into him.194 Then He created Ḥawwāʾ from him, and Ādam woke up and saw her. If He had already breathed His spirit into him, he would not have slept, for the spirit does not sleep and the soul does; if the spirit slept, man would see no dreams. The first breath comes before the intelligence [ʿaql], hence youths do not err until they understand, and they only begin to understand when they mature. After God divided Ādam’s soul and spirit,195 and after He breathed his spirit into him, the angels worshipped him as He had ordered them. Satan, however, refused to worship him as he thought himself superior to the clay from which Ādam was made. The accursed one did not know that the angels worshipped Ādam’s spirit, and not his body of clay. [Scattered Passages] [13]196 Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq said: “In the beginning there was God and no space [makān]. Then He created space and delegated [ fawwaḍa] the affairs to him.” I asked: “What is space?” He [ Jaʻfar] responded: “Muhammad, peace upon him.” [14]197 God’s Messenger said: “I am Ādam in the esoteric [meaning] [bāṭin] of the Qurʾan, I am God’s first creation.” [15]198 Then God created knowledge [ʿilm] and power [qudra] together, none of them precedes the other, nor do they separate. Therefore, it is not appropriate to say “He knew what He could” or “He could what He knew” because it is impossible that one of the two precedes the other. Afterwards, by His command He created will [mashīʾa] and decree [qaḍāʾ]. [16]199 God revealed to Hibat Allāh Shīth b. Ādam that he should not fight Qābīl and should worship in secret. Thus, taqiyya continues until the known time. [17]200 When Jabrāʾīl descended upon Ādam to show him what to do, and when Ādam had reached the place of stoning [jimār], Iblīs appeared to him and told him, “Oh Ādam, where are you headed?” Jabrāʾīl then told Ādam, “do not talk to him and throw seven pebbles at him and say allāhu akbar [kabbir] with each pebble.” Ādam did this until he finished throwing pebbles. 150

[18]201 Iblīs is Dulām [i.e., ʿUmar b. al-​Khaṭṭāb202 ], and because of that Dulām and his friend [i.e., Abū Bakr?] are crucified every year in order for them to be stoned.

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Notes 1. Marshall Hodgson, “How Did the Early Shîʿa Become Sectarian?,” JAOS 75, no. 1 (1955): 9–10; Hossein Modarressi, Crisis and Consolidation in the Formative Period of Shīʿite Islam (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1993), 4; Najam Haider, “Prayer, Mosque, and Pilgrimage: Mapping Shīʿī Sectarian Identity in 2nd/8th Century Kūfa,” Islamic Law and Society 16 (2009): 151–74; Ron Buckley, “On the Origins of

Shīʿi Ḥadīth,” The Muslim World 88, no. 2 (1998): 180–82; Maria Dakake, The Charismatic Community: Shiʿite Identity in Early Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007). 2. On the significance of the term “Ghulat” in early Islamic polemical writings, see Wadād al-​Qāḍī, “The Development of the Term Ghulāt in Muslim Literature with Special Reference to the Kaysāniyya,” in Akten des VII. Kongresses für Arabistik und Islamwissenschaft, ed. Albert Dietrich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1976), 295–319. 3. On the eighth- to ninth-​century Ghulat, see William Tucker’s Mahdis and Millenarians: Shīʿite Extremists in Early Muslim Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Modarressi, Crisis, 19–51; Heinz Halm, Die Islamische Gnosis (Zürich: Artemis Verlag, 1982), 199–217; Halm, “Ḡolāt,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica [EIr] (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985–); Hodgson, “How Did the Early Shîʿa,” 4–10; Hodgson, “Ghulāt,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. [EI2], ed. P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W. P. Heinrichs (Brill Online, 2015); Wilferd Madelung, “Khaṭṭābiyya,” in EI2; Madelung, “Manṣūriyya,” in EI2; Alessandro Bausani, Religion in Iran: From Zoroaster to Bahaʾullah, trans. J. M. Marchesi (New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, 2000), 130–43. On the beliefs of the “moderates,” see Tamima Bayhom-​Daou, “The Imam’s Knowledge and the Quran According to al-​Faḍl b. Shādhān al-​Nisābūrī (d. 260 a​.h​.​/854 a.d.),” BSOAS 64, no. 2 (2001): 188–207. 4. The sixth imam, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, for example, famously cursed and dissociated himself from Abū l-​Khaṭṭāb al-​Asadī (killed ca. 755), who had declared the imam an incarnation of the divinity, while claiming prophecy for himself; see Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ismāʿīl al-​Ashʿarī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn, ed. Hellmut Ritter (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980), 10–11; for studies on the Khaṭṭābiyya, see Madelung, “Khaṭṭābiyya”; Mohammad Ali Amir-​Moezzi, “Ḵaṭṭābiyya,” in EIr; Hassan Ansari, “Abū al-​Khaṭṭāb,” in Encyclopaedia Islamica, ed. Farhad Daftary and Wilferd Madelung (Brill Online, 2015); Tucker, Mahdis, 113–15. 5. For a detailed account of this opposition, see Modarressi, Crisis, 29–49. 6. Hussein Abdulsater, “Dynamics of Absence: Twelver Shiʿism During the Minor Occultation,” ZDMG 161, no. 2 (2011): 305–34; Saïd Arjomand, “The Crisis of the Imamate and the Institution of Occultation in Twelver Shiism: A Sociohistorical Perspective,” IJMES 28, no. 4 (1996): 491–515. 7. Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, al-​Ghayba, ed. Āghā Buzurg al-Ṭahrānī (Najaf: Maṭbaʿat al-​Nuʿmān, 1385/1965), 244–52. 8. Another such claimant was Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-​Shalmaghānī, a Shiite jurist who later in his life veered toward extremism; he also claimed to be the safīr of the twelfth imam, thus making an enemy of the Hidden Imam’s then deputy. See Abdulsater, “Dynamics of Absence,” 316–18. 9. Shihāb al-​Dīn Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-​buldān, vol. 4 (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1397/1977), 447–48; Abdulsater, “Dynamics of Absence,” 312–13; cf. Louis Massignon, “Les origines Shiʿites de la famille vizirale des Banuʾl Furat,” in Opera minora, ed. Youakim Moubarac, vol. 1 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1969), 484–87; Massignon, “Recherches sur les Shiʿites extrémistes à Baghdad à la fin du troisième siècle de l-​Hégire,” in ibid., 523–26; Andrew Newman, The Formative Period of Twelver Shīʿism: Ḥadīth as Discourse Between Qum and Baghdad (Richmond: Curzon Press, 2000), 17–19; Dominique Sourdel, Le vizirat ʿabbāside de 749 à 936, vol. 2 (Damascus: Institut Français de Damas, 1960), 514–15. 10. On his death dates, see Yaron Friedman, The Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs: An Introduction to the Religion, History, and Identity of the Leading Minority in Syria (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 32–33. 11. For a discussion of the heresiographic accounts of the Ghulat, see Ron Buckley, “The Early Shiite Ghulāh,” Journal of Semitic Studies 42, no. 2 (1997): 301–10; Halm, Die Islamische Gnosis, 27–31; Wilferd Madelung, “Bemerkungen zur imamitischen Firaq-​Literatur,” Der Islam 40, nos. 1–2 (1967): 37–52; for a study of the Islamic heresiographic literature as a genre, see Josef van Ess, Der Eine und das Andere: Beobachtungen an islamischen Häresiographie, 2 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011); Mohammad Ali Amir-​Moezzi, “Savoir c’est pouvoir: Exégèses et implications du miracle dans l’Imamisme ancien,” in Miracle et Karama: Hagiographies médiévales comparées, ed. Denise Aigle (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 268; for a skeptical treatment of heresiographic writings on the Ghulat, see Tamima Bayhom-​Daou’s “The Second Century Shīʿite Ġulāt: Were They Really Gnostic?” Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 5 (2003–4): 13–61. 12. For a discussion of the treatment of the Ghulat by medieval Muslim historians, see Buckley, “Early Shiite Ghulāh,” 311–13.

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13. Published by Wladimir Ivanow in Islam 23 (1936): 1–132; for the most up-​to-​date analysis of Umm al-​kitāb, and for a discussion of the scholarship about it, see Sean Anthony, “The Legend of ʻAbdallāh ibn Saba’ and the Date of Umm al-​Kitāb,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd ser., 21, no. 1 (2011): 18; see also Halm, Die Islamische Gnosis, 113–98. 14. On the “Mufaḍḍal tradition,” see Mushegh Asatryan, “Heresy and Rationalism in Early Islam: The Origins and Evolution of the Mufaḍḍal Tradition” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2012); Asatryan, “Mofażżal al-​Joʿfi,” EIr; Hossein Modarressi, Tradition and Survival: A Bibliographical Survey of Early Shīʿite Literature (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003), 333–37. 15. The work has been published three times, the first two from the same manuscript (ms Arabe 1449, Bibliothèque nationale de France), by al-​Munṣif b. ʿAbd al-​Jalīl (Beirut: Dār al-​madār al-​Islāmī, 2004), and by Leonardo Capezzone as “Il Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ attribuito a Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar al-​Juʿfī,” Rivista degli studi orientali 69 (1995): 295–416; a third one was published by Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā in al-Majmūʿa l-​mufaḍḍaliyya, Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 6 (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2006), 95–166; the manuscript of the latter edition is not identified. 16. It was first published by Arif Tamir and Ignace Khalifé in Beirut in 1960 under the title Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla, and again by Tamir from different manuscripts in Beirut in 1981 (reprinted in 2007). Muṣṭafā Ghālib published his first edition in Beirut in 1964 (reprinted in 1977). Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā reprinted the book in their al-M ​ ajmūʿa l-m ​ ufaḍḍaliyya, 289–423. The very few studies on this book will be discussed later in the chapter. 17. I owe this insight to a private communication by Annunziata Russo, to whom I am grateful for generously sharing her knowledge of the text. Kitāb al-​usūs was first edited by Jaʿfar al-​Kanj Dandashī in Madkhal ilā al-madhhab al-ʿalawī al-​nuṣayrī (Irbid: al-​Rūznā, 2000), 73–156, and by Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā in Kutub al-ʿalwawiyīn al-​muqaddasa, Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 9 (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2008), 45–139. 18. E.g., Muḥammad b. Baḥr al-​R uhnī, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-​Qāsim al-Ḥaḍramī, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Saʿīd (see Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-​Najāshī, Rijāl [Beirut: al-ʿĀlamī, 2010], 367, 594, 322), and Khaybarī b. ʿAlī (ibid., 151; Ibn al-​Ghaḍāʾirī, Rijāl, ed. Muḥammad Riḍā al-​Jalālī [Qum: Dār al-ḥadīth, 1422/2002], 56). Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Mahrān’s numerous writings include three titles openly reminiscent of Ghulat themes (al-​Najāshī, Rijāl, 334). Thus, his Kitāb maqtal Abī l-​Khaṭṭāb (The book of Abū al-Khaṭṭāb’s killing) and Manāqib Abī al-Khaṭṭāb (The virtues of Abū al-Khaṭṭāb) clearly refer to the famous extremist Abū l-​Khaṭṭāb al-​Asadī, while his title Kitāb al-​qibāb (The book of cycles) probably refers to the notion of historical cycles (qubba, pl. qibāb) found in early Ghulat texts and later accepted by the Nuṣayrīs (cf. Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ, 203). Another extremist, Muḥammad b. Jumhūr, is said to have written poetry allowing the forbidden (Ibn al-​Ghaḍāʾirī, Rijāl, 92), which harks back to the accusations that the Ghulat were antinomians. One of the tenth-​century Ghulat authors was Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-​Kūfī (d. 963), who adhered to the doctrine of the Mukhammisa Ghulat (Ibn Shahrāshūb, Maʿālim al-ʿulamāʾ, ed. ʿAbbās Iqbāl [Tehran: Fardīn, 1353/1934], 57; Ḥasan b. Yūsuf b. ʿAlī b. Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī, Rijāl, ed. Muḥammad Ṣādiq Āl Baḥr al-ʿUlūm [Qum: al-​Khayyām, 1402/1981], 233). 19. See, e.g., the examples quoted in Modarressi, Crisis, 47, and Modarressi, Tradition, 61, 189. 20. For brief descriptions of the series, see Bella Tendler, “Concealment and Revelation: A Study of Secrecy and Initiation among the Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs of Syria” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 2012), 4–5, and Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 2–3. 21. See, e.g., Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn, ed. Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2006), 60, 63–64, 108, 147–48, 150–56. 22. Several early authors have attributed to Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar (d. 899) a work with the title Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ. See ʿAli b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-​Masʿūdī, Murūj al-​dhahab, ed. Barbier de Meynard, vol. 3 (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1864), 265–66; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Lisān al-​mīzān, ed. ʿAbd al-​Fattāḥ Abū Ghadda, vol. 2 (Beirut: Dār al-​bashāʾir al-​islāmiyya, 2002), 83; Ibn Ḥazm, Kitāb al-​fiṣal fī l-​milal wa-​l-​ ahwāʾ wa-l-niḥal, English trans. Israel Friedlaender, “The Heterodoxies of the Shiites in the Presentation of Ibn Ḥazm,” JAOS 28 (1907): 66; this has led Leonardo Capezzone (“Il Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ,” 303) and Yaron Friedman (Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 244) to think that this is the same Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ as the one attributed to Mufaḍḍal al-​Juʿfī. The passages of Isḥāq’s Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ, however, reveal that it is not identical with Pseudo-​Mufaḍḍal’s book. Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar is an interesting case in point, showing the usefulness of the Silsila for the study of early Ghulat thought and literature in general. While two of his works listed

in biographical dictionaries, Kitāb akhbār al-​sayyid and Kitāb majālis Hishām, are missing, the newly published Nuṣayrī texts have revealed excerpts of four other works allegedly authored by him and expounding Ghulat themes—​Bāṭin al-​taklīf, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, Kitāb al-​tanbīh, and Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ. For a full discussion of Isḥāq’s legacy and for the references to quotations of his works, see Mushegh Asatryan, “Esḥāq Aḥmar Naḵaʿi,” in EIr. 23. Although the editors of the series never list the manuscripts of the edited works, the correspondences of titles, terminology, and ideas with earlier extremist and Nuṣayrī writings are such that they leave no doubt as to the authenticity of these texts; some of the relevant titles will be discussed below. 24. Tamer and Khalifé do not identify the manuscript of their 1960 edition of Kitāb al-​haft, nor does Muṣṭafā Ghālib identify his (it is now part of the manuscript collection of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, no. 175/1030, but its origin is still unknown; see Delia Cortese, Ismaili and Other Arabic Manuscripts: A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of The Institute of Ismaili Studies [London: I. B. Tauris, 2000], 124). However, in his introduction to the first edition of the work (reprinted in the 1977 edition, 7), the Syrian scholar states that he had in his personal collection several copies of the treatise; he also describes his correspondence with Rudolph Strothmann, who, he says, had acquired a copy of it in the Syrian city of Homs (ibid.). In the introduction to his 1981 edition (reprinted in 2007, 5), Tamir states that it is based on a manuscript from the Qadmus region in Syria, copied by a resident of Misyaf in the year 1117/1705. The only extant manuscript of Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ was brought to Paris, also from Syria, and copied in Tripoli in 1791–92 (for a note on the history of the manuscript, see Asatryan, “Heresy and Rationalism,” 63). 25. As noted above, the manuscript of Tamir’s second edition of Kitāb al-h​ aft came from Qadmus and was copied by a resident of Misyaf. Both Qadmus and Misyaf were acquired by the Ismailis in the first half of the twelfth century; see Nasseh Mirza, Syrian Ismailism: The Ever Living Line of the Imamate, ad 1100–1160 (Richmond: Surrey, 1997), 14. They were apparently populated by Nuṣayrīs; hence—​ whether for political purposes or out of personal conviction—​the ruler of Qadmus and Misyaf, chief Nizārī dāʿī Rāshid al-​Dīn Sinān (d. 1193), reportedly flirted with Nuṣayrī ideas about metempsychosis. See Farhad Daftary, The Ismāʿīlīs: Their History and Doctrines, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 371–72; René Dussaud, “Influence de la religion noṣairî sur la doctrine de Râchid ad-​Dîn Sinân,” Journal Asiatique 16 (1900): 61–69. More than a century later, Syrian Ismailis were still said to believe in the transmigration of souls. See Shihāb al-​Dīn al-ʿUmarī, Masālik al-​abṣār fī mamālik al-​amṣār, ed. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid (Cairo: al-​Maʿhad al-​faransī li al-āthār al-​sharqiyya, 1985), 77–78. 26. See Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [1], Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 1, ed. Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2006), 210 (quoted as KA), and 227–29 (quoted as Kitab al-​kursī). 27. Yaron Friedman, “Moḥammad b. Noṣayr,” EIr; with regard to the death dates of Nuṣayrī authors, I will also rely on Friedman’s Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, unless otherwise indicated. 28. Bruno Paoli states that al-​Jillī died in 1007 or 1009, without identifying the source of his information. See his “La diffusion de la doctrine nusayrie au IVe/Xe siècle d’après le Kitāb Ḫayr al-ṣanīʿa du cheikh Ḥusayn Mayhūb Ḥarfūš,” Arabica 58 (2011): 22. However, Abū Ṣāliḥ al-​Daylamī’s Kitāb majmaʿ al-​akhbār contains a passage where al-​Jillī appears in Aleppo in the Islamic year 399/ad 1008–9; see Majmūʿat al-​aḥādīth al-ʿalawiyya, Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 8, ed. Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2008), 158. 29. See Rasāʾil al-ḥikma l-ʿalawiyya [2], Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 2, ed. Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2006), 207–9 (as KA), and 181–82 (as part of Kitāb al-​kursī). 30. Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 41, 45, 71–74, 168, 173 (as KA), and 80–81 (as embedded in Kitāb al-​kursī). 31. Probably a nephew. For a genealogy of the two authors, see Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 46. 32. Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 273. 33. Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 248, 254, 264, 266. True, Friedman does state in his appendix (248) that Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra is “attributed” to Ibn Nuṣayr, but otherwise he treats it as if its authorship—​together with the authorship of the other similar texts—​is well established. 34. See Rasāʿil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [2], 165, 200, 214. 35. Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 23, 77, 95, 98. 36. See Rasāʿil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [2], 211.

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37. Ibid., 167, 184; Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 114. 38. Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 273. 39. For a summary of the Imami views of al-Ḥarrānī and his works, see Muḥsin al-​Amīn, Aʿyān al-​shīʿa (Beirut: Dār al-​taʿāruf li-l-maṭbūʿāt, 1403/1983), 5:185–86. 40. Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 239. Friedman (Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 46) states that the introduction is by ʿAlī b. Ḥamza himself, but this is not certain. 41. See the appendix, paragraphs 1 through the midpoint of 4. 42. Appendix, paragraph 9. 43. Interestingly, after the overlap ends, Kitāb al-​kursī begins to overlap with chapter 62 of Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla of Pseudo-​Mufaḍḍal—​yet another instance of anonymous textual borrowing. 44. The minor corrections that I made to the original are not noted. 45. For an explanation of this reading of ‫نفسه‬, see the footnote to paragraph 6 of the appendix. 46. Appendix, paragraph 6; the transcription is based on the version in Ḥaqāʾiq, 72–73; but for a few errors, the one in Ḥāwī, 208, is almost identical with it. 47. Here “it” could refer to ʿaql (intelligence) from the preceding sentence. 48. If ‫ نفسه‬and ‫ نفسها‬in this variant are read nafasihi and nafasihā to refer to “breath,” this will make even less sense. 49. Corruption (or variant?) of Q 112; my rendering is based on Abdel Haleem’s translation of the Qurʾan. 50. The transcription is based on the version in Ḥaqāʾiq, 80, which appears to be more complete. The other two are corrupt and make less sense. 51. See the appendix, paragraph 9. 52. See the appendix, paragraph 7; the transliteration is based on the version of Ḥāwī, 208. 53. The passage is transcribed from the version of Ḥaqāʾiq, 81; the one in Kitāb al-m ​ ithāl wa-l-ṣūra, 228, is almost identical with it. The beginning of the version in Ḥāwī is corrupt, but in two places I have preferred its readings over the other two. 54. Or still another text containing quotations from it. 55. Al-​Najāshī, Rijāl, 429. 56. Ibid.: “He is a mawlā, very weak, his sayings are not trustworthy, and all of his books are confusion [takhlīṭ].” See also al-​Kashshī, Ikhtiyār maʿrifat al-​rijāl, ed. Jawād al-​Qayyūmī al-​Iṣfahānī (Qum: Muʾassasat al-​nashr al-​islāmī, 2006), 305, “Yūnus b. Ẓabyān is accused [muttaham] and an extremist [ghālin].” The same author quotes a tradition where Yūnus calls Abū l-​Khaṭṭāb “God’s messenger” (306), and another one where Yūnus claims to have heard God’s voice and is cursed for that by the imam Riḍā (305). 57. Al-Ṭūsī, al-​Ghayba, 33; al-​K ashshī, Rijāl, 275; Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṣaffār, Baṣāʾir al-darajāt, ed. Muḥsin Kūchabāghī al-​Tabrīzī (Qum: Maktabat Āyat Allāh al-ʿUẓmā al-​Marʿashī al-Najafī, 1404/1984), 374. 58. See, e.g., Ibn Bābūya, al-Khiṣāl, ed. ʿAlī Akbar al-​Ghaffārī (Beirut: al-ʿĀlamī, 1410/1990), 47, 328; Muḥammad b. Yaʿqūb al-​Kulaynī, al-​Kāfī, ed. ʿAlī Akbar al-​Ghaffārī (Beirut: Dār ṣaʿb, 1980), 1:537, 4:575, 8:373–4; al-Ṭūsī, al-​Ghayba, 33. 59. Al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 58–9, 145. Yūnus frequently appears in Nuṣayrī texts, e.g.,  Maymūn b. Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, Kitāb al-​maʿārif, ed. Meir Bar-​Asher and Aryeh Kofsky (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 141–43; Rudolf Strothmann, Esoterische Sonderthemen bei den Nusairi (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1958), 6; al-​Jillī, Ḥāwī al-asrār, 190, 198; Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 49, 169; Ḥusayn b. Ḥamdān al-Khaṣībī, Fiqh al-​risāla al-rastbāshiyya, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [2], 146; Mufaḍḍal al-​Juʿfī (attr.), Kitāb al-ḥujub wa-l-anwār, in al-​Majmūʿa al-mufaḍḍaliyya, 52–53, 63–64. 60. Mufaḍḍal al-​Juʿfī (attr.), Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ, 74, 78; Saʿd al-​Qummī, Kitāb al-​maqālāt wa-l-firaq, ed. Muḥammad Jawād Mashkūr (Tehran: Muʾassasa-​yi maṭbūʿātī-​yi ʿaṭāyī, 1963), 57. 61. They are Yazīd al-Ṣāʾigh and Abū Sumayna Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Ṣayrafī. On the latter, see al-​Kashshī, Rijāl, 451. 62. Ibid. 63. Ibid., 448–49; see also Bayhom-​Daou, “Imam’s Knowledge.” 64. Al-​Najāshī, Rijāl, 295.

65. Ibid., 225; Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-​Zurārī, Risālat Abī Ghālib al-​Zurārī, ed. Muḥammad Riḍā al-Ḥusaynī (Qum: Markaz al-​buḥūth wa l-​taḥqīqāt al-​islāmiyya, 1411/1990), 175. 66. Al-​Najāshī, Rijāl, 247. 67. His son ʿAlī narrated from someone who narrated from Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq’s contemporary Muḥammad b. ʿAwwām al-​Khalqānī. See ibid., 340. 68. Al-​Kashshī (Rijāl, 316) lists another “transmitter” of a Kitāb al-​aẓilla, ʿAlī b. Ḥammād al-​Azdī; according to a footnote by the editor, this is the same person as ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, the son of Buzurj Abū Ṣāliḥ Muḥammad, which would indicate that his transmitted book would be the same as his father’s. In al-​Kāfī (1:441) he narrates a tradition about aẓilla from Mufaḍḍal; if authentic, the hadith would indicate ʿAlī’s continuous preoccupation with the subject of shadows. 69. Al-​Najāshī, Rijāl, 79–80. 70. On him and his works, see Halm, Die Islamische Gnosis, 242–43; al-​Najāshī, Rijāl, 313–14; al-​Zurārī, Tārīkh, 175. Halm contends that Muḥammad b. Sinān’s Kitāb al-​aẓilla is the same as Pseudo-​ Mufaḍḍal’s Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla; see his “Das ‘Buch der Schatten’ II,” Der Islam 58 (1981): 67. However, the large number of surviving books with similar titles and contents, such as our KA, or the Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla, shows that the picture is much more complicated. 71. Ḥaqāʾiq, 71. 72. mss 140 and 511 of the collection of the Institute of Ismaili Studies; the text will be discussed in greater detail below. For a study and critical edition of the text, see Mushegh Asatryan, “An Early Shiʿi Cosmology: Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla and Its Milieu,” Studia Islamica 110 (2015): 1–80; Ḥaqāʾiq, 74–77; Ḥāwī, 209–12. 73. See the appendix, paragraphs 6–10. 74. For a discussion of the possible pre-​Islamic roots of the image, see Patricia Crone, The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran: Rural Revolt and Local Zoroastrianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 213–14. 75. Fritz Meier, Die Fawāʾiḥ al-​jamāl wa-​fawātiḥ al-​jalāl des Najm al-​Dīn Kubrā (Wiesbaden: Fritz Steiner Verlag, 1957), 82. 76. Al-​A shʿarī, Maqālāt, 7–8; the translation is from Tucker, Mahdis, 62–63, with slight modifications. 77. ʿAbd al-​Qāhir al-​Baghdādī, Farq bayn al-​firaq (Beirut: Dār al-​āfāq al-​jadīda, 1402/1982), 230; cf. Abū l-​Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-​Karīm al-​Shahrastānī, al-​Milal wa-l-niḥal, ed. Aḥmad Fahmī Muḥammad (Beirut: Dār al-​kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1413/1992), 1:180–81. 78. Al-​Nāshiʾ al-​Akbar, Masāʾil al-​imāma, in Josef van Ess, Frühe muʿtazilitische Häresiographie (Beirut: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1981), 37 (Arabic pagination); Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-​Nawbakhtī, Firaq al-​shīʿa, ed. Hellmut Ritter (Istanbul: F. A. Brockhaus, 1931), 31; cf. Halm, “Das ‘Buch der Schatten’ II,” 16–17; Crone, Nativist Prophets, 208–15. 79. Al-​Kulaynī, al-​Kāfī, 1:441, 442, 8:6; Muḥammad b. Masʿūd al-ʿAyyāshī, al-​Tafsīr, ed. Hāshim al-Rasūlī al-​Maḥallātī (Tehran: Maktabat al-ʿilmiyya al-​islāmiyya, 1411/1991), 2:126; cf. Muḥammad Bāqir al-​Majlisī, Biḥār al-​anwār (Beirut: Dār al-​iḥyāʾ al-​turāth al-ʿarabī, 1403/1983), 52:309; Ibn Bābūya, Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh, ed. Ḥasan al-​Mūsawī al-​Kharsān (Tehran: Dār al-​kutub al-​islāmiyya, 1390/1970), 4:254. It is interesting to note that section fourteen of the second part of al-Ṣaffār’s Baṣāʾir, 83–86, is entitled “Bāb fī rasūl Allāh annahu ʿarafa mā raʾā fī al-aẓilla wa-l-dharr wa-ghayrih” (A chapter about the apostle of God, that he knew what he saw in the shadows, particles, and so on). The traditions contained in the section all discuss the time before the creation of the world, and although the term aẓilla is not used in any of them, its use in the title of the section is rather telling (provided this is not an editorial addition). On the “particles” (dharr), see Mohammad Ali Amir-​Moezzi, The Divine Guide in Early Shiʿism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam, trans. David Streight (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 16. 80. Al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, 1:282. 81. Al-Ṣaffār, Baṣāʾir, 131; al-​Kulaynī, al-​Kāfī, 1:438, 6:256. 82. Al-​Kulaynī, al-​Kāfī, 1:441, 4:256, 6:576; Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī, Tahdhīb al-​aḥkām, ed. Sayyid Ḥasan al-​Mūsawī al-​Kharsān (Tehran: Dār al-​kutub al-​islāmiyya, 1390/1970), 6:55; Furāt al-​ Kūfī, Tafsīr, ed. Muḥammad al-​Kāẓim (Tehran: Muʾassasat al-ṭabʿ wa-l-nashr, 1990), 338; al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, 1:181.

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83. This is a translation of the Arabic malak muqarrab; for a discussion of the term, see Stephen Burge, “Cherubim. IV Islam,” Encyclopaedia of the Bible and Its Reception, vol. 5 (2012), cols. 64–66. I am grateful to the article’s author for referring me to it. 84. Al-​Kulaynī, al-​Kāfī, 1:441. 85. Rajab al-​Bursī, Mashāriq anwār al-​yaqīn (Beirut: al-ʿĀlamī, n.d.), 40–41. 86. For the various iterations of the story, see al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, 2:207; ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-​Qummī, al-​Tafsīr, ed. Ṭayyib al-​Mūsawī al-​Jazāʾirī (Najaf: Maktabat al-​hudā, 1387/1967), 2:391; al-​Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, 1:438; Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad al-​Barqī, Kitāb al-​maḥāsin, ed. Jalāl al-​Dīn al-Ḥusaynī (Tehran: Dār al-​kutub al-​islāmiyya, 1331 Sh​.​/1951), 135; Furāt, Tafsīr, 146, 509. For the idea of the primordial covenant in Shiite hadith, see Amir-​Moezzi, Divine Guide, 16, 33; Amir-​Moezzi, “Cosmogony and Cosmology V,” in “Twelver Shiʿism,” EIr. 87. Al-​Kulaynī, al-​Kāfī, 1:442, 531; Furāt, Tafsīr, 74, 372, 552; Ḥasan al-ʿAskarī (attr.), Tafsīr, ed. ʿAlī ʿĀshūr (n.p.: Muʾassasat qāʾid al-g​ hurr al-m ​ uḥajjalīn, 1426/2005), 177; al-​Bursī, Mashāriq, 41. See also Uri Rubin, “Pre-​existence and Light: Aspects of the Concept of Nūr Muḥammad,” Israel Oriental Studies 5 (1975): 99–100. 88. Al-​Qummī, Maqālāt, 56; on the date of this book, see Madelung, “Bemerkungen,” 38. 89. Yāqūt, Muʿjam al-​buldān, 4:447–48. 90. Milal, 1:193. 91. A number of passages, too many to list here, are scattered throughout Nuṣayrī literature; for some examples, see al-​Janān al-​Junbulānī, Īḍāḥ al-​miṣbāḥ al-​dāll ʿalā sabīl al-​najāḥ, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [1], Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 1, 248; Ḥusayn b. Ḥamdān al-​Khaṣībī, al-R ​ isāla al-rastbāshiyya, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma l-ʿalawiyya [2], Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 2, ed. Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2006), 30, 45. 92. For a discussion of the fragments of Kitāb al-​haft found in Nuṣayrī literature, see Asatryan, Heresy and Rationalism, 146–147. 93. Mufaḍḍal al-​Juʿfī (attr.), Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla (1981 ed.), 16–32. 94. See Ḥaqāʾiq, 74–77 and Ḥāwī, 209–12. 95. Asatryan, “Early Shiʿi Cosmology,” paragraphs 1–10. 96. Al-​Jillī, Ḥāwī, 203. 97. Paragraphs 12–13. Incidentally, the passage where this idea is expressed is almost identical with al-​Ashʿarī’s description of Hishām b. al-Ḥakam’s teaching on God’s creation of space, according to which, God “was in no space, then space emerged”: “kāna Allāh wa-​lā makān thumma khalaqa al-makān” (KA), “kāna lā fī makān thumma ḥadatha al-makān” (Hishām). See al-​Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 32; Van Ess, Theologie, 1:363, 4:72). It is difficult, however, to find any connections between the two passages. This image was borrowed by several Nuṣayrī authors, e.g., al-​Jillī, Risālat al-​fatq wa-l-ratq, Rasāʾil al-ḥikma l-ʿalawiyya [2], 315; ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥujjat al-ʿārif, Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 240. 98. Appendix, paragraph 1. 99. E.g., “ghayr manẓūr” (invisible), which is masculine singular, should have been “ghayr manẓūra”; “mubʿad ʿanhu al-aqṭār,” literally “boundaries are removed from him,” should have been “mubʿad ʿanhā al-aqṭār”; “mustatir ʿan kull mastūr” (hidden from all hidden things) should have been “mustatira ʿan kull mastūr.” 100. Steven Wasserstrom, “Sefer Yeṣira and Early Islam: A Reappraisal,” Jewish Thought and Philosophy 3 (1993): 1–30. 101. Steven Wasserstrom, “The Moving Finger Writes: Mughīra b. Saʿīd’s Islamic Gnosis and the Myths of Its Rejection,” History of Religions 25, no. 1 (1985): 16. 102. Edited by Muṣṭafā Ghālib (Beirut: Dār al-​Andalus), 91. I am grateful to Rodrigo Adem for kindly informing me of the commonality between the two texts; on Kitāb al-kashf and its possible origins, see Wilferd Madelung, “Das Imamat in der frühen ismailitischen Lehre,” Der Islam 37 (1961), 53; Fârès Gillon, “Aperçus sur les origines de l’ismaélisme à travers le Kitāb al-​Kašf, attribué au dâʿî Ğaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-​Yaman,” Ishraq 4 (2013): 91–93; Gillon, “Une version ismaélienne de ḥadīṯs imamites: Nouvelles perspectives sur le traité II du Kitāb al-​Kašf attribué à Ğaʿfar b. Manṣūr al-​Yaman (Xe s.),” Arabica 59 (2012): 486–87. 103. Modarressi, Crisis, 21–29. 104. Al-​Kashshī, Rijāl, 271.

105. Al-Ṭūsī, al-​Ghayba, 254–56. 106. Al-​Qummī, Maqālāt, 60–61; al-​Ashʿarī, Maqālāt, 16. According to al-​Baghdādī (al-​Farq, 238), the Mufawwiḍa believed that Muhammad in his turn delegated the management of the world to ʿAlī. 107. Incidentally, it is quoted by Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr himself in his Kitāb al-​mithāl, 211; see also al-​Jillī, Ḥāwī, 203, for a similar usage, and see Ḥamza b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥujjat al-ʿārif, 240. 108. Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [2], 309–19; according to the editors, it is composed by al-​Jillī (see also Louis Massignon, “Esquisse d’une bibliographie Nusayrie,” in Opera Minora 1, ed. Youakim Moubarac [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1969], 643), and although the authenticity of the epistle is not beyond doubt, it does probably date from al-​Jillī’s period, as it is mentioned in the work of a younger member of the al-Ḥarrānī family—​Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Shuʿba’s Risālat ikhtilāf al-ʿālamayn (Majmūʿat al-Ḥarrāniyyīn, 296)—without, however, mentioning al-​Jillī’s name. On Muḥammad b. Shuʿba, see Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 46. 109. Risālat al-​fatq wa-l-ratq, 315. The prominent role of al-​makān is discussed in ʿAlī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī’s Ḥujjat al-ʿārif, 240, where the entire opening paragraph is dedicated to his praise, presenting him as imperceptible to the senses, unimaginable for the minds, and as the creator of things; for other examples, see Ḥusayn b. Ḥamdān al-​Khaṣībī, al-​Risāla al-rastbāshiyya, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [2], 37, 56; al-​Khaṣībī, al-​Hidāya al-kubrā (Beirut: Muʾassasat al-​balāgh, 1411/1991), 230; Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-​Jillī, al-​Risāla al-nuʿmāniyya, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [2], 304; al-​Jillī, Waṣiyyat al-​Jillī li Abī Saʿīd, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma l-ʿalawiyya [3], Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 3, ed. Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2006), 42–43; Maymūn b. Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, Kitāb al-​dalāʾil fī al-masāʾil, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [3], 125. 110. Cf. Ignaz Goldziher, “Neuplatonische und gnostische Elemente im Ḥadīṯ,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 22 (1908): 318–19. 111. Ḥaqāʾiq’s fragment has al-​fiʿl instead of al-ʿaql (p. 72), but given the context and the similarity of the two words when spelled in Arabic, it becomes apparent that this is a scribal (or a typographical) error. 112. Appendix, paragraph 5, which is a direct translation of the Arabic as quoted in the Ḥaqāʾiq. 113. Douglas Crow, in his 1996 McGill dissertation, “The Role of al-ʿAql in Early Islamic Wisdom with Reference to Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq” (Ph.D. diss., McGill University, 1996), 5–6. 114. Ibid., 29–30; al-​Barqī, Maḥāsin, 192. The English translation of the hadith is Crow’s. 115. Or, “sustained with knowledge.” 116. Or, “enduring with sovereignty.” 117. Crow, “Role of al-ʿAql,” 202–3. 118. The translation of the Arabic is mine; it differs from Crow’s translation mainly in that I have viewed bi-l-amri (by [His] command) as describing khalaqa llāhu l-ʿaqla (God created intelligence), whereas he views bi-l-amri as describing mashīʾa (will). Although syntactically the construction I propose is awkward, as the verb and its adverbial clause are separated by the verb’s several subjects, in the context of early Islamic ideas about God’s creation by His command, this translation in my view makes more sense. On the meanings of amr in early Islamic usage, see Gregor Schwarb, “Amr (Theology),” EI3. Crow’s translation is as follows: “God created al-ʿaql consisting of four things: Knowledge, Power, Light, and the Volition of the Affair [? The causing to be by God’s amr/command?]. Thus, (God) made him performing knowledge [? undertaking/overseeing knowledge] eternally in the Celestial Kingdom” (“Role of al-ʿAql,” 203). 119. Crow, “Role of al-ʿAql,” 4. 120. Al-​Jillī, Risālat al-​fatq wa-l-ratq, 310–11. 121. Save for the one in al-​Kulaynī, al-​Kāfī, 1:437–8; al-​Barqī, Maḥāsin, 135; al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr, 1:181; and al-Ṣaffār, Baṣāʾir, 89, where the “common link” is Ḥasan b. Maḥbūb (d. 224/839). See Modarressi, Tradition, 132. 122. E.g., G. H. A. Juynboll, Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance, and Authorship of Early Ḥadīth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); for a critique of recent hadith scholarship, see Kevin Reinhart, “Juynbolliana, Gradualism, the Big Bang, and Ḥadīth Study in the Twenty-​ First Century,” JAOS 130, no. 3 ( July–September 2010): 413–44. 123. Newman, Formative Period, 51, 67, 96; Meir Bar-​Asher, Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imāmī Shiism (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 29, 33–34, 56–59.

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124. Martin McDermott, “Ebn Bābawayh (2),” EIr. 125. Modarressi, Crisis, 39. 126. Crow, “Role of al-ʿAql,” 28–37, 175. 127. On the religious milieu of Iraq in the first centuries of Islam, see Steven Wasserstrom, Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis Under Early Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 124–26; Michael Morony, Iraq after the Muslim Conquest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 277–430. 128. Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra, 216, 230. 129. Most notably, in Pseudo-​Mufaḍḍal’s Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ. 130. Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra, 210. 131. Ibid., 225. 132. Kitāb al-​akwār al-​nūrāniyya wa-l-adwār al-​rūḥāniyya, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [1], 75; the attribution of Kitāb al-​akwār al-​nūrāniyya to Muḥammad b. Sinān is problematic, as he often is referred to in the third person, which makes it appear to be a book about him rather than by him. Still, in Nuṣayrī circles it was probably known as his product, as al-Ṭabarānī mentions this in two of his works: Kitāb al-dalāʾil fī al-masāʾil, in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [3], 164, and Majmūʿ al-​aʿyād, in Rudolf Strothmann, “Festkalender der Nusayrier,” Der Islam 27 (1946): 180; see also Massignon, “Esquisse,” 642, no. 14, who attributes to Ibn Nuṣayr a work titled Kitāb al-​akwār wa-l-adwār. Despite the uncertainty of its authorship, a terminus ante quem for it can still be established, thanks to a note in the preface to the book, which says that it was narrated on the nineteenth of Ramaḍān 326/25 July 938 (p. 33). 133. Paoli, “La diffusion,” 31–33. 134. Modarressi, Crisis, 32–48. It is interesting to note that due to his missionary activities in Baghdad, al-​Khaṣībī was once jailed, and the leader of the Iraqi branch al-​Jisrī was killed; see Paoli, “La diffusion,” 25–26. 135. Saïd Arjomand, “The Consolation of Theology: Absence of the Imam and Transition from Chiliasm to Law in Shiʿism,” Journal of Religion 76, no. 4 (1996): 548–71. The emerging orthodoxy retained, however, elements of the Ghulat heritage; see Modarressi, Crisis, 43–48. 136. Marius Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des Hʾamdanides de Jazîra et de Syrie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953), 634. 137. Alexander Treiger, “The Arabic Tradition,” in The Orthodox Christian World, ed. Augustine Casiday (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 93; Kamal Salibi, Syria Under Islam: Empire on Trial, 634–1097 (Delmar: Caravan Books, 1977), 86; Stephen Humphreys, “Syria,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 1, The Formation of the Islamic World: Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, ed. Chase Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 540; Suhayl Zakkar, The Emirate of Aleppo, 1004–1094 (Beirut: Dār al-​amāna, 1971), 238–40. 138. Paoli, “La diffusion,” 27–29; Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 37. 139. Paoli states that his death date is 399/1009, but does not mention his source of information; see “La diffusion,” 26. On the other hand, al-​Jillī was seen in this same year in Aleppo; see Abū Ṣāliḥ al-​Daylamī, Kitāb majmaʿ al-​akhbār, in Majmūʿat al-​aḥādīth al-ʿalawiyya, Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī 8, ed. Abū Mūsā and Shaykh Mūsā (n.p. [Lebanon]: Dār li-​ajl al-​maʿrifa, 2008), 158. 140. He says that outwardly Jesus is a prophet and an apostle (ẓāhiruhu nabī wa rasūl), while inwardly he is God, the master of the universes (bāṭinuhu Allāh rabb al-ʿālamīn), and he explains the nature of the crucifix as symbolizing the phrase lā ilāha illā llāh (there is no god but God). Rasāʾil al-ḥikma al-ʿalawiyya [2], 289, 291. 141. Ibid., 306. 142. Maymūn b. Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, Al-​risāla al-jawhariyya, and al-Ḥāwī fī ʿilm al-​fatāwī, both in Rasāʾil al-ḥikma l-ʿalawiyya [3], 36 and 91–92. 143. Majmaʿ al-​akhbār, in Majmūʿat al-​aḥādīth al-ʿalawiyya, 57. 144. See 210 (Kitāb al-​tawḥīd), 211 (Kitāb al-​tanbīh), 216, 230 (Kitāb al-​marātib wa-l-daraj), 225 (Risālat al-​tawḥīd), 227–29 (Kitāb al-​kursī). 145. Ḥāwī, 160, 172, 176, 177, 214; some of the passages quoted here are not in the surviving original. See ibid., 215–217. 146. Ḥāwī, 203, 209–12. 147. Ḥāwī, 160, 172, 195, 214.

148. The fragment is on p. 200 of Ḥāwī al-asrār; for the other fragments of Isḥāq al-​Aḥmar’s Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ, see Asatryan, “Esḥāq ​Aḥmar Nakaʿi.” 149. The fragments are quoted on the following pages of Ḥāwī al-asrār: 170 (Kitāb maʿrifat al-bāriʾ), 171 (Kitāb ādāb al-​dīn), 194, 198 (Kitāb al-​maḥmūdīn wa-l-madhmūmīn); on the possibility of the latter book being identical with Kitāb al-​marātib wa-l-daraj, see Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥaqāʾiq, 118. 150. See Géza Fehérvári, “Ḥarrān,” EI2; Kevin van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 64–114. 151. Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bughyat al-ṭalab fī tārīkh Ḥalab, ed. Suhayl Zakkār (Beirut: Dār al-​fikr, 1988), 1:60. 152. Friedman’s suggestion that “Ḥarrān was a convenient place to spread the Nusạyrī message because it had long ago been a center of philosophy and mysticism” (Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 45)  is too speculative. 153. Al-​Amīn, Aʿyān, 5:185–86; the works are Kitāb al-​tamḥīṣ and Tuḥaf al-ʿuqūl. 154. The term kitāb used by al-Ḥarrānī is more likely to refer to individual titles of books rather than the number of volumes, which would be indicated by other terms. See Konrad Hirschler, The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 128. 155. Ḥaqāʾiq, 12. That by books in al-​tawḥīd al-​bāṭin (esoteric monotheism) Ḥasan refers to Nuṣayrī works can be inferred from the fact that the Nuṣayrīs called themselves al-​muwaḥḥidūn, “the monotheists” (Friedman, Nuṣayrī-ʿAlawīs, 24), and because it seems to be the largest single group of books. Tafwīḍ and takhmīs refer to the teachings of the Mukhammisa and the Mufawwiḍa. 156. Muḥammad b. Shuʿba l-Ḥarrānī, Risālat ikhtilāf al-ʿālamayn, 292; ‘Alī b. Ḥamza al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥujjat al-ʿārif, 243, 268–69. 157. Ribhi Elayyan, “The History of the Arabic Islamic Libraries: 7th to 14th Centuries,” International Library Review 22 (1990): 121. 158. Hirschler, Written Word, 129, 146. 159. The pages where the works are quoted in Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn are the following: Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla, 16–17, 60–62, 65–67, 108, 147–49, 150–55, 158–60, 166–67; a passage from a certain Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla wa-l-ashbāḥ al-​kabīr (63–64) is not identical with the known text of Kitāb al-​haft, indicating that either there was a work with a similar title, or that Kitāb al-​haft had a longer version (hence al-​kabīr, “large”), and see also pages 64–65; Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla, 68–69, 74–77, 157; and Kitāb al-​usūs, 15, 17–20, 40–41, 60, 133, 148, 157. 160. Kitāb al-ṣirāṭ is quoted on pages 22–23, 40–41, 42, 53, 108, 138, 141, 165, 167; Kitāb al-​tanbīh on page 45; and Bāṭin al-​taklīf on pages 36–37, 172, 174. 161. See pages 23, 77, 95, 98, 108, 157. 162. Which Ḥasan, in his own words, studied with al-​Khaṣībī; see pages 114–15. 163. Two titles are attributed to Muḥammad b. Sinān: Kitāb al-​tawḥīd, on pages 25–29, 45, 53, and 62, and Kitāb al-​dastūr on pages 46 and 55. The other titles and their page numbers are as follows: Kitāb maʿrifat al-bāriʾ, 29–30, 54; Kitāb al-​marātib wa l-​daraj, 82–83, 101, 118; Kitāb ādāb al-​dīn, 37, 117, 136, 175–76; Risālat al-​tawḥīd, 44–45; Kitāb amīr al-​muʿminīn, 123; Kitāb al-​murshid, 145; Kitāb al-​anwār, 174, and Kitāb al-​ashkhāṣ, 174–75. 164. Together with Ḥaqāʾiq asrār al-​dīn, the three treatises are published in the fourth volume of Silsilat al-​turāth al-ʿalawī, and the fragments they quote are as follows: Ḥujjat al-ʿārif, 250–51 (Kitāb al-usūs), 250, 281 (Ḥasan b. Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, Ḥaqāʾiq), 270–71 (Kitāb al-​ibtidāʾ), 273 (Kitāb al-​haft wa-l-aẓilla), 277 (Kitāb al-m ​ uqniʿ), 279–80 (Kitāb al-s​ abʿīn); Kitāb al-​uṣayfir, 196 (Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr, Kitāb al-​mithāl wa-l-ṣūra), 198–202 (Muḥammad b. Sinān, Kitāb al-​tawḥīd); Risālat ikhtilāf al-ʿālamayn, 290–91 (Kitāb al-​marātib wa l-​daraj), 293 (Kitāb al-​usus), 295 (Kitāb al-​baḥth wa-l-dalāla), 296 (Risālat al-​fatq wa-l-ratq), 300 (Kitāb al-​ashbāḥ wa-l-aẓilla). 165. This is a translation of all the surviving passages of KA. Where possible, I have tried to remain faithful to the original. In some cases, however, the faultiness of all the variants does not allow for a straightforward translation, while the absence of manuscripts (none of the editions mentions them) does not permit for a critical edition. In such cases I have simply paraphrased the Arabic, trying to convey the meaning of the original as much as possible. Where the difference in wording significantly alters the meaning, I use my preferred one, while indicating the other variants in footnotes.

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166. Ḥaqāʾiq, 71–72; Ḥāwī, 207. 167. Ḥaqāʾiq, 72; Ḥāwī, 207. 168. Ḥaqāʾiq, 72; Ḥāwī, 207. 169. The translation of the Qurʾanic passages is based on Abdel Haleem’s, with occasional changes to fit the context where needed. 170. Ḥaqāʾiq, 72; Ḥāwī, 207–8. This paragraph is partially also quoted in Ḥaqāʾiq, 41 and 45, and Ḥāwī, 203. 171. Three of the four combinations with the word “spirit” are Qurʾanic; see Sidney Griffith, “Holy Spirit,” Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, vol. 2 (Brill, Leiden, 2002), 442–44. “The spirit of he who owns the ascent,” however, is an artificial formation, taken from the combination min Allāh dhī al-maʿārij, “from God, the Lord of the ascent” (70:3), where the word “spirit” only appears in the next verse, but is not connected to dhī al-maʿārij. 172. Or “lined up.” 173. Or “lined up.” 174. Ḥaqāʾiq, 72; Ḥāwī, 208. 175. For alternative translations of the last two phrases, see the section where I discuss the aqbil adbir report. 176. Ḥaqāʾiq, 72–3; Ḥāwī, 208. 177. Or “to Himself,” if ‫ نفسه‬is vocalized as nafsihi. However, nafasihi (His breath) seems more plausible, because later on, the passage speaks of the breath (nafas) of the shadows being related to God’s breath (nafkha). I am grateful to Tzvi Langermann for this insight. 178. Both versions have ‫عقلوا‬, but this could very well be a mistake going back to an earlier variant. A possible alternative, both graphically and contextually, could be ‫( خلقوا‬khuliqū, “they were created”); in the context of Q 15:29, Q 32:9, and Q 38:72, where God creates man and breathes into him His soul, this is plausible, for both in said verses and in what immediately follows in KA, God’s breath is called with derivatives of the root n-f-kh. 179. For the translation of nafkha as “breath” of God, and for the possible Qurʾanic roots of the image, see the previous footnote. 180. Here, the reference to the mentioned three verses of the Qurʾan, about Ādam’s creation, continues (see below); however, the notion of the “first (and second) nafkha” probably refers to the blast of the apocalyptic horn in Q 39:68 (with no consideration for its context, however). 181. Ḥaqāʾiq, 73; Ḥāwī, 208. 182. Ḥaqāʾiq, 73; Ḥāwī, 208. 183. This is according to the Ḥāwī. In the Ḥaqāʾiq, the believers come third and the angels fourth; however, Ḥāwī’s hierarchy seems more logical, as the angels are above the believers, and the latter are succeeded by the unbelievers. 184. Ḥaqāʾiq, 73; Ḥāwī, 208. 185. Ḥaqāʾiq, 73; Ḥāwī, 208–9. 186. This is Ḥaqāʾiq’s version; in Ḥāwī the word appears as badʾ (beginning). َ ‫ و َذ َرا الله‬from the root dh-r-ʾ. 187. Lisān (s.v. dh-r-ā) ‫ َخ َلقهم‬:ً‫الخ ْلق َذ ْروا‬ 188. Ḥaqāʾiq, 73–74; Ḥāwī, 209. 189. Ḥāwī only has heaven. 190. In the Ḥaqāʾiq the following parts are missing: “these words were . . . His love,” and “whom Jabraʾīl . . . His command.” 191. It is not clear whether the Qurʾanic verse that follows is part of God’s address to those who stand to His left. 192. Ḥāwī’s version is “who is removed from His knowledge [maʿrifa] and from Him.” 193. Ḥaqāʾiq, 74; Ḥāwī, 209. 194. On the distinction between rūḥ and nafs, see Ian Netton, “Nafs,” EI2; the paragraph echoes Q 15:29, Q 32:9, and Q 38:72, where God breathes His spirit [rūḥ] into Ādam from the very beginning. It could either be a reinterpretation of the Qurʾanic verses, or an apocryphal story that circulated independently. 195. In Ḥāwī’s version, God divides between Ādam and his consort (zawja); in its Arabic spelling, the latter word is very easily confused with rūḥ.

196. Ḥaqāʾiq, 45; Ḥāwī, 203. 197. Ḥaqāʾiq: 45; Ḥāwī: 203. 198. Ḥaqāʾiq, 41. 199. Ibid., 168. 200. Ibid., 173. 201. Ibid. 202. Dulām or Adlam was ʿUmar’s derogatory nickname, used in early Shiite circles. See Etan Kohlberg, “Some Imāmī Shīʿī Views on the Ṣaḥāba,” Jerusalem Studies on Arabic and Islam 5 (1984): 162.

161 Shiite Underground Literature

Nine Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts The Reception of Greek Uroscopic Texts in the Hebrew “Book of Remedies” Attributed to Asaf Tamás Visi

This study analyzes a group of Hebrew uroscopic texts written between the sixth and twelfth centuries c.e. Since uroscopy is not a widely known subject, I have added some brief introductory sections treating various aspects of the history of uroscopic literature before turning to the main topic of the chapter.

The History of Uroscopy in a Nutshell Uroscopy, that is to say, the analysis of urine, had been an important method of diagnosis and prognosis in ancient Mesopotamian and Greek medicine by the time the Hippocratic writings treated some aspects of it.1 Uroscopy became the subject matter of a specific branch of medical literature during Late Antiquity.2 Byzantine medical writers, most notably Magnus of Emesa/Homs (sixth century  c.e.), Stephen of Athens (sixth–seventh century c.e.), and Theophilus (seventh century?, ninth century? c.e.), composed the first systematic monographs on uroscopy.3 Abridged versions, compendia, and shorter or longer collections of uroscopic rules appeared at the same time and were translated into other languages, such as Latin, Syriac, and Arabic, in the Early Middle Ages. Some of these texts were This paper is based on research I conducted while I was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the group “Jewish Physicians in Medieval Christian Europe: Professional Knowledge as an Agent for Cultural Change” (March–August 2012). I am glad to express my appreciation to the Institute for the excellent working conditions I enjoyed during my tenure. This research was supported by a Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant within the Seventh European Community Framework Program. This research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR standard project, n.14–19686S). I am grateful to Y. Tzvi Langermann for comments.

eventually attributed to Hippocrates and Galen.4 The influence of Arabic and Persian disseminators of Byzantine uroscopic lore reached as far as Tibet.5 During the ninth century, a Jewish physician, Isaac Israeli, dedicated a monograph to the topic (Kitāb al-​bawl, or Book of urine).6 This work was translated into Latin by Constantinus Africanus during the eleventh century and became widely influential among learned Western physicians.7 Slightly later, the uroscopic tractate of the aforementioned Theophilus was translated from Greek into Latin and incorporated into the Articella, a corpus of authoritative medical texts that emerged at the Salerno school.8 A didactic poem in Latin written by Gilles of Corbeil played an important role in spreading the Byzantine uroscopic lore in western Europe.9 Master Mauro, a central figure in the history of the Salerno school, wrote another important treatise on uroscopy during the last decades of the twelfth century. This treatise acquired immense popularity in subsequent centuries; vernacular uroscopic texts were based on it. 10 During the High and Later Middle Ages, learned physicians and professors at medical faculties produced a rich scholastic literature on uroscopy: commentaries on earlier texts, questiones, tractates, and compendia.11 Traditional uroscopy was challenged by William the Englishman in the thirteenth century and much later by Paracelsus and his followers during the sixteenth century.12 Around 1330 a Byzantine physician, Johannes Zacharias Actuarius, wrote an exhaustive monograph on the topic.13 The fate of uroscopy in early modern and modern European medical culture was bound to the fate of Galenism.14

1. Uroscopy in the Hippocratic-​G alenic Corpus of Medical Writings Uroscopic theories were based on few loci classici in the corpus of Hippocratic and Galenic writings. Since these texts were considered authoritative within the medical “literary polysystem,”15 these uroscopic passages determined the content and the style of the discourse on uroscopy to a great extent until the end of the Middle Ages. The most important texts in the corpus of writings traditionally attributed to Hippocrates are the following: Aphorisms 4.69–83; Aphorisms 7.31–35; Prognostics, chapter 12; and Airs, Waters, Places, chapter 9. These loci treat different aspects of the topic. The third text attempts to identify some characteristics of urine that help the physician comprehend the patient’s general state of health without diagnosing any particular diseases. In contrast, the first and second offer diagnostic and prognostic rules in the context of specific diseases, especially fevers and diseases of the urinary organs. The last text is a theory of kidney stones and urine. Galen wrote commentaries on all the aforementioned texts. In these commentaries he attempted to identify the principles underlying Hippocrates’s all-​too-​often enigmatic instructions. In addition, Galen offered a short summary of his views on urine in chapter 12 of the first book in his De crisibus. In the Middle Ages, mainstream uroscopic literature treated these texts by Hippocrates and Galen as a collection of authoritative statements on uroscopy. For

163 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

example, Maimonides’s discussion of uroscopy in treatise 5 of his Medical Aphorisms is a series of excerpts mainly from Galen’s commentary on Aphorisms 7.31–35 as well as Galen’s De crisibus 1.12, and a few other texts from Galen treating topics in the texts mentioned above.16 In addition to the loci classici, the Hippocratic corpus contained a number of further uroscopic texts that enjoyed less respect and received less attention; nevertheless, they could be and were sometimes utilized by later medical writers. In Epidemics I–VI, uroscopic data are often recorded though seldom interpreted explicitly. A number of diagnostic and prognostic rules are transmitted in the Coan Prenotions, a book possibly earlier than Hippocrates’s own writings.17 The Hippocratic and Galenic rules of urine analysis focus on the substance of the urine and on the sediments discernible in it. They pay much less attention to the color of the urine.18 A major innovation of Late Antique Byzantine uroscopy was its increased emphasis on the colors of urine. Magnus of Emesa, for example, distinguished six different colors of urine and described their diagnostic and prognostic values.19 Stephen of Athens received Magnus’s doctrine of the colors and added a solid theoretical basis to it by describing the physiological processes involved in urine formation.20 Theophilus invented a more refined system of twenty colors, which was to become very influential in the Latin West.21 Thus we can distinguish an earlier and a later layer in uroscopic lore. The earlier layer, represented by Hippocratic and Galenic works, focuses on the substance and sediments of urine, whereas the later layer focuses on colors. The two layers were received together in the Middle Ages—​and some works representing the later layer were eventually attributed to Galen and Hippocrates, thus attaining authoritative status. Nevertheless, the distinction between the two layers is important. It will help us in reconstructing the early history of Hebrew uroscopic literature.

2. Hebrew Uroscopic Literature: A Brief Overview

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More research is needed before a proper history of Hebrew uroscopic literature can be written. In the meantime, we must confine ourselves to some fundamental facts on the basis of Moritz Steinschneider’s monumental Hebräischen Übersetzungen and a few later studies.22 The Hebrew version of the Hippocratic-​Galenic literary system, if we may call it that, emerged during the thirteenth century through a process of translations of key medical texts from Arabic and Latin to Hebrew. As the works of Hippocrates and Galen were translated into Hebrew, the loci classici treating uroscopic lore enumerated above became accessible in Hebrew. Two great translation projects that included the classic uroscopic texts can be identified. The first is associated with an anonymous author who called himself “Doeg the Edomite” and worked between 1197 and 1199. He translated a number of medical texts from Latin into Hebrew. Doeg converted to Christianity, learned Latin, and then undertook the project of making Latin medical texts available in Hebrew.23 The corpus he translated covered more or less the Articella, the canon of medical texts

that emerged in Salerno. It is not known where he worked; some linguistic traits of Latin terms transcribed in his translation suggest that he may have worked in Provence. In addition to Hippocrates’s Aphorisms, Doeg translated two important uroscopic tractates: that of Theophilus and that of Isaac Israeli.24 The second project was realized in Rome roughly a century later. A Jewish physician called Nathan ha-​Meati translated Avicenna’s Canon from Arabic into Hebrew. In addition, he translated a number of other works by Hippocrates from Arabic into Hebrew. These included the Aphorisms (it was translated in 1283), the Prognostics, and the Airs, Waters, Places.25 His son, Shlomo ha-​Meati, translated Galen’s commentary on the latter work from Arabic to Hebrew in 1299.26 The Aphorisms was translated two more times from both Arabic and Latin into Hebrew by unidentified translators.27 Galen’s De crisibus was translated from Arabic by an anonymous Hebrew translator during the middle of the fourteenth century.28 Isaac Israeli’s Kitāb al-​bawl also circulated in a Hebrew version translated from the Arabic.29 This translation has not been dated yet; however, the Hebrew technical vocabulary suggests that it is not earlier than the middle of the thirteenth century. An abridged Hebrew version of Mauro of Salerno’s uroscopic treatise is also extant. Thus, some of the central pieces of mainstream uroscopic literature were available in Hebrew by the end of the twelfth century in translations from Latin. Other important texts were translated from Arabic into Hebrew a century later. However, there are some Hebrew uroscopic texts that seem to predate the aforementioned translations. We will call them early Hebrew uroscopic texts. This earlier layer of Hebrew uroscopic literature includes a few chapters in the Book of Remedies attributed to Asaf; an uroscopic section in Ibn Zarbala’s Sefer Shaʿshuʿim composed during the twelfth century in the Iberian peninsula; a short tract entitled The Colors of Urine by a certain Shlomo ben Abin, written probably during the last quarter of the twelfth century in northern France; and some anonymous compendia.30 A most important question is to what degree early Hebrew uroscopic texts reflect uroscopic theories and practices that are different from those in the “classical” texts.

3. Uroscopy in the Book of Remedies Attributed to Asaf 3.1. The Enigmatic Nature of the “Book of Remedies” The Hebrew text referred to as the Book of Remedies (Sefer ha-​refuʾot) or Book of Asaf (Sefer Asaf) is probably the earliest piece of Hebrew medical literature.31 Unfortunately, the most fundamental questions about date, provenance, authorship, and cultural context have not been clarified to a sufficient degree yet. Nor do we have a critical edition of the text at this moment. This is a serious drawback, since the Book of Remedies had a complicated textual history. Certain chapters are missing from certain manuscripts; in other cases, there are significant variant readings; and certain sections are transmitted both within the Book of Remedies and outside of it.32 Suessman Muntner printed a Hebrew text of the Book of Remedies in a series of articles published in Korot from 1965 to 1972.33 Muntner’s text is chiefly based

165 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

on an Oxford manuscript, which he believed to be late and of inferior quality.34 He attributed much greater importance to a Munich manuscript, which he could access only after the Second World War.35 However, Joseph Shatzmiller argues that the Oxford manuscript is much earlier than the Munich manuscript; the former should be dated to the middle of the twelfth century, and therefore, it is probably the eldest of the witnesses.36 Thus Muntner’s basing his edition on the Oxford manuscript was more fortunate than he himself believed. Nevertheless, on the basis of the Munich manuscript, Muntner added to his text some chapters missing from the Oxford manuscript; he noted some variant readings of other manuscripts as well, although the sources of the readings are often not indicated adequately. The present study is based on Muntner’s text despite its shortcomings. Ronit Yoeli-​Tlalim is working on a critical edition; when her edition is published, it is possible that the analysis presented here will need revision. The Book of Remedies is an enigmatic text for several reasons. The most important “enigmas” can be summarized thus.

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Authorship. Most of the text is attributed to a certain “Asaf, the physician,” who was “the son of Berakhyahu,” while some chapters are presented as the teaching of “Yoḥannan, the son of Zbdh [Zabda?],” who is sometimes referred to as yrḥni (meaning “from Jericho”? or “the astronomer”?). Despite the opinion of Venetianer, Muntner, and Melzer, it is likely that these names are fictional.37 However, it is not easy to comprehend what exactly the fiction implied is. The name “Yoḥannan ben Zabda” recalls a New Testament character: John, the son of Zebedee, one of the twelve apostles and the four evangelists. But why would anybody attribute a Jewish medical text to a Christian saint? Asaf ben Berakhyahu is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as an author of psalms, and some Muslim traditions claim that he was a vizier of King Solomon.38 But medical expertise was not considered to belong to his profile in either case. Elinor Lieber suggests that “Asaf ” may be an obscure or corrupted reference to Josephus Flavius, who was considered a medical expert in some Christian texts; his historical works were paraphrased in Hebrew in tenth-​ century southern Italy, and thus some authority must have been ascribed to him by Jews living there at that time. If the Book of Remedies was composed in southern Italy during the tenth century, then Lieber’s suggestion is plausible. On the other hand, there are a few references in early medieval Latin and Syriac texts to astrological books attributed to Asaf.39 Perhaps there was a whole branch of pseudoepigraphical literature transmitted in the name of Asaf in a variety of languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac), and the Hebrew Book of Remedies is the only piece extant today. If this is the case, then it is likely that the biblical sage Asaf is meant by this name. Introduction. The Book of Remedies begins with a long mythical narrative about the origins of medical science. This narrative testifies to an intimate familiarity

with an ancient para-​biblical text, the Book of Jubilees, composed probably during the second century b.c.e.40 As far as we know, the Book of Jubilees was not copied and read by Jews after 70 c.e., and its content was forgotten: almost no trace of it is discernible in the rich Jewish hagiographical literature composed in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The text was translated into Greek, but that translation is also lost; it survives only in an Ethiopic (Geʿez) version. Now the possibility that the author of the Book of Remedies consulted the Book of Jubilees in Ethiopic is fantastic, just as are the attempts to date the book to the third or fourth century c.e., when the Greek version was still available.41 So how could the author access traditions known from the Book of Jubilees? We do not know, but it is worth noting that there is more evidence of a somehow surprising familiarity of some medieval Jewish writers (most notably, Moshe ha-​Darshan in eleventh-​century Provence) with the “lost” apocryphal literature of the Second Temple period.42 Thus the enigma of the Book of Asaf has some parallels at least in this respect. Content. Most of the Book of Remedies is based on three Greek sources: (1) Hippocrates’s Aphorisms, (2) Hippocrates’s Prognostics, and (3) Dioscorides’s Materia medica. This is not surprising in itself. However, the Hebrew text shows almost no trace of Galen’s influence, and this fact sets it apart from the mainstream of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic medical literature during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.43 Thus, a comparison of the content of the Book of Remedies to the well-​known Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic medical compendia or encyclopedias of the age yields no obvious results in respect to dating and provenance. Although the Book of Remedies is certainly based on the Hippocratic tradition, the medical lore it transmits is difficult to contextualize. Models. Elinor Lieber argues that the structure (though not the content!) of the Book of Remedies is similar to two of the oldest Indian medical encyclopedias, the Caraka Saṃhitā (fourth or fifth century c.e.) and the Suśruta Saṃhitā (third or fourth century c.e.).44 Lieber argues that even stronger is the resemblance to a Tibetan medical encyclopedia entitled rGyud bzhi, which may be based on an earlier Indian text no longer extant.45 Again the question is whether the author of the Book of Medicine attributed to Asaf was indeed influenced by Sanskrit (or Tibetan) texts, and if yes, how he could access them. Lieber argues that a (hypothetical) Persian medical encyclopedia based on Indian models could have been an intermediate work between the Sanskrit and Hebrew texts. 3.2. Syriac Sources of the “Book of Remedies” The great nineteenth-​century Hungarian Jewish rabbi and scholar Immanuel Löw observed that most of the medical herbs mentioned in the pharmaceutical part of

167 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

168 Texts in Transit

the book, which is based on Dioscorides, are identified with Syriac plant names transcribed into Hebrew characters. Löw inferred from this fact that a Syriac source must stand behind this part of the Book of Remedies. A Syriac translation of Dioscorides is a natural candidate, and in fact, there is information about such a translation from the middle of the ninth century (unfortunately, this Syriac version of Dioscorides is no longer extant). Consequently, Löw dated the Book of Remedies to the tenth or eleventh century.46 Moritz Steinschneider also suggested that Syriac texts might have been the sources of other parts of the Hebrew book, without mentioning particular cases.47 Jews certainly utilized Syriac medical texts during the Middle Ages. According to a thirteenth-​century report by Gregory Bar Hebraeus, a Jewish physician called Māsarjawayh translated a Syriac medical encyclopedia composed by Ahrūn into Arabic around 684 c.e. Another important piece of evidence is a Judeo-​Syriac (i.e., Syriac written with Hebrew characters) fragment of a medical text resembling Galen’s De simplicibus, which has recently been edited by Siam Bhayro.48 Syriac texts may have been accessible to the authors of the Book of Remedies as well. Two passages which possibly evidence the influence of Syriac medical sources are presented below. It should be noted that the exact nature of the relationship between the Hebrew and Syriac texts is not easy to determine, and the importance of these findings cannot be properly evaluated until the publication of Ronit Yoeli-​ Tlalim’s critical edition. Nevertheless, these parallels confirm Löw’s and Steinschneider’s suggestions about a possible Syriac background to the Book of Remedies. The first of these passages concerns the embryology of the Book of Remedies (chapter 13 in Muntner’s edition). The author explains that the medical constitution of the embryo is determined by the constitution of the father’s sperm, which in turn is determined by the organ which dominates the production of the sperm. This depends ultimately on the time of the production of the sperm: different organs are involved in the process in different hours of the night and day. The same theory is expounded in a Syriac medical text. All the essentials are the same, although some details—​concerning the physical characteristics of each type and the enumeration of the diseases they are likely to suffer from—​are different. The Syriac text in question is a medical compendium of debated authorship edited by Jean-​Baptiste Chabot in 1965.49 Philip Gignoux attributes the text to Ahudemmeh, who was a bishop of the Church of the East (the “Nestorian church”)50 in Nisibis during the middle of the sixth century.51 This attribution has been questioned by Gerrit Reinink.52 Grigory Kessel argues that the text may contain extracts from a lost medical work by Shemon de-​Taybuteh, an important mystic and monastic author, who lived in the monastery of Rabban-​Shabur (in the vicinity of the city of Shushtar in southwestern Iran) during the 680s and 690s.53 The Syriac text reads, ܵ ‫ܕܬܖܬܝܢ ܐܘ ܕܬܠܬ ܕܐܝܡܡܐ ܘܕܠܠܝܐ ܢܬܒܛܢ ܙܪܥܐ‬ ‫ܐܢ ܒܫܥܬܐ ܩܕܡܝܬܐ ܐܘ‬ ܿ ‫ܘܗܘܐ‬ .‫ܒܡܪܒܥܐ ܢܬܬܘܣܦ ܫܘܚܠܦܐ ܕܗܠܝܢ ܬܠܬ ܫܥܵܝܢ ܥܠ ܫܘܚܠܦܐ ܕܝܠܗ‬ ܵ :‫ܘܕܬܖܬܝܢ ܘܕܬܠܬ‬ ‫ ܡܛܠ ܕܫܥܬܐ ܩܕܡܝܬܐ‬.‫ܠܗ ܡܘܠܕܗ ܚܡܝܡܐ ܘܪܛܝܒܐ‬

ܿ ‫ ܘܟܠ ܕܒܗܠܝܢ ܬܠܬ ܫܥܵܝܢ‬.‫ܣܓܐ ܒܗܝܢ‬ ‫ ܘܕܡܐ ܼܗܘ‬.‫ܫܘܚܠܦܐ ܼܗܘ ܕܕܡܐ‬ ܵ ܵ .‫ܘܐܣܛܘܟܣܘܣܝ ܦܪܝܫܝܢ ܘܝܕܝܥܝܢ ܐܢܘܢ‬ ‫ܟܐܒܘ ܘܓܘܢܵܘ‬ ‫ܡܬܒܛܢ ܘܡܬܝܠܕ‬ ܵ ܵ ܵ ‫ ܘܗܘܝܢ‬.‫ ܘܫܖܝܢܐ ܕܨܕܥܘܗܝ ܥܒܝܢ ܘܡܠܝܢ ܕܡܐ‬.‫ܘܓܒܝܢܵܘ[ܗܝ] ܥܒܝܢ ܘܝܩܝܪܝܢ‬ ܵ ܿ ܵ ‫ܘܗܘܝܢ ܟܠܗܘܢ‬ ܵ .‫ܫܖܝܢܐ ܕܦܓܪܗ ܡܠܝܢ ܕܡܐ‬ ‫ܘܡܫܬܓܫܢ‬ ‫ܥܡܘܛܢ‬ ‫ܥܝܢܵܘܗܝ‬ ܵ ܵ ‫ ܘܗܠܝܢ‬.‫ ܘܡܠܝܢ ܗܕܡܘܗܝ ܘܦܓܪܗ ܣܘܡܩ‬.‫ܘܓܘܫܡܗ ܪܒܝܨ‬ ‫ܟܐܒܐ ܓܕܫܝܢ‬ ܵ ܵ ܵ ‫ ܘܥܘܒܝܢܐ‬.‫ܕܥܝܢܐ ܘܚܙܝܪܬܐ ܕܒܩܕܠܐ‬ ‫ ܘܟܠ ܟܐܒ‬.‫ܕܒܢܚܝܖܐ‬ ‫ ܟܠ ܟܐܒ‬.‫ܠܗ‬ ‫ ܘܟܠ‬.‫ ܘܟܠ ܟܐܒ ܕܪܫܐ‬.‫ ܘܟܠ ܟܐܒ ܕܓܓܪܬܐ‬.‫ ܘܒܨܝܪܘܬ ܡܘܚܐ‬.‫ܕܦܓܪܐ‬ ܿ ‫ ܘܟܠ ܐܫܬܐ ܕܡܢ ܕܡܐ‬.‫ܟܐܒ ܕܦܘܡܐ‬ ‫ܗܘܐ ܠܗܘܢ ܀‬ If in the first, second or third hour of the day or night the seed is received in the womb, then the characteristics [lit. changes] of these three hours are added to the characteristics of [the embryo]. So his nature [molde] will be hot and humid, since the characteristics of the first, second, and third hours are the characteristics of blood, and blood increases in them. And whoever is conceived and generated in these three hours will have diseases [lit. pains] and colors and elements that are distinctive and known. His eyebrows are dense and very light;54 the blood vessels on his temples are thick and full of blood. His eyes are dark and restless and all the vessels of his flesh full of blood, and his body is compressed and his members and body are full of redness. And these diseases may occur to him: all diseases of the nose, and all diseases of the eye and swellings on the neck and tumors on the flesh and underdeveloped brain [lit. deficiency of the brain], and all diseases of the throat, and all diseases of the head, and all diseases of the mouth, and all fevers that are due to blood may occur to them.55 Compare it to the Book of Medicine, chapter 13 (ed. Muntner, Korot 3:533). The text is based on the Oxford manuscript; variant readings from other manuscripts are added in parenthesis.

‫ואם תהר האשה בתהלת היום או בתהלת הליהלה לשעה הראשונה או השנית או השל�י‬ ‫שית בין ביום בין בלילה דע כי כל תחלואות וכל אותותיו נכרים (כי משל בו הדם) וגם‬ ‫ ואלה אותות (הנולד) הנזרע בג׳ שעות האלה כי יהיו גבות עינוי (עבות וגם‬.‫מראהו נכר‬ ‫ ומצחו רף ורך ועיניו מנושפות ונפשו חדה ועזה ואמיץ כוח וגידי בשרו‬.‫עיניו) כבדות‬ ‫ כאב העינים והראש‬:‫ ואות תחלואיו‬.‫מלאים דם ורוח ורך בשר יהיה ומראהו אדמדם‬ ‫ וכל זה‬.‫ (והגרגרת)] והקדחת עם תולדות החום והלחה היורדת מן הראש‬:‫והגרון [פל׳‬ .‫מפני שירד זרע אביו בזרעו אותו ממרום הגוף ומן הראש‬ And if the woman gets pregnant at the beginning of the day or of the beginning of the night, in the first, second, or third hours whether day or night, know that all his diseases and distinctive marks [lit. and all of his signs] are recognizable (since blood dominates him) and his colors are also recognizable. And these are the distinctive marks of the (conceived) [embryo] which was ejaculated in these three hours: his eyebrows will be (thick and

169 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

also his eyes will be) heavy. And his forehead is weak and soft and his eyes are dark. And his spirit is sharp and harsh and strong, and the blood vessels of his flesh are full of blood and spirit, and [his] flesh will be soft, and his color reddish. And the signs of his diseases: pain of the eye and of the head and of the throat and fevers which originate from heat and phlegm descending from the head. All this [is so] on account of his father’s sperm’s descent from the top of the body and from the head at the time when he procreates him.

170 Texts in Transit

There are three further paragraphs following this one, both in the Syriac compendium and in the Book of Remedies, that are no less similar to each other than the passage quoted above. Each follows the same pattern: three hours of the day and night are identified when sperm is generated in a certain part of the body dominated by one of the four humors. That humor determines the embryo’s temperament, which is manifested in a number of physical properties of the body and a list of diseases he is predisposed to catch. The hours, bodily parts, and humors always match in the Hebrew and the Syriac texts; there are many parallels among the physical characteristics and diseases as well, though there are many differences, too. Although the Hebrew is not a translation of the Syriac (and vice versa), the common elements are too many to be explained away as mere coincidences. I am not aware of any Greek source parallel to the Hebrew or Syriac texts, although this does not necessarily mean that such a Greek source never existed. In any case, this example suggest that the Book of Remedies, or certain parts of it, could have been written in the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire—​or based on sources originating there. Similar conclusions can be drawn from the second example. The same Syriac source includes an anatomical-​physiological description of the human body. This section begins with a bold statement that the human body is composed of twelve members, 366 veins and 248 bones.56 An enumeration of the 248 bones and some of the veins follows. Unfortunately, the text is very corrupted; the number of bones actually enumerated is much higher than 248.57 A thirteenth-​century Syriac liturgical poet called Giwargis Warda reworked this text in a religious hymn.58 Warda probably accessed a less corrupted version of the text; in his poem the number of the actually enumerated bones is much closer to 248, although it is still more. It is also important that in Warda’s version the number of veins is 365 and not 366. Chapter 3 of the Book of Remedies declares that the human body is divisible into twelve “departments” (maḥlaqot), 248 “members” (avarim; however, in the actual enumeration the word “bone” is used), and 365 veins. Muntner notes that this passage is paralleled by a famous passage of the Mishnah enumerating 248 “members” of the body and then defining “member” as a composite of a single bone and the flesh belonging to it.59 Thus, the Mishnah implicitly says that human body has 248 bones. Another Jewish source, the so-​called Targum (Pseudo-)Jonathan, mentions 365 “nerves” ( Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: giddin) along with the 248 members of

the human body.60 The term giddin may refer to sinews and veins as well. A famous passage of the Babylonian Talmud claiming that the Torah has 365 negative and 248 positive commandments may have been meant to recall the 365 giddin and 248 members of the human body, although this is not spelled out explicitly in the text.61 Thus, it seems that the author of the Book of Remedies could derive these anatomical ideas from Jewish sources alone. However, three important considerations speak against this option. First, the Book of Remedies does not refer to the Mishnah or to any other Jewish sources. Second, a closer comparison of the list of the 248 members in the Mishnah and in the Book of Remedies reveals serious divergences.62 In other words, the Book of Remedies does not copy the list of the 248 members/ bones from the Mishnah. Third, none of the Jewish sources combines the idea of the twelve main members, 248 bones/members, and 365 giddin as the Book of Remedies does. Only the Syriac text parallels the Book of Remedies in this respect. The lists of the 248 bones in the Syriac text and in Warda’s poem are different from both the Mishnah and Asaf ’s version. Therefore, there is no sufficient evidence to prove any dependence of either the Syriac medical text or the Book of Remedies on the Mishnah, although the Mishnah probably preceded both texts by at least three centuries. In fact, the idea that the human body is composed of twelve main members, 365 veins and/or sinews, and 248 members/bones is not necessarily Jewish. It seems to me more likely that this was a medical tradition that circulated among several medical practitioners in the Near East, irrespective of faith or ethnicity. Since it has no clear parallels in Greek sources, it may be regarded as a Near Eastern tradition.63 Different versions of this tradition surfaced independently of each other in the Mishnah, the Targum (Pseudo-) Jonathan, the Syriac medical compendium, and in the Book of Remedies attributed to Asaf.64 In any case, the remarkable similarities between the book attributed to Asaf and the Syriac text confirm the hypothesis that the Book of Remedies is partly based on medical lore that cannot be derived from the corpus of Hippocratic and Galenic writings, but may go back to Near Eastern medical traditions that circulated in the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire during the sixth and seventh centuries c.e. 3.3. Uroscopy in the “Book of Remedies”: Greek Sources and Hebrew Paraphrases When we turn to the uroscopic material in the Book of Remedies, the importance of Hippocratic sources becomes manifest. There is no proof that the author of the Hebrew text used a Syriac version of the Hippocratic works; on the contrary, a comparison of “Asaf ’s” text to the only extant Syriac version of the Aphorisms suggests that the Hebrew writer never saw the Syriac text (see section 3.7 below). Nevertheless, as shall be argued in the next section, there are elements that diverge from mainstream Greek uroscopic literature. Five major collections of uroscopic rules can be identified in the Book of Remedies: Collection 1. Chapters 281–97, ed. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:439–40 (Based on Hippocrates, Aphorisms 4.69–83.)

171 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

Collection 2. Chapters 389 and 391–94, ed. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:539 (Based on Hippocrates, Aphorisms 7.31–35.) Collection 3. Chapters 427–37, ed. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:544–45 (This collection is absent in the earliest manuscripts and may easily be a later addition; see Muntner’s note on 544. Perhaps it is based on a Byzantine compendium of uroscopic rules no longer extant or yet to be identified.) Collection 4. Chapters 466–79, ed. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:550–51 (Based on Hippocrates, Prognostics, chapter 12.) Collection 5. Chapter 498, ed. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:556–62 (Yoḥannan’s tract on urine. The section begins with the title sentence: “[These are] the words of Yoḥannan on the various kinds of urine according to their differences.”) Collection 5/a. 498.1–22 (Based on “[Pseudo-]Galeni de urinis compendium,” ed. Kühn, in Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, 19:602–8 = “Sunopsis peri ourōn,” ed. Ideler, in Physici et medici Graeci minores, 2:307–10, and going back to Magnus of Emesa’s treatise on urine. A part of it seems to be close to an unedited Latin version of the same text preserved in Montecassino, ms 69.) Collection 5/b. 498.23–49 (Based on a collection of uroscopic rules appended to the aforementioned “Sunopsis peri ourōn,” ed. Ideler, in Physici et medici Graeci minores, 2:310– 16. It  shows some similarities, too, to  Pseudo-​Galen, De  signis ex urinis, ed. Moraux.)

172 Texts in Transit

The dependence of collections 1, 2, and 4 on the above-​enlisted Hippocratic sources does not require further comment. It has been long recognized that the Aphorisms and the Prognostics are two major sources for the Book of Remedies, and a simple comparison of the Greek and the Hebrew texts will convince any reader of the correctness of the data presented above. However, the dependence of collection 5 on a Pseudo-​Galenic tract on urine, which is a reworked version of Magnus of Emesa’s treatise on urine, is suggested here for the first time, to the best of my knowledge. Therefore, I will bring some arguments to establish it. First a few words about the Greek source text. Magnus of Emesa’s treatise was transmitted in several abridged versions. Three of them were eventually attributed to Galen: a compendium entitled De signis ex urinis was edited by Paul Moraux,65 and the two other texts, a longer and a shorter version of the tract entitled De urinis and De urinis compendium, respectively, were printed in Kühn’s edition of Galen’s Opera omnia. The Hebrew tract attributed to Yoḥannan in the Book of Remedies is based on

the shorter De urinis compendium. A slightly different version of the same Greek text was printed in the second volume of Ideler’s Physici et medici Graeci minores. This version includes an appendix containing various additional diagnostic and prognostic rules. Collection 5/b is basically an abridged version of this appendix. Yet another version was translated into Latin under the title Liber medicine orinalibus and attributed to a certain Hermogenes.66 This Latin version survives in a unique manuscript from the ninth century preserved in the abbey of Montecassino.67 Unfortunately, the Latin text is unedited and the manuscript is not easily accessible. A longer passage of it is translated into English in a paper by Faith Wallis. As we shall see below, this passage shares some common elements with the Hebrew version against the other two Greek versions. Therefore, it is possible that the Hebrew text is based on the Greek Vorlage of the Liber medicine orinalibus, or on a lost Syriac translation of the same book, or on the Latin text itself. Unfortunately, since I am currently unable to access the Latin text, I cannot explore this question. The first sentence of Collection 5/a, according to the Berlin manuscript, is clearly a translation of the first sentence of the Pseudo-​Galenic writing De urinis compendium (see below, where the actual texts are quoted). In accordance with Magnus’s treatise, the Greek text continues by saying that urine can be classified according to liquid and deposit (paruphistamenon).68 The Hebrew text proposes to divide urine according to liquid and to “what appears to you as a color [or appearance] which changes and which is changed.”69 This strange expression seems to be a desperate attempt to render the Greek term paruphistamenon, for which no Hebrew equivalent had been established yet. In Collections 1, 2, and 4 the Hebrew word ʿannan, “cloud,” is used to render all sorts of deposits in the urine. However, this solution could not satisfy the author of Collection 5/a, because, as we shall see, the Greek source later explains that “cloud” (nephele) is the name of only one particular type of urine. Consequently, the Hebrew ʿannan had to be preserved to render nephele, and a different translation of paruphistamenon had to be invented. The Greek text itself explains that paruphistamenon is that thing in the urine which has a “different appearance” (heteron ti emphainon)—presumably different from the rest of the liquid. The Hebrew writer saw that paruphistamenon is explained as emphainon (from the root phaino, “to appear”); consequently, he translated it as marʾeh, “appearance,” which, unfortunately, is also a term for color in Hebrew. The phrase “which changes and which is changed” tries to make sense of the adjective heteron, “different,” which qualifies emphainon in the Greek text. I doubt that the Hebrew writer comprehended the sense of the Greek text, but there is no reason to doubt that he struggled with this Greek text—​or possibly a Syriac or Latin translation of it. The Pseudo-​Galenic tract continues with establishing two further categories: consistency (sustasis) and color (chroia). Consistency is divided into “thin,” “thick,” and “medium” types, and then further subdivisions are established: (a) urine that is thin when it is urinated and remains so; (b) urine that is thin when it is urinated but turns thick afterwards; (c) urine that is thick when it is urinated and remains so;

173 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

(d) urine that is thick when it is urinated but turns thin afterwards. The text explains the possible diagnostic and prognostic values of each of these cases.70 The Hebrew text proceeds along the same lines, although it is not a translation of the Greek text.71 The sentence announcing the distinction between consistency and color seems to be corrupted. The Hebrew phrase to render sustasis (“consistency”) is mayim muglim, which probably means “water with pus” or perhaps “polluted water,” “troubled waters”; muglim is probably derived from mugla, the technical term for “pus” in Syriac medical literature.72 The term also appears in some passages of the Babylonian Talmud.73 Why did the author chose to render the Greek word with such a strange expression? Probably he wanted to combine the idea of liquidity (“water”) with the idea of some content or pollution (“pus”), which may render the liquid “thick.” After this unclear passage, the Hebrew tractate presents almost the same distinctions as the Greek: urine is divided into “thick” and “thin” types, and cases (a) through (d) are enumerated and interpreted in the same order and in the same way as in the Greek. A minor difference is that the Hebrew text fails to mention the medium type of urine, which is neither thick nor thin. The Greek text continues with analyzing the colors of the urine, and first it enumerates six kinds of colors. The Hebrew is very close to the Greek here; it can be considered a translation of the Greek. The analysis of the colors is also very similar. Let me quote one example (Kühn, 19:604; Ideler, 2:308): καὶ το μέν λευκὸν πολλὰ σημαίνει ἢ γὰρ ἀσθένειαν τῆς δυνάμεως καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῶν γερόντων καὶ τῶν χρονίων νοσημάτων ἢ δι’ ἔμφραξιν τῶν ἀγγείων ἢ διὰ πολυποσίαν. εἰ δὲ πάχος ἔχει τὸ λευκὸν σῆψιν ὠμῶν χυμῶν ἐν φλεψὶ κειμένην δηλοῖ And white [urine] may indicate many [different things]: either [it signifies] the weakness of the power, such as is the case of elderly people and those who suffer from chronic diseases, or [it is white] due to a blockage in the veins or due to much drinking. And if white [urine] is also thick it shows the putrefaction of crude humors taking place in the veins. Compare it to Book of Remedies 498.7 (ed. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:557): 174 Texts in Transit

‫ יש שתן לבן אשר יגיד על רפיון הכוח כי‬.‫השתן הלבן רבים אותותיו ומיני תהלואיו‬ ‫ ויש מן השתן הלבן אשר יגיד כי יש‬.‫רוב שתן הזקנים לבן ושתן הגופים הקרים לבן‬ ‫ ויש אשר יקרה בחולי ההוא מרוב‬.‫בגוף ההוא חולי מרוב ימים וגידי הגוף מסותמים‬ ‫ וכאשר תראה השתן עב ולבן דע כי נמס אחד היסודים אשר הגביר על‬.‫משתה היין‬ .‫הגוף ותחל הרפואה‬ White urine has many meanings [lit. “signs”] and kinds of diseases. There is white urine which indicates [lit. “tells”] the weakness of the power, because the urine of most elderly people is white, and the urine of cold bodies is

white. And some of the white urines indicate that there is a disease in that body for a longer time and the veins of the body are blocked. And some [of the white urines] occur in that sickness which is due to much drinking of wine. And if you see that the urine is thick and white, know that one of the elements [yesodim, “foundations”] which used to dominate the body has been dissolved [lit. “melted”], and healing has begun. The Hebrew is clearly based on the Greek, although it has two significant divergences. The first is the remark that “and the urine of cold bodies is white,” which has no equivalent in the Greek original. It may be explained as a gloss which entered the Hebrew text during the tenth to twelfth centuries. The idea that white color indicates coldness of the body plays an important role in Isaac Israeli’s uroscopy, and many times it is repeated in Shlomo ben Abin’s Hebrew uroscopic treatise;74 thus this remark may reflect the view of a later copyist who “updated” the Book of Remedies on this point. It is also possible that the Hebrew reflects a Greek text that was slightly different from the one printed by Kühn and by Ideler. One may not exclude the possibility that the Hebrew was not directly based on the Greek but on a Syriac or Latin version which may have contained the missing element. The second divergence concerns the last sentence. The Greek text speaks about the putrefaction of crude humors, whereas the Hebrew specifies that one of the “elements” that used to dominate the body is meant. This difference could be explained as a result of exegesis: the Jewish author thought that the “crude humors” mentioned in the Greek text referred to one of the four humors (using the term “element” to denote “humor”), which causes a disease by an abundance that disturbs the balance of the four humors. However, the available evidence suggests that the Greek text must have existed in another recension as well, which was closer to the Hebrew. The passage quoted above can be compared to Faith Wallis’s English translation of the corresponding passage in Liber medicine orinalibus, attributed to Hermogenes (unfortunately, the Latin text has not been published in any form): [F]or there are many signs and kinds of illness associated with white urine. And white urine denotes dissolution of vigour, for the urine of elderly people is often white, and the urine of eunuchs is white. And there is another white urine which denotes a weakness lasting many days, and the blockage of the body’s veins; and this illness often happens because of excessive drinking of wine. Where you see urine which is thick and white, you should know that one of the four humours is being liquefied, and that this [humour] dominates the body.75 This text is certainly closer to the Hebrew version than the two Greek texts printed by Kühn and Ideler, respectively. This may mean that (1) the Hebrew text paraphrases this Latin text; or (2) both the Latin and the Hebrew go back to the same Greek Vorlage, which is another recension of the text printed by Kühn and Ideler; or (3) these coincidences are marginal, and all in all the Hebrew and the Latin do

175 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

176 Texts in Transit

not have much in common. Further research based on the Latin original ought to be done before the priority of any of these alternatives can be established. In the continuation of the text, the same pattern is discernible. The Hebrew follows the template of the Greek, but there are significant differences, and many, though not all, of these differences are reflected in Wallis’s translation of Liber medicine orinalibus. For example, concerning yellow urine, both recensions of the Greek text say that it indicates the patient’s inability to dissolve the humor causing the disease in the veins; the Hebrew specifies the humor as red bile (mara aduma), and Wallis’s translation of the Latin says “that the body is sick because of red melancholy.”76 The Hebrew “red bile” is supposed to be the same thing as yellow bile; the phrase is probably modeled on the corresponding Syriac term mertā summāqtā. The Latin text’s “red melancholy” (red-​black bile?) does not match the Hebrew entirely, but it shows some resemblance to it inasmuch as red humor is named as the cause of the disease, as opposed to the Greek text, which omits any reference to a specific humor. The section on the colors is concluded with a brief description of healthy urine (based on Galen, De  crisibus 1.12): here the Hebrew version follows the Greek original quite closely.77 The next topic is deposit (paruphistamenon) in the urine, which ought to be analyzed in four respects: consistency, color, place, and time. The Hebrew text follows the Greek closely; paruphistamenon is rendered as marʾeh (“appearance”) again, which is quite confusing since the same term also means color and is used in that sense when the four areas of analysis are enumerated: consistency (mayim, literally “water”), color (marʾeh) place (maqom), and time (zeman). Of these four categories, only the third one, “place,” receives detailed treatment: the deposit may be visible on the top, in the middle, or on the bottom of the urine flask, respectively, and each case has different medical implications. The Hebrew follows the Greek quite closely again. The text concludes with some further remarks about “bad urines,” which indicate the deterioration of the patient’s state. The Hebrew is somehow shortened but clearly based on the Greek up to the end of the source text. However, Yoḥannan’s treatise contains a second part, which is based on an addition to the original tractate attested in the longer version of the Greek text printed by Ideler.78 This second part is a loose collection of diagnostic and prognostic rules. It begins with a description of healthy urine and then discusses deviations from the “sound” urine as pathological signs. This method of presentation resembles Galen’s De crisibus 1.12, which has a similar structure but different content. Although most of Collection 5/b is clearly based on the “appendix” printed by Ideler, some of its passages cannot be derived from that source.79 Some of the rules have parallels in other sources. Three examples: Book of Remedies 498.31 is clearly based on Hippocrates, Aphorisms 4.70. The comments on women’s and children’s urine in Book of Remedies 498.24–25 are paralleled in a Pseudo-​Galenic tract on urine based on Magnus of Emesa’s work, but different from the source text of 5​/a​.80

Book of Remedies 498.35 resembles a diagnostic rule in yet another compendium attributed to Galen and based on Magnus of Emesa’s work.81 Thus Collection 5/b, as well as its Greek source, is an eclectic grouping of uroscopic rules similar to a number of compendia that are attested in Greek and Latin manuscripts.82 The same conclusion can be drawn concerning Collection 3. Here we lack a clearly identifiable source text, but some of the rules have parallels in Pseudo-​Galenic tracts on urine. For example, Book of Remedies 431 resembles line 140 of De signis ex urinis edited by Paul Moraux. Collection 3 may be based on a Greek source that is not extant or yet to be identified, or it may have been compiled by a Hebrew medical writer. Although Collection 3 is absent from the Oxford manuscript, and thus it is possible that it is a later addition to the Book of Remedies, there is no reason to assume a date much later than Collection 5/a–b. The characteristics of twelfth-​century uroscopic literature (see below) are not recognizable in this compendium. Moreover, an early thirteenth-​century Hebrew uroscopic compendium utilizes Collection 3 along with the other uroscopic sections of the Book of Remedies (see section 4). Thus, a source nearly as old as the Oxford manuscript attests that Collection 3 was transmitted together with the other uroscopic parts of the Book of Remedies. 3.4. Uroscopy in the “Book of Remedies”: “Asaf” versus “Yoḥannan” and Hippocrates versus Magnus of Emesa Collections 1, 2, and 4 (see above, section 3.3) form an earlier layer within the Book of Remedies, whereas 3 and 5 belong to a later layer. A distinction between the two groups is indicated by the different attribution of the collections: 1, 2, and 4 are all attributed to Asaf, whereas 5 is attributed to Yoḥannan. The texts belonging to the first group are based on the Hippocratic corpus, and they do not pay much attention to the colors of urine. In contrast, the second group treats colors extensively, and the humoral theory is present in a more explicit way. As has been shown in the previous section, Collection 5/a is, in fact, a paraphrase of a reworked version of Magnus of Emesa’s tract on urine; it endorses Magnus’s classification of the six colors of urine. Thus the second group seems to reflect the innovations of sixth- and seventh-​century Byzantine physicians (see above). Thus, the differences between the content of the first group and that of the second group match the differences between the earlier and later strata of Greek/Byzantine uroscopic lore discussed above. This fact suggests that Hebrew medical writers appropriated uroscopic lore in two steps. First, the Hippocratic (but not the Galenic!) loci classici on uroscopy were paraphrased in Hebrew and attributed to Asaf. Second, the new Byzantine uroscopy of the sixth and seventh centuries came to the Jewish medical writers: a Hebrew author paraphrased an abridged and reworked version of Magnus of Emesa’s treatise on urine, and this paraphrase was augmented with some further rules of urine analysis taken from eclectic compendia. The new material was probably added to an already existing collection of Hebrew medical writings attributed to Asaf. The fact that another personality, namely,

177 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

“Yoḥannan,” was declared to be the author of the new uroscopic text indicates that the older collections, that is, 1, 2, and 4, had already obtained some authority among the circles of Jewish physicians who probably read and copied such texts. Therefore, the new texts could not be promoted as the words of Asaf; another medical authority, real or fictional, had to be called on for that role. This is why the Hebrew writer who added 5 to the collection attributed it to Yoḥannan and not Asaf. The evidence suggests that the author of 1, 2, and 4, on the one hand, and the author of 5, on the other, could hardly be the same person. Thus the attribution of 1, 2, and 4 to Asaf and the attribution of 5 to Yoḥannan possibly represent a real difference between two Hebrew writers. Both of them were able to access Greek medical texts, both of them were able to produce Hebrew paraphrases of them, and the second one could not live earlier than the sixth century c.e. It seems likely that both “Asaf ” and “Yoḥannan” belonged to the same intellectual circles, which must have consisted of a few Jewish doctors who were interested in Hippocratic medical lore but preferred Hebrew as a language of learning for whatever reasons. “Asaf ” was probably older and more conservative in his approach to medical sources than “Yoḥannan.” Were they master and disciple?83 Further research is required to decide this question. For example, the Book of Remedies contains a tract on pulses attributed to Yoḥannan.84 A comparison of this text to passages treating pulses in the parts attributed to Asaf may corroborate or refute the suggestions made above.

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3.5. Divergences Between the Greek Sources and the Hebrew Paraphrases Although the Hebrew texts are clearly based on the Greek sources, as shown in section 3.3, there are no small number of divergences. Some of them can be explained as errors of transmission. A clear example is Aphorisms 4.69 versus Book of Remedies, chapter 281.85 The Greek text specifies that the given uroscopic rule applies to patients “not without fever” (οὐκ ἀπυρέτοισι). In the Hebrew text, the rule applies “without fever” (‫)בלא קדחת‬. Another example is the Hebrew paraphrase of Aphorisms 7.31, which fails to mention the essential information, the color of the sediment indicating a certain diagnosis. It is possible that these mistakes were produced through the transmission of the text and not by the original authors. Another type of differences results from terminological problems. The Hebrew of the Book of Remedies is based on biblical Hebrew, which lacks a number of technical terms required to translate a technical, scientific text. Inventing a scientific terminology in Hebrew was a considerable challenge. In some cases, the authors of the Hebrew text failed to reach a satisfactory solution or preferred to ignore certain Greek technical terms altogether. The latter option was preferred especially in cases when a technical term was not strictly medical but rather logical or philosophical. For example, the Pseudo-​Galenic treatise on urine begins with the sentence, “There are many differences between urines (as has been stated above) according to genus and according to species.”86 This is translated into Hebrew as: “I wish to explain the kinds of the urines, because they are many, and their divisions and colors [deposits?] are many too.”87 The logical termini technici “genus” and “species” had no

equivalent in Hebrew when the Book of Remedies was composed. Nevertheless, the Hebrew writer did his best to reproduce the sense, employing the words min (kind) and maḥloqet (division) to render genus and species. However, since the author does not add any explanatory glosses to these words and the Book of Remedies does not include any section on logic, the two Hebrew words cannot be considered as terminological translations of the logical terms. In fact, maḥloqet is used in the sense “part of the body” elsewhere in the book (see above, section 3.2). The author apparently did not have the ambition to establish a recognizable logical terminology in Hebrew. The aforementioned terminological difficulties were by no means limited to logical or philosophical concepts. The Hebrew writers who produced the Book of Remedies had difficulties with rendering such terms as “chronic disease,” “crisis,” or “tertian fever.” As far as I can see, these terms are mostly circumscribed in Asaf-​ literature—​for example, chronic disease as “disease that lasts for a longer time.”88 In some cases, rare biblical words are employed as technical termini, such as timahon (see Deuteronomy 28:28) for phrenetis and triyyah or tri for pus (see Judges 15:15 and Isaiah 1:6; see also Rashi’s commentary on Judges 15:15, which contains one of the earliest references to the Book of Remedies).89 These words seems to have been so obsolete for the expected readership that the authors added Greek or Aramaic glosses to them. Thus timahon is explained as phrenetis (written in Hebrew letters) and triyyah as myglym, which is certainly to be derived from Aramaic mugla, the terminus technicus for pus in Syriac medical literature.90 Some of the divergences are interpolations highlighting the background of certain rules, which the authors of the Book of Remedies saw necessary to add, assuming that the Jewish reader was not familiar with the overall cultural context of the Hippocratic writings. Thus, the Hebrew paraphrase of the very first uroscopic rule in the Aphorisms begins with stating that “every man, if he urinates into a flask and you see urine that is thick. . . .”91 The corresponding Greek text (Aphorisms 4.69) has nothing similar; the Jewish medical writer’s purpose in adding this remark was to highlight the pragmatic background of uroscopic analysis. Similarly, Aphorisms 4.71 briefly states, “In cases that come to a crisis on the seventh day, the patient’s urine on the fourth day has a red cloud in it, and other symptoms accordingly” (trans. Jones).92 In the Hebrew paraphrases, more background information is given, but some of the technical vocabulary of the Greek original is poorly rendered or omitted altogether: “If a man has fever, and he shows his urine to you on the fourth day, and the urine is reddish and clean and transparent, know that he will be healed after seven days have passed.”93 It is remarkable that the Hebrew author preferred to omit such a basic term of Hippocratic medicine as “crisis.” 3.6. Non-​Galenic Hippocratism The most interesting divergences between the Greek source texts and the Hebrew paraphrases are those which reflect specific interpretations of the Hippocratic and post-​Hippocratic writings. Some of these implicitly or explicitly present interpretations and textual variants which have parallels in Late Antique medical literature.

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A general pattern is observable: the Book of Remedies tends to follow variant readings and interpretations that are mentioned but rejected by Galen or that are unrelated to his commentaries on the Hippocratic texts.94 This is not surprising in light of the more general observation that the Book of Remedies does not rely on specifically Galenic medical ideas and texts (see section 3.1 above). Let us examine some examples. Aphorisms 4.69 describes urine that is “thick, full of clots [θρομβώδεα], and scanty.”95 The adjective θρομβώδεα is derived from the word θρομβους, meaning “clot”; hence it is translated “full of clots” by W. H. S. Jones. However, this is not how Galen understood the text. Galen argues that the adjective refers to the small quantity of the thickness of the urine and he criticizes those who understand the phrase as referring to deposits visible in the urine.96 Had Hippocrates written “thick and scanty,” Galen argues, no essential information would have been missing from the text.97 The extant Syriac translation of the Aphorisms upholds Galen’s approach and translates only the adjectives “thick” and “scanty.”98 As opposed to this exegetical tradition, the Hebrew paraphrase in Collection 1 translates θρομβώδεα as “and oil in it [i.e., in the urine] and its appearance is like dips of blood” (‫ושמן בו כמראה כטפות‬ ‫ ;)דם‬this is clearly an attempt to render the Greek adjective in the literal sense.99 Thus, it seems that the Hebrew text follows the tradition that was rejected by Galen. In Aphorisms 4.76, Galen proposed a textual emendation: instead of “small pieces of flesh-​like hairs” ( Jones) he read “small pieces of flesh-​like things or hair-​ like things.”100 Galen explains that Hippocrates had in mind two different types of deposits in this aphorism—​flesh-​like and hair-​like deposits—​and it is an error to interpret the passage otherwise. The same emendation is adopted by subsequent commentators, such as Stephen of Athens, and Theophilus.101 The Syriac translation follows this emendation too.102 However, the Hebrew paraphrase does not; it mentions only one kind of deposit, which is flesh-​like and hair-​like.103 In Aphorisms 4.79, Galen remarks that the text is mutilated and one should add “and the kidneys” to the end of the aphorism.104 Stephen of Athens and Theophilus comment on Galen’s emended text.105 However, neither the Syriac translation nor the Hebrew paraphrase contains this addition.106 Similarly, in Aphorisms 7.35, Galen mentions that in the manuscripts both the readings ἐπίστασις (“scum” that is located on the top of the urine within the flask) and ὑπόστασις (“sediment” that is located on the bottom of the flask) are attested, but the latter is to be rejected because the phenomena described by Hippocrates in this aphorism appear always on the top of the urine in the flask.107 The Syriac version translates the text in accordance with Galen’s opinion.108 However, the Hebrew text has ‫( ענן‬cloud) in the corresponding passage (Book of Remedies 394), which is the usual translation of ὑπόστασις throughout Collections 1, 2, and 4; therefore, it seems likely that the Hebrew text is ultimately derived from a Greek text which had ὑπόστασις.109 It is worth noting here that three of the oldest manuscripts used in the Loeb edition of the Aphorisms also read ὑπόστασις.110 In a number of cases, the Hebrew paraphrase adds interpretative remarks that cannot be plainly derived from Hippocrates’s texts or from Galen’s commentaries,

and in most cases they have no parallels in other extant commentaries on the Aphorisms, either. For example: Aphorisms 4.73: “When there are swelling and rumbling in the hypochondria, should pain in the loins supervene, the bowels become watery, unless there be breaking of wind or a copious discharge of urine. These symptoms occur in fevers.” (trans. Jones)111 Book of Remedies, 285: Every urine, which is oily, troubled, dirty, and thick, if the “owner” of the urine tells you that his loins hurt, then it is expectable [lit. “correct”] that the disease [consisting] of the bowels becoming watery will begin, and coldness of phlegm will also dominate him as well as strong chill. And all this is [valid], if there is fever.112 The divergences between the Greek and the Hebrew are many. Some of the elements of the Greek are not represented in the Hebrew at all (such as “swelling and rumbling in the hypochondria”), whereas other elements of the Hebrew cannot be derived from the Greek (for example, “coldness of phlegm will also dominate him”). It is not difficult to explain the omissions from the Greek source text: we have seen above numerous cases in which the Hebrew writers preferred to omit passages that were too difficult to translate. It is more difficult to explain the new elements of the Hebrew text. One may speculate that a medical writer possessing some competence in Hippocratic writings could infer that patients suffering from fever have an excess of phlegm, and the latter humor, being cold, may chill their bodies. The same medical writer may have inferred that “rumbling in the hypochondria” is due to some aeriform matters there, and the same aeriform matters may appear in the urine and make it look troubled and dirty by not allowing the deposit to settle. Thus the author of the Hebrew text may have inferred these ideas and then preferred to reshape the text according to his interpretation when paraphrasing Aphorisms 4.73 to translate the text into Hebrew. Two more remarks are necessary. First, it is also possible that the interpretation was read in a book or heard from a master, or that the source text was different from the textus receptus of Hippocrates’s Aphorisms. Second, the interpretation implied in the paraphrase is not related to Galen’s commentary on the Aphorisms, nor is it related to Stephen’s and Theophilus’s commentaries.113 It is a piece of Hippocratic exegesis that stands alone. Another example from Collection 4, which is based on Hippocrates’s Prognostics, chapter 12, is relatively unproblematic: Prognostics, chapter 12: “So long as the urine is thin and of a yellowish-​red colour, it is a sign that the disease is unconcocted; and if the disease should also be protracted, while the urine is of this nature, there is a danger lest the

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patient will not be able to hold out until the disease is concocted.” (trans. Jones)114 Book of Remedies, chapters 471–72: And if you see that the urine is very much red, and it is thin—​there is no oily dirt in it—​until that disease [becomes] harsh, and [then] he cannot subdue it, because it [i.e., the disease] stands in its strength. And if the urine continues to be red and thin, know that his disease has defeated him and it will dominate the body until it has no strength to stop the power [of the disease].115 We can observe that the Hebrew author has not attempted to represent the Hippocratic idea of “concoction of disease” (or its failure) at all; he just explains that the disease will be harsh and the patient will not recover, but he omits any reference to the underlying medical theory. On the other hand, the Hebrew writer adds a gloss explaining that “thin” urine means that there is no oily deposit in it, and he cares to repeat that the urine continues to be “red and thin” a second time, when the Greek original says only “while the urine is of this nature.”116 There are some other cases in Collection 4 when it is not entirely clear how the novel elements of the Hebrew text are to be explained. For example, in Book of Remedies, chapter 469 we read about shiny deposits, like pieces of glass or scales of fish, on the top of the urine, while nothing corresponds to this in the Greek text, as far as I can see. Further research is needed to clarify the relationship of these passages to the Hippocratic texts.

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3.7. Further Considerations on the Linguistic Background, Dating, and Provenance of the “Book of Remedies” Summarizing the results of the previous sections, we can formulate some hypothetical statements about the authors of the Book of Remedies. The greatest challenge we encounter is still the uncertainty about the provenance and time of the composition (see section 3.1 above). Elinor Lieber has brought evidence pointing to tenth-​century southern Italy, which was under Byzantine rule in those days. That would mean that the Book of Remedies belongs to the same cultural context as Sefer Yosippon (a Hebrew historical compendium going back to the works of Josephus Flavius) and the medical and scientific works of Shabbatai Donolo.117 As we have seen in section 3.3, a portion of the uroscopic rules in the Book of Remedies seems to be closer to a Latin compendium attested in a unique manuscript from the ninth century preserved in the monastic library of Montecassino than to any of the known Greek versions. This fact corroborates Lieber’s hypothesis about the southern Italian origin of the Book of Remedies, although further research comparing the Latin original of the Montecassino manuscript to the Book of Remedies is warranted. On the other hand, there is evidence suggesting that certain parts of the book, most notably the part on materia medica and the chapter on embryology, are

dependent on Syriac sources. For the uroscopic passages, no Syriac source can be identified at this moment, but this might be due to the fact that a sizable portion of early Syriac medical texts are lost. Nevertheless, a few indicators of a possible Aramaic background of the Hebrew text can be identified. The phrases ‫ ברום השתן‬,‫ במרום השתן‬,‫ מרום השתן‬all mean “on the top of the urine [i.e., within the urine flask]” in the uroscopic passages of the Book of Remedies.118 These Hebrew phrases seem to reflect the preposition ‫מרום‬ (on the top of) in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.119 It has been mentioned above that two Hebrew neologisms (mayim muglim, “water with pus,” and mygl) are based on mugla, the technical term for pus in Syriac medical literature. This word appears in a few passages of the Babylonian Talmud as well; however, there is no clear evidence, to the best of my knowledge, for any relationship between the Book of Remedies and the Babylonian Talmud. Therefore, it is more reasonable to suspect the influence of Syriac medical terminology here than that of Babylonian rabbinic literature. It has also been mentioned that the Hebrew term for yellow bile, mara aduma (lit. “red bile”) is possibly a calque from Syriac. Another candidate is the Hebrew phrase translating Greek νεφριτικά (“disease of the kidneys”; trans. Jones) in Aphorisms 7.34 and 35. In both cases, the Book of Remedies writes “pain of the kidneys” (‫)כאב הכליות‬, which seems to be based on Syriac ‫ܐ‬ ‌ ‫( ܚܫܐ ܕܟܘܠܝܬ‬pain of the kidneys), appearing ܵ in the Syriac translation of the Aphorisms (7.34: ‫ܕܟܘܠܝܬܗܘܢ‬ ‫“[ ܚܫܐ‬pain of their kidneys”]; 7.35:‫“[ ܚܫܐ ܚܪܝܦܐ ܒܟܘܠܝܬܐ‬strong pain in the kidneys”]).120 The terminology is possibly influenced by Syriac, although the Hebrew text is not related to the only extant Syriac translation of the Aphorisms—and to this point we will now turn. In his famous epistle on the Syriac and Arabic translations of Galen’s works, Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq mentions two Syriac translations of Galen’s commentary on the Aphorisms: the first is that of Job of Edessa (early ninth century), and the second is an improved version of the first by Ḥunayn himself.121 These translations of the Galenic commentaries must have included the Hippocratic text as well. A unique manuscript containing an anonymous Syriac version of the Aphorisms was discovered and edited by H. Pognon in 1903. This is the only extant Syriac version of the Aphorisms today. Rainer Degen argues that this text probably represents Ḥunayn’s translation.122 The Hebrew text does not seem to be related to the Syriac translation of the Aphorisms at all. For example, the Greek verb σημαίνει (indicates) is routinely translated as ‫ ܡܫܘܕܥ‬throughout the Syriac text, which is a participle in a causative stem of the root ydʿ (to know), so it literally means “making something known.” It would have been very convenient for the author of the Book of Remedies to translate this Syriac phrase as ‫מודיע‬, which is an analogous construction in Hebrew from the same verbal root and having the same meaning. However, in the Book of Remedies we find the nominal construction ‫[“ אות ל‬is] a sign of,” which is understandable as a translation of σημαίνει, but not as a translation of the Syriac phrase. I have not been able to find any link between this particular Syriac text and the Book of Remedies. This fact does not preclude the possibility that the terminology of the Hebrew text was influenced by Syriac or that some other Syriac texts were utilized by the Hebrew authors.

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The Hebrew of the uroscopical passages exhibits a link to rabbinic texts composed in Palestine during the Byzantine period or slightly later. The Greek word ὠχρόν (pale) in the Pseudo-Galenic De urinis compendium (Kühn, 19:604) is rendered into Hebrew in Collection 5/a as mekhurkam (‫“[ מכורכם‬saffron-like”]; 498.6) and ke-mar’e ha-kurkum (‫“[ כמראה הכורכום‬like the color of saffron”]; 498.8). These phrases seem to reflect Syriac kurkāmā ‫ ܟܘܪܟܡܐ‬or Arabic kurkum ‫—كركم‬both meaning saffron.123 One may doubt the adequacy of this translation, since saffron is usually associated with a much more intensive shade of yellow than paleness. However, the phrase panim mekhurkamot in the sense of “pale faces” is attested in Genesis Rabba (parasha 99), a work composed in Palestine during the fifth or sixth century c.e.124 The root krkm in Nitpaʿel is attested in the sense “to become pale” in other rabbinic writings of the same period and provenance.125 Thus, the choice of this Hebrew word to render Greek ὠχρόν is understandable if we assume that “Yoḥannan,” the author of Collection 5/a, belonged to the same cultural and linguistic community as the Jews living in Palestine during Byzantine or Umayyad or early Abbasid times. These findings make Elinor Lieber’s theory about the southern Italian origin of the book less likely, although they are far from being sufficient to refute it. First of all, there is evidence for Syriac-​to-​Latin translations of Christian theological texts during the middle of the fifth century c.e.—Tatian’s famous gospel-​harmony, the Diatessaron, being one of the possible examples.126 Thus, the possibility that Syriac medical texts were translated into Latin, or at least were accessible in Italy during the fifth and sixth centuries, cannot be excluded. If “Asaf ” and “Yoḥannan” were Aramaic-​speaking Jews from Palestine or Syria, they could still write their books in southern Italy; the connections between Jews living in southern Italy with the Jewish communities of the land of Israel were strong in this period. The difficulties about the date of the Book of Remedies also remain unresolved. The fact that Collection 5/a is based ultimately on the uroscopic treatise of Magnus of Emesa means that the Book of Remedies cannot be older than the sixth century c.e. The aforementioned parallels with Syriac medical texts from the sixth or seventh century point to the same period. An advantage of the earlier dating is that it allows us to suppose a link between the authors of the Hebrew Book of Remedies and the works of Hellenistic Jewish physicians. Unfortunately, we do not have medical texts written in Greek by Jewish physicians, but we know that such texts existed.127 The Neoplatonic philosopher Damascius, of the first half of the sixth century, mentions a Jewish physician called Domnus who wrote commentaries on the works of Hippocrates (!) in Greek.128 If the Book of Remedies is dated to the sixth or early seventh century, then it is possible that it is a Hebrew continuation of a previously Hellenized Jewish medical literature in Greek. Domnus or similar Jewish physicians could be the masters who taught “Asaf ” and “Yoḥannan” Hippocrates’s Aphorisms, Prognostics, and other texts.129 We also know about a Jewish physician called Māsarjawayh who translated a medical encyclopedia from Syriac to Arabic around 684 c.e. in Syria.130 Thus, Jewish physicians studying Syriac texts during the Umayyad period were not unknown,

and such physicians may have transmitted medical lore from Syriac sources to the authors of the Book of Remedies. On the other hand, a much later dating to the ninth or tenth century cannot be dismissed either. An advantage of a later dating is that it allows us to suppose that the Jewish authors used the (no longer extant) Syriac version of Dioscorides dating to the middle of the ninth century. It is then also easier to explain the close resemblances between Collection 5/a and the Liber medicine orinalibus attributed to Hermogenes, which is preserved in a unique manuscript from the ninth century. In any case, Collections 1, 2, and 4 did not have many connections to the mainstream of Galenic commentary literature. The teachers of the first Hebrew medical writers, whether they were Jews or Gentiles, Greek or Aramaic speakers, were probably in a marginal position within the medical scholarship of their age. They transmitted to “Asaf ” and “Yoḥannan” texts, variant readings, and explanations that were disregarded or discredited in the general Galenic-​Hippocratic medical tradition. On the basis of its uroscopic sections, it seems that the Book of Remedies preserved some of these marginalized elements of ancient Greek medical lore and transmitted them to medieval Jews living in western Europe.131

4. On the Reception of the Book of Remedies in Northern France: The Evidence of ms Paris 1129 The Book of Remedies was received, studied, copied, and used in medical practice by Jewish physicians in Germany at the turn of the thirteenth century, as has been proved by Joseph Shatzmiller.132 Thus, the Book of Remedies transmitted a medical lore that originated in the Byzantine empire or its former eastern provinces during the sixth to tenth centuries to western European Jewish physicians in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the following, we will briefly characterize the reception of the uroscopic sections of the Book of Remedies on the basis of an early thirteenth-​ century Hebrew manuscript copied in northern France. ms Paris 1129 is a Hebrew manuscript containing the Book of Remedies and various other medical texts, among them no fewer than four anonymous compendia of uroscopic rules. The manuscript was copied in northern France during the first quarter of the thirteenth century. By that time, “Doeg the Edomite” had finished his Hebrew translations of medical texts; thus, in principle, Hippocrates’s Aphorisms and the important treatises by Isaac Israeli and Theophilus were accessible in Hebrew (see section 2 above). However, as we shall see, the compendia contained in ms Paris 1129 were not influenced by Doeg the Edomite’s translations. The following uroscopic tracts can be distinguished within the manuscript, none of them being attributed to an author: (1) untitled, fols. 1r–8r; (2) Remedies from the Uncircumcised Sages of Montpellier, fols. 44v–47v; (3) The Colors of Urine; fols. 47v–49v and 58r; and (4) Twelve Chapters on the Colors of Urine, fols. 53v–56v. The only author quoted explicitly in these texts is Isaac Israeli. He is mentioned at the beginning of The Colors of Urine and credited with instructions about how the

185 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

urine should be taken from the patient. These instructions indeed correspond to what Israeli writes about this topic in the first chapter of his book. Nevertheless, the influence of Isaac Israeli on the uroscopic texts in this manuscript seems to be rather marginal. We will return to this point later. 4.1. Contemporary Christian Sources The uroscopic texts in the manuscript are taken from three clearly identifiable sources: the Book of Remedies attributed to Asaf; a uroscopic tract by Shlomo ben Abin, who lived in northern France during the second half of the twelfth century; and oral or written communication with contemporary Christian doctors in the vernacular. The last layer of the material is easily discernible by the presence of Old French glosses and terms that are characteristic of Salernitan medicine. These features dominate the text called Remedies from the Uncircumcised Sages of Montpellier, which is based on the teaching of Christian physicians from that area. But they appear in the first (untitled) text as well. A most remarkable passage shows close parallels to Mauro of Salerno’s Regulae urinarum. Words italicized in the English translation indicate technical terms of Latin origin that are transliterated in Hebrew characters but not translated into Hebrew in the original text:

‫שתן שוסיטירינא ועבה בכל בשוה קדחת קוטדיאינא מפלאמא נטוריל ויש לו כאב‬ ‫בחלצים ובראש ועצלות איבריו זרוק בפיו ובכל שעה מג׳ שעות ולמעלה מהלילה בקור‬ ‫ואחר כך מחמם‬ [If] the urine is of light yellow [color] and thick in a uniform way [lit. “everywhere and equally”], [then the patient suffers from] quotidian fever [caused] by natural phlegm. So he will have pain in the loins and in the head and passivity in his members, and [there will be] saliva in his mouth, and he will be cold every hour from three o’clock on in the evening and after that he will be hot.133 This can be compared to Regulae Urinarum Magistri Mauri, in Collectio Salernitana, ed. Renzi, 3:10:

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Urina igitur in colore subcitrina, in substantia per totum et equaliter spissa sine lividitate, quotidianam significant de flegmate naturali. Ille ergo, vel illa, cujus est talis urina, quantum est in colore et substantia ipsius urine, nocte qualibet a tertia ora noctis in antea predictis sinthomatibus debet infestari, primo frigore, deinde calore. If the urine has light yellow color, and its substance is thick everywhere and equally and without bluish grey [color], then it signifies quotidian [fever caused] by natural phlegm. He or she, who has such a urine, as far as the urine is of [such] color and substance, will suffer from the aforementioned

symptoms during the night from the third hour of the night; first from coldness [he/she will suffer] and then from heat. The term “natural phlegm” (‫[ פלאמא נטוריל‬flemma naturel]) plays no role in the Book of Remedies or in its identifiable Greek source, but it is important in the uroscopic treatise of Mauro of Salerno. It is worth noting that the death of Mauro of Salerno is estimated to 1214; thus the Hebrew manuscript is contemporary or nearly contemporary with Mauro’s activity. Joseph Shatzmiller has already identified a comment in the Oxford manuscript of the Book of Remedies indicating that Jewish physicians may have learned medical information from Mauro.134 This passage corroborates that this was indeed the case. 4.2. Shlomo ben Abin’s Uroscopic Tract Layer (b) is identifiable in two steps. First, a simple comparison to a uroscopic tract attributed to a certain Shlomo ben Abin in a fifteenth-​century Ashkenazi manuscript shows that substantial parts of the uroscopic texts in the Paris manuscript are slightly different recensions of the same tract.135 Thus, the question is whether Shlomo ben Abin’s text is dependent on the anonymous compendia in the Paris manuscript or vice versa. This question can be decided by comparing the uroscopic texts to another medical compendium transmitted in the name of Shlomo ben Abin.136 The authorship of Shlomo ben Abin can be established through the following arguments. First, direct addresses to the readers (“when you see that . . . ,” “you should know that . . . ,” “I will explain it to you in its proper place”) are frequent in the uroscopic tract, just as in the medical compendium. Second, in the medical compendium the author announces twice that he will write a uroscopic tractate.137 Third, the same thematic interests are observable in the two texts. The medical compendium describes the four basic temperaments (sanguinic, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic) and the uroscopic treatise focuses on the same topic. Finally, both the medical compendium and the uroscopic tract are more theoretical than practical in their orientation. The author’s main purpose is to understand how the four basic temperaments are recognizable, rather than to treat particular diseases. The strategy of interpreting the evidence is also similar in the two texts: the author attempts to uncover a combination of two of the four elementary qualities (cold, hot, dry, humid), and then to identify any of the four humors on the basis of the elementary qualities.138 Thus, the uroscopic tract follows the same literary and thematic program as the medical compendium of Shlomo ben Abin. On the other hand, it does not share these characteristics with other texts in ms Paris 1129. Three conclusions follow: (1) the uroscopic tract was indeed written by Shlomo ben Abin; (2) the anonymous compendia in the Paris manuscript draw from Shlomo ben Abin’s work, and not vice versa, and (3) Shlomo ben Abin must have written his work before ms Paris 1129 was copied, that is to say, before the beginning of the thirteenth century. The

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last conclusion corroborates Steinschneider’s hypothesis that Shlomo ben Abin is identical with a liturgical poet called Shlomo ben Abun who was active in northern France during the last quarter of the twelfth century.139 Shlomo ben Abin’s uroscopic rules follow the same pattern: (1) he identifies the color and the consistency of urine; (2) he decodes them as signs of elementary qualities; (3) he identifies one of the four basic humors on the basis of those qualities; and (4) he enumerates the diseases that may be caused by that humor. There are two theoretical assumptions behind this method. The first is the classical theory of the four humors’ corresponding to four combinations of qualities: blood is hot and humid, phlegm is cold and humid, yellow/red bile is hot and dry, black bile is cold and dry. The other is a rather schematic semantic code of colors and qualities of urines: white urine indicates that the patient’s body is cold, red urine indicates that it is hot, thick urine means that it is humid, thin urine means that it is dry. Thus, the four possible combinations of red/white colors and thick/thin consistencies will indicate four possible combinations of qualities, and thus four humors: Red + thick = hot + humid = blood Red + thin = hot + dry = red bile White + thick = cold + humid = phlegm White + thin = cold + dry = black bile For example, Shlomo ben Abin explains red and thin urines this way:

‫בראותך השתן אדום ודק בלי עבות ובלי עכור תדון כי חליו מן המרה האדומה והיא‬ ‫קולרא רוביא האדום זהו הדם [צ״ל החם] והדקות הוא היובש וכן המרה האדומה חמה‬ ‫ויבישה ותדון בו חולי הראש עם קדחת שלישית או שאחזתו חמה וכאב הלב ועצירה‬ .‫וחולי המתנים והברכים ויובש הכבד וצמא ברוב‬

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When you see that the urine is red and thin without thickness and murk, conclude that his diseases are due to red bile, which is cholera rubea. The redness is heat, and the thinness is dryness, and thus the red bile is hot and dry. And you can conclude that he has diseases of the head with tertian fever, or that heat takes him and pain in the heart, and strangury, and disease of the hips, and the knees, and dryness of the liver.140 Similar rules are constructed indicating the presence of the rest of the humors and of combinations of two humors in the continuation of the text. It should be emphasized that this schematic decipherment of the color and consistency of urine does not appear in the Book of Remedies or its sources. It is definitely a later development than the uroscopic lore in the works of “Asaf ” and “Yoḥannan.” The origin of this semantic code is unclear. The earliest evidence I am aware of is a short section in Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ al-​Rāzī’s (854–925) medical compendium, Kitāb al-Ḥāwī. In the Latin version it is quoted in the name of chamec filius tayp,

meaning probably Aḥmad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-​Sarakhsī, who died in 899 c.e. in Baghdad.141 In the Arabic original it is quoted from “the book of Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Ṭabīb.”142 The latter is either an otherwise unknown medical writer, or an alternative name of the former.143 Further attestations of the same semantic code are two obscure uroscopic compendia in a fifteenth-​century Greek manuscript.144 Both texts are in Greek, but the first is claimed to be a translation from Syriac and the second from Persian. The original Syriac and Persian versions of these texts may have originated in the ninth or tenth centuries, although this cannot be proven at this moment. The possible relation of these texts to Shlomo ben Abin’s uroscopical tractate needs further research. In any case, the most likely possibility is that Shlomo ben Abin encountered these semantic principles in the fifth chapter of Isaac Israeli’s treatise on urine.145 Nevertheless, the two Jewish physicians differ in the way they utilize these principles: for Isaac Israeli, they belong to the theoretical background of uroscopy but play little role in actual diagnosis and prognosis, whereas for Shlomo ben Abin they are the quintessence of uroscopy. Salernitan uroscopic literature shares Isaac Israeli’s approach: the semantic code is well known, but it plays little role in particular diagnostic and prognostic rules.146 On the other hand, despite these innovations, Shlomo ben Abin’s work is based on the Book of Remedies in many respects. The treatise ends with a compendium of uroscopic rules copied from Collections 4 and 3 in the Book of Remedies.147 It is possible that the purpose of this part was to augment the theoretical main body of the text with some practical guidance. As has been mentioned, most of Shlomo ben Abin’s work discusses rather general, theoretical, and vague principles, which are of little use for practicing physicians. It seems that when Shlomo ben Abin wanted to include more practical rules for uroscopic analysis, he returned to the Book of Remedies rather than basing himself on Isaac Israeli or contemporary Latin sources. This is all the more surprising since Shlomo ben Abin never quotes the Book of Remedies, but he claims that his work is based on Hippocrates, Galen, and Isaac Israeli, the “fancy” medical authorities of the twelfth century.148 However, it seems that Shlomo ben Abin had only a limited knowledge of the works of these authorities. He certainly appropriated the Galenic theory of the four temperaments, but his treatment of the topic is rather rudimentary. What he knew of Hippocratic uroscopy, he knew from Collection 4 of the Book of Remedies (based on Prognostics, chapter 12). As has been mentioned above, the first chapter of the uroscopic tract indeed reproduces some of Isaac Israeli’s instruction about when and how to take urine from the patient, and the “semantic code” Shlomo ben Abin utilizes may have come from Isaac’s work as well. Nevertheless, most of the content of Isaac’s work is not represented in Shlomo ben Abin’s tract. Thus it is likely that he had only a superficial familiarity with Isaac Israeli’s uroscopic treatise. The terminology used all over in Shlomo ben Abin’s uroscopic tract is that of the Book of Remedies. This might have been a reason for a curious development in the transmission of that text: in one manuscript, Shlomo ben Abin’s treatise is

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transmitted in the name of Yoḥannan, one of the supposed authors of the Book of Remedies.149 Returning to ms Paris 1129, a comparison of the four texts to Shlomo ben Abin’s treatise shows that texts 3 and 4 are slightly reworked versions of his uroscopic work. Text 1 also includes a slightly abridged version of Shlomo ben Abin’s uroscopic treatise. Thus, Shlomo ben Abin’s work is attested in three slightly different and abridged versions in this single manuscript.

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4.3. Uroscopic Collections from the “Book of Remedies” in ms Paris 1129 Text 1 is the longest and most complex uroscopic compendium in ms Paris 1129 (fols. 1r–8r). As has been mentioned above (section 4.1), some of its passages reflect contemporary Christian uroscopy; they have many Old French glosses. On folios 2v through 5r we find the abovementioned abridged version of Shlomo ben Abin’s uroscopic tract; nothing within the manuscript indicates that this is an independent unit. The remainder of the text is simply copied from Collections 1, 3, 4, and 5 of the Book of Remedies. Only Collection 2 (based on Hippocrates’s Aphorisms 7.31–35) is not utilized, for reasons that remain unclear. The compiler was more interested in practice than in theory; this is especially evident in the way Collection 5/a was epitomized. It should be recalled that the original text in the Book of Remedies is a Hebrew paraphrase of an abridged version of Magnus of Emesa’s uroscopic treatise. Besides diagnostic and prognostic rules, it contains some more theoretical passages about the taxonomy of signs observable in urines (see section 3.3 above). These passages are all ignored in text 1 of the Paris manuscript. The text of the Book of Remedies is abridged sometimes; rhetorical elements, such as direct addresses to the reader (e.g., “you should know that . . .”) are often omitted. The compiler wanted to reproduce the relevant uroscopic information and not the rhetorical niceties of the source text. Therefore, it seems likely that the manuscript was copied for pragmatic purposes. If this is the case, then we can conclude that Jewish doctors probably used the uroscopic rules transmitted in the Book of Remedies in diagnosing patients at the beginning of the thirteenth century in northern France. This result is hardly surprising in light of Joseph Shatzmiller’s studies on Jewish doctors and medical practitioners in twelfth- and thirteenth-​century Germany: the Book of Remedies was probably the most influential Hebrew medical text in these territories.150

5. Conclusion: A Minor Medical Tradition The evidence presented in this chapter attests the existence of a minor medical tradition, one that existed in the shadow of the mainstream of medical writing. The adjective “minor” may require some comment. In an entry of his diary (25 December 1911), Franz Kafka wrote about the characteristics of “minor literature” (kleine Literatur) that do not follow the models of the “great literatures” dominating the world.151

The term “minor culture” has been employed by Malachi Beit-​Arié to describe the peculiar characteristics of medieval Hebrew booklore.152 Reimund Leicht has coined the term “astrologische Kleinliteratur” to characterize short astrological compendia, which are often unrelated to the “classics” of mainstream astrological tradition.153 In a similar vein, the Book of Remedies and the anonymous compendia in ms Paris 1129 can be described as minor medical literature, representing nonstandard medical lore and literary conventions. The major chain of transmission of uroscopic lore from East to West consists of Theophilus (Byzantium, seventh/ninth century), Isaac Israeli (North Africa, ninth– tenth century), Constantinus Africanus (Italy, eleventh century), Mauro of Salerno (Italy, twelfth century), and Gilles of Corbeil (northern France, thirteenth century). Mainstream uroscopical literature consisted of the aforementioned treatises in addition to the relevant Hippocratic and Galenic texts (see section 1). Medieval Jews eventually translated some of the mainstream texts, especially Isaac Israeli’s treatise (see section 2 above). However, we can reconstruct another chain of transmission consisting of less well known and less influential texts, a chain of transmission largely unrelated to the mainstream of medical writing in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. This chain begins with non-​Galenic reception (by Hellenized Jewish physicians?) of Hippocratic writings in Late Antiquity. The next step was “Asaf ’s” compiling Collections 1, 2, and 4 in Hebrew on the basis of Hippocratic texts, then “Yoḥannan’s” Hebrew paraphrase of an abridged version of Magnus of Emesa’s uroscopic treatise as well as some eclectic collections of uroscopic rules. Then all these materials were collected in the Book of Remedies, compiled sometime between the sixth and late tenth centuries in the territory of the Byzantine Empire (or possibly in its former eastern provinces). This Hebrew medical encyclopedia was transmitted afterward to the medieval Jewish communities of Germany and northern France and used for practical purposes during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This uroscopic lore was partly based on Hippocratic traditions and partly on Late Antique Byzantine medicine (especially the work of Magnus of Emesa), just as the mainstream of tradition was. However, it was not influenced by Theophilus and Isaac Israeli, two key authorities of the mainstream, at all. ms Paris 1129 suggests that Jewish physicians in early thirteenth-​century northern France were able to access uroscopic lore as taught in Salerno and Montpellier to some degree (see section 4.1 above), and there are occasional references to Isaac Israeli as well. Nevertheless, the same manuscript also evidences the strength of the more archaic uroscopic lore transmitted by the Book of Remedies. In all likelihood, the Book of Remedies was the only medical work a Jewish physician living in Christian Europe could study systematically before the Hebrew translations of major medical works began at the end of the twelfth century. It is remarkable that the Book of Remedies transmitted texts, variant readings, and explanations that were disregarded or discredited in the mainstream of the Galenic-​ Hippocratic tradition of medical literature. This state of affairs may be related to the

191 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

marginal social status of the physicians who composed and transmitted the Book of Remedies. It is possible that the early Hebrew uroscopic texts preserved Greek medical traditions that preceded the time when Galen’s legacy began to dominate the field. Notes

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1. Cuneiform texts with uroscopic content are attested in Neo-​A ssyrian clay tablets; see Markham J. Geller, Renal and Rectal Disease Texts, Die babylonisch-​assyrische Medizin in Texten und Untersuchungen 7 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005), 70–71, 250–51. A uroscopic section is included in the Akkadian “Diagnostic Handbook,” which dates back to the Old Babylonian period (ca. 1700 b.c.e.); see Markham J. Geller, Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice (Oxford: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2010), 42 and 90–91. On uroscopy in the Hippocratic corpus, see below. 2. See Gerhard Baader, “Early Medieval Latin Adaptations of Byzantine Medicine in Western Europe,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984): 251–59, here 254–55; and Laurence Moulinier-​Brogi, L’uroscopie au Moyen Âge: “Lire dans un verre la nature de l’homme” (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2012), 45–48 (with further references). 3. See U. C. Bussemaker, “Über Magnus von Emesis und dessen Buch von Harne,” Janus 2 (1847): 273–97; Bussemaker, “Traité d’Etienne sur les urines, publié pour le première fois d’après un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque royale,” Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes 1 (1845): 415–38, 543–60; Luciana Rita Angeletti and Berenice Cavarra, “The Peri Ouron Treatise of Stephanus of Athens: Byzantine Uroscopy of the 6th–7th Centuries a.d.,” American Journal of Nephrology 17 (1997): 228–32; W. Wolska-​Conus, “Stéphanos d’Athènes (d’Alexandrie) et Théophile le Prôtospathaire, commentateurs des Aphorismes d’Hippocrates, sont-​ils indépendants l’un de l’autre?” Revue des études byzantines 52 (1994): 5–58, esp. 7–9 on dating Theophilus. 4. Cf. Gundolf Keil, “Die Urognostische Praxis in vor- und frühsalernitanischer Zeit” (Habilitationsschrift, Albert-​Ludwigs-​Universität, Freiburg in Breisgau, 1970), 19–41; Baader, “Early Medieval Latin Adaptations,” 255–56; Faith Wallis, “Signs and Senses: Diagnosis and Prognosis in Early Medieval Pulse and Urine Texts,” Social History of Medicine 13 (2000): 265–78; Wallis, “Inventing Diagnosis: Theophilus’ De Urinis in the Classroom,” DYNAMIS: Acta hispanica ad medicinae scientiarumque historiam illustrandam 20 (2000): 31–73. 5. See Ronit Yoeli-​Tlalim, “On Urine Analysis and Tibetan Medicine’s Connections with the West,” in Studies of Medical Pluralism in Tibetan History and Society, ed. Sienna Craig, Mingji Cuomu, Frances Garrett, and Mona Schrempf, Beiträge zur Zentralasienforschung 18 (Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, 2010), 195–211. 6. The original Arabic of this text is still unedited. 7. Eugenio Fontana, Il libro delle urine di Isacco l’Ebreo, tradotto dall’arabo in latino da Constantino Africano (Pisa: Casa Editrice Giardini, 1966). 8. See Keil, “Die Urognostische Praxis,” 76–89; Wallis, “Inventing Diagnosis”; and Moulinier-​ Brogi, L’uroscopie au Moyen Âge, 49–73. 9. Aegidius Corboliensis [Gilles of Corbeil], Carmina medica, ed. Ludovicus Choulant (Leipzig: Leopold Voss, 1826). 10. Keil, “Die Urognostische Praxis,” 136–41; Laurence Moulinier-​Brogi, “La fortune du De urinis de Maurus de Salerne et ses volgarizzamenti inédits,” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome, Moyen Âge 122 (2010): 261–78. 11. See esp. Moulinier-​Brogi, L’uroscopie au Moyen Âge, 137–200. 12. On William of England, see Moulinier-​Brogi, Guillaume l’Anglais, le frondeur de l’uroscopie médiévale: Édition commentée et traduction du De urina non visa (Genève: Droz, 2011). On Paracelsus’s uroscopy, see Camille Vieillard, L’urologie et les médecins urologues dans la médecine ancienne (Paris: F. R. de Rudeval, 1903), 99–103. 13. His work is edited in Julius L. Ideler, ed., Physici et medici Graeci minores, vol. 2 (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1842), 3–192. 14. On the gradual disintegration of Galenism during the early modern period, see Owsei Temkin’s classic Galenism: Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), 124–92.

15. I am employing Itamar Even-​Zohar’s term here. In my opinion, Even-​Zohar’s theory of literary polysystems is capable of explaining many features of Hippocratic-​Galenic medical literature in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This topic cannot be explored within the framework of the present chapter, however. 16. See Moses Maimonides, Medical Aphorisms: Treatises 1–5, ed. and trans. Gerrit Bos (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2004), 71–76 and 119–20. 17. See Paul Potter, ed. and trans., Hippocrates, Loeb Classical Library 9 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 103–270. 18. This has been noticed by Vieillard, L’urologie, 67–68. 19. Pseudo-​Galen, De urinis, chap. 3; see Karl G. Kühn, ed., Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vol. 19 (Leipzig: Car. Cnobloch, 1830), 575–76. 20. See Angeletti and Cavarra, “Peri Ouron Treatise.” 21. See Moulinier-​Brogi, L’uroscopie au Moyen Âge, 148–60. 22. Moritz Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher (Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1956 [1893]), hereafter abbreviated as HU. 23. See Moritz Steinschneider, “Eine medizinische hebräische Handschrift,” Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 10 (1885): 182–214, here 189–90; 201–5, and esp. 206–9; Steinschneider, HU, 712–14. The introduction is edited by Steinschneider, “Haqdamat ha-​maʿatiq bi-​ketav yad Paris 1190,” Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 15 (1888), Hebrew section, 6–14, and “Zur hebräischen Abtheilung,” ibid., 197; Gad Freudenthal, “The Father of the Latin-​into-​Hebrew Translations: Doeg the Edomite, the Repentant Convert (1197–1199),” in Latin-​into-​Hebrew—​Studies and Texts, vol. 1, Studies, ed. Resianne Fontaine and Gad Freudenthal (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 105–120. 24. Steinschneider, HU, 833 and 758. 25. Ibid., 662–63. 26. Ibid., 663–64. 27. Ibid., 658–61. 28. Ibid., 652. 29. Ibid., 758. 30. See Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Was There Science in Ashkenaz?” in “Science and Philosophy in Ashkenazi Culture: Rejection, Toleration, and Accommodation,” ed. Gad Freudenthal, Jahrbuch des Simon-​Dubnow-​Instituts 8 (2009): 67–92, here 83–84. 31. The first monograph on the Book of Remedies is by Ludwig [Lajos] Venetianer, Asaf Judaeus: Der aelteste medizinische Schriftsteller in hebraeischer Sprache (Strassburg: Karl J. Tübner, 1916). This was followed by Suessman Muntner, Mavo le-​Sefer Asaf ha-​rofe (Introduction to the Book of Asaf the Physician) ( Jerusalem: Geniza, 1957), and Aviv Melzer, Asaph the Physician: The Man and His Book (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980), containing long extracts of the text in English translation. For an introduction, consult Elinor Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines: A Hebrew Encyclopedia of Greek and Jewish Medicine, Possibly Compiled in Byzantium on an Indian Model,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984): 233–49. 32. For example, chapter 14 of the Book of Remedies (in Muntner’s edition, Korot 3:534–35; see next note), which discusses lunatic and epileptic diseases on the basis of Hippocrates’s On the Sacred Disease, is absent from the oldest manuscript of the text (ms Oxford) but appears in a thirteenth-​century Ashkenazi mystic book, the Sefer ḥokhmat ha-n​ efesh by Eleazar of Worms (chapter 55, with minor variant readings). It is difficult to tell whether Eleazar of Worms quotes the Book of Remedies here (and the fact that this chapter is not present in the oldest manuscript is insignificant) or, on the contrary, the chapter belongs to Sefer ḥokhmat ha-​nefesh originally, and it was added to the later versions of Book of Remedies from Eleazar’s work, or both are dependent on a common, earlier source no longer extant. 33. Suessman Muntner, ed., “Asaf ha-​rofe, Sefer Refuʿot” (Asaf the Physician, Book of Remedies), Korot 3 (1965): 396–422, 533–60; 4 (1968): 11–40, 170–207, 389–443, 531–72, 691–730; 5, no. 1 (1971): 27–68, 160–87, 295–330; 5, no. 2 (1971–72): 435–73, 603–49, 773–807; 6, no. 1 (1972): 28–51. 34. Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms Opp. 687 (Neubauer 2138); see Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 3:396. 35. Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. hebr. 231. 36. Joseph Shatzmiller, “Doctors and Medical Practices in Germany Around the Year 1200: The Evidence of Sefer Asaph,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 50 (1983): 149–64.

193 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

194 Texts in Transit

37. See Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines,” 246–47. 38. See ibid. and Venetianer, Asaf Judaeus, 16–20. 39. Cf. Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines,” 247; Venetianer, Asaf Judaeus, 20–23. 40. See Muntner’s notes in “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 3:399–403. 41. Cf. Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines,” 246 n. 94. 42. See Israel M. Ta-​Shma, “Rabbi Moshe ha-​Darshan ve-​ha-​sifrut ha-ḥitzonit” (Rabbi Moshe ha-​ Darshan and apocryphal literature), in Ta-​Shma, Knesset Meḥqarim, vol. 3 ( Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2005), 188–201. 43. For example, Galen’s theory of the four temperaments (sanguinic, choleric, phlegmatic, and melancholic) is almost entirely absent in the Book of Remedies. A theory resembling Galen’s appears only in the context of embryology, a passage that is possibly based on a sixth- or seventh-​century Syriac source (see section 3.2). 44. These works were mentioned by an Arab medical writer, Ibn Rabbān al-Ṭabarī, in the middle of the ninth century; see Carl Brockelmann, “Firdaws al-Ḥikmah of ʿAlī al-Ṭabarī,” Zeitschrift für Semitistik und verwandte Gebiete 8 (1932): 270–88, here 272 and 278. 45. Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines,” 245–46. 46. Immanuel Löw, Aramaeische Pflanzennamen (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1881), 24–26. Löw’s opinion is endorsed by Steinschneider, HU, 650. 47. Steinschneider, HU, 667. 48. Siam Bhayro, “A Judaeo-​Syriac Medical Fragment from the Cairo Genizah,” Aramaic Studies 10 (2012): 153–72. 49. Jean-​Baptiste Chabot, “Notice sur deux manuscrits contenant les oeuvres du moine Isaac de Rabban Isho et du métropolitain Ahoudemmeh,” Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques 43 (1965): 43–76. 50. On the inadequacy of the term “Nestorian church,” see Sebastian  P. Brock, “ ‘Nestorian Church’: A Lamentable Misnomer,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 78 (1996): 23–53. 51. Philippe Gignoux, “Anatomie et physiologie humaine chez un auteur syriaque, Ahūhdemmeh,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-​Lettres 142 (1998): 231–42. 52. Gerrit J. Reinink, “Man as Microcosm: A Syriac Didactic Poem and Its Prose Background,” in Calliope’s Classroom: Studies in Didactic Poetry from Antiquity to the Renaissance, ed. A. Harder, A. A. MacDonald, and G. J. Reinink (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 123–52, here 130–31. 53. Grigory Kessel, “La position de Simon de Taibuteh dans l’éventail de la tradition mystique syriaque,” in Les mystiques syriaques, ed. Alain Desreumaux (Paris: Geuthner, 2011), 121–50, esp. 126–28. 54. Chabot’s Latin translation is gravia, “heavy.” However, Syriac yaqira may mean “very light” (praeclarus) as well, and this sense fits the present context. Cf. Karl Brockelmann, Lexicon Syraicum (Edinburgh: T&T Clark; Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1895), 149 s.v. 55. Chabot, “Notice sur deux manuscrits,” 55; cf. his Latin translation on 65. 56. Ibid., 54; cf. his Latin translation on 64. 57. See Gignoux, “Anatomie et physiologie humaine,” 235–36. 58. See ibid., 231–36. 59. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 3:408–9; the reference is to Mishnah, Oholot 1:8. For further sources, consult Julius Preuss, Biblisch-​talmudische Medizin (Berlin: S. Karger, 1923), 66–73. 60. Targum Pseudo-​Jonathan on Genesis 1:27. 61. Babylonian Talmud, Makkot 23b; cf. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 3:408–9. 62. See Muntner’s notes registering the differences in Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 3:410–11. 63. For a brief survey of ancient Near Eastern medical traditions, consult Markham J. Geller, “Introduction: ‘Oeil Malade et Mauvais Oeil,’ ” in Advances in Mesopotamian Medicine from Hammurabi to Hippocrates, ed. Annie Attia and Gilles Buisson (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 1–12. 64. Another medical tradition attested in early Arabic texts counted 360 joints, 360 (variant: 148) bones, 360 veins and 360 (variant: 300) arteries; see Y. Tzvi Langermann, “Medical Isrāʾīliyyāt? Ancient Islamic Medical Traditions Transcribed into the Hebrew Alphabet,” Aleph 6 (2006): 373–98, here 387. 65. Paul Moraux, ed., “Anecdota Graeca Minora VI: Pseudo-​Galen, De signis ex urinis,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 60 (1985): 68–74. 66. See Wallis, “Signs and Senses,” 272–73, and the literature quoted there.

67. Montecassino, Benedictine Abbey, ms 69, fols. 545–51. See Codicum casiensium manuscriptorum catalogus, vol. 1, no 1 (Montecassino: n.p., 1915), 79–80. 68. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, 19:602. 69. Muntner, “Asaf ha-rofe,” Korot 4:556: ‫והשני הוא המראה לך כמראה שונה ומשתנה‬. 70. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, 19:602–3. 71. Book of Remedies, 498:1–5; see Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4: 556–557. 72. See Brockelmann, Lexicon Syraicum, 179, s.v. 73. Babylonian Talmud, Ḥullin 47b, 48a, Yevamot 75b. 74. See section 4.2 below. 75. Wallis, “Signs and Senses,” 272–73. 76. Ibid., 273. 77. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, 19:605; cf. Book of Remedies 498:13, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:558. 78. Ideler, Physici et medici Graeci minores, 2:310–16. 79. Book of Remedies 498:26–28. 80. Pseudo-​Galen, De urinis, chapter 39, ed. Kühn, 19:595. 81. Paul Moraux, ed., “Anecdota Graeca Minora VI: Pseudo-​Galen, De signis ex urinis,” 71; lines 114–115. 82. Cf. Baader, “Early Medieval Latin Adaptations,” 255–56; Wallis, “Inventing Diagnosis,” 37. 83. This has been suggested by Melzer, Asaph the Physician, 72. On the other hand, it should be remarked that a twelfth-​century uroscopic tractate by a known author, Shlomo ben Abin, was attributed to Yoḥannan in a fourteenth-​century manuscript (see section 4). 84. Book of Remedies, chap. 499, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:562–64. 85. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:439. 86. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, 19:602. 87. Book of Remedies 498:1, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:556: ‫היה הואלתי לבאר מיני השתן כי רבים הם ומחפ‬ ‫לקותיו ומראותיו רבים‬. 88. Book of Remedies 498:7, ed. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:557, quoted above in section 3.3. 89. For timahon, see Book of Remedies 498:33, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:561. For tri, see Book of Remedies, chapters 294 and 295, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:440 (based on Hippocrates’s Aphorisms, 4.81). 90. It is employed regularly as the Syriac translation of Greek “pus” in the extant Syriac translation of the Aphorisms. See H. Pognon, ed., Une version syriaque des Aphorismes d’Hippocrate: Texte et traduction, vols. 1–2 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1903). See, for example, 1:19 [Aphorisms 4.81]. 91. Book of Remedies, chap. 281, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:439. 92. W. H. S. Jones, ed. and trans., Hippocrates, Loeb Classical Library 4 (London: William Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931), 155. 93. Book of Remedies, chap. 283, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:439. 94. Venetianer, Asaf Judaeus, 45–46, argues that the Hebrew paraphrases of the first two aphorisms reflect the content of Galen’s commentary, but the rest of the Hebrew text does not. 95. Trans. Jones, Hippocrates, 4:153. 96. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vol. 17/2, 751–52. 97. Ibid., 751. 98. Pognon, Une version syriaque, 1:18. 99. Book of Remedies 281, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:439. It is possible that “oil” is meant to render Greek παχέα, which is usually translated as “thick” (Hebrew ‫ )עב‬but may mean “fatty, oily,” too. 100. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vol. 17/2, 770–71. 101. Leendert G. Westerink, ed. and trans., Stephani Atheniensis in Hippocratis Aphorismos commentaria III–IV, Corpus Medicorum Graecorum XI, 1, 3, 2 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1992), 412–13. 102. Pognon, Une version syriaque, 1:19. 103. Book of Remedies 288, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:439. 104. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vol. 17/2, 775–76. 105. Westerink, Stephani Atheniensis in Hippocratis Aphorismos, 420–23. 106. See Pognon, Une version syriaque, 1:19; Book of Remedies 291, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:440. 107. Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vol. 18/1, 135–37.

195 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

196 Texts in Transit

108. Pognon, Une version syriaque, 1:30. Commentaries by Stephen and Theophilus are not extant. 109. Book of Remedies 394, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:539. 110. See Jones’s note in Hippocrates, 4:201. 111. Ibid., 155. 112. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:439. 113. Nor have I found any parallel in Anargyros Anastassiou and Dieter Irmer, Testimonien zum Corpus Hippocraticum, part 3, Nachleben der hippokratischen Schriften in der Zeit vom 4. bis zum 10. Jahrhundert n. Chr. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), esp. 118. 114. Jones, Hippocrates, 2:27. 115. Muntner, “Asaf ha-​rofe,” Korot 4:550. 116. These additions have no relation to Galen’s commentary on this passage; see Kühn, Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, vol. 18/2, pp. 155–56. 117. Cf. Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines,” 235–37 and 247–49. 118. E.g., Book of Remedies 428, 469, 498:10. 119. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period (Ramat-​Gan: Bar-​ Ilan University Press, 1992), 328. 120. Cf. Book of Remedies 393 and 394, ed. Muntner, Korot 4:539; cf. Pognon, Une version syriaque, 1:30. 121. G. Bergsträsser, ed., Ḥunain Ibn Isḥāq über die syrischen und arabischen Galen-​Übersetzungen (Leipzig: n.p., 1925), 40 [Arabic], 32–33 [German translation]. 122. Rainer Degen, “Zur syrischen Übersetzung der Aphorismen des Hippokrates,” Oriens Christianus 62 (1978): 36–52. 123. Löw, Aramäische Pflanzennamen, 215–216. 124. Herman L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, trans. and ed. Markus Bockmuehl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 279. 125. Genesis Rabba, parasha 20 Pesikta Par. p. 38a, Num R. s. 19; Talmud Yerushalmi, Sanhedrin 19a. 126. See William L. Petersen, Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 125, esp. n. 159, and 387–90. David Ganz, “Knowledge of Ephraim’s Writings in the Merovingian and Carolingian Age,” Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 2 (1999): 37–46. 127. See F. Kudlien, “Jüdische Ärzte im Römischen Reich,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 20 (1985): 36–57; Pieter W. van de Horst, “The Last Jewish Patriarch(s) and Graeco-​Roman Medicine,” in van de Horst, Japheth in the Tents of Shem: Studies on Jewish Hellenism in Antiquity (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 27–36. 128. Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism ( Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974), 1:368–69, 2:679. See van der Horst, “Last Jewish Patriarch(s),” 32. 129. Cf. Muntner, Mavo le-​Sefer Asaf, 171–74; Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines,” 246. 130. Lieber, “Asaf ’s Book of Medicines,” 234. 131. For other instances of nonstandard medical lore in early medieval sources, consult Langermann, “Medical Isrāʾīliyyāt.” 132. Shatzmiller, “Doctors and Medical Practices.” 133. Paris, BnF, hébr. 1129, fol. 8r. 134. Shatzmiller, “Doctors and Medical Practices,” 156–58. 135. Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms Opp. 688, fol. 159r–160v. 136. Ibid., fols. 157r–159r. 137. Ibid., fol. 158r: ‫וגליאנוס‬, ‫וכל זה אבינך במראה השתן ואבאר אותם באר היטב ב״ה בדברי איפםקרוש‬ ‫חכם לכל זה אשכילך בקוצר‬, ‫ ובדברי ר׳ יצחק הישראלי ב״ר שלמה אשר דיבר בשערי השתן ולא השגוהו שום‬and fol. 158v: ‫ואבאר עניניו בשער השתן‬ 138. See ibid., fols. 158v–159r. 139. See Moritz Steinschneider, Die Handschriften-​Verzeichnisse der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (Berlin: Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1878), 45. On the payṭan Shlomo ben Abun, see Leopold Zunz, Literaturgeschichte der synagogalen Poesie (Frankfurt a. M.: Verlag von J. Kauffmann, 1865), 311–312. 140. ms Oxford, Bodl. Opp. 688, fol. 159r.



141. Al-​Rāzī, Continens Rasis (Venice: Ottaviano Scotto, 1529), fol. 405v/d, “Dixit chamec filius tayp [= Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib]: Rubedo est a caliditate, albedo a frigiditate, croceum a siccitate, et turbidum ab humiditate. Urina rubea turbida significant sanguinem; Rubedo est propter caliditatem et turbedo est propter humiditatem et simile est dicendum de aliis qualitatibus.” Cf. Lucien Leclerc, Histoire de la médicine arabe (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1876), 272. 142. al-​R āzī, Al-​Ḥāwī fī al-ṭibb, ed. Muhammad M. Ismaʿil, vol. 6 (Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 2000), 46. 143. On the uncertainties concerning al-​Sarakhsī’s father’s name, see Franz Rosenthal, Ahmad b. at-​Tayyib as-​Sarahsi: A Scholar and Littérateur of the Ninth Century (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1943), 16. 144. Naples, Biblioteca dei Girolamini, ms XXI 1, fol. 167r–v and fol. 170r; cf. Moraux, “Anecdota Graeca Minora VI,” 63. Both texts are edited in Ideler, Physici et medici Graeci minores, 2:303–4 and 305–6. 145. See Fontana, Il libro delle Urine di Isacco l’Ebreo, 164–65. 146. See, for example, the anonymous De urines et earundem significationis in Salvatore de Renzi, ed., Collectio Salernitana, vol. 2 (Naples: Filiatre-​Sebezio, 1853), 413–14. 147. Oxford, Bodleian Library, ms Opp. 688, fol. 160r–v. 148. Ibid., fol. 158r: ‫וגליאנוס ׳‬, ‫וכל זה אבינך במראה השתן ואבאר אותם באר היטב ב״ה בדברי איפםקרוש‬

‫חכם ׳ לכל זה אשכילך בקוצר‬, ‫ובדברי ר׳ יצחק הישראלי ב״ר שלמה אשר דיבר בשערי השתן ולא השגוהו שום‬ 149. Paris, BnF, hébr. 1116, fol. 30v. The manuscript was copied in the fourteenth century, perhaps in North Africa. 150. Shatzmiller, “Doctors and Medical Practices”; idem, “Doctors and Medical Practices in Germany Around the Year 1200: The Evidence of Sepher Hasidim,” Journal of Jewish Studies 33 (1982): 583–93. 151. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari analyzed this concept in detail in their monograph Kafka: Pour une littérature mineure (Paris: Minuit, 1975). 152. Malachi Beit-​Arié, Hebrew Manuscripts of East and West: Towards a Comparative Codicology (London: British Library, 1991). 153. Cf. Reimund Leicht, Astrologumena Judaica (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 107–19 and 139–152.

197 Medieval Hebrew Uroscopic Texts

Ten The Transmission of Sephardic Scientific Works in Italy Israel M. Sandman

Textual Transmission as a Cultural Index The greatness of medieval Italian Jewish culture lay more in the preservation, study, and transmission of great works and less in the origination of such works. In my experiences editing Sephardic (= Jewish Iberian) Hebrew scientifico-​religious works from manuscripts,1 I have found that Italian copies (viz., copies of the Hebrew, scribed in Italy) serve as an important link in the transmission of these works. Furthermore, in each of two such cases, Meshovev Netivot of Samuel Ibn Matut (“Motot”) and the calendrical work of Abraham Bar Ḥiyya (Abraham Bar Ḥāyyā), there exists an Italian manuscript family that exhibits unusual consistency among members and unusual fidelity to the reconstructed urtext.2 To appreciate the exceptional nature of this phenomenon, we need to bear in mind that before the age of printing, copyists typically engaged in a variety of editorial practices, emending the text as a matter of course.3

Acknowledging Another Category of Hebrew Scribal Activity: Communally Organized Manuscript Copying The Phenomenon Particularly with medieval Hebrew manuscripts scribed in Italy, I have discovered multiple manuscripts displaying such fidelity to their exemplars that they contain almost identical—​I  would say “standardized”—text.4 Furthermore, the standardized texts that these manuscripts contain are of high quality: they contain little intentional

change and few unconscious errors. In addition, these manuscripts are designed to be very clear and user-​friendly (as will be described below). And in most cases, they contain no personalized or customized elements: no colophon; no highlighting of personal names or name-​acrostics, or other words; and no opining glosses by the main scribes.5 In some cases, multiple manuscripts contain identical editorial glosses by later hands. Sometimes, throughout successive generations of the manuscript family, in several manuscripts the original scribe of each manuscript preserves an identical anomaly in the text while preserving an identical gloss about it in the margins, rather than reformulating the main text according to the gloss. (These features will be illustrated and analyzed below.) In these manuscript families, the presence of expert scribal activity, the fact that this activity is executed in a user-​friendly manner, the overwhelming absence of customization or personalization (on behalf of either patron or scribe), and the recurrence of identical glosses point to a culture of well-​funded copying activity carried out for an impersonal, broad clientele. In other words, all this points to coordinated copying for communal use in medieval Jewish Italy. This, in turn, indicates a communal interest, in medieval Jewish Italy, in preserving and disseminating various Hebrew works—​in our cases, Sephardic scientific works. Process Underlying the Phenomenon Although the texts in question are very similar, some of the nontextual stylistic features (“paratext”6) of the surviving manuscripts vary, as do their date ranges. Thus, from here we have no indication of Jewish scriptoria or commercial institutions for copying. What is more probable is that standardized, authoritative texts of various works were established and then transcribed in fair copy. These fair copies, or their copies, were then obtained and copied by interested communities (and occasionally individuals7). Indeed, we find the phenomenon of a standardized, authoritative text mentioned in the colophon of a manuscript scribed in Vlona/Vlore, Albania (just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy; see below on the Italian-Byzantine connection) in 1385. The colophon states that the scribe copied the work “from the manuscript upon which we rely” (Heb. ‫)מהכתב אשר נסמכים עליו‬.8 Question of the Pervasiveness of the Phenomenon In order to discern scribal approaches to textual transmission, one must compare multiple scribal texts of a single work. I have been doing this in the genre of works that combine religious and scientific/philosophical knowledge; thus, it is in this genre that I am aware of the phenomenon of communally organized copying. (I wonder whether the phenomenon exists in other genres, too.) For a variety of reasons, such communally organized copying has not been previously described. In the past, the goal of critical editing was mostly to recover the urtext, not to understand transmission history.9 Thus, entire swaths of intellectual history were overlooked. At present, when interest in transmission history

199 Sephardic Scientific Works in Italy

200 Texts in Transit

has emerged, data are still not being gathered for medieval Hebraica. Few critical editions are being made of medieval Hebrew works. Furthermore, multiple statements by Malachi Beit-​Arié, the doyen of medieval Hebrew paleographical study, seem to exclude even the possibility of this phenomenon. According to Beit-​Arié, just over half of the medieval Hebrew manuscripts were copied by scholars for personal study. These scholars felt free to alter the text intentionally in various ways, trying to correct, improve, edit, and customize it, with the result that no two of these versions are alike. Beit-​Arié refers to these scholar-​scribes as “copyists.” In contrast, the other (almost) half of medieval Hebrew manuscripts were scribed by those whom Beit-​Arié refers to as “(hired) scribes,” those who copy texts for others. Understandably, the latter avoid deliberate textual intervention; however, their lack of personal engagement in the contents makes them more prone to introducing and perpetrating unintentional errors.10 Accordingly, one would expect to find textual uniformity (except for outright errors) among unintelligent witnesses (made by noninterventionist, inattentive hired scribes), and lack of textual uniformity among intelligent witnesses (due to individualistic intervention of learned copyists). One would not at all expect to find a highly standardized text preserved in multiple manuscripts, and particularly not a standardized text of high quality. This would require a coordinated effort to (establish and) transmit high-​quality texts, that is, texts copied by educated scribes but in a noninterventionist manner—​not for personal use. In other words, this would require a communally/institutionally coordinated program of textual transmission by attentive and educated scribes (thus adding a third type of scribe/copyist to Beit-​ Arié’s model). Beit-​Arié, however, emphatically rejects the existence of such a third type: “medieval Hebrew books were not produced by the intellectual establishments, or upon their initiative, whether in religious, academic or secular institutional copy centers, but privately and individually. . . . Our knowledge of this practice, and its extent, is drawn from colophons.”11 In some cases, Beit-​Arié’s binary model holds up. However, as discussed above, I have been finding exceptions to this model, particularly in Italy, and, to a lesser degree, in Ashkenazic manuscripts, which include families of high-​quality, intelligently made standardized texts. As Beit-​Arié indicates, his conclusions are based only on manuscripts with colophons,12 in the belief that comparable patterns hold true for manuscripts without colophons. In codicological areas, such as quiration, scoring, and lineation, this may be true. However, on the question of whether medieval Hebrew copying was personalized or communal, it is fallacious and circular to consider only manuscripts with colophons. As noted earlier, colophons, by their very nature, would be expected primarily in personalized environments. Thus, for this question, by considering only manuscripts with colophons, Beit-​Arié is in effect limiting his investigation to only that evidence which will render this conclusion. He thus excludes evidence that is most likely to render opposing data, to which I presently proceed.

The Italian Family of Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s Calendrical Work Abraham Bar (= son of) Ḥiyya,13 a Sephardic Jew who lived for some time in France, completed his calendrical work in France in 1123.14 (It has no title, but is sometimes referred to by the generic Hebrew term for “calendrical work”: Sefer ha-ʿIbbur/‫ספר‬ ‫)העבור‬. Sometime between the work’s completion and the late thirteenth century, when this family’s earliest surviving copies were made, the progenitor of the Italian family came into existence. The cohesiveness of its descendants testifies that great deference was shown to this progenitor; the high textual quality of the family implies that the progenitor indeed deserved the deference of its descendants. Outright Italianisms (for example, in the transliteration of the Roman names of the months),15 other related features unique to this family (such as the attaching of the preposition šel/‫[ של‬of] to the subsequent word, with both orthographic and phonetic implications),16 identical departures from the standard text in statements about other religions, and several family-wide errors not present in extrafamilial witnesses all make it clear that the family’s progenitor was not the authorial urtext. Rather, the Italian family’s progenitor must have been a text that, with conscious effort, was established/standardized with the goal of faithfully conveying Bar Ḥiyya’s urtext, albeit embodying Italian-Hebrew conventions. The existence of such a carefully and well-​established standardized Italian progenitor, in tandem with the existence of a commitment within the Italian Jewish community to copying and preserving its text, would account for the superlative way in which this family has been preserved. There are seven surviving members of this family, in contrast to the other two surviving families of this work, which survive in only two and three witnesses, respectively, and the other ten manuscripts, which have no other surviving family members at all. All of the seven surviving members of the Italian family preserve the entire work or close thereto, with a comprehensiveness equaled by only one manuscript from outside the family (Oxford Bodleian Opp. 183) and approached by only two other manuscripts ( JTS 2564 and JTS 2596), and in contrast to the other twelve manuscripts. The members of the Italian family are written and their tables and illustrations are presented with clarity and professionalism surpassed by none and comparable to few other manuscripts, and all surviving members of the Italian family emerged between approximately the late thirteenth century and the early fifteenth century, that is, within roughly one and a half centuries, indicating a communal interest in this work within this relatively brief time, and possibly pointing to communal coordination as to what works were copied.17 Family Branches and Members The Italian family branches in several ways. All mss but Florence Medici 491 form the main, “immediate” family, while Florence Medici 491, which is written in a Byzantine Hebrew script (the Italy-Byzantium connection is discussed briefly

201 Sephardic Scientific Works in Italy

Table 10.1  Manuscript families of Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s calendrical work Region Italian

Number of manuscripts

Byzantine

7 (6 immediate family + 1 Byzantine cousin) 3

Ashkenazic

2

202 Texts in Transit

Date range

Amount of work preserved

Late thirteenth–early fifteenth centuries

Entire

Fourteenth to sixteenth– seventeenth centuries Fifteenth–sixteenth centuries

Part 1 (most) Almost entire

Shelfmarks JTS 5512; Günzburg 509; BL Add. 26899; Urbinati 48; BL Or. 10538; Neofiti 30; Medici 491 Vatican ebreo 386; BnF hébreu 1061; Munich 36 JTS 2564; JTS 2500

below), forms a “cousin” branch. Examining the differences among the immediate and cousin branches, we find several points. First, the cousin does not contain extraneous material that is included in the immediate family. For example, in book 2, chapter 6, between parts 2 and 3 of the chapter, all members of the immediate family contain two external additions, neither of which is in the cousin: (1) a table, entitled “The Ways of the Moon and Its Conduct” (Heb. ‫)דרכי הלבנה והנהגותיה‬, listing the times and duration of the moon’s visibility over the course of the month, and (2) “A Novel Point from Another Work: Naḥmanides (of blessed memory) said that the fact that we call Tišrī the seventh month. . . .”18 Were the absence of these extraneous items the only difference between the immediate and cousin branches, we could posit that both branches had come directly from the same standardized text, with the cousin simply having omitted extraneous materials. Yet there is another realm of difference to consider: in some cases, the cousin shares the unique readings of the immediate family, but in other cases it conforms to the readings preserved in the manuscripts from outside the Italian family. Thus, between the authorial urtext and the surviving witnesses, we should posit two generations of authoritative, standardized progenitors, one that subsumes the entire extended Italian family and another that subsumes only the immediate family. Within the immediate family, there are two branches. The larger branch, which spans roughly one and a half centuries, begins with ms Urbinati 48, dated to the thirteenth or fourteenth century19 (which I take to mean late thirteenth or early fourteenth century), but dated more precisely to ca. 1300,20 and with ms JTS 5512, dated to the fourteenth century. This branch of the family then moves through a lost intermediary into the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when we find two very closely nuanced manuscripts: BL Or. 10538, which is dated to the general time span of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and Neofiti 30, which is dated to the fifteenth century, but more precisely to the early part of that century.21 Although Neofiti 30 is written in what is technically Sephardic script, I include it in the Italian family for the following reasons. First, its text is genealogically part of the Italian family. Furthermore, the circumstantial evidence indicates that it was actually scribed in Italy. (Indeed, since Italy was a crossroads, a variety of Hebrew

Table 10.2  Stemma of the Italian family of Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s calendrical work Authorial original, dated 1123 Progenitor of Italian family

Other branches

Progenitor of Italian immediate family Urbinati 48, ca. 1300; JTS 5512, 14th c.

Moscow Günzburg 509, 13th–14th c.

Intervening generation

BL Add. 26899, dated 1316

BL Or. 10538, 14th–​ 15th c.; Neofiti 30, early 15th c.

Cousin: Florence Medici 491, 14th–15th c.

Note: Items listed in the same box are closely related; descent is not necessarily direct or immediate.

hands were used there. In  some cases, individual scribes were proficient in the scripts of multiple geographical regions.22) The circumstantial evidence is as follows: as stated, the text of this manuscript was derived from the Italian family; it has later glosses in Italian Hebrew script; the combination of these two factors connects it to Italy both before and after its main text was scribed; the Roman month names (in book 3, chapter 9), which generally are transliterated (into Hebrew characters) in keeping with regional pronunciation, are given according to Italian and not Iberian pronunciation; and letter shapes and the ductus of this hand overlaps with Italian examples (cf. the letter shapes and ductus of Urbinati 48). The smaller branch of the immediate family begins with ms Günzburg 509, dated to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, continuing with ms BL Add. 26899, which has a colophon dating it to 1316. The cousin branch, attested in only ms Medici 491, is dated to the later period, the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Clarity and Disambiguation As suggested above, clarity and user-​friendliness in a manuscript are particularly important when the copy is intended for use not by the scribe but by others, who need to find their way from outside the work, via the manuscript in hand, into the work’s interior. As traced by Beit-​Arié, among the factors considered by scribes, including those in Italy, in developing their mise-​en-​page, were the needs of users.23 And indeed, the clarity employed by some scribes of the Italian family of Bar Ḥiyya’s calendrical work evidences superlative attentiveness to making a clear presentation to the user. As with many Italian manuscripts, these calendrical manuscripts make it easy to locate chapter breaks. However, even in this area, this family surpasses the one other Italian manuscript as well as all the non-​Italian manuscripts of this work. Four of six members of the immediate family—​Urbinati 48, JTS 5512, Günzburg 509, and BL Add. 26899—take the following steps: the word “chapter” and the chapter number

203 Sephardic Scientific Works in Italy

(spelled out, not in symbol), usually followed by several initial words, are written on a line of their own; these words are written in a larger, bolder, squarer script; and they do not fill the entire line but are written in the center of the line, leaving blank space on both sides. (For similar practices in the “cousin” manuscript, Medici 491, see below.) The other two manuscripts, too, employ devices that make chapter location easy. BL Or. 10538 leaves an entire blank line between chapters, places graphic symbols above the word “chapter” and the (spelled-​out) chapter number, and leaves extra space between these words and the beginning of the chapter’s text. However, it does not use larger, bolder, or squarer script here. ms Neofiti 30, despite being written in Sephardic format, leaves an entire blank line between chapters (this being unusual for the Sephardic style); it does use larger, bolder, squarer script for the word “chapter” and the (spelled-​out) chapter number; in typical Sephardic fashion, it places a separating margin between the text and these words; and it, too, caps these words with graphic symbols. Beyond the usual attentiveness in Italian Hebrew manuscripts to style and clarity, there is a special commitment to clarity in this manuscript family. The goal underlying this special commitment appears to be the attempt to disambiguate confusing elements that are in the body of the text. This is seen in the following three examples.

204 Texts in Transit

Disambiguation Example 1: Vowel Indication Hebrew is generally written without indication of vowels. The reader, being familiar with the language, intuitively knows which vowels to supply and does not require them to be written. However, in the cases of certain long vowels, corresponding consonants (“vowel-letters”) are incorporated into the written word—not as consonants, but as vowel-indicators. For example, a long I will be graphically represented by its phonetically corresponding consonant, Y/‫( י‬yōd)—which, in this case, has no consonantal value, only a vowel value. Through this indication of vowels, ambiguities are avoided in cases when the consonants alone could have been read in various ways. On occasion, though, the indication of only the select long vowels does not suffice to disambiguate between various possible readings. This is particularly true for a less erudite or attentive reader. Readers who are at home with the subject matter and who are engaged in it rarely have this problem. The scribes of this family typically add vowel letters—particularly Y/‫( י‬yōd) for any vowel of the I family (and not only for long I), but often also W/‫( ו‬wāw) for any vowel of the U family, even when classical Hebrew orthographic convention does not call for them, such as in cases of short vowels or certain long vowels. This policy is so strong in the case of yōd that when, on occasion, the unneeded yōd is forgotten, it is squeezed in between the letters or added interlineally—particularly in ms Urbinati 48. Furthermore, in all manuscripts of this family, when a yōd is required as a consonant (either as a stand-alone consonant or in an A-Y diphthong), often two yōds are written—lest a single yōd be misconstrued as a mere vowel-letter. On other occasions, the omission of the unneeded yōd is compensated for by inserting vowel pointing (that is, bona

fide vowel markings, around the consonants, rather than consonant signs used as stand-ins for vowels)—when adding the yōd would introduce further ambiguity, or when the addition is precluded by layout requirements. To illustrate: traditionally, the word ha-šēnī/‫“( השני‬the second one”) is written without a yōd between the Š/‫ש‬and the N/‫נ‬. However, in these manuscripts, the expectation was that a yōd would be inserted there (= ‫—)השיני‬presumably lest this word be misconstrued as ha-šәnē, a gross error that would not be made by an educated, attentive reader. When, on folio 9a, line 21, the scribe of ms Urbinati 48 neglected to include the unnecessary medial yōd, he went back and wrote it centered above the Š/‫ ש‬and the N/‫ ;נ‬when, on folio 38b, line 20, he wrote yityāʾēš/‫יתיאש‬ with only one yōd in the medial position (rather than ‫)יתייאש‬, he again added the unnecessary second medial yōd by the same method as before. On folio 49a, bottom line, he compensates doubly, adding both a medial yōd as well as vowel markings ִ ‫ ;> ִש‬on folio 31a, bottom line, where the extender of the to ‫ששי‬, making it into